《Spending My Retirement In A Game》 Chapter c-1 Prologue The Capsule, apletely revolutionary gaming console created by the lead Virtual Reality Research and Development Institution in the world, Prime Industries. Together with theunch of said capsule came the very first Application to run on it: World of Magic. World of Magic is a Multi Massive Online Role-ying Game with its setting in a Sword and Magic world. Its biggest selling point sits with the sheer possibilities that the yer gets. Aside from being able to fully customize their appearance, race and gender, they can do whatever they want. Save countries from ancient Dangers to be their hero or destroy them to be their downfall. Or while those Heroes and Demons are fighting against each other, sit back and have fun creating the strongest Weapons, most beautiful Sculptures or prettiest Clothes. Whatever your heart may desire can be aplished in this Virtual World. The world into which yers are thrown into continually changes and grows with its people, the NPCs, No-yer-Characters. These simted Humans can be barely differentiated from a normal person, and some yers even fall in love with these NPCs and build up families with them. These beings can be born, live, and die. They can learn and forget. This leads to no yer possibly ever having the exact same y experience, even if they do the exact same things. One especially promising and talented yers of the game sits down in his capsule for the first time. In the past, he always was in the top ten of the strongest yers in many different popr games. Now, after taking a break after thest big game lost poprity with theunch of World of Magic, he decided that it¡¯s about time he gets to y this game as well and rise to the top like he always does. While in real life he is already well beyond his prime, in games his prime is whenever he is ying. He changes his character model to the perfect version of himself: 30 to 40 years younger, long luscious blond hair, a nice and handsome angled face as well as the muscled and lean body of his dreams. So that he would have an easier time starting out by buying the best items he can, he also enchanged arge amount of money into in-game currency. Now that everything was prepared he began his journey through this new World as Tekk, a great Warrior! The very first thing he did was actually get his job changed to Warrior through a Job-Trainer, and next he walked through the small town of Kultra, one of the starting towns of the Western Empire. He sees a number of people fooling around with each other in the streets, whether it be friends just having fun with each other or couples walking around together on dates. Since both of these things are something Tekk never experienced before at any point in his life, the newborn Warrior clicks his tongue and scoffs at those people wasting their time. They should be out there grinding right now. What an utter waste of space. No wonder I¡¯ll overtake all of them soon. He thinks to himself while walking down the main boulevard to look for a shop that sells weapons and armors. The first one he sees is the shop "Heaven¡¯s Protection", an obviously high-ss shop that seems to sell just as high-ss protective items. Tekk buys a golden full-te armor and a shield together with it. Dissappointed that this shop didn¡¯t sell a weapon on par with the quality of his armor, he steps out of the shop and continues walking down the street. While he was looking for a good ce to buy a sword, he noticed something strange. All the weapons held by the people around him had a single thing inmon: A small engraving in the shape of a Hammer. Without hesitation he walks up to the next person he sees carrying one of these, and asks them where they bought their sword. And after Tekk is redirected to the shop by the young, green haired boy, he walks into an alley leading away from the main boulevard. In an area that nobody would want to be in at night, Tekk finds the storefront of a Shop with a sign in on which he can find the characteristic carving of a Hammer. Confidently he walks through the entrance. Around him he finds a huge selection of different weapons and even armor, all of which seem to be highly inferior to the Armor Tekk is already wearing. "Hello, hello~! How can we help you today, dear customer~?" On the other side of the shop a small girl with long pink hair bound into twintails pushes herself up on the counter to look at the new person that just walked in. Next to her stands a boy of a simr age with short blue hair and a defiant look on his face. "I need a weapon." Tekk simply answers. It still feels weird to him that you actually need to talk to NPCs, who are nothing but simple code. "No shit. You already got an armor and shield, what else would you need but a weapon?" The blue-haired kid scoffs and turns away to sit down on a chair and begins to read. That already makes Tekk grind his teeth to the limit. What does this little shit think he is? He¡¯s nothing but a simtion! Something created for yers like him to toy around with and to be used for their advantage. "Just get me your strongest sword." In a low voice, Tekk demands. With a quick nod and bright smile, the pink-haired girl jumps in front of the counter and toward one of the disys, picking out a boring looking longsword. Compared to other weapons he¡¯s seen on the street, this doesn¡¯t seem very strong to Tekk. Angry, he rips the sword out of the girl¡¯s hands and throws it to the side, "I said I want the strongest sword. Give me that one." Trying not to break the most important rule given to every yer of the game, not letting the NPCs know they are inside a game, Tekk clenches his fist tightly. He points above the counter to a huge ck greatsword with a sharp edge and a slight white glow. Scoffing once more, the boy shakes his head, "No can do, bud. That sword isn¡¯t for sale." "Fuck off, kid. I said I want that sword. Give it to me now, or you¡¯ll regret it." Furrowing his eyebrows angrily, the blue-haired boyys down the book on the counter and steps in front of it, looking up at the man in front of him, "I said, that sword isn¡¯t for sale." Tekk slowly raises his hand and prepares to swing at the boy. He throws it forward and just when he thinks his palm connects to the child¡¯s cheek, Tekk feels a sharp pain in his arm and he freezes up. "What the-?!" He yells out instinctively and jumps backward. "Oi, the hell do ya think you¡¯re doing in my shop?" A deep, raspy voice asks him. Tekk hadn¡¯t even noticed the person that the voice belongs to before he grabbed his hand. The Warrior turns around and looks at the man standing before him. Even though he already made himself rtively tall, this man is even taller. His bulging muscles stand out at his arms and the veins popping out entuate the scars that cover his whole body. His upper body is only covered in a leather apron, giving the impression of a clich¨¦ cksmith. His long hair that has turned white due to his high age is bound into a manbun so it doesn¡¯t get in the way of his work and the beard in the same color as the rest of his hair only strengthens the sheer feeling of manliness he emits. "Wh-What do you want, old man?!" Even though Tekk shouldn¡¯t be that much younger than this NPC in front of him is supposed to be, he feels an overwhelming mass of wisdom from him. The man looks down at Tekk angrily, and crosses his arms in front of himself. "I¡¯m the one that asks questions. The hell do you think you¡¯re doing here?" The cksmith asks once more, his tone showing that he won¡¯t ask again. Tekk clicks his tongue at the nerves of this NPC and simrly crosses his arms. "I want that sword above the counter. Now." He says confidently, looking up at the man in front of him. The cksmith instantly begins tough out loudly. "You want to have that sword? Kid, that¡¯s my sword. You¡¯re a hundred years too early to try and swing it." "Tsk... And what if I can?" "Haha, Kid, let me tell you what. If you can swing it, I¡¯ll give you every single weapon in this shop. If you can¡¯t, you buy a weapon and leave, got it?" The old man holds his hand forward and waits for Tekk to agree to the bet, and after the Warrior agrees the man reaches upward for the sword and picks it up with a single arm. "Here you go, kid." He smirks and shows his pearly white teeth. Tekk extends his hand and grabs the hilt of the sword confidently. Immediately, the weight strains his arms and Tekk has to concentrate strongly so that they won¡¯t give in. "Alright, you got it? I¡¯ll let go now." "Huh?" Tekk mutters out after he hears the old man say this, and before he can react his knuckles are pressed against the floor, "What the?! How is this sword this heavy?" The old man continues tough loudly and pats Tekk on the back, causing a sharp pain to spread across his body, "What do ya expect? You¡¯re barely level one, and that sword needs a strength stat far above what even a level 100 could have. Now, how about you take the sword that my girl over there showed you, or just leave. Forever." Tekk experiences a threat that he can feel deep inside his bones, so he pulls his hand away from under the greatsword and grabs the other sword that he rejected before, and after reading the price tag throws a bag containing 100 Gold coins on the ground in front of the cksmith. Not giving him any chance to react, Tekk storms out of the shop and immediately toward the Town¡¯s Gate. I¡¯ll show him! After I level up, I¡¯m going to grab that sword and kill that old fucking asshole! Angrily, Tekk exits through the gate and makes his way toward the dungeon that¡¯s in the immediate vicinity of the town. "Hey, have you heard? There¡¯s a rumor that one of the originals is in town!" He hears one of the yers also heading to the direction of the Dungeon tell his friend. Shocked, the friend stops moving and looks at the first yer. "Are you kidding me? Do you know which one?!" "I heard it¡¯s Eisen! Someone his ne!" "Eeh? But they can be faked so easily... His sigil is known best, because he uses it on all his weapons..." "I guess... They¡¯re sold en¡¯masse in the capital, right? ... Maybe it was just another faker?" "Maybe... Let¡¯s just check it outter!" "Yeah!" Tekk clicks his tongue at the annoying conversation of those two and looks at the line leading to the dungeon in front of him. Cutting through said line of people waiting to get inside, Tekk throws a bag filled with a few golds coins to the guards that are supposed to control who enters the dungeon when so that they just let him in. Ignoring the cries from the people yelling at him for cutting in line, he moves forward through the halls in front of him. Quietly grumbling to himself, Tekk continues on forward. After a few minutes, he finally sees the first monster. In preparation for the uing fight, he holds his shield up and points the sword toward the monster¡¯s snout. It looks like a huge hound with razor sharp teeth and ws longer than daggers. "Come at me, you fucking bitch!" Tekk yells out and hits his shield with the sword to taunt the beast. Seeing that it worked, he prepares for an iing attack. Nearly instantly, the beast jumps forward and shes at the Warrior in front of it, throwing him to the other side of the room instantly. "Wh-what the fuck?! Isn¡¯t this supposed to be a beginner dungeon?!" He yells out and then looks at the beast once more. While thinking deeply about using one of the basic skills any yer unlocks he tries to move away from the monster, but freezes instantly when he sees its level. [Beast of the living dungeon | Level 100] "Shit, shit, shit, shit! I¡¯m going to die! I¡¯ll lose all my money and the equipment I paid for! Please, no, I need to leave here alive!" Scared beyond bounds, Tekk begins to crawl away from the Monster slowly after losing most of his health to it. Shaking uncontrobly as he feels the beast¡¯s hot breath in his neck, he freezes uppletely, preparing to be torn apart. But then...nothing happens. The beast seems to be gone as well, judging from the moist air not touching his body anymore. Slowly he turns around and stares at the scene before him. The beast that nearly killed him is cleanly cut in half, covering the whole ground in blood. What kind of thing could do this..? Tekk thinks to himself. "Haha, kid, seems like you got pretty unlucky, eh? Nobody tell you that the living dungeon is in town?" A familiar, deep and raspy voice calls out to the Warrior. "Y-You..? What are you doing here?!" Tekk yells out at the man standing before him. The old man from the Weapon store is standing in front of him with thick red blood running down the greatsword on his shoulder, and the two kids standing next to him. Only now does he notice something he hadn¡¯t when he was in the shop before. A ck and red colored coin hanging around the man¡¯s neck in the form of a ne with the sigil of a hammer on it. "Eisen~? Why¡¯d you help him~? He tried to hurt my bro..." The pink-haired girl asks the man confused. "Huh? Ah, no! I didn¡¯t help him! I just don¡¯t want the sword to go to waste! Ego-Swords are hard to make! I hoped to see what would happen if we give it to someone with a rotten soul like his, but there¡¯s no use if he just dies and loses it instantly." The manughs so loud and heartly that he holds his hand against his stomach before walking over to Tekk and taking the sword out of his hands. "I thought you seemed promising since you walked into my shop. After all, who goes out wearing an ornamental armor from the decorator to fight? He seemed to be confident in his strength, but I guess there was nothing behind it, hahaha!" "W-Wait! Please, help me! I invested nearly all my money into this!" Tekk yells out, hoping for the man in front of him to help him out, but he just stopsughing and turns around, showing a wicked smile at him. While the smell of blood called for more monsters toe to this ce, they instinctively avoid this strong man that killed their brother and begin to painfully rip apart Tekk lying on the ground. With this, ignoring the screams of the man being killed behind him, Eisen turns away and walks off, telling him onest thing before Tekk is forced to log out. "Fuck off, kid." Chapter 1 Interview With A Legend "Hello, Mister Joyce. My name is Samuel Morgan, we were talking on the phonest week." After entering into the hot smithy, a young man with short, dark blonde hair and glowing blue eyes walked up to a man standing in front of an anvil while he was still hammering down onto the hot metal in front of him. The man, Benjamin Joyce, turned around in surprise andyed the metal down with his tongs and began to smile. "So you¡¯re the kid I¡¯m supposed to meet today? Sorry, I¡¯m working on a little project of mine." Apologizing with a bright smile, he wiped the sweat off his forehead and arms using the towel he always hasying somewhere around himself if he should need it, and then took off his ear-protectors. The young man called Samuel loosened his tie and took off his suit-jacket to cool himself off in the searing hot smithy. In any other setting, people might have found this to be rude or unprofessional, but the Benjamin knows how hot it can get inside here. So, withoutmenting on his action he extended his hand to shake his guest¡¯s. "Don¡¯t worry about it, Mister Joyce. Your skill in different crafts such as cksmithing is the reason I¡¯m here after all." Laughing slightly, Samuel opened his suitcase on a nearby table and took out something that looked like a contract to Benjamin,ying it out together with a pen, "Before we start with the interview, it is necessary for both parties to sign a non-disclosure agreement. For once it is so that you will not spread the information that you get from us. It also protects the secrets of your craft that you may tell me today, so that no member of Prime Industries may tell someone outside the Company. Either way, the information will be handled on a need-to-know basis, so the spread will be minimized. Do you have any questions?" Since this wasn¡¯t the first time in his life that he had to sign something, Benjamin shook his head and grabbed the contract, reading through it meticulously. After a few minutes, he gave a slight nod and took the pen, then looked over at the young businessman. "Where do I need to sign?" In response to his question, Samuel began smiling softly. Benjamin figured that he was simply happy for making it so uplicated. After he pointed at the different spots where his signature was needed, Benjamin signed the contract without anyplications. Afterward, Samuel did the same, thuspleting the non-disclosure-agreement. "Alright, Mister Joyce. Should we start the interview now?" Samuel asked and took out a tablet as well as an electronic pen to use for writing from his suitcase. Benjamin nodded while keeping up his soft smile and pointed at a door leading out into the backyard of his house where his smithy was set up, "Let¡¯s talk outside. The weather is beautiful today." He suggested while opening the door and walking over to a table, then sat down on one of the wooden chairs, motioning Samuel to take a seat on the other. Samuel looked through the first few questions he noted down and began to speak, "The first section will be-" "Ah, sorry! Young man, do you want something to drink? Some water, lemonade? A cold beer?" Noticing that Benjamin forgot a basic part of a host¡¯s etiquette, he stood up and walked up to the ss sliding door leading to the kitchen. Sighing loudly but knowing this old guy will leave either way no matter what he says, he nodded and asked to get some water. Benjamin himself grabbed a bottle of beer and opened it up before walking back outside. "Alright, now. What I was saying, the first section of the interview will be made up of personal questions. Is that fine?" Samuel asked and looked at Benjamin with a soft, professional smile. Since he seemed like quite a goodd, Benjamin decided that he didn¡¯t mind telling him and nodded. "Thank you. What is your full name, Mister Joyce?" "Benjamin Theodore Joyce. My first name is that of my grandfather fatherly side and my second name that of my grandfather motherly side. Something like a family tradition. My own grandchild¡¯s name is Benjamin as well, haha. Would you like to see a picture of him? He just got out of elementary school! Here, I have a picture of him in my wallet!" Excitedly Benjamin stood up wanting to grab his Wallet from his Jacket inside, just when he noticed that he was trailing off. "Sorry, sorry. I tend to trail off like that sometimes when I¡¯m passionate about something." He apologized and began tough embarrassedly. "Don¡¯t worry, Mister Joyce. I¡¯m very close to my grandfather as well." With a soft smile, Samuel looked down at his Tablet and noted something down. It seemed like he noted more than just Benjamin¡¯s name, however. "How old are you right now, and at what age did you find your interest in different crafts?" The aged cksmith leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his beer while he thought, but soon enough remembered when exactly that was, "Right now I¡¯m 66 years old. We were a family of cksmiths for generations, sadly I¡¯m the one where that tradition stopped. I practically grew up in a smithy, knowing how to properly work with Iron before I could spell. And that¡¯s not an exaggeration. I spent a whole month trying to make the perfect Paper Knife for my father when I was just a little boy of five years. Sure, I did get a lot of help from my father¡¯s apprentices, but I still like to think I did most of the work, haha." Floating in a nostalgic feeling when thinking back on this, Benjamin smiled deeply. "I see. And what about other crafts? I was told you are also very proficient in things like leatherworking, tailoring, and even meddled in some eastern herbalistic lines of work for a while?" Samuel asked his interviewee and continued writing down his notes. "Ah... I dropped out of high school when I was 16 to officially be my father¡¯s apprentice, and just when I finished it my old man died. He overworked himself because of the stress from many of his other apprentices stopping to work in the profession. After he died, I decided that journeying around the world might be a good idea, since all I knew was in that small, crammed smithy. Until that point, I never even left my hometown. I first traveled through the United States to expand my general knowledge or how to be independent. I worked with some other cksmiths and refined my techniques even further. But at some point, I began to wonder. Is cksmithing really the right thing for me, or was that a choice made by my heritage before I was even born? Thus, I left the country and traveled across South America. Mostly on foot, or on boat when necessary, I even spent time with some recently, at the time, discovered tribes and learned how to connect with nature. I learned different Mexican and Carribean cuisines as well while I was at it, working with natural ingredients most of the time. After a year, I went over to Europe, and in France met a talented tailor who I worked under for another whole year, and then continued traveling through Europe, picking up as many tricks on traditional crafts as I could. I even lived with a hunter for a month, who showed me how to properly work with leather of an animal you hunted yourself, and how to get the hides without damaging them too much. When I was in my mid-twenties, I finally went on to Asia, where I learned about a whole new perspective on the crafts I knew about before. Completely new cksmithing and tailoring techniques, cuisines that I had never eaten before. To my simple mind that thought it got to know all there was to know in the world this just showed that you can always keep growing, no matter what you do. There, how you already mentioned, I also learned about herbalism, although I had gotten to know the basics from areas like the United Kingdom or central Europe already." Benjamin exined in as much detail as he could muster without beingpletely useless for the rest of the day from reminiscing big parts of his whole life. "That¡¯s something that many young people dream of nowadays. I myself also always wanted to travel the world like that since I was a child." Samuel pointed out with a big smile. "Don¡¯t worry about it,d. You¡¯re still young! You can do whatever you want with the rest of your life! You¡¯re not an old geezer like me, haha." With a softugh, Benjamin took another sip of his beer and waited for Samuel to continue the interview. "For saying that you are an old geezer, your body is still one that many people my age would love to have." Samuel smiled softly and then looked at his Tablet again to read through the next question, "This was basically all that the first part included. Since you exined many things in such detail, I was able to skip some of the questions. Now, for the second part. This will be you exining the mindset you have when you are inside this smithy ormitting to any other craft. What makes you want to continue it? What does the profession itself mean to you? These kinds of things." After Samuel began exining what the second segment of the interview will be about, Benjamin thought about it for a while. What do the crafts mean to him? It¡¯s simple, really. These crafts, especially cksmithing, the thing he grew up with, means everything to him. He never was a book-smart man. All he was ever good at was mming his hammer against metal. Others relied on their brain, while Benjamin relied on his hands. Sure, he gathered a lot of experience in life that may make him seem ¡¯smart¡¯, but deep down he knows that he¡¯s a handyman. But that doesn¡¯t mean that Benjamin only does this because it¡¯s the only thing he can, he genuinely loves it. Exactly the fact that he can only work with his hands makes the importance and his reliance on different crafts so strong. It makes him feel like he has a purpose in life as long as he has something to do with his two hands. "I¡¯m already long beyond my prime, you know? These days I may have other things to be proud of, like my grandchildren for example, but even then it still calms my mind to just be in here. It reminds me of easier days." Benjamin finished his monologue on the importance of Craftsmanship in his life, even bringing some tears to Samuel¡¯s eyes. He wiped his sleeve across his face to wipe them away, smiling softly at this speech, "That was truly inspirational, Mister Joyce. Now, I think that was enough for the second phase. Lastly, I will need to record the process of you working. I brought a number of heat resistant cameras so I can set them up in the Smithy as well, effectively recordingplete 3D images of you. It would be a great help having you exin different techniques by showing them to me as an example." The young man exined atst. Nodding with a smile on his face, Benjamin emptied his bottle of beer and stretched slightly. "Let¡¯s go,d. I¡¯ll go and prepare the materials, and you do your tech whatchamacallit." "Thank you, Mister Joyce. I¡¯ll get right to it!" And like that, for the rest of the day, Benjamin taught Samuel all of his tricks and techniques rted to cksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Herbalism and other smaller details rted to other professions. After sitting down in his car, sweating profusely after spending hours in this extreme heat, Samuel stares silently at his tablet, muttering out a single thing. "So this is what a Legendary Craftsman is like, huh?" Chapter 2 The Capsule It¡¯s been four whole years since that Interview when Benjamin sat in front of his chimney, adjusting his reading sses while tapping on his phone to browse through his E-Mails. Amongst requests for custom-made items that he has already long rejected, there was one mail that caught his mind. "¡¯Prime Industries - Thank you for your help!¡¯, huh? What was Prime Industries again...? Was it that gamepany?" Intrigued at the memory of back then, Benjamin quickly tapped on the mail to read through it. [Dear Mr. Joyce, Due to your immense help in the past, it was possible for us toplete a big part of our project in even more detail as we could have wished for. Thus, especially after hearing about your recent condition, we once again want to give you the offer of being one of the first yers of ¡¯World of Magic¡¯. This would make it possible for you to continue your craft as much as you want without further damaging your real body. If you are interested in this concept, please inform us and we will talk about the details. Of course, you will not have to pay the regr monthly fee for the game nor the initial payment for the capsule, and instead, thepany will pay for itpletely.] We would love to hear from you, Your friends at Prime Industries "I can continue making stuff, huh? Well... Maybe it isn¡¯t that bad of an idea after all." Benjamin mutters to himself. Four years ago during the interview, he had no ns of ever ying the game that Prime Industries told him about. But that doesn¡¯t mean that he is or was ignorant to what this kind of technology means, he just wasn¡¯t interested in ying it himself. He actually is also very knowledgeable about modern technology. He even hesitated for a month before agreeing to do the interview, after he finally realized that this would be the best way of passing on his will. After all, neither of his two sons nor his daughter ever had an interest in his crafts. Of course, he was proud of them no matter what they chose to do in their life, but he was still sad to see that the knowledge he worked for within the many decades of his life would vanish together with him someday. Thus, after carefully being told about the concept for the game as well as the level of realism, Benjamin agreed to teach Prime Industries some of the things he learned. Of course, he didn¡¯t only give them the info they could gather during the interview but also gave them copies of the journals he kept throughout the years so that they truly gained as much knowledge as he could give them. After that, he would have been fulfilled just quietly working on random items for the rest of his life. That was until one day around two years ago... Seeing that the lights were off in Benjamin¡¯s house, a thief broke a window and stepped inside, only to find the old man working in the back inside his workshop working on amission. The thief, startled at seeing a mountain of a man bearing a weapon in his direction, jumped backward into a pile of steel scrap that Benjamin got from a steelyard just the day before, knocking it overpletely. As a chain reaction, the metal fell on top of some toolsying on a table near Benjamin, flinging them right into the opening to the hot coal-filled forge. Of course, as one might expect, some of the burning coals were thrown out of the opening through the impact, directly onto Benjamin¡¯s right arm, melting into his flesh. Benjamin may be resistant to hot temperatures for the most part after working as a cksmith for so long, but burning-coaling from a forge that was heated above a thousand degrees Celsius is nothing any human being can handle. The thief ran away after seeing the old man lying on the floor, screaming in pain. The police tried finding him, but it seems like he got away sessfully. Without the emergency-button that his daughter put near the door of his workshop, who knows what might have happened to Benjamin at the time? He had multiple surgeries after that, trying to save as much of his arm as possible. Luckily, it didn¡¯t have to be amputated, but there was still a lot of damage done to the muscles and bones in Benjamin¡¯s arm. The surgeon that worked on Benjamin did an amazing job, but even so, he had to give up his passion for most of his craftsmanship. So, the offer from Prime Industries to this broken old man seemed like a miracle to him. "It¡¯s all set up and ready to go, Mister Joyce. All that¡¯s left to do isy down inside withfortable clothing on, and sync up with the machine. It¡¯s going to exin the rest to you. For others, the game willunch in a month, but you can y in a few hours already." A private technician from Prime Industries exins to Benjamin while they are standing in front of the capsule that was just installed. To make sure he wouldn¡¯t do anything wrong, Benjamin turned to the young man. "So that¡¯s it? I don¡¯t need to install anything on it, or let it run before getting into it?" The technician shook his head with a soft smile and answers, "No, there¡¯s no need for that. The capsule will automatically detect when you get into it and set everything up. You can choose to start the game from the desktop mode, or just by tapping the icon on the screen inside. If you ever decide to buy another game for the capsule once theye out, all you need to do is add the file-drive onto the side here. No installing, so you can just hop right in." Pointing at the backside of the capsule where there visibly are slots to add something into. Benjamin crossed his arms and nodded impressed at the state of this technological peace of wonder. "Now then, I¡¯ll leave you to ying the game now. Have fun, Mister Joyce." After leading the technician to the door, Benjamin walked back to the capsule and looked at the huge contraption. He slowly stepped inside after he changed intofortable clothes. Benjamin knew that the game wasn¡¯t online yet, but he wanted to at least try out this ¡¯Desktop-Mode¡¯ the technician briefly mentioned. Heyed down onto his back and closed the hatch to the capsule. [No Applications Avable] [Commencing Desktop-Mode] After seeing this message in front of him, without any warning in the slightest, Benjamin was now standing in a nearly pure white world with a single, futuristic gray desk and chair in front of him. It took Benjamin some time to get used to the sudden change in environment, and after nearly dropping on his ass, he grabs onto the chair until his slight dizziness dissipated. "What¡¯s this now? There¡¯s nothin¡¯ even here!" Benjamin yells out and sat down at the desk in front of him since it was the only thing to do. Then, just when he did, a white orb appeared in thin air that Benjamin was barely able to notice in this white space if it hadn¡¯t been for its faint blue glow. In the middle of the orb, two small blue circles appeared as the orb released a male voice. "Wee! My name is Rover, your personal assistance! Do you want to set up your ount information?" It asked happily, swirling around Benjamin¡¯s head. Confused at this, since he hasn¡¯t heard about it at all, he scratched his white beard and nodded, agreeing to set up his ount. For about the next 20 minutes, Rover asked him a number of different questions, such as his name, age, as well as likes and dislikes. "Alright, Benjamin! It¡¯s time to perfect your Desktop! You can change the style of this whole space! You can keep it like this, of course, but that¡¯s boring, right?" Rover asked cheerfully. With a smile on his face, Benjamin thought about it for a bit, and then answered, "Hmm, can you set it up like this is a small log cabin in the middle of nowhere? Maybe in a forest, or by ake surrounded by steep mountains?" "Sure can do, Benjamin!" With that being said, Rover suddenly turned from a perfect sphere into a cube, dropping down onto the desk. The moment he touched it, the desk slowly turned from a futuristic, metallic gray to a fine, but still rough, wooden table. From then on like fire spreading, the area around Benjamin changed just into what he described. After about two minutes, Rover¡¯s body turned back into a sphere and he began to float again "The actual area is equivalent to about 5 square kilometers! You can go outside and have fun, or stay in here and work on things! Anything, just as a book, for example, can be exported as a file into a sh-drive! Time Dtion or Contraction can be set up as well!" The small, robotic sounding ball floating in the air exined to Benjamin. However, just to make sure, he asked one question to see if he understood correctly. "Time Dtion or Contraction? Can you exin?" "Sure thing, Benjamin! As the name suggests, it means that the perception of time in herepared to outside can be changed, up to a certain point! The current maximum rate is 4:1 for Contraction and 1:4 for Dtion! In the Contraction setting, 4 minutes will feel like a single minute to you, while in the Dtion setting they will feel like 16 minutes to you! However, for health and safety reasons we only allow a single hour to be ¡¯skipped¡¯ via Time Contraction every day!" "Oooh~?" Benjamin groaned out impressed. He had never heard of this kind of thing before, and was surprised this was even possible. For now, though, he didn¡¯t change anything about how he perceived Time. Instead, he simply asked some more questions. "Will anything I do here influence me in the game, or vice versa?" Rover¡¯s body turned to the left and then to the right a few times while he was seemingly trying to shake his head. "Nope! However, since you allowed a link to your security software, I will appear within any application you run and will let you know you have a visitor, or someone is trying to break into your house, etc, so don¡¯t worry about that! Also, you will be able to keep in touch with other yers through your Desktop-Mode, since Friend-requests are ount based and not game based!" "I see, I see. Thanks, Rover." Benjamin smiled softly and ced his big hand onto Rover¡¯s ¡¯head¡¯, trying to pat him. Just then, he realized something he should have tried out way earlier. "Wait... my- my arm, it feelspletely normal!" Excitedly, the old man jumped up and made a tight fist using his right arm. "So they were right! I can use my arm normally! Yes, yes, yes!" Not having been this excited for years, Benjamin nearly began jumping up and down like a kid. Confused at first, Rover¡¯s eyes shed green for a second before turning back to the normal blue. "It seems like the muscles in your right arm are severely damaged. If you want and will allow it, I am going to keep check over your vitals and inform you in case something is wrong." The small orb suggested and lost his excited voice for a second. This, however, changed when Benjamin agreed to let him do it, making Rover as excited as always. "Now, Rover! Tell me when I can finally y that game!" Benjamin asks and looks over at his Virtual Assistant, who then pulled up a small futuristic-looking and see-through floating screen. [Time until ¡¯World of Magic¡¯ can beunched: 2 hours, 13 Minutes] Chapter 3 New World, New Self "Alright then, Rover. The game should be ready around now, right?" Benjamin asked while sitting at the beach of theke in his Desktop-Mode, throwing rocks into the water to make them skip. The moment he said Rover¡¯s name, the small orb appeared in front of the old man. "Yes, that¡¯s right! It can beunched in approximately 14 seconds! Do you want to run the Application the moment it is avable?" He asked in his cheerful, robotic voice. Benjamin nodded his head and stood up, patting the sand from his pants instinctively, "Please! Seeing how real this small world seems, I can barely imagine what the Game world will be like, haha." With closed eyes, Benjamin stroked his beard andughed softly while imagining the possibilities that are toe. "The Application can beunched now. Have fun ying, Benjamin!" Without giving him the chance to reply, Benjamin¡¯s surroundings changed suddenly once more. The Lake and Forest around him faded into non-existence and he found himself in a white space like when he first entered the Desktop-Mode. The only difference was that behind him, a single decorated wooden door stood, with nothing behind it. Only the door, nothing else. Surprised, but figuring that there¡¯s a reason that the door was there, Benjamin walked up to it and grabbed the handle. He pulled on it and the door opened up without any resistance. Within the space behind the door was a room made of marble, Vines running across the pirs that encircled a small table in the center. When Benjamin stepped through the door, it closed shut behind him immediately and disappeared. Across the room, he could now see a Woman standing on a balcony, a vivid blue sky unfolding behind her. Her bright blond hair flowed in the wind like waves and her long, decorated white dress followed in part while an air of nobility surrounds her. The woman was looking into the distance, and with the sound of the door closing she turned around and looked at the old man that just entered her domain. Her eyes began to glister as she ran up to him excitedly. "Are you Benjamin Joyce?!" She yelled out and grabbed Benjamin¡¯s hand with her¡¯s. While looking at the young woman, Benjamin¡¯s impression of her from before instantly vanished. Laughing softly at her behavior, he begins to stroke his beard with his free hand. "That¡¯s me, youngdy. Uhm, but who might you be?" He asked curiously. Could this be another yer already? "Ah! Sorry! I was just so excited after Papa told me so much about you... And when he told me you would being here as well, I was so excited I could barely wait! But now you¡¯re finally here!" She yelled out and turned around with her arms stretched to her sides. Really, the maturity that could be felt from her before just absolutely turned into childishness all of a sudden. But Benjamin didn¡¯t really mind, he was just curious who this girl was! Just as he was about to ask her again, she turned back to him with a smile. "My name is Ari! I¡¯m the Artifical Intelligence in charge of managing this world!" Shocked at this revtion, Benjamin ripped his eyes wide open. There was no way in hell that was an AI! Someone had to be ying a prank on him! "So... you¡¯re an artificial intelligence? You¡¯re not one of the developers?" "What? No, silly! How I said, I was created to manage this world! You see, this ce, the World of Magic, works much like your world out there! The people here act like, well, people! I don¡¯t know myself, but Papa told me in most games, the people, NPCs as you call them, can¡¯t think for themselves. Not in this world! They think, they love, and they hate!" Ari exined happily, joining her hands together behind her back, trying to figure out the funny expression that Benjamin was giving her. "Wow... That¡¯s insane! I had no idea this was even possible! I can¡¯t wait to get out there!" Benjamin said excitedly and looked around to find the door. In response to this, Ari covered her mouth as she began giggling softly, "I¡¯m happy you¡¯re so excited! But before that, there¡¯s some stuff we got to go through!" Ari walked toward the table standing in the middle of the room and sat down at one side of it, pointing Benjamin toward the other chair. He did as told and sat down, while Ari leaned back in her chair. "First, before we are allowed to continue with anything else, you have to agree to Prime Industries¡¯ Terms of Service!" With a slight sigh at this boring part, Ari took out a contract from under the Table and handed it to Benjamin together with a pen. "I see, so I have to sign some things first?" Agreeing with Ari that this is something quite boring, Benjamin swiftly looked through the contract and signed it at the bottom. Following his signature, to Benjamin¡¯s surprise, the contract lit on fire and disappeared from the table. Ari then breathed in deeply to seemingly prepare for a long monologue. "Rule number one! While normally illegal acts like theft or murder are allowed in World of Magic, things that will affect a yer¡¯s psych¨¦ are prohibited! That includes torture or non-consensual sexual acts, such as ****. Rule number two! Any attempt at trying to take over another yer¡¯s ount or capsule via remote connection like illegal hacking is prohibited! Rule number three! You are not allowed to inform the NPCs in this world that they are inside a game! I may know about it, but the normal people living here do not! We want this world to run as realistic as possible, so telling people their life is a lie does not help with that. If any of these rules are to be broken your ount will be locked until further notice, and legal action may be invoked depending on the severity of the rule-break." Ari finished her speech of the rules and tried to catch her breath. Benjamin obviously understood the first two rules instantly. **** and torture arepletely despicable acts, and it made sense for it to be prohibited to illegally take over someone else¡¯s real-life belongings, in this case, their ount and capsule. He was still somewhat confused about thest rule, however. "What do you mean? I¡¯m not allowed to talk about any part of this world being a game?" He asked while stroking his white beard. Ari simply nods and begins to exin, "There are some parts that even the NPCs know about since they have ess to these things as well. Status, Attributes, Skills, Levels, etc, but they are not allowed to know they are artificial existences, or that you are ying a game. Thus, simply avoiding the words, NPC, Virtual Reality, or yer would be the best choice, except if you are sure there are only other yers listening to you." Benjamin closed his eyes and leaned back into his chair. It wouldn¡¯t be hard to avoid it if everyone seemed like a real person just like Ari, is what he thought. "Now~ Since Papa told me you aren¡¯t a big game-yer, do you want me to exin some important basics to you?" "Yes, please. I wouldn¡¯t want to miss important parts of the game after all." "Alright~! First off, Status! Just by thinking of showing your status, or character-sheet, you will be able to pull it up! You can¡¯t yet though because you¡¯re not officially in the game yet~. On your Status, it will show your name, Level, Race, upation, Attributes, as well as your skills!" She exined happily. Benjamin nodded while closely listening to her, trying to connect her words with something. "Your name will be setter, so don¡¯t worry about that for now! Your level can be increased through either killing monsters, fulfilling quests, or certain special actions! Every level, you will get five points, which you can use to increase your attributes! There are five attributes that you can increase like that. Strength, Endurance, Agility, Intelligence, and Wisdom! However, depending on what you do, you can unlock more attributes, most of which you won¡¯t be able to increase with your points, but instead only through special actions. Then-" Without taking a break, Ari continued exining all the basic parts of the game, although Benjamin wanted to know something she was about to skip over. "Whoa, whoa, youngdy! Can you slow down a bit? Could you exin what those ¡¯Attribute¡¯ things do?" He asked with a soft frown, although keeping his overall gentle demeanor. Ari apologizes and slows down a bit. "Hmm... I¡¯ll exin it for your most probable ystyle, alright~? Which is something Craftsman rted, right? Well, the more strength you have, the stronger you are, duh! Working with certain materials requires a certain amount of strength, just to be able to shape them! If you keep your strength too low, you won¡¯t be able to put even the slightest dent into metal during cksmithing. With a higher endurance, both your defense increases and your stamina! You can work longer and your body will experience less of a bacsh when working too hard. Agility will increase your overall speed, but also your dexterity, so you can do more detailed work! Intelligence and Wisdom are Attributes mainly rted to Magic, so I¡¯m not sure how useful they¡¯ll be to you... but well, Intelligence increases the efficiency of anything mana-rted you do, and Wisdom will increase the amount of your mana and how much basic control you have over it!" "I see... thanks. Most of these seem pretty important, but I¡¯ll have to find out if Magic will have any use to me." Benjamin muttered to himself, deep in thought until Ari continued exining. "Your upation and skills will depend on your actions! Depending on what path you go, you will unlock certain skills, and some professions will support the effects of some of them. A Magician can cast stronger magic, a Warrior has stronger attacks, and a Craftsman can craft finer items! Simple, isn¡¯t it? Most of it is self-exnatory while you y, don¡¯t worry~!" Atst, with an excited expression, Ari jumped up from her chair and walked next to Benjamin. While he is wondering what she¡¯s about to do, she waved her hand and a mannequin appeared in front of them. "This is the base for a Human character! There are many races in the World of Magic, and some of them have strongly different bodily structures, all of them are humanoid though. However, I suggest that you y as a dwarf! They are the race that is best at working with their hands! The best cksmiths, tailors, and artists! I think that fits with you! Although..." Ari waved her hand once more and the mannequin shrank significantly as if someone pushed the person from before down. A big head, broad shoulders, thick but short arms and legs, and a height at least half a meter shorter than what Benjamin is in real life. "...they are kind of short..." Benjamin sighs. The dwarf¡¯s exnation sounded perfect for him, but this really was a problem. It would take a long time to get used to a body this short, especially since the size difference was even greater due to his normally big build. But all his worries were swept away when Ari continued talking. "So usually that may be a problem, but Papa allowed me to give you special rights in your character creation~. With those rights, I can make your race a halfling of something that normally wouldn¡¯t exist! My suggestion is..." Waving her hand once more, but this time with a big smile on her face, the mannequin grew in size significantly, standing even taller than the human before then. The general build of the dwarf stayed in the mannequin, broad shoulders and thick arms and legs, but its limbs were significantly longer than before. In short, its build already looks a lot like Benjamin¡¯s. "...A Giant-Dwarf Halfling! You get all the advantages from the Dwarf race without the bodily... shorings. Usually, this Halfling race isn¡¯t avable to yers, even though it does exist very rarely in the game world amongst NPCs. As far as I know, there is only a few dozens of them!" "Youngdy! This is perfect for me! I¡¯d be more than happy to be this in the game!" Benjamin stands up happily and walked up to the Mannequin. To Ari who was standing next to him, it looked like two Benjamin¡¯s already! So, with a snap of her fingers, she turned the Mannequin into a real representation of him. "Now, the only thing left is your name! Do you have an idea already?" Ari asks atst. And actually, yes, Benjamin had been thinking about a good username together with Rover while waiting. So with a soft grin, he looked at Ari and told her what he wants to be called. --- After walking Benjamin through everything, Ari also went to talk to four other people that seemingly helped out the game in a simr fashion to himself, although in different fields. Then, after waiting for around 15 minutes, they all came together in a big hall, somewhat simr to Ari¡¯s room in its setup with Marble constructs everywhere. "Alright, everyone ready?" Ari yelled out cheerfully while standing in the center of the five people. They were all wearing the same clothes, pretty boring brown and beige clothing, and each of them had a ck and red coin around their neck as a ne, each of their patterns different, however. "I¡¯ll introduce you to each other quickly, alright? First, the Original of Magic and a High-Elf, Xenia!" Ari pointed to one of the two women standing in the group. She had long deep-ck hair and eyes, and skin as white like snow. The only thing that seemed different to a normal human were the pointy ears on the sides of her head. If he was about 50 years younger, he may have tried to flirt with her, but since she was about as old as his oldest granddaughter, he quickly refrained. "Next, the Original of Combat and a Demon-Orc Halfling, Brody!" After pointing to Xenia, Ari pointed to a tall grown man with dark-green skin that nearly faded to ck. He had short ck hair and two curved horns sprouting out of his forehead, as well as two big tusk-like teething out of his mouth. Next, Ari turned to the second woman in the group. "This is the Original of Artistry and a Human, Evalia!" She had bright blonde hair and glowing blue eyes. Her lips were dyed deep red and her bust seemed far toorge for her body, possibly to ovepensate for something in real life. "And that over there is the Original of the Living and a Monkey-Beast-Person, Jyuuk!" This man was also rtively well built and most of his visible skin, with the exception of the palms of his hands and his face, was covered in thick orange fur. Most of his features looked like that of a monkey¡¯s and a person¡¯s mixed up, and his face was framed with his fur as well. From his back, you could see a tail extend outward. After introducing the other four people there, Ari turned to Benjamin. "Lastly, the Original of the Mechanical Arts, and a Giant-Dwarf Halfling, Eisen!" Chapter 4 The Journey Begins Ari introduced each of the Orginals, following which they stepped closer to her to greet each other properly. The blond human girl Evalia spoke up first, cing her hand on her hip and looking at the others around them, "How are ya¡¯ll doin¡¯? What did Prime Industries ask ya to teach¡¯em?" She asked with an instantly obvious American-southern ent and a happy grin to apany it. Since none of the others decided to speak, she sighed loudly and shook her head, "Ya¡¯ll mute or somethin¡¯? Hmm, guess I¡¯ll have¡¯ta go first! I¡¯m an artist by heart, and ya can bet that I¡¯m better at any and all instruments any of ya¡¯ll can y. I studied Art History an¡¯ I earned my tuiton money from painting and sculptin. Prime Industries called me so I taught them what it means to be a true artist!" Happily Evalia began to exin why she was there and curiously looked around to wait for the others to start. The Monkey-Man, Jyuuk, sighed loudly and scratched the hair that covered his face, something he seemed to not be used to. "Nice to meet you, my name is Jyuuk. I am a Biologist and Zoologist. I helped with the creation of Monsters, Animals and ntlife in World of Magic. That is why I chose the... erm... Mon-kee. Ari told me that this tribe is more connected to nature and their animalistic parts." Jyuuk tried his best to hide his strong Japanese ent, but even so struggled with the pronounciation of the word ¡¯Monkey¡¯. Nobody seemed to mind, though, and gave him the time he needed. Despite his outer appearance that seemed more brutish than intelectual, Jyuuk acted very gentle and filled with respect. Since the group now seemed to move counter-clockwise, next it was Brody¡¯s turn. He sighed loudly and yed around with his big tusks before beginning to talk, "The name¡¯s Brody. I¡¯m a Martial-Artist, and those guys wanted to know a bit about fighting. Oh, and that God-chick over there gave me this awesome race. I can¡¯t deal with magic, like at all, but in return I¡¯m the perfect killing machine!" Brody grinned excitedly and began flexing the muscles in his arms. As if annoyed by the mere concept of this guy¡¯s existence, Xenia held her hand to her forehead and shook her head, muttering something to herself in a low voice. "I¡¯m Xenia. I¡¯m a historic researcher that specialized in ancient myths and legends, andrgely work with old concepts of magic. Thus, I helped Prime Industries out so that I can experience magic and possibly find a deeper insight into it for my research. Ari allowed me to be a High-Elf, since they have high magical affinities, but in return they have low physical affinities." Atst, everyone in the group stared at Eisen, since it came to his turn to talk about himself further. With a big grin he began to exin. "Hmm, you¡¯re using your usernames, I see? Well, then I¡¯m Eisen. I¡¯m good at using my hands, so I showed thatd, Samuel, was it? Well, anyway, I showed him some tricks and let him in on some knowledge I gathered. The abilities of Dwarves fit me, but it was too small, so Ari made me" After this, he leaned in a bit to Xenia and whispered into her ear so that the others can¡¯t hear, "And you, youngdy, maybe should try and be honest with yourself." Xenia¡¯s face immediately turned into a bright red as she turned her face away from Eisen, "A-And what about you? Why can¡¯t you be honest with yourself?! Putting on that old-man fa?ade!" "Haha, what fa?ade are you talking about, youngdy? Do you think I¡¯m pretending to be an old man?" Eisen crossed his arms andughed heartily, and once she notices that someone is doubting the man that her Papa talked so much about, she stepped inbetween the two of them and looked up at Xenia angrily, "Eisen isn¡¯t a liar! He¡¯s old! Like, really old!" "Erm, Ari, I appreciate it, but-" Starting to feel hurt a little bit by her words, Eisen tried to interrupt her, but Ari just kept going. "No no, Eisen! You¡¯re really, really old! And I don¡¯t want Xenia to insult the person that my Papa admires so much!" She looked back at Eisen with a stern face, hurting him even more. Xenia interrupted Ari and looked at Eisen who squatted down onto the ground, ying with the cracks in the marble while sulking, "You¡¯re telling me that guy is actually old? He looks more like some kid who wants to be an adult too badly!" "No, Eisen is 70! That¡¯s more than twice your age, you dummy! Dummy, dummy, dum-" "Ari! Stop!" Eisen interrupted Ari when he heard her start to insult Xenia, "Go and sit down on the stairs, youngdy! I¡¯ll call you when we need you!" He said and pointed to the stairs near the entrance. At first she tried to fight it, but soon Ari gave in and sulked as she sat down unwillingly. The rest of the group stared at Eisen without words until Brody cut through the silence with a loudugh. "Damn, old-man! I didn¡¯t expect you to be able to tame an uptight goddess, haha!" Eisen tilted his head at the Demon-Orc¡¯s words. Uptight? Up until now, she was anything but uptight. Like this, talking about different things rted to the game and exchanging a few professional tips regarding each of their specialties, they continued talking casually for about half an hour. Then, when they decided it was finally time for them to start ying, Eisen called Ari over to them again. But before he let her do anything, Eisen had Ari apologize to Xenia about insulting her. "Now, I¡¯ll bring each of you down to the. You will end near a town rted to your race, although what town is chosen randomly amongst the low-level areas avable to you. You will find a small booklet in your pocket then, it¡¯s going to give you basic info on your surroundings, and where to get to the town. So that the Vigers won¡¯t be suspicious, I think the best idea to tell them you lost all your memories and just found yourself near the town." Ari exined while still sulking slightly. "Lastly, there¡¯s one thing I need to tell you..." Ari built in a dramatic pause into herst words to them, then looked at them with a gentle smile, "...Prime Industries wishes you to have the best of fun ying World of Magic." The Artificial Intelligence Ari waved her hand to the side with those words and the world around Eisen slowly began to change. Every time he blinked his eyes, something was different. First, all of the others were gone. Then, nts began growing inside of the big hall. After that, the marble disappeared and turned into the sky above him or the grass under his feet. Andstly, the air was filled with the smell of a forest, his white hair began slightly swaying in the strong wind and all around him the sounds of small critters filled the environment. "I¡¯ll never get used to this kind of stuff..." Eisen muttered to himself and turned around a few times, trying to figure out if he can see any sign of civilization in his sight. But sadly, he was out of luck and instead leaned against a tree that stood behind him. There was one thing he wanted to try out before doing anything else. He concentrated and did what Ari exined to him before, trying to think of a disy to appear in front of him to show his Status. [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - None][Level - 1] [HP - 100][MP - 100] [STR - 10][END - 10][AGI - 10][INT - 10][WIS - 10] [Titles] None [Skills] None "Ohoo? So that works. Good to know how I can do that, then! Those numbers aren¡¯t any use to me yet, though..." He muttered out while leaning slightly forward to look at the blue screen that popped up in front of himself. After a little bit, he thought about closing that screen, and at hismand it disappeared instantly. Next, he looked at his body. He was wearing the same, nd brown and beige clothing as everyone else was in the hall before. Connected to his simple leather belt was a small bag, which Eisen quickly bound off and opened up. Inside, he found a total of 17 coins, made out of three different materials. Ten coins made out of copper, five coins out of silver, and two coins apparently out of gold. All of them were grandly carved with different patterns. "Is this money? How much is that, I wonder... I¡¯ll have to check at the town once I get there." Disregarding the money, since he doesn¡¯t need it just yet, Eisen ced it back into the small leather bag and bound it back onto his belt. After that, he rummaged through his pant pocket and pulled out a small, leatherbound book. He flipped it open and looked at a short description of the area. By going west through the forest, he would find himself entering a mountain range, where he should be able to find a small dirtpath. By following that path, he should get to a tunnel, on the other side of which he will find the first town. "I¡¯m surprised... All of these things may be made of low quality materials, but the quality of the items are extraordinarily high for what they¡¯re made of..." Before following the instructions, however, Eisen trailed off shortly and flipped the book around in his hands, trying to find any major mistakes made during the book-binding process. After about a minute, he was done checking and nodded his head in approvement, since the developers seemingly worked to the tiniest detail. Once he finished his inspection, a surprising window popped up in front of Eisen. [Appraisal Skill Learned] Eisen thought about what this skill could do, and before he had to guess, another window popped up. [Name - Appraisal] [Rank - 0][Level - 1] [Description] [The Appraisal Skill will let you see the details of things around you. A higher rank will allow more information to be disyed, and a higher level per rank will allow higher level objects to be appraised.] "Huh, pretty simple. So do I just need to think about it again?" Eisen wondered and looked at the book in front of him, concentrating so that he would notice an effect. Book "What?" Surprised at this quite obvious piece of information, Eisen sighs and tries it with one of the copper coins from his leather bag. [Coin] "This is practically useless! I can find out more than that by just guessing!" Eisen yelled out annoyed and pushed the coin back into his bag. He grumbled to himself and finally decided to follow the instructions in the book. While walking, he once more checked his Status to get used to the feeling of pulling it up, and noticed something unexpected next to the name of his new skill, Appraisal. [Appraisal] [Rank - 0][Level - 2] "Wasn¡¯t it level 1 just now? So, using it simply increases its level... Then maybe after a while I can actually find a use for it!" Excited after figuring this out all by himself, Eisen walked forward to the first town, all the while Appraising everything in his way. [Tree] [Apple] [Rock] [Pebble] [Leaf] After walking for the next thirty minutes, Eisen got the level of his Appraisal skill all the way to 87, although the amount of information disyed did not change in the slighest. But he took a break of doing this, when he finally found the tunnel that he read about in the book. Filled with a feeling of excitement he hasn¡¯t felt since traveling on foot in his younger days, Eisen slowly stepped into the dark tunnel, at the end of which he could only find a bright light. The moment he stepped through, Eisen¡¯s senses were attacked by different things. His ears were filled with the sound of people walking around the streets in front of him. His nose smelled a number of delicious foods of which he couldn¡¯t figure out its source. Andstly, his eyes saw the beautiful townscape in front of him. The town waspletely surrounded by steep cliffs and the only entrances and exits were a handful of tunnels scattered across the area. The buildings, some of which seemed to be shops while others were simple houses belonging to the residents, were wooden fronts set against the cliffs while their interior apparently was dug into them. The roads led along the cliffs in a spiral shape,ing together at the bottom at a stone tform, parts of which traveled into the darkness below, while others traveled back up to join into the tform. While Eisen was staring around the town, a grumpy-looking man with stumpy arms and legs, seemingly a Dwarf, walked up to him and looked him up and down, before speaking in a strong ent with a rough, deep voice. "Hmm, ye¡¯ seem to be new around here, eh¡¯ Gramps? Well, wee ta¡¯ the town of Melroe." Chapter 5 Stolen Experience "Why are ye just standin¡¯ there, Gramps?" The same Dwarf as before asked, keeping up his somewhat grumpy demeanor but mixing a light smile into it. Eisenughed apologetically and scratched his beard, "Sorry, sorry. I¡¯m new here, and I just thought that this town is beautiful. Seems like I got caught up in my thoughts." The Dwarf slightly frowned, and just then Eisen felt a shiver going down his spine. He wasn¡¯t sure what exactly happened, but he felt like something was staring right into his soul. Then all of a sudden, the dwarf ripped his eyes open in surprise and his jaw dropped. "What the- ye a level 1?! At that age? And you only have a single skill, a Rank 0 Appraisal skill? How the hell is that possible?!" He yelled out in utter disbelief and stepped around Eisen, carefully inspecting every part of him, "The hell are ya, Gramps?" He decided to ask atst, crossing his arms while still looking at Eisen suspiciously. Eisen swallowed down the saliva in his mouth and looked down on top of the Dwarf¡¯s head while thinking about what to do. It was then that he remembered Ari¡¯s suggestion. "I¡¯m nothing special, young man. Actually, not even I myself know who I am. The only things I know about myself are in my Status. My name is Eisen, and I¡¯m a level 1 Giant-Dwarf Halfing without an upation. So you know as much as me, haha." Heughed nervously and looked the Dwarf in the face, whose eyes quickly shot open again. "Holy- Ye¡¯re a Giant-Dwarf Halfling?! I was so surprised by the rest of yer status that I didn¡¯t even see that! I thought ye¡¯d be just some human! I¡¯ve never seen one of yer kind before! Listen, Gramps, I can see that somethin¡¯s not going right. I¡¯ve got a suspicion, so how about yee with me for a bit, I¡¯ve got a friend who might be able to help ya." The Dwarf exined with a curious, but still suspicious grin and decided to walk down the spiraling streets. Agreeing to follow him, Eisen shrugged and stepped next to the Dwarf, stopping him for a second to introduce himself properly again. He held out his hand for the Dwarf to shake and with a big smile said, "Thanks for your help,d! As you know, my name is Eisen." The Dwarf in front of himughed slightly and shook Eisen¡¯s hand with a tight grip, "The name¡¯s Belrim. Nice to meet ya, Gramps." Belrim and Eisen continued walking down the road silently until they reached the front of a shop. Through the disy window Eisen could see a few different ss bottles filled with colored liquids that he wasn¡¯t able to identify. Next to those bottles were also a few books whose titles he wasn¡¯t able to read, because they were written with letters he didn¡¯t recognize. The wooden sign above the window read ¡¯Everything Magic¡¯. "Youin¡¯, Gramps? I don¡¯t have all day." Belrim grumbled and opened the door to the shop, stepping inside a secondter, followed by Eisen who was wondering what this ce was about. Belrim looked around the front of the shop, and after not seeing anyone walked to the door leading to the back. "Oi, Morrom, ye got a customer ye bastard!" He yelled into the darkness behind the door, and the only respond Eisen could hear was a rumblinging from the back, together with the sound of ss shattering. After hearing these sounds, Belrim sighed loudly and held his hand to his forehead while grumbling out "Don¡¯t identally kill yerself on the way." "Sorry, sorry, haha..." From the back came a young man, maybe 20 years old, wearing a robe that reached to his ankles. He had messy hair and a short beard that looks like he just hasn¡¯t shaved in a few days. His ears were slightly pointy, which Eisen somewhat recognized from Xenia. Butpared to hers, his were far more rounded. He was just slightly taller than Belrim, and while Morrom¡¯s arms and legs weren¡¯t as thick as his, they still were thicker than one may expect from a human of his general stature. After Morrom stepped into the room and stood at the counter, Belrim turned back to Eisen and crossed his arms. "That¡¯s Morrom, he¡¯s a halfling like you. Just the Dwarf-Elf variant. He¡¯s the town¡¯s own Magic-freak. He should be able to help ye out a bit." Eisen tilted his head in confusion. "Help me with what?" Belrim gave out a frustrated sigh and shook his head, "Gramps, I¡¯m not exactly sure, but seems like yer experience was stolen. I don¡¯t know how it happened, but the signs seem to be there. Tell me, when you woke up in that forest, ye didn¡¯t have any skills, did ya? Ye got yer Appraisal on the way to town, right?" Eisen nodded quickly, exining that he was appraising everything he saw on the way there to level it up. After that, Belrim just nodded as if this was proof of his theory. Morrom grabbed the grumpy dwarf¡¯s arm in disbelief while staring over at the huge man in his shop, "Are you sure?! And you said he doesn¡¯t have ANY skills?!" Belrim continued to nod, "I¡¯ll bet me arse that the old man¡¯s experience was stolen. I know that it¡¯s near impossible to get his levels and memories back, but maybe ye can at least re-awaken some of his skills, Morrom." Morrom sighed out loudly while hanging his head. "I can try at least. It¡¯s not easy to tap into someone¡¯s soul, you know?" Eisen stood there unsure what they were talking about. He didn¡¯t have any skills to begin with, so how could they get them back for him? But instead of not doing it, he decided to y along. "Oh? That kind of thing is possible?" "Of course it is, Gramps! Why else would I have dragged ye here? But I¡¯ll have ta leave, got work down in the mine. Morrom, I¡¯ll leave it to ya." "Thanks, Belrim. I¡¯ll try my best!" Morrom answered full of conviction and looked at Eisen with an excited smile. Before leaving the shop, Belrim sighed with a slight smirk, "Ye better do, ye bastard." Near to instantly after the door closed shut again, Morrom walked up to Eisen and looked up at him, extending out his hand, introducing himself to Eisen. He shook the young man¡¯s hand with a smile and introduced himself as well. "Now then!" Morrom eximed happily and pped his hands together, "Let¡¯s get to it then! For the process, could you please take off your shirt, Eisen?" "Hm? Oh, yeah, sure." Without further ado, Eisen quickly stripped his top while Morrom grabbed a few materials from under the counter and mixed them together. To Eisen, they seemed to be simple ck ink, and a few herbs he didn¡¯t recognize, as well as a fine blue powder. After those ingredients mixed into a single liquid, Morrom looked over to Eisen. "Oh, eh, are you a human?" He asked with an embarassed grin, realizing he hasn¡¯t asked before. Eisen shook his head andughed slightly, "No,d, I¡¯m a Giant-Dwarf Halfling. Belrim mentioned that I¡¯m a Halfling, remember?" Morrom¡¯s cheeks turned a bright pink and heughed ufortably. "Hehe... Sorry..." He mumbled out and added two small crystals into the mix that seemed to dissolve instantly. The Half-Elf Half-Dwarf man turned back to Eisen and walked behind him. "It¡¯s going to be a bit cold, sorry, haha." "Don¡¯t worry about it,d, I can take it!" Eisenughed loudly and crossed his arms, waiting for whatever Morrom was about to do. After a few seconds, he felt the cold modified ink touch his back through a paintbrush. Although he didn¡¯t mind the cold feeling that came with it, he was still curious what Morrom was doing, but decided to wait until afterward so that the kid could concentrate. Morrom continued to paint some kind of formation for the next 15 minutes, then waited another five minutes to let it drypletely. After that, he ced both of his hands on Eisen¡¯s broad, scarred back, and Eisen felt a warm energy enter his body. It was nothing that he had ever felt before, and the warmth spread throughout his whole body as if he was a container that someone poured hot water into. [Your Racial Skills have been locked to hide your identity as a yer and pretend your experience has been stolen. Keep ying along with that theme whenever it¡¯s necessary. Now that you have them back, have fun ying the game, Eisen! -Ari P.S.: I would ask for the way to the Inn] [A Giant¡¯s Strength Racial Skill Unlocked] [A Dwarf¡¯s Hands Racial Skill Unlocked] [Original of the Mechanical Arts Title Unlocked] Eisen slightly jumped when he saw these notifications pop up suddenly, greatly surprising Morrom behind him, causing him to trip and fall. "Ouch... Eisen, what happened?" He asked while rubbing his butt after the drop, but after seeing that the magic circle he drew on Eisen¡¯s back slowly faded away he sighed because he realized that he seeded. "Ah, sorry,d! It seems like I got two Racial skills and a Title. That just kind of surprised me, haha..." Eisenughed while scratching his beard and looked back at the man behind him, who suddenly showed a slight frown. "You only got your racial skills back? Well, better than nothing, I guess. Ah, and just to make sure nothing went wrong, judging from your race they should have been... A Giant¡¯s Strength and A Dwarf¡¯s Hands, right?" Morrom closed his eyes and crossed his arms, trying to remember the correct name of the Giant Racial Skill. "Exactly,d. Those are the two skills I got just now." Eisen nodded in approvement and stood up, putting his shirt back on, then turned around to face Morrom. "The sun seems to be going down soon. Is there an Inn anywhere in this Town?" Morrom nodded surprised, not expecting this question all of a sudden. "How much is a night there? Ah, and do they have a restaurant or bar?" Eisen asked as a followup, hoping to find out if the money he has is a lot or not. "Erm... It¡¯s five copper a night. And yea, they have both there. A drink costs about one copper, and dinner should cost about two or three copper." Morrom exined swiftly, after which Eisen crossed his arms and nodded as if he just decided something. "Alright, Morrom! Then I¡¯ll treat you to Dinner tonight! And as much as you can drink!" Eisenughed out loudly. It¡¯s justmon sense to treat someone to something to eat and drink when they helped you out like Morrom did, after all. "E-Eh? Are you sure? Do you have any money on you?" Morrom asked surprised. Eisen didn¡¯t feel insulted by this, of course, and he didn¡¯t think that Morrom was assuming he didn¡¯t have any money because of the way he looked, but instead was surprised that a man who didn¡¯t have any memories was running around with enough money to spend a night at an inn and even treat him to dinner and drinks. "Don¡¯t worry about it, Morrom! I¡¯ve got enough money on me, hahaha! When does your shop close?" Eisen asked with a big smile, patting Morrom on the back. Morrom exined that he¡¯d usually close in an hour, but would clear up the shop earlier today since it wasn¡¯t very busy anyway. Eisen shrugged, and told Morrom he wouldn¡¯t mind waiting for him. Then, while Morrom went to the back and began cleaning up. Taking that chance, Eisen inspected his new skills and his Title. [Name - A Giant¡¯s Strength] [Rank - 0][Level - 1] [Description] [The innate strength of a Giant. When activated, physical strength rises significantly.] [Effect] [+10% Strength for 10 Minutes] [Name - A Dwarf¡¯s Hands] [Rank - 0][Level - 1] [Description] [The innate ability of a Dwarf with his hands. When activated, your hands are much more nimble and dexterious.] [Effect] [+20% Dexterity in your hands for 30 Minutes] [Title - Original of the Mechanical Arts] [Description] [A Unique Title only belonging to Eisen, due to his immense knowledge on different Crafts that influenced every Craftsman everywhere in the world.] [Effect] [Higher Possibilities in the area of Craftsmanship] Chapter 6 Mysteries "That food was amazing! Great choice, Morrom!" Eisen eximed after finishing his dinner and leaned back in his chair, looking over at Morrom across the table. It¡¯s been a while since he¡¯s had food this good, even though he had no idea what he even ordered since he left that up to Morrom. The Dwarf-Elf Magician nods in agreement and crosses his arms smugly. "I know, it¡¯s amazing, isn¡¯t it? They have the best food in town!" "Do they? Then it¡¯s good that I¡¯m staying here for a while haha!" Eisenughed loudly and rubbed his stomach in delight, calling over the Waitress to pay. After giving her a generous tip, Morrom and Eisen stood up and decided to head for the bar. On their way, Eisen curiously turned to his younger friend. "Say,d, what actually was that meat? Was it a type of poultry?" He asked curious of the source of this delicious white meat he had never tasted before, and Morrom shook his head with augh. "No, no, Eisen, that was Ankheg meat. They don¡¯t usually have nests around mountainous areas, but since we¡¯re at the edge of the Mountain range, we can get it easier than other Towns in the area." "I see. Well, either way, it tasted amazing, so good choice." Patting Morrom on his back, Eisen sat down on one of the Bar Stools, quickly ordering Beer for him and Morrom when the Bartender, who was coincidentally also the Innkeeper, came around. After receiving the jugs, he took out his leather bag and paid him a copper coin, the money in the bag clinking around, the sound of which seemingly attracting a cat that was lying on the floor near the bar just a few seconds before. "Oh hello there, little cat! How are you~?" Noticing the yellow-furred cat that just jumped onto the barstool next to him, eyeing the leather bag, Eisen extended a hand to pat the small animal with a big smile on his face. Reacting to this heartwarming scene, Morrom chuckled slightly before taking a big sip from his beer. Shortly afterward, Eisen noticed that the cat was looking at his leather bag, and decided to confirm it by moving it around. Since the cat was following the bag with its eyes, he decided to take out one of the copper coins and ced it on top of the counter. Immediately, the cat jumped up and looked at the coin, then back at Eisen, as if suspicious about something. But a few seconds afterward it didn¡¯t seem to care since it started to y around with the coin a bit. The Innkeeper noticed that the cat was sitting on the counter next to Morrom and Eisen and sighed. "Oi, Cat, stop bothering our customers will ya?" The Red-Haired Dwarfughed out, and the Cat lifted its head beforeying back down with its face directly on the coin. Eisen turned to the Innkeeper and asked, "Ah, is that your cat?" He nodded apologetically, "I hope he didn¡¯t annoy ya. And not really, I guess he doesn¡¯t belong to anyone, really. Just started appearing in front of the door a few years ago for a few days at a time, but disappears about one or two months in between. The odd son of a bitch annoyed me a bit at first, but I guess he ain¡¯t so bad after all." The Innkeeper smiled softly, even though the cat hisses at him for a second after he called it a son of a bitch. After that, the Innkeeper went back to serve other clients, leaving Morrom, Eisen and the Cat alone. Taking the time to maybe improve on the Skill by leveling it up, Eisen used Appraisal on random things and people around him while only paying attention to it half-mindedly so he could still talk to [Dwarf-Elf Halfling] [Jug] [Dwarf] [te] [???] [Spoon] "Eh?" Eisen muttered out, only noticing afterward what just happened. He was using Appraisal on random things, but what was it that caused question marks to appear. Guessing that Morrom might know, he turned to him. "Hey,d, I¡¯ve got a question for you. Do you have the Appraisal Skill?" Confused, Morrom tilted his head and nodded, "Yeah, of course, I do. It¡¯s only a rank 2, but most people get the Appraisal skill early on in their life. Why are you suddenly asking, though?" "Ah... Well, I thought you might know what it means when you only get question marks after an appraisal." Morrom crossed his arms and closed his eyes in thought, "Usually that only happens when trying to Appraise something that¡¯s way out of your... range? Not distance wise of course, but something that is way above you in existential terms. Sometimes if something has a level that¡¯s way above yours you can¡¯t appraise it, and if you try and appraise a high-ranking item you may also only get question marks as an answer. Why are you asking, though?" "Oh, erm, seems like I appraised something in town that I wasn¡¯t able to appraise, although I¡¯m not really sure what exactly it was. I mainly remember the question marks, and I just remembered it for some reason, haha." Eisenughs loudly, scratching his beard while telling Morrom to keep drinking since tonight was on him after all. While the young man was busy ordering more drinks on Eisen¡¯s tab, he looked around to see what might be the reason for the question marks, thenid his eyes on the cat again. It couldn¡¯t have been this cat, right? But what else was there..? It definitely wasn¡¯t one of the bottles of booze. Thus, he tried to appraise the cat. [???] Eisen stared deeply at the cat, lowering his head down with his chin pressed against the counter, his face mere centimeters away from the cat¡¯s. "Nah." He muttered to himself and shook his head, turning back to Morrom and finishing his drink. ---- After a long night of drinking together with his new buddy, even though they have an age difference of about 50 years, Morrom drunkenly waltzed out of the Inn and Eisen decided to go up to his room, also feeling quite drunk himself, which was a sensation he hadn¡¯t expected from a game, especially after the low amount of alcohol he did actually drink, at least to his standards. He stumbled through his door and locked it behind him. Eisen slipped his shoes off his feet, and took off his clothes up until the rough linen underwear, cing the Guidebook from Ari and the leather bag with his money onto the nightstand. The moment he dropped onto the bed which was very barelyrge enough for himself, he fell asleep. Then, another thing happened that he didn¡¯t expect: He dreamt. But it wasn¡¯t a normal dream since he feltpletely conscious in it. He was in a dark cave with nothing in it bot stctites and stgmites. Suddenly, he heard a deep and raspy voice from all around him, that sounded as if it was filled with immense wisdom, but still with a hint of curiosity. "Hello, dear Eisen. You seem truly extraordinary, young man." The voice spoke out, causing Eisen to simplyugh. "Young man? Haha, are you sure you don¡¯t need sses?" He asked and began walking around the cave to find the source of the voice. "I do not, but I understand how you may be confused. You may be old for those of your kin, but to mine, you are nothing but a mere Wyrmling." Somehow hearing the voice louder from one corner of the room, Eisen stepped in that direction. But before then, a small shadow jumped onto a rock, which Eisen could only see from the corner of his eye. He turned around immediately to stare at the creature in front of him. It was the cat he saw at the Bar. "What is it? You¡¯re staring at me like I¡¯m some kind of monstrosity." It muttered out in the deep voice from before, tilting its tiny head to the side. "Well, you¡¯re a talking cat that said it¡¯s many times older than me, which is definitely not normal from my perspective," Eisen answered, slightly confused at what¡¯s going on. "Nevermind that. You are unusual. Your aura seems like that of this world, but at the same time otherworldly. Your smell is one that I recognize, but I do not know from where. Usually, I always remember. You are a Dwarf, but yet you are one of the Giants. Which n do you descend from? The Cloud n? Nay, you were way too benevolent to your mixblood friend. You have the soul of a craftsman, so maybe you are one of the Fire n... I truly do not know." The cat spoke out, jumping off the rock to step around Eisen and get a closer look at him. Eisen takes a few steps away from the cat and looks at it suspiciously. "What are you, cat?" "Cat? Ah, yes, the form of this body. This form is one that is best for navigating amongst the popce, at least from my experience. This is not what I truly look like, though. I can not show you my true body, however." "Then why did you even call me to... wherever this ce is?" Eisen asked and looked down at the Cat-shaped thing that was looking up at him with a cold gaze. The cat tilted its head and then lowered it as if trying to think of what Eisen is talking about. "This ce? We are currently inside your dreamscape, although I took the liberty of turning this into a more suitable ce for conversation. And it was a truly easy thing to do. Maybe you should consider increasing your wisdom." While holding his hand to his forehead because he was slowly getting frustrated, Eisen shook his head, "I rather wanted an answer for the reason why you called me, not where this is." "I called you out of curiosity, was that not clear? I wanted to see what kind of person you truly are. Many others would have be defensive, or even tried to attack me, but you stayed calm and talked to me as if meeting an old friend again. Your soul is that of a great man¡¯s, but your body still needs to change. Seek me near this town atop one of the smaller mountains at the edge of the mountain range within a month. However, if you stillck strength at that time or you do not manage to see me, you will face the consequences." [New Quest - A Mysterious Cat¡¯s Request] [Description] You found yourself in your dreamscape after being called there by an ancient being whose identity you do not know. He requested for you toe to see him within a month after developing your body. You don¡¯t know what will happen if you don¡¯t follow his request, but you don¡¯t want to find out either. [Requirements] Get all of your base Attributes (STR, END, AGI, INT, WIS) to at least 100 [Reward] ?? [Failure] ?? [Time Limit - 1 Month] "Heh? What do you mean?" Eisen asked, but before he got an answer his consciousness faded away from his dreamscape and he woke up back in his bed. He jumped up and looked around, and seeing the light from the early morning sunshine through the window stood up to get dressed. "What the hell was that?" He wondered and scratched his beard. "The only hint I got was one word he said, huh? ¡¯Wyrmling¡¯... Maybe I¡¯ll ask Morrom or Belrim what a Wyrmling is. Before then, guess I should begin with what I¡¯m actually here for." Dismissing his dream for now since that wasn¡¯t his priority at the time, Eisen left his room and went back down to the reception. "Ya sleep well, old man?" The Innkeeper asked while receiving the keys and cing them onto the key-holder behind him. Eisen nodded with a smile, "I slept great! It might have been the alcohol fromst night though, haha!" Heughed out loud and decided to go to the restaurant at the Inn for breakfast. When the waitress came to ask him what he wants to eat, he ordered a soft boiled Harpy-Egg and a light soup as well as some simple toasted wheat-bread. Since he felt pretty satisfied after that, Eisen paid for his food and decided to go out into town to start working on the reason he even started ying World of Magic. He would begin crafting. Chapter 7 Dwarfs Deligh Eisen left the Inn and made his way down the spiraling roads of Melroe toward the production-district, where one would find the mine, smithy, tailor, and many other production-rted buildings. Since he knew most about it, Eisen decided to first go to the Smithy in order to learn cksmithing. After looking around for a short while, he found the ce he was looking for, "Dwarf¡¯s Delight". When he first heard about the name of the smithy, he thought Morrom, who he asked about the best ce to learn cksmithing the night before, misunderstood him, since that store rather sounded more like a brothel than anything else. However, when Morrom exined the reason for the shop¡¯s name, Eisen understood and actually began appreciating their sense of naming. The owner of Dwarf¡¯s Delight, Denmir Dimhide, chose the name for his shop by remembering back onto the times when the Dwarves first established themselves amongst the races of the world. Back then, the Dwarves settled down in deep mountain ranges like the Mountain range near Melroe, and due to their fundamental bodily strength, they began mining the ores that they found in said mountain ranges. Since back then the danger of monsters was even greater than nowadays, they made weapons and armor out of the metals they managed to extract from the ores. They fine-tuned their craft to the point that any weapon made by a Dwarf was instantly worth many times a weapon of the same quality made by any other race. Therefore, any and every Dwarf found pride in these treasures made by their people, and as such cksmithing became the Dwarf¡¯s Delight. Eisen entered the shop filled to the brim with many different weapons and armors and looked for the counter among the mess. "Ah, hello there! How can I help you, sir?" A young woman yelled out the moment sheid eyes on Eisen since before then she was sitting by the counter half-asleep fromck of customers. From the looks of it, she seemed to be a human. While the majority of people in Melroe were Dwarves, every once in a while Eisen did walk past some people of other races, like elves, humans or even the asional beast-person. "Hello there, youngdy. Would Denmir Dimhide be avable right now?" He asked with a bright, excited smile. It¡¯s been a whole two years since hest worked in a smithy, and he couldn¡¯t wait to be able to do so again. The girl tilted her head at the request she hadn¡¯t expected but quickly nods her head. "Yeah, he¡¯s in the back. Erm, why do you want to see him?" She asked with a little bit of suspicion and curiosity while she began looking Eisen up and down. Simply and swiftly, Eisen told her why he was there. There was no reason to unnecessarily stretch this out after all. "I¡¯m here to learn cksmithing from him." He replied with a smile. "A-Ah, of course..." She stood up from her chair and walked through the heavy back door. Immediately after she opened it up, Eisen was able to hear the sound of hammers hitting against hot metal, a sound that nearly made his heart skip a beat. Eisen waited for a few minutes and looked at the items that were disyed all around. From what he could tell, they seemed to be pretty high quality, althoughcking in some aspects. But that could just be from his perspective since he has been working in this profession for nearly all his life. Soon enough, the door from the back swung open and a sweaty dwarf wearing a leather-apron stepped through. "Alright, what bastard thinks he can learn from me?" He eximed and looked around the shop until heid his eyes on Eisen who was walking around the ce to Appraise every item he could see, nearly bringing his skill-level to 100. After noticing him ask that, Eisen stepped up to the dwarf and introduced himself while holding his hand forward. "That¡¯s me. You must be Denmir Dimhide, then. My name is Eisen." Denmir looked Eisen up and down and returned the handshake, then sighed out loud. "Ye the old man Belrim told me about? The Giant-Dwarf Halfling that got his experience stolen?" With a big grin showing his pearly white teeth, Eisen nodded his head to affirm what Denmir just said. Confused what these two men were talking about, the girl that was sitting at the counter just before is staring at them in confusion. Ignoring herpletely, the Dwarven cksmith crossed his arms in a somewhat smug manner. "And why did yae ¡¯ere of all ces?" "I just feel like this is what I should be doing. The moment I stepped in here, my heart has been beating like crazy. I may not remember what my life was all about, but I¡¯m sure I was pursuing the crafts." Eisen answered while scratching his beard nostalgically. In response, Denmir sighed and walked back to the door leading to the smithy, turning to Eisen and waving his hand at him to follow. "Fine,e along. If Belrim hadn¡¯t told me about ya, ye can bet I would have thrown ya outta here already. And ya don¡¯t seem too bad, old man." With a smile on his face, Eisen followed Denmir to the back and into the smithy. The dwarf led him across multiple forges at which a few different smiths were working on a number of weapons, as well as younger men, probably apprentices from the looks of it, working on finishing the items the smiths make. "Alright, old man. I¡¯m guessin¡¯ ye don¡¯t have the cksmithing skill yet?" Denmir asked, and after a nod from Eisen sighed out loud and shook his head. "Thene over ¡¯ere. Let¡¯s start with somethin¡¯ simple so ye can at least get the skill, and then we¡¯ll see what ye can do." The Dwarf exined and walked over to an unupied forge whose coals are already being heated up by an apprentice using bellows. "Ye know what a Striker does?" While Denmir was preparing for a seemingly bigger project, he turned to Eisen and asked him something actually pretty basic, so of course, he knew. A Striker is someone, usually an apprentice to the smith at work, who has the task of hitting at arge piece of metal as ording to the smith¡¯s instruction using arge sledgehammer. Usually, this is done because the item is too big, heavy and unhandy for the smith to handle alone. In modern times, the task of a Striker is substituted through a trip hammer, arge and heavy powered hammer that would automatically strike down onto the metal. Even though that¡¯s the case, in Eisen¡¯s younger days, his father still relied on traditional practices rather than modern and had Eisen act as a Striker as soon as he was properly able to urately give a heavy blow with a sledgehammer. But since he can¡¯t just go and say that since Denmir might be suspicious of how this man that supposedly lost his memories knows this, he shook his head and asked Denmir to exin. "It ain¡¯t that hard, old man. We¡¯re makin¡¯ a pretty big greatsword. I was already workin¡¯ on it before you got ¡¯ere and already got the general shape together. I¡¯ll heat it up now and then after I get it out, I¡¯ll just hold it on the anvil. Ye¡¯ll be grabbing that sledgehammer over there, and I¡¯ll tap the spot where I want you to hit with my hammer, got it? All you need to do is strike that exact spot as hard as ye can until I tell ya to stop." [New Quest - cksmith Tutorial] [Description] After requesting Denmir Dimhide to teach you how to cksmith, he told you to act as his striker during the making of a greatsword. Follow his instructions to the best of your abilities. [Reward] cksmith Skill; Experience [Failure] Denmir will refuse to teach you any further [Time Limit - Until Denmir¡¯s patience runs out or the sword is finished] Immediately after Denmir finished his exnation, Eisen got a new quest that seemed simple enough toplete. Then, the dwarf ced a huge, very roughly sword-shaped piece of metal, probably about one and a half meters long and a good 30 centimeters broad, into the forge to heat it up. Eisen immediately noticed that the strength of this man waspletely inhuman, since a piece of metal this size should not be lifted by a man that¡¯s just barely taller than it. After about three to four minutes, the metal¡¯s center began glowing in a bright orange color, showing Denmir and Eisen that it¡¯s the exact right temperature to shape. Quickly, Denmir hurried over to a big anvil, probably the one with the biggest surface area in the whole smithy as far as Eisen could tell, and ced the hot metal on it, holding onto it with his tongs, even getting help from another apprentice to stabilize it. "Nowe ¡¯ere, will ya?" Denmir yelled and Eisen grabbed the sledgehammer behind him excitedly. Slowly, Denmir tapped his hammer onto the hot metal, and Eisen struck the sledgehammer down onto the exact part. He feared that with a body whose speed and strength he wasn¡¯t used to, especially after not working in a smithy for a long time, he would mess up slightly. Sure enough, he did hit slightly off-mark, frustrating him greatly. But since Denmir figured that Eisen couldn¡¯t Strike for him perfectly on his first try, he had him hit an area where small mistakes don¡¯t matter too much. However, while his aim was a little bit off, the metal gave in more after one hit than Eisen was used to. Could that be because this was a game? Eisen may love it, but it can get hard or boring for a novice to strike the same spot for hours on end. Eisen took a deep breath and closed his eyes, concentrating on the sledgehammer in his hands. He felt the weight of it and imagined the wood in his hand connect to the metal at the top. In his mind, the hammer took shape and became an extension of his body. That was when he felt a sudden heat on the inside of his body, the same feeling back when Morrom released his Racial skills. Eisen thought that if he wanted to get back in touch with his tools, he truly had to be one with it. With that thought, the heat in his body continued to spread, and just like before it felt like hot water filling out every part of him. The only difference was that it didn¡¯t stop at his fingertips, but flowed into the sledgehammer he was holding. It was then that something unexpected happened. [You feel your Mana flow through you. +1 WIS] [Tool Connection Skill Learned] [Name - Tool Connection] [Rank - 0][Level - 1] [Description] When connected to a certain tool, it is possible to extract the most out of it, raising one¡¯s effect on the material depending on the strength of the connection. [Effect] Effects will depend on the tool. Inspect connected tool for further information. Eisen grinned broadly at this sudden notification since he seemingly did something right. "Oi, old man, ya gone senile? When did I tell ya ye can stop?" Denmir yelled and kept hitting the same spot with his hammer to get Eisen¡¯s attention. "Sorry, Denmir. I was just in thought." Still smiling brightly at thebined happiness of finally working again together with the skill-unlock, Eisen looked down at the soon-to-be Sword and began striking again. Just this time, he hit at exactly the spot where Denmir wanted him to, as he swiftly, urately and strongly shaped the hot Iron. After about twenty minutes, the mass of Iron turned into even more of a sword-shape, albeit a very simple one. It¡¯s what one would expect when thinking of a sword. The center-part was the thickest, and it nted down at the sides where the edge would be. The main-part waspletely parallel, while the tip came together in a slight, thin pyramid shape. Because of the work-efficiency, the Sword was ready to be finished after only an hour, much quicker than Denmir expected. He carried the sword over to arge tub filled with water and cooled the still hot sword down cool enough to be handled by hand. "Doyle, get Brouman and have ¡¯im help ya with the finishin¡¯. Ye know the drill; first grind the edge properly and then polish it." Denmir told Doyle, the apprentice that helped stabilize the greatsword. After that, he turned back to Eisen and crossed his arms, frowning at the old man. "Alright, and now ye¡¯re gonna tell me what you did with that sledgehammer." Eisen responded by scratching his beard and closing his eyes to think. "Ah, do you mean the connection thing? After my first strike missed, I simply felt frustrated and wanted to do it right after that. So I concentrated on making the sledgehammer part of my body and got a new skill." He exined simply. Hearing Eisen says this, Denmir ripped his eyes open and stared at him in disbelief. "Ye¡¯re telling me that ya got the Tool Connection skill just from that?" He asked as a hint of curiosity entered his eyes. "Yeah, is it not supposed to be that easy?" Eisen asked confused and the Dwarf in front of him simply sighed and shook his head. "No, no it isn¡¯t! I spent a whole week trying to connect with the hammer I had used every single day for a whole year! And ye can just stand there and do it in a few seconds?!" Denmir yelled out in a mix of anger and excitement. "Seems like yer soul still remembers what ye¡¯ve been doin¡¯ your whole life. I never expected to be able to teach cksmithing to someone who was obviously a master in the past, haha!" With a loudugh, Denmir showed the first smile that Eisen had seen from him until then, and the Quest was finished. [Quest Sessful - cksmith Tutorial] [Description] After requesting Denmir Dimhide to teach you how to cksmith, he told you to act as his striker during the making of a greatsword. Follow his instructions to the best of your abilities. [Reward] cksmith Skill; Experience [Failure] Denmir will refuse to teach you any further [Time Limit - Until Denmir¡¯s patience runs out or the sword is finished] [Bonus] Significant rise in Reputation with Denmir Dimhide; Unlimited ess to Dwarf¡¯s Delight¡¯s Smithy; Bonus Experience; ss Change Opportunity [You have earned 500 Experience] [You are now Level 4] [cksmith Skill Learned] Chapter 8 First Items "Alright, listen ¡¯ere, old-timer. Ye¡¯re obviously a great smith, even if yer skills don¡¯t say so. What do ya say about workin¡¯ as one?" It is possible to change your upation to cksmith. Do you ept? After the first onught of system messages telling Eisen about his sessful quest as well as his rewards, Denmir immediately caused another one to appear in front of him before Eisen was even able toprehend what he read a few seconds beforehand. He began scratching his beard and closed his eyes in order to think. Did he want to be a cksmith right off the bat? Sure, it¡¯s something he would probably be doing a lot of in the future, but wouldn¡¯t choosing this as his upation limit him significantly? After all, he wasn¡¯t just nning to smith around all day, he also wanted to learn tailoring or leatherworking, and when he heard about it through a conversation with the other Originals, he also decided to learn about Alchemy. And to Eisen, it felt like he wouldn¡¯t be able to fully explore those other areas in this game if he was to choose his upation to be a cksmith right now. Thus, his choice was clear. "Sorry, Denmir. I will not be a cksmith, at least not yet. I first want to find out if there are other things I¡¯m supposed to do before I make such an important choice." He exined, causing Denmir to sigh out loudly as he shook his head. "I get it, old man. There¡¯re many things for ya to explore. If ye ever decide ye want to be a cksmith, after all, ya know where to find me. Now, what do ya want to do?" The Dwarf asked and looked up at the man in front of him, who twisted his head to look around the smithy. "Hmm, if you don¡¯t mind, I would love to try myself at working on some weapons to level the skill up." Immediately, Denmir nodded and pointed to the other side of the smithy to a smaller, unupied forge. "Of course! Go ahead! I¡¯lle take a look every once in a while at what ye¡¯re makin¡¯, and you¡¯re free to ask the apprentices for help as well. The door to the warehouse will be directly next to ya. The stuff ye can use is in the front, the materials in the back are for higher ranks. Right now ye can only really work with normal, base Iron. If ye make something ya wanna keep, pay for the materials, other than that it¡¯s the best idea to melt it in again. That actually also gives ya experience for the skill." Denmir led Eisen through the smithy to the forge he was talking about and brought him some materials to start off with as well as tools to use. "Now, have fun workin¡¯, old-timer." The dwarfughed and Eisen smirked happily. After being left alone, he decided to invest the fifteen points from leveling up first, splitting them amongst Strength, Endurance and Agility. He decided to first strengthen his physical stats over his ¡¯spiritual¡¯ ones like Intelligence or Wisdom, since to him it was most important to get his body to the strength he was used to from real life so that he could work properly. Then, his status looked like this. [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - None][Level - 4] [HP - 180][MP - 140] [STR - 15][END - 15][AGI - 15][INT - 10][WIS - 11] [Titles] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Appraisal][Rank - 0][Level - 99] -[cksmithing][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 0][Level - 3] Eisen happily looked through his stats and skills, nodding with a bright smile on his face as he walked over to the bellow behind the forge, slowly starting to pump air into the coals using it. Once the forge was heated up enough to work with, he went around and threw one of the smaller ingots that Denmir prepared into it. Since what he was nning to make was a simple knife, he really only needed one of them, and not even an especially big one. It was better to practice with small items at first before moving ontorger ones. And these would melt down again more easily, so he could restart quicker. Eisen waited for a few more minutes until the ingot started shining a bright orange and then grabbed a pair of tongs to pick it up. He carried it over to the nearest anvil and ced it down, always steadily holding the ingot. He grabbed the hammer lying next to him and began slowly and steadily hammering onto the iron. He could immediately notice a difference to before. His hand movements were far more steady and urate as when he was working on the greatsword using the sledgehammer, even without using Tool Connection. The metal dented under Eisen¡¯s impact as he drew it out in length by reducing its thickness. Every time his hammer connected with the hot metal it got a little bit thinner. After the soon-to-be knife was in appropriate dimensions, Eisen started to thin out the side where the edge wouldter be to minimize the amount of ground he would need to do. Once the edge was formed, Eisen turned the knife around and formed a handle by upsetting a small part of the metal. The process of upsetting is to simply widen a piece of metal by shortening another. Thus, by hitting his hammer against edge-part, Eisen was able to form a square handle. Since the basic knife shape was now done, Eisen began to lightly hammer against the t sides of the knife to get rid of uneven parts that were caused by hisck of experience with the system. Sighing out loud, Eisen brought the knife over to the water-tank standing near him and dipped the hot knife into it. Immediately he heard loud hissing as the metal was cooled down instantly. He took the knife out of the water and brought it back toy it down on the anvil. After confirming that the metal could now be handled by hand, Eisen grabbed some files to work on finishing it. He would have liked to add more steps into it, like tempering the metal afterward, but for right now he would take the filing as ast step and melt the knife back down. Starting with a rough grit, Eisen evened up the rest of uneven spots that were still left and got onto roughly filing the proper edge onto the knife. Then, with slightly finer gritted files each time, he repeated the same progress until the t side waspletely uniform and the edge sharp enough to cut something. As thest step, for now, he polished the metal atst, finishing the de. [You created a Simple Knife] [Simple Knife] [Quality - Average][Rank - 0] [Description] A simple iron knife created by a smith who knew how to handle his hammer, but due to the minimal grade of the cksmithing skill and the steps that have been skipped, the qualitycks to what it should have been. "Damn it... This really was not good. I really should have done better..." Frustrated at the low quality of the Knife, Eisen looked at his finished product and frowned as he picked it up. It¡¯s been decades since he made something with such low quality. He stomped over to an unupied foundry to melt down the knife and form it into a new ingot. Once he noticed that Eisen finished his first item, Denmir walked over to ask how his attempt went and looked at the small knife in the old man¡¯s hand. "Hmm, it¡¯s definitely better than what anyone else in this smithy made on their first try. Including me. Don¡¯t be too harsh on yerself, old-timer." Denmir¡¯s words slightly helped with Eisen¡¯s mood, but he was still far from happy. He would continue making knives of simr quality to level up his cksmithing skill, and then once Eisen notices a considerable difference to before, he would go all in. He would prove to himself and everyone else that he was still capable of making great things with his two hands. --- For basically the next five hours, without taking a single break, Eisen continued on making the same knife over and over again. There were small, marginal improvements he could notice the higher his cksmith level rose, but the first real difference came when its level reached 100. cksmithing reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1 It is now possible to work with Steel Due to Ranking-up your cksmithing Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END At that time, he first got to know what ranks actually meant. Every time he reached level 100 with a skill, it would rank-up and unlock new abilities or grow in strength. And he would even get stats rted to the skill! He figured the same would be the case with items, and managed to confirm it once he made his first Rank 1 Knife. Even though its quality rating was only average, and the highest Rank 0 quality rating he got was perfect, the actual quality of the item was many times greater than what he managed to do before. It was then that Eisen decided to finish his day of smithing with an actually high-quality knife. Since he was now able to work with steel, and didn¡¯t have to use Iron anymore which was considerably softer than steel, he went and grabbed a small steel ingot from the storage and left thest knife he had molten down as an iron ingot back in the shelves. He ced the steel ingot into the forge and waited for it to heat up. While the metal¡¯s temperature was growing higher and higher, Eisen grabbed the hammer he was working with all day and used his Tool Connection skill on it. Once he finished this, he grabbed the now orange-glowing ingot out of the forge and ced it on the anvil. Using his hammer, he first followed the same routine he had been all day. Eisen ttened and lengthened the steel, and was immediately pleasantly surprised when this metal resisted to give in way more than the iron did since this was much more like what he was used to. He formed the de to a point in the front and then began upsetting the steel to form a handle. This time, however, it would be the same thickness as the rest of the knife, and not thicker since he was going to add an actual wooden handle at the end of the finishing process. Eisen continued and instead of making the knife thinner at the part of the edge, kept the whole piece of metalpletely uniform in thickness. Now, the shape of the knife was finished and Eisenid the knife down to led it air-cool. During the making of the other knives, he noticed that hot metal air-cooled down much quicker than it usually did in real life. It would mostly stay the same heat when you¡¯re handling it, but if youy it down it would be cool enough to handle barehanded in about 20 to 30 minutes. Taking that time, Eisen took his first real break of the day and ate something. While Denmirmended him for being somitted to getting better, he also told Eisen that it¡¯s not a good idea to not take care of yourself, since a healthy cksmith leads to a healthy weapon. Whatever that meant. After the de air-cooled, Eisen got to the first filing. He took the knife and roughly evened it up, even though that was not really necessary anymore, and made sure that the Knife¡¯s outer appearance was as good as it could be. Then, he went back to the forge and heated the de up once more until it was glowing and then brought it to the tub of water to cool it back down. Although, he only held the part that would be the edge into the water. The reason for this is that this would make the edge harder while leaving the back flexible, and this generally helps with the durability of a de. He set the overall still-hot de down on his anvil and grabbed a few bricks, building a small box, that was only big enough for the knife to fit into, onto the ground. He then took a shovel and put some of the lower-temperature coals into it. Eisen then ced the knife into the box, on another brick so that it wouldn¡¯t directly touch the coals, and covered the top of it so that it would continue to be at a heat of about 150¡ãC for a while and not lose too much heat. This was done so that Eisen could temper the de, making it significantly harder and more durable in the end. After about two hours, Eisen would be able to get the tempered de out of the box, so that he would only need thest finishing touches. Taking that time, he went over to a different part of the workshop where some of the apprentices were working on wooden handles for the weapons they forged that day. Since he already measured the exact size he would need the handle to be to fit, Eisen grabbed a piece of wood, a material he didn¡¯t recognize, and decided to make a handle out of it. The wood was a dark color and rtively hard. From what he could tell, it would probably end up looking amazing once properly shaped. Eisen began carving the wood into proper shape so that it would sit nicely in his hand when the knife was finished, and then cut it into two halves so that he could ce them over the bare metalter. After confirming that the two pieces fit nicely together, he carved out a small part of the wooden halves¡¯ center so that they would snugly fit. Since it only took him an hour to do this, Eisen spent thest hour talking to Denmir about different methods of forging that are best for different kinds of weapons and materials. Eisen was specifically interested in higher rank materials that he saw in the warehouse before. Once thest hour was over, Eisen removed the top of the brick-box and removed the tempered de with his tongs. He waited until the de could be hand-held again and then went to the other part of the workshop again and got to attaching his handle. While he was talking to Denmir, he also asked about the strength of the glue, and since it seemed to be a special glue made of a mixture of different naturally-adhesive nts, Denmir advised Eisen to only use a small amount since that was all that was necessary. Thus, Eisen put a little bit of the glue on each of the wooden halves and ced them around the metal-handle. He bound both halves together with a few strings while the glue dried, and after a few minutes, it was ready to be finished. Atst, Eisen began to sharpen the knife with multiple sharp files until the edge was sharp enough to already cut things, but Eisen still took it to thest step and finally sharpened the knife with a whetstone. When he looked at the final notification, Eisen grinned broadly at what he just made. [You created a High-Quality Knife] [High-Quality Knife] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] An extremely high-Quality Steel Knife created by the cksmith Eisen. Due to his great abilities, he overcame the limitations of the cksmithing skill and reached a higher rank than normally possible, and even then perfected it. [Effect]+5 AGI, +2 STR [For creating an item of overwhelming quality, you gain +1 STR and +1 END] [You overcame the limits of your skills. Limitbreaker Title gained] [Title - Limitbreaker] [Description] By Breaking the limits of your skills, you showed the world what you are [Effect] +1 to all basic stats Chapter 9 Worries Eisen stood there with the knife in his hands, reading through the number of notifications he got for itspletion. Although he had suspicions about this, only now was he able to actually confirm. When ites to production-type skills, the highest Rank an item you create can have corresponds to your Skill¡¯s Rank. This fact made Eisen even happer when he considered that his skills were greater than what the developers hoped or nned for. And due to the item¡¯s rank being higher than his skill¡¯s, his cksmith level rose by a whole 14 in one go! Of course, he was incredibly happy about the free stats he earned as well, since this worked toward the quest he got from that weird cat the night before. While he was standing there, thinking about what to make next, Denmir came over to him onest time for the day before closing the smithy. "Eh, old-timer, what did ya make right there? You been working yer ass of for that it seems." The smiling dwarf walked over to Eisen, who quickly handed the knife to him so that he could look over it. Just then, he ripped his eyes open in surprise. "H-Hey, old-timer... Ya reached rank two in a single day?" He asked, full well knowing the quality and amount of knives he made before. If Eisen didn¡¯t have some kind of skill that heightened his proficiency-gain, it would be impossible to reach rank two in cksmithing with just that. But when Eisen shook his head with a soft smile, Denmir only ripped his eyes open further. "B-But... ye gotta be fucking kiddin¡¯ me! Ye¡¯re a Limitbreaker!" He yelled out inplete and utter shock. This got the attention of the rest of the Smiths working in there as well as the apprentices. Confused and in disbelief, they walked over to Denmir and Eisen, forming a small circle around them immediately. "Listen ¡¯ere, old-timer, ye¡¯re a fuckin¡¯ genius. Ye were obviously a Master amongst masters in yer past ten lifes! Please, I beg ya, work as a Smith. Ye don¡¯t even have ta work here, just work as one!" [It is possible to change your upation to Master cksmith. Do you ept?] Eagerly, everyone in the smithy was dead-silent, waiting for Eisen¡¯s answer. This is something every single one of these these men had been waiting for the moment they stepped into this room for the first time. To be able to be a Master cksmith after being acknowledged by Grandmaster cksmith Denmir Dimhide. That¡¯s exactly why nobody knew what to say when Eisen next opened his mouth. "Sorry, Denmir, but how I exined before, it is too early for me to make such an important choice. I haven¡¯t even tried working in other professions yet. But you don¡¯t have to worry, I will probably never in my life stop cksmithing." While frustrated to hear that Eisen will not ept bing a cksmith just yet, Denmir was happy that he still had such an outlook on the profession. "I understand, old-timer... Just so ya know, if ye ever need my help in the slighest, just ask." [Your Reputation with Denmir Dimhide has risen significantly] "And what are all of ya gawking at ¡¯ere? Get out already, get out! Ye don¡¯t have any work left!" Atst, Denmir turned to the rest of the smiths and apprentices, shooing them away. Eisen followed the group of men exiting the shop with a smile on his face, and the knife in his hand. Right now he may not have any use for it, but he specifically made it with one thing in mind: Cooking. He would continue cksmithing for a while until satisfied, and then continue on to other professions, amongst which cooking may be. Thus, he would now create things he would most likely need in the future. Like sowing-needles, carving knives and of course weapons. The reason why he wasn¡¯t just buying the items he needed in stores, was that he noticed one thing. The effect of Tool Connection was far stronger for items Eisen created himselfpared to ones he had just seen for the first time. At the beginning there may be no difference between either of those options, but ording to Denmir it made an immense difference in theter ranks of connectivity with the items. Amongst the bonuses it gives are higher damage, better control, and when used to create other items, apparently even a higher probability of getting a high rating for the item. And maybe even more beyond that. But since the highest connectivity rank that Denmir achieved was rank 7, and usually especially the ranks 8 to 10 would give amazing new abilities when it came to anything ranked, he wasn¡¯t able to tell Eisen everything he wanted to know. "Goodnight, Denmir. I¡¯ll see you tomorrow then." Eisen smiled softly as he began walking up the spiraling streets of Melroe. He went back to the Inn he stayed at the night before and walked up to the front-desk. "Ah, hello again. You want to stay for another night?" The Dwarven Innkeeper asked when he noticed Eisen walk in. "Yes, that would be great." Eisen answered with a smile and dropped the fee for one night¡¯s stay onto the desk. The Innkeeper turned around and grabbed one of the keys, the one belonging to the same room Eisen stayed inst night, and handed it over to him. "Have a nice stay." He answered. It seemed to Eisen that he was in a considerably worse mood than yesterday. Maybe it had something to do with the cat. From what Eisen could tell, itpletely disappeared after his dreamst night. Well, Cat, or whatever that thing actually was. Eisen didn¡¯t think about it too much, since he would find out in an in-game month anyway. Before deciding that he would log off for the day soon, Eisen sat down at a table in the restaurant, and immediately a waitress walked up, a different onepared to yesterday. She was still a beautiful young girl, but in this case, young truly meant young. She looked to be only about ten or eleven years old and had her bright pink hair tied into twintails. At first, Eisen thought that she was an elf, because she had pointy ears, but this girl¡¯s were different to what normal elves seemed to have as ears. While an Elf¡¯s ears were still mostly the same size as a human¡¯s, the ears of this waitress were maybe two to three times longer than normal, as if one took an ear and stretched it out. When he imagined this happening, Eisen couldn¡¯t help butugh slightly, although he tried his best to hide it from the young girl. "Ehh~? What are youughing at~? I like funny things!" She eximed with a bright smile, causing Eisen tough even more. The way she acted was a lot like someone else he had not seen in a while. "Don¡¯t worry about it, youngdy, you just reminded me of someone I know." Eisen answered, scratching his beard with a grin. In response, the girl tilted her head confused. "Oh? Ah, I totally forgot! Sorry! What would you like to eat, dear customer~?" She asked cutely and took out a small notepad and eagerly waited for Eisen¡¯s order. Since he liked the dish he had yesterday with Morrom, he decided to order the same again. Ankheg filet with roasted potatoes and beans, as well as a light vegetable soup. "Okie dokie~. It¡¯s gonna be here soon~!" The Waitress answered gleefully and nearly literally skipped away. After only about 10 minutes, she brought him the dish, and he quickly enjoyed the meal. Eisen tipped the girl liberally and made his way upstairs to his room, to fall asleep and log out. --- "Argh, my back hurts so much... I¡¯m really fucking old, huh?" Benjamin swore out loud when trying to step out of the capsule. He wasying down for a constant 12 hours, which seemed a lot longer through time dition, after all. He slowly stepped toward the Kitchen and poured himself a ss of water, grabbing the container filled with his medication lying next to the sink. It was pretty much right about then that his phone rang. "Oh just shut up, I¡¯m nearly there!" He yelled at the phone as if it could hear him while he was slowly walking up to it. He picked it up and was immediately met with a scream. "Dad! Are you okay? I was trying to reach you all day!" Benjamin¡¯s daughter yelled, worry deep in her voice. Benjamin sighed loudly and began tough a little bit. "Yes, Melody, I¡¯m fine. I told you I was going to y the game today." "Yes, but does that mean you can¡¯t answer the phone? Even Tony¡¯s Kid answers texts while sitting in front of theputer!" Melody exined, her worry slowly turning into frustration. "Melody, you¡¯re about half my age, how can I know more about technology than you do?" "What¡¯s that supposed to mean? Just get off your old butt and answer the phone sometime, Dad!" "I literally can¡¯t hear it, since I am not conscious while ying. Just wait a while, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll understand when there¡¯s stuff in the news about it." "What do you mean you¡¯re not conscious? Dad, is that some kind of eastern meditation thing?" Worried, Melody asked what her father was talking about, who once more just sighed. "No, Melody, it¡¯s not. I tried exining it to you so many times. When you¡¯re at the east-coast again next time, I¡¯ll show it to you, until then don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m 70 years old, I know what I¡¯m doing. So why did you call anyway?" From across the phone, Benjaming could hear Melody click her tongue before she responded. "I just wanted to check on you, can¡¯t I do that?" "Of course you can, honey. But I don¡¯t need you to call me to see if I¡¯m alright every single day." "I¡¯m just worried, Dad! You know exactly that you can¡¯t handle yourself like you used to! You can¡¯t even use your arm anymore!" Even though this statement annoyed him greatly considering the actual circumstances, Benjamin simply sighed and stayed as calm as he could. "Melody, it¡¯s not like that, and you know it. Listen, I¡¯ve got to go, I¡¯m pretty tired. I¡¯ll call you sometime tomorrow, okay?" "Yes, but please actually do! And don¡¯t forget because you¡¯re ying your game!" "Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t. Goodnight, honey." "Goodnight, Dad." Benjamin hung up the phone and looked at his right hand. His skin was covered in burn marks and surgical scars, and he felt a sharp pain when he formed a fist. He decided to eat something in real life, and then spend the night continuing to y, since his body was in a sleep-like state when he would enter the virtual world. --- "Good morning, Denmir!" Eisen eximed first thing in the morning, waiting for someone to open the shop. When he was feeling frustration after talking to Melody, the only thing he could think of was to return and continue swinging his hammer. The Dwarf looked up at Eisen and released a soft smile, "Ah, ya seem pretty enthusiastic this morning, eh old-timer?" Eisen simply nodded and entered the smithy together with Denmir. "So, ya need any help, or can I leave ya to do yer own thing?" "I¡¯m fine for now, I¡¯ll tell you if I need your help." With a bright smile, Eisen immediately went to the Storage room and grabbed arge steel ingot. Today, he was going to make himself a hammer, one that would be a lot more fitted to his body type. While the Hammer he was using the day before was alright to use, he still prefered a hammer that was perfectly fitted to him. While thinking about the steps before him, Eisen grabbed the hot ingot using a pair of tongs and began swinging his current hammer against his soon-to-be hammer, feeling the vibrations move through the metal and into his arm. This was a feeling he would never want to miss. Chapter 10 Tools Eisen looked down into his hands at the hammer he was holding. It took a few hours to create, most of which was the tempering process, but the final item was something Eisen was truly happy with. [High-Quality Cross-Peen Hammer] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description]An extremely high-Quality Hammer created by the cksmith Eisen. Due to the quality and hardness, even high-tier metals can be forged without issues. [Effect]+4 STR, +4 END It truly wasn¡¯t very hard to create the hammer, and it went significantly faster than the knife the day before. In the beginning, he had the cylindrical ingot and first punched a hole through it so that it would be easier to handle during the rest of the forging and so that he could insert the wooden handle easily as well. After the hole wentpletely through the ingot, Eisen inserted a square metal staff and set the ingot down on the anvil, so that the staff would basically be parallel to the anvil¡¯s surface, and began tting the center area of the top and bottom surfaces. Following this, he thinned out the area between the center area and the two end. He punched two parts off one of the ends and formed it into a wedge shape. Eisen then proceeded by cooling the hot steel in a tub of water, followed by tempering it in the same brick-box as he built yesterday While he was then heading to the workshop to start working on the handle, he was thinking about whether or not it would be a good idea to advise Denmir to get some kind of oven specifically meant for tempering. As far as he noticed, none of them did anything like Eisen and didn¡¯t attempt tempering at all. Why the developers chose to leave it out of general cksmithing practices of NPCs was unknown to him, but Eisen guessed that they wanted to somehow give yers that do the effort to learn about actual cksmithing an advantage. He would need to find out if that was the case for other crafts as well, although they aren¡¯t necessarily asplicated and include as many techniques as cksmithing does, so he really wasn¡¯t sure. He made the handle for the hammer out of the same material as for the knife, to kind of get a theme going. Eisen looked at the hammer in his hands and felt its weight. Compared to the hammer he was using before, this one seemed to be absolutely perfect for him, as his hand fit perfectly around the handle and even without using Tool Connection, it felt like the hammer was part of his body. Exactly because of that, Eisen felt like Tool Connection would have a great effect. He concentrated and closed his eyes, feeling this foreign energy, Mana, spread from inside his body into the Hammer. When he felt that the skill activated, he opened the item information and looked at the line disyed at the end. [Connection] Rank 1 (4%) He was surprised and happy about the connection ranking at the same time. Until now, the immediate connection was always only in the rank 0 territory, and apparently, his skill level also increased by 5 levels at once. "Ah, old-timer. Ye made a hammer for yerself, eh? At least ye didn¡¯t lose your Dwarf¡¯s spirit when ye lost yer memories, hahaha!" While Eisen was looking down at his tool, Denmir walked up behind him and eyed the hammer with curiosity. However, since he had work to do himself, the dwarf decided to walk off to his own forge on the other side of the room, but before he managed to walk more than two or three steps, Eisen stopped him. "What do you mean? I just made this for convenience. The hammers you have here feel slightly... off." Denmir crossed his arms and nodded his head, "Of course they do! The tools I let ya and my apprentices use are all made by me. Whenever someone creates a tool of any kind, no matter the quality or how much it actually fits to ¡¯em, that item will feel more perfect than anything someone else can give them. And what I meant... It¡¯s a tradition for Dwarves to make their own tools when they stop bein¡¯ an apprentice. Many simply stopped doin¡¯ that, but here at the Dwarf¡¯s Delight, I still have my apprentices do it. And ye obviously earned the right for it, old-timer!" The Dwarf exined with a happy grin on his face, and then turned and left to get to his work. d that he found out a little bit of history behind Dwarves, Eisen brought back the hammer he had been using until now and leaned against the wall to think about his next step. There weren¡¯t that many basic tools he would need that he could think of. Leatherworking and tailoring mainly needed two tools. A thin, sharp knife to cut the material as well as needles. He could use the knife he made the day before, but he decided he should make a new one for two reasons. First, cutting materials like leather or fabric tend to dull knives quickly. Second, Eisen felt like using an item for one purpose had some kind of effect. And not only in the game but in real life as well. Even if he wasn¡¯t working in a smithy for months at a time when traveling around the world, the moment he picked up his hammer, it felt like not even a second passed since thest time, and it seemed as if all he ever did during every second of his life was swing his hammer. But then he could pick up the Knife he would use for cooking every night, and it seemed like he never did anything else. To Eisen, having a tool for everything gave them a purpose, a reason to be there. And who doesn¡¯t want that? So even if it would end up being an exact duplicate of the Knife he created yesterday, he decided to make a new one. And besides Leatherwork and Tailoring, Eisen decided to make some other tools as well. Since he was the Original of the Mechanical Arts, he would need to be capable in seven categories. Tailoring, Agriculture, Masonry, Hunting, Trade, Cooking and cksmithing. Thus, he still needed tools for Agriculture and Hunting, since Masonry and Trade didn¡¯t really require any specific tools. Eisen decided that he would first create something for tailoring. He would need something that he can either easily make inrge batches or something that wouldn¡¯t dull easily. However, since the hardest and resilient material he had ess to was steel, the first option was the better of the two until he can use higher-tier metals. After thinking for a while, he decided to create an exacto knife with exchangeable des. Although this would create the problem of needing to manually make des that would have to be practically identical to each other. Before he started worrying about that too much, though, he simply got to work. He chose to give the knife a wooden base with steel des, as well as a small wooden container to properly store the des if he needed them in the future since he couldn¡¯t have them lying loosely in his pocket. Eisen retrieved a few small pieces of steel from the storage and ced them inside one of the foundries. While the steel was melting down, he grabbed a cast made specifically to create thin sheets of metal. After pouring the molten steel into the cast, and waiting for it to cool down a little bit, Eisen began punching small triangles not bigger than his distal phnx, the part of his finger furthest from his palm, out of the sheet with the help of a thin chisel. He got as many as he could out of the small sheet, which ended up amounting to 50, a number that shouldst him a while. Once the des were shaped, he quickly ced them into water to cool them all, and ced them away to temper, although for only one hour instead of two. When the des were tempering, Eisen once more got to carving the handle. He simply made a thin stick that wouldy in his handfortable, shaped so that he had a good grip on it no matter what he wanted to do. In the front, he added a thin slit for the des to slide into and took some time to create a small ¡¯lock¡¯ that would keep the de in ce. Since he still had time left before the tempering would be over, Eisen grabbed two small blocks of wood, one just a few centimeters wider into each dimension than the other. He cut off a thin sheet off the bigger of the two blocks and emptied the rest out, making it a hollow cube with one side left open, so that the smaller could fit perfectly inside. He then cut the smaller block into five three-centimeter thick sheets, carving small fittings the size and shape of the des into each one so that he could ce about ten of them into each sheet. Then, he carved a little ledge into each sheet so that he could pull them out easily. Before he could finish off the box, he went and grabbed the des so that they wouldn¡¯t be in there too long, and let them air cool for a short bit. Eisen just quickly went to one of the finest grinding stones and made sure the des had as sharp an edge as possible. He got a fewpletion notifications but waited to read them through until all were finished, and he put the first de into the handle. [Small Knife with exchangeable de] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description]A sharp knife created to cut fabrics and leather. The de is exchangeable. [Small de] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description]A small de to be inserted into a grip. Doesn¡¯tst long, but cuts sharp. Eisen looked at the notifications and nodded. He hadn¡¯t expected this item to be a rank 2 as well since these were just des meant to be thrown away at some point, and he only punched them out of a basic sheet, which didn¡¯t require much effort. Lastly, Eisen ced his attention back onto the box, and finally put the sheet he cut off the bigger block earlier back onto the box using some rough wooden hinges and another small lock. Just when he ced the small box down and looked at it, he got a surprising notification. [You created a Small Storage Box] [Woodworking Skill learned] "Oh? But I didn¡¯t get that skill from simply making the handles... Is it because I made them for an item connected to cksmithing?" Eisen wondered and grabbed the box, twisting it around a little bit. Sure, it was alright when considering he made it in just about half an hour, but he also didn¡¯t really put any effort into it. He knew he could do better, but at the moment that wasn¡¯t his priority, but he still inspected the item¡¯s description curiously. [Small Storage Box] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description]A small box meant to hold a number of the same item. [Storable] Small de [Capacity]50 Eisen was greatly satisfied, even though the quality was low since he didn¡¯t even expect this to count as an independent item. He was even happier after thinking about what he could do with his new Woodworking skill. Slowly, he ced all the des into the box and then put it into his pocket, so that he can start his next project. The next thing he would now make are needles he would need for sowing at some point. For whatever reason, Eisen always had the habit of losing his needles or bending them in some unnatural way, so he thought he better make more than one. Eisen grabbed a small ingot of steel and ced it into the forge. Once it began glowing a bright orange, he took the ingot out and chipped a little piece off of it. Carefully, he slowly formed it into the shape of a needle by giving it many light but precise blows. Lastly, he took a small sharp chisel and created a small hole at one of the ends. Eisen repeated this until he had 20 needles finished. It wasn¡¯t a hard process, just annoying to go through since it took some time and it was hard to handle the small, hot piece of metal. Again, Eisen ced the needles into the brick box to temper them and went to the workshop to make something that can hold them while he doesn¡¯t need them. And after about 30 minutes, the box and the needles were finished. [Sewing Needle] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description] A simple sewing needle. [Small Storage Box] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description]A small box meant to hold a number of the same item. [Storable] Sewing Needle [Capacity] 25 Chapter 11 Mana Just like the day before, Eisen left the smithy together with Denmir while talking about this and that. "I¡¯ll see ya tomorrow, old-timer." The Dwarf waved at Eisen while he was walking away, back up the slope with his new items. He couldn¡¯t just leave them lying around somewhere, but it was also a hassle to carry them with him all the time. Thus, he decided on two things. First, Eisen would create a weapon tomorrow as well as a small box for his Cooking Knife so that it wouldn¡¯t be just loosely lying in his pocket or cut up his pants¡¯ fabric. Second, after creating the weapon he would go on to learn Tailoring and hopefully manage to create a simple bag the same day, and maybe some clothes as well. Sure, the ones he was wearing at the time fit him perfectly, but because of the fabric they were made of were pretty ufortable in the long run. Not to speak of the fact that he has been wearing them for about three in-game days now. And because of the game¡¯s realism, they were slowly getting dirtier and dirtier. Whatever the case may be, for now, Eisen decided to meet with Morrom and see how he was doing, and maybe ask him where he could find Belrim to also thank him for being such a big help when he first arrived in Melroe. Eisen made his way to Everything Magic, Morrom¡¯s Magic-rted shop, and stepped through the door. "Hey, Morrom! Are you here?" Eisen yelled when he noticed the store¡¯s front was empty and walked over to the door leading to the back. Before he could even open it, the door opened on its own and a young man with messy ck hair stepped through. Morrom was wearing some kind of goggles and it and his face were covered in pitch-ck soot. "Yeah? Did something happen?" He asked, turning his head to look around, "Eh? Did I work until the middle of the night again? Why¡¯s it so dark?" Eisen sighed out loud and looked down at Morrom. "No, Morrom, it¡¯s still day. The sun is setting, but it¡¯s still day." "Huh? Eisen? Wait, if it¡¯s not night... did I go blind through my experiments?! Not again!" "Morrom, your goggles are dirty. Just take them off. Also... Again?" Completely ignoring Eisen¡¯s question, Morrom stopped moving as if petrified and his face flushed a deep red. Slowly, he raised his hands and pulled the goggles off his face, hanging them around his neck. "S-Sorry. Well, Eisen, nice to see you again! What brings you here?" Morrom asked, slowly wiping the soot off his face. In response, Eisen scratched his beard and smiled, "Well, there¡¯s one reason. For now, how I told you the other day, I just want to learn different crafts, but after that, I wanted to see if I could learn magic rted things. You seem to be selling a lot of different items made with it, right?" "Ah, of course! How the name of my shop implies, I¡¯m selling pretty much every type of item that has to do with magic. I enchant items, make alchemical potions, and also try to see how I can implement direct magic into items. That¡¯s actually what I was just doing... I... kinda lost control when trying to implement the explosive qualities of a fireball into an arrowhead..." Eisen widened his eyes in surprise, already thinking of what could be possible whenbining magic with items. "Sounds interesting... If you don¡¯t mind, I would like you to show me how to do those things in a few days, maybe in a week?" The Half-Dwarf Half-Elf simply nodded with a smile on his face, "Of course! Seems like fun finally having someone with me here! There are not that many people in this town that are interested in Magic as much as I am... Heh..." Morrom chuckled softly and scratched the back of his head, his smile widening, and then looks back up at Eisen, "But do you know how to use Mana already?" Eisen simply shook his head, "No, and that¡¯s why I came a week in advance. I wanted to see if you have something for me to read up on? Crafting is in my body, and I just know how to use it, but this mana just seems too foreign. I would like to practice a bit beforehand." With a smirk, Morrom¡¯s ears begin to twitch back and forth a slight bit and he moved forward toward one of the bookshelves standing at the side of the room. He looked through a few of them and shook his head until he pulled one of them out and brought it out to Eisen. The book was neatly leatherbound and grandly decorated with golden stitches running across it like a frame. After blowing some dust off of it in a very clich¨¦ way, Morrom began exining. "This is a book that exins the process of Mana Maniption, as well as a bunch of basic training methods. It would be easier to teach you by showing you, but since you don¡¯t seem to have the time for that, this is your best bet for now." Eisen nodded his head and grabbed the book, flipping through it. On a few pages there seemed to be illustrations, although most of it was written text. "Thank you, Morrom! This will be a great help! Do you want to go for Dinner at the Inn again?" Eisen asked with a smile, but Morrom only shook his head. "Sorry, I would love to, but I need to continue my work for now. The only way I can run this ce is through investors at the moment, and if I don¡¯t regrly show them new creations they¡¯ll stop funding me. So I need to finish that exploding arrow, or else I¡¯m done for. I¡¯ll tell you when I have time, and this time it¡¯s on me!" "Haha, I like the way you think!" Eisenughed loudly and pped Morrom on the back. "I guess I¡¯ll leave now then so you can continue working. Ah, do you know where I can meet Belrim?" "Hmm... usually, around this time he¡¯s down at the mine, working the night shift. You might meet him at a bar in the morning. Usually, he goes to the one in your Inn." "Thank you! I¡¯ll see you around!" With a smile, Eisen stepped out of the shop and decided to make his way to the Inn so that he can begin reading up on Mana Maniption. After eating Dinner, he paid for his room and made his way up there. Eisen ced his Storage boxes, Knife, coin-bag, as well as the introduction booklet he got from Ari onto the nightstand and sat down on the bed with his new book. Eisen flipped it open onto the first page and immediately began reading. The Introduction mainly exined what mana actually is, and how important it is for any living being¡¯s body. Since this was pretty simr to the concept of, for example, Ki, which Eisen learned about while traveling Asia, he understood this easily. ording to this book, Mana can also be described as ¡¯Life Force¡¯, something that flows within anyone¡¯s body as if it was their blood. Since mana is a type of energy, it can be expulsed from one¡¯s body, potentially creating the phenomenon called Magic. However, if one wanted to do this, they had to have control over their mana, which is not something easy to do. The rest of the introduction spoke about famous Magicians of the past, especially about the first person that discovered magic, although they were mentioned as ifmon knowledge, so Eisen couldn¡¯t really find out many details about them. Thus, he simply moved on. The first real chapter exined how someone should feel the Mana within them. It was described as hot energy filling out their whole body at times, while at other times it was focused onto a single spot, moving along with the flow of someone¡¯s energy. After Morrom used magic on his body, he kept feeling this energy all the time, so he wasn¡¯t worried about that. This was the only way he was able to pretty much instantly get the Tool Connection skill, after all. Then, in the second chapter, there was an exnation on how to control this mana. The first exercise was to change how it acted within his body. Change it back and forth from filling his whole body, and then beingpressed as much as possible. As a followup, he was supposed to move thepressed mana through his body. Eisen decided to test this out and concentrated. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, trying to feel his Mana inside of him, filling out every part of his body. When he felt like he had a grasp on the consistency of this energy, he imagined an invisible border forming at the ce of his skin, slowly moving further inside of himself, shrinking constantly. Once he got to his limit ofpressing his mana, there was a tiny copy of Eisen made out of pure mana inside of him. But since the excersize said to form it into a sphere, he tried to slowly change its shape into one. The Mana, now in the shape of a perfect sphere, was pushed toward Eisen¡¯s right hand, now basically sitting directly underneath his palm. Slowly, trying not to lose grasp of his control, he opened his eyes so that he could continue reading the next step: Mana Expulsion. Following the instructions, Eisen concentrated further on the mana sphere, slowly pushing it through his skin like it was a thin membrane. At first, it stung, and Eisen had to grit his teeth so that he wouldn¡¯t lose concentration, but after a short, while he felt a part of the mana under his palm exit, while the rest instantly exploded out, filling his body out once more. [Mana Maniption Skill Learned] Immediately, Eisen opened his eyes, looking at the round, tiny sphere of glowing white light. "Oho? This tiny thing looks interesting." Eisen muttered out and kept concentrating on the sphere. He felt it andpared it to the Mana still inside of his body. Mana that kept swirling around his body, wrapped around every part of him. His Brain, Lungs, Blood vessels, up to his heart, that was beating slowly and calmly. Then, a change happened in the Sphere of Mana hovering above his hand. Slowly, it began pulsing in the pace of his heartbeat, expanding and retracting a little bit each time. He felt his life as part of this energy, and this energy as part of his life, of this new body inside of this game. [You feel your Mana pulse with life. +1 INT] However, surprised by this sudden notification, Eisen lost his concentration and all of the mana that made up the sphere instantly dissipated. Eisen didn¡¯t mind, though, since he decided this would be a good time to end his practice for the day. For whatever reason, he felt extremely tired after manipting his mana. He only realized why when he opened his status for a second. [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - None][Level - 4] [HP - 210][MP - 20/150] [STR - 19][END - 18][AGI - 16][INT - 12][WIS - 12] [Titles] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Appraisal][Rank - 0][Level - 99] -[cksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 36] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 0][Level - 4] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 0][Level - 91] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 29] It seemed like during this short practice, just by creating this tiny sphere, Eisen expended nearly all of his Mana. d to know what would happen if his MP neared zero, and annoyed that this is the limit of what he could do, Eisen unclothed andid down in bed to sleep. Chapter 12 Fake Eisen woke up in the morning, his MP now filled again after his exercise the day before nearly depleted it. He stood up and got dressed, cing all of his items into his pocket. After then bringing the keys back to the reception, he sat down in the restaurant and ordered breakfast, the same as the day before. The young, pink-haired Waitress he met the other day was working again, and Eisen kept wondering if she wasn¡¯t too young to work. However, since he didn¡¯t know how stuff like that was managed in this world, he ignored it and treated her like any other waitress. After breakfast, since Denmir shouldn¡¯t be at his shop around this time yet, Eisen thought he would look for Belrim. He stood up from his table after paying and walked to the bar. He didn¡¯t expect anyone to actually be there at this time, but there were a number of people, most of which were Dwarves with dirt covering their arms and faces. There was one rtivelyrge group sat in the corner, centered around the one Human in the group. He had short ck hair and a cleanly shaven face and kept smiling smugly while talking to the rest of the group. But Eisen ignored them, despite the loud conversations andughtering from that corner, and walked over to the actual Bar where he saw the man he was looking for. "Good morning Belrim!" Eisen eximed and ced his hand on his shoulder while sitting down next to him, and the Dwarf quickly turned around in surprise. "Ah, Gramps! So how¡¯d it gone at Morrom¡¯s ce the other day? Got yer memories or skills back?" He asked and began to smile with the jug of Beer in his hand. "Well, I got my racial skills and a title back at least, but other than that nothing. But I still wanted to thank you! Without you, I wouldn¡¯t have even known I could have those skills, to begin with." Eisen smiled happily, and Belrim began tough, "That¡¯s better than nothin¡¯! And if ya wanna thank me, buy me a drink, you old geezer!" Eisenughed lowly and waved over the Barkeeper, and ordered another beer for Belrim, "Haha, ye¡¯re a good guy, Gramps!" Belrimughed out and downed the beer he had standing in front of him in one go, and his jug was swapped out with one that was filled. Belrim and Eisen continued talking for a while, simply about smaller stuff. During that conversation, he found out the importance of the mine under the town. It is at that spot where two huge veins of Iron and Mythril intersect. Since Eisen didn¡¯t know what Mythril was, he had Belrim exin it to him. It¡¯s a metal with a silver color, and it¡¯s incredibly light but strong at the same time, which was only made possible through the influence of mana that is naturally attracted to the metal. While the two of them were talking about the general uses of Mythril, a loud noise interrupted their conversation. Immediately, Eisen turned around to the source of the noise and saw the pink-haired waitress standing there in front of the group in the corner, picking up a few jugs that were thrown on the ground. Since the Restaurant and Bar were a joined business, it seemed like the Waitresses from the Restaurant also worked at the Bar when necessary. Trying to figure out what happened, Eisen kept his eyes there suspiciously. "That¡¯s right, pick those up, you Fake!" The Human of the group yelled out,ughing with a vile face. The other men and women around himughed as well and looked at her with despising looks. When he noticed this as well, Belrim simply grunted and continued drinking his beer, "Damn Hendrick..." "What do you mean? What¡¯s going on?" Eisen asked confused, a frown on his face. Belrim sighed loudly and began to exin, "That girl over there is a Fey-Kin. Ye can see that from ¡¯er bright pink hair and long ears, normally people don¡¯t have that, ya know? There¡¯s a stigma against Feys, which ispletely idiotic. Many people say Feys are more monsters than anythin¡¯ else, so if there¡¯s a Half-Fey, they aren¡¯t easily epted, hence people call them ¡¯Fake¡¯, cuz it sounds like Fey-Kin and means she¡¯s a fake person. Pricks like Hendrick use that to look cool in front of others." "We can¡¯t let him bully a little kid!" Eisen said angrily and prepared to stand up, but Belrim quickly stopped him with augh. "Heh, little kid? Gramps, Fey-Kin age slowly. She¡¯s about as old as Morrom." Eisen stared nkly at Belrim, unsure what to say. It was confusing to him since she looked basically as old as his youngest Granddaughter, but she was supposed to be double as old as that? He decided to let it be for now. She was an Adult, so she should be able to handle name-calling. Stepping in would probably only hurt her more. Eisen wanted to simply ignore it, but then... "Hey, Fake, how about you stop being so useless and insteade with me?" The Human, Hendrick, stood up and grabbed the girl by her arm, pulling her upward, "You¡¯ve got a cute face. You might be worth a copper or two at the underground market." "P-Please, Sir Customer, l-let go of my hand... I ne-need to get back to my work..." Hendrick¡¯s face twisted in disgust as he was looking down on the girl and gripped her arm harder so that she was visibly in pain, and raised his other hand, "How dare you talk back to me? Don¡¯t you know who I am?!" He shot his hand downward and just when his palm was about to connect with her face, he felt a sharp pain in its center. With his hand bleeding, he let go of the girl and inspected what the item in his hand was. Shocked and confused, he simply stared down, until a big hand covered in scars slowly pulled out the thin needle. He turned to the source of the hand and turned his head upward, looking at the face of an old man with a bodypletely contradictory to it. "Th-The fuck do you think you¡¯re doing?!" Hendrick yelled out and held his hand in pain. "That¡¯s what I was about to ask, Kid." Eisen said, his eyes focused on Hendrick and his expression calm, hiding a storm of anger behind it. "What do you think gives you the right to treat another person like that?" Hendrick¡¯s group waspletely quiet while looking at the man in front of them, while Hendrick himself began slowly stumbling backward, his grin widening as he let out a soft chuckle. "What person could you be talking about? All I did was do what any proper citizen should do! It¡¯s disgusting enough that a Fake is even allowed to work here! Having a fake talk to their customers, seems like the owner here truly is an idiot, huh?" Heughed out and the rest of the group began to have mixed emotions. Some joined Hendrick in hisughter, while others looked angrily at the Fey-Kin and the owner acting as the Barkeeper during this time. Eisen turned to look at the owner, whose face became angrier the more he looked at Hendrick, but simply said nothing for some reason, and then turned back to the Human in front of him. "Alright, Kid, that was thest straw." He muttered out lowly and grabbed Hendrick by the cor, slightly pulling him up by it. Sure, his strength was still not what it is in real life, but it was enough to pick up such a scrawny looking man. "Sto-stop right there! What do you think you¡¯re doing? You don¡¯t know who I am, do you?!" "No, I don¡¯t. Should I care?" "Of course you should! I¡¯m Hendrick Argon! A Rank 4 Adventurer! You can be happy I¡¯m even here in this measly town!" Eisen clicked his tongue and gripped his cor more tightly, but let go when he saw the Fey-Kin girl have a conflicted look on her face as if she was about to try and stop. "Listen here, kid. I don¡¯t care about who you are and all that adventurer nonsense. Just stop treating another person like that. Or you¡¯ll regret it." "Is that supposed to be a threat? What¡¯s your level, huh? Ten, Twenty? Like anyone else¡¯s in this measly town? I¡¯m level Fifty, so try and see what you can do against me!" Hendrick began tough like a maniac at Eisen, who sighed and turned around. "Oi, you think you can just leave? After you disrespected me like that? No way!" He yelled out and grabbed Eisen¡¯s arm, stopping him in his track. While Eisen wouldn¡¯t want to admit it, but Hendrick really was way stronger than Eisen. "The Job I¡¯m here for is gonnast a week, so it¡¯s going to trouble me if I kill anyone for now, but after that... You know what I¡¯m saying, right?" Bearing his teeth, Hendrick looked up at Eisen and continued, "In seven days, you¡¯ll fight me! And then we¡¯ll see who¡¯s in the right! In one week, down at the entrances to the Mine!" [New Quest - Hendrick¡¯s Duel] [Description]After defending a Fey-Kin from Hendrick, he felt offended and requested a duel. You don¡¯t know what¡¯s to gain or to lose from this. [Requirements]Fight against Hendrick in seven days at the Mines [Reward]??? [Failure]??? [Time Limit - 1 Week] "Until then, don¡¯t bother anyone." With that, Eisen ended the conversation and left the Bar, with Belrimughing in the background and a concerned Fey-Kin following behind him closely. "P-Please, wait!" The Pink-haired girl yelled out at Eisen, who decided to make his way to the smithy to create his weapon. He was greatly agitated through the conversation with Hendrick right then and needed to let loose of some steam. Because of that, he didn¡¯t even notice her when she was trying to stop him by grabbing his arm and simply kept on walking forward. Only when he arrived at the shop¡¯s door was when he actually did. He scratched his beard and closed his eyes, releasing a soft smile, "Ah, sorry. Erm, I hope I didn¡¯t mess anything up for you back there. I didn¡¯t want to get you in trouble or anything." Immediately the girl crossed her arms in front of her face, "No, you didn¡¯t! I¡¯m the one that should thank you, and also apologize! Thank you for helping me, but... sorry, you have to fight him because of me..." "Haha, don¡¯t worry, kid! I¡¯m fine! A brat like him can¡¯t beat me!" Heughed out loud and flexed his arm as if to show off how strong he was. Of course, he knew that his body didn¡¯t matter in this world, but he also knew that his kids and grandchildren always had tough when he did this, and he felt like she could use a goodugh. But opposite to his expectations, her eyes began to glitter, "R-Really? So you¡¯re stronger than him?" "Of course I am, littledy! Now, don¡¯t you think you should go back to the Inn? You still have to work, right?" The girl shook her head with a smile. "Nope! Those guys would have been thest order I was going to take for the day! Also, my name is Bree! And what is your name, Mister?" Bree asked with an innocent smile. "I¡¯m Eisen, nice to meet you, Bree." Eisen shook Bree¡¯s hand, and then exined that he was going to enter the shop now since he wanted to make something in the smithy. He expected her to leave but instead asked for a favor. "Eisen, could I maybe... watch?" "Hm? You want to watch me?" Eisen asked surprised, and Bree quickly nodded, "Yes, please! And maybe I could even help you? I can bring you whatever you need, and I can, erm... I can make the fire hotter!" Eisen looked down at the girl fidgeting with her hands and began tough, "Sure,e on in! Just try to stick to me and don¡¯t wander around too much!" Bree¡¯s nervousness immediately turned into happiness and she followed Eisen inside. "Good morning old-timer! What¡¯re yer ns for today? Oh, and is that Bree behind ya?" Denmir asked and smiled at her while Eisen and Bree were walking through the door to the smithy. Eisen greeted him and did some small-talk amongst other things, telling him that it would be thest day he would be there for a while. Denmir was sad to hear it, but he understood. "Well, then I hope yer gonnae back soon, haha! If ya ever need to make a quick buck, ye can help me out around the shop and make some weapons for us." "Thanks for that, Denmir. I¡¯ll remember that!" With a smile, Eisen continued on toward the storage space, picking out what materials he would need today. With a grin on his face and part of his agitation already dwindling because of the cheerful Bree, Eisen got his hammer out of his pocket and smiled. Chapter 13 Sword Eisen walked over to the foundry and threw a few of the ingots he got in there to melt them down. After about five minutes, the once hard steel turned into a bright yellow liquid version of itself, and Eisen slowly poured it into a mold to basically just make a slightly bigger ingot out of it. Using his tongs, he brought the still hot ingot over to the anvil so that he wouldn¡¯t lose time. He used tool connection on his hammer and began to draw the steel out to make it longer. It was when the steel neared the basic shape of a de that he had an idea. Yesterday during his practice he managed to force mana out of his body. He didn¡¯t know much about ssic game worlds, but Eisen at the very least researched a little bit into types of weaponsmon in fantasy worlds and found one interesting thing: Magic Weapons. There wasn¡¯t much info about how these are made, but Eisen did have an idea of how the developers of this game might have chosen to handle this concept. By imbuing Mana into what you are forging. Slowly, Eisen began concentrating andpressed his mana inside of him. This alone was already far easier thanst night, and Eisen figured this was simply because of his new Mana Maniption skill helping him out. He concentrated on his mana and formed it into a small sphere before moving it through his arm into his hand, and then into his hammer. Slowly, he turned the sphere into a thin, round sheet the size of the hammer¡¯s t front surface, gently pushing it through the metal so that it covered the front of his hammer. So that he could keep up his concentration and not lose control of his Mana, he slightly slowed down the pace of his hammering, but with every hit, Eisen noticed the spot where his hammer connected with the hot steel turning from a bright orange into a bright white for a split second before turning back orange. "Hmm? Eisen, are you using Magic?" Bree asked curiously and leaned in closer toward the anvil, intensely studying what Eisen was doing. With a softugh, while trying to concentrate on the task at hand, Eisen nodded. "Yes, I¡¯m trying to imbue Mana into the metal. But I¡¯m running low..." Frowning, Eisen noticed that his mana was lowered by about 5 MP every time he hit the metal, and since his total MP was only 150, it wouldn¡¯t hold for very long. From the corner of his eye, he noticed that Bree was fidgeting around slightly as if she wanted to say something. Eisen couldn¡¯t help butugh a little bit and told Bree to just say what she wanted to say. "So, I¡¯m pretty good at support magic, and one of them is Mana Transfer! Since I¡¯m a Fey-Kin, my mana pool is a lot bigger than that of other races, although I can¡¯t use attack magic... But if you want, I can give you some of my mana until you¡¯re done!" She smiled happily and looked at Eisen with a smile. After considering it for a few seconds, Eisen agreed. "That would be a great help, littledy! But if you run too low on your mana, just stop." "Oookaay~!" Smiling brightly, Bree held both her hands out forward and closed her eyes. Shortly afterward, he felt warm energy enter his back that was instantly sucked toward the spot where Eisen had concentrated his Mana toward. He checked his status and noticed his MP instantly fill up again, constantly staying at 150. With a grin on his face and not trying to conserve his Mana anymore, he continued forging his weapon. After about an hour, the basic shape of the Sword was achieved, and only two small lumps were left near the part dedicated to the hilt. Slowly Eisen began to shape the two lumps into two hooks by the side of the de with the help of a thin staff that he used to help in shaping them. He then told Bree to stop giving him mana and she opened her eyes happily, skipping over to Eisen¡¯s side to look at the forged product. "I don¡¯t know if using mana actually did anything, but thanks for your help anyway, Bree." Eisen said with a smile and ced his big hand onto the top of her head as he brought the one and a half meter long sword over to the tub of water to cool it down. Even though it was about the same length as the sword Eisen had to help Denmir with, Eisen¡¯s de was way thinner inparison, and thus a lot lighter. With Bree¡¯s curious eyes constantly following him with his every step, Eisen began to carefully grind his soon-to-be weapon. First, he removed all uneven parts of the metal and then helped the sides all around get into a proper edge-shape. With a file, he then ground down the hooks all around to make sure they are as sharp as the rest of the edges. After the groundwork was then finished, Eisen built a slightlyrger version of the tempering-box he used the past few days as well and threw some of the coals from the foundry into it. Carefully he ced the de into the box and covered it up, then moved on to the next item at hand. While for his other items he used a simple wooden grip, this time he would use abination of steel, for the protective part of the hilt and then wood for the grip. Once he got into Leatherworking he would probably also tightly wrap the grip in leather, but for now, a wooden grip would be enough. Eisen grabbed another small steel ingot and threw it into the forge to heat it up, and after a few minutes took it out with his tongs. He asked Bree to give him a bit of mana again if possible, and she happily agreed. He turned the ingot into a thin staff with its middle thicker than the rest and then began twisting it to twist it to create a swirl into the rod. After that, Eisen used another rod as help to twist both ends into circles. Atst, the final step topletion of this part, he turned the rod into a half-circle shape, before punching a hole into its center to help put it onto the sword. He quickly quenched it in cold water and ced it into the box together with the de. "And what are you going to do now, Eisen?" Bree asked curiously and followed Eisen into the workshop. He grabbed the same hard, resilient, but still pretty wood with its dark color and began to carve it into shape so that it would sit perfectly in his hand, and then drilled a hole into its front to help put it onto the de. Once he knew he was now finished and only had to put the final sword together, he sighed out loud and looked at Bree, smiling brightly. "Thanks for your help, Bree! If you want, you can alwayse along and help me out a little!" "Of course! I¡¯d love to help you out!" She replied happily and continued watching Eisen as he grabbed another t cuboid of wood. He cut it in half horizontally and simply began carving out parts of one of the halves, using his Knife as a reference. After all, now he would be making the storage box for his Knife. Since that was basically it and it was only supposed to be a rough box with not much to it, he carved a simple slide-in mechanism into the two halves, so that he could slit the lid on top of it and then it would be closed shut perfectly when he closed the wooden lock, which he added next. [Small Storage Box] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description] A small box meant to hold a single Item. [Storable] High-Quality Knife Happy with this simple box, Eisen grabbed his Knife and ced it into the box, then slid the lid onto it and closed it using the lid. Directly after that, Eisen and Bree walked out of the workshop and into the main part of the smithy. "Denmir! So, how I told you, today¡¯s myst day. So I wanted to pay you for the materials that I used." Eisen exined when he walked up to Denmir who was taking a short break after finishing a small dagger to put into his shop out front. "Alright, just a second." Denmir nodded and walked to the storefront, then came back out a few secondster with a small notebook in his hand. "Can I see the items ya made? Ye¡¯ve got ¡¯em with ya, right?" He asked and Eisen nodded his head. Out of his pocket, he took the Knife in its new box, the Hammer and the two storage boxes filled with his needles and small des, and showed him the items that are still tempering in the brick-box. After taking a few notes, Denmir sighed and looked back up at Eisen, to confirm the amount. "That¡¯s all ye used? If so, that¡¯ll be 47 Silver and 30 Copper." Eisen nodded and took out the one gold coin he had, handing it over to Denmir. He returned to the storefront and then brought back exactly 52 Silver and 70 Copper for Eisen, that would now slowly make his coin-bag a little bit heavier. "So, now that that¡¯s dealt with. What¡¯s that sword ye¡¯re makin¡¯? Never seen a sword with hooks like that." Denmir said with a curious glitter in his eyes when thinking back on the de he saw lying in the brick-box. Eisenughed and began scratching his beard and closed his eyes. "Ah, that¡¯s called a Zweih?nder. And those hooks are made for parrying. Let¡¯s say someone attacks me if I manage to block the attack I might be able to let the other person¡¯s de slide toward the hooks, giving me the advantage that I can easily control the movement of the other person¡¯s sword." He exined, both Denmir and Bree listening with absolute attention. "B-But how do ya know of this Weapon, old-timer? Did ya get back some of yer memories?" Denmir blurted out and looked at Eisen curiously. Eisenughed a bit because he had beenpletely expecting this question from the start. "Maybe so, yeah. Although I don¡¯t have any direct memories rted to ever learning about it, I do still have this knowledge that keeps popping into my head." When he heard the exnation, Denmir crossed his arms and nodded, "I see, I guess that makes sense. Maybe ya didn¡¯t get back yer memories, but some of yer knowledge anyway." "Seems so, yes. And I¡¯m d about that, truthfully. Without my knowledge, I would bepletely lost, haha." Eisen began tough as he turned away and walked back to the Brick-box. Carefully, he took out the de and the metal part of the hilt and ced them to the side to air cool, which happened in a mere ten seconds because of the system. Eisen first grabbed the metal part of the hilt and heated the opening in the forge. Once it began turning slightly red, he slowly pushed it around the front of the wooden grip to burn into it, making sure it won¡¯t just slip off at some point. Then, he grabbed the sword at its de and began heating the rod which would be inserted into the wood of the grip, and then slowly pushed the lightly glowing piece of steel into the opening he drilled beforehand. And then, after making sure everything was not perfectly joined together and wouldn¡¯t budge even if Eisen tried pulling them apart, he walked over to the grinding wheels again to finish the sword off. Beginning with the roughest wheel, he ground the edge to be sharper and sharper, then moving on to the next finest wheel to continue. After an hour, Eisen finished the swordpletely, excited to see the results. [For creating a Magic-Imbued Weapon with Overwhelming Quality, you gain +1 STR and +1 WIS] [Weak-Mana Imbued Zweih?nder] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] An extremely high-Quality Sword created by the cksmith Eisen. Since he imbued Magic into it during the forging, it¡¯s quality rose significantly, but due to the Rank-Limit, even an Overwhelming Quality Item has only a low amount of Mana stayed in the final product. [Effect] +5 STR, +5 END, +5 AGI And as such, Eisen¡¯s first proper Weapon waspleted, and he could barely wait to use it for the first time. But before then, he would finally learn the next Crafting Skill, Tailoring. Chapter 14 Tailoring "Eisen~? Where are we going now?" With a broad smile on her face, Bree followed closely behind Eisen as he used a bridge suspended in the center of the spiraling town to walk over to the other spiral, where Denmir exined to him he could find the Tailor. "I¡¯¡¯m going to learn Tailoring now. Are you going to help me out again?" Eisen asked and looked down next to him at the pink haired girl skipping around happily. Sure, she was older than she looked, maybe 18 or 19 years old, but he still couldn¡¯t help but treat her like a kid. The reason for that was pretty simple. She acted like a kid most of the time. She was nervous, fidgety, and acted a lot like his granddaughter who was barely 8 years old. "Ooh~! That¡¯s so cool! And I¡¯d love to help you!" She replied happily. After about twenty minutes of searching for the Tailor, theye across a shop called Beautiful Clothes, a very straightforward, simple name. Eisen stepped through the door and was greeted by a bright, neatly sorted storefront. Opposite to the entrance was the Front Desk. To the left side after entering were male Mannequins in different body types, one for Humans or Elves, one for Dwarves, and one for Beast-people, whereas the only real difference of the Beast-Person Mannequin was the short tail sticking out the back and the basic round ears on top. On the other side of the room were female Mannequins in the same body types. In the center of the room were a few tables where different essory items were disyed, such as small bags or purses made of fabric, as well as a few different hats. There was a Dwarven woman, who basically had the same build as any other Dwarf Eisen had seen so far, just with a few more feminine features such as a thinner face and arms, sitting at the counter, drawing up different designs in a notebook. "Ah, hello! How can I help you today?" She asked when she saw Bree and Eisen enter, barely looking up from the notebook. Eisen stepped up directly in front of the counter and leaned down a bit. "Hello there, youngdy, I¡¯m Eisen. I would like to learn Tailoring from you." He exined simply with a light smile on his face. The Dwarven woman turned her head upward, looking Eisen up and down. "Eisen? Are you the one Belrim and Denmir told me about?" Eisen began scratching his beard and closed his eyes, nodding and smiling. "I¡¯m sure I am, as long as there isn¡¯t a second Eisen in town, haha." "Hmm, alright. But only because those two heavily rmended you. Come on, we¡¯ll do something easy to start off. Ah, by the way, I¡¯m Folmirra Brighthood. Nice to meet you." Folmirra held her hand outward and Eisen shook it with a smile. It was only then that she noticed Bree standing behind him. "Oh, and is that Bree? How are you?" She asked with a bright smile. "I¡¯m great! I¡¯ve been following Eisen around for the day and it¡¯s been super fun~!" "Is that so? Haha, well, thene along!" She waved the both of them into the workshop in the back, where about a dozen women, the majority Dwarven, but also with a few humans and elves mixed in, were busy sewing different items. Folmirra brought Eisen and Bree over to an empty table and brought a pink piece of fabric over. "For now, I want you to make a purse. It¡¯s simple, and should be enough to get you the Tailoring skill." [New Quest - Tailor Tutorial] [Description]After requesting Folmirra Brighthood to teach you Tailoring, she asked you to create a small pink purse. [Reward] Tailoring Skill; Experience [Failure] Lowered Reputation with Folmirra [Time Limit - None] Folmirra then ced a roll of thin thread, a needle, and a pair of fabric scissors down in front of him. "You can use those if you want." However, since Eisen already had the tools he needs, besides the string, he shook his head and took out the two storage boxes as well as the handle for the des. "I¡¯ve got my own, actually." Heughed softly and received a smile from Folmirra. "Seems like you¡¯re well prepared, huh? Well, anyway. Here¡¯s how you have to cut it. Cut that shape twice, and then sew those halves together at the edge, but leave the top open. Then you only need to turn it inside out and add some thick string at the top so you can close it. If you need help with anything, just tell me, I¡¯ll be back out front." Folmirra exined and Eisen nodded. Bree and Eisen sat down next to each other at the table and Eisen assembled his Exacto Knife. He opened the first box and grabbed one of the des, then easily slipped it into the opening at the front of the handle and made sure it wouldn¡¯t slip out. He ced the paper form on top of the fabric and carefully cut around it, making sure there aren¡¯t any mistakes. After finishing the two teardrop-shaped pieces of fabric, he set down the de next to him on the table, and opened his needle box, and grabbed one of the needles out of it. Eisen then took the end of the thread and carefully put it through the hole at the end of the needle, then tied a knot in the end. After pondering about it for a few seconds, he decided to use a basic running stitch to sew the pieces of fabric together. And then he remembered one of the skills he hasn¡¯t been using at all up until now. One of his racial skills, A Dwarf¡¯s Hands. He activated the skill simply by thinking about it and instantly felt his fingers be more nimble. Now fully prepared to do this, he turned back to the fabric. Since the top was supposed to stay open, Eisen began stitching at one side of the opening, and pushed the needle through the backside through bothyers of fabric, then moved ahead a centimeter, and went back down through the fabric, moved another centimeter ahead and repeated the cycle until there was basically a frame all around the fabric, about one centimeter away from the edge. To make the stitch stronger, and since this really didn¡¯t take too long, he turned the stitching around to basically ¡¯fill the gaps¡¯ between the visible pieces of string, making it look like a continuous line. He then cut off the two ends of the string and tied them together tightly so that they wouldn¡¯t fall apart. As the second tost step, he turned the small pouch inside out, basically making the stitches invisible from the outside, and then grabbed a thicker piece of string, carefully trailing it around the opening in a manner simr to a running stitch, just with about five centimeters between each time the string was put through the fabric and without trailing it back to fill the gaps like before and cut the string off at the end. Lastly, he tied thick knots at into each end of the string. [You made a Simple Pink Purse] [Simple Pink Purse] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description]A simple purse made out of soft pink fabric. It¡¯s well-made and robust. "Ooh, so pretty~!" Bree eximed while looking at the finished item, and Eisenughed softly. "Yes, it really is, huh?" The both of them stood up and went back to the storefront to show Folmirra the finished product andplete the quest. "Oh? Do you need help with anything?" She asked when she saw Eisen and Bree step through the door to the Workshop. Eisen shook his head and smiled, "Actually, I¡¯m finished. Here¡¯s the purse." Folmirra stared at the neatly sewed purse in front of her eyes, and then looked back at Eisen. "Did you really do this? But you don¡¯t even have the Tailoring skill yet!" "Haha, yeah, but I used my racial skill, so I guess that helped a bit!" Eisen scratched his beard and closed his eyes while he exined, and Folmirra sighed loudly, "Right, I forgot you¡¯re half dwarf. That skill helped me out a bunch of times as well, especially in the beginning. But I have to say, even considering you used A Dwarf¡¯s Hands, this is really well made." [Quest Sessful - Tailor Tutorial] [Description] After requesting Folmirra Brighthood to teach you Tailoring, she asked you to create a small pink purse. [Reward] Tailoring Skill; Experience [Failure] Lowered Reputation with Folmirra [Time Limit - None] [Bonus] Extra Experience; Rise in Reputation with Folmirra; Unlimited ess to Workshop [You gained 500 Experience] [You are now Level 7] [Tailoring Skill Learned] Eisen began to smile at the level-up message and thought about what stats to use them on. Formi held her hand to her chin and carefully observed the purse further, then looked up at Eisen to make him an offer. "Hmm, my stock in purses has gone downtely. If you feel like making some more for me, I¡¯ll pay you a little bit. It¡¯s an easy way to level your Tailoring skill as well. How does 5 copper per purse sound?" He began to think and scratched his beard. The only things he had nned was to make a bag and some clothes, but it would probably be a good idea to get his skill level a little bit higher before that. Thus, he nodded with a smile, "That would be grand, thank you. How many do you need me to make?" "For now, ten should be more than enough. At your speed, and since you should only get faster, for now at least, you should be able to finish it pretty quickly." [New Quest - Pure Amass] [Description] Folmirra Brighthood asked you to create 10 more purses for her shop. She will reimburse you for your work. Only an item with at least a Rank of 0 and Quality of Above Average will be epted. Higher Quality may give a Bonus. [Reward] 5 Copper; 10 Experience for every finished purse [Failure] Lowered Reputation with Folmirra [Time Limit - End of the Day] "Alright, sounds good to me. What fabric should I use?" "Make three blue, three green, and three red. Those are sold most." The Dwarven Woman exined, "And then for thest one, use any fabric you think looks good." Eisen nodded and turned around, walking back to the Workshop with Bree, who looked up at him and asked, "Can I help you somehow~?" He thought about it for a bit and then nodded, "Yes, actually. I¡¯ll show you the fabric I¡¯m going to use, and it would be a great help if you can get four rolls of string that look like each of the colors the most." Happy that she can help Eisen, Bree smiled brightly and nodded, "Ookaay~!" They walked over to the far side of the room to a wall with huge rolls of different fabrics packed so tightly together that they couldn¡¯t see the brick wall behind it. After picking out the three colors Filmorra specified, Eisen picked out a nice chrome white colored fabric for thest one. Once he showed those to Bree, she quickly ran off to get the string. He then cut off some sheets of the fabrics, enough to make the ten purses and then brought them over to his table where Bree was already waiting for him with the right string. "Thanks for the help, Bree." Eisen smiled and then sat down on a chair, preparing to craft the purses. Chapter 15 Backpack "Wait, you¡¯re already done?" Folmirra eximed in surprise as she looked down at the ten pursesying in front of her. Usually it would have taken him considerably longer, but he put ten of his 15 new stat points into agility, and divided the rest amongst every stat of his. Furrowing her brows, Fulmirra slowly inspected each one to make sure they¡¯re all up to par, and then leaned back in her chair and sighed out loud. "They¡¯re all perfect quality... Denmir was right, you¡¯re a genius!" She closed her eyes and nodded, keeping her arms crossed. "Alright, here you go, you deserved it." She opened a bag lying underneath the counter and ced 80 Copper coins on the table. [Quest Sessful - Purses Amass] [Description] Folmirra Brighthood asked you to create 10 more purses for her shop. She will reimburse you for your work. Only an item with at least a Rank of 0 and Quality of Above Average will be epted. Higher Quality may give a Bonus. [Reward] 5 Copper, 10 Experience for every finished purse [Failure] Lowered Reputation with Folmirra [Time Limit - End of the Day] [Bonus] 1 Copper for every quality higher than ¡¯above average¡¯ per purse; Higher reputation with Folmirra Eisen nodded and looked through the quest notification. And after thanking Folmirra for the bonus money, he decided to finally ask something he should have tried to find out earler. "Folmirra, I¡¯m pretty curious, what are all possible qualities of an item?" Surprised at this unexpected question, Folmirra began to frown "What? You don¡¯t know? Didn¡¯t Denmir exin that to you?" Seeing Eisen shake his head and Bree just tilt her head in confusion, Folmirra sighed and began to exin. "There¡¯s 8 different main qualities. Lowest, Low, Below Average, Average, Above Average, High, Highest and Perfect. That is what shows you the quality of an item within its rank, but know that no matter how high the quality of a Rank 1 item is, it will never be better than the lowest quality rank 2 item. So a Rank 1, Perfect Quality Item will be worse than a Rank 2, Lowest Quality Item. Then, there are two more qualities. First, there are 11 Ranks to everything. Items, Skills, everything really. Rank 0 to Rank 10. A Rank 0 Item with a quality below lowest has the Unusable Quality, and a Rank 10 Item with a quality above Perfect has the Divine Quality. That¡¯s all you need to know about that, really." "I see... Well, then I¡¯m d I¡¯ve been getting the highest quality rating for my ranks all the time haha!" Eisenughed loudly and scratched his beard. "Well, if you¡¯re alright with it, I¡¯d like to use your workshop for some personal projects of mine. Of course, I¡¯ll pay for all the materials and if you need me to do some work for you, I¡¯ll do it." "Sure, go ahead! I¡¯d love to see what you can do!" The Dwarven owner of the Tailor Shop nodded with excitement glittering in her eyes. Eisen thanked her, but also asked for some sketching supplies, such as pencils and paper. The reason he asked for those was that beside making a simple bag, he also wanted to start working on some different clothes he could change into. First, Eisen picked out a fabric he would like for his bag, all the while looking around at different kinds of fabrics to use for his clothester. For his bag, he chose a nice ck cotton, as well as another dark red one to mix together while making the bag. He chose those colors since he decided to go for this general theme in attire because of the ck coin with red carvings in the shape of a hammer around his neck. After choosing string that fits with the colors of the bag, he continued on to his table. Eisen chose the ck fabric as the base. He took the sketching paper he got from Folmirra and began to draw out the outlines for the bag. He went for a basic rectangle shape with rounded edges, and just so slightly made one of the two short sides shorter than the other. After finishing the sketch, Eisen cut along the lines he drew to make the form. Then, he ced the form onto the fabric and cut it out twice in ck, using his self-made exacto Knife. He simply sewed them together using the same running stitch he used for the purses, since it¡¯s a reliable and durable one, and left out an opening at the shorter of the short sides. As thest step for the actual ¡¯container¡¯ part of the bag, he flipped over the edges of the opening and sewed them against the rest of the bag to reinforce the rim. After turning the bag inside out, he was happy to see that his Tailoring Skill ranked up to 1. [Tailoring reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [It is now easier to prate fabrics] [Due to Ranking-up your Tailoring Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 END] With a smile Eisen began to sketch out the part which would be the ¡¯lid¡¯ of the bag, making it as wide as the opening and about double as long. Directly after sketching out the lid, Eisen drew a simple long thin rectangle which would be the form for the strapster. He cut out the forms off the paper and ced them onto the dark red fabric, tracing them to create cotton versions of them. He traced the one for the lid once, and the one for the straps four times. Eisen then simply sewed one of the lid¡¯s sides onto one side of the opening and turned to the straps. He stood up and quickly got some light and fluffy wool to spread half of it on one of the long rectangles. After cing another one onto that rectangle, he sewed them together all around the edges, and repeated that process a second time using the other two rectangles of red cotton. He ced the straps onto the back-side of the bag and pushed his needle through the threeyers of cotton at one of the ends to sow them onto the bag. He sewed the top of the other strap onto the bag parrallel to the first one, and then, slightly offset outward, sewed each of the bottom parts of the straps on. Eisen made sure to use the strongest string he could find and used the Backstitch instead of the running stitch. While the running stitch he used up until now included simply continuosly moving forward while leaving a certain space between every time he pushed the needle through the fabric, the Backstitch basically works opposite to that in some regards. You start like with the normal running stitch and push your needle through the fabric, and push it back through to the top a stitch-length away, and then return to the part you pushed your needle through the first time. For the second step, you continue forward a stitch-length further away than when you first pushed the needle through the back forward, and move it backward to just that spot, using the same hole you made before to push through. Then you essentially just continue this second step until you¡¯re finished. This gives the stitch more strength and flexiblity than other stitches, which is important especially if Eisen wants to carry heavy things in his Backpack. As his finishing touch, Eisen grabbed a simple ck button, cut a small slit into the end of the lid of the bag, and stitched the button onto the ck cotton so that he can properly close it when he wants to. And with that, he ced his bag onto the table and looked at it happily. [You made a Red and ck Backpack] [Red and ck Backpack] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description]A rtively simple Red and ck Backpack. Can store any type of item, and the weight limit is high due to the strength of fabric and stitch. The Wool-Filled straps make sure you don¡¯t get sore shoulders after wearing it for a while. "Great!" He smiled happily, although somewhat dissappointed he didn¡¯t manage to break through his Rank Limit, he figured it made sense. He only got his Tailoring to Rank 1 in the middle of making it, after all. "That¡¯s so pretty!" Bree eximed with glittering eyes as she looked at the Backpack in Eisen¡¯s eyes, while he began slowly putting his items inside. He smiled and ced hisrge hand on her head, sitting back down on his chair. "Well, now that that¡¯s done, I¡¯ve got some other things I want to make, which are clothing. There¡¯s one thing I¡¯ve got in mind that I want to make, but how about you help me out with the designs for the other ones? And after that, we can even design something for you, if you want. You¡¯ve helped me out a lot today, after all!" "R-Really? Are you serious? You want to make something for me? Just for me?" Bree muttered out confused, her cheerful demeanorpletely gone. Eisen began to frown, and nodded. "I mean, yes, why not? You¡¯ve been watching me do all this boring stuff all day! And it¡¯s going to be a great practice to get my skill level up as well, so it¡¯s not like I don¡¯t get anything out of it." Bree nodded and wiped some tears out of her eyes, "Alright, thank you, Eisen. Nobody... ever made something for me..." After cing a hand on her back tofort her a little bit, Eisen got out simple paper to draw designs on. He took a few minutes to quickly sketch out a rough shape of himself, quite simr to the Mannequin he saw during Character Creation. Drawing Skill Learned "Oh? I didn¡¯t know there was something like that!" Eisen said in surprise, and Bree looked at him confused. "What do you mean, Eisen? Is omething wrong?" He shook his head and exined that he just got a new skill from sketching out the base for the design. Immediately, Bree opened her eyes wide and looked back and forth from Eisen and his drawing. "Wait, what? You JUST got the Drawing Skill? But it¡¯s so good already! How?!" She yelled out, getting a few looks from the other people in the workshop, but nothing more really. Eisenughed and scratched his beard, his eyes closed. "Well, I¡¯m an old man, so how can I rely on skills?" He winked and turned back to his sketch. "Alright, now tell me, what would be your ideas? I mainly want to go for rtively simple clothes that are easy to move in. What would you suggest?" Eisen moved onto the topic at hand, and Bree pushed herself up on the table to get a better look at the paper. "I like what you¡¯re wearing right now, but that¡¯s kind of boring, right~? And you need lots of ces to put your tools while you¡¯re working~! I used to work as a Carrier for an Adventuring Party before, and it was super boring to have to look through my whole backpack to look for the items they needed..." Bree exined and Eisen nodded. That was a valid point. Especially once he would move around outside of town to fight against monsters, he would need a lot of things on hand. He was told by Morrom that usually most adventurers always have healing and mana potions on hand, so having a lot of pockets would be helpful both inbat and work. "Alright, so a simple base design, and a bunch of pockets on the pants, as well as something that makes the shirt not as boring. Got any ideas for that?" "Hmm... I like the red and ck you used for your backpack and the things you have on your ne, so maybe something with that?" "Sounds good... How about something like this?" Chapter 16 Designs "Alright, we¡¯ve got a few designs finished. I can only make some of them once I learn Leatherworking though. Or at least some parts of them. Well, anyway, let¡¯s get to what you want." Eisen eximed while looking at the five designs in front of him. One of them was the casual work outfit with multiple pockets on the dark grey pants together with the ck and red shirt. The next one they drew up was basically the same design, just with inverted colors, speak red where there was ck and ck where there was red and the same dark grey pants. The third design included a durable leather tunic, made of thin, flexible leather that made up the base and thick, strong leather ced around the chest and back in different ces with gaps in between, still allowing freedom of movement. The pants for this outfit were of a simr concept, with the same thin flexible leather as a base, but a thick strong leather ced around to protect the most important body parts. The fourth was a simple thick leather apron together with baggy cloth pants, which would be useful for high-temperature work at the smithy, or wherever else Eisen may set up shop in the future. While the other four outfits were meant for work, three of them for crafting and one for hunting, thest one was an out-of-work outfit. Sure, most people may not see it like that, but to Eisen it was. Maybe it was an old-man thing, maybe it was a thing only to Eisen, but he thought it was nice to walk around like that. Thest outfit was a suit, apletely ck suit, with a ck shirt underneath, and a red tie. And besides the fact that Eisen thought it was a nice looking outfit, he still thought it was kind of cool to walk around like a badass wearing such a suit. After looking the designs over once more, he ced them to the side and then faced Bree. "Now, let¡¯s get to your outfit. What would you like to have?" Bree immediately squinted her eyes and looked up at Eisen, "Something Cute." "Haha, I figured that, Bree. So how about a dress?" Eisen suggested, and Bree nodded furiously. "Yes! A Dress, please! That would be so cute~!" Eisenughed and drew up the basic form of Bree toyer the dress onto in the sketch. He decided to have its length be up until the halfway point on her thighs, be tight-fitting around the chest area. For the colors, he decided to mix together an intense dark green as the base with the pink color of her hair to add cute details. Since Feys, or Fairies, are supposed to be quite connected to nature, Eisen decided to draw pink flowers onto the green of the dress. "Do you like it?" He turned to Bree and asked with a smile. She immediately nodded her head and smiled brightly, "Yes! Yes, that¡¯s super cute! Thank you so much!" "It¡¯s fine, really. So, I think for today that¡¯s about all the time we have. We should probably get back to the Inn, or well, you should get back to wherever you live." Eisen suggested and packed up all his tools, as well as the paper he used to draw the sketches. "Well, I also live at the Inn~. Instead of getting paid, they let me stay at the Inn and eat for free! That¡¯s super nice, right?" She exined and followed behind Eisen while he left the Workshop. "Yeah, that really is nice. But do you want to live there for the rest of your life? Don¡¯t you want to move into your own house at some point?" "I mean~... yeah, but..." With her face turned away, she slowly began fidgeting with her fingers. "... I want to do some things first... Like, find my mother, and stuff..." Eisen began to frown and looked down at Bree. If she really didn¡¯t even know her own mother, it would make sense to try and find her. "So why are you here, then? Is your mother around here somewhere?" She shook her head and looked down on the ground as the two of them began crossing the bridge over to the street where the Inn was located, "No... I don¡¯t think so, at least. I told you about being the Carrier for an adventuring party, right? Well, they wanted to cross the mountain range. And on the first day, they found a cave not too far from here. There was a lot of treasure there... a LOT of treasure... They told me to grab as much of it as I can carry, but my strength wasn¡¯t enough to carry as much as they wanted me to, so they stole my bag and carried it themselves... They threw me out of the cave and I found my way here.. I don¡¯t know what happened to them, though. But well, I was here without any money or food or anything, but then I met the nice Owner of the Inn and he told me he would let me stay there for free if I helped out a little bit." "Well, that¡¯s really nice of him. He did seem like quite a good guy" Eisen nodded and began scratching his beard with his eyes closed. After another few minutes that they spent walking without talking, they reached the Inn. Eisen and Bree walked to the restaurant together to eat, and a waitress came up. "Hey, Bree! How are you? Haven¡¯t seen you around all day!" She said with a smile, one that most might see as genuine. But Eisen could tell from his expansive life experience that this kind of smile was anything else but genuine, and held deep hatred and spite behind it. Bree looked down at the table and avoided eye-contact, only further supporting what Eisen thought. "Y-Yeah, I was staying with Eisen all day..." "Ooh~? So you¡¯ve finally done it and sold yourself to some lonely old man~? But I thought you¡¯d be like that, so-" The Waitressughed with her hand in front of her mouth, looking down onto Bree who was still keeping her head low, when Eisen stood up looked at the young Human Woman. "Listen here, young woman. You should probably leave. Right now." He said, looking down at her with a calm face, the same one he had back when he was talking to Hendrick. The waitress stumbled back a little bit, but then only began tough more, "Oh? What¡¯s this? Did you go senile~? This girl isn¡¯t a person, old man, so there¡¯s no need to get angry because of her." "I warned you. And I don¡¯t give second chances." Eisen grumbled and leaned forward. Before the woman could even react, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. "H-Hey, what¡¯s this supposed to mean?! Th-This is assault!" She yelled out and began punching Eisen in the back to make him let go. Without any words, he walked to the front desk of the Inn and looked at the Innkeeper, who simply sighed and frowned when she saw the whole scene. "Tanya, what¡¯d I tell ya ¡¯bout insultin¡¯ Bree?" "Wh-What? That¡¯s all you have to say about this?!" She yelled while Eisen slowly put her back down, her facepletely flushed red. The Innkeeper crossed his arms and nodded. "Aye, it sure is, Tanya. Get in the back and change into yer normal clothes. Ye don¡¯t work ¡¯ere anymore." "W-Wait, what do you mean?! Because of that bitch? She isn¡¯t even a person, so why-" "Fine, I changed my mind." The Innkeeper interrupted her, and the girl grew a smug smile as if she was about to say something even more insulting toward Bree, but before she could open her mouth he continued talking. "Get the fuck outta here, and don¡¯t evere back. Right this second, ya ¡¯ear?" The Innkeeper said angrily, and seeing that he¡¯s serious, the girl, Tanya, angrily stomped out the front door, her face as red as a tomato. Eisen smiled and looked back at the Innkeeper. "Sorry if I caused trouble. Right now and this morning as well, of course." With a smile on his face, showing his straight white teeth, the Innkeeper shook his head. "Dontcha worry ¡¯bout it! Wanted to fire ¡¯er anyway, Tanya¡¯s a bitch. Ye just gave me a good opportunity ta fire ¡¯er right now. She was super stuck-up and kept insultin¡¯ non-human customers. Which is 90% of our customers, considering this is a Dwarven Town." "If that¡¯s so, then I guess you¡¯re wee haha. But I will get back to Bree now." Eisenughed lowly and turned back around to head to the Restaurant while the Innkeeper began to smile. After that, Eisen and Bree had a lot of fun talking while they were eating, and Eisen found out some more things about Bree. She grew up with her father, a simple human, who fell in love with a nature Fey, a Pixie, Bree¡¯s mother. Eisen didn¡¯t care to ask how the whole ordeal worked, due to the obvious size difference, and instead smiled at the thought of two people giving up their cultural differences to be with each other. Truly, it did remind him a little bit of histe wife, who he had met during his time in Japan. But Bree¡¯s father died while she was barely 10 years old, leaving her to fend on her own in a world filled with people that hated her very existence. She struggled hard and did small jobs here and there to pay for food while living on the streets of her hometown until she found that she was good at support magic and had an extraordinary mana pool, which is when she became an Adventurer who would do small tasks. With the help of her support magic, she was able to learn spells such as ¡¯lighten¡¯, which, how the name implied, lightened the weight of her gathered items to a certain amount. And bypleting more and more simple gathering requests, she ranked up and got the attention of some higher ranked parties that were famous in the area, and was scouted as their carrier, to basically bring the heaps of loot they would gather at times back to the guild to sell. But she was really only seen as a packing mule, and not for her support magic. For that, most parties had clerics or shamans, and Bree was always left behind once the party gathered enough money to buy spatial-storage items, because that meant they didn¡¯t have to share the money from quests with one more person. After this whole cycle continued for years on end, she decided to only be a temporary higher for parties that went out to quests where they expected a high amount of loot. More and more she got to know the area around her hometown, and then she was hired by the party that simply left her behind. And now she spent all her time talking to people she could meet in the Inn, hoping an adventurer woulde along that could help her at least get back to arger town. He heard her story, and Eisen leaned into his chair, scratching his beard and closing his eyes with a smile. "Then how about I help you out? Well, it would need to wait for a month, because I have some business to attend to near here then, but after that, I do want to go on a journey. Well, we can help each other out, I guess. Having support like yours when fighting definitely seems useful. Not to speak of the help you were with my mana while smithing." "Y-You really want my help?" "Of course I do!" Heughs out loud and looks at the girl that is nearly in tears in front of him. "Th-then, only in a month? Could I maybe help you before then? It¡¯s really fun watching you work!" "Sure! Then I¡¯ll see you tomorrow?" Eisen asked and smiled, and when Bree nodded furiously, he waved for the waitress so that he could pay, and then stood up, walking to his room to practice his Mana Maniption a bit more. Chapter 17 Handyman Eisen sat down on his bed and grabbed the book to train mana maniption with out of his new Backpack, which he then leaned against his nightstand. Flipping open the book, he skipped forward to chapter four, which concentrated on how to control mana when it is outside one¡¯s body. He already figured out how topress it inside of his body and push it out through his skin to let it float over his palm, as well asyer it at the front of his Hammer. And he managed to somewhat control the mana outside of his body as well, when he let it somewhat beat in the rhythm of his heartbeat. But this time around, he was supposed to do something else with his mana. The basic excersize in the book basically just told him to change the shape of the sphereter. At first maybe change it into a cube, but at some point also moreplicated shapes like general items one hadying around. Eisen started out with the basics, slowlypressing it down and then moving it to his hand to push it slowly through the skin on his palm. When he felt the slight stinging, he opened his eyes and looked at the sphere on top of his hand. Right now it really was only a rough sphere shape, something one might expect to see when a bright light shines outward from a single point to create the illusion of a bigger sphere, and Eisen knew that a lot more mana than necessary was lost every single second. So the first thing he wanted to do was change that. He knew that there was something ¡¯solid¡¯ in the core of the sphere, so he only had to copy the feeling of the weird solid energy and replicate it throughout the whole sphere. Little by little, the core grew and the shine shrank as Eisen imagined the energy growing harder, round and t like a ss bead. Eisen slowly used his left hand to touch the solid sphere of mana, and immediately felt how cold it was to his touch, but the more he felt it, the more the cold felt like heat, and the heat felt like the cold. It was a curious and unknown feeling to Eisen, but the more he felt it the more he wanted to feel it. He began to try and change its shape slowly, but it just wouldn¡¯t turn into the cube that Eisen wanted. There were only six small, t surfaces that formed along the sphere, but not enough to actually call it a cube, or even have it be recognized as such by a third person. More and more, Eisen tried to refine the shape, but hit a counter-stop at some point. No matter what he tried, it wouldn¡¯t change anymore. So to at least level his Mana Maniption skill up a bit, he began changing the shape from the mock-cube into the sphere and back, repeating this cycle continuosly until... [Mana Maniption reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [It is now easier to manipte the shape of Mana] [Due to Ranking-up your Mana Maniption Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] Immediately Eisen felt a Major difference to before. The mana that could not be turned into a cube no matter how much he tried, took on the form he willed it to as if poured into a mold. "That¡¯s more like it!" Eisenughed out loud and looked at the cube. He held out his left hand and slowly touched the tip of his index finger against the corner of the mana-cube. Seeing that it was surprisingly sharp, but still gave in to his touch, he smiled and continued reading on further. However, even before he could finish the first page, he read the warning that from then on it would only be useful with a Rank of 2 or higher in Mana Maniption, since the rest of the book had to do about maniption of element infused mana, and this was only unlocked when one reached rank 2. Thus, Eisen chose to rather train his Mana Maniption ability for the time being. Since what he didst night even gave him extra Wisdom, Eisen decided to continue on this train of thought. He only somewhat knew what a human heart looked like, since he could guess it from seeing animal hearts on the rare asions that he cooked it in the past. However, since he wanted to take this chance and copy the shape of his heart as detailed as possible, he tried out something new. While keeping the shape of the Mana-cube floating over his hand up, he moved the rest of his mana still left inside of his body into the center of his chest. He concentrated on it especially, and felt his insides through the mana. It was a weird sensation, one he wouldn¡¯t be able to exin even if someone asked him to, but he knew how to control it. Eisen spread his mana out around his heart until it waspletely covered and he could feel everyst bit of it. Slowly, from the bottom up, Eisen copied exactly what he felt inside of him onto the cube floating over his palm. The longer Eisen tried shaping the cube, the more it looked like a heart. He continued inspecting his own heart while it beat, and copied that same tact onto the mana-heart in front of him. [Mana Copy Skill Learned] [Mana Copy Library Expanded] Giant-Dwarf Heart "Huh? That¡¯s a skill? Awesome!" Eisen eximed and looked at the notification floating next to the beating heart suspended in mid-air above his hand. He leaned in and looked at the pure white construct shining and glittering in the moonlight. "This is truly beautiful. I¡¯m not sure of the uses it might have, beside artistic ones, that is." He muttered out and ced his fingers around the heart, feeling it beat in his hand. That¡¯s when he had an idea. During his long life, he many times thought about how great it would be if he had more than two hands. With a grin on his face, Eisen moved the rest of his mana back into his hand, filling it outpletely from the inside. He felt its shape and Eisen¡¯s new Mana Copy skill immediately went to work when he tried to copy the shape he felt, and the heart morphed into a hand. [Mana Copy Library Expanded]Giant-Dwarf Hand "Wow, that¡¯s amazing! It really looks just like my hand!" He eximed with glee in his voice, forgetting that the mana was still inside of his hand and the shape was being copied onto the structure in front of him. When he moved his hand closer, the Mana hand moved away, and when he clenched it, so did the mana hand clench itself. Grinning, Eisen stretched his hand out forward, and the Mana version of it traveled to the other side of the room, and when Eisen pulled his hand backward, it moved back toward himself. Slowly, trying to grasp theplex control it took, he moved the fake hand to his backpack, and closed it around the straps. When Eisen then held his hand upward, the Backpack basically began to float with the help of the Mana Hand. [Mana Hand Skill Learned] "Haha! Another new skill? And this one definitely seems useful!" Eisenughed out loud and let go of the bag, then scratched his beard while the hand copied that motion. As if he had an idea, and simply to test out how the activation worked, Eisen concentrated on his other hand and filled it with mana. It was rtively hard to split the mana left in his body up, but the moment he got the Mana Hand skill, the energy contained in his hand felt stationary, as if he was wearing a glove inside of his hand, so he didn¡¯t need to worry about concentrating to keep it there. The moment his mana filled his other hand in addition to the already filled one, a second hand appeared in front of him. Slowly but surely, he picked up the book heid down on the nightstand and opened it up with his Mana Hands, carefully flipping through the pages. His control really was not good in the slightest, which could be seen in him ripping out multiple pages out of the book. Luckily, it was the guide-book for the basics of the game instead of the Mana Maniption book. Eisen had to return that to Morrom at some point, after all. For the next hour, Eisen continued practicing with his Mana Hands by using the ripped-out pages and folding them into different shapes. At first, he could only fold it in half a few times, butter he was even able to fold simple origami animals out of it. During his practice, he noticed a few things. The further away his hands were, the worse his fine control got. And then, without Eisen expecting it, something happened. [Your MP hit 0. You will lose consciousness now.] The next morning, Eisen woke back up with his MPpletely filled up again. He shot up immediately his eyes opened and he looked around confused. "What just happened?" He muttered out, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "It said I ran out of MP, huh? Well, at least I know that¡¯s what¡¯s going to happen when I run out, so I should be careful so that it doesn¡¯t happen outside..." Yawning loudly, Eisen stood up and picked up the book lying on the floor, as well as the random folded pieces of paper spread out everywhere. "Well, I¡¯ll just go get some breakfast then. And maybe I can ask Bree to help me practice. With her giving me mana, I should be able to level it up further!" He smiled and left his room, his backpack under his arm. "Good morning Eisen~!" Bree eximed happily when she saw him enter the restaurant. Eisen smiled softly and sat down at one of the nearby tables, "Good morning, Bree. Working in the morning again, huh?" "Yup~! I asked if I can work the suuuper early morning shifts! I don¡¯t need to sleep as much as others because I¡¯m a Fey-kin!" She smiled and then took Eisen¡¯s breakfast order. Since Bree nned it so that he would be thest customer she served that morning, she came back with two tes instead of one and sat down together with Eisen to eat. Eisen exined his ns for today, which would be to simply work on his and her clothes, at least the ones he could make without leather. And if there was still time, he would try and make something simple, like another purse, only using his Mana Hands. "Whoa! You can use Mana Hands? But it took me super long to learn that!" Bree yelled out in disbelief, crossing her arms with a pout on her face. With augh, Eisen finished his breakfast at about the same time as Bree did, and handed her the money, and obviously a generous tip, which she quickly denied but since Eisen insisted she took it against her will. After a few minutes, Bree came out from the back and skipped to Eisen¡¯s side. He smiled and walked out of the Inn with Bree directly behind him. The two of them took their time strolling around town, Bree showing Eisen some of her favorite ces and telling him more about the town. The pair then walked across the same bridge as the day before, and made their way toward the Tailor shop Beautiful Clothes to begin work for the day. Chapter 18 Clothes Make The Man Eisen and Bree entered through the front door and were greeted by a cheerful Folmirra. "Good morning, you two! Any ns for today?" She asked with a curious smile as she looked at the two of them. "Good morning, Folmirra. I just want to try and make some clothes today, and Bree¡¯s gonna help out a bit." Eisen replied with a smile. Folmirra nodded and waved them to the back. Eisen and Bree sat down at an empty table, and Eisen ced his backpack down, grabbing the design papers. "Alright, I think I¡¯ll do the regr crafting outfits first. Wanna help me get the thread again?" Eisen asked and stood up, while Bree nodded furiously. "Yees~!" The two of them walked to the wall filled with different fabrics, and Eisen went through different types of cotton, which he thought to be the best material to make clothes out of for now. He picked red and ck cotton, the same colors as he used for his Backpack, and a light grey cotton to use for the pants. Immediately after showing her the colors, Bree ran off to get the right rolls of thread, while Eisen brought the fabric over to their table. While Bree was still getting the thread, Eisen began getting his tools ready, his exacto knife as well as his needles, and used Tool Connection on them. Eisen probably wouldn¡¯t be able to get them up to as high a connectivity rating as he would with his hammer at some point, since these are basically throwaway items, but he still wanted to get as many bonuses out of them as possible. Eisen wanted to get to work, and luckily he already knew his proportions, so that was one step off the list. One of the few things he was still able to do after his injury was to sew, albeit not as quickly or as much as he would have liked, but it was better than nothing, so he spent a lot of time making different clothes for himself and his family in the abundant freetime he suddenly had. He grabbed arge piece of design paper and sketched out the shape he would need to cut outter for the shirt. Carefully measuring the width and adding some extra centimeters so that it wouldn¡¯t be a skin-tight fit, he was soon finished and cut it out along the edges. Heid it down on the red fabric first, and cut the shape out twice, then repeated the same for the ck fabric, and then cut off each part designated for his sleeves. Next, he drew out arge oval, and cut it in half length-wise, as well as a slightly bigger oval and did the same. Heid the smaller down on each side of each shirt-base and cut them out of it, so that he basically had two red and two ck ovals, and cut outrger half-ovals out of unused fabric. After that, he drew and cut out a long small rectangr strip on paper, and cut out both a ck and red version of them off a new piece of cotton. He followed this by cutting out two thinner strips of both ck and red each. And as thest pieces of the shirt, he cut out four circles out of the smaller half-ovals, two red and two ck. Out of each circle, he then cut out another slightly smaller circle, out of which he in return cut out small hammers. This wouldter be put together as patches for each shoulder part of the shirts. Eisen smiled at Bree and took the thread from her. He put the ck thread through the needle¡¯s hole and slowly began infusing his mana into the small piece of metal, which would then in return fill the thread itself with his mana. First, he began assembling the shirt with the ck base. He grabbed the first ck shirt-half base as well as one of therger red half-ovals and ced it into the spot where he cut out one of the smaller ck half-ovals. Eisen pushed his needle through the red fabric and into the ck and used a strong backstitch to sew them together. He repeated this same thing three more times, once more on the other side of the same shirt-half, and then twice on each side of the other shirt-half. Next, Eisenid the two halves on top of each other and used more backstitches to run across its edge, leaving out the holes for his waist, arms, and neck. He connected each of the sleeve-parts that belong together with each other, and then simply sewed them onto the shirt. After he was done, he slightly pulled on each half to test its strength and observe any mistakes or ws, and after not seeing anything, turned the shirt inside out. First, however, he turned to Bree and asked her to start giving him some of her mana, since he was slowly running low. Eisen was sure he would have been able to finish the shirt with the mana he had remaining, but since he got more tired the lower his mana ran, he wanted to fill it back up so that he wouldn¡¯t make any mistakes just because he got a bit groggy. "Thanks, Bree. That woke me right up!" Heughed loudly and ced his hand on Bree¡¯s head, then quickly returned to his work. Eisen ced one of the small red strips on the end of one of the sleeves, and quickly sewed the strip onto it, repeating the same on the other side, and cutting off the excess of the strip. Next, Eisen got the cor of the shirt. Out of the front, he cut a small triangle to make the shirt a v-neck, and ced one end of the bigger red strip at the lowest point of the open neck, and slowly began sowing it all around to give the cor a border. "It looks so great!" Bree eximed with big eyes, and Eisen replied with a softugh. "Haha, I¡¯m not done just yet. There¡¯s still the finishing touch left." Smiling, Eisen ced one of the bigger red circles onto one of the shoulder-parts, simply sowing it on with his regr backstitch, then ced a ck circle into its cut-out center, sowing it on as well. Lastly, he ced the red hammer into the opening, pushing his needle through the cotton to fix it on his shirt, and repeated the same process on the other side. Filled with pride, he ced the shirt down on the table and crossed his arms, a big smile forming as he nodded. "Done." [You made a ck and Red Shirt] [ck and Red Shirt] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description]An extremely high-quality ck and Red shirt made by the Tailor Eisen. Due to his great abilities, he overcame the limit of his skills and reached a higher rank than normally possible, and even then perfected it. The seams are nearly invisible, and the type of stitch used leads to high durability. On its shoulder, it holds a red Hammer on a ck background, a sign of the Original of the Mechanical Arts. It was made with the intention of being worn during crafting. [Effect]+5 AGI; +5 END [For Creating an Item of overwhelming Quality, you gain +1 AGI and +1 END] [You overcame the limits of your skills.] [You have broken through the limits of two different skills. Limitbreaker Title is changing to Limitbreaker II] [Title - Limitbreaker II] [Description] By Breaking the limits of two of your skills, you showed the world you stand above it [Effect]+2 to all basic stats Alreadypletely overwhelmed by the notifications he got, he was immediately happy when he saw that he broke through his Tailoring Skill¡¯s Rank, and was just utterly surprised at his next notifications. [For using them to create a great item, your hands are pleased. Extra proficiency to A Dwarf¡¯s Hands Skill] [A Dwarf¡¯s Hands reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [Your hands grow more dexterous at all times] [Due to Ranking-up your A Dwarf¡¯s Hands Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 END] "Oh! Perfect!" Eisenughed and leaned back in his chair, his mouth turned upward into a bright smile. Bree leaned over the table and took a good look, her eyes glittering with joy. "It looks super awesome! So you¡¯ll do the second one now too?" She asked curiously, and Eisen nodded. Making this shirt took him about three hours, and since he only needed to sew the parts together with the second shirt, it might take only about two to two and a half hours. To take advantage of the bonuses from his newly crafted shirt, he took off the old one he was wearing. Immediately, Bree turned away with a blush, but Eisen tried to ignore it while he put on his new shirt. He sighed out loud and began scratching his beard with his eyes closed, nodding slightly. "That¡¯s more like it. That thing was getting pretty ufortable..." Eisen muttered out and set his old shirt aside, then looked forward at the materials in front of him. "Alright, Bree, I¡¯ll tell you if I need any more mana!" He said enthusiastically and immediately got to work. [You made a Red and ck Shirt] [Red and ck Shirt] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] An extremely high-quality Red and ck shirt made by the Tailor Eisen. Due to his great abilities, he overcame the limit of his skills and reached a higher rank than normally possible, and even then perfected it. The seams are nearly invisible, and the type of stitch used leads to high durability. On its shoulder, it holds a red Hammer on a ck background, a sign of the Original of the Mechanical Arts. It was made with the intention of being worn during crafting. [Effect]+5 AGI; +5 END [For Creating an Item of overwhelming Quality, you gain +1 AGI] "Great! Second shirt,plete! Now I finally have something else to wear every once in a while!" Eisen said happily and folded the shirt before setting it to the side. "And what next?" Bree asked and looked up at Eisen. He turned to her and thought for a bit, then said, "I think now I¡¯m going to make the pair of pants. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s necessary to make more than one pair that looks exactly the same, so I should be done with two out of the five outfits today!" "Cooool~! And then what will you do tomorrow?" The Fey-Kin girl tilted her head curiously. "Tomorrow... I need to make the other pair of pants for my cksmithing outfit and then start on my suit. If I get that done quickly enough, I¡¯ll have the whole day after tomorrow to make your dress! And then I think I¡¯ll move onto Leatherworking." "Ooh, you¡¯re going to take that much time to make my dress?" "Haha, yeah! It needs to be good, after all!" "Don¡¯t worry, no matter what you make will be good..." Bree muttered out with her face flushed red. Eisen smiled and turned forward, feeling enthusiastic to finish the pair of pants. He grabbed a sheet of design paper and drew out the shape he would need to cut outter four times to make the pants, as well as multiple different-sized squares as the base for the extra pockets, and an oval shape for the ¡¯bag¡¯ inside the regr front and back pockets. Using his exacto knife, Eisen cut the forms out and ced the pant-base onto the light grey cotton, cutting the shape out carefully. While he was at it, he cut out enough squares for six big pockets and three small pockets, and four of the ovals. Very simply, Eisen ced two of the pant-quarters on the other and sewed them together for the left side, and repeated the same process for the right side. After that, he carefully set the left and right sides together, making sure there is enough space in the crotch, but in the front didn¡¯t fully sew both halves together. Slowly but surely, he pushes his needle up and down, forward and backward, until the two halves became one. He turned the pants inside out and added a few holes at the fly so that he can open and close them easily once he added buttons. Next, he folded a few centimeters of the waistband forward and sewed it on to add strength to it. Once that was done, Eisen cut four horizontal slits into the front and back, and added the oval on the inside for the regr front and back pockets. Thest parts would now be the extra pockets. He grabbed the cotton squares he cut out and created three small cloth ¡¯boxes¡¯, as well as six bigger versions. The top and back were both still open when Eisen started to sow them onto the pants, giving him three small pockets along his waistband, and then three on each of his legs. Atst, he would only need to add the ¡¯lids¡¯ to them. Eisen cut out three small and six big trapezes using red cotton, and cut a small slit near the smaller sides, and carefully sewed them above the open-top pockets. Atst, Eisen grabbed a few ck buttons and sewed them on where they were needed, meaning his fly and the pocket-lids. Eisen sighed out loud and stood up, stretching carefully. He had been sitting down slightly hunched all day, and even if he technically didn¡¯t feel too ufortable, this action was just a habit after finishing a day of work. He looked at the pair of pants and smiled. [You made a pair of Grey Pants] [Grey Pants] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description]An extremely high-quality pair of Grey Pants made by the Tailor Eisen. Due to his great abilities, he overcame the limit of his skills and reached a higher rank than normally possible, and even then perfected it. The seams are nearly invisible, and the type of stitch used leads to high durability. There are many pockets on the outside to store different smaller items, such as different tools or materials. [Effect]+5 AGI; +5 END [For Creating an Item of overwhelming Quality, you gain +1 END] Chapter 19 Reunion Eisen leaned back in his chair and sighed out loud. "Finished!" He smiled and folded the pants andid them onto the red and ck shirt. Bree looked up at Eisen and titled her head, "Are you going to work on the next outfit as well now~?" "I don¡¯t think so, no. I wanted to try crafting something with my Mana Hands, remember? I just want to see if it has any effect on the item and if it will help with the Skill proficiency." "Ooh, right! Do that, I wanna see you make something with them!" Bree replied excitedly and got a soft smile from Eisen in return. "Of course." Eisen closed his eyes and beganpressing his Mana. After he formed it into a sphere he slowly split it into two halves, moving one of them to his right and the other to his left hand. He let the mana spread out into each of his hands, and soon enough Eisen noticed he could let his concentration go since the Mana Hand skill activated. In front of Eisen, there now were two snow-white hands that gave off a light glow. "Ooh! So pretty~!" Bree muttered out, causing Eisen to simplyugh. Eisen took a deep breath and closed his eyes, then stood up and walked back a few steps so that he wouldn¡¯t get in his own hands¡¯ way. Carefully, Eisen moved his right mana hand to the exacto knife and slowly picked it up. With his other mana hand, he then picked up the temte for the purses and pushed it down onto some of the red fabric still on the table, and cut out the teardrop shape twice. Next, Eisen grabbed the end of the remaining thread and put it through one of his needle¡¯s holes before trying to tie a knot into it so it wouldn¡¯t slip out. Up until then, Eisen was able to prepare everything like normal, but something like tying a knot into the thread was harder than Eisen expected, and he was only able to tie it after trying for a solid minute. "This might be harder than I thought... I¡¯m not sure if my Mana Hands are nimble enough to sew the purse... or maybe..." Suddenly, Eisen got an idea, but didn¡¯t know whether or not it would work. He concentrated on activating his racial skill, A Dwarf¡¯s Hands? and immediately felt and saw a change in the Mana Hands. The biggest visual change was that something like a thing thread of mana grew between his actual hands and the mana hands. Eisen felt his mana slowly draining immediately after this happened, as if he was fueling the movement of his mana hands. When he moved his hands again, he could see that the mana copies moved basically instantaneously. With a grin on his face, Eisen began to sew the two halves together before the time he could use his skill ran out. It was a lot harder than one might expect, considering that the mana hands did the exact same thing as Eisen¡¯s normal ones. But while they acted the same as Eisen¡¯s hands, there was one big difference. He couldn¡¯t feel what he was doing. He couldn¡¯t feel the cold metal of the needle, nor the fabric along his fingers as he held it down. These were all important details, and since Eisen always had these sensations all his life, it was hard to get used to not having them. However, since this wasn¡¯t that hard of a hurdle to ovee, Eisen still managed to finish the purse within the half-hour that he had, albeit barely. [You made a Simple Red Purse] [Simple Red Purse] [Quality - High][Rank - 1] [Description] A simple red purse made with special means, as it was made with hands made of pure mana. This act alone took an immense amount of control. "Huh, not overwhelming, but still surprisingly good," Eisen muttered out and nodded his head, then turned over to Bree who was looking at him with big eyes, and heughed lowly and handed the purse over to her. "Here you go! It¡¯s not a dress, but at least it¡¯s better than nothing." Bree¡¯s eyes opened up wider as she took the purse into her hands. "R-Really? Thank you so much, Eisen!" "No problem, Bree. But I think for today, let¡¯s head back to the Inn. I¡¯m feeling pretty tired after using so much mana." That was only an excuse, of course. Eisen wanted to get back to the Inn as early as possible so that he could log off the game for a few hours to eat something and take a shower. And maybe Melody called again and he would have to deal with that and calm her down. It would also be a good idea to call Tony or Natsuo and see how they¡¯re doing. After cleaning up the table, Eisen grabbed his new pants and shirt, as well as his old shirt, and slung his backpack over his shoulder, before Eisen and Bree left the workshop. When Folmirra turned at the sound of the opening door, she narrowed her eyes and leaned forward. "You were wearing something else when you came in here, right?" She asked and carefully inspected the shirt Eisen was wearing from a distance. Heughed and scratched his beard while replying, "Ah, yes, how I said my ns for the day were to make some clothes. I¡¯ll be doing that tomorrow and the day after tomorrow as well, haha." He held up the Red and ck shirt he was holding to show it to Folmirra, and she happily took a look at it. She ripped open her eyes and looked back and forth from Eisen and the shirt repeatedly, before starting to stutter. "Wh-what is this? Your... your skill rank, d-don¡¯t tell me it¡¯s still one... Denmir mentioned you broke through your cksmithing skill, but to think you did the same for your Tailoring skill... I-I don¡¯t believe I can somehow convince you to be a Tailor?" [It is possible to change your upation to Tailor. Do you ept?] Eisen carefully read through the notification before shaking his head. "Sorry, I¡¯m sure Denmir told you already, but I don¡¯t want to make such a choice yet." "Haa... I understand... But if you change your mind, the option will always be there! Juste to me, and I will instantly give the upation to you!" "Thank you, Folmirra. We¡¯ll see you tomorrow then." Smiling, Eisen left the shop with Bree directly behind him. The two of them made their way to the Inn, ate Dinner together, and said goodnight before Eisen paid for a room. He walked through the door and immediately set down his things, taking off his shirt before lying down in bed. --- "Fucking... shit... I¡¯m so old..." Benjamin swore as he stood up from the capsule and held his back while stumbling across the room. His joints cracked as he was walking to the kitchen to make himself some food. It wasn¡¯t anything grand, just simply some buttered toast. He didn¡¯t really have that much of an appetitetely, besides when he was in the game of course. After he finished his small breakfast, he went over to his phone and sat down on his couch. "Ah, Hey Dad! How are you?... -Katy, leave your brother alone and eat your waffles!- ...Sorry, I¡¯m a little stressed. -What? Katy, I just said leave your brother alone! No, stop- stop biting him!-" Tony, Benjamin¡¯s youngest son, was the first one that was called. He seemed to be tired and annoyed, yelling over to his youngest daughter while talking to his father. Benjamin couldn¡¯t help but let out a soft chuckle. "Are you busy? Because if you are, we can talk another time. I just wanted to chat a bit anyway." "No no, it¡¯s fine, Dad. How are you? Benji keeps telling me to ask you how that game is, what was it again? World of... something or another?" "World of Magic, yes, son. And it is truly a lot of fun. You know how I-" "-Jesus Flipping Christ, Katy! If you don¡¯t stop biting Sean I¡¯ll get the muzzle!- Sorry, Dad, what were you saying?" Tony apologized, trying to get his kids under control. "Are you really alright? If you need some time to yourself, you cane visit with the kids for a bit. That¡¯s been a long timeing anyway." Benjamin suggested, worried about his son. It hasn¡¯t been long since Jennifer, Tony¡¯s wife, passed away, and Benjamin oh so much knows the feeling of having to raise three children on his own. "...Thanks, Dad. I¡¯ll have to see how much time I have left before I need to get back to work. I can¡¯t afford to-" "Tony, I told you a thousand times, if you need money, I¡¯ll lend you some. I really don¡¯t need it! I¡¯m old, my house is paid off, and diapers for old men aren¡¯t as expensive as they used to be." Benjamin stayed quiet for a few seconds, waiting for the reply he wanted to hear. And when Tony finallyughed, Benjamin calmed down again. "Thanks, although I¡¯ll never get your humor. I¡¯ll see if we cane sometime this or next month. Should I tell Melody and Natsuo as well? So we could throw a little family reunion?" He asked and Benjamin leaned back to think. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. It¡¯s been a while since we¡¯ve all been together. I¡¯ll call Natsuo myself, I wanted to talk to him as well. Melody already called me a few times yesterday and-" "-Completely freaked out? Yeah, I know, she called me as well to see if I heard anything. Well, I really have to go now before Katy officially bes a cannibal. Love you, Dad." "Love you too, son." Happy that he could help his son out a little bit in such a hard time of his life, Benjamin smiled. Next, he dialed the phone number of his oldest son, Natsuo. "Good morning, Natsuo. How are you?" He asked, excited to hear what else his son created since thest time they talked. While Melody chose to work as a teacher and Tony became a software engineer, Natsuo took after his father and decided to create things. He became an engineer specialized in robotics and kept fiddling with different things to create interesting inventions that Benjamin always loved to hear about. "Good morning, Dad! I meant to call you, actually! Melody was freaking out about something yesterday. I knew you were ying the game, so I wasn¡¯t too worried, but that reminded me to ask you about how the game feels! Some of my colleagues kept specting on whether this is all just a sham to pull research money out of rich guys. If this technology really works, you have NO idea what that¡¯s going to mean! Just imagine prosthetics that are indistinguishable from a real limb after they are ced on the patient! Blind people who will be able to see again by giving them prosthetic eyes!" "Haha, I¡¯m d you¡¯re so enthusiastic about this. Once the game is essible to the public, you should also consider ying." Benjamin suggested, and immediately Natsuo answered, "Yes! I definitely will! You¡¯ll have to show me the ropes then, haha!" Heughed out and Benjamin smiled. "Well, anyway, do you have any big projectsing up? Because Tony and I were just talking, and we figured it would be a good idea toe over here with the kids for a while, and he suggested that you all alsoe by. To have a little family reunion." Slowly, Benjamin exined the situation and instantly Natsuo agreed. "Oh yeah, definitely! It¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve seen Tony and Melody as well! And I¡¯m sure L and L are also going to be happy to see their cousins! And Christie will be ecstatic that she can rx a bit as well. Is there a date yet?" "No, not yet, I¡¯ll keep you updated though. And talking about Christie, greet her from me!" "Will do! But sorry, gotta go Dad! A colleague needs my help with something. Talk to youter, love you!" "Love you too, Natsuo!" Chapter 20 Suit Yourself "Good morning~!" With a cheerful voice, Bree walked up to Eisen who just sat down in the restaurant to eat his breakfast, wearing his ck and Red Shirt as well as his Grey Pants. "Ooh, you¡¯re in an especially good mood this morning, Eisen!" She eximed gleefully as she looked at him sitting there with a big smile on his face. Sure, usually Eisen always smiled a lot, but even then the rest of his body was tense, fully of excitement to work, but now all that Bree could feel was happiness. Eisenughed lowly and nodded his head in response, "Yeah, haha, I guess I had a pretty good dream. And you seem to be the bundle of joy you always are, huh?" "Yuup~! You want the same breakfast as yesterday?" She asked and held up her noteblock to write down the order. "Yes please!" "It will be right there~!" After a few minutes, Bree came back with two tes again, one for Eisen and one for herself. As she was walking up to the table, Eisen noticed the purse he gave her yesterday bound to her pants, a few small coins ttering against each other. The two of them ate together and then slowly made their way out of the Inn and toward the Tailor Shop. After walking past Folmirra and exchanging some greetings, they sat down at their regr table in the workshop. Eisenid out the two designs for the clothes he wanted to work on, as well as his different tools. First, since it wouldn¡¯t take too long, Eisen decided to work on the pants for his cksmithing outfit, which is the only part he would have to do for that for now, since the only other Part was a full-leather apron. He stood up and walked to the wall covered with rolls of fabric, and chose a simple, thin beige wool, and Bree made her way over to the threads and grabbed one that corresponded to the fabric¡¯s color. When they met back up at the table, Bree tilted her head. "Why did you take wool this time?" She asked curiously. Eisen smiled and began to exin. "Ah, well, it¡¯s pretty simple. Since I¡¯ll wear these when I¡¯m working in a smithy, where sparks are flying around all the time, I need something that won¡¯t easily catch on fire. And wool is something like that." "Ooh, cool~!" She eximed and sat down next to Eisen to watch him work. Like always, he grabbed the design paper and drew what he needed to cut out of the fabric afterward. Eisen ced the temte onto the wool, and cut the shape out four times. Like with the Grey Pants he made the day before, Eisen first sewed two of them together to create the left leg, then sewed two of them together to create the right leg, and then sewed both halves together to finish the pants up. Lastly, Eisen grabbed some thick string and trailed it through the waistband to create a ¡¯mock belt¡¯ that he could pull on and tie together at the ends to have it sit right. And with that, the pants were finished. [You created a pair of Baggy Pants] [Baggy Pants] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A pair of baggy pants created by the Tailor Eisen. It is made of simple wool, and although it isn¡¯tplicated it is a truly high quality product. [Effect] +5 END; +5 AGI "Alright, that¡¯s done!" Eisen eximed with a bright smile, folding his new pair of pants and setting them aside. Directly afterward, Eisen began preparing for his next design: The Suit. He first drew out the temtes in as much detail as possible. For the pants, Eisen used the same tactic as always, drawing out the shape for the temte, which he would then use to cut out four parts to sew them together. For the jacket, Eisen drew out a few different temtes. One for the back, and one for both of the front parts and one for the arms, as well as a few smaller shapes for the pockets. He then moved on to the temtes for the shirt. He cut out simr shapes as for the jacket, just slightly smaller and with a few differences here and there, for example using a different shape for the cor. Lastly, Eisen drew out simple temtes to use for the Tie and Handkerchief. "Now, let¡¯s get to picking out the materials!" Eisen said excitedly, and stood up, Bree skipping and giggling behind him, "Ookay~!" They once more walked over to the fabrics, and Eisen picked four different ones. A rtively thick ck wool, a thin ck wool, and thin red silk. "I¡¯ll get the threead~!" Bree yelled out while she was already halfway to the thread storage, and Eisen walked back to their table. He chose to begin with the pants, and ced its temte on the thick ck wool, carefully tracing it with his Exacto Knife. Again, he sewed the first two pieces together to create the left leg, did the same for the right leg, and then sewed both halves together with his regr backstitch, leaving part of the front open for the fly. He flipped over the waistband to give stability and did the same for the ends of the legs, and then cut into them horizontally underneath the waistband twice in the front and twice in the back for the pockets. He also flipped them over to the front for more stability, and added some thin ck fabric inside of them to turn them into actual pockets, andstly cut small slits near the fly and added a few buttons. "Done! Next!" Eisen eximed after about two hours, and quickly ced the next temtes, for the shirt, onto the thin ck wool, and traced them out. Eisen first created something like a vest by sewing the front parts and the back together, and adding some holes for buttons to go through, which he then also quickly, but carefully, sew on. Then, Eisen cut out the fabric for the sleeves, and sewed each long end together to create a ¡¯tube¡¯, with a small slit at one end where he also added a button to close it end up tightly. Afterward, Eisen simply sewed the sleeves onto the vest, finishing the shirt. "Now, I only have the vest and the essories left!" "You¡¯re working so quickly, Eisen!" Bree eximed, her eyes glittering gleefully. "Yeah, haha. Slowly getting to a speed my body is used to, it seems!" Eisen exined. And he was telling the truth, it seemed like he was slowly getting his body to what it was in real life. The dexterity, speed, strength, and so on, now all seemed a lot closer to what he was used to. Eisen smiled and cut out the parts needed for the Jacket, and basically repeated the same process of creating the shirt, finely pushing his needle through the wool, stitch after stitch, taking his time to finish thest big piece of the day. He ran his hand over the wool of the jacket and felt its reaction to his needle and the thread now running across it. And Eisen knew that usually making a suit would take days, maybe even weeks, usually, but with the help of the game system, and his extraordinary skill, he was able to finish it in only a day. Usually he would need to re-measure everything perfectly, or iron the finished items, or even go as far as redo some parts due to his fatigue the day before. But the game took care of all of these things. Even if the size waspletely off, the item would fit one¡¯s body as if it was made for them. Of course, it would still fit best when it was made to be your size, but especially small areas that didn¡¯t fit were fixed instantly. There was no need to Iron or clean items, since simple dirt or folds could be easily cleaned off or straightened out with a little bit of water. And he really didn¡¯t feel any fatigue like he normally would. While he was working, except if he ran out of Mana, he was constantly feelingpletely invigorated, and it was only when he sat down to rx that a bit of fatigue caught up to him. Eisen only had about an hour left before the shop closed, thus he now needed to hurry up. Luckily, he only had two more things left to make. The Tie and the Handkerchief. He cut out the fabric for the tie out of the red wool, and folded it over along the edges, and sewed each side together. Since this was all he had to do, the tie was now finshed after barely 20 minutes, and Eisen only had the Handkerchief left. He cut out a square out of the silk and grabbed some of the red thread, leaning back in his chair while hefortably began stitching patterns into it. "Alright, I¡¯ll be done soon, but it¡¯s prettyte. Do you want to go on to the Inn already? I¡¯ll show you the finished suit there if you want, but I think you really should go and eat something." Eisen suggested while looking at Bree, who kept looking at him with a wide smile. "No, I want to stay here with you! I was watching all day, so I want to see it being finished as well~!" Eisen began tough softly and smiled at her reaction. He wasn¡¯t realy sure if this was a good thing or not. Sure, he loved herpany, and it was always better to work together with someone else than alone, even if the other person was simply watching. But he also had some ns for her dress he wanted to prepare for, and it was supposed to be a surprise, since she really, really deserved it. She has gone through so many hardships, and for now the only thing Eisen could do for her was make that dress, so he wanted to make it perfect. Atst, he came up with a different n that he decided to pursue instead. "Alright, fine. It¡¯s not going to be long anyway, just a few more minutes. But after that I still wanted to talk to Folmirra about some things, and actually try the suit on and hear her proffessinal opinion." "That¡¯s fine~! I¡¯ll wait!" "Haha, sure. Although, there are some things I need to talk to her about in private, so I might have to ask you to wait outside." Bree shrugged and nodded with a slight frown, "Sure..." She pouted, and Eisen simplyughed softly, cing his hand on her head just when he finished the stitching on the handkerchief, a copy of the patters on the coin hanging around his neck. With a smile, he stood up and looked at the finished items. [You created a pair of Fine Pants] [You created a Fine Shirt] [You created a Fine Jacket] [You created a Fine Tie] [You created a Fine Handkerchief] [For creating five overwhelming quality items, you gain +3 END and +2 AGI] [You created the Item Set ¡¯Fine Suit¡¯] [Fine Suit] [Description] An extremely high quality ck Suit with Red essories created by the Tailor eisen. It ispletely made up of Perfect Quality, Rank 2 Items. [Items] Fine Pants; Fine Shirt; Fine Jacket; Fine Tie; Fine Handkerchief [Set Effect] +20 END, +15 STR, +15 AGI, +10 CHA [For creating an overwhelming quality Item Set, you gain +1 END and +1 AGI] [Tailoring reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [It is now possible to work with non-conventional fabrics] [Due to Ranking-Up your Tailoring Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 END] Chapter 21 Magic Fabrics "Huh? What¡¯s this?" Eisen muttered out confused. It wasn¡¯t that he ranked up his Tailoring skill, there was something else that Eisen thought was more interesting. There was a stat bonus he¡¯s never seen before until now. So, he turned to a person that probably should know, since she was an inhabitant of that world. "Bree, what¡¯s CHA?" He asked and Bree tilted her head. "Well, that stands for charisma, obviously... Oh, right, you lost your memory... erm, Charisma is an extra stat. It¡¯s something that can¡¯t be increased with stat points, you see~?. You have to do certain actions so that it increases!" "I see... And what does Charisma do?" Eisen asked curiously. Charisma usually has a lot to do with interactions with other people, and how they react to you, so maybe this is something like that as well. Bree thought for a bit and then began exining. "Hmm... Charisma makes others believe you more easily? There¡¯s actually a children¡¯s story about it~!" She eximed, and Eisen listened closely. And this is what Bree told him. There once was a Bard, singing and telling the stories about her travels. Whenever she came into a town, people swarmed her and paid her in copper, silver and even gold so that she would say a single word. And after a while, her Charisma kept climbing higher and higher, until nobody was able to deny a word she said! But then, a prince saw her beauty and wanted to marry her. He hired hundreds of people to try and bring her to him. That night, the Bard stood in front of the castle with the men and women the Prince hired. At first, he thought they were sessful and stormed over the drawbridge to meet his love. Angered at his actions, the Bard took out a dagger and stabbed the prince to death. And as if this was the most normal thing in the world, the King came out of the castle and invited the Bard to eat with them, as her words even fooled the things he saw with his own eyes, just moments before. "Well, that gives me a pretty good idea at what Charisma does, thanks. Do many people have it?" Eisen asked while scratching his beard, wondering if this will have an influence on sales as well once he would open his own shop at some point. Bree shook her head in response, saying that mainly artists, such as Bards or Painters, had it, although many political figures, as well as merchants also did. Eisen nodded once he got all the information he needed and stood up, clearing the table of all leftover materials and grabbing the Suit to bring it somewhere so that he could change into it. Since he remembered seeing some changing rooms in the corner of the shop¡¯s front area, Eisen decided to change there so that he could show the outfit to Folmirra as well. Thus, Eisen and Bree walked to the front, and Eisen stepped into the changing room, slipping out of his clothes and changing into the suit. The Moment he ced thest piece of the set onto him, the handkerchief going into his breast pocket, he got a new notification. [Due to a special action, the Charisma (CHA) Stat has been unlocked. It has been set at 10.] "Interesting..." He muttered to himself, a smile on his face as he stepped back out of the changing room, being met with a whistle from Folmirra. "Wow, Eisen, looking good. And you made that just today? Pretty impressive." Folmirra eximed as she stepped closed, taking a look at the fabrics and stitches. In the end, she sat back down and sighed loudly, "You seriously made an Item Set that overwhelmed your Tailoring Skill? You¡¯re truly extraordinary..." "Thank you, Folmirra. Ah, Bree, could you wait outside for a bit now? I have something private to discuss with Folmirra." "Awe... Fine..." Pouting, Bree stepped out through the door and leaned against the stone wall next to the window. Confused, Folmirra narrowed her eyes. "Wait, why do you want to talk to me? Did you decide to be a Tailor after all?" She asked hope-filled. But Eisen quickly shook his head and began to exin. "No, sorry. I promised Bree to make her a dress, but she deserves something special, not just any old dress. I didn¡¯t really know what to do, but then I Ranked-up my Tailoring skill to two, and it said I could now work with non-conventional fabric. I was wondering what those are, and how I can get them." "I see. Well, she certainly deserves a great dress, because she¡¯s a great girl. And I won¡¯t evenment on how you got your skill so high that fast. But we don¡¯t really work with non-conventional fabrics here since they are simply hard to get, and also pretty expensive, you see? Amongst them are fabrics woven of metallic threads, monster fur, or even magic threads. I don¡¯t think metallic or monster fabrics would be a good idea. Metallic fabrics are heavy and hard to dye, so the dress won¡¯t be very pretty, and monster fabrics are usually used for Barbarian-style clothes, since they still give off the magic reading and scent of the monster ites from, letting them blend in easily. But how I said, the scent is still there and hard to get rid of. Magic Fabrics, however, can be very useful, especially for a support magician with a huge mana-pool like Bree. The defense that clothes made of magic fabrics give are heavily influenced by the mana-pool of the wearer, so it is a perfect fit for her. She can¡¯t fight back easily on her own, and in exchange has a lot higher defense." Folmirra exined quickly, and Eisen immediately thought of the possibilities but had no idea where he might get Magic Fabrics, so he simply asked. "And where can I buy those, then?" "You can¡¯t." She exined simply, surprising Eisen greatly. But then she continued talking. "You can¡¯t buy them, you have to make them. The demand for them is huge, so whenever a roll of Magic Fabricsnds on the market, they are immediately bought up, and since they are hard to make, they don¡¯t frequently appear anyway. I¡¯m sure Morrom can help you out, you know him, right? The kid from Everything Magic? Just go and ask him. He works prettyte, so you should be able to catch him at any point in the next few hours. You should be able to get the thread there, and then you can weave it into fabric here tomorrow morning. " "I see! Thanks for your help! I guess since I won¡¯t be using your fabrics for a while, I should pay you. How much do I owe you?" Eisen asked and grabbed his coin-bag, paying for all the materials he used so far. After that, he left the shop and made his way back to the Inn together with Bree, ate, and then snuck out of the Inn without Bree noticing he didn¡¯t go to his room yet. --- "Morrom! I need your help!" Eisen yelled out through the door leading to the half-elf half-dwarf Magician¡¯s Workshop. As always, Morrom stumbled out of the back after crashing into something, although this time his face wasn¡¯t covered in soot. "Ah, yes, Eisen! You need my help? With what? Oh, nice suit!" Morrom asked, and thus Eisen quickly exined the situation. "Magic Fabrics, huh..? Yeah, I do know how to make them, and I do have the materials... You know what? I¡¯ll give the fabrics to you if I can add a little something into the mix! It¡¯s going to give the fabric a special effect. And don¡¯t worry, it won¡¯t be anything crazy, but it will be pretty awesome." After finishing his exnation, Morrom brought Eisen to the back room for the first time. It was filled basically everywhere with different apparitions and apparently unfinished items, ranging from pieces of armor, clothes, weapons, or even mundane everyday items, as well as some Eisen, couldn¡¯t directly recognize, but found outter that they were prototypes for some items Morrom tried creating. He brought Eisen to a table in the back and opened up some space on it. After that, he grabbed a box filled with crystals of different sizes, some even as big as Eisen¡¯s fists, and ced it in front of him on the table, as well as a small spinning-wheel with a small opening in the center of the wheel. "Alright, I guess we can take this as a few first lessons. How high did you get your Mana Maniption skill?" Morrom asked, and Eisen quickly checked his status. "It¡¯s Rank 1, Level 15 right now." "Good, good. We wouldn¡¯t have been able to do this had it been rank 0. Those things in front of you are mana crystals. You have to infuse them with your mana, and then push it into the opening in the center of the wheel. It will automatically detect thepatible crystal, and then turn it into thread. The quality of the thread will obviously depend on the Mana Crystal used. I¡¯ll give you a high-quality one, just because I want to see the finished item. But first, I¡¯ll prepare the mana crystal." Morrom burrowed through the box and picked out a few of the bigger crystals, and ced them onto the side, and grabbed a bag filled with white spheres the size of marbles, pouring it out onto the table. One after one, Morrom held the marbles in his hand, and Eisen could see a soft glow before the marbles turned into a light red bordering on pink. After that, Morrom ced one of the Mana Crystals into his right hand and one of the marbles into his left. His hands slowly glowed once more, and the marble slowly turned into particles that mixed into the white Crystal, turning it a light pink. He repeated this process until all of the Mana Crystals were turned into their pink state. "Don¡¯t worry, it won¡¯t stay pink, haha." Morromughed lowly as he ced the Mana Crystals in front of Eisen. "Now, pour your Mana into it. You know Tool Connection, right? It basically works like that. At least that¡¯s the most effective way. You could also just exert mana through your hands and the crystal would absorb it, but a lot of it will get lost that way." He exined, and then sat down next to Eisen. "Just keep your mana inside of the Crystal, and constantly hold it into the hole, and switch once the Crystal is gone." Eisen nodded and grabbed the first Crystal. He closed his eyes and felt his mana that was spread throughout his body slowly pour into the Crystal. When he opened his eyes again, the Mana Crystal was glowing in soft pink. Carefully, Eisen pushed the Mana Crystal into the opening and the spinning-wheel instantly began to turn and Eisen could feel the Mana Crystal slowly lose weight as a thin, white thread was turned around the wheel onto an empty roll. After the first mana crystalpletely disappeared, one of the rolls waspletely filled up, and Eisen switched it out with a new one and grabbed the next Mana Crystal. This continued until all of them were gone, and Eisen was left with a whole mountain of rolls covered in glittering white threads. "Wow, these threads look beautiful. And they should certainly be enough to be weaved into a fabric." Eisen eximed as he examined the thread more closely. "Yep, definitely! Magic Fabrics are always beautiful. And these threads are special. Do you want to know what I infused into it?" Morrom asked smugly. Eisenughed softly and shrugged, "Sure. Tell me what makes these so special." Morrom crossed his arms and grinned. "You can Upgrade them!" ---------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - None][Level - 7] [HP - 350][MP - 230][STR - 22][END - 28][AGI - 36][INT - 15][WIS - 16][CHA - 10] [Titles] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker II] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 19] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Appraisal][Rank - 0][Level - 99 ] -[cksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 58] -[Drawing][Rank - 0][Level - 87] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 0][Level - 23] -[Mana Hand][Rank - 1][Level - 42] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 1][Level - 23] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 1] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 0][Level - 98] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 22 The Dress Eisen frowned and tilted his head slightly at what Morrom just told him. "What do you mean, I can upgrade them?" With a smile on his face, Morrom began to exin. "Well, it¡¯s pretty simple. I¡¯ll teach that to you as well when youe here again soon, but a part of what I do here is Enchanting. You can¡¯t enchant Mana Crystals directly, but it is possible with these pearls that have a high affinity with Mana Crystals. So I enchanted the pearls with the absorption ability andbined them with the Mana Crystals, which you then used to make thread. This itself can¡¯t be upgraded yet, but once you make an actual item, like the dress, out of it, you can practically ¡¯feed¡¯ it more Crystals. Basically, every type of crystal works, although the easiest to get are Mana Crystals. I¡¯ve tried giving a few different items the absorption ability, and it only worked once, when I enchanted the base materials for the item rather than the item itself." "I see... So the more Crystals I feed the dress, the stronger it gets?" Eisen asked, wondering if he understood this right, and Morrom simply nodded. "Exactly. It works like leveling up, basically. And every Crystal holds a certain amount of experience, of course, the bigger and higher quality they are the more experience there is. All you need to do to put a crystal into the item is to infuse it with Mana and push it against the item, and the crystal will slowly be absorbed. Simple, right?" Eisen nodded in response. It really was quite simple. There was just one issue left. Eisen had no idea where to get Mana Crystals. Morrom sighed closed his eyes, "Right, sorry. I forgot you lost your memories. Well, basically every monster has them. They can usually be found near the heart for low-rank monsters, and for some high-rank ones, it sometimes even reces the heartpletely. The ones you used to make that thread are crystalsing from rank 4 monsters. From rank 8 upward, most Mana Crystals have some kind of effect on them, usually an elemental one, but sometimes it has to do with the skills that the monster uses." His eyes closed as he scratched his beard, Eisen nodded. "Thanks for that Info, Morrom. You sure you don¡¯t want money for the materials?" "No, that¡¯s fine. They would have been lying around in that box forever anyway. Juste here with Bree sometime so that I can see the finished product." "Thanks for that, Morrom. If you ever need my help, just ask away." "Well, let¡¯s see if you¡¯re as talented with Alchemy and Enchanting as you are with other crafts, and then I might need your help with some projects if you don¡¯t mind." Morrom exined while Eisen carried the rolls of thread to the front of the store with a small wooden crate. Eisenughed softly and agreed to help with whatever Morrom needed him to. "I¡¯ll see you in a few days, then!" Eisen yelled as he was on his way to the Inn, where he went to his room and practiced his skills a little bit more, especially thebination of A Dwarf¡¯s Hands and Mana Hands. That was until he noticed one skill that has been sitting at Level 99 for a few days now. Appraisal. It seemed like it would only take a few more tries until it would Rank-up, and Eisen was actually kind of embarrassed that hepletely forgot about it. Thus, he looked at the box in front of him and used his skill. [Thread] [Appraisal reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [You will now be shown more information] [Due to Ranking-up your Appraisal Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] Eisen was stunned. He literally only needed to appraise one more item, and it would have ranked up long ago. Eisen grumbled to himself and then tried to appraise the same threads again. [Infused Magic Thread (Absorption)] The old man sighed out loud and continued Appraising Different things, such as the book on Mana Maniption he got from Morrom, his Backpack or his Tie. [How to Control your inner Mana by Romeo Juli¨¦] [Red and ck Backpack] [Fine Tie] "Well, it¡¯s more than it was before. I¡¯ll have to find out what I can see when appraising other people now." Eisen told himself as he took off his suit and set it down on his nightstand, folded up neatly, before going to bed. --- The next morning, Eisen walked down the stairs of the Inn toward the restaurant while wearing his crafting outfit and his Suit Jacket over it, since he couldn¡¯t stuff it into his Backpack like his other clothes. He was carrying the box filled with Magic Thread and set it onto the ground next to him before sitting down. Shortly after that, Bree came over and asked for his order, and came back a few minutester with two tes. She seemed to be staring at the box most of the time Eisen and Bree were sitting there, and soon, Eisen sighed out loud with a softugh following it instantly. "Those are some items I need for today. They¡¯ll make your dress extra special." He winked and swallowed thest of his eggs, while Bree¡¯s face turned from curious topletely ecstatic, a light pink forming on her cheeks. "Okaay~!" She said happily and finished her breakfast as well. After bringing the tes back to the Kitchen, Bree came back out and the two of them made their way through town back to the Tailor shop Beautiful Clothes. "Good morning, Eisen! You brought the threads, I see? You cane right with me." Folmirra said instantly she saw the crate in Eisen¡¯s arms, waving at him and Bree to follow her. She led them through the workshop to another, smaller room, where a few looms stood, most of which were already working on producing fabrics. Folmirra led Eisen over to one that wasn¡¯t working on something and began exining how the loom worked. "This is a machine that was created to make fabric production far easier. It is more expensive as well, but since I can afford it, it¡¯s not a problem. These work on Mana that was stored on crystals. They seem to be something different from mana crystals, but you¡¯ll have to ask Morrom, I really don¡¯t understand magic very well, haha." Folmirraughed and pointed at a few sockets. "You¡¯ll have to ce the rolls of thread onto these sockets, and the machine will do the rest." She exined, and Eisen got to work. He ced the rolls onto the sockets like exined by Folmirra, who then simply pushed a button. Instantly, the rolls began to turn and the threads on one of the sides stretched out to the other side, were cut off on the roll¡¯s side, which then moved tiny distance further to the side, repeating the same process over and over again, until all of the rolls on one of the sides were empty, and the center area of the loom was covered in threads so tightly packed it already looked like a whole fabric if one didn¡¯t look closely. After that, one of the rolls on the other side perpendicr to the first also began turning and the thread moved forward, up and down and up and down through the threads already there. Once it reached the other side, a wide piece of wood moved forward in the direction of the first threads, pushing the just woven one further to the end. And again, this process repeated over and over again, switching between the threads moving up and down to them moving down and up. Whenever one of the rolls was empty, it was discarded and the next one in the row was used to continue the weaving. After about an hour, therge piece of the fabric was finished. Eisen was sure he could make something decent out of this, but he still had three fourth of his thread-rolls left, so he ced more onto the loom and watched it finish two morerge pieces of fabric, and Eisen decided to keep thest fourth as a backup if he needed it, as well as for sewing the pieces of fabric together. Eisen turned to Folmirra after looking at the pure white fabrics, with Bree staring at them with wide open eyes and mouth, and asked. "So, do you have dye baths? I need the fabrics in dark green, as well as some of the thread to be pink like Bree¡¯s hair." "Alright, follow me then!" Folmirra smiled and brought them to a room directly next to the one filled with looms, that was instead filled with a few different tubs reeking of paint. The middle-aged dwarf walked up to a wall in front of which stood five big tubes. They were filled with different powders, each holding either red, yellow, blue, white or ck. "You said a dark green and pink?" Folmirra asked, and Eisen nodded, after which she immediately mixed together some of the yellow and blue, having them fade together into a dark forest green, and then mixed the red and white together until they faded into a bright pink. She showed the cups filled with the two powders to Eisen, and asked, "Are these good?" "Yep, they¡¯re perfect!" He responded with a nod and a smile. Folmirra chuckled as she walked over to two of the tubs filled with clear liquids, and poured one of the cups into each of them. Instantly, without Folmirra needing to stir the paint around in the slightest, they turned into the colors desired. She grabbed two of the sheets of Magic Fabric and ced them into one of the tubs, and took some of the rolls of threads and unrolled them into the paint, making sure they wouldn¡¯t intertwine. After a few minutes, Eisen noticed that the coloring of the paint-like liquids in the tubs slowly faded as they were pulled into the fabrics and threads. When the paint waspletely clear again, Folmirra grabbed the fabrics with some tongs and held them up for a few seconds and held her hand forward with her eyes closed, after which they dried fast that you could see the process. Eisen made sure to remember asking her about thister, but first continued watching her work, as she grabbed one of the ends of the, now pink, strings and held them against one of the rolls. She slowly rolled them back up while they dried immediately since she was doing the same thing she did to the fabrics. Folmirra handed the fabrics back to Eisen and took the rolls of thread into her hands, before walking to the door. "I¡¯ll help you carry the stuff over to your table. But show me the finished dress. Morrom added something pretty interesting into the mix there, huh?" She said. Eisenughed and followed behind her, agreeing to her notion, while Bree looked at both of them with a tilted head, confused over what they were talking about. "Alright, I guess we¡¯ll get to work then, huh? But first, what-" Eisen was about to ask Folmirra how much he owed her for the dye, as well as letting them use the loom, but was promptly interrupted. "Don¡¯t even ask, Eisen. It¡¯s nothing much, so just work on the dress and show it to meter." "That¡¯s exactly what Morrom told me as well, haha." Heughed and nodded with a smile on his face, then turned to the materials in front of him. He took off his Jacket and ced it to the side, cracking his knuckles before grabbing his tools. Eisen first grabbed some of the design paper and drew out three different temtes, taking a good look at Bree to get the proportions right, one for the chest area of the dress, one for the shoulder straps, one for the belt-like center part going tightly underneath her chest, and one for the flowing bottom parts that were supposed to reach to Bree¡¯s thighs. After cutting them out, heid them onto the sheets of green magic fabric and carefully cut them out, trying to take advantage of every single bonus he could through the use of A Dwarf¡¯s Hand and Tool Connection. This even gave Eisen enough proficiency to rank-up his Tool Connection Skill, giving him another INT and WIS. Heid out the two pieces he cut out for the chest and sewed them together using the leftover white magic threads, and soon after that added the thin straps to hold the dress up. During the process of pushing his needle through the fabric, again and again, he made sure to expand an extra amount of magic to pour as much mana as he could into the Magic Threads since he was sure that would end up giving some kind of small bonus as well. After that, Eisen ced the rectangr piece of cloth under the chest part and sewed them together, closing the belt-part in the back. Andstly, Eisen was only left to sew on the rest of the dress, the main part that would cover Bree¡¯s lower body. Since now the base of the dress was finished, Eisen moved on to the decorations, the pink flowers that would cover the dress. He put the pink Magic Thread through the needle¡¯s hole very carefully and pushed it through the fabric. Up and down and up and down, Eisen stitched a small flower into the dress¡¯ bottom. He repeatedly stitched these same flowers, creating a rim on the bottom and filling basically all of the central belt-part. Soon enough, Eisen cut off thest part of the Magic Thread, finishing the dress atst. [You created a Magic Dress] [Magic Dress] [Quality - Perfect][Level - 3] [Description]A high-quality Dress made of Magic Fabrics by the Tailor Eisen. Since the materials used to make the fabrics themselves were infused with the absorption ability, the Dress is able to grow by feeding it different magical crystals. Due to its nature as a Dress made of Magic Fabrics, it is easier to be affected by positive spells, and less by negative spells, and the defensive capabilities grow the more Mana the wearer possesses. [Effect]+10 END; +5 WIS; +5 INT [Level - 1 (0%)] [For creating an overwhelming quality item, you gain +1 INT] ---------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - None][Level - 7] [HP - 350][MP - 250][STR - 22][END - 28][AGI - 36][INT - 18][WIS - 18][CHA - 10] [Titles] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker II] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 29] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 2 ] -[cksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 58] -[Drawing][Rank - 0][Level - 87] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 0][Level - 23] -[Mana Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 48] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 1][Level - 23] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 1] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 23 Leatherwork Eisen grabbed the finished dress while the light shining through the few windows that are in the workshop illuminate itpletely. The dark green reminded him of a forest,pletely overgrown with beautiful pink flowers. He held it over to Bree, and only then noticed her face. Her usually so bright and cheerful demeanor was gone and had been reced by one that was nearlypletely nk as she stared at the dress, tears slowly gathering in the corners of her eyes. Eisen ced his hand on top of her hand and scruffed her hair up a little bit, causing her to snap out of it and wipe away her tears. Bree looked up at Eisen with a soft smile. "Thank you." She muttered out quietly and leaned in to give him a hug by trying to sling her arms around him, which failed miserably because of Eisen¡¯s build. His lips immediately turned upward as he hugged her back before handing the dress to her. "Go on get changed, I¡¯ll clean up here and be right there." Bree nodded and happily clutched the dress, taking it with her to the front of the store. Immediately, Eisen began to clean up the table, disassembling his exacto knife and cing the de with his needles into their respective boxes, then stashing them away in his bag, that is ever so slowly filling up, and put his Suit Jacket back on. Lastly, he grabbed the crate that Morrom gave to him and ced the leftover Magic fabrics, even the scraps since Eisen might be able to make some interesting smaller items with them, as well as the rolls of Magic Thread into it. Luckily he decided to bring his Zweih?nder to Denmir for safekeeping when he had some spare time, otherwise, he really would not have been able to carry all his belongings at once. He really needed to figure out a way to stash away all these items somewhere safe, especially once he would start traveling around. Maybe something like a carriage would be a good idea, although he would need to either figure out where he could buy one, or where he could build one. Maybe this town also had a Woodworker somewhere? Eisen figured that there should be one around, and since he already had the Woodworking skill, it would be much easier to create a good carriage if he needed to. And then he would need to find something like a horse to pull the carriage as well. While walking around town the past few days, he¡¯s seen a number of different carriages, some drawn by horses, others by giant birds, and others by some kind of reptilian creatures. It seemed like all of them had certain advantages and disadvantages, and Eisen would need to figure out which ones they were. He might also consider sending Jyuuk an E-Mail, as they briefly exchanged them in case they needed to talk to each other, and ask him about them. After all, he helped to carefully design and create every lifeform in World of Magic. But before then, Eisen would get to learn Leatherworking, Alchemy, and Enchanting. Since now he had his ns figured out a bit more, Eisen stepped to the front of the store and looked at Bree who was holding her work clothes, which she had worn every single day until now. She was now wearing the Dress Eisen made for her, which ended up fitting her truly perfectly. While Bree was taking her time looking at her in a Mirror next to the Changing Room, Folmirra was kneeling next to her, closely inspecting every inch of the Magic Dress. "Absolutely splendid!" She yelled out and looked over at Eisen with a huge grin on her face. Eisenughed and ced down the Crate on the counter for the duration that they would be talking, and nodded his head, "Yeah, I know. I¡¯m guessing you can see the Item Description? The Absorption ability definitely seems quite handy!" "Oh, definitely! I¡¯ve only seen one or two Items with the Absorption ability before, and while they may not have been the most amazing item at the start, after a while they became quite strong. And the quality of the dress is already absolutely amazing, so I can¡¯t wait to see what this will turn into at some point!" Folmirra exined excitedly while Eisen was listening closely. He really hoped that it would be stronger since he himself was also interested in an item that would continue growing after already being finished. Eisen also was a Craftsman, after all. After exchanging his enthusiasm with Folmirra for a little bit longer, Eisen looked at Bree, and with a smile asked, "So, do you like it?" Instantly, Bree snapped her head toward his and nodded furiously. "Yes! I love it! Thank you, thank you, thank yooouu~!" She yelled out and jumped at Eisen, dropping her work clothes in the progress, once more attempting to hug him. Eisen ced his arms around her and pulled her closer, rubbing her back softly. "Of course! You deserve it, Bree." Snuffling, Bree burrowed her face in Eisen¡¯s shirt and shook her head. "Of course you do!" Eisen continued rubbing her back tofort her, and Bree pulled her face away. "Thank you, Eisen. Nobody... Nobody was ever this nice to me." She smiled, showing her pearly white teeth and stopped hugging Eisen. "So, are you alright with us going straight to the next ce to work? It¡¯s going to be leatherworking this time around. I won¡¯t be doing that much there, only the rest of the outfits and maybe some essories or something." Eisen exined, and Bree nodded immediately. "Alright~!" She eximed happily and quickly picked up her work clothes again, clutching them tightly, just before Eisen and Bree left the Shop together. --- Only a few minutes after leaving Beautiful Clothes, the pair reached the next shop Eisen would work at, funnily enough, called Jekyll¡¯s Hides. Smiling at this superstitious sign, since the book Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde actually was one of Eisen¡¯s favorite books, Eisen stepped through the door thinking that this will be quite a nice ce to work at. "Hello there! My name is Eisen, and I would like to learn Leatherworking here." Eisen exined with a smile to the young man sitting at the counter. The man in response simply clicked his tongue, stood up and walked to the workshop in the back, leaving both Eisen and Bree stunned. Bree immediately began to frown and stomped her foot on the ground. "How rude!" "Now, now, Bree. Maybe he¡¯s just not a people person. Although he¡¯s sitting in the front of a store and is the first person a customer sees..." Eisen muttered out to himself, quieting down at the end. After a few minutes, the door swings open and a short man, simr in height and build as Morrom, walked out of the back. He had a few animalistic features, including a furry tail, as well as long hair covered ears like that of a dog, and light brown hair and eyes. He grimaced annoyedly as he crossed his arms, showing two long canine teeth. "What¡¯re ya here for? I¡¯m workin¡¯." He asked with a sharp gaze, looking at the fabrics in the crate that Eisen was holding before sighing loudly. "Wrong shop, old man. The Tailor is a few minutes further up the slope. Cya." Before the man, Jekyll as Eisen guessed, managed to turn around, Eisen interrupted him and began to talk. "Sorry, my name is Eisen! I actually just was at the Tailor shop. I¡¯m kind of hopping around shops to learn different crafting skills. I was hoping you could teach me Leatherworking." Jekyll looked Eisen up and down and narrowed his eyes, "So ya are Eisen, huh? Those other guys mentioned you... Although you¡¯re much much older than I thought... Ya really think your old body can take it?" Jekyll asked, obviously trying to rile Eisen up to prove some kind of the point, but Eisen simply kept smiling and scratched his beard after cing the crate on the ground. "Oh? Young man, I can assure you that I know what I¡¯m doing." Eisenughed out, crossing his arms with a smirk. "Do ya? Well, then let¡¯s see what ya can do. Ever made a bracer before? Eh, doesn¡¯t matter, you¡¯ll learn it if you¡¯re good enough." [New Quest - Leatherwork Tutorial] [Description]After requesting Jekyll Jackson to teach you Leatherworking, he told you to create a Leather Bracer. [Reward] Leatherworking Skill; Experience; Increased Reputation with Jekyll] [Failure] Jekyll will refuse to teach you [Time Limit - None] Jekyll waved his hand at Eisen, and both he and Bree followed him to the workshop. He brought Eisen over to an empty table, and threw some simple thin, hardened leather on it together with leather strings, as well as a design and finished temtes. "Folmirra told me ya¡¯ve got yer own knife, so go ahead and start workin¡¯." Jekyll grinned and sat down on the other side of the table, prepared to watch Eisen work. Eisen grinned and opened his backpack, grabbing the small box filled with des and their handle. Quickly, he assembled the exacto knife and activated Tool Connection and A Dwarf¡¯s Hands. Sure, maybe a bit overkill for a simple Bracer. He ced the long trapeze shaped temte with rounded ends onto the leather and carefully cut into it. Shortly afterward, the simple shape was cut out and Eisen added a few small cuts along each long side, and simply traced the leather string through like one would put a shoce onto a shoe. After only about five minutes, Eisen finished the Bracer and showed it to Jekyll. "Here you go, young man." Jekyll narrowed his eyes and closely inspected the Bracer. "Well, it¡¯s definitely pretty good, considering how simple it is, but more importantly... ya finished really quickly... And it¡¯s a Perfect Quality one as well... Fine... ya really are good." [Quest Sessful - Leatherwork Tutorial] [Description]After requesting Jekyll Jackson to teach you Leatherworking, he told you to create a Leather Bracer. [Reward] Leatherworking Skill; Experience; Increased Reputation with Jekyll [Failure] Jekyll will refuse to teach you [Time Limit - None] [Bonus]Significant rise in Reputation with Jekyll Jackson; Unlimited ess to Jekyll¡¯s Hides¡¯ Workshop; Bonus Experience; [You have earned 500 Experience] [Leatherworking Skill Learned] [You are now Level 8] Satisfied, Eisen nodded and instantly put two of his newly earned stat points into INT and WIS each, and thest into STR. "Ye can keep the Bracer, there¡¯s not much I can do with a Rank 0 item anyway. Ya better try and level your skill for now, so that you can work with actual materials. Ah, that reminds me, I¡¯ll exin the basics what the Leatherworking skill allows ya to do." Jekyll leaned back in his chair, his tail slightly wagging left and right, while his arms were crossed and he continued to exin. "First off, Monsters have ranks too. Zero to ten, like anythin¡¯ else. Rank 0 monsters are simple animals, like birds, cows, horses, etc, but from Rank 1 on they are monsters. Most rank 1 monsters are simply rank 0 ones that have been affected by ambient mana too much though. Basically, if ya tried hard enough, you could try using a Dragon¡¯s leather already, but you won¡¯t be able to make a great item out of it. Ya can only pull the most out of an item if your skill rank is the same or higher than the monster¡¯s rank we got the leather from. Got it?" Eisen scratched his beard and closed his eyes, nodding in response to Jekyll¡¯s exnation. "Got it! So, if you¡¯re alright with it, I¡¯d start working on a few more items. Need my help with anything? Since you can¡¯t really re-use leather, I don¡¯t want to waste anything just to level my skill a bit." Jekyll thought for a bit and then nodded. "Yeah, there actually is somethin¡¯. It won¡¯t give ya much proficiency, but should be enough to push you to Rank 1." He exined and stood up, waving at Eisen to follow him to another room, further in the back. With a smile, he stood up and followed behind. ---------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - None][Level - 8] [HP - 360][MP - 280][STR - 23][END - 28][AGI - 36][INT - 20][WIS - 20][CHA - 10] [Titles] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker II] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 31] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 2 ] -[cksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 58] -[Drawing][Rank - 0][Level - 87] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 0][Level - 23] -[Mana Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 48] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 1][Level - 23] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 2] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 24 Apron Jekyll led Eisen and Bree to another room in the back, filled with piles and piles of different types of leather. "Alright, so here is where you¡¯ll be workin¡¯ for a bit. We got a big order of leather armor, some kinda rank 7 monstrosity appeared near the capital so there¡¯ll be a huge raid. What you¡¯ll be doin¡¯ now is to prepare the necessary materials. There¡¯s a bunch of temtes with numbers on ¡¯em over there, you¡¯ll cut that shape out that many times for one piece of armor. Just repeat that till you¡¯re Rank 1, should be enough for the apprentices to make a bunch of ¡¯em. I¡¯ll pay ya as well, of course. " [New Quest - Armor Bases] [Description] A Monstrosity threatens to destroy the capital and they are in need of arge number of leather armors. Because of that, Jekyll Jackson asked you to use the temtes to cut out pieces necessary to craft them. Make as many of them as you can. [Reward] 20 Copper for all pieces of a single armor [Failure] Loss in reputation with Jekyll [Time Limit - Until your Leatherworking Skill reaches Rank 1] Eisen read the quest description slowly and nodded. "Sounds good. Thanks, Jekyll!" He eximed and smiled. "Use this leather here. It¡¯s rank 2, but ya should be able to cut it at least. And here¡¯re the temtes." He exined and ced all the materials in front of Eisen, on a small table in the corner. "I¡¯ll get to work right away!" Eisen smiled and sat down in front of the table and grabbed the first piece of leather, as well as the first temte. He ced the temte onto the leather and assembled his Exacto Knife, activating A Dwarf¡¯s Hands and Tool Connection, before cutting into the leather as he slowly traced the temte. Cutting through the leather was considerably harder than Eisen expected, and he had to push into it way harder than he had expected. Sure, he was still able to cut it, but he was having problems with it. With higher strength, then maybe he would be able to... Eisen suddenly got an idea, and activated a skill he hasn¡¯t used at all up until now. A skill with even lower proficiency than Leatherworking, a skill he literally just got a few minutes ago. Eisen felt his body fill up with energy and veins all over his body popped out as he activated his second racial skill, A Giant¡¯s Strength. It wasn¡¯t a great difference in strength, but it was better than nothing, and Eisen could continue working with the leather a little bit easier than before. And like that, Eisen activated both of his racial skill till they ran out, and then activated them again once their cool-down was over, giving Eisen a little bit of proficiency every time. The materials he had to work with seemed to be two different types of leather. One of them was thin and flexible, and Eisen figured that this would be for the different joint areas to allow proper movement even when wearing the whole armor. The other type of leather was thicker, harder, and considerably harder to work with. This would probably be the main protective surface. Just looking at the shapes and sizes of the different pieces of leather, Eisen learned a lot about what actual leather armor was supposed to look like. Sure, he did work with leather a lot before, but that was usually for decorative purposes. Sometimes he worked on the surfaces for armchairs or couches, and other times he made horse saddles or leather jackets. And this wasn¡¯t the first time he made leather armor either, but when he made it, it was decorated with a bunch of technically unnecessary parts, and probably was also not very useful in an actual fight. After all, it was supposed to be a copy of a game character¡¯s armor. This was the first time Eisen worked on purely utilitarian leather armor, and he quickly took mental notes for his own armor, already changing the design he nned for it. Eisen spent a whole two hours only cutting out piece after piece, getting together the pieces for 10 whole armors, and just when he finished cutting thest piece for the tenth one, he got a few notifications. [Leatherworking reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [It is now easier to work with higher-ranking leathers] [Due to Ranking-Up your Leatherworking Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END] "Great!" Eisen eximed smiling and stood up, cracking his knuckles to get the tension out of them. He stood up and went to get Jekyll, who seemed to be working away on some leather armors on his own. "Huh? Don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re finished, old man." He eximed when he saw Eisene over with one of the baskets holding the pieces of leather. Eisenughed and nodded, cing the basket down. "Sorry, Jekyll, but I¡¯m finished. There are another two baskets, I¡¯ll get them." Sighing loudly, Jekyll nodded and followed Eisen to grab one of the baskets, and then carefully looked over the pieces for the armors. "They¡¯re pretty well made. Wouldn¡¯t have expected ya to be so good at working with Rank 2 leather, or even to finish your work until the day is over. But well, a promise is a promise, and I keep my word. Ten armors, eh?" He asked and grabbed a small bag out of his pocket, pulling out two silver coins. "Here ya go. Two Silver. There¡¯s still two hours left before I close down the shop, so you can go ahead and work on whatever ya want. But ya better be sure to pay me for the materials, got it?" "Of course! There is actually something I was nning on making today. Do you have any leather that is especially heat resistant? Of the ones that I can work with, that is." Eisen asked with a smile after looking over the notification that his quest was sessful, and Jekyll began to think. "Yeah, we do. We¡¯ve got Rank 2 Smander Leather. It doesn¡¯t have a great defense rating when you make armor out of it, but it¡¯s got amazing heat resistance. If ya don¡¯t mind it havin¡¯ a red tint, ya can grab it and work with it without needing to dye it." Eisen nodded and made his way to the Leather storage, where Jekyll showed him what Leather he was talking about. There were a few different base pieces, out of which only a few were the right size to make the apron out of. He needed arge piece of leather for the base, after all. Of course, he could sew together smaller pieces, but it would be preferable in a single piece. He ended up choosing to go with suede leather for the apron. After making sure it¡¯s okay for him to take one of thoserger pieces, Eisen brought it out of the storage over to the table on which he made the simple Bracer as well. He grabbed some design paper and a pencil and began sketching out the shapes he needed. Besides the temte for the base of the Apron, he also made small, square temtes for the pockets, as well as some thin and long temtes for the straps of the apron. Eisen ced the different temtes on the leather and activated the three skills that he had been using since before, his two racial skills and Tool Connection. He pushed his Exacto Knife into the leather and felt some resistance, although considerably less than when he was cutting out those other pieces. Whether this was the case because of his higher skill level, or the animal the leather came from was unknown to Eisen, but he was d that he was able to easily cut the pieces he needed to out. After cutting out all the pieces he needed to, Eisen grabbed some pre-waxed thread, as well as one of his needles so that he could start sowing the pockets on, so they could hold his cksmithing tools. He pushed his needle through the leather just like he was used to from the past few days of working at the Tailor, although this was considerably harder due to the tough leather he was working with. It was weird, really. When he held it in his hands, it mostly feltpletely like other leather that he was used to, but for some reason when he began working with it, it felt like apletely different material. This slightly threw his senses off, of course, but nheless, Eisen continued tirelessly working on his Apron. He finished the first pocket in the chest area, and then added three more going down from the chest all the way to the bottom. After that, Eisen simply sewed one end of the first strap on his right shoulder and connected it to the main part of his leather apron where the upper end of his left hip would be, and then repeated this, connecting the strap for the left shoulder to the upper part of his right hip. And then, Eisen sewed two more, even thinner straps on the back on each side so that he can bind the apron shut. Eisen set the finished Apron down on the table, crossed his arms, and nodded in approvement. "Done." [You created a Fireproof Leather Apron] [Fireproof Leather Apron] [Quality - Perfect] Rank - 2] [Description] A high-quality Leather Apron made by the Leatherworker Eisen. Since the leather used to create this came from a Smander, it adopted its Fire Resistance. There are multiple bags covering its front to hold different tools. [Effect] +3 STR; +7 END [For creating an overwhelming quality item, you gained +1 STR and +1 END] [You overcame the limits of your skills] [You have broken through the limits of three different skills. Limitbreaker II Title is changing to Limitbreaker III] [Title - Limitbreaker III] [Description]By Breaking the limits of three of your skills, you showed the gods you are closing in on them. [Effect]+3 to all basic stats [For using it to create a great item, your body is pleased. Extra proficiency to A Giant¡¯s Body Skill] With a smirk on his face, Eisen smiled and looked over the onught of notifications. If this with the Limitbreaker Title continued with different crafting skills... It would end up quite overpowered, wouldn¡¯t it? Bree looked over the Item as well, with a big smile on her face. "Woow! So cool~ And the Red looks super pretty!" "Haha, yeah, it does! But how about you? Do you want any items? I could think about making some shoes as well?" "Y-You¡¯ve done enough! The dress is already more than enough! Really!" Bree insisted, but Eisen justughed. "But what if I make some shoes to practice? Do you want me to just throw them away?" The Fey-kin looked away and started fidgeting slightly, "I... I guess if you make them anyway, it would be a waste to throw them away..." "Haha, that¡¯s more like it!" "But... Eisen? You¡¯re so nice, but I¡¯ve barely been helping you... I¡¯ve got an idea of how I could, but... Well... For that, you would need to make an item for me... A bag..." Bree muttered out ufortably. She already felt bad enough that Eisen was treating her so well, so asking him for his help before she could help him was a horrible feeling. Eisen tilted his head, slightly confused. "A bag? A Backpack, like mine?" "W-Well, something like that... But bigger, like, a lot bigger. You want to make armor, right? So you want to go out and fight... So... I want to work as your carrier, and carry all of your items so that you don¡¯t have to!" She exined, fidgeting with her hands while looking away. She really hoped she could help Eisen. He began scratching his beard and closed his eyes. "I see... That¡¯s a pretty good idea, for sure. Sounds like a deal!" "Really? I¡¯m so d!" "But... I won¡¯t let you just follow me because you feel obligated. If you think you owe me something, then don¡¯te with me. Although if you want toe with me, for whatever reason you have beside obligation, then you are free toe along for a great ride." Bree looked at Eisen with a soft smile, that only grew wider and wider, until she nodded happily. "Yeah!" Chapter 25 Double Eisen and Bree made their way out of Jekyll¡¯s Hides for the day. On their way out, Eisen was stopped by Jekyll so that he could take a look at the leather apron. Just like Denmir and Folmirra, Jekyll ws quite shocked to see that Eisen seemingly so easily broke through the limits of his skill, especially considering the leather he was using. But in the end, Jekyll simply looked really tired and waved both of them out of the shop. He did talk to Denmir and Folmirra, after all. They probably told Jekyll about Eisen breaking the limits of two skills already, so he might have been expecting it to an amount, but was still surprised to actually see it happen. Either way, Eisen and Bree simply made their way over to the Inn again, and Eisen quickly paid for a room to bring all of his items there before eating. After setting them down and finally having his hands free, Eisen left his room again. To his surprise, he noticed a young man standing at the end of the corridor, looking out of his room. But when he noticed that Eisen saw him, he immediately panicked and pulled his head back. Trying to ignore this, since there wasn¡¯t a simple way to find out what this was all about, Eisen locked his room and stepped down the stairs, walking toward the restaurant. After enjoying a nice Dinner with Bree, both of them continued talking for a while, although mostly about unimportant and casual things. About an hourter, they said goodnight and Eisen made his way back to his room. This time, after turning the corner to his room, he saw the young man from before standing in front of the door to Eisen¡¯s room. He looked to be about twenty years old, his skin was dark, and he had pointy ears like an elf. Eisen looked up some things about the fantasy game genre, just to build up his general knowledge a bit more, and from what he could tell this young man was a Dark Elf. His body was quite scrawny, and he was wearing dark blue clothes bordering on ck that made it easy to hide in the shadows. Again, the young man immediately reacted when he saw Eisen and ran off before the old man had any chance to react. "What was that about?" Eisen muttered to himself and shook his head. He would need to be more careful, since it seems like there could be thieves targeting him and his possessions even in this game. Eisen stepped into his room and locked the door behind himself. First, Eisen checked all of his belongings to make sure the young man didn¡¯t manage to steal anything. Luckily, everything seemed to still be there, so Eisen sighed loudly and sat down on his bed. "I really need to figure out a ce I can put all of these. I can¡¯t just carry all of this stuff around with me all the time. And I definitely can¡¯t leave them in here..." Eisen sighed and shook his head, lying down in the bed while he thought of how to go forward with everything. Once he made a carriage, most things would be taken care of while he¡¯s travelling. He would have a ce to sleep, somewhere to put all his items, and probably also enough space to craft some items. But then there would be the problem of security. After all, Eisen couln¡¯t just bring the carriage everywhere when he was hunting outside, and leaving it alone would be a dumb thing to do. There could be thieves roaming around everywhere, and Eisen didn¡¯t want to risk losing all of his items. Maybe he would be able to find some kind of magical way to make sure his items won¡¯t be stolen. Of course he could always fortify the carriage with steel to make sure it¡¯s not easily broken into, but since this is a fantasy world, Eisen wanted to take advantage of every single opportunity to make great items with the help of Magic. He already did so with his own Zweih?nder, as he infused it with Magic while making it, and with Bree¡¯s Dress, which he created from something that is basically a purely magical substance. Obviously there were different ways to work with magic, and Eisen was sure he wasn¡¯t aware of the big majority of them. However, he hoped to find out more about Magic when he would start working with Morrom two dayster. But that would also mean he only had a single day left to finish Bree¡¯s backpack, as well as his leather armor, as well as some shoes. Although the shoes were the thing that could probably wait the longest. There might actually be a designated shoemaker in Melroe, so going there might be the best idea, and that could wait until after Eisen finished his time at Everything Magic. For now, maybe it would be a good idea to practice his Mana Maniption. The higher it is before he starts with Alchemy and Enchanting, the easier he should be able to master those skills. Eisen sat back up and thought about what to do first. Maybe he could try forming things with his mana, and heighten it that way. But he simply wasn¡¯t sure what he should form. Some kind of item? Maybe an animal? Or maybe he could copy something off his own body again. Or maybe... Eisen concentrated and looked into himself, concentrating his mana in his center, turning it into the sphere he was used to. But this time, instead of going the long was through his arm, he thought maybe he could push it out through his chest immediately. He first split the mana up into two spheres, and carefully moved one of them forward, pushing it out of his body. Eisen felt a light stinging as his mana left his body through his chest. Carefully, he let the mana in his body expand again, and fully concentrated on the mana floating in front of him. Right now, it was like a strongly concentrated substance, so he slowly let it expand and grow, until it was a sphere with a 1,5 meter diameter. It wasn¡¯t nearly as dense at it was before, of course, and quite hard to move around at all. However, just because it wasn¡¯t as dense, it was far softer than before, and much easier to work with. First, eisen roughly shaped the mana into a humanoid shape, a smaller sphere as a head, a big oval as a torso, and four long tubes with squares at the end to act as arms and legs each. Now that he had a base to work with, Eisen carefully inspected the mana inside of him, that naturally filled out every single inch of his body. Step by step, he added details to the Doll made of mana, copying his own body, until something stood in front of him which he was happy with. Sure, it didn¡¯t have all details. It only had the rough body shape, simr to the Mannequin that Eisen saw during character creation, just with a few simple differences. First, it was definitely Eisen¡¯s body. Although it didn¡¯t have his scars orplexities, if you knew what his body looked like, you could recognize him from looking at the mana copy. The hands and feet were just roughly in the shape of them, without toes or fingers or anything like that. The Copy only roughly had parts that one might recognize as hair or a beard, but one could definitely see them as such. Eisen looked the copy up and down, and that was when he got some notifications, showing that what he did actually had a consequence. [Mana Copy Library expanded] Giant-Dwarf Halfling (Iplete) [Mana Copy of Giant-Dwarf Halfling (Iplete) grew by absorbing the copies Giant-Dwarf Hand and Giant-Dwarf Heart] Immediately, Eisen noticed a shifting in the Copy in front of him. First being that its hands became far, far more detailed and began looking just like the original copies he made of his hands. And after that, Eisen saw something form in the center of the Copy¡¯s chest as it became slightly transparent. Slowly, a very detailed heart formed in its middle, and afterward the ¡¯skin¡¯ of the copy became an opaque white again. "I see... I don¡¯t know what the iplete thing is all about, but if it counts as a copy, can I still...?" Eisen muttered out to himself and slowly concentrated on influencing the copy¡¯s movement, and in return the copy began slowly twitching, although not actually moving as Eisen wanted it to. However, in return, he got something that might help with that. [Mana Hands Skill upgraded to Mana Double Skill, resetting its proficiency to Rank 1, Level 1] Instantly, Eisen noticed the Copy, or the Mana Double, move more like Eisen himself, immitating his every move. However, since Eisen thought the Mana Hands to be quite useful, he grabbed the hands of the Mana Double and began slowly absorbing the mana he used to create it. After that, Eisen only filled his hands with mana to try if he could still use only the Mana Hands, and luckily, they soon appeared in front of him, two dismembered hands floating around. And then, Eisen slowly let the rest of his body fill out with Mana, and the more his body was filled with it, the more the Mana Double in front of him grew, until the full Double stood in front of him. Nodding in approvement, Eisen decided to give the Double more detail, by simply copying other parts of himself in the hopes that they would be taken in by the Double¡¯s body. Like a scanner, he started at the bottom and slowly copied every part of himself. First his feet, then his legs, his torso, his arms, and thenstly his head, until the Double in front of Eisen looked nearly identical to him, just withpletely snow-white skin, and a surprising notification came up. [Mana Copy of Giant-Dwarf Halfling waspleted. Changing name of copy to ¡¯Eisen¡¯] [Forpleting a Complex Copy, your Mana Copy Skill earned extra experience] [Mana Copy reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [It is now possible to copy external objects] [Due to Ranking-up your Mana Copy Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] Nodding in satisfaction, Eisen closed the notifications and looked at the Double. If he could copy external objects now, maybe it would be a good idea to give the Double some clothes, seeing as right now it was stark naked, and if he wanted to use it, Eisen would prefer if others wouldn¡¯t be able to see him like that. Thus, Eisen absorbed the Mana Double and moved on to the other items in his room. He decided to try and copy the suit first. He pushed his mana out of his body and slowly moved it over the set of clothes. Now, instead of leaving it in its solid state, Eisen imagined the Mana lose its solid state and turn into a gaseous one, slowly spreading it out like a mist, as this would make it far easier to move into every nook and cranny of the jacket, to copy it in every detail. He covered his suit jacket with the mist and noticed it pass right through, as if the jacket wasn¡¯t even there. That was when he got an idea. Instead of replicating the item somewhere else, Eisen simply manipted the mist so that it would only be in the ces where the Jacket also was, directly giving Eisen the copy. Lastly, he simply moved the mist slightly upward and turned it into a solid state again, seeminglypleting the copy. [Mana Copy Library expanded]Fine Jacket With a smile, Eisen turned the jacket back into its mist state, and moved onto the next item, the pants. Then the shirt, the tie and the handkerchief. [Mana Copy Library expanded] Fine Suit [Mana Copy of Fine Suit grew by absorbing the copies of Fine Jacket, Fine Pants, Fine Shirt, Fine Tie and Fine Handkerchief] And atst, Eisen also copied his shoes so that his Double wouldn¡¯t walk around barefooted. Following this, Eisen summoned his Mana Double and tried figuring out how to actually give him the clothes. Until now, he simply filled his body with mana, but now he couldn¡¯t do that. He concentrated and pushed out more of his mana, surrouding his double with it. Then, Eisen imagined the Mana Suit forming around the Double¡¯s body, and immediately they formed. Now, there stood apletely white copy of Eisen, wearing apletely white suit in the center of Eisen¡¯s room. Just then, Eisen began grinning, andughing softly. The Double didn¡¯t seem to expend mana anymore after its body was formed. So, Eisen made the Copy slowly pick up the crate filled with the leftover materials. "I guess I¡¯ve got that problem figured out for now." Eisenughed out loud while looking at his new pack mule. Chapter 26 Armor The next morning, Eisen stepped down the stairs wearing his crafting outfit, his Backpack slung over his shoulders. Behind him, something that looked exactly the same as him when he was wearing his suit, the only difference being that he seemed as if someone pulled all color out of him. He also was wearing a backpack on his back that, like the rest of the colorless Eisen, waspletely white. In its arms, it was carrying a wooden crate, filled with rolls of thread and fabric. Everyone was eyeing the pair as Eisen walked up to the front desk to return his room key, and then went to the restaurant, sitting down at a corner table. Even the colorless Eisen sat down on one of the chairs, albeit far more clumsily than the real one. It was then that the cheerful Bree walked up to the table to greet Eisen, her face just slightly twitching as she now looked at two of the same person. She stood there with her eyes narrowed down, looking back and forth between Eisen and his Double, as if deeply thinking about something. Atst, she nodded her head and smiled, turning to the Double. "Good morning Eisen! Want to eat the same as always~?" She asked, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help butugh. "Bree, you¡¯re talking to the wrong guy." Heughed and scratched his beard. Immediately, Bree froze, and slowy turned to the real Eisen. "R-Right... So, the same as always..?" She stuttered out embarrassedly, and Eisen nodded with a smile on his face. "Yes, please. I¡¯ll exin to you what that guy over there ister." Eisen said and pointed over at his Double, that was sitting there with a nk face, the crate on itsp. "Okay..." Bree turned around and hurried back to the kitchen. A few minutester she came back with two tes, and after thinking about which Eisen to give it, she closed her eyes and gave it to a random one. Luckily, it was the real Eisen, who thanked Bree and began to eat. "So,st night I was practicing Mana Maniption. And I have the skill Mana Copy, which I used to copy my hands before to learn Mana Hands. This time around, I instead tried copying my whole body, and manipted it, changing my Mana Hands skill into the Mana Double skill. And that over there is my Mana Double." Eisen exined, and then made his Double wave at Bree. She looked at the Double with wide eyes. "Whooa! That¡¯s so cool!" Bree yelled out and looked at the Double, extending a hand to feel its skin. It may have lookedpletely like a person¡¯s, but it felt like smooth, cold ss. "Yeah, I know. I thought, for now, that would help my problem with carrying all the stuff I need to. And I¡¯m curious what other effects it¡¯s going to get once it ranks up, so I¡¯m keeping it around for the day at least." "Yeah! You have to show me how to get a doubleter!" The Fey-kin eximed happily and both of them continued to eat. After finishing their breakfast, the two, or three including the Double, made their way out of the Inn and back to Jekyll¡¯s Hides to start their day of work. When they stepped through the door, they only saw the scowling young man from the day before sitting at the counter again. He looked up and waved them toward the door to the back, signaling that they should just go through. In the workshop, they saw Jekyll working on Armors again. He looked up, and immediately his ears slightly perked up. "What the... Oi, old man. Who¡¯s your friend?" Jekyll asked and pointed over at the Double. Eisenughed and shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry about it. He¡¯s a Mana Double I made of myself. He¡¯ll just be standing around all day, so don¡¯t pay too much attention to him." "Got it..." Jekyll muttered and moved back toward the armor he was working on. After sitting down at the table he would work on, Eisen made his double set down all the items he had onto the ground, then began having him do menial tasks, such as doing sit-ups and push-ups. While it didn¡¯t cost him any mana, he also didn¡¯t get any proficiency by having his double stand there and do nothing. Only through moving it around did some of his mana drain and his proficiency for the skill go up. Thus, so that he wouldn¡¯t run out of mana while crafting, Eisen turned over to Bree, asking her if she could give him some mana again. She agreed happily while Eisen got to work. He grabbed some design paper and began drawing up the temtes for parts of the Leather Armor. For the chest piece, Eisen decided to split it up into two main parts. His chest, and his abdomen. For each part, he drew up two temtes, one for the back and one for the front. For the shoulders, Eisen drew up a few more temtes. There was the part which Eisen would ce over his head, that would protect his neck and hold the shoulder protectors, which were each made up of four parts. Three that would beyered together like scales, and then one that would partially prevent an attack aimed at the neck from the side. Eisen decided to leave his arms mostly free, as this would allow for the most freedom of movement while wielding a weapon. But to still protect some important areas of his arms, Eisen drew up temtes for two pieces, one for his upper arm and one for his forearm. For his upper arm, Eisen simply drew up a temte in a rough diamond shape, as well as something for a strap, and for his forearm, Eisen prepared the temtes for a simple Bracer. Atst for the chest piece, Eisen drew up a temte for something like hip protection, the could protect against attacks in gaps between the chest piece and the pants. And then, Eisen moved on to those pants. For its base, Eisen drew up the same temte he always used when making pants, but for higher defense decided to add certain other elements. He added temtes for thicker leather to add to the ack and front each, making sure to leave space so that he could still move properly around his knees. Once that was done, Eisen began looking through the storage to find good leather to use. In the end, Eisen chose to go for the leather of something called an Earth Bull. A simple bull infested by too much ambient Earth Element Mana, changing its bodily structure. While it had ayer of rock and dirt covering its body, its hide was still that of an animal, albeit many times stronger, but just as flexible and light as normal leathering from a bull. Of course, Eisen didn¡¯t just know this, and Bree had to exin to him what it was. Eisen chose two different types of leather of that origin, one being thin and more flexible, and the other a bit thicker and harder, although both from that same Monster. First, Eisen chose to cut out all parts of the armor, and then assemble themter. He deliberately ced his tools further away, so that he could make his Double grab them for him. Thus, it went over to Eisen¡¯s bag and grabbed the wooden boxes containing needles and des for the exacto knife, as well as the Knife¡¯s handle. Carefully, as he was trying to heighten his control over the Double, Eisen had the Double assemble the Knife as well. And although this proved quite hard at first, after a little bit of fiddling around, Eisen managed to push the de into the handle and close the lock. After the Double handed the real Eisen the knife, he slowly began to cut out the pieces of leather with the help of the temtes he made before, dividing them into piles depending on what part of the armor they belonged to. After cutting each part out using the three-skillbo of A Dwarf¡¯s Hands, A Giant¡¯s Body and Tool Connection, Eisen cut small holes into some parts of the pieces, and then disassembled the Knife and made his Double grab thread and his needles. Once the Double managed to put the thread into the needle¡¯s hole and gave it to Eisen, the craftsman began to sew the pieces of leather together using the strong, waxed thread. After the main parts of the chest piece were sewn together, Eisen put thread through the lower front of the abdominal part like one would for a shoe, so that he couldter properly close it, leading to a nice and tight fit. Next, he made two of the shoulder pieces, simply by oveying three of the scale-like pieces together for each part, and then sewed the piece meant to protect against sideways sword shes, before sewing both parts onto the circr neck-protection. For the upper arm protection, Eisen simply sewed the straps onto the diamond-shaped pieces of leather. As for the bracer, Eisen cut out the temte twice for each one before and sewed the two pieces together on one side, and once more traced the thicker string through the other sides in a way simr to a shoce, so that he could close it tightly. To decorate arm protectors, Eisen simply sewed the pattern of his coin onto them, giving the Armor his trademark. After that, Eisen began working on the hip protectors. For each side, left and right, he cut out two pieces which he then simply sewed together, and sewed those two pieces together in the back, adding more string in a shoce-like way in the front so he could close it. Atst, Eisen moved onto making the pants. He sewed the four base pieces made of the thin leather together, leaving a gap where the fly wouldter be, but instead of button-holes added theced string. After finishing the base, Eisen sewed the thicker leather onto it in four main pieces per leg. The front and back of the thigh, the shin, and the calves, each piece slightly curving around the outside of the leg. Now, the only piece left would be boots, that Eisen would make once he found a Shoemaker. But for now, the armor was finished. [You created a Leather Cuirass] [You created two Leather Bracers] [You created two Leather Pauldrons] [You created two Leather Spaulders] [You created Leather Faulds] [You created Leather Pants] [For creating nine overwhelming quality items, you gain +3 STR and +6 END] [You created the Item Set ¡¯Grounded Leather Armor¡¯] [Grounded Leather Armor] [Description]An extremely high-quality Leather Armor created by the Leatherworker Eisen. It ispletely made up of Perfect Quality, Rank 2 Items. Due to the Leather¡¯s Origin, it has retained some of its Beast¡¯s peculiarities. [Effect (When all Items worn)]+25 STR; +35 END; +30 AGI; Grounded Trait; [Items]Leather Cuirass; Two Leather Bracers; Two Leather Pauldrons; Two Leather Spaulders; Leather Faulds; Leather Pants [For creating an overwhelming quality Item Set, you gain +1 STR and +1 END] [Trait - Grounded] [Effect]Makes it harder for the User to be pushed away from his standing point [Activation]Both soles of the feet fully on the ground [Leatherworking reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [It is now easier to work with higher-ranking leathers] [Due to Ranking-up your Leatherworking Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END] Eisenughed loudly and looked through the notifications, waving away those that he expected, and keeping the item set and trait descriptions open. Proud at what he made, he nodded and looked over at his Double. The easiest way to store this Armor was very obvious. Wearing it would be the best option! Eisen slowly made the suit jacket, shirt, tie, and handkerchief disappear, and put the Cuirass, Bracers, Pauldrons and Spaulders on it. After that, he made sure that nobody was looking in his direction and told Bree to look away as well, and made the suit pants disappear as well, and quickly made the Double put on the Leather Pants. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if the effects of Items also counted for his Double, but he made a mental note to try and find out soon. "Whooa! That looks so cool!" Bree eximed with a wide smile and looked closely at the armor which the Double was wearing. "Yeah, haha. It did really turn out great!" Eisenughed and scratched his beard, moving the scraps of leather which he didn¡¯t need anymore away, then began preparing to make Bree¡¯s Backpack. Chapter 27 Double Up In order to prepare for making the giant backpack, first Eisen grabbed some paper to draw a design on it, asking Bree what it was supposed to look like. First, for scale, Eisen drew a simple version of Bree on the paper, and then next to it began working on the general shape. Bree wanted it to be kind of spherical, with a t back where the straps to hold it would be, and its height nearly as tall as Bree¡¯s own. Although unsure if she was able to manage it, but knowing that there was something like a strength stat that probably allowed inhuman strength if it was high enough, Eisen simply sketched everything as Bree wanted him to. She wanted there to be a few big pockets on its side, to hold the most important items during a hunt. And that was basically it. The only extraordinary part about the backpack was its size, other than that it seemed fairly normal and simple to make. Satisfied with the design, Eisen thought about the materials he should use to make it. Overall, a Suede leather would be the best choice, in his opinion. Overall, he needed a thin, flexible, but strong leather, although for the t back and bottom, a thicker and inflexible one to act as a base, holding the whole Backpack in shape. Next, he split it into different parts, to get a general idea of what temtes he needed to draw, and then simply nodded before getting to work. He first drew out the three temtes for the base. A rounded square for the back and bottom, and another one, just a slight bitrger, for the outer ¡¯walls¡¯, and then another one for the lid on top, as well as two thin, elongated rectangles for the straps. After that, Eisen drew up simple squares for the bags on the side of the backpack. Once that was done, Eisen had a good idea of how much leather he needed and made his way to the storage. There, Eisen and Bree chose what leather to use together. After looking through the different types for a while, Eisen chose to go for the Leather of the Rank 3 Monster... Pteranodon. Looking through the different Rank 3 and 4 types of leather, Eisen was really surprised to see that there were different Dinosaur names in there since apparently, those were still a thing in the game. It seemed like there were still stronger elemental versions of Dinosaurs, like for example the Fire Tyrannosaurus, but those were far too high in rank for Eisen to work with their leather. So, Eisen simply went for Pteranodon leather, as it was a monster that did possess a small amount of Air Element Mana, albeit not enough to rank up into a different type. And while it was technically reptilian, it¡¯s leather didn¡¯t have the look of normal reptilian leather, since its skin was far smoother than that of other reptilians. He picked up the different leather types that he needed and carried them back to the Table with the help of his Double. Immediately, Eisen began to work and cut out the different pieces with the help of the temte. And this time around, he really had to activate his three-skillbination, since this leather was far harder to cut than the Rank 2 leather while his skill was still Rank 1. He cut out the rounded squares for the back and bottom out of the thick and inflexible leather twice, the ones for the ¡¯walls¡¯ out of the thin and flexible leather three times, and then a rough rectangle for the lid and then for the two straps. He then simply cut out enough material for the four bags on the outside of the backpack as well and began assembling the bag. First, Eisen sewed together the thick and inflexible parts, connecting them at one side each, and then added the three wall parts all around. Atst, Eisen also sewed the lid to the top of the back and cut a few small holes in the front of it so that it can be closed with buttons, which he then also quickly added. After that, he assembled the pieces for the outer bags and sewed them onto the backpack. In the end, each of the bags was the size of a small backpack on its own. And in the end, the two straps were sewed on and the backpack was finally finished. [You created a Giant Leather Backpack] [Giant Leather Backpack] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] An extremely high quality, giant Backpack made by the Leatherworker Eisen. It is made of the leather of an airborne monster and retained some of its peculiarities. [Effect]+10 STR; +5 END; Lightweight Trait [For creating an overwhelming quality item, you gain +1 STR] [Trait - Lightweight] [Effect] Items stored in the bag will be lighter than usual [Activation] Constant Nodding in satisfaction, Eisen looked at the enormous backpack, making sure there aren¡¯t any mistakes that the system ignored for some reason, and then handed it over to Bree. "Here you go, littledy!" Heughed out, and Bree happily grabbed the backpack, immediately putting it on her back. "Thank you so much~! This is great! It¡¯s way better than myst Backpack!" She eximed and jumped forward to hug Eisen. "Haha, no problem, Bree. It¡¯s getting rtivelyte, though. The Leather armor especially took up a lot of time. Should we get on our way? I want to get over to Denmir¡¯s Smithy for a bit to add something to my sword with the leather I now have. And maybe now I can bring my sword with me. I can have my Double carry it around." Eisen exined while cleaning up his workspace, putting some of the leather scraps into his bag. Seeing this, Bree slightly panicked and began to stutter out. "Y-You can give your items to me! That¡¯s why I wanted the Backpack, after all..." She said in a low voice, and Eisen smiled and nodded. "Right, forgot about that, haha." He ced his tools and clothes from his backpack into Bree¡¯s and put the scraps of leather into his own again. "Let¡¯s go!" he eximed and made his way out of the Workshop, Bree and his Double following behind. On their way, he stopped by Jekyll and paid for the materials, which amounted to quite a sum. Now seeing that he was running low on money, Eisen wondered if he could make some at Morrom¡¯s shop from tomorrow on. Eisen, Bree, and the Double now finally left Jekyll¡¯s Hides and went back to the other slope, toward Dwarf¡¯s Delight. They reached the shop after around half an hour, and when they stepped inside saw the young human woman sitting at the counter, the same as every day that Eisen was working at the Smithy. "Hello, Dear Customer! How can I... Ah, Eisen! Wee Back!" She eximed, and when she saw Bree simply smiled at her, trying to ignore the snow-white skinned man wearing leather armor behind them. "Haha, thank you. I hope everything is going well here?" "Yep! After you left, Denmir actually got really pumped up and made some really good items! The other smiths said they haven¡¯t seen him like that in years!" "Well, then I¡¯m d I could be of some help!" Eisenughed out and then made his way to the back, walking over to Denmir who seemed to be working away on some kind of de. The moment he saw Eisen, though, he dropped what he was doing and walked up to Eisen. "How¡¯s it goin¡¯, old-timer? Ye here to make some great item again?" "Haha, not this time around. I¡¯m here for my Zweih?nder. Wanted to put some leather on the handle as well, and then get back to the Inn for the day. Tomorrow I¡¯m starting at Morrom¡¯s shop." Eisen exined, and the dwarfughed and made his way to one of the walls, where Eisen¡¯s Zweih?nder was hanging. "There ya go. It really is a fine piece of steel." Denmirughed as he handed Eisen his sword. Eisen nodded and smiled, "It turned out pretty well, huh?" "Well, I don¡¯t wanna keep ya from workin¡¯. And I tell ya, juste by whenever ya wanna work in here a bit." Denmir smiled as he walked back to the Sword he was working on, and Eisen nodded and walked to the back workshop, where some of the apprentices were working on smaller stuff like handles. Eisen got out the Leather from his bag and Bree immediately gave him the assembled exacto knife without him having to ask for it. He smiled and then moved back to the leather. He grabbed the longest piece leftover from the Earth Bull Leather and cut it into a long, thin strip, and after repeatedly testing if the length is enough began to ce the leather strip around it the hilt. Eisen grabbed a jar filled with white glue and carefully covered the bottom of the leather strip with it. After that, he carefully ced the end of the strip at the front of the hilt and began to wrap the leather around it. Once he was finished, he set the sword back down to let the glue dry, and soon enough it dried up, setting tightly around the wood. And although there was no notification, Eisen was satisfied. "That¡¯s a really pretty sword, though!" Bree eximed and Eisenughed before he swung his sword over his shoulder, making Bree tilt her head. "Don¡¯t you need a sheath for it?" Eisen shook his head as he walked out of the workshop. "Nope. You don¡¯t put a Zweih?nder into a sheath, you carry it like this. The same as you would a Halberd." "Ooh! Cool!" Bree smiled and followed Eisen, the Double in tow. After saying goodbye to Denmir again, they made their way back to the Inn and ate Dinner together. Before Eisen and Bree said goodbye, they agreed on letting Bree keep the Items with her at night, simply because Eisen trusted her. After that, he and his Double made their way back to his room. Eisen sat down on his bed and took the leather armor off of the Double. "Alright, what should I do now? You¡¯re nearly rank 2, and I want to see what happens once you are..." Eisen muttered to himself while putting the Mana-copied suit back on his Double. He felt like using skills inbination with it might be the best idea, as it helped immensely increase the proficiency for his Mana Hands when he tried using them with A Dwarf¡¯s Hands. And considering that his other racial skill, A Giant¡¯s Strength was due to rank up soon as well, Eisen figured the best idea would be to use his Double and his two racial skills together. He activated both of his skills, and felt power surge through his body and hands, but nothing happened. Not even the thin thread he saw connect to the Mana Hands before. Maybe he couldn¡¯t use them in coboration anymore? Eisen thought that might be a possibility, albeit a highly unlikely one. Then Eisen concentrated on his Double more, thinking that he wants his skills to activate for it too, and only then did the connection activate. A thin thread made of mana now connected him and his Double bulges forming and moving forward as if Eisen was pumping something into the body made of Mana. Immediately, Eisen saw a small difference in the Double¡¯s movement, as it was moving more delicately and was far easier to control. That was when Eisen had an even better idea. Since making the Double do things gave it a lot of proficiency, Eisen figured it was a good opportunity to test something else out as well, and made the Double pick up the Zweih?nder, holding it in front of itself. He made it pick up simple stances, some to potentially block things, and some to prepare for an attack. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure how he would be able to control the Double in actual battle, but for now, everything seemed to be working out quite well. [Mana Double reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [Another Double for every Rank] [Due to Ranking-up your Mana Double Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] [A Giant¡¯s Body reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [Your body grew stronger at all times] [Due to Ranking-up your A Giant¡¯s Body Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END] Chapter 28 Archivis Three Men stood in a room. They lookedpletely identical to each other, beside a single small detail. One of those men had rosy cheeks and grey eyes, while the other two were white as snow all the way through. It was Eisen together with both of his Doubles made of his mana. At first, Eisen thought this would be a great opportunity. Once he started hunting orrge constructions, two people that felt no pain and that Eisen didn¡¯t need to exchange ns with would be an amazing resource. But then, when Eisen actually tried controlling both of them, he failed miserably. The only thing that was possible was to have them both act in synchronicity, but having them act out two tasks independently of each other was rather hard. Only when Eisen gave themmands of repeating actions was that possible. Otherwise, it would basically be like Eisen had to perfectly multitask, which he obviously wasn¡¯t capable of. So until he ranked his skill up again and gained some kind of new function that would make the Doubles easier to control, Eisen decided to simply keep them around and have them continue doing menial tasks, or try and have them craft small items. For now, Eisen would unsummon them and go to bed, so that he could start his day at Everything Magic. --- The next morning, Eisen stepped down the stairs of the Inn, his two Doubles, one of them wearing the mana suit and the other the leather armor, behind him, and sat down at a Table in the Inn. Of course, everyone was staring at the triad of Eisens, but he simply ignored it and waited for Bree. She came out of the back and greeted Eisen, as well as the double Doubles. Eisen thought it was kind of cute, considering they just stared nkly in the empty void in front of them, but he simplyughed and greeted Bree back. After making sure that Eisen wants to eat the same thing as every morning, she hurried back toward the kitchen, and a few minutester came back out with her new Backpack on her back and wearing her Dress. She set the Backpack down on the ground and began to eat the same time as Eisen did. There actually was something that Eisen meant to ask for a while, and he thought now might be a good opportunity. "So, Bree. I was wondering, but does everyone know so much about different monsters or spells?" He asked while continuing to eat. In response, Bree shook her head and began to exin. "Most of it ismon knowledge, but I know more than most others~! When I first started as a Carrier and Supporter, I thought it might be a good idea to study up on different things. I learned about mostmon spells, even if I never managed to use them, about what Monsters are mostmon in what region, and how to detect traps. Because of that I also got my upation! I¡¯m actually a... well... Archivist... heh..." "Archivist? So that means you can store knowledge or something like that?" "Kind of... By bing an Archivist, I got some new skills. For example, Scanner. It lets me literally scan my surroundings, and saves it into Databank, another skill of mine. That lets me look at all saved information at all times~. By using Scanner, it makes it easier to find things like traps as well, so that¡¯s good, right? And I can instantly see what items we might get from monsters, and how much experience each monster gives~. But... When I use it, I can only see the outlines of things... that¡¯s why I didn¡¯t recognize you yesterday and mistook your double for you... I made it a habit to use it a lot to get used to it, to make it easier to walk around with it active." Bree exined, and surprised Eisen in the process. He didn¡¯t mean to be insulting, he did know that Bree was smarter than she let on, but he didn¡¯t expect her to literally have a ss that needs her to know stuff. But that would only be more helpful to him. As he never knew much about videogames before starting to y World of Magic, besides making an outfit, armor or weapon from games every once in a while, he thought having a literal spring of knowledge about the world he was in would be an immense help to him. Eisen also couldn¡¯t help but wonder if this was deliberately set up by the programmers of the game, or even by Ari personally, but he tried to ignore such thoughts for now. He nodded while scratching his beard. "Interesting... Is that why you were so interested in what I was doing the past few days?" Bree fidgeted a little bit and then lowly muttered out her response. "Well... Yeah? It was mostly because it was you, and you seemed so nice, but I also thought it might be a good way to learn about crafting! I... didn¡¯t really have the chance to do that in the past, so I¡¯m really happy that I do now~!" She smiled happily and finished her breakfast at the same time as Eisen. Bree stood up and brought the tes back to the kitchen, immediately returning to Eisen and his two Doubles. On their way out of the Inn, Eisen continues the conversation. "I would have thought that someone like an Archivist would be pretty popr amongst adventurers or hunters, especially beginners. You could give them a lot of vital information, right?" Bree¡¯s face turned red and she began to fidget with her hands, "Well... That¡¯s the thing... usually, yeah, but... I may know a lot of things through my skills, but I forget to tell others. Or I forget to scan things. Or I forget to actually check what I scanned. People call me an airhead a lot, hehe..." Sheughed embarrassedly, and Eisen simply returned with a loud version of that. "Haha, I get it. I tend to forget my surroundings as well a lot of the time, especially when I¡¯m working." "Oh, yeah! I noticed that~! When you were working, you just stared at the item, and barely even looked up~!" Bree eximed proudly that she noticed this, and ced her fists on her hips. Eisen, Bree, and the Doubles now slowly walked through town, getting weird looks from passers-by every once in a while. Taking their time, they soon enough arrived at their destination, Morrom¡¯s shop, Everything Magic. When they stepped through the door, they saw Morrom pick up a few books from the shelf, deep in thought. "Good morning, Morrom!" Eisen yelled out, immediately startling the Elf-Dwarf Halfling and causing him to drop the books he just grabbed. Morrom turned around and looked at the four people standing there. Then he rubbed his tired eyes and looked back at the two people and two Mana Constructs standing there. "Ah, sorry! Good Morning, Eisen! And Bree, as well! Also, I see you already got your Mana Double skill to Rank 2? Good, that means your Mana Maniption skill should be at least Rank 1 as well?" He asked and walked closer, carefully looking at the two Doubles with deep interest. "Pretty detailed. So I guess you figured out the easiest way to make them? With Mana Copy?" Morrom wondered, grabbing forward and touching the suit of one of the Doubles to test its density. Eisen smiled and nodded. He was surprised at first, but after thinking about it, it was more than obvious that Morrom would know about this kind of thing. After all, he ran a shop for which he had to be quite versatile in any type of magic, and thus needed to know about such basic things that Eisen managed to figure out so easily. "Exactly. I was looking for things to make out of Mana, and then copied things off of my body. So then I got the Mana Hands Skill, and thenter turned it into the Mana Double Skill." Once Eisen exined his simple process, he heard a p directly next to him. He turned his head to the right and saw Bree who just facepalmed herself. "Sorry... I just noticed how obvious that was..." She muttered out with a red face. "Haha, Bree, don¡¯t worry about it! You have a different understanding of magic than others, right? Obviously, you can more easily learn some things, while others arepletely iprehensible to you." "I guess~!" Bree smiled and ced her hands behind her head, strolling across the room curiously. Taking that moment, Eisen turned to Morrom. "So, she¡¯s an Archivist? Doesn¡¯t really fit Bree, right?" Morromughed lowly and nodded, as hepletely understood what Eisen meant. "Yeah, I thought the same when I heard that the first time. Usually, Archivists are highly focused researchers or schrs. Bree on the other hand, well... She¡¯s a lovely girl, but let¡¯s be honest, she¡¯s not the... smartest? I feel horrible saying that... But well, she isn¡¯t a fast thinker, but she¡¯s got great long term memory." "That makes sense, I guess. I just really didn¡¯t expect it. But as long as she¡¯s happy with her upation, everything is fine, right?" Eisenughed, and Morrom simply nodded in response. "Exactly. Well, either way, shall we get to work for the day? I think starting with Alchemy would be the best choice for now. For the beginner stages at least, all you need is to be able to push mana out of your body. Moreplicated stuff starts at Rank 2 or 3." Morrom exined and waved Eisen to the back of the shop, also making sure that Bree noticed they were going to the next room. "Ah! Wait a second, that reminds me! Bree, your dress!" Morrom yelled out, and immediately squatted down, looking closely at Bree¡¯s dress. Of course, it startled her at the start, but she figured there was a reason for Morrom¡¯s behavior, so she let him do as he wanted. After a few seconds of closely looking at the fabrics, Morrom nodded in satisfaction. "A truly amazing work! Great job on that, Eisen! And I¡¯m d that the Absorption seems to have been carried over. If you two don¡¯t mind, I would like to see its change when it levels up? I¡¯ve got more than enough spare mana crystals for that." Eisen looked over to Bree, and she simply shrugged, indicating that she doesn¡¯t mind. After all, why would she mind her Dress bing stronger? Eisen scratched his beard and nodded, "Yeah, of course. It would be nice to see how that works anyway. For now, though, how do I get the Alchemy skill?" "Right, right. The basics of alchemy are to use materials and transform them into something else, something more useful to our goal. One way, one of the simplest and most basic ones, has a lot to do with Herbalism. You take different nts and herbs with natural effects, and pull those effects out of them, mix them together with others, and create a potion. Health Potions, Mana Potions, Strength Potions, basically everything that can be increased through magic, can be found in the form of a potion. Some high-grade potions also need different, non-herbalistic materials, but that¡¯s stuff for a higher rank." Morrom exined while setting up the tools that they would need soon. "And that¡¯s what you¡¯ll be doing today. I suggest just repeatedly making and refining simple potions. Let¡¯s start with a fairly simple one first, a health potion." [New Quest - Alchemy Tutorial] [Description] You asked Morrom Marson to teach you Alchemy, and he told you to create a simple health potion to start off with. Follow his instructions to the best of your ability. [Reward] Alchemy Skill; Experience; Increased Reputation with Morrom [Failure] You will have to try again [Time Limit - None] Chapter 29 Potions With a smile on his face, Eisen nodded and looked at the equipment in front of him. There were four main parts that seemed important. A Mortar and Pestle, a bowl, a ss sk, and a simple distition system. Morrom ced a small linen bag on the table that gave off a strong herbal scent. "Alright then, the first step is to choose the proper ingredients for the potion you want. Right now we will be working with Amran, amon nt that elerates healing by a tiny amount if ingested naturally. Through alchemy, it¡¯s possible to take those healing properties and turn them into a potion. As a note so you just know that already, in higher grade potions you usuallybine a few nts with simr properties to create more potent potions. However, if you¡¯re not careful, instead of a potion you get poison. Anyway, start with grinding down the dried Amran petals into a fine powder. Use the whole bag, it¡¯s already been measured." After Morrom¡¯s exnation, Eisen nodded and poured the whole bag into the mortar and pestle, and then slowly began grinding down the vibrant red petals. After a few minutes, they were a fine powder simr in substance to flour. "Now, pour it into the bowl, and then we¡¯ll grind down the next ingredient," Morrom said and took out a few small, rice-grain-sized crystals. "Again, these are Mana Crystals. Thesee from very low-level Rank 1 Monsters. There aren¡¯t many uses, but they¡¯re more than enough for a low-grade potion. Grind them down until they¡¯re of a simr consistency as the Amran powder." Curious about the effects of the potion he would make and excited that he was learning something rtively new, Eisen simply ground down the Mana Crystals and then added them to the bowl. "And now?" He asked with a smile. "Next, we add water to the bowl, and then make sure that the powders mix into the water properly. Then, that mixture will be put into that ss sk." Morrom said and leaned against the wall, carefully looking at what Eisen was doing, while Bree was excitedly watching Eisen¡¯s process. Eisen nodded and did as Morrom exined and added some water from another bowl into it, and then carefully stirred the powder into it, slowly turning the water into a light red bordering on pink. After that, he poured the contents of the bowl into the sk, and then looked to the side to wait for the next step. Morrom noticed this, walked up to the table and ced the sk onto a small metal tripod. He then hooked the top of the sk into the distition system made up of simple ss tubes leading into another ss container. Underneath the sk, Morrom ced a small, red crystal and infused some mana into it, causing a small me to shoot upward. "Now, we wait. The water inside the mixture will begin to boil and evaporate, leaving a thick substance in the sk, which will then be put into a small ss bottle, and the Potion will be finished." Morrom exined, and Eisen smiled. This was a nice, rxing process to him, watching the liquid in the bottle slowly bubble up and steam fill the tubes, dropping down water into the container at their end. After a few minutes of this, only a thick, deep red liquid was left in the sk. Following Morrom¡¯s instructions, Eisen grabbed the sk and poured the potion into a small, thumb-sized ss bottle, and then put a small cork on the opening. [You created a Low-Grade Health Potion] [Low-Grade Health Potion] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description] A simple Low-Grade Health Potion made of the Amran flower. [Effect] Recover 100 HP "Perfect Quality, huh? I¡¯m not surprised, really! Both the Amran powder as well as the Mana Crystal powder ended up very uniformly, and the grain size of both of them was basically identical to each other. When mixing the Powder into the water, you made sure that it truly integrates with it, instead of just stirring the water a little bit. You did everything right instinctively. Great work, Eisen! As expected of you!" Morrom eximed and smiled brightly, causing a notification to pop up. [Quest Sessful - Alchemy Tutorial] [Description] You asked Morrom Marson to teach you Alchemy, and he told you to create a simple health potion to start off with. Follow his instructions to the best of your ability. [Reward] Alchemy Skill; Experience; Increased Reputation with Morrom [Failure] You will have to try again [Time Limit - None] [Bonus] Significant rise in Reputation with Morrom Marson; Unlimited ess to Everything Magic¡¯s Workshop; Bonus Experience [You have earned 500 Experience] [You are now Level 9] [Alchemy Skill Learned] Eisen smiled and read through the messages, put three of his new stat point into WIS and the other two into INT, and then looked back at Morrom. "Thanks! So, I guess at the start the only things I can make are Low-Grade Potions?" The Elf-Dwarf nodded and began to exin. "Yep, exactly. Rank 0 work is really just grinding things down, mixing them together, and boiling them. They are fairly simple processes, and as you just saw don¡¯t require the Alchemy Skill in the slightest. At Rank 1, the need for you to start using your mana wille up, so once that happens, let me know. For now, just make Health and Mana potions, they¡¯re the easiest, and I¡¯ve got a huge supply of Amran and Byron. 10 of each should get you to Rank 1. And I¡¯ll pay you for them, they are a great base for other high-grade potions." [New Quest - Health and Mana Potions] [Description] In order to get you to Rank 1 in Alchemy, Morrom suggested that you make 10 Health and Mana Potions each. [Reward] 5 Copper per potion [Failure] You have to pay for the wasted ingredients [Time Limit - None] "Sounds good. So I need to repeat the same thing I did for the Health potion for the Mana potion, and just rece the Amran with Byron?" Eisen asked and Morrom simply smiled and nodded. "Yep. Oh, and once you¡¯re done with one potion, just clean the sk with some water. And save the water that has been distilled out of the low-grade potions. I rmend doing all Health potions, pouring the water into some other container, and then do the same for the Mana potions. I¡¯ll exin whyter once you¡¯re done with this." "Haha, well, that makes me quite curious. But I¡¯ll get to work then. Ah, also. Do I just need to put mana into that crystal down there to light it up?" "Hm? Oh, right. You probably never used one of those. It¡¯s a simple mana crystal that has been infused with a me enchantment. I¡¯ll teach that to you when we get to Enchanting as well if you want me to." "That would be great! Thanks!" Eisen smiled and scratched his beard, while Morrom ced three bags on the table. "There¡¯s enough for 10 doses in each of the two herb bags, and the other one has enough Mana Crystals for 20 doses. Just split it up. I¡¯ll be up front, I¡¯ll take today to read up on some of the basics again, it¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve done low-rank stuff. It¡¯s getting me excited, haha." Morromughed and made his way back to the front of the store, leaving Eisen, Bree and the two Doubles standing there alone. Eisen and Bree each grabbed a chair and sat down, while Eisen began making having the Doubles do tasks to give proficiency to the skill. One thing that Eisen found the day before, was that especially having them use strength for whatever reason gave a lot of proficiency. So, one thing that Eisen thought would be a good idea, is having them use strength against each other. He had the Doubles grasp each other¡¯s hands and push forward with all their might. Of course, since they had the exact same amount of strength, neither could overpower the other, but that didn¡¯t change the fact that they needed to use strength against each other. And while it didn¡¯t give a lot of proficiency, it gave a steady amount and didn¡¯t require too much Mana from Eisen, allowing him to continue his work without worrying about running out. First, Eisen began to split up the ingredients. He emptied the bag filled with the dried Amran on the table and split it up into ten piles, and did the same for the Mana Crystals, splitting them in half first, and then one half into another ten piles, putting the rest back into the bag. Eisen started grinding down one portion of the dried Amran petals and then put the powder into the bowl, ground down some of the Mana Crystals as well and added them to the other powder. After that, Eisen added a little bit of water and made sure the powders both managed to mix into it. Once that was done, Eisen poured the mixture into the ss sk and ced it on top of the metal tripod, connecting the opening to the distition system, and then looked at the Red Mana Crystal underneath. He ced his hand next to the Crystal and began concentrating, pushing his mana out of his hand into the crystal, and a small me sparked up and began to heat up the mixture. Taking the time it took the mixture to begin boiling, Eisen decided to prepare the next mixture, grinding up the ingredients and properly mixing them together inside of the water. Once he was done with that, the Water in the sk had been fully evaporated and Eisen could boil away the water in the next mixture, of course only after cleaning the sk. He repeated this process until all the materials for the Health potion were used up, and then moved on to the Mana potions. He emptied the bag containing the Byron on the table. While the Amran petals looked a lot like rose petals, as they were red and about their size, the Byron petals reminded him more of those of a Blue Hydrangea. After grinding up those dried petals, mixing them with ground up Mana Crystals, and mixing them together with water, Eisen exchanged the container filled with the distilled water with a new one and began to boil the water out of the mixture. After about three hours, Eisen was done and had 20 small ss bottles standing on the table in front of him, half filled with vibrant red Health potions, while the other half was filled with vibrant blue Mana potions, and just as he put the cork on thest one of those, he got some notifications. [You created a Low-Grade Mana Potion] [Low-Grade Mana Potion] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description] A simple Low-Grade Mana Potion made of the Byron flower. [Effect] Recover 100 MP [Alchemy reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [It is now possible to use your mana in the creation of Alchemical Products] [Due to Ranking-up your Alchemy, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] Eisen stood up and grabbed some of the potions, telling his Doubles to grab a few as well, although not as many as himself since the danger of them dropping the potions were significantly higher, and Bree was more than happy to take the rest of them. They brought the ss bottles to the front and ced them on the counter in front of Morrom. "Finished, eh? Did everything work out properly?" He asked while closely inspecting the different potions, cing them into a small wooden box one after another. Eisen smiled and nodded in response. "Yes, everything worked. There wasn¡¯t much to mess up after all, haha." "I guess so, but still, I know a lot of people that somehow messed up. Sometimes they identally added impurities, or somehow got the measurements messed up. But yours seem pretty much all perfect. Good job! Here¡¯s your payment!" Morrom smiled and handed Eisen a silver coin, which he quickly put into his own purse, which alsopleted the quest he got. "So, was I right? Did your Rank increase to 1?" Morrom asked while cing the box of Potions underneath the table, then walked up to the door leading to the Workshop. "Yeah, actually. Pretty much perfectly so! And what do we do now?" Eisen asked curiously and excitedly. Since his higher Rank now allowed him to add mana when using alchemy, he was sure it somehow had to do with that. "Now, we... well, make more potions. But higher Rank ones. With a pretty specific goal in mind, actually. You¡¯re a Limitbreaker, right? Up to where did you get your Title? Two, or Three, even?" Morrom asked curiously, surprising Eisen immensely. He wasn¡¯t sure where Morrom was going with this, but he definitely wanted to know. "I¡¯m at the Third version, right now." The moment that Eisen said this, Morrom¡¯s eyes began to glitter. Smugly, Morrom crossed his arms and continued speaking. "Perfect! You see, I¡¯m actually also a Limitbreaker! And I need your help with something!" Chapter 30 Limitbreaker "Oh? You¡¯re also a Limitbreaker? For what skills?" Eisen asked surprised, and Bree leaned in to listen closely as well. Morromughed and began to exin. "Well, I¡¯m actually at Limitbreaker II right now. I broke through Alchemy and Enchanting, hence why I specialized on those skills. I tried breaking through others as well, but it seems like I never had the aptitude for them, and nothing that I did felt natural to me in the slightest. But that also means that my curiosity kept growing further and further, the less I could find out about the title. So, I wanted to ask you for something. For your help in studying it." Eisen closed his eyes and scratched his beard, thinking about the offer. The Limitbreaker Title was definitely useful, as it gave him a lot of bonus stats, so Eisen was keen to find out more about it, especially as he was slowly getting to a point where he needed to seriously get his stats up for the weird cat¡¯s quest. After thinking about it for a while, Eisen nodded, agreeing to Morrom¡¯s request. "Sure, how can I help you then?" He asked, and Morrom smiled brightly. "I want you to break through two more skills! With my help, of course!" "And how do I do that?" "How I said, I¡¯ve broken through Alchemy and Enchanting, so I want to set the base for you to also do that! When you were making that first Health Potion, that really was your first time ever doing that, right? Someone that can do something so perfectly with only basic instructions has to have an aptitude for it! So, right now we¡¯ll make another potion. But a really, really high-quality one. I¡¯ve got a bunch of materials here, so we can start right away. How about it?" Morrom exined and led Eisen, Bree, and the Doubles back to the Workshop. [New Quest - Breaking Through] [Description]Morrom Marson found out that you¡¯ve broken through the limits of some of your skills, and asked you to help him find out more about that title. He asked you to break through both the Alchemy and Enchanting Skills. [Reward] Special ss; Max Reputation with Morrom; Experience [Failure] Morrom will be disappointed; Slightly lowered reputation with Morrom Eisen began tough. If he had the chance to make a great item, why wouldn¡¯t he? This was quite exciting to him. So, Eisen agreed to help. "Perfect! Alright, you can sit back down over there if you want to. I¡¯ll bring the ingredients over, and then I¡¯m going to exin what you need to do." Morrom said excitedly, making his way to the other side of the room to grab a few Jars and bags, a few smaller bowls, as well as new containers and sks. Eisen was somehow both surprised and not surprised at all when he saw half a dozen pure-white hands appear in mid-air, carefully grabbing all the things that Morrom needed them to, and then disappear again when everything was at the table. Morrom cleared his throat and excitedly began talking. "Today, we¡¯re going to make a God¡¯s Bane potion! It¡¯s something that heightens every ability someone has and brings them closer to godhood! Of course, thatst bit is only an urban legend amongst alchemist, but it really does heighten the effect of every one of your stats, and even some non-stat abilities, like sight for example. First, we¡¯re going to prepare the different ingredients and put them into a bowl each, as the timing of adding them to the mixture is going to be really important. I¡¯ll fill a bowl with all the materials you need, you grind them down, and put everything back into the bowl. There¡¯re a few roots instead of dried nts, just crush them to a pulp and pour the sap back into the bowl." Eisen nodded and began to work the instant that Morrom ced the first bowl in front of him. He grabbed the Mortar and Pestle and- "Wait! Sorry, I forgot the most important part! Don¡¯t use those, you need to use tools that conduct mana more easily. Here." Morrom yelled apologetically and quickly summoned another magic hand that flew across the room,ing back with a different Mortar and Pestle set, one that was apparentlypletely metallic and made of some kind of light silver metal that seemed to have a slight blue tint. Eisen recognized this, as he saw it in the back of Dwarf Delight¡¯s Storage. "This is Mythril. It allows you to easily pour mana into it and expel it through the metal just as easily. While you¡¯re grinding, you need to keep a constant amount of mana flowing out of you, into whatever you¡¯re grinding down." The Elf-Dwarf exined, and Eisen smiled. He figured that there was something missing, and was d to see that he didn¡¯t mess anything up right off the bat. "Got it, Morrom! Thanks." He said and this time, really got to work. He ced the first portion of nts into the new Mortar and Pestle set, using Appraisal on it to find out what nt he was actually about to work with. [Dried Adgana] Even though Eisen couldn¡¯t actually do anything with this information, he simply started to pour his mana into his tools, and instead of only the Pestle, Eisen also grabbed the Mortar and poured his Mana into it, making sure to slowly let some leak out of both of them. After that was done, he ced the green powder back into its bowl and moved onto the next. First, he appraised the nt again. [Dried Saffron] Eisen smiled, slightly scoffing at the spice he actually knew quite well. What it was supposed to do in a potion was beyond him, but there for sure was some kind of reason. So, he ground it up and put it back into its bowl, moving onto the next ingredient, some dried up orange berries. Apparently, these were called Alether, but as he didn¡¯t know what it was, Eisen ground them up and moved onto the next item. After grinding down a dozen more nts, most of which he had no idea what they were, Eisen ced the powders and saps into their bowls, leaving a rainbow of colors all around. And of course, Eisen also ground down arge number of Mana Crystals, albeit this time high-quality ones, and ced them into arge bowl. Once he was done, Morrom began to exin the general purpose of these powders. "Some of them are for stat enhancement, some for ability enhancement, and some for sense enhancement. And don¡¯t get me wrong, with ability I don¡¯t mean skills, but just... ability? It¡¯s weird andplicated, but some of them let you fight better, as I hear. Anyway, there¡¯s a number of nts in there that give someone a number of resistances and bonuses. The first thing we, or you, will do next is to get the base going. We¡¯ll take both the water you got from the Health Potions and the Mana potions, don¡¯t worry, I already removed the extra bit we got from the first health potion." As he frowned slightly, Eisen looked at the two containers holding the waters, which were either slightly tinted red or blue, but only to the point where you could see the difference if youpared it to normal water. "And why do we do that? Does that water have any effect?" "Yep! When it evaporated, the water took some of the mana crystal and Amran, or Byron, powder with them. Well, it didn¡¯t directly, it¡¯s more like it took their essence with it. It doesn¡¯t have an effect on its own, but if you, for example, drink it over a long period of time, it helps with your general health. And it¡¯s also a great base for potions!" "I see... so, what do we do with it?" Eisen asked, and Morrom grabbed another container, a metal pot, which he ced over another,rger Mana Crystal that also seemed to have the me Enchantment. "Alright, now, start the me and pour the water out of both containers into the pot," Morrom instructed, and Eisen followed them instantly. After that, he simply stirred the water around until it began boiling, and then moved onto the next part. ording to Morrom, Eisen simply had to pour the bowls of powder into the water in the same order as he ground them down, stir it in for one minute, put the next powder into the bowl, and then continue stirring for exactly one minute. After all of the nt powders and saps were inside the pot, the liquid inside was a deep ck with the consistency of tar as it bubbled up. "Now, slowly add the Mana Crystal powder. Make sure not to add it all at once, but a steady flow of a small amount." Morrom exined and Eisen nodded, grabbing therge bowl of the fine crystal powder and did as Morrom instructed. After all of it was inside of the pot, Eisen grabbed a Mythril staff and infused Mana into it as Morrom told him to, stirring the mixture and adding mana into it. A few minutes of stirringter, the deep ck liquid turned into a pure, milky white. "Yes! Sess!" Filled with excitement, Morrom looked into the pot and then turned to Eisen. "Now, the next step is important. The whole pot is filled with your Mana, amongst things. When you put in more mana directly from your body, you should be able to control the mana inside the pot quite easily. What you need to do is topress the mana into a sphere as tightly as you can, and then pull it out of the top." "Got it. I¡¯ll try my best to!" Eisen smiled, and began to push more mana out of his body and making it flow into the white mixture. He could feel the mana inside of the pot, and as he was told, slowly decided to control it. Eisen started at the sides and slowly pushed the mana inward. As he was doing that, he could see that the liquid suddenly lost its color, orck of color, at the parts where he removed the mana, turning the mix into a clear liquid. When Eisenpressed his mana into a small sphere the size of a marble, he pulled it out of the pot through the top. "Perfect! Now, move it over your hand and dissipate your mana all at once." Eisen nodded and did as instructed. He slowly moved the sphere above his palm, and as if through an explosion, made his mana instantly explode outward so that he lost grip on it. As his mana flew through the workshop, however, he picked a few different sensations up. Eisen decided to look into thatter, but for now looked at the small, white marble that dropped onto his hand. Excitedly, Morrom looked at the small sphere and moved the pot with the rest of the nowpletely clear mixture away. "Now, you have to do the same as you did for the Health and Mana Potions, just with that marble instead of the Amran or Byron. And make sure to still infuse mana into the things you grind down." Eisen nodded and began to work. He ced the marble into the Mortar and started grinding it down into a fine white powder. Once that was done, Eisen ced it into a bowl and began grinding down some Magic Crystals in a 1:1 ratio to the white powder. Then, Eisen poured some water into the bowl and stirred it in, turning the mixture into a slightly translucent white liquid. After that, Eisen poured the mix into the ss sk and ced it over the small me, connecting its top to the distition system and leaned back, as now he could rx until the item was finished. Morrom came up behind him and nodded approvingly. "Absolutely perfect! If this isn¡¯t enough to break through your Alchemy Skill, then I don¡¯t know what to do!" "Haha, I hope so. Although I¡¯m more interested in the effects of the item." "Oh, trust me, they are amazing. A God¡¯s Bane Potion easily sells for 50 Gold, after all. Even if it¡¯s at Rank 2, the max you could get." "50 Gold? That¡¯s a lot, isn¡¯t it?" Eisenughed out lowly at this number. It¡¯s about 50 times the highest amount he ever possessed, so of course, it was a lot. He never was much affected by money, though, as long as it was enough to get him enough food and water to get through the day. Bree, however, stood next to Morrom and Eisen with her mouth and eyes wide open. "Wh-wh-what?! Yeah, that¡¯s a lot! That¡¯s a real lot! 50 gold?! That¡¯s insane!" She yelled out and stared at the sk containing the white liquid that just began to boil. "Haha, yeah, I thought the same when my teacher told me about that. High Tier potions like that are worth a lot. But on the other hand, the materials alone also cost 20 Gold. Well, the information for them... Most of them I had to gather myself... and that was a pain in the ass, trust me. But a profit of 30 Gold is great on its own, haha." Morromughed, leaving Bree speechless. The information cost 20 Gold? There must have been a lot of really rare nts amongst them. But before they could continue their conversation, Morrom looked at the soon-to-be-finished potion. "Eisen! The water evaporated! Now make sure to pour it into the ss bottle here." He said and handed Eisen a strongly decorated ss bottle the size of Eisen¡¯s thumb. He nodded and did as Morrom said, carefully pouring the glittering white liquid into the bottle, and put a simple cork on it. "Lastly, before it¡¯s finished, dip the top in wax to make sure it¡¯s closed." Morrom said, fidgeting around as he can barely wait to find out if Eisen managed to break through the Alchemy skill. Noticing this, Eisenughed and grabbed the candle that Morrom held out to him, dripping some of the red wax onto the cork and used his thumb to make sure it has beenpletely spread around. [You created a God¡¯s Bane] [God¡¯s Bane] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A High-Quality potion made by the Alchemist Eisen. It has been created using the most high-quality nts one could find,bining them to create a substance worthy of reaching the Gods. However, due to the low rank of the creator¡¯s Alchemy Skill, the effects have been significantly lowered. [Effect] Full Health and Mana Recovery; +20 To all stats for 6 hours; Truesight Trait for 6 hours; Perfect Fighter Trait for 6 hours; Golden Body Trait for 6 hours [For creating an overwhelming quality item, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] [You overcame the limits of your skills] [You have broken through the limits of four different skills. Limitbreaker III Title is changing to Limitbreaker IV] [Title - Limitbreaker IV] [Description] By Breaking the limits of four of your skills, you showed the gods you stand by their side. [Effect] +4 to all basic stats ----------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - None][Level - 9 [HP - 500][MP - 380] [STR - 34][END - 41][AGI - 38][INT - 28][WIS - 29][CHA - 10] [Titles] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker IV] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 57] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 1][Level - 1] -[Alchemy][Rank - 1][Level - 13] -[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 5] -[cksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 58] -[Drawing][Rank - 0][Level - 99] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 4] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 4] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 11] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 1][Level - 37] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 10] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 31 Duel Eisen looked through the notifications excitedly and surprised. That was definitely quite a potion, although he wasn¡¯t sure if it would be worth 50 Gold to him. However, as there were three Traits which he didn¡¯t know about, Eisen waited until his final judgment, and then inspected all of them. [Trait - Truesight] [Effect] See through anything. Lies, perception, and any other trick [Activation] Constant [Trait - Perfect Fighter] [Effect] Reflexes are raised greatly, and your body moves instinctively to defend against attacks and counter them. [Activation]Enter Combat [Trait - Golden Body] [Effect] Your body grows much harder, but also heavier, although it retains its flexibility. Skin will take on a slight golden tint. [Activation] Constant Alright, Eisen changed his mind. This definitely seems to be worth it. When fighting against someone, God¡¯s Bane will definitely give someone a great advantage. Higher Perception, Fighting Ability, and Defense. If someone truly needed that, 50 Gold may even be a low amount. Morrom stared at Eisen and smiled excitedly. "And? Did it work? Did you break through?!" He yelled and Eisen smiled back, nodding slowly. "Yes. I¡¯ve broken through the Alchemy Skill, and my Limitbreaker Title is at four now." "And?! It gives you a bonus of four to every stat, right? Oh, and what did the description say?" Morrom asked curiously, and even Bree couldn¡¯t help herself and leaned in to listen closely. "Haha, don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll tell you two all that I can. Yes, it gives me a bonus of four to every stat. And the description says ¡¯By Breaking the limits of four of your skills, you showed the gods you stand by their side¡¯." "¡¯You stand by their side¡¯, huh? Can¡¯t wait to see what¡¯s next! Should we move onto Enchanting right away?!" Morrom asked excitedly, already beginning to clear the table of all the tools that wereying on it. But before he could even prepare the items needed for enchanting, Eisen stopped him. After all, it was getting quitete, and Eisen had the Duel tomorrow. "Sorry, I can¡¯t today. How about tomorrow afternoon? That should work, right?" Eisen suggested, and Morrom looked sad for a second, and then nodded. "Yeah, that¡¯s fine. Juste whenever you want. Enchanting itself doesn¡¯t take that much time anyway." "Haha, got it. Well, I think we should go for the day, then. Do you want to join us for Dinner?" Eisen asked and winked at Bree, showing her that it¡¯s time to go soon and that she should get her backpack ready. "Hm? Oh, yeah! Sure! But before that, the God¡¯s Bane..." Morrom said, and Eisen immediately nodded. "Right, sorry. Here it is. Seems like it didn¡¯t turn out as a normal one would have." Eisen exined and handed Morrom the potion. "Oh, I expected that! Even if you break through a skill, usually the item has lesser effects than it would have naturally of that rank. But anyway, that¡¯s not what I meant. I wanted to pay you. After all, you¡¯re the one that made it and spent about three hours doing it. I want to split the profits in half if that¡¯s fine to you? So for now, you and I would both get 15 Gold. If the potion sells for any more than that, I¡¯ll give you half of that as well." "Wow, yeah! Thanks for that! I was looking for a way to make money anyway!" Eisenughed and agreed, after which Morrom walked behind a shelf and came back out with 15 small, golden coins. "Here you go then!" He smiled and continued inspecting the potion. After that, Eisen, Morrom, and Bree slowly made their way out of the workshop, and Eisen decided to Appraise some of the itemsying around until he read one rather... unusual item name. He walked up to the metal ring and turned to Morrom. "Hey, this thing over here... is this really a-" "It¡¯s not what it looks like! I never owned one! These things are created with enchantments, so I wanted to figure out what kind of enchantment it was, that¡¯s the only thing that happened! But while I was fiddling around with it, I identally broke it. It was a low quality one, apparently, this would never have happened with a higher quality one. It makes sense, I bought it for not even a gold coin. Usually, these go for at least ten times that." Morrom exined and grabbed the metal ring, making sure that neither Eisen nor Bree would misunderstand, and because he really didn¡¯t seem like that kind of guy, both of them believed him. "I get it, don¡¯t worry. But I¡¯ve got to ask, does it look any different now than when it still worked?" Eisen asked, trying to think of a nice little trick for tomorrow. "Nope, not in the slightest. You usually don¡¯t see enchantments like that, and since I didn¡¯t break the object itself, it looks nearly identical to before." Eisen grinned somewhat mischievously and grasped the metal ring tightly. "Could I borrow this?" --- It was the next day, the day of the duel with Hendrick, that a crowd found themselves at the bottom of Melroe, by the entrances to the mines. When Eisen moved into the clearing, he was immediately greeted by a familiar face. The smug grin of Hendrick and his goons, amongst which Eisen recognized the young man that tried to break into his room at the Inn a few days prior. There were other people which Eisen recognized, for example, the Innkeeper, Denmir, Folmirra, Jekyll, and of course Morrom, already waiting amongst the crowd. Hendrick was wearing shiny, white armor and shield, together with a grandly decorated sword. Eisen couldn¡¯t help but scoff at this. These were obviously nothing more than items meant to intimidate Eisen, and he could immediately tell that he waspletely out of bnce, as his body type didn¡¯t fit his equipment in the slightest. Eisen himself, though, was simply wearing his beginner clothing, and even went so far as to take off his belt and shoes, as these were the only things he needed to end the duel instantly. And even his sword was safely kept by Bree, as well as all his other items. Of course, everyone was surprised to see Eisen so underprepared, but Hendrick began tough. "Oh? Do you mean to give up before the duel even began?" In response, Eisen shook his head and scratched his beard with a gentle smile on his face. "On the contrary, young man, I¡¯m not nning any such thing." Hendrick looked over behind Eisen and saw Bree standing there, holding some of Eisen¡¯s best items in her hands, her huge backpack on her back, and a metal ring around her neck. "I see, so it was like that, huh?" He bore his teeth, and Eisenughed in response. "I don¡¯t know what you may mean." "Oh, don¡¯t y senile with me, old man. But anyway, should we make this Duel more interesting?" Hendrick suggested, and Eisen continued to smile gently. "And how would you want to do that?" He asked, and Hendrick grinned. "Let¡¯s bet something, alright? You¡¯re a craftsman, aren¡¯t you? My men observed how you made actually quite amazing items." "Haha, yes, I noticed. But what has that to do with the duel?" "I want them. I want all of your belongings. Every. Single. Bit. Every piece of dust that you own, will be mine of you lose this duel. Ask for whatever you want from me, I won¡¯t lose anyway." Hendrick yelled out loud enough for everyone to hear, causing everyone quite the shock, especially Eisen¡¯s Skill Teachers. But Eisen himself couldn¡¯t help but hide his delight. This couldn¡¯t have worked out better for him. "Hmm... Alright. I¡¯ll give you everything I currently own, don¡¯t worry. But in return, if you lose... I want you to strip naked and run around town while making chicken noises, yelling at every person you see, telling them that you¡¯re a weak little boy." Eisenughed, and Hendrick¡¯s face immediately turned a deep, dark red as some people from the surrounding crowd began tough. "Y-You! Fine! If I lose, I¡¯ll do that! But I won¡¯t anyways!" [Quest Updated - Hendrick¡¯s Duel] [Description] After defending a Fey-Kin from Hendrick, he felt offended and requested a duel. You don¡¯t know what¡¯s to gain or to lose from this. [Reward] Hendrick will run around town naked and embarrass himself, making chicken noises and yelling at passers-by. [Failure]You have to give Hendrick all of your current belongings "Now, you useless Lord,e over here and let us start this Duel! I want to teach an old man a lesson!" Hendrick yelled and looked to the side as the crowd slowly split up. And Eisen couldn¡¯t help but be surprised as an annoyed and obviously drunk Belrim walked up, followed by a few armored men. "Eh? What¡¯d ya call me, ya bastard? Be careful, ya ¡¯ear? Or else I¡¯ll let the - *hic* - guild demote ya for disrespectin¡¯ yer clients!" Belrim stumbled along, and stood in front of Eisen, looking at him suspiciously. "What¡¯re ya doin¡¯ ¡¯ere, Eisen? I thought ya were supposed ta beat up that sonofabitch Hendrick!" Eisen quietlyughed and ced a hand on the drunk dwarf¡¯s shoulder. "Yep, that¡¯s happening here. As you should remember, a few seconds ago you were talking to Hendrick. Also, if you don¡¯t mind, let¡¯s talk about you hiding the fact you¡¯re the Lordter, alright?" Belrim looked up at Eisen and his eyes widened, "Wait, I¡¯m still the fuckin¡¯ Lord?! I thought that was a fuckin¡¯ dream! Or was it a dream that I lost the job after sleepin¡¯ with some of those other lords¡¯ wives...?" One of the guarded men behind Belrim walked up and leaned forward, clearing his throat before beginning to whisper. "I¡¯m sorry, M¡¯Lord, but that¡¯s still under discussion. The Lordsined to the Duke. He asked you toe to his Domain, do you not remember?" "Eh? Ah, right! I remember now! Those three babes were definitely quite feisty, and neither of them liked ta share, hahaha!" Belrimughed loudly and grabbed his stomach, as Hendrick just became even angrier at being ignored. "Oi, Belrim! Just get to it, already! Are you going to be the Witness or not?!" He yelled out, and Belrim turned around and scoffed. "Fine, fine, don¡¯t get yer knickers - *hic* - in a twist! Are both of ya ready?" Belrim asked annoyedly and stepped in between Eisen and Hendrick, holding up his left hand. "Yes! I¡¯ll kill you, old man!" Hendrick grinned angrily and Eisen nodded with a simple smile. "Yes, Belrim, I¡¯m ready too." Belrim looked from Hendrick to Eisen and back, then dropped his hand. "Start!" The Duel started and Hendrick took the first step forward holding his sword forward without even trying to get defensive. "So? What did you expect would happen here today? You will die here, old man. A Duel between to people, except specifically mentioned by the witness, will only end if one person dies, or gives up. Your precious items and your little toy over there will be mine. All mine. And you can¡¯t do a thing about it." Eisen on the other hand simply kept standing and stared at Hendrick with a smile. He cleared his throat, as he needed to speak loudly now so that everyone heard him. After all, he was about to say the three words, and the only three words, that would immediately change the course of the Duel. Three words, that, if muttered, would cause Hendrick to be unable to do him any harm anymore. Three words that he never would have expected. "I give up." Chapter 32 Tricked Nobody moved, and nobody made a sound. Everyone was both shocked and confused at Eisen¡¯s blunt words. Even Hendrick stopped in his step and looked around himself, trying to figure out if Eisen was joking. But he just stood there, with a gentle smile on his face, scratching his beard, reading through the notification he just received. [Quest Failed - Hendrick¡¯s Duel] [Description] After defending a Fey-Kin from Hendrick, he felt offended and requested a duel. You don¡¯t know what¡¯s to gain or to lose from this. [Reward] Hendrick will run around town naked and embarrass himself, making chicken noises and yelling at passers-by [Failure] You have to give Hendrick all of your current belongings [Under the Authority of Lord Belrim McBarthon of Melroe, you have to hand all your current belongings over to Hendrick Argon within 24 hours. If you do not oblige, you will be punished ordingly] "Eisen, what are ya doin¡¯?! Ya just want to hand over yer sword and tools ta that bastard over there?! Did ya lose yer honor as a craftsman?!" Denmir yelled with a deep frown. [Reputation with Denmir Dimhide has decreased significantly] "Who cares about those damn tools?! What about your beautiful clothes, Eisen? Your suit was such fine craftsmanship! I would throw up even seeing a hint of Hendrick in that!" Folmirra followed up angrily. [Reputation with Folmirra Brighthood has decreased significantly] "Tsk, and I thought ya were a good guy. How can ya do something like this? Just look at the prick, all smug like that!" Jekyll interjected atst. [Reputation with Jekyll Jackson has decreased significantly] "Hah... haha.... Hahahaha! So you understand, old man? That you will never be able to beat me in a fight?!" Hendrick yelled out with a maniacalugh and handed his sword and shield to some of his goons, stomping over to Bree with an evil grin. "Now all of your belongings are mine! Including your ve here!" He yelled out and held out his arm to grab Bree, who quickly dodged. Everyone else was quite shocked, of course. Most of the people in this town loved Bree, and as such were angry at Eisen, who ced one of those cold, disgusting ve cors on her. However, none of them knew that said cor was the broken metal ring that Eisen borrowed from Morrom the day before. And it was all part of Eisen¡¯s n. Thus, Eisen walked up to Hendrick and pulled him away from Bree. "I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re doing, you¡¯re getting what I currently own, and that¡¯s all." "Yeah, that¡¯s why I¡¯m taking your... ve... wait, why can she take off the fucking cor...?" Hendrick asked, staring nkly at the metal cor that Bree now happily held in her hands. Eisen smiled at Hendrick and shook his head, "Sorry, I think you might have misunderstood something here. Bree isn¡¯t my ve. She¡¯s my friend." He said and scratched his beard with a smile. "Tsk, fine! Then I¡¯ll take your items at least!" Hendrick yelled out and grabbed the Zweih?nder that Bree was holding in her hands, but once again, Eisen stopped him. Scowling at the old man in front of him, the human adventurer frowned angrily. "What do you think you¡¯re doing? This is mine now! My men were watching you for the past few days! I know what Items you made! Some dumb clothes, armor, and this sword!" Eisen shook his head and began tough. "Yeah, I made them. But, yesterday I came across a little bit of money, you see? So I decided to pay Bree for helping me out so much." He smiled and slowly grabbed the bottom of his shirt, pulling it off of his body. Of course, everybody was confused, and Hendrick just grewpletely agitated. "You see, it just so happened that Bree¡¯s help was worth exactly the amount of money I had on me, so I was short on money for the Innst night. So, I decided to sell my items to her for a fair price." Saying these words, Eisen also stripped out of his pants and ced them into Hendrick¡¯s arms together with his shirt. "How much was it? 10 Copper?" Eisen asked as he turned around to face Bree, and she nodded, her red face hidden behind her hands. "So after paying for the Inn, and for the food and drinks I had, I am now left with a single copper." He smiled and ced the small coin into Hendrick¡¯s hand. "Now, I hope you¡¯ll at least leave me with my underwear, except if you wish to see this old man as he was born. Although before that, I would have preferred if you bought me dinner." Eisen smiled gently, his eyes closed as he scratched his beard. Hendrick looked at the pair of pants, the shirt, and the copper coin in his hands and instantly dropped them to the ground, his face twisted in anger. "What the fuck are you talking about?! This is against the rules!" He yelled and turned to look at Belrim. "Apprehend him! He¡¯s refusing to abide by the rules!" Belrim, who was barely holding himself back from copsing on the ground because of immenseughter, instantly turned away his face and grumbled in annoyance. "What are ya talkin¡¯ about kid? I don¡¯t think me friend over ¡¯ere did anythin¡¯ wrong. Jamie, you tell ¡¯im." A short young man about the height of a Dwarf, but with a much less stumpy build and no beard to speak of, opposed to every single Dwarf that Eisen saw, stepped forward from amongst the guards. "Y-Yes, M¡¯Lord! ording to the rules of the duel, in the case of the duelist Eisen losing the bout, he would need to hand over all the items in his possession at the start of the Duel. However, as the transaction of the items between Eisen and Bree has been confirmed by both parties to have happened before these terms were even set, there was no case of anyone having broken any rules." He exined, and Hendrick turned back to Eisen angrily. "This is not over!" He yelled and turned around, leaving the crowd behind as his goons followed him. Immediately, conversations began amongst the crowd and a few people he knew came up to Eisen, while the others simply left the scene. Those that stayed were, of course, some of the people that Eisen got to know during his time in this new world, his skill teachers, Bree, and Belrim. The first ones that spoke up were Denmir, Folmirra, and Jekyll. "Well, I¡¯ll tell ya, Eisen, ye had me fooledpletely. Shoulda known ye wouldn¡¯t give in so easily." [Reputation with Denmir Dimhide has risen to the max] "I can only say, well done. Hendrick is not a good person, so I¡¯m d you managed to trick him like that." [Reputation with Folmirra Brighthood has risen to the max] "Hmm, ye¡¯re a tough guy, gotta admit. I¡¯m d ye showed a racist prick like that who¡¯s the boss." [Reputation with Jekyll Jackson has risen to the max] Eisen could barely hold back a giant grin forming on his face. At first, he was scared when he read the notifications that said he lost a fair bit of reputation with them, as although they were technically just code, they were the closest thing Eisen had to friends these days. After those three spoke up, Belrim decided to drunkenly tune in as well. "Ye did well, my friend! Ye¡¯re fuckin¡¯ hrious! It was super funny when that ass asked you to fight ¡¯im already, but seeing you trick ¡¯im in front of the whole town was even better!" Once he listened to Belrim bber on for a few more minutes about how much he disliked Hendrick, Eisen crossed his arms and looked at him with his eyes slightly narrowed. "Once you¡¯re sober, I would like to talk about the fact that you hid being the Lord of this town, if that¡¯s alright with you. Morrom told me you¡¯re working the night shift at the Mines as well, so I thought you were just a simple Miner." Belrim shrugged and nodded. "Eh, I¡¯ve got nothin¡¯ much to do as the lord. There was some stuff to do at the Mines, so I thought why not rx a bit. I used to be a Miner, so... Ye can stille to my Mansion soon, whenever ye have time. These guys ¡¯ere know what ya look like, so ya should be able toe in whenever ya want." Belrim yawned and pointed at the guards behind him, some of which smiled and nodded at Eisen as if to tell him that there¡¯s no problem. "Whatever the case, I¡¯ll be goin¡¯ now. Getting¡¯ a bit tipsy, so I should take a nap." He muttered out and turned around, making his way up one of the slopes of the town. Eisen shook his head and sighed out loud. Unbelievable what youngsters these days are like. After that, Eisen turned back to the others. His four skill teachers, including Morrom now that he taught him Alchemy, were talking about something while standing a bit away, obviously trying to make sure Eisen couldn¡¯t hear them. "What are you four doing there?" He asked, and they shortly turned to Eisen, muttered somest few things, and then walked back up to him. "Nothing, nothing, don¡¯t worry. I was just telling them about your Alchemy progress. Talking about that, should we get back to our shops? It¡¯s about opening time..." Morrom exined and the others seemingly agreed. "Alright, then let¡¯s go. Can¡¯t wait to learn Enchanting, haha!" Eisenughed and began walking toward one of the slopes before he was stopped by Bree. "D-Don¡¯t you think you should m-maybe put on some clothes..?" She asked, her blushing face still hidden behind her hands, and Eisen looked down at his body. "Well, this is embarrassing. I barely noticed... Hehe..." Eisenughed embarrassedly and took his crafting clothes, shoes, and belt, together with his bag of money. After getting dressed, the group finally made their way upward toward the ¡¯Crafting district¡¯ of Melroe. On their way, they began talking about Eisen¡¯s n to trick Hendrick. He exined that not actually all that he said was a lie. Eisen really did pay Bree, just not the whole 15 Gold. He paid her 5 gold coins and kept the rest. He would have split it 50/50 but didn¡¯t do so because Bree rejected that offer, and since Eisen would spend some of his money on supplies and materials for their travels, once they began to do so. He gifted the rest to her and sold his items to her to make sure the system would recognize them as not belonging to him anymore. Of course, he couldn¡¯t say it like that, and he convinced Bree that it was just a gesture for good luck. Eisen was thinking about tricking Hendrick somehow for the whole week before the Duel, but he didn¡¯t have any details fleshed out, and only when he saw the broken ve Cor at Morrom¡¯s shop, he managed to think something up. Hendrick was obviously interested in Bree in some way, and he already hinted at treating her as a ve, basically an object, instead of as a person, so Eisen hoped he would bite with just a little bit of provocation, and it worked even better than Eisen could have hoped. After a while, the group reached their district, and everyone went to their respective shop when they passed it until only Morrom, Eisen and Bree were left walking toward Everything Magic. Morrom unlocked the door and stepped inside, followed by the others. He turned around and looked at Eisen with a smile. "Alright, let¡¯s keep going, shall we?" Chapter 33 Mass Production Eisen looked at Morrom with a smile while the Elf-Dwarf stepped through to the back of the shop. "Alright, we can do two things. Either, you spend the day leveling your Alchemy skill to Rank 2, and I can start teaching you how to change matter. Or, we move onto Enchanting and have you break through. My curiosity wants you to do the second one, but the choice is all yours. If you don¡¯t break through Enchanting today, then tomorrow, after all." The old man scratched his beard and closed his eyes filled with thought. Maybe it would be a good idea to break through enchanting, finish the quest, and get that special ss. For now, Eisen couldn¡¯t really think of any real reason to get an upation, after all. He could obviously learn all the skills he needed without one, and having one might just limit him somehow. Learning enchanting may be interesting, but it was alsopletely different from what he knew. Alchemy was quite different as well, from what it seemed like, but Eisen knew Herbalism, so it wasn¡¯tpletely new to him. Enchanting, on the other hand, seemed to be something that fully had to do with Magic, so Eisen had no way of learning that in the past, and it did intrigue him quite a bit. But as of now, Eisen chose Alchemy. He knew it already, and he would rather want to get learning every base part of the Skill out of the way before doing something else. He told Morrom so, and he nodded with a smile, although he seemed somewhat disappointed. "Don¡¯t worry, I will try to reach Rank 2 as fast as I can so that you can teach me Enchanting tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow." Eisenughed and followed Morrom to the workshop. "Yeah, it¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry. I think I know of a pretty good way to earn enough experience. Since you¡¯re still only rank 1, you can still earn experience by making things in bulk. From Rank 2 or 3 on, you can¡¯t do that anymore. You would only get a slight bit more than making a single potion, so it would be aplete waste. But for now, you could makerge amounts of Low-Grade Mana and Health potions." "I see. How many should I make, then?" Eisen asked while helping Morrom bringrge quantities of Amran and Byron over to a table. The Elf-Dwarf thought about it for a bit and then responded. "The most efficient way would probably be about 20 at once. I¡¯m guessing you need to repeat that about 20 times again, probably even more, so it¡¯s going to take a while." "Got it. Should I use the same small mana crystals as with the others, or can I use bigger ones?" "Ah, yeah, that would be a good idea. The small ones may be the ones I have most of, but still not enough to use on such a project. I¡¯ll bring the ones you can use, so you can go ahead and start grinding the petals down. Oh, and maybe use the Mythril Mortar and Pestle to get mana into it. Might increase the proficiency you get as well." Morrom exined as Eisen sat down at the table. The Alchemist and Enchanter brought his studentrge containers and a big distition system fitting to those containers, as well as arge, red mana crystal. Holding out that mana crystal, Morrom began to talk and Eisen took a break at preparing the dosages for the potions. "So, I think I need to exin to you how these work. As you know, there¡¯s an enchantment on them that lets it expel mes. The smaller one you¡¯ve been using until now was a very simple one with not a lot of power, perfect for a small burner. But this one has a lot more power, so you need to be careful when putting mana into it. Start slowly, and just watch the size of the me. It feels a bit awkward at first, but you should get used to it quite quickly. You¡¯re a smith as well, so I doubt I need to tell you how much mes you need to heat the mixture up properly. I¡¯ll get back to my own work, call me if you need any help or more ingredients." Eisen nodded and smiled as he put the first dose of Amran into the Mortar, a slightlyrger one than before due to the high amount of petals, and put his mana into it and the Pestle, letting it flow into the ground up red powder, which Eisen then poured into arge bowl, then grabbed some of the thumb-sized Mana Crystals from the buckets that Morrom brought over and prepared to grind them down. After a few more minutes of this repetitive business, Eisen poured arge quantity of water into the bowl and began mixing. "This is kind of rxing, isn¡¯t it?" Eisenughed out in a low voice to Bree, who, as if snapping out a trance, looked up at Eisen. "Huh? Y-Yeah, really rxing... But it¡¯s going to take a while for you to be Rank 2, right? Why not have your doubles do some of your work for you? That should speed things up!" "Wait, you can do that?" Eisen asked surprised, and Bree nodded with a smile. "Yeah! It doesn¡¯t give much proficiency, but it still gives half per double. It takes a lot of mana as well, so not many people really do that, but since I can help with that you don¡¯t have to worry, and at least for now you¡¯ll have to make them do it parallel to you, because they can¡¯t doplicated stuff on their own yet!" Bree exined, and Eisen stopped stirring the powders into the mixture, scratching his beard in thought. "Interesting..." He muttered out and then nodded with a smile. "I¡¯ll do that from the next batch on then. Kind of wastes some proficiency per materials, but at least it doubles my speed. And Morrom did say he could use the low-grade potions as a base for something, so it doesn¡¯t matter if he has more, right?" "True~!" Bree smiled, showing her pearly white teeth. But for now, Eisen continued with the current batch. The mixture was finished, and Eisen could now pour it into therge ss sk that Morrom prepared and ced it on top of a metal tripod above the red mana crystal. He slowly ced his finger against it and pushed out just a little bit of mana into it, already causing a me as big as the one from the smaller one he used for the other potions. Slowly, he put in a little bit more Mana until he got a satisfactory me and pulled his hand away. Morrom was right, it was a bit awkward to use, although not too bad. One would first expect a proportional growth of the me, meaning if you put double the mana in you get a me double the size, but instead, it was exponential, meaning that he had to put less and less mana into it each time to double the size. As it would take a while for the water in the mixture to fully evaporate, Eisen decided to prepare for mass producing the potions with the help of his doubles. He stood up and looked for Morrom, who was more than happy to help set up workstations for the doubles. After a short while, Eisen began preparing the different dosages for therge quantity health potions and cing them into the Mortars, before then summoning both of his doubles and telling them to stand in front of the stations, mentallymanding them to copy all that he does. Keeping the Doubles in sight, Eisen activated his racial skills and began to work, while Bree started to give him a constant flow of mana. Once more, Eisen ground down the materials he needed to and mixed them together in a bowl, making sure that the Doubles did everything right, and took a break to clear out the mana potions in therge sk. Eisen grabbed a crate of the small ss bottles as well as a funnel and finished 20 of the low-grade potions within a few minutes. There were some small differences to the potions before that Eisen noticed when he looked at the descriptions of the potions. Instead of Rank 0, they were Rank 1, and instead of replenishing 100 HP they gave 200 HP. He would have to test this out at ater rank, but from what it looked like, each rank would probably increase the healed amount by 100 HP. Now that those potions were finished, Eisen put them back into the crate and made his Doubles pour their finished mixtures into therge sks, after which Eisen went around to pour mana into the crystals to get the liquid to boil. Before the effects of his racial skills ran out, Eisen hurried and prepared the next batches of the mixture together with his Doubles. By the time everything was ground up and mixed together in water, the water in the sks evaporated fully, and Eisen moved onto filling the ss bottles and putting small corks on them, finishing 60 Low-Grade Health potions. Eisen set them aside, and that was exactly when his racial skills ran out. For the next half hour, until he could use his skill again, Eisen would take it slow to make sure that his Doubles wouldn¡¯t make any mistakes andplete the potions in the highest quality possible. This continued for a while until Eisen finished enough for 15 batches of Health Potions, totaling in at 300. Since the proficiency he got from the Doubles¡¯ work was about half of a normal batch he made, it was equivalent to 10 Batches that he would have made himself, finished in half the time it normally would have taken him. Now, Eisen would begin working on Mana Potions. He swapped out the containers holding the distilled water leftover from the potions and then began to work. He prepared the Byron, enough for five batches at each work station that he and the doubles were standing at, and then got to work grinding down the small blue petals and the mana crystals, mixed the two powders together and added water to the mixture, before pouring it into the sks and beginning to let it boil. This continued for quite a while, until Eisen finished 300 Mana Potions, bringing his Alchemy skill to 98%. "Wow, that¡¯s a lot! How many potions are those?" Morrom asked with wide eyes as he looked at the crates over crates filled with small bottles. "620. All Rank 1, Perfect Quality. Do you have any uses for them?" Eisen asked while standing up and stretching after the repetitive work of the past few hours, his joints slightly cracking. Morrom seemed to think for a bit, and then responded. "Well, kind of? Not really, though. I used the potions you made before for some experiments, trying to get potent healing effects into items. It worked, not to the extent that I wanted it to, but they were just prototypes anyway. But that means I don¡¯t need so many potions, especially 600 of them. I could use them as a base for other potions, but there¡¯s not the need for that many of those around here. I do have another idea, though." "Really? What idea would that be, then?" Eisen asked curiously, and Morrom smiled before continuing. "You can use them for further practicing. At rank 2, you unlock transmutation, and part of that is hardening. Using that, you can turn potions into different, more easily useable forms, like pills for example. They¡¯re not as potent as liquid potions, but they¡¯re good enough, and it¡¯s easier to just throw them into your mouth that to open a bottle and down the drink." Morrom exined, and Eisen nodded. "I see. Yeah, that sounds pretty useful! Thanks! Any suggestions on how to get thest two percent to rank my skill up?" "Hmm... you can always even it out, and make another batch of Mana Potions. Or you can experiment a little bit. Making new stuff is one of the best ways to earn proficiency. And even if you fail, that still gets a fair amount. Failure is also a way to learn, after all." The Elf-Dwarf smiled and looked at the leftover ingredients. "Just work on a fewbinations of Amran and Byron for now. Should get your skill up fairly soon." Morrom suggested. Eisen nodded and got to work, excited to find out what he can make. Chapter 34 Transmutation First, Eisen grabbed some of the leftover Amran and Byron and prepared the amount for one mana and health potion each, as well as one portion of mana crystals. He ground the petals down together, ending in deep purple powder, and then added ground-down mana crystal powder as well as water, turning the mixture into a light-purple liquid. He poured it into one of the regrly sized sks and began to boil away the water, watching curiously at what¡¯s about to happen. After a few minutes, what was left in the sk was only a thick, dark purple slime. It was hard to get out of the sk, and as it was too much to fit into one of the small ss bottles, Eisen ced it onto a small piece of paper so it wouldn¡¯t stain the wooden table. [You created Recovery Jelly] [Recovery Jelly] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description]A thick Jelly with a deep purple color. It has been made out of Amran and Byron. When applied to wounds will increase the rate of recovery. [Effect] +50% Recovery speed to applied areas "I see... Normal potions seem more useful..." Eisen muttered out to himself, and as she was curious, showed it to Bree to let her use her Scanner skill. "Yeah, it¡¯s not really sold anywhere, but it does have its uses, right~?" She asked with her head tilted to the side, and Eisen nodded with a smile. "I think so, yeah. I guess I¡¯ll have to see how useful it actually is once I start fighting." Eisen smiled and then moved onto the next thing he wanted to make. Instead of going for anotherbination of Amran and Byron, Eisen wanted to try creating more Jelly. If it was possible to make a jelly out of Amran and Byronbined, then maybe it also was with them on their own. He also wanted to figure out if it became a Jelly because of the ratio of nt powder to mana crystal powder. So, Eisen prepared double the amount of Amran and the same amount of mana crystals, as usual, to hopefully create more Jelly. He ground down the red petals and mixed it with magic crystal powder and water, and then poured it into the sk, and while it was boiling began to prepare the same mixture, just with Byron instead of Amran. When all the water in the sk evaporated, the liquid inside of it turned into a dark red slime, confirming that the ratio of ingredients changes the consistency. Eisen once more ced the slime on a piece of paper and looked at what he just made. [Health Jelly] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description] A thick Jelly with a deep red color. It has been made out of Amran. When applied to wounds will heal them near to instantly. Healed amount depends on amount of slime. [Effect]Absorbs Jelly to recover damage done to a certain area "Interesting! So this is to heal a specific wound... I wonder what the one made of Byron will do!" Eisen muttered out excitedly, and then looked over at the blue slime that was slowly forming inside of the sk. After a few more minutes, all the water evaporated and Eisen poured the deep blue slime out of it. [Mana Jelly] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description] A thick Jelly with a deep blue color. It has been made out of Byron. When applied to skin will be absorbed and transformed into Mana. [Effect] Absorbs Jelly to recover Mana "Huh... That¡¯s pretty straightforward!" Eisen smiled and looked at the three different slimes in front of him. These would definitely be quite hard to properly carry around with you. You can¡¯t just put it in your pocket, as it will just stain the fabric and you wouldn¡¯t be able to use it anymore if it became dirty. Carrying them in a bottle also doesn¡¯t seem like a great idea, since it might be hard to get out. Maybe a small tub or jar with a wide open would be the best way, as it would make the slime easy to just scoop out. Eisen checked his status and saw that his Alchemy skill¡¯s proficiency rose to 99%, so it wouldn¡¯t take long until the skill ranked up. So, Eisen wanted to try out the other side of thebinations he just figured out. He would take the normal dose of Amran or Byron, half of each when using them together, and double the dose of Magic Crystals, to see where this would go. Eisen first went for Amran and Byron together and put the finished mixture into the sk. While the purple liquid began boiling, Eisen began preparing the next version, the Amran one. After a while, he looked over to the sk and saw a light purple liquid inside of it. Maybe using more Mana Crystal Powder than the other material didn¡¯t change anything? However, when Eisen picked the sk up, he immediately noticed a difference. The Liquid inside wasn¡¯t a liquid, it was a mist-like substance, simr to what the smokeing from dry ice looks like, only a bit heavier. Eisen grabbed a bowl and poured the contents of the sk inside. [Recovery Mist] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description] A mist with a light purple color. It has been made out of Amran and Byron. When breathed in, will increase the rate of recovery. Only one breath of the same mist will take effect. [Effect] +25% Recovery Speed for 10 Minutes Eisen read through the description and smiled. If he could make this inrger quantities, it would be a great way to get an effect to arge number of people at once. Of course, this would also be quite useful inbat. If he was able to make some kind of poison in the form of this mist, he could probably very easily kill the inhabitants of a nest of monsters. But for now, Eisen moved onto the next two versions. [Health Mist] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description] A mist with a light red color. It has been made out of Amra. When breathed in, will recover a certain amount of Health. Only one breath of the same mist will take effect. [Effect] Recover 100 HP [Mana Mist] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description] A mist with a light blue color. It has been made out of Byron. When breathed in, recover a certain amount of Mana. Only one breath of the same mist will take effect. [Effect] Recover 100 MP And when Eisen finished that Mana Mist, another notification came up. [Alchemy reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [Transmutation is now possible] [Due to Ranking-up your Alchemy Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] "Finally! Rank 2 in Alchemy!" Eisenughed out and waved away the notifications before standing up and making his way to Morrom. He exined to him that he finally ranked up, and Morrom jumped up excitedly. "Perfect! Now,e on, I¡¯ll teach you Transmutation!" He eximed and walked over to the table that Eisen was working on before, clearing it of the materials as well as the Mists and Jellies that Eisen made, carefully setting those to the side. After that, he grabbed a simple piece of firewood, something that looked a lot like spruce, but as Eisen couldn¡¯t know what types of trees there were in the game, he didn¡¯t make any assumptions. "The process is fairly simple but can be hard to control. You¡¯re good with detailed work and fine control already, though, so I doubt you¡¯ll have any major problems. First, just watch." Morrom said, and then held his hand forward, his palm facing the wood. Eisen could see some sort of slight distortion, which he found out a few days earlier that this was what the pure Mana of other people looked like to him, and then the wood slowly turned into a perfect cube. "This is one thing that transmutation can do, changing the shape of a physical object by using mana. Later on, with higher skill ranks, you can use transmutation what it is actually meant to do, changing a substance into something else. But for now, changing the physical shape of something is all you can do. Well, as well as some smaller changes, like hardening or softening things." The Elf-Dwarf exined, and Eisen looked at the wood excitedly. If this was possible, then he could very easily add tiny details into items, that would otherwise take a lot of time and work. "Now, you do it. And don¡¯t worry, as long as you have the intention of forming the wood using transmutation, you can basically just push everything into shape using your mana." Morrom exined and crossed his arms, while Eisen sat down on a chair and ced both of his hands next to the wooden cube, and slowly pushed his mana out to cover the wood. Slowly, he concentrated his mana at one spot in front of its cube, and slowly pushed inward. The first thing that he wanted to do was just a simple hole, to even see how it felt to change the shape of something using his mana. And ever so slightly, the wood pushed inward and a small hole formed, not deeper than a few millimeters, but still a little bit. And like that, Eisen continued to ¡¯draw¡¯ simple shapes into the wood, a few squares, circles, or small stars. "So far, so good. But it seems like right now, you¡¯re just using it as if engraving something into it. Just try to shape your mana into what shape you want to put into the wood beforehand, and then push into it." Morrom exined, and Eisen nodded. That seemed simple enough. So, Eisen turned his mana into a t circle, and pushed it into the wood, causing a t hole to form. "Alright, perfect. You know how to push, now you¡¯ll learn how to pull." With a smile on his face, Morrom held his hand out toward the wood again, and slowly the parts that Eisen pushed in were pulled outward again, turning it into a perfect cube once more. "It¡¯s simple, it¡¯s like using your Mana as a mold. You ce it against the material, it has to be touching it, and then you need to literally just imagine pulling the material into the mana." He exined, and Eisen got to work again. He pushed out more mana and turned it into a small sphere, moving it against the wood, and imagining the wood pouring into the mana as if it were a thick liquid, and slowly filled out the mana sphere. "This is harder than I thought it would be. You literally did it in less than a second, after all. It took me a whole minute to just add a ball." Eisenughed slightly and Morrom nodded. "Yeah, it just takes practice. It will get easier by ranking up your Alchemy skill, but it¡¯s still better to just practice and practice, and get a good base going. And by now, it¡¯s the easiest way to level your Alchemy skill, and also the easiest to break through it. It¡¯s how I managed to." "Really? How that?" Eisen asked curiously. Morromughed and began to exin. "Well, I took a piece of wood like that over there, and worked on it for about a month, to be honest. Whenever I had time, I worked on it, added moreplexity and details, until I saw it as finished and broke through. I tell you, I¡¯ve never seen my parents as happy as when I told them about it, haha." With a gentle smile, Morrom remembered that moment and drifted off for a few seconds before turning back to Eisen. "Well, anyway, just work on that wood for a while. Turn it into a few different shapes until you feelfortable with transmutation. But for now, I¡¯ll show you hardening and softening. That¡¯s thest big new thing you can do with Alchemy." Morrom grabbed a small rock and held it between his fingers, and as Eisen watched it slowly turned into a Jelly-like substance that was sagging down. "This is a type of softening, going even further would be liquifying, but you can¡¯t do that yet. This depends on transforming your mana. Since you can do that, this should be easy. You push your mana into the object in its raw state, and then turn it into what you want it to be, liquid or solid. Over time, when you use your liquid mana on a material, it will turn into this slime-like substance, and when you use your solid mana..." Morrom stopped talking for a second, while the rock stopped wiggling and seemed to be solid again, "It bes solid. Pretty easy, right?" "Yeah, that¡¯s pretty interesting. So, using that hardening I can turn the potions into pills?" Eisen asked. "Yup. I suggest you do that, since you can always turn them liquid again, which is only possible if the substance starts as a liquid, and the effect will return to normal. It¡¯s just easier to store them as pills." "Makes sense. Thanks! Seems like I have a lot of materials to practice on, huh?" Eisenughed and stood up, stretching before starting to practice. Chapter 35 Pills Eisen grabbed the piece of wood in front of him and filled the whole object out with his mana. And just as Morrom instructed, so that he could soften it, Eisen changed his Mana into a liquid state and thought for the piece of wood to react. After a few seconds, Eisen noticed that the wood lost its hardness and shape, and slowly sagged down into a blob. It truly felt very weird. It¡¯s outer texture still felt like wood, but it gave in to Eisen¡¯s touch as Jelly or Slime would. Eisen grabbed two sides of the weird wood-jelly and pulled it apart, ying around with it in his hands to properly feel it, as it waspletely new material to what he was used to. This way, it would be far easier to form materials into a certain shape. The only down part of this was that it drained a lot of Mana from him, as just softening this small piece of wood took two-thirds of his whole Mana. Morrom looked over Eisen¡¯s shoulder and nodded approvingly. "Good! That worked fairly quickly. But you don¡¯t have a lot of mana left, right? Bree, can you give him some again?" He asked, and the Fey-kin nodded with a bright smile. "Yup~! I¡¯ll do that~!" She replied happily and began to put her mana into Eisen, who gratefully epted it. "Thanks, Bree." He smiled gently and then returned back to his experimentation. Eisen pushed more of his mana out of his hands and filled out the wooden-slime with it, and then turned it into its solid state. Slowly, the blob of wood turned hard again, keeping its new shape but regaining its solidity. As he was now holding this rounded piece of wood, he got an idea and wanted to test something out. Once again, Eisen softened the wood as far as he could, and then pulled his mana out and returning it to its raw, energy-like state. Out of that mana, Eisen formed a hollow sphere and ced it around the wood, slowly trying to transmute the softened wood into a sphere, and tried to keep it in that shape while he pushed solid mana into the wood, hardening it. After Eisen was sure that the sphere was solid again, he pulled out his Mana and looked at the perfectly round wooden sphere. Morromughed at the sight of that and nodded his head. "Alright, you¡¯ve already figured that out, huh? The easier something is to naturally form, the easier it is to transmute. I wanted to see if you can find that out for yourself, and you did! Great! Now, I think the best way to level and practice transmutation is really to just work with all those potions. Hardening them and turning them into perfect spheres should be easy enough, right?" "I see, thanks! I¡¯ll do that, then. Any tips you can give me?" Eisen asked, and Morrom looked up in thought for a few seconds. "Oh, just take it slow, if you don¡¯t manage to do something right away, then try again. You can¡¯t ruin the potion through transmutation, so you have infinite tries." "Got it, thanks." Eisen smiled and looked over at the Jellies and Mists that Eisen made a little bit ago. "Actually, can I also turn those things into pills?" Morrom looked at them as well and nodded. "Well, yeah? Kind of. You can turn them into pills, but they won¡¯t work like they¡¯re supposed to. For example, let¡¯s take the mist. If you turn it into a pill, the requirement to activate the effect stays the same, meaning you have to breathe it in. You can¡¯t breathe in a pill, right? Same with the Jellies. You can absorb a semi-solid, but not a full solid. It makes them easier to store, so I guess it wouldn¡¯t hurt?" The Elf-Dwarf exined, and Eisen nodded. "Makes sense, thanks. I¡¯ll get to work, then." Eisen nodded and took out one of the ss bottles. He pulled out the cork and pushed some of his mana inside, turning it solid where the Health Potion is, and when he sees that it¡¯s slowly bing slime-like, poured it onto his hand. He pulled out his mana and formed it into a sphere around the potion, pushing it into the shape of a small sphere the size of a cherry tomato. Once the Potion was formed into the right shape, Eisen pushed his mana into it again and slowly turned it solid. [You created a Low-Grade Health Pill] [Low-Grade Health Pill] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description] A small pill made of a Low-Grade Health Potion. Will take effect when ingested. It has been formed and hardened through transmutation. [Effect] Recover 150 HP "Ah, so it recovers 50 HP less? That¡¯s not too bad." Eisen eximed and looked over to Morrom. "Yep. It¡¯s not horrible. 50 HP can be a lot when ites to life and death, though." Morrom said, and then moved back toward his own work, leaving Eisen and Bree to theirs. Eisen moved onto the next potion and turned it into a pill. As each one took around five minutes, it was quite obvious that he wouldn¡¯t be able to finish this for quite a while. He would make as many as he could today, and use his free time to continue this endeavor so that he could finish the pills before he and Bree began hunting outside of Melroe. --- It was around 30 minutes before Eisen and Bree would leave Everything Magic for the day, and Eisen finished about 50 pills. He slightly sped up toward the end of it, so he finished more than he thought he would. But either way, after 50 pills, even Eisen felt like this was getting kind of monotonous, and Bree was running a little bit low on mana as well, even with her high mana pool. Eisen wanted to do something different, something more interesting to end the day. He took ten bottles of the Low-Grade Health potion and poured them together into a bowl. Eisen formed his mana into a tiny humanoid figure, albeit only a very rough one, and ced it over the potion. Using the ¡¯pull¡¯ method of transmutation, Eisen pulled the liquid potion into the mold of mana. When his mana was filled with the potion, Eisen slowly activated hardening and turned the potion into a shining red figurine. [Low-Grade Health Doll] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1] [Description] A small doll made of 10 Low-Grade Health Potions. Will take effect when ingested. It has been formed and hardened through transmutation. [Effect] Recover 1000 HP "Huh, even less recovery? Anyway, doesn¡¯t matter..." Eisen muttered to himself and continued his n. He ced the small red figure onto the table and poured his mana into it,pletely filling it out. Slowly, Eisen shifted the humanoid figure of Mana, imitating a walking motion in snail-pace, and activating transmutation to pull the Doll¡¯s limbs to where he wants it to. After a while, Eisen managed to make the Doll walk a few centimeters forward, just when Morrom came back into the room. "Oh? Don¡¯t tell me you managed Golemancy, haha." Heughed and looked over Eisen¡¯s shoulder, who tilted his head and looked at Morrom. "Golemancy?" "Just a joke, don¡¯t worry. But well, Golemancy is basically to create a doll, usually humanoid but not necessarily, and have it move around autonomously. Obviously, you¡¯re doing this with transmutation. I can show you how to make a golem core, though, if you¡¯re interested." "Hmm, that definitely sounds interesting. Let¡¯s do that sometime soon then!" "Yeah, let¡¯s! For today, maybe you should get back to the Inn, though. I¡¯ve got some work to do, and that might be pretty... well, explosive." Morromughed embarrassedly. "Haha, alright. Bree seems kind of tired as well, so we should really get back. I can leave the Potions here for now though, right?" Eisen asked, and Morrom nodded. "Of course, don¡¯t worry about those. You¡¯ll be back by tomorrow morning anyway, right?" "Yep, exactly. See you tomorrow, Morrom!" --- "Morrom, what the hell happened?" Eisen asked worried as he looked at the workshop. The one half, where most of the important projects were standing, and where Eisen worked the day before, was left basically untouched. The other half of the workshop was usually wide open without many itemsying around, either forrger projects or for the case that something happened like it apparently didst night. The whole half of the workshop waspletely obliterated, and a big spherical room, with its center where Morrom¡¯s worktable for explosives stood the day before, was formed. On its edge, Morrom stood, staring into it. "Huh? Ah, well... my project worked!" He muttered out and smiled embarrassedly. It was the morning of the next day, and Eisen and Bree entered Everything Magic excited to see what would happen when Eisen broke through the enchanting skill. However, when they entered the workshop, they were faced with this. Eisen sighed out loudly and walked up next to Morrom. "And what project would that be?" Smugly, Morrom crossed his arm and jumped into the whole. "Apression bomb!" He smiled and looked at a small, fist-sized sphere on the bottom of the hole. Morrom ced his hands around it and tried pulling it up with all his might, but the sphere wouldn¡¯t budge. "Yes! It really did work!" Morrom yelled out happily and ced his hand onto the small sphere. From the distortions of light happening around it, Eisen knew that Morrom was using his mana. Slowly, the sphere grew and grew, and Morrom held out his second hand as well. The whole room seemed to shift and twist due to the amount of mana filling it, and the holes that were caused by the bomb were filling up again. After a few minutes, the whole room was nearlypletely restored, with the exception of missing furniture and tools. "What the hell was that?" Eisen asked curiously, and Morrom quickly exined. "Pretty simple, really. I infused an alchemy ability into a crystal with enchanting, and it blew up. The ability waspression, and it worked,pressing the whole part of the room. I simply dpressed it and used transmutation to restore the room." "If this is what alchemy can do inter Ranks, I really can¡¯t wait!" "Yeah, haha, it¡¯s really amazing, isn¡¯t it? Anyway, should we get to Enchanting now?" Morrom asked dismissively of what just happened to the Workshop, and since there wasn¡¯t much reason to stick to this topic, Eisen nodded with a gentle smile. "Alright! Then let me exin the basics of enchanting. There are two types, the first being carved enchantment. And the second is ability enchantment. Carved enchantment is fairly simple. You have a surface, it can be basically anything, and you carve patterns into it while expending mana. The only difficulty is knowing what pattern fits to what enchantment you want. Ability enchantment is something you can¡¯t do just yet, as it¡¯s unlocked at rank 2. It¡¯s cing abilities you yourself possess into an item or crystal." Eisen listened closely to the exnation and thought it was simple enough. When it came to carving, he did have experience, of course. It only came to the conditions needed to carve something good. "Let¡¯s start with basic carving. Mana Crystals are still a perfect base for that, so let¡¯s just put simple enchantments into some of them. It always starts at a center point. From then on, you expand it outward with different runes and patterns. For now, let¡¯s try a simple me enchantment. First, tten the mana crystal with transmutation." Morrom exined quickly and ced a fist-sized mana crystal onto the table in front of Eisen. [New Quest - Enchanting Tutorial] [Description] Morrom Marson offered to teach you Enchanting. He told you to carve a simple me Enchantment into a Mana Crystal. Follow his instructions to the best of your abilities. [Reward] Enchanting Skill; Experience [Failure] You will have to try again [Time Limit - None] He nodded and ced his hand over the crystal, pushing out his mana. Slowly, he pushed the crystal into shape and ttened its top. "Good. Now, take this needle and carve this into the crystal. Constantly use mana, and deeply think about the effect. You¡¯ve seen how it works before, so that should be simple." Morrom said and handed Eisen a thick needle as well as a piece of paper with a simple pattern on it, simr to what magic circles looked like, at least from what Eisen knew about them through basic research. In its center, it had a simple circle with a shape that looked like a me inside of it, and around it, a number of triangles pointed outward. Around each triangle was a small circle, and then anotherrge circle around the whole pattern as if framing it. Eisen looked at the crystal and smiled, setting the tip of the needle against it before getting to work. ---------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - None][Level - 9] [HP - 500][MP - 390] [STR - 34][END - 41][AGI - 38][INT - 29][WIS - 30][CHA - 10] [Titles] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker IV] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 69] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 7] -[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 7] -[cksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 58] -[Drawing9[Rank - 0][Level - 99] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 29][Level - 4] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 4] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 41] -[Mana Manipion][Rank - 1][Level - 72] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 10] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 36 Enchanting Eisen poured his Mana into the thick needle that seemed to be made of Mythril and pushed down onto the Mana Crystal. Immediately, without even needing to use too much pressure, a small line appeared in the crystal. Seeing how easy this would be, Eisen activated his racial skill A Dwarf¡¯s Hands and continued to work. He first formed the small circle in its center, and then added the me inside of it. After that, he added the six circles directly around it, with the triangles pointed outward inside of them, and then the simple circle around the whole pattern. [You created a Simple me Enchantment] [Simple me Enchantment] [Quality - Average][Rank - 0] [Description] A Simple me enchantment that has been carved into a mana crystal. It will only expel one size of me no matter how much mana is put into the crystal. [Effect] Expells a small me when in contact with pure mana "Let me take a look at that," Morrom said and grabbed the Mana Crystal. "Well done. Good base, the surface you made was without any uneven parts. The circles are definitelycking in some areas. You need to make sure they are as perfect as possible, or else the quality will suffer a lot. At least the me in the center is quite good, and the triangles are alright as well. At least I¡¯m happy that you didn¡¯t get this perfect either, otherwise, this would have made me look bad as a professional enchanter, haha.." He smiled and gave the Crystal back to Eisen,pleting the quest. [You have earned 250 Experience] [You are now Level 10] [Enchanting Skill Learned] Eisen willed those notifications away and put his new stat points into his INT and WIS stats, bringing them both to 32. He was kind of annoyed, however. Up until now, he didn¡¯t have much trouble with getting everything perfect, but for some reason, enchanting was somehow harder than he expected it to be. And that wasn¡¯t only because Eisen always somehow had trouble making perfect circles from hand, because who can actually do that, but it also seemed like Eisen was kind of looking down on the skill, simply because he didn¡¯t have much trouble until now. The reasons he didn¡¯t manage this as well made sense, though. Eisen has been working in professions like cksmithing or Tailoring for the big majority of his life, so the only obstacle he had to ovee was to get used to the game system, which happened quite quickly considering the amount he has been ying. In Alchemy, the only thing besides transmutation he did was to grind and mix things, which didn¡¯t really take much effort. And now that he thought about it, the only reason that Eisen was able to use transmutation somewhat easily was that he has been practicing his Mana Maniption a lot, and already figured out a few important parts himself, before even trying Transmutation for the first time. Combine that with the fact that the quality of the finished item made with transmutation was mainly based off of the base item¡¯s quality. If Eisen hadn¡¯t been able to use perfect quality potions for his pills, then maybe they would have turned out quite low-quality as well. After thinking about this for a while, Eisen actually felt somewhat relieved that the enchantment didn¡¯t turn out perfect. Without this, he probably would have be condescending at some point, a quality which he hated about himself whenever it happened. At least now, Eisen knew that he wasn¡¯t perfect. Sure, people called him a ¡¯Legendary Craftsman¡¯ in the real world, but this wasn¡¯t that ce. There were so many things he never heard about and never could have thought of himself. Of course, as mentioned before Eisen had experience with carving, but that didn¡¯t mean he had experience carving enchantments. Although the carving itself wasn¡¯tpletely horrible, Eisen found it hard to not think about what you¡¯re doing, but what you want the item to do. When you made a sword, you didn¡¯t think about how it would be used to fight while swinging down at the metal. You thought about the metal itself, about how hard it is and how much it gave in to your swings. And ording to Morrom¡¯s exnation, Eisen had to think about the mes he wanted to seeing from the enchantment, and still manage to perfectly carve the actual enchantment. Multitasking never was one of Eisen¡¯s strength. More the opposite actually. He would focus too much on one thing, and forget about otherpletely. It allowed him to indulge himself into practicing the numerous craftsmanships he learned in the past, but after all, he never had ess to magic. Maybe now would be a great chance to make up for his shorings! Once Eisen thought about everything like that, all of his frustration disappeared. He would grab this chance now that he had it, and use it to its fullest extent! Seeing that Eisen was smiling to himself while in deep contemtion, Morrom smiled and handed the Mana Crystal back to him. "Try it out, I want to see how well it works." Eisen nodded and looked at the crystal in his hand. He looked at the enchantment, and slowly poured some of his mana into it. The enchantment began to glow slightly, and Eisen could even hear the sound of crackles that one could always hear during a fire. A few secondster, a tiny spark appeared a few centimeters above the enchantment, followed by a small me appearing in its stead. It was considerably smaller than the mes Eisen sawing from enchantments like these before. Whether this was because of his Skill Rank or because of the quality and rank of the enchantment itself was still unknown to him, but he was sure to find out sooner orter. "Good, it worked faster than expected! The first time I carved that enchantment, it took several attempts to get it started! Anyway, now I¡¯ll exin what which part does. Those triangles are the alchemical symbol of fire when seeing the center as the bottom. Those parts are there to specify the enchantment type. This was a fire enchantment, so we used that. When ites to elemental enchantments like that, you have tobine the different alchemical symbols for water, earth, fire, and air to get the needed element. There are other types, non-elemental ones, but they are too many to tell you about them, also because you can get most basic effects through the four basic symbols." While Morrom was exining this, he drew up the four Alchemical symbols for the four elements on a piece of paper. Eisen knew these already, as they were rtively basic symbols so far. They were simply four triangles. The fire one was pointed upward, the water one was pointed downward. And the air one was pointed upward but had a horizontal line cutting it in half, and the earth one was the same just turned downward. This was actually the limit of what Eisen knew about Alchemy, besides things that basically everyone knows about it, like that it¡¯s supposed to be able to turn coal into gold. He only knew this through reading fairytales to his children, though. "The circle around the whole thing is for further specification. There are specific symbols you should use if you want certain effects. The ¡¯basic¡¯ mode of the me enchantment is to push it outward, so we didn¡¯t need to add a specification to the outside. You can also add symbols if you want slightly stronger or weaker effects depending on the amount of mana that was put into the enchantment, as well as if you want it to be connected to a source of mana, like a storage crystal filled with mana, and constantly pull mana out of it, or if its only supposed to activate when someone puts mana into the enchantment on their own." Morrom exined further and showed some basic specifications that seemed to be written in some kind of runic alphabet, which Eisen just barely recognized. Amongst the types of specifications, there were those to turn the effect inward, for example. If Eisen had added this specification to his enchantment, it would have made the mana crystal heat up. "Andstly, the center. That describes the actual effect. While you¡¯re carving that, you especially need to think of what you want the enchantment to do. You thought of the type of me like those I showed you, right? If you had thought of something like a sphere of fire appearing above it, then that would have happened instead. However, what you carve into there needs to correspond to what you¡¯re thinking about somehow. If you had drawn that me and thought of it expelling water, it wouldn¡¯t have worked. You can get creative with that. And the moreplicated that center part is, the more stable and stronger the effect of the enchantment. And of course, it has to fit together with the element and specifications you chose." Morrom smiled and looked over at Eisen, who was deep in thought while looking at the different enchantments that Morrom drew onto the paper to give Eisen an idea of what some moreplicated ones looked like. Heughed softly and stood back up. "For now, just test some things out. I¡¯ll give you some of the basic patterns you need to know, so just mix and match all kinds of stuff. Get your Skill to Rank 1, and then keep practicing a bit more if you want. I¡¯ll be spending a good few hours re-furnishing my workshop over there..." Morrom sighed out and gave Eisen a few mana crystals, rocks, and even pieces of wood, as well as a few sheets of paper he prepared beforehand containing the basic patterns which Morrom mentioned. First things first, Eisen looked through these patterns to think of some ideas for enchantments he could make, as he didn¡¯t only want to repeat making the same one over and over again. Thinking that Bree might have some ideas, and feeling bad that she always just sat there and silently stared at his work, Eisen looked over to her and asked for her help. At first, she was flustered, which also showed she didn¡¯t expect Eisen to ask for help. This only made Eisen feel even worse. He really wasn¡¯t treating her right. For a while, the two of them brainstormed some fun ideas, thinking up self-burning wood as firestarters, canteens that would never run out of the water, or hats that gave a gust of cool air if you needed it in the summer. Taking some of these ideas and simplifying them so that he could create some of these things right now, Eisen grabbed fist-sized Mana Crystal and first turned it into a good enough base with transmutation, changing its shape into that of a cylinder with t ends, and then sketched up the enchantment he would make so that he at least didn¡¯t have toe up with it while carving it. And quite surprisingly, that was enough to push Eisen¡¯s Drawing Rank to 1, giving him one INT and one AGI. The bonus that ranking this skill up gave was that it would be easier to createplicated drawings. What that meant immediately showed itself as his Drawing skill, that before didn¡¯t really do anything, now helped while sketching the enchantment. As mentioned before, Eisen was never great at drawing or carving perfect circles, but now Eisen managed to make on that was near to perfectly round! He was unsure whether this would help with the carving, but even if not, it didn¡¯t matter too much. Anyway, the enchantment¡¯s element that Eisen chose for this was Water, meaning that he drew triangles pointed toward the center. Since for now, what he wanted to make didn¡¯t need any specification, as the enchantment only needed to push out water above it, Eisen didn¡¯t add anything to the outside circle. For the center, Eisen thought for a while toe up with a good pattern that came naturally while thinking about the effect he wanted. As it would be a simple enchantment and that didn¡¯t require aplicated pattern in the center, Eisen chose a regr Water droplet. As the design for the enchantment was now finished, Eisen got to work. He poured his mana into the Mythril needle and ced it against one side of the Mana Crystal Cylinder, slowly beginning to carve the enchantment. First, Eisen carved the circle for the center and added the water droplet inside. After that, he carved the six triangles which were pointed toward the center of the enchantment around it and added a circle around each triangle. Andstly also the circle around the whole enchantment to finish it off. Once more, it definitely wasn¡¯t perfect. The circles weren¡¯t round enough and seemed too shaky, and it seemed to Eisen that he still had a few problems with concentrating on the effect rather than the carving itself. Either way, he still got a little bit better. [You created a Simple Water Enchantment] [Simple Water Enchantment] [Quality - Above Average][Rank - 0] [Description] A Simple water enchantment that has been carved into a mana crystal. It will only expel a weak stream of water no matter how much mana is put into the crystal. [Effect] Expells a weak stream of water when in contact with pure mana Seeing that the enchantment was finished properly, Eisen ced his hand onto the mana crystal and began to transmute its shape without activating the enchantment. He practically ¡¯pulled¡¯ the bottom of the cylinder upward and around the enchantment, the surface it was carved on would end up acting as the bottom. The top was left open, and this finished the item that Eisen was trying to make. [You created a Self-Filling Mana Crystal Cup] [Self-Filling Mana Crystal Cup] [Quality - Above Average][Rank - 0] [Description] A cup made out of a Mana Crystal. A novice Enchanter carved an enchantment to expel water when mana is infused into it onto the bottom of the cup. You need to be careful that the contents don¡¯t overflow. [Effect] Cup is filled with water when mana is poured in Chapter 37 Cubes Eisen looked at the cup he just made and slowly poured his mana into the crystal, then watched as the enchantment at the bottom slowly began producing clear water. Due to the small size of the cup, it quickly filled out and Eisen even spilled some over the side. "This is going to take some getting used to." He muttered out and ced the cup against his lips and poured the water into his mouth. It tasted somewhat pure, and pristine, as if it just came out of a fresh spring. Overall, it was incredibly refreshing! Eisen gave the cup to Bree and smiled. "That was a great idea, Bree! Something like this will be quite useful to have on travels." He eximed and Bree nodded with a smile. "Mhm~! It really is! Enchanting is really useful in general~!" "Yeah, it seems like it! So, what should I make next? The self-burning wood takes too long to make to just watch it burn away instantly... At least until my skill rank is higher, that¡¯s going to be a ¡¯No¡¯. How about the cooling air thing?" "Sure~! Summer is approaching, and it can get suuper hot around here!" Eisen nodded and smiled, and then grabbed another Mana Crystal. He was surprised, however. Eisen had no idea that the game world also had different seasons. If that was the case, even though it¡¯s probably still a while off, it might be a good idea to think ahead for winter. But first, Eisen would make something that expelled air. Eisen grabbed another piece of paper and sketched out the enchantment he would need to carve. It was fairly simple, really. Once more there would be no specification needed, so the outer ring was a simple circle. The elemental symbols were those of Air, a triangle pointed outward that was cut in half horizontally. For the center, Eisen thought that maybe a fan would be a good symbol, as the effect he wanted was supposed to simte a fan¡¯s air output. Seeing that even the circles in the sketch weren¡¯t perfectly rounded, Eisen sighed out loudly. How was he ever supposed to carve perfect circles if he couldn¡¯t even draw them with the support of the game? However, Eisen knew failure well. You can¡¯t learning anything properly without failing at least once, after all. Back in the day, when he was just starting out learning different craftsmanships, he failed at it every time. The first shirt he sewed had one sleeve that was far longer than the other. And Eisen doesn¡¯t even want to think of the first time he messed up while cooking. Eisen grabbed the needle and poured his Mana into it, before activating his A Dwarf¡¯s Hands Skill and cing the needle¡¯s tip against the Mana Crystal. Slowly, he started in the center and carved the four des of the fan, surrounding them with a cirlcle. After that, he ced the alchemical symbol for air around the center six times and carefully carved circles around them as slowly as he could to make sure it bes a perfect a circle as it could. And to finish the enchantment off, Eisen carved another circle around the whole thing. [Simple Air Enchantment] [Quality - Above Average][Rank - 0] [Description] A Simple air enchantment that has been carved into a mana crystal. It will only expel a weak stream of air no matter how much mana is put into the crystal. [Effect] Expells a weak but focused stream of air when in contact with pure mana Eisen nodded and grabbed the mana crystal, puring some of his mana into it. At first, he didn¡¯t even feel a difference to before, but when moving the crystal closer to his face noticed a soft flow of air. Right now it didn¡¯t seem very useful at all, but maybe once his skill ranked up he could make something with a stronger airflow. He handed the Enchanted Mana crystal to Bree, for her to take a look at it, and then began to think about the next enchantment he could make. The only element he hasn¡¯t done anything for until now was earth, but what could he do with it? Right now the only things he could do was have an enchantment expel one of the four base elements, and Eisen didn¡¯t really have an idea how to use dirt or rocks right now. Maybe he could just try and have it expel stone in different shapes? Yeah, that sounded like a good enough idea. He grabbed another piece of paper and drew the enchantment he would need on it. The only really interesting thing about a simple enchantment like this was the center part. Other than that, the only thing that changed was the alchemical symbol, after all. Into the center of the enchantment, Eisen drew a simple cube, as this was be the first shape he wanted to create. Then, Eisen grabbed a mana crystal andpletely ttened it into a disk using transmutation, and began to carve the enchantment. He first carved the small cube into the center and the circle around it, and then the alchemical symbols for earth, an inward faced triangle with a horizontal line, and surrounded them by circles, andstly added the circle around the whole enchantment. [Stone Cube Creation Enchantment] [Quality - Average][Rank - 0] [Description] An earth enchantment that has been carved into a mana crystal. It will produce a 5cm cube when enough mana is provided. Due to the low Rank of the enchanter¡¯s skill, it is highly mana-inefficient. [Effect] Produces a 5cm cube for every 300 MP provided "Holy crap, that¡¯s more than half of my mana!" Eisen yelled out when he looked at the description of the enchantment. 300 Mana was really a lot for him. Probably not for someone with a higher level, but it really was way more than Eisen expected. He sighed out loudly and ced his hand on the edge of the Mana Crystal disk, slowly pouring his mana inside. He only had a little more than 300 left in the first ce, so he asked for Bree to give him some more again, so that he wouldn¡¯t pass out in the middle of the workshop. For a while, Eisen watched the mana he put into the enchantment focus in a single spot in its center. The moment that Eisen lost exactly 300 MP, although they were instantly filled back up by Bree, the mana shaped itself into a cube, and then dissipated immediately, leaving behind the small stone cube that the enchantment was supposed to make. Eisen picked it up and felt it in his hands. It was dense and seemed not to break or crumble even when he put pressure on it. Its corners were sharp and pointy. It seemed like the shape he wanted was perfectly replicated through this. If he wanted to, this might be a good way to mass-produce smaller items. Maybe he could make boardgames to pass time during longer travels, or small decorative items that he might be able to sell for a little extra copper. This was only a choice when he could fix the problem with the mana-inefficiency though, as before then it would be pretty annoying to need Mana-refills all the time. However, Eisen noticed that this enchantment gave Eisen the most proficiency out of all the ones he made so far. Maybe that was because it didn¡¯t just give out the element itself, but because it also changed its shape and state. The only thing that seemed to be able to be put into a shape was the Water, but that would just drop down and end up in a puddle anyways. Except if he could turn it into ice! It was worth a try, right? Without even sketching another version of an enchantment on a piece of paper, Eisen got to work, grabbing another Mana Crystal and forming it into a new disk. The reason why he immediately began carving the enchantment was that it would be basically identical to the Stone Cube Creation one, only recing the earth alchemical symbol with the water one, which was easily done by just leaving out the horizontal line, and imagining the creation of an icecube instead of a stone one. A whileter, the enchantment was finished and Eisen read through the notification. [Ice Cube Creation Enchantment] [Quality - Above Average][Rank - 0] [Description] A Water enchantment that has been carved into a mana crystal. It will produce a 5cm cube when enough mana is provided. Due to the low Rank of the enchanter¡¯s skill, it is highly mana-inefficient. [Effect] Produces a 5cm cube for every 200 MP provided Immediately, Eisen poured his mana into the enchantment and waited for the cube to appear, and after a few seconds a tiny icecube dropped down onto the enchantment. Happy that his idea worked, he grabbed it, and watched it slowly melt between his fingers, before cing it to the side somewhere and thinking of other things to do. In the end, Eisen got the idea to repeat this again for other shapes, and did exactly that. --- The next few hours were spent making enchantments to create small Stone and Ice spheres and pyramids. However, this wasn¡¯t nearly enough for Eisen to rank his skill up. Which is why Eisen repeated carving all the enchantments he made so far twice more, and after a few hours he finally managed to level his skill up enough. [Enchanting reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [It is now possible to use non-elemental alchemical symbols] [Due to Ranking-up your Enchanting Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] Satisfied that he could now try to break through the Enchanting skill with Morrom¡¯s help, Eisen stood up. The only problem was that the best quality of the enchantments that Eisen managed to reach was ¡¯Highest¡¯, and usually his average was at ¡¯Perfect¡¯. Eisen hoped to be able to make up for that with Morrom¡¯s expertise, since he really wanted to see what would happen if he managed to break through enchanting and finish the quest that Morrom gave him. Eisen walked to the other half of the room, which he expected would be newly furnished to look exactly like it used to, but it was quite different. In front of the walls stood new shelves and tables, basically like it used to be, but now there was a small round tform with two steps leading up to it. The top surface of the tform, however, seemed to be a huge, three diameter surface madepletely out of Mana Crystals. When Morrom saw Eisen approach, he smiled brightly and extended both arms toward the tform proudly. "Look! This is stage forplicated enchantments! We can use it for your Breakthrough right now, but it¡¯s also perfect for other things I wanted to try out in a long time! The explosion was the perfect chance to remodel a bit!" "I see... Just, what kind of enchantment takes such a big surface?" Eisen asked curiously, and Morrom crossed his arms. "Well, multiyer ones. Even a rank 0 can make them, but they need the know-how and the right materials. For normal enchantments you can use any material as a base, but for multiyer ones you need already magical materials, such as mana crystals. So I just fused some together with Alchemy for this. Anyway, forplicated enchantments, you basically rece the alchemical symbols with their own enchantment circles." "Oh! That sounds interesting! Do they all have to be the same, or can you mix and match them like with the normal elemental symbols?" "You have tobine them to reach the effect you want, and each circle is a portion of the full process." Morrom exined, and showed Eisen some sketches for differentplicated enchantments. After exining a few more details, Morrom stepped onto the tform with a smile. "Shall we get to it, then?" Chapter 38 Peak Morrom handed Eisen a few tools. First, a Mythril staff which would be used for therge-scale carvings, and different tools that are supposed to help with the shaping of the enchantment, like protractors or rulers in different sizes. But since these were only a real help with smaller carvings, there was also some kind of tool to help makerge circles. From what Eisen could tell, it had a base that was supposed to stay directly in the center, and a rotatable top that had a rope connected to it. At the loose end of the rope there was a metal ring, which apparently was supposed to be put around the staff. Like that, it was possible to rtively easily make perfect circles. "So, there¡¯s one good thing aboutplicated enchantments like this. You don¡¯t have to keep the image in mind while making the whole carving. You first make the base, meaning the different circles, and then you individually create the enchantments each in one of the middle circles. Then, you add the specifications to the outside circle, to make sure that the different smaller enchantments properly interconnect and can be used together. And atst, you carve the center with an image in mind where all the smaller enchantments arebined into the effect you want." Morrom exined carefully and Eisen listened closely. "And what kind of enchantment will I be making?" Morrom crossed his arms and closed his eyes in thought at this question. Then he thought back on yesterday and got an idea. "How about a Golem Core Creation Enchantment? Usually, itbines Alchemy and Enchanting, but it is possible to add effects that seem like mock-alchemy into the mix. It won¡¯t be a great golem core, but enough for you to learn Golemancy. You seemed to be interested in it." "Yeah, Golemancy seems quite useful, doesn¡¯t it?" Eisen responded with a softugh. "It is useful, definitely, although mainly for brute work. So they won¡¯t be able to help you with crafting much. But they¡¯re good as defense forces, or to help withrge construction. I heart that back when this town was first founded, someone turned all the rocks that were carved out of the cliffs into golems to help further carve other buildings out." "I see... So what do I need to do?" Excitedly, Eisen looked at the Mana Crystal tform, before Morrom closed his eyes to think. "Hmm... We first need the actual physical base... For that, we need to create a sphere made of crystal. That will be one. Then we need an enchantment for control so that the core can control a body. Another enchantment that lets the core store mana, which it will need to function. It will also need to follow orders, so that¡¯s the fourth enchantment. Ah, another enchantment to make sure only you can use the core. And then only modtion, so it can use any type of body, and can be interchanged with fitting ones. Usually, you would use Alchemy to create the sphere and use a special material to add a fake ¡¯mind¡¯ to it, so it can understandmands and add a fake ¡¯soul¡¯ to store mana. Things like giving it the ability to control a body, as well as the modtion and the ownership, are handled through enchanting." While Morrom was exining this, he sketched out the different alchemical symbols and specifications needed for each enchantment. "Get creative with the center of each enchantment. I¡¯ve exined what you need to do, so use the tools to perfect this as much as you can. I won¡¯t tell you any more until you¡¯re done." Morrom smiled and sat down near the wall, joined by Bree who happily watched Eisen begin to work. During thest few days, Eisen began to realize a few things more and more, although he only knew exactly what it was since today. He¡¯s been treating Bree as a grandchild. Trying to spoil her, and giving her money to spend on different things when he found out that she¡¯s not actually making any from her job at the Inn. Maybe it was because of the way that Bree acted most of the time, like an excitable young child, or simply the fact that he¡¯s been away from his family for too long and wasn¡¯t able to spoil his actual grandchildren. After all that Bree went through, Eisen still thought that she deserved nice things, however. And since she would be working with him, he decided to see the Dress, Backpack, and Money he gave her as something like an investment. Something that would help her grow in the future. Waving away these thoughts, Eisen decided to concentrate on the enchantment now, and worry about properly forming a friendship with Bree at ater time. Eisen grabbed the tool to createrge circles that Morrom gave him and attached it to the center of the tform with something like arge suction cup at its bottom. After that, he attached the ring at the end of the rope to the Staff and began to work. He poured his mana into the staff and slowly carved the two outer circles, between which the specifications wouldter go. Simr to how the needle worked, instead of causing excess material that was carved away to lie around it, the staff apparently absorbed parts of the mana crystal tform to an extent. Once the two outer circles were done, Eisen moved in closer and carved the innermost circle. He then pulled the tool off of the tform and re-attached it around the middle section to create the six different spaces for the other enchantments. He then ced that tool and the staff to the side and began to sketch the six enchantments he would now create, making sure he ced the alchemical symbols and specifications correctly, and took his time to think of good center parts for the enchantments. The base sphere was simple, as Eisen only had to think of a ball while carving the enchantment. For the control enchantment, the choice that Eisen made was to imagine the core spreading out strings that would form muscle-like substances to control the body. The storage enchantment, on the other hand, was rtively easy again. Although it didn¡¯t fit the fantasy setting he was in, Eisen couldn¡¯t help but instinctively think of a battery when it came to energy storage. When it came to themand enchantment, Eisen had troubleing up with good images. The best he coulde up with was something like a pet cor, or something simr to that ve cor that Eisen used to trick Hendrick. As for the ownership one, Eisen simply chose a closed lock. Maybe it would work if he imagined himself as the key to open said lock. And atst, Eisen handled the modtion with the image of a sphere, where one item wasing off and another one was put there in ce of it. Hoping that all of these images would end up working out, Eisen got to work. He grabbed a thick Mythril needle, slightlyrger than the one he has been using up until now, and squatted down onto the mana crystal tform and began to carve out the first smaller enchantment into one of the six circles he prepared beforehand. Now, instead of doing it free-hand like before, he used some of the tools that Morrom gave him, and the enchantments ended up bing basically perfect, at least as far as Eisen could tell. Eisen very carefully continued on, and after finishing thest of the six enchantments, wondered how far this concept could be taken. What if this wasn¡¯t the end of it? What if you could create another level of enchantment, with thisplex enchantment recing the alchemical symbols of an evenrger, and moreplex enchantment? Eisen couldn¡¯t even imagine what kind of amazing things you could create with something like that! Excited to continue and finish this project, Eisen got to work on the specifications between the two outer circles. He grabbed the piece of paper where Morrom wrote down what Eisen would need to carve, and continued to work while using it as a reference. Eisen recognized the runes that were used for specification, but only actually realized that they were actual runes that also existed in real life, and not what they meant. He would need to look them up when he logged out the next time so that he could figure out if he could improve the specifications somehow to create better, more specific enchantments. Either way, Eisen circled the enchantment and carved in the sequence of the different runes, using the Mythril staff to do so. From what Morrom told him, he knew that they were supposed to say something that made all the enchantments that were added in ce of the alchemical symbols connect with each other. The day was nearly over, now that Eisen finished most of theplex enchantment, and sat down in the center of it while beginning to think of a good enough image for the center, something that wouldbine everything together. He grabbed another piece of paper and began to sketch. In the center of it, Eisen drew the sphere which would act as the core. Surrounding that, the faint outline of a humanoid body, with thin strands of energy coursing through it. Hoping that this would be enough as an image, Eisen began to carve that drawing into the center of the mana crystal tform. First, the sphere with the help of the staff, and then used the thick needle to carve the outline of the body. This enchantment was there to create the core and not the body after all. The moment that Eisen finished connecting thest strand from the circle in the body¡¯s chest to its fingertips, he stood up and looked at his finished creation. [Mock-Golem-Core Creation Enchantment] [Quality - Average][Rank - 2] [Description] Aplex enchantment that has been carved by the Enchanter Eisen. It creates a small, low-grade mock-golem-core. Due to the unnatural way of creating this type of item, it is extremely mana-inefficient. [Effect] Produces a 1cm sphere for every 2000 MP provided [For creating an overwhelming quality item, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] [You overcame the limits of your skills.] [You have broken through the limits of five different skills. Limitbreaker IV Title is changing to Limitbreaker V] [Title - Limitbreaker V] [Description] By Breaking the limits of five of your skills, you showed the gods you stand above them. [Effect] +5 to all basic stats [You have reached the peak of the Limitbreaker Title. There are no more stages.] [Breaking through other skills is now significantly harder, and there won¡¯t be any more stat bonuses for new limit broken skills. The 15 Bonus stats for already limit broken skills can still be earned.] Eisen looked at the onught of notifications and moved some of them to the side so that he can read through them in order. He was d that he managed to break through, but this was also the first time an item he broke through his skill with wasn¡¯t perfect quality. But the biggest surprise wasn¡¯t the quality, but rather... the creation cost... It was nearly five times his max MP and was slowly getting kind of ridiculous. How was he ever supposed to activate it in the near future without someone like Bree that helped him? And then the Limitbreaker notifications... He was happy about the bonus stats he got by breaking through but was kind of surprised to get the information that came with it. First, there were no more stages for the Limitbreaker Title. In the end, that wasn¡¯t such a big deal, since it already basically gave Eisen the stats for five levels, but he was still kind of disappointed that he couldn¡¯t heighten it any further. On top of that, Eisen was surprised by the message with the ¡¯15 Bonus stats for already limit broken skills¡¯. This was something he hadn¡¯t heard before and would need to explore further as soon as possible. But for now, Eisen waved the notifications away and turned back to Morrom, who looked back at the Giant-Dwarf excitedly. Chapter 39 Occupation "And? Did it work?" Morrom asked excitedly, looking at Eisen while filled with hope. Smiling back at the Elf-Dwarf, Eisen nodded. "Yes, it worked. I¡¯ve broken through Enchanting, and reached the peak of Limitbreaker." Morrom¡¯s eyes opened only wider at this revtion. "The- The peak of Limitbreaker? So it¡¯s at five, huh...? That¡¯s great! This is great to know! Thank you so much, Eisen!" [Quest Sessful - Breaking Through] [Description] Morrom Marson found out that you¡¯ve broken through the limits of some of your skills, and asked you to help him find out more about that title. He asked you to break through both the Alchemy and Enchanting Skills. [Reward] Special ss; Max Reputation with Morrom; Experience [Failure] Morrom will be disappointed; Slightly lowered reputation with Morrom [You have earned 1000 Experience] [You are now Level 13] [Reputation with Morrom Marson has risen to the max] Morrom turned around and walked to the door of his workshop, and told Eisen to wait while he went to prepare for some things, and would return in a little bit. This left Eisen and Bree alone in the Workshop. The Fey-kin curiously walked up to the tform, looking at the enchantment. "Can we try it out~? It¡¯s supposed to make something, right~?" She asked and tilted her head while looking at Eisen, who replied with a nod. "Yeah, sure. However, it costs 2000 MP to do so, meaning I would need your help. You think you can spare that much mana?" Eisen asked and looked at the tform as well, also extremely curious to how it works, but at the same time not wanting to force Bree to spend all her mana. However, she simply smiled and nodded with a smug look on her face. "Mhm! That¡¯s nothing to me!" "Haha, I see. Then I¡¯ll get to it, I guess. Oh, but first, I think I should put my new points into my stats." Eisen said and opened his status, and then brought his STR, INT and WIS stats each to 40, before putting thest new stat point into AGI. If from now on, he only were to go hunting and get stat points through leveling up, instead of through making items, he would need to gain about 60 more levels toplete that cat¡¯s quest. This would probably take a while, but he still had quite some time left, although he didn¡¯t know how long leveling up usually took. Either way, for now, Eisen didn¡¯t worry about that part and instead just wanted to get this enchantment to create a golem core. He ced his palm on the edge of the enchantment, and began to push his mana inside while Bree filled his Mana Pool back up again. The more mana filled the enchantment, the more mana condensed in its center. After a few minutes, the enchantment waspletely filled up, and pure white mana pulled itself into a single point, and then exploded outward, leaving only a small, tic-tac sized sphere that dropped down onto the center of the mana crystal tform. Eisen excitedly leaned forward and grabbed the small sphere, looking at what he just created. [Low Grade Mock Golem core] [Quality - Average][Rank - 2] [Description] A small, low grade golem core that has been created only with the help of Enchantments. Due to its unusual way of creation, it works far worse than a regr low grade golem core and the resulting Golem will be unable to do anyplicated tasks. [Effect] Will pair with apatible body when infused with mana "I see... Well, at least it worked! Now I only need a body for it to try it out!" Eisen eximed while looking at the tiny ball on his palm, and then remembered the small Health Doll that he made before. Maybe it would be a good base for a Golem? He walked over to Bree¡¯s backpack and looked through the pockets in the front, where he remembered putting it, and not long after beginning to search found it. Eisen held the small, crystal-like doll in his hand and pushed the golem core against its chest, then activated transmutation to open a small hole that quickly swallowed the core. The hole quickly closed again, and Eisen spread the excess material across the doll¡¯s chest. Once that was done, Eisen poured his mana into the doll and moved it toward the core. After a few seconds, thin cracks began to form on the doll¡¯s surface, and its whole body reformed to be more refined and humanoid, so that the body would be easier to use for the core. After a short while, the transformation stopped and the newly created Golem stood up on Eisen¡¯s palm. [Golemancy Skill Learned] "Great! A new skill! Well, how about it, lil¡¯ guy? Show me what you can do!" Eisen eximed and ced the small golem on a nearby table. However, it just stood there while doing nothing. "Hm? Lil¡¯ guy? Maybe that won¡¯t work... Then how about ¡¯Walk forward¡¯?" In response to Eisen¡¯smand, the small doll moved its right leg forward, and its left arm to the back. Then it stepped forward, and moved its left leg forward, and its right arm to the back. This continued on and on, without break. "That¡¯s so cool~!" Bree eximed while looking at the small red golem as it walked to the edge of the table, then turned around and walked to the other edge when Eisen told it to. "Yeah, it is! Although this makes me wonder what you can do with an actual, normal golem core and not a low-grade mock version of it! Well, I¡¯ve got the Golemancy Skill now, so I guess I could-" "G¡¯day, old-timer! How are ya?" Denmir stepped through the door and eximed loudly, interrupting Eisen as he was talking to Bree. Behind him, Eisen saw a few more familiar faces, those of Folmirra, Jekyll, and of course Morrom. "Oh, hey Denmir! What are you all doing here?" Eisen asked curiously while all four of his crafting-skill teachers stood in front of him. The only one to speak up, though, was Morrom. "We want to give you a gift. You¡¯re an amazing craftsman, Eisen, so you deserve to be seen as such by the world. Actually, let¡¯s just show him instead of exining it, shall we?" The Elf-Dwarf looked over to the other three, who smiled and nodded their heads. "Old-timer, I once more offer you to be a Master cksmith." [It is possible to change your upation to Master cksmith. Do you ept?] "Going right to the top there, huh, Denmir? I guess I¡¯ll follow part. I offer you to be a Master Tailor, Eisen." Folmirra said while smirking over to Denmir. [The possibility to change your upation to Master cksmith progressed] [It is possible to change your upation to Master Tailoring cksmith. Do you ept?] Jekyll crossed his arms and scoffed at the other two. "Really? Ye¡¯re givin¡¯ him the spots to be a Master? What kind of Grandmasters you two are..." He shook his head and the other two frowned at him, before Denmir began tough lowly. "Listen ¡¯ere, kid, all of us know that he¡¯s lost his experience, and even so he¡¯s such an amazing craftsman. He deserves ta be a Master. And who knows, maybe it was fate he ended up in Melroe?" "Tsk, I guess so. Fine then, can¡¯t be the only one that doesn¡¯t give ya what ye a Master one. I offer ya to be a Master Leatherworker." [The possibility to change your upation to Master Tailoring cksmith progressed] [It is possible to change your upation to Craftsmaster. Do you ept?] Atst, Morrom also spoke up. "You¡¯ve done a great job these past few days here, and you deserve this, really. I offer you to be a Magicraftsmaster." [The possibility to change your upation to Craftsmaster progressed] [It is possible to change your upation to Omni Craftsmaster. Do you ept?] Eisen looked at the notification in front of him. Omni Craftsmaster, huh? It definitely sounded intriguing. Compared to a regr upation like cksmith or Tailor, it didn¡¯t seem like it would box him into anything. Only judging from its name, it would probably allow him to do basically anything when it came to crafting or creating things. The Giant-Dwarf halfling began to scratch his beard and close his eyes, and after a few seconds of deep thought opened them up again. "Thank you. I more than gratefully ept." [You epted the change of your upation] [You are now an Omni Craftsmaster] [All Crafting rted skills can be learned up to Rank 10] [All Combat rted skills can be learned up to Rank 5] [All Utiliary Magic skills can be learned up to Rank 8] [All Combat Magic skills can be learned up to Rank 5] [Crafting Space Skill learned] [Level Cap has opened up] A soft light encased Eisen for only a second and then faded away once more, leaving the whole group to stare at him intensely. "And? What upation did you get?" Morrom asked curiously, and the others leaned in as well. With a softugh, Eisen crossed his arms and read through the notifications, then slowly spoke up. "Apparently, I¡¯m an Omni Craftsmaster now." Eisen exined, and then began to exin what else came with it. In return, the others told him about what each of the skill areas entail. Crafting skills are quite obvious, as they were the skills that helped you create something, meaning skills such as cksmithing, Alchemy, or even Drawing. Combat skills were those that helped one fight, obviously. Meaning things like Swordsmanship or Archery. Since Eisen didn¡¯t necessarily need, or even want, to go out and spend all his time fighting, he really didn¡¯t mind that they could only get to Rank 5. Combat Magic skills were the same, basically all spells that would be used for attacking such as the ssic Fireball spell. Utiliary Magic skills were the kind of thing that Eisen was using up until now when it came to magic, meaning things that weren¡¯t directly intended forbat, such as his Mana Double, Mana Copy, or Mana Maniption skills. It seemed like an ordinary Craftsman would only be able to level physical crafting skills up to Rank 8, and crafting skills that had to do with magic or mana like Alchemy or Enchanting only up to Rank 6. If you wanted to get your physical skills higher than that, you needed to be a Craftsmaster, the Master version of the Craftsman profession. They would be able to master all physical crafting skills, and learn some special crafting skills, but still couldn¡¯t raise their Magic-Crafting skills up to Rank 8. Eisen on the other hand, could now literallypletely master each and every crafting skill there was. Omni Craftsmaster was truly the perfect upation for him. Everybody was excitedly telling Eisen about how it was an incredibly rare upation, and talking about the great things that were created by past Omni Craftsmasters. Denmir was the first one to talk about Eisen¡¯s new skill, though. "Craftin¡¯ Space, huh? That¡¯s pretty handy if ya ask me. Always wanted ta learn it meself. At early ranks, it basically lets ya improvise a lot. Instead of an anvil, ye could use a rock, and even then it would act as if pure steel. Atter ranks, though, it gets really amazin¡¯. Only heard rumors, but apparently it lets ya make magical subspaces. Imagine a whole forge fittin¡¯ literally in yer pocket. Ye could be in the middle of the ocean, on a tiny ship, and still find space to make some items. There¡¯s probably a lot of other effects, but most craftsmen are bastards that wanna keep their secrets for themselves, so I can¡¯t really tell ya more." He exined, and Eisen thought about the possibilities this opened up. He would first need to try and figure out what this skill actually did, and if there was some way for him to activate it, or if it was something that acted passively as soon as he began to craft things. While he was pondering on the best thing to do next, the group slowly split up. First Jekyll went back to his shop, after that Folmirra and atst also Denmir, until only Morrom, Bree and Eisen were left standing in the workshop of Everything Magic. "So, you¡¯ve got your upation now, huh? Kind of jealous. Mine is already quite high grade... But I guess it¡¯s just pretty specific. I¡¯m d that thebination worked." Morromughed lowly and crossed his arms in a smug way, only leaving Eisen to chuckle in response. "Thank you, Morrom. I¡¯m incredibly greatful for this. So what was that about the others being Grandmasters?" Eisen asked curiously, since he was wondering about this since Jekyll mentioned it before but forgot about it during the prior excitement. "Hm? You didn¡¯t know? Well, Melroe has four grandmaster grade crafters. Denmir, Folmirra, Jekyll and me. I¡¯m surprised you chose toe to us four exactly without even knowing that..." Morrom muttered out with a soft frown. "And if you don¡¯t know what grandmasters are... Grandmasters are the top of the top of Masters. Only by being epted as such by others of your craft, you are able to ascend to such a status. Usually it¡¯s pretty umon for a town to have even one grandmaster, and it¡¯s basically unheard of for such a small one to have four. I really don¡¯t know why so many of us are here, though." "I see... Lucky for me, haha." Eisenughed lowly. He really didn¡¯t think it was luck, and that he was ced here exactly for that reason. He would need to ask the other Originals if they noticed something simr in their starting towns. But for now, Eisen knew what he needed to do. He finished this quest, and only had one more thing he needed to worry about before going on a journey. He would need to start hunting. Chapter 40 Comba "Bree, do we have everything we need?" Eisen asked while he was polishing his sword with a polishing paste he bought at Denmir¡¯s shop on their way back to the Inn. The happy Fey-Kin¡¯s eyes seemed to move around hectically for a few seconds before she nodded with a smile. Bree exined to Eisen that part of her Database Skill was to make lists and store information about what a person possesses, which she used to make sure the both of them were perfectly prepared for Eisen¡¯s first hunting trip in this game. She moved around a few things in the front pockets of the Backpack, since the most important useable items needed to be easily essible at all times, which meant that the Health and Mana pills were stored in them, as well as some jerky and water sks in case they needed to have a quick snack. "We¡¯re all packed~! I¡¯ve got our stuff in the main bag, and there¡¯s mooore than enough space for loot from monsters!" She said proudly with a smug smile as she stood there with her Backpack on her shoulders. "Great! Thanks for your help, Bree. Should we get on our way then?" Eisen asked and stashed away the polishing paste and the cloth at the spot in Bree¡¯s Backpack where she suggested to keep them. Bree nodded and skipped along, following Eisen out of the Inn. The day before, Eisen just got his new upation and spent the rest of the day chatting away with Morrom and Bree while he kept transmuting some of his potions into pills, and Eisen and Bree began to n for their hunting trip. He hoped to maybe find some effect of his new skill, Crafting Space, but there wasn¡¯t anything different to usual and the skill didn¡¯t gain any proficiency levels either, so he would need to experiment with it further when he had time. ording to Bree, the best spot for beginner hunters would be near the eastern tunnel, as it lead to t terrain covered by a forest, meaning that there was a great variety of beasts and monsters inside. And while Eisen¡¯s stats were already above those that a beginner hunter might have, it was still the first time swinging his sword against a monster, so it was the best idea to start out with weak enemies that Eisen could beat easily until he got a feel for it. Bree spent some time studying up on the types of monsters that could be found in the eastern forest and decided that the best enemy for Eisen would be a regr Rank 0 Boar for now. While it wouldn¡¯t give Eisen a lot of experience points, it definitely would be worth some actual fighting experience. Boars were aggressive and dumb and had some natural strength and speed on their part. If Eisen managed to beat them without suffering any injuries, it would be time to move on to the first Rank 1 monsters. There was an area popr for groups of low-ranking goblin workers about an hour outside of town. They would be the best enemy for Eisen to fight against in a real first monster battle, as Goblins had rudimentary teamwork abilities and would give Eisen some experience in fighting against groups. So now, Bree with her Backpack on her back and Eisen with his Zweih?nder over his shoulder made their way to the eastern tunnel. On his way in, Eisen didn¡¯t really observe the tunnel, since he was more excited about what was at the end of it rather than what was inside of it. Every few meters there were some glowing crystals scattered across the carved rock wall to illuminate it for peopleing in and out. There were a few people carrying axes or bows going outside, and Eisen figured that they were Lumberjacks or Hunters that were going out for their workday. Not too long after they entered the tunnel they left it on the other side. There was a path leading down to the forest about a dozen meters below them, and the Treetops were swinging left and right in the morning wind. Bree lead Eisen through the forest and after about half an hour, they reached an area where a lot of Boars were said to roam around. Quietly, the two of them stepped through while carefully looking around until Eisen spotted one of the beasts digging around in the soil beneath it. Bree prepared to help Eisen out in any way necessary, while he prepared his sword by holding it in front of himself. Eisen slowly crept up behind the Boar, until it caught on and turned around. The moment it saw the man in front of it, it sprinted forward. Eisen was surprised by this and stepped to the side, but was still hit by the Boar and got a notification telling him about the 10 points of damage he received. It wasn¡¯t a lot, but then again, the Boar only barely hit him. If it got a few direct hits in, Eisen¡¯s luck would be turned upside down. But in response to the Boar¡¯s attack, Eisen swung his sword to the side toward it and with the help of the Zweih?nder¡¯s reach was able to immensely injure the beast. Blood was flowing into its fur while it began to limp. And instead of falling back and running away, the Boar only seemed more infuriated and ignored its pain while it once more ran toward Eisen. He jumped to the side, this time without injury, and the Boar turned back around while Eisen built up distance. Due to its immense rage filling up its whole body, the Boar didn¡¯t notice that it was running straight into the tip of Eisen¡¯s sword, impaling itself due to the force that was built up during the sprintbined with a stab from Eisen. [You killed a Boar and earned 50 Experience] [Swordsmanship Skill Learned] "Great Job, Eisen~! But you were hit, so... Another try?" Bree yelled while she ran up to the old man, who started ying around with his ne. It was a superstition that Eisen picked up in his younger days. While he was traveling around the world, there were a few asions that he went hunting with new friends he made. It was actually around the time that he met his wife that Eisen went hunting in a Japanese forest with a local hunter nearly every day for a whole month. He was constantly wearing a good-luck charm around his neck that his daughter made for him, and every time that the hunter killed an animal, he held the charm for a few seconds. He exined to Eisen that it was something small to honor the life that he took, that made it possible for him to feed his family. From then on, whenever Eisen killed something, he started to y with the ne he had around his neck. It¡¯s been a while since he had done this, but it seemed like this wasn¡¯t the type of habit to disappear over time. Eisen looked over at Bree and nodded in response. "Yeah, let¡¯s. What should we do with the Boar¡¯s corpse?" "I can take it apart if you want! It¡¯s going to take a while, but I can do it! Or we can just leave it here. The natural ambient mana will feed on it, and the corpse will disappear in about an hour! That¡¯s how most adventurers do it. They grab what they need off the corpse and let nature do the rest~!" She exined, and Eisen nodded in understanding. "I see... Then how about you take it apart for the meat? I¡¯m sure I could make some nice things with it. I crafted a cooking knife, but didn¡¯t have a chance to do anything with it yet." "Okay~!" The next few minutes were spent with Eisen making sure nothing would ambush them, while Bree took apart the Boar, and incredibly fast at that. Quickly, Breeid down different chunks of meat on a cloth, leaving only bones, guts and fur behind. These stats were simply amazing. In real life, Eisen probably never could have hoped to y a Boar with only two shes against it, but now his body was basically in the peak condition it could ever be, and his reflexes outside of crafting were faster than they ever were. And when he thought about more than doubling this state for the cat¡¯s quest, he could only grin. An old man like him could usually only expect his body to grow weaker and weaker, but he had the chance to grow stronger than he ever was in the 70 years of his Life. "I¡¯m done~!" Bree smiled brightly as she walked up to Eisen, the backpack already on her back. "I managed to get a lot of good meat! I hope the next Boar¡¯s is also as good!" "Haha, I¡¯m d that worked out then. Although, that¡¯s really going to be a lot of food... I guess I can always make things like jerky to keep it a bit longer if we can¡¯t eat everything before it goes bad." "Mhm! Now, let¡¯s look for the next boar!" "Okay!" --- [You killed a Boar and earned 50 experience] Eisen stood above the corpse of the just-dead boar, while Bree slid in and began to take it apart. It was a pretty close call, but Eisen managed to jump out of the way just before the boar managed to hit him. And although this time around, he didn¡¯t kill it quite as graciously as before, it still went down after four hits against its side. After a few minutes, Bree waved over at him to show that she finished taking the boar apart and was ready to move on. "You did it really fast! So cool! Want to get to the goblins now?" She asked with a bright smile, and Eisen let go of his ne before nodding. "Sure, let¡¯s do that. What exactly are goblins like?" Eisen asked curiously. He saw a few drawings and sketches of them while doing research on fantasy worlds, and at least that¡¯s the general image he got from that. Short, green-skinned humanoids, that were seen to be incredibly aggressive most of the time. But he didn¡¯t know whether or not this game would portrait them in the same way. Bree crossed her arms and began to think for a few seconds, then began to exin. "Hmm... They always live in big groups, so if you see one, there will be more around as well. They¡¯re reeally greedy, and try to steal anything that glitters when they see it. Goblins are pretty short, and super ugly, and have dark green skin, so they blend into forest environments easily, especially at night. Sometimes, they found whole towns! But you need to be really super strong to destroy those. The only ones around here are the weakest kind, Goblin Workers, but there are a lot of different ones as well if you walk further east. Goblin Archers, Assassins, or Warriors!" "I see, thanks. And these are rank 1, so we can grab Mana Crystals from them, right?" Eisen asked curiously while forming a mental image of Goblins for himself. How they might fight, and how they might act in general. He knew what Boars were like, but since there was no such thing as a Goblin in real life, Eisen had no way of knowing what they would be like. However, while that was definitely the case, he was also incredibly interested in the Mana Crystals growing inside of a Monster¡¯s body. Mana Crystals seemed to be such an important material in this world, and since Eisen would probably be working with it quite a lot, it would probably be the best idea to know where it came from. Maybe it would give him some further insight on its uses. "Mhm! They¡¯re in the center of Monsters¡¯ hearts! They aren¡¯t big, but they have their uses!" She exined, and then the two of them made their way to the Goblin area. Eisen looked at the first group while hiding behind a tree, preparing for his next fight. ---------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 13] [HP - 550][MP - 530] [STR 40][END - 42][AGI - 41][INT - 40][WIS - 40][CHA - 10] [Titles] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker V] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 95] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 10] -[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 7] -[cksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 58] -[Crafting Space][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Enchanting][Rank - 1][Level - 19] -[Golemancy][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 4] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 4] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 41] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 1][Level - 72] -[Swordsmanship][Rank - 0][Level - 5] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 10] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 41 Gains Eisen swung his sword sideways and immediately cut through the thin neck of one of the five goblins in the group, causing its head to fly through the air while the other goblins were trying to figure out what was going on. As soon as Eisen could, he used some of the natural force created by his heavy sword and shed the Zweih?nder down toward the next Goblin¡¯s shoulder, creating a gaping wound while the sword got stuck in its flesh. Eisen pulled the sword back upward and jumped to the side while the second goblin dropped to the ground and two others jumped at Eisen. One of them held a thick branch and the other a rock that they were using as weapons. Quickly, Eisen managed to dodge the iing attacks and returned them with another side sh at one of the Goblins¡¯ chest. However, in return for his attack, the Goblin holding the branch managed to hit his side, draining a whole 50 Health Points from him. Eisen held up his leg and kicked the Goblin away, using that chance to finish the Goblin with the rock off. While this was happening, the leftover Goblin ran up to Eisen and shed at him with a sharp rock, taking another 60 Health from him. Once more, Eisen jumped backward and at the same time shed his sword down toward the head of one of the Goblins, killing it instantly as its head was split in two. Thest Goblin was staring at Eisen angrily and once more tried to sh at him, but Eisen shed his Zweih?nder upward with a bout of strength. He cut off the Goblin¡¯s arm and pulled the sword back, then stabbed it forward again while the Goblin began staggering and stabbed the sword through the Goblin¡¯s throat. Now that the first group of Goblins was taken care of, Eisen squatted down onto the ground. This was really exhausting to him, so he was slowly starting to feel bad for Brody, the Original of Combat. That reminded him that he meant to send everyone a mail to see how they are doing and ask them about their experience in the game so far. Either way, for now, Bree came up to Eisen with a gleeful expression. "Wow! Good job! But here, to recover your damage~!" She said happily and held one of the health pills over to Eisen. With a smile, he ced it in his mouth and cracked it with his teeth, then continued to chew on it until it turned into a powder which he then swallowed. "Thanks, Bree." He said and opened his status, then tapped on his level. [Level - 13][93%] Eisen found this not too long ago when he was trying to figure out how much the 50 Experience from the Boars actually meant. For whatever reason, it wasn¡¯t disyed in his status normally, but at least there was such a way to find out how far he was to the next Level. It seemed like the Goblins were nearly enough to push him over the edge. With the next group of Goblins, he would probably be able to get to Level 14. Although at this rate, it might be quite hard to gain enough levels to get his stats up enough for the quest. However, he would only continue to be stronger, faster, and Bree would use support spells on him from now on as well, making things far easier as well. The first thing that Eisen would try when he saw another group of Goblins would be to send out his Mana Doubles and see how he could use them inbat. But for now, Bree kneed down in front of the first Goblin corpse and stabbed her knife into its chest. While Eisen thought that image to be kind of disgusting, Bree happily pushed her hand into the slit in the heart and pulled out the tiny rice-grain sized Mana Crystal. She repeated this for the next four corpses as well, and then cleaned them up with the help of the Self-filling Mana Crystal cup that was stashed away in her backpack. But just before she could put away the Mana Crystals as well, Eisen stopped her. "Wait, how about we use them on your dress? These small ones can be pretty useful, but only when we have a lot of them." "Huh? Are you sure?" "Yeah, why not? I also really want to see how much stronger the Dress can get. Might be a good reference if I want to make any more Items that can grow. And of course, you need to have good defense in case something attacks you while I¡¯m fighting other monsters." "Okay! Thank you!" Bree smiled brightly and handed Eisen the Mana Crystals. He held one of them between his fingers and poured his mana inside, then pushed the Crystal against the back of the dress. Due to its small size, the crystal was nearly instantlypletely absorbed. Eisen did this again for the other four mana crystals and then asked Bree how much that did for the level of her Dress. "Hmm, it jumped up 20%! It might be Level up soon~!" "Great! So even these helped that much, huh? Now, shall we continue?" Eisen suggested and looked east. The both of them walked for a few minutes, and then saw a small group of three Goblins sitting near a tree, apparently talking to each other in a rudimentary Goblinnguage. Eisen summoned one of his Mana Doubles, and equipped it with mana leather armor he copied the night before and then handed it the actual Zweih?nder. Eisen didn¡¯t know if you could actually use mana copied weapons like their actual version, so he decided to try it out like this. Right off the bat, Eisen noticed that the Double was having more trouble holding the heavy sword up with the right form since its body seemed to be weaker than Eisen¡¯s own. However, it was still able to hold it somewhat, so Eisen had it go forward and attack. If he wanted to use them inbat, maybe giving them lighter weapons like daggers would be a good idea. Slowly, the double crept forward and swung the sword at the Goblin with all the force it could muster and hit the center of the Goblin¡¯s head. Blood sttered around and dyed the Mana Double pure red in a gruesome manner. At least that¡¯s what Eisen expected to happen, but what happened instead was... nothing. Absolutely nothing. Sure, the Goblin felt the attack, but it seemed more like a nut fell from a tree onto its head. Apparently, Mana Doubles couldn¡¯t be used forbat. Eisen sprinted up to his Double while it held the Zweih?nder out to him by grabbing the de, and he grasped the hilt of the sword the moment he made his Mana Double disappear. At the same time, he activated A Giant¡¯s Strength, while Bree cast some of her support spells. First, she weakened the Goblins and slowed them down, and in return strengthened and sped up Eisen. Due to all this, the difference in the strength of Eisen and the Goblins grew immensely, so that Eisen was able to decapitate one of the Goblins and immediately fatally injure another one of them in the same sh. While the injured Goblin was lying on the ground half-dead, Eisen reversed his sh and killed thest Goblin standing by nearly cutting its Torso in half. Atst, Eisen walked over to the Goblin that was still on the ground while bleeding out and stabbed his sword through its head to kill it outright. Eisen grabbed his ne and rubbed its surface, while Bree began to cut the Mana Crystals out of the Goblins¡¯ Hearts. Now he had time to look at the notification that appeared in the corner of his eye just now. [You are now Level 14] Happy that he leveled up again, Eisen opened his status and looked at the Stats he could increase. For now, he decided to increase his STR and AGI stats, as these were the most important to him right now, seeing how he was going to fight a lot in the near future. Noticing that Bree was finished with extracting the mana crystals from the corpses, he walked up to her and grabbed the three small crystals and pushed them into Bree¡¯s dress. Eisen and Bree kept walking around the forest, killing all groups of Goblins that they saw, getting faster and faster at it each time. Eisen managed to level up another 10 times, but that¡¯s when the leveling speed significantly dropped, and the experience that he got from killing goblins got less as well. Each and every time that a group of goblins was killed, Bree pulled out the mana crystals which Eisen then used to upgrade Bree¡¯s dress, also causing it to level up five times. His stats kept rising significantly, and simple Goblins became too weak for him, especially with Bree¡¯s support. And thebat that Eisen was involved in became much easier once more when his Swordsmanship skill rank up. The sword felt lighter in his hands, and it was easier for him to control its movement. Hisbat reflexes seemed to have been heightened slightly as well since his body reacted to his will more easily. However, the day was now over, so Eisen and Bree made their way back to Melroe to n and prepare for the next day. But of course only after making some food out of the Boar meat that they gathered in the morning. He was really interested in what he could do with a cooking skill inter ranks, so it wouldn¡¯t hurt to start leveling it up early. On their way back to town, Eisen turned over to Bree and asked her what they should do next. "It¡¯s been a rtively productive day, right? My level nearly doubled! If it continues somewhat like this, I¡¯ll reach my goal in no time! But the Goblins don¡¯t seem to be doing as much for my level anymore as before, so should we move on to something else?" He asked, and Bree seemed to think for a while, but then nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good! We could go further east tomorrow if you want? And fight against the other Goblin type monsters? Once you¡¯re around level 50, we can go west into the mountain range! There¡¯s a Dungeon over there!" "Oh? A dungeon?" Eisen was quite surprised by this exmation. Dungeons are prisons, right? So why would Bree be so excited about going to a prison? "Mhm! Do you know what a dungeon is like?" She asked curiously with her head tilted to the side, and Eisen shook his head. "Hmm... A Dungeon is like a magical subspace where monsters live. There can be a bunch of chests with treasure inside as well, and Monsters appear and disappear nearly instantly sometimes! There¡¯s not really that many people around her that can get inside of it, so I didn¡¯t get a chance to tag along with anyone, so I also don¡¯t know what type of dungeon it is. But it shouldn¡¯t take long for you to reach a high enough level for it!" "I see... Interesting. Let¡¯s do that, then! Just for now though, how far away are the next type of Goblins from town?" Eisen asked and changed the topic since he really didn¡¯t know what to imagine of a dungeon. He dide across the word a few times during his research, but he never imagined it to be that kind of thing. "The Rank 2 Goblins are about two hours away on foot if we walk in a straight line." "Alright, that¡¯s not too far away. We should still be able to get a good amount of fighting in then. I doubt we should walk any further east than that, though. At least not without something like camping equipment." The old man muttered to himself and was only faced with agreementing from Bree. Chapter 42 Original of the Living Part 1 The world around Jyuuk slowly changed with every time his eyes blinked. First, everyone in the room was gone, then trees began to grow around him, and different nts began sprouting up to his knees while the white marble room disappeared. Jyuuk¡¯s monkey tail swung side to side, and the unknown sensations as it touched the grass and flowers made him shudder slightly. But he was excited. Jyuuk would be able to travel this new world and find animals that he himself never could have dreamt of, amongst those which he had always hoped to exist in the real world. But first, he would need to try and figure out some of the game mechanics. It seemed like Prime Industries tried to keep everything as realistic as possible, so most mechanics would probably be quite realistic. Of course, there would also be less realistic mechanics, including ssic game mechanics like a Status. Apparently, there wasn¡¯t an inventory, but Jyuuk was sure there were ways to get around that. For now, he did the thing that was exined to him before and thought about opening his status. [Jyuuk] [Race - Monkey Beastperson][Job - None][Level - 1] [HP - 100][MP - 100] [STR - 10][END - 10][AGI - 10][INT - 10][WIS - 10] [Titles] -None [Skills] -None The Monkey Beastperson looked at the information in front of him and nodded in response. It seemed like they went with a rtively ssic stat point system. Jyuuk nodded and grabbed the object that he felt in his pocket, a small leather book. He opened it up and read through the basic information about the area he was in. It seemed like a few minutes further south, there was going to be a vige that would act as a good starting point in his adventure. Excited by his new, unknown surroundings, Jyuuk stepped through the bushes and the tall trees that seemed toe from a tropic environment. While he was walking, he could already hear the immense diversity in fauna. There seemed to be a dozen different birds in his close vicinity, and in the distance, Jyuuk could hear the cries of some wildcat. It was simr to that of a Tiger, but at the same time had characteristics belonging to a smaller animal. The cry definitely didn¡¯t belong to that of a cub, though, but to an adult specimen. This cry alone made Jyuuk hesitate to go to the town and instead want to run to the source of the sound to figure out what kind of animal it was. But he knew that he wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything like this, and would need to find out basic information about how things worked in the area before doing anything else. It was also a bad idea to walk around outside a town without any way to defend himself. Jyuuk continued walking for around half an hour until he began to hear the sounds of a bustling town. Through the thick foliage, he began to see what seemed to be other people walking around, which made him speed up to run there excitedly. Soon enough, he was faced with a thick wall made of trees and other nts that were grown into each other, but the thing that he noticed first was the enormous tree that was growing in the center of the town, reaching high into the sky. Its trunk was big enough that there were houses built against its bark and on its branches. This sight alone was one that made Jyuuk extremely excited and filled him with joy. Just thinking about all the animals and nts that he could discover made Jyuuk¡¯s heart nearly skip a beat. Jyuuk walked up to one of the gates that made up the only entrances to the town hidden in the center of this jungle. "Good morning. First time here?" The Guard standing next to it asked Jyuuk as he approached. Compared to Jyuuk, the Guard truly was gigantic. He seemed to be above two meters tall and was like a mountain of a man. He reminded Jyuuk of that old man he just met, Eisen, but different to him, the Guard had a big, round belly. He was wearing thin leather armor and hispletely exposed arms and shoulders were covered in thick fur, while he had round ears on the top of his head. Just judging from these physical characteristics, he seemed to be a Bear Beastperson. Jyuuk nodded and slightly bowed in response to the Guard¡¯s question. "Yes, I found myself near here, surrounded by nothing but trees, but I do not know how I got there." He responded, and the Bear Beastperson scratched the back of his head in a seemingly troubled and worried manner. "Are you alright? Hurt anywhere?" He asked and seemed to look Jyuuk up and down, then rxed when he shook his head. "No, my body seems to be alright. Although, I have lost my memories, so I can not tell you much about me." "Lost Memories? That doesn¡¯t sound good. I¡¯ll show you to the town¡¯s appraiser, he might be able to figure out where you¡¯re from." The guard looked left and right as if looking for someone and then began to wave when another man in the distance caught his eye. The man came running up and asked what was wrong. He was wearing the same leather armor as the guard but seemed to be a Boar Beastperson, with thick tusksing right from the edges of his mouth. "Take my post for a bit, I have to bring this man to Askee¡¯s. Won¡¯t take too long, I¡¯lle back once everything has been figured out." "Askee¡¯s? Why you think he¡¯s a criminal or somethin¡¯?" The other man asked suspiciously at the Bear Beastperson¡¯s request. "No, that¡¯s not it. Seems to have lost his memories." "Ah, got it. Well, don¡¯t take too long, my shift¡¯s almost over." "Thanks, see youter." And like that, Jyuuk followed the Bear into town. It was bustling with all kinds of people, most of which were some kind of variation of Beastperson. But there were also the asional ssic fantasy races which Jyuuk knew oh so well. Dwarves, Elves, and Jyuuk even saw a Gnome amongst the crowd. All of this only hyped Jyuuk up more. He grew up ying games with fantasy settings, so actually being inside of one seemed like a dream to him. He looked left and right with a bright smile until the Guard stopped in front of the entrance of a house that was apparently carved into one of the Giant Tree¡¯s roots. One thing that Jyuuk noticed was that the architecture seemed somewhat like a mixture of Eastern and Western architecture. It was hard to exin since he didn¡¯t know much about this, but it reminded him of the older buildings in both the new town where he lived in the United States, as well as the ones in his hometown in Japan. It felt somewhat nostalgic to him in a sense, but that feeling quickly faded again when he stopped paying attention to it. The bear quickly slid the wood sliding door to the side and stepped into the house. There were a few wooden desks lined up with thin walls in between them to give some kind of privacy to clients. And at the end of the room, opposite to the door, was arger desk with an elderly woman sitting at it. She seemed to be the boss of this ce. She seemed to be a Bird-type Beastperson, and judging from the types of feathers that grew on parts of her skin as well as the characteristics of her eyes, she seemed to be an Owl Beastperson. But since Jyuuk couldn¡¯t be 100% sure, he didn¡¯t ask and just followed the Bear through the room. When she looked up from some paperwork she was doing, she smiled gently and stood up to greet her visitors. "Ah, Brak, nice to see you again. How are you today?" She asked and the Bear, Brak, slightly bowed forward to greet her. It seemed like this area had some eastern behavioral characteristics, which really made Jyuuk d to a degree. He never really got used to shaking other¡¯s hands or hugging others when seeing them basically every day. "Good morning, Miss Askee. This young man came up to the Gate not too long ago, and it seems like he lost his Memories. I thought that maybe you could help him?" Brak asked with a smile. Hisrge build seemed rather threatening to Jyuuk at first, but he seemed quite nice and gentle. Askee turned over to look at Jyuuk and walked around the desk. "Oh, you poor kid! You lost your memories? That doesn¡¯t sound good at all! Here, take a seat, I¡¯ll do what I can." She said and pulled forward one of the two chairs in front of the desk, motioning at Jyuuk to sit down on one of them while she sat down on the other. "Thank you. I really appreciate your help." Jyuuk responded and sat down. Immediately afterward, Askee grabbed Jyuuk¡¯s left hand and ced both of her¡¯s around it. A few secondster, he felt a deep shudder form all around his body, as if an arctic wind blew through the room. "Oh, what is this? This... This is not normal..." Askee instantly let go of Jyuuk¡¯s hands and jumped up onto her feet. "Miss Askee? Is everything alright?" Brak stepped forward and looked at Jyuuk with a concerned frown. "I¡¯m not sure... But I think this young man¡¯s Experience has been stolen. He is Level 1 and has not a single skill. And the only history I was able to find was that he woke up in the forest and walked to this town." "Wait, he doesn¡¯t have a skill at all? Not even his Racial Skill?" "Not even his Racial skill! There is only one exnation for this... his experience was stolen!" "Stolen Experience? Isn¡¯t that just some legend?" Brak asked with shockpletely drawn all over his face, but Askee only shook her head. "No, it¡¯s not just a legend. I¡¯ve heard about a simr case before! It¡¯s the only exnation I have for something like this!" The old woman yelled out and looked back and forth between Jyuuk and Brak. "Th-then what do we do about this? Does he just have to start ranking up skills again?" Askee shook her head with a worried expression, while Jyuuk was just sitting on the chair in confusion. "No, I don¡¯t believe so. I think a skilled magician of some sorts may be able to be of help with this. Please, go meet my sister. She may only be a researcher, but she should help if you tell her I told you to meet her. She knows you too, Brak, so it won¡¯t be a big problem." Jyuuk stood up with a frown on his face. What was this all about? He had no idea at all what was going on! Stolen Experience? That was absolutely new to him, but he figured it had to do with the story of the game, so he just went along with it, thanking Askee for her immense help and doing the same for Brak, even though he seemed to still want to help Jyuuk until the end. He really seemed like a good guy. They hurried out of the building and Brak nearly started to sprint, or at least that¡¯s what it felt like to Jyuuk. This probably had something to do with his agility stat being so low. Once he knew how the stat system worked, he would figure out the best n going forward that worked out with his general n for his gamey experience. Not too long after this thought, both of them reached a small hut with some smoke flowing out of the chimney. Brak knocked on the front door, and it slowly creaked open. Chapter 43 Original of the Living Part 2 "Ah, good morning Jyuuk." Brak the Bear Beastperson said when he saw Jyuuk step down the stairs of his house. After the whole thing with his Lost Experience had been taken care of, Brak was nice enough to give Jyuuk a ce to stay while he figured out what to do next. First, Jyuuk learned a few skills. The first one he got was the A Beast¡¯s Nature Skill, which was unlocked immediately after Askee¡¯s sister, Eskee, tried to get Jyuuk¡¯s experience back. It was the racial skill of all Beastpeople and heightened one¡¯s natural qualities for a while, but the actual effect seemed to depend on what type of Beastperson one was. For example, Brak¡¯s strength was increased as well as his natural senses. And whenever he activated his skill, his body became more bear-like, meaning that his fur covered more areas of his body and his face began to near the features of a bear¡¯s. In Jyuuk¡¯s case, since he was a monkey Beastperson, his speed was increased. Since the rank of his skill wasn¡¯t high enough yet, his outer appearance didn¡¯t change yet, but he was sure it would at some point if he kept using it. The next skill that Jyuuk learned was a rtively basic one, it seemed, Appraisal. In the beginning, it only told him pretty general information, but when it became Rank 1, it already told him things he didn¡¯t necessarily know. He would continue raising the rank of his skill to find out as much information about the animals and monsters he saw as possible. In addition to Appraisal, he also learned Botany, something like a specific skill when it came to appraising different nts. Then, Jyuuk learned a few other general skills, like Mana Maniption and Cooking. And in preparation for today, the first day he wanted to leave town to go hunting, he also learned Pole Combat and trained at a dojo for about two weeks in game. Although it only took that long since Jyuuk also had to go to work for eight hours a day, and then had to take care of a lot of other things in his apartment. "Good morning Brak." Jyuuk bowed forward and sat down on the opposite side of the table, and Brak ced a cup of tea in front of him. "Thank you." The Monkey-man said with a smile and sipped at the cup. Brak nodded and smiled. "So, what will you be doing today? You said you wanted to get outside of town, right?" "Yes, I want to see what kind of creatures are out there. I really can¡¯t wait." He said excitedly, but Brak only scratched the back of his head in worry. "You sure that¡¯s a good idea? You don¡¯t even have your upation yet, so you won¡¯t be able to get past Level 15 anyway. And your sleep problems are also pretty troubling..." "I know, but you don¡¯t need to worry, Brak. I may sleep for a long time, but I will be back before nightfall, so it should not be a problem." "Alright, but really make sure you¡¯re back by then. There are a lot of savage beasts out there that will not hesitate in the slightest to feast on a sleeping body. The side effects of Stolen Experience are really troubling, huh...?" "Thank you for your worries, Brak. I really appreciate your help during the past few weeks." "Of course. You¡¯re a good kid, and I can¡¯t just let you sleep on the streets. We don¡¯t have an Inn here, after all." Brak said with a smile and stood up, then walked over to his bedroom to get dressed for his workday. A few minutester, he came back out wearing his leather armor. "I¡¯ve got to go for my shift. Just make sure to lock up when you go out. You remember how that works, right? Just pour your mana into the door." "Thank you, Brak. But I think I¡¯lle right with you!" Jyuuk said with a smile and stood up, grabbing the wooden Pole he leaned against the table as well as the small leather backpack he boughtst week that was filled with food and water. "Ah, sure. Thene on, my shift starts soon." Brak said with a smile and stood by the door, waiting for Jyuuk. Both of them made their way over to the gate where Jyuuk and Brak met the first time. "Alright, be careful now. Ande sprinting back here if you need any help, alright? Us guards will take care of the rest." With a nod, Jyuuk left town and made his way through the thick grown jungle to look for some beasts. But he wouldn¡¯t try to kill them, oh no, he would try something else! He would try to tame it! This was something that Jyuuk loved to do in any game that allowed it and specifically asked Prime Industries to consider creating an amazing Taming System. And now he would try to figure out how it worked after they confirmed that they followed his wishes. The first thing that Jyuuk did was to activate his Racial skill. Now that he ranked it up to 2, his senses also became sharper in response to the activation. He closed his eyes and felt the wind on his fur, and listened to the sounds of the birds that lived in the forest, together with the cries of other beasts in the distance. They might be a pain to capture, but at first, Jyuuk figured he should capture a bird, maybe an eagle. They wouldn¡¯t take up too much space, which was the most important part for now. He couldn¡¯t run around with an elephant following him, after all. Jyuuk followed the noises that sounded like they came from an eagle-like bird, although it sounded a bit smaller than usual for an eagle. After a few minutes, he reached the tree where it seemed to have built its nest and grabbed a small piece of raw meat to use as bait. "Now I need to be slow and quiet..." Jyuuk muttered to himself and ced the meat onto the ground to wait for the eagle to react to its smell. It took nearly half an hour until it even looked out of its nest, but then it immediately jumped down to grab the meat. And just like that, Jyuuk jumped forward and threw a nket he prepared just for this over the eagle. Covering a bird¡¯s eyes rxed it, made it calm down. And this allowed Jyuuk to easily connect with it and make sure it couldn¡¯t escape while he figured out what to do next. However, Jyuuk didn¡¯t know what to do next at all. How would taming work in this game? Earn its trust? Then maybe he should try to feed it. Thinking that it wouldn¡¯t hurt to try a few options, Jyuuk grabbed another chunk of meat and ripped it into small enough pieces that the eagle could eat them properly. Carefully, Jyuuk bound the nket together at the bottom to make sure the Eagle couldn¡¯t fly away when its eyes were uncovered. So, Jyuuk slowly removed the nket from the Eagle¡¯s head, and it immediately began to scream. The Monkey Beastperson slowly moved his hand over the Eagle¡¯s head to try and calm it down and held one of the small chunks of meat in front of its beak. It took a while, but soon enough the Eagle began to eat. After a few chunks, it wasn¡¯t Jyuuk that held his hand against the Eagle¡¯s head anymore, but the Eagle pushed its head against Jyuuk¡¯s palm, releasing calm chirps. [Congrattions! You tamed a Blue-Feathered Eagle!] [Taming Skill Learned] With a big smile on his face, Jyuuk removed the nket and the Eagle spread its wings, allowing Jyuuk to get a good look at it. The feathers all over its body were a dark blue, and it was only about half as big as a regr eagle should be. The eagle jumped on Jyuuk¡¯s shoulder and rubbed its head against his. With a smile, he closely looked at his new friend and a notification appeared. [Name the Tamed Beast] "Hmm... How about Aotori?" In response to Jyuuk¡¯s suggestion, the eagle chirped happily as if it liked the name its new Master gave it immediately. [The Tamed Beast has been named Aotori] [Aotori] [Race - Blue-Feathered Eagle][Owner - Jyuuk] [Rank - 0][Level - 67] [HP - 100] [STR - 26][END - 19][AGI - 35] [Skills] -[w Attack][Rank - 0][Level - 53] "Interesting... Come on, Aotori. Let¡¯s find something to test how strong you are." Jyuuk stood up and packed the nket into his backpack, then closed his eyes to listen for some kind of animal in the distance. Not long after that, he heard something that seemed to be a rabbit not too far from where they were. But before Jyuuk and Aotori were even a hundred meter away, Aotori flew back to its nest. To Jyuuk, there was only really one exnation for this. Aotori was a girl! And her eggs seemed to be in the nest. Jyuuk sighed out loudly and followed her back to the tree. He decided to see if he could grab the nest, or at least the eggs and bring them with him. He wouldn¡¯t want to take Aotori¡¯s babies from her after all! Jyuuk ced his staff on the ground and slowly climbed up the tree. In real life, he was a good climber already, but here in the game it seemed like his hands practically stuck to the surfaces he was trying to climb on, so it didn¡¯t take long for him to climb the five or so meters up the straight tree. When he reached the level of Aotori¡¯s nest, he saw five eggs. Four of which were dark blue, but thest one was a bright red. That one probably wasn¡¯t one of Aotori¡¯s eggs, but she still took care of it like any of the others, so Jyuuk would feel bad to take it away from her. Maybe it was some kind of magical property of the Blue-Feathered Eagle that ityed eggs of other species? Probably not, but Jyuuk couldn¡¯t say for certain what the developers switched up in the game. So, Jyuuk ced his backpack onto the branch and ced Aotori¡¯s eggs into the nket he used to capture her. Usually, even a tamed animal would react agitated when someone would touch their eggs or cubs, but Aotori simply watched Jyuuk do what he was doing without reacting, and then sat down on top of the Backpack as if to protect the eggs from other things. She even sat there while Jyuuk was climbing back down the tree. But for now, Jyuuk ignored this and decided to go look for that rabbit that he heard a few minutes beforehand. Chapter 44 Original of the Living Part 3 "Aotori! Come here!" Jyuuk yelled out while looking into the distance toward the mountain range that wasing oh so close. A few secondster, he heard a familiar shriek and a blue blob came into sight. In response, Jyuuk held out his left arm that was wrapped in ripped up leather strips while the Eagle Lady came into sight, preparing tond on her Master. "Good girl!" Jyuuk smiled and gave his first tamed monster a small chunk of meat as a treat. During the past week, Jyuuk pretty much spent all his time hunting to level up Aotori, and was able to increase her rank a whole two times! Whenever she ranked up, her nature changed. When she became Rank 1, she became an Ocean-Feathered Eagle, and her feathers became slightly lighter in colorpared to before. In addition to that, she gained the INT and WIS stats and even got MP as well. When her rank increased to 2, albeit literally just two hours ago, Aotori evolved into an Arctic-Feathered Eagle and gave off a cold air around her, while also growing slightly in size. The color of hear feathers became even lighter, and some of them turned slightly transparent and glittered in the sun like ice. Of course, Aotori wasn¡¯t the only one that grew in strength! Jyuuk managed to reach Level 60 as well! After reaching the Level Cap of 15 for people without an upation, he talked about it with Brak who pointed him in the direction of an apparent ¡¯Master of Nature¡¯! He was said to have connected with all the nts and animals in the jungle, so it sounded like he might be able to give Jyuuk the perfect upation for him. On his way there, Jyuuk found a few interesting things and creatures. First, he was able to tame something that looked like a Deer, but with overgrown branches recing its antlers. It was incredibly fast while maneuvering the Forest, and was strong enough to do so while having Jyuuk ride on his back. With another quite straightforward name, he called his newpanion Tsurishika. The only downside to him was that the limit of possible Tamed beasts had been reached with him. Whether that was because his skill rank needed to be higher or he simply needed a fitting upation After that, he also found an interesting egg. At least it seemed to be an egg, judging from the Appraisal of it, but it seemed too soft and fluffy to be one, with a texture somewhat like a marshmallow. Jyuuk carefully ced it into his bag together with Aotori¡¯s eggs and then moved on to meet with that Master of Nature. He trained with him for only a day and then was allowed to get his upation, Beast Master, which let him tame every type of animal, beast or monster there was. It also gave him a new skill, it was called Beast Connection, that let Jyuuk experience some of his Tamed Monster¡¯s senses, which he was using for reconnaissance with Aotori to see what she saw to figure out the best path going forward. Once he got his upation, Jyuuk decided to go on a Journey. There wasn¡¯t much for him to do in this area anymore, so he would love to move on to somewhere else and find what kind of amazing beasts and monsters could be found. And now, another week had passed that was spent with Jyuuk simply doing his thing, journeying toward the mountain range in the east since it was the closest type of environment that waspletely different to the Jungle he had been in up until now. But before he would reach itpletely, Jyuuk had to take care of something else. He heard a few cracking soundsing from his Backpack. In a hurry, he carefully ced the bag on the ground and took out the five eggs that he found in Aotori¡¯s nest, all of which seemed to be slowly hatching. One after another, the four blue eggs hatched and the tiny blue-feathered eagle chicksid on Jyuuk¡¯s hands while they got used to the outside world, but the single red egg seemed to be having trouble hatching. "Come on, I¡¯m rooting for you!" Jyuuk said with a bright smile, hoping that the chick would be able to escape its egg on its own. He really would prefer to not have to break the shell open himself. Jyuuk slowly grabbed the egg with his free hand while the chicks in his other were being caressed by their mother. It took another few minutes until the chick¡¯s beak broke through the shell, and a truly tiny eagle chick was revealed. Right now, it seemed to be half the size of its siblings, but it was definitely an eagle with simr proportions to them. The tiny eagle didn¡¯t seem to be unhealthy, which Jyuuk first thought when he saw its size, but instead more energetic than his siblings. In reaction to the hatching of the five eggs, Jyuuk got new notifications. They told him that he had tamed four Blue-Feathered Eagle Chicks and one Red-Feathered Eagle chick and that they naturally formed an Aerie together with their mother, which is what a group of eagles was called. After that, it one after another asked Jyuuk to name each of the five chicks. The names were quite simplistic again and went with the same theme as before. Soon, he was joined by the Blue-Feathered Eagles Mizutori, Nagaretori, Rekutori and Iketori, as well as the Red-Feathered Eagle Akatori. Even Tsurishika seemed interested in the tiny creatures and nudged Jyuuk¡¯s side. He didn¡¯t know for sure, but it seemed like the Deer wanted to help a bit as well. So, Jyuuk followed his wishes and began to build a small nest between Tsurishika¡¯s antlers, where he quickly but carefully ced the five chicks together with Aotori. "Alright! Now that we have a little family, let¡¯s go! Ah, Tsurishika, keep running, but not as fast as before! Don¡¯t want these little guys to fall out of the nest." Jyuuk smiled as he jumped onto his Deer¡¯s back, who slightly nodded his head in response before starting to run forward at a swift pace. Jyuuk closed his eyes and remembered the path that he saw with the help of Aotori. At the end of it, surrounded by a few cliffs, was a rudimentary vige made up of straw huts and logs that were stacked on top of each other to make a small wall. Jyuuk didn¡¯t want to risk Aotori getting too close and potentially getting attacked by something unknown. But there was one thing that he could tell about the creatures inside: There were a lot of them. If they were aggressive, Jyuuk needed a main attacker in his group. Neither Aotori nor Tsurishika were especially good at fightingrge groups. Both of them were far better atbat with single enemies, so they were not a good choice for this kind of fight. And then there were the five chicks as well. He couldn¡¯t just leave them in the nest between Tsurishika¡¯s antlers while he was fighting, that would just be reckless! There were three predator animals that Jyuuk could immediately think of that lived in mountain ranges in real life. Bears, Wolves, and Cougars. There probably were a bunch of other animals and beasts roaming the mountain range, probably some fantastical creatures that didn¡¯t exist in real life. And like that, Jyuuk prepared to find the perfect attacker. --- "Come on now! I¡¯m not trying to hurt you!" Jyuuk yelled out from the top of a tree, while a bear with deep ck fur was trying to attack him. At first, he had tried to tame it when he saw it inside its cave that he saw deep inside a forest, but the bear seemed incredibly aggressive the very moment it noticed Jyuuk¡¯s presence. "How do I calm it down..? Maybe I need to assert my dominance? It seems far stronger than me, though..." Jyuuk muttered out to himself while holding on to his staff and the branches above him. That was when he had an idea. Maybe if he could use gravity to his advantage, then... Jyuuk carefully ripped off as many thick and heavy branches off of the tree as he could hold, already weighing him down immensely while he climbed as far toward the top of the tree as he could. Jyuuk looked down onto the top of the Bear¡¯s head and gripped his staff tightly as he took a leap of faith. After dropping the five meters until his target, he hit the bear dead-on in the center of its head. The bear stumbled around stunned from the impact but didn¡¯t seem to have taken a lot of damage other than that. "Please work..." He said and dropped all of the branches onto the ground, then jumped in front of the bear¡¯s face and grabbed it by the sides. "I don¡¯t want to hurt you. I¡¯m your friend!" He yelled out and thought deeply about connecting with this new creature. Jyuuk felt its anger and hatred through that short moment and felt pain spread around his heart. Why would the bear feel that way? Did something happen that its hatred grew? Jyuuk just hated this feeling. He loved animals with all his heart, and especially noticing the feelings of such a magnificent creature made him just so... sad. "I¡¯m sorry. Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯re safe with me." Jyuuk said with a bitter smile and moved his fingers through the bear¡¯s deep ck fur while it slowly calmed down to the Monkey-man¡¯s voice. [Congrattions! You tamed a Darkness Bear!] The Darkness Bear in front of Jyuuk now stood up and rubbed its head against him with affection. Seems like this method worked out after all. "Now, let¡¯s give you a name! Yamikuma sounds good!" Jyuuk said to himself and the Bear stood up and nodded at his new master. "Okay guys, you cane here now!" Jyuuk yelled out. He didn¡¯t want Tsurishika or Aotori and her Chicks to be in danger during this, so he sent them away when he noticed that the Yamikuma was aggressive. Now, they came back up to them from behind the trees. "Seems like now I have a great attacker for that vige. Come on everyone, let¡¯s go!" Jyuuk said with a smile and pointed in the distance while sitting down on Yamikuma¡¯s back, directing the group back toward that vige. It didn¡¯t take long until they reached their destination, the rudimentary front gate of that vige Jyuuk saw through Aotori¡¯s eyes. Once more, Jyuuk confirmed what he saw and even dared to have Aotori move a bit closer, and what he saw only made him even more excited: Goblins. Those tiny humanoid monsters that you could see literally everywhere: Games, Movies, or novels! Everywhere! Jyuuk revealed a wide grin and told Tsurishika to take care of the chicks. He wasn¡¯t really a fighter, at least so far, more like apanion with nonbat uses. So, hemanded the deer to wait out of range and run away should anything run up to them anyway, and then prepared forbat together with the rank 2 Yamikuma and Aotori. He held his staff forward and rode toward the gate on the bear¡¯s back. Just before they reached the gate itself, Jyuuk jumped off and climbed over the wall while his two tamed beasts took care of the few small and weak-looking Goblins roaming around outside. He jumped down the wall and stunned another apparently stronger and better-equipped goblin, then quickly opened the gate up for Yamikuma toe inside. Like this, the trio fought hard and slew every Goblin that stood in their way. There weren¡¯t actually that many there, and the vige seemed mostly abandoned, so it didn¡¯t take nearly as long as Jyuuk expected. After making sure the whole vige was wiped out, Jyuuk called for Tsurishika toe back and then looked around if he could find anything useful. And there was one thing that definitely was! There was a tunnel in one of the cliffs behind the vige. Jyuuk and his beasts carefully moved through, until they began to react aggressively, screaming and growling at something that was apparently at the end of this narrow passage. Carefully, Jyuuk held forward his staff and continued on to face whatever was there, and his heart began to beat strongly at the unknown threat. When his eyes once more began to get used to the bright outside light, he saw the outlines of two figures. Something that at first looked like a giant ball with tiny legs at the bottom and the other was basically a giant of a man, holding a giant sword pointed toward the exit of the tunnel. At first, Jyuuk wanted to send his beasts to attack the two figures, until he heard a wholesome, genuine and sweetugh. Jyuuk was sure he heard this before. Chapter 45 Variety Eisen and Bree walked through town, and before going to the Inn made their way to the General Store to buy some equipment for which Eisen didn¡¯t have the time to make them himself, as well as some spices that might be useful while cooking. The first things that Eisen bought were bags with salt and sugar, as well as some different spices like pepper, basil or rosemary, and atst some garlic cloves and onions, as well as a bottle of cooking oil. On their way to the different kits, though, Eisen also saw some other herbs that he knew. Amran and Byron. And this alone gave Eisen some ideas to experiment. If these herbs could be used while making potions, maybe they also had some effect when included while cooking. So, Eisen also bought some small bags filled with these, and then walked over to the different kits. There were all kinds there. Mining kits, lumbering kits, or even smithing kits. Eisen chose two different ones, once the basic camping kit with two tents, and the basic cooking kit. Eisen and Bree decided that from tomorrow on, they would camp in the forest until Eisen¡¯s level reached 50, or preferably even higher. Since Eisen figured cooking counted as a crafting skill, he was also hoping to figure out how his Crafting Space skill worked when cooking in the forest. After they bought the supplies they needed, the two of them walked back to the Inn to eat a bit, so that they could save the meat for the next day with the help of a short-term preservation spell from Bree. She really had a variety of spells she could use. After Dinner, Bree talked to the owner of the Inn. "H-Hey, Boss... Could we talk about something?" Bree walked up to the Innkeeper standing behind the front desk while fidgeting around with her fingers. He smiled and nodded. "Of course, what¡¯s the problem Lass?" "It¡¯s not a problem, but... First, I want to thank you for your help. Without a ce to stay I don¡¯t know what I would be doing right now. But it¡¯s about time I move on to somece else... Eisen and I want to go on a Journey soon, so I won¡¯t be here too much longer." "I see... Then thank ya for always doing such a great job, Bree. Ye were our best waitress, always wearin¡¯ a smile on yer face. We¡¯ll miss ye here. When are ya leavin¡¯ though? Right off the bat?" Bree shook her head and smiled bitterly, "Thank you, Boss. But no, not directly. Eisen and I wanted to camp outside of town tomorrow, and then we¡¯ll return to town to get some more things ready before we actually leave... But I can work when we¡¯re staying here the night, of course!" "Don¡¯t worry about it,ss. Ye don¡¯t need to work anymore. I can spare the costs of a few nights¡¯ stay." "R-Really, are you sure?" "Of course! See it as a goobye present,ss." "Thank you so much, Boss!" Bree smiled brightly and walked around the counter to give the Innkeeper a giant hug. In the meantime, Eisen already went to his room and was cleaning his sword and thinking aboutbat tactics. It¡¯s been about 45 years, but he remembered a few things about the martial arts that he learned in his younger days while he was fighting today. He wasn¡¯t really able topletely do these things perfectly again, but at least his feel for his sword grew sligthly. If Eisen met up with Brody at some point, maybe he could help Eisen out while practicing in return for making some equipment for him. Either way, for now Eisen had to think about what to do next. Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, Eisen would fight as much as he could, and hopefully get close to level 50 so that he could properly fight in that Dungeon that Bree was talking about. Even if he wouldn¡¯t directly be at 50, though, he could probably get inside and fight without problem, considering all the bonus stats he got through his skills. And again, the only thing that Eisen needed to take care of was eating and drinking properly, since he didn¡¯t feel tired while he was fighting, and only when he made up his mind that the fighting for the day was over did he feel a rush of exhaustion. This part of the game made it easy for him to fight all day long without worry. Eisen ced his sword down next to his bed andid down, closed his eyes, and logged off for a few hours. --- "Good morning, Bree!" Eisen said as she walked up to him in the restaurant, this time not wearing her regr uniform but instead her dress. Heughed softly at this and smiled. "So everything worked out with the Innkeeper yesterday, I take it?" "Mhm! He¡¯s letting me stay here while we¡¯re still in town, and I don¡¯t need to work for it!" "Oh, wow, that¡¯s incredibly nice of him. So, let¡¯s eat breakfast, shall we?" Eisen suggested and waved at one of the Waitresses to get her attention, and ordered a nice breakfast for him and Bree. After taking their time to eat, the two of them pay and make their way out of the Inn and back toward the same entrance tunnel that they used yesterday. Eisen and Bree first walked back to the area with the low-leveled goblins and walked in a straight line toward the area with the higher-rank versions of them without trying to avoid anything in the way. The reason for that was simple. Eisen and Bree needed to get into the feeling of a fight, and so they decided to kill anything that crossed their way, as there was nothing that could really do anything against them at this point in this area anymore. So, whenever they came across a few Goblins that decided to attack them, they fought back and moved on to the next area, until they saw a different type of Goblin group. They were slightly taller, and were wearing and holding old equipment. There were three in total. One of them was wearing an old, rusty steel helmet and some pants that were obviously far too big for it. It was slightly more muscr and held a dull shortsword. The second one was the shortest of them all, and wore dark cloth as makeshift clothes, and held a letter opener that it seemed to be using as a dagger. Thest of them was also the talles and skinniest, and was holding a branch with some kind of cracked crystal at the top of it, as well as a ripped up robe. He turned over to Bree who looked closely at the three monsters and then began to exin. "Three rank 2 Goblins. They¡¯re low in level, so they aren¡¯t that strong, but their partyposition is pretty good. They have a Goblin Warrior, Rogue and Mage. The best method would probably be to take out the Mage first, since he has a weak body, and then take care of the rogue. They are fast and can do a lot of damage over time. Warrior are slow, so it¡¯s easy to dodge their attacks. "Got it. Thanks. Cast the spells on me first, and then on them just before I attack." Bree nodded while Eisen quietly moved around the group of goblins and could look directly at the Goblin Mage¡¯s back, and nodded at Bree. Quickly, she cast her support spells on him and then quietly waited for Eisen¡¯s next signal. When it came, she cast the de-buff spells on the three goblins, which of course alerted them, but by the time they realized something was off, Eisen already swung his sword to the side and cut deep into the Mage¡¯s neck. It didn¡¯t instantly die, but it was put out ofission while the Rogue came jumping at Eisen. The Giant-Dwarf swung his Zweih?nder at it, and the Rogue reacted in time but instead of jumping ot the side to dodge, it tried to block Eisen¡¯s attack. But of course, since it was holding nothing but a letter-opener with an incredibly thin and weak de, it gave in to Eisen¡¯s attack and snapped in half while the Zwei?nder cut through the Rogue¡¯s shoulder. Immediately, Eisen turned around and faced the attack from the Warrior¡¯s shortsword, which was stopped by the Zweih?nders parry hooks. This was the first time that Eisen was able to take advantage of this feature, and he was d to see that it worked even better than he had hoped. Eisen swung his sword downward, and then stepped on the t side of the Goblin¡¯s shortsword to disarm it, and then stabbed it through its stomach. But before Eisen could do anything else, he heard Bree yell something. "Eisen! Watch out! They had a potion!" She screamed just before the nearlypletely healed Rogue stood up and Jumped at Eisen with the small, snapped-in-half letter opener in his hand. The Rogue was still fast even with Bree¡¯s de-buffs, so Eisen didn¡¯t manage to dodge in time and got stabbed in his leg by the short goblin. "Shit!" He swore and turned around, using that motion to swing his Zweih?nder faster than usual and hit the Goblin¡¯s arm. In response, it cracked loudly and dropped to the ground while it waspletely cut off. The Goblin screamed in pain and held its wound, giving Eisen the chance to finish it off by cutting through its throat. Then, he moved on to the Warrior and Mage and did the same for them. "That was harder than I thought it would be." He muttered out and dropped his head while Bree walked up to him. "I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t expect them to have stolen a potion from someone!" Bree apologized with worry and immediately handed Eisen one of the pills so that he can recover the damage that he took. "Don¡¯t worry about it, really. The Letter-opener that the Rogue was using was already snapped in half, so it didn¡¯t do all that much damage." "We should just be careful with the next few groups of Goblins. If these ones had healing potions, ones with a higher level and better equipment probably will as well." "Maybe, but let¡¯s not worry about that. We¡¯ll probably have far more healing items than them." Eisen said with a smile after checking that his Health refilled again. And while Bree squatted down to cut out the Mana Crystals of the three goblins, Eisen took a look at their equipment. First, he checked the shortsword. It was incredibly dull, and there was barely anything you could call an edge anymore. With enough force it probably still could tear your flesh apart, but not as easily and cleanly as usual. The material it was made of seemed like a very low quality iron and the surface had a few cracks inside of it. Eisen frowned and stuck the sword into the ground. It was basically useless, after all, and Eisen couldn¡¯t just take every weapon he found with him. Eisen basically skipped the letter opener. He wasn¡¯t really interested in it, and since it was broken there was no use for it either. In the first ce, something that can just snap in half like that couldn¡¯t be something of high quality. The thing that interested him, though, was that gem at the top of the Mage¡¯s staff. It seemed like it was cracked, and Eisen killed the Mage Goblin before it could do anything, but if the Goblin was walking around with it, it had to have some kind of use, right? Eisen squatted down and pulled the staff out of the corpse¡¯s hands. The main body of the staff seemed to be just some branch, and not even a very sturdy one, and the gem seemed to basically fall out of its slot on its own, and it didn¡¯t take any real force to pull it out. There was arge crack right down its center, but it was still connected at the bottom, albeit barely. Eisen closely looked at the pure red gem and activated his appraisal to see what he was looking at. [Cracked Low-Grade Fire Gem] "Oh? A Fire Gem? Bree, do you know what that is?" Eisen asked and the Fey-kin turned her head to look at the gem. "Hm? Ah, yeah, I know what that is! Mages use elemental gems to make their spells work better~ That looks like a fire gem! Seems like that Goblin was a fire mage~!" "I see. Maybe I could make something interesting with it. Ooh, I could try and see what happens if I put a me Enchantment on it! That seems like it might work pretty well!" Eisen said excitedly. Now that he knew that something like this existed, he thought immensely about the different possibilities that came with it. But for now, it was hunting time. Chapter 46 Home "We managed to do a lot today, huh?" Eisen sighed out with a smile on his face while setting up his tent for the night. "Mhm! Your Bonus stats really make a huge difference! How many levels did you gain again?" "Oh, I¡¯m at level 32 now, so eight." "Cool!" Bree eximed with Glee in her voice, and at this point, Eisen got pretty curious about something. "Actually, what¡¯s your level, Bree?" Eisen asked, and Bree smiled brightly before answering. "I¡¯m level 83. Hehe..." Eisen raised his eyebrows high in surprise and then asked his next questions. "Level 83? Then these guys shouldn¡¯t be doing anything for your level, right?" They Fey-kin shook her head and shrugged slightly in response. "Not really, but that¡¯s fine! I can¡¯t fight by myself anyway, so I¡¯m fine with waiting until you get closer to my level so that we can share experience~!" "So you¡¯re not getting any experience at all?" "Nope! If the level difference is higher than 20, then only the one that kills the monsters actually gets the experience..." "Well, then I¡¯ll hurry up so that you can level up as well!" Eisenughed and scratched his beard happily. But then he frowned at something. "Wait, then why did Hendrick make such a big deal about being level 50?" Bree looked up into the sky and shrugged again. "I don¡¯t know... but what I definitely know is that he shouldn¡¯t be a Rank 4 adventurer... Usually, rank 4 adventurers are at the very least level 100... and then only barely even if they managed to do something amazing. The peak of Rank 4 Adventurers are... Level 150? I¡¯m not sure, I¡¯m only a Rank 2 adventurer myself..." Bree began to fidget with her fingers and looked to the side. "I see... then maybe he used his connections? Or bribed his way up thedder?" "Maybe... I don¡¯t know, usually, Guild Masters are hard to bribe or pressure." "Let¡¯s not think about that for now, though. Hendrick is not a good person, so we shouldn¡¯t waste our thoughts on him. How about I make us some dinner?" Eisen suggested and walked over to Bree¡¯s backpack, getting out the basic cooking kit as well as the ingredients he needed. First, Eisen set up a proper campfire by stacking different thick branches on top of each other, and then set up the tripod base, whereter the pan would be ced, over it. "Now, what could I use as a preparation surface?" Eisen asked himself in a low voice and looked around until he saw a small boulder at the edge of the small clearing where they took up camp. "Perfect." Eisen told himself and walked over to the Boulder, then summoned his two mana doubles. When he got back to town, he tested a few things out with the doubles again. For some reason, they couldn¡¯t fight at all. Eisen even had them attack him, but the only things that he felt when they swung at him with full force was a slightly ufortable feeling, even when using the Zweih?nder. But they could lift things normally. If Eisen had one double summoned, it could lift about half the weight that he could, and if he had two both of them summoned, they could lift about a third. It seemed like their strength simply depended on Eisen¡¯s own. So, in order to be able to move the Boulder as easily as possible, Eisen worked together with the two doubles to lift it up and move it closer to their tents and the campfire. Luckily, Eisen¡¯s strength was now already higher than what it ever could have been in real life, otherwise, he never would have been able to lift it even with the help of his doubles. After that was done, Eisen unsummoned them and ced his palms on the top of the rock¡¯s surface, pouring his mana inside. He then formed it into arge, t cuboid and activated transmutation to form the boulder into that shape, until there was a big stone block in front of Eisen. Next, Eisen grabbed the self-filling cup and poured some water over the top surface, then used a rug to properly clean it up. Then, atst, Eisen cracked his knuckles and got to work. He opened up the small box holding his cooking knife and activated tool connection, then ced a boar rack onto the surface and cut away the meat left on the exposed bones. Before preparing the meat further, Eisen poured a little bit of oil onto the pan and started the fire, cing the pan over it to heat it up. After that, he cut small crosshatch patterns into the fatty parts, careful not to cut too far into the meat, and grabbed the bags filled with seasoning, and seasoned the meat¡¯s surfacespletely with salt and pepper. Once that was done, Eisen grabbed a small bowl and crushed up mustard seeds before cing them inside together with some fennel and olive oil. Eisen stirred the mixture together properly and applied it thinly onto the meat. Shortly afterward, Eisen ced the Boar rack onto the pan. While the meat was being grilled in the pan, Eisen moved on to something else. Whenever they saw something that could be eaten in the forest, like mushrooms or dandelions, they picked them up to use for dinner. So, Eisen grabbed some of these things and cleaned them up with fresh water. He then cut up some of the mushrooms and crushed up some nuts and ce them into a bowl together with dandelion leaves and then grabbed some of the onions that he bought in town. He peeled the outsideyers away and then cut one of the onions in half, then finely chopped them into slices before adding them to the sd as well. Atst, Eisen made a bit of an easy olive oil dressing by adding a bit of vinegar to the some olive oil, and then put in some salt and pepper as well. He poured the dressing into the bowl and then mixed it into the sd. By the time that it was finished, Eisen flipped the boar rack to grill the other side as well. Since he was now mostly finished and only needed the rack to finish, Eisen cleared up the stone block and cleaned the surface again. And since the b was quite big, Eisen split off half of it and then split that part in half again to make stone seats, while he slightly widened the top surface of the b so that there would be enough space to eat on it. He then grabbed two of the wooden tes that came with the cooking kit and ced them onto the stone table together with wooden knives and forks. As the Boar Rack seemed to be finished, Eisen grabbed arger wooden te and ced it on there, then waited to let it cool down a little bit while he helped Bree finish setting up the tents. A few minutester, Eisen and Bree sat down at the stone table. Eisen cut up the rack into chops and gave Bree and himself two each together with some sd. And when he figured that he was finished preparing the dish, he got a notification. [You made Wild Boar Chops with a fresh forest Sd] [Wild Boar Chops] [Quality - Highest][Rank - 0] [Description] Boar Chops made out of the meat of a wild boar. It has been simply seasoned with salt and pepper [Fresh Forest Sd] [Quality - High][Rank - 0] [Description] A fresh sd made mostly out of things found in a forest. It has been made with Dandelion, Mushrooms, Onions, and Nuts, and has been dressed with a simple olive oil dressing. [Cooking Skill Learned] "Great! For what I had to work with, this turned out pretty well! Dig in, Bree! There¡¯s enough for seconds!" Eisenughed out and then began to cut up one of the boar chops on his te. Bree smiled and nodded. "Okay~! Thank you so much, Eisen~! It looks great!" "Haha, thank you! I hope it tastes great as well!" Eisen and Bree ate and talked for a while. When they finished eatinging, both of them began to clean up and stomped out the fire. Once that was done, they entered their respective tents and fell asleep. --- Benjamin usually logged off whenever his character slept, after all, he would just lose two hours without doing anything otherwise. When he was on his way to the bathroom, Benjamin heard his phone ring and picked it up, hearing the voice of Tony on the other side. "Hey, Dad! How are you?" He asked with deep exhaustion hidden behind a fa?ade of energetic happiness. "Hey Tony, I¡¯m alright. Just got up from the capsule again. How¡¯s it on your end?" "It¡¯s going a bit better, actually. I just wanted to ask you about the Family Reunion again. It¡¯s summer vacation soon, so I thought it would be a good time toe over then. I already talked to Natsuo and Melody, they said they¡¯ve got time as well. And the kids obviously do as well. We thought the Monday two weeks from now would be a good time." "Ah, yes, of course. You know your old man doesn¡¯t have anything else to do, so you cane whenever you want. Just make sure to tell me when you¡¯re on your way, alright?" Benjamin asked while noting down the day when the reunion would start in his calendar. "And for how long do you all want to stay?" He asked next, and Tony seemed to take a short break before answering to think. "I was thinking maybe a week if that¡¯s alright?" Tony said before long. "What, only a week? Well, you can stay however long you want." Benjamin answered with a low chuckle. "Thanks, Dad. I guess we can figure that out once we¡¯re actually there. That¡¯s pretty much it. I¡¯ve got to pick up Katy and Sean from school." "Sure, let¡¯s do that. Tell them their grampa loves them!" "I will don¡¯t worry." Tonyughed softly. "Talk to youter. Love you, Dad." "Love you too, Tony." Benjamin replied with a bright smile on his face. With his mood lifted up to basically infinite heights, he began to nostalgically walk through his house. He made a lot of things during his lifetime. Tools, clothes, weapons, all kinds of things. But the ones that meant the most to him were those that he created for the sake of his family. The pancakes he made every Sunday morning, or the patches he put onto his kids¡¯ pants when they fell and ripped them up. The costumes he made for Halloween, or the ties or broach he made for their proms as gifts. And not to speak of the very house that Benjamin was still living in to this day. The walls that surrounded his family in their day-to-day lives, the floor that they were walking on, to the firece in front of which he read stories to Natsuo, Melody, and Tony nearly every single day for half a year after his wife passed away. This empty building that housed only him for over a decade, where he spent nearly every second of every minute inside of his workshop, that felt just oh so emptier the past two years that he was unable to work since it only reminded him of what was missing. Finally, it would be filled with life once more and hopefully turn back into a home. ---------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 32] [HP - 1040][MP - 720] [STR - 73][END - 72][AGI - 70][INT - 40][WIS - 40][CHA - 10] [Titles] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker V] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 95] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 1][Level - 47] -[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 11] -[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 7] -[cksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 58] -[Cooking][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Crafting Space][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Enchanting][Rank - 1][Level - 19] -[Golemancy][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 4] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 4] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 42] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 1][Level - 72] -[Swordsmanship][Rank - 1][Level - 57] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 10] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 47 Breakfas "Ah, up already?" Eisen asked as he stepped out of his tent, while Bree was already beginning to pack things up. She turned around when she heard the old man¡¯s voice and smiled at him. "Mhm! I don¡¯t need to sleep much, after all, ~! What about you, did you sleep well?" Bree asked with a bright smile as she began to pack her backpack again. "Yeah, I slept amazingly, actually." Eisen smiled and helped Bree disassemble the tents. And after they were done, Eisen had another question. "So, about today, what kind of Goblins do you think we¡¯ll face?" Bree ced her finger against her cheek and looked up a little bit as if thinking. "Hmm... We¡¯ll probably only fight against Rank 2 Goblins for now, so there isn¡¯t a huge variety of them. The mostmon ones are the Warriors, Rogues, Mages, and Fighters. There are still rare ones, like Goblin Bards for example, but real variety only starts at Rank 3. Let¡¯s say there¡¯s a Rank 2 Goblin Mage... it can go all kinds of directions, Pyromancy, Aquamancy, Terramancy or Aeromancy, once it hits Rank 3. But that¡¯s thest stage for most goblins, the only Rank 4 ones are Goblin Kings!" "Oh, is that so? Rank 2 Monsters will be the limit, for now, right?" Eisen asked while starting to get things ready for breakfast, and Bree nodded in response. "Mhm. Until you¡¯re about Level 50. Then you can start taking on Rank 3 Monsters. Rank 4 Monsters when you reach Level 100. Then Rank 5 ones when you hit about Level 150. And so on..." "I see... So that Dungeon you talked about has Rank 3 monsters then?" Bree tilted her head to the side and crossed her arms. "Weeell... Dungeon monsters are weird... Dungeons themselves have Ranks, so the monsters inside are always of that rank... Meaning, a Rank 3 Dungeon only has Rank 3 monsters. But that¡¯s only strength-wise. They don¡¯t actually have a rank since they are ¡¯fake¡¯ monsters. The only thing they have is a level. For example... Erm... A Rank 3 Dungeon might have Monsters ranging from Level 50 to Level 100. It¡¯s like the strength that people have, I guess? Like, there could never be a Level 150 Monster outside, but there are Level 150 monsters is Rank 5 dungeons. Get it?" "I think I get the gist of it, yes. Just have to see a dungeon for myself to fully get it, right?" "Yup~!" Eisen smiled and looked at the ingredients in front of him. If he had enough time on his hands, then he could have made some bacon. But that literally takes two days, although it¡¯s probably quicker with the help of the game system, so he couldn¡¯t do it just yet. He definitely needed to use a lot of the boar meat for the next few days, otherwise, they could never get rid of it before it went bad. Of course, Bree¡¯s spell already prolonged the time they had, but it still wasn¡¯t forever. It wouldn¡¯t be real bacon, but Eisen still figured that he could make something like mock-bacon. So, Eisen grabbed some of the Boar belly, as well as a few different herbs and spices, together with his trusty knife. He grabbed some of the garlic and crushed it up with the t side of the knife, and then sliced the onions into fine, tiny pieces. Since he liked the unique vor of that nut he used in the sd yesterday, somewhat sweet and smokey, he also crushed up some of them and made sure they turned into a fine powder. He put that mixture into a bowl and added salt, pepper, and water, as well as a bit of sugar. Usually, he would use brown sugar instead of normal white one, but he didn¡¯t see any in the general shop in Melroe, so Eisen had to make do. Once that was done, he mixed everything together finely and ced the boar belly into it to let it soak in a little bit while Eisen went looking for other parts of the breakfast. "Hey Bree, wait here for a bit, I won¡¯t be gone for long." "Oh, alright! Be careful!" "Of course!" Eisen chuckled as he stepped out of the small clearing, looking up into the trees to look for bird nests. It didn¡¯t take too long for him to find one, and luckily it wasn¡¯t too far up. Since Eisen wasn¡¯t an idiot that would walk into monster-infested woods without a weapon, he had his sword over his shoulder, which he quickly used to knock the nest out of the tree, and to his delight, it was filled with half a dozen eggs, just a little bit smaller than a chicken¡¯s. Eisen felt somewhat bad that he was doing this, but then again, after all the hunting he did the past few days, what would this change? He grabbed the eggs and brought them over to the camp, where Eisen quickly started a fire and set up the tripod and the pan, pouring a little bit of oil on it. While the boar belly was continuing to soak in the brine, Eisen thought about what to do with the eggs. He could make omelets, although he would need more eggs to make a properly sized one. Scrambled egg also sounded good, but there was one thing that fit best with bacon. Sunny side up! But since they were prepared quicker than Bacon, Eisen decided to help Bree finish packing up while the boar belly kept sitting in the brine to at least give it as much time to soak it in as possible. When they were done cleaning up, Eisen grabbed the boar belly and let the brine drip off, carefully removing the excess moisture with a thin, clean rag. After that, Eisen grabbed his knife and carefully cut off thin slices off the boar belly and ced them on a te one after another. He was pained that he couldn¡¯t smoke the meat first, but that really would take too long. But there was more than enough meat left to make some proper bacon once Eisen had the time. So, for now, Eisen ced the mock-bacon into the pan and smiled at the quiet sizzle, then called Bree over, telling her that breakfast was about to be ready. He got a few strips of bacon ready for him and Bree and ced them on their tes, then cracked two of the eggs over the rim of the pan. When they were finished, Eisen gave him and Bree one of the eggs each and then began to prepare two more eggs, as well as a little bit more bacon, setting the leftover two eggs and the raw bacon to the side. While he was then sitting down at the table, Eisen looked at the information of the food he just prepared. [Mock Boar-Bacon] [Quality - Highest][Rank - 0] [Description] Bacon that has been made from Boar Belly. Since a few steps have been skipped or shortened, it cannot be seen as real bacon, but it is great for what it is. [Mountain Finch Egg Sunny-Side Up] [Quality - High][Rank - 01] [Description] An egg of a mountain finch that has been prepared sunny-side up. A finch egg? Aren¡¯t those supposed to be much smaller than that? Well, maybe a mountain finch in this game was muchrger than usual? Eisen shrugged those curiosities away since he really didn¡¯t care too much at this point. And this was a world filled with magic, so maybe a mountain finch was just a finch that evolved through earth mana? From what he knew about beast evolution, this might be the case, but he couldn¡¯t know for sure. Either way, for now, Eisen just wanted to eat breakfast. --- Eisen jumped to the side to dodge an iing attack and twisted his torso to the side so that his Zweih?nder sped up quickly and cut off the arm of the Goblin Fighter in front of him. While the goblin fell to the ground and held the open wound on its arm, Eisen felt something prate the center of his back. It wasn¡¯t directly painful, but it was very, very ufortable, and stung like a bitch. "Shit!" He yelled out as he looked at the notification in the corner of his eye telling him about the damage he received. Eisen jumped forward while Bree yelled out the name of a spell to restrain the Goblin that just stabbed the old man, leaving a small dagger stuck in his back. Trying to ignore that sting that kept growing stronger, Eisen kicked the Goblin rogue to the side and staggered it, then swung his sword downward, splitting its head open. Atst, Eisen stabbed the Goblin Fighter with his Zweih?nder to kill it. Then, rubbing the surface of his ne while twisting his head to look at Bree, he called her over. [You are now level 37] "They¡¯re dead. But I can¡¯t reach that damn dagger, could you help me out with it?" He asked, and Bree nodded and then practically sprinted up to him to slowly pull on the dagger stuck in Eisen¡¯s flesh. "Here, a pill!" Bree said and showed the deep red marble-sized sphere to him. He grabbed it and immediately ced it into his mouth, crushed it up and then swallowed it, immediately relieving the soft pain that he felt. "Thanks. Now, I got an idea. It might be a bit risky, but how about we move on to, well... Rank 3 Goblins? My status is what it should be for someone at Level 50. And it should speed up my growth, isn¡¯t that so?" Bree looked at Eisen with a somewhat conflicted smile until she nodded slightly. "That might be a good idea, but it¡¯s going to be a lot, lot harder. You¡¯ll probably take a lot more damage than you do now... Because let¡¯s be honest, that dagger didn¡¯t hurt you much, did it?" "Not really, no. It drained about 50 HP." Eisen chuckled, and Bree seemed to open some kind of skill window, probably something that had to do with her Database skill, and looked through some information she had about the area. "Hmm... Then I have an idea if you want. You mentioned you have a quest you need to level up for a lot, right? We could also just do that in the dungeon then. But it¡¯s your choice, I don¡¯t mind either way~!" Bree smiled and joined her fingers together behind her back, waiting for a decision from Eisen. He closed his eyes and scratched his beard in thought. Of course, he was interested in what a dungeon would be like, but he was also getting the feel for fighting these goblins. It might be a good idea to continue fighting them so that he could keep the flow up. "Let¡¯s fight the Rank 3 Goblins for now." He suggested, and Bree nodded her head in approval. "Okaay~!" She said with her lips formed into a big smile. Eisen chuckled lowly and looked at his youngpanion. "Let¡¯s go!" Chapter 48 Coincidental Meeting It was early in the morning, and the forest was quiet. Just in one spot somewhere amongst the trees and bushes was a fight currentlymencing. A Goblin held forward the staff in its hands and summoned a ball of water that shot toward the old man currently fighting against a Goblin cloaked in ck, wielding a knife that was just dripping of poison. The ball of water hit the man¡¯s back and staggered him for just a second, giving the Assassin Goblin the chance to strike at him. But before its knife could connect with the man¡¯s skink, a ball of light hit the Goblin and exploded into a number of strings that tied it down. The man took that chance and swung his sword downward, splitting the Goblin¡¯s head open. He then turned around and rushed at the Goblin that previously shot the ball of water at him. It seemed to try and cast another spell, but it was toote, as the old man already shed his sword sideways toward the monster¡¯s neck, and cut right through it. In response to taking these lives, the man grabbed the ne slung around his neck and rubbed its surface, while hispanion came up to him. "Eisen, are you okay? There was pretty potent poison on that knife, it didn¡¯t cut you anywhere, right?" Bree asked with worry in her voice, but Eisen simply shook his head in response. "No, that knife didn¡¯t touch me, don¡¯t worry. That damn attack from that Goblin Aquamancer hurt like a bitch, though." Eisen muttered and slightly rubbed his back. It didn¡¯t really hurt all that much, but it covered arge surface that began to sting all at once, so it was more than just ufortable. It did do a lot of damage to Eisen, though. It drained a whole 400 HP at once, just from that one attack. "That was a good fight to start the day out, right?" Heughed and leaned against a tree to let his HP recover while Bree squatted down in front of the dead Goblins to cut out their mana crystals. She chuckled softly and nodded. "Mhm! It went a lot better than it did in our first fight against Rank 3 Monsters yesterday." "Don¡¯t remind me, that was really tough..." Eisen shuddered slightly at the memory, but simply decided to check the equipment of the goblins while Bree began to cut the mana crystals out. During this fight, Eisen and Bree were fighting against five different Goblins. A Goblin Aquamancer, Assassin, Shield-Bearer, Axeman, and Hammerer. The staff of the Aquamancer had a nice, light blue gem at the top, which Eisen confirmed to be a Water Gem, and a mid-grade one at that! The things that he managed to get from these Rank 3 Goblins were actually a lot better than he expected! The metal weapons still didn¡¯t seem to be all that great, though. They moved from brittle Iron with a low amount of carbon inside of it to rtively high-quality steel, although the des were still not in great condition. Eisen didn¡¯t feel like he had any real use for the dagger but still wrapped it in a rag to keep it for the poison. He might be able to use it on an, especially strong enemy if he needed to. The Shield of the Shield-Bearer was quite interesting as well. It had nearly covered half of the Goblin¡¯s body before and seemed quite durable. A part of the side was chipped off, and the front was covered in scratches due to numerous attacks against it. However, for now, Eisen didn¡¯t have a real use for it, so he decided to leave it there. The axe from the Axeman waspletely destroyed. It seemed to already be highly damaged before Eisen and Bree got there, and practically shattered into pieces during its fight with Eisen. The Weapon that seemed to be in the best condition seemed to be the Hammerer¡¯s Warhammer. It was nicely decorated and waspletely made of solid steel, through and through. It was too small for Eisen, but he really appreciated the craftsmanship. And he was wondering about something else. Bree was a lot of help, for sure, but all she could do was help when someone else was there. If she was alone, she practically couldn¡¯t do anything. Eisen wanted to change that. She should at least be able to defend herself if Eisen wasn¡¯t there. This might especially be the case while Eisen¡¯s family was visiting him since he couldn¡¯t just y the game all the time then, so he would be logged out except for eight to ten hours at night, meaning that Bree would be left alone for quite a while. And Bree actually had a good amount of strength, after all her job was basically to carry heavy stuff all the time, so a Warhammer would be a good choice for her, at least in Eisen¡¯s opinion. So, Eisen walked up to her and squatted down to talk. He held the hammer forward, confusing Bree at first, but after a bit of exnation, obviously leaving out the parts about him being gone a lot in a while since he had no good way of exining that, she agreed to at least try it out. After finishing the retrieval of the Mana Crystals, Eisen and Bree prepared to let Bree practice a little bit so that she could get a skill rted to hammerbat. First, they would find another group of Goblins, and then Eisen would kill all of them besides the one that was weakest in close-quarterbat, disarm it, and then let Bree kill that Goblin. Her strength was pretty close to Eisen¡¯s, a bit higher actually, so she should be able to kill it without too many problems. It might slow down Eisen¡¯s growth a little bit, but he was already at level 43 due to the leveling he did yesterday, so it wouldn¡¯t be too much of a problem. He still had about one and a half weeks left for the quest, after all. And for Eisen, fighting these Goblins just became easier and easier, especially after his Swordsmanship skill reached Rank 2 the day before, allowing Eisen to use special attacks. He couldn¡¯t really figure out what those were, besides that he could now infuse his mana into his sword as he could with Tool-Connection. It seemed to do a little more damage than usual, but not really that much. So now it was time to train with Bree. --- "Wooah! Cool! I got the Hammer-Wielding Skill!" Bree eximed happily as she looked at the Warhammer in her hands. What just happened was actually quite horrid. When Eisen fought against things, then there was still blood, but it simply scattered onto the ground or pearled off of his sword. He did get some blood on his clothes or skin every once in a while, but the blood on his clothes simply disappeared after a few seconds as if it was never there, and the blood on his skin was easily removed with a rag or a little bit of water. But when Bree just tried to finish off that Goblin that Eisen prepared for her, well... It got quite messy. She repeatedly beat the Hammer¡¯s surface against the Goblin¡¯s face, but never with enough force to actually finish it off. She just wasn¡¯t used to actually fighting, so she didn¡¯t know how much force to use. And that was fine if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the Goblin¡¯s face was simply bashed in until it was a bloody pulp, and together with the sounds that it made in response, it actually made Eisen feel bad for the Goblin. And the thick, dark red blood that bordered on ck scattered around and drained into the grass and painted a horrid picture with Bree as its canvas. Eisen quietly gulped and smiled wryly when looking at the Fey-kin that had a proud smile on her face. "Erm... Good job, Bree. You managed to kill it, but next time, how about you try to hit as hard as you can? Might speed everything up a little... You can¡¯t just stand there and do that for a minute in the middle ofbat." He exined, and Bree tilted her head slightly, then nodded in response. "Okay~! I¡¯ll try to next time~!" She chuckled and kneed on the ground, taking out her knife to cut out the mana crystals. While Bree was doing that, Eisen went around the scene of theirtest fight and looked at the Equipment of the Goblins they killed. There wasn¡¯t really much to see this time around. The Group was only made of 3 Goblins, an Archer, a Cleric, and a Spearman. The Bow from the Archer waspletely broken since Eisen practically cut it in half during his initial attack, and the spear wasn¡¯t of very high quality. It was basically a metal rod that has been sharpened at the tip. Sure, the metal it was made of was pretty sturdy and in good condition, but it just couldn¡¯t be seen as a weapon in Eisen¡¯s opinion. And the ¡¯spear¡¯ was way toorge for the Goblin in the first ce. It was perfect for someone of average height and build for a human male, so the Goblin couldn¡¯t really wield it properly. Eisen decided to take this with him. If nothing else, it would be good enough to melt down. And who knows? Maybe it was fate that this Goblin had a weapon it itself couldn¡¯t use, and if that was the case, he couldn¡¯t just leave it there, now could he? And atst, the Cleric didn¡¯t have any realbat equipment. It was wearing something like a priest¡¯s robe and had some kind of wooden carving in its hands. It was probably some kind of religious symbol. It was weird to Eisen that Monsters could have a religion themselves. He figured if there was anyone that would know near him, it was probably the person with a literal knowledge-collection upation. "Hey Bree, what can you tell me about Monster Religions?" He asked her, and she stopped harvesting the mana crystals and tilted her head. "Hmm... Well, there are two different factions of gods. The Good Gods, and the Evil Gods. For example, Elves often believe in the God of Nature, Arberio, from the Good faction. Goblins, though, usually believe in Aplisto, the God of Greed, from the Evil faction. There are a lot of other gods, for all kinds of things, so it would take too long to exin every one of them..." She smiled and returned to work, while Eisen looked at the wooden carving in his hand. "Interesting..." He muttered out and simply stashed the symbol away in Bree¡¯s backpack. It may have some kind of use, after all. Then, Eisen simply waited for Bree to finish grabbing the Mana Crystal, following which the two of them decided to move on. They walked for a few minutes, and then slowed down since they seemed to get closer to some kind of settlement of Goblins, which they noticed through a few small abandoned huts and numerous stomped out campfires. Then, they came across a tunnel leading through one of the cliffs that could be found at the edge of the forest. It had about a three-meter radius, and a small, mostly broken gate hanging off to the sides, leaving the entrance wide open. "Is it safe to go through?" Eisen asked Bree, and she looked at the tunnel suspiciously. "I¡¯m really not sure how safe it is... It seems somewhat abandoned, otherwise, the gate wouldn¡¯t be open like this without some kind of guards. Goblins are dumb, but not that dumb... Maybe there¡¯s just nothing on the other side?" She answered as she waited for a decision from Eisen on what to do. He looked into the darkness and slightly squinted his eyes to figure out if he could see something at the other end. And then he did. The light on the other side of the tunnel became dimmer, as shadows formed within the tunnel, getting closer and closer to the entrance on Eisen¡¯s and Bree¡¯s side. While footsteps began to resound throughout it, and the growls of beasts could be heard mixed together with them inside of the tunnel, Eisen prepared his Sword and Bree made sure she could cast whatever spell she needed to when necessary. The Giant-Dwarf held his Zweih?nder forward and waited for an attack from whatever was inside the tunnel. The first beast that stepped out of the tunnel with heavy steps was a bear with deep ck fur, followed by a stag with its fur colored like tree bark that has been overgrown by moss, its antlers seemingly made out of wood that even held a small nest, which held a third beast. A beautiful bird with light blue feathers that began to glitter in the sunlight outside of the tunnel. And atst, something that was holding a wooden staff came up behind the beasts, a thin tail swinging left and right behind its back while the face of it was slowly being revealed. While it readied itself forbat, Eisen couldn¡¯t help but begin tough loudly. Chapter 49 Collaboration Eisen immediately loosened up his stance and swung his Zweih?nder over his shoulder, signaling Bree that everything is alright. "Well if it isn¡¯t Jyuuk! How are you?" He asked and got closer to the Monkey Beastperson in front of him with a big smile. The beasts by Jyuuk¡¯s side began to growl louder the closer he got, but quieted down when their master told them to. "Nice to see you again, Mister Eisen. What a coincidence that we meet here." He chuckled lowly and bowed forward as a greeting. Respecting his wishes on how to interact, Eisen bowed back. "No need for the ¡¯Mister¡¯, Jyuuk! Just call me Eisen!" He smiled and Jyuuk nodded lightly in response. "Alright, thank you. What are you doing here in this area?" He asked, and Eisen frowned with a wry smile. "Well, you know that this is near the Dwarven Country, right?" "Huh? N-No, I did not know that... But it makes sense, considering the mountain ranges unfolding around here. "So you¡¯ve been traveling already, I see. Ah, sorry to be so rude! This is Bree, mypanion. She helps me out a lot." Eisen chuckled, and Bree stepped forward and bowed down in a simr fashion as she saw Eisen and Jyuuk do. "Nice to meet you!" She said nervously and then looked up at Eisen again. "How do you two know each other? I thought you lost your memories, Eisen." Bree asked with her head tilted to the side just slightly and an intense stare of curiosity directed at the old man. Eisen smiled wryly and Jyuuk looked at him in panic. That was true! They were both not supposed to be able to know of each other, so how did they? When Eisen and Jyuuk were trying to figure out what to say, it seemed like both of them got a notificationing from another friend, albeit with slightly different content to each other. [Hello Eisen~! I noticed that you met up with another Original! Since you need a way to exin your rtionship, you can tell people (try to keep it to a minimum) about a white space where you two and three others found themselves with your memories lost and then were transported to the locations where you woke up! Don¡¯t mention me, though, as it might cause a few problems if you¡¯re talking to the wrong person. In addition to that, you now unlocked more functions of the game, which can only be used in corrtion with other yers: -Friend List -Private Chat P.S: Papa Samuel told me to say Hi! Oh, and have fun~!!!] This notification helped both of them rx, and Eisen decided to simply tell Bree the story about that white space. "Wooah! Really? Then you also lost your experience, Jyuuk?" Bree asked with her eyes wide open, and the Monkey-man nodded in response. "Yes, that is so. And as Eisen mentioned, we were in that space with three others. If both of us lost our experience, they probably did as well." Jyuuk exined, and Bree looked at them with a sad frown. To just move on to the next topic, Eisen smiled and looked at Jyuuk. "And what about these guys? Are they yourpanions?" He asked and motioned toward the beasts standing by Jyuuk¡¯s side. The Monkey-Man nodded with a soft smirk and moved his hand through the fur on his bear¡¯s head while the light blue bird jumped from the nest onto Jyuuk¡¯s shoulder. "Yes, they are. My upation became ¡¯Beast Master¡¯, it¡¯s a Tamer upation. These kids here are the beasts that I tamed. This Eagle is called Aotori, and that Stag is Tsurishika. Inside that nest are the five of Aotori¡¯s chicks, the four blue ones are Mizutori, Nagaretori, Rekutori, and Iketori, and the red one is-" "Let me guess, Akatori? And would that make that that Bear something like Kuraikuma or Yamikuma?" Eisen asked with a wry smile. Jyuuk seemed to have quite an interesting naming sense... Surprised, Jyuuk opened his eyes wide. "Huh? How did you know? They¡¯re Akatori and Yamikuma..." He said confused, and Eisen winked cheekily, leaning in toward Jyuuk so Bree couldn¡¯t hear what he was about to say. After all, he didn¡¯t know how he could exin that part to her. Quietly, Eisen exined that he can speak Japanese, so he knew what those names meant. "Oh really? What a surprise! We must talk about that sometime, I would love to hear the story behind that." Jyuuk smiled while his tamed beasts snuggled up to him, realizing that there was no threat around. Eisen chuckled lowly and nodded. "Yeah, sure. Let¡¯s do that. So, are you hunting in the area right now?" He asked. "Yes, I am. There was a small vige of Goblins on the other side of the tunnel, although it was basicallypletely abandoned. And you? Are you hunting here as well?" "Exactly. I need to get my stats up for a quest. If I do that just through leveling up, I need to get to about level 72, within a little more than a week." "Oh, do you need my help in any way?" Jyuuk asked, more than happy to aid his elder and new friend with this task. Otherwise, he would have fought alone anyway, so why not help out Eisen at the same time? "Hmm, I¡¯m not sure... Bree, you said something about experience sharing, right? What would be more efficient? Us fighting individually, or having Jyuuk fight with us?" Bree slightly tilted her head to the side and began to think about what the best course of action would be. "So, let¡¯s say we all get close to each other¡¯s levels so that we all share the experience we get. Ah, which of your beasts can fight, Jyuuk?" She asked, and Jyuuk exined that right now only Aotori and Yamikuma would be able to. At someter point in time though, the chicks would be able to as well. "Alright, then we have four fighters and one supporter... Since the experience would be split amongst us three, and Jyuuk¡¯s beasts would just get a share of his, it might actually speed up your growth, Eisen!" She exined, and Eisen nodded in understanding now that Bree exined how experience sharing worked. "I see, thanks. Jyuuk, are you alright with that as well?" "Yes, of course. I don¡¯t mind, really. What will we be fighting against?" "Basically just Goblins. The whole ce is swarming with them, and there seems to be some kind of town near here as well, so we¡¯ll definitely have enough monsters to fight against." Jyuuk nodded with a smile on his face and grabbed his wooden pole tightly. "Lead the way." --- "There¡¯s another group of five Goblins about fifty meters south. A Knight, Mage, Assassin, Cleric and some kind of goblin I haven¡¯t seen before. It¡¯s holding something like a lute. I can¡¯t tell what type the Mage is either." Jyuuk exined. The tactic that the party has been using up until now was fairly simple. Using Aotori, Jyuuk scouted ahead to look for a good group of Goblins to fight against and tell Eisen and Bree about what types they were. Before the fight began, Bree buffed everyone in the group, including the tamed beasts, and then Aotori and Yamikuma formed the Vanguard. As Aotori did the least amount of damage, for now, she attacked any Goblin that needed time to attack, meaning different Mages or Clerics, to at least distract them and buy time. Yamikuma always attacked Goblins like Knights, Swordsmen or simr, as they were the most potent closebat fighters. While Jyuuk¡¯s beasts were busy, Bree de-buffed the Goblins and Jyuuk and Eisen stormed forward, taking on the other Goblins. Who would take on whichrgely depended on the situation and type of Goblins that were in the group, and Bree would give as much support as possible and see if she could take out one of the physically weaker Goblins with her Warhammer, and usually tried to finish off the ones that Aotori attacked, as they were already damaged and distracted. However, if it got too dangerous for her, she would simply try and get out of range of the nearest attacker and either Eisen and Jyuuk would take care of it instead. "Seems like that¡¯s one of those rare types that I mentioned to you before, Eisen... It¡¯s a Goblin Bard. They aren¡¯t really that strong, but they can de-buff us... And I heard that they are super annoying..." Bree exined and twisted her face in annoyance, in response of which Eisen softlyughed. "Well, I guess we should try and take it out quickly then." He suggested, and Jyuuk nodded and looked at Aotori. "You take on that bard, then. And you, Yamikuma, take on the knight. Eisen, which ones should we take on?" He asked, and Eisen scratched his beard in thought. "The Assassin and Mage seem like the most troubling ones. I can take the Assassin if you want, and then you can take the Mage. Whoever kills their goblin first moves on to the Cleric, and and then the bard. Atst, we all fight against the Knight. Alright?" Eisen suggested, and both Jyuuk and Bree nodded in agreement. "Then let¡¯s go," Eisen said, and Jyuuk motioned his beasts to attack. Following them immediately, Eisen and Jyuuk waited for the beasts to face their respective goblin and then jumped forward while the Goblins reacted in surprise. The Assassin wanted to dodge, but Eisen anticipated it slightly and managed to cut off its path. However, due to the speed of the assassin goblin, it still managed to evade the brunt of Eisen¡¯s sh and was only cut by its leg. In response, it jumped forward and tried to attack Eisen with a poison-covered dagger in his hand, stabbing it forward. Also expecting this attack, since he got used to the regr attack patterns of goblins at this point in time, Eisen shed his Zweih?nder downward just in time to hit the Goblin¡¯s hand, cutting it off just in front of the wrist. Directly afterward, Eisen shed the sword to the side and cut into the side of the Goblin¡¯s torso which injured it fatally. Quickly, Eisen finished it off by stabbing through its head and then looked over to Jyuuk to see the progress with his fight. Since he was working with a low-quality blunt weapon, it took him a bit longer to kill the goblin, despite the fact that it was basically constantly staggered and stunned. Next, Eisen looked over to the Cleric that began to cast healing wonders, which was the spell-equivalent for skills that depended on their faith for a god, and held the Zweih?nder over the top of his head and swung it down as fast as possible, cutting into the Cleric¡¯s shoulder. It clutched the religious symbol in its hands and seemed to say some kind of prayer in the Gobin¡¯snguage until a soft light encased him, the Bard and the Knight, apparently partially healing their wounds. Luckily, Jyuuk managed to kill the Mage just before the cleric could heal it as well. While Eisen was preparing for an attack, Bree ran up behind the Cleric and swung her Warhammer to the back of its head with full force and at the same time Eisen shed his Zweih?nder into the Goblin¡¯s legs from the front, which lead to the Goblin dropping to the ground with its head nearlypletely bashed in and in a state that meant it was unable to move, making it possible for Bree to finish it off. Jyuuk was running up to the Goblin Bard, and Eisen ran up to the Knight at the same time. Just before Jyuuk was able to hit the Bard, it managed to open its mouth for the start of a song. The sound was beyond horrible, and immediately left the whole group stunned as it reverberated through the small area surrounding them. Even Jyuuk¡¯s beasts were stunned, letting the Goblin Knight push back Yamikuma and injure it greatly as it stabbed into his belly, then turned to Eisen while the bear was lying on the ground without being able to move. While the Knight lifted its de to swing at Eisen, Jyuuk swung his pole forward in a fit of rage toward the Bard, basically breaking through the stun with sheer force that was caused by anger. This made sure that the Bard stopped its horrible song, and let Eisen react quickly as he swung his sword to the side, catching the Goblin off-guard and cutting through its throat while Jyuuk crushed the Bard¡¯s, making it impossible for it to continue singing. But due to the rough treatment, the pole got just now, it shattered into pieces and left Jyuuk without a weapon. He looked back at Eisen, who already ran toward them and swung his sword toward the goblin that was holding its throat in pain. Chapter 50 Crafting Space "Come on, Yamikuma! Get up!" Jyuuk practically yelled out while kneeling down in front of the bear, grasping his blood-clotted fur. After the attack from that Goblin Knight, Yamikuma lost most of its health and due to the ce where he was hit, he also gained the ¡¯Bleeding¡¯ effect, meaning that he was slowly but surely bleeding out, and Jyuuk didn¡¯t know what to do. "Calm down, Jyuuk. Here, feed these to him." Eisen said and grabbed a handful of Health Pills out of Bree¡¯s backpack, then handed them to Jyuuk. The Monkey-Man simply looked at the tiny red spheres and nodded at Eisen. "Thank you..." He said and held the pills in front of Yamikuma¡¯s mouth. "Eat, please just eat these. You¡¯ll feel better aftward." Jyuuk told the bear, who slowly opened his eyes and moved his head closer to Jyuuk¡¯s hand, carefully eating the pills one after another. After the first few, Yamikuma became more energetic again, and the wound on its belly began slowly closing up, and Jyuuk could confirm that the health of his tamed beast was getting close to its max again. He sighed out loud and rubbed his bear¡¯s head, looking over to Eisen. "Thanks. Yamikuma nearly bled out. And I don¡¯t know what I would have done if he had." "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ve got more than enough of these pills anyway. Just d that he¡¯s okay." Eisen said and turned around to see where Bree was, and when he saw that she was far enough away that she wouldn¡¯t be able to hear them, turned back to Jyuuk and whispered to him. "How does it work in other games? If Yamikuma had died, would he be gone forever, or would he be able toe back?" He asked quietly, and Jyuuk shrugged in response. "I¡¯m not sure, really. I don¡¯t even know what happens when we die. Obviously, we¡¯ll respawn, but I don¡¯t know if there¡¯s going to be any penalty of some sort. Oh, and we didn¡¯t have the chance to do this before, but here. Let¡¯s see how this works." [Jyuuk sent you a friend request. ept?] Eisen chuckled and nodded. "Yes, of course." He said, and then immediately got a notification that told him that Jyuuk and Eisen were now friends in-game. "Great, now we can chat even if we split up again." Jyuuk said with a smile and waved his notification away. Eisen smiled softly and looked at the half of the broken pole in Jyuuk¡¯s hand. "What a shame. You don¡¯t have any recement somewhere, do you?" Eisen asked and Jyuuk shook his head while holding the shattered weapon in front of himself. "I guess the only thing we could do until I buy a new one somewhere is to only rely on Yamikuma and Aotori." "Jyuuk, did you forget who I am? I¡¯ll make you a new weapon, don¡¯t worry." Eisen said and walked over to Bree and grabbed the ¡¯spear¡¯ which he took from that goblin before, as well as some of his tools, including a mana crystal with a high-heat me enchantment, his hammer, and a thin Mythril needle he bought from Morrom¡¯s ce to add something a little bit special into the new pole. Before he decided on what kind of enchantment to carve into the staffter, Eisen turned to Jyuuk. "Ah, you have Mana Maniption, right? And you know how to push your mana out of your body?" "Yes, I do. Someone in the town near where I woke up taught me how. Why?" Jyuuk asked confused, and Eisen chuckled lowly in response. "You¡¯ll see, don¡¯t worry." He said with a smile on his face and looked for a sturdy ce to work at. Denmir mentioned that Eisen would be able to use the Crafting Space to improvise, and specifically mentioned the possibility of using a stone surface as an anvil recement, so Eisen thought to directly try this out! Eisen looked around for a solid boulder with good density and then used alchemy to transmute it into a t surface, just as he usually did to make a stone table to eat on while they were out in the forest. And just to make it an even better surface to work on, Eisen used hardening on it. It didn¡¯t really do all that much, and it was still not even close to how hard an anvil should be, but it was better than nothing. After that, since the surface of the rock was more than big enough to properly work on, Eisen formed a hole in part of the stone and hollowed it out to contain and somewhatpress the heat that woulde from the high-heat me enchantment, and ced the mana crystal onto which said enchantment was carved into the bottom of the opening. He grabbed the metal pole and thought about what to best do with it. Of course, it was easiest to simply tten out the sharpened end, but that was just boring. And Eisen didn¡¯t want to make something boring. So, Eisen thought up a nice idea. But first, he needed to figure out how his Crafting Space Skill worked. If he took it literally, it might be a physical space or area in which Eisen would create something. However, he could also take it differently, and it might be a type of headspace, where Eisen got into the feeling of crafting something, only concentrating on it. It couldn¡¯t hurt to try both, right? And exactly to try it out, Eisen did both at the same time. He concentrated on his tools and his new workstation. To him, at that exact moment, there was nothing else than his craft. Nothing else than the hammer in his hand, and the idea of a creation in his mind. Eisen couldn¡¯t feel the soft touch of the wind anymore, and his body felt weightless as if standing in an empty space. It was as if his own body was absent, and the whole world only consisted of what he needed to create. [Crafting Space Skill activated] [Designated use] cksmithing [Affected Area] 3 Meter radius around current position [All Non-cksmithing capabilities are lowered by 5% while inside affected area] [All cksmithing Capabilities are raised by 5% while inside affected area] [Entities beside Eisen will retain their regr capabilities while inside affected area] Immediately, something like a bubble formed around Eisen. The Inside of it waspletely vibrant, filled with color even more than before, while the outside of the bubble darkened and lost its color. With a grin on his face, Eisen cracked his knuckles and got to work. He poured his Mana inside of the me enchantment, and immediately the inside of the opening began to glow from heat. Usually, Eisen would expect the rocks to suffer from it, but right now it just seemed like a regr forge! So, Eisen held the end of the metal pole into the fire, grabbing the other, cooler end of it with a rag since he didn¡¯t have any tongs, hoping that the crafting space would also help in making sure he wouldn¡¯t burn his hands. Eisen waited for a few minutes until the pointed end of the steel pole shone a bright yellow. He held it over the t stone surface and grabbed his hammer, slowly ttening out the end of it and fixing small uneven parts all around the outer surface by heating up specific areas and then smoothing them out with his hammer, while at the same time thickening the whole pole up. This made it a little bit shorter, but since Jyuuk¡¯s height was below average, this was actually better for him than in its regr size. Eisen could feel every hit against the steel more intensely than usual as if his body copied the vibrations that were produced in the pole when metal hit against metal. The sense he had for his creation rose to levels he hasn¡¯t felt in a long time, and it filled Eisen with a sense of ecstasy. Now that Eisen was finished with the metal base of the pole, he concentrated on the space around him, loosening his concentration on the object in his hand, while once more taking the area surrounding him into focus. Soon enough, the bubble burst and the greenery around him lost its greyish color and regained its natural beauty and brightness. [Crafting Space Skill deactivated] [Effect dispersed] Eisen set down the pole onto the stone b that he just used as an Anvil and thought about the next step. And although he didn¡¯t really need to, as he could do the next few steps with everything that he had, Eisen decided to try and activate his Crafting Space Skill for Alchemy as well. He knew that there wasn¡¯t really anything around that had directly to do with Alchemy, but if he could activate it even then, it would be a great practice to be able to do so quickly and naturally. So, Eisen concentrated on his goal, and he concentrated on both his Crafting Space Skill as well as his Alchemy Skill, especially the way that both of them felt like to him. It took him a while, but soon enough the skills activated. [Crafting Space Skill activated] [Designated use] Alchemy [Affected Area] 3 Meter radius around current position [All Non-Alchemy capabilities are lowered by 5% while inside affected area] [All Alchemy Capabilities are raised by 5% while inside affected area] [Entities beside Eisen will retain their regr capabilities while inside affected area] "Perfect." Eisen muttered to himself and poured his mana into the pole while activating transmutation. Slowly, Eisen changed the shape of his mana and made the center of the pole disconnect from the outside, basically creating a metal tube. Following this, Eisen grabbed a handful of the mana crystals that they got from these rank three goblins, and infused his mana into them. He used transmutation to fuse them together and form them into a thin rod that would perfectly fit into the opening in the tube and re-adjusted its dimensions a few times to make sure it would sit inside of the tube without moving around on its own. After that, Eisen used parts of the metal rod he extracted from the pole and created something like two caps to put on the end of the pole, both as an extra weight that will work together with centrifugal force to cause a stronger impact when Jyuuk swings the pole around, as well as a good ce to put some enchantments he had been nning on adding. They fit basically perfectly on the end of the metal pole, so all that Eisen would need to doter was to heat them up and try something like welding the caps to the pole. But the first thing he needed to do was to remove the current Crafting Space Bubble and change it to the Enchanting version. This time around, it actually didn¡¯t take that longpared to the first two times, and soon enough Eisen was encased by a bubble that strengthened his Enchanting Skill. Carefully, Eisen kneeled down on the ground so that he wouldn¡¯t shake no matter what, since what he would do now required a lot of fine work. On the ends of the mana-crystal rod, Eisen would carve small enchantments, and since the surfaces were so small, it would need Eisen to concentrate strongly to be able toplete them without trouble. So, Eisen grabbed the Mythril Needle with the thinnest tip that he had and infused his mana into it. Slowly, Eisen got to work, creating a tiny enchantment that would make it necessary for Mana to be stored inside the Mana Crystal, that would allow for the constant use of the extra ability Eisen wanted to enchant the pole with, without needing Jyuuk to use his mana when trying to activate it in the middle of battle, letting him only concentrate on the fight itself. It took a while for Eisen to finish the mana storage enchantment since he was especially careful due to the size of it and then recreated the enchantment on the other end of the mana crystal rod. Eisen carefully pushed it into the center of the steel tube and made sure it would sit properly, and then grabbed the two caps for the ends of the pole. Eisen thought of how to realize the enchantment for the effect he wanted, an poured his mana into the Mythril needle. He began to carve the enchantment, making it so that it would pull mana out of the Mana Crystal rod in the center of the pole to activate it whenever the pole impacted with something. The actual effect that Eisen wanted for it was ¡¯Force¡¯. Meaning that it would highly strengthen any of Jyuuk¡¯s attacks. After Eisen finished the enchantment for the second cap and was just about to remove the Enchantment Bubble, Eisen got a new idea. He grabbed the rest of the steel rod that he extracted from the Pole and smiled before starting to work on this new idea. ----------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 47] [HP - 1460][MP - 870] [STR - 98][END - 99][AGI - 98][INT - 40][WIS - 40][CHA - 10] [Titles] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker V] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 95] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 1][Level - 97] -[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 16] -[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 7] -[cksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 61] -[Cooking][Rank - 0][Level - 56] -[Crafting Space][Rank - 0][Level - 45] -[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Enchanting][Rank - 1][Level - 32] -[Golemancy][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 4] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 4] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 42] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 1][Level - 72] -[Swordsmanship][Rank - 2][Level - 14] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 10] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 51 Gifts Eisen stepped out of the Enchantment Bubble so that his Alchemy Skill wouldn¡¯t be affected, and quickly transmuted the rest of the metal rod into more caps, adding thin spiraling ridges to the caps and the two ends of the pole to make it possible for Jyuuk to simply screw different caps on and off. Eisen designated two caps to simply leave without an enchantment, so that Jyuuk wouldn¡¯t be forced to have an effect to his weapon at all times. The next enchantment that Eisen would ce on the caps was an enchantment that caused something like an explosion of mes to shoot outward around the target when the pole impaced with something. It didn¡¯t take Eisen that long to do, since he already managed to figure out how to create the impct-condition for activation with the ¡¯Force¡¯ enchantment just now. The rest that Eisen needed to do was use the Alchemical Symbol for Fire, and imagine a simple explosion while carving the central image. After that, Eisen chose the opposite type of enchantment, meaning one that would freeze the area on the target that was hit. Eisen carefully carved the conditions into the cap together with the alchemical symbol for water, using the image of an ice statue. The third, and for nowst, enchantment that Eisen thought of was one of the wind element. It would expell an immensely strong gust of wind on impact with the target, meant topletely push it away. The thing that Eisen imagined for the center was a strong storm with the strength of something like a tornado, definitely strong enough to push you off your feet. After a bit, Eisen tried screwing all of them onto the pole to make sure they would fit on and the whole thing could be assembled quickly, even in the middle ofbat if necessary. He smiled softly and nodded at the finished item. [Modr Combat Pole] [Quality - Highest][Rank - 2] [Description] A high-quality Steel Combat Pole created by the Craftsman Eisen. It has a mana-crystal core in order to store Mana. Due to multiple mana crystals being used for said core, 2000 MP can be stored in total. As the core is not affixed to the steel itself, it can be swapped out at ater time if necessary. Two Caps can be attached to the ends of the pole to create various effects. Which those effects are depends on the attachment. [Effect] +5 STR, +5 AGI [Current Attachments] Force on Impact x2 [For Creating an item of overwhelming quality, you gain +1 STR] Atst, Eisen ¡¯popped¡¯ the Enchantment bubble and walked over to Jyuuk with a smile on his face. "Here you go. I know it looks a little bit bare, but I¡¯m pretty sure it should be better than what you¡¯ve been using up until now." "Oh, wow, thank you! You were able to make this really quickly!" Jyuuk eximed in surprise and held the metal pole in his hand, trying to swing it around a few times. "This seems perfect... The weight is good, and the length as well. I saw that you screwed these caps on just now, so what¡¯s that about?" He asked, and Eisen handed Jyuuk the other caps that he prepared. "Let¡¯s just call them ¡¯Effect Caps¡¯. Basically, you can switch them out to get different effects on impact with an enemy. The one you have on right now will give your pole extra impact. These ones here cause either an explosion, freeze the enemy, or push them away with a gust of wind. And then there are two caps to just put on in case you don¡¯t want any effect for the Pole. The way it works is pretty simple, you just have to take off the cap and pour mana into the crystal until you can¡¯t anymore. In total, it can store 2000MP, so I would just add a little bit into it whenever a fight is over so that you don¡¯t pass out by trying to fill it up all at once. Just try the different caps out sometime. And don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s made so that just the end that actually impacts with the enemy shows the effect." Eisen exined and smiled as Jyuuk excitedly stuffed the Effect Caps into his pockets. He quickly screwed one of the Force Caps off the pole and ced his palm onto the enchanting at the end of the mana crystal rod, slowly filling it up with some of his mana. Not too long after that, he ced the cap back on and walked over to the nearest tree. While holding the pole tightly, Jyuuk got into stance and swung the pole against the tree so that the end of it would impact. Immediately upon forming contact with the bark, cracks formed in the wood and it was pushed in almost immediately as if breaking any second now. "Wow! This is really good, thank you, Eisen!" Jyuuk said with a huge smile on this face. This was exactly the type of thing that always gave him shivers when watching Anime, those types of cracks that would appear underneath a powerful character¡¯s feet due to sheer pressure! "I¡¯m not sure if I can give you anything in return, though..." Jyuuk exined with a frown, only causing Eisen to chuckle in response. "Don¡¯t worry about it! I make things like this for fun, and it was a good chance to just experiment a bit. You don¡¯t have to give me anything for it. Just knowing that a friend of mine is using it is more than enough for me." Jyuuk frowned softly but still smiled in response to this. "I¡¯m incredibly grateful that you would give this to me basically for free, but I would feel bad... At least let me give you this." The Monkey-Man said and took his backpack from his back, carefully looking through it before grabbing the rag in which that marshmellow-like egg was wrapped. "I have no idea what this is, beside that it is an egg. My Appraisal Skill is Rank 2, and usually it tells me the full name, and the level or quality, and the rank of things I inspect. But for this, it still just tells me ¡¯Egg¡¯. I don¡¯t know what it is, but it seems to be something pretty cool. I¡¯ve got my babies here already, so I don¡¯t mind giving it to you. Even without a taming ss, you should be able to tame one or two beasts or monsters. I don¡¯t know what bonus my title gives to me trying to tame things, but you should definitely be able to tame something that you basically hatch yourself. I¡¯m sure it would be useful." Jyuuk exined while swapping out one of the caps on the pole for the Explosion Cap and the other for the Frost Cap. "Thank you, Jyuuk. I¡¯ll cherish it, and whatever is born out of this egg." Eisen said with a smile, since he noticed that it meant a lot for Jyuuk if Eisen epted it. Jyuuk smiled and looked at the tree in front of him, holding the pole so that the freezing end was pointed away from him, and swung it against the wood in front of him. Immediately, a cold breeze shot outward and froze a small area around where Jyuuk¡¯s pole impacted onto the bark, making it glitter in the sun after it became covered in ayer of ice. Directly afterward in the same movement, Jyuuk flipped the pole and made the other end with the Explosion Cap hit the frozen area of the tree. An explosion shot out focused toward the tree and shattered the frozen wood into pieces, as well as the direct area surrounding it, turning itpletely ck due to the fire. Jyuuk swapped out the explosion cap for the wind burst one excitedly, and hit the ground with it. Immediately, it shot out a strong gust of air that whirled up the dust that surrounded the two of them. "Wow, this is amazing, Eisen! Thank you so much!" He said excitedly, and Eisenughed softly while carefully holding the egg in his hand. "No problem. Just let me know if it stops holding up to your enemies, I¡¯ll make you something new whenever you want. Ah, and when I reach my goal, how about youe to Melroe with us? I can see if I can make something interesting for your beasts as well. Maybe something to add on top of their ws, or some specific armor that fits to their body." Eisen thought with a grin at those ideas. Making things for animals instead of people would probably be pretty interesting to say the least. "Thank you, I really appreciate it. If you ever need my help, I¡¯m in your debt." Jyuuk said with a smile and bowed forward to show his gratitude. "Nonsense! It¡¯s the role of an old man like me to support the next generations!" Eisenughed and pped Jyuuk¡¯s back in a joking way. After Eisen grabbed his me-enchanted Mana crystal out of the stone forge, the two of them walked over to Bree again, who already finished extracting the Mana Crystals from the Goblins and started to y with Jyuuk¡¯s Beasts a bit while Eisen and Jyuuk were busy otherwise. "Hey~! Are you to finished now?" She asked with a smile and ran up to them happily. "Yeah, we are. We¡¯re pretty much ready to fight the next group of Goblins." Eisen said and looked over to Jyuuk to confirm he was ready to go. Before they moved on, though, Eisen made sure he stashed the egg away safely inside of Bree¡¯s backpack. And then, they continued to hunt. --- "Jyuuk! Careful, above you!" Eisen yelled out when he saw that an Assassin Goblin jumped down from a treetop toward Jyuuk after the old man managed to y the goblin in front of him and was just about to move on to the next. Since Jyuuk was currently fighting against the Goblin in front of himself, a Goblin Shieldbearer, Eisen did his best to hurry forward and defend against the aerial attack directed toward his friend. He swung his sword to the side above Jyuuk¡¯s head, perfectly hitting the Goblin¡¯s chest and slinging it to the side. Immediately after it rolled on the ground and tried to get back up, Eisen shed his sword downward and cut into its shoulder, nearly cutting off it¡¯s whole arm and basically letting it hang loose on only a few pieces of flesh. Swiftly, while pulling the Zweih?nder out of the wound, Eisen shed it toward the Goblin¡¯s neck, cutting it open so that the Goblin quickly died in response. Eisen turned around and looked behind himself, seeing that the fight was now over. "Thanks for that, Eisen. I really didn¡¯t notice that Goblin there." Jyuukughed embarrassedly while scratching the back of his head. "Don¡¯t worry about it. d you¡¯re fine, kid." Eisen smiled and looked at the notifications he missed duringbat. It seemed like Eisen leveled up again, so he quickly put his five new stat points into his INT and WIS stats, and then looked at the two rank-up notifications that popped up as well, which immediately made him d that he started using his Dwarven racial skill duringbat as well to help out with his Sword Control. [A Giant¡¯s Strength reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [Activation Effect and Duration Doubled] [Due to Ranking-up your A Giant¡¯s Strength Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END] [A Dwarf¡¯s Hands reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [Activation Effect and Duration Doubled] [Due to Ranking-up your A Dwarf¡¯s Hands Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 END] [Your END stat reached 100. It¡¯s effectiveness rose by 10%] [Your STR stat reached 100. It¡¯s effectiveness rose by 10%] Chapter 52 Goblin Town With a grin on his face, Eisen waved the notifications away, happy that he only had three more stats that needed to reach 100, and only two more if he considered that his AGI stat only needed one more stat point to reach 100 as well. Eisen was doing pretty well against these Rank 3 Goblins at this point, so hopefully that wouldn¡¯t change even if he only concentrated on his INT and WIS stats and then kept fighting stronger and stronger enemies, for which he would then rely on the three stats he wouldn¡¯t keep increasing for now. "Eisen, can youe over here for a second?" Jyuuk yelled and waved the old man over. When Eisen got close enough, he noticed that Jyuuk¡¯s eyes werepletely white without an iris or pupil. By now, Eisen knew that this was what it looked like while Jyuuk saw through one of his beasts¡¯ eyes, so he figured that something was wrong with the area if Jyuuk called Eisen over. "Is everything alright? Did you see something worrying?" He asked, and Jyuuk nodded sligthly. "It¡¯s not something necessarily bad, it¡¯s just that we have to make sure we¡¯re careful. I can see walls, and there seem to be a great number of buildings beyond them. We¡¯re probably close to a Goblin Town." "Ah, so it really was around here... Can you see any specifics about it?" Eisen asked and closed his eyes while he began to scratch his beard in thought. "Yes. It seems to be quiterge, consisting of several different areas. The outermost area seems to be holding the weakest Goblins in the town, as well as the worst equipped. The wall outside is made of old, unstable wood, and the huts are quite rudimentary, only consisting of mud and straw. Then there¡¯s another wall behind that area, seemingly quite a bit sturdier, and it¡¯s made of thick logs and even has some decorations. The huts there are a bitrger, and are made nearlypletely of wood. I can¡¯t see the Goblins well enough to tell how strong they would be. Then there¡¯s another wall, made nearlypletely of stone, and beyond that are buildings made with bricks for the most part. In the center of that area is arge stone construct, something like a castle of some sort." "I see... So the Goblins will probably get stronger the closer we get to the castle, huh? Should we set out toward the town? It would be a pretty good ce to level up, right? Constant supply of enemies, and there will probably be a lot more materials to take advantage of. Oh, and if we clear a certain area, we can camp in the houses if we need to." Jyuuk nodded in response to Eisen¡¯s suggestion, and the irises and pupils in his eyes showed up again. "That seems like a good idea, yes. However, we will probably be faced with a higher amount of enemies at once." "That¡¯s fine with me. I¡¯ll talk about it with Bree and ask her opinion about it as well. Is there something like a gate we can enter through?" Eisen asked while mentally beginning to n the attack against the Goblin Town. Grasping the handle of his Zweih?nder tightly, Eisen smiled exctitedly in the direction of the town, thinking about what this would mean. It would probably be possible to level up enough so that he could finish the quest he got from that cat. No, the creature that simply showed itself to be a cat! Eisen was sure that it would be some amazing mythical creature, and more importantly that it would be able to give Eisen great materials, to make even greater items! Thinking about this, all that mentally exhausting fighting waspletely worth it! --- "Well then, let¡¯s look at the loot we got today." Eisen said and sat down at the table inside thergest hut that was in their immediate vicinity after they decided they had cleared arge enough area inside the outermost part of the Goblin Town. It was getting close to evening, and Eisen¡¯s and Jyuuk¡¯s in-game bodies were starting to need sleep. So, they decided to camp inside one of the huts, just as Eisen had suggested before. Luckily, inside were some rudimentary furniture, meaning logs as chairs, a simple firece, as well as arge log cut in half vertically to act as a table. "Alright~!" Bree said with a smile and set down her backpack next to the table, slowly grabbing all the mana crystals, gems, and the like and cing them onto the surface in front of her. "So, if you two don¡¯t mind, I would like to take most of the gems from the mage staffs, since I¡¯m sure I could do some cool things with them. If you two want some, though, I don¡¯t mind." "No, it¡¯s alright. I don¡¯t mind. I¡¯m not sure if I have any use for most of the things we got from these goblins, except the mana crystals to sell for some money, of course. We can just split those in three, if you want. You can split the rest however you want." Jyuuk said with a smile while his tamed beasts were snuggling up to him and each other. Eisen frowned slightly, but ended up nodding. "If you say so. Well, if you want me to make something for you or your beasts, you just need to let me know." "Of course, thank you." The Monkey-Man responded while the group simply split the mountain of mana crystals into three equal parts. After everyone packed their portions away, Eisen stood up and looked at both Bree and Jyuuk. "Alright, now! Shall I make something to eat for us?" Eisen said with a smile and walked over to Bree¡¯s backpack and opened it up to look for the cooking ingredients and tools. "Yamikuma, Aotori and the chicks can eat raw meat, right?" Eisen asked while looking at Jyuuk, and he nodded in response. "Yes, they do. You don¡¯t need to worry about making something for them. I¡¯ll go out with Tsurishikater so that he can eat as well." "Alright, then here you go. Give them this." With a smile, Eisen handed Jyuuk some of the boar meat to give his beasts, and then stepped over to the firece, using one of the me-enchanted mana crystals to start it up. He ced the pan over it and poured oil onto the metal surface that was slowly heating up, then grabbed some of the pieces of the meat without any bones left in them to make simple porkchops. He was feeling kind of exhausted for some reason. Of course not physically, but he was starting to feel incredibly mentally exhaustedtely. After all, he was basically constantly inside of this capsule, doing all kinds of things, some of which feltpletely new to him. Maybe after finishing up this quest, he should just take a break and spend a day outside of the game, simply rx in his bed or read a book. But for now, he needed to finish everything up, so Eisen decided to pull through and just keep doing his best. So, Eisen began to cook. He ced the porkchops into the pan and smiled softly at the sizzle sound that appeared when he did so. After a few minutes, the old man finished browning the pork chops on both sides, and then ced them to the side on a te. Eisen then grabbed a few apples that he picked earlier this day and cut them into wedges. He ced them aside and then took one of the onions he had and cut them into thin slices. Luckily this game was realistic, but not realistic enough to make him actually tear up while cutting these onions. He did still feel some difort, though. Either way, Eisen put the apples and onions into the same pan as he used before and added a little bit of water into the mix, which he then stirred for a little bit before cing the porkchops over the apple mixture. Then, Eisen quickly mixed some olive oil and a little bit of vinegar together, which he then drizzled over the porkchops. And after sprinkling them with salt and pepper, he ced a pan cover on top of it to slowly let everything simmer. It didn¡¯t take long until Dinner was done after this, and brought the whole pan over to the table where Bree and Jyuuk were already waiting after setting the table with the simple wooden tes and cutlery. [Boar Chops Cooked with Apples and Onions] [Quality - High][Rank - 0] [Description] A simple dish that has been made of Boar Porkchops that have been cooked in a mixture of apples and onions. "Nice. Simple, but delicious." Eisen muttered to himself after reading through the information about the dish he prepared, and then continued by serving the food to hispanions. "Thanks for the meal, Eisen." Jyuuk smiled and folded his hands shortly before starting to dig in. "Mhm! Thanks for the food!" The Fey-kin Bree said with a smile that exposed her pearly white teeth. Smiling, Eisen thanked the both of them, and the trio began to eat. Afterughing and talking for another one or two hours, the group decided to go to sleep, with Bree standing on guard first, then Eisen, and then Jyuuk, just in case that some goblins were to wander around into the hut. But just before Eisen wanted to lie down, he saw something... weird. It seemed like Jyuuk fell asleep before him, and his body was quickly turning into wood, as if someone had simply carved a statue of him. And it wasn¡¯t only Jyuuk¡¯s body, even his pole turned into simple wood. After all of these parts of Jyuuk transformed, his body became slightly overgrown here and there, with moss growing primarily on his back, and a small flower beginning to bud on the top of his head. Jyuuk¡¯s beasts seemed to just instantly fall incredibly lethargic and nearly all fell asleep not too long after Jyuuk did. Was this what it was like for yers to log off? Eisen looked around and made sure that Bree couldn¡¯t see them just now, and moved up to the Monkeyman-turned-wood, trying to see if his body was now truly just wood. And it seemed so, at least judginf from the feeling of the material and its roughness, but Jyuuk and his beasts were suddenly incredibly heavy, so much that Eisen wasn¡¯t able to even budge him in any way. This was probably a protection against attacks from other yers while you were offline, but wasn¡¯t this kind of a waste of space? Would there just be wooden statues standing around everywhere once other yers got to y? Or maybe this was different for Jyuuk since he was one of the originals? Only time would be able to tell him that, but he was still curious, so Eisen called Bree over. She was incredibly surprised to see Jyuuk in such a state, although in a different way than Eisen expected. Bree wasn¡¯t surprised that such a thing was possible, but rather that Jyuuk was in possession of this ¡¯ability¡¯. She exined to Eisen that this was something actually quite amazing, as it was supposed to be a physical protection in weak moments that was only attainable at high levels, but was connected to one¡¯s soul. "So Jyuuk probably had a reeeaaaally high level at some point! Even something like this can¡¯t be stolen through stealing experience! Although, whoever took it might be able to use that ability now as well... hmm... Ah, wait! Can you do something like this as well? I haven¡¯t seen you sleep before, so it might be! Do you want me to tell you when you wake up?" She asked with an excited smile, apparently happy to be able to gather this type of information, and Eisen chuckled lowly. "Yes, sure. Thanks. I¡¯ll talk to youter then." Eisen said andid down on the ground of the hut, slowly dozing off. Chapter 53 Elements Since Eisen chose not to log off for this in-game night so that he could properly wake up when needed, it felt nearly instantaneously to him until he woke up when Bree called out to him a few times. "Good morning. Anything happen while I was asleep?" Eisen asked and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "Nope, nothing really. It waspletely quiet outside! But more importantly, I saw you change!" Bree said with an excited grin. "When you fell asleep, youpletely turned into metal! You had quite a little bit of rust growing on your body, though..." Eisen listened to further exnations from Bree on what his body looked like, and then began tough loudly. "A rusty old body, huh? Of course that¡¯s it." He smiled and sat down on one of the wooden stumps that acted as chairs, leaned back against the table while looking at Bree. "You can go to sleep if you want. I know you say you don¡¯t need much sleep, but I¡¯m sure that you still need a little bit. And you¡¯ve been working hard for the past few days as well, so just rx for a bit. "Thanks~... I¡¯ll take a nap, then. Just wake me up when something¡¯s going on..." Bree said and stretched slightly, opening her mouth widely in a yawn. "Goodnight!" Eisen chuckled and turned around to look at the table in front of him. Maybe he would be able to train something that he hasn¡¯t in a while! His Magic Maniption! Just trying to form things with Mana was incredibly fun to Eisen, even if what he made didn¡¯t seem to have any real use other than being aesthetically pleasing and fun to y around with. And if he would manage to Rank his Mana Maniption skill up again, he would finally be able to continue with that lesson in the book that Morrom gave him! Eisen looked around to try and figure out what to do with his mana, until heid eyes on Aotori. He could just copy her using his mana copy skill, but Eisen would probably gain more proficiency if he actually did everything manually while using her as a simple reference. So, Eisen pushed out some of his mana out of his palm and formed it into a sphere. Then, he slowly turned the round sphere into a more lenghty shape that was supposed to be the bird¡¯s body. Out of that body, Eisen pulled two wings, and re-supplied the structure with more mana due to the amount that was necessary. And atst, Eisen added two legs, finishing up the base structure for the bird. But now it was time for details. Part for part all over the Bird¡¯s body, Eisen turned parts of it into feathers of different sizes depending on where they were ced, and then added facial details. That meant that Eisen formed eyes and a proper beak on the bird made of mana. "Done!" Eisen muttered to himself with a grin on his face and started to try and control the Mana Bird¡¯s movement. Since it was made of mana, it wouldn¡¯t have any problem floating around. So, slowly but surely the bird began to move its wings up and down in a natural way, and took off from the table ording to Eisen¡¯s mentalmands. Well, you could say it was technically flying, but it really didn¡¯t look like it was actually. It was just... unnatural. Like a badly animated scene in a movie or something. "At least my Mana Maniption went up. If I ever want to really try, I might have to see if I can get some kind of skill through using mana copy on Aotori or something like that. Anyway, shall I go for Yamikuma next?" Eisen asked himself quietly and pushed out arge amount of his mana out of his palms, preparing some of the mana pills in case he needed them, and began to work on the next mana creature. --- [Mana Maniption reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [It is now possible to infuse elements into mana] [Due to Ranking-up your Mana Maniption Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] [Congrattions! You¡¯ve reached an important step on the path of magic!] [You can choose between These Elements:] -[Earth] -[Fire] -[Water] -[Wind] -[Light] -[Dark] [Due to your own nature that has been derived from your actions so far, two elements have been found to fit best to you, and are rmended to be chosen from:] -[Earth] -[Fire] [Due to your upation, a specialbination has been found out of your rmended elements:] -[me of the Earth] [It is possible to preview all of these options] "I see, I see..." Eisen muttered to himself and looked at the three lists in front of him, and since it was possible to preview the possible elements, Eisen thought it would be a good idea to do so before making a bad choice. First, Eisen concentrated on the Dark Element to see what it was about, and in front of him a new window popped up. Inside that window was a list of what was possible with it, with different illustrations about what it looked like. The dark Element was mainly about de-buffing or cursing enemies and hiding yourself from sight. It was a type of magic often used by rogues or assassins type sses. As for Light Magic, it was rather about healing or buffing yourpanions, and sometimes creating mirages to confuse your enemies. Usually, supporters or healers would use this kind of magic. Wind magic was all about speed, and doing damage to others through quick attacks or through sharp des and cuts in general. Often, people who would relyrgely on des and speed in general would rely on wind magic, beside Mages of course. Next was Water magic, which was a type of magic that often relied on steady damage over time, and often is able to stun enemies rather easily and slow them down. After looking through these of the basic elements, Eisen moved on to his rmended elements. So far, the Dark, Light, Wind and Water elements seemed like they would be useful inbat, but Eisen thought they weren¡¯t really a good fit to him. On the other hand, the earth and fire elements seemed more like they would. He spent most of his life around the mes of the forge, and the earth element remided him of different metals, which were his specialty to work with. And when it came to the other crafts he was familiar with, all somehow came back to earth. Leatherworking needed the hides of animals that spent their lives treading on the dirt benath their feet and living off of the fruits that it bears. And Tailoring mostly used fabrics made out of different nts, like cotton for example, and these nts of course grew out of the earth. These two elements immediately spoke to him when Eisen thought about it that way. Fire magic was aboutrge amounts of instantaneous damage, and often times aboutrge area attacks. The ones that would use fire magic were those that wanted to do as much damage at once in burst attacks to kill their enemies quickly. And atst out of the two rmended elements, Earth. It seemed to had a lot to do with defense and changing the environment around you to your advantage. The ones that would use this, were the ¡¯Tanks¡¯ that would take on the brunt of enemy attacks. Of course, all of these magic types were also used by normal mages, who had a lot higher variety of possible attacks in their arsenal. Butstly, Eisen was most curious about the specialbination that was created through his upation... me of the Earth Magic. Excited to see what it would be, Eisen concentrated on it and carefully read through the description. It told him that this special element had parts of both Fire and Earth magic, but wasrgely meant for utiliary use rather thanbat use. However... it didn¡¯t tell him much more. At the end, it told him that it was meant to just be explored. For some reason, this absolutely thrilled Eisen. So he cleared his throat, and quietly said. "I choose me of the Earth Magic as my Element." [Magic Element assigned] [me of the Earth Magic Skill learned] And so, Eisen grabbed the book he got from Morrom, and flipped it open to the chapter where he couldn¡¯t continue anymore, prepared to start practicing further. Chapter 54 Flame of the Earth Eisen grabbed the book ¡¯How to control your inner mana¡¯ that Morrom gave him before and flipped it open to the chapter where he couldn¡¯t continue thest time he started practicing with its help. "How to infuse elements into your mana, huh? No wonder I had to wait until I got Mana Maniption higher." The old man muttered to himself after starting to read the different steps. First, Eisen needed to create a base that would be infused with the element. Usually, you would do it without such a base, and then simply expel the pure elemental mana. But for now, Eisen had to use all extra steps to get used to how the element felt. This way was also used if you wanted to createplex constructs of a certain element since pure mana was much easier to form and control than elemental mana. First, Eisen needed to find the source of the ¡¯me of the Earth¡¯ element inside of him. It was supposed to be simr to the way that his mana had such a unique feeling, as if both hot and cold at the same time while it was moving around his body simr to his own blood. So, Eisen tried to close his eyes and feel his mana. He followed it back to its source, the same ce where his heart was. While it was the source of his bloodstream, apparently it also was the source of his mana stream. But at that ce, Eisen found something new that wasn¡¯t there before. It felt to Eisen like a small me, but at the same time somehow had the solidity of earth. It felt weird and just as contradictory as his mana, but Eisen knew that this was what he was looking for. It was the source of his new element. Now Eisen could actually do what this chapter of the book was supposed to teach him: Infusing his element into mana. After forming a small sphere of mana above his palm, which he was able to do nearly instantly at this point, Eisen concentrated on his element again. He moved it slowly throughout his body, from his chest to his hand, and pushed it out through his skin simr to the way he would with his mana. Without actually forming anything on its own, Eisen could feel that the element was instantly absorbed by the small sphere, and the old man could have his first look at this new substance. It behavedpletely like a me, moving around slightly with the air current and Eisen¡¯s breath pushing against it, but it seemed to bepletely made of dirt. Slowly, Eisen ced his finger against the ¡¯me¡¯. It felt warm, but not hot, and there was a certain amount of density to it. It wasn¡¯t as dense as normal dirt, rather very loose sand that was floating around. "This is interesting... Something like this can only exist here, huh?" Eisen whispered to himself and continued reading the instructions in the book. The next step was to control its state. Meaning, the water element could be frozen or turned into dense steam and the me element¡¯s heat could be controlled and changed, or the Earth element could be changed into dust or rock. As for Eisen, he figured he would be able to at least change if his element would be a me or dirt. So, he tried to concentrate on the me of dirt in front of him as was described in the book. He imagined it turning into a pure me, and soon enough the dirt caught fire and disappeared as if burnt away. It was a mostly dull red me, with the hottest area only burning a deep orange, rather than the white or blue that Eisen expected. The old giant-dwarf halfling thought about whether it would be possible to change the heat of this as well like for a normal me element, so he thought about its heat rising. And slowly but surely, the center of the me turned a clear orange closing in on white. But this was about the hottest that Eisen was able to get it for now. Maybe that would change atter ranks of the skill connected to his element? Either way, first, Eisen wanted to try and change the me back into its base-state, and then into theplete earth version. Eisen imagined the fire in front of him to turn into that me made of earth that he just saw a minute ago. And slowly, from the center of the me at its hottest part, dirt slowly spread outward until the firepletely disappeared and turned into its pure elemental state. After managing this, Eisen imagined the earthen-me as pure dirt, and he could slowly see it change to be harder and lose its flow until it began forming aplete sphere of dirt. Trying to check if it truly turned solid, Eisen poked the sphere and smiled when it didn¡¯t give in to his touch. "Magnificent! This is truly amazing, I have to admit... Now, what¡¯s the next task in the book?" Eisen wondered, and flipped to the next page that exined the basics of forming attacks with the use of your element. The first thing you were supposed to do was form your mana into the shape you wanted your attack to be in, and then infuse it with your element just like before. Then, you would manipte the mana construct to do what you wanted with it. "If that¡¯s the case, then can I also do something like this...?" Eisen muttered to himself and activated his Mana Double skill, as well as his mana copy skill to make sure it was actually clothed in case someone woke up, and then ced his palm on the Double¡¯s back. Eisen slowly pushed out part of his elemental essence again and into the double¡¯s form, then watched as it was slowly filled out with that earthen-me. "Interesting! So it does just work like that!" Eisen said with a slight grin and nodded in approval. Next, Eisen tried the same thing as before and slowly changed the Double¡¯s body into pure mes, and then into itspletely earthen state. After fully getting a feel for this element, Eisen followed one of the examples in the book: A simple magic arrow as a beginner spell. Eisen unsummoned his Mana Dobules and expelled some mana out of his hands, out of which he formed a simple stick with a pointed tip. It didn¡¯t need to be amazing, just something to test this out with rtively quickly. He infused that mana arrow with the me of the Earth element and watched as it took on its, to Eisen, unnatural state. Slowly, Eisen opened the door slightly and with deep concentration shot the arrow up into the air. [Magic Spell Learned] me of the Earth Arrow [Add to spell library?] "Oh? Hmm... Yes, add to spell library please." Eisen said with a smile and watched as the next notification popped up. [me of the Earth Arrow added to spell library] [Info] Spells can be cast by expelling enough mana out of your body to form a cluster and then saying the name of the spell. The mana base has to be of the spell¡¯s element "I see, I see... So can I just do this?" He muttered to himself and pushed out more mana out of his palms, which he then infused with his element. "me of the Earth Arrow." Eisen said next and watched as the me of the earth infused mana turned into the shape of the arrow he just created before. It floated over Eisen¡¯s palm, and he could control it like he normally could without relying on the spell-shortcut. And this all seemed great and absolutely amazing to Eisen in any and all ways, but still... Eisen wasn¡¯t a fighter at heart, and he never would be, so he really wanted to find uses of this element for so that he could do something with it while crafting, although right now he wasn¡¯t sure if there were any uses like that. But on the other hand, there had to be, right? After all, it seemed like this was a special element that Eisen only got through his upation as an Omni-craftsmaster. So maybe the crafting uses for the ¡¯me of the Earth¡¯ element would show themselves atter ranks? Since right now, Eisen absolutely couldn¡¯t see any uses for it in crafting, that had to be it, right? Thus, Eisen chose to be patient and just try to rank the me of the Earth magic skill up until it showed its true worth to him. For now, though, Eisen decided that it was time to change shifts with Jyuuk, and thus woke him up by calling out to him a few times. --- "Alright everyone, ready to go?" Eisen asked after cleaning up the cooking kit and preparing for the next day ofbat. "Yup~!" Bree said gleefully, while Jyuuk nodded as well. "But first, Eisen. Can I talk to you in private for a second?" The Monkey-Man said and moved to the other side of the room, waving Eisen over while Bree tilted her head in confusion and then simply shrugged before starting to check she had everything they needed in her backpack again. "Everything alright?" Eisen asked with a slightly worried frown, but Jyuuk nodded to calm him down. "Yes, don¡¯t worry. Everything is mostly alright. But I just want to let you know that this in-game day is thest day before I need to get up for work. And I¡¯m not sure if we will be able to get you to the level you need to be for that quest by today and get back to that town, Melroe, right?" "Ah, that¡¯s right... Ipletely forgot about that." Eisen muttered to himself and closed his eyes while slowly scratching his beard in thought. "Thanks for reminding me, Jyuuk." "No problem, but it¡¯s not about that. If I log off, I¡¯ll just be lying around here and be a target when I wake back up, not to speak of my beasts, of course, who might just be killed in their sleep. I know I can¡¯t be, because of that whole offline and sleep protection, but I¡¯m still worried. If we don¡¯t make it back to Melroe before I have to go, could you just take me with you? I will log off on Yamikuma¡¯s back and have him carry me there. Otherwise, I would probably bepletely lost and wouldn¡¯t be able to find my way there." Jyuuk exined, and Eisen nodded as he understood. "Alright, I will do that, then. Don¡¯t worry. But I hope that I will be able to reach my goal by the end of the day as well. It might be tight, but with the strength of these Goblins and how much experience they gave up until now, it should be possible, even if just barely. And if not today, then by tomorrow morning." Eisen exined, and Jyuuk leaned slightly forward in a bow to show his gratitude. "Thank you, Eisen." He said, and Eisen pped him on the back with a softugh. "No problem, kid. Now, let¡¯s get going, shall we?" Chapter 55 Commander "Careful, there¡¯s a rare one behind the next corner..." Bree exined after scanning the next group of goblins that they saw in the second area of the goblin town. "It¡¯s a Tamer, apparently, and it¡¯s specialized in poisonous animals. Snakes, scorpions, and spiders. They¡¯re climbing all over it..." She said with slight disgust in her voice, while Jyuuk¡¯s interest was peaked. "A Tamer? Interesting. But that Goblin should be hard to deal with. Except if we could kill all of the tamed monsters before him, but that could be hard." The Monkey-man said, and Eisen nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that would make it a lot easier. They are rtively small, so they shouldn¡¯t have much health, right?" Eisen asked, and Bree nodded to say yes. "Mhm! These ones do a lot of damage, but they have neither high health or defense." "Then maybe I could try something. I told you about my element, right? I¡¯ve got an idea of what I could do with that, but it will have to be the first part of the fight. Otherwise, the monsters could jump off of him and attack us before I can do what I want to try out." Eisen exined, in response to which Bree and Jyuuk nodded, trying to help out whichever way they could. So, Bree buffed Eisen¡¯s magic attack while he moved around the building they hid behind to a better position. Eisen pushed out his mana and spread it to a spacerge enough to encase the goblin whole in its mist-like state, and then infused it with his element, watching as it turned into a giant ball of the earthen-me. Eisen tried to change its state so that it turned intoplete dirt and then loosened it up until it became more like sand since he couldn¡¯t turn it fully into dust just yet. Then, after signaling Bree and Jyuuk that he would start now, Eisen shot the sand forward as quickly as he could and stopped it right around the Goblin Tamer. It was surprised, and its monsters nearly jumped off of its body, but before then Eisen managed to change the state of his element again into its full me state, causing it to explode outward. Luckily, this was enough to nearly immediately kill most of the monsters that crawled all over the Goblin¡¯s body. [Magic Spell Learned] me of the Earth Sand Explosion [Add to spell library?] "Yes, add to spell library!" Eisen muttered out while sprinting forward toward the tamer to finish it off, while Bree instantly de-buffed the group of goblins and Jyuuk¡¯s beasts hurried forward as well. Eisen shed his sword sideways while the Goblin Tamer tried to block his iing attack with the wooden staff it was holding, that simply snapped in half on contact with Eisen¡¯s Zweih?nder, and since the fire already damaged the Goblin as well, it was easily killed by to more shes from Eisen sword. So, Eisen turned around and looked at the other goblins, most of which were taken care of by the others in Eisen¡¯s party already. And as such, Eisen helped his friends out by attacking and finishing off the goblins that Jyuuk¡¯s beasts were fighting against by stabbing them in their back, allowing the beasts to support their master by fighting against thest standing goblin with him. [You are now Level 67] "Great!" Eisen smiled in glee when he saw that level-up message. Leveling up was incredibly easy for the first few hours that Eisen, Bre, and Jyuuk entered the second area of the Goblin-town due to the sheer level of the goblins. There was a simple reason for that: While the goblins got stronger the closer to the castle, they also seemed to be more intelligent, and as such often times had sses like Mage or Cleric that required such intelligence. Sure, there were still a few physicalbatants, but those were in the far minority of the goblin groups. And since this meant that the Goblins didn¡¯t have great physical stats, they were easily and quickly killed even inrge groups as long as the party had the proper tactic for the attack. And it also didn¡¯t take Bree that long to grab the Goblins¡¯ mana crystals anymore, since by now she simply stabbed into their heart to create a small opening and ripped them out. The mana crystals were about the size of an index finger, so Bree didn¡¯t really have to look for them anymore as much, at leastpared to when they were still the size of rice grains. So while Bree was grabbing the Mana-crystals, Eisen and Jyuuk were gathering everything else that could be of use, like the gems from the mages¡¯ staffs for example, and then they moved on to the next group of interest. During thisst fight, the only thing of interest was the gem at the end of the Tamer¡¯s staff, which seemed to simply be a ¡¯Beast Gem¡¯. Eisen would try to figure out what its effects wereter, but for now, concentrated onbat. Eisen¡¯s new magic element also had to do with this speed, since he often used it to attack in simple ways before then shing at the goblins with his Zweih?nder. He used it so much that his skill ranked up, giving him better control over the element and an INT and WIS stat each. And they managed to do all of this so fast that the party soon found their way to the gate leading to the third andst area that was in the immediate vicinity of the castle. "There aren¡¯t any guards around?" Bree asked curiously and looked around the closed gate, and then shrugged once she confirmed this. "Well, better for us, right?" Eisen smiled and looked at the gate that was closed shut with a big lock in front of it. Jyuuk tilted his head slightly and crossed his arms while seeing this. "Should we try to just break it?" He suggested, but Eisen shook his head while grabbing a small piece of metal, which he then formed into two simple tools: A bent tension wrench, and a lockpick. "It¡¯s a fairly simple lock as far as I can tell, with only... three pins? It¡¯s as if they wanted people to pick this lock..." Eisen exined and shook his head in disapproval before getting to work. It¡¯s not the first time he¡¯s picked a lock. After all, it was one of the best ways to properly understand the mechanism of a lock, so Eisen practiced lockpicking a few times when trying to construct such a lock mechanism in real life. Well, even then, this was the type of lock that Eisen didn¡¯t expect to find in a medieval scenario. After all, locks were constructedpletely different back thenpared to modern locks. But maybe this was to give an advantage to those that already knew how to pick them. Either way, Eisen didn¡¯tin and simply got to work. Eisen inserted the tension wrench at the bottom of the lock and applied slight torque to it, following which Eisen used the pick and looked for the ¡¯weirdest¡¯ pin, meaning the pin that stuck out most, which he then pushed upward and properly set in ce. This allowed Eisen to turn the lock further, and afterward, he set the ¡¯second weirdest¡¯ pin in ce, turned the lock further, and atst set the third pin in ce so that he could fully open it. [Lockpicking Skill Learned] "Oh? That¡¯s a skill, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself while Jyuuk and Bree looked at him in awe. "As expected of you, Eisen." Jyuuk said with a smile and was only met with approval from Bree. "Mhm~! You did that so easily, without even having the skill~!" "Haha, yeah, but this lock wasn¡¯t so hard, to begin with, so it wasn¡¯t anything that great." Eisenughed and then slowly pushed the wooden gate open, making sure that there weren¡¯t any Goblins waiting on the other side. So, Eisen quietly moved through the gate and hurried to hide in the area between the closest building and the wall, waving over Bree and Jyuuk. "Alright, let¡¯s be careful now, we don¡¯t know what kind of Goblins are around here." Bree said and carefully looked around the corner of the house until she spotted a small open area with a well in its center. On the edge of that well sat a goblin that was about one or two heads taller than others usually were, wearing, for Goblin standards, fine clothes. For some reason, it didn¡¯t look like it was abat type at all, and despite its height seemed to be rather weak. Around it were another five goblins, all of which seemed to be regr goblin types, including a Shieldbearer, Mage, Cleric, Assassin, and Swordsman. Wondering what took Bree so long to determine a good approach, Eisen came closer and asked her "Can you see anything?" She turned around and nodded in response. "I think so, yes. I think it¡¯s a Goblin Commander. They themselves aren¡¯t directly strong, but they can greatly increase the strength of the goblins under theirmand. And those goblins will do everything they can to protect their Commander. But if we can kill it, the other goblins will receive a short de-buff for about half a minute! That should give us enough time to disrupt their party structure so that we can kill them quickly enough!" "I see... Yes, that sounds like a good n. But how do we get the Commander, then?" Eisen asked, and Bree crossed her arms in thought. "Well... it¡¯s basically surrounded by the other goblins, so the best way to attack it without rming them would be from above, but the only one out of our group that can do that is Aotori, and she can¡¯t do enough damage to kill it quickly enough..." She exined, and Eisen scratched his beard while a slight grin began to form on his face. "I¡¯ll deal with it, but from the moment that I attack the Commander, you two have to do your best so that I won¡¯t be instantly killed by the others. Let¡¯s go with our standard tactic for that, then." Eisen exined and looked up at the roof of the building they were hiding behind. He pushed out mana out of his body and spread it across the wall in front of him, activating transmutation to pull out certain parts of it, forming some simple, steep and narrow stairs for him to climb up on. "H-huh? Eisen, what are you doing?" Bree asked withplete surprise in her voice while the old man took step after step until he reached the roof, where he looked down and only winked at her since he didn¡¯t want to pull unwanted attention to himself. Eisen looked for the best rooftop to start a surprise attack and found that it was luckily just the one of the building next to the one he was on right now. So, carefully, Eisen created a small bridge between the two rooftops with the help of transmutation and then created another small and narrow tform that made a jump even easier. Signaling Bree and Jyuuk that they should prepare to attack, Eisen did the same and grabbed his Zweih?nder tightly, jumping forward with his sword pointed downward as he closed in on the Goblin Commander¡¯s head. It seemed to have great senses, so it noticed the sounds that Eisen made while jumping off of the rooftop, but it was toote. When it looked upward to search for the source of those sounds, it was met with the cold metal from a de that stabbed right through its body! Of course, from this height even Eisen took a good amount of damage, nearly half of his total health, but that was fine since this attack was enough to kill themander, nearly instantly de-buffing the other goblins around him visibly as they were encased in a dark purple mist that shot out from themander¡¯s body. The other goblins tried to attack Eisen instantly when they realized what was going on, but it was pretty much toote for them as well, as they were attacked instantly as well. The Swordsman was mauled by Yamikuma, the cleric scratched by Aotori, while Bree hammered onto the Mage and Jyuuk swung his pole toward the assassin. At the same time, Eisen recovered from the impact to the ground and shed his Zweih?nder at the Shieldbearer. This fight had already been decided. --- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 67] [HP - 1781][MP - 1590] [STR - 100][END - 101][AGI - 99][INT - 92][WIS - 92][CHA - 10] [Titles] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker V] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 2][Level - 23] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 2][Level - 23] -[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 17] -[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 7] -[cksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 61] -[Cooking][Rank - 0][Level - 68] -[Crafting Space][Rank - 0][Level - 51] -[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Enchanting][Rank - 1][Level - 41] -[me of the Earth Magic][Rank - 1][Level - 32] -[Golemancy][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 4] -[Lockpicking][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 4] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 46] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 2][Level - 24] -[Swordsmanship][Rank - 2][Level - 58] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 10] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 56 Field Boss After they had finished off this first group in thest area of the goblin town, they directly moved on to the next after looting whatever they needed to from the Goblin corpses. This time around, Eisen wouldn¡¯t try the same type of attack if there was a Goblinmande since the risk involved was simply far too much. Not only was it a waste of time or pills to replenish all the health that he would lose, but if Eisen was ever going to miss amander or if it was able to dodge, Eisen would basically bepletely done for and be nearly instantly killed by the whole group of Goblins the moment that he would hit the ground. It was a good chance to try it out at least once, but it wasn¡¯t a good idea to continue this in the long run, so they chose a different tactic from then on. Whenever they met a group of Goblins with amander as its leader, they would try and distract some of the regr goblins so that they would investigate and one side of the Commander was exposed, after which Yamikuma with Jyuuk on his back would run toward him. Before they reached that spot, Jyuuk would jump forward and use either the force or explosion cap, this always depended on what types the other goblins were, to attack the feet of themander, leaving all of the goblins to stagger, which gave Yamikuma enough time to push away the most threatening goblins to a good distance. After that, Eisen, Bree, and Aotori would follow. Bree and Aotori both would attack the physically weakest goblin together, while Eisen helped Jyuuk out to kill themander as quickly as possible. Once they managed this, the other goblins would feel their moment of weakness approach, giving the group the chance to finish all of the goblins off. They did this for about an hour until Yamikuma actually evolved! He reached the peak of Rank 2 quite a while ago already, but ording to Jyuuk, there were some kinds of requirements for the darkness bear to evolve. What those requirements were wasn¡¯t actually mentioned, but Jyuuk said that he figured it was simply about killing a certain amount of monsters, as that was the simplest reason for now. And not only Yamikuma evolved, but something else happened as well! Aotori¡¯s chicks grew up enough to participate inbat, and shortly afterward, Aotori evolved into a Frozen-Eagle! She grew slightly in size, and her feathers changed from somewhat translucent in some areas and glittering like ice, all the way to being made of an ice-like substance that was cold to the touch, but apparently couldn¡¯t melt, at least not in these temperatures. But most importantly, as Tsurishika didn¡¯t need to protect and take care of the chicks anymore, the five young eagles, as well as the stag, were able to do a little bit inbat. It was a mostly simple distraction, but this was already enough to give them a little bit of experience for their efforts! This would hopefully be enough to have them evolve soon enough and let them attack. It didn¡¯t matter too much to Eisen, though, since this was probably going to be long after Jyuuk and Eisen split up again. After all, the way that Eisen and Jyuuk would y in the future wasrgely different. Eisen would probably stop fighting inrge amounts like this and spend some time simply crafting, while Jyuuk seemed to be the type of person that would prefer abat-rted ystyle. And Eisen also didn¡¯t want to bring Jyuuk to the ce the mysterious cat told him about to finish the quest since Eisen didn¡¯t know what would happen if he just brought someone with him. He and Bree decided together that she also wouldn¡¯te. Again, just in case. Eisen didn¡¯t know what kind of creature that cat actually was, and didn¡¯t want to risk anything. Either way, for now, with the help of these other six beasts that would help distract the goblins, it was possible for the group to advance even faster. As such, it didn¡¯t take long for them to reach the final stronghold of this town, the Goblin Castle. On their way, Eisen managed to gain three more levels, meaning that as long as he leveled up one more time, the most important and hardest part of the quest would be done. Eisen put one stat point from leveling up into his AGI stat to bring it to 100, giving him the effectiveness-increase for this stat, and then put the other points equally into INT and WIS, meaning that both of them were just one stat point away from 100. There were two guard units stationed in front of the gate leading into the courtyard of the castle, which the group managed to take care of rtively quickly, after which they snuck inside and hid wherever they could while getting closer toward the throne room of the castle, where Bree suggested they looked for the Goblin King. Apparently, the Goblin King counted as some kind of ¡¯Field Boss¡¯, and as such would give a lot of experiencepared to other rank 4 monsters, but then again would give you quite a hard fight. Especially when it came to goblins, who were known to be incredibly greedy, you should expect to find some treasures. "The Goblin King¡¯s level shouldn¡¯t be that high, so I¡¯m sure we can handle it, even if just barely." Bree exined as the group got closer to the grand wooden door that leads into the throne room that was apparentlypletely detached from the rest of the castle. Overall, the ¡¯castle¡¯ wasn¡¯t actually that big. It only consisted of thisrge central room, thick walls, and two watchtowers. "Got it. If the Goblin King is in there, we shouldn¡¯t expect it to be alone, right?" Eisen asked, and Bree nodded in reply. "Mhm! Especially because there aren¡¯t any Goblins out here... they might have all gathered inside with the king." The Fey-kin exined. "Jyuuk, there are a few windows on the sides of the hall. Can you look through them with one of the Eagles to see how many Goblins are waiting for us?" Eisen asked and the Monkey-man nodded in response. "Yes, I will try." He said and looked at Nagaretori, the smallest and quickest of the five young eagle siblings. Nagaretori¡¯s eyes turnedplete white the same moment that Jyuuk¡¯s did, showing that their sights were now connected, and the small blue eagle took off. Not long after this, Jyuuk began to talk about what he could see. "There¡¯s arge Goblin sitting on a thrown, that seems to be the king, and there are five groups of Goblin Commanders kneeling on the ground in front of him, with 25 more goblins directly behind them, also bowing down. The king seems to be holding some kind of speech. It doesn¡¯t seem like it¡¯s ending any time soon." He exined, and in response, Eisen closed his eyes and scratched his beard in thought, which was when he got an idea. "Bree, give me those sks we found in some of the buildings around here. Oh, and empty ss bottles, please." Eisen said with a grin, and Bree tilted her head but did as the old man said,ying about a dozen small sks onto the ground in front of Eisen. Even while closed, they gave off a strong alcoholic smell. Eisen took some of the ss bottles that Bree gave him next and activated his transmutation, forming them into small, hollow ss balls with an opening at the top and only a quite thinyer of ss. Then, he grabbed the sks and filled up these balls with the strong alcohol one after another, thenpletely closed the ss balls up again with transmutation. "Eisen, what are you going to do with those?" Bree asked curiously, and Eisen handed out the different ss balls to everyone in the group. "Well, what we¡¯re going to do now is throw these at the goblins, and then light all of them on fire. The moment I open this door, throw them inside toward them as quickly as you can, okay? This is our best chance at weakening them for now. I suggest that when the fire spreads inside, we storm in and take care of as many Goblins as we can, and preferably some of themanders as well." "That sounds like a great idea, actually! Let¡¯s do it!" Bree smiled brightly and Jyuuk nodded in agreement as well, but first gave some of the spheres to his eagles, one to each of the newly-born, and two to Aotori. While they were all preparing to throw the balls into the hall, Eisen got out one of the me-enchanted mana crystals and prepared to activate it. He slowly moved to the door and nodded at Bree and Jyuuk to make sure they were ready, and then quickly pushed the door open. Immediately, the six Eagles flew inside and dropped the ss balls onto the group of goblins while Eisen, Bree, and Jyuuk threw their respective ss balls into the crowd as well. When Eisen noticed that the Goblins and the areas around them were now covered in the strong alcohol, he poured his mana into the enchantment and threw the burning mana-crystal into the room. The moment that the me came in contact with the alcohol¡¯s fumes, an explosion shot outward and lit up the room, slowly burning down whatever wood or fabrics were inside and spreading further through them. Luckily, some of the windows broke during that explosion which let the smoke escape to an amount while the mes continued burning. The goblins screamed loudly and that was the party¡¯s signal to attack. When the first goblins came rushing out of the fire, they were immediately met with one of three different weapons. A Sword, a Pole, or a Hammer. Due to them not carrying their weapons and being already damaged through the fire, the Goblins were barely able to fight back in the slightest, which meant that one after another the Goblins fell. And this was only elerated once Eisen and Jyuuk started getting rid of the Commanders, as themon goblins got a de-buff one after another, and all of this while hidden from the King through the mes. After a while, the fire burnt out and what was left was only the party surrounded by a mountain of Goblin corpses, while the Goblin King was watching in a mixture of disgust and boredom. It stood up with what seemed like a sigh and grabbed the goldyered cane leaning onto the throne while its cape made of simple animal hides fluttered around behind it. The Goblin King readjusted the crown on the top of its head and stepped down the stairs in front of itself onto the scorched carped. When it stood there in front of the party, they could see that it was about as tall as Eisen was. The King looked the party up and down and scoffed at them, after which he held his cane in front of himself as if preparing forbat. Eisen looked to his left at Bree, and then to his right at Jyuuk, nodding at both of them to make sure they were ready to go. The fire didn¡¯t do that much damage to them, but it still drained a little bit HP just due to the immense heat alone, so Eisen didn¡¯t know in what condition everyone was. The first to move was Bree, who raised her arms to cast a de-buff spell on the Goblin King and then cast a buff spell on herself and her teammates. Noticing the change in its condition, the King reacted as well and jumped forward at immense speed, so fast that Eisen could just barely react. He held his Zweih?nder in front of him and blocked the attack while the King¡¯s cane slid along the side of the de and was caught by the parry hooks. Taking that chance, Jyuuk swung his pole forward while having the force cap equipped and hit the side of the King¡¯s chest, pushing him back. This gave Eisen the chance to sh at it, but the sword barely cut into the Goblin¡¯s skin. Noticing that the Goblin King was nning a counterattack, Eisen jumped back and looked at Jyuuk, who quicklymanded his beasts to keep it busy. Eisen turned to Bree and pointed at her hammer. "I need you to help me out. With my strength alone I can¡¯t pierce the Goblin¡¯s skin. Jyuuk, can you use the Frost Cap in the center of its chest? Then I will stab my sword at that spot, and Bree, you please hit the end of my sword as hard as you can at the same time, alright?" The both of them nodded at him and Jyuuk quickly screwed off one of the caps he had on his pole, then screwed on the Frost cap. Just at the moment that the King wanted to swing its cane at Aotori, Jyuukmanded her to move aside quickly and then took that chance to enact the start of Eisen¡¯s n, stabbing the pole forward so that it came in contact with the King¡¯s chest, freezing over a small area of it directly above the Goblin¡¯s chest. Instantly when Jyuuk moved away, Eisen followed up and stabbed the tip of his de toward that exact spot, and simultaneously with the impact onto the frozen skin was sped up with the support of Bree¡¯s hammer hitting against the hilt, giving the sword enough power to just slide through the front of the Goblin¡¯s body, but... it stopped when the de hit the mana crystal that seemingly reced the Goblin King¡¯s heart. And due to the immense vitality that creatures in this world had, the King wouldn¡¯t just die from that. It grinned at Eisen and grabbed his shoulders, trying to dig its w-like fingers into his body. But Eisen wasn¡¯t dumb, he knew the density of Mana Crystals as well as their position. And even if it hadn¡¯t been there, this attack probably wouldn¡¯t have directly killed the Goblin King anyway. So, Eisen twisted his sword around a few times to create arge enough hole for the most important part of his n. He pulled the Zweih?nder out of the Goblin King¡¯s body and threw it to the ground, grabbing thest of the ss balls that he just prepared and stuffing it right through the hole that Eisen just created, cing it in front of the Goblin¡¯s mana crystal heart. This startled the King so much that it let go of Eisen to try and get rid of this foreign object, but it was toote, as Eisen already expelled some of his mana which he immediately infused with the me of the Earth element to push it into every little nook and cranny that it could enter, and then stepped back while mentallymanding the Earthen me to turn into pure fire and turned it up as hot as he could. The heat broke the ss and caused an explosive me to shoot out of the Goblin King¡¯s body that only opened up more space that was then filled with Eisen¡¯s own elemental mes, surrounding the mana crystal to disconnect it from the Goblin¡¯s body. And as such, the Goblin King lost much of its strength, but it was still standing, with the strength and vitality of a Field Boss. So, Eisen turned the heat down and dissipated his element at the exact moment that he pushed his arm through the hole in the Goblin King¡¯s chest, cing his fist around the cold mana crystal before he pulled on it with all his strength. Thest thing that the Goblin King saw was its own mana crystal before it dropped onto his back, dead. Chapter 57 Mushroom [You are now level 71] [Casanova Title Unlocked] With a smile on his face Eisen stood there in front of the Goblin King¡¯s dead body, with a blood-covered mana crystal in his hand. He turned around and looked at his party members who were watching him with mixed expressions. They seemed to somewhat struggle to stomach the sight of Eisen basically pulling out a Monster¡¯s heart, but at the same time were standing there in awe at that sight. Especially Jyuuk, as it seemed like something right out of some kind of anime to him. Eisen chuckled softly and stepped over the King¡¯s body. "Bree, could you give me the water cup?" He asked, and she simply took the Mana Crystal from him instead. "That¡¯s fine! I can clean it~!" She said with a smile, and Eisen nodded as he let go of the Crystal and decided to quickly clean his hand with a rag, before opening his Status page. He turned to his party members and grinned slightly. "Ah, by the way, I leveled up again with this fight. We can finally get back to Melroe." "Congrattions, Eisen! Now you can finish that quest!" Bree said with a smile as she stashed away the Mana Crystal. "Yeah, finally. I¡¯ll just assign my stat points now, and then let¡¯s look around if there¡¯s anything useful around here." Eisen said and quickly brought his INT and WIS stats to 100, assigning the other three points randomly. [Your INT stat reached 100. It¡¯s effectiveness rose by 10%] [Your WIS stat reached 100. It¡¯s effectiveness rose by 10%] After waving these notifications away, Eisen looked at his new title as well. Because obviously, Casanova wasn¡¯t the first thing he thought of when thinking about that brutal scene just now. [Title - Casanova] [Description] You stole someone¡¯s heart [Effect] Inflict stronger emotions on other people Eisen looked nkly at that description and waved it away before starting tough at what it told him. Bree and Jyuuk wondered what was going on, but quickly ignored it, following which everyone started working on each of their tasks. Bree was going to extract the Mana Crystals from the rest of the dead goblins, while Jyuuk and Eisen looked around for anything useful. They first grabbed every crystal or gem that they found on the equipment of the goblins and then looked around the room for anything else of interest. And it didn¡¯t take long until they found such a thing. Behind the throne that the Goblin King was sitting on was a decorated chest. It seemed quite heavy when Eisen tried to lift it, but it was locked so they couldn¡¯t open it. Jyuuk sighed and looked over at Eisen. "Can you lockpick it? It seems prettyplicated, though... Although, I can¡¯t tell. So, can you?" He asked excitedly, as Jyuuk started to be interested in how Eisen did things like this, but Eisen shook his head with a soft smile. "Or... We can just see if we can use the key that the Goblin King has in its pocket." He said and pushed his hand into the Goblin¡¯s pocket until he pulled out a small, rusted old key. "O-Or we can do that, yes..." Jyuuk said and looked away, but then opened his eyes in slight surprise. "Eisen, I need to go in two in-game hours. I set an rm through Rover." The Monkey-man whispered and Eisen nodded in response. "Got it. Let¡¯s just grab whatever we can and get out of here. We can split up the loot when you¡¯re back." "Of course, thank you. Now, do you want to see what¡¯s inside the chest?" Jyuuk asked and excitedly looked at the key in Eisen¡¯s hand. The old man smiled and pushed the rusty key into the lock of the chest, slowly twisting it to the right until the both of them could hear a quiet clicking sound. Eisen opened the chest up, and he and Jyuuk were met with literal treasures. It was filled to the brim with different coins, even some gold coins, as well as a number of different gems and crystals. "Well, seems like we managed to get quite a bit of money out of this, huh?" Eisenughed and waved over Bree so that they could stash away all of this until they reached Melroe again. With her eyes opened wide the moment that sheid eyes on the treasure, she put it into her backpack. Now, it was time for the party to get out of this Goblin Town again. --- "Alright, we should be safe around here. For now, at least." Bree said while looking around the clearing and the light of the setting sun shone into her eyes. "That¡¯s good. Eisen, Bree, I think it¡¯s time for me to sleep now..." Jyuuk said nervously while looking at the clock in the corner of his eye disying the time in real life which he ced there when the time to log off wasing closer." "Huh? What do you mean? Should we set up camp here? We should be able to make it to Melroe if we hurry, though..." Bree said confused and looked at the sun to make her own deductions about the time of day and how much time they had left until nightfall. "Yes, maybe, but I can¡¯t go on for today anymore. I¡¯m not sure if you noticed with Eisen, but a side effect of the stolen experience is an incredibly irregr sleep cycle, and this is going to be the type of sleep where I will be knocked out for a day or two." Jyuuk exined with the story that he¡¯s been using whenever he needed to exin to someone what the problem with his sleep was. "Oh? Eisen didn¡¯t have that until now, no... he simply slept like normal, usually." The Fey-kin tilted her head and looked at the old man, and even Jyuuk was a bit surprised by this. If this was the case, this would mean that Eisen was online and ying basically constantly for nearly a whole week. "Haha, yes, that¡¯s true. Well, that time might stille, though. If not now, then surely sometimeter." Eisen chuckled lowly and then turned to Bree. "But don¡¯t worry, Jyuuk and I already talked about this. He will go to sleep on Yamikuma¡¯s back and be carried to Melroe like that." "Yes, exactly. And if you want, Eisen, Yamikuma can carry you as well. Especially after hisst evolution, his strength increased immensely, and he¡¯s be quicker now that he¡¯s a Shadow Bear, so he can carry the Backpack as well, while Bree on her own should be light enough to be carried by Tsurishika. If it¡¯s alright for you to give your backpack to Eisen for the trip back, at least." Jyuuk exined and jumped onto Yamikuma¡¯s back. "Okay, that¡¯s alright~! Here, Eisen!" Bree said with a big smile and handed Eisen her backpack, which he happily received and swung over his back. "Damn, Bree, this is pretty heavy... Are you really alright after carrying this around all day?" The old man said and already felt phantom-pain in his back. He was d that this was a game, since he probably never would be able to carry this for more than two minutes in real life, especially at his current age. "No, it¡¯s fine~! I got the Backpacking skill not too long after starting as a Supporter~!" She exined, and Eisen nodded in response. Because of course there would be a skill like that. But Eisen was wondering about something for a while now. "Actually, Bree, under what category do these type of skills fall? They are neither Combat nor Creation oriented, right?" He asked, and Bree ced her index finger to her cheek in thought. "Hmm, it¡¯s like a General skill? It¡¯s something that anyone can technically do and learn to whatever amount. Some of these skills take a lot longer to get than others, and there are some upations that make some general skills grow faster, or let you do different things with them. For example, with your Lockpicking... At a rank up, you might only get effects that just make lockpicking easier, but a Thief might get an effect that lets them see the mechanism!" "I see... Thank you! Then I wonder if there are General skills that help me out..." Eisen muttered to himself as he stepped forward and climbed onto Yamikuma¡¯s back. He looked back one more time and saw that Bree was hugging Tsurishika¡¯s antlers and ying around with the Eagles. "Alright, are we ready to go?" Jyuuk asked, and after getting nods from both Eisen and Bree, he looked at his beasts. "Okay, everyone, follow Eisen¡¯s directions, got it?" The monkey-manmanded and nodded at Eisen behind him before logging off and slowly turning into wood while gripping onto Yamikuma. "Alright guys, let¡¯s go! It¡¯s basically just straight for a while through this forest, but it goes up and down a lot, so we¡¯ll have to look for the best paths to walk on. The tworge beasts, Tsurishika and Yamikuma, nodded in response and began to walk forward, slowly but surely speeding up. They dodged the trees and bushes, and every once a while a group of goblins that were roaming around, all the while Eisen was making sure Jyuuk was properly sitting on Yamikuma¡¯s back so that the unbreakable wooden body wouldn¡¯t fall off the bear¡¯s back in the middle of nowhere. After about an hour of riding on Yamikuma, Eisen heard some rustling in the backpack that seemed to have appeared so gradually that he really hasn¡¯t noticed up until now. While trying to be careful not to drop anything. Eisen grabbed the backpack from his back and opened it up, looking through it until he found the source of the sound: The egg that Jyuuk gave him in exchange for thebat pole. Eisen grabbed the rag that it was wrapped in and opened it up, until he saw the lightly pulsating marshmallow-like egg. Excited, Eisen quickly put the backpack back on and looked at the egg intensely, basically not caring for anything else at that moment. Slowly, the egg grew to the size of his fist within a few minutes, until it suddenly popped open. As the outsideyer of the egg was shriveling together, what was revealed standing on Eisen¡¯s palm was a small, bipedal mushroom without arms, but two small stumps as legs. Eisen peeked down and saw two ck dots hidden underneath the red-based and white-dotted cap. "Hello there, little guy! How are you?" He asked with a smile on his face, and the small mushroom tilted its head... cap, and looked up at therge face in front of it, until the two ck dots began to glitter happily and the Mushroom jumped at Eisen¡¯s head. With a softugh, he caught it and ced it on his palm again, holding it up closer to his face, directly in front of his two eyes, until a notification popped up behind the mushroom. [Congrattions! You tamed a Myconid Hatchling(Amanita Muscaria)] [Taming Skill Learned] [Name the Tamed Monster] Chuckling lightly, Eisen smiled and thought about it for a bit, and then nodded once he decided on a name. "Let¡¯s call you Caria." He said, and in response this name, Caria jumped forward as if wanting to hug Eisen again. [The Tamed Monster has been called Caria] "Haha, I¡¯m d you like the name. Now, what¡¯s this?" The old man smiled and turned his head to look at the new window that popped up when Eisen gave Caria its, or her, name. Mushrooms probably didn¡¯t really have a gender, but Caria definitely seemed somewhat feminine to Eisen in his mind, so he couldn¡¯t help but call her a ¡¯her¡¯. Either way, now Eisen looked at the status window that showed itself. [Caria] [Race - Myconid Hatchling(Amanita Muscaria)][Owner - Eisen] [Rank - 0][Level - 1] [HP - 10] [STR - 1][END - 1][AGI - 1] [Skills] -None Chapter 58 Climb It didn¡¯t take long until the group made it back to Melroe, and just before they entered the tunnel, Eisen and Bree stepped down from Yamikuma and Tsurishika respectively and simply led them into town with a hand on the beast¡¯s back to show everyone that they were tamed. And while they were walking through the town, surrounded by men and women either walking home from or getting to their shift at the mines, they did get a few looks here and there, but most were just in awe at that scene. However, the one that was looking around in awe the most was Caria, the small Myconid Hatchling that Eisen tamed not too long ago, that was now sitting on his shoulder. With a soft chuckle, Eisen rubbed the top of her cap, causing her to look up at him before quickly leaning against his face in the same way as she basically constantly did, trying to hug Eisen. Eisen smiled and looked forward at the Inn that wasing closer. When they were finally standing in front of it, Eisen turned back and looked at Bree. "Could you go inside and ask the Innkeeper if he has a room where there¡¯s enough space for the beasts and me? I¡¯ll wait out here to make sure nothing happens to them." The Fey-kin nodded in response and grabbed her backpack from Eisen again before heading inside, leaving Eisen and the beasts standing outside in front of the Inn. That was when a familiar face walked past him. "Oh, gramps! How are ya doin¡¯?" Belrim, the Dwarven Lord of Melroe asked with his fists held onto his hips before looking at the different monsters surrounding Eisen. "Huh? I thought ye¡¯re a crafter, not a tamer!" Belrim eximed with obvious surprise in his voice. Eisen chuckled lowly in response and nodded his head. "Yes, don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m a crafter. When I was out of town with Bree for a few days to get my level up, I met this kid out there. He¡¯s a tamer, and all of these beasts are his. Well, except for this lil¡¯ girl." The Giant-Dwarf exined andughed softly while holding Caria on his palm. Belrim frowned slightly and leaned forward to look at the wooden figure of a Monkey-Beastperson that was sitting on the ck Bear¡¯s back. "Huh, gramps, ye sure that this isn¡¯t somethin¡¯ ye carved out there to fight loneliness?" "Haha, yes, I¡¯m sure it¡¯s not that, Belrim. He¡¯s called Jyuuk, and like me, he¡¯s lost his experience. Both he and I enter some kind of ¡¯statue state¡¯ when we sleep. Bree said it¡¯s a protection-thing that can start happening when you have a high level, or something like that. Jyuuk turns into wood, and I seem to turn into metal." Eisen quickly exined, and Belrim nodded thoughtfully. "Oh...? So that means ye used to have a high level? Interestin¡¯..." The dwarf muttered out in thought, but then simply shrugged. "Well, if that¡¯s the case, then it seems like it was at least worth it ta steal yer experience." "That¡¯s definitely true, haha." Eisen chuckled and scratched his beard with his eyes closed and a smile forming on his face. "I¡¯ve got ta go now, Gramps. Visit me at my ce sometime, ya ¡¯ear?" Belrimughed and waved at Eisen and the beasts while taking his leave down the slope toward the mines. Nearly at the same time, Bree came back out through the doors of the Inn and looked at Eisen. "Alright, you cane in~! The Boss- erm, Innkeeper told me that you can have one of the big rooms on the ground floor. It should definitely be big enough! It will cost a bit more than usual, though..." She exined, and Eisen nodded. "Don¡¯t worry, I didn¡¯t expect it to be as cheap as usual!" Eisen said and turned to the beasts, telling them that it was now time to get inside. The beasts followed Eisen inside slowly and sluggish, as if incredibly tired, and were then led to the room by Bree. It was quiterge, with chouches, beds and different furniture inside. Before letting the beasts lie down, Eisen moved some of that furniture around to make space for them, andid some nkets around the central carpet so that they had enough space to sleep. "Bree, there¡¯s two beds, do you want to stay in here as well? We¡¯ll just leave Jyuuk to sleep with the beasts. Yamikuma¡¯s fur seems quitefy anyway. But this way might be good, since I will be getting on my way to finish my quest, and I don¡¯t know when I¡¯ll be back. So until Jyuuk wakes up, just check up on the beasts every once in a while, alright?" Eisen suggested and sat down on the bed after Yamikuma shook Jyuuk off of his body onto the center of the carpet. That alone looked quite weird. Jyuuk¡¯s body moved still like he just had a normal body, just a lot... weirder and slower, but he still fell onto the ground and ended upying there like he was sleeping. Immediately following this, Yamikuma and Tsurishikaid down around him and basically instantly fell asleep, while the Eaglesid down in the empty spaces between Jyuuk and the other beasts. Bree smiled brightly when she saw this scene and nodded. "Okay~! But be careful tomorrow, alright?!" She eximed and sat down on her bed, while Eisen chuckled andid down on his. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll be careful. Goodnight, Bree!" He said with a smile and quickly changed out of his leather armor under the sheets, and then watched Caria as sheid down on Eisen¡¯s chest, using his beard as a pillow. "Goodnight, Eisen~!" Bree responded andid down as well. And just like that, the group spent the first night in a while sleeping without needing to worry about being attacked by a horde of Goblins. --- "Alright, I¡¯m off! See youter, Bree!" Eisen said with a smile and waved at Bree while walking toward the western gate with Caria on his shoulder and a small backpack on his back, filled with a few provisions and different pills, as well as his Zweih?nder over his other shoudler in case he met some monsters on the way to the Cat¡¯sir. "Be careful, Eisen! See you soon~!" Bree yelled out and waved at Eisen as well as he was taking his leave. The old man took his time walking through the town and then walked through the western tunnel together with therge amount of physicalborers, although Eisen wasn¡¯t sure where they would be going. In the direction of the forest it was obvious, as it was simply to gather lumber, but out in the direction where there were basically just rocks everywhere that was a bit moreplicated. Maybe there were mines, other than the two main ones in town, somewhere around? Since most of theborers were carrying pickaxes with them, Eisen figured that something along these lines was the case. This reminded Eisen to maybe buy a pickaxe, or better even make on himself, and try out what mining was like in this game. He did earn a little bit of money a few times through something like that while traviling in the past, so he was somewhat familiar with it. It definitely couldn¡¯t hurt to get to know the different materials of this world more intimately in such a way. Back in the day, the ways that Eisen¡¯s father made him train to get intimate with metals were... well... really intimate. Eisen shook those thoughts away again and simply followed the path in front of him. This morning, he talked to Bree, the Innkeeper and a few other random people to ask them about some local legends or rumors that had to do with a mysterious being hiding high in the mountains somewhere near town, and apparently there was really a case of there being something like that, and all these rumors and legends pointed toward one ce. The peak of the highest of the mountains immediately surrounding Melroe. That was actually the ce where Bree was formerly abandoned by herrades, which, in Eisen¡¯s eyes, was only more reason for her not toe along, as it seemed to be some kind of trauma for her. So, Eisen chose to go there just with Caria by his side. After all, he didn¡¯t think that it was really possible for her to be too far away from him, as his tamed monster. And he also hoped that whatever he was going to meet soon wouldn¡¯t mind, especially since this little bean of a Myconid couldn¡¯t be a threat to anyone! Eisen obviously hoped to keep it that way! Since there seemed to be different paths for monsters to evolve, Eisen resolved himself to make sure that Caria would take the best path to stay as adorable as possible! Eisen followed the description he was given as closely as possible and walked up the narrow paths that would bring him up the mountain. At the beginning, they weren¡¯t really that steep, so it was just like a nice, rxing walk. But soon enough, the paths became so steep that parts of it were already carved into steps to make climbing them easier. After about two hours of climbing these paths non-stop, Eisen stopped for a bit and looked around to take in the scene in front of himself. From this spot, he could oversee all of Melroe! This high up, it somehow looked like just a hole in the ground, maybe something that was literally drilled into a rock. He could see the Inn, all the ces he worked at until now, and even the bottom of the whole town where his ¡¯duel¡¯ against Hendrick took ce. With a somewhat sentimental smile, Eisen sat down on a nearby rock and simply took in the sight with his elbow rested on his knee and supporting his head with his hand. Seeing this, Caria tried to mimick him, but instead simply ended dropping forward when she tried to rest her cap on a nonexistent hand. Chuckling softly, Eisen caught her and ced her back on his shoulder. "Be careful! Don¡¯t want you to hurt yourself, Caria." He said and continued looking forward for a while. Not long after this, Eisen stood back up and slightly stretched before continuing to ascend this mountain. It also didn¡¯t take much longer that Eisen was met with rather serious hurdles, ones that he wouldn¡¯t have been able to ovee in his real body, as they required him to actually climb up certain areas that consisted ofpletely vertical walls. It usually wasn¡¯t much, only two or three meters at most, and due to his new strength and agility, it wasn¡¯t a problem either, but it was somewhat annoying to Eisen to only be able to walk a few meters and then have to hoist himself up a wall. But at least this made the climb somewhat faster than Eisen had expected, and it didn¡¯t take long until Eisen was met with another simple path. With slight sighs, Eisen followed that path for a few hundred meters until he was standing on arge tform so high up he could see basically everything that surrounded this mountain for miles and miles on end. It was truly a beautiful sight! And then, Eisen turned around and looked at the giant cave entrance with a looming darkness at its core. "I guess this is it, huh?" Eisen said with his face turned to his tinypanion, who seemed to be shaking in her boots! Well, if she was wearing any. And that was when Eisen was hit with shudders all over his body, and only a single thought took up his mind. A thought that appeared so suddenly, and unexpected, but at the same time was strong enough to hit him like a train! A thought that he simply couldn¡¯t help but voice! "Ah... Caria in tiny boots would be super cute..." Chapter 59 Tes "Alright Caria, let¡¯s go in!" Eisen said with an excited grin. He¡¯s been working toward this for quite a while now, so actually being at this ce felt somewhat surreal to him. But most importantly, he wondered what was going to happen. Would he get some kind of amazing skill, or an even better material to work with? Or would he be ughtered alive because some horrid monster simply wanted to turn Eisen into a healthy snack and lured him to its home for some breakfast in bed? "Just one way to find out, I guess!" Eisen shrugged and stepped forward to make his way into the dark cave. It took a little while, but soon his eyes got used to theck of light other than what came through the caveentrance and was able to make his way through the wide tunnels. And not long after the light from the cave entrance couldn¡¯t be seen anymore, another source of light took its ce. There were a number of luminous crystals growing along the walls of the cave glowing in a soft blue light. "Ooh? These look interesting! I wonder what makes them glow like this... Do they store energy and push it out in the form of light?" Eisen asked himself and squatted down next to an especiallyrge piece of these crystals. "I¡¯m sure whoever I¡¯m visiting won¡¯t mind if I take a little bit to y around with." He chuckled and activated his transmutation to cleanly split off a small part of the crystal, which he then ced into his Backpack, before continuing on through the cave. After a few more minutes of walking, Eisen was met with a grand stone doorway. It looked somewhat nk, and Eisen expected it to be more decorated, but in the end it also seemed quite old and rustic, so it had some natural charm to it that possible didn¡¯t need any further decorations. But Eisen kind of hoped to be able to find out what it was that waiting for him on the other side through those decorations when he saw the door in the distance, but it seemed like now he just had to get in and see. Thus, Eisen slowly moved to the door and ced his hands on the two sides, slowly pushing in to open it up. Immediately when he did so, clouds of mist hit his body and poured into the space behind him. It didn¡¯t seem incredibly dense, so Eisen wouldn¡¯t have any trouble continuing on walking, but it was still an immense surprise. The old man entered the misty space in front of him, and was surprised to see that this actually wasn¡¯t where the creature he was going to meet was. There was another tunnel leading further into the mountain, and Eisen figured that that¡¯s where he could find it. And as such, Eisen continued walking forward through the mist. It seemed to him as if there were some ghostly whispers echoing around the cave, but Eisen ignored them and simply kept on walking, albeit while making sure he wouldn¡¯t be ambushed by something by carefully looking around himself. Eisen continued through the tunnel until the mist was cut off, which seemed basically instant. It was as if a literal wall of mist stood behind him. And in front of him, a huge hall was openly disying whatever treasures were inside. Gold coins upon gold coins, and gems of all kind that were all glittering away. It was so bright in this room that Eisen even had to shield his eyes! That made him curious, though, where that light came from. There didn¡¯t seem to be any normal light source around, and all the light seemed toe from the treasure itself. There was really only one thing that didn¡¯t glow in this room, and that was the huge carved gold statue in the center of the room! It was truly magnificent to look at! It was in the shape of a huge sleeping dragon, with a strong body and mighty scales that were all individually carved. It wasn¡¯t as shiny as the rest of the gold in the hall, and on first sight it didn¡¯t even seem to be real gold, but since it was surrounded by it, Eisen figured that it was. The statue seemed so life-like to him that Eisen¡¯s heart nearly skipped a beat from pure surprise and awe. Even though it was just sleeping, it looked so strong and mighty, and seemed as if it was truly alive! For a few seconds, it seemed to Eisen that the Dragon¡¯s body was slightly moving up and down as if it was breathing! Just for a few seconds, though, and soon enough Eisen noticed that it... was really breathing...? "Wait, is this a real dragon?!" Eisen yelled out in surprise and walked up closer to the sleeping creature. Sure, it scared the absolute shit out of Eisen, but he wanted to know if the Dragon¡¯s scales were really made of gold. Just out of curiousity, of course. It definitely wasn¡¯t because he wanted to know if he could use these kinds of scales as if they were real gold, and he definitely didn¡¯t want to try that out as soon as possible. Not at all. But still, Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but try and touch them. It was quite a rare chance, after all. Just before he could touch them, Eisen felt a strong pressure that immediately surpressed his whole being. [You started part (1/3) of the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s first test] He jumped backward while protection the tiny Caria from whatever was causing this, and stared directly into the Dragon¡¯s eye, ignoring the notification that popped up. [You were able to defend against the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s Fearful Presence (Immensely Weakened)] Eisen wanted to read through his notifications to find out what was going on, but before he could, he was met with another wave of the same pressure, just far, far stronger. [You were able to defend against the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s Fearful Presence (Strongly Weakened)] This already nearly brought Eisen to his knees, and it felt as if the Dragon simply stomped on him to squish him like a bug. Eisen hoped that it would be over now, but it was far from it. When Eisen was released from that pressure, it simply hit him again, iparably stronger than thest time. [You were able to defend against the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s Fearful Presence (Weakened)] [Congrattions! You passed part (1/3) of the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s first test! ] Finally the pressurepletely dissipated again and Eisen was able to rx for a moment. But that moment was quite brief, as soon enough the test continued. [You started part (2/3) of the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s first test] Eisen looked at the dragon¡¯s maw that was slowly opening up. Inside the seemingly infinite darkness of its throat, a few sparks started to appear, and fire formed inside. Immediately, Eisen knew that this was a sign that showed something that he really had to dodge wasing. And his intuition was right. From the Dragon¡¯s mouth, mes shot outward toward Eisen. Luckily he was able to dodge, but Eisen knew that he would have died if he got hit by that attack. But it wasn¡¯t time for him to rx yet. So that Eisen could concentrate on dodgingpletely, he ced Caria into his backpack and grasped it tightly. The dragon exhaled through his nostrils and incredibly hot steam shot out, just before it opened its maw once more. From thest shot, Eisen knew that its head wouldn¡¯t move when it was shooting out those mes, but would still follow him when he was moving. So, Eisen waited for the dragon to shoot out its mes and then immediately dodged to the side as far away as he could. This time around, the mes took over arger area than before, and seemed to be significantly hotter on top of that. Eisen stood still and carefully looked at the Dragon, who once more released that hot steam from its nostrils and then opened its maw up again. Once the same sparks appeared in its throat, Eisen prepared to dodge, and immediately did so once he felt the heat of the mes approach. When Eisen was sure that the current fire-beam was over, another notification suddenly popped up in his sight. [You were able to defend against the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s Fire-Breath (Weakened)] [Congrattions! You passed part (2/3) of the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s first test!] "Two out of three, huh? Alright, then bring thest part!" Eisen chuckled and got in a stance to be ready for everything that the Dragon could throw at him. [You started part (3/3) of the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s first test] The Ancient Creature looked at Eisen with a sharp gaze and pushed its knife-like teeth together. While Eisen was trying to figure out what was going on, a light-green mist poured out between the Dragon¡¯s teeth and immediately filled out the whole area around Eisen, so quickly that he had no chance to respond. But nothing was happening to Eisen, he feltpletely normal. But then Eisen noticed a slight difference. The Zweih?nder in his hands felt far, far heavier than usual, and Eisen was struggling to hold it properly. His skin slowly became brittle, and it was hard to move around. It was kind of as if a thinyer of rock grew on him. But it wasn¡¯t anything too great yet. Shortly after Eisen felt these effects, the mist dissipated and the Dragon was waiting for a reaction. Eisen slowly moved his arms around, and theyer of the rock-like substance shattered, which let him move around like normal once more. Eisen could swear that what the Dragon did next was grin somewhat, but he wasn¡¯t sure if he imagined it or not. Either way, soon, the Gold Dragon let out the next wave of the same gas, that once more immediately filled out the whole area around Eisen. This time around, he felt significantly weaker, and his sword was slowly moving toward the ground since Eisen couldn¡¯t hold it anymore. The rockyer on Eisen¡¯s skin became harder and thicker this time, and made it incredibly hard for him to move. After the gas disappeared again, Eisen closed his eyes and quickly tried to break out of this shell. It took more effort than before, but it was still rtively easy for him to do so. And now, judging from thest few parts of the test that Eisen didn¡¯t even agree to taking, thest gas-attack woulde at him, and it would be significantly stronger than the other two. Eisen mentally prepared, and grasped his Zweih?nder tightly. Sure, he could of course always use his ¡¯A Giant¡¯s Strength¡¯ Skill, but to Eisen that felt kind of like cheating for some reason. So, Eisen took the gas on and felt himself turn basically into a statue as it became nearly impossible for him to move. But once thest wave of the gas disappeared, Eisen¡¯s body cracked and a grin formed on his face. He didn¡¯t expect to feel this old and useless even in the game! With a soft chuckle, theyer on Eisen¡¯s hands broke first as he grasped the hilt of his sword tightly and regained enough strength to hold it up. With a slow sh of the sword onto the gold-coin covered floor, the rest of his body broke free, and Eisen looked up at the Dragons grinning face. [You were able to defend against the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s Weakening-Breath (Weakened)] [Congrattions! You passed the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s first test!] Chapter 60 Dragons Eisen stood in front of the Gold Dragon that just put him through that sudden test and waited for something else to happen. The ¡¯First test¡¯ as it was called in the notifications was now over, but who could tell if the dragon would just start the ¡¯Second Test¡¯ instantly afterward. And if it would be harder than the first one, Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if he could survive it. But to his luck, what the dragon did next wasn¡¯t some kind of attack. Instead, it simply began tough. "Good, good! So you did what I asked you to! You came a bit earlier than I expected, so I thought you didn¡¯t reach the goal yet, but apparently everything went well after all!" It said in a deep voice that echoed through the hall they were currently in, and Eisen looked up at the Dragon and chuckled slightly. "So you were that cat I saw in the Inn? Seems like you grew a little bit in those few weeks yourself!" "You could see it that way, yes, but it¡¯s rather different, dear Eisen..." The Dragon said and beared its teeth in a smile before steam started to rise from its body,pletely enveloping it, before itpletely disappeared in what seemed like an instant, as if a strong wind simply blew it away in all directions. What Eisen could see then wasn¡¯t the Dragon anymore, but instead the cat that he saw on his first day in the game. "Oh? So you¡¯re able to transform?" Eisen said with excitement in his eyes as he looked at the golden cat as it climbed onto one of the mountains of treasure to get on eye-level with him. "Indeed I am. I had expected you to be more surprised, as others that I have met in the past were. But what else can I expect from someone that so easily passed my first test. And I do apologize for that. It was simply a way to test whether or not you followed what I asked you to. I thank you for that." The Dragon in the form of a cat slightly bowed its head down, while a notification popped up in front of him. [Quest Sessful - A Mysterious Cat¡¯s Request] [Description] You found yourself in your dreamscape after being called there by an ancient being whose identity you do not know. He requested for you toe to see him within a month after developing your body. You don¡¯t know what will happen if you don¡¯t follow his request, but you don¡¯t want to find out either. [Requirements] Get all of your base Attributes (STR, END, AGI, INT, WIS) to at least 100 [Reward] You are allowed to take the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s second test [Failure] -[Not appearing by the end of the time limit] You will never be able to take any of the Ancient Dragon¡¯s tests -[Not passing the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s test] You will not be allowed to take the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s tests anymore [Time Limit - 1 Month] "Of course. How could I not do this for someone that literally visited me in my dream. Although, you seem to know my name, but what is yours?" Eisen asked and the Dragon in front of him seemed to chuckle lowly. "Excuse my rudeness. My name is Aylrentyrth, but in the past, most Humans, Dwarves, or others of your races have taken to call me Ailren, as it seems easier to pronounce in a conversation." The Dragon exined, and Eisen nodded. "I see, then I hope you won¡¯t mind if I do so as well, Ailren. Now, was the reason you called me here simply for that test?" Eisen asked, and Ailren shook his head, before he jumped from the pile of treasures and steam rose from his body and enveloped him and the space up to two meters above him, before instantly disappearing again, leaving in its stead a simple old man, wearing a somewhat decorated yellow robe. His hair waspletely white and reached to beyond his shoulders, and his beard was quite long itself. His eyes were golden in color, and his ears were slightly pointed, albeit not like those of an Elf. "Shall we take a seat and talk about it over tea?" Ailren asked and moved along one of the paths between the mountains of gold, gems and pearls and was followed by Eisen until they reached a small open spot with a golden table and two chairs in the middle. After Ailren sat down on one of the chairs and waved to the other for Eisen to sit on, the old man did as suggested and sat down at the table. He ced his backpack onto the ground and grabbed Caria from inside to make sure she was alright after the test, since especially that gas might have affected her as well. But luckily, it seemed like she waspletely alright, although a little bit scared and confused by the situation. He ced her down on the table, and she leaned against his hand while trying to hide from Ailren. "And who would that be?" The Ancient Dragon in Human asked with a smile while pouring Eisen some tea from a pot that was standing on the table. "Ah, this is Caria. She¡¯s a Myconid that I tamed. I hope you don¡¯t mind that I brought her." Eisen exined, and Ailren smiled in response while looking at Caria. "Don¡¯t worry about it. I wouldn¡¯t have wanted you to simply bring another person with you without my approval, but I can¡¯t say anything against a tamed creature. After all, taming is a sort of soul connection. I¡¯m surprised, though. Myconids are supposed to be hard to tame. How did ite to this?" Ailren asked curiously, and Eisen began to exin. "That¡¯s quite simple, really. A friend of mine found an Egg on a journey, and then we coincidentally met while I was out to get stronger. I made him a new weapon, and in return he gave me the egg that he found, which only yesterday hatched. And the result of that is Caria here." "Aha, that¡¯s quite interesting, then. But even then, a Myconid would be hard to tame. I guess that just shows that she felt you were kind. But now, shall we get to my reasons for calling you here?" "I am pretty curious, yeah." Eisen chuckled lowly and took a sip from the tea that Ailren gave him. In response, he smiled lightly. "Then I won¡¯t let you wait. First, what do you know about Dragons? I noticed that you seemed to have lost your experience when we met for the first time, so you probably don¡¯t know too much about this world and its history, am I wrong?" "No, you¡¯re right. I really don¡¯t know much. I heard a few small stories here and there, for example about how the Dwarven Country came to be, or smaller legends about different things. But no, I don¡¯t know anything about Dragons, sorry." Eisen exined. The Dragon nodded in response, as if having expected such an answer. "Alright, then I¡¯ll exin to you the basics. There are two main factions of us pure Dragons. The chromatic dragons, and the metallic dragons. The chromatic dragons are usually evil, although they are still somewhat split amongst them. Some just enjoy death and destruction, while others still follow their own wicked rules. There are five main colors to them, ck, Red, Blue, Green and White. Us metallic dragons are usually good, although some are still more chaotic than others. I myself try to keep to a certain set of rules. And there are five metals that we keep to. Gold, Bronze, Brass, Silver and Copper. Of course there are still other dragon types, but those usually aren¡¯t pure blooded." "I see, that¡¯s quite interesting. And I do have to say, your scales do really have a cunning simrity to gold." Eisen chuckled lowly. "Thank you. I take quite some pride in them. Anyway, there are two deities that share control over the faith of dragonkind. Evil Dragons worship Tiamat the Dragon Queen, while Good Dragons worship Bahamut the tinum Dragon. You could say that these two factions are waging war against each other. And for that, we Dragons choose ¡¯Champions¡¯, so to say. Strong warriors, or skilled craftsmen, either is fine considering that in a war, both can be seen as equally important. A Warrior won¡¯t be able to show their true worth without a weapon of their level, and it doesn¡¯t matter how many weapons a craftsman makes without anyone to wield them. You were chosen as one of those Champions. When you inspected me, I did the same in return and saw that peculiar title you have, ¡¯Original of the Mechanical Arts¡¯. It seems to be apletely unique, unknown title, so I was sure you would end up useful." "Then thank you for choosing me for such an important role. But without that title, you wouldn¡¯t have chosen me? Then how are others chosen as a Champion?" "That is notpletely right. I chose you as a champion without you showing your true worth, since through it I knew that you would be useful either way. But even without such a title, if one of us ancient Dragons takes a liking to you, you can be chosen as a champion by any of them." Ailren exined while holding his tea cup in both of his hands, every once in a while taking sips from it. The Dragon smiled and continued. "But even then, I can¡¯t just make you a champion without knowing you are truly worth it. That¡¯s why us Dragons test potential champions. Usually, as a starter we give them an ¡¯unspoken test¡¯, something to test their character. We give them a goal that might seem hard to reach. In your case, it was to get your stats from their lowest possible state over their first big hurdle. That way we can see if the potential champion will give up in the face of hardships. And then, just now, I gave you the first real test. It was simply to truly test the condition of your stats, and how you got used to them. I used my fearful presence to test the strength of your mind, presented through your intelligence and wisdom stats. Then, I shot my Fire Breath at you, to test your agility. And atst, I used my Weakening Breath on you to test your strength and endurance." The Giant-Dwarf halfling nodded in understanding while leaning back in his chair. If it was like that, then he was curious what the other tests would be like. "So after I pass all of your tests, I¡¯ll officially be one of your champions?" "Yes, you will be. At least you will be partially so. To be a true champion, you have to be epted by five different ancient dragons, each of a yet different metal. So once you be my champion, to truly be epted as a champion that can fight or support our faction, you have to be epted by Ancient Brass, Bronze, Copper and Silver Dragons. What their tests are depends on them, but they should at least be somewhat in your area of expertise. But for now, we should continue my tests." "Alright. I was actually wondering what those tests are, Ailren." Eisen exined after finishing his cup of tea, and Ailren stood up and waved at Eisen to follow him. He picked Caria up and ced her on his shoulder, before standing up and running after the Ancient Dragon. They reached the wall which had a door big enough for Eisen to pass through, but not a Dragon in its regr size, and Ailren turned to Eisen and began to talk. "My first test was one that tested your raw physical and mental capabilities. The second test I will give to you will be one that will test your skill. Of course, it¡¯s not about looking at your pure skill ranks and levels, but about what you can actually do. Since you are based around crafting, that¡¯s what you will be doing. What you make is up to you, and I will supply you with whatever material you need, as long as it is within my realm of possibility. However, be aware that I am expecting something that fully disys all areas of your expertise. For example, a simple sword will not be enough. Try to impress me." Ailren said while opening the door, revealing a room in which Eisen could find a multitude of things. Different worktables with a number of different tools and materials, as well as everything a fully functional smithy needed, meaning an anvil, forge, and even a smeltery. "Work hard, you have as much time as you need. Hours, days, weeks, it doesn¡¯t matter. As long as you are working, that is. There is another room for you to sleep further in the back, and I will bring you food and something to drink whenever you need it." [New Quest - Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s second test] [Description] After passing the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth¡¯s first test, you now have to take his second test. For that, he asked you to make something great to impress him. As long as you work diligently and do not abuse his hospitality, there is no time limit. [Reward] You will be allowed to take the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s third test [Failure] You will never be allowed to take another Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s test [Time Limit - None] ---------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 71] [HP - 1821][MP - 1821] [STR - 101][END - 101][AGI - 101][INT - 100][WIS - 101][CHA - 10] [Titles] -[Casanova] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker V] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 2][Level - 28] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 2][Level - 28] -[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 18] -[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 7] -[cksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 61] -[Cooking][Rank - 0][Level - 68] -[Crafting Space][Rank - 0][Level - 51] -[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Enchanting][Rank - 1][Level - 41] -[me of the Earth Magic][Rank - 1][Level - 51] -[Golemancy][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 4] -[Lockpicking][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 4] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 46] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 2][Level - 32] -[Swordsmanship][Rank - 2][Level - 74] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6] -[Taming][Rank - 0][Level - 11] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 10] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 61 Automaton Eisen stepped through the door and took a closer look around. All of the equipment he could find was quite high quality, same for the materials. He couldn¡¯t really find any problems with the fabrics, leather, or metals that were disyed on the worktables. However, Eisen felt slightly unsure about a few things, so he turned around and looked at Ailren. "First off... How did you get all of this? You yourself don¡¯t strike me to be a craftsman." Eisen said, and Ailren chuckled with a nod. "Yes, you are right. This ce once used to be the hideout of a craftsman. Only about three hundred years ago was it that I took over here, and of course expanded upon the space so that I could move without trouble. I cleaned up a little bit and prepared these materials when I figured out that you would probablye here after all." "I see, thank you then, Ailren. And I know this might seem rude considering that you did prepare a lot of good items and materials, but would it be alright if I went back to Melroe for about a day, simply to get all that I need? I have my tools down there, and there are a few things I would like to prepare for what I¡¯ll be making." Eisen exined, and Ailren ran his fingers through his beard before nodding. "That¡¯s fine with me. This is to test how high your abilities can reach, so it only makes sense to allow for a good base situation. I can bring you down the mountain quickly, and I hope you don¡¯t mind if I follow you around to make sure you¡¯re not cking off." The Dragon smiled and pointed toward the exit. "Shall we go right now?" Eisen nodded and followed Ailren outside therge treasure-filled hall, through the mist room, and then through the tunnels leading to the cave entrance. When they got outside, steam rose from Ailren¡¯s body and formed a huge sphere, which dissipated immediately and revealed Ailren¡¯s true Dragon Form. "Climb onto my back, and make sure you hold on tightly, or else you will probably fall off." Ailren chuckled and Eisen nodded with a softugh from himself. He ced Caria into his backpack to make sure she wouldn¡¯t identally fall off during flight, and then climbed onto the Gold Dragon¡¯s back. There wasn¡¯t really a good ce to hold onto, but it seemed like that didn¡¯t really matter too much and the game supported him and made sure that he wouldn¡¯t fall off. Of course that only worked with Eisen actually trying to do his best to hold on by himself. A few seconds after Eisen got in a position where he could properly hold on, Ailren prepared to take off. The wings created a huge gust of wind that forced Eisen to close his eyes on its own, and when Ailren actually took off, the wind only became far stronger, obviously. Eisen closed his eyes tightly and gripped onto Ailren¡¯s scales as tightly as possible. And soon enough, Eisen feltpletely weightless and his body was slowly being pulled from the Dragon¡¯s back. Slowly, he tried to open his eyes and saw the ground approaching quicker and quicker, albeit through ayer of mist, which Ailren probably used to hide himself whenever he decided to fly this close to Melroe. It was truly a beautiful sight. The sun was slowly setting, so the whole world seemed to be illuminated in a soft red light. This was something that you couldn¡¯t easily get in real life, and Eisen appreciated this fully. But it didn¡¯t take long until Ailren reached the ground, as he was in aplete dive while flying downward. Hended a bit outside of town in the forest so they would be hidden from the townfolk, and Eisen quickly jumped down from the Dragon¡¯s back, just before he turned into another form that was easier to walk around in: The cat form. "Now, I hope you don¡¯t mind if I follow you like this. This way I don¡¯t need to worry about people trying to talk to me." The Dragon-Cat exined and jumped onto Eisen¡¯s shoulder after the old man got Caria out of the backpack, and ced her on his other shoulder. "That¡¯s fine with me, I guess. Now, I¡¯ll have to go see my friend and get some things from her. Can I tell her about you, or should I keep who you really are secret?" Eisen asked while starting to walk toward town, mentally making a checklist for what he would need other than his tools. "If you trust her, then you can tell her. You can have her help with whatever you need to get as well, however, she is not allowed to assist you with your work. After all, it¡¯s your test, not her¡¯s." "Yeah, I kind of expected that... Well, it¡¯s fine. At least she won¡¯t worry, since I can just tell her now that I won¡¯t be back for a while. What I¡¯m nning is going to take a while, after all." Eisen chuckled lowly and began to clench his fist at excitement. If his idea would really work, then it would be something that he¡¯s dreamt of a really long time! And something that he promised an old friend to create someday. He would try and create a fully functional, living automaton. --- "So, do you have everything that you need now?" Ailren asked Eisen when he ced all the materials, tools and clothes that he would need into a crate. "Yes, mostly so. You said you would give me whatever material that I would need, right?" Eisen asked while double-checking everything, while Bree was in the background ying with Caria. They had met up shortly after Eisen and Ailren entered Melroe, and Eisen exined the whole situation to her. Of course, at first she wanted to bring Eisen to bring her, but once he exined that it wouldn¡¯t be possible, she gave in after all. "I will do my best to aquire the best materials you can use. It may take some time, though, depending on what it is that you may need." The Dragon in Cat form exined, and then looked down into the crate. "That is a quite unique assessment of items, though. There are quite a number of different professions involved it seems." "Well, I¡¯m supposed to make something to the extent of all my abilities, after all." Eisen chuckled and nodded while closing down the crate, before he turned around and looked at the pink-haired Fey-Kin behind him. "Bree, I¡¯ll be going now, alright? I don¡¯t know how long I¡¯ll be gone, though, sorry." "Oh... that¡¯s fine~! But if there¡¯s any way I can help from down here, just let me know!" She eximed and brought Caria back over to Eisen, setting her down on top of the crate. "I will, thank you. See you soon." Eisen smiled and then he left for the forest again. While he was in town briefly, he went to a few different ces to get all the tools that he might need, as well as some simple exnations for specific skill abilities and special materials to use during the creation of his Automaton. Once more, Ailren turned into his Dragon form and flew Eisen up the mountain to the tform in front of the Cave entrance. They walked through the cave system and Eisen entered the workshop once more. Before he would get to work, he would need to ask Ailren for something, though. "Would it be possible for you to bring me the corpse of a wolf? It should be as intact as possible, meaning that all the bones should be there, most muscle tissue should be intact, and so on." Eisen asked, and Ailren looked through the small door while still in his Dragon form. "Of course, don¡¯t worry. I¡¯ll bring it to you as soon as I can. Now, how about you start making preparations already?" Ailren suggested, and Eisen nodded in response. While Ailren was now gone to get what Eisen asked him to, Eisen himself grabbed a few mana crystals. First, it was time to get his Enchantment skill up to Rank 2, so that he could unlock Ability Enchantment. One after another, Eisen repeatedly created different enchantments that couldplete simple tasks in aplicated way, to give him as much experience as possible. He made mana crystals that were able to vibrate in different strength, float a foot above the ground, or would simply independently roll around in a straight line. He did this multiple times, until Eisen finally managed to Rank his Enchantment skill up to 2 within one and a half hours, allowing him to finally work on the core part of the automata. Before starting to work, Eisen set up his Crafting space for alchemy, and then set up the Alchemy distition system that he bought at Morrom¡¯s ce and got out the two special crystals that would allow to give a golem core a ¡¯mind¡¯ and ¡¯soul¡¯, as well as the Mana Crystal that he ripped out of the Goblin King¡¯s chest. Since he knew that Morrom was only nning to sell his portion of his Mana Crystals anyway, Eisen left him the proper amount of mana crystals needed to make up for the King¡¯s after asking Bree how much a Rank 4 Field Boss¡¯ Mana Crystal would be worth. The old man cracked his knuckles and ced therge mana crystal into the mythril mortar, before crushing it up with the mythril pestle after infusing both of them with his mana. After he turned the Mana Crystal into a fine powder, he poured it into an extra bowl and then ced the next crystal into it and ground it down, before then doing the same for thest of the three crystals. He poured some water into the bowl and mixed the three crystal powders into it, before pouring the mixture into the ss sk he would use. Eisen lit the mana crystal with the me enchantment up and ced it under the sk, connecting the distition system to the setup. It didn¡¯t take long until all the water evaporated and what was left was a simple, pure white crystal growth. Eisen grabbed it out of the sk and quickly activated his transmutation to form it into a sphere, that ended up being slightlyrger than both his fistsbined. But that wasn¡¯t all that Eisen did to the Crystal. After all, to properly push it to the highest heights that he could with his current abilities, he had to make sure that the Golem Core wouldter break through his skill. He already hoped that using a Rank 4 Mana Crystal would help with that, but he couldn¡¯t bepletely sure, so he did all he could to ensure this. Eisen used transmutation to carve runes into the crystal. While he was in town just now, Morrom exined to him that the runes you could use in enchantment could also be used in other ways, and what Eisen decided to do was to give the crystal ball the ability store knowledge, meaning that it could grow through experience, albeit not the literal experience that would heighten the Automaton¡¯s stats. Now that he could use ability enchantment, it was indeed possible for him to use parts of his own abilities, but growth through experience was something that was deeply imbedded within one¡¯s soul, so his enchantment rank would need to grow further for that, but for now it would at least be possible to let the Automaton truly understand his body, and let it learn how to use it. For that, Eisen would use a gem that he found while hunting with Jyuuk and Bree: The Beast Gem. Eisen asked Jyuuk if he was interested in it, but as it seemed like it would only make it possible for Tamers have better control over their beasts or monsters, Jyuuk said that Eisen could keep it. He wanted to truly build up a connection with his beasts, and such a gem would only make it fake. But apparently, the way that the Beast Gem technically worked, was that it created something like a ¡¯fake beast¡¯ to the tamed beast¡¯s eyes that they would submit to. For that, it basically collected information on how a specific beast moved, acted, and reacted, and used it against them. And Eisen would use just that function to let the Golem-Automaton grow to act like a real living being would. In order to let the Golem Core use the Gem¡¯s function, Eisen simply carved the runes he needed with Transmutation, and then filled them out with the emerald-green gem. Once Eisen could be sure that the Runic gem-pattern would hold, Eisen hardened the whole crystal sphere using transmutation, finishing the physical base for the Golem Core. Chapter 62 Beast Golem Core After the base for the Golem Core was finished, Eisen decided to start working on the enchantments needed for it. But since he would first need to figure out how Ability Enchantment worked, and didn¡¯t want to experiment on the crystal base for the core since he might identally ruin it, Eisen decided to first grab a few smaller mana crystals and try some things out. Eisen opened his Status page and looked at his different skills to see what he could use, and the first thing that he thought might be interesting was his Appraisal Skill. Maybe it was possible to create a lens that could independently scan things and show what they were. Curious at what that might be like, Eisen decided to go for that. The easiest way for now would probably be something like a Monocle. Having that Image in mind, Eisen turned one of the mana crystals into a small and thin circr te, which he made sure to be thin enough in the center so that he could look through it. It wasn¡¯t perfectly clear, and the sight was still somewhat distorted, but at least it was good enough to practice with. After that, Eisen changed his crafting space from alchemy to enchanting, and began to think about the process of ability enchanting. For that, he could either use the same type of marbles that Morrom used before when enchanting the mnaa crystals for Bree¡¯s dress, or he could try to enchant the mana crystal monocle directly. The first of those ways would make the enchantment a lot more stable and strong, and the second would simply make it easier to enchant something, but there was a higher risk of failure, and usually the enchantments were weaker this way. That meant that the best way for Eisen to practice ability enchantment would be to use it on one of the marbles, and then transfer it over to the mana crystal monocle. This way he could practice enchanting something in this way, the marble, and at the same time learn how to transfer the enchantment from the marble to a mana crystal. So, Eisen grabbed the bag filled with the pure white marbles and held it in his hand. ording to Morrom¡¯s exnation, he had to use his mana and pour it into the marble, then try to convert it to the essence of a skill. It was supposed to be somewhat simr to infusing your mana with an element, but at the same time different. So, Eisen did just that. He poured his mana into the marble and concentrated on his Appraisal skill. He had one image in mind, and that was the effect that his skill had. When he looked at something, he saw its information. That¡¯s all that crossed his mind at that moment, and after having a stable image, Eisen concentrated that thought into a single spot, the small marble in his hand where his mana was currently at. When he opened his eyes again, the pure white sphere turned into a soft yellow like a lightly bleached out version of dandelion yellow. After this was done, Eisen manipted the now-infused mana inside the marble and tried to move it over into the mana-crystal monocle. When he did so, the marble turned into yellow particles that were absorbed by the crystal, turning it into a light yellow shade as well. Once it was done, he checked the item¡¯s status. [Appraisal Lens] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A thin Mana Crystal lens that has been enchanted to show functions of the Appraisal Skill. While the Enchantment itself is of Rank 2, since the enchanter¡¯s appraisal skill was at one at the time of creation, it is only able to disy information equivalent to a rank 1 Appraisal skill, but has a lower mana requirement on use. It will not increase the Appraisal Skill¡¯s proficiency on use. [Effect] Disys information equivalent to using a Rank 1 Appraisal skill in exchange for mana "Alright, that worked, then!" Eisen said with a soft chuckle and ced the monocle over his eye. Nothing happened just yet, but he tried to look around and then saw Caria ying with one of the Enchanting marbles, and thought that she might be a good target. [Myconid Hatchling] "Sounds about right, yeah. Maybe I should level my Appraisal skill up further. Might be something good to sell to beginner yers when they start. It doesn¡¯t seem to drain that much mana either." The old man muttered to himself. It wasn¡¯t really a great item, and there wasn¡¯t anything special about it, but at least it was good practice for the Golem core. The process of enchanting like that was far more intuitive than Eisen expected, so it wouldn¡¯t be hard to put the necessary enchantments onto the Golem Core. So, Eisen grabbed the sphere as well as three of the pure-white marbles and began to work. One after another, he would prepare the three enchantments. They might be somewhat harder to imagine, considering how they aren¡¯t specific skill references but rather basic ability references, but Eisen tried anyway. He first grabbed one of the marbles and imagined the feeling of controlling your body. The way that every muscle in your body would react if you just willed them to. This would allow the Automaton to control its body. After that, Eisen took the next marble and thought about the proper version of ¡¯modtion¡¯ that he could think of. And for him, that was simply the ability to use different tools as if they were parts of his body, and this would allow the Automaton to use its body no matter what it was made of. And atst, Eisen grabbed the third marble and thought about ways to express ownership. This one was quite abstract as well, since Eisen simply concentrated on how whatever was enchanted through him was to be used by him, and only him. Of course, that wasn¡¯t actually usually the case, but for the Golem core, that was necessary. Each of the marbles respectively turned either a light red, green or blue. One after another, Eisen imagined each of the Enchanting Marbles to be transferred and moved into the soon-to-be Golem Core, and the mixture of these colors turned it into a dull snow white. "Done." Eisen smiled and looked at the sphereying in his hands while notifications popped up in front of him. [Beast Golem Core] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A Golem Core that has been created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been specialized for beast-like forms with the use of a Medium-Grade Beast Gem. Due to the intense care and high grade of materials used, it was possible to break through both skills needed in the creation of this Golem Core. [Effect] Will pair with apatible body when infused with Mana [For creating an overwhelming quality item with the use of two skills, you gain +1 INT and +1 WIS] "Perfect! Now I just need to wait for Ailren to bring me that wolf¡¯s corpse, and I can start working on the Automaton¡¯s body!" Eisen said with a grin and sat down on one of the chairs standing in front of the Worktables and created a quick stone base toy the Golem core into so that it wouldn¡¯t roll off the edge somewhere and somehow get damaged. After a few minutes of thinking and looking at the different types of metals across the room, Eisen finally stood up and nodded to himself. "Caria, make sure you stay here with the golem core now. It¡¯s going to get a little bit hot right now." The old man cracked his knuckles and changed from the leather armor he was still wearing into his cksmithing outfit, the simple and wide baggy pants as well as the leather apron, and then began to prepare what metals he needed for the Automaton. Since it would be a machine working under high pressure and tension at times, there would probably be one metal that¡¯s best for it. High Tensile Brass. Brass is an alloy made of Copper and Zinc, and by adding some manganese into the mixture, it would highly increase the alloy¡¯s tensile strength, which was simply perfect for the type of machine Eisen was about to create. It wouldn¡¯t be good to always have to rece every single part after a few days, after all. Eisen would use two parts Copper, and one part zinc as the main alloy to make up brass, and then would add an amount of manganese that was equivalent to about 2% of that mass. And all of this would be done in the smeltery. Eisen began to heat it up hot enough to melt the manganese, the metal with the highest melting point of the three metals he would be working with. It would always be best to first melt the metal with the highest melting point, and then add the next metal in, with a little bit more than you actually need to ount for some of the metal to be boiled away. The order this would be done in, in this case, would be Manganese, then copper, and then the zinc. After the smeltery seemed hot enough to melt the first part of the alloy, Eisen threw the amount of manganese that he would need into the container, and waited for it to turn liquid. After that, Eisen stopped actively heating up the smeltery, and threw in the copper that he would need for the first batch. After this had molten down as well, Eisen simply added the Zinc and quickly moved the container out of the smeltery with some tongs and poured them into ingot-casts, that were quite helpfully already in the workshop when he was lead there by Ailren. He poured the mixture into them and then immediately moved onto the next batch. Eisen repeated this until he heard a knock on the door after finishing the overall fourth batch of Brass ingots, with a dozen ingots per batch. When the first batch was slowly cool enough to be handled, Eisen smiled while seeing the ingots¡¯ gold-like color, and slowly opened the door. "Ah, seems like you already got to work! Here is the body of a wolf you asked for. It was killed through the full force of my weakening breath, so it ispletely intact." Ailren eximed while slowly cing the Wolf Corpse down onto the ground with his ws. "Thank you! Now, if I can manage to keep at a fast pace, it should be done in two or three days, four at most. I hope that¡¯s fine." Eisen exined while carrying the body into the workshop and cing it onto the ground in a rtivelyrge open area. "Of course, how I said, as long as you are working diligently, you can take your time. Although I am quite curious to see what you needed this body for, of course." "Haha, then you¡¯ll just have to wait, I guess." Eisen chuckled lowly, and looked at the wolf body which he would use as a reference to create his Wolf Automaton. Chapter 63 Skeleton Eisen went over to the crate and grabbed a knife that was supposed to be especially for dismantling a body andid the wolf corpse on its back. He stabbed the knife into the body and pushed the knife into the wolf¡¯s underside and slowly cut it open to get rid of its organs. Eisen pushed his hands into the cold body and one after another pulled out the organs which he ced into a bucket to simply keep them somewhere, while cing the heart to the side to use it for somethingter. Next, Eisen carefully decided to get rid of the wolf¡¯s hide. He cut into the cold flesh and steadily moved the knife along over the wolf¡¯s bloody meat, slowly but surely skinning it. Eisen somewhat noticed the effect of Ailren¡¯s weakening breath, as it seemed like the wolf¡¯s fur was simply turning into dust whenever Eisen touched the hair. Shuddering at the thought of what could have happened if Ailren hit him with the full effect of his weakening breath as well, Eisen set the hide away. He wouldn¡¯t be using it for the automaton anymore. Sure, it was of quite high quality, but since it came from a rank 0 beast, it would simply pull down the overall rank and quality of the automaton, so he would use something else instead. After skinning the corpse, Eisen carefully prepared to get rid of the meat without breaking or cracking the bones, since Eisen would need them as a reference. He started with the limbs, cutting or scraping away the meat on the bones, and then did the same for the meat left on the wolf¡¯s torso, and atst went for the head. He needed to treat the skull carefully, since he also had a use for the wolf¡¯s eyes and brain which Eisen set down next to the heart. Once Eisen had every single boneying down on the ground in a way that showed him which bone belonged where in a wolf¡¯s body, Eisen got a new notification. [Dismembering Skill Learned] "Maybe this would have been easier if I had gotten that skill earlier... Well, nothing I can change about that now. First, let¡¯s make sure these don¡¯t go to waste." Eisen muttered to himself and walked over to where he ced the Wolf¡¯s Eyes, Heart and Brain. He poured the mana out of his body and enveloped one of the eyes in it, concentrating on its shape and what it was made of, sessfully using mana copy to recreate it and saving it to his mana copy library. After doing that for the brain and heart as well, Eisen put all three of these body parts into the bucket together with the wolf¡¯s other organs, since he now did what he needed to do with them directly. "Now, let¡¯s get to work." Eisen chuckled and cracked his knuckles before starting to heat up the forge and then grabbed his Hammer together with one of the High Tensile Brass ingots he made before. "So, if I hurry up, I should be able to get about... 20 Done by the end of the day? It¡¯s already quitete, so I should keep going for a little bit and then go to sleep." The old man said to himself and then sighed out loudly. At least he would be able to spend the next day justpletely making the parts for the automaton without distraction, so it should be possible to assemble it the day after tomorrow, and finish it thetest in three days. Trying to keep that n in mind, Eisen ced the first brass ingot into the forge and waited for it to be hot enough, which only took about four or five minutes, and then he ced it onto the anvil that stood next to the forge with tongs. Eisen activated the crafting space for cksmithing, then held the ingot in ce and used tool connection on his hammer. What Eisen would be doing now was to recreate the wolf¡¯s skeleton piece by piece through brass, and the first few bones he would be making for now would be rtively small. So, Eisen took the first bone he would recreate and inspected it closely to remember its shape, and then hit the brass ingot while simting the same thing he did with his Zweih?nder, meaning that he pushed out a little bit of mana with each and every hit to infuse it into the brass bone. Once the first bone was done, Eisen walked back to the wolf skeleton spread across the ground and ced the brass version there where the real version of it was before, and then grabbed the next bone he would recreate after cing the other bone he just referenced into a bag. "Well then... One done, only about 300 more to go." Eisen chuckled and began to work on the next brass bone. --- "And that¡¯s the base skeleton done, then!" Eisen eximed happily and looked at therge amount of brass bones lying in front of him. He had just finished the skull and ced it down onto the ground to the other bones, and decided to take a quick break. It took a bit longer than nned to really finish everything, but it was nice, rxing work, so Eisen didn¡¯t mind. Although others would probably call it dull and repetitive, Eisen truly loved doing just this kind of thing. It was an amazing feeling to him to just be able to hammer onto metal for hours and hours on end, especially with something you could so clearly see progress with like the bones. But now, Eisen would prepare some special parts of the brass skeleton: The ws and teeth. As these would be the Automaton¡¯s main means of attack, they couldn¡¯t be weak or dull, so Eisen decided to enchant them! He already made the brass bases for them, so he would only need to put the right enchantment onto them. The ones that Eisen chose to put on the teeth were, depending on what kind of tooth he would be enchanting right now, a ¡¯cutting¡¯, ¡¯piercing¡¯ or ¡¯crushing¡¯ enchantment. For the ws, Eisen simply chose ¡¯cutting¡¯ enchantments to help with sh attacks and possibly help in cutting into the ground for more grip during a sprint. So, one after another Eisen grabbed one of the 42 brass teeth and carved a an enchantment into them. Whenever he finished one of the enchantments, Eisen pressed the tooth or w against his arm to see how much strength he needed to cut through his skin topare the sharpness with an enchantment to the sharpness without an enchantment. And truly, the enchantments were surprisingly effective! Part of that could be because of his cksmithing and Crafting Space skills ranking up. The cksmithing skill might have made it a little bit easier for Eisen to carve into metal, and the Crafting Space skill might have simply increased his control over his enchanting as well. When the cksmithing skill ranked up, Eisen didn¡¯t really gain much beside now being able to work with higher-tier metals now, as well as the regr side-effect of ranking a skill up, which usually made it far easier to use and more effective. However, when the Crafting Space skill ranked up, the crafting space now affected the whole room he was in, as long as it wasn¡¯t toorge. For example, he wouldn¡¯t be able to affect all of the treasure hall that he met Ailren in with the skill, and it would create the regr sphere that has grown about a meter in diameter; but when he was in a room like this smithy, the skill would now simply fill it outpletely to allow Eisen to move around without worrying about the area of the Crafting Space. And of course, the bonus stats were a nice extra as well. So now that the Brass Skeleton was finished, Eisen would need to create the rest of the automaton, those parts that would support its movement on top of the Beast Golem Core. The Gears. Eisen already figured out how many he would need for what ce, and what kind of joints he would need to create as well. He even thought about something like a circtory system to supply lubrication to everywhere in the Automaton¡¯s body at all times. Of course, a storage tank was included in that. So, Eisen got to work and spent the rest of the day creating gears, joints, tubes and tanks in numerous different sizes, as well as some static pieces to fill in certain parts of the body, until it was around midnight in the game. He was starting to feel quite tired, actually, despite the effect that you usually wouldn¡¯t feel exhaustion while fighting or crafting, and Caria was already long asleep on a small bed that Eisen created for her the night before. It wasn¡¯t really anything special so far, since Eisen simply made a square block out of wood with a slightly lowered center area, and then made something like a matress, pillow and nket with some fabrics and wool that he bought while in town. It was really quite adorable, if Eisen had to tell the truth. But for now, Eisen would ignore that and simply go to bed himself, so that he could start assembling the automaton¡¯s body. --- Eisen sat on the ground and looked at the Brass bones and joints lying in front of him. This would probably be one of the hardest puzzles that Eisen every finished. Well, hopefully finished. Either way, Eisen got to work and began to assemble the Automaton piece-by-piece. He started with each of the legs, going from thergest bones to the smallest, and ced the different joints inbetween them whenever necessary, using transmutation to make sure they would really perfectly interlock without being able to simply fall apart while still being able to move. Once a leg was finished, Eisen would push the ws into their respective ces around the paws, and then moved on to the next leg. After all four legs were done, Eisen assembled the skull, and had Caria help him out however she could so that she wouldn¡¯t just have to lie around all day. She mainly handed Eisen whatever tooth he needed to put into the skull next, but that was enough for her to feel proud that she could do anything at all. And then, Eisen began to assemble the spine, which he would use as the base to then build the torso. After all of the different, small pieces of the spine were conencted to each other, Eisen added spines, shoulders and hips onto it to finish the torso. Now, Eisen simply had six different parts that he needed to connect with each other to finish the brass skeleton. He first connected the four legs to the torso, and then only needed to properly connect the head to the spine. At this point, when Eisen tried to let go of the skeleton, it simply dropped to the ground as if it was some kind of model-skeleton one might find at a school, all of its limbsying inpletely weird directions. But at least it was a perfect start toward creating an Automaton. Chapter 64 Senses Now it was time to fully construct the Automaton. The first thing he would need to do was to prepare the Golem Core. Sure, it was technically ready to be used at this point, but Eisen wanted to take it a step further. He nned this from the moment that Morrom told him that Golem cores don¡¯t need to be spherical, but can function just as well in any shape, and may actually get better in moreplicated shapes. So, Eisen created the Crafting space for alchemy and then pushed out his mana to recreate the Wolf¡¯s heart that he copied before, cing it over the Golem Core. Eisen activated his transmutation and carefully re-shaped the golem core, making sure not to obstruct or change the runes that he ced into it with the beast crystal. Hoping that this would further increase the overall strength of the golem automaton, Eisen finally started to continue assembling it. Heid the brass skeleton onto the ground with its underside upward, and ced the container that he designated to hold the Golem-Core-Heart into the center of the chest with the core inside of it, and began to ce the first few gears and tubes around it. The gears would simply be to control the overall movement of the Automaton, and Eisen already had another n for how he would properly strengthen it and its movementter. The tubes on the other hand were supposed to be used to supply the Automaton¡¯s joints with enough lubrication to properly move around. The tubes wouldter be connected to a tank where the lubricants would be stored, with another tube connected to the mouth so that it can simply be ¡¯swallowed¡¯ by the Wolf Automaton, although Eisen would also need to make sure that it could be opened or closed easily, so that really only the lubricans could enter the tank and not any unwanted substance that could clog the system. Either way, it took Eisen a few hours to connect all the tubes and gears to each other an properly implement the tank in a way that it wouldn¡¯t mess up the automaton¡¯s bnce no matter if it was filled to the brim or nearly empty. Atst, the base was done. Now Eisen only needed to finish the Automaton up. He was already incredibly excited and wanted to see if everything was really working properly by pouring mana into the Golem Core and letting it connect to its body, but he wanted to make sure it properly connected to its whole body, and since it wasn¡¯t done yet, he would need to be patient. The next thing that Eisen decided to do was to create an information storage system for the automaton. Usually, it seemed like Golems only stored information about currentmands and their own body¡¯s abilities and limitations. But Eisen wanted his Automaton to actually be able to obtain information and store them to use at ater time without having to give itmands all the time. After all, it should act like a proper beast, and not just a statue in the form of a beast that can move around a little bit when told to. So, Eisen used Mana Copy to form a mana version of the Wolf¡¯s brain that he copied before, and searched through his items to look for a mana crystal that came as close to possible to that size. When he finally found one, Eisen transmuted it so that it would be in the exact shape of the wolf¡¯s brain before changing his crafting space to the enchanting one. Eisen grabbed his mythril needle and began to work on the rtively simple enchantment to turn this mana-crystal brain into an actual information storage device. The alchemical symbol that he used was that of ¡¯wisdom¡¯, which could also mean something like knowledge or simr. And the image that Eisen imagined while carving the center was that of an enormous library filled with thousands and thousands of books. Sure, there are a lot of things filled with far more knowledge than you might find in the library. You could probably store every single book in existence on yourputer¡¯s hard-drive if you wanted to, but it simply didn¡¯t give Eisen the feeling that there was just so much knowledge there. After all, what would give you a stronger feeling? Simply looking at the small icon on yourputer that stands for your hard-drive, or standing in the middle of a giant library with books over books surrounding you? At least to Eisen, it was thetter. And when it came to enchanting it wasn¡¯t necessarily about what was inside the carved image, but about the feelings and thoughts connected to it. So, when Eisen finished the Mana Crystal Brain, he moved on to the means of sensory perception. Meaning Eyes, Ears, Nose, and Tongue. Touch was apparently already something that Golem¡¯s could experience to an extent, so Eisen didn¡¯t need to give it to the Automaton anymore. Since the eyes were the only part that may require aplicated shape, as despite being only a sphere from the outside, it was much moreplicated than you may think. So, Eisen also used mana copy to form an eye of mana and shaped a mana crystal to look like it, with every single part being as closely reproduced as possible. And now, Eisen would use ability enchanting to give it sight. He grabbed one of the marbles and infused it with what it was like to see all kinds of things. Different colors, people, and views that were beyond beautiful. When he was done, not much changed in what the marble looked like, but Eisen knew that it was sessful and he was able to put that physical ability onto it, before quickly transfering it to the mana crystal eye. The small sphere in Eisen¡¯s hand turnedpletely white, simr to what a real eye was like. After repeating this for the other eye, Eisen moved on to the nose. For this, he simply split off a small part off of a mana crytal and turned it into a rough crescent shape, which he then enchantent with the ability to smell. But, since a wolf was supposed to be able to smell far better than a person, he needed to do something else as well. Eisen took his smallest needle and carved an additional enchantment onto the small crescent that was supposed to amplify what the mana crystal could do. It wouldn¡¯t be able to change much about it¡¯s strength, but apparently would still make it possible to enhance it about one and a half times with Eisen¡¯s current abilities. It wasn¡¯t possible to do this kind of thing with most other enchantments, but luckily, this kind of thing was exactly what it was meant for. Next, Eisen created two small funnels out of parts of a mana crystal, and enchanted both of them with the ability to hear through ability enchantment, after which he also slightly enhanced them with the same enchantment that he used for the nose-piece. Now Eisen would make the tongue, meaning that he needed to create the muscles to the Automaton. And he already prepared a tool to make what he needed. He looked into the crate and grabbed the spinning wheel that he bought at Morrom¡¯s ce that would allow him to create magic strings. What Eisen would need to do for the tongue was rtively simple. In general, all mana crystals would be turned slightly softer so they could somewhat move, but then would be so tightly packed that they could turn basicallypletely solid in an instant. The normal mana-crystal muscles would be enchanting in a way that would allow them to stretch and retract a little bit, while the tongue would be enchanted in a way that would allow the Automaton to taste things. So, Eisen grabbed a mana crystal and simply used softening on it a slight bit and then grabbed an enchanting marble, before enchanting the crystal through it. Once that was done, Eisen infused his mana into the crystal and pushed it into the opening of the spinning wheel, leading to it releasing thin thread that was immediately rolled up. Eisen grabbed the end of the slightly flexible and stretchable string and began to pack it together as tightly together, cutting the string up and attaching the ends at the tip of the soon-to-be tongue. It took a while, but soon enough, Eisen held a mana-crystal tongue in his hands. To finish it off, Eisen smoothed the outermostyer off, so that nothing could get stuck in the strings somehow. And now, it was time to give the Automaton these mana crystal body-parts. First, Eisen opened up a hole big enough to fit the brain through into the skull and ced it inside, following which Eisen poured some water, that he just so slightly thickened up with hardening, into it to fill out leftover spaces and to make sure that it wouldn¡¯t be able to just move around in there constantly, somewhat holding it in ce. After that, Eisen closed the hole in the top of the skull up again, and put the eyes into the two eye sockets, the nose-crescent into the nose, and the ear-funnels into the ears, before atst cing the tongue into the lower jaw, connecting each of the mana-crystal sensory organs to the brass by using transmutation. Eisen smiled to himself thinking about the progress he made so far and grabbed the mountain of Mana Crystals out of the crate. "I guess this will take a while..." The old man chuckled, and got to work turning the mana crystals into strings, so that he could use them as the Automaton¡¯s muscles. --- It was early afternoon of the next morning, and Eisen managed fully cover the whole automaton¡¯s body in muscles made of translucent mana crystal strings, nearlypleting the Automaton¡¯s construction. This took Eisen the rest of thest day, and nearly half of the next day, as Eisen had to connect every single strand on its own individually and make sure they were in the right position andposition to each other. Luckily, all that work counted toward Tailoring, which made some sense considering that Eisen was basically sowing the mana crystal thread onto the Automaton¡¯s body. But now, it was time to cover the muscles up and give the wolf some skin! For this, Eisen wouldn¡¯t be using the hide he actually got from the wolf, but instead leathering from a rank 2 beast. The leather he would be using came from an earth-type monster, which would work great in synergy with the Automaton that waspletely made up of metal and crystal structures. The leather was thin, durable and flexible, as well as light in color, directly reminding of simple exposed skin, although with differences you could instantly notice. But since this leather wouldn¡¯t be seen in the end anyway, that didn¡¯t really matter. Eisen grabbed the sheets of the leather and brought it over to one of the worktables, also bringing the hide of the wolf there as well, since he could use it as a reference for how much leather he would need for each area of the wolf¡¯s body. Eisen grabbed his exacto knife and assembled it, before cutting the leather into the right sizes and shapes. Just by cutting the leather, Eisen knew that this would be a great material to use, since it was quite hard to cut even though it was exactly of the rank that Eisen was supposed to be able to work with, simply showing its natural strength and resilience. After Eisen finished cutting the leather up, heid the part meant for the body over the wolf¡¯s back. He then took one of his sewing needles and put the waxed thread meant to sew leather together through the hole at its end. It was now time to give the Automaton skin. Chapter 65 Living Machine Eisen activated his Leatherworking Crafting Space and tightly held the piece of leather meant for the Automaton¡¯s torso together around the belly, before slowly stabbing through one of the sides with his needle to pull the waxed threads through the soon-to-be skin, simply but tightly sewing the leather together on the underside along its whole torso. After finishing attaching therge piece of leather on the Wolf automaton¡¯s body, Eisen moved on to attaching one of the smaller pieces to the tail, and then did the legs next. Up until now, it was all rtively easy to do, simply sewing the piece itself together, and then sewing it to the pieces of leather immediately adjacent to it. This didn¡¯t require a lot of fine work, but simply patience, which Eisen had more than enough of. The parts that did in fact need a little bit more skill to do properly were the paws and the head, since they were smaller and slightly moreplex than the other body parts. After Eisen sewed on the paws, he even added small ovals of thicker and stronger leather on the bottom to protect the skin while the Automaton would be walking or running around. Thest part that Eisen would now need to put leather onto was the head. He first added leather around the main part of the skull, leaving the snout and ears exposed, and connected it to the leather that was already around the neck. After that, Eisen added leather around the top and bottom of the snout, and all around the ears. There were now some loose areas, where Eisen wasn¡¯t able to fully attach the leather. These were around the mouth and eyes. What Eisen did to make sure they were properly attached, was to basically tack the edges to the outside of the Automaton¡¯s body through adding some small brass pins and using transmutation to make sure everything fit properly. This wouldter be covered by fur anyway, so it didn¡¯t matter if the pins were still slightly visible. Now, the Automaton was covered in ayer of strong leather, slightly darker than a wolf¡¯s regr exposed skin, but still making it look like someone simply shaved a wolf that went through a lot of operations in its life. But now, it was really time for the fur, and Eisen already had a great idea on what to do. He walked over to the wolf¡¯s hide, and pushed out his mana,pletely enveloping the whole surface area of what used to be an animal¡¯s skin, including the fur, which was what Eisen wanted just there. Eisen tried to concentrate only on the fur, to basically only copy it instead of the whole hide. It took a while of going through every part of it and making sure that it was truly only the hairs that Eisen copied, but in the end, Eisen achieved his goal. He then immediately pushed out some of his mana and formed the multple mana copies of the fur, piecing them together to create the proper shape before oveying it with the Wolf Automaton, all the way down to creating the roots that would properly keep the hairs in the leather. After that, Eisen grabbed the leftover brass ingots, and held one of them onto the Automaton¡¯s skin, activating his transmutation to make the hairs of mana pull in some of the brass ingot in his hand to create brass fur. The old man did this for every part of the Automaton¡¯s body, until a wolf shining in a beautiful golden color stood in front of him. That was also a reason why he chose to create this Automaton out of Brass, beside it being a good material for it. Since Brass could be mistaken for gold on first sight, Eisen thought it fit well with this being a test given to him by an Ancient Gold Dragon. He would have made it out of gold, if it wasn¡¯t such a bad material to work with. It was great in small amounts for decoration, but it was far to heavy and soft to use properly for real equipment. So, Brass was the best choice. But at that moment, Eisen didn¡¯t think about any of this anymore. He simply wanted to push his mana into the Beast Golem Core to make it pair with the Automaton Body, and see if it properly worked. Before then, he slowly poured the lubricant that he brought with him down the throat of the wolf¡¯s body to fill the tank up and then closed the hatch to make sure it couldn¡¯t flow back out. Then, Eisen slowly ced his palms on the Automaton¡¯s back and poured his mana out of his body, moving as much of it as possible toward the heart in its center. At first, Eisen thought it didn¡¯t work, but then he heard some rattling, cranking and creaking when the gears started to move, as well as the sound of the lubricant flowing through the pipes. The Brass hairs stood on end and looked as if they were needles, but then soon enough settled down to make them look like proper fur. A light shine appeared in the mana crystal eyes, while the automaton¡¯s new muscles kept bulging and then rxing, over and over again before settling down as well, seemingly showing that the Golem Core was able to pair with its new body. With an incredibly excited grin on his face, Eisen looked at notifications that popped up behind the Automaton. [Wolf Automaton (Golem)] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [DP - 1500][MP - 10] [STR - 75][AGI - 90][INT - 10][WIS - 1] [Description] A special type of Golem called an Automaton created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It¡¯s main structure is madepletely of Brass, and has different mana crystal constructs supporting it and giving it multiple bonus functions. The golem core has been enhanced with runes made of a beast gem, giving a bonus to the beast-like body, and allowing it to move more beast-like. This is also supported through theplex recreation of a wolf¡¯s heart. The Mana-Crystal muscles allow it to be stronger and more agile. The Brain synchronizes with the fake-soul of the golem core and allows the automaton to have a growing Wisdom stat, since it can now store knowledge. This knowledge is collected through the mana crystal eyes, nose, ears and tongue. The wisdom stat will start of low, but can grow over time. The Agility stat will lose or gain effectiveness depending on the amount and quality of the lubricants passing through the automaton¡¯s body. [For creating something of overwhelming quality with the use of five skills, you gain +2 to STR, END, AGI, INT and WIS] "Yes! It works! It actually works! This is amazing!" Eisen yelled out excitedly and kneeled down in front of the wolf automaton with a big grin on his face, moving his fingers through the cold brass fur while looking at the automaton with awe, and ignoring the doubled bonus stats from breaking through five of his skills. After a few minutes of simply checking if everything was truly alright with the Automaton, Eisen stood up again, walking over to the table where Caria was ying around and setting her down on his shoulder, before looking at the Automaton. "Follow me." Eisenmanded and watched as the Automaton slowly turned its head in his direction and set one foot in front of the other, slowly moving forward. It was still moving quite clumsily, and despite its outer appearance that might suggest it being some kind of actual living creature, from its movements you could definitely see that it was a machine in the end. But still, that would hopefully soon change with the help of the specialized beast golem core and the automaton¡¯s mana crystal brain. Since something like that would onlye from learning, Eisen decided to let it be for now, and show Ailren his creation. Eisen opened the wooden door and stepped outside of the workshop for the first time in days and was immediately met with the bright shine of the mountains upon mountains of gold coins and gems. The old man walked through the paths between those piles of treasure until he found Ailrenzing around on one of them again. "Ah, Eisen! What brings you out here?" Ailren asked while lowering his giant head to be on level with Eisen. The craftsman crossed his arms while filled with pride, and stepped aside to reveal the Automaton behind him. "Well, Ipleted your test, Ailren." With a seemingly confused frown, Ailren looked at the wolf and then back to Eisen. "This is something you created? Are you sure you did not simply use necromancy? It looks so life-like." The gold dragon said with surprise and was enveloped with steam before turning into his humanoid figure. "Thank you, I worked quite a while on it, as you noticed. It¡¯s an Automaton, basically a mechanical Golem. It¡¯spletely made of brass and mana crystals. Inside of the body are a number of gears and tubes, and it has a metal skeleton. I used some leather as a skin recement, and gave it brass fur as well. And it actually has all five senses, since I gave it eyes, ears, a nose and a tongue, and it can store all of that info in a mana crystal brain that I enchanted as well. The ws and teeth were enchanted to makebat easier. That¡¯s about it, really. If you want I can exin things in more detail." Eisen eximed excitedly while squatting down next to the automaton and running his fingers through the metal fur again. "There is no need, dear Eisen, I can already see that this is quite an impressive creation. But let us see what it can do, shall we?" Ailren asked and nodded at Eisen, signaling him to show what the Automaton could do. "Of course. But be aware that this is technically a Golem, and my Golemancy skill is still at Rank 0, so you know, it might not be able to move around in great ways. Anyway. Automaton, run to the wall over there, ande back." Eisenmanded and pointed toward a part of the wall that was in direct sight and could be gotten to in a straight line from their current position. Immediately, the Automaton sprinted forward as quickly as it could. It stopped in a way that let it just barely not hit the wall, and then it turned around and came sprinting back to Eisen. The Automaton was able to move quite fast, and you were able to see an immediate difference between its movements on its way to the wallpared to when it came back. It seemed like the effect of the Beast Golem Core already started showing itself, as it apparently began getting more and more used to its new body. "Now, try to jump over that pile of gold." Eisenmanded with his hand waved at a rtively small amount of treasures, one that was still nearly the height of Eisen, and the automaton ran off toward it and jumped at thest second, nearly instantly reaching the height necessary to jump over the shiny mountain. When Eisen heard that itnded on the other side, hemanded it toe back again. Like this, Eisen had the Automaton do a few different simply tasks, basically just small tricks, and then showed different parts of its body to Ailren. Things like how sharp its teeth or ws were, or where exactly he put the sensory organs in the automaton¡¯s head. And soon enough... "I¡¯ve seen enough. This is obviously far beyond what I could have expecteding into existence within such a short amount of time. I hope for you to show me what it will be like in the future. And I am more than happy to tell you that you passed my second test." Ailren exined with an impressed smile, and a notification popped up in front of Eisen. [Quest Sessful - Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s second test] [Description] After passing the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth¡¯s first test, you now have to take his second test. For that, he asked you to make something great to impress him. As long as you work diligently and do not abuse his hospitality, there is no time limit. [Reward] You will be allowed to take the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s third test [Failure] You will never be allowed to take another Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s test [Time Limit - None] [Congrattions! You passed the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s second test!] --------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 71] [HP - 1854][MP - 1876] [STR - 104][END - 104][AGI - 103][INT - 105][WIS - 106][CHA - 10] [Titles] -[Casanova] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker V] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 2][Level - 89] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 2][Level - 68] -[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 31] -[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 7] -[cksmithing][Rank - 2][Level - 39] -[Cooking][Rank - 0][Level - 68] -[Crafting Space][Rank - 1][Level - 81] -[Dismembering][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Enchanting][Rank - 2][Level - 11] -[me of the Earth Magic][Rank - 1][Level - 51] -[Golemancy][Rank - 0][Level - 19] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 16] -[Lockpicking][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 26] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 46] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 2][Level - 36] -[Swordsmanship][Rank - 2][Level - 74] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 41] -[Taming][Rank - 0][Level - 11] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 61] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 66 Dedication "Nowes thest test, Eisen. The first one was to test your body. The second one was to test your skill. And thisst one is to test you. Your dedication, your personality, and how far you are willing to go." Ailren exined and slowly stepped forward through the room waving at Eisen to follow him, who quickly did so aftermanding the Automaton to follow him. "And what would that kind of test look like?" Eisen asked curiously, looking at the back of the Ancient Dragon in human form while looking behind himself every once in a while to make sure the Automaton was following properly. It took a while, but they soon found themselves in front of the mist-filled room directly in front of the entrance to the treasury. "Walk inside. Your test is waiting for you." Ailren said with a calm voice, his fingers interlocked behind his back. Eisen nodded slowly and excitedly walked into the mist, leaving Caria with the Automaton next to Ailren, since he didn¡¯t know what would wait inside. After walking a few dozen steps forward, Eisen saw something through the mist, that was unusually thick right now. It was bright pink hair, bound into two twintails. Or rather, one full twintail while the other was hanging rather loosely down the side of the girl¡¯s face. Shocked at this unexpected sight, Eisen ran forward to get a closer look, and found exactly who he thought to be there. It was Bree. She was kneeling on the ground, with her arms and feet tied together behind her back and her mouth gagged. Tears were streaming down the side of her face, while she was trying to yell at Eisen, asking him to help her. Immediately, he stepped forward, trying to tie her loose, but before he could, Ailren¡¯s voice echoed through the hall. "Do not do that, Eisen. What do you think your test is?" The Dragon asked, his voiceing from everywhere around Eisen, but at the same time from nowhere exactly. It was truly as if dozens of Ailrens were suddenly all around him, talking at the same time while moving around randomly. Eisen hesitated slightly, this alone already nearly breaking his heart. Seeing his friend andpanion down there on the ground like that was just horrible, even if this was simply a game! To Eisen, this would probably be the world he will spend most of the rest of his life in, so it would turn just as real to him as it was for the original inhabitants of this world. While kneeling down in front of Bree, the old man asked with a calm face. "What the hell are you talking about? What kind of test is this supposed to be?" Suddenly, Ailren¡¯s voices began tough in a sinister way. "How I said, this is to test you. Your dedication to our cause. Your dedication to me and my brothers and sisters, and to our king Trygan." Eisen continued trying to untie the ropes that bound Bree, but whatever he did, they only seemed to be tighter instead of loosening up. "Again, what are you talking about?" He asked in a voice even calmer than before, as anger started to well up inside of him, wanting to explode outward the moment he heard the Dragon¡¯s answer coupled with sinisterughter from multiple sources at once. "Kill her." Some of the voices said in unison while the others simply continuedughing, until they suddenly stopped. No sound wasing from anywhere, and they stopped as suddenly as if someone simply paused a soundtrack. A few seconds ofplete silenceter, a devilish voice spoke out. It was Ailren¡¯s, but at the same time, it wasn¡¯t. "You¡¯re simpler than I thought, Eisen. I thought it would be easy to figure out. This is yourpanion, isn¡¯t she? The friend that has been apanying you for most of your adventures, as far as you can remember, right? So what would be a better way for you to prove your dedication?" Once more,ughter broke out around Eisen and Bree, and one after another some of them began to talk, each one saying only one sentence and then continuing their routine of horridedy. "What would be better?" "If you don¡¯t want to kill her, then what else could you do?" "How about we have you ughter everyone else in Melroe instead?" "Every one of those people that helped you out..." "Just imagine it, Eisen..." "All those people screaming for help while you slice them up." There was a short break while cold sweat began to drip down Eisen¡¯s back, as he simply knew this wasn¡¯t thest of what the voices had to say. And he was right. "That would be simply beautiful, would it not?" Thest of the voices asked, before it began tough again, being joined by more and more every single second until it sounded as if a whole stadium filled with people wasughing together. That was, until Eisen responded. "No! Stop it! Be quiet, Ailren! I¡¯m not doing this! To hell with your damned tests!" He yelled out angrily, trying to look around and see if he could find Ailren somehow. But before Eisen could do anything else, another, single one of Ailren¡¯s voices began to talk. "Oh? You¡¯re a feisty one, are you not? You would give up all of the benefits you could gain through simply killing one sinle Fey-kin, only to preserve her life? What a joke." In front of Eisen, a figure emerged. It was a young woman. Somehow, Eisen thought she was incredibly beautiful, with her long ck her that reached down to her hips and the overall aura she gave out, even though he couldn¡¯t directly see her facial features through the thick mist. "You could have whatever you want, Eisen. All the women that are needed to please you for the rest of your life, or treasures even more numerous than those in this cave." With those words, glittering gold coins started to rain down onto the ground around Eisen, while the young woman seductively moved around him, only ever so slightly touching his body with her fingertips. "You could rule the world, Eisen. You could be a king, with everyone at your feet. Just imagine it for a second. Millions of people just celebrating you for simply existing. It sounds beautiful, does it not?" Cheers started to roar out from all around Eisen, as if he was literally surrounded by tens of thousands of people, all screaming at him happily. Some of them seemed to be saying something, but Eisen couldn¡¯t make out what those things were. Slowly, Eisen closed his eyes, and slowly muttered out. "All of this could be mine...? If I kill Bree...?" The old man stumbled toward his friend, hispanion, the one that kept helping him out simply because she wanted to. A small de was suddenly lying on the ground in front of her body, and she was shaking her head in horror the closer he approached. With shaking hands, Eisen picked up the knife and moved behind her. He held the knife in front of the center of her back, and muttered out a few simply words before making his decision. "I¡¯m sorry." And like that, he moved the knife quickly but carefully, to make sure he would finish this quickly without any further problems. It sounded to Eisen as if something ripped in half, before he looked at what was lying in his hands and threw it to the side. When he heard the soft sound of the first ropending a few meters away from him, the second followed soon after, and the gag was removed by Eisen as well, of course. "I¡¯m sorry, Ailren, but screw you. I would never kill a friend for something like that. Who do you think I am? And more importantly, who do you think you are?" Complete silence was Eisen¡¯s answer while his anger only grew. He tried to walk forward to find one of the walls that could lead him to Ailren¡¯s position, while continuing to yell out. "Where are you?! Why are you doing soemthing this horrible? Ailren, get over... here... What?" Eisen began to stutter slowly as the mist around him dissipated and he looked at Ailren¡¯s humanoid form standing there with a bright, happy smile on his face while pping his hands together. "Magnificent, Eisen! I could not have said it better myself! I knew you were the right person for the position of champion!" He chuckled happily and walked a few steps forward toward Eisen before lowering his head. "I am sorry for tricking you like this. Your friend is not here, don¡¯t worry. She is still safe and sound down in Melroe." Eisen looked around with wide open eyes at the ce where Bree just stood. "But, she was just... Ailren, I¡¯m confused... What is going on? Was this magic?" "Well, dear Eisen, as I said, this was a test of dedication. But not to ¡¯the cause¡¯ as the mist whispered to you, but dedication to your friends andpanions. Many would have immediately faltered in the face of such promises. Follow me inside again, okay? I will exin everything in more detail shortly, and of course give you what you deserve for passing my tests." Ailren chuckled and turned around before slowly walking back to the treasury, leaving Eisen to stand there in confusion while waving away the notification that told him that he passed thest of the Ancient Gold Dragon¡¯s tests. He was embarrassed. Eisen acted as if this was such a huge deal, but he forgot a simple thing at that moment. Without keeping that thing in mind, he reacted as he would in real life, but in here... Magic existed. Maybe someone with more knowledge about these fields would have been able to see through it, but not for one moment did Eisen consider Ailren to be tricking him somehow. Was he too trusting? Or maybe he had some kind of hidden disdain for Ailren that made Eisen somehow immediately believe that he was capable of something like that? Eisen didn¡¯t think so, but something was definitely wrong. But Eisen didn¡¯t want to think of something like that right now. With a soft smile, happy that everything was alright after all, Eisen moved his hand to his heart. He was somehow feeling incredibly... agitated. It wasn¡¯t because he was tricked. Eisen wouldn¡¯t brood on something like this for more than a few seconds. He was far too old for thoughts like that. It was something else, as if somehow a mixture of anger, sadness, and happiness. But just where did that emotione from? When did he start to feel it? And why of all things would he start feeling like this in the middle of that test? Somehow, he felt as if he just met someone that he has longed to see for years and years on end, but was always disappointed when trying to recall their features, their face. And when Eisen finally realised what it was that made him feel this way, he squatted down onto the ground, looking to the roof of the cave without seeing the rock and simply seeing the empty void that was hidden beyond it. There was something that Eisen felt was off since he started ying this game. Maybe it was because he was so used to feeling it, that he simply didn¡¯t notice when it was gone. The old man moved his hand to his ringfinger and moved his fingertips across the ce where his wedding ring had been for thest 45 years. This made him realize what made him feel this way all of a sudden. That figure, that oh so beautiful young woman that he saw just now... right down to her posture and her long ck hair... "She looked just like Hanako..." Chapter 67 Truth Seeing Eyes Eisen stepped into the tunnel leading away from the mist-filled hall and looked at the automaton in front of him. He squatted down and carefully moved his hand through its fur while cing Caria back on his shoulder. "I can¡¯t just go on with calling you Automaton all the time, huh? Then how about I name you? Let¡¯s see... The body I took as reference seemed to be a female wolf¡¯s... So how about Aulu? Pretty straightforward, right? A simple mixture of thetin words for gold and wolf... Since your fur really does make you seem as if you¡¯re made of gold." Eisen said calmly, still kind of shaken up because of that test just now. "Aulu, follow me." Hemanded, and it, or she, turned and began to follow Eisen as he walked through the tunnel. Not long after this, Eisen entered the treasury again and made his way to the ce where the golden table stood when he was talking to Ailren in his human form for the first time, and as expected, the Ancient Gold Dragon was sitting there, already pouring Eisen a cup of tea. "Take a seat, Eisen." The Dragon said and waved Eisen toward the seat on the other side of the table. He nodded and did so, all the while quietly looking at Ailren with a deep frown. Noticing that Eisen wouldn¡¯t initiate the conversation, Ailren did instead. "To begin, I am extraordinarily sorry for that test. This was somehow even more intense than even I expected it to be. I am sorry. That mist is a special one. It is supposed to scare away unwanted visitors most of the time, but it can also be used in such a way. The intention of that test was to find out if you would sacrifice your friend for money or fame. Of course I knew you wouldn¡¯t, but it still needed to be done." Ailren exined, and Eisen looked at him with a deep frown, before his face loosened up and he sighed. "I understand. But now that I¡¯ve passed this test, I hope none of the tests from other dragons I might take are this messed up." He muttered out and crossed his arms, while Caria noticed his upset state and decided to try and hug him to cheer her master up. With a soft smile, Eisen looked down at her and rubbed the top of her cap, before looking back at Ailren. "Anyway, I¡¯m not too angry about what just happened back there. It was horrible in the moment, but in retrospect, I understand what it was for. Of course, I am still angry, and I have a few questions, but I guess those can wait forter. So, what happens now that I¡¯ve passed your tests?" The old man asked, and Ailren chuckled in response. "Quite eager, I see? But I guess after the time you spent on these tests, you truly deserve this. Here, give me your hand." Ailren said and held his arm forward with his palm pointed upward, in response of which Eisen slowly moved his hand and grabbed Ailren¡¯s hesitantly. "Now close your eyes. You might feel an ufortable heat, but bear with it please, and make sure not to open your eyes." The Gold Dragon exined and Eisen nodded, closing his eyes just like Ailren told him to. Shortly afterward, he felt the heat that Ailren mentioned just now. It wasn¡¯t actually hot, it was just the kind of heat you might feel while sitting a bit too close in front of a campfire. It was somewhat ufortable, but definitely bearable. This heat was starting to move through Eisen¡¯s body, starting from his hands where his skin touched Ailren¡¯s, and then moved toward Eisen¡¯s chest and then his head, until this heat infected his eyes, collecting there and bing hotter and hotter. But even though it became hotter, it wasn¡¯t like it really hurt, it was still just ufortable, so Eisen was able to bear it and keep his eyes closed. A whole minuteter, Ailren let go of Eisen¡¯s hand, leading to the heat simply disappearing slowly over time. "Alright, it¡¯s done. You can open your eyes now." The Ancient Gold Dragon announced, and Eisen nodded slowly before opening his eyes carefully. For a moment, the whole world was blurry and lost all its color, before everything returned to normal slowly over the span of a few seconds, and directly afterward a notification popped up. [Congrattions! You have been chosen as a champion by the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth!] [Champion Title unlocked!] [Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth gave you his gift] [A Part of your body has been changed] [Truth Seeing Eyes skill learned] [Truth Seeing Eyes absorbed Appraisal, bringing its proficiency to Rank 0, Level 25] "Truth Seeing Eyes?" Eisen muttered out while reading through the different notifications, leaving Ailren to nod in response. "Yes, it is my gift. Every Dragon possesses one to give their champions. Mine allows you to literally see the truth. It lets you see through lies, and every trick that one may use to fool you. You can find out what something truly is. It has some functions simr to the Appraisal Skill, that you also seem to possess already. Although, if you don¡¯t want others to know about this ability, you will have to hide your eyes while using it. Here, activate your eyes and take a look." Ailren exined while standing up and looking through nearby treasures until he found a small handmirror, which he then held in front of Eisen¡¯s face. Eisen nodded and closed his eyes before concentrating on this new skill. It seemed like this ck and white view he had before was the effect of the skill, so he tried to call upon that feeling once more. When he felt a little bit of that same heat as before in his eyes again, Eisen opened them up and looked at his reflection in the mirror. His usually grey eyes turned into a pure and bright golden color, with his pupils turned into slits instead of the regr circle. Incidentally, the gold of his eyes was the only color that he could see, while the rest of the world turned into a blurry ck and white again. "What¡¯s this? This is quite interesting..." Eisen muttered out inplete awe while looking at his reflection. But while he was doing so, he saw some kind of symbol, something like a small white circle, in the center of the mirror. It didn¡¯t seem to be reflected, and was apparently something that only existed in that exact instance. Eisen concentrated on that circle, and it began to twist and turn before slowly expanding to show a notification window. Usually those were light blue in color, but this one was simplypletely white. [Handcrafted Golden Mirror][Quality - High][Rank - 1] "Oh? This is more than Appraisal usually tells me!" Eisen eximed in surprise, and Ailren chuckled lowly. "Of course it is. After all, appraisal is a very, very basic skill. The Truth Seeing eyes are quite high tier." "Then I thank you, Ailren! This will probably be pretty useful, especially when I rank the skill up... if it can already tell me this much at Rank 0, then I wonder what it can do at rank 4 or 5, or even at rank 10!" "Haha, I¡¯m happy you like these eyes, then. I myself find them to be quite useful. Now, shall we continue our talk?" The Ancient Gold Dragon suggested, and Eisen nodded before closing his eyes again, concentrating on removing the heat he was feeling in his eyes. Soon enough they cooled down, and Eisen opened his eyes again. He was still holding the mirror in front of his face, so he was able to immediately see that his golden eyes turned grey again and his pupils returned to their regr shape as well. Of course, the world around him regained its color as well. Now that his new skill has been disabled, Eisen looked at Ailren to continue the conversation. "So, what I¡¯m wondering now is quite simple. What does it mean that I¡¯m now a Champion?" Ailren smiled, since he obviously expected such a question. "It is quite simple, really. If it were toe to an actual confrontation between the two draconic factions, we would need you to help us somehow. In your case, it would be through providing us with whatever nonbat support you can, meaning through creating tools or weapons. But being a champion also has its perks. You will be able to more easily meet with other metallic dragons, and metallic dragon halflings will also support you in any way they can. There are other small benefits here and there, but those are really the most important ones." The ancient gold dragon exined, and Eisen nodded while scratching his beard in thought. A few secondster, he asked his next question. "And where can I meet other metallic dragons? Since I¡¯m a champion already, I might as well be a true one, right? And since I don¡¯t really have any real goals for traveling around so far, those might be some good ces to go." "Ah, I can tell you a few ces to look. It¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve socialized with others of my kind, so I am notpletely sure where they might be, but I can at least somehow hint you toward ces. First, my friend Bolremgar, a Bronze Dragon. Thest time I¡¯ve met him, he told me about wanting to go to a coastal town that seemed to be centeredrgely around magic. Then there is Zortadyr, a Steel Dragon. I¡¯ve heard a rumor that he helped build up a town in a desert somewhere. He would probably be the hardest to find, at least with the information I can give you. We aren¡¯t on best terms. Marcear the Silver Dragoness might be the closest one to us right now. She was keen on creating herir on the tallest of all mountains, which can be found here in the dwarven country. It is quite a hard climb though, so it may still take longer than simply traveling to another country along the roads. And atst, there is Cracton, the Copper Dragon. He may be the most annoying out of all of us... Quite a jokester, to be honest. Anyway, he was always someone that appreciated the natural trickery that forests provided, whatever that means, and I¡¯ve heard he was somewhere around the beasnds, the country of Beastpeople. There are a lot of Jungles there, so that would be a good ce to start looking." Ailren lengthily exined while Eisen was carefully making mental notes that he would remember to write down as soon as he logged out the next time. "Alright, I¡¯ll go to all those ces, then. Thanks for the information. So, if every dragon has a gift to give out, does that mean if I go visit them, they will give me abilities as well?" "As long as you pass their tests, yes. They will get harder the more you are approved by different dragons, so I wouldn¡¯t take it too lightly." "Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t do that. So, Ailren, I have an important question for you. The figure of that woman you made appear inside of the mist... who was that?" Eisen asked with a calm voice, looking Ailren straight in the eyes. The Ancient Gold Dragon frowned softly. "That woman? Oh, right, she was mentioning something about ¡¯all the women you want¡¯ during the test, huh..? I guess it would be easier to simply show you. I¡¯m not actually the one controlling that mist. It¡¯s an entity on its own, her name is Kirisho. She is usually dormant, but every once in a while, I wake her up for special asions." Ailren exined while standing up and walking back toward the tunnel leading to the front of the cave. Slightly confused, Eisen followed Ailren andmanded Aulu to do so as well. Soon, they once more found themselves at the room that they just left. "She¡¯s usually not supposed to show herself, but I guess she couldn¡¯t resist it this time around. It¡¯s been a while since she really had the chance to be around another person." With a soft smile, Ailren stepped a few meters into the mist and began to address the mist itself. "Kirisho, you¡¯re still awake, am I right? How about I formally introduce you to my guest?" The Gold Dragon asked, and soon enough it seemed as if a woman¡¯s soft chuckle came from within the mist. "I would love that, Aylrentyrth." The womanughed out softly and the whole mist began to move around, twisting in a circle until it all came together a few steps in front of Ailren. After a few seconds, some of the mist that was collected in that one spot simply disappeared, and a woman was left in its center. She was wearing a robe, simr to a yukata, seemingly made mostly of white mist with a few areas filled out with ck smoke. She was the woman that Eisen sw during the test. It was probably the stressful situation, or the words ¡¯all the women that are needed to please you¡¯ simply made him think of his wife, Hanako, but while thinking back on Kirisho¡¯s figure, he thought to have seen his wife. But now that he could actually have a good look at her, it was more than clear that it wasn¡¯t his wife. Sure, she had a few features simr to his wife when both of them were still young, but those simrities seemed to be just coincidences. On top of that, while Kirisho may have a few japanese features, she seemed to be have western ones as well. Maybe they looked simr to each other in a way that distant cousins might, but if you looked at both of them next to each other, it was obvious that they didn¡¯t really look alike at all, although both of them are extremely beautiful. With a loud sigh, Eisen shook those toughts away and stepped forward toward the woman of mist Kirisho, holding out his hand to greet her. "Nice to meet you, Kirisho. My name is Eisen." Chapter 68 Descen Kirisho smiled softly and held her snow-white hand forward toward Eisen¡¯s to greet him back. "Nice to meet you too, Eisen. I¡¯m Kirisho. It¡¯s a pleasure. It seems that you have passed thest test. Congrattions on bing a Champion, then." She giggled lightly and held her hand in front of her mouth while closing her eyes, making Eisen smile in response. "Thank you. This is really unexpected, though. I figured that this wasn¡¯t regr mist, but I never expected it to be a person..." Eisen¡¯s words made Kirisho slightly jump in surprise before tilting her head to the side. "Erm... Person? You think of me as a person?" She asked in confusion, and Eisen nodded with a frown. "Of course, aren¡¯t you? I mean, I don¡¯t really care whether or not you¡¯re a Monster, Elf, Human, Fairy, or literally anything else. You seem nice enough, and Ailren trusts you enough to let you guard the entrance to this ce. So yeah, I think of you as a person." The old man exined, leaving Kirisho¡¯s white cheeks to slowly turn a very soft, light pink. "I see... Thank you, Eisen. Would it be alright if I asked you something?" She smiled, and Eisen nodded. "Sure, I don¡¯t mind. What do you want to know?" He said, and Kirisho nodded slowly. "Who... is Hanako?" Eisen opened his eyes wide. He wasn¡¯t embarrassed about anything that he did during or immediately following the test, but hepletely forgot that he, well, was supposed to have forgotten. But now, he can¡¯t just pretend as if him saying Hanako¡¯s name never happened. So, he decided to take the truth, and mix it in with the story that Ari prepared for the originals. "Ah, well... Somehow, I remembered a certain person during the test while seeing you and h earing what the voices told me. Hanako... she was my wife. But she passed away a long time ago. I guess I just kind of got emotional because of that." Eisen exined and Kirisho began to show a sad face. "So it was something like that? I see... I¡¯m sorry that I reminded you of her, Eisen... But... I have to go now... I¡¯m feeling quite tired..." Kirisho said while struggling to keep her eyes open, her figure slowly losing shape. "Then sleep well, Kirisho. Let¡¯s talk again sometime." Eisen smiled, and Kirisho nodded lightly, before she slowly turnedpletely back into mist, filling out the whole room once more. Eisen turned around and looked at Ailren, who was watching with a curious look. "This was quite interesting. She usually doesn¡¯t talk all that much. And I can say for sure I have never seen her blush before." The Dragon chuckled lowly. With a frown, Eisen simply ignored him and began to ask what was worrying him. "Is this simply her life? She is asleep for hours, days, or even months, and when she can wake up, she can only do so for half an hour?" Ailren sighed and looked at Eisen with a sad face. "Yes, but it hasn¡¯t always been like this. You see, Kirisho is a Mist Spirit. She lived a short but happy life, and for certain reasons I am not in liberty to tell you about, in death she wasn¡¯t allowed to move on to the afterlife. She was trapped in this world through a wicked creatures¡¯ curse, and was as such bound to an amulet in a dormant state. That amulet was one that I coincidentally found during one of my travels, and through my Truth Seeing Eyes, I was able to discern that there was a soul trapped inside and freed her. For a while, she was basically like a regr person, sleeping at night and wide awake at day, but then something happened a few years ago. A group of adventurers made their way to this mountain and through to my treasury while I was out, and Kirisho was all alone to take care of this cave. The adventurers found her and immediately tried to kill her, thinking she was some kind of simple monster in the form of a woman. Soon enough, they figured out that the amulet was the source of her being and were able to shatter it into pieces. An important part of the gem embedded inside of it stayed intact, allowing Kirisho to continue living, although in the state you see now. Sadly, the adventurers took the rest of the gem and amulet with them." Eisen turned away from Airlen so that he couldn¡¯t see his face at this moment. Instead, he looked into the mist-filled room. "That¡¯s a horrible thing... Ailren, is there any way I can help?" "Hmm, do you mean it?" Ailren asked with a surprised frown, and Eisen nodded. "Yes, I just want to help. Something like this isn¡¯t nice to look at... Kirisho is here, but she isn¡¯t at the same time. Every once in a while she is capable of talking to others. That¡¯s no way to live, is it?" "I¡¯m d that you want to help, Eisen. Then yes, there is a way you can help me. During Kirisho¡¯s fight with the adventurers, one of them lost their Identification Tag. I have it in the treasury. You might be able to find out who and where this group is." [New Quest - Stolen Shards] [Description] A group of adventurers destroyed the amulet in which the Mist Spirit Kirisho was sealed, taking the majority of the shards with them. This left Kirisho in a state that only barely allows her to consciously exist. You want to help, and thus the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth asked you to find the adventurers, and as such hopefully the shards of the amulet, with the help of one of the adventurers¡¯ identification tag. Find the stolen shards andbine them together again. [Reward] Kirisho will be able to live a normal life again [Failure] Kirisho will continue living the life she currently has "That sounds like a good ce to start, yeah. Thanks, Ailren." Eisen said before reading through the quest notification and then waving it away, and then followed the dragon back to the treasury, where he quickly gave him the small iron te in the shape of a dogtag. It had a small engraving which he couldn¡¯t recognize, as it was neither anguage that he knew nor a symbol that he¡¯s seen before. Ailren looked at Eisen and smiled. "I hope you can find them. Now, the tests are over. Do you want to get back to Melroe? I¡¯m sure your friends are waiting eagerly for your return. I can fly you back there again if you want." He suggested, but Eisen shook his head. "Thanks, but I¡¯ll probably just walk. I want to give Aulu some proper experience to handle different terrains, so a descent from here would be just perfect. I¡¯lle visit sometime again, though. And thank you for the chance to be a champion, Ailren." "Of course. I am d that things went like they went." And like that, Eisen grabbed his things out of the workshop and made his way down the mountain again, with Caria on his shoulder and Aulu following behind him. --- "Alright Caria, I¡¯m holding it tightly and it can¡¯t escape, so go ahead and kick it, alright? As hard as you can!" Eisen said while holding a Rank 1 Stone Mole so that it couldn¡¯t move. During the descent, whenever they came across a monster that was weak enough for him to easily beat without much trouble, he would try and let Caria attack them as much as she could so that she would get a portion of the experience to rank her up. Right now, she still couldn¡¯t really do much at all, so he wanted to get her to rank up so that she would unlock the INT and WIS stats, and with that, mana. Like that, she could learn a number of different skills that she wouldn¡¯t be able to otherwise. Since Eisen wanted to raise her toward being someone to rely on for different herbs and nts to use for alchemical concoctions, possibly even to have her run a small farming plot once Eisen found a nice spot to build a house. The tiny myconid nodded her head and ran up to the stone mole to kick it as strongly as it could. Of course, that still wasn¡¯t very strong, but it was enough for the system to recognize her as one of the attackers before Eisen finished the mole off. As Caria couldn¡¯t do a lot of damage, she also didn¡¯t get a lot of experience, but at the very least it was enough to have her rank up before they reached Melroe again. To be fair, Eisen went out of his way to look for monsters when he saw that Caria was getting closer to ranking up. When she did, Caria turned into Myconid Child, doubling her size. On top of that, she even finally gained two arms! They were just small stubs, but it was better than no arms at all, right? Seeing her new tranformation, Caria looked up at Eisen with her dot-like eyes happily and jumped at him, for once giving him a real hug. "It¡¯s fine, Caria, I¡¯m happy about it too, trust me. Now, how about we get back to the Inn and see if we can practice some mana maniptionter, alright? If I can do it, then I bet you can as well!" Eisenughed out loud and waved at Aulu to make her follow him as they came closer and closer to Melroe while sitting Caria down on his shoulder. It was somewhere around early evening, and thest of theborers that were working outside of town were now returning as well. Eisen walked through the crowds of people that wanted to meet up in order to go drinking after a long day at work, and made his way toward the Inn. It took a while longer than it usually would, since Aulu didn¡¯t know how to walk through crowds like this yet and simply walked straight ahead so that she simply pushed everyone aside if Eisen didn¡¯t specifically told her where to go. Even so, after a while they made it to the Inn safely. Eisen walked through the front door and then stepped up in front of the front desk to talk to the Innkeeper. "Oh, old man! Haven¡¯t seen ya in a few days! Where¡¯ve ya been?" The Dwarf asked in a loud voice once he set eyes on Eisen, causing the old man to chuckle lowly. "Yeah, I was doing something a little out of town. Say, are Bree and the beasts we came withst time here?" Eisen asked. "They¡¯re in their room. Ah, that Monkey kid woke up as well yesterday, so he should be in there too." The Innkeeper exined, and Eisen thanked him before making his way to therge room on the bottom floor where him and Bree brought Jyuuk and his beasts a few days prior. He knocked on the door and heard someone rush to the door that slowly opened up a few secondster. "Yees~?" Bree asked with an already bright smile that only grew brighter when she saw that it was Eisen at the door. "Ah! You¡¯re back! How was it?!" She asked excitedly and pulled Eisen inside of the room to talk to him. Inside was the other person that the Innkeeper mentioned to be awake, Jyuuk. He was currently seated on one of the beds, feeding his beasts. When he saw Eisen, he immediately stood up and walked up to him. "Eisen! Bree told me you were on top of some mountain! Come on, tell us how it went! And... what are those two?" Jyuuk asked slightly confused, and even Bree looked curiously at Aulu. "Ah, let me exin. First off, this is my cute little girl Caria! She¡¯s a Myconid! She actually hatched out of the egg that you gave me." Eisen exined. "So that was a Myconid egg? Interesting!" The Monkey Beastperson eximed and leaned in closer, which made Caria try and hide behind Eisen¡¯s head somehow. Bree tilted her head, though, and asked, "But she seems a little bit bigger than before, right?" "Yeah! She ranked up not too long ago. On my way down the mountain, I killed a few beasts and had her attack them as well so that she would get some experience to rank up. She grew in size and got arms, but other than that, she¡¯s the same as before." Eisen exined and held Caria forward on both of his hands to basically show her off. Both Jyuuk and Bree looked at her a few seconds, until their gaze inevitably moved over to Aulu. Eisen then told them about the tests that he got from Ailren, and how he created Aulu as an automaton in order to use all of his most important skills. He then showed them the effect of his new skill as well so that they knew what it looked like. After he finished his story, Jyuuk leaned back against the wall. "Oh? Maybe I should go see that Dragon as well..." But Eisen shook his head to advice against it. "I wouldn¡¯t, if I were you. First, I don¡¯t even know if you can simply go to a dragon and ask him to test you. If one of them thinks you¡¯re worthy, then they will approach you themselves. Also, I¡¯m not too sure how well the Truth Seeing Eye would fit to you. Sure, you could probably use it to identify different monsters and nts, right? But maybe another dragon would find interest in you that can give you a gift that fits much better to you. For me, it¡¯s perfect. It let¡¯s me easily identify different properties of tools, weapons and materials. I can tell most of it myself, but I can¡¯t really do so with magical materials. Maybe I¡¯ll be able to see the flow of magic at some point or something, and considering my two magic rted crafting skills, that would be perfect. Well, it¡¯s your choice, but I would wait for a dragon to ask you to take the tests. I¡¯m sure it will happen, don¡¯t worry." Eisen exined to Jyuuk, and he ended up sighing loudly. "Yes, that makes sense. So, Eisen, what do you want to do next?" The Beastperson asked, and Eisen chose to tell them his ns. Chapter 69 Omegas "So your n for now is to find those adventurers and get those shards back?" Jyuuk summed up after Eisen told them about the situation. In response, the old man nodded and began to scratch his beard. "Yes, basically that¡¯s it. But I don¡¯t really know where to start, since all I know about them is that one of them had this tag. And before then, I¡¯ll have to do a few other things in preparation for traveling. But what about you, Jyuuk? What will you be doing from now on?" "Hmm, I¡¯m not sure. I was nning to just see if I can make some friends here and there, and have my beasts rank up a lot. And I hope it won¡¯t sound rude, but I was nning on going on my own somewhere. My sleeping pattern will probably not fit well with yours either, so it¡¯s better to just split up from here on out." The Monkey Beastperson exined with aplicated smile, and Eisen nodded. "I see, I understand what you mean. We¡¯ll be basically travelling non-stop for a while, so that really doesn¡¯t fit well together. But find me in case you need something." Eisen said and then turned to Bree. "I hope that you still want toe with me, and that you won¡¯t mind pursuing the shards." "It¡¯s fine! I would love to help! What those adventurers did is absolutely horrible!" She eximed and formed her hands into fists angrily. "Yeah, I think so as well. Then let¡¯s go and get those shards back as soon as possible. Do you have any idea where we could start?" Eisen asked her, since she would be the one that might give the best ideas out of the three of them. She looked like she was thinking for a while, and then grabbed the iron dog-tag that Eisen was holding in his hand. "We can ask at Melroe¡¯s adventurer¡¯s guild. This tag has the adventurer¡¯s mana signature, so they might be able to identify it. Although I don¡¯t really know if they¡¯ll give us a lot of information..." Bree suggested. "It¡¯s better than nothing. We might be able to at least find out where we need to go to have any chance at finding them. Let¡¯s go there tomorrow morning, then. Ah, I wanted to ask something else as well. But do monsters also only level up throughbat, like us?" In response to Eisen¡¯s question, Bree tilted her head to the side. "Huh? What are you talking about? People can¡¯t only level up throughbat!" This made both Jyuuk and Eisen respond with a confused look, before Bree started exining. "Well,bat is the easiest way to level up, since you take a small part of the experience of another being into yourself, but you can also get experience by doing things! For example, you can level up through quests! And there are some special actions that give you experience as well! It¡¯s not a lot, but better than nothing! So monsters can level up like that too~! A little bit easier than people, actually, and they can get a lot of experience through some actions depending on their race." The Fey-kin exined. As expected of a walking library! "Right, that¡¯s true... I didn¡¯t think of that. So does that mean that Jyuuk and I can level up our tamed beasts without having them fight?" "Ah, yeah! That¡¯s the case. It seems to always be easier to level them up throughbat, but for example, I went out to the forest with Tsurishika today and we trained a bit. He¡¯s close to ranking up soon, actually. And I¡¯ve seen a few nonbat monsters before, actually. There weren¡¯t many, but every once in a while I saw those that simply ran away from me when I got to close to them." "I see... then Caria should be able to grow without having to fight, then." Eisen said while holding onto the small Myconid in his hands. "She should be able to, yeah~!" Bree eximed. "And what route do you want her to go?" Jyuuk asked curiously. "Ah, I would definitely want her to stay in an area that befits what she is. Basically, she¡¯s a sentient nt, isn¡¯t she? So I would like it if I could have her grow and take care of a few different nts and herbs and things like that. Something like that is about the gist of it." In response to Eisen¡¯s exnation, Caria was happily nodding her head. "And for that, I guess something like teaching her how to control mana would be a good idea. Maybe she can learn some kind of magic for what I had in mind." "So you want her to be a Myconid Druid?" With an excited smile, Bree looked at the tiny figure of the animate mushroom in front of her, before Eisen nodded. "A Druid is someone that¡¯s strongly connected to nature, right?" He asked. "Mhm~! There¡¯s more to it than just that, but yeah!" "I see.. then that should be the area I would like her to go, yeah. But who knows? Maybe she¡¯s super talented at something else. I can¡¯t make her be a druid if she rather wants to be a sorceress or something like that. But we¡¯ll just have to see. Do you two mind if we go ahead and practice for a bit?" Eisen asked, and both Jyuuk and Bree told him that they were fine with it. So, Eisen properly sat down on his bed and ced Caria down in front of him before also grabbing a few mana pills that he then liquified again and ced in a small bowl. Although Caria didn¡¯t have a mouth, she was still able to absorb liquids simply through her skin. And considering that she had pretty low stats, she would really need the mana potion. But luckily, it seemed as if a magic-oriented path was truly perfect for her, since her INT and WIS stats were two to three times higher than her other, more physical stats. This made Eisen hope that he could properlymunicate the ways to manipte her mana to her. "Alright Caria, you need to look into yourself and see if you can feel the flow of your mana. It¡¯s an energy that you didn¡¯t have until today. Can you feel it?" Eisen asked, and the small myconid shook her head in response after staying still for a few seconds. "Hmm... then how about this... I¡¯ll pour some mana into you, and then you concentrate on that feeling to see if you can then use it on your own mana, okay?" Shortly after this, Eisen ced the tip of his finger on the top of Caria¡¯s head, slowly pouring a tiny bit of his mana into her small body. It seemed like she slightly shuddered at this sudden new feeling, but soon rxed and took Eisen¡¯s mana into herself. After a few seconds, he removed his finger and asked her to repeat trying to find her own mana. And as such, Eisen led her step by step through different tasks that would allow her to use her mana more easily, until he could finally confirm that she got the Mana Maniption skill. "Great! Now, let¡¯s keep practicing for a while, alright?" Eisen asked, and Caria nodded her head excitedly at this new ability that she gained. But it wasn¡¯t only Caria that gained something through this. While they were practicing mana maniption, Eisen¡¯s taming skill ranked up and gave him an extra INT and WIS stat. After a while, they got Caria¡¯s new skill high enough to rank up rtively soon, although for now it was time for everyone to go to sleep. So, they would continue practicing the next day. --- [Announcement! It has been a week since you five Originals came to the World of Magic! Now, it¡¯s time for another wave of yers to follow behind you! After you, those that helped create the world, are those that helped finance it! They are yers chosen directly by ourrgest investors. In total, 100 yers joined you in this world! These yers are not called ¡¯Originals¡¯ like you, but they are called ¡¯Omegas¡¯! Two more waves in total will follow within two weeks, before the world opens up to the general yer base in three weeks! Enjoy your time!] The moment that Eisen opened his eyes after waking up the next morning was this notification. After reading through it, he opened his eyes in surprise but tried to keep his voice down so that Bree wouldn¡¯t notice that something was going on. He waved the notification away and smiled. With new yers, this world might be more interesting! Eisen just wondered about the story they would go with... would they also have lost their experience somehow? Or was there some kind of other reasoning for their sudden appearance? Once Jyuuk woke up, he would talk to him about it, and they could keep in contact to talk to each other about what they find out about the Omega yers. Eisen was quite interested in how Prime Industries connected the Originals¡¯ appearance with the Omegas¡¯ appearance. Either way, now Eisen knew that it wasn¡¯t only in three weeks from now that the yers appeared. This world would slowly be filled out with more and more yers, and Eisen couldn¡¯t wait to see what this would change about this world. The old man stood up and looked at the beds beside him. One of them was empty, and that was the bed that Bree was sleeping in the night before, while Jyuuk was lying on the other one in his wooden state with his beasts sleeping tightly in the center of the room. They were even joined by Caria and Aulu for the night, who were lying in the middle of the other beasts. Eisen quietly walked over to his tamed beast and his automaton to get them before exiting the room to look for Bree. And it didn¡¯t take long, as soon enough he found her standing in front of the front desk, talking to the Innkeeper. The moment that she saw Eisen, she once more began to smile brightly waved at him. "Good morning, Eisen~!" She yelled out. With a softugh, Eisen walked toward them and greeted her as well as the Innkeeper. "I wanted to get to the Adventurer¡¯s Guild to see what I can find out. Do you want toe with me?" He asked, and Bree quickly nodded her head. "Sure! Is Jyuuk awake as well?" "No, he¡¯s still asleep. I¡¯m guessing that he¡¯ll be up soon, though. Ah, could you tell our friend where we went in case hees out of our room before we¡¯re back?" Eisen asked after turning to the Innkeeper. "Ah, of course I will, don¡¯t worry about that. See ya twoter, and have fun at the guild." He said before Eisen and Bree made their way out of Inn and toward the Adventurer¡¯s Guild. It actually didn¡¯t take all that long to find this guild, as it was in an area where all different guilds in Melroe settled down. Amongst the buildings lining the stone cliffs were of course the Adventurer¡¯s Guild, the Merchant¡¯s Guild, and even the Crafter¡¯s Guild. Eisen had no idea that thest of these was even a thing! And so, he decided to check out what it was about once he and Bree finished their business at the adventurer¡¯s guild. It may also be a good idea to go to the Merchant¡¯s Guild as well. After all, Eisen might want to try and sell some of the items he makes in the future, so the Merchant¡¯s Guild may be able to help him with that. Either way, first, they had to go somewhere else. And that ce was the Adventurer¡¯s Guild. Chapter 70 Adventurers Guild Eisen and Bree stepped through the doors of the Adventurer¡¯s Guild and looked around. There were three counters on the wall opposite to the door, two out of which seemed to be currently closed. On the left wall was arge pinboard that waspletely covered in different pieces of paper, while there was a small area to sit down on the right. Currently, there wasn¡¯t much traffic inside of this building, and only two young men and a woman, who Eisen guessed to be new adventurers judging from their equipment, were currently standing in front of the pinboard. At the one open counter, another young woman was seated, staring into the open space in front of her due to boredom. However, when she saw Eisen and Bree, together with seemingly two different beasts, suddenly enter, her face turned bright and happy to make a good impression on the customers. Today, Eisen was wearing his Fine suit, as he had neither and set ns forbat nor crafting and instead wanted to finally wear his ¡¯casual¡¯ outfit, which he didn¡¯t have the chance to really do ever since he made it. Another reason why he wore this was to hopefully make a good impression, and since it gave a bonus to his charisma, it would also help just that tiny bit more in convincing the staff to give him the information he wanted. Eisen stepped in front of the desk with a bright smile and simply asked away. "Good morning, young miss! If possible, I would like to get your help with something." He said, and the woman with short blond hair and light skin smiled professionally while nodding her head. "That¡¯s what we¡¯re here for, Sir. And what is it that you want us to help with?" She asked and lightly tilted her head to the side. "Here, I found this not too long ago, and I would like to see it returned to its owner." Eisen exined and ced the small metal dogtag onto the counter. The employee took the tag and looked at it closely, before looking at Eisen in slight surprise. "Where did you find this? There aren¡¯t many Rank 4 adventurers around Melroe!" "It just caught my eye in the mountains outside of town. I showed it to my friend here, and she suggested to find its owner by asking about it here." "Ah, I see. Thank you for finding this and bringing it to us then. We will see to have have it returned." The woman said and slightly nodded her head at Eisen, pulling the tag over to herself. But before she was able topletele dismiss Eisen after this, heid his hand onto the wooden surface to get the employee¡¯s attention. "Excuse me, but would it be possible for us to bring it back to its owner? Me and my friend were nning to leave Melroe soon anyway to travel. Since we don¡¯t have a real destination yet, that might be a good ce to start." Eisen tried to exin while keeping up mannerisms that might make it easier for the employee to be convinced with the help of his CHA stats and his Casanova title. After all, it seemed like thetter of these would also help in these situations. After a while of simply looking at each other, the female employee simply sighed lowly. "I¡¯m afraid that won¡¯t be possible, Sir. Since for the general transfer of information, we use a special Space-Magic enchanted item, this will be handled by simply letting other adventurer¡¯s guilds know that this has been retrieved and that it cannot be used by others in fraudulent situations. A recement can be created if the owner of this tag requests it." "I see... That¡¯s the case then. It¡¯s just so that this tag wasn¡¯t the only thing I found. Directly next to it was this small diary here." Eisen exined while pulling out a small leatherbound book. It was the one that he found to be in his pocket when he first found himself in the forest near Melroe. It seemed like he would have to improvise a bit. "I would like to return this to the owner as well." Suspicious at this sudden appearance of a supposed diary, the employee began to frown softly. "Then why didn¡¯t you mention this diary from the get-go, Sir?" She asked straightforwardly, and Eisen looked left and right to make sure nobody was listening before leaning in toward the young woman. "You see... I felt quite bad about it myself, but I flipped the diary open to see if there was any information on the owner inside, but all I found were some quite... risque contents. Those that one would probably not want to appear in the hands of others." Immediately, the woman opened her eyes in surprise while gaining a light blush on her cheeks. "O-Oh, I see, I see... Erm... Either way, I don¡¯t think we can help you much with this. All I can tell you is that this tag was made in the Capital of Litgern, Ornier. That is probably the best ce to look." The Employee said atst, prompting some notifications to pop up in front of Eisen. [Due to convincing someone to help you with just your words, you have gained +1 CHA] [Quest Updated! Stolen Shards] Eisen simply smiled at the first notification and waved it away, and then checked what was apparently changed in the quest description. It really wasn¡¯t much, all that was added to the description was that Eisen gained a clue to the position of the adventurers, while the rest of the quest screen stayed the same as before. The old man nodded at the Employee and then thanked her for her help, but just before he and Bree could leave, she called out to them again. "Ah, Sir! Could I ask you a question, if it is not too rude?" She asked, and Eisen turned around. "Of course, young miss! Ask away." "May you also possibly be an adventurer? Considering your build, you seem quite strong." With a low chuckle, Eisen shook his head. "No, I¡¯m not an adventurer. I¡¯m a craftsman, so that¡¯s why I look like this." "I see... Then may you be interested in joining the guild? There is a small examination, but I¡¯m sure you would be able to pass it with ease." She exined while Eisen thought about it for a bit. It probably wouldn¡¯t hurt to join, although he would only do this if it wouldn¡¯t cut him off from joining the Crafter¡¯s Guild, which he was a lot more interested in than this one. As if already sensing his worries, the employee shook her head. "Don¡¯t worry, there is no limit to how many Guilds you can be a part of." Eisen smiled and walked back up to the counter after asking Bree what her opinion was. She simply told him that it wouldn¡¯t hurt to be an adventurer, as it would allow them to make money with simple things like killing monsters or gathering materials if they ever were to run low on ressources during their travels. So, Eisen decided to take that test. "If that¡¯s so, follow me, then. We will first be appraising you for your basic information, meaning stats, skills, titles, level and upation." The Guild Employee exined before showing Eisen to a door next to the counters. He stepped through and was then led to another room in the back. The employee brought out a small, fist-like crystal ball, which she then held out to Eisen. "Pleasey your hand onto this and pour your mana inside. This will at the same time be used to read your mana signature." She exined, and Eisen simply did as told. When the crystal was touched by his mana, it slowly began to emit a soft light, that soon disappeared again. Immediately afterward, the employee brought the crystal ball over to a desk and held it over a piece of paper. It seemed like she also poured her mana inside of the sphere, as the air immediately surrounding it started to shift a slight bit. After that, ck lines appeared to be shooting out of the ball to write something onto the piece of paper, which the employee then held up to read through before she opened her eyes wide in surprise. "Oh? You have quite a collection of skills there. Although they are quite low ranked for someone your age, you seem to have quite an interesting ss as well... And you¡¯re already level 71... Yes, you should definitely be able to pass the examination. Since the Adventurer¡¯s guild is focused mainly aroundbat, it will be abat examination as well. It seems like you can use both magic as well swordsmanship? Which do you primarily use?" "Hmm, I guess I focus on swordsmanship, and rather use my magic just every once in a while." Eisen exined, and the employee nodded as she took a note on another piece of paper. She looked up at Eisen and nodded before walking through a corridor that led into a small hall, filled with different weapons and dummies to practice with and on. The employee turned around and looked at Eisen with a soft smile. "Now, let¡¯s start thebat examination." ---------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 71] [HP - 1854][MP - 1887] [STR - 104][END - 104][AGI - 103][INT - 106][WIS - 107][CHA - 11] [Titles] -[Casanova] -[Championaws] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker V] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 2][Level - 89] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 2][Level - 68] -[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 31] -[cksmithing][Rank - 2][Level - 39] -[Cooking][Rank - 0][Level - 68] -[Crafting Space][Rank - 1][Level - 81] -[Dismembering][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Enchanting][Rank - 2][Level - 11] -[me of the Earth Magic][Rank - 1][Level - 51] -[Golemancy][Rank - 0][Level - 19] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 16] -[Lockpicking][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 26] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 46] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 2][Level - 37] -[Swordsmanship][Rank - 2][Level - 74] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 41] -[Taming][Rank - 1][Level - 9] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 61] -[Truth Seeing Eye][Rank - 0][Level - 26] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 71 Guild System The Guild Employee looked at the piece of paper on which she copied Eisen¡¯s status information and then walked up to a man that was standing by some of the weapons that were inside of the room. He was built quite tall and had bright red hair, the type that you could usually only have if you dyed it. The man was currently tending to the weapons, polishing them and making sure they were in good condition. He turned around when the employee began to talk. "Hey, you need to actually work for once. I want you to test this guy. Here are his stats." She told him. The smile that she showed to Eisen was immediately gone, as if talking to this man was aplete drag. "Tsk, sure. Let¡¯s see... Oh, what a surprise! His level is quite high. And he¡¯s just starting out as an adventurer now?" The man asked in surprise, and then looked over to the old man, little girl, golden wolf and mushroom standing by the entrance to the hall. "Ah... it¡¯s just an old man... wait, but why are his skills so low then? And his stats are a bit high, aren¡¯t they? Not to mention that he even has the Charisma stat." He then muttered out, alternating between looking at Eisen and the piece of paper in his hands. The employee frowned in confusion and leaned over to take a closer look again, and after a few seconds of mental calction, she nodded her head slightly. "Yeah... With that level and the bonus stats from ranking up your skills, they shouldn¡¯t be this high... Wait, is it that? Isn¡¯t limitbreaker something amazing?" "I¡¯m pretty sure it is. There are a few people with that title here in town. I heard that it can give you bonus stats as well..." "Is that so..? Well, anyway, get to work youzy bum." The employee said and grabbed the piece of paper out of the man¡¯s hands again. "Then get out and let me, will you?" He responded with an annoyed voice, but the employee crossed her arms. "You know that I have to stay here and watch, so just do it." "Fine... But keep quiet for five minutes, will you?" The man nearly yelled and the employee returned in front of Eisen with a bright smile. "Everything¡¯s ready. Now please, if you don¡¯t have any weapon with you, take one of ours." The employee exined, "Since there is quite a level difference between you and that guy, he will only fight with a wooden training weapon so that he can¡¯t fatally injure you or destroy your equipment." Eisen nodded with a light smile and turned to Bree, who already grabbed the cloth-wrapped Zweih?nder that was sticking out of the top of her backpack. "Thanks. Now then, I hope this won¡¯t take too long." Eisen said with a smile and stepped forward while unrwapping his sword. He knew that it would probably be best to change into his leather armor, but this was simply a test so that the guild would have a general idea, and since the man wouldn¡¯t be able to cut Eisen¡¯s suit apart with a wooden sword, there wouldn¡¯t be any damage to it either. Besides, he wanted to go to other guildster that seemed more business-minded just judging from their names, so he had to make a good impression, so wearing a suit would be the best choice there too, meaning that Eisen would need to change back into it again anyway. He stepped forward and held the sword tightly in both of his hands. The man that Eisen would now be fighting looked at him with eager eyes, grasping his own sword. "Come at me whenever you want!" He eximed, and Eisen began to chuckle in response. "Here Ie then." Eisen said and jumped forward, shing his sword down at the man. Instead of jumping to the side as Eisen would have expected, the man simply blocked the attack, which was quite a surprise considering that he did so with a thin wooden de. Seeing that Eisen didn¡¯t have any chance against this man by trying to simply overpower him with brute strength, he shifted his feet around and made his body follow behind in a circr motion and shed at the man once more, this time from the bottom left side. The man shifted slightly backward and caught the attack to try and take it to his advantage by letting Eisen¡¯s de slide off the smooth wood surface. However, Eisen expected this and twisted his sword just a slight bit to catch the wooden weapon with his Zweih?nder¡¯s parry hook. He moved his sword¡¯s tip behind the man in the hope that the hooked wooden sword would be pulled out of his hands, but different to what Eisen expected, or rather hoped, the man was able to simply resist the force that Eisen put on his weapon. Since that was the case, Eisen slid his hooks further up the wooden sword to be as close to its hilt as possible, and then continued twisting and turning his own sword as hard as he could. Now even this incredibly strong man couldn¡¯t do anything against this and the wooden sword was pulled out of his hands,nding a few meters away. While the man was jumping back to gain distance now that he lost his sword, Eisen simply attacked once more with a regr sh toward the man¡¯s torso. Considering his strength, Eisen was sure that an attack from himself would be fatal to the man, and he was absolutely right. Instead of being hit by the attack straight-on, the man simply deflected the de with his bare hands and pushed it down onto the ground with an amount of force that Eisen couldn¡¯t even fathom, strong enough to make him lose his grip on the Zweih?nder so that it fell down onto the ground. "Alright, that¡¯s enough!" The Female Employee yelled out to let both of the fighters know that the examination was over now. "Congrattions, Sir, you have passed the entrance examination for the Adventurer¡¯s Guild! You fought quite well, especially considering that you¡¯re a Crafter rather than a Fighter. Just don¡¯t be disheartened by the fact that you lost, Garon may be an idiot, but he¡¯s the Guild Master, so he has to be strong." She exined while smiling happily andpletely ignoring the man, Garon, as he wasining about the treatment the woman was giving him. Eisen didn¡¯t really know what it meant to be a Guild Master, but at the very least it sounded like quite an important position. "You can say that again. Not many people can disarm me like that." Garon said with a somewhat smug smile, while the employee continued ignoring him. "Well then, Sir, if you would please follow me to the front I can exin the basics to you and give you your tag." She smiled and waved Eisen back to the front of the guild. But before then, he turned to Garon and held out his hand. "Sorry for not introducing myself before, my name is Eisen. So you are the Guild Master here?" He asked, and Garon nodded. "Oh, it¡¯s fine. I¡¯m from arger town, the nicest adventurers there are even ruder than the thugs here in Melroe, so you don¡¯t need to worry. And yeah, I¡¯m the guild master. There isn¡¯t much to do, usually, but every once in a while I can move around a lil¡¯ bit like this." Garonughed and ced his fists onto his hips while showing his white teeth in a brigh smile. There was another thing that Eisen was wondering about, but before he could ask about it, Garon said something that both surprised and confused him, which Garon apparently noticed as well. "I just wish my wife Jaz would be a bit nicer to me... Ah, yeah, she doesn¡¯t act like we¡¯re married, huh? She¡¯s a bit shy, haha." Garonughed and picked up his and Eisen¡¯s weapons, handing Eisen his Zweih?nder before putting the wooden sword back to the other weapons. Eisen chose to simply ignore the matter of the female employee Jaz for now then, since it really was none of his business to pry further. "By the way, did you make this weapon? I haven¡¯t seen a sword with hooks like that before." Garon asked curiously and leaned in to further inspect the finely crafted steel in front of his eyes. Happy that someone wanted to know more about his items, Eisen nodded his head with a soft chuckle. "Yes, I made it. It¡¯s called a Zweih?nder, and as you can probably guess, these hooks are meant for parrying. And since the sword itself is quite heavy, it¡¯s easier for me to control the other person¡¯s weapon than it is for the other person to control my weapon." Eisen simply exined and Garon nodded in response. "Huh, interesting. Say, what¡¯s your rank at the Crafter¡¯s Guild?" Garon asked curiously, but he didn¡¯t expect Eisen¡¯s answer. "I¡¯m not part of the Crafter¡¯s Guild yet. I meant to go there to register after finishing my business here." "Oh, now that¡¯s something unusual. You¡¯re a crafter, right? What guild are you part of, then?" "Actually, I¡¯m not part of any guild at all." "Now that is quite a surprise... Most people are part of at least one guild, especially at your age." Garon exined, but Eisen couldn¡¯t do anything but smile ufortably. "I guess I¡¯m a bit of a special case in that regard then. Either way, thank you for going easy on me during the examination." Eisen said with a smile while preparing to end the conversation and making his way to follow Jaz back to the front of the Guild Building. "No no, I couldn¡¯t have fought you seriously, that doesn¡¯t be of a Guild Master... and Jaz would have probably started nagging me about it for a week... Well, I¡¯ll see you around, and thank you for choosing our Guild to be your first." Eisen smiled and nodded before walking back to Bree, Aulu and Caria who were waiting near the door to the hall they were still in, and together they made their way back to the front of the building where Jaz was already waiting. He stepped back around the counter before Jaz ced a small wooden tag onto the counter. "This is your Identification Tag for the Adventurer¡¯s Guild. As you can see, we have already marked it with your unique mana signature. I heard you telling Garon that this is the first Guild you have joined. Do you need me to exin the basic system?" Jaz asked, and of course, Eisen nodded in response. He could have Bree exin it to him, but considering that they were already here talking to a Guild Employee, it couldn¡¯t hurt to have her exin. "Alright! Basically, we work with a Rank system as well. It¡¯s the regr 0 to 10 as you should be used to. Every rank has a representation as a material as well. In ascending order, it¡¯s Wood, y, Porcine, Rock, Iron, Steel, Copper, Bronze, Gold, tinum and atst Crystal. As you may be able to guess, this is also represented in the identification tags. Whenever you rank up your position in the Guild, you will gain some new privileges, including but not limited to being able to ept higher ranking quests, essing certain information, or being allowed to use more of the Guild¡¯s different services. As a Rank 0, you are able to ept only one quest, and once youplete that quest sessfully, you will immediately rank up to 1. As such, we suggest to get that first quest out of the way as quickly as possible. All you need to do to ept a quest is bring one of the flyers describing quests of your rank over to an avable counter, and it will be processed by one of our employees. These quests can be turned in or epted at any Adventurer¡¯s Guild Branch. Would you like to ept a quest?" Jaz asked with a bright smile and speech that somehow had monotone undertones to it. Of course Eisen wanted to ept a quest right now andplete it as soon as possible, but he was currently just thinking about how the first person that really seemed like a programmed NPC at times was a bureaucratic official. Chapter 72 Crafters Guild Eisen grabbed the tag off of the table and was immediately met with a new notification. [You have unlocked the Guild Function, which allows you to ess different information in connection to your joined Guilds] [You have joined the System Guild "Adventurer¡¯s Guild"] After reading through these notification, Eisen smiled and waved them away. Having this kind of function would hopefully be quite useful. Although Eisen wondered about the term ¡¯System Guild¡¯. Were there other types of guilds than these? Maybe he should ask about thatter, but for now it was time to finish the business with taking his first request. Eisen stood in front of the Adventurer Guild¡¯s pinboard that was covered in a number of different task requests. Most of them were simple requests for gathering different nts, materials or ingredients, while there were also a few requests asking for someone to kill beasts that were roaming around immediately around Melroe. There was a small number at the bottom of each piece of paper indicating what rank they were meant for. The majority of the requests were meant for Rank 1 and 2, while there were only a handful of Rank 3 requests which seemed to be hanging there for a while already. It didn¡¯t seem like there was much foot traffic in here, so it made sense to Eisen that most of the requests on this board were still here. While Eisen was looking around, Jaz the Guild Employee gave him another short exnation. "You are allowed to take requests that are up to one rank away from your own. Meaning that, for example, as a Rank 3 Adventurer you can take up requests of Rank 2, 3 and 4. For every request youplete, you will get ¡¯Points¡¯, basically the same as experience, and once you get enough points, you are allowed to Rank up. How much points you get depends on the request itself, and on top of that, you will gain half the points forpleting a quest under your rank, the regr amount forpleting a quest of your rank, and twice the points forpleting a quest above your rank." "I see, thank you. I guess the only request I can ept for now is a gathering request, huh? Then... I¡¯ll take that Amran one." Eisen said and reached down to the bottom of the pinboard to pull off the request he wanted to take. The reason why he chose this one was quite simple. It couldn¡¯t hurt to know in what kind of surroundings the health-potion flower Amran grew and what it looked like in the wild so that he would be able to spot it more easily while traveling around, so it would "This one it is! I will process it immediately! The way that this works is to simply hand over your Identification Tag together with the request, and the information will be transferred to our information center in connection with your mana signature, and can as such be essed by any adventurer¡¯s guild branch. Afterward, you will get the tag back and simply have to hand it back in with the proof ofpletion. In the case of simply gathering amran, it¡¯s handing in the requested amount." Jaz exined and went through the first part of the process she just described. It only took about a minute before she already handed Eisen the request paper and identification tag once more. [You epted the Adventurer¡¯s Guild¡¯s "Amran Gathering" request] "I see, thank you for telling me that. I willplete this request soon, then." Eisen said with a smile, before turning around to leave the guild. "Thank you, Sir! Come back soon!" Jaz yelled after him while Eisen and Bree left the building with their non-personpanions. The Fey-kin Bree turned to Eisen with a grin. "This is the first time I¡¯ve seen a Guild Master conduct the entrance test... So cool! What do you want to do now?" She asked happily. Eisen didn¡¯t know why she was even more excited than usual, but maybe it had to do with him not being there over the past few days, and she was just happy to see him again. He chuckled lowly and looked at the Crafter¡¯s Guild. "I wanted to see if I can join some other guilds as well. The most interesting ones to me are the Crafter¡¯s and the Merchant¡¯s Guilds." "Alright~! Let¡¯s do that, then!" Bree agreed and nodded gleefully. They walked forward and made their way to the entrance of the Crafter¡¯s Guild. Compared to the Adventurer¡¯s Guild, this building was already in far better condition, and a lot more noise wasing from inside. When Eisen opened the door up, he was met with an incredibly busy room. From what Eisen could tell, theyout was mostly the same to the Adventurer¡¯s Guild, just in arger scale. The pinboard wasrger, the seating area was cut off into its own room, and there were 10 different counters instead of only 3. Even so, it was nearlypletely filled out with numerous people walking around back and forth from and to the pinboard and standing in lines in front of the counters. Eisen first walked over to the pinboard to get an idea of what would be done at the crafter¡¯s guild, and it simply seemed to be requests to have different tools, potions, and all other kinds of items made. Different to the Adventurer¡¯s Guild¡¯s requests, these went all the way up to Rank 7! It was quite simple, and Eisen thought that this was quite a smart way to handle the creation of different tools and items. Since mass production wasn¡¯t really possible in this world yet, if a ce needed a lot of the same thing made, this would be the easiest solution to get to as many different craftsmen as possible. On top of that, for unknown crafters that just started out, this was a great way to earn money and at the same time get their name out there. Deciding that it would be a good idea to join, with a loud sigh, Eisen stepped inside and decided to stand in one of the lines until it was his turn, which would probably take quite a while. --- "Good morning, Sir, how can I help you today?" A young guild employee asked with a professional smile simr to how Jaz did in the Adventurer¡¯s Guild, and Eisen quickly began his business as he was already feeling the impatient stares of other people in the back of his head. "Good morning. I would like to join the Guild, if possible." He swiftly exined, and the employee nodded in response and waved over a middle aged dwarven man. "I see, then please follow my colleague here, he will guide you through the process. Next, please!" Immediately after she exined this, Eisen was already pushed to the side by an impatient man standing behind him. With a sigh, Eisen shook his head at this rude behaviour and followed the man that the employee waved over. "Good mornin¡¯. So you want to join the Guild? We will first have you appraised, so stand over there, please." The dwarf exined and brought Eisen over to a wall behind the counters before taking a crystal ball like the one used in the Adventurer¡¯s guild. Eisen ced his hand onto the smooth surface once he was prompted to and poured his mana inside, after which the man copied Eisen¡¯s status onto a piece of paper. His eyes became big for a second when he looked through it, and then pointed at a door leading to a private room in the back. "Follow me, please." He said and opened said door for Eisen and his group. "We use these private rooms so no personal information can be leaked during our conversations. We know how much craftsmen worry about secrecy." The Dwarf exined in probably the most dialect-free manner that Eisen has ever heard from a dwarf so far. "I must say I¡¯m surprised, Sir. I haven¡¯t heard about ¡¯Omni Craftsmaster¡¯ yet, but it seems to be quite an extremely high ranking upation. And considering you have the Limitbreaker title at a stage that I¡¯ve never seen before, you must be extremely skilled. The admission will as such be no problem, but we will still require one or more items as a reference. Can I ask what your specialization is?" Eisen shook his head and smiled at Bree, who quickly ced her bag to the ground so that they could grab a few different items to show Eisen¡¯s skill to the Dwarf. "I don¡¯t have a specialization, but as you can see, my highest ranking crafting skills are cksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Alchemy and Enchanting, so I¡¯m using them the most right now. Although I will begin heightening my Woodworking skill soon." Eisen exined and ced a few different Items onto the small table in front of them, amongst which were a few Mana and Health Pills, his leather armor, and some of the tools that Eisen made for himself. "Other than these items, I also made the suit I am wearing, as well as the wolf standing over there. Just to show you some variety." In surprise bordering onplete shock, the Dwarf looked over the items one by one, his gaze stopping on Aulu. "Erm, you said you made this wolf? I thought you had tamed it? You do have that skill, right?" He asked himself and looked over the piece of paper again, and Eisen began to chuckle lowly. "No, I didn¡¯t tame her. She¡¯s an Automaton that I created. She has a golem core as her base, and I used a brass skeleton and different gears and tubes to make up her main body. Then I gave her mana crystal sensory organs and muscles, put leather over her, and then added fur made out of brass. If you want I can show you?" Eisen suggested, but the Dwarf simply shook his head. "It¡¯s fine, I just used appraisal, and I could confirm that it was you that made it, I mean her. Yeah, this is definitely enough to prove your abilities, definitely. We would usually watch rookie craftsmen while they are creating an item for us to confirm it is really them making it, but seeing how your name is mentioned in the item description, that¡¯s not necessary. I must say I¡¯m surprised though, most people without a specialization seem to be simple jack of all trades, but you¡¯re a master of them. No discussion about it, Sir, wee to the Crafter¡¯s Guild!" The Dwarf said with a smile and extended his hand which Eisen happily shook. This went a lot more smoothly than it did at the Adventurer¡¯s Guild, so Eisen was happy he could make up for the time he had to spend waiting in line. "But before we finish up, we would like to ask you for your Craftsman Signature. It¡¯s something that you put on the items you make simply to show that you made them. It won¡¯t be protected until you¡¯re at least Rank 4 in our guild, but after that we will make sure that there will be no fraudmitted with your signature pretending to be you. Do you have anything like that already?" The Dwarf asked and got out a piece of paper and a pen. Eisen didn¡¯t really think to have long, as it was quite obvious what he would use, as he already put this onto a few of the clothes that he made. He took the pen and quickly drew up the Hammer encircled by different patterns as depicted on the coin around his neck onto the paper. "Alright, we will quickly check to make sure this or something too simr to this hasn¡¯t been used before, and then we will get you your identification tag." The Dwarf exined and stood up before leading Eisen and the others back out of the room and toward the seating area next to the main entrance. After a few more minutes, the dwarf came back with a wooden tag simr to the one from the Adventurer¡¯s tag. "Here you go, Sir. Everything was fine with the Crafting Signature you chose. Thank you for joining our guild." [You have joined the System Guild "Crafter¡¯s Guild"] Eisen looked at the wooden tag in his hands andpared it to the one from the Adventurer¡¯s Guild. There was only a small, but noticable difference. On the front was his mana signature, and on the backside it simply said "Crafter¡¯s Guild" in fien cursive. There was simr writing on his Adventurer¡¯s Tag, but obviously instead saying "Adventurer¡¯s Guild". Before Eisen could thank him, the Dwarf already pointed over to the pinboard. "Do you want to take your first request to get you to Rank 1 already? This way I can immediately process it and you don¡¯t have to stand in line." "I see, then yes, let¡¯s do that." Eisen smiled and stood up before walking over to the pinboard to choose his first crafting request. Chapter 73 Potion Barrels Eisen looked around the different requests on the pinboard that seemed to be roughly sorted by professions and ranks, which once more seemed like a big difference to the Adventurer¡¯s Guild, that simply seemed to post whatever request at a ce with free space. It would probably be a good idea to choose a request that was quicklypleted and would fit together with his goals for the near future. So, Eisen mentally went over those goals once more. A part of what he had been nning for a while now was to start making a few shoes or boots for him, Bree, and of course Caria. But since this could be done in a small space, this should probably wait for after Eisen made the most important part of his ns: The Carriage. For that, he would also need some kind of animal to draw it. He was thinking whether or not to make more Automatons like Aulu for that, but since it already took quite a while for a wolf, it would take quite a lot longer for arger animal like a Horse. On the other hand, it would definitelye in handy. After all, if they had something that didn¡¯t have to rest that was drawing the carriage, that would be an immense help in saving time. There might also be the possibility that, and Eisen couldn¡¯t say this for sure, that an Automaton would be stronger and possibly faster than a regr horse, so that was also a plus point. He would also need to prepare quite arge amount of supplies for traveling, and things like dried meats or fruits would be perfect for that, and he might need some more potions as well, which worked perfectly with one of the requests that Eisen found hanging on the wall. He reached up and pulled the piece of paper off the pinboard before handing it over to the Dwarf standing next to him together with his new Crafter¡¯s Guild Tag. "Alright, Sir, I will process this for you right away." The Dwarven Guild Employee said with a smile, quickly rushing behind the wall of counters. It only took another minute until he returned once again. "Here you go, Sir." The dwarf said with a smile. [You epted the Crafter¡¯s Guild¡¯s "Low-Grade Health Potion" request] "Thank you for joining our Guild." The Dwarf said with a smile after giving Eisen the request sheet and identification tag back. And just like that, Eisen joined his second guild. But just before he wanted to go toward the third guild that interested him, Bree stopped him. "Eisen, I don¡¯t think we need to go to the Merchant¡¯s Guild." With surprise openly written on his face, Eisen turned to her with an asking smile while scratching his beard. "What do you mean? Why not?" "You see, there are a few different guild types. The ones that these international guilds are usually ssified as are either Active or Passive Guilds. Active Guilds are for example the Adventurer¡¯s or Crafter¡¯s Guilds, since you need to actively get requests and fulfill them to rank up there, but the merchant¡¯s guild is a passive guild. That means that every trade you make is automatically registered through your guild tag, although I don¡¯t know how they do that, and over time you will be able to rank up." She carefully exined, not resolving Eisen¡¯s confusion, although it was quite useful information. Either way, he would trust in Bree¡¯s decision, and as such decided to make his way down the slope they were currently on, and while they started to walk asked his next question. "And why shouldn¡¯t we go the Merchant¡¯s Guild then? Can¡¯t we sign up like usual?" With a smile, Bree nodded and held her hands behind her back while skipping next to Eisen, which seemed quite unreal considering the giant backpack she wore. She really had monstrous strength for such a small girl. "Mhm! The Merchant¡¯s Guild requires you to either have a small reputation in independently selling items of a certain quality, or to have finished an apprenticeship with a merchant already part of the guild, as far as I know. There may be other ways to join, but I¡¯m not really aware of those then." Bree swiftly told Eisen, who nodded in response. "I see, that makes sense. Then joining that Guild will have to wait for a while. Anyway, I think it would be a good idea to get started with these requests right away. We can just go out to gather Amran, and immediately process it into the health potions. Do you know where they grow?" The old man asked and looked at the first of the two requests that he was holding in his hands. "Mhm, there are a few patches every once in a while in forests, and there are a bunch of areas where a lot of them grow not too far away from town." Bree exined while apparently looking at the information she gathered about the area and saved inside of her database skill before turning to look at Eisen again. "I know the way, so should we go now?" "Yes, let¡¯s do that. You have my backpack and a few regr jute bags, right? Let¡¯s put the Amran inside of there then." "Alright~!" After deciding on their n of action for right now, Eisen and Bree made their way to the tunnel immediately leading to the forest outside of Melroe. The ce where Bree remembered Amran flowers to be wasn¡¯t all that far away and it only took about a 20 minute walk. "Oh, there are actually quite a lot of them! Do you know how many we can take of these?" Eisen asked Bree while starting to pick some of the bright red flowers on the floor in front of him and cing them into a jute bag. "I¡¯m pretty sure we could take all of them... Forests are usually saturated with natural magic, so they should regrow in a day or two!" The Fey-kin exined and squatted down onto the ground as well. Shortly after starting to gather the Amran flowers, Eisen grabbed Caria from his shoulder and set her down onto the ground. "Alright, let¡¯s see this as part of a lesson, okay? These are important nts for me and a lot of other people, so we need to pull them out of the ground and take them with us. Do you want to help?" Eisen asked her, and the small Myconid shook her red cap up and down in a nod before pressing the ends of her arms onto the stem, trying to rip the flower out of the ground with all her might. "Come on, girl, you can do it!" Eisen cheered her on, which only seemed to pump her up even more, and after a few seconds of pulling with all she had, the stem finally gave in and Caria was now holding her very first self-picked flower. But immediately afterward, she seemed to copse from exhaustion while hugging the flower tightly. "Haah... so you really have a pure magic focus, huh?" Eisen sighed with a smile and ced Caria back onto his shoulder to let her recover, before continuing to gather all the amran flowers that he could. --- About an hourter, Eisen and Bree returned to town once more after gathering two jute bags worth of amran flowers. Deciding that the best spot to work would be Morrom¡¯s shop, they made their way over there and saw the Dwarf-Elf Halfling sitting at the counter in the front of the store. "Ah, Eisen! Nice to see you again! How did that thing you needed the spinning wheel for work out?" He asked curiously the moment that heid eyes on the old man. With a soft chuckle, Eisen walked further into the shop to greet Morrom with a proper handshake. "Everything worked out quite well. Here, take a look." Eisen said and jerked his head slightly toward the Wolf-Lady Automaton standing behind him. Morrom looked at Aulu with a frown, even walking all around her to see if he could see anything that had to do with magic strings or fabrics, but simply sighed when he couldn¡¯t find it. "Erm... you used magic string to somehow tame a wolf with golden fur?" "Haha, no, that¡¯s not it!" Eisenughed loudly and pped Morrom¡¯s back while he was at it, before simply exining what Aulu really was. Of course, he even roughly told him about Ailren and the tests. With his jaw basically glued to the ground, Morrom simply stared at Eisen for a while without knowing what to say, until he simply sighed. "Eisen, that¡¯s... amazing. I really don¡¯t know what to say... But erm... Why are you here right now?" "d that you ask! Basically, I wanted to use some of your tools to make potions, if that¡¯s fine with you. Ah, and I saw somerge wooden barrels standing in the corner of your workshop, I would like to buy those off of you." Eisen quickly exined, and Morrom simply shrugged. "I guess that¡¯s fine, yeah. I don¡¯t really need those anymore anyway. Do you need Amran or Byron as well?" Morrom asked while leading Eisen to the back and bringing forward tworge wooden barrels, and four more smaller wooden barrels around a quarter the size of therge ones. "Maybeter, yeah. For now I was nning on making two of these small barrels¡¯ worth of health potions, plus a little extra for a Crafter¡¯s Guild request. It couldn¡¯t hurt to make mana potions either. And I wanted to put the excess water from distilling the potions into therge barrels. I would like to use those for something else I¡¯ve been thinking about for a while now. Actually, where can I buy these small barrels? They would be good to re-fill some stuff into." "Hmm, usually you could get this kind of stuff at a woodworker¡¯s ce. I have these because some of my herbs were delivered inside of them, though." "Alright, thanks. I might just make some myself, though... Could be cheaper and I would get proficiency in my woodworking skill. Anyway, can I use that table in the corner over there?" Eisen asked, and once more, Morrom simply shrugged. "Sure, go ahead. I¡¯m not too busy today anyway, just finished a new item, so I¡¯m brainstorming a bit. Tell me if you need anything, I¡¯ll be in the front." "Thanks!" Eisen cracked his knuckles and sat down at the table that he asked to use, pouring out the two bags of amran onto it. The first part of the work was to split off the petals off of the stems. This wasn¡¯t really hard, and didn¡¯t take long either considering that Bree helped him as well. Thus, they quickly reached the second step. It was time to dry the amran so that it could be turned into a powder instead of pulping up when Eisen would try to grind it down. Usually, this would take a while, but luckily Bree could use a pretty useful ¡¯Dry¡¯ spell which elerated it to only take about five minutes. So, this quickly, they had a mountain of freshly dried Amran petals lying in front of them. Next, Eisen got out all of the different tools he would need and grabbed therge containers that Morrom had inside of his workshop and began to get to work. First, Eisen ground down some of the petals and poured them into thergest ss sk that he could find before grabbing some of the piles of mana crystals that Eisen owned, which were quickly ground down as well before being added to the amran powder. And atst, after pouring some water from the self-filling water cup into it, Eisen mixed everything together finely and connected it to the distition system, the output of which he already connected to one of therge barrels so that he wouldn¡¯t need to pour the water inside from a different ss container. After Eisen began to boil the water away, he repeated this process until he had enough health potions to fill out one of the smaller barrels. Chapter 74 Birds, Lizards and Horses [Small Barrel of Low-Grade Health Potion] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A simple, small Barrel filled out with Low-Grade Health Potions made by the omni craftsmaster Eisen. The potions are made with amran. [Quantity] 250 Potions [Effect] Every potion recovers 300HP Eisen smiled and nodded at the two Barrels and 10 regr Low-Grade Health Potions that he just prepared, as well as therge barrel nearly filled to the brim with the water that was extracted during distition. Of course he wouldn¡¯t just keep that water with him for no reason, but since he had ns for something that it might help with in the near future, he wanted to keep in sealed up and as clear as possible, which is why he immediately ced the lid on top and hammered it shut with a mallet. Now that he was done with the Health Potions, Eisen moved on to the Mana potions. The process was exactly the same as he had done just now with the health potions, simply recing the amran with byron that Eisen bought directly from Morrom. So, Eisen ground up therge amounts of Byron and poured the resulting powder into the ss sk together with mana crystal powder and water. Now, after simply mixing this together, Eisen began to boil the water away after hooking up the end of the distition system to the otherrge barrel to fill it with the watering from the mana potion. Eisen repeated this again and again until he had enough potions to fill out the other two smaller barrels with, before nodding in approval and closing the barrels down tighly. After de-activating his Crafting Space skill, Eisen brought the barrels to a corner where Morrom allowed them to keep the barrels for a few days until Eisen built a Carriage to store them in. "Alright, that¡¯s about it for now. Thanks for letting me work here for a bit again, Morrom." Eisen said with a smile, counting the coins in his purse and handing Morrom the payment that they agreed on. "Of course, don¡¯t worry about it. Come here whenever you want!" The Dwarf-Elf Halfling exined. After saying their goodbyes for the day, Eisen grabbed the bottled mana potions and intact Amran flowers that he needed to hand in for the Guild Requests and left the shop ¡¯Everything Magic¡¯ together with hispanions. "Let¡¯s head to the Guilds right away so that I can hand the requests in again and get new ones I might be able to finish on the road or something like that. And then let¡¯s check out the stables, they are near the inn, right?" Eisen asked Bree while they were heading up the slope again, and she nodded in reply. "Mhm! Why do you want to go there, though?" She asked curiously, and Eisen exined. "Oh, I looked inside of there once while walking through town and saw that there were of course animals to draw carriages, and those carriages themselves. I would like some reference and maybe see if I can ask some people about what kind of beast would be best for drawing carriages." "Ahh~! Okay! That makes sense!" Bree eximed happily. Not too long after this, they reached the Crafter¡¯s Guild again, and it was actually a little bit emptier than first thing in the morning, meaning that Eisen would probably only have to stand in line for a few minutes. But before he would hand in his old request, Eisen decided to take a new one to immediately take after reaching Rank 1 with that first quest. Since it was possible to take requests one rank above your own, Eisen looked around the pinboard for good Rank 1 or 2 requests that seemed interesting enough. It didn¡¯t take long until there was one that seemed easy enough to just push in as a break. It was a Rank 2 request for a small steel dagger, so it wouldn¡¯t take too much work as far as Eisen was concerned. He grabbed the request from the wall and headed over to stand in line. Once it was his turn at the counter, he exined that he was a new member and just finished his first quest to get out of the bottom rank, and ced the request paper, the potions and his Guild Tag onto the surface in front of him. "Alright, Sir, we will confirm it right away, it will only take a second!" The employee said with a bright smile and looked through the request as described on the sheet of paper, then took the health potions and the tag before walking to a table behind the counter. She was fiddling around with the tag a little bit and closely looked at the potions beforeing back to the counter. "Congrattions onpleting your first request, Sir! Here is your old and new tag! From now on, please use the new y version. Many people like to keep their old tags as a memento, but other than that, it doesn¡¯t have a use with our guild anymore. Here is your payment for the request." She exined and Eisen nodded with a smile before taking the copper coins lying on the counter in front of him and cing them into his purse. [You have reached Rank 1 in the System Guild "Crafter¡¯s Guild"] Eisen nced over the notification with a smile and then turned back to the employee. "Thank you. Can I immediately take this next request?" He asked and ced the request for the steel dagger onto the counter. The employee looked over it for a second and nodded with a smile. "Of course, Sir! I will process it right away." She took the paper and took it a bit behind the counter again together with Eisen¡¯s new y identification tag while he stashed away his old wooden one in his pocket. Only a few secondster, the employee already returned with Eisen¡¯s tag and the request paper, handing it back to him. [You epted the Crafter¡¯s Guild¡¯s "Steel Dagger" request] Eisen thanked the employee and then he and Bree made their way back outside, before immediately walking toward the Adventurer¡¯s Guild as well. This time around, there was literally nobody inside beside Jaz who was leaning her head down on one of the counters out of pure boredom. However, when she saw Eisen, Bree, Aulu and Caria enter through the door, her head immediately shot up and she looked at them with a smile. "Hey there! Didn¡¯t expect to see you so soon again!" She eximed and Eisen responded with augh. "Just wanted to hand in the Amran for that request I took earlier, and directly take a new request as well." "Alright, then you can just give me the Amran and your tag. You can go ahead and choose the next request you want to take." Eisen nodded and did as Jaz exined, walking over to the pinboard after giving her what she needed. He looked over the board and it didn¡¯t take long until he really found something that peaked his interest and that seemed to work together well with one of his ns. There was a request to gather a bunch of ¡¯Honey Crystals¡¯. And it wasn¡¯t just artificially crystalized honey, since that would be a request for the crafter¡¯s guild more than anything, but it was a natural crystal growing in the center of Bee-Hives. Immediately, Eisen took the request from the wall and brought it over to Jaz, who already prepared the request payment and Eisen¡¯s new identification tag. The moment he took the tag, he got the same notification as before that told him that his Guild Rank increased. Then, he handed Jaz the next request and she went to process it together with Eisen¡¯s new tag, and then came back, prompting the corrting notification to pop up, which hold him that the request had been epted. "Thanks. Actually, I¡¯m wondering, you said requests can be turned in at any guild branch, right? But if the request for the honey crystals was put up here, it doesn¡¯t make any sense if I hand them in at another town." Eisen asked curiously while scratching his beard, and Jaz began to exin the rtively simple process. "Ah, you see, items are simply delivered from one guild to the next, so you don¡¯t need to worry. This will all be handled behind the scenes, and usually it only takes a few days at most for the items to get to who requested them." She told Eisen, and he nodded in response. "I see, then I don¡¯t have to worry about that." Eisen said and thanked Jaz for her help, before he and his group made their way back out of the guild. They stepped down the slope and went toward the Inn. Now that he thought about it, Jyuuk should definitely be awake by now. Maybe they should check up on him in a bit, but for now, Eisen chose to go to the stable first since it was closer than the Inn. The door to the stable was quiterge and was currently opened uppletely. From inside, Eisen could hear the sounds of different animals and their handlers, as well as general conversations. After stepping inside, Eisen could first see numerous different carts and carriages. A few of them were heavily decorated and seemed to be made mainly for personal transport, while the majority was definitely made to transport goods andrge amounts of manpower. Eisen wondered if he could find out more on them now that he would get a close look at carriages around a time where they were stillrgely used as an important means of transportation, but most of what he could see, he already knew. Either way, this wasn¡¯t his main reason to visit here, since that was simply to try and figure out what kind of beast to use for drawing the carriage, and whether or not it would make sense to truly make an automaton, since that would probably take a while in and of itself, time that would probably need to be spent at creating the carriage. Sure, Eisen was a fast worker, but he would probably still need two or three days at the very least to create only the outer ¡¯shell¡¯, so to speak. After that, he would also need to make sure his carriage had whatever he needed inside, like a simple worktable for crafting on the road for example. Luckily, he didn¡¯t need the help of other people to build it, since the only real help he would need was in holding the structure up while he connected different parts of it together, which was quite easily done with his Mana Doubles. Eisen walked further into the stable and reached the area where the animals were kept, and could only now see the numerous different beasts that were used. However, there seemed to be three different ones that were most numerous amongst them. A Horse, a giant bipedal bird, and some kind of lizard-like creature running on four legs, that could quite simply be described as a small dragon without wings. Although, Eisen doubted that this creature actually was a variant of dragon, and was rather simply a naturally appearing beast in this world. So far he may have only seen Rank 0 beasts that existed in real life, but there had to be some that didn¡¯t, right? Anyway, to find out more about these three different types of creatures, Eisen walked up to a man that seemed to be working at this stable to ask about them, and the exnation was quite simple. What beasts you would need would depend on what kind of carriage it was pulling. Those Giant birds, apparently called Faritan, were fast, but not strong, meaning that they were usually drawing personal transportation carriages. The Lizards, called Namur, were strong, but not very fast. They were used to draw extraordinarily heavy loads that didn¡¯t necessarily need to arrive at their destination within a certain timelimit, so they were usually used to transport construction supplies such as wood or metals. The Horses on the other hand were quite obviously something in-between. They were fast, just not as fast as Faritans, and strong, just not as strong as Namurs. They were the creatures usually used by most merchants, especially if they had to transport things that could go bad like produce. So, to Eisen, it seemed to make sense to choose a horse as an animal to draw their carriage. Now, the only choice to make in this regard was to truly figure out if he wanted a living horse, or if he wanted to make one himself. Chapter 75 Assistance After thinking about it for a while, Eisen sighed loudly. It was obvious what he was going to do, wasn¡¯t it? Of course he would make a Horse Automaton! He just had to! But now there was a problem... He could create Aulu in such a highly-detailed way only because he had the bones of a wolf to use as reference. Maybe he would be able to copy it with mana copy, but it would be much preferred if there was some kind of way for him to get a horse¡¯s corpse to use as reference, and that without having to buy and kill one. And it was quite hard to just ask someone where he could get a dead horse as well, after all, that would probably just scare people off. There had to be some way to get a horse¡¯s body, right? Maybe he could go out and hunt for a horse-like monster in the forest. But maybe that wasn¡¯t such a good idea. It really seemed like for now, the best option was to simply ask someone if he could make a copy of their horse. Eisen walked over to the stableboy and asked him if he could take a horse there as a reference. But it obviously wouldn¡¯t be so easy. After all, who would just let a stranger pour mana into their horse? It would be a quite simple way to injure or kill it basically instantly, so the stableboy didn¡¯t want to take that risk. But he allowed Eisen to walk around and ask people tending to their horse if they were alright with it, so there was at least a little chance left. So, for the next hour, Eisen tried walking through the stable while trying to find someone that would let Eisen use mana copy on their horse. Most people felt either strongly conflicted or immediately rejected Eisen from the start, but after searching long enough, there was one young man that allowed Eisen to copy his horse. Eisen thanked him and looked at the horse with light brown fur. It was quiterge, as even Eisen was only barely able to look over its back, and it seemed quite healthy, which was really only perfect in Eisen¡¯s opinion. He slowly ced his hand over the horse¡¯s back and poured his mana out of his palm, manipting it so that it envelops the horsepletely, and then started to move it inside of the horse¡¯s body. Immediately, the horse reacted to therge amount of mana entering it and started to move around nervously, but the owner managed to make it calm down so that Eisen could continue his work. He focused on every part of the Horse¡¯s body one by one, trying to copy it in as much detail as possible, until... [Mana Library Expanded - Gigantuon Steed] Eisen smiled happily and quickly pulled his mana back out of the Horse¡¯s body, then once more thanked the young man for his help. After leaving the stable, Eisen and Bree quickly went to their room in the Inn to see if Jyuuk was still there or if he was out and about, doing something on his own. Once they saw that the room waspletely empty, they decided to leave Jyuuk to do his own thing already and then made their way to the ce where Eisen might spend the next few days again, the smithy run by the Grandmaster cksmith Denmir, "Dwarf¡¯s Delight". They walked through the front door and greeted the employee sitting at the counter while she was looking at Aulu and Caria in slight confusion, then made their way to the back of the shop, where Denmir was currently taking a break from his work. "Ah! What¡¯re ye doin¡¯ here, old man? And what¡¯s that what ye¡¯ve brough there with ya? Don¡¯t tell me ya became some tamer all of a sudden!" The Dwarf yelled out and walked over to greet Eisen, his stare concentrated on both Caria and Aulu, especially thetter. And once he got closer, as Eisen would have expected from him, Denmir¡¯s eyes became wide. "Wait, that¡¯s no livin¡¯ bein¡¯, is it? Isn¡¯t that wolf¡¯s fur made of brass? Or does it just look like that? And it¡¯s just standin¡¯ there like a statue as well..." He said with professional curiousity and squatted down onto the ground to take a closer look at the thing in front of him. Eisen scratched his beard lightly and chuckled. "It¡¯s not a real wolf. It¡¯s an automaton, something like a mechanical golem. I gave it leather as skin and added fur out of brass as well." "Hmm, why¡¯d ye choose brass? Ah, wait a second... I can ¡¯ear gears twisting inside, so that¡¯s how ya made it. Makes sense to use brass then, it¡¯s good under high pressure. And ye used high-tensile brass as well, as expected of you! What brings ye here then? I doubt ya just wanted to show me this magnificent creation!" Denmir asked and looked at Eisen suspiciously. "Yes, you¡¯re right with all of that. I came here to make another Automaton. This time a horse, though." Immediately, Denmir¡¯s eyes shot open excitedly and he looked around to see if he had anything else to work on for the day. "Is there any way I can help ya?!" Eisenughed lowly and thought for a bit. It would definitely be quite a lot of help to have someone of Denmir¡¯s skill level assist in the creation of the automaton, and it would most likely cut the time he needed down immensely as well. "Actually, yes. You see, what I¡¯m nning is to create a brass skeleton and fill it with different gears and tubes, as well as lubricant tanks. But creating all of these parts in themselves is quite a lot of work. It would be an amazing help if you could take the task of creating the skeleton while I¡¯m working on the gears. Don¡¯t worry, I have something you can use as reference." Eisen exined, and Denmir listened eagerly before bursting out intoughter. "Alright, I¡¯ll help ya however I can! We don¡¯t ¡¯ave much high-tensile brass left, so I¡¯ll get everyone here that doesn¡¯t have to work on something else make as many ingots as they can! Now, show me that reference!" Denmir eximed with excitement deep in his voice, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help but smile himself as well. He poured out some of his mana and activated his mana copy skill to create the copy of only the horse¡¯s bones. "Oh-hoh! Ye¡¯re quite skillful with mana as well, huh? Anyway, this ain¡¯t a normal horse, now is it? This is somethin¡¯ called a Giganto-somethin¡¯-or-another." Denmir muttered out, and Eisen nodded with a chuckle. "Yes, it¡¯s called a Gigantuon Steed. Either way, that doesn¡¯t change too much, right? It just means that the parts have to be a bit bigger than if we created an automaton based on a regr horse." "Haha, true that! Let¡¯s get started, then!" Denmir eximed happily and Eisen nodded, grabbing his cksmithing outfit out of Bree¡¯s backpack before going to change in another room. After that, he grabbed his tools as well and began to get to work on all the gears that he needed with some brass that Denmir handed him before he yelled at the other smiths to start working on making more of the high-tensile brass that they needed. But before he worked, though, he of course also activated his crafting space. --- This work of mass-producing the base metal parts of the Horse automaton with the help of Denmir not only took up the rest of the day on which they started, but also most of the next day. Now it was afternoon of the second day of the creation process of the Automaton, and it was about time to start assembling the whole thing. "Thanks for your help until now, Denmir. I really owe you one." Eisen said with a smile, and Denmir shook his head with a grin. "Don¡¯t¡¯cha worry about it, ye¡¯re fine! I¡¯m just excited ta see the finished product! And as long as ye finish here, that definitely won¡¯t be a problem!" The dwarfughed loudly while eagerly waiting for the next step of what Eisen would do. And to his surprise, he didn¡¯t start assembling the body, but instead took out different ss sks and tubes, as well as a few crystals and some green gems. After sitting down at a worktable by the wall, Eisen set all of these things up and was immediately surrounded by most of the smiths that worked in the smithy that day, since every single one of them was incredibly interested in what Eisen was making. With a sigh, Eisen turned his crafting space into the one for alchemy and began to smile, then ced the rank 4 mana crystal that he bought, so that this core would at least be on par with the one that he made for Aulu, into the mythril mortar and began to grind it down until it was a fine powder, then did the same with the mind and soul crystals before mixing them into the mana crystal powder. After he poured the water he needed into it and carefully stirred everything, Eisen poured the mixture into the sk that he then connected to the distition system, slowly boiling said water away again. This left a crystal structure on the bottom of the beacon that Eisen quickly removed with transmutation and then formed into a sphere, before disassembling the distition system since he didn¡¯t need it anymore, saving the leftover water in a small ss bottle. Next, Eisen grabbed the Golem Core and some of the beast crystals that he managed to buy, albeit at quite a high price, and then began to create the same kind of runic symbols on its surface as when he created Aulu¡¯s Golem core. After that was done, Eisen grabbed three enchantment marbles, changed his crafting space to enchanting as well, and then enchanted the golem-core base with the three enchantments that were needed to finish it. And just like before, Eisen managed to break through both alchemy and enchanting, giving him bonus stats again! Just like thest time, with Aulu¡¯s core, Eisen created the copy of the horse¡¯s heart that he made, and ced it over the golem core, using transmutation to form it into a heart. But that wasn¡¯t all that Eisen made with transmutation and enchanting. While switching around between the alchemy and enchanting crafting spaces, Eisen created three different sensory organs for the horse. Eyes, nose and ears, all properly enchanted. On top of that, Eisen also created a mana crystal brain for the automaton so that it would be able to process and remember information just like Aulu. And now that all of the base parts of the Automaton were there, it was time for Eisen to assemble it. Chapter 76 Mechanical Horse Eisen squatted down onto the ground in front of the Automaton parts and continued using his Alchemy Crafting space. However, before he even started assembling the metal steed, a notification popped up that Eisen was incredibly happy, but at the same time confused with. [Crafting Space reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [Complete control over tools within the skill area] [Due to Ranking-up your Crafting Space Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END] After reading through the skill notification, Eisen began to scratch his beard to figure out what that effect meant. What kind of control was it talking about? Exactly while asking himself that question, the hammer lying next to him began to emit a very light pulsating glow, which only Eisen seemed to be able to see, as nobody else reacted to it. He concentrated on the hammer, and tried to control it in the only way that he could imagine could be meant, telekically. The Hammer slowly began floating upward and toward Eisen¡¯s hand while he imagined holding it, and the tool positioned itself perfectly within his hand. Of course, the smiths around him were extremely surprised and confused at this, but Eisen couldn¡¯t stop grinning. He may be able to already do this kind of thing by summoning his mana doubles, but this felt quite different. Eisen was controlling the tool itself, rather than the being holding it. It didn¡¯t seem like he would be able to build up the force actually needed smith something with the hammer like this, but at least it was quite useful to be able to nearly instantly get whatever tool he needed. Anyway, for now, he didn¡¯t need his hammer, so he simplyid it back onto the ground before grabbing the first bones and starting to build the legs of the mechanical horse first, then the torso, and then atst the head. Just like with Aulu, he used brass joints to make sure every part of the horse¡¯s body could move properly, and once he had all therge parts, Eisen simply attached the limbs and head to the torso. Once that was done, Eisen got to work cing the gears and tubes inside. First, though, Eisen affixed the Heart-shaped golem core to the brass spine, then began to build the Automaton¡¯s innards up from the core. While he was doing so, even the smiths that were working on other things before joined in and began watching Eisen closely, helping him by holding the brass horse up so that Eisen could reach every spot without worry, cing all of the mana crystal organs into the head as well. After another few hours, it was closely approaching evening and Eisen wanted to start, and maybe even finish, adding all of the muscles that he could. Considering how close he was to finishing this Automaton, Eisen really didn¡¯t want to stop until he was done, so even if it took him until the middle of the night, he wanted toplete this project. But before he continued, Eisen turned to Bree while taking a short break. "Hey, Bree, would you mind going over to Jekyll¡¯s and grabbing me some leather? I¡¯ll give you the money, so don¡¯t worry about that." "Mhm! Of course!" Bree said happily and took the money that Eisen handed her, then looked back up at him. "What kind of leather should I bring?" "Anything strong, but flexible. And it should preferably include arge piece big enough to cover the whole torso." "Okay~! I¡¯ll be back soon!" Bree eximed and practically sprinted out of the smithy. "Don¡¯t let Jekyll scam you!" Eisen yelled after her, but Bree seemed to already be too far away. So, now that that was being taken care of, Eisen walked over to the spinning wheel and the mountain of mana crystals that he grabbed out of Bree¡¯s backpack, making sure to just so slightly soften them before turning them into thread one by one. Seeing how this process took up an hour on its own, Eisen wanted to hurry up and start giving the Horse Automaton its muscles. String by string, Eisen attached the mana crystal muscles to the different parts of the mechanical body, and while he was doing so, Bree returned with the leather that Eisen needed to give the automaton skin. The rest of the night was filled with the quite monotonous work of Eisen attaching the strings to the metal base, as well as sewing the leather onto its outside. Nheless, every single one of the smiths, as well as Bree and Caria, were watching closely and full of interest. It was only when it was around midnight, actually the longest that Eisen has stayed up within the game so far, that people began to talk to each other about the soon-to-be finished product, and the small crowd became rowdier the closer Eisen came topletion. Especially while Eisen was moving the brass ingots over the leather surface to create the brass fur with the help of transmutation and mana copy. After all, these smiths didn¡¯t usually get to see such a scene, not even from the Grandmaster cksmith that they decided to work under. The subtle movements of Eisen¡¯s hand that seemed like they could change the shape of everything they touched, and the speed that only got faster the longer that this old man worked and the more he concentrated on his task. Not to mention the pure skill that he showed simply by grabbing his tools, as if they were merging together into a single being. All of this was something that the smiths learned from, and even Denmir couldn¡¯t help but watch in awe, although he still kept thinking back onto whenever he saw Eisen swing his hammer at the glowing hot metal in front of him. Such beauty was the reason that he chose to take up the craft, and from the first moment that he saw such skillful handling of metals, the dwarf simply became obsessed. He practiced with whatever scraps that he could find until he was old enough to start an apprenticeship with the local cksmith, spending day after day simply working in the scorching heat of the smithy to perfect his craft. With every singlepleted item, he came closer toward the goal that he was still working toward to this day. The goal of being the same as that man he saw when he was merely five years old. This scene was deeply imbedded in Denmir¡¯s mind as if it happened only a few minutes ago. That man was borrowing space in the local smithy, that was still much, much smaller than Denmir¡¯s is now, and crowds of craftsmen came rushing in from all over to town to witness him work. Young Denmir squeezed through the mass of people until he stood before him, the man that he was looking up to forever. With only simple steel, he created a masterpiece capable of ying the strongest of beasts with a single scratch, but then smelted it back down with four simple words that he muttered to himself. These words were those that Denmir kept telling himself everday like a mantra, and that helped him grow more motivated simply by hearing them. Most people seemed to have missed what that man said, but Denmir heard it as clear as if he himself said it. "I can do better." These four simple words, that some might see as cynical or self deprecating, were taken by Denmir in a different way: "I haven¡¯t reached my full potential yet." And the simrities between that man¡¯s movements and Eisen¡¯s were far, far too great to not be reminded of that scene. It was as if... they were the same person. --- [Gigantuon Steed Automaton (Golem)] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [DP - 3000][MP - 10] [STR - 100][AGI - 60][INT - 10][WIS - 1] [Description] A special type of Golem called an Automaton created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It¡¯s main structure is madepletely of Brass, and has different mana crystal constructs supporting it and giving it multiple bonus functions. The golem core has been enhanced with runes made of a beast gem, giving a bonus to the beast-like body, and allowing it to move more beast-like. This is also supported through theplex recreation of a Gigantuon Steed¡¯s heart. The Mana-Crystal muscles allow it to be stronger and more agile. The Brain synchronizes with the fake-soul of the golem core and allows the automaton to have a growing Wisdom stat, since it can now store knowledge. This knowledge is collected through the mana crystal eyes, nose, ears and tongue. The wisdom stat will start of low, but can grow over time. The Agility stat will lose or gain effectiveness depending on the amount and quality of the lubricants passing through the automaton¡¯s body. [For creating something of overwhelming quality with the use of five skills, you gain +2 to STR, END, INT and WIS, as well as +1 to AGI] [You have reached the maximum of Stat bonuses avable through breaking through the Skills Tailoring and Leatherworking. It is easier to break through these skills, but you will cease to gain bonus stats through this action.] These were the notifications that Eisen saw when he finally poured his mana into the Automaton¡¯s body to activated it. Just like before with Aulu, the gears and joints started creaking as they started to move for the first time while the brass fur stood on end like small needles, but soon enough tted down again. The Giant-Dwarf Halfling that just created this magnificent creature moved his palm over the brass fur and looked the Gigantuon Horse Golem over to make sure everything was working properly. Intensely, the numerous smiths were staring at Eisen and the Automaton, waiting for something to happen. And to not let them wait any longer, Eisen looked at the mechanical horse and gave it its firstmand. "Follow me." At the same time, Eisen walked a few steps away, prompting the Automaton to turn around and make its first steps. The moment that its first hoof touched the stone floor underneath them again in a light clicking sound, the smiths began to cheer and celebrate the first movements of this automaton. They walked over to Eisen and congratted him on such an amzing build, before finally making their way to their respective homes now that it was about 3am. This left only Eisen, Bree and Denmir, as well as Caria and the two automatons, in the smithy. And just before they wanted to make their way out as well, Denmir stopped Eisen. "Is everything alright?" Eisen asked the Dwarf, but he simply stayed silent for a few seconds before looking at Eisen with a deep frown. "Eisen, do ye know about the five that peaked?" He suddenly asked, and full of confusion, Eisen shook his head. "No, sorry. Who are they?" Denmir sighed and nodded. "Thought so... Listen ¡¯ere. The five are those that reached the maximum level possible. They reached absolute immortality. No matter how often they die, they alwayse back. One of the five is a master ofbat, who showed the world that we can fight back against monsters. Another hasplete control over magic, and she showed the world the heights that magic can go. Then there is a woman that is so skilled in the arts that she can create masterpieces within minutes, and who can fell a whole kingdom with a single note of her voice. As for the fourth, he can toy with life in whatever ways he wants. He can make forests grow with a single snap, or raise a whole army from the dead with a yawn. And atst, there is a master of all crafts, that can turn even a pebble into the deadliest weapon ever seen, or create an imprable fortress out of air." Eisen¡¯s eyes immediately widened at those descriptions. Either this was the greatest coincidence ever that none of the developers noticed, or... "Eisen... I think ye¡¯re that master of all crafts." --- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 71] [HP - 1865][MP - 1898] [STR - 105][END - 105][AGI - 103][INT - 107][WIS - 108][CHA - 11] [Titles] -[Casanova] -[Champion] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker V] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 2][Level - 96] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 2][Level - 75] -[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 49] -[cksmithing][Rank - 2][Level - 56] -[Cooking][Rank - 0][Level - 68] -[Crafting Space][Rank - 2][Level - 2] -[Dismembering][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Enchanting][Rank - 2][Level - 12] -[me of the Earth Magic][Rank - 1][Level - 51] -[Golemancy][Rank - 0][Level - 68] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 16] -[Lockpicking][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 26] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 46] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 2][Level - 41] -[Swordsmanship][Rank - 2][Level - 75] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 45] -[Taming][Rank - 1][Level - 68] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 89] -[Truth Seeing Eye][Rank - 0][Level - 35] -[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49] Chapter 77 The Five That Peaked Eisen stared at Denmir in confusion. How could he be one of those five? And it seemed like not only Eisen was thinking that, since also Bree waspletely surprised at this idea. "O-One of the five?! B-But, h-how could he...? How would someone even steal the experience of someone with stats as high as those of one of the five?" She muttered out, thinking back onto the time she kept watching Eisen¡¯s immense skill. The more she thought about it, the more this idea made sense. Stealing someone¡¯s experience was such an incredibly hard process that many thought of it to be some kind of urban legend that parents used to scare their child into studying diligently and not taking things for granted. But obviously, it was a real thing, seeing how Eisen did lose his experience. So Eisen needed to be a great person to be worth getting his experience stolen. There was just one more question that needed to be asked. "And what would you do with that much experience?" Bree asked, still trying to grasp the possibilty of Eisen really being such a legendary person. Eisen sighed loudly and scratched his beard. "Denmir, do you really think so?" "Aye, I do. It makes sense, right? Usually, ye wouldn¡¯t be able to do anythin¡¯ but bber like a baby without any experience, but ye¡¯re not only talking like ye¡¯ve got milennia worth of life experience, ye¡¯re also craftin¡¯ like it!" The dwarf exined, and Eisen nodded lightly. It was quite obvious that the developers meant for him and the other originals to be ¡¯the five that peaked¡¯, so there was no reason to pretend as if it wasn¡¯t the case. "I see, and let¡¯s say that¡¯s really true, I do wonder the same thing as Bree. What would you do with that much experience?" Eisen asked Denmir, who crossed his arms and thought for a bit, before his eyes shot open. "Don¡¯t tell me... So that¡¯s what that was... There are rumors goin¡¯ aroundtely. All over the world, there are people appearin¡¯ out of nowhere. Literally, out of nowhere. Just in the middle of a smaller town, light congeals up and a person appears! They seem to know much, much more than they let on. They¡¯re supposed ta be quite harmless, most of ¡¯em are trying to get intomerce for some reason¡¯. These people suddenly started appearin¡¯ yesterday mornin¡¯." From the description of these events, Eisen knew that Denmir was talking about the appearance of other yers. The timing was right, and since they were employee¡¯s of thergest investors, it made sense for them to work toward being merchants. "And in what way do you think my experience being stolen connects to these people?" Eisen asked, and Denmir stated his theory. "I think that someone, or something, is usin¡¯ yer experience to create new people. I know it might sound crazy, but it¡¯s the only exnation I cane up with." "That¡¯s possible?" Eisen asked in surprise, in response to which the dwarf in front of him simply shrugged. "Maybe. How I said, it¡¯s just a theory. Nobody really knows what experience is and what it can do. Of course there is the tangible actual experience ya gain by simply livin¡¯ and doin¡¯ things, but the experience that makes us level up is different. All we know is that it is deeply embedded in our soul and body, letting us grow in strength or speed just by levelin¡¯ up. Since it can do that and basically change what our body is like nearly instantly, why couldn¡¯t it create new people?" Eisen nodded as he listened to Denmir, slowly building up the background story from a yer¡¯s perspective. Seeing that Eisen was simply scratching his beard and listening with his eyes closed, Denmir couldn¡¯t help but sigh loudly with a softugh. "I¡¯m over ¡¯ere tellin¡¯ ya that you¡¯re a literal legend and are close to being a god walking amongst people, and ye¡¯re just takin¡¯ this, well, like this?" Eisen began to chuckle lowly before shrugging. "Basically, yes. I mean, how would you react if someone told you who you are supposed to be? And we don¡¯t have any definite proof for this anyway, so it would be silly if I got excited." "That¡¯s true, haha." Denmirughed and nodded while his heart was beating like he never felt before. Eisen may be saying that there is no ¡¯definite proof¡¯, but to Denmir, there was no other possibility. In his mind, it was absolute definite that Eisen was one of the five. And such a thought, that the person that Denmir has looked up to for his whole life, the one that founded this town he grew up in and basically led the dwarven race toward what it is today, was now directly in front of him and even learned the cksmithing skill from him, made Denmir feel no doubt about it. But no matter how much he wanted to, Denmir couldn¡¯t just freak out about it now like Bree. After all, he was a grown man. And he didn¡¯t want to embarrass himself in front of his hero, obviously. But now it was quitete, and everyone was starting to feel tired, even Bree who didn¡¯t usually need much sleep was rubbing her eyes and yawning loudly. And as such, everyone decided to make their way back to their respective sleeping ces now. They could continue this talk some other time if they wanted to, although there wasn¡¯t too much more to talk about with the extent of the knowledge that they had. So, Eisen led his two automata back to the Inn with Caria on his shoulder and Bree following closely behind. The horse automaton¡¯s body was actually sorge that it was hard for it to fit through the doors of the inn, but in the end it managed to do so without breaking anything. --- "Ah, good morning, Eisen!" Jyuuk eximed with a smile on his face, seeing that he could now talk to the old man for the first time in a few days now. It seemed like the Monkey Beastperson didn¡¯t have work that day, so he could be online as much as he wanted to. He especially wanted to talk about that new creature, or rather structure, inside of their room! That huge golden horse standing in the corner! Since it seemed to act in a simr fashion to the wolf automaton that Eisen made, Jyuuk figured that this was also an automaton. Eisen stood up from his bed and looked around the room, noticing that he and Jyuuk were alone, with Bree apparently having left already. "Good morning Jyuuk. This is actually a good chance. I need to tell you something." With that, Eisen began to tell Jyuuk about all of the things that Denmir mentioned to him, about the sudden appearance of people all over the world, as well as the legends of the ¡¯five that peaked¡¯. Of course he was also interested in the backstory to describe the appearance of yers in the world, but Jyuuk was thinking more about the part about him saying ¡¯he could raise armies from the dead¡¯. There was only one thing that he could think of with that. "Erm, Eisen, do you maybe have any bones I could have?" He asked, and Eisen nodded with a frown. "Hm? Yeah, I do. I still have the bones I used as a reference when building Aulu. Why do you ask?" "I wanted to try something with them. Do you know about necromancy?" Jyuuk asked while Eisen was grabbing the wolf-bones out of the backpack that Bree left in their room. The old man stopped for a second to think, but then shook his head. "I¡¯m not sure I do. But necro means ¡¯dead¡¯, right? So I¡¯m guessing it¡¯s death-magic?" "Exactly! It¡¯s what you just mentioned, the one that could control life and death so greatly has to be me, right? Then necromancy should definitely be a thing here as well!" Jyuuk said excitedly while cing the bones into a small pile on the ground, trying to think about what to do next. Interested in what would happen now, Eisen squatted down next to him and watched as Jyuuk seemed to pour his mana out of his hands and into the bones. For a while, nothing happened, but then the bones started shaking a little bit and shifted around. Jyuuk seemed to be concentrating strongly on what he was doing, so Eisen made an effort not to do anything that could disturb him, simply looking at the scene quietly. After a few minutes, apleted wolf skeleton was standing in front of Eisen and Jyuuk, although Jyuuk currently seemed to have to constantly supply it with some mana to have it keep up its shape. But soon enough, Jyuuk¡¯s concentration slipped and the bones fell back onto the ground nearly immediately. And the reason why his concentration slipped was quite simple, he got the notification that he learned the necromancy skill and was quite excited about it. But Eisen couldn¡¯t help but ask. "And what can you do with that now? It won¡¯t be too useful inbat if you have to constantly supply it with mana, right? I could make something like a mana crystal harness that can supply it with some if you want." Jyuuk looked at the bones for a few seconds, before shaking his head lightly. "No, thank you. I know that I won¡¯t be able to do anything with it now, but most skills are basically useless at rank 0, right? If I rank them up enough, I should be able to use them quite well. Besides that, these animated skeletons seem to be like... erm... what¡¯s the word... I just had it, err... Bunraku, you know?" Jyuuk asked somewhat embarrassed, scratching the back of his head lightly. He was quite impressive, though! Eisen only noticed that Jyuuk somewhat messed up in english two times! First, when he had trouble pronouncing ¡¯Monkey¡¯ correctly during his self-introduction, and just now. Although forgetting a word in a foreignnguage can hardly be seen as ¡¯messing up¡¯. Eisen chuckled and nodded. "I think I know what you mean. Puppets, right?" Jyuuk¡¯s eyes lit up and he smiled, nodding happily. "Yes, that¡¯s the word! Puppets! Right! I should have known that though... Anyway, erm, they are like puppets. If you made something that supplied them with mana, I would have the body, but would still miss the strings to control it." "Ah, I see. That makes sense, yeah. Well, tell me if you want me to make something for you, anyway. I¡¯ll be spending a while making a carriage now, so look for me at the woodworker¡¯s if you need me. That reminds me, what have you been doing the past few days?" Eisen asked Jyuuk, who happily ced his arms onto his hips. At moments like these, you could notice that the monkey beastperson has lost some of his initial awkwardness around Eisen, which honestly made him qutie happy to see. Jyuuk smiled and told Eisen, "There¡¯s a dungeon around here! I spent the past few days trying to clear that! The first few levels aren¡¯t hard, but soon enough the monsters caught up with my level, and I managed toe close to level 100! I think I¡¯ll be there soon enough!" "Wow, quite impressive! I wonder if there will be something interesting once you reach that level. Make sure to tell me if there is!" Eisenughed and lightly pat Jyuuks back before telling his Automata to stand up, as well as waking Caria up who was sleeping on therge back of the Horse Automaton. It was now time to start building that carriage. Chapter 78 Working With Wood After meeting back up with Bree at the Inn¡¯s restaurant, the group ate some breakfast before Eisen, Bree, Caria and the two Automata made their way toward the woodworker of the town after splitting up with Jyuuk to see if Eisen would be able to buy some good wood to use for his carriage, while at the same time maybe borrowing space to actually construct it somewhere. Once he stepped into the workshop after exining the situation to the owner, he looked around and saw numerous people working on all kinds of things. Some were making shelves, others tables, and then others were making simple decorative wooden statues. The owner, who was actually quite happy to host a greatly talented craftsman like Eisen, led him to an unused room in the back with arge door leading directly outside toward the street, making the whole room look kind of like a garage. "Thanks for letting me use this ce." Eisen said to the owner with a smile on his face, and the, apparently, human woodworkerughed lightly. "No no, it¡¯s fine. We haven¡¯t been using this ce for quite a while anyway. And I¡¯m pretty sure you¡¯re wee at any craftsman¡¯s workshop in Melroe by now. Ah, let me show you our wood storage. You can go ahead and just take whatever you like, as long as there¡¯s no red R-Marking on it. That just stands for it being reserved for something else. If you¡¯re worried about the wood¡¯s price, just ask anyone in here about it. They should know." The owner exined and quickly led Eisen to arge room filled with a multitude of different wood. Just ignoring the whole types of wood there were in the first ces, some of it was lying there in nks in different thicknesses and lengths, or even in the form of whole logs, some that were stripped of the bark, while others still had it on them. Eisen thanked the owner, who then made his way back into the actual workshop to continue what he was working on, while Eisen started looking around in the storage. He took small nks into his hands to see their strength and flexibility in order to choose which to use. In the end, he chose a type of wood that seemed quite simr to a variant of white oak, a type of wood that¡¯s quite well suited for use outside and was even used in the construction of boats sometimes, so it would be perfect for a carriage. First, Eisen brought what he would need for the wheels into the room he would be able to construct his carriage in and grabbed some tools to get to work. What he would first need to make were the center-parts of the wheels, the hub. These were cylindrical objects that would be used as the base to construct the wheels from the center outward. So, Eisen ced a thick and rtively short part of a log into thethe that was standing by the wall, stepping onto the small pedal at the bottom to test out the spinning-speed, before preparing to start carving the soon-to-be hub into the shape he needed. For that, he used tool connection on the sharp wood chisel and activated his crafting space,ying all the different tools he would need down on the table next to him for easy ess. While the piece of the log started to quickly turn, Eisen set the tip of arge gouge chisel onto the wood to first get it into the right base shape to work with it more easily. After that was done, he used different chisels to more easily get some definition into the wood and make sure it was nice-looking and pleasing to the eye. Once the base for the hub waspleted, Eisen grabbed it out of thethe and began to carve out the openings where the spokes would be ced into, making sure these openings were the same distance away from each other all the way around. Then, he also added an opening on the side where the axle would be put into. Eisen repeated this three more times to create the hubs of the other wheels as well, before starting to finish them all off by first washing the surface with some water and then smoothing it down with different grits of sandpaper, atst adding a finishing solution to the wood to make sure it would be protected from the elements even further. He wasn¡¯t entirely sure what was inside of it, since he didn¡¯t recognize any of the material names used in its production when the owner of the workshop showed it to him, but Eisen looked at how it affected the wood treated with it beforehand and was quite impressed with it, so he chose to use it as well, es pecially since it seemed to be especiallypatible with wood that would be standing outside in different weathers. Soon after finishing off thest of the four hubs, Eisen finally got the notification that his Woodworking skill ranked up! The only rank-up effect that he got through this was that it would be easier to work with wood now, so it was a nice little extra that would help Eisen while he was working! Next, Eisen grabbed some nice square nks and set them into thethe as well to make the spokes, once more starting out with a gouge chisel to give it the rough shape it needed and then detailing it with other, smaller chisels, making sure to get the right shape for the parts that would be used to connect it with the hub as well as the surface on the outside. Once Eisen created the bases for all the spokes, he once more finished them in the same way that he finished the hubs, first cleaning, then sanding, and atst treating them with the solution he bought from this workshop. Afterying them to the side to let them dry properly and make sure the solution was properly pulled into the wood, Eisen began working on the outside ring, which he would create by making three different pieces which he could thenter push together toplete the circle. But since he couldn¡¯t use thethe for this, Eisen instead simply carved everything by hand without the help of such a tool. Of course it took longer than making the other parts, but that was to be expected. Eisen finished those parts and then let them dry together with the others, before starting with the rest of the base for the carriage. First, he would make a simple axle, in this case just a simple wooden rod, and then something like a long box to put around it to ensure nothing could get stuck around the axle while the carriage was moving. The wheels and axle in the back would be stationary, while the front would be attached to something that would let it move. Eisen carved the two rods first, finished them off, and then created the boxes for them as well. Since the parts needed to dry first, Eisen continued making the parts for the base before assembling it. Usually, it might take a while until the wood fully absorbed the solution, but in this game, processes like that were usually sped up quite a bit, so it wouldn¡¯t take too long until he could start putting everything together. After finishing the boxes, Eisen created a sort of ¡¯spine¡¯ that would be used to connect the front and back axles. It really was only a simple nk that Eisen carved in order to make it fit into a slot in the boxes properly. At the front of that connective nk, where the front axle would be added to, Eisen carved the wood so that would let him insert a central piece of the front axle in a way that would let it turn. The finished carriage would have a wooden rod at the lower front to which the horse automaton would then be connected in order to pull the carriage. That part would be connected to the front axle itself so that it would properly follow the horse¡¯s movements. Again, this wasn¡¯t really thatplicated to make, as Eisen only needed the simple wooden rod as well as three connector pieces for that, which were quite easily carved. On the other hand, this was all the type of work that took up a lot of time, even if it was quite easy. Eisen already entered early afternoon, despite only having finished the most rudimentary base for the carriage, without even preparing anything to be able to create the actual structure that would be the carriage¡¯s body. And although that was the case, Eisen didn¡¯t mind working on one thing for a long time. He actually liked the change of pace that it brought, which is also why he enjoyed making his Automata so much! The feeling of satisfaction you would experience when finishing something you worked on for days or even weeks was iparably greater than finishing something within a few hours. Overall, this game was an incredible treasure to him. With his 70 years of life experience, he never would have thought to be able to learn whole new crafts again that would open uppletely different ways to make things. Just thinking about what kind of enchantment you could put on different items to see what would happen made Eisen feel like a child on christmas morning nearly every single time. And he absolutely adored that feeling. It didn¡¯t matter which craft it was, cksmithing, Tailoring, or Woodworking, Eisen managed to grow to these heights due to his pursuit of new things he could make in order to feel that special satisfaction. And now, he was making something that would allow him to continue that exact pursuit in a whole new world. Thinking about everything like that, Eisen only sped up even morepared to before, when he was already working at an incredible speed. He actually managed to finish this part of his work earlier than he nned in his mind, so he allowed himself to take a quick break. Eisen looked over to the side, where both Bree and Caria were watching quite curiously, although Caria especially seemed to be slowly getting bored of simply watching Eisen do the same thing over and over again, which made sense. After all, Caria was barely a week old, so nobody could expect her not to act like a young child. But at least Bree was still watching Eisen with awe, in a way that only grew stronger after the whole thing with Denmir talking about Eisen being one of the ¡¯five that peaked¡¯. Since her already seemed to grow a sligth bit weaker, Eisen decided to just wait it out, and talk to her about it only if it didn¡¯t stop. It was fine to look up to one of your friends, but this was basically just Bree putting Eisen on a huge pedestal that he didn¡¯t want to be on. He wanted them to be friends, not have her be his fan. Either way, if Caria was feeling bored, he should probably look for something that she could do. Maybe having her practice her magic would be a good idea! After thinking for a short while, Eisen looked over at the bag containing the different health and mana pills, until he got an idea. He still had a few Amran flowers left over that weren¡¯t really suitable to either hand in for the request at the guild, nor for using them to make potions. But maybe the seeds were still fine! So, Eisen walked over to Bree¡¯s backpack and got out a few of the leftover flowers, carefully removing the seeds from the flower head, cleaned them with some water, and then asked Bree to use a spell to dry them quickly. Then, he made a small wooden cup to use as a flower pot and filled it with soil from his ¡¯me of the Earth¡¯ elementpletely turned into earth, cing the seeds into that soil. "Alright Caria, how about you try to let these seeds sprout?" Eisen smiled while looking at the small Myconid on his palm. Chapter 79 Misunderstanding Eisen set Caria down next to the small wooden flower-pot that he made and ced a bowl filled with mana potions next to her so that she could continue practicing with her mana as much as possible. At first, she was quite confused, but thenter figured out what her master wanted her to do. And Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure if this would work, but mana was such an amazing thing that it couldn¡¯t hurt to try, right? Anyway, Eisen continued his short break and then decided to continue not too long afterward. Now, he would start preparing the carriage¡¯s frame. He had some ideas for it already, so he would immediately start with that. First, Eisen carved a part of a log into a really thick pole,rge and sturdy enough to easy carry the roof as one of the six main base pirs. Once he had that base, he grabbed some of the more art-oriented carving tools and started carving different shapes out of the wood, to make it look slightly like tools and materials, such as hammers or things like rolls of string, were simply stacked on top of each other. He didn¡¯t want to make it look too overwhelming, so he carved these things in a way that they wouldn¡¯t be too deep in, and you would only really notice it if you actually looked at the pir. It should look like a regr pir most of the time, but at second nce you should be able to see that it belonged to the Original of Mechanical Arts. Eisen just felt like it should have such a style. Anyway, Eisen made sure to carve an edge in a 90 degree angle onto the pir so that it would be easy to attach different nks to it on the inside. He repeated this four more times, not five, since he only needed to split one of them in half vertically to create the two ¡¯pirs¡¯ that would be ced in the center parts of the sides. Once Eisen carved what he wanted into those pirs of wood, he cleaned and sanded everything before applying the same solution as before onto them, setting them aside to let them dry. For most of the rest of the carriage, he could simply use the nks that were already provided, so he would be able to take a break from preparing the materials for now. It would just be a waste of time if he instisted on making literally every single part of it himself. But due to the size of the pirs, it already took him until early evening to finish his preparations, which also meant that the wheels could now be assembled! And then tomorrow, he would make whatever he needed to use as connectors between all parts, as well as the outer metal rings for the wheels, at Denmir¡¯s smithy and bring it back there, meaning that he would be able to assemble the carriage! Then all that was left to do was to make some containers to keep things in for the inside, such as different barrels and crates, as well as create a worktable with enough space to do small crafts on like carving small statues, experimenting with enchantments, or simply toe up with different ideas for future items. But for now, Eisen grabbed all the pieces that he would need for a wheel and began punching the spokes into the holes that Eisen made for them, by cing a small piece of wood at the end and hitting that with a mallet to make sure they would properly move inside as far as possible. After that was done, Eisen did basically the same when he added the wooden outer ring, hitting it with a mullet to push it onto the spokes and into the other parts of the ring that were added beforehand. This on its own didn¡¯t really take that long, and after making sure that each wheel was properly put together, he decided to simply go to the storage and see to grabbing all of the wood that he would need in the form of different nks, and then quickly paid for it. It was somewhat expensive, but Eisen wasn¡¯t surprised considering the quality of the wood. For the next few hours, Eisen didn¡¯t do anything but saw all the different nks into the right lengths and ced them down in a way that would make it rtively easy for him to remember what was supposed to go where, before he, Bree, Caria and the Automata prepared to make their way back to the inn. But first, Eisen looked at the Horse Automaton with a slight frown. "What should I name you?" He muttered to himself, thinking about possible names. He could go with the same kind of theme as with Aulu, so that would be Aueq. "Nope, that does not sound good. Then how about not using ¡¯equus¡¯, but rather ¡¯caballus¡¯? Alright, got it! Cabarum!" Eisen said out loud and nodded in satisfaction. That was when he noticed something interesting! Aulu, now that she was a few days old, started to act different to a regr golem! It seemed like the beast gem and the mana crystal brain finally took effect, and instead of simply standing around like a statue, Aulu was kind of slightly swaying left and right just a tiny bit, and even moved her head toward Eisen when he began talking. And to Eisen, that simply seemed baffling. This was basically just a machine made out of gears and tubes, but because of those mana crystals, it was actually able to learn and change over time. So, being more than just happy about that, Eisen kneeled down and pet her back with a smile, moving his hands through her brass fur, feeling the soft vibrations caused by the gears moving inside of her. And while he was doing that and happily talking to her in, well, the way you talk to your pet, something else changed and she suddenly began leaning into Eisen¡¯s hand, as if she was enjoying the feeling of being petted. Obviously, this made Eisen even happier, and he kept ying around with both Aulu and Cabarum for a little while to see if he could increase their intelligence and wisdom even more. And to his surprise, he really did! Cabarum now also started slightly swaying while he was standing like a regr living creature. After this, Eisen walked back over to the table where he had Caria practice her magic, and saw her napping whileying down against the small wooden flower pot. It seemed like she wasn¡¯t able to really make anything grow at first nce, but once he took a closer look and burrowed a slight bit through the soil he made with his magic element, he saw that one of the seeds actually began sprouting some roots, meaning that Caria really managed to do it! The old man excitedly opened her status to see what had changed. [Caria] [Race- Myconid Child(Amanita Muscaria)][Owner - Eisen] [Rank - 1][Level - 19] [HP - 150][MP - 560] [STR - 6][END - 8][AGI - 8][INT - 34][WIS - 37] [Skills] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 1][Level - 16] -[nt Control][Rank - 0][Level - 3] "Oh? Good job, lil¡¯ girl! You¡¯re really growing up to be a real little dryad! But nt Control, huh? If she got that skill, then it should be easier for her to do all of that stuff from now on!" Eisen said with a smile on his face and ced Caria into one of the pocket on his crafting outfit while gathering up all the stuff that he didn¡¯t want to leave somewhere like this overnight, meaning basically everything beside the materials for the carriage. Once they had everything, Eisen, his creatures, and Bree made their way out of the Woodworker¡¯s workshop and back toward the Inn, where they had dinner together and then went to bed. --- "Dad? Are you okay? Are you still ying that stupid game?" Melody, Benjamin¡¯s one and only daughter, practically yelled over the phone the instant that he answered the call. After letting out a silent sigh paired with him shaking his head, Benjamin finally responded. "Hello, Melody. Good morning to you too, honey. And yes, I¡¯m still ying that game, but please don¡¯t call it stupid. It¡¯s actually really amazing." "But it¡¯s just some random game, right? You¡¯ve been doing nothing else but y that for more than a week!" While quite obviously just being concerned for her father, Melody did what she basically always did when it came to other people¡¯s decisions. Benjamin knew that she meant well, but if someone did something she didn¡¯t agree with, she told them immediately. And she wouldn¡¯t back down either. So, in Benjamin¡¯s experience, it would be best to just try and change the topic. "Yes, I have been ying that non-stop. I can show you why I think it¡¯s so amazing when everyonees here, don¡¯t worry. I think you¡¯ll understand then. Anyway, how is Sophia doing? I haven¡¯t talked to her in a while." Benjamin asked while starting to make himself something for breakfast, noticing that he was actually kind of running low on food. He looked at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall, and thought about how long it would take him to go to the store and be back with enough time left to finish the carriage within one in-game day. Luckily, he lived in a small town, and the nearest grocery store was usually quite empty around this time. He could just go to the closest Wawa as well to see if he could pick something small up to eat for lunch. "Sophia is doing pretty well for herself! And I actually think she secretly has a boyfriend!" Melody eximed excitedly, and in response, Benjamin nearly choked on the cup of water he was just drinking. "W-What? A Boyfriend?" He asked, utterly confused, but trying not to show that in his voice. Although apparently, Melody could see through her father. "What¡¯s that reaction about? Sophia is super cute, right? I¡¯m more surprised she didn¡¯t have any boyfriends yet!" "Y-Yeah, of course she is... We should have her introduce us to him sometime, then..." Benjamin muttered out, trying to y along, but feelingpletely unsure what to do. There was something about Sophia that only Benjamin Senior and Benjamin Junior, Benjamin and his grandson Benji, knew about. And because of that, he knew that Sophia couldn¡¯t have a boyfriend. Sophia had a girlfriend. She was gay, and simply didn¡¯t have hering out yet. The guy that Melody thought she was dating was most likely just a simple boy-friend, not a boyfriend. "Definitely! Maybe I can ask her to bring him to the family reunion! Yeah, I¡¯ll do that!" Melody eximed happily, obviously excited at the idea. And before Benjamin could tune in to shut her down in a way that wouldn¡¯t expose Sophia¡¯s sexuality, Melody already continued talking. "I¡¯ll ask her right now! I think you should be excited, you¡¯ll probably be a great grandpa soon! Talk to youter, love you dad!" "Wait, Melo- and she hung up. Great... I should probably call Tony to talk to Benji for a bit then..." Benjamin sighed loudly and started eating his breakfast while dialing Tony¡¯s phone number. Chapter 80 Craftsmans Carriage Eisen stood up from his bed in the Inn after lying down in his capsule again literally a few seconds ago. That conversation with Benji not too long ago helped Eisen calm down a little bit. After that whole bunch of trouble that Melody is going to cause, he wasn¡¯t sure whether or not Sophia might actually bring that boy that Melody kept saw her with. Benji told him that he talked to Sophia about him a few times before, and the boy was apparently even her best friend, so it may be possible that she would bring him along. Eisen just wanted to know if Benji knew anything about the situation, since he knew that he and Sophia talked quite a lot. But when he was filled in about everything by his grandson, Eisen managed to rx and took his time getting groceries and something from Wawa to eat for lunch. Now that he was back in the game, it was time to make his way back over to Denmir¡¯s smithy to prepare all of the things he needed to finish off the carriage as soon as possible. He greeted Bree who was already waiting for Eisen, and they made their way to the restaurant to eat some breakfast. Since there wasn¡¯t anything else to do, and Jyuuk was at work in real life, Eisen and Bree made their way to "Dwarf¡¯s Delight". They stepped inside and walked to the back of store to meet with Denmir, who rushed over to them the moment that heid eyes on them. "Aye, Good mornin¡¯ Eisen, good mornin¡¯ss! And good mornin¡¯ ta the three of you as well, of course!" Denmir eximed happily to greet the small group that just entered the workshop. This was quite unusual for him already, as usual he would just wave at them when they came in and basically ignored them for the rest of their stay while he got back to his own work. But this time around, he really just dropped what he was doing to sprint over to Eisen. And the old man guessed it was kind of understandable that he would be somewhat excited, seeing how Eisen was literally a legend amongst legends within this world. Before Eisen could react though, Denmir already continued. "Is there anythin¡¯ I can help ya with today?" He asked, but Eisen shook his head with a soft chuckle. "No, no, I don¡¯t really need much help. I just have to make some small steel parts for a carriage. Is it fine if I borrow the same forge as usual?" "Of course, of course! Go ahead! Erm, if ya need me, I¡¯ll be working on my own items! Just call me, ye ¡¯ear?" Denmir close to yelled this out happily while Eisen began walking over to his usual forge and changed into his cksmithing outfit in a small, separate changing room. After he got back out and ced his clothes next to Bree¡¯s backpack, Eisen made his way to the storage room to get a few ingots of steel, immediately getting to work when he brings them back to the forge. He made a few different simple angled metal tes inrge quantities to hold the parts together, before then making four long rectangles which he connected at each end to create something like a loop. Eisen made sure that it was the right size, repeatedly measuring the diameter so that it was just a tiny bit smaller than the actual wheel¡¯s. Once he finished that, Eisen thought about stopping and getting back to the Woodworker¡¯s to continue building the carriage, but instead he chose to make some other items first. They weren¡¯t anything amazing, just a frisbee-sized steel version of the coin hanging around Eisen¡¯s neck, as well as some smaller decorative items to attach to the inside of the carriage here and there. Excited to see that he could finally start assembling the carriage, Eisen quickly moved on and packed up the items he just made, changing back into his regr crafting outfit before he and Bree decided to go back to the Woodworker¡¯s. Denmir seemed kind of disappointed by that, but Eisen couldn¡¯t do anything about that. Rather, Denmir just made him leave faster, since Eisen constantly felt the dwarf¡¯s stares on his back. With a loud sigh, Eisen hoped that not everybody that found out he was one of the five that peaked would treat him like that from that moment on. Luckily, Bree was already starting to return to her usual way of interacting with Eisen, so he didn¡¯t need to worry about that at the very least. For now, Eisen and Bree walked back to the room where the old man began building the carriage, cing the different parts down onto the ground sorted. First, it was time to finish the wheels. And Eisen didn¡¯t simply want to attach a regr steel ring to it, but instead ced the loop onto the ground and got out a small needle to begin carving an enchantment into its surface. The enchantments that he carved onto the steel surfaces were quite simple. It was an enchantment that would give the wheels both better grip as well as better stability, and it was supposed to pull mana from a mana crystal that would be ced into each of the wheels. Later, Eisen would add even more ces where such mana crystal batteries were needed, so he was already thinking about how to efficiently give all of those mana crystals the mana they needed to function, and decided to just ce a central crystal into the inside of the carriage, allowing him to pour his mana inside of that and have it automatically be transferred to all of the other crystals around. But that should wait forter. But for now, Eisen just ced the mana crystal batteries into the wheels¡¯ hubs and made sure that the enchantment could be activated. Eisen ced the condition on it that it would only activate when the wheel was turning, so it at least wouldn¡¯t take too much unnecessary mana. The next step that Eisen went for was to heat up the steel ring as much as possible with his magic element, while holding it on tongs of course, so that it would expand enough to fit around the wheel. When it was starting to glow a slight orange, the loop was ced around the outside of the wheel and water was poured onto it to make sure the hot metal loop cooled and shrunk back down properly, andpletely burnt into the wood while it was at it. This, and the fact that Eisen made the ring slightly smaller than the actual wheel, made sure that the metal wouldn¡¯t be able to slip off without forcefully being pulled off. That on its own would still take quite a lot of force, though. Eisen repeated this three more times until he could happily say that the wheels were now finished. Once that was done, it was time to fully create the base. Eisen connected two of the wheels with one of the poles that would act as the axle, and then simply ced the box that he made around it, doing the same for the other two wheels as well. When this was done, Eisen ced the part that would let the front wheels rotate onto that dedicated spot on the box, before adding the center-piece that would act as something like a spine to connect the two axles. Eisen moved that structure back and forth a few times, and was quite satisfied with how smoothly the wheels were moving. After nodding to himself, the old man continued. He connected the front axle to the pole that Cabarum would pull at, and then simply started the base framework once he was done with that. Eisen ced two square nks over each, carving gaps in the center so that they could be pushed together, in a cross, with each of the ends being the spot where the corners of the carriage would be, and then ced a third, shorter nk above those two so that its ends would be below the spots where the two center wooden pirs would end up. This structure was then connected to the wheel base that Eisen made, properly affixing it at different spots, especially making sure that he properly connected the axle boxes to it with the help of those angled steel tes he made at Denmir¡¯s. After that, Eisen added the six carved pirs to each end of the cross structure, before connecting each pir at both the top and the bottom in a square outline with the help of more square nks, creating something like a box-shape already. As the next step, Eisen simply added regr nks to the outside to create the first walls. Making these walls wasn¡¯t hard, it just took up some time, and since Eisen had to do basically the same thing on the inside once more, this was just work that would take most people at the very least a whole day. But since it was Eisen that was working on it, and because of his improved speed and currently basically infinite endurance, he managed to finish it in just a few hours. And when he started adding the nks on the inside of the carraige as well, he purposefully left some spots open to more easily ess the space between the inner and outeryers of nks. If he had simply closed everything up, Eisen would have lost quite a lot of space, which he instead used to create a few different small cupboards and ces to hang his tools, as well as some hiding ces where he could ce some of his money in case someone tried robbing the carriage. But there were a few spaces where he left especially much space, where he could create two simple things that could just be folded downward when needed and left up against the wall to open up space at every other time. One of them was for Eisen¡¯s workbench, while the other was for a bed. Of course, thetter was something that Eisen himself didn¡¯t need, which is also why he made it rtively small to amodate an average-sized person, or in the case of Eisen¡¯s current party, a person with the body of a young girl. It absolutely didn¡¯t matter where Eisen slept, since he was logged out anyway, and it didn¡¯t seem to be too big of a deal even if he slept on usually incredibly ufortable and uneven ground. When he woke up in the game, there wasn¡¯t any ufortable feeling anymore anyway. So, if he needed to sleep, he would do so while simply sitting down on the ground, while Bree could have the space in the bed that he made. After all, her situation was quite different. She seemed to actually be affected by where she slept like people usually were in real life. So he wanted to be nice and make the little time that she actually needed to sleep asfortable as possible. On top of that, who knew who else they might pick up every once in a while? It wouldn¡¯t hurt to have a ce a guest couldy down on. And if nobody was sleeping on it, it would obviously double as a regr seat, so that was quite good as well. And Eisen¡¯s worktable was quite simple as well, at least for now. He would probably add some little things here and there over time, but for now it was just a thin wooden surface with legs that would fold down when Eisen pulled the table away from the wall. This could of course also be used as a regr table to eat on or just sit at during a conversation. Neither of these parts took up a lot of space even if they were both folded down at the same time, so there was more than enough ce to stack a few crates or one or two barrels on top of each other. Eisen also made a few simple windows that could be opened and closed whenever, as well as a door in the back of the carriage. The roof was quite simple as well. Eisen would probably continue decorating this whole thing over time, but for now it was simply a regr nted roof to get rid of water or things that dropped onto it from trees. And that was it! The carriage was finally finished! There was only one part missing, the te-sized steel recreation of Eisen¡¯s coin. He carved a circle into the wood on the door on the carriage¡¯s backside, and tightly fitted the piece inside. With a satisfied smile, Eisen crossed his arms and nodded. "Done." [Craftsman¡¯s Carriage] [Rank - 2][Quality - Perfect] [Description] A Carriage created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Multiple Carving have been added to it to show its affiliation with Craftsmanship. It has been made with high quality, durable wood, and the wheels were even enchanted so that they made travel a slight bit easier. Inside of the actual structure, multiple storage ces have been installed, on top of a pre-installed table and bed that can easily be stashed away. [Due to already having reached the peak as a limitbreaker, you will not gain anything from creating an overwhelming quality item through the Woodworking Skill] --- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 71] [HP - 1876][MP - 1898] [STR - 106][END - 106][AGI - 103][INT - 107][WIS - 108][CHA - 11] [Titles] -[Casanova] -[Champion] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker V] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 2][Level - 99] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 2][Level - 81] -[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 49] -[cksmithing][Rank - 2][Level - 58] -[Cooking][Rank - 0][Level - 68] -[Crafting Space][Rank - 2][Level - 6] -[Dismembering][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Enchanting][Rank - 2][Level - 12] -[me of the Earth Magic][Rank - 1][Level - 51] -[Golemancy][Rank - 0][Level - 68] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 16] -[Lockpicking][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 26] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 46] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 2][Level - 41] -[Swordsmanship][Rank - 2][Level - 75] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 45] -[Taming][Rank - 1][Level - 76] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 98] -[Truth Seeing Eye][Rank - 0][Level - 35] -[Woodworking][Rank - 1][Level - 76] Chapter 81 Preparations "Alright, perfect!" Eisen said with a happy smile and nodded in satisfaction. Now he only needed to properly connect Cabarum to it so that he could pull it through the streets. For that purpose, he already added something on the Horse Automaton that would make this far easier. On the side of its body, he added some connectors, letting Eisen simply connect two poles to its body and then to the pole at the front of the carriage used to pull and steer it. Cabarum also had two connectors by the sides of its mouth where rope could be connected to more easily control his movement while Eisen or Bree were sitting on the small bench at the front of the carriage. So Eisen quickly prepared those two poles and pushed them onto the connectors at the side of Cabarum¡¯s body and then to the carriage, before attaching the rope to the horse¡¯s mouth. After slowly packing up a few scraps and cing them into an empty crate that he already had, Eisen quickly cleaned up and then opened therge wooden door leading to the streets of Melroe to test how well the carriage can drive. Considering that its quality was high enough to break through woodworking, despite the fact that breaking through skills was supposed to be harder now that he reached the peak of his title, it should probably work just fine, but Eisen still wanted to see if there were any little tweaks needed and what kind of enchantments would be good to add to the wooden frame of the carriage to make it more stable and durable in total. He first wanted to see how well the enchantments on the wheels helped before deciding on what else to ce onto it, since Eisen wouldn¡¯t be able to just erase the enchantment. At least not yet. Morrom exined to him what would happen if you just tried to erase an enchantment without the appropriate rank in the skill. It would basically cause a surge of energy to explode either outward or inward depending on the enchantment, quite easily being able to destroy the item or surface it was ced on, as well as damage the one that was removing the enchantment. That was also why Eisen ced the enchantment on the inside of the metal ring, so that it wouldn¡¯t scratch up and be destroyed while they were driving. So, If Eisen wanted to remove an enchantment safely, he would either have to wait until his Enchanting skill reached a higher rank, or fully remove the piece that he enchanted. And since that would just be a waste of time, he wanted to try and make sure the enchantments were as appropriate as possible. After he opened the door to the outside, Eisen brought Aulu inside the carriage and set Caria down on her back, while Bree was waiting outside on the street to make sure Eisen wasn¡¯t crashing into anything. After all, this was the first time in quite a few years that he steered a carriage. Once they were finally on the outside, Bree quickly closed the door back down and joined Eisen on the front bench. "Alright, Cabarum, slowly walk forward now." Eisenmanded the Automaton, and it did as told. What they would do in order to test the carriage was to drive it to "Everything Magic", Morrom¡¯s shop, and grab those Barrels that Eisen prepared not too long ago. This way, they were able to test out different scenarios perfectly. First, driving up or down a mountain, and then driving with or without cargo. So this was the perfect way to look at what kinds of enchantments they needed. But as far as Eisen was concerned, this carriage seemed to drive quite well, and didn¡¯t seem to shake all that much. It might be a bit different inside, but he¡¯ll just have to see about that in a bit. Not too long after they started driving down the slope, they reached Morrom¡¯s shop, and Eisen told Cabarum to stop walking and had Bree wait with the carriage while he went inside to grab the Barrels. Luckily, Eisen¡¯s strength stat was quite high, so he more than easily managed to carry the barrels on his own and ced them down into the back of the carriages. And once he thanked Morrom for giving him the barrels in the first ce and letting them be stored in his workshop, Eisen stepped into the back of the carriage and asked Bree to start driving back up the slope. However, at first, Cabarum didn¡¯t listen to Bree. That was obviously because she wasn¡¯t his owner, and both Bree and Eisen forgot about that for a second. So, Eisenmanded Cabarum to also listen to Bree¡¯smands, and now Bree managed to also properly drive the carriage back to the Woodworker¡¯s. During the ride, Eisen noticed a few things already. It was less shaky than he expected, but it was definitely still way too shaky to actually do anything major inside. What he was crafting would probably suffer a lot from the movements of the carriage. At the very least, the barrels seemed to be standing quite stable, so they would only need to worry about that if they had a lot of cargo or if they were driving on an especially unstable ground. But if that was the case, he could simply tie everything together or to a bit in the wall to make sure it couldn¡¯t move, so that wasn¡¯t a big deal. But this definitely gave Eisen all that he needed to know, and when they got back to the woodworker¡¯s, Eisen had Bree park the carriage by the side of the road so that other carriages could still pass along, and then squatted down onto the ground while taking out a few needles and mana crystals out of Bree¡¯s backpack. "What kind of enchantments are you putting on it now?" Bree asked curiously, looking over Eisen¡¯s shoulder while he began carving the enchanting circle into one of the corners of the room. It seemed like she was basically treating him like usual again, which Eisen was more than just d about. So with a soft chuckle, he began to exin. "I will ce four enchantments inside of here, one in each corner, that will stabilize the space inside of here further. I¡¯m not entirely sure if it will work, but I¡¯m pretty sure it should. And that¡¯s about it. I¡¯ll enchant the outside with defense enchantments at some point, but that can wait." Eisen exined while carving the enchantment into the wooden board. Enchanting just got easier and easier already, and Eisen was actually able to make the enchantment circles quite easily with only minimal use of tools, so he was quite happy about that. Once the four enchantments were carved into each of the corners, Eisen ced four mana crystals that were enchanted so that they could store mana behind the boards of each corner. Now it was time to set up the mana supply system. It was really quite simple. Eisen ttened a rtivelyrge mana crystal and formed it into a disc, before carving out a small space on the wall next to the door at the back of the carriage to ce it into. He then carved a simple enchantment that was supposed to transfer the mana that it got to the eight mana crystals all around the carriage. The old man wasn¡¯t entirely sure if this would work properly like he did it, but he would find out soon. The image that Eisen used for the enchantment was simply the structure of the carriage, with the locations of the mana crystals highlighted. This way also definitely meant that he had to redo the enchantment whenever he added a new mana crystal battery to the carriage, but at least mana crystals really weren¡¯t expensive, so that fact didn¡¯t matter too much. And it would be especially easy once he was able to erase enchantments. Anyway, now it was time to try the enchantment out, and Eisen ced his palm onto the cold crystal surface before pouring his mana out of his hand and into the enchantment. Immediately, the mana split up into eight thin streams, each moving toward a different one of the mana crystals. Eisen continued providing the enchantment with his mana until the eight streams disappeared, which was probably a sign that they couldn¡¯t be filled up any more than that. With a satisfied nod, Eisen stepped back through the opening in the front of the carriage and sat down on the bench, taking Cabarum¡¯s reigns back into his hands. "Now we have the most important thing to start traveling! Should we get to work with supplies now? Do you have any suggestions on what to buy?" Eisen asked Bree while starting to drive the carriage toward the ce where he remembered some good food-shops to be. The Fey-kin thought for a bit, before starting to tell Eisen her opinion. "I think we should mainly see to taking food that we can keep for a long time with good nutrition. So a little bit of dried meat, but mainly dried fruits like apricots or plums. I think that finding a wild beast would be far easier than finding fruits, so it would be more important to find that. And then we can of course get different longsting herbs, as well as salt, pepper, and a bit of sugar. But all in all, we shouldn¡¯t take too much." She exined, and Eisen began to frown in light confusion. "What do you mean? Why shouldn¡¯t we take a lot from here?" Eisen asked, and immediately understood Bree¡¯s reasoning. "Ah, well, Melroe is a mining town, and we don¡¯t really have any major fields, so most of the produce that¡¯s sold here is imported. And since we¡¯re going to Ornier next, we should pass by a farming vige within a few days. I¡¯ve been there once before, and they have high-quality produce for cheap, so it wouldn¡¯t make too much sense to buy it from here, since the quality will be a bit worse while being more expensive. We should just stock up enough tost us till we get to that farming vige, and then buyrger amounts of supplies there." "I see, that definitely makes sense. Then how about you take care of the purchases and get us all we need food-wise, and I¡¯ll go somewhere and buy some crafting supplies. I¡¯ll leave the carriage to you, so just put everything inside." "Okay~!" Bree agreed with a bright smile while Eisen got to a stop in front of the first few stores, then hopped off of the bench, telling Aulu to stay and by the carriage while he ced Caria onto his shoulder. Eisen made his way toward a few stores that he was interested in, although he directly skipped over one that only sold metal, since he had no way to smith inside the carriage anyway. But instead, he visited a few stores selling different fabrics, leathers, or types of wood that Eisen could craft different smaller things in the carriage to raise his skill levels. He could have also visited the shops of his skill-teachers to buy materials directly from them, but Eisen felt like that would be nothing different than treating them like cheap material sources, and he didn¡¯t want that. Besides, like this he could buy all of it while in one ce, and didn¡¯t have to make his way all across town again. On top of these simple materials, Eisen also bought some different seeds for Caria to practice her nt control skill on. Now, all that Eisen needed to do was say goodbye to all those that helped him. Chapter 82 Party Preparation "Did you get everything that we need?" Eisen asked Bree once he ced all of his crafting materials into the back of the carriage. The Fey-kin was about to respond, but then stopped immediately and moved her eyes around to look into empty space, meaning that she was currently looking at her Database, where she probably created a small list of things that they would need. After a few seconds, she finally replied with a bright smile and a nod. "Mhm! We¡¯ve got everything! What now?" Bree asked with a smile, and Eisen began scratching his beard. "I was thinking that we should just visit people that helped us out and say our goodbyes to them. It might be a while until we can see them again, after all. Maybe we could invite them for a small party at the Inn tonight." "Oooh! That sounds great! Let¡¯s do that!" Bree responded excitedly while the two of them sat down on the front bench of the carriage, and Eisenmanded Cabarum to start walking. Luckily, most of the shops they wanted to visit were mostly on the way to the stables where they wanted to park the carriage, so it didn¡¯t take long to visit everyone. Their first destination was Denmir¡¯s shop, "Dwarf¡¯s Delight". Eisen and Bree stepped inside and made their way to the back of the shop to look for Denmir, who once more immediately hurried over to Eisen¡¯s side once heid eyes on him. "Hey Denmir. So, we just finished all the preparations for starting to travel, so we will probably leave quite soon. We wanted to invite you to a farewell party at the inn for that tonight." Eisen quickly exined, and the Dwarf in front of him immediately nodded. "Of course! I¡¯lle, definitely! Thanks for invitin¡¯ me!" "Don¡¯t worry, I wouldn¡¯t throw a party without you." Eisen chuckled and gave Denmir the rough time where they nned to meet up in the Inn¡¯s Bar, before they were on their way again. Their next stop was at Folmirra¡¯s Tailoring Shop, "Beautiful Clothes". When they entered, the Dwarvendy Folmirra was, like usual, sitting at the front counter with a notepad, apparently drawing a few different sketches inside. When she saw Eisen and Bree, her eyes lit up and she smiled happily. "Hello! Long time no see, you two! How have you been?" She asked and stood up to properly greet the two people that just walked in. With a soft chuckle, Eisen responded by exining that they wanted to leave Melroe within the next few days, and that they would be happy if Folmirra could join them in a celebration that evening. Of course, she was quite excited about this. "Well, if you¡¯re leaving, I can¡¯t just let you without properly saying goodbye! I will definitely be there!" Folmirra eximed, and both Eisen and Bree happily smiled and made their way to the next shop where an important person was waiting. "Jekyll¡¯s Hides", which was the Grandmaster Leatherworker Jeky¡¯ll shop. To their surprise, even he more than happily agreed toe join them at the party. Out of all the people that Eisen met here in Melroe, he was the most cynical, so it was quite weird to actually see him be quite happy and borderline excited for something. This made Eisen feel kind of weird about something already, but he tried to ignore that thought to have fun with his friends tonight. Of course, the next stop was at Morrom¡¯s magic rted shop, "Everything Magic". Eisen worried that he might have some kind of new item to work on, but luckily, he had nothing to do that evening. But there was something else that Eisen noticed. He already noticed that when he came to pick up the barrels before, but he ignored it because he thought that Morrom was simply a bit nervous about work or something, but today everyone was acting a little bit different to usual, so Eisen simply had to ask. "Morrom, but could it be that Denmir told you about who I am?" He asked, and Morrom¡¯s face immediately lost all its color. "I-I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about..." The Dwarf-Elf Halfling responded while averting his gaze. Yup, Morrom definitely knew about it. "That Denmir really had to tell all of you, huh...? Well, anyway, I would have told you guys sooner orter anyway. So don¡¯t worry about it. Me having been one of those that peaked in the past shouldn¡¯t matter." "Y-Yeah, but it¡¯s still so amazing... You were a person that haspletely mastered every single craft there was, so me being able to teach you two skills is incredibly surreal." Morrom exined with aplicated smile, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help but chuckle. "Don¡¯t worry, just see it as fate that we met. Without your help, I wouldn¡¯t have gotten this far so quickly." Eisen responded, but Morrom immediately shook his head after ripping his eyes open. "No, that¡¯s not true at all! You would have been able to do this even without my help, or anyone¡¯s help! You were the one that discovered skills like these in the first ce!" Eisen¡¯s brows changed into a state somewhere inbetween surprise and confusion, as he was trying to figure out what Morrom was talking about. And apparently, Morrom could figure out what that expression meant. "Didn¡¯t Denmir tell you about that? Then should I exin?" Morrom asked, looking over to Bree who simply nodded with an embarrassed smile. She was probably feeling weird that there was something she could have told Eisen, but somehow forgot about. After sighing loudly, Morrom began to speak. "You see, the ones that peaked weren¡¯t only known for reaching the max level, but also for discovering new skills. The Master of Combat found differentbat arts, while the Master of Magic found different magic elements and spells. You on the other hand found out numerous things, and not only rted to crafting. Amongst those that peaked, you are by far the oldest, and I¡¯m pretty sure you¡¯re double the age of even the oldest of the others that peaked. You were the first to figure out numerous things such as what cksmithing is for example. You found an incredibly amount of different crafting skills, and even some general skills, such as tactical skills. On top of that, you were also the first that found out what happened when someone reached the absolute peak of a skill." Curious at thatst part, Eisen began scratching his beard. "Oh? What happens when you reach the peak of a skill, then?" "Well... You know, the proficiency we gain in skills is also a type of experience, which is why it¡¯s disyed in levels. But when we reach the highest proficiency possible, where is that experience supposed to go? That¡¯s what you found out. Instead of going toward that skill, it goes toward your actual experience, allowing you to actually level up through using that skill. It¡¯s not a lot of experience, but it is still an incredible thing for any craftsman, especially pacifists that want to avoidbat." "I see... I didn¡¯t know that was a thing. Thanks for exining all that." "Of course, no problem. But I would be careful who you tell about yourself. Denmir only told the three of us, since he knew weren¡¯t fanatics, but there is something like a religion built around those that peaked. Denmir also told us about his theory with those people appearing out of nowhere. If it really is how he thought, and this theory got out at some point, many of those people might be targeted by those fanatics." Eisen sighed loudly at this. So the game developers even built something like this into the game? They really thought about lots of ways to make this game exciting. "Then I really should only tell those I trust. Well, this kind of thing shoulde out sooner orter, but I would prefer if it waster rather than sooner." Eisen said, and Morrom could only nod in respond. "Anyway, we¡¯ll see you at the party tonight, then?" Eisen asked with a smile, causing Morrom to smile back. "Yes, of course. I wouldn¡¯t miss it." And with that, Eisen and Bree left the shop and sat back down in the front of the carriage. The story that the developers came up with was really amazing in his opinion, but Eisen was feeling kind of hurt by the fact that he was supposed to be literally centuries old. He knew he was old, but that was a bit much, wasn¡¯t it? Either way, Eisen ignored those thoughts and instead drove the carriage back toward the inn so that they could park it in the stables. Eisen also thought about inviting Belrim as well, but Eisen felt kind of weird about him. Of course he helped Eisen quite a bit, but there was just something off about the way that he acted that gave Eisen chills. He felt like Belrim really wasn¡¯t such a good guy as he thought at first. So, Eisen chose to stay away from him as much as possible. After paying the fee to be able to leave their carriage in the stable under the stable¡¯s protection, Eisen and Bree made their way back to the Inn, and Eisen looked at the current time. Since it was about thiste, Jyuuk might actually note back in time for the party, but should probably be back by the time that Eisen and Bree leave town. He just really wanted to say goodbye to him as well, although this most certainly wouldn¡¯t be thest time they saw each other. It was just proper manners to say goodbye to your friends when you leave. But now, back at the Inn, Eisen brought Cabarum and Aulu back to the room and had them stay there with Bree, while he decided to talk to Innkeeper. Eisen wanted to leave Caria in the room as well to let her practice nt control while he was gone, but she simply didn¡¯t want to leave his side, so Eisen had to bring her along after all. So, Eisen walked up to the Innkeeper and greeted him, starting out with some casual conversation before moving on to the two important things that Eisen wanted to ask. "So, Bree and I will be leaving quite soon, possibly even tomorrow, so we¡¯re throwing something like a small party with a few people. Is it possible to reserve a table in the Bar?" Eisen asked, and the Innkeeper nodded in response. "Of course ye can. How many people are ya expecting? And when is it startin¡¯?" "Not too many, we¡¯ll just be six in total. And it should start around 8pm." "Got it, I¡¯ll prepare a table for ya. But ye¡¯re leavin¡¯ already, huh? It¡¯s been a bit more than a month since ye¡¯ve arrived here in Melroe, right?" The Innkeeper asked before writing down the reservation info on a small piece of paper in front of him. "Yeah, that sounds about right. I¡¯m not sure if that time seems shorter or longer than that, haha." Eisenughed loudly, because he really wasn¡¯t sure. For once, it passed quite slowly since he did so many different things throughout that time, but then on the other hand, passed time always seems shorter in retrospect, especially since Eisen was often simply grinding away while doing the same thing. But at the very least, he had immense fun during this time. During this past month, Eisen had some of the most fun he had in years. Chapter 83 True Use "There¡¯s actually another thing I wanted to ask you. Could you sell me some yeast? I tried buying some at stores in town, but none of them had any. I could have gone to a bakery, but I wanted to try asking here first." Eisen asked, and the dwarven Innkeeper nodded lightly. "Sure, I don¡¯t mind sellin¡¯ ya some. Ye nnin¡¯ on some brewing?" He asked before stepping through a door leading to a seemingly small room in the back, beforeing back out with a fist-sized bag of yeast. "Yeah, actually. And I can¡¯t really do that without yeast, haha." Eisen chuckled while gratefully taking the bag into his hands and paying whatever the Innkeeper told him. "Hmm, where exactly are ye and Bree goin¡¯ after leaving Melroe?" The Innkeeper asked while crossing his arms, and Eisen frowned curiously since he wasn¡¯t sure what this had to do with brewing. "We¡¯re nning on going to Ornier next. Why?" "Ah, perfect. Bree mentioned it, but I wasn¡¯t sure. If ye¡¯re goin¡¯ to Ornier, you should go to a bar called ¡¯Drowned Sparrow¡¯. The owner is an old friend of mine, and he makes the best of any type of alcohol there is. Beer, Mead, or Spirits, he can make ¡¯em all. He¡¯s also figured out some interestin¡¯ recipes, so he might be worth a visit just to see his newest creation." The Innkeeper exined, writing down something on a piece of paper which he then folded up and handed Eisen. "He¡¯s a bit particr, so he may not want to talk to ya if he doesn¡¯t know ye can be trusted." "I see. Thanks, Gralmar. I¡¯d be happy if you could join is tonight as well, by the way." Eisen exined, and the Dwarven Innkeeper Gralmarughed wholeheartedly in response. "Haha, I won¡¯t let ye tell me that twice then! I¡¯ll see yater!" With that, Eisen nodded and made his way back to his room and sat down on his bed. He looked over at Bree and smiled. "Are you really alright with going tomorrow already?" Eisen kind of felt like he decided on all of it himself, and Bree simply went along with it. So now was thest time that Eisen would ask to make sure that Bree was alright with leaving the following day. She¡¯s been here for quite a while after all, so leaving may be harder for her than she let on. At least that¡¯s what Eisen thought, but it seems like he was worrying for nothing, because Bree instantly replied with her opinion. "Yes! I¡¯m alright with it, really! I¡¯m actually super excited!" She eximed loudly, finally convincing Eisen that he didn¡¯t force her to do anything. He replied with a soft smile andughed lowly. "I¡¯m d to hear that then." --- "To Eisen and Bree, so that they may leave on a great adventure!" Denmir yelled out while holding up his cup filled to the brim with beer. He was one of the first to arrive and already had quite a good amount of alcohol in his system, despite still being rtively sober. Now that everyone was there, he decided to voice a toast for the twopanions that would be leaving on their first journey together soon. In ordance to Denmir¡¯s toast, the others held their cups up as well, eximing, "To Eisen and Bree!" In synchronicity. After this, the party only really started. For the next few hours, they ate, drank, talked andughed together, enjoying thest evening they would have together for a while. And at this point, Eisen noticed something new. This was the first time he has actually been drinking a lot of alcohol besides on the first day that he started ying the game. Back then, he got drunk very, very quickly, but now he was able to drink around as much as during his younger days! Maybe that was because of his endurance stat? It was truly an interesting stat. It gave him more health and increased his defense at the same time, and at the same time allowed him to work in the sate of absolute non-fatigue that he entered during crafting orbat. Andtely, he has been noticing that he needed less and less sleep the higher his stat rose, and seemingly it also heightened his resistance toward things like poison or alcohol. That was quite useful to know, but especially if Eisen ever wanted to enjoy a lot of alcohol at once. And since his stats would only keep growing, his resistance would only grow with it! And as such, all in the name of science of course, Eisen set himself the goal to find out the current limit of his body, waving at the waitress currently standing behind the bar, since the Innkeeper who usually stood there was sitting at the table with the group. "Another round, please!" --- The next morning, Eisen stood up together with the sunrise, feeling as refreshed as ever! His body was rid of the alcohol he consumed the night before, and his wallet was rid of a lot of its weight, meaning that Eisen didn¡¯t have to carry so much anymore! Meaning that this was a perfect start to Eisen and Bree¡¯s first journey. They both decided that it would be best to wait until Jyuuk woke up, so that they could properly say goodbye to him as well. An interesting thing that they discovered, though, was that his beasts were slowly starting to be overgrown as well, and moss was woven into their fur as they slept next to their master. Eisen wondered if something simr would happen with him and Caria as well at some point, and whether or not she would just turn into a small metal statue of herself. But until then, they really didn¡¯t have too much to do. And since Jyuuk could wake up at basically any time now, Eisen didn¡¯t want to go the long way to some shop to craft something. Instead, he chose to practice his mana maniption a bit more, while he would have Caria continue practicing hers together with her newest skill ¡¯nt control¡¯. So, Eisen took the wooden flower pot he made before and once more filled it with the soiling from his magic element, setting the small Myconid Child down next to it. "Alright Caria, let¡¯s practice again, alright? Show gramps here how good you are at it already!" He eximed while putting some of the flower seeds he bought into the slightly warm earth. Caria nodded happily and burrowed her hands into the dirt concentrating strongly as she poured her mana into the seeds hidden inside. While she was practicing her own magic, Eisen starting doing the same with his own. There was a part about it that he hasn¡¯t actually tried yet, which was to directly push out his me of the Earth magic without needing to first use his actual pure mana and then infusing it with his element. Instead, he always took the long route around. So, Eisen grabbed the book about mana maniption and began reading through the part about the task he wanted to try out. It described the process quite simply, actually. The best way to use his magic for now was to try and infuse it into his mana while it was still inside of his body. Apparently he would be able to push out the pure elemental magic at some point, but that was still a while off considering his current skill rank. And since that was the case, Eisen simply followed the instructions. First, Eisen gathered some of his mana in his hand and formed a ball, of course still inside of his body, and then slowly moved his magic element toward it, slowly pushing it inside of the small sphere. For a while, it seemed as if the mana waspletely rejecting the element, but once Eisen willed it to more strongly than before, it really changed! As Eisen looked at his hand in response to the weird feeling underneath his skin, he noticed a small change. A tiny spot, the part of his skin closest to the sphere of infused mana, began to faintly glow like a me behind a sheet of paper, while it also turned slightly brittle like dried earth. In response, Eisen was obviously surprised, and immediately tried to push the sphere of mana out of his hand, resulting in it breaking through his skin and shooting forward. Luckily, Eisen didn¡¯t change the state of the element yet, so it simply dissipated the moment it hit the wall since it was neither truly solid so that it would break or crack the wood, nor was it hot enough to scorch it in any way. When the old man looked back at his palm, he saw that his skin changed back to normal. But this kind of thing made Eisen quite curious about something. This time around, Eisen filled out his whole hand with his mana, then slowly infusing it with his element. As the infusion spread through the space upied by his mana, his hand began to change. It was as if it turned into earth and then cracked open to reveal the mes underneath. But at the same time, his skin didn¡¯t seem to have changed into earth, as it was slightly shifting with his movements, which meant that it was simply like the pure state of his me of the earth magic, albeit a slight bit more shifted toward its earthen state, while the crack inside of it seemed to be shifted a slight bit more toward mes. For some reason, Eisen thought he might have figured out part of the reason why his element became ¡¯me of the Earth¡¯. He burrowed through Bree¡¯s backpack until he found his hammer, then took it into his hand together with a small iron ingot that Eisen wanted to practice transmutation on for a bit. But now, Eisen wanted to do something else. Immediately when he grabbed his hammer, he activated tool connection, and it seemed as if the state his hand was in shifted toward his hammer, enveloping the whole handle together with some of the metal part of the hammer in the cracked earth. Excitedly, Eisen began to hammer onto the piece of iron. He knew that this wouldn¡¯t allow him to actually forge anything, but it was enough to slightly dent the metal, which the system seemed to count toward cksmithing considering Eisen¡¯s intention. And as soon as the shape of the iron slightly changed... [Congrattions! You found the true use of your Magic Element. You are a craftsman by heart, and as such were appointed the element used by many of the greatest craftsmen amongst all the races, the me of the Earth Element. The Earth that created all, and the mes that destroyed all became one in this element. Now that you found its use,bat damage will drop significantly, while its usefulness during any type of craftsmanship will rise in return.] Chapter 84 Leaving "The true use of my magic? Huh, I see. Well, I don¡¯t mind even if I can¡¯t really use it inbat, that¡¯s not my priority after all. But I wonder... what kind of uses does it have for crafting?" Eisen thought to himself while scratching his beard with his non-transformed hand, then looked down at the piece of Iron that was lying in front of him. "It¡¯s slightly more bent than it usually should be, even if the cksmithing skill makes it easier. Interesting!" While Eisen was thinking that, a new status message popped up. [Do you want to add me of the Earth Transformation Spell to the Spell Library?] Without even needing to think about it, Eisen chose to add it to the Spell Library. If he was able to activate this state more easily, it would no doubt be useful. But now it was time to test the effect of this tranfsormation! The old man looked down at his hand and smiled. If the hammer that was partially coated in his element was more useful than usual, then what about other tools? Thinking that, Eisen grabbed a small carving knife as well as a small block of wood that he wanted to casually carve on in his spare time, and then activated tool connection with the knife in his transformed hand. The transformation immediately shifted to cover the knife¡¯s handle as well, and Eisen excitedly began to carve the small block of wood. Compared to before, it was definitely far easier for the de to move through the soft wood, which was more than enough for Eisen toe up with a theory, or rather two different theories. The first theory was his tools changed through the effect of the transformation. For the hammer, it would have been that it became harder, while the knife would have gotten sharper. The second theory however was that the transformation changed the effect of his skills directly, meaning that cksmithing or Woodworking simply became easier. His hands definitely seemed a bit more nimble, although that shouldn¡¯t make too much of a difference when it came to simply hammering onto metal or cutting into wood. The first option seemed to be more likely, considering that the transformation covered his tools as well. Either way, for now, Eisen knew that this would allow him to more skillfully craft things from now on. And he was quite curious about trying something else out as well. Usually, it seemed like skills in this game have a specific name depending on what area they affec, so usually Eisen would have expected the spell to be called something like ¡¯me of the Earth Hand Transformation¡¯. Although it was kind of lengthy, that was the naming scheme this game usually had. But it wasn¡¯t there this time, and since Eisen could transform parts of his tools as well, he wondered if it was applicable to the rest of his body as well! So, Eisen focused his mana and turned it from its raw state into a semi-solid, the same as he had for his hand just now, and filled his whole body out with it. He then slowly let the element from the center of his heart spread outward to mix with his mana. Soon enough, Eisen noticed the change in his body. It started at his torso, and spreading outward his skin turned into the state that only his hand was in until now. That state that was neither mes nor dirt, but somehow both at the same time. "So it does work, huh?" Eisen eximed and looked down at his body, moving his fingers across his body to feel its changes and to confirm that every part of it truly turned into that different state. "Truly interesting! I wonder if this will change how I can move my body overall, then!" Eisen muttered to himself, turning and twisting his body to get a better look at himself. He moved his arms around, and saw that he actually had a little bit better flexibility overall. Now there was something else that Eisen wanted to try. Slowly, Eisen concentrated on his body and decided to change the state of his element toward the earth side. As he did, the lightly glowing cracks all over his body disappeared, and his skin became more solid. In this state, his body significantly slowed down and became far heavier than it was before. On the other hand, when Eisen tried a few different things out around the room, he noticed that his strength increased in return. "I see, this- huh?" Eisen was slightly startled for a second, as his voice seemingly became quite a lot deeper than it was before. But that surprise was just there for a second, and Eisen snapped out of it nearly immediately. Once this was the case, Eisen got excited to see what the other form of his element would look like during his transformation. So, he carefully changed it from earth over to the mes. He did this quite slowly, so that he could make sure he wouldn¡¯t identally burn his clothes, but it seemed like his equipment was protected from such effects. Not long afterward, Eisen stood there with his body turned into mes. This time around, his body felt far lighter than usual while at the same time having sped up significantly. In return, it seems like he has lost some of his strength. "So it¡¯s like that, huh? And my voice in this state sounds just ridiculous..." Eisen muttered out lowly. He expected his voice to have changed again, but it was kind of like his voice was a few pitches higher, and even Eisen couldn¡¯t take himself serious like that. But either way, Eisen felt like he figured out what he should use which transformation for. The me state should be used in case he needed a lot of precision, while the earth state was perfect in case simple brute strength was needed. This element really was perfect for Eisen! He was able to change his speed or strength quite easily during crafting now! However, there was one problem. "I¡¯m feeling quite drowsy... This drains a lot of mana, doesn¡¯t it?" Eisen muttered out and immediately deactivated this spell, causing his body to change back to normal. In order to get his mana back as quickly as possible, Eisen ced some of the mana pills into his mouth, ate some regrly until he had enough mana, and then changed other pills back into regr potions inside of his mouth since they would give more mana back this way. "Whew, this was quite close... But this is really interesting as well. I¡¯m d I practiced magic this much then. And would you look at that, my me of the Earth Magic will probably rank up again soon!" Eisen eximed happily once he looked at his status, until he heard a familiar voice groan behind him. "Is that so?" The Monkey Beastperson Jyuuk grumbled lowly as he stood up from his bed and stretched in response to the long time that he spent in his wood-state again. "Ah, Jyuuk! Great that you¡¯re back. Listen, we need to talk about something." The old man said with a smile as he turned around. He began to exin the rough situation, that he and Bree are going to be leaving quite soon, and then talked about his most recent new finding about the magic element or that fanatical religion that prays to the ¡¯Five that peaked¡¯, as well as Caria¡¯s newest skill ¡¯nt Control¡¯. Since Denmir mentioned that the ¡¯Master of Life¡¯ of the five that peaked was able to make forests grow, it was quite probable that Jyuuk would be able to make amazing use of something like this as well. "Oh, really? Do I just need to put my mana into seeds to get that skill?" Jyuuk asked surprised, and Eisen simply nodded while scratching his beard. "At least that¡¯s what Caria is doing. It wouldn¡¯t hurt to try anyway." "Thank you, I will try this out soon. That is actually quite useful for me to know. I just reached level 99 before going to sleep thest time. There is apparently a level advancement quest. The message said that because of my status as an original and my ystyle befitting that status, the quest is harder than it usually would be. There¡¯s a list of things I need to do. For example, reach at least rank 1 in a few skills, some of which I haven¡¯t even learned yet including ¡¯nt Control¡¯. I am sure you will get a simr quest once your level is high enough." Jyuuk carefully exined, and Eisen sat down on his bed while closing his eyes in thought. "I see... I feel like this may be the first real downside to being originals. Or did you experience another situation that became harder because of it?" "No, not yet. I will keep you updated about what I find out. And I will also tell you if I will get any rewards that might be in your interest. But until then, I think I should try and see if I can change my upation somewhere, to one that supports both taming and necromancy. And possibly even skills such as ¡¯nt control¡¯. Do you know of any ce?" Eisen sat there in thought for a few seconds, but didn¡¯t really know any specific ce, although he at least came up with a few ces to start looking. "I don¡¯t think so, but you should go and see my friend Morrom at his shop ¡¯Everything Magic¡¯. It¡¯s not hard to find, don¡¯t worry. And if he can¡¯t tell you anything, then I would consider looking around at the guilds in the upper area of town, there may be one that can help you in your situation." Jyuuk nodded in response and smiled thankfully. "I will do that, thank you. So, when are you and Bree leaving?" "Haha, why? Want to get rid of us?" Eisenughed loudly and stood up, pping Jyuuk¡¯s back before heading toward the table where Caria was still practicing her nt control. "N-No, that¡¯s not it! I just-" "Don¡¯t worry, I was just joking. Come on, let¡¯s get Bree and then I¡¯ll show you the carriage." While Eisen was saying that, he cleaned up the table and got rid of the soil, patting Caria¡¯s head when he saw that he managed to actually make quite some progress with her skill. "Okay!" --- About an hourter, all preparations were officially done. Eisen showed Jyuuk the carriage, and then the two of them talked with Bree for quite a while, until the Fey-Kin and the Giant-Dwarf Halfling decided to set off. This past month that Eisen has spent in Melroe was deeply etched into his mind. The new friends he made, and all those amazing things that he saw and experienced brought him out of the hole that was his life for the past few years, after that damned robber broke into his house. For two years, day after day he lived a hollow life, in which he couldn¡¯t even lift some of the tools he used for weeks on end sometimes, and wasn¡¯t capable of properly cleaning up in his own house until a few months after his operation. And not to forget the numerous scars on his arming from that incident that kept reminding him of his own ipetence every single day that he opened his eyes. He had lost his happiness, the thing that apanied him throughout his whole life. He had lost his reason to live. Now, Eisen was able to regain his life in this new world. Chapter 85 Mother Hive Eisen was sitting on the front bench of the carriage, looking forward through the forest he and Bree were driving through. While Caria and Aulu were in the back, the Myconid still practicing her nt control and the automaton simplyying on the ground as if she was napping. The Fey-Kin on the other hand was actually sitting right beside him, using her Scanner skill to search for an important part for the Adventure¡¯s Guild¡¯s request that Eisen took a few days ago. She was currently looking for a beehiverge enough to possibly contain a honey crystal. When they were in areas that had the right conditions, she kept doing this while Eisen was driving. It¡¯s already been about five hours since they started driving, and they finally left the mountainous area close to Melroe and were now in rtively tnd, making the drive both much easier, as well as much, much more boring. But Eisen didn¡¯t mind. He enjoyed the beauty of nature and hearing the forest¡¯s birds chirping all around him. And there was even something that made him even happier, as Eisen learned the ¡¯Riding & Driving¡¯ Skill about an hour ago, and it was leveling up quite nicely. ording to Bree, this skill wouldn¡¯t only help with driving the carriage, but also the control he had when riding any creature. While checking up on it every once in a while, Eisen also continued to practice some of his other skills that he could while doing something else. This meant that Eisen activated skills like his ¡¯Truth Seeing Eyes¡¯, or even ¡¯A Dwarf¡¯s Hands¡¯, thetter of which he managed to gain proficiency in through simply ying with a marble in his fingers for a while. It didn¡¯t give him much proficiency, but still enough let him gain his first ever Rank 3 skill. [A Dwarf¡¯s Hands reached Level 100 in Rank 2, upgrading to Rank 3] [Your hands can now withstand immense heat and pressure] [Due to Ranking-up your A Dwarf¡¯s Hands Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 END] "Immense heat? So that means I can handle metal more easily, huh?" Eisen whispered to himself, and Bree happened to overhear him. "Hm? What do you mean?" She asked, tilting her head to the side ever so lightly, still looking into the distance to keep an eye out for the beehives. "Ah, I just got my dwarven racial skill to rank 3, and I was talking to myself about the new effects it got." Eisenughed lowly, smiling at the young girl next to him. And Eisen knew that she wasn¡¯t actually a young girl, despite looking like it, butpared to him, most people were young so Eisen didn¡¯t really care too much. "Ohh~! That¡¯s cool! Ah! Eisen, stop the carriage, I found some beehives!" The carriage came to a halt as Cabarum slowed down in response to Eisen¡¯smand. Soon enough, it seemed like Eisen would be able to finally start brewing one of his favorite alcoholic drinks! But of course, Eisen wouldn¡¯t just leave the carriage in the middle of the road, but instead he decided to park it behind a nearby thicket. "Alright, let¡¯s check them out then! Cabarum, if anyone or anything beside uses close to the carriage, try make as much noise at possible. We won¡¯t be too far away." Eisen exined to his automaton, hoping that it wouldn¡¯t be necessary for it to do so. So now, Eisen, Caria, Bree and Aulu made their way in the direction that Bree saw the beehives in, and soon enough they found a small hive in a hollow treestump. Although, ¡¯small¡¯ was quite rtive, since the bees themselves were around two or three timesrger than regr bees, so of course the hive¡¯s size grew in proportion to that as well. Once Bree confirmed that these were Honeybees and that there was a Honey Crystal inside of the hive, Eisen grabbed a small mana crystal that he prepared just for this situation. It had a simple enchantment that was supposed to expell heavy smoke. Attached to it was another small mana crystal with a regr mana storage enchantment, which Eisen then quickly began filling with his mana. He hurried up and quickly, with the furthest distance possible, ced the mana crystal into an opening of the hive. Immediately afterward, the group quickly retreated a safe distance, and waited for about half an hour or so. Eisen didn¡¯t really know how well this method would work and whether or not bees could be smoked out regrly in the game, but at least it was worth a try. And Eisen deliberately made the mana battery so small so that it would actually run out within half an hour, and he had already tested this a few times before. So, when the smoke finally stopped, Eisen and Bree both hurried forward to the nest and looked through it. Soon enough, Eisen managed to find the pinky-sized Honey Crystal in the center of the hive, and then quickly made his way back to a safe distance. After inspecting the crystal a little bit, he found that it actually looked quite different to what he thought. Eisen figured that it would just be a honey-colored crystal simr to a mana crystal, but instead, it was actually made up of the the hexagonal shapes of a honeb, as if it was apletely crystalized part of a hive. "Interesting. Bree, what do you actually use this for?" Eisen asked the Fey-kin next to him curiously, and she answered quite quickly. "Hmm... As far as I know, it strengthens the whole hive, and it keeps growing and growing until it isrge enough to house a significant portion of bees as its own hive. The bees that are hatched inside of it are usually stronger and more special than regr bees. I think the one that requested these was a beekeeper that wants to make more honey, probably." She exined, and Eisen nodded in response. "Really? These will be quite useful at some point to me too, then. We need only four more of these for the request, let¡¯s get some for ourselves afterward." Eisen suggested, before the small group made their way over to the next hive in the area. For some reason, there really were quite a lot of them here, and Eisen could just hear light buzzinging from basically every direction. At least this would make it easy to finish the request. --- Soon, Eisen packed away the tenth Honey Crystal inside of Bree¡¯s backpack. The first few that Eisen gathered were really quite small, but soon enough, there were a fewrger hives withrger Honey Crystals inside. Actually, the amount of hives alsorgely increased, and that seemed to be the case because of one quiterge structure. It was a giant beehive that formed itself around multiple old trees that copsed onto a pile. It was sorge that if you could hollow it out, it would berge enough for a small family to live in. "Eisen, be careful, that¡¯s a ¡¯Mother Hive¡¯!" Bree eximed the moment that sheid eyes on it, and Eisen stared forward onto the structure. "A Mother Hive? So it¡¯s something like the core for all of these hives in the area?" Eisen asked himself, trying to figure out the best course of action. Some of these bees certainly looked quiterge, even bigger than the ¡¯regr¡¯ honeybees that they took care of until now. And there was arge greater variety of bees as well, as if most of these had evolved into rank 1 already. Maybe if there was a Honey Crystal there, it would be even better than a regr honey crystal! "So, how dangerous is it?" Eisen asked hispanion, who began to analyze the situation immeidately. "Hmm, it¡¯s not too bad. Considering our level, individual bees shouldn¡¯t be able to do much, if any, damage to us, but the problem is that there are so many of them. But it might be troublesome if the hive continues to grow..." "How so?" Eisen asked curiously, and it seemed like Bree began to shudder as she began to talk. "You see..." She started to tell Eisen about a situation that urred when a Mother Hive was simply allowed to keep growing. This happened on a quite remote ind in the south, which is also why nobody was able to get rid of it properly. First, it started out as a regr hive that was errected above a mana vent, a central point whererge amounts of natural mana came together, which let the hive grow into a mother hive. Over years, that mother hive in the size of a small house continued to grow until it was the size of a small castle instead. And then a fortress, before it becamerge enough to house a whole town. And soon enough, the whole Ind was taken over by a single giant hive. Luckily, since different guilds set up a barrier near the ind, and due to the sheer distance between the ind and the continent, none of the bees were able to escape and make their way somewhere where they could cause harm to people. "This is weird, though. A Mother hive shouldn¡¯te into existence without such arge mana source like a mana vent, but the only one around here should be near the mines in Melroe. Then how did it get sorge...? It seems to be quite young as well." "I think it would be best to simply destroy it, then. Maybe we can find something like a clue afterward." Eisen suggested, and immediately grabbed the smoke-enchanted mana crystal, thinking about whether or not this would be enough. He briefly thought about just burning the hive down, but he couldn¡¯t do that either because that might cause a giant forest fire in response. And just storming inside was an obvious no-go as well. He also thought about using his me of the Earth transformation, but that was just way too risky. Who knew if he could even damage monsters with his me-body, and since it drained too much mana, it was possible that he might pass out in a mass of bees. "Bree, do you have any idea on how we should handle this?" Eisen asked hispanion that kept staring at therge Beehive in front of her. "I think I do, yes. The type of bee that makes up thergest amount of the hive¡¯s forces is really attracted to the smell of blood. Especially that of people, although beasts work too. If we can lure them away, we can try to set up a small anti-fire barrier around it, and then burn the whole thing down. Without a hive, the hive¡¯s forces will die soon enough." Attracted to blood, huh? If that¡¯s the case, then Eisen had an idea how he could handle this. Eisen stepped behind Bree and opened up her backpack, grabbing arge wooden bowl and a knife, as well as some health pills. For the next part of the n, they stepped a bit further away so that they didn¡¯t identally attract the bees beforehand. When they were a bit away, Bree looked around into the distance as if searching for something. "It might take a while until we find a beast, so... E-Eisen, what are you doing?!" Bree¡¯s reaction was quite reasonable considering the thing that was going on in front of her. Eisen just took the knife and cut deep into his hand letting as much of his blood drip into the bowl while keeping a close eye on his HP counter that started to slowly tick down. "Hm? Didn¡¯t you say they prefer the blood of people?" "Y-Yes, I did, but that doesn¡¯t mean you should hurt yourself for it!" Bree eximed and squatted down onto the ground next to Eisen to take a look at the wound. "Ah, but it doesn¡¯t really hurt all that much. It¡¯s fine this way. As long as my HP stays high enough, I will be alright." Eisen tried to assure Bree that everything was alright, but it seemed like she wouldn¡¯t be convinced so easily. And Eisen did understand her, since nobody wants to see their friend cut their own hand open for a n you yourself suggested. But once Eisen managed to get enough blood and took the health pills, the cut quickly closed back up. It was time to destroy this hive and get the giant Honey Crystal that had to be waiting at its center. ---------- [Eisen] [Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation - Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 71] [HP - 1887][MP - 1898] [STR - 106][END - 107][AGI - 104][INT - 107][WIS - 108][CHA - 11] [Titles] -[Casanova] -[Champion] -[Original of the Mechanical Arts] -[Limitbreaker V] [Skills] -[A Dwarf¡¯s Hands][Rank - 3][Level - 4] -[A Giant¡¯s Strength][Rank - 2][Level - 81] -[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level - 49] -[cksmithing][Rank - 2][Level - 58] -[Cooking][Rank - 0][Level - 68] -[Crafting Space][Rank - 2][Level - 6] -[Dismembering][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level - 6] -[Enchanting][Rank - 2][Level - 12] -[me of the Earth Magic][Rank - 1][Level - 97] -[Golemancy][Rank - 0][Level - 68] -[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 16] -[Lockpicking][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 26] -[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 46] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 2][Level - 48] -[Riding & Driving][Rank - 0][Level - 79] -[Swordsmanship][Rank - 2][Level - 75] -[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 45] -[Taming][Rank - 1][Level - 97] -[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 98] -[Truth Seeing Eye][Rank - 0][Level - 58] -[Woodworking][Rank - 1][Level - 76] Chapter 86 Crystalized Mana Using transmutation, Eisen hardened his blood in the bowl a slight bit to make it as thick as possible without actually turning it solid so that it continued to expell a strong bloody scent, but wouldn¡¯t be able to move around too much during the next part of the n. Next, Eisen grabbed a mana crystal and a small mythril needle out of Bree¡¯s backpack and made a quick enchantment, that would expell enough wind to let the crystal, that was formed into a small bowl-shape, another small enchanted crystal and the blood itself float just a slight bit above the ground with some form of stability. Once Eisen did that, he quickly created another small mana battery and filled it up, before cing it into the bottom of the mana crystal bowl together with the hardened blood, watching as it slowly began to float in the air. "Perfect!" Eisen eximed with a softugh at his small and quick creation, while Bree watched with awe at Eisen being able to make something like this within such a short amount of time, although she was still kind of shaken up at watching Eisen drain his hand of blood. "And what now?" She asked curiously, trying to ignore those thoughts. Instead of telling her what he would do with this floating-crystal, Eisen simply grabbed it and began walking closer to the Mother Hive, until he thought he was close enough to be able to attract the majority of the bees inside. Slowly, he let go of the crystal and made sure it was floating properly, then ever so slightly tilted it forward so that it would continue moving on its own. It didn¡¯t need to be fast, just be able to get far away. The floating mana crystal then moved forward just like Eisen wanted it to. It seemed somewhat unstable, but it should get a fair distance away from the Mother Hive at the very least. Next, they waited for the bees to react, and this happened not too long afterward. After a first bee seemed to notice the smell of blood, it turned back to the hive and its antennae began shaking, before arge swarm of even more bees of the same size came flying out, making the hive look somewhat abandoned from the outside. Immediately, Eisen and Bree sprinted forward toward it, and Eisen began guarding Bree while she started setting up the anti-fire barrier by cing down some mana crystals as ¡¯waypoints¡¯ so to speak, before carefully activating the spell, letting a globe of mana encase the whole hive. "Now we only need to set it on fire." Eisen muttered to himself while concentrating some infused mana inside of his hand and turning it intoplete fire, which he then fired out of his palm multiple times toward different spots on the hive. At first, it started with small fires here and there, but soon enough, the whole structure was taken over. Some of the bees tried to flee, but since they were only physically weak worker bees, none of them managed to make it past the barrier that was set up and instead simply burned up in the mes, continuing to fuel it even more. The hive broke down onto itself and continued burning up, Eisen and Bree retreating as far away as they could while still fueling the barrier. When the fire grewrge enough to be basically impossible to put out, the soldier bees that left the hive in pursuit of the ball of blood that Eisen sent away came back just to find their home nearing ashes. Neither in sadness nor in anger, the soldiers rushed forward right into the mes for one reason, to protect the hive¡¯s queen. That was their sole reason to even exist, and it caused the whole colony to be wiped out in one go. "Wow, that... was actually quite sad..." Bree whispered out when she watched the Soldier Bees basically throw their life away, before the whole structure simply copsed onto itself. Eisen and Bree sat there in silence for a while, simply watching as this what could have be a serious threat to the area ceased to exist in less than an hour. Once the fire disappeared for the most part, Eisen got to work with getting all of the still slightly hot residues of the hive out of the way using his mana doubles, until he found one especially surprising thing. It was the queen bee, surrounded by mountains of dead soldiers. Her body was basicallypletely burnt up, and it was coiling its body around a small, fist-sized sphere. Carefully, Eisen grabbed that sphere and activated his truth-seeing eye. As the world around him turned ck and white, the small circle that he expected appeared in front of the sphere, and when Eisen concentrated on it, the circle turned into a white notification page. [Queen Bee Egg][Rank - 0][Level - 0] "An egg, huh? I see..." Eisen muttered to himself, handing the egg over to one of the doubles standing next to him, before continuing to move parts of the hive out of the way to look for the honey crystal. This was the thing he was most interested in in the first ce, so thinking about what to do with the egg cameter. Soon enough, Eisen found his target, which had grown to be much, muchrger than he expected. The honey crystal of the mother hive was the size of a whole hive itself! It was about the same size of one of therger hives that he and Bree found in the area just before finding this one. He quickly burrowed his fingers underneath it to try and pick it up, getting the help of one of the mana doubles to do so. It wasn¡¯t that it was particrly heavy, but rather that it was toorge for him to handle by himself. After bringing the Crystal Hive out to where Bree was currently picking up the mana crystals she made the barrier with again, the Fey-Kin looked at it withrge eyes. "Whoa! That¡¯s so big!" Eisen chuckled in response and nodded his head with a smile. "Yeah, it really is. And the hive¡¯s capsules are evenrger than I expected as well." "Mhm, and I know why! Erm, there should be an opening there somewhere, right? Inside there should be a smaller crystal as well." Bree exined, and surprised, Eisen looked around the crystal structure until he found that one of the hexagonal capsules was opened to the inside. Eisen stuck his hand in and felt around, until he noticed two different crystal structures. With a frown, Eisen pulled out both of them and looked at them closely. Once more, he activated his truth-seeing eye and inspected the items in his hands. First, he looked at the small crystal that looked like a regr honey-crystal, albeit slightly lighter in color. [Honey Crystal][Rank - 1] "Wait, Honey Crystals have ranks too?" Eisen asked surprised. It kind of made sense the more he thought about it, but it was a surprise nheless. "Mhm~! That¡¯s what happens when hives grow thisrge, the regr honey crystal will start to grow its own, higher-rank one! Usually, that would have allowed a sub-hive to form, with even stronger bees, but it seems like that didn¡¯t happen yet. Lucky us~!" Bree exined excitedly, squatting down to inspect therge structure that Eisen just pulled this small crystal out of. However, there was something weird that came out together with it. A small, incredibly heavy crystal that was pitch-ck all the way through. Eisen was sure that it weighed about twenty kilos on its own, despite only being the size of his index finger. After gulping nervously, Eisen inspected this abnormal crystal next. [Compressed Crystalized Mana][Rank - 7] "H-Huh? Bree, what¡¯s crystalized mana?" Eisen asked with his eyes opened wide in surprise. This was the highest rank he has seen of anything so far! So what was it doing in this beehive, next to a rank 1 honey crystal? Bree tilted her head and looked over Eisen¡¯s shoulder, and the moment that she saw the crystal, she immediately hit it out of Eisen¡¯s hand. "Wh-what are you doing with that?! That¡¯s some of the most wicked mana I¡¯ve ever seen!" "It was inside of the crystal hive. You mentioned that a hive needs arge amount of mana to grow, so could this be the source of it?" "Yes... it most certainly is. And it¡¯s even rank 7... We need to get rid of this somehow!" The Fey-kin held her hands to her head in a panic, trying to think of what to do next. But before she couldpletely freak out, Eisen tried calming her down. "It¡¯s okay, don¡¯t worry. We can manage something like this, right? Just tell me what this is and what I need to do, alright?" Bree nodded slowly and closed her eyes to get herposure back, before starting to exin. "That¡¯spressed, crystalized mana. Crystalized mana is just mana that has been turned into a semi-permanently solid form. And it¡¯s extremely light as well, which means that this crystal contains a lot of mana, and it has beenpressed to an extent that I haven¡¯t seen before... " "And what did you mean when you said that it¡¯s wicked mana?" "Ah... Mana has a color to it as well. It¡¯s usually white for most people, but if it¡¯s apletely corrupted or evil creature, it can turn ck. And this is justplete darkness... meaning that the creature thises from is immensely evil, you can be sure of that. This kind of thing doesn¡¯t appear out of nowhere, and it¡¯s incredibly hard to produce, so I doubt someone just dropped it... I think someone was trying to purposefully create a giant hive like the one I told you about before. Someone was probably trying to wipe out the area around here... We can be happy that we found this so early." Eisen frowned strongly in response to this. If they hadn¡¯t found this just now, would that have meant that this would have continued growing? But for what purpose? "This might have be a field dungeon, even..." Bree muttered out, just happy that such a crisis could be averted. "Huh? Field Dungeon? Is it like a field boss?" Eisen asked confused, and Bree nodded with surprise in her eyes. "Uh... yeah, it is. Oh, I guess nobody exined to you what a field dungeon is, sorry. You see, field dungeons are basically mock-dungeons that naturally began forming, and usually take up arge area. They¡¯re different from regr dungeons, since they don¡¯t have dungeon cores to control everything that¡¯s going on, but instead it¡¯s more like every monster that¡¯s part of a field dungeon changes it a little bit, I guess? The Goblin Town we were at before was also a field dungeon." "I see. It¡¯s good that we could make sure not another one of those appeared here in the area." Eisen chuckled lowly, thinking that he kind of managed to figure out the reason why this appeared here after all. Jyuuk exined to him that Dungeons are something that many yers would just love to explore. And if this hive continued growing at the pace that it was now, it might have ended up the perfect size to host arge group of different yers to fight against it. At the very least, that was probably the yer-perspective on why this was here. Eisen just couldn¡¯t figure out who, or rather what, wanted to create this from amongst the creatures in this world. There had to be something going on, right? Something that was slowly expanding in the background of this world that would have to be explored by the many yers that would undoubtedly start ying this game not too long from now. Even Eisen was quite curious about that. Chapter 87 Mead "And what are you doing now?" Bree asked curiously while Eisen was still searching through the burnt down hive for something, burrowing through the ashes and shards of what was just here a few hours ago. "Right now, I¡¯m looking for honey. I saw that they are stored in something like containers before, but my priority was the honey crystal, so I wanted to look for that first." The old man exined before smiling brightly when he finally found what seemed to be the honey. It was still stored in the hexagonal openings of the hive, but rather than just being liquid honey inside, they were encased in a thin, ss-likeyer and could simply be pulled out of the openings as long of no part of the honey-capsule was broken. That ss-likeyer seemed to by some kind of crystal structure, somewhat simr to the honey-crystal but at the same time still different. It was weird to exin, but at the very least it seemed to be pretty durable. Eisen kept looking and handed these capsules to his doubles which then stacked them up next to the honey crystal, while Bree was waiting outside of the mountain of ashes together with Caria and Aulu. The reason for that was that the parts of the hive were still considerably hot and could burn you quite badly if you weren¡¯t careful, and due to the newest effect of his dwarven racial skill, his hands could now deal with that heat as if it was nonexistent. Of course there was still quite some heat all around him, not only his hands, but it was nothing that Eisen couldn¡¯t handle as long as he didn¡¯t touch any of those parts with anything but his hands. In the end, Eisen ended up with about two dozen capsules filled with about two liters of honey each. This was definitely a huge amount, and if you could properly control bees the size of the ones that made this hive, you would probably have unlimited honey. And it seemed to be quite high quality as well, considering it¡¯s golden color and perfect consistency. But this honey wasn¡¯t the only thing that Eisen found, there were also five capsules filled with Royal Jelly! This was a substance used to feed Queen Bee candidates to have them properly mature into their role. Considering that he found a Queen Bee egg, maybe that meant he could tame it in the same way as he did with Caria, and then feed it the Royal Jelly to make sure it really became a queen bee! At the very least, that would be a good start toward producing his own honey. But before then, the egg would actually need to hatch, and that might take a while on its own. The royal jelly was basically vacuum sealed like this, so it was hard to imagine that it could really spoil easily. Before returning to the cariage with the capsules, Eisen grabbed quite arge amount of empty capsules from the hive as well. These were actually stillpletely sealed, although Eisen expected them to be broken and simply have spilled their contents when he first saw them, but this wasn¡¯t the case in the slightest. Although Eisen had no idea why there were such empty capsules there, Eisen didn¡¯t mind too much either, since he could use these for somethingter. Eisen, Bree, and the two Doubles now brought all of those honey and royal jelly capsules back to the carriage, that was only about a ten minute walk away, and then Bree stayed with the carriage to properly sort everything in and make space for therge honey crystal which Eisen went to retrieve together with his doubles. This Crystal was then neatly ced down in the corner of the carriage, before the group decided to depart again, with only Bree sitting in the front this time around, since Eisen had some other ns. First, he wanted to make something to hold the perfectly round queen bee egg, just to make sure that it couldn¡¯t roll around somewhere. For that, Eisen simply grabbed a small piece of wood and began carving a shallow bowl with just the right curvature for the egg and apletely t bottom to create something like a small wooden pedestal. Afterward, he quickly sanded its surfaces and finished it with the same solution that he used on all the wood this carriage was made with. While that was drying, Eisen simply ced the egg on a small piece of rolled up cloth and got to the next part that he was working toward for a while now. He grabbed arge metal pot that Eisen bought for this purpose! In addition to that, he also grabbed a few other smaller items, simple bubbler airlocks that would be filled with water to let the gases emitted through the fermentation escape. Now, all that he needed to do was add the ingredients! First, Eisen added about a three and a half liters of the watering from the distition process of making health piotions and set the pot above a me-enchanted mana crystal, carefully watching everything to make sure the wood wouldn¡¯t suddenly start burning. But at the same time, Eisen also prepared a few small cloth bags, some filled with Amran while others were filled with Byron petals. Once the water came to a boiling point, Eisen turned off the mana crystal and let the water slightly cool down again, before carefully removing one of the t hexagonal sides of two of the honey capsules, pouring three and a half more liters of honey into the water, then began stirring the two liquids together before adding all of the bags filled with Amran into it. While it was still hot, Eisen poured in another seven liters of water from therge barrel filled with the leftover potion-water and waited for the right temperature to add the yeast. Luckily, that temperature was simply room temperature, so it was quite easy to get this part right. Once Eisen stirred the mixture some more, he ced a slight bit of yeast that he needed for the whole amount of mead to ferment properly into the pot, and then continued to stir it in. Eisen let it sit like that for a little while with the lid on top closed, while he cleaned up the containers that he would use to store the soon-to-be mead in. The empty capsules that Eisen picked up at the hive! Not only were they aesthetically pleasing, but due to their neat and basically perfect geometric shape, they were quite easy to store as well. So, with simple transmutation, Eisen opened up a hole in the top of the crystal-like structures and one after another filled them with the mead mixture, making sure that each of them had the same amount of amran-petal filled bags inside. Then, Eisen filled the bubbler airlocks with a little bit of water and closed the top of the capsules so that each airlock was firmly attached and couldn¡¯t budge. Once Eisen had filled about seven of these empty capsules, Eisen moved on to repeat this exact same process once more, just using the watering from the mana potion distition as well as the byron petals instead. And just to use it as a base topare both types of mead with, Eisen made another two capsules worth of regr mead, using water from the self filling water cups, not adding any herbs or fruits to it at all to get the purest possible taste and version of mead out of it. "Alright, done!" Eisen eximed excitedly, happy that he managed to make this much mead at once, and that he found the perfect natural containers for it at the same time! But the next step was cleaning up. Eisen made sure to properly remove the rest of the honey still stuck in the just-opened containers, even scrubbing them out as much as possible. After doing the same for therge pot, he poured the water he used to clean everything down onto the street through the back door, and then sat down on the bench, at night the bed, next to his worktable. He had previously opened up some space for Caria to continue practicing her newest skill, and to Eisen¡¯s surprise, she actually managed to rank the nt control skill up! And all of these actions seemed to have given her enough actual experience to be able to rank up herself, and with that evolve, soon again, as she was currently at Rank 1, level 99. Why she managed to level up so immensely quickly waspletely unknown to Eisen, but it was probably because she has been doing nothing but practice her nt control for multiple days. "Oh, wow! You¡¯re so amazing, aren¡¯t you, Caria?" Eisen smiled while looking at the result of her practice, the small yellow flower that was just short ofpletely blooming. With a smile, Eisen watched while the small myconid continued pouring her mana into the flower, finally making its petals unfold and revealing the beautiful shape of nature. In tandem with this, Caria¡¯s body began to glow faintly in a white light as her figure grew and slightly changed. She was now about 40cm tall, and had a much, much more humanoid body. Before, she was simply a tube with a cap and more tubes attached to act as limbs, but now she actually had slight curves anybody had, as well as somewhat well-defined limbs. Caria had something resembling actual joints now, like elbows and knees, as well as proper hands and feet, although her feet were simply in the rough shape while her fingers were still just mostly tubes, and didn¡¯t really look like fingers too much. Her whole body was quite thin, especially her arms and legs, giving her a quite frail look. And on top of that, her cap also changed. Instead of simply looking like a dome that was ced on her body, its shape began resembling that of a which or wizard¡¯s hat, although just roughly. Overall, her skin remained the same white it has always been, while her cap was still a bright red with white circles everywhere. [Congrattions! Caria Evolved into a Myconid Druid Disciple!] "A Druid Disciple, I see. So that means this really is the path for her to be a druid, then!" Eisen eximed excitedly, cing his hand on Caria¡¯s cap to praise her. "Good job, sweetheart. Come on, let¡¯s stop practicing for a bit, ande to the front with me, okay?" Eisen asked, and it seemed as if Caria was panicking for a second. She looked around, and when she saw the wooden flower pot standing a bit lower than she was used to, calmed down. This made a lot of sense, to be fair. She suddenly grew quite a lot, so it must be hard to get used to such a new perspective all of a sudden. But when she saw that the flower pot was still there, Caria picked it up with her new fingers and held it in front of Eisen, her dot-like eyes glittering in excitement. "Haha, yeah, I saw what you did! You¡¯re really amazing!" Eisen chuckled and kept praising her since he thought that¡¯s what she wanted to hear, but instead of being happy about it, she shook her head and pushed the flower pot directly onto Eisen¡¯s chest, making the old man realize what she meant. "Oh, this is for me?" He asked happily, and Caria nodded her head a slight bit. "I see, thank you for such a beautiful gift, Caria. I¡¯ll cherish it." With a smile, Eisen took the flower into his hands and ced it on a spot on the shelf where it could be seen from everywhere. Maybe he would even encase it in something like resin if he found something like that here. Happily, Caria then jumped into Eisen¡¯s arms before he stepped through the opening in the front, joining Bree on the bench while the Myconid was sitting on hisp, excitedly looking through the forest around them. Chapter 88 Druid Disciple Caria It was the next morning, before Eisen and Bree would start driving the carriage again further toward that farming vige that Bree mentioned. By the end of yesterday, Eisen even managed to rank up his Riding & Driving Skill, which gave him a slightly higher amount of control over the carriage, which wasn¡¯t really shown all that much considering the quality of the carriage. It would have been more useful if they were driving a carriage that was hard to control in the first ce. Today, Eisen and Bree would probably reach that vige by evening considering the speed they were travelling at. Some might see this as kind of boring, but to Eisen, this just gave him more time to work. And what he wanted to work on was a small dress for Caria! Now that she actually started roughly looking like a young girl, it was kind of weird to have her walk around basically naked. But before then, Eisen and Bree sat down together and ate some breakfast. It wasn¡¯t anything special, just a little bit of the dried fruit and meats while the two of them talked to each other. But they didn¡¯t need anything special to eat, as long as they got enough nutrition to start out the day properly. After breakfast, Bree started driving the carriage again while Eisen checked up on some things, mainly just to see if the mead was fermenting yet. Usually, it would take about 24 hours for the fermentation process to start, but Eisen didn¡¯t know if this was sped up or not. But sadly, Eisen didn¡¯t notice anything that might be a sign that the fermentation started yet. So, Eisen grabbed some of the thin red fabrics that he bought, beforeying it down on the side of his worktable to start working on Caria¡¯s dress instead. First, Eisen made a quick sketch on some paper of what it should look like. The main thing that Eisen could think of was something roughly simr to Bree¡¯s, although with a few slight differences. For example, the shoulder straps were thicker and a direct part of the chest-part, instead of being simply sewn on, and the bottom for the dress was slightly more ¡¯puffy¡¯ and in a stronger cone-shape than Bree¡¯s. Of course, Eisen was also only using regr fabrics for Caria¡¯s dress instead of magic fabrics. Depending on the way she grew up and her looks changed, he may have to make another dress anyway. After all, if she ended up looking like a teenager or grown woman, it wouldn¡¯t look great if she was still wearing a child¡¯s summer dress. Now, Eisen actually got to work. He cut out the three pieces that he needed, the front of the chest, the back of the chest, and the bottom of the dress that would cover the rest of Caria¡¯s body. The next step was quite simple, as Eisen only needed to connect the two parts for the chest with a regr backstitch, and then got to the bottom of the dress. Eisen managed to figure out a quite simple way of creating that cone-shape that he wanted the dress to have, instead of the fabrics simply hanging downward. What Eisen did was to, using transmutation, harden the string a slight bit until it was something like a rather thin cable rather than string, keeping his mana as much around the string as possible, and then carefully moved it inbetween theyers of thread that made up the fabric. This quite easily allowed Eisen to basically shape the dress in any way that he wanted to, as long as he added enough of these hardened strings. And now, Eisen simply sewed the bottom of the dress together at each end, and then sewed its top to the bottom of the chest-part. "Done!" Eisen eximed when looking at the small dressying on the table, before he opened up its information. [Red Summer Dress] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A simple, but high quality, red summer dress made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. [Effect] +5 END, +5 AGI Eisen smiled at the result, and was happy that it would even give Caria a few small stat bonuses. And he may have broken through Tailoring with this piece again, but since he couldn¡¯t get any bonus stats through it anymore, it didn¡¯t show him the familiar notification about overwhelming quality items. The old man turned around and looked at the small myconid who was curiously watching Eisen work while sitting on the carriage¡¯s bed. "Alright, let¡¯s put this on you!" Eisen chuckled lowly and prompted Caria to hold her hands up, before moving the dress over her cap, which actually made this quite hard, and dressed Caria up in the red dress that was the same color as her cap. She looked herself up and down immediately afterward and happily jumped at Eisen to hug him again. "I¡¯m d you like it, haha. Actually, let me take a look at your status. I didn¡¯t really check after you evolved." Eisen chuckled out lowly, before the small Myconid¡¯s status simply appeared. [Caria] [Race- Myconid Druid Disciple(Amanita Muscaria)][Owner - Eisen] [Rank - 2 | Level - 2] [HP - 450][MP - 1170] [STR - 16][END - 17][AGI - 20][INT - 58][WIS - 54] [Skills] -[Druidic Nature][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 1][Level - 86] -[nt Control][Rank - 1][Level - 2] "Druidic Nature? It seems to be the skill that you got when you evolved again." Eisen muttered to himself while closely looking at the status screen. Since he didn¡¯t really know what this skill did, Eisen turned around to look at the amalgamation of useful information that was currently driving the carriage. "Hey, Bree, do you know anything about the skill ¡¯Druidic Nature¡¯?" He asked, and Bree slightly turned her head and seemed to think for a while, before yelling her answer through the opening in the front of the carriage. "It¡¯s just a basic skill for Druids! It makes them more connected to nature, so all nature-rted skills are easier to use. Erm, there¡¯s some other cool stuffing atter ranks, but I don¡¯t know too much about those..." She exined while Eisen joined her back on the front bench, Caria once more sitting on hisp. "I see. That¡¯s definitely useful, then! I guess this will just help Caria grow into aplete druid then! Although I still don¡¯t really know what a Druid is supposed to do." While chuckling, Eisen took the reigns from Bree to let her rx for a bit and level his own Riding & Driving Skill. For the next few hours, they continued driving while Eisen continuosly activated his Truth Seeing Eyes skill as well to level it up a bit while he was doing nothing else. --- [Truth Seeing Eyes reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [You can now see the quality of things around you] [Due to Ranking-up your Truth Seeing Eyes Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] In front of Eisen¡¯s eyes, this notification popped up the moment that his skill proficiency reached 100. Nonstop, for the past six hours, Eisen had these special eyes activated and looked at the information of everything that he saw. Luckily, this didn¡¯tpletely fill up his sight, since the status information that he essed through the skill worked different to regr status windows. While those regr notifications stayed around him at all times and followed him around, the information that the Truth Seeing Eyes skill made avable stayed at the item where that information came from. Before now, there were simple white circles in front of an item, but now, he actually saw a little bit of color. When he looked around, he noticed that these circles were now colored differently. For example, the circles in front of Bree¡¯s and Caria¡¯s dresses were now both a very vibrant Yellow. On the other hand, the shirt he was currently wearing, the ck crafting shirt, had a vibrant orange circle instead. So immediately, Eisen came to a quick conclusion, that he would need to confirm further at some point. It seemed like depending on the rank of an item, Eisen was now seeing differently colored circles. And now, it seemed like when he opened status pages of items through his Truth Seeing Eyes skill, the windows themselves were also in that color. This was definitely quite useful if he wanted to quickly differentiate between high and low-quality items, although not for much more. However, considering that the skill only became rank 1 just now, its effects were already quite amazing. Despite the fact that it took far longer to gain proficiency in this skill than other of rank 0, Eisen decided that it was worth it to try and rank it up even further as soon as possible. Eisen gripped the reigns harder excitedly and continued using his skill on all kinds of things around him. Although most of them were still simply white, the color that Eisen figured was the color for Rank 0 items and objects, that was probably because the things he was mainly inspecting this way were nts and trees by the side of the road. It was only when he saw the tiniest red dot in the distance that Eisen deactivated his skill to be able to see a bit better. After all, while using the skill, Eisen was only able to see in ck and white, with an ever so slightly shifted vision the further away he looked. It wasn¡¯t too much of a difference, but still enough to make it hard to see things perfectly in the distance. Before Eisen could even make out the source of the red dot, the color for Rank 1, Bree already stood up on the bench and happily pointed forward. "We¡¯re here! That¡¯s the farming town I talked about!" While Bree was smiling brightly, Eisen narrowed his eyes to try and see what it really was that he saw in the distance, and he saw something reflect the sun, so it was probably a piece of armor belonging to a guard. Only a few minutester, Eisen could already confirm that this really was the case, and their carriage was stopped directly in front of the wooden gate in the center of therge wooden fence acting as a wall to protect the inhabitants of the town. One of the two guards standing in front of the gate held his hand in front of him to signal Eisen that he should stop. "Before you enter, we will have to make sure you are not transporting illegal substances. Are we allowed to search your wagon?" "Of course, of course! Come through the back, please." While saying this, Eisen stood up and made his way to the back door of the carriage and quickly opened it up to let one of the Guards inside. He was quite surprised by Aulu, and vice-versa, but both of them quickly ignored each other and the guard continued his search. He mainly took a look what it was that was stored in the barrels and then left again. Nothing seemed to be too suspicious, after all. "Alright, clear." The Guard told his colleague with a nod, who then quickly opened up the gate to let carriage through, smiling at Eisen as he passed. "Have a nice stay in our humble vige." And it really was quite a humble vige. But that was no bad thing, it just meant that it was quite smallpared to a town such as Melroe, and you could see the gate on the other side of the town at the end of the central street. At least it wouldn¡¯t be so hard to find the ces they wanted to visit. As the gate closed behind them with a creak, Eisen steered the carriage through town until he found a stable. After quickly paying a small fee, he left Cabarum and the carriage there. He would have liked to bring Cabarum as well, but he left him behind so that he could make sure nobody just entered the carriage while Eisen and Bree weren¡¯t there. Aulu was also still lying down in the carriage as a guard dog, so they shouldn¡¯t need to worry about thieves too much. Since it was already getting close to evening, Eisen and Bree chose to stay at an Inn for the night, and then buy whatever they needed to buy tomorrow morning before departing. So now, they took a look around town while they had the chance. And now that Caria was toorge to sit on Eisen¡¯s shoulder, she was walking next to him while he held her hand to make sure she couldn¡¯t just run off somewhere and kept up. However, due to the vige being quite small, there was not much to look at in the first ce. Other than a small smithy, tailor and leatherworker, there weren¡¯t many crafters here in town either. There were some small guild buildings, some of them even seemed to be sharing the buildings amongst themselves, but thergest amongst them seemed to be the Merchant¡¯s guild, and directly in front of that guild was the small marketce, where most people just finished packing up or were still in the progress. On the other hand, there was one young man, maybe in his early 20¡¯s, who was sitting at the side of the street on a nket with a bunch of different itemsying on the ground. He was the only one who was still enthusiastically trying to sell things, yelling out a sentence that grabbed Eisen¡¯s attention. "Find the best items in the whole town, nay, even the whole country! They have passed the Omega test of approval, so you can be sure they are top quality!" Chapter 89 Komer "Omega..?" Eisen muttered to himself as he heard the young man yell this out. He definitely knew that from somewhere. Could it be that this man was another yer? If he was, Eisen should probably try and figure out a way to convey that he also is a yer. There was a quite simple way to do that. Eisen squatted down in front of the nket that the items the man was selling were lying on while Bree was looking around at another stall. "So, you¡¯re an Omega?" Happy that there finally was a potential customer, the man crossed his arms smugly and nodded. "Exactly! I¡¯m one of those people that suddenly appeared out of nowhere! Do you not want to see what such an amazing and mysterious being has to offer?" Eisen looked around himself to make sure there really were only the man and Caria around him. He may have said he was a yer, but there might be some person from this world trying to take an advantage of such a situation, so Eisen wanted to confirm the situation. It was kind of risky, so he would have preferred not having to use this, but Eisen held his hand in front of his eyes, only leaving a thin slit open to see through, and activated his Truth Seeing Eyes skill to appraise the man. The thing about appraising others was that it also seemed to show whether or not someone was a yer, but since Eisen didn¡¯t possess a regr Appraisal skill anymore, he could only use the skill that literally changed the way his eyes looked, and he didn¡¯t just want to reveal the fact that he possessed it. But luckily, the information window that popped up in front of the man really confirmed the situation. [yer - Komer] [Race - Human][upation - None][Level - 4] Eisen quickly deactivated his skill and then extended his hand toward the omega yer Komer to greet him. "Nice to meet you. I¡¯m one of the originals, do you know what that is?" Instinctively, Komer shook Eisen¡¯s hand without even realizing what he said, and only in the middle of that greeting did he think about what this old man in front of him was talking about. "H-Huh? And Original...? So you¡¯re also a -" Komer held his hand in front of his mouth immediately before he managed to finish this sentence. You were not supposed to mention yers to the NPCs in the game, and there was a little girl next to the man who didn¡¯t seem like another yer. Eisen realized his worries as well, and began to chuckle lowly. "Don¡¯t worry, she¡¯s a tamed monster. We can talk about it in front of her." Eisen exined, and this really seemed to be the case. At least there was never a penalty when talking about being a yer in front of Caria or Jyuuk¡¯s beasts before, so that seemed to be so that yers choosing to be tamers could talk to other yers freely. After all, tamed beasts had to be quite close to you most of the time. "O-Oh, I see. Then you¡¯re also a yer? One of the five that were mentioned when I started ying?" Kemor tilted his head to the side and used his appraisal skill, his highest rank skill so far at rank 2, on Eisen. When he did so, Eisen felt slight shivers all over his body, the same feeling back when Belrim appraised him when he first got to Melroe. This really was an ufortable feeling, but Eisen couldn¡¯tin since he also technically appraised Komer just now. But before Eisen could even answer, Komer opened his eyes wide in surprise. "Huh? I can¡¯t see any information about you beside your name... Eisen, right?" "Ah, that is quite natural. You used the Appraisal Skill, it seems. When trying to appraise someone with a much higher level than yours, you simply don¡¯t get much information. And yes, my name is Eisen." "Oh, really? Are you amazingly strong, then? Ah, I¡¯m Komer, by the way. Nice to meet you." Komer stood up so that he and Eisen could talk more easily, looking the old man up and down. While Komer was still wearing the clothes that he got when he first started ying, Eisen already wore a quite high-quality outfit. To Komer, it seemed like he was a big spender, so the perfect person to try and sell some of these items to. Eisen chuckled lowly and scratched his beard while shaking his head. "I¡¯m nothing special, young man. I¡¯m just strong enough to properly enjoy myself." A wide grin grew on Komer¡¯s face, as it seemed more and more like Eisen was the perfect person to sell these overpriced items to! If he wanted to enjoy himself, he would probably just leisurely walk around the world without worrying about what was going on around him. Komer didn¡¯t really know what the originals did in order to be able to y the game earlier than evenrge investors like his father¡¯spany, but considering this man¡¯s apparent age, he was most certainly just the father or grandfather of some big executive of Prime Industries. After all, who would deliberately make themselves this old and just be treated like an old man in the game without actually being one? "Ah, so you want to enjoy yourself? Then I hope you¡¯re properly protected! You don¡¯t seem to have a weapon on you, and this little girl over there doesn¡¯t seem like she¡¯s too strong either. Would you like to buy one of my weapons?" The young man asked, nning to double, or maybe even triple the price that he originally had in mind for his items depending on Eisen¡¯s reaction. However, Eisen was anything but the senile old man that Komer thought to be dealing with. Times and times again, Eisen had to deal with salesmen that wanted to take advantage of old men like that. But he didn¡¯t me Komer, after all he seemed to be quite young and inexperienced, so it would probably still be possible to turn the way he acted toward customers around with a proper influence. In order to properly educate this youth, Eisen chose to y the role that Komer expected. "Hoho, a weapon? Maybe I may actually buy one of these. Could you show me what you have for sale? There seems to be quite arge selection, so how could I ever choose?" Happily, Komer squatted back down and grabbed two different items, a bow and a dagger. Neither of them seemed to be in especially good condition, to be honest. The wood for the bow was horribly chosen, and far too hard and inflexible so that it would basically snap with a single pull of the string, which was heavily worn down and stretched out a good bit to make it pretty much useless. If you were actually able to shoot an arrow further than ten meters with this, it would probably not be able to even give the target much of a scratch. And the dagger was even worse! The handle was made ofpletely untreated and rough wood, which would give you splinters all over your hand the moment you touched it, while the de basically didn¡¯t have an edge. You would struggle to cut through a banana with such a de, not to speak of one of the monsters that could be found in the wild. At first, Eisen hoped that Komer was simply trying to show Eisen what not to buy, but it was quite the opposite. "I would suggest these two! It is an excemrybination! You can shoot your target with this magnificent bow, and if it shoulde too close, you can fight it with this dagger instead. But thebination is not the greatest thing about it! This bow is made of the wood of a holy birch tree in the elven forests, while the string was created through the hair of a Yeti! And this dagger is even more amazing, good sir, as it has been handcrafted by the master of all master cksmiths hundreds of years ago, the godly craftsman! Yes, I am talking about nobody else but the Craftsman that reached max level through pure skill!" "Er..." Eisen stared nkly at this young man in front of him. This was even worse than he expected. This wasn¡¯t just some slight trickery, Komer was simply trying to scam him! Both of these items were at best Rank 0 with a below average quality. At first, Eisen wanted to y along, but this foolery simply hurt his pride as not only a craftsman, but also as a person! "Komer, you¡¯re joking, right?" "Haha, why would I be joking, good sir?! These items truly are just this amazing! And they¡¯re going to be yours for a small price of one gold coin!" Eisen sighed loudly and took the bow into his hand before snapping the bow in half instantly, not only shocking Komer, but also the few people around that stopped to watch what was going on after Komer basically started shouting through the whole marketce. "Komer, this is not how you should conduct business. Don¡¯t worry, I will rece this with an item you really should sell." With a loud sigh, Eisen turned around to Bree and waved her over. As she came into the middle of the crowd, Eisen prompted her to turn around so that he could grab a few tools out of her backpack, which was really only his carving knife. Eisen looked around until he saw a young man carrying quite a lot of wood over his shoudlers. The wood seemed to be from quite young trees that were justpletely felled and brought here in one piece. Quickly, Eisen hurried over to the man while Komer was staring at him in confusion, and then he bought one of the young trees from him. They seemed to be maple-like trees with good strength and flexibility, so quite perfect for a bow. "Bree, could you dry this quickly?" Eisen asked his Fey-Kinpanion who nodded happily and quickly cast a spell on the wood. It was really quite useful to have these types of spells, although most of them couldn¡¯t really be used for much. After it was dried enough, Eisen turned to Bree and made his next request with a smile. "Bree, I need some string. Could you get some of the regr magic thread from the carriage? Not the one that I used to make your dress, but the one without the growth enchantment. And bring some of the solution I use to treat wood as well, please." "Okay~!" And like that, Bree quickly hurried off as Eisen thanked her, before the old man quickly got to work. He squatted down onto the ground next to the nket that Komer set up for his items and began debarking the tree that was about six feet long, but of course only after activating his crafting space for Woodworking, as well as his me of the Earth transformation to infuse it into his knife as well. The knife moved along the surface of the wood without any trouble, as if it was simply cutting through air, one stroke after another slowly removing the whole bark. When this was done, Eisen began preparing the general shape of the bow. He carved a thin spot in the center where you would hold it that was surrounded on both sides by the two thickest parts of the bow, although there was only about a quarter-inch difference between these thicknesses. The further toward the ends of the bow, the thinner did Eisen carve it. And just before Bree returned with the string and finishing-solution that he needed, Eisen made the bow itself a bit thinner and rounder all around so that it was morefortable to grab. After that, Eisen only made a few small grooves to attach the string to at each end of the bow as well as his craftsman sigil right next to the center, and then continued to quickly sand its surface and applied the finishing-solution to its surface, then had the bow held by one of his mana doubles so that he didn¡¯t need toy it down on the ground somewhere. Then, Eisen grabbed the thread that Bree brought and quickly grabbed its end, twisting it around itself a few times to create a thick, but still flexible, string. With transmutation, he slightly altered its flexibility a slight bit and made sure that the string couldn¡¯t somehowe undone at any point. Since Bree cast another spell on the bow¡¯s wooden part to make it dry a bit faster again, Eisen could immediately continue by attaching the string to each end of the bow. After quickly testing its flexibility and how well it could be pulled, Eisen was done for the most part. He stood up and looked at its information. [Wooden Bow] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A wooden bow that has been masterly crafted by the Omni Crafstmaster Eisen. Its string is made out of Magic String, allowing the bow to more easily be infused with magic. [Effect] +15 AGI, +5 END Chapter 90 Reasons Eisen held the bow he made within thest 30 minutes in front of himself and toward Komer, who was speechlessly looking at the Old man that managed to create such an amazing bow in such a short amount of time. "Stop scamming people, Komer. Sell things like these, and you may actually be able to get away with a good conscience." The small crowd that formed around them began talking amongst themselves. Some of them were talking about Komer¡¯s small street shop, although the majority was rather mentioning how amazing Eisen¡¯s skill was. Embarrassed at this, Komer gulped loudly and tried hiding his face as he began to blush softly. "Erm... I¡¯m sorry, Eisen. I... I didn¡¯t think you were actually skilled like this. I think I should go..." Komer squatted back down onto the ground and began packing up all of the items he had on his nket. "Komer, do you stay at an Inn? Let¡¯s talk there." Eisen suggested, and Komer quietly nodded. So, Eisen, Bree, Caria and Komer quietly made their way toward the Inn that Komer was staying at. After Eisen payed for a room with multiple beds for his party to sleep in, where they then decided to talk. When they were inside, Eisen sat down on the bed and looked at the young, red haired man. "Bree, could you take Caria for a bit and just go on a walk? I think it¡¯s time for a one-on-one talk with Komer." "Huh? Sure... Then we¡¯ll be back in about 30 minutes?" Bree asked and tilted her head before walking up to Caria and taking her hand. "Sounds good, thank you, Bree. And sorry for being so demanding today." With a smile, Eisen watched as Bree and Caria left the room, and then turned to Komer who sat down on the bed directly next to Eisen¡¯s. "So. Why are you doing this, Komer? I noticed right away that you wanted to trick me, but when it ended up going far worse than I thought, I couldn¡¯t hold back. What you tried selling to me was basically useless, as if you found it in the garbage." Quite harshly and without holding anything back, Eisen looked Komer deep into his eyes. From his reaction immediately after being called out in front of the Merchant¡¯s Guild, Eisen could feel that Komer wasn¡¯t a bad kid deep down. And so, Komer began to exin. He was the son of the CEO of one of thergest techpanies in the world, which was the biggest investor to Prime Industries during the creation of ¡¯World of Magic¡¯ as well, which meant that they got thergest amount of spots for yers amongst the investors. It seemed like Komer¡¯s father had a slightly twisted sense of humor, so he made Komer and his two brotherspete for the spot of who could take over thepany once he retired. The three of them were chosen as yers, and each of them had to build up their own merchantpany. The one that would be most sessful within one year, would be allowed to inherit the business. Komer was the youngest out of his brothers, and the only one that didn¡¯t yet finish his college education, and he always had a thing for tricking people into doing what he wanted. So, since he couldn¡¯t rely on business experience like his brothers, he did what he could best. Trick people into doing what he wanted. And that slowly spiraled into basically bing a scammer, especially once he gained the Charisma stat through continuosly convincing others of his opinion. "So that¡¯s why, huh? Alright, let me help you. First off, what¡¯s your current goal?" Eisen asked, and Komer opened his eyes wide in surprise. "You want to help me? Thank you, Eisen... Erm, my n was to get funds here in town by selling items, and then buying a carriage, to transport items from one town to another, and re-sell everything there. There¡¯s not much else I can do at this point." Komer sighed out while fiddling with his fingers, looking down at the ground. Eisen stood up and handed Komer the bow that he made once more. "I have an idea what you can do. Instead of lying about horrible items being godly, make your customers think even better of items that are truly of quality. Sell my items. This way, you can make money and gain business experience at the same time." "Huh? Wait, really?" Komer stood up in surprise and looked up at Eisen standing in front of him. "Yes, really. But under a few conditions. No scamming. You won¡¯t tell others that my items are godly creations, you will only tell facts. You can exaggerate those a bit, I know that¡¯s basically normal. But don¡¯t twist the facts arounds. Don¡¯t sell them 100 times their actual value, but find their true market value." "Okay! I tell you, you won¡¯t regret this, Eisen! With your items, I may actually be able to create a huge merchantpany! Well, if they¡¯re all as great as this bow, of course... Although this was only made with random wood, right? So if you made one with actually high quality wood and make some kind of artifact, wouldn¡¯t I be able to actually call the tree it came from holy?" Muttering to himself about different ns, Komer smiled brightly now that he had an actual source of items, although he still seemed to have a hard time letting go of his trickery. But that was fine, one step at a time. But Eisen still couldn¡¯t let this go. He crossed his arms and frowned strongly, before very clearly stating, "Komer. No. Scamming." "F-Fine, I get it! It was just a joke... Anyway, you¡¯ve been ying for a while, right? Could you give me any tips?" Komer asked, trying to quickly change the topic. This left Eisen to sigh loudly before nodding. "Yeah, I¡¯ve yed for a little more than a real week, so more than a month in the game. What kind of tips do you need?" "Erm, how to get an upation maybe? Or even what an upation does for you, because right now, it doesn¡¯t seem like there¡¯s any benefit to it. I can just do whatever I want without one, right?" "Actually, no. I thought so at the start as well, though. Without any upation, you won¡¯t be able to get past Level 15, and all of your skills will be limited to rank 3. However, with an upation, you can get to whatever level you want, and you will be able to rank skills up further than 3. And if you want to get an upation, it seems that you just need to go to a person with the upation you want, convince them that you¡¯re trustworthy, and they may offer you the upation." Eisen began exining these types of things one after another, including how most skills worked and the way that he figured out interaction with the inhabitants of the game world influenced your whole game experience. Then, Eisen also began to exin who he was, since Komer told Eisen so much about himself as well. Of course, the young man was quite shocked to hear who the Originals actually were to the game, and that Eisen was skilled in basically every craft there was, and not just woodworking. At first it seemed kind of hard for him to believe, but in the end, "I¡¯m sorry for thinking you¡¯re just a random old man, Eisen. And thanks for basically insulting you to your face." "Don¡¯t worry Komer, you¡¯re still young. You¡¯ve got plenty of time to learn." Eisenughed out loudly and waved at Komer to have him leave the Inn¡¯s room together with him, and then quickly locked the door. "You¡¯ve been here for a while, right? I¡¯ve heard that this town supplies a nearby mining town with different foods, so there must be arge merchant around. Let¡¯s see if we can get someone to give you a merchant upation there." Eisen exined, and then made his way to the front desk to ask the innkeeper to tell the Fey-Kin they were with earlier that they made their way to the stable, and that they should meet up there. "A stable? Didn¡¯t you just say we¡¯re going to the merchant?" Komer asked confused, tilting his head to the side. With a softugh, Eisen nodded. "Yes, we are. But not right away. I can see that you¡¯re not wearing your basic clothes that you wore when you started, but these still aren¡¯t good enough to conduct business in. And I¡¯m going to tell this to you once, and only once, but I¡¯m lending something to you. Only lending. Not gifting, you¡¯ll have to give them back once we¡¯re done at the Merchant." Eisen exined with a serious expression, and Komer gulped loudly before nodding. "Erm... Should I be scared?" He asked, but Eisen simply chuckled. "Only if you don¡¯t behave." After only a few minutes, the two of them were already at the stable, and Eisen walked up to his carriage after greeting Cabarum properly. "Oh, you¡¯ve got a wagon and a horse too? How much did they cost?" Komer asked curiously, but was incredibly surprised at the answer. "Ah, I couldn¡¯t even give you an estimate if I wanted to. I only bought the raw materials, and built everything myself, so it was a lot cheaper than usual." "Wait, you built this whole carriage yourself..? You really are an amazing craftsman then, huh...? But what about the horse? How much do these cost?" Komer asked, leaning in closely toward Cabarum¡¯s body to investigate the weird noise of gears that he started hearing when he stood next to him. But Eisen simply began tough once more. After all, there seems to have been a misunderstanding. "Komer, I was talking about both the carriage, and the ¡¯horse¡¯. His name is Cabarum by the way. He¡¯s an automaton." "Wh-What..? An automaton? Isn¡¯t that something like a robot?" The young man asked in confusion. "Basically, yes. But he¡¯s made with magically powered gears rather than motors, and can actually somewhat think for himself. This wolfdy here is also an automaton, so don¡¯t be surprised." "Wow... wouldn¡¯t these be amazingly expensive if you began selling these?" Komer whispered to himself, starting to think about whether or not he should try and build up a robotic empire together with Eisen. That might really be quite profitable, after all. But Komer tried to refrain from asking such a question, since Eisen was currently trying to help him with something else. After searching through the carriage for only a few seconds, Eisen came back out carrying his suit over his arms. "Put this on. As I said, it¡¯s only borrowed. I made this for me, so I don¡¯t know if it will look as intended on a body like yours, but it should fit quite well at the very least." "Wow, you can even make suits like this? Wait, then would I even be able to build up a brand with all these different types of items?" "Don¡¯t worry about that for now. First, you have to actually be qualified to sell items in the first ce. Now go on and change, you can leave your clothes in the carriage if you want, I doubt anyone will steal them." Eisen exined while Komer stepped through the back door and closed it behind himself. The old man waited outside the carriage for a few minutes, simply talking to his pets Aulu and Cabarum for a bit, before the door opened up again, and out came a young man wearing the ck suit with red details that Eisen thought to be quite well made and stylish. And considering that Komer¡¯s hair wasn¡¯t a natural red, but rather the type you can only achieve by dyeing it, and its tone was quite simr to the red Eisen chose for the details such as the tie, the suit fit even better to Komer than Eisen expected. And luckily, he was able to figure out how the size-fitting system of the game worked as well. It seemed to change its shape to roughly fit the general size of the person, but in this case for example, the pants and shirt seemed to be ever so slightly too long. But it wasn¡¯t anything major, so it shouldn¡¯t be a problem, especially considering that it would give Morrom another ten points to charisma. "Now, shall we go get you your upation?" Chapter 91 High Merchan Shortly before making their way to thergest merchantpany in town, Eisen and Komer met back up with Bree and Caria while Cabarum and Aulu still stayed behind at the carriage for protection. At first, Eisen expected arge building with a huge amount of traffic, but the Merchantpany seemed to take up only one office floor of the rather small building it was situated in. And in the end, that should have been expected. After all, even if it was thergestpany, since this was only a small vige it still wasn¡¯t too big. So, Eisen, Komer, Bree and Caria stepped into the building and looked around. It was a rather crowded space, with desks ced wherever there was space in the room behind the front desk. The merchants were quite loud as well, which was to be expected considering that the whole room was basically packed to the brim with men and women of different stature. But that seemed to be quite unusual, since there simply couldn¡¯t be that many diffe merchants in such a small vige. Curious, Eisen walked up to the woman at the front desk and asked if something was going on, and the busy secretary nodded hurriedly, but still took her time to be professional and tried to answer Eisen as best as she could. "Yes, Sir, something is going on. Have you heard of those people that suddenly appeared out of thin air? Most of them seem to be natural merchants, and especially two of them are quite troubling. They instantly bought up arge majority of food in some towns around here, and are now selling them at argely increased price. Since this town was the only one in the area that didn¡¯t fall victim to this, many merchants are now trying to buy whatever food we have, so this has turned into quite a troublesome situation. Anyway, how can I help you?" After this exnation, Eisen frowned strongly. Some yers bought up so much food? How was that possible at this point in time? And it seemed like not only Eisen was asking himself that, but Komer was deep in thought as well. Eisen chuckled lowly and pped Komer¡¯s back to get his attention, and then faced the secretary once more. "My young friend here would like to talk to the owner of this merchantpany, if this is possible." Eisen smiled softly and looked at the secretary, who in turn simply sighed out loudly. "I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯m afraid that won¡¯t be possible. There are many people here that want to talk to the Owner currently." She smiled wrily, seemingly actually sorry that this situation was such an inconvenience to Komer. "Are you sure? I really just need to talk to him for a second!" Komer protested, hoping that the extra charisma from the suit would take effect, but this seemed to be a situation that pure charisma couldn¡¯t ovee so easily. After a bit of discussion, Komer ended up giving in and sighed loudly as he was just about to turn around to leave. But Eisen didn¡¯t want Komer to be unmotivated because of something like this, and then turned to the secreatary again. "Would it be possible if we stepped inside and talked to one of the other merchants currently inside? It doesn¡¯t necessarily need to be the owner." "Hm, I guess that would be fine. But if they don¡¯t want to talk to you, I would please ask you to leave them be. They are here for business as well, after all." The Secretary exined, and Eisen nodded in response. "Of course. Thank you." Komer started frowning as he looked into therge room with immensely busy people, not even knowing where to start. While he was doing that, Eisen held his hand in front of his eye in the same way that he did when inspecting Komer, in order to look at more information about the merchants. Luckily, people didn¡¯t seem to get shivers when being inspected with Truth Seeing eyes, quite opposite to Appraisal, so simply appraising such arge amount of people wouldn¡¯t be a problem. But it seemed that most of them weren¡¯t that skilled in the first ce. The majority of the people in here simply had the upation ¡¯Merchant Apprentice¡¯, and since these wouldn¡¯t be able to help out Komer by giving him an upation, Eisen immediately skipped over them, until he saw a rather interesting individual. A man standing at the far wall, maybe about 30 years of age, who was wearing incredibly high-quality clothespared to most others in the room and even had some small essories like different rings. But most surprising was the information that Eisen got through the inspection. [Antonio Hastings] [Race - Elf][upation - High Merchant][Level - 103] Eisen immediately deactivated his Truth Seeing Eye, since he knew he had the right person to teach Komer the Merchant profession. So, Eisen tapped Komer¡¯s shoulder and signaled him, as well as Bree and Caria to follow. Of course, since Caria was quite short and very child-like in general, Eisen took her up on his arms and carried her through the room instead. When they then stood in front of him, Antonio the High Merchant looked at the group confused. "Erm, can I help you?" He asked with a frown, and Eisen nodded with a smile. "Yes, you actually can. My friend here would like to be a Merchant himself, and since you seem to be the most skilled one out of all the people here, we thought it would be a good idea to ask you." Eisen quickly exined, and Antonio looked Komer up and down. It seemed like Komer began to shudder for a second, which was a sign that Antonio probably used appraisal on him. "You want me to teach such a spoiled kid how to be a merchant? How old is he? 20? And he¡¯s only level 4. A kid like that would never be able to be a merchant, no matter how fancy they dress. Sorry, bute back once you convince me otherwise." Antonio said quite smugly, as if openly making fun of Komer without even letting him defend himself. But Eisen didn¡¯t allow something like this, this was just an incredibly insensitive way to turn someone down. "I know you have seen his status, although I don¡¯t know how much of it. If you can see his titles, I¡¯m sure there should be an ¡¯Omega¡¯ title somewhere. That is a title that only those people that appeared out of thin air a few days ago have. As you should know, these people are quite skilled as merchants." Surprised, Antonio looked back into the open air, probably reading through Komer¡¯s status once more, and then began to frown. "An ¡¯Omega¡¯, huh? Fine, I guess you should be able to do at least something, kid. How high is your ¡¯Trading¡¯ skill?" Komer smiled wrily andughed lowly. "Ah, it only just became Rank 1 not too long ago." He exined, and Antonio nodded after crossing his arms. "Fine, that should be good enough. Let¡¯s see what you can do. Meet me in front of the Merchant¡¯s Guild tomorrow morning before sunrise, got it? If you¡¯re toote, you missed your chance." The Elven Merchant exined and jerked his chin toward the exit, simply signaling the group in front of him to leave again. Somewhat speechless, they did as they were prompted to and left the Guild without much arguing, even though Eisen was quite annoyed at how rude Antonio was. And it wasn¡¯t only him, apparently. "Argh, that guy was so rude, right?! And now I have to do his dumb quest?" Komer yelled out while crossing his arms in a pout apanied by a frown, and Bree quite quickly agreed. "That was to be expected... Elves that are older than 100 years are usually like that, and most people with high charisma stats as well, and since most Merchants have high charisma stats... That was quite a badbination." She exined, and both Komer and Eisen looked at her confused. "Bree, you mean that Antonio is really that old?" Eisen asked, and Bree nodded slowly. "Yeah, at least he seemed like it. Elves age far slower than races like humans or dwarves from the moment they turn 18, so once you know the rate at which they age, it¡¯s pretty easy to figure out an Elf¡¯s age. He seemed to be around 180 years old." "Huh, interesting. I didn¡¯t know that. How curious that a man that looks like thirty is actually that old..." Eisen muttered out, and Bree nodded with a wry smile. "Mhm... But aren¡¯t you also Millennia old despite looking like you¡¯re around 60?" While Eisen chuckled lowly after having forgotten about that part of the game¡¯s story, as well as feeling quite ttered at being told he looked 10 years younger than he actually was, Komer stared at them in surprise. "What do you mean, he¡¯s millennia old?" And that was when Eisen realized that he didn¡¯t actually tell Komer about this, and Bree seemed to have noticed what she said just now as well. The old man sighed out loudly and leaned in to whisper into Komer¡¯s ear. After hearing what Eisen told him, Komer looked at Eisen with wide eyes. "Really? You¡¯re one of those?" He muttered out impressed. He heard about the five that peaked quite early on after gathering as much information about the world that he could, so he especially mentioned the craftsman so that he could sell his items more easily. Now Komer was feeling even more embarrassed about what happened before. But the one that reacted in disbelief out of the group was Bree, more than anyone else. "Huh...? Don¡¯t you think that¡¯s just super amazing? How can you not react to that? When I first heard about it, I was staring nkly at Eisen for days because I couldn¡¯t believe I was his friend!" She eximed loudly, enough to get some passing nces from people walking around the street, and Komer flinched lightly in response while Eisen chuckled. "Bree, he¡¯s been in this world for about a week. I mentioned that he was one of the Omegas, the people that appeared out of nowhere, just now, right? So he couldn¡¯t possibly think that those that peaked are as amazing as you do." "Hm... I guess you¡¯re right... Sorry... But still, isn¡¯t Komer basically a part of you? Shouldn¡¯t he feel... more excited?" She asked, still visibly confused. Only now she wasn¡¯t alone. Now it was also Komer staring on in confusion. "Don¡¯t worry Komer, I¡¯ll exin it to you at the Inn. We should try to not let too many people hear about it." Eisen sighed loudly and began walking toward the stable so that Komer could change his chlothes again. Once they were back at the Inn itself, the group of four made their way back to Eisen, Bree, and Caria¡¯s room, and Eisen began exining what was going on with those that peaked and the appearance of yers to him. "Oh, wow. So that¡¯s what¡¯s going on? Interesting! Wait, if that got out, couldn¡¯t we use that as amazing marketing? Especially if we advertised that I get the items I sell from the first person that ever peaked in this world!" Komer suggested, and this time around, it seemed like a genuine suggestion rather than a way to scam others into buying his items, so Eisen gave it a chance and thought about it for a bit. "Well, maybe. But we really should wait with that, if we do it at all. As long as we haven¡¯t figured out what¡¯s going on with that fanatic church, we definitely can¡¯t even think about it. And we should wait for everything to calm down, just take a look at what those other Omegas caused. Just take the time until then to gather experience and to make a name for yourself." Carefully and simply, Eisen exined what the best actions to take in that regard would be in his opinion, and Komer seemed to understand and ept it quickly. "Alright, that¡¯s fine. I don¡¯t want to give out personal information about you, especially after you helped me this much." Komer smiled, and then looked deeply at Eisen with a calm and grateful face. "Really, thank you for that, Eisen." Eisen looked at the young man, or rather kid most of the time, in front of him and began scratching his beard with satisfaction behind his smiling expression. "Of course, Komer." Chapter 92 Antonio Hastings The next morning, Eisen, Bree and Caria went to eat breakfast in a nearby restaurant, before seeing if they could meet back up with Komer somewhere near the merchant¡¯s guild. He was already out and about quite early to start that quest that Antonio the High Merchant gave him yesterday, so they couldn¡¯t see each other once more before then. But Eisen was sure it would work out in the end. After all, Komer did seem quite intelligent once Eisen talked to him some more, and he definitely wouldn¡¯t have any problems talking to, or luring in, potential customers. And it didn¡¯t actually take long for Eisen to find the young man, as he was currently the one selling items at a stall where a huge crowd ended up gathering. Luckily, it wasn¡¯t really all that hard for him to see what was going on, since he was at the very least a whole head taller than the majority of people standing in front of him. It seemed like Komer was currently selling different smaller items, most of them apparently being items that made day to day life easier like some small enchanted crystals. But those weren¡¯t the only items that people took interest in, as Komer was also selling quite arge amount of jewelry that one wouldn¡¯t expect people living in such a small vige to be wearing. But they were selling incredibly well anyway. And that was when Eisen saw why. This jewelry was being sold in the high copper to low silver range, although they should have been sold in the high silver to low gold range at the very least. Eisen took a look to see if he found anything weird about this jewelry that might be a good reason for Komer to sell them this cheaply, and then saw that these didn¡¯t actually seem to be that high quality, and actually rather poorly made. There were scratches all over the surface of any type of gem or crystal inbedded in them, and part of the base were absolutely misshapen. It didn¡¯t seem like you could actually put on some of the rings that were being sold. "I guess it does make sense if they¡¯re being sold so cheaply then..." Eisen muttered out. Most of these things seemed to actually be made of non-metal materials that couldn¡¯t be easily reused, so despite them being made of high-quality base materials, such as bones or ws of monsters, they weren¡¯t items that you could usually sell at a high price. And behind Komer, Antonio was getting all of these different items out of different small wooden boxes, so these were probably items that Antonio himself couldn¡¯t sell, but somehow still needed to get rid of. And when the seemingly skilled merchant took his eyes off of his student, he saw Eisen and began to smirk lightly before walking around the crowd to talk to the old man. "Good morning. You here to check up on the kid?" Antonio asked while extending his hand for a greeting, which Eisen quickly returned. "Yes, actually. That¡¯s exactly why we¡¯re here." Eisen chuckled lowly and began scratching his beard with a light smile on his face. After looking over at Bree and Caria, Antonio once more turned to Eisen and jerked his chin to a spot on the other side of the marketce that was currentlypletely empty. "Would you mind if we talked about something without these twodies?" He asked and Eisen nodded, although he was slightly surprised at this sudden request. "Hm, sure. We¡¯re not really in a hurry anyway." Eisen said and followed Antonion to the open spot by the side of the road. The Elf was silent for a few seconds, simply staring at Eisen. The old craftsman was quite confused at what Antonio was nning, when he suddenly felt shivers all over his body. They were a lot weaker than usual, but they were still there, and Eisen knew what just happened. It seemed like Antonio used Appraisal on Eisen. "As I thought. You¡¯re also not a regr person, are you? I¡¯ve never heard of the ¡¯Original of the Mechanical Arts¡¯. And your ¡¯Limitbreaker¡¯ Title reached quite a high stage as well, hasn¡¯t it? Butpared to that, your skills are incredibly low ranked. Someone of your age should have at least a few Rank 7 skills, if not Rank 8." Antonio said quite clearly, not beating around the bush or trying to hide that he appraised Eisen. But Eisen simply began tough. After all, he already had a story prepared for him by the game itself. "Ah, I can¡¯t actually tell you anything about all of that. My Experience was stolen, so I don¡¯t remember my past. As such, I don¡¯t know where that ¡¯Original¡¯ title came from. But it seems that I have kept some of my skill from before my experience was stolen, even if it¡¯s not reflected in my skills¡¯ rank, so it was quite easy to gian the Limitbreaker title." Eisen exined. He didn¡¯t want to tell Antonio at first, but now he basically had to. He probably wouldn¡¯t have believed any other exnation in the first ce. However, Antonio¡¯s reaction was different than Eisen expected, or could have ever anticipated. Eisen would have thought that the Elf would be surprised and maybe in disbelief while trying to find out some other truth, but instead, a wicked grin grew on his face. "Oh~? So you¡¯re him after all, then~! The first person that ever peaked!" "Huh..?" Eisen muttered out in surprise, while Antonio simply kept on talking, his expression slowly turning toward ecstacy. "I¡¯m so d to finally be able to meet you! I was quite sad when they went through the procedure without me... I¡¯m a long-time fan of yours, after all!" Antonio eximed, moving closer toward Eisen than he wasfortable with. But Eisen didn¡¯t know what was going on in the slightest. The ¡¯procedure¡¯? What was Antonio talking about? Did he have anything to do with Eisen¡¯s backstory? "What do you mean? What are you even talking about?" Eisen asked, backing away slightly with a deep frown on his face, and Antonio simply began smiling brightly. "Oh? Isn¡¯t it quite obvious? I¡¯m a High Merchant! I sell everything. So, I sold my services to those that need my help! One of my clients coincidentally wanted to acquire the experience of five people that peaked. And I always deliver. Always. But I wasn¡¯t really able to personally go for it this time around, so I was pretty sad." With pure glee in his voice, Antonio¡¯s personality basically did aplete 180, going from quite cynical and broodish all the way to a happy bundle of joy that was hiding quite a dark person. And Eisen had no idea which Antonio was the real one. But Eisen didn¡¯t know why Antonio suddenly revealed all of this. "Why are you telling me about that? You know that this will not end good for you, right?" Eisen looked Antonio deep into his sky blue eyes, while the Elf simply chuckled while starting to walk back toward Komer, turning around onest time before being close enough to be heard by anyone in the crowd, revealing his teeth in a diabolical smile. "The way you are now, you can¡¯t do anything against me. So why should I be scared?" Like that, Antonio Hastings, the Elven High Merchant that was in part responsible for stealing the experience of the five originals, revealed himself. --- "Wow, having an upation is really cool! And I was able to immediately be a regr Merchant as well! Mister Hastings told me that usually people be Apprentices first, but since I was doing so well today he allowed me to skip that!" Komer exined smugly, cing his fists on his hips as he basked in his own glory. However, Eisen wasn¡¯t as happy about all of this as Komer was. Of course he was d that Komer was able to both get an upation as well as actually learn what it was like to earnestly sell items without scamming others for a whole day. Of course he did somewhat exaggerate to get people¡¯s attention, but it was all still technically true, albeit heavily glorified. But still, what Eisen was more worried about was Antonio. After all, he seemed to be a person that was constnatly scheming, and as such Eisen couldn¡¯t imagine that he really did all of this out of pure kindness. Eisen already exined the whole situation to Bree in private before, but didn¡¯t get the chance to tell Komer yet. Or rather, Eisen didn¡¯t really know if he should tell Komer too much right now. There was still something that he needed to know before then, and especially now that he got to know Komer¡¯s personality a bit better, Eisen knew that this would be worth a try. "I¡¯m really happy for you, Komer. But now that you are officially a Merchant, what are you nning to do next?" The old man asked, and Komer sat down on one of the beds in Eisen, Bree and Caria¡¯s room at the Inn while they did the same. "Huh, I¡¯m not too sure. At least I know that selling actual items for the right price is easier and will make me a lot more money than trying to do why I tried yesterday with you. So I¡¯m not sure. You said you would let me sell items for you, right? If so, and you¡¯re staying here for a while, we could just make money for a while like that. Sounds good, right?" Komer suggested, but Eisen immediately shut him down. "Sorry, but I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll do that. We spent today mainly just buying different food and ingredients thatst for a while, since we¡¯re going all the way to the capital of Litgern, Ornier." Eisen exined, leaving Komer to frown sadly in response. "Oh, I see. Erm, how are we going to do the thing with Items then? Are you going to make some other Automaton to deliver them to me, or something?" "Haha, I certainly could, but I have a better Idea." Eisen chuckled and began scratching his beard while looking over to Bree to confirm once more she was really alright with this as well, and then looked back at the slightly nervous Komer. "Why don¡¯t you join us, Komer? That way, I can keep practicing and ranking up my skill ranks by making items, which you can sell at each town we stop at." Surprised, Komer opened his eyes widely while starting to think about this more closely, ying around with a strain of his hair that he pulled down onto his face. After a few seconds, it seemed like he made up his mind and moved his fingers through his hair with a smile, before extending his hand in a business-style handshake. "You¡¯ve got a deal! Let¡¯s travel together, then!" Komer eximed, and Eisenughed loudly before shaking his hand in return. After this, the group continued talking for a while in a little celebration for their newest member, and then everyone went to sleep. The very next morning, they all met up back at the Carriage that was already loaded up with a few different foods, such as pickled vegetables, dried fruits, and preserved meats, as well asrger quantities of things like vinegar, salt, pepper or different herbs than they had before. It became a slight bit more crowded in the back of the carriage now, but it was stillrge enough for everyone in the group to gather with a bit to spare, so it was fine in the end. Eisen hooked Cabarum back up to the carriage and had him pull out the carriage out of the stable, before driving it all the way to the next gate they had to leave through to continue their journey toward Ornier. During all of this, Eisen felt cold stares in the back of his neck, as if he was being watched from the shadows. Chapter 93 Basics Bree was currently driving the carriage along the rough street of the ins on their way toward the capital of the human country Litgern, while Eisen and Komer were sitting in the back of the carriage, talking about business. "What we should do first is give you a rough sense of the value of items. I¡¯m sure you know why the items you were selling yesterday were priced so cheaply, right?" Eisen asked, leaving Komer to nod basically instantly in response. "Yeah, because they were all basically failures. At least that¡¯s what Mister Hastings told me." "Exactly. Which brings us to the first point. Quality. Together with the item¡¯s rank, it¡¯s probably the easiest way to get a rough idea of what something should cost without even looking at the effort to make it or the material. But again, you should only use it as a rough base point. Do you know how item ranks and quality work?" The young man with vibrant red hair shook his head while crossing his arms. "No, I don¡¯t really. And I¡¯m guessing it¡¯s not random, right?" "It¡¯s not, yeah. There are eight different qualities, Lowest to Perfect, at every rank. And it¡¯s still a fact that a Lowest Quality Rank 1 item, is still of better quality than a perfect quality rank 0 item. But the actual quality rating only slightly influences the pricepared to the rank. The difference between an Average Quality item and a Perfect quality item may only be a few coins, while the difference between a rank 0 item and a rank 2 item is like the difference between copper and silver coins. And that is because you need to be of a specific rank in the skill that you¡¯re making something with for the item to be that rank. Because it only gets harder to rank your skills up over time, rank 7 items are obviously quite rarepared to rank 1 or 2 items." Komer took in all of this information, even taking notes on a piece of paper to make sure he wouldn¡¯t forget anything, before turning back to Eisen to listen to the next part of what he knew about how to sell items. "The quality will make the price of items vary the most. It¡¯s like an amplifier. Let¡¯s say you have a base item with a material worth of 1 copper coin, but it¡¯s an incredible rank 10 item. The item with a base worth of 1 copper will suddenly be worth 1 tinum coin. So, taking that into ount, if you take materials that are worth 1 silver coin at the start and make a rank 10 item out of them, they will be worth a crystal coin instead." Nodding in resposne to this quite useful revtion, Komer noted this down as well. Of course Eisen also added that this was just an example, and those were not in the slightest urate numbers. But at least this helped Komer understand how quality really influenced the price of items, and that was the most important part about it. "Next, there is of course the workload andplexity. Aulu here will cost a lot more than other items with the same rank, quality, and material cost. And that¡¯s because it took me quite long to make her, at least for my standards, and because I used multiple different skills and crafts during her construction. That brings the price up as well. But that¡¯s something that you¡¯ll have to look into for every different type of item, of course I will also tell you how hard it was to make it and how long it took. Since I doubt I have to exin supply and demand to you, I¡¯ll move on to the something else, another important part that you even mentioned before." Eisen exined while setting up another flower pot with seeds in it for Caria to continue practicing her skills, and Komer scratched his chin while thinking about it, before he seemed to have realized what Eisen was talking about. "Ah, do you mean the brand?" Eisen sat back down on the floor opposite to Komer and nodded, since that was exactly what he meant. "Of course. You said before that we could just sell items for a higher price by telling everyone they were made by me. That would definitely bring up the price, but we shouldn¡¯t jump into it too quickly. Reputation is probably the most important thing for a merchant, don¡¯t you think? If you had kept scamming people, your reputation would have dropped, and then even if you had sold actually god-tier items for a few copper coins, people would mistrust you and just not buy anything from you anyway. You have to slowly raise your reputation as a merchant, and then with that you can think about slowly raising your prices. Of course not by a lot, but a little bit is alright." "So why don¡¯t we just sell items you made and tell everyone who you are then? Couldn¡¯t we instantly raise the price, then?" After Komer asked this, Eisen sighed loudly and nodded. "Yeah, of course we could do that. But if you tried selling items by advertising they were made by someone that peaked, not your reputation would rise, but mine. You would basically just be the clerk at the front of the store to people. We don¡¯t just want people to think that you¡¯re working for me, but rather that you¡¯re an amazing merchant that sells high quality items." "Oh... I didn¡¯t think about that. But that does make sense, yeah. Since the people here see you as such an amazing being, it would be like ¡¯The big guy helping the little guy¡¯." "Exactly right. So let¡¯s keep my identity a secret for now until you¡¯re more sessful as a merchant." Eisen told his young, newpanion. But Komer seemed to have something on his mind, and chose to just ask right away. "Eisen... why are you helping me like this? I tried scamming you, most people would justpletely ignore me." Although Eisen was still hesitant about him, he knew that he wasn¡¯t a bad kid deep down. And Eisen knew quite well that people could change, so he wanted to give Komer a chance. "Well, just because you¡¯re like this now doesn¡¯t mean that you¡¯ll always be like this. I have three kids that I had to raise on my own, so not all of them ended up doing too great in life at first. But now that I have grandchildren, I have a lot more people to worry about and became more conscious of everything again." Eisen exined while trying not to let Bree hear since she may ask some questions about it, and Komer was quite surprised himself. After all, you don¡¯t hear the sentence ¡¯Three kids that I had to raise on my own¡¯ every day. "Thank you Eisen. You¡¯ve already been amazing help to me, without you I would probalby still be sitting on the street trying to scam people. And you¡¯re doing all of that just because you¡¯ve be more conscious about your grandchildren that I don¡¯t have anything to do with? That¡¯s incredible." The young man smiled, and Eisen began to chuckle while scratching his beard, before starting to whisper. "Haha, you see, I¡¯m not necessarily doing this out ofplete goodwill... My oldest grandson will finish High School soon and enter College, so it can¡¯t hurt to have a contact in thergest techpany in the world, can it?" "Ah, I see... Well, I can¡¯t guarantee anything, but if your grandson needs a job after college, you can tell me and I¡¯ll try to hook him up with something." Komer answered with a wry smile, while Eisen simply grinned back. Of course that was only an excuse. While it may be true that having a contact in such argepany would be amazing for his grandchildren¡¯s futures, Eisen didn¡¯t yet feelpletelyfortable to tell Komer all about the real reason. It would basically be just like running his mouth about Tony, after all, since Eisen couldn¡¯t really say anything good about that phase in his youngest son¡¯s life. But in Eisen¡¯s opinion, it was still a good reason to help out Komer with fixing his behavior. After a bit of silence, Komer looked at Caria who was currently sitting in front of Eisen cross-legged while holding a wooden flower pot. "Erm, Eisen, what¡¯s she doing? Her name is Caria, right?" Surprised at her name suddenly being called, Caria looked up and then at Komer for a few seconds before turning her head to look at Eisen. "Ah, it¡¯s nothing. Just keep practicing, okay?" He smiled, and the small Myconid girl nodded before looking back at the pot. "She¡¯s practicing some skills of hers. She¡¯s a ¡¯Myconid Druid Disciple¡¯, so she¡¯s pracitcing the control she has over nts. Although nothing is happening right now... What are you doing there?" Eisen exined while looking down at the soil that Caria seemed to be currently pouring her mana into. It somewhat made sense that barely anything was happening when her nt Control skill was still rank 0, but now that it was rank 1, it should be possible for Caria to quite easily make at least a small flower grow. She has done it before, after all. Once more, Caria looked up at Eisen, who once more chose to ask. "Caria, are you actually practicing?" Immediately, she nodded her head quickly before turning back toward the flower pot, and continuing what she was doing. At first, nothing seemed to be happening, but after a bit, Eisen did see a change. The soil was slowly bulging up at the top, as if something was growing inside the ground, some of it even flowing over the edge of the wooden pot. But what Eisen gave her was simply a seed for a regr flower, so it shouldn¡¯t be growing under the ground. And after a few seconds, something shot up through the topyer of the soil to reveal a dark root standing up perfectly straight and vertical. "Erm, you know how flowers work right?" Kommer muttered out, and Caria frowned at her angrily before tapping Eisen¡¯s leg and motioning toward the root and pretending to be pulling on something. "Ah, do you want me to pull it out of the soil?" The old man questioned, and Caria nodded happily. So, Eisen did as she instructed and slowly pulled on the root. While the product of Caria¡¯s practice slowly revealed itself, Eisen immediately became surprised. At first, it simply looked like a ball of roots that was created by Caria, until he took a closer look. It was hard to see at first since the whole thing was covered in dirt, but when Eisen actually removed all of that, he saw that the roots were formed into a thin grid to protect the small red flower growing inside. "Oh, wow! So you had the flower grow inside of there? Quite an amazing Idea, honey!" Eisen praised with a smile and pet the top of Caria¡¯s head, while she happily leaned into his palm. "So how did you get that Idea?" Eisen asked, and Caria immediately jumped up and pointed at the round egg lying on its wooden pedestal by the side of the worktable. "Ah, so this is supposed to be an egg, then? A flower egg?" He asked, before Caria nodded furiously and hugging Eisen tightly, practically leaving Eisen no choice but to praise her even more. "Haha, you¡¯re quite amazing, aren¡¯t you? That was a pretty good idea to practice! And it looks quite nice as well!" With a smile, Eisen stood up and set this small sphere of roots down next to the first flower that Caria made grow and blossompletely, before sitting down next to her and Komer again. Seems like Caria took after Eisen when it came to making things. Chapter 94 Glass Flowers While Eisen was still praising Caria for making something so interesting, he suddenly got an idea. It looked really beautiful, although it was somewhat hard to see the flower in the center. It would probably be possible to sell these kinds of items, and might actually bring quite a good amount of profit. But since Eisen didn¡¯t want to treat Caria as a production ve, it wouldn¡¯t be sold in high quantities, but since that meant there couldn¡¯t be a constant supply, it had tost longer than a regr flower would, that¡¯s for sure. And so, they would need something to cover the whole thing in so that it wouldn¡¯t wilt. The easiest thing to use for this would probably be something like epoxy resin, but the type that you could use for smaller crafts like this was usually synthetic, so Eisen couldn¡¯t get his hands on it if there wasn¡¯t a simrly suitable substance that was both as clear and easy to work with as epoxy resin. For now, though, Eisen chose something else to work with. He stood up and looked through some of the crates in the back of the carriage, before grabbing some ss bottles together with the two flowers made by Caria standing on the shelf. He first grabbed the regr flower that Caria created through nt Control, and took one of the ss bottles in his other hand. Slowly, Eisen used transmutation on the ss to turn it more into a liquid, which was far easier at this point in time. Not only did Eisen manage to change the state of the ss far quicker than he used to be able to, but he also managed to turn it into a thick liquid rather than something like slime. The consistency actually reminded him a slight bit of honey. Eisen first formed a small base to set the flower on with this ss-liquid so that it may look somewhat as if suspended in mid-air, and then covered the directyer with the ss, using his transmutation to continuosly change between its solid and liquid states to make sure he could properly fill out every little nook and cranny around the flower. So atst, Eisen only needed to expand from there, addingyer overyer of ss to the outside of the flower until it grew in size enough to bepared to a small version of the ss bell that the rose in ¡¯The Beauty and the Beast¡¯ was kept in, although this one waspletely solid all the way through instead of being hollow like the one in the movie. But this version still looked nice nheless, and it should be more than enough to keep the flower basically stuck in time. "Oh, wow! That was amazing, Eisen! I didn¡¯t know you could do something like that..." Komer said surprised while leaning in to the small decorative item that Eisen just created. There wasn¡¯t an alchemist in the town he started, so it made sense he would be surprised to see this for the first time. After all, changing the shape of something with your thoughts is just incredibly weird to see, isn¡¯t it? "Haha, this is just a basic Alchemy Trick, kid. Maybe you should actually learn a higher variety of skills to get used to everything here. That reminds me, what kind of skills do you have?" Eisen asked Komer while cing the ss-covered flower away and grabbing the root-sphere that Caria made. Komer scratched his cheek while seemingly opening his status page, before leaning against the wall. "Not a lot, really. I have Appraisal, Trading, Cooking and Mana Maniption. Appraisal is my highest rank skill, and Mana Maniption is my lowest rank one. Oh, and of course my racial skill, A Human¡¯s Perseverance." "I see, then you really should learn a few more skills. Maybe a few crafting skills so that you can get a better feeling for the items you¡¯re selling as well. But Mana Maniption might be surprisingly useful, so I suggest bringing that up a to rank 2 as well. Although, maybe wait a bit until your trading skill is a bit higher and you actually became a proper merchant until you actually rank it up from 1 to 2." Eisen suggested, and Komer tilted his head lighty to the side. "Why is that? As a merchant, being able to use magic isn¡¯t really all that useful, right?" "It actually is. Merchants probably have high mental stats rather than physical ones, so that¡¯s the perfect base for magic. And you do need to be able to defend yourself a little bit, considering that there are some pretty strong monsters. Also, when your magic maniption reaches rank 2, you will get to choose a magic element. Depending on your actions, you may be able to get some kind of element that will end up helping you as a merchant." Komer frowned lightly but ended up nodding. This definitely made quite a lot of sense, even he had to admit that. When he first tried it, controlling your mana was just way too hard and underwhelmingpared to those awesome things you read in novels. That¡¯s why his skill was still at Rank 0, since he really didn¡¯t do anything to practice it after the first two or three times, especially after he suddenly passed out from losing too much of his mana. But if it could really be as useful as Eisen said, then maybe it would be worth continuing to practice it anyway. "I mean, at the start you can barely do anything with mana, right? So I can¡¯t imagine it really changing all that much... But I¡¯ll trust you. So you also have that element thing then?" He asked, and Eisen nodded as he faced his palm toward a small open spot in the carriage, before a figure suddenly appeared that was basically just an utterly white version of Eisen wearing a just as white suit. Before Komer could even react to this, the figure suddenly turned into dirt, or at least that¡¯s what it looked like at first. It didn¡¯t really seem to be dirt, and instead was moving in something like small waves, as if it was just some kind of smokepressed into a body. "Yes, I do. And trust me, you really can do quite amazing things with mana. The white version of me was the pure-mana double, and right now it¡¯s been infused with my magic element. The element is quite useful for crafting, so that¡¯s why I got this." Eisen exined, and Komer kept staring at the other version of Eisen standing in the room, before it suddenly disappeared. "So just keep practicing your mana maniption for a while, and as I said, try to only get it to Rank 2 once you¡¯ve properly grown into your role as a merchant. Also, can you tell me what your Human Racial skill does?" Eisen asked while preparing to also turn the root-sphere into a decoration with the help of transmuted ss, but Komer only got confused. "Er... What? You should know, right? Aren¡¯t you also a human?" He asked, unsure what Eisen was talking about, but was incredibly surprised when he heard the answer. "Haha, no, I¡¯m actually not a human. I¡¯m half Giant, half Dwarf, so my racial skills are different from your¡¯s." After exining this, Eisen chuckled lowly as the ss bottle in his hand slowly began to drip down while he turned it into a liquid, slowly moving it over the root-sphere. Komer was still surprised, but when he considered Eisen¡¯s dimensions, it actually made sense to see that he wasn¡¯t human. "O-Oh, alright. Erm, anyway. The ¡¯A Human¡¯s Perseverance¡¯ Skill doesn¡¯t actually do all that much right now. It just makes me lose my stamina less quickly when I activate it, and if I activate it when I¡¯m about to fall asleep because of exhaustion, I won¡¯t be tired during the duration of the skill. That¡¯s all for now. A man in the vige told me thatter, it would passively influence some of your abilities depending on your surroundings, but I don¡¯t really know." He exined, and Eisen nodded in response. "I see... Hey, Bree, you also have the ¡¯A Human¡¯s Perseverance¡¯ Racial skill, right?" Eisen asked in a louder voice so that Bree could hear him while she was sitting on the bench at the front of the carriage, and she turned her head around to look inside. "Huh? Ah, yeah, I do! Why are you asking?" "It¡¯s just because of Komer. I wondered if you could tell us something about it." Bree tilted her head to the side and began to think for a bit, before nodding slowly. "Hmm, I guess you could say it¡¯s kind of an all-rounder ability at first, but it grows into a more specialized area depending on what kind of person you areter on. That¡¯s because humans live basically everywhere, in any type of area, and they don¡¯t really have a racial specialization. They don¡¯t get any bonuses to stats, but at the same time don¡¯t have any disadvantages either, but the racial skill can change that, so some humans or actually on par in abilitypared to more specialized races like dwarves or elves." Eisen and Komer listened curiously, while Eisen was currently filling out the whole area inside of the sphere with liquid-ss that he quickly hardened, before also covering the roots in a thinyer of ss to make sure that these couldn¡¯t rot either. "And what did you specialize in?" "Well, it my case, it supports my mental stats for the most part." "I see, thanks, Bree! You really have an answer to everything, huh?" The old manughed loudly while the sphere in his hand hardened and began glittering in the sunlight streaming through the small openings of the carriage. "So, as you can see, you will be better off if you specialize on an area and concentrate on raising skills like these that will make you even better in that area. It¡¯s like synergy, you know? For example, in my case take Tailoring and Leatherworking. Since they are quite simr technique-wise, once I learned one, it was easier for me to learn the other. If you have a skillset that supports itself and pushes you up, you can grow to immense heights." Eisen chuckled, while cing the s-covered sphere of roots down next to the other flower again, then looked back at Komer. "Should I tell you about some of the items that you may be selling in the future?" He asked, and Komer nodded excitedly while standing up. "Yes, please!" "Alright! Here, first these..." And so, Eisen began to exin the main types of items that would probably be sold with the use of examples. This included the potions, pills, clothes, tools or weapons. And atst, Eisen also showed Komer some of the ¡¯bottles¡¯ of mead that he was currently preparing, that have already been fermenting for a few while now, every once in a while letting out small pops as air escaped through the small air-locks at the top. And Komer was simply stunned. "Wow, you¡¯re making all of this stuff? Is there anything you can¡¯t make? And you¡¯re even making alcohol..." He muttered to himself while grabbing one of the honey-containers that Eisen filled with the mead, curiously trying to figure out what this was. "Did you make these... erm, Bottles, as well? They look pretty cool. And they fit the Mead-Theme too, since it¡¯s made with lots of honey, right?" Komer asked, carefully cing it back down onto the pile of the other containers, while Eisen shook his head. "No, I didn¡¯t make these. I found them in a giant Beehive in a forest. The Bees used those to store honey in, and a few of them were empty, so I grabbed all that I could get. That¡¯s actually also where I got this here." Eisen reached out toward the perfectly round amber-colored egg still lying on its pedestal. "It¡¯s a Queen Bee egg, so I¡¯m hoping to be able to tame it once it hatches, simr to what I did with-" While Eisen was trying to exin his n for the Bee that would hatch from this, it actually began to shake a little bit. Apparently his luck was quite great, wasn¡¯t it? Chapter 95 Melissa The round amber colored egg in Eisen¡¯s hand continued to shake for a little longer, until a few cracks formed on its surface, spreading outward until they covered the whole thing. Komer¡¯s eyes opened wide in surprise when he saw this happen, but leaned in closer to see what was going on. "Is it hatching right now?" Eisen kept quiet for a bit, but nodded in response to Komer¡¯s question, only after a few seconds answering properly. "I think so, yes. At least I¡¯m hoping that¡¯s what it is." Immediately following this sentence, parts of the egg¡¯s shell started to fall off as a small white form pushed outside, widening the hole that it just created as it crawled onto Eisen¡¯s hand. [Congrattions! You just tamed a Queen Bee Larva!] [Name the Tamed Beast] Eisen looked at the small, finger sizedrva crawling over his arm, while Komer was backing away from the slimy creature that emerged from the egg just now. Eisen chuckled and smiled, trying to think of a good name. For Caria, he went with the scientific name shown in her race, ¡¯Muscaria Amanita¡¯, as in Mus-Caria, so he may do the same thing with this small Larva as well. He wasn¡¯t entirely sure, but as far as he knew, the scientific names for bees usually had ¡¯Apis¡¯ in them. But that just didn¡¯t sound great as a name in Eisen¡¯s opinion. So instead of using the Latin trantion for Bee, maybe he should use a trantion into anothernguage? "Ah, I¡¯ve got it! I¡¯ll call you Melissa." Eisen eximed the moment that he remembered what this name meant. And right now, it may be weird to call arva with such a Human name, but it would always be possible that she would grow into a humanoid form as well, just as Caria did. [The Tamed Beast has been called Melissa] [Taming reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [You can nowmand your beasts from a distance] [Due to Ranking-up your Taming Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] Eisen read through the notifications that popped up in front of him, and quickly read through the notifications. He was d about the new function this skill just gained, as this would make it harder for him to lose sight of Caria and the newly-hatched Melissa. He smiled as the Larve began wiggling, as if trying to show Eisen that she was happy with her new name. She crawled up Eisen¡¯s arm until she ended up at his shoulder, stopping to rest there. "Huh, is my shoulder really thatfortable? You used to like sitting there a lot as well, right?" He asked when looking at Caria, who stretched out her hand to give Eisen a thumbs-up while nodding furiously. "Well then, I honestly didn¡¯t expect her to hatch that soon. Anyway, Bree, let¡¯s take a break for a second. Sounds like I need to refill Cabarum¡¯s tanks." Eisen eximed with a smile while taking therva Melissa into his hands and setting her down on the spot that would be perfect for her to explore, the Honey-Crystal Hive standing in the corner of the carriage. Happily, she began wiggling her body again and dove straight into some of the openings all around it. d that she liked it, Eisen stepped out the door of the Carriage the moment it came to a hault, bringing a canister of oil with him to feed to Cabarum, the horse automaton. Eisen turned over to the Fey-Kin who was still sitting on the bench at the front of the carriage while disconnecting Cabarum from the carriage so that he could properly rx a bit. It may sound a bit silly to have a mechanical creature rx, but since Cabarum gained quite a lot of intelligence throughout the past few days, he was acting more and more like a real horse, so Eisen felt bad to treat him like an object. "Thanks for driving the whole day. I¡¯ll take over for the rest of the day, so you can just sit down in the back for a while." Eisen said, and Bree smiled at him while nodding. "Okay, thanks! I never realized how exhausting it is to sit on your butt all day... Ah, you were talking to Komer about magic, right? Do you want me to teach him a few things?" She offered, and Eisen thought about it for a while, but nodded as he held a bowl of Oil in front of Cabarum¡¯s mouth before the hatch at the back of the Horse¡¯s throat opened up and he began drinking. "Yeah, that would be great, actually. Could you teach Caria at the same time as well? It can only help with her control, after all." "Okay~! Oh, and we¡¯ll be at a vige again soon. It¡¯s a bit bigger than thest one, but there¡¯s nothing worth getting there so we should only pass through. It would be just a waste of time only to spend the night. They have a pretty good smithy, so maybe you¡¯re interested?" Bree exined, and Eisen began to think about it for a while. "Huh, maybe. It¡¯s been a few days, and it¡¯s the only thing I can¡¯t do in the carriage, so I probably should get that out of the way. Do we need anything forged?" Eisen asked, but Bree simply shook her head. "No, I don¡¯t think so. I¡¯m pretty sure we have everything we need..." She shrugged while leaning back onto the wood of the carriage, watching Cabarum still drink the Oil inside of the bowl Eisen was holding up. "I see, then I guess I can just y around a bit, haha!" Eisen said with a big smile on his face, happy that he could casually forge for a while today, as long as the owner of the smithy allowed him to use the space, that was. Once Cabarum was finally fed, Eisen let him rx for a bit while he sat down next to Bree on the carriage¡¯s bench, thinking about what he could make at the smithy that wouldn¡¯t just be random stuff that would justy around in the corner at the end of the day. "I guess I¡¯ll just be making a few tools." He told himself as he reconnected Cabarum to the carriage after about half an hour of letting him do his thing, and then began driving the carriage further along the road. While Eisen was now sitting on the bench at the front of the carriage, Bree began to teach Komer and Bree the basics of magic control. It seemed like not too long after that, Komer¡¯s Mana Maniption skill ranked up, since he keptughing and yelling out excitedly after that, now that it was far easier to control his own mana. And this all continued until Eisen saw another vige in the distance. From where he was then, it really did seem to be about double the size of thest vige they stopped at, although it still wasn¡¯t really that big. When they reached the town¡¯s wooden gate, the guards standing there inspected the contents of the carriage again and then allowed the group to enter, which they did after Eisen asked one of the guards where the nearest stable was. Even though they wouldn¡¯t be staying too long, as both Komer and Bree seemed to want to apany Eisen, and since he definitely had to bring Caria and Melissa, he didn¡¯t want to just leave the carriage standing by the side of the road with only Cabarum and Aulu protecting it. So, they parked the carriage inside of the stable, payed the fee, and then Eisen changed his pants from the regr crafting pants he wore most of the time over to the ones that he specifically made for cksmithing, so that he would only need to take off his shirt and put on the leather apron to be fully wearing his cksmithing outfit. After this, the group made their way to the nearby smithy, with Eisen now having two tamed monsters basically crawling all over him. One literally, while the other was trying to hog him for herself due to jealousy over her new sibling. After a while, they reached the cksmith of the town and quickly stepped inside. "Hello! How can I help you today?" The man standing at the counter asked with an excited smile when he saw the group enter. It seemed like he didn¡¯t really get customers that often. From what Eisen could tell, this man was probably the owner of the smithy, considering his overall build and attire. "If possible, could I maybe use some space in your smithy to work? I¡¯m also a smith, but as we¡¯re traveling, it will be a while until I can do so again." Eisen quickly exined, and the face of the man at the counter immediately dropped. "O-Oh, so you¡¯re not here to buy something? Erm, well, what¡¯s your upation then?" The man asked, and Eisen chuckled. "Ah, it¡¯s ¡¯Omni Craftsmaster¡¯. I¡¯m not sure if you know it, but trust me, I¡¯m a good cksmith." Eisen exined, and the man frowned in response. "¡¯Omni Craftsmaster¡¯? I know what a ¡¯Craftsmaster¡¯ is, although I don¡¯t know what the ¡¯Omni¡¯ in front of it is for. Either way, if that¡¯s really your upation, go ahead if you want, but you better pay for all the materials you use. And I¡¯ll watch you to make sure you don¡¯t mess around back there." The cksmith said before leading the group to the actual smithy of the shop. Compared to the one in Melroe, this smithy was incredibly tiny, only possessing a single forge to work at. "Are you sure I can use this? Don¡¯t you need to work on this?" Eisen asked concerned, but the owner of the smithy shook his head. "Not really, no. Here in this vige people only ever order farming tools, and I¡¯ve got more than enough of those stocked up." He exined and leaned back in a chair he sat down on. "Ah, that makes sense. Then I¡¯ll go ahead and use it." And it really did make sense. After all, the owner here couldn¡¯t just go ahead and make whatever he wanted, or make 100 of the same thing. That would just be a waste of money, and nobody could know if any of the items would actually end up being sold, especially if people around here only ever buy the same type of item. So, if the owner already had more than enough items to sell, it wouldn¡¯t make sense to just continue forging to fill up the front of the store. But for now, Eisen grabbed some steel ingots from the small storage space in the corner of the smithy, and threw them into the forge while grabbing his hammer and activating his me of the Earth transformation as well as his crafting space and his two racial skills. Once the steel ingot in the forge was glowing in a bright yellow color, Eisen grabbed it with the help of some tongs and brought it over to the nearby anvil, before starting to hammer onto the metal to shape it properly. Hit after hit, the steel changed its shape under the pressure of his own tool, bending to its will. Slowly, the steel ended up turning into the shape that Eisen wanted it to be in, a thin, lengthy piece of metal in a slight crescent, with one pointy end and one sharp, t end. What Eisen was making right now was the head of a pickaxe. Once this part was done, Eisen quickly cooled it down and set it to the side for now. He wouldter still temper in a small makeshift tempering chamber like the one he constructed at Denmir¡¯s smithy, but that could wait until the other pieces of tools were ready. So, Eisen grabbed another steel ingot and threw it into the forge, once more waiting for it to be hot enough, which was when Eisen took it out again and started shaping it. Chapter 96 Magic Forge The next tool that Eisen was making was something that may be used more often than the pickaxe, an axe. For this, Eisen shaped the hot steel ingot into a t square shape, and created a thin edge at one of the ends while thickening the end opposite to the edge to give enough space for the handle to pass through. Now that this was done as well, Eisen set the axe head down next to the pickaxe head, and then threw the next ingot into the forge for the next tool. He would also need to make the dagger for that Crafting Guild request he picked up before, but that wouldn¡¯t take all that long either, so it was fine to do it after he finished his tools. Once the steel ingot in the forge was glowing a bright yellow, Eisen grabbed it out of the forge again, right when he remembered a new part of his dwarven racial skill. Slowly, Eisen moved his fingers toward the glowing steel until his skin was pressed against it, and Eisen didn¡¯t feel any pain or lose any HP through this action. He would still move it around with a tong while crafting, though, since they would take up the least amount of space on the metal to let Eisen work more easily with it, but at least it was good to know that he could even handle something as hot as this with his bare hands now. But while Eisen was quite happy to see this, the owner of the smithy was nothing but confused. "Erm, are- are you a Dwarf, by chance?" He asked, already feeling quite silly to ask this man that was nearly double the height of what any dwarf should be, but to his surprise, this old man simplyughed as he began to work on the metal in front of him. "Haha, yeah, I¡¯m a half Dwarf. My other half is a giant." Eisen exined while ttening the steel, and the owner of the smithy nodded slowly. "A Half-Giant? Well, that exins your height at the very least... Anyway, don¡¯t let me disturb you any more than, was just surprised to see you touching the hot steel with your hands." Eisen chuckled and nodded his head as he continued ttening the steel down quite a lot, until it was less than a centimeter thin and shaped it to have a rough ¡¯U¡¯ outline, just that it waspletely filled out, and was slightly pointed at the round end. Because what Eisen was making right now was a shovel. As these were all quite simple tools, making any of the parts really didn¡¯t take that long, and Eisen managed to finish this within a little more than an hour, including the time it took to grind each edge down to be sharp enough. Now, after asking if this was alright, Eisen stacked some bricks on top of each other to make a small box, ced a few bricks onto the ground in the box to make sure that the steel parts wouldn¡¯t touch the burning coals that Eisen added in next, right before he ced the steel parts on top of them and closed the box off. It seemed like the owner was kind of confused at what Eisen was doing, but just let him do his thing anyway. So next, it was time to make the dagger for the guild request. Eisen threw another small steel ingot into the forge and waited until it was glowing in a bright yellow like always before grabbing it and cing it on the anvil. He quickly thinned it out and slightly lenghtened it as well, before creating the edges of the dagger that lead all the way around the de part, and then reshaped the part of steel where the handle would be attachedter. Since it couldn¡¯t hurt to temper this small de as well, Eisen ced it into the tempering box next to the tool parts and then stepped over to the group that watched him work. "Alright then, now we only need to wait for a bit. The parts will finish tempering soon, and then I can finish everything in the carriage." He exined while deactivating his skills and packed away his hammer, changing back out of the leather apron into his regr shirt before turning to the owner of the smithy. "Thanks for letting me use this space for a short while." Eisen smiled and the owner quickly nodded in response. "Yeah, of course! It was quite interesting to see someone with a ¡¯Master¡¯ upation at work. And as expected, you managed to finish all of these things incredibly quickly!" He said with a smile, clenching his fist tightly in excitement. "Seems like I¡¯m getting kind of pumped up to forge again myself." "Haha, then I¡¯m d I could help a youngster such as yourself." Eisen chuckled while moving his fingers through his beard before paying the Owner of the smithy for the materials that he used. Suddenly, Eisen noticed some notifications in the corner of his eye that seemed to have popped up while he was working. [me of the Earth Magic reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [State of element in can now be changed independently of other active areas] [Due to Ranking-up your me of the Earth Magic Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] [Tool Connection reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [Connectivity will now increase bonus effect on tools further] [Due to Ranking-up your Tool Connection Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] "Huh, interesting. I don¡¯t quite understand what it¡¯s trying to tell me for my element, though.." Eisen muttered out in a low voice, that only Bree seemed to have picked up. "Hm? Something wrong?" She asked with her head tilted to the side, and Eisen shook his head. "No, no, it¡¯s fine. But my magic element ranked up just now, and it says that it¡¯s state can be changed independently of other active areas, and I don¡¯t know what it means." Eisenughed softly, so Bree immediately began to exin. "Well... until now, if you changed the state of your magic, it was probably affecting every single part of the infused mana, right? I think now you can change some parts into one state, and another into a whole different state." Eisen listened closely and nodded with a loud "Ahh!", and crossed his arms. "So that¡¯s how it is, huh?" Heughed, and in the middle of that, stopped abruptly as an idea popped into his head. But he needed a bit more space for that, so he would need to do it once the group was driving again. For now, the only thing that was left to do was wait for the steel parts of the tools and the dagger to be finished. While they were waiting, they sat around in a circle and talked to the owner of the shop for a while. But soon enough, the parts of the tools were finally finished, and Eisen grabbed them and waited for them to cool down before cing them into Bree¡¯s backpack. After thanking the owner of the smithy once more, Eisen set Melissa down on his shoulder and grabbed Caria¡¯s hand again before the group left to head for the carriage again so that Eisen could continue making the tools. "Now then, I¡¯ll finish the dagger first." Eisen said while cracking his knuckles and sat down at his worktable, grabbing some wood to work with. Quickly, he grabbed a piece of wood and began carving it into the shape of a wooden handle for the dagger, and then created a small hole at its core. So in order to push the metal part of the handle into this more easily, Eisen heated it up with his magic element and then pushed it into the wood to cause a perfect fit. Once that was done, Eisen could have probably just handed this in, but he rather felt like adding another important part, leather. This would make it easier to grab the dagger for a long time, so it made a lot of sense to add it. So, after grabbing his exacto knife, Eisen cut some leather into a long, thin band. Its underside was then covered with some simple glue, and wrapped around the wooden handle. It took a little bit of time for the glue to set properly, but it fit quite well. [Steel Dagger] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A simple steel dagger created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. [Effect] +5 AGI, +3 STR, +2 END [For creating an overwhelming quality item, you gain +1 STR ] "Alright, let¡¯s bring this to the guild, then!" Eisen eximed loudly, and Komer shot up from leaning against the wall. "H-Huh? Already? But didn¡¯t you just start like half an hour ago?" He asked confused, and was simply met with Eisen¡¯s soft chuckle paired with a nod, before the old man left the carriage, only saying one thing. "You guys wait here, I¡¯ll be back in a bit. I¡¯ll hurry up so we can leave again soon!" Eisen exined, immediately rushing off out of the stable without giving anyone in the group a chance to react. He really wanted to try out that Idea he got when his me of the Earth Magic ranked up again, after all. --- Not long after Eisen left, he already returned with the rewards from his finished request as well as another new request. While Komer and Bree wanted to sit around and rx for a while, Eisen immediately connected Cabarum to the carriage and began driving it outside, toward the gate in the direction where they needed to go. "Eisen? Why are you even in such a hurry? Did something happen?" Bree asked concerned, looking at Eisen through the opening at the front of the carriage, and he turned his head with a smile. "Well, you exined it to me yourself, didn¡¯t you? Just wait, you¡¯ll see what I¡¯m nning." Eisenughed and drove the carriage to a spot out of the way of other passing carriages, where he would be undisturbed for this experiment. He jumped off of the bench at the front of the carriage and was immediately joined by the rest of the group. Eisen stretched his hands out forward and pushed out as much mana as he could, shaping it into something that he stared at for basically hours at a time throughout his whole life. And although it looked basically just like arge block at first, once Eisen added a few details to it, it really did look like what he wanted it to look like, a forge. Luckily, since he would be making this with magic, it didn¡¯t require anything like pumps to heat up the mes, but simply his own magic power as fuel. So, Eisen was able to concentrate on the space itself, where he added arge enough center where arge amount of metal could fit, as well as an opening that would allow easy ess to every part of the forge. It was basically a simple recreation of the forge he had in his own workshop in real life. Once this mana structure was finished, Eisen pushed out his me of the Earth element out of his palm and infused it into his pure mana, immediately changing it as far toward the earth state as he could, and now the whole thing turned into a structure of very rough rock, since his rank-up allowed the element to turn further into each state. But that wasn¡¯t the only thing that changed. Just as Bree exined it to him before, it was now possible to change certain parts of the structure into pure mes while the rest stayed as rock. And as such,rge mes shot up inside of the forge. They were already quite a bit hotter than they used to be, so Eisen hoped that this would actually work. And it seemed like the system wanted exactly something like this to happen, since it immediately epted Eisen¡¯s recreation of a forge with his mana. [Do you want to add the me of the Earth Forge Spell to the Spell Library?] Chapter 97 Traveling Craftsman With a smile, Eisen looked at the magical forge in front of his eyes, while both Bree and Komer stared at it in a mixture of curiosity and surprise. "What is that? What did you just do?" The Fey-Kin Bree asked, and Komer nodded, wondering what Eisen did just as much. Eisen turned over to them with a smirk. "I¡¯ve just solved my cksmithing problem, that¡¯s what I did!" He said with excitement burrowed deep inside his voice, and stepped closer toward the structure, holding his hand over the fire to figure out how hot it actually is. "Or rather, it will be a solution to my cksmithing problem if I keep ranking my me of the Earth magic up. It¡¯s not hot enough yet. It can be used like a tempering oven like this, but not as a forge." He sighed loudly, shaking his head in disappointment while cancelling the magic spell. After tilting her head to the side in thought, Bree¡¯s eyes finally began glittering excitedly. "Oh, so that¡¯s what you meant! I exined to you what that new skill effect was!" "H-Huh? Bree, what do you mean?" Komer asked confused. He still didn¡¯t know much about magic, so beside the fact that this was a forge that popped up out of thin air, he had no idea what was going on. "Ah, erm... Eisen¡¯s magic element can change states from pure fire, over to pure dirt or rock. So now that he can change what area has what state better, he managed to make the base of the forge out of his element turned over to rock, and the mes inside out of his element turned over to fire!" She exined, and was happy to see that Eisen smiled at her while nodding, telling her that she got everything that he did right. "So you can even do things like this with magic, huh..? Now I¡¯m really excited to see what my element will be!" Komer eximed as Eisen stepped back toward the carriage. "Sorry to basically drag you out of town for that. We can go back if you wanted to do something else there, but I really wanted to try this out." Eisen exined, but both Komer and Bree shook their heads. The young man smiled lightly while stepping back toward the carriage. "No, it¡¯s fine, I don¡¯t really mind. And I¡¯ve looked at some maps of the continent before, and it seems like it¡¯s going to take pretty long to get to Ornier, so it¡¯s better to move whenever we can, right Bree?" "Hmm? Ah, yeah, it should usually take about a week, maybe? So driving as much as we can really is a good idea, and since Cabarum doesn¡¯t need to sleep, we can basically keep going as long as any of us are awake." With a smile, Bree followed behind Komer. "I see, then thanks, you two. Now then, shall we keep going?" Eisen asked with a smile as he jumped back up onto the bench of the carriage, grabbing Cabarum¡¯s reigns while Caria climbed up and sat down next to him and Melissa crawled up his arm, Bree and Komer sitting in the back of the carriage. Happy that Eisen now figured out how to do the one thing he couldn¡¯t do while on the move up until now, hemanded Cabarum to start walking forward again, so that they could continue their journey toward the capital of Litgern, Ornier. --- It has been three days since then, and the group was now close to arriving at the town they were travelling toward for a while now. But they weren¡¯t just mindlessly driving the carriage forward, of course, and a few different things happened. First, Eisen finished the tools by simply carving wooden handles and attaching them to the steel heads. But that wasn¡¯t the only thing that Eisen did, as he also enchanted them to be more efficient. The Pickaxe gained a ¡¯Crushing¡¯ enchantment, so that it would easily break apart any rock that it contacted, while the Axe was enchanted with a ¡¯Cutting¡¯ enchantment to cut apart wood easily, and on the shovel, Eisen put a ¡¯Burrow¡¯ enchantment for it to smoothly dig into the ground. He briefly tested them out before and after cing the enchantments, and while their effectiveness wasn¡¯t easy to see at the start, but soon the time that was saved like this built up and amounted to quite a big sum, so Eisen couldn¡¯t see them as failures in the slightest. Other than that, Eisen gained quite a lot of proficiency in different skills as well. He obviously continued crafting and as such gained some proficiency in his crafting skills, but he also gained a bit of proficiency in his ¡¯Truth Seeing Eye¡¯ skill to the point that it wasn¡¯t far from ranking up again, and was also nearly half-way toward ranking up his ¡¯me of the Earth Magic¡¯ again. But Eisen also ranked up a bunch of skills. First off, he managed to rank up his ¡¯Riding & Driving¡¯ skill, and the effect didn¡¯t really help him much. Usually, it would have reduced the amount of stamina that the animal that was ridden or drawing the carriage would use up, but since Cabarum didn¡¯t have any stamina, that didn¡¯t change anything. Eisen¡¯s cooking skill also ranked up once more, which didn¡¯t change much either, since it only ranked up to rank 1. His Woodworking skill ranked up as well, allowing Eisen to work with ¡¯extraordinary woods¡¯, as far as the effect told him. He didn¡¯t know what that meant exactly, but he figured it meant things that were changed beyond thews of the real world through magic. As for the skills that changed things the most noticably, one of them was definitely the Golemancy skill ranking up. Immediately, Eisen felt a change in Cabarum¡¯s and Aulu¡¯s behaviour, and they responded to even simplermands than they used to. Next, his Tool Connection skill ranked up as well, letting Eisen ¡¯feel¡¯ where his tools were that had at least a connectivity rank of 2, meaning that if he concentrated on one of them, he would feel something pulling him toward the tool¡¯s direction. It wouldn¡¯t actually physically affect him, it was just something like a gut feeling. In the end, this would mainly just be useful for people that were quite messy with their tools and kept miscing them, as this only worked within a 50 meter radius of Eisen. And since Eisen treated his tools as well as he could, he probably wouldn¡¯t be using this feature too much. And atst, Eisen¡¯s ¡¯A Giant¡¯s Strength¡¯ skill ranked up. What this did was that Eisen would be slightly resistant to blunt weapons while the skill was activated. It wasn¡¯t a lot, but it may still be enough to change the course of a battle. But since Eisen didn¡¯t fight that much at the time, that was only something he would need to worry aboutter. And there was one thing that made Eisen incredibly excited as well! It seemed like the royal jelly was a substance that would give a Queen Bee Larva experience, enough to level them up one after another. Each day, that alone gave Melissa 20 level on average, and the rest was taken care of by Eisen doing the same thing he did with Caria, having her ¡¯technically¡¯ be part of a fight, but finishing off the beasts himself. They did this whenever they noticed some kind of monster around them, so it didn¡¯t actually take all that long. So, Melissa was able to evolve! She turned from a Queen Bee Larva, to a regr Queen Bee! And with that, she got a skill as well. ¡¯Hive Control¡¯. Not only would this allow her to literally control what was going on in her own hive, but also seemed to influence how many eggs she couldy and how many types of bees they could hatch into at this point. Her size changed a little bit, and she was about double the size that she was as arva in, and instead of turning into a simple yellow and ck color, the yellow seemed to be reced by something simr to gold, at least optically, as it even glittered in the light. Now Eisen only had to think about what to do next. For sure, he could maybe have Melissa actually start her hive, but the only option for that would be the inside of the carriage then, and that didn¡¯t seem to be a good idea for many reasons. So setting something like that up would need to wait for a while until Eisen had something like an actual plot ofnd to construct things like this around. So for now, Melissa onlyyed five eggs, all of them soldier Bees just to act as something like protection, that hatched within a few hours. It seemed like even though Eisen didn¡¯t technically tame these himself, as they were Melissa¡¯s minions, he could somewhat control the soldier Bees as well. These soldiers were basically the same size as Melissa, but just a bit bulkier, and with an incredibly sharp stinger. But Eisen¡¯s other tamed monster didn¡¯t fall behind either! Caria kept practicing her nt control over and over again, until she managed to get it to rank 2, and even brought Mana Maniption to a point where she was close to ranking this up as well. Either way, the nt control skill ranking up allowed Bree to grow grow the nts beyond what they usually should be able to be. Meaning, she could for example increase the size of a small flower to be two, three or even four timesrger than usual. But in return, she could also make them smaller than they usually would be, even creating a tiny tree out of an acorn that may have been far smaller than usual, but was still technically like a regr sized tree all the same. But right now, the group was taking a break together inside the carriage while Cabarum and Aulu were drinking some oil. Eisen checked the current real-life time and turned over to Bree with a smile. "So when do you think we are going to reach Ornier? It isn¡¯t far anymore, right?" "No, it¡¯s really not. We just passed the border this morning, so it should only take about another three or four hours." Bree exined with a smile, while Komer was sitting on the bed, currently reading a book about different countries in the world that may be useful to him in figuring out the best sales tactics for each area they were in, which they bought when they stopped by a small vige yesterday. Eisen nodded and looked down at Caria who was sitting on hisp as well as the six bees all clung to his arm. Many people would probably be freaked out by this, but for some reason, theirrge size and tendency to stick around Melissa made them far less threatening than regr sized bees. Eisen actually somehow thought they were all quite cute when they were sitting on his arm like that. And Caria, Bree and Komer didn¡¯t seem to be bothered too much either, so everything was fine. "I¡¯ve still got a few hours left before I need to go to bed. You¡¯ve been staying up for a while, right, Bree? How about you go to sleep?" Eisen suggested, and Bree nodded slowly. "Sure... I¡¯m just somehow excited, you know? It¡¯s been so long since I¡¯ve been to Ornier." The Fey-Kin exined with a bright smile, only causing Eisen to chuckle in response. "I see, that¡¯s understandable then. Alright, I¡¯ll re-attach Cabarum to the carriage now, so we can keep going. You¡¯re probably pretty tired as well, right, Komer?" "Huh? Ah, yeah, I¡¯ll go to bed in a bit. Just finishing this chapter about Litgern. Really want to be prepared for my first time independently and properly selling things on my own without scamming anyone." Komerughed with embarrassment clearly in his voice, and Eisen couldn¡¯t me him. Over the past few days, Komer has been realizing how bad what he was doing actually was. At first he didn¡¯t think it was too bad, since there were still some people that bought the items he sold, but those were all NPCs. Since the game allowed him to y like that, he thought maybe it wouldn¡¯t be too bad to continue like that, and always kept on lying, bing more ridiculous each time. But once Komer actually took his time to inspect what he did from a position where he was thinking about all of these NPCs to be real humans, he began to see what was wrong. At least he realized his fault in the end. Either way, now it was time for them to finally arrive at Ornier, after they¡¯ve been traveling for so long. Chapter 98 Original of Artistry Nataly Klein. There were few people anywhere in the world that didn¡¯t know this name. It belonged to the most famous actress, singer/songwriter, musician and artist in the world at the time. At a young age, she was found to be a prodigy in a multitude of creative fields, her personal focus always being on music or painting. There weren¡¯t many instruments that she didn¡¯t y wonderfully, but she was most notably talented with string instruments such as the guitar or the bass. Seeing her immense talented, her parents did everything they could to support her, letting her take private lessons in whatever field she wanted. Soon, shended a few minor roles as a child actress and rushed up thedder of starhood so quickly that if there was a movie starring Nataly Klein, it was bound to be a sess. But not only as an actress was she sessful at a young age, but also as a musician, making her debut at the young age of 15. She never stuck to a single genre for long, but when she was in a certain scene, she was always an immediate hit. Many would think that she earned more than enough money to live off of for the rest of her life before even turning 16, and she certainly did, but she nheless wanted to follow her passion, and as such chose to dive into painting and Art History, studying this course at college after finishing high-school early. So that she wouldn¡¯t stick out amongst the crowd, she was allowed to simply hand in assignments online and not attend sses, and while she was working diligently in college, she chose to start anew financially as well. She had her bank ounts locked for the duration of her attending college, and started to make money by selling different artwork online in order to pay for her tuition. Before she even earned her degree, Prime Industries approached her to have her help with the creation of a game at a level that has never been seen before. Since she did like to y videogames every once in a while, she asked to hear more about it and then ended up epting, instructing Prime Industries on how different areas of artistry should be handled inside such aplex game. Now, at the age of 20, she began ying this game a month before release as the ¡¯Original of Artistry¡¯, not changing much about her outer appearance and even her ent was fully exposed to the others that yed. Usually, she tried to hide it to an amount because she was embarrassed to have such an incredibly clich¨¦ southern ent, but she thought it would be a good chance to get over that while talking to people that didn¡¯t seem to react in any way when seeing her. Either they didn¡¯t care who she was, or they didn¡¯t know, either way Nataly, now known as Evalia, feltfortable around this small group of people. When she started ying the game, she found herself in a small human town that was more than heavily focused around any kinds of arts, but before really doing anything, she met an elderly woman that near to immediately discovered that Evalia¡¯s experience was stolen. She helped Evalia out and made it so that she regained her human racial skill, as well as the title ¡¯Original of Artistry¡¯. For the next one and a half in-game months, she then did a few different things. First, she learned a few art-rted skills, such as sculpting, drawing and singing, as well as some skills rted to instruments that ended up one after anotherbining into skills such as ¡¯String-Instrument Proficiency¡¯, ¡¯Brass-Instrument Proficiency¡¯ or ¡¯Woodwind-Instrument Proficiency¡¯. In response to her skillful disy of what she could do, she gained the upation ¡¯Heavenly Artist¡¯. There wasn¡¯t anything actually ¡¯Heavenly¡¯ or ¡¯Divine¡¯ about it, it was simply something like a scaling system for artistic upations. Once she gained this upation, she started travelling around nearby towns as a bard, raising her level through doing quests or fighting against monsters, and most importantly raising her Charisma stat, which she managed to push to the 60-range already. Now, she was currently residing at arge, luxurious Inn in Ornier, the capital of the country she started ying in, Litgern. She managed to earn quite a lot of money already through selling artwork off the street and through donations after simple musical performances, so she had no problem with paying for this Inn. She was lying on her bed with a scrappy guitar that she bought from a random merchant, trying to y a few songs, but it was working out far worse than she had hoped. "This guitar is just horrible! The strings are way too stretched out! Why ain¡¯t there any proper instruments in this town?" she yelled out and jumped up from the bed,ying the guitar down behind her. "Maybe I should visit some shop to have myself some custom ones made." Evalia sighed loudly, grabbing her small backpack and strapping her guitar over her shoulder. She left her room and locked the door behind herself, stepping down the stairs into the lobby that was already quite busy, despite the early time. "Good morning, Miss Evalia. Did you have a nice rest?" The young concierge asked her with a smile as he opened the door for her, and she replied with a simple smile. "Yes I did, thank you very much. Could ya tell me the way to the next art supply store?" Evalia asked before the concierge nodded. "Of course, Miss Evalia. Simply follow the main street for a few minutes until you get to see a clothing store called ¡¯Mister and Mistress¡¯, and then turn right. It should be on your left side if you keep walking for a few more minutes." He exined, and Evalia listened closely. "Gotcha! Thanks for that, bud!" She said and waved at the concierge while making her way along the route that was described to her. Immediately, she was greeted by a few people in town, mostly young men, that have seen some of her performances before. With a soft smile, she waved her hand at them and continued walking. It¡¯s actually been a while that she¡¯s been able to freely move around like this, and even though there were still people that knew her inside this game, it was only to the extent of recognizing someone from your neighborhood and greeting them, instead of hordes of fans running up to you and trying to get pictures and autographs. This was a nice feeling! Although it might change again once the regr yerbase was allowed to join the game. There already were a few of those ¡¯Omegas¡¯ in town now, and some of them apparently recognized her, but luckily they just stayed away. Soon enough, Evalia entered the art supply store that she could easily find through the concierge¡¯s instructions and took a look around. She grabbed a few canvases of different sizes and walked up to the counter and quickly bought them, tying all of the canvases together so that she could carry them more easily. "Do you need an Easel as well?" the employee asked, seeing that it seemed like Evalia was carrying basically all of her belongings with her, and that she didn¡¯t have one such important artistic tool when it came to painting on canvas. But Evalia shook her head and waved at the employee as she was leaving. "No thank you, I¡¯m fine!" She chuckled as she left the shop and made her way toward the closest town gate, where she would try and find a good spot to paint for a while. She already checked out the surrounding areas, and the view from that gate was truly beautiful! You could see the giant mountain ranges that shot through the clouds in the distance that seemed like enormous walls, and the forests and rivers below. It was really a perfect scenery to paint. So, Evalia walked through therge stone gate and looked around to find a nice out-of-the-way spot to start painting. She heard a few of the guards arguing about something, so she thought she would try and listen in to see if there was some kind of quest possibility, but it seemed like they were just arguing about some bees that some old man was carrying with them while entering the town. One of them was saying they shouldn¡¯t have let him in, while the other said that they were tamed beasts, so it was alright. Evalia figured that it was just some random conversation, and she wasn¡¯t really interested, so she just moved on to finding a nice spot. And it didn¡¯t take too long until she found a nice hill with a good view of everything, that at the same time looked to be somewhat away from the road so that not many people woulde and bother her. She stepped up the Hill and smiled, extending her hand forward as she slowly released mana from her hand as it turned into the shape of an Easel. With a smile, Evalia ced one of the canvases onto the mana easel, before grabbing some of her brushes and cing them into her breast pocket, before pushing out more mana out of her hand that suddenly turned from pure white to a dark grey, while it also seemed to turn into something like a liquid. Evalia began humming as she dipped one of the first brushes into the liquid above her finger, before slowly moving it over the white canvas. What Evalia was using right now was her Magic Element, ¡¯Colors of Beauty¡¯. It was really quite useful, since art supplies like paint were some of the most expensive things that one needed as an artist, so having something like this to use instead was definitely perfect, and helped Evalia save a lot of money. Or rather, it saved a lot of trips to art supply stores. When used on paintings, it would usually give it some kind of effect, for example elerating mana or health recovery speed, to a person that looked at the painting for a prolonged period of time. But you couldn¡¯t only use it for regr paintings, as it could also be used as camoge. Evalia could basically copy what a rock wall looked like, and then apply ayer of her magic element onto herself to make her harder to spot. It only worked when she was holding still, and it needed a certain amount of preparation, but it definitely worked quite well. This,bined with her momentarily charming and controlling monsters to attack other monsters, she was able to level up rtively easily once she earned this element. After a while, Evalia was finally finished with her painting of the scenery in front of her, and as she was quite happy with it, she grabbed it once it fully dried, carrying it with her back to town. Another good thing about using her magic element to paint was that it was easily removed from her paint brushes, and didn¡¯t need to be washed out. It was easy to do that in this game anyway, but it was still far quicker to be able to simply ¡¯will¡¯ the color away. So, after she went back into town, she decided to bring the painting to the marketce to see if anyone wanted to buy it so that Evalia could make a little bit more money, because it could never hurt to have even more. She already knew a few people from here that bought some paintings of her before, and she knew that they would definitely pay a good price. But there was one thing that took her attention, arge crowd centered around a single person selling items. "Come one,e all! Buy one of these items, and you will never regret it! We have potions, purses, weapons, and a multitude of Mana Crystals enchanted with whatever you may need!" Chapter 99 First Sales Eisen¡¯s party and their carriage soon reached their destination, the town that they have been travelling toward for the past few days, Ornier. It had huge stone walls, and towers built along them where you could probably see for miles and miles from. It was quite early in the morning, and the sun just rose, so mostborers were leaving the town while the carriage was approaching the gate. It was actually quite an exciting sight for everyone in the group to see this town, but most so Komer, who has only seen viges or small towns so far. "Halt! Inspection!" One of the guards yelled out while another already approached the carriage from behind, opening the door without anyone in the group being able to say anything about it. "Hey, you can¡¯t juste in here!" Komer yelled out, while Aulu jumped forward and growled at the Guard and Melissa¡¯s Soldier Bees prepared to defend the carriage as well. The Guard immediately pulled his sword and held it forward, prepared to strike, but Eisen reacted quicker. "Everyone, stop! Sorry, young man, please continue." Eisen said while looking into the carriage through the opening in the front, and immediately Auluid back down onto the ground while Melissa and her soldiers flew over to Eisen, sticking onto his arm. In response, the Guard frowned strongly and put away his sword again before taking a look around. After a few minutes, he was ready to leave, but chose not to at first. "The cargo is fine, but you can¡¯t bring monsters into the town." The guard eximed, ring through the room at Aulu, Caria, and atst also Melissa and her soldiers. "Especially not those bees. If they decide to build a hive in there, it will be incredibly troublesome." And this actually kind of made Eisen angry. He turned around and returned the Guard¡¯s re, but tried to stay calm so as to not give him a reason to do anything dumb. "That wolf is an artificial creation, and the Myconid girl and these bees have been tamed. Where is the problem?" "As I said, it doesn¡¯t matter if you have tamed them. If they escape your control and build a nest, it will be a danger to the town. So you can¡¯t bring them inside. Haven¡¯t you seen how they nearly attacked me just now?" The Guard responded angrily, and Eisen looked at the other guard who was patiently waiting for his colleage to be done. "Young man, the guard inside here is trying to refuse me from taking my tames beasts with me." Eisen exined, and the guard outside sighed loudly and shook his head. "Really? Sorry about that, Sir. He¡¯s new at the job, and taking the ¡¯not letting any monsters into the town¡¯ part too seriously. If everything alright is fine, you can of course pass." The guard exined and walked up to the back of the group¡¯s carriage, forcefully pulling the other guard out of the carriage. "You, behave." "B-But he has monsters in there! And one of them is a queen bee! You know how fast they reproduce!" The older guard of the two held his hand to his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache, grabbing the arm of the younger, less experienced, Guard by the arm and dragging him away. "So what? A tamed monster can¡¯t escape its master¡¯s control. So just shut up and leave them be." "B-but-" The younger guard tried protesting, but stopped immediately when he saw his colleague¡¯s re. The older of the two guards stepped to the front of the carriage to properly address Eisen. "I¡¯m sorry for the inconvenience, sir. Please, go right ahead ande through." But Eisen just shook his head, smiling at the understanding Guard. "Don¡¯t worry about it. I can understand if people are afraid of monsters, but these cuties here won¡¯t hurt anyone." He chuckled, and the guard smiled back with a nod, waving at other guards on the other side of the gate to tell them that a carriage wasing through. So, Eisenmanded Cabarum to continue walking forward, and they soon entered into the town. They made their way toward the center of town, from where they then chose to drive toward the marketce in order to start their business immediately. It would always be busiest in the morning and evening, so it would be great if they could immediately start their work. For the past few days, Eisen has been continuosly making a few different items. First, he has been filling up the ss bottles that he had with the health and mana potions from the four small barrels, turning the rest of the potions that he didn¡¯t have bottles for anymore into pills. He also created different tools or weapons that could be made purely out of wood like bows or staffs, since his magic still wasn¡¯t strong enough for him to properly heat up metal to smith. But he was able to use the smithy in a few different viges along the way, so he was also able to make a few simple swords and daggers, as well as a few spearheads. There weren¡¯t many, but a handful of metal weapons and tools were still in the collection of items that would be sold by Komer this morning. Other than that, Eisen also created some smaller items out of cloth and leather like purses, gloves or scarves. But the majority of items that Eisen has been working on were different mana crystals with a multitude of small enchantments. Nothing major, just things that could make things easier from day to day. For example, he made a few more self-filling mana crystal cups, small spinner toys for children that propelled themselves with wind, some me-enchanted crystals that have been shaped to more easily and controlled start fires, as well as enchanted crystals that help in putting out fires easily. But those weren¡¯t all. Eisen was basically making any enchantment that he coulde up with that might be useful in day to day life. And since, ording to Bree, they didn¡¯t need a sales license to simply sell a few items off the street for a day. If they wanted to open a proper stall to stay there for a while or rent or buy a shop, then they would need one, but things like day-stalls were amon urance basically everywhere. So, Eisen parked the carriage by the side of the marketce, in front of which Komer quicklyid down a nket, carefully arranging the different items and cing small signs in front of them to tell people who were interested what each item was and how much it would cost. Komer turned around to look at Eisen nervously, but the old man simply ced his hand on his shoulder and smiled. "Don¡¯t worry. If you can convince people to buy horrible items, you can do the same with items that are actually good." "If you say so..." Komer muttered out and closed his eyes, breathing out heavily before standing up, both Caria and Bree prepared to help out and lure in more customers, while Eisen was watching from the side to let Komer do his own thing. And soon enough, people started taking a look at what was for sale, and most of them were immediately impressed. Even though they were just rank 2 and 3 items, so were most items that were freely for sale, as many items started getting stat requirements from rank 3 on. The only reason this wasn¡¯t the case for Eisen¡¯s creations was that they weren¡¯t ¡¯true¡¯ rank 3 items, and they achieved this rank only through Eisen breaking the limit of his skill. Once his crafting skills reached rank 3 as well, his items would probably gain requirements as well. So of course people were happy that they could use all of these items without trouble, and especially kids were interested in the high-quality toys that were made with the use of different enchantments, and their parents thougth the same. Not only would they just be fun to y around with, but at the same time, they would allow the children to be interested in magic and through repeated use of magic to activate the toys, would be able to train their mana maniption slowly. And every parent would like their child to know magic! If they chose a magic-rted crafting upation, they would be able to learn quite a lot of money, since magic items were always more expensive than regr items, and if they chose a magic-rtedbat upation, they wouldn¡¯t need to stand at the front-line and instead be a supporter standing in the back, which was quite obviously far less dangerous. But these toys weren¡¯t the only items people were interested in, but after a while, others got interested in what was going on at that crowd, and a few rookie adventurers chose to buy some of the daggers, as they were high-quality, but still rtively cheappared to what you could buy at most shops around the town. Actually, all kinds of people chose to take a look at what was being sold. Other merchants, adventurers, crafters, and then atst even a familiar young woman carrying a guitar and multiple canvases over her back, with one incredible painting that she was carrying in front of herself. Komer was currently yelling something out to attract more people, and it seemed to have worked on the young woman. While she was walking up to the crowd to take a look, Eisen walked up to her, tapping her shoulder to get her attention. "Evalia? Is that you?" He asked, and the young woman immediately turned around. "Huh? Who¡¯s askin¡¯?" She eximed, looking up the moment that she turned to properly face the man standing in front of her. When she realized who was talking to her, her mouth turned up in a grin and she ced her hand onto her hip. "Oh would¡¯cha take a look at that! Long time no see, how¡¯ve ya been?" With a loud voice, Evalia greeted Eisen while smiling brightly. "I¡¯m alright. Just traveling a lottely. What about you?" Eisen asked with a smile and pointed to the side where the two of them could talk without worrying about standing in the way of potential customers. "I¡¯ve been doin¡¯ just fine. Been travelin¡¯ around, same as you. So what¡¯re ya doin¡¯ here?" Evalia asked, and Eisen, and he chuckled and pointed at the crowd. "I made the items being sold there. The kid selling them is an omega, and I¡¯ve been trying to turn him around from doing, well, not so great things. The pink-haired girl standing there is apanion of mine, and the other small girl there is a Myconid, a monster that I tamed. I can introduce them to youter." "Oh, so you¡¯re with those guys then, huh? Yeah, introduce me! And then let¡¯s talk about how everythin¡¯s been workin¡¯ out for you in thest while!" "Definitely, kid. You really are quite talented, huh? As expected of a famous artist." Eisenughed heartily while looking at the painting that Evalia was holding, and the young woman looked at him with surprise. "So ya really did know! Thanks for not makin¡¯ a big deal outta it, then." "Of course I know, my grandkids are a huge fan of your movies and music!" With a chuckle, Eisenughed lowly before looking at the guitar on Evalia¡¯s back. "Your guitar seems kind of beat up. Did you think about getting a new one?" Evalia nodded and handed Eisen the painting she was holding for a second so that she could grab the Guitar from her back, and then showed it to the old man in front of her while taking the painting back. "Yeah, it ain¡¯t in great shape. Didn¡¯t have time to get to a music shop yet." Eisen scratched his beard and frowned gently with a smile on his lips. "How about I make you a new one then?" Chapter 100 Magic Guitar "You wanna make me a new guitar?" Evalia asked surprised, and Eisen nodded with a smile. "Yeah, sure. I should have all of the materials in the carriage, and it¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve really worked on an instrument, so I¡¯d like to try it again. Ah, you¡¯ll have to help me make the string though. I don¡¯t really know how thick or strong they each need to be." "That would be great! I¡¯m sure what you can make is much better than anythin¡¯ I can buy. We both know why you¡¯re here, after all." Evalia chuckled and Eisen smiled back as he moved over to the carriage and opened the door. "Do you want toe inside? I can start working on the Guitar, and once Komer is done for today, I¡¯ll introduce you to everyone. Except if you¡¯re busy, we can meet againter if that¡¯s the case." "Oh no, I don¡¯t have anythin¡¯ to do! Just wanted to see if I can get this paintin¡¯ sold for some money." Evalia exined as she followed Eisen inside, immediately seeing a few more creatures. First, apletely golden wolf sleeping on the ground, and directly next to it were six bees. Noticing that Evalia was staring, Eisenughed loudly. "The wolf is Aulu, she¡¯s an automaton. And the Bees are tamed, so don¡¯t worry." "Oh, so you¡¯re the one that those guards were talkin¡¯ about!" Evaliaughed, but the old man simply frowned. "When I was on my way out to paint this, I heard some guards talkin¡¯ about bees someone brought in. Guess they were talkin¡¯ about you, weren¡¯t they?" Eisen chuckled lowly and nodded, extending his hand before Melissa flew to stick onto his arm. "Yeah, some rookie Guard didn¡¯t want to let me bring them into the town at first. But his senior let us through after all. Anyway, could I see that guitar for a second? I¡¯d like to use it as reference." Eisen exined, and Evalia handed the instrument to him, before he pulled down the top of his worktable from the wall together with arge sheet of paper and square, thin nksrge enough to cut the bases of the guitar out of. And that was really simple, since Eisen basically just had to trace the shape of the guitar that Evalia already had. But while Eisen was doing this, he had an idea that might actually be quite fun to y around with. "Evalia, do you want a ssic oustic guitar, or do you want something in the style of an electric guitar?" Eisen asked the young star, and she opened her eyes wide in surprise. "An electric guitar? How¡¯re you nnin¡¯ on doing that? But yeah, I guesstely I¡¯ve been enjoyin¡¯ ying those more." Evalia exined, and she simply told the truth. Of course an oustic guitar was nice and ssic, and you could do so many amazing things with them, but electric guitars were more her thing for the past few months, ever since her music turned toward giving off a rock-vibe. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ve got an idea." Eisen chuckled, immediately putting away the thin nks and instead grabbing a big chunk of wood that Eisen gathered when testing out his axe on his way to Ornier. Immediately, he began carving away at it once he activated all of the skills that would push his crafting further, meaning his two racial skills, his Crafting Space skill, and his me of the Earth transformation on his hands. And as if they were never there in the first ce, Eisen quickly carved away chunk after chunk of the block of wood until he had a t cuboid, out of which he then carved the body. Most of it was still taken from the shape of Evalia¡¯s oustic guitar, just with that round chunk taken out of the corner that you would often see in electric guitars. Next, Eisen started on the fretboard and neck of the guitar. Since he only had a rough idea of the spacing between each fret, he had Evalia quickly help by sketching down what it would need to be in the case of this guitar. Eisen cut small fret slots into the board, and then started the neck itself, basically just a nk with a rounded bottom. The head wasn¡¯t reallyplicated either, as it was simply a rough triangr shape with small holes meant for the tuning wheels. Eisen glued the fretboard to the neck of the guitar and pushed in the frets that were recycled from Evalia¡¯s old guitar. They were basically the only part of her old guitar that you could still use, and it would take quite a while to get nickel silver, which funnily doesn¡¯t even contain an ounce of silver, the material that frets were usually made of. Since it was easy to set the frets in properly with transmutation, Eisen managed to finish this part quite easily. Now, Eisen only needed to attach the neck to the body, which was quite easily done as well since Eisen could simply permanently connect them using transmutation instead of needing to use screws or something simr. This made everything look somewhat neater already. After that, Eisen cut a small block out of the wood, where the other end of the strings wouldter be attached to where Eisen would ce some enchanted mana crystalster to receive the signal from the strings, as well as a small circle, where a mana crystal would then act as something like a speaker, out of the solid wood body. Before continuing, the surface of the wooden guitar was sanded properly to be as smooth as possible and then finished with the solution that Eisen had been using constantly up until now Next, Eisen actually grabbed mana crystals and began shaping them into six small cubes as well as one circr te. Eisen first, one after another, began to carve the enchantments into the six cubes that would take the signal from the strings that would be attachedter and then transfer it over to the speaker that would be installedter. On the front surface of the circr te, Eisen carved the enchantment that was needed in order to practically turn it into a speaker. There was nothing special about it, since it was basically like any me enchantment, as it would simply pour out something as specified by something put into it. Eisen also added a function where the volume would change depending on how much mana was put into it, and already figured out a few ways that would make this a quite easily changed setting. First, Eisen added a mana crystal battery behind the sound receivers that the string would be connected to so that they would continue functioning, and then hid it behind the wood again so that it couldn¡¯t even be removed. After all, there was no need for that. But directly behind the mana crystal speaker, Eisen ced a small slot where Evalia couldter ce different mana crystal batteries, each with a different output level, which would allow for the volume to be louder in return for the battery draining more quickly. But enchantments like this were quite mana efficient anyway, so it wouldn¡¯t be a problem in the long run. After this, Eisen grabbed some of his magic string and sat down together with Evalia while she instructed him on how thick and strong the string needed to be, which he changed by simply intertwining it with itself and using his transmutation to make it harder. In the end, Eisen made six different thicknesses of string, about three times more than he would need for the guitar right now so that Evalia had some kind of recement in case they ended up snapping. So then, he only needed to attach the string from each receiver to the right tuner, and then the whole thing was finished. And while Evalia was filling up the batteries, Eisen also quickly shaped a small mana crystal pick, simply because it looked pretty cool as a material, and it might change something while Evalia was ying if she would be able to easily infuse a pick with mana. But since it took only a few seconds to finish a small pick with Eisen¡¯s transmutation, he waited for Evalia to finish loading up one of the mana crystal batteries. Once she was done, Eisen simply showed her how to put the crystal into the guitar and make sure that it stayed there without identally falling out while Evalia was moving. Excitedly, the musician grabbed the pick that Eisen prepared for her and slowly began tuning the guitar, and Eisen was incredibly happy to see that everything worked without a w on his first time trying these enchantments. Once the guitar was properly tuned, only then was Eisen able to fully ept this guitar as finished, in response to which Eisen quickly carved his symbol into the guitar¡¯s body after confirming with Evalia that she was fine with it. And it seemed like the game recognized the guitar to be finished now as well. [Magic Guitar] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A Guitar whose sound is powered through magic that has been created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It utilizes multiple enchantments in order to create sound. The volume can be changed through using different Mana Crystal Batteries. [Effect] + 10 CHA, +5 INT, +5 WIS [For creating an Overwhelming quality item, you gain +1 INT] Eisen smiled as he looked through the notifications that popped up in front of him and waved them away, before looking at Evalia with excitement in his eyes, waiting for her to actually y it to test out how well it worked. But first, she stared at Eisen after being impressed at this product. "Wow, this is amazin¡¯! I don¡¯t have anything to give to you, though... Ah, wait! Would¡¯cha be alright with this painting? It increases your mana regeneration if you¡¯re around it!" Evalia exined, holding forward the painting that she put down onto the ground, and Eisen took a look at it with a smile before a notification popped up to confirm what Evalia just exined. [Mana Regeneration +10% for 24 Hours] "This is absolutely amazing, Evalia, thank you! I¡¯ll hang it up in hereter, then. Now, could I make another request to you?" "Oh, of course!" Evalia answered happily with a grin on her face while staring down at her new guitar. "Would you mind ying a little song outside? As a craftsman, I want to see what I created being used, and it might help out with business out there as well." Eisen smiled, and Evalia grinned before nodding. "Don¡¯t you worry about it for a second, I was nnin¡¯ on doing that anyway! Although I have another question for you before then. What was that thingy you did with your hands that made them look all weird?" Evalia asked, and Eisen was confused what she meant for a second, but soon enough managed to figure out what she could mean, activating his me of the Earth Transformation on hs hand to confirm. "Oh, do you mean this?" Immediately, Evalia nodded, and Eisen quickly exined. "Ah, well, do you have the Mana Maniption skill? And if so, did you bring it to Rank 2 yet?" "Yes I did! Was that somethin¡¯ with your Element, then?" She asked while holding her palm upward and pouring out a little bit of mana that she then infused with her ¡¯Colors of Beauty¡¯ element, turning it into a bright pink paint that then turned to green, then blue, and then red, continuosly changing its color. Eisen was watching the progress of this, and noticed that the air was slightly shifting first before the element appeared, which was a sign for Evalia infusing her mana outside of her body. "Yes, exactly. Seems like you didn¡¯t figure out how to infuse your mana with your element in your body yet, then. It¡¯s quite simple, really. Youpress your mana into a spot in your body, and then control your element tobine with your mana at that spot. What I did for this transformation was concentrate my mana everywhere in my hand and then infused it with my element, after which it changed into this." Eisen exined, and Evalia listened curiously, immediately trying this out. After a short while, Eisen noticed that Evalia¡¯s skin color on her hand was slowly changing toward purple, and Evalia opened her eyes widely in response. Immediately, she grabbed her new guitar and watched as its color slowly changed in response to Evalia¡¯s control. "Well then, this is quite amazin¡¯, isn¡¯t it?" Sheughed softly, and then nodded at Eisen. "Thanks for that! Let¡¯s see if this has any effect while yin¡¯ then!" Evalia said with a smirk before stepping out of the carriage, eager to y a short song. Chapter 101 Concer Evalia stepped onto the ground outside the carriage with her new guitar in her hands, ready to y a song for the people outside. While she was doing so, the colors on her arms and the guitar were changing, and instead of being simply monotonous, patterns were forming all over it and slowly shifting around. As she stood in front of the carriage, next to Eisen¡¯spanions, she slowly began ying her guitar slowly, the sounds immediately reverberating through the air. This obviously took the attention of everyone that was there, and Komer stared at the young woman without hesitation. At first it seemed like he wanted toin, but soon enough he realized who he was looking at and just sat there on the nket utterly stunned as Evalia began to sing together with the music she was ying on her guitar. Her song carried through the whole za, enchanting every single person there and drawing in even the guards that were stationed around the area. But that wasn¡¯t all. Probably through Evalia using transformation on her Guitar as well while she was ying, it seemed like all the colors touched by her music became more vibrant, and the mood of everyone that listened rose until basically everyone was enjoying Evalia¡¯s performance, cheering her on more and more with every passing second. After thirty whole minutes, Evalia finished her performance and watched as the huge crowd around her cheered louder and louder. Evalia smiled and ced her fist on her hip, grinning happily as she looked around, happily speaking to the crowd. "How¡¯s it going, everyone? The name¡¯s Evalia, tell that to everyone y¡¯all know." The people in the crowd began talking amongst themselves, and some of them began asking questions. Most of them were about where she suddenly came from and who she was, and there were even a few lonely guys asking to marry her, but Evalia was only waiting for one question, for which she has been showing her Guitar and Eisen¡¯s sigil on it openly, trying to get people to pay attention to it. "Where did you get that guitar?" A young girl, seemingly an aspiring musician or bard herself, asked excitedly as she stared at the instrument that Evalia was holding. With a grin on her face, Evalia looked over to Komer and winked at him, making his heart skip a beat. "Well, how funny you may ask! You may not be able to get a hold of a guitar such as mine, but y¡¯all can be sure you can find other amazin¡¯ items made by the same craftsman right next to me. Komer, right? You want to say something as well?" Evalia asked with a smile, and the young man jumped up immediately where he was sitting and began stuttering at the crowd that waspletely staring at him. "Hello there! Please enjoy all of these great items that you can only find through my... erm..." Komer suddenly became nervous, since he actually didn¡¯t decide on a name for his Merchant Company yet. He managed to get his top choices reserved, but in the end, he didn¡¯t choose yet since it usually would have taken a while to get enough attention to announce it. But right now, thanks to Evalia, he managed to skip right toward that step! Now he only needed to decide on what to call hispany. There was one name that he liked the most, but he was feeling kind of embarrassed and was just generally unsure if he should use it, since it seemed kind of childish to him. It was the name of thepany that he made up as a child, and that he and his childhood friends wanted to found together. He sighed loudly and then simply went through with it in the end. "Through my ¡¯Starlight Company¡¯! We currently am the only one that has ess to this amazing craftsman¡¯s items!" Basically instantly, everyone in the crowd was trying to get to the front in order to be able to buy any one of the items that were on disy. And within only an hour, all of the items were sold, and Komer was speechlessly standing on the empty nket, staring down at his feet in disbelief, then looked over to those two amazing people talking by the side of the carriage after everything cleared up. Eisen and Evalia. First, Komer met this amazing old man that seemed to be able to make anything with his two hands, and now, there was this beautiful woman that basically every man in the world wanted to meet at least once, and who was able to make sure every single item that he didn¡¯t even hope to sell by the end of the day was sold before noon! Her song literally changed the world around everyone, so how could he not be amazed. Nervously, Komer walked up to those two and faced toward Evalia. "Erm, thank you for helping out with all of that before. You were amazing out there... But I just have to ask... Are you an Original like Eisen?" Evalia grinned and nodded as she leaned against the carriage. "It was no problem at all there, honey. Just repayin¡¯ a favor! And yep, I¡¯m an Original just like him, and it seems like you¡¯ve realized who I am as well." "Y-Yeah! You¡¯re Nat-" Before Komer was even able to finish the word he was about to say, Eisen very lightly punched his shoulder and interrupted him. "Komer, I know who you¡¯re thinking about, and yes, you¡¯re right. But the person in front of you is Evalia." He exined with a smile, and Komer nodded with a loud sigh. "Y-Yeah, sorry about that. I¡¯m just a huge fan, really!" Komerughed lowly, and Evalia chuckled in response. "Oh honey, ain¡¯t it a bit embarrassin¡¯ saying that to someone the same age as you?" She asked while grinning while Komer¡¯s face flushed a deep red. "S-Sorry about that..." "I¡¯m just kidding, don¡¯t worry about it! But we¡¯re the same age anyway, so just treat me like it." Whileughing loudly, Evalia looked over toward Eisen while Komer was nodding furiously. "And thanks for that tip with the transformation! That helped out a bunch!" Eisen smiled and simply nodded in response. "Definitely. I didn¡¯t expect something like that to happen, to be honest. And I¡¯m d that everything worked out with the Guitar in the end. The sound quality is way better than I thought." "Well, you made it with magic, so it¡¯s gotta be amazin¡¯!" While the three yers were talking amongst themselves, Bree walked up to them utterly confused, while Caria simply wanted to get back to Eisen andtched onto his hand. While the old man picked up the young Myconid girl, the Fey-Kin began to talk, introducing herself to Evalia. "Erm, hello! I¡¯m Bree, nice to meet you! You were amazing just now! And... did you just say you¡¯re an Original like Eisen?" She asked with her eyes glittering brightly, and Evalia nodded with a smile as she leaned downward. "Yup, you got that right lil¡¯ girl. I¡¯m an Original just like Eisen!" She said with a voice one may use when talking to young children, since Evalia obviously couldn¡¯t know that Bree was around 25 years old. And since Bree was staring at Evalia while growing more and more petrified out of excitement. "Everyone, let¡¯s get inside of the carriage so we can talk about some stuff that people out here shouldn¡¯t really know about." Eisenughed and opened the door leading to the back of the carriage, sitting down on the ground under the opening to the front while the queen bee Melissa immediately attached to his arm again and Caria sat down on hisp. Once everybody was inside and took a seat, Eisen began to talk again. "So, Evalia. First off, Bree is older than you, despite what she looks like. She¡¯s a Fey-Kin, so she¡¯s half Fairy. And the reason why Bree is freaking out like this is because she just met a third person that peaked. We already met Jyuuk before." But Evalia simply tilted her head to the side, not knowing what Eisen was talking about. Surprised that she didn¡¯t know about it, Eisen chuckled before starting to exin in a way that wouldn¡¯t reveal that this was a game to Bree. Evalia¡¯s expression kept changing from being confused, over to being surprised and then to being excited before bing confused again, and this cycle basically continued until Eisen exined everything that he knew about the five that peaked and their background in this world to Evalia. "And there seem to be small legends about us five as well. For example, people talk about me as the one that led the Dwarven race to being a race of craftsmen, and Bree told me a story about the charisma stat before that seems to be about you. It¡¯s about a woman with a charisma stat so high that she was able to basically talk a whole country into doing what she wanted." Eisen exined, and both Evalia and Komer listened intensely. "But it¡¯s not all just fun. We really need to be careful, since there seems to be some kind of crazy fanatical church that basically sees us as their gods, and since the Omegas like Komer were created through our stolen experience, they might be in trouble sooner orter as well." "Huh, so that¡¯s what¡¯s goin¡¯ on then. Well, definitely good to know!" Evalia chuckled and leaned back, slowly patting Aulu as the wolf Automaton leaned up to her while basically half asleep. And before they could continue their conversation, Eisen saw a notification pop up in front of his face. [Jyuuk wants to initiate a private conversation. ept?] Surprised, Eisen read through this short notification that he didn¡¯t recognize directly and thought the words ¡¯Yes¡¯, as it would be weird for him to say this out loud. But that wouldn¡¯t have mattered either way, since something unexpected happened next. [epted Private conversation. Your In-Game body will fall asleep in 10 seconds and you will be transferred to the Private Conversation Space] "Huh?" Eisen muttered out surprised, and before he could even manage toe up with an exnation for him suddenly falling asleep in a few seconds he was transferred, only leaving the group with, "Seems like I¡¯m about to fall asleep..." And as such, his sight changed immediately and abruptly to ck and then over to pure white, while he was standing in that space. And in front of him, Jyuuk appeared quite suddenly as well. "Jyuuk? What¡¯s going on? Where are we?" Eisen asked confused, and Jyuuk sighed out loudly. "There seem to be two different types of chats. Regr text chat, and then this ¡¯Private conversation¡¯. I was curious when this option popped up, so I just selected it without thinking about it, sorry. But anyway, I wanted to tell you something. Or rather, ask you something." Jyuuk exined while walking over to Eisen to shake his hand and greet him, while Eisen looked at him with surprise. "Oh, I see. Don¡¯t worry about it, it¡¯s fine, really. And what is it that you want to ask me?" "Well... I want to tell you that I managed to reach level 100 after finishing my Level-Up quest, and I want to ask you to do so quite soon as well. I¡¯m already trying to find the other Originals to talk to them about it as well." Jyuuk exined, but Eisen didn¡¯t really understand why Jyuuk was asking him for this. Was there something amazing that was unlocked at Level 100? "You don¡¯t need to worry about finding Evalia, at least, because I¡¯m with her in Ornier right now. Bute on, tell me why you need me to reach level 100!" Eisen asked curiously, and was both surprised and confused at Jyuuk¡¯s answer. "Well, that saves time then. Anyway, the reason that I want you to reach level 100 is simple. I want to found a guild, and I want you to be the Guildmaster." Chapter 102 Private Conversation "A Guild? Aren¡¯t those things like the Adventurer¡¯s Guild? I didn¡¯t know we can found those ourselves." Eisen muttered as he began scratching his beard, and Jyuuk nodded with a light smile. "Yes, there are two different types of Guilds. System Guilds that are provided by the game already, or rather in the game-story that are founded by organizations, and Personal Guilds that can be founded by people once they reach Level 100. You can join as many system Guilds as you want, but you can only join a single Personal Guild." The Monkey-Beastperson exined while Eisen listened curiously. "Huh, I see. And you want me to reach Level 100 so that I can found a guild like that? Can¡¯t you do that yourself?" "I could, yes, but... I would like you to be the Guildmaster. If we found a guild with all the originals as founding members, we need someone that we can all trust, and let¡¯s be honest, from what I could see back during the first meeting of the originals you might be the only one that all of us can get along with, not to mention that you are obviously the most experienced original. If the others want to be part of the guild as well, I¡¯m sure they would want you to be the Guildmaster as well." Eisen looked at Jyuuk¡¯s serious expression for a second before sighing loudly. "Hmm, I¡¯m going to search up on what Guilds are in other games then. It¡¯s going to take a while until I reach Level 100 anyway. But I¡¯ll consider it. I can¡¯t honestly say for sure that I will be the Guildmaster, but I will honestly think about it. If you find out anything more about what it requires to make a Guild, let me know." Eisen told Jyuuk, who replied with a nod. And before Jyuuk could continue speaking, Eisen chose to ask Jyuuk, "Why do you even want a Guild in the first ce? Is there anything special we can gain through it?" The Monkey-Beastperson nodded before answering. "Yes, definitely. The biggest thing it allows us to do is to construct a town. And that will haverge benefits to all of us. We will all have a ce toe back to and keep many of our things, and we will have space to do whatever we want. You could construct arge workshop, and I would be able to have a farm where I can raise different animals and monsters. And if it brings more and more people to town, it will be a good way to make money, if we should ever need it." Eisen listened to Jyuuk¡¯s exnation and slowly nodded. That would probably really be quite useful. After all, Eisen had been thinking about building a house somewhere anyway, and building a small town around it did definitely sound interesting to him. Seeing that Eisen grew somewhat more interested in guilds now as well, Jyuuk continued his exnation. "Usually, what housing alone gives you in many games is content that you can¡¯t get in any other way, meaning for example that if we build a town, there might be some way to have specialized buildings that can give us things that would usually be hard to acquire, or that can give us special benefits. I can¡¯t say for sure, but that¡¯s what I¡¯m somewhat hoping for." Jyuuk exined, and Eisen smile grew stronger. "I see, it might be worth a try at the very least. Let¡¯s try that out then." With an excited smile, Jyuuk nodded, but ended up sighing loudly. "Thanks! It really means a lot that you consider this. But do you have any ideas on where I might find Brody or Xenia? I¡¯m not entirely sure where to look." For a short while, Eisen began to think about it, but could onlye up with a few rough ideas. "Well, I was told about some costal magic town, so Xenia might be there somewhere, or at least you might be able to find a clue there. And as for Brody... I guess you can only really look for clues for him. But I¡¯m sure Demon-Orc Halflings are quite rare, so if anyone saw him, they should remember him." Eisen suggested while continuing to scratch his beard slowly, and Jyuuk nodded. "That¡¯s a pretty good idea, thank you. Actually, I¡¯ve already started moving on toward the wastnds, where both Demons and Orcs live. There is supposed to be some kind of necromancer there who I may be able to learn more about it from. Do you have any ns on going to that Magic town?" "Yeah, I will probably make my way there after finishing my business in Ornier. There¡¯s supposed to be a Dragon whose test I can take somewhere there." The old man exined before Jyuuk crossed his arms. "I see, then can I leave looking for Xenia to you? If I meet Brody, I¡¯ll tell you, and then we can all arrange a joint meeting ce somewhere." "Perfect, let¡¯s do that. I¡¯ll tell Evalia about it as well. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?" "Not really, no. Then we¡¯ll talk sometime else again, Eisen!" Eisenughed lightly and nodded, looking at the small ¡¯End Conversation¡¯ button in the corner of his eye, extending his hand to reach for it. "See you, Jyuuk!" He said before both of them ended the conversation and Eisen found himself back in the carriage, with the group that he had left behind a few minutes ago staring at him in worry and confusion. Eisen sat up properly and looked at them with a wry smile. "Sorry about that just now. I was talking to Jyuuk." He exined, and Bree, Komer and Evalia were all looking at him confused, so Eisen knew he had to exin. "Ah, it¡¯s a thing that peaked people seem to be able to do. If we¡¯ve met each other before and acknowledge each other as friends, we can either simply talk over long distances, or our minds can meet in some other space so that we can talk there face to face. Omegas like Komer can probably do that as well." Eisen exined, and soon enough both Komer and Evalia managed to figure out that this was some kind of chat function and calmed down. For a second, they considered whether or not Eisen simply had to abruptly log off, but since his reaction was too weird for that, the both of them were still quite worried. And now, only Bree was still concerned, although she managed to calm herself down somewhat as well. "You really scared us there, Eisen... please warn us properly before something like this happens again..." She said while sighing out loudly, and Eisen couldn¡¯t do anything but smile wrily. "Sorry, Bree. I will try to do that from now on. Anyway, a few things came up, and Jyuuk asked me to reach Level 100 so that I can found a guild. Are there any good hunting grounds around?" Eisen asked Bree, and she tilted her head in slight confusion. "Yeah, there are a few dungeons around Ornier. They are Rank 2, 3, 4 and 5. That¡¯s why this town was built here, actually, and why there are so many adventurers here. You can basically level up continuosly until around level 200 here if you wanted to. But why does Jyuuk want you to found a Guild?" She asked surprised. Chuckling lowly, Eisen looked over at Evalia. "Jyuuk wants all of us that peaked toe together somewhere and build a town, and Jyuuk wants me to reach Level 100 so I can be the Guildmaster." Eisen exined, and Bree, Komer and Evalia all looked at each other and then nodded. "Well, it makes sense for you to be a Guildmaster. I can see it, to be honest." Komer eximed, and Bree nodded in response. "Yeah, definitely~! People can trust you, so you¡¯re perfect for the position!" "I can only agree with these two as well, Eisen. And y¡¯all can be sure that I would like to build a town as well! So how long do you need till you get to level 100?" Evalia asked, crossing her legs as she sat down on the bed-bench, and Eisen quickly opened his status. "I still need 28 levels, and once I¡¯m level 99 then, I will need toplete a quest that¡¯s apparently quite hard for Originals, and it took Jyuuk a while to finish it. But first I need to get my level up anyway, so I shouldn¡¯t worry about it yet." "Should we move on to the Dungeons soon then?" Bree suggested, but Eisen shook his head. "Not yet. Soon, but first I have some business to take care of. After that we can take our time with everything." Eisen stood up and slightly stretched, before making his way through the door of the carriage, grabbing his backpack and cing a few different items in there, andmanding Melissa¡¯s soldiers to fly inside as well so that they wouldn¡¯t cause some uproar, while Melissa herself grabbed onto Eisen¡¯s shoulder and Caria grasped his hand. "I¡¯m going to see what I can find out at the adventurer¡¯s guild now. Bree, can you take care of the carriage and bring it to a stable, and maybe get us a room at an inn for a few days in advance? You mentioned that you wanted to do something by yourself here as well, so go ahead and do that while I¡¯m away. Komer, you should go to the Merchant¡¯s Guild and get that Company name registered, and see if all those sales did anything for your guild rank today." Just before he was about to leave, Eisen told his twopanions what he thought they should do for now, and then once more thought of a nice idea. "How about the four of us meet at a Bar in the evening? I heard the ¡¯Drowned Sparrow¡¯ is pretty good." Eisen asked, and both Bree and Komer nodded immediately, while Evalia thought about it for a bit, but ended up agreeing as well. "Sure, I don¡¯t have much to do here anyway. Just gonna go out and keep painting or ying my new guitar for a while then!" The human girl Evalia chuckled and grabbed her things before following Eisen outside, and all of them went their separate ways for now. Bree drove off with the carriage, Komer made his way to the nearby Merchant¡¯s Guild, Evalia chose to leave town again to continue painting, and Eisen made his way over to the Adventurer¡¯s Guild in order to find information about the group of adventurers that shattered the pendant that Kirisho the Mist-Spirit was trapped in so that he would be able to find the shards of just that pendant. It took a little while to find the building, but once he did, he simply asked himself how he could have a hard time finding it, as it was a huge building with immense levels of noise streaming outside. The old man stepped through the door and was practically assaulted by the strong smell of alcohol, despite it being not long after noon. While the adventurer¡¯s guild in Melroe was quite small and didn¡¯t have anything special inside, this one seemed to have a small restaurant and a bar, and although its main purpose was still supposed to be guild-business, most here seemed to be here in order to get drunk. Trying to ignore the stares that he, Caria and Melissa received on his way in, Eisen walked through the crowd of people seated all over the ce and made his way toward one of the counters with a guild emplyee sitting behind it. Luckily there wasn¡¯t a line, so he could get to business immediately. While the employee was staring at Eisen¡¯s tamed monsters in surprise, Eisen pulled out the Guild Tag that was found in Ailren¡¯s cave and ced it with its mana signature upward onto the counter. "Good morning, young miss. I would like to find the owner of this Tag." Chapter 103 Fear The Guild employee tilted her head to the side a slight bit and looked at the small iron tag, then looked back up at the old man standing in front of her. "I¡¯m sorry, Sir, I¡¯m afraid I am not allowed to simply hand such information over to you. First, are you part of the Guild yourself?" She asked, and Eisen nodded before handing her his y tag. "I only joined recently, so my rank is not all that high yet, but I n on raising it a bit higher soon." Eisen exined, and the guild employee took a look, taking both the iron tag as well as Eisen¡¯s y tag in order to scan them to see if they are real. After a short while, she returned and handed the y tag back to him. "Depending on the circumstances, we may be able to tell you how to contact the owner of this Iron tag. Why are you looking for them?" Eisen sighed loudly and grabbed the small leather-bound book that he found in his pocket when first ying the game once more, in order to continue using the story that he used in the Adventurer¡¯s Guild back in Melroe. "You see, I found this Diary together with that tag. There wasn¡¯t any personal information inside that would allow me to find the owner, but nheless it seemed quite important to the owner judging from the contents. But those contents aren¡¯t something that everyone should see, as they are quite personal, so I would prefer to be able to bring it back to the owner myself." The Employee opened her eyes slightly wider in surprise, and then nodded slowly. "I see. In such a situation, it should be fine, but try to keep it low-profile, okay? The owner of this tag is John Banner, and he should be at his Inn, the Silent Night, right now. He is quite keen on his privacy, and barely anyone knows anything about him, so he should definitely appreciate you bringing such an item back to him." She exined, handing over the Iron tag to Eisen again so that he may give it back to the original owner as well. "Thank you very much, young miss. I¡¯m sure that dear John will appreciate this gesture of yours as well." Eisen said with a smile, scratching his beard as he turned around with a smile and left the Guild building with Melissa and Caria, receiving as many unweing stares on his way out as he had on his way in. But Eisen simply ignored this and made his way toward a nearby alley, hiding behind a small wall there while changing into his suit for what was toe. He then walked to the Silent Night Inn, where John was supposed to be staying. It seemed to be quite a long way away from the center of town in a rather run-down areapared to the rest of the town, although it wasn¡¯t so bad as to call it the slums. Eisen stepped through the front door of the Inn and walked up to the counter, trying to think of a good way to approach this, until he managed toe up with something that should work quite well. He stepped up in front of thedy at the counter and smiled brightly, scratching his beard with his eyes closed. "Good day. I¡¯m looking for my grandson, John Banner. I heard he¡¯s in this Inn right now." The woman at the counter squinted her eyes before nodding. "Yeah, he¡¯s here, although I wasn¡¯t aware that his grandfather was as well." "Haha, I can¡¯t me you. Young John was never one to talk much about these things. I had to ask around to find out where he was staying as well." Eisen chuckled, and the woman smiled back at him. "He really just stays in his room up there most days. Don¡¯t even know how he¡¯s making a living anymore, to be honest, so I can see what you mean. Usually I shouldn¡¯t tell you, but since you¡¯re family, it should be fine. He¡¯s in room 12. Try knocking, if he doesn¡¯t open, I won¡¯t be able to do anything for you either. I can just ry a message if that happens." "No, no, it¡¯s fine. I¡¯m sure once he hears this old man¡¯s voice, he¡¯ll open up." Eisenughed and thanked the woman, making his way through the corridor and turning the corner toward the room that the man Eisenw as looking for was staying at. He was actually quite surprised that this worked out so easily, although this may partially be simply because of his charisma stat. At first he thought that it wouldn¡¯t do much at only 21, since 10 was probably the base for everyone despite them not being able to see the stat in their status, but maybe the base for charisma was actually 0 instead? In that case, 21 charisma may make quite a difference. Either way, it was now time to face John Banner, one of the men responsible for breaking Kirisho¡¯s amulet and leaving her in the state she was in now. Despite the fact that she was technically somehow living, she was at the same time basically nonexistent. A version of her was there, sure, as disyed through the mist constantly filling out therge hall in the front of Ailren¡¯s cave, so her body was technically there. But that didn¡¯t mean that she really was. Her body was empty, just sitting there and doing nothing. Just existing. But her mind was only there in fractions, her true self only bing clear every once in a while for a few moments before returning to nothing. That was not a sight that was fun to look at, no matter if it was within the game, or in real life. Trying not to think about this for now, Eisen stepped up in front of the door of room 12 and tried to open it up quitely, but it seemed to be locked. Eisen looked left and right to make sure nobody was around and then squatted down onto the ground while taking off his backpack and opening it up. Aftermanding the Bee soldiers hiding inside of it toe out for a second, Eisen grabbed his lock picking tools and then told the soldiers to hide in the backpack again. He looked into the lock and figured out its basicyout. Compared to the lock that Eisen found in the Goblin town a while back, this one was considerably more advanced, but it still wasn¡¯t incrediblyplicated, so Eisen could quite easily open it up without much work and was pretty quiet while he was doing so. Slowly, Eisen opened up the door and stepped through while making as little noise as possible, and noticed a man lying on the single bed in the corner of the room, asleep. He seemed to be only wearing his underwear, and all of his equipment was on the table next to the bed. Eisen looked down at Caria as he got a small idea on how to make sure this would go smoothly, slowly stepping up to the bed. The old man poured soil from his me of the Earth Element onto the ground under the bed and spread arge number of nuts all over said soil. He then whispered what Caria was supposed to do to her before she quickly ran over to the bed while Eisen closed the door behind himself, locking it with the keyying on the table with John¡¯s equipment. After turning around, Eisen saw that Caria¡¯s nt control worked out and that thick roots were growing upward onto the bed, slinging themselves around the body of the man sleeping in it. However, John soon woke up and tried to scream out, but couldn¡¯t as Eisen stuffed a piece of cloth into his mouth while pulling a chair next to the bed and sitting down on it. "Now then, John. Nice to finally meet you. I doubt you know why I¡¯m here, but quite a while ago, you and some others entered a cave near the Dwarven Town Melroe filled with mountains of treasure. Inside, you found a Mist Spirit bound to an amulet. That was you, right?" Eisen asked, cutting to the point as quickly as he could so that he wouldn¡¯t punch John. This was just a topic that absolutely infuriated Eisen, making his heart ache every single moment it was on his mind while his stomach turned upside down, making him feel like he was about to throw up any second now. Slowly, John nodded his head with a terrified expression, and Eisen quietly continued his interrogation. "You tried to kill that Mist Spirit by destroying the amulet she was trapped in, before taking its shards with you. I¡¯m here because I want to know what you did with those shards." Eisen exined quietly, and slowly pulled out the piece of cloth out of John¡¯s mouth, resulting in him immediately starting to talk. "You want those shards..? I have one of them with me, just take it and leave! I tried selling it because it seemed like it was made of gold, but it waspletely worthless! And I just couldn¡¯t get rid of it! It¡¯s a cursed piece of shit, and it haunts me whenever I close my eyes, so just take it, please..." The man said while crying out, trying to look over at his bag to signal where the shard was. Eisen opened his own bag and ordered the soldier bees to look for the shard, since Eisen didn¡¯t want to take his eyes off of John for even a second. After a short while, one of them returned with a small, seemingly golden splinter with different inscriptions on its outside. It apparently wasn¡¯t actual gold, but rather something like a bone, although it was basically impossible to see what kind of bone it was. However, when Eisen looked at the shard in his hand, John only stared on in surprise. "H-Huh? You can touch it?" He eximed, and Eisen looked at him with a deep frown. "What do you mean with that?" The old man asked, and John slightly tensed up before swallowing deeply. "Well, nobody else was able to actually touch it beside me... That¡¯s how curses work... If you¡¯re cursed by an item, only the one cursed by it can touch it until the curse is lifted... Does that mean you lifted the curse just now? Am I finally free?!" John asked with a loud yell of excitement, but he settled down once Eisen red at him. Eisen sighed loudly and looked at John, as he wanted to move on to the next part of the investigation. "Listen here. I will take this shard with me, and you will tell me where I can find the others. Then I will release you." Eisenmanded, and John swallowed loudly as his nervosity grew.a "O-Okay! I will tell you all I know! Back then, we took all the treasure that we could carry! We were three people in total! Our magician Kyle went on to some magic city and bought a house there, and our leader Thomas tried to pay back his debt, but was killed by the loan collectors. They are here in this town, and maybe one of them was cursed instead and has the shard with him! That¡¯s all I know, so please let me go!" John practically begged, and Eisen nodded at Caria to tell her that she can let him go, before all of the roots suddenly withered up and crumbled. Immediately, John jumped up to grab his weapon, but Eisen was already prepared for that and already poured his mana into it and, since it was simple steel, was able to use transmutation on it, so that he managed to dull the de to an extent that it wouldn¡¯t be able to cut butter apart, in preparation for the n he hade up with to make sure John couldn¡¯t actuallye after him with the help of guards of some sort. After all, technically John nevermited a crime, as Kirisho was a spirit which was counted as a monster. Thus Eisen had to be careful, but he already came up with something that should work quite well. When John swung his sword at Eisen, the old man held his hand up and infused it with his me of the Earth element turned toward the earth part as much as possible, but only at the spot where the dull de was going to hit to increase his defense there as much as he could, activating ¡¯A Giant¡¯s Strength¡¯ on top of it. Nheless, Eisen still felt a surge of heat spreading out from his palm where the de striked, as was to be expecteding from an attack of a Rank 4 Adventurer. But due to what Eisen did in order to assure that he could pull this off, Eisen managed to act as if nothing just happened, grabbing the de tightly while making it brittle with transmutation to make it shatter as Eisen grabbed it. Next, Eisen also began transforming his throat all the way toward earth to make him sound as threatening as possible, his transformation gradually happening while he spoke. "I guess you didn¡¯t realize that the cave you were ravaging was their of a Dragon. That Mist Spirit was nothing but a guest, and we Dragons treat our guests well. Now I look like a liar in front of that woman, and I never lie. With that in mind, listen to me now." While Eisen slowly stood up with his eyes closed, his hair and beard slowly transformed into his regr base element transformation as Eisen created small cracks all over his skin with the help of his regr base element before he opened his eyes with his ¡¯Truth Seeing Eyes¡¯ activated, making them look like those of a Dragon¡¯s. "If you evere near that cave, or even Melroe in itself, ever again, you will die. Do you understand me?" As Eisen was towering over the figure in front of him, John nodded slowly as he backed away into the corner, shaking out of fear beyond what Eisen has ever seen in the game as of now. [John Banner is now terrified of you. It will be easy to control him through that fear, but it is impossible for it to ever disappear] With a grin, Eisen turned around and unlocked the door while Caria was following him as the old man undid all of his transformations and deactivated his skills, turning around one more time before leaving the room. "Good." Chapter 104 Loan Shark Eisen left the room and made his way back out of the Inn without saying a single word, not even to Caria or Melissa who were both noticing that Eisen wasn¡¯t himself and tried to console him in different ways. And when the woman at the counter was trying to talk to him, he simply ignored her and left through the door without a second thought. Only when Eisen was out of range in apletely different area of Ornier, did he stop for a second to take a deep breath, sitting down on a bench by the side of the road. "Well then, this was really messed up, wasn¡¯t it? Thanks for helping me back there, you two." Eisen said with a smile while looking at his two tamed monsters, rubbing both of their heads. "Now then, let¡¯s take a look at this." [New Quest - Stolen Shards] [Description] A group of adventurers destroyed the amulet in which the Mist Spirit Kirisho was sealed, taking the majority of the shards with them. This left Kirisho in a state that only barely allows her to consciously exist. You want to help, and thus the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth asked you to find the adventurers, and as such hopefully the shards of the amulet, with the help of one of the adventurers¡¯ identification tag. Find the stolen shards andbine them together again. After you found the first of the Adventurer party, you got the shard from him and got him to tell you where the other are, while making sure that he would be forever terrified of you. One of them died and the shard was taken by a criminal loan business, while the other went to live in a magic town. [Reward] Kirisho will be able to live a normal life again [Failure] Kirisho will continue living the life she currently has "I see, so that quest was updated. And this really is the shard of the amulet I¡¯m looking for." Eisen chuckled lowly to himself as he yed around with the shard between his fingers, cing it back in his pocket before standing up from the bench and deciding to ask around for more information. Since right now he had the chance to spend the day figuring out more about those loan sharks without involving anyone else, Eisen chose to use this time wisely. And there was usually one spot where such criminal organizations were most frequent. Entertainment districts, such as redlight or gambling districts. It would be especially easy to find loan sharks in thetter of those two, preying on those that just lost their money in a gamble. So the easiest way for him to find any hints about them was to go there and ask around. It took a while until Eisen found the right area in town, but in the end, he stood in front of thergest casino in town. It was only just starting to get busy in the afternoon, and Eisen would probably have the best chances to find anything outter in the day, but it would be a good start. He decided to stand and wait at the wall opposite to the casino to simply wait for anything suspicious, before opening his backpack in a dark corner and releasing the five bee soldiers inside of it,manding them to position themselves around the casino and ry to Melissa if they find anything suspicious or any type of hostility in the immediate surrounding. But just a few minutes after they flew off, a new notification popped up in front of Eisen. [Congrattions! Melissa¡¯s Hive Control skill ranked up! The range of the types of bees she can create will grow] [Current Types] -Worker Bees -Soldier Bees [Choose one of the following new types] -Scout Bees -Warrior Bees Surprised that he was able to choose this type of thing even for his tamed monsters, Eisen carefully read through the list. Scout Bees would probably be incredibly useful in a situation just as this, but Eisen didn¡¯t want to choose for Melissa. He wanted to guide her into being more utility-oriented rather thanbat-oriented, but that didn¡¯t mean he wanted to control important parts such as this. So, Eisen left the choice over to Melissa, but it didn¡¯t seem like he had to worry since she seemed to be more excited at the idea of the scouts rather than the warriors, so Eisen decided to choose the prior of the two options. "Melissa, would you be able toy an egg for one of the scout bees so that we can take a look at what they are like? The five soldiers seem quite harmless, so it shouldn¡¯t be a big problem to have some more bees if they are simrly docile." Eisen muttered to himself, and Melissa replied with a quick nod beforeying an egg down onto Eisen¡¯s hand. "Now, let¡¯s just wait." With a sigh, Eisen looked around until he saw a nearby bench and sat down on it, carefully holding the egg that was significantly smaller than those of the soldiers¡¯ in his palm. After an hour of waiting, the egg cracked open and a small Bee, only about half the size of Melissa or the soldiers, appeared in its stead. But that wasn¡¯t the only difference that could be seen whenpared to the other bees. Its stinger was basically nonexistent and its wings were a lotrger than usual, which was probably meant to make sure that it could move faster. The Scout Bee¡¯s body was a lot more narrow and lean as well to make it a slight bit more nimble. Eisen sent the scout out and was able to immediately confirm that this was the case. Within only a second, the scount managed to reach the other side of the street and ced itself on the wall of the casino. "Well, it¡¯s pretty quick, for sure. Think you cany a few more, Melissa? Just four more would be fine, we shouldn¡¯t go overboard." Eisen asked, and Melissa nodded beforeying four more eggs onto Eisen¡¯s palm, which he then held there for another hour while waiting for anything to happen. After the new eggs hatched, the four scout bees flew off and scattered in the area, basically surveying everything that was going on. It then took another hour until the bees started reacting to something and one of them flew back over to Eisen. The sun would be setting quite soon, so more and more people made their way to the casino, meaning that the dark side of town came out as well. The Scout Bee that came back to him then led him through an alley to the back of the casino, where Eisen was able to listen to a conversation. "P-Please, give me one more week! I¡¯ll have the money by then!" A middle aged man begged loudly while on his knees in front of three men, one of them more on the business side of things, while two men behind him were apparently just goons that were meant to intimidate others. The man in the front then began to chuckle quietly, before ruthlessly kicking the man on his knees in the face. "Do you think I¡¯m an idiot? You already told me thisst week. Don¡¯t try and fucking test me, old man. Either you give us the money now, or you¡¯ll regret it." The loan shark barked out, and the man stumbled backward while holding his face. "N-No, p-please, I have a family! I need to feed them!" "Should have thought about that earlier, you hear?" Angrily, the loan shark ground his teeth and kept kicking the man while he was cowering on the ground. Eisen wanted to do something about that, but he wouldn¡¯t be able to fight these three all at once. At least not without proper preparation. The ten bees directly under Melissa¡¯s control spread around the area while Eisen took a look around to make sure the alley couldn¡¯t be seen from the streets. Eisen then looked down at Caria, pointing at the roots that the group of three was basically standing on, telling Caria to make them grow as fast as possible to restraint their legs. Of course Eisen made sure that he was actually able to take these guys on, and since they were just around Eisen¡¯s own level, it should end up fine as long as he really properly prepared for everything. And even though it wouldn¡¯t do muchbat-wise anymore, Eisen even spread some of his magic element down on the ground around the men, and once Eisen gave Caria his signal, she extended her hand and the roots immediately shot upward and slung themselves around the mens¡¯ legs while Eisen waved his hand tomand the soldier bees to use their stinger attack in the back of the mens¡¯ necks. Two for the goons and one for the main loan shark. Immediately after stinging the men, the bees flew off before Eisen turned his element all the way to mes in order to catch the roots on fire. And even though Eisen didn¡¯t have his sword with him, he would hopefully still be able to do a little bit of damage with a thick branch lying on the ground nearby. Eisen hit the branch onto the back of the goon¡¯s knees, causing them to fall onto the ground while the roots continued swallowing them up together with the mes of Eisen¡¯s element, causing them to be unable to move further. In order to conceal his identity, Eisen transformed his face into his element as far turned toward the earth side as possible, turning the mes around the men into rock to further constraint them while making sure that the loan shark could look at Eisen closely. The old man stepped in front of the trapped individual while the man that was just begging these three to let him go was backing off into a corner. "Tell me. Did your loan business kill the leader named Thomas of a party of Rank 4 adventurers?" The loan shark stared at Eisen full of confusion, while the old man sighed and decided to turn it up a notch. He closed his eyes and transformed only them all the way toward mes while also activating his Truth Seeing Eyes. Thisbination made Eisen¡¯s eyes burn in golden mes while Caria¡¯s vines slowly crept up the loan shark¡¯s face. "Did you, or did you not, kill the leader of a Rank 4 adventurer party? Tell me now." Eisen whispered slowly, and the Loan shark slowly nodded. "Y-Yes, we did... I¡¯m sorry if he was your friend, I-I¡¯ll try to make up for it! Do you want money? I¡¯ve got some with me!" Eisen sighed out loudly, the heat created by his element causing steam to pour out of his throat. Even though this man didn¡¯t really do anything to him specifically, it would still be a good idea to scare him out of continuing this type of business. After all, they killed a man in cold blood just after he paid back his dept. At least that was ording to John, and Eisen doubted that he could even think of lying to him. "I don¡¯t want your money. The man that you killed had a shard of an amulet with him. It is a cursed item that I need to acquire. Can you tell me where it is?" Eisen asked, and the loan shark nodded in a hurry. "It¡¯s in our headquarters, in my office! J-just follow this alley to the other side of the street, there will be a dark red building. That¡¯s our headquarters, and my office is at the top floor, behind the window in the top right. It¡¯s on my desk, so please, just take that wretched thing!" Eisen sighed once more and shook his head in response to this, turning around and walking through the alley. This was basically the same reaction that John had, and if that was the case, this guy would just bepletely filled with fear at this point. Commanding the bees to follow him while Caria and Melissa did so as well, Eisen left the alley while the loan shark was yelling at Eisen to not leave him like that, just stuck in rock and vines. But Eisen didn¡¯t care and just continued walking to where the Loan Shark described the headquarters to be. Chapter 105 Perfect Booze Once Eisen saw the dark red building as it was described to him by the loan shark just now, hemanded the bees to fly up to the top right window and burrow through the old wood that made up its frame and fly inside to retrieve the second shard. It took a short while, but soon enough the bees came back outside, carrying it. It ended up being pretty easy to get these two, far more than Eisen had thought. Whether or not it was supposed to be this easy was unclear, but Eisen did¡¯t worry about it. Right now he would just need to get that third shard, and then get back to Melroe for a short while and repair Kirisho¡¯s amulet. It may still be a while, but Eisen was d that he was able to get these two within a single day. And Eisen was pretty sure that the town the third shard was supposed to be was the same town he wanted to go to anyway, that coastal magic town where Eisen may be able to find Xenia as well as the second Dragon to take the test from. Right when Eisen heard some yelling through the new hole in the windowframe, he chose that it would be a good time to leave toward where he and the others said to meet up. He could really use a drink right now. Eisen hurried away while carrying Caria on his arm so that he couldn¡¯t lose her by moving too fast, and asked a few people that were walking around on the streets where he could find the ¡¯Drowned Sparrow¡¯, the tavern that Melroe¡¯s Innkeeper told him about. He was actually quite interested in what the Innkeeper could tell Eisen, especially about some kind of skill that has to do with brewing. At first Eisen thought that there would be a simple ¡¯Brewing¡¯ skill, but he should have gotten that already through making the mead. Maybe there was some other condition, or he needed to wait for the mead to actually be finished. Thetter would especially make sense, since that¡¯s how Eisen got some of his other Crafting-Rted skills. Of course it could also be that Brewing was included in his cooking skill already, so Eisen would just need to see and ask that ¡¯Master Brewer¡¯ that the Innkeeper Gralmar told him about. "Although, Gralmar did mention that he was quite entric. I¡¯ll just have to see what he¡¯s like." Eisen muttered to himself while smiling at Caria and Melissa who were both looking at him with worry. It was understandable, since today was the first time these two saw Eisen angry like that, so they both wanted to console him. "It¡¯s fine, you two. Don¡¯t worry about it. Ah, we should be getting close to the Tavern... Scouts and Soldiers,e and hide in my backpack." Eisen continued walking and reached to open up the way for the ten bees. It really was about time Eisen and the other Originals found a nice spot to settle down for a while and build a town. If not, it might get hard finding a good spot to keep the bees that Melissa created soon. Either way, for now it shouldn¡¯t be a problem with ten more bees, especially considering their size. Eisen should just make sure that Melissa doesn¡¯ty hundreds of eggs at once for some reason. With a loud sigh, Eisen continued searching for the tavern, and then ended up finding it in a smaller back alley. From the outside it didn¡¯t seem all that special, but the moment that Eisen stepped inside and took a look around, Eisen could already see that especially its collection of alcohol was more than impressive. Dozens and dozens of bottles of each different types of alcohol, whether it was wine, liquor, or even different bottled beer, this tavern seemed to have everything. Since none of the others of Eisen¡¯s group seemed to be there yet, he chose to step over to the bar and talk to the owner of the tavern. Right now there wasn¡¯t anyone there, so Eisen simply sat down at the bar and sat both Caria and Melissa down next to him while calling out that there was a customer toward the room in the back, waiting for someone toe to him. After about half a minute, someone finally came through. "So old man, what¡¯s yer poison?" He asked while drying his hands and looking at Eisen, who simply smiled lowly and asked for a beer before continuing with his business. "You are the owner of this tavern, right? I heard that you brewed some interesting things. I myself started experimenting with it as well quite recently, although not even my first batch of Mead is ready." In response to this, the owner of the tavern simply sighed loudly and smashed the wooden stein filled with beer in front of Eisen. "I ain¡¯t gonna give ye any recipes of mine, ya hear? I don¡¯t even know ya, so don¡¯t even think about it." He exined clearly, and Eisen chuckled while grabbing the piece of paper that Gralmar handed to him on Eisen¡¯sst evening in Melroe, handing it over to the owner of the tavern. "Think that this might change your mind? I actually know a friend of yours, and he told me about you." Eisen exined, and the owner hesitantly grabbed the piece of paper and opened it up with suspicion, before his expression immediately changed toward surprise and he looked back and forth between Eisen and the letter before sighing out loudly. "So ye were sent by Gralmar? Why didn¡¯t ye say so, old man? A friend of Gralmar¡¯s is a friend of mine! The name¡¯s Gordon, nice to meet ya!" Gordon eximed with a heartyugh, pping his palm onto the wooden counter between him and Eisen. With a softugh, Eisen smiled back at the dwarf. "My name is Eisen, nice to meet you Gordon. So yeah, as I said, I¡¯ve recently started brewing as well, so I wanted to ask you a few questions and see if I can learn a few things from you on how to make some more special drinks. Gralmar told me that you¡¯re just amazing in that regard." "Haha, he ain¡¯t wrong, that¡¯s for sure. I¡¯ve got yer regr stuff here, like that beer ye¡¯re drinkin¡¯, but I also have some other stuff. Most of ¡¯em are just drinks with a few useless effects, like yer eyecolor changing temporarily or your hair bin¡¯ invisible for a bit, but I¡¯ve also got a bunch of actually useful ones. Beer that raises your regeneration, or liquor that boosts yer stats for a while. Those are borin¡¯, so I prefer makin¡¯ those with random effects." Gordonughed out loudly with his fists stemmed onto his hips, while Eisen listened curiously. In the end, he asked the question that was really on his mind at the time. "Is that so? How did you manage to figure out all of thesebinations?" "Ah, it ain¡¯t too hard to be honest, I used ta be an alchemist¡¯s apprentice. Once ye¡¯ve figured out how different herbs and nts work, its pretty easy to brew some things like this. It¡¯s very different, and ye can¡¯t just do the exact same thing as ye would in alchemy to get the same effect, but it definitely helped when I started out. And most fun and exciting effects are those that ye can¡¯t get with any potion, and for some reason are only a thing when brewin¡¯ booze." Eisen nodded in understanding as he basically just got the confirmation that his small test with the Amran and Byron in his mead would at the very least do something. "And why did you change over to making alcohol rather than potions?" He asked, and the dwarf in front of him began to scratch his beard in thought. "Hmm, it¡¯s just more fun, innit? And I enjoy the happy faces of people when they get shitfaced off of what I brew them, haha!" Gordonughed out while Eisen continued drinking the beer that was poured for him, only thinking that Gralmar did not exaggerate when he said that Gordon was ¡¯particr¡¯. "So you were talking about recipes before, how many different recipes did youe up with so far?" For a short second, Gordon seemed to think about it before quickly responding with a rough estimate. "About 300, maybe? Each has a few different variations, though. And about that, since ye¡¯re a friend of Gralmar, I guess I can trust ya, eh? Would you do me a favor then?" Gordon asked while Eisen responded with a nod, and the dwarf continued talking immediately. "Great! The situation is a bit fucked, to tell ya the truth. I¡¯m not the kinda guy that likes sharin¡¯ my secrets with everyone, but at the same time, I want to spread what I¡¯ve worked on for the majority of me life with the world, ya know? And that¡¯s because there ain¡¯t many ces that sell liquor like this around these days! It seems like ye¡¯re a traveller if ye¡¯vee here all the way from Melroe, so would ya mind spreading some of my creations around?" Gordon asked Eisen, who looked at him in surprise. That was really quite unexpected, after all they just met about ten minutes ago. Gralmar and Gordon really had to be amazing friends then. With that in mind, Eisen smiled at the dwarf with some questions in mind. "I greatly appreciate your trust in me, but how do you want me to do that?" The moment that Eisen asked this, Gordon silently turned around and went to the back-room, beforeing back out with a thick leather bound book. "These here are my recipes." Gordon began to exin, "It¡¯s just a copy of ¡¯em for when I found someone like you that I may ask this of, but if ya think ye¡¯re up for it, how about ya take this book, make some of the alcohol in here, and sell it while ye¡¯re travelling? That way, people all over the world can find out what real liquor¡¯s like." [New Quest - Gordon¡¯s Work] [Description] Gordon Antrey is known for creating extraordinary variants of alcohol with all kinds of effects. Since he isn¡¯t able to leave town due to personal reasons, he instead asked you to spread his work around the world during your travels. Simply create different liquors out of the book ¡¯Perfect Booze¡¯ filled with Gordon¡¯s recipes and give or sell them to different people you meet. [Reward] Recipe Book ¡¯Perfect Booze¡¯; Extra reward ording to how far you go to fullfill this quest [Failure] You have to give the book back to Gordon and he will never help you in any way again Surprised, Eisen looked at the notification and quickly read through it before waving it away. "Of course, I would love to be able to do something like that. Thank you, Gordon." Eisen said with a smile while picking up the thick book and looking through it. "Ah, that¡¯s good to know then! Finally someone agreed! Most people I end up askin¡¯ just chicken out, so ye¡¯re the first one that actually wants ta help, haha!" Gordonughed out loudly, but Eisen could only continue staring at the pages in this book, that one after another showed Eisen simply ridiculous things. Wine that will get you drunk with a single drop, Liquor that will never get you drunk no matter how much you drink of it and Beer that makes you grow scales or fur, or even both at the same time! Those were just the first things that Eisen read, so he couldn¡¯t really me anyone for thinking that these would just be fake recipes meant to mess with you. But since Gralmar already told him that Gordon was making ridiculous things here, he ended up believing it. And while most of these may not have excellent uses at first, they would surelye in handy depending on how you can change things around for more defined or weakened effects. But for now, Eisen had something else to worry about. Gordon grinned and grabbed a few bottles standing all around and ced them on the counter with a loud thud. "Now then! Ye can¡¯t properly make everythin¡¯ without actually tryin¡¯ it, right?" Chapter 106 Horror and Honor It did not take long for Komer, Bree and Evalia to reach the tavern one after another. Komer was actually the first one toe, as he only needed to take care of his business at the Merchant¡¯s guild followed by taking a leisurely stroll of the town while at the same time taking a look at what kinds of items were usually sold in this town and what there was ack of. When he entered the ¡¯Drowned Sparrow¡¯, he was immediately surprised at the sight in front of him. Standing in front of the countless different types of alcohol covering the walls was a dwarf, handing small shots of each of these beverages over to a man sitting at the counter while trying to keep himself upright. At first, Komer didn¡¯t realize that this man was Eisen, as he truly did not look the same as he usually did. From his forehead, half a dozen spikes simply sprouted forward, while his usually white hair turnedpletely ck while seemingly floating upward. His eyes were nowpletely white all the way through without even showing Eisen¡¯s pupils, and on a few different spots on Eisen¡¯s body, his skin seemed to be somewhat bubbling. It didn¡¯t look like it was painful or anything, just slightly bubbling up every once in a while at a slow speed. The only reason that Komer was really able to know that this man was Eisen was because both Melissa and Caria were sitting next to him. When Komer stepped closer, the transformed Eisen turned around and tried lifting his hand, but seemingly wasn¡¯t capable of doing so. Not because of being drunk, but it looked like his arm hadpletely lost function. Luckily, Eisen was still able to talk regrly. "Ah, Komer... Erm, don¡¯t freak out. This is all just temporary." Eisen exined in a groggy way, while Gordon the dwarf behind the counter wasughing heartily, handing Eisen arge ss of some clear liquid. "True that, but we¡¯ve managed to go through quite a bunch of drinks, didn¡¯t we? Here ya go, it¡¯s gonna reverse all of that stuff and make you sober again, as promised. Might feel a bit weird, but it should undo everything in a few seconds." Gordon exined and Eisen slowly nodded while grabbing the ss and downing its contents near to instantly. And true enough, every transformation on Eisen¡¯s body soon disappeared, either simply fading or retreating into Eisen¡¯s body. And it felt just like that. Especially the horns disappearing were quite ufortable to Eisen. But the feeling that was most awkward to him was to basically instantly go from being drunk over to being utterly sober. "Thanks, Gordon. That was a really... interesting experience." Eisenughed lowly while standing up and patting off his suit, turning over to Komer, who was simply staring at him in confusion. With a sigh, Eisen pointed over to a table in the corner of the room with enough space for everyone to sit down. "I¡¯ll exin it to you, don¡¯t worry. Gordon, can you give us two Beer? Regr ones, though." "Here ya go! Be sure not to forget the book here!" Gordonughed while pouring tworge wooden cups of beer before handing them to Eisen and Komer before the two of them headed to the table. Before actually asking any questions, Komer leaned in a bit and whispered something to Eisen. "Erm... I¡¯m actually not 21 yet, Eisen. And it seems like you can actually get drunk of these, so it¡¯s like real alcohol..." Eisenughed lowly while drinking a bit of his beer and shook his head with a smile, replying in a low voice as well. "Komer, you¡¯re a 20 years old college student. You¡¯ve had alcohol before, you can¡¯t tell me otherwise. Besides, this is a game, so it¡¯s not harmful to your real body, so I don¡¯t see any problem with you drinking. Of course, nobody is forcing you, so you don¡¯t have to if you don¡¯t want to." With a chuckle, Komer nodded and began drinking his beer as well. "I guess you¡¯re right. I shouldn¡¯t see it so tightly. So... What was all of that about just there?" the young man asked, and Eisen onlyughed lightly. "You see, the reason that I said to meet here was that I needed to go here anyway. The owner of this ce makes these amazing types of alcohol that can cause things like you¡¯ve just seen. Although most of them have rather useless effects, some of them seem kind of useful. I was given an introductory letter by a friend back in Melroe, and he gave me a few recipes. But he said I should taste the drinks before making them, so... That¡¯s what happened." Eisen exined, causing Komer to beginughing in response. After all, seeing Eisen like that was definitely quite a funny sight if one thought about it. And since it wasn¡¯t harmful to him, Eisen simplyughed together with Komer for a bit and then changed the topic. "So how did it go at the Merchant¡¯s Guild?" He asked atst, and Komer looked at Eisen proudly, holding forward a small porcine tag. "I got the name ¡¯Starlight¡¯ registered for mypany, and rose to the second rank! I¡¯m allowed to look at basic sales demographics about whatever town I¡¯m in now." Komer exined happily and Eisen chuckled lowly. "I see, good job, Komer!" "I know, I know! I¡¯m amazing!" The young manughed out with a smug grin, and Eisen chose to simply let him have that moment for now, before Komer continued talking. "That really was amazing today. The items you made were incredibly popr to begin with simply because of how amazing they were, and then with Nat- Sorry, Evalia singing and ying that song, everything was sold basically instantly! I¡¯m kind of jealous, to be honest." Heughed with a light, somewhat bitter smile, but before Eisen could say anything someone else spoke up. "Oh you don¡¯t have to worry ¡¯bout that, sweetheart." Evalia asked with a smile while dropping down onto a chair at the table, leaning a few paintings and her guitar against it as well and both Komer and Eisen greeted her. "We¡¯re good at what we¡¯re doin¡¯ because we¡¯ve been doin¡¯ it for a while. You only just started out, didn¡¯t you?" Komer looked at the woman that took a seat next to him andughed quietly. "I guess so. I just feel like I¡¯ll never be able to catch up to my brothers at this point. You heard about all the food from different viges being bought up recently, right? One of my brothers did that, and I have no idea how he managed to get that much money already." "Wait, one of your brothers did? There¡¯s only a few ways he could do that. Either, he probably got some of the other people that took up seats from your father¡¯spany to help him and had them farm as much money as they could, or he himself managed to y somerge monsters or stumbled into arge sum of money coincidentally himself." Eisen muttered, and Komer instantly nodded. "I actually think it¡¯s a mixture of both. I can imagine those executives trying to help him out so that he could take over thepany and promote them, but I could also see him going out and fighting and things like that. He¡¯s... not a good person. Different to me, who was trying to scam people before, but he¡¯s still a bad person." Komer exined and both Evalia and Eisen looked at each other in confusion, trying to figure out what Komer was possibly talking about. With a loud sigh, Komer began to exin. "My brother is the clich¨¦ rich asshole, to sum it up. Whenever he could, he would always insult or look down on others for them being poorer than us. And it didn¡¯t get any better when he started learning martial arts which my father made him do to teach him discipline. It actually just backfired and he turned into an outright bully, starting to beat those up that talked back to him and then paying them so that they keep their mouth shut. But in front of my father, he kept acting like a good son at some point to make it seem like he got better, so he never really found out about it. He would definitely be the kind of guy to do that." Komer exined, looking down at the table and fidgeting with his thumbs ufortably at revealing something like this. "So he¡¯s that kind of person..? What about your other brother?" Eisen asked, and Komer seemed to feel only more nervous while thinking about this. But after a few seconds, he managed to ovee this and continued talking, as he feltfortable these two people in front of him. "My eldest brother is definitely better in some regards, but worse in others. He wouldn¡¯t do anything ruthless like what my other brother did like buying up everything, but he¡¯s very into ¡¯honor¡¯ and something like that. He also thinks that he¡¯s better than anyone else, but in a different way. He doesn¡¯t put others down, but instead thinks that people of a ¡¯higher standing¡¯ like us should behave like it and protect and help those below us, but not associate with them any further. He even tried buying out a childhood friend of mine to make them leave me." Eisen sighed out loudly and looked at Kome with a soft smile, waving over to Gordon and telling him to bring another round of beer. "Listen, Komer, you¡¯re not like your brothers. You were doing some pretty bad things before, but you realized that it was wrong and changed how you act. Now let¡¯s just forget about that and move on. We should just wait for Bree, and then let¡¯s have fun for tonight. I actually have some good new as well." With a smile, Eisen took the jugs of beer from Gordon and handed one to everyone. The three of them continued talking for about twenty minutes before said Fey-Kin arrived. "Heey~!" She eximed happily and rushed over to the table where Eisen, Komer, Evalia and Eisen¡¯s two tamed monsters were sitting and sat down next to them. With a smile, Eisen chuckled at her and ordered her a beer as well, before looking at his young friend. "You seem pretty happy about something, did anything good happen?" He asked, and Bree nodded happily. "Mhm~! I finally went to visit my father again, it¡¯s been so long since then~!" She chuckled, and both Komer and Evalia smiled heartily at this, and only Eisen had a bitter smile since he knew where she visited him. "Shoulda brought him along, Bree! More people means more fun!" Evalia eximed, leaving Eisen worried at Bree¡¯s reaction for a second, but she simply kept smiling, although she was obviously struggling to find words. Eisenid his hand on Bree¡¯s shoulder and nodded at her, before she went on to exin. "Actually... My father is dead. I went to visit his grave... I was in Melroe for a long, long time, so when I went there, it was basicallypletely overgrown and I cleaned the grave up. But it was fine, I had more than enough time to make up at least a little bit for not being there for so long!" Bree eximed with a genuinely happy smile at the thought of finally visiting such an important ce again, and Komer and Evalia¡¯s expression dropped immediately while thetter looked at Eisen in horror, considering what she just told Bree. The old man sighed and held up his beer, looking at the group around him. "Let¡¯s not be so bitter, shall we? To Bree¡¯s father!" He smiled, and when Bree next to him nodded with a bright smile and held up her Beer as well, Komer and Evalia joined in and repeated after Eisen. "To Bree¡¯s Father!" Chapter 107 Phone Calls The group of four, plus Caria and Melissa and her bees, were leisurely sitting around a table, drinking and talking together. Something that took up a lot of time was that Eisen exined the whole situation with John and the Loan shark, meaning how Eisen got two of the three shards of Kirisho¡¯s amulet. However, only really Evalia was surprised at this. "I never thought you¡¯d be so scary, Eisen!" She eximed and looked at Komer and Bree to get them to agree, but they simply smiled wrily while looking at her. "Well... Eisen can definitely be pretty scary, for sure..." Komer muttered out while Caria and Melissa were furiously nodding, as they were the only ones there that actually witnessed it. "Huh, really? Couldn¡¯t¡¯ve guessed... Also, how aren¡¯t¡¯cha drunk yet, Eisen? You¡¯ve been drinking the most out of all of us!" Evaliained loudly, carefully resting her head on the table in front of her while pulling on the strings of her guitar next to her. Chuckling lowly, Eisen shrugged. "I¡¯m not really sure, I guess it¡¯s because my Endurance stat is higher than anyone else¡¯s here. You three really just focus on your mental stats, while mine are pretty even, so all my stats are above 100 right now. Beside charisma, of course." "Coolio doolio..." Evalia yawned before closing her eyes on the table, but Eisen tapped her shoulder to make sure she wouldn¡¯t fall asleep. "Evalia, careful. If you sleep here, you will wake up here. None of us can carry you while you¡¯re sleeping." "Eh? Fine, fine... I won¡¯t sleep, I¡¯ll just rest my eyes for a bit..." Eisen sighed loudly and waved over to Gordon. "Hey, can you give us some of that sober-making liquor?" But surprisingly, the one that interjected was Evalia herself. "No, no! That¡¯s no fun, I¡¯m stayin¡¯ like this..." The young womanined, and Eisen simplyughed. "Fine, then let¡¯s at least bring you back to your Inn. Do you remember the way?" He asked and helped Evalia stand up, then looked over to Bree and Komer as well. "You two shoulde too, you don¡¯t look too good yourselves. Do either of you want some of the sober-making liquor?" But before either of them could even respond, Gordon spoke up. "Actually, I couldn¡¯t give ¡¯em any if I wanted to. That stuff just makes ya sober by nullifying what my other drinks do to ya, and if they aren¡¯t affected by any special effects, they won¡¯t end up sober." Gordon exined, and Eisen sighed lightly. "I see, in that case, I really just need to bring these three drunks to bed, huh?" He chuckled while slowly leading the three young people out of the tavern with Caria and Melissa following behind together, the small Myconid holding the Queen Bee in her arms. "Anyway, thanks again, Gordon. I¡¯lle by again soon." Eisen said with a smile while cing the money that he owed Gordon for the evening on the counter, and the dwarf grabbed the coins with a smile. "Take yer time, old man. I¡¯ll be ¡¯ere." With a soft chuckle Eisen then left the building, looking around to make sure everyone was following behind. He already knew what Bree was like when she was drunk, so Eisen had to especially look after her. Whenever she drank, Bree would always end up either incredibly tired, or super energetic. If she was tired she was a bit easier to manage since Eisen only had to make sure she didn¡¯t sit down anywhere to sleep, but if she was super energetic she would simply run around basically anywhere and everywhere. Luckily, right now she was tired, so Eisen simply kept walking behind her and the rest of the group until they got to their respective Inns. Evalia stayed at an incredibly fancy one, while Bree picked out one that was a bit smaller and cheaper. So Eisen first brought Evalia away and then Komer, Bree and him went to their own Inn, made their way to their room and then went to bed. While both Komer and Bree basically fell asleep instantly, Eisen actually stayed up for a little longer as he sat on his bed together with Caria, Melissa and the Soldier and Scout Bees. It actually seemed like one of the Soldier bees may be able to rank up soon as well. All of the bees beside Melissa were actually rank 0, and only she was rank 1 once she grew up because of being a queen bee. Eisen was quite curious as to what the soldier would then end up as, but that would need to wait. It still had about 10 levels left to gain, butpared to the other soldiers that were still at least 25 levels away, it was far more advanced. And it seemed like it was kind of in charge, as it always flew ahead of everyone else and seemed to be somewhat respected by the others. A simr situation started with the scouts as well, and one of them, the scout bee that was born out of the first egg that hatched, was seemingly seen as the leader amongst the scouts. And while these two ¡¯leader¡¯ bees stayed close to Melissa at all times, the others spread across the room in order to cover each and every area inside in case any intruders broke in, so that they could properly protect their queen. When it came to Melissa, Eisen had been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what to do ability-wise. Right now she had only really her Hive Control skill, but if she only focused on that, she would end up a bee-production machine, which was something that Eisen didn¡¯t want. He did try to teach her a little bit of magic, but he didn¡¯t manage to find anything for her like Caria¡¯s nt control that would let Melissa herself do things instead of having only her soldiers do. For that, Eisen already had some ideas, but it would require her mana maniption skill to grow substantially, since he wanted Melissa to learn support skills that she could use on her bees. So once Melissa kept practicing her raw mana maniption a bit more, he would ask Bree to teach her a few simple things such as how to increase speed, strength or defense specialized toward arge number of targets. But that was still a little while off. So, for the next hour or so, Eisen continued reading the recipe book that Gordon just gave him so that he had the most important ingredients in his mind, and so that he could figure out which recipes would be best to try out to begin with. He would also need some different tools and kits that Eisen needed to grab from somewhere before he could even think about making all of these things, but at least Eisen managed to figure out that there indeed was a skill specific to brewing, and he simply needed to wait for the Mead to actually be finished until he would get it. After a while, Eisen set the book to the side, undressed,id his suit down on the table next to his bed and fell asleep. --- Benjamin stood up out of the capsule and stretched a bit. It was now early Thursday afternoon and in a few days, his children and grandchildren would arrive, meaning that he would be spending a lot of time outside of the game again. Maybe it would be a good idea to prepare as many materials as he could beforehand to make smaller items whenever he had time to y in order to gain proficiency in his skills and make items for Komer to sell while Benjamin himself was offline. And as if someone knew that he just left the game, Benjamin¡¯s phone began to ring. He hurried down the stairs and walked over to it quickly, and then picked it up before sitting down on his armchair in the livingroom. "Hey, Dad! How are you?" Tony¡¯s voice asked from the other side of the phone, and Benjamin chuckled and smiled. "I¡¯m good, Tony, thanks. Are you excited toe see your old man again?" Benjaminughed, and Tony replied byughing as well. "Yeah, I really am, actually. That¡¯s actually why I¡¯m calling, to be honest. I just wanted to tell you that the four of us will be there tomorrow night, maybe around 11pm or midnight even." The young man exined. "Oh, already? I¡¯ll get everything ready then, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be tired. Will you eat on the way? I can prepare something for all of you. Ah, you said Sean and Katy want to share a room, right? And-" Benjamin muttered lowly, and Tony stopped him and continuedughing on the other side of the phone. "Dad, calm down! We¡¯ll just eat something on the way, so you won¡¯t have to make anything for us, and yeah, even though they fight a lot, they basically spend every passing second together." Tony told his father, who then sighed loudly. "Sorry, I¡¯m just happy to finally have someone here again." He chuckled and smiled deeply while scratching his beard. "Melody and Natsuo areing on Monday, right?" "Yeah, as far as I¡¯m aware. I think Melody might being in the evening, though, her husband said he doesn¡¯t want to drive on a Sunday." Tony exined with a loud sigh, and Benjamin inwardly did the same. Melody¡¯s husband really was a pain to deal with. "I guess. Then they¡¯ll be here a bitte, that¡¯s fine. It¡¯ll just be you, Natsuo and I for most of Monday then." "Haha, it¡¯s been a while since we¡¯ve had a men¡¯s day, so it should be fun. And the kids can y together then." "Ah, talking about a men¡¯s day! I did congratte him already, but how about we all do something together for Benji for graduating? I can prepare stuff for a barbecue and then we¡¯ll have a small party." Benjamin suggested, and Tony immediately agreed. "Oh yeah, we definitely should! He already had a party with his friends, so all that¡¯s left is one with his family, right?" Tonyughed quietly, and Benjamin smiled happily. Tony has been really stressedtely, so it was great so see how he had moments to rx like this. "By the way, we have a new mall in town as well, and they seem to have a few great gadget and game shops. Stuff like that is what Benji wants to get into in college, right?" "Mhm, he¡¯s actually going for a programming route as well. Not sure what he wants to get into specifically though, meaning his specialization. He¡¯s always been super into games, though, so maybe it¡¯s going to be that kind of area." "And what about the tuition?" "Actually, Benji managed to get an amazing schrship, it covers most of the tuition fees." Tonyughed with a relieved sigh escaping his lips. Money was obviously a problem right now, so Benjamin wanted to talk about something else as well. "So, how is it going at your job right now?" He asked, and immediately noticed that Tony was feeling awkward talking about it. "It¡¯s... alright? It¡¯s really not going great if I¡¯ll be honest. We¡¯re running low on funding and we haven¡¯t really been able to make any profits on our own. I... think we may close down soon." Tony exined with a bitter tone in his voice. "I¡¯m sorry to hear that, Tony. You invested a lot of time into your job." Tony sighed loudly and quitely continued to talk. "Yeah, I did. But in the end, I spent more times in crisis meetings than actually working, so I might actually be d to get out of there. Ah, I need to get going, Dad, gotta start with dinner. I¡¯ll call before we start driving tomorrow, alright?" Tony said, and Benjamin nodded to himself with a smile. "Of course, don¡¯t worry about it, Tony. I¡¯ll talk to you tomorrow, then. Love you, son." "Love you too, dad!" Tony told his father happily before hanging up, and Benjamin was left sitting there with a bitter feeling. Tony has been really struggling a lot, and Benjamin wanted to help his son as much as he could. For that reason, he did one thing. He picked up a small notebook filled with different important contact information and dialed the private phone number of a person that he hasn¡¯t actually talked to for a while. For a few seconds, Benjamin waited patiently for an answer, until the voice of a young man could be heard. "Good afternoon, this is Samuel Morgan. How can I help you?" Chapter 108 Favors Benjamin smiled as he heard the voice of the young man on the other side of the phone. "Hello Samuel, this is Benjamin Joyce. Long time no talk, huh?" Heughed and immediately heard some moving around and rushing from Samuel¡¯s side. Over the few times they talked and met up for information about crafting, Samuel had grown quite impressed with Benjamin and as such was always happy to talk to him, dropping everything else when he got the chance. "Benjamin! Yeah, it¡¯s been a really long time! How was your start into the game?" Samuel asked him excitedly, "You called your character ¡¯Eisen¡¯, right? Ari told me you¡¯ve been pretty productive already!" "Haha, yeah, that¡¯s what I called myself. And you could say that, I managed to get a pretty interesting upation and some nice titles. I¡¯m actually a dragon¡¯s champion, I¡¯ll be looking for some of the other dragons soon." Benjamin chuckled, and Samuel silently listened. "You... You¡¯re a champion already? How did you manage to do that?" Benjaminughed lowly and then began exining the situation one by one. How he tried appraising that cat on his first day in the game and thenter received a quest that needed him to get all his stats up to 100, as well as all the tests that he received from the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth. "You see, and now I¡¯m one after another going to see if I can find the other dragons that Ailren told me about. The next one I¡¯m looking for is in some magic city." Benjamin exined while Samuel curiously listened, simply thinking about the story that he just heard from this old man. "Wow, that¡¯s all pretty insane. I figured you were going to be a champion sooner orter, but I didn¡¯t expect it to be this soon... But I doubt you¡¯d call me just to tell me about that. Is everything going okay in the game other than what you told me?" "Oh, everything is going perfectly in the game, don¡¯t worry! There are a few issues I have to deal with right now, but it¡¯s more on a personal level with an omega friend I made. His brothers are also ying, and they seem to be messing around a bit. But as long as they aren¡¯t doing anything horrible, I¡¯ll just let them be." After Benjamin exined this, Samuel sighed loudly as he understood what he was talking about. "You must mean the CryTec kids, then? I heard about that little ¡¯contest¡¯ from the CEO, so I told Ari to keep an eye on them and see what¡¯s going on. Really though, none of them is acting normally. One of them was a scammer, but not anymore since he¡¯s with you now. Another one bought out all the food of hole towns, causing a crisis. And thest one is going around acting like he¡¯s the king of the world. He¡¯s not causing much trouble so far, but he seems to be up to something. I would actually really appreciate it if you could take a look at what thetter two are up to. If you can resolve something, I¡¯ll really owe you one." Samuel carefully exined, hiding hisints behind the request he just gave to Benjamin, who simplyughed in response. "Sure, I¡¯ll see what I can do. I will have a lot less time to y for a while, though, so my main focus will really be crafting. But since you mentioned that you will owe me one, I would like you to think about a favor you can do me in return. My son is an excellentputer scientist, and this is not just me saying that because he¡¯s my child. It seems like thepany he is working for isn¡¯t doing so great, so I would like to see if there is any way you could consider him for a job." Ruthlessly, Benjamin asked for this favor, and Samuel stayed silent for a while before sighing loudly. "I would love to do that, but I can¡¯t just hire someone like that without knowing the extent of his qualification, despite my position." "Of course I¡¯m not asking you to simply hire him instantly, but maybe give him the chance for an interview or an internship to start it out with so you can see how skilled he is. He does have some experience when ites to making games as well, that¡¯s how he made some money throughout college. And one of them was actually quite popr at the time, it was called ¡¯Minion¡¯." Immediately after saying the title of that game, Samuel audibly jumped up in surprise. "M-Minion?! Your son made that? I mean, in that case I doubt it would be hard to convince the higher-ups... Just mail me your son¡¯s contact information and I¡¯ll talk to him about it." "Haha, thanks, Samuel. I really appreciate it. And there¡¯s another thing. You said I can tell you one person to start ying the game earlier as well, right? At what time would that be?" Benjamin asked curiously now that his main worry was out of the way. "Ah, that would be in thest pre-release phase. I guess I can tell you what¡¯s up. The next phase is going to be filled with the highest amount of yers joining the game pre-release, just to introduce the world to arge amount of such ¡¯beings¡¯. They will be called ¡¯Delta¡¯ and consist of y-testers that will tell us any issues or bnce problems. As for thest phase, they will be ¡¯Alpha¡¯s, and consist of entertainers such as for example streamers or youtubers. Whoever you rmend can join in the Alpha phase then, since they can just y freely then. All the others do have a certain extent of a proffessional responsibility rted to their work. Who is it you want to y?" A light grin formed on Benjamin¡¯s lips as he thought about the reaction of the person who he will gift this to. "I want my grandson, Benjamin Marcus Joyce, to be able to y the game in that phase." He said with a soft smile, and Samuel seemed to be typing something up on a keyboard. "Alright, just need the address and possible delivery time then." Samuel said quickly while continuing to type something up, and Benjamin quickly exined. "We¡¯re having a family reunion, so he¡¯ll be staying at my house for a few weeks, so it would be great if you could deliver it here. And we¡¯ll be here basically all day every day with only a few exceptions, so just have it delivered around noon or at thetestte afternoon. The day doesn¡¯t matter, just call me to let me know, maybe." "Sure, I¡¯ll do that. So you¡¯ll have family over for a while and can¡¯t y because of that? Sounds pretty nice!" "Yeah, it is. I really haven¡¯t seen them in a while. It¡¯s going to be pretty busy around here again, haha." Benjaminughed, and Samuel seemed to have some kind of idea that the old man actually like quite a lot. "Well, if you¡¯re interested I could give you a tour around thepany. It¡¯s just about an hour from where you live, and I¡¯m sure your grandchildren would have fun trying out the Capsule. We have a little ¡¯Sandbox¡¯ thing set up where people can y around." "Oh, that would be great! I¡¯ll have to check in with everyone and see who is interested, and then I¡¯ll let you know." Benjamin said thankfully, already hoping that his grandchildren would be excited for something like that. "Well, anyway, I have to get going now, Benjamin. Nice talking to you again!" "Likewise, nice talking to you again, Samuel!" Benjamin replied with a smile before hanging up. --- Eisen woke up in his bed in the Inn and took a look around. Eight of Melissa¡¯s Bees were currently watching from the walls while Melissa and the two ¡¯Leader¡¯ bees were sleeping on a table, and Caria was lying in Eisen¡¯s bed together with him. Around the same time as he did, they also woke up and looked at Eisen happily. "Good morning all of you, did you sleep well?" Both Melissa and Caria nodded gleefully while Eisen stood up and got dressed, looking around at the other beds that were both empty. "I see, Bree and Komer both woke up already." He muttered as he grabbed his backpack and told the soldier and scout bees to hide inside it before leaving the room and locking it behind him. In the entrance area of the inn, Eisen already found Komer waiting for him. "Hey Eisen! Bree is already in the restaurant and ordered some food for us, youing?" The young man asked while fixing his bright red hair while pointing along the hallway. "Yeah, sure. By the way, Komer, I need to tell you something." Eisen said quietly while looking around to make sure none of the nearby NPCs could hear him. "From this Sunday in real life on, I won¡¯t be ying this much for a few weeks. I will still be there at the very least every night, so don¡¯t worry about that, but just not really that much during the day." "Oh, is everything alright?" Komer asked with concern, and Eisen nodded immediately. "My children and grandchildren are just visiting me for a few weeks, so I want to spend as much time as I can with them." He chuckled while starting to walk toward the restaurant situated inside the Inn. Komer sighed loudly in response in relief, following the old man in front of him. "I see, have fun, then!" He said with a smile, and Eisen thanked him with a chuckle before remembering what he talked about with Samuel not too long ago. "Ah, also, I think we, or at least I, should start seeing what your brothers are up to. I was asked to take a look at them by someone I know at Prime Industries." Eisen exined, while Komer started slightly freaking out. "Wh-what? Really? So you just need to see what they¡¯re doing?" He asked nervously, and Eisen nodded to calm him down. "Yeah, don¡¯t worry. I won¡¯t fight them or anything, I just want to see what their actual ns are. Do you have any ideas where they might be?" The old man asked while entering the restaurant and looking around to see if he could find Bree, waving at her when he saw her. Komer nodded slowly while walking toward the table together with Eisen. "Yeah, I think they might actually be here in town. It has the highest poption in the whole country, so it would make sense to try and set up shop here, right? And I heard them talking about Ornier, although I didn¡¯t really hear the context." Komer exined as the two of them sat down next to Bree, who tilted her head in confusion. "Hm? What are you two talking about?" She asked with a smile, and Eisen began to exin while Komer began to freak out. "Ah, you see, it seems like the Omegas also woke up with some sort of knowledge. I really don¡¯t know where ites from, but they knew things like their rtionships the moment they appeared. Komer here has two brothers, although they aren¡¯t great people. I thought it would be a great idea to look for them and see what they are up to." Eisen said with a smile, while Komer looked at him in shock at how well he managed to handle this situation. Chuckling softly, the old man looked back at Bree who was smiling brightly. "Oooh! Really? That¡¯s cool! I didn¡¯t know that! Let¡¯s meet Komer¡¯s brothers, yeah!" She said with a smile, leaving Komer to sigh in relief that Bree believed this so quickly. But for now, the group simply ate breakfast together. Chapter 109 Mal After finishing their breakfast, the group stood up and made their way out of the Inn. "Now then, do either of you two have any ns for the day?" Eisen asked with a smile while trying to think of what to do for the next few days whenever he would have the chance to y. Of course he would begin with brewing somerge amounts of basic alcohol, as the majority of the process was simply waiting for everything to ferment properly when it came to most types of alcohol that Eisen was currently interested in. Beside that, there was something else that Eisen wanted to try making which he would need to get some materials for. Komer scratched his cheek as he began to think of anything that he had to do today, but since there wasn¡¯t anything beside product-scouting, he didn¡¯t have much to do. "Well, I can tag along with whatever you¡¯re nning, because I don¡¯t have any ns myself." He then said, and Bree nodded as well. "Mhm, same for me~! I finished all I needed to do already, so I¡¯m fine!" She said with a big grin, so Eisen chuckled and began walking toward Gordon¡¯s Tavern while Melissa was sitting on his shoulder and he grabbed Caria¡¯s hand. It didn¡¯t take too long for them all to arrive at their destination, and when they stepped inside, a middle-aged man stepped outside angrily. At first Eisen didn¡¯t think anything of it since Gordon seemed like the type of person to easily piss someone off, but he noticed that the man was somewhat surprised at seeing Komer but simply kept running. While telling Bree to wait inside, Eisen then looked at Komer with a frown. "Did you know that man?" Slowly, Komer nodded in response as he kept looking at that man that just left. "Yeah, I¡¯m pretty sure he¡¯s some executive in my dad¡¯spany, and one of my brother¡¯s followers. The one that bought everything up." "Huh, then I wonder what he¡¯s doing here so early in the morning. Let¡¯s just get inside and ask Gordon." Eisen said with a frown, opening the door again and stepping into the tavern where Bree and Gordon were already talking to each other. "Good mornin¡¯ Eisen, how¡¯re ya doin¡¯?" He said whileughing loudly and extended his arm for a handshake, and Eisen happily greeted him back. "I¡¯m pretty good if I¡¯ll be honest, but what was that about with that guy just now?" Eisen asked curiously, and Gordon sighed loudly while shaking his head. "Ah, that guy¡¯s just a wee cunt, beenin¡¯ every day and tryin¡¯ to get me to sell me recipes and drinks to ¡¯is boss. That guy can just feck right off if he can¡¯t evene ¡¯imself!" Gordon swore with a mixture ofughter and anger, and Eisen began to frown. "Scouts, go after that man and don¡¯t lose sight of him." Eisenmanded,pletely confusing Gordon in the process, before five Bees crawled out of his backpack and immediately flew threw the slightly open door near to instantly. "The fuck was that?" The dwarf behind the counter asked while suspiciously eyeing the backpack, and Eisen chuckled lowly. "The small Bee Melissa here is actually a queen bee, and she cany scout bee eggs, so I¡¯ve just sent those away to follow that man just now. We¡¯re actually looking for the person he¡¯s working for." Eisen then exined as he sat down on one of the stools in front of the bar. "Anyway, that¡¯s not why we¡¯re here right now. I¡¯d like to see if you could sell me some brewing ingredients for some rather simple things." The old man asked, and Gordon nodded while crossing his arms. "Of course I can, what d¡¯ya need?" "Mainly barley malt and yeast. I¡¯ll not be making anything extraordinary yet, just things like basic beer and whiskey. Once I¡¯ve got that down, I¡¯ll make some other things from your recipe book." "Got it, but n in enough time for yer whiskey, takes a while till ya can even consider it good enough to clean yer ass with." Eisenughed lowly and nodded, "Yeah, don¡¯t worry. I¡¯ll be making a barrel of beer and a barrel of whiskey for now. That should be enough for quite a while until I find a ce to keep some of my things long-term. There isn¡¯t really much space in our carriage." Gordon nodded slowly as he opened the door to the back room and waved Eisen over to have him follow, before the old man told hispanions to wait for him. In the back room, Gordon turned to Eisen while showing him the types of grains and malts that he had, "So, how much d¡¯ya need?" The dwarf asked, and Eisen repeated his mental calction to make sure he wouldn¡¯t make a mistake. "Hmm... my barrels hold a bit more than 200 liters, and I need about 8 kilos of malt for 30 liters of whisky, so I need around 54 kilos of malt, so I should probably take double that. As for Beer, maybe a bit less at 7 kilos for 30 liters at 80% efficiency, so around 47, so I¡¯ll take double that as well, bringing me to around 202 kilos of malt in total. Yep, that should be enough." Eisen then said, and quite impressed, Gordon nodded while crossing his arms. "Huh, ye already know a bit about brewin¡¯, huh?" Heughed out loudly while grabbing four fifty kilo bags of barley malt as well as one small 10 kilo bag off the pile, helping Eisen carry them to the front of the tavern, where Eisen then turned to Bree. "You can carry one of these, right?" Eisen asked, and the Fey-kin nodded happily. "Mhm! I can! I think..." She said before seemingly casting a spell to make the bags a slight bit lighter each, before grabbing one of them happily. "You sure you can carry it?" Eisen asked with a smile, while Caria herself also grabbed the small 10 kilo bag, while Komer was left not carrying anything since his stats were too low. Eisen wanted him to carry the 10 kilo bag instead of the small and weak Caria, but she simply wouldn¡¯t give it to him no matter how often Eisen asked. So instead, Komer then carried the small bags of yeast. Eisen himself carried three of the fifty kilo bags, which is something that he never would have been able to do in real life, but now with his stats so high and his Giant¡¯s Strength Racial skill activated, it was actually quite easy to do. "Alright, thanks Gordon. Komer, can you give him the money from my purse?" Eisen asked, and the young man quickly nodded before putting his hand into the purse connected to Eisen¡¯s hip and then pulled out the appropriate coins before paying Gordon with them. "Come back again sometime before ye¡¯re leavin¡¯. I hope that ain¡¯t too soon." Gordon told them while they were leaving. With a softugh, Eisen smiled at the dwarf. "Of course, don¡¯t worry about that." He told Gordon before the group made their way through town toward the stable that Bree chose to keep the carriage and the two Automata in. And it seemed to be a quite high grade one at that, with seemingly pretty strong guards standing out front to ensure that nobody was able to steal anything. The group hurried inside before making their way toward their carriage, where someone was seemingly messing around with both Aulu and Cabarum. Or rather than messing around, he was holding hay toward Cabarum while being growled at by Aulu, with a guard holding a spear toward her. "Hey, what¡¯s going on here?" Eisen asked while setting the bags of barley malt down onto the ground next to the carriage. The Guard that was currently trying to ¡¯defend¡¯ everyone from Aulu held his arm to the side to stop Eisen froming closer. "Sir, please stand back! This is a wild beast, so it would be better if you evacuated!" Basically instantly, Eisen¡¯s expression turned sour as he began rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Aulu, sit." Eisenmanded before the Wolf Automaton instantly sat down on her butt and stopped growling, causing both the Guard and stableboy to look at Eisen in confusion. "H-Huh, sir, how did you do that? Was this wolf a tamed beast?" The Guard asked while stuttering, and Eisen nodded. "Something like that, yeah. It¡¯s impossible to get a wild beast into town, isn¡¯t it? So how would I be able to do that? And you, kid, I¡¯m pretty sure my friend here told you that our horse doesn¡¯t need to be fed. So why are you simply going ahead and doing something like that without our permission?" Eisen then asked while frowning at the stableboy in annoyance. Surely he didn¡¯t mean anything bad by it, but it still annoyed Eisen that he simply did something like that without actually being allowed to. From what Eisen could figure out judging from what the stableboy was muttering about in broken sentences, he was trying to feed Cabarum, but since he didn¡¯t need to eat, he simply kept his mouth shut. The stableboy became a bit more aggressive at this point, simply out of worry for a horse that wasn¡¯t eating, prompting Aulu to jump out of the carriage to defend Cabarum. Eisen sighed loudly and kept shaking his head. "Listen, I get that you just wanted to help, and that¡¯s a good thing, but you don¡¯t need to feed him. Neither he nor this wolf need to eat or drink, so you don¡¯t need to try and feed him." He exined and the stableboy nodded slowly. "S-Sorry about that..." The young man muttered before turning around and rushing away, while the guard was also trying to slowly leave while filled with embarrassment. While Eisen opened up the door into the carriage again, Bree began to fidget around somewhat while cing her bag of malt into the spot where Eisen told her to. "I¡¯m sorry, Eisen... I should have told them more clearly..." With a light smile Eisen began to chuckle, shaking his head as he ced the three bags he carried onto the same spot as where Bree ced her bag. "Don¡¯t worry about it, it¡¯s not your fault. At least now they get it.? Anyway, just put everything down for now, I can start making everything some other time. First, let¡¯s go grab something for my next small project." The old man said with a light smile before stepping back out of the carriage followed by Komer and Bree. The young merchant lightly tilted his head to the side with a hint of curiosity in his eyes before turning to Eisen. "What next project?" "Haha, it¡¯s nothing grand, sorry. I¡¯ll just start making some books." Eisen chuckled, leaving Komer¡¯s smile to change into boredom. "Books..? Really...? Why?" He asked with a loud sigh, and Eisen could onlyugh before the group made their way out of the stable again. "My biggest reason is simply curiosity. I asked Bree before, and she told me that it has its own separate skill. It makes sense if you think about it, because it doesn¡¯t really fit into any other crafting category just right. So I want to see what kind of effects it may give me, or what kind of special books I can make. And once I make books, they can definitely be useful if I want to write down my own recipes, or if you want or need to write down stock or order quantity or something like that, if we should at some point take orders." Eisen exined, and Komer only let out a lengthy ¡¯Ahh¡¯ of understanding. "Alright, I get it. Well, can¡¯t really be avoided, so better get it out of the way early." Komer shrugged as he continued following Eisen further into the center of town. Chapter 110 Books "Bree, is there a good shop where I can buy high-quality paper? I¡¯ll make some myself at some point, but to get the skill it should be easier to work with pre-existing paper." Eisen exined before Bree began to think for a while. "Hmm, we could go to a general store, they should have paper there, but we can also go to a Bookstore. The paper they have is more expensive, but also a lot higher in quality." The Fey-Kin told Eisen, and he listened curiously before nodding at her suggestion. "Alright, sounds good to me. Then let¡¯s go to a nearby Bookstore." The old man smiled while nodding at his twopanions, following Bree toward a small, but high-tier, bookstore that was just a few streets away. Most of the books that were sold there were leather-bound at the highest quality, and most had to do with some kind of technique, whether it was rted to crafting,bat or magic, and Eisen was more than interested in some of the crafting and magic books. Before he even got to taking a look at different paper, he grabbed about half a dozen books that each seemed quite useful to him. Three of those were material guides, one for different metals, another for different woods and nts, and thest one for different leathers. Each of these included the rarity of each material, their worth depending on their purity or condition, and in what area of the world which could be found. Another one of them a monster guide, simply listing the mostmon monsters found in different areas of the world and the way they reacted toward intruders or enemies. None of the information given on each monster was particrly detailed, as it seemed this was a general guide meant for nonbatants so that they knew which areas of the world to pass by so that they wouldn¡¯t unnessarily put themselves in danger. There were some bestiaries there as well that gave more detailed information together with usefulbat tactics to use on each monster, but if Eisen wanted to have the same amount of monsters covered in these bestiaries as in the general monster guide, he would need at least a dozen more books. Of course he could always ask Bree for this type of information, but Eisen preferred to actually have all of it in his mind than have to ask about certain things case-for-case. And atst, Eisen also picked two books rted to magic, one with general theories and information on magic, and one filled with different nonbat uses of magic, mainly focused on its use in crafting. These two books were the ones that Eisen was most interested in, actually. The one filled with magic theories and information seemed to be talking about different types of magic that Eisen had no idea existed in this game, and the one filled with information about crafting was something Eisen really wanted in order to find ways to make magical weapons. Technically, his Zweih?nder was also a magic weapon since Eisen infused magic into it while forging, but there had to be far more efficient methods that he had no way of knowing about yet. Eisen basically knew everything there was to know about crafting methods, but when it came to magic, he knew near to nothing. All of the information that he gathered about it so far may seem a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, Magic had to be far more expansive than Eisen could even imagine. Due to that, he wanted to at least figure out as much as he could where magic ovepped with his own area of expertise. But for now, Eisen simply looked through these books quite briefly and would read through themter if he had the time. He still had four or five in-game days until Tony, Benji, Sean and Katy arrived at his house, after all, so he should have some time to at least start looking through them briefly. So instead, the old man walked over to the shopkeeper and asked to see different types of paper to choose a good type to purchase. In the end, Eisen chose a simple, smooth and high quality paper with a clean white color. The size that Eisen needed was double that of what a single page of the book would be. So, Eisen bought arge stack of paper, enough for a few pretty thick books, as well as a few sheets of thin cardboard, before the group left the shop again. "Do either of you want to buy something yourselves right now?" Eisen asked, and both Komer and Bree shook their heads after looking at each other briefly. "Not really, no." Komer told him as he looked over at Bree, who was shrugging at Eisen¡¯s question as well. "Really? Well, I still have to go to two other shops, and after that I¡¯ll just be crafting for a while. So just go ahead and have a fun day without me during that time." Eisen exined as he was stashing away the books and paper he just bought in Bree¡¯s backpack. The Fey-kin nodded with a smile, "Hmm, alright... We could meet up with Evalia again and do something with her!" She said happily, and Komer agreed. "Yeah, let¡¯s do that!" Next, the group made their way both to the Leatherworker and the Tailor, to buy different pieces of leather and fabrics not only meant for the bookbinding process that was to follow, but also for some other projects that Eisen had in mind for a while, before they then walked back to the Carriage, unloading everything that was just bought onto their respective spots in the carriage. Luckily, this time around there wasn¡¯t any trouble being caused in the stables that had to do with either Cabarum or Aulu, so Eisen could simply get to work right away. "Alright, I¡¯ll start working then. Do you two want to stick around for a bit?" Eisen asked, before Komer and Bree both ended up nodding and saying that they would stay for a little while longer, while Eisen got to work. He grabbed a pile of the A4 paper he bought and began creating smaller piles of each six sheets of paper. These were then folded in half to create small packets with pages in the A5 format. After about 10 of these packets were put together, Eisen made small markings at the fold of one of these packs as guidelines for the stitching that would following in a bit, before stacking the packets on top of each other and drawing lines across the spine to transfer these markings to all the other packets. These markings had about an inch of space inbetween each other and half an inch of space to each end of the paper and had an even number. Next, Eisen onfolded each of the bundles and punched small holes into the spots that were marked, before folding them back up. He then grabbed some waxed thread and tied it through the hole of one of his needles before activating as many skills as he could, including his Tailoring Crafting space, although it didn¡¯t seem to make any difference in this case, his elemental transformation moved toward mes for speed, and luckily his hands didn¡¯t burn the paper he was touching, as well as his two racial skills that he always had active when crafting. Eisen first pulled the thread through the hole on the lowest end from the outside and then back out through the next hole, then back in, and so on until he pulled the thread through all holes, before cing the next bundle on top and pulling the thread through the hole above the one that Eisen was currently at. When he got to the other end of this second bundle, he pulled as much thread through the two bundles as he would need for the other eight, and then bound the loose end at the very first hole that Eisen pulled the thread through to thest hole of the second bundle, before adding a third bundle in a simr way. Just this time around, when he got to the end of the third bundle, to make sure that both ends were equally tightly connected, Eisen quickly moved the thread he had through the thread that went from the end of the first bundle to the start of the second bundle, and then repeated this until he sewed all 10 bundles together. Next, Eisen ced these sewed-together bundles of paper onto his worktable and grabbed a small nk of wood together with the books that he just bought, cing the nk on top of the paper and then weighing this down with the books, spreading glue on the back of the paper¡¯s spine. While this was drying, Eisen grabbed some thin fabric and cut it into the right shape he needed, about an inch shorter and three times as wide as the spine, covering one side of the frabric in glue before removing the books and the wooden nk and cing the piece of fabric around the spine so that it covered the whole spine, except two small half-inch strips at the top and bottom, and part of the front and back, before cing this back under the nk and the books to make sure everything was being pushed together while the glue was drying. As Eisen was waiting for the glue to dry again, he cut out two sheets of slightly more durable, thicker paper to perfectly fit on the front and back of the paper, before he grabbed some of that thin cardboard that he bought before as well, cutting out three pieces. Two that were basically identical and the same size as one page of the book would be, just about half an inch taller, and then a thin piece that was as wide as the spine and once more about half an inch taller, before grabbing a piece of leather, simple cow¡¯s leather in this case, and glueing these pieces of cardboard onto that leather with about a quarter inch gap between the spine piece and the two front and back cover pieces. Eisen then cut away excess leather to leave a 1-inch border of leather around the three pieces of cardboard, and then cut away the four corners of the leather,ing as close to the corners of the pieces of cardboard as possible. Next, Eisen took the bound pages and covered the cardboard with glue, first attaching the paper spine to the cardboard spine and then the front and back covers to each other, before unfolding the front and back covers toy t on the ground while the main body stuck straight up, and ced his books on the covers to make sure everything was going to tightly stick together. After the glue dried, Eisen put glue on the excess parts of leather that were left as a border around the pieces of cardboard before and folded them over onto the front and back covers. And atst, Eisen glued two pieces of thick and strong paper the same size as the pages onto the front and back cover parts in the inside of the book, before cing the whole thing under the wooden nk weighed down with books once again. With a smile, Eisen now leaned back against the wall and waited for the glue to finish drying again while talking to Komer and Bree who were still curiously watching Eisen work during the whole time he made this book, and a short whileter the old man took the books and the nk off of the newly-crafted book and inspected it to make sure everything was alright with it, before nodding in satisfaction. "Done." Eisen said, and in response to his acknowledgement that this item was finished, a notification popped up. [You made an nk Leatherbound Book] [Bookbinding Skill Learned] [nk Leatherbound Book] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description] A simple leatherbound book created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Every single page of it ispletely nk and yet to be filled. [Pages] 120 Chapter 111 Enchantment Collection Eisen smiled as he looked at the finished item in his hands, flipping through it a few times to make sure that everything really was fine with it, before handing it over to Komer. "Here you go, you can have the first one if you want." The old man smiled, and Komer looked at him in surprise. "Really? Thanks! I guess I¡¯ll really start taking notes from now on, then..." Komer chuckled lowly as he greatfully received the small book. Eisenughed lightly at Komer¡¯s expression and nodded as he leaned back against the wall. "Yeah, since you¡¯ll be making basically all of our purchases from now on." He exined to the young Merchant, who then looked back nkly. "Wait, I¡¯ll be making all the purchases? What do you mean?" "It makes sense, right? Your Trading skill goes up the more you buy and sell things, so in order to make sure you get as much proficiency as possible, we should leave it all to you. Of course you won¡¯t be paying for it yourself, don¡¯t worry. If it¡¯s crafting material or the like, then you just need to get a receipt for the exact price you bought something for write it down somewhere yourself, whatever is easier for you. I¡¯ll give you back whatever you paid for. And I suggest that you note everything down in your notebook as well, since it can¡¯t hurt to get bookmaking experience." Eisen exined while Komer was listening intensely, nodding at Eisen¡¯s suggestion. "Alright, let¡¯s do it that way. And... thanks for trusting me like that, Eisen. I know I don¡¯t really deserve it." Komer said in a low voice while scratching the back of his head, and Eisen began to chuckle. "Don¡¯t worry about it. I¡¯m sure you won¡¯t try and scam me again. Anyway, I¡¯ll continue making some books now to get proficiency in the skill, go ahead and stay to watch if you want, but you don¡¯t have to." Eisen exined as he sat down in front of the worktable again, grabbing some more piles of paper before assembling them into piles of six sheets again, before Komer and Bree looked at each other for a second to see what the other one wants to do. "I think we¡¯ll be on our way now~!" Bree eximed with a happy smile as she opened the Carriage¡¯s door and was just about to step through while closely being followed by Komer. But before the two of them left, Eisen yelled after them. "Ah, can you take Aulu with you? She¡¯s only really been lying in the Carriage for quite some time, so I¡¯m sure she could use some exercise." "Of course~!" The Fey-Kin smiled before the Wolf Automaton stood up with her joints slightly creaking, so Eisen handed a bottle of oil over to Bree as well that she could feed Aulu if she needed it. "Have fun!" Eisen then told them before they waved back at him and made their way out of the stables, leaving the old man to sit in the Carriage alone. "Now then, let¡¯s get to work!" He eximed as he was smiling while looking at Caria and Melissa who were sitting on the bench next to the worktable. Now, once more, Eisen repeated the same process as before and made another small leatherbound notebook, then again, and then again. He basically created three notebooks that were exactly the same as the one that he gave Komer, using the same types of paper and leather for every step of the process as before. The regr Cow¡¯s Leather that Eisen was using so far was the best choice in Eisen¡¯s opinion, since he didn¡¯t want to use the more expensive leather from different monsters without knowing whether it would even make a difference. So for now, Eisen wanted to continue crafting regr books until he reached a higher rank and got some sort of new information that would give him at least a hint toward what you could make out of books in this game. And maybe the book that he bought that also includedbining magic with crafting skills would give him a hint as well. Either way, at Rank 0 most of the things that could be carfted were regr items without any sort of special effect, at least from what Eisen could tell so far. Eisen only needed to make one more book in order to rank up to 1, and for that, he had an idea that he wanted to at least try out. He wanted to see if he could make an enchantment book, with each page being a different enchantment. Regr paper was too thin to carve things like that into, though, so Eisen especially bought some at the bookstore that was just barely thick enough. He already confirmed that it was possible to carve enchantments onto a single sheet of paper that ended up working like normal, but Eisen didn¡¯t know how well it would work out with dozens and dozens of enchantmentspacted into a single book. The enchantments that Eisen would put into this book were of course not the types of enchantments that you would see on something like a weapon or tool that would do something to the object they were ced on, but rather those that would end up creating something. Eisen had been ying around with this for a while now, and as long as they were rtively small items, it wasn¡¯t even all that mana-inefficient anymore to create small objects or parts forrger objects. So, with this book Eisen would basically create something like a ¡¯part catalogue¡¯ that would include things like dice or small decorational items such as marbles for example, most of them being made out of materials like crystal that would allow them to rather easily be enchanted further. Of course this wouldn¡¯t really be used all that often, but it would at least give Eisen somewhere to collect some different enchantments that he had been ying around with. At the same time, this would obviously give Eisen a reason to create many different enchantments to fill out the book, which would in the end allow Eisen to gain more proficiency in the enchanting skill as well. So instead of the regr paper that he had been using up until now, he instead used some that was about four times thicker. The rest was really the same as it had been before, even using the same amount of sheets of paper so that Eisen wouldter get a pretty thick book to inscribe the enchantments into. And as such, soon enough, Eisen finished this book as well. [nk Leatherbound Thick-Paged Book] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description] A leatherbound book with thick pages created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Every single page of it ispletely nk and yet to be filled. [Pages] 120 [Bookbinding reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [You can now sessfully re-bind books] [Due to Ranking-up your Bookbinding Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 WIS] "Oh, rebinding books, huh? That¡¯s easy enough, yeah, makes sense that it¡¯s a thing so early on. Don¡¯t need to do that right now, though, so I¡¯ll just not." Eisen muttered as he looked at the new book lying on the table in front of him before grabbing his mythril enchanting needle before he began to carve a few simple ones into the first few pages. They really weren¡¯t anything special, just enchantments that would make a few dice or marbles, or other simr structures, made of crystal. While Eisen was at it, he also created some enchantments that would allow him to make parts for ater project of his that may be slightly hard toplete for now, which was creating small crystal limbs, or at the very least each individual body parts. Back when he made that tiny mock-golem core, he tried it out on that small Health-Doll, and when he was thinking back on that, he wanted to see to what extent it would be possible to actually make tiny golems. A seemingly easy way to do that would probably be to wait until he was able topress different materials through Alchemy, and since that would still take a little while, Eisen chose to only make the enchantments for the body-parts that would possibly allow something simr to mass-production of tiny crystal soldierr. But for now, Eisen knew that he could ce many different enchantments like this into a single book and sat down on the bench, that could easily be turned into a bed, to rx for a while. After sitting down next to his two tamed monsters, Caria gleefully sat down on hisp and Melissa chose to stick to his shoulder again, while Eisen ced the books that he bought before down on the worktable within reach so that he could start reading through everything. The first book that Eisen grabbed was the one filled with nonbat uses of magic. The start of it was just a simple introduction to the author and the general theory behind magic and different crafting techniques, before it then actually got to the actual uses. Then it talked about the different ways magic could influence the crafting process, of which there were three main ways. First, magic was used in a way that changed the material that was being worked with. For example by infusing your mana or magic elements into a metal ingot in a way that it wouldn¡¯t dissipateter, and for that there were different methods already. One was to for example simply pour your mana into the metal, and then using certain ways, of which there were a multitude in itself, to make sure the mana wouldn¡¯t dissipate. Another was to use a material that was pure mana in itself andbine it with the base material, such as mana crystals or crystalized mana of the crafter. This could be done through different ways as well, such as simply alloying a metal with these materials or using other magical ways to fuse the magical materials with base materials. Then there was of course the way to use a purely magical material as the base of the item, which Eisen was already aware of. Another way of influencing the crafting process was to use magic while actually actively crafting, such as in a way as Eisen did when putting his mana into his Zweih?nder while he was creating it. This was the mostmon and the simplest way, as others usually required certain spells or special techniques that were rtively hard to get a hold of, that would each influence the crafting process in a different and unique way. And atst, there was the way of using magic on an item after actually finishing the main crafting process. One method to do with was by enchanting the finished item, or once again just using different spells on it that may or may not change parts of the item to be more magical. Since now Eisen was aware of these techniques, he figured out that he could actually do all three parts of this quite easily. He had ways of acquiring or creating special materials, of infusing his mana into the item while crafting, and then finishing it off by enchanting it. As such, Eisen would try this kind of thing out once he had the chance, especially once he brought Alchemy so far that he couldbine different materials into one more easily. Morrom had told him about it before, but the only thing he could imagine at the time was alloying different metals. But apparently, even if one used the exact same base materials as in making an alloy, the resulting item would be somethingpletely different. And such abination process would also allow Eisen to for examplebine wood or fabrics with metal, which was something that wasn¡¯t usually possible. Of course it was possible to make metallic string out of which to create metalic fabrics, but once again, materials that werebined through alchemy weren¡¯t always what one would expect. After reading through the most important parts of this book, Eisen was actually feeling quite pumped up to improve himself further and make sure that he could use all these new techniques and materials that he hadn¡¯t ever possibly seen in real life to create amazing and stunning new items! Chapter 112 Monster Shop After looking through the first book for a while until he managed to get the most important information, Eisen looked at the next book that was of interest to him at the moment, the one about multiple different ways to practice magic, but the moment that he flipped this book open, Melissa reacted to something. "Hm? What¡¯s wrong?" The old man asked while the queen bee looked toward the carriage¡¯s door, nudging her head in its direction. "You want to go outside? Wait, is it because of the scouts?" Eisen asked her, and Melissa quickly nodded her head before Eisen stood up and grabbed his backpack as well as his sword that was, as usual, wrapped in cloth to make carrying it easier, after changing back into his suit. This seemed like a weirdbination at first, but Eisen chose to wear the suit instead of the Leather armor so that he could make a good first impression, and he really just needed the sword in case things went south so that he could defend himself. Eisen immediately left the carriage and made his way out of the stables, following the instructions that Melissa gave him to where Komer¡¯s brother might be. After a while, they reached a small shop in the outskirts of town with a huge sign above it, reading "Merc¡¯s Glory". The moment that Eisen read this, he could already figured out the name that Komer¡¯s brother chose. From what Komer described him as, he seemed to be the kind of person to put his name on the front of his store. With a loud sigh, Eisen then slowly opened the front door of the shop and stepped inside. They didn¡¯t seem to be selling one thing, but instead everything that they could get their hands on. Food, metals, low-grade potions, and other random items, and the majority of what was being sold didn¡¯t seem quite as high-quality as Eisen would have expected. He didn¡¯t know whether Komer¡¯s brother just didn¡¯t care, or if there was some kind of active business decision to choose quantity over quality with this shop. The moment that Eisen stepped inside, he noticed Melissa fidgeting on his shoulder, and the five soldier bees in his backpack trying to escape. Soon enough, Eisen found the reason for that. In the middle of the shop stood a man with red hair simr to Komer¡¯s, just a few shades darker, wearing a navy colored suit and pure white gloves, holding two crushed scout bees in his hands. With anger starting to boil up inside of him at the sight of someone so easily killing the monsters that his adorable little Melissa hatched and that were so eagerly protecting their queen so far, Eisen closed his eyes and activated his Truth Seeing eyes before holding his hand in front of one of them that he then opened to take a look at the man¡¯s level and name, shortly after telling Melissa to immediately hide in his backpack with the other bees. [yer - Merc] [Race - Human][upation - Combat Merchant][Level - 67] A Combat merchant? That seemed to be quite self-exnatory to Eisen at first, but what he was wondering about most at the time was the stat distribution. If he was good at physicalbat, he would probably have a distribution simr to Eisen¡¯s, where he needed to keep his physical stats up for thebat part of his upation and his mental stats for his merchant side of the upation. If this was the case, Eisen definitely had the upper hand if it came to abat situation, at the very least when you would judge everything purely by looking at the stats Either way, first Eisen stepped in closer into the shop after obviously deactivating his Truth Seeing Eyes skill and finally caught Merc¡¯s attention. The young man looked over to Eisen, letting his eyes wander up and down for a while before lightly grinning. It was quite badly lit, so he probably thought that Eisen was here for a different reason than he actually was, because he looked behind Eisen and saw Caria standing there. "Ah, are you a customer of ours? Is there anything wrong with one of our products?" Merc asked as he took off his now dirty gloves andid them down on the counter next to him. While Eisen was grinding his teeth, Merc stepped further toward him with a bright but sinister smile on his face. "If that is the case, I have to excuse myself. I only took over this business a few days ago, so things are still quite messy." Trying to y along to a degree, Eisen shook his head as he looked through the shop, trying to find anything that might let Merc think he has been a customer there before. But that¡¯s when he noticed something important. All of the food was already at the very least starting to rot, and there were cobwebs covering the shelves and items standing on them. This is not something that a person like the Merc that Komer described would allow in their shop. If that was the case, then this seemed to be a cover, a fake. The real shop was something else. "I¡¯m not here toin, I want to buy something." Eisen then said with a low voice, and Merc nodded as his grin grew even more sinister, waving his arm toward a door leading to the back as he stepped toward it himself, pulling out a bronze key which was used to unlock that door. "Follow me, please. Whether that thinges along or not is up to you." Merc said, and Eisen was confused even more. Did he figure out that Caria was a monster? Even then though, she did look 100 percent like a small girl, so the expression ¡¯that thing¡¯ seemed quite unusual. Only a short whileter did Eisen find out the reason for such wording. "What would your price range be? We have low-quality products starting at around 5 Gold Coins, while our product with the highest price is currently at 10 tinum Coins." Merc exined carefully, immediately leaving Eisen to be confused even further. 10 tinum coin? That was far, far above what Eisen expected to hear as a price right now. What kind of items could Merc have ess to right now? Some kind of ancient relic, maybe? "Hmm, do you have a general disy, by chance?" Eisen asked, carefully making sure that Caria was walking next to him within constant sight, so that he could react whenever necessary. The young man Merc nodded while smiling softly, continuing to walk through the hallway before opening arge door that already gave off apletely different feeling than the shop in the front, as if this was a high-quality luxury store. The moment that the door was opened, Eisen was met with the sight of cages over cages filled with different creatures. Most of them just seemed to be monsters in the end, but a few of them just looked so much like humans that it was quite terrifying. This wasn¡¯t a regr shop, this was something like a monster shop. Eisen gulped loudly as he stepped into the room, following Merc further in. "This is our general disy, filled with Lower-Grade and Mid-Grade products. If you want to take a look at High-Grades, we have a special disy for them." Merc exined quietly as he pointed at a few different ¡¯products¡¯ that he wanted to rmend to Eisen, who was just looking around in confusion. If this ce was just selling monsters, it wasn¡¯t that big a deal, was it? Sure, they were kept in quite inhumane ways, but Eisen honestly expected worse. A shop like this would probably be perfect for all kinds of tamers, and honestly not too bad a concept. For that reason, Eisen turned to Merc with a deep frown. "If I¡¯m allowed to ask, why do you do that y with the front of the shop? Selling monsters shouldn¡¯t be illegal, right?" Surprised, Merc began frowning back at Eisen at such an unexpected question. "You see, even though most of the products we sell are monsters, every once in a while we have a few that technically aren¡¯t. And I¡¯m sure you understand that most officials aren¡¯t quite happy with having so many monsters in town that technically aren¡¯t tamed." He exined quickly, and Eisen began thinking about part of what Merc just said. "Could you show me some that ¡¯technically¡¯ aren¡¯t Monsters, if you have any at the time?" Eisen asked, simply because he wanted to see what Merc meant. The Merchant nodded his head before pointing toward another door that seemed to be locked again. "We currently actually do have one, yes. It¡¯s a young boy, half monster, half human." Merc exined as he slowly unlocked the other door before opening it up, quickly stepping into the room. Different to the simple cages in the room they were just in, this room seemed to have a number of different cells simr to what a prison may have. "Here he is, we have his price currently set at a single tinum Coin." Merc exined, pointing at one of the cells so that Eisen could take a look. And what he saw was a young boy that definitely couldn¡¯t even have reached his teenage years yet judging from looks alone, and through his hair that seemed to be a dark blonde through all of the dirt caught inside of it, a few bright blue strands could be seen. For some reason, Eisen had a weird feeling in his gut at this, and he ced a hand over his right eye while closing his left and activated his Truth Seeing Eyes to take a look at who that boy was. [Sky] [Race - Fey-Kin (Pixie)][upation - None][Level - 15] Eisen immediately jumped once he read through this small amount of information, deactivating his Truth Seeing Eyes. He kept staring at the boy and began to mutter to himself. "A Pixie Fey-Kin that looks that young... That... can¡¯t be a coincidence..." Without once averting his eyes from the boy, Sky, Eisen lifted his hand and ced it around the metal bars, activating his Giant¡¯s Strength skill as well as the transmutation ability of his alchemy, slowly removing parts of the bar he was currently touching. The moment that everything was cracked and brittle enough, Eisen pulled at the bar with all his force, throwing it behind him. Immediately, Merc looked at Eisen in confusion while Sky began shaking in fear at what Eisen just did. "What the fuck are you doing, old man?" Merc yelled out, losing his cool as he grabbed Eisen¡¯s shoulder. Slowly, the old man then in turned around and stared Merc in the eyes with anger deeply buried inside of them. To further amplify his strength, Eisen then activated his elemental transformation turned toward earth to support his shoulders and upper back, as well as Eisen¡¯s arm. "That¡¯s what I should be asking you." Eisen said with a seemingly calm voice, grabbing the sword from behind his back and letting the cloth fall off, which immediately led to Merc jumping backward while roots began growing around his legs, causing him to drop onto his back. "You know what? For a second, I thought you weren¡¯t as bad as I heard. But I was really wrong about that." Eisen said slowly as he pointed his sword toward Merc¡¯s face to make sure he wouldn¡¯t move during what was about to happen. Carefully, Eisen poured mana out of his hands and began transmuting the ground and wall around Merc topletely cover and as such, trap him. This probably wouldn¡¯t hold for a long time, but it should be enough to trap Merc for a while, while Eisen himself got to work. He first squatted down and looked Merc in the eyes, before immediately being spit at by him. "That¡¯s not really nice, now is it? You should respect your elders, Eric." Eisen said with a low voice so that Sky wouldn¡¯t hear him, and Merc¡¯s eyes immediately shot open. "You¡¯re a fucking Omega too?! Whatpany sent you here to fuck with me?!" The young man and possible heir to a billion dorpany yelled out, filled with anger, and Eisen leaned forward slowly. "You have it wrong. I¡¯m not an Omega. I¡¯m one of the five that came before you lot. And I¡¯m quite aware of who you are, as you can guess. Tell me now, where is the key to that boy¡¯s ve cor?" Eisen asked quietly, and Merc simply spit in his face again. "Fuck off! Why should I ever tell you fucking bastard something like that?! How much do you want to let me out of here right now? A thousand? Ten thousand? Name your fucking price, asshole!" "Sorry, I¡¯m not for sale. Now then, how about I get rid of a dangerous situation here instead? Either you tell me, or I kill every single one of the monsters inside of this ce." Eisen said with a soft smile that was quite obviously set up, and Merc stared at him with even more anger. "You wouldn¡¯t fucking dare! Fine, take that little ass with you then, the key is in the office by the front shop, so fuck off!" Satisfied at that answer, Eisen stood up and cracked his knuckles before swinging his Zweih?nder over his shoulder and leaving out the door toward the monster disy again, while Merc yelled after him, "H-Hey, I told you where the keys are, so what the fuck do you think you¡¯re doing?!" With a light smile, Eisen turned back toward him and winked. "Well, you did get rid of one reason for me killing every one of your monsters by telling me that... But there is another one." With a smile, Eisen cued the bees in his backpack to fly out andnd on Eisen¡¯s shoulders before he continued to speak. "You killed some of my monsters, so I¡¯ll kill all of yours." Chapter 113 Kiron and Sky While ignoring Merc who was yelling at him as he was leaving the room, Eisen looked around to see what he should do. He may have said that he would kill the monsters, but he felt somewhat bad for them. After all, they were simply taken away from their homes and caged to be sold, so he couldn¡¯t really me them to be aggressive toward people. But nheless, they were monsters, beings that were said to be pure evil. And although Eisen knew that wasn¡¯t the case since he knew examples of multiple creatures that were technically monsters but not in the slightest evil, he still felt that he should y these monsters, at the very least those that didn¡¯t seem to have a mind on their own and were pure beasts that couldn¡¯t do anything but kill. It wasn¡¯t really hard to find those, if Eisen was going to be honest. The far majority of the monsters kept and sold here belonged to that category, and since they were caged, Eisen only had to stab them through the bars to kill them. Not only did this let Eisen level up a few times until he reached level 79 and added 8 points onto each of his stats, but he could also collect a few mana crystals. He didn¡¯t really care for the other materials all that much, since if he collected all of those, he would just have a wild mess of dozens and dozens of different types, most of which would just end up going to waste. However, the materials that he did collect were things that shoulde in quite useful other than generic materials such as leather. For example the ws or horns of some creatures, which was the main thing that Eisen ended up collecting beside the mana crystals. But there weren¡¯t only purely aggressive monsters there, some of them even actively attempted to be tamed by Eisen, seeing how he saved them. But each time this happened, Eisen received a notification. [A Monster has offered itself to be tamed, but as you have already reached the current upper limit of monsters that can be tamed by you, this is impossible. However, this specific Monster will not be aggressive toward you without reason, and can be told what to do to an extent. If the monster will truly follow themand is unsure] In total, Eisen read this notification about a dozen times, for creatures of all kind. A Lizard covered in metal ores, or a bull that looked to be made of earth, or a fish swimming through the air. Eisen didn¡¯t know what to do with them, but he didn¡¯t want to kill them, considering that they were quite harmless to him. After a while of thinking, Eisen ended up opening his chat option and decided to message the one person that might know what to do, Jyuuk. The moment that a small see-through keyboard apeared in front of him, Eisen began to type. [Eisen] Hello Jyuuk, there is a situation going on in Ornier, and I could need your help. Are you already in the wastnd you talked about? As Eisen was waiting for an answer, he continued with the business that he had in the monster shop. This general exhibit was already nearly cleared out, and the only thing that was left was the one filled with ¡¯high-grade products¡¯ as Merc called them. It wasn¡¯t especially hard to find that door either, it was just a little bit hidden behind a few empty cages. So, Eisen quickly opened that door up and took a look around. In this room, there were only ten cages in total, and they seemed to be many, many times stronger than the ones he just saw before. And that also counted for the monsters themselves. Different to the creatures in the room before, these were all immediately calm and simply staring at Eisen without making a single sound. When Eisen got to the first cage, he saw a young child with dark green skin and pointed ears, with no hair whatsoever growing on its body. ording to what his appraisal of it told Eisen, this was called a ¡¯Hobgoblin¡¯, and once Eisen figured that out, he did manage to see simrities to regr goblins. This kid didn¡¯t seem to be harmful in the slightest, other than normal goblins, and basically instantly tried to be tamed by Eisen. Thus, he opened the cage and told the child to wait by the door. From its movements alone, Eisen could figure that this Hobgoblin child was seemingly quite hurt, but since it didn¡¯t seem to have any actual outer wounds, Eisen figured that he should take a look at the leg that it¡¯s been dragging behind itselfter. The encounter with the creature in the next cage wasn¡¯t nearly as fun, and the moment that Eisenid his hand on the bars, it jumped forward out of the darkness of the cage and tried to rip off Eisen¡¯s hand. Luckily, the old man managed to pull back quickly enough and then got a good look at it. Overall, it seemed like a more humanoid gori, just slightly smaller in size and with more humanoid proportions. From then on, it did not stop trying to attack Eisen for even a second, and he could feel its deep hatred in its eyes. Carefully, Eisen stabbed his sword inside of the cage, but his sword didn¡¯t fully pierce. All it did was give the gori an injury of the level of a papercut. He continued on and on to stab the creature at the same spot, and soon enough managed to prate past its thick skin while he was slowly draining its HP, until it simply dropped dead onto the ground. [You are now Level 82] "I leveled up three times..?" Eisen muttered to himself as he opened up the cage and stepped into it while rubbing the surface of the coin around his neck. "Sorry." Eisen muttered as he cut out the mana crystal out of the monster¡¯s chest, which was amongst thergest that he has ever seen up until now, evenrger than that of the Goblin King that they killed before. But that¡¯s not all that Eisen found inside of its chest. There was a small orb, just a littlerger than the tip of Eisen¡¯s pinky, and when Eisen inspected it with his Truth Seeing Eyes, he found out that it was something he didn¡¯t know about before. [Soul Stone][Apex Gori][Rank - 5] "A soul stone? Huh... I¡¯ll have to take a look at thatter then..." Eisen said, before starting to make a detailed mana copy of this ¡¯Apex Gori¡¯ for his copy library, which he had been one after another filling up with the corpses of the monsters he killed in this shop so far. After killing this Monster, Eisen continued on, ying the rest of the creatures left in the room beside a single one, collecting their mana crystals and soul stones. The creature that seemed to be the ¡¯Top Seller¡¯ that Merc mentioned before was still sitting ever so quietly in its cage, staring down onto the floor. Simr to the other creatures in this room, this one was also a humanoid, seemingly some kind of reptilian creature. It¡¯s scales were glittering in the little light that wasing into the room, and when Eisenid his hand onto the cold metal bars, the creature looked up. "Oh, are you going to kill me in the same way as you did those other simpletons?" A deep, mature and raspy voice asked, and Eisen stepped backward. He didn¡¯t expect it to be able to talk, so Eisen began to frown strongly. "If you¡¯re aggressive, I may try, but I¡¯m not sure it will be as easy as with those others. If you don¡¯t mind me asking... What are you?" Eisen asked quietly, and the monster in the cage stood up. "I am a half-dragon. Son of a race like yours, while at the same time being that of a dragon. Thetter side was far stronger, so I ended up as a Monster, and here in this run-down ce as a main attraction. They all thought I was some kind of lizardman, because none of them could appraise me to see for themselves." It exined, before holding its hand in front of itself while bowing forward. "My name is Kiron, pleased to meet you. As I can see, you have already been encountered by one of my full-blooded brethren and have gained an ability of a dragon¡¯s eye." Kiron looked closely at Eisen¡¯s face, who then slowly nodded as he opened the cage up. He didn¡¯t seem to be a bad person, and if he was a halfling race, then he shouldn¡¯t look at him like he was a monster. And there was something else about him. Eisen looked Kiron up and down as he was leaving the cage. "Your scales... If I had to guess, you are the son of a crystal dragon?" Kiron looked down at himself before slowly nodding. "That is so, indeed. I am not a regr half-dragon, but the son of the Dragon King that ascended to the heavens and became a deity. But my powers have been sealed, and as such I am not much stronger than what I was believed to be, a ¡¯rare Lizardman¡¯. Otherwise I wouldn¡¯t have been caught like this." Kiron exined angrily as he was grinding his teeth out of bitterness. "But I will not forget this. I am in your debt, dear Sir, and I will pay that debt back for as long as I live." Kiron said as he kneeled down onto the ground, leaving Eisen to do nothing but chuckle. "I don¡¯t know what to say... That means you are a half-god, basically?" Eisen asked confused, and Kiron slowly nodded his head. With a loud sigh, Eisen then continued to talk. "Let¡¯s talk about thatter, you are thest one here, the monsters that I freed are waiting in the front. Let¡¯s get out of here, alright?" After exining this, Eisen walked back to the door, closely followed by Kiron, and the Half-Dragon chose to wait with the monsters while Eisen walked to the front of the store to grab the keys that Merc mentioned. It didn¡¯t take long until he found them, and he immediately walked back into the main disy room and then into the special room where he left Merc. But instead of finding him yelling at Eisen again, the young merchant was instead apparently logged out, as his whole body turnedpletely pure white. Seeing this as a chance to just get out of there as quickly as possible, Eisen made his way into the cell where the Fey-Kin boy Sky was still just sittingpletely terrified. "Hey there, kid. No need to be scared, I just need to take that cor off of you, okay?" Eisen asked with a light smile while Sky was backing off into the corner. So, instead of simply trying to convincec him further, Eisen squatted down in front of him and simply grabbed the ve cor around Sky¡¯s neck, simply opening it up. "Don¡¯t worry, I said I just needed to take that cor off. I won¡¯t hurt you, so juste with me, alright?" The old man said with a smile, before Sky slowly touched his own neck as he started to cry. "Thank you..." He slowly muttered out while wiping the tears off of his face, and Eisen grabbed the boy¡¯s shoulder. "Don¡¯t worry. Juste with me, alright? You¡¯ll be safe." Sky slowly nodded as he followed Eisen outside the cell and just immediately avoided Merc when they walked past him by making arge circle around him. "It¡¯s fine, he can¡¯t hurt you." Eisen smiled, and Sky gulped loudly before nodding and kept following the man that freed him. The moment that the both of them stepped into therge room filled with many different monsters, Sky stumbled backward once more, but after a short smile from Eisen managed to build up the confidence to follow him as he was walking toward the creatures in front of them. Chapter 114 Pledge As Eisen was looking at the group of monsters seemingly getting along great with his tamed creatures as well as the Fey-Kin Sky, a notification popped up in front of his face. [New Message] [Jyuuk] Hey Eisen, I¡¯m not in the wastnds yet, no, but I¡¯m passing by near Ornier right now. It may take an hour or two, but I can be there if you need me to. Where should we meet? Eisen smiled as he read through this message. Seems like he just perfectly managed to message Jyuuk while he was moving near Ornier, so all would hopefully work out as he nned as well. So, Eisen messaged the Monkey-Beastperson back while grinning widely. [Eisen] What a coincidence! I will tell you the exact locationter, but it will be outside of the town itself. I will exin the situationter as well. See you then. Eisen waved the window in front of him away and looked forward at the group standing in front of him. "Alright, do any of you know if there¡¯s a secret tunnel in here, maybe? I doubt they would be able to just smuggle you in here through the regr gate." After Eisen asked this, the Half-Dragon Kiron spoke up immediately. "Yes, I remember it quite well. There should be a wall that can be opened up somewhere in this room. I shall help you look for it." Kiron said, but Eisen simply shook his head. "That¡¯s fine. Caria, can you look for it?" Eisen asked, and the small Myconid nodded before numerous nts, whether they were weeds, flowers or just roots, began growing everywhere in the room, until one of the walls began to move and slid to the side, pushed open by those nts. "See? It¡¯s that easy." The old man bragged while cing his palm on the top of Caria¡¯s head before looking toward the hole that was now opened up. "Everyone, follow me. We¡¯re leaving town. A friend of mine wille meet us soon, so we only need to wait for him. He can be trusted, don¡¯t worry." Eisen assured all of the monsters before they quickly rushed out toward the tunnel seemingly leading out of town, while Eisen was walking in the front to make sure that they really were making their way toward the outside. After walking for about half an hour, they finally reached the end of the tunnel, which seemed to be basically just a hidden cave entrance. It really was quite out of the way, so it was unlikely for anything or anyone to find their way their coincidentally, but it was still in the realm of possibilities. Either way, for now, Eisen would just need to wait for a while. Eisen told Jyuuk the rough position whenparing where they were to the town, and then chose to sit down somewhere where Eisen could start experimenting a bit. After all, he had quite some freetime until Jyuuk got there. As such, Eisen took out the eight soul stones that he got from ying the High-Grade products from the Monster Shop. When Eisen looked a little bit closer at the small orbs, it looked like something was shifting inside of them. Judging just from the name, it seemed like this literally contained a monster¡¯s soul, but Eisen wasn¡¯t really sure. "Wait, if it¡¯s that, then could I...?" Eisen muttered to himself quietly as he grabbed the first soul stone he got together with that monster¡¯s Mana Crystal. "I definitely have to try that out..." Eisen muttered out quietly, internally beating himself up for not bringing his alchemy gear, even though that would be a slight bit insane. "Just gotta do thatter, then..." He muttered out while starting to y around with the mana crystal in his hand, using transmutation in whatever way possible so that he could rank up his Alchemy skill sometime soon to allow him to do some more new things. While the monsters were all mostly just sitting orying down near Eisen, basking in the sun and breathing in the fresh air, two people came up to Eisen. Kiron and Sky. "Ah, Sky, let me take a look at your face!" Eisen eximed, and surprised, Sky quietly nodded while the old man kneeled down in front of him, grabbing his self-filling water cup that he always carried with him as well as a piece of cloth so that he could clean Sky¡¯s face up a bit. And after his face was clean, Eisen also chose to quickly clean the dirt out of Sky¡¯s hair,pletely revealing his blue hair. "Well then! It should be a lot easier to smile without all that dirt clogging your face up, so how about you test it out a bit?" Eisen asked with a cheeky wink, and Sky immediately began to smile softly in response. "Th-Thanks... Erm, but I have to ask... Why did you help me? You seemed super angry when you saw me, so I was kind of scared..." Sky eximed, and Eisen chuckled softly while nodding. "Yeah, I get what you mean. I was definitely angry, but not with you. With Merc, the man who owns that shop. A friend andpanion of mine is actually just like you, a Fey-Kin with a pixie parent. And she¡¯s around the same age as you as well. What are you, early to mid twenties?" Eisen asked, and Sky¡¯s eyes immediately shot open. "How¡¯d you know that?! Everyone usually just thinks I¡¯m some little kid... But that other Fey-kin... Erm, what¡¯s their name?" With hope in his eyes, Sky leaned forward and stared at Eisen¡¯s face. As he was scratching his beard, Eisen smiled and told him. "Her name is Bree. She¡¯s a real bundle of energy most of the time." The old man exined, while Sky simply stared forward with a nk face, tears welling up in the corner of his eyes. "B-Bree...? Finally... I¡¯ve been looking for her ever since my mother died... She... She¡¯s my sister!" The boy eximed, and immediately Eisen shot up while looking down onto him. "She¡¯s your sister? Really? I¡¯ll immediately introduce you to herter! Can you be patient for a few more hours?" Eisen asked, and slowly, Sky nodded. "I¡¯ve waited for years, so what are a few hours?" He chuckled as he was wiping away the tears in his face, and Eisen chuckled while Caria and Melissa looked at him confused. While Eisen was looking over at his Queen Bee and thinking about what to do about those two Bees that were killed, Kiron looked at Eisen with a smile. "Sir, simply seeing how you treat monsters or half-monsters such as us and even wore a bitter expression when ying those that were imprisoned, I can see that you are a person with a pure heart. You are truly what one should aspire to be like." Kiron eximed, and Eisen looked at him with a wry smile. "Well, thank you, Kiron. But you don¡¯t need to say things like that. But let¡¯s get to you, alright? You¡¯re a Half-God-Dragon. How were you captured?" Eisen asked, leaving Kiron to form an angry look on his face. "It has been those of the faction of evil that have betrayed my trust and as such attempted to steal my essence of existence, often called ¡¯Experience¡¯ in this realm. However, their ritual was still iplete, and as such I was able to keep my memories, even though my strength decreased. I am still a creature of Rank 9, but my strength equaled that of a Rank 0 hatchling. Throughbat, I have been able to increase my strength up to my current strength, equaling that of a high Rank 3. I do not gain levels, but step by step, my strength increases instead." Kiron exined while Eisen was left confused. Was Kiron something like a test subject? But if they were able to use a Rank 9 creature as a test subject, how strong were those that Peaked supposed to be? Kiron was obviously talking about the evil, chromatic dragons, that were also behind Eisen¡¯s loss of experience. Seeing that Eisen was deep in thought, Kiron continued to speak. "As they were not able to see what I am, however, the people that caught me thought me to be a diseased or injured creature of a high rank, and as such chose to sell me as such." The Half-Dragon exined quickly, before immediately continuing. "The issue with my father, however, is that I myself have only met him once during mying-of-age ceremony on the day my age reached 100 years. Only then did I find out who and what I am, and I have been caught up in conceit ever since. But from the moment that my strength has been robbed, such conceit has vanished. I am no longer strong enough to allow myself such behavior." "If your father is a deity, can¡¯t you try and somehow contact him? Maybe ask him to reverse what was done to you?" Eisen asked, and in response to that question, Kiron clenched his fist, burrowing his own ws in his palm. "It would be pure disgrace to rely on my father for such a thing, like I have been for the past five decades. I need to regain my strength on my own, or else just that strength will not matter. For that reason, I have a question for you that will strongly decide my path of action from this moment on." Kiron said with a clear and determined voice as he kneeled down in front of Eisen, leaving the old man utterly confused. "I think we have met before. I could not remember it in that dark ce, but now I do. You are Eisen, Half of the dwarves and half of the giants, an absolute master of all crafts that even the gods can not wish to rival, and the very first person, nay, living creature, that ever reached the peak of existence, is that not so?" Surprised at such a sudden question, not only Eisen, but also Sky jumped in surprise, thetter staring at Eisen in utter confusion. With a soft grin, Eisen nodded while he was scratching his beard. "Yes, that is me. However, I¡¯m not such an existence, at the very least not anymore. The same thing that happened to you, happened to me, just that my ritual wasplete. I lost my memories, my skills, and my levels, leaving me basically at zero. I am not much stronger than you, although my level rose considerably today, because I killed all those high ranked monsters. From 79, my level went up all the way to 97. And there is one more thing you need to know before making any choice regarding me. That man that owned that shop, Merc, is an Omega. That is an existence created out of the experience collected from the five that peaked." Eisen exined, expecting both Sky and Kiron to freak out, but it was quite different. Both of them were just staring at him in pure awe, and Eisen ended upughing in response to that. "Don¡¯t look at me like that, please. I¡¯m a regr person, like the two of you. So treat me like it." Eisen said, and quite quickly, Sky epted with quick nods even though he was still staring at Eisen in confusion. However, Kiron reacted quite differently. "I see, then I have made up my mind. I would offer myself to be one of those you have tamed, but I do not have that ability. However, there is something simr I can do thates from my mother¡¯s side of me." Kiron eximed before quite literally bowing down to Eisen, basically pressing his forehead onto the floor. "Eisen, I hereby fully pledge myself to be yours up until the day that I die by the des of your enemies. I am yours to be used, both your shield and your sword, and I will set your life above mine with every breath that I take. I swear to be your loyal Knight until I am no more." [Kiron has offered himself to be your Knight. Do you ept his pledge?] Chapter 115 Knigh "A Knight¡¯s Pledge?" Eisen muttered out and immediately a notification popped up in front of him. [Basic Information about Knights - As some changes will appear to the Knight once the pledge has been epted that may identally lead to revtion of the existence of the game, the yer has to be warned and informed about basic changes so that they can be prepared. By bing the Knight of a yer, an NPC will gain some usually yer-specific abilities, such as the regr chat option to onlymunicate with their Lord or other Knights serving the same Lord. Other than that, they will also gain mock-immortality, as it will be possible for the yer to revive them. The conditions for revival will depend on cause of death. More specific information on the Knight system has to be gathered In-Game.] Surprised at this notification, Eisen carefully read through it and began carefully thinking. When he heard it at first, Eisen wanted to decline since he didn¡¯t want to be a Person¡¯s ¡¯Lord¡¯. It was a different thing with pure monsters and taming them like it was the case with Caria and Melissa, since they would otherwise just end up being wild beasts and with Kiron, who was basically just a person that was ¡¯technically¡¯ a monster and even had a parent that wasn¡¯t a monster, having a Follower like that just seemed way too weird to Eisen. But now there were some reasons for Eisen to ept. While he didn¡¯t want anyone else in his group to be far away from him, having someone like Kiron that was capable of taking care of himself quite well, that knew a lot about the world they were in simply because he lived in it for 150 years, and that he could talk to through the chat function was definitely useful for many things, especially the thing that wasing closer and closer without dy through Eisen¡¯s killing-spree in the monster-shop. He was only two levels away from reaching level 99, and after finishing the quest he would get then, he could reach level 100 and found a guild just as Jyuuk suggested. Eisen already made ns to prepare for that quest as well as possible, which was part of the reason why he wanted to get the Bookbinding skill. ording to Jyuuk, it would require the Originals to learn many different skills or have certain achievements to make it happen, so Eisen wanted to prepare as much as he could before getting that quest, but it seemed like that wouldn¡¯t work just as well now. And the reason that Eisen didn¡¯t want to leave anyone in his current group behind or let them move alone was quite simple as well. Bree couldn¡¯t take care of herself all that well, since she wasn¡¯t capable of fighting all that well yet. She had been getting better with the hammer, but it would still be a while off until she could fight alone. He obviously didn¡¯t want to let his tamed beasts go, as they were litterally just children and Eisen just didn¡¯t feelfortable leaving them alone. As for Komer, Eisen wanted to, at least for now, keep an Eye on him as much as he could. He didn¡¯t know whether or not Komer would end up returning to scamming again because he was desperate if Eisen wasn¡¯t there. So if Kiron joined his group, Eisen would finally have someone he could entrust with tasks such as finding a great spot to start a town, or to simply go on recon missions if necessary. This would be an immense help in the long run, but it would require Kiron to be his ¡¯subordinate¡¯. While Eisen was thinking about all of this, Kiron, who was still bowing in front of him, lightly nodded his head. "It is so. I am deeply indebted to you for freeing me from imprisonment. And I know that you are of a pure heart, you and the other four that reached the peak of existence all are. You are all my father¡¯s benefactors and friends, after all, especially you." Kiron exined, leaving Eisen to simply sigh out loud. "What do you mean when you say that we¡¯re your father¡¯s benefactors?" He asked, before Kiron shook his head. "I do not know such details myself, I have only heard this from my father myself, and he did not tell me much in the end. But what I do know is that he trusts you more than he does the other gods. That is why I trust you as well and swear to protect you as you regain your former glory." Eisen crossed his arms and began scratching his beard slowy while deep in thought, and simply ended up sighing loudly. "I see... Maybe I can find out something about that sooner orter. But with your current pledge, I will not ept." The moment that Eisen spoke this out, Kiron ripped his head up and stared at Eisen. "But what else can I swear on? I have already given you my life, what else could I give you that you do not have?" He asked nervously, but Eisen simply shook his head. "It¡¯s not that. I want you to ¡¯give me less¡¯. I will ept your pledge as long as you change the terms. I do not want you to give your life for me. If your father really trusts me so much, I do not want to betray that by having his son give his life to save mine. And I do not want you to be my shield or my sword. You may have to be our mainbatant, yes, but I don¡¯t want to treat you like a tool, but a friend. If, in any way, it is possible to have a Knight¡¯s pledge voice out equal standing, then I will ept it." Eisen exined with a clear voice while Kiron stared up at him in awe. "Equal standing? Knights are supposed to be their Lord¡¯s servants, but you want us to bepanions? If this is truly what you want, I will repeat my pledge. I would still be your servant in the broadest way, but in a different way." Kiron smiled lightly as he continued bowing in front of Eisen. "As long as I live, I pledge to be your Loyal Knight that will walk alongside you and protect you from any danger that maye your way by fighting your enemies in your stead. " Eisen smiled softly as he heard Kiron rephrase his pledge. He felt far morefortable with this one. "I humbly ept, Kiron." He said, and immediately some notifications popped up in front of him. [Kiron is now officially your Knight] [Due to the unusual pledge, Kiron¡¯s loyalty to you will be far stronger and his will to fight has been increased] Eisen quickly read through the notifications before smiling softly and then waved them away before Kiron stood up and looked at him. "I thank you, M¡¯Lord. You will not ever regret epting me as your Knight." The Half-Dragon smiled, as he lightly bowed forward again, and Eisen simply chuckled. "I¡¯m sure I won¡¯t. Thanks for epting my conditions as well" The old man smiled as he sat down and leaned against a rock, before he looked around the group of monsters with a soft smile while talking to both Sky and Kiron. Soon enough, heid his eyes on the small Hobgoblin boy that was rolled up at the edge of the group, and Eisen chose to call him over. He did seem to be injured or sick before. Slowly, the Hobgoblin came over to Eisen nervously, basically crawling over on all fours. "Come here, lil¡¯ guy." Eisen smiled as he was extending his hand over to the young Hobgoblin, who grabbed it in return and got closer. "So, are you hurt anywhere? I saw that you were dragging your leg before." After Eisen asked this, the Hobgoblin hesitantly nodded and pointed at his left ankle and his right ribs. "I see, so that¡¯s where you¡¯re hurt? Can I take a look?" He asked while grabbing some potions to use on it if necessary. Once the Hobgoblin nodded again, Eisen leaned forward and looked closely at him. As Eisen thought, there didn¡¯t seem to be any recent external injuries, but instead there were injuries caused a while ago that didn¡¯t seem to be able to properly close. Everything was swollen up and the Hobgoblin was immediately in immense pain when Eisen even lightly touched the area around it. After taking a closer look, it seemed like there were some kind of metallic splinters stuck inside its skin that wouldn¡¯t allow everything to properly heal, so Eisen ended up sighing loudly. So that he would get a slightly better idea of the metal¡¯s position, Eisen chose to use his mana by pouring it out of his hand and simply taking a look at what he could find inside of the Hobgoblin¡¯s body. Soon enough, Eisen found the small shard of metal in its chest and ankle. "Sorry, kid, this is probably going to hurt a bit... Kiron, can you hold him for a while so that he won¡¯t fidget and move around too much?" Eisen asked, and his Knight instantly did as told. While the Hobgoblin became scared, Eisen began first transmuting the metal from sharp shards that would simply cut the Hobgoblin up further into small spheres that could be easily pulled out. During this procedure, it was already writhing around in pain, but Eisen quickly continued on, further using transmutation to slowly pull the metal out of its body after making small cuts on the top of its skin again. Eisen felt horrible for doing something like this, but if it wasn¡¯t done, it would probably die soon. Once these two pieces of metal were pulled out, the Hobgoblin began settling down a bit, since its main source of pain was now gone, but of course he still was in quite a lot of pain. Because of that, Eisen grabbed a potion and slowly poured it into the Hobgoblin¡¯s mouth. The external wounds quickly closed up again, but the swellings didn¡¯t go down and or rather slime, that he was going to use to help it recover. It seemed like it still hurt quite a lot when Eisen touched the area around it, so he had toe up with somehing else. Eisen looked through his backpack to find anything that he could possibly use at the moment, and then grabbed two items that would probably work. First, the Recovery Jelly that Eisen made before while experimenting with differentbinations of Amran and Byron, and then some simple cloth, which Eisen quickly ripped up to make some simple bandages. Eisen always carried the Jellies and Mists around in case he would end up needing them at some point, so he was happy that he had them with him even now. Quickly, Eisen spread the recovery Jelly on the inside of the simple bandages quite thinly and began wrapping them around the Hobgoblin¡¯s ankle and chest to somehow let its wounds slowly heal over time. "Sorry about that, kid. I had to, I hope you¡¯re not angry with me." Eisen smile as he ced his hand on the Hobgoblins shoulder as it was shaking its head, and Eisen brought him over to the rock he was leaning against before and rolled up some more cloth to make small pillow for the Hobgoblin while it was lying down and instantly fell asleep. "Well, that was quite gruesome..." Eisen muttered out quietly as he looked at the quietly snoring Monster next to him, before sighing loudly and shaking his head. "Let¡¯s not think about that for now and just wait for my friend." Eisen said as he was looking at the two people in front of him, Kiron and Sky, who stared back at him in return. It seemed like his party grew by two more people today. --- As Eisen was staring up into the sky while talking to his two newpanions, he heard the sound of something rushing closer through the nearby high grass. Immediately, all of the monsters reacted basically in perfect synchronicity, staring into a single direction together, while Kiron was standing in a position that would allow him to attack anything that wasing closer if necessary. Eisen jumped up at that same time as well, trying to figure out who it was that wasing toward them. And soon enough, Eisen managed to figure out that it was indeed the person he was expecting, Jyuuk. At immense speed, he was apparently riding on Tsurishika, who was looking quite different to before, which meant that he probably evolved at least once since then. With a smile, Eisen looked at the group of monsters and held up his hand to the side. "Don¡¯t worry, that¡¯s who we¡¯ve been waiting for." Chapter 116 Tattoos Eisen looked forward and began to smile while the Monkey-Beastperson Jyuuk jumped off of his Stag¡¯s back. "Hello there, Jyuuk! Thanks for getting here so fast!" Heughed, while Jyuuk came closer and noddded while smiling softly. "Of course. I was passing by anyway, and Tsurishika became a lot faster after bing rank 4." Jyuuk exined before Eisen looked around him and the Stag in confusion. "Erm, talking about monsters, where are the others?" He asked, and Jyuuk chuckled softly before he pulled up his sleeve, revealing his, surprisingly hairless, arm that was covered in different tattoos, each representing one monster that he had tamed, beside Tsurishika. "I can exin this to youter, just know that they are always with me. But what about you? Have you changed to being a tamer? Because there¡¯s a lot of monsters there..." After Jyuuk asked this, Eisen slowly nodded and then looked over at the group of monsters behind him, before carefully exining the situation. How he had met Komer, and then chose to see what his brother was up to, before then finding the Monster Shop. Eisen only nced over most things, since it was only really important for Jyuuk to know the rough situation to get what Eisen wanted from him. "All these monsters here are actually quite harmless, at least for now. That¡¯s why I didn¡¯t want to kill them. But I can¡¯t tame any monsters anymore right now, so I wanted to see if you can tame some of them." Eisen asked, and Jyuuk seemed to think for a while before nodding in the end. "Yeah, I can definitely tame them, I just can¡¯t have them out all the time. These tattoos are ¡¯storage¡¯ of my tamed monsters, and as long as there¡¯s space on my skin left, I can store as many monsters as I want, but I can only have about ten out at any time." He exined before walking over to the group of monsters together with Eisen and took a look at them. "These are all really interesting monsters though. An Aerial Carp, an Earth Bull, oh, and a Hobgoblin even!" Jyuuk said excitedly as he smiled at all of the monsters that had been nervously backing away the closer he came. "Don¡¯t worry, all of you, Jyuuk is a good guy. I can¡¯t tame you, but I trust him enough to let him tame you, so you should as well." Eisen smiled softly, and immediately the Monsters beganing closer to Jyuuk on their own, seemingly all offering themselves to be tamed by him after being prompted to do so by Eisen. One after another, the monsters then disappeared in a stream of light before new tattoos appeared on Jyuuk¡¯s skin, until all of them were gone with the exception of the Hobgoblin, since Eisen asked Jyuuk not to store him until his wounds were healed at the least to an extent. "Thanks for that, Jyuuk. So, tell me, what have you been up to?" Eisen asked curiously as he sat down, leaning against the same rock as before. Jyuuk nodded and sat down cross-legged in front of him, before he began to talk about everything. "Well, at first, I basically spent most of my time in the dungeon in Melroe, and thenter I was simply grinding up my skills for a while. I had to bring three skills up to Rank 3, Taming, Necromancy and nt Control. And then I had to bring a few to Rank 2, which were Soul Arts, Herbalism, Beast Connection and my Magic Element ¡¯Circle of Life¡¯. I also needed to have a certain amount of beasts tamed and then had to create a very specific type of undead, which was quite hard to find." After exining this, Jyuuk demonstrated some things that he learned. First, since the skeletons that he had been making with Necromancy were so weak, he decided to strengthen them with nt Control so that the bones were practically tied together. In the end, everything acted somewhat like nt-muscles to the skeletons and strengthened their overall performance. When Jyuuk was capable of creating zombies, he also integrated nts into them to patch up whatever parts of their bodies were unusable. Later, Jyuuk began to literally control souls to an extent, using them in directbat. It wasn¡¯t anything great, but he was able to coat his weapon in beast¡¯s souls while also strengthening his own body, although thetter part was still hard to get a grasp on, since it usually needed very specific beasts. Since this was all the case, Eisen chose toter ask Jyuuk if he knew anything about those soul orbs that Eisen picked up, but first let him finish showing what he could do now. When it came to Jyuuk¡¯s element, Eisen was especially curious, as those seemed to be usually pretty unique, and so was Jyuuk¡¯s. It seemed to allow Jyuuk to do a few different things. Inbat, it would very rarely let him instantly kill something that was weaker than him, while also at the same time resurrecting creatures that recently, in thest ten seconds, died. Other than that, it basically just supported Jyuuk¡¯s skills, which meant that it was easier to turn things into undead or allow him to more easily control nts, while also letting him strengthen his tamed monsters. From this information, Eisen was able toe to a conclusion. "That¡¯s pretty interesting... So that means that elements are supposed to be mainly supportive to your other skills. At least that¡¯s the case for me, you and Evalia." He muttered, and Jyuuk shrugged in response. "That¡¯s possible, yes. We can ask Xenia when we meet her how it works exactly, right?" Jyuuk suggested, and Eisen nodded in response. "Yeah, we can do that. For now, though, let me introduce you to these two. The boy there is a Fey-Kin, Sky, and that over there is Kiron, a half-dragon. I¡¯m sure you know about the Crystal Dragon King. That¡¯s his father. Oh, and Ipletely forgot, but this here is Melissa, the second monster I tamed. She¡¯s a Queen-Bee." The old man smiled while Jyuuk bowed forward as a greeting. "It is nice to meet you again, Sir." Kiron said while bowing forward in return, and Jyuuk looked at Eisen in confusion. While chuckling softly, the old man then exined. "He¡¯s met the five that peaked before, so don¡¯t be surprised." "Ah... And about Sky, you said he¡¯s a Fey-Kin? Like-" "Yes, exactly. Like Bree. We¡¯re going to meet them now, so if you want, you cane with. I doubt you want to just keep going toward the Wastnd instantly, right?" Eisen asked, before Jyuuk nodded in response. "I wille along, yes." Jyuuk smiled as he walked over to the Hobgoblin that he had just tamed and held out his hand. "Come on, I¡¯ll let you ride on Tsurishika, Gobu." "I still can¡¯t believe you called him Gobu..." Eisen sighed out loudly while he was shaking his head and grabbed Caria¡¯s hand while cing his backpack on his back again. "You better believe it, it¡¯s a great name!" The Monkeyined while Gobu the Hobgoblin slowy stood up, and Jyuuk picked him up before setting him on the back of the Stag next to them, and then summoned six different birds, Aotori and her children. While they all looked quite simr to each other when Eisen first saw them, now, they were all kind of different to each other, even though there were still some simrities. Aotori grew in size quite a lot and looked as if she was basically madepletely out of Ice, while the other four blue eagles each seemed to have watery, flowing feathers, although they had slightly different colors, sizes and forms in general. While one of them was thin and lean, another one wasrge and bulky. And then there was Akatori, the only one of the six birds that was fire-based instead of water-based. He seems to have turned into something like a phoenix, although a lesser form. That was the best way that Eisen could describe the small bird, as it didn¡¯t seem to be a real phoenix yet, just a bird with feathers of mes. But it was quite obvious what the future evolutions would turn it into. "They really have changed, huh?" Eisen asked with a softugh, and Jyuuk nodded as the group slowly began to make their way toward the town. "Yeah, they have! They are all at Rank 4 now, although just at the start of it. They¡¯ve barely been leveling uptely, seems like it¡¯s starting to get harder now. And I myself have only managed to level up once again as well, so... Anyway, I like having the six of them fly around a bit just in case something is going on so that I can just see what¡¯s happening around here with my Beast Connection." Jyuuk exined, reminding Eisen once more of the Beastperson¡¯s skills. "Ah, I meant to ask you... When I was killing the Rank 5 and above monsters in the shop before, I found these ¡¯Soul Stones¡¯ in them near their mana crystals. You have that Soul Arts skill, so do you know what this is?" The old man asked while pulling out one of the eight soul stones that he gathered and handed them to Jyuuk so that he could take a look. "Oh, yeah, there are literal souls in these. Or at least fractions of them. I can gather them because of my Soul Arts skill, but monsters from Rank 5 and above have these naturally, because their souls are stronger than usual. I¡¯m pretty sure that Rank 5 and 6 Monsters only have ¡¯nk¡¯ soul stones, and only then do they keep part of the Monster¡¯s characteristics." Jyuuk exined as he was trying to recall what he tried finding out himself. "The soul stones that I can pull out do have a small fraction of the monsters¡¯ charactersistics already so that I can use them for fighting." "nk, huh... Do you know what you can use these for, then?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk shrugged. "I don¡¯t really know, no. I only know what I can use them for, but not what others do. I¡¯m sure they can be used to craft somehow, though, but I don¡¯t really know how. I know that¡¯s why you¡¯re asking." "I¡¯m sure I can find out somehow. It would be pretty interesting to say the least. Although Materials should be hard to get..." Eisen sighed out loud, but Jyuuk shook his head. "Well, I¡¯ve got a few Soul Stones for you if you want to experiment a bit." Surprised, Eisen looked over at the Monkey-Beastperson with a smile. "Really? Thanks! Don¡¯t you need them yourself, though?" "I need a few, but I¡¯ve got my favorites that I keep using." "Well, if you don¡¯t need them, I¡¯ll dly take them! If I can start making some good things with the soul stones, I¡¯ll let you know." Eisenughed lowly while cing his own souls stones into his bag. While looking over at Sky who was nervously following the group, Eisen opened his friends list and chose to quickly message Komer so that he would bring Bree back to the Inn and to their room so that they knew where to meet up and had a little bit of privacy for when Eisen would introduce Sky and Bree to each other. The only other spot would really be the carriage, but with this many people, it was slowly getting a bit crammed. Smiling at the thought of how Bree may react, Eisen slowed down to walk next to the Fey-Kin boy and nudged his shoulder. "Hey Sky, are you excited?" He asked, and in surprise, Sky lightly jumped before carefully nodding. "Y-Yeah, I really am... What if my sister doesn¡¯t like me?" Sky asked carefully with a timid voice, and Eisen ced his hand on the boy¡¯s shoulder. "I wouldn¡¯t worry about that. I¡¯m sure, no, I know, that she will love you." "Really...?" The Fey-Kin looked up at the huge man next to him while smiling softly, tears in the corners of his eyes. Eisen held Sky¡¯s shoulders and stopped him as he was walking, squatting down in front of him to look into his eyes while gently smiling. "Of course." Chapter 117 Catching Up Not too long before the group reached the town¡¯s gate, Jyuuk momentarily chose to store the six eagles, Tsurishika and Gobu the Hobgoblin on his own skin, that was starting to slowly run out of space. Both of his arms, as well as his whole front torso were nowpletely covered in tattoos of his beasts and monsters. Trying to think of a way to help him with that, Eisen began scratching his beard when he looked at the Monkey-Beastperson. "Hmm, Jyuuk, what are the exact conditions for storing your monsters like that?" Eisen asked, before Jyuuk lightly scratched the back of his head. "It¡¯s nothing tooplicated. Basically just that I have to touch my monsters to store them and that there needs to be enough space on my skin left. Apparently there are some ways to store things externally, but that¡¯s just what my skill told me when it ranked up to two not too long ago. I¡¯ve been storing and taking out all of my monsters non-stop ever since I got this skill to get used to it and rank it up, so it happened quite quickly. But I really don¡¯t know what external storage refers to." Jyuuk exined to Eisen, who then slowly got an idea. "Hmm, if you have time to stay a day or two, I maye up with something for that. After all, you tamed them as per my request." Eisen chuckled lowly as the group now walked up to the gate, being stopped by the Guards. "Halt! As I can see, you have monsters with you. Are they tamed?" One of the guards asked, and Eisen nodded. "Yes, they are! As you can see, these two cuties obviously couldn¡¯t hurt anyone." Eisen said with a smile as he picked up Caria and looked over to Melissa, who was sitting on his shoulder. The Guard simply scoffed, before shaking his head. "Sure, they seem to be tamed at the very least. What about that winged Lizardman behind you?" He asked, and Eisen turned around to look at Kiron. "Ah, yeah, he has been tamed as well, of course. Only recently though. He¡¯s civilized, can talk, and is basically harmless all the way through." Eisen said with a small wink directed at Kiron to make him y along, and the Half-Dragon nodded with a smile. "It is so, I am my Lord¡¯s tamed monster." He said quite clunkily while bowing forward. Obviously he was just a terrible liar, but to others it might seem like a creature that was still bad at speaking, attempting to talk. "Alright, that should be fine then. Just make sure that they keep close to you, especially the big guy. Many would probably be scared if it was walking around on its own." The Guard told them and waved the group through the gate, before they entered town together. Once they were out of range, Eisen turned over to look at Kiron. "Sorry about that, this was just far easier than to try and exin who you are and that you are my Knight instead of a tamed monster." "I understand, M¡¯Lord. I do not mind, since I would have offered to be your tamed monster if it had been possible." Kiron admitted as he kept following behind Eisen, who chuckled softly and nodded. "Alright, well, as long as it¡¯s fine for you. Anyway, right now we¡¯re just going right to the Inn that I am currently staying at, it¡¯s not far away. I¡¯m sure both of you are hungry, so we can eat something there." Eisen said as he was looking at Sky and Kiron, who were both starting to grab their stomachs as they only just realized how hungry they really were. They had both spent a long time imprisoned, so maybe they simply tried to ignore and tune out their hunger, but now that they were finally free again and able to eat whatever they wanted, that meant that their sense of hunger returned after being reminded, although it was kind of weird that they even had to be reminded. With a softugh, Eisen looked at the both of them and shook his head while smiling. "Haha, don¡¯t worry, you can eat as much as you want in a bit. Just tell me what you want when you want it, and I¡¯ll buy it for you." He told them, and Sky and Kiron replied withrge smiles. "Thank you, M¡¯Lord!" "Thanks, Eisen!" They said basically at the same time, and Eisen chuckled in response while leading the group toward his Inn. Once they got there, Eisen noticed a very familiar woman standing in the front. It was Evalia, simply waiting for Eisen to arrive, and she was quite surprised to see one face she hadn¡¯t seen in a while, and two she hadn¡¯t ever seen. "Well hello there, Jyuuk!" She eximed as she happily walked up to the group, immediately hugging the Monkey-Beastperson to say hello while getting a good look at Jyuuk¡¯s tattoos. "Huh, I didn¡¯t know that ya were the type for ink all over your skin!" Sheughed loudly, but Jyuuk simply shook his head. "Hello Evalia, long time no see. And this aren¡¯t real, permanent tattoos. They are part of a new taming-rted skill that I learned." He exiend before Evalia ced her fist on her hip and smiled. "They look good anyway! So, Eisen, why did¡¯cha want Komer to bring Bree to the Inn? Does it have anythin¡¯ to do with those two?" She asked while nudging her chin in the direction of Kiron and Sky, and Eisen slowly nodded. "Yes, actually. I will exin it to you allter, but for now, it would be great if you two could wait with Caria, Melissa and Kiron outside of the room while I bring Sky to talk to Bree." He said and made his way inside, quickly followed by the group. "Huh? Why that?" Evalia asked surprised, and Eisen once more simply told her that he would exin everythingter. "Now then, let¡¯s go meet Bree, alright?" Eisen asked as he turned to Sky, who was nervously holding his chest. The both of them made their way to the room alone, and Eisen quickly called Komer and Aulu out so that he would join the others in the front of the Inn to leave Bree, Sky and Eisen alone. Eisen simply wanted to make sure that everything was going well, and that there wouldn¡¯t be any misunderstandings between anyone, otherwise he would simply wait outside as well. But since he knew what Bree was like, and what of an airhead she was a lot of the time, Eisen chose to be there to support both Bree and Sky throughout this experience. Slowly, Eisen opened the door and led Sky inside, looking at Bree who was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed. "Hey there, Bree. I¡¯ve got a surprise for you!" He chuckled, before the female Fey-kin tilted her head to the side in confusion while looking at the boy behind Eisen, who simply continued to talk. "While I was out today, a few different things happened, and I coincidentally met this young boy. He¡¯s a Fey-Kin like you, with a Human father and a Pixie Mother. Right now, he¡¯s here in Ornier to look for his sister." Immediately, Bree jumped up and looked at Sky in surprise and confusion, before finally saying what came to her mind. "Oh... I¡¯m sorry to hear that... I hope you find her soon!" She eximed with a bright smile, leaving Eisen to chuckle lightly on reflex. That was exactly why he wanted to be there through this. "No, Bree... This kid is sky, he¡¯s around the same age as you. His father was a human living in Ornier, while his Mother was a pixie. He is looking for his sister here in Ornier, another Fey-kin. Sky, how about you just continue?" Eisen sighed out loudly and made way for Sky to step toward Bree while the old man stood by the door to give them at least a little bit of space. "Erm... Bree, I... I think you¡¯re my sister..." Sky slowly muttered out, and instead of saying anything, Bree grew a smile on her face and simply stared forward silently without saying anything or even moving a single muscle in her whole body, it was only about ten secondster that she actually reacted. "Eh? I¡¯m your sister...? But... What? I mean, huh? I didn¡¯t... I don¡¯t......what?" Bree muttered out with pure confusion in her voice as she stared forward at the boy in front of her. "You... you¡¯re my brother? I have a brother?" She asked as more excitement began growing in her voice. Noticing this change in Bree¡¯s voice, Sky nodded slowly. "I think so, yes... My Mother was a Pixie called Ariana, and she told me that I had a twin sister named Bree and a father called Herman here in Ornier. Here, my mother gave me this and told me that I could find her this way." Sky exined and held forward a half of a small ornamental coin that was cracked in half, before Bree pushed her hand into the backpack by the side of the bed and pulled out another half of a coin. Carefully, she nodded her head in response to seeing Sky¡¯s half of the coin while a big smile grew on her face and tears began building up in her eyes. "My... My father told me I could find my mother with that... So you really are my brother!" She cried out as she immediately jumped off the bed and slung her arms around Sky¡¯s body to give him a hug, toppling him over in the process. "I never knew I had a brother!" Bree happily yelled out as she way lying on top of her newly found brother, who happily hugged her back while breaking down into a river of tears. "I... I was looking for you for so long... And now I finally found you! It¡¯s been so, so, so fucking long... thank you, Eisen, thanks for bringing me to my sister..." He cried out as he buried his fingers in the back of his sister, looking over toward Eisen who was smiling softly from the side of the room. "Of course, don¡¯t worry, Sky. I will leave the two of you alone for a bit now. Juste out whenever you¡¯re ready. And take your time, you¡¯ve got a lot of catching up to do." The old man smiled as he opened the door and left, smiling at the two siblings happily smiling at each other while filled with emotions of all kinds. Bree, who thought she was all alone for so long had now finally found thest remaining part of her family, despite it not being the part that she had expected to find. And Sky, who had spent years and years looking for a single person, not even giving up after being enved and imprisoned while nearly being sold to some rich guy that has nothing better to do. They were both reunited by Eisen, who couldn¡¯t help but smile brightly at such a nice little family reunion, making him only more excited for his own. Family was the most important thing for Eisen, so he was happy that Bree and Sky were able to find theirs again, and that he would soon be reunited with his own soon as well. While thinking about all the wholesome memories that came with family, a few unsavory ones came up as well. Even though there were obviously quite nice and wholesome family rtionships as Eisen would expect it to end up between Bree and Sky, there were those that were basically no different than just living with a stranger. He was faced with something like that with Komer¡¯s family as well. Even though he and his brothers were blood rted, it didn¡¯t seem like they truly thought of each other as family, and simply as enemies in a twistedpetition that their just as twisted father started. Maybe Komer could learn something from Bree and Sky. And maybe his own children could too. Chapter 118 Help "So what was all that about just now?" Komer asked confused when Eisen stepped back out the door, and the old man squatted down to pet the wolf Automaton standing next to him. "That boy that was with me, Sky, is a Fey-Kin just like Bree. I met him a few hours ago and figured out that he and Bree were siblings. That¡¯s quite a coincidence, I know, but it¡¯s true." Eisen chuckled while standing back up properly to look at Komer. "And I actually need to talk to you about the situation of how I met Sky." Eisen exined, leaving Komer to only look at him in even more confusion. "What do you mean? Did something happen?" The young merchant asked, leaving Eisen to simply nod in response. "Yes, something did happen. Something quite huge, actually. I¡¯ll tell you and the others about it in a bit, juste to the restaurant with me, the others should be waiting there." Eisen said this and began walking to where he and the others said to meet up in a bit, and when he saw them again, the group was sitting around arge table in the corner of the restaurant¡¯s main room. "Hm? Eisen, who¡¯s that? He¡¯s a Beastperson, right?" Komer asked the moment that heid eyes on Jyuuk, who simply chuckled softly while leaning further into his chair. "My name is Jyuuk, nice to meet you. I am one of the originals, just like Eisen and Evalia." He exined, and Komer sighed out loudly in response. "Another original? Which one are you then?" Komer asked as he sat down at the table, narrowing his eyes in confusion when he spotted the human-sized dragon sitting across from him. Eisen sighed out loudly as he shook his head, sitting down next to Kiron and Caria, before Melissa instanty flew to sit on the table in front of him. "That¡¯s a kind of rude thing to ask, right?" The old man eximed while chuckling softly, in response to which Komer began scratching his cheek with a wry smile. "Sorry about that..." He muttered quietly, before Jyuuk beganughing. "No, no, it¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry about it. I¡¯m the Original of the Living, but that kind of also includes the dead, so... yeah. I¡¯m well-versed with Taming, nt Control and Necromancy, so that¡¯s the general area of what I can do." Komer listened to Jyuuk¡¯s exnation before slowly nodding. "Huh, gotcha... So you¡¯re a pretty Minion heavy guy then." Komer summed up. After thinking about that for a while, Jyuuk ended up nodding with a light shrug. "I guess so. Anyway, I think Eisen wanted to talk about something." "Yes, I do. I¡¯ll exin everything that happened after Komer and Bree left the carriage, up until now." Eisen said, before he began to do just that. How, after finishing a few more books, Melissa¡¯s scouts let her know about where Komer¡¯s elder brother was, and how they made their way there to simply check him out a little bit, and to see what was going on. How Merc had killed two scout bees inside of his own monster shop, up to how Eisen then killed the majority of monsters in said monster shop until he reached level 97. In response to this story, Komer, Evalia and Jyuuk looked at Eisen full of surprise. The young merchant spoke first, however. "So... my brother did that? He enved that boy that was with you before, and trapped so many different monsters?" But to his surprise, Eisen shook his head. "It seems like that shop was a thing for a w hile, and Merc only bought it up. But to be honest, a Monster Shop in itself isn¡¯t such a bad idea, it¡¯s just that it was done in the wrong way. First, people like Sky or Kiron shouldn¡¯t be trapped, and none of the monsters should be kept in such tight spaces. I think once we start building a town, we should reserve somerge space for a monster shop ourselves, where we can bring wild monsters and treat them properly. It would be quite profitable, because Tamers will jump at the chance to buy rare monsters." The old man exined, and Jyuuk simply nodded in agreement. "Definitely, yes. I personally like going out and trying to tame monsters by myself, but that¡¯s because I¡¯m confident about knowing what the different monsters will react to encounters with me. Someone that doesn¡¯t, but still wants to be a tamer, may appreciate being able to buy their first few monsters." Jyuuk exined to Komer, before turning to Eisen. "But you¡¯re level 97? Already? You were 70-something when you left Melroe, and you said that you didn¡¯t do muchbat since then..." Eisen chuckled softly as he began scratching his beard with a smile. "Haha, yeah, I didn¡¯t really fight much since then. Only because of the Monsters in the monster shop that I killed did I level up this much. There were a few rank 5 monsters, after all. Since I killed them all on my own, I gained all the experience and leveled up quite a bit. Although, now that I think about it... maybe I should have let Caria and Melissa do a little bit to the monsters as well.." Eisen sighed out loud as he was looking at his two tamed monsters. "But they¡¯re both within five levels of evolving, so it should be fine." "Huh, really? They are that close to evolving? Caria will be rank 3 and Melissa Rank 2 then, right?" Jyuuk asked curiously, and Eisen nodded while looking at the two monsters next to him. "Yeah, exactly. I¡¯m quite curious to see what will happen to them." Afte saying this, Eisen turned his head to look at his Knight, Kiron. "And what about you? Why have you been so quiet this whole time? I said to just tell me if you want to eat, so you don¡¯t need to hold back." Immediately, Kiron nodded lightly as he gulped down the saliva in his mouth, while Eisen waved at a waitress to get her to bring them the menu. While the group was looking at the menu, two more people chose to join them at the table, Bree and Sky who had finished talking alone. "Well hello there, you two. How are you?" Eisen asked with a light smile, and the both of them smiled back. "We¡¯re great. Thank you for bringing us back together, Eisen." Sky said, seemingly feeling a lot more confident now that he managed to achieve the goal he had been pursuing for years. "Of course, don¡¯t worry. Nowe on, let¡¯s eat." The old man told them, before the two siblings sat down and joined them at the table. From then on, the group spent about two hours simply sitting there, eating, and talking to each other in a small party for the two new members of Eisen¡¯s group. --- Later that day, the group had somewhat split up again. Just in case Merc woulde looking for them, Eisen, Sky and Kiron stayed together, and Bree joined them so that she could spend the rest of the day with her new brother. Of course, Caria and Melissa were in that group as well, since they constantly stuck to Eisen like glue, and the old man chose to take Aulu along as well. And then Evalia, Jyuuk and Komer chose to go out for a while to talk amongst themselves, just to have a fun day, and since Jyuuk chose to spend the next night in Ornier as well, he wanted to get a little tour around. While the group of three yers was doing that, Eisen chose to make his way toward his carriage with all of the NPCs in their group. "Eisen, where are we going?" Sky asked him curiously while Bree was slung around her brother¡¯s arm. The old man looked back at the two Fey-Kin following him and began to exin. "We¡¯re going to my carriage, where I keep most of my crafting tools and supplies. It seems like I will end up sleeping for far, far longer than usual for quite a while starting from a few days from now, so I want to prepare for the times that I do end up being awake." Eisen exined, and Eisen¡¯s two newpanions, Kiron and Sky, both looked at him in worry. "M¡¯Lord, what do you mean? Is everything in order with you?" Kiron asked as he stepped up next to Eisen, who simply nodded. "Yes, don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m not sure if it¡¯s a side effect from my experience being stolen or if it is because of something that happened far, far before then, but us that peaked and those that were created through our experience all have irregr sleeping patterns, meaning that they sometimes may sleep for days or weeks on end without being affected. I already suspected something like this happening to me soon, so I told everyone about it when I figured out when exactly it would happen. Seems like I forgot telling you two as well, sorry." Kiron nodded slowly as he frowned deeply. "I see... Is this not something that you are worrying about, M¡¯Lord?" And now, Eisen shook his head, because he simply didn¡¯t. He was doing that to spend time with his family, after all, but it seemed like he also had toe up with another half-lie for the NPCs. "I have already lived an incredibly long life, and I will continue to do so for a very long time. What difference do a few missing days here and there do?" Eisen said quite simply, before Kiron slowly nodded while sighing loudly. "I understand, M¡¯Lord. I have not seen it that way." The Half-Dragon muttered, before Eisen turned to him and smirked lightly. "Kiron, you do know that you don¡¯t have to call me that all the time, right? You can just go ahead and call me ¡¯Eisen¡¯, like everyone else does. The conditions for you being my Knight were an equal standing after all, or at least as equal as possible." "I¡¯m sorry, M¡¯Lord, I¡¯m afraid I cannot do that. That is simply a matter of respect a Knight has to bring toward their Lord, one that should not change no matter what the actual rtions between Lord and Knight are." Kiron told Eisen quite clearly without budging for a moment, leaving the old man to reply with a softugh. "Well, if you really think that way, I can¡¯t change that." He said as the group got closer to the stables where their carriage was standing. What Eisen was actually nning to do at that moment was to sit down in the carriage, make a bunch of small items that could be made quickly and inrge quantity, and then prepare them to be sold by Komer in his absence. But instead, something else happened. "There that fucking asshole is! Cial, he¡¯s the one that messed up my fucking business!" A familiar voice yelled out, and immediately, Eisen stopped and sighed out loudly in annoyance. "Is that so? That old man? How did you get beaten by him?" Another voice by a young man asked the first voice, while Eisen quickly chose to message Jyuuk so that they woulde to where he was just in case something was going to happen and Eisen needed help. "I told you he¡¯s a fucking Original! He was prepared" "Merc, could you stop swearing please? That¡¯s pretty unbing." "Oh fuck off, just help me so that we can continue ourpetition." As Eisen slowly turned around toward the source of the voices that began toe somewhat closer by the second, the old man saw who he expected to see. Merc, and a group of about six or seven others that were probably yers from hispany, as well as another man, dressed all in white with light red hair bordering on pink. "I told you, stop swearing." The man, Cial, said as he red over at his younger brother as Merc worerge metal gauntlets and Cial grasped arge wooden staff. This seemed like it was about to be pretty troublesome. Chapter 119 Golden-Eyed Demon As Eisen turned around and looked at the group of Omega yers in front of him, standing in the center of the street. With a light smile, the old man fixed his tie and stepped forward while scratching his beard. "Hello there, what may be the problem?" He asked, possibly with light provocation in mind. And as such, Merc could barely hold back his anger. "What¡¯s the fucking problem? You not only killed nearly all of my products, but even fucking stole two of them!" The Combat Merchant yelled out as he was ring at Kiron and Sky, thetter simply hiding behind Eisen to avoid the stares. But Eisen looked back at him and moved his hand through the Fey-Kin boy¡¯s hair before pointing him to stand beside his sister. After all, Sky was only level 15. Eisen then turned to Kiron. "Just curious, but do you know swordsmanship?" Quickly, the half-dragon nodded, before Eisen quickly handed him the Zweih?nder that he had been carrying all day. "Go ahead and use this, then. You should be able to use it better than me, just in case. Keep it wrapped up for now, until they do something." Eisen whispered, and his Knight quickly nodded. "Yes, M¡¯Lord." He replied, and this small conversation made Merc just angrier. "God fucking dammit, could you stop ignoring me?! You know who I am, so why are you fucking with-" But Merc was quickly interrupted by his brother who red to the side and held his arm in front of him. "I said to stop swearing. We had a deal. If you don¡¯t follow my conditions, I will not help you." Cial told Merc off, who then simply started grinding his teeth as he stepped back a slight bit, before Cial chose to walk up to Eisen. "Hello Sir, I have heard that you caused a little bit of trouble for my brother. Don¡¯t worry, nothing will happen as long as you give Merc his products back and pay for those you destroyed. We can work out a payment n if you do not have the mon-" Before Cial even finished that sentence, Eisen sighed loudly as he shook his head. "Listen, those ¡¯products¡¯ that you are talking about are living creatures. On top of treating them absolutely horribly, he even had two half-people. Both of them have one parent that is a person, not a monster. I do not regret what I have done, and I would do it again. Now leave us alone. Turn around, take those men with you, and never talk to us again. Don¡¯t worry, nothing will happen as long as you just leave." Eisen told him with an obviously fake smile. For a while, Cial stared at him with a face that slowly grew angrier, before he broke out inughter. "Well, you are correct that nothing will happen to us, but we will take those two with us. Or rather, how about we take all of them? That girl there seems to be a half-monster just like that boy, is that not right? And the other two there are obviously monsters. The golden wolf may be useful as well. And don¡¯t worry, I am sure we will be able to treat them much better than you would ever be able to." Cial eximed in a mocking voice. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if he really meant what he just said or if he was just trying to rile Eisen up. If it was thetter, it was definitely working. Watching the whole thing happen, Bree grabbed Sky¡¯s arm and dragged him away while trying to tell Kiron to step back a bit as well. Confused, Sky looked at his sister. "What are you doing? You don¡¯t just want to leave, do you?" He protested, but quickly, Bree shook her head. "No, I¡¯m not leaving, just... getting a little bit further away... Because Eisen is getting angry..." She quietly said, while Sky kept looking at her confused. While Sky was trying to figure out what Bree meant, Eisen apparently chose to demonstrate. With a soft smile, Eisen got closer to Cial, far closer than anyone would befortable with, and looked down at the young man. "Let me rephrase. I¡¯m not asking you to leave, I¡¯m telling you to. Get off your high horse. You may think that you¡¯re better than me, for whatever reason, but I can quite easily tell you that you are not. Not in the slightest. So just leave." Eisen said in amanding voice, before Cial began to shake his head. "You obviously do not realize who is standing in front of you here. Let me show you." The moment that Cial said this, he pointed his staff into the air before it began to shine in an extremely bright light, and two wings of light slowly appeared on his back before the NPCs that looked at what was going on began to cheer at their sight. It seemed like this was really something pretty special. "As you can see, I am one with the Holy Light of the heavens. I went through great lengths in order to acquire this element, and I have been chosen by the gods to bear this. Doesn¡¯t this make me better than you already, you who is only surrounded by mere monsters?" Cialughed out with a smirk, and Eisen simply stared at him. Seeing that Eisen didn¡¯t know what to say, the young man began tough once more. "Oh? Speechless, I see? If you¡¯ve realiz-" "What the fuck are you even talking about?" Eisen interrupted him while shaking his head. "You managed to get an unusual element, what is that supposed to tell me? Should I kneel in front of you now? Should I beg for forgiveness? How can all of you be smart enough to be merchants, while still being such idiots? I¡¯m telling you onest time, leave." Eisen finally said as he turned around to leave. This was getting ridiculous. This was a game, and he was trying to brag and make himself seem like he was something better with something he got in said game? Cial really had some kind ofplex. And even if this wasn¡¯t just a game, he would still be acting ridiculous. To Eisen, Cial just seemed like a kid that always got too much attention, and wanted to keep said attention at all costs, which is why he wanted something so unessarily shy. So, he thought it would be a waste of time to simply try an scare him into leaving, but then Cial did something that he shouldn¡¯t have. Angrily, he turned to his followers and quite literallymanded them to grab everyone in Eisen¡¯s group, which they managed to do with the exception of Kiron and Aulu. Before Eisen even managed to react, the men simply sprinted toward them and grabbed whoever they could. Since they did so from all directions, Eisen didn¡¯t know how to react so suddenly and turned around to stare at Cial. "What do you think you¡¯re doing?" The old man asked with pure fury in his voice as he looked at hispanions being basically cuffed. Usually, something like this should count toward things to be prevented by Guards, but only now did Eisen notice that there was not a single one around, and even those that stood in front of the stables before simply left. "I¡¯m simply taking what belongs to us. You should be greatful, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be happier without th-" Before Cial could finish what he was saying, Eisen already stepped up to him and ced his hand around his throat. This was a game, and yers were supposed to re-spawn. Surely nobody would mind if Eisen was to teach them a lesson. "Oh, I am greatful. You did something to the guards, so they all left. That means that we¡¯re all alone now, and I¡¯m free to do what I want in here." Eisen said as he activated different skills, those that he used to scare John and those loan sharks before. As golden mes began to burn in his eyes and his skin on his arms turned to rock, Eisen lifted Cial about a foot into the air by his throat, before he looked around at the crowd of NPCs standing there. He didn¡¯t want anyone to get involved in this, and even though this may mean that Eisen had to leave quite a bit sooner than expected, he preferred to make sure nobody got hurt. Because of that, he stared at the crowd and with his transformed voice yelled out what was on his mind. "All of you, get away from here!" Immediately after his words, probably through Eisen¡¯s titles and charisma stats, people in the crowd became riled up, and some even somewhat scared. Since they still didn¡¯t leave, Eisen continued staring at them. Once more, he had to rely on fear to make sure everything worked out alright. Eisen didn¡¯t like the feeling in the slightest and felt like throwing up just at the thought of having so many people fear him. So he swore something to himself, something that leaked out through his voice. "For thest time, the veryst fucking time. Get. Away." Eisen swore to himself to stop relying on fear from that moment on, since he didn¡¯t like the person that appeared whenever he did. [You have sessfully scared 50 people] [Your base reputation in Ornier has sunken] Eisen ground his teeth to the point where it felt like they would shatter if he put any more pressure on them, and then looked back at Cial. "Now to you. I told you again and again to just leave, but you just didn¡¯t get it into your thick skull that you are not better than me, or anyone, in fact. Neither you, nor Merc, nor all of those idiots choosing to blindly follow you for their own gains. Let my friends go, right this second. Do you understand?" Eisen asked loudly, nearly yelling straight in Cial¡¯s face, but the young man just couldn¡¯t say anything. It seemed like he wasn¡¯t used to being yelled at like this. While Eisen was staring at Cial, Merc chose that this was the best moment to intervene and attack, but Kiron was the one that received that attack instead while the cloth around the Zweih?nder he was holding fell off. Taking that moment of confusion caused by all of this, Caria and Melissa reacted as well, as roots and vines grew out of the ground and slung themselves around all of the other Omegas that were still standing there, and eight bees all flew directly at them to attack, although it was nothing but an inconvenience to say the most. As everyone was now released, Bree brought Sky away toward safety while different beasts ran and flew past her. Finally, the group of three yers that Eisen called for help had arrived, and Jyuukmanded his beasts to surround the group of omegas so that they couldn¡¯t do anything, while Evalia and Komer were staring at the scene in confusion. As Eisen saw that Cial and Merc¡¯s group was beingpletely overpowered, Eisen dropped the man that he was holding up to the ground, and then told everyone to just stop. "Cial, Merc. This was hopefully thest time that you caused us trouble. If not, you will not get away again, do you understand me?" Eisen asked, and while making faces filled with anger, both of them nodded at each other before looking back at their followers. Immediately when they did, the group of nine omegas all turned to pure white. They had logged off,now that they weren¡¯t inbat anymore to avoid further conflict and humiliation. While Eisen was deactivating his skills, he immediately turned to the group of people standing in front of him, all staring at him in worry. Beside Caria and Melissa, this was the first time that any of them saw what Eisen was like when he got angry like that. But there was just one thing that Eisen could look at right now, and it definitely wasn¡¯t the faces of his friends. [Golden-Eyed Demon title received] Chapter 120 True Demons Eisen looked at his group of friends andpanions as they were staring at him in confusion, until two people, or rather little monster girls, broke the silence. "Eisen! I has a mouth now!" A certain myconid girl eximed happily as she came running up to Eisen to hug him. It seemed like Caria had evolved throughout all of this, turning into a Lesser Myconid Druid, the ¡¯Lesser¡¯ probably referring to the ¡¯Druid¡¯ part of her new race title. She had grown a little bit again, but not as drastically as before, just a few inches taller. Her skin was still pretty white, but more in the way that a pale human¡¯s would be. Overall, she just looked like a pale little girl with ck eyes, wearing arge red and white witch hat and a red dress. But not only Caria evolved to be Rank 3, Melissa also evolved toward rank 2 and became a Crowned Queen Bee. She had be a lotrger, having grown to be double the size she was before, and phyisically changed a lot otherwise as well. It seemed as if Melissa was also slowly going to be more and more humanoid the more she evolved, as rough humanoid shapes could be seen, especially in her face, but it wasn¡¯t anything that you would really see or notice if you didn¡¯t pay much attention to it. Humming happily, Melissa chose to sit down on Eisen¡¯s shoulder and rubbed her head on his cheek. With a smile on his face, Eisen squatted down onto the ground and rubbed the top of Caria and Melissa¡¯s heads. "Well done, I¡¯m proud of you two." He replied as he happily looked at his two tamed monsters, while the rest of his group came back up to him once the tension was broken down. "That was quite... intense." Jyuuk admitted as he leaned onto his staff and one after another stored his beasts on his skin again, and Evalia nodded quite quickly. "You can say that again... Erm, what the hell was that all about?" She asked, and Eisen began scratching the back of his head. "I got angry... And that¡¯s not the first time that I have done this. To get the two shards of the amulet, I used different skills of mine together to make myself look like that, and it seems like it worked out in the end. But... Now, it seems like I¡¯m literally seen as a Demon because of it." Eisen muttered out, before he looked back at the notification still flying next to him. "I even got a Title to confirm that." And that sentence simply caused both Bree and Sky to jump in surprise before they looked at Eisen in curiosity that immediately dissipated the confusion and worry from before. "What do you mean? Did you get a Unique Title?" Bree asked as she looked up at the old man with her eyes glittering, and simrly, Sky stood next to her, looking at Eisen in awe. These two were definitely siblings, for sure. "Yes, I did. But could we maybe talk about this somewhere else? This looks quite... well, bad. Should we hurry back to the Inn? It¡¯s a bit out of the way and we can talk there in peace. I especially need to talk to you, Komer." Eisen said as he looked over at the young man, whose face seemed to be drainedpletely of color as he was staring at the figures of his brothers lying on the floor. Quietly, the group then walked all the way back to the Inn as fast as they could, trying to avoid as many people as possible and then simply made their way to their room. It was somewhat crowded, but still better than the other choice they had, the carriage. As everyone took a seat on the beds, Eisen stood in the center of the room and began to talk. "Alright everyone. It seems like I won¡¯t be able to stay here in Ornier much longer. I¡¯ve just horribly scared dozens of people, and I doubt that I¡¯ll be able to just regrly walk around anymore. And it would be best if I didn¡¯t run into that group of Omegas anyway." Eisen exined carefully, leaving everyone to just sit there in silence, until Komer spoke up. "They were my brothers and their goons, right? After a loss like that, neither of them will leave this be..." He exined, before nodding at Eisen¡¯s decision. "I think it would be a good idea to leave as soon as we can. Just get our business here over with and then keep driving toward that Magic City." After nodding slowly with a smile directed toward the young merchant, Eisen continued. "I agree. At the verytest, we should leave tomorrow morning, but preferably tonight. Nobody really saw you, Jyuuk and Evalia, so everything should be fine and you can stay however long you want, but I would be careful nheless. I don¡¯t know to what extent Merc and Cial saw you. If there¡¯s any trouble, it would be better to leave as well. Sorry for dragging you into this." Eisen apologized, before the two Originals immediately shook their heads. "Don¡¯t¡¯cha worry about that! We came to help you, and after your message we knew that shit was goin¡¯ down. We knew what we were getting¡¯ ourselves into, ain¡¯t that right, Jyuuk?" Evalia told Eisen, and Jyuuk simply agreed. "Yes, you don¡¯t need to worry, Eisen. We wanted to help, so we did. Now don¡¯t worry about us, and tell us about that transformation and title. I am also quite interested in it, as are quite obviously Bree and Sky." Jyuuk suggested, before Eisen quickly agreed with a nod. "Alright, I haven¡¯t actually looked through it yet either. I saw that I got it, but not what it does. Just a second." As Eisen said this as he quickly opened his status to look at closer information of his new title, and was surprised at the information. [Special Title] Golden-Eyed Demon [Description] This is an iplete title. You have been acknowledged as such by the popce, but you have not yet been acknowledged to be a True Demon by the world. Certain Goals have to be achieved in Order to be a true Demon. [Goals To Be Completed] -Induce Fear into 1000 People in your Demonic Form (68/1000) -Be Acknowledged as an enemy by a whole town -Complete your Demonic Form -Go through hell and back [Goals Already Completed] None [Effect] It is easier to induce Fear Carefully, Eisen read through all of this in confusion and ryed everything directly to his group, before everyone else also looked on confused. Eisen had hoped that Bree may know anything about it, but she didn¡¯t either. "I guess I will have to look for information on this, then. I¡¯m pretty sure Brody is a Demon-Orc Halfling, right?" Eisen asked his Originalpanions, who simply shrugged as they tried to think of anything that might help. But to the old man¡¯s surprise, the one that spoke up was Sky. "Erm... Actually, I think I may know something..." He said slowly, before quickly continuing once he got everyone¡¯s attention. "There was a really big library in the vige of spirits I grew up in, and there were some books about demons as well. It has been a long while since I¡¯ve read them though, so I can¡¯t remember anything specific..." Eisen looked at the Fey-Kin boy with a smile, before slowly nodding at him. "Don¡¯t worry, all information is more than enough help." He reassured, and Sky continued with some more confidence. "Well, the Demon Race and actual True Demons are two different things. It¡¯s kind of confusing, but I think it was so that the Demon Race has been called something like that because they physically resemble demons a lot of the time. Being a True Demon can¡¯t be handed down through blood, and a person has to work toward being a demon. So, if you¡¯re talking about a Demon-Orc Halfling, then he is one of the demon race, and not a true demon. Those goals aren¡¯t the type that can happen on ident, so I doubt it should be a problem." After the Fey-Kin Boy exined this, Eisen nodded in reply, before sighing in relief. "I see. Yeah, I guess going through hell and back doesn¡¯t seem like something that just happens out of the blue, huh? Anyway, about that transformation. As I said, it¡¯s abination of a few skills, although mainly just my me of the Earth transformation. By using it on my eyes and activating my truth seeing eyes, I created the effect of the golden mes. They are quite hard to not notice, so that¡¯s where that title came from." After Eisen exined this, he quickly began his transformation to demonstrate and let them take a look in more detail, before they continued talking for a little while longer. Once there was only one topic to really talk about left, the group chose to talk about what wasing next. "Alright, now. What is it that we should be doing? Should we leave Ornier behind for now by tonight, or just leave sometime else soon?" Eisen asked into the round, excluding Evalia and Jyuuk of course, and one after another hispanions gave their opinion. The first to speak was Kiron. "I will follow you wherever you go, M¡¯Lord, but if I can voice my opinion, I would prefer to leave this wicked town behind." The Half-Dragon told his Lord, and Eisen¡¯s two tamed monsters, one of which now looked like a regr human, instantly agreed. "Mhm! Eisen is super duper smart, so Caria will follow Eisen everywhere!" Caria exined while clinging to Eisen¡¯s side as always, and Melissa quickly agreed as well by rubbing her body against Eisen¡¯s face. "Yeah, I don¡¯t really need anything either... but I think Sky does, right?" Bree said, before her brother slightly jumped at his name being said. "Hmm, oh, yeah... I¡¯m Level 15 right now, so, erm... I would like to get an upation. But after that, I would prefer to leave from here as well..." "Oh, obviously. What kind of upation would you like to have?" Eisen asked immediately, but Sky simply shrugged. "I¡¯m not really sure, but... I like books, so maybe something with that, if that¡¯s alright?" "Definitely, yes. Why shouldn¡¯t it be alright? I already suspected something like that anyway, since you and Bree are quite simr in a few things like that, and she¡¯s an Archivist. What did you imagine? Do you want to make books, or do you want to just read them? So a Bookbinder, or Librarian or something like that?" "Neither, actually... Or a mixture of both? I¡¯m not really interested in actually crafting something myself, and I don¡¯t only want to read things all day or sort books and things like that. There is a certain upation that I had in mind, itbines magic and my books pretty well. Although I guess the closest ce to get that would be the magic city you talked about..." Sky quickly and effitiently exined, while everyone was listening with interest, before Eisen crossed his arms in thought. "Alright, then it would probably really be best to go there as soon as possible then, right? But talking about Magic... Bree said she can only really cast support magic, what about you? Are you the same?" Surprised, Sky shook his head as he looked over at Bree. "Not really, no. The opposite, really. Support magic is magic that is casted directly on a target, right? I can¡¯t do that. I can only use it in regr spells that are cast out in the open." He exined, leaving not only his sister in surprise. With a smile, Eisen then simply nodded and made his final decision, that nobody seemed to object to. "Alright, then Komer, Bree, Sky, Kiron, Caria, Melissa and I will make our way toward the Magic City. We¡¯re leaving in a few hours, so grab everything you need." Chapter 121 Bestiary Later that evening, the group found themselves in the stables, preparing to leave by making some more space inside the carriage for everyone. Before they left, Eisen also quickly made his way to the bookstore where he bought supplies at before and bought a map so that they could figure out the way toward the Magic City. It was a different story before, because Bree knew the way from Melroe to Ornier already, but nobody of this group had ever been there before. But luckily, there weren¡¯t manyrge magic cities, and the one that they were talking about seemed to be thergest one on the continent. Now that they had a rough idea about the route they would need to take, all the group needed to do was to make sure they did everything they wanted to do before leaving, and that included one thing. Eisen wanted to see if he could make something for Jyuuk to help with the Monster Storage, now that his skin wasrgely covered in the monsters that Eisen brought to him. And he already got a few ideas for that. But first, he would need to make a new book, which was another reason why he went to the book store, to buyrge A3 paper so that the pages would berge enough. This would mean a little bit more work, but it wouldn¡¯t be a huge project in the end. But since Jyuuk would maybe be using this and carrying it around with him more often, he wanted to make it actually look quite nice and basically just cool. For that, Eisen used a small wooden frame that he put together to help in binding the book in a way to achieve just that. What he did was take thick string and twisted it around itself a few times to make it even thicker to be around as thick as a pinky, while having a rope-like consistency, and then bound four parts of that string from the top to the bottom of the frame, with two of them close to the center and one close to each end, and then began to properly work on everything else. He had already quickly put together the bundles of paper that he needed and punched six holes into each sheet, so that he could just immediately start sewing everything together. As Eisen did that, he used a slightly different method to before. After holding the first bundle with its spine toward the thick string he bound to the frame, he started by simply pushing the needle through the first hole at one end of the bundle, and then put it back out the next hole, that was ced to be directly next to the first thick string. He then simply circled that rope-like string and pulled the needle back through the same hole to be inside the bundle again. Eisen repeated this with the other holes before then adding the second bundle, which he did by simply pulling the needle out of the bundle through thest hole, and moving it into the hole directly above, before doing the same thing he did with the first bundle and basically sewing the rope-like string to the spines of the paper bundles. When he then got to the end of the second bundle, Eisen simply tied the very start of the string to the part of the string that just came out of thest hole. Eisen repeated this same thing over and over again, until he managed to sew all the bundles together sessfully. Once that was done, he cut off the rope-like string that was bound to the wooden frame, leaving about an inch to one and a half inches of it to continue further into both directions when seen from the book¡¯s spine. Eisen then pressed all of the paper down again byying arge, t nk onto the whole thing and then weighing it down with a few more books, before applying glue to the spine. While that glue was drying, Eisen began to prepare for making the headbands, that were supposed to further protect the book on each end. They were simply some small leather strips about as long as the spine was thick. What he did to actually connect that headband to the book was quite easy, albeit with a lot of little steps. Eisen first tied two threads together, one ck and one white to make it harder to confuse the two of them, and then pulled the end of the ck string through the outermost hole in the front bundle of paper from the outside to the inside and pulled until the knot reached the hole and it couldn¡¯t be pulled through anymore. Next, he moved the white thread, that was still on the outside of the spine, to the inside, and then pulled it through the same hole that he pulled the ck thread through, just from the inside to the outside, to create a small loop. Now, Eisen ced that small strip of leather through that loop before tightening it, and then pulled the white thread back over the piece of leather again. After that, the ck thread was simply pulled around under the piece of leather, before the same was done with the white thread, alternating between each other before reaching the area directly above the outermost hole of the second bundle, where Eisen then basically just repeated the same exact process as before. This continued until Eisen got to thest bundle, where he simply pulled both the white and ck threads out from the inside to the outside through this bundle¡¯s outermost hole, and then tied both of them together. Now that this headband was finished, Eisen simply needed to repeat it one more time for the other side of the spine and added another headband there. After that, Eisen cut out a piece of fabric three times as wide as the spine of the book would be thick, and then glued it onto the spine as well as the front and back of the whole soon-to-be book, beforeying it under the same makeshift press as before and waiting for the glue to dry properly. When it was finally dry, Eisen grabbed two pieces of high-quality, thick and strong A4 paper, which he then glued onto the parts of the fabric that were exposed to the front and back. Next, Eisen grabbed some very thin pieces of wood simr to thin plywood, to use for the cover parts instead of the cardboard he had been using before. The reason why he did this was simply because this would make the book¡¯s cover a lot harder and durable, which was better for such arge and heavy book. Out of that wood, he only cut parts for the front and back of the book, and made four small holes into each piece of wood near one of the long edges, where the rope-like string could be pulled through from the outside. Once that was done, Eisen pulled the ends of the string apart so that it could more easily be glued to the wood on the inside, and then let the whole thing dry. After that, the base of the book was done, and now Eisen only had to properly bind it in leather, for which he picked strong leather from a beast that seemed to usually work in packs andmanded those under it in the hierarchy, which Eisen simply did in the hopes of it helping to connect with Jyuuk¡¯s Taming skills. After he cut the leather that he needed out, about an inch wider into any direction than the outer surface of the book actually would be, and cut away at the corners of the leather to make sure it could be folded better in a bit. Next, he simply spread glue on all the outer surfaces of the book base as well as the leather itself and carefully ced it onto its outside, letting it dry properly after cing it under the weight of other books again. Once the leather was roughly glued onto the book, Eisen folded the leather around the plywood and glued it on there, before grabbing another thick piece of paper and glueing it onto that surface to hide the plywoodpletely. Now, while the final parts of the book were drying, Eisen got to work with something else. He grabbed a mana crystal and began shaping it the way that he had nned, which was simply in the pattern of the coin that Jyuuk had around his neck as a sign of being an original, which was mostly the same to Eisen¡¯s, although simply with a tree in its center instead of the hammer that Eisen had on it. The reason why Eisen made this out of a mana crystal instead of simply carving it onto the leather itself was quite simple. He wanted to enchant it, and effects of enchantments were always stronger and more stable on mana crystals instead of other surfaces, at least the type that Eisen was going to apply to it, an ability enchantment. He grabbed one of the small white marbles that he used for that, and then enchanted it with the same type of ¡¯Ownership¡¯ enchantment that was used for Golem cores, that would simply acknowledge anyone as the owner that first poured mana into the core. After Eisen was done with sessfully enchanting it, Eisen grabbed the book and began to carve out a little bit of space on the front cover to ce the shaped mana crystal into, which he then did by simply applying glue to the carved-out space and cing the crystal onto it. Following this, Eisen simply decorated the book with a few more things to make it look less empty, before finally acknowledging it as finished. "Done." [Large Empty Book] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A Large Leatherbound book made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has the symbol of the Original of the Living on the front in the form of a mana crystal enchanted to allow specific ownership of this book. [Pages] 250 [Due to already having reached the peak as a limitbreaker, you will not gain anything from creating an overwhelming quality item through the Bookbinding Skill] With a smile, Eisen looked at the book in his hands and flipped through it a few times to see how it felt in his hands, before nodding in satisfaction. "Well then, this took a few hours, but I¡¯m finally done." Eisen eximed as he stood up and stretched, deactivating all the skills that he had been using during the creation of this book, and both Kiron and Sky looked at him in awe. "I have to say, M¡¯Lord, your ability in craftsmanship is truly unrivaled!" The half-dragon said with arge smile, and Sky could only nod, and Caria nodded smugly. "Of course! Eisen is the best!" She yelled out, before Eisen beganughing loudly, "Haha, thanks, everyone. I appreciate it. Anyway, I have to hurry and give this to Jyuuk, I told him to meet me here around this time." Eisen eximed and stepped out through the carriage¡¯s door, where Jyuuk was already waiting for him. "Ah, perfect! Here you go, just try it out for a second, will you?" Eisen chuckled as he handed the book over to Jyuuk, who looked it over excitedly. "Oh? This looks amazing, Eisen! You said you would make me something, but I didn¡¯t expect something like this. But how do I try it out? I didn¡¯t get a notification, at the very least." The Monkey-Beastperson asked, before Eisen quickly began to exin. "It¡¯s quite simple, really. The crystal in the center of the cover there is enchanted to grant ownership to the first person to pour mana into it. So go ahead and try, maybe it triggers something." The old man suggested and Jyuuk quickly did as exined. And sure enough, the book began slightly glowing before that glow disappeared as quickly as it appeared, and Jyuuk slightly jumped as apparently a number of notifications popped up in his sight. Without even saying anything, Jyuuk smiled and ced his hand on the cover of the book, before the multitude of tamed monsters on Jyuuk¡¯s skin immediately transferred over to the book, and Jyuuk quickly flipped it open after the process was finished. This revealed the same tattoos that he had on his skin just a moment ago spread out on the pages. So, with a smile, Jyuuk nodded at Eisen. "This works great, thank you, Eisen. Now I don¡¯t look like I was swimming in paint anymore." Heughed, and showed the book to Eisen again to let him take another look. [Jyuuk¡¯s Bestiary] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A Large Leatherbound book made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen that turned into a Bestiary after the Beast Master Jyuuk took Ownership of it. It is already holding numerous beasts that have previously been tamed by the owner of the book. [Pages] 250 "That worked out perfectly, didn¡¯t it?" Eisenughed quietly, "Well, now there¡¯s only one thing left. This won¡¯t take long, don¡¯t worry. But can you give me your belt for a second?" He asked quickly, before Jyuuk nodded in confusion and handed it to him, and Eisen immediately left inside the carriage again. While hurrying up, Eisen quickly added something small to the side of the belt, just another two leather straps to hold the book so that Jyuuk didn¡¯t have to carry it around in his arms all the time. Since that was all it was that Eisen added, it only took about ten minutes before he came back out of the carriage again, handing Jyuuk thest part of his thank-you gift for taking in all the monsters that Eisen freed from the Monster Shop. But now, all the business in Ornier that the group had left was finished, meaning that it was finally time to leave. Chapter 122 Moving Dolls Finally, it was time for the group to leave Ornier behind, and as such they hooked Cabarum back up to the carriage and drove out of the stables. Evalia and Jyuuk apanied them up to the gates, but when they went through, they had to say goodbye. "I¡¯ll message you if I find Xenia." Eisen told the both of them, and they quickly nodded. Jyuuk spoke up with a smile as he extended his hand to say goodbye to Eisen. "And I will message you if I find Brody. Be careful on your travels, and..." Before continuing his sentence, Jyuuk looked around to make sure that no NPC was within listening-range, "...and have fun with your family. You seem to be really excited for that." In response, Eisen chuckled lowly before nodding, and then replied with a low whisper. "Yes, I really am. It has been a while since I¡¯ve seen them. And actually, I¡¯m giving the extra yer rmendation to my grandson, so he will start ying in thest phase before the game actuallyes out. That means I can see him a lot more, at the very least." "Well, then introduce the kid to us when ya can, aye?" Evalia asked, but Eisen shook his head with augh. "How old were you again, Evalia? 20? Well, my Grandson is just a bit more than a year younger than you, so you shouldn¡¯t call him a kid. But yeah, I¡¯ll introduce you to him." "Huh, really?" Evalia said while tilting her head to the side, but then ended up shaking her head again. "Nah, you still don¡¯t look like you¡¯re old enough to have an 18 years old grandson..." She said with a loud sigh, leaving Jyuuk to do nothing but nod. "For sure. I hope I look like you in 50 years, I won¡¯t lie. Or rather, I hope I¡¯ll look like you in 10 years..." Jyuuk slowly said while staring at Eisen¡¯s logs for arms before looking at the sticks that he called his own. "Haha, don¡¯t worry. I¡¯ve done physicalbor for basically 65 years, and you¡¯re a scientist. There will be a bit of a difference, but if you work hard enough, I¡¯m sure you can look like me. It¡¯s not like I just woke up like this one day." Eisen said to cheer the young man up, who nodded with a smile while now sending the group of properly. Evalia and Jyuuk one after another said goodbye to everyone else in the group, before Eisen and hispanions finally started driving toward their next destination. And from that point on, nothing exciting happened, really. It would take a whole week to get from Ornier to the Magic City even if they were driving constantly at max speed, which simply showed the scale of the world that they were currently in. On top of that, this was currently only one of the five continents of the world of magic. The others were basicallypletely inessible at the time though, so the group couldn¡¯t make their way there just yet. But for now, there wasn¡¯t much reason to go there anyway. Eisen didn¡¯t have a direct goal to follow there, and even though his curiosity to explore from his days as a young man had finally reappeared, he wanted to first try and still it by visiting all the ces the continent he was currently on had to offer. Either way, it would take a while until they reached the magic city, so it was now time for Eisen to simply sit and spend quite a while inside of the carriage while making items, as long as he was awake. Of course, since it was getting quitete, Eisen¡¯s body in the game felt quite tired, and as such he went to bed in the carriage¡¯s corner. The next morning, Eisen quickly stretched before immediately getting to work on breakfast for the group. It wasn¡¯t anything special, just a number of sandwiches for the group made from ingredients that they bought freshly in Ornier before leaving. Again, it wasn¡¯t anything special, just some tomatos, lettuce, and thinly sliced pork as a recement for bacon, which Eisen still didn¡¯t have the time to make. He would really need to construct a small smoker at some point. When everything was finished, Eisen looked out of the window in the front of the carriage at Bree and Sky. "Hey, you two, breakfast is ready. Just stop the carriage by the side of the road, I¡¯ll give some oil to Cabarum and Aulu as well." Eisen told them quickly while already getting the oil for his two automata ready. "Okay~!" "Will do!" The siblings said in tandem before Bree told Cabarum to slow down and then stop moving. It was still quite early, so it seemed like Komer, with a far lower endurance stat than Eisen, still needed to sleep for a while, considering that they went to bed at around the same time. But since it shouldn¡¯t be that long, he should wake up quite soon and join them for breakfast. While Eisen distributed the food to his friends, he tried to give a sandwich to Caria as well, who simply refused by saying that she still didn¡¯t need to eat proper food. It did make sense, after all she only looked like a human, and was still a myconid in the end, meaning that she could still feed off the natural nutrients that she gained simply through contact with the ground, sunlight, and air. After he gave everyone their food, Eisen stepped out of the carriage and told Aulu to follow, before disconnecting Cabarum from the carriage and cing down a bowl of oil on the ground for Aulu, and another one on the carriage¡¯s front bench so that it was reachable for Cabarun. Once that was done, Eisen simply joined hispanions for breakfast and began eating his sandwich. And as this was enough to sate his hunger, after cleaning up and talking to the group for a while, during which Komer finally woke up and joined them, Eisen began working on another project of his. Mock-Golems. And what was meant with the ¡¯Mock¡¯ part, was quite simple, and it wouldn¡¯t be like the Mock-Golem cores that he made with theplex enchantment in Morrom¡¯s shop. Eisen wouldn¡¯t fully create a proper golem core, only adding the minimal amount of the two crystals that would give the golem a fake soul and mind, so that it could only fulfill minimalisticmands and couldn¡¯t dp anything other than walk where it was told to or do some simple motions like waving, hugging, and other simple stuff. Because what Eisen would be making were dolls. Simple, small, Golem Dolls. So that the Golems¡¯ performance wouldn¡¯t change depending on who was ying with them because of a golemancy skill, Eisen would activate them beforehand and simply tell them to listen to themand of whoever bought it. For that, Eisen first got out his materials, tools and Alchemy distition set, before starting to grind down a mana crystal as well as a tiny amount of the two other crystals that were needed, before mixing these powders with water, which was then simply distilled away, leaving Eisen with the base crystal for the golem core, that now only needed to be enchanted, for which Eisen got out the marbles needed for high-quality ability enchantment. Once Eisen gave the crystal the necessary enchantments, he would have usually been finished, but now, instead of seeing thisrge crystal as the final product, Eisen began splitting small parts of it off with transmutation to form small, marble sized golem cores, since these would be far better for small dolls than therge crystal, and this would hopefully further make the effect of the golems resulting from these dwindle. In the end, Eisen had about twenty of these. [Tiny Lesser Golem Core] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A tiny golem core created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been made out of arger golem core to use in smaller, less dexterous or less intelligent golems. Despite their effect being far less than a regr golem core¡¯s due to a different method of creation, as this was the intention, they are still perfect for their task. [Effect] Connect to a small body when provided with Mana With a smile at the sessful creation of these golem cores that would be perfect for what Eisen had nned, and that had seemingly picked up on the reason they were created, he only needed to make the bodies. What Eisen was nning for this were small wooden mannequins, like those that you may sometimes use as a sketching reference, with the golem core acting as the connector between upper and lower torso. The reason that Eisen chose to go with these mannequins was quite simple. Not only were they just so simple in the way they looked so that nobody could see anything majorly bad in them, but they were also something like a ¡¯nk canvas¡¯, meaning that whoever bought them could easily decorate or paint them however they wanted. If these should be popr enough, Eisen would of course make different types, like regr dolls or maybe even action figures. But for now, Eisen would spend some time simply carving out small pieces of wood in the shapes and sizes that he needed. This didn¡¯t necessarily take all that long, considering how small each piece was, but because some of them needed a bit more detail than others and Eisen simply needed arge quantity of these, it did end up taking a few hours. In the end, the only differences between the dolls were that half of them were modeled after a man¡¯s build, while others were modeled after a woman¡¯s. All of them were made up of the same light colored, oak-like wood, and Eisen was quite happy with the finished products, and would only need to try out how well everything worked. First, he roughly assembled the bodies, making sure that each body part was properly connected to the spherical wooden joints that would allow for proper movement through simply transmuting the joints and limbs so that they would slightly interject to a certain amount, not enough to hinder movement, only to make sure they couldn¡¯t easily be pulled apart and so that the Golem Core would see everything as a single body. But since the golem core was one of the connectors, albeit thergest one, Eisen was wondering whether the golem cores would see the top half of the doll¡¯s body and its bottom half as a single body, or if he would need to do a little bit of re-designing first to make sure everything worked. This was easily and quickly done by pressing both parts against the core in the way they were supposed to, and then pouring mana into the core itself. And soon enough, Eisen could see that this luckily worked out quite well. The moment that Eisen activated the golem core, the joints of the tiny mannequin began twisting and turning around for a few seconds before settling down properly while the Golem-Doll stood up, simply standing there without doing anything or reacting to anything in any way whatsoever. "Move forward." Eisen then immediatelymanded, and the doll reacted instantly before starting to walk forward without a second, or even first, thought. It was somewhat simr to the way the Health-Doll Golem that Eisen made before moved, simply robotic and without any mind for itself whatsoever, which was exactly what Eisen was hoping for. This meant that Eisen only had to do one more thing, simply put all the parts of the tiny mannequins together and then have them connect to a golem core each. Not too long after Eisen started this, he already had a small army of these little guys standing on the worktable in front of him. Chapter 123 Soul Engineering After confirming that each of the Golem Dolls worked properly, Eisen carved his crafter¡¯s sigil on the underside of their right foot, just so that he ced it somewhere while not being too noticable. "Alright, all of you will now listen to themand of anyone in this carriage." Eisenmanded them, and immediately the Golem dolls seemed to slowly and clunkily nod, before Eisen looked over to Kiron, Komer, Caria and Melissa who had been watching curiously. "Can one of you trymanding them? Komer, maybe? You¡¯ll be selling them, so that might be good." Slightly surprised, the Merchant nodded excitedly. "Alright... Sit down." He said, and immediately all twenty of the dolls sat down on their wooden butts. With a smile, Komer leaned in closer. "This is kind of cool, if I¡¯ll be honest... If we ever open an actual shop somewhere, do you think we could have Golem Employees?" He asked while scratching his cheek, and Eisen simply nodded. "Hmm, I don¡¯t see why not, really. They would definitely be good for mostmon work, and if my skill keeps ranking up, it should be possible to have them sort shelves and stuff." "That would be really cool, yeah!" Komer said with awe in his voice when thinking about the idea of that. To Eisen it seemed like he really liked things like robots. And the moment that this word crossed his mind, he got a great idea, that he would only be able to work on in the future. "Hmm, I guess I¡¯ll start working on some more golems at some point..." Eisen said, trying to think of possible designs already, that also included different crafting skills. If he could do all of that, it would be the perfect way to makerge amounts of different things without having each item just lie around everywhere. First though, Eisen turned back to Komer to exin the way they would sell these. "Alright, what we¡¯ll be doing is that we¡¯re simply selling these, and tell the dolls to allow the person that bought it tomand it. That way, the one that bought it can decide who can use it and who can¡¯t. I¡¯ll write some small pieces of paper as instructions as well to hand away with them so that everyone knows how to use them." He exined, before Komer nodded slowly. "That¡¯s not tooplicated, so alright. What else will you be making? Some more weapons again, or more toys? The small mana crystal tools that you made seemed to be quite popr in Ornier." Komer said as he was remembering back onto the sales that he made back then, and Eisen began scratching his beard. "Hmm, I was actually about to ask that. What do you think we should sell, or rather, what would you prefer to sell? After all, I don¡¯t want to dictate what you are known for." "Oh no, don¡¯t worry! You make so many amazing things that are all different to each other in so many ways, so I couldn¡¯t possibly decide. So I chose for Starlight to be a Merchant¡¯spany that simply sells everything. So you can just make whatever you feel like, and I¡¯ll sell it." Komer somewhat protested at Eisen¡¯s suggestion, so the old man nodded with a smile. "I see. Well, thank you for letting me do so, then. But since we are going to visit a town full of magicians, I would guess that there is arge amount of crafters with magic-rted crafting upations as well, such as enchanters or alchemists, so selling things like the small mana crystal tools probably won¡¯t work well, especially since my skill rank isn¡¯t actually all that high yet. I think it would be a better idea to make things specifically targeted toward magicians." This quick exnation seemed to make the group somewhat curious at what Eisen was nning, so Kiron quickly asked. "That would of course make sense, but what is it that you have in mind, M¡¯Lord?" "It¡¯s quite simple, really. Komer¡¯s brother Cial had a staff, and only then did I really realize that Magicians should also have some kind of weapon. So I bought another book when I went to the bookstore about different types of tools and weapons, and there are tworge things for magicians. Staffs and wands. The book doesn¡¯t describe how they¡¯re made, but I¡¯m sure our hoards of knowledge in the front there will know, at least roughly. And on top of that, I want to try something else out as well, but I¡¯m not sure how well it is going to work. I want to make a grimoire, or at least try to find out if that¡¯s possible at all." With this, the group reacted with even more curiosity, but Eisen simply chuckled. "I¡¯ll test that out at some point, but first I want to do things that I know can be done before wasting time with something that doesn¡¯t." He then exined, letting hispanions settle down again, before further exining his ns and starting to get back to work. For now, Eisen wanted to continue working on the Golem dolls. He repeated the whole process four more times, until he had a total of 100 of these small Golem Dolls standing in front of him, each set of 20 with a slightly different type of wood used as a base, some darker, while others were a bit lighter in color, but all of them were equally durable. Now that Eisen was done with these, he set the Golem Dolls aside and started working on his next project, that was as mentioned staffs and wands, for which he chose to take a seat in the front with Bree and Sky who had been driving for the past few hours, simply talking about different things and trying to catch up with each other more. "Hello there, you two. Having fun?" Eisen asked them as he took the reigns from Bree to let her rx a little bit, and she immediately nodded at him. "Mhm! It¡¯s super fun~!" She eximed happily, and Sky simply agreed. "Yeah, it really is. I didn¡¯t expect it to be this much fun, if I¡¯ll be honest." With bright smiles, the Fey-Kin siblings both looked up at Eisen, who then simply began asking the questions he had. "Alright, I¡¯m d to hear that. And I think you heard that I wanted to make staffs and wands, right? So does either of you know how they are really made?" Eisen asked this, and they both thought for a bit, before Bree nodded. "Yeah, I think I do. It¡¯s usually something made of wood that¡¯s been absorbing so much mana that it changed into something else." She exined, before Eisen looked at her in surprise. "That¡¯s possible? Materials can just change into another one if enough mana is added?" "Mhm, that¡¯s the case in Melroe, remember? Mythril is originally silver, and through therge underground mana source, that silver absorbed the mana and turned into mythril. Changing a material takes a lot of mana, though... It takes a lot less mana to make magical wood than it does to make mythril, but it¡¯s still a lot." "And how much would that be? Just when taking pure MP as an example so that I get an idea." "Hmm... about 100 Thousand, maybe?" She exined, and immediately Eisen began to think about how to best make or buy magical wood, until he remembered something. "Erm, Bree, where did you say mana was generated in someone¡¯s body?" He asked, and Bree tilted her head to the side in confusion. "In your soul... why?" With a grin, Eisen turned around and looked at his backpack inside the carriage, before looking back at her. "Because I just got an amazing idea. Mind if I give the reigns back to one of you?" Eisen asked, and Sky happily took them from him, before the old man stepped back in through the window in the front of the carriage before immediately grabbing his backpack, taking out all of the nk soul stones that he had. If this didn¡¯t worked, then it would be an amazing asset. But first, Eisen needed to figure out how to best drain the mana generated inside of these stones, if there was any at all. For that, just as a prototype test, Eisen reshaped a mana crystal to bepletely t so that he could properly carve an enchantment on it. It was simply the type of enchantment that he always used when he needed something to supply itself with mana, just this time in a somewhat more aggressive manner, simply ¡¯stealing¡¯ mana instead of ¡¯taking¡¯ it. Just to simply try out if this worked, Eisen made another small me enchantment that would take the mana that the other one stole to activate itself as well, but it seemed like just nothing happened. The enchantments in itself were fine, Eisen knew that, but it seemed like they simply couldn¡¯t ess the mana that was inside the soul stone. "Hmm... Hey, does anyone of you know if I can just simply drill this thing open? Or will it explode or anything like that?" Eisen asked, and the one to answer was Kiron. "Ah, I think that M¡¯Lord may be able to simply open it, yes, but if you are not careful, the soul may dissipate." The half-dragon exined, and Eisen looked at him with surprise. "I see, thanks for that information. Just curious though, how do you know that?" Eisen asked, and Kiron¡¯s answer did actually seem quite obvious in retrospect. "I do have one of these as well near the mana crystal acting as my heart, so I do know a little bit, at least." He told his lord, who frowned with a light grin. "And why didn¡¯t you tell me anything about them back when I was trying to figure out what these can do?" Eisen asked, and Kiron simply looked at him with aplicated expression. "You didn¡¯t ask me, or mentioned that you want to find that out at all. Sorry, M¡¯Lord." Eisen sighed out loudly as he felt like pping himself. Of course someone that was technically a monster would know best about things rted to all monsters. "Alright, sorry about that. I¡¯ll ask you things like that next time, then. So I can just make a hole into it, as long as I make sure that the soul won¡¯t escape?" "Yes, as far as I know. And you shouldn¡¯t worry, M¡¯Lord, I am fine. But I will try my best to assist you with all you need to do." Kiron exined, and Eisen nodded at him thankfully, before starting to continue his work. The way that Eisen would do this now was quite simple. He would reshape part of the mana crystal with the mana-stealing enchantment on it to be like a thin needle, and then push it against the soul stone while transmuting the solid part on the outside of it to part away ever so slightly while Eisen pierced the inside of the soul stone, and immediately as he did so, the me enchantment ced down next to him reacted and a me shot out, leaving Eisen to do nothing but grin. So now, he quickly began working on the actual item using this exact system, carefully transmuting the crystal more to have the enchanted surface be the ¡¯top¡¯, while the soul stone would be encased in a small cylinder with multiple of these mana crystal needles piercing into the nk soul in the center. It would probably be possible to make something far more efficient, but as this was Eisen¡¯s first try at something like this, he would still say that it was a huge sess. [Soul Generator] [Quality - High][Rank - 0] [Description] A simple battery made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen, generating mana by draining the mana directly out of a nk soul. [Effect] Generates 1000 MP per hour Surprised, Eisen read through the window floating in front of him. Why was this only Rank 0? His enchanting skill was at rank 2, so this didn¡¯t make sense in the slightest... But soon enough, Eisen found the reason out. [Soul Engineering Skill learned] Chapter 124 Aura "Soul Engineering? It has its own skill? Interesting..." Eisen muttered out as he waved the notifications away with a smile, and Komer overheard him. "Hm? Did you gain a new skill?" He asked curiously, and Eisen simply nodded. "Yes, I did. I guess there are enough things you can do with souls that it prompts the soul engineering skill. And here, you can take a look. If we should ever get a good source of soul stones, this might be something interesting to sell as well. It takes the mana that the soul generates and gives it out. I can activate enchantments just with that, or put it into a mana battery to save it forter." "Huh... now you can even tamper with souls... huh..." Komer said with a nk look on his face as he leaned back against the wall, starting to feel an inferiorityplex crawl up on him, which did not get past Eisen either. "Don¡¯t worry, Komer, I¡¯m actually not especially talented either. I¡¯m just very, very old. I¡¯ve done this my whole life, so I¡¯m good at it now, but I didn¡¯t wake up one day and was able to do all of this all of a sudden. If you work hard toward a specific goal, I¡¯m sure you have what it takes to be the best as well." Eisen said while smiling and ced his hand on Komer¡¯s shoulder to cheer him up, and the young merchant simply nodded, apparently not feeling better all that much. "Thanks, Eisen... It just feels like... Even though the ways that my brothers did things weren¡¯t right in any way, they were actually sessful... Like, buying a shop in such a short amount of time, or getting enough money and influence to bribe guards at the capital? Without you, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to do anything, I wouldn¡¯t even have an upation yet... I just feel... useless..." As Komer was looking down at the ground, he slowly slid down the wall before simply sitting down right where he stood, and Eisen squatted down and looked at him with a serious expression. "Komer, don¡¯t say that. Sure, your brothers started out better, but that¡¯s because they¡¯ve been relying on other people as well. Do you think they could have done all that without their goons? No way. They started out with a great base, while you were alone. You did what you did back then because you had to, they¡¯re doing all of that stuff because they can. That¡¯s a big difference, never forget that. You are you, and honestly, you¡¯re great at it." Slowly, Komer looked up at Eisen again, actually starting to feel somewhat embarrassed at the way he acted just now, and nodded. "You really are a wise old man, huh? Always know the right thing to say..." He chuckled as he stood back up. "Thank you, it means a lot to hear someone say that. Now... can I help somehow? I feel bad just being fed by you and not doing anything the whole time." "Sure, I¡¯ll show you some things then. Just so you know a bit about everything you¡¯re selling." Eisen smiled, before looking over at Kiron, who had been watching with aplicated expression. "Do you want to help too?" The old man asked, thinking that Kiron was jealous or something like that, but the half-dragon simply shook his head. "You can go ahead and work by yourselves. There seems to be some rtively strong monsters roaming the nearby fields and forests, so I will rather keep watch. Is it alright if I do so from the roof, with the sword that you handed to me before?" He asked, and Eisen simply nodded, handing Kiron the Zweih?nder again. "Just be careful, it¡¯s easy to fall off." Eisen told him before the knight nodded gratefull and climbed to the top of the carriage, taking a seat there to make sure no monsters would just go ahead and attack them now that they reached a somewhat troublesome area. "Well then, do either of you want to help?" Eisen asked as he turned to Caria and Melissa who were ying with each other in the corner while sitting on some barrels. "Nope! Caria and Melissa are fine~!" Caria eximed with a bright smile as Melissa began buzzing loudly, agreeing with the Myconid next to her. "Alright, then it¡¯s just going to be you and me then, Komer. Bree and Sky seem like they want to keep talking on their own for a while." Eisen said with a smile as he got out the different materials he needed now, which were for now basically just more mana crystals and nk soul stones. "So, for the wands and staffs, I need wood that has been transformed into magical wood by taking inrge amounts of mana. That¡¯s why I made this Soul Generator, that gives out 1000 MP per hour. I¡¯ll make a few more just to speed everything up, and then hook all of the generators up to something that will pour as much mana as possible into whatever I want." Eisen exined the n and reason for making this generator to Komer, before showing him the enchantment. "All of this will basically work with enchantments, as many of the things I make right now do. The outermost circle there describes the process more in detail, meaning that it just tells the enchantment to do whatever it¡¯s doing to the soul directly in the center there. That has to fit together with the center, though, which is the ¡¯image¡¯ to describe what¡¯s happening, and the symbols in the middle between the center and the outer ring is once more to describe what it¡¯s doing. The me enchantment there has the rune for ¡¯me¡¯ in that spot, and this one here has two different runes, one for ¡¯mana¡¯ and one for ¡¯stealing¡¯." Curiously, Komer watched Eisen as the old man drew up a small sketch on a piece of paper to describe it in more detail and then handed him a thick book. "If you want to take a look at different enchantments and how they work, here you go. I¡¯ve written what they do above each enchantment. Just pour a little bit of mana into them and they¡¯ll activate." "Huh... These aren¡¯t really all thatplicated, are they?" Komer said in surprise as he looked at the different enchantments that were already added into the book, and Eisen shook his head in reply. "Not really, no. I feel like enchanting is a pretty simple thing to get into, and it¡¯s something that allows huge possibilities, which is why I¡¯m using it that often. I feel like I¡¯m at a small advantage because I have transmutation through alchemy as well and can just shape the mana crystals however I want. Enchantments on mana crystals are usually stronger or generally more effective than when you put them on other things, so yeah." Komer scratched his chin as he began thinking about what Eisen just said, until he got an idea that was, in his opinion, pretty good. "Then why don¡¯t we sell re-shaped mana crystals?" He asked, before Eisen looked at him with a frown as if asking what he meant. "Erm, usually mana crystals are rugged shaped weirdly so that you can¡¯t really do anything, right? But if we sell mana crystals that are ttened down, it would be great to sell as something that especially rooky enchanters could use." Eisen began scratching his beard for a few seconds before slowly starting to nod. "That¡¯s actually a pretty good idea, yeah. At the very least I haven¡¯t seen that yet, so it might actually be pretty popr, especially in a city that¡¯s probably filled with lots of enchanters. And they are cheap and easy to make as well, so we can make loads of them, even on demand." "Alright, then let¡¯s do that! Anyway, how are you going to build that wood-transformer?" Komer asked curiously as he looked at Eisen already transmuting different mana crystals into onerge tube that Komer would probably be able to stand in if he tried. "It¡¯s pretty simple, really. I¡¯m going to put arge enchantment on the inside of this tube, that will take the mana from the generators and directly put it into whatever is inside of the tube. That¡¯s it, really. I¡¯ll put it in the corner and have it run whenever I need to as long as I need to. I¡¯m making it pretty big, actually. It may take a bit longer, but in the end, it gives me more freedom to makerger things. I can also put smaller stuff in, of course." Eisen exined as he finished therge tube, and transmuted it so that it split off at one line and simply ¡¯rolled out¡¯ to be a t square so that Eisen could properly enchant it. It was quiterge, so Eisen needed a lot of space to do so, but the actual enchantment wasn¡¯t that big a deal. It wasn¡¯t all that big either, since Eisen made it so that all of the mana would be pouring out of every part of the tube toward the inside. Once that was finished, Eisen simply closed the tube up again and got to work on where the mana actually came from. It didn¡¯t take long to make the other four mana generators either, as they were quite simple as well. Their quality was a little bit higher than the first one that Eisen made, but it didn¡¯t really seem to change anything on the amount of mana they generated. Once these things were finished, Eisen built a small mana crystal stand that he could simply ce up to ten mana generators into and that would then pour the mana into the tube¡¯s enchantment. "Now, this is basically it. Could you help me fill it up with some wood?" Eisen asked as he walked over to the stack of different types of wood that he had in the carriage, simply stacking them up on top of each other with Komer¡¯s help until the whole thing was filled up as much as possible. There were of course some gaps, considering that they were cing cuboid pieces of wood in there and this was a round tube, but there wasn¡¯t too much space left over. After that, Eisen ced a thin mana crystal lid on top of the tube to make sure none of the mana could simply escape into the open space, and put everything together so that it would start, and immediately the space inside the tube seemed to be flowing around weirdly, which showed that it was nowpletely being filled out with mana. "Great! Done!" Eisen eximed with a smile and looked over at Komer who was curiously checking out what was going on inside of the tube, as it was really quite an interesting sight. To see if anything was already changing about the wood, meaning if there was something like a counter in its description page now, Eisen activated his Truth-Seeing eyes, but before he could even take a look at the wood, something else happened. [Truth-Seeing Eyes reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [You can now see mana] [Due to Ranking-up your Truth-Seeing Eyes Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] Surprised, Eisen read through the notification, and looked around to see if there was any difference. And indeed there was. The inside of the tube was now basically pure white due to therge amounts of pure mana flowing around inside of it, and there seemed to be a tinyyer of pure mana also surrounding Komer and Melissa, while Caria¡¯s seemed to have the lightest tint of green. He probably wouldn¡¯t have been able to see that if everything else around wasn¡¯t just ck and white with his current sight. "Huh, interesting..." He muttered out, and confused, Komer tilted his head to the side. "What¡¯s going on?" Komer asked, and Eisen began to exin. "My Truth-Seeing Eyes ranked up, so I can see mana now, it seems. And I guess you¡¯re giving off mana all the time, and it looks like something like an aura, or something like that." Eisen exined to the young man, who simply replied with light awe. Curiously, Eisen looked out the window in the front to look at the two Fey-Kin, and immediately saw a difference to before. Sky also had just a white aura, but it was a bitrger than Komer¡¯s, and Bree¡¯s aura was evenrger, even though still quite thin, and had a light pink tint. But that wasn¡¯t all he saw, as, when he looked out toward the fields and forests nearby, he saw mana flowing around that was at some parts light green and at some parts dark green, but everywhere it was just very thinly spread around like incredibly light mist, and only directly around nts. It actually looked quite beautiful. Chapter 125 Hey Dad As Benjamin stood up out of his capsule, he quickly stretched and closed the capsule up behind him. He had told the others that it seemed like he would already be ¡¯sleeping¡¯ for a while longer once, as he was nning on properly preparing for the arrival of Tony, Katy, Sean and Benji. The first thing that he was going to do was go to the barber, an old family friend¡¯s ce, actually. The son of Benjamin¡¯s friend had taken over at this point, but Benjamin had been getting his hair cut and beard trimmed there by him for the past few years, so he knew that the son was quite good at what he was doing. So, Benjamin washed up and got dressed, before leaving his house and walking to his car. Excited that his children and grandchildren would finally being back for a while, he began driving and made his way through the small town he called his home. He basically knew everyone that lived here, so the majority of people that saw him driving began to wave at him, and he obviously waved back at all of them. It wasn¡¯t a long drive, and after a short while, Benjamin already parked his car in front of the Barbershop. After making his way inside, he was then immediately greeted by his old friend, Alexander, sitting at the counter. His legs weren¡¯t so great anymore and his arthritis has been messing with his hands, so he couldn¡¯t work as a barber anymore due to obvious reasons, but he was still usually seated in the front to talk to his customers, that basically made up the whole town. "Ah, Benjamin! It¡¯s been a while, how are you?" Alexander asked with a smile as he slowly tried to stand up while grabbing his walking cane. "I¡¯m great, thank you. No need to stand up, I know your legs aren¡¯t the best these days." Benjamin said as he quickly hurried closer to his friend, who shook his head with a frown. "Don¡¯t make me sound like an old fart like that, Benjamin! You¡¯re only 2 years younger than me..." He protested while finally standing up and walking over to Benjamin to properly shake his hand. "I heard the kids areing back into town for a bit! Haven¡¯t seen them around in quite a while." "Yeah, it¡¯s been way too long. I¡¯m d to see them again. How are your hands? They seem less shaky than usual." As Benjamin was asking this, Alexander was already bringing him over to a chair to sit on while waiting for Andrew, Alexander¡¯s son. "Yes, today is a good day, if I do say so myself. These are bing quite rare, but they are still a thing every once in a while. How about you, how is your hand going?" Alexander asked as he prepared everything for Benjamin¡¯s haircut. "Oh, my hand is alright. I¡¯m not feeling too much pain anymoretely. I think I told you about that new game, right? It¡¯s quite incredible, it feels like I am truly inside of it, and I can use my hand like regr there. So maybe it¡¯s affecting my mindset here too? I¡¯m not sure, but even though I¡¯m technically lying around all day, I feel more healthy and energized than I have in years." He exined, and Alexander stood next to him curiously. "Is that so? Hmm, maybe I should consider ying that game too, then. Sounds quite interesting. What was it called again?" "Haha, yes, you should consider it. The capsule is quite pricey, but it is definitely worth it. It¡¯s called ¡¯World of Magic¡¯, you should read up on it. If you-" Before Benjamin could continue talking, he was immediately interrupted. "Huh? World of Magic? If you¡¯re going to lie about something, you should do so in a more believable way..." Kim, Alexander¡¯s granddaughter, protested. She seemed to be helping out around the barbershop and was currently re-stocking some hair- and beard-care products in the front, seemingly overhearing the conversation. She moved her purple-dyed hair out of her eyes and walked over to stand next to the two old men. "Oh, hello Kim! Nice seeing you again!" "Thanks, you too. But really, World of Magic hasn¡¯t evene out yet. There¡¯s like 100 people ying right now, and all of them are from hugepanies. The tester phase is starting next Monday, and it¡¯s super hard to get into that!" She eximed, and Benjamin began chuckling lowly. "Well, there are actually 105 people currently ying. The 100 investors you talked about, and 5 people that helped with the development of the game with their real-life knowledge. And one of those five people happens to be me." "Wait, are you serious?" Kim asked surprised, dropping her arms to the side, leaving Benjamin to simply nod. "Yes Kim, I am serious. You may hear about me soon, my username there is ¡¯Eisen¡¯. A week beforeunch, ¡¯Streamers¡¯ will begin ying as well, so you should have proof then." "Huh... That... that¡¯s amazing though, isn¡¯t it? How is the game? Is it really like all those VRMMO stories on the inte describe it to be?" Kim asked curiously as she leaned in closer. "Haha, I haven¡¯t really read any of those properly, but I can assure you, it feels like real life. At least up to the point when you¡¯re drinking tea with an ancient dragon." Benjamin asked, leaving Kim to stare at him in both awe and confusion, but Andrew interrupted the two of them. "Well, I can see that you¡¯re having quite a bit of fun then, Benjamin. It¡¯s that thing you¡¯ve been saving up for, right Kim? That capsule?" The Barber asked as he grabbed his scissors and leaned over toward Benjamin. "The regr?" "Yes please, Andy. Also, yes, we¡¯re talking about the capsule and the game thates with it." He exined while Andrew then immediately got to work. "Kim¡¯s been talking about that non-stop ever since they announced it and brought out the trailers. Seems like it¡¯s the biggest thing right now." "Yep Dad, it is for a reason!" "Yes yes, I get it. Now get back to work, you¡¯ve got that dateter, right? Ah, Benjamin, please look down for a second." Andrew said as he lightly pushed at the back of this old man¡¯s head, prompting him to look down so that his hair could be cut more easily, while Kim began to fidget lightly. "Actually, no... She... said she couldn¡¯te..." She sighed loudly, before Andrew smiled at her encouragingly. "Don¡¯t worry Honey, you¡¯re still young, it¡¯s not the end of the world." "I know, it¡¯s just frustrating. Whatever, I¡¯ll get back to work now... Nice talking to you again, Mister Joyce!" "You too, Kim!" Benjamin said with a smile, waving at her in the mirror in front of him as she stepped away again, and he then looked at Andrew with a smile. "Andy, Alexander, I meant to ask you two something. You know that my family ising over soon, so I thought it would be fun to have a small party with some people from around town that haven¡¯t seen my kids in a while either. Although the main event would be that we¡¯re celebrating my grandson¡¯s graduation. So we¡¯re having a barbecue sometime next week, so how about youe around for that?" Benjamin asked, and Andrew didn¡¯t need to wait long before answering. "Oh, sure! I¡¯d love to! You too, right Dad?" "Of course, it¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve seen those troublemakers around." Alexander replied with a smile as he walked back toward the counter, taking a seat on his chair behind it. "Great, I¡¯ll let you know about when everything is happening. And go ahead and bring Kim and Josh, of course." "Will do!" Andrew replied with a smile as he continued cutting Benjamin¡¯s hair. After a while, once everything was done, Andrew stepped back satisfied and looked at Benjamin¡¯s new, or rather old, hairstyle. He hasn¡¯t really gone to the Barber in a while, so the hairstyle that he always had was basicallypletely gone up until now. The way that his hair had been styled for the majority of his life, especially once his hair and beard had grown to a certain length and volume, could be described in a single word. Viking. His beard was braided in some parts with metal rings put into it, and his hair was shaven short at the sides of his head while he wore his hair either loosely open or in a ponytail, although usually thetter, just like it was right now. "Great job, like always. Thank you." Benjamin said with arge smile as he walked over to the counter and payed Alexander. "Now then, as I said, I¡¯ll tell you when I know the time and day for the party. See you then." Benjamin told them with a smile as he left the Barbershop, before then walking back to his car. Now, he would be driving to the grocery store to buy some more food, or rather ingredients, which he was currently slightlycking on. He would be going again next week to buy fresh ingredients for the barbecue party for Benji, as he would probably be feeding quite a lot of people that day, but besides that there were still two days that Benjamin would feed four more people than usual, and after that, for a whole week, there would be 13 people in his house, including himself and Sophia¡¯s friend that would being along. Meaning that he would need a lot of food for the week, and he didn¡¯t want to feed his precious family anything bad now that they returned home for the first time in literally years. So, Benjamin chose to buy a few different things that he needed over the next few days to make some nice meals. After that, he picked up his medication at the pharmacy, because he was old and needed it, before driving back home. From then on, for the next few hours, Benjamin simply did some chores around the house, such as cleaning, getting the different rooms ready, and even cutting thewn while it was still bright out. He even made a tour through his workshop and cleaned up there, even though he really hasn¡¯t done that in a while, considering that he didn¡¯t need it. And to top it off, he even fixed that one loose board at the small pier going onto therge pond in his backyard that had been bothering him for years and years, but never got around to fixing. And throughout all of this, his arm did not act up once. It still felt a little bit ufortable at times, sure, but he never once felt the soaring pain and cramps whenever he strained himself even a tiny bit before. Did the capsule actually help with his recovery? It wouldn¡¯t make sense if it did, though, after all it was only a game. It seemed to simply be because his arm worked like usual in the game, so his mind simply acted like it still worked perfectly in real life, at least to a degree. Maybe a healthy mindset was really all that you needed for a healthy body after all? Either way, Benjamin felt as good as he didn¡¯t in such a long time, that he even considered heating the forge up again. But in the end, he knew it was a bad idea, and as such just didn¡¯t do it, instead watching some TV and making some sketches for possible items to make in the game sooner orter, until it approached midnight and he heard the doorbell ring. Immediately, Benjamin jumped up and basically sprinted over to the door, ripping it open as soon as he got there, being met with the faces of four people that he wanted to see the most right now. With a light smile in his face, Tony gripped the handle on his suitcase tightly. "Hey Dad." Chapter 126 Arrival Benjamin stepped forward and gave his son a hug, before smiling at the kids and young adult standing next to him. "Hey everyone, great to see all of you." He said, before jerking his head toward the door. "Let¡¯s get inside." After everyone got back inside and set their luggage down, the rest of the greetings began. The first ones to practically assault Benjamin were Sean and Katy who jumped at him with tired eyes. "Hey Grampa!" They yelled in nearly perfect unison, before Benjamin hugged them back. "Hey there you too, you seem pretty tired! A long trip, huh?" He asked, before Benji spoke up and held up his hand in front of him, "Yeah, we¡¯ve been driving all day." Benjaming looked at the hand of his grandson, before he grabbed it and pulled him into a hug. "Ohe here, boy. Congrats on graduating." "Thank you, Grampa. Great seeing you again." Benji replied with a loud sigh that simply showed how tired he was, and immediately dropped down onto the couch next to them the moment that his grandfather finally let go of him. "Now then, all of you, want me to bring you to your rooms?" Benjamin suggested, before Tony quickly nodded. "I think that would be a great idea, yeah. Come on, get off your butts and go brush your teeth." Tony told his kids, and they all stood up from the couch and made their way to the closest bathroom, giving Tony and Benjamin the chance to talk in private a little bit. "It¡¯s really great to see you, Dad. Again, thanks for inviting us, it¡¯s a huge help." Tony said with a sigh as he sat down on the couch in exhaustion. "I¡¯ve missed this ce, just the moment that I drove through the streets, I felt at ease again." He admitted as he rolled up his shirt¡¯s sleeves, revealing the different types of sleeves underneath, which were all the tattoos that covered Tony¡¯s arms. "This town is great, for sure. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something, alright? It¡¯s about you and this town, to be honest." Benjamin said as he sat down on his armchair across from Tony, who sat up with a frown. "Is everything alright?" He asked concerned, and Benjamin nodded to calm him down. "Of course it is, it¡¯s something positive, actually. You know about the game, and I also told you a bit about the people at Prime Industries, right? One of the people I know there is actually a high executive that¡¯s in charge of the whole videogame section and their main HQ that¡¯s stationed just 20 to 30 minutes away from here." With confusion in his voice, Tony then asked, "Okay... And what about them?" "You see, you told me about thepany you¡¯re working at right now, and you¡¯re shutting down soon, right? So, if you need a new job, my friend Samuel can get you one. It¡¯s probably just a simple internship or a low position at first, but-" "Thank you. It really means a lot to me that you want to help me." Tony interrupted his father with a smile on his face, and Benjamin nodded slowly. "Of course, don¡¯t worry about it. You just need to send him your information, and then he¡¯ll call you about everything." "Alright, I¡¯ll do that tomorrow then. I¡¯m really beat right now, I need to sleep." Tony sighed as he stood up, stretching before then leaving toward the hallway. "Goodnight son." Benjamin said, as he stood up as well and made his way to his room, to start ying the game for tonight. --- The moment that Eisen started the capsule up and was about to enter the game, a notification popped up in front of his eyes. [Physical Changes have been detected] [Do you want to keep your original looks, or change it toward what you look like now?] Surprised, Eisen tried figuring out what was going on, until he actually remembered that he went to the barber today, and that could be the only possible change that this notification was talking about, so he simply replied with "Yes.". Immediately afterward, he woke up in the same spot that he went to sleep before, in the corner of the carriage. To see what changed in the game now, Eisen felt his beard and head, and could confirm that his hair was like it was after being cut, but without being bound into a ponytail and without the rings that he bound into his beard. It seemed like the game would take over raw physical changes, but not things that were changed through different essories or something like that. But before he then stood up, hispanions all looked over at him. "Ah, Eisen! There you are again!" Komer eximed with a smile as he was chewing on some jerky, but then began to frown. "Wait, wasn¡¯t your hair different before?" Eisen then stood up with a nod. "Yes, it seems like this kind of stuff can happen, huh?" He chuckled as he immediately sat back down next to the group and looked behind him at Caria and Melissa who also just woke up again, since they always slept while he did. "M¡¯Lord, if your hair changed as you were dormant, what if other parts about you do too? Should you not be concerned?" Kiron asked with clear worry in his voice. "Don¡¯t worry, I doubt something like that will happen. If it didn¡¯t before, why should it now?" Eisen said quite simply, trying to calm the group down before looking at Sky and Bree, who had been in charge of driving for the past few days. "Alright, how far along are we toward the Magic city, you two?" "Hmm, I¡¯m not sure, maybe another five days, six if we¡¯re unlucky?" Bree then responded as she looked over to Sky, who nodded. "Mhm, that sounds about right. I grabbed some of the paper you bought before and started drawing some maps to get the cartography skill, and I managed to get a pretty good idea of the distance between us and the city. There seems to be a rough area to travel by carriage at some point, but I think we should be able to handle it with Cabarum." Sky exined, doing the best that he can to be useful to the group. "Ah, by the way, Cabarum and Aulu are outside drinking right now." He then quickly added, before Eisen smiled and nodded at him. "Good job, Sky. If you find anything interesting on the maps or if there are any shortcuts that I didn¡¯t see, just tell me." Eisen exined, and then looked back at Kiron and Komer. "And what have you two been up to while I was asleep?" After Eisen asked this, Kiron quickly nodded and began to ¡¯report¡¯ what had happened. "Shortly after you and Komer fell asleep, a few monsters tried attacking the carriage, but with Bree¡¯s incredible support magic, I was able to take care of them quite easily. Bree took them apart and chose to store the meat in a way that would make it easy to preserve. The fur was disposed off and the mana crystals, ws and fangs have been added to the others materials. After the fight, Bree¡¯s level increased by one, and I was able to increase my strength by one ¡¯point¡¯, as you call it." The Half-Dragon swiftly exined, and Eisen listened closely before nodding in satisfaction. "I see, good job you two. I hope you can properly use the Zweih?nder, Kiron. Not everyone can get used to suchrge weapons." "Oh, not at all, M¡¯Lord. In the past, I have be ustomed to bearing heavy weaponry, many times greater in size and weightpared to this. Rather, I had to get used to using such a small weapon again." Kiron then exined, and Eisen nodded impressed. "Huh, I¡¯ll see to making you a weapon that you can use more easily then once we reach the Magic City. They should have a few smithies there. What about you, Komer? What did you do?" The young merchant smiled brightly before crossing his arms in a smug manner. "Well, I learned enchanting yesterday! I basically just copied some of your more simple enchantments that you had in the book, but I feel like I got rtively good at it. Bree showed me what I had to do, since she was there when you learned it. I managed to barely increase it to rank 1, and I thought that was a good ce to stop for the day and began toe up with good pricings for your items. The prices before seemed a bit ambiguos, so I thought it would be a good idea to think of proper prices that have a system behind them." After Komer exined this, he grabbed the book lying next to him, the first notebook that Eisen made in the game, which he then handed to Komer. "You can take a look, I started with the material prices and a good extra depending on how much time you spent on the item, and if it took some preparation and special tools or something like that. That was the base value that I got, that I can then change depending on the rank and quality of the item as well as where we are. As you mentioned before, magic crystal tools would sell far worse, so with a lower price, in the magic city than in a city where magic is super rare." Eisen gratefully epted the notebook and flipped through it, surprised at the different notes he took. The start was filled with general information on Starlight, Komer¡¯s merchantpany, as well as some possible ideas about stores and their location and size. After that came something like a ¡¯Diary¡¯, where Komer noted down how much money was spent and earned each day, although the first few days were just estimates, since he had to write them after the fact. And then, at thest part of the book, were all the lists with different items that Eisen made so far for Komer to sell, the raw materials, and their prices. He even seemed to be working on a small map, that Sky seemed to have helped on, to describe where on the continent what types of items would probably sell best after getting general information through the three NPCs. "Wow, I¡¯m... wow. Honestly, I didn¡¯t expect something to this extent. I thought you would be making a few raw notes, but this is really impressive and detailed. And I can¡¯tin about the numbers either, really, all the calctions are 100% correct, and the factors seem pretty urate too. Good job!" Eisen praised Komer with a loudugh, leaving the young man to blush lightly. "Haha... Thanks Eisen, that¡¯s nice of you to say... But actually, I was wondering if I could take more of the notebooks, or if you could make some more? I think it would be better to keep material and product lists separate to the sale and ie details. Otherwise, this might seem a bit messy at some point. It¡¯s bound to fill up pretty quickly, so I would prefer to be able to keep things proper and neat." "Of course, I still have a few notebooks left! Go ahead and take them, you can just transfer everything over if you want, and I can help you with thatter. But first I want to check up on my wood." Eisen then said while chewing on some jerky to fill up his belly for a bit, before standing up and handing Komer the leftover notebooks he made to reach Rank 1 in bookbinding, and then stepped in front of therge mana crystal tube, reaching his hand inside of it to grab one of the pieces of wood, activating his Truth Seeing Eyes to take a look at its information. Luckily he managed to figure out that he could activate and deactivate whether or not he wanted to see mana with them active, or else this might annoy him at some point. Either way, Eisen looked at the small symbol floating in front of the wood, before it quickly revealed the information he was looking for. [Lowest-Grade Wizard¡¯s Oak] [Quality - Above Average][Rank - 1] [Description] Regr oak wood that has taken inrge amounts of pure mana, transforming it into Wizard¡¯s Oak. Chapter 127 Healing Balm "Wizard¡¯s Oak, huh? Interesting. It says it¡¯s ¡¯Lowest-Grade¡¯, so it should be able to take in even more mana than this..." Eisen muttered in a low voice as he looked at the light-colored wood in his hands. "Bree, do you think this works to make a wand out of?" the old man asked curiously as he handed the Fey-Kin girl the block of wood. She closely looked at the wood and twisted and turned it a few times, before slowly nodding. "I think so, yeah. I doubt it can make a staff that really has a lot of, or rather any, effects, but it should work to make a simple wand. But I think most actual wands are made out of at least Low-Grade magic wood... That should take maybe another day at this speed?" Bree said while handing back the piece of wood to Eisen, and he nodded in understanding. "Got it. I¡¯ll wait for that then, but first I¡¯ll make a prototype to see how this works, and how well this works." Eisen said quietly as he sat down on the carriage¡¯s bed-turned-bench after grabbing his carving knife. "That¡¯s all I need to do, right? Just carve it into the right shape?" He asked as he began to get to work, immediately noticing that it was actually quite a bit harder to work with this than regr oak, and Bree quickly nodded. "Mhm, for basic wands and staffs, yeah... but if you want some for specific types of magic, like for a specific element, then you need to add other stuff into it as well. Like certain gems or nts." She exined as Eisen continued carving a simple staff. "Thanks. Hmm, now that I see all these wooden shavings... I wonder what would happen if I smoked meat with this?" After Eisen muttered this out lowly, he chose to make some magical applewood as well at some point. Applewood in general was his favorite thing to smoke meat with, so he wanted to know if its magical version would give smoked meat some special effects. But that wasn¡¯t Eisen¡¯s priority at the moment, just some simple curiosity. For now, Eisen simply continued carving for a little while, until he was holding what was basically just a straight stick with a rtively smooth surface. After all, a simple wand didn¡¯t look any different to this, right? But after that, Eisen simply sanded down the surface a little bit, treated the wooden surface in the way that he always did, and then set it down to let it dry. As long as Eisen could see that this was epted as a wand, he would be happy. He would make proper wands and staffster, once the wood in the tube absorbed more mana. Which also meant that Eisen needed another thing to make today, or else he would simply be wasting time. Either way, once the woodpletely dried, Eisen grabbed the wand and acknowledged it as finished, after which the information window popped up. [Simple Lowest-Grade Wand] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A simple wand made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been made out of Lowest-Grade Wizard¡¯s Oak, so it has only minimal effects on magic [Effect] +1 INT Eisen smiled as he looked at the description floating in front of his eyes before waving it away and looking at the wand in his hands. "Alright, perfect! This worked out pretty well, huh? It can¡¯t do anything special, but I didn¡¯t expect it to, really." He muttered to himself as he then looked over to Bree. "So, how do you use this now?" Eisen asked her, before she swiftly exined. "Ah, I think you just need to cast magic through that wand now! I mean, that should be it at the very least. I don¡¯t really use staffs or wands all that often, because they¡¯re really expensive." Eisen looked over at the tube in the corner as well as his soul generators, before slowly nodding. "Yeah, I can see why that is. But don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll make a staff for you at some point, once the material is a bit better. And I¡¯ll make a new hammer for you as well, of course. The one you¡¯ve been using up until now doesn¡¯t seem to be in great quality, to be honest." "No, it¡¯s fine! It¡¯s great, I like it, don¡¯t worry..." Bree slightly protested as she looked at therge hammer standing in the corner, and everyone in the group looked at her and Eisen confused. "Wait, that¡¯s Bree¡¯s? That... does not fit all that well..." Komer whispered to himself with a frown, and Eisen simply chuckled. "Yeah, I can see what you mean. But it is pretty good for her. Out of her physical stats, her strength stat is the highest, so something with brute force is great as a weapon. And since she can¡¯t usebat magic, she has to defend herself with a physical weapon if necessary." Eisen exined as he got items and materials ready for what he was about to make next. "Now then, Komer, do you want me to teach you about some crafting methods again? I wanted to do some things with alchemy." Eisen exined, before setting everything up on the worktable once he made sure everyone was done eating, and Komer nodded happily before the rest of the group chose to go to their ¡¯posts¡¯ as well, meaning that Kiron sat down on the roof while Bree and Sky chose to start driving again after hooking Cabarum back up to the carriage. "Alright, the basics of alchemy are just that, basic. It¡¯s nothing hard, really. It¡¯s just grinding things down, mixing them with water, and then boiling that water away, that¡¯s about it. To make it really work, you need to mix whatever herb you ground down with mana crystals that were ground down as well. Depending on the ratio, the end product¡¯s state changes. Sometimes it¡¯s Jelly, sometimes a liquid, and sometimes a gas." Eisen exined as he began grinding down a small quantity of dried amran petals, with the same amount of mana crystals, so that he could make just a small batch of one potion. After mixing the two powders with water, he then began distilling that water away, saving it in a regr bottle. Even though he didn¡¯t directly have a use for it at the moment, there was no need to waste it in the end. After the potion was then finished a few minutester, he poured it into a small wooden bowl before grabbing some more amran and mana crystals, before grinding them down in a ratio of 1 to 3 of amran to mana crystals, to make a thick healing jelly. A few minutester, he had both of these variants in separate bowls, and turned back over to Komer. "What I want to make is a simple balm. I know it may sound ridiculous considering that we have these potions, but they¡¯re actually not omnipotent. You can replenish HP and heal shallow cuts, but deeper injuries, such as broken bones, strong bruising, or deep cuts can¡¯t be simply healed like that. You need something that constantly heals you over time. I applied some jelly like this to the wound of a Hobgoblin before, and it seemed to help, so I wanted to make something specifically meant to be put on for some time." "Ahh, got it... But why did you make two different things then? Will you mix these together now or something?" Komer asked, and Eisen simply shook his head. "I won¡¯t, no. I just want to see what actually works. You see, the more solid the end product through alchemy is, the better it can treat a specific area. For example, health mist can give a small healing effect to arger area as long as everyone breathes it in, health potions can heal small injuries on your hole body if you ingest it, and health jelly can heal a specific part of your body by being absorbed over time. So I want to see what¡¯s more effective, Jelly or Potions, when used in making a balm." After Eisen exined this, he pointed over to a small box in the corner. "Can you grab that over there? It¡¯s Beeswax, we need that for the balm." Immediately, Komer jumped up and grabbed the box filled with chunks taken from not only the Mother Hive where he found Melissa¡¯s egg, but also different smaller hives that he destroyed in different areas before then. While Komer grabbed the box, Eisen got out a small metal pot, which he then ced above a me-enchanted mana crystal with the help of a metal tripod to melt the beeswax down. "And now?" Komer asked curiously, while Eisen simply poured the regr health potion into the pot with the molten beeswax, properly mixing both together and letting them sit over low heat for a while, during which he looked over at Komer. "Usually, what you would do to make a balm is to mix the herbs that you have with oil, let that sit for a few weeks, and then mix the pure oil with beeswax, but what I want to do is just transform something that I know works incredibly well into something that can be easily applied to your skin, so I do it this way. I might try doing it the ssic way as well at some point, but for now, this should be more effective." Eisen exined, and Komer nodded after listening closely to everything that he had been saying.s "Got it! And how are you going to mix the other one with the beeswax? Can you melt that down too?" The young merchant asked as he pointed at the bowl with the health jelly, and Eisen shook his head. "I doubt I can. I¡¯ll just use ¡¯softening¡¯ to make it as liquid as possible, so it should work then." He exined, before holding his hand over the bowl, letting the jelly slowly turn into a thick liquid that would just barely be passable for using for a balm like this. Once the first balm prototype was finished, Eisen ced it into a small bowl again, before making the second balm from the health jelly instead. After a few minutes, this was finished as well, and Eisen ced this into a different bowl topare the two products, simply looking at their descriptions at first. [Healing Balm] [Quality - Low][Rank - 2] [Description] A Healing Balm made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It is basically unusable as a balm since it needs to be ingested to work, but due to the crafter¡¯s rank, it still has a minimal healing effect when applied to bare skin. [Effect] Heals shallow cuts within 1 hour when applied to skin; Heals 200HP when ingested [Healing Balm] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A Healing Balm made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has a strong healing affect when applied to skin, especially when done so regrly over a longer period of time. [Effect] Heals deep wounds over time With a loud sigh, Eisen nodded while trying to think about what to do with the healing balm now. It seemed to be worse than a regr potion when ingested as well, so it was basically useless. "Alright, seems like the one made with the potion is absolute trash, so I¡¯ll make the one out of the jelly again." Eisen told Komer as he turned over to him, grabbing the materials while he was at it. "Really? It looks basically the same though..." Komer said with surprise as he looked at them both, and Eisen nodded. "Yeah, they¡¯re both technically Healing Balms as well, but because you need to usually drink potions, that same thing has been taken over by the balm. So that it works best, it needs to be ingested, and even then it works worse than a regr balm. But because jellies are already absorbed through the skin, it works a lot better. I figured this would be the case, but I wanted to make sure." After Eisen exined this, he spent the next while making these Health Jellies, and turning them into balm. Chapter 128 Finished Brews After a while, Eisen had a fewrge bowls of the Healing Balm sitting in front of him, and chose to start making the containers for it out of some wood, which was done by simply carving out a block of wood and rounding its outside and making a small screw-on lid for each one. This took a while simply because of how many there were, but whenever Eisen finished a small pot, Komer started filling it up with the balm, so there was quite a bit of time being saved. And after a few hours, Eisen thought that they should have enough balm to start it out with, and it was always easy enough to make more at any point. "And now?" Komer asked curiously, wondering what Eisen would make next, and he scratched his beard in thought. "Hmm, I would like to make some bandages, but the fabric that we have isn¡¯t really that great for that. If we get to some town, I would like to see if I can buy some that¡¯s better for it, or maybe even specifically make some." Eisen exined, and then looked over torge honey-crystal-hive standing in the corner, being reminded of something he didn¡¯t really think about for a while. "For now, let¡¯s just think about new products to make in a bit and take a look at how this turned out." Eisen said with a smile as he stepped over to the mead that he made a few weeks ago. It should definitely be done by now. He made a small opening at the top that he could pour a little bit of each of the three types of mead out of, and poured them into three samll cups to taste-test. "Here, have a sip of each as well. It¡¯s mead, three different types in total. One without any herbs added, one with Amran, which is used to make health potions, and one with Byron, which is used to make Mana potions. Seems like the herbs even slightly changed the color of the mead, huh?" Eisen said as he looked at the different cups, seeing a light tint of red and blue in them. Curious how this tasted, Eisen took the first sip of the regr mead and immediately smiled. This tasted pretty good already, although it really just tasted like honey for the most part. Happy that this seemed to have properly worked, Eisen finally acknowledged this batch as ¡¯Finished¡¯, and a notification popped up in front of his face. [Mead] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description] A Batch of Mead made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Nothing has been added to it other than the most basic ingredients, and as such, it is the purest experience of mead you can get. [Brewing Skill Learned] After smiling in satisfaction, Eisen set therge bottle of mead to the side, before turning to Komer. "So? How did you like it?" The young merchant looked at the cup in his hand before shrugging. "It tastes great, for sure, but it¡¯s kind of nd, right? There¡¯s nothing much about it, it just tastes like honey." Komer pointed out, leaving Eisen to simply nod. "Of course, yeah, there¡¯s nothing special about this so far. I didn¡¯t add anything into this at all. Let¡¯s try the other ones then. First the Amran one." Eisen said as he took the sip of the lightly red-tinted mead. There was already arge difference to before. Of course, it still had a strong taste of honey, that was inevitable with mead, but it tasted a lot more refreshing and pleasantly sweet, giving a light warmths to Eisen¡¯s body, which was most certainly just something that he imagined and not actual warmth somehow magically emitted through the drink. He nodded in satisfaction and handed the cup over to Komer, who likewise took a sip and smiled afterward. "This tastes very different, wow. It¡¯s kind of hot, but not spicy or has any actual heat? Is that about right?" He asked criously, and once more Eisen nodded. "Mhm, that¡¯s exactly right. It¡¯s kind of simr to the way that Health Potions feel as well, so I guess it¡¯s something caused by the Amran itself. Anyay, this is obviously finished now." Eisen said this out loud, and immediately a notification popped up in front of his face, showing him the info on this particr drink. [Health Mead] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description] A special type of mead made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has inrge parts absorbed the essence of Amran petals, and as such now has a light red color, as well as special effects. [Effects] 5% increase in HP regeneration for 1 hour "Oh, interesting! This actually increases our HP regeneration for a while." Eisen told Komer before grabbing the next, andst, cup of mead and looking at its blue tint. Komer, however, looked at Eisen in surprise. "Oh, really? So this is already the type of thing that Gordon asked you to spread around?" "Well, simr. The things that Gordon wrote down in the recipe-book are far more particr. Anyway, let¡¯s try thisst one as well." Eisen said as he finally took a sip of the Byron-infused mead, and noticed how prizingly different it was to the Amran version. While the amran seemed to give the mead this feeling of warmth, the byron apparently gave the mead a feeling of coldness. Just a very nice, refreshing cool. This was for sure the type of thing that you could sip on in the heat of summer, which made Eisen simply wish to have something like this in real life during the barbecue with his family and friends in a few days. "This is really nice as well, right?" Eisen asked Komer, after handing the cup to him, and he quickly nodded. "Yeah, it is... It somehow feels super minty, right?" He asked, trying to properly describe this feeling. Since Eisen understood what he meant, he simply nodded. "It does actually, yeah. Anyway, this is definitely finished." [Mana Mead] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description] A special type of mead made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has inrge parts absorbed the essence of Byron petals, and as such now has a light blue color, as well as special effects. [Effects] 5% increase in MP regeneration for 1 hour Eisen smiled in satisfaction as he looked at his status to see the proficiency he now had with his newest skill, and saw that it was only a little over 60 proficiency levels away from ranking up. It made sense that something like this would give a lot of proficiency, considering the amount of time that it takes to actuallyplete. But there was one more thing that had to be considered, which was that Eisen had a lot more mead than this. There was one more of those ¡¯Honey-Capsules¡¯ filled with regr mead, and in total 12 more capsules filled with either Health or Mana Mead. And as such, it didn¡¯t take long to rank up either. [Brewing reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [You can now make massive quantities in one container] [Due to Ranking-up your Brewing Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 END] Eisen smiled in satisfaction and continued to properly ackowledge each mead as finished after fishing out the small bags of either byron or amran and generally quality-controlling each capsule¡¯s content. "Now then, Komer, what do you think? Should we sell these in theserge bottles, or refill them into smaller ones?" Eisen asked, before the young merchant began to think about this for a while. "Hmm, well, theserge ones would end up being pretty expensive, right? So that would rather be a special think to buy from a ce already known for high-quality alcohol. So small bottles would be better, I guess." Komer muttered, leaving the craftsman to nod at him. "Mhm, exactly. I¡¯ll be refilling these into half-liter bottles, so we¡¯ll end up with a bit more than 50. We¡¯ll keep one of the regr mead, and two of the special ones for ourselves, though." Heughed loudly, before sitting back down next to Komer. "But we should better do that sometime else. I would prefer to actually buy bottles we can put these in, or maybe I could try and learn a ssmaker skill, if that exists, and make a bunch of bottles for it. Re-Shaping ss into bottles with transmutation doesn¡¯t work too great." After Eisen exined this, Komer tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Huh? But didn¡¯t you do that kind of thing already?" "Ah, yes I did. But you see, when I reshape things with transmutation, it doesn¡¯t do that evenly. The rough shape is exactly how I want it, but because I pull and push the material around, it¡¯s denser in some areas than in others, which is just not a good thing in the slightest, especially with ss." Eisen exined atst as he looked over at the clock that he set to show the real-life time, since he wanted to wake up quite early today, at around 4 to 5 am, to make something nice for his recently-arrived family. He basically slept tillte afternoon yesterday, so he would probably fine waking up this early. And since it was already a little bit before 3 am, it was soon time for him to log off. Well, ¡¯Soon¡¯ was quite rtive in this game. "Anyway, because of that I would like to wait for that if possible. Shaping things like that with transmutation is quick, and refilling things doesn¡¯t take long either, so I can do that just before we arrive, or even after we arrive, in the magic city." "I see... Well, then what else do you want to make right now? Anything else interesting?" Komer asked curiosly while Eisen stood up again, pointing at the window to the front bench of the carriage. "For now, I¡¯ll just give these two a break. I don¡¯t really know much about magicians and what kind of stuff they need, so I¡¯ll think about that for a while. You cane with me to the front, and we can help me brainstorm a bit." Eisen smiled before leaning in a bit closer, whispering to Eisen so that none of the three that shouldn¡¯t hear about this wouldn¡¯t. "You probably know a lot more about games than me, so you might know what other yers might like. The next big group ising next Monday, so we should really prepare for that, right?" Slowly, Komer nodded as he stood up. "Yeah, let¡¯s do that! Actually, I¡¯m kind of curious to see what will happen then... Especially how many there will be." "For sure. Anyway... Bree, Sky,e on you two. Take a break, Komer and I¡¯ll take over." Eisen told the two Fey-Kin siblings, before they tiredly nodded and stopped the carriage for a bit as they switched ¡¯shifts¡¯, but just after Eisen and Komer sat down in the front, Caria heavily protested and jumped out after them. "No fair! Caria wants to stay with Eisen too!" She eximed, immediately sitting down on Eisen¡¯sp with her arms crossed in front of her in a pout. "Of course, of course. Actually, what have you and Melissa been up to the whole day? You¡¯ve just been sitting in the corner together with the scouts and soldiers." Eisen said with a frown as he looked over at both the Myconid and the Queen Bee with a smile, thinking about those two Bee-groups as well. These actually seemed to have evolved too, although their evolution was rather shallow. Considering that two of the scouts died before, two of the remaining ones turned to ¡¯Elite Scouts¡¯, while the head of the scouts from before that always stayed with Melissa turned into a ¡¯Scout Commander¡¯. The same seemed to have happened with the soldiers, four of them turning into ¡¯Elite Soldiers¡¯ and one of them into a ¡¯Soldier Commander¡¯. Physically they didn¡¯t change much, but their stats got a nice little upgrade, so it was all fine. "Hehe, that¡¯s a secret! A super duper duper super surprise! Right, Melly?" Caria eximed happily while throwing her hands into the air at the same time that Melissa began buzzing loudly and jiggling her body around. "And no looking at Caria or Melly¡¯s status either! That would be unfair!" After Caria yelled this out atst while looking at Eisen with her stern, dark eyes, both Eisen and Komer looked at each other, obviously thinking the same exact thing. ¡¯So cute...¡¯. Chapter 129 Baking Eisen, Komer, Caria and Melissa sat on the front bench of the carriage and chose to drive for a few hours, simply brainstorming to get ideas for cool new items, and there was actually not much that they coulde up with, just cool designs for specific weapons. And since those kind of special designs were rather for a situation where someone specificallyissioned something, they didn¡¯t manage to do all that much progress, and Eisen ended up with a simple conclusion. "I guess I¡¯ll just make some regr items, and not these special ones for a while. Meaning shirts, gloves, hats, and so on. Maybe some belts to keep different things in that can be useful during a hunt. And then of course backpacks. It¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve made regr items like that, so it was about time, to be honest." Eisen said with a loud sigh, looking around the area with his truth seeing eyes activated to get used to the new ability of being able to see mana, as he had been doing for basically thest three hours. "Yeah, maybe that¡¯s a good idea in the end. By the way, how¡¯s that magic forge working that you made before? If you have that, you can even cksmith wherever you want, right?" Komer then asked the old man, who nodded in response. "Mhm, exactly. It would work perfectly if I could make the mes hotter, but for that I have to either rank up my element or my mana maniption itself. It¡¯s gonna take a while, but at some point, I should be able to use it like a regr forge." Eisen exined, before looking over to the clock in the corner of his eye. "Anyway, I have to go right now. It¡¯s getting prettyte here, so I guess I should go to sleep." Eisen exined as he handed the reigns over to Komer, waiting for Caria and Melissa to get off hisp so that he could climb into the back of the carriage. "Hmm? Isn¡¯t it a bit early?" Komer asked confused, and Eisen nodded again. "Yeah, a little bit, but I wanted to do something ¡¯there¡¯, so it¡¯s better to go to sleep early." Eisen said, specifically voicing out the ¡¯There¡¯ in a way that would let Komer understand that he meant ¡¯In real life¡¯, and as such the young merchant nodded. "Got it. You won¡¯t be back for a while, right? Want me to do anything in specific while you¡¯re gone?" Komer asked, before Eisen shook his head. "Nothing really too specific. Just use the time in the carriage wisely, level up the skills that you can as much as possible, and see if you can learn a bit more magic from the others. If there should be a situation where you encounter monsters, try to tag along with Bree and Kiron, and see if they are monsters that you can somehow finish off yourself, that should level you up nicely." Eisen exined before turning around and looking at the two Fey-kin sitting on the ground in front of him, just having woken up not too long ago. "Alright you two, I¡¯ll be going to sleep now. Remember, I won¡¯t be back for a few days, so rely on Kiron if you need to fight." Eisen told the both of them before knocking on the ceiling to tell Kiron toe down as well. While the half-dragon climbed down, Bree nodded with a smile. "Alright! Just two or three days, right?" "Yeah, two or three days. Till then, just leave the tube there running constantly, and then I can make a few nice things once I¡¯m up again. And all of you make sure to take proper breaks, I know that you don¡¯t need to sleep as much as we do, but I would still like you not to overdo yourselves. We have all the time in the world, so we don¡¯t have to rush. If we pass a nice town, even go ahead and take a break there for a few days, it doesn¡¯t matter, just don¡¯t think we need to be there as soon as possible." "Alright.. Thanks!" Sky then responded, seemingly taking his sister¡¯s words out of her mouth, since she simply nodded with a happy grin. These two were driving for basically 24 hours straight during theirst ¡¯shift¡¯, so Eisen felt pretty bad for that already. He did try to tell them to take a break before, but they usually just told him that it was ¡¯alright¡¯. Now that they finally slept for a little while, they seemed to have realized they shouldn¡¯t overdo themselves. Either way, now, Eisen turned to Kiron. "Please try to make sure everyone here is safe, I¡¯m counting on you. Also, try to think of some nice weapon or armor you would like to have. As our front-fighter, you need to be well-equipped." He said, before the Half-Dragon Knight lightly bowed forward. "Thank you, M¡¯Lord. You do not need to fret, there will be no harm done to this group during your slumber." Kiron told his Lord, even though Eisen didn¡¯t really like being called that, and then quickly made his way back up to the roof. Atst, before soon logging off, Eisen turned to Caria and Melissa. "So, do you two want to sleep at the same time as I do? Or do you want to stay awake a while longer?" He asked them, before the Myconid girl squinted her eyes a light bit and turned around to mumble something to the queen bee in her arms. "Caria and Melly will stay up a bit longer if that¡¯s alright!" She then practically yelled out, and the old man nodded with a soft chuckle. "Of course, don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m guessing you won¡¯t be able to stay up too much longer though, so don¡¯t force yourselves and just go to bed if you need to." He said with a smile, before Caria nodded smugly. "Don¡¯t worry! Caria and Melly are big girls! We can stay up super duper duper super long!" She loudly bragged, and Eisen looked at her for a few seconds while she was trying to hold back what was obviously a yawn, leaving him to simplyugh a bit. "Of course you two can. I¡¯ll see you all soon." Eisen said with a smirk, before closing his eyes and logging off. "Now then, let¡¯s get bakin¡¯, shall we?" Benjamin muttered to himself after standing up from the capsule, slowly, and most importantly quietly, making his way toward the kitchen. After he turned the light on, Benjamin noticed a little light that was blinking on the security-system disy. It seemed like there was a package that was delivered yesterday, and he just somehow didn¡¯t notice it then. He didn¡¯t order anything, after all, and he didn¡¯t usually get random packages. Either way, Benjamin stepped over to the front door and looked at the main disy to check the sender, since that should have been recorded when the package was ced into the mailbox. "Hm? Prime Industries?" He muttered out and curiously opened the mailbox from the hatch on the inside of his house, grabbing the small package before bringing it back to the kitchen. "Now then, what is this...?" Benjamin whispered to himself as he cut the package open, and first found a small note. [To our benefactor] [Hello Mister Joyce, in this package you will find a product of ours closely connected to the capsule that you have already been using for nearly two weeks. It is a simple personal assistant that we hope to be to your liking. It is a future producting out together with the officialunch of the capsule. We hope we can continue to count on your help and support outside and inside the game] After reading the front of this note, Benjamin just tilted his head to the side in confusion. A home assistant? He hadn¡¯t heard about that before, and especially thest sentence of the note confused him a lot, although there seemed to have been a small exnation on the backside, that was, different to the rest of the note, handwritten. [Sorry for the trouble you¡¯ve had to go through in Ornier with the TriTec kids, and thank you for helping out and giving up your in-game reputation at that location. Sincerely, Samuel] "Ah... so it was for dealing with those two? Well, I¡¯m notining. Should probably call that kidter then, huh?" He told himself with a smile as he looked through the box, finding a few different items. First, a small disy that seemed somehow like a phone, but that simply didn¡¯t turn on for some reason. Thinking that he would figure that out in a bit, he kept looking, and found the next item. A small metal sphere, that seemed incredibly familiar, but didn¡¯t seem to do anything at the moment either. Next, there was a small te, that seemed to be a charging station of some sorts, and atst a small USB stick. Of course, there were also some instructions in there, although they just went up to the point of turning everything on, for which he needed to go back to the capsule. After letting out a loud sigh, Benjamin stepped back to his bedroom and got to connecting everything. At first he needed to plug the charging station in by pushing it into a small slot at the bottom of the capsule, and set both the sphere and ¡¯phone¡¯ into their respective slots, and then he needed to put the USB stick into a small slot in the back of the capsule. Once that was done, it was just a matter of time, since he now needed to wait for about three to four hours until the two small products could turn on for the first time, giving him enough time to do what he actually woke up for. After making his way back to the Kitchen, Benjain got out all the ingredients that he would need now and got to work, since he would now make some nice, fresh loafs of bread. First, he dissolved some yeast in warm water before adding sugar, salt, oil and about half of the flour that he would need, simply beating everything until it was smooth mixture, before Benjamin slowly stirred in the rest of the flour half a cup at a time to form a soft dough. Benjamin then ced the dough onto a floured surface and began kneading it until it was smooth and stic, which usually took about 10 minutes, then putting the dough into a greased bowl and covered it with a towel, setting it down on top of his turned-on radiator in the living room. Now, he needed to wait for the dough to rise until it doubled, which would usually take about one to one and a half hours. That time was not spent just doing nothing, though, but Benjamin simply finished up some chores for the day, and even read a book that he was reading before ying the game for about half an hour. That was pretty nice, he hasn¡¯t done that in a while, really. But soon enough, the dough had risen enough, and Benjamin brought the bowl back to the kitchen. He set the bowl down and took off the towel, carefully punching the air out of the dough again for a bit, before turning it onto a floured surface again, dividing the dough in half, cing each half into a greased up loaf pan, which he then covered up once more and let it rise for about half an hour, which was once more spent reading a little bit. After that, Benjamin could atst ce both of the loaf pans into the oven to bake it there for another half hour, which was, quite obviously, once more spent reading. Soon enough, the bread had a golden-brown color, and Benjamin could take it out of the oven, taking the loafs out of the pans and cing them on wire-racks to let them cool for a while. And now, Benjamin would make some breakfast for his family. Chapter 130 Gadgets After the two loafs of bread had sufficiently cooled down, Benjamin waited till it was around 8:30, at which time he then started properly making breakfast. First, he cut up the bread he made into a total of 10 slices and set it down on his cutting board next to the stove, and then grabbed a wide pan, in which he then mixed a few eggs, milk, and a pinch of salt together. Once everything was properly mixed, Benjamin ced some of the slices of bread into of the egg-milk mixture and let them soak it up as much as possible, before getting out two of his pans, melting butter in them after setting them onto his stove. "Alright, time to make some nice breakfast!" Benjamin eximed to himself with a bright smile before stepping over to his fridge, where he kept some nice, thick slices of bacon that were ready to just be put into the pan right off the bat. So, now Benjamin cooked some of the french toast in one pan, while he cooked some of the bacon in the other, and seemingly, the smell already woke up one person. "Mornin¡¯ Grampa." Benji said with a loud yawn while he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, sitting down at the stool on the other side of the kitchen counter. "Good morning Benji! How¡¯d you sleep?" Benjamin asked curiously, flipping over some of the slices of french toast and bacon in the pans while getting out some different berries out of the fridge to serve with them. "Really good, actually. I was he tired yesterday... still am, to be honest." The young man then sighed loudly as he took out his phone. "I get that, you¡¯ve been traveling all day yesterday, so of course you¡¯d be tired." Benjamin chucked in a low voice as he heard another door open, as it seemed like Tony just woke up as well, and once he noticed that his father was making breakfast immediately walked over to Sean and Katy¡¯s room to wake them, although they apparently protested a little bit. But after a few minutes of convincing, three more people joined Benjamin and Benji for breakfast. "Sooo goood!" Katy yelled out loudly after taking her first bite of the french toast, basically shoveling the rest of it into her mouth. "Katy, eat more slowly, alright?" Her dad asked, and she nodded with a light pout, before Tony looked over to Benjamin again. "But yeah, it really does taste great, as always Dad." "Haha, thanks you two. But what do the four of you want to do today? Do you want to rx outside in the garden, maybe take a swim in the pond? Or we can go to the new Mall, if you guys are interested in that?" Benjamin suggested, and it seemed like nobody really had a huge preference on what they wanted to do, beside one person, Benji. "Actually, I¡¯d like to take a look at your capsule, if you¡¯re fine with it? I¡¯d love to see what that¡¯s actually like..." He exined with a grin, before his grandfather immediately nodded. "Oh, of course! You won¡¯t be able to y, I¡¯m afraid, but you should be able to enter the desktop mode." Benjamin told him, then looking over to the other three. "You can go ahead and try too, of course. I don¡¯t think you can actually do all that much in the desktop mode, definitely nothing even nearly to the degree as in the game, but it¡¯s fun to y around with it." "That would be really cool! Is it actually like real life, like how Prime industries says it is?" Benji asked curiously, obviously not being able to wait to test the capsule out. Arranging him to be an Alpha yer was obviously the best choice Benjamin could have made. "Yes, it is! It¡¯s quite incredible if I¡¯ll be honest. I didn¡¯t expect something to that degree myself when I first started the capsule up." Benjamin exined, before remembering the package that he opened a few hours ago, and thought that Benji and Tony may be quite interested in it. Since he already finished his breakfast, Benjamin quickly stood up and rushed to his room, grabbing the small phone-like disy as well as the metal sphere, bringing them back to the table where everyone was waiting. "Hm? What¡¯s that?" Benji asked curiously, while Tony leaned in as well while wanting to know the same thing. "It¡¯s something that Prime Industries sent me, it¡¯s like a personal assistant connected to the capsule somehow. I¡¯m starting it up right now for the first time myself, so I don¡¯t really know too much about it." Benjamin exined while trying to find the ¡¯On¡¯ button on the sphere, but apparently, there was literally nothing of the sort on its outside. So instead, he started up the ¡¯Phone¡¯. The prime industries logo quickly appeared, but then soon flowed around and the white parts on the ck background formed something that Benjamin already knew. They looked simply a lot like the eyes of Rover, the capsule¡¯s assistant AI. They first seemed to be closed, but soon enough opened and a voice came out of the speakers. "Hello there, Benjamin! Remember me?" Rover asked happily, even lightly squinting his eyes like one would with arge smile on their face.a Surprised, Benjamin sat the phone down against a bottle of water so that everyone could take a look. "Hey there, Rover... So you¡¯re the personal assistant that Prime Industries sent me?" Confused, Tony tuned in before Rover could even answer. "Wait, you know what that is?" And then, before Benjamin could answer, Rover started his exnation. "He sure does! Every capsule is equipped with their own personal artificial intelligence to assist the user in their tasks! This device that I¡¯m currently using to talk to you is another neat gadget that you¡¯re sure to love! It has tons and tons of functions, all connected to the capsule and the game itself! And that nice ball over there is just as nice! Benjamin, in order to activate it, could you lightly tap the gadget onto it?" Rover asked as he was looking over to the old man, who curiosly nodded. "Sure, but what happens when it actually turns on?" He then asked while lightly tapping the sphere with the phone-like gadget, before Rover¡¯s eyes immediately disappeared from the disy, leaving itpletely ck again. Kind of scared that he broke something, Benjamin then looked back and forth between the two gadgets, before the sphere finally reacted and twisted on its own axis for a few seconds, before rolling forward, backward, and to the sides, as if calibrating its position. A few secondster, Rover¡¯s eyes appeared on its surface and his voice beganing out of it. "Tadaa! Rover in real life!" The small robot-sphere then eximed, rolling around the table to look at and greet everyone sitting at it, while Sean looked at it inplete awe. "Grampa! Grampa! Look, it¡¯s moving! That¡¯s so cooool!" He yelled out, while Tony, Benjamin and Benji could just stare at Rover in a mixture of confusion and awe themselves, before Benjamin slowly nodded. "Yeah, it really is pretty cool. So? I¡¯m sure there¡¯s a good reason for you to have a body, right?" Benjamin asked, before Rover¡¯s eyes moved up and down as if trying to show that he was nodding. "Yup! I can do many things! I can keep small, important items or information within my physical or data storage with military grade protection, I can connect to all of your home devices so that you can quite easily control everything, or have me control it however you like automatically, I¡¯m something like a charging station for many different devices, I can y music at an incredible quality, of course I can-" "Rover, stop. So you can do a lot of small things... I¡¯ll figure all of your functions out at some point, but tell me a few of the most important ones, alright?" Benjamin interrupted, as it seemed like Rover would simply continue talking and talking for quite a while if he hadn¡¯t. "Of course! I¡¯d say my most important function is this!" Rover eximed before a small hatch directly underneath his eyes opened up to form a ramp, and five tiny balls came rolling out of it. "There¡¯s more of me! Tiny Rovers! Since you can¡¯t take my main sphere with me everywhere you go, you can grab one of these on your way out and can basically control every function of my main sphere through it! Well, you can also do that through the other Gadget, but these are a lot more nifty, right?" Rover asked with a seemingly smug voice, leaving Benjamin to simply chuckle. "Sure, they are. I¡¯ll just keep one of them with me in that case." He said as he grabbed one of the small spheres and began ying around with it, before Tony grabbed one to take a closer look. "And there¡¯s enough of a mechanism in here for them to actually work properly? I¡¯m sure Natsuo would be interested in these." Tony eximed as he set the small sphere down on the table again before it quickly disappeared inside Rover¡¯s main body again. "I¡¯m 100% certain that he will be, yeah. Doesn¡¯t he freak out about new tech a lot?" Benji said with a smirk while taking a picture of the small spheres to show his friends, and his grandfather quickly nodded as he stood up to put the dishes in the dishwasher. "Yeah, I¡¯ll show Rover to him when hees here, I bet he¡¯ll be pretty happy about that. But anyway, talking about Gadgets, I¡¯m pretty sure there¡¯s a pretty neat Gadget store in the new Mall. I walked past it once, and they seemed to have some cool things there." "Well, can we check that out today then? I wanted to try out some new smart-sses, and I was thinking about getting a newptop for College soon. Most Gadget stores should have a few good ones, right?" Benji asked while standing up and helping Benjamin out, before the old man nodded. "Yes, I think so. There are a lot of people running around with those button things behind their ears these days, right? I think they have a new version of those." "Oh, yeah, those are pretty cool. I like the feeling of having actual,rge over-ear headphones on my head, but those are pretty nice too. They¡¯re good to use in ss anyway." Benjiughed lowly, before noticing that he was being stared at by his dad. "Ohe on, I already managed to graduate with a 4.0 GPA, so it worked out in the end, right?" Heined, leaving his dad to do nothing but sigh. "Still, try to at least pay attention in college. You¡¯ve got an amazing schrship, and you shouldn¡¯t take that for granted." "Nah Dad, they won¡¯t throw me out of the schrship programm. I¡¯ve got grades and sports going for me, so they¡¯ll most likely keep me no matter what I do. But don¡¯t worry, it wasn¡¯t my n to not pay attention anyway. I don¡¯t want to fail any of my sses there, that would suck..." Benji sighed out while scratching the back of his head, dropping back down onto the stool he was sitting on before. "You¡¯re really a multi-talent, huh? Anything you¡¯re not good at?" Benjaminughed loudly as he pped his grandson¡¯s back softly, grabbing the phone-like gadget that came with Rover¡¯s sphere, and Benji sighed loudly. "Well... getting enough sleep? I can never manage to do that..." The teenagerughed while leaning over toward Benjamin again to take a look at what he was doing. Meanwhile, wha Benjamin actually did do was quite simple. He looked through the different ¡¯Programms¡¯ on the disy, until he saw a few that caught his eye. First, there was the ¡¯Chat¡¯ programm, and when he clicked on it, he managed to see the chats that he previously had in-game with the other yers, and he seemed to be able to actually message them with this while not ying! This would be a great thing to keep in touch with everyone, for sure! He seemed to even be able to message Kiron, surprisingly. He was able to ess his status as well, and could see detailed information about each of his skills, the same as he would be able to see regrly while in the game. But there was one function that seemed to really be the most interesting. The moment he clicked on the small icon, he was able to see something like a live-stream, disying everything that his character was seeing at the moment. Chapter 131 Presen The the stream on the disy that Benjamin was currently seeing was basically exactly what he was looking at just before he logged off thest time, the inside of the carriage. It was sped up to four-times speed, so he wasn¡¯t able to actually specifically notice what was going on at the moment, but at the very least he could see that Kiron and Komer were sitting together in the back of the carriage, while Bree and Sky were driving again. It felt kind of like spying on them, but maybe it wasn¡¯t so bad considering that he really had no idea what anyone in his group was doing, as he was just barely able to even see who they were in the first ce. Prime Industries themselves probably already felt like this was morally questionable, and as such made it that there was a time-limit to how much you could use this function while there were other yers directly within sight, as a small message popped up telling him that exactly that was the case, and that he would only have about 30 seconds to make sure everything in the game where he was at was alright, and then he had to wait thirty more minutes to take another look. But apparently, as long as there were no yers in direct sight, Benjamin could simply watch as much as he wanted. However, since Komer was in sight, the stream soon stopped and Benjamin was brought back to the main screen. "Huh, interesting..." He muttered to himself, in respond to which Tony asked what was going on. "Ah, through this, I can see what¡¯s going on around my character in the game right now, and I can message people on my friendslist as well. There even seems to be a party disy where I can see the rough state of all of my gamepanions." Benjamin exined, showing everyone the disy before Benji scrolled through a bit. "You¡¯ve got a pretty big party there... Two little girls, a little boy, a lizard, a bee, and some regr guy? Kind of a weirdbo..." He asked with a frown and wry grin, before Benjamin nodded. "Yeah, and it gets weirder. The pink-haired little girl and the little boy are actually around 25 years old, the Lizard is a half-dragon whose father is a literal god, the other little girl is a walking, talking Mushroom, the Bee is as big as my fist, and the guy is the youngest son of CryTec¡¯s Owner." The old manughed out as he took a sip of the coffee he just made himself, and both Tony and Benji stared at him inplete confusion, while Katy and Sean yed around with Rover on the floor. Tony, with a wry smile, then spoke up and asked what was on his mind. "Erm... I¡¯m not even going to ask about the majority of those, and skip right to the end... CryTec¡¯s Owner¡¯s son? Are you serious?" "Haha, yes, I am. You see, there are different phases in the game right now. During the first phase, I and the four others that helped the developers with our knowledge got to y. Now in the second phase, a week after I began to y, thergest investors got some spots for the game, and thergest investor seems to be CryTec. The Owner had his three sons y and build merchantpanies in the game to choose who will inherit thepany. That way I met the youngest son of the three while he was trying to scam me, and turned him around to be mypanion." "Huh? He tried to scam you? What the hell?" Benji asked confused, not seeing why Benjamin chose to make him hispanion, while Tony was sitting next to them, feeling his stomach fall down arge hole, especially after what Benji said next. "Scammers are trash, so why¡¯d you help him like that?" While eyeing Tony who was obviously ufortable, Benjamin smiled softly. "Just because he was a scammer doesn¡¯t mean he was a bad person. Other than his two brothers, he had neither any help from otherpany executives, nor a full economic education. He found that this way worked pretty well for a while, so he stuck with it. But he¡¯s a good kid, and he¡¯s already bing a great Merchant. He just didn¡¯t know any better at the time, and he deeply regrets what he did, so don¡¯t judge him for it when you meet him in... 10 days?" Benjamin chuckled as he looked over at Tony, who seemed to be d that his father said something like that and seemingly made Benji think about the issue a bit more. After all, Benji didn¡¯t know that Tony used to be a scammer himself. "Eh, if you say so. I¡¯d still feel weird about... wait, what did you just say?" Benji replied,pletely confused at what Benjamin just said. "You mean in the game, right? That¡¯sing out in a bit more than two weeks, and I can¡¯t afford to buy the capsule anyway, so what do you mean?" "Well... You see, the five of us, the ¡¯Originals¡¯ that helped the developers, each got another spot to give to whoever we want, that can y the game one week before it officiallyes out." Benjamin started to exin, before Benji¡¯s facepletely dropped and he simply stared at his grandfather in a mixture of excitement and confusion. "So, I thought I¡¯d give that spot to you as a graduation present. You don¡¯t need to pay for the capsule or the game, everything will be delivered here for now and then you can bring it with you home or to college. You can use it as a regr bed as well, so you can probably swap it out with your dorm bed. And it¡¯spletely silent as well, so I doubt your roommate would mind." As Benjamin was exining this, Benji immediately stared at the old man, before the young high-school graduate jumped up and ran over to give a hug to his grandfather. "Holy shit, thank you so much! That¡¯s amazing!" Benji yelled out while Tony was sighing loudly. "Thank you dad, he¡¯s been speaking of nothing else but that game for weeks. You¡¯ve been doing a lot for ustely..." Tony said with a light smirk, before Benjamin nodded slowly. "Of course, don¡¯t worry about it. Anyway, none of you need to feel jealous, because my friend at Prime Industries is giving the whole family a personal tour of thepany next week, and everyone can test out a demo version of the game then." The old man exined, before Tony chuckled. "Well, I guess if I get the chance to work there, I should test everything out at least once, huh?" He said, and this confused Benji even more than when Benjamin told him he would get a capsule for free and a week earlier than others. "Wait, what do you mean with ¡¯Work there¡¯?" He asked, before Tony began to exin. "Ah, your Grandfather said that he referred me to his friend at Prime Industries, so I have the chance to get a job there. And for that I should probably know as much about their products as possible." Tonyughed out, and Benji stared at his father and grandfather. "What the hell, couldn¡¯t you have told me earlier?" He eximed, while his younger siblings peacefully kept ying with Rover, and Benjamin chuckled. "I only just told your father yesterday night as well, so when should we have told you about it?" He said, and Benji nodded with a long sigh. "I guess. But it would be pretty awesome if you¡¯ll work there then! After the capsulees out, I¡¯m sure everyone will want to work there." "Probably, yeah. Anyway, let¡¯s not talk about those things for now, alright? You¡¯re all here to get your mind off things, have a nice vacation, and rx. So let¡¯s wait a few days and do just that for now. Let¡¯s all get dressed for the day and then go to the mall. They¡¯ve got a great Ice-Cream Parlor there too." Benjamin told them with a smile, and immediately Katy jumped up and stared at him. "Grampa! Did you just say Ice-Cream?!" She asked with an excited look on her face, and Benjamin nodded with a chuckle. "Yeah, Ice-Cream. Get dressed so that we can go grab some, alright?" He asked his young granddaughter, who then immediately grabbed Sean¡¯s arm and dragged him to their room so that they could all hurry, because Katy wanted Ice-Cream, and she wanted it now. --- "You happy now, Katy?" Benjamin asked the young girl sitting next to him, with Ice-Cream all around her mouth, before she quite furiously nodded. "Yes! Tastes good!" She eximed before taking another scoop of the Ice-Cream in the bowl in front of her, before the old man turned to look at the others sitting at the table. "You all like it too?" He asked, before getting a nod from everyone. "It¡¯s incredibly hot today, so this is great right now." Tony admitted, and Benji and Sean simply agreed, thetter happily offering his grandfather part of his banana-split. "Thanks Sean, but I have some myself. Just enjoy yours." He responded to his, as usual, quite silent grandson. He was never much of a talker, only ever saying anything if he was around his family, and practically never in public. "So, where do you all want to go next?" Benjamin asked into the round, and since Sean and Katy seemed to be as happy as they could be, only Benji and Tony had to think about it, but in the end, their two choices were quite obvious. Either the game shop, or the gadget shop. "Well, they¡¯re both directly next to each other, so we can just go there after finishing here and then choose. What did you say you want to test out? Some Smart-sses?" The old man asked his grandson, who quickly nodded. "Mhm! There¡¯s a new model out that looks basically like a regr pair of sses, and since you can get them so that they work as actual sses, I thought that they would be a great recement for my contacts. Wanna try the sses-look out when I start college." Benji exined while looking at his phone and texting one of his friends. "I mean, you do look pretty good with sses." Tony admitted, and Benji responded with a frown while lightly squinting his eyes. "I haven¡¯t worn sses in five years, how would you know?" "I look great with my sses, so why shouldn¡¯t you look great with yours?" Tony smirked as he pushed up his sses by the bridge of his nose a light bit, causing his son tough at him. "Damn Dad, what are you, an anime character?" But his father simply frowned at him with a wry smile. "What¡¯s that supposed to mean? Is there anything wrong with that?" "Nah Dad, it¡¯s fine. Grampa basically is one as well, isn¡¯t he?" Benji chuckled, and Tony simply agreed. "That¡¯s a good point, seems like it¡¯s in my genes, huh?" Confused, Benjamin looked at the both of them. "What are you two talking about right now?" Seeing that his grandfather didn¡¯t know anything about Anime to be able to get what they meant, Benji began to exin. "Well, you¡¯re basically the real-life version of what eastern people think the manliest western people are like. Tranted, that means you¡¯re a mountain of muscle." "I¡¯d like toin, but... I don¡¯t think I can." Benjamin sighed out as he waved over a waitress to pay after seeing that everyone was finished. "There¡¯s no reason toin in the first ce, Grampa. You¡¯re 70, looking like that ispletely insane even if you¡¯re young, so why shouldn¡¯t you be proud of it?" Benji asked as everyone stood up, and Benjamin shrugged lightly. "I don¡¯t know, but I guess that¡¯s a good point. Anyway, let¡¯s get going now." Chapter 132 Trailer The group of five then made their way toward the game and gadget stores near them in the mall. Quite obviously, the game store wasrgely advertising ¡¯World of Magic¡¯ and the capsule, so it caught their attention. But simply because of that, they chose to do what they wanted to do at the Gadget store first, so that they had all the time they wanted to look around the game store afterward. And while they all entered, Benjamin heard his ringtoneing out of his pocket, so he quickly answered the call he just received, and quite happily as that since it was Samuel that was calling. After telling his son and grandchildren to go take a look without him for a bit, he left the store again and held the phone to his ear. "Joyce here." He said immediately after pressing the ¡¯ept call¡¯ button, and Samuel¡¯s answer came just as quickly. "Hey there Benjamin! d I could reach you so quickly. I actually have something I need to ask you, and it¡¯s pretty urgent, so sorry for not calling and asking about it earlier, but I was just told myself." He quickly tried exining, but Benjamin still had basically no idea of what was going on. "Samuel, slowly. Just ask what you need to ask." Benjamin said, and Samuel breathed out slowly to calm himself down. "We¡¯re supposed to release a trailer for the game today, or rather in 10 minutes, but the team that was on that trailer didn¡¯t manage to finish it till this morning, so I only saw it about an hour ago myself. It¡¯s using a lot of generic footage from the game, but it¡¯s mainly using footage recorded of, well, the Originals. We told you that we may be doing that every once in a while for research purposes, but not that we¡¯d be doing that for trailers. Because it¡¯s still your right to choose if you want to be shown publicly like that, because your avatars are all in your guys¡¯ image, I need to ask all of you if you¡¯re alright with being in the trailer." Samuel then carefully exined to the old man, before Benjamin quickly replied again. "Oh, don¡¯t worry about that, Samuel. Go ahead and use whatever footage you have of me in whatever way you want." He told the youngpany executive, who sighed loudly. "Thanks Benjamin, that¡¯s a huge relief." Samuel said, before he then seemed to talk to another person that was in the same room as him. "Alright, send it out, we have everyone¡¯s permission." "Haha, so you already talked to the others, huh?" "Hm? Oh, yeah, I literally went from call to call for the past half hour. Anyway, I¡¯ll send a copy of the trailer to your email, so check it out when you have the time." Samuel then said, seemingly wanting to stop the call, but before then Benjamin stopped him and asked what he wanted to call Samuel himself forter today. "Actually, before you hang up, we¡¯re having a little barbecue next week, and it would be great if you coulde. My whole family and a few people from around town areing." Benjamin told Samuel, who didn¡¯t actually need to think that long. "Oh, I¡¯d love to! Thanks for the offer!" He replied quite gratefully, leaving Benjamin to chuckle quietly. "Well, then I¡¯m going to tell you the exact time in a bit. I¡¯ll look forward to seeing you again, kid." "Alright, then see you next week! I¡¯ve gotta keep working now, Benjamin, so I¡¯ll talk to youter!" With a lifted mood, Samuel hung up and Benjamin made his way into the Gadget store to follow his family. Soo enough, he found them as they were looking at a few different things in the toys isle, where Katy was staring at a small remote-controlled dog that could run around however she wanted it to, while Sean was ying around with a small educational model of a skeleton in a ss dome that could seemingly ¡¯holographically¡¯, although it simply worked simr to Benji¡¯s smart-sses that showed extra parts when looking through the ss, disy where in your body which bone or muscle was, what the central nervous system looked like, and where your body¡¯s veins were. In the meantime, Benji and Tony were a few meters further along and testing out the smart-sses that Benji wanted. For a little while, they all simply yed around with the exhibited gadgets, before Benji ced his order for the specialized smart sses after telling the employee the strength he needed them to have. "Alright, now, let¡¯s go to the game shop next door." Benjamin suggested as he led the way out of the shop and toward the next, stopping shortly as they stood in front of therge poster depicting differentrge dragons flying around a mountain range that seemed quite familiar to Benjamin. It definitely seemed like Dragons were the currently most important part of the in-game story. Seeing that Benjamin was in deep thought, scratching his beard as he was trying to figure out what might happen once the regr yerbase appeared in the game-world and what the next moves of the chromatic dragons may be, Katy stood next to him and scratched her chin while copying her grandfather, simply staring at the poster. "Hmm, those are some pretty weird birds, huh?" She then slowly said as she suspiciously squinted her eyes, before Benjamin heard Benji begin tough in the background. With a chuckle from himself, the old man then turned to his granddaughter and ced his hand on the top of her head. "Yep, those are some pretty weird birds, Katy." He smiled before walking through the shop¡¯s door, taking a look around. This ce was trulypletely decorated with things rted to ¡¯World of Magic¡¯, even though there wasn¡¯t even all that much known about it. "Hey Gramps, what¡¯s going on over there?" Benji asked, trying to take a look at the other side of the shop where arge crowd seemingly formed around arge TV screen. With a shrug, the old man suggested to simply take a look, and as such the five of them chose to stand behind therge group, Tony picking up Sean and Benjamin picking up Katy so that everyone could see. Tony, Benji and Benjamin had no problem with that themselves, as they were all pretty tall, so it was only those two that needed help. Now, curious at what was going on, Benjamin looked forward at the shop-employee who was standing next to the screen, connecting it to hisptop while he pulled something up on the inte. "Alright, alright, quiet now. Let¡¯s just watch the trailer." The young man told the group of teenagers and young adults standing in front of him before starting the video up on therge screen, and immediately, Benjamin knew what it was, since he was literally just talking about that with Samuel about 20 minutes ago. Curious to see the trailer to World of Magic now, Benjamin simply looked at the screen. First, there was nothing there, just a pure, white screen, but soon, it became clear that it was showing a white space, as slowly a structure was approaching, and Benjamin remembered this space quite well. It was the room where he and the other originals had met for the first time, and Ari was kneeling on the center tform with her hands folded and looked down at the ground, and only when the screen stopped moving did she look up, before starting a small speech. "Wee, traveling soul. You have been given the chance to take up a new body, start a new life, and live out your dreams in a world full of wonders and beauty." She eximed with a soft smile that could probably enchant most people that saw it, before the world around her changed into a sun rising behind the peak of a mountain and her body slowly faded, while her voice was still as clear as ever. While Ari continued talking and introducing the world and what you can do in it, different scenes came up. The first to be seen was Brody as he was fighting off hordes of monsters to protect a young child sitting behind him, causing the air to quite literally crackle and react with every punch or kicking from him. It seemed like the Demon-Orc Halfling was fighting in a dried up wastnd, just where Jyuuk had expected him to be. And the Monkey-Beastperson was actually the next on to be seen through a swift change from a bird flying through the air above brody to a closeup of Akatori as he was flying above a forest, where Jyuuk was surrounded by different monsters himself in a simr scene to what Brody was just seen in, but in a utterly different context. While Brody was fighting the monsters, Jyuuk was feeding them and ying around with them, since they were the monsters that Benjamin gave to him just the other day. Seems like this was a quite recent scene. After closing in on one quite particr Monster, the small airborn fish that was simply flowing around, the scene changed once more into an ocean filled with numerous species of fish, before the view was pulled out of the water and onto a huge town with giant structures lit up in the night, many even floating around in the air, before zooming in on a young woman casting magic by a pier. That woman was Xenia, currently drawing something simr, but at the same timepletely different, to the enchantment circles that Benjamin already knew quite well into mid-air, before a small crystal tform appeared in front of her, which she swiftly stepped onto as it rose into the air before she continued casting different magic of many different elements that all resulted in a beautiful scene of fireworks of all shapes and forms in the sky. And as the camera got closer to those fireworks, the scene changed again and a beautiful melody began to y that Benjamin had heard not too long ago while vibrant colors filled the air, as the camera showed Evalia ying the first song she yed with the guitar made by Benjamin on the day they met while the crowd around her began to cheer. Soon enough, the picture became dark while the cheers continued on, and slowly transformed into the sound that signaled Benjamin¡¯s, or rather Eisen¡¯s, turn in the trailer. It was showing him as he was working on Aulu back during the Trial given to him by Ailren. It showed the sparks flying around as Benjamin¡¯s hammer hit the high-tensile brass that he used to make the gears and overall body of his automata, before the scene where he was actually seen constructing Aulu¡¯s body was shown, and just after that how he and Aulu stepped through the door back toward Ailren¡¯s treasury, before immediately cutting to a closeup of Benjamin¡¯s face, prompting Katy to stare at her grandpa in confusion, as was standing in front of the ancient gold dragon¡¯s real form, staring him deep in the eyes as the dragon¡¯s body was slowly shown. Then, the music that was ying in the background before then changed from a vivid, cheerful tone to one that signaled that there were bad things there too. Using Ailren¡¯s body as a base, a different Dragon appeared, pitch-ck in color and smoke rising off of its scales, while Ari continued to speak. "But beauty isn¡¯t all that you find in the World of Magic. There are forces of evil set out to destroy everything within sight, and those rebelling against them need you to take up tool or arm to aid in their war." Now that the good things were shown, it was time to show another aspect to everything that just happened. Again, Brody was shown first as he was ripping his way through lines of monsters before punching open the gate, causing it to crack open. In a lot swifter change of setting, Jyuuk then stormed onto grey brick as he was fighting with his pole in hand, some of his monsters around him baring their fangs at arge monster that stood in front of him. This seemingly came from back when Jyuuk was fighting in the dungeon, and this may have been the boss monster of that dungeon. Next was once more Xenia¡¯s turn, showing her as she called upon thunder and meteorites through her magic as she fought against arge creature made up of rocks and dirt while other warriors were trying to attack it from the ground, prompting a different scene to appear, where the warriors turned into scared townfolk that was fleeing, and Evalia¡¯s face was shown running in the opposite direction of that townfolk, trying to somehow calm those that she managed to get a hold of. And immediately, Benjamin knew what scene woulde up for him, and there was no change of scene needed, as the camera merely needed to be turned toward the source of the panic, a demon with cracked up skin that released mes through just those mes, that was holding up a man with angelic wings by his throat with one hand, while the other was holding arge, covered up sword. Before anything more was said, the camera zoomed in on the demon¡¯s face, showing those eyes burning in golden mes, before the transformation slowly faded, revealing Benjamin¡¯s face once more in the same fashion as it had been shown while Benjamin was looking at Ailren in the dragon¡¯s cave. It somehow felt like Benjamin himself was being portrayed as the bad guy in this, which gave him a weird feeling in his stomach, especially when he noticed that his whole family was staring at him in confusion. After that, there was quite a lot of footage showing more of the world and many different ces in it, before then showing the exact scene where the five originals met, showing cut up parts of their introductions, with everyone just saying their name and which original they were. And with a somewhat cringeworthy ending, the trailer stopped in a way that would hopefully make up for the part where Benjamin was seen beating up what would look like an angel to most, with Ari saying onest thing. "These five are the hope of this world and what formed it to the way that it is now. Will youe and help them out?" The goddess said with a smile while standing in the white space from before once more, with her hands behind her back. It seemed like the five Originals would be far more important entities in the game than what Benjamin had expected. Chapter 133 Rabbits Paw Benjamin looked at therge screen hanging in front of the group as the logo to the game appeared and the trailer ended, before immediately everyone began to excitedly freak out. "That¡¯s so awesome! That was a gamey trailer, right? It looks like actual real life!" One of the young men in the front eximed while looking at his friend, who seemed to be thinking about something else. "Yeah, but more importantly, that old guy Eisen, wasn¡¯t he also that demon who was trying to kill an angel? Or did they just look simr?" He asked out loud as he was scratching the hint of a goatee at the bottom of his chin, and it seemed like others wanted to give their opinion on that topic as well. "Well, that was obviously just one of the bad guys, right? Maybe he¡¯s something like the final boss?" "Didn¡¯t you listen, dimwit? That woman said that he was also the hope of the world, so he couldn¡¯t possibly be the bad guy." "But he was working together with a dragon as well, and those are supposed to be the ¡¯evil forces¡¯. At least it looked that way..." And while the group was saying these things amongst themselves, the store employee chuckled lowly with a light smirk, as if everyone there beside him was an idiot for not getting what he was thinking right away. "Obviously you guys wouldn¡¯t get it... I¡¯ve done a good amount of trailer analysis, so listen here guys, I¡¯ll tell you what¡¯s going on. Each of those five people that were shown were great at one of five disciplines, and the characters were named after them as well! Combat, Life, which I guess is just taming, Magic, Artistry, and Mechanical Arts, although that seems to be only crafting. Since they are called ¡¯Originals¡¯, we can see them as a ¡¯source¡¯ of sorts, meaning that they are important characters for each ystyle, maybe they are something like trainers! And that old man that¡¯s in charge of crafting might be a sage character, which is why he¡¯s the only old guy, and there¡¯s obviously more behind him than just crafting! I mean, you saw his muscles, right? He¡¯s obviously some kind of demonic creature turned away from evil that¡¯s now on the yer¡¯s side! I¡¯m guessing that it¡¯s giving us a hint to how we¡¯re supposed to finish the game, and that we¡¯re not actually supposed to just kill-" "Nope, that¡¯s just tantly wrong." Benji quickly interrupted the employee, since he couldn¡¯t continue listening to this bullshit exnation that was mostly very wrong, although he got the basics right, while the employee was wearing a very smug expression. "First off, yeah, that guy isn¡¯t evil and he never was, he can just get very scary when you make him angry. And he¡¯s really just a craftsman, he¡¯s done basically nothing else in his life than make stuff with his two hands. Oh, and he¡¯s not a character in the game, none of the originals are. They¡¯re all yers." With an annoyed face, the employee stared back at Benji, while the others were watching Benji him with a weird look of petty in their eyes. "Well, first off, you¡¯re wrong. How the hell could that be a yer, the game isn¡¯t even out yet. And how the hell do you exin the way he looked then, I doubt that¡¯s just a yable race in the game?" And as Benjamin was hearing the employee get somewhat aggravated, the old man stood up again to show him. Immediately after the trailer, he squatted down to the ground to put Katy back, but he didn¡¯t get a chance toe back up since both she and Sean wanted a few answers. What did that Angel do to deserve getting beaten up? Why was thedy from the movies in the game? And most importantly, why was grandpa so awesome? But now that he managed to answer their most important questions, Benjamin was allowed to stand up straight again, immediately catching the attention of everyone there, considering that Benjamin was incredibly tall and was basically just towering over everyone, making the employee¡¯s jaw drop instantly. "Wh-wh-what? Wait, you¡¯re- Eisen?" He stuttered out in confusion, and the old man crossed his arms while beginning tough. "Seems like you believe my grandson now, huh? Yeah, I¡¯m Eisen, and the five originals are yers. I can¡¯t say too much, but that should basically all bemon knowledge, especially after you literally just got a closeup shot of Nataly." Benjamin chuckled out, and finally the realization hit everyone there. "That really was Nataly Klein?! That wasn¡¯t aputer model?!" One of the teenagers in the crowd yelled out, but Benjamin simply replied with a quick wink before turning around and signaling his family toe with him, since this would otherwise probably end up pretty annoying, and since Benjamin wasn¡¯t technically allowed to reveal any major information, he just wanted to leave for now and have a nice day with his family. And luckily, all of these kids new what boundaries were, since none of them followed behind the five of them. Soon enough, they were all sitting on a bench in peace, where Benjamin began to answer some of their questions. Obviously, even though he wasn¡¯t allowed to leak any information, that would be different in a few weeks anyway, and he trusted his family to keep everything a secret until then, and he very badly could just say nothing to Benji¡¯s next question. "So... you¡¯re actually friends with Nataly Klein?" The teenager asked with a wry smile, and Benjamin chuckled lowly. "Well, I¡¯d say so, yes. At the very least we get along quite well. Oh, and I actually made the guitar that she was ying in the trailer." Benjamin lightly bragged, since he was actually quite proud of how that Guitar turned out. It confirmed to him that with the right synergy between a person¡¯s skillset and their equipment, you could push both far higher than usually possible. Of course that made sense, since that was the case in real life as well, but now Benjamin knew that different in-game magical abilities synergized greatly and created all new effects when you had different tools or weapons. "Do you think you could maybe... introduce me to her when I start ying?" Benji asked with a wry smile, unsure of how to word what he wanted to say. With a smile, Benjamin nodded before giving his answer that made Benji unsure of what to say. "What a coincidence, Nataly asked me to introduce you to her as well." "...what? She wanted to meet me..?" Benji asked quietly with excitement building up in his body, and his grandfather hit him on the back with a chuckle. "Just try not to react like that when you actually do meet her, just be yourself. She¡¯s a normal person. There¡¯s just a lot more people that know about her than average." While Benjamin was talking to his oldest grandson, Tony gave his opinion on it as well. "That¡¯s quite a surprise though, I didn¡¯t expect a celebrity to have helped the developers out like you did as well." "Oh yeah, she¡¯s incredibly talented, and she studied art history as well, so she was probably the best choice. And of course marketing was probably also part of it, since most people know what she looks like." Benjamin guessed with a light shrug, and Tony could only agree. "Maybe..." Tony said as he looked over at the two young children sitting next to Benjamin, intensely staring at their grandfather. "What are you two doing?" Immediately, Katy responded, not keeping her eyes off of Benjamin for even a split-second. "We want to see if we can catch Grampa when he bes a demon again!" She whispered quietly, and Benjamin chuckled lowly before grabbing the two kids and setting them down on hisp. "Sorry to disappoint the both of you, but Grandpa isn¡¯t really a demon. Just in the game." Heughed, and Katy turned around to look at him again, climbing up to whisper in his ear. "It¡¯s okay grampa, I won¡¯t tell anyone." "If I¡¯d tell anyone, it would be you. Sorry Katy." The old man chuckled, rubbing his hand through the young girl¡¯s hair. He was really d that he could see all of them again. --- "Good morning, everyone." Eisen eximed as he stood up and stretched inside the carriage, where Kiron was sitting on the bench right now while Bree and Sky seemingly were driving again, while Komer was apparently still offline. Immediately, Kiron looked over to his Lord with what seemed to be a smile, but was somewhat hard to figure out considering the Half-Dragon¡¯s facial structure. "M¡¯Lord! Wee back!" He said excitedly, and Eisen responded with a chuckle. "Thanks, Kiron. Anything happen while I was gone?" The old man asked while helping both Caria and Melissa up, since they were slowly waking up as well. "Not much, truly. We took a break at a small town yesterday, and there were a few situations where we had to fight off some monsters as we were driving. Beside those, it has been a quite uneventful three days." Kiron exined carefully, and Eisen nodded. "Got it, thanks for the update. Did you grab the materials again and put them with the others?" The old man asked as he squatted down and greeted Aulu as well by moving his hand through her metallic fur, before the half-dragon continued to speak. "Yes, we have done so. And during one night, we even encountered a quite rare species of monster, a swarm of crystal bats. You have to inquire about the materials we gathered from those with Bree, as I do not know much about them myself." After Kiron said this, Eisen once more nodded with a smile and stuck his head through the window at the front of the carriage to talk to the two Fey-kin. "Hey there, you two." Eisen greeted them, before Bree turned around, showing her pearly whites through a happy grin. "Hello Eisen!" She eximed, but Eisen quickly put his hand on the top of her head to make her look to the front, since the group was currently driving along a road with a steep way down on their side, and since Bree was driving, he didn¡¯t want her to somehow confuse Cabarum and make him run off the edge. "Look where you¡¯re driving, please." The old man told her, and she quickly nodded, before Eisen turned to look at Sky who was currently reading a thick book. "And what are you doing?" He asked, and the Fey-kin boy turned around and looked back at him with a smile as well. "Ah, I¡¯m reading a book about advanced magic theory that came out recently. I heard Kiron tell you about the town we stayed at yesterday, and I bought some books there." Sky exined, and Eisen curiously looked at the book that was held up to show it to him, and for a while the old man simply looked at the impressively sized object before reading a single name. Xenia. The book that Sky was reading right now seemed to have been published by Xenia herself, and since it was recent, that meant that she wrote this whole book with theories over theories within a few weeks, although Eisen didn¡¯t really know how she managed that. After all, in the trailer it seemed like she has been quite busy herself during her stay in the magic city. "Interesting... Anyway, what are the other books you bought?" Eisen asked him, before Sky told him with a little bit of embarrassment. "Well... Mostly, books filled with Fairytales and fables..." He exined, but then, before Eisen could misunderstand continued to speak. "Ah, but it¡¯s not because I¡¯m a kid or anything! It- It¡¯s for my magic! Yeah! Here, let me just show you..." Sky hurriedly eximed, climbing through the window into the carriage to be able to properly stand up, before grabbing one of the books he seems to have bought. Sky was flipping through the pages quite quickly, as if searching for a very specific one, and then ced his palm t on the page. "The Rabbit¡¯s Paw. Come out." The boymanded, before the page began to glow in a bright light, and the words written in ck ink on the page seemed to split off of the paper, starting to float around Sky¡¯s arm in spiraling motions, slowly changing size and shape before melting together and forming a single shape. Apletely ck Rabbit, peacefully sitting on Sky¡¯s shoulder. Chapter 134 Elements and Troubles Eisen slightly squatted down to take a look at the ck rabbit sitting on Sky¡¯s shoulder, before moving his eyes back to the nowpletely nk page that it was summoned from. "Sky, is that some sort of magic?" The old man asked curiously, and Sky quickly nodded. "Mhm, it is. Or rather, it¡¯s my element, so it¡¯s not something that you can directly learn as a spell or something. I can take the essence from stories and turn them into creatures, although each story is boiled down to one creature, and I can¡¯t choose it¡¯s skillset and looks either. And no matter how often I summon something from one story, it¡¯s always the same creature as well. This little guy here is from the story ¡¯The Rabbit¡¯s Paw¡¯." Sky exined, seeming somewhat exhausted, before the rabbit jumed back onto the white page before dissolving into words again that once more covered itpletely. "But it drains a lot of mana... I have more than usual because I¡¯m a Fey-kin, but elements still drain a lot of mana, so I can¡¯t really do much like this because of my low level." The boy exined, while Eisen nodded in understanding and handed Sky a small bottle filled with a mana potion. "Got it... But why didn¡¯t you tell me before? We could have bought some more books at Ornier before leaving." Eisen said as he watched Sky quickly drink the potion before handing the bottle back to the old man. "Ah, that¡¯s because to be able to use my element, I need to know every part of the story in and out, so I need a lot of time to read, and I didn¡¯t know if we¡¯d really have that. So I didn¡¯t want to impose on anyone by just sitting around and reading all day..." Sky said with a light smirk before looking down at the book he was holding, which gave Eisen an idea. "Hm... Do you have any stories that you especially like to use with your element?" Eisen asked curiously, and Sky began thinking for a little while. "Well... A few, yeah. The Rabbit¡¯s Paw is definitely one. The rabbit summoned through it is really quick and if you¡¯re not careful, you¡¯ll lose sight of it basically instantly." "Got it. Make a list of the stories out of the different books you have that you especially like, and then borrow the books to me at some point. I¡¯ll make something neat for you." Eisen told Sky with a quick wink, before the Fey-kin nodded while smiling, before climbing back to the front bench of the carriage, looking back at Kiron. "That reminds me, Kiron, do you have an element as well?" Eisen asked the half-dragon, who quickly nodded. "Ah, yes I do, M¡¯Lord. Sorry for not informing you of all my abilities before now. My Magical Element is that of ¡¯Devouring Crystal mes¡¯, something I gained through my draconic bloodline. However, as I am a physicalbatist rather than a magical one, I have not spent much time indulging in using this element, and have not yet realized its true reason for existing." Kiron exined as he held forward his hand with his palm upward, before something like a crystal growth slowly formed and continuosly changed and shifted, as if breaking and regrowing constantly, each new crystal devouring those that were there before. "Huh, doesn¡¯t that kind of look like it¡¯s eating and recing? Kiron, what happens when you cast a spell on something with your element?" After the old man asked this curiously, Kiron suggested that they quickly stopped the carriage for a short demonstration, which Eisen wholeheartily agreed to, asking the two siblings in the front to stop the carriage for a little bit. Soon enough, Eisen and Kiron were standing in front of a dead tree-trunk, and Kiron carefully threw a ball of his element onto the wood, before Eisen could observe what was going on as he activated his truth-seeing eyes to be able to see the mana. First, there was still some very dark, greenish mana around the piece of wood, but what Eisen was currently paying attention to was the light-grey mana that was slowly but steadily growing as it spread across the wood¡¯s surface, climbing into every small crack. Like that, Eisen could observe an interesting phenomenon. The mana of the tree-trunk was slowly being reced by the mana from Kiron¡¯s Crystal mes, and before Eisen coulde to a conclusion, Kiron exined his understanding of the element so far. "If you do not know, Metallic dragons can all consume the metal that they are described to be. A gold dragon can eat gold, a steel dragon can eat steel, and a crystal dragon can eat crystals. And as I am a half-crystal dragon, I can consume and live off of different crystals as well, albeit not exclusively. As I priorly thought my draconic side to be superior to my human side, I had tried to solely take in numerous crystals that I woulde across, not living off of regr foods at all. During that time, I had also gained this element, so I do believe it has to do with exactly that, considering the part of ¡¯Devouring¡¯ in my element¡¯s name." While scratching his beard, Eisen nodded curiously as he leaned in closer toward the crystal mes, watching as they slowly took over the wood. And with exactly that thought, Eisen got an idea, turning to Kiron with a grin. "Alright, for now, deactivate your element. But the next time you encounter a monster, I want you to try and cast the magic on that monster and let your mespletely devour it. Maybe that will give you a hint to what your element is supposed to be for." Eisen said with a smile as the two of them climbed back onto the carriage, with Kiron directly climbing onto the roof, before Bree and Sky continued driving. And coincidentally, the moment that the carriage began moving again, Komer¡¯s body slowly gained back its color, signaling Eisen that he just logged back on. "Well hello there, Komer. Perfect timing!" Eisenughed loudly as he helped the young merchant stand back up, but instead of greeting Eisen back, Komer simply stood there. And before the old man could ask what was wrong, Komer already answered the unasked question. "You saw it, right? The trailer?" Komer asked with a serious expression, before Eisen slowly nodded in confusion. There wasn¡¯t really a reason for Komer to be upset with it, after all the only ones shown were the originals, right? So what- "Your brothers, huh..?" Eisen asked out loud, immediately after realizing who else was shown in the trailer. And even though their faces weren¡¯t shown, anyone that knew of the event would know who that angel was. It was obviously quite a humiliating moment for Cial and Merc, and knowing that their loss was shown to millions and millions of people all over the world must have made them incredibly mad. After seeing that Komer slowly nodded, Eisen ced his hand on the young man¡¯s shoulder. "Alright kid, tell me what happened." Eisen said reassuringly, jerking his head toward the bench so that the two of them could sit down there, and Komer began telling the old man what was going on. It seemed like Komer¡¯s two brothers were already extremely pissed off when the event in Ornier actually happened in the first ce, but it got only far, far worse over time. At some point, they seemed to have figured out that Komer was working together with Eisen, trying to make their younger brother ¡¯spit out¡¯ what he knew about him. But not wanting to do anything of the sort, Komer held out, even after quite literally being beaten up by the always quite triggerhappy Merc. However, after the trailer came out and his brothers saw it, they were both far, far angrier than before. And even though Cial tried keeping his cool outwardly, he was obviously just as pissed as Merc was. "They¡¯ve got some sketchy contacts, especially Merc. I¡¯m worried that he¡¯s going to send someone after you or something. And especially here, both of them won¡¯t stop at anything to get some kind of bullshit revenge on you." Komer sighed loudly as he buried his face in his hands, before Eisen lightly pped his back. "Don¡¯t worry Komer, I won¡¯t let anyone do me in, and I¡¯m very happy to hear that you didn¡¯t tell them about me. But for the next week at the very least, you won¡¯t have to worry about me, I¡¯ll have a policewoman at my house for a while." The old manughed as he stood up, standing tall in front of Komer. "For now, let¡¯s just not think about those two, alright? After all, you have to concentrate on making Starlight the greatest merchantpany there is. While your brothers are concentrating on me right now, you can do what you¡¯re all actually here for. And in the meantime, how about we work on some products now?" Eisen suggested, and Komer nodded in reply. "Yeah, let¡¯s do that..." The young man smiled softly, obviously still shaken up but somewhat in a better mood than before. After that, Eisen reached into the tube filled with the magic wood and used his truth-seeing eyes to inspect the one that he grabbed in order to make a good item topare it to the other wand he made before. [Low-Grade Wizard¡¯s Oak] [Quality - High][Rank - 2] [Description] Regr oak wood that has taken inrge amounts of pure mana, transforming it into Wizard¡¯s Oak. "Perfect! It ranked up and became Low-Grade Wizard¡¯s Oak." Eisen eximed happily after reading through the status window. The Soul-Generators seemed to work far more smoothly than expected. Excited to see how well this staff would end up working with that being the case, Eisen sat down in front of the worktable and grabbed his carving knife. What he made then was basically an exact copy of the wand he made before, since Eisen wanted to have a pure base topare simply the effect that the materials themselves had on the finished item. And soon enough, Eisen managed to finish his second wand. [Simple Low-Grade Wand] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A simple wand made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been made out of Low-Grade Wizard¡¯s Oak, so it has only a small effect on cast magic [Effect] +10 INT "Oh, interesting, interesting!" Eisen eximed with a smile after seeing therge increase of the effect that this wand had. "Let¡¯s try this out for a little bit then." After Eisen said this, he lightly held the wand with the tips of his fingers, before concentrating on moving his mana into the wand. It somehow felt like it was sucking his mana into the wand, but not in a bad way in the slightest. It wasn¡¯t as if the wand was stealing or draining his mana, it was simply making sure that it had enough mana to be properly used. With an excited smile, Eisen then continued manipting his mana, feeling an immediate change in how he did so. It moved far more smoothly out of the staff than it did out of his skin, incredibly so, actually. If mana being released through his skin was seen as water dripping through cloth, then using the wand was simply like water pouring out of your tap. It was flowing out of his body, into the wand, and out into the air in an utterly different way, and he had to get used to it for a while. And because of that, Benjamin continued to y around a little bit, simply using the general release of his mana out of the wand to draw lines into the air, until he remembered what he saw in the trailer, how Xenia was drawing things simr to enchantment circles into the air. Curious to see what would happen, Eisen began to use this staff and his mana to simply draw something up, a very simply water enchantment, the same as that he had put into the bottom of the self-filling cups, just edited in a way that would support an image of it being in mid-air instead of on a t surface. And soon enough, the moment that Eisen finished this enchantment circle, a stream of water began to form in the air and flowed down on the ground. Immediately, Eisen ced a bucket underneath so that he wouldn¡¯t flood the carriage, not even noticing the notification that was now floating in the corner of his eye. [Sorcery Skill Learned] Chapter 135 Wands Once Eisen made sure that the stream of water finally stopped, he finally looked at the notification that was currently floating in the corner of his eye. "What¡¯s this now? Sorcery?" Eisen asked himself in confusion, before Komer tilted his head to the side a slight bit, trying to figure out what was going on. "Eisen, what did you just do? Wasn¡¯t that thing floating in the air there an enchantment circle?" The young merchant inquired. "Yeah, that was exactly what it was. Apparently, this kind of thing is called ¡¯Sorcery¡¯ and has its own skill as well. Wait... I think..." Slowly, Eisen remembered that he had read the word in the context of how to cast magic before, as he was flipping through the book about different ways to cast magic that he hadn¡¯t actually read yet. "How curious... I¡¯m going to take a look at thatter, but for now, I¡¯ll test out a few more things with wands. Komer, could you grab me some of the smaller pieces of wood in the tube as well as a few mana crystal please?" Eisen asked the young merchant, that was currently acting somewhat like an assistant, while Eisen himself grabbed a few items and tools rted to enchanting, because he wanted to try some things out first. This was far more interesting to Eisen than figuring out what Sorcery can do. A short whileter, Eisen grabbed some magic wood and began carving it into a simple wand-shape, the same that he had used for the two wands he made before. In total, Eisen made three more wands like that that were all identical in the type of wood that was used, as well as the shape and size. Next, Eisen began to enchant. First, he grabbed one of the enchanting-marbles that he had and quickly enchanted it with one of his skills, Mana Maniption, which was then transferred over to a mana crystal. He did the same thing again, just then using the skill for his me of the Earth element instead of his Mana Maniption. Once that was done, Eisen carved a thin spiral going from one end to the other into two wands, and quickly used transmutation to fill out those spirals with one of the enchanted mana crystals each. What Eisen did with the third wand was pretty simple, as he just quickly hollowed it out and filled it with a mana crystal rod that was turned into a regr mana battery. This way, Eisen wanted to test out the three different variations of wands that he could immediately think of. He could have done another one for the sorcery skill he just received, but considering that he just received it and that it was merely at Rank 0, level 1, it would probably not do anything but waste one of the enchanting marbles. But first, Eisen wanted to take a look at the wands¡¯ information to see if they took on a special quality. [Low-Grade Maniption Wand] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A wand made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been made out of Low-Grade Wizard¡¯s Oak. A Mana-Maniption enchantment increases the control over your raw mana even more [Effect] +15 INT, +5% Benefit to Mana Maniption [Low-Grade Elemental Wand] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A wand made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been made out of Low-Grade Wizard¡¯s Oak. And elemental enchantment causes all mana poured into this wand to be immediately changed to an inferior version of that element. As such, this wand requires far more mana, and has a lower benefit to control than usual. Pre-Infused mana of another element cannot be used with this wand, while Pre-Infused mana of the same element greatly increases this wand¡¯s and the element¡¯s effect. To be able to use the wand, the Mana Maniption skill of the user has to be at least Rank 2. [Effect] +5 INT, Elemental Infusion [Element] me of the Earth [Low-Grade Battery Wand] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] A wand made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been made out of Low-Grade Wizard¡¯s Oak. It has a built-in mana battery, and as such, mana can be stored inside beforehand. [Effect] +10 INT, Mana Storage [Storage Amount] 1000MP "Now, let¡¯s try this out then." Eisen said with a smile as he curiously grabbed the staff with the mana battery first, simply providing it with his mana for a while until he noticed that it wasn¡¯t absorbing any more. After that, he could simply manipte the mana that was inside of the battery in the same way as if it was poured directly out of his body, without actually needing to provide any more mana than he already did. This would probably be quite useful to use for mana-inefficient spells, as long as you had enough time to fill the battery up and make sure that your mana regenerates as well. Next, Eisen grabbed the wand with the mana maniption enchantment and tried this out as well. It really just worked like the regr wand that Eisen tried out before, although you could clearly notice a difference in how smoothly your mana could be manipted aftering out of the wand. With different movements of the wand itself, it was now possible for Eisen to more easily change the shape or state that his mana took, as long as the movement of the wand somehow corresponded to what Eisen ¡¯willed¡¯ the mana to do. And atst, Eisen also tried out the elemental wand. First, Eisen simply poured his mana into it to form something in the air with the wand, and saw something simr to his element be pushed out. However, it was only simr, and in the end quite different. It was a simple ball of loose dirt that would only begin ¡¯flowing¡¯ around like the normal me of the earth element if Eisen actually touched it and tried moving it around. That was probably what was meant with ¡¯inferior version¡¯ in the wand¡¯s description. And after that, Eisen also tried to use pre-infused mana with this wand, and what came out of it seemed to be Eisen¡¯s regr element, without any difference whatsoever. Although that was only the case at first, but once Eisen attempted changing the states, he did actually see a little increase in how far he could go, although that was only, for example, by about two to three dozen degrees when trying to turn it further into hot mes. "Interesting... Komer, your Mana Maniption is still rank 1, right?" Eisen inquired, since he wanted someone else to test this out as well. Maybe it still somehow gave a small passive bonus to him because it was his own element that was used to enchant the wand with. The young merchant nodded his head as he was ying around with the staff enchanted with mana maniption, "Mhm, it is. I¡¯m pretty close to getting it to rank 2 though. You said I shouldn¡¯t bring it there yet, right?" "Well, it should be alright at this point. Your Trading skill is your highest, you¡¯ve gained that Scribe skill as well after all the notes you¡¯ve been taking, and it¡¯s pretty high as well, right? You¡¯ve been doing really well as a proper merchant, and you¡¯ve been concentrating on what it is that you¡¯re selling a lot rather than the money that you¡¯d gain from selling it. I think it¡¯s about time you get it to Rank 2 and get your element, but you should still wait just a little bit longer. When we arrive at the Magic city, we¡¯ll be selling our items in heaps again, hopefully. Bring your skill to Rank 1, level 99 before then and try to rank it up just after a sessful day of sales, just to make sure you get a great element rted to being a merchant." Eisen suggested in a somewhat lengthy exnation. With arge smile, Komer quickly nodded as he formed his hand into a fist. "Alright! Awesome! I really want to know what my element is, yours is so cool!" The merchant eximed with augh, and Eisen nodded as he chuckled, before Komer continued with a tone of worry. "Although I hope that I will actually get a special element like you did, and won¡¯t just have to choose one of the regr elements. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m pretty sure that you¡¯ll get a special element as well. So far, everyone whose element I know has had a special one rather than one of the regr types. They¡¯re all somehow based off of the regr elements, but I¡¯m guessing that everyone gets a special element that fits to who they are and what they do." "I really do hope so, yea... Anyway, why did you ask about my skill rank all of a sudden?" Komer asked with a curious expression, before Eisen began to exin. "Ah, it seems like to use the wand I enchanted with my element, you need to have reached Rank 2 with Mana Maniption. I guess it¡¯s so that you know how to deal with an element, maybe. I just wanted to have someone else try this out, but I guess I¡¯ll ask Sky real quick then." Shortly after Eisen said this, he stuck his head through the window in the front of the carriage once more to talk to the two Fey-kin, asking Sky to help him for a second. "Oh, sure... I don¡¯t have too much mana though, so wouldn¡¯t Bree be a better person to do that?" The Fey-kin asked as he grabbed the small wand, before realizing that Bree was actually thest person Eisen could ask. "Ah, right... Bree can¡¯t use magic this way... Sorry." "It¡¯s fine, Bro! Don¡¯t worry about it, I can deal with it!" Bree huffed proudly, giving Sky a reason to sigh loudly while smiling wrily. "Alright, so just a small ball then?" Sky asked as he turned to Eisen, who simply nodded. "Yeah, please. That should be enough." After that, Sky quickly nodded and began to use the wand, before a small ball of loose dirt appeared at its tip, that Eisen quickly reached out for to see what its consistency was like. And after confirming that it was exactly like the version that was produced when Eisen used it with regr mana, he smiled in satisfaction. "Perfect. Thanks for the help, Sky!" Eisen said with a thankful tone in his voice as he was handed the wand again. "Of course!" The Fey-Kin boy replied with a smile, before Eisen went back into the main part of the carriage. "Now that I know that this works like that, I can just continue, huh?" "Continue with what?" Komer asked curiously after hearing Eisen say this, before watching the old man strip the mana crystal spiral off of the elemental wand with the use of transmutation. "I¡¯ll make wands now. No special ones, just a few dozen regr ones. Well, I guess not regr, since I¡¯m putting the mana maniption enchanted mana crystal spiral and the mana battery into all of them. Just to make them more attractive to potential customers." Eisen exined while pouring out a small bag filled to the brim with enchanting marbles, before getting to work. For the next while, Eisen simply enchanted different mana crystals into what they needed to be over and over again. And quite coincidentally, as he was reshaping a mana-crystal battery with transmutation, two of his skills ranked up basically at the same time, giving Eisen his next two rank 3 skills. [Alchemy reached Level 100 in Rank 2, upgrading to Rank 3] [You can nowbine crystal or gem structures] [Due to Ranking-up your Alchemy Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] [Enchanting reached Level 100 in Rank 2, upgrading to Rank 3] [You can now delete enchantments you made yourself] [Due to Ranking-up your Enchanting Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] Chapter 136 Bats "What a nice little surprise!" Eisen eximed happily with a small whistle as he read through the notifications, d that he now gained two effects that he had been waiting for. With Alchemy, he was now able tobine crystals or gems together perfectly, but not anything else. Atter ranks he would be able tobine any material with any other material, to basically rece the whole distition process while making potions. From what he was told, he would still need to extract the essence that made up the materials, for example the healing properties of amran petals, but then he could simplybine that essence with mana crystals and water to create potions. For now, he would be able to skip the step ofbining different crystals with each other, for example like he would need to do when making golem cores and needed tobine a mana crystal with crystals to give the core a fake ¡¯soul¡¯ and ¡¯mind¡¯. The benefit that Eisen now had by being able to quite easilybine crystals and gems with each other was pretty simple. He wanted to figure out a way tobine gems and mana crystals in a simr way as he did do with crystals when making golem cores, by simply grinding everything down and mixing it with water, before then boiling that water away. But it wasn¡¯t as easy as it sounded in his head. To start it off, Gems aren¡¯t really the kind of thing that can easily be ground down, as they are usually quite hard. It¡¯s easy to form them with transmutation nheless, but altering it with physical means is just not easy, as it¡¯s pretty hard to get an evenly ground down powder. And if it¡¯s not perfectly evenly done, the resulting crystal structure will simply have ¡¯chunks¡¯ of the gem spread all over it instead of actuallybining with the crystal. But now, Eisen was able to simplybine crystals with gems, which would help in very simple ways. For one, cing an enchantment onto a mana crystal that has beenbined with a fitting gem will increase both the efficiency and effect of the enchantment. As such, if you ced a me enchantment onto a mana crystal that has beenbined with a fire-gem, it would work much better. As for his new ability in enchanting, that was also something that he was looking forward to gaining, since he was now able to erase enchantments that he had made before. This maybe wasn¡¯t something that sounded all that amazing, but now Eisen was able to simply remake important enchantments atter ranks. No matter how well done a Rank 2 enchantment was, it still seemed to be nothingpared to a Rank 5 enchantment. Not only that, but it would allow Eisen to experiment with enchantments a lot more without wasting any materials. "I¡¯ll keep that in mind then." Eisen muttered to himself quietly as he continued to work on the parts for the wands, choosing to do this first and then ying around with his new abilitiester. For now, Eisen continued to simply create the mana batteries and mana crystals enchanted with Mana Maniption for a little while longer until he had everything that he needed. Once these were done, Eisen started to make different wands using various types of woods, adding in mana batteries and mana-crystal spirals into each one. He still had a lot of wood that he could use for even more wands, but for now, Eisen didn¡¯t want to simply use all of the precious magic wood that he had, considering how long it took to get them to this stage. Once the dozens of wands were finished, Eisen began working on general packaging out of wood that he carved with different decorations as well, although they were still just small wooden boxes lined with cloth in the end. But after everything was done, Eisen and Komer stacked everything up next to the other products they had, and Eisen began working on other items, staffs, using therger pieces of wood that he had put into the tube. However, since these required a lot of material andrge base pieces, Eisen only made five staffs in total, that each had a rtively simple look as well. Once more, they had gotten a mana battery as a core, and a mana crystal spiral along its body. The effects were quite high, so Eisen was happy with it, but in the end these would end up costing quite a lot. Considering everything, it seemed like Cial really had quite a lot of money if he could throw it away on a staff like he had back then. Although, it wasn¡¯t really ¡¯thrown away¡¯, it just seemed somewhat showy more than anything. Now, atst, Eisen finished arge part of the products that would be sold in the Magic City, and the old man felt like he could y around with a few different things for the rest of the day. And then, the next time he woke up, they will probably have reached their destination already, and since he was sure to be busy for a little while then, Eisen wanted to make a few other items for now. And for that, he wanted to use those special items that the group seemed to have gained from the ¡¯Crystal Bats¡¯ that Kiron had mentioned before. As such, Eisen once more went to the front of the carriage to ask Bree about them. And when he did, the Fey-Kin girl began her exnation basically instantly. "Ah! Yeah, those were pretty cool~! Now, how should I exin... There are some special, rare types of monsters that don¡¯t have regr mana crystals, but rather special ones! Those Crystal Bats had those special types~. Crystal Bats basically just look like flying eyeballs, and their eye is their mana crystal! I dunno what you can use them for, but I¡¯m pretty sure you can make a lot of special items with those rare mana crystals. We put them into a separate box next to the other materials." After Eisen listeend to Bree¡¯s exnation, he actually got quite curious about what this ¡¯sepcial mana crystal¡¯ might end up working like. If it was able to be used as an eye of that bat, it was sure to have certain special effects. As such, Eisen excitedly went looking for the crystal eyeballs, until he found the box that Bree was just talking about. These eyeballs really were just perfectly round, fist-sized, white balls. If Eisen saw these without knowing what they were, he really wouldn¡¯t have been able to guess that they were mana crystals. "Anyway, let¡¯s just take a look at them." Eisen said with a smirk as he activated his truth-seeing eyes and looked at this material¡¯s description. [Crystal Eye] [Quality - High][Rank - 3] [Description] A crystal eyeball that has been harvested from a Rank 3 Crystal Bat. It is highlypatible with uses in visual-rted areas. "Huh, I see... Visual-rted areas?" Eisen asked himself out loud, catching Komer¡¯s attention. After a little bit of thought, he gave a suggestion at what that may mean. "I guess... Something like Cameras?" Immediately, Eisen turned around to look at the young merchant with a grin. "Exactly that! Just how... wait, I have an idea! Komer, can you grab the small box at the top of the shelf there?" Eisen asked in a bit of a hurry as he looked for arge enough mana crystal for what he was about to do, and then grabbed a little bit of regr wood. Confused and curious at what Eisen was about to make, Komer quickly grabbed that small box and handed it to the old man, who grabbed two different crystals out of it, which he would now use to test out his new Alchemy ability. First, he grabbed one of the small crystals with his left hand and then the mana crystal with his other, before filling out both items with his manapletely. After that, he pressed both of them together, imagining the mana in the crystals as different entities, despite them technically being the same exact thing. Now that he had ¡¯split up¡¯ his mana into two types, he imagined the mana in the smaller of the two crystals to move toward the one in the mana crystal, mixing both together as good as possible. And soon enough, the artificially split-up mana had be one again, and the mana crystal gained a fake ¡¯mind¡¯. Once Eisen repeated this same process once more to give it a fake ¡¯soul¡¯ as well, he had finished an important part of making a golem core, far quicker than he had been able to do up until now. Now he simply needed to enchant the mana crystal properly and then it would be a finished Golem Core for the prototype that Eisen was nning on creating. It¡¯s been a while since he¡¯s made something that he¡¯s been excited about like that. "What did you make a Golem Core for, Eisen?" Komer asked curiously, but Eisen simply told him to wait and see while he worked. Now, Eisen grabbed some regr wood and began carving different shapes out of it, that simply ended up as gears and bars, that were quickly assembled into wooden mechanical wings. Once those wings were finished, Eisen attached fabric to the front and back surfaces so that it would actually be able to create something like an updraft. But he didn¡¯t simply leave those fabric surfaces as is, but he even enchanted them. That was quite hard to do, and Eisen was worried that he would identally rip everything up, but to fix that issue he ced another, round patch of fabric on the front of each wing so that he would have a good thickness to carve something into. The enchantment that Eisen created and added onto the wings were quite simple, making sure that just enough updraft would be created with each p of the wings to keep the body steadily flying. After that, Eisen transmuted the Golem Core to be the exact shape and size as the Crystal Eyes, before attaching the wings to the sides of the small sphere, before then pouring his mana into the core. And apparently, that action was enough to prompt a rank-up in his golemancy skill, and he was now able to simplymand his golems from arge distance. But Eisen didn¡¯t care about that right now, what he did care about was to see if this small Golem Bat was actually able to fly! At first, it was simply pping around on the ground, but then Eisen told it his firstmand. "Fly." Immediately as the small bat heard its master say this, it began swinging its wings up and down and quickly began to float in the air, staying nearly perfectly still in the center of the carriage. "Woah! That looks really cool, it¡¯s just like the crystal bats!" Komer eximed excitedly, before Eisen began tough loudly. "Haha, perfect! That¡¯s what I was going for! However..." Only a few secondster, you could hear creakinging from the bat Golem, and the source of that was quite clearly the wings. "The material that I used for the gears just now was wood... Well, at least I know that it can properly recognize that as a proper body." Eisen muttered to himself. From how he was aware, Golems weren¡¯t usually asplicated as Eisen made them. Usually, they would be animated lumps of a certain material, for example a walking man out of rock. For that, you would need to first construct that figure so that the golem core would see that as its bodytype, and then you could basically grab the golem core and have it construct a new body itself with whatever given material. That meant that Eisen could, for example, grab the golem core inside of Aulu, and have it construct an identical body out of dirt. The benefit that Eisen¡¯s golems had with their gear-based body was that they had a farrger freedom of movement, and that their body was under their control far more easily. If regr golems were dragging their body around in a way that simply worked alright, Eisen¡¯s Automata were expertisely controlling their bodies to do what they needed them to. And now that Eisen had this golem bat prototype, he could start working on his actual product. Flying Camera Bats. Chapter 137 Soul Strength Eisen was trying to figure out ways to properly implement his ideas into such a camera bat as he had nned. But since he didn¡¯t want to just do experiment on the actual crystal eyes, as they didn¡¯t have many of them, he was testing out enchantments on a regr mana crystal while gathering ideas together with Komer. It seemed like the item that Eisen came up with was actually something that appeared in fiction every once in a while, so he was actually incredibly helpful when it came to such ideas. There were different functions that they wanted this flying camera to have. First, it should be able to of course ry what it saw onto some kind of screen, which was something that Eisen would have to figure out in itself for a while. Of course, that also included that you should be able to somehow record what you were observing with the camera. Other than that, it should be able to activate different visual skills, such as appraisal, which would be the ¡¯truth seeing eyes¡¯, considering that Eisen would enchant it. That would actually allow for a pretty useful type of reconnaissance, since they would then be also able to observe different types of mana, which could probably be used as some kind of infra-red recement. But the Camera-Bat was not the only type of concept of Survence-type golem the both of them came up with. The Bat would be great for aerial survence, then they had a fish-concept for underwater survence, which maye in especially handy in the coastal area that they would be spending some time at, and then there was also the idea of making a small critter-version as well. Maybe some kind of mouse or rat that could be useful in city environments. Either way, the type-issue was really only something that Eisen would need to create different types of bodies for. The real issue was figuring out how to let the creatures change between different ¡¯modes¡¯. For example, how to change between different types of sight, or types of recording. While Golems could activate enchantments, they seemed to be able to only do so with one at a time. If it came to something moreplicated like what Eisen had in mind, he would need to do one of three things. One, he could ce multiple enchantments on the camera¡¯s body, which it would then need to switch between. But that would mean that it couldn¡¯t, for example, activate the visual effect of the truth-seeing eyes through one enchantment while at the same time rying the information to Eisen. On top of that, ability enchantments would need to be ced onto the camera itself then, and that may make it somewhat constant, which was not something that Eisen was going for. The second way was to create a tinyplex enchantment to activate multiple effects at once. But that would give the problem of properly figuring out the logic behind just thatplex enchantment and how to make it properly work when there was an ability enchantment involved, with which there was the aforementioned problem as well. And the third way was to build some kind of physical activation into it. Like, create a small lens with the truth-seeing eyes enchantment that could simply be put in ce when needed and ce another small item onto the camera so that it could send out a signal of the feed. Eisen¡¯s favorite was currently the third type, since this was the most probable way to work from what Eisen could see. As such, he and Komer experimented for a while, Komer mainly just giving different ideas while Eisen thought about ways to execute them. To be honest, this seemed more of the type of work that Natsuo or Tony would be interested in. Natsuo, as he was usually tinkering with all kinds of stuff, while Tony was a specialist on logical functions. While Eisen had some rough know-how on these things, he definitely wasn¡¯t an expert. The only reason he could create Automata was that the only area of engineering he really knew about was gear-based engineering like it was seen in Clocks or different types of machines that worked with the same concept. The reason for that was quite simple in itself, and it was because he was working with, and learning from, a person who specialized in just that back in france. He was a professional watchmaker, and kept fiddling around with different machines that were supposed toe close to actual automata, but in the end never really did. They were just small toys with clockwork mechanisms inside of them that had the shape of animals and people. But like that, Eisen knew about the concpet of how such things worked, and ended up quite proficient in that area after a while, managing to cross-reference it with other techniques and arts that he had learned over the years. Either way, Eisen and Komer had figured out most of the theory, and now all that was left was the practice. But for that, Eisen had to do one other thing. He would need to make himself a staff, so that he could boost his Element enough to get his me of the Earth Forge working properly, so that he could actually work with the high-tensile brass that he would use for the bodies of the three different camera-creatures. However, that was a goal that could only be started on another day, since he would be making his staff out of special materials. ording to Bree, materials couldn¡¯t only be transformed through pure mana, but also elementally infused mana, which already made Eisen excited just thinking about it. If there were hundreds and hundreds of different elements, wouldn¡¯t there also be hundreds and hundreds of different material varieties to one exact material avable to Eisen as well? Once he would be able to enchant items with other people¡¯s abilities, which seemed toe at Rank 5 of the enchanting skill, then he could make truly incredible items! But before then, Eisen needed to create the materials for his own items. For that, Eisen grabbed the soul generators that he had created before to use with therge tube and began editing them in a certain way. First, he closed the soul stones up again and removed the small mana crystal capsule around them so that he could fully re-make them into better versions. However, what Eisen did first was to repeatedly make and disassemble soul generators until he reached rank 1 in soul engineering, which would now allow him to basically manipte the soul itself to an extent, giving Eisen much more freedom to work and make the generators far more efficient. That was the case since Eisen could now basicallypletely remove the soul stone¡¯s solid, crystal-like part around it and simply have the soul itself inside of the generator without anything else around it. That would not only decrease the overall size of the generator, but also increase the mana that could be ¡¯stolen¡¯ from the soul at a time, as the possible ess-area was increased greatly. But Eisen couldn¡¯t simply ce the soul in the center of a hollowed-out mana-crystal, as souls can only really be blocked through the material making up the soul-stone. The only reason that the soul didn¡¯t escape outward through the mana crystal needles piercing through the soul-stone was that the soul stone had a sort of inward-force that kept the soul in its center at all times. Luckily, Eisen already had a way figured out through which he could make sure the soul couldn¡¯t escape through the mana crystal. As the soul-stone was also a crystal-like substance, he could simplybine the raw material of the soul stone with a mana crystal, and it would probably carry over the effects that the soul stone had of keeping in souls, while maybe even boosting the mana-steal efficiency. But for that, Eisen needed a soul stone without a soul, meaning that he would need to get rid of a soul to use the raw soul stone. Although it felt somewhat wrong to Eisen to waste a precious material like that, in the end he had no way to contain the soul from the soul stone while he fused the stone itself with a mana crystal. As such, Eisen simply split open the soul stone in the center and released what was kept inside into the air, however... it seemed like it just sat there, not doing anything, simply a misty, football sized sphere. "Huh?" Eisen muttered out confused as he looked at this thing in front of him. And that was when Eisen realized what his rank-up in the soul engineering skill actually meant, on top of what he had thought of until now. In the end, he probably would have been able to execute the n he had until now even with rank 0 in the skill, but there was another thing that he probably couldn¡¯t have done. Slowly, Eisen extended his hand forward toward the nk soul floating in front of him, and the moment that the tips of his finger made contact, a notification popped up in front of his face. [nk Soul][Rank - 5] [Soul Strength - 300] [Integrity - 10][Mana Generation - 10][Thought - 0] [Form - None] [Requirements not met, soul can not be edited] [Requirements not met, soul can not be refined] [Requirements not met, soul can not be given a form] [In order to create edit, refine, or give a form to a soul, user has to have a soul stronger than what they are working with] [Soul Strength will now be disyed in status] [Soul Strength (SS) stat acquired through special action. This stat cannot be increased directly, and will grow or shrink over time as the status grows] [Soul Strength stat has been calcted as 202] Utterly confused, Eisen looked through the many notifications that were giving him all kinds of new information. ¡¯Soul Engineering¡¯ did sound rather like you were supposed to change the soul itself rather than make something that utilizes the soul, but apparently, there were more conditions to this than simply having the skill. With a disappointed sigh, but d that Eisen could at least somewhat drag the soul around and that it wouldn¡¯t be lost, the old man opened his status to look at the new stat that appeared to the right of his charisma stat. What did this stat disy? It couldn¡¯t be an average of his stats or something like that, since INT was his highest stat at 147 at the moment, so the SS stat would need to be lower than that to be an average. And for some reason, even if Eisen asked Bree, the Fey-kin that usually knew everything couldn¡¯t give an answer to what it was either. She said that she had ¡¯never heard of it before¡¯. From what Eisen could tell, there wasn¡¯t any actual change to what he could do now either. It was simply a disy of something that seemed to have always been there, but was hidden before then. Since that was the case, Eisen simply needed to ept that this was the case, and keep going with what he was nning on doing before discovering this particr part of his Soul Engineering skill. Eisenbined the crystal from the soul stone with a regr mana crystal quite quickly before then ¡¯scooping up¡¯ the soul that was floating in the air in the center of the carriage. Once that was done, Eisen formed the mana crystal containing the soul into a cylinder, before quickly enchanting both ends with a ¡¯mana steal¡¯ enchantment, carving different regr runes into the body that would hopefully also help with this. And it actually did help quite a bit! While the Soul Generators before only generated 1000MP per hour, these generated 2500MP per hour! And Eisen had ten of these in total! That would still mean that it would take a few days to turn the materials Eisen wanted to be changed through mana infusion into their new, magical version, but it would happen far quicker! After that, Eisen quickly took out all the leftover wood from therge tube that he was using before, and added another step inbetween where all the mana taken from the soul generators would be infused with Eisen¡¯s me of the Earth element, before that infused mana would then be given to the materials. Atst, Eisen would just need to ce the materials he wanted to use for different things inside of the tube. And that wasn¡¯t only wood. To the brim, the tube was filled with all kinds of material. Different types of wood or metal, mana crystals of different ranks, or even simple bones, ws and fangs taken from monsters. Like that, Eisen hoped to create the first batch of elementally infused materials that he would then end up working with. Chapter 138 Figuring it ou The next morning, Benjamin woke up and stepped out of the capsule with a mixture of refreshment and back-pain, before making his way to the bathroom in order to wash up for the day. Once that was done, Benjamin walked to the kitchen to, once more, prepare breakfast for his family. This time around it wasn¡¯t asplicated and time-consuming as the day before, since Benjamin simply used the bread he made yesterday to make some simple sunny-side-up on toast. Of course he only started that when his family actually woke up, so he spent some time simply ying around with the new gadgets that he was sent the day before, as well as watching the trailer a few more times to see if he could figure out any hints to where he should look for Xenia. In the clips where she was seen, it was quite obvious that she was incredibly well-known in the magic city, where she seemed to somewhat ¡¯live¡¯, so to speak. Not only did she introduce something as showy as magical fireworks to them, but she also seemed to have yed arge role in defeating an enormous monstrosity with many other warriors. As such, it was hard to imagine her to be the kind of person that would just hide away somewhere without making herself known to anyone. "That probably means I can just ask about her when we get there..." As Benjamin muttered this to himself while staring at the screen of his phone, his son Tony entered the kitchen. "Mornin¡¯ Dad." He said as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat down at the kitchen counter next to his father, looking at the screen that he was currently staring at. "Ah, watching the trailer again?" "Morning Tony! Yeah, I am. Jyuuk, the Monkey-Man with all the monsters around him in the trailer, and I are trying to find two originals that we haven¡¯t met in the game yet, Brody and Xenia. Jyuuk went looking for Brody in the wastnds and I¡¯m on my way to look for Xenia. The trailer basically confirmed that we were looking for them at the right areas, so I¡¯m trying to see where to look for Xenia once I get to the town she¡¯s in." Benjamin exined, before cing the phone to the side to turn to Tony, who looked at his father with a frown. "Actually, I meant to talk to you about that trailer..." Tony said with a concerned expression, thinking back on a few of theter scenes of the trailer, "I know you would never do anything to someone who doesn¡¯t deserve it, but even then, I¡¯ve only seen you that angry once, and I doubt someone could just tick you off like that very easily. What¡¯s going on, Dad?" With a loud sigh, Benjamin nodded slowly. He knew that he shouldn¡¯t pretend to bepletely fine when he was quite obviously not, but nheless... "Don¡¯t worry about that kind of thing right now, Tony. You¡¯ve got your own troubles. I¡¯ve got everything under control. In a few days, everything will be alright again." While Tony was unhappy with that answer, he simply had to live with it for now. Benjamin seemed to be alright outwardly at the very least, so it couldn¡¯t be that bad, right? At the very least, that¡¯s what he himself thought. And it¡¯s not like he just lied either. Once he reached the magic city, he would go looking for thest of the three shards of the amulet and bring it back to Ailren¡¯s cave so that he could help Kirisho. That alone would probably lift a lot of Benjamin¡¯s recent stress. And after that, if he could just somehow resolve the issues with the two elder CryTec siblings, then everything would be fine. He wouldn¡¯t be reminded of those bad times anymore, and he could get his life in order. He wouldn¡¯t need to think about his wife, or those that wronged him and those dear to him. Then, he could finally move on and simply enjoy the second chance at a life that he received through Prime Industries. "If you say so..." Tony sighed loudly, trying to show his father that he wasn¡¯t happy with this, but simply epted his choice even then. Trying to get his son¡¯s mind off of that issue, Benjamin cracked his knuckles and stood up, starting to make breakfast. "Cheer up, kiddo. Let¡¯s just have a rxing Saturday. It¡¯s gonna get pretty busy around here from Monday on." Benjamin said with a bright smile as he began to fry some eggs for his son, who ended up lowly chuckling. "Yeah, let¡¯s do that." Tony replied as he was engulfed in the nostalgic feeling of watching his father make breakfast for him. --- "Aaah! Sean, no fair! I wanted to go first!" Katy yelled out angrily at her brother as she was shielding her face from the water droplets that were flung in her directions in response to Sean executing a perfect 10-point cannonball into the pond, or rather smallke, in Benjamin¡¯s garden. Quickly, the young girl sprinted after her brother along the pier, jumping into the water after him. While those two were doing that, Benjamin, Tony and Benji were setting up deckchairs where they could rx a bit. "Benji, could you grab that table over there?" Benjamin asked his grandson, who quickly nodded and ran over to the door, next to which he saw a small fold-up table, which he then grabbed and brought over to the chairs, while Benjamin was grabbing arge jar of ice-cold, refreshing, self-made lemonade and Tony carried over a cooler of filled with other refreshments, which consisted mostly of beer. Once everything was set up, the three of them sat down and each grabbed a drink, while Rover was sitting underneath a small umbre to keep the sun away so that it wouldn¡¯tpletely mess up his electronics. "Do you want me to keep an eye on the children, Benjamin?" The small robot sphere asked, and Benjamin quickly nodded. It was good to have some kind of secure setup, wasn¡¯t it? "Please do that, Rover. Thanks." "No problemo!" The small assistant replied happily as it turned back toward the pond, while Benjamin took out the phone-like gadget that arrived together with Rover. He had been messaging back and forth with Jyuuk for a while now, who wasing closer and closer to the wastnds himself, although it would still be a few in-game days away. Jyuuk himself couldn¡¯t constantly be on the move like Benjamin could be, since Jyuuk didn¡¯t have anyone driving for him while he was offline, and considering that he had to work on weekdays, he could basically only y in two in-game day tacts. But even then, he made good progress through Tsurishika¡¯s incredible speed. It seemed like both Benjamin and Jyuuk would reach their destinations at roughly the same time. And once both Xenia and Brody were convinced to join the guild that they wanted to found, Benjamin would work toward gaining thest two levels in order to reach the point where he could start the quest that would allow him to level up to level 100. It seemed like that alone would take quite some time, considering that Jyuuk took a long time to finish his quest. Either way, it was something that Benjamin needed to do sooner orter, and gaining a new upation-rted skill would probably be quite helpful in the end as well! Nheless, Benjamin still couldn¡¯t figure out what the hell his Soul Strength showed. And it seemed like Benji, the mathematically talented grandson, saw that his grandfather was having trouble with something. "Everything alright, Gramps?" He asked as he looked over to Benjamin, who quickly raised his head. "Mhm, I just can¡¯t figure something out right now, and it¡¯s really bugging me... maybe one of you two has an idea? Want to take a look?" The old man asked, and both Tony and Benji curiously moved over to take a look at the screen Benjamin was holding. "You see, I got this new ¡¯Stat¡¯, it¡¯s disyed as SS here, that stands for ¡¯Soul Strength¡¯. I can¡¯t increase that with those points I get after leveling up, apparently, and it¡¯s being ¡¯calcted¡¯ from something in my status. I just don¡¯t know what it is being calcted from, and I¡¯d like to know, so that I can at least estimate when I can properly use this." After the old man exined this, both Tony and Benji were deep in thought, trying to figure out what it was. "What are those Rank and Levels there?" Benji asked curiously, and Benjamin began to exin. "Ah, well... These here are my skills. To the very left is the name, in the center is the rank, and then the level. One the level reaches 100, it ¡¯Ranks-up¡¯, meaning that the rank increases by one and the level is reset to 1 again. With every rank-up you usually gain a new ability rted to that skill." "Hmm... Could it be an average of that then?" Tony suggested after listening to that exnation, and Benjamin thought about it for a little while. "Maybe, yeah... Rover, can you calcte that here real quick? See every ¡¯Rank¡¯ as a value of 100 and then every level as a value of 1, and-" "Yup, it¡¯s that." Benji quickly interrupted, before Benjamin turned around in surprise. "Oh? You managed to calcte it that quickly?" The old man asked with a grin, simply feeling proud of his grandson¡¯s intelligence. "Mhm. As you said, every rank is a value of 100, every level is a value of 1, so thates up to a total value of 5469, and divided by 27 as the amount of skills you have, that¡¯s 202.5." Benji said while quickly repeating his calction to make sure he didn¡¯t make a mistake somewhere. "Yep, 202.5." He once more repeated, and Benjamin sighed loudly. "Thanks Benji! Well, if that¡¯s the case, then I really need to increase my proficiency with my lower-ranked skills." The old man muttered to himself, making Benji quite curious. "What do you need that Soul Strength stat for anyway? Is it super important or something?" He asked as he tilted his head every so slightly to the side while Benjamin packed away the phone-like tablet. "Ah,tely I¡¯vee across something called ¡¯Soul Stones¡¯, which are literally stones containing the soul of monsters. And using that, I made something that generates mana, you know what that is, right, Benji? Anyway, it generates mana, and with that, I gained the ¡¯Soul Engineering¡¯ skill there. When it hit Rank 1, I got the ability to directly make things with souls, meaning that I can change the souls itself and edit them, and not the soul stones. But for that, my soul strength needs to be higher than the soul I want to work with." While Benjamin exined this, not only Benji, who was interested in fictional stories like that anyway, but also Tony were curiously listening to what the old man told them. Once he was done, Tony sighed loudly, with a little bit of jealousy in his voice. "Can you really do anything in that game..?" With augh, Benjamin softly hit his son¡¯s back. "Don¡¯t worry Tony, there¡¯s something called ¡¯Enchanting¡¯ in the game that seems to deal with logical programming, or something of the sort, so I¡¯m sure you¡¯d be great at that if you started to y. Although I don¡¯t know to what extent you¡¯d be allowed to do that if you start working there..." "Huh, really? What¡¯s that ¡¯Enchanting¡¯ like then?" Tony asked curiously, while Benji also leaned in even closer. After all, thetter of the two was also working toward a career in a programming-based job. With a smile, Benjamin stood up and quickly made his way back to the house, where he grabbed a simple block of paper as well as a pen, and then sat back down next to his son and grandson in the garden, so that he could exin to them how enchanting worked. Chapter 139 Mythril Variation "I see, I see... So it takes in a signal, mana, and changes it to something else as described in those symbols in the middle. The conditions for that change to happen and to what extent are described in the outer ring, while the center describes the actual end product. And then there are special cases where the symbols in the middle are used to describe the way that the mana is taken?" Tony tried summing up the general information that Benjamin exined to him and Benji, before the old man slowly nodded. "That¡¯s about it, yes. At the very least, this is the mostmon way enchantments are done, it seems like there are a lot of other forms that such an enchantment circle can take." After a little while of thinking about the flying-camera project that Benjamin was working on, Benji spoke up with an idea that had to do with it. "You said there were thoseplex enchantment cirlces as well, right? With enchantment circles inside arger enchantment circle? Do those smaller enchantments need to be actually carved enchantments, or can they be that ability enchantment thing?" He suggested, and after thinking for a little bit, Benjamin shook his head. "I don¡¯t think that would work. Ability enchantments take up the whole object that they are ced on, so you can¡¯t restrict that to a small spot like that. At least I can¡¯t do it yet, maybe atter skill ranks, but not so far." Benjamin exined to them, and Benji continued thinking for a few seconds before making the next suggestion. "And what if you put that ability enchantment on a separate object that you can put into ce there?" Immediately, Benjamin began to think about whether or not that might work, and came to a rtively simple conclusion. "That might work, yeah... That might be the easiest way to make aplex enchantment if it does work... I should be able to make enchantments so that it¡¯s somewhat possible to choose which one of the sub-enchantments will be activated, instead of all of them." The old man muttered to himself as he thought about how to properly make that enchantment work. In the end, that in itself probably wouldn¡¯t be a huge problem, but rather the different things that needed to be added to theplex enchantment. The issue with Benjamin¡¯s Truth Seeing Eyes was quite simple in the end, and he could probably add a mana battery or soul generator into another slot in the enchantment to supply it with all the mana it would need. After all, a golem core would only generate the bare minimum that the golem needed to operate in the intended way. A mana battery or generator would definitely make sure that everything was properly taken care of. Next, he would need to add the ¡¯sender¡¯ into another part, that would send the picture observed by the camera to some kind of ¡¯receiver¡¯. If he was able to enchant golem cores with superficial enchantments like ¡¯controlling your body¡¯ or ¡¯ownership¡¯ through ability enchantment, maybe that would also work for the chat function. If that was the case, it would definitely be easy to make this system work somehow. Benjamin could simply use an ability enchantment on another separate object for another slot that would quite literally ¡¯send¡¯ the visuals that were observed to another ce that was set as the correct ¡¯receiver¡¯. It may be a bit tricky to figure out how to properly disy that signal, but it shouldn¡¯t be tooplicated, right? Either way, those were four different ¡¯modules¡¯ to add into the enchantment, so there was definitely space for more. "Hmm, maybe I can add a storage module too?" He muttered, remembering that he did something simr for his two Automata as well so that they could actually remember things that happened a while ago. If he could make storage modules like that again, that would be able to store what was filmed, then that would definitely be quite useful. In case they found something that¡¯s important, Benjamin would be able to take out the storage module, rece it with a new one, and keep the old storage module in a safe ce in a way that they could look at it over and over again if necessary. "Alright, I¡¯ll do that when I y tonight!" Benjamin eximed, happy to have figured out the rough way that the different camera-bots would be constructed. He ced the block of paper to the side and took a sip of his drink, before looking over at his grandson. "So, do you have anything you want to do when you y the game?" The old man curiouslyughed, while the young man simply scratched the back of his head with a wry smile. "Not really, if I¡¯m gonna be honest. The only things I know about the game are what you told me, since Prime Industries usually keeps pretty quiet about most actual content. But I guess I want to try out some stuff first? Like, I want to see what¡¯s most fun to me, fighting or crafting. Usually in games I¡¯m some Knight-like character, but from what you say, the crafting there is super interesting as well, so I don¡¯t really know." Benji said with aplicated expresssion, leaving Benjamin to think for a bit. "Well, when you start ying, I¡¯m pretty sure we¡¯ll have contacted all the originals, and maybe even talked about a spot to meet up. So I¡¯lle pick you up wherever you start and then we can meet the others, so you¡¯ll probably be able to tag along with each of them for a bit, just to see what direction you want to go." The old man slowly exined, before Benji simply shrugged. "That¡¯s fine. I mean it would be pretty cool, but I don¡¯t wanna impose on anyone like that. I¡¯m sure none of them want to drag around a random guy that just started ying." "Oh, I don¡¯t know, actually. From what I can tell, they¡¯re all great people and just love the thing they were brought in for. I¡¯m sure they wouldn¡¯t mind bringing someone along on whatever they want to do. Especailly Brody, actually, he¡¯s a martial arts teacher. So you don¡¯t have to worry aboutbat and crafting either way, you should be able to try out both to your heart¡¯s extent." "Oh, he is? Well, I guess asking won¡¯t hurt, right? And I know that you¡¯ll be more than happy to show me the rope when ites to crafting." Benjiughed lowly as he ced his sunsses on the bridge of his nose and leaned back in the deckchair. "Of course I¡¯ll be happy! There aren¡¯t many people that want to learn from me these days!" With augh from himself, Benjamin followed Benji¡¯s example and leaned back as well, choosing to rx while further thinking about the camera-bots he was nning to make. --- That night, Benjamin more than eagerly entered his capsule again so that he could dive into the world where he was known under another name, Eisen. When he woke up, Eisen immediately noticed a change in the air. The air tasted a bit salty, and the smell of the oceanpletely engulfed him while he heard heavy waves crash against a sturdy rock-wall. The carriage itself didn¡¯t seem to be moving, and no member of his party seemed to currently be inside the carriage either, not even Aulu or Komer. "Did we already reach the magic city? I thought it was still a few days away..." Eisen muttered to himself as he stood up and stretched a little bit, before grabbing a piece of jerky from the box on top of the barrels to quiet down his grumbling stomach, and waited for Caria and Melissa to wake up as well. "Good morning, you two!" He said with a smile, and the small myconid and queen bee happily jumped onto him. "Caria and Melly are great!" Caria eximed with a bright smile as Eisen picked her up and carried her out of the carriage on his arm so that he could look for his friends. And that didn¡¯t take very long either, since it seemed like the group simply chose to take a break and enjoy the idillic view of the ocean, and the inds that could be just barely seen in the distance. And the group didn¡¯t reach the magic city yet after all, but they were now apparently travelling along the coast for a while. "Good morning, everyone." Eisen eximed as he sat Caria back down on the ground and watched as she ran over to the edge with pure awe in her eyes, trying to see how far this huge puddle would extend. Quite quickly, everyone in the group turned around and greeted the old man, now that he had woken up after a few days again. "How¡¯d you sleep?" Sky asked, setting his book to the side for a little bit, before Eisen sat down next to the group. "Great, actually! How far are we along toward our destination?" He then asked curiously, before Sky quickly grabbed his map and took a look at it. "Another two or three days at this rate, I¡¯m pretty sure." "Alright, got it! Will we be travelling by the coast all the time till then?" Eisen asked, but Sky shook his head. "Not all the time, but most of it. It¡¯s better to take a shortcut just before we reach the city. It¡¯s like a day quicker or something, and it takes about 10 hours, maybe." The Fey-Kin boy exined as he once more grabbed his book and continued reading. "Alright, got it! Well, I¡¯ll head back to the carriage to see how the transformed materials turned out." "Oh! I checked on them a bit ago, they¡¯re really cool! Like, really really cool! I haven¡¯t seen anything like that before~!" Bree yelled out after him, jumping up so that she could see what Eisen was about to make with these materials, and the others quickly followed behind. "Is that so? I¡¯m really curious, then!" Eisenughed out as he stepped back into the carriage and immediately walked over to the tube in the corner, one after another taking out the transformed materials. All of them now had a me of the Earth twist to them, although you could still tell what each used to be. For example, basically all of the wood that Eisen ced in there was basicallypletley petrified, but you could see a light glow of mesing out from inbetween the tiny cracks that formed, especially on the pieces of wood that still had bark on them that Eisen ced inside just to see if it would make any difference. The crystals and gems that were ced inside had turned into slightly colorful rock structures, somewhat like geodes. When Eisen cracked these geodes open, he managed to find the transformed materials that he would be using. Different crystal or gem structures that somehow still had the same effects as before, just took up different states. Some of them were slightly hot to the touch, while others were basically just like pretty, colorful pebbles. And next, Eisen looked at the different metals, and found quite a surprise when he looked at the small chunks of silver that he ced inside. He had actually created a variation of mythril! And it was a quite special variation as well. Mythril was silver that was transformed throughrge quantities of earth-elemental mana, and since Eisen¡¯s element was, in part, also of the earth element, it changed the silver into something simr, but at the same time very different. Since it was a magically transformed material, it was obviously quite good at conducting mana, and even more so since its base material was a great mana conductor in the first ce, which was one of the two reasons why it was so valuable to many people. The second reason came from the earth-elemental mana. As silver was such a great conductor for mana, it took in more of the pure earth-element than other metallic materials would, which is why it was a metal that was known for how shock-absorbant it was. As such, it was a metal that was great for all kinds of things, tools, weapons, and armor alike. Because of that, it became an incredibly precious material in the overall world-economy, and one that was experimented with immsensely. One certain quality that they especially wanted to give mithril was that which fire gave the metal. The fire version of mythril seemed to strengthen any and all contact made with it. That meant that if you had a wall of this me-mythril and punched it with all your force, your ¡¯attack¡¯ would be sent out on the other side with about 120% strength to the original. That alone would be great already, if this was actually possible. This was simply a theory that people came up with, as silver seemed to take in a little bit too much of the raw element. If you infused it with fire-element mana, the mythril would turn into a gas-like substance that was too hot to make physical contact with. If you infused it with the water-element, it would turn into a liquid, while it would simply disappear if you infused it with the air-element. So, quite obviously, people began experiments to figure out ways to create a goodbination between earth-element mythril and fire-element mythril. Alloying quite obviously wouldn¡¯t work, so they began at what transformed the silver, the mana. They tried to infuse silver with all kinds of elemental mana that they came across, but it was usually only the Lava-element or different variations of it. What they needed was an element that had the qualities of both the pure fire-element and the pure earth-element, but that was still a singlebined element. They knew that there were such elements, but they were quite rare, and as such, these experiments needed to be put on halt until the person with the right element was found, while at the same time agreeing to help with the creation of this new theoretical metal. Well, quite coincidentally, this metal wasn¡¯t just theoretical anymore. Chapter 140 Flame Of The Earth Staff [Low-Grade Mythril] [Quality - Highest][Rank - 2] [Infused Element - me of the Earth] [Description] Silver that has been transformed through addition ofrge amounts of elemental mana. Through the particr element that has been infused, this metal absorbsrge amounts of received shock, partially returning it back to its source. "Huh? Isn¡¯t that actually amazing?" Eisen muttered out in surprise after he read the description of this particr version of mythril. "Mhm... that¡¯s actually very amazing! So many people will want to buy anything made with this! For sure!" Bree eximed with a furious nod, and Eisen grabbed one of the small ingots that he ced into the tube. "Well, good thing I made a lot of these. If I¡¯m not wrong, these would be amazing for tools and defensive items, as well as blunt weapons, right?" The old man muttered out slowly, before Komer looked at the metal with a frown. "Really? How so?" He asked, and Eisen began to exin what he thought this meant. "Hmm, let¡¯s think about using this for tools first. Let¡¯s say I make a hammer out of this, right? If I use this to hit metal I¡¯m working with, not only will it absorb arge part of the counter-shock, which will definitely decrease the strain on your body and the control you have over your hammer, but it will also send back some force that may be, I don¡¯t know, 20% of the initial hit, maybe. So in the end, I¡¯m going to be able to use the hammer at 120% forcepared to usual, while also being able to speed the process up a whole bunch." "Ah, I get it! So then if you were to use it for a shield, it would bounce back some of the attacks hitting it?" Komer concluded after Eisen¡¯s quick exnation, leaving him to nod in response. "Yes, ording to the material description, that should be it. But I wasn¡¯t aware that Mythril was something that was infused with an element. I thought you said that mana-sources give out pure mana, right, Bree?" The old man asked, and the Fey-Kin girl scratched the back of her head. "I mean... yeah, that¡¯s how it is. Technically, they give out pure mana, but that pure mana is keen to absorbing elemental mana that¡¯s around it. Usually that isn¡¯t absorbed by materials, but Silver is a bit different in that, after all. It already has some magical qualities, which is why it¡¯s so effective against undead monsters. But the mana that those sources give out is still technically pure, and it affects the surrounding like it is pure for the most part, but sometimes depending on the surrounding type of mana, stuff changes..." Bree exined with an expression that showed that she herself didn¡¯t really understand how exactly that worked, so Eisen simply let it be. "Alright, got it. It doesn¡¯t matter in the end. I just need to figure out a way to properly use this while I¡¯m making my staff now." Eisen told the group as he grabbed a few different materials that seemed interesting to him, such as arge piece of Elemental Wizard¡¯s oak, multiple geodes formed out of Earth or Fire gems, as well as geodes formed out of mana-crystals. On top of that, Eisen also grabbed some of this new type of mythril, since the other metals were all of lowest-grade so far, and Eisen wanted to use the best materials avable to him at the moment. So, Eisen first began to work on the base of the staff, using the elemental wizard¡¯s oak. Considering that it was literallypletely petrified, he wasn¡¯t able to just carve it like he would regr wood, but instead needed to use a chisel and hammer to basically sculpt it into the shape he wanted. What Eisen went for was an aesthetically rtively simple shape, which was overall simply a straight staff with a spiraling body, as if someone took a pole and twisted each end into opposing directions. Next, Eisen stepped outside of the carriage and created his me of the Earth forge in order to work with the mythril. It required around the same temperature to work with it as regr silver did, which was actually a tiny bit above the temperature that Eisen could currently achieve, but that simply meant that he had to use a bit more force and that it was a little bit harder to work with than it should be in perfect conditions. The only thing that was needed to be done in order to forge this magical metal was that it needed to be forged in mana. Meaning that the metal constantly needed to be surrounded by ayer of thick, potent mana, which was happily provided by Bree with her giant mana-pool. It was still harder to do than Eisen expected, and actually did a few points of damage to him each time due to the effect of ¡¯returning the shock¡¯ given to the metal, but in the end, that was a small issue for him that was quickly ovee with his techniques. Eisen formed this mythril into something like a bowl that could be properly attached to the top of the staff and reach down to about its halfway point by metal parts of it then being attached to the ridgets created through the ¡¯twisting¡¯ of the staff. The bowl itself was there so that it could hold what Eisen was now about to create out of the gems and crystals. What Eisen did first for that was to experiment a bit. The two types of gems that Eisen had picked out for the staff were the fire and earth variants, which had each turned into a particr form. It seemed as if the fire gem was in a gem state about halfway between the regr version of the me of the earth and its full fire-version, while the earth gem was opposite of that gradient, being halfway between the regr version of the element and the full earth-version. And when Eisenbined these two gem structures from inside the geodes, they turned into a gem that was about equivalent to the base version of Eisen¡¯s element. Now, Eisenbined these three different types of gems with the me of the Earth infused mana-crystals, so that he had three different types of crystals structures to work with. And what Eisen had nned for this was supposed to be visually rtively impressive, while at the same time being overall inconspicuous. For that reason, Eisen made a few different small tools out of the regr Wizard¡¯s Oak that he created the many staffs he made with. These tools were all the kind that you would use to sculpt y, and the reason for that was quite simple. Eisen would use his transmutation through these small wooden tools by simply coating the tip of each tool with a thinyer of mana and then using them like he regrly would. He had an idea like this before already, so that he could actually properly form mana crystals in a detailed manner and didn¡¯t have to just ¡¯imagine¡¯ the shape that he wanted and control it with his mind somehow. "Doing something with my own two hands feels right in the end, huh?" He chuckled lowly as he looked at the different crystals-gembinations he just made, fire, earth, and the base version, before building a small block out of the fire crystals to use as a starting-point. Slowly, Eisen connected the different structures with each other, building the raw shape of a me in the middle of burning its fuel, before adding ayer of the earth crystals on the outside, leaving ¡¯cracks¡¯ of sort inbetween the different chunks to create the general way that the me of the earth element looked, like a me made of earth with fire seeping through the broken areas in its surface. After this small sculpture¡¯s shape was finished, Eisen only needed to add one more thing to it, and that was an enchantment. He grabbed the enchanting marbles and quickly enchanted the crystal-me with his me Of The Earth Skill, hoping that enchanting this part would be enough to properly make everything work. Even though this main-part was now done didn¡¯t mean that the whole thing was. A fire was not always a singr small entity, but rather thebination of the kindling mes that were spread around each other, whether they were on the ground or even floating in the air. These small parts were then made out of the crystals created through thebination of both gems in a way that Eisen had also tried to figure out together with his son and grandson while he was offline, with one more array of enchantments, that actually wasn¡¯t asplex as Eisen had thought. Eisen sat down and quietly began working on the inside of the shallow mythril bowl that he would ce the crystal me intoter. Carefully, he began carving away at this extraordinary material to create the enchantment circles that he would need. The central enchantment circle was made so that it would keep everything floating directly above the bowl and so that it wouldn¡¯t leave the immediate vicinity of it in the slightest. The concept of this wasn¡¯tplicated, there was just a lot of mana needed in order to activate an enchantment with ¡¯gravity¡¯ as its core effect. But considering that Eisen would only need this to cast a few small spells here and there, it shouldn¡¯t be too big an issue. Then, there were two other enchantments, each one ced down twice around the core enchantment in a circle. One of them were supposed to take the material apart, while the other one was supposed to but it together again. And the material that would be taken apart and put together over and over again were the small crystal-gembinations of the base me of the earth element, which Eisen specified in the enchantments themselves. This would create the illusion of the particles of mes that were floating around during an actual fire, or at least that¡¯s what Eisen was currently hoping. Thest thing that Eisen needed to do now was to put everything together in a way that it could be properly activated, which was done simply by cing the small carved crystal-me on the center of the mythril bowl and scattering the other crystal-gems around its base. With a little bit of transmutation, Eisen connected the crystal structures to each other so that they wouldn¡¯t simply be lying loosely around the bowl, but this issue should be resolved from the moment that the enchantments are activated, as the smaller, outer-circle enchantments would only activate for one time of crystal-gem. With a smile, Eisen looked at the creation with the crystal mes reaching to the top of his head, and nodded with a satisfied smile. "Alright, done." Immediately after Eisen acknowledged this item as such, multiple notifications popped up in front of his eyes. [me of the Earth Staff] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] An incredible staff that has been made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Its materials have been infused with immense amounts of me Of The Earth Elemental Mana and have been transformed into new materials bearing its traits. Any Magic of this element cast with this staff will be immensely strengthened, while magic of any other element will be repelled. Not even pure mana will be epted into this staff. [Effect] Immense Strengthening to me Of The Earth magic (+50% efficiency) [Requirements] 100 INT; 100 WIS; me Of The Earth Skill Rank 3 [For creating an overwhelming quality item with the help of cksmithing, you gain +1 STR] [As Woodworking is outside of the five initially broken-through skills, you will not gain any bonus stats through it] [Item¡¯s requirements are above wielder¡¯s abilities] [As the wielder is the crafter of this item, requirements can be ignored] [Due to being able to manipte souls, it is possible to soulbind this item to you. One soulbound slot is avable. Do you wish to proceed?] Chapter 141 I?tum and Dvergun Eisen looked at the notifications in front of his face with curiosity, trying to figure out what was going on. The first thing that he noticed was that this staff had requirements, like a regr Rank 3 item should have, despite it technically being something that broke through some skills. The only reason that Eisen could currently see for that was that he was also using Rank 3 skills, alchemy and enchanting, while making this. But like this, Eisen was able to see an ability that he hadn¡¯t know of before! The creator of an item can use any item that they themselves made no matter the requirements. Although Eisen was somewhat surprised to see that the Requirements could actually be above the crafter¡¯s stats in the first ce. However, in the end, what interested him most was something else, it was the ¡¯Soulbinding¡¯ that was mentioned in thest notification that popped up. Confused, Eisen then turned over to the group, where each member was watching with incredible curiosity. "Does one of you know what ¡¯Soulbinding¡¯ is?" He asked into the room, and immediately, Kiron slightly raised his hand while the others were slightly confused. That is, with the exception of Komer, who seemed to have heard the term in other games before. Slowly, the half-dragon began to exin. "Soulbinding is a rare ability that you may acquire, M¡¯Lord, and there are different ways you can achieve it. For one, if you have a trusty tool or weapon that is connected to you every time you use it through the corresponding skill. Once that connection rises to certain heights, it is possible to bind that item to your soul. Another way, a far more umon one, is if you have the ability to manipte souls themselves. As you just now asked this, I expect thetter of these cases to be true for this staff you made?" Kiron asked as he looked at the item that the old man was holding in his hands, before Eisen slowly nodded. "Yes, that is exactly the case. It told me I can bind one item to my soul... Is there any benefit if I do this?" Eisen asked, before Kiron closed his eyes and began thinking about the question for a while, trying to remember what he knew about soulbinding. "I have only ever spoken to one person that had a soulbound item in their possession about such items, so I can only answer that from what I know. But it happened about fifty years ago, so my memory is slightly blurry, sorry." With a somewhat ufortable smile, Kiron apologized, but Eisen simply sighed out loudly and shook his head. "No, don¡¯t apologize. You were the only one here that knew about it in the first ce, so literally everything that you say is more than helpful." "...Thank you, M¡¯Lord. For one, no other person may be capable of wielding anything that is bound to your soul, and you can store it within your soul, as long as you Will this to be the case. You can cancel the soulbinding, but then you will never be able to bind that same item to your soul again, and the item¡¯s ¡¯trust¡¯, so to speak, will be lost, so its effects will diminish." "Huh, I see... So, since I can manipte souls, can I do that soulbinding thing with anything? For example with this carriage?" Eisen asked with curiosity. He wasn¡¯t sure exactly what Kiron meant with ¡¯Storing¡¯ it in your soul, but he figured that it meant something like that ¡¯Inventory¡¯ system that other games usually had, meaning that he would be able to something like ¡¯get rid¡¯ of something and then make it ¡¯appear¡¯ whenever he wanted. If that was really the case, it would be far more convenient to store the carriage away than this staff. But in response to Eisen¡¯s question, Kiron simply shook his head. "I¡¯m afraid not, M¡¯Lord. As far as I am aware, not everything can be soulbound. This staff has been made with your element, is that not so? Your element is the personification of who you are in this physical realm, as such, that staff seems to be like a physical representation of that element, so it can be stored in your soul." "Ah... I see. Well, I¡¯m sure it can¡¯t hurt to do this. At the very least, I¡¯ll be able to find out how soulbinding works." The old man chuckled with a loud sigh, disappointed that he wasn¡¯t able to do what he had in mind, but still curious to see what would happen if he soulbound the staff to his soul. Not many other people would be able to use this staff anyway, since you needed to use it with the me of the earth element already infused into your mana. Considering that Eisen didn¡¯t know of any other people with this element, although he knew that there were such people, he was the only person that could use this staff at the moment anyway. So, Eisen looked over at the notification telling him about the soulbinding, slowly nodding. "Alright, bind this staff to my soul." He said in amanding voice, and immediately, he felt something change. From one second to another, he felt utterly empty, hollow, as if someone simply took all the air out of his lungs. On the other hand, he felt the staff that he was holding in his hands grow heavier and heavier, before it seemed to melt in his grip, at least in some sense in Eisen¡¯s perception. The actual staff didn¡¯t budge even a millimeter. That was so, until suddenly, the staff began forming cracks, different to those that were formed through Eisen¡¯s element, before those cracks covered every part of every surface on the staff. For a few moments, nothing happened, and then, the staff simply shattered along the cracks into a fine powder, that seemed to be sucked toward the center of Eisen¡¯s chest before simply disappearing with a loud gasping from the old man. "Well... That was pretty ufortable..." Eisen muttered quietly as he held his hand in front of his heart, the ce that the staff seemed to have been absorbed into, while the group surrounded him with worry. After all, an old man suddenly grasping at his heart after trying to catch a breath of air was something to worry about. "Eisen! Are you alright? Do you need a potion?!" Sky asked with worry as he looked around himself to find the red, life saving liquid, but Eisen simply shook his head. "No, you don¡¯t have to worry about me. I¡¯m feeling better already. And even if not, I can¡¯t die in the first ce, right?" The old manughed lowly as he looked around, noticing the notifications in the corner of his eye. [me Of The Earth Staff has been Soulbound to Eisen] [Current Maximum limit of two soulbound items has been met, no more items may be soulbound until Soul Strength has been increased] "Huh? What? Two soulbound items?" Eisen asked in surprise as he looked as closely at the screen as he could, trying to figure out where the hell the second item came from, while even ignoring the questions suddenlying from the others around him, as a sudden feeling of unease crawled up on him. Carefully, Eisen attempted to look into himself so that he could find the staff, to figure out how to take out items from that ¡¯storage¡¯. And it was actually quite a lot easier than he had expected it to be, as he now simply ¡¯felt¡¯ the item in his core, at the same ce where both his element and his mana originated. Simr to how he controlled that mana, he was now capable of bringing that item out. As such, he slowly moved that item through his arm and directly into his palm, where the staff quickly formed, surprising the others once more, while they were simply confused. But right now, Eisen was worried about something else. He ced the staff to the side and once more looked deep into himself, trying to find the item he was looking for. The other item that was bound to his soul already. But for some reason, he wasn¡¯t able to find it as easily as he did the other item, as if this was hidden inside of his soul. Even pulling it out was harder to do than the staff, but soon enough, Eisen held a small ornamental box in his right hand. As he was staring at this item, Bree called out to him. "Hey! What¡¯s wrong? Where¡¯d this boxe from?!" Slowly, Eisen snapped back into it and looked at the small Fey-Kin girl. "Oh, sorry. Erm... it seems like I still had an item bound to me... Probably from before my experience was stolen..." "H-Huh? How¡¯s that even possible..?" Sky asked confused, but Eisen simply shrugged. "I have no idea. I just really want to know what this thing is, and why it¡¯s so important." With those words, Eisen activated his Truth-Seeing-Eyes and tried to inspect this item, and soon enough, the information popped up, simply baffling Eisenpletely. [Treasury of ???] [Quality - Divine][Rank - 10] [Description] This is the peak of what can be achieved by anyone¡¯s hands, created by the ??? going by the name of Eisen, in order to protect what is most precious to him. It cannot be destroyed even by a god¡¯s hands, and it is forever bound to the soul of its creator, and not even he will be able to easily destroy that bond. It is unknown what it holds, but the puzzles and riddles that need to be solved in order to open it are above what a regr person may ever wish to solve. "Holy- What the hell?" Eisen eximed inplete surprise. This was a Divine quality item, something that was only achievable at the highest rank that a skill could have. He wasn¡¯t able to read what was hidden behind those question-marks, but that wasn¡¯t important right now. Curious at what those puzzles may be, Eisen tried opening the box, but nothing happened. The lid didn¡¯t budge for even a moment, so Eisen flipped the box around a few times to see if there were any hints, before he saw some writing in anguage he didn¡¯t understand. So, he turned to the three people that might know. Bree, the living database of general knowledge, Kiron, the person that spent the longest here in this world amongst this group, and Sky, the one that spent literally every passing second reading. "Does either of you know what this writing here means?" He asked with a light frown, and one after another, the three of them took a look at it, but none of them could really say what it was, although it seemed to by lying on Sky¡¯s tongue, he just couldn¡¯t fully remember what it was. Then, the one that Eisen least expected to have an answer for this particr question answered. "Erm, Eisen? I think I know what that is." Komer eximed with a wry smile as he began scratching the back of his head, before everyone looked at him in surprise and the young merchant continued talking. "Ah, erm, while I was researching different regions of the world for the best type of item sold in each region and what kind of materials are moremon where, I also came across some documents that were talking about thenguages spoken in each of those regions, especially in the past. They basically speak what is called the ¡¯Common Language¡¯ everywhere in the world these days, but thatnguage is... well, I think it¡¯s what was spoken in the country of Giants, J?tunnheim-" "I?tum." Sky interrupted Komer as he spoke, finally remembering what thenguage was called as well. However, he then continued on, seeing a difference in the writing as well. "But it¡¯s not just I?tum. I think I remember it now as well... Komer, did you also read up a bit of the ancient Dwarvennguage, Dvergun?" The young merchant scratched his head before slowly nodding. "A little bit, yeah. I only know the rough way the system there worked, I don¡¯t know any words or something. I don¡¯t even really know the letters all that well..." "That¡¯s fine, just confirm with me for a second... While the letters are certainly written in I?tum, isn¡¯t the structure of the words and sentences rather of what Dvergun is like?" "Hmm... maybe? I¡¯m not 100% sure..." "Erm, Eisen...? Did you make this? You¡¯re a Giant-Dwarf halfling, right?" Sky asked with a confused expression, but Eisen simply nodded. "Yes, I definitely wrote this. This is supposed to be a riddle, apparently. Now we just need to figure out how to trante it, and maybe we can make some sense of it..." The old man sighed out loudly as he continued staring at the inscriptions on the side of this small, ornamental box. Chapter 142 Magical Smithy For a while, Eisen simply kept staring at the inscriptions on the box, trying to figure out if there was any actualnguage involved in this. During his days of travel, he learned many differentnguages to very different extents depending on how long he stayed in the corresponding region. For example, he was basically fully fluent in German, French, Swedish, Spanish and Japanese, and English of course, since he spent at the very least a year in each of those regions, and was able to at the very least handle himself in most othernguages so that he would be able to ask the way to a restaurant, hotel, or the nearest trainstation. Although that was really the most of what he knew in the majority ofnguages he knew about, and they were just things that he picked up here and there, so he should be able to at the very least recognize it if these were realnguages. It was obvious that these things were at the very least somewhat connected to Old Norse, considering that I?tum, thenguage of Giants, and Dvergun, the ancientnguage of dwarves, were both words derived from exactly thatnguage. Old Norse was something that Eisen picked up for fun, simply because he was fascinated with the culture. The writing themselves also seemed quite simr to Old Norse runic letters, but in the end, Eisen couldn¡¯t recognize any of them. But at the very least, the word and sentence structure was very different, although obviously being derived from eastern writing, to what Eisen knew about, so he couldn¡¯t figure out if that was from an existingnguage in the first ce. ording to what Sky and Komer could tell him, Dvergun¡¯s word and sentence structure was quite unique. The letters of one word were written bove each other from bottom to top, and then the sentences were formed by simply cing those words next to each other from right to left. But in the end, none of them would be able to figure out what was written there if they couldn¡¯t figure out what those letters represented. And considering that this was already a mixture of two differentnguages, it wasn¡¯t hard to imagine that there would be some thirdnguagebined with it. "We don¡¯t have any books about thesenguages right now, huh?" Eisen sighed out loud, and Sky shook his head, looking over at the pile of books he built in the corner. "No, we don¡¯t. All the books we have are rted to either fictional stories or theories about crafting and magic. And with the path we¡¯re taking, we¡¯re not going to reach a town or vige big enough to have a bookstore or library until we reach the magic city." "That¡¯s fine, we don¡¯t need to figure that out right away. For now, let¡¯s just test out my staff." Eisen said with a sigh as he put the ornamental box back in his ¡¯storage¡¯ and grabbed the staff that he had before ced to the side, stepping out of the carriage. "Alright, now, if it really increases the efficiency by as much as it says, I should be able to create a proper forge now." Eisen eximed as a little bit of excitement grew in him, before he began to cast the spell by first infusing his element into his mana within his body and then moving that infused mana into the staff, as much as he could, before voicing the names of the spell he had prepared. "me of the Earth Forge." Immediately after Eisen said this, all the infused mana was drained out of the staff and began constructing the structure that the spell was supposed to form, that of a simple Forge that Eisen could use. And while it was doing so, Eisen manipted his element further so that it turned toward each end of its transformation spectrum as much as it could to the needed amounts, and was left with a satisfying end-product. The parts that were supposed to be as solid and hard as possible turned into something like an incredibly tough rock, while the parts that were supposed to be made up of the hot mes were now hot enough so that Eisen could work with whatever he needed to, at least when it came to regr materials that he was used to from real life. There seemed to be materials in the game that could only be forged with heats that would usually melt away at even your tools or the forge itself, so obviously, this magical forge wasn¡¯t able to reach temperatures that were hot enough for something like that. But at the very least, Eisen was now able to poperly continue cksmithing again! As such, Eisen smiled brightly and began to manipte more things around the forge so that he had proper conditions as well as everything that he needed while smithing, including a rock-anvil, that wouldter be supported through Eisen¡¯s Crafting Space skill to make sure it was useable as such, a solid footing so that Eisen couldn¡¯t identally trip over somethingm, as well as something like a simple table where Eisen could leave the materials as well as the finished parts. It drained quite a lot of mana from him, but Bree replenished it as quickly as she could, so everything was fine in the end, and he had now created a fully magical Smithy. "Alright, now I can finally properly get to work, huh?" Eisen eximed with a loudugh, grabbing everything that he needed, including his tools and materials, and ced everything down to the side before activating his Crafting Space for cksmithing. Soon enough, Eisen¡¯s hammer quickly floated into his hand while he was grabbing the high-tensile brass which he would use now. Quickly, he threw the ingot into the forge and waited for it to heat up, using that time to start his transformation for crafting. He was ying around with this a few times over the past weeks, and was able to figure out the best spots where to ce which transformation. Overall, he only transformed himself in his arms, back, shoulders, and his ribs. Around the parts where he needed to be able to move, such as his joints or the areas of his skin that needed to stretch and retract, were transformed as far toward the me transformation so that he had quick and agile movement, while the rest of the areas, especially around the muscles that he was using most at the time, were transformed as far toward the rock transformation for extra strength. Eisen would then switch a few areas around on the gradient scale depending on the situation or the ce which drained a little more mana, but overall, he was able to save a lot of it by just transforming certain areas instead of every little square inch. Apparently, the staff even helped with the transformation, although not to the extent as it helped with casting the spells, but it was still enough to be able to notice it. "Alright, let¡¯s get going here." Eisen eximed as he quickly changed his outfit into the loose wool pants and his leather apron, and soon enough, the brass was hot enough to work with. Excited at this, considering that it¡¯s been a good while since he wasst properly working with metal in this way, since he was not counting in when he was working with the mythril just now, he quickly brought the metal over to the anvil with some tongs. And as such, Eisen began to work this glowing-hot brass with a smile, ttening it and changing its shape around as if he was molding y with his fingers, with each time the hammer impacted on the metal apanied with a loud sound, the brassing closer to its final shape. Eisen continued this work for a while,pletely indulging himself in the heat of the forge and the metal lying in front of him, making the gears and bars needed in order to properly create the three different camera-creatures that Eisen was nning to construct. And at the end of this work, something great happened as well. [cksmithing reached Level 100 in Rank 2, upgrading to Rank 3] [You can now work with low-grade non-metallic materials] [Due to Ranking-up your cksmithing Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END] "Non-metallic materials, huh..? What does that mean?" Eisen muttered to himself as he wiped the sweat off his forehead and ced his tools to the side while deactivating the me of the Earth spells, and it seemed like Bree overheard him. "Did you rank up your cksmithing skill, Eisen?" She asked with a curious voice, and began to exin what those materials may mean immediately after the old man nodded and told her the new ability of the cksmithing skill. "Ah! Those kind of things are materials that you technically need to forge, but that aren¡¯t metals!" Bree eximed with a smug voice, before noticing Eisen¡¯s frown and realizing that she literally just said what the notification told Eisen already. "Erm... The lowest-grade materials I can think of that count to that category are the carapaces of bug-type monsters... The highest grade you could get are things like Dragon Bones or something like that." Bree exined with a lightly red face, and Eisen began to scratch his beard. "Carapaces and Bones? Hmm, I guess that makes sense... I¡¯ll have to look into that sooner orter then. Because if I can work with Bug Carapaces, doesn¡¯t that mean I¡¯ll have basically infinite materials if we find a nest belonging to huge bug monsters?" Eisen asked with a soft chuckle, and Bree actually immediately nodded. "Mhm! That¡¯s actually what a lot of people do! There¡¯s specialized professions that make it easier to work with carapaces, and there are a lot of those craftsmen gathered around nests like that. For example, there¡¯s a small outpost near the Ankheg nest near Melroe just for that~!" "Ah, I see, I see... Wait a second, Ankheg are bug-type monsters...?" Eisen asked inplete surprise, remembering back on the ankheg steak he ate on the first day, as well as on a few other asions, of ying the game. He thought it was some kind of bird-like monster, but it seemed to have been a bug-like one instead. "Huh? Yeah, they are... Didn¡¯t you know that? Don¡¯t you eat that a lot?" Bree tilted her head to the side, and Benjamin simply shook his head with a sigh. "Nope, I didn¡¯t know that, sorry. Not that I mind, honestly, I was just a bit surprised." Eisen definitely wasn¡¯t the type of person to mind eating those kinds of things, he never was. He actually enjoyed eating the type of cuisine that implemented different bugs into them. It was a bit hard to get used to at first, but once he tried it a few times, he actually started buying roasted grasshoppers from street-stalls as snacks whenever he saw them being sold there. "Anyway, that really doesn¡¯t matter too much right now. Can you guys help me bring the parts inside, please? Oh, and be careful not to mix the piles, I¡¯ve pre-sorted everything already." Eisen asked the group that had been closely watching the whole process to help him out while he grabbed his tools and parts of the gears and such before bringing them to the carriage, so that the group could now finally continue driving while Eisen was working on the camera-bots. Happy to help, everyone grabbed some of the itemsying around and brought them to the carriage as well, cing them down seperately to each other, before Sky and Bree sat down on the front bench of the carriage again while Eisen gathered all that he would need for the further construction of the camera-bots now, the most important materials being the Crystal Eyes that were harvested from the Crystal Bats. And now, it was time to get to work. Chapter 143 CB, CR and CF Eisen looked at the materials in front of him and began to work on the most important part of the camera-bots, the golem cores. At first, he was thinking about turning the Crystal-Eye itself into the Golem Core, but since that may influence the enchantments he would be putting on the Crystal-Eyeter, he preferred to go the safe route and simply ce the golem core in the center of the Crystal-Eye instead. After finishing the three small golem-cores, he opened up a small hole in the Crystal-Eyes and ced the cores into the center of the fist-sized spheres. Next, Eisen began working on the enchantments, one after another. The first thing that Eisen did was try to memorize exactly how his son and grandson had suggested that Eisen should create it, and began by carving the general structure, before then adding the runes on the outer circle as well as around the four ¡¯slots¡¯ for the small enchanted crystal cylinders, appointing each slot to a specific enchantment already. Now it was time to create these enchanted cylinders. First, Eisen created some small soul generators as a power source for the cameras, but then set them to the side for now. The reason for that was that he was afraid the generators would identally trigger the golem core¡¯s activation before Eisen was finished with creating the body for it. Next, he created the cylinders enchanted with his truth-seeing-eyes skill, cing that one into the corresponding slot as well. After that, Eisen created some ¡¯storage¡¯ modules to properly store what was seen by the camera, and with that, all that was left was the ¡¯sender¡¯. That took some more time to figure out. First, what Eisen did was to make two different crystal items, one cylinder and one small rectangr te made out of one of the leftover crystal eyes, since this may possibly heighten the sess-rate as well, considering that the crystal eye was a material that was highlypatible with visual uses. So, Eisen quickly enchanted the ¡¯receiver¡¯ disy in the way that Eisen nned before, where he enchanted it with the ¡¯Chat function¡¯ with concentration on receiving a message, so that a visual signal would be epted and then simply disyed on the front of the disy. And in order to make the specification for the receiver easier, he carved a small 10-digit identification number made up of random numbers and letters on the back, which he also already added to the runic circle around the slot for the ¡¯sender¡¯, which Eisen made next, simply by enchanting the cylinder with the ¡¯Chat function¡¯ with concentration on sending a message. And now, after Eisen ced this cylinder into the corresponding slot, he began to work on assembling the body. This time around, he actually went for something more in the direction of a mechanic look, since he fully acknowledged these things to be just tools in the shape of small animals that couldn¡¯t think for themselves, different to what Aulu and Cabarum were to him. As such, Eisen fully disyed the brass rods, while still hiding the gears so that nothing could identally drop inside and clog everything up. And this time around, Eisen simply didn¡¯t try to somehow hide the sewing, even adding more metallic parts to fix the thin, dark leather to the front and back surfaces of the wings to fix everything onto the metallic skeleton more safely. Since the wings would be under a lot of pressure and strain most of the time, Eisen wanted to make sure nothing could break mid-flight. And after that, Eisen added the same enchantments as with the prototype onto the wings, that would allow the Camera-Bat to properly fly, even staying stagnant in one space mid-air, by expelling a gust of wind from its wings. "Alright, I think it¡¯s done. Let me turn it on right away." Eisen muttered with a worried frown formed on his brows, before slowly cing his palm on the crystal-eye and pouring his mana inside to activate everything, and while the gears were slightly cracking and creaking around as they reacted to being properly connected within a body, Eisen set the soul generator in its slot. Immediately, the Camera-Bat began to p its wings and began to fly, looking at its master. The carving for the enchantment on the front actually somehow made it so that you could somehow recognize it as an eye as well, although a rather weird one. "It¡¯s flying at least... Well, let¡¯s give you a name first, huh..? Let¡¯s just go with CB-1. Alright CB-1, start recording your sight on the storage module and send everything you see over to the receiver." Eisenmanded as he looked down at the small crystal disy in his hands, before slowly, a blurred sight appeared that became more and more clear within a few seconds, until Eisen could see the sight of himself looking down at the tablet. With a grin, Eisen raised his left hand, and with no dy in the slightest, the version of him on the disy did the same. "CB-1, activate Truth-Seeing-Eyes." Eisenmanded next, and the sight on the screen soon changed to be slightly blurry again, with everythingpletely ck and white with the exception of a few colorful circles here and there. "Get closer to the item on the right and appraise." Once more, CB-1 reacted immediately and flew over to the small potion that Eisen meant for it to look at and the information screen quickly. With thatmand, Eisen managed to verify two things. First, that the Truth-Seeing-Eyes enchantment worked, and second, that he didn¡¯t need to be very specific with the wording of hismands, and as long as he himself knew what he wanted CB-1 to do, it would be done. "Perfect. Now, turn around and activate mana-sight." Eisenmanded, and CB-1 pped its wings and expertisely turned around in one swift motion, as if it had already been controlling this body for years. So that¡¯s what regr golems were like? Ignoring that thought for now, Eisen looked at the screen and saw that there were now different colors within CB-1¡¯s sight, and Eisen confirmed that everything was properly working by activating his own Truth-Seeing-Eyes as well. Incidentally, it seemed that CB-1¡¯s appearance also slightly changed with the activation of this skill, and it gained a light golden tint. "Great! CB-1,e here and deactivate." Eisen told the small camera bat and held out his hand, before CB-1 flew directly above his hand and deactivated his functions, meaning that it stopped recording and sending what it saw and deactivated the truth-seeing-eyes enchantment. But on top of that, it also rolled up its wings around its body and dropped down onto Eisen¡¯s palm, making itself look like a simple leather ball, since every part of the Crystal Eye was covered. While Eisen was looking down at CB-1 in its dormant mode, Komer stepped up to him excitedly and looked at him as if he just made some legendary treasure. For some reason, it didn¡¯t feel all that special to Eisen, just some neat little toy to y around with. "That¡¯s so awesome! It really works like a camera, right?" Komer asked with excitement in his voice, and Eisen nodded with a smile. "Mhm, it does. Ah, CB-1, wake up again." Eisenmanded, before quickly continuing with his tests. "Listen to themands of Komer, Kiron, Sky and Bree as well." After Eisen said this, he told CB-1 to activate the transmission again, and then threw it out of the back door of the carriage to see how well it could keep up. And soon enough, the camera was flying above the carriage as if it was simply standing somewhere, and Eisen and Komer could look down onto Kiron, who was lying on the top of the carriage¡¯s roof, before sitting up once he noticed the flying machine. With a surprised expression, the half-draggon climbed over to the edge and looked down into the still open door. "Ah, M¡¯Lord! I see that your project is finished?" He asked curiously, before Eisen nodded and told CB-1 toe back again. "Yeah, it works better than I expected, if I¡¯m gonna be honest." The old man chuckled as he handed the small disy in his hands over to Komer, who was quite obviously just waiting for a small chance to y around with this. "Here, CB-1 reacts to voicemands, so just say what you want it to do. Just make sure it doesn¡¯t leave the carriage. It needs to hear you say yourmands, and I¡¯m the only one that canmand it from further away." Eisen exined as he sat back down at his worktable and Kiron climbed back onto the roof. Eisen already prepared all the materials and parts that he needed for the other two Camera-bots beforehand, so now it was only about assembling everything and making the two other receivers and senders, since he only made one to make sure this really worked out properly. Although he did notice that it was kind of hard to differentiate between them, so Eisen quickly apologized to Komer and grabbed the tablet again, carving in a simplified version of CB-1¡¯s shape onto its backside, writing the camera¡¯s name into the center. Now that he could know which one belonged to which bot with a short nce, Eisen continued, carving the respective symbols of a small fish and a small rat into the other two receiver-disys. And with that, it was pretty easy to properly assemble the two eyes that he needed with each correspondingplex enchantment circle, once more only leaving out the ¡¯Power Supply¡¯, so that nothing could go wrong while Eisen was assembling everything. Now, Eisen grabbed the brass parts that he grabbed beforehand and carefully assembled the rat-body first of all, once more openly disying the metallic rods while keeping the gears hidden. This time around it was a little bit moreplicated, since he needed to construct a whole body instead of just two wings, but in the end, that only meant that it took a little while longer. After all, he already had some experience in this from making Aulu and Cabarum. After the rat-body was done, Eisen connected everything properly to the eye, which actually made it look somewhat creepy, as if an actual rat¡¯splete head was simply reced by a crystal ball. But it didn¡¯t need to look great, it just needed to be able to be agile while running around crowded ces, which Eisen hopefully achieved while building the body. And now, once more, Eisen activated the golem core and while it was getting used to the gears in its new body, Eisen ced the mana supply inside. With the same regime as before, Eisen quickly tested out if this second Camera-creature was ready as well, giving it the name CR-1. And now, atst, Eisen also started working on the camera-fish, which he needed to make some metal tes before as well so that nothing could simply get through the leather and then somehow push the gears around in some way. But those were simply metal tes that Eisen connected in a simr way as he did with the leather on the other two camera creatures, adding a little bit more detail by making small ridgets along the metal tes to make it look like the fish really had scales. And once more, Eisen connected the crystal eye to the body and activated the third kind of Camera-bot, which Eisen then tested by filling one of the empty barrels with some water and carefully cing it, named CF-1, into it, once again repeating the same tests that he had been doing before. And it didn¡¯t take long for Eisen to confirm that all three types properly worked. Now that this was the case, Eisen had only one more thing left to do before arriving in the magic city. He would now send out the camera-bot that had the best use for long-distance travel, CB-1, to retrieve a certain gem from a dragon¡¯sir. Chapter 144 Amran Bee First, in order to be able to send CB-1 away toward Melroe, Eisen created a few more items. First, he created another receiver for CR-1 so that he could give it to the camera bat, so that conversation with others would be possible. Since sound was also being transmitted through the cameras, albeit only that in immediate vicinity, Eisen could basically talk to whoever was looking at the receiver that CB-1 would be holding. Other than the second receiver, Eisen also made a small pouch that would be able to hold that receiver as well as the gem, if necessary. Eisen is going to try and ask Ailren to personally bring Kirisho¡¯s gem to them, but he would fully understand if he wasn¡¯t going to do that. He would also understand if Ailren felt reluctant to hand it over to Eisen just like that as well, although he was hoping that it worked out. The group was reaching the ce where thest of the three shards of Kirisho¡¯s amulet was being kept, and Eisen didn¡¯t want to have to go all the way back to Melroe in order to fix it and let Kirisho be herself again, instead wanting to just be able to do that as soon as possible. So it was a good idea to do that, wasn¡¯t it? After all, he doubted that thest of the three shards would be too hard to get, considering how easy it was to get the first and second ones. Either way, once that pouch was finished, Eisen quickly attached it to the bottom of CB-1 and added another small item to the back of its body. A few small propulsory tubes that would push outrge amounts of air for a boost toward high-speed travel. Luckily, the soul generator would provide enough mana to constantly have everything that was needed active. "Alright ¡¯lil guy. Get going toward Melroe now." Eisenmanded, throwing CB-1 in the direction that it needed to fly toward, and immediately it began pping its wings and began to fly there at high speeds. Of course Eisen didn¡¯t expect the Camera-Bat to simply reach Melroe by just being told to fly there, but since he knew the general direction, he was able to at least make it fly toward the mountains and stop there once it reached them. After that, Eisen would maneuver it around in more detail. "So? What are you going to do now, Eisen?" Komer asked curiously as he looked at CB-1 flying away into the distance, and Eisen chuckled lowly. "I¡¯ll just make some more potions. We still have half a day left till I have to sleep again, after all. Ah, and I actually wanted to try out some new kinds. The potions I¡¯ve been making so far have been just low-grade potions, so I wanted to go for a higher grade, and make some other types as well." Eisen exined as he grabbed some crates that were standing in the corner as well as some of his tools, and set them down on his worktable while Komer looked at everything excitedly. "The materials for High-Grade potions or higher are rtively expensive for us right now, but I¡¯ve got a good amount of what I need for Average-Grade, and the barrels are basically all empty right now, so I can-" Suddenly, while Eisen was trying to exin to Komer what he was going to do, a notification popped up in front of his face, apanied by a certain Myconid yelling out in glee. [Crowned Queen Bee Melissa has created a new type of worker-bee with the assistance of Lesser Myconid Druid Caria] [New Species Found - Amran Bee] "Yes, yes, yes, yeees! Eisen! Caria and Melly did it! We did it! We made a new Bee for you!" The young Myconid yelled out as she jumped over to Eisen with Melissa on her shoulder, while holding a small, bright red Bee in her hands, trying to show it to the old man desperately. Confused, Eisen leaned forward and looked at the small creature as it was tilting its head to the side ligthly, leaving him to chuckle. "Well, this is quite amazing, isn¡¯t it? Good job, you two!" With the praise of their master, both Melissa and Caria began tough happily, the prior simply buzzing loudly in a rythmic way, while thetter began to basically giggle like a mad-girl. "So, how did the two of you do this?" Eisen asked them and sat down on the bench, with Caria immediately climbing up to sit on hisp, while he continued looking at the small Amran Bee that was now climbing over his fingers, before Caria began to exin what they did. "Hehe, it was super duper smart, right? Caria and Melly are always just watching Eisen make things, but we can never help, and that is a no-no for us! Eisen showed Caria how to make the pretty Amran flower that makes people not be in pain anymore, and Melly told Caria her babies can make this cool sticky stuff after they hug flowers a lot... And Caria saw Eisen use that sticky stuff for that icky liquid in Melly¡¯s old home, and even put some of the pretty Amran flowers inside! So Caria had the super duper smart idea of making the sticky stuff from the pretty Amran flowers, and Melly thought that she could make babies that were even betterer at making it!" Caria exined with overly exaggerated hand-gestures, while Melissa buzzed loudly, as if she was agreeing what the Myconid just said. Of course, both Komer and Eisen couldn¡¯t help but smile at the happy little girl as she was telling her story, and Eisen rubbed both her and Melissa¡¯s heads after she was done. "Oho, you two are pretty amazing, huh?" With a smug grin on her face, Caria ced her fists onto her hips and nodded, while Melissa also tried to stand up on her backmost legs, imitating her elder sister. "Mhm! Caria and Melly are the amazingest!" "I¡¯m guessing that the two of you leveled up quite a bit, huh? You¡¯ve been doing this for a while, after all." Eisen said with a smile as he quickly opened up the status windows to both of his tamed monsters, and was surprised to see that Caria¡¯s level only increased by 4, while Melissa¡¯s increased by a whole 80. That was the difference between Rank 2 and 3, huh? However, Caria¡¯s skill ranks rose quite a lot, and even her Mana Maniption, a skill that she seemed to neglect a lottely because of how much practice it took to raise it, seemed to be close to reaching rank 2. But what made Eisen even more happy to see was that Melissa gained a new skill! It was called ¡¯Bee Creation¡¯, which seemed to simply be a skill that allowed her to create and edit different species of Bees! If that was the case, and Melissa could create Bees that could specifically fertilize specific flowers and only collect their pollen, then those flowers would surely gain some sort of benefit to it as well, right? Whether it was just a benefit to size or speed of growth, or possibly even to the efficiency when used in the making of different potions, that would simply be amazing! But that would require a proper plot ofnd as well, something that seemed more and more like something that Eisen should just hurry up and acquire. However, it wouldn¡¯t be in this region, that was for sure. The closer that they got to the Magic City, the more tropical the weather seemed to be, and if Eisen had to choose a ce to work at and set up base, then it would be an area that could actually experience all four seasons. If not for the variety of things that Eisen could do throughout the seasons, then simply for the beauty of a Tree¡¯s leaves starting to drop in Fall, or the first flowers blooming in spring. Not to mention the feeling of waking up in the morning and seeing a nket of snow wherever you could see. But then again, there was a problem with founding a town in the first ce, wasn¡¯t there? Since there were proper countries all over the world in this game, and with the level of realism even in social structures that Eisen experienced, that for sure meant that Eisen wouldn¡¯t be able to simply ¡¯im¡¯ a plot ofnd for himself. And he didn¡¯t want to necessarily work together with a specific country either, considering that he didn¡¯t want to be dragged into some kind of conflict, on top of the obvious limits that being part of a specific country would bring to him. If possible, Eisen would like to find a ce with four beautiful seasons that wasn¡¯t imed by any country yet, although it seemed rather improbable that they would be able to find such a ce easily. Maybe that was a possibility on one of the other continents, but as mentioned, Eisen couldn¡¯t go there yet, for different reasons. So, Eisen quickly called for the group cartographer. "Sky, can youe over for a second?" Eisen eximed, and after a few seconds, the young Fey-kin boy turned around and climbed through the opening at the front of the carriage, patting the dust off of his clothes. "Yeah, what¡¯s up?" "Sky, Komer, do you know of any regions of this continent that hasn¡¯t been imed by any country?" He asked the two of them, knowing that they both spent some time looking at maps of the world. For a little while, they both looked at each other before then beginning to talk about it with each other,ing to a few different conclusions. "There¡¯s one continent that¡¯s basicallypletely unimed, simply because it¡¯s too dangerous for people to properly live there. There are towns here and there, but nobody formed any countries. Other than that, there¡¯s only one spot of unimednd in this continent, and it¡¯s actually not directly part of this continent. Rather, it¡¯s right inbetween the threergest, and most important continents." Sky then exined as he jumped up to sit on one of the barrels, and then continued. "It¡¯s an ind, with dozens of smaller inds surrounding it. The main ind is about 10 timesrger than Ornier, I think... And it¡¯s all been turned into multiple Field Dungeons." Eisen began moving his fingers through his beard in thought, before asking some questions. "Hmm, do you know the climate of those inds? And could we handle those Field Dungeons?" "Erm... It¡¯s just normal there, I think? Like, it¡¯s not tropical or freezing there or anything, just regr weather. And you¡¯re not thinking about going there, right?" Sky asked with a deep frown as he scratched the back of his head, and simply stared at the old man in front of him when he chose to nod. "Actually, I think we should go there as soon as possible. Do you know how far away it is from here? Because if it¡¯s not too far away, we can build a boat when we get to town, and then sail there, right?" "Why are you saying that as if it¡¯s the same as just walking from town to town..? It doesn¡¯t matter if we get there or not if we can¡¯t even clear the Field Dungeons! Listen, the central ind isn¡¯t that big a deal, sure. It¡¯s like a ¡¯country¡¯ for low-rank monsters that each like to formrge groups. Like Goblins, Kobolds, Gnolls, and a few others... Nowhere else but there do they form interracial groups like that, and they all live their together, probably even creating whole new races... And their King is a Rank 5 monster, Eisen. We have basically no chance against that! We have one person that¡¯s specialized inbat, and Kiron can¡¯t handle that... And I know you¡¯re strong, but you¡¯re the Original of Mechanical Arts, not of Combat. We just can¡¯t deal with that right now..." Sky hurriedly yelled out, as if trying to convince Eisen in pure fear not to go there, but the old man simply chuckled. "So it¡¯s a ce with numerous, Unique species, where one can fight to their heart¡¯s extent, and where you can find all kinds of special materials? With that alone, you have three Originals convinced, me included of course. And I doubt it would be hard to convince Evalia toe along either, and we¡¯ll have to talk to Xenia about it when we get to our destination." The old man exined as he smiled at Sky reassuringly, reaching out to rub his hand through the boy¡¯s short blue hair. "Just trust me, alright?" Slowly, the level 15 Fey-kin, and with that sharing the spot of weakest person in the group with Komer, nodded with a scared sigh. He was weak, and scared that he was going to die if they were to enter such a scary ce, but nheless, he felt safe when he was around this weird old man. And as such, he only had one thing to say. "...Alright..." Chapter 145 Death Prevention After they talked a bit longer about the different inds, Sky once more climbed to the front of the carriage to sit with his sister, while Eisen and Komer stayed in the back. What Sky could tell Eisen about the ind group that they just made their goal to conquer was that each ind was a different type of field dungeon. While the central Ind¡¯s was thergest and most developed one, the field dungeons on the others were far more dangerous and specialized. One ind was a tomb with numerous undead roaming around, while another was an Ind of slime and ooze monsters. There even seemed to be an ind there that was infested by golems. That Ind group was truly the perfect ce for the originals to y around, wasn¡¯t it? But until then, they would need to reach the Magic City first, and then meet up with all the other originals. If he was going to conquer those inds, he felt like it was only right to do it with all of them together. That alone would take a while, and even then, since Eisen could basically only be ¡¯awake¡¯ every four in-game days, it would end up being quite a while from this perspective. On top of that, Eisen would obviously need to make arge vessel for them to travel first. ording to Sky, it would take a few weeks to reach that ind again, so he would need to ce everything they needed into the ship. Somewhere where Evalia could freely y music, paint, or sculpt, where Jyuuk and his beasts had more than enough space, where Brody could practice with hisbat skills, where Xenia could study her magic and y around with that, and of course where everyone could sleep. And obviously they would also need a space where they could store all the materials and ingredients they would need for crafting, repairs and food. They would probably need some kind of crew as well, considering howrge Eisen was imagining the finished ship to be, but that could be handledter. For now, Eisen had a few things that he wanted to do in rtion to this n. He wanted to properly n everything out with some actual construction ns, he needed to get the materials that were needed for such arge project, he would need to see to what extent the other originals wanted to help him, and he would need to look for a ce where he could actually construct the ship. Before then, they would of course need to first reach their destination, during which Eisen had some other things to do. The first was to figure out how far Eisen¡¯s two tamed monsters could go "Alright, Caria, Melissa, can you create bees for other flowers as well?" The old man asked with a smile, and the Myconid that was still sitting on hisp nodded smugly. "Hehe, of course Caria and Melly can do that! We are the bestest, of course!" As Caria eximed this, Melissa seemed to agree with her as she quickly nodded while buzzing loudly and pping her wings around. "Of course you two are. Now, can I ask you two to make Bee variations of all of these? You can take your time, and I ask you to only make one for each type." Eisen asked them,ying down a good amount of different nts and flowers on the table in front of him from the crates he grabbed before. Those included different things. First, there was of course Byron, which Eisen was the most important ingredient when it came to making mana potions, at least low-grade ones. Next, there nts and flowers of all kind, one that would relieve thirst, or one that would prevent death for a short amount of time, or one that simply healed you from anymon disease you may suffer from. Excited to see so many different nts, Caria immediately stood up and grabbed all of them at once, furiously nodding at her master. "Caria and Melly will do their best!" She eximed, immediately sitting down in the corner together with Melissa to start with their new task. Coincidentally, all of the nts that Eisen gave them were those that Eisen wanted to use in making potions right now, a few of them belonging to the same type of category as a product Eisen made before, First-Aid. That meant the few antidotes that Eisen wanted to make, as well as emergency potions for special conditions one may experience throughout different travels. "What are you going to make first, Eisen?" Komer asked fully with curiosity as he was fiddling around with his fingers behind his back, leaning forward to look at the different nts in the crates. Turning away from setting everything up, Eisen took a look at the materials. "First, a potion for the worst-case scenario, Death. I know that for you and I, dying won¡¯t be a problem, but there will still be some kind of repercussions. Since that¡¯s the case, we should still try to avoid dying if possible, especially in the middle ofbat when you¡¯re with others. If you should die, yourpanions can administer the potion to you, and your death will be postponed. Then, you can be healed and your life will be saved. The nt that I¡¯ll be using is Olvar, the ck petals over there." Eisen exined, grabbing the small bag filled with the small, round flowerpetals. Seeing that there really wasn¡¯t that much in there, Komer looked around to see if there were more Olvar petals around, before turning to the old man. "That won¡¯t turn into that many potions, right?" The young merchant asked, and Eisen looked at him while shaking his head. "Actually, this little amount is more than enough to fill up a whole barrel. Basically, what you do while making potions is to extract the essence of the natural ability that certain materials have. In some nts, like Amran or Byron, that essence is rtively loosely packed, while in Olvar, it¡¯s tightly packed. It already has a quite strong effect if you eat the flower itself, you just don¡¯t get the same effect as you would with a potion, which is why you usually make potions out of them anyway, at least for this purpose." Eisen exined as he was slowly grinding up all the petals that were in the bag. "Ah, I see... What¡¯s the difference in the effect, then?" Komer asked curiously, and Eisen closed his eyes, trying to remember. "Hmm... I think it was something like simply preventing decay. In the book where I read up on these nts it said that it used to be used during wars to preserve the dead bodies of prominent figures so that a proper ceremonial service could be held after the battles. But these days, it¡¯s rtively peaceful amongst the nations, so it¡¯s not really needed anymore all that often, only when someone important dies through monsters." Eisen exined as he set the powder to the side and began to work on grinding down some mana crystals, while Komer looked at the bowl filled with the ck substance, getting a sudden idea. "Wait, couldn¡¯t we change the potion around or use the petals in a different way to make a preservative? That would be amazingly popr, right?" The young man asked, feeling kind of proud of this new business idea, but Eisen shook his head without a second to think about it. "Komer, take a few grains of the powder and ce them on your tongue, please." Eisen told Komer with a loud sigh, knowing that this would be the easiest way to show why that wouldn¡¯t be a good idea. While Komer pinched the powder with a confused smile, Eisen already began pouring his mana into a self-filling cup to give Komer for what was about to happen. The moment that the first little grain touched Komer¡¯s tongue, he immediately stepped back and convulsed at the taste that just entered his mouth. Eisen quickly handed the cup to Komer, who immediately downed the water while continuosly pouring in more mana into the cup to get more water to appear. Only after a few seconds, Komer mmed the cup on the table, staring at Eisen in shock. "Wh-what the actual fuck?! What is that shit?!" He yelled out, not even thinking about what he said and how he just expressed himself. With a wry smile, Eisen looked over at the bowl filled with the powder and nodded at Komer. "It¡¯s the reason why it can¡¯t be used to preserve food... It¡¯s so bitter and sour that it instantly throws your body off. Nothing can eat that stuff. Actually, most people that don¡¯t have a high enough Endurance stat are going to throw up once they regain consciousness after the potion was used on them." After the old man exined this, he continued grinding down a few different materials, all the while looking at a small piece of paper on the side of the worktable. He ground down a few different materials, all of them being substances needed to properly turn the Olvar powder into a Death-Preventing liquid, most of them different crystals or root-saps. "Alright, Komer, I ced the bowls down in the order that I need them, so just hand them to me whenever I tell you to. I need to constantly stir this." Eisen exined as he poured different liquids into arge crystal pot that Eisen made just for this purpose. Komer nodded slowly, still trying to scrape the wicked taste off his tongue with his teeth, and Eisen asked him to give him the first bowl, which he quickly emptied out above therge pot after filling the whole space inside the pot out with his mana. Immediately, the crystal powder that Eisen just poured in was absorbed into the liquids as Eisen was stirring, before the old man asked for the next bowl. One after another, Eisen emptied out all the bowls except the one containing the Olvar powder, which was promptly emptied out into the mixture as well. The light-colored sludge in the pot now immediately turned a deep ck, so dark that you weren¡¯t even able to tell that there was actually anything inside. "Alright, now I just need to wait, huh..? Komer, you can take a seat... I have to stir this for half an hour." The old man sighed out loud, as he constantly poured as much mana as he could into the pot while it was quickly being absorbed by the liquid. Exactly thirty minutester, Eisen finally stopped stirring, and looked down at the dark liquid as he cracked his knuckles. Quickly, Eisen looked over at the piece of paper lying by his side, following the instructions as written there further. Eisen began to pour in his mana in a certain way, directly above the center of the liquid, spiraling it around counter-clockwise. Soon enough, the liquid began to move around in a circle as well, the ck color slowly spiraling toward the center while leaving behind a pure white liquid, that was still so thick that you couldn¡¯t see through it. After a few seconds, all the ck parts werepletely gone, and a fist-sized orb mmed against Eisen¡¯s palm after shooting out from the liquid in the pot. Without hesitating for a second, Eisen held his other hand above the pot and began to pour his mana inside while spiraling it around clockwise. And with that, the white liquid also began moving around in a circle, before slowly being pulled toward a spot in the center and forming a sphere there, that now mmed into Eisen¡¯s hand again, leaving the crystal pot so empty that one may think nothing was inside there in the first ce. "Great! It worked out properly. Now I just need to make the potion out of it... Although this seems asplicated as that amazing potion Morrom made me create to break through the skill, huh?" Eisen chuckled lowly as he ced both spheres down on the table. Curious, Komer looked at Eisen, wondering what those two spheres were for now, asking exactly that. With a smile, Eisen quickly responded. "It¡¯s nothing special. I just need tobine those two through my newest Alchemy Ability, and then I can make potions out of it. They¡¯re basically still ingredients at this point." "Huh? Didn¡¯t you just split them up?" Komer asked confused, and the old man shrugged. "I know, I was kind of confused when I read the recipe as well, but that¡¯s how it seems to be. And the way to turn these into potions seems pretty different to usual as well, so... I guess I¡¯ll just have to try. None of this is especially expensive, it was about a gold coin for everything in total. Considering that we can make at least ten times that if we sell the potions, it¡¯s pretty profitable even if I do something wrong a few times." Eisen exined, before looking down at the crystal-balls lying on the table. For some reason, doing all this felt somewhat nostalgic, but Eisen had not a single clue why. Chapter 146 Arrival In The Magic City As Eisen was holding he two spheres for the creation of the Death Prevention Potion in his hands, he began to procedure tobine them, artificially splitting his mana up into two types, and then bringing it together again to merge the two materials together. There was actually a reason why Eisen couldn¡¯t make this potion beforehand. He had to use this ability that he only gained once his Alchemy Rank rose to 3 to make this potion, as he needed to merge them together in a special way. The two types of mana that he would use to merge the ck and white crystal spheres each had to spiral around, opposite to the direction as they needed to when Eisen extracted the liquids in the first ce, meaning that he spiralled the mana in the white sphere counter-clockwise, and the mana in the ck sphere clockwise. Apparently, for many special materials, not only these two spheres, there would also be special ways tobine them, so Eisen had to look out for that and inform himself about those things, especially before working with expensive or rare materials, instead of identally ruining the materials and needing to get new ones. Either way, now, Eisen had the finished material that he needed to make the potions, which would only need to be ground down and mixed with water, that would then be distilled away. So, Eisen spent the next while doing just that, carefully cing away the small amount of water that was distilled away and storing it in one of the empty small barrels that Eisen bought before, while storing the actual potions in one of therger barrels. "Now, ording to Morrom, the guy that showed me how to do Alchemy and Enchanting, potions like this usually get bought by the Adventurer¡¯s Guild a lot, and inrge quantities. Once we get to the Magic City, we should probably go there first to sell this." Eisen told Komer as he began filling arge ss bottle with the potions, and set that bottle to the side at a safe spot. This one was for their own use. And now, Eisen finally took a look at the notification window that popped up once he finished the potions. [Charon Potion] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A Potion to prevent death made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Once a person lost their life or is about to lose their life, and this potion is given to them by atest of 30 seconds after death, they will temporarily be able to be healed, and their life will be saved. [Effect] effect for 1 Minute Eisen read through the information and slowly nodded in satisfaction. As far as he could remember, Charon was the ferryman that guided dead souls across the river Styx in Greek Mythology, so it fit quite well toward a potion that would prevent death, as their souls would not need guidance at the moment. With a smile, Eisen began to clean up the equipment that he used just now, hoping that there wouldn¡¯t be any residues of the potion¡¯s bitterness leftover that could ruin other potions¡¯ taste. Well, potions usually didn¡¯t taste all that great, but Eisen didn¡¯t want to have the potions taste horrible. If that were to happen, they wouldn¡¯t be able to sell them as a high-quality item anymore. And quite soon after Eisen finished the potions, the two tamed monsters also made another breakthrough. [Crowned Queen Bee Melissa has created a new type of worker-bee with the assistance of Lesser Myconid Druid Caria] [New Species Found - Byron Bee] With a happy and satisfied smile, Eisen turned over to them, squatting down to take a look at the new Bee that the two of them created together. "Good job, you two! Another new Bee then, huh?" The old man chuckled as the new Bee, a small, light blue one, flew over to his hand andnded on his palm. "Look! It¡¯s the second Bee that Caria and Melly made together!" Caria eximed as she jumped up and stood in front of Eisen with a smug expression, stemming her fists onto her hips like she always did when talking like this. "You did great, both of you! And this was much quicker than with the first one. Do you think you can do it even faster for the third type?" Eisen asked, knowing full well what kind of answer woulde now. Caria quickly crossed her arms and nodded as she closed her eyes, saying just one thing. "Obviously! Come on, Melly, let¡¯s get to work!" She yelled out as sheughed loudly, sitting back down to get to work again. The way that these two created the special types of Bees together was unknown to Eisen, but it worked well and helped both of them gain proficiency in their skills and level up, so the old man couldn¡¯tin and simply let them do their thing in the end. "Alright, Komer, let¡¯s continue. Ah, you should best try toe up with a good price for the charon potions as well before we get to town. It¡¯s best to have all that figured out. You bought the materials, so you should be able to have all the info you need, right?" Eisen asked as he began preparing for the next potion he wanted to make, a simple antidote made out of the juices of the Kinzo root. "Mhm, I¡¯ll figure everything out, don¡¯t worry. Anyway, do you need any help right now?" The young man asked as he leaned forward to look at the materials on the table. "I don¡¯t think so, no, this is just regr old potionmaking right now. I need to crush the roots to a pulp to get the juices out properly, mix those juices with a little bit of water and mana crystal powder, and then boil the liquids away. It¡¯s nothingplicated. Although you could give me the small vials on the shelf over there and help me fill them upter." "Alright! Although... aren¡¯t these a bit small?" Komer asked with a frown as he held the tiny ss vial between his fingers, and Eisen nodded slowly. "Yeah, that¡¯s because the detoxification potency of Kinzo roots is pretty high. Although the potions can only act as an antidote for the type of poison you may be injected with through a regr snake¡¯s bite. Such a small amount is enough for that, which is pretty convenient, since you don¡¯t necessarily get a lot of juices from these, it seems." As the roots in the bowl in front of Eisen were slowly being ground down, only a small amount of the sap was being released, of which Eisen needed quite a lot more. In the end, Eisen continued grinding down most of the Kinzo roots that they had, and made some simple antidotes out of them in the way that he had exined to Komer, slowly filling the small vials up. Eisen spent the rest of the in-game day simply making all kinds of different potions, both to gain more proficiency in his Alchemy skill as well as to simply make some general items to sell in the city soon. Even though there were probably a lot of alchemists and enchanters there already, it couldn¡¯t hurt to still have arger variety of items to sell, even if it was only to make it look like they had a lot of different items in general. After all, a stall where you could buy 100 items was a lot more attractive than a stall where you could buy only one item. Either way, that¡¯s what Eisen did for the rest of the day, before logging back out in the evening. --- The Sunday was also quite uneventful for Benjamin, Tony, Benji, Katy and Sean, as they simply spent the day walking through town, where Benjamin could show them all the different ces. But really, nothing happened that day that was worth mentioning, beside that Benjamin was constantly happy throughout every second. And in the evening, Natsuo called the house to let Benjamin know they were around halfway there, and would probably arrive sometime in the early Monday morning, so Benjamin went ahead and prepared everyone¡¯s rooms, since they were sure to be tired. Since L and L said they wanted to sleep in the same room as Katy and Sean, and those two were also excited for that, the old man really only needed to prepare one more room. He would have more than enough time to prepare the other rooms for Melody and her family once they arrived in the evening on Monday. So, overall, the day ended quite uneventfully, and Benjamin began ying the game in the evening again. And it seemed like Benjamin turned into Eisen at the absolutely perfect time. "Yes, Sir, go ahead ande in. Just don¡¯t be scared, there¡¯s a wolf and a half-dragon inside." Eisen heard Komer¡¯s voice through the carriage¡¯s door, that was slowly opening while Eisen¡¯s body slowly turned back from metal to the normal flesh he so enjoyed to have. "And an old man, a little girl and a few bees!" Eisen eximed to warn who he expected to be the Guard that was going to quickly inspect the carriage, so that nothing could go wrong. "M¡¯Lord, you¡¯re awake again!" Kiron eximed with a happy smile, while the Guard looked at Eisen with a frown. "Ah, so are you the owner of this Carriage?" The Guard asked as he looked around inside, and the old man quickly nodded. "Yes, I am. And good morning, Kiron." "I see... I was quite surprised to see two little children driving the carriage, and what the young man there said didn¡¯t make much sense to me either, so I was rather confused." After the guard exined this, he continued to look around for a little while, before then leaving the carriage through the door again, quickly followed by Eisen, who could already see Sky¡¯s annoyed expression as he was standing next to Komer. "So, everything alright in there?" Eisen asked the Guard, who quickly nodded at the question as he signaled a fellow Guard to let them through. "Alright then, everyone, let¡¯s get going!" Eisen eximed with augh, feeling quite lively immediately after waking up. Although he technically didn¡¯t really sleep anymoretely, as his mind was constantly active. After greeting everyone in the group, Eisen chose to sit in the front of the carriage so that he could see everything while they were driving through, taking a seat next to the two Fey-Kin, one of them continuosly pouting. After a while, Eisen finally gave in and asked what was wrong. "What¡¯s wrong? What¡¯s wrong, you ask? It¡¯s that everybody keeps treating us as kids! I¡¯m 22 years old, for the gods¡¯ sake!" He practically yelled out, not even fully able to concentrate on his book. "I know, I know. Don¡¯t worry, I doubt you¡¯ll look for this forever. You¡¯re still technically children for your race, aren¡¯t you?" "I... I mean, I guess so... Although we¡¯ll always look pretty young, we should still age a bit, right? Bree, for human standarts we should turn out like 14 or 15 year olds in another 20 years, right?" The pink-haired girl held her finger to her cheek in thought for a few seconds, before simply shrugging. "Maybe? I don¡¯t know any others like us, so..." She exined, looking around the town excitedly, bringing both Sky¡¯s and Eisen¡¯s attention to the scenery as well. To Eisen, this city really felt somewhat futuristic, as if someone was trying to build an Utopia here. At least that¡¯s what the serene, white buildings and the overly clean streets looked like to him. "Huh, quite an interesting ce, isn¡¯t it?" The old man muttered out immediately, looking up at the buildings that nearly all seemed to be taller than any he has seen in Ornier. While Eisen was trying to figure out if his theory about the most prominent craftsmen was true by looking at the shops around, a small notification popped up in front of Eisen¡¯s face. [New Message from Jyuuk] Hey Eisen! I just met up with Brody, and he seems quite happy with the idea of founding a guild. We¡¯re on our way to Handor right now for that n you messaged me about. Evalia is on her way too. See you then. Chapter 147 Black Seed Eisen read through the message that appeared in front of him, quickly responding to Jyuuk with a smile on his face. If all of them were on their way, then they could soon meet up, and once Eisen gained two more levels and finished his quest, they could found the guild. Noticing that Eisen was typing something in mid-air, Bree turned over to him with her head tilted to the side. "Hm? Did Jyuuk message you again?" She asked, before Eisen quickly nodded. "Yeah, he did. Seems like he met Brody, the Original of Combat, and the both of them are on their way here. Apparently, Evalia is too, so everyone should be here in at most a week or two." "H-huh? Wait, so that means... all those that peaked will be in one ce..?" Immediately, Bree grasped her chest while you could basically just hear her heartbeat speed up in excitement. "Exactly. Although that will happen more often from that point on, since we¡¯ll found our guild soon." Eisen exined to them, and the two Fey-kin looked at each other in surprise. "Your guild? I thought you said you needed to reach level 100 for that first?" "Yes, I do. But it¡¯s just two more levels until I receive the quest to reach Level 100, and I¡¯ll be working toward finishing that for a while. It¡¯s not like we¡¯re in a rush, since everyone will stay here for a while, and everyone except for Xenia, who we couldn¡¯t contact yet, agreed toing to the ind group as well once we built the ship." "I guess so, yeah. And there¡¯s a Dungeon in town, so if we need to wait for everyone else to arrive, you can spend a few days in there to level up, right? You can get pretty cool stuff from dungeons as well!" Bree responded with an excited smile, simply thinking about the fact that she¡¯s going to be able to be there when all five originals meet up. With a smile, Eisen quickly nodded, thinking that this was a good idea. "Let¡¯s do that. We should get some other stuff out of the way first, but I¡¯ve wanted to see a Dungeon for a while anyway. We should find a ce to stay at for the next few weeks first, though." After exining this, Eisen turned over to someone that seemed to live in the town and asked them for directions to a nearby inn and stable, and the group made their way there. Once again, the group followed the usual scenario of leaving Aulu, Cabarum and the Carriage inside of the stables, and everyone stood in front of the entrance of the stables to talk to each other about what to do next, while Eisen was currently cing CF-1 and CR-1 into his own backpack and Bree ced her own giant backpack on her back. "Alright, I think we should split up for a while. Komer, you go and take a look at themerce district, to see where we should best start selling, and make sure that we don¡¯t break any rules. In Ornier we could just build up a random stall, but we don¡¯t know if that¡¯s the case here. Bree, Sky, you two should go to a library or a magician to see if you can find a proper upation for Sky. Maybe it would be best if the three of you went together, actually." Eisen exined as he took out the receiver-disy connected to CB-1 to check on the situation, seeing that the mountain-ranges of the Dwarven Country did indeede closer, but were still a few hours away at least. The three that the old man just talked to quickly nodded while Sky smiled incredibly happily that he was finally able to get an upation after all this time stuck at level 15. "We¡¯ll do that, then! And where will you be going, Eisen?" Komer asked while looking around the ce in awe, and Eisen exined what he would be doing. "Caria, Melissa, Kiron and I will go to look for information. Both about Xenia, and that wizard kid that has thest of Kirisho¡¯s shards. I was already told some information, so I already have a general lead, but I¡¯ll still need to figure out if everything I was told is still true. And I also have to look for Bolremgar, the Bronze Dragon that¡¯s supposed to live near this town." "Alright, then be careful, Eisen. And try not to let yourself be seen in, you know, ¡¯that¡¯ form..." Komer said cautiously as he scratched the back of his neck with a wry smile, before Eisen lowly chuckled and turned around, signaling to the three that he would go with that they were leaving. "Don¡¯t worry about it, Komer. I can take care of myself." And with that, the group split into two for the day, and Eisen made his way through town with a giant Bee on his shoulder, holding the hand of a girl barely half his height, and a Half-Dragon with crystal-like scales. Obviously, that got a few looks. Not only because of the two obvious monsters, but also because Eisen was walking around in an incredibly high-quality suit, while Caria, who looked like a regr human girl, was walking around barefoot with her feet dirtied through the dust, sand and dirt on the ground. Obviously there were those amongst the civilian onlookers that misunderstood, and thought that Eisen was some kind of horrible old, rich man that wouldn¡¯t even buy a little girl shoes. With a sigh, annoyed at the scowls and stares he received especially from elderly women and mothers, the group simply continued walking around until Caria spotted something in the distance and let go of Eisen¡¯s hand, sprinting ahead. "What? Caria, where are you going?" The old man asked, while the myconid girl stopped a few hundred meters ahead, looking at what seemed to be colorful flowers at a botanist¡¯s front disy. "Jeez... Melissa, could you fly ahead and make sure she doesn¡¯t do anything there?" With a quick buzzing sound that told Eisen that she happily did so, Melissa took off from the old man¡¯s shoulder and rushed over to Caria, who quickly caught her and hugged her tightly. Although, that may have been a mistake on Eisen¡¯s part. Immediately when Melissanded on the Myconid¡¯s arms, Eisen could hear a scream in the distance. "Shit..." Eisen sighed loudly as he began running toward his two tamed monsters, quickly followed by his Knight Kiron. "G-Get away from that thing, little girl! That¡¯s dangerous!" The woman behind the stall yelled out, catching the attention of the people walking around on the street as well as some guards, who quickly rushed to the scene, getting there a little earlier than Eisen did. Quickly, the guards pointed their des at Melissa, obviously not frightening only her, but also Caria who was holding her. "Eh? What are you meanies doing?" She yelled out, before one of the guards reached out, trying to grab Melissa and tear her away from Caria. "Don¡¯t worry, little girl, everything is fine. The scary monster will be gone soon..." He eximed, obviously frightened of Melissa himself, but the moment that the guard touched Melissa, her trusty soldiers appeared out of practically nowhere, sitting on Caria¡¯s cap and staring the Guard in the eye, causing him to jump backward. At that time, Eisen also finally arrived. "Sorry about that. These are my tamed monsters, so they aren¡¯t dangerous. So please put your des away." Eisen exined, standing between Caria and Melissa and the Guards, the one that just tried to grab Melissa quickly responding. "Huh? Those bees are your tamed monsters? No matter how peaceful they are, how can you let a little girl y with them?!" He yelled out, quickly supported by the onlookers. "Yeah! How could you do that?!" "What kind of man are you? Letting such a girl run around barefoot and y with monsters!" "Someone should take that child away from you!" With those yells, Eisen couldn¡¯t help but hold his hand in front of his face, slowly responding to all those ims everyone was making. "This again..? Listen here, the ones currently with me are all monsters. Melissa the Queen Bee, Kiron the Half-Dragon, and Caria the Myconid." Eisen eximed loud enough for everyone to hear, trying to quickly clear up the situation that has happened far too often until now. "A Myconid, how could anyone believe that?! Myconids are ugly monsters, Mushrooms that were infested with mana that they stood up and-" The guard eximed, obviously not believing what Eisen told him, but was quickly interrupted by the sound of a certain little girl trying to say something with tears in her eyes. "U-U-Ugly...? Eisen, is Caria ugly? But Caria thought she was cute, and Melly said the same thing! Did everyone lie to me..?" She asked with a sad voice, pulling on the old man¡¯s sleeve before he quickly kneeled down and looked at Caria, lightly rubbing his hand over her cheek to get rid of the tear rolling down. She really was a kid in the end. "Of course I didn¡¯t lie to you, Caria. That just means that you¡¯re not only a super cute girl, but also the cutest Myconid in existence if this man couldn¡¯t believe you were one." Suddenly, Caria stared at Eisen with wide open eyes and then looked back and forth between him and the guard, before finally turning to the guard and folding her hands together. "Th-Thank you, Sir, for calling Caria that cute." She said with a soft smile, happy at hearing that she was cute after thinking she was being insulted, before the Guard sighed out loudly. "Really? Is this some sort of game? Or does this kid really think she¡¯s a myconid and you¡¯re just ying along?" The guard asked, understanding that Caria didn¡¯t seem to be in any immediate danger, and that this old man was at the very least rtively kind. But the guard became a bit annoyed once more when Eisen shook his head. "No, she¡¯s actually a myconid, she just evolved to look quite humanoid." "Sir, please stop lying to me. She seems to be your granddaughter, yes? So you shouldn¡¯t do things like that, letting her think she¡¯s a monster." The guard exined before turning around and leaving, considering that everything seemed under control. "Hmpf! What a dummy! Caria really is a myconid, Eisen!" Caria eximed as she grabbed therge hand that was offered to her again with an annoyed pout, while Melissa climbed onto her shoulder and nudged her face to cheer her up. "Thanks, Melly..." Eisen smiled lowly and looked around, noticing that the crowd seemed to have dissipated after the guard left, and saw that the owner of the flower-stall was still looking at them nervously. "Ah, Caria, why did you actuallye here? Just because there were pretty flowers?" Quickly, Caria shook her head, before pointing at a few certain flowers. "Those flowers are in pain. They told me so..." She exined, and Eisen frowned in response to that exnation. The old man held his fingers in front of his eyes and quickly activated his truth seeing eyes with his mana sight, and immediately saw what Caria was talking about. Intertwined with the light green, natural mana contained in the flowers were strains of deep ck where you could instantly tell that it didn¡¯t belong. Eisen followed the ck strains until he noticed a small ck dot at the bottom of the container where the flowers were held. After sticking his hand into that container, Eisen pulled out what simply seemed to be a ck seed the size of the fingernail on Eisen¡¯s pinky, before looking at the owner of the stall. "Young miss, excuse me. It seems that this seed was slowly making your flowers sick. I advise you take proper care of them, and exchange the yellow flowers in the bottom right here." "Hm? No, impossible, I only ced those there this morning..." The stall owner said with a frown, looking at the flowers that this old man pointed at, before hurrying over. "What? Crap, how the hell did this happen? They really are sick! Thank you for telling me, Sir, and sorry about before. I wasn¡¯t aware that the Bee was a tamed monster." "Don¡¯t worry about it, really. Oh, and do you mind if I take this seed with me? I doubt you have any use for it." "Go ahead. You can take some flowers with you as well, if you want. Just to say sorry for what happened, and to say thank you for telling me about the flowers." The woman said, and Eisen greatfully epted the offer, telling Caria to pick out a few that she wanted while Eisen continued looking at the seed. This was definitely weird, and this wasn¡¯t just a regr seed that was identally dropped to the bottom of the flowers either. When Eisen looked at this seed with his truth-seeing-eyes, the colored ring in front of it that told him the rank of materials and items was green, which Eisen remembered to be the color of Rank 4 items, simply judging from what he saw in Ornier a few times. But until now, Eisen hasn¡¯t ever seen a Rank 4 seed. Chapter 148 Meeting Xenia "M¡¯Lord, where will we begin searching for information?" Kiron asked curiously once the small group of four, plus the different bees hiding out all over the ce, left the flower-stall behind again. From there, Caria was allowed to pick out a few flowers for free, and she chose some that she thought were prettiest. She was even allowed to ¡¯Rescue¡¯ the flowers that were being infected by the ck seed that Eisen found, since the owner of the stall would have thrown them away in the end anyway, considering that they were already starting to slowly wilt away. After a bit of thought, Eisen shrugged lightly before stopping at a ce where they wouldn¡¯t be in the way of anyone walking around. "I¡¯m not too sure, actually. I have a feeling that it¡¯s going to be rtively easy to find Xenia, finding the Bronze Dragon isn¡¯t all that important right now, and I don¡¯t have many leads on the magician that has thest of Kirisho¡¯s shards, which is my priority right now. I¡¯m thinking of just asking around if anyone knows someone that fits his description. There aren¡¯t many people like him around." Eisen exined as he looked around, trying to figure out where the group needed to go next. "I see. Then would it not be smartest to send out Melissa¡¯s Scout Bees? As you said, the man you are looking for is quite unique, is he not? Surely, even the scouts should be able to find him." The Half-Dragon suggested as he smiled over at the Queen Bee, who quickly tilted her head to the side, before five queen Bees appeared out of what seemed to be nowhere. After Cial killed some of Melissa¡¯s scouts, she ended upying a few more eggs so that she could make up for it, although it took a little time for her to feelfortable simply ¡¯recing¡¯ two of her precious children. "That might be a good idea, yes. Alright, Scouts, who we¡¯re looking for is a tall and slim elven man with long white hair that has a blue streak running along it on the right side of his head." The old man told the scouts, before they immediately flew off into the distance, spreading out around the area. "Alright, should we go look for him now?" Eisen suggested before continuing to walk around, simply asking random passerbys if they knew the Elf that Eisen was talking about. Most people didn¡¯t seem to know, or rather care, while those that did seem to at least know something felt suspicious of Eisen and simply didn¡¯t want to tell him. There were even those that seemed a light bit frightened by Eisen, considering that he was wearing a very straightced face and had arge bee on his shoulder and a dragon behind him. Together with the charisma stat that was increased through his suit and his titles that made it easier to change a person¡¯s opinion of him, that all seemed to somehow turn into a rather scary aura, so Eisen couldn¡¯t really me anyone for their reaction. It was only when Eisen turned to a woman with a young boy with her that he got an answer, from exactly that young boy. "Huh? Mommy, isn¡¯t that the Firework Lady¡¯s friend?" The boy asked as he turned to his mother, immediately making Eisen¡¯s neck cramp up in surprise, considering that he just heard something quite weird. "Firework Lady? Do you mean a High-Elf woman called Xenia?" Eisen asked with a frown on his face, before the mother of the boy slowly nodded. "Yes, I think that may be one of the people you see around Miss Xenia quite a lot. She came to this town very recently and spent most of the time here trying to better everything through amazing magic. But the children really just care about the pretty firework that she created with one of her spells during the town¡¯sst festival." The womanughed quietly, creating some small creases in the corners of her eyes, showing that she was both very tired and already starting to age a slight bit. "I see, I heard about that. I wish I could have been here to see it. But I¡¯m just wondering, do you perhaps know where I might find Xenia? If she¡¯s friends with the man I¡¯m looking for, she¡¯s the best clue, is she not?" The old man chuckled, trying to show his goodwill so that the woman would calm down. This was all actually quite bothersome. While Eisen was the type of person to smile andugh a lot in the first ce, he didn¡¯t really feel like doing so at a time like this when he was thinking about such a topic as the amulet and Kirisho. Because of that, considering Eisen¡¯s overwhelming sizepared to basically everyone he met so far, he was obviously quite a scary person when he didn¡¯t smile already. Trying to counteract his stats and titles, Eisen as such tried to force himself to smile, at the very least while he needed to talk to people he didn¡¯t know, or rather those who didn¡¯t know him. For a little while, the woman seemed to think about the question she was just asked, before looking up at Eisen and telling him what she knew. "Well, as far as I¡¯m aware, she is the type of person to be constantly indulged in research, so you will most likely find her in the Mage¡¯s Guild¡¯s research section." "Huh, I see. Thank you very much, young miss." Eisen said with a soft smile, lightly nodding her head at her, before quickly making his way toward the ce that the woman then exined the town¡¯s guilds to be. "M¡¯Lord, so this means that we will go looking for Miss Xenia first after all?" Kiron asked, trying to sum up the conversation that he just listened to from behind Eisen, who slowly nodded. "Yes, I guess so. If that guy¡¯s Xenia¡¯s friend, then we¡¯ll be able to see him. And who knows, maybe he¡¯s actually not a bad person anymore? I¡¯d prefer it if I could get the Amulet¡¯s shard without mentally scarring someone else, after all." Eisenughed lightly as he moved his fingers through his beard, really hoping this to be the case. After a while of walking, the group finally made it to the Mage¡¯s Guild, the 100%rgest guild in the whole town. It was rather a huge tower, standing out amongst basically every other building in the whole area, and the doors were practically constantly open through all the people walking in and out of the building. Slowly, Eisen made his way through the crowd and entered the Guild with his tamed monsters and Kiron walking in front of him so that he couldn¡¯t lose sight of them, before looking around to see if he could find the way toward that research area the woman mentioned before. Soon enough, Eisen managed to find a map to the building, and saw that the research area was on the third floor, which Eisen quickly wanted to get to. However, before he managed to climb the stairs to get there, he was stopped by an employee of the guild. The young man looked at Eisen with a frown and held his hand in front of him. "Sorry, Sir, could I see your Guild Tag?" He asked, but Eisen simply shook his head. "Ah, excuse me. I wasn¡¯t aware this area was only for guild members. I¡¯m just looking for someone and wanted to confirm if she was here, sorry." Eisen apologized, and the man slowly nodded. "I see. Could you tell me who you¡¯re looking for? I¡¯ve been here all day, so I¡¯d know if they¡¯re upstairs." "Oh yes, that would be grand. Thank you, young man." Eisen chuckled lowly and smiled at the man, before continuing. "I¡¯m looking for a High-Elf called Xenia with deep ck hair. You probably know her if you work here." Surprised, the man once more frowned lightly at Eisen, just this time not in suspicion, but rather in confusion. "Yes, of course I know Xenia. And she is upstairs, but she usually asks everyone to leave her alone while she¡¯s conducting her research." "Don¡¯t worry about that. If she wants to see me after hearing who I am, then it¡¯s fine, right? Could you maybe go and ask her for me? My name is Eisen. Just tell her that, and she¡¯s sure to want to meet me." The old man exined, and with even more confusion, the man quickly nodded. But instead of stepping up the stairs, he simply turned around and waved his hands, before a small sphere made out of apparently pure mana appeared mid-air in a way that it was visible to onlookers, before that sphere quickly flew up the stairs. Noticing that Eisen was looking at it in curiosity, the man chuckled softly and looked at him. "Ah, do you not know about such spells? It¡¯s a simple form of mana maniption which a few people use to transfer messages to one another over a short distance. Since I know theyout of this building, I can do it without needing to see it, but usually that wouldn¡¯t be the case. Anyway-" Before the man could even finish his sentence, a loud rumbling appeared from upstairs while multiple people seemed to show surprise, probably due to the person currently rushing down the stairs. "Eisen is here?!" A certain young woman eximed as she rushed downward toward the two men standing at the bottom of the stairs, not caring for anyone who was in the way. The moment that sheid eyes on Eisen and formed a giant smile in response, the old man knew something was off. She wasn¡¯t like this thest time they were talking. Xenia was rather rude and cold back then, right? And there was only one thing that she was interested in like this. "Eisen! There you-" Xenia began yelling out as she was grasping a wooden staff in her hands and was trying to properly move around with her long robes, stopping when she reached the bottom floor, standing in front of Eisen. However, before she could continue to talk, Eisen quickly interrupted her so that this conversation couldn¡¯t even go the way that Xenia was nning. At least not yet. "Xenia, I¡¯ll tell you about my transformation and elementter. First, we need to talk." Eisen said quickly, immediately causing Xenia to snap out of it, at least to an extent. "H-Huh..? I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about... I was just excited to see you after all this time..!" She tried to exin to the old man, who simply sighed loudly and shook his head. "Sure you did. Well, nice to see you again, Xenia. Come on, as I said, we need to talk." Eisen exined, and Xenia hurriedly nodded before immediately rushing toward the guild¡¯s entrance, motioning at the old man to follow. After thanking the baffled Guild Employee for his help, Eisen, Caria, Melissa and Kiron followed her outside and toward a nearby park, where they could seemingly talk in peace. "Alright, now tell me about that weird magma element or whatever that was!" "As I said, not yet. Just calm down for a bit, will you?" Eisen told the young woman as he sat down on a nearby bench, where Caria immediately jumped on hisp, turning to the old man while she was at it. "Eisen? Who is that weird woman?" She asked, pointing toward Xenia who seemed to be just now noticing that someone else was there beside her and Eisen. "That¡¯s not nice, Caria! She¡¯s another one of the Originals, you know?" He chuckled, before turning back to Xenia. "Anyway, Xenia. First, great to see you again, really. Seems like you made quite a name for yourself here. The others are on their way here for a few reasons, so we¡¯ll probably alle together then. Just let me exin the situation that I¡¯m in to you now, alright?" "Great to see you again too, Eisen. And sure, go ahead. I¡¯m quite curious to see what¡¯s going on? You seemed to be freaking out back in the guild, after all." Xenia said in the tone that Eisen remembered her to have, leaving him to sigh quietly. Trying to ignore that Xenia apparently mistook Eisen for a mirror, the old man quickly began to exin what happened to him so far, and what the future ns of the originals were, as well as the situation with Kirisho and the amulet, as well as the person that seemed to be Xenia¡¯spanion. Chapter 149 Dien After Eisen¡¯s exnation of what happened to him so far, Xenia looked at him with a smile. "A Guild, huh? Sounds interesting, and if the others join in as well, it can only be more so, meaning I¡¯m in. And you said that you wanted to get to that ind group?" She asked the old man sitting next to her on the bench, who quickly nodded. "Yes, preferably quite soon. Although I think we should wait a bit longer till then and make sure that we properly prepare. And building arge ship will take a good amount of time anyway." Eisen exined, surprising Xenia immensely. "Huh? You want to build the ship for that yourself?" She asked, showing her light disbelief in her face, but Eisen simply nodded with a light smile. "Mhm, yeah. At least that¡¯s the n so far. I¡¯d like to get everyone¡¯s help and opinion, considering that it¡¯s a huge project and we¡¯d be spending quite some time on the ship until we reach the inds. And then of course we¡¯ll be needing a crew and supplies, as well as materials that we need for when we¡¯re actually on the inds. We don¡¯t know what we can get there, and if there¡¯s really anything we can eat to get once we¡¯re there." "I guess that all makes sense. You are a craftsman after all. I¡¯ll try to support you with magic while you¡¯re working on everything. But anyway, you¡¯re here for something else as well, right? To find that guy you said took that Amulet¡¯s shard?" Xenia asked, resting her chin on her palm in suspicion after crossing her legs, and the old man nodded in response to the question, sighing loudly, since this may as well be quite ufortable. This woman here probably already figured out who Eisen was talking about, considering that the person he was looking for was apparently herpanion. "I¡¯m looking for a tall Elf with long white hair with a blue streak in it. Do you know someone like that?" Eisen asked her, simply looking at the woman wearing a pained expression next to him. After slowly opening her mouth to response, Xenia slowly sighed, telling the side of the story that she knew. "That... That¡¯s Dien. He told me the story about some cursed shard of an amulet as well, but... He described it as fighting some strong spirit-type monster that just attacked them out of nowhere, and that he and his old friends then destroyed the amulet that it possessed... But in the end, after each one of them took one of the shards, the amulet ended up being cursed, giving them nightmares while leaving them unable to sleep without experiencing nightmares." "Mhm, that¡¯s what happened to another guy I met from his old group as well. The other one died already. Not because of the amulet, though, but because he was killed by some loan-sharks." Eisen exined to her, making Xenia slightly jump up in surprise as she looked at the old man, seemingly remembering something. "Wait, you met someone from his old group? Do you have the shard he had?" She asked as she frowned, already knowing the answer to what she was about to ask after Eisen¡¯s answer through the trailer. "Yeah, I do. It was kind of troublesome, but in the end, I managed to get both shards. Only missing the one that this Dien kid has." With a deep frown, Xenia now crossed her arms and stared at Eisen with some obvious curiosity. "I see. So you¡¯re known as the Golden-Eyed Demon after what happened in Ornier, are you not?" She asked, leaning in toward the old man so that the little girl that was with Eisen as well as the Half-Dragon couldn¡¯t hear what she was about to say, not worried by the huge bee on the man¡¯s shoulder at all. "I was excited when I saw that transformation you had, but I wasn¡¯t aware that it ended in something like that." After sighing loudly, Eisen nodded as he slowly activated his transformation in his hand, as well as in his eyes while activating his truth-seeing-eyes as well. "I used these two skills to transform into that ¡¯form¡¯. This here is the transformation through my element, me of the Earth. In my eyes, it¡¯s abination of that elementpletely tweaked to show as only mes together with another skill I gained when I became that Gold Dragon¡¯s Champion. Just let me ask, how do you know what people in Ornier called me?" Eisen asked, trying to figure out if she found out through some specific person telling her about it or if the rumors spread this far across the continent. "H-Huh? Such an interesting element! Hm, it¡¯s obviously a specialbination of the Fire and Earth elements... And it¡¯s the type with a gradient, you say? Let me guess, Fire makes you faster but weaker, while Earth makes you slower but stronger?" Xenia asked curiously, leaning in toward the old man¡¯s hand, slowly touching his skin to see if it really turned into rock. But before she could make skin contact, Eisen pulled away his arm to bring the High-Elf back to reality. "Xenia... you¡¯re right, but wait for a second. Just answer my question, will you? How did you figure out that I¡¯m the Golden-Eyed Demon." With a serious expression, Eisen now stood up and looked down at Xenia, who was longingly looking at Eisen¡¯s still transformed hand and eyes. Reluctantly, she quickly told him, so that they could move on. "Dien¡¯s old party member sent him a letter, telling him that a Demonic Dragon might being for him next. When we heard about the rumors of the Golden-Eyed Demon on the streets, we put one and one together and figured that both cases belonged together, and the one that threatened Dien¡¯s old party member was that Demon." She exined quite swiftly, before Eisen dropped back onto the bench. "Goddammit. So both happened, huh...?" Eisen muttered to himself as he held out his hand toward Xenia, who was curiously examining Eisen¡¯s hand. "John send Dien a letter, and the town found out about everything as well... That¡¯s not good." While Xenia just kept looking at Eisen¡¯s hand and the old man himself seemed to be quite conflicted, a certain little girl reacted. And it wasn¡¯t the little girl sitting on Eisen¡¯sp. For some reason, the Melissa that was at Level 99 for a little while now, chose that this moment was the best to rank up. Slowly, Eisen felt his shoulder grow slightly heavier as something leaned onto the side of his head. Surprised, Eisen looked over to his side before staring at a tiny girl, the size of a toddler, that was sitting there. She had bright yellow hair with a glitter simr to what her fur in her Bee-form had before and quite pale skin, while her fingernails werepletely ck. Her eyes had a golden tint to them, and she had ss-like wings hanging down her back. "No good! Woman bully!" She yelled out with a quite high-pitched voice, pointing forward at Xenia with an angry look on her face. However, she didn¡¯t seem quite threatening, considering that she literally just looked like a naked toddler wearing a weird cosy, especailly once she dropped off Eisen¡¯s shoulder, forgetting that she needed to hold onto him. Hurriedly, Eisen caught her mid-fall, holding her in his arms. "Whoa there, Melissa. Careful, you have arms and legs now!" The old manughed as he quickly took out some cloth out of his backpack, which he used to cover Melissa up so that she wouldn¡¯t walk around butt-naked, while at the same time making it easier to carry her. After all, he couldn¡¯t let her just walk around on her own from now on. But instead of reacting toward what Eisen was currently doing, Melissa just stared at Eisen with cold and nk eyes, slowly tilting her head to the side. "Legs? Arms? Melissa has?" She asked confused, slowly looking herself up and down, especially staring at her fingers, and then at Caria who was looking back at the tiny girl with wide open eyes that were glittering gleefully. "Melly evolved! Whoo!" Caria yelled out, throwing her arms into the air and quickly hugging her little sister that just gained a humanoid form. Surprised, Xenia looked at the two little girls before turning back to Eisen. "Wait, did that Bee just turn into a little girl?" She asked, before Eisen nodded with a soft smile, happy that this happened and curious what Melissa¡¯s new race was. Quickly, the old man opened her status, looking at the race disy, and he was surprised to read ¡¯Empress Bee¡¯ written there. "Oh, interesting! So a step above Queen then? Melissa, do you know if you can do any new things? You don¡¯t seem to have any new skills." Eisen asked her, before the tiny empress closed her eyes in though. "Hmm... Make Queens. Only one for type." She then muttered out quietly, while Eisen tried to decipher what he was just told. "I see... So you can appoint a queen for each type of Bee? Ah, that probably has to do with all the new species you two made, then." Eisen said with a smile, rubbing the top of Melissa¡¯s head, before Xenia tuned in. "Wait, are... are all of them monsters? I mean, I was aware that the guy behind you and that Bee, were monsters, but even that little girl sitting on yourp? She looks so... human. And with her cute hat, she looked like a tiny witch or something like that." Xenia said in surprise, looking at Melissa, Caria and Kiron one after another. "Hmm, so a Dragon-Boy, a Mushroom-Girl and a Bee-Girl" Surprised, Kiron stared back at Xenia, leaning forward to talk to her. "Miss Xenia? How did you figure that out without using appraisal? Do you have a skill simr to M¡¯Lord¡¯s Truth-Seeing-Eyes?" "Huh? Oh, nothing like that. His eyes seem quite interesting, if I¡¯ll be honest. Rather, I can use spirit magic, which is used by most Summoners, and became able to see them through a special spirit magic spell. Spirits tend to stick to what they know and what they like, meaning what is simr to them. Especially so for monsters. There were some small spirit mushrooms growing by the Mushroom-girl¡¯s feet. The Bee girl had some spirit bees flying around her. And you had a rather draconic-looking spirit around you. Actually, you seem to be some kind of royalty, since the spirit is bowing to you." Xenia said with a light grin, feeling smug that she was properly able to analyze what those spirits meant. Still feeling cheered up through Melissa¡¯s evolution, Eisen chuckled softly and nodded in response to what Xenia said. "You¡¯re right, yeah. As I said before, Melissa is an Empress Bee. Caria here is a Lesser Druid Myconid, while Kiron is a Half-Dragon. Ah, by the way, he¡¯s a Rank 9 Monster and the son of the Crystal Dragon God Trygan." Eisen said with a smile, excited to see Xenia¡¯s reaction. And it was really quite entertaining, considering that it was a good mixture of confusion, fear, and excitement. "H-huh? That¡¯s a joke, right? B-But that would exin why that Draconic spirit bowed to him... Kiron, right? Do you maybe have some kind of godly magic that you could show me?" She asked with a curious smile, slowly getting creepily close to the half-dragon, while Kiron himself started freaking out and looking at Eisen to get help. Realizing that they should continue their conversation from earlier anyway, Eisen chuckled and stood up, cing his hand on Xenia¡¯s shoulder from behind. "Hey,e on. We weren¡¯t actuallypletely finished talking yet. Can you introduce me to that Dien guy?" With a wry smile, Xenia crossed her arms again, looking the old man in the eyes. "Of course. I already called him here." Chapter 150 Confrontation Eisen looked at Xenia with confusion, tilting his head to the side lightly. "What do you mean? How did you let Dien know? I was with you the whole time..." The old man asked, thinking about what was going on. The only way that she could have let him know was through a chat message, right? But considering that Dien wasn¡¯t a yer, that would only be possible if he was Xenia¡¯s Knight, simr to how Kiron was his, and that also seemed somewhat unlikely. Noticing that Eisen was confused, Xenia began wearing a smug grin as she held her hand forward with her palm pointed upward. "It¡¯s a Magic Letter! It¡¯s abination of Sorcery for the process, Mana Maniption for the letter¡¯s shape, and Scribing so that I could properly inscribe the mana-letter with the message and the Magic Circle from Sorcery. I was writing on my palm with this little stick on my way here, that¡¯s when I did it." Xenia said with a smug smile, grabbing a small wand from her pocket despite already carrying a staff. Eisen was actually quite interested in the process, but it sounded somewhat abstract to him. However, he did get something from this. If Xenia was able tobine a skill such as scribing with sorcery, then wouldn¡¯t he be able to do the same with enchanting? For example, wouldn¡¯t he be able to simply draw enchantment circles on the ground with ink instead of having to carve it into a surface? At the very least, it should save some time if Eisen wanted to simply test a few enchantments. And if it was possible tobine scribing with enchanting, then it should be the same with other skills too, right? He may be able to create a 3D enchantment circle out of wood or metal that would make it easier to ce into things, and maybe a bit more durable. With such thoughts, Eisen began scratching his beard, falling off into a deep mindest of different crafting possibilities, simr to what Xenia did when interested in magic, just that his version was faced inward and hers outward. However, Xenia saw that expression that was coincidentally pointed toward Xenia¡¯s wand, and misinterpreted it as interest in that item itself. "Hehe, are you curious about this~? This is my absolute pride! You see, there are certain materials in this world that can transform when given enough mana! And that also works with your element! So you can make tons and tons of different materials with different elements! Maybe you should look into that, maybe you can make some cute items out of them? That takes a lot of mana though, so maybe you won¡¯t be able to do it... Anyway, for a while, I constantly infused this pure magic gem with mana that was infused with my element, and managed to make it a specialized Gem! I had a Wandmaker in town turn it into the tip of this wand, and now it¡¯s super cool, right? It amplifies the effect of my element by 5%! Pretty cool, huh?" The High-Elf immediately began bragging about this oh-so-awesome item that she had acquired, while Eisen was still in his mindset, actually just hearing the end of what she said. After the old man finally figured out what she was talking about, he began tough loudly. "Haha, Elemental-Infused materials, huh? Those are pretty useful, I must admit. Although the Mythril I made was kind of hard to work with, in the end, it was definitely worth it. Ah, do you want to see my specialized staff, I¡¯m sure you¡¯d be interested in it, wouldn¡¯t you?" Eisen replied with a grin, happy that Xenia seemed to be interested in crafting at least to an extent considering that she was talking about these materials and making awesome items out of them. "Hm? Eisen, I don¡¯t think you understand. It takes mana worth hundreds of thousands of MP to turn a material into lowest-grade magic materials. Even I only managed to make a low-grade magic gem, so ho-" Xenia tried to exin with a loud sigh, apparently somewhat looking down on Eisen for his old age, thinking that he was going senile, when suddenly a tall staff appeared out of nowhere in Eisen¡¯s hand, before he began to exin. "Oh, yeah, I didn¡¯t infuse it myself. I made some generators that make 2500 MP an hour, so I only needed to wait for everything to properly infuse into the materials after setting up a proper array to have the pure mana that was generated transformed into my element. After that, I had some different materials that I all used to make this staff." Completely baffled, Xenia looked at the staff, especially the weird mes floating around at the very top, giving off a very light glow. After a few seconds, she tried to touch it, but immediately when her fingers got into range, her hand cramped up. "H-Huh..? What¡¯s this? Ah, so its just special in the way that it can¡¯t be touched by others? As expected, you probably went overboard with the materials of your element, so it doesn¡¯t give you any bonus, right? R-Right..?" She asked, truly hoping this to be the case. She was so proud of this item, and Xenia was supposed to be the Original of Magic, so she shouldn¡¯t be outdone by some borderline-senile old man in Magic Equipment, right? And then, her heart sunk down the moment that Eisen shook his head. "No, no, this staff is soulbound to me, that¡¯s why only I can touch it. That reminds me, I should probably tell you about soulbinding, to see if you¡¯ve got a box as well... Hmm, isn¡¯t your Spirit Magic something like working with souls? So you should be able to get soulbound items sooner orter... Either way, this staff currently gives me a 50% bonus to my element." Immediately after hearing this incredible bonus to Eisen¡¯s staff, Xenia¡¯s jaw dropped down. "50%? That much? What the hell? How?" She asked, her surprise and shock rather turning into curiosity and simply wanting to have a simr item like Eisen did. "As I said, I created the materials with my element and then made this staff out of them. Once my enchanting reaches a higher rank, I¡¯ll be able to use ability enchantments using abilities of other people, and then I could do the same for you and make you a cool staff." The old manughed as he ced his Staff away inside of his soul storage again, before turning around because he heard footsteps behind him. "Hey, Xenia! What did you call me here for?" The voice of a young man asked, and Eisen immediately turned around to look at the source, while Xenia was staring at Eisen in glee. "Ah, I see. So you¡¯re Dien then?" The old man inquired with a light but stiff smile that would usually make someone subtly ufortable. Confused at what was going on, the Elf with his long white hair bound into a ponytail behind his head with that seemingly unique light blue strand mixed in and a pair of thin-rimmed sses sitting on his nose. "Yeah, that¡¯s me. And who may you all be?" The Elf asked with a frown, looking over at Xenia who was quietly standing behind Eisen. Without trying to figure out a way to subtly go about this, Eisen stepped closer toward him. "Nice to meet you, then. My name is Eisen, and I¡¯m here to grab the shard from the amulet you and your two old party members broke. I was told John let you know about me already." "W-Wait, what? You are... Frost Spike!" Dien yelled out as he held his hand forward before the air around Eisen became colder and colder basically instantly, and before he knew it, Eisen was surrounded by numerous spikes shooting up from the ground, pointing at Eisen¡¯s throat. "Xenia, get away from him! That guy¡¯s the Golden-Eyed Demon!" The elf tried to warn her, but Xenia began looking back at him in annoyance. "What do you think you¡¯re doing?" She asked, instantly confusing Dien. "That guy, he terrorized Ornier, didn¡¯t he?! We need to-" "I asked, what do you think you¡¯re doing?" Xenia asked Dien once more, now not annoyed but rather angry, as she drew something into the air with her staff, before tapping the center of the magic circle, causing a hand of dirt to appear out of the park¡¯s ground, quickly grabbing and restraining Dien¡¯s whole body. "H-Hey, what are you doing?" He asked, struggling to get out of the giant dirt hand, while beingpletely ignored by Xenia who turned to Eisen, who was still surrounded by the spikes while Caria stood next to him in worry as she held Melissa, and Kiron was slowly freaking out, trying to get his Lord out of there. With a sigh, Xenia prepared to draw another magic circle into the air to melt the ice, but before she could do that, Eisen already coated his hand in his element turned all the way to fire again and began to melt his way out of the ice quite quickly, immediately stepping in front of Dien again. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not here to fight or attack you. Since you¡¯re Xenia¡¯s friend, I¡¯m sure you¡¯re not a bad guy. I just really need that amulet¡¯s shard." Eisen exined, as heid his head on the top of Caria¡¯s head, who was standing next to him worried, while Xenia deactivated the Spell that was restraining Dien. "B-But... aren¡¯t you a demon? You attacked some people in Ornier, right? You threatened John, and because of you, he¡¯s been constantly holed up in his inn! You scarred him for life!" Dien yelled out, still incredibly aggressive toward the old man, who simply remained quiet and took out the screen disying what CB-1 was currently seeing. He already confirmed that he managed to reach the rought area of Melroe a little bit ago, and it seemed like now he was actually in front of Ailren¡¯s cave. With a mentalmand, he made CB-1 fly inside, while CR-1 climbed out of Eisen¡¯s backpack. "First off, I had a direct conflict with three groups of people there. One group was the one through which I got known as the Golden-Eyed Demon. They attacked me after I saved a Fey-Kin boy from an illegal monster shop in Ornier, as well as released all the monsters that were peaceful, while killing all the aggressive ones. The monsters I didn¡¯t kill were all tamed by Jyuuk, one of those that peaked in the past, except one. That¡¯s the half-dragon behind me, he became my Knight. There was another fight before that, were I did one-sidedly attack a group of people, bu-" "You attacked someone out of nowhere? You-" Dien interrupted Eisen, but was in turned interrupted by the old man himself as well, who quite obviously wasn¡¯t in the mood to y around. "Listen to me, and shut up. I did attack one group of people, but they were the loan-sharks that killed your other old party-member. They weren¡¯t even heavily injured, I just made them tell me where the amulet¡¯s shard was." Eisen exined while looking down at Dien, who wore a bitter expression thinking about his oldpanion and party-leader. "And then, I of course confronted John, using my ¡¯demonic¡¯ form. It¡¯s simply a transformation I activated with my magic element,bined with another skill of mine. I was angry, for a certain reason, which I will show you in a bit." Eisen said, as he ced CR-1 down on the park¡¯s bench that was next to them, as he himself looked down at the screen. "CR-1, connect with remote device." The old manmanded, before continuosly mentallymanding CB-1 as it was flying through the cave, straight toward the treasury, where it seemed like Ailren was currentlyzing around again, although he was at least awake, quickly noticing the tiny intruder. Now, from the other side of the disy, a voice came through. "What is this..? This mana... Eisen, where are you?" The voice of the ancient dragon asked, and Eisen began chuckling while looking at CR-1. "Yes, Ailren, it¡¯s me. This is another creation of mine that you¡¯re talking to. Turn into your human form and look into the pouch at the bottom of the bat, please." Eisen asked him, before Ailren did so in a bit of confusion, quickly grabbing the disy, seeing Eisen¡¯s face shown on it. "Oh, Eisen! How did you get in this thing? Did you learn spatial magic?" "That¡¯s not important right now, I¡¯ll exin it to you in a bit. First, is it possible for you to wake up Kirisho right now?" "Hm? I am sure I can. Is something important going on?" Ailren asked in a bit of confusion, quickly bringing the disy over to therge room where kirisho was currently sleeping, constantly followed by CB-1. In the short pause where nothing was happening due to the walking-time, Dien tried to figure out what was going on. "The hell are you even doing? Who are you talking to, and who are Ailren and Kirisho?" He asked, at the same time that Ailren reached the Mist Spirit and prepared to wake her up. With a serious expression, Eisen turned over to the Elf and held the disy over toward him, to let him look at the scene unfolding right there. An old man talking to an empty, mist-filled room, before exactly that mist seemed to swirl around and coagte in front of the man, slowly turning into a figure that Dien could recognize quite well. "Just look." Chapter 151 Forgiveness As Dien looked at the screen, his face slowly turned toward what one may only describe with one word. Despair. With every moment that Kirisho¡¯s figure became more humanoid, the Elf remembered that fight back then more vividly. "B-But... We killed her, we destroyed the amulet she possessed! Why is she still there?!" He yelled out, trying to figure out what was going on, until he looked up at Eisen. "I... I see, so we did something wr-wrong? You want the shards of the amu... amulet to properly banish he-her?" Dien asked as his nervosity grew stronger and stronger, before he met Eisen¡¯s deep, light grey eyes with his own icy blue ones, lightly jumping when he saw the old man¡¯s nearly viscous re. "No. Rather the opposite. First, let me show you." Eisen said without further ado, looking back over at CR-1 with a smile. "Hey there, Kirisho." Confused, Dien kept his mouth shut, hoping that the thing that was obviously about to happen would simply not. However, it seemed like the world had another idea. "Oh~! How curios..! Is that you, Eisen?" Kirisho asked, in an utterly lovely voice, which was enough to make Dien¡¯s heart cramp up. "And who are those children..? Ah, that cap! Is that little Caria I see there? How big you¡¯ve grown~!" The Mist Spirit told the Myconid calmly as she tilted her head to the side ever so slightly in pure glee, which was enough to make Dien¡¯s heart stop beating. Slowly, Eisen¡¯s expression turned bitter as he mentallymanded CR-1 to step in front of Dien, with the eye turned away from the Elf further at the old man. "Kirisho, I hope you can hold out a bit longer... I need to show you someone. CR-1, turn around." Hemanded, and immediately, the small bot did as told, but was stopped by Dien who had finally dropped to his knees, trying to keep CR-1 from showing him after noticing that it was the way this ghost was able to see him. "Please... Don¡¯t... Don¡¯t show me to her... I don¡¯t know what I would do if... if..." Dien practically begged, while Eisen slowly kneeled down in front of him and grabbed his hand so that CR-1 could properly move, while Dien continued squealing in despair. The moment that Kirisho could see Dien¡¯s face after Eisen pulled on his hair so that he would look straight into CR-1¡¯s eye, she slightly wimpered in surprise, but quickly caught herself again. "That young man... I remember his face... But thest time I saw it, it did not look so painful...It¡¯s alright, young man. I sure hope I am not the reason for your despair. You do not need to worry about me, as you can see, I¡¯m fine. I¡¯m sure you came to raid this cave because you needed the coin, and I know how such things feel. To you, I was a scary monster, was I not? So I understand, because I have feared those that are like the me now for my whole life as well." "Please... please don¡¯t... I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯m sorry for what I did, just don¡¯t-" "I forgive you, so do not despair over me." Kirisho told Dien with an expression that simply screamed genuinity and love, simply hoping that this young Elf would stop worrying about someone that was already long dead, many years before they even encountered each other. This was an expression which was enough to make Dien¡¯s heart shatter. After this, there was a while of silence, before Eisen looked Dien straight in the eyes. "You understand, don¡¯t you? From what you were saying, it¡¯s obvious that you knew. Kirisho is no simple monster, and she did not possess that amulet. She¡¯s a kind person that was simply trapped inside. And because of you and your oldpanions, she lost her life again. Even though she may be able to speak like this right now, she can¡¯t to do that often. At all other times, it¡¯s as if she was nonexistent, with only a hint of her self remaining. That¡¯s what you did to her. In order to help her, I found two of the three shards of her amulet, and now I only need the one that you have." Eisen told Dien, loud enough so that both Ailren and Kirisho could hear him, instantly causing them incredible joy. "Eisen, is this true? Did you really find all my shards?" Kirisho asked as she held her hands in front of her mouth, and even Ailren could barely hold back how happy he was. "What great news those are, Eisen!" "Yes, I know. And I¡¯ll try to fix the amulet as soon as I can, which is why I want to ask you toe to where I am, the coastal magic city Handor that you told me about, Ailren. Where Bolremgar stays. It would be far quicker for you toe here than it would be for me toe to where you are, after all." Eisen slowly exined, before Ailren seemed to think about it for a while. "Going all the way there, huh? Well, it probably would not be an issue. And being able to see Bolremgar again may be nice as well. Tell me, have you taken his Trial yet?" "I only arrived here today, so not yet, no." "I see... Then I wonder if that old fe will allow me to observe. I shall bring Kirisho¡¯s Gem to Handor. I will be there in a day." Ailren told the old man, who quickly nodded, happy that he agreed to doing so. "But I need to tell you that my sleep has been irregrtely. I sleep for three days, and am then awake for one, so I will not be awake once you arrive, so please just take the small Golem-Bat with you so that we can talk. Oh, and could you do me another favor?" "A Favor? What is it that you want? I¡¯m not giving you any of my gold." The Dragon said suspiciously, but Eisen quickly shook his head. "That¡¯s not it. I would like you to pick up a friend of mine. The town where she is currently staying is on the way, so it shouldn¡¯t take too long." With a frown, Ailren looked at Eisen in confusion, before the old man began to grin lightly, looking at Dien who was slowly getting himself back up from the shock from before. "There¡¯s a special asion, you see? The five that peaked are meeting up here." --- After finishing the ¡¯call¡¯ with Ailren after telling him all he needed to know about Evalia¡¯s location and Kirisho went back to sleep on the Dragon¡¯s side, Eisen now stood in front of Dien, who was sitting down on the bench, while Xenia was looking at him in confusion, trying to figure out what he was talking about before, simply choosing to ask. "Erm, Eisen... who are the five that peaked? You mentioned Jyuuk before as well, right?" She asked, and Eisen sighed out loud, since he wanted to deal with something else right now. "First, Xenia, do you really trust Dien? Enough to tell him your secrets?" Eisen asked her, before Xenia thought for a little while, slowly nodding with a light shrug. "I guess so, yeah. He¡¯s been helping me with basically everything after I got here, so we¡¯ve been around each other a lot." "Alright, that should be enough. Although I¡¯m surprised you didn¡¯t figure that out yet. Basically, the five that peaked are the only five people in history that reached the maximum level possible, achieving immortality and basically a mock-deity status. Jyuuk, Evalia, Brody, You and I are those five. Our experience was stolen and used to create the ¡¯Omegas¡¯." He exined, letting Xenia let out a long ¡¯Oooh¡¯ sound, as if something just clicked in her head. "I guess that makes sense. I didn¡¯t really care about finding out more about the past, I was just ying around with magic all the time." The High-Elf responded, crossing her arms after moving a strain of her pitch-ck hair behind her long, pointy ears, while Dien was trying to figure out what Eisen just said. "W-Wait, what do mean? You two are some of those that peaked?" "Mhm, we are. You can believe it, or you can¡¯t, I don¡¯t really care right now. I just want you to hand me over that shard. I know that you can¡¯t leave it lying around somewhere." Eisen said quite bluntly as he extended his hand forward with his palm upward, before Dien and Xenia looked at each other with frowns. "I¡¯m waiting. Just give it to me." Growling slightly impatient, and feeling like something was somehow wrong, Eisen looked over at Xenia, who quickly sighed and shook her head. "He doesn¡¯t have it anymore, sorry. And before you freak out, we know who has it, he¡¯s just kind of out of our range right now. As in, he¡¯s too dangerous to attack, or even just to talk to." She exined, before Eisen formed a fist and let his arm drop down. "What do you mean? Someone stole the shard? There¡¯s a curse on it, and no matter where the shard is, it will always return to one person as long as they are alive. Or rather, because of the quest I have, I can also take them away." "It¡¯s exactly because it¡¯s cursed. We¡¯ll exin it to you, as long as you stop scaring Dien. He¡¯s kind of timid." Xenia chuckled, before Dien wanted to protest, but stopped after seeing Eisen¡¯s face as the old man was sitting down with a loud sigh. "Fine. I can tell he¡¯s not a bad kid, it¡¯s just going to take me a while to get used to him." Eisen said, before Dien slowly raised his hand, trying to say something. "E-Erm... could you not treat me like a kid? I¡¯m 60 years old..." With a wry smile, Dien exined, before Eisen only gave him a single nce. "Fine, you¡¯re not a kid. That doesn¡¯t matter now, though, so please, just exin to me what¡¯s going on." After Eisen asked this, Xenia did just that, and began to exin the rough situation that was going on in Handor, and who seemed to have the amulet¡¯s shard. Apparently, there were some underground organizations in this town, as one may expect considering the sheer size of Handor. One of thergest and probably most dangerous one was simply something like an ¡¯outpost¡¯, as Xenia described it, simply being ced there to keep track of such an important city. Not even minding the implications that the main organization was something far more dangerous, the High-Elf continued to exin the situation with the Leader of that outpost. There was not much known about him in regards to his age and race, but a few things were certain. He was a specialized shaman that dealt in using cursed items to fight. Or rather, he used cursed items to wreak havoc. Not only did he create cursed items and distributed them amongst low-level criminals, but was also able to manipte the effect of already existing cursed items. For example, if he acquired a cursed item that would suddenly grow spikes on your skin, he would be able to manipte this to let spikes grow out of every surface in his immediate vicinity. And as such, now that he had an item with such potent and special curses such as the shard, there were a few certain problems. "First, the ¡¯return¡¯ curse you talked about. Using that, he has been able to ensure that nobody could flee from him as he was hunting down those he wanted to bestow the ¡¯fear¡¯ curse onto. Apparently, he was even able to make it so that those mindless, fear-ridden people that started attacking everyone and everything around them were able to use a minor version of that ¡¯return¡¯ as well, simply making it so that people had a harder time running from them. And not only that, but he¡¯s been cing that ¡¯fear¡¯ curse into regr items, creating immensely horrible variants that can birth horrible creatures that will instill pure fear on those around them." Xenia exined slowly, immediately leaving Eisen to think of a single item, that he had just picked up a little while ago. After burrowing through his pockets for a while, he then found the ck seed that he found at the bottom of the flowers before, slowly holding it forward toward Xenia. "Something like this?" Chapter 152 Curses and Blessings The moment that Xenia saw the ck seed in Eisen¡¯s hand, she stepped forward and inspected it as closely as possible. "Yes, that¡¯s one of his items. I don¡¯t know why you can hold it like that without being affected, but this is definitely a ¡¯Seed of Fear¡¯." She exined, before Eisen looked down at it in deep thought. "Well, as I mentioned, I can keep the shards of the amulet with me because of the quest I have, and because I want to bring them back to Kirisho, so the curses don¡¯t work on me. Maybe because those curses have been used for this seed, they don¡¯t work on me like this either?" Eisen suggested, before Xenia seemed to give it some thought. "Possibly. Most curses that wereid on items affect those with a certain intent. Maybe for this, it¡¯s going to affect all those that don¡¯t follow the amulet¡¯s will? Of course, the will would be that it was to be put back together, and since you¡¯re doing that, you¡¯re not affected. That makes me wonder, though... Who put that curse on these shards?" Confused at what Xenia was getting at, Eisen began moving his fingers through his beard, before the High-Elf continued to exin after noticing exactly this being the case. "Curses can only be ced after some preparation, or through feelings of immense malice. After talking to that ghost just now, we know the second isn¡¯t the case. Spirits of that kind are basically quite pure when ites to their emotion, meaning that they don¡¯t, or rather can¡¯t, stop showing what they really mean. But at the same time, that being the case, someone needed to ce the curse on the amulet beforehand." Immediately, Eisen stood up and looked at Xenia with a deep frown. "So what you¡¯re saying is that someone cursed Kirisho¡¯s amulet? Why would someone do that?" "Maybe... Someone messed up. That amulet may just be a failed product." Dien quietly suggested, before Eisen turned toward him, causing the elf to jump slightly before continuing to avoid a misunderstanding. "Please don¡¯t get me wrong! Listen, it just makes sense, right? You¡¯re affected by curses if you don¡¯t follow the amulet¡¯s will. So basically, the curses are punishments. Let¡¯s say you find that amulet somewhere. The spirit inside tells you to do something, but because you don¡¯t want to do that, you simply get rid of the amulet. But that doesn¡¯t work and the amulet returns to you, while then instilling the curse of fear onto you. If you¡¯re an outside person, if you could control the spirit, couldn¡¯t you control the person who currently has the amulet? Maybe that woman is far too nice to be controlled?" The Elf asked, leaving both Eisen and Xenia to think about if for a while, before the old man sighed loudly. "Do you think that¡¯s possible?" Eisen asked with a serious expression, and Xenia nodded after thinking for a while. "Maybe. We can¡¯t say for sure, but it¡¯s a definite possibility, isn¡¯t it? Well, once you fix the amulet, we may see what¡¯s going on. And I might be able to remove the curses as well, so that it¡¯s just a regr amulet with a ghost inside." Xenia exined, moving her hair behind her hair again, before Eisen looked at her with curiosity. "Oh, so you can do things like that as well?" Eisen asked her, and she smugly nodded. "Of course I can. In the end, curses are a specific kind of magic. Shamanism just takes longer to do than other magic, because it¡¯s based around rituals. Anyway, how about I dispose of that seed?" She asked, holding her hand forward, and just before Eisen wanted to hand it to her, the old man hesitated. "Wait a second, first, can you exin to me how these work? Caria here is a Lesser Myconid Druid right now, and I was told by anotherpanion that she seems a lot like a Dryad, meaning that she¡¯s working on her control over nts. Could she maybe use that seed somehow if you remove the curse?" The old man asked, looking over at the small girl still holding the even smaller girl in her arms, before Xenia began to think for a short while. "Hmm... Usually, these seeds infect other nts that will then turn into fearsome monsters, really, they just look horrible, and then once it has enough ¡¯minions¡¯ it itself will grow into a nt-monster depending on what kind of nts it infected. I mean... I guess I could try and change the curse, and make it something hopeful instead of fearsome?" After Xenia said this, Dien quickly jumped up from where he sat, looking at the High-Elf in surprise. "Wait, do you mean you managed to edit them already? I thought you just started looking into that!" With a wide grin, Xenia nodded her head, happy that she could brag a little bit. "Hehe, it¡¯s nothing special, really. In order to break curses, you already need to weaken them by adding another, opposing effect to it, to then break the curse. Now, that¡¯s really just a way of editing the curse, isn¡¯t it? When you really think about the differences in the rituals for cing a curse and for removing a curse, it¡¯s not that hard to figure out how to y around with the curses." Xenia then swiftly exined, while Dien quickly shook his head. "Fine fine, but that¡¯s not really the issue here, is it? A curse is always something negative, robbing the affected of either their strength, wisdom or sanity. You can¡¯t change that to something positive or ¡¯hopeful¡¯." Curious to see where this was going, Eisen chose to sit down at the bench again while taking Melissa from Caria, simply watching the conversation of these two Mages. "That¡¯s the case for people that can only set curses. I, on the other hand, have also learned of blessings. While the type of rituals needed for curses and blessings are quite different to each other in their essence, it is possible tobine them. I have actually attempted this before, although it never quite turned out how I wanted to. When you try to turn a curse into a blessing, the curse¡¯s effects are automatically changed to be a ¡¯good¡¯ equivalent. So the feeling of fear that is ced onto the seed can be changed to a feeling of glee or hope." And with that, Xenia chose to turn to Eisen, to continue the conversation with him, as that was how this started. "It¡¯s going to take a while though, and I¡¯d like you to at least assist me with getting everything I need, since this is a pretty high-grade curse. It¡¯s a lot of different small things, and a few potions need to be brewed as well." "Of course, this is my request after all. And we will be spending some time in this town either way, so it¡¯s not like we¡¯re in a rush. Anyway, right now, my focus is on figuring out where the guy with thest shard is. Let¡¯s meet up with the rest of mypanions and then talk through everything, maybe they have an Idea on how to deal with everything." As the old man was saying this, he opened his chat window, quickly messaging Komer to tell him that they should meet up in their Inn. And since Eisen got a message back quite quickly saying that it¡¯s going to take a while, since Sky still didn¡¯t get his upation yet. "I guess that¡¯s perfect, then. Xenia, want to tag along and show me around for a bit? I¡¯d like to go to a tailor if possible." Eisen eximed, as he smiled at the young woman, taking Caria¡¯s hand while carrying Melissa in his other, and Kiron already stepped to his side. "Uh... sure? Why¡¯d you need to go there, though. You already bought a great suit, right?" The high-elf asked confused, letting Eisen simply sigh out at the word ¡¯bought¡¯. "Xenia, as a point of reference, I only ¡¯buy¡¯ materials and ingredients as well as things I can¡¯t make yet. Everything you see on me and mypanions was made by me, by hand. Well, except the clothes that Sky and Komer are wearing, but I¡¯ll get on it soon." "Wait, what? You made all of that? You made your backpack, your suit, that Dragon guy¡¯s sword, that little girl¡¯s hat and even the carriage you talked about?" Xenia asked surprised and in light disbelief, and Eisen quickly nodded as the group began moving, with Dien walking behind them with a bit of distance, considering that he was ever so slightly terrified of Eisen. "Yes, I made all of that. So I n on creating everything that I and mypanions may need. And that also counts for the other originals and theirpanions. And by the way, the thing on Caria¡¯s head isn¡¯t a hat. It¡¯s her cap. As in, her mushroom-cap. So I didn¡¯t make that, but I made her dress instead?" "It¡¯s her cap, huh? Then it became like that just through her evolution? It really does look just like a Witch¡¯s hat though. Wait, nevermind that! You made all of those different types of items? Really? How could you even learn all of that?" She asked, whispering so that Dien couldn¡¯t hear, as this was a question faced toward Benjamin, and not Eisen. "I¡¯m an old man, Xenia. I¡¯ve had all the time in the world to learn, haven¡¯t I?" Eisen exined with a quick wink as the group made their way back onto the regr streets of Handor, led through toward the different shops and luxury districts, where Eisen noticed something peculiar. "I¡¯m quite curious, why are there so many shops meant for jewelry?" He asked as he turned toward Xenia again, who didn¡¯t even need to think much about it. "Ah, I wondered about that as well at first. You see, from all kinds of items, Jewelry is the easiest to simply transform into magic items and imbue with all sorts of effects. Different gems and crystals arepletely normal for jewelry, and different minerals that help enchantments are easy to implement as well. On top of that, they¡¯re quite inconspicuous and easy to keep on you at all times. Also, they break or rip far harder than clothes or bags, and since especially mages don¡¯t usually wear armor, that¡¯s the best choice." As Xenia exined this, she slowly pulled up her sleeve, revealing two bracelets and a ring that she was wearing, that Eisen looked at with quite a lot of curiousity. "The bracelets are for one to increase my mana regeneration and to reduce the time I need to sleep so that I can work longer. It¡¯s really only a minimal increase though, so they don¡¯t do all that much. The type that¡¯s used most is this one here though, the storage ring. It¡¯s infused with the space element so that you can ess a ¡¯pocket dimension¡¯ of sorts. It¡¯srge enough for small items like mana crystals, random gems or treasure that people find, as well as important items like potions, food and water, so many adventurers or travelers have them." Xenia continued to exin, while Eisen remembered that Bree talked about them before as well, and that those were the reason that she was always reced in the parties of adventurers before. After a little bit of thought, Eisen swiftly nodded. "Hm, maybe I should look into that, then. At the very least into those storage things. I may be able to increase the capacity of my carriage, or generally my storage items. Apanion of mine, our supporter and carrier, wears arge backpack, so maybe this might help to make it easier on her. She always tries to figure out how to put more things into it, and I don¡¯t want to make the backpack evenrger." "Ah, that might be a bit expensive. These storage rings work with spatial gems, and they¡¯re a bit hard to get a hold of if you don¡¯t have the right contacts." With that in mind, Eisen slowly nodded. In the end, money was not a huge problem to him, since he never minded spending a lot of it if it meant he could make something interesting, or if he thought it was worth it. And this definitely was worth it. Chapter 153 New Eyes Soon enough, Eisen bought some new cloth, that he quickly brought over to the carriage kept in the stable next to his Inn, where his current group would go and meet up with his regr group once Sky managed to get his upation. In the meantime, the old man wanted to make a few items, mostly some clothes for Melissa. As they entered the carriage, Eisen turned over to Kiron with a smile, handing him a bowl and some oil. "Could you quickly bring Cabarum something to drink?" "Of course, M¡¯Lord, dly." The Half-Dragon replied with a light bow, before he happily turned around and did as Eisen asked him to, while the old man himself ced down a bowl for Aulu to drink out of, while Xenia and Dien were looking at him confused. "Erm, Eisen... Don¡¯t tell me that ck stuff is oil..." The High-Elf eximed with a frown, worrying for that cute golden-furred wolfying on the ground. "Hm? Yeah, it is. Ah, but before youin, neither Aulu here nor the horse, Cabarum, out there are actual living beings. They are automata, and the oil is simply a lubricant to make sure their joints are working properly." Eisen exined, before Xenia looked at him in disbelief, and not of the surprised kind, but rather of the What¡¯s-This-Crazy-Old-Man-Saying kind. With a sigh, Eisen chose to skip to something else before beginning Melissa¡¯s clothes, considering that he really would have more than enough time for thatter as well. "Fine, just watch, then. I wanted to switch out their eyes for a more suitable material anyway. Right now I¡¯m using regr mana crystals for them right now, but I recently got some Crystal Eyes, which are better for Visual-Rted things. They¡¯re the same thing as I used for CR-1 that you saw before as well. The small one-eyed rat." After the old man exined this, he grabbed some of the crystal eyes as well as a small bottle filled with a midnight blue liquid, preparing for the creation of these new eyes. "Alright, since you seem pretty interested, this is a potion made with Nightcall. Usually, it increases both your Eyesight and Hearing, and because it¡¯s apparently pretty addictive, it¡¯s hard to get a hold of. A friend of mine gave some to me, though, so I was lucky. Anyway, instead of using regr mana crystals, I used the Crystal Eyes, which increased the effect on the Eyesight while actuallypletely making the effect on your hearing disappear. I¡¯ll use this to make the eyes as well." Eisen then said, slowly creating the general shapes of the two types of eyes that he needed for Aulu and Cabarum with transmutation and mana copy, excluding the lenses of each eye. To create that part, he actually needed a little bit more time, because he wanted to make it in a special way. First, he obviosuly created the rough shape of the lenses, before then beginning to enchant it with with a tiny enchantment circle that was meant to strengthen the sight ability enchantment that he would ce on the whole eyeter. After that, Eisen simply opened up a slightlyrger hole in the front of the eye to set the lense into, and filled the rest of the open space around the lense up with the Nightcall potion and closing the hole that he ced everything into the eye through up. Now, the old man enchanted the whole eyes in the same way as he did the ones that were already used by Aulu and Cabarum, creating eyes that had a tiny visible enchantment circle in their center if one looked closely. Both Xenia and Dien watched this whole process in awe, considering that the old man looked like he was working on multiple things at once, finishing four eyes, tworge ones for Cabarum and two small ones for Aulu, in near to no time. "And what are you going to do with those now, Eisen?" Xenia asked, already fidgeting around, since she remembered Eisen saying that he was about to switch out the eyes, meaning that he needed to do one thing first. Pop the old ones out. "As I said, I¡¯ll switch them out. Aulu, look at me for a second and open your eyes wide." Eisen told the Wolf Automaton in a strict voice, before he quickly ced his fingers at the edge of her eye and quickly pulled them out with only a little bit of assistance of transmutation, revealing the metallic inside of the wolf¡¯s eyesockets. "See? This is one of the few spots not covered in mana crystal muscture. You can see a bit of the brass here." Eisen exined as he held his hand next to Aulu¡¯s face, while the wolfdy herself simply began wagging her tail, and Xenia simply looked away. "Mhm, got it... You can put the eyes in now, that looks very creepy, Eisen." Sheined with a wry smile, before Eisen chuckled softly and quickly ced the new eye into Aulu¡¯s head, before they were quickly epted as new parts of her body. And apparently, through this new sigth, her Wisdom and Intelligence rose a tiny bit, since she was now able to see the world around her even better than before. "Perfect!" Eisen eximed with a happy smile, before looking at Aulu¡¯s eyes, where he could see the tiny enchantment circles lowly glimmer in the center of her eyes. After feeling satisfied with this, Eisen quickly stepped out of the carriage, and did the same for Cabarum, of course after making sure that nobody around was looking, considering that it was quite a horrid sight if one didn¡¯t know that Cabarum was an automaton. Either way, after the second Automaton also epted their new eyes, Eisen quickly stepped back inside and then sat down in front of his worktable. "Anyway, now let me just get to work, alright? Ah, if you¡¯re not that interested in what I¡¯m doing, Xenia, you can take a look at thatrge tube in the corner. I make the magically infused materials in there. I¡¯m sure you can figure out how it works, it¡¯s mostly enchantments after all." The old man chuckled before looking over at Melissa, who was being held by Caria again. "So, do you have any idea what kind of clothes you would like to wear?" Eisen asked her with a bright grin, and the Empress Bee simply stared at him for a while, before then answering in a very simplistic way. "Caria. Cute." She muttered, and Eisen quickly understood what she meant. "Ah, so you want a cute dress simr to Caria¡¯s then?" Eisen asked, and Melissa began furiously nodding while being hugged by the Myconid. "Then I¡¯ll get to it!" With a smile, Eisen quickly took a nce at Melissa¡¯s overall shape, and then took another closer look at her back to see the specific cement of her wings, before grabbing a role of the fabric that he bought. It was maybe kind of expected, but Eisen specifically chose a ck and yellow striped fabric for this, since that just fit best to a bee in the end, at least in Eisen¡¯s head. Considering that the rough shape of the kind of dress Eisen was going for for Melissa¡¯s dress really wasn¡¯tplicated, and was supposed to have a light summerdress-esque feeling to it. So for the most part, it really was just made up of tworge pieces for the front and back, that simply needed to be sewn together. As such, it didn¡¯t take too long for this either, and the only part that took a little longer was to properly make holes so that Melissa¡¯s wings could be moved around properly while not making it seem like they just ripped through the cloth, and instead somewhat inconspicuously stuck through the back of the dress. And that wasn¡¯t too hard either, it just needed a few further adjustments, and once the sice and shape of those holes were figured out, Eisen simply needed to strengthen the edges a little bit by folding them over and sewing them against the main-fabric. With that, after not too much work, Eisen was now holding yet another dress meant for a little girl in his hands. It felt somewhat weird to him, it has been years since he¡¯s made clothes for children like this. Or rather, decades, since thest time he made this much was when his own children were quite young. It felt quite nostalgic and calming to him in a way. This kind of stuff was the reason that he loved being a craftsman, especially after seeing Melissa¡¯s happy grin when Eisen helped her put the dress on, and she began waving her wings around ever so slightly. "Thank!" She yelled out, jumping at Eisen while slightly supporting her body with her wings as she did, since she still wasn¡¯t properly able to use her arms and legs yet, meaning that Eisen now had to support her super tiny body with his arm, so that she wouldn¡¯t drop down on ident again. After all, Bees weren¡¯t meant to have that humanoid of a body, huh? For Caria, it was slightly different, since she seemed to be the type of Myconid that was supposed to be Humanoid already. There were also Quadripedal Myconids that looked like different beasts, but Caria obviously wasn¡¯t one of those. "No problem, Melissa. I¡¯m d you like it!" The old man eximed, then suddenly bringing Xenia out of her phase where she was inspecting the Mana-Infusion Tube that Eisen built withplete concentration. "Oh, done already? That was quick." She eximed as she lightly stretched her body, sitting down on the bench next to Kiron, crossing her legs as she did, continuing to look at the tube in the corner. "Yeah, it wasn¡¯t aplicated thing, so I managed to finish it pretty quick, especially after oveying different skills of mine that all somewhat boost my hands¡¯ dexterity." Eisen exined, and Xenia quickly nodded. "I see, that makes sense. I did feel the mana in the room change a bit, and then back at ater point, but I figured it was just one of your skills." At this, Eisen lightly tilted his head to the side, as he heard something quite curious. "Huh, that was probably because of my crafting space then... Could you confirm it for a second?" Eisen asked, quickly activating and deactivating his crafting space skill a few times, which he became quitepetent at at this point, before Xenia slowly nodded. "Yeah, it changes a bit. I don¡¯t really know what it is, though. My Racial skill is only at a high Rank 2 right now, so I can¡¯t feel much. Ah, my racial skill is ¡¯A High-Elf¡¯s Values¡¯. I don¡¯t know why it¡¯s ¡¯Values¡¯, since it just lets me be more in touch with mana in general, at least so far." Xenia exined quite swiftly after noticing that Eisen was about to ask her what her racial skill did, before Dien tuned in as well. "Well, I think it¡¯s ¡¯Values¡¯ because most High-Elves are kind of... how do you say it... Pricks? Just really high-and-mighty... Ah, not you of course, Xenia!" He chuckled nervously, while Eisen was slightly ignoring him, since he still felt weird having him around. "That¡¯s pretty interesting. I guess this kind of thing works with mana as well then..." Eisen muttered to himself, which was picked up by the High-Elf quite quickly, before she smugly talked about the importance of magic. "Well well, that¡¯s quite simple, isn¡¯t it? Everything is based around mana here! That¡¯s how all these amazing things are done! Even non-magicians need to be able to control their own mana!" Xeniaughed out, obviously just trying to make it somewhat clear how important what she brought into this world was. And with that, Eisen could somewhat see what Dien was talking about. Chapter 154 Blood-Chimera After a while, Komer sent Eisen a quick message to let him know that they were on the way back to the Inn that the group chose to stay at, so Eisen let the rest of his current group know, before they left the carriage again and made their way to the nearby Inn as well. Although it wasn¡¯t the best ce to hold meetings like this, currently, it was the best spot they had. However, once the other originals, as well as theirpanions, came to Handor, therge room that Eisen and hispanions would rent out would definitely be far too small to fit everyone. "Xenia, where have you been staying so far? It sounds like you¡¯ve been here for quite a while, right?" "Hm? Oh, I spend most nights simply at the research room I rent from the guild. It¡¯s pretty cheappared to rooms at an Inn, although I do need to take care of my own food." She exined with a light shrug, before Dien sighed out loudly. "I wouldn¡¯t say what you do ¡¯taking care of your own food¡¯, Xenia... If I didn¡¯t make you eat something proper every once in a while, you¡¯d simply live off those food pills all the time." "And what¡¯s wrong with that? This way, I don¡¯t have to waste time with cooking, and can simply continue ying around with magic!" She eximed with a grin, before Eisen chuckled softly. "Ah, I know how you feel, Xenia. Sometimes I want to just continue crafting all day every day, especially if I¡¯m working on somethingrge or incredibly interesting, but in the end, I get my best ideas after sitting down with my friends and having a nice meal." "Really? Hmm, then maybe I should take some breaks as well sometimes, if it may actually help with my research..." She muttered out, scratching her chin in thought, before Dien looked at Eisen with a d expression, happy that someone that Xenia apparently acknowledged as Skillfull at this point was able to convince her to lead a happy lifestyle. And of course Eisen noticed Dien¡¯s facial expression too, and the old man began slowly warming up to this person that seemed to quite obviously care very deeply about those around him, but he still didn¡¯t want to show this just yet. He wanted to make sure that Dien really was like this, and it wasn¡¯t just all an act. So, Eisen chose to quickly change the topic to something else he was curious about right now. "So, what are those food pills?" The old man inquired, before Xenia quickly burrowed through her pocket and held some small round pills, simr to the pills Eisen made from potions at least in size, forward. "Here, that¡¯s what they are. Simply dryed and longsting foor that has been heavilypressed with alchemical transmutation. Each pill has enough to count as one full meal." "Interesting. Seems like you can do a lot of interesting things withpression... Actually, a friend of mine who helped me learn Alchemy blew up half his workshop with an item enchanted withpression. It was all just squeezed into a tiny ball." The old man chuckled, and Xenia did the same, although slightly worried about the kind of person that would make an item like that. "Alright, this is it. I¡¯ll get the room, just wait for a second." Eisen said, before quickly stepping up to the front counter to get a roomrge enough for him and hispanions to stay at for a while, and then made his way there together with his two tamed monsters, his Knight, and these two Mages. And it didn¡¯t take long for them to be joined by the rest of his group, after telling Komer the room number through their chat, of course. "And, what kind of people are yourpanions?" Xenia asked, just a few moments before the rest would enter the room, and Eisen answered her with a smile. "They¡¯re great kids. One of them is an Omega, and he¡¯s our group¡¯s merchant. It took a while for him to get there, but he¡¯s great at it, really. The other two are both Fey-Kin, one of them I rescued from that monster shop I mentioned, where I also met Kiron. They¡¯ve been getting him an upation for the past few hours. And then there¡¯s the girl that joined me first, I met her back in Melroe, she¡¯s the supporter and Carrier of our group." Eisen exined, while Dien was growing more and more stiff and nervous as he sat on a chair in the corner, the longer he listened to thatst exnation. Eisen didn¡¯t know why he acted like that just yet, but he was about to find out. The moment that Sky and Bree stormed into the room, with the Blue-Haired boy especially gleeful and happy, Bree stopped moving as sheid eyes on Dien, and Dien simply stared back at her. "B-Bree... It¡¯s really you..." Dien muttered out to himself as he tried to figure out what to do after seeing Bree. "Dien... what are you doing here..?" She asked, with aplicated expression on her face, made up of a mixture of anger and joy, as if Bree couldn¡¯t decide what to feel. Not knowing what was going on, and what the right choice of action was, Eisen simply chose to wait and see what was about to happen, and step in when everything escted. "I... I moved here, after we ... And..." Dien stuttered slowly, before he stood up and walked over toward Bree, who now finally decided on her facial expression. Instead, nobody else knew what kind of face to make, as Dien was pulled down down toward Bree and... kissed her. "Say what now..?" Xenia eximed as she stood there, with wide open eyes and her chin basically scratching against the floor as she gasped in surprise. After a second or two, Bree and Dien finally stopped kissing, and now instead simply hugged each other passionately, before Bree looked over at Eisen, who was simply standing there with a frown. "Wait, Dien... You... don¡¯t tell me it really was all of you that broke Kirisho¡¯s amulet..." She asked with a concerned look on her face as she stared up at Dien, who simply slowly nodded. At this point, Eisen simply had to get involved. "What¡¯s that supposed to mean? Bree, you knew who did it after I told you about it? So when you were talking about the party of yers that left you behind, it was Dien¡¯s party and they threw you out at Ailren¡¯s cave?" The old man asked angrily. He loved Bree like a granddaughter, but something like this made him incredibly agitated even then. But then, Bree immediately shook her head. "N-No! It¡¯s not like that! When you told me about John, I was surprised to hear that, but I thought it was a coincidence, because Dien isn¡¯t the type of person to do that! And they didn¡¯t leave me at Ailren¡¯s cave either, after they left me, I had to walk for a whole day before I reached Melroe! Believe me, please!" She asked of Eisen, who sighed loudly as he ground his teeth. "He¡¯s not the type of person to do that? But I thought he left you behi-" "No! I didn¡¯t! I... I thought Bree left!" Dien immediately interjected, refusing to be insulted like that. "They tricked me! Back then, while I was sleeping, they dragged my body away from our camp in front of the cave after secretly packing up at night. They told me they had to leave after some argument with Bree, and that she left. I only found out long after that, that they actually tricked me and simply didn¡¯t want to share the money we got at the cave with her... That¡¯s why I left them and moved here..." Dien muttered as he formed his hand into a fist, staring down at the ground. "Bree, tell us exactly what happened then." Eisen said, as he sat down on one of the chairs, and Bree and Dien looked at each other before nodding. The exact story of what happened back then was as such. Bree was swiftly hired as a carrier by Dien¡¯s party when they were all still in Ornier, and as they were travelling, Dien and Bree got closer to each other due to different circumstances. While Dien also wasn¡¯t highly appreciated amongst his party, it was even worse for Bree herself, and she was basically just seen as a tool to be used by them. And then, they found that cave, with a surprisingly high amount of treasure inside. The source of that was unknown, but it was probably some kind of hidden treasure vault for some rich guy that lived nearby, and after the group set up camp for the night after finding it, Bree waspletely abandoned, with only a letter nearby telling her what was going on, while Dien thought that the party had to leave after being ambushed by some monsters, and Bree ran away without them. Quite coincidentally, the heartbroken Dien and his party found their way to Melroe not long after Bree did the same, and then everything at Ailren¡¯s cave happened. At the end of the story, Eisen only had one thing to ask. "And who can say that you weren¡¯t just like those other guys and tried to use Bree too?" Immediately, Bree took a step forward with an expression that Eisen hadn¡¯t seen before on her face. Anger. "Eisen, Stop! Dien isn¡¯t like that! He¡¯s-" But before Bree could continue, Dien interrupted her as he held his hand in front of her. "No, no, it¡¯s fine Bree. I can understand him, really, especially since he couldn¡¯t possibly know what I am. Actually, I¡¯m not a full elf. I¡¯m a half-elf, I was just lucky that my face ended up looking like a full elf¡¯s. My Mother is an Ocean-Elf. There aren¡¯t many of them anymore, so you may not have heard of them, but they are a very small sub-race of the main elf species, simr to what Dark-Elves or Forest-Elves are. My father on the other hand, was a ¡¯Blood-Chimera¡¯." Dien exined, showing a bitter expression, slowly unbuttoning his shirt before taking it off together with the white cotton gloves he wore, revealing different things all over his body. First, the center of his back was covered in midnight-blue scales, while his skin from his shoulders to his elbows waspletely covered in bark, and his hands were more like a wolf¡¯s ws in the shape of a person¡¯s hand. Once Dien then pulled up the leg of his pants, he revealed deep brown fur growing on his calves. Eisen was somewhat familiar with the concept of a chimera from some greek myths, and if he had to say what a chimera in human form would look like it was probably this. He was just confused at what the term ¡¯Blood-Chimera¡¯ meant, which Dien apparently meant to borate on further. "Something that has the blood of so many different races mixed together in them to the point that you wouldn¡¯t be able to appoint it a specific race is called a ¡¯Blood-Chimera¡¯. A Faun, a werewolf, a Dryad, and even a Blue Dragon. Those are the races that mostly affect my own body. Of course, something like that can¡¯t be hidden from people that you spend all day and night with like those in a party with you, but since I wasn¡¯t able to be anything but an adventurer because of my race and my body, I had to live like that, and even though they weren¡¯t good people, I had to somewhat put my trust in them, despite them treating me like utter trash." Dien quietly exined while Bree beganforting him slowly, and after this exnation, all the dislike he felt for Dien up until then simply disappeared. He wasn¡¯t sure if he was just feeling sympathetic for an outcast of society, or if Dien¡¯s genuinity simply broke through his thick skull, but Eisen just couldn¡¯t hate him anymore. Bree also genuinely seemed to love this man, and if two people that he trusted could vouch for him, Dien really couldn¡¯t be a bad guy in the end. But that wasn¡¯t the only thing that got stuck in Eisen¡¯s head at this point. There were numerous outcasts surrounding him right now. Xenia, who had been judged for studying something ¡¯fictional¡¯ and ¡¯nonexistent¡¯, and could only now really enjoy the thing that she oh so deeply loved. Komer, who was looked down at by even his brothers despite being in exactly the same position as them, with only a few years of experience less to speak for him. And then of course Kiron, the son of a literal god of this world, that was kept as a simple product to sell for maryr gain. Obviously Bree and Sky as well, who had been split from one another throughout their whole life, and that have both gone through numerous hardships simply for being half-monster, without even acting or looking like it, and with a mother of a race that was supposed to be incredibly kind deep down. And now, even Dien, who managed to live a life as a good man despite being mistreated, finally finding someone that truly loves him while looking past his exterior, only focusing on the interior. This was a world somehow filled with a lot of mistreatment toward specific people, and Eisen was sure that there was something he could do. No, something he had to do. For himself, and those that he cherished now and will in the future. He knew what he wanted to create the most right now. Chapter 155 The Plan Eisen quietly leaned back on his chair and looked at the two of them standing in front of him, slowly staring at the Blood-Chimera Elf Halfling. "Dien." He said with a loud and clear voice, before he himself lightly jumped. "Y-Yes, Eisen?" Dien asked with a stutter caused by nervosity, before the old man answered again. "At first, I obviously didn¡¯t like you, but if you¡¯re someone loved by Bree, then you can¡¯t be a bad guy. Sorry for treating you so roughly before." "No, it¡¯s fine! You don¡¯t need to apologize, I know I did many bad things, so I get that you don¡¯t trust me." Dien said, quickly shaking his head, but Eisen replied with a simple sigh apanied by a light smile. "Let¡¯s just leave it at that we both have things to apologize for, shall we? No need to fret over it anymore, what¡¯s done is done. Either way, we¡¯ll leave you two alone in a bit, and you can catch up then. I have something to tell you all about the situation here." Eisen told them, before everyone chose to take a seat around him and he slowly exined everything that was currently going on with thest shard, the other originals, and Ailren as well, before talking about what he wanted to do. "First, if possible, I want to get the shard as quickly as possible, maybe even today, since I won¡¯t wake up for three days once I go to bed the next time. And I¡¯d like to avoid a fight, I really just need to get the shard. Tomorrow, Aylrentyrth will be here, so we won¡¯t need to worry about protection in case they want to get back at us, and we¡¯re leaving the town in a few weeks anyway." "Yeah, that may be so, but it¡¯s not as easy as you say it is. Their whole base is basicallypletely surrounded by their goons. They aren¡¯t strong, and they¡¯re very very dumb as well so it wouldn¡¯t be hard to overwhelm them with tricks, but considering their numbers it still won¡¯t be easy." Xenia exined after what Eisen just said, and the old man didn¡¯t need to think for long until he came up with a n. "So their mental stats are their weakest, huh? I have a pretty good idea on what I should do if that¡¯s the case. I don¡¯t personally like it, but it may be the best thing to do." He said, before Kiron looked at him in surprise, trying to figure out what he was talking about. "M¡¯Lord, you don¡¯t mean using that form, right?" The half-dragon asked, but Eisen quickly nodded. "No, I mean exactly that. I¡¯m going to use my ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ Form to scare the goons away, and I¡¯llplete my form as well. And I¡¯ll need the help of all of you to even further increase the effects." Now, everyone looked at each other in concern, before Eisen began to confirm what everyone could do, and how it would fit into his n. "Dien, you have some kind of Ice or Frost element, right? Can you make some kind of cold mist with that?" Confused, Dien quickly nodded, slowly holding up his palm to demonstrate, a cold mist that would give you goosebumps immediately flowing out of his skin. "Yes, that¡¯s not too hard." "Perfect. Sky, do you know any Horror Stories that you can use with your element?" Eisen asked next, and now it was this young Fey-Kin¡¯s turn to shine. While he was still staring down Dien as his sister leaned onto the Half-Elf¡¯s shoulder, Sky slowly nodded. "It¡¯s not a really a horror story, but there¡¯s something that can help you." After rummaging through the pile of books inside Bree¡¯s backpack, he quickly took it out and flipped to the right chapter, while Xenia was leaning in with an especially high amount of curiosity. Quietly, Sky prepared to cast his spell. "The Devil¡¯s Spawn,e out." He eximed, before the room was filled with a bright light and the letters on the pages of the book Sky was holding slowly flew off, starting to form a small body. It seemed somehow monkey-like, and it was only the size of Eisen¡¯s lower arm, but it had a rather thin and long tail, small, bat-like wings and two small spikey horns on the top of its head. It waspletely pitch-ck all over, with the exception of its eyes that were as white as fresh snow. "I see. It doesn¡¯t look like something you¡¯d need to be scared of, though." Eisen muttered quietly, "I was hoping for some kind of item... But what can this ¡¯Devil¡¯s Spawn¡¯ do?" "Ah, it¡¯s his stare. People that look into his eyes are more easily swayed by raw emotions. Meaning, after that, your demonic form will work much better, right?" Sky suggested as he unsummoned the Devil¡¯s Spawn again, and Eisen quickly nodded. "I see, that¡¯s perfect then. Before we go there, just summon it again and have Bree transfer mana to you so that you can keep it up for a while. Kiron, you please stay around me in case I needbat support. Komer, you please stay outside and make sure nobodyes too close to the building. You should have the highest Charisma out of everyone here, so it should be easiest to convince others for you. Caria, Melissa, you go with me too, so that you can restrain some enemies and so that we can have the Scout Bees could quickly grab the item if needed. I doubt that this ringleader guy would be dumb enough to just carry the shard around with him at all times, and I think he should have somehow managed to manipte the curse so that he could keep it somewhere safe where we could then just take it." Eisen exined his thoughts, and everybody seemed to somewhat agree to the suggestions and the rough n that Eisen came up with, and only Xenia had something to say about it. "I mean, I guess that¡¯s fine, but we don¡¯t even know where the hell the shard is supposed to be." She said, but Eisen slowly nodded. "Yes, and that¡¯s where youe in, Xenia." As Eisen said this, he slowly activated his me of the Earth Transformation as well as his Truth Seeing Eyes skill before continuing. "You¡¯re going to help meplete my Demonic transformation. Also, you said you can somehow feel mana, right? Then if such a sensory thing is possible passively, would it be possible to make some kind of Curse-Radar with your magic or sorcery?" "Sure, I can help with the transformation. And now that you mention it, making something like a radar shouldn¡¯t be too hard, but if there are people that can feel mana simr to how I can, we¡¯re going to be in trouble." With Xenia¡¯s exnation, Eisen quickly shook his head. "It doesn¡¯t need to be perfect. With my Truth-Seeing-Eyes, I can see the ck mana given off by the shard anyway, so we¡¯ll only need to know the general vicinity. We have a while left anyway. I think we should be there at around dusk, if possible. So till then, we still have enough time to prepare." And as such, the group then chose to spend the next few hours doing just that, and everyone split up into a few smaller groups, but before then Eisen wanted to ask Sky some questions. "So, Sky, what¡¯s your upation now?" The old man asked, before Sky grinned happily and began to exin. "Hehe, I¡¯m an Inkheart Storyteller now! It strengthens all skills rted to reading, writing and speaking, as well as my element and magic in general. And I got a skill as well! It¡¯s called ¡¯Storyteller¡¯s Library¡¯, and it lets me save information about books right now, and tells me how ¡¯connected¡¯ I am to them, meaning how strong or stable the things and creatures I summon from them are. I think this is the type of thing through which I can store actual bookster." With a smile, Sky crossed his arms, and Eisen chuckled softly as he saw this sight. "Haha, that¡¯s quite interesting. Then we¡¯ll really need you to level up, huh? After all this is over, we¡¯re going to go to the nearby dungeon, so we should get you to level up as well." "Yeah, that would be great! It¡¯s pretty annoying to be only at level 15 at my age..." He sighed out, and chose to sit down on his bed to read the story of the ¡¯Devil¡¯s Spawn¡¯ again to strengthen his connection with it forter. So now, Eisen could continue working on his Demonic Transformation, despite not being quite happy with it. But scaring them away was far easier and a far better choice than blindly attacking them. It may further his reputation as a Demon, but that really wasn¡¯t important to Eisen at this point. One of the conditions to be a real demon was to ¡¯Go to hell and back¡¯, and that really wasn¡¯t anything that Eisen was nning on ever doing. As such, even if hepleted his transformation, he would hopefully never be a True Demon that was feared by everyone. "Alright, Xenia, do you have any idea on what I need toplete my transformation?" Eisen chose to ask in the end, and Xenia, who Eisen guessed to be quite knowledgable about all things rted to Fiction, Demons, Myths and Magic, quickly began to tell him her ideas. "You need a few things to start it off! First, you need awesome wings! Then, some horns and a tail as well! And obviously we can¡¯t forget some proper ws either. Maybe make your teeth a bit sharper as well." She suggested, before Eisen quickly got onto those ideas. Until now, he had really only been simply transforming his body by covering his inside with his transformed mana, and hadn¡¯t been using it outside of his body on top of that. The first thing that Eisen added to his body were the horns, as he had a pretty clear image about those. What he went for were horns in the spiraling shape of a ram¡¯s horns. The way he made those was by simply turning his elementpletely toward rock to at least give them a horn-like texture. Simr to that, he then began working on his wings, which he wanted to make like those of a dragon. First, he began working on the thick ¡¯bone-like¡¯ parts, forming them out of his full earth-transformed element as well, and then created the thin membrane inbetween those parts out of his regr element. Luckily, since it was simply magic, he didn¡¯t need to wear something special and could simply form those wings outside of his jacket while making it look like they were directly connected to his body. He did something simr with the tail that Xenia suggested, simply forming it outside of his pants and with his element turned halfway toward the end of the earth-scale. With this, he already seemed to look a lot more like a Demon, even in Eisen¡¯s own opinion. Now he worked on his ¡¯ws¡¯, which Eisen simply created by adding a sharp bit directly connected to his fingernails, and then created his fangs by doing the same to his teeth, thetter feeling especially awkward and weird to him. In the end, Eisen chose not to use these, since they would probably just make it a lot harder to properly talk when he needed to. All these parts were then saved as individual spells so that Eisen didn¡¯t need to manually form them like thister, but he still wasn¡¯t fully finished. "This does look pretty good already, but I think we should do something to entuate your eyes more, considering that they are the main thing in your title. Maybe we should work on your whole face a bit more. Right now, everything there is kind of glowing because of the me part of your element, so maybe it should be turned a slight bit further toward earth to make the light that¡¯s supposed to be there stick out?" "I get what you mean. I¡¯ll do just that, then. Tell me when it looks good." Eisen exined, slowly manipting his element in his head to turn it more into rock, while still keeping the general feeling and the me parts of his element somehow included, simply less bright. And so, soon enough, Eisenpleted his demonic transformation. Chapter 156 Fullbody Enchantmen Eisen had now finallypleted his Demonic Transformation, at least he thought he did, but his Title apparently didn¡¯t ept this fact yet. And although he didn¡¯t know why that was, Eisen didn¡¯t care about that at the moment. For now, he really just wanted to concentrate on properly moving around with this new transformation, mainly with these new wings that were basically reaching from his heel a slight bit above his head. It wasn¡¯t like he was having trouble controlling them at all, and they weren¡¯t heavy since they were just floating around, but exactly because of that he needed to make sure that they were always floating directly behind him, and that was the reason that he couldn¡¯t simply turn around with much speed, or generally move around inplicated ways. The same counted for his tail, of course, but Eisen didn¡¯t want to cut up his clothes so that he could connect his wings and tail to his body directly. And he couldn¡¯t just take his suit off either, since it gave him so much bonus charisma, which he really needed for this n to work properly. For this, Eisen would really just need to make sure not to move too rashly, and if he did, to concentrate on his wings and tail the whole time. With a sigh, Eisen deactivated his transformations and sat back down on one of his chairs, looking around the room as he did. Bree and Dien were talking to each other while lying in a bed together, Sky was still reading the ¡¯Devil¡¯s Spawn¡¯ story, and Komer was quietly working on his business matters as well. Kiron, Caria and Melissa were all quietly preparing forbat if necessary. And while Xenia and Eisen were trying to figure out how to possibly further Eisen¡¯s transformation, the High-Elf seemed to havee up with an idea. "Hmm, you said your staffrgely increases the effect of your element, right? Does that mean that the fire bes hotter and the rock bes harder?" Quickly, Eisen nodded. "Yes, it¡¯s exactly like that, actually. Why do you ask?" "Ah, it¡¯s just because it might be able to help with your transformation. Up until now, you usually just transform with raw elemental maniption, right? I get that it may be faster for the raw base, but with everything else added, maybe casting the spells through the staff would be faster and would have a higher effect. And on top of that... If you reach a specific hardness, you should be able to create something simr to metal with your element." She exined, and Eisen looked at her in extreme surprise. "Something simr to metal? Hmm, I guess rock is simply an amalgamation of different minerals. Up until now I¡¯ve only really been concentrating on the image of an extremely hard rock and not any other properties, but if even you say that it¡¯s possible with magic..." "Well, your element is basically the Fire Element and Earth Element at the same time, despite being weaker than both should be individually at your current strength. But with the earth element, you are able to create rock with high concentrations of different minerals. They won¡¯t really turn into metal, and that¡¯s its own individual element, but you could create a rock that¡¯s simr to the most raw mineral versions of some metals at least. It would make your skin thicker against surprise attacks as well." Xenia suggested, but Eisen quickly shook his head. "It would definitely be useful somehow, but my element is meant for crafting, and not for fighting, so it¡¯s a lot more useless inbat, so maybe that wouldn¡¯t even do anything. And I¡¯m not sure in what way how much I can control my element changes the effect on people when I use my demonic form." "Hmm, I guess that¡¯s true. It¡¯s not like your Element has these effects on its own." The High-Elf muttered in deep thought, somehow still dissatisfied with Eisen¡¯s pleted¡¯ transformation, while the old man transformed his hand again, ying around with his skin and feeling its texture, until he got a sudden idea. "Wait a minute, I¡¯ve got it! Xenia, you know enchanting, right? What¡¯s its rank?" Surprised, Xenia looked up at Eisen and nodded. "It¡¯s at a low Rank 2 right now, why¡¯re you asking? Do you have an idea for an enchantment you need me to help with?" Quickly, Eisen nodded once more as he stood up and took off his jacket and shirt, already surprising everyone in the room as he revealed the illogically trained upper body of this old man, before he then took his staff out of his soul storage. "You said I could probably cast my transformation like that, right?" He asked, and slowly Xenia nodded once more before Eisen poured his elementally infused mana into the staff, quickly calling out the names of the different spells while imagining an even harder surface for his rock parts as before, and even hotter mes for his fire parts, before he sat down cross legged on the ground and activated a few different skills. First his two racial skills, as well as his Crafting Space skill for enchanting, before manipting the spare enchantment needles in Bree¡¯s backpack to float over to his hand. Then, Eisen began doing something that probably none of the others expected him to do. He began carving enchantments into the rock-parts of his skin. "E-Eisen, what are you doing?!" As she jumped up in surprise and a little bit of shock, Xenia looked at the old man sitting there and literally carving into his skin with a needle. "I¡¯m enchanting myself. Or rather, right now I¡¯m just testing a few things. First, I tried out how well your idea works, and it does work pretty well, and now I¡¯m giving my arm a simple me enchantment to test out if this actually works. Since my element actually sticks out over my skin, I¡¯m not actually carving into it, right? It¡¯s a little ufortable, but it doesn¡¯t really hurt either. Anyway, if this enchantment works, then I¡¯ll try something bigger out." The old man exined with a smile, which was once more a rather weird sight considering the action he was currently doing. But, while ignoring the stares of those around him, Eisen quickly finished the enchantment he wanted to create, and tested it out just as quickly, resulting in a small me shooting up from Eisen¡¯s lower arm. "See, it works perfectly, doesn¡¯t it?" The old manughed, before quickly deleting the enchantment, while Xenia sighed loudly. "I guess it worked out in the end, but who the fuck could have known if it really worked? What if the thing backfired and blew your arm off?" "I doubt it would have, don¡¯t worry about it. Anyway, Xenia, we¡¯ll now work on some enchantments all over my body, shall we? Surely I¡¯ll be able to save them as a spellter on, so let¡¯s hurry up. I¡¯ve heard that there are free-form enchantments, and they don¡¯t actually have to be in the circr form, right? I want you toe up with an enchantment that can even cover my whole body if necessary in a way that it will strengthen my charisma as much as possible." "A charisma strengthening enchantment? I mean, I guess that should be possible... But it¡¯s going to take a while, I doubt we¡¯ll finish by tonight." She exined, but Eisen shook his head. "You need to juste up with the concept and tell me what to do, and maybe carve the enchantment in the areas I can¡¯t reach. I¡¯ll do the rest." Eisen told her, before Xenia simply sighed again, epting his choice. "Fine, I guess so. In witchcraft, you¡¯re required to use actual long spells. With some of my Magic Circles, I simply trante those spells into runic text instead of just chaining words together randomly. And there¡¯s some spells that may be useful. Hmm... Just... Carve this along your inner left arm, this along your outer left arm, this along your inner right arm, and this along your outer right arm. I¡¯m going to work on the central part on your back and connect the carvings you made to it then." As Xenia exined this, she wrote down different sentences in the form of runic letters on a piece of paper, that Eisen quickly took a look at before starting his work on his arms, while asking Bree to supply him with mana so that he could properly keep up the transformation for as long as necessary. So, for a while, Eisen¡¯s body became the item to be worked on with the enchantments, but while Xenia wasn¡¯t even finished with the raw outlines, Eisen already finished all that he was given by the High-Elf to do. "So, what next, Xenia?" "Huh? Don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re already done! What the hell, how can you be so fast at this..? Isn¡¯t this supposed to be a magic thing?" Xeniained with an annoyed frown, before the old man began to chuckle. "It¡¯s a spot where both of our expertise interjects, isn¡¯t it? You¡¯re capable of creating concepts for far more potent and useful enchantments, while I¡¯m able to actually carve them a lot better and faster than you can." "I guess so... But I still don¡¯t want to lose to you! Here, carve these on your palms, and these on the back of your hands." Xenia said in amanding voice before quickly drawing up some more small enchantment circles on a piece of paper for Eisen to carve, which he then quickly did with a smile. For some reason, doing this kind of thing was weirdly satisfying. Whether this was because he was directly coborating with someone he hasn¡¯t worked with before, or because he was now working on a surface that he has never worked on before, his own skin. This whole thing continued for a little while longer, with more and more enchantments adding up to the big picture, where basically all of Eisen¡¯s upper body and parts of his legs, and even his cheeks, were now covered in runes or different enchantments, before both Eisen and Xenia saw a notification pop up in front of them?. [You created the Fullbody Charisma and Control enchantment in coboration with Elemental Spirit Summoner Xenia] [Fullbody Charisma and Control Enchantment] [Quality - High][Rank - 2] [Description] An enchantment created in Coboration between the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen and the Elemental Spirit Summoner Xenia after being ced on Eisen¡¯s own body to strengthen the effects that his charisma shows. The enchantments on the left arm and hand allow for a nearly hypnotizing effect that makes a target more easily controlled by mental effects while being less capable of performing physically. The enchantments on the right arm and hand allow for a channeling of the charisma and the user¡¯s will, so that people who have been grasped by this hand can experience the full force of the user¡¯s charisma. The enchantments covering the rest of the user¡¯s body allow for a general strengthening of charisma and the surface the that the enchantments have been ced on. [Effects] +30 CHA, -5% Mana Consumption for me of the Earth Transformation [Do you want to save the Fullbody Charisma and Control Enchantment as a variation of the me of the Earth Transformation?] With strong surprise, Eisen read through the notifications, before quickly epting this enchantment as a varition of one of his spells so that he could use this whenever he needed to, before happily standing up to take a look at himself. "This is quite perfect, isn¡¯t it?" The old manughed out in a loud voice, moving his fingertips over his skin to feel the carvings, before quickly deactivating the transformation and getting dressed again. Once he himself felt fully prepared, Eisen turned to his group with a light smile, announcing to them that it was now time to finally make their way over to the Base they were about to raid. Chapter 157 Start Of A Heis Eisen now stood there in the middle of the room, properly putting on his suit while the rest of the group also got individually ready for each of their assigned tasks. As the old man stood next to the door to wait for them, Xenia walked up to him first, apparently still looking through the notifications that popped up for her. "So, in the description of the enchantment, it says that you¡¯re an ¡¯Omni Craftsmaster¡¯? How¡¯d you get such a high-tier job?" She asked before Eisen exined after softlyughing when he remembered what happened in Melroe back then. "You see the town that I woke up near two ¡¯months¡¯ ago was one that had four Grandmaster Craftsmen with different specializations, and when they all offered me master professions when I reached the peak of my limit-breaker title, those offers all continued to grow and then turned into ¡¯Omni Craftsmaster¡¯. Didn¡¯t you experience something simr when receiving your ¡¯Elemental Spirit Summoner¡¯ upation?" Quickly, Xenia shook her head; apparently, that was not at all how she got it. "Before I received my upation, I leveled up a lot of different magic skills of mine and then got my element. But then I wanted to level up higher than level 15 to increase my mana control and capacity, so I thought I¡¯d get a summoner job from someone with the ¡¯Trainer¡¯ title since it fits with my element, and when I epted the upation, it told me I could upgrade it to my current one, so I thought ¡¯why not?¡¯." "Trainer Title? What¡¯s that?" Eisen asked curiously, trying to bring someone to get his mind off of what he was about to do, a role that Xenia dly took upon herself. "Oh, a ¡¯Trainer¡¯ is someone that can teach others upations. It takes a while to get, apparently, but most people still try to earn it so that they can ept disciples and students or something like that. Usually, it¡¯s an ¡¯upation Trainer¡¯ title, but there are also ¡¯Skill Trainer¡¯ and ¡¯Level Trainer¡¯ titles. Thetter two are each harder to get than the earlier ones, though. As the name suggests, an upation Trainer teaches upations, a Skill Trainer teaches Skills, and a Level Trainer can help low-level people level up more easily. But that one¡¯s extremely rare, I doubt anyone in this town has it." The High-Elf exined to the old Giant-Dwarf Halfling, who listened to the exnation more than just curiously. "Huh, interesting. I wasn¡¯t aware of that yet." Eisen muttered to himself. Something like that may be worth looking into for him and the other originals, especially the ¡¯Level Trainer¡¯ Title for cases like Komer, who was still below level 15, and Benji who would only begin ying in a week of real-time. Although, if it was that rare, it might be harder to get than Eisen was thinking at this moment. "And your element was that Spirit Magic thing you mentioned, right? I was quite surprised. I would have thought you would choose a Mage profession." Quickly, Xenia nodded, although she seemed to hesitate for a while. "Technically, a Summoner is just a mage that casts magic differently that¡¯s all. And I have a specific type of Spirit Magic, but it¡¯s all the same principles. I have ¡¯Elemental Spirit Magic¡¯, just like it¡¯s written in my upation. Spirit Magic allows you to see different spirits and form contracts with them. Depending on the spirit that you have established an agreement with, you can then aplish different things. General Spirits are like the thing that I told you about before; it¡¯s a residue of the energy and the souls of people, nts, or other creatures that ended upbining into spirits. That Kirisho woman is also a spirit, right? She¡¯s a different kind, she¡¯s a ¡¯Ghost¡¯, technically, same term,pletely different thing." "Oh, really? That does exin some questions I¡¯ve had, yeah. I thought that it seemed more like something a necromancer should be able to do. Anyway, what does the ¡¯Elemental¡¯ in front of your magic do?" Eisen inquired, as the group left the room and chose to make their way toward the base, which was situated about 30 minutes away on foot before Xenia continued to exin. "Yeah, my specification allows me to see elemental spirits, as well as regr spirits. Elemental spirits are those that came to be through different natural energies. At least in theory, I didn¡¯t find any elemental spirits yet, so I wasn¡¯t able to gain proficiency in my new ¡¯Elemental Summoning¡¯ skill at all. I could technically make a contract with regr spirits, but I feel like I should wait until I find one that my upation and magic was meant for." With a smile, Eisen nodded as he listened to what Xenia exined. He was also growing more and more curious about magic. It was such a new thing to him, so obviously he would be at least a little interested. But before Eisen could ask another question, Xenia continued. "Oh, and your Elemental ising along pretty well, by the way. It¡¯s still in the seedling phase, but your element skill rank isn¡¯t high enough yet, so it¡¯s to be expected." Now,pletely confused, Eisen looked over at Xenia with a confused expression that was asking what the heck was she talking about? "Huh? You don¡¯t know about that? When your Element Rank hits 6, you can directly summon an Elemental that perfectly suits you. There aren¡¯t many people that reach that skill rank, sure, but you should have at least been able to see some every once in a while, right?" She eximed, seeming more surprised than Eisen himself. "Well, this is a Town filled with Mages and Sorcerers, so something like that is probably much more normal here than where I¡¯ve been up until now. More importantly, you can see something like that?" Eisen asked. "Mhm, I can. The elementals that those people can summon like that are technically something simr to the elementals that I can make a contract with, after all. So if I activate the thing where I can see spirits and look at the spot in someone¡¯s body where the mana and elemente from, I can see their Elemental or at least partially." "Interesting, you¡¯ve got to tell me more about thatter. For now, let¡¯s focus and concentrate on the n, shall we?" Eisen suggested with a smile, actually quite curious about such an elemental, and then the group continued to walk toward their destination. Luckily, the building that Eisen was about to enter was actually in a quite rundown area, since this area was probably the most easily possible for such an organization to roam around freely. However, the base itself somehow still stuck out amongst the others. On the surface, one may mistake it to be an actual rundown building as well, but once one took a closer look, you could actually see that this wasn¡¯t the case quite easily. It had utterly intact windows everywhere, and even the doors seemed to be well-kept, while every other building in the area had either near to none orpletely no windows or doors to show. That was only an example, though. Another good point would be that it was the only ce where people seemed to be gathering and standing in front of it in different groups. "Alright, Xenia, can you try and sense the shard now?" Eisen asked her before she quickly nodded and took out her staff, immediately writing a formation into the air before activating it. To Eisen himself, nothing really seemed to happen, but soon enough Xenia looked over toward the building more closely, her eyes wandering below-ground. "It seems to be in some sort of basementyer, maybe 10 meters below the ground. It¡¯spletely static, so your theory that it¡¯s kept secure in one location all the time is probably right." With a nod, Eisen looked over at Sky, telling him to summon the Devil¡¯s Spawn, which the Fey-Kin boy swiftly did, while Bree began giving him enough mana to keep it up for as long as needed, on top of keeping multiple Mana Potions on her just in case. Once the Devil¡¯s Spawn climbed onto Eisen¡¯s shoulder, the old man activated all parts of his demonic transformation, including the new Fullbody Enchantment, with the help of his staff. Then he looked over at Caria, Melissa, and Kiron to tell them to get ready, and then at Komer to make sure he was prepared for his role. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure how great of an actor he was, but Komer also got the additional part of making sure that everyone understood what was going on by freaking out loudly. With his charisma, that may help a bit as well. "Now, Dien, please cover this whole street with as much mist as you can," Eisen told the Half-Elf, who quickly nodded and grabbed his staff, holding its tip forward before starting to pour his mana inside. "Frost Mist Maximum." He muttered before a literal river of mist flowed out of the staff, quickly flooding the street like water. But it wasn¡¯t sufficient enough yet, and it needed to be able to obstruct the sight of the people standing in front of the building to arge extent. Luckily, it seemed as though Dien had arge amount of mana, and the mist wouldn¡¯t stop increasing no matter how long he cast the spell for until the scene was perfect. And now, with the sunset behind him, Eisen began to walk through the street quietly, simply stepping through the sudden silence that filled out the area. Slowly, one after another, each one of the goons began paying attention to the small group of people that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, but none of them could take their eyes off of the intimidating giant man at the center. Already, the goons were quite stiff and ended up just standing there, until one that was apparently either especially proud, brave, dumb or maybe even all of itbined, chose to walk up to Eisen. "Huh, big guy? The fuck d¡¯ya think you¡¯re doing?" He asked, looking up at Eisen¡¯s cold brazen stare, already startling the goon a slight bit. Before he could even react, Eisen grabbed him by the cor with his left hand, activating its effect of dazing people, before the Devil¡¯s Spawn climbed down the Old Man¡¯s arm to look directly into the goon¡¯s eyes. Now, he was mostly frozen, not being able to lift a finger even if he wanted to, and the area became silent once more, although this time the air became far more electrified, dense and slow as if one second turned into an hour before anyone noticed. But that all seemed like a lie when Eisen now grabbed the goon¡¯s throat, with his right hand rtively lightly as he simply ced his palm against it with a little pressure and only lightly touched its sides with the tips of Eisen¡¯s new ws, to activate the Charisma focus. Before leaning in closer toward the goon¡¯s face, ensuring his enchanted throat transformed before opening his mouth to say only a single word. "Run." Before Eisen could even notice it, the goon dropped onto the ground, trying to get away from Eisen as quickly as possible as he screamed maniacally. The goon apanied only with his screams, as the others also became a bit more stalwart and tried to figure out what was going on, some even trying to get away from their current location while the majority stood there in confusion at what was going on. And that was precisely the time when Komer used the voice that he always used when trying to convince people, except made a bit louder and more focused toward the area through one of Xenia¡¯s spells. After taking a long, deep breath, Komer yelled what he thought fit best to make everyone leave. "Run for your lives; it¡¯s the Golden-Eyed Demon!" Chapter 158 True, Pure Fear With Komer¡¯s scream that was meant to ¡¯warn¡¯ others, now even those that didn¡¯t understand what was going on at first got the message loud and clear and began to scramble for the most part, while some tried to run at Eisen to take him out due to fear. But that wasn¡¯t as easy as they¡¯d have hoped for, not in the slightest so. Before the frightened mob could evene close, one of two things happened. Either, Caria controlled the nts in between the bricks of the unkept road and quickly tied them around their feet to make them either trip or simply freak out even more, or Kiron got close to them and attacked them, with the Zweih?nder still wrapped up in cloth so that he couldn¡¯t actually cause any significant damage to them. Either of these possibilities worked wonders, and the goons all ended up turning and fleeing for their lives, exactly how Eisen wanted it to happen. But of course, this also drew the attention of the people from inside the base, as a few people came running outside, but due to Eisen¡¯s actions, the effects of his transformation had on other people were now perfectly refined to scare the living daylights out of them. Even though quite a few people came rushing out, it seemed like there was still a majority of people left in the hideout at the top of the building, while Eisen needed to get to the basement area. Sure, there were some ¡¯guards¡¯ stationed in front of the door leading downward, but none of them were any major trouble. So far, all of this seemed like it was going quite smoothly as far as Eisen could tell. However, it was just when this thought crossed Eisen¡¯s mind that they reached the first basement area. With his ¡¯Truth-Seeing-Eyes¡¯, that was continuously active in this form anyway, causing it to be a bit awkward to walk around, but at least he was able to see the location of where the cursed item he needed to retrieve was. The only thing was just that the ck mana given off by the shard looked precisely the same as the ck mana given off by all the other cursed items in this room as well as those that seemed to be below him. However, Eisen roughly knew where the shard was from what Xenia told him, and if they were stored like these items here, basically just in the open or in ss containers, it wouldn¡¯t be hard to find it. The whole ce was, for some reason, was eerily silent. Not a single sound was emitted out even the from the smallest spot, only the footsteps of Eisen and his group were adding anything to this silence. From then on, it was a simple trip down through the basementyers, without encountering even a single person, until the group finally reached the lowermost room, which somehow seemed decorated like an Altar. Runes were covering the ground, and steps leading up to a small pedestal with a single itemying there illuminated by nothing but low-burning torches. It was thest of the three shards that Eisen was looking for. But this was far too easy, wasn¡¯t it? With thoughts like that, Eisen didn¡¯t want to leave the task of retrieving the shard to Melissa¡¯s Bees and chose to go there himself while the scouts would look around the room to make sure they would spot everything and anything that could happen. Eisen himself took a good look around but didn¡¯t seem to find anything hidden amongst the pure ck, cursed mana filling out this room. But that was just because it was far too hard to find ck in ck. It was only when Eisen¡¯s right hand got closer to the shard that Eisen noticed the ck mana slowly moving around in the corner of his eye, and the old man immediately turned his head to look at the source of this movement. With a deep voice made even more in-depth with the earth transformation, Eisen chose to ask. "Who goes there? Show yourself." He said in amanding tone before someone began tough, and the ck mana continued to shift around until a figure appeared. "Heh, as expected of the infamous Golden-Eyed Demon. It seems like your eyes are something special, are they not?" A young man responded as he stepped closer to Eisen. He had long ck hair reaching down to his thighs and many different tattoos and piercings covering his face and his exposed upper body, while the only thing he was wearing was a pair of pitch-ck pants fitting to his hair. With a frown, Eisen deactivated his mana-sight so that he could see the man at least a little bit better, before starting to speak again. "Are you the leader of this base?" He asked before the man continuedughing. "Ah, so you¡¯ve heard of me, haven¡¯t you? Yes, I¡¯m Razer. And what¡¯s your name, Demon?" Razer asked as he began stepping closer, but Eisen shook his head and held his hand forward, while Devil¡¯s Spawn climbed on it to try and effect this weird person, but for some reason, nothing happened. "Oh, sorry little guy, but things like that don¡¯t work on me. But you¡¯re kind of annoying, so please let the adults talk, alright?" With a light smile, Razer tilted his head to the side and made a shing motion with his arm, and before Eisen could react, the Devil¡¯s Spawn was cut in half and slowly dissolved back into letters that quickly seemed to return to Sky¡¯s book. Immediately, Eisen looked away from the disappearing creature and back at Razer, trying to keep up the fa?ade of a cold monster. "What my name is doesn¡¯t matter. I am taking this shard." Eisen muttered, extending his hand back toward the item, but before he could, Razer suddenly appeared in front of him. "Sorry, I don¡¯t think that¡¯s possible. I desperately need this, or else the boss is going to be suuuper angry, you know? I finally found such an interesting curse to use for our cause, so I can¡¯t just let some random dude take it, now can I?" The man said, continuously smiling before he finallyid his eyes on the three monsters standing behind Eisen, trying to follow their Master¡¯smand not to do anything. "Hmm, more annoying brats? Sorry ¡¯bout this, bud. Can¡¯t let any of you leave here anyway." Upon saying that Razer held up his hand in the direction of Kiron, Caria, and Melissa, before Eisen activated his mana sight again, noticing that some mana was gathering in the hand that Razer held forward. "Everyone, leave this room immediately," Eisenmanded his Knight and two tamed Monsters, as he grasped Razer¡¯s hand the moment that he seemed to want to shoot out whatever attack he had nned. "M¡¯Lord, we can¡¯t just leave you-" Kiron yelled out but was quickly interrupted by Eisen, whose arm was slowly being enveloped in a ck mist. "I said, Leave. Don¡¯t make me say it again. You know that I won¡¯t die anyway." Saying these words, Eisen¡¯s charisma stats seemed to work together perfectly, and even those three that unconditionally looked up to him up until now felt frightened by his energy, which was enough to show them how dangerous the situation indeed was. As he tightly pressed his eyes together, Kiron quickly grabbed Caria and Melissa before running away with them, while they both were hitting and even biting him, refusing to leave Eisen. "No! Caria stays here! Caria needs to help Eisen!" "Eisen! Eisen!" They yelled out, but Kiron continued running, knowing well enough that the man inside there was far, far stronger than anything they could ever hope to beat at their current strength. And obviously, Eisen knew this too, otherwise he wouldn¡¯t have told them to run away. But it seemed like Razer didn¡¯t want to give up that easily. Behind Kiron, the ck mist began to fill out the entire hallway, slowly encroaching on him further and further. And once they reached the first room filled with different cursed items, they were in for another surprise. All of the items seemed to be... "alive." Controlled by some unnatural force that gave the curses the shape and power to move, albeit while thoughtlessly ughtering whatever was around them. But they didn¡¯t have time to stop and fight them, so Kiron quickly took off with his wings and chose to glide over them. Meanwhile, Caria restrained the animated cursed items with her vines or Melissa¡¯s bees at least held them off for a while, giving them enough time to continue running, soon enough reaching the base¡¯s exit, where the Half-Dragon had to exin to the rest of the group that he was ordered to leave Eisen behind. --- While Kiron, Caria, and Melissa were running away, Eisen and Razer were left standing in the Altar room, where Razer continued smirking. "Well, what a noble sacrifice. You¡¯re not such a bad guy after all, are you?" He asked together with a slight chuckle, looking at Eisen¡¯s arm covered in the cursed mist that now slowly began turning into some bizarre kind of chains that wrapped around his skin, squeezing it tighter and tighter until even Eisen¡¯s fully Earth-Transformed skin started to form cracks. "But it¡¯s sad, really. I wanted to keep your friends here so that they could see how I slowly killed you... But I guess this is another chance then, isn¡¯t it?" Razer asked with a happy smile, pping his palms together as additional ck mana began gathering in his hands before Razer slowly touched Eisen¡¯s chain-covered arm. "I always wanted to try out how much you canyer different curses, and how well you can keep them in a single area!" Slowly, Eisen tried taking a step back, but for some reason, his arm wouldn¡¯t let him. It was slowly grasping the pir that the shard was on beforehand, without letting Eisen control it any further, slowly cracking the rock he was grabbing. "Ah, right! How about I use this to ask you why you want this shard! So, why do you want it?" As Razer asked this, Eisen stayed dead silent, before Razer¡¯s smile near-to-instantly disappeared, reced by a nk expression. "Hm... How annoying seems like those monsters managed to escape. Well, guess I¡¯ll need to give all the pain to you instead. Anyway, answer, will you?" Slowly, Razer pushed his hand into his pocket, grabbing a sharp dagger that he had stored in there, and swiftly stabbed it into Eisen¡¯s outstretched hand, but the old man still chose not to tell him, despite actually slowly starting to hurt. "That¡¯s none of your business. I will take the shard, and leave. Be happy that you don¡¯t have to see me again." He said in amanding voice, not flinching a slight bit from whatever Razer did to him, merely keeping up a cold stare as the Golden mes of his eyes slowly burrowed themselves deep inside Razer¡¯s mind. No matter what curse he ced on Eisen¡¯s arm while keeping the rest of his body unaffected, Eisen¡¯s expression didn¡¯t change even the slightest bit. And it seemed like Razer was slowly starting to freak out. After all, an average person should have already passed out from pain long ago, or at least dropped such a fa?ade. However, to Eisen, this all only hurt to the extent of a really bad sunburn covering every part of his arm. Of course, it hurt a bit, but this was nothing to fret about in the end. And instead of Eisen changing his expression, it was Razer that did. For a while, he hasn¡¯t smiled at all, simply maniacally trying to bring Eisen to give up, as if that was the reason he was born. "You fucking know what?! You want this shard so much; then what about I give you its curse? The fear is going to spread through your arm riddled with curses over curses, and then it¡¯s going to infect the real you! Then I¡¯ll send you out there to kill those monsters, how does that sound?!" Razer yelled out, now starting tough again in a loud voice as if this was the threat that would bring Eisen to his knees. Slowly, he pressed the shard against Eisen¡¯s arm, in between the numerous spikes and chains that were now covering it on top of it being bent in unnatural ways, pulsating as if it was alive on its own. For some reason, though, Eisen was only quite slowly losing HP, as his MP stopped being drained by his transformation. It was as if he was supposed tost throughout this whole ordeal. However, it was then that the curse of Fear was ced on Eisen¡¯s arm,bining with all the other afflictions. Slowly, Eisen¡¯s bones were being broken one after another as the chains covering it were moving around it like snakes, and all the numerous things sticking out of his arm were twisting and turning around themselves, until the whole surface of Eisen¡¯s arm waspletely covered. And just as Razer said, these curses began slowly encroaching on the rest of Eisen¡¯s body, but for now, it was all still contained on his arm, and Eisen received a notification covering all those other notifications about him being cursed in some way. [Warning! Your Right Arm has be a unique entity riddled with curses. If these curses are not broken or the arm not removed from the main-body, you will be taken over and turned into a monster that will mindlessly y those around you. In that case, the yer will be seen as dead, and will respawn atst ce of sleep after penalties have been applied.] "Huh, I see how it is. Well, Komer said that the Omegas could regrow lost limbs during sleep, so it shouldn¡¯t be a problem for me either." Eisen loudly sighed as he began transforming the ws on his left arm to be sharper and longer than they used to be, slowly burrowing them down directly underneath his shoulder around the joint connecting it to his arm. Confused, Razer looked at this scene before him, taking a few steps backward, as he could hear the sound of bones cracking and muscles ripping apart slowly through the ws of this Demon. With every second of this happening, Razer¡¯s mind, exhausted from casting so many different curses in direct session, was taken over by fear, an emotion he thought to have long lost. "Now then, thanks for the shard, kid. I¡¯m taking my leave." Eisen said in a loud voice, holding not only the shard but also his detached arm in his hand, as he walked through the door to leave this base behind. Chapter 159 Pancakes For a while, the group stood outside of the base, patiently waiting for something to happen, just anything. Whether it was a sign that Eisen was dead, or that he survived, it didn¡¯t matter which it was. While Komer and Xenia knew that it wasn¡¯t a big deal if he died considering that this was just a game in the end, and even though the others here also knew that he couldn¡¯t technically die, everyone was still somehow worried. Or even if Eisen somehow managed to get out of the room where Razer was as well, it was unsure if he was somehow able to get through the hordes of cursed-items turned beasts. How Razer managed to create these was quite a mystery in of itself, but maybe it exined why the items were all just on disy as if they were some bizarre magical security system. Slowly it became night, and everything waspletely silent before a slight sound appeared from beyond the door leading into the base. It was slow, and calm, while at the same time being somewhat rushed. Nervously, everyone looked at the door, unsure of what to expect. And it definitely wasn¡¯t what they expected to seeing out through the door. With a grin, Eisen looked at the group of people standing there in front of him as he continued holding his right arm in his left hand together with thest shard he needed to repair Kirisho¡¯s amulet. "Thanks for waiting, everyone. Now, let¡¯s get me to the Inn, shall we?" Eisen said with a heartyugh while deactivating all of his skills. For some reason, though, it seemed like Eisen¡¯s ripped-off arm was still in a transformed state, but the old man didn¡¯t have any time to pay attention to that right now, because he was immediately jumped at by three people. Caria, Melissa, and Bree who were all more than just a little bit worried about him. "Dummy Eisen! Caria was worried!" Caira yelled out, before Melissa quickly nodded her head, burrowing herself deeper into the old man¡¯s leg. "Dummy! Dummy!" She eximed while Bree was freaking out over Eisen¡¯s wound that was slowly staining the man¡¯s side deep red. "W-We need to heal you! Quickly! A-And we need a Highest-Grade potion to regrow your arm, or else you wo-won¡¯t be able to-" stuttered the Fey-Kin girl, who was trying to apply healing magic to the wound, but Eisen quickly shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m immortal, remember? You think if I cane back to life, I can¡¯t regrow an arm or two? I just need a little bit of sleep before my HP runs out." With a smile, the old man exined this and begun making his way toward their Inn while wrapping up his ripped-off arm in a piece of cloth so that nobody could notice what it was. On their way back, Kiron quickly stepped up next to Eisen, who kept checking the status of his HP over and over again, quickly taking in a few potions when it got too low to replenish at least a little bit of it. "M¡¯Lord, I¡¯m... I¡¯m sorry for leaving you behind back there, because of me, you lost your arm. I wish it had been me in your stead when that Violent man attacked." Kiron apologized bitterly, but Eisen quickly shook his head. "Kiron, I told you to leave. And my biggest condition for making you my Knight was that you wouldn¡¯t give up your life for me, did you forget that already? If I tell you to run away, you run away, without discussion. You hear me?" Eisen told him in a stern voice before the Half-Dragon slowly nodded. "Also, you make it sound like that kid ripped my arm off himself." Confused at this sentence, not only Kiron but everyone looked at Eisen with a questioning expression, before Xenia finally asked the question everyone else was too afraid to ask. "Eisen... don¡¯t tell me you... yourself..." Slowly, the old man nodded turning around with a light smile to calm everyone down. "Mhm, I ripped my arm off. That guy ced dozens of curses on my arm, even the fear curse from the shard. Apparently, they all synced together andbined into one curse and then began encroaching on my main body. But before that could happen, I ripped my arm off." With obvious shock on their faces, everyone dazedly stared at Eisen, while Komer and Xenia looked at each other in something that seemed more like concern. While they were also yers and didn¡¯t actually feel any pain in the game, just the idea of ripping off their arms was enough to make both of them experience phantom-pains. "How can you say something like that so nonchntly?" The High-Elf asked with a loud sigh, and Eisen softlyughed. "Let¡¯s just get to the Inn. I really need to sleep. I already let Evalia know what Inn we¡¯re at, so just fill her in while I¡¯m asleep." Eisen told them, trying to ignore what he did just a little while ago himself so that he could go to bed now and be back home when his oldest son arrived. --- With a sigh, Benjamin got out of the capsule and rubbed his right arm to confirm that it really was still there in real life. He also hoped that his arm would regrow as quickly and as easily as Komer said, otherwise it would be quite annoying. There were other ways to regrow limbs of course, in case you were fighting a strong enemy, you couldn¡¯t just go to sleep to let everything heal, so everything would probably end up fine and dandy in the end, but Benjamin was still quite nervous. Either way, for now, it was time to wait for the next members of his family. After checking his phone, he noticed a text from Christie, Natsuo¡¯s Wife, telling him when they would arrive, about thirty minutes after Benjamin woke up, meaning that he emerged with perfect timing. And so, he chose to prepare some breakfast. And there was nothing tasted better and was easier to make for arge number of people, as long as one had the sufficient amount of ingredients than one thing! Pancakes! With a light, excited smile, Benjamin thoroughly washed his hands and then grabbed arge bowl that he could make the batter in, first he mixed together some flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt inside of the mixing bowl, before making a well in the center, adding milk, lightly cooled melted butter, vani extract and eggs. Carefully, Benjamin first mixed together the wet ingredients ced into the well together with a wire whisk, and then continued by slowly folding them into the dry powder ingredients, doing so until he had a smooth, thick and creamy batter. However, this was not all of the pancake batters that Benjamin needed to make. After all, he was going to be making pancakes for nine people, all of which were big eaters, himself included. So, the old man ced the pancake batter into the fridge and grabbed himself an empty bowl to repeat the same actions he did before until he thought he had more than enough batter for everyone to eat their fill. Now, Benjamin just needed to wait for his son, daughter-inw, and two granddaughters to arrive. And the moment that he thought of this, he heard the doorbell ring. Tony had been waiting for this as well, as Benjamin heard someone move around in the bedrooms. As such, he probably didn¡¯t need to wake them up himself, and they would join everyone soon enough. But first, Benjamin quickly opened the door and greeted his son. "Hey there, everyone! How was the trip?" The old man asked with augh as he leaned forward to hug his son and daughter-inw and then kneeled to do the same for the two twin-girls, L and L. "We had a good trip... but I¡¯m tired... I drove non-stop... I¡¯m going to bed now..." Natsuo muttered as he rubbed his eyes underneath his sses, making his way directly through the living room toward the bedrooms. It seemed like Christie, L and L managed to get a good amount of sleep in the car, and as such weren¡¯t as tired as the man who was basically crawling over the floor to get some sleep. With a smile, knowing exactly what to say in a situation like this, Benjamin moved his fingers through his beard and chuckled softly. "I see, then I¡¯m going to leave the pancakes in the fridge for you to eat when you wake up again, alright?" Immediately, Natsuo stopped walking as if suddenly frozen, slowly turning around with a dumb grin on his face. "Oh, you¡¯re making pancakes, Dad? Why didn¡¯t you say so earlier?" After Natsuo said this, everyone could hear someone rip open their door and sprint out toward the group. "Did someone say Dad¡¯s making pancakes? Oh, hey Natsuo." Tony asked immediately, only acknowledging that Natsuo arrived with a sidement, and instantly when Benjamin nodded, he turned around to go and get his kids. "Don¡¯t get started before we¡¯re all there!" He yelled, and Benjamin lightlyughed before making his way to the kitchen, smiling at the threedies standing confused in the livingroom. As Benjamin got ready to make the pancakes, Christie looked at her husband with a disappointed look in her eyes. "Grown men freaking out over pancakes? Are they that good?" "Hm? Oh, yeah, obviously they¡¯re good. Everything Dad makes is amazing, but it¡¯s not really about the taste with this one. There¡¯s always this big festival thing in town every summersting for a week, and Dad would always try and help out wherever he could, especially at the different food stands, and his pancakes that some of the vendors would sell were always a huge attraction, and basically everyone came just to watch him make them." Natsuo exined as he cleared out the kitchen counter for everyone to sit and eat, while L and L climbed onto the stools to curiously watch. "Are you serious? What can be so cool about making pancakes?" Christie asked, doubting Natsuo¡¯s words greatly, while Benjamin began getting out the pans he needed. His home was equipped with the best of the best stuff that he could get anywhere. Not necessarily the most high-tech things, but the kind of things that Benjamin may need every once in a while. And that included his kitchen, with a 12-burner stove setup, meaning that he could prepare a lot of different things at once. And the pans that he had were also nothing tough at, considering that he could probably open a retail-shop with these. Usually, in this town, when someone moved away and couldn¡¯t bring all their tools or utensils, or even when some stores were closed down, everything that couldn¡¯t be brought anywhere else was happily taken by Benjamin. That meant he honestly had more than enough to spare of anything you could think of, although he would usually re-use the items he had an actual use for in some sort of projects, especially when they were made of metal. And so, Benjamin quickly covered twelve pans with a little bit of butter and heated up all of the burners, cing the pans above the mes, before getting the batter from the fridge and cing it down on the workspace next to the stoves. As soon as Tony, Benji, Sean, and Katy joined everyone in the kitchen and greeted the new arrivals, Benjamin got to work. Swiftly, before anyone noticed, Benjamin filled out all of the pans with adle to make some tasty pancakes, all with hardly any little bit of dy in between each set of four so that he would continuously be working on something once the first pancake was finished. About three minutester, Benjamin took a quick look underneath the first pancake with a spat to confirm that everything was cooked properly, and then began the ¡¯show¡¯. With a swift motion, the old man grabbed the handle of the first pan, and while lifting it up and moved it back and forth quickly so that the pancake flew a little bit out of the pan,nding back inside of it perfectly flipped. While the first pancake was in the air, he then grabbed the handle of the next pan, flipping it in the same manner as before, and then continued doing this with the pancakes in the other pans, one after another in such swift motions that it looked like golden-brown waves flying through the air, apanied by constant sizzling noises. And now even Christie, who was doubtful before, needed to acknowledge that this was the type of thing you just needed to see with your own eyes, and before she knew it, there were multiple tes of finished pancakes covered with maple syrup resting in front of L and L, who stared at each other in delight before digging in. "I hope you¡¯re all hungry, I¡¯ve got more than enough!" Benjamin eximed with a smile, happy to be able to do this for his family again, forgetting entirely about the pain that usually assaulted him whenever he used his right arm. Chapter 160 Last Arrivals Before they knew it, Benjamin had used up all the batter after smoothly creating pancake after pancake on the one dozen pans that he had been using, towering them up on tes for everyone to eat their fill, and after a little while, the whole family was eating breakfast together. "These are great, Dad! God, how I¡¯ve missed your cooking..." Natsuo eximed mouth full with fluffy, maple goodness. Pushing up his sses to the bridge of his nose as tears began to well up in the corners of his eyes. In response to this, Christie quickly gave him a quick smack over the head. "Shut it, you C-Grade actor. But at least he¡¯s right with this time; these pancakes do taste great, Benjamin. And I¡¯m impressed with all that fancy stuff you did right there... it was amazing to watch!" "Thank you, Christie. And you, Natsuo, stop ying the Lyre and get to the point." Benjamin said with a light smirk before Natsuo began scratching the back of his head with a smile saying ¡¯You caught me,¡¯ while Tony choked on his food. "Dad, you still say that? I haven¡¯t heard that in years." Natsuoughed loudly, already confusing Christie as well as the five kids, making them quite curious. "Gramps, what does ¡¯ying the Lyre¡¯ mean?" Benji asked with a frown as he shoveled a fork full of his pancakes into his mouth, and the old man chuckled as he moved his fingers through his beard. "Huh, I barely noticed that I said it. Well, it¡¯s something your Grandmother used to say. It actually didn¡¯t start as ¡¯ying the Lyre¡¯, but with "being the Lyrebird," although I always only heard the former. The Lyrebird is known to be able to make any sound it hears, so it¡¯s something she used to say when catching someone lying." Benjamin exined, and Natsuo let out a loud, satisfied sigh. "Yeah, that¡¯s quite nostalgic, but that wasn¡¯t the only thing those two always used to say. I think Mom would always call Dad a Panda when she wanted him to rx more, right?" Quickly, Tony nodded, snapping his fingers as he tried to remember something else. "Right, right! And then there was this thing she said to tell us not to talk to strangers... ¡¯Don¡¯t trust the Roon wearing a Lion¡¯s Mask¡¯, or something like that, right?" With augh, Benjamin agreed, feeling calm as he remembered the little quirks he picked up from his wife. "Yeah... She said a lot of that kinda stuff. Most of which even I didn¡¯t fully understand, but I didn¡¯t really mind." Heughed, finishing his te of pancakes and cing it into the dishwasher, while the others continued talking a bit about this and that. After a little bit of cleaning up after himself and everyone else, Benjamin turned around to them again. "Well, everyone, I think we should let Natsuo sleep a little bit. Melody, Sophia, and Michael areing only around this evening, so it¡¯s fine to sleep as long as you want." "Sounds good to me. Are Christie and I staying in my old room?" Natsuo asked with a loud yawn, stretching as he grabbed his and his Wife¡¯s suitcase before Benjamin quickly nodded. "Yeah, exactly. Oh, but first, what was the thing you wanted before?" Benjamin asked as he helped Natsuo carry everything, and he chuckled softly. "Would you let me take a look at the capsule, I¡¯m very curious about how it all works? Like, the dive technology has existed for a while, and through light electrical currents it¡¯s also possible to quite easily simte touch, but we still haven¡¯t figured out how to actually configure things forplex senses like smell or taste, and especially not weird, nonexistent stuff such as the feeling that ¡¯mana¡¯ has in there. That shouldn¡¯t really be possible yet, at least not with the current technology that we¡¯re supposed to have. I¡¯m not gonna break anything, and I only want to take a look behind some of the surface panels." With a sigh, Benjamin frowned at his son but ended up nodding. "If you really only remove the stic covers, then sure, you can go ahead." "Awesome Dad, thanks. Well, see you after my 8-houra." Natsuo said as he took off his shoes and clothes before simply letting himself drop into his bed, while Benjamin ced down the suitcases. "Sleep well Natsuo." The old man chuckled and made his way out of the room again, stepping back into the living room where the rest of the family was waiting. And it seemed like two of them found a particr little gadget. "Grampa, Grampa! The ball is talking! Can L and I take it apart? Pretty, pretty pleeease?!" L asked as she was holding Rover in her arms, with even L, who usually had a very nk expression, seeming excited. "Hmm, taking it apart is not a good idea. But I¡¯m sure Rover can exin to you how he works." Benjamin suggested before Rover¡¯s eyes quickly moved in an up and down motion as if he was nodding. "I will do my best in order to not be destroyed!" Rover eximed in an overexcited tone, before L and L looked at each other with glittering eyes, happily dropping down onto the ground to listen to what this small robot had to say. "Should we go outside again and rest for another day? It would be unfair to leave Natsuo alone, and I¡¯m sure you three are also pretty exhausted, even if you don¡¯t need to sleep right now." The old man suggested, and nobody seemed to have anything to say against it. So, they all quickly stepped outside and spent another day basking in the sun. --- Over the day, Benjamin actually spent a reasonable amount of time texting with everyone from the Originals, as well as Komer, to see how everything went. It seemed like Evalia was picked up by Ailren quite swiftly, and they then arrived around the evening of the in-game day after Benjamin went to bed there. He told her where Benjamin could find him once he was back and then left her to her own devices. At first, Benjamin thought the Ancient Dragon would join them all in the Inn for a bit, but he was actually quite d this wasn¡¯t the case. Benjamin wanted to be there when Ailren met Dien since the old man had no idea what would happen, and whether or not he would be angry, or wouldn¡¯t care at all. But to be safe, having a de-esctor there was quite useful. Other than that, it seemed like Brody and Jyuuk were still about a real-life day away from reaching Handor. But the thing that Benjamin wanted to be most informed about was the situation with the next group of yers, the Deltas, that would be appearing a few hours after Benjamin went to bed in the game. Apparently, Handor was not a regr startertown for yers, and Xenia only started there because she was an Original, as such the group in the Magic City hadn¡¯t directly encountered any of the Deltas yet. But Jyuuk and Brody, on the other hand, had to travel through many different small towns and viges, which meant that they met quite a few handfuls of these new yers. From what Jyuuk could tell Benjamin, none of them seemed especially extraordinary in talent or ability beyond their knowledge of game-logic, which didn¡¯t apply all that much in the World of Magic. As such, it seemed like there was a little bit of conflicting up with the NPCs already, although, in the end, there were no real major incidents yet. Since many of the Deltas were quite pleasant and helpful, always trying to get new quests to further themselves while helping the different townfolk, the opinions of most NPCs was quite high so far, with a few smaller exceptions, of course. Besides that, there was nothing especially noteworthy that seemed to have happened, as the group in Handor was patiently waiting for Benjamin¡¯s arrival. Xenia kept telling him about how weird it looked when Benjamin¡¯s new arm grew since it seemed a little bit like a pulsating lump of metal forming on his side that slowly changed shape over a few hours to look exactly like it used to. Regardless, around 10 pm, Benjamin was patiently waiting for the rest of his guests to arrive, he had already finished preparing all of the rooms, so all that was left was for them to arrive. Apparently, they ate on the way, so the old man didn¡¯t need to prepare anything for them to eatter. Soon enough, the doorbell rang, and Benjamin quickly got up to open the door, while Benji, Tony, and Christie, the only ones beside Benjamin currently awake, also stood up to greet and help the new arrivals. When the old man opened the door, he was quickly met with the sight of four people. First, his Daughter Melody, with her shoulder-length ck hair lying openly next to her head. Next to her stood Michael, Melody¡¯s husband, and he really seemed to wear a white button-up shirt with some random tie whenever he could. Of course, the shirt was tucked into his ck pants, and his short blond hair was neatly gelled and parted to the side. Then, there were the two teenagers, Sophia, Benjamin¡¯s granddaughter, looking extremely annoyed at her parents after an 18-hour trip, as well as an exhausted and awkward-looking boy with a slight emo-look to him. "Hey there, everyone! Come on in I¡¯m sure you¡¯re tired." The old man said after leaning in to hug his daughter and Granddaughter. And quickly giving his Son-inw and Sophia¡¯s friend, and at the same time her fake boyfriend, a hearty handshake, looking at thetter with a smile. "Nice to meet you, I¡¯m Sophia¡¯s Grandfather, but you can call me Benjamin. Please feel right at home here." He said before the teenage-boy looked at Sophia, confused, but once she nodded, he greeted him back. "Th-Thanks, I¡¯m Kyle, nice to meet you to Mr.Jo- Benjamin." Kyle stuttered with a light smile, continuing to look Benjamin up and down before they all greeted the other three people in the room. "Benji, bring Kyle to your guys¡¯ room, alright? Ah, Kyle, you were alright with sharing a room with someone, right?" The old man asked, and Kyle quickly nodded. "Yeah, that¡¯s totally fine with me." He responded, quickly taking his suitcase before whispering something into Sophia¡¯s ear, causing her to make a slightly disgusted face, softly punching Kyle¡¯s shoulder, and whispering something back to him. Once the three teenagers left, only five of the six adults in the house were left in the room. With a smile, Benjamin turned to Michael and Melody. "Sorry that Natsuo isn¡¯t here right now, he was quite tired when they arrived this morning, and he seems to be still asleep." "Tsk, yeah, thatzy bum of a husband" Christie muttered out, already getting a sour look from Michael, which the police-woman swiftly ignored. "It¡¯s fine, Benjamin. I can understand him, I¡¯m pretty tired myself. Melody, let¡¯s go to bed now." Michael said with his trademark hollow smile before Melody nodded and quickly looked at her father. "Goodnight Dad, make sure you get enough sleep." She told him, and Benjamin simply smiled and directed them to sleep in her old room. Once both of them were out of hearing range, the nder immediately began. "Urgh, I can¡¯t stand that guy. If I had to deal with him at work, I¡¯d arrest him just cuz he¡¯s an ass." With a sigh, Tony quickly agreed. "Yeah, but he¡¯s Melody¡¯s husband. We can¡¯t just tell him we don¡¯t like him." "Exactly, so please try to get along with him and share your toys, alright?" Benjamin chuckled, pretending to be talking to a few kids at the yground. With a shrug, Tony sat down on the couch again, turning on the TV, jokingly responding to his father. "Yeah, but if he takes my Captain Amazing Action-figure again, I¡¯m biting him." Smiling lightly, Benjamin sat down next to Tony, while Christie stood behind them while shaking her head in disappointment. "Superhero names really suck these days, huh?" Chapter 161 Mass of Yin After spending the rest of the evening with Tony and his Daughter-inw Christie, Benjamin chose to quickly sit down in the capsule again and continue ying, so that he could deal with everything that came up when he couldn¡¯t y because it seemed like especially a day like this could be filled with many unforeseen incidents and impactful events. Luckily, nothing major happened Ailren had arrived in Handor, bringing Evalia with him, and thergest preunch group the ¡¯Deltas¡¯ had begun ying the game. Besides that, it seemed like the old man didn¡¯t actually miss all that much, but he still wanted to quickly log in and be Eisen once again. So, he did and quickly found himself back in the environment that he went to bed inst time, and before he knew it, a notification popped up in front of his face. [Announcement! It has now been two weeks for the five originals, and one week for the 100 Omegas began ying the game, and now the next wavees! In total, 5000 new yers joined you in the World of Magic, and they are here to both test the many different functions, while at the same time introducing the idea of more such ¡¯Artificial¡¯ People appearing in the world. They will be known as ¡¯Deltas¡¯, and in one more week, thest wave of yers preunch will appear, before the Game really starts! Enjoy your time!] With a smile, Eisen quickly nodded and waved the notification away, before first looking at his side, where he now had apletely new arm, that didn¡¯t differ from his original arm in any sense whatsoever. "Alright, perfect," Eisen said with a smile, quickly standing up from the bed in the Inn, and turning around to wait for Caria and Melissa to properly wake up while getting dressed in his crafting outfit since his Suit was now basicallypletely ripped up. He would need to either repair that, or make a new shirt and Jacket at some point soon, but Eisen didn¡¯t really care all that much about that right now. It seemed like the others were all somewhere else, so Eisen stepped out of the room to look for them, and it didn¡¯t take long to find Kiron either since the Half-Dragon was apparently standing guard in front of the door. "Good morning, Kiron," Eisen told him with a smile before the Knight quickly turned around with a bright smile. "M¡¯Lord! You¡¯re awake again! I was afraid that it would take you much longer than usual to wake up again, considering that you had to regrow your arm..." "Don¡¯t worry, seems like it¡¯s not too difficult for me to regrow an arm, just like I told you all before. So, want to fill me in on what¡¯s happened while I was asleep this time around?" The old man inquired before Kiron swiftly nodded and followed Eisen to the restaurant. "Yes! A day after you began sleeping, Miss Evalia arrived at the Inn, telling us about how she was brought along by Aylrentyrth, and then rented out a room here as well. Right now, she seems to be out with Miss Xenia in town. Dien and Bree have been spending quite some time together as well, and we have barely seen her for the past two days, despite her staying close to you for nearly a whole day after that night to make sure your arm healed. Komer and Sky seem to be out investigating the situation with the new people simr to Komer that appeared all over this side of the continent." Slowly, Eisen nodded in response to all of this as he sat down at a table in the corner of the restaurant, ready to order something to eat, when he remembered something. "Right, what happened to my arm that I ripped off that night? Did it disappear when my new one grew?" Quickly, Kiron shook his head, saying that something entirely different happened. "We had expected at least the transformation to disappear, but your arm simply continued growing and pulsating, as if it was gaining a life of its own. Apparently, the evolved curse is quite strong as well. Miss Xenia has been trying to somehow break the curses, but it seemed as if it was simply dispelling everything that was used against it. It is currently stored in a safe location where it can do no harm." "Wait, what? I¡¯ll have to ask Xenia about that, in a little bit then." Eisen said with a frown, wondering why Xenia didn¡¯t tell him about this yet. But Eisen chose to forget about this for now and temporarily ce it on a back burner until after he finished his breakfast. While he did so, he sent a message to Komer, Xenia and Evalia to tell them that he¡¯s awake, and asked them where to meet up, and they ended up choosing Xenia¡¯s research room, to which she was allowed to invite people after informing the Guild about this. Once Eisen finished breakfast, the old man, together with his two tamed monsters and his Knight, made his way to the Mage¡¯s Guild, where he was promptly greeted by the same man that stood by the stairs the first time Eisen visited this building. "Wee, Sir. Xenia already informed us that you would being, so please follow me." He said with a smile, waving his hand over to the staircase leading to the upper floors, before Eisen quickly followed him while carrying both Caria and Melissa, who for some reason were especially cranky and clingy today. A short whileter, after walking past all kinds of rooms where different experiments seemed to be going on, the four of them were brought to Xenia¡¯s research room, that she apparently continuously rented out for over an in-game month now. Immediately when Eisen stepped through the door, Bree threw herself at the old man, making him stagger ever so slightly, before he ced his hand on her head. "Wee back, Eisen! I was scared that the stuff with your arm wouldn¡¯t work out after all, but apparently, it really did work..." She said with a loud sigh, wiping a tiny tear away from the corner of her eye. "Sorry if I worried you guys. If I hadn¡¯t done that, the curses would havepletely taken over my whole body, and that really wouldn¡¯t have been good." Eisen chuckled before the rest of the group also came to greet him. "Yeah, you can say that again. Anyway, good morning, Eisen." Xenia said, leaning back in her chair in front of arge desk covered with all kinds of books and sheets of paper before Evalia walked up to the old man as well. "Well look at you, ya really didn¡¯t seem like the kinda guy to literally rip his own arm off. And I¡¯ve got a message for ya from that Dragon, I¡¯ll tell youter though, seems like Xenia wanted to talk to you first." Evalia eximed after properly greeting the old man, and then sat down on one of the other chairs in the room again, next to where she ced the Guitar that Eisen made for her a while ago. "Alright, thanks, Evalia. So? What is it you want to talk about?" Eisen asked the High-Elf, who quickly nodded and began to exin. "I want to talk about your arm. I really don¡¯t know what it is anymore, and it just keeps changing. It was already pretty disfigured when you brought it out with you the other day, but now you can¡¯t even see what it is anymore. And I tried analyzing the curse that was formed through all the other cursesyered on top of each other, but it¡¯s so high-grade that I can¡¯t even figure out what it¡¯s called. And in the end, it¡¯s your arm, so I didn¡¯t want to actually start with a serious attempt at reversing or breaking the curse." She exined, and Eisen stayed silent for a bit as he thought about what to do, beforeing to a conclusion. "Well, you can go ahead and try to reverse the curse, however much you can. And Kiron said it was pulsating before, does that mean it¡¯s actually alive?" He asked while Xenia showed him the small table where the arm was currentlyying on. At this point, it somehow seemed to resemble a huge malformed ck heart, with really nothing that could tell someone what it was before. "No, it¡¯s not really alive, it¡¯s just... reacting. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s waiting for something, or if it¡¯s slowly turning into something else, but it¡¯s just doing that all the time. It hasn¡¯t been changing for the past day, so I¡¯m guessing it¡¯s done with that for now, but I could very well be wrong." She exined, while Eisen continued to look at the cursed arm, or rather mass, with a frown. If this technically originated from his own body, he should surely be able to see what this is, right? And in fact, it did seem as if Eisen was able to see the information for it. [False Demonic Mass of Yin] [Description] This is a mass of flesh originating from the Demon Candidate with the title ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ that was given arge amount of cursed energy, transforming it into a Mass of Yin, a thing that can be called the source of all that is bad. In order toplete this Mass of Yin, it is necessary for the source of the Flesh to truly turn into a Demon of Yin. Immediately, Eisen opened his eyes wide after reading through this notification, hoping that what he just read was a joke. "Xenia, this isn¡¯t cursed. It¡¯s more like it is a curse in of itself. My arm turned into a ¡¯Mass of Yin¡¯ after being cursed so heavily. And as long as I won¡¯t be aplete demon, it will stay the way it is now, apparently." The old man exined to her before Xenia looked at him, confused. "Wait, what do you mean? A ¡¯Mass of Yin¡¯? What¡¯s that supposed to even be?" She asked before one individual, especially knowledgeable in many different specific areas, raised his voice. "The first Monster was born from a ¡¯Mass of Yin¡¯... It¡¯s the counterpart to the ¡¯Mass of Yang¡¯, through which the first person was born, at least in stories. I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s really how everything went. Either way, a Mass of Yin is something horrible, it really is, but nobody can really say what it does, or rather will do once it¡¯spleted..." Sky exined with a deep frown on his face, worried about what was lying in front of them there. "Well, we don¡¯t need to worry about that. I¡¯m not nning on bing a demon. Until we figure out what to do with this, should we just store this somewhere where nobody can get to it?" Eisen suggested, before Xenia quickly nodded, grabbing a small metal box from her desk. "This is an ¡¯Imprisonment¡¯ item. It¡¯s specifically made to seal away things that give off eery energy like that thing, so I bought it the other day just in case it was something like this. It definitely wasn¡¯t anything good, after all." She exined, handing the cube over to Eisen. "Here, you just need to hold it towards it and pour your mana inside, while thinking about what you want to seal. Only the person that seals the object will be able to open it again, although you can¡¯t use it again once you¡¯ve opened it. And it¡¯s your arm, so you do it." Xenia said with a carefree expression, throwing the cube over to Eisen, who quickly caught it and sighed loudly. "Alright, then maybe that¡¯s the best choice for now. I¡¯ll see what we can do about this. If it¡¯s not useful for anything, and really just harmful, we¡¯ll get rid of it somehow." The old man said, holding his arm forward, and doing just what Xenia told him in order to properly seal away the Mass of Yin. Chapter 162 How To Find A Dragon After the Mass of Yin absorbed into the ¡¯Prison Cube¡¯, Eisen ced the cube into his pocket for now, until he knew where to store it properly, before turning around to look at Xenia. "If I find out anything, for example, if this can somehow be used to manufacture anything or the curses can be somehow reversed, I¡¯ll let you know. I¡¯m nning on meeting with an ancient Dragon after this, after all, so he may know a little bit about it." After the old man told this to Xenia, the high-elf crossed her arms with a frown. "Actually, take me with you, yeah? I mean, if you¡¯re a champion, then I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll be able to be one as well, right?" With a loud sigh, Eisen shook his head. "I won¡¯t take you with me, no. And before you say anything, it¡¯s better this way, really. The Dragons choose their champions, not the other way around. I¡¯ll ask Ailren to take a look at you and see if he would let you take his tests, but I¡¯m not so sure if he will. The Dragons are all different, and the gifts they give to their champions are all different as well. So be patient, if the dragons deem you¡¯re ready, you¡¯ll be asked to take the test." Eisen exined before Xenia sat down at her desk while lightly pouting. "Fine... I just want an ability to see mana the like you have..." She sighed before Eisen lightly smirked. "That means you can¡¯t yet? So you have no way of seeing mana?" He asked her, before she quickly nodded, saying that she can¡¯t, and Eisen scratched the back of his head before walking over to Bree¡¯s backpack to grab a few materials. As he confused the others with this action, Eisen quickly began transmuting some metal into a thin, but stable wire, which he formed to be in the shape of sses, and then grabbed a mana crystal and shaped it into two thin lenses, which he both quickly enchanted with an ability-enchantment of his Mana-Sight from his Truth-Seeing-Eyes skill. Considering how uplicated and unrefined this all was, it only took a minute or two to make as well. "I¡¯ll make you a better er, but this should at least work for a little bit. I really, just want to get everything with Kirisho and her amulet figured out right now, and I¡¯ll work on your ¡¯mana optics¡¯ once I¡¯m finished with that." Eisen told Xenia as he held the pair of makeshift sses over to her, as she looked at him in surprise. "Wait, did you really just make something like that instantly?" She asked him as she slowly ced the sses on her head and poured a little mana into them to activate the effect, before quickly opening her eyes widely in surprise. "Whoa, this is what you see with those eyes? Just ck and white, and then the colors of mana?" Xenia muttered out as she began to smile excitedly, and Eisen quickly nodded. "Yeah, everything¡¯s always pretty blurry and ck and white, and then I can choose what else I want to see, such as mana. I¡¯m sure it¡¯s gonna help you experiment somewhat." The old man exined, before leaving Xenia to y around and looking at Evalia. "Now then, Ailren told you something about where he is, right?" He asked her before she quickly nodded. "Yup. Told me to give ya this, and that you¡¯d know what to do." Evalia told him as she grabbed something from her pocket and handed it over to Eisen. It was a gold coin, different from the ones that were currently being used as currency all over the ce, and it wasn¡¯t only Eisen that quickly recognized what it was. Seeing the sigil on the coin, Dien promptly stepped up next to Eisen, taking a closer look before saying. "Isn¡¯t this a coin from that Dragon¡¯s cave?" He asked before Eisen nodded in response. "Yeah, it is. I¡¯m guessing Ailren somehow wants me to use this to look for him." Eisen muttered, before noticing that Xenia seemed to be staring at the small object with her new sses on before Eisen got what that meant and quickly activated his ¡¯truth-seeing¡¯ eyes together with his mana sight. Immediately, he saw a bright, golden aura of mana surrounding the coin, as well as a thin strand of it leading through the door. "Ah, I see. Well, this should be easy enough. Kiron, Caria, Melissa, let¡¯s go. You three are directly connected to me, so I¡¯m not worried about taking you with me, especially because I took Caria with me to Ailren¡¯s cavest time already, but I don¡¯t want to take anyone else just in case." Eisen exined, before slowly walking back to the door, before Evalia told him something else. "Ah, wait! I think that guy said somethin¡¯ about bringin¡¯ Aulu as well? I dunno why, though." She told him with a shrug before Eisen nodded with a smile, and Evalia then quickly grabbed something from her backpack. "And here¡¯s that weird ball thing you made. That Dragon didn¡¯t wanna take it with him for some reason." She told him, and Eisen swiftly took CB-1 and the small bag with CR-1¡¯s disy, cing them into his backpack. "Got it, thanks. Wish he would have kept it, though. Would have made looking for him a lot easier. Anyway, I¡¯ll see all of youter." He said, smiling at the group before making his way down the stairs of the guild again, then leaving the building altogether. "Alright, let¡¯s first get Aulu, and maybe even Cabarum, just in case Ailren is a little bit away from town," Eisen told Kiron. Who quickly nodded as he held Melissa in his arms, because she still wasn¡¯t able to properly walk, while Eisen held Caria¡¯s hand so she couldn¡¯t run off somewhere and walked in the direction of the Stables. After a short while, the small group finally arrived at their destination, and Eisen led both Aulu and Cabarum out of the Stables before the old man activated his ¡¯truth-seeing¡¯ eyes again to follow that golden strand of mana attached to the coin Evalia gave him. For quite some time, they simply walked through the streets of the town, before reaching the Town¡¯s gate, which did not seem to be the end of the strand for quite some time. So, outside of the gate, Eisen chose to change the mode of transportation, sitting down on top of Cabarum. Since the animal referenced for Cabarum was a Gargantuan Steed, Eisen, and Kiron, as well as the two quite tiny girls Caria and Melissa, had more than enough space on his back. And now, they could quickly ride through the area outside of the town to follow the strand without worry. And it didn¡¯t take long for them to find themselves on a beach, riding toward a tall cliff with what seemed to be a cave facing toward the ocean. "I¡¯m guessing we¡¯ll be there soon," Eisen eximed letting the others with him know and began slowing down as they got closer to the cave¡¯s entrance. "Thanks for bringing us here so quickly, Cabarum." Eisen said with a smile as he rubbed over the horse¡¯s side with his palm, then turning toward the dark cave. "M¡¯Lord, do you truly think I should enter with you? Indeed, Caria and Melissa are connected to you through your soul now, but I¡¯m just an outsider. And most Ancient Dragons do not like uninvited guests." Kiron said, suggesting that he would wait outside, but Eisen simply shook his head without a second thought. "Yes, but you¡¯re still my Knight. I¡¯m a Champion for the sake of being a craftsman, so they couldn¡¯t expect me to go everywhere without any protection at all, now could they? Besides, you¡¯re the son of their King, so they shouldn¡¯t mind." Eisen told him, walking up behind him with a smile and cing his hand on Kiron¡¯s back, pushing the Half-Dragon forward. "I... I see... I hope that they will think the same." Kiron nodded, obviously quite nervous about meeting these Ancient Dragons, before the group stepped through the tunnel system of the cave. For a while, there was nothing there other than the tunnel itself, but this was undoubtedly the correct way, considering that Eisen had been following the golden strand of mana the entire time. That was until there could be two deep voices heard in the distance, together with the sound of what seemed to be droplets hitting a surface of the water, and soon, Eisen began seeing the shiny glitter of dim light being reflected off of the water as well. "Seems like we¡¯re there." Eisen chuckled as he stepped toward therge opening of the cave they were about to enter, and he quickly saw a quite interesting scene. First, half of therge cavern was simply a body of water, probably connected to the ocean through some sort of underwater tunnel, and in the middle of the body of water was a huge shipwreck that looked like it was there for quite a long time. And on top of that ship, Eisen could see a dragon with bronze scales, and hues of a green simr to that of Algae covering its back and tail. Opposite to that Dragon was Aylrentyrth, also in his Dragon form, currently conversing with, who Eisen guessed to be Bolremgar, the Ancient Bronze Dragon that Ailren told Eisen to visit. Shortly after Eisen began standing in the entrance to the cave, Ailren turned over to look at him and the others with him, seemingly smiling as he did. "Ah, it seems as if our visitor has arrived," Ailren eximed, and Bolremgar turned his head as well. "Oh, is that your champion in the front? And who are those others with him?" The Bronze Dragon asked as Eisen stepped a bit closer, and Ailren quickly chose to transform into his human form to properly greet them. "This is Eisen, the Champion. He is an excellent craftsman, and for my trial created this mechanical wolf. However, it seems like he also created another mechanical creation, in the shape of a steed. What were they called again, Eisen?" Ailren asked with a smile, and Eisen quickly nodded, smiling back at the Ancient Dragon. "Yes, they¡¯re called Automata. Mechanical beings." He exined before Ailren continued. "And the others are... Oh, the small Mushroom from back then, is it? Nice to see you again. But it seems like I have not met the two of you so far. Empress Bee Melissa, so another tamed beast. And this one here is... Well, this is quite unexpected. Who would have thought we¡¯d meet a Prince today." Ailren said, lightly bowing forward toward Kiron. Confused, it seemed like Bolremgar flew down from the ship and toward the group, quickly transforming himself into something as well, just not a human. What he transformed himself into was something like an Ape with Bronze and Green colored fur, as he climbed on top of Eisen¡¯s shoulder to take a closer look at every one. "Oh? A Prince? Ah, I see, the youngest! What was his name, Krimson, Kave... erm..." Bolremgar asked himself as he scratched his head in thought, before Ailren quickly shook his head. "It¡¯s Kiron. Well, at least you got the first letter right. It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Young Kiron. I must say, out of all the children of Trygan, you are the only one that inherited the beauty of our King¡¯s Scales. And for you to be Eisen¡¯s Knight, what a delightful surprise this is." Ailrenughed before Bolremgar took a closer look at the old man he was using as a footing. "Huh, a Prince acting as someone¡¯s Knight? That¡¯s new, isn¡¯t it?" He asked his fellow full-blooded Dragon, further confusing Kiron, who had been having trouble figuring out what to do or say in this situation. "Yes, I don¡¯t think this has happened before. Well, either way, that¡¯s not what we should be focusing on right now. I rather have a question for you, dear Eisen." Ailren asked, before the smile that he had on his face up until now basically immediately disappeared, and was reced by a cold stare. "How did you end up on the Path of Yin?" Chapter 163 Who Are You? With a serious expression, Ailren stared at Eisen, who looked back at the Ancient Dragon with a frown, before the old craftsman sighed loudly. "With ¡¯Path of Yin¡¯ you probably mean my ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ Title, right?" He asked before Ailren quickly nodded, and Bolremgar jumped off of Eisen¡¯s shoulder, rapidly transforming into a different form. Now, his body was that of a human¡¯s, just a bit younger than Ailren. "Oh? A Demon candidate walking on the path of yin? How¡¯d a guy like that end up as your champion, Aylrentyrth?" "That¡¯s exactly what I¡¯m trying to find out right now." The Gold Dragon responded before Eisen grabbed the backpack he was wearing and took out the three shards from Kirisho¡¯s amulet. "It¡¯splicated, but it mostly started with these shards. So that I could scare the people that took these into giving me the shards instead of having to fight them for it, I used my Elemental full-body transformation. My element is a mixture of Fire and Earth, and when I transformed my eyes, I also had the Truth-Seeing Eyes skill I got from Ailren active, they were burning in golden mes. Thenter, I got into a fight with some other people and ended up identally creating a scene. That title is the result of that. I didn¡¯t intend to get that title; I didn¡¯t even know about it." Eisen exined to Ailren, before he sighed in relief, seemingly to immediately believing that story. "I see, so it was something like that, huh? I was unsure, considering thatrge concentration of Yin Energy you are carrying with you," He said. Before Bolremgar looked over at Ailren confused. "Huh? Are you believing that guy... just like that? And even then, why¡¯s he even calling you ¡¯Ailren¡¯? Isn¡¯t that kind of disrespectful to an elder like you?" "Who are you calling an elder, Bolremgar? You are merely 100 years younger than me, are you not?" Ailren asked his draconicpanion, who sighed loudly. "So what? For someone like him, 100 years is a lifetime!" Bolremgar eximed, before surprisingly, Melissa tuned in, pointing at Eisen as she stared intensely at the Ancient Bronze Dragon. "Older." She mumbled before Bolremgar began to smirk a bit as he shook his head. "Ah, little one, I know that he may look older than me, but he¡¯s just regr person, right? I¡¯m 5000 years old, and how old could he be? He looks human, so maybe 50? If not, then at most a hundred or so, right?" Bolremgar said as he leaned in toward Melissa before Kiron held up his hand. "Actually, M¡¯Lord is not much younger than my father." He said, surprising not only Bolremgar and Aylrentyrth but also Eisen himself. With a frown, Ailren looked at Kiron, before asking what he meant. "Young Prince, what are you saying? Surely, he is Half-Giant, but even the oldest of elders lived only to 700 years." "Truly, not even I know how old M¡¯Lord is. But I can say one thing for sure. I know that my father knew him from before he ascended." He said before Ailren snapped his head over to look at Eisen. "I see, so that title truly was something like that. I knew I had heard of the ¡¯Original¡¯ part before... Eisen, so you were the first person in this world that has reached the peak, were you not?" He asked with a severe tone; before Bolremgar looked at Ailren in confusion. "Wait, no way he¡¯s that guy, right? You¡¯re trying to tell me that he¡¯s the one that hatched our king¡¯s egg? Isn¡¯t he supposed to be tall enough to make us look small?" He eximed, before Ailren swiftly nodded, confusing Eisen even more. "Alright, stop. You¡¯re talking about things I didn¡¯t know about yet. I hatched the egg belonging to a literal God?" Eisen asked before Ailren nodded again. "Yes, as far as the stories go, at least. It truly is unknown how old you are, after all. Some people say you are 100 Thousand years old, while others say you were one that was born to the first generations of dwarves and giants, a long, long time before that. I did not yet have the chance to truly inquire about how true the stories are with our King, but you were always known to be a great ally to him." Ailren exined before Eisen sighed and looked over to Kiron. "Well, it seems that technically I may actually be your Grandfather, huh?" Heughed loudly, still trying to grasp the whole idea of this being the case for his character¡¯s in-game story, although it did seem somewhat random from what Eisen could gather so far. Either way, Eisen really didn¡¯t care about his in-game past, because it wasn¡¯t his own anyway. It was the past of a person that didn¡¯t really exist, the first person that peaked. While this old man was thinking about such things, Bolremgar stood in front of him. "Well, that was a surprise, for sure. Sorry for being so rude to you then. Well, anyway, since you¡¯ve got a nickname for Aylrentyrth, I guess I should allow you to call me something else as well. There was a person that called me simply ¡¯Bol¡¯ before. Is that to your liking?" Bolremgar asked before Eisen slowly nodded. "Yeah, Bol sounds good to me, if that¡¯s fine with you. But anyway, my reason foring here is something different right now. I want to fix the amulet first if you¡¯re alright with it." Eisen exined before Bol quickly nodded. "Ah, sure! I¡¯ll give you my Trial afterward~!" Bolughed before Eisen looked at him in surprise. "Oh? You¡¯re going to give me the Trial just like that?" "Of course! I can¡¯t pass up the chance to make someone like you a second-tier champion, can I?" "I see... Anyway, thanks for that, then." Eisen said with a nod, before walking up to Ailren. "Can you give me Kirisho¡¯s Gem, Ailren?" He asked, before the Ancient Dragon swiftly nodded, quickly extending his hand, revealing the deep ck gem to Eisen. "Thank you," Eisen said with a smile, preparing to do all of this properly. With his element, he quickly created something like a table where he could set all the shards and the gem down on, swiftly doing just that. And when he did... nothing happened. But Eisen didn¡¯t expect anything to; he wanted to see if it may work just in case. So, Eisen quickly activated transmutation, intertwining the shards of the amulet with each other to connect it as much as possible, and then iying the gem in the center. But again, nothing happened. And then, the old man had another idea. He may technically not be able tobine materials other than crystals and gems yet through transmutation, but maybe he would be able to merge their ends if he tried hard enough. As such, Eisen tried doing precisely that, splitting his mana into two types and pouring each type into one of the amulet shards, and then continued with interweaving of the adjacent surfaces with each other further and further, doing so until he couldn¡¯t anymore,bining his mana at the edges as much as possible. And indeed, now Eisen couldn¡¯t find an edge anymore even if he tried, and after pulling the two types of mana out of the shards, everything still worked like normal. So, the old man repeated this two more times to properly connect all three shards of the amulet with one another. And now, Eisen only had to fully attach the gem. He did that by simply setting the jewel into the center of the amulet¡¯s base, and transmuting the edges around it ever so slightly to move lightly along the top edges of the gem, to firmly secure it in. But somehow, still nothing happened. Confused, Eisen looked over at Ailren, trying to question him. "Do you know why nothing is happening? Is there some kind of ritual involved?" Unsure of what it may be, Ailren shook his head. "I truly do not know, Eisen. Maybe we need to simply give it time. We can attempt to wake up Kirisho first, and see if it maybe worked after all." The Ancient Gold Dragon suggested, before Eisen nodded and held the amulet over to Ailren, telling him to call Kirisho, but once again the Dragon shook his head. "I think it should be your honor to wake her, Eisen. You were the one that has collected these shards, after all. You even stepped on the Path of Yin for this purpose." Ailren told Eisen, who simply nodded quietly. For some reason, he felt nervous. He didn¡¯t know why, but he did. What if this didn¡¯t work, and Kirisho¡¯s condition couldn¡¯t be changed? What if Eisen promised her that he would fix her, and then had to live with the fact that he lied to such a wonderful and kind woman? As Eisen stood there, quietly holding the amulet, he was about to call out to Kirisho but didn¡¯t in fear of the possibility of failing. Eisen didn¡¯t want to think about that, he didn¡¯t want to be reminded of these thoughts. It wasn¡¯t the first time in his life for Eisen to have these types of thoughts. But that wasn¡¯t how the human brain worked, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help but think of what had happened with his wife back then. How she slowly lost her mind with every passing day, making it harder and harder to remember who she was, who Benjamin was, or even who her children were. Even now, Eisen couldn¡¯t fully hold back the tears that welled up in his eyes as he thought of thest words that his wife had spoken to him. Back then, these words echoed through the room while Eisen sat by his wife¡¯s side, holding her hand as she was dying. The children were sleeping at the time, but Eisen wasn¡¯t able to properly fall asleep for weeks and weeks on end, not only making him seem like a husk of who he was but also his wife even more so, as she stopped speaking altogether. It was only on herst day alive that she regained her mind again for the veryst time. She was able to walk around, and read their children a bedtime story, giving them kisses as they went to bed. That night, she and her husband had been talking for hours, simply about their past, about how they had met back in the day, and how Eisen had to convince her father to let him marry her because her father was still of the old generation and wanted things to be done like back in the day. He wasn¡¯t happy with his daughter marrying a foreigner, but soon enough warmed up to the kind man that so lovingly spent time with his daughter. And then, they talked about death, and lovingly held each other for hours, since they both knew deep down that this was Eisen¡¯s most beloved¡¯sst day. It rained that day, despite it having been nearly 40¡ã Celsius, so the humidity in the air was high even thiste at night, and Eisen remembered his wife asking whether he was crying, or simply sweating from the heat as she held her hand against his cheek. And this moment was one that Eisen truly would never forget ever in his life. The moment that made him despise the doctors that simply ignored his wife¡¯s suffering and pumped her full of medication until her tumors weren¡¯t the thing that had been killing her anymore. As the air that had been so unpleasantly hot and humid all summer suddenly turned cold and dry, the light in Eisen¡¯s wife¡¯s eyes disappeared, and she removed her hand from his cheek, looking at her husband with a nk expression as she slowly sank into the bed, saying just three small words. "Who are you?" Chapter 164 Quest Complete As Eisen looked at the amulet in his hands, those three words kept reverberating in his mind. ¡¯Who Are You?¡¯. Thest words that he had heard from his wife. He didn¡¯t know why, but for some reason, he felt just as scared now as he did back then. Maybe it was because he had a chance to make up for what he couldn¡¯t do back then, or perhaps it had a reason that Eisen himself couldn¡¯t figure out, but no matter what, the old man knew that he wanted this to work. Eisen lightly held the amulet forward, doing just what Ailren told him to do, concentrating on the gem, or instead what was inside of the gemstone, and called out to the Spirit. "Kirisho, wake up." As Eisen said this, the gem suddenly began to faintly glow in a way that even surprised Ailren, as the light spread out toward the base of the amulet, enveloping it slowly, before a mist came pouring out of the gem that gradually formed into a body. And then, what Eisen saw was Kirisho, standing in front of him with tears in her eyes. Her whole face seemed a lot healthier, despite still being as pale as snow, and overall, the energy that she gave off was that of happiness. "Thank you, Eisen, thank you. You promised that you would help me, but until the end, I was not sure that you would be able to. Thank you so, so very much." [Quest Complete - Stolen Shards] [Description] A group of adventurers destroyed the amulet in which the Mist Spirit Kirisho was sealed, taking the shards with them. This left Kirisho in a state that only barely allows her to exist consciously. You want to help, and thus the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth asked you to find the adventurers, and as such hopefully the shards of the amulet, with the help of one of the adventurers¡¯ identification tag. Find the stolen shards andbine them to restore the amulet. After you found the first adventurer of the party, you got the shard from him and got him to tell you where the others are, while making sure that he would be forever terrified of you. One of them died, and the shard was taken by a criminal loan shark business, while the other went to live in a town of magic. Once you took the shard from the criminals as well, you went to find thest of the Adventurer Party, who told you that the shard was taken by yet another criminal organization. You have now found all of the shards and reunited them with the Heart of the amulet. [Reward] Kirisho will be able to live a normal life again [Failure] Kirisho will continue living the life she currently has [Hidden Bonus rewards to the quest ¡¯Stolen Shards¡¯ have been found] [Bonus Rewards] Arge amount of experience; Any ¡¯one¡¯ wish to be granted by Kirisho [You are now level 99] Immediately, Eisen ignored these notifications, waving them to the side as he looked at Kirisho and the amulet in his hands. "I see, so it worked after all..." Eisen muttered with a soft smile, happy that this was enough toplete the quest and properly help Kirisho. Slowly, Kirisho stepped up to Eisen, grabbing his right hand with both of hers, and smiled at him. "I don¡¯t know what I could ever do to thank you. I truly don¡¯t. Please, tell me whatever you want, and I will fulfill your wish to the best of my ability." She eximed while looking up at Eisen, before the old man simply shook his head, confusing Kirisho momentarily. "I don¡¯t want a wish. I didn¡¯t do all of this to get something in return, but to make sure you¡¯re happy. So, if you want me to tell you my wish, it would be that...that you make sure to enjoy this chance I¡¯ve given you to the fullest." With a surprised expression, Kirisho nodded at Eisen slowly, smiling as she grasped his hand even tighter. "Thank you. I promise to you that I will never forget what you have done for me." Kirisho leaned in closer toward Eisen with these words, pushing herself up on her feet that were hidden beneath her mist-robes, and gently ced her lips on Eisen¡¯s cheek. "I will forever be your ally, Eisen, never forget this." She told him, as she quickly stood up properly again, taking the amulet that Eisen was holding into her own hands before the old man smiled softly. "I won¡¯t forget, don¡¯t worry. But there¡¯s something else that I want to talk to you about regarding you and your amulet, Kirisho." Eisen exined, turning back around toward the rest of the people currently gathered there. "Kirisho¡¯s amulet is cursed. We, as in mypanions and I, figure that it was for a specific reason. That the people that trapped Kirisho in the amulet in the first ce wanted to create and item to subtly control other people through fear, as long as they could control Kirisho herself. But I guess before then, Ailren picked the amulet up and brought it to his cave. My friend is a great magician, she¡¯s another one of the people that peaked, and she offered to break the curses that have been ced on it," Eisen exined slowly. Before Kirisho tilted her head to the side and Bol and Ailren looked at each other with frowns. "I was aware of it being cursed, yes, but I was not aware of it being such a serious matter. After all, I have spent a lot of time with Kirisho, and never experienced the supposed effects," Ailren exined before Eisen quickly nodded. "That¡¯s quite obvious, isn¡¯t it? There¡¯s no way that an item with a curse on it that could affect an Ancient Dragon would be able to be so easily found. It would make any regr person that touches it to go insane immediately, wouldn¡¯t it?" Eisen said, which seemed to make sense to the two Dragons, who quickly nodded before Eisen turned back to Kirisho. "It¡¯s your choice, in the end. I can bring you to my friend if you want and have her break the curse," Eisen told her before Kirisho slowly nodded. "Yes, please. I don¡¯t think it has any effect on me, but if it can hurt those around me, I would rather not be inflicted with such things," Kirisho responded before Eisen smiled at her. "Then don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll bring you to her as soon as possible." The old man promised before she smiled softly in response. Ailren chose to mention something else, "Wait, how could there be a peaked one in this town? Especially the Peaked Magician she should give off enough energy for me to feel in my sleep," he said with suspicion before Eisen sighed loudly. "Well, I¡¯m not the only peaked person that lost their experience. Actually, all of the originals did. Apparently it was a ploy by the Evil Dragons to create artificial beings. The first wave of that were the Omegas, and now the second wave recently arrived, the Deltas. And they¡¯re probably not thest either." Eisen quickly exined, before then going into more detail when he noticed that Ailren and Bol were staring at him in confusion. After Eisen was done telling them about everything, the two Ancient Dragons looked at each other in worry. "So basically they¡¯re creating evil beings to wreak havoc in the world? Is that what it is?" Bol tried to sum up, but Eisen immediately shook his head. "Oh, no, that¡¯s not the case at all. Maybe that was the n, I¡¯m not sure, but not all of the artificials are bad people. There¡¯re some exceptions, sure, but for the most part they¡¯re good kids. One of them is actually apanion of mine now. It¡¯s going to be a little chaotic, sure, but I doubt anything majorly bad will happen for now." Eisen responded to them before Ailren spoke up again. "I see, thank you for letting us know about this, Eisen. That is surely going to be helpful information. But either way, there was something else...If you said that all those that peaked had their experience stolen, does that mean that the youngdy you had me bring here was one of those that peaked? I thought you were joking when you said that the five that peaked were meeting here, but you were speaking the truth..." Ailren whispered before Bol opened his eyes wide in wonder. "All five of you are going to be here, I see. Quite interesting." He said with a slight smile before Eisenughed lowly and opened up the notifications that he didn¡¯t read through before. The quest didn¡¯t say anything special, but Eisen was quite surprised to see that the Quest had given him enough experience to level Eisen up to level 99. Quietly, he thought it through, until slowly nodding and muttering to himself. "I guess it makes sense. I did spend quite some time on this quest and had to travel long distances. On top of that, I faced someone as strong as that Shaman, so maybe this is a proper amount of experience after all," he sighed, before then looking at the notification that was hiding behind all the others. [Level up Quest - Road to 100] [Description] You have reached Level 99 and as such, have gained the right to work toward achieving level 100. These are your requirements as calcted by your actions so far: -cksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Alchemy Skills at Rank 3 (3/5) -Racial Skills at Rank 3 (Complete) -upation Skill Crafting Space at Rank 3 (Iplete) -Mana Maniption, me of the Earth Magic at Rank 3 (0/2) -Woodworking, Cooking, Drawing, Tool Connection, Soul Engineering, Truth Seeing Eye at Rank 2 (3/6) -Learn Farming, Mining and Masonry Skills -Gain Title Champion II (Iplete) -Using Soul Engineering, give a form to a soul (Iplete) [Reward] Level increased to 100 [Failure] Not possible After Eisen looked through the list of requirements to level up to 100, he stopped for a second, thinking about what Jyuuk told him about his requirements. As far as he said, he only needed to get a few skills up to Rank 3, but in Eisen¡¯s case, he needed to get 10 of them up to that rank. Maybe that was simply because his skills were already Rank 3 for arge part, and others quite close to ranking up again anyway, and simply because of that, Eisen thought that this wasn¡¯t such a big deal in the end. Getting his Tailoring and Leatherworking skills to Rank 3 shouldn¡¯t be that hard either, and his Crafting Space, Mana Maniption, and me of the Earth magic skills were rtively close to Rank 3 as well, so that would naturally happen anyway. As for the skills he needed to get to Rank 2, that wasn¡¯t hard either. Maybe he needed to make a fewrger meals for people to increase his Cooking level, and then create more sketches of items he wanted to manufacture for his Drawing skill. And he would be using Soul Engineering for thest requirement anyway, so that would be a good chance. However, giving a form to a soul wasn¡¯t anything that Eisen was able to do yet, at least not with the soul that he tried altering with soul engineering before. But maybe that was different from the soul of a monster of a lower rank. All of those that Eisen had seemed to have a too high soul-strength for him to work with, so he would need to ask Jyuuk to get soul stones of a few low-rank monsters then. And as for the ¡¯Champion II¡¯ title, it seemed like that issue was already being taken care of by Bolremgar. "Ah, right! I need to give you my trial!" Eisen told Bol. "Alright, then listen here, Eisen! You¡¯re already walking on the Path of Yin right now. So, using the demonic transformation you talked about, I want you to start walking on the Path of Yang!" Chapter 165 Transformation Tips Confused, Eisen looked at Bol with a frown, before the Ancient Bronze Dragon continued. "It seems like you¡¯re under the impression that true Demons are all evil, huh? Sure, the majority of them are, because it¡¯s far easier to step on the Path of Yin than it is to step on the Path of Yang, but it isn¡¯t a prerequisite to be ¡¯evil¡¯ to be a Demon. Real Demons are beings with quite Unique abilities and appearances. You basically won¡¯t find one that¡¯s like another. So, if people encounter something that¡¯s beyond theirprehension, they call it a Demon! Pretty easy, right?" Bol exined before Eisen slowly nodded. "I get it. And because I became known as a Demon through scaring people, I got a title for being an ¡¯evil¡¯ demon and stepped onto that Path of Yin, right?" Eisen asked, and now Bol nodded in response. "Exactly! You see, the principle of Yin and Yang is something quite simple. Yin is bad, Yang is good. You can also call it negative and positive energy, and many martial artists without the ability to use Mana properly use this energy, despite it technically being just a form of mana then again, so their Status will still see it as such as well. But they simply use a different form of mana with those principles. And that principle is also true for Demons. The path of yin is for evil, and the path of yang is for good. So I want you to prove to the people of this town that the Demon known for stepping on the former path, can also walk on thetter." He exined before a notification popped up in front of Eisen. [New Quest - Ancient Bronze Dragon¡¯s Test] [Description] After passing the trials of the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth, you are now taking the trial of the Ancient Bronze Dragon Bolremgar. He asked you to use your demonic self to be someone known for doing good things, instead of bad ones. Once you have been recognized by the system to have stepped on the Path of Yang, then this quest will be seen aspleted. [Reward] Be the Champion to a second Ancient Dragon [Failure] You can not take the test of this Dragon again [Time Limit] One Month "So, tell me. Have youpleted your transformation yet?" Bol curiously asked before Eisen shook his head. "Not yet, no. I tried to, but it doesn¡¯t seem like it worked properly. Here, let me show you." The old man exined, feeling d for different reasons at this moment. For one, he still felt the rush of finally helping Kirisho, and then, on top of that, he also found out that he didn¡¯t have to be an Evil Demon. If he switched the Path he was on, then maybe he could use this transformation for means other than scaring people. And if that was the case, then that may indeed be something great, wouldn¡¯t it? Quickly, Eisen summoned his Staff from his soul storage and activated the different spells, and then his skin turned into rock form with burning cracks in between and his eyes began glowing in golden mes before his wings, ws, tail, and horns began to form. With his voice also transformed to show Bolremgar the full extent of his transformation, Eisen began to speak. "This is my transformation so far." He exined, before Bol quickly transformed into a small hummingbird before flying all around Eisen to properly inspect every inch of his body, before turning back into his human form anding to a conclusion. "Horrible." He eximed, not giving Eisen any chance to defend himself, "I mean, the base is great. The way you transformed your skin can¡¯t truly be perfected any further if you ask me, and your voice is quite fitting as well, despite being somewhat fearful already. But what¡¯s not good at all are all of those essories! First an foremost, those ws are definitely the first things to go. I¡¯m sure they¡¯re hard to work with, aren¡¯t they? The concept behind the tail, wings, and horns is alright, but the shape doesn¡¯t suit you at all." He exined, while Eisen quickly took mental notes. "You¡¯re a giant of a man, quite literally! But everything you¡¯ve attached to yourself is so tiny and...delicate. First, you need to increase the size of your horns considerably. I know it may end up being a bit heavy, but these look like you just took them off a Ram and glued them to your head!" He exined, before pointing to his own head, where two horns simr to Eisen¡¯s grew before morphing into a different shape, indeed a lotrger than what they were before, but still in a way that they weren¡¯t unnecessarily cumbersome, and simply twisted around a lot more without being in the way of anything. "Next! Your wings! If you were to actually attempt flight with wings like that, you really wouldn¡¯t be able to do that, now would you? They would never be able to carry your weight. So, you just need to make themrger as well, while thickening out all the important structural parts. Realism is important for a transformation like this." Bol told Eisen, before tworge wings sprouted from his back, each probably reaching two to three times the length of how tall Bol currently was. Immediately after Eisen finished imitating the horns on the top of Bol¡¯s head, he continued with his wings, of course increasing the size to better fit to his own body. "Now then, take your shirt off. You need to actually connect the wings to your body, or else that¡¯s just some random gimmick, and not part of a transformation." With a nod, Eisen did precisely that, following the advice of someone that seemed to be far more knowledgeable than himself at least in regards to transformation. Quickly, he stripped out of his shirt and moved the wings floating behind his back closer toward himself, before then carefully connecting the wings to his back in the way that Bol had instructed him to. Right now they were still awkward to control, since Eisen basically still had to fully manipte every little movement of the wings, even if he didn¡¯t have to worry about their rtive cement to his own body anymore, but Bol told him that this would probably change soon. "And now, your tail. Such thin tails are barely useful. They¡¯re supposed to help bnce for winged creatures, so it really wouldn¡¯t help you like that at all. You need to make it thicker, if you keep it at all, that is. Honestly, it¡¯s not really necessary, if we¡¯re talking about how practical it is." Bol told Eisen, who quickly nodded and quickly made the tail disappear. In the end, rather than looking more shy, this transformation seemed more natural somehow. And then, Eisen remembered thest part of his transformation. "Ah, I¡¯m sorry. I forgot about a pretty important part. Since my skin¡¯s formed of rock in this form, I thought of enchanting it, so this is an integrated part of my demonic form." The old man said as he quickly activated the enchanted sub-type of his transformed skin, causing all the different runes and patterns to appear on his skin. Surprised, Bol leaned in a bit closer as he made the horns and wings he made to show to Eisen disappear. "Oh, interesting. Aylrentyrth, can you tell what this enchantment does?" Bolremgar asked his fellow Ancient Dragon, who quickly nodded. "Yes. It seems to be an enchantment that focuses Eisen¡¯s will and robs it off enemies. I¡¯m guessing it was made to increase the fear of other people." He summed up. "That¡¯s exactly it, yes. What do you think about this, Bol? Should I keep this enchantment, or should I keep my transformation without it?" Eisen inquired before Bol thought for a few seconds. "Get rid of that enchantment and make a new one. I didn¡¯t think that kind of enchantment was actually possible, but seemingly so. You¡¯re a craftsman, so you shouldn¡¯t do any majorly heroic acts to step on the Path of Yang, but do what you do best, Craft. So I think you should make an enchantment that¡¯s made exactly for that instead of one to scare people." Bol suggested, and Eisen slowly nodded, as this really was a great idea. "An enchantment to make my work easier, huh? That sounds perfect, actually. Alright, I¡¯ll work on that. Thank you for your help with my transformation, Bol." The old man thanked him with a smile before Bolremgar slowly nodded as he stepped back toward the boat in the middle of the body of water in that cave and transformed back into his draconic form before Ailren sighed loudly. "He didn¡¯t even take a look at that wolf in the end? I wanted to show him the magnificent item that was created through my trial, though." Ailren muttered, before transforming back into a dragon as well, and Eisen softly chuckled. "Well, I¡¯m going to see you twoter. Kirisho, are youing with us already, or do you want me to pick you up for the ritual once everything is prepared?" Eisen asked the Mist Spirit, who quickly responded with a soft smile. "I¡¯m going to wait here. I want to talk to Ailren for a while," She said before Eisen slowly nodded. "Alright, then I¡¯m going to see youter." The old man told her before he deactivated his transformations and put his shirt back on, making his way out of the cave together with Caria, Melissa, Kiron and the two automata Aulu and Cabarum. On their way out, Kiron turned over toward his master with aplicated expression. "It seems that it truly was fate that brought M¡¯Lord and me together. It cannot be a coincidence that you were the one that was a father to mine and that we now met after such a long time," he said before Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Yes, I was quite surprised myself, to say the least. But I can really only focus on the demon thing right now." Eisen muttered, before Kiron slowly nodded, noticing that this obviously wasn¡¯t the only thing he was thinking about, but respecting his Master¡¯s choice not to talk about it. "I see, yes. I was not aware of these energies yet either, not to mention the different ¡¯paths¡¯ of demons in rtion to these opposing energies. Although I wonder what the actual connection between those usages of the terms is." Kiron exined, as Eisen only nodded. "Surely, if I¡¯m going to step on that ¡¯Path of Yang¡¯, it¡¯s got to have some positive benefits, right? Mainly I¡¯m hoping to get rid of the danger of bing an Evil Demon," Eisen replied. While continuing these conversations, the group made their way out of the tunnel system and once more sat down on Cabarum¡¯s back to make their way over to the city again. On their way, as they were riding through the sand, Eisen began to think about ways to make people recognize him in his demonic transformation as someone good, as someone helpful. Maybe Xenia knew some better way, considering that she lived in the town for two in-game months now, but the best way that Eisen himself could figure out was simply to do volunteer work. Inevitably there were homeless people, or merely those that were in a bad physical condition. Feeding them or helping with emergency treatment would surely be a good start. Maybe he could start working on custom items for people around the town to slowly spread his name. After all, he did have a month toplete the trial he was given. And after logging off for the day, he would be able to spend some well-deserved quality time with his family, and start preparing for the Barbecue that they would have on Wednesday, to which he invited a lot of people from all around town, even Samuel would being for a visit to his house again. Now that he got through everything with Kirisho, he was finally able to concentrate on other things, and slowly move on from the part that had hurt him so badly in his past again. Chapter 166 Demonic Craftsman Not long after the group entered the town again, they made their way back to the stables first to bring Cabarum and Aulu back to the Carriage and then walked toward the Mage¡¯s Guild, where the rest were waiting for them. Once more, they were brought up into the research room by the same guy as before and then met with everyone again. Just as soon as they saw him, everyone stepped up to Eisen and immediately tried to ask him about what had happened. With a smile, the old man then recounted everything to them. "I managed to fix Kirisho¡¯s amulet, and she¡¯spletely fine and dandy now, everything worked out properly. And I was told a few things that I wasn¡¯t aware of..." He sighed, before Bree tilted her head to the side, "And what things were those?" She asked, and Eisen slowly began moving his fingers through his beard. "Well apparently, I may have been the one that hatched the Dragon King¡¯s egg." The old man said with a slight smile, before the three people in the group that were NPCs and truly knew the extent of what Eisen was talking about looked at him in utter confusion. "Wait, what do you mean? You hatched Trygan¡¯s egg, seriously?" With a surprised expression, Sky closed his book, before the old man nodded at him. "Maybe. Even Bolremgar and Aylrentyrth didn¡¯t seempletely sure. In the end, we can only know if I get my memories of that time back, or if we somehow meet Trygan and ask him." Eisen said as he softly chuckled before moving onto the next topic. "Anyway, that¡¯s not what¡¯s immediately important right at the moment. I received Bolremgar¡¯s Trial for me, and he asked me to be known as a Demon in this town." And now, everyone looked at Eisen in surprise, trying to figure out what he meant, and the old man quickly exined. "You see, Demons aren¡¯t necessarily evil, they¡¯re just unique beings in this world that are unlike any other, and there are two paths they can walk on ¡ª the Path of Yin, which is evil, and the Path of Yang, which is good. Because of my actions in Ornier, I have be known as a Demon on the path of yin, and now I¡¯m supposed to get known here as a demon on the path of yang. And if I can change the requirements topletely bing a demon, as described in the title, I¡¯ll dly do so. Well, I guess I¡¯m in a good mood anyway, so that¡¯s also why I don¡¯t mind." He told them, before the High-Elf Xenia crossed her arms, while still wearing the ¡¯mana optics¡¯ Eisen made for her, and nodded curiously. "So basically what you¡¯re saying you¡¯re supposed to be this town¡¯s hero through some grand action?" She asked before Eisen shook his head. "Quite the opposite, actually. Bolremgar exined to me that it¡¯s not necessary to do grand things. As long as a few people truly acknowledge me as a good guy, it should be enough. And for that, I¡¯m going to do the thing that I do best. Say, are there any major homeless shelters in this town?" He asked, and Xenia looked over at Dien, who should be the one most knowledgable about this town out of everyone here, considering that he grew up here. "Yeah, there are. Or rather, there is a single one. It¡¯s officially run by the Lord of this town, as it has been for many generations, together with the orphanage and other charities like that. That are supposed to help people in need. Although, it seems liketely they¡¯ve all been currently ignored by the Lord, so their condition isn¡¯t as good as it should be. If you want a ce to help out, that¡¯s definitely a perfect fit," Dien exined. Eisen nodded with a smile before stepping over to Bree¡¯s backpack and taking out his leather apron and smithing-pants. "Thanks, I¡¯ll go there then. Xenia, after I¡¯ve changed into these clothes, I need you to help me with another ¡¯Fullbody¡¯ enchantment, if you have time." Quickly, Xenia nodded in response, "Sure, it¡¯s a good chance to y around with something like that, after all. You can¡¯t make enchantments like that very often." She said with a warm grin before Eisen nodded and stepped behind a bookshelf, where he quickly changed into nothing but the wool-pants and stepped back out toward Xenia. "Alright, let¡¯s get started then, shall we?" He suggested before the High-Elf nodded and asked the old man a bit more about what kind of effect he would like to have through the enchantment. "If possible, a majority of it should be that it reduces the amount of mana I need to keep the transformation running. After all, I¡¯ll be doing that constantly for a while. And then maybe something that enhances my ¡¯Strength¡¯ and ¡¯Agility¡¯ stats, since those are probably most important. I haven¡¯t had any significant problems with my endurance so far. And then maybe something made to strengthen my different crafting skills, although I¡¯m not sure how well we can do that," Eisen exined. As Xenia carefully listened as she began to work on a rough idea, sketching down what Eisen would need to carve on his body beforehand. "I already have an idea for that, don¡¯t worry. Here, carve this into the spots written there." She told him as Xenia handed Eisen the sheet of paper that she wrote everything onto, and the old man quickly nodded before sitting down cross-legged on the ground again, with Xenia moving behind his back so she could work on everything there. For a while, they continued carving the patterns and runes into Eisen¡¯s transformed skin, currently without the horns and wings and didn¡¯t stop for even a second, before Eisen carved thest part of the enchantment onto his chest, although noticing that something was off. "Xenia, isn¡¯t this enchantment circle missing something?" He asked, and Xenia quickly nodded. "Yeah, it is. That¡¯s how you¡¯ll be able to strengthen yourself toward a specific skill. There are specific runes for each skill as well, so it would be smart to ¡¯save¡¯ the base enchantment as you did with the other one and then quickly carve that single enchantment into your skin before you start working," She exined. Before Eisen slowly nodded. "I see, that¡¯s quite useful then." "Yeah, it is. It¡¯s not a huge increase in skill efficiency, but it should do a few percents at least. If you want more than that, we have to make different full-body enchantments specialized for different skills." Xenia suggested, but Eisen shook his head, saying that this wasn¡¯t necessary. "I don¡¯t need a huge increase in everything. Every little bit helps, doesn¡¯t it? And we can work on other things at ater point, but it¡¯s not extremely necessary right now. It¡¯s just supposed to support me as a Demonic Craftsman." Eisen exined to Xenia, who shrugged and continued working on thest bit of the enchantment covering Eisen¡¯s back. And this time around, the full-body enchantment looked even more impressive than before. And that was because one extra person was helping out, Evalia. She advised both Eisen and Xenia on the best shape of things like these to truly get a specific image across to others and even made them add some technically useless decorative parts, making everything truly pop out the vision that Eisen wanted. And as such, a notification popped up in front of Eisen again. [You created the Fullbody Craftsman enchantment in coboration with Elemental Spirit Summoner Xenia and Heavenly Artist Evalia] [Fullbody Craftsman Enchantment] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2] [Description] An enchantment created in Coboration between the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen, the Elemental Spirit Summoner Xenia, and the Heavenly Artist Evalia after being ced on Eisen¡¯s own body to strengthen different crafting-rted skills and stats. The enchantment broadly strengthens the transformed skin underneath it and makes the transformation easier to sustain, while the arms and legs of the user have been enchanted to increase agility and strength directly. On the back is an enchantment acting as a core for the whole system, connecting the different effects, while the enchantment on the chest is for spreading the effect of skill-strengthening throughout the body. Directly above the heart, a free spot has been left to define a specific skill to be strengthenedter. Due to the artistic counsel of the Heavenly Artist Evalia, this enchantment even has a small amount of artistic value. [Effects] -20% Mana Consumption for me of the Earth Transformation; +5% Efficiency of Any Crafting-Rted Skill as directly defined; +10 AGI; +10 STR [Artistic Value] 10 [Do you want to save the Fullbody Craftsman Enchantment as a variation of the me of the Earth Transformation?] With a smile, Eisen quickly saved the Fullbody enchantment in his spell library. Then Eisen quickly stood up, cing his Leather Apron onto himself, and promptly set his most essential tools for his different professions into the small pouch in the front of the apron. Holding his hammer in his right hand as he infused his mana into every part of his equipment, including the apron and his pants themselves, as well as the hammer he was now holding. Eisen chose not to wear shoes in this form since he somehow always liked the freedom of movement he had while working in that way, he strengthened the underside of his feet by transforming them fully into rock, and then quickly made his horns and wings appear. And that wasn¡¯t the only thing that appeared. [Possibleplete Demonic Transformation found. Do you want to ept this as your Demonic Form?] Quietly, Eisen nodded his head, which was enough for the notification to then be reced by a new one. [Requirement of ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ Title fulfilled. ¡¯Complete your Demonic transformation¡¯.] [You have acquired the Transformation ¡¯Demonic Craftsman¡¯] [Wings and horns have been epted as part of the transformation, and as such as part of your alternate body] [In order to activate your demonic transformation, simply actively supply your body with enough energy and activate it as if it were a skill] Slowly, Eisen heard a few crackse from different sources all over his body, as his mes suddenly surged and caused high heat surrounding himself momentarily, as his body became more ¡¯refined,¡¯ as is all the parts that were uneven about him had fixed themselves. Not only that, but ayer of rock crumbled down off of his horns, as they were genuinely reced by an actual horn-like material, and his wings also became slightly more true to nature. He suddenly felt all their weight pulling on his back, as he was somehow able to instantly control them now with nothing but a thought, instead of having to focus and control the specific areas of his elemental mana. Slowly, he folded his wings behind his back so that he could adequately walk around and turned to look at hispanions. "Now then, you see the body of a Demonic Craftsman in front of you now," Eisen said, only now growing a slight bit nervous about pursuing this path. It wouldn¡¯t be the first time an ancient dragon lied to him, so this may all be some kind of sick joke. But Eisen chose to trust Bolremgar since he was still feeling ecstatic about the other things he had been doing today. "That¡¯s kind of... wow. You really do look pretty demonic... and you got rid of some partspared tost time, huh?" Xenia said, seemingly slightly disappointed that Eisen didn¡¯t fully stick to her tips, but the old man simplyughed softly. "Yeah, Bolremgar is something like an expert on transformation, so I thought it would be best to listen to his advice. And he did have quite a few good points." Eisen exined, seemingly making Xenia ept this quite easily before everyone else continued to observe Eisen¡¯s current body further, while the old man himself kept trying to control his wings to an extent, but it was still tough for him to do, and it felt quite sluggish overall. After a few minutes, Eisen then chose to step toward the exit, so that he could now make his way outside and work toward his new goal, in stepping on the ¡¯Path of Yang.¡¯ Chapter 167 Helping Ou Slowly, Eisen stepped through the Guild in thepany of his group with his full demonic transformation. As such, he initially got quite a lot of confused looks, and the guards even ced their hands on their weapons to get ready for anything that may happen. But since Eisen was only walking through the crowd with a smile and was also apanied by Xenia, who was known by anyone that spent even a single moment in the guild, they couldn¡¯t do anything about it and stood there confused. It surprisingly wasn¡¯t any better on the streets, and Eisen was naturally avoided by everyone, before the group reached a point where they would split up. With a smile, and after thinking a moment about what each of them should be doing, for now, Eisen looked at Komer first. "Can you start preparing for sales? As in, get everything set up that you need to, look for the best spot and maybe even reserve it somehow. It would be great if you can start selling a few items from tomorrow on." Quickly, Komer nodded in response, although he seemed to be a bit nervous. "I¡¯ll try, but you¡¯ll be asleep tomorrow, right?" "Yes, I will be, but that really doesn¡¯t matter now, does it? It¡¯s not like I could be with you constantly when you¡¯re selling things. And when we build our Town, you¡¯re going to be the head of the merchant district, so you should be able to do things like this on your own." Eisen told him before Komer looked at Eisen in surprise. "H-Huh? You¡¯re going to make me the head of a whole district..?" He asked before Eisen nodded with an expression as if it was an obvious choice. "Well, none of the Originals specialize in sales like that. So it would be somewhat obvious, right? I mean, I don¡¯t know about Brody, but nobody else knows any other good merchants, right?" Eisen said before the others in the group seemed to agree to what he said. "I... I see... Thank you, I won¡¯t disappoint you then. I¡¯ll work on it, don¡¯t worry. Is there anything else you want me to do?" He asked, and Eisen thought for a moment, beforeing to a single conclusion. "Rank up your Mana Maniption. I think you should get a great element at this point." He said, before turning down to look at Caria and Melissa. "By the way, don¡¯t think I forgot about your guys¡¯ lessons. You¡¯ll work on ranking up your mana maniption as well." He said strictly before Caria lightly began to pout, and Melissa looked up at Eisen with a small smile. "Alright! I¡¯ll do that then!" The young man said excitedly, anxious to soon find out what his element would be since he saw Eisen¡¯s ¡¯me of the earth¡¯ being this awesome quite a lot. Then, Eisen looked over at Bree, Dien, and Xenia. "If possible, could you three maybe look for materials for the ritual useful to break Kirisho¡¯s curse?" He asked and they, Bree especially, quickly nodded as the Fey-Kin girl leaned against Dien, and Xenia spoke up. "We can do that, sure. Shouldn¡¯t take too long," She said with a shrug before Eisen thanked them and turned to Evalia and Sky. "And what do you two want to do? I don¡¯t have anything specific I want to ask of either of you." He told them before they both made their choices. Evalia said that she would tag along with Komer so that he wouldn¡¯t be alone, and because this would be a great chance to walk around town a bit more again, and Sky said he would like toe along with Eisen. "Alright, then we¡¯ll meet up againter," Eisen announced before they all split up again. Obviously, Eisen¡¯s group got the most attention out of all of them. But Eisen didn¡¯t mind, it¡¯s not like he was doing anything evil, and in case anyone was trying to cause trouble for him, he could quickly transform back into his regr form and show them that he was just a person. With that in mind, the group, after walking past the stables to grab a few different items, stepped through town toward the ce that Dien talked about. It didn¡¯t take long to find it either since it was probably thergest building in the area and the only one that was at least somewhat presentable in the area also. So without further ado, they stepped through the entrance gateway, leading up into something like a park area, since it seemed like the whole building was split into three parts. The Orphanage, the hospital, and the shelter, some smaller buildings were surrounding it that still seemed to belong to thepound, but what Eisen was now approaching was the main entrance. With a smile, Eisen grasped the knocker attached to therge wooden door, and hit it against the surface a few times, before there seemed to be some movement beyond the door, which slowly began to open. "Yes, how can I help... you...?" A young woman wearing a nun¡¯s outfit asked as she looked up at Eisen, stumbling back slightly the moment she saw the glowing from his mes. Obviously, she would be startled at the sight of someone that looked the way Eisen did at first nce, so the old man quickly chose to move on to the topic at hand. "Hello there, youngdy. I heard that this ce might need some helping hands." He exined before the young woman slowly nodded. "Y-Yes, we do, b-but... Wha-what are you?" She asked with a clear stutter out of nervousness, and Eisen smiled softly. "I¡¯m just someone that wants to help. As long as that¡¯s the case, what does it matter who or what I am?" He said, before the young nun slowly nodded, still visibly nervous. "The church never rejects anyone. So please, ce on in." She told Eisen and the rest, before they stepped inside, following the nun around the courtyard. "We need help with many different things currently. We need to repair parts of the building, treat the people in the hospital, feed the children, patients and homeless, and make sure we supervise the children so that they don¡¯t runoff. We would like to have a proper teacher for them, but right now, that¡¯s not currently possible for us, simply because we¡¯re far too busy." The nun told them, while everyone listened carefully, as Eisen wasing up with a few ideas already. "Alright, I can definitely help with parts of that. I will help with the repairing the building then, and I do have some potions that can help with the treatment of the ill. If you trust me enough with making food for everyone, I would be able to do that also." The old man exined to her, before the nun turned to him in surprise. "You want to do all of that?" She stopped as she looked up at the Demonic man following her, who swiftly nodded. "As I said, that is why I am here. And I¡¯m a craftsman by heart, so I will create whatever I can." Slowly, the young woman nodded, seemingly only slightly forcing her smile. "Thank you. Currently, the broken-down areas are not upied and are stable, so that¡¯s not currently our biggest priority. What we need most is treatment for the sick and food for everyone. You said you have potions, right?" The nun inquired before Eisen opened his backpack and took out one of the small barrels that he had filled to the brim with Low-Grade Health Potions. He had some other potions with him as well and knew that Sky had a story called ¡¯Medicine God¡¯ in one of his books, which he asked him to bring just for this. It seemed like that ¡¯Medicine God¡¯ had the ability to strengthen and correctly administer everything seen as medicine in any way, including potions. The Medicine God was a skilled physician, which was ultimately the perfect thing in this kind of situation. Sky only read through the story once, so his connection to it wasn¡¯t great, but he should be able to summon him for a short while at least. And maybe, once Eisen saw the method that the Medicine God was using, he may be able to emte it somewhat at least a little bit. "How many people need to be fed?" Eisen asked as he tried moving his hand through his beard, which caused a few small cracking sounds as it split up into individual strands again, and the nun quickly thought about it for a few seconds before answering. "There are around 100 people in total, I would say. It¡¯s too many for us to cook for, especially because we don¡¯t have the ingredients." She exined before Eisen closed his eyes to think up a good idea of what to make for that many people. "Alright, I¡¯ll write a list of ingredients and give you the money to buy all of it. Just see it as a donation, so there¡¯s no need to pay me back. If possible, it would be great if you could go out shopping while I start preparing what I can and see my way around the kitchen." He said, surprising the nun immediately, before she quickly nodded, hoping that this person in front of her wasn¡¯t lying. "Yes! I¡¯m going to ask some of the older kids from the orphanage to help out, then we should be able to bring everything here!" She said, feeling incredibly nervous and as if she was in a rush, sped up and slurred her speech a slight bit. "Calm down, young miss. Then please, if you could introduce me to some of the other people working here so that they won¡¯t get scared if they suddenly see me, that would be great." He told her before she nodded and began walking along the hallway in a hurry, leading the group to the kitchen. After quickly introducing them to the kitchen staff, the nun chose to hurry along back outside once she received the money and ingredient list from Eisen before the old man turned to Kiron. "Could you please go along with them to do some of the heavy liftings? And wear one of my crafting outfits to at least somewhat hide that you¡¯re a monster, alright?" Eisen asked of the constantly near-to-naked Half-Dragon, who then swiftly nodded and put the clothes onto himself as he followed the nun quickly. And now, Eisen stood in front of the kitchen staff, made up of the Head-Chef and one apprentice, both of which were looking at the old man confused and were generally unsure of what was going on. Noticing this, Eisen crossed his arms with a smile. "So, can either of you show me what kind of equipment you have here?" He asked, taking the initiative in this cooperation, before the Head-Chef, a middle-aged dwarf, nodded his head. "We don¡¯t have great things ¡¯ere, but at least we ¡¯ave a basic stove and oven." He exined before Eisen took a look. Seemingly, these actually were the only kitchen equipment they had. And they weren¡¯t in the best of condition either, as they were mainly cracked and broken down to arge extent. "Hmm, I may need to repair theseter, but for now I¡¯ll do something else." The old man muttered, looking for an open space in the room as he summoned his Staff from his soul storage, before extending it forward and creating a few t working surfaces, arge, bordering on huge, stone oven, and a stove-setup meant for manyrge pots, which the kitchen here seemed to have plenty of. As the Head-Chef and his apprentice were staring at the things that just appeared in front of them in wonder, Eisen turned around to them after noticing the unused soil outside the window. "Can we quickly use that area there for a while?" He asked the chef, who slowly nodded, before Eisen looked at Caria and Melissa. "You two go outside and grow a few different vegetables. Onions, potatoes, and carrots to be exact. Focus on them being extremely healthy and nutritious. We have more than enough time, so you don¡¯t need to work on size or amount." He told them as he grabbed a few bags out of his backpack and handed them to the Myconid girl. Who happily took them into her hands together with Empress Bee Melissa and ran outside, quickly burrowing through the dirt to nt what they needed, as he looked at the Fey-kin still standing next to Eisen, the old man got an idea. "Sky, is the ¡¯Medicine God¡¯ an actual deity?" He asked him, before Sky looked up at Eisen in surprise before nodding slowly. "Not a full deity, but he does have some Divine powers, yeah." With a grin, Eisen then turned to the chef and apprentice. "I¡¯ve seen many different idols for different gods here in this church-run building... I¡¯m sure you also have a library where there¡¯s some information about the ¡¯Medicine God¡¯, right? Please, bring my friend there and let him read whatever he can about him." Eisen told them as they looked at each other in confusion before the old man sighed repeated himself. "Please, it¡¯s important for his magic that just might save some of the people here today," He said before the apprentice nodded and brought Sky outside, while Eisen turned his attention to the Head-Chef. "Alright, please show me the ingredients you have here. I¡¯m going to start working on the food for tonight." Chapter 168 Cooking and Baking Eisen walked past the different bags and barrels that they had, containing just the most basic of basics of ingredients, such as sugar, flour, salt, and some general condiments and dried herbs. "Hmm, alright, I guess we¡¯ll start working on the bread first of all, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself, before looking at the Head-Chef. "Can you help me bring some of these things over to thatrge bowl there?" He asked, before the Dwarf slowly nodded, taking some of the sugar and salt with him, while Eisen grabbed arge bag of flour, bringing it over to one of the containers he had made with his element where he would now begin mixing the dough. For some reason, it seemed like the Head-Chef was feeling kind of passive at the moment. He wasn¡¯t doing anything on his own, and maybe even lost some of the passion that had made him want to be a chef in the first ce. Hopefully, Eisen could change that today. But Eisen would be concentrating on actually preparing food, and this other goal could be considered a secondary aplishment. First, in a separate bowl, Eisen mixed some yeast with warm water, and stirred it together, while working on the main-mixture in a bigger mixing bowl, which was just made up of sugar, a little bit of salt, and arge amount of flour. When the yeast-water mixture had some bubbles forming on its surface, Eisen added some oil into it and mixed it in, then poured it into the flour mixture, which he then began to stir together, adding more flour to it until he got a pleasant, soft dough to work with, And after spreading some flour on a different surface, Eisen grabbed the giant ball of dough and brought it over there, summoning two things that he hadn¡¯t in quite a while, his ¡¯Mana Doubles.¡¯ He activated his skill with his pre-infused mana, so the resulting ¡¯Demon Doubles¡¯ were also already fully transformed, with a set of wings and horns as well. Mentally, he now began to control them while the head-chef stood at the sidelines, somewhat scared at the sudden appearance of two more of these beings. Now, as Eisen himself began kneading the dough, the two doubles did the same and worked on other areas of the dough to evenly work through it. While they were doing that, Eisen turned toward the Head-Chef and asked him to start working on something else. "I¡¯m sure you still have some leftover cow or bull bones, right? ce them into the oven that I made with my magic, please." The old man requested before the Head-Chef shrugged and did as directed. This kind of way of working actually really annoyed Eisen, but he let it slide for now. He would only work on this man¡¯s attitude as a secondary objective, after all. Either way, for now, Eisen continued working on the dough, which soon enough was quite smooth and ready to be set aside to let the dough rise, which the old man did by merely cing the mixture back into therge mixing bowl he made with his element, which would continuously supply it with an above-room-temperature conditions. And then, Eisen simply covered the bowl up and helped the head-chef with cing some bones into the me of the Earth Oven, closing it up to let the bones simply bake for a while. After that, he called Caria and Melissa back inside to have them bring Eisen some of the vegetables they made to add to the beef brothter. And so, Eisen began roughly chopping up some carrots, leeks, and onions, as well as a few different herbs with which Eisen wanted to achieve different effects. First, he added ¡¯Palma Eldath,¡¯ a herb meant to warm up one¡¯s body. At first, Eisen thought such a thing might be useless and just brought it with him just in case, but in the end, he felt he had to add this no matter what. And there was a pretty simple reason for that. This building was unpleasantly cold. Despite being in a tropical zone, this building was directly next to the city walls and positioned in such a way that it barely got any proper sunlight that could warm anyone or anything up, and on top of that, the dense brick structure seemed to inste the whole building and keeping it generally cool. It was quite pleasant most of the time, sure, but Eisen could imagine it had quite an adverse effect on sick people as well as children with a low immune system. And even then, the herb simply brought your body to a cozy temperature, and wouldn¡¯t let you overheat. It was just as if you drank something that filled out your whole body with warmth. And then, Eisen also added ¡¯Ur,¡¯ a herb that can be used as a direct recement for food just on its own, even if it¡¯s not healthy to live only off of, if he added this to the broth, it would probably make it just that much more filling and satisfying to eat. The rest were simply herbs to add a bit more vor and nutrients to everything, and none of which that Eisen knew to have any special effects, and he would only be adding them around the end of the simmering so that the vor could be developed and enhanced into the broth, giving it a richer robust vor. So for now, the old man simply chopped these ingredients up and distributed them among a multiple of therge pots that were already in the kitchen, since he was going to prepare as much broth as possible. The broth was something rtively easy to store for a quite a while and an excellent base for numerous incredibly filling dishes, after all. Once the bones were baked correctly, and the Chef¡¯s apprentice returned to the Kitchen. They all distributed the roasted bones to the pots, and then Eisen added enough water to cover all the ingredients, and looked around the kitchen a bit more, although he didn¡¯t find what he was searching for, so he turned to the Chef and his apprentice once again. "Do you have any red wine around here? That¡¯s what I usually add to broth like this." He said, and the chef nodded slowly, seemingly nervous to tell this to a person with such a frightening body, despite him being quite nice and kind for the most part. "We do have wine, yes, but we have to keep it for special asions. For example, if the Lordes to visit. He has to make it at least seem like he cares about this ce, not that he actually does though. If we don¡¯t have anything for him to drink, he¡¯s going to cut our budget even further. It¡¯s troublesome here as-is, and if we have even less money to work with, everyone here will starve." With a loud sigh, Eisen looked back at the Head-Chef, now feeling like he took it over the top. "You¡¯re saying that, but is that really the case? You obviously have everything you need to make quite arge amount of bread and some broth. That alone should be enough to keep everyone above water for quite a while. Directly outside of your window is a ce perfect for cultivating and growing different nts and vegetables. If you don¡¯t have money, you need to work with what you have. As you can see, even leftover bones have a purpose in the end. You¡¯re making excuses. If you find it so troublesome, why are you still working here?" The old man, in his demonic form, asked as he towered over the Dwarven Chef, who began grinding his teeth audibly, seemingly wanting to say something in anger, but Eisen interrupted him again. "Don¡¯t even try to start a fight. You know exactly that what I¡¯m saying is the truth. You¡¯re justzy. Maybe you thought it would be nice having such a carefree job here, or simply stumbled into this situation. But that¡¯s what it boils down to, for now, don¡¯t worry about the Lord, and give me that wine. I¡¯m going to pay for more, but I¡¯d prefer for everyone here to have a nice dinner tonight." Quietly, the Dwarf nodded, seemingly rightly convinced, and maybe even a little bit intimidated and startled by the sudden anger in this being¡¯s voice. So, the Head-Chef walked over to a cab and grabbed a bottle of red wine, which seemed to be more expensive than all of the equipment and any of the ingredients currently in this room. With a sigh, Eisen grabbed the bottle and pulled out the cork, taking a quick sip to see how it tasted. "Should be good enough." He said, and, actually somewhat wastefully, poured in some of the wine into each of the pots, before handing the bottle to the Dwarf. "Here you go, there¡¯s still a little left in there. Give that to the Lord if hees for all I care." Eisen told him, as he ced the pots on top of the burners of the me of the Earth stove, manipting the mes to have a good, consistent heat as everything began to simmer. And now, Eisen was left standing there in this room with currently nothing much to do, when he looked over at the Dough he had prepared. Usually, things went a lot faster in this game than in real life, and since half an hour already passed, maybe it had properly risen already. Luckily enough, when Eisen uncovered the pot, the dough had already doubled in size. With a smile, Eisen quickly punched the dough down and grabbed it, cing it on the floured surface again, before then summoning his Mana Doubles, or in this case Demon Doubles, again to help him shape the dough. One after another, Eisen formed the dough into many different balls and ced them into the oven. Which was currently on low heat right now, and since Eisen could precisely manipte how hot everything was inside of the oven, and simply created a few small ¡¯support¡¯ walls to make sure the dough would stay round shaped. Eisen now needed to wait for a little while and let each of the individual dough-balls to rise. For a while, they now all waited in silence, until the group that went out to buy the ingredients returned, with many helping hands carrying quite arge load. The majority of them seemed to be merely young teenagers, as the nun from before had said, and they set everything down with hungry eyes as they began to sniff the air. "Something smells really good..." One of them, an especially scrawny, effeminate boy muttered out, while another one, a tall and well-built individual responded. "Sure does, aye? Didn¡¯t know the- What the fuck is that?!" The tall boy yelled out as he looked at Eisen, nearly dropping the bag he was holding. With an annoyed face, Kiron then stepped up behind him and set down the bags he was carrying. "Please, do not talk about My Lord in such a manner, young Parc," Kiron told him before Parc turned around with a light flinch. "S-Sorry Dragon dude, I didn¡¯t know he was the one you were talking about before." He muttered as he scratched the back of his head with a carefree expression, and the skinny boy lightly hit his side. "Stop talking to adults like that." "Sorry, Rouge," Parc responded, and Eisen chuckled with a smile as he looked at the two boys, who were the only ones left in the room because all the other kids seemingly had already left. The nun walked up behind them, smiling at Eisen as she held up the bag with the left-over coins toward him. "You two, please be quiet. Thank you, Sir, for allowing us to buy extra food with your money." She said, slowly bing emotional as she motioned to the Demon to take the rest of the money back before Eisen shook his head. "Keep it, Money isn¡¯t a problem for me, but it is for you," Eisen told her, before looking at Parc and Rouge, asking what was on his mind. "And you two, thank you for helping with the shopping. I¡¯m Eisen, the Golden-Eyed Demon." He said, introducing himself in a way that he would be recognized as a Demon by everyone in this room, and while the Nun was wiping her tears of joy out of her eyes, the boys looked at each other, before Parc replied with a smirk. "This is Rouge, and I¡¯m Parc. And we¡¯re this town¡¯s best craftsmen!" Chapter 169 Quick Treatmen With a smile, Eisen crossed his arms and looked down at the two children standing in front of him, iming to be great craftsmen. "Huh, I see. Then what can you two do?" He curiously asked before the both of them looked at each other with wide grins on their faces. "I¡¯m the brute force!" Parc eximed, before Rouge nodded and continued, "And I¡¯m the Detail! We work together on everything we do! Because we¡¯re so young, our highest skills are only barely at Rank 2, but that doesn¡¯t mean that we¡¯re not good! We have managed to make a great wooden sword together!" The short boy exined, and Eisen listened curiously as Parc carried on. "Mhm! It had a ¡¯Perfect¡¯ quality! Perfect! Isn¡¯t that so cool?!" Responding to Parc¡¯s bright, proud smile with a grin of his own, Eisen ced his hands on the top of their heads. It seemed to have slightly startled the head-chef and apprentice, who were the only ones that didn¡¯t seem to trust Eisen yet, but they couldn¡¯t do anything about him simply patting the head of the next generation. "Good job, you two. Does either of you want to help me out? Having more hands can never hurt." The old man in a demonic form asked both of them, who quickly looked at each other before looking back at the nun. "Can we, Sister Noa?" Rouge asked her before she quickly nodded. "Of course you can, if everyone here is alright with it," Noa said, as she looked over at the Head-Chef, who crossed his arms in annoyance, leaning against the wall on the other side. "Go ahead, do what ye want. That Demonpletely took over this damn kitchen anyway." The Head-Chef said as he simply stepped out through the door, just leaving everyone there without waiting for an answer. And especially his apprentice was now freaking out. "I-I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯ll bring him back here as soon as-" The apprentice tried to apologize and began moving toward the door, but was stopped by Eisen instead. "It¡¯s fine, leave him alone for a while. I doubt anything you could say would help him anyway. He needs to think." He told him, before waving his hand over to the ingredients. "But for now, how about we start with bringing these ingredients somewhere cool until the broth is finished. And if you like, I would find it great if you could help as well once everything is ready." Eisen told the apprentice, who slowly but nervously nodded. "Alright... Erm, my name is Koro, by the way. Sorry for not introducing myself yet." Koro, the young man, maybe 16 or 17, quietly said before Eisen nodded. "Alright Koro, the bread seems to have just about risen a good bit again, so I¡¯ll begin baking it properly now. That shouldn¡¯t take too long, and after that, help me ce everything on the other surface I made over there to let the buns cool down a bit." He exined before grabbing some of the ingredients that were just brought in and took them over to where it seemed like there was enough space to keep everything safe. After that, in the rest of the time it would take the bread to bake, Eisen stepped over to Kiron to talk to him one on one. So, quietly, the old man began to whisper. "Just before, these kids said something like ¡¯because we are kids¡¯ in regards to their skill rank. What does that mean?" "M¡¯Lord, it is so that children of a race usually have a harder time gaining proficiency in their skills, up until the age of 15, your skills even have a rank limit of 1 or 2, with some personal differences for each person, but they can always only rank their skills up from that day on. And they can only learn a certain number of skills until then as well. But from the day they turn 15 onward, they will be able to raise their proficiency, and they gain the ability to earn an upation for themselves as well." Kiron exined in detail, realizing that Eisen didn¡¯t know about something so basic and standard from his perspective, adding something else as well. "But it is an undebatable fact that M¡¯Lord and the other ¡¯Originals,¡¯ as well as the ¡¯Omegas¡¯ such as Komer, gain proficiency and experience at an incredible increased ratepared to other people. It would usually take far longer to have your skills reach Rank 3 than you all have done so far. I am not sure why that is, but I suspect it may be your souls trying to return to their former state as soon as possible, and that this quality was carried over when the ¡¯Omegas¡¯ and these ¡¯Deltas¡¯ M¡¯Lord has mentioned were created." While moving his fingers through his beard, Eisen slowly nodded in understanding of this. It did somehow feel weird to him how it was normal for people to have a level below 100 if even he managed to get his own to 99 within two months. As he was thinking about this and that in regards to these topics, it seemed like the bread had finished baking. Quickly, Eisen turned down the heat of the Magic Oven, drinking another one of the many mana potions he had been continuously drinking today, and began to take the bread out of the oven quite quickly with the help of Koro. There really ended up being a lot of buns, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help but smile softly as the smell of freshly baked bread filled his nostrils. And seemingly, he wasn¡¯t the only one that enjoyed it, since not only Koro, Parc and Rouge were eyeing the baked goods, but even Kiron and Noa did! With a sigh, Eisen nodded and jerked his head toward the bread that was currently still cooling off. "Go ahead, and each can take one. But only one, alright?" Eisen said with a sigh before everyone quickly nodded and practically stormed ahead, taking the buns into their hands and biting into them immediately. "So, gooood!" Parc yelled out passionately before Rouge quickly nodded as he continued stuffing his mouth like the rest, and Kiron spoke up. "Indeed, M¡¯Lord. This bread is quite amazing, despite being simply bread." He eximed before Eisen chuckled and nodded. "Thank you. But all of you, make sure not to eat too fast, or else you will-" Just as Eisen was about to warn everyone of what would happen if they ate the bread too quickly, a sudden sound came from the back of the group. Noa had begun to hup. With augh, Eisen put his hand into his backpack and grabbed the self-filling water cup, quickly pouring some of his mana inside, before handing the cup to the young nun. "Here, drink. And just when I was telling you not to overdo it." Eisen told her before Noa slowly nodded and drank the water. "Now then, the broth should take another few hours untilpleted. So until then, I would like to see the patients in the hospital, if possible. And Rouge, Parc, you two juste back here in about four hours so that we can start with everything, alright?" Eisen suggested before they both nodded quickly, and the old man stepped over to the door leading outside to the area where Melissa and Caria currently were, looking over at Koro. "Could I maybe leave these two with you here? They shouldn¡¯t cause any trouble, although Caria, the bigger one of the two, can be a bit loud sometimes. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll stay outside there anyway, so you just need to make sure that nobody bullies them or something." Eisen exined, before Koro swiftly nodded, saying that he would dly make sure the two little girls had fun out there. So then, Noa leads Kiron and Eisen to the library where they picked up Sky and then made their way to the Hospital. But rather than being a ¡¯hospital¡¯, it was just a ratherrge room filled with many beds divided by nothing but bedsheets hung from wooden poles. "The conditions here isn¡¯t the greatest, I know, but this is the only ce they can stay..." Noa exined, as Eisen began walking through the room and looked at the patients, and it seemed like there was nobody here with any external physical injuries. That somehow did make sense, considering that most potions, as well as healing magic, should take care of that. "Where are the most serious cases?" Eisen asked before Noa slowly nodded and walked to the other side of the hall to a door leading to another, smaller room. "Those with serious diseases are all in here. Please be careful when you enter, it is possible that you may catch them yourself..." The nun warned before Eisen shook his head and looked at Sky, handing him as many mana potions as possible. "Take these whenever you need to and summon the Medicine God, please," Eisen told him before Sky nodded and grabbed a book that he took with him from the library, which seemed to be filled from cover to cover with the feats of the medicine god. Afterying his hand on the cover of the book, Sky let out a deep breath of air and slowly opened his mouth. "Medicine God,e out," Sky eximed before the book flipped open and page after page, the letters on each of them disappeared and began floating around until a tall, slim man with a robepletely pitch-ck from toe to head stood in front of Sky. "Alright, I¡¯m going in there alone with the Medicine God, just in case. I don¡¯t want any of you to get sick." Eisen told them, and Sky and Kiron reluctantly nodded as the old man stepped through the doorway, the ming cracks in his skin illuminating the dark room. Quickly, Eisen looked over at the summoned man standing behind him and jerked his head toward the first bed. "Take a look at them and treat them as much as you can. I have these potions with me, none other. Use them how you like." Eisen said, before the person that seemed to have a mock-personality nodded and stood in front of the first patient¡¯s bed, while Eisen went around the room and searched for anyone that he could immediately treat. And there were a few people, with merely different external conditions that seemed hard to treat without a lot of potions. Luckily, Eisen had more than enough of regr Health Potions, as well as Health Jelly. So, Eisen began to treat them, taking a look at their status with his truth-seeing-eyes and identifying any significant issues that seemed to be magic-rted with the patients. A few people seemed to for some reason barely generate any mana, or its flow was cut off from certain parts of their bodies, and those were the moments that the Medicine God came in. Whenever Eisen found one of these people and told the Medicine God about it, he woulde rushing in and grabbed some surgical tools out of nowhere, starting a ¡¯surgery¡¯ immediately and without hesitation. However, it wasn¡¯t a real surgery, since the Medicine God¡¯s tools apparently weren¡¯t able to cut up the flesh of the patients, but only directly influenced the flow of mana instead. Within seconds, the Medicine God was able to increase the mana flow or open up the unprovided areas in the patients¡¯ bodies, which made them immediately feel better. Some of them felt quite nauseous afterward, but their conditions improved incredibly fast. And so, soon enough, a few people were able to be released, and it wasn¡¯t long until they had run out of people that they could immediately provide care. A few potions were used up by the medicine god as well, but for the most part, he relied on his skills, tools, and equipment he had on him, up until the very moment that Sky unsummoned him. "Thanks, Sky. Good job." Eisen told the Fey-Kin and ced his hand on the top of his head, feeling d that he could take part in helping people like this. Chapter 170 Walk-In For a while, Eisen continued to give the sick in this ¡¯hospital¡¯ the best treatment he could, which was only at the level of getting his children through the flu. All the other times that he treated people were during idents or emergencies where he had to work with rough external injuries or needed to stop or hold back someone¡¯s bleeding. He didn¡¯t know much about treating diseases other than ssic ¡¯home remedies¡¯ that were passed down in every family, so what he could do was mostly limited. Some people were scared of Eisen, obviously, but considering that the old man was concentrating heavily on seeming calm and gentle toward others, his charisma stat and his titles worked against his appearance and current Demon title, meaning that he was able to convince people somehow he wasn¡¯t a bad person. Especially after he already began helping some of the other patients. In the end, Eisen left the hospital with everyone there thanking him for his help, calling him ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ while they did. Usually, Eisen would have expected this to be enough to step on the path of yang, but apparently, it was harder than he thought it would be. Maybe it was because the number of people acknowledging Eisen the Demon as a good person was too low, or it was harder to be seen on that other path because he was already known as a Yin-Demon. Either way, Eisen wouldn¡¯t stop trying to help people out for a while. And he would still be serving the food that he made tonight, so it shouldn¡¯t be too hard to get at least some people to like him. Although, this all made Eisen think about the Yin and Yang requirements more. To be a Yin-Demon, Eisen needed to scare people, and the majority of the people that were running away from him that day he received the title were more than just frightened. They were terrified for their life. So maybe to be a Yang-Demon, it wasn¡¯t enough to make people simply think he was a good person, but instead he may need to go further than that. Make people fully trust or admire him even. And all that while he was in the ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ form, which he initially created to look scary in the first ce. It may be a bit hard, but in the end, Eisen was sure he would be able to get there at some point. After all the trouble he¡¯d caused in Ornier, he had to pay it back to this world somehow, didn¡¯t he? With a smile, Eisen looked back at the Nun Noa and crossed his arms. "Alright, let¡¯s get back to the Kitchen now, shall we?" He said, before Noa quickly nodded, but first stood in front of the old man in a Demon¡¯s skin. "Th-Thank you! At first, I was unsure whether or not we should trust you to this extent, but you¡¯ve proven to us that you mean no harm and only want to help. We will never forget your kindness." She eximed, and a message popped up in front of Eisen¡¯s eyes. [A Nun of the Church of Reah, the Goddess of Love, has approved of you] [Reputation with the Church of Reah increased] Surprised, Eisen waved the notifications away and smiled at Noa, thankful for getting her approval. "What kind words, thank you. And I will continue helping you, so don¡¯t worry. But I will only be able toe to see you every four days, but you can be sure that I will do so for a while." The old man told her, and Noa nodded with a bright smile before the small group made their way back to the Kitchen, where the rest were already waiting. Caria and Melissa were sitting in front of a massive pile of different vegetables as if protecting them from Koro as well as Parc and Rouge, who seemed to have only just arrived. The moment the two little monsters saw Eisen, they ran up to him again and hugged his legs. "Eisen! You¡¯re back!" Caria eximed, and Eisen ced his hands on Caria and Melissa¡¯s heads, picking the both of them up into his arms. "Of course, I am. Thanks for making so many vegetables, you two." Eisen told them, and they both immediately nodded before Eisen walked over to the three young men that would now be helping him cook. "Alright, we¡¯ll be doing a few different things. For now, we won¡¯t be working on the main dish for tonight, but rather the dessert." Eisen exined before the three boys looked at each other confused. "Dessert? Really? With what?" Koro curiously asked before Eisen jerked his head over to a crate that was brought in by Kiron, who was advised to be especially careful with everything. "With those eggs, of course. First, you guys split the yolk from the whites for about two-thirds of the eggs there, alright? Koro, I think you know how to already, but please properly show Parc and Rouge if they don¡¯t." Eisen told them before the three boys got to work enthusiastically, while Eisen was waiting for another person to arrive with some items that he had requested. And it seemed like her timing was just right, as an exceptionally cheerful Fey-Kin stepped through the kitchen door with a massive backpack on her back. "Delivery~!" She eximed with a bright smile, cing the pack down onto the ground. Quickly, Eisen ced Caria and Melissa down and helped Bree grab the items out of the bag. "Thanks foring. I messaged Xenia, but I wasn¡¯t sure if she was still with you and Dien. Do you want to stay here and watch, or do you want to leave with Dien again?" Eisen asked, looking up at the Half-Elf standing behind Bree with a light smile. But quickly, Bree shook her head. "Dien said he grew up here, so he wanted to meet some people he knows from here, so I¡¯ming with him." She said before Noa turned around and looked at Dien more closely, before perking her head up. "Oh! So it was you! What a nice surprise, Dien. I thought you left Handor?" The nun asked Dien, engaging in a conversation with him about the old days. Seemingly, Noa, who was also an Elf, although she was hiding her ears, and Dien grew up in the orphanage together, and while Noa stayed to be a Nun here, Dien left to be an Adventurer. So, seeing how the both of them knew each other, Noa, Dien and Bree made their way to the orphanage area together, while Eisen now had all the items he needed, which were mainly made up of arge number of mana crystals, as well as some Soul Generators. "Koro, is there any empty rooms directly adjacent to here?" The old man asked, before Koro nodded, taking a break from splitting the eggs, and led Eisen to a small, empty room. There were no windows, and it was already naturally cool in there, so it was indeed the perfect space to build the walk-in refrigerator Eisen was nning right now. "Perfect. Alright, this should take a little bit. When you finished with the eggs, please get these ingredients ready." Eisen told Koro before handing him a sheet of paper before the young man quickly nodded and walked back to Parc and Rouge. Now, quite curious at what Eisen was about to make, Kiron, Caria, Melissa, and Sky all looked at the old man as he ced the materials down onto the ground. But the first one to ask a question was Sky. "So, what are we doing in here? Are you going to make something to help them make food while you¡¯re gone and don¡¯t want them to see?" He asked before Eisen shook his head with augh. "No, no, it¡¯s not that. I¡¯m simply making a Walk-In refrigerator with a freezer unit." Eisen exined before Sky tilted his head to the side a slight bit, before Kiron said something in regards to this, seeing that Sky didn¡¯t know what that was. "As far as I know, this is simply a tool to keep different things cool, is it not? I think it may help to preserve food as well. I heard that noble houses and well-known restaurants have these, and because they require a lot of mana, they can¡¯t be maintained by regr people." Kiron exined, saying what he remembered hearing about during his travels before Sky looked at him and Eisen in wonder. "Really? Something like that? When I was still living with my mother in her hometown, there were some Snow-Fey that would do that kind of thing." Sky told them before Eisen quietlyughed. "Well, that¡¯s interesting, isn¡¯t it? Exactly, but yeah, that¡¯s what a refrigerator is. And a freezer is still a bit colder, and it¡¯s something made to freeze things literally. If my Enchanting rank was higher, then I would use Dien¡¯s Frost Magic through ability enchanting for this, but right now I have to use the basic runes. Depending on how high my enchanting skill gets while we¡¯re in Handor, I may think about switching it out to make it more efficient." The old man told them as he cracked his knuckles and touched his chest underneath his leather apron, deleting the runes for the ¡¯cooking¡¯ skill, carving the one for alchemy with a thin needle instead. And after activating the skills he needed to, Eisen began to work. First, using transmutation, he smoothed down the brick walls a bit more so that they were a better surface to work with, and then began to coat them in a thin mana-crystalyer, just enough so that Eisen could properly carve on it. It was so thin that you could barely even see what it was, and could only notice a light glitter as the soft light from Eisen¡¯s mes hit the walls. "Alright, now, let¡¯s get to work," Eisen said with a smile as he sat down on the ground first and created the most integral part of the walk-in. Aplex enchantment made to control the other four that would be ced on three of the walls, excluding the one with the door, which Eisen would enchant with something that kept the cold air from leaking outside, and the wall opposite to the door, which Eisen would use for the freezer. And then, Eisen would also ce five of the Soul Generators into thatplex enchantment on the floor. Eisen had a rough idea of how much mana it would take to keep this thing running continuously, and three would be enough for that, but since he also wanted to connect the much-smaller freezer section to this enchantment, he added the other two for safety. So, after the first enchantment circle was done, Eisen moved on to the other ones. And before Eisen tested everything, he made some small shelves out of mana crystals as well, considering that mana crystals were near to impossible to break without extraordinary means. Then added another thin mana-crystal wall to the back of the room, which Eisen turned into a freezer by adding a more intense version of the different ¡¯cooling¡¯ enchantments onto the walls of the inside of that small area, creating a simple door to that freezer as well. Satisfied with how this room turned out, Eisen now quickly ced the Soul Generators into the holes on the floor, activating the whole thing. Immediately, the group was hit with a flood of cold, giving them all shivers. At first, Eisen thought that everything worked out, but it seemed like he was a little bit off, and the main room turned out too cold. So, Eisen erased some of the runes and switched some stuff around here and there to fix it, and then the old man was satisfied. It didn¡¯t take too long to make this considering what Eisen was doing, but when he left the room, Koro, Parc, and Rouge had already finished with their task. Before they continued working on everything, they brought all of the perishable food items that were currently being haphazardly stored around the kitchen into the walk-in fridge and freezer. Chapter 171 Stew, Pudding and Macaron "Whoa, it¡¯s so cold in here!" Parc yelled out immediately as the group stepped into the Walk-In, and Koro and Rouge could only nod in wonder. "Yeah, that¡¯s the point," Eisen said with a smile, before starting to exin how they should best use this whole thing. "It¡¯s a Refrigerator, or Fridge for short, and that in the back is a freezer. The front here is to keep stuff cool and prevent perishing of food for a while, and the freezer back there will freeze everything you put in there after a while. It works with an enchantment array as you can see on the walls here, and it¡¯spletely self-sufficient mana-wise, so you don¡¯t need to worry about that." Eisen exined to them as he began sorting the food at least a little bit, while still just really cing everything wherever there was space so that they could continue making the dessert before the beef-bone-broth was finished. The group moved in front of the workstations again, and Eisen began to instruct everyone on what they needed to do next. "We¡¯re going to use the egg yolk and egg whites for each a different dessert. Parc, you help me with the egg whites please, so Rouge and Koro you work with the egg yolk." Eisen told them before they each got to work. After Eisenbined some sugar, salt, and almond flour briefly mixing it, which Eisen was more than surprised to find in most basic ingredient shops, he and Parc began to beat the egg whites. While they were doing so, Koro and Rouge mixed some sugar, salt, and cornstarch in arge pan and poured milk onto the mixture, starting to cook everything while continually stirring. Afterward Eisen and Parc finished beating the egg whites until soft peaks formed, the old man added some Vani into the bowls and they continued beating everything until it was incorporated, before splitting the beaten egg-whites up into a few different dishes, where he then added a few other things to add some re to it, and which would turn this into the exact reason why he chose to make this dessert. They were all-natural, food dyes that Eisen had Kiron and the others buy when they were out shopping. Eisen would have liked to make the dyes himself, but that would have taken some extra time, and he didn¡¯t necessarily have to make every single thing from scratch. Either way, Eisen could make the desert he wanted to in a few different colors. Red, Blue, Purple, Yellow, and a few more, even. After Eisen added these dyes to the bowls, he and Parc quickly beat them into everything again until it barely justbined, before the both of them then added the almond flour mixture into the bowls and carefully folded it into the beaten egg whites. Once the egg white mixture began forming ribbons after being folded, Eisen grabbed the bowls and formed small circles on the surface inside of his me of the Earth oven with them. Usually, he would have done this with a piping bag, but he could do the same thing right here, despite it taking him a bit longer to do. Now, the circles had to sit there for a while like that until they looked dry from the outside. Seeing that the milk mixture for what Rouge and Koro were working on had thickened a bit and should be ready to go, he quickly took over just momentarily tobine this mixture with the egg yolks properly without causing the yolks to curdle, which would ruin the whole thing. And after everything was adequately incorporated in, he let the others take over again. So, for a little while longer, Koro and Rouge continued slowly heating the yolk-milk mixture, while Eisen started working on the buttercream for what he and Parc were making. While Eisen began beating some butter until it was light and fluffy, he had Parcbine some milk and butter to make a heavy cream, before they mixed the heavy cream into the butter that had beenbined with some sugar and vani. Once everything wasbined, they ced the buttercream into the new Walk-In. Afterward, Eisen turned up the heat in the Magical Oven and began baking the colorful little circles. At around the same time, Koro and Rouge took theirrge pans off the stove and began to let the mixture cool down. Now, they had time just to wait a bit before they wouldter start working on everything for the main dish. Curious at what Eisen was making and what he had made the other three here make with him, Koro looked at the old man, who was trying to find a position to lean against something with his huge wings. "So? What kind of thing is it that we actually just made now? I could tell that you were working on something like meringue and that what we made was something like a custard, right?" Koro asked, and Eisen nodded slowly, as expected of a Chef¡¯s apprentice. "Yes, that¡¯s just right. What Parc and I made, the colored meringue and buttercream, were for sweets called ¡¯Macarons.¡¯ They are a bit showy, but I thought it was an excellent way to lift morale, and especially excite some of the younger kids in the orphanage. And it was a good fit with what you made since the main ingredients were the egg whites leftover from the pudding you started creating." He exined to the three young men, all of which seemed to be quite interested in what Eisen was telling them. "Pudding and Macarons? I heard of pudding before, but I didn¡¯t know about Macarons yet. I mean, the kids usually like anything sweet already, and with that much color, they¡¯re going to love these. The pudding seems interesting, too, though." Koro said, and Eisen nodded with a smile. "Yeah, pudding is something pretty tasty, and so are macarons so you can be excited for them. But the main dish is in theserge pots over there. Right now I¡¯m just making a beef broth, but thenter we¡¯ll add some actual beef and some vegetables to it, as well as some stuff to make the broth a bit thicker and richer to make it a stew. It¡¯s meat-based, and since it didn¡¯t seem like you¡¯d usually eat a lot of meat here, I thought this was a good chance to do so again. And overall, a stew is just a pretty filling dish already, so you can never go wrong with it to feed someone whose extremely hungry." Eisen said with a smile as he slowly stepped over to therge pots to take a look at the broth inside, and to his pleasant surprise, it was already at the state it would have been after about 20 hours of simmering in real life. "Alright everyone, let¡¯s get started with this. For now, we¡¯ll do some prep-work. That means, washing and slicing or dicing the main ingredients." Eisen told them as he stepped back toward the walk-in to grab all the ingredients to make the stew for as many people as possible, after first turning on the oven with the Macaron Meringue And after they grabbed everything they needed, and everyone got to work. The beef was diced, the carrots, onions, and celery sliced, the tomatoes pur¨¦d, and the herbs cleaned. Before they then continued, the broth was removed from the bones and vegetables in the broth mixture to get the pure stock. After that was all done, the beef was first ced into arge mixing bowl and dredged in in flour, salt, pepper and fennel seeds to it. After tossing the meat in seasoned flour it was ced into a pan with some pre-heated oil to brown the meat and give it color, as well as seal in the juices. This had to be done in a few small batches because of therge amount of meat needed for this dinner. And then, in arge pot, Eisen poured some more oil and added the onions, carrots, celery, and some of the herbs. With the lid askew, this was then cooked for a few minutes while Eisen stirred asionally. After that, the old man stirred in the tomato pur¨¦e, and then added the beef stock from the different pots as well as the actual beef. Once Eisen mixed everything, he ced the lid on askew again and brought everything to a boil, and then reduced the heat to slowly simmer everything. "And now we wait," Eisen said with a smile, before retaking a look at the dessert. The Macaron meringue still needed some time to bake, but it seemed like the vani pudding had adequately cooled down, to keep it from forming skin Eisen ced some wax paper on top of it, since he didn¡¯t have ess to any stic wrap right now and used it instead. Now it seemed like everyone involved in the creation of this delightful desserts saw it as finished, and a notification popped up. But Eisen wasn¡¯t that interested in the what the pudding itself was, and he only checked to see what the rank and quality was, since the ones that mainly worked on this were Koro and Rouge, and the only thing Eisen did was mix the egg yolks into the custard. But this was still enough to cause one thing. [Cooking, has reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [The process of Cooking will now happen even faster] [Due to Ranking-up your Cooking Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 END] With satisfaction, Eisen nodded his head and looked at the people around him, before leaning back against the wall. "Alright, now that everything is done, all we need to do is wait. After the Macaron Meringue finished baking, we need to add ayer of buttercream between two of the meringues, and then leave it somewhere airtight for a while. The stew will be done in a while as well, and then we can get ready to serve. Or rather, maybe we should prepare for serving right now. Is there some nice, open spot outside where everyone from the orphanage and shelter can fit? We can have some people bring food to the patients in the hospital since they can¡¯t leave their beds." Quickly, the three young men nodded and smiled at Eisen, feeling incredibly cheerful at the moment. "Thank you for letting us help you. You said you are a craftsman, so you don¡¯t even specialize in cooking, right?" Rouge asked, hitting it right on the spot, and Eisen slowly nodded at them. "That¡¯s right. I¡¯m a pretty good chef, I would say, but I specialize in other things. Or rather, you could say I don¡¯t specialize in anything while specializing in everything." The old man chuckled, moving his hand through his rock-beard as he did before Parc tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Why so, cryptic?" He asked before Eisen chuckled. "I know, sorry about that. I do a little bit of everything. Tailoring, cksmithing, Enchanting, basically everything." Eisen exined, and the three young men looked at each other with wide eyes. "Really? Like some kinda master of all crafts?" Koro asked, crossing his arms, before, instead of Eisen himself, Kiron tuned in. "It is exactly so. Think of it as a discipline, and M¡¯Lord may be more skilled at it than any master you can find." The Half-Dragon bragged quite clearly, and just when Eisen wanted to say it wasn¡¯t so, he held himself back. It felt weird to hear things like that, even though Eisen knew that this was quite obviously the case. Even in real life, he was sometimes talked about as if he was some living national treasure, and here in the game, he used to be a real legend that brought upon the evolution of crafts. So even if he wanted to say it wasn¡¯t so, he couldn¡¯t really do that without sounding like a prick, now could he? Chapter 172 Ready To Serve "More skilled than any master? Really?" Rouge asked, looking up at the Demon that everyone was talking about right now before Kiron proudly nodded. "It is so! M¡¯Lord is the best of the best, he-" But before the Half-Dragon could finish, Eisen interrupted him. "Kiron, thank you for being so passionate and humbling, but I would prefer it if you would not brag in that way. My highest skill ranks are only at three right now, after all." Eisen told them before Koro, Rouge, and Parc looked at Eisen in surprise. "Wait, what do you mean? Those weren¡¯t the movements of Rank 3 Cooking just now." Koro pointed out before Eisen shrugged. "You can either believe it, or you can¡¯t. I have a situation going on which I won¡¯t tell you about, so right now, we should just leave it at that." The old man told them before the three young men slowly nodded. They continued asking Eisen some questions about what kind of skills he had, simply because they were interested in what a Demon was. Of course they asked him if he was born like that or if he turned into this at some point as well, but Eisen just let those questions pass by without actually answering. And at some point, when the questions became harder to answer, the Macaron Meringue had luckily just finished baking, and Eisen swiftly took them out of the oven. And when he did, he quickly unsummoned the oven altogether, since it was not needed anymore. "One of you get the buttercream from the Walk-in, please," Eisen said as he turned toward his three helpers. Parc quickly ran over to the door and stepped into therge fridge, while Eisen began cing the Macarons onto his work surface bottom facing up. Considering that things tend to cool off quite quickly here, it was apparent that this was to be the case with the Macarons as well. And as soon as Parc returned with the buttercream, they were cooled down enough to be adequately worked with, now all that Eisen needed to do was put a little bit of the buttercream on one of the macaron halves, and then ce another half on the other side. Final construction of an individual Macaron didn¡¯t take long, of course, but it took a while to finish all of the Macarons Eisen wanted to make. After all, he wanted everyone to be able to eat quite a few of these. Whenever a few of the Macarons were done, Eisen ced them into an airtight container made of mana crystals, because it was undoubtedly the most easy-to-mold material using transmutation, and had one of the three young men with him bring the mana container to the walk-in to keep everything fresh. After all of that was done, Eisen gained a good bit more proficiency in his cooking skill, and so did the other three boys that helped. And now that everything here in the kitchen was ready for the most part, Eisen unsummoned all of the me of the Earth workstations, beside the one that therge pot with the stew was on, and got rid of his staff again. It seemed like the three boys were quite surprised by this, but it simply boiled down to Eisen being a Demon, so he had to have some unique abilities. With a satisfied smile, Eisen then nodded and chose to make his way back to the Walk-In to sort everything a little bit more and see how well the foods were freezing in the freezer section, just to make sure that this whole new room was in a functional state. It really wouldn¡¯t be good if it were immediately messy and dirty, after all. Eisen only left that room once to retrieve some of the other herbs that he wanted to put into the stew for some extra vor, but after that Eisen continued working in the Walk-In for a little longer before the stew finished simmering. After taking the pot off of the me of the Earth stoves, Eisen unsummoned them and told the others to grab the warm bread buns and follow him, earlier he had already mentioned to Noa about when the meal would be ready to be served. The majority of people had already gathered outside in an area where there were a lot of old tables and benches, used forrge celebrations in the past. Eisen set everything up at a separate table with the food, bowls, and cutlery, the moment that Eisen removed the lid from the pot, Noa walked up to the old man. "I see you¡¯ve done an amazing job." She said with a smile, before trying to stand on the tips of her toes to look into the pot to see the source of the delicious smell that just exploded outward from the pot. "Thank you, but it¡¯s not just me. These three helped out quite a lot." Eisen said with a smile as he turned to Koro, Rouge, and Parc before Noa looked at those three as well. "Then thanks to all of you too." The nun told them before she looked back at Eisen. "Dien and the girl he was with left a short while ago, they told me to tell you they are sorry they couldn¡¯t stay to eat what you made," Noa said, and Eisen quickly nodded. "I see, thank you for letting me know. So, do you want to go ahead and tell everyone to form a line and grab something to eat?" Eisen asked the young nun, who swiftly nodded as a bright smile formed on her lips, and she stood in the center of the area, looking at everyone around her. "Thank you all foring out here. Thankfully, a very kind man decided to make dinner for all of us here. There is more than enough for everyone, so please, eat your fill." Noa eximed with a bright smile, folding her hands together in front of her heart, before the many different people gathered here, the majority of which being children from the orphanage, looked over at the giant man with rock skin, underneath which mes began to shine outward. Some of the children seemed somewhat startled by him, but soon enough their hunger overtook those emotions, and some of them began to walk toward him before they got in range for the smell, at which point they came stampeding toward Eisen. The first to get something to eat was a young boy, so hungry that you could see his ribs through the thin cloth shirt he was wearing, using adle Eisen quickly ced some of the stew into a bowl, handing it to the boy together with a piece of bread. "Here you go, kid. I hope you enjoy it." Eisen told him with a smile before the boy opened his eyes wide and nodded his head, staring down at the hot stew hungrily as he began walking back to where he was sitting. The young boy wasn¡¯t the only one staring at his food; all the others waiting in line were also doing so. But from the first moment that the boy put the first piece of meat into his mouth and formed an expression of pure bliss, everyone that was still seated due to being nervous or unsure of who this Demon was stood up and quickly made their way to the end of the line. So now, one after another, all of the people, children and adults alike, ate their fill with the stew that Eisen prepared, talking amongst each other and creating a nice, calm mood. Even the head priest of this church came and enjoyed some of the stew. The way that churches here worked were quite interesting as well. Usually, there weren¡¯t many different churches for each god in a town, but just one main-church where all of the gods could be worshiped and prayed to equally. Of course, there were still some smaller churches scattered throughout arge town like this, but none of them were set out toward any specific god. The only area which was explicitly defined was something like a ¡¯Guardian Deity¡¯, which in this case was Krogh, the god of Magic, and so the statue in the main hall of the church that was thergest and most prominent was that of Krogh as well, while the head Priest was also a devout believer of Krogh. That was something that Eisen only recently learned after he talked to some of the nuns while they were all eating together, and the old man listened quite curiously. He wasn¡¯t the type of person to believe in gods, but considering that their existence was proven here, it made sense to him in the end. Once everyone had eaten their fill of the stew, and they were satisfied, Eisen had Koro, Parc and Rouge bring the pudding and macarons out. Confused, everyone looked at the new things that were brought out just now, because they had thought that Dinner was already over, but apparently, there was something else as well. Curious, everyone came up to the table again one after another, and Eisen handed out a few bowls of pudding as well as some differently colored Macarons to anyone that seemed interested. As Eisen had expected, the majority of the people that took some of them were the kids, that immediately stuffed their mouths with the sweet treats. And this all just made Eisen more than happy. He saw these young kids that seemed to be so gloomy just before talking to each other with bright smiles andughter began to emanate throughout the area. And even after they ate, they continued to y with each other, and even Caria and Melissa chose to join in. Some of the kids pestered Sky as well because they thought that he was a kid like them, and he ended up being dragged along in the end against his will. He tried to scare them off by summoning some things from his books, but that ended up working against him, and the kids were even more excited to have Sky around. With augh, Eisen looked at all of them having fun while he began to clean up everything, bringing the leftovers back inside to the Walk-In and cing the bowls away to be cleanedter before the three young men that were helping him cook today walked up to him. "Erm, Sir Demon, can we ask you a question?" Rouge, the shortest of them all asked, while Koro and Parc stood by his side, and Eisen quickly nodded. "Of course. And don¡¯t call me ¡¯Sir Demon¡¯, please. Go ahead and call me ¡¯Eisen.¡¯ With no ¡¯Sirs¡¯ or ¡¯Misters¡¯ either." The old man told them before the three of them looked at each other again for a second and nodded at each other, as if to confirm that they wanted to do this. "Then, Eisen. The three of us are 15 now, so we¡¯re allowed to be someone¡¯s apprentices. Koro is a bit older than us, so he already became thatzy chef¡¯s apprentice a few months ago, but..." Rouge said, looking at the incredibly averagely built boy behind him, who then continued to talk. "Well, let¡¯s just say today is the first day I have cooked for anyone. That guy really always just did all the work himself, and made me clean up after him. I wasn¡¯t even allowed to do prep-work. But well, what the chef made wasn¡¯t anything great, to begin with, he would just throw some random ingredients together to make some weird soups, and that¡¯s it. So I was thinking about doing something else anyway. Rouge, Parc and I usually stayed together a lot of the time, so we all started working on different skills together." He pointed out, and now Parc talked, with a quick nod. "Mhm. I¡¯m just good at the rough stuff, Rouge is the best at the fine, details kinda work, and Koro is a pretty good all-rounder." The tall boy exined as Eisen slowly crossed his arms and looked down onto the group of three. "Ah, I see. That¡¯s a good bnce though. If you¡¯re going to work together, you should be a great team." Eisen told them before the three nodded nearly at the same time before Rouge spoke up again. "Exactly, that¡¯s what we wanted to ask you about, Eisen... will you take us as your apprentices?" Chapter 173 Bland [Koro, Parc, and Rouge asked to be your apprentices] Surprised, Eisen waved the notification away, before the old man crossed his arms with a frown. "You want to be my apprentices? After only one day of knowing me, and without truly knowing what I can do?" Eisen asked before the three young men looked at each other before nodding. "Yes, we do. And we have a rough idea of what you can do. In less than an hour, you created that ¡¯Walk-In¡¯ thing with aplex enchantment that fuels itself with mana. How...How do you even do that?" Koro pointed out, and Rouge and Parc quickly nodded. "Exactly! And look at you, you¡¯re a literal Demonic Craftsman! You are a Demon, right? Not the race, of course, but a true Demon..." Rouge then asked before Parc scratched the top of his head. "Eh? There¡¯s a difference?" The tall young man asked, confused before Eisen sighed loudly and nodded. "Of course, there is. True Demons are unique beings. You¡¯d have a hard time finding one that looks anything like another. And they aren¡¯t born that way either; they have to work toward it. Anyone from any race can be one. Elf, Human, Dwarf, doesn¡¯t matter. And just to let you know, I¡¯m not a full true Demon yet. I¡¯m just starting to work toward it, so you shouldn¡¯t use that as a reference of how skilled I am." Eisen told them. He didn¡¯t have anything against having apprentices per se, and he loved how these boys had such passion, but since he was leaving town soon, he needed to make sure that they were dedicated enough to keep after it, even in his absence. Eisen and hispanions would leave for a pretty dangerous ce in a few weeks, and he didn¡¯t want to force anyone toe along by making them his apprentices. And even then, he was told that his training course for apprentices was rather tough, although it was nowhere near what Eisen¡¯s father had him do when he was a child. But either way, Eisen never epted apprentices just like that, and it wouldn¡¯t be the case this time either. With a loud sigh, Eisen ended up nodding to the three young men. At first, they thought that meant he epted them as his apprentices, but they were greatly surprised at what Eisen said next. "Fine. But you won¡¯t be my apprentices just like that. First I¡¯ll have you show me what you can do. All three of you are good at multiple different things, right?" Eisen asked before the three of them nodded in unison, and Koro spoke up. "Yes, we are. We¡¯re like Jacks of All Trades or something like that." He exined, and Eisen slowly nodded. "I see. Then I¡¯m going to test you in five skills, the crafting skills that I learned first: cksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Alchemy, and Enchanting. I¡¯ll be back in four days, so I¡¯ll test you then, prepare ordingly" Eisen told them before the four of them nodded and smiled brightly as their eyes seemed to focus on something else. And at the same time, something popped up in front of Eisen as well. [Quest "Demonic Craftsman¡¯s Approval" given to Koro, Parc and Rouge] Confused, Eisen looked through the notification again and again, before another one popped up. This announcement was of a different kind, of a ¡¯System¡¯ notification. These notifications had a different feel to them as if they were yered¡¯ on top of Eisen¡¯s sight. Those were the notifications that were yer-exclusive, it seemed, as they usually contained something that referred to everything as a ¡¯Game¡¯ or as the one that saw the information as a ¡¯yer.¡¯ [Giving out quests as a yer is a privilege given only to the Five Originals, as they can help guide those with less knowledge than them through the world] With a sigh, Eisen waved these notifications away, surprised at this but at the same time somewhat curious at what the requirements for handing out quests were, but was happy that he learned that he could do this now. "Whoa! We even got a quest? Awesome!" Parc eximed as Eisen chuckled softly. "Well, now it¡¯s official, isn¡¯t it? Now,e help me clean everything up, and then I¡¯ll get going back to my Inn." Eisen told them as he drank another mana potion to supply his body with the mana he needed to keep up his transformation, and grabbed the nearly empty pot with the rest of the stew in it to bring it inside. It took a little while, as they brought everything back to the Kitchen and then cleaned up the used bowls and cutlery, which didn¡¯t take too long since the majority of it was being washed off with a little water. It was quite convenient, really. And then, Eisen walked back to the dining area, where Kiron, Sky, Caria, and Melissa were waiting for Eisen, and Noa also, as she stood directly next to them and brightly smiled as sheid eyes on the Demon walking toward them. "Again, thank you so much for your help. I don¡¯t know how we could repay you for this, really." Noa the nun told Eisen as she held her hands in front of her heart, and the old manughed softly. "Don¡¯t worry about it. I said it before, but I do have some selfish reasons for doing this as well." Eisen told her, before she slowly nodded, simply feeling incredibly happy and gleeful right now. And it seems like she wasn¡¯t the only one that wanted to thank the old man. One after another, everyone, Homeless and Orphans alike, came up to him and thanked him. Some of the younger kids even gave him a few flowers that they picked, and some of the nuns told him that the patients in the hospital also wanted to thank him even more, now that they got to have such a great meal after being treated by Eisen beforehand. With a smile, the now surrounded Eisen continued to talk to everyone for a short while, answering a few questions they had and simply conversing with others about the situation in the church. And after that was over, Eisen and hispanions made their way back toward the Inn they were staying at, and the old man immediately went to bed after taking a look at the time in real life, because he was once more nning on making breakfast for his family. --- However, it seemed like Benjamin¡¯s ns wouldn¡¯t work out as he wanted them to, as when he woke up, he already noticed the sound of someone going through different pans and pots in the kitchen. And after standing up from the capsule, getting dressed and stepped toward the source of the noise, he saw Melody standing in front of a pot in the kitchen, stirring something around. "Good morning. I thought I said I¡¯d make breakfast, didn¡¯t I?" Benjamin asked as he walked up to his daughter, who swiftly turned around with a frown as she looked at the old man. "You did, but you need to rest, and I¡¯m sure you wouldn¡¯t make anything overly healthy, right?" Melody pointed out, as Benjamin looked into the pot and saw a gray goop inside of it. "Porridge?" Benjamin asked as he grabbed a small spoon and had a little taste of it before he looked at his daughter with confusion. "Didn¡¯t you season this with anything? It tastes great with some Vani, Cocoa powder, or Cinnamon, or anything you can put in there. But This tastes like nothing..." The old man pointed out, opening his seasoning cab and quickly grabbing the three things he just mentioned before Melody immediately closed the cab doors again as she shook her head. "Oats and Milk are enough, aren¡¯t they? I always make this at home, and Sophia and Michael love it." Melody told her father, who stared down at her in obvious disbelief. "Mhm, sure. If you say so..." The old man loudly sighed as he walked over to another cab and grabbed the bag with his coffee beans and his coffer grinder as well as his Chemex. He was told by his grandson Benji that making coffee this way was incredibly showy and unnecessary, but quickly shut his mouth when he drank some of it over the past few days. And as he began grinding down the coffee beans for a nice pot of this godly brown liquid, he noticed that Melody was giving him another one of her patented ¡¯You better don¡¯t¡¯ looks. But this time around, he ignored her, he won¡¯t have his daughter tell him not to do what he wants. Luckily enough for Melody, she didn¡¯t even have to! "Hmm, Benjamin, I don¡¯t think you should do that. Coffee isn¡¯t good for the body or belly, after all." Michael eximed as he stepped out from the hallway with an already perfect look as if he didn¡¯t sleep at all and just spent all night getting ready. "Good morning to you too, Michael. And I¡¯m of a different opinion, so I¡¯ll drink my coffee in peace, thank you very much." Benjamin told him with a bright, genuine smile before Michael nodded slowly and sat down by the counter, albeit slightly annoyed. "That is fine. ¡¯Live and let live¡¯ as you always say, isn¡¯t that right?" Michael said afterward, while Benjamin slowly nodded and continued grinding down his coffee as he began boiling up some water. A few minutester, it seemed like the porridge was ready, as well as the hot water, so Benjamin began slowly making the coffee while Melody and Michael started to eat the porridge. With a sigh, the old man looked at the porridge in the pot, while at the same time Benji, Kyle, and Sophia came toward the Kitchen after waking up just now, sitting down by the counter, before Melody quickly gave them a bowl of porridge immediately afterward. Confused, Benji looked at the grey, unsightly food in this bowl and looked at his grandfather. "You didn¡¯t make this, did you?" Slowly, Benjamin shook his head before Benji looked over at Melody and slightly smiled so that he didn¡¯t offend her. The three teenagers each ate a little bit of the porridge, and now Benjamin could confirm that not even Sophia liked it, different to what Melody eximed before. With a sigh, Benjamin took the bowls of Benji and Kyle to change the porridge up a little bit, while saying sorry to Sophia with his facial expression, since he knew that neither Melody nor Michael would let him feed anything they didn¡¯t approve of to their daughter. Now, quite quickly, Benjamin poured the bowls making up the porridge for himself, his two sons, his daughter inw, the four youngest children here, and these two teenagers together into a bigger mixing bowl and quickly changed it up a little bit. First, he added some vani extract, sugar and cinnamon, to give it some vor and at least not make it as nd and swiftly mixed it in, and then set aside bowls for L, L, Sean and Katy, since he knew they wouldn¡¯t like the ground-down coffee that Benjamin put into the porridge next. He was using pretty strong coffee beans as well, so he didn¡¯t put in all that much, but it was still enough to change the taste up quite a bit. And after putting the new porridge in a few different bowls, the old man quickly put some berries on top of it that should go pretty well with the taste. "Here, you two go. Not everyone has to eat like this." Benjamin said with a wink, while his daughter shot him a dirty look. "Dad, I just said it¡¯s not good for you to put in all that stuff, why don¡¯t you ever listen to me?" Melody protested as she tried taking away the bowl Benjamin mixed for himself, but her father quickly held his hand up higher into the air, which made him confident she couldn¡¯t reach it. "Melody, I think I know best what¡¯s good for me and what¡¯s not, right?" Benjamin eximed as he brought the bowl over to sit next to Benji and Kyle, thetter of which was awkwardly looking at these two tall hunks now sitting next to him, together with a cup of coffee for himself and these two teenagers. "Now, let¡¯s enjoy our breakfast, shall we?" Chapter 174 A Little Tour And after the, actually entirely unenjoyable, awkward breakfast, Benjamin chose to show Kyle around the house a little bit with Sophia and Benjiing along of course. "Urgh, sorry about that. Mom and Dad always make me eat that stuff...Thanks to Grampa you probably had a pretty good meal, though..." Sophia apologized to Kyle, who quickly shook his head as he moved his hair out of his face. "No no, it¡¯s fine, really it is! It ended up pretty good though. And is that why you always buy something at the bagel ce near the school?" Kyle whispered to make sure Sophia¡¯s parents didn¡¯t hear before the teenage girl quickly nodded. "Mhm. They¡¯re a lil¡¯ bit nuts if I¡¯m gonna be honest..." "You can say that again... They were shooting Grampa all kinda dirty looks as well." Benji said with a nod before the old man himself began shaking his head. "Stop talking about them like that, please. Melody and Michael want everyone to eat healthily, can¡¯t me them for that. Although it wasn¡¯t really for me either in the end, so I changed it up a bit, but you shouldn¡¯t be so mean to them." Benjamin told them, before Benji and Sophia sighed loudly, only slowly nodding in response. "Erm... anyway... You have a pretty nice house, Mr-...sorry, Benjamin." Kyle said, trying to quickly change the topic before the old man began to smile softly. "Thank you, Kyle. It was a lot of hard work, so I¡¯d hope for it to be nice like this. Well, Sophia told me you¡¯re into games, right?" Benjamin asked before Kyle quickly nodded and began to speak, saying something that immediately made the old man understand why Sophia was grinning so brightly right now. "Oh, definitely! I can¡¯t wait for the Digital Immersion Capsule from Prime Industries to finallye out! I heard that ¡¯World of Magic¡¯ is a game like no other ever before! In games I¡¯m usually a production ss, or rather, I focus on production aspects, and I heard that the crafting in that game is supposed to be incredibly amazing, so I¡¯m excited to try it out!" Kyle said in a slight rant before Benjamin quietly chuckled. "Is that so? Then I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be excited for- Oi, Natsuo, I said no fiddling with the insides of the capsule!" Benjamin yelled as he opened the door to his room, where he wanted to show Kyle the capsule and instead saw his oldest son holding one of the cover-tes of the DiCap in his hand while his other wasing closer to the actual wiring. "Hehe, sorry..." Natsuo responded as he scratched the back of his head with a light cheeky smirk, "I just couldn¡¯t really resist..." "Then try resisting harder, there¡¯s some important stuff going on that I need to take care of in there tonight, so I¡¯d prefer it if I can get there," Benjamin told his son. Who slowly nodded and began looking closer at what was inside of the panel, before the old man himself sighed loudly and looked back at Kyle, who was staring at the machine in wonder. "Y-You have a capsule?! What?! How? When?" The usually so shy boy eximed, looking over at Benjamin before remembering the trailer. "Wait, you¡¯re Eisen..? I thought you looked familiar, but..." And now, as a quite obvious brag, Benji moved his hand through his hair, looking at the capsule with a smirk before speaking up. "And your very own recent High-School graduate right here is going to start ying in only one week as well, isn¡¯t that right, Grampa?" Confused, now both Sophia and Kyle stared at Benji before the young woman protested. "Wait, what¡¯re you saying? The game¡¯sing out in two weeks!" She eximed before the old man standing next to them, softly chuckled. "The five ¡¯Originals¡¯ that you¡¯ve heard about in the trailer, which includes me, have a few privileges. One of them is that we can rmend one person to be allowed to y the game earlier than the majority of the popce. And for that, I rmended Benji as a graduation present for him." Benjamin exined, before Sophia began to pout as she crossed her arms. "What? So unfair! Did you think about me at all when you made that decision?" She asked before Benjamin ced his hand on the top of her head and smirked lightly. "Sorry, if I had another rmendation to give out, I¡¯d give it to you." "Hehe, but he doesn¡¯t, so only I¡¯ll be joining him for the time being," Benji said with a grin before he felt a light pain in the back of his head after being smacked by his grandfather. "Shut it; I can still revoke the rmendation whenever I want." He warned jokingly, and Benji scratched the top of his head with a smirk. "Sorry, sorry... But yeah, I¡¯ll probably start ying and do a little bit here and there. I still don¡¯t have any idea what to do there..." "And I already told you, that¡¯s fine. You can do whatever you want. Brody might teach you somebat skills if you ask him nicely, and you know that I¡¯ll always teach you anything rted to crafting." The old man told his grandson, who swiftly nodded before Kyle hurriedly spoke up. "Wait, so you are a crafter? As in, a real cksmith or something?" Before Benjamin himself could answer, Natsuo, who was still removing some of the stic panels from the capsule, answered Kyle¡¯s question. "Not ¡¯or something.¡¯ He is a ¡¯real¡¯ cksmith. And a tailor. He made my wedding suit and my wife¡¯s wedding dress, and on top of that, he even made the watch I¡¯m still wearing to this day. Oh, and he also made our wedding rings...Dad, did I ever pay you for any of that?" The man asked as he pushed his sses up his nose a bit more, suddenly feeling somewhat guilty for some reason. With a sigh, the old man then answered him as he shook his head. "No, you did not. But it¡¯s fine, and I offered to do all of that, right? Anyway, Kyle,e on. I¡¯ll show you my workshop." Benjamin eximed as he once more reminded Natsuo not to fiddle around with anything other than the stic covers, before the old man brought the three teenagers with him to the other side of the house, slowly opening the door to his workshop. "I¡¯m not in here all that much these days, but a few years back, I¡¯d be here whenever I wasn¡¯t sleeping," Benjamin told them before he turned on the light switch. Revealing an ample space in front of them, which included everything one may need to make almost anything and everything. On a wall next to the door were some of the different things that Benjamin had made throughout his years that he didn¡¯t end up selling. Either because a customer canceled the orderst minute and he didn¡¯t feel like quitting halfway through, or because they were simple prototypes or things he made for himself as practice for different techniques. Other than that, there were a lot of different workstations set up with all the tools one may ever need, although all the materials that Benjamin used to keep there were now gone since he sold them after realizing he wouldn¡¯t be able to use them anymore. "You can take a look around, just be careful, and don¡¯t y around with anything," Benjamin warned them, especially Kyle, as the teenager excitedly took a step further into the room. "Whoa! So cool..." Kyle eximed as he began to look through all the different things that wereying around in here, and Benjamin chose to tell some stories about anything stored in here whenever Kyle seemed especially interested. And at some point, Benjamin asked one of the questions he was curious about for a while now. "Would this kind of thing be something you would be interested in doing as a job?" The old man inquired before Kyle looked at him in surprise. "Erm...Kind of...but my Dad wants me to study and go to college for a degree. And I don¡¯t even know if I¡¯d be any good at it..." He exined before Sophia hit the side of his shoulder again like the tomboy she was. "Oh, nonsense. You know you¡¯d be good at this kinda stuff. At the very least, you¡¯re good at making clothes ¡¯n¡¯ stuff, right? I mean, you made the shirt you¡¯re wearing from scratch, right?" She said, and Benjamin leaned in closer to take a look at the shirt, while Kyle¡¯s face began flushing red because even Benji was curiouslying a bit closer to take a look. And indeed, Benjamin could see that Kyle¡¯s shirt was handmade. It maybe wasn¡¯t as high quality as one might see at even an average clothes shop, but it fit Kyle perfectly, and at first nce, it didn¡¯t look like an amateur made it, so Benjamin ended up being quite impressed. "Huh, interesting. I know some Tailors near where you live, so I could give them a call if you¡¯re be interested to start working in that kinda area." Benjamin offered, but Kyle quickly shook his head. "No, no! It¡¯s fine! I¡¯m just going to do what my Dad tells me to; it¡¯s better that way. Besides, I¡¯m not sure if I would want to work as a Tailor anyway. I mean, it¡¯s what I¡¯m best at right now, but that¡¯s because sewing is the easiest to do without any special tools...And cloth can be pretty cheap as well.." Kyle pointed out before the old man nodded slowly. "I can see what you mean. You only need a needle, thread, and cloth to make something like that. But well, you said you¡¯d start ying the game when ites out, right?" Benjamin asked before Kyle quickly nodded. "Mhm, I already preordered the capsule. My Dad is actually for it because he said the time dtion could be used for studying..." He answered before Sophia crossed her arms jealously. "Lucky, Mom and Dad are against me buying it, even if I pay for it on my own... Although I¡¯m not so jealous about the studying part..." She said before Benjamin frowned deeply. "Wait, why that? Nevermind, I think I know why they don¡¯t want you to y...but they are still allowing it in the end, right?" The old man asked, and Sophia slowly nodded. "Yeah, they are. But they¡¯ll probably say that I can only y for like an hour or two every day." "You can y while sleeping, so you shouldn¡¯t need to worry about that," Benjamin told them before the three teenagers looked at him in awe. "So you really can? That¡¯s insane, isn¡¯t it?" Sophia asked full of curiosity before the old man slowly nodded. "Yeah, I know. Whenever you start ying, it¡¯s always like you¡¯re sleeping. I don¡¯t know how it all actually works, but it¡¯s quite fascinating." Benjamin exined, before looking back over at Kyle. "But either way, it already seems like I¡¯m about to take some apprentices in the game, so if you feel like it, you cane around some time as well, and I can show you a thing or two about some crafting techniques." He told him before the teenage boy quickly nodded. "That would be cool, thank you!" Kyle excitedly responded before Benji tilted his head to the side. "Wait, you¡¯re taking apprentices in the game? Is it one of those dudes that started ying today?" He asked before the old man shook his head. "It¡¯s not any of the yers I¡¯ve met so far, believe it or not. It¡¯s three NPC boys. Nice kids." The old man exined, surprising everyone quite a bit, so Benjamin quietly chuckled and told the story as he continued showing the group of three teens around the room, while the three teenagers listened enraptured in Benjamins¡¯ storytelling in utter disbelief. Chapter 175 Coin Magic With a smile, Eisen stood up from the bed he wasying in, slowly stretching his body as he looked around the room. He went to bed quite early today, so everyone else was still asleep, and as such the old man got dressed in his cksmithing outfit as preparation forter when he would go back to the Church to make some more food, if necessary, and mainly start on some repairs on the buildings. Other than that, if Xenia managed to get all the items she needed to break the curses on Kirisho¡¯s amulet as well as on the ck seed that Eisen picked up the other day, then Eisen would assist with that task as much as he could. And he didn¡¯t have the chance to properly talk to Komer anymore before he logged off thest time, so Eisen wanted to see what kind of element he received. Of course, he would also need to meet up with all of the other Originals, since they were all now gathered in this town. And it seemed like he would be able to do one of those things quite soon since the young man in one of the beds next to Eisen slowly stood up as his body regained its color. "Hey there, Komer," Eisen said with a smile as he greeted the merchant, who returned the greeting happily. "Komer,e with me to the Carriage, alright? I don¡¯t want to wake the others up." The old man asked of him before Komer quickly nodded, and Eisen picked up the still sleepy Caria and Melissa, and since even Kiron was still asleep, only the four of them made their way to the stables, where they could hopefully talk a bit for now. Since the stables weren¡¯t far away, they got there after a few minutes, quickly greeting Cabarum before then entering the Carriage. After that, Eisen sat down on the bench and put his hand into the jerky barrel withdrawing some of the seasoned and dried meat in order to fill his stomach a bit. "Alright, you said you got your element now, right? What did it end up as?" Eisen inquired curiously, before Komer nodded his head excitedly. "Mhm! It¡¯s pretty interesting, really. It¡¯s the ¡¯Coin¡¯ Element. I can¡¯t do much with it, but some pretty neat little stuff. For example, I can do something simr to what Xenia does with her ¡¯Spirit Sight,¡¯ as in when I infuse my element into my eyes, I can see the mary value of things. I received a skill for it, but it absorbed my appraisal skill though." Komer exined as he began to demonstrate this new skill of his, and his eyes just so slightly changed by turning the coloring of his iris just a slight bit golden. It was nothing that you would immediately notice, though, only when you took a closer look. "For raw materials, I can see a more definite worth for it, but for finished items just a rough estimate. But that¡¯s not the only thing I can do. I also turned into a change machine." He chuckled as he then deactivated his new skill and grabbed one of the gold coins in his pocket, cing it down on the worktable before pressing his palm onto it. Slowly, as Komer poured his elemental magic into the coin, the young merchant raised his hand, revealing that the gold coin changed into arge pile of silver coins. "Huh, interesting..." Eisen muttered out, before Komer nodded with a smile, moving the coins closer to each other with both of his hands again before the pile began to shrink and there was only a single gold coin left. "This is something pretty nifty I¡¯ve been ying around with, and there¡¯s one especially useful thing. Out of one coin, I can take out 100 of the lower coin version, right? But I can also take out single coins, and that will turn therger coin that I took it out of into something like a ceholder. It¡¯s somewhat translucent, and only I can touch it, and only when there are 100 coins in there, will it end up turning into a proper coin. And presto change-o, I managed to press¡¯ everything into one of these ceholder tinum coins." He exined, taking out a coin that was, as Komer had described, slightly translucent before he then pushed the gold coin in his other hand onto the coin andbined them. "Continually doing this is kind of tiring, actually... Xenia took me into the Dungeon with her the other day, so I leveled up a little bit. Not much, but enough so that I can at least keep up my element for a while with my new Wisdom stat." Komer told Eisen before the old man slowly nodded. "Interesting. Well, that sounds just about right for the magic of a merchant. So you only have one coin with you right now?" Eisen asked him before Komer slowly nodded. "Yeah, exactly. It¡¯s extremely convenient because I don¡¯t need to look for coins in my bag. Before now, we were keeping most of our money in the small hidden nooks and crannies around the carriage, and the rest was divided up between everyone, with me keeping the majority. I was always a little worried about thieves, but now I don¡¯t need to. Because nobody beside me can touch this right now, thieves can¡¯t either. Well, there¡¯s probably a bunch of ways to, but this is a lot harder to steal than normal." Komer exined, before Eisen slowly nodded. "I¡¯ll make you something to keep the coin in safely, having yourrge purse is useless now, isn¡¯t it?" Eisen said with a smile as he stood back up to grab a small piece of wood and his carving knife before quickly starting to work on a small wooden box for Komer, as the Merchant continued talking about the possibilities of his element. "But you see, I was thinking about something. I already mentioned the problem of the many different coins I needed to carry around with me until now, right? Obviously, other people will have that problem as well, if not even more. And at some point, you said you¡¯d get an ability to use other people¡¯s skills to enchant stuff, so once you do, should we try to make an item that can use my element topress people¡¯s coins into one?" Komer suggested as Eisen stopped carving the box for a short second to think about that idea. "If I¡¯ll be honest, that sounds like a great idea. Until then, I¡¯m sure I can lower the size of Soul Generators or even find a new way to power enchantments autonomously, so it could end up being pretty small." Eisen answered, as he then continued carving the small, t box with a simple wooden hinge and lock,rge enough to hold just a single coin. "Here you go, use that for now. I¡¯ll make something better and safer at some point, but that should be more easy to use than your purse for now." He told him as Komer slowly nodded, and the two of them, plus Caria and Melissa, made their way out of the carriage. With a strict face, Eisen then looked at the two little girls he was carrying around right now. "And, you two, I¡¯m going to ask Xenia to help you with your magicter. You still haven¡¯t reached Rank 2 in Magic Maniption, for some reason." He told them, as both of them quickly nodded. Eisen was slightly confused as to why their skill proficiency wasn¡¯t rising all that much anymore. After all, they were using mana quite a lot, weren¡¯t they? Maybe Xenia had some idea as to what the cause could be, and if not, then they would simply need to keep going and see what happened in the future. Now, the group made their way back to the Inn, because Eisen got a message from Jyuuk that everyone had gathered in the restaurant for breakfast, including thest member of the Originals that Eisen was yet to meet, Brody. Last time they talked, he seemed somewhat overly excited and aggressive, so Eisen was curious about what he was really like, after all, it was quite apparent that Brody was just a bit nervous, at least from Eisen¡¯s perspective it was quite easy to see. So, when Eisen, Komer, and the two tamed monsters entered the restaurant, the old man took a look around and noticed the four people he was looking for sitting at a table in the corner, while the others were seated at another table. As such, Eisen asked Komer to take Caria and Melissa with him to sit at a different table, so that the five originals could talk amongst themselves. After seeing the old man approach, Jyuuk and Brody quickly stood up to greet him after not seeing him for a while. Once Jyuuk and Eisen swiftly said hello, the old man looked at Brody, who was, as expected, a lot calmer than thest time they met. "Nice to see ya again, Eisen." He said in a respectful tone, before Eisen himself slowly nodded as he began to smile lightly. "Likewise, Brody." He responded before Eisen looked to the side and saw three unfamiliar people sitting next to Eisen¡¯s group. First, a healthy young man with dark green skin and somewhat awkward proportions, as in arger head, feet and hands than usual, and slightly pointed ears. Then, there was one person that was apparently one of the Demon race, and he was built quite tall. He had arge tower shield leaning against the wall behind him and was wearing parts of heavy armor, while his horns ended up ttening down and somewhat covered the sides of his face. And next to thatrge man sat a woman with pure white hair and ck eyes, wearing a robe that seemed made of different nts that were woven together, at least outwardly so. Eisen couldn¡¯t tell what her race was, but it didn¡¯t seem like she was human. "Are those three yourpanions?" Eisen inquired, before Brody looked at the three people the old man was talking about. "Two of ¡¯em are, yeah. The big guy is Horan and thedy there is Jiina. The other kid belongs to Jyuuk though, doesn¡¯t he?" Brody said as he turned to look at the monkey standing next to him, who swiftly nodded. "Yes, and you have met him before, isn¡¯t that right, Gobu?" Jyuuk said with a smile before the green-skinned man perked his head up as he heard his name being called, before jumping up with a smile as he saw the old man that saved his life. With a bright smile, Gobu then stood in front of Eisen, unsure of what to do, before looking at Jyuuk standing behind him and remembering what he was taught. Quickly, Gobu mmed his upped body forward and bowed to Eisen as to say ¡¯Thank you¡¯. And now, Jyuuk began telling Eisen a bit more about Gobu. "After I left Ornier, I kept Gobu outside for a bit longer because his injuries still weren¡¯t properly treated, and he still seemed pretty unhealthy no matter what I gave him to eat or drink, but then he began helping me fight some monsters. And the more he leveled up, the healthier his body became. He kept growing, and his stats naturally improved beyond what should have been possible with regr level-ups." Jyuuk exined with a smile, cing his hand on the boy¡¯s head. "My theory is that his body had simply degraded over-time after spending so long in those cages in the monster shop and that the level ups mainly fixed him after some time. Either way, he¡¯s doing pretty well now, and he¡¯s picking up a few useful skills quite quickly." The Monkey-Beastperson exined before Eisen smiled brightly at Gobu. "Well then, I¡¯m d that you¡¯re doing better now, kid." With a kind of happiness that one could only understand after feeling it, Eisen sat down next to the other originals at the corner table, as Gobu returned to the table with the otherpanions where he was sitting at before, as the five originals began talking in a group for the second time ever. Chapter 176 Different Energy "Alright, so first things first, Eisen. You¡¯re gonna be our guild master then?" Brody asked after the three men sat down at the table before Eisen swiftly nodded. "Yes. I recently finished a quite big quest, so I reached level 99. I am currently working towardpleting the requirements. For that, I will also need to leave again, not too long from now. I started helping out at the Church here, which includes the orphanage, hospital, and homeless shelter. I can learn and rank up some skills there while I am at it." The old man exined before Jyuuk quickly remembered what Eisen asked him for, before putting his hand into his pocket to pull out a few small marbles. "Here are the soul stones you asked for, by the way." The Monkey-Beastperson said before Eisen gratefully took them into his hands. "Thank you, Jyuuk. I hope it wasn¡¯t too much trouble." "Oh no, it didn¡¯t take that long," Jyuuk responded before Brody nodded. "Mhm, it ain¡¯t a problem for me to take out a monster or two. Anyway, Jyuuk said ya want to go to some mysterious inds?" "Yes, exactly. One of the reasons Jyuuk suggested that we found a guild was so that we can create a town, and for that, we need arge spot ofnd. And thergest unimed spot ofnd that we can currently ess is that ind group. We¡¯ll need to clear out the field dungeons there, but with all of us working together, that shouldn¡¯t be too big of an issue." Eisen exined quickly before everyone swiftly nodded. "True, we¡¯re definitely the perfectly bnced party. We have nonbat support through Eisen, numbers through Jyuuk, mainbatants through Brody; buffs and debuffs through Evalia and then AoE and Long Distance support through me." Xenia pointed out before everyone once more agreed. "But before then, we still need to build the ship. It will be a long trip, and we will need something to travel from the inds back to the maind and back anyway, so it should be somethingrge and durable, which is why it may take a while." Eisen exined, before quickly continuing, "Considering that that is the case, for now, we should all get everything out of the way that needs to be done beforehand and then concentrate on the shipbuilding as much as possible." "Sounds good to me," Brody eximed as he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms as he did, before remembering something. "Ah, dude, Eisen. What¡¯s that whole demon thing you¡¯ve got goin¡¯ on? Jyuuk told me a little about it." With a smile, Eisen quickly nodded before he began to exin the whole story while showing him his transformation on his hand and his eyes before the Demon-Orc halfling looked at Eisen in surprise. "Wait, Yin and Yang? I use the same energy to fight." Brody exined before the group reversed the situation and everyone looked at him in surprise, while Eisen inquired about that exmation with a frown. "What do you mean? Is that your magic element?" He asked, but Brody quickly shook his head and began to exin. "Nah, I don¡¯t use magic or mana or anythin¡¯ like that, although I guess it¡¯s the same principle. Because of my race, I just ain¡¯t good at using mana. From the start, I wasn¡¯t able to use it outside of my body, and could only do stuff like strengthen myself a little bit with pure mana, and slowly got my Mana Maniption skill to Rank 2, where people can usually choose their element." Brody began before Xenia opened her eyes widely and formed a curious smile. "¡¯Usually¡¯... as in, not in your case? Do you have an alternate source?" She inquired before Brody nodded his head. "As expected of our magic freak, eh? Anyway, as you said, I have an alternate source. Or rather, I had the option to change the mana source inside of my body into an energy source, and the type I was most suitable for was the ¡¯Yin and Yang¡¯ energy. In this case, ¡¯Yin¡¯ refers to external arts, while ¡¯Yang¡¯ refers to internal arts. Cuz I¡¯m good at both, I got this bnced version of the energy." The Demon-Orc exined, fidgeting around with his small tusks as he did before Eisen nodded slowly. "I see. In my case, as I already exined, ¡¯Yin¡¯ seems to be the evil version, while ¡¯Yang¡¯ is the good version. Does that have any corrtion to your energy?" Eisen asked the martial artist, who simply shook his head. "Not really, no. The only thing I can see is because external arts refer to regr martial arts, it can be seen as something bad or chaotic since they¡¯re used to fight. Most internal arts are more peaceful and meant to make you more connected with yourself and the energy of the universe, so that could be seen as good in a way. But I really don¡¯t know, that¡¯s the only connection I can see." Brody exined before Eisen slowly nodded and ended up shrugging. "Well, it doesn¡¯t matter too much anyway. Maybe it¡¯s just a coincidence, but I guess we¡¯ll find out at some point if we look into it. And what can you do with your Yin and Yang energy?" Eisen inquired before Brody quickly continued exining. "It¡¯s rather two different energies inside of my body. As I said, Yin is for my external arts, meaning the actual techniques and martial arts that I end up using. So my Yin energy strengthens these things, and I can cause a few different effects with it outside of my body, depending on which techniques I use. It¡¯s a pretty clich¨¦ thing in stories, but I can, for example, punch something that¡¯s 10 meters away from me or somethin¡¯." The Demon-Orc exined before Xenia looked at him in surprise. "Eh? Really? That¡¯s really a thing now?" She asked excitedly, before Brody slowly nodded with a slight grin, revealing some sharp teeth, and showing how big his tusks really were. "Yup it is. And as for my internal arts, with my Yang energy, I strengthen my body itself. My breathwork, how I control my energy, and generally how well I can control my body. External arts focus mainly on the usage of your muscles, while internal arts focus on using leverage, motion, and the flexibility of your own body. Of course, internal arts still have a focus onbat and techniques like external arts do, but I would say that isn¡¯t it¡¯s the main focus, although in the end, external and internal arts somewhat mix, and you can¡¯t reallyplete your control over one without using the other. That¡¯s why I think the name ¡¯Yin and Yang Energy¡¯ is such a good fit." Slowly, without needing to think about it for long, Eisen ended up nodding. "Indeed. Both halves end up forming a whole, after all." He said, before realizing something else about Yin and Yang. Why were they called the path of yin and the path of yang? If you could walk on either path, shouldn¡¯t you be able to walk on both? It might be hard, but in the end, wouldn¡¯t it pay off? As far as he knew, True Demons had terrific abilities, no matter what path they were on, so if he managed to find a bnce, maybe he would learn some fascinating new skills that are much more useful than if he were only to choose one path. Either way, this was still quite some time away, as far as Eisen was concerned. He would first need to somehow get onto the path of yang in the first ce, and he would need to think about what came after that when the time came. "That¡¯s quite interesting, though. It seems like Xenia¡¯s going to want to ask you some questions about it, though." Eisen chuckled before he looked at the high elf, who was still wearing an extremely inquisitive expression. "Actually, do you have everything ready to break the curse on Kirisho¡¯s amulet?" Eisen inquired before Xenia slowly nodded. "Hm? Yeah, I have the materials ready, but I still need to prepare everything. Should be ready by evening though, so until then you can still go and continue that dragon¡¯s trial." Xenia told the old man, before Eisen nodded his head, but didn¡¯t choose to go yet, as he still wanted to ask some questions, for which he looked over at Jyuuk, the only one that he currently knew of who was able to control souls within the group of Originals. "So, Jyuuk, did you look into the soul storage thing I told you about?" Eisen asked as Jyuuk quickly nodded. "Mhm, I did. I was actually able to put the Beastiary you made into my soul storage. But I didn¡¯t see anything about a box, or anything else." Jyuuk exined, and Eisen began to deeply frown before summoning the small ornate box from his soul storage. "Really? You have nothing like this?" Eisen asked once more, and Jyuuk shook his head. "No, I don¡¯t. Sorry. But did you find anything out about how to open it yet?" The monkey-beast person asked, but Eisen didn¡¯t spend much time trying to figure it out yet, so he had no idea. "I think I¡¯ll leave the box with Sky for a bit and ask him to figure out the writing on here. He seemed pretty interested in it. And who knows, maybe this is something that¡¯s meant for everyone together? It is a Rank 10 item with Divine Quality, after all, so it has to be something quite amazing." Eisen pointed out, and the others quickly agreed before Eisen continued. "Well, we shouldn¡¯t worry too much about it right now. If any of you others unlock the soul storage function, let me know if you find anything like this." He asked them before he chose to stand up. "Alright, I¡¯ve got to get going now. Should we meet up again in the evening?" The old man asked, and the rest of them slowly nodded. "I wanna hear what you¡¯ve all been up to, I¡¯ve heard a little bit from Jyuuk, but not too much, really." Brody pointed out, and Evalia nodded immediately. "Ya can be sure of that. Been wantin¡¯ to work on a lil¡¯ something with a skill of mine, so hearin¡¯ your stories would be great." She said with a smirk, before Eisen nodded, although a bit curious about the ability she was talking about, and stepped over to get those of his group that wanted toe with him. Caria and Melissa wanted to stay with Jyuuk, or rather his monsters, for the day, so Eisen took that chance to ask Xenia to look into the problem with their mana maniption. On the other hand, Bree chose to join Eisen for today, since Dien had something else on his schedule, so Eisen¡¯s group was now made up of Sky, Bree, Kiron and himself. And before Eisen was about to leave, he confirmed Komer¡¯s ns for the day once more, which were to go out to the spot that he found and begin selling the items Eisen prepared, while spreading out that the ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ was avable for, albeit only a few, custom orders. After Eisen, Bree, Sky, and Kiron left the restaurant; they walked past a few different shops to buy some necessary materials for Koro, Parc, and Rouge to use during their crafting tests. That would probably take up arge part of the day already, so Eisen wanted to hurry up with it as soon as possible. And he couldn¡¯t just leave while they werepleting it, because he didn¡¯t just want to look at the end product, but at the process as well, or rather for the most part. Surely, as long as the finished item was functional, Eisen would at least give them a passing grade, but he would only teach them to the extent that he taught his best disciples, but only if they all had the talent for it. Chapter 177 Blacksmithing Tes After they purchased everything that Eisen needed for the day, or instead what his three apprentice candidates required, the group made their way back to the main church of Handor, where he promised to be again today, of course only after activating his demonic transformation and full-body craftsman enchantment. It seemed like he was actually expected, as the nun that showed him around and helped himst time, Noa, was once again the one that hurriedly opened the front door. "Ah, there you are again! We¡¯ve been waiting for you!" She eximed with a smile as she fully opened the door and led the four of them further into the building. "There is no need for you to cook today, as we got a new head chef after the old one resigned. He may not be as skilled as you, Sir Demon, but he is surely enthusiastic. When our old head chef resigned, Koro lost his apprenticeship as well, so he has been especially looking forward to your return." Noa exined before Eisen began to frown deeply. "What do you mean the old head chef resigned?" The old demon inquired, and Noa slowly nodded her head. "I¡¯m not sure what happened exactly, but we were sent a messenger from the Lord who was apanied by our new head chef, and then we were told about the resignation. We don¡¯t know what happened either, but it wasn¡¯t like we didn¡¯t expect him to leave sooner orter. He didn¡¯t seem quite happy or content here after all. Maybe your appearance pushed him over the edge." Noa suggested before Eisen sighed loudly and nodded his head. "Maybe so. It¡¯s truly a shame, but in the end, if that¡¯s the dwarfs choice, it¡¯s to be respected. But talking about Koro, where are those three right now? After I¡¯ve talked to them, I will begin with the repairs of the structure." Eisen told Noa, who gratefully nodded her head before leading the old man and hispanions to the orphanage. There, before anything else could happen, Eisen was assaulted by the children that were there. "Whoo! It¡¯s Mister Demon!" One of them yelled, bringing everyone else to run at him as well as if he was some sort of spectacle. And truly, he was. After all, you didn¡¯t see arge rock and me demon with huge wings and horns every day. So, for a little while, Eisen had to continue humoring these little devils. Some of them began climbing all over him, while others yed around with his wings or took a closer look at his skin and apron. As these kids were doing that, it seemed like the three people that Eisen went to see there also noticed his presence, swiftly making their way to him as fast as they could, as they then stood in front of the old demon, resolved to pass the tests that he was about to give them. With a smile, Eisen then looked at the three teenagers, before telling the kids that were clinging to him that he had to go, then stepping up to his possible apprentices. "Seems like all of you are ready. We¡¯ll be doing cksmithing work first, so go ahead and get everything you need for that, and meet me in the gardens behind the orphanage." Eisen informed them with a calm expression, as he began to make his way to the spot where he told the boys to meet him, as this was the best ce to do everything ording to Noa. However, Eisen thought that working outside wasn¡¯t the best idea, because wind or rain could easily ruin what you¡¯re working on, and as such, the craftsmaster made his staff appear out of his soul storage and began to form a room outside. It wasn¡¯t anything significant, just four rock walls and some lights made of Eisen¡¯s brightest mes. It usually took far more mana to form things rather than keep their current form up and running, so he asked Bree to refill his mana after he was done creating the room and three workstations inside of it, before swiftly setting everything that was necessary up. First, he ced a few different metal ingots onto one central table, as well as a selection of tools into each individual ¡¯room¡¯ that Eisen made for Koro, Parc, and Rouge to work in separately. Right now, Eisen wanted to test their skills and to see what they were each individually good at, after all. A short whileter, the three young men arrived, surprised to see the new building that never stood here before today. As Eisen turned to them, he swiftly smiled with a nod as he saw the clothes they chose. Their clothing seemed quite easy to move in, and loose enough so that there was a good airflow, yet they were then again not too loose so that they may get in the way. "Alright, each of you will get one of these rooms. You won¡¯t be able to see the others work, so concentrate on what you are doing. You have ess to any tools you may need in there, and some raw materials out here. You don¡¯t need to worry if you¡¯re making something that might need another, non-metallic material toplete it, like a knife with a wooden handle, you only need to make the metal portion for now." Eisen exined to them, before the boys all slowly nodded, nervously taking a look at the metals disyed on the rock table in front of them. In the end, Parc took arge amount of steel with him, Rouge took some silver and gold, while Koro didn¡¯t seem to be able to decide on what to choose. Since his expression didn¡¯t say that he was nervous, but simply that he was thinking about what would be the best choice, so Eisen let him do his thing before Koro slowly took a single steel ingot with him. For now, Eisen went into each room and set the forge to the heat that each of them required, already taking some mental notes. Parc chose to go with a temperature on the higher end of the eptable scale, while Rouge seemed unsure and instead went with a lower temperature. Although, since Rouge was working with metals that could even be cold-forged, meaning without heating them beforehand, if one had the patience to do so, that was fine in the end. Only Koro chose to go with the middle of the line, a pretty good temperature range that Eisen himself would have probably chosen as well to start it off with, in the end, you could always increase the heat of the forge or cool it down a bit depending on what you needed, after all. And so, Eisen then continued switching between each room to get a good impression of everyone¡¯s technique. Luckily, all of them went with the proper tools and wholly ignored the ¡¯feints¡¯ that Eisen had ced amongst the tools so that he could concentrate on what the boys were doing instead. Parc was someone that primarily relied on his raw strength most of all. Hebined the ingots together into one and then hammered them into shape, albeit not a quiteplicated one. It was just arge metal club with some jagged spikes here and there and ended up as a pretty ¡¯brutish¡¯ weapon overall. Rouge, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. He did have a good speed to his motions, but near to no strength put into them, although that didn¡¯t seem to be the case because hecked it. Eisen could tell that he followed the motto ¡¯Better safe than sorry¡¯ as he made a small, intricate, and ornate bracelet out of gold and silver. Last but not least, there was Koro. His technique was quite well-executed, and the strength he put into each strategically ced hit wasn¡¯t anything anyone couldin about directly. However, his general movements were slow. Whenever he struck the metal, his hand would move with the proper speed required to bring out the force needed, but the time in between every strike was far too long, and Koro¡¯s overall movements were quite sluggish, and the reason behind that was quite apparent also, but Eisen chose to exin that to Koro himselfter. What he was making seemed to be precisely the knife that Eisen mentioned beforehand as an example, and since he spent some time in the kitchen here, it ended up looking like a knife you would find exactly there. In the end, Eisen could definitely see that each of these boys had a talent for smithing, albeit each in a different area. So, as the old man stood in front of them and inspected each of the finished items, he began to exin the shorings of each of them. "First of all, the techniques you guys use are all pretty good already, so I have noints there, but I do haveints about your focus. Parc, big and heavy doesn¡¯t mean better. You managed to hammer this into shape quite well, but it¡¯s pretty rough and uneven in some parts, and some of the ¡¯spikes¡¯ are just small bumps. I won¡¯t mention the choice of the item either. Anyway, you passed for cksmithing, but we¡¯ll be working on your precision and feeling for detail." Eisen exined as he handed therge metal club back to the tall boy who immediately started celebrating before Eisen moved on to the next boy of the trio. "On the other hand, Rouge you focus on the details and can make a few nice intricate things. However, there were a few things you still did wrong, or rather, that you could have done better. You need to have more confidence in your ability. Even if you fail once or twice, that¡¯s fine, but you¡¯re just wasting your time and breath if all you do is give the metal you¡¯re working with a little dent. If you develop that confidence of yours, you¡¯d be able to finish something like this a lot faster, so we¡¯ll be working on your strength output and how well you feel around different materials and with different tools. Meaning, you passed for cksmithing as well." The old man exined before Rouge swiftly joined Parc with his celebrations while Eisen moved on to thest of the three. "Koro you overthink, you¡¯re too focused on the end product and what people might think about it, but you shouldn¡¯t. Your technique is great, and you¡¯re the most well-rounded out of the three of you, so you shouldn¡¯t worry about other people or the future of what you¡¯re doing, and concentrate on what you¡¯re doing at the moment. That would give you a great boost to your speed as well, and probably also add onto your precision and strength. So that¡¯s what you and I will be working on first. You passed for cksmithing as well." Eisen told Koro, who quickly nodded as he looked at a notification that popped up in front of him. That was probably just the update-notice for the quest, which Eisen got as well, and Eisen swiftly moved on from that. "Alright, all of you go outside and take a break. The next test is for Tailoring. I¡¯ll call you when I¡¯m ready." Eisen informed them before the three boys quickly made their way outside with each one holding the item they just made, before Sky spoke up curiously. "So you¡¯re sure you want to take those guys as apprentices if they pass all your tests?" He asked with a frown, feeling unsure about it butpletely trusting in Eisen¡¯s choice and opinion since he always knew best up until now. But then, Eisen shook his head, which immensely surprised Bree, Sky, and Kiron at first, thinking that the old man was ying around with the boys. "I¡¯m taking them as my apprentices now either way. I¡¯m just trying to figure out for what areas. They¡¯re definitely my cksmithing apprentices already at this point. Or rather, it¡¯s hard to mess up bing my apprentice now. At the end of these tests, I¡¯ll reveal to them who I am and what my ns from now on are, and ultimately leave the choice up to them if they want to work with me or not." Eisen exined with a smile before Sky slowly nodded and looked back down at the ornate box from Eisen¡¯s soul storage that he had been looking at for a quite while now, while Eisen himself began to prepare everything needed for the tailoring test with the help of Bree and Kiron. Chapter 178 Last Tests and First Lesson "You three,e back inside." Eisen, in his demonic form, yelled out toward them, before the three boys hurriedly rushed into the small makeshift building that Eisen formed with his element. "Same as before. All of you will grab some of the cloth and thread here and start working on a small item. And really, nothingplicated for now." He exined to them before they quickly nodded and grabbed what they needed and made their way into their rooms, and the old man swiftly followed them inside to take a look at everything. Once more, Parc¡¯s work was quite simple, and he seemed to be struggling with this work much more than with cksmithing. He seemed not to be made for this type of tedious, slow and detailed work, although that didn¡¯t mean he wasn¡¯t at least somewhat good at it. Therge boy was apparently working on something rtivelyrge, albeit quite simple. It just was a simple bag, and the shape reminded Eisen somewhat of those Ikea bags with the open top. Then there was Rouge, who seemed to be directly in his element right here. His hands were moving quickly, and he was able to stitch the two halves of the cloth he prepared together quite quickly, but the stitches ended up being a bit too close together and could have used some more space in between them. And since Rouge was making some gloves, that was quite a fatal error. Wider gaps and a different method of stitching would have performed a lot better, but in the end, the gloves were still fine to use. Next, Koro. He was working on what seemed to be a shirt. Once more, he was taking far too long in between each action, but it already seemed to be a bit better than before. But Eisen¡¯s issue with this right now was the scale of the project, instead. Despite Eisen explicitly saying not to make anything tooplicated, Koro began working on a quiteplicated shirt, and he was barely three quarters done when Eisen stopped him. "Alright, stop. You can finish itter if you want, but right now we need to move on." Eisen told Koro before the boy began to slightly freak out, as the old man began to tell Koro, Parc, and Rouge what they did well and wrong again. Of course, they all passed, since they did a great job despite their shorings, but Eisen focused primarily on Koro with this one. "You did a good job, and the habit that I saw while you were cksmithing didn¡¯t show too much this time, but you shouldn¡¯t overestimate yourself. I gave you a task and a time limit, specifically saying not to do anything tooplicated, but you didn¡¯t listen to me and tried to show off." Eisen said in a stern tone before Koro tried to defend himself. "I-I wasn¡¯t trying to show off, I just thought that I would be able to-" He eximed, but was swiftly interrupted by the old Demon. "Quiet. Trying to show off isn¡¯t necessarily a bad thing, but this isn¡¯t apetition. You¡¯re not trying to ¡¯win¡¯ a spot as my apprentice; you¡¯re trying to earn it. And in the end, don¡¯t you think a lessplicated item that has beenpleted would have impressed me more than this?" "I... I guess... Sorry, I¡¯ll try harder in the next test..." Koro slowly nodded, epting that he messed up before Eisen looked back at the other two boys as well. "Next is Leatherworking. Simr to Tailoring in a few aspects, but still very different. Take another break outside for a few minutes, and I¡¯ll call you when you can start." The old man told them before Koro, Parc, and Rouge made their way outside. Kiron and Bree swiftly helped Eisen ce the leather onto the table and switch out some of the tools while Sky continued trying to figure out the writing on the side of the box. After Eisen called the boys again, they quickly got to work at their next items. Parc and Rouge both made things simr to the projects they created during the tailoring task, a leather bag, and a simple leather gauntlet respectively, while Koro worked on something simple to slide the knife into that he made during the cksmithing task, although he was now far slower than Eisen had expected. It seemed like he was having problems figuring out what to do, now that he was called out by Eisen. Koro was getting into his head a lot more than before, but otherwise, his work was quite good. Again, everyone passed, and Eisen pointed out the same issues that everyone had earlier, before telling them to take another break while Eisen prepared everything for the alchemy test. This time around, Eisen didn¡¯t give them the choice of what to make, since a lot could go wrong with this. The old man told them to start working on a low-grade health potion and watched what happened next. Of course, Eisen still ced decoys around, which only Koro seemed to fall for, albeit only momentarily. He grabbed something that looked simr to Amran, Milbon. If you made something out of these petals, you would create a poison. It wouldn¡¯t be potent or enough actually to kill you, but it would still drain about 10% of the average person¡¯s health if your endurance were below 100. It was somewhat numbing, so it was sometimes used as a sedative when applied directly to a wound instead of being ingested. Luckily, though, Koro swiftly noticed his mistake and grabbed the right petals. Everything else went quite well, and the end product that Koro made ended up with a High Quality, as such Eisen couldn¡¯tin about anything. Since the cause for the mistake was the same one that Eisen already knew about if this one issue was somehow fixed, all of Koro¡¯s crafting would improve significantly. If Koro had gone so far as to put the Milbon petal into the mortar, Eisen would have told him to stop what he was doing and would have failed him for alchemy. But in the end, the young man managed to notice his mistake on his own within a few moments, so Eisen didn¡¯t see any reason to fail him. On the other hand, it seemed like Parc overdid it a little, making too much for the small bottle that it was intended for, while Rouge made a slight bit short. They still worked like usual, so Eisen didn¡¯t see any issue with it. After all, they didn¡¯t work with a recipe, but directly from memory and intuition, so such small mistakes weren¡¯t an issue. Then, Eisen passed them all for Alchemy and let them wait outside again while Eisen prepared three different circr tes made of mana crystals for the enchanting test. And oncepleted, he called the three boys into the makeshift building once more. "For thest test, all of you will carve an enchantment. Any enchantment is fine, just don¡¯t do anything crazy, alright. And Koro, you especially, trust in yourself more. Alright, get going now, boys." Eisen told the small group, before handing out the mana crystal tes to them and sending them back to their rooms. And once more, Eisen began to observe what they were doing, this time starting with Koro, and it seemed like this time around, he was incredibly dedicated and the issues that he was having of getting into his head were mostly gone, so Eisen thought this wouldn¡¯t be an issue and moved on to the other two. Parc¡¯s enchantment was perfectly fine, maybe a little bit too ¡¯strong,¡¯ as in that the output was a bit toorge to be safely used, but that wasn¡¯t an issue of the creation itself, but instead of what Parc wanted to make. Rouge was working on everything in a lot of detail, as usual, and describing the enchantment with the runic outer circle using a lot of long, detailed sentences with tiny writing. That was fine, and would probably make the enchantment a bit more stable overall, but considering that most simple enchantments like the one Rouge were working on were quite stable in general, so this was unnecessarily wasted time. "Rouge, try to hurry up a bit. You don¡¯t have too much time left." Eisen pointed out, as he activated his mana sight again to take a look at Rouge¡¯s mana output while he was working on this enchantment when he noticed something weird in Koro¡¯s room. There was a lot of mana gathered in one spot, and it was changing into a few different colors at once. If this were what Eisen thought it was, then this would be a problem. Especially since the mana began to move unnaturally and uncontrolled, and would probably destroy the enchantment soon. And if that happened, this could be very bad. Quickly, the old man rushed over to the other room, knocking the wings he was still not used to against the rock walls he created, before looking at the enchantment that he was making with his mana sight, noticing that Koro activated the enchantment despite having not finished it. And there was a more significant issue with that. "Who told you that you could make aplex enchantment?" Eisen asked with a frown, and an angry voice before Koro slightly jumped back in surprise before the old man ripped the Mythril needle out of Koro¡¯s hand and began to fix the enchantment until it was at least stable, since he couldn¡¯t erase the enchantment. After adding some more circles around this enchantment that were simply to keep the effect contained and to make sure that no mana would be able to get close to the unfinishedplex enchantment, Eisen looked at Koro with a strict expression, pointing to outside of the room, where the other two young boys had soon also gathered. Eisen crossed his arms and looked at Parc and Rouge first. "You two. Good job. You passed all five of the tests that I had nned for you. You do have some problems with your work, but that¡¯s fine. If you were already perfect craftsmen, you wouldn¡¯t need to be someone¡¯s apprentice." He exined to them before the boys formed happy smiles on their face as some notifications popped up in front of them as well as Eisen, one of them being a regr notification, while the other was the oveyed system kind. [You have chosen to make someone your apprentice. ¡¯upation Trainer¡¯ and ¡¯Skill Trainer¡¯ Titles unlocked] [Original-yer privilege used to gain ¡¯Trainer¡¯ Titles more easily. Allowed so that the originals can guide other yers through the world] With a smile, Eisen waved the notifications away before two new windows popped up, telling him which upations he could give to Rouge and Parc. [upations that can be given to Rouge and Parc from you] -cksmith Apprentice -Tailor Apprentice -Leatherworker Apprentice -Alchemist Apprentice -Enchanter Apprentice -Craftsman Apprentice -Magicraftsman Apprentice After seeing the two notifications, he quickly figured out what the twost upations were. A regr craftsman seemed to be only meddling in routine, physical tasks like cksmithing or tailoring, while a Magicraftsman also worked with Magical skills like alchemy or enchanting. So he knew which person to give what upations. But there were still other things that Eisen wanted to reveal to them, so he didn¡¯t offer them the upations yet. Instead, he turned to Koro. "Now to you. What you did just there was more than just reckless. Who gave you the idea to make aplex enchantment? As I told you before, this is nopetition. Koro, you failed my test for Enchanting." He told the young man, who quickly ripped his eyes open widely, trying to argue against the old man¡¯s decision. "B-But I was just trying to show you that I can do it! This is not fair; I really want to be your apprent..." "Stop right there. That¡¯s just the thing. You couldn¡¯t do it. You can still be my apprentice, just of a different upation than those two. Later, I will offer them the opportunity to be Magicraftsman Apprentices, while I will only offer you the opportunity to be a Craftsman Apprentice. While you¡¯re working under me, if you want to earn the right to be a Magicraftsman Apprentice as well, you will prove to me that I can trust you with dangerous creation like that." Eisen exined, before Koro slowly nodded, in a mixture of relief and embarrassment. Silently, the old man took out his staff from soul storage and changed theyout of the inside of this makeshift building to remove the walls that split it up into multiple rooms, merely cing different workstations into the areas before activating the various skills that he had active while working. Eisen took out some of his rather unique and rarer materials and fired up his Forge, before reaching under his apron and carving the rune for his cksmithing skill into his chest with his thumb that he had sharpened up with his element, and then turned to the boys. "Before you all be my apprentices, here is my first lesson to you. Watch closely." Chapter 179 Gloves Carefully, Eisen ced the ingots into the forge and waited for them to heat up. The material that he would be using, for now, would be the me of the Earth Mythril that Eisen created some time ago. After the metal was hot enough to work with, Eisen grabbed it with his tongs and ced it onto the anvil before grabbing his hammer and pouring his infused mana into it. Slowly, the old man began to strike the metal in swift motions, forming the metal that returned some of the force of his strikes into small, thin tes of different shapes, some circr or triangr and others merely rectangr, for the item he was going to be making right now, that was enough. Eisen turned the forge off and quickly created a different work-surface, where he grabbed some leather to now use, as he simultaneously morphed the crafting space around him into Leatherworking while also deleting and remaking the rune in the center of his chest in the same thought. Even before the three young men that would soon be Eisen¡¯s apprentices could notice, Eisen had worked with the leather in the same delicate, fast, and robust manner as he did with the metal just before. Carefully, the Demonic Craftsman created a glove reaching up to the first joint of the fingers. After carefully removing someyers of the leather, Eisen ced the Mythril tes into that glove and fixed everything onto it by sewing the metal onto the leather in a unique manner that Eisen himself only figured out just now. With the help of transmutation, he could push the metal out of the way of the needle just enough for it to be able to pass and then fill the space up just as quickly around the string. Afterpleting this, the Mythril tes were now attached to a few different areas on the glove. Everywhere on the backside, except for areas that needed to be able to flex and stretch while one was moving their fingers, as well as arge part of the palm area, in a way that would still allow proper movement, was now covered in these Mythril tes. The insides of the glove were then covered in a thinyer of cloth to help absorb some of the countershock one would experience when fighting with these, and the old man swiftly made a second glove toplete the set, before he moved on to the enchanting portion of this. With a few deft strokes of his fingers, Eisen covered the Mythril tes in some free-form enchantments that woulde together in the palms for basic ¡¯force¡¯ enchantments. Eisen used the time for this ¡¯Lesson¡¯ just now to make some enhancedbat gloves for Brody to use while fighting. After all, he didn¡¯t want these to go to waste. But there were still some reasons behind the choice of item, and why he turned this into a lesson. First, it was to show them the way that different crafts could bebined, since he used all five crafting skills that he tested the boys on just now for creating this, using some skills more than others, with Alchemy¡¯s transmutation ying the smallest role. At the same time, he showed Koro what to focus on while crafting, the actual process of crafting rather than the end product, while giving Rouge an example of how different small parts of crafting skills cane together into one item. Out of the three, he seemed to be the one that was best when it came to small details and was quite clearly the one that was most interested inbining different skills. "The concept behind this item is quite simple, isn¡¯t it? But in the end, to make it, you need to know different skills and how to use them best. Of course, creating a great synergy between different skills is important for such a task, but if you don¡¯t work on the base skills themselves and refine them as much as possible, no amount of synergy will do anything. And sometimes, you don¡¯t need tobine one skill with others. Doing so without needing to is just apletely unnecessary and utter waste of time and effort, and might even mess the item up in the end. It just depends on the amount of using each skill." Eisen exined to them as he passed around the gloves for the boys to take a look at them. "What I¡¯m going to teach you is a few different things. I will show you how to use what you are good at to the greatest extent with whatever skill you want. But it¡¯s not going to be easy, I¡¯ll tell you. What you will be doing is going to be arduous work, and you¡¯ll be probably working harder than you¡¯ve ever done in your lives so far. If I see that you¡¯re not doing the work I¡¯m telling you to; you¡¯re out. You got that?" the old man asked them, before the boys slowly nodded, anxious to finally get their new upations, before Eisen crossed his arms while the boys looked at him with wonder in their eyes. They had already seen him work in the kitchen, but how was he able to make something like these gloves, within such a short amount of time, switching between crafts like they were simple tools? Could that really be boiled down to him being a demon? "Now, you will have to make a choice," Eisen eximed, as he slowly deactivated his transformation, showing his true form to these boys for the first time. Surprised, they looked at Eisen, who now looked like just a regr old man, albeit still with an inhuman figure. "My name is Eisen. I was the first person in this world that had peaked, but someone stole my experience from me, along with the other four that had peaked. Now, after meeting in this town, together once again, we n on leaving for a group of inds by ship in a few weeks. It will be extremely dangerous there, but if you be my apprentices, you will have toe with us. It is up to you if you want to trust what I just told you, or if you think of me as a mad old man. I¡¯m giving you a few hours to make your choice." The old man told them as he gathered up the materials and gloves and activated his transformation again before making the makeshift building he created from his element disappear around the group before Eisen looked at the three boys. They were all bewildered at what they were just told. It¡¯s understandable. After all, Eisen had no way to prove who he was, and sure, he was incredibly skilled, but the boys didn¡¯t see anything to the extent of a literal mock-deity that the peaked were known to be. "W-Wait, what are you saying? You¡¯re telling us that, you¡¯re ¡¯the¡¯ Eisen? What the hell?" Koro yelled out, trying to figure out what was going on, before Eisen¡¯s threepanions answered for him, in near unison saying one word. "Yes." --- "Thank you so much for your help with this as well." Noa eximed with a smile as she watched the Demon in front of her finish up the work he had been doing on the walls of the church¡¯s main hall with the help of his Mana Doubles, or rather Demon Doubles, and managed to learn the Masonry skill through this as well. Learning skills like these didn¡¯t seem to be too hard overall, so he would hopefully be able to learn the Farming and Mining skills as well. There was a mine not too far from this town that Eisen had wanted to visit for a while, which was quite handy to him considering that it had a little vige around it as well that even had some fields, meaning that he could learn both of those skills there. But not only that, since he was using his Demon Doubles so actively throughout all of this, he gained some excellent proficiency for his Mana Maniption and me of the Earth Magic skills, ranking them both up nearly at the same time. His new rank in mana maniption only gave him a more significant boost in Eisen¡¯s control, and the me of the Earth Magic Rank-up did something quite curious. It allowed him to, to an extent, mix the fire and earth differently than usual, and have them affect each other in unexpected ways. Up until now, the earth part of his element was never hot on its own, and it never truly mixed with the fire like one would naturally expect it to, but now he could, for example, create a y-like substance with his earth element and have it baked by his fire. He was able to make something simr to baked y with his element already naturally, but it still felt a little different to typically baked y. Like this, he was now able to create actual y pottery if he wanted to, a thing that he would certainly be using at some point. Of course, there were other things he could do now, such as regrly heat up parts of rock on him, but this was the most useful use he managed to find out so far. On top of that, his Crafting Space skill was also nearly at Rank 3, with only two proficiency levels missing to bring him there. Besides learning the Farming and Mining skills, Eisen now only needed to Rank up his Soul Engineering and Drawing Skills, finish the trial he got from Bol, and give a form to a soul. Ranking up his Drawing skill shouldn¡¯t be too hard. Maybe on his way to the nearby mining town, he would be able to sketch some things out, but that was an issue forter. He would naturally gain proficiency while giving a form to a soul, so that would also be readily taken care of, in the end. And right now, he was already working on the trial he got from Bol, which he would hopefully be able to finish soon correctly. It already seemed like there were a lot of people here that looked up to him and liked what he was doing, despite his appearance. Everyone that saw him would happily run up to him at the moment, and as such, it didn¡¯t seem like it would take too long for Eisen to step on the path of Yang. Maybe something grand needed to happen for this to be the case. And just as if the world had heard this thought, the setup for a grand action leisurely stepped through the door. "Ah, I see that the Demon I¡¯ve heard so much about is actually at work here." A man with an arrogant voice said as he slowly stepped into the hall, the sound of which reverberated throughout the room. Surprised, both Eisen and Noa hurriedly turned around and looked at the man wearing an elegant suit that kept stepping closer, with two heavily armed guards following behind him. Unsure of who he was, Eisen, as well as Sky, Bree, and Kiron, quickly looked over at Noa, but she seemed to be slightly freaking out. The moment she saw the man, Noa ran in front of him and bowed forward a little bit in greeting. "Wee, Lord. What brings us the honor of your visit?" She asked him as Eisen chose to take a break at his work and made his way toward this apparent Lord. "Oh, I simply wanted to see this traitorous church onest time." He said with a smile that quite clearly contradicted what he just said before Noa looked up at him in confusion. "I can see that you don¡¯t quite understand what I¡¯m saying. You are harboring a wicked being, Sister. This man that is standing behind you is the ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon,¡¯ who wreaked havoc in Ornier a few weeks ago. I can not allow such a church to stand in my town." Chapter 180 Eyes Confused, Noa stared at the Lord in worry, looking back and forth from him and Eisen, still in his demonic form, and before she could say anything, the Lord turned around to look at his Guards. "You will stay here and ensure that they clear everything out. And if you feel like it, get rid of the Demon as well." He said quite casually, while some more guards came into the room, as they started escorting the workers out. "Wh-What¡¯s going on?" Noa asked, starting to utterly freak out at all of this, unsure what she¡¯s supposed to do while the guards began escorting the workers out of the building before one of them, who seemed to be in charge here, stood directly in front of Noa. "You have one week to leave this building. Considering the amount offort that the inhabitants of the facilities here have with the Demon, the town-run Orphanage, Hospital, and Shelter will be shut down by order of the lord. The Church itself will continue being run by the Lord but with new Priests hand-chosen by the Lord himself." The Guard swiftly exined, as the Lord standing behind him quietly chuckled. "If you all like that Demon so much, I would prefer if you go and depend on him now instead of leeching off me and the town." "B-But Lord, you can¡¯t just throw away the-" Noa began to scream before the Lord interrupted her immediately by raising his voice even louder than her. "I can not do what? You have not done anything for this town, now have you? There are other hospitals, shelters, and orphanages here in this town, so why does this one need to exist and take valuable money away from me? I¡¯ve been looking for a reason to shut this ce down anyway, and if I do so because you¡¯re consorting with a viinous Demon, even the townspeople that have supported you so far will notin." The Lord swiftly exined while Eisen was thinking about why he kept encountering such people that seemed from his perspective, to be "pure evil," while still holding positions of power. "Viinous Demon? That is a bit rude, don¡¯t you think, Zaran?" Eisen asked with a smile after quickly reading the Lord¡¯s status information with his ¡¯truth-seeing eyes,¡¯ noticing something peculiar. Surprised, the Lord Zaran looked back at the Demon in front of him. "Oh? I see that you¡¯ve heard of me before." "Likewise. It seems you know that I am the ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ as I came to be known in Ornier. I am trying to make up for those actions by helping here, you see. Don¡¯t you think it would be better for everyone if you let me do so?" Eisen suggested before the Lord beganughing lowly. "Sorry, I don¡¯t care about what you do here. You could even ughter every single kid from the orphanage, and I wouldn¡¯t care. I¡¯m just using you as an excuse." Returning theugh himself, Eisen stepped even closer toward the Lord, being blocked by the Guards on his way, while the old man kept his eyes on Zaran. "That¡¯s such a horrible thing to say, Zaran. Well, as expected of someone rted to Antonio," Eisen said. Confused, Zaran now took a step back. "H-How... Do you know that I¡¯m his brother?" The Lord asked before Eisen shook his head. "I didn¡¯t. I could see something interesting in your status. While your name showed as Zaran Grates, it still had ¡¯Hastings¡¯ written behind it. You are the one who revealed that you¡¯re his brother." Eisen exined, but Zaran red back at him before asking. "How did you read my status without me noticing? Using appraisal would have caused a reaction." "It¡¯s good that I don¡¯t have the Appraisal Skill anymore, then. But-" as Zaran interrupted. "That doesn¡¯t matter. My rtions to that man ys no role in any of this. You say it is expected for me to act this way, meaning that you know what my Brother is truly like." Zaran pointed out before Eisen slowly nodded. "I do, indeed. Your brother betrayed five people that are quite important to this world. From your actions, I can see that you probably would have done the same. If you ask me you¡¯re not fit to be the lord of a town like this." Eisen stated quite clearly before Zaran began grinding his teeth. "Oh? Is that what you think? I¡¯m not sure where you are from, but in this part of the world, such disputes are handled in certain ways usually through a Combat Trial. If you win, you can appoint any Lord you want, or ask anything you wish from me, and if you lose, you and every person currently living here will leave this town. Sounds fair, doesn¡¯t it?" Zaran asked before Eisen looked at him with a confused expression. "You want to deal with something like this through a Duel? You would be willing to give up your position as Lord if you do?" The old man suspiciously asked as Zaran took a step further toward Eisen and leaned in toward his ear, whispering something that confused the old man, before Zaran gave Eisen the chance to deeply look into his eyes and see anything in particr that he wasn¡¯t able to initially see in his status. As if what Zaran just told Eisen never happened, the Elven Lord slowly nodded. "Yes, I would be. If you can beat the one I choose to fight in my stead, that is. You can choose whoever you want to fight for you as well if you¡¯re too scared to fight on your own." Quickly, Eisen then nodded, surprising the four people here that were on his side. "I understand. When should we meet, then? I think we should both get some time to prepare, right? How about the afternoon four days from now?" Eisen suggested, taking the initiative now as Zaran swiftly nodded. "That is as good a time as ever," Zaran said with a nod, keeping his angry expression up, despite Eisen knowing that it was probably just an act. "Come back here at that time." He eximed before turning around and taking his leave. Confused at what just happened, especially in thesest few exchanged sentences, Noa turned toward the Demon. "What were you talking about so nonchntly? Do you want to fight the Lord? Why would you do that?" She asked before Eisen began to smile softly. "Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t be fighting, and we will surely win anyway. And Zaran doesn¡¯t seem actually to be an enemy." Eisen exined before Kiron spoke up in confusion. "What do you mean, M¡¯Lord? He is not an enemy, even after all that he said?" He asked, raising his voice as he did, and Eisen slowly nodded. "Yes, he¡¯s not an enemy, I think. But I can¡¯t exin the reason behind this while Noa is here, so you will have to trust me, young miss." Eisen said with an apologizing smile before he looked outside and saw that it had gotten a little bit darker already, before continuing. "We have spent a few hours doing this now, so I think it is about time that I return to Koro, Rouge, and Parc as well. After that, we will return to the inn where we have been staying, take care of some other business, and then we will again be back in four days for that fight." Eisen exined, before Noa, the nun slowly sighed, putting her trust into this unique being that has helped out quite a lot so far without demanding anything in return. Once Eisen and the others¡¯ were on their way back to Koro, Rouge, and Parc, Sky turned toward Eisen in confusion. "Erm, could I maybe ask what the hell is going on?" He asked, but Eisen smiled and winked at him, as a signal that he couldn¡¯t talk about it right now. Soon enough, the four of them reached the location where Eisen said for everybody to meet at, where the three young men were already waiting for him. So, to swiftly get a move on and get everything out of the way that needed doing today, and he could exin to everyone what was going on. Eisen promptly asked the boys the question of the hour. "I see you¡¯re here already. Good. Now, without further ado, just answer me. Will you be my apprentices?" He asked without beating around the bush, and all three of them took a step forward. "Yes, Eisen. We will be your apprentices. We do not truly know if you are who you say you are, but you are, without a doubt, a good person and, a great craftsman." Rouge said as he stepped forward, with Parc swiftly nodding and Koro with aplicated expression standing next to them. "What¡¯s wrong, Koro? Do you not want to?" Eisen asked him, before Koro looked at him in surprise, quickly shaking his head. "It¡¯s not that! I do want to be your apprentice; I feel embarrassed about what I did before..." He muttered out quietly before Eisen nodded. "I can understand that, yes. Then from now on, show me that you can take these things seriously, and I will give you a higher-ranking upation as my apprentice. But for now, Koro, I offer you to be a Craftsman Apprentice. Rouge and Parc, I offer you two to be Magicraftsman Apprentices." As Eisen said this, the eyes of the three young men focused on something in the middle of the air, as the notifications telling them that they were offered an upation. In unison, the three quickly epted their new job, and now something popped up in front of Eisen as well. [Koro, Rouge, and Parc are now your Apprentices. As their teacher, you are to watch over their status and growth at all times] With a smile, Eisen waved this notification away and immediately tested this new function. As soon as he did, the status of the three young men popped up in front of him, side by side. After ncing through them, he managed to confirm a few different things that he figured were the case already. Such as Rouge having the highest mental stats out of the three while Parc had the highest physical stats, and Koro¡¯s stats spread rtively evenly. All three of them were only at level 15, so their stats overall were quite low, but good enough to start with, it even seemed like they received a good bit of experience from the Quest that Eisen gave them before, causing them to be close to leveling up to level 16 already. "Alright. You three stay here again and spend a few more days with everyone. I will be back in four days, in the afternoon. Until then, you have some free time, but afterward, your training starts." Eisen told them with a smile, and the three boys quickly smiled back at him and made their way back to the orphanage, while the old man chose to get back to the Inn where they were staying to meet back up with the other originals. He was quite d that he would be returning to the cave where Bol and Ailren currently were to get Kirisho for the ceremony to break the curse on her amulet since he needed to talk to the Ancient Gold Dragon and ask him a few pressing questions. At the Inn, he luckily ended up meeting the different groups that had split up for the day, and could quite quickly fill the group in on what was going on. "Alright everyone, I need to tell you something. First, Brody. I¡¯m guessing you¡¯re avable four days from now, right?" He asked before the Demon-Orc swiftly nodded. "Yup, I am. Why¡¯re you askin¡¯?" Brody inquired in turn before Eisen quickly exined. "I need you to fight a champion of the lord of the town. Although all of that seems to be just a trick anyway, I¡¯m pretty sure he¡¯s going to choose someone that will fight seriously. And I doubt you¡¯d lose to anyone they could throw at you." "Hmm, sure. I¡¯m interested in seein¡¯ what kinda fighters a City of Magic brings forth anyway. But why are ya sayin¡¯ it¡¯s a trick?" Brody then asked, while the others also quickly listened in to what Eisen¡¯s reasoning was, before the old man, who had already deactivated his transformation on the way back from the church, activated his ¡¯Truth-Seeing Eyes¡¯ skill, pointing at them with his finger. "He had the same eyes as mine." Chapter 181 Curse Breaking Ritual Confused, the group looked at Eisen after he revealed this fact before the old man quickly began to exin. "You see, he leaned in toward me for a second. Everyone else probably thought he threatened me somehow, but he actually didn¡¯t. Instead, he said "We¡¯re being watched," took a step backward, and showed me his ¡¯Truth-Seeing Eyes¡¯ for a split second. Surprisingly, he¡¯s a champion to Aylrentyrth as well or at least another Gold Dragon with a simr gift." He told them before they continued looking at him in surprise as Xenia slowly nodded. "To be honest, that makes way too much sense. I met him before, and it did feel like something was a bit off at that time. It was like he was trying to desperately get me to leave, now that I think about it." The High-Elf exined, looking at the quiterge group around her that had gathered in Eisen¡¯s Group¡¯s Inn room. "Huh, was he doin¡¯ somethin¡¯ weird at the time?" Brody asked, curious about what was going on before Xenia continued. "No, he wasn¡¯t doing anything as far as I could see, but there was only one strange thing, and it was his assistant. I just got my Elemental Spirit Magic at the time, so I was using the ¡¯spirit sight¡¯ basically constantly to see the different spirits, and there were no spirits anywhere around the assistant. And not only that, it seemed kind of like all of the spirits that followed me into the room were running away from him." "Spirits can be scared of people?" Eisen then inquired, before Xenia nodded again. "Mhm, they can. Spirits ¡¯see¡¯ or rather ¡¯feel¡¯ mana. I was able to talk to a high-level spirit before, although just briefly, and she exined to me that different mana types or colors have different feelings. I¡¯m guessing that the assistant had a very wicked type of mana." She told the group, before Eisen slowly nodded. "That might be the case. You see, the lord is officially known as Zaran Grates, but his real name is Zaran Hastings." He said as he looked over at Komer, who stared back in surprise. "Hastings? As in Antonio Hastings?" The young merchant asked, remembering the Elf that gave him his upation back then, and Evalia quickly asked the question on basically everyone¡¯s mind. "Who¡¯s that supposed to be? Should we know him?" She asked, and Eisen quickly shook his head. "No, I don¡¯t think I told you all his name yet, but I did talk about him. He¡¯s the Merchant that sold us out to the Chromatic Dragon faction." Eisen exined, and the group looked at him in surprise. "Wait. What? So the lord of this town is rted to the man that caused us to lose our experience?" Jyuuk summed up, and the old man swiftly nodded. "It seems so, yes. But it does make sense, doesn¡¯t it? Antonio is part of the Chromatic Faction, while Zaran is part of the Metallic Faction. Someone as cunning as Antonio that managed to trick five mock-deities like we used to be would surely want to keep an eye on someone from the enemy faction that is bound to know a lot of things about him. That assistant could be someone that Antonio sent, and he may be incredibly strong or has managed to force Zaran somehow to do what he wants in some way." Eisen spected, looking over at the other Originals as he did. "And you¡¯re sayin¡¯ that he wants to have a duel? Why would he, if he¡¯s such a good guy?" Brody asked slightly confused before Eisen shrugged. "I¡¯m not sure. But he seems to be trying hard to get rid of the people at the church. I¡¯ll ask him when the fight is over what his reasoning behind all of this is. You¡¯re sure that you¡¯re fine fighting?" Eisen asked Brody once more, and the Demon-Orc swiftly nodded. "Yeah, I don¡¯t mind. As I said, I¡¯m kinda curious what kinda fighters they have here. Back in the wastnds, barely anyone was usin¡¯ magic, and if they did, it was either for lil¡¯ stuff or to blow shit up. Surely they¡¯ll have some people usin¡¯ magic in smart ways." He said, leaning back against the wall behind him. "Oh yeah, definitely. We have a lot of Mages here, and the majority of Warriors use regr magic elements to fight. Like, defensive warriors using earth magic, or offensive ones using fire magic. Usually, most regrbatants don¡¯t use magic all that much. They usually have an element, but most of the time, they either don¡¯t use it, or it¡¯s a strengthening type." Xenia then exined, before the group continued talking about this whole thing with the fight, and how they would handle everything for now, before Eisen swiftly summed up their ns for now. "So, for today, Xenia and I will take care of everything with the curse-breaking ceremony for Kirisho, and then we¡¯ll all meet back here to rx for the rest of the day. Over the next few days, while the five of us should be asleep, my party will take care of selling some items and look into where we can buy materials for the ship. Then, in four days, Brody will fight against the Zaran¡¯s champion, and I will do my best to finish up my second trial. I seem to be pretty close, so if we manage to resolve an issue like that, maybe it¡¯s enough to set me on the ¡¯Path of Yang.¡¯ If not, I¡¯ll do my best to get this out of the way first, and then my group will make their way to the nearby mining town so that I can get some skills there. I¡¯ll do my best to finish all the requirements by the time I¡¯m back, so we should be able to found the Guild then and start constructing the ship." The old man said, looking at everyone around him to see if everyone was happy of this way of doing things, and since the others were nodding, Eisen quickly checked the time and looked at Xenia. "Alright, should we go? Can you do the ceremony anywhere, or does it need to be at a certain ce?" Eisen asked Xenia, but she shook her head. "No, I can start it anywhere with an even surface." "Got it, then youe with me. Kiron, Caria, and Melissa, you three too, but nobody else." Eisen told the group, before the old man walked up to the two little monster girls and picked them up, before the five of them made their way to the cave. They made their way through the area on foot since they couldn¡¯t take Cabarum with everyone this time, and Eisen chose to ask the High-Elf next to him some questions concerning what he asked Xenia for earlier today. "Did you manage to find out anything about Caria and Melissa¡¯s Mana Maniption?" He curiously asked, before Xenia slowly nodded. "Oh? Yeah, I did, actually. They simply have too few skills rted to Magic. They need to have a proper basis so that they can Rank the skill up. Apparently, that¡¯s something with all monsters, ording to Jyuuk." She exined, and Eisen looked over toward Kiron, who looked just as surprised as Eisen did. "I did not know about that, M¡¯Lord. It may be that this does not ur to me because I am Half-Human, and I do not have any issues learning skills or making them grow." He exined, before Xenia shrugged, scratching the back of her head. "I guess? You¡¯d have to ask Jyuuk, to confirm. He knows more about that stuff than I do." She said, and Eisen chuckled as he looked at the two girls he was holding. "Alright, then I guess we¡¯ll try and learn a few magic skills then, isn¡¯t that right, you two?" He said with a smile before both Caria and Melissa smiled and nodded, agreeing to do so. After that, it didn¡¯t take too long until they found their way to therge cave opening at the end of the beach, and they swiftly made their way inside. Of course, Xenia waited at an open space in the front of the cave and began setting everything up with the help of Kiron and the two girls, while Eisen went deeper into the cave to get the Mist Spirit that was to be de-cursed. When Eisen reached the ce that seemed like an underwater-cave, he soon saw the three people he was looking for, with the two Dragons in their human forms while they were talking to Kirisho. And the moment that they managed to see the old craftsman, they all began walking toward Eisen as well. "Ah, I see you¡¯re back," Ailren eximed with a smile before the old man responded with a nod. "Yes, I am. I wanted toe to get Kirisho to get the curse on her amulet broken. Bol, I hope you don¡¯t mind, but the woman that¡¯s going to be breaking the curse is in the front of the cave setting everything up." He exined before Bol shrugged. "That¡¯s fine. Is she one of the other ¡¯peaked¡¯?" The Ancient Bronze-Dragon inquired, and Eisen swiftly nodded. "Yes, she is. She¡¯s Xenia, the Original of Magic. Now then, Kirisho. Are youing?" The old man asked before the Mist-Spirit happily smiled at him. "Of course." She told him, before the two of them stepped toward the tunnel leading to the front of the cave, followed by Bol and Ailren. When the group reached the spot where Xenia was busy setting everything up, it seemed like she was already nearly finished, and the cave¡¯s interior was illuminated my numerous magic-circles floating in the air, some were just for convenience, while others were directly specific for the whole ritual that was about to happen. "Hm? Who¡¯re those old guys?" Xenia asked as she looked at Bol and Ailren behind Eisen before he loudly sighed. "That¡¯s kind of mean to say, isn¡¯t it? This is Aylrentyrth, an Ancient Gold Dragon, and this is Bolremgar, an Ancient Bronze Dragon. Right now, they¡¯re in their human forms." Eisen exined before Xenia looked at them in surprise. "O-Oh, sorry about that then. I¡¯m Xenia, and I¡¯ll be taking care of breaking the curse today." She exined, quickly trying to move on to the next topic before Kirisho swiftly walked over to her and greeted her, while Xenia instructed her on what to do during the ritual. Taking that chance, Eisen looked over at the two ancient dragons next to him. "Sorry, she¡¯s just like that." He apologized before Ailrenughed lowly and shook his head. "It is fine. After all, even if she may not feel like it, but she is technically my senior in age, is she not?" "I guess she is." Eisen chuckled in response, before Bol looked at him curiously. "Anyway, how¡¯s the trial going? Are you properly working on it?" He asked before Ailren seemed to take a swift look at Eisen before nodding. "It seems like his connection to the path of yin is still as strong as ever, but he is slowly building up a connection to the path of yang as well." He exined before Eisen slowly nodded. "Yes, I¡¯ve been working at the church, or rather their facilities, a little bit. It seemed to be one of the easiest ways to properly connect with people and show that I don¡¯t mean any harm." He exined before Bol spoke up. "Ah, I see, I see. You seem to be close, then, so keep it up, alright?" The dragon asked with a smile before Eisen replied. "Of course, don¡¯t worry. I think I¡¯ll get there soon. But there was something I wanted to ask you about right now, Ailren. Did you make someone called ¡¯Zaran Hastings¡¯ your champion?" He asked before Ailren looked at him, surprised. "Huh? Yes, I did. How did you know?" "Well, I met him today. And I want you to tell me in detail about what kind of a person he is." Eisen told the Ancient Gold Dragon next to him, who slowly nodded. "I see. I suppose I could tell you about it, but why do you want to know more about Zaran?" Ailren asked, and Eisen answered quite simply. "Because I need to." Chapter 182 New Member Slowly, Aylrentyrth the ancient gold dragon nodded in response to Eisen¡¯s question about what the lord of this town they were currently in was like, and began telling him what he could remember. "That child was one that was quite fit for my gift. While he wanted to look deep into the existence of others, he wanted to hide his own. I could tell that he grew up in an environment opposing his inherently kind personality. So you do not have to worry about trusting him. What you should worry about is if he truly showed you his true intentions. Despite him only wanting to do good in the end, his ways often seem quite wicked. It was the same during the trials that I gave him." Ailren exined to Eisen, who immediately nodded. "I see. That calms me down a bit. Zaran wants to throw out the inhabitants of the church¡¯s facilities, but if you say his personality is like that, he may just be trying to protect them from something. And you¡¯re sure he can be trusted?" Eisen inquired, before Ailren seemed to think for a bit. "Well, people change over time, so I can not say for sure. But I can at least tell you that he has not fallen from grace, as I would have noticed this being the case if he had. So he is still inherently kind. Whether his means to reach the goal have changed to be more radical is unknown to me, however." "That¡¯s fine. Everything I know so far points toward Zaran being a good kid, so there shouldn¡¯t be anything to worry about, at least not immediately. Bol, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve had an encounter with him before as well, right? I mean, a champion as the lord of the town you live in should catch your attention, usually." Eisen asked before the bronze dragon simply nodded. "Yes, I¡¯ve talked to him before. I even offered him to take my trial, but he didn¡¯t want to yet. He would be great for infiltration because of the reasons that Ailren stated before. And because my Gift is transformation-based, it would have been a good fit." He exined, and Eisen slowly nodded. "I see. So two dragons wanted to make Zaran a champion, then. Good to know. Thanks." Eisen said with a smile, before the two ancient Dragons next to him slowly nodded, and he looked over toward the ceremony that was slowly unfolding in front of them. The base for this ceremony, arge magic circle, carved into the floor, had different materials; crystals, liquids, and minerals, as catalysts ced methodically around the edge. In the center of the circle stood Kirisho holding her amulet as Xenia looked over toward the old men watching and jerked her head in the opposite direction to get them toe closer since she was about to start. Quietly, Xenia then held her hands forward and poured her mana out of her palms, enveloping the whole space in her energy, making the light shift in response so that everything seemed as if it was flowing around due to the mana shifting the perceived space around. Curiously, Eisen activated his Truth-Seeing Eyes and watched Xenia¡¯s still pure-white mana as she began to manipte it. It started to twist around the space and slowly absorbed the mana contained in all of the different materials, dyeing different areas of it in numerous colors as it seemed like a rainbow, before the colors all mixed together and Xenia began topress her mana around the amulet, before she began to chant a quite long spell. Just that chant alone took around a minute or two, and after that, a bright light enveloped the amulet and Kirisho¡¯s body disappeared inside of it as the amulet itself dropped to the ground. Just then, Xenia finished the ceremony off with a single world. "Dispell." She eximed with her regr cold gaze before the light enveloping Kirisho¡¯s amulet disappeared as if shattering, revealing its new form. Overall, it didn¡¯t change too much, the only difference being the gem at the center of the amulet. Before, it was pitch-ck, but now it shone in a pure white, the same color that Kirisho¡¯s mist had. And soon after this happened, that exact mist started spilling out of the gem and filling out the area around the amulet as Kirisho re-appeared. Her priorly ck robes had now changed to be mostly white as well, while still keeping the ck base. "Alright, the curse has been removed," Xenia eximed, smiling as she looked at the woman in front of her as Kirisho picked up her amulet. With a smile, Kirisho stepped up forward toward Xenia after noticing the change. "Thank you, and it was so kind of you to do this." She told Xenia, who looked away embarrassed in response before the High-Elf looked over at Eisen. "Thank him instead... I wouldn¡¯t have done it if someone else had asked." Surprised, Eisen looked at Xenia, stepping up to the two of them, before Kirisho grabbed Eisen¡¯s hand. "Then I thank you once more, Eisen. I feel so light, now that these curses have been lifted from my body." She eximed, looking over toward Ailren as if to confirm something before the Ancient Dragon slowly nodded. "I... Want toe with you. I have spent many, many years with Aylrentyrth, but now I feel ready to leave his protection again. And if you are alright with it, Eisen, I would like to apany you on your travels." Kirisho exined, moving closer toward Eisen as she did. Slowly, the old man began to think about it. While he barely hesitated to invite the other people with him into his party, with Kirisho... he felt unsure. He didn¡¯t exactly know why, but he felt guilty whenever he looked at Kirisho. But he knew that this was just some dumb issue that he had to worry about at another time, and logically, he had no real reason to deny her. So, Eisen simply nodded, hiding his worries for now. "Sure... I would love to have youe along." Eisen told her before Kirisho happily smiled at him. "Thank you. I¡¯m d that I will be able to help you after all." She replied, before letting go of Eisen¡¯s hand in the end, before stepping over toward Ailren, probably to properly thank him for everything he has done for her. To respect their privacy, Eisen instead concentrated on Xenia, who was currently engaged in a conversation with Bolremgar. "You want to give me your Trial?" She asked, surprised, and excited before Bol swiftly nodded. "Yes, you would surely be a great help, and I¡¯m sure you could have a great use for my gift as well." Confused, Eisen then tuned in, because he was quite curious about Bol¡¯s gift anyway. He had thought that because he was fit for Bol¡¯s gift, that someone withpletely different abilities to him wouldn¡¯t be. "Bol, I know that I maybe shouldn¡¯t ask you this, but what is your gift anyway? You said it had to do with transformation, right?" "Oh, go ahead and ask. You are quite likely to finish my trial soon, anyway. There are different gifts that we give out. Sometimes it¡¯s a specific skill, like what Ailren gives out, while it sometimes is more abstract. Mine is thetter. I give out the concept of transformation, and what kind of ability you gain differs for each person, but it always has to do with transformation in some way. For example, you say you are a half-giant, are you not?" Bol inquired before Eisen slowly nodded. "Yes, I¡¯m a Giant-Dwarf halfling." He said, and Bol continued. "You see, halfling children often will not retain the whole racial skill, or rather they won¡¯t gain all the abilities that their full-blooded parents would have. Giants have the ability to change their size on will, while half-giants don¡¯t do so regrly. That is something that can usually only be taught to half-giants by other giants, but I am quite sure that you should be able to gain such ability through my gift." Bol exined to the old man, who listened quite curiously. "Is that so? Interesting. That should be quite useful, indeed." Eisen muttered out lowly as he thought about having such an ability, while Bol returned to look at Xenia, who immediately told the ancient dragon that she would love to take his trial. "Perfect. Now then, my trial for you... You are a summoner, are you not? And one that specializes on elementals as well, ording to Aylrentyrth." "Yes, I¡¯m an Elemental Spirit Summoner." Xenia excitedly nodded before Bol seemed to think for a short while. "This is the first time you are to be a champion, so there will be multiple trials. First, I want you to train yourself. Come back to me once you have reached level 100." Bol told her, and Xenia smiled softly. "Alright, I¡¯m on it. Just have to go back to the Dungeon for a while then." She said happily, and not long afterward, Xenia began to clean up everything from the ritual, although the majority of the materials that she used simply fell to dust the moment that she touched them again. Once all the items were picked up, the group made their way back to the town together with their newpanion, Kirisho. Of course, she was quite excited while at the same time being pretty scared, hiding somewhat behind Eisen on the whole walk through the town. Eisen suggested that Kirisho should maybe stay in the amulet if she were so nervous and that she coulde back out when they were at the Inn, but Kirisho said that she wanted to see everything like a regr person, now that she was able to walk around like this again. Finally, the group made their way back to the Inn, where the rest had already gathered in Eisen¡¯s room. After exining to everyone that the curse-breaking ceremony had worked and that Kirisho was now part of the group, the old man sat down on his bed and looked at Komer first of all. He still hadn¡¯t asked how everything went, after all. "Komer, how much did you end up selling today?" Eisen inquired, and Komer swiftly nodded and grabbed the notebook from his pocket, before flipping through it and reading out some of the numbers, and how much inventory they sold and of what. "This time around we didn¡¯t have Evalia singing to attract customers, so it was a good bit less than previously. But everyone that did buy something was quite impressed. A few of them were interested in the custom build, but nobody ordered anything yet." The young merchant exined, before Eisen nodded in satisfaction. "You still have enough to sell for a while, right?" Eisen asked. "Oh, yes. I limited what I would sell today anyway so that we could keep selling things every day even if we suddenly became popr and people rushed to us or something." He told the old man, who softly smiled. "I see... good job, Komer. Keep going the way you were, then." Eisen said with a smile and then looked over at the rest of the originals before the four of them joined Eisen and sat down at the edges of the bed. For a while, the group now began exining what had happened to them until now. Eisen told them all the things he did back in Melroe and Ornier, and how he had met everyone in his current group, and Evalia and Jyuuk swiftly did the same. And then came time for the two that Eisen was personally most interested in, considering that he had already heard Jyuuk¡¯s and Evalia¡¯s stories. "Yeah, I guess I did a few interesting things here and there. But now that I listen to what all of you did, it feels pretty boring, because I¡¯ve been spending the majority of my time reading..." Xenia sighed before looking at everyone around her and beginning to speak about what happened since she ¡¯woke up¡¯ back then. Chapter 183 Original of Magic There once was a young child who found the wonders of the world to be indeed true wonders. Despite many people telling her that these ¡¯wonders¡¯ could be exined with scientific logic, she didn¡¯t want to hear it. She preferred them to stay the impossibilitiese possible since that was simply so much more fun. That was a quality she inherited from her parents. Her father is an incredibly sessful author that created worlds that one wished to see with his words while her mother was a beautiful actress known for her performance in many fantasy movies. They were kind people, that loved their child more than anything in the world, and wanted nothing else but for her to see the world in such a fantastical light as they did. And as such did they raise their child, for a mere year, before they passed away through an ident, leaving the young girl all alone. She had no other rtives, so she ended up living in a small orphanage. The house mother there was nice and kind, and the girl didn¡¯t miss out on anything there. She had friends, a constantly-full stomach, and the chance to get the best education she could. The orphanage was quite close to a bookstore, and so the house mother, knowing that the girl was interested in reading at even the young age of 6, allowed the girl to go to the bookstore once every month to buy any new book that she wanted. There, the girl encountered the name of her father for the first time outside of official hearings rted to her custody or the inheritence. Of course, she was interested in what this man that she never really knew created, so she decided to get one of his books on a whim. And from that day on, for the next one to two years, she only chose to buy books that her father had written. Incidentally, she was able to get some old notebooks that her father kept, and there was a lot of information in each one surrounding each story, far above what any regr reader could know. And the highest focus was always on one thing, Magic. Like that, the girl began to love the concept of magic and became nearly too obsessed with it. She began reading stories about it online once she got her first smartphone, and she loved watching movies rted to magic. And not only that, the girl even began to read up on where the concept of magic came from, and what kind of magic was said to be real in the world in different civilizations. Taking that as her base, she began to study mythology and learned everything about magic, but she was never able to see real, undisputable magic. Until the day that Jasmin Charles became Xenia. Of course, she didn¡¯t tell all of this to the other originals that were surrounding her as she began to tell her story, but she simply had to think of all of these things when it was her turn to tell her story. After all, that past was the most influential part of her journey so far. On the first day that she began to y "World of Magic," she found herself on a beach not too far from the town. She was able to see it in the distance since the weather around here was usually quite clear, and thendscape was pretty t, so obviously she immediately made her way there. As she looked around, she had no choice but to smile brightly and excitedly made her way toward that town, before she noticed the air in this apparently tropical region suddenly grow colder, before seeing someone, or something, standing on top of entirely frozen sand. At first nce, he looked quite a lot like a human, but many things about him were obviously inhuman. Judging from the backpack and jacket lying next to him, it was a person though, since a monster surely wouldn¡¯t have items like that. But that wasn¡¯t what Xenia was thinking about then. What she was thinking about was the ice that he was standing on. "Is that magic?" She muttered out without even thinking, before the man turned around in surprise, immediately trying to cover himself up to hide his inhuman bodyparts. "S-Sorry, what..?" He asked, before Xenia took a step closer, staring at the man¡¯s feet, where brown fur was peaking out underneath the legs of his pants. Thinking that there was another person that thought of him to be a monster, he took a step back. Or at least he wanted to but was instead pushed away by Xenia as she took a closer look at the ice underneath the man. "Is this magic? Like, Ice magic or something?" Xenia asked excitedly before the man nodded. "Y-Yeah, it is... it¡¯s Frost Magic... Erm, who are you?" The man asked, and Xenia stood up with a smile. "My name is Xenia nice to meet you. And you are?" "Nice to meet you too... I¡¯m Dien." He responded, simply surprised at the woman in front of him that didn¡¯t seem to be interested in the fact that he was utterly malformed. And that was how Xenia met the person that unlocked her racial skills and titles, and who realized that she had lost her experience, as well as who guided her through the town and along her path of magic. Of course, after she had learned the basics, she didn¡¯t actually need any help anymore since Xenia could somehow use magic intuitively like a well-trained mage, and she had knowledge that far surpassed what someone that had supposedly lost their memories could have. It was precisely that talent in mastering various magic-based skills and spells, is what got her to be epted to the Mage¡¯s Guild quite quickly, where she researched and experimented on as many types of magic that she could find so far. She even wrote a book about the theories that she managed to confirm overall, and after shepleted it, the Guild began to send different copies of the book out to different cities, as Xenia started to use more magic actively. Initially, she began fighting monsters in the immediate vicinity of the town, until she had gained enough experience and a high enough level to enter the Dungeon directly next to the city. There, she brought her experience level to a point where she didn¡¯t have any issues with her Mana anymore before a few problems had started to arise in the city. Close to town, some adventurers found an incredibly weird item. It was utterly ck crystalized mana. Apparently, the adventurers found it in the nest of some ape-like monsters, and these monsters seemed to had evolved weirdly due to the presence of the ck crystalized mana since then. They weren¡¯t at a high rank, but they were far more aggressive and vicious than before, while at the same time having a far higher control over mana than usual. Xenia wanted to research that Crystal a bit, and as such she called in an owed favor with the Guild Master of the Mage¡¯s Guild to be able to take a look at the crystal at least. It was when she was currently on her way to the ce where the crystalized mana was being kept that the Guild Master tried to change Xenia¡¯s mind once more. "Are you sure you don¡¯t just want to omit your payments for your research for a week? I know that I owe you one, but this is something on the level that can mess with the town¡¯s security, you know?" The Guildmaster, an elderly human, eximed before Xenia simply smirked. "Exactly, that¡¯s why I want to see it. Why would something like that be in the nest of some Rank 2 monsters?" She asked, before the Guildmaster simply stayed silent for a while, not knowing what to say. "I just want to take a look at the type of mana, nothing else." She exined, before the Guild Master slowly nodded, knowing that he couldn¡¯t stop her anymore. However, he didn¡¯t even need to worry, since she wasn¡¯t going to see it anyway. The moment they entered the room, they saw an ape monster that had been mutated by that crystalized mana before ¡ª being just a few levels higher than usual. It was nearly three meters tall and hadyers uponyers of thick dirt and rock covering its whole body as it grasped the crystalized mana in its hand. It was apparently startled when Xenia and the Guildmaster entered the room so that the giant ape disappeared out through the hole in the wall that it had probably created before. "What the fuck?" Xenia yelled out intuitively as she saw this all happen, while the Guildmaster immediately freaked out and called for the guards. They didn¡¯t see them at first, but the guards that were supposed to protect the crystalized mana were buried in the bricks of the walls after being attacked by the monster, unable to even defend themselves. As soon as the situation was exined to the masters of the other guilds withbat experience in town, especially the Adventurer¡¯s Guild moved out and called for the rapid extermination of such a dangerous monster. Witnesses reported that the giant ape-monster climbed over the walls again and was now hiding somewhere nearby, so all the warriors made their way there as quickly as possible. Of course, Xenia was amongst them. "Are you sure you should do this? It¡¯s a pretty strong monster, you know?" Dien told her, nervous about Xenia dying or hurting herself in the fight, but the High-Elf simply shook her head. "Don¡¯t worry about it, you wuss. I¡¯m not going to get hurt. Now, are youing with me, or are you going to hide behind the big, strong men protecting the city?" She asked, obviously just trying to provoke Dien intoing along. It did indeed work, and he ended up being part of the fight, although he outwardly couldn¡¯t do much, although ¡¯much¡¯ was already more than the majority of people. The Rank 5 monster that the ape had turned into before wouldn¡¯t have been a huge issue, it was surely quite dangerous, but that wasn¡¯t what made the fight dangerous. "That monster was mutating while we looked at it. The crystalized mana was affecting it more than it should have, I think. Who knows what it turned into at this point? We can¡¯t just let it do what it wants, so all of us need to help out in defeating it." She told Dien, who couldn¡¯t do anything but ept her decision. But what the ape turned into was something that nobody could have expected. Directly in front of the small army that gathered to defeat it, it swallowed the crystalized mana whole, before the ¡¯actual¡¯ change happened to it. As if in a murderous rage, it began banging its fists against the wall of the cliff behind it as its body morphed and grew, absorbing the rock of the cliff at the same time. Or rather, it would have maybe been more urate to say that the cliff wall absorbed the monster. Once it did, cracks formed all over the cliff, and an even more enormous version of the ape simply stepped out from it after it evolved into a Rank 7 monster. That was when the real fight began. Especially the mages worked as hard as they could to fight against this monstrosity, and Xenia created some of thergest, incrediblyplex magic circles that she could. In themercial trailer, it all looked like she managed to create things like meteorites instantly, but it actually took a whole 20 minutes to draw the relevant magic circles, and she nearly ran out of mana while she was at it. But in the end, the giant meteorite managed to do quite a bit of damage to the giant rock-ape, but the fight continued for quite a while longer. The warriors of the town were able to exterminate the monster in the end, and it gave everyone that participated in the event a good amount of experience as well. Xenia especially benefitted from this, as she was able to collect a lot of proficiency in her low-ranked skills. About one in-game weekter a festival was going on, and it was quite a bit bigger this time around than usual because everyone was in a great mood after ying an incredibly dangerous monster. And so, Xenia chose to raise the mood a little more, creating fireworks with her magic that enchanted the citizens of the whole town with their light. But that wasn¡¯t the only thing that the High-Elf did to end up being acknowledged to such an extent by everyone in the city. She even aplished many other things, by simply helping out here and there when she could although most of the time, she did turn some non-magic rted stuff into something that involved quite a lot of magic. But nobody med her since that¡¯s just how Xenia was. Chapter 184 Original of Comba There once was a young child that utterly despised fighting. Whenever his father, a Chinese martial arts instructor, brought him along to teach him, he instead ran back toward his mother, an African-American housewife, although he was always forced to train anyway. His father was not a kind person in any sense of the word. He was rude to the people around him, and he was violent towards the boy and his mother if they didn¡¯t do what he wanted, although he luckily neverid a hand on the boy¡¯s younger sister. If he had, then maybe the boy wouldn¡¯t have stepped down the path that he had, simply because he would have hated his father far too much to care about his reasoning. That reason for the boy¡¯s choice to follow this road was one quite simple thing ¡ª a Smile. It wasn¡¯t the smile of his father that showed the boy that he cared after all, and it wasn¡¯t the smile of his mother as sheforted the boy as she always did whenever his father became violent or began yelling. It was his smile, the smile that he showed at his father¡¯s funeral when the boy was only ten years old. Ovee by guilt and self-hatred at something like this, the boy continued training and training, day after day, until he began to see the true worth of martial arts. It wasn¡¯t the fame or the money he acquired after winning tournament after tournament, although that undoubtedly yed a significant role in the fact that he kept fighting and training. And, despite being his most significant motivator, it wasn¡¯t to protect and support his mother and sister either. The thing that ended up making him enjoy martial arts was quite simple. It made him feel at peace. When he was a child, he had not an ounce of control. Neither over how he spent his time, or how he formed his body, but the further he went along and learned technique over technique, the more control he gained back from the shadow of his father that was still looming over him. That was, until the day that he figured out he was powerless after all. His father, a prior member of a triad, even now affected his life actively. The boy¡¯s father betrayed exactly that triad, and in response, they searched for him and killed him. And then, around twelve yearster, they also came after the boy, who became more social-politically active and began to try to counteract criminal organizations like the triad his father used to be a part. Luckily, the boy didn¡¯t end up being killed but wounded to the extent that he nearly had been. But that moment was like a wake-up call, and despite having made a full recovery from the wounds he suffered from that attack, he retired from fighting at the age of 22. Instead, he wanted to live a regr life. Have a proper job that he didn¡¯t need to travel the country or even the world all the time, find himself a girlfriend or even marry, and generally just live a calmer peaceful life. And so, he opened up a Martial-Arts studio where he taught children from poor or violent households proper control over themselves, their anger and their life. And five yearster, Andrew Jones became Brody. Brody found himself in the middle of a dried-up wastnd, with only some hints of a road underneath his feet. He luckily had a leather booklet in his pocket that told him where to go to find the town, so he did that for a little while, immediately trying out this new body of his with different basic motions, leading him actually to gain low-level martial-arts skill as he did so. And when he entered the quite simple desert town, he met a certain elderly woman with tworge horns on her head, who epted him with open arms after finding out that he had lost his experience. Once she then helped him gain back his racial skills and titles, she continued letting him live with her as long as he helped out a bit. And so, he did, meeting many different people while doing so. In all of the ces that he has been so far in this game or even the real world, this ce that was so open and free to anyone and everyone, it was incredible. There were a few intelligent pure monsters, although you could count their poption with the fingers on your hands. However, one of thergest group of people in themunity there were half-monsters, like Brody himself chose to be. The town that Brody found himself near was indeed like a heaven to those that couldn¡¯t find a ce anywhere else. And thanks to all these factors, he not only managed to learn lots of variousbat skills but also about how to properly use his body and the mana inside of his body. And it wasn¡¯t long until he became quite a strong force within the town, especially after clearing the field-dungeon that appeared in the trailer with only his twopanions, so it was apparent he was one of the people that one came to when they had problems. A young woman did the same as she came rushing into the Adventurer¡¯s Guild, a ce where Brody spent a lot of his time. "There you are! Brody, I need your help!" The woman eximed before the Demon-Orc Halfling looked at her in surprise. "Hm, everythin¡¯ alright, Ana?" He asked before the woman shook her head with tears in her eyes. "No, nothing is alright! Ryte learned that Martial Arts skill from you the other day, and now he left the vige to fight magical beasts!" Ana eximed before Brody jumped to his feet without a second thought. "Do you have any idea where he went?" He asked before Ana shook her head. "That¡¯s why I need your help! Did he tell you something? Please, he¡¯s just 10! He¡¯s not even passed level 15!" She told Brody, who slowly nodded, grabbing the three-section-staff next to him and rushing out the door. "Wh-where¡¯s he going?" Ana asked in worry, and the two people that were sitting at the table with him, one giant demon with full armor and one robed woman, simply chuckled. "Don¡¯t worry; your kid¡¯ll be back without a scratch. You didn¡¯t juste here to ask him about that anyway, right? Ya gotta¡¯ve heard how strong he is. He reached level 100 super quickly, after all." The giant demon said with a grin before Ana slowly nodded, not being able to deny that this was the case. On Brody¡¯s end, he already reached the gate of the town, since his Agility stat was by far the highest of all the stats he had. Strength and Endurance shared second ce, and then, despite technically being the third-ce Wisdom and Intelligence, where nearly entirely at the bottom of the barrel. Brody increased them a little bit, but he didn¡¯t use them all that much except for some simply in-body strengthening. And since that barely took any mana to keep up, so they didn¡¯t need to be that high. Immediately, Brody rushed outside into the open wastnd, running to the location that he expected Ryte to be. While he was teaching him some of the basic movements needed to fight, Brody began telling him some stories about when he was still low-level like the boy himself, and how he managed to increase his level explosively by fighting a particr group of monsters. Because of stories, Ryte became overly excited, saying that he wanted to fight them as well, so he could be as strong as Brody, not realizing that he couldn¡¯t get beyond level 15 due to his age. Of course, Brody told him that was a horrible idea and that he can¡¯t do that, but regardless, Ryte still seemed caught up on the idea. But it really wouldn¡¯t end well if Ryte went to fight those monsters. They were technically weaker than usualpared to their rank, but they never appeared alone. And since these beasts were semi-humanoid, Brody was able to perfectly apply most of his techniques to them, since his skills were developed for fighting against people. A regr person never would be able to actually fight against them, especially without the support that Brody had through his twopanions acting as support and defense. At this point, Brody was able to take care of massive hordes of these monsters, since they were meant for low-levels to take care of in groups. After a while, Brody managed to reach the area where those monsters usually were, seeing arge crowd of them in the distance. "Ryte must be there... please, don¡¯t let me be toote..." He muttered to himself, activating all of his status-increasing skills at the same time to increase his speed and strength for the attack he was about tounch against the group of monsters. Immediately, with a swift motion, Brody swung the three-section staff forward to create a gap for him to reach the center of the monster-crowd. It seemed like Ryte was being attacked, but the fight only just recently started. "M-Mister Brody!" The child yelled out before the Demon-Orc began grinding his teeth as he slid across the ground to end up directly in front of Ryte. Swiftly, Brody then pushed back some of the monsters and then turned around toward the boy behind him. "You idiot! What the hell do you think you¡¯re doing?" He yelled out with an angry expression, before looking Ryte up and down with a few nces. Ryte was shaking all over, scared out of his mind, so it probably wouldn¡¯t help to have Brody yell at him. With a loud sigh, the Martial Artist then handed the child the Three-Section-Staff. It was a weapon that he bought just to get some actualbat-proficiency with it, and he only received it just a day or two ago anyway, so he was far better off with his fists and legs than with the three-section-staff. So, in order to cheer up Ryte behind him, Brody squatted down in front of him andid the staff into his hands. "Hold this for me, alright? This bout is gonna be over pretty soon." Brody told him with a smirk, before standing back up and cracking his knuckles. "Alright, whoever of y¡¯all wants some,e get some." And with that, Brody lunged forward, attacking the first of the monsters. Within a few seconds, that monster was dead, and so were a few of the ones standing behind it. That was one of the first times that Brody managed to gain control over his mana in a way that he could use it duringbat, in a prototype version for the Yin and Yang energies that his body and mind created themselves before he then gained the actual alternate energies only a few dayster. With cracks that resounded within his movements, Brody brought down the numerous monsters around him within only a few minutes. Of course, he then quickly grabbed the mana crystals to sell at the adventurer¡¯s guild for some extra cash, as he then escorted Ryte back to town. And in this case, during the escort even included a particr educational portion, where Ryte was told over and over again not to be such an idiot by Brody. And after a while, the two of them reached the town again, and Brody escorted Ryte back to Ana, the boy¡¯s mother. "What were you doing out there?!" She yelled out as she pulled her son closer into a hug, simply happy that he was still alive, before then pushing him back a little bit again and looking at him with stern eyes. "You¡¯ll never do that kind of thing again, you hear me?!" Ana eximed, ready to lock her son up until he became an adult if necessary. And Brody was just d that the kid was still alive and kicking. Chapter 185 Barbecue Preparation After hearing these two stories from Xenia and Brody, the group moved on to other topics, although Eisen quickly remembered something when Xenia told her story, looking over at Bree who seemed to think the same. "You¡¯ve got it with you so that it can¡¯t be stolen, right?" Eisen asked, and Bree swiftly nodded, rushing over to the backpack while the others looked at the both of them confused, before Bree took out a serball-sized crystal sphere with different carvings all over it, while you could see the pitch-ck core in its center. With a smile, Eisen deleted the enchantments on the sphere¡¯s surface, that were there to contain the incredibly wicked mana inside of it, before Xenia immediately jumped ever so slightly from the sudden energy that she felt. "Wait, is that...?" She muttered out before Eisen nodded. "It is, yes." He smirked as he used transmutation to ¡¯peel¡¯ the mana crystalyer away from the ck crystalized mana inside of it. "We found one of them as well. In the beehive where I also found Melissa." Since he didn¡¯t know what kind of use this crystalized mana had, Eisen extended his hand and gave it to Xenia. "You said you wanted to research it a bit, right? You can have it if you want, but if you figure out any positive use for it, or if it can be used to create some kind of magical item, give it to me, and I¡¯ll make something with it." Eisen told her before Xenia took the dense,pressed mana into her own two hands with bright eyes. "Thank you! Wow, that¡¯s great! I¡¯ll let you know if I find anything!" She eximed with a smile before Eisen turned toward Brody next. "I also have something for you." He said before the Demon-Orc perked up his face in surprise. "Eh? You do?" Brody asked curiously, and Eisen slowly nodded before grabbing the two gloves that he made in front of his new disciples today, handing them over to the martial artist. "I made them quite quickly, but they should be pretty helpful," Eisen told Brody, before continuing. "The stat requirements on it aren¡¯t that big of a deal either, especially for someone with your level," Eisen exined to the martial-artist who immediately tried the gloves on, looking at them with a smile. "Whoa, that¡¯s pretty dope. What¡¯re the metal tes on here?" Brody curiously asked since he knew it wasn¡¯t iron or steel or something like that, and Eisen quietly chuckled. "Well, that¡¯s Mythril I made with my element. Usually, Mythril absorbs shock, this one absorbs it and returns some back to the source." Eisen exined, before the others, all looked at Eisen in surprise, and especially Horan, the tank from Brody¡¯s party, was quite interested in this peculiar metal. "Haha, I¡¯m actually working on another batch of it, don¡¯t worry. It¡¯s been inside of the infuser non-stop ever since we got to this town, so I¡¯m hoping for it to be able to absorb a good bit of my elemental mana and have it be below-average or average grade. The amount it needs to get to the next grade rises exponentially, after all. I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll be able to make some great items for all of you then. We¡¯ll be needing it soon anyway." The old man chuckled with a smile before he began toe up with some general ideas, even taking in suggestions and wishes as he did, so that everyone in the group would be perfectly equipped for when they began conquering the inds. --- After finishing some more conversations, some more important than others, Benjamin logged off and then stood outside of the capsule soon after. The day before, he had a serious discussion with Melody about limits and how she should treat him and all the guests in the house, meaning that she shouldn¡¯t try to take control over everyone¡¯s life while she was here. Benjamin did appreciate that Melody was worried about him, but he was 70 years old and far from going senile. His body felt healthier than it did in years, while he was a lot happier than he was just a few weeks ago. He could take care of himself, and Melody needed to see that, especially that Benjamin would ask for help if he needed it. Reluctantly, she then epted it after a long talk filled with lots of convincing. And so, Benjamin could make breakfast on his own today, although he only made something pretty light for everyone, considering that they would be eating their fillter that afternoon and evening. Because it was the day of the barbecue, Benjamin already bought everything that he needed to feed everyone that would being, and now he just needed to prepare everything first thing in the morning. He really had a little of everything, after all, a few dozen people would being today. He had things for burgers, hot dogs, different sds, some ribs and of course different marinated meats that you could just throw on the grill and eat without anything special added onto them. But not only that, he obviously also had some things for grilled vegetables, since he knew some of the people that would being were vegetarian or vegan. But Benjamin said he didn¡¯t want to do all the work himself, so he told the adults in the house to set everything up outside, the younger children to make some decorations, and the teenagers to help him out in the kitchen. "Alright, I have the meats in the fridge with all the other ingredients. I¡¯ll tell you what you need to do, though, so don¡¯t worry about that." Benjamin exined, before looking over at Benji, who the old man knew to be a great cook. "You please take care of all the chicken, please. We¡¯ll make Pineapple-Chicken skewers, Marinated Teriyaki Chicken, and honey-zed chicken. I have the recipes-" The old man began, before Benji interrupted him, already grabbing the thick recipe book on the shelf. "In here, right? Don¡¯t worry; you just work on the other stuff." Benji said with a smirk before flipping through the book and slowly getting the recipes ready, before Benjamin chuckled and put on his apron, giving one to the three teenagers helping him out as well. "You two, please work on the sds for now. I have a different recipe book on that shelf over there." He said as he looked over at Sophia and Kyle, who nodded in response before enthusiastically grabbing the recipe book and starting to get all the ingredients together, while Benjamin began to work on some of the other meat. More specifically, the ribs. The cut that Benjamin chose was the ssic Spare Rib cut, for which he first began to work on the dry rub, which was quite quickly made by mixing chili, garlic & onion powder, paprika, ground mustard & cumin, dried oregano, ck & white pepper as well as some cayenne, for a vorful powdered mixture. For the next step, Benjamin put on some gloves so that he wouldn¡¯t get the spices stuck on his fingers and identally touch his eyes or something like that. After that, he began to cover the ribs in the mixture, thoroughly patting it into every nook and cranny. And then, those ribs were covered in stic wrap and then ced into the fridge, where they would stay until just before the barbeque would start. In the meantime, Benjamin would begin making the barbecue sauce. After mixing some apple cider vinegar, tomato puree, dark brown sugar, some more cayenne pepper, garlic powder, onion powder & ground mustard as well as some Worcestershire sauce, Benjamin began to simmer the sauce on low heat, which he would continue doing for an hour and a half. Now that everything for the ribs was prepared, Benjamin moved on to the next dish. He already ced the regr marinated meats in the fridge yesterday night, so that he could quickly put them on the grillter without any issues. The dish he would be preparing now were grilled shrimps. The first thing he did was tobine some oil, garlic, celery seeds and red pepper kes in a small saucepan, before cooking it over medium heat and stirring it asionally until the garlic was golden and sizzling, after which he whisked in some whole-grain mustard, before transferring the whole mixture to a bowl and letting it coolpletely. In the meantime, Benjamin began to de-vein the shrimps by making a shallow cut down the back of the shrimps and pulling out the vein that could be found after that he removed the shell of the shrimp. Once the shrimps were prepared, the old man added them to the oil-mixture and seasoned it with salt and ck pepper, tossing the shrimps in the mixture to coat them, before cing them into the refrigerator. Next, Benjamin thoroughly washed his hands and checked up on the others. Benji was doing a great job, just as the old man expected him to, and Sophia and Kyle were also working on everything pretty quickly and got quite a few different things done so far. Happy that they didn¡¯t need any help, Benjamin began to work on the grilled vegetables. Although they didn¡¯t need anythingplicated to be done with them, and you could just throw them onto the grill whenever Benjamin wanted to make a few different vegetable skewers as well just to have some variety. He didn¡¯t choose to do anything tooplicated with these either, just chop a few things up and put them on a stick to ce onto the grill quick and easy. After that, he began to help the others out with their tasks, choosing to assist with the chicken first, and since Benji was nearly done anyway, the grandfather-grandson pair managed to finish soon afterward. And after thoroughly cleaning their hands again, they began to help out Kyle and Sophia with the sds, which also didn¡¯t take much longer to do. "Alright, good job, all of you. Thanks for your help." Benjamin eximed with a smile, collecting the aprons again before everyone began to clean up the kitchen and then went outside to help set everything up. Benjamin liked to throw these kinds of parties every once in a while, and he was somewhat looking for an excuse to do so while his kids and grandchildren were in town, although he then realized that he didn¡¯t need an excuse for that, and then simply began nning everything. Either way, since this was the case, Benjamin chose to get some party furniture a while ago, although he ended up making most of it himself. So all of those fold-up benches and tables were being put up outside right now together with some party-tents, just in case it would end up suddenly raining today, although rain wasn¡¯t forecasted. Better safe than sorry. After everything had been set up and the time for the party was approaching closer and closer, Benjamin chose to get one of the most important things for the party from the basement. "Tony, Natsuo, Benji and Kyle, pleasee with me to the cer." Benjamin told them, leaving out Christie because she was busy with something else and Melody, Michael and Sophia because he knew that Michael was against it, and simply respected his choice not to indulge in what the others were about to get. "Ooh, I haven¡¯t been here in years. You never let us down there on our own anyway!" Natsuo eximed with a smirk, before Benjamin nodded with augh. "Obviously, yeah. I couldn¡¯t leave you there when you were kids because you¡¯d just have made a mess or broken things, and I obviously couldn¡¯t leave either of you down there as teenagers." He said with a grin obviously insinuating something that both Natsuo and Tony immediately understood, and only Benji and Kyle were somewhat confused because neither of them knew what was down here. But they knew once Benjamin opened the cer door and they stepped down the spiraling stairs in the back of the house, leading to therge room filled with numerous bottles and barrels of alcohol. Chapter 186 First Guests "Whoa, Grandpa, I had no idea you had so much booze here!" Benji eximed in surprise as he looked around at the bottles and barrels filled with beer, wine, or whiskey before Benjamin sighed loudly. "It¡¯s not ¡¯Booze,¡¯ some of this is expensive stuff. I made a lot of this myself, but alcohol like this is one of my favorite things to collect." He exined, crossing his arms proudly. "Huh, gotcha... That¡¯s why you didn¡¯t want Dad and Uncle Nats down here? Afraid they were gonna get drunk?" Benji asked, but the old man simply looked at him in surprise, while Tony and Natsuo looked at each other with simr expressions, before Benjamin shook his head. "Not really, no. I never cared too much if the boys drank alcohol, as long as they didn¡¯t overdo it. I began traveling at 17 and drank all over the world as well, so it felt wrong to not allow them to, my issue was rather that I have some bottles of different alcohol worth around ten thousand dors down here, and I didn¡¯t want them to drink that. By the way, that¡¯s why the cer was almost a vault because down here are the items with high value amongst what your Dad, Uncle, and Aunt will inherit." He exined, and now Benji and Kyle simply looked back in shock. "Wh-Wait, what? Grandpa, I knew you had a lot of money, but you¡¯re like some super rich guy..." Confused, Benji continued looking around, nowpletely confused at what was going on, before Benjamin simply sighed, looking over at his two sons. "You two, please grab a small barrel of the aged beer, the one from the summer five years ago and bring it to the regr beer keg we bought yesterday. I¡¯ll pick out a few nice bottles of wine with Benji and Kyle." Benjamin asked them with a smile before they quickly nodded and did as Benjamin requested. Walking over to some of the barrels standing by the side, while the old man gave them a small tour of the cer that was about the same size as the rest of the house in itself, and there was even another floor underneath where the really old stuff was stored. "The majority of the alcohol down here was some that I made myself. I have somerge equipment for it in the back. I don¡¯te down here too often since the general alcohol surveince and security are all being taken care of by those little SafeDrone thingies." The old man exined, showing a few ¡¯rails¡¯ attached to the roof of the cer as well as a few stations on the ground where the different little bots were loading their batteries right now. "This is actually a certified distillery, and I even won a few prizes back in the day, and it how I made most of my money. It was a good thing to do from home while I was taking care of the kids." Benjamin then rambled on and on about a few different stories about when he got which of these bottles, before they reached something of a ¡¯disy¡¯ where different liquors were standing on their own. First, Benjamin stepped up in front of a grey bottle in the shape of a gourd. "This is a bottle of Kuchikamizake, a rice wine made by chewing cooked rice and spitting the liquid from that back into a container, where it will then ferment." He said with a nostalgic smile, which seemed somewhat weird to Benji and Kyle, considering that it actually sounded somewhat disgusting if one thought about it. It seemed like Benjamin noticed that as well, so he gave them an exnation. "The Kuchikamizake in that bottle was made by your grandmother, Benji. She was a shrine maiden in Okinawa, and although they didn¡¯t make it for religious ceremonies since 1930, there were still some ceremonies for traditional sentiment every once in a while for special asions." He exined, and now it actually didn¡¯t seem as weird anymore, despite still being quite abnormal if one thought about it again. And then, Benjamin looked at two bottles of whiskey that were apparently made in the same years that Tony and Natsuo were born. "I bought these two bottles a few weeks before your father and uncle were born respectively. And then, on the days of their weddings, I drank a ss with them." The old man exined and turned toward another, a much older bottle of whiskey standing next to those two. "And that is the bottle that my father bought for that purpose. He died before I got married, so I drank two sses of it that day." And before Benjamin could get sentimental because of his old man, he took a look at some other bottles, before chuckling lightly. "It seems like the most prominent type of memento I took from my travels were bottles of alcohol, huh? Look, this one is a bottle of wine I got from my year in France when I was working with a Clockmaker, and the bottle of scotch is from when I was in Scond with a Leatherworker." He told the two teenage boys with a gentle smile, feeling incredibly nostalgic when looking at these bottles. "Maybe I should pursue Gordon¡¯s Quest soon," Benjamin muttered with a smile before Benji looked at his grandfather in curiosity. "Gordon? Who¡¯s that?" Benji asked before Benjamin smiled lightly. "Ah, it¡¯s just someone from the game. He asked me to make all sorts of weird liquor that he came up with, and I promised I would. I didn¡¯t follow up on it yet, though, and I think I should probably do that soon." "Huh, interesting... Like, Snake-Wine Weird?" Benji asked, and Kyle listened in just as curiously before Benjamin thought for a while. "I think there was a recipe or two with that kind of style, yes. But that¡¯s not the kind of ¡¯weird¡¯ I mean. It¡¯s the kind of weird that literally turns you into a dog, or will make youpletely weightless." He chuckled, remembering his transformations back then before continuing to walk around the cer, picking up a few bottles of wine as well as one bottle of Whisky, handing them to Benji and Kyle so that they would help Benjamin carry them. "So that kind of alcohol is a thing in the game..? Really?" Kyle asked, wondering what the hell the limit of things in there was before Benjamin slowly nodded. "Yes, it is. Although I won¡¯t be making the necessarily super weird drinks, many are quite useful despite not seeming so at first." He exined as the three of them made their way back to the stairs and Benjamin began to talk about some of the most peculiar drinks in the ¡¯Perfect Booze¡¯ Recipe book he got from Gordon, while Benji and Kyle listened curiously. When the three of them got back upstairs, and Benjamin locked the door again, they could hear some talking in the distance, and from the sound of it, it wasn¡¯t a happy talk at all. "Again, what the hell do you mean? We¡¯re just bringing this outside, so let us through, please." Tony eximed, obviously trying to be as civil as possible before Michael responded extremely angrily. "No, you will not. You will not serve alcohol here, do you understand?" He said in amanding voice before Benjamin told the teenagers next to him to ce the bottles down at a table while the old man himself stepped up to the group that was currently fighting. "And what gives you the right to determine that?" He asked with a stern face before Michael looked up at Benjamin with a frown. "The Lord is on my side with this, Benjamin. I let the coffee slide, but I will not allow alcohol." "Mhm, sure, then don¡¯t allow it," Benjamin said with a sigh before Michael looked over at Tony and Natsuo with a triumphant smirk. And just when he wanted toment, Benjamin ced his hand on his son-inw¡¯s shoulder from behind. "Sadly, I allow it. And in this house, I have thest word. Tony, Natsuo, you two go ahead and set everything up." "Benjamin, what are you doing?" Michael asked in an irritated, angry tone despite not raising his voice and outwardly keeping hisposure like always. And so, Benjamin crossed his arms and told Michael what he was doing. "I¡¯m asking my sons to bring the alcohol that I made outside because it was requested by many of the people I invited here if I would be serving my aged Beer." He exined, before starting to walk toward the door, making sure that Benji and Kyle got outside alright without Michael interfering, and then continued to speak as he looked at Michael. "I can understand that you don¡¯t want to drink; it¡¯s against your religion, I know. But I¡¯m sure Mormons don¡¯t have a rule about controlling those around them or do they? So please, just try to have fun, alright? There¡¯s a nice spot next to the main tent where you don¡¯t have to see other people drink, so if you want, you can be there. But you¡¯re still part of my family, so I would prefer it if you would join the rest of us." Benjamin exined, before Michael slowly nodded with a deep frown, ring at even Kyle as he was carrying some bottles of wine toward Tony and Natsuo. "Alright, thene outside and keep helping out. I won¡¯t have any ckers here, got it?" Benjamin eximed with a smirk, trying to set everything up so that Michael would be too busy toin about things and make enemies at the party because he knew that many people didn¡¯t fit in with Michael¡¯s ideals. And soon after everything was set up, and Benjamin took the Barbecue Sauce off the stove, some of the people in the neighborhood that Benjamin invited over started arriving, and quickly people began to socialize with each other, while Benjamin ced the ribs on the smoker, since those would take a while to finish. After a while, another group of guests came. Alexander and Andrew with their wives, Josh with his girlfriend, as well as Kim alone. "Wee, everyone. Long-time no see, you two." Benjamin said with a smile as he looked at Alexander and Andy¡¯s Wifes, before looking behind him and seeing that Tony and Natsuo were alreadying over to greet them as well, and Benji, Kyle and Sophia wereing over as well since Kim, Josh and his girlfriend were the first people their age here so far. "Andy! Been a while, eh?" Natsuo said with a smirk, before Andrew stepped up closer and greeted the two of them with a hug. "Of course, nice to see you two again." Andrew said happily, introducing his wife and children to them and vice-versa. "Alright, I can smell alcohol... Benjamin, where are you hiding the good stuff?" Alexander asked with a smirk, before Benjamin chuckled and brought him over to a table nearby where the bottle of whisky that he brought with him stood. "Here it is. It¡¯s been a while since we¡¯ve had a drink together, so I thought today would be as good a time as ever." "Of course it is. But I¡¯m surprised, haven¡¯t seen an old bottle like this in a while now. Here Andy, take a look." Alexander said as he showed the bottle to his son, whose eyes shot open the moment he saw it. "Wait, is that a bottle of 85-" "Yup." Benjamin responded before Alexander could even mention the brand name. "Isn¡¯t this stuff super expensive? And you want to drink it leisurely today?" He eximed, before Benjamin slowly nodded as if it was apparent, and Kim stared at the bottle before taking out her phone and taking a picture of the bottle, before an automatic search made her react simrly to her father. "Holy shit Mister Joyce, what the fuck?" She asked before Josh stepped up behind her to take a look at the screen. "What¡¯s going on, it can¡¯t be that- Holy macaroni... That... That¡¯s more than what my car cost me... I saved up for years..." Josh muttered out as if his whole view of the world was just broken while his girlfriend beganforting him. "Well, what do you all expect? Alexander and I are old men, as far as we know, this might be ourst drink, so why should we be wasteful with it?" Benjaminughed before his old friend chuckled with him. "You say that every time, Benjamin. Although I do have to say, this is quite a lot more expensive than I had thought, are you sure about this?" He inquired, and Benjamin ced his hand on Alexander¡¯s back with a smile. "Yes, don¡¯t worry. It¡¯s not the only one I have of it. Anyway, how about we adults go ahead and join the others and leave the kids alone for a bit, yeah?" Benjamin suggested, practically pushing Andrew and Alex away while their wives had already made their way to the rest of the party, before Benjamin leaned into his granddaughter Sophia, just ever so slightly motioning toward Kim with his head. "She¡¯s your type, isn¡¯t she?" He whispered with a grin, before a bright blush formed on Sophia¡¯s cheeks as she looked at the girl in front of her and cursed her grandfather in her mind. Chapter 187 Escalation After the initial guests arrived, more and more people started showing up, and Benjamin spent some time socializing with them while at the same time taking care of the food. For the ribs, he only needed to check on them every half hour and cover them in some of the barbecue sauce, and since everything else was finished, he just needed to grill everything else, distributing everything left and right regrly. And while he wasn¡¯t doing that, he talked to some of his old friends and people from all around town, simply having fun. Apparently, he wasn¡¯t the only one having fun either, since he could spot Sophia with Kim all day, mostly them talking to each other alone. At one of those asions, Melody stepped up to Benjamin as well. "What¡¯s that girl doing? She brought her boyfriend along, and all she¡¯s doing is talk to Andy¡¯s kid. Unbelievable." Sheined before Benjamin chuckled lightly. "Don¡¯t worry, they¡¯re all having fun, right? Kyle and Benji are together a lot, and it looks like they¡¯re having fun too. Now, how about you go and calm Michael down a bit? He seems a little agitated right now." Benjamin suggested, seeing that Michael was talking to himself about something before Melody nodded slowly and made her way back to her husband and Sean and Katy came running up to their grandfather. "Grampa!" Katy yelled out, attaching herself to Benjamin¡¯s leg as she did so before the old man looked down at her in confusion. "Be careful; we¡¯re by the grill. What¡¯s up?" He asked before he noticed that, different to what he expected, Katy wasn¡¯t actually in her usual cheerful mood, and was instead somewhat hiding from something, or rather someone. "What happened, Katy?" Benjamin asked as he kneeled in front of his granddaughter before she began to exin. "There¡¯s this girl I made friends with, her name is Jam, so I wanted to see if she was as sweet as Jam and that¡¯s why she was called that, so I licked her cheek and then, and then..." She said, bing quieter around the end before Benjamin sighed loudly. "And she got mad at you?" He asked before Katy surprisingly shook her head. "No, she thought it was funny andughed! But then Uncle came over and yelled at us... He said lots of words I didn¡¯t understand, and Jam started crying even..." She said before Benjamin jumped up and looked around, seeing Jam¡¯s father in the distance, taking care of his daughter while she was crying. And there was only one ¡¯Uncle¡¯ that Katy could be talking about, Benjamin wanted to let it slide at first because this would probably escte if he didn¡¯t, but then Katy said something that made him quite riled up. "And he called me a weird word... Erm, what¡¯s a Slut?" Katy asked before Benjamin looked down at his only nine-year-old granddaughter who was just insulted as a ¡¯slut¡¯ by a grown man. Angrily, while grinding his teeth, Benjamin called over Benji so that he could take over at the grill for him while he took care of something. Luckily, Michael was sitting somewhere that was a good bit away from the other guests, and as such, those other guests didn¡¯t need to see or hear the argument that was now bound to unfold. "Michael, what do you think you¡¯re doing?" Benjamin asked before Michael looked at him, confused. "I¡¯m drinking a ss of water, what does it look like?" He responded, which didn¡¯t help calm down Benjamin¡¯s temper. "That¡¯s not what I¡¯m talking about, and you know it. What I¡¯m talking about is that you called Katy a slut." Benjamin angrily said, having a hard time keeping his voice down. Luckily, only one person beside Melody and Michael heard it, although it may have been the worst one. "Wait...what? Dad, what are you talking about?" Tony asked after having started to pay attention once he heard his daughter¡¯s name and quickly came closer, immediately getting angry just thinking about it. And likewise, Melody also didn¡¯t seem to be happy with that idea. "Michael, what did you do?" She asked before Michael looked at Tony with eyes full of spite, which also included Benjamin in their gaze. "Yes, I called her a slut. After all, that¡¯s what she¡¯ll turn into if she continues doing those things, and even worse, she¡¯d be a dike slut on top of that." Michael yelled out, while Tony was already mentally ripping him to shreds. "But what can you expect from a criminal¡¯s child! You¡¯re all messed up, aren¡¯t you? And I can¡¯t believe that your father is even allowing someone like ¡¯Benji,¡¯ how you all like to call that little Bi-Sinner, inside of his house." He yelled out, now entirely looking at Benjamin, while Tony went ahead and did the thing that all of them wanted to do. Tony pped Michael as hard as he could, turned around, and made his way inside the house to cool off for a bit. As he was holding his cheek, Michael loudly clicked his tongue and red at Tony¡¯s back. "Benjamin, with all due respect, I know that Tony is your son, but you cannot allow some violent criminal like him in your house. Under his care, even his children will end up as-" "Stop right there, Michael," Benjamin said with the calmest voice that he¡¯d had all day, trying to keep his anger under control as he looked at the man standing next to him. "I won¡¯t let you insult my son like that, and neither will you insult my grandchildren. Yes, Benji is Bisexual, so what? Are you trying to tell me that it¡¯s a bad thing?" Confused at what was going on, as if he was entirely right with his opinion, Michael looked at Benjamin with a frown. "It¡¯s not bad per se, but if he is half-straight, then he should choose to act fully like it and ignore his side of sin. Being Bisexual isn¡¯t a problem in and of itself, just that he acted on it in the past is. And I¡¯m sure you¡¯re aware of that myself. ¡¯Benji¡¯ is nothing but a sinner at this point, and he¡¯s still young, so he can yet be saved." "Ah, so you¡¯re saying I¡¯m beyond saving, then?" Benjamin said with a superficial smile before Michael looked at him, confused. So, Benjamin moved a bit closer and looked at the utterly disgusting man in front of him. "I¡¯m proud of Benji, and I do truly love him. He¡¯s like a younger version of me in some ways. He¡¯s good with his hands, likes people, wants to travel as much as he can, and now that we¡¯re talking about it, we have another thing inmon. Both him and I have had rtionships with men before." Benjamin told him after leaning in a slight bit before Michael¡¯s face took on apletely different look than before. One of utter andplete disgust. "You... you¡¯re like him?" "Yes, I am ¡¯like him.¡¯ But you won¡¯t have to worry about that. I want you out of the house by tomorrow, understand? Melody, you¡¯re wee to stay, because I know that I haven¡¯t raised you to be like your husband. But I will not allow him to stay around here any longer than necessary. There¡¯s a small hotel in town; I¡¯ll set you up with a room, Michael." Benjamin said as he turned around and left, not paying attention to what was now going on behind him right now and instead made his way back to the Grill where he instantly began working to cool himself down. Of course, Benji, who took over for Benjamin for a while, was wondering what was going on. "Are you okay? Did something happen?" He asked full of worry since his Grandfather took over again,pletely silent, and didn¡¯t say anything at all, merely staring at the task in front of him. Slowly, Benjamin then shook his head without saying anything, and continued to flip some of the meat before checking on the ribs and taking them out of the smoker, ting them on the table with the rest of the ready-to-take food before carving them up into arge amount of pieces with about four actual ¡¯ribs¡¯ per piece. "Grampa, what the hell happened?" Benji asked once more, before Sophia, who just approached them after noticing that something was off as well, spoke up. "Yeah, what happened? You were with Mom and Dad just now, right?" After a long sigh, Benjamin then nodded. "Yes, I was. But let¡¯s just leave it at that, you¡¯ll find out after the party." He exined before Benji, and Sophia looked at each other in worry while Kyle and Kim were standing next to them in confusion and awkwardness. "Benji, can you take over for a while again? I need to talk to your dad." Benjamin exined before Benji looked at him with a frown and nodded. "Yeah, sure, but why do you need to talk to dad? Does he have anything to do with why you¡¯re like this right now?" "No, but he¡¯s also not doing so well, and I¡¯d like to talk to him," Benjamin told them while Benji took over the grill again silently, worried about what was going on, while the old man himself made his way inside. And it didn¡¯t take long for Benjamin to find his son either, as he was sitting on the couch in the living room, staring at the wall opposite to him. "Hey bud, you doing okay?" Benjamin asked as he sat down next to Tony, who slowly began to nod. "I¡¯m fine. You can go back outside; I don¡¯t want to ruin the party for you." He responded before Benjamin quietly chuckled. "Don¡¯t worry, if anyone is ruining anything today it¡¯s Michael, not you." "Tell me about it... That goddamn prick just thinks he¡¯s better than everyone." Tony said as he looked at his father, who then slowly nodded. "Yes, he does. I¡¯m just as mad as you are, trust me. He said some things that you just can¡¯t say, no matter the situation. He¡¯ll be gone by tomorrow and will have to stay in a hotel or drive back home or whatever, I don¡¯t care. But I hope that Melody will stay here." Benjamin exined before Tony slowly nodded. "Thanks, I really, really can¡¯t stand him. Michael insulting my children like that, he can be d that I only pped him." Tony muttered, gazing down at his arm, and more specifically a single tattoo of a rose. "I... I did so much to make up for my mistakes... I worked my ass off, I help out at shelters so fucking much, and I¡¯m even a fucking youth counselor for kids living on the street. What else can I do not to be seen as a goddamn criminal anymore?" While gripping his arm quite violently, Tony looked at his father with tears in his eyes, while Benjamin ced his arm on his son¡¯s shoulder. "Tony, you¡¯ve done more than enough for that already. And both of us know that it isn¡¯t your fault that you ended up like that either. Everybody has their mistakes. You do, I do, and even your mother did. Nobody is perfect, and nobody expects you to be. The only ones that still bring your past up are people like Michael, whose opinion shouldn¡¯t matter to you anyway." Benjamin said with a smile before he stood up and looked down at his son. "I¡¯m sure you want to be alone for a while. You know the password to the door lock to the basement, so go ahead and get rid of your worries." He told Tony with a wink and then made his way back outside, trying to be cheerful for his family again. And when Benjamin stepped out the door into the garden, he saw a man that he hasn¡¯t seen for a while, whom he could engage in very distracting conversations. Samuel finally arrived. Chapter 188 Getting Physical "Samuel, nice to see that you made it!" Benjamin eximed before the young man smiled and greeted Benjamin as well. "I wouldn¡¯t miss it. How are you?" "I¡¯m pretty good, thanks for asking." The old man answered before Samuel nodded. "I was told you have a few apprentices in the game now?" Surprised, Benjamin nodded in response. "Oh? Yes, I do, but how do you find things like this out?" "I have the best source there is, don¡¯t I?" Samuel said with augh, referencing a certain almighty goddess in the World of Magic before Benjaminughed. "I see, I guess I should expect you always to know what¡¯s going on then. Anyway, do you want to eat something? My Grandson is standing in front of the grill right now, and he¡¯s the one I rmended for the game." As the old man exined this, he showed Samuel to the area where all the food was and handed him some of his aged beer, before he stepped over to Benji, who seemed to be d that his grandfather was in a better mood now. "Benji, this is Samuel, my friend from Prime Industries. Samuel, this is Benjamin, my oldest grandchild." "Nice to meet you, Benjamin. Some of the first things your grandfather told me about when I met him the first time was how proud he was of you." Samuel said with a smile as he remembered his first meeting with this man standing next to him before Benji embarrassedly scratched the back of his head. "It¡¯s nice to meet you too, Samuel. But go ahead and call me Benji, as everyone does." "Alright then, Benji. Anything you can rmend me from the grill?" Samuel asked as he took a sip from his beer before Benji quickly nodded. "Yup, definitely. The shrimp is pretty good, and the burgers are, well, burgers. Grampa also made ribs over there, and they¡¯re damn good." He exined before Samuel hungrily grabbed a te and happily took some of the shrimps and a piece of the ribs as well as some bread and sd. "I guess it¡¯s time to socialize then. Ah, and introduce me to your sonter as well, I¡¯d like to talk to him for a bit to get to know him." Samuel said with a smile before he made his way to one of the tents and immediately began socializing and introducing himself to the people there. After Samuel left, Benji looked at his grandfather with a wry and awkward smirk. "Really? You bragged about me?" With augh, Benjamin then nodded his head as he ced his hand on Benji¡¯s shoulder. "Well, of course, I did, I bragged about all of you." He told Benji, while Kyle was standing next to them with his hands inside of his hoody-pocket before remembering something. "Ah, Mr. Jo- sorry, Benjamin... Sophia came over a little while ago and told me to tell you that she ¡¯Both hates and loves¡¯ you. I don¡¯t know why, though. She¡¯s not been letting me hang with her all day for some reason either..." Kyle said with a deep sigh before Benjamin chuckled lightly. "Ah, I know why that is. You see, Sophia was with Kim all day, right? I kinda tried setting them up with each other, because I know that Kim is lesbian as well." He said with a smirk before both Benji and Kyle seemed to have a sudden moment of enlightenment. "Yup, that makes sense. They did both seem to be pretty into each other, but I didn¡¯t want to assume." Benji said after a bit before Benjamin looked into the distance toward where Michael was still sitting while holding his cheek from Tony¡¯s p. "Let¡¯s hope that a certain someone doesn¡¯t notice." He sighed, and Benji nodded while handing the task of working the grill back to his grandfather. "Yeah, he¡¯s been shooting me all kinds of dirty looks all day. Any idea why?" Benji asked, and Benjamin slowly nodded, starting to feel angry again. "Mhm. I¡¯ll tell youter, don¡¯t worry." He responded with a slight smile before continuing to work on the food. Everything was all fine and dandy for a few hours, but after a while, Benjamin noticed something weird going on. Benjamin paid quite close attention to what everyone was drinking alcohol-wise because he didn¡¯t want anyone to get super drunk, but for some reason, one of the bottles of wine went missing. He asked around to see whether or not anyone saw anything, and the one that did end up being able to help Benjamin out was Samuel. "Hm, yeah, I saw two girls walk off with a bottle a little while ago, but I didn¡¯t see where they were going, and I wasn¡¯t sure if it was real wine." He exined before Benjamin sighed loudly, already having a feeling of who it was that took it. But since he wanted to make sure, he asked. "Did one of them have brown-blonde hair and the other colorfully dyed hair and nose and lip piercings?" He asked before Samuel thought for a little while and then nodded. "I think so, yeah. Sorry, if I had known that it was a wine, I would have said something." "No, no, you¡¯re fine," Benjamin reassured the young man in front of him, before swiftly continuing. "I just wish I had something like my ¡¯Truth-Seeing Eyes¡¯ skill in real life. Might make it easier to find them." He sighed with a slow chuckle before turning around, not noticing the grin that Samuel had on his face after hearing this old man say that. But even then, Benjamin had learned a trick or two from the game, through his constant focus on specific aspects of himself or the environment. That made it far easier for him to look for Sophia and Kim before they gotpletely wasted. After all, there weren¡¯t many teenage girls here beside the two of them, so their voices really stuck out if one managed to concentrate enough. And soon, Benjamin managed to hear the sounds of the two girls giggling not too far away, finding them at a somewhat hidden spot behind the house. And the girls weren¡¯t just drinking. Instead, they already emptied the bottle and didn¡¯t have anything left to drink. Instead, the girls were currently doing something else to get rid of their boredom. "Uhum." Benjamin coughed to get their attention, before Sophia and Kim immediately got startled and stopped making out, staring at the old man embarrassedly. "H-Hey Grampa, what are you doing here?" Sophia stuttered, struggling to stand up but managing to do so after a little while before Benjamin looked at her with a frown. "That¡¯s what I would like to know. Why the hell did you think stealing a whole bottle of wine was a good idea?" He angrily asked as he picked the bottle up from the ground before Kim slowly stood next to Sophia. "Sorry Mister Joyce, it was my idea... I shouldn¡¯t have-" She said, obviously a lot soberer than Sophia, before Benjamin raised his hand a bit to tell her to be quiet. "Yes, you shouldn¡¯t have. But it doesn¡¯t matter whose idea it was because both of you did it. Sophia,e inside with me andy down for a while before your father sees you." Benjamin said, stepping behind the girl before he tried to lead the girl to the front door so that the guests couldn¡¯t see Sophia drunkenly stumble around. But it seemed like Sophia herself had another idea. "No! Let him see me like this. I don¡¯t care anymore... I don¡¯t want to keep hiding who I am..." She muttered out with slurred speech before Benjamin sighed loudly and shook his head. "Mhm, if you still think like that tomorrow morning, I¡¯ll help you tell him, but not now while you¡¯re like this. It¡¯s only going to make the situation worse." Benjamin told his granddaughter, who continued vehemently shaking her head. "No, now!" She yelled as she ripped her arm away from her grandfather¡¯s hand and began running toward the party, while Benjamin immediately ran to follow her together with Kim. "Sophia, stop!" Benjamin yelled out before the girl herself got somewhat startled again as if she just hadn¡¯t been paying attention to what she was currently doing. And so, she quickly lost bnce and tripped over her own feet, mming right into the ground and scraping her knee open. Concerned for his granddaughter, Benjamin then kneeled in front of her and took a look at her slightly bleeding leg. "Damn it, Sophia, what are you doing? Be more careful." He said with a frown and helped Sophia up after making sure that she was alright, taking a look around to make sure that nobody noticed. But it seemed a bit toote, and the one that Benjamin wanted not to see this the most was, of course, the first one that did. "What¡¯s going on here? Sophia, what¡¯s wrong?" Michael asked as he ran up to them, taking a look at his daughter swaying left and right before noticing the bottle of wine in Benjamin¡¯s hand. "You didn¡¯t drink this, did you?" He yelled out, for the first time since getting therepletely losing his cool publicly as he ripped the empty ss bottle out of the old man¡¯s hand. Beginning to be scared, Sophia stared at her father and didn¡¯t do anything else, worried at what was going to happen. Before, she was saying things like this all wouldn¡¯t be an issue, but in the end, she didn¡¯t really manage to stand up to her father. So, Benjamin tried to get her out of this mess. "No, she didn¡¯t. Someone else left the bottle on the ground here, and Sophia tripped over it. She¡¯s just a little dizzy, so I would like to bring her inside and let her rest a bit." "The hell you will!" Michael answered immediately, hitting Benjamin¡¯s hand away from Sophia and pulling her over toward him. "I¡¯m not going to leave my daughter anywhere near a freak like you. Sophia, we¡¯re leaving." He said as he began to make his way toward the street where his car was standing, pulling his daughter after him as she was looking at Benjamin in confusion. "W-Wait, what do you mean?" She asked, trying to get her father to let go of her arm. "You¡¯re hurting me, please let go!" Sophia asked before Michael ground his teeth and continued walking, only grasping her arm tighter. "No, I won¡¯t let go! We¡¯re leaving immediately! That man, you were just standing next to is a disgusting creature. He¡¯s one of those Bi freaks!" As Michael yelled this, something seemed to snap inside of Sophia, and she angrily pulled her arm away from her father, who had gripped her hard enough that she began bleeding from the scratches that formed from the violent movement. "Don¡¯t you dare talk about Grandpa like that!" She yelled out in the loudest and most angry voice that Benjamin had ever heard her use, for the first time in her life standing up to this man in front of her. But he wouldn¡¯t have any of it. "What do you think you¡¯re doing? Are you really on the side of that thing right there?!" Michael asked with a nearly shrieking voice, before Sophia ripped her eyes open in even more anger, visibly holding herself back from attacking her father at this very moment. "What the fuck do you mean ¡¯that thing¡¯? Grandpa is a goddamn person, and a better one than you will ever be!" Immediately after she said this and some of the other guests started paying attention to the ruckus, Michael gripped Sophia¡¯s arm once more. "Don¡¯t you dare talk to your father that way! Your grandfather is an abomination of nature; doing such things isn¡¯t natural! A man and a woman, that¡¯s the only pair that God epts! That thing-" "Shut the fuck up!" Sophia yelled, turning around as she once more escaped her father¡¯s grasp, stepping up to Kim and immediately pressing her lips on the other girl¡¯s in front of all the onlookers before looking at her father and pulling Kim closer toward her. "Are you saying that I¡¯m a freak too? That I¡¯m unnatural? Are you fucking saying that?" Sophia defended herself as Kim¡¯s face turned a bright red out of embarrassment before Michael stared at his daughter as if his world just shattered. "You... you... That¡¯s your fault! You¡¯ve infected her, and now she¡¯s like this, right?!" Michael screamed out as he stared over at Benjamin, who stared back with a calm expression, so quiet that one might mistake him for being asleep. Ignoring everything else, Michael stepped up toward Sophia and raised his hand in preparation for something that Benjamin would never forgive. And so, Benjamin stood between the young girl and Michael, doing what thetter had nned to do to his daughter to him instead. As the surrounding grewpletely silent, Benjamin raised his arm and with a swift motion, he pped Michael with all the force he could muster, causing the man to stumble backward in a daze before dropping to the ground unconscious. As everyone was shocked and directly staring at what just happened there within a split second. Benjamin felt a pain stronger than anything he had felt in the past few years since his arm waspletely ruined by the burning hot coals in his forge and couldn¡¯t resist as the muscles in his arm began to tense up in a way that seemed to crush his bones. No matter what Benjamin¡¯s mindset was, in regards to his health, in the end, he was still a broken old man after all. Chapter 189 Laughter Everything around Benjamin was as if it was disappearing as he entered a daze caused by the immense pain in his arm. As he grasped it and spasmed up, the feeling of his fingernails boring into his skin was actually something that relieved his pain. But he had to ignore it for now as he stood back up and looked at Michael who already managed to regain his consciousness after being hit by Benjamin. "You... have to leave..." Benjamin muttered out and kneeled in front of Michael on the ground, staring deep into his eyes while the whole party stood behind the old man. And after all that Michael had said, it was indeed as if an entire army was now going against this one person, with not one person on Michael¡¯s side. With extreme anger, Benjamin ground his teeth and released his voice in a tone that he himself didn¡¯t recognize, since he hadn¡¯t been this angry in a long, long time. "Now." The old man said before Michael seemed to push himself up from the ground in a hurry, making his way over to the street backward as he stared at Benjamin. "Y-You¡¯re the devil...!" He yelled out before quickly turning around and sprinting to his car, while Melody was standing behind her father, holding her hand in front of her face as she began to cry, holding her daughter as she did as she defied her husband for the first time in a long while. As the blood from Benjamin¡¯s arm that appeared because he was grasping it too tightly ran down his arm and dropped onto the well-keptwn below him, the old man turned around and looked at his guests with a bright smile, showing his pearly white teeth. "Thank you foring, everyone. Sorry for this inconvenience, please continue to have fun for the rest of the day." He told them before the majority of the guests went back to the tent and continued as they were before, while those that were close to Benjamin stayed with him. "Christ, Benjamin... I didn¡¯t expect you to go that far. How about we go inside? I studied to be a doctor for a year or so, and I know a few tricks on how to relieve pain." Samuel said with a smile as he looked over toward the old man, as Benjamin nodded and followed him inside, walking past the whole party where some of them already began talking about this and that in regards to what just happened. Back inside, Benjamin¡¯s three children and six grandchildren sat next to him in worry while Samuel took a look at his arm. "I disinfected the areas you scraped open, don¡¯t use your arm for the rest of the day. You strained it too much, so if you continue using it, it¡¯ll just increase the pain far too much." He exined and wrapped the old man¡¯s arm in a wet towel that was put into the freezer for a little while just to cool it down. "And now to you. Sophia, right? You scraped your knee and have a few scratches on your arm, so let me take a look at that." Samuel said before the girl slowly nodded as her mother stood behind her. As Benjamin turned to his one and only daughter, "Melody, I think we need to talk about this. Do you think like him?" He asked straightforwardly before Melody immediately shook her head. "No, Dad, I don¡¯t... I don¡¯t, I just... I don¡¯t know why I always did what he wanted me to, but now, I won¡¯t anymore... I love Sophia how she is, and I can¡¯t stand the idea of that man being near her anymore after what just happened." She replied instantly, while still being somewhat reluctant despite her words. That did make sense, however. Even though an addict knows that the drugs they take are harmful to them, they continue to take them anyway. And Melody was addicted to Michael, so she couldn¡¯t possibly change her mind like that in a split second. "Good. Stay here as long as you need to figure out what to do." Benjamin said before leaning back in his chair, while Melody began to exin everything that happened today to those that didn¡¯t know in a way that let her keep it together the easiest. "Wait, so you kissed Kim in front of him?" Benji asked, taking that out of this conversation in the end, although he also seemed visibly angry at how Michael treated his sister, cousin, and grandfather. Melody deliberately left out the part where Michael called her brother Tony a criminal because she knew that he didn¡¯t want his children to know about it, and so the conversation continued after Benji¡¯s question. "Hm..? Oh, right... I did do that..." Sophia muttered out, only now realizing what she actually did back then while overtaken by the temper she inherited from her grandfather, while her face turned a bright shade of red. "In front of everyone... I kissed her... Why the hell did I do that..?" She asked herself while burying her face in her hands in embarrassment. "Well, maybe you should try to stay calm next time." Benjamin chuckled before everyone looked at him in surprise and expressions that tell him he was thest one that should say it. "Dad, you knocked Michael out with a p that nearly ruined your arm. Maybe ¡¯you¡¯ should stay calm next time." Tony pointed out before the old man sighed loudly and nodded with a wry smile, not having any choice but to admit that he overdid it. "Sorry I will be. I just couldn¡¯t hold myself back anymore. And otherwise, Michael would have hit Sophia, and I didn¡¯t want to let that happen." He exined, and Christie, a policewoman, spoke up. "I¡¯d say that was for defensive purposes anyway because Michael showed aggressive tendencies and was observed by many people to have prepared to strike Sophia. So you shouldn¡¯t have anything to worry about in that sense either." She exined, and Benjamin slowly nodded. "Thanks, Christie. That¡¯s good to know. Well, how about we go back outside? Better not leave the guests hanging." Benjamin suggested, and the rest of the group slowly stood up to make their way out toward the terrace, but Samuel seemed to have something he wanted to talk about, "Benjamin, stay here for a second." As he said this, Benjamin looked at Samuel in surprise, telling the others to go outside and he would join themter. "Sorry, you had to see all that, Samuel. That¡¯s not usually what happens at the parties I throw." The old man apologized before Samuel immediately shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry; I don¡¯t mind. But I meant to talk to you about something. We have five reserved spots for the Alpha phase that starts next Monday, but only you, Haruo and Andrew gave us a rmendation. Jasmin said she doesn¡¯t know anyone that she would want to give the spot to, and the only person that Nataly wanted to suggest was already in our list of people that were part of the Alpha-Phase. So, we still have some open spots and asked if anyone else wanted to give them out. Haruo and Andrew declined another rmendation, so I wanted to ask you as well if you know anyone else that you would like to y." Samuel exined before Benjamin thought about it for a little while, surprised, before concluding. "I¡¯d like Sophia to y, yes. I¡¯ll need to talk to her and my daughter about it first, though." Benjamin exined, thinking that this may be an excellent way for Sophia to lose some of the stress that she built up for a while before Samuel swiftly nodded. "Of course, it is. Tell me once you do. Ah, you¡¯re stilling by for that tour tomorrow, right?" "Of course! Thanks for that again, by the way." Benjamin said with a smile as the two of them also made their way back into the garden, before the young businessman simply smiled. "Oh, no need to thank me. Ever since we use the capsule technology for time dtion at work, I¡¯ve got a bunch of free time anyway." Samuel exined as he patted Benjamin on the back, as the old man looked over toward his family that was quietly sitting away from everyone else. Instead of sitting down with them, Benjamin made his way over to the smallke, orrge pond, while therge majority of the guests looked at Benjamin with the eyes that a curious crowd usually had and sat down on a chair on the pier instead. Since nobody else was there, watching the summer sun touch its reflection in the water. "Hey there, you old fart." A quiet voice muttered behind Benjamin, and it was nobody else other than the one person that may be able to cheer him up. One of his best friends, Alexander. With a smirk, Benjamin looked back at him. "Old Fart? Did you go senile and forget that you¡¯re older than me already?" He chuckled while still holding the cold towel against his arm, then seeing that Alexander had two sses and the bottle of whiskey that Benjamin wanted to drink with him in his hand before Alexander swiftly ignored his friend¡¯sment and continued. "I went ahead and grabbed this from the kitchen; I hope you don¡¯t mind. It seemed like you could use a drink." Slowly, Benjamin simply nodded and dly received the ss from his friend, who soon sat down next to him. "Thank you. Here, let me..." Benjamin wanted to say, seeing Alexander¡¯s shaky hands as he was trying to pour both of them a drink. "Don¡¯t you dare. You¡¯ve had a tough day, so let me at least pour you some, hm?" Alexander suggested, swatting away Benjamin¡¯s hand with the bottle. Quietly, Benjamin then watched as his friend poured him some of the Whiskey, before pouring some into his ss all the while his hands were intensely shaking. "Thanks." He replied with a smile as he took a light sip from the drink, continuing to stare into the still surface of the water. For around ten to fifteen minutes, the two of them simply did that, silently sitting there, every once in a while sipping on their sses. Only after a good bit did Alexander then speak up. "Just as I thought. Tastes pretty shitty, doesn¡¯t it?" He muttered before Benjamin looked over at him with a wry smile. "What are you talking about? This whiskey tastes amazing, and it should be your thing as well." "Hm? Oh, right. The drink itself is great, yes, but when someone next to me is making such a face, how can it taste good to me? So start smiling like always, will ya? You¡¯re ruining our possiblyst drink together." Alexander responded before Benjamin couldn¡¯t help, but for some reason, startughing frantically. He had no idea why, but he was. Maybe it was because he was so stressed, or because he somehow found what Alexander just said incredibly funny. Or perhaps it was because he had finally gone mad. Only after a good while did Benjamin manage to calm himself down, wiping the tears out of the corners of his eyes, unsure whether they were caused by himughing so much, or because he simply began sobbing. Either way, he was feeling a lot better now. "You¡¯re right, let¡¯s not waste our time." He smiled, continuing to look forward solely at the water, and the two of them were quiet for a few moments again, before Benjamin began to speak. And he didn¡¯t stop for a while either, he simply kept talking and talking, mainly about what had been happening in the game, the situation with Kirisho standing in the center of the story since it caused him the most stress out of everything that happenedtely. Chapter 190 Important Conversations Benjamin and Alexander continued talking for a while as they drank the Whiskey for a few hours until the first guests seemed to leave, so Benjamin, of course, made an effort to say goodbye to them. Soon, it was also time for Alexander and his family to leave, and around the same time, Samuel also decided it would be the right moment to head off. "Well, I¡¯ll see you tomorrow at 11 then," Samuel said with a smile before he made his way over to the Uber that would bring him to the train station, and Benjamin replied with a calm nod before sending this young man off. And then, after everyone was gone, Benjamin, his children, and his grandchildren now began to clean everything up, although they stopped after bringing loose things such as tableware and food into the house, deciding that they could take care of the tent and benches tomorrow. Once the four youngest kids were sent to bed, Benjamin sat down with his children as well as Sophia, Benji, and Kyle, since there were a few things to talk about. First, the issue of how long Melody, Kyle and Sophia would be staying with Benjamin. "Do you want to go home and talk to Michael? Sophia can stay here if she wants, and if Kyle¡¯s parents are okay with it, then-" Benjamin began before Kyle immediately shook his head. "I can¡¯t stay here longer than nned, and it was super hard to convince my father already." He exined quietly, and Benjamin slowly nodded. "I see... Melody, what will you do?" "I think I should go home at the end of the week and talk to Michael to figure things out... And I¡¯d prefer it if Sophia stayed here at that time because I¡¯m not sure what he would do. He was always pretty extreme like that, but he never got violent, and I¡¯m scared that he would do something to Sophia when we got home." Benjamin¡¯s daughter responded, feeling tired and confused at what happened today. "Alright. You can have the car if you need it since Michael took yours with him when he left." The old man answered before looking at Kyle. "Sorry that you had to be here for all of this, I hope you still had a somewhat fun time today." "Yes, I did have a lot of fun... don¡¯t worry!" Kyle reassured him, looking over at his best friend whose head was leaning against his shoulder tiredly. With a smile, Benjamin then looked at precisely that friend with a smirk. "Well, Sophia, I have something to ask you. And I know Benji is inevitably going toin, but Samuel told me that I could give out another rmendation. Would you like to y the game from next Monday forward with Benji and me?" He asked before the tiredness in Sophia¡¯s whole body immediately disappeared as she jumped up. "What?!" She and Benji asked at the same time before thetter of those two spoke up first. "Wait, didn¡¯t you give this to me as a graduation gift?" "Yes, yes, of course. But Sophia is going to be a ¡¯Senior¡¯ thising school year and so her graduation isn¡¯t too far away. So I¡¯ll also make this an early graduation gift for her, on top of which I¡¯d have her help me out here and there in the game while you can go off and do whatever." Benjamin exined, which Benji seemed to ept, while Sophia waspletely freaking out. "Holy fucking shit, yes!" She yelled out before Melody deeply frowned as she looked at her daughter. "Sophia,nguage! And Dad, really? You want her to y that game with you? But you¡¯re doing that constantly, and I don¡¯t think that would be good for Sophia. She should go out and socialize with people at her age instead, right?" She asked, concerned, apparently really trying to make an effort to learn why Benjamin liked the game so much before the old man exined why it was so great. "But that¡¯s exactly the thing! In the game, time is sped up, so an hour in real life will feel like four hours in there. Even if she were only to y while sleeping at night, she would have a lot of extra time on her hands that she could spend with friends. If others from her school y as well, then she could even work on school projects with them inside the game. And even though I¡¯m calling it a game, it doesn¡¯t feel like it is, it just seems like I¡¯m actually there, with a much more sturdy and healthier body. Also, if something like today might happen where Sophia should get the idea to drink, if she¡¯s going to do that inside the game, it won¡¯t affect her health in the slightest, because that¡¯s not her real body. It only has good parts, in my opinion." Benjamin exined while Melody was thinking about it for a while. "Fine, I¡¯ll allow it. But you have to stick to your grandfather while you¡¯re ying it, okay? If it is as realistic as he says it is, then I don¡¯t want you running around on your own." Melody said before Sophia immediately nodded. "Of course! Thank you grampa!" Sophia yelled out, only a slight bit drunk after resting for a few hours, making her way over to Benjamin to hug him. "No problem, then. The capsules will arrive next Sunday or early Monday morning, and they¡¯ll be set up by a crew. You can set up your Virtual Desktop before then and familiarize yourself with everything a bit." Benjamin exined and then continued to tell them about what will happen when the game starts and how they will be able to customize their characters. Once that was done, the three teenagers made their way to their beds, with Benji and Sophia incredibly excited while Kyle was a bit jealous that they were able to y a week earlier than him. And now, Benjamin was alone with Tony, Melody, Natsuo, and Christie. They continued talking about some of the more severe aspects of what happened that day, mentioning things that needed to be said. Like divorce, or therapy for Melody and Sophia, since both of them seemed to be struggling with a lot of things. And then obviously about Melody moving if she and Michael split up, and where they could go that was safe for them. Michael was a very controlling person, after all, so nobody expected him to ¡¯let it happen,¡¯ primarily due to his immense religious beliefs that went against getting a divorce as well. After a good while, it was time for them to get to bed as well, and so, Benjaminid down in his capsule and began to y the game. --- Slowly, Eisen stood up from the bed he wasying in and saw almost everyone from his and the other originals¡¯ groups standing in the room and talking to each other. Eisen logged in at a quitete time in real life, so it was around noon when he woke up in the game, meaning that they had to make their way over to the Church for the fight soon enough. "Ah, Eisen! There you are!" Brody eximed, already wearing the Mythril-tedbat gloves that the old man made for him. With a smile, Eisen stood up and slowly nodded, greeting therge group as he helped Caria and Melissa stand up from the bed. "Good morning, everyone." Eisen greeted them, and Brody smiled brightly. "Man, these gloves are damn great, gotta admit. Usually, I prefer fighting with weapons, but these gloves make up for theck of reach and the increased danger." He exined, leaving Eisen to do nothing but chuckle happily. "Well then, I¡¯m d to hear that. Once I have the time, I¡¯ll make some more weapons for you, and it¡¯s going to be a good chance to gaining proficiency at many skills since you can use a lot of different weapons." Eisen exined with a smile, looking around the room as he did before inevitablyughing. "Although I think that is also going to happen just because everyone here has a quite different skillset, huh?" He said with a grin on his face before Brody began tough a bit as well. "Hah, definitely! Well, go ahead and eat something for now and then we¡¯ll head over to the church." The Demon-Orc said before the old man nodded and chose to do just that, being apanied not only by Caria and Melissa but also Komer and Kiron who both wanted to report to him. After sitting down in the restaurant and ordering, Komer immediately began with just that. "So, Eisen... The sales went really, really well. We sold out a lot quicker each day, and now we only have enough items for another two or three days. I¡¯m not selling anything today, because of what¡¯s going on at the church. Oh, and there were some custom orders this time as well, three to be exact. One was for a Pyromancy-concentrated staff, one for an Aquamancy-concentrated wand, and then one was a bit tooplex for me. I couldn¡¯t tell to what extent it was possible, so the customer gave me his contact information and I told him we would reach out." The young merchant exined as he showed Eisen his notebook where he wrote down the expenses and earnings of the past few days, which the old man quickly looked over with a satisfied nod. "I see, thank you. I¡¯ll look into it after we get through today." Eisen gratefully said before he looked at the Half-Dragon Knight sitting next to him. "Seems like you want to tell me about something as well?" Immediately, Kiron nodded and began to speak. "Yes. We went to the church a few times to see the situation there, and it seems like, despite the people currently working and living in the facilities not having to leave just yet, the staff has already been reced." With a frown, Eisen nodded. "I see, I thought so. In that case, things may get quite troublesome after we win." He muttered, wholly convinced that Brody would never lose in a one on one fight. He watched some of his matches on TV before, and Brody was known never to lose even a single time, and in tournaments, Brody was known for never even letting the opponent get a hit in before the finals. "If they already have recements, then I¡¯m not sure how well it will go throwing those recements out. Say, I was wondering, how important is a church for a town?" Eisen asked, feeling a bit troubled because he wasn¡¯t sure what to do, but got a small idea in this regard. Surprised, Kiron thought for a while before exining. "Well, I¡¯m not sure if it may all be superstition, but it¡¯s said that a town will gain some benefits from churches. For example, since this town mainly puts their faith in Krogh the God of Magic, it¡¯s said that it is easier to learn magic, while the natural mana in this town is a lot purer and as such magic rted to using already present mana is more effective. In a town that believes in Abel, the God of Harvest, exactly that harvest is said to be more abundant, and the harvested produce is more nutritious and delicious. But as I said, these may be superstitions, and I don¡¯t know much more than this anyway." He exined before Eisen slowly nodded. "I see... I think I will ask the head priest at the church then. I¡¯m sure he should know." Eisen said, happy about the information he got from Kiron before starting to enjoy the food that just arrived. Not too long after this, Eisen stood up, and he, the two monster girls, Kiron and Komer made their way back to their room to meet with the rest and make their way to the church for the duel. Chapter 191 Brodys Duel "Alright everyone, let¡¯s go, shall we?" Eisen asked with a slight smile as he looked at therge group in front of them before they all then made their way toward the church that was a little bit of a walk away. On their way there, Brody began to tell the old man a bit about what he managed to find out about the ¡¯Champion¡¯ he would be fighting against, "There are a few different people that I might face today, though I don¡¯t know who it¡¯s gonna end up being. Xenia told me that a regr Mage isn¡¯t great for a 1v1, so it can only be one of two people. One guy that¡¯s called a ¡¯Fiery Berserker,¡¯ and one that¡¯s called the ¡¯sh Swordsman.¡¯ It seems that¡¯s what their upations are, so we have a rough idea what their fighting styles are." The Demon-Orc exined, before quickly continuing. "The problem is their level. Apparently, we level up more easily, right? And the Lord, or rather the adviser, maybe underestimating us, but even then,batants that spent their whole life training and fighting must be pretty high-level, right?" Slowly, Eisen shook his head, unsure whether this was the case. "Maybe not. As you said, we level up more easily for sure. The majority of people I¡¯ve met are below level 100. You¡¯re at 148 right now, correct? They might not be that far away. But I¡¯m not sure. I¡¯ll inspect them with my ¡¯truth-seeing eyes¡¯ and let you know, don¡¯t worry. You will at least have a rough idea of their strength then." Eisen told him, looking around to make sure nobody that wasn¡¯t supposed to could see him, before activating his demonic transformation since they were getting quite close to the church. "Thanks. I doubt I¡¯ll lose anyway because there are still a lot of ways to overpower an opponent that¡¯s much stronger than you." Brody said with a smirk, quickly continuing as he showed his tusks in a wide grin. "Actually, I¡¯m kind of excited about that." He chuckled as he thought about the fact that the people here in this game world could be much stronger than humanly possible in the real world, and that¡¯s precisely that fact turned this all into a whole new realm ofbat along the lines of what one could usually only see in movies. "Don¡¯t worry; I¡¯m positive that you would never lose in a one on one," Eisen said with a smile as he moved his hand through his beard before the group reached the church, where quite a few people had already gathered. The first ones that came up to the group were Eisen¡¯s three apprentices. "Hello there, you three. I hope you managed to prepare for today properly." The old man told them, before they all quickly nodded, albeit while being a bit nervous about what was going to happen today. "Yes, we did... But Eisen, are you sure this is a good idea?" Rouge asked concerned, before Eisen nodded, leaving Koro to smile as if that answer was obvious. "Of course, Rouge! Take a look at Eisen, someone with a stature like him must also be skilled atbat! And you know who he really is, so-" Koro eximed, quite clearly trying to suck up to Eisen a little bit after his failure during the tests, but was quickly interrupted by precisely the person that he wanted to impress. "Koro, I¡¯m not the one that will do the fighting. My friend here will." Eisen exined, holding his hand toward Brody who was standing next to him. "I thought I mentioned something that I wouldn¡¯t be fighting?" Eisen thought to himself, while Koro scratched his cheek embarrassedly, while Parc opened his eyes in surprise as he noticed something. "He¡¯s wearing the gloves you made!" He eximed before Eisen nodded his head with lightughter. "Yes, I made them for him, after all." The old man told his apprentices before they all made their way further toward the church, where the Lord was already waiting with the man that probably was his adviser next to him. Once Eisen activated his mana-sight, he could immediately tell that Xenia was 100 percent correct with her deduction that he was not a good person in the slightest. The reason for him knowing that was quite simple. The Adviser¡¯s mana was wholly and utterly pitch-ck, so much that Eisen wasn¡¯t even able to see through it. So, he turned over to Xenia, who was wearing the mana-optics with a deep frown. "Xenia." He said before the High-Elf immediately understood what Eisen was trying to say as she nodded. "That¡¯s him. And it¡¯s just as I thought..." Xenia said, while Eisen nodded and walked up to the Lord with a deep frown together with Brody, while the rest stayed a little bit away to let the two of them talk everything out. "There you are, Demon," Zaran said as he crossed his arms with a deep frown, and Eisen nodded slowly. "Yes, here we are. Here is the one that will be fighting in my stead." He exined and Zaran looked over to a guard standing next to him. "Get everything ready, and tell Pr toe out." Hemanded, and Eisen looked over toward Brody, who was smirking lightly. "So it¡¯s the Fiery Berserker, huh?" He said, surprising Eisen at first since the name ¡¯Pr¡¯ said anything else but ¡¯Fiery,¡¯ although Eisen understood the Berserker¡¯s name when he saw him. He was a tall man, around the same height as Eisen, who had white fur growing all around his face and on his arms as well as two round ears on his head, which made Eisen guess that he was a Pr-Bear Beastperson. "Yes, it is the Fiery Berserker indeed. We have arranged a small spot behind the church, and then the duel will start as overseen by a Priest of Gonor." The Lord exined as he turned around and the small crowd, mostly made up of the inhabitants of the different church-facilities, followed behind. It seemed like they built a small ¡¯arena¡¯ thereby digging arge pit using earth-magic, which they were still working on, and strengthened it a bit by then turning the walls and ground into t rock-surfaces. "We will begin in 30 minutes prepare; however, you wish until then," Zaran exined, and then Eisen and Brody made their way into the pit to do just that. "Alright, do you need any help with anything? Like warming up?" Eisen asked before Brody slowly shook his head. "Not really, thanks though. But you can help me with tactics. As I said, I couldn¡¯t really see that much magic up until now, so it would be pretty helpful if you can give me some pointers." Brody asked before Eisen slowly nodded before he looked over to the other side of the pit, where Pr was already standing, leaning against the wall. Using his ¡¯Truth-Seeing-Eyes,¡¯ Eisen then made the basic information of the Beastperson appear. [Pr] [Race - Beastperson (Pr-Bear)][upation - Fiery Berserker][Level - 213] "Hmm, it¡¯s a bigger difference than I thought. Your opponent¡¯s level 213 right now. And as expected, his mana has a light red tint to it, so it¡¯s Fire Element Mana. Although, it¡¯s somewhatyered, and there¡¯s a thinyer of blue-ish mana in the center... It looks kind of like Dien¡¯s Frost-Mana. I think he may have a pretty special element." Eisen exined before Brody smirked excitedly. "So he has both Fire and Ice?" He asked, and Eisen nodded. "I think so. At least he doesn¡¯t have a regr monotone magic element, so you should watch out." "For sure, don¡¯t worry," Brody responded, and the two of them began strategizing at least a little bit, and soon enough, it was time for the Duel to start. So, Eisen made his way out of the pit before a Priest began to speak. "Under the eyes of the God of Combat Gonor, I now announce this to be a fair Duel between Brody and Pr. Outside actions that benefit either of these two will cause the individual benefitted an instant disqualification. No potions of any kind are allowed in this Duel. However, all types of abilities are allowed. Due to both parties allowing it, both brought their individually owned equipment. If Brody wins, the Golden-Eyed Demon is allowed to decide the fate of this church. As well as Lord Zaran, If Pr is to win, Lord Zaran will banish those that supported the Demon from this town." The Priest summed up in a manner that was quite different from what happened during the Duel that Eisen himself was a part of back in Melroe. As Eisen was thinking this, the priest continued. "This Duel will end if either party gives up or is unable to continue fighting. If either party kills the other within this fight, it means immediate disqualification for the former. This Duel will begin once this de touches the ground." As the Priest said this, he held his hand forward and summoned a golden ornamental sword, which seemed to be the Symbol of Gonor, before it hovered above the pit. Slowly, the Priest began to count down as both Brody and Pr got ready, thetter moving his fingers around to ready his hands with his thick gauntlets, one deep red and one light blue. And as the countdown reached zero, the sword dropped down into the pit and the moment it hit the rocky ground, the two duelists jumped forward as the sword disappeared into nothingness. While Brody seemed to move throughpletely pure physical force, although Eisen and the others from his group knew that this was done through the support of his Yang Energy, Pr used mes to propel himself forward, and as the two of them met in the center of the pit, they both swung their fists forward. The moment they met, a small shockwave could be felt as it shot outward throughout the area as shards of ice flew around and stuck to the rock walls. Surprisingly enough, Brody managed to keep up when it came to physical force, although this made sense when one thought about it. Brody had a type of energy that inwardly strengthened him, as well as two racial skills that increased his physical prowess, and was primarily focused on his physical stats, while Pr also had an increase to his mental stats and had an element that was used to create fire or ice outwardly. Because of these facts, their current physical strength seemed to be somewhat matched. But since Pr had his unique element, he managed to turn it to his favor quite quickly. Immediately after the first encounter, Brody¡¯s arm was covered in ice that immediately restrained him, but in turn, the Beastperson was pushed backward a slight bit. Using his mes, he shot forward once more and manipted his body mid-air to give a roundhouse-kick Brody. However, Brody didn¡¯t let that happen. Pr seemed to have focused on Strength and Endurance in regards to his physical stats, and his Agility was apparently quite low, as Brody¡¯s increased movement speed through his skill and his energy helped him see through his opponents¡¯ movement quite easily. So, Brody punched Pr¡¯s leg as it moved downward with his Yin Energy faced in the opposite direction that the leg was moving, causing a strong force to counteract the speed and slow him down to a halt. Of course, since Pr was moving with the help of his mes, he soon sped up again, but at that point Brody already grabbed onto Pr¡¯s leg and swung therge man¡¯s body forward,pletely mming him into the ground, causing cracks to form through the impact. Immediately afterward, Pr froze the ground underneath himself and Brody to mess up his opponent¡¯s footing, before the Beastperson then twisted his body in a circr motion once more supported by his mes. This force threw Brody away toward the wall, which was supported by a strong kick from the leg that Brody was hanging onto as he lost his grip because Pr¡¯s leg entirely iced up, making Brody slide right off. But instead of letting himself hit the rock wall, Brody managed to twist his body mid-air so that his feet would touch the wall first, allowing him to reduce the force of the impact and then immediately jump off the wall back toward Pr before Brody turned this fight to his favor. Chapter 192 End of the Duel But therge Beastperson already stood up and prepared for defense and offense at the same time as he swung his hand enveloped with mes forward, expecting the force of the explosion that was about to happen to damage Brody enough to at least cause an opening to appear. But instead of the two fists impacting as Pr had expected, Brody slowed his body down mid-air by thrusting his open palm forward and as such messed up Pr¡¯s timing. As this was the case, Pr¡¯s mes shot forward before the impact and the Bear-Person couldn¡¯t absorb the shock from Brody¡¯s punch with his own body, so the shock wave that was now freely in the air overpowered the mes and caused them to shoot back onto their wielder. Of course, this didn¡¯t do much damage to Pr, since they were his mes, but it was enough to cause the opening that the Fiery Berserker had hoped to appear in Brody to affect in his own body, which his opponent used the moment that he saw it. After slowing his body down to a halt with his Yin energy that Brody used to increase the strength of his feet¡¯s impact with the ground, he used precisely that increased impact to move the counter-shock that traveled through his body into one leg with the use of Yang Energy, and then shot it outward down into the ground with Yin energy, as such shooting one of his legs upward in a copy of Pr¡¯s move. And once Brody¡¯s leg hit the bare shoulder of his opponent, the Demon-Orc used a trick that he figured out not too long ago. He transferred the Yang Energy from inside his body into Pr¡¯s with Yin Energy as a conductor, allowing immediate internal damage thatpletely ignored Pr¡¯s defense. As the giant Berserker stumbled, trying to regain proper footing, Brody stopped for a second as well so that he could use this chance to breathe and think as he started to execute part of his strategy that he thought up with Eisen. "Heh, really? Is this all you can do, big guy?" Brody asked with a grin as he looked at Pr, who ground his teeth and prepared to activate some of his skills. The first thing that happened was that he began to transform, with his skin turning ice-like while a thinyer of mes covered him all over. "Shut it, runt," Pr muttered as his body bulged up after activation of his racial skill that made his body more bear-like. Causing fur to sprout all over his body while also making him a lot taller and broader in general, while he also activated his ¡¯Berserk Skill,¡¯ causing his eyes to turnpletely red as he stepped forward and immediately sped up. It wasn¡¯t like Brody wasn¡¯t expecting this, and as such activated the second of his upation Skills, Weapon Strengthening, which for a short period enveloped any weapon one was using at the moment in an aura that directly strengthened, and even slightly physically changed it. In this case, it did so with the gloves he was wearing and as such supported the enchantments that Eisen put on them. And the form-change that happened was a peculiar one. It seemed to merge with Brody¡¯s skin and flesh directly and caused the enchantments to slightly ¡¯crawl¡¯ up the skin on his arms. Not being able to stop smiling, Brody jumped forward toward Pr, right before impact manipted his energy to channel it through his hand and causing a strong force to twist his body around his towering opponent. Despite his opponent gaining a massive boost to his stats, he wasn¡¯t able to keep up with Brody¡¯s speed, and before he knew it, he was being yed with for a good while. Brody concentrated on evading with the help of his body and the strong impulses caused by his energy together with the gloves he was wearing, for a simple reason. He wanted to tire Pr out. Brody wasn¡¯t cocky enough to think that he was able topletely overpower a strength-focused opponent with a muchrger build than his own and incredible stamina. Of course, maybe he would be able to throw Pr to the ground, but due to the Beastperson¡¯s extremely high endurance stat, that would probably not be enough actually to do much. And since Brody could only win by making Pr unable to continue fighting or making him give up, he had to find a way to make sure that he couldn¡¯t fight back anymore, which couldn¡¯t be done by conventional means. What Brody was hoping for during this evasion-based period was to make Pr¡¯s skills run out, since they couldn¡¯t possibly have an infinite duration, while also making him drain his mana as much as possible. And it definitely seemed to work, since soon, Pr was definitely slowing down as his skills one after another stopped working, and thergebatant used up arge amount of his stamina due to to the Berserk skill¡¯s properties that made every action cost double times of what it usually would while only increasing the physical abilities by 50%. Of course that was an immense increase, but Brody knew what he was dealing with, and as such he acted ordingly. And now, Brody did something that would hopefully finish Pr off, a move that was hard to set yourself up for but was incredibly effective againstrge and sturdy opponents. While continuing to run around Pr to confuse him, the Bear-Beastman hit his limit for his transformation as he used too much mana, as such needing to de-activate it before he passed out. But even then, it still made him somewhat dizzy, and now that he didn¡¯t have a literal ming aura around him and was easier to grab on to, Brody began the setup for his finishing-move. When he stood behind Pr, Brody jumped into the air, something he avoided doing up until now precisely so that Pr wouldn¡¯t expect it, and tried to make sure he wouldnd directly on Pr¡¯s shoulders. Of course, Brody¡¯s opponent didn¡¯t just let him sit there and began to tightly grip his legs and tried to get rid of him, but at this point, Brody already slung his legs around Pr¡¯s neck and wouldn¡¯t let go. And now, Brody focused his energy in his palms and at the same time swung both of them against Pr¡¯s ears while once more doing what he did before, pouring his Yang Energy into Pr¡¯s body with Yin Energy as a conductor to ignore the majority of his defense. This immense force was enough for Brody to finish this fight, as Pr was slowly staggering back and forth after Brody jumped off of his shoulders before Pr finally mmed down onto the ground face downward. First, there was some silence amongst the onlookers as they tried to grasp what just happened, while the Priest that was supervising this duel held his hand forward. "This Duel has ended! Pr is unable to continue fighting. Under the Authority of Gonor, I announce Brody, the winner!" He yelled out so that everyone could hear. As Eisen helped Brody out of the pit and looked over to the other side, where the Lord was staring at them in surprise and confusion, while the Adviser simply stood behind him with a calm, almost bored, expression as if he really just did not care about any of what was going on in the slightest. "Good job, Brody. I knew you could do it." Eisen said with a smile before the Demon-Orc Halflingughed. "Of course, don¡¯t think I¡¯m gonna lose to some simple-minded guy like him. He may be strong, but technique-wise, he was pretty easy to see through." Brody exined before Eisen hit his back with a grin. "Well, either way, I owe you one for this." He told this young man next to him before making his way over to the Lord with a light smile. "Now then, Zaran. I think you owe me one. How about you and I go somewhere and privately settle this matter?" Eisen suggested, trying to cause a setup where he and Zaran would be alone to talk to each other about everything. Slowly, Zaran nodded before they made their way somewhere a little bit away until Eisen looked at the Guards and the Adviser that Eisen brought. "Could you please leave? I prefer to talk to Zaran alone." Eisen, in his Demonic form, asked with a slight smile before Zaran nodded at his guards and they stepped away. As Caria and Melissa stayed together with the other Originals, so now it was only Zaran, his Adviser, and Eisen, as well as Kirisho who was currently in her amulet to listen in, in case something was about to happen and possibly defend Eisen, since she was quite powerful. Only after Zaran spoke to his Adviser for a bit did the Adviser end up leaving as well, while Zaran had a bitter look on his face. "Alright Eisen, you can stop and get rid of that transformation now. And don¡¯t think I didn¡¯t notice that Spirit you have with you." Zaran immediately said before Eisen nodded lightly and looked at the amulet in his hand. "Kirisho, could you pleasee out? Oh, and please create something that obstructs the sight of outside people, if possible." Eisen asked with a smile before Mist poured out of the gem in the amulet and first formed a simple sphere around the two of them, that not only obstructed the sight but also any sound from traveling through it, as Kirisho appeared next to Eisen with a smile on her face. "Of course. It¡¯s a pleasure to meet you, Lord Zaran. My name is Kirisho, one of Eisen¡¯srades." She exined so that there would be no confusion before Zaran frowned deeply. "A Comrade?" "Yes, arade," Eisen clearly answered as he disabled his transformation to show his true self to the Lord in front of him. "Either way, it seems you inspected us with your ¡¯Truth-Seeing-Eyes,¡¯ considering that you know my name now." "Yes, I did. Now, hurry up and tell me what you want. Want to be the Lord of this town? Want me to keep funding the church?" Zaran asked before Eisen shook his head with a smile. "Quite on the contrary. You can keep being a Lord, and I would like your assistance with something else rted to the church. Anyway, first, I would like to know why you have an Adviser with such wicked mana that he even scares away spirits." Surprised, Zaran seemed to calm down a bit after hearing that answer, before slowly nodding. "You know my brother, don¡¯t you? How much do you know about him?" "Not too much, just that he¡¯s a merchant that deals with seemingly anything. For example, the experience of the five that peaked." Eisen said before Zaran ripped his eyes open widely before instinctively looking around to see if anyone heard what Eisen said. "How do you know about that?" He eximed, hoping that the mist around them honestly stopped the sound from their conversation before Eisen stared at the man in front of him. "Your brother told me about it," Eisen answered, letting Zaran look back at him confused before he continued. "Just believe me with this. Fact is that I know about it. I know that your brother is part of the faction of dragons following Kotam, while you¡¯re part of the faction following Trygan. And I managed to guess that your Adviser is someone that your brother Antonio, or someone connected to him in some way, sent here to keep an eye on you, and probably has something to keep you under control." Eisen summed up, before Zaran simply nodded, not able to deny anything at this point anymore. "Yes, that¡¯s quite urate. I¡¯ll tell you about what¡¯s going on." Chapter 193 Path of Yin and Yang And so, Zaran began to speak as only him, Eisen and Kirisho were inside of the capsule of mist that made sure they could talk without interference. "My brother is the ck sheep of the family. He was supposed to inherit the position of Lord, but after seeing his character, my father chose me instead. Antonio didn¡¯t like that. He freaked out and began to turn to the rather evil side of things, siding with the dragons following Kotam, and as you said, using his connections to help them steal the experience of the five that peaked. And with the power he gained through all of this, he not only stole a Town Core from a town in the east to found his own but also sent Pil¨¦, my current adviser here so that he could rule over Handor. Anyway, Pil¨¦¡¯s level is higher than 300, and he has a corrupted version of the shadow element which he uses to keep my family as hostages in the castle to control me." He exined while Eisen listened carefully before the old man slowly nodded. "I see. So it was like we thought. And why is it that you¡¯re using the ¡¯Golden-Eyed-Demon¡¯ as an excuse to send everyone in this church away?" Eisen asked, and Zaran looked at the ground bitterly. "Pil¨¦, he... He¡¯s trying to use this town for some experiments... And for that, young or weak people are the easiest to use, so the facilities here at the church are just the perfect test site for him. I found out about everything without him knowing, so he couldn¡¯t tell me not to send them away without revealing his n, which he isn¡¯t allowed to do apparently. So please, just let me banish them..." Zaran asked with a profoundly sorrowful expression before Eisen looked back at him. "You don¡¯t need to worry. I¡¯ll try and take the people with me. Mypanions and I are nning to make our way to a particr ind-group soon to found a town, and a town is nothing without people living there, now is it? And herees what I¡¯m asking of you after your side lost the duel. One, you will help me find and gather materials for arge ship we will build, as well as provide an open spot in the harbor where we can do just that. Then, you will help us get supplies for the trip as well. We will make all the transactions through my friend, a young merchant, who I want to gain proficiency for his trading skill, so you only need to be there to get us better deals. Once we found the town, you will sign a trade contract with us under fair terms. Andstly, you will give us all the information about your brother and this Pil¨¦ that you can, so that we can assist you with fighting back against them." Surprised, Zaran stared at this old man in front of him. He thought that Eisen would have asked him to give up his position as lord and keep everyone from the church here in town, but what he suggested instead was quite perfect for him. Since Eisen was a champion of Aylrentyrth like himself, Zaran knew that he was a right and just person and would probably end up protecting them when they went with him. He had stalwartpanions as well, seeing how that man from before managed to beat a Berserker fifty levels higher than him with what one can only call ease. And then there was even Xenia with him, the woman that everyone in this town knew about already despite her only being here for a few months and has shown to be extremely capable. If Eisen truly just wanted simple guidance like this, Zaran had no possible way toin about it, so he nodded. "Yes, I will do all of that. But we will need to postpone me, giving you the information about Antonio and Pil¨¦, it will look suspicious to keep talking for too long, especially because of this mist. We will need to meet again soon anyway, so juste to the castle when you can, we will talk there." Zaran informed the old man in front of him, who nodded with a light smile before activating his transformation again and told Kirisho to deactivate the mist and hide in the amulet for a short while again. "Then thank you for your cooperation, Zaran," Eisen said with a smile before he stepped up to the crowd that was waiting patiently to find out what was going on before the Demon stood in front of them and began to speak. "Everyone, thank you foring and watching what happened. Zaran and I came to an understanding just now. There are certain reasons that even I could not deny why you need to leave this town." He exined before everyone stared at Eisen in confusion and worry at what was going on before the old man continued. "But don¡¯t worry. I will take it upon myself to make sure you won¡¯t lose anything. I want you all toe with me to a new ce, where we can all hopefully be happy. It will be a lot of hard work, and it¡¯s a long time away, but even then, it will pay off in the end, I promise you. I will protect you, I will make sure that you are safe every step along the way, and I will give you a ce where you all belong. So please, put your trust in this old man ande with me to find your Haven." Eisen eximed in a speech that he knew his grandchildren would start cringing out of embarrassment for, which precisely was what the four other originals, as well as Komer, were doing, but Eisen knew that this kind of thing was exactly what the people here needed. For a while, it was quite silent while everyone was trying to figure out what to do, but soon enough, the first person stepped forward. It was Noa, the Nun of the Goddess of Love Reah, who had helped Eisen out a lot during his time at this church. "I trust you, and I will follow you." She eximed, before one after another, the young children ran up to Eisen as well, followed by the teenagers and then the nuns and priests, before even some of the homeless did so, telling Eisen that they will work their asses off if they can help in some way. And with this as a trigger, something happened that Eisen was waiting for, [You have sessfully made 100 people fully trust in you while using your ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ Form] [+5 CHA] [You were already walking on the Path of Yin and now stepped onto the Path of Yang. You can now choose between three things] -[Stay on the Path of Yin] -[Switch to the Path of Yang] -[Step onto the Path of Yin and Yang] Immediately, Eisen widely grinned as he looked at these notifications, first inspecting each choice to make sure he was doing the right thing. [Path of Yin] The Path of Evil, which requires you to use fear like a weapon and dominate those around you [Path of Yang] The Path of Good, which requires you to help others and be epted by them [Path of Yin and Yang] The Path of Bnce. It is much harder to walk here than on both othersbined, and it will be a travel of hardship and beauty alike. And now, Eisen needed to think just briefly. Obviously, he wouldn¡¯t choose the Path of Yin, but the Path of Yang was quite interesting to him. It would allow him to do the good that he wanted to do and be rewarded by it by the system, but Eisen was much more interested in the Path of Yin and Yang, for the simple reason that Eisen understood that he was neither apletely good person nor apletely bad person. He may want to help others with every chance that he gets, but Eisen had an incredible temper, and there was a reason why he ended up on the Path of Yin in the first ce. So, Eisen didn¡¯t need to overthink any longer as he chose the Path of Bnce. [You have chosen to walk the Path of Yin and Yang, epting the hardships thate with it] [Golden-Eyed Demon Title description changed] [Special Title] Golden-Eyed Demon [Description] This is an iplete title. You have been recognized as such by the popce, but you have not yet been acknowledged to be a True Demon by the world. Specific Goals have to be achieved in order to be a true Demon that walks on the Path of Yin and Yang [Goals To Be Completed] -Make 5000 People feel strong emotions of any kind (187/5000) -Be a King -Ascend to the Heavens and fall to Hell -Be Acknowledged by the Gods of the Heavens and the Underworld alike -Reach Level 300 [Goals Already Completed] -Complete your Demonic Form [Effect] It is easier to induce strong emotions With a smile, Eisen waved these notifications away, d that he managed to change the path he was walking on as a Demon, but at the same time, he noticed that something was going on. Something about Eisen¡¯s transformed body was changing much in the same manner as it was when hepleted his Demonic Form. The first thing that Eisen noticed was that he heard cracking sounds wereing from his head as a thinyer dropped off of his horns, and his eyes began to feel a slight bit hotter, ufortably so, as the world around him gained color despite the fact that he was supposed to have his ¡¯truth-seeing eyes¡¯ active. Not only that, but the mes underneath his rock-skin slowly turned golden and his wings also changed again and seemingly became even more fitting to his body as they changed their shape. Surprised, the people that gathered in front of Eisen looked at him as the old Demon grinned, looking over toward his friends once the slight change to his body stopped before Xenia stepped up to him and drew something in the air. Her motions were mirrored from his position, but Eisen could still see that she was drawing an enchanting circle to create a thin mirror so that the old man could look at himself. What he saw when the t reflective surface then actually appeared in front of him was a quite small but powerful change. The horns on the top of his head had changed to look as if they were made of solid gold, while his eyes had changed as well. Before, even the whites of his eyes were golden due to the golden mes covering them, but that wasn¡¯t the case anymore. Now, he once more had standard whites, and only his iris had changed to be entirely unique. They seemed simr to his normal eyes in the ¡¯truth-seeing eyes¡¯ mode, just that they acted like mes, waving around like a simple 2D animation of golden fire. Eisen tried to activate his ¡¯truth-seeing eyes¡¯ skill on top of this, and while his eyes didn¡¯t change outwardly, he was able to use his skill like normal. It was just that he was now able to see the world like normal when in this form. Together with the fact that not only his mes also turned golden, but his full-body enchantments were also filled out with a gold-like substance now, this allpleted an image that Eisen liked quite a bit. "Well, then. For now, you will all stay here within this church¡¯s facilities for a little while. I will return in about a week, and then we will begin the construction of an important project. Please do your best to support me then." Eisen asked with a smile before he made his way away from the church grounds so that he could meet a particr dragon whose trial he had just finished. Chapter 194 Growth "Alright everyone, I¡¯ll be on my way real quick then. Kiron, Caria, and Melissa will being with me like always." Eisen told the others once they reached the vicinity of the Inn and deactivated his demonic transformation before he looked at the amulet in his hand. "Oh, and Kirisho as well, of course. I doubt that Ailren or Bol would mind hering along." The old man said with a smile as the Mist-Woman appeared next to him with a slight nod. "We¡¯ll see you in a bit then. I¡¯ll prepare everything so that you can make your way to the mining town." Komer answered before Eisen nodded thankfully. "Of course, thank you. I¡¯ve already got some tools in the carriage, so you don¡¯t need to worry about that, but please make sure that there¡¯s enough space for Parc, Koro, and Rouge. You can move some of the barrels around and store them somewhere safe, maybe in the inn room. Oh, and could you please get a room for the three of them?" Eisen asked Komer, although the old man felt he was treating him like an assistant at this point, but since Komer didn¡¯t seem to mind, he didn¡¯t mention it. "Of course. It¡¯s about a 12-hour trip, right? So you¡¯ll sleep in the carriage, and we¡¯ll leave in three days so that you¡¯re there when you wake up?" Komer asked, and Eisen slowly nodded. "Mhm, that¡¯s the n, at least. Thanks for your help, Komer." Eisen said with a smile before looking over toward his three apprentices, who were getting a bit confused at the way this conversation was going and a few details included in it. "You three, please help Komer out, alright? He¡¯s a low-level merchant and focuses on his mental stats, so I¡¯d like you three to do some of the heavy liftings." Eisen told them before the three quickly nodded, but Rouge, the most curious of the three, chose to ask something first. "Erm, I hope it¡¯s okay to ask, but what did he mean when he said that you¡¯d sleep in the carriage and will be in some mining town when you wake up?" He asked, and Eisen nodded at him slowly. "It¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry. You see, I have a few issues with my sleep, andtely, I¡¯ve only been asleep for a day every four days, and that¡¯s going to continue for a little while like that." Eisen told them, and the three apprentices looked at him in surprise and light disbelief, but the old manughed and made his way toward the stables where he could grab Cabarum so that they could get to the cave quickly. "You¡¯ll see in a bit anyway, so there¡¯s no need to believe my wordspletely. I¡¯ll be back in an hour or two." Eisen said with a smile as he and his four monsterpanions grabbed Cabarum and quickly made their way out of town, where Kirisho then disappeared in the amulet and Eisen, Kiron, Caria, and Melissa sat down on Cabarum¡¯s back, riding the mechanical steed toward the beach where they could find Bolremgar¡¯s cave. After they stepped through the tunnels of the said cave, they soon found themselves inside the open cavern, seeing the two dragons talking to each other like usual. And immediately when Bolremgar noticed Eisen, he transformed into his human form and ran toward him. "So you¡¯ve finished my test, I see?" He asked excitedly before Eisen slowly nodded and activated his demonic transformation, making the transformation-concentrated Bolremgar quite happy. "Huh, interesting! So you¡¯re more golden now? Well, your nickname is ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ after all, so I get it. I can see that you have finished my test, but tell me about it a little. How did it go?" Bol curiously asked as he took a closer look at Eisen¡¯s new transformation, especially to see if his horns did physically turn into gold or just something that looked like it, while Eisen exined everything that happened, causing both Bolremgar and Aylrentyrth quite a bit of surprise. "Oh, you have chosen to step on the Path of Yin and Yang? Interesting. It will be quite a challenge, though, won¡¯t it?" Ailren pointed out before Eisen nodded. "Of course, it will, but it¡¯s not like bing a true demon is my future goal. I¡¯m just d that I¡¯m not a Yin Demon candidate anymore. If I get the chance to do any of these things, I¡¯ll do them, but I probably won¡¯t go out of my way to pursue anything." The old man answered with a calm smile before Bol crossed his arms with a satisfied nod. "That¡¯s a good way to go about it. It¡¯s not like you have to rush it either, you¡¯re immortal, after all. Anyway, you¡¯ve undeniably passed my trial." The Bronze Dragon eximed, prompting some notifications to pop up in front of Eisen. [Quest Complete - Ancient Bronze Dragon¡¯s Test] [Description] After passing the trials of the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth, you are now taking the trial of the Ancient Bronze Dragon Bolremgar. He asked you to use your demonic self to be someone known for doing good things, instead of bad ones. Once you have been recognized by the system to have stepped on the Path of Yang, then this quest will be seen aspleted. [Reward] Be the Champion to a second Ancient Dragon [Failure] You can not take the test of this Dragon again [Time Limit] One Month [Congrattions! You have been chosen as a champion by the Ancient Bronze Dragon Bolremgar!] [Champion Title Became Champion II!] With a wide grin, Bolremgar then stood in front of Eisen and ced his palm on the old man¡¯s chest, before he felt a surging heat fill out every nook and cranny of his body before that heat dissipated just as quickly as it disappeared, and another notification appeared in front of Eisen. [Ancient Bronze Dragon Bolremgar gave you his gift] [A Part of your body has been modified] [Due to a special action, A Giant¡¯s Strength Racial Skill has gained a new ability] [While Skill is active, you can now change your Body¡¯s Size at will] [Current Maximum] 50% Size Difference [Effect] 10% Stat increase per 50% Size Increase With a grin on his face as he gained precisely the ability that Bolremgar told him he probably would, Eisen quickly tried to figure out what to do. Since most things here were controlled by thought and will, Eisen concentrated on his whole body and willed himself to berger after activating his racial skill. And as he did so, his 2 Meter Body grew to be 3 Meters tall with his regr bodily proportions. As he looked down at the amazed and shocked people around him, Eisen crossed his arms in satisfaction. "This is going to be quite useful." He eximed, before deciding to shrink his body down again, although he noticed something peculiar as well. It seemed like he couldn¡¯t just increase his body sizepared to normal, but also shrink it down. So, being obviously curious to try this out as well, soon enough, a tiny one meter Eisen stood next to the group. "Hmm, although I¡¯m not too sure about this..." Eisen muttered before deactivating his size-change and then turned to Bolremgar, who had a childish grin on his face. Honestly, for some reason, this Ancient Being acted like a little kid sometimes, at least partially so. But Eisen tried to ignore that and asked his question. "I thought I would only be able to grow, so why can I shrink as well?" Eisen asked, and Bolremgar smiled. "Well, this is the ability of Giants who are already quite huge, so it technically wouldn¡¯t be necessary for them to grow even more. They use their ability to shrink to the size of People to interact with them, so that¡¯s why they can shrink. Of course, they can still grow in size, but they barely do so. At some point, their bodies won¡¯t be able to support their weight anymore." Bol exined and Eisen nodded slowly. "I see, that does make sense. And how do I increase my size limit? Just by ranking up my racial skill more?" The old man inquired, before Bol swiftly answered. "Yes, that is indeed how. You should see yourself to be able to grow more and more the stronger you be as well, so the higher your ¡¯stats¡¯ are, the more you will also be capable of further literal growth." The Bronze Dragon exined with a satisfied smile. "Although, as I mentioned before, Giants can teach their half-blooded kin the ability of growth as well, so it may be possible for you to increase your size-change range quite a bit if you visit a giant. But I cannot say for sure, as I never had the pleasure to give my gift to a Half-Giant before." Bol pointed out before Eisen nodded happily. "Then, in that case, I¡¯ll dly tell you if I find out," Eisen responded, before Aylrentyrth, who had been talking to Kirisho for a bit, turned toward the old man. "I am d to see that you were able toplete this Trial sessfully. I will be returning to Melroe soon, so I just wanted to say that it was a pleasure to see you again." Aylrentyrth told Eisen with a smile before the Giant-Dwarf Halfling extended his hand forward. "The pleasure was all mine. I wille back to Melroe again someday, so this surely wasn¡¯t thest time we¡¯ve met." Eisen smiled as he said this and shook Ailren¡¯s hand before they all continued to talk for a little while longer, and then Eisen and his group left therge cave again to return to town. When they got back to the Inn, the group somewhat split up again, and the five originals were left to have some alone-time with each other since they wanted to talk about a few things rted to real life. As such, Eisen even asked Kiron and Kirisho to leave for a while, although he allowed Caria and Melissa to stay there since it wouldn¡¯t be an issue for them to hear. First, Eisen showed them the new ability he just got by quickly growing and shrinking in size. "Hmm, that¡¯s quite a surprise. I know Bolremgar said that you would probably gain that ability, but I didn¡¯t expect it to happen." Xenia pointed out, and Eisen chuckled as he nodded his head. "Yes, although I was hoping for it, it is a nice surprise. For every 50% that my size changes from my regr size, I gain a 10% stat bonus. There doesn¡¯t seem to be a penalty for shrinking, though. But the 50% difference is my limit for now, but it¡¯s still quite a bit of help." Eisen exined to them before he looked over at Xenia and Evalia to move on to the thing that he wanted to ask about right now. "So, neither of you rmended anyone for the game?" He asked, and Brody and Jyuuk looked at them quite curiously as well, before Xenia quickly spoke up. "Well, I don¡¯t have anyone to invite. I didn¡¯t expect the same to be the case for Evalia, though." She responded, and Evalia smiled wrily. "Ya see, I did wanna rmend a friend of mine, but she was already invited to the Alpha phase cause she¡¯s a popr streamer. The Alpha¡¯s usually still have ta pay a bit for the capsule, although only like a third to half of the regr price, so my friend was just exempt from the price." Evalia exined, and Eisen slowly nodded before he looked at Brody and Jyuuk standing next to him. "So who did you two invite, then? Samuel told me that you didn¡¯t ept the extra rmendation." Eisen said, and the two of them swiftly exined. "I invited my sister. She¡¯s always been pretty frail and sick, so she¡¯s been spending a lot of time in the hospital since she was young, and we don¡¯t see each other often because of that. So I chose to invite her. Thankfully, the game works on a single worldwide server, and she can connect to us from Japan." Jyuuk said, and Eisen nodded with a light smile at that heartfelt story before Brody continued. "Well, I just rmended my wife. She¡¯s beenining that we don¡¯t spend a lot of time togethertely, and I do agree. And since you can do, well, that, here, I thought it would be a great idea." Brody said with an embarrassed smirk when he was trying to paraphrase having an intimate time with his wife, and while Evalia, Jyuuk, and Eisen chuckled, Xenia was incredibly surprised. "Wait... wait, wait, Brody. You¡¯re married?" Chapter 195 Form "Huh? Yeah, I¡¯m married, although just for a few months." Brody answered Xenia with a confused expression before the High-Elf looked over toward the others with surprise. "Wait, how did you guys know about it?" With a wry smile, Eisen then slowly moved his fingers through his beard and answered the young woman. "We asked how else? But why are you so surprised? You do realize that Brody doesn¡¯t look like this in real life, right?" "Of course, I know that! I don¡¯t know, and he just didn¡¯t seem like the type of person to settle down at his age, that¡¯s all it is." She answered, somewhat embarrassedly before Brody loudlyughed and nodded. "Yeah, I can see that. Lots of people told me that I seem like some bed-hopper, but that just ain¡¯t me." He pointed out, and Xenia scratched her cheek with a grin. "W-Well, anyway, Eisen, who did you rmend?" She asked, trying to change the topic toward what they were talking about before, and the old man chuckled lightly before beginning to exin. "Since Xenia didn¡¯t rmend someone and Evalia¡¯s rmendation was a bitplicated, Prime industries asked us if we want to rmend someone else besides who we already rmended. So, now I¡¯ll be joined by two people, my oldest Grandson, and Granddaughter. I hope you¡¯ll be able to assist them somewhat if they are interested in each of your areas of expertise." Eisen said with a smile as he looked at the four other originals next to him, who nodded their heads immediately. "Of course, I¡¯m not expecting you to mentor them throughout the whole game or something. But giving my grandchildren a few quests every once in a while so that they at least have some pointers, and something to reference would be lovely," Eisen said with a smile before the four others looked at each other and the old man in surprise. "Erm, we can¡¯t give out quests Eisen, only NPCs can do that." Jyuuk tried pointing out this tant piece of game logic, but Eisen swiftly shook his head. "That is not the case, no. Usual yers won¡¯t be able to hand out quests, but since our role in this game is different to that of those yers, and we¡¯re supposed to guide them, we can hand out quests. I gave a quest to my three apprentices before, by the way, so I know that it¡¯s the case." He exined, and all of them, especially Xenia and Jyuuk who were incredibly in love with videogames, looked at the old man with surprised expressions. "W-Wait, do you mean that?! We can give out quests! Does that mean I can be the awesome overlord at the bottom of a tomb that people seek out in search of adventure?" Jyuuk asked excitedly, looking at the bone-tattoos covering his hand, and Xenia wildly grinned as she stared at Eisen. "And I can be the beautiful Wizardess at the top of the tower that will teach only those magicians that manage to y the Demon King for me?" She asked happily, before Eisen stared back at them in confusion, before turning to both Evalia and Brody to see if they have any idea of what the two of them were talking about, "Sorry, I have not the slightest clue of what these two are even referencin¡¯ here." Evalia shook her head as she shrugged, really not sure what either of them was saying, and Brody simrly didn¡¯t have an idea either. With a loud sigh, Eisen then shrugged. "Sure. But for that, we need that tomb and that tower first, don¡¯t we? Anyway, let¡¯s move on from this topic. I don¡¯t know what the direct requirements for giving out quests is, so we¡¯ll have to figure that out first anyway. Now, if possible, I would like all of you and your parties to gather whatever materials you need and already have on hand. Also, all of youe up with detailed ideas for any equipment you want. However, I¡¯ll only craft it if I have the materials for it." Eisen eximed, trying to move on before this conversation turned weird, or slightly weirder. "Huh, really? You¡¯ll make anything at all?" Brody asked with surprise in his voice, and the old man swiftly nodded. "Yes, of course. Since the trip to the inds are going to take a while, and everyone here needs to have the best equipment they can get to clear everything out easily, it only makes sense for me to work on everything while on the ship. Since I will be here almost constantly again for a while." Eisen exined to them, and it was a little bit silent for a while as they all thought about what kind of things to have this old man make for them before Eisen looked at Jyuuk, who he wanted to ask a few things since he was quite interested in what happened in the wastnds. "Jyuuk, what are those bone tattoos on your hand?" He inquired curiously, before Jyuuk looked at Eisen in surprise, then his hand, and then back at Eisen with a smug smile. "Ah, this! I told you there was this necromancer in the wastnds, right? I met him,pleted a quick quest for him, and then he offered me to be a necromancer like him. But due to my preposition in regards to taming, I got a different ss. I¡¯m a Life and Death Minion Master now. I was quite surprised, and the upation titles are quite long sometimes." Jyuuk said with a smirk as he waved his hand and a ck smoke appeared from his fingertips before changing shape into a humanoid figure, albeit only being made of bones. It was wearing an old rusty armor, and it was overgrown with vines that kept its body together, and there was even a small flower growing in one of its eye sockets. "I told you about my Beast Storage before, but now it changed into a Minion Storage skill. Depending on what kind of minion it is, the way it¡¯s represented changes. Undead via bones in a rather urate anatomical representation, and Tamed Monsters still through tattoos. But right now, I can only store my undead in my hand, and nowhere else." The Monkey-Beastperson exined with a smug grin before Eisen nodded as he looked at the Undead standing in front of him. "Maybe I should make you a Necronomicon, then. That would surely be useful, right?" Eisen suggested, and Jyuuk nodded with appreciation. "That would be great, thank you!" He eximed, and Eisen smiled back. "Of course, don¡¯t worry about it. And go ahead and think up a few items for your monsters as well. Especially your undead, I already feel my hammer-hand twitching when I look at that rusty armor." As the old man told this to his friend, Jyuuk simplyughed and unsummoned the skeleton soldier, before apologizing with a smile. "Thanks. Well, anyway, what do all of you n on doing for the rest of the day?" "Hmm, I¡¯m thinkin¡¯ about sculpting a bit, so nothin¡¯ special," Evalia answered first, and Brody nodded his head. "Yup, me neither. Want to see if I can find any new weapon types that they didn¡¯t have in the Wastnds here to get some new skills, but other than that..." Brody replied as he scratched the back of his head, and Xenia, smug as ever, responded next. "I¡¯m going to start working on some creation oriented skills! Like Alchemy or Enchanting, although I only want to find ways to make my magic better! And I want to see if I can find an Elemental Spirit soon, so I¡¯ll look into that for a while." She said, and Jyuuk looked at the three of them with a smile. "I see. I¡¯ll be training with some of my beasts for a while to see what each of them can do, now that we can calm down for a little while. What about you though, Eisen?" Jyuuk asked the old man, who thought about it for a while before then putting his hand into his pocket and pulling out one of the Soul Stones that Jyuuk brought with him for a single purpose. "I think I¡¯ll give a form to a soul today." --- Soon after his conversation with the other Originals, Eisen then sat in his Carriage where he had everything that he could possibly need while giving the soul a form, including peace and silence. With a smile, Eisen then grabbed one of the soul stones in his pocket and held it in his hand, before using transmutation to slowly crack the sphere open, making the soul float in front of him. It was a lot smaller and harder to see than the soul he had with him before, but that was somewhat understandable considering that this was a Rank 1 soul. [nk Soul][Rank - 1] [Soul Strength - 50] [Integrity - 1][Mana Generation - 1][Thought - 0] [Form - None] [Options] -[Edit] -[Refine] -[Give Form] Eisen slowly nodded as he looked through the information in front of him and one after another went through the options, first choosing the edit option, but finding a light problem with it. [Soul is too unstable to be edited] [Increase Soul Strength through Refining to continue] With a sigh, Eisen waved these notifications away and quickly chose the next option, which was to refine the soul. [ce Soul into a Refining Pot and feed it other souls of same or higher soul strength to refine] [For nk Souls, any Refining Pot can be used, but an unspecialized type is rmended, as this will keep the souls pure] [Certain Souls will require a specialized type of Refining Pot] "Interesting. I should look into that at some point. But first..." The old man muttered as he waved these notifications away again and chose thest of the three options. [To give a soul a form, you will need to rely on all of your senses to make sure that you create the form that the soul wants to have] [You will need to use different skills and materials to create a vessel whose form the soul will take, and will, in turn, devour the vessel whole, even if the soul does not like the vessel you have offered to it] [The higher the Soul Strength, the pickier a soul bes and the vessel will need to be as specific as possible] [To connect with the soul, you will need to enter its Soul Realm momentarily] [Do you want to Give a form to a soul?] Excitedly, Eisen read through the information and broadly grinned as he activated this part of his Soul Engineering Skill. Soon enough, the world around Eisenpletely disappeared, and he found himself in a dark space. Soon enough, his eyes got used to the dark, and he noticed where he was; inside of a simple cave. There wasn¡¯t much in there, and it was just a dark, spherical room more than anything else while concentrating on what was in there, or instead if anything was in there at all. But Eisen quickly noticed that this was not the case. And as he was looking around, Eisen noticed a notification. [You can leave the Soul Realm at any point by merely willing yourself to do so] With a smile, Eisen waved this notification away and took another look around to make himself familiar with the visuals of this cave, before he closed his eyes to concentrate on his other senses. His back that was exposed to the air as he was wearing his leather apron was feeling cold due to a gentle gust of airing from an unknown source, and there was not a single sounding from any point. In thisplete and utter silence, Eisen thought that he could only find a rtively abstract image for the ¡¯vessel.¡¯ Dark, isted, and cold. It was something that was hiding away in this small space, so it for sure wouldn¡¯t be anythingrge or shy. Just something little that could be ced into something else and carried with you safely while the item itself was just there in your pocket. It wouldn¡¯t be something practical, merely an item that you would have just because you could. And Eisen had just the perfect idea what item that would be. Chapter 196 The Shapes of Souls Eisen stayed within the soul realm for quite a while, trying to figure out the general feeling of the space he was in until he thought that he had managed to connect with the soul properly. And when he left the soul realm, his view that he had formed before of what the ¡¯Vessel¡¯ for the soul should be, which was quite an unfitting name considering that it didn¡¯t actually contain the soul but was simply a reference of what the soul should be like, had only grown stronger. It wouldn¡¯t be anything exciting, but something inconspicuous and hardly noticeable. And what Eisen thought would be great for that was something like a small keychain of sorts. Just something that one may use as a Lucky Charm. As for the material that Eisen would use, the cave that he was currently in had a metallic smell to it, so it seemed smart to him to use something like iron since that¡¯s what the scent seemed to be. But he couldn¡¯t forge a small keychain of course, as that would simply be unnecessary work, but instead, Eisen chose to mold it with his hands after heating it with his mes. Due to his Dwarven ability to ignore heat thates in contact with his hands, this was quite easy, really. It was somewhat like molding y, albeit with some noticeable texture differences. But as he was working the metal with his hands to form something ornamental out of it, this had another benefit. There was a constant soft wind surrounding Eisen that generally couldn¡¯t have possibly been inside of thatpletely sealed-off cave, and as such, the old man wanted to implement that feeling into this item somehow. So what Eisen did was take a spherical iron bead as a starting point and then shaped it like what he expected hundreds of thousands of years of intense storms and winds to do to a rock formation. Maybe it wasn¡¯t 100% urate to what it would actually look like, but Eisen thought it was a rather good representation, at least in an artistic sense. With a smile, Eisen nodded as he felt a slight feeling of satisfaction, and after seeing it as finished and waving the notification following this away, Eisen held the small, simple metal ornament against the soul still floating in front of him, before the soul began to react immediately and wrapped itself around the item that Eisen prepared. [The soul has seen the Vessel as fitting, and will now take up its form for the price of the item offered to it] [Vessel Rating] High Eisen ced these notifications to the side for now, as he wanted to watch what was going on in front of him at the moment. Slowly, the metal piece in Eisen¡¯s hand fell to dust as the soul took over its shape, and soon enough a ghostly version of the ornament was floating in front of the old man. Quickly, Eisen checked his status and noticed that his Soul Engineering skill jumped a whole thirty levels, and once he checked his Level-up Quest, he saw that the condition of the soul was now seen as ¡¯finished.¡¯ Happy to see that this was the case, Eisen looked at the Soul Again. It was kind of weird working with this now that he got used to his other crafting skills since he couldn¡¯t technically ¡¯finish¡¯ it. But even then, Eisen was curious about what he could now do with this soul, now that he had changed it. [nk Soul][Rank - 1] [Soul Strength - 50] [Integrity - 1][Mana Generation - 1][Thought - 0] [Form - Small Iron Ornament] After the old man looked through this information, he ended up somewhat... sigh, disappointed. He was hoping that the soul type would change so that it wasn¡¯t a nk soul anymore, but apparently it wasn¡¯t that easy. As Eisen was thinking just that, some notifications popped up to in front of him. [Now that this soul has a form, that form will slowly develop further the higher its soul strength grows through refining] "So it will change after a while then, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself as he tried to think about what that Refining Pot that he required would be made of, before moving on and trying to concentrate on the ¡¯nk Soul¡¯ part of the description to get some information. [After the soul has been refined sufficiently, it will gain a type. The higher the rank of the soul, the more souls need to be fed to it in order to aplish this] Eisen slowly nodded as he waved these notifications away. He would try to refine them at some point, but first, he wanted to spend the rest of the day doing something else. For now, Eisen fused the remainder of the soul stone with a mana crystal to simply increase its volume, before encapsting the soul that was floating in the air for safekeeping. And once that was done, he quickly grabbed the next soul stone and cracked it open simrly. As he looked at the soul, he could see that it was a Rank 2 nk Soul with currently 180 Soul Strength, around thirty points less than Eisen¡¯s current Soul Strength. "So it¡¯s going to be a bit harder to please it now, ording to the notification..." He muttered to himself as he quickly activated the option to give the soul a form and agreed to enter its soul realm directly afterward. The scene that he was in now was quite a bit different to before. Now, Eisen was in a dense jungle with sounds of all kinds of animals around him, although he didn¡¯t see any, not even a single bug. The trees around him seemed unnaturallyrge, and Eisen couldn¡¯t even see the treetops, while the trees themselves looked as if they were melting together in the sky because they were so far away. When the old man looked down to the ground, he noticed that his body waspletely overgrown with moss and vines, and his skin took a bark-like texture. He was unable to move, but when he tried, something else happened. A flower sprouted in front of him. And after a while, Eisen was surrounded by a field of flowers inside of this dense forest, except that each of these flowers seemedrge enough to be a tree itself. After a while, Eisen thought that he managed to figure out this soul¡¯s ¡¯personality¡¯ well enough, choosing to leave its soul realm again. What Eisen thought the soul was like was quite simple. It was something small, something that fit in with its surrounding. To Eisen, it seemed quite evident that it was a tree of sorts, considering Eisen himself turned somewhat into one. And so, Eisen thought maybe carving a small tree out of a block of wood may be the best choice. With that in mind, Eisen grabbed some wood and began to carve into it with swift motions, trying to remember the style that the trees had in the soul realm. And what Eisen wanted to go for was not a fully grown tree necessarily, but rather a sapling for a giant type of tree that would take millennia to grow. That seemed like a usible exnation for the size difference at least to Eisen himself. After the old man finished the regr part of the tree, he moved on to the roots, where he was somewhat unsure of what he should do. He could make something like a small tform that the fake tree would practically sit on, but instead, he chose to do something else. The roots in the soul realm were a lot more intertwined with each other as if they were onerge nt, so Eisen wanted to keep that feeling of intertwining somewhat intact. So, he chose to shape the roots in a way that they would ¡¯grasp¡¯ Eisen¡¯s fingers as he was holding the fake tree on his hand. And to finish it off, Eisen carved a few small flowers, like the ones that began growing around him before, into the stem of the tree. Once that was finished, Eisen offered this carving to the soul in front of him. [The soul has seen the Vessel as fitting, and will now take up its form for the price of the item offered to it] [Vessel Rating] Average Eisen looked at these notifications with a displeased expression. "Even worse than before? What¡¯s with this?" He muttered to himself, before creating another mana-crystal and soul-stoneposite to encapste the Ghost-like miniature tree, and then ced that bubble away. "Hmm, maybe I should try another one?" Eisen asked himself as he grabbed the next soul stone, cracking it open with transmutation to enter this next item¡¯s soul realm. --- A few hourster, Eisen was now in his carriage filled with a total of ten different bubbles, each containing a different Soul that the old man gave a form. The souls each seemed to be quite different in what they wanted, or at least none of the soul realms were like each other in the slightest, but they each had inmon that they didn¡¯t want to be anything alive. Eisen managed to rank up his Soul Engineering Skill after finishing the ¡¯vessel¡¯ for the third soul. It gave him an ability rted to refining, actually making it possible to control which soul was the one being fed and which one was the food. Apparently, there was more to refining than what the shallow information Eisen was given before told him. But right now, Eisen was more curious about something else. He had just now finished the tenth Vessel, and he got a quite curious notification that he began looking through after bubbling the re-shaped soul. [Congrattions! In giving shape to 10 different souls, other souls will trust you more! +10 benefit to Soul Strength when Editing, Refining, or Giving A Form to a soul] "Amazing!" Eisen eximed as he looked over toward the crystal-bubblesying around him with a smile. "So if I continue to give souls a form, I can passively increase the range of souls I can work with, while also increasing my crafting skills since I will use them in the process. Interesting." He muttered to himself while running his fingers through his beard before he heard a knock to the door of the carriage. "Come in!" The old man eximed since he figured it was the person that he invited toe over since Eisen wanted to try something out. With a smile, Jyuuk stepped through the door and sat down on the ground next to Eisen and the different encapsted souls before he began to look around. "Is this what you¡¯ve been doing today?" He asked, and Eisen swiftly nodded. "Yes, these are some of the nk souls you gave me. I ended up giving forms to these ten, and I was interested to see if you could do anything with these. You can ¡¯equip¡¯ souls, right?" Eisen asked before Jyuuk slowly nodded. "I can do that, yes. Maybe I can do that, not so sure, but I can surely try." The Monkey-Beastperson responded, before Eisen, one after another handed him the rge¡¯ soul stones that he made, and Jyuuk concentrated with each one, trying to ¡¯equip¡¯ them. And it did work, in a very different way than Jyuuk had been using these souls before. Due to the low soul strength of the souls, the effect wasn¡¯t significant, but it was still noticeable. Before then, Jyuuk had been using souls that were still imprinted with the characteristics of the animal they came from, but now, all of these were souls with static forms that weren¡¯t based off any monster. The small Iron ornament that Eisen made first gave Jyuuk¡¯s skin a light gray tint as his defense passively increased, and the miniature carved tree gave him a bonus to his nt control while roots grew all around his body together with small flowers. "This is quite interesting, Eisen. These are somewhat restricting to me at the moment, but if you create anything like this that you think could be helpful to me, please let me know. I¡¯m going to collect a few more soul stones for you as well, if you want." Jyuuk told the old man next to him, who listened carefully before nodding with a smile. "That would be great, thank you," Eisen responded as he began to reshape the bubbles into cubes so that he could stack them in the carriage more efficiently, while asking Jyuuk a few things he knew about working with souls, specifically soul refining. Chapter 197 Prime Industries Tour Soon after finishing his conversation with Jyuuk, Benjamin logged out of the game to start his day. His arm was still hurting quite a bit from the day before, so he wouldn¡¯t be able to make breakfast today, which is why he asked Tony to do so today. He would have asked Melody, considering that she was always ready to help with anything at all. But even though she didn¡¯t agree with what Michael was doing, she was still used to the lifestyle of orthodox Mormonism, so she would probably feel ufortable making the foods that the others wanted to eat, which is why Benjamin didn¡¯t want to force her to do anything like that. Once the old man got dressed and washed up, Benjamin made his way to the kitchen, where his youngest son was already getting breakfast ready. "Morning Dad, it¡¯s still going to be a little while till breakfast is ready. You can go and sit down in the living room till then." With a smile, Benjamin nodded and walked up behind his son. "Thank you, Tony. But what are you making? It smells good." He asked as he peeked over Tony¡¯s shoulder, who quickly moved to the side to block his father¡¯s sight. "Shush, go sit down now. It¡¯s a surprise." Tony replied before his father chuckled and made his way to the living room, while Tony deeply frowned as he looked at the special ingredient for his father. "Weird..." And then, one after another, the others joined Benjamin in the livingroom while Tony was working on the ¡¯surprise¡¯ breakfast. "Isn¡¯t something smelling pretty rancid here?" Kyle asked as he turned to Sophia next to him, who swiftly smelled the air and tilted her head to the side in confusion. "Rancid? I think it smells pretty good." She answered before Benji swiftly nodded his head. "Yup, I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about, smells great to me." He said as he starred toward the kitchen before Natsuo perked his head up as it dawned on him what Tony was currently making. "Wait, don¡¯t tell me..." He muttered with a look of disgust on his face before Tony slowly turned around to the group with the first serving of the breakfast, something that he made with the ingredients already in the kitchen, and that Benjamin himself had on hand at any time. And with wide grins on their faces, Sophia and Benji nodded their heads in tandem. "That¡¯s right, it¡¯s obviously-!" "...Natto?" Benjamin muttered surprised as he looked at the two bowls in front of him, one with Miso Soup in it, and one with white rice and natto on top of it. What surprised Benjamin wasn¡¯t that the dish was there at all, but rather that he didn¡¯t recognize the smell. And it seemed like Tony noticed something was off as well. "Dad? You good? You love Natto, right? Or did youe to your senses and finally realize that it¡¯s a horrible food?" "Huh? Oh, no, I still love it, don¡¯t worry... I was just caught up in a thought just now. Thanks for making it, Tony." The old man said to his son with a smile. Out of his family, there were only a few people that shared his peculiar tastes in some things. Or rather, two. Sophia and Benji. All the others didn¡¯t enjoy it at all. Natto, made from fermented soybeans, had a rather peculiar taste to it, that one simply either liked or you didn¡¯t like it, and there wasn¡¯t much one could change about it, either way. It just so happened that the majority of his family belonged to thetter group. Benjamin, on the other hand, did really enjoy it, for reasons he couldn¡¯t exin either. He remembered that when he first got to Japan, histe wife made it for him once, and he instantly fell in love with it. Since then, it¡¯s been something offort food, since it just made him feel weirdly cozy, although that really wasn¡¯t what you would usually feel when eating it. "Dad, please give me some as well!" Benji eximed with a wide grin, and Sophia did the same. Happy that Melody didn¡¯t mind Sophia eating this today, the young girl went all the way. "Make mine double!" She eximed, before Benjamin began to eat with a smile on his face. The taste was the same as he remembered it despite the smell somehow being unrecognizable to him, so Benjamin could feel the usualfort from it with just a little hint of the unfamiliar in the back of his mind that he was more than willing to ignore. Soon enough, Benjamin finished his breakfast while Tony gave some portions Benji, and Sophia as well, while everyone else had a simple baked Nori-Sesame mixture on top of the rice instead of the Natto. After they all finished their breakfast, the family quickly cleaned up and got everything ready for the trip to the Prime Industries location not too far from where they currently were. The cleanup didn¡¯t take too long, and the family made their way to the cars outside, where they chose to drive in three groups since they were too many to fit into a single-vehicle. "Grampa, you said we¡¯d be able to test a demo of the game, right?" Benji asked excitedly from the back of the car before the old man turned around and nodded. "Mhm, you can. Although I don¡¯t really know what it¡¯s going to look like." Benjamin pointed out before he looked at Katy and Sean sitting next to their older brother. "But there¡¯s surely going to be a few super fun things to do for either of you. I¡¯ve already got some ideas about what I would like you two to try out." The old man said with a smile before the young children got quite excited about it. "Oh, oh! Can I see one of those birds?!" Katy asked with a bright smile, and Benjamin chuckled softly. "I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be able to, yes. And do you know what you want to do, Sean?" He asked as he turned to the young boy, who was thinking for a while before swiftly shaking his head. "You don¡¯t know, huh? That¡¯s fine. I¡¯m sure you can try out lots of things today." The old man told them, before slowly starting to ramble on about the different things they could try, ranging from magic to art, and before they all knew it, they already reached the enormous main building of Prime Industries on this side of the country. And soon enough, they reached the ramp leading down to the underground parking garage where a security guard stepped up to the car. "Hello there, Sir. What¡¯s your business here today?" He asked with a smile, that was quite obviously not as sincere as he was pretending, before Benjamin returned a quite genuine smile, as if to show him how you were supposed to do it. "Hello, we have an appointment with Samuel Morgan for 11. My name is Benjamin Theodore Joyce. You can check in with Samuel if you like." But quickly, the Guard¡¯s expression changed to one of surprise as he shook his head. "No, that¡¯s fine, I was told you wereing. I¡¯ll need to see your ID to make sure that it¡¯s really you. I hope you understand, there are some ssified things in there that even I don¡¯t know about, so I can¡¯t just let anyone in." With a smile, Benjamin grabbed his wallet and looked through it for just a moment before pulling out his ID and handing it to the Guard, who took a quick look at it before nodding and handing it back. "Alright, all¡¯s good. Have a great day, Mister Joyce. Ah, the two cars behind you there belong to you, I assume?" "Yes, they¡¯re with us. And thank you. I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll have a lot of fun." The old man replied before the gate to the underground parking lots opened up, and the guard gave them some more instructions. "There are some visitor parking spaces directly in the front here. Just go up the stairs directly next to them, and you¡¯ll end up near the front desk." "Thank you. Have a good day." Benjamin smiled as Tony began driving again and the three cars parked directly next to each other in the front of the parking garage. "Come on, hurry up! I wanna go inside!" Sophia excitedly eximed as she took off her headphones and wore them around her neck as Kyle looked at her with disgust in his face. "Urgh, how can you always be so cheerful? And shouldn¡¯t you have a hangover right now after what you drank yesterday?" He asked as he pushed his hands further into the pockets in the front of his hoody, obviously feeling morefortable around his best friend¡¯s family at this point to be able to say something like that, which he surely wouldn¡¯t have when they arrived on Monday. "What do you know, I feel better than ever right now!" Sophia eximed as she stemmed her fists onto her hips in a triumphant manner, while Natsuoughed lowly and responded in the others¡¯ stead. "We Joyces don¡¯t get hangovers no matter what we drink, Kyle." He exined before Kyle frowned deeply and looked at Natsuo suspiciously. "What do you mean, you don¡¯t get- Alright, yup, I totally believe that." Kyle tried to say that it didn¡¯t make any sense for that to be the case, although he stopped himself when he looked around him and saw the four giant men, Tony, Natsuo, Benji, and Benjamin, standing next to him while remembering the other things he found out about this insane family over the past few days. As such, he changed his mind immediately. Moving on from this conversation, the group then made their way over toward the stairs that the Guard mentioned, soon finding the front desk, which they walked up to swiftly, with Benjamin in the front. "Hello there, we have an appointment with Samuel Morgan for 11 am?" He exined, and before the young man at the desk could respond, he could already hear the voice of just that exact Samuel Morgan. "Good morning, Benjamin! Long-time no see! Is what I would say if I weren¡¯t at your party yesterday..." Samuelughed a bit as he greeted Benjamin with a handshake, noticing that his right arm was still bandaged up. "Still not better?" Slowly, the old man shook his head while Samuel¡¯s assistant handed out visitor tags to everyone so that they could pass through the building safely. "Good morning, Samuel! It¡¯s a bit better, at least it doesn¡¯t hurt when I leave it like this, but I can¡¯t really move my arm that much right now." "I see... Maybe you should go to see a doctor then. I suggest waiting a few more days to know how it¡¯s going to develop, though." Samuel told Benjamin before he turned toward the others and greeted them with a broad smile before he turned around and began to lead everyone through the building, while Samuel¡¯s assistant looked at him somewhat confused. "Erm, Mister Morgan, should I tour them around? I¡¯m sure you¡¯re busy, and I wouldn¡¯t mind doing that at all." The young assistant, probably an intern, said with a smile as he looked at Sophia from the corner of his eye, but Samuel shook his head, shooting him down immediately. "Nope, sorry. I promised I¡¯d show the Joyce family around, so I¡¯ll be doing that for a while. You cane along if you want, though." He exined and immediately waved therge group toward a corridor, and the assistant slowly nodded with nervosity. "Alright, first, and probably the most important spot in the whole building. The Caf¨¦, which is usually Employees only, as we pay for everything in there because of that. We¡¯ll be back in a while to eat lunch here. Sound good?" He suggested with a smile, and once everyone happily agreed, Samuel starts to lead them through a few different hallways to bring them to the next site while exining a few basic things about thepany. Chapter 198 Holographic Demon After a regr tour of some of the different facilities and essential research and development centers, Samuel finally brought them to the second tost part of the tour, where they could y around with a lot of different gadgets. First, what Samuel seemed to want to show them the most was a particr tform, which the young man stood in front of excitedly. "Now then, I am delighted to show you a new technological advancement that humanity has attempted to create for decades." He eximed as the tform behind him began to glow slightly, and a figure appeared on it. "Holograms!" Samuel yelled as he waved toward the figure as it revealed itself to be Benjamin¡¯s in-game avatar, although not just any old version, but in his demonic form. He was currently spreading his wings and holding his hammer in his hand as his golden mes glowed lowly. If Benjamin didn¡¯t know any better, he would have thought that there was a real creature on that tform instead of the holographic figure. "Samuel... Why?" Benjamin asked with a loud sigh and ced his face into his hand, while his family looked at the old man, confused. "Dad, what¡¯s wrong?" Tony asked, concerned before Benji stared at the demonic figure with a grin. "Grampa, I gotta admit, your ¡¯Demonic Transformation¡¯ became even more awesome!" He said, recognizing Benjamin immediately, despite the apparent differences, before the others stared at him surprised. "Thanks, only became that wayst night." The old man chuckled as he moved his face away from his hand again. And while Natsuo, L, and L were curiously trying to figure out how the hologram tform worked, Melody looked at the figure standing on it with a frown. "Dad is this what your character in that game looks like..?" She asked, but Benjamin shook his head. "Not always, although probably a bit more in the future. Samuel, could you show them my regr character?" He inquired before Samuel slowly nodded and stepped onto the tform, tapping the air in front of the Demonic Eisen before a window, simr to the status windows Benjamin knew from the game, appeared mid-air. After typing a few things in with a floating keyboard, the figure then changed, and the regr Eisen now stood there, although he was still wearing nothing but his leather apron and his wool-pants. While Benjamin nodded now that he could show this version to his children instead, considering that this was what he was wearing most of the time in the gametely, Kyle stared at the figure of this weirdly ripped old man as his face turned slightly red before looking at Sophia. "Isn¡¯t this a little worse..?" He muttered, but Sophia tilted her head to the side slightly. "How so..?" She asked before Kyle sighed loudly and turned away, seeing that even Melody was somehow now alright with this outfit, despite it literally being her father wearing close to nothing. Quickly moving on, Samuel began to exin what this was all for, "So, this holographic tform is a prototype for our actual product. We developed this to ce into smart-houses so that you can change a whole lot of things around whenever you want. You can change the style of your furniture, the material of your walls, and you can even use it to try wearing different things. All with the help of these holographic disys. Anyone want to try the wardrobe-function?" Samuel asked with a smile before Benji immediately raised his hand. "Yes, me please!" He eximed and jumped onto the tform, staring at Samuel with eyes saying ¡¯Do it now!¡¯, before Samuel himself just somewhatughed. "Alright, sure. You have a few different options there in front of you. Since you¡¯re already wearing clothes, the options are limited, though. This program is just something meant to figure out what to wear for the day, as well as when you want to buy something online so that you can see what it looks like on you. Since that¡¯s usually done in private anyway, this function is supposed to be used when you¡¯re not clothed... Erm, Benjamin, what¡¯s your grandson doing?" Samuel exined while looking down at one of the disys in front of him, before looking up and seeing that Benji was currently undressing down to his underwear. With augh, Benjamin stepped up behind Samuel. "I think he¡¯s undressing so that he can try it out." "I can see that, but why..?" Samuel muttered, while in the background, Kyle was staring nkly into the open space in front of him, trying not to freak outpletely. "I don¡¯t know," Benjamin replied with a grin as he looked at the excited Benji as he stood on the tform. "Oh, this has costume options!" Benji eximed as he scrolled through the settings and tapped the first costume he wanted to wear. "Spiderman!" He yelled out, taking a quick look at himself before choosing the next few options in quick session. "Ninja! Knight! Ultraman! Princess! Samurai! Bear!" One after another, Benji¡¯s outfit changed, until he stopped, looking like a live bear standing on his hind legs. "Dad, can I have this?" Benji asked with puppy eyes, which just looked somewhat ridiculous considering his current appearance. "Shut up, get dressed, ande down from there," Tony told his son while rubbing the bridge of his nose annoyedly, while Benji sighed loudly and did as his father told him to before Samuel now used this chance to move on toward thest few functions. "W-Well, anyway... This Holopad has a Butler AI as well, which is just a digital assistant simr to Rover in the capsule. And the holopad can be used for calls within the game as well if you¡¯re willing to connect the capsule with it. There¡¯s the ¡¯Private Call¡¯ function that brings you to an open space, remember, Benjamin? If you call someone using this, they will appear in front of you, while they will be immersed into your house through the automatic scans made of the environment at all times." Samuel exined, noticing that this has caught Benjamin¡¯s attention as well. "And on top of that, it could be used for others to contact you while you¡¯re ying. Once the prototype goes through the required tests and is approved for sale, there¡¯ll be an option to add a small, lightly downgraded holopad underneath the capsule. This holopad won¡¯t only allow you to change the appearance of the capsule itself to fit in with the decor of your room or house, but it¡¯s also going to make those calls avable to the user. So if for example one of your family members needed to talk to you, they could press a button, and it would be like an artificial call, and you would appear directly outside the capsule for them." Samuel exined, while the old man quite curiously listened. "Interesting. That could surely be useful." Benjamin answered with a grin, and Natsuo looked at his father with a gleeful expression. "Useful? Useful?? This tech is just amazing! There¡¯s no smoke, and there¡¯s no mirroring off of surfaces, nothing! So how the hell did they manage to create this high-definition, non-translucent 3D renders mid-air?" He asked, grasping his hair as he was trying to figure out the technology behind it, while his two daughters were following their father¡¯s example, L doing so with extreme excitement, although L was a bit embarrassed about it for some reason. "It¡¯s just some gadget, right? Isn¡¯t that a thing for those weird sses that Benji talked about the other day?" Melody asked confused, somehowpletely struggling with technology to the degree that nobody here could understand, considering the professions her two brothers pursued. Seeming somewhat offended by this, Natsuo¡¯s jaw dropped downward in an exaggerated manner. "Are you seriously trying topare AR with holographic disys?" He asked, before Melody shrugged, not understanding the question. Trying to move on so that this didn¡¯t escte, Samuel quietlyughed and led the group along to a different location, where a row of capsules was waiting for them. "Anyway, I¡¯m sure you¡¯re not here to hear about the holopad, although it surely is a quite cool gimmick, but would instead like to y around a little." Samuel grinned, while all the capsules opened simultaneously. "I¡¯m making a small exception for all of you. You won¡¯t be ying a demo, but instead will go into the heavenly realm of the actual game world to y around with a few different things with a lot of freedom." "Huh, the heavenly realm? Will, that count toward one of the requirements that I have to be a True Demon?" Benjamin asked curiously, but Samuel swiftly shook his head as all the others were already sitting down in the capsules excitedly, and even Melody was giving it a try, although she needed someone to help her figure out how to close the DiCap up. "I¡¯m afraid not, sorry. Although, I do have something rather special in mind for you." Samuel grinned broadly as he himself sat down in one of the capsules as well, before Benjamin chuckled and sat down in one next to him. Soon enough, Benjamin found himself in a pure white space as Eisen, while his family members popped into existence one after another, all of them wearing the exact outfit they were wearing in the real world. The only exception was Eisen himself, who was wearing his regr in-game outfit. And then, a certain young woman appeared in front of them. "Wee, all of you." Ari eximed with a soft smile, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help but smile. "Well then, long time no see, huh?" He asked, and Ari nodded without much of a reaction. Eisen was quite d that she wasn¡¯t acting all giddy like thest time he was there. "Eisen, I ask you to make your way toward the gate over there with Father. He told me he had something to show you." The goddess exined before Eisen turned around to look for Samuel, who was standing behind the old man wearing a pitch-ck suit. Other than that, he looked exactly like the way he does in real life, without a single change to his appearance. "Alright then, I¡¯ll be back in a bit, everyone," Eisen told his family with a smile, while they were too busy getting used to being in this weird environment to react in any particr way. As he and Samuel were stepping toward therge marble gate, Eisen turned to the young man next to him curiously. "And what is it that you want to show me?" He inquired before Samuel simply grinned as he pushed the gate open, revealing arge spacious room with currently just four other people in there. The other originals. Surprised to see them there, Eisen stepped into the hall and greeted the others. "Oh, hello there. What are you guys doing here?" He asked, and the others looked back at him just as surprised. "We don¡¯t know. We got a notification like an hour ago saying something about us being summoned soon, but we didn¡¯t know why." Xenia exined, and the other three swiftly nodded while Eisen sat down at the table next to them. "And why are you here?" She then added before Eisen responded with a frown. "Huh, weird. I¡¯m at Prime Industries right now, Samuel was giving my family and me a tour. They are beyond the gate we entered through right now testing a few things out with Ari. I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on either, though." Eisen exined, looking around therge hall before Samuel stood in front of them at the table. "Well, then. I think I should exin it, now shouldn¡¯t I? Or rather, cut that... I think they should exin instead." Samuel said with a grin as he waved his hand, causing arge door on the other side of the hall to open, where dozens of people then stepped through one after another. They were all unique entities, most of them with features and characteristics that were not that of humans while Samuel grinned. "Let¡¯s leave the talking to the ¡¯gods¡¯ for a bit." Chapter 199 Godly ¡¯The Gods?¡¯ Eisen thought to himself quietly as the people that just entered through therge door came closer and sat down at seats that shot up from the ground to form seatings in a fashion simr to a parliament meeting of sorts, with all the attention focused on the five, six including Samuel, sitting in the center of the room. "What do you mean? Are you saying these are the gods of this world?" Jyuuk asked with evident surprise written on his face, while Eisen tried to look around the room in search of a particr figure, obviously with his truth-seeing-eyes activated. He knew that he couldn¡¯t possibly inspect ¡¯gods,¡¯ and there wasn¡¯t even an option to do so at the moment, but he was still able to see their mana. They were in the most intense colors that he has ever seen at any point so far, and not only that, they had certain ¡¯textures,¡¯ as if they were simply images. One Goddess had mana that looked like the leaves of a tree, while another one had mana that looked like an amalgamation of different runes and magic circles. Eisen looked around until he saw a particr type of mana. It was slightly translucent and broke the light, making what was behind it seem somewhat distorted, precisely like a crystal. With a grin, Eisen stood up with his eyes set on the source of that exact mana. "Eisen, what are you doing?" Brody asked, confused, turning his eyes away from looking at the gods toward the old man next to him. But that old man ignored him. With slow but steady steps, Eisen walked through the hall toward a few of the gods. Of course, that caused even some conversation amongst the gods, while one of them, directly in front of Eisen, stood up and crossed his arms. "What do you think you¡¯re doing, youngster?" Arge man, outwardly maybe in his mid-thirties, asked with a scowl. He had a quite simr build to Eisen, although his muscles were more formed towardbat than crafts. With a surprised expression, Eisen began to smile while running his fingers through his beard. "Uh-oh? I haven¡¯t been called that in a long time. Feels kind of nostalgic, though." Heughed before the obviously hot-headed man looked at Samuel. "Hey, Administrator, why did you even call us here? What¡¯s so special about those five?" The god asked before Samuel quietly chuckled. "We¡¯ll exin that in a bit, Gonor, don¡¯t worry. Although I¡¯m surprised, you don¡¯t recognize the one man that beat the living crap out of you in the past." Samuel asked with a grin as he pointed at Brody, making the originals question whether that was always part of the story, or he just changed it within this moment. After looking at the originals one more time, Gonor, the god ofbat, sat down again quietly while continually staring at Brody with wide-open eyes, leaving Eisen to move forward once more while the talking of the gods became even louder. But Eisen ignored this, and he then stood in front of a certain tall, young man. And although he looked young outwardly, he had a right amount of features that showed he was quite old, simr to Eisen himself as well, although this man didn¡¯t have the same build as Eisen, but was instead ¡¯scrawny,¡¯ forck of a better word. "I¡¯m sorry if I¡¯m wrong, but are you, by any chance, Trygan?" The old man asked, before the god in front of him slowly stood up, revealing his crystal-like white-grey eyes. "I should have known. Even without the memories of your previous life, you have led in this world; it is impossible to fool you." He said with a powerful, but at the same time extremely cheerful, voice. Slowly, the god then bowed forward respectfully. "I am d to be able to see you again, Father." As Trygan eximed this, the talking of the gods became even louder and turned into something akin to what you could only call an uproar, and also the other originals were trying to figure out what was going on. With a loudugh, Eisen then looked at Trygan in front of him, patting him on the back as if they had known each other for years. "As I thought. Well then, Trygan, how about we have you exin the situation to us?" Eisen suggested before he looked at Samuel, who nodded and shrugged with a smile. "Sure, I don¡¯t mind that at all. Now then, pleasee here, and we will talk. Oh, and if any of you didn¡¯t figure it out yet, these five are the ¡¯Original¡¯ yers, those with the background lore to have peaked in the game world." As Samuel exined this, it became more than evident that all of these gods were aware that this was actually a game, despite being AIs in the end. "Alright, now then. Trygan, if you may." Samuel said with a smile before the Dragon-God nodded his head. "We called you here as a simple introduction. As gods, we are aware of the role you have been given by those in your world, as guidance for the others that will join this world. The Administrator told us to assist you with this." Trygan exined as he looked over at Samuel before the ¡¯Administrator¡¯ nodded. "Exactly. You¡¯re leading roles in this game, but that¡¯s a little too much pressure, despite your obvious abilities. But of course, I can¡¯t just have you be instantly even more OP than you already are. I¡¯m thinking morerge-scale." Samuel told the five originals before Trygan continued. "We were told that you wish to found a town on an ind group central to many different continents of this world. The Administrator told us that it is probably the perfect ce for you to do so. But there is an issue with that. You are, by far, not strong enough to conquer those inds. There are monsters reaching up to Rank 8 on some of them. The most central ind should be within your reach, but not so much on the others. You see, those inds are an ancientnd governed directly by us gods." Trygan told them before the five originals looked at each other in surprise. "What do you mean? Like, you live on those inds or something?" Xenia immediately asked before Trygan shook his head. "We are not governing them like that. Rather, you could say that they are representations of us and our powers. The central ind is a ¡¯no man¡¯s¡¯nd and thergest of the inds. None of us govern that ind. There is, however, an ind inhabited by different greater and lesser dragons. Some are kind, some not so much, and only the far minority is sentient enough to be spoken to in any way. That would be my ind. Then there is an ind with monsters based around the usage of weapons and quite rough martial arts in a natural way. That would, for example, be the ind of Gonor, who you met just now." As Trygan told them that, they all could hear Gonor scoffing in the background, but they quickly ignored that and continued the conversation. Further exining everything in a more game-like way, Samuel then spoke up. "As Trygan exined, each ind there represents one of the gods. Since that¡¯s the case, there¡¯s obviously a lot more inds than is publicly known by NPCs, mostly because nobody can actually get close enough to confirm the numbers. Scale-wise, I would say the everything together isrge enough to be seen as a country. Anyway, each Ind has a town. Some more developed than others, of course. But as they are towns, they also have town cores. Once you have founded the town on the central ind, the only ind that doesn¡¯t have an actual town with a town core, it¡¯s possible to take over other towns. That can either be done through war, or diplomacy as in, forcefully taking them over, or making the towns join you on their own. There are more requirements for that, but you¡¯ll figure it out on your own. It¡¯s not thatplicated." With a slow nod, Eisen made ns in his head for all of that, before he turned to Samuel. "Alright, that¡¯s quite useful to know. But why is it that you called us in front of all of these gods to tell us about it?" After slightly grinning, Samuel looked at the five yers in front of him. "All of these gods will give one of the towns you take over a blessing. Obviously, the one on their assigned ind, and for that, I thought introductions would be useful. Also, because each of these gods will give you a little something for the guild once you have taken over the town on their ind. And honestly? I wanted you to meet them just cause I thought it¡¯d be fun." Samuel exined before the five originals looked at each other in surprise. "Seriously? That¡¯s the reason?" Brody asked with a frown before Samuel nodded. "Mostly, yes. This space is the best ce to exin and show to you, the gods who know about this being a game, though." Samuel exined, before standing up and walking around the table a bit. "In this game, there are only a few entities that know about it: the Gods, and those directly connected to your in-game character. In the game world, that¡¯s called those connected to your souls. Whether this is tamed monsters, or some NPC you marry in here doesn¡¯t matter. But only the Gods will know the ins-and-outs. Those directly connected to your in-game characters will most likely ignore it, except if you talk to them directly about it. I rmend not doing that either, though. Anyway, these gods know, and if you happen to meet them while ying, no need to worry about what you say. They¡¯re aware that they are nothing but fake beings that exist for the pleasure of us real people." Samuel exined with a grin, and Eisen frowned deeply. "Samuel, even if they know they are artificial intelligence, it¡¯s a bit rude to say it like that, isn¡¯t it? They have actual emotions, actual worries, and fears, so saying that they are ¡¯fake¡¯ isn¡¯t right, now is it? And to them, this is obviously still their real world. Even if we didn¡¯t actually spend thousands of years here, Trygan just talked about me not remembering the life I led in this world. That¡¯s not something he would say just for lore, is it?" Eisen pointed out before Samuel looked at him in surprise, and he seemed not to be the only one that felt that way. Even Gonor, who was one of the more hot-headed and witty Gods in this hall, didn¡¯t know what to say. But soon enough, Samuel scratched the back of his head before speaking up. "Sorry, I guess I should have worded myself better. I just now realized that this sounded pretty viin-esque, huh? Of course, to them, this is a real world. But we know better, we know that they¡¯re not actually real. I mean, I was there when this world sprouted into existence with the press of a button. Guess I did forget what our AI specialists managed with this one. They are like real people, so you¡¯re right, I shouldn¡¯t talk like that." After Samuel apologized, he looked at Trygan and nudged his head toward the group of other gods, telling the Dragon God to leave again. "Anyway, that¡¯s basically all that this was. You were all just given the role to found a kingdom that is supported by every god in existence to create a base-point for other yers, while they slowly make their way through the world, found guilds of their own, and inevitably try to take control of your kingdom from you. Alright, let¡¯s get going, Eisen¡¯s family is waiting." Chapter 200 Spinning Top After Samuel sent four of the originals off back to their in-game positions, Eisen made his way back toward the Dragon God Trygan, just so that he could talk to him for a bit. "Say, could you tell me exactly what our rtionship is? Did I really take care of the egg you hatched out of?" The old man inquired, and Trygan swiftly nodded his head. "Yes, you did. You told me that you found me in a cave, although I never knew why you went there. Or rather, I guess you didn¡¯t actually tell me that, huh? Excuse me, and it is quite a hard concept to wrap my head around the whole ¡¯Game¡¯ concept that the Administrator had told us about, but it is indisputable that even the Great Goddess respects his power, so we had little choice but to ept it." Trygan exined to Eisen, before scratching his chin with a light smile. "That¡¯s fine. But don¡¯t worry, I don¡¯t have any ns of treating you like you¡¯re not real. Anyway, that¡¯s not what I wanted to talk about just now. I have recently met a Half-Dragon with crystal scales called Kiron. He is your son, right?" Eisen asked the god in front of him, who swiftly nodded. "Ah yes, Kiron! Quite an incredible boy, isn¡¯t he? Sadly he is suffering from a curse that strongly weakened his body and soul that cannot be removed by anything other than time. I hope that you will treat him kindly, fath-..., sorry, Eisen." Trygan said, stumbling at thest few words, unsure if he should really call Eisen a father before the old man swiftly shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, and you can call me father if you want. But yes, Kiron is quite well mannered, and just overall a great help. He is currently apanying me as my Knight, although that feels rather weird now that I know what his and my rtionship really is." With a relieved smile, Trygan slowly nodded his head. "Thank you then, father. And thank you for taking care of my dear child." The Dragon responded before Eisen felt a tap on his back and turned around in surprise, seeing several people standing there with excited, but nervous, smiles. "Yes, can I help you?" The old man asked, confused, taking note of different sigils on their clothes that seemed to all be rted to crafts in some sort. Excitedly, a woman stepped forward and smiled at Eisen. "H-Hello Sir Eisen... Erm, we¡¯re Minor Gods that work under the God of Crafts, and... and..." She stuttered out before holding a thin crystal board in front of her in Eisen¡¯s direction, while Eisen himself was already guessing where this was going. "...we¡¯re huge fans! Could you give us your Craftsman¡¯s Signature?" "Huh? Really?" Eisen asked them with a frown before they all swiftly nodded. "Yes, please! Our God has told us that even he admires your ability!" The Goddess exined before Eisen chuckled. "I see, well, sure. I¡¯d be honored to, then." Eisen replied with a light smile and grabbed one of the small Mythril needles from his chest-pocket on his leather apron, poured his mana into it, and then swiftly carved his current Craftsman¡¯s Signature into each crystal tablet that was held up to him. With gleeful grins, the minor gods thanked Eisen before turning around and running away, leaving the old man and the Dragon God alone again. "There¡¯s a lot of gods, huh? Do they have inds as well?" Eisen asked, but Trygan shook his head immediately. "No, they do not. Only Great Gods do. Minor gods are more like servants, assistants, or disciples to Great Gods. I do have a few Minor Draconic Gods underneath me as well. Although, since I am younger than many of these other gods here, I only have three. One is assisting with the governance of Metallic Dragons, one assisting with the governance of Chromatic Dragons, and one assist with the governance of all Minor Dragonkin." Trygan exined to his ¡¯father¡¯ in front of him, who listened curiously. "I see, that¡¯s quite useful to know then, thanks. Anyway, I think I should get going now. It was really great to talk to you." Eisen responded with a smile before he turned around toward Samuel before he remembered something. Since he obviously couldn¡¯t ask Samuel about it, because he said he wasn¡¯t able to disclose such specific information sometime before, Eisen quickly summoned the small ornamental box from his soul storage and showed it to Trygan. "I nearly forgot, but do you know anything about this?" Eisen curiously asked before Trygan grabbed the box from his hands quite slowly and nodded his head. "Yes, you used to make these boxes in the past. They are simple puzzle boxes, something like Quests in physical forms. Each time you unlock oneyer, the form will change, and there will be a new task inscribed on the outside. But I do not remember anything about this particr one." Trygan exined and handed the box back to Eisen with an apologetic expression before the old man smiled again. "Don¡¯t worry, that¡¯s fine. It¡¯s more than I knew before. Thanks." Eisen responded before making his way back to Samuel for good this time before the ¡¯Administrator¡¯ asked him what he just showed to Trygan. With a smile, Eisen summoned the box again and handed it over to Samuel. "Just the box that you guys put into my Soul Storage. We¡¯re trying to figure out how to unlock it right now, and I wanted to ask if Trygan knew anything." Eisen exined before Samuel looked at him with a surprised expression, staring at the box in his hands for a little while. Confused, Eisen looked at him with a frown. "Something wrong?" Swiftly, Samuel shook his head as he handed the box back to Eisen. "Nope, nothing wrong. Just surprised that you already have Soul Storage. Anyway,e on, I¡¯m sure you want to see what your kids and grandkids are doing right now." He said with a smile before the gate that Eisen entered through before opened up again, and the two men swiftly stepped through into the white space. There, Eisen could see a few more things than he could before. Not only were there small, humanoid gray figures that Benji, Sophia, and Kyle were fighting against to test out different weapons, but there were also numerous worktables with misceneous materials on them, where Tony, Natsuo, L, and L were ying around with some enchanting and alchemy. In the meantime, Katy was ying around with a few animals, Sean was conjuring skeletons, and Melody and Christie were keeping an eye on these two kids. Ari was standing at the sidelines, seemingly controlling everything that was currently going on there. With a smile, Eisen made his way over to his two sons and twin granddaughters with a smile first, since they were the closest to him. "So, what are you four doing?" He asked them before Natsuo excitedly looked up. "We¡¯re ying around with these things! That Woman gave us a few temporary abilities to use, and any material we want. It¡¯s really, really awkward to use at first, but we managed to make a small spinning top. Tony already knew about how enchantments worked from you, so he took care of the logistics." Natsuo told him before Eisen looked at the little Beyde-esque spinning top that was rotating on its own on top of the table. "Hmm, I see. Interesting, just a small toy then?" He asked as he looked at the simple pyramid-shaped item with nothing but an enchantment circle on top. "Yeah, nothing tooplicated. We only managed to make something like this with transmutation, though." Tony added before Eisen grinned lightly and looked at the item once more, before stepping to an open space in front of him, looking over at the goddess looking at them curiously. "Ari, could you give me some steel, mana crystals, fire and wind gems, and some of my me-of-the-Earth Mythril?" Eisen asked her before the goddess nodded her head immediately and summoned a table with all of those materials on it. "Do you need a forge as well?" She then asked, before Eisen shook his head and summoned his Staff, creating his magic forge, luckily without expending any mana in this ce. And after grabbing his hammer and the Mythril, Eisen also activated his Demonic Transformation, since he would be gaining some bonuses to his crafts with it. At least that¡¯s what the case would usually be, but in actuality, he just wanted to show off a bit. And then, Eisen got an idea. He increased his size with the new Giant ability he gained in the game, but since the Hammer stayed in its regr size, Eisen asked Ari to increase the size of his tools for a little while as well, which she dly did. Eisen would need to make some new tools for his giant formter, which was good to know. Either way, Eisen now began to work after he also increased the size of his me-of-the-Earth forge, again, to show off. And now, Eisen did the showiest thing he could. He began to craft. With each swing of his hammer, he began to form the steel into a solid core piece for the huge spinning top he would create, with that core piece in itself alreadyrger than his current head. After creating that core, Eisen started working on the Mythril casing, that would bring the spinning top into its actual shape. And on top of that, Eisen also created thin Mythril des which he would add on the outside. And then, Eisen unsummoned the Magic Forge and instead created a table to work at with his increased size. Carefully, the giant demon craftsman now began to carve enchantments into the steel core first, which would work on actually actively causing it to spin as fast as possible with simple conceptual enchantments simr to force enchantments that would cause it to spin. After that, Eisen also enchanted the Mythril tings with parts useful for defense, while adding offensive enchantments onto the des which were supported by adding either the fire or wind gems into the carvings. And next, Eisen worked on another thing while asking Ari for new materials, which she chose to give him for this demonstration immediately. And after merging three different crystals to create a Golem Core. And now, it came to the assembly. Eisen ced the Golem Core into the center of the Steel Core by making way with transmutation, and then put the Mythril casing on the outside, while also adding the des into the proper ces. And atst, Eisen added a thin mana crystalyer onto the bottom tip of the spinning top so that nothing would scratch up or dent immediately. Atst, the old man was done, cing the truly giant Spinning Top on the ground next to him while deactivating his skills and returning to his natural form. Immediately, everyone that was watching Eisen work, which was quite literally everyone there, rushed up to him. "Dad, are you alright? Isn¡¯t your arm hurting?" Melody immediately asked before Eisen shook his head in response. "Not at all. That¡¯s what I was telling you all the time. I can use my body like it¡¯s in peak health in this game, that¡¯s why I like it so much. Anyway, I wanted to show all of you what could be done here, first off, what happened to me there. I turned into my demonic form that you saw before and increased my size. I can do that because my race is half-giant in the game and because I did some special things to learn that ability. I could make that forge just there with my Magic Element. Took a while until I got it hot enough to use, though. And besides that, I made the metal top normally, carved some enchantments into everything, and put a golem core in the center, so that it could do this." After Eisen said this, he ced his palm on the top of the Beyde-like spinning top with des at the side and poured his mana into the golem core in the center of it. Immediately it began spinning on its tip and created a small tornado of mes and des of wind as it did. "Ari, if you may ce some monsters over there, that would be quite nice of you." The old man asked before Ari nodded and waved her hand, immediately causing a horde of Goblins to appear near them. And so, Eisen mentallymanded the spinning top to rush toward the crowd of monsters, cutting them down immediately. As Eisen looked over towards Natsuo and Tony who were watching excitedly, the old man simplyughed. "That¡¯s how you make a spinning top." Chapter 201 Lunchtime "Holy shit, Dad! What the hell is that?" Natsuo yelled out excitedly as he stared at the spinning top, moving incredibly fast in the distance before Eisen responded with augh. "It¡¯s my version of your spinning top. Some friends and I will make our way to a pretty dangerous ind soon, and I¡¯m just always looking for things that will make it easier. If I can make a bunch of those spinning tops, it definitely will be a whole lot easier." Eisen exined before he looked away from his son and over to his grandchildren, who were all staring at their grandfather in wonder. "That¡¯s so fucking awesome," Benji muttered while looking at the literal tornado of mes currently cutting up Goblins. "It is, isn¡¯t it?" Eisen answered with augh and called the spinning top back over toward himself before telling it to deactivate. "That¡¯s the kind of thing that I can do with my skills in this game. Some of my friends can also do quite incredible things. One can summon a whole meteorite, and another one can cause shockwaves to appear with a single punch. Then there¡¯s, of course, the Beastperson that has an army of monsters and undead, and the world-wide renown artist that has the ability to enchant a whole town with a single song." Eisen said with augh before Samuel stepped up next to him. "That¡¯s pretty interesting, though. You can turn anything into an even more amazing version, huh?" He asked before Eisen slowly nodded. "I¡¯m trying my best to." After the old man said this, things just escted even more, and everyone got incredibly excited, trying to have fun with all of these fantastic abilities until it was time to log off again a few hourster. --- Benjamin stepped out the capsule and swiftly stretched as he watched the others slowly do the same. Once everybody was out, Samuel stepped in front of the group with a bright smile. "Now then, we¡¯re slowlying to the end of our tour. We just spent about one real-life hour in the capsule, and it¡¯s a little after lunchtime now. Want to get to the caf¨¦ and grab a bite to eat,? it¡¯s on the house." As Samuel said this, Melody, in particr, looked around confused, searching for a clock. She was the only one that didn¡¯t get the concept of time dtion, except for Katy and Sean of course, but those two didn¡¯t care, and she didn¡¯t understand what was going on. "It¡¯s been about three or four hours though, hasn¡¯t it?" She asked, confused, and Tony turned to her with a nod. "From our perspectives, yes. The game has a time dtion function. You could say it pushes four seconds worth of information into our brain every second, so it feels longer for us. But only one hour passed here." He exined before Samuel swiftly supported him. "That¡¯s a good way to put it, yeah. These first two weeks that Benjamin was ying the game, it actually felt more like two months to him because of that. We¡¯re working together with a lot of homes for the elderly and hospitals because of that fact. Old or sick people that don¡¯t have much time left or can¡¯t use their body like they used to benefitrgely from this game in general. If they have only a year left to live, that year will feel like four years instead." Samuel began to exin while he began to lead them back to the caf¨¦ a few floors down. "Is that so..?" Melody asked as she looked down at the ground with a sad frown, before looking up again. "Erm... Can this also help people that are blind?" She asked before Samuel looked at her in surprise before nodding. "Yes, actually. The current yer phase is being used to test exactly that as well, amongst other things, so there¡¯s a bunch of deaf or blind people participating. It¡¯s working without any issue, actually. They can see and hear inside the game. Don¡¯t ask me how it works. I¡¯m a business guy, not a science guy." Slowly, Melody rubbed her neck before exining her question. "Oh... I¡¯m a teacher working at a school thatbines elementary, middle, and high school where we live, and I¡¯m involved in a lot of different things outside and inside. And there¡¯s this one boy, just 16 years old, that was diagnosed with cancer some time ago that destroyed his eyes. They had to be removed to make sure the tumors couldn¡¯t spread further, so he has gonepletely blind ... Could the ¡¯capsule¡¯ help him?" She asked, and Samuel nodded immediately. "It definitely should, yes. We actually have a program for cases like that, where the disabled can get the capsule for either a heavily reduced price, orpletely for free. I¡¯ll give you my business card, so please give my info to them and tell them to contact me directly. The kid will need to go through a psychological assessment to be able to get into the program though so that we can make sure we¡¯re not actively promoting to the mental decline of anyone. But for the most part, it should most likely be quite helpful to him. We have specific counselors and actual support groups within the game that are part of the current testing phase as well to make sure they get used to being able to live like that again." "Huh, that¡¯s quite noble of you, Samuel," Benjamin said with a sentimental smirk before Samuel himself slightly chuckled. "Nothing like that. There¡¯s just this one deaf kid that alwayses to work with his mom that works at a nearby coffee shop. Because they¡¯re already paying for tons and tons of treatment in this horrible healthcare system we have, they could never afford something like the capsule. That gave me the idea for the program. That¡¯s all." Afterward, Samuel exined his reasoning for the program and began talking about a few other things that slowly turned into himining about the fact that he just wants to be able to sleep for a full night without being annoyed by anyone because of the game and capsule release. "E-Erm, Mister Morgan, I¡¯m not sure if you should say that..." Samuel¡¯s assistant cut in at some point when things were escting before Samuel shot him a quick re and clicked his tongue. "Sure, if you say so... Well, not like they can throw me out at this point anyway, except if I somehow turn the game into ¡¯Sword Art Online.¡¯" He chuckled, and Natsuo, Tony, and the three teenagers Benji, Sophia and Kyle released a quietugh as well, while the others were just confused at this reference. Once he noticed this, Samuel shrugged with a loud sigh. "Anyway, let¡¯s just eat for a bit, alright?" He suggested instead before he opened the door to the caf¨¦ and led everyone inside. In the caf¨¦, Benjamin and family sat down in a few small groups, since they couldn¡¯t all sit down at one table together, and talked to each other about the game and some of the other gadgets and facilities they managed to see there while they ate a little bit. And after finishing his food, Benjamin chose to sit down with the group of three teenagers, those that would actually join him in the game at some point. After all, Kyle had already pre-ordered the capsule and would start ying only a week after Benji and Sophia due to that, and since Sophia and Kyle were best friends, it only made sense that they would hang out in the game as well. "So, how did you like testing the game out a little?" Benjamin asked with a slight grin before Benji leaned back in his chair with crossed arms with a rather bored expression and shrugged. "It was pretty nice, I guess. Totally not like you¡¯re the best Grandfather in the history of Grandfathers or something." "Nah, it¡¯s totally like that... I love you, Gramps." Sophia said immediately afterward, and even Kyle ended up nodding. "You¡¯re not my grandfather, but even I have to admit that it¡¯s the case... Like, you created a murderous Beyde that you control with your thoughts... how cool is that?" With augh, Benjamin looked at the three of them and grinned. "If you think that is cool, then just wait until you see the life-like horse and wolf I made out of gears and tubes." He said as he took a sip of his coffee, surprising them immensely. "Wait. What? I think you mentioned that before, but... Are they like actual animals?" Benji asked with a frown before Benjamin immediately nodded. "Yes, they do. I created them in a way that they would act like animals as well. I¡¯ll upgrade their Golem Core at some point because I¡¯ve learned a bunch of new things now about enchanting and alchemy and such." The old man exined and continued to tell them about this and that, all simple information that is useful to know before they began to y, including that they, under no circumstances, should spread who ¡¯Eisen¡¯ really was, the first person that peaked. "Uhh, and why shouldn¡¯t we say that? It¡¯s going to open up a whole lot of paths for us, right?" Sophia inquired and her grandfather swiftly exined. "At some point, when we found the town and have brought it to the stage of a Kingdom, I doubt we¡¯ll have any major problems with it and it might actually be helpful to reveal it while dealing with other countries, but other than that, there¡¯s this cult that¡¯s kind of worrying. They worship the five that peaked as gods, and I have been told they are pretty extreme. I¡¯d rather avoid having to deal with them if possible." He said, which seemed to make sense to the three of them, but Benji was currently worrying about something else. "And what was it that you were doing in that other room that Samuell brought you to?" After Benji asked this, the old man shrugged. "It wasn¡¯t actually that much. He introduced me and the other originals to the gods of the game world and told us a bit about the inds were going to in a while, but that¡¯s really about it." He exined, and Benji snickered lightly at what the old man just said. "Yeah, right, nothing much. I mean, you meet gods every day, am I right?" Benjiughed, and Benjamin frowned in a joking manner. "Don¡¯t talk like that. I mean, one of them is basically your uncle." He said, and now the three of them were confused again, so Sophia tilted her head to the side a slight bit and asked, "What do you mean? Was there a god that acted or looked like uncle Natsuo?" "Oh, no, not at all. Well, my character¡¯s actual backstory is that ¡¯Eisen¡¯ is hundreds of thousands of years old and hatched the egg of a Dragon thatter ascended to bing a literal god. I mean, he calls me ¡¯Father,¡¯ anyway." "Grampa, what the fuck..." Sophia muttered out without being able to help herself, and Benji had a simr reaction, "Yeah, Soph, sounds about right..." "It¡¯s not my fault, not like I actually went and did that. I didn¡¯te up with my character¡¯s background story." Benjamin defended himself, but his grandson stared at him suspiciously. "Sure, you didn¡¯t... you sure you didn¡¯t actually spend all those thousands of years in the game world after all and did all that? I mean, everything from the story that you¡¯ve told me about sounds a lot like you." With a sigh, Benjamin looked at Benji before standing up with a smile. "Don¡¯t be ridiculous. Anyway, you¡¯ve all finished eating? Let¡¯s see if Samuel still has something nned for us." He said with a smirk and stepped back over to the table where Samuel was sitting at with his children while thinking about the fact that it was the right choice not to tell them about how some of the minor gods freaked out over meeting him. Chapter 202 Sounds Spanish To Me Back home, Benjamin sat down on his armchair with a loud sigh. At Prime Industries, everyone continued ying around with all kinds of gadgets and cool machinery for quite a while, so the old man felt somewhat exhausted. It now became evening, thest evening of everyone here being together, actually, since Melody would make her way back home and take Kyle with her on Friday. And not only those two would be leaving, but Natsuo, Christie, L, and L would be on their way as well. As this was the case, while the kids went to bed early and the teenagers chose to sit around outside a little while, in the meantime, the adults decided to talk a bit. After all, it would be a while until they would all be together again. "So you¡¯re staying here indefinitely?" Natsuo asked his brother with a smile, who nodded in response. "Yes, exactly. I got a call the other day that thepany I¡¯m currently working for is officially shutting down, and Samuel gave me a date to start my internship today. He said that there are pretty good chances for a full-time hire. ording to him, I¡¯m just hopping through the different sections for a few weeks to see if I fit in anywhere, and if I do, then I¡¯m in." Tony exined before Benjamin leaned back in the armchair. "And of course, you can stay here however long you want. It takes a little while to drive there, but it¡¯s not too far away. Once you get the job, which I¡¯m positive you will, I¡¯ll help you look for an apartment near there as well, but it¡¯s fine to stay until then." "Thanks, Dad. And I know you, Sophia and Benji are excited to y the game, but I¡¯d appreciate it if there¡¯s always one person with the kids while I¡¯m gone." Tony said with a slightly embarrassed smile before Benjamin nodded again. "Actually, I¡¯m not sure how necessary that is. There¡¯s enough toys or games for them to y around with, and I¡¯ll have Rover and his mini-bots ced around everywhere to watch them. Samuel exined that I could constantly have a disy showing what all of the bots are seeing, and since everything feels faster in the game, I can react quite quickly and be offline immediately or send either Sophia or Benji to take a look. If you want one of us always to be there, then that¡¯s fine though." The old man exined, and Tony answered with a frown before Rover activated at the mention of his name and rolled over to the group. "Yuppy! You don¡¯t need to worry, Tony! Ie from a long line of Baby Monitors!" Rover said in a half-joking half-serious tone, making the worried man chuckle. "Alright, that¡¯s fine. But really, make sure to pay attention then, okay?" Tony asked his father, who immediately nodded. "Of course, I won¡¯t let anything happen. So, Melody, Natsuo, when did you guys want to leave tomorrow?" The old man inquired before the two of them answered quite quickly. "The best would probably be to go tomorrow morning right off the bat," Natsuo answered before Melody nodded as well. "Yeah, I promised his father that Kyle would be there by tomorrow evening." "I got you, alright. I¡¯ll pack you something for the trip, so-" Benjamin wanted to say as he slowly stood up from the armchair, but was immediately stopped by his children. "No, Dad, you won¡¯t. Your hand is still not better. Focus on that please, alright?" Tony told him, with the support of his siblings. With a loud sigh, Benjamin then slowly nodded at them, still standing up with a look at the clock. "Got it. Well, how about we get to sleep now so that we can wake up early tomorrow then?" He suggested with a smile, already stepping toward his room. "Alright, goodnight, Dad..." Natsuo muttered out slowly as he watched the back of his father while he walked away, his stature smaller than he ever seemed. --- Slowly, Eisen took a look around after logging back on into the game. He did so a bit earlier than nned, so they were still on their way to the mining town. Quietly, Eisen sat there and held his right arm while staring forward, noticing the three boys sleeping on the fold-out bed byying next to each other. "Eisen, no sad!" Melissa eximed as she stumbled along the ground and leaned against the old man, while Caria also looked at him with worry in her deep ck eyes. "Is Eisen okay? Caria and Melly are worried..." The young Myconid muttered out and ced her hand on her master¡¯s. With a light smile, Eisen pulled his hands away and ced one on either of his tamed monsters¡¯ heads. "Don¡¯t worry, both of you. I¡¯m fine." He told them and stood up quietly so that he wouldn¡¯t wake his apprentices and stuck his head through the window at the front of the carriage, passing thepletely white figure of Komer sitting and ¡¯sleeping¡¯ next to that window. "Good morning, you two," Eisen said as he looked at Sky and Bree before the two of them turned around in surprise as Kiron peeked down from the roof curiously as well. "Oh, Eisen, up already?" Sky asked while looking up from his book, and Eisen nodded his head. "Seems like it, huh? I hope the trip wasn¡¯t too boring so far." Eisen asked apologetically, but the two Fey-Kin shook their heads. "Not really, no. But we will arrive there soon, just so you know. We could already see the town in the distance, so it¡¯s just another 20 or 30 minutes." Sky exined, and Kiron added something from above. "The trip itself went without much trouble as well, M¡¯Lord. We encountered a small group of monsters once a few hours ago, but nothing since then." The Half-Dragon exined, and Eisen looked up at him with a smile. "I see, thanks for letting me know. I have something to tell you aboutter, but it¡¯s better to do that when we¡¯re there. But Sky, did you manage to figure out the carving on the box yet? You copied them onto some paper, right?" Eisen inquired because he was getting more and more curious to find out about what the box was, especially what was inside of it. However, Sky swiftly shook his head and looked at the book in his hands again. "No, I haven¡¯t the slightest idea. I managed to decipher thebination of I?tum and Dvergun, and it somewhat formed words, I guess? I mean, they look like words, and some of them are simr to what we use in themonnguage, so I was able to guess what some of them mean, but it doesn¡¯t make sense at all even then..." He exined, showing Eisen the pieces of paper where he wrote down his notes before the old man opened his eyes wide and grabbed it out of the Fey-Kin¡¯s hands. "Are you fucking kidding me? That is Spanish!" He eximed before turning around immediately to see if he identally woke up his apprentices, but since they still seemed to be sound asleep, Eisen looked back at Sky with a bright grin, while Sky himself looked at him confused. "What do you mean? What¡¯s ¡¯Spanish¡¯?" Sky asked as he tilted his head to the side, but Eisen simply continued to smile. "It¡¯s anguage that I remember. I know a whole lot of differentnguages that you may not know. Anyway, I can read this. Those carvings were a mixture of threenguages, I?tum, Dvergun, and Spanish. A kind of weirdbo, though." "Ah, so it¡¯s the kind of thing where you just remember some things from your past without knowing why you know them?" Bree asked with an excited smile, and Eisen swiftly nodded. "Mhm, something like that. Anyway, what¡¯s written here is quite simple... It¡¯s ¡¯Feed me a pound of each these magic metals, Gold of Fire, Silver of Earth, Iron of Air, and Bronze of Water.¡¯ Huh. ¡¯Silver of the earth¡¯ is probably Mythril. And I guess the others are just infused version of these metals." Eisen muttered out before he looked back at the Fey-Kin in front of him. "Do you know anything about them?" Eisen asked, and Sky swiftly nodded. "Mhm. Those would be White Gold, High-Iron, and Orichalcum. They are a lot rarer than Mythril, and they aren¡¯t as absorbant of elemental mana as Silver is, so they only appear in specific areas in very umon situations. For example, White Gold with the Fire element in volcanoes, and High-Iron with the air element on a floating ind, and Orichalcum with the water element somewhere in a deep underwater cavern. But even at those ces, finding those would be super hard. But you could probably make an infuser or something, right?" Sky exined before Eisen slowly nodded. "I think so, maybe. I¡¯d like it if I could do that without needing to rank my Enchanting skill up even more because that¡¯s going to take a while. Hmm..." The old man moved his fingers through his beard in thought as he activated his Truth-Seeing Eyes and mana-sight to look at the gems that he brought with him for a second. He didn¡¯t specifically look at them yet, but now that he did, he noticed that there was some coloring to them, meaning that they had elemental mana inside of them. "Hmm... Maybe I can extract the mana from these..." Eisen muttered to himself, but Sky tuned in. "That would be pretty wasteful, though, right? Surely we can find some enchanters that can help us in Handor. Wouldn¡¯t that be easier?" He asked, and Eisen slowly nodded at him with a loud sigh. "Sure, we can do that instead. Don¡¯t need to do every single step. Anyway, good job, Sky. Thanks for the help with this." Eisen said, and Sky looked back with a smug expression. "Of course, I even got the Linguism skill from this. It¡¯s barely Rank 1, but at some point, it¡¯s going to trante everything for me into themonnguage!" Sky exined, and Eisen responded with a loudugh. "Huh, really? It seems like you¡¯re our group researcher then, huh?" He asked before Sky looked into the open air for a second and then slowly began to nod. "I like that title... But yeah, I guess it fits somewhat. As long as Xenia isn¡¯t around... Anyway, as I said, we¡¯ll be there soon, so maybe you should get everything ready?" Sky suggested, and Eisen nodded before sitting back down with his two tamed monsters, which he somewhat neglectedtely. And they also always had to deal with having to sleep whenever Eisen was offline, so he did feel a little guilty and wanted to sit down with them alone for a while. "Alright you two, you¡¯ve been working on some spells, right?" Eisen asked with a smile before Caria immediately nodded. "Mhm! Caria can do this now!" She eximed and held her pale hand forward with the palm pointed up, before some mana poured out from it and turned into the shape of a small, pure white flower. "Hmm, so you can make that just through mana?" Eisen asked, and Caria nodded her head once more with a proud grin. "Yup! Caria is pretty amazing, isn¡¯t she?!" Sheughed out, before Eisen pat the top of her head. "Yes, you are! Can you make other things as well? Trees, for example?" He asked, before Caria thought about it for a second, turned around, and began to try it out. In the meantime, Eisen looked at Melissa. "And what about you? Did you learn a new skill?" He asked the small empress bee, before she furiously nodded her head up and down, squeezing her eyes shut as she pressed her palms together. While Eisen was trying to figure out what she was doing, Melissa swiftly pulled her hands away from each other, revealing a tiny white bee that was floating in the air. Or rather, in this world, it was tiny, but in reality, it was just asrge as a regr bee would be. With a happy grin after she looked away from the tiny floating thing, Melissa looked up at Eisen, who now also pat her head. "Good job, Melissa! You two did great!" Chapter 203 Bigger Tools While Caria and Melissa were now practicing to create more pure-mana spells and skill for themselves, the group finally reached the mining town. It was just a quiet small vige in itself, and the surrounding area wasn¡¯t all that dangerous, so they didn¡¯t have as many guards or as thick of walls as usual. Soon enough, Eisen woke up his apprentices, grabbed some steel and some tools, and stepped outside. And once he asked a farmer that was working the field nearby if he could use an empty plot ofnd for a little bit, Eisen took out his staff and created three of his magic forges and turned to his apprentices. "Alright, these forges will stay there for a good while. What you three will do now is make personalized tools for yourselves. For today, I¡¯d say make a pickaxe and a shovel. You can use this steel and wood here. I¡¯ll be working on something as well, and once I¡¯m finished, I¡¯ll be going to the mines for a while. Come join me there once you¡¯re done as well. Oh, but eat something first. There¡¯s a little bit of food in the carriage." Eisen told them immediately before the three slowly nodded their heads while tiredly making their way back to the carriage to eat, as Eisen started ying around with something in preparation for his work. The first thing he did was try and activate his Fullbody enchantment without transformation since he didn¡¯t want to turn into his demonic form right here. However, when he noticed that this didn¡¯t work and instantly began damaging him since the enchantment was carved into his flesh, Eisen sighed loudly and activated his transformation. He exined the situation to the farmer, who was currently the only one that saw him in his natural form so far and just wanted to make sure that nobody got worried, scared, or confused. Of course, Eisen also made sure that the farmer knew about what was about to happen. Eisen increased his size since he would be working on tools for this current Giant-Form. He might also make some for his shrunken-down form at some point, although he really didn¡¯t see a reason for that for now. So instead, the old man created a fourth Forge and got to work, although not with his increased size, since he first needed to make something else ¡ª arger hammer. Using the me-Of-The-Earth Mythril from his carriage, Eisen then began to shape that magic silver into a copy of his hammer, just with an increased size of 50% into each direction. It took a while, due to the shock that the metal returned to him with every impact, but soon enough, Eisen created a more massive hammer for himself to use. And not just that, while he was at it, Eisen even created a new hammer altogether for him to use with his regr size. Once he was done with that, his apprentices started working on their own tools as well, so it was rtively good timing. But Eisen first spent some time looking at the description of his new Mythril hammers after creating the handles out some quite durable wood he had in the carriage. [Mythril Cross-Peen Hammer] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 4] [Description] A High-Quality Cross-Peen Hammer made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It was made out of Below-Average Quality Mythril infused with the me-Of-The-Earth Element. [Effect] +20 STR, +20 END, +20% Impact-Strength, -10% Endurance Drain [Requirements] Level 60, 80 STR, 80 END, 70 AGI [Large Mythril Cross-Peen Hammer] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 4] [Description] A Large, High-Quality Cross-Peen Hammer made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It was made out of Below-Average Quality Mythril infused with the me-Of-The-Earth Element. Its increased size shows that it¡¯s not meant to be handled by regr-sized people. [Effect] +30 STR, +30 END, +30% Impact-Strength, -15% Endurance Drain [Requirements] Level 95, 140 STR, 140 END, 110 AGI "Hmm, I see... Well, either is pretty good, anyway. The requirements are just within my current range as well." Eisen slowly nodded before swiftly increasing his size as well as one of the magic forges in front of him, before he turned around to look at his Apprentices. "Alright you three, get to work now, alright? If the item you make isn¡¯t at least of High Quality, re-make it." He strictly told them before they nodded their heads and immediately got to work, while Eisen himself did the same. It wouldn¡¯t make much sense for the shovel, but Eisen swiftly chose to make the pickaxe out of his elemental Mythril as well, which would hopefully help further with the ¡¯crushing¡¯ enchantment that he would ce on it, just like he did with his other, regr-sized pickaxe. Mythril was excellent for defense and blunt weaponry or tools, or when you wanted a shock to be stronger and travel further than usual like with the pickaxe, but it wasn¡¯t the best metal for ded items. Maybe one of the four metals that Eisen would need for the box would be better suited for it. But until then, he would keep using steel instead, as long as he didn¡¯t find anything better. For a little while, Eisen then worked on the metal parts for a Pickaxe, a Shovel, and an Axe for his increased-size form. At some point, he could maybe create tools that could change their size as well, but that would take enchanting every little part of it with the size-change ability separately, on top of needing something that would let him control it properly. And that would end up quite unstable and may reduce the quality and durability of the materials since only crystals or gems could get ability-enchantments ced on them without any worry. Once Eisen ranked his enchanting up some more, he would probably be able to put this n into action, but until then, he didn¡¯t mind making multiple tools. He could probably smelt the metal down again, after all. Afterpleting all the metal parts, Eisen carved the enchantments into each in his regr size, since that would make it much easier to do, considering that he only had a small needle. On top of that, the smaller needle would make details easier to carve. Soon enough, Eisenpleted the metal parts, and he expertly carved the wooden handles out of some durable wood as well, swiftly finishing the over-sized tools. [Large Mythril Pickaxe] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 4] [Description] A Large Mythril Pickaxe made by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been enchanted with a ¡¯Crushing¡¯ enchantment to make it easier to crush up minerals literally. Its increased size shows that it¡¯s not meant to be handled by regr-sized people. [Effect] +30 STR, +30 END, +30% Impact-Strength, -15% Endurance Drain, Crushing [Requirements] Level 90, 120 STR, 120 END, 90 AGI, 80 INT, 80 WIS [Large Shovel] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 4] [Description] A Large Steel Shovel made by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been enchanted with a ¡¯Burrow¡¯ enchantment to make it easier to dig through dirt. Its increased size shows that it¡¯s not meant to be handled by regr-sized people. [Effect] +30 AGI, +40 END, Burrowing [Requirements] Level 90, 100 AGI, 100 END, 90 STR, 80 INT, 80 WIS [Large Axe] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 4] [Description] A Large Steel Axe made by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been enchanted with a ¡¯Cutting¡¯ enchantment to make it easier to cut through wood. Its increased size shows that it¡¯s not meant to be handled by regr-sized people. [Effect] +40 AGI, +30 END, Cutting [Requirements] Level 90, 100 AGI, 100 END, 90 STR, 80 INT, 80 WIS With a satisfied smile, Eisen ced the ax into the carriage, since he wouldn¡¯t need it for now, and de-summoned his forge before looking at Rouge and Parc with his tools over his shoulders, increased in size but with his transformation deactivated. He actually felt quitefortable thisrge, and spending a lot of time in this form may give him a ¡¯familiarity¡¯ benefit or something that would let him be evenrger without ranking his giant racial-skill up. He took a look at the mines earlier, and they were more thanrge enough for him to walk aroundfortably. Either way, he looked over at his apprentices and smiled. "Rouge, Parc, you two enchant your tools as well. The Pickaxe with ¡¯Crushing¡¯ and the shovel with ¡¯Burrow.¡¯ You can do something simr with the same effect, or if you think you know about a better enchantment, go ahead." Eisen told them and then turned to Koro with a stern expression. "And you better not even touch an enchanting needle, got it? If you do, you won¡¯t be my apprentice when we get back to Handor." Eisen told him before Koro slowly nodded his head. "I got you..." He muttered out and continued with his work, more determined than before. Then, Eisen looked at the others in his group, including Komer who had woken up just a bit ago. "Kiron, can youe with me and help me out with some of the heavybor? In the meantime, Bree, please take care of Caria and Melissa and watch the guys here and make sure they don¡¯t do anything dangerous, alright?" Eisen asked of them, and they swiftly nodded, before Komer and Sky looked at the old man. "In the meantime, we¡¯ll prepare everything for farming. Caria is surely going to be able to help us prepare the soil as well, right?" Komer suggested, and Eisen nodded his head as he looked at the small Myconid. "I¡¯m sure she could. Do you think so, Caria?" He asked her with a smile, and the little girl nodded her head and crossed her arms happily. "Yup! Caria is super duper good at that!" "Thank you then. Alright, Kiron, let¡¯s get going. I¡¯ll tell you about what I mentioned before on the way." The old man said with a smile as he and Kiron made their way toward the mines that were a little bit of a walk outside of town. A few minutester, Eisen turned over toward Kiron, who chose to carry Eisen¡¯s regr-sized tools so that he could actually directly help out in the mines, while the old man smiled. "You know, I had a pretty interesting dream." Surprised, Kiron looked up at Eisen, curious as to what he was talking about, "And what did you dream of, M¡¯Lord?" After lightly grinning, Eisen looked back at the half-dragon next to him and exined. "Well, literally every great god in the existence of this world, including your father. Oh, and it wasn¡¯t actually a dream, but rather that the other originals and I were summoned to them together." The Old Giant exined, which quite soon caused the half-dragon to stumble up and nearly trip. "M-M¡¯Lord, what?! You met with my father?" He asked surprised, stopping in his tracks, and Eisenughed lowly. "Yes, I did. And I¡¯ve got something to tell you about, which is actually pretty important. It turns out, I did find your father¡¯s egg, he hatched out of it, and I became his father. Which means that I¡¯m your grandfather." Quietly, Kiron dropped the Pickaxe and Shovel that he was carrying and stared nkly ahead of him, before then looking at Eisen. "...I... am strongly conflicted... Am I to call you M¡¯Lord, or Grandfather...?" He asked before Eisenughed again and continued walking, prompting the half-dragon to grab the tools again and rush to follow him. "I would prefer ¡¯Grandfather,¡¯ to be honest. But it¡¯s your choice. Just think about it for a while if you want." Eisen told his draconic NPC grandson, before the two of them continued walking toward the mine that they wereing closer and closer to with each step, while Eisen kept telling Kiron a little bit about his encounter with the gods, in particr with Trygan, including the way that Kiron¡¯s father spoke about him in an incredibly loving manner, with the same expression that Eisen had when talking about his own children. Chapter 204 Mining "Hello there, my name is Eisen. Could my friend and I here maybe go down into the mine for a while? I¡¯m looking to acquire the Mining Skill." Eisen said with a light smile as he looked down at the Miners standing next to the entrance, one of them seems to be the most senior one there experience-wise. Surprised, the most senior, dwarven, Miner looked at Eisen and Kiron with a deep frown. "A Titan¡¯n¡¯Lizardman? That¡¯s abo ya don¡¯t often see, eh?" Heughed out before Eisen smiled back with a nod. He had already heard about titans before when he asked around about Giants out of curiosity. Titans were a race that was sometimes called ¡¯Lesser Giants¡¯ as a derogatory term. They were always quite human-like, and would usually be around three to maybe five meters tall, so Eisen was actually at the short end of that spectrum. It was easier to pretend to be one of them than to exin that he was a half-giant that just recently learned how to change their size, mainly because Giants were technically a race of monsters, despite the fact that they acted just like regr people most of the time, only in a greater dimension of things. But Titans were a race of people, so it would be easier to act like one. "I guess you don¡¯t. Anyway, is it alright if we do so? We¡¯re returning to Handorter tonight, so it would only be for a few hours." Eisen exined with a quietugh before the Miner nodded his head. "Of course, don¡¯t worry about it. Ya can keep the majority of what ya dig up, but it¡¯s policy to take a third of what any outsider digs up. But I tell ya what, it ain¡¯t often that we see outsiders, ¡¯specially not ones like you two, so ye can keep any rare stuff ya find." The Miner exined, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head. "I see, that¡¯s fine. We only really want to get a bit of hands-on experience to gain the skill. But what do you mean with ¡¯rare stuff¡¯? Isn¡¯t this just an Iron mine?" The old man inquired, before the Miner shrugged, surprised for a moment before realizing it wasn¡¯t too weird for a person without the Mining skill not to know. "Of course this be just an iron mine, but sometimes ye can be lucky enough ta find some lowest-grade High-Iron ore." He exined while Eisen, squatting down so that he could adequately speak to the dwarf, listened curiously. "Oh, really? So there is some magic ore in regr veins as well?" The Old man asked, and the Dwarf Miner nodded his head. "Yup. There¡¯s always some mana around, ya see? And sometimes it gathers at a single spot even if it ain¡¯t as much as at a mana source, and it¡¯s going ta make maybe a nugget worth of magic ore. There ain¡¯t much around, but maybe for every 10000 pounds of natural iron ore, ya find one pound of High-Iron ore. And then there¡¯s sometimes crystal or gem clusters. Used to be a volcano ¡¯round here, so ya¡¯ll probably find some with earth or fire mana." "I see, thanks for the information. Kiron, we¡¯ll head down now." Eisen exined as he looked over at the half-dragon before the Miner spoke up once more as he saw the two of them leave. "If ya find any High-Iron ore, go ahead and bring it to me. I¡¯ll give ya a gold coin for every pound of it." [New Quest - Rare Ore Search] [Description] A Miner asked you to bring him High-Iron Ore in exchange for money. [Reward] One Gold Coin per pound of High-Iron Ore [Failure] Failure not possible [Time Limit] None "I see, thanks. If we find any, I¡¯ll let you know. Oh, and some others are going toe hereter as well, three young boys. Could you send them down to follow me?" Eisen asked, and the Miner nodded his head with a smile, while Eisen and Kiron made their way into the mines, cing a borrowed cart onto the tracks so that they could haul up as much ore as possible. "M¡¯Lord... Grandfather... M¡¯Grandfather..? Erm, where should we begin our work?" Kiron asked,pletely confused before Eisen looked down and closed his eyes for a moment. "Wherever the most mana is." He replied, and when his eye opened again, he already activated his ¡¯truth-seeing eyes.¡¯ "Oh, are you attempting to find those High-Iron ores?" Kiron asked, and Eisen winked at him with a swift nod. "If the ore can be found at the ces where mana gathered the most, it¡¯s going to be rtively easy to find it. The biggest problem would be whether we can ess that area. If it¡¯s too far away from the already-dug tunnels, we won¡¯t have any luck today." Eisen exined as he took a look around. After a while, they reached the area of the mines where everyone was already working, and then made their way through the tunnels toward a ce where nobody seemed to be, despite there being a high concentration of mana just behind the walls. A Miner that saw them head that way looked at them and then spoke up. "No need to head that way, you two. There¡¯s nothin¡¯ there anymore. The vein is headin¡¯ south from the intersection here." The Miner exined to them, but Eisen simply smiled at him after he deactivated his ¡¯truth-seeing eyes.¡¯ "I see... Thanks for the information!" He eximed, right before he went that way anyway. With a loud sigh, the Miner shook his head slightly annoyed and walked away as well, while Kiron followed Eisen. "Now then, want to get to work?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Kiron swiftly nodded. "It¡¯s about a meter in, maybe, so it might take a while," Eisen said and ced his shovel down on the ground as he grabbed the handle of his pickaxe tightly, Kiron doing the same. After a little while of simple swinging the pickaxe-head against the dense rock and cing what they crushed up into the cart so that they could get rid of itter. And after about twenty minutes, they managed to remove enough rock to reveal what they were looking for. They could see some of the ck-reddish iron ore that this mine existed for extraction. This one, however, was deep red like blood, so it was quite evident that it wasn¡¯t natural ore. With a quick inspection, Eisen could then confirm that he found what he was looking for. [Lowest-Grade High-Iron Ore][Quality - Average][Rank - 1] "Seems like we found a little something, huh?" The old manughed before he looked over at Kiron with a grin before he threw his pickaxe against the ore to crush it up. It took a few attempts to break it since the High-Iron was rtively dense, but once it was all crushed up, they managed to pack away two to three pounds of it at once! "We just made three gold coins. Pretty nice, huh?" Eisenughed as he put the lumps of ore into a bag to keep it separate from the rock they dug up so that they wouldn¡¯t identally dispose of it. For quite a while, Eisen and Kiron continued doing the same thing, mining up some standard iron ore most of the time, while working toward the ces where mana seemed to gather up, where they soon found even more High-Iron ore. It seemed like Mining was a rtively hard skill to get, because Eisen only got it when his apprentices ended up joining him and Kiron in the mine. [Mining Skill Learned] "Finally!" Eisen eximed as he checked his status as well as his quest progress, before nodding in satisfaction. "You learned it a little while ago already, right?" Eisen asked the Half-Dragon next to him, who swiftly nodded. "Yes, I did. Although I have done it a few times before, so maybe that is why I learned it earlier than you." Kiron guessed, but Eisen simply shrugged. "Maybe, I¡¯m not sure. It might also be that I needed to mine up more because I¡¯m a lotrger. Anyway, I want those three to learn the skill as well, so we would have to spend a while down here no matter what." Eisen exined as he watched his three apprentices get ready for work, before Eisen sat down next to them, on eye-level due to Eisen¡¯s current height, and took a look at the tools each of the boys made. First, he checked out Koro¡¯s. It was of high quality, the bnce was perfect, and the style fit him as well, so Eisen nodded at him and told him to start working. Then he began to look at the enchanted tools made by Parc and Rouge. "Hmm, good job, you two. It doesn¡¯t seem like your tools are perfectly bnced for your body types, but you can fix that after a while, once you¡¯ve used them. The enchantments are also pretty well done. Rouge, what were your images exactly with them?" Eisen asked, and the short boy, who looked incredibly tiny in front of Eisen usually, nodded his head before preparing to exin. "Erm, for the pickaxe, because it¡¯s supposed to crush things up, I thought it would be best to fix it onto a small area just immediately surrounding the spot that was hit, so that was my image ¡ª basically, the pickaxe crushing it up into small pebbles. For the shovel, my idea was simr. For harder soil, it should be able to somewhat ¡¯soften¡¯ the soil up to make it easier to dig through by just splitting it up into tiny chunks." He exined, and Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction. The images for the enchantments also really fit with Rouge¡¯s personality. He was more focused on the little things and the details not only in the carving, even in situations like this. Next, Eisen turned to Parc, who swiftly began to exin his images. "For the pickaxe, it¡¯s obviously best to crush arge area, right? So my image was an earthquake so that the shock can travel far and crush things up easily! And same for the shovel! If it destroys the whole area around it beforehand, it¡¯s gonna be super easy to dig, right?" Parcughed, and Eisen slowly nodded and told him to make his way over to work as well, although the old man gave this particr apprentice a small warning. "Be careful. Very careful. The way you described your enchantments, that could cause some issues if you¡¯re not." Eisen told him, and the tall boy nodded his head. "Will do!" He yelled out as he joined the other two boys at their work, and Eisen looked over toward Kiron after releasing a loud sigh. "Come on, Kiron we¡¯ll work a little bit more as well. I¡¯m sure they should have the skill in about an hour or so, and then we¡¯ll leave and start farming. I hope I¡¯ll be able to get the skill by today by doing different tasks rted to it, but either way, we¡¯ll be making our way back to Handor tonight." Eisen said as he stood up and stretched a bit before he and the half-dragon next to him continued working as well and looked for more High-Iron ore. That was until Eisen noticed something even more peculiar. Eisen wanted to go a bit deeper into the mine, into the just recently opened-up parts. He didn¡¯t notice it before because of all the natural mana that gathered all over the ce, but when he took a closer look once he was at the deepest part of the mine, he saw that something was off. That something was missing. Ignoring everything else, Eisen threw the pickaxe-head against the rock walls in front of him over and over again, even supporting his movement with Transmutation by pushing things away and making the surrounding stone more brittle so that he could get through more efficiently. Of course, he didn¡¯t just mindlessly do so, but he swiftly hardened the walls around him enough so that they could never naturally break down. And all that because of one thing. The random, perfectly spherical area without even the slightest hint of any type of mana. Chapter 205 Dungeon Core and Legacy Eisen continued digging through the rock walls of a deep part of the mine, where nobody else currently was quite by coincidence, toward the area that was for some reason utterly devoid of mana with the exception of a single dense spot in the center, and began to think about what the reason for that may be. Up until now, whenever he had his mana-sight active, Eisen could see colors everywhere. They made everything quite blurry, and he was basically just able to see rough shapes in everything, but he managed to get used to it pretty quickly. It was just that now, there was that nk space with no color whatsoever. It was the regr ck and white tone that Eisen usually saw without the mana-sight, which was quite unusual in his opinion. So, of course, he was curious about what was there, especially since it was just perfectly spherical, making it even weirder to him. Suddenly, at only a meter or two away from the mysterious ¡¯nk space,¡¯ he hit a wall. A literal wall, made of stone bricks. "What the..?" Eisen muttered to himself without being able to help himself, turning around to look at Kiron, who was just as astonished as the old man was. Eisen started to examine the wall, as he ced his hand on the brick wall and used transmutation to remove one of them so that he could look inside the space on the other side of the barrier. But all he could see was a dimly glowing crystal that was floating in the center of the room, but nothing else inside. Confused, Eisen wanted to remove as many bricks as he could, but it seemed like everything was somewhat unstable, so he had to stop with a pretty small hole. "Hmm, I won¡¯t fit in like this... Kiron, you probably won¡¯t either... Just a second, I¡¯ll be right back." Eisen muttered as he shrunk down to half his regr size and swiftly squeezed through the small hole that he made before he returned to his proper size. To illuminate the room, Eisen swiftly enveloped his arm in his element, and tuned it entirely towards the fire side, so that he could now at least see something. Slowly, Eisen then moved toward the crystal, the source of the seemingly incredibly dense mana that he saw before. And when he got close enough to it to be adequately lit up by the light it gave off, Eisen received a notification. [Warning! You are in the immediate vicinity of a Dungeon Core in the energy collection phase. You will lose 1% of your total mana per second] After reading through the notification, Eisen took a few steps back in surprise, confirming that the mana-drain swiftly stopped, although his mana still didn¡¯t regenerate. "A Dungeon Core?" Eisen quietly muttered to himself, before he noticed another light directly behind him. "Oh? A Traveler, it seems? How d I am to see someone after all this time... Hm? Eisen, is that you?" asked a quiet, broken voice, the source of which Eisen quite quickly noticed to be a ghost. The Ghost of an elderly man, to be exact. Surprised that this specter knew about him, Eisen slowly nodded his head and looked back at it. "Yes, that¡¯s me... Erm, how do you know me?" Eisen asked, before the ghost¡¯s bright smile disappeared from his face. "Oh no, how terrible... so you forgot about me, huh, old friend? Although I shouldn¡¯tin, you warned me that this might happen someday, after all." The Ghost chuckled softly, with his hands behind his back before he formed a serious expression. "But no matter, even if you do not know who I am, then I shall introduce myself to you once more. My name is... My name... is..." Slowly, the ghost trailed off, staring into the nk space in front of him, and Eisen stepped up closer to see if he was alright. "Hello? Are you okay?" Eisen asked before the ghost snapped out of it and nodded his head. "Ah yes, I¡¯m fine. I seem to have forgotten my name as well, however. But I still do know who I am. I am the creator of the Dungeons of this world." The Ghost said with a smile, and Eisen looked back at him, confused. "What do you mean? I thought dungeons were created by the gods, weren¡¯t they?" He asked, and the ghost nodded his head. "Yes, that is still true. The reason why I was born was quite simple, to serve as the avatar of the god of Labyrinths. I heard his voice and did his deeds for him, as gods are not allowed to change the world on their own directly. Old friend, will you listen to why I am here?" The Ghost asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, prompting the ghost to begin his speech. "With the abilities, I have gained by serving my god; I created the very first ¡¯Dungeon Core¡¯ to create the very first dungeon, which nowadays is known to be one of the few Rank 10 dungeons in this world. I spent all my life creating dungeons at numerous ces in this world. But when I realized that my life would soon end and that my Lifetime Quest had not yet beenpleted, so I became desperate... Even if I may not be able to see this through to the end, I wished for others to continue to do so in my stead. That is the reason why I spread dozens upon dozens of Dungeon Cores throughout this world, each protected by a small part of my soul. It will be a long time until all of them are found and activated, I am quite sure, but once that is the case, I hope to be able to rest in peace finally." The Ghost exined before slowly stepping forward toward the Dungeon Core in the center of the room. "Please, take this Core with you and establish a Dungeon. Depending on where you ce the core, it¡¯s strength and type will be established on its own, but you will still have ownership over it." With a wave of his hand, the light from the Dungeon Core disappeared, and it dropped down into the Ghost¡¯s hands as he began to carry it over toward Eisen, who carefully listened and watched all this happen silently. Soon enough, the Ghost held the Dungeon core forward, motioning at Eisen to take it. Slowly, the old man extended his hand and took the crystal from the ghost in front of him. [Congrattions! You have found a Hidden Dungeon Core] [To create a Dungeon, find a safe ce and activate it by pouring your mana inside] "Now it is my time to leave, old friend. I can only exist for a short time on this ne, and that time is now over." The Ghost said as his form slowly began to fade, and Eisen looked at him with a bitter smile, clutching the Dungeon Core tightly. "Sorry for not remembering you... but thank you for remembering me." Eisen said with a smile before the Ghost entirely disappeared. After a few moments, Eisen stepped back over to the hole in the wall that he opened up to hand the Dungeon Core to Kiron before Eisen took anotherst look at the room, finding just a few things. One of them was a small booklet with the title ¡¯Dungeon Mastering 101¡¯, which the old man swiftly put into his pocket. The only other thing of note was something quite unusual, or at least it looked like it was terrific a good while ago. It was a set of blueprints for a single creation! And there was a pretty peculiar signature at the bottom right of each of the sheets of paper that he recognized quite quickly. It was his own craftsman¡¯s signature, although a little bit more detailed it looked almost exactly like the coin around his neck. [Congrattions! You have found one of the legacies of the Originals!] [Legacy - Core Guardian] [The Legacies of the Originals are peculiar things thate in many different forms, and can belong to basically every category of life one may think of. Some Legacies are exceptional items that will give you even greater power, while others are simply a means to receive those items] Surprised, Eisen looked through the information from the notification and then back at the blueprints, before almost instantly another notification appeared in front of him. [The Administrator requested a private chat. Due to the Caller¡¯s Authority, it is not possible to reject] [Private Chat is starting now] Even more surprised than before, the old man stared at the notification, before his dark surrounding was soon reced by a pure white space, with a certain young man who was sitting on an ornate wooden chair in front of Eisen, looking like he was a bit annoyed. "Hey there, Benjamin." Samuel chuckled as he rubbed his forehead before Eisen stepped up closer to him a bit confused. "Erm, hey there... what¡¯s going on?" He asked before the young man swiftly answered as he pointed at the blueprints in Eisen¡¯s hands. "That¡¯s going on. I didn¡¯t expect you to find one of those already, and I especially didn¡¯t expect you to find one directly next to a Dungeon Core. You see, the whole story with ¡¯Dungeon Master Arc¡¯ is nned after the ¡¯Dragon War Arc,¡¯ so seeing you find one of them before that Arc even started is a bit of a surprise." He muttered out before he then nced at the blueprints again. "And the Legacies as well... The thing is, the Legacies are meant for regr yers. And high-grade legacies can overthrow the bnce of the game world a lot, so giving them to you guys who are basically already able to overthrow the bnce of the game without any of the special benefits we already give you is a little... well..." "Unfair?" Eisen guessed, and Samuel slowly nodded his head. "That¡¯s a word for it, I guess. So, the ¡¯Originals¡¯ can only have a single legacy, and it needs to be pre-approved to make sure it¡¯s not overpowered. The Moderator team is busy with something else right now, and we don¡¯t want Ari or her Angels to deal with it, so I had toe. But usually, that¡¯s not the case. Anyway, which Legacy did you find?" Samuel asked and stood up to take a look at what Eisen was holding. There were quite a lot of different blueprint legacies, so he wasn¡¯t exactly sure which one it was. "Hmm, the Core Guardian? Yeah, that¡¯s not too big a deal. It¡¯s probably something you¡¯d have made at some point or another by yourself anyway. Go ahead and keep that then, but you won¡¯t be able to keep any other legacy. Are you fine with that?" Samuel asked, before Eisen looked at the blueprints before slowly nodding. "I guess so, but could you tell me what it even is?" He asked curiously, and Samuel nodded his head while looking at the watch on his hand. "Yes, but I¡¯ll have to make it quick. It¡¯s just a Golem-like helper that you can connect to Town or Dungeon Cores to make stuff easier to deal with, the blueprints are a bit worn and dog-eared, but if you can find a scribe somewhere, he should be able to return them to what they were like before. Anyway, ry that to the other originals, yeah? I¡¯ve got to go! See you!" Samuel exined as he took another look at his clock and then swiftly disappeared before Eisen found himself back in the dark space he was in before. With a loud sigh, Eisen rolled the blueprints up, shrunk down, and then made his way back through the hole in the wall before returning to his Titan Size, as he thought about one thing. Why the hell did Samuel have to ce him and the other Originals on such a high pedestal all the time? Chapter 206 Mountains of Mana "Alright Kiron, I found some pretty interesting things. We¡¯ll need to keep it safe for a while, but I¡¯m pretty sure that this should turn out quite amazing." Eisenughed a bit before the half-dragon nodded his head. "Yes, of course! But what is it?" Kiron asked, and Eisen held his finger in front of his mouth to tell him to be quiet. After all, both this ¡¯Legacy¡¯ and the ¡¯Dungeon Core¡¯ seemed to be quite amazing things, and would as such be worth a lot of money. And Eisen knew what people did for money, so he didn¡¯t want to risk anything and instead tried to hide the items in his leather apron that had grown in size together with him. It didn¡¯t fit perfectly, but Eisen was at least able to cover the parts that still stuck out with his arms. "Let¡¯s get back to the others. It took a good while to get into this ce, so maybe they already got the skill." Eisen exined, taking a good look around himself once they got out of the tunnel before sealing it back up with alchemy. There wasn¡¯t any ore in that direction, so it was improbable that any of the miners would dig that way, meaning that the small room would probably keep being a secret for a while. "Koro, Rouge, Parc. Did you three get your skills yet?" Eisen asked them before both Rouge, and Parc nodded their heads and ran up to Eisen. "Yes! Both of us got it! But Koro..." Rouge exined before he looked back at the other boy, who was hard at work. It seemed like he was somewhat struggling with it, and for the most part, the rock was barely being chipped. He saw a little bit from when Rouge and Parc were working, and it seemed like the enchantments yed a massive part in the speed that the two of them managed to learn the Mining Skill. But without those enchantments, it just took a lot longer. Eisen knew that many would think that what he was about to do was a bit over the top, but in Eisen¡¯s opinion, if you can¡¯t do something under pressure, you could never really do it at all. Silently, Eisen sat down directly behind Koro with crossed legs and arms, making sure to slide his feet over the ground to make enough noise so that Koro would notice him being directly behind him. And then, the old man simply waited. He stared at his apprentice without taking a break, judging each of his movements. And if Eisen saw something he didn¡¯t like, then he didn¡¯t hide it either. "Koro! Don¡¯t let your shoulders hang like that! You¡¯re not using a whip, so don¡¯t just swing the pickaxe around like one! Use your whole body for the motion!" He yelled strictly, even trying to use the full effects of his charisma to do so. At the start, Koro was getting disheartened by everyment that Eisen made, butter, it only fueled his actions, sharply elerating his growth. And a little whileter, Koro dropped the pickaxe and sighed loudly, turning around toward Eisen with a big grin. "I did it! I got the skill!" Koro yelled out with an immense sense of aplishment as Eisen began tough. "Good job. But now, if you don¡¯t pick up your pickaxe within the next second, I¡¯ll break your arm." The old man said only half-jokingly, before standing up and adding onto that. "A craftsman is nothing without his tools, so we need to take care of them the best we can, got it?" Eisen eximed, while Koro slowly nodded and blew off the dust from the pickaxe, before carefully cing it to the side so that he could shovel the rock and ore he dug up into the cart. "We¡¯ll bring everything upstairs, properly get rid of the rock, sort out the natural iron ore, and sell the High-Iron ore. Then, we¡¯ll move on over to the fields and learn Farming." Eisen exined as he began to push the minecart up the rails, considering that he had the rawest strength out of everyone here, while the three apprentices asked some questions that were on their minds. "Actually... Why are we learning Mining and Farming at all? Is that really important to make a good item?" Rouge asked, and Eisen nodded his head immediately. "Of course, it is. You don¡¯t need to be a fulltime miner, and you don¡¯t need to harvest every single material for the items you create yourself, but in my opinion, it¡¯s important to know what work went into providing the materials you¡¯re working with." Eisen responded quite swiftly, but Parc simply scratched the back of his head confused. "I guess that kinda makes sense... although the majority of craftsmen doesn¡¯t do that, right? So why do you think it¡¯s that important?" He asked, before the old man sighed loudly. "Sorry, I guess I shouldn¡¯t expect everyone to share mymon sense. I simply feel like we have a professional obligation not to let anything we make go to waste. If we make something, it should be the best thing it can be. By being aware of the hard work, other people went through to bring the materials to your worktable, the feeling of that obligation is just strengthened. At least for me, it¡¯s one of the things that pushes me to make the items I make the best that I possibly can with my current abilities. That may not be a good enough reason for all of you, but as you grow as craftsmen, and people in general, you will find out which reason for your actions you should rely on, but for now, I wanted to show you my perspective." As the old Craftsman exined this, the group slowly made their way back up toward the surface, while the apprentices asked a few more questions so that they could fully understand Eisen¡¯s reasoning. Once they were outside, Kiron helped the three apprentices sort everything in the cart out while Eisen made his way over to the Miner that he was talking to this morning, who seemed to be on break right now. When the Dwarf saw the Titan, which he believed Eisen to be,e closer, a grin began to form on his face. "Ah, there ye are! Any luck with findin¡¯ some High-Iron Ore?" The Dwarf asked, and Eisen nodded his head before pulling out around 15 pounds of High-Iron Ore, which he gathered by looking for areas where mana seemed to collect the most. The moment that the Dwarf saw the amount of the magic ore, he rubbed his eyes and looked up to Eisen. "How the- Ye found 14, nay, 15 whole pounds of it? How¡¯d someone without even tha Minin¡¯ Skill manage that?" The Miner wondered before Eisen simply winked and smiled. "I¡¯ve got some tricks up my sleeve. Anyway, are you going to buy them or not?" "Of course, I will!" The Dwarf eximed before he pulled out his purse and grabbed the fifteen coins out of it with a loud sigh. "I din¡¯ expect ya to find that much... Fifteen coins is a lot of money, ya know?" The Miner said with a sigh before handing Eisen the fifteen coins. But that was when Eisen noticed something else that some Miners were currently hauling up out of the mine, something that he saw some time ago, albeit in an entirely different form and color. And Ignoring the ¡¯Quest Complete¡¯ Notification that popped up in front of him, Eisen asked the Dwarf about something. "Wait just a moment... Those Crystals over there, are they...?" Eisen asked, before the Dwarf turned around confused, before seeing the bright red crystals, slowly nodding. "That¡¯s crystallized mana, yeah. We find that stuff down there all the time. I mentioned before how ¡¯dere used to be a volcano round ¡¯ere, yeah? It¡¯s some of the leftover fire mana from that time." He exined, before Eisen grinned lightly. "What do you do with that crystallized mana?" He asked, before the Dwarf frowned in confusion. "We throw it away... It just slowly disappears over time anyway, and we don¡¯t have many buyers for them round here. And it wouldn¡¯t be worth it shippin¡¯ them to a ce like Handor, because they don¡¯t make us that much money, ya see? But why are you askin¡¯?" "Erm, if you don¡¯t mind, can you show me where you keep the crystalized mana? I want to buy it if possible." Eisen exined, before the Dwarf looked at him in surprise. "Oh, ya, sure about that?" He asked, but nodded his head, showing Eisen over to the area where they keep the crystalized mana, and once they got there, Eisen swiftly saw a massive mountain of Crystalized Fire Mana, as well as Crystalized Earth Mana. "Hmm... Alright, can I buy all of this?" Eisen asked with a smile, and the Dwarf looked at him, surprised. "Huh? I know I said they¡¯re not worth much, but this amount is still a lot, ya know?" "Are 15 Gold Coins enough?" The old man grinned, and the Dwarf nodded with augh. "Yup, should be about right. But I doubt ya have somethin¡¯ to bring this all with ya, right?" The Dwarf asked, and Eisen thought for a while before nodding his head. "I really only need the mana itself, so I¡¯ll be back in a little bit, but it won¡¯t take long," Eisen told the Dwarven Miner with a grin before he made his way over to his apprentices. Who already gave away the third of the Iron Ore that the Mine took from outsiders, before the five of them made their way back to the Carriage. "You guys go ahead and join the others by the fields; I have to do something first," Eisen exined with a smile while the three boys and the half-dragon did as Eisen suggested, and the old man himself sat down in the carriage. First, he hid the blueprints and the Dungeon Core in a rtively safe ce and then grabbed as many mana crystals as well as earth and fire gems as he could. After formingrge cylinders out of the mana crystals, each about a meter high with a half-meter diameter. He made about ten total, and then swiftly merged five of them with arge number of fire gems, and then five with arge number of earth gems. After that, Eisen swiftly turned them intorge mana batteries that could hopefully properly store elemental mana, and then bound each set of five together with a few mana-crystal rings and ced a circr crystal te on top, onto which Eisen then carved an enchantment that would take the crystallized mana and then evenly distribute it in the mana batteries. Due to the sheer size of each battery, and bybining them, each set could store an incrediblyrge amount of mana. And so, with a slight grin, Eisen stepped back out of the carriage and began carrying the Batterypounds back to the mine in his Titan-Form. "Alright, I¡¯m back," Eisen eximed when he reached the mountain of crystalized mana again, and the Dwarven Miner looked at him in surprise. "If those are s¡¯pposed ta be containers, ye won¡¯t have enough space in those, ya know?" He eximed, before Eisen nodded his head slowly. "Don¡¯t worry. These are mana batteries. By cing crystalized mana on top of here, that mana is absorbed and ced into the batteries. Like that, I¡¯m hoping to be able to bring all of that mana with me." The old man exined while the Dwarf listened curiously. After setting the batterypounds down, Eisen then turned to the Dwarf again. "Sorry, but I have something else I need to finish by tonight as well, so if the workers there could maybe somehow do it for me that would be great. I¡¯ll pay for thebor as well, of course." He inquired, and the Dwarf nodded his head. "Aye, don¡¯t worry about it. The Labor¡¯s included in the price. Juste back in a few hours, and ye¡¯ll have yer mana ready to bring with ya." With a smile, Eisen then nodded and turned around, before making his way back to the fields where his friends were waiting to get the Farming Skill. Chapter 207 Farming "Did you prepare everything?" Eisen asked as he looked at the group standing in front of him before Bree ran up to him and nodded her head with a grin. "Yup! Everything¡¯s ready! We even hooked Cabarum up to the plow you made already!" She exined, and Eisen ced his hand on the top of her head with a smile. "Thanks. That¡¯s all we need to get started. Komer, you paid the farmer we met before already, right?" Eisen asked as he began to lead Cabarum across a small section of the also rtively small field in front of him, leaving the rest to his three apprentices. "Mhm, I did. Since we¡¯ll be done in a little while, it didn¡¯t take much convincing either. The farmer gave me some tips as well after I told him what we¡¯re doing. The only things that give experience for the Farming Skill are the things you actively do yourself, so, for example, plowing the field, nting seeds, or harvesting what was grown. That means we can have Caria speed-grow everything without worry." Komer exined, before Eisen turned over toward the small girl who was standing next to him, holding her hands up at him as a sign of wanting to be picked up, especially now that Eisen was so much taller than he was before. With a grin, Eisen did what she wanted and picked her up, setting her down on his shoulder like he used to do when she was just a rank 0 or 1 monster. And of course, seeing this, Melissa became slightly jealous and wanted to be picked up by Eisen as well, which the old man swiftlyplied to by setting the Empress-Bee down on his other shoulder. "Alright now, everyone. While we¡¯re working here, could you do some other things? Sky, there are some blueprints that I hid in the hiddenpartment in the center pir opposite to the worktable in the carriage. They¡¯re pretty run-down, and I was told that they can be fixed by a scribe. Could you take a look at it? You are the only one here with the Scribing Skill, after all." Eisen asked, before the young Fey-Kin boy nodded his head. "Sure, I¡¯ll at least try." He said, and next Eisen turned to Komer. "Could you go with him? If Sky manages to fix the blueprints, you should be able to see a full list of materials. And I need you to figure out what materials we have, which we need to procure, and how quickly we can get them. And especially how much of each material we can get." "Will do." The yer responded before doing a swift two-finger-salute, and then made his way to the carriage together with Sky. "Kiron, could you go back to the mines? I¡¯m having them store the elemental mana from some crystalized mana in batteries. If you could help them, that would be great, and then if you could carry the batteries over here that would be even better. They¡¯re awkward to carry simply because of their size, so in a bit, you can take Cabarum with you. The boys are finished, apparently." Eisen asked of the Half-Dragon, who swiftly nodded his head and took the Mechanical-Horse with him after detaching it from the plow. "And atst, Bree. You just help us out a bit here, yeah?" Eisen asked the pink-haired girl standing next to him before she swiftly nodded her head up and down. "Of course! So first, I guess we need the seeds!" Bree swiftly skipped over to her backpack and pulled out arge bag and handed it to Eisen with a smile. "Thank you. Now you three, nt them evenly in straight lines. It doesn¡¯t need to be perfect, so just drop an even amount along the way. Each of you take a fourth of the field to take care of." Eisen exined, not expecting of them to be perfect farmers in the slightest. He just wanted them to do enough to gain the farming skill, and it should be quite reasonable to expect that they would achieve it after going through the whole way, hoping that it would be the case for himself as well. With a smile, Eisen then began to sow the wheat seeds in his part of the field. It took a while, but Eisen was ustomed to doing some gardening until recently, so it wasn¡¯t anything special. It was just at a slightlyrger scale than usual. A little bitter, Eisen, Koro, Parc, and Rouge managed to finish the beginning portion of the work, and Eisen turned his head to look at the Myconid sitting on his shoulder. "Could you please elerate the growth? Oh, and please focus on making it as healthy as possible and increase the grain¡¯s size as much as possible. Take around... one or two hours." Eisen told her before the three apprentices looked at him surprised. "Huh? In two hours the sun is nearly going to go down... If we have to hand-pick everything, we won¡¯t finish before it¡¯s dark." Rouge pointed out before Eisen began tough. "Who said we¡¯re hand-picking? Get your smithing tools, we¡¯ll be making some scythes." The old man grinned as he summoned his staff and created four magic forges and looked at Bree, who swiftly took out all the materials they would need to produce them. "You can also make a sickle if you prefer that, though." Eisen chuckled as he activated his demonic transformation and immediately got to work, while his apprentices first tried catching their breaths before doing the same. The three boys did end up making simple sickles, just because making arge scythe was almost impossible for them to make in such a short amount of time. Eisen himself quickly finished arge scythe and even enchanted it, though, while Koro, Rouge, and Parc just barely managed to finish the basic sickles, and not yet at that ¡¯great¡¯ of quality, because it was such a rushed job, but Eisen let it be for once. Today was the first day that they realized how hard the whole apprenticeship would be, and because it was their first day, Eisen didn¡¯t want to ¡¯punish¡¯ them for making mistakes. And the sickles would still be enough to cut the wheat, so it wasn¡¯t like the items werepletely useless. But something else happened that Eisen was quite happy about, a particr skill of his ranked up. [Crafting Space reached Level 100 in Rank 2, upgrading to Rank 3] [You can now store a single item per crafting skill] [Due to Ranking-up your Crafting Space Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END] [You have gained a storage ability] [Every type of storage ability is unique in the way it disys itself. The Crafting Space storage works by assigning an item to any kind of essory while that essory is being worn. Currently, you are wearing no essories, so the ability is temporarily disabled] Surprised, Eisen waved the notifications away, noting in his mind to create some simple essories soon so that he could test this new ability out. For some reason, he hadn¡¯t take care of this within the game yet, although he did wear a good amount of essories in real life, for example, the rings in his hair or just his earrings. So it would make sense for him to create a few new essories like that in-game. Either way, for now, Eisen couldn¡¯t test the ability out, so he just checked whether his Level-Up Quest updated bypleting this condition, and seeing that it did, the old man happily moved on and unsummoned the forges while also deactivating his demonic transformation, before turning to the apprentices again. "Now, all of you. Let¡¯s get to work, shall we?" Eisen said with a smile before the three boys swiftly nodded their heads as the four of them made their way back to the field, which was now entirely overgrown with 2-meter high wheat, which one could mostlypare to corn in its dimensions. With a satisfied nod, Eisen picked Caria back up. "Good job! Now, this is going to give us a good amount of nice grains, huh?" He muttered before he looked over at hispletely shocked apprentices, who were looking down at the sickles in their hands in regret. "That¡¯s why I suggested Scythes. Makes cutting down big things like this a lot easier. Now then, all three of you get going." The old man grinned as he watched the boys walk into the fields, almost defeated. Luckily they started at the corners, so Eisen could just go directly to the center and work on his quarter by moving outward without needing to worry about identally decapitating one of the boys. And with swift motions, Eisen now cut the ripened wheat down, finishing after only about ten or fifteen minutes, before slowly gathering the grain up, splitting the heads from the stems, and then cing them into a bag to take care ofter. He also bound the stalks together, since he would surely find some use for them at some point. And while he was doing that, he noticed a small little notification pop up in front of his eyes. [Farming Skill Learned] With a grin, Eisen smiled and sat down cross-legged next to Bree, with Caria and Melissa still on his shoulders, while the old man ced the Scythe away to the side. Hopefully, Farming also counted as a crafting skill, and if that were the case, he would be able to store the Scythe as well once he created the essories. And after another hour or so, the three apprentices finally finished, trying to catch their breath as they did. It made sense. After all, Eisen made them work for the whole day without any significant breaks. With a grin, Eisen then threw some bags to them and told them to cut everything up and sort it as well, before they would then get to go back to the carriage. It was around this time that Kiron also finally came back with the tworge Mana Battery packs on Cabarum¡¯s back. And after they ced those into the carriage as well, and Eisen spread a thick wooden board on top of those to create a makeshift bed so that the apprentices could at least properly sleep on their way back, the group sat down together in the slightly cramped carriage. While they were having a quite rudimentary and simple Dinner, Sky¡¯s head perked up from the worktable with excitement. "Yes! Finally!" He yelled out, leaving the old man to look at him surprised. "What? Did you manage to fix the blueprints?" Eisen asked, and the Fey-Kin boy turned around with a smug grin and handed Eisen the different sheets of paper. "Yup! It took a while to figure out the proper method, but I managed to level my skill up quite a bit while I was doing it, so it¡¯s fine. Anyway, this is a fascinating blueprint... Where did you find this? These blueprints are for a Core Guardian, right?" Sky asked, remembering what was written on the paper before Bree jerked her head over toward her brother. "A Core Guardian? What?!" She nearly yelled out, surprising everyone in the carriage, before Eisen nodded his head. "Yes, it¡¯s a Core Guardian. Is that so special?" "Special? Special?! Well, of course, it¡¯s special! Barely any ces have those because the method to make them was lost! Now only big cities have them near their Country Core, the upgraded version of a Town Core. There¡¯s a few acting as Dungeon Masters of huge, high-Rank dungeons as well... But if we have the blueprints, that would make a lot of things so much easier for when we get to the inds!" Bree yelled out before she continued to exin. "Let¡¯s take a Town Core as an example. Usually, the only things you can do by interacting with it is to upgrade it, and the rest is handled automatically by cing buildings in its vicinity or something. But with Core Guardians, that bes so much easier! They¡¯ll be able to create special constructs by somehow interacting with the core in a way that we can¡¯t, they can help with construction and nning a whole lot by letting you handle it simply through different status windows, and most importantly, they directly strengthen any bonuses that a town may get through different actions!" She exined before Eisen looked over toward Komer, who really understood game-speech pretty well, to confirm if that really was all that great. And once the young merchant nodded his head quietly, Eisen began to smile as well. "Oh, that¡¯s pretty good then, huh? But if you find that interesting, you should think the other thing I found to be even more amazing." Eisen said with a grin as he stood up and grabbed the Dungeon Core from where he hid it before, showing it to the group that stared at it confused. Chapter 208 Sending them off Eisen ced the Dungeon Core down onto the floor, merely holding it up a little bit so that everyone could properly see it. "When we were down in the mine, I was using my Magic-Sight to look for ces with a high concentration of mana to find High-Iron Ore more easily, and when I did, I found a ce with no mana at all. I dug that direction and found apletely cut-off room, with this Dungeon Core floating in the center. It was pulling in the mana it needed, so that¡¯s why there wasn¡¯t any mana around for me to see." The old man exined, before continuing with the rest of what happened in that room, including his conversation with the Ghost of the person that seemingly created all the Dungeons in this world, as well as how he found the Blueprints for the Core Guardian. "That¡¯s so cool!" Komer eximed without being able to hide his excitement, although for a slightly different reason than why the others were getting excited and astounded. "Imagine! If we make a dungeon, we can control who goes in! If it bes an awesome Dungeon, then there¡¯s probably going to be a lot of people that want to go into it so that we could set a small fee. It doesn¡¯t need to be a lot, but it¡¯s surely going to add up... And we could set up a shop directly in front of the Dungeon where we stock up everything that¡¯s needed... Like Health or Mana potions, depending on the monsters inside, and things like antidotes... Oh, and of course maps of the dungeonyout!" The young merchant continuously muttered, merely thinking about how much money they would be able to make using this Dungeon Core. "Let¡¯s first figure out where we should put this Dungeon Core. But until then, keep those ideas in mind." Eisen chuckled, before he ced the Dungeon Core away again, taking a closer look at the blueprints for the Core Guardian. While Eisen was trying to figure out what he was seeing and what he would need to do to make this, the others added some of theirments as well. "A Dungeon Core is more amazing than just that... Just due to the concept alone..." Sky pointed out, and Eisen began to think about something when he read about some Golem-Aspects within the Core Guardian, slowly muttering out his idea. "Could I maybe turn the Dungeon Core into a Golem Core...?" Eisen asked himself quietly, not thinking that the others heard him. But it seemed like he was speaking a bit louder than he thought he was, and everyone clearly heard his words. "A Dungeon Golem...?" Sky whispered in response, trying to figure out whether or not this was possible. "Maybe you could do that? I¡¯m not sure, but it would definitely be unique..." The Fey-Kin pointed out, and the others swiftly agreed without much thought. "Hmm, well there¡¯s no reason to think about that yet. I¡¯ll only try that out once we established a good base on the inds. Before then, it doesn¡¯t make that much sense to." Eisen pointed out before he leaned back against the wall behind him. "We¡¯ll figure it out with the other Originals when I wake up again. For now, I think it¡¯s about time for me to sleep." Eisen exined with a tired sigh, before crossing his legs and slinging his arms around the crystal core so that nobody could possibly remove it while the old man was sleeping. And as he did so, Eisen looked at the others currently in the carriage with a smile. "Goodnight, everyone." --- "Good morning, Dad!" Natsuo eximed as he saw his father step toward the living room. L and L were sleeping on the couch, and Christie was getting thest things ready by packing the girls¡¯ backpacks. "Morning, Natsuo. So you¡¯ll be off this early?" Benjamin asked his son, who slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, it¡¯s best to do that. The earlier we drive, the earlier we¡¯ll be home, after all." The middle-aged man chuckled, pushing his sses up his nose, before Benjamin nodded his head, sitting down on his armchair. "I guess so. Will you at least wait until the others are up?" Benjamin asked, and Natsuo immediately answered, "Of course, don¡¯t worry Dad. I think they¡¯re up already for the most part though. At least Melody and Kyle should be, they¡¯re heading off in a little while as well, after all. And I heard a bit of rumbling from everyone¡¯s bedrooms." Natsuo exined as he brought his father a cup of coffee, which the old man dly received. "Thank you. And I¡¯m d you all came over again, it¡¯s been a while." The old man said with a smile as he took a sip from his coffee before Natsuo quietlyughed so that he wouldn¡¯t wake up his daughters. "It has been a while, yeah. But it was a lot of fun, especially seeing everyone from town again, and taking a look at Prime Industries yesterday." "Yes, yesterday was more fun than I expected it to be," Melody said as she came through to the Livingroom as well, with her suitcase in tow, Sophia directly behind her, although still in her pajamas, since she would be staying at her grandfather¡¯s house for a while, as her mother figured things out with her father at home. "It was fun for the most part, although I think Grampa¡¯s friend¡¯s assistant wasing onto me the whole time..." "You think? Wasn¡¯t that pretty obvious? Hell, he tried giving you his number." Kyleughed as he came up with his suitcase as well, and Sophia sighed loudly. "He didn¡¯t try, he did... He was pretty nice and all, but at some point, he just took my phone and added himself on Instagram..." "Urgh, he¡¯s that kinda guy?" Benji added in as well as he tiredly stepped through the small crowd of people toward the kitchen to get himself a coffee. "Mhm... He sent me like three texts yesterday night alone, an hour apart every time." The teenage girl sighed loudly, and now thest three people came into the living room as well, Tony, Katy, and Sean, with Tony looking at Sophia surprised. "I feel bad for the kid..." He sighed and sat down on a spare couch space, with Katy jumping onto her father¡¯sp. "Don¡¯t. That guy is a bit creepy..." Sophia sighed before Benjamin smirked at his granddaughter. "C¡¯Mon, don¡¯t say it like that. He seemed pretty nice, didn¡¯t he?" "Yeah, I guess, but he seemed more like a ¡¯Nice Guy,¡¯ rather than actually being a nice, guy." She exined, and the majority of the people here seemed to understand somewhat what she meant, but Benjamin helplessly looked at Sean to figure out what was going on. "Did you hear any difference in what she just said?" He asked him before Sean stared back at Benjamin for a short while before quickly shaking his head. "So you don¡¯t know either, huh? Well, at least I¡¯m not alone in that." The old man chuckled, before Natsuo took a look at the clock and looked at Christie, who slowly nodded back at him, so Natsuo swiftly spoke up. "Alright everyone, we¡¯ll be off now. Morning Traffic should be just about over, so it¡¯s a good a time as ever." He said with a smile before Benjamin quickly stood up to properly send his son off. And after giving him and his daughter-inw tight hugs, he helped bring the two half-asleep little girls to the car. "Be careful on your way back, alright? And call me when you¡¯re home!" Benjamin told his oldest son, who nodded his head with a smile as he sat down in the car after adequately saying goodbye to the others as well. "Of course, as always, Dad," Natsuo said as he started his car¡¯s engine and pulled out of the driveway, waving at everyone as he and his family drove off. Soon, the rest made their way back inside the house and began to eat breakfast together. Natsuo, Christie, and the twins already ate together before the others were even up, so they could drive off like that just now. And after they finished eating, it was time for the next ones to leave. Melody, and Kyle. Sophia felt pretty bad about letting her best friend sit in silence with her mother for hours, but the boy swiftly told her that it was okay and that he didn¡¯t mind at all. After a bit more convincing, Sophia finally conceded and sent Kyle off with a rtively good conscience. Just before Melody and Kyle made their way to Benjamin¡¯s Car, which the old man chose to lend to his daughter for a while since Michael took his car with him when he left, Benjamin decided to talk to Melody a little bit in private. It wasn¡¯t anything special, just him reassuring her that she could speak to him whenever she needed to and that he would support her through everything that would happen. Once that heartfelt moment between a man and his daughter was over, Benjamin turned to Kyle. "It was a real pleasure meeting you, Kyle," Benjamin told him with a smile, and the boy scratched the back of his head embarrassedly. "Likewise. And I guess we¡¯ll see each other again in a few weeks in the game, right?" Kyle asked before Benjamin slowly nodded his head. "Of course, I¡¯m sure we will." After saying this, Benjamin smiled at Kyle and gave him a good handshake, before the teenage boy sat down in the car before he and Melody soon drove off as well. "And then it was just six." Benji sighed, still incredibly tired, before turning around and making his way back inside, where he immediately dropped onto the couch. "Get off your butt. We¡¯re going out for a while." Benjamin told him with a loud sigh before Benji looked at him with disgust at the sheer concept. "Outside? You mean the garden or something, right?" "Nope, I mean we¡¯re going out to town. I want to take a look at some stuff at an acquaintance¡¯s ce, and you¡¯ve turned into azy bum over thest week. And you¡¯ll need some moving around first before you start ying the game next Monday because I know how you immerse yourself in games." Benjamin told him before he then turned to Sophia. "And I think you mentioned something about getting a haircut?" The old man asked before Sophia look back at him, confused before slowly shaking her head. "Erm... not really? Why would I...?" She wondered, self-consciously looking at her hair, before Benjamin sighed. "Kim works at the Barber, Sophia." The old man exined, and Sophia slowly crossed her arms in response while closing her eyes. "Hmm... Yeah, a little trim probably won¡¯t hurt..." She admitted quietly before Benjamin then turned to his son. "And I¡¯m pretty sure you¡¯ve got some calls to make. We¡¯ll take Katy and Sean with us so that you can deal with everything in peace." Benjamin said, and Tony quietly nodded his head. "Thanks. I¡¯ll do that then. I¡¯m also going to prepare Dinnerter then. By the way, how¡¯s your arm, Dad?" Tony asked, concerned before Benjamin smiled at him. "Don¡¯t worry about it. It¡¯s still not that much better than before, but I¡¯m sure it¡¯s going to get there soon." After exining this to his son, the old man sent his grandchildren off to their rooms so that they could get dressed, while Benjamin himself got adequately ready for a day outside as well, by merely braiding his hair and beard, and putting his hair into a ponytail like usual. Then, after his grandchildren finally joined him in the living room again, the five of them made their way into town on foot, talking about this and that, as they did so. Chapter 209 Jewelry Once they reached the area of town with all the shops, Benjamin gave Sophia instructions on where she could find the Barber, and she hurried over there alone to meet Kim if possible. And while she was doing that, Benjamin, Benji, Katy, and Sean made their way to Benjamin¡¯s friend, a jeweler. He wanted to get a little bit of inspiration for the essories he would be making in the game, and the best ce for that was the one and only luxury jeweler in the whole town. When the four of them reached the door, Benjamin rang the bell so that the door would be unlocked, a security measure so that it wasn¡¯t easy to storm in there with a gun or something like that. He was then happily received by a middle-aged older man that sadly didn¡¯t manage to attend the barbecue the other day while being someone that Benjamin would have loved to see there. "Ah, Benjamin! How nice it is to see you!" He eximed with a bright smile as he came up from behind the counter and gave his friend a hand, "What brings you here today?" With a smile, Benjamin nodded his head at the man and smiled. "Nice to see you as well, Jordan. I just wanted to take a look at what you have here, and maybe get a few new rings for my beard, or some new earrings as well." Benjamin exined, before then moving his body to the side to reveal his two grandsons and his granddaughter. "And I of course also wanted to introduce you to some of my grandchildren." The old man said with a slight grin before this sentence seemed to spark some me in Jordan¡¯s eyes. "Your Grandchildren, I see? That reminds me, I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ve heard, but my grandson just finished high school at the top of his ss." Jordan chuckled before Benjamin formed a grin on his face and smiled back. "Interesting... Then maybe he¡¯s nearly as good as my Benji here, he finished with a perfect GPA." Benjamin bragged before the fight of overly-loving grandfathers seemed to escte, and sparks seemed to fly around in between the two men¡¯s eyes before Jordan returned with his trump card. "Congrattions, Benji. Maybe I should introduce you to my Jake then. You seem pretty athletic, so maybe he can teach you a thing or two about Martial Arts? He just won the semi-nationals in a Taekwondopetition." With this quick attack that Jordan seemed to want to hide by talking to Benji instead of Benjamin himself, he seemed to have done a good bit of damage, although only if Benjamin hadn¡¯t been prepared for that. "Haha, yes, Benji is pretty athletic. He¡¯s the star of his football team and received many personal schrship offers. A few major-league teams even offered to pick him up and train him to be a front-line yer, even though he only just got out of high school." After this counter, even Jordan seemed unsure of what to do, and using that short stumble; Benjamin chose to finish him off once and for all! "Oh, and that reminds me... He got a few full schrships, and despite his obvious talents in football, he is now going to study in San Francisco for a few years to be a Game Developer. That is because Benji doesn¡¯t care about things like fame, even at his young age, and only wants to do what his heart tells him to do." Benjamin said with a wide smile, letting Jordan do nothing but figuratively, although it wouldn¡¯t have been the first time that he would do this literally, kneel in front of Benjamin to admit defeat. "That¡¯s truly impressive, yes... Erm, anyway, nice to finally meet you three. As I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve noticed, we casually talk about our grandchildren every once in a while." Jordan said with a smile as he leaned down toward Sean and Katy, while Benji was staring nkly into the air, trying to figure out what the hell was ¡¯casual¡¯ about what just happened. "And you two must be Katherin and Sean then, huh?" He asked before Katy quickly nodded her head. "Yup, I¡¯m the glorious Katherin! Bow to me, peasant!" She yelled out with her arms in the air before Benjamin pped his face before turning to his friend. "Sorry, we were on a trip yesterday, and she was watching Alice in Wondend in the car on the way back. She was infatuated with the Queen of Hearts..." He exined, before Jordan returned a grin. "Oh, ~? Quite a vivid imag-" It was quite clear that Jordan just wanted to start something again, but Benjamin didn¡¯t let him. "Oi, no starting again! You lost the round for today!" The old man protested, and Jordan looked away and clicked his tongue, while Benji sat down on one of the chairs in the waiting area with his face in his hands, muttering something to himself, "So they were aware it was apetition after all..?" "Anyway, Jordan. Let¡¯s move on. You¡¯ve got some of the rings I asked you to order, right?" Benjamin asked his friend, who swiftly nodded and made his way back behind the counter, grabbing a box from one of the disys. "Here they are. You wanted to have some serpent-like decorations, right?" Jordan inquired onest time before Benjamin swiftly nodded his head. "Yes, exactly. Can I take a closer look?" Benjamin asked, and once Jordan nodded, he took one of the different rings with a smile. He used to make these kinds of things himself back in the day, but he hasn¡¯t been doing that for quite a while, even before his ident. Benjamin loved the things that he made himself, and Jordan actually sold some of them back in the day when he first opened the Jeweler. But for the most part, Benjamin liked to wear artistic, decorative things, which his rings and earrings were to him, that he didn¡¯t make, but instead bought from high-quality providers. After all, Benjamin was best with his hands and not necessarily with his head. Of course, he was able toe up with great designs if he tried, but since direct art like this wasn¡¯t his primary focus, Eisen knew that many things looked a lot better at least visually than what he could make. Some of those things were small decorations like such essories. So, Benjamin didn¡¯t try to pretend he was a better artist than others, because he wasn¡¯t, and chose to be a consumer rather than a provider at least when it came to essories. That¡¯s precisely why he wanted to visit this Jewelers to gain some ideas or inspiration. Although in the end, he was probably still going to ask Evalia for some help with the designs if necessary. "Oh, these are actually dragons, huh?" Benjamin pointed out as he took a closer look at one of the rings meant for his beard, and Jordan swiftly nodded his head. "Mhm, they look pretty nice, don¡¯t they? I know you like simple designs, so I didn¡¯t show them to you right off the bat, but there are also some fitted with jewels. They actually aren¡¯t that noticeable though, meaning they aren¡¯t the overwhelming centerpiece, but just a small part of the big picture. Here¡¯s one of them with nice, emerald eyes." Jordan exined as he took out another box, showing Benjamin a version of a ring simr to the one he was currently holding, except with two small gems recing the eyes. "Hmm, interesting! Thanks, that¡¯s a big help! But I¡¯ll rather take these simple ones after all. Oh, and could you give me a new tunnel-piece for my ear? Mine isn¡¯t in great condition anymore." Benjamin exined as he showed Jordan his ear, before the other old man took a quick look and nodded, albeit slightly confused what kind of help he just gave Benjamin. "Yes, of course. Do you want the same old ck ones? We do have a few super-light carbon ones that are ornate as well if you¡¯re interested." Jordan exined, but Benjamin swiftly shook his head. "That¡¯s fine, and I don¡¯t need anything special right now. I¡¯ll look into it in a little bit though. Keep some reserved, if possible. I¡¯lle back in a few days." Benjamin exined, while Jordan nodded his head and swiftly made his way to the back to grab some tunnel-earings of the same size, color, and type as the ones that Benjamin had before now, while Benjamin took a closer look at the rings. He got a few ideas about the essories he could make. For example, he already knew about things like storage rings, which worked by fitting Spatial Gems into a ring with some enchantments. If that were a thing, then there would surely be some other gems or crystals with interesting properties like that. If he could ce some of them into the rings, he had in his beard, or maybe even his earrings, then that would most assuredly be a good time to do so. As for the tunnel-earrings, he was somewhat unsure of what he should do in real life as well as in-game. In the game world, he currently wore no kind of essory on him, which included the tunnels. He would first need to find someone that could give him those tunnels anyway, and then he wanted to try out different ornate versions of tunnels in the game. The issue with them in real life was that you couldn¡¯t, or rather shouldn¡¯t, use tunnels that are too heavy, as that would stretch your earlobe out too much. But in the game, where stats were a thing, that probably wasn¡¯t the case to the same extent. And even then, it would most probably naturally heal if Benjamin took the tunnels out for a little while. Considering that Benjamin preferred metal essories over synthetic ones like super-light carbon, especially when they became decorations, he wanted to let his fantasies run wild in the game world instead of real life. He still liked the way the small tunnels looked on him, however, so Benjamin always kept a few regr, ck tunnels in his ears all the time, they were just quite boring if one took a closer look at them. A little while after these thoughts, Jordan came back with two new tunnels, before leaning in and setting them into Benjamin¡¯s ears once he noticed that the old man¡¯s hand was in a bandage, inspecting the other ear-piercings that Benjamin had. "Do you want to rece any of these as well?" Jordan asked, noticing that these were justpletely nk metal rings for the most part before Benjamin shook his head. "Not yet. Maybeter, right now I¡¯d just like to buy some new rings for my beard." Benjamin told his friend, who swiftly nodded and went over the different prices of the particr items that he was interested in, on top of discussing how well which rings fit together with each other as well as how they came together to form the whole picture. In the end, Benjamin spend quite a hefty sum on these rings, although it wasn¡¯t like he couldn¡¯t afford it. After they walked out of the Jeweler with these new essories, Katy holding Benjamin¡¯s hand and Sean holding Benji¡¯s, Benji looked up at his grandfather with a whistle. "I never noticed how many essories like that you actually have. Although, why do you only have ear-piercings, and no piercings anywhere else?" He asked, before Benjamin just shrugged. "I tried a septum out once, but I didn¡¯t like it. And it got in the way all the time when I was wearing masks for woodworking. My earrings and beard-rings at least don¡¯t get in the way that much, so I¡¯ve kept them. And I got used to them after a while, so why not?" The old manughed before Benji shrugged with a smile as he imagined his grandfather with a bull-like nosering, inevitably joining his grandfather¡¯sughter. Chapter 210 Triple Ds A few hourster, after Benjamin spent a beautiful, calm day in town with his grandchildren, the small group made their way back to the house once they picked up Sophia from the Barber¡¯s, where she had been spending some time with Kim. After the barbecue, it seemed like Sophia felt a little bit awkward, considering that she kissed Kim in front of a prettyrge crowd to prove a point, but Kim didn¡¯t seem to mind in the slightest. Kim invited Sophia out on a date to the mall in the next week, which was the reason why the teenage girl couldn¡¯t stop giggling like she was supposed to be in an insane asylum. It seemed like they were getting along pretty well, and who knows, they may end up as a couple pretty soon. While Sophia would need to go back home at the start of the next school year, since Kim already ns on starting to y World of Magic as well, it wouldn¡¯t be too big an issue to have a long-distance rtionship, since the capsule made any distance seem either infinitelyrge or infinitely small. Either way, Sophia was feeling super happy. Katy and Sean were acting quite simrly after their grandfather bought them some icecream, and Benji was feeling hyped up when he started talking to Benjamin about what the old man found in the game, and what he was thinking about making. When Benjamin mentioned the idea of turning to Dungeon Core into a Golem Core for a walking Dungeon, the teenager actually had an even more exciting idea. "Wouldn¡¯t it be even cooler if you somehow turned it into Monster Core thing? The monsters in the game do have mana crystals, right?" Benji asked before Benjamin looked at him in surprise, trying to figure out whether that would be possible. "Hmm, turning the Dungeon Core into the equivalent of a Mana Crystal... I mean, maybe Jyuuk has some ideas about that. But Dungeons do have ranks just like monsters do, so maybe it would be possible to make a Dungeon that can level up as well?" Benjamin muttered to himself, feeling somewhat unsure of how good an idea this would actually be, and how hard it may be to actually do it, while Benji was thinking about the more essential aspects. What it would be called. "The Growth Dungeon! Or the Monster Dungeon! Nah... Bob? Hmm... The Living Dungeon, maybe?" Benji asked before Benjamin simply shrugged. "Who knows? That might not actually be possible, so we should try and figure that outter. But if it works, that does have a pretty nice ring to it." Benjamin told his grandson, as he was already thinking about the others¡¯ reaction to this idea. --- A few hourster, Benjamin went to lie down in the capsule earlier than nned for a few reasons. First, he wanted to get an early a start with the ship as soon as possible, since he preferred to get this over with before the regr yer base started ying and then suddenly made everything harder and more annoying to deal with. Second, he didn¡¯t have anything else to do. Tony finished some of his important calls to figure things out with his oldpany, and whether they would need him to return soon or if he could stay with Benjamin for a while longer, so he could take care of Katy and Sean himself for a while. Of course, he didn¡¯t just spend the rest of his day with Benji and Sophia, since those two needed a little bit of time to themselves as well. And so, since he didn¡¯t have anything else better to do, he might as well y the game, right? Lastly, Benjamin simply felt a little bit tired and wanted to lie down for a while. And to not waste any time, while his actual body rested, Benjamin chose to slip into his in-game body and became Eisen again. When he woke up in the carriage, he noticed that he was still tightly hugging the Dungeon Core inside of the carriage. And as Caria and Melissa also slowly woke up, Eisen swiftly greeted Aulu with a smile, rubbing his hands through her brass fur. Stuffing the core into a backpack that was just barelyrge enough to hold it fully, Eisen put that backpack on and made his way outside, where he swiftly activated his size-increase. After all, Eisen still had the goal of somehow gaining a better familiarity with this ¡¯form,¡¯ on top of the fact that he simply felt weirdlyfortable like this. Nobody seemed to care too much about his size, although he did get a look or two every once in a while. And that did make sense. Titans were a rare race around this part of the continent, but it was still so that the vast majority of people, especially in arge town like Handor, saw a good amount of titans. That is if they were people that belonged to this world. "Holy shit, Drag! There¡¯s a fucking giant over there!" Someone yelled out, hitting his friend¡¯s shoulder who swiftly turned around in response. The one that yelled this out at first was a rtively young, as well as a bit short, with pitch-ck hair and simrly colored leather armor, the friend whose shoulder that boy-in-ck hit was in ssic mage-robes. He seemed to be a lot taller and skinnier than his friend, and he had a staff with a bright red crystal at the top, which made Eisen think he was probably a pyromancer. Then, another man turned around. He was utterly average in looks for the most part, although on the upper end of each scale. Meaning that he was on the top end of height, build, and looks. He probably wouldn¡¯t stick out in a crowd in any way, simply because he had no major noticeable features, beside his full te armor, kite-shield and one-handed-sword. "A Giant?! Those are wicked beasts, are they not? We must defeat this evil creature to save the townsfolk!" The average-joe yelled out, pointing his sword forward at Eisen, which confused him quite a bit, even making him look around to see if he meant him. "Oh fuck, here he goes again..." The Wizard called Drag, sighed loudly, before looking at the short boy-in-ck. "Dark, can¡¯t you just use stun-poison on him?" "Drag, you literally want me to stab one of my best friends in the back just to avoid being embarrassed?" The short boy Dark asked, nearly offended, and Drag nodded his head without a change in his expression, leaving Dark to shrug. "Eh, I guess. Oye Dier, take a look at my cool new dagger!" Dark yelled out to his friend, who simply clicked his tongue and moved closer to Eisen, who was trying to figure out if they were just a trio of very, very dumb street performers. "Not now, Dark! We need to save the townsfolk from- Ouch, dude, what was that for?" Dier¡¯s repetitive speech was quickly interrupted by Dark stabbing his dagger into a small opening in between the pieces of his armor, only causing the warrior some damage, although not actually stunning him, which confused Dark for a moment, before Drag pped his face in disappointment. "Dark, did you forget to put the poison on your dagger again?" He asked before the short boy quickly looked at his small de before scratching the back of his head embarrassedly. And after rubbing his side with annoyance, Dier turned back to Eisen and jumped at him, swinging his sword down at him. "Die, fiend!" He yelled out, although Eisen simply caught the quite slow de with his fingers, which he had just reinforced with his element slightly so that he wouldn¡¯t take too much damage, and to increase the friction so that he could stop the de more easily. Surprised after noticing this, Dier looked up at the old man in front of him, who simply sighed out loudly while rubbing the bridge of his nose annoyed. "Kid, let me guess, you¡¯re a Delta." Eisen sighed loudly, not able to activate his truth-seeing-eyes to actually check since so many people were watching him. Although, even then, he didn¡¯t need to do that either. "H-Huh? This Monster knows our Origins! And my one-hit-kill attack didn¡¯t work against it! Flee,rades, flee!" Dier tried running away and yelled out toward his friends, who were standing there trying to figure out whether or not they should pretend they didn¡¯t know him. But for some weird reason, Dier couldn¡¯t move. Possibly be due to the fact that Eisen was holding onto his armor so that he couldn¡¯t. While this was happening, a small group of Guards came running over after hearing themotion. "Is everything alright? We heard about some kid attacking a Titan?" One of them asked directly noticing and understanding the situation. So that nothing would escte, Eisen ced his erged hand on Dier¡¯s shoulder, pressing down on him so that he still couldn¡¯t run away, while talking to the Guard with a bright smile. "Don¡¯t worry ¡ª just a misunderstanding. I¡¯m nearly level 100, and this boy is just a Delta that recently appeared, so his level as well as his I.Q. isn¡¯t so high. He obviously wouldn¡¯t be able to injure me in any way. But still, if you¡¯re alright with it, would you mind leaving the task of lecturing this youngster to this old man?" Eisen exined with a smile, and the Guard sighed loudly. "I see... Sure, go ahead. If he didn¡¯t do any harm, then I guess it¡¯s fine. Just make sure he doesn¡¯t do it again, yeah?" The Guard said, before turning around and telling the other guards to leave together with him. Now that this situation was over and the crowd dissolved, Eisen looked at the boys with a loud sigh, shaking his head in disappointment. "You three better stop doing something like that. If you see something you think is a monster inside of a town, with literally nobody running away or even remotely scared, maybe think a bit more about what to do. Also, please take notice of the literal little girls sitting on my shoulders. I shouldn¡¯t even look too threatening like this, right?" Eisen lectured them. Also, all of that was mainly pointed toward Dier, before the old man squatted down to whisper into the warrior¡¯s ear. "And most importantly, maybe at least check if I¡¯m another yer." The old man sighed before immediately feeling a wave of goosebumps all over his body as a sign that he had just been appraised. Immediately, Dier opened his eyes wide in shock as he read the information. "S-Sorry, I didn¡¯t know that you- but wait, that isn¡¯t even a- how?" Dier protested, trying to figure out what was going on, while both Dark and Drag came up behind their friend, looking up at the 3-meter tall man in front of them. "Excuse this moron, sir. He¡¯s our friend, but he¡¯s as stupid as ites." Dark apologized before Drag seemed to look at something else behind Eisen for a short moment. "Erm, Sir? I know you said we should make sure that we don¡¯t identally attack people that look like monsters, but... How can we know if there¡¯s someone like that?" He asked, pointing at a particr person standing a little distance away from Eisen, staring in his direction with squinted eyes to seemingly figure out if it was him. Surprisingly, it was Brody, with his dark ck-greenish skin, two horns on the top of his head as well asrge tusksing out of the bottom of his mouth. "Yup, even him. He¡¯s actually another P." Eisen exined, merely using the first letter of the word ¡¯yer¡¯ instead of the actual word, waving over toward his young friend, who came running over to him with a grin on his face. "Oh Eisen, who are these kids?" He asked, surprised as he looked at Drag, Dark, and Dier before the old man replied with augh. "Just some Deltas. So, Brody, anything interesting happened while I was away?" Eisen asked the Demon-Orc halfling, waving at the three boys to say goodbye as he stepped away from the ¡¯Triple D¡¯s.¡¯ Chapter 211 Level 100 "So those three kids were Deltas?" Brody asked once more as he looked up at therge man next to him, who swiftly nodded his head. "Yes, they were. They were acting pretty idiotic for the most part, though. Although I¡¯m surprised they already managed to get here, their levels didn¡¯t seem to be that high." Eisen pointed out before Brody sighed loudly. "Oh yeah, I get what you mean. I was nearly attacked like twice over the past few days since the first of them got here. But I got them to appraise me, and they saw I¡¯m a yer, so they just apologized and left." Brody exined. "Kinda weird though, I¡¯m sure they should¡¯ve seen us in the trailer. Well, at least Evalia¡¯s bein¡¯ recognized every time she sees a Delta. The girl¡¯s just been sittin¡¯ in her room at the inn the whole time." "Wait, really? Maybe I can make her a mask or something. Or just generally anything that makes sure she isn¡¯t recognized right away." Eisen muttered to himself before he and Brody reached the inn and made their way inside. Luckily, the ce was built for evenrger people than Eisen tofortably get in and be able to move around without worry, so he didn¡¯t need to shrink down and could stay Titan-sized. "Oh, and Komer¡¯s told us about what you found. Pretty cool stuff. Although I don¡¯t think anybody besides those three kids and Evalia are here. We didn¡¯t expect ya to be back so early. Anyway, Komer met up with that Lord guy and is out to get the wood, should be backter this afternoon with everythin¡¯ we need." The Demon-Orc Halfling exined to the old man next to him, who nodded with a smile and squatted down slightly to fit through the door to his room, where he immediately looked around. His three apprentices, currently ying a card-game of some kind to pass the time, were sitting on a bed with Evalia sketching something in the other corner of the room, and they all looked at him in surprise. "Oh! We didn¡¯t expect you to be up yet!" Rouge eximed, and Koro looked down at the cards in his hands before looking back at Eisen. "Erm... Wanna y with us?" He asked, but Eisen shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry. You can keep ying for a while. Brody just told me that the wood for the ship is going to be hereter today, so take a break for a little while longer, because we¡¯ll be working hard non-stop from then on." Eisen told them, and he wasn¡¯t kidding either. He had already talked to Tony and his grandchildren about it, telling them that he would be ying at the very least, the whole of Saturday because he needed to get the Ship done as quickly as he could. And of course, he wouldn¡¯t let his apprenticesze around during that time. He would be getting a lot of help from the people at the Church as well, so it surely should be finished within a rtively short time, if Eisen could manage everything properly. And for now, the three boys quietly sighed while nodding their heads, continuing their card game for now. And while they were doing that, Eisen sat down next to Evalia, who seemed to be sulking a little bit. "You okay?" Eisen asked her before Evalia looked up from the paper she was looking at and nodded her head. "I¡¯m fine..." She muttered, and Eisen smiled and sat down next to her on the bed, obviously now shrinking down to his regr size so that he wouldn¡¯t identally break the bed just by sitting on it. "Well, I heard you¡¯re being recognized a lot. Want me to help you with that a bit?" Eisen asked her before she looked at him surprised before slowly nodding. "Sure. But what can you do? I wanted to y this game for a little while longer, at least without needin¡¯ to worry about where I¡¯m goin¡¯ and what I¡¯m doin¡¯. Maybe I should have changed my appearance after all..." Evalia said, paying extra attention so that the three boys wouldn¡¯t hear her speak before Eisen shook his head. "You don¡¯t need to do that. I can make you a mask, right? And I need to level up my Drawing skill, so let¡¯s brainstorm a bit while I sketch the ideas out." Eisen suggested before Evalia handed him the paper and the pencil, which the old man gratefully took from her. "Thank you. Now, let¡¯s start simple. Would you like something that covers your whole face, or just something like those cough-masks that only cover your mouth? I heard a lot of celebrities use those to hide these days." He suggested, sketching out the rough shapes for both, to get at least a little bit more proficiency out of this, before Evalia thought about it for a little while. "I do wear that cough-masks quite a lot, but ya usually don¡¯t wear them by themselves, but like, with a hoodie, hat, and sunsses or something." She exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, trying to sketch all those parts so that he could figure out something that maybe looked like it before he also looked at Evalia¡¯s rtively simple clothing. "Maybe I could make you something like a hood then as well that you can pull over your head if you need to." He suggested, taking another piece of paper and starting to sketch out a swift idea on that. "That sounds good. I didn¡¯t buy anythin¡¯ clothes-wise yet..." She exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "I see, we can work on thatter as well, then. I mean, what I¡¯m thinking right now is something like a two-piece mask. Like, I could put something into the mouth-part that acts as a speaker and makes your voice louder automatically, so it would serve a purpose besides hiding your face, and then if you¡¯re in an area with a lot of people, especially... ya know..." Eisen whispered thest few words, before swiftly continuing, "... you can just connect the upper part of the mask, pull over your hood, and you can walk around without any worry." "Oh, that would be just amazin¡¯!" Evalia eximed excitedly, looking down at the sketch that was currently only showing round pieces of wood, which the old man continued to refine for another while, even figuring out ways to paint it after it was done. "Hmm, we could Hydro-Dip the mask, if you like that style?" Eisen suggested, and Evalia thought about it for a while. "That¡¯s the thing where you put spray-paint on some water and then push something through that, right?" She asked, and Eisen nodded. "Yes, that¡¯s the gist of it. It should be able to give you some fascinating and unique patterns." He exined before Evalia swiftly nodded her head. With that, the mask-design was finished, and next came the design for Evalia¡¯s hood, which would also be made in a simr style. They couldn¡¯t Hydro-Dip it like the wooden mask, but Eisen knew a few tricks here and there to get simr results on fabric. So, Eisen chose to work with a simple white base, with no unique design in any way. It was just a thin cloth with arms and a hood that would be hanging loosely down Evalia¡¯s body while she was wearing it like a jacket. And soon enough, once Eisenbined a full-body sketch of Evalia herself, the hood, and the mask, a particr little skill ranked up, causing quite a fortunate series of events. [Drawing reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2] [By focusing on precisely one object while drawing, your hands will receive slight assistance] [Due to Ranking-up your Drawing Skill, you gained +1 WIS and +1 AGI] [Level up Quest Complete - Road to 100] [Description] You have reached Level 99 and as such have gained the right to work toward achieving level 100. These are your requirements as calcted by your actions so far: -cksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Alchemy Skills at Rank 3 (True) -Racial Skills at Rank 3 (True) -upation Skill Crafting Space at Rank 3 (True) -Mana Maniption, me of the Earth Magic at Rank 3 (True) -Woodworking, Cooking, Drawing, Tool Connection, Soul Engineering, Truth Seeing Eye at Rank 2 (True) -Gain Title Champion II (True) -Using Soul Engineering, give a form to a soul (True) -Learn Farming, Mining, and Masonry Skills (True) [Reward] Level increased to 100 [Failure] Not possible [Taskspleted] [You are now level 100] [Congrattions! You reached level 100 and have now gained a new benefit and a new upation skill!] [You can now found a guild!] [Crafter¡¯s Mind Skill Learned] With a grin, Eisen nowid the piece of paper and the pencil to the side, quickly opening the chat window to message Xenia and Jyuuk to tell them toe to the Inn room as soon as they could. He got immediate answers when he told both of them what just happened, and they were instantly on their way. In the meantime, Eisen looked at Brody and Evalia. "Alright then, I just finished my Level-Up Quest, and am now level 100. Xenia and Jyuuk are on their way so that we can finallyplete founding our guild." The old man exined, before Brody sat down on the bed opposite to Eisen and Evalia with a grin. "Awesome! And what¡¯s the new upation skill you got when you leveled up?" He asked before Eisen quickly checked. [Name - Crafter¡¯s Mind][Rank - 0][Level - 1] [Description] The Crafter¡¯s Mind Skill is one that can assist you in many different ways, mostly helping you gather information about numerous types of situations and then helps you figure out what can be done by a crafter that perfectly suits that situation. Can be used to remember different recipes and blueprints, n construction work, or find out which item fits best to which person. "Huh... Well, it¡¯s called ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Mind.¡¯ It¡¯s an assistance skill and helps me with everything that would usually be going on within my head. Like remembering recipes for potions or dishes, I guess. And it might also be able to help me visualize things? But I don¡¯t know how it could do thest ability that¡¯s mentioned here..." Eisen muttered to himself before he looked at Brody and tried to activate the skill to activate that particrst ability mentioned in the skill¡¯s description, before something different than he expected happened. [Some of the ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Mind¡¯ skill¡¯s abilities have been absorbed by the ¡¯Truth-Seeing Eyes¡¯ Skill] [Visualisation, Characteristic Scan, can now be used within the ¡¯Truth-Seeing Eyes¡¯ Skill. Usage of these abilities will give proficiency to both the ¡¯Truth-Seeing Eyes¡¯ Skill, as well as the ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Mind¡¯ Skill] Surprised, but merely epting this unexpected change, Eisen activated his truth seeing eyes, thinking about the activation of the ¡¯Characteristic Scan¡¯ Ability. When he did, the world around him didn¡¯t change that much to what it was usually like when this skill was active in its original base-mode, just that when he focused on a specific thing, that thing slowly began to gain some color while the rest faded away to be even more blurry than before. And so, when he focused on Brody, a few different things happened. Eisen received several bits of different information about Brody that could be attained by merely looking at him, although with surprising uracy. The system gave him Brody¡¯s height, his race, and weight, as well as a few minor unnecessary information like his hair, eye, and skin color. That was about it. Right now, Eisen didn¡¯t expect too much from a Rank 0 skill, but even then, this was pretty helpful already. With such precise information, Eisen was at least able to urately know what to remember while making items for him, mainly just bnce-wise. Atter points, it might work simr to a proper appraisal and let him know about other things, such as stat, style or skill focus, so that he could even more urately create items for others. Considering that Eisen was nning on takingmissions soon, including the ones that Komer had gotten for him while selling items over the past days, this would surelye in quite useful at one point or another. Chapter 212 Worlds Peak Eisen continued testing his new skill out for a little while, merely using it to inspect some other people in the room as well. One thing that he found out was that he could focus on specific aspects of someone¡¯s appearance, and that would then save that data as well, like for example all the essential information you would need before making someone clothes, such as the different circumferences of someone¡¯s body like around the hip or chest. Then again, it didn¡¯t seem to work if the other person was wearing something very loose that hid a lot of their figure, which did make sense to an extent. It was just a little bit easier to figure those sizes out, and he wouldn¡¯t need to go and directly measure anything. Eisen also tried to test the other new ability that his Truth-Seeing Eyes gained, the visualization. Using visualization, he could basically ¡¯Imagine¡¯ some different ideas. For example, he was able to see Evalia wearing the hood and mask that he would make for her in advance, to see if they should modify anything about it. He would most certainly be able to use this ability quite well in the making of the ship. If he could make something like Xenia¡¯s ¡¯Mana Spectacles¡¯ that would show the workers what they needed to do directly, it would certainly, for sure boost efficiency quite a lot. Eisen could not only show them what different shape pieces of the ship needed to be, but he could also let everyone know the proper method of setting everything together. Even if those things couldn¡¯t be used to show the workers what Eisen intended, he would at least maybe be able to show the other Originals what he was thinking about in terms of what the ship should generally look like and then get their ideas on it. This Visualization ability would definitelye in handy! As expected of his second upation skill! While Eisen was still ying around with this ability a little bit to see its limits, Xenia and Jyuuk came into the room at basically the same time. "You¡¯re level 100?" Jyuuk asked immediately, broadly grinning as he did so, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Mhm, I am. I was sketching a few different things out and then ranked up my Drawing skill, which was thest thing I needed to finish my Level-up quest." Eisen exined as he stood up and deactivated his Truth-Seeing Eyes skill, before looking at the other originals with a smile. "Now, what do we need to make a Guild?" Eisen asked, before Jyuuk, who was tasked to figure all of those requirements out considering that it was his idea in the first ce, spoke up. "It¡¯s just a new status option now. Like you¡¯d open your physical status, you can now open a Guild window. Just like that, we can found our guild as long as we have at least five people, one of which has to be Level 100. The one that controls the whole process will be the Guildmaster. That¡¯s it. I couldn¡¯t find out much more without actually founding a guild. Oh, and you need this here, it¡¯s a Guild Scroll." The Monkey-Beastperson exined, handing Eisen a nk piece of paper, which the old man slowly looked over. "It¡¯s like a Magic Contract that¡¯s needed to found a guild. We could use the one that the Guild Administration sells, but I found a High-Level scribe that created a custom Guild Scroll. We probably wouldn¡¯t be able to do what we want under the Guild Administration." Jyuuk exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, opening the Guild window just like Jyuuk suggested. There, he found a small option that was lightly glowing with a white border around it, showing that it is currently avable. It was merely the ¡¯Found Guild¡¯ option. Slowly, Eisen tapped that option, before another window appeared. [Do you want to use the Guild Scroll to write up a Guild Founding Contract?] Quietly, Eisen thought ¡¯Yes,¡¯ before the scroll that he was currently holding began to glow before that glow suddenly disappeared. Slowly, Eisen unrolled that scroll andid it out on the table next to where the five of them stood, slowly reading over the contract. It didn¡¯t have anything special uses in it other than ¡¯pledges¡¯ to the God that held power over these guilds, which was simply a necessity to have inside of this Guild Scroll to have it work. Other than that, it didn¡¯t have any special conditions and would allow them to found the guild. At the bottom of the contract were different free spaces. One ample space for the Guild name, directly underneath an area for the Guildmaster to sign, and then underneath that four spaces for the other founding members to sign. Since it could be signed in anything, Eisen swiftly grabbed an ink-pen from Sky¡¯s bedside to use. "Alright, we¡¯re using the name that Eisen suggested, right?" Xenia asked excitedly, before the others swiftly nodded their head before Eisen slowly wrote down what they agreed on beforehand. Next, Eisen signed the contract at the space for the Guildmaster and then handed the pen to the others, who swiftly signed as well in their respective spots. The moment that Brody ced the pen down next to the Contract as thest person that signed it, the paper caught fire at its edges and only after a few seconds, the contract was utterly vaporized without a single hint that it was even ever there. [Congrattions! You founded the Guild ] [Guild name now disyed in Status] [Guildmaster Title Unlocked] [As Guildmaster, you have more privileges than others. You have the right to see every bit of information avable to the Guild, make decisions that control its fate, and be the one that decides over who joins your Guild under what position. For more information, see the personal Guild Window] With a smile, Eisen waved these notifications away and looked at his friends. "Now then, what next?" He asked as he crossed his arms while opening the Guild Window and slowly browsing through it before Jyuuk smiled. "Next we should recruit all the others into the Guild and then get to work with the ship!" He eximed with a smile before Evalia shook her head. "No, no! First, we should figure out our Guild Insignia!" She eximed, before Eisen nodded his head. "Yeah, let¡¯s do that. It¡¯s going to take a little while longer until we have all the materials for the ship anyway." Eisen pointed out, then looking at the Guild Window again. "And it¡¯s asking me to set a Guild Insignia as well. And we should probably figure out administrative things at some point..." Eisen loudly sighed as he scratched the back of his head after seeing all the different information in this window. "Administrative Things?" Jyuuk asked, confused before Eisen nodded his head as if it was obvious. "Yes, of course. First off, are we going to let anyone into the guild? Do we want it to be a huge Guild for everyone, or just a small cozy Guild for people close to us? Then if it¡¯s the former, how should we handle that? Of course, it¡¯s only going to happen when we¡¯re at the inds since we¡¯ll need something like a Guild-Hall as well. We couldn¡¯t all personally take care of every single Guild Member. What would conditions to join be? There¡¯s also an option for Guild-Branches as well, which I¡¯d like to look into." Eisen exined, already feeling somewhat annoyed with all the work that would end up going into this now that he took a closer look. "But the best way to start is, of course, the Guild Insignia, just to control the chaos a little bit." He then added before Evalia nodded her head with a grin, taking out her notebook and flipping to one page where she sketched something up already. In its style, it was somewhat simr to the coins that everyone was wearing, but what was disyed was different from what everyone had on their coins. With this design, Evalia took the name quite literally and sketched up a mountain that shot through the clouds, with the sun directly behind the peak. "Do y¡¯all like it?" She asked with a smile as she showed the sketch around. And since everybody was delighted with this Design, Evalia chose to sit down at some point and finalize the sketch, turning it into something proper. Just before he waved the Guild Window away, the door to the room opened, and in came a particr young merchant with dark red hair. "Oh! You¡¯re all here!" Komer eximed as Sky and Kiron followed him into the room. With a smile, Eisen then nodded before looking at the Guild Window again to look at the option about recruiting other people. He swiftly got some information merely telling him that he would need a ¡¯Guild Recruit Contract¡¯ for that, so he turned to Sky and Xenia, the only ones here with the scribe skill. "Yes, we¡¯re all here, and we just founded our Guild. I want to recruit everyone here, but for that, we need a special contract. Can you two figure something out?" Eisen asked before the two of them looked at each other and nodded. "Sure we can. How many contracts do we need?" Xenia asked, before Eisen shrugged. "As many as possible, I guess. At least one for everyone in each of our parties." The old man exined, before getting an idea. "How do you make contracts like that?" He asked, and Sky began to exin. "We need Mana-Infused Ink, some nice, clean paper, and then we need to write out the contract with the conditions, I guess. If you want a Guild Recruit Contract, then... Well, I¡¯m not sure exactly what should go into that besides the basic Guild stuff. Some Private Guilds regrly pay the ones they recruit, although that¡¯s not necessary, I guess." "Then could you automate that? For example, with a printing press?" Eisen asked, and Sky immediately nodded. "Yes, that should be possible. At least if you enchant the press with the scribe skill, I should be? But anyway, to finalize the contract, both the Guildmaster, or a proxy to the Guildmaster, and the recruited need to sign the contract. I read up a little bit about Magic Contracts like this in the library." The Fey-Kin boy exined, already trumping over Jyuuk¡¯s knowledge that he gathered for the past few weeks. "Alright, got it. That shouldn¡¯t be an issue then. Anyway, I think it says we have a limit of 25 people in our Guild right now?" Eisen asked before it was Jyuuk¡¯s moment to shine again since he did actually know something about this particr topic. "Ah, yes! Guild have ranks as well! Right now, we¡¯re Rank 0, and to be a Rank 1 Guild and be able to rank up from then on, we need a guild base where we can ce our-" "Guild Core?" Eisen asked with a grin as he interrupted the Beastperson, who then swiftly nodded his head. "Yeah, how¡¯d you know?" Jyuuk asked, surprised before Eisen shrugged. "I just noticed that there¡¯s a lot of things like that with a core. Towns, Dungeons, and Guild as well. I think we¡¯ll be fine for a little while then." Eisen chuckled, relieved that he would be able to get some excellent, proper help through a Core Guardian that he could connect to the Guild Core. Apparently, they were like assistants rted to that specific type of core, and if Eisen had an assistant for Guild-stuff, then it would make lots of things far more straightforward than he just thought. And he would definitely be able to figure out this somewhatplicated Guild Window with the help of a Core Guardian that apparently will naturally know all that it needs to. Chapter 213 Ocular Enchantmen After figuring a few more things out concerning the guild, and deciding to look into it once they had everyone join it after Sky and Xenia made the contracts for it, Eisen turned to Komer with a curious smile. "So, you managed to get the wood, right?" The old man asked, and Komer swiftly nodded his head. "Yes, I got a great deal on it, and all the materials are being brought to the harbor right now. The Lord gave us a warehouse to keep everything in." He exined while Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction before grabbing a few mana crystals and enchanting marbles. "Got it. Then we still have a little bit of time. I want to try something out, shouldn¡¯t be too long." Eisen exined before forming one of the mana crystals into a thin, round coin, which he then swiftly enchanted with his new visualization ability so that he could try out one of his ideas. Luckily, when he visualized something, it didn¡¯t be blurry or ck-and-white like everything else but was disyed as usual. And since Eisen was trying out seriously just concentrating on the visualization in connection to his ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Mind¡¯ skill instead of in link to his ¡¯Truth-Seeing Eyes¡¯ ability, he was hoping that the world wouldn¡¯t be ck-and-white after looking through this lens. First, he handed that enchanted lens to Komer to try it out, while the others watched this curiously. But just like that, nothing really happened, and even when Eisen tried to create something in front of Komer with visualization, he still wasn¡¯t able to see it. So, Eisen swiftly grabbed the lens again and began actually to carve an enchantment onto it. He knew that this would make it rtively unstable, but with an enchantment like this, that would mean that it would be useless if it failed, so Eisen didn¡¯t need to worry about identally injuring Komer with this if it became too unstable. After carving the enchantment, Eisen handed it back to Komer, before trying to see if it worked this time around. But again, nothing. With a loud sigh, Eisen sat down with the mana-crystal lens, deleted the enchantment, and then continued. Swiftly, Eisen created an enchantment-circle that would connect directly to another enchantment, which Eisen was taking a little bit of a risk. Slowly, Eisen activated his me-Of-The-Earth transformation in a single ce, his eyes, making them fully transform into the hardest rock-surface as possible. That didn¡¯t influence Eisen¡¯s seeing too much; he just couldn¡¯t move his eyeballs that easily anymore. Afterpleting that, Eisen called over Xenia and handed her a needle as well as a piece of paper where he sketched down the other side of the enchantment that was supposed to connect to the lens. "Please, be careful, alright?" Eisen asked as he created a small mana crystal ring to ce around his eye to keep it open at all times and not make him reflectively close his eye while Xenia was working. "Wait. What?! You want me to carve into your eye, are you insane?" She asked Eisen, really unsure if he was insane or not before the old man sighed. "I¡¯m not insane. Just don¡¯t worry, I shouldn¡¯t even be able to feel it like this. Now, please." Eisen exined before Xenia calmed herself down a bit and carved the enchantments that Eisen asked her to carve into his rock-eyes, while literally, everyone in the room looked away, because that was just a somewhat grueling scene, even if they exactly knew that it didn¡¯t hurt Eisen at all. After she finished, Xenia set the enchantment circle to the side, before a notification popped up in front of Eisen. [Do you want to save the Ocr Connection Enchantment as a variation of the me of the Earth Transformation?] Slowly, Eisen thought ¡¯Yes,¡¯ before he deactivated this transformation, instead of activating his whole Demonic Transformation and trying tobine it with this new ¡¯Ocr Connection¡¯ enchantment, which seemed to work out just fine. He was somewhat afraid he¡¯d take damage like before when he tried activating his full-body enchantment without his transformation activated, but this worked without issues. He took a look at his eyes in a mirror real quick, seeing that there was a light ck outline around the enchantment to set it off from his regr golden eyes. Either way, now Eisen turned to Komer once again, who tried the mana-crystal lens out quickly, before opening his eyes wide in surprise. "Whoa! That¡¯s so cool!" He eximed as he now apparently managed to see the small model-ship that Eisen created in the center of the room with visualization. "Finally!" Eisenughed happily, d that he didn¡¯t need to figure something else out, before swiftly making more lenses for everyone else to look through. "Alright, here¡¯s my idea for the Ship," Eisen exined to them as he crossed his arms while the others took a close look at the weird floating model of a ship in the center of the room. "Huh... That¡¯s pretty nice. Although a little bit boring, right?" Evalia asked as she tilted her head to the side a little bit, and Eisen nodded his head. "Well, that¡¯s why I wanted you all to take a look at it. So that you can give me your opinion on it, and so that we can properly change it if you don¡¯t like it." He exined, before continuing. "Although a ship doesn¡¯t need to look super exciting. It just needs to work well. We¡¯ll make the base of the ship out of the wood that Komer bought for us, and then we¡¯ll reinforce it with metal so that it¡¯s stable enough." Eisen said, showing the different parts where metal would be needed to hold everything together easily and protect against some underwater monsters, although Komer interjected. "Erm, actually, we don¡¯t need that, I think," Komer said before Eisen looked at him confused, and the young merchant swiftly exined. "The wood that I bought is from an Ironbark tree. The majority of wood for shipses from that, for different reasons. First, if you properly treat it, it bes as strong as iron or steel. And second, the trees are giant. It¡¯s a main import from some Forest Giant Town on another continent, and one of the few things that can currentlye here from there. They are said to grow to be like 200 meters tall or something." He exined, and Eisen listened to that quite curiously. "Huh... so you¡¯re saying that the ships are all made of that type of wood?" Eisen asked, and Komer immediately nodded his head. "Of course not all of them, but at the very least therge ones, yes." "Perfect then. Alright, how much did you buy?" The old man inquired, before Komer scratched the back of his head with a smirk. "Erm... a whole tree?" He admitted, before Eisen began tough. "Perfect! If they¡¯re asrge as you say they are, then we could probably create one with a fully connected spine." Eisen smiled, patting the merchant on his back. "Good job. Anyway, that¡¯s not what we were talking about for now. We can cut the majority of the metal reinforcement then. That¡¯s going to save us a good bit of time. Evalia, if you want to pep the ship up a bit, then you can make something like a model for the front of it. And we¡¯ll leave every decoration part to you in general, but that justes once the base is done for the most part. What about theyout for inside?" He asked, and soon enough, everyone came up with their suggestions, saying what they would like to have in there. That included a training room, a research room, a treasury, an art studio, arge room for Jyuuk to take care of hisrger beasts, and of course an area where Eisen and his apprentices could work. And then, of course, the obvious areas like the kitchen, sleeping quarters, storage rooms, and so on. And a short whileter, they were all rtively happy with the overall design, and Eisen swiftly put that down on paper as a rough blueprint. "Alright, now, let¡¯s go to the harbor then to take a look at everything. Koro, Parc, and Rougee on. If everything¡¯s ready, you¡¯ll go get all the people that can physically help with the construction from the Church facilities and bring them to the warehouse." Eisen instructed them and swiftly deactivated his demonic transformation, but increased his size to Titan-Form. While they were on their way to the harbor, Eisen continued making as many mana-lenses as he could so that he would be able to easily instruct the helpers on what to do, at least briefly at the start. Evalia was hiding a bit with an old Mage¡¯s robe that Xenia lent her so that she wouldn¡¯t be as easily recognized, and Eisen was carrying his two monster girls on his shoulder, while everyone else followed behind. Sky went to get Bree, Dien, and Kirisho since Bree and Dien chose to show Kirisho around town for a while so that they could help a bit as well. And of course, Brody¡¯s friends came along as well, since they would be able to help more than enough. Once they reached the warehouse, Eisen could already see the massive log sticking out the front of it, since it couldn¡¯tpletely fit in. With a grin, Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction and stepped up to it, although he activated his Demonic Transformation somewhere where people couldn¡¯t see this happen as he did so. Slowly, Eisen pressed his hand against the wood to just get a feel for the texture and strength, before smiling happily. "Komer, you outdid yourself with your choice here. This tree has some excellent wood; I have to say." The old man said with a smile before he heard someone coughing behind him to get his attention. When he then turned around, Eisen saw two men, as well as a few guards, standing there. They were Zaran and his Adviser. "I¡¯m d you like it. It should be more than enough to make a fitting ship, except maybe if everyone here is nning on growing as you did." Zaran said with a stern expression, not startled by the fact that Eisen grew to three meters. "Of course, thank you. We will start working on this soon enough, and we will hopefully be away within the next one or two weeks." Eisen exined to Handor¡¯s Lord, who slowly nodded his head. "Good. Your friend already paid for everything, so we won¡¯t need to see each other anymore for now." Zaran said, obviously trying to show something bordering on disgust for the Demon in front of him as a show for his Adviser, which Eisen didn¡¯t mind. "Yup, see you," Eisen said and nodded at the Lord, trying to seem as cold as possible, before turning back to the huge log, already making ns for everything, while Zaran and his Adviser made their leave. "And what now?" Koro asked Eisen curiously, before the old man looked back at him and his other two apprentices with a smile, telling them to get to church so that they could get everyone before he then looked at the others. "I know you guys don¡¯t have many or any crafting skills, but you¡¯re just going to be needed for assembly anyway. We¡¯ll get all the parts ready and slowly start assembling everything. The hardest part will be the base construction, the spine, and the ¡¯ribs,¡¯ I guess." Eisen exined to them, once more showing them what he meant with his visualization. "After that, it¡¯s just a lot of repetitivebor. Like adding the differentyers outside of the ship, waterproofing everything, and that kind of stuff. It¡¯s not thatplicated, so don¡¯t worry. I¡¯ll give more detailed instructions when the rest arrive here, alright?" Chapter 214 Spine Soon enough, the people from the Church all gathered in front of Eisen, who was already preparing the wood to be carved. Luckily, the whole log was delivered unstripped, so the bark was still on it. With arge knife, Eisen then cut into the bark of the Ironbark tree, which was quite hard, just as the name suggested, to show the workers how the bark should be separated and stored, inrge rectangr sheets. The bark itself seemed to be incredibly hard, so it surely had a few uses here and there, so Eisen didn¡¯t just want to throw it away. And lucky for Eisen, since the warehouse was explicitly used to work with Ironbark trees, there were tools specifically for that purpose already stored there. Of course, he could have made the tools himself, but that would have cost quite a bit of time, and Eisen wanted to finish this as quickly as possible. And so, Eisen soon began to give instructions to everyone, and they happily got to work. Using arge, rounded saw that could be ced around the log, they then began to strip the bark off of the wood simr to how you would peel a carrot. Once one sheet of the bark was ready to be taken off, some of the workers then swiftly climbed on top and handed the massive sheets down to some others that then stacked them up by the wall. The log peeling continued for quite a while before the log was then rotated so that the other half could be stripped as well. And once that was done too, it was time to begin the carving. There were a few people with a rtively high-rank in Woodworking skills that Eisen chose as ¡¯supervisors,¡¯ and then showed them what he wanted them to do first. The log was more than long enough to carve one coherent spine out of, although it wasn¡¯t sufficiently thick enough to make sure the ends could reach the height they were supposed to. So, Eisen chose that they would simply carve out the area of the spine that would be submerged underwater in one part and then attach the areas of the spine, the center part of the ship that everything would be built onto, that would be above the waterter. Carving that was the first part that took quite a while and had to be carefully handled so that it wouldn¡¯t identally split, and cause the spine to warp or weaken it any way. What they chose to do was to cut out a rectangr ¡¯sheet¡¯ of the wood that would then be as thick as the spine would be wide out of the center of the log, which they then began to carve into carefully. Of course, Eisen was doing the brunt of this work, while the majority of the others, including Eisen¡¯s apprentices who were at the same time taking care of lunch as instructed by Eisen, were working on cutting arge part of the wood into long nks. While Xenia and Evalia were testing out something else that Eisen asked them to, Sky was working on the Guild Contracts, Bree was helping her, and the rest of the crew were doing a lot of the brutish work that included carryingrge chunks of wood around the ce. In the meantime, Komer was off buying the other materials that would be needed for the construction, while also getting discounts for other supplies at the same time. And while all that was happening, Caria and Melissa were being babysat by Aotori, the first beast that Jyuuk tamed, while also being the mother to a few healthy eagles. Since she was rank 4, despite not being able to speak, she was still able to properly care for the two girls that were busy practicing and improving their different magic spells. Eventually, a good whileter, the spine was finally finished. Satisfied, Eisen nodded his head as the spine was moved to the side with the help of dozens of high physical-stat based people as well as some of Jyuuk¡¯s brut-ish monsters. "Alright everyone, finish up what you¡¯re doing right now and then get some lunch!" Eisen yelled out toward his helpers that all happily did as instructed, one after another, slowly making their way to the table that Eisen¡¯s apprentices set up to distribute the food. While they were doing that, Eisen made his way over to the other people that were working on things not directly rted to the shipbuilding process in itself. First of all, Evalia and Xenia. "So? Does it work?" Eisen asked them, before the two women swiftly nodded their heads, although it seemed like an unsure nod. "It works with paint on top of it, yeah, but when the enchantments are activated, the paint is going to ¡¯glow¡¯ a bit, and you¡¯re able to see it anyway. So hiding it maybe isn¡¯t the best idea." Xenia exined, before Evalia continued that thought. "Uhu! But instead, we were thinkin¡¯ about making enchantments that look like decorations! Like... when I make the front-piece, we can work stuff into it that makes it the center of the enchantments, and then the rest of the boards will just be covered by the extension or somethin¡¯ like that. Then, we can paint the boards on the outside, and I can follow the lines with some more paint in a way that makes it more inconspicuous and not obvious that it¡¯s an enchantment. Because I can make paint that glows when ites in contact with mana anyway, I can paint stuff on that ain¡¯t part of the enchantment." Evalia exined, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head with a smile, moving his fingers through his rock-like beard as he did so. "Alright, do that. Then n a good defensive enchantment, and something that boosts our speed in the water at the same time, okay? We¡¯ll carve them into the outside of the ship once it¡¯spleted. Oh, and Evalia, I reserved a nice,rge piece of wood that you can carve the Figurehead-piece out of, could you two maybe see to it that the enchantment for that is somewhat finished, or at least have the base for it to be carved prepared, by the time we start the assembly in a few days?" He asked both of them, and they quickly nodded their heads with a smile. "You got it," Xenia said with a smile before she and Evalia made their way over to the area where everyone was eating as well. Next, Eisen stepped over to Sky and Bree, as well as Kirisho who had swiftly joined them once the work was over for now. "Hey there you three." The old man smiled as he sat down on another chair next to them, specially made forrge people like Eisen currently was, before Sky looked up at him surprised, wholly immersed in his work until just now. "Ah, Eisen! Wait, when did you get that much done..?" He asked surprised as he looked around the room, noticing that so much more work was finished than when he started writing up the contracts by hand. And as the old man slowlyughed, he took one of the contracts that were already finished and held it under Sky¡¯s pen. "In the past few hours, while you¡¯ve worked without end. Come on, you wrote all of these up, and I think you deserve being the first one outside the semi-deities that the five of us are that joins the guild." The old manughed before Sky¡¯s face flushed deep red before he slowly nodded. "O-Of course... Thanks..." He muttered out as he quickly signed the contract where he was supposed to before looking at Eisen, who was extending his hand to the young boy. Confused at what Eisen was doing, Sky looked at his sister in a slight panic, before reaching his hand out as well, thinking Eisen was going for a handshake. Well, he wasn¡¯t. With a loudugh, Eisen made that more than evident. "Sky, I was asking you to give me the pen." Heughed, of course, all in good humor and without an ounce of ill will, before Sky felt his whole body freeze up instantly. Quietly, the Fey-Kin boy nodded his head, which was now deeply hidden in his left hand, while he gave the pen to Eisen with his right hand. Quickly, Eisen signed the contract in the field he was supposed to and finalized everything with the Guild Window, before the contract caught fire and disappeared into nothingness, simr to what happened with the Guild Founding Contract earlier. And once more, Eisen extended his hand to Sky, just this time with a different intention. "Wee to the Guild, Sky. And yes, this time I want you to shake my hand." The old man chuckled, before Sky nodded his head and shook Eisen¡¯s hand, and then handed the next contract to Bree. "Here, you sign as well." Eisen smiled while the girl happily nodded her head and wrote her name into the respective field. In the meantime, Eisen looked at Sky and Kirisho. "I¡¯m just wondering... Kirisho, you¡¯re technically a Monster, right?" Eisen asked, and she swiftly nodded her head. "Oh, yes, I am. But why are you asking, Eisen?" She answered, before the old man scratched the back of his head. "Well, I was wondering whether or not monsters can also join Guilds." He exined before Sky slowly shook his head. "I... don¡¯t think so. It¡¯s probably going to be different for Kiron, though. He may be a monster, but he¡¯s technically half-human. His status treats him as a Monster, but he¡¯s treated like a person by the world. That¡¯s why he could be your Knight instead of your tamed monster. But Kirisho is an Undead, so a full monster, no matter who or what she was before then." Sky exined before he then remembered something he read about, "Although... Erm... If you get special permission by the God that governs Guilds, then maybe?" Sky suggested, before Eisen looked at him in surprise. "Huh? Special Permission from a god?" He asked before Sky shrugged, not being all that serious about that suggestion. "I mean, either that or you learn necromancy and connect her to your soul, I guess. Like, Caria and Melissa are technically already part of the guild, because they¡¯re part of you." Sky exined before Eisen slowly nodded his head. "I see... Well, I¡¯m sure it should be possible at some point?" Eisen muttered before Sky looked at him in surprise, slightly mixed with shock. "Wait, what? You mean you could actually talk to him?" He asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "I mean, probably. For one, part of bing a true full demon is going to heaven anyway, so that would be a chance. And other than that, I did meet the gods a few nights ago. I found out about the situation on the inds were going to. If it¡¯s not that dangerous on that god¡¯s ind, then we should maybe make that one of our first stops. Maybe we can somehow contact them like that." Eisen exined, before Sky sighed loudly. "So Kiron was telling the truth about that?" He asked, looking at the Half-Dragon who was sitting down with a bowl of soup in the background at the moment. "What¡¯s up with him anyway? He¡¯s acting kind of weird whenever we mention you." Sky pointed out, while Eisen slowly began to sign the contract for Bree to join the Guild, after which he slowly activated it in the Guild Window and happily congratted the girl on joining, before looking at Sky with aplicated expression, taking a look around to make sure nobody that wasn¡¯t supposed to could hear them. "You see, I told you what Bolremgar mentioned to me a little while ago, right? About me hatching Trygan¡¯s egg? Well, I met him the other night and talked to him about it. And yes, I did that. Because I actually did raise him in the past before losing my memories, as such, Trygan still sees me as a father. Meaning, I¡¯m technically Kiron¡¯s grandfather. So he¡¯s just a bit confused about things right now. He¡¯s going to figure it out for himself, and I¡¯m going to respect his choices, although I¡¯ll be happy if he loosens up a little bit more." Eisen exined, looking behind himself as well to take a look at the Half-Dragon, before sighing lightly and turning back to the three in front of him with a light smile. "Anyway, let¡¯s get something to eat for now." Chapter 215 Branches After gulping down the rest of the soup that Eisen was currently eating to fill his stomach for the rest of the day. He looked at Caria and Melissa who sat down on hisrge Titanp, forming a quite weird scene for some outsiders to look at, after all, a three-meter tall, gold-ming demon with two little girls on hisp wasn¡¯t something you¡¯d see every day. Soon enough, Brody came over with three pieces of paper andid them down in front of Eisen, handing him a pen at the same time. "These are from Horan, Jiina, and Dien," Brody exined, before the old man nodded his head and quickly signed the three contracts, before he finalized them in the Guild Window, causing them to go up in mes in response. "Alright, now we¡¯re ten in the guild." Eisen smiled before then looking over at Kiron who was sitting next to him. "Here Kiron, sign this if you want to join the Guild as well. And then please bring these three to Koro, Parc, and Rouge, yeah?" Eisen asked the Half-Dragon, who swiftly nodded his head with a silent smile, quickly signing one of the contracts before leaving that one with Eisen and making his way over to where Eisen¡¯s three apprentices were cleaning up after themselves. "Alright, then next there¡¯s Komer, he should being back in a bit, then we¡¯re 15 in total. After that, we¡¯ll only have ten more spots left. We should keep those reserved for now." Eisen suggested to the other four originals sitting at the table with him, who all nodded their heads. "The break is going tost for a little while longer... want to talk about the Guild-Branch thing?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk soon spoke up. "Sure. I think I heard somewhere that branches are just for different ¡¯sections¡¯ of specializations. Like, let¡¯s say the four of us be the heads of one respective branch. If they join any branch, they¡¯ll still be part of the guild, but fall under our direct jurisdiction or something like that. Like, I would have tamers, naturalists, and necromancers under me. Xenia any Mage, Evalia Artists, and Brody Fighters. Something like that, I guess?" Jyuuk exined, also somewhat unsure of how the Branch system worked. "That sounds about right, I guess. Although would I then be able to be the branch head of a crafting branch while also being the Guildmaster, or would we need someone else for that?" Eisen curiously asked, but nobody seemed to know the answer. Either way, Eisen simply tried to press the option rted to Guild-Branches to see if something would pop up that might let him know what¡¯s going on. [Branches can only be created at Guild Rank 1] "Nevermind, we need to be a Rank 1 guild to make branches," Eisen exined to the others, before shrugging. "That¡¯s fine though, having different branches for only a maximum of 25 people is somewhat unnecessary anyway. Until we¡¯re Rank 1, I¡¯m sure we can find out more things about how Guilds work anyway." He suggested before downing his cup of water and standing up, while Kiron came back over with the next three contracts that were signed by the apprentices. "Thank you." Eisen smiled and finalized them in the Guild Window, and then made his way back to the warehouse, slowly being joined by the others on after another. "So, what are we doing next, Boss?" One of the workers from the church asked the old man, who swiftly checked his mental ns, quickly taking a look at the tworge side-portions of the log that were cut off for the rectangr ¡¯sheet¡¯ of wood, which they carved the spine out of. "Let¡¯s first use those pieces to make the masts so that we don¡¯t identally use too much of the wood. After that, we¡¯ll make four more pieces simr to the spine, although a bit slimmer, and then all the different ¡¯rib¡¯ pieces. Don¡¯t worry; we¡¯re not doing all that today. We¡¯ll see how far we get and then continue tomorrow." Eisen exined before the lead group of workers split up into two smaller groups to each work on one of the two masts as well as the other thick wooden parts needed for the construction. Since they were going to make a Shooner-inspired ship, two masts were going to be enough, especially considering that Eisen nned on enchanting the sails so that they could efficiently catch more wind. While that was going on, everyone else was helping in whatever way they could, Xenia and Evalia worked on the figurehead-piece together to n out how to best work an enchantment into it while still letting it look quite lovely. A few hourster, the rough mast-shapes had been carved out of the two sides of the huge log, although they still needed to be worked on some more. But for today, though, that was it. They managed to get a good bit done, even though arge part of the day was spent with instructing everyone on what to do and exining the ns. Tomorrow it would be fine to let arge part of the people that were working on the nks for the hull to help with the side-spines and the ¡¯ribs¡¯ as well since they managed to get more nks ready than Eisen initially expected. "Good job, all of you, and thanks for your help!" Eisen eximed with a big smile as the workers made their way back to the church for the day, while everyone in Eisen¡¯s group made their way back to the Inn. Just for safety, Eisen wanted to sleep in here for tonight. He would be able to continually have a stream of what was going on in the game on his ¡¯phone,¡¯ after all. And since he figured there might be some people that are against having the boat built, like Zaran¡¯s adviser who initially had different ns for the people from the church altogether, he wanted to make sure nothing would happen. And so, after saying goodnight to everyone, Eisen sat down on the other side of the warehouse, opposite to therge locked door, and went to bed. --- The next morning, Eisen then woke back up to start another day of work. Nothing happened when he was logged-off, he just watched some TV with his son and grandchildren in the evening while keeping an eye on what was going on in the game with the Phone-like disy that came together with Rover. And soon enough it was time; he had alreadyid back down in the capsule to continue ying. When he stood up and stretched, Eisen then swiftly messaged the other originals and Komer to let them know he was up, before sitting down with Caria, Melissa, Kiron, and Kirisho for a while. Caria and Melissa slept by Eisen¡¯s side, as they always do, and Kiron didn¡¯t want to leave Eisen alone either just in case anything were to happen, so he chose to sleep there as well. And for some reason, Kirisho also stayed with them, albeit always in her amulet. She technically didn¡¯t need rest anymore now that her amulet had been repaired, but she still liked to sleep whenever others around her did, just out of habit. "Caria, Melissa, did you practice your magic skills a bit more?" Eisen asked before the two of them immediately nodded their heads. "Mhm! Caria and Melly super duper close to Ranking them up and stuff, right?" Caria eximed as she looked over to her sister, who also nodded her head with simr enthusiasm to Caria. "Ranking!" Melissa eximed happily, still with her regr broken speech. "Perfect. Then you two keep going for another little while, yeah?" Eisen asked them with a smile before they quickly nodded their heads while therge door to the warehouse they were in slowly opened up, and a group of people came in. The other originals, theirpanions, and Eisen¡¯spanions and apprentices. "Morning everyone!" The old man eximed with a smile and waved at them as they all sat down together with them on the ground. "Now, let¡¯s eat some breakfast. The others from the church should arrive here pretty soon as well, and I was told they¡¯d eat there, so we should finish up quickly." Eisen exined before he looked at his apprentices, who quickly got out everything for breakfast out of their backpacks. "Here it is," Koro told them as he, Rouge and Parc began to hand everything around so that everyone had more than enough to eat before they all sat down again and enjoyed breakfast together. After finishing up, Eisen swiftly stood up and walked over to his backpack, in which he had another Guild Contract as well as a pen, which he handed to Komer. "Here, you¡¯re the only one that isn¡¯t in the Guild yet." He exined before Komer excitedly grabbed the contract and began to sign it. But when Eisen tried to finalize it after signing the contract as well, something unexpected happened. [Komer owns the merchantpany . Do you wish to merge this merchantpany with the guild ? Another contract is needed to do so.] The notification asked as it popped up in front of not only Eisen but also Komer, who looked at Eisen confused. "Erm... should we merge Starlight with the guild? I mean, wouldn¡¯t that make you the owner then? That would kinda defeat ¡¯that¡¯ purpose, you know..?" Komer pointed out, whispering and paraphrasing what he was talking about in hisst sentence since there were NPCs around. Slowly, Eisen nodded his head, moving his fingers through his beard in thought. "Yeah, let¡¯s not directly merge it with the guild. We¡¯re trying to figure out how Guild Branches work. Maybe we can make you Branch-Head of a merchant branch, and then you would stay the owner? I¡¯m not sure- we¡¯ll see. But for now, we won¡¯t do anything with Starlight like merging it with anything, don¡¯t worry." Eisen reassured Komer, before moving on to another topic. "So, did you manage to get everything we needed yesterday?" The old man asked before Komer swiftly nodded his head. "Mhm, I did. The parts for the construction are going to be delivered here tomorrow because we need a whole lot of supplies, and since the preparation of the individual parts is only going to be over in a day or two as well the earliest, I thought that that would be alright. Anyway, the supplies and materials to use once we¡¯re actually on the water will be prepared in a little while. I¡¯ll have to go to different ces and let them know when we need everything, and then we should be able to pick everything up the day before we set sail." Komer exined, leaving Eisen quite satisfied. "Alright, good job," Eisen told the young merchant, who responded with a bright smile and a nod. "How else can I help today?" He excitedly asked before Eisen began to think about it for a bit. "Well, you did do a little bit of crafting here and there before when we were traveling, but your physical stats might be a little bit too low to handle the Ironbark wood properly. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll at least be able to help with the finishing, like smoothing the surfaces down. That¡¯s what we¡¯ll be doing first with the items for the masts, by the way." Eisen exined, pointing over at the parts that were lying at the other side of the warehouse before Komer nodded his head immediately. "Sure! I can do that!" He eximed, before Eisen nodded with a smile, noticing people speaking in the distance as they came closer to the warehouse, in response to which Eisen quickly activated his demonic transformation as well as his Titan-like size-increase, since he figured the people that wereing were the workers from the Church. And so, Eisen began to prepare for another day of work with a bright smile. Chapter 216 Special Elements Soon after the workers from the church arrived at the warehouse, Eisen instructed them on what they needed to do for the day. The first thing that they did was to finish off the masts by smoothing the surfaces down properly, while Eisen and some of the people with the highest woodworking skill began to work on the upper spines of the boat. Cutting into the wood with smooth motions, Eisen prepared the outline as best as he could and then began to work on one half with the help of a few, while others started to work on the other half. And so, they managed to get the second piece done rtively quickly, while the next people already started smoothing the part that was just carved out, giving the others the chance to continue working on the next piece. They continued for quite a while, during which not much truly happened. They just began working on the individual parts that would go along the underside of the ship. The group that was working on the nks was also making a good bit of progress, as they were already about three-quarters of the way done. It was quite probable that they would finish by evening, and as such would be able to help make the other parts by tomorrow. And a few hourster, while Eisen¡¯s group was working on thest spine piece, a rather unexpected notification popped up in front of the old man. [Lesser Myconid Druid Caria¡¯s skill reached Rank 2, making it possible for her to receive an element] [Do you want to choose the element?] [Empress Bee Melissa¡¯s Skill reached Rank 2, making it possible for her to receive an element] [Do you want to choose the element?] Surprised, Eisen read through these notifications and set them to the side for a second. "You guys, continue carving this piece out, I need to take care of something else for a minute." The old man in his Titan-Demon form exined to the other workers before he ced his tools to the side and swiftly made his way over to where the two little monster girls who were practicing magic with Aotori. "Hey, there you two! So you managed to do it, huh?" Eisen asked with a smirk as he squatted down and looked at the two girls, who looked at Eisen with bright, happy smiles. "Mhm! Caria and Melly¡¯s skills ranked up at the same time!" Caria happily eximed as she threw her arms into the air. With a relieved smile, Eisen ced his hands on the top of their heads. He was unsure whether they would be able to Rank their Mana Maniption up to two in order to receive the element, but luckily enough, that didn¡¯t seem to be an issue after all. However, it seemed to be just as Jyuuk exined to him, and that they had to get a proper base up for magic before doing so, considering that they both had a direct mana-rted skill that ranked up at roughly the same time as when Eisen got the notifications. "Alright, then let me take a look here, alright?" Eisen said as he smiled and chose first to take a look at Caria¡¯s possible elements, only because it popped up first. [You can choose between These Elements for Caria] -[Earth] -[Fire] -[Water] -[Wind] -[Light] -[Dark] [Due to Caria¡¯s nature, derived from her actions so far, two elements have been found to suit her best, and are rmended to be selected from] -[Earth] -[Water] [Due to Caria¡¯s Race, a uniquebination has been found from her rmended elements] -[Mushroom Forest] With a smile, Eisen carefully read through the information that was just given to him before turning to the little girl. "Alright, so, there are of course the six base elements, right? Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, and Dark, but it¡¯s rmended that you use Earth or Water. But besides that, you also received a uniquebination called ¡¯Mushroom Forest.¡¯ Would you like to have thatbination as your magic element?" Eisen asked her, trying to exin everything in a way that she would understand him. "Hmm... Mushroom Forest? Caria is a Mushroom, right?" She asked, tilting her head to the side with her eyes closed and her hand against her chin as if she was thinking about something hard before Eisen slowly chuckled. "Yes, a Myconid is a type of humanoid Mushroom." He answered her before Caria then swiftly nodded her head. "Okay! Then Caria wants that! Caria wants a forest of Carias!" She yelled out, once more throwing her hands into the air like before, while Eisenughed and chose that option for the element. [Lesser Myconid Druid Caria¡¯s Magic Element has been assigned] With a smile, Eisen then ced his hand on the Myconid¡¯s cap, while she began to try and figure out how to make that Caria forest already. And then, Eisen turned to Melissa. "Alright, now to you. You can probably choose from the same six base elements, so I¡¯ll move straight onto the rmended. [Due to Melissa¡¯s nature, derived from her actions so far, two elements have been found to best suit to her, and are rmended to be selected from] -[Dark] -[Light] [Due to Melissa¡¯ Race, a uniquebination has been found from her rmended elements] -[Hive] "Oh? The ¡¯Hive¡¯ element?" Eisen muttered in surprise, not really seeing how that fit in with the ¡¯Dark¡¯ and ¡¯Light¡¯ elements, but epting it as such. Xenia might be able to tell him why that was the case, and considering that it was undoubtedly the case, he couldn¡¯t do anything about it and just told Melissa the possible choices. "So, do you want the Hive element?" Eisen asked her, and Melissa nodded her head near to immediately, only muttering out "Hive!" happily. As such, Eisen didn¡¯t want to disappoint her and chose to give her the element. [Empress Bee Melissa¡¯s Magic Element has been assigned] "Alright, good job, you two," Eisen told them, swiftly ignoring the notification telling him his taming had ranked up so that he could look at itter, and happily smiled at them, before turning around to Xenia who was standing not too far from them. "Hey, Xenia! Come over here for a second, alright?" Eisen asked before the High-Elf quite swiftly did as asked. "Yup? What¡¯s up?" She asked as she looked up at the huge man in front of her, while Eisen turned around and look at the two little girls behind him. "These two finally managed to rank their mana maniption up to two, and I just assigned their elements. Caria has ¡¯Mushroom Forest,¡¯ and Melissa has the ¡¯Hive¡¯ element." He exined, already seeing that Xenia was getting quite curious at what those elements would end up looking like before Eisen continued to exin the reason why he asked her toe over. "Could you maybe teach them how to use it? Just a little bit, so that they can infuse their mana into their element." He inquired before she nodded her head immediately and looked down at the two girls with a slightly inappropriate expression, albeit not the type that would make you want to lock Xenia up for looking at them in that manner. "Oh, and just curious... The hive element was abo of dark and light... do you know why?" Eisen asked her before she began to be even more excited than before. "Oh! Conceptual magic!" She eximed surprised before Eisen looked at her with a bit of confusion. "Ah, erm... You see because Light and Dark obviously can¡¯t mix. That¡¯s because they¡¯re more like direct opposites of each other. So since abination would be basically impossible, except in a few cases where some people have a gradient element like yours, basically any type of magic that doesn¡¯t fit toward any other element is assigned as abination of Light and Dark. For example, my Elemental Spirit Magic is abination of Light and Dark as well, because it doesn¡¯t deal with the elements directly, but rather with spirits, which don¡¯t have an assigned element to them. So the Hive element is probably more conceptual andplicated as it seems right now." Xenia exined, happily looking down at the little empress bee, before turning her eyes to the Myconid Druid next to her. "Well, at least Caria¡¯s element seems quite straightforward. I¡¯m guessing it¡¯s a variation of regr Nature magic, so her rmended elements were Earth and Water, right?" She asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "That¡¯s right, yeah. Well, thanks for the exnation, anyway. I hope you can figure Melissa¡¯s element out a little bit, then. Oh, and how¡¯s the figurehead going that you and Evalia were working on together?" Eisen asked before Xenia turned around and looked at the Artist at work. "Actually, pretty great. We ended up going for a Dragon Design, and after I told Evalia about the three-dimensional enchantment I wanted to make, for a little bit of a special effect, and she managed to work it in with her design immediately. There are actually parts where I¡¯m supposed to refine some edges with the carvings for the enchantment to finish the piece, and others where the enchantment is worked into the scales. It¡¯s pretty impressive, to be honest with you." She exined, and Eisenughed loudly in response. "Well, what do you expect, she¡¯s the Original of Artistry and a world-famous artist. We should expect no less from her." Eisen smiled as he began to make his way back to the area where everyone was working on the parts for the ship, turning around once more toward Xenia. "Anyway, thanks a lot again!" He told her and soon joined the others with the making of thest piece for the underside-support. "Good job, you lot!" The old manughed loudly, brightly smiling at everyone as he turned around and began to prepare some of the rest of the wood to be carved into the ¡¯ribs¡¯ of the ship, of which quite a lot were needed. It would probably take at least the rest of this day, as well as the next day to get all of them done. But at least afterward they would probably just need one more day to prepare the rest of the parts that were required, and the day thereafter, the ship could start being assembled, which would also take another few days. But even then, Eisen was incredibly happy with the speed everyone was working at since it was iparable to real life. And that did make a little bit of sense, at least. After all, here, a lot of people were physically stronger or faster than even top athletes were, just with the help of stats. And with the extra support of skills, that meant that they could work at speeds even machines may be jealous. With that in mind, Eisen began to carve into the next significant part of the log to start cutting the ribs, just thinking about how glorious the finished ship may end up being. It would be incredibly huge, andrge enough to fit arge number of people, supplies, and materials, and with the help of the others, it would be equipped with anything they needed while it still stayed incredibly beautiful. And that just made Eisen happier than anything else could. After all, what use would such arge ship have for him alone? Exactly none! As that was the case with many things. Eisen could make dozens and dozens of items, which would all go to waste if it wasn¡¯t for other people that would use the items every day. To Eisen, craftsmanship was something that should connect others. And so, seeing a situation where so many people of all kinds of different races and situations came together to work on this one single project was just pure beauty to the old man¡¯s eyes. Chapter 217 Grandson Once again, the day passed in what seemed like a sh, and soon Eisen was once again left in the Warehouse with four people that were technically monsters, Caria, Melissa, Kiron, and Kirisho. With a smile, the old man looked at Caria and Melissa that had be quite tired after using their mana so much today and practicing how to properly manage using their element, bing sleepy as a consequence, which is why they were leaning against Eisen already asleep. Kirisho also went to bed, probably because she was able to read the mood of the room now that Kiron and Eisen were sitting next to each other silently. After a good while that Eisen spent simply checking his ns and figuring out a timetable for the next few days, Kiron quietly spoke up. "...Could... could I ask you something?" He asked, for the first time speaking to Eisen in a more rxed manner, before the old man nodded his head. "Of course, Kiron. Ask all you want." Slowly, Kiron gulped down some saliva that seemed to be stuck in his throat. "Why... didn¡¯t I know you were my grandfather?" He asked while Eisen stayed silent. Eisen knew that Kiron said he wanted to ask him something, but he also knew that this wasn¡¯t the real end of the question yet. And it seemed he was right since Kiron continued. "I never truly cared for family, at any point in my life. Yes, I acknowledged my father as my father, and my mother as my mother, but that was about it. I acknowledged them. I only met my father once, while my mother died shortly after giving birth to me. I didn¡¯t have any siblings, and my mother¡¯s parents were what you would call extremists. Due to my race, my intelligence grew faster than for normal children, meaning I could understand my grandparents¡¯ words at only a few months old. My body was also already equivalent to a young human child¡¯s at that point, despite me not being able to speak yet. And of course, that made it only easier for my grandparents to despise me." Kiron exined, quietly continuing with his words afterward. "I was living with them for about a few years, in which I was locked down at the bottom of the well where they fed me like I was some rabid monstrosity, throwing raw meat down to me. They were extremists that didn¡¯t believe in Monsters being capable of any good, but regardless, I was their grandchild. That was indisputable. As I said, I was able to listen at that point, but I could not yet speak. And I did not speak until I turned 15 and gained the information that usually only humans gained. Until that point, however, my grandparents already convinced me that I was a horrible creature that only lived to destroy every person that lives. And I acted like it. I... did something horrible... When I turned 15 and saw that information, I was ovee with rage, for whatever reason, and then escaped the well, killing my grandparents while I was at it." Quietly, Kiron scraped across the ground with his ws in nervosity, unsure of how Eisen would react. But since he wasn¡¯t finished yet, the Half-Dragon continued. "That was the first day when I felt the Mana-Crystal in my heart as well. It¡¯s like a surging heat, and it feels like my body is trying to push it out of me. I think... I may have been supposed to be a person instead of a monster, but my body thought otherwise when I was born, and so things are quiteplicated in my life. But there was one thing that didn¡¯t seemplicated to me ¡ª moving on alone. For a very, very long time, I just traveled alone, and slowly learned to be civilized, as the more I ended up interacting with people. And of course, I also learned how horrid the things I did to my grandparents were. I attempted to cut myself off from that side of mepletely, and pretended I was just a Dragon walking on two legs. And from then on, family never meant anything to me. Not even when I finally ended up meeting my father, it felt more like a stranger congratting me for living long enough. And then, I got cursed, lost my strength, and had to re-evaluate myself. It seemed like I was back at the bottom of the well. I desperately tried to get stronger but was still captured and brought to a ce where I was to be sold. And so I was, as in the beginning, at the bottom of the well again." The Half-Dragon muttered, slowly pulling his legs tighter against his body, seeming just like a scared child at this point. "But then, I was freed from the well, by you. You pulled me out and treated me kindly like I was just another person. I was finally, for the first time in my life, treated like what I always wanted to be. A ¡¯person.¡¯ Not a monster, not the son of a god, but a dull, regr person. You gave that to me, Eisen. You gave me a family made up of people that saw me as their own. And now, it was revealed that you¡¯re in actuality my family. We may not be blood-rted, but you are indisputably my Father¡¯s Father, aren¡¯t you? So how can I act happy toward the Grandparent that pulled me out of the well, after all, that I did to the Grandparents that threw me into it?" Kiron asked, his voice bing infinitely quiet, although Eisen could still hear all he was saying. He feltplicated about it. Kiron wasn¡¯t his actual grandson, and Trygan wasn¡¯t his actual son. Eisen wasn¡¯t even really Eisen, a person of this world. He was actually Benjamin Theodore Joyce, son to am emotionally and sometimes physically abusive father, and a mother that threw him away when his father died to start a new family. Benjamin was a widower and father to three beautiful children, one of which turned into a criminal, turned his life around, and then lost his wife, one of which acted all happy all the time while being emotionally absent, and one of which wasn¡¯t even herself anymore after marrying a monster. Benjamin was a mess. But even then, he somehow felt a weird connection with this world. As if it was not just code, but a real world. He knew that wasn¡¯t the case, but at least to Eisen, it felt just as real as reality did. Eisen was aware that his body was slowly giving in. His arm wasn¡¯t getting much better, and weird things were going on with his head and his senses that he couldn¡¯t exin. Benjamin was old, and never really treated his body all that well. Covered in scars from head to toe, he drank, he smoked, and he overburdened his body nearly every single day. So since he didn¡¯t have much time left in the real world, Eisen at least wanted to spend as much time as possible within this new, beautiful world that he wished he had been able to experience earlier. And Eisen didn¡¯t want to lie to his feelings either. "Kiron..." The old man muttered out slowly, startling the half-dragon that nearly didn¡¯t expect Eisen to answer at all. "I¡¯m aware that I may not know what this body has done throughout the history of this world, but I¡¯m also aware of other things. Despite me not seeing in my head that you¡¯re my grandchild, I am fully aware that I have grandchildren, some of which may evene here soon. And one of which is sitting right beside me. Kiron, even if you¡¯re not sure, I am. You¡¯re part of my family now, and will always be so. So stop making that face and hug me, eh?" The old man told Kiron with a smile before the Half-Dragon began quite literally to sob in response. That night was the first night that Kiron wasn¡¯t cold toward Eisen, and the first night in a long time that Eisen didn¡¯t log off while his body slept. The next morning, Eisen woke up with a fresh mind. It seemed like he dreamt about something, which was probably the case because he was justying in the capsule, not using his mind at the time. The scene that Eisen saw was pretty exciting. He was inside of a giant, indeed an enormous room, although it wasn¡¯t a hall but rather a regr ce that was just supersized to fit the inhabitant ¡ª a truly Giant version of Eisen. Eisen didn¡¯t know why he didn¡¯t feel like he shrunk down in front of a regr-sized copy of himself, but to him, it somehow seemed like he was normal, while there was a giant copy of him. The Giant Eisen was moving his mouth, but Eisen himself couldn¡¯t hear him. And that¡¯s when he woke up again, back in the warehouse. For a moment, Eisen felt a little disoriented as he woke up in the giant warehouse, but soon enough, he managed to gather his thoughts and remembered why he was there. And it seemed like he actually slept in a little bit since the others were already there, and even Kiron and Kirisho were up and preparing for the day. Of course, the workers didn¡¯t arrive yet, and it seemed like the others only just now came in as well. "Morning, Eisen!" Brody eximed before Eisen stood up with a smile and waved at everyone. "Morning. All of you ready for work?" The old man asked with a smile, before everyone happily nodded their heads, except Eisen¡¯s three apprentices that were feeling somewhat overworked. Well, Eisen had warned them, after all, so it wasn¡¯t like they didn¡¯t know it would be hard. "Hello there, you three. I asked if you¡¯re feeling ready for work." Eisen asked once more with a light, somewhat threatening smile before the three of them turned around and immediately nodded their heads furiously. "Y-Yes Eisen! Of course Eisen!" They responded with startled, wry smiles before Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction. "Good! Now then, I think you were tasked to prepare breakfast again?" Eisen asked them, once more with a light smile, and they nodded their heads before distributing the food for the morning. "Alright, thanks. Oh, by the way, good job on the nks. You¡¯ll probably finish even earlier than expected, huh?" Eisen asked them before the three apprentices nodded their heads, and Koro swiftly spoke up. "Yes! We think so at least. We¡¯re going to finish the quota you gave us within the next few hours, probably. And then we can work on the rest of the parts with you, right?" Koro asked excitedly, hoping to be able to work on something with Eisen again directly, but the old man shook his head. "Not directly. I¡¯ll be working on parts different to what you will be making. You¡¯ll make support beams after that." Eisen told them, continuing before they couldin, saying something that none of them would be able to protest. "I trust you three to take care of that, alright?" Eisen asked them, and soon, the boys nodded their heads before they all continued eating breakfast. While they were eating, Eisen looked over toward Kiron who still seemed to have slightly red eyes fromst night, although he didn¡¯t seem nearly as tense as he did before all of this happened. And then, Eisen suddenly remembered that he still didn¡¯t check what his rank-up for the taming skill gave him. He ignored the extra stat in both INT and WIS and immediately checked the new ability, which made Eisen excitedly grin, thinking about the possibilities already. That was because Eisen was now able to tame a third monster! Chapter 218 Finished Base With a grin on his face, Eisen¡¯s thoughts immediately began to trail off as he thought about what kind of monsters he would be able to tame, before he turned over to Jyuuk, to just ask the one with the most knowledge about it instead. "Jyuuk, I ranked my Taming Skill up to 3 yesterday, and I can apparently tame another monster now. Do you have any ideas?" Eisen asked the beastperson, before Xenia looked at him surprised. "What, you want to increase your army of little girls that follow you around?" The High-Elf asked, before Eisen looked back at her with a deep sigh. "Don¡¯t say it like that, that makes me seem like a freak. I¡¯ll just tame something if I get the chance to, I guess, but I wanted to ask Jyuuk about any tips." Eisen exined, and Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck in thought. "Hmm, I mean, you should just be careful not to try and tame things too far above your level. Sometimes taming can fail. If a monster is unconscious, you could for example easily trap it somehow and then train it into submission, or if you somehow gain a monster¡¯s trust, then that will let you tame it as well. There¡¯s a lot of different approaches. Your way of doing things until now would basically be ¡¯Hatch-Taming¡¯, as in hatching an egg and then taming whates out of it. That¡¯s usually the most reliable method." Jyuuk exined, and Eisen nodded his head while listening curiously. "I see... Well, if I find an egg, then maybe I¡¯ll try and hatch it, I guess." Eisen shrugged, and Jyuuk nodded his head with a smile as he continued eating. A little whileter, once everyone finished their breakfast, they stood up and prepared for the workday, of which Eisen¡¯s first task was to increase to his Titan-size before activating his Demonic Transformation and prepping all that would be needed in regards to tools and materials. And around the time that this was finished, the workers from the church already made their way into the warehouse one after another, slowly getting to work after doing so. And from then on, it was simply repetitivebor all day, with everyone doing whatever they could. Until lunch, the nks were still being worked on, but that was finished just a little before everyone was called together to eat, so afterward, the people that were working on the nks before worked on the support beams just as Eisen exined it to his apprentices. Evalia was still working on the Figurine for the front of the ship, while Xenia was teaching Caria and Melissa more about their elements and at the same time continued working on the huge,plicated enchanting array that would be ced on the boatter. In the meantime, everyone else was doing as much physicalbor as possible, carrying things here and there, while those with high mental stats instead of physical stats were helping Komer with the organising of different things for the actual journey, such as for example food, materials, numerous equipment that Eisen didn¡¯t have the time to make himself, as well as just decorational items that Evalia requested to pep the ship¡¯s interior up a bit. Other than that, nothing happened. Just again, truly repetitivebor on a rtivelyrge scale that continued the whole day, and even the next day. In the night inbetween those two days, Eisen did log off again, since he couldn¡¯t justy down in the capsule all day without moving, and since that would just be quite rude toward his family as well. He would be spending a lot of time with them from now on anyway, but he still wanted to use these few hours inbetween ying as much as possible, so he also logged off after the next day, which was also just filled with boring, repetitive actions. And in the evenings before logging off, Eisen and Kiron were talking about all kinds of things, mostly just random stuff, but both of them enjoying the conversation quite a lot, before they happily went to sleep. And on the next day of work rted to the ship, only little things needed to be prepared now, such as furniture, doors, beds, and so on. Eisen chose that all this would be done by a few chosen people over the course of the next few days, while the others began to work on actually cing everything together, which was quite a big moment for the old man. It¡¯s been a while since he worked on such a huge project after all, and he never managed to do so in such a short amount of time. It has barely been a week, and they managed to prepare all the parts at an incredible speed that simply astonished and excited Eisen. "Everyone, listen up!" The old man yelled out, and everyone looked at the basically impossible to miss, three meter tall winged demon with golden horns and golden mes underneath his skin. "Good job on your work the past few days! That was really just incredibly amazing, and I really can just thank you for what you all have done for this project! And now ites to the endspurt! Now we¡¯re just going to need to set everything together! All of you closely listen to my instructions, and carefully handle all the parts. Okay, off to work!" Eisen eximed to the crowd before he summoned his mana doubles, of course each in the same form as Eisen currently had, and made his way over to the main spine of the ship, carrying it over to the center of the warehouse with the front oriented to the outside, while the workers all helped carry it. Carefully, they then continued to ce a single ¡¯rib¡¯ into the center of the spine, which they then used as a reference for cing the other undersite support beams onto it, before properly attaching everything to each other as tightly and strongly as possible. For the most part, the whole day was just spent cing the ribs into ce, as well as then cing support-beams at the sides of the ribs whereter the floor for the first and second under-deck level would be, as well as the deck level itself, finishing the ship¡¯s skeleton for the most part. Next, only the main support beams would be needed that connect some of the ribs to each other from one side of the ship to another, as well as the on-board ¡¯hut¡¯, which Eisen thought of as the ¡¯Head¡¯, considering all of the ¡¯spine¡¯ and ¡¯rib¡¯ references he had been thinking of all the time. Then they would of course need top prepare the base for the masts, which they would only set in ce outside, and would then need to add the nks to every area of the ship, outside and inside, for the walls as well as the floor. After that was done, Evalia and Xenia would be the leaders for a little while, Evalia instructing everyone on where which kind of protective paint or solution would need to be added to, while Xenia would instruct everyone with at least a little bit of enchanting experience on what needed to be carved into the outer surface of the ship. After Xenia¡¯s part would be done, Evalia would begin to paint the whole ship and at least somewhat cover the enchantments up or add fake glowing areas to let it seem like different enchantments altogether. And then, the ship could be set into the water, the masts could be attached, and then everything else could be prepared and brought into the ship. On the current day of work, they managed to finish setting the support beams into ce and just slightly started working on the ¡¯hut¡¯, or ¡¯head¡¯, area at the top of the ship. That night, while Eisen was logged off, he spent a little bit more time with his family by eating a prettyte Dinner together. The following in-game day was during the real-life night just before Sunday, and Sophia¡¯s and Benji¡¯s capsules would be arriving in thete afternoon, and Eisen wanted to be there while that was happening, so that would be one day that he himself wouldn¡¯t end up being there for the construction, so he wanted to get as much big stuff done before then as possible. The next in-game day was spent with one group working on the ¡¯head¡¯ area as described, while others began to attach the nks to the outside of the ship as carefully as possible, and Xenia and Evalia were working together on finish up the Figurine for the front of the ship. It already looked quite amazing, and it was a quite grand piece that looked like a Dragon that was slinging its wings around the front of the ship, attempting to somehow pull it forward. In its eyesockets it hadrge, clear gems that were apparently enchanted by Xenia with something as well, which she simply didn¡¯t tell Eisen about yet no matter how much he asked her to exin. Of course he could have just inspected them with his truth-seeing eyes, but since Xenia wanted to hide it, it had to be either not finished, or simply a surprise for Eisen that she only wanted to show him when the whole thing was done. And so, Eisen respected that decision, and only yfully attempted to peak at what she was doing with the enchantments to maybe get a few clues, although that didn¡¯t actually do all that much for him. Either way, the ship was being constructed non-stop, and everyone from the Church was just doing an amazing job that Eisen couldn¡¯t even describe, so he was extremely proud of them. And at the moment that thest piece of wood was attached to the ship¡¯s base, of course excluding all the decorations, doors, or even masts, everyone already began to simply celebrate, because this meant that such an amazing thing would soon be finished. For that night, Eisen chose another small speech. "Okay everyone! Thank you so much for doing all this work up until now, and I truly hope that you will continue to work just as hard until the ship¡¯s construction is actually finished and we can end up naming her. Of course, on the day that that happens, I¡¯ll obviously treat all of you to a nice, refreshing drop or two, so just wait for that!" Eisen eimed with a grin, looking at the ship behind him that at least on first nce seemed ready to be ced into the water, although there was still quite abit of work to be done. But this small speech was a signal for everyone to finish for the day and make their way back to where they were staying, while Eisen stayed behind with everyone from the Guild in the warehouse. "But damn, this is really an amazing ship." Brody eximed, whistling as he did so and walked along the side of it a little bit, before Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, I know what you mean. It turned out really great after all. And the wood that Komer bought for it is more amazing than I thought as well. It¡¯s already pretty strong before even being treated, and really surprisingly light. It¡¯s the perfect wood for shipbuilding, as expected." Eisen said with a smile, crossing his arms before he ran his hand across the smooth surface of the wooden nks, before he turned around toward the group. "Alright, everyone, I know I¡¯ve been up for a few days in a row again, but tomorrow, I¡¯ll be sleeping all day once more. So Caria, Melissa and I are going to stay in the Inn room during that time again, so that nobody finds me when I¡¯m sleeping here." Eisen told them, before looking at the ship again. "Tomorrow, please spend as much time as you can with decoration, and get as far with the carvings for the enchantments as possible. I would love to be there during that, but I just can¡¯t, sorry." The old man apologized, lightly smiling at his friends apologetically, before he looked once more at the ship, excited to see how it¡¯s going to end up. Chapter 219 Delivery Benjamin carefully stepped out of the capsule, trying to ignore the pain in his arm that he felt when he used it to support his body as he did so, before swiftly getting himself ready for the ¡¯guests¡¯ that would being by taking a shower, dressing up, and helping Benjamin and Sophia get their rooms ready for the capsules. ¡¯Getting their rooms ready¡¯ really just meant cleaning up a bit and clearing up space against the wall so that the capsule could be installed there. After this was done, Benjamin chose to eat a bit of lunch with his family, which Benji and Sophia promised to prepare. "So what are you two making?" Benjamin asked as he sat down at the kitchen counter, watching the two teenagers work. "Hm? Oh, we¡¯re just making some pasta." Benji answered swiftly, moving to the side so that Benjamin could see the ball of dough that he was currently kneading, before the old man smiled lightly, looking over at Sophia who was standing in front of a pot. "And I¡¯m guessing you¡¯re making the sauce, then?" He asked, and Sophia nodded her head as she smiled at her grandfather. "Yup! Just a simple Bolognese, though..." She exined as she scratched the back of her head, before turning back to the pot where she was browning ground beef at the moment, at least judging from the smell and sound of it. "That¡¯s fine for lunch, right?" Benji asked with augh, and Benjamin chuckled back as he nodded his head. "Of course it is, don¡¯t worry." He answered his grandson before he noticed his phone giving off a light ringing sound, more specifically the ringtone that Benjamin set for Samuel¡¯s calls or texts. Slowly, Benjamin stood up and made his way over to his phone that heid down on the small table next to his armchair, taking that chance to sit before reading the text. Once he perused the content of the message, he began to chuckle lightly and looked over to his grandchildren working in the kitchen. "Better hurry it up, you two! The capsules will be here in an hour!" He told them, before both of them paused doing anything at all for a second, and then continued working faster than before as if in a rush. With a softugh, Benjamin then leaned back in his armchair and turned on the TV, where he immediately saw a small message in the corner rmending a new channel, titled ¡¯World of Magic.¡¯ Surprised at the advertisement, Benjamin of course quickly switched the channel, seeing a quite familiar face currently being interviewed by a reporter. "You mentioned before that Prime Industries had quite a fewrge-scale ns for the game that would even interact with the real world, is that correct? Could you give us a few examples?" The reporter asked, and Samuel immediately nodded his head. "Yes, that is correct. I think the first big thing would be the Money-Exchange system. In every in-game town, there is a ¡¯Finance Guild¡¯ that lets people storerge amounts of their money safely." He exined, surprising Benjamin with something that he didn¡¯t know about, which was quite weird to him now that he thought about it before Samuel continued. "And that¡¯s where the Money-Exchange systemes in. Once you make an ount at the ¡¯Finance Guild,¡¯ you will be opening an ount with a digital bank. But that ount isn¡¯t only essible from within the game, but also from outside, directly through your browser. You can transfer any amount of real money into that ount, and it will be changed to the currency that you can use within the game. You can also transfer the coin in your game ount into your actual bank ount as real money." Samuel exined to the reporter, who already knew about this judging from her reaction, or instead horribly faked response to the news. It made sense though, this was all most likely supposed to be a teaser for the game, and this was probably also a Prime Industries - run TV Channel, so hyping it up would be the most logical decision to make. "That means you could turn the game into your actual job? Isn¡¯t that amazing?" The reporter asked with fake surprise, and Samuel nodded his head with augh. "Technically yes, I guess so. But with every type of currency, especially crypto-currency like this is, fluctuation in exchange rates is a major issue to be aware of. Current exchange rates are not fixed and constantly fluctuate, and due to this being the case, we will be setting a small limiter to the maximum amount of money that can be exchanged for coins and vice-versa for a while. That limiter is slowly going to increase over time until there isn¡¯t one anymore; this is to ensure that the game currency can gain stability." Samuel exined, giving the viewers as much information as possible, before the reporter moved on to the next topic. "That is quite interesting, thank you for telling us about that, Samuel. Now, a lot of people viewed the Trailer to the game, so much that it instantly became one of the most-viewed inte videos in the world currently. So obviously, a lot of people began specting about a few things. And one of the biggest spections would be who the five people that the Trailer focused on are. Can you tell us a bit about that as well?" The reporter inquired before Samuel nodded his head quite thoughtfully. "Yes, I¡¯m d you brought that up. The five people, known as the ¡¯Originals¡¯ that were introduced in the trailer are not NPCs or Non-yers Characters for the non-gaming audience. They are real people. Some of you may recognize one of them, it¡¯s Nataly Klein. Yes, yes, the "Nataly Klein." But just like anyone else, she wants to y and enjoy the game like anyone else does, so it would be appreciated if people didn¡¯t swarm her if they happen to see her. On top of that, Nataly gave me specific permission to disclose the fact that she ys the game and also her character¡¯s identity. I want everyone to respect the fact that not everyone else is like that, so all of the other ¡¯Originals¡¯ will stay anonymous in who they are outside of the game, but I can assure you that they are immensely talented people in their fields of specialization. That¡¯s all I can say about them at the moment." Samuel answered, which seemed to bring the interview to a close. The camera faded to ck, and then something else that Benjamin knew about started ying on the TV, the trailer to the game. And just before it hit off, it announced a few schedules up by the side, giving information on some of the programs that would start by next Wednesday concerning content from inside the game. Since the people that would enter the game in the next phase were all supposed to be entertainers, it did make sense. They probably ced someone in-game and told them to film everything somehow, so that they could work on the program in there. From then on, Benjamin skipped through the channels after watching the trailer once more, only for the fun of it, and ended up watching an episode of a show he probably watched 100 times already, only because it always ran on the TV whenever he turned it on. And about half an hour after Benjamin sat down, Benji called his father as well as his siblings and sat down on the living room couch with a te of Spaghetti Bolognese, handing another one to his grandfather and cing another two down on the table for Sean and Katy, while Sophia had her and Tony¡¯s tes. "Bon Appetit," Benji said in a horrible impression of an Italian ent before everyone thanked him and Sophia for cooking and then began to eat. Shortly after they finished, with perfect timing, the doorbell rang. Immediately, Benji jumped up and looked out the window to see a truck from Prime Industries standing outside. "It¡¯s here!" He yelled out excitedly, sprinting to the door. Although in the time it took for Benji to look out the window, Benjamin already made his way there and opened it before Benji could. When the door opened, a deliveryman smiled at Benjamin. "Hello sir, are you Benjamin Theodore Joyce?" He asked, and Benjamin nodded his head and took his ID out of his wallet so that he could confirm his identity on the small card-reader terminal the delivery man was holding. "Alright, everything checks out. We have a delivery for two Prime Industrie Digital Immersion Capsules for you, is that right?" He asked, and Benjamin nodded his head once more. "Yes, that¡¯s right. Here, I¡¯ll show you where the capsules should be installed." Benjamin exined before stepping to the side so that the Deliveryman coulde in, as the old man made his way to Benji¡¯s room first since it was closer. "One of them here in that cleared-out corner." He said, before continuing his sentence a few rooms further into the house, "And the other one here in that cleared-out corner." He exined, and the Deliveryman quickly checked a few things like what kind of power ess was avable, before nodding his head. "Alright, thank you, Sir. We will set everything up for you then. It¡¯s going to take an hour or two though." He warned, and Benjamin nodded his head understandingly. "Of course, take your time, young man." Benjamin chuckled as he ran his fingers through his beard before the Deliveryman smiled back at him and made his way outside to collect his colleagues, who had already started getting everything out of their truck. For a little while, it was quite a bit busier in the house once more, since the workers had to coordinate everything with each other across rooms, but since they were professionals. They managed to finish their work quickly without leaving much of a trace behind, and you could barely tell that they were ever there, besides of course the capsule itself. While the workers were loading their tools and such back into the truck, the Deliveryman that Benjamin was talking to before exined how the capsules worked to both Sophia and Benji in a simr speech as the old man received when the DICAP was exined to him, except with another addition. "Since there a multiple, three as I¡¯m aware, capsules connected to this building¡¯s router, it is possible to create a ¡¯Lobby¡¯ of sorts, simr to the Desktop, except that you can interact with the others currently in a capsule in the local system." The Deliveryman exined, before he turned over to the old man. "And now I only need some signatures, Sir." He told Benjamin, who swiftlyplied and signed the different documents confirming that the capsules arrived there, that they were correctly set up, and that no damage was done to the house in the process. "Thank you! Have a nice day, and of course, a good time ying!" With a smile, the Deliveryman turned around and waved at them as he made his way back to the truck, where he hopped in and soon drove off. "Alright guys, everything¡¯s set up, so go ahead and try it out." Benjamin tried to tell his grandchildren, but who were already in the process of lying down in the capsules to start them up. With a loud sigh, the old man turned to his son, who nodded his head back at him, confirming that he was alright with Benjamin joining them in that ¡¯Local Lobby¡¯ thing and that he would take care of the dishes. "Thanks, Tony." He said with a smile and made his way to his room, where he soon sat down inside of his capsule, starting up the new ¡¯Lobby¡¯ option that appeared in the disy. And so, Benjamin soon found himself inside of a pure white virtual space, where he could already see the figures of his grandchildren walking around. Chapter 220 Reaching up High With a smile, Benjamin walked over toward his grandchildren, crossing his arms as Benji and Sophia looked back confused. "This feels a lot different to when we were ying around at Prime Industries the other day." Benji pointed out, and his grandfather slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, I know. I think the game itself makes everything feel like normal, here it''s a bit more awkward and artificial, right?" He responded, and they both nodded their heads immediately. "Exactly! And what can we do here, Grampa?" Sophia asked before Benjamin moved his fingers through his beard, a sensation that also felt quite different here in the desktop modepared to real-life or even the game. "Well, something like this, I guess. Rover, copy the hut from my desktop over to here." Benjamin loudly said, and immediately the lightly glowing, floating sphere appeared mid-air. "Will do, Benjamin!" Rover eximed, before the world around them changed into the small wooden log hut that Benjamin made in his desktop, and Rover disappeared immediately afterward. "Basically, this is the kind of thing you can do. I would say this ce is just for ying around, working, or rxing. Nothing much happens in here." Benjamin told them before Sophia and Benji looked at each other just ever so slightly disappointed before Benjaminughed loudly. "Don''t worry, you two. Tomorrow morning, the game will be open for you two. You just need to wait another day, that shouldn''t be that hard, right?" Benjamin told them with a wink before they sighed loudly. "I guess. Well, let''s just y around a bit in here then." Benji said as he turned to Sophia, and Benjamin himself smiled at them. "I''ll leave you to that, then. I''m going to go back into the game a bit earlier than I nned then." Benjamin exined, and Benji and Sophia nodded their heads dismissively as they summoned their assigned rovers and began to modify their appearance a little bit before Benjamin chuckled and called out for Rover as well. "How can I help you?" The AI asked him, and Benjamin answered quite clearly. "Can you start up the game for me?" He asked, and Rover ''nodded'' his head, or rather himself, up and down before Benjamin noticed the area around him slowly disappear, and then found himself in his body as Eisen sooner than he knew it. With a smile, Eisen stood up from the bed he wasying in and stood up, stretching his body a bit before he turned around and smiled at the two monster girls next to him. "Good morning, you two," Eisen said as he picked both of them up, and sat them down on his shoulder while increasing his size to his Titan-form, and grabbing his backpack before making his way out of the Inn-Room. "Eisen, Caria and Melly want to show you something super cool!" Caria eximed as the three of them were on their way to the Harbor, before Eisen nodded his head. "Alright, go ahead. Can you do it like this?" He asked, before Caria immediately nodded, but motioned at Eisen so that he would raise his hand in front of her. Slowly, Caria put her tiny palms on Eisen''s, before the old man felt a light surge of heat as well as something bulging underneath his skin. "Erm, Caria¡­ What did you do?" He asked, and Caria began chuckling, as the bulge continued to grow, before Eisen''s skin simply ''slipped'' open as something came out from underneath it. It was a tiny, mostly beige mushroom with a grey-white cap, as well as a brown oval on one side of it. Happily, Caria looked at Eisen with glittering eyes, pointing at the mushroom gleefully. "Eisen Mushroom!" She eximed, and Eisen took another look at himself before looking back at the mushroom. "So you can make mushrooms that look like people?" He asked, before Caria nodded her head furiously. "Mhm!" She nodded, and Eisen thought about it for a while as he stepped into the alley where he was nning on activating his demonic transformation, first inspecting the mushroom with his Truth-Seeing Eyes just to see if what he thought was going on was correct. [Eisen''s Mushroom][Quality - Average][Rank - 0] With a smile, Eisen then looked over at Caria on his shoulder and ced his hand, the one without a mushroom growing on it, onto her head for a little bit. "That''s pretty interesting, good job. Can they do anything, or do they just look super cool?" Eisen asked with augh before Caria shook her head. "They don''t do anything, but Caria thinks they might when the magic is better?" She exined while tilting her head to the side, and Eisen nodded. "Alright, then tell me when that happens, yeah?" He smiled at her, before he looked back at his hand where the little mushroom had already shriveled up andpletely disappeared without leaving a trace behind, so he then activated his Demonic transformation and continued making his way to the Harbor, looking over to Melissa a few moments after starting to walk again. "And what did you want to show me?" The old man asked her, as she looked at him with an excited smile and extended her hand toward Eisen''s as well, although probably for a different purpose than Caria. And it seems Eisen was right with that thought, as Melissa soon climbed onto the old man''s palms, simply so that he could see her better, and then held her arm forward so that Eisen could see. And what he did see then was rather horrifying if one thought about it more closely, since this tiny girl''s arm soon began to form a hexagonal ''hole,'' before one of her Scout Bees crawled out of it and onto her hand. "Hive!" She said before pointing at herself happily, while the scout crawled back into her skin through a new hole that formed on her arm. "Huh¡­ you''re your ''own'' Hive now?" Eisen muttered quietly, and Melissa nodded her head back and forth immediately. "That''s pretty amazing, to be honest. Just don''t overdo yourself if it starts hurting you, alright?" Eisen told her with a bit of worry, before cing the small Empress Bee back on his shoulder. Soon enough, Eisen reached the Harbor, where he could already hear the workers running around the warehouse while Xenia was giving instructions to them. For a few moments, Eisen watched the whole affair while taking a look at the current progress of the enchantment, not being able to help himself but smile. "Now then¡­ that''s also pretty amazing¡­" The old man chuckled as he walked up behind Xenia, who turned around in surprise at hearing his voice. "Eh? Eisen? What are you doing here? I thought you were still asleep¡­" She muttered as she tilted her head to the side, and the old man nodded. "Mhm, yeah, I was. Stuff was done earlier than expected, so I managed to wake up already." He exined in a quite vague way so that nobody could understand what he was talking about even if they could end up hearing him. So tell me, how far along is the enchantment?" Eisen asked, before Xenia began to exin it to him. "It''sing along rtively alright. Evalia drew guidelines onto the ship for everyone with an ability like hers. I just gave her the ''Blueprint'' of sorts for the enchantment that would be ced on the ship, and she near-to-instantly drew it on there. And now, everyone is just carving where the paint is, so it''s moving along pretty steadily. So far, only the supportive and descriptive parts have been engraved, though. Of course, the center of the enchantment in the three-dimensional array in the Figurine, but there''s other vital parts as well near the stern of the ship. Those haven''t been carved yet." She exined as the High-Elf brought Eisen over to the back of the ship, where he could take a look at the bright blue paint that couldn''t possibly be missed, forming the shape of an enchantment circle. Impressed, Eisen crossed his arms and nodded his head as he looked at all of it. "Seriously, I never could havee up with something like this. Impressive. Now then, I think I should get to work a little bit as well, huh? Just leave the enchantment circle here in the back to me." The old man said and cracked his knuckles at the same time, taking arge enchantment needle, perfect for his current size, out of his chest pocket. "Sure. I''ll tell the others you''re here while you''re working." Xenia told him before she took Melissa on her arm and began to hold Caria''s hand so that Eisen could concentrate on the enchantment. It was a quiterge enchantment, and despite his increase in size, Eisen still wasn''t able to properly reach every part of it, since it covered nearly the whole back-surface of the enormous ship. So, Eisen quickly thought of something else. He grabbed two unused doors that were prepared for the ship and handed them to his Mana Doubles. First, Eisen stood up on one of the doors, which was then picked up by the Mana Double. Since Eisen could control their movements near-to perfection at this point and since they didn''t wave around in any way and were perfectly stable at all times, this was a great way to increase his reach. But since that still wasn''t enough, the Mana Double that was carrying Eisen stood down on the other door that he grabbed and was then, in turn, picked up by the additional mana double. Due to Eisen and his doubles'' increased size to three meters, as well as their arms'' reach of about a meter, Eisen could reach up to about 12 meters high, which was enough to carve the lower half of the enchantment at least partially. And so, Eisen swiftly got to work. Since Eisen''s doubles were able to squat down and move around steadily, the old man himself was able to properly reach move around every part of the enchantment''s lower half while also making it easier to carve the round shapes. It was a quiteplicated enchantment even then. Eisen was quite surprised that he was able to engrave it on wood, but Xenia assured him that she made sure that such aplex enchantment wouldn''t fail even on wood. The old man had no idea how she did it, but he trusted her, so he didn''t need to know. Either way, Eisen carved the oversized enchantment at a calm and rxing speed, which may already seem somewhat hectic to others . And an hour or soter, Eisen managed to finish all of the enchantment that he could reach . In the meantime, he had already called some people for help that were supposed to bind a sturdy rope to a stable part at the top of the ship, which he now saw dangle a few meters, maybe five or six, above him . Looking down, Eisen then noticed that Brody was watching what Eisen was doing since he couldn''t help with much at the moment, so the old man yelled something down to him . "Hey, Brody! Catch!" He shouted before making his Mana Doubles both squat down, while he did the same, before he had both of them stand up and jump at just a slight dy to each other, so that Eisen was swung into the air and was able to reach the rope, which he now hung from while looking down at the ground . After he did that, he wasn''t confident in being able to make the Mana Doubles catch the doors again, so he swiftly unsummoned them, using Brody to ensure that the doors wouldn''t hit the ground and break, or even worse, injure someone . Startled by the iing doors, the Demon-Orc halfling jumped into the air using the propulsion from his energy, to reach both doors in time before they hit the ground, before he silently ced them down onto the ground, looking up at Eisen calmly although he was only calm for a second . "What the hell you old geezer?! Warn me a bit earlier next time, will you?! Or I''ll cut that damn rope off while you''re up there!" He yelled out aggressively before picking the doors back up and bringing them back to where Eisen picked them up before, Eisenughed a bit and thanked him silently . Chapter 221 3D Enchantmen As Eisen was hanging from the rope at the back of the ship, he continued to carve the oversized enchantment as quickly as he could. Of course, it took a bit longer than before. Earlier, he had a rtively stable footing and a way to smoothly move around, but now he had to climb up and down the rope, shimmy across the wooden surface, and carve everything while holding onto the rope with one hand. As such, it was obvious that it would take longer, but even then, Eisen did his best to finish this as quickly as he possibly could. For quite a while, that was all that Eisen then did. While swinging around, he managed to support himself with his two demonic wings somewhat as well, which was quite a surprise to Eisen. Although that did make sense in the end, considering that Bolremgar instructed him on how to shape realistic wings for his body. Maybe at some point, he may be able to fly using them, although that still seemed quite a while away. And until then, Eisen would stay firmly grounded. So, he continued carving the enchantment and managed to do so in about two hours, at which point he managed to finish it finally. With a satisfied nod, Eisen climbed up the rope and disembarked the ship the regr way, before joining Xenia at the stern of the vessel, where the High-Elf was currently taking a look at the enchantment. "Nice job, old man, as expected of you," Xenia said with a smile as she crossed her arms and looked at the Titan-Demon next to her. "Thanks, although it wouldn¡¯t have turned out so great without such a fantastic design. For the most part, it somewhat looks like just decoration, right?" Eisen asked, and Xenia nodded her head immediately. "Mhm, it does. I¡¯m sure there are some hostile people on the ocean as well, like pirates or something, and I don¡¯t want them to be able to figure out everything about the enchantments right away." She exined before Eisen nodded his head slowly, understanding the reasoning. "Is that why therge runes were made up of smaller runes of other kinds? To make them think it¡¯s something else?" Eisen asked as he looked at the runes that were supposed to assign an element to the enchantment, but the High-Elf quite swiftly shook her head. "Nope, that¡¯s actually something else. It¡¯s like... an element within an element. Therge one is the base, and the runes that are used to form that base are the descriptor." "Huh, so what does that do for the enchantment?" Eisen asked curiously, and Xenia began thinking of a good example. "Erm, I guess it just helps enhance it? Like you specify something. Hmmm... if you take fire for an example, it can be used for a lot of things. Cooking, Forging, or to keep your body warm, and if you make up a fire rune with runes describing that use, or the way that the fire is supposed to portray itself, then that enhances that fire for its specific purpose. While it¡¯s going to be less effective for its other uses." She exined, and Eisen nodded his head in understanding. "Well, I didn¡¯t actually try using Skill-Runes to shape arge rune yet, but I¡¯m sure that should be possible. At the very least, you could take a fire rune, and then form it with ¡¯heat¡¯ runes to create a me that¡¯s far hotter than it usually would be, I guess." Xenia told the old man. "Interesting. When we¡¯re actually traveling in a few days, we need to sit down together sometimes and work on a few items together. I¡¯m sure we could make some nice things." The old manughed before he remembered the blueprints for the Core Guardian, which did actually mention something that he first really heard about while he was working on the ship. "That reminds me... What is a 3D Enchantment?" Eisen asked, before Xenia looked at him surprised. "oh? You don¡¯t know about that? As the name says, it¡¯s just a three-dimensional enchantment. Usually, it¡¯s a free-form thing, but I guess I could exin it with the regr shape..." She muttered out, before grabbing one of the mana-crystals that she was experimenting with before to figure out some enchantments, wiping off the enchantment that was currently on it and handing the mana-crystal to the old man. "Here, let¡¯s just try for a moment. Just form that into a sphere." Xenia instructed, before Eisen nodded his head and did as told. "Then, you form a hollow sphere in the middle of that, and a few smaller hollow spheres all around there." She told him, and Eisen once more did as instructed, already seeing what this was supposed to be. "I get it, so in the center there it¡¯s for the image, and then the others are for the type specification... And where do I put the supportive runes?" The old man inquired, and Xenia happily nodded. "Yup, that¡¯s it! The supportive runes go on the outside. Try to cover it as tightly as possible, but it¡¯s not that big a deal if there are some free spaces. In the type specification parts, you can just put a 3D rune as you would normally so that you could read it from the outside, and then in the center, like normal, need to put an image, or in this case a model, of what you¡¯re imagining." Xenia exined to Eisen, and the old man slowly nodded his head. "I see... Thanks, I¡¯ll try it out then." Eisen said with a smile before he squatted down onto the ground and began ying around with this. He thought that he could do a few interesting things with this, but for now, he wanted to try something rtively simple out. Using transmutation, in half of the type specification spheres, Eisen ced a ¡¯Gravity¡¯ rune, while the other half got a ¡¯Return¡¯ rune. On the outside, the old man then carved the specifications so that he could control how much gravity would be taken off the sphere, and after how long it would return for him. And atst, in the center of the orb, he modeled a small human merely throwing a ball away that would then twist around in the air and return to the thrower, which he disyed by creating a few different small balls along the path that the ball should fly. And that was about it. It was actually somewhat weird to Eisen that he had to use transmutation for this, considering that that was usually not possible, since enchantments would have to be hand-carved most of the time, but Eisen boiled it down to this being a mana-crystal as well as a distinctive new type of enchantment that might have different rules. Either way, soon enough, Eisen finished the mana crystal sphere with the enchantment inside. With a smile to see if this would work, he then poured his mana inside of it, quite a high amount considering that ¡¯Gravity¡¯ was a pretty high-grade rune and that he wanted all the gravity to disappear from the sphere, before Eisen threw the ball away in a random direction where nobody was standing. And after a few moments, as Eisen had nned, the floating sphere slowed down and returned to where it came from, Eisen¡¯s hand. "Neat... I don¡¯t know what I should use this for though." The old manughed before Xenia came rushing up to him. "Wait, did you just make that?" She asked him as she took a look at the crystal ball in the old man¡¯s hand before Eisen nodded. "Mhm, I did. Just a little toy to y around with, I guess. Nothing special." He exined, and Xenia still smiled, before she took the sphere into her hands to take a closer look at it. "Yeah, it¡¯s not prettyplicated, but it¡¯s still cool, right?" "I guess so, yeah. But it takes a lot of mana for a single throw, so it¡¯s not all that worth it. The requirements are alright, but they¡¯re a bit high for a ¡¯toy.¡¯" He exined, taking the ball back from the High-Elf before cing it into his backpack. He would see what else he could do with this kind of stuffter. "Anyway, thanks for telling me about 3D enchantments. Now that we¡¯re talking about it, what does the one in the-" Eisen started, but was soon interrupted by Xenia when she noticed the old man¡¯s intention. "Shush it, old man. You¡¯ll see when the ship¡¯spleted. The enchantments are going to be finished tomorrow morning, then we¡¯ll set the figurehead into ce, and Evalia is going to start painting everything. After that, you said we could bring it out into the water and set the masts into ce, which should be enough to finish it, right?" Xenia asked, and Eisen nodded with a loud sigh. "I guess so. But it¡¯s gotten prettyte already, huh? I mean, I did onlye here prettyte in the afternoon anyway..." He said as he scratched the back of his head, before seeing Caria and Melissa y around on the other side of the Warehouse. "Oh, and their elements are pretty interesting, right?" Eisen asked, and the High-Elf turned her head and nodded immediately. "Definitely, yeah. I mean, I expected nothing less from such humanoid monsters, but yeah. I don¡¯t care about why they are humanoid, you¡¯ll have to ask Jyuuk, but apparently humanoid monsters master skills more easily, while beast-type monsters have better stats. And those two already look like regr human girls, if you don¡¯t know the fact that Caria¡¯s hat is attached to the top of her head and that Melissa has wings, but besides that, they¡¯re just regr girls." She pointed out, before immediately continuing. "Caria¡¯s Mushroom Forest thing is pretty interesting, especially the thing where she creates another person¡¯s version of a mushroom. We¡¯ll have to see when her element ranks up a few times, but I think that it could be beneficial. And Melissa¡¯s element is incredibly useful for herself as well. She can basically turn anything into a hive, even herself. At some point I think she might be able to create versions of bees for literally anything as well, considering that she created a few new bee species before." Xenia added, and Eisen nodded his head slowly. "Yeah, although we¡¯ll have to tell her not to use the thing where she turns her arm into a hive and has bees crawling out of her in public. I think that would scare a few people..." Eisenughed, with a slight hint of nervousness in his voice, while Xenia remembered something that had happened the day before. Quietly, she held her arms and looked away so that Eisen couldn¡¯t see her face as she began to speak. "If you think that was creepy, then you¡¯ll have to see what happens when she turns her eyes into those holes... or her mouth or ears..." She muttered out, shivering when she just started to think about it. "Yeah, I think I¡¯ll just ignore the fact that she can do that..." The old man answered as he moved his fingers through his beard, really not wanting to see such a thing happen to a tiny girl like Melissa. "Yes, do that... Oh, and the next monster you tame and add to your little-girl army, please don¡¯t let it be another bug monster, yeah? Because if she gets a simr element like Melissa, that would probably kill me... I don¡¯t like bugs a lot..." Xenia stuttered just slightly before Eisenughed loudly to calm her down. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll promise you, the third monster I tame won¡¯t be a bug." He said with a smile as he chose to make his way over to the mentioned two monster girls to check on them for a bit. Chapter 222 Just Ask After Eisen spent a little bit of time with his Guild Members, the workers all made their way back to the church, meaning that Eisen could finally deactivate his Demonic Transformation again. He felt like he looked pretty cool in it, sure, but it was still a little awkward to move around with his wings, so he preferred walking around without the transformation active. "So we¡¯ll be finished tomorrow, huh?" Jyuuk asked as he looked at the ship with his arms crossed, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Seems like it, yes. Xenia told me the enchantments would be finished tomorrow, and then the Figurehead will be set in ce before Evalia will start painting everything. After that, we¡¯re bringing the ship outside and then only need to set the masts in ce. That¡¯s going to be a littleplicated simply because of their size, but it shouldn¡¯t be too big an issue in the end." The old man exined as he sat down on one of the tables near him, and swiftly continued by looking at Komer. "You prepared everything, right? As in all of the stuff we need for the ship that isn¡¯t supplies." Eisen asked the merchant, and he nodded his head immediately. "Mhm, I did. Deliveries are scheduled throughout the morning, so we can start when everything¡¯s ready." Komer said as he took a look at his notebook where he wrote everything down. "Oh, and that reminds me. I heard a little bit from Sailors here at the Harbor, and they told me that we should best leave within five days. Because in six days, the season for everyone to set out to fish for some random fish, I don¡¯t know which, starts again. And because that¡¯s the case, the sea traffic around this area increases, meaning that everything will be controlled more strictly so that no idents or conflicts ur, which then, in turn, means that only people with special permits can leave or enter the direct vicinity of the harbor then. We should be able to leave before then, right?" Komer asked, before Eisen nodded after doing a short mental calction. In real life, it was currently the afternoon of Sunday. The next in-game day would end in thete evening of Sunday, the next one early in the morning of Monday, and then at the start of the next day, the Alpha yers would join the game. In the next two days, it should be possible to finish the ship and at least get arge amount of everything that¡¯s required loaded up onto it. And then on the third day, Eisen, Brody, and Jyuuk would go and look for the people that they rmended. Evalia mentioned to Eisen that the friend she ended up half-rmending wanted to spend the start of the game alone so that she could figure out what kind of stuff would be the best content for her channel from within the game. Since Ari controlled the ce where the Originals first appeared, Eisen hoped that it would be possible for her to send the rmended people at least somewhere near where the five of them were, so that they could quickly meet up. If that was the case, Eisen hoped to be able to n in about a day, or max two days, to find them and get back to Handor so that they would be back here to leave at thetest of the fourth day from now. In case anything went wrong, that meant that they still had some time to figure out anyst-minute details and for everyone from the church to settle into the ship. After reviewing everything like this for a moment, Eisen nodded his head at Komer. "I think that should work out. And even if not, I¡¯m pretty sure I should be able to get a permit for us from the Lord, although it would be preferable to leave before then just so that we can go as quickly as possible without any interference." Eisen told them all, and they nodded their heads before he reminded everyone of something. "Oh, and again, if any of you have any wishes for items you want me to make for you, either prepare the materials yourselves or ask Komer if he could get them for you. Because we¡¯re only making one or two stops at most before we go to the inds, and that is to resupply with food while we¡¯re on our way." Eisen exined, and Brody seemed somewhat conflicted to ask something, but did so in the end anyway. "Well, would it be wrong to ask you to make one of every type of weapon I can use for me?" the Demon-Orc Halflingughed, while Eisen shook his head. "Not at all. Although for some of the more exotic weapons, I may need you to work together with me and tell me what¡¯s important." Eisen answered before looking around at everyone once more. "As I said, I¡¯ll make anything and everything you request, as long as you give me the materials, and as long as it¡¯s within my ability. And with ¡¯within my ability¡¯ I don¡¯t mean that some things may be too hard for me to make, but that I simply that I may not have gained the skill for it, or that I don¡¯t have a specific ability from a skill that I need to make it yet. And that would only mean more that I would need more time as well. So all of you just ask me to make things for you, will you?" Eisen told them with a sigh, since he noticed that nobody really told him about what they wanted yet, despite him repeatedly reminding them about it. For the most part, it seemed like they didn¡¯t want to bombard him with items they would like because they felt like making numerous items for a dozen people was a little much to ask. And with that, the one person that Eisen didn¡¯t expect to ask for something specific out of all of them spoke up first. "Gr-Grandfather... Erm, could you maybe make arger sword for me, then? I don¡¯t mind which materials or abilities you bestow it with, but I am truly more used to usingrge weaponry." Kiron exined, feeling somewhat embarrassed to call Eisen ¡¯Grandfather¡¯ in front of everyone all of a sudden, but the old manughed loudly. "That¡¯s more like it. Yeah, of course, I¡¯ll do that. Hmm, I¡¯m pretty sure that my portion of the Iron we mined the other day should be enough for that. That gives me some nice ideas. I¡¯ll make you something nice. And all of you, make sure to think about it just like Kiron did, yeah?" Eisen asked with a smile as he stood up and stretched for a bit before walking to therge door of the warehouse. "Huh, Eisen, where are you going? I thought you¡¯d sleep in here again?" Kirisho asked as she slowly left her amulet, and the old man turned around with a smile. "I¡¯m getting the carriage for something ¡ª no need to keep it in the stables if we can keep it here. There¡¯s not much work going on here anymore after all. And I need some materials from it anyway." Eisen answered before Caria and Melissa ran up behind him, wanting to go with him, and were then picked up by the old man. "Don¡¯t worry; I¡¯ll be back in a bit." He said to his Guild Members before continuing to walk with a slight smile on his face. The old man did have a few exciting ideas that he wanted to try out now that he thought about it a bit closer and to try those ideas out, Eisen wanted to infuse arge amount of the leftover Ironbark wood with his element so that he could turn it into charcoalter. Usually, he would have done it just with his element, but now he wanted to st the impurities out of the Iron ore with charcoal, which was preferable anyway since that already turned it into steel. The carbon from the charcoal would naturally fuse with the iron in the process and turn it into steel, albeit with a far too high percentage of carbon, but that could be fixed rtively easily. And if Eisen used charcoal made with Magic Wood, that may give the steel some unexpected properties while keeping it from losing its durability as most other Magic Materials would. And with that special steel, he would make therge sword that Kiron had just requested. At least now he had something to n for when on the ship beside his pet projects, which made him quite excited. With those thoughts in mind, Eisen made his way to the stable and grabbed the carriage, before swiftly bringing it back to the Warehouse. --- The next morning, everyone immediately got to work. They wanted to finish the enchantments on that ship as fast as they could, although Eisen was spending some time doing something else instead of helping with the enchantments. He was working on something that would help the step that followed the carving of the enchantments, something like a ¡¯staff¡¯ for Evalia. Although ¡¯staff¡¯ was entirely rtive, it was really just a huge paintbrush that would end up as tall as her, but it would surely boost her magic element a bit while she painted the ship to speed the process up a bit. Although that really just meant carving a staff and adding magic-string made of mana-crystals enchanted with mana-maniption on the top of it, giving it a mana-battery core, and some enchantments all across the outside to make it easier for mana to flow through. [Paintbrush Staff] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A Staff in the shape of a Paintbrush made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Able to store mana and has been enchanted to further the flow and control of your mana. [Effect] +15 INT, +15 WIS, +5% Benefit to Mana Maniption, +5% Benefit to Artistic Magic [Requirements] 60 INT, 60 WIS, Artistic Profession or Rank 2 Drawing Skill With a satisfied smile, Eisen handed therge brush over to the ¡¯Heavenly Artist¡¯ Evalia. "Sorry, I didn¡¯t manage to break through this time, so it¡¯s not Rank 4. Woodworking wasn¡¯t in the first five skills I broke through, so I don¡¯t always manage to do it. And this isrgely woodworking after all." Eisen exined as he moved his fingers through his beard, but Evalia took the staff into her hands with a wide grin. "Don¡¯t worry about it! This is really cool anyway! And I only managed to break through three skills so far, Drawing, Singing, and now even Sculpting¡¯, so it¡¯s he impressive you already managed five!" Evalia exined, remembering how Eisen talked about doing so within his first few in-game weeks and her feeling slightly jealous about that. Surprised, aware that Evalia broke through some skills already but thinking that it was only two, Eisen looked at her with a curious smile. "Oh, really? What did you create to break through those?" Eisen asked, and Evalia thought about it for a little while. "Hmm... For Drawing it was a Road-Runner type thing, ya know? I was out huntin¡¯, ran into some trouble, and drew something on the wall to trick some monsters so that they may run away... It was an even scarier monster. And for that, I broke through that one..." She said with a grin as she continued to think, remembering when she got the next break-through. "For Singin¡¯, it was when I first met ya, and I was singin¡¯ for the crowd at the marketce." Having seen that, Eisen couldn¡¯t really be surprised. That was an incredible performance, after all. "And for sculpting... Yesterday when I finished the Figurehead!" Evalia happily eximed as she stretched her arm forward and made a ¡¯Peace¡¯ sign with her fingers, and Eisen looked at her and then the wooden dragon in surprise. "Oh, really? You broke through the skill with that? I¡¯m d you were taking it that seriously, then!" Eisenughed loudly, being even more impressed by the quite life-like, huge wooden statue of a dragon. But it seemed like there was something else as well. "If you think I was takin¡¯ it seriously, then you¡¯ve gotta see the enchantment that Xenia made for that. It was really damn insane; I¡¯ve gotta tell ya. I honestly think she was tryin¡¯ to impress you." Chapter 223 Paintjob Surprised, Eisen looked at Evalia as she revealed the way that Xenia was preparing the 3D enchantment array, trying to figure out what she meant with Xenia ¡¯Trying to impress¡¯ him. And seeing that Eisen was confused, Evalia quickly exined. "It¡¯s nothing romantic or anything like that, I highly doubt that, but we were talkin¡¯ about a lot of stuff while makin¡¯ the figurine, and it seems to me that she¡¯s got a few little daddy issues. And I guess you seem pretty fatherly to her or somethin¡¯, so she¡¯s tryin¡¯ to impress you. I¡¯m not a psychiatrist, but that¡¯s my guess." She exined to Eisen, who quietly listened and nodded his head. "I see... Well, that¡¯s fine then. If that makes it possible for her to make amazing enchantments, then why do something about it? If it stops at that, I guess. We¡¯ll talk about it to her if it goes too far." Eisen told Evalia, and she swiftly nodded her head, agreeing with doing it that way. "Sure, let¡¯s. Anyway, again, thanks for the ¡¯Staff.¡¯ I think they¡¯re just about finished with the enchantments." Evalia pointed out as she lightly jerked her head toward the ship, where only a few people were currently finishing everything up with Xenia rushing around the ship to make sure the enchantments were all carved correctly in the way they were supposed to be. About half an hourter, it was finally finished, as Xenia looked at the huge enchantment happily. "Perfect!" She eximed as she stared at the wooden outer surface of the ship, crossing her arms in pure satisfaction. "Good job, Xenia. Looks impressive." Eisen said with augh as he walked up behind the High-Elf, who turned around with a smug expression. "Of course, it¡¯s impressive. I came up with this enchantment, after all!" She answered happily, before looking to the side, where the figurehead was already being prepared to be attached to the front of the ship. Hurriedly, Eisen made his way onto the front deck of the ship so that he could help pull the heavy figurine into its proper ce so that it could then be connected by some of the workers. For a good half hour, the figurehead was being held up by about two dozen people holding it up by some thick ropes to make sure it would be stable, while the workers carefully connected it in the way that they were told. Soon, the wooden dragon was set into ce in a beautifully ornate setting that could only make you impressed and wonder at the amount of work that went into its creation. "This looks really great, Evalia. Now, do you need any help with painting the ship?" Eisen asked the Artist, who swiftly shook her head. "Nope, not really. But thanks anyway. Just watch, with one simple color it¡¯s going to take maybe 20 minutes for the base, and for the details in the dragon and above the enchantments, that¡¯s gonna be... two hours? And then the interior for another hour or two. Well, I may need some mana, but Bree said she¡¯d take care of that for me." She exined quite quickly and winked at the pumped-up and excited Fey-Kin girl as Evalia grabbed her Paintbrush Staff with both hands before she poured her elemental mana inside of it. Instantly, the brush turned into basically a shifting rainbow color, with every gradient version in it. The handle stayed this way while Evalia¡¯s hands also became a simr color, while the brush tip became the very dark red-brown color that the ship would end up being for the most part. "Now stand back,dies and gentlemen!" Evalia eximed, taking a look around to make sure she wouldn¡¯t identally cover someone in her magic paint, before nodding happily and swinging her brush in the air. Not only did the air directly in front of the brush in response to that motion seem as if seen through red-brown dyed ss, but arge area of the ship was already now painted in an evenyer of the paint. The dyed-air soon disappeared, but the paint on the ship stayed that way while Evalia continued to paint the whole ship in precisely that manner, with the exception of the ces that she couldn¡¯t reach while standing on the ground. Because the ces that the brush touched seemed like ¡¯infected¡¯ by the paint, and the whole area, in basically a three-meter radius around the tip of the brush was painted immediately. So it wasn¡¯t exaggerated when she was talking about finishing the base within 20 minutes, as she managed to do so with a minute or two left. "Alright, that looks pretty nice, doesn¡¯t it?" Evalia eximed with a grin before she climbed up to the top of the ship, which she began to paint in a rather light beige color that fits well with the dark color of the exterior. And so, Evalia continued making her way throughout the different areas of the ship, painting every nook and cranny with her magic paint. After she was finished with that, she prepared to paint the details of the dragon while also running along the enchantments to make the carvings stand out better. The Dragon was painted in a somewhat grey-ish color while even being painted to seem like it had a bit of a rock-like texture, while underneath each of the scales a light golden shine appeared. And it was an actual shine, since, as she mentioned before, Evalia was able to make her paint glow a little bit. It wasn¡¯t enough to blind anyone, especially not in daylight, but it was enough to light the Dragon Figurehead up at night properly, which was good to make sure they wouldn¡¯t identally be crashed into by other vessels. But Eisen was incredibly surprised when he saw what Evalia chose as the colors, since that were literally exactly the colors that Eisen¡¯s rocks and mes currently had while he was in his demonic form. He was actually a little touched that she would draw a draconic-version of him. Then, for the finishing touch, Evalia moved along the outside of the ship, painting over the lines of the enchantments in a light golden color as well, to make it look even better. And it did look better, quite grand, actually, as if they had filled the carvings up with pure gold. And so, after she was done with that, Evalia began to paint the, still unconnected, masts while the color on the ship itself continued to dry and set. The workers watched the whole scene unfold with astounded expressions, then talked amongst each other excitedly while they prepared to heave the ship out of the warehouse and into the water. There was already rigging and rollers prepared so that it could just roll down the ramp into the water without damaging the ship. But the biggest issue was to keep therge vessel utterly stable and upright as it did so, because if it were to fall over to the side onto the ground or crash into something, then it would most likely end up with quite a bit of damage, which was just not favorable in any sense of the word. So they all needed to be more than just careful as the ship would be heaved down slowly, with some of the physically stronger workers and monsters pulling against the momentum at the back of the ship to help even a little bit, while the rest would end up trying to keep the ship as stable as possible. It was still on therge frame that would be used to set it in, so it was already pretty stable, but the workers still needed to make sure that the ship wouldn¡¯t turn mid-motion. About when Evalia finished painting the masts, the paint on the ship itself had adequately dried, so the ship could now be moved. "Alright everyone, careful! If any of you break this ship, I swear that I will personally crack your neck. Now, let¡¯s put it into the water!" Eisen eximed as he grabbed one of the ropes at the back of the ship to work against the downwards momentum and everyone else grabbed whatever they needed to as well, while the ship was slowly being pushed onto the ¡¯rollers¡¯ that would allow it to slide into the water. And ever so slowly, the ship gained speed that Eisen and the others were working against as much as they could, before the ship¡¯s center of gravity shot over the spot where the ramp began moving downward, meaning that the nose of the ship now also pointed there and rapidly gained speed. With all their might, everyone did their best to control the ship¡¯s movements somehow, although that didn¡¯t end up working that well. Eisen, Jyuuk¡¯s Monsters, Jyuuk himself, Brody and his Tank-Companion, as well as all of the other helpers, were pulled and dragged along without being able to do much until the ship finally hit the water and slowed down. And after pulling it back into the square space in front of the warehouse that was reserved exactly for the ships being built in there, everyone began to cheer in the excitement that this huge ship was staying afloat properly. With a grin on his face, almost unable to properly hold himself back as well, Eisen looked at the workers and yelled out, "Quiet down, everyone! Let¡¯s not cheer yet! Save that for after we ce the masts in and finish the ship!" He eximed before the workers nodded their heads almost in unison and made their way over to therge masts that were also now dry, before carrying first the smaller one onto the ship. The mast was then ced down into the hole that was prepared precisely for that purpose. That hole reached down up to nearly the bottom of the ship to give the mast as much stability as possible. The mast was adequately attached and readied to everything around before the second mast was then brought in and ced into its hole as well. And once that mast was attached, and everyone once more checked that everything was alright with the ship. Every one of the workers gathered on the deck of the ship, where Eisen was preparing to thank them, although this time, he didn¡¯t want to hold a speech, but just felt like letting the description of the ship speak on its own. "All of you, thank you so much for all of your hard work! And now, let¡¯s take a look at how this-" Eisen prepared to say, already nearly wanting to acknowledge the ship as finished, before Xenia interrupted him. "Not yet! There¡¯s something else you need to do first!" She eximed, before Eisen looked at her in confusion, and the High-Elf embarrassedly looked away from the old man before exining. "Just put your hand on the Dragon¡¯s forehead and pour your mana inside of the small crystal that¡¯s there." She said before Eisen slowly nodded his head with a little bit of confusion. Therge Titan-Demon made his way over to the front of the ship, where he could already see the small crystal that Xenia was talking about, curious at what would happen, Eisen did as instructed and ced his palm onto the crystal and poured some of his mana inside. And what happened then was actually rather unexpected. As Eisen took a step back, he could hear the creaking of wood from underneath him. At first, he was afraid that the ship was breaking apart, but then he saw Xenia and Evalia¡¯s happy expressions, realizing that this was supposed to happen before he then also noticed that it wasn¡¯t actually the ship that made those sounds, but the Dragon Figurehead. Surprised, Eisen took a peek over the edge, until he saw something that was quite a surprise to him. It was the Dragon, detached from the ship, as it looked back up at him before tilting its head to the side while its two crystal eyes stared at the old man. Chapter 224 Homunculus As Eisen stared at the wooden Dragon below him, the old man didn¡¯t know what to do. After all, how was he supposed to react? Confused, Eisen turned around and looked at his friends, who were staring at Eisen, wondering how he would respond. For the most part, both Jyuuk and Xenia were the most excited, while the workers were quite confused and didn¡¯t know what was going on, simr to Evalia, Brody, and the rest of the Guildmembers. Noticing that this was most assuredly a shared project between the Original of the Living and the Original of Magic, Eisen chose to ignore the notification that has been hovering next to his face for now. "Erm... Jyuuk, Xenia, what the hell is going on?" He asked before they both smugly crossed their arms before Xenia wanted to announce already what it is before Eisen held his hand toward them to tell her not to while he read the notification. [You have activated a Homunculus] "Don¡¯t say it. First off, thanks. This creation is something amazing, obviously. But we¡¯ll have a little meeting amongst our Guild¡¯s founding members in a bit, alright?" Eisen said with a smile, as he was still trying to figure out what was going on and didn¡¯t want Xenia to reveal it to anyone that was there before then. He knew what a Homunculus was supposed to be, a fake ¡¯being¡¯ created through alchemy, which was probably Xenia¡¯s side of things. And since it would imitate life, Jyuuk was quite clearly also involved. But he needed to figure out a bit more before being able to know what to think about it. Either way, Eisen then turned to the Homunculus with a smile. "Hey there bud, how about you go back to sleep for a while, yeah?" Eisen asked it before it slowly turned around and returned to its regr position before stopping its movements as if it could never move in the first ce before Eisen looked back at all of the workers. "So this ship now has something quite special to it, isn¡¯t that right?" He said with augh, trying to y it off while knowing that this was kind of a big deal judging from basically all of the NPCs¡¯ reaction. "Either way, I¡¯m sure that¡¯s only going to make this ship even greater!" Eisen eximed before finally acknowledging the ship as finished before a Notification Immediately appeared in front of Eisen. [With the assistance of many people, you created a Large Ironbark Ship] [Large Ironbark Ship] [Quality - High][Rank - 5] [Description] A Large wooden vessel created under the Leadership of the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. Not only has the sturdy Ironbark been masterfully transformed into an incredible Ship, breaching the Limit of the Leader¡¯s Skill. But it has also been equipped with wondrous enchantments to further its glory, breaching the Limit of the one¡¯s skill that created them, but it has then been coated withyers of Magic Paint created with numerous materials as a base, breaching the Limit of the one¡¯s skill that swung the brush. [Special Abilities] Dragon¡¯s Protection, High-Speed Travel, Shock Absorption, Return, as well as me Resistance [As the Limitbreak of Multiple Masters¡¯ abilities had intertwined, the broken limit has been further breached. +1 to all basic stats] [Special Condition met, Title evolving to Title] Surprised, Eisen looked at all of the notifications before ncing back at the crowd in front of him, who all seemed to be getting more and more excited the more they read the description to the Ship. And it seemed like both Evalia and Xenia also got more notifications than usual, although they most likely didn¡¯t get the ¡¯Skybreacher¡¯ title as Eisen did. Either way, for now, Eisen payed attention to another notification that had more importance at this very moment. [Name the Ship] And only after a few seconds, Eisen came to a conclusion and chose a proper name for this ship, and only one name seemed truly logical after remembering the Dragon Homunculus directly behind him. "And from now on, this ship shall be known as ¡¯Dragon¡¯s Nest¡¯!" The old man eximed so that all of the workers could hear his voice, before answering with cheers from their side as well. [The Ship has been named ¡¯Dragon¡¯s Nest¡¯] With the confirmation from the System, Eisen slowly nodded and looked at the Workers with a smile. "Good job all of you! We prepared some drinks down in front of the Warehouse, so go ahead and celebrate a bit, will you?" Eisenughed loudly before the workers swiftly did as instructed. When Eisen saw that a few specific people wanted to go with them, Eisen just stopped them. "Not you four. As I said, we¡¯re having a meeting." He eximed in a stern expression, before looking at the other Guildmembers. "Sorry, we need to talk about what just happened," Eisen told them before he turned toward Kiron. "And this time, you can¡¯t be here either, sorry. And can you take Caria and Melissa with you? They seem a bit tired right now." Eisen asked him before the Half-Dragon swiftly nodded his head. "Of course, Grandfather." He said before taking Melissa onto his arm, as she still couldn¡¯t walk all that well, and then brought her and the Myconid following him off the ship. And now that only the five original guild members were left on-deck, Eisen turned to them, pointing at the cabin on the top, of two floors, of the structure at the back of the ship, where a meeting room of sorts was being constructed. There wasn¡¯t much yet, but it at least had arge table and chairs to sit on. "All of you, up there." Eisen said with a frown, before snapping his fingers, something that he noticed helped whenmanding things like Golems, that didn¡¯t seem too dissimr to how Homunculi worked. "Humunculus,e with us." Eisenmanded the dragon, before the horrible creaking started again as both Evalia and Eisen looked at it in horror at that sound, which only annoyed Eisen even more. Slowly, the Dragon Homunculus then climbed onto the deck and stood behind Eisen as the group of five, plus one, stepped up the stairs and entered the room. There, Eisen deactivated his Demonic Transformation, still keeping up his Titan-Size, as he sat down on the chair with two armrests, making it seem more like a wooden throne than a chair, that was specifically created to amodate his current size, with the Homunculus acting somewhat like a dog and trying to stick its head underneath Eisen¡¯s arm. "Alright, first of all, I think the question that I need to ask is obvious. Xenia, Jyuuk, why the hell did you turn a stagnant wooden figurehead into something living?" He asked, turning his head over to the wooden Dragon who already had cracks forming all over his body. Confused, the High-Elf and Beast-Person then looked at each other perplexed, Xenia being quite disappointed that Eisen didn¡¯t react the way she hoped him to. "What do you mean? It works with Golems as well, right?" Xenia asked with a pout before Eisen nodded his head. "Yes, of course. But if you had just stuck a golem core in there, that would have also made the wood crack while the Golem core changes its new body so that it can move around. Evalia may have carved it in a way that it seems like it¡¯s mobile, but it¡¯s supposed to be stagnant. It¡¯s just amazing; it¡¯spletely amazing. A homunculus is a fake living creature, right? Trust me; if you had given it a proper body, I would have kissed all of you right here. But you didn¡¯t. And Evalia obviously didn¡¯t know what exactly was about to happen when I poured my mana into that crystal. Otherwise, I doubt she would have epted it just like that. It¡¯s just tantly disrespectful to Evalia as an artist, to the material simply because it¡¯s breaking just by amodating the third thing you disrespected, the newly born living creature inside of there." Eisen pointed out, before Xenia and Jyuuk both realized their fault in all of this, while Evalia nodded her head angrily. "I-I¡¯m sorry, Eisen, I just thought it would b-be a nice s-surprise, I didn¡¯t know th-that..." Xenia began to stutter, something that none of the Originals had seen or heard her do so far since she was always outwardly extremely confident. "Don¡¯t say sorry, Xenia. This Wooden Dragon here is already just amazing; I just wish you would have figured out how to give it a proper body. We can surely still fix it." Eisen triedforting her from the other side of the table, feeling bad of making her react that way. Maybe he was a little bit too harsh on her. "Alright, Homunculus, lie down for a little while so that you don¡¯t break your body further," Eisenmanded before the wooden figurine made to look like a rock did so immediately. "Let¡¯s move on from these mistakes you made, which are not all by far, but I¡¯ll talk about thatter, to some other points... How the hell did you manage to make a Homunculus?" Eisen asked, and Xenia slowly began to stop shaking as she thought about the process. "Erm... It was a-actually the cursed seed you brought me together with the crystalized mana. I was able to turn the curses into b-blessings and purify the wicked mana. We used the pure mana at ater point, but the seed turned into a s-seed of life." Xenia exined, continuing to calm herself down, only stuttering every once in a while now. "And a seed of life obviously sounds like the source to all living things, right? And that reminded me of Homunculi, and because I didn¡¯t do that much with Alchemy yet, I read up on it, and when the Guildmaster at the Mage¡¯s Guild found out about it, he was delighted. He¡¯s a high-tier alchemist, so he knew a thing or two, obviously. He gave me a quest, and I found out more about how to make Homunculi, but I needed a few more things for that. One of those being a soul to give to it as well as some ¡¯flesh¡¯ that the seed could sprout out of, so I talked to Jyuuk, and he helped me out with that." She exined, before turning to the Beastperson so that he could continue the story for a little bit. "Huh? Oh, yes. You see, that ¡¯Seed of Life,¡¯ as Xenia said, needed to be buried in the heart of a robust living being. And since Xenia got the quest from that Dragon, she chose to ask him if we could ce it in his heart. Well, he epted, to say the least. And because of his Rank as an ancient dragon, the ¡¯Fruit of Life¡¯ immediately sprouted. I used some necromancy techniques to infuse a soul into that Fruit, and then it kept asking for a ¡¯Core¡¯ to use. Since the Fruit of Life we used came from an Ancient Dragon, it needed to be a pretty high-rank mana-crystal, but we didn¡¯t have any of them. So we gave it a few regr mana-crystals, and it seemed to work, although it kept saying it needs to be always ¡¯fed¡¯ mana-crystals, and that only after we gave it the crystalized mana as well... We figured that wouldn¡¯t be an issue, and continued. We figured out that it needed to be set in ce simr to a Golem Core. Then Xenia ced it inside of the Dragon Figurehead with thatplex enchantment to stabilize it while also activating the enchantments on a ship in such a way that the vessel could act with only the enchantment circle at the back of the ship as the core so that it could detach from it. And then... this all happened." Jyuuk exined as Eisen wasn¡¯t sure whether he should feel impressed orpletely stupified by that story. "So you¡¯re telling me that you asked an ancient dragon that could wipe out entire Handor within a few seconds to use its body for an experiment, received a weird fruit from that, and then gave that fruit highly condensed mana originating from either one of her followers, or even the Evil Dragon Queen herself for all we know, and thought ¡¯it wouldn¡¯t be an issue¡¯?" Eisen asked to get clear on the most important things that he just heard before Jyuuk slowly nodded his head. "Alright, I¡¯ve got to give it to you, I most likely would have done the same, so I can¡¯t judge you there. Well, first, good job on the enchantment, Xenia. I didn¡¯t even know it was possible to do that ¡ª good job on creating artificial life as well. Obviously, we¡¯ll be needing a new figurehead for the ship, so please take care of that, alright Evalia? Because we can¡¯t have a unique, artificial creature simply there at the front for everyone to see, because that would just freak them out. And it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it, especially once we give it its new core." Eisen exined as he rubbed the bridge between his eyes, before all four of the Originals looked at him confused, especially Xenia and Jyuuk before Eisen skipped the exnation and grabbed his backpack, before pulling out the one thing inside of it. The Dungeon Core. Chapter 225 Fruit of Life "The Dungeon Core? What do you mean, you want to give that to the Homunculus as a core?" Brody asked, confused, while Eisen answered quite simply. "You see, the wording within this game is often incredibly specific, especially when ites to things just like these ¡¯Cores.¡¯ For example, take the ¡¯Core Guardian¡¯ blueprint I found. It¡¯s for nearly every type of core. I doubt I can use it for Golem Cores, but who knows, maybe I can? Either way, as long as it only says ¡¯Core,¡¯ I think any high-grade core should be enough. And this is a high-grade core." Eisen exined before he looked at Xenia and Jyuuk. "I hope you¡¯re alright with us dismantling him. He¡¯s already breaking his body, so we¡¯d have to do something about that anyway." The old man told them before they looked at each other for a moment before nodding back at him. "Sure... The ¡¯Gift¡¯ we wanted to give you was the Fruit of Life itself. I¡¯m sorry about breaking the Figurine you worked on so much, Evalia..." Xenia apologized, but Evalia shook her head. "I¡¯m a bit pissed, ya can be sure of that, but it¡¯s not like I¡¯m about to kill you or somethin¡¯." She answered as she leaned back in her chair while Eisen¡¯s stare was still on the Homunculusying on the ground. "I¡¯m d about that then. But just wondering, can we recover the ¡¯Fruit of Life¡¯ from him again?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk nodded his head. "I think so, yeah. We should try quickly then, though." He pointed out before Eisen snapped his fingers again. "Alright, then. Homunculusy down on your back." Eisenmanded, and the Homunculus immediately did so. "Sorry about this..." Eisen muttered as he shrunk down to his regr size and climbed onto the Dragon¡¯s chest, using transmutation to open it up. In the center of the homunculus body was something that looked like a beating heart asrge as Eisen¡¯s head. "You¡¯re right, it didn¡¯t connect to it yet." Eisen said as he put his hands into the opening, somewhat unsure of how he should grab the ¡¯Heart¡¯ before Jyuuk rushed over to help. "Careful, you shouldn¡¯t hold it like that. Here, let me." The Beastman said as Eisen moved aside and let the professional do the work. And soon after the heart left the body, onerge crack formed throughout the wooden dragon¡¯s body, causing it to shatter into what seemed like a million pieces. "See? It wouldn¡¯t have been stable like that." Eisen told them as he crossed his arms and looked at the heart that was slowly shriveling up before growing a thick ¡¯crust¡¯ of sorts around it that seemed to encase it entirely in a protective manner. "Okay, want to get to work?" Eisen suggested, and everyone looked at each other before sighing loudly. "Don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m not saying to get to work right this very moment. We need a little bit of time, after all. I think our approach to this should be a bit different than what you nned." He said, before Xenia scratched the side of her neck. "So we did everything wrong...?" She asked quietly, but Eisen immediately shook his head. "Not at all! Seriously, you created a Homunculus. That¡¯s just amazing. You did everything right except when it came to the actual body. But I was wondering, why did you try and make it out of wood instead of flesh and bones?" He asked, before Xenia shrugged. "I don¡¯t know, and it made sense in my head. And the idea of forming a body out of meat and random bones was kind of... Yuck..." She answered, before Eisen answered quite bluntly. "That¡¯s because you shouldn¡¯t make a body purely out of meat from other monsters. That would turn it into a revived chimera or something." He said, swiftly continuing. "In my head, the thing that made most sense just now was to make a mixture of biological things and non-biological things." "Like a Cyborg?" Jyuuk asked immediately, and the old man chuckled. "Yeah, like a Cyborg. First of all, do all of you want to be part of this project?" Eisen asked, to make sure, and the four Originals nodded their heads without hesitation. "Alright, then. I n to still go for a dragon. It might be quite rude to do so, but I¡¯m going to ask Bolremgar if he can give me a few tips on where to find a Juvenile Dragon¡¯s Bones. Jyuuk and Brody, I would like you two to go out together and hunt for any materials that mighte in handy. Anything with a unique organ of sorts, like eyes, ears, or even liver. Anything. Jyuuk should be able to identify it, and Brody can take it apart without damaging those specialized organs. Evalia, you, pleasee up with a way to turn the Homunculus¡¯ Body into a work of art once more while still letting it move around without an issue. And maybe integrate the Dungeon parts in it, you know? And atst, Xenia. Can you prepare different Alchemical materials as well as various enchantments?" Eisen asked all the while brainstorming as many ideas in his mind at the same time, and Xenia herself was getting a bit nervous since Eisen was taking a short break with speaking at the moment. "Hmm... I want you to brew up a concoction to use as blood for the homunculus. Maybe some kind of variation of a health or strengthening potion, that while acting as regr blood will be able to carry some other effect with it as well. And then of course, when Jyuuk and Brody bring you some materials, please think about how to use them to bring out their purpose as much as possible." Eisen said, and Xenia immediately nodded her head. At first, she thought that Eisen was having second thoughts, but that was apparently not the case since he gave her a pretty important task within creating the homunculus¡¯ new body! "But for now, let¡¯s enjoy the rest of the afternoon and celebrate a bit. Komer said he could have the people bring everything we need for the ship here whenever, so we might start that in a bit. Then we at least don¡¯t need to worry about that detail and only need to set everything up." Eisen exined as he sat back down in his chair and increased his size again to the Titan-Size, while the other originals made their way out of the room, with Jyuuk staying behind before stepping out. "Are youing?" Jyuuk asked, but Eisen shook his head. "Not yet. I¡¯ll be there in a bit, don¡¯t worry." He told him before Jyuuk slowly nodded and left the room to leave Eisen alone for a bit. With a loud sigh, Eisen looked at the remains of the wooden figurine on the ground, feeling a bit bad after all the work that Evalia went through to make it. But this piece turned into splinters now, so it most likely wouldn¡¯t be of any use to her anymore. Either way, Eisen couldn¡¯t just leave it lying there on the ground and chose to clean it up. Who knows, maybe they would end up having a use for it after all? While the old man was picking up the wood and cing it into a bag that was randomly lying around in the room, he chose to check out his new title. [Title - Skybreacher] [Description] By Breaking the even the highest limits that the heavens have given you, you have shown that you are Unique. [Effect] +5 to all basic stats, Allows you to enter through Heaven¡¯s Gates "Hmm... Interesting. There was something like that?" Eisen muttered to himself as he waved the information away and continued cleaning up a bit. A little whileter, all of the wooden fragments were finally gone, and Eisen chose to make his way down to the ¡¯Party¡¯ as well. Choosing to simply hide the ¡¯Fruit of Life¡¯ and ¡¯Dungeon Core¡¯ in a safe ce in the carriage and have it be guarded by not only Aulu but also all three of Eisen¡¯s Camera Bots so that he could make sure he could adequately see every angle of the carriage so that nobody would be able to steal anything. After he left the carriage again, Eisen joined his friends in the small celebration. --- A few hourster, the sun had now set. All of the different things that would be needed for the ship had been delivered, and everything that could easily be set up was set up. The only things missing were the supplies as well as the sails, thetter of which Evalia wanted to decorate a bit. Currently, Eisen¡¯s Endurance stat allowed him to stay awake for a good while longer, so while the others went to bed or logged off, including Kirisho, Kiron, Caria and Melissa, Eisen chose to sit down on Cabarum¡¯s back, whose size was actually nearly perfect for Eisen with his current Titan-size. It might be a bit better if Eisen could grow another meter or so, but it was for sure a lot better than it was before. Eisen rode Cabarum out of town and made his way toward the beach where he could find Bolremgar¡¯s cave, not hesitating to make his way inside of there for even a moment, considering what he was about to ask Bol. When the old man reached the actual cave that Bol was in, he was quite soon met with the sight of the Dragon sleeping whileying on the shipwreck in the water-portion of the cave. Although he didn¡¯t sleep for long, instead immediately opening his eyes to stare at the unexpected intruder. "Oh? Is that you, Eisen?" Bol asked as he raised his head a bit, taking a look at Eisen with a confused expression. "Ah, I see! You are currently using your size-change ability, are you not? I¡¯m d you like it!" Bol answered as he climbed off the ship and made his way toward Eisen, who was staring up at him. "What can I help you with?" The Dragon inquired curiously before Eisen immediately got to the point without even hesitating for a single moment. "Hey there, Bol. What I want to ask you is something I maybe shouldn¡¯t ask, but I will do so anyway. I¡¯m sorry if it insults you. Do you know of any dead... Dragon hatchlings nearby..?" Eisen asked quietly, and Bol¡¯s demeanor didn¡¯t change in the slightest as he tilted his head to the side. "Insult me? Why would it insult me? Well, wherever you can find Adult Dragons, you¡¯ll find dead hatchlings, to be quite frank. Only every tenth of us that is born survives the first year of our life, after all. What are you looking for, Dead Chromatics? Dead Metallics? Or Dead Lesser?" Bol asked, merely speaking as if he was an employee at a grocery store helping out a customer. "Any should be fine. I mostly need the bones anyway, and there shouldn¡¯t be much of a difference, right? Quality doesn¡¯t matter either. I just need a full set of bones." Eisen said with a conflicted tone in his voice, still feeling somewhat shitty for literally asking for a child¡¯s bones. "You¡¯re looking for Bones? Hmm, then maybe these would be better." Bolremgar muttered before returning to his ship,ing back out with tworge rocks, their size bordering on boulders. "These are dead dragon eggs. And when I say dead, I mean dead. Only their bones are left. I don¡¯t know what you want these for, but they have no use for me anyway. And as one of my Champions, I have to treat you well, don¡¯t I?" Bol said with a grin, revealing his giant, sharp teeth as he did so before Eisen nodded his head. "I see, thanks." Eisen replied, still feeling conflicted as he took one of the ¡¯Dead Dragon Eggs¡¯ and picked it up. "Of course, Eisen. Now, have fun with your project." Bol told the man in front of him, all the while keeping up his sharp-toothed grin. Chapter 226 Venom The morning afterward, after Eisen brought the dead Dragon egg back to the Harbor and into the ¡¯Meeting¡¯ room on the ship, because it was the best ce to keep it due to its size, and then went to bed, the old man helped as much as he could to set up the different areas of the ship. And then, for the rest of the day, he didn¡¯t have that much to do, which is why he called the Originals together again to talk about their new ¡¯Project¡¯ once more. "Is everything alright?" Jyuuk asked since he didn¡¯t expect Eisen to call them into the meeting room again, but Eisen nodded. "Yeah, everything¡¯s alright, don¡¯t worry. I just wanted you guys to be aware that I got us the bones." He exined, pointing at the egg next to him before Brody tilted his head to the side. "I don¡¯t know about you guys, but to me, that just looks like a rock." The Demon-Orc said, before Eisen sighed loudly. "This is just an egg. It petrified or something, and Bolremgar told me that there are only bones inside. Honestly, though, Bol was acting pretty weird yesterday when I met with him." Eisen said before calling Jyuuk over to him, and Xenia asked what he meant with a bit of confusion. "Weird? What do you mean?" Xenia asked, and Eisen just shrugged. "I don¡¯t know, he was just a bit cold, you know? I asked him for a Hatchling¡¯s Bones, and he didn¡¯t even hesitate to give me a dead dragon egg. Besides the fact that it was much to easy to get this, his reaction just felt off." He exined, but Jyuuk figured he had an exnation for that. "Well, they are monsters, after all. They arepletely different to us not only in their physical properties but their race-specific social structure is probably quite pr to ours. That¡¯s the case a lot of the time. After all, there¡¯s a lot of different animals ¡¯literally¡¯ eating their children after they are born, so maybe there¡¯s not much sympathy amongst dragons. Or Bolremgar has a screw or two loose." He exined, and Eisen thought to would have to ept it like that, before returning to the topic at hand. "Anyway... Jyuuk, help me properly crack this egg without damaging anything. I don¡¯t know how brittle the bones are now." Eisen exined, and Jyuuk immediately nodded his head. "Good idea. The shell itself haspletely petrified already so that the bones might be as well. If we¡¯re not careful, we¡¯ll just destroy the-" Jyuuk muttered before starting with trying to open a small crack at the top of the shell before an incredibly foul stench attacked his nose. "Well, this definitely isn¡¯t petrified... but it doesn¡¯t smell like it¡¯s a rotten egg..." He muttered before Evalia turned away and started holding her nose at the stench. "But it¡¯s a Lizard egg, right? So it wouldn¡¯t smell like a chicken egg..." She answered as she opened the door and stood in the open to escape whatever that smell was. "I¡¯m aware of that. I was saying it doesn¡¯t smell like a rotten egg even considering the species. It¡¯s more like... Yeah, I know that smell... It¡¯s a type of venom." Jyuuk exined, immediately activating his racial skill, making his fur expand a little bit while his body¡¯s figure changed just ever so slightly to be more nimble. "Yes, it¡¯s definitely a venom, but not a normal one we¡¯re used to, Probably some kind of variation on a Hemotoxin," Jyuuk muttered out, before jumping off the top of the egg and looking at Eisen. "Hold it still for a second, and don¡¯t let anything of that stuff inside there spill." The Monkey-Beastperson said, and Eisen did as instructed, while Jyuuk continued to look around the side of the egg until he found what he was looking for. "As I thought... There¡¯s a part of the petrified rock here that¡¯s a different color than the rest of the egg, and..." Jyuuk muttered as he began to knock on the actual egg and then the discolored spot, "...and its density is different. Something found these eggs and injected a strong, possibly magically enhanced, hemotoxin into them. It¡¯s some kind of reptilian, just judging from the incision-mark. Maybe Snake-Like with an earth elemental nature to create a casing that its venom couldn¡¯t eat through. It probably did so to eat the egg at ater point, but was interrupted before then." Jyuuk said, finallying to a conclusion. "We should make some kind of Mana-Crystal Casing for the venom and empty the venom in the egg out into it." He said, and Eisen immediately nodded his head and looked at Brody, who was already turning around and was on his way to get the needed materials. "Are the bones going to be still in there?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk nodded his head. "Probably. Most Hemotoxins only affect different tissues and can¡¯t directly do anything to the bones that easily. Depending on how long it¡¯s been like this, their outermostyer may have been affected a bit, but not too much. Especially considering that they are Dragon Bones, even if they belong to an unhatched one." Jyuuk answered immediately, and Eisen nodded in relief, still holding therge egg up before Brody finally returned with arge number of mana crystals, which were swiftly shaped into a high-rimmed tub by Xenia. Carefully, Eisen then formed the opening that Jyuuk created at the top into a light funnel shape so that they could control everything better, and then began to pour the Venom out of the egg. The deep ck liquid now gave off an even more disgusting smell that began to fill the whole room as the egg became more and more empty. And at the end, Eisen was holding a venom-free petrified dragon egg. "Alright, now we should seal the tub up and open the egg on a surface covered with mana crystal," Jyuuk said next. Xenia immediately did as suggested and closed the top of the tub, before trying to figure out some kind of Magic Circle to get rid of the disgusting smell, while Eisen was preparing the area where he would open the egg up. "Carefully now," Jyuuk told Eisen, who nodded his head and began to split the egg up the side using transmutation. A few more drops of venom spilled out while this was happening, but nothing major, so both Eisen and Jyuuk would call this a sess. Soon enough, Eisen could pull the two halves of the egg away from each other, revealing apletely intact, somewhat mummified, skeleton in the shape of a small dragon. The eggshell itself was also of quite a high quality. The inside of it had crystal-like structures growing off it, but they gave Eisen too eery of a feeling to try and touch them without protection, so he didn¡¯t even think about it anymore. "Alright... We¡¯re going topletely close this room off so that nobody else cane in and turn this into the ce where we create the new Homunculus body." Eisen said as he took another look at the skeleton inside of the eggshell, turning away after doing so. "For now, let¡¯s proceed as nned. The workers are doing their best, setting everything up under Komer¡¯s supervision. Evalia, please continue with the sails. Jyuuk and Brody, please go out and hunt for a while, and Xenia, go out with them. Your magic should be a good bit of help as well, and you¡¯ll know what materials are best to make magic concoctions or items. I¡¯ll stay here and prepare the egg and skeleton a bit." Eisen told them before everyone quickly nodded and rushed out of the room to escape the smell, once more leaving Eisen alone in there. He didn¡¯t feel like being alone, so he wanted to call someone to stay up here with him while he was working. But he didn¡¯t want to ask either Caria or Melissa, as they were simply children, nor did he want to ask Bree or Sky, because Bree was busy with Dien at the moment, and Sky was, to be quite frank, not the type of person that could stand the look of this kind of thing for even a moment. He also didn¡¯t want to ask Kiron, as he was struggling with his self-identity anyway, and Eisen didn¡¯t want to somehow negatively influence that in any way by showing him the skeleton of a nearly-born dragon. So, Eisen chose to ask the only person that felt right. Mentally, Eisenmanded Aulu to stand up and leave the carriage, before making her way over to Kirisho to make the spirit follow her up to the room in the ship that Eisen was currently working. A few minutester, the Mist Spirit stepped through the door, before Eisen told Aulu to go back to the carriage and continue to protect everything. "Yes, Eisen? Is everything alright?" Kirisho asked, and Eisen nodded his head. "Everything¡¯s fine, I just wanted a littlepany, and you were the only one that felt right to ask at the moment," Eisen exined. As he began to cover his hands in a super thinyer of mana crystals and softened them so that he could practically use it like a glove, and Kirisho looked at him and the objects in front of him in surprise. "I see, is that so? I¡¯m... quite d you think that way." The mist-spirit answered, and Eisen smiled at her before she asked, "What are you doing here, then?" "The five of us are working on a new project, and a full set of dragon bones was a quite desirable material for that. I went to see Bolremgar, and he gave me a petrified egg, and although it had all that venom over there inside of it, it also had this mummified skeleton." He answered as he slowly picked the dragon-embryo¡¯s skeleton up, bringing it over to the side andying it down on another area covered with mana crystals. "I see..." Kirisho answered as she slowly walked up behind Eisen and took a look at what he was doing. Slowly, Eisen took out his knife and began to cut up the leftover tissue on the outside of the skeleton to be able to remove the bones. "Why do you seem so sad doing this?" Kirisho asked after a while, noticing Eisen¡¯s expression before the old man just shrugged. "I¡¯m not sure. It may be because of my reaction toward Xenia¡¯s Gift, despite her really just wanting to impress me? I mean, that¡¯s probably it for the most part, and the rest is me feeling weird about using an embryo for a creation." Eisen exined as he began to ce the bones to the side one by one, and after a few seconds, Kirisho told Eisen what she thought. "I do not know what exactly happened, but I do know that you are a kind person. And if you hurt her, then you should probably just talk to her about what is going on." She said before Eisen quietly nodded. "Yeah, I probably should do that. I¡¯ll talk to Xeniater today." Eisen answered, before he continued to disassemble the skeletal mummy, cing each bone to the side individually. After a while, Eisen was finished with that and even managed to level his ¡¯Dismembering¡¯ skill up quite a bit, before he then started to clean the bones and make sure they were in good enough condition to use for the Homunculus¡¯ body before he looked over to the spirit next to him. "Kirisho, do you ever feel like you want to be alive again?" Eisen asked, before Kirisho seemed to think about that question for a while, before shaking her head. "No, I do not. My life was not a good one, and I have barely any fond memories of that time. But my afterlife, with a few exceptions, of course, was just so peaceful that it felt like I was in heaven sometimes after all. I do not have any regrets left in my past life, so I do not wish to return to that." She exined, and Eisen quietly listened before nodding his head. "No regrets, huh..?" He quietly muttered as he continued cleaning the bones. Chapter 227 Red Dragons Crystal Eisen continued cleaning and preparing the bones for another good while, choosing to dispose of the dried-up, venom-soaked skin that used to cover them, while Kirisho sat next to him curiously, speaking to him for a little while. "And what are you going to do with these bones now?" She asked before Eisen thought about it for a little while. "I¡¯d like to remove the bone marrow if possible and rece it with something else that could strengthen the bones themselves. I¡¯m sure the Homunculus is going to fix whatever issues it may have with its body itself since it was able to use the wooden body before as well." Eisen exined as he opened his chat window and messaged Xenia, who was out with Jyuuk and Brody to hunt for a while, to ask her to also lookout for a few more materials that could be used in the creation of synthetic blood and just that bone-marrow that Eisen was preparing to remove. "Oh, so you wish to go that far with this?" She asked, and Eisen nodded his head. "Yes, I do. You see, we want to create an artificial living being with the golem core as its, well, core. And for that, it has to be quite a formidable creature I imagine." Eisen exined, before swiftly continuing while thinking about possible material choices. "You see, I¡¯m pretty sure Dragon bones are a great and sturdy material, and they are said to be one of the best kind of material there is, right? So I¡¯m using their bones just for that, the homunculus¡¯ bones. Then there are things like Slimes of all kinds, some of which have to be able to strengthen other people somehow. Using them as a base would be the best oue for both the blood and the bone marrow. Then we surely will have other things that can be of use, like the Crystal Eyes that I still have. Of course, we¡¯ll need different things for it as well to give it proper organs and such. There should, more than likely, be a good few monsters out there that have mutated enough to have a certain organ or two be just incredible, and using those organs would be great. The rest will be filled up with non-organic materials, and then we¡¯ll be done." The old man exined, and although Kirisho wasn¡¯t necessarily that interested in these kinds of things, she still listened curiously for Eisen¡¯s sake. "That would be a chimera, though, wouldn¡¯t it?" She asked, and Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Yes, of course, but there¡¯s nothing wrong with that. As long as we create the Homunculus¡¯ body with reason and structure, it won¡¯t look like a ¡¯ssic¡¯ chimera either. It won¡¯t have full limbs of other monsters, just maybe a small piece here and there." He exined, which made sense to Kirisho as well. "You seem to be quite excited for this project, Eisen. Is there any reason why?" The Mist-Spirit then inquired, while Eisen began to ce the bone-marrow, which was extracted with the help of softening and transmutation, into a bowl. "Well... You don¡¯t often get to work with these kinds of things, and you especially don¡¯t often get to create a living being¡¯s body from the ground up either. So, of course, I would be somewhat excited at this chance." Eisen exined before Kirisho looked at him with a gentle smile, merely staying silent. "Anyway, after I finish these, I¡¯ll just put them in thinned-down Health Jelly for a while so that, if even possible, the damage done to the bones through the venom may be repaired," Eisen said, merely trying to exin the next step after finishing the Bone-Marrow extraction, and Kirisho slowly nodded her head. And so, Eisen did just that. He put the rest of the bone marrow into the bowl and then ced that bowl to the side before he went to grab some of the Health Jelly he had in his carriage. When he got back to the meeting room, he mixed the Health Jelly with water and then ced the bones into their bath, sealing up each of the small individual containers, and then stacking them up against one side of the room. "Now then, what should I do with this?" Eisen wondered as he took a look at therge mana crystal tub filled with the venom mixed with the dissolved flesh of the Dragon embryo, as well as therge petrified egg-shells with those deep-ck crystal structures on the inside. Using his ¡¯truth-seeing¡¯ eyes, Eisen first tried to confirm a few things. First, he could see a high density of mana inside both the venom and the crystal in the egg, meaning that both were either magical or somehow magically enhanced. But he could quite instantly see that they were different entities altogether since the mana inside of the crystals was of apletely different color to the venoms. The venom¡¯s mana was just a deep, bright neon green that would give you the thought ¡¯Poisonous¡¯ only from seeing it, while the mana inside of the ck crystals was surprisingly a deep red, different to what Eisen thought it would have just judged from the color of the crystals themselves. So without further ado, Eisen grabbed one of the crystals, obviously still while wearing his makeshift mana-crystal gloves, and removed it from the cluster. Quite soon, he noticed that the ck coloring was simply a foreign substance that somehow mixed in with the crystals. They weren¡¯t actually that hard, and they could easily be pulled apart, and inside of the ck material, Eisen could see different bright red crystals the same color as their mana. "Hmm, so that¡¯s it, huh?" Eisen muttered quietly, before starting to pull off the slime-like crystals from the petrified egg-shell, cing them into another, different mana-crystal tub, while he took a closer look at the actual egg-shell, which seemed to havepletely fused with the outer rockyer without any hope of simply removing it. "I can probably melt this down though, right?" He thought to himself, before choosing to do that at ater point, for now simply hoping to remove the red crystals from the ck goop. So, with his Truth-Seeing-Eyes active and being able to discern where the different red crystals were urately, Eisen ripped the goop up into pieces and then pulled whatever crystals were inside out. And as he was doing so, he also took a look at what they even were. [Red Dragon¡¯s Crystal] [Quality - High][Rank - 6] [Description] A Crystal usually only found on the inside of a Red Dragon¡¯s egg before the offspring hatches. When it does so, the Dragon child will absorb the crystals to enhance its natural strengths. [Parasitic Slime] [Quality - Highest][Rank - 6] [Description] The leftovers from a Slime-type monster that is usually known to infect numerous different species to survive and reproduce. Surprised, Eisen looked at the ck slime, happy that he didn¡¯t touch it with his hands. It was possible that the slime first infected the egg and began to eat the Red Dragon¡¯s Crystals, but then whatever creature the venom came from saw the egg, poured its poison inside, and killed the embryo and the slime at the same time. And a little whileter, Eisen could confirm that this was probably the case, as he soon found a small, perfectly round marble-sized gem in the slime, it¡¯s Mana Crystal. "Hmm, interesting..." Eisen muttered out and ced the special mana crystal to the side to continue extracting the Red Dragon¡¯s Crystals. That was quite a surprise, though. He didn¡¯t expect this egg to belong to a red dragon of all things. He instead thought it belonged to some kind of lesser dragon. After a good while, Eisen now had the Red Dragon¡¯s Crystals to his left, and the Parasitic Slime to his right, already trying to figure out how he could best use either of these materials. He didn¡¯t like the ¡¯Parasitic¡¯ aspect of the slime; he would much rather prefer something ¡¯Symbiotic¡¯ that could actually help the homunculus¡¯ body out. But since it just wasn¡¯t that, Eisen chose to ask Jyuuk about itter and see if there were any good uses for it, and if not, he would dispose of it somehow. "And what will you do now?" Kirisho asked the old man, who looked at the Spirit next to him and shrugged, sealing the tub with the parasitic slime up, just in case, before he stood up. "I don¡¯t know. I don¡¯t have anything I need to do right now. So I guess I¡¯m just going to help the others out a bit." Eisen said as he made his way out of the room in his titan-form, stepping down the stairs as Kirisho followed him, watching as everyone was seemingly busy at work finishing everything up, meaning that he didn¡¯t have anything to do at the moment. Even Evalia was finished with the sails and got to work with the new Figurehead for the front of the ship now that they couldn¡¯t use the one she created before anymore. So other than waiting for Brody, Jyuuk, and Xenia toe back with materials, Eisen couldn¡¯t do much, considering that he wasn¡¯t asked to make items yet despite from Kiron, whose item would take a little bit longer, meaning that he couldn¡¯t work on it yet. "Hmm..." Eisen mumbled as he sat down on the stairs, merely watching everyone work and talk to each other, thinking about what he should do next, before noticing a small scratch in the wood he was sitting on, it was nothing major. Just a tiny scratch one wouldn¡¯t mind at all, but it still gave him a great idea on what he should do next. With a grin on his face, Eisen made his way over to Caria and Melissa, who was still busily practicing their magic, before they looked at Eisen happily. "Hey there, you two," Eisen said as he sat down next to them, before looking at Caria. "You ranked your element up to one, right?" He asked, and Caria immediately nodded her head. "Mhm! Caria did! Melly did too, though!" She eximed, and the old man looked at the little empress bee as with a wide grin as well. "That¡¯s great! Good job, you two. Caria, did the mushrooms you make a change now?" He asked, but Caria quietly thought about it and nodded her head. "Caria thinks so. They¡¯re as cute as before, but now they are special as well!" She exined before Eisen smiled and extended his arm in front of her. "Could you maybepletely cover my arm in those mushrooms? I need them for something." Confused, Caria nodded her head and ran her hand across Eisen¡¯s arm, before numerous ¡¯Eisen Mushrooms¡¯ Sprouted out of his skin. Outwardly they didn¡¯t change much, just as Caria said, their details were just a bit more, well, detailed. "Is it possible for me to just cut these off now?" Eisen inquired, to make sure, and Caria slowly nodded. "Mhm, you can! Caria thinks so at least..." She muttered before Eisen smiled and took out his knife, merely cutting the mushrooms off where they met the old man¡¯s skin. The rest of the stems disappeared without a trace. "Could you do that again? A few times more?" He asked, and once more, Caria excitedly nodded while Eisen ced the mushrooms into a bag. And after a few minutes, Eisen had a pretty big pile of them, and Caria ran low on mana, so the old man handed her a few mana potions. "Here you go, thanks for your help." He told Caria before she nodded at him with a grin, and Eisen slowly stood up before making his way to the carriage, which was now stored inside of the actual ship, so that he could get a few materials. After all, he would now use these mushrooms to create an auto-repair system for the ship. Chapter 228 Four-Armed Cyclops After Eisen grabbed all of the mushrooms and diced them up as small as he could to make the next steps more manageable, the old man brought therge bowl that he ced the cubes in out of the carriage in search for Bree, who he knew to have a dehydration spell. And it didn¡¯t take that long for Eisen to find her, considering how her bright pink her stuck out like a sore thumb. "Hey, Eisen! What¡¯s all that?" Bree asked curiously, and Eisen grinned at her. "It¡¯s just some mushrooms. But either way, could you maybe dehydrate them for me quickly? For your help, you¡¯ll be one of the first people that I¡¯ll show the new item to." He told her with a grin before Bree smiled brightly and nodded her head excitedly. "Oooh! Of course!" She eximed before holding her hands over the bowl, and once a dim light lit it up, Eisen could already see that the mushroom-dice shrunk down considerably after losing their liquid. But so far, they were still pretty spongy and rubbery, so Eisen wouldn¡¯t be able to grind them down easily, so he once more turned to Bree. "Is it possible to dry them out even more? To the point where they would almost fall to dust themselves." The old man inquired, and Bree thought about it before slowly nodding. "Mhm! I haven¡¯t used my Sorcery skill in a while, and I¡¯m not too good at it, because most support skills are effective enough as is, but here I go!" She said as enthusiastically as ever, sticking her finger out before drawing something into the air directly above the bowl with mushrooms with her Sorcery Skill activated, meaning that Eisen, Kirisho, and Dien, who were the ones currently watching this happen, could see her draw the magic circle into the air. And a little whileter, the magic circle lit up and disappeared, while the mushrooms in the bowl shrunk down even further, already somewhat breaking apart just like Eisen wanted. "There you go!" Bree eximed and held her hands together behind her back with a broad, expecting smile, and the old man ced his hand onto her head for a moment, which seemed to satisfy the Fey-kin girl greatly. "Thanks, Bree," Eisen said with a smile before he made his way back to the carriage with Kirisho still in tow. "You and she are quite close, are you not?" Kirisho asked curiously, and Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Yeah, we are. She was one of my firstpanions here when I first I woke up in Melroe without my memories. She has helped me out quite a lot." Eisen exined as he sat down in front of his worktable and grabbed his pestle, before starting to grind the mushroom bits down to fine dust. "Interesting..." Kirisho muttered out quietly, while Eisen continued grinding the mushrooms down. And a few minutester, he managed to do so sufficiently. Then, in another bowl, Eisen ground down me of the Earth mana-crystals as well as the ¡¯artificial soul¡¯ and ¡¯artificial mind¡¯ crystals, also infused with his element, that he needed to make a golem core, adding them to the fine powder. Once that was done, he added some water, mixed everything correctly, and poured it into a ss container, where he began to boil the water away. "What is it that you¡¯re making now, Eisen? This is alchemy, isn¡¯t it?" Kirisho asked, somewhat confused at why Eisen used all of the mushrooms before he nodded. "It is alchemy, yeah. I¡¯m making a few Golem Cores with special properties. These days, when I want to make golem cores, Ibine them directly with transmutation, but I couldn¡¯tbine the mushrooms with the crystals, you see? So I ground them down and mixed them in so that I could create golem cores with special properties." The old man exined, watching as the water began to bubble, while he already began preparing other things with other materials, including the leftover mushroom-powder. "And why do you need golem cores with properties simr to yourself?" The Mist-Spirit asked, now actually slowly growing interested in why Eisen was doing what he was doing, and what kind of item he may be creating. "Quite simply so that I can create tiny Craftsman Golems that can repair the small, everyday damages to the ship." He exined as he began to prepare the materials for the Golems¡¯ bodies. "Is that so?" Kirisho asked, impressed, while Eisen chuckled. "Yeah, it is. There are probably better systems I could create, but I feel like this is the most interesting." He exined, before he continued grinding down a few different materials for the bodies of the tiny golems. He chose to go for a crystal-like body once more, created out of me-Of-The-Earth Mana-Crystals and Gems. After the crystal structures for the golem cores were finished, Eisen cleaned up and ced the next crystals into the sk to repeat the process for the body-material, while Eisen got to work on the Golem Cores. Eisen formed the raw crystal structure into a long, thin pole, which he then enchanted with the necessary enchantments to turn it into an actual golem core, before using his Transmutation-Enchanted sculpting tools to cut thatrge Golem core up into about a hundred tiny golem cores. And while the rest of the water for the other crystals were boiling away, Eisen started on enchantment to create the bodies. He could make them all by hand, but that would take quite long for a total of 100 of these dolls. So, the old man grabbed some mana crystals and formed them into arge sphere, where he would begin working on aplex enchantment to create the bodies. On the orb, which had a rough one-meter diameter, Eisen created a small cube opening where the bodies wouldter appear, each about twenty centimeters tall. So the first thing that Eisen did was create the different spheres he needed, although the ¡¯element¡¯ spheres were each another 3D enchantment, each one used to create one part of the mannequin-like body. It took a little while to make it, and the crystals were already long finished, but Eisen wanted to finish thisrge enchantment before doing anything else. He could have also just made a regr 2D enchantment, but these 3D enchantments not only gave him proficiency in Enchanting but also in Alchemy, as he was, at least currently, creating them with transmutation. So he was killing two birds with one stone! And Eisen beat the shit out of both of those birds, using both abilities to the max, attempting to be as detailed as possible with everything. And the old man even added a few things that he wasn¡¯t necessarily nning before. Such as giving the ¡¯mannequin¡¯ a total of four arms as well as onerge eye, made of the Crystal Eye that Eisen still had a few of, in the center of their head so that they could adequately look for any broken parts on the ship. On the outside of the sphere, Eisen also created a small t area at the top where he would then ce the materials that would be absorbed and changed into their new form, which Eisen would then only need to enchant a little bit further. He also described all the conditions urately on the outside with runic carvings, before creating the final image in the center of the sphere, which was just a representation of the final body. And so, Eisen managed to finish the enchantment after about an hour or two. [Four-Armed Crystal Cyclops Doll Construction Enchantment] [Quality - Highest][Rank - 3] [Description] A Complex 3D enchantment created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. Each sub-enchantment creates its own ¡¯body¡¯ part, and the outer enchantment that controls the whole process absorbs materials, distributes them to the sub-enchantments, and then sets the body together. [Effect] Four-Armed Crystal Cyclops Doll Construction [Requirements] Currently 250 MP (required to activate enchantment); 100 INT, 100 WIS Slowly, Eisen nodded in satisfaction, albeit a little annoyed that the quality was only ¡¯Highest¡¯ and not ¡¯Perfect,¡¯ before finally grabbing some crystals from inside of the sk. With transmutation, he smoothed them out a little bit andbined them with the rest of the materials. The base-body would get a crystalbination of the me-Of-The-Earth Mana-Crystals and both the fire and earth gems infused with Eisen¡¯s element. The two upper arms would get abination of the elemental Mana-Crystals and Fire-type gems infused with Eisen¡¯s element, while the lower arms would get a simrbination, only with infused Earth-Type gems instead, so that the upper arms could move swiftly, and the lower arms had more strength. And of course, all of these were alsobined with the mushroom-powder. And then there were, of course, the crystal eyes, which Eisen also ced into the infuser a while ago to give them unique properties with his element. Eisen did all of this to make sure the bodies of the small golems were perfectly attuned toward being able to fix the minor damages the ship would receive over time. With a grin, Eisen then poured his mana into the activation-ce for the enchantment and watched as a small portion of the materials were absorbed. Only a few momentster, the Golems¡¯ Body was constructed in the area it was meant to be, and Eisen could grab the four-armed crystal cyclops doll, which was a quite unhandy name. "And that is meant to be the body?" Kirisho asked curiously, and Eisen nodded his head with a grin on his face. "Mhm, it is. Now I only need to enchant them a little bit more." Eisen exined as he grabbed some enchanting marbles and quickly enchanted the body with ¡¯Woodworking.¡¯ Out of the total 100 Dolls, he would create about ten that were enchanted with ¡¯Drawing¡¯ instead, just so that they could paint over the areas that were fixed by the ¡¯Woodworking¡¯ dolls. And as he wouldn¡¯t be creating all 100 of these dolls today anyway, and only about ten as a test run, he didn¡¯t need those yet, and would prefer waiting until he could create some dolls with Evalia¡¯s element instead. Considering that Eisen didn¡¯t specify which types of materials should be used in the constructions of the dolls in the enchantment, and simply created a few different ¡¯areas¡¯ where each material for each body-part needed to be ced. After a little while, Eisen finished the ten test-dolls and slowly set the golem cores into the spot in their back, where he had nned on cing them from the start. And then, the old man simply poured his mana into all ten of those, activating the golems. One after another, the small dolls began to move, and Eisen looked at them with a grin on his face. Kirisho was looking at them as well, and although she wasn¡¯t necessarily as excited as Eisen was, she was happy that Eisen was so enthusiastic about them. "And these will now be able to repair small damages?" The Mist-Spirit asked, before Eisen nodded his head. "Mhm, I hope so at least. The main bodies are enchanted with Woodworking now, but their hands, as they are technically split off from the main body, are now enchanted with Transmutation. So they are going to be able to grab some wood from a storage ce somewhere and properly smooth and scratches or nooks over. We¡¯ll see how well it works, but it shouldn¡¯t be too big a deal." Eisen pointed out before he picked all ten of these dolls up and stepped out of the carriage while increasing his size again. He already showed the workers that he could change from Demonic to natural form a little while ago, so Eisen didn¡¯t need to continually be in that form, although he still didn¡¯t exin to them why he could do that and who he was. The Demonic transformation was just a little bit annoying to walk around with due to his wings, so he preferred not to have that form for now at least continually. And now, Eisen chose to make his way over to Bree, who he promised to show the finished Golems to first. Chapter 229 Loo "Whoa! These are so cool!" Bree yelled out as she looked at the ten small Crystal Golems that Eisen brought over to show her, before looking up at the Titan-sized old man. "What are they?" She asked with her trademark bright smile, before Eisen ced one of them down onto the ground, took out his knife, and made a small scratch into the floor, cing a small block of Ironbark wood down next to the scratch. "Golem, use the wood there to fix the scratch," Eisen told the small golem before it immediately rushed over to the scratch, taking a swift look at it before turning to the block of wood. It first pushed its two lower hands, the one with more strength, into the wood to pull a small chunk of it out with transmutation, while the upper hands, with more dexterity and speed, assisted with it. It then squatted down in front of the scratch, and the two upper hands took a tiny bit of the chunk of wood that the lower arms were holding and began to fill the scratch that Eisen made up, fixing the surface of the wood so that there was barely any difference to before. "They¡¯re repair-golems," Eisen exined to Bree, who was watching the process with wondrous eyes. "With so much foot-traffic going on, there¡¯s bound to be some small scratches here and there. After a while, those scratches will build up and make everything look quite a bit worse than it does now. To prevent that from happening, I made these so that they can immediately fix these small damages." Eisen exined, before picking the golem back up together with the block of wood, looking down at Bree and Dien who were listening with curiosity. "I see, that¡¯s quite interesting..." The Half-Elf muttered out before Eisen nodded his head immediately. "Yes it is, isn¡¯t it?" Eisen chuckled in response, and then looked at Bree. "The mushrooms I gave you to dry were made with Caria¡¯s magic element, and they probably had a little bit of a crafting-increasing effect to them. I mixed them with the crystals I used for the golem cores and the bodies." Eisen exined, before Bree nodded in understanding. "Ooh, that¡¯s cool! I¡¯m d I could help!" She eximed happily, all the while continuing to stare at the Golem-Dolls Eisen was holding. "Well, anyway, I¡¯ll just bring these up into the meeting hall for now," Eisen said with a smile before Bree seemed to remember something. "Ah! That¡¯s right! Xenia, Brody and Jyuuk are back with a bunch of stuff!" Bree told Eisen before the Fey-Kin exined. "Stuff like Monster parts, you know?" Bree said, and Eisen nodded with a grin on his face. "I see, thanks for letting me know. If you two want to see what we¡¯re working on, then juste upstairs, yeah?" The old man exined as he smiled at the couple in front of him, turning around to make his way up the stairs and into the meeting hall. "Hey there, all of you!" Eisen eximed as he opened the door and stepped inside with Kirisho directly behind him before the old man set the golem-dolls down on a table next to him. "We brought you some of the materials you asked for." Brody pointed out as he leaned against the wall, while his twopanions soon left their room to have some alone-time, considering that they were going out with each other as well. "Thank you, and what did you three manage to get?" Eisen curiously asked before Xenia spoke up. "Well, a few things, including some slime. From a general forest-slime, a rock-slime and surprisingly enough, a gluttonous-slime." She exined, cing therge bottles filled with each substance before turning around and looking at therge tub filled with a deep ck material. "Although it seems like you got your hands on some as well." Xenia pointed out, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head. "Mhm, that¡¯s Parasitic Slime. Apparently, the Dragon Egg came from a Red Dragon, it was infested by a Parasitic slime, and without noticing, whatever that venom came from bit into the egg and killed it." Eisen exined before Jyuuk looked at the slime with wide-open eyes. "A parasitic slime? Those are supposed to be super rare! I think we got super lucky with this one!" The Beastperson eximed, which Brody could only chuckle. "Right, we¡¯re super lucky to find a rare slime inside of a Red Dragon¡¯s egg filled with Venom from a monster that eats Dragon Eggs. That ck goop is the best thing we got out of that for sure." The Demon-Orc Halflingughed, and Jyuuk scratched the back of his head with a wry smile. "I get your point... but either way, it¡¯s something incredible, trust me. Well, all of this is." Jyuuk answered as he then looked at therge bag on the table in front of him. "So, anyway, the first thing we did when we went out this morning was to go to the Adventurer¡¯s Guild to get a few hints toward special monsters roaming the area, and we did get pretty lucky. We have the ears of a ¡¯Listening Ape,¡¯ the eyes of a ¡¯Stalking Snake,¡¯ the stomach of a ¡¯Devourer,¡¯ and atst, the crystal muscles of a ¡¯Brawling Tree¡¯, which may as well be the weirdest monster we¡¯ve seen today." "You can say that again... The little fucker kept going for the shins..." Brody muttered as he looked down at his legs before Xeniaughed. "Yeah, I saw that. The thing was like 10 meters tall, right? I think it just wanted to annoy you, Brody." The High-Elf answered, and Brody shrugged. "Either way, I ripped its bark off its face, so I¡¯m happy." Heughed, and Jyuuk nodded in response before looking at Eisen again. "Of course we got all the different important materials as well, like the bark that Brody just mentioned, but the ones I mentioned would be the ones I think we could use for the Homunculus. The rest, we¡¯ll need to figure out somehow else." Jyuuk pointed out, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Alright, got it. Good job, you three. The Dragon Bones are in the boxes over there, and I set them into a bath of Health-Jelly. We should now have enough stuff that should allow us to get to work, for now, right?" Eisen asked, before remembering the most important thing. "Although... what are we going to do about the flesh? Can the Homunculus fill any gaps up itself?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk turned around to Xenia with a questioning look, before Xenia closed her eyes to think about it a little while. "Hmm...I think so, yeah. I¡¯m not sure if you guys noticed it, but I feel like I saw a little bit of flesh seeping into the cracks that the homunculus made to move around." She exined before Eisen slowly nodded. "I see. Well, if it works, it works, if it doesn¡¯t, we¡¯ll need to add something else to its body. So, should we start working on each of the parts?" Eisen suggested before Brody raised his hand before forming it into a finger gun pointed to the door. "I ain¡¯t good with that stuff, so I¡¯m gonna go. Call me when you need any help." Brody exined before making his way out of the room, before the other four, including Kirisho, sat down at the table with the materials in the center. "First, let¡¯s take a look at the materials you brought," Eisen said before Jyuuk nodded and carefully emptied the bag on the table. The first thing they took a look at were the ears of the ¡¯Listening Ape,¡¯ for which Jyuuk took out a small crystal tube out of the bag. "So, the ears of the ape were enhanced through a small crystal structure, basically a pipe, inside of its ear canal. I¡¯m sure it should be of use to you, especially if you enchant it some more. Then next, the eyes of the stalking snake." Jyuuk added, before taking out a jar filled with some kind of liquid Eisen couldn¡¯t identify without using any skills, with two spheres floating inside. "So, these aren¡¯t like the Crystal Eyes you have; these are actual eyeballs from a monster with superior eyesight. Right now they¡¯re just inside some kind of preservation-liquid that Xenia brought. We saw a few of these snakes, so we have about ten pairs of these. I dissected some when we were there, and I¡¯m sure you could enhance it a little bit by switching out the Vitreous Body, the clear gel that makes up most of our eyeball. It¡¯s usually about 99% water, and the rest is a mixture of different glycosaminoglycan, salts, sugars, and proteins. I¡¯m sure I could extract the Vitreous Body from a few of them, and then we use it to make some potions and then put those potions back into the eyes. I¡¯m not sure how well it¡¯s going to work, but I¡¯m excited to find out." Jyuuk exined as he looked at the, surprisinglyrge, eyeballs floating in the jar. "Alright, let¡¯s try that out in a bit then. What about the stomach you mentioned?" Eisen asked next, before Jyuuk grabbed the, apparently rather heavy, organ that was packed inside of a mana-crystal casing. "Here it is. We removed the contents, including the stomach acid, so right now it¡¯s just the pure organ. It has an incredibly dense, nearly bone-like outeryer. It¡¯s insane. The monster we got it from was eating metal armor when we found it, and it was mostly dissolved when we killed it. I think if we turn the homunculus into some kind of dungeon, we could feed it any kinds of drops that people leave behind in the dungeon that we don¡¯t have a use for; this can also just be enhanced through some enchantments." Jyuuk said, and then moved on to the next thing that they got, the muscles of the ¡¯Brawling Tree.¡¯ They were coiled around a stick, and there were probably enough to bury the dragon-skeleton they had in. With a smile, Jyuuk then swiftly exined. "I can¡¯t tell you much about what these are made of, but they definitely aren¡¯t purely organic. The muscles were coiled around the tree like an exoskeleton or a carapace, simply supporting and strengthening its every movement and protecting it. I saw that you used magic string for Aulu and Cabarum¡¯s muscles. If wepare those to these muscles, then I would say the muscles are a few dozen times better just from their durability alone." Jyuuk exined, and Eisen looked at all of these things in satisfaction. "Alright, that¡¯s good to know then. That should be good enough to support Dragon Bones, then." Eisenughed softly before he then took the bottles filled with slime that Xenia mentioned. "Alright, I know that Slime is a great material for high-grade potions, but what can we use the slime that we have here for?" Eisen asked into the room before Xenia swiftly spoke up. "Well, Rock-Slime is a great material for a hardening potion. We could use that to strengthen its body somehow." She exined before Eisen already got an idea. "Could we use it to make a recement for the bonemarrow that I extracted from the Dragon Bones?" Eisen asked curiously before Xenia and Jyuuk looked at each other to confirm, and then the High-Elf nodded her head. "I guess so, yeah. If we do that, then the bones will probably be passively strengthened and hardened over time. Did you throw the bone-marrow away, though? I¡¯m pretty sure if we use that in the making of the potion, that¡¯s going to help quite a bit." She pointed out, and Eisen nodded. "Yes, it¡¯s just over there next to the bones," Eisen exined and pointed at therge bowl that he put the bone marrow in before he turned around and looked at the petrified eggshell and the red-dragon crystals. "Well then, I think we should all get to work a bit, yeah? Xenia, you work on enchanting the stomach, and the ear, and then start with that hardening potion. And Jyuuk, could you please extract that thing from the eye and give it to Xenia so that she can work on some vision-enhancing potion with it. Please assist her with that though." Eisen asked them before he stood up and walked over to the petrified eggshell and red-dragon crystals, and Jyuuk curiously asked him, "And what are you going to do?" With a grin, Eisen turned around toward him and answered quite simply. "I¡¯m going to work on its scales." Chapter 230 Charcoal With the two halves of the eggshell in his arms, Eisen made his way toward the room especially created for him to work in, as the walls were enchanted both in a way to allow maximum usage of Eisen¡¯s ¡¯Crafting Space¡¯ skill, while also making sure the heat didn¡¯t damage the walls in any way. Here, as the space was quite small and he couldn¡¯t ce all of his workstations inside, Eisen used his staff to create the foundry where he would extract the metal from the petrified eggshell. He didn¡¯t exactly know which metals were inside it, but he was sure that they were mostly metals with a rtively low reaction, albeit not noble metals, which was quite perfect for extraction. How extraction worked was quite simple. You heat an ore or rock with a high mineral density up together with carbon, which would practically pull the metal out of the stone. But that only worked with metal that was less-reactive than carbon itself, with the except of noble metals like gold or silver. Minerals with a higher reaction than carbon would need to be extracted with different methods. But the reason that Eisen thought that he could extract all the metal from the petrified eggshell just with carbon extraction if there were any primary metalpound inside of it at all, was that the venom would have most likely caused some form of strong reaction in any other case. And since the rock seemedpletely unchanged by the toxin, Eisen concluded. Although before Eisen was going to start with the actual extraction, he needed to prepare the carbon to use in the process. And there was something that Eisen specifically wanted to use for that purpose, and he already brought that here into the room. Eisen wanted to turn the wood from the figurine that the Homunculus used before into charcoal, which was made entirely of carbon if Eisen was going to do it properly. The first thing that he did was create a metal barrel just for the purpose. Eisen turned into his demon form and swiftly carved the rune for his cksmithing skill into his chest before he threw a bunch of metal ingots into his magic forge and waited for them to heat up properly. After a few minutes, when they began to glow in a bright yellow, Eisen took them out of the forge and started to hammer them into arge, t rectangle. Luckily, as he was using an anvil that he created with his magic element, Eisen could increase or decrease the size to be the exact shape required, so he could use the magic anvil as a guide to shaping the metal into a thin sheet. When he managed to finish that sheet, Eisen created two more, as he would need a total of three barrels to properly turn all of the wood from the figurehead into charcoal, and then swiftly created six-round sheets of metal as well that would act as the top and bottom lids. Once he had all the pieces ready, Eisen connected the two shorter ends of each sheet with each other by heating those ends up with his element, while at the same time pressing them together so that only those two sides would be the heat they needed to be. After doing that, Eisen moved on to thoroughly heating the rims of the round metal sheets, that had a slightlyrger diameter than the actual barrel¡¯s diameter would be, before he basically ¡¯folded¡¯ the metal rims of the round sheets over the edges of the metal base. Eisen was quite happy that he had his Racial trait now, even more so than usual, as it was easier to hold the sheets in ce with his hands than with tongs, at least in this situation. Soon enough, Eisen had three beautiful metal barrels. He removed one of the lids off of each one using transmutation and then filled them to the brim with the dried shards of wood, cramming as much into each barrel as possible. "What is it that you¡¯re doing there?" Kirisho asked after a while, slightly confused after watching the old man work on these metal containers just to put wood into them before Eisen swiftly exined what he was going to do now. "I¡¯ll use these to make charcoal. After I fill these up, I¡¯ll close the barrels down again and add a small pipe to the side of each of these so that the gases and such can properly escape while reducing the risk of air getting into the barrels. And then, all I need to do is ce them over a fire. I have to do that outside, though, and maybe even at night, because there¡¯s going to be a good bit of smoke, especially at the start." Eisen exined to her, while Kirisho listened curiously. "Ah, I see. I never knew how Charcoal was made to tell you the truth." She admitted before Eisen shrugged and continued filling the barrels. "It¡¯s not exactlymon knowledge. A lot of people know somewhat how it¡¯s done, but not everyone exactly knows how and why it works, so it¡¯s nothing to be embarrassed about, and this isn¡¯t necessarily the method that was used back in the day while you were alive either, it¡¯s just what I do. I don¡¯t directly know about the methods people usually use around these parts, or anywhere here." He exined before remembering a specific method that he thought might be fun to try out at some point. "So, sometimes charcoal is made by simply piling wood together tightly and then setting the center of the pile on fire, before burying all of it tightly in dirt. That¡¯s probably one of the older techniques for making charcoal. And then there¡¯s something where you ce both wood and unbaked y pottery into an airtight space and then make charcoal. I mean, I can make and bake y quite quickly with my element, but it¡¯s still a pretty fun way to do it." The old man chuckled, and Kirisho couldn¡¯t help butugh with him, albeit for a different reason. "You have a unique idea of fun, don¡¯t you?" Kirisho asked in a calm, but happy voice and Eisen turned around and grinned at her. "Seems like I do. Anyway, I¡¯m finished with this for now." Eisen exined as he put the lids back onto the barrels and re-attached them with transmutation, beforeying the barrel down on its side. And once more, Eisen used transmutation to open a hole up in the side of one of the barrels into which he stuck a metal pipe, before then closing that hole back up around the pipe. He repeated this for the other two barrels as well and then picked up two of the barrels to bring them outside. And while they were pretty cumbersome, in his Titan form, Eisen was just aboutrge enough to carry them under his arms. When he was outside, he could see that the majority of the workers made their way back to the church already to prepare everything for the departure in a few days, before Eisen made his way over to Brody and Komer who were talking to each other a bit, which they usually didn¡¯t do all that much. "Hey there, you two," Eisen said with a smile before the two of them looked up at the old Titan. "So, what¡¯re you up to now? I thought you¡¯re workin¡¯ on the stuff for that Homunculus with Xenia and Jyuuk." Brody asked as he looked at the barrels that Eisen was carrying under his arm before Eisen slowly nodded. "Technically I am doing just that. Xenia and Jyuuk are working on some other stuff, but I¡¯m working on turning the metal inside of the rock into scales for it. It¡¯s probably not going to be enough to make all of the scales, so I¡¯ll mix it in with other materials as an alloy or something, but it should give a pretty nice bonus. And for that, I need Carbon, meaning Charcoal. And that¡¯s what I¡¯m making right now. I need a good spot for it where people won¡¯t freak out over smoke." He exined, before Komer quickly spoke up, looking into an area in the distance as he did so. "Oh, there¡¯s a pretty big firece here in the area that anyone can just use as long as they treat it properly, apparently," Komer exined, and Eisen took a look at where the young merchant was pointing. "Oh, that¡¯s pretty convenient. Thanks for letting me know." Eisen thanked him before he slowly made his way off the boat, remembering something as he did so. "Ah, that¡¯s right! Komer, you did get the Limestone already, right?" Eisen asked, feeling embarrassed that he forgot about that, but luckily Komer immediately nodded his head. "Yeah, don¡¯t worry about that. It¡¯s all in the material storage." He exined, and Eisen smiled at him before letting out a relieved sigh. "Alright, perfect. Thanks." And just when Eisen was about to leave, both Brody and Komer swiftly ran up behind him, choosing toe with him and Kirisho to the firece. "Oh? You¡¯reing with?" Eisen asked, surprised, and Brody swiftly nodded his head. "Yup, we ain¡¯t got anythin¡¯ else to do, so why shouldn¡¯t we?" Brody chuckled, before remembering something. "Although... I do wanna try and level up my mediation up a bit..." Brody muttered quietly, and Komer silently followed. A few minutester, the four of them reached the firece area, which luckily wasn¡¯t being used at the moment, and then Eisen quickly got to work, filling the inside of the actual firece with his elemental fire before cing the two barrels he had with him on top of it. "I¡¯ll be right back, I just need to get thest Barrel," Eisen told them before turning around and quickly rushing back to the ship, where he returned to his workshop area and grabbed thest barrel, which he swiftly picked up to bring to the firece. And when he got there, he saw something that was quite surprising. Brody was sitting cross-legged on top of the fire that Eisen created with his eyes closed, before standing back up when he noticed that Eisen arrived again. Confused, the old man looked at the Demon-Orc Halfling before stepping behind him and cing the barrel into the fire as well. "Erm, what were you doing there, Brody?" Eisen asked before Brody chuckled and began to exin. "I was tryin¡¯ to get proficiency with my Meditation skill. It levels up pretty nice when I use it in unusual situations. It has a pretty nice synergy with my yin and yang energy, and I think because the fire here is magical, it works even better." Brody told him before Eisen shook his head and quickly rephrased his question. "That¡¯s not what I mean. How are you sitting in my fire?" Eisen asked, actually more curious than anything, and Brody swiftly exined. "Ah, that¡¯s what you mean. Well, first, because I¡¯m a half-demon, I can stand both high and low temperatures pretty well, and because I¡¯m half-orc, I have high endurance, meaning high HP regen. Meditation further elerates HP regen, so I don¡¯t take that much damage, only maybe 200 HP per minute. When I don¡¯t use my energy, that is. Otherwise, I use my yin energy to control how much heat affects my body, and all that isn¡¯t let through is absorbed as pure raw energy by my yang energy." Brody exined, before grinning broadly. "And I can then store that absorbed energy and use it for a single strong finisher-attack." He said as he began tough loudly, before turning around and sitting back down in the fire, in a spot where Eisen didn¡¯t ce the barrels, once more activating his meditation skill. And honestly, Eisen could notice that the mes somewhat shifted around Brody¡¯s body in a way that wasn¡¯t normal, but Eisen still only looked at that with a wry smile. "Damn, if witches had those skills..." Eisen muttered out quietly as he sat down next to Komer and Kirisho on one of the benches. Chapter 231 Coin of Fate "Sooo... And now it¡¯s just waiting?" Komer curiously asked as he looked at the ends of the three pipes, that were releasing a thick white smoke, which was just water vaporing from the rest of the humidity leftover in the wood even after drying. "Yes, we just need to wait for a while now. Once the smoke stops, the top will catch fire, and once that fire disappears, the charcoal is finished." Eisen exined, leaning back in the rock-chair that he made himself with his element, as he quite swiftly noticed that the bench that Komer and Kirisho were sitting on was a little bit too small for him in his Titan size. "Huh? Interesting. So, what is it that you¡¯re up to in the meeting hall? Brody mentioned a little bit, but he couldn¡¯t tell me exactly what it was." Komer curiously asked as he looked up at the giant man next to him, and Eisen replied with a smile. "Oh, well... are you familiar with the term ¡¯Homunculus¡¯?" The old man asked first, before Komer immediately nodded. Of course, he knew what a Homunculus was, considering that it was something used pretty often in different novels,ics, or cartoons. "Yeah, it¡¯s like a fake living being or something, right?" "Basically. Well, Xenia and Jyuuk managed to create a ¡¯Homunculus¡¯ core or something like that, and we¡¯re building it a body right now. Xenia and Jyuuk first put the core into the wooden dragon figurehead that Evalia made, but that ultimately broke the figurehead because it wasn¡¯t meant to move. And now, we¡¯re making a body that can move, and is actually like that of a creature. We¡¯re going for a Dragon-like thing again." Eisen exined quietly with a grin before Komer looked at him with wide-open eyes. "You¡¯re going to make a goddamn artificial dragon? Seriously?" Komer asked, excited out of his mind, and stared at Eisen curiously. "Basically," Eisen replied with a smile, before turning back to the barrels in the fire. "The wood I¡¯m using to make charcoal is the wood from the Figurehead. Who knows, it might give the homunculus a bit of a bonus for familiarity? Although I¡¯m only using the charcoal to then extract some metal out of something, which I¡¯m then going tobine with a different material, before then actually making the scales out of that." Eisen finally exined before he looked at the outline of the small box in Komer¡¯s pocket. "That¡¯s so awesome, though!" Komer excitedly said before Eisen moved on to another topic which he thought was a bit more interesting. "Komer, could you give me a copper coin please?" He asked before Komer looked at him in surprise and confusion, nodding his head before taking the box with the single magic coin and pulling a copper coin away from it, handing it to Eisen. "Why are you changing the topic, though?" Komer curiously asked before Eisen smiled. "Well, I just noticed that you don¡¯t get to have any ¡¯cool¡¯ items that I could make for you. Sure, maybe a new wallet, a business outfit, or a book where you can keep all the information you need to have in, but that¡¯s it. So I¡¯m going to try something else." Eisen exined before he held the small coin in his hand, shrinking down for this one item so that he could adequately work on it, and then took out his Mythril needle. "Huh? So what are you making for me then?" Komer asked, both confused and curious, trying to take a peek at what Eisen was doing. "Wait and see. I¡¯m not even sure if it works, so just wait a moment." Eisen told him and swiftly carved two different enchantments onto the coin, one on each side. Usually, you could only engrave a single enchantment onto an item except if it was through aplex enchantment, but in this case, Eisen hoped that it would work directly due to the properties of the base item. On one side of the coin, Eisen ced a simple water enchantment simr to the one that he put on the bottom of the self-filling cups, and on the other side, Eisen ced an enchantment with the light element that would simply cause a light glimmer to appear around where the enchantment was activated for a while. And when those were finished, Eisen swiftly flipped the coin to attempt if this worked, but nothing happened just like this. It didn¡¯t even work when he poured mana into either of the enchantments, for whatever reason. He was able to ce two enchantments on the coin just as he expected, but when he saw the coin as finished, they were both seen as just separate entities to each other without any connection, which wasn¡¯t what Eisen wanted. So, he had to think of something else. And that ¡¯something else¡¯ was simple. If this worked, he would ¡¯literally¡¯ be using the money to achieve something, so it would make sense that that money would need to be taken in, right? As such, Eisen deleted the enchantments and started anew, just this time creating different conditions to before, which was that the enchantments would feed on the mary value of the coin to achieve the effect. And then, Eisen¡¯s idea worked. [You created a Copper Coin of Fate] [Copper Coin of Fate] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A Copper Coin of Fate created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. If itnds on one side, it will cause some water to appear; if it falls on the other, a soft glimmer will light up the air. [Effect] Fate¡¯s Choice<[water] or="" [glimmer]="">; [Requirements] 50 INT; 50 WIS; [Uses Left] 1 With a grin, Eisen smiled at the notification before immediately waving it away, looking over at Komer. "It might be pretty expensive to mass-produce these for you, but here you go. I think I found a pretty interesting way for you to fight with us." Eisen told the young merchant before handing him the coin. Confused, Komer looked at the coin trying to inspect it, but Eisen immediately stopped him. "No looking at the description! Just try it out. Flip it." Eisen told him, curious to see how this would work out before Komer frowned and did as the old man said. He ced the copper coin onto his finger and swiftly flipped it. And a few momentster, after it reached Komer¡¯s hand again, the coin quickly crumbled to dust that was swept away with the water that appeared in its ce. "What the- Eisen, what did you- Holy fucking macaroni this is awesome!" Komer yelled out, barely able to hold himself back as he looked at his wet hand. "What was that?!" Komer immediately inquired before Eisen began to chuckle. "It¡¯s called a ¡¯Coin of Fate.¡¯ I can probably enchant it with a few different things as well if you want. I think the higher the value of the coin, the stronger the effect and the more uses you have with it." "That¡¯s so fucking awesome..." Komer muttered quietly, and Eisen nodded his head. "Yeah, it is, right? You should get into enchanting a bit more so that you can make them yourself. I wonder if I can use ability enchanting on these, though..." Eisen quietly muttered before Komer looked at him before taking out a gold coin from the Magic Coin-Cluster. "Want to try..?" Komer asked with a grin before Eisen chuckled at him. "You know what, sure," Eisen said with a smile, before he grabbed a few enchanting marbles from his backpack as well as the gold coin, and thought about what he should do, before getting a pretty good idea. "I don¡¯t know how well this is going to work, though, if it works at all." Eisen pointed out, before Komer shook his head, saying that he didn¡¯t care and just wanted to see what would happen. "Well, here goes nothing, I guess." Eisen shrugged before enchanting the coin with one of his abilities, explicitly trying only to keep the ¡¯essence¡¯ that he was practically pulling over with the enchanting marble in one half of the coin, while he held the other in the other half, just hoping that it would work. Especially after finishing the second enchantment, Eisen looked at the coin, waiting for it to blow up in his face. But luckily, nothing happened. With a relieved sigh, Eisen then moved on to the next part of the enchantment, the conditions. With an ability enchantment, you couldn¡¯t really carve another enchantment circle onto the ability-enchanted piece, at least Eisen couldn¡¯t do so yet, but instead, you could at least describe how the enchantment was supposed to react. With that in mind, Eisen created the conditions that the enchantment would consume the value of the coin, while also putting the effect from the ability enchantment onto the user of the coin. And as Eisen wore a slight grin on his face, he saw the coin as finished and handed it to Komer after he read through the notification. Apparently, because of the high grade of the abilities, Eisen enchanted the coin with, the uses were reduced to three, although Eisen didn¡¯t know how many applications he would have with a lessplicated enchantment, which he would need to try out at some point when they had an even higher mary ie. "Alright, what¡¯s gonna happen now!" Komer yelled out as he flipped the coin, not even trying to read the description. And the moment that the coin hit Komer¡¯s hand again, he could feel a change in his body. At first, he was getting excited when Komer noticed that everything around him had suddenly grownrger. Or rather, that he had shrunk down. "Eisen, what¡¯s going on? What enchantments did you put on this?" Komer asked before Eisen couldn¡¯t help butugh. "Well, what do you think? Both sides are ¡¯Growth-Change.¡¯ One makes you smaller, and one makes yourger." Eisen told Komer, who looked at the old man in shock. "I-It¡¯s not permanent, right?" "Don¡¯t worry. It¡¯s just for half a minute." Eisen replied with augh before Komer sighed in relief as he was already growing again. "Now thatpletely surprised me..." Komer muttered out, before looking down at the coin again. "But this is still pretty cool; I wasn¡¯t aware you could put an effect like that on a person." Komer pointed out, and Eisen scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "To be honest, me neither. I just tried it this time because it made more sense like that. Until now, I was just thinking about enhancing the item, not the person using the item." The old man whispered to himself as he sat back down and thought about this fact. "Although it makes a lot of sense. For example, I could make Bree a backpack with aplex enchantment that, while making itself and the contents lighter, makes Bree herself stronger. And when I make weapons for others, once I can use ability enchanting with other people¡¯s abilities, then I can enchant it in a way that directly helps the User¡¯s ability in their own body, instead of making the weapon a better tool for that ability." He muttered to himself, thinking about the different possibilities before Komer immediately nodded his head. "True! And didn¡¯t you mention something about Jewelry? You can make some that directly increase your crafting skills too." Komer pointed out, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but grin after that. "Definitely. Maybe if I had known about that, I wouldn¡¯t have needed to carve into my skin and eyes literally. I wonder, do you think Xenia knows about it?" Eisen wondered before he looked over toward Komer, who was shrugging his shoulders. "I dunno. Maybe we should just ask Xenia when we get back to the ship." Komer suggested, and Eisen let out a lightugh. "Well, if she doesn¡¯t, then we¡¯ll be teaching something to the Original of Magic about something in her area of expertise." Chapter 232 Red-Dragons Alloy "Huh? No, of course, I knew about that... You didn¡¯t?" Xenia asked, confused, while Eisen stared at her in disbelief. "What... Xenia, why didn¡¯t you tell me about that?" Eisen asked, and Xenia took a quick look around to make sure that Kirisho, who said she wanted to go for a walk now that they only had a few more days left in this city, wasn¡¯t around. And since they were now only amongst yers, Xenia sighed loudly. "Well, it¡¯s a pretty normal thing, you know? In any fantasy fiction or game, things like enchantments can give bonuses to the user, not only to the item. In this game, it¡¯s still far more effective to find some way to cause the effect you want by only cing it on the item than making the item cause an effect on the user. So I don¡¯t think you missed that much anyway." Xenia pointed out before she took a look at the coin that Komer was currently holding while Eisen was rubbing the bridge of his nose in light annoyance. "Wait, did you enchant a Gold Coin?" Xenia asked in surprise, and Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Yeah, I did. That turned it into a ¡¯Coin of Fate.¡¯ Right now it¡¯s probably a bit too expensive to use, but I¡¯m sure this is the kind of thing that Komer¡¯s Element was made for, after all, he has the ¡¯Coin¡¯ element." Eisen pointed out, and Xenia nodded her head slowly. "Yeah... That¡¯s pretty cool... By the way, what can you do with your element again?" Surprised, Komer lightly tilted his head to the side before taking out the magic coin from his pocket and thenid that down on his palm, before a small tower of gold, silver, and copper coins shot out it. "Basically, this. Oh, and when I put my element in my eyes, I can see the rough value of different items. Those are all the uses I found so far." "Well, then try to y around with it a bit. You don¡¯t have anything else to do for the rest of the day, do you? I mean, honestly, if your element turns out to have somebat uses with those ¡¯Coins of Fate,¡¯ then you should be able to do different stuff than only that." The High-Elf pointed out, and Komer looked at her in surprise before moving his gaze over to Eisen. "Should I do that?" With a light shrug, Eisen answered the young Merchant¡¯s question. "Sure, why not? I mean, your brothers both had some special merchant upations, so maybe you should look into that? I doubt you want to end up a pencil-pusher here in the game, and I don¡¯t want that to happen either, even if you¡¯rergely taking care of the business side of everything that¡¯s going on." Slowly, Komer nodded his head as he kept ying around with the coin he was holding before Eisen got an idea. "You know what? Here, let me try something..." The old man muttered, actively trying to think of creating a Quest for Komer as he spoke what he needed to do. "I¡¯m sure this is going to help you a bit. Take 100 Copper coins and enchant them in unique ways. Meaning,e up with 200 different enchantments, they can be simr to each other as long as they technically have different effects or executions, and ce them on the coins. Try to think of uniquebinations, and see if you can figure out different conditions to make those coins work even better." Eisen told him before a notification appeared in front of his eyes. [Quest <100 Coins> given to Komer] "Huh? Did you give me a quest? Awesome!" Komer excitedly eximed as he read through the quest information, before smiling brightly at the old man standing in front of him. "Thank you! I¡¯ll get right to it!" Happily, the young merchant then sprinted out the door to find a good ce to work on the 100 Coins, before Brody, Xenia, and Jyuuk looked at Eisen with surprise in their eyes. "You gave him a quest for something like that?" Brody asked, and Eisen just shrugged. "Yeah, why not? It¡¯s easier to motivate kids like Komer if they actively get something out of it. As far as I can tell, the quest is going to give him a bit of experience. I¡¯ll see if I can end up preparing something else for him as a Bonus reward. The 100 Coins should take him a while to make, after all." The old Titan pointed out as he made his way back to the door as well. "Anyway, I¡¯m off to start extracting the metal from the petrified eggshells now. Shouldn¡¯t take too long now." Eisen told them before stepping down the stairs and making his way back to his workshop where he already ced the three barrels now filled with charcoal. "Let¡¯s get to work now." Eisen grinned excitedly and poured the charcoal into arge bowl that he temporarily made with his element, before slowly starting to grind the entire contents of one of the barrels down. Eisen bound some thin cloth in front of his mouth for this, as he didn¡¯t really want to breathe any of this in, and then swiftly continued. After a little while, the magic bowl was filled with finely ground-down charcoal powder, and Eisen then moved on to the next part. In anotherrge bowl, Eisen ground down enough of the Limestone, which Komer had ordered for him, to be at a rough 1:1 ratio with the charcoal. Next, Eisen grabbed the two eggshells and hammered against them to first crack them down intorger pieces. Considering that this still was a dragon egg, it did take a good bit of force to do so. In total, topletely grind down one of the eggshell-halves, Eisen took as long as grinding down both the charcoal and the limestone took him. Then, Eisen looked at the ground down powder in front of him and nodded his head, before creating another, fourth container into which he simply poured water, and then grabbed a quiterge, t wooden pan with riffles on its inside, which would be used to separate the major impurities from the metallic dust. Eisen stuck the bowl into therge pan with all of the petrified-eggshell powder and filled it up a good bit, before just so slightly submerging the container in the water. With swift, circr motions of the bowl, Eisen then continued to sift the impurities like dirt or unusable rock from the metal. While those light-weighted impurities would be taken out with the water, the heavier minerals and metals would end up getting stuck in the riffles and would be leftover. After Eisen repeated this for the whole giant bowl, which took him a few more hours until it was getting close to midnight in the game world, he was left with a surprising amount of metallic-dust. Usually, the minority of a rock like that would be metallic, but in this case, it was a good majority. And Eisen was quite happy with that. In another bowl, Eisen then mixed together the Limestone dust, the charcoal dust, and the metallic dust, before recalling all other summoned containers, excluding the one that still had water in it because he didn¡¯t want to cause a small flooding in his workshop, and then prepared the fourth material, which Eisen wanted to try out. In this game, through alchemy, it was already possible tobine materials that were usually impossible tobine, at least with the current methods used, with each other, so why shouldn¡¯t he be able to apply the same concept with metallurgy? Eisen grinned a slight bit and then poured the Red-Dragon Crystals into another bowl before grinding them down to a fine powder, which he mixed into the bowl with the other three materials as well. Usually, you wouldn¡¯t be able to alloy metal with crystals or ss, it was basically like trying to mix oil and water. It just didn¡¯t work. But in hopes of this actually working in this game, Eisen attempted to do so anyway. After mixing the four materials, Eisen changed the shape of the bowl they were in and immediately turned it into a crucible, before turning up the heat to the maximum with his Staff. Eisen was justrge enough so that he could peek into the top of the crucible and take a look at the molten sludge inside of it to make sure he could see the proper time to turn the heat down. And a short whileter, that moment was reached, and Eisen could already tell that his n was a sess. With a grin on his face the whole time, waited for the content of the crucible to cool down enough to be handled, and soon enough, just that happened, so Eisen removed the walls of the crucible and looked at therge block of metal and impurities that were pulled out only from that metal. Grabbing his hammer and a chisel, Eisen then swiftly removed the impurities to separate them from the amalgamation itself, and once Eisen saw it, he couldn¡¯t help but grin broadly. [Red-Dragon¡¯s Alloy] [Quality - High][Rank - 4] [Description] A Metal-Crystal alloy created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. By Combining Red-Dragon¡¯s Crystals with an Alloy of numerous high-grade metals, a genuinely fantastic Alloy has been created. "Yes! Perfect!" Eisen eximed as he read through the Alloy¡¯s description. He really couldn¡¯t help but keep grinning like an idiot. Alchemy, truly opened up a whole new world of materials to him once more, now that he knew he couldbine crystals with metal. And not only that, the alloy itself was quite high-quality. Different from the nearly candy-red color that the crystals had before, this alloy was a deep, dark mahogany-red, which would probably look quite nice when used for the scales. Eisen removed the impurities from the metal further, and then tested how resilient it was. Luckily, it seemed that he kept everything in the crucible long enough that the carbon that would have otherwise ended up within the metal had already disappeared, so it was an incredibly strong metal that would probably be amazing to work with. "That really was lucky though, the different metalsbined without an issue... There aren¡¯t any major issues with the metal either. Weird, I would have thought I would need to smelt it down a few times more and remove any contaminating materials, but apparently, I don¡¯t..." The old man muttered to himself before cing the metal down at the other side of the room and then cleaning up any leftover dust or rocksying around. "I guess I should probably go to bed now, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself before stretching a bit, leaning back against the metal that he just created, and then logged off. --- As he stood up from the capsule, Benjamin noticed some steps outside in the hallway already. And from the sound of it, those steps came from Benji and Sophia. Quietly, so that he wouldn¡¯t wake any of the others up, Benjamin opened the door and followed his two oldest grandchildren to the livingroom. "Well, good morning, you two," Benjamin told them with a grin while Benji was turning the TV on, and Sophia went to the kitchen to grab some cereal to eat. "Morning, Gramps! It¡¯s only another hour or so, and then we can finally y!" Benji eximed excitedly, and the old man sat down on his armchair with a soft chuckle. "Yep, sounds about right. So listen, I want to talk to you two about a few things. When you start ying and finish your character creation, I need you to check if you have the friendslist option already and if I¡¯m on there. If I am, message me the name of the town. If I¡¯m not, and I notice that you two don¡¯t appear on my friendslist, quickly log off ande to my room, and then tell me the name of the town you started in. I¡¯lle to you, and then you can take the time until then to figure out a few basic mechanics." Benjamin suggested, and Benji swiftly nodded his head. "Coolio, we¡¯ll do that. And who knows, maybe I¡¯ll already be the Great Emperor of the game before you get to us." The young man chuckled in a visible, quite humble manner before Sophia sat down next to him with a bowl of cereal in her hand. "Oh shut it, as if. Let¡¯s say it was possible to be the king of a country in the game. You wouldn¡¯t be it. And I doubt it¡¯s possible." Sophia chuckled, and Benjamin grinned at her as he leaned back in his armchair. "It¡¯s ¡¯absolutely¡¯ possible. I¡¯ll probably be a King in the game not too long from now." Immediately, both Sophia and Benji snapped their necks in Eisen¡¯s direction, letting out a single sound in unison. "Eh..?" Chapter 233 Stahl, Alnico, and Kyla "Okay you two, so as I told you before, message me in the game if you can, and otherwise log off real quick," Benjamin told his grandchildren as they made their way to their rooms toy down in their capsules before the old man swiftly did the same. Soon enough, Benjamin noticed the inside of the capsule fade around him as it slowly turned into the inside of his workshop in the ship. Slowly, Eisen stood up and stretched, before making his way out of the room to look for Caria and Melissa, who he soon foundying down in the meeting room, where currently Xenia, Jyuuk, Brody, and Evalia were all still sleeping as well. And soon enough, as Eisen was picking his two tamed monsters up from the ground, a notification appeared in front of his face. [Announcement! Thest preunch yer-phase has just beenmenced! A total of 1000 yers from numerous streaming and video tforms are now joining the game! Only another week until the Launch of the Game! Enjoy your time!] With a smile, Eisen quickly read through the notifications and then waved them away, before making his way to the ce where they stored the carriage inside the ship to prepare Cabarum for the trip while also grabbing a few small materials so that he could work on smaller items while riding his horse. And then, a little whileter... [Two yers you rmended have joined the game! Stahl and Alnico have been added to your friendslist] With a smile, Eisen looked at the names of these two and could only grin. He wasn¡¯t sure if Benji was trying to one-up him by using ¡¯Stahl,¡¯ which is German for ¡¯Steel,¡¯ as his username, but ¡¯Alnico¡¯ fits Sophia quite well. After all, it was a material used as mas for loudspeakers, for example. And since Sophia was quite talented when it came to music, primarily electric or remix music, that was a good fit. Eisen swiftly waited for the message from the two of them, and soon it came, so the old man immediately opened the chat and began to read. [Stahl] Waddup Gramps, Soph and I are in a town called ¡¯Banar.¡¯ There are three other yers here with us, and I think they were also rmended [Eisen] Alright, I¡¯ll let the others know, then. Wait for a message from me about how far we¡¯re away from you Immediately, Eisen hooked Cabarum back up to the carriage and began to clear it out a little bit more so that there would be enough space for everyone to fit. The Dungeon Core was already hidden in a more secure ce, so he didn¡¯t need to worry about that at the moment. And after bringing the carriage out to the road next to where the ship currently was, Eisen made his way back inside and went up to the Meeting Room, where Brody, Jyuuk, and Evalia were already talking. "Morning, all of you." Eisen greeted them, and Jyuuk immediately turned to him, "Good morning, Eisen. The three people we rmended are all in a town called ¡¯Banar,¡¯ is it the same as you?" He asked, and the old man nodded his head. "Mhm, they are there as well. I already brought the carriage out, and we have enough food in there for everyone tost a few days. We only need to figure out where Banar is." Eisen told them with a smile, and the three of them nodded, making their way down to see Sky and Bree, the ones who would probably know about small ces the most. Before Eisen left the room as well, he turned to Xenia, who was leaning her head on the table. "While we¡¯re gone, go ahead and take a break and do whatever you want. You don¡¯t need to be the only one working on the Homunculus¡¯ body." Slowly, Xenia looked up at the old man before nodding her head, returning to putting her face onto the surface of the table. Confused and a little bit worried about how Xenia was acting right now, Eisen made his way down to the main deck as well, thinking that he should just let her deal with it. Maybe she wasn¡¯t feeling too well, or something private happened in real life. Either way, Eisen would only ask her about it if itsted for a while, as he didn¡¯t want to intrude into her private life. He chose to move on and look for the two young Fey-kin as well, who he quickly found already surrounded by Brody, Jyuuk, and Evalia. "Oh, it¡¯s just about four or five hours away from here with the carriage. We just need to exit through the northern gate and follow the main route. Banar is a pretty small town though, so why do you want to go there?" Sky asked with a good bit of confusion, which Eisen could understand pretty well. He couldn¡¯t know about it after all, so while the three other yers were freaking out toe up with a reason, Eisen handled the situation quite quickly, as he thought this situation through already. "Ah, you see. Apparently, another wave of ¡¯Artificial¡¯ people was created. Although that¡¯s just a guess because we all just got memories of people that were close to us back then, Brody remembered his wife, Evalia a friend of her¡¯s, Jyuuk¡¯s younger sister, and I remembered two of my grandchildren." Eisen exined quite swiftly, already freaking out the others because of a small detail. "Jyuuk¡¯s Sister? But how?" Sky asked confused, and Eisen shrugged. "I have a guess. All of them passed quite a while ago, centuries even. Maybe because it was our experience that was used, their souls were a good fit for the artificial bodies, just because they were so close to us. So they were most likely somehow ¡¯revived.¡¯" The old man added before Bree tilted her head to the side. "Isn¡¯t that kinda far-fetched?" She asked, confused, although not suspiciously, as she fully trusted in Eisen and whatever he said. So she immediately epted it when Eisen shook his head. "Not really. You know about the ¡¯Chat¡¯ ability the artificial people, and we have, right? Well, we could message them as well. So it would make sense, at least to me. They told us where they were, after all, otherwise we couldn¡¯t know about that either." Eisen exined, and Sky slowly nodded. "I see... That would make sense... There¡¯s so much we don¡¯t know about this phenomenon so that anything can happen, right?" He asked into the group, really confused about all of this, and Eisen ced his hand on Sky¡¯s head. "Exactly. We will be going to meet them now, so will all of you please take care of the ship, okay?" He asked them before Sky slowly nodded his head. "Sure..." He muttered quietly, and the four yers, plus two tamed monster girls, made their way to the carriage. On their way, Brody turned to Eisen. "What the hell, man? Could you at least tell us about this story you came up with before spreadin¡¯ it?" He asked the old man, who could not help himself but just reply with a chuckle. "Sorry about that. But well, it sounds right, doesn¡¯t it?" Eisen asked the others, and they couldn¡¯t help themselves but admit that it was an outstanding and safe story in the end, because if they were asked questions, they could just reply with ¡¯We don¡¯t remember.¡¯ On their way to the carriage, Eisen messaged both Komer and Kiron, thetter of which gained the chat ability after bing Eisen¡¯s Knight, to take care of the ship as well and prepare everything for an early departure tomorrow morning, including to let everyone from the Church know about it. And just before everyone properly sat down in the carriage, Eisen remembered something. "Wait, Evalia, didn¡¯t you say your friend didn¡¯t want toe with us directly to enjoy the ¡¯starter content¡¯?" He asked, and Evalia just shrugged. "Well, that was the n, yeah, but she changed her mindst-second. Don¡¯t know why, but I don¡¯t mind either." She exined, so the old man simply epted that and sat down on the bench at the front of the carriage. "Alright, you guys have everything?" Eisen asked the others only once before he would start driving the carriage toward the eastern gate, and once he received their answer, immediately told Cabarum to get moving while beginning to reply to Stahl that they would be there in a few hours through the chat window. After the small group made their way out of town, they simply traveled along the main road for a good few hours, just as Sky had said. While they were doing that, Jyuuk was keeping Caria and Melissa a bit busy and had his bird-squad lookout for possible danger, Brody simply meditated again, and Evalia was carving some small wooden figurines to level her skill up a bit. They soon found themselves in front of the town, and Eisen stopped the Carriage by the side of the road and sent Stahl a message so that they woulde to meet him. Not even two minutes passed since then, and Eisen could already hear a certain young man¡¯s voice yell for him in the distance. "Graaamps!" Stahl yelled out as he came sprinting at Eisen with four people directly following him, all of them wearing the same starter outfit. Stahl and Alnico themselves lookedpletely like Benji, and Sophia respectively did in real life, just that Stahl now had bright green hair, and Alnico¡¯s hair had something like a ¡¯Universe¡¯ coloring, with different shades of dark purple, pink and blue. Now that Eisen managed to get a closer look, he noticed that Alnico had lightly pointed ears, meaning that she was probably some kind of half-elf. "Hey there, kiddos." Eisen loudlyughed while Alnico looked him up and down in surprise. "Huh... You¡¯re actually wearing that in here?" She asked, and Eisen replied with a grin, before jerking his head toward a spot that the guards couldn¡¯t see. "Let¡¯s go over there for a bit for some introductions, shall we?" Eisen suggested, before clicking his tongue to make Cabarum follow him and pull the carriage behind him, while the three other originals were greeting the ones they invited. Once the group reached the spot that Eisen was talking about, the old man swiftly summoned his staff from his Soul Storage, immediately surprising a quite thin, white-skinned and short ck-haired and -eyed girl, which Eisen immediately recognized to be Jyuuk¡¯s sister. Simr to her brother, she had a thin Monkey-tail at the bottom of her back, although as she didn¡¯t have anything else, Eisen figured that she was a Half-Beastperson. "Wait, where did you pull that out from? I thought we don¡¯t have an inventory!" Sheined in nearly ent-free English before Jyuuk nudged her shoulder. "Nezu- I mean, K, don¡¯t be that rude, please." Her brother told her, and K looked away with a pout. "But it¡¯s not fair, Onii!" "Haha, don¡¯t worry, K. This staff wasn¡¯t in an Inventory, and I can only store a few specific items. Once you level up a bit, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll get a simr skill. Take a look at your Brother¡¯s arm, for example." Eisen said before K tilted her head to the side and looked at her brother, who was holding his arm over to her. Currently, he had a few tattoos of Bluebirds and a Single Redbird on his upper arm, one of a bear, and one of a stag, as well as some bone-tattoos on his hand. Swiftly, Jyuuk waved his arm to the side, and a ck mist poured out from his palm, rapidly forming arge skeleton, while at the same time Aotori appeared on Jyuuk¡¯s shoulder. "There are a few unique storage methods like th-" Jyuuk began to exin before K grabbed her brother¡¯s arm in shock. "Aah! Onii! When did you get Tattoos, Otousan is going to kill you when he finds out!" K eximed before Eisen, Brody, and Evalia began tough to themselves quietly, and Stahl asked something that was on his mind for a little while now. "Actually, K... You¡¯re speaking almost perfect English, so why are you still saying things like ¡¯Onii¡¯ and ¡¯Otousan¡¯ in Japanese?" He asked quite bluntly, which was just part of his personality, and K was immediately distracted as she ced her fingers in front of her face in a peace-sign and grinned back at him, telling him the reason as if it was the most natural thing in the world before cheekily sticking out her tongue. "Oh? I do it because it¡¯s cute!" Chapter 234 Vardia and Zyra "Ahh, sure, because it¡¯s cute... For sure..." Stahl replied as he slowly nodded his head, looking over at his Grandfather and Cousin with a frown, before Eisen tuned in. "Yes, K, it¡¯s very cute." Heughed lowly before continuing with the exnation. "But don¡¯t worry, those aren¡¯t real tattoos. That¡¯s Jyuuk¡¯s Minion Storage. The bones represent undead he has stored, and the pictures of animals exactly those animals. I¡¯m pretty sure any upation has that kind of storage skill, at least high-grade ones. I have a skill that lets me store my tools in different essories, if I currently had any, that is. What I was using just now was Soul Storage though, an innate ability that anyone can use as long as they can control souls." He exined as he finally waved his staff around to prepare a bit of seating for everyone with his element. It might be slightly ufortable considering that it was all made of rock, but it was enough to rx a little bit. "That¡¯s pretty cool!" A young woman eximed, who seemed to be Evalia¡¯s rmendation. "But just curious, what¡¯s that big seat for?" She asked, pointing at the rock-seat that was obviously toorge for anyone there to use before Eisen just shrugged. "Oh, that¡¯s where I¡¯m sitting." He exined, and the young woman slightly sighed. "No offense, Sir, but you obviously aren¡¯t big enough to sit on something that size." She said and looked at Evalia, who was grinning, waiting for her reaction to what was about to happen. With augh, Eisen changed to his Titan-size and quickly sat down on his seat, and the woman, Zyra, looked up at him in surprise, then turning to Evalia, Jyuuk, and Brody. "Can you guys do that too?" She asked them with her head slightly tilted to the side, but Brody shook his head and spoke up. "Nah, sorry. Eisen¡¯s a Half-Giant so that is why he can change his size." He exined, and his seemingly Hispanic wife Vardia looked at Eisen with a calm expression saying ¡¯I understand.¡¯"So he isn¡¯t as tall as he was before either?" Vardia asked, and immediately both Stahl and Alnico quickly shook their heads and crossed their arms in front of their bodies to form a cross. "He absolutely is, trust us. He came to visit my family and me a few years ago, and as he was carrying his suitcase into our house, he hit his head against the doorframe to the guestroom, and the wooden doorframe broke down before his face did." Stahl exined, and everyone was looking at Eisen in surprise, excluding Alnico, who knew about this kind of thing happening all the time, so the old man could only chuckle in defense. "...The quality of it wasn¡¯t that great; it¡¯s not my fault..." Eisen told them, before immediately shaking his head so that they could move on. "Anyway, that¡¯s not what we want to talk about now. We need to exin to you what¡¯s happening next." He said, before swiftly telling the five of them about what would be going on from now on, meaning that they would go back to Handor and then use arge ship to make their way to a pretty dangerous group of inds. "But don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll have everything you need. You can get almost any group of upations from us, we can teach you about a few different skills, and you¡¯ll be safe and supported by a lot of people. But it¡¯s going to be quite a different experience to what other yers will have." Eisen exined to them before K immediately nodded her head. "You¡¯re saying that like it¡¯s a bad thing! Doing everything the same as other people are just boring!" She yelled out before Eisen quietlyughed. "Is that so? Well, if you think so, that¡¯s fine. Once you reach level 15, you can join our Guild as well if you want, but you can¡¯t do that just yet. Oh, and I meant to give you something." Eisen muttered as he looked toward the carriage. "Caria, Melissa, Aulu, could you please bring everything out?" Eisen asked, at first confusing the five neers, before the door at the back of the carriage opened up, and a slightly weird sight assaulted them. A young girl in a red dress and an even younger girl in a ck-and-red striped dress riding on the back of a golden wolf. All of them having numerous holes in their bodies that a few dozen bees were crawling in and out of, while all of them were holding a few items in their hands, or Aulu¡¯s case, mouth. "Wh-What the hell is that?" Alnico eximed as she took a step back at that sight before Eisen sighed loudly. "Melissa, it¡¯s nice to see that you can turn other things than yourself into a hive, but please stop that. That¡¯s not the proper way to introduce yourselves to new people, is it?" Eisen told them with a sigh, reaching over to them before picking the two young girls up and setting them down on his shoulders as the bees and holes disappeared from therger girl and the wolf, while all the bees swarmed toward Melissa and vanished in her body. "Sowwy!" Melissa eximed as she leaned against Eisen¡¯s head from the side, and Caria tilted her head to the side as she looked at the people in front of her. "Eisen, who are these people?" She asked before the old man chuckled and picked Aulu up as well, setting her down on hisp as the mechanical wolfdy handed Eisen the bow in her mouth and then rolled up on his legs. "These are new friends, Caria. And all of you, these two girls are my tamed monsters. Caria here is a Rank 3 Lesser Myconid Druid, and Melissa here is a Rank 3 Empress Bee." Eisen exined, and the two girls waved at the new people they hadn¡¯t met before. "Wait, those are the monster girls you mentioned? Those are little kids!" Stahl said with a conflicted expression before Eisen smiled at him. "Yes, they are, at least so far. I¡¯m expecting them to grow up slowly, the higher their rank bes. Caria looks like she¡¯s about Kindergarten age now, so maybe next time, she¡¯ll be at around Elementary School-age. Then Middle and then High-School. At least that sounds like the kind of progression that¡¯s going on." Eisen exined, and Jyuuk nodded his head. "Sounds about right. I doubt that Caria and Melissa will suddenly end up with adult bodies or stay like young children forever." He added before Vardia pointed at Eisen¡¯sp. "And what is that wolf there? Is that your pet?" She asked just as calm as before, her outward nature entirely different from Brody¡¯s. "Well, I guess? But not really. I made her, after all. She¡¯s a clockwork automaton in the shape of a wolf, and the horse over there is also one." Eisen exined, and Zyra frowned deeply while looking at the golden-furred creature. "You¡¯re trying to tell me that you made a robot that acts like a wolf? Seriously? You expect me to believe that? Nat- Evalia! That old guy can-" Zyra started saying, for some reason getting riled up, before Eisen sighed loudly and pulled out some of the strings holding the seams together and pulled the brass-fur covered leather-skin away from the back, revealing not only the glittering mana-crystal muscles but also the clockwork mechanism underneath. "Yeah, about that..." Alnico started saying, and Stahl continued as he scratched the back of his head, "Grampa is the best craftsman in the world. Give him an empty room and some time, and he¡¯ll build you a fully-furnished bedroom out of dust." He exined, and Zyra, who was now slowly starting to understand that Eisen really could do these things stayed silent, while K tilted her head to the side. "Out of dust? That¡¯s a lie, though, isn¡¯t it?" She asked, confused before Evalia began to chuckle. "Tell that to the chair you¡¯re sitting on." Sheughed, and K stared down at the rock surface that appeared out of nowhere a little while ago, and Eisen chose to change the topic swiftly. "Anyway, let¡¯s not talk about that for now. I was told that you have some ideas of the type of characters you want to y. Zyra, here¡¯s a bow, since Evalia told me you want that. And Vardia, a staff so that you can start with magic. Then, K, I have some gloves that I had a friend of mine equipped with a little bit of a metal lining. They aren¡¯t great quality, but they should do. These areparatively old items. Right now, I can only make items with a stat or level requirement that should be too high for you, so until I get my crafting skills to Rank 4 and get the side-ability to be able to choose what Rank my items should be you¡¯ll have to live with that." Eisen exined to them, before moving onto his grandchildren. "Right now, because of those reasons, I can only give you a simple, boring sword without much going on, Stahl. And I don¡¯t have anything for you right now in general, Alnico. I haven¡¯t made many instruments, but I¡¯m sure Evalia should be able to help you out or lend you some of hers so that you can at least get some skills and figure out what you want to do, right?" Eisen suggested as he looked over toward Evalia, who nodded her head quite quickly. "Yup, I¡¯ll help you as much as I can." She answered with a smile, gazing over toward Stahl for just a second, before Eisen once more moved on, slowly standing up while Aulu jumped off hisp and then onto the front bench of the carriage. "Alright, I think that should be all we needed to talk about for now. Take a seat in the carriage, and then we¡¯ll make our way over to Handor." Eisen said as he shrunk down and sat down next to his mechanical wolf. "Already? Don¡¯t you think that¡¯s a bit quick?" Zyra asked with a frown, but Eisen just sighed loudly. "Not really, no. We¡¯re leaving with the ship tomorrow morning, and I want to introduce all of you to the other people that areing with us. On top of that, we also have some other stuff to take care of before then." He answered, and Zyra crossed her arms and looked over at Evalia. "Can¡¯t we stay here a bit longer? I started recording a little bit before you came, of course, I didn¡¯t record the conversation just now, but I want to at least show everyone a bit more of the town here for content." She said before Brody interjected. "Listen here, stop being so cranky, will ya? Come with us or don¡¯t, I don¡¯t care, but we¡¯re leaving in a bit. Look, there¡¯s nothin¡¯ interesting going on in these small towns. Maybe you can get an interesting quest here and there, but none of your ¡¯content¡¯s gonna be unique. People are gonna watch it, sure, but it¡¯s gonna be pretty short-lived fame once others reach a higher level than you. So take the chance we¡¯re givin¡¯ you to travel to inds created by the gods and be the first and only one that can show people seafarin¡¯ content or some shit, as well as all the unique monsters on those inds. Take it, or leave it, but shut the hell up." Brody told her in a quite lengthy monologue, before turning around and entering the carriage with his wife directly behind him, while Zyra stood there basically shocked. "I¡¯ve gotta give it to Brody, he¡¯s a bit of an idiot with anything other than fighting, but you¡¯re a bit rude, Z," Evalia added before two horns appeared behind Eisen from inside the carriage. "Oye, I heard that!" Brodyined, and Evalia began to chuckle as she followed Kyra and Jyuuk into the carriage as well. "I know, Brody. Anyway, Z, are youing or not?" The artist asked her friend, who ended up sighing loudly and nodding, before following Evalia into the carriage. Relieved that he didn¡¯t have to do anything, Eisen helped Caria and Melissa climb into the back part of the carriage and had Auluy on hisp so that he could sew her leather-skin back together before he made space for his grandchildren to sit next to him. Chapter 235 Fake Red-Dragons Flames On their way back to Handor, Eisen let both Stahl and Alnico ¡¯steer¡¯ the carriage for a little while so that they could gain the ¡¯Riding and Driving¡¯ skill, while he stitched Aulu back up again. And in the meantime, Eisen was also trying to teach his grandchildren a little bit about Mana Maniption. "Is this it? Is that white stuff mana?" Alnico asked as she looked at the white mist flowing out of her palm, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head, confirming this to be the case with his Mana-Sight. "Yes, that¡¯s mana. But you¡¯re pouring out a little much, and I don¡¯t think you have that much MP, so better not just let it flow out like that. First, try and change its ¡¯mode,¡¯ so to say. Turn it from a gas-like state to a solid-state." Eisen exined slowly as he finally finished fixing Aulu and let her get in the back of the carriage again while Eisen began to help Alnico out some more. Slowly, the young girl formed a frown as her face as she tried to do what her grandfather told her to, slowly turning the mana into a somewhat solid state. "Good job! Now, go ahead and shape it into something. Can be anything. You just need to imagine it properly. And don¡¯t try to just imagine the whole thing all at once, but go over every little area in your mind and shape the mana like that." Alnico nodded her head and slowly formed the mana into a round shape, merely creating a sphere as her eyes seemed to be heavy. Swiftly, Eisen grabbed a potion that he had in his backpack and handed it to his granddaughter. "Here, drink this and switch with your cousin for a while," Eisen suggested, and Al slowly nodded her head, and she and Stahl did as suggested. "Alright Gramps, what¡¯re we doing now?" He curiously asked before Eisen told him to do precisely what Al just did as well. "Eh..? But that¡¯s a bit boring, isn¡¯t it? Just shaping mana into random things?" He asked before Eisen sighed loudly. "If you think it¡¯s boring, something¡¯s wrong with your imagination. Right now it may not seem all that interesting, but at some point, you¡¯ll be able to do a few pretty fun things." He exined, and Stahl turned around as he noticed a light tap on his shoulder, seeing a pure-white hand floating in the air behind him. It was the hand from Eisen¡¯s Mana-Double skill, which he was able to ¡¯summon¡¯ separately to his regr Mana-Doubles. Then the hand shot forward a good bit in front of the carriage and increased in size as a humanoid body grew attached to its stump while it all turned into a Huge, three-meter tall demon made of rock and mes, Eisen¡¯s demonic form before he got the ¡¯Upgrade¡¯ after stepping on the Path of Yin and Yang. "Something like that, maybe." Eisen exined with a grin, before Stahl stared at the figure excitedly. "Alright, yeah, that¡¯s pretty cool!" He answered happily, before Eisen simply chuckled and nodded his head, while Stahl looked over at what the old man next to him had in his hands. "But besides that, what the hell are you doing with that piece of metal you¡¯re holding?" He asked curiously, and Eisen held up the small steel scale. "This? Oh, there¡¯s this big project that we¡¯re all working on, and I want to just try a few things out for one part of it. And I only have a minimal amount of material for that part, so I don¡¯t want to waste anything." Eisen exined and unsummoned his Titan-Demon-Double, and Stahl slowly nodded his head as he took a closer look at the metal piece. "So you¡¯re enchanting it right now? What do those runes mean again?" Stahl asked, and Eisen looked at his Grandson with a smile before swiftly exining the meaning of the different runes lined up to form sentences instead of being in the shape of a regr enchanting circle. "I¡¯m just ying around with a few different possible effects, and the runes here are transcribing those effects in a few possible ways. I¡¯m still trying to figure out what the best approach would be." The old man exined while hearing Kyra and Jyuuk speak to each other in Japanese before Eisen got a sudden idea. He moved his palm over the metal scale and deleted the enchantment, before writing something else. First, in an ornate way, Eisen carved different ¡¯mes¡¯ into the scale as a frame, and then in the center of the scale cut two different kanji. Surprised, Stahl looked at them and then up at his Grandfather. "Wait, ¡¯Aka... Ryuu¡¯?" He asked, confused, and Eisen nodded his head with a grin. "Mhm. Red Dragon." Eisen exined as he continued carving the new ¡¯enchantment,¡¯ without it being anything like the enchantments he has ever made before. And even the free-form enchantments that Xenia made were quite different. Because all of them usually included Runes, and not something like the Kanji Eisen was trying to use right now. There wasn¡¯t an actual rune meaning ¡¯Dragon¡¯ within the Norse runes he knew, and he was quite limited with the small number of runes that he could use with the regr enchanting system. If he were able to use symbols other than runes with enchantments, then that would be more than just useful. He could bring his enchantments to a whole new level. And what Eisen imagined to happen with this enchantment, which was also why he carved the mes at the edges, was that it would merely catch fire when mana was poured into it. That was it. The mes and the two Kanji were all that Eisen added, and when he saw the enchantment as finished, he could see that his ideas were spot on. [Fake Red Dragon¡¯s mes Enchantment] [Quality - Average][Rank - 3] [Description] A unique enchantment created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. The method of creation was quite different from the usual methods, and signs of another realm¡¯snguage have been used. As the creator¡¯s image did not fit what a Red Dragon¡¯s mes ¡¯truly¡¯ are, the enchantment itself lost out on its supposed quality. [Effect] Fake Red Dragon¡¯s mes, [Requirements] 60 INT, 60 WIS With a frown, Eisen looked at the description. It worked, but he wasn¡¯t happy with the Quality and the fact that it was downgraded. Maybe he would go and revisit Bolremgar to ask him if he could somehow show him what a Red Dragon was supposed to be like so that he could adequately create some good enchantments for the Homunculus¡¯ body. Either way, Eisen quickly poured his mana into the enchantment, and incredibly hot, yellow-orange mes appeared around the metal. "Hmm... In what way are Red Dragon¡¯s mes different to this..?" He muttered to himself, while Stahl moved slightly to the side and looked at Eisen confused. "Holy sh- Grampa, what are you doing! Aren¡¯t you taking damage?!" He asked, confused, but Eisen immediately shook his head. "I¡¯m not. It¡¯s a Dwarven passive ability, and my hands don¡¯t take damage from high heat or pressure." He exined as he cut off the mana-flow and deactivated the enchantment, still trying to figure out what could be wrong with it. "What, that¡¯s awesome! Maybe I should have chosen a Dwarf as my race..." Stahl muttered out quietly, and Eisen looked over at him and Alnico, remembering something he hadn¡¯t asked them about yet. "Actually, what race did you two choose for your characters?" Eisen asked before Stahl crossed his arms with a smile. "Well, we¡¯re both one-eighth Giant and Dwarf, although that doesn¡¯t show in any skills. But story-wise and how different people might react to us, it could reflect. Like, an ancient Giant could see us as their ¡¯Kin,¡¯ ording to the angel that helped us make our characters. Other than that, I¡¯m just human. I couldn¡¯t choose between anything, so I just went with this." Stahl exined, and then Al spoke up. "Ah, and I¡¯m a Half Sky-Elf and quarter Human although that quarter is like half in my case. As Benji said, it¡¯s just story-wise that we¡¯re 1/8th Giants and Dwarves." She added before Eisen lowly chuckled. "Please call him ¡¯Stahl¡¯ while we¡¯re ying. The people here can¡¯t know that we¡¯re yers, after all. But anyway, that¡¯s pretty interesting. A Sky-Elf, huh?" Eisen asked, and Al responded with a nod. "Yup, really interesting. There¡¯s like dozens of variants for races like elves and beastpeople. Sky Elves have a naturally strong voice and lung-capacity and are swift and nimble in general. They aren¡¯t necessarily physically strong, though, but I thought it was a good fit." She exined while Eisen nodded his head. "I see, that¡¯s good to know. The people in our group are actually a pretty diverse bunch, so you¡¯ll be able to see a lot of fascinating people." Eisen exined, before basically giving them a few examples. "I think I mentioned a lot of them already, but there¡¯s, for example, two of them that are Half-Fairy, and look like they¡¯re about 9 or 10 years old max while being in their mid-twenties. Then there¡¯s, of course, the priorly cursed mist-spirit, or the possible Heir to a multi-billion dorpany who tried to scam me. And then I can¡¯t forget the literal son of a God that became my knight a while ago or the Chimera-Elf Halfling. And the other originals are nothing tough at either." Eisen exined with augh. "When I first met Evalia, she sang to a crowd and made all the items we had sell-outpletely. Jyuuk has a small army of monsters and skeletons that he¡¯s keeping on his body. The first thing that Xenia did after starting to y was to write a book about Magic Theory and then moved on to summoning meteoroids to fight against a giant golem. And just yesterday, Brody sat down inside of a fire to meditate." Eisen quietlyughed, and neither Stahl nor Al knew what they were supposed to say, but Eisen just realized something else. "Brody,e here for a second." The old man said as he turned around to look through the window into the carriage, and the Demon-Orc Halfling nodded his head before stepping up to Eisen. "Yup, how can I help you?" He asked as he leaned through the window, and Eisen asked the question that was on his mind. "What kind of benefits does your Meditation skill give you again?" "Oh, it elerates any regeneration immensely, except for stamina, which is just ¡¯paused,¡¯ basically. Other than that, I guess it helps me practice the control over my Energy. I¡¯m not sure, but I think it synergizes with mental, soul, and inner magic skills pretty well, at least from what I¡¯ve heard here and there." Brody exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head "I see... Hmm, Jyuuk, Evalia, Brody, would one of you guys minding to the front for a while and take over for us?" Eisen asked, and Brody immediately volunteered. And after stopping the carriage for a second to switch spots with Brody and his Wife, Eisen didn¡¯t take a seat inside the carriage itself but climbed onto the top just like Kiron always did. "Grampa, what are you doing?" Stahl asked, confused as he saw this, and Eisen smiled at him. "I¡¯m just going to meditate for a while. Don¡¯t worry; I won¡¯t fall off or anything." "Sure, if you say so..." He replied, and Eisen smiled back at him. "Yeah, I say so. If you want to know a bit more about magic, then go ahead and ask Evalia and Jyuuk, they both have their element already." He exined and finished climbing up the roof before properly sitting down on it and closing his eyes while crossing his legs, starting to let his thoughts fade away. Chapter 236 Deep Visualization As Eisen was sitting there with his eyes closed, he began to concentrate on nothing. Nothing at all crossed his mind as he began to meditate. During that time, while that was happening, he did get the skill and even managed to Rank it up once after sitting there for a while. When that Rank-up happened, it became possible for Eisen to interact with things inside his body through meditation more easily. The moment that this became the case, while he was meditating, the ce where his mana and his element originated were now far more easy to feel for Eisen. It¡¯s as if they quite literally sprung out toward him. And the control that he had was incredible as well, it was basically as if he just had to think it, and anything that he wanted would instantly happen immediately following that thought. There usually wasn¡¯t much of a discrepancy between what he was thinking and what the mana was doing anyway, but this time, it was as if the mana was just his mental image. That¡¯s when Eisen tried to startbining meditation with another skill of his, that was usually linked to his eyes while being a mental ability. Visualization. Eisen was able to create beautiful scenes inside of his own body with more detail than he was able to visualize things generally with the natural ability¡¯s effect. He was somewhat able to create visualized ¡¯Scenes¡¯ as well, meaning that he could now, for example, imagine the whole process of creating a sword instead of the forged sword itself. And then, something rather unexpected happened. [ Skill ability enhanced. now possible when using Ability inbination with skill ] Eisen was slightly surprised to hear the light ringing sound apanied by a notification popping up, so he slowly opened his eyes and looked at it. "Deep Visualization..? Interesting..." He muttered before he looked at the time to make sure that they weren¡¯t getting that close to Handor yet, before nodding his head to himself and closing his eyes again to activate his meditation skill. Once more, Eisen activated his visualization ability and imagined himself stepping up in front of a forge and anvil with his tools in hand and numerous materials next to him, before the ¡¯Deep Visualization¡¯ ability seemed to take effect. Instead of merely imagining the scene going on inside his body, Eisen was now actually standing inside the room that he had visualized, with his tools in his hands and materials by his side. [You have entered a state of . If you strive too far from your initially visualized purpose, your body is somehow disturbed, or you choose to, you will leave this state immediately] With a grin, Eisen waved these notifications away and looked around himself. It somehow seemed like he was in a regr workshop right now, although everything was just slightly hazy all around him. But at least he could correctly see the most important things for this ¡¯Visualization,¡¯ the workstations, his tools, and his materials. Slowly, the old man stepped up to the steel and was quite surprised to see that it didn¡¯t have any weight to it whatsoever, at least not in his hands. And now that he noticed something was off, it also seemed like anything only had quiet, somewhat distorted sound to it as well, almost as if he was hearing someone else¡¯s echoes. He couldn¡¯t smell anything, and whatever he touched only felt weirdly blunt. Eisen knew he was feeling something, and he could feel just a slight bit of pressure from that touch, but he couldn¡¯t feel any of the textures or temperature from anything. "This feels somewhat weird..." Eisen muttered to himself before he heard his voice echo around the space as if it wasn¡¯t his ¡¯own¡¯ voice. With a loud sigh, Eisen then moved over to arge crucible and threw in a bunch of high-carbon steel ingots to melt it down into onerge block of regr, usable steel, considering that steel lost some of its carbon while it¡¯s being heated like this. "Let¡¯s see if I can figure something out for Kiron¡¯s sword then." He quietly whispered so that his voice wouldn¡¯t reverberate throughout the area again, although that didn¡¯t help at all. Once the molten steel seemed to have adequatelybined, Eisen poured it out into a mold that just magically appeared when he thought about it. And now that Eisen thought about that, he realized he could have also only imagined a big block of steel that he could use as a base material. But then again, he wouldn¡¯t just have that block while regrly crafting withoutbining it like this first either, so Eisen figured it wasn¡¯t a big deal. Then, Eisen brought the massive block of steel over to the forge to have it somehow heat entirely up, increasing his size to his Titan-form and then repeatedly brought it over to the anvil and hammered it into a t shape. Due to its size, the center of the block wasn¡¯t perfectly hot enough to use yet, so Eisen was just slowly thinning it out and cing it back into the forge to heat it again so that he could change that. He could also ¡¯cheat¡¯ and think about the metal always being the perfect heat to work with, but again, he couldn¡¯t do that while working regrly, so he didn¡¯t do it. And so, after Eisen managed to shape the metal into a long, rtively thin b of steel, it was at the same time perfect for shaping into a sword. With one hammer-swing following another, Eisen managed to soon change the shape of the metal into that of arge, two-edged sword. And when Eisen was sayingrge, then he truly meantrge. It maybe would be a bit too big for Kiron, actually, considering that from hilt to tip, it was about as long as Eisen currently was tall, so about three meters. But then again, Eisen was sure that Kiron would like this sort of sword, although he would maybe need to work on the style still. And after soon finishing a quick, simple hilt, really just made of some thick leather-bound around the area meant for it, Eisen acknowledged the item as finished. [You have mentally gone through the process of creating a Giant Greatsword. If you now actually create a weapon like this, it is easier to reach a higher quality rating and achieve better effects] Once Eisen read through this notification, he soon found himself back outside of the ¡¯Deep Visualization¡¯ state, grinning like a madman. "Now, this is quite interesting, isn¡¯t it?" He muttered to himself as he looked forward and already saw the town of Handor in the distance. "So we¡¯ll be there soon, huh?" Eisen whispered as he went through his status to look at his Crafter¡¯s Mind and Meditation levels before he noticed something unexpected. His cksmithing proficiency had gone up! He only needed about 5% of hisst level to up his proficiency anyway, but that was still enough to make Eisen wonder about what was going on, as he didn¡¯t expect ¡¯Deep Visualization¡¯ to allow him actually to gain proficiency with his skills. If that was indeed what was going on and he didn¡¯t just somehow not notice that he leveled the skill up, then this would most likely be something fabulous to use when he ran out of materials. And the fact that he could use this to make prototypes of different ideas now made this even better! He wouldn¡¯t need to waste materials for something that might not even work anymore, and at the same time manage to create even better items! "Now this is pretty nice, isn¡¯t it?" The old man chuckled as he continued sitting cross-legged on the top of the carriage until the group reached the town gates, where Eisen swiftly climbed down and grew to his titan-size, walking next to the carriage after the group was let through the gate. A little whileter, they then finally reached the Harbor again and drove the carriage onto the ship, where everyone excitedly stepped out of the carriage while Eisen detached Cabarum and let him roam around on the ship a bit. "Whoa! Is this the ship you made, Gramps?" Stahl excitedly asked as he took a look around before he nodded his head. "Mhm, it is. But I didn¡¯t work on it alone. A lot of people did a lot of amazing work to create this." Eisen pointed out as he looked around, seeing that a few people were carrying barrels into the storage area of the ship, and he then saw Komer standing near the doorway leading down into the ship noting down everything that was brought inside. And the moment that he saw the old man, he grinned broadly and sprinted over to him. "Eisen! I¡¯m already one-third of the way done with the quest you gave me, and my enchanting skill ranked up once!" He said with a grin before Eisen chuckled. "Is that so? Well, I¡¯m d you¡¯re so enthusiastic. But shouldn¡¯t you continue keeping watch over there?" Eisen asked the young merchant, who turned around quite quickly before shaking his head. "Those were thest few things we ordered, and Kiron is down in the storage area, making sure nobody snatches anything. I doubt anything¡¯s gonna go wrong there." Heughed, before looking at the two people standing directly behind Eisen. "Oh! Are those your grandchildren?" Komer asked with a broad smile, and Eisen nodded his head. "Yup, they are. Stahl and Alnico, say hello to Komer. Komer, say hello to Stahl and Alnico." The old man introduced them before Stahl let out a quiet whistling sound. "Oh, so you¡¯re that Komer kid?" He asked as he pushed his hands into his pockets and pushed his chest up, while holding his chin higher into the air so that he was looking down at Komer in a clich¨¦ delinquent-like manner, moving close to the merchant until they were almost standing chest-to-chest. "You tried scamming my grandpa, did cha? Well, let me tell you what, a piece of sh-" Stahl started before his body seemed to grow taller than before from Komer¡¯s perspective, although really nothing like that was the case. "Stahl, I told you not to do that, right?" Eisen loudly sighed as he looked over at his grandson, who he was currently holding up to get him away from him. "But-" Stahl tried protesting, but Eisen had another idea. "No buts, be quiet. Komer¡¯s a good kid, and I want you to get along with him." "Tsk, fine. But you owe me one, Grampa." While crossing his arms and shaking his head, his feet still dangling a foot or so above the ground, Stahl sighed loudly, although his words caught the attention of someone else. "H-Huh? Did he say...?" Kiron asked from the stairs that he just stepped up after hearing that they arrived again, and Eisen smiled at him before nodding, letting Stahl down once again. "Yes I did, Kiron. Now, say hello to your cousins." Eisen told him with a grin before Stahl and Alnico were looking at the Bipedal crystal dragon and Huge old man in confusion, while Komer swiftly removed himself from the scene because he didn¡¯t feel like dealing with this situation. "Cousins? Grampa, what do you mean?" Al asked, confused before Eisen ced his hand on Kiron¡¯s back to encourage him to move forward and exin in the old man¡¯s stead. "These are your blood-rted grandchildren that Lady Xenia told me about, are they not?" Kiron asked Eisen quietly, and after receiving a nod from his grandfather, the Half-Dragon stepped forward nervously. "I-It¡¯s an honor to meet you. My name is Kiron, son to Lady Alyssa and Lord Trygan, the son of Eisen and current Deity of Dragons." Kiron exined as he lightly bowed forward to his new family, while Stahl and Alnico didn¡¯t know how to react. Chapter 237 Mask Of Hiding "Alright, Grampa... We have a Dragon Prince, cousin?" Stahl asked, confused, and Eisen nodded with a smile. "Yeah, you do. I already told you about it, remember?" He said before Al slowly nodded her head and sighed before stepping up to Kiron and extending her hand. "Well, I guess it¡¯s nice to meet you, Kiron. I¡¯m Alnico." Al said with a smile before Kiron stood back up straight and shook Al¡¯s hand. "Thank you, dearly," Kiron responded, and Stahl immediately jumped next to him and slung his arm around the half-dragon¡¯s shoulder before looking at Eisen. "Gramps, Al¡¯n I are gonna go hang out with our super awesome cousin now, so we¡¯ll cyater." He eximed with a grin before pulling or trying to pull, Kiron toward somewhere where they could talk alone. Noticing that Stahl was currently far too weak, to even make him budge, Kiron just went along with it and stepped toward where Stahl was suggesting, with Al following behind while being nearly unable to stop herughter at the miserable failure of her cousin. As they heard the conversation that was just going on, Zyra looked at Eisen with a frown. "What the hell¡¯s going on?" She asked, confused, and Eisen turned to her with a smile. "What do you mean?" He answered, quite simply, and Zyra sighed loudly. "What the hell is that? Is that a... yer... too?" She asked, whispering the word ¡¯yer¡¯ so that nobody that wasn¡¯t supposed to could hear them before Eisen shook his head. "Nope. As he said, he¡¯s the son of the Dragon God. He was born and grew up here." He exined, and Zyra frowned in response. "Well, that¡¯s not true. Kiron¡¯s a... you know... So why are you treating him like a grandchild? Are you a frea-" Zyra started with her natural, incredibly rude tone in her voice before Eisen walked a step closer and squatted down in front of her. "Zyra, listen to me, alright? I¡¯m allowing you on this ship because I¡¯m nice enough to look pastments like these. But if you for one second think that I¡¯m going to let you treat anyone here like they¡¯re less of a person than you, no matter who they are, then I¡¯m going to throw you off the ship even if we¡¯re halfway on our way to the inds, got it?" Eisen exined quite calmly with a light smile on his face, and Zyra took a small step back. "What, are you trying to threaten me here?" She asked confused, looking over to Evalia who was leaning against the wall with a grin before Zyra looked back at the 3-meter tall man in front of her, who continued smiling like nothing was going on before she noticed a small change. Eisen¡¯s eyes slowly turned Golden, and his skin became like rock, before golden mes showed themselves underneath the cracks of that rock, while two substantial golden horns sprouted on his head and two wings spread out around her, basically enveloping not only Eisen but also Zyra herself. "Yes," Eisen replied with a bright smile before continuing. "So, are we on the same page here?" The old man asked before Zyra slowly nodded her head. "Alright, then we¡¯re good." The old man¡¯s wings disappeared near to instantly as if they were never there in the first ce before he stepped over to the carriage and grabbed some oil out of it. Eisen began pouring some into a bowl for Aulu while holding some more oil in front of Cabarum¡¯s mouth, while Zyra was trying to keep up with the sudden change of atmosphere. "Evalia, how far are you with the Figurehead for the front of the ship?" Eisen asked to swiftly move on before Evalia crossed her arms and scratched her cheek. "Hmm, I can get it done by tonight, I guess." She answered, and the old man nodded his head. "No need, you can show Zyra around town a bit. I¡¯m sure Brody and Jyuuk want to do that as well. I mentioned it before, but we¡¯re stopping once or twice before actually heading off on the open sea. We can attach it then, so make it the best piece you can." Eisen told her before Evalia nodded with a smile. "Okay! Z,e on, we¡¯re going shopping!" She said and grinned broadly, before running up the stairs to the meeting hall. "H-Huh, wait, didn¡¯t you say we¡¯re going shopping? Where are you going?" Zyra asked, and Evalia grinned. "I¡¯m getting another friend of ours, she was alone all day, so I feel a bit guilty. Oh, and Eisen! Tell your grandkids that they¡¯re joining us too!" Evalia eximed from the tform in front of the meeting hall before opening the door, and Eisen looked at Komer for a second. "Could you get them for me, maybe? And if you want, you can go with them as well. I have to go and meet Bol for something again." He exined as he continued feeding Cabarum and cleaned up the areas that the oil was now stuck to, before helping Caria and Melissa sit down on the mechanical horse¡¯s back. "Alright, sure. By the way, the quest doesn¡¯t have a deadline, does it?" Komer asked as he turned away, but Eisen shook his head before the young merchant ran off with a smile. "What¡¯re you meeting that guy for again?" Brody asked with a frown, and not even Jyuuk understood it. "Yeah, I know you¡¯re his champion, but it feels a bit off, doesn¡¯t it? I mean, he gave you an egg filled with venom that could probably kill you if you got a few drops of it on your skin. And on top of that, it even had a parasite inside of it that could have alsopletely killed you and taken over your body for a while if that venom hadn¡¯t killed it." The Monkey Beastperson added, confusing both Vardia and K for a moment, but Eisen simply scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, and that¡¯s actually one of the reason why I want to talk to him. He¡¯s indubitably one of Trygan¡¯s faction, and I doubt it¡¯d be possible to trick an ancient being whose power is to see through lies, no matter how good he is at transforming his own body. But that was still incredibly dangerous. And I want to ask why he had a Red Dragon¡¯s egg anyway, and especially why or how the mother died." Eisen exined, before pulling the steel scale with the Kanji-Enchanting on it out of his pocket, showing it to Jyuuk, before both he and K looked at the old man in surprise. "Huh? ¡¯Red Dragon¡¯..? And that¡¯s the shape of a Dragon¡¯s scale, right? And why is it in Japanese?" Jyuuk asked, confused before Eisen swiftly exined. "Long story short, I managed to create something called a ¡¯Red-Dragon¡¯s Alloy¡¯ using the petrified eggshell and the red dragon¡¯s crystals. I want to make scales out of them, and I tried to enchant them. But because there¡¯s no actual rune meaning ¡¯Dragon¡¯ amongst the ones I know of, I tried Japanese kanji, and it seemed like it worked. But the enchantment didn¡¯t turn out that well, because I don¡¯t know what a Red Dragon¡¯s mes are like, so I want to ask Bol to show me all I need to know about Red Dragons." He exined before Jyuuk and Brody looked at each other in surprise. "Well, want me toe with you just in case?" Brody asked, worried about the man in front of him, but Eisen shook his head. "No, that¡¯s fine. And I know you¡¯re the strongest out of all of us, but that doesn¡¯t mean you can fight against Ancient Dragons yet. And even if he does kill me, we can¡¯t die forever, so it¡¯s going to end up alright." Eisen exined, and the Demon-Orc halfling slowly nodded his head. "Got it. Be careful anyway." Brody told the old man, and he nodded his head. "Of course, don¡¯t worry about it." While the small group was talking, Stahl, Kiron, and Alnico came back together with Komer who went to grab them, before Stahl looked at his grandfather. "Yo, where are we going?" He asked while turning to Cabarum. "I¡¯m going to meet someone right now. But if you want, you can go with the others and take a walk through town." Eisen exined, before remembering something essential and grabbing some wood from the carriage and then his carving knife from his chest pocket, before swiftly starting to work on something. "Alright, dope. And what is it that you¡¯re making there all of a sudden?" Stahl asked curiously, and Eisen grinned as he turned his head to look over at Evalia who was stepping back down the stairs with Xenia in tow. "Just a small makeshift item." Eisen exined as he continued shaping the wood into a thin, nk mask with nothing but two eye-holes before attaching a thin strip of stretchy cloth to it, and then quickly grabbed his carving knife and began to carve the Japanese Kanji for ¡¯Hidden¡¯ on top of it with a mist-like framing. He held the group up for a few minutes, but he wanted Evalia to be able to have a bit of fun without being recognized by everyone. [Mask of Hiding] [Quality - Highest][Rank - 3] [Description] A simple wooden mask created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Enchanted with a word from a foreign world¡¯snguage to allow the user to stay more easily hidden from other people. [Effect] 20% Disadvantage to any Appraisal-Type skills used on you; Enemies will find it harder to find you; [Requirements] 50 INT, 50 WIS, 60 AGI; Quiet and inconspicuous actions With a smile, Eisen looked over at Evalia. "Hey, you have 60 agility, right?" He asked her, and the young artist nodded her head in surprise. "Yeah, why you asking?" She inquired, and the old man threw the mask over to her. "Because you need it to use this mask. It¡¯s going to make appraisal used on you show less information, and is hopefully going to hide you a bit more generally. But you can¡¯t go around doing crazy things, or else it won¡¯t do anything. Use this until I can work on the other mask we talked about." Eisen exined to her, and Evalia happily took the mask and ced it onto her face before turning to Stahl, who was the one standing closest to her at the moment. "How do I look?" She asked, obviously meant as a joke, but it seemed like Stahl took it seriously. "Just gorgeous." He replied smoothly, before Evalia turned away, trying to suppress a quietugh. "Well then, youdies¡¯ man. Get going, or you won¡¯t get too far before every ce closes down for the day." Eisen told them as he climbed onto Cabarum¡¯s back, before quickly being stopped by a certain someone. "Erm, Eisen... That was an enchantment on that mask, wasn¡¯t it?" Xenia asked, trying to figure out what he ced onto it, and Eisen slowly nodded his head at the High-Elf. "Yeah, it was a Kanji. I figured out on our trip that we can use other things other than runes for enchantments. I figured you knew." He muttered, and Xenia sighed loudly and nodded her head. "Yeah, I guess I knew but just didn¡¯t try yet..." She muttered out, obviously deep in thought before Eisen smiled at her. "Let¡¯s figure that stuff outter, yeah? For now, you all go have fun, and I¡¯m going to get some things done." The old man said and smiled at Xenia, who slowly nodded her head. While waving his hand, Eisen rode Cabarum off the boat, while the others went on their way as well, merely talking amongst each other while Eisen was trying to prepare for his conversation with Bolremgar, the ancient Bronze Dragon. Chapter 238 True Copy "Bolremgar, wake up," Eisen yelled out as he climbed off Cabarum¡¯s back and looked at the Bronze Dragon sleeping on the broken-down ship in the water. Slowly, the Dragon lifted his head and looked at the man standing in front of him. "Oh, Eisen. You again... You know, the majority of Champions see us two or three times a year at the very most." He said in a quite sassy way, and Eisen crossed his arms, ignoring thatment. "I need to talk to you, soe down here for a second." He asked, or insteadmanded, and the Ancient Bronze dragon sighed loudly and jumped over to where Eisen was standing, transforming mid-jump. "Alright, what do you need? Want the other egg I had?" Bol asked annoyedly, and Eisen shook his head. "No, thanks. And I¡¯m pretty sure the other ¡¯egg¡¯ wasn¡¯t an egg, was it?" The old man asked, and Bol began to chuckle. "Yup! I¡¯m surprised you realized that. Actually, how did you realize that?" He asked curiously, and Eisen swiftly began to exin, wanting to move on to more pressing matters. "The egg that you gave me was specifically petrified by a monster. And the overall texture and color of the two rocks you showed me looked very, very different from each other. I doubt that a monster can use two different types of petrification. But that¡¯s not what I want to ask you about right now." Eisen said quite strictly, and Bol replied with a nod. "Sure, shoot." He said, and Eisen immediately started asking the questions he wanted to know the answer to; "First, why do you have a red dragon¡¯s egg? Second, why did you give me an egg filled with venom and a parasitic slime?" Continuously wearing a grin on his face, Bolremgar began to exin, "I¡¯ll answer the second one first. I just figured you could deal with it, that¡¯s all. And no kind of venom can damage a dragon¡¯s bones, not even an unborn one¡¯s. Since you only needed the bones, I thought that it didn¡¯t matter what else was in the egg." He answered, and Eisen stayed quiet, merely epting that as-is for now. After all, if he wanted to kill Eisen somehow, it would be much easier to do so right this very moment. "And then to your first question. This cave was once a Red Dragon¡¯s Lair. That was a few hundred years ago though. I killed it and took over, because I liked this cave. And before you ask, the body was taken by some long-dead guy. He wasn¡¯t interested in the egg because it already died, so it was just lying around here. I was curious to see if you would instinctively pick the actual egg, so I showed you something that wasn¡¯t an egg together with it." He exined, and Eisen nodded his head. "I see. Well, I¡¯ll take that as an exnation for now, then." The old man answered, and then immediately moved on. "You said you saw a red dragon before. Can you maybe show me what it and its major abilities looked like?" Eisen asked, and Bol nodded his head, although in annoyance. "You peaked are quite peculiar, aren¡¯t you? Very well, I¡¯m going to show you." He replied and stepped over to a space-free area, transforming back into his dragon-form, before closing his eyes. Slowly, his scales turned from the lightly green-ish metallic bronze color they had over to a deep, bright red, while Bol¡¯s body bulked up and his wings changed shape together with him. While the metallic dragons he¡¯s seen so far seemed more artistic, majestic, and lean than anything, this chromatic dragon was something like a true monstrosity. Giant teeth that stuck out its mouth and ripped up wings while having a scar-covered, bulky body. "This a true copy of what the dragon that used to live in this cave looked like, for a short while, my body ispletely that of that dragons. My scales, my powers, everything. Tell me what you want to see." Bol said in an entirely different voice to before, and Eisen nodded his head with a grin. "How about everything?" He asked with a grin and activated his ¡¯truth-seeing¡¯ eyes, focusing entirely on Bolremgar with one of the new visual abilities that would let him scan everything about at least the visuals of this dragon body. With a bit of surprise, Bolremgar nodded his head. "Sure, I do not see why I shouldn¡¯t. After all, this is just information about the enemy." He answered while Eisen stepped around Bolremgar to first see if there were any peculiarities, also running his fingers over the red scales to feel how tough or flexible they were. After that, Bol swiftly showed Eisen a few different skills that the red dragon had, including the peculiar mes. Eisen could feel that they were far, far hotter than any regr fire could be, but surprisingly enough, they were a dark red, the color which usually theparatively ¡¯cold¡¯ parts of fire took on. But these mes were that color all the way through. "So this is the fire of a red-dragon?" Eisen muttered out quietly, trying to capture the scene well enough in his mind so that he wouldn¡¯t forget about it. About an hour or twoter, Bolremgar had gone through all the different skills that the particr dragon that he killed had, and shortly afterward, the ¡¯True Copy¡¯ ability ran out, and he turned back into his standard form. "Now go, please. I¡¯m always tired after I use this." Bol said and climbed back up the ship toy back down, and Eisen thanked him before climbing onto Cabarum¡¯s back. "I think I just found out far more than I figured I would," Eisen muttered to himself as he left the beach in front of the cave, riding back toward town, while Caria and Melissa were ying around a bit directly in front of him. A little whileter, the old man arrived in town and made his way back to the harbor, where he didn¡¯t hesitate to enter his workshop. The others were currently still out, so Eisen had all the time he needed to work on the scales now, and Caria and Melissa sat behind him, curiously watching what the old man was doing, which they haven¡¯t done in a while. After splitting therge block of the Red-Dragon¡¯s alloy up into smaller pieces with transmutation, each partrge enough for one scale, Eisen did a little bit of a mental calction, trying to figure out if this was enough to make every scale. Or if he would need to somehow stretch the metal along with some different materials to make a different alloy. "Hmm, I think I should be able to just about, do this..." He muttered to himself as he grabbed the first small chunk of the metal and threw it into a magic forge he just created to heat it. "And now, let¡¯s get to the grind, shall we?" Eisen chuckled to himself as he started to get to work to mass-produce therge number of scales that he needed. --- Eisen continued working continuously through the night without sleeping, which was only possible due to his current Endurance stat. At the moment, it was around 5 am in-game, and the first few people from the church seemed to make their way to the ship, with the originals each waking up unusually early to oversee everything that was going on, at least those that had the time to do so. "Yo Eisen, still workin¡¯?" Brody asked as he opened the door, looking to his left and noticing the two monster-girls curled up next to each other as they took a nap, and Eisen himself was sitting on a chair with one of the scales in his hand. "Still working, yes. I want to finish the scales up before the others finish their materials so that I can help out a bit with that." He exined before Brody nodded his head. "Sounds good to me. Tell me if you need me to do anythin¡¯." "Will do, don¡¯t worry. Say, how was the day in town yesterday?" Eisen curiously asked as he didn¡¯t have the chance to ask his grandchildren yet, and Brody sighed loudly. "It was pretty fun until everyone suddenly fell asleep because they didn¡¯t have enough endurance. We were just a block or so from the ship as well. Had to carry them over here, and that¡¯s quite annoying when yers are asleep." Heined, and Eisen chuckled. "I get what you mean. Although I¡¯m surprised you managed to move them all, I thought that was supposed to be something like a safe-mode?" The old man asked, and brody nodded his head. "Basically, it is. Like, they can¡¯t get damaged at all no matter what you do, and only people on their friendslist can pick them up. Otherwise, they can only be somewhat dragged around, like a few meters, and then no more. I guess that¡¯s just so that people can¡¯t block any entranceways by just logging off or somethin¡¯." The Demon-Orc Halfling suggested as he turned around and left again. "Well, gotta help out the others settle in. See youter, you old geezer." He said as he closed the door, leaving Eisen alone. With a light smile, Eisen then continued his work. He managed to finish creating all the scales a while ago and was now working on enchanting them. On the inside of each scale, he ced the two Kanji for ¡¯Red Dragon¡¯, and on the outside, he carved the peculiar pattern that he found on Bol¡¯s scales during his transformation yesterday. They didn¡¯t form any specific shape but were probably just a natural pattern that didn¡¯t give any effects to the scale itself, but Eisen felt it was an excellent way to correctly specify these as a Red Dragon¡¯s Scales, despite them being different to usual scales. And after he finished the first one of these, he was able to see that it worked! They were seen as ¡¯Red Metallic Scales,¡¯ so Eisen continued creating the scales in the same way over and over again, merely piling them on top of one another. He was already three-quarters of the way done when Brody came into the room, so it only took him about one more hour until he was finally finished, ready to grab them and bring them up into the meeting room. After Eisen ced them into a bag to be able to carry them there more easily and then made his way to the main deck, he was immediately greeted by his apprentices and Noa, the nun who was the first person he met at the church. "Ah, Eisen! We finished with all the preparations you asked us to make." Rouge eximed with a smile before Noa looked at him and Eisen a bit confused. "Rouge? Didn¡¯t you say you were asked that of the Sir Demon? He is your mentor now, right?" She asked, and that was when Eisen realized that Noa hadn¡¯t seen him outside of his Demonic Form yet. So with a wry smile, he shrunk down to regr human-size and activated his demonic transformation. "Yes, and that is me. I don¡¯t naturally look like that, you see." The old man chuckled, and Parc crossed his arms smugly and nodded his head. "Mhm, and that¡¯s because Eisen is something far cooler than a demon, to begin with, he¡¯s-" "Parc, leave that exnation to meter, yeah? We¡¯re leaving soon, and I want to tell everyone at a ce where there¡¯s no chance of being overheard by anyone that¡¯s not supposed to hear." Eisen exined, and Parc nodded his head apologetically. Surprised, Noa ignored that small exchange just now, looking at Eisen with wondrous eyes. "Oh, so you are a Titan in reality? Wait, no... Do Titans have the ability to change their height?" She asked, slightly confused, but Eisen shook his head. "I¡¯m not a Titan in reality either. I¡¯m a Giant-Dwarf Halfling, and I recently learned the ability to change my size through my Giant-side." He exined quite quickly, and Noa nodded her head in surprise. "I see, that is quite peculiar indeed! Please tell me more about thatter. For now, I have to assist some of the children in finding a ce to sleep on this ship." She exined, lightly bowing forward before she made her way down the stairs leading into the body of the ship before Eisen smiled at his apprentices. "Try to help anyone that needs help. I¡¯ll be up on the top floor if you need me." Eisen exined, and the three boys swiftly nodded their heads at their mentor¡¯s words. Chapter 239 Skeleton Sailor After Eisen ced the different scales down on the ground in the meeting room, he took a look around at the different things that Jyuuk and Xenia worked on so far. There were numerous bottles filled with liquids Eisen didn¡¯t recognize, and the various organs that they brought before were looking quite interesting now. Two of the eyes now had a somewhat golden color to them overall, while iris was utterly pitch ck. The stomach was enchanted all over, and its color had also changed to be a slight bit darker, while the different parts for the ears were also quite finely enchanted. And then, the rolled-up special muscles that they somehow gathered had a slightly red-brown color now. Eisen also took a look at the bones, each one of which had also been enchanted and then ced back into the Health-Jelly solution that Eisen put them in before. "Interesting. I guess we can start getting to work soon then." He muttered to himself before noticing some steps behind him. "Yes, we can! We have the new bone-marrow you asked for, the organs we had have all been enhanced as much as possible, we have some new blood... The bones are also ready... We only need the rest of the organs now, right? Like lungs, liver, and that kind of stuff." Xenia said with a grin, before Jyuuk stepped up behind her with a big smile on his face himself, shaking his head. "Not at all, actually! You know,st night after the others happened to fall asleep, I made my way to a more... shady... part of town." Jyuuk exined, cing his hand on some covered-up boxes in the corner. "Jyuuk, what did you get?" Eisen asked with a frown before Jyuuk scratched the back of his head. "I went to a shop dealing in monster parts." He said embarrassedly, and Eisen immediately crossed his arms in confusion. "What do you mean? Guilds like the adventurer¡¯s guild buy those things up, don¡¯t they? So why did you need to go to a ¡¯shady¡¯ part of town?" "Because there aren¡¯t any shops directly dealing in monster parts in regr parts of town. I don¡¯t know why though, but you can only find them on the ck market in this town. I saw regr shops with them in there in other towns, but not here." He exined, before uncovering the boxes. "Well, that¡¯s also a reason why we should leave quite soon. Anyway, I managed to buy all of the parts that we need. We need to enhance them a bit before then, but it should be possible to do that pretty quick with some enchantments, right?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen looked over at Xenia, who nodded her head. "Yeah, probably. And by the way, I¡¯m pretty sure that the lord, or rather his assistant, has prohibited the open sale of monster parts in this town. Guilds can still buy them up, but that¡¯s because the town can easily control them into doing what they want." She exined as she stepped over to the boxes and took a look inside before Eisen nodded with a smile. "Alright, let¡¯s do this then. The others are helping everyone settle in, and we¡¯ll be off in a few hours once everyone is here." Eisen told them as he walked over to the table with the different bottles, before turning to Xenia. "Which of these have the bone-marrow? I¡¯ll fill the bones up while you¡¯re working those things out." Eisen suggested, and Xenia pointed at the bottles the light-brown thick ¡¯sludge¡¯ inside of them. "That one there. We mixed the bone-marrow that you got from the bones with some of the rock-slime, forest-slime, as well as some regr alchemy materials like mana-crystals and different herbs." She exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head as he grabbed one of the bones and sat down on a chair before getting to work with filling the hollowed-out bones with the new substance. "By the way, what are those things in the bag there?" Jyuuk asked curiously, pointing at the bag with the scales before Eisen grinned. "Just take a look, you¡¯ll figure it out." He chuckled at them, and Jyuuk curiously opened the bag and pulled out one of the dark-red, lightly enchanted metal scales. "Did you make these out of the eggshell?" The Monkey-Beastperson asked, surprised as he looked it over, and Eisen nodded his head. "Mhm, I did. I extracted the metals with low reactions from it and alloyed them with the red dragon¡¯s crystals to make ¡¯Red Dragon¡¯s Alloy.¡¯ I turned that metal into scales, carved ¡¯Red Dragon¡¯ on the underside with Kanji as an enchantment, and then on the front carved the patterns that Bol showed me today." "And that way you made Dragon scales?" Xenia asked, surprised before Eisen simply nodded once more. "Basically, yes." He answered, and then the group of three got to work. Eisen one after another filled the bones with the new bone-marrow, while Xenia and Jyuuk worked together to enhance the new organs that Jyuuk brought over. Shortly after both of these tasks were finished, Eisen stood up and walked over to the door, lightly stretching as he did so. "Let¡¯s get downstairs for a bit, yeah? We should probably get going soon." Eisen exined, and the two others swiftly agreed. On their way downstairs, Eisen could see that his grandchildren logged on again as well, and were now hearing from Brody how he had to carry them back to the ship. "Come on, don¡¯t be too hard on them. It was their first day." Eisen told Brody with a lightugh before the Demon-Orc halfling simply sighed out loudly. "Even then, they should have noticed that they became sluggish, shouldn¡¯t they? And this is to make sure this doesn¡¯t happen again." He answered before Stahl looked over to his grandfather with a smile. "Yo, Gramps! You been working all night?" He asked, and Brody looked around, confused, and pissed off at being utterly ignored, while Eisen simply replied with a smile. "Yes, I was a bit busy. I¡¯m going to sleep a bitter, but for now, we need to see if everyone is here, and then we¡¯re going to leave." Eisen exined, and Stahl excitedly nodded his head. "Awesome!" He eximed, while Eisen simply smirked and made his way over to the small wooden ¡¯bridge¡¯ leading onto the ship to talk to Komer, who was making sure that everyone was there and that they had everything they needed. "Oh, hey, Eisen! If you¡¯re here to ask about the situation, then I¡¯m happy to tell you that everyone¡¯s here and we have ¡¯literally¡¯ everything that we possibly need on the trip that we can get from here." Komer said immediately as he saw the old man step up to him, who simply nodded. "Yep, that¡¯s actually exactly what I wanted to ask you about. So everybody is here? Seriously everyone?" Eisen asked, and Komer nodded his head. "Yeah, they¡¯re mostly down in the sleeping area right now. So you said you want to leave soon?" Komer asked, and Eisen responded quite swiftly, "Yes, within the hour if possible." He exined, and Komer looked to the side for a moment, probably at the time, and then nodded his head. "Alright, I¡¯ll let the Harbor-Manager know. Although, shouldn¡¯t we talk to the Lord about this as well?" The young merchant asked, but Eisen shook his head. "Not necessary. I already told him that we¡¯re leaving whenever when he visited us at the start of the project. And thanks for your hard work, kid." Eisen told Komer, who smiled and nodded before turning around and getting everything ready before Jyuuk came up to Eisen. "Soo... whos going to sail the ship?" Jyuuk asked, obviously with something in mind, and Eisen shrugged. "Anyone that trusts themselves to, I guess. Why are you asking?" The old man asked, and Jyuuk waved his hand to the side before a whole crew of different skeletons appeared in front of him, with one standing in the front with a crack in his skull around his left eye socket and a leg missing, that was reced by vines Jyuuk created. "Because I would have a crew for you!" Jyuuk grinned broadly, and Eisen looked at him in surprise. "Oh, really? These guys can sail?" "Yes, they can. These are skeletons from a shipwreck I found only a few hours from here, and because of my necromancy rank, they can keep some of the abilities they had when they were alive, and for all of them, it has to do with sailing. The one in the front here is a ¡¯Skeleton Sailor¡¯" Jyuuk exined, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help but whistle impressed. "Really? Huh, interesting. Well, we don¡¯t have a regr system for ships like this when ites to steering, but we at least have something that they should be able to use. But what about when you¡¯re asleep?" Eisen asked with a frown before Jyuuk simply grinned. "You know, when I visited that crypt in the wastnds, I didn¡¯t only get my necromancy-rted upation. I also got this!" Jyuuk eximed and held his hand forward, showing Eisen a small ring around his left ring finger. "And what is that?" Eisen curiously asked before Jyuuk swiftly exined. "It¡¯s a ring that lets me store my mana throughout the day to use specifically for keeping up my undead while I¡¯m asleep. It probably won¡¯t work for high-rank undead, but as these are just Rank 0 and 1 skeletons, I can keep them up for long enough with this. I could be away for a whole week, and these guys could still keep doing their job. They won¡¯t be able to fight long while I¡¯m asleep, so we need others to take care of that, but they can at least do the tasks rted to sailing pretty easily, as they still have those skills." Jyuuk exined before Eisen slowly ran his fingers through his beard. "Oh, is that so..? Interesting... Couldn¡¯t you have told me about them before?" The old manughed lowly, and Jyuuk smiled back at him. "Well, it was supposed to be a surprise, sorry." He chuckled, and Eisen took a look at the different vine-overgrown skeletons. "It¡¯s a damn surprise, alright. The crew is just perfect, Jyuuk, great thinking!" Eisen said with a smile before he leads the Monkey-Beastperson and the skeleton sailor to the control room, while the rest stayed down at the main-deck. "So, do we need to tell them what they need to do, or can they do that themselves?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk swiftly nodded. "They can do it themselves, don¡¯t worry. This Skeleton is basically a ¡¯Captain¡¯ to them, and he has a crystal in his head that lets him at least somewhat think. He can figure stuff out by himself and then directlymand the skeletons under him, but forplicated things, we¡¯ll need to give themmands." Jyuuk exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head with a grin. "This is cool; I have to admit. Anyway, I¡¯m going to tell you when we¡¯re leaving the harbor, and then we can see how good your skeletons are." The old man said as he winked at Jyuuk and made his way back to the front deck and asked the others to get everyone to gather around him. Currently, Eisen was at his regr size and non-demon form, preparing to announce to everyone on the ship what was going to happen now. While he was thinking about what to say precisely, Alnico came up next to her grandfather and leaned against him with her elbow. "Hey, Grampa. What¡¯re you thinkin¡¯ about?" Al asked with a smile, and the old man looked down at her and crossed his arms. "Just about what to say now. Do you have a rough idea of what you want to do on the ship while we¡¯re traveling?" Eisen asked, and she just shrugged. "I honestly don¡¯t. Evalia said I could hang out with her a bit and she would teach me some stuff about music skills. And you know, I kinda have a date this Wednesday..." She said with a somewhat wry smile, as she didn¡¯t tell anyone about that yet, and Eisen looked at his granddaughter with a wide grin on his face. Chapter 240 Reveal "You¡¯re going on a date soon? Why didn¡¯t you tell me yet?" Eisen asked with a smirk as he looked down at Al, who was looking away as her face flushed red. "W-Well... I didn¡¯t want you guys to make a big deal out of it..." She answered, fiddling around with her hair before Eisen ced his hand on the girl¡¯s shoulder. "Don¡¯t worry; I¡¯m not going to make a big deal out of it." He told her quite sincerely, and Alnico smiled back at her grandfather and nodded her head slowly. "Thanks, I appreciate it." With a smile, Al looked toward the door from which some of the people wereing already, and Eisen and Al stayed silent for a few seconds before Eisen crossed his arms and stroked his beard in thought. "So, when are we buying a wedding dress?" He asked in a serious tone, and could then practically hear Al¡¯s face turnpletely red as she turned over to her grandfather again. And the moment she wanted to open her mouth andin, Eisen held his hand up. "Sorry, Honey, we¡¯ll talkter," Eisen told her with a light smile before he turned toward the slowly-forming crowd while Alnico held her hands in front of her face, trying not to blush in front of precisely that crowd. After a few moments, it seemed like everyone gathered, and Eisen prepared to speak up. "Hello, everyone! Thank you all foring! Just to confirm, do any of you know if anyone is missing?" The old man asked to make sure, and as he didn¡¯t hear that anyone spoke up, he continued. "Alright, then let¡¯s start with the introductions! I don¡¯t think all of you know who I am, but my name is Eisen. Some of you may know me as the ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯." The old man exined as he swiftly changed into his demonic form to prove to everyone that he was who he said he was. "There is more to who I am than what I can tell you right now, but I will fill you all in soon. While we are on this ship, I would like everyone to help out with anything you can, got it?" He eximed and continued immediately. "The base crew is as such. The ones that will help sail the ship is a crew of skeletons conjured by our Necromancer, tamer, and naturalist Jyuuk. In case there are any attacks on this ship, he and Brody here will lead the defense." Eisen told them, and then continued telling them about the different essential positions on the ship, and what tasks, where help might be needed. A little whileter, Komer returned to the ship after telling the Harbor Manager about their departure and then it was time for them to finally leave. Slowly, the skeletons rolled out the sails before they slowly took in wind and made the ship move forward, while the Skeleton Sailormanded them and controlled the whole ship¡¯s movement with that. With a smile, Eisen watched this whole process happening, with the skeletons running around and watching out for any possible obstacles that may stand in the giant ship¡¯s way. And soon, the vessel reached the point at which they could just let loose and sail straight ahead. Soon, they couldn¡¯t see the town anymore, so Eisen turned to the people that were still gathered around him and looked at the other originals to tell them to stand next to him. "Alright, now is the time to tell you all the big secret that we have been hiding from you," Eisen yelled out before the people looked at them in worry and confusion before the old man just continued without hesitation. "A few months ago, I found myself near a mining town called Melroe at level 1, without even my racial skills. My Experience had been stolen. The same happened to these four. The reason our experience was stolen was to create artificial people so far known as ¡¯Omegas,¡¯¡¯Deltas,¡¯ and ¡¯Alphas.¡¯ And this was just possible for one reason. The five of us are, or instead were, the five that peaked." He exined without hesitation, and everyone looked at each other in confusion, of course except those that already knew about it, before Noa took a step closer. "Sir Eisen, I understand that you are a great talent, but I think it is a bit much to call yourself one of those that peaked." She told him, trying to be as nice about it as possible. And before Eisen could even say anything, a deep voice echoed around everyone, and Eisen could immediately tell the source of that voice. "It is true. These five are those that reached the highest peak of existence in the past. That is indubitably so." The voice said, as a brown Swallow with a green tint at the end of its feathers sat down directly in front of Eisen, which didn¡¯t help the confusion of anyone there. Slowly, the Swallow turned to the old man. "This ship is surelyrge enough, but is it steady enough to hold me up?" It asked, and Eisen slowly nodded. "Yeah, but be slow about the change just in case." Eisen told the small bird, which slowly increased in size as its feathers morphed into scales, revealing Bolremgar in his full draconic form. The people on the ship immediately took a step backward at the sudden appearance of such a mighty, old Dragon, before Eisen calmed them down. "Don¡¯t worry; this is Bolremgar, a Bronze Dragon directly under the authority of Trygan, the God of Dragons." He exined before a certain priest stepped forward and stepped in front of the Dragon. And after moving his hands around in different motions and quietly muttering a few prayers, a bright light appeared directly in front of Bolremgar¡¯s chest as it morphed into a single shape, the symbol of Trygan. And Bol didn¡¯t mind either; it was more like he was waiting for this, to begin with as he smiled when the, seemingly highly trusted, priest turned to the people. "It is true; this is one that immediately stands underneath my Lord." The Priest to the God of Dragons eximed, and after that, the people began to calm down. After all, one of Trygan¡¯s greatest Value was that of Justice, so a Dragon like this surely wouldn¡¯t go on a rampage. But that was also when the people realized that this Ancient Bronze Dragon supported the words of Eisen, meaning that he was telling the truth. "So... So you truly are him..?" Noa muttered quietly in an unbelieving voice before she held her hands in front of her mouth in shock, and Bol turned around to Eisen before slowly morphing back into the shape of a Swallow. "Take this as a final gift, Champion. And you, Wizardess, I hope to see you soon when you havepleted the first trial I have given to you. As you will surely be busy at this new ce, I do not mind if you ignore the time limit I have given you at first." He exined before starting to p his wings and starting to soar through the skies, making his way back in the direction of Handor. And after Eisen looked back down at the people in front of him, he noticed that mostly everyone bowed down to him and the other Originals. "We¡¯re sorry for doubting you, Eisen. It is an honor to follow behind such great people as you." Noa said, seemingly speaking for everyone, as Eisen looked at the people next to him, who were all apparently feeling quite ufortable like this. "Please, do not look at us in that way. No matter who or what we were before, we are not those people anymore." Eisen told them, and slowly, everyone raised their heads in confusion, still trying to figure out what was going on, so Eisen continued. "We¡¯re just five random people, so don¡¯t see us as anything else, please." The old man announced, before stepping through the crowd to make his way to the stairs leading back up to the meeting room. "Now if you need us for anything, you all know where to find us," Eisen said as he began walking up the stairs with the other originals behind him, while theirpanions and friends also followed them. And when they all reached the room, Stahl was the first to speak up. "Damn, Gramps... Didn¡¯t realize that this was so serious..." Hemented before Eisen shrugged. "Of course, it is. We¡¯re ¡¯literally¡¯ ex mock-deities. But we¡¯re not anymore, so I¡¯m sure I can speak for everyone if I say we don¡¯t want to be treated like it." Eisen said as he looked at the other originals who all nodded their heads before Eisen¡¯s apprentices spoke up next. "Yeah, but... I didn¡¯t expect a Dragon to show up out of nowhere..." Koro quietly said as he scratched the back of his head, and Parc nodded his head while Rouge looked around the room. "Talking about things we didn¡¯t expect... what are you doing up here?" Rouge asked, and Eisen sighed before stepping up to his chair and increased his size. "Basically, we¡¯re building an Artificial Creature. We¡¯ll fill you in once it¡¯s done, but for now, we want to see how well it works first." The old man exined, as everyone was curiously walking through the room and looking at the different things, with a particr half-beastperson trying to touch everything, while her brother kept her from doing just that as much as possible. "That¡¯s so weird... This room looks like some mad scientist¡¯sb right now..." Zyra muttered to herself, and Evalia nodded her head. "Yeah, it does, and the concept is pretty much like what a mad scientist would do as well." She added before Brody scoffed andughed. "For sure, it is. Anyway, Vardia and I are gonna go back to the deck now. What about you, guys?" Brody asked before Eisen took a look at the time and leaned back in his chair. "I¡¯m going to catch up on some sleep now." He responded before both Caria and Melissa tiredly climbed onto hisp. "These two are tired as well, apparently, despite them napping a bit before." He added with augh, and Xenia looked at Jyuuk. "I guess we¡¯re going to keep working a bit in the meantime? Just to prepare everything for assemblyter today then." The High-Elf suggested, and Eisen nodded at her in response. "Sure, let¡¯s do it like that. Anyone here who wants to watch, watch. But be aware that we¡¯re handling body parts that were taken from monsters." The old man exined, and soon enough, everyone just nodded their heads, choosing to think about that decision for a while, and Eisen just smiled at them before leaning back. "Goodnight then, all of you." Eisen chuckled and swiftly logged off. --- Soon, Benjamin stood up from the capsule and stretched immediately before making his way to the bathroom to take a shower because he was feeling a bit dirty and sweaty at the moment. "Oh, morning, Dad. You didn¡¯t stop ying with Benji and Sophia before, everything alright? Are they offline right now as well?" Tony asked as he saw his father head to the bathroom, and the old man just shook his head. "Everything¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry. I just had something to take care of, so I could only stop ying now." He said before Tony slowly nodded. "Alright... But are you sure everything¡¯s fine? You¡¯re looking a bit pale right now?" Tony said with a worried tone in his voice, but Benjamin just shook his head. "I¡¯m fine, I¡¯m just a bit hungry right now and didn¡¯t see as much natural sunlighttely." He exined, so Tony nodded his head with determination. "Perfect! Then let me make something for you to eat, and then we can go outside and watch the kids y a bit?" He suggested, and Benjamin just lightly smiled at him. "Sure, thanks, Son. I¡¯ll take a shower now, so it¡¯s going to be a little while." He gratefully said before Tony turned around and rushed to the kitchen to get started on the food, before Benjamin himself stumbled into the bathroom, slowly locking the door, just in time before he couldn¡¯t keep himself on his feet anymore. Slowly, the old man slid to the ground after leaning against the closed door and felt a stinging pain and a deep rumbling in his chest and stomach. Benjamin pulled himself to the toilet and began to throw up into it, feeling even more emptiness in his stomach after losing some of his stomach acids, as he hadn¡¯t eaten anything all day. But that wasn¡¯t what was worrying him the most at the moment. What bothered him the most was the fact that after he threw up in it, the inside of the formerly pure-white toilet was entirely stained in a deep crimson red. Chapter 241 Issues Benjamin sat in the bathroom for a few moments, merely trying to catch himself again. He didn¡¯t know why he was suddenly so much worsepared to before, but he was. He was throwing up blood mixed with stomach acid, and his mouth was justpletely overwhelmed by the taste of iron. Benjamin only threw up once, and he wasn¡¯t actually feeling all that bad overall, just a bit weak. He wasn¡¯t in pain, he wasn¡¯t feeling dizzy, and he didn¡¯t notice any difference to the day before, but his health was slowly deteriorating, and that was a fact. After getting himself up off the ground, he also didn¡¯t feel that bad anymore either. Maybe that was just a one-time thing, and he would return to perfect health tomorrow again? "Heh... That probably won¡¯t happen..." Benjamin muttered to himself as he cleaned up after himself to get rid of any trace of blood, and then got undressed and removed the bandage on his arm before stepping into the shower. A cold one, of course. He didn¡¯t want to risk anything by making himself dizzy by making the water too hot. After a few minutes, he finished his shower and dried his body, before getting dressed in new clothes and making his way to the living room, where he grabbed some bandages and some cooling and numbing balm, which he spread onto his arm before covering it up with the bandages. Soon, Tony came over with some food and handed it to his father, before the two of them made their way outside with Sean and Katy. They talked for a good hour or two about mostly simple, shallow stuff; like what Tony was doing all day, how things were going with preparations for the move and job-change, or what school he wanted to send Sean and Katy to when they moved. But they didn¡¯t talk about what needed to be talked about, neither of them mentioned that Tony obviously heard the sound of Benjamin throwing up, and the fact that his arm was getting worse wasn¡¯t mentioned either. Tony trusted his father. He knew that if something were wrong, he would talk about it. Benjamin trusted himself to do exactly that as well. But that¡¯s just the thing about trust, it is easy to believe in someone when nothing is going on, but when things actually happened, it became harder and harder to keep that trust up. And Benjamin couldn¡¯t trust himself anymore. --- Slowly, Eisen took a look around himself after waking up, noticing that not only Jyuuk and Xenia who said they would work on things some more but also a bunch of spectators were in the room. While the Beastperson and the High-Elf were diligently working on a few things, sketching out what the Homunculus would look like with the help of Evalia. "Morning, all of you. Or rather an afternoon." The old man said with a smile as he looked down at hisp, seeing that Caria and Melissa were stillying on top of him. "Hey there, Grampa," Stahl said with a smile as he looked up from curiously watching the three originals sketch out the form of the Dragon Homunculus. Returning that smile, Eisen carefully stood up after picking the two monster girls up in his arms, before he noticed something odd, which was supported by a notification that was floating near the corner of his eye. [You have spent so long with your size increased that you can even do so while sleeping! +25% Size change limit!] "Oh, interesting." The old man muttered to himself before immediately doing what the notification allowed him to do, growing in height by another half-meter. "Wait, did you just grow again?" Zyra asked, confused, and the old man nodded his head. "Yes, I did. Since I spent so much time at my increased size, my upper limit increased a bit." Eisen exined as he squatted down next to the others to take a look at the sketch so far. It did just look like a dragon, probably quite simr to what the Dragon from the egg that Eisen was given would have looked like if it had been given a chance to hatch. "So, what do you think?" Evalia asked with a smile, and Eisen nodded his head immediately. "Looks good to me. You have a few anatomical sketches as well, huh?" Eisen muttered as he picked up one of the sheets of paper that wereying on the table, before beginning to smirk. "Should we start?" Eisen suggested before both Jyuuk and Xenia nodded their heads, and the old man made his way over to the bones to start with the construction of the skeleton, but Jyuuk swiftly stopped him. "Wait, let me." The Monkey-Beastperson said and then held his hand toward the bones, before they began to rattle and float, slowly clipping together at the ends before a Draconic Skeleton stood before them, its bone-wings curled up on its back. Surprised, Eisen looked at Jyuuk and frowned a slight bit. "Doesn¡¯t that turn it into one of your undead?" He asked, and Jyuuk shook his head immediately. "Actually not! Regr undead can move by themselves after being infused with a soul. This ability is just called ¡¯Bone Maniption.¡¯ It falls under Necromancy, but that¡¯s not an ¡¯undead¡¯ yet, just a ¡¯Bone Doll¡¯ or something." He exined, and Eisen began to smile at him. "I see. Well, that certainly makes it easier. Now, let¡¯s start with the muscles and then ce the organs where they need to be." The old man suggested as he looked over to Jyuuk for confirmation before he swiftly nodded. "Alright, then let¡¯s get started! Jyuuk, tell me what I need to do exactly to ce everything where it needs to be properly." He said before precisely that, and Eisen was being instructed on what to do. And precisely that¡¯s what happened for the next few hours. Jyuuk exined where each part needed to go, and Eisen executed that exnation. Muscle after muscle, Eisen strapped everything into ce before putting the organs where he was told before also cing the scales on the outside of its body even though it was just on the muscles. When the Homunculus-core did its thing, then it would surely fix these small facts. And that was precisely what needed to be ced into the body now. "So, now we just need to ¡¯Offer¡¯ the Homunculus the Dungeon Core, right?" Eisen asked as he turned to Xenia and Jyuuk for confirmation, and the High-Elf nodded her head. "Yep, basically." Xenia shrugged, and Eisen smirked as he grabbed the sizeable purple crystal from where he hid it in this room and carried it over to the table where the Homunculus-core was waiting. Slowly, the old man pressed the Dungeon Core against the thick outer rock-likeyer of the flesh sphere, before that rock-likeyer immediately shattered and fell to dust, revealing the heart-like object that was inside of it before. The flesh-colored heart began to morph as it crept up onto the Dungeon Core and covered it immediately, and Eisen had toy it down on the table as quickly as he could. Otherwise, it would have probably swallowed the old man as well. Soon, the heart covered the whole crystal, before shrinking down to its regr size, although its shape had changed a good bit. Instead of being a lumpy mass of flesh like before, it was now a pulsating, perfectly round sphere the size of Eisen¡¯s current fist while his size was increased to the maximum. But then, the sphere stopped pulsating as a mist-like mass left it. And it seemed like Jyuuk and Xenia, as the creators of the Homunculus, were the ones that received some notifications. With a sigh, Jyuuk began to scratch the back of his head. "Alright, good and bad news. The Dungeon Core was epted, and the Homunculus-Core is nowplete. But as for the soul that we gave it before... That wasn¡¯t epted." He exined, and Xenia continued immediately. "And not only that... But it seems like the Homunculus works different from what we thought. To function, it does need a body, or rather a reference of what it should be. It¡¯s going to take the shape and nature of the soul in it. So we did all of this for nothing." Xenia loudly sighed as she dropped into her chair, but Eisen shook his head. "That¡¯s not true. It might just take a bit longer, but we¡¯re going to need to find a soul with requirements that fit the body we created, and then go from there." Eisen chuckled before Jyuuk and Xenia looked at each other confused, and the rest of the people in the room didn¡¯t understand what this old man was saying any better. With a sigh, Eisen closed his eyes and thought about it for a while, before remembering something and looking at Jyuuk and Kiron. "Hey, just curious, but what rank are newborn Dragons?" The old man asked, and Jyuuk tried to think about it, but couldn¡¯t find an answer, although Kiron seemed to know. "Grandfather, Newborn Dragons are born at Rank five. At rank six they be younglings, then at seven juveniles, at eight adults, at nine Elders, and at rank ten finally ancient." He answered, and Eisen nodded his head as he looked at Jyuuk, who seemed to have understood what Eisen was getting at. "They are born at Rank 5... Then that means there should be a soul stone somewhere!" He eximed, but Xenia shook her head with a sigh. "Then we would have found it already, wouldn¡¯t we? We split every part of that egg into its tiniest parts." She added, and while Jyuuk slumped down again, Eisen shook his head. "Although, there¡¯s a small exception." The old man exined as he stepped over to the wall and took a look around, before finding a small rock behind a crate. He reached down and grabbed it, before holding it forward on his palm. "Wait, is that..?" Jyuuk muttered out, and Eisen nodded his head. "Yes, it is." The old man answered, before Xenia, Jyuuk, and even Evalia became curious and excited, while Stahl looked at the rock and tilted his head to the side in confusion. "What¡¯s so great about that rock?" He asked, and Eisenughed as a response. "This isn¡¯t a rock, Stahl. When we opened the petrified Dragon-Egg up, Jyuuk removed a shard from the top so that we can look inside. This ¡¯rock¡¯ is the only part of the egg we didn¡¯t split up into anything." The old man exined before he activated his mana-sight, confirming just what he thought was the case. With transmutation, he stripped the rock away to reveal a small marble with a twisting mist-like substance inside of it. And after some appraisal, Eisen could confirm what it was. [Soul Stone][Red-Dragon Embryo][Rank - 5] With a broad grin on his face, Eisen cracked the marble open with transmutation before the soul scattered out of it, and the old man extended his hand toward the soul floating mid-air. [Red-Dragon Embryo¡¯s Soul][Rank - 5] [Soul Strength - 198] [Integrity - 10][Mana Generation - 20][Thought - 30] [Form - None] "Huh?" Eisen muttered surprised. He would have expected the soul strength to be much higher, but maybe it was just that low because it was still just an embryo¡¯s soul? Either way, Eisen was d that the soul wasn¡¯t strong enough to reject him. Now, he just needed to figure something else out for the Dragon¡¯s body, and then that was it. Quickly, he looked around the room, seeing two items that were just so conveniently there. One, the heart of a monster that Jyuuk bought just in case they needed it, and even enhanced and enchanted it, and second, the parasitic slime. "Jyuuk, do you know how a parasitic slime works or looks when it infects monsters?" He asked, and the monkey beastperson thought about it for a while and then nodded. "Yeah, I¡¯m pretty sure it just fills out any cavity it can. And when a monster gets damaged, it- Wait, do you think-" Jyuuk exined while realizing why Eisen was asking in the middle of that exnation. "Yes, exactly. Jyuuk, Xenia, set the heart you enchanted into the body and use the Parasitic slime to create somehow a false mass of flesh that can fill out all that space." Eisen told them in a somewhatmanding tone, before turning to the soul again. "And in the meantime, I¡¯ll take care of the soul problem," Eisen said as he activated the option to give a soul a form before he immediately felt the environment he was in change. He was in a chaotic, volcanic space, with cracks in the earth that revealed the boiling magma that was underneath. Dozens of volcanoes erupted in the area, and things like meteorites fell from the sky like rain. But none of that seemed like it was anythingpared to the very angry, growling, full-sized red-dragon in front of Eisen. Chapter 242 Birth of the Living Dungeon The very moment that Eisen noticed that the world around him had changed to the Soul Realm of the Dragon Embryo¡¯s Soul, he couldn¡¯t even attempt to ignore the creature in front of him. In the soul realm, this was the first time that he saw anything ¡¯actually¡¯ alive, although this was also the first time that he attempted to give a shape to a soul that wasn¡¯t nk, and it by far had the highest ¡¯Thought¡¯ stat of any soul he¡¯s seen and inspected. [The Soul is enraged. Kill the soul¡¯s representation or calm it down to leave] "An enraged soul..?" Eisen muttered to himself as he read through the notification, and then immediately tried to stand up. He moved, this was also the first time that this worked, every other time, he was stuck in ce and could only move his head to look around a little bit. Carefully, Eisen began to move toward the fully-grown red dragon in front of him as it began to bear its sharp teeth. "Shh, don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not trying to hurt you." Eisen tried to calm the dragon down, but this didn¡¯t work in the slightest. Instead, something else happened. The old man began to feel a cold substance at his feet, which shouldn¡¯t be here considering the scorching, volcanic environment he was in, but when he looked down, he saw a thick, ck slime cover the whole ground around him. Grinding his teeth, Eisen nodded his head and stepped closer to the Dragon again, despite the slime practically trying to glue him to the ground. "I get it, you¡¯re scared. This thing was the first that took a chance of life from you, but it can¡¯t hurt you anymore." He exined and moved closer again and held his hand up to the Dragon which was now unable to move any more after being nearlypletely covered in the ck substance. Slowly, Eisen put his hand on the Dragon¡¯s snout, gently running his hand over its skin as its breath sped up in something like a panic. "...don¡¯t... want to... die..." The voice of a young child then muttered out, merely echoing around the area simr to what Eisen knew from the ¡¯Deep Visualization¡¯ state he was in just recently. After the child finished to speak, the ck slime on the ground that had at this point covered this whole realm and turned it simply pitch-ck began to bubble as if it was boiling, and Eisen could see a bright-green liquid seep through some of the ces. Eisen nodded his head at the soul¡¯s voice. "None of us do. We¡¯re all scared of death, and it¡¯s the one thing that nobody can beat. But I¡¯m here to give you a second chance." After Eisen¡¯s words, the speed at which the venom continued to spread through the ck slime became just so much faster, and as if in a desperate struggle, the slime crept up Eisen¡¯s whole body as it mixed with the venom, causing the old man to feel a slight burning pain all over his body. It was at the level of sunburn for the most part, but it still showed Eisen that he needed to hurry up. In a sobbing voice, the young child then spoke again. "...What... do you... know?" It asked, slowly getting angry once more at the man that seemed to say he knew what it was like to die. "I do know! When I was a child, I died. I died, and a few minutester, I came back! My father had revived me after I drowned! I know it¡¯s not exactly like what you¡¯re going through, but even now, I¡¯m struggling with death as I¡¯ming closer to it every day! So let me use some of the time I have left and give it to you!" Eisen said, getting more and more riled up himself because this seemed like the only situation where he was able to openly speak about his fear, as he faced someone that was just as scared of death as he was. The soul stayed silent as Eisen was slowly being devoured by the slime and venom, and just before his face was covered up as well, he said hisst-hope sentence, "So let me give you what my father gave me back then, a second chance!" After Eisen yelled this out, nothing happened. It just stayed utterly silent, and the slime-venom mixture stopped crawling up Eisen¡¯s body. And a few momentster, the slime around both Eisen and the Dragon disappeared after falling to dust, and the Dragon¡¯s figure vanished with it. As the whole world began to disappear and Eisen noticed himself getting closer to returning to the ship, he felt like someone was standing behind him and smiling at him, although he couldn¡¯t see anyone. And then, he was back at the ship. He looked through the notifications saying that he managed to calm the Soul down, and looked at the Soul¡¯s status and the notification that popped up with it in surprise. [Red-Dragon Embryo¡¯s Soul][Rank - 5] [Soul Strength - 587 ] [Integrity - 100][Mana Generation - 150][Thought - 200] [Form - None] [The Rage of the Soul reduced its strength immensely. Now that it has calmed down, it returned to what it usually was. As you calmed it down and the soul trusts you, you are allowed to handle it despitecking the strength] Eisen stared forward at the mist-like soul that was shifting around and sticking to the old man¡¯s hand before he looked around toward the others that were looking at him in surprise. "Back already?" Stahl asked, and Eisen nodded his head. "Mhm... Did you manage to finish the body at least somewhat?" The old man asked before both Xenia and Jyuuk nodded. "Kind of, yeah. Jyuuk ced the heart inside and somehow manipted the slime into thinking it¡¯s alive and made it fill out all the space before it then turned into a flesh-like substance to fit the body better." Xenia exined, and Eisen slowly nodded. "Alright, good. Now, I hope this works." Eisen said as he slowly stepped toward the body of the small dragon with dark-red metallic scales and ck flesh underneath and then pressed the soul against its forehead. Slowly, the soul spread out and began to cover the artificially-created body, before that body shattered into a million pieces that then disappeared before hitting the ground. "H-Huh?! Wait, what just happened?" Xenia yelled out as she watched this happen, and everyone looked at Eisen, confused while the old man just smiled. "Exactly what was supposed to happen." [The Soul has epted its new form and is indebted to you] "Did you just break what you were working on for days?" Zyra asked loudly, and Eisen sighed and shook his head as he was starting to get a bit annoyed at the way she just doubted andined about everything. "No, I didn¡¯t ¡¯break¡¯ anything. That¡¯s just what happens when you give a form to a soul." He said as he looked down at the still mist-covered area that was slowly changing into precisely the shape that the body had before, and Eisen stepped over to the table and grabbed the Homunculus Core, bringing it over to the Soul. "Here you go, bud. I promised you a second chance, here it is." The old man said with a smile, before the soul in the shape of a small dragon moved closer to the core, before jumping back a bit startled. But Eisen, trying to calm it down, ran his hand over the soul¡¯s head. He couldn¡¯t touch it, but he at least felt that something was there and the soul seemed to have also felt it as it leaned into the old man¡¯s hand before rxing and pushing its head against the round Homunculus Core, which immediately sucked the soul up and began to shake around. Slowly, the shape of the core changed, and it became more like an oval, merely like an egg, and its color and texture changed to that of the scales that Eisen created. [You conversed with a soul and convinced it with your words. Title Unlocked] [You helped in the creation of true artificial life. +15 to all base stats] "It worked!" Jyuuk excitedly eximed as he read through the notifications that popped up in front of him, and Xenia was just as excited. "No it didn¡¯t just work, it ended up better than we thought! It¡¯s not a Homunculus; it¡¯s a true living being!" She eximed, and Eisen chuckled with a nod as he looked at the dark red egg in his hands. "I guess now we just have to wait for it to hatch, huh?" The old man said before he looked over at Zyra and winked at her. "Still doubting me even now?" He asked as he sat down on his chair and continued holding the egg before looking at Xenia and Jyuuk, while Zyra looked away embarrassed. "Do either of you mind if I make it my third tamed monster?" He asked, and they both shook their heads immediately. "Go ahead! I just wanted to be part of making it!" Xenia eximed, and Jyuuk nodded his head as well. "I¡¯m sure it¡¯s going to be in better hands with you." The beastperson added, and Eisen smiled back at them before Alnico and Stahl walked up next to their grandfather curiously. "And a Dragon is going to hatch out of that now?" Al asked as she leaned forward and put her hand on the egg to feel what its texture for a moment and Eisen smiled at her. "In a while, probably. I don¡¯t know how long it takes for it to hatch, but-" Eisen began, but was quickly interrupted when Stahl found something weird. "Do all Dragon eggs have gems in them?" He asked, and Eisen looked at him confused before Stahl motioned for his grandfather to turn the egg around, which he swiftly did and then found a small, purple crystal embedded on its underside. "Well, this is quite peculiar..." He muttered, and the other originals came closer, even Brody who just now came back to see what was going on. "Wait, the color of that gem is like the Dungeon Core¡¯s, right?" Sky pointed out as he managed to get a closer look on it himself, and Eisen only slowly nodded. Carefully, he ced his finger on the crystal and poured his mana inside of it, because he was sure this actually was the Dungeon Core and not just something that coincidentally looked like it. And when he did, something interesting happened. [You have connected with a Dungeon Core and have be the Dungeon Master. Dungeon Management option now avable] [Dungeon Type] Living Dungeon [Rank - 0][Floors - 1] [Description] A peculiar dungeon under the ownership of Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Instead of being a stationary dungeon with a set rank, it synergized with the possibility of true life and gained the ability to grow stronger over time, currently taking the form of a tiny dragon. [Due to the nature of this Dungeon/Creature, two different information windows will be avable on inspection] Surprised at what was going on, Eisen looked at the notification and then down at the egg, before noticing that some cracks already formed on its surface. Slowly, a tiny dark red snout cracked through the shell as one small dragon climbed out of it and onto Eisen¡¯sp. Everyone in the room looked at the small creature that was not even nearly asrge as the body that they had created for it before, although it seemed quite simr, with dark-red scales and a ck underbelly as well as golden eyes. [Due to already being the creature¡¯s Dungeon Master, it is not necessary to tame it] [Name the creature] "Hey there, Lil¡¯ guy. Didn¡¯t expect you here so early." The old man said with a smile and grabbed a piece of cloth to wipe the slimy substance from the small dragon¡¯s body, before giving it a name. Fafnir. Chapter 243 Ability Demonstration "Fafnir? Sounds cute!" Bree eximed with excitement in her voice as she came closer and took a look at the small dragon as well, just like everyone else there did. But the tiny creature, in turn, chose to hide in one of the pockets of Eisen¡¯s apron. "Come on, let¡¯s try not to scare the little guy. He was only just born, after all." Eisen told them as he looked down and was soon faced with the glowing eyes of the small creature. "But it¡¯s so cute!" K yelled out, freaking out over Fafnir together with basically all the other girls in the room. "He is pretty cute, yes, but again, let¡¯s not scare him right away," Eisen said before choosing to pull up the window with the information about the Living Dungeon Fafnir. [Fafnir] [Race - Living Dungeon Wyrmling][Rank - 0][Level - 1] [HP - 200] [STR - 15][END - 20][AGI - 15] [Skills] -[Dungeon Nature][Rank - 0][Level - 1] -[Draconic Nature][Rank - 0][Level - 1] Eisen curiously read through the small amount of information, already impressed with the stats of this lowest-level creature, and while he was at it, Brody pped his hands together. Apparently, he did it with his energies infused into the action, since it was far louder and snappier than it should have been otherwise. "Alright everyone, I feel like it¡¯s time for a meeting of the originals. So move your asses and get out of here, we¡¯ll fill you inter." The Demon-Orc halfling decided and walked up behind the crowd, pushing out every one of them, even including Caria and Melissa, who Kirisho took with her, leaving only the five originals and the Living Dungeon Wyrmling in there, although everyone else wasining quite a bit. "Thanks, Brody. Should we get started and take a look at what this little guy can do?" Eisen suggested, and the four others immediately nodded their heads, before the old man took Fafnir out of his central chest pocket and ced him onto the meeting table. "Okay buddy, can you show us what you can do with your ¡¯Draconic Nature¡¯ skill?" Eisen asked, and Fafnir tilted his head to the side for a moment, so Eisen figured it was just something passive until now and would give him more abilities over time. "I guess not... Then how about your ¡¯Dungeon Nature¡¯?" This time around, Fafnir immediately jumped off the table and stood up on his hind legs while spreading his wings, before a notification popped up. [Living Dungeon Hatchling Fafnir is unable to execute ability due tock of mana] With a loud sigh, Eisen then extended his hand toward Fafnir and waited for him to climb onto his arm. "Seems like that won¡¯t work either yet," Eisen said and looked at the small winged-lizard, before turning to the others. "Are Rank 0 Dungeons even a thing?" He inquired, and Brody thought about it for a while before shaking his head. "I don¡¯t think so. Haven¡¯t seen one so far at least." The Demon-Orc answered, and Eisen ended up frowning. "Hmm... It said that Fafnir has a Dungeon Floor already, though." The old man said, and Xenia spoke up next. "Well, as far as I know, Dungeons always have one original floor more than essible for the Dungeon Core, because people aren¡¯t usually allowed near it. So I guess that one floor is technically zero?" She suggested as a solution for the nonexistent problem, and the old man nodded his head slowly. "I guess so. But I wonder, can it level up like normal just by fighting?" The old man wondered and looked through any information that he had on Fafnir before noticing a particr ability. [Ability - Dungeon Authority] [Description] The Dungeon Authority is passively spread around the inside of the Dungeon as well as its direct surrounding. A Living Dungeon can use its authority to gain experience and level up through different actions it observes inside the range of the Authority. "Huh... Interesting..." The old man muttered out before activating his Truth-Seeing-Eyes to see if there was anything there, and indeed, there was a just barely noticeable sphere in a rough five-meter radius directly around Fafnir, so Eisen began to smile. "Alright, perfect! I know what we need to do." Eisen stood up with Fafnir on his shoulder and made his way toward the door before the others looked at him, confused. "Huh? What are you doing?" Evalia asked, but Eisen just smiled at her. "We¡¯re all going to show him our areas of expertise." The old man said and motioned the four of them to follow him before they stood up and did as suggested. And when they reached the central area of the deck, they turned to Eisen again and once more asked him what exactly they needed to do, and he swiftly began to exin. "So that Fafnir can level up, we need to do all kinds of things directly around him. I thought that maybe it would be a good chance to show everyone here what we can do, at least to an extent. We don¡¯t have to show any trump cards, but enough to show them how prepared we are. And then, I guess it¡¯s also a good chance to let anyone that feels like ites forward and shows what they can do to us so that we can see who would be useful for which tasks." The old man said, as he looked over at Bree, who saw that they left the room and immediately rushed over to them and smiled brightly. "Can you maybe get everyone, and I mean everyone, toe here? Even the children, alright?" Eisen asked, and after a swift salute and a light giggle, Bree turned around and rushed around the ship to gather everyone. While they were one after another reaching the group of originals, Xenia turned to Eisen with a smirk. "I mean, is it a good idea to do that on this ship? Especially if I go all-out, that might not end up well. I have a lot of powerful area of effect magic, after all." She said, and Eisen looked at her with a frown. "Look that way for a second." He said as he kept his eyes on the High-Elf and his arms crossed, which made Xenia look back confused. "What? Which way?" She asked, but Eisen kept standing still. "¡¯Literally¡¯ anywhere. We¡¯re on the ocean, Xenia, you can use magic asrge as you want as long as it¡¯s out of range of the ship." The old man told her, before Xenia¡¯s face swiftly flushed red and she pulled her with-hat further down onto her face to hide just that. "R-Right..." She embarrassedly stuttered before Eisen couldn¡¯t help but let out a light chuckle. "I¡¯m more worried about Brody¡¯s turn because he seriously can¡¯t get out of range of the ship." He exined, and the Demon-Orc just shrugged. "Oye, let me be, not my fault." He protested, but Eisen shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, I know. Anyway, who wants to go first? Jyuuk?" After Eisen suggested this, he looked over to the Monkey-Beastperson who then nodded his head, already summoning his Beastiary from his soul storage. "Sure!" He responded enthusiastically before the group waited for everyone to arrive. The majority of them were still quite nervous, but a good bit managed to calm down from before, although that might have changed again after what Eisen said next. "Okay everyone, thanks foring up here again! Today, we would like to do two things." He eximed before holding out his hand in a fist before stretching one of his fingers upward. "One! We want to show you what we can do." And then he added another finger and continued. "And Two! We want to see what you can do! All five of us will one after another go up there and show you some of our abilities, before those of you who want to impress us will do the same! First, Jyuuk will go up, and after that, those with any Naturalist, Taming, or Necromantic abilities can choose to show us what you can do." Eisen exined before he looked at Jyuuk, who nodded his head and stepped up into the center of the crowd while Eisen ced Fafnir down on the ground so that he was adequately within range of the Monkey. Slowly, Jyuuk extended his arm before all of the beasts that he stored on his skin appeared around him, which were the original beasts that Jyuuk tamed before taking in all the monsters from the Monster shop that Eisen ¡¯liberated¡¯. And then, as a few of those monsters appeared as well before Jyuuk reached his upper limit of monsters that he could summon before he then summoned the five ¡¯undead¡¯ that were left on his hand, all of which, besides the one ghost-type, were overgrown with his nts to strengthen and support them. Immediately, the people looked at Jyuuk and his monsters in surprise at the sheer number, including all of the yers that were on the ship, before Jyuuk spoke up. "These are some of my monsters. I have many more in this Beastiary of mine, and then there is, of course, the skeletal crew of sailors that are taking care of the ship right now." Jyuuk exined, before beginning to demonstrate some of the skills of his monsters, including a specialized synergy skill between Aotori and Akatori, as in contrast between Ice and Fire. This demonstration alone was quite a show, and the sight of these things let Fafnir level up to 12 already! After Jyuuk¡¯s presentation was over, and he unsummoned his monsters, a few people stepped up, including a Priestess to the Goddess of Death Aoh. One of them showed off the small snake that he had tamed that was usually hiding in his shirt, while another one showed off their nt control skills. And the priestess then showed herself summoning an undead. There were a few different things that happened, but nothing went past that level. That was already a bit of a surprise to Eisen, but he ignored it, and they moved on to the next demonstration from Xenia. She drew a Large,plex magic-circle into the air, causing a quite shy scene of dozens dolphins made of pure water to jump over the ship, before then even creating something like a ¡¯Water Giant¡¯ to appear by sticking out of the water waist-up and then blew against the sails to give them a little boost. These all nearly extended Xenia¡¯s vast mana, so her demonstration didn¡¯t go much farther. Once more, other people stepped up and showed them their magic ability, but again, there wasn¡¯t anything especially noteworthy about anything they did. Not even after Evalia, Brody, or even Eisen¡¯s demonstration did anyone¡¯s ability seem to jump out. Sure, there were those that Eisen thought might be a little talented, but their talents were weaker than anyone currently in the guild of just a little more than a dozen people. Was this the norm of the game world? If it was, then he didn¡¯t understand why that was. Or maybe these people in particr just weren¡¯t all that strong? Even if that was the case, the numerous different demonstrations gave the originals a good idea of who would be useful in what area, while at the same time giving the five new yers here a good impression on what could be done in the game. Of course, it also helped to level Fafnir up a good bit until he was at Level 90, only ten levels from ranking up for the first time. But Eisen needed an excellent way to give Fafnir the experience required for thosest ten levels, but before then, he chose to end this little event for now. "Alright, all of you! Good job today!" He eximed and then swiftly continued. "Please, take the time on this ship here to further your abilities as far as you can, and ask any of us for help if you should need it!" Eisen told them, hoping that this would be the end of it, but it seemed like Brody had another idea which he came up with after the old man told him that Fafnir was only at level 90. "And to end it off, Eisen and I are going to have a little duel!" Chapter 244 Branding Confused and surprised, Eisen looked over at the Demon-Orc Halfling next to him. "Brody, what do you mean we¡¯re going to have a duel? When was that decided?" The old man asked, and Brody simply grinned back at him. "Just now, you geezer. Come on, it¡¯ll be fun!" Brodyughed loudly, but Eisen just chuckled and shook his head. "I doubt that, honestly. It¡¯s going to be over after a few seconds, after all." Eisen answered, but Brody shook his head. "Don¡¯t be like that! Juste!" By jerking his head in the direction of the area that was cleared up in the center of the crowd, Brody told Eisen to just shut up and get to it. So, with a loud sigh, the old man agreed and nodded his head. "Fine, but at least go easy on me." Eisen told him, before Brody nodded and smirked. "Of course. I¡¯ll let you pick the weapon I use, I won¡¯t use my energies or any status-increasing abilities, and you can use any benefits you want. That should at the very least be more than enough to make up for the level difference." Brody answered before calling over a Priest to the God of Combat to watch over the duel. "Oh, and to make up the obvious skill-difference... If you want me to use any weapon, then if you can get me to lose grip of the weapon, we¡¯ll count it as your win. Otherwise, it¡¯s the regr duel rules. Sound good?" Brody asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head before taking a look at the different weapons that the Demon-Orc brought over, beforeing to a conclusion. "Alright, use the monkey-stick." Eisen answered as he picked up the long wooden staff and then threw it over to Brody, who looked back surprised. "Wait, seriously? The Monkey-Stick is a pretty high-tier weapon, at the very least it gives me a good few advantages over you." He answered, but Eisen simply smirked. "That¡¯s fine. I¡¯ll just use my tools, if that¡¯s fine with you?" "Of course, use anything you want." Brody smirked, before Eisen nodded and activated his demonic transformation, before taking his carving needle and creating a small enchantment on his palm and then turned back to Brody, who was curiously trying to figure out what Eisen was trying to do. But considering that even Xenia didn¡¯t recognize any part of the enchantment, not even the runes that Eisen used, it was obvious that Brody wouldn¡¯t have been able to figure it out. "Alright, let¡¯s get started then." Eisen finally said before the Priest nodded and initiated everything to start the Duel, before a notification popped up in front of Eisen. [You are about to start a Duel with someone over 40 Levels above your own. Are you sure you wish to continue?] Of course, Eisen nodded his head and the notification disappeared, immediately being reced by a different notification. [You started a Duel with Brody. Loss and Win will be decided by the overseer] Slowly, Brody grasped the monkey-stick tighter than before and pointed it at Eisen as the two of them locked eyes with each other, and Brody jumped forward toward the Demon-Titan, who activated any skills that might be useful for this fight, while a few people began to cheer for Eisen. "Come on, beat his ass, Gramps!" Stahl yelled out, before Eisen inwardly chuckled and looked at the Demon before swiftly swinging hisrge hammer at the tip of the Monkey-Stick. That strength itself made Brody¡¯s grip slip a slight bit already, considering that Eisen had a good amount of increased stats and the hammer even strengthened the force as it was made with the me-Of-The-Earth Mythril. But Brody didn¡¯t worry about that and moved into a sideways-position, letting the staff slip all the way through to the hand that was further away from Eisen, before gripping it tightly again just at the end and swinging it around his back and grasped it with his other hand, and then used the light momentum he gained from that to press the monkey-stick against the ground and vaulted over Eisen¡¯srge body. But the old man didn¡¯t just let that happen either and spread hisrge wings out and pushed them forward while jumping backward to move farther back so that Brodynded directly in front of him, swinging the stick down against Eisen¡¯s head. Eisen tried to guard himself from that attack and thickened his rock-like skin at his underarms as he crossed them above his head, but the impact that he expected never came. Instead, using circr momentum, Brody pulled the monkey-stick backward and began to swing it around his arms to build up some speed before swinging it over against the side of Eisen¡¯s torso, which became open exactly due to old man guarding above his head. And then, an onught of attack over attack followed, each not doing an immense amount of damage to Eisen, but all of it amounting to a good bit. But this was the perfect chance for Eisen to use the enchantment on his palm. When Brody came into Eisen¡¯s range again, the old man once more controlled his wings and covered Brody with them, trying to pull him in or at least obstruct him from immediately jumping away, before Eisen grasped the wooden monkey stick as tightly as he could, but Brody managed to slip through the opening in the wings and built up a little bit of a distance to Eisen. And to everyone¡¯s surprise, Eisen just did nothing next. He deactivated his demonic transformation and crossed his arms, and Brody began to chuckle. "C¡¯Mon, don¡¯t give up! It just got good!" Brodyined with a broad grin, but Eisen shook his head. "It was pretty fun, yes, but it¡¯s over now, sorry." The old man responded before Brody tilted his head to the side to think about what Eisen was saying, before Xenia could be heard in the background. "Ah! So that¡¯s what you did! You branded it!" She eximed, pointing at the Monkey-stick, right where Eisen grasped it before. From that space outward, cracks began to form in the wood before spreading out all over it at an incredible pace, before the wooden monkey-stick simply shattered into a thousand splinters. At first, nobody really knew what was going on, before Brody began tough loudly, "Seriously? Well, it¡¯s your win, old man. Really didn¡¯t expect that to happen." Brody admitted, before he looked over at the priest, who slowly nodded his head. [You have won the Duel against Brody. No rewards have been set] "Wait, what the hell just happened?" Alnico asked confused as she looked at her grandfather, who simply smiled and extended his hand to her to show her his palm. "I carved a mirrored enchantment on my hand. With the heat from my element, I then branded the enchantment into the monkey-stick¡¯s wood and poured my mana inside of it to activate it." Eisen exined, and Xenia looked at the old man excitedly, while the others were still trying to figure out what exactly happened. "But seriously, how did you know that would work?" Stahl asked with a frown, but to his surprise, Eisen shook his head. "I didn¡¯t. I thought it was worth a try, but if it didn¡¯t work out, I would have just done my best, although I probably would have lost." Eisen exined as he looked at Brody. "Oh... But isn¡¯t that kind of cheating? I mean, that wasn¡¯t a straightforward fight..." The green-haired teen pointed out, and now Brody answered for Eisen. "Kid, I know you love your grandfather and all, and he¡¯s an awesome dude, but he never could have beat me in a fight. Ignoring our stat and skill disposition, my body remembers different movements to his. He¡¯s a craftsman, I¡¯m a fighter." He exined, and Stahl slowly nodded his head at the Demon-Orc¡¯s exnation. "Also, a ¡¯Straightforward¡¯ fight isn¡¯t really a thing. A fight is literally about taking advantage of your opponent¡¯s weakspots, no matter how. Even ¡¯Dirty¡¯ fighting is still part of a proper fight, because it¡¯s a way to beat your opponent. Trust me, in a life-and-death fight, you¡¯ll die if you concentrate on fighting ¡¯straightforward¡¯ or ¡¯fair¡¯." Brody then added with his arms crossed, before looking back at the pile of splinters behind him. "Although I wish you wouldn¡¯t have broken my weapon, Eisen..." "Sorry, I¡¯ll make you a new one. I¡¯m sure you noticed it in the fight as well, but it wasn¡¯t in a great condition anymore anyway." The old craftsman pointed out, before Brody nodded his head. "Oh definitely. It was one of the first weapons I bought, because it let me be pretty nimble and helped me dodge a bit while givin¡¯ me some nice range. I¡¯m more used to fightin¡¯ people, so it took a good minute to get used to especially the weirder monsters." He exined, before Jyuuk began to chuckle. "Aka Brawling Tree?" The Beastperson asked, and Brody began to grind his teeth while nodding. "Fuckin¡¯ Brawling Tree." He cursed, and Eisen smiled at them before squatting down and looking at the initiator for all of what just happened, Fafnir. "So bud, let¡¯s take a look... Level 99 huh?" Eisen said with a grin, before letting the small living dungeon climb onto his arm. "Now we just need to wait, I guess." He muttered to himself, before standing back up and looking around, noticing that the whole crowd was slowly dissipating after the event while his group gathered around him. "So, what¡¯s happening now? Are we just going to sit down together a bit and rx, or are we going to do some more crazy stuff?" Stahl asked, once more one of the first that opened their mouths, as usual, before Eisen shrugged in response to his grandson¡¯s question. "Well, my n was to go up to the meeting room again and get Fafnir to level up. And then, try and figure out some of this dungeon business." He answered, and Stahl sighed loudly. "And once you do that, what¡¯re we gonna do?" He asked, and Jyuuk spoke for the old man. "I¡¯m guessing your Grandfather is nning on letting you level up inside that dungeon then, so that you don¡¯t die instantly when we¡¯re on the inds." "Basically. The monsters there should be at least around Rank 3, and right now you¡¯ll struggle with anything stronger than low level animals." Eisen pointed out, and the five new yers looked at each other slightly embarrassedly, before the old man moved his fingers through his beard. "Other than that, I¡¯d say I¡¯ll work on some different weapons that everyone finally requested. I also want to fish a little bit, so making some fishing rods is for sure also amongst what I¡¯m going to do next. Anyone that wants to join in, just tell me and I¡¯ll make a rod for you." Eisen exined before some of the others already voiced some interest in fishing with him, so he took note and chose to work on some when he had the time. "And what should we do, Eisen?" Rouge then asked, since they weren¡¯t really given a real task yet, but Eisen knew what he wanted them to do. "Make weapons or tools for these five. Your skills aren¡¯t rank 3 yet, so they¡¯re going to be able to use them." Eisen told them as he pointed at Vardia, K, Zyra, Stahl and Alnico, before the three apprentices nodded their heads excitedly. "Of course!" Koro eximed happily, before Eisen shook his head. "Not you, Koro. I already talked to her about it, but Xenia is going to teach you about proper useage of enchantments. And only under her direct supervison are you allowed to enchant things or use alchemy in any way. And with ¡¯Direct supervision¡¯ I mean that she has to have her attention on you, got it?" The old man exined, before Koro looked at the High-Elf confused. "Wait, so-" He began, but Eisen cut him off. "Yes, you¡¯re going to take another test just before we reach the inds. Until then, just see Xenia as a private tutor or something." Eisen suggested, and while Xenia was unhappy with that wording, she ended up just epting it. "Thank you so much!" Koro eximed with a bright smile, before Eisen just smiled at the young man. Chapter 245 In the Dungeon Back in the Meeting Room, Eisen looked at Fafnir with a grin, just working on a few different small items to give him any sort of experience, while the four other originals were sitting around him as the group of five was talking about random stuff. And then, a little whileter, what they had been waiting for finally arrived. Fafnir leveled up again, and his body slowly grewrger and longer, while his ws and teeth also became sharper and longer as the small Wyrmling turned into a Child. "Perfect!" Eisen eximed with a grin and looked at the slightlyrger Living Dungeon before checking on the information again. [Fafnir] [Race - Living Dungeon Child][Rank - 1][Level - 1] [HP - 500][MP - 500] [STR - 30][END - 60][AGI - 40][INT - 35][WIS - 35] [Skills] -[Dungeon Nature][Rank - 0][Level - 41] -[Draconic Nature][Rank - 0][Level - 3] [Dungeon Type] Living Dungeon [Rank - 1][Floors - 2] [Description] A peculiar dungeon under the ownership of Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Instead of being a stationary dungeon with a set rank, it synergized with the possibility of ¡¯true¡¯ life and gained the ability to grow stronger over time, currently taking the form of a small dragon. "Alright, now let¡¯s try this again! Fafnir, show us the ¡¯Dungeon Gate¡¯ Ability." Eisen said with a grin, before standing up and bringing the Living Dungeon Child over to a free spot, before the others also stood up and followed behind the old man. Slowly, Fafnir stood on his hind legs and spread his wings just like he had done before when he failed to activate the ability, but this time he jumped into the air before a stone-brick, rounded doorframe with a dark wooden door appeared out of basically nowhere, slowly constructing itself out of dust. And Fafniry on the top of the doorframe, seemingly asleep. "That looks pretty cool!" Jyuuk eximed excitedly before the others immediately agreed, but Eisen was a bit hesitant. "It looks alright, although I¡¯m a bit disappointed at the quality of the wood..." He muttered as he ran his hand over the door before Evalia sighed loudly at the old man¡¯s words. "Eisen, Fafnir is not even a day old and just created this out of nothing. I think considering that being the case, we shouldn¡¯t be too judgemental on small stuff like that." She chuckled as Eisen smiled at her and winked. "Obviously, I was just kidding. Let¡¯s hurry and get inside." Slowly, Eisen pushed the rusty metal handle down before pushing the door forward, and beyond there, the five originals could see a different space entirely that could only be seen when looking through the open door. And after shrinking down so that he could fit through, Eisen took the first step, and then entered the space that was currently just a rough ten by ten by three-meter, rectangr room with dirt walls and floors. "Well, this is pretty underwhelming..." Xenia pointed out, and Eisen just chuckled. "Don¡¯t worry; I think I can work on all of this a bit. I have this window here, just let me look at it for a second..." The old man answered as he turned his head and looked at the notifications that appeared when he entered this dark room. [Current DP - 25][DP Regen - 1/hour per entity inside] [Monster Shop] -[Unlock Beast Type - 10 DP] -[Unlock Humanoid Type - 100 DP] -[Unlock Dragon Type - 1000 DP] [Dungeon Management Shop] -[Unlock Space Extension Menu - 10 DP] -[Unlock Space Upgrade Menu - 10 DP] [Information! Your Dungeon has a Unique Dungeon Type and is as such not restricted to a specific type of monster or environment] "Hmm, Interesting. So, this seems a lot more game-likepared to before. I have DP, which stands for Dungeon Points, I guess, and I can use them to unlock different things for the dungeon." Eisen exined to the others before both Jyuuk and Xenia looked at him with incredible excitement. "Wait, so this is that type of Dungeon Management game as well? Awesome!" Jyuuk eximed excitedly, before realizing that he couldn¡¯t take part in this although he thought wrong. "Here, I made you four ¡¯Dungeon Administrators.¡¯ The Dungeon tab told me that you guys don¡¯t directly have all the rights that I do, but you can do nearly everything in here now." Eisen informed them as he waved the windows away, and the four of them looked at each other in surprise as they opened the different information windows that they were able to ess. "Awesome!" Xenia eximed, and Eisen chuckled at her excitement. "Well, I¡¯m d you enjoy this. But I¡¯m kind of confused actually. This is so different to basically everything else, right?" Eisen said as he tried to understand the information in front of him that he just wasn¡¯t at all used to, he could y this game freely until now just because it was not game-like at all, but these administration panels were just like a game would be. "Don¡¯t worry, we can exin to you how it works. Although, you¡¯re right, it is kind of weird. I get it though, they can¡¯t expect us to supply a Dungeon with an infinite amount of monsters and dig everything out ourselves, after all." Jyuuk answered, before Eisen slowly nodded his head. "I guess so. Well, what do you think we should buy first?" The old man inquired, and Jyuuk suggested just buying the monsters first before Eisen agreed and chose to unlock the ¡¯Beast-Type.¡¯ There were a few different monsters that were then unlocked, although just a handful. In the end, they chose to simply unlock wolf monsters, five of which then immediately spawned, and the Wolf-Monster option was then reced by a few different upgrade options. The wolves themselves looked rather scrawny, small, and didn¡¯t seem like they could do much damage, although that was to be expected with a Rank 1 Dungeon. "Hmm, so now we can increase the spawn ratio and their base stats, huh?" Xenia muttered to herself as she continued looking through the windows, while Jyuuk kneeled up to the wolves, merely petting them. They would probably be aggressive to anyone else, but since Eisen named them ¡¯Dungeon Administrators,¡¯ they seemed like cute little pups faced with the originals. "These are so weird..." Jyuuk muttered to himself, and Eisen tilted his head to the side, confused. "What do you mean? Is anything wrong with them?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk shook his head. "Not ¡¯wrong,¡¯ just weird; The wolfs don¡¯t seem to be alive, like, they don¡¯t have a heartbeat. I heard that Dungeon monsters are supposed to be like this, but it¡¯s still weird to see this outside of undead." The Beastperson exined, and Eisen nodded his head slowly before Brody crossed his arms and looked at the wolves. "Hmm, can they also have skills?" Brody asked, but Jyuuk shook his head immediately. "I don¡¯t think so; they¡¯re just more type-specific. Like, instead of any of these gaining an earth-elemental ability, you¡¯ll unlock earth-wolves to spawn or something, I guess." Jyuuk exined, and the Demon-Orc then grinned broadly. "Oh, is that so? Then give me some time with them alone, yeah? Although, Jyuuk, youe with me." He suggested, and Eisen just shrugged and let him do his thing before stepping back out to the ¡¯Dungeon Gate¡¯ to grab some of his tools out of his carriage, as he wanted to try a few things out, turning to the others before he did so. "Let¡¯s just try a few things out here and spend as much time as possible in the dungeon to get some more Dungeon Points," Eisen told them, before exiting through the wooden door and rushing to get whatever he may need. And a few minutester, he already made his way back to the gate and stepped back into the Dungeon. "Huh? Why did you grab your shovel?" Xenia asked confused, and Eisen just smiled at her, before stepping over to the wall opposite to the Dungeon Gate and pushing the shovel into the dirt wall, digging away at it. The dirt that he split off from the wall instantly disappeared, and it didn¡¯t take much force to do so either. It was basically like the dirt that looked so dense and hard was just loose sand. And when Eisen confirmed that the wall didn¡¯t regenerate or something like that, he turned to Xenia. "Because I wanted to see if we can work around all of this. If we can build the interior of the Dungeon ourselves, we won¡¯t need to spend as much DP, which might be a good thing, especially in the early stages." Eisen exined before continuing to dig a square tunnel. He expected to need to ce some pirs here and there to keep everything stable, but no matter how far he dug, it was just incredibly sound. And then at some point, Eisen got a notification. [Due to your actions, the Space Extension Menu has been unlocked without needing to use DP to open it] "Oh, as I hoped!" Eisen eximed with a smile, before he noticed something different as well. In the ¡¯Wolf¡¯ sub-category in the Monster Shop, a few different types were newly added, apparently called ¡¯Feral Wolf,¡¯¡¯Strong Wolf,¡¯ and ¡¯Fast Wolf.¡¯ As they were simply sub-types of the regr wolf while not technically being ¡¯evolutions,¡¯ but just wolves with different specialized strengths to each other, it was possible to simply adjust the ratio of how many wolves of which type would spawn in. "Well, either way, let¡¯s just take a look at what I can do with this new menu for now..." The old man muttered to himself at the end of the tunnel that he made, before looking at the new information. "Hmm, we can open up 27 cubic meters per DP? That¡¯s going to take us a good amount of DP if we do it that way." Eisen thought to himself, before making his way back to the main room. And it was a lot, no matter how he thought about it. Currently, the group had 15 DP left, as they had spent over an hour in there and as such gave the dungeon five new DP. With that amount of DP, they could barely make 45 meters worth of a tunnel of the dimensions that Eisen dug. But he mostly just wanted to confirm that he could do this kind of thing to avoid having to pay the DP for expansion. When they would manage to get the materials, Eisen would also try to make a stone-paved floor and maybe at least cover the walls in different materials, to see if that would count as some sort of Upgrade. But before then, he wanted to unlock the Upgrade Menu, because it seemed like it would take a good while until he got enough materials to do all that. When he reached the room in the front again, he noticed that the others were surrounded by wolves that had changed quite a lot physically, and Eisen figured that they were just the new types of wolves that were unlocked in the menu a little bit ago. "Eisen! Look, these are cool, right?" Jyuuk asked excitedly, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Yeah, they are. But how did you manage this?" Eisen asked with a bit of surprise, and Brody just chuckled. "I told one attack me furiously, told one to catch up with me, and told one to try and beat me in a feat of strength!" "That¡¯s it? Really?" Eisen asked with augh, and Brody shrugged. "Yup, I guess. Probably because we¡¯re Admins in here or somethin¡¯." He suggested, and Eisen slowly nodded. "Probably. I doubt you¡¯d be able to dig the walls up like I just did normally either." The old man pointed out before Xenia added something as well. "I¡¯m sure we can make a dungeon with much greater difficultypared to usual dungeons of the same rank, right? But that¡¯s only if we end up working this much all the time." She said, but Eisen shook his head with a grin. "Not necessarily." He said as he crossed his arms before the others looked at him just a bit confused. "I still have my legacy, remember?" Chapter 246 Future Focus "Your Legacy? Ah, the Core Guardian! You said it¡¯s supposed to be an assistant or something, right?" Xenia asked the old man, who slowly nodded in response. "Mhm, as far as I know, yes. I¡¯m sure it¡¯s going to be helpful to have someone there all the time that can take care of any kind of issue immediately. But we first somewhat need to figure out how to get to the room with the core in it, right?" The old man answered as he opened the information windows for the dungeon, even pressing on different kinds of values. That gave him the necessary information on those values, like what they were for, and then when he touched on the Dungeon Floor value, he got more detailed information about the different floors, as well as an ¡¯Instant Transport¡¯ option of sorts. Eisen pressed the button for the instant transport to the ¡¯Core Room,¡¯ and directly in front of him, another doorway simr to the one that the group entered into the dungeon through appeared out of nowhere. "Alright, let¡¯s take a look then, shall we?" The old man suggested as the others went to stand behind him while Eisen opened the door up, and then stepped through into the room in front of them. It was a rtively simple room, although the floor and the walls were made out of stone bricks simr to those of the Arch that made up the doorway. In the center of the room stood a small pedestal, forming something like an altar together with the small purple crystal floating above it. It was about a third of what the Dungeon Core was before theybined it with the Homunculus Core. "Huh, so this is the core room? Interesting." Xenia thought to herself while everyone looked around a little bit, and Eisen stepped up to the Dungeon Core to see if he could see any new information by doing so before suddenly a sort of apparition looking exactly like Fafnir jumped out of the crystal. "Oh, so you can be inside of here as well?" The old man asked with a smile as he squatted down and extended his hand to let the small Dragon climb onto his arm. "Hmm, but I don¡¯t see anything new we can do here... Well, I did find the Core Guardian blueprints directly next to the Dungeon core, and the whole room was just about a dozen or so meters away from the main tunnel of a mine. Maybe this was supposed to be found early on in the whole ¡¯Dungeon Master¡¯ arc that Samuel told me about so that these Core Guardians can be made to assist yers with everything." Eisen said as he looked at the others next to him, who were listening to Eisen¡¯s thoughts. "Maybe. But I have to say, this room is probably the perfect ce to hold any ¡¯Secret Meetings¡¯ or something. Because only we can get inside of here, right?" She pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head. "Yeah, I think so. And this dungeon, in general, is assuredly a good ce to level up different skills. It¡¯s going to help us quite a lot. And to top it off, it might be a great source of ie, just like Komer mentioned to me before." Eisen exined to them before he moved back toward the door leading back to the first room of the dungeon so that he could make his way outside. "I think I¡¯ll get started on the Core Guardian. It¡¯s best to figure out if anything is missing before ourst stop before heading to the inds." Eisen said as Fafnir jumped off his shoulder and began walking over to the other Originals, who were still trying to figure out some things in here. They sent Eisen off, and then the old man made his way back into the meeting room, where a few people were already waiting for him. Stahl, Alnico, Kiron, and Komer. They were looking at the door curiously the whole time and were somewhat surprised when Eisen stepped out of it again. Kiron looked over at Eisen and smiled. "Grandfather, were you inside the Dungeon¡¯s space just now?" He asked before Eisen nodded his head. "Yeah, I was. It¡¯s nothing special in there yet, and it¡¯s too small to train in right now. I¡¯m about to start working on the Core Guardian to make things a bit easier though, so after that, the Dungeon should growrger and better at a pretty fast pace, I hope at least." He exined and Komer looked at the old man with eager eyes. "Oh! Yeah, the materials for that are in a special area! There were a few things there I didn¡¯t understand though, but I¡¯m pretty sure the base materials are all there." The young merchant exined, but Stahl and Alnico were looking at Eisen a bit confused. "What¡¯s a Core Guardian?" The young, green-haired boy asked, and Eisen began to scratch the back of his head. "It¡¯s something simr to a humanoid automaton that can help with different stuff rted to all kinds of cores, such as Dungeon, Guild or Town cores. My guess is, for example, that when I make one and link it to the Dungeon Core inside of Fafnir, the Core Guardian is going to be able to expand the dungeon by itself." The old man answered, and Alnico opened her eyes wide. "Whoa! That¡¯s awesome! Is there any way we can help?" Alnico asked, and the other three looked at Eisen with just-as-hopeful eyes. Eisen could practically see their tails wagging out of excitement, despite them not being Beastpeople. Slowly, the old man ended up shaking his head. "I doubt you¡¯ll be able to help with the construction itself, sorry. Stahl, Al, you two have like a handful of skills, and none of them are above Rank 1 I imagine. Komer, your production skills are a bit better off already, and although your highest should be magi-craft skills like Alchemy and Enchanting, I¡¯m not sure how much of that is needed with this. Also, I¡¯d prefer it if you kept going with your quest and finish it soon. And atst, Kiron. You¡¯re not good with detail-oriented stuff like this, which is fine by the way. But it seems like there¡¯s a lot of tiny, intricate parts in the whole body, so I¡¯m not sure how much you could end up helping." He exined, and the group of four immediately hung their heads low. "But I¡¯m not saying you can¡¯t help at all. I¡¯ll be needing some practice with ssblowing because I¡¯m pretty sure there were a few ss parts in there. I want to get it to at least Rank 2 before starting with everything, and until then, you¡¯ll probably be able to help out a bit here and there. And I will need help; ssblowing is very delicate." Eisen then added which immediately cheered up the group of teenagers quite a lot, even though Kiron was technically 150 years old. "Alright! We¡¯ll help with that! What do we need to do?" Stahl asked immediately before Eisen just smiled a bit and looked over to Komer, as he wanted to ask him something first before giving out different roles. "First, how far are you actually with your Quest?" Eisen asked again, and Komer slowly scratched the back of his head before apparently pulling up an information window and then looked at the old man. "I have nine more to go, but it¡¯s been getting harder and harder to find new enchantments. I did find out a few things here and there though, so that¡¯s cool, right? It¡¯s going to take a while to finish, though." Komer exined and sat down on the edge of the table. "That¡¯s fine. Just think about abstract things, maybe not only about causing an actual, physical effect." The old man suggested, and in response, Komer nodded his head as he mentally went through the different Coins of Fate that he created so far, before Eisen continued. "Alright, I didn¡¯t set a time limit anyway, and because you¡¯re only nine away it shouldn¡¯t take too long anymore anyway once you have some ideas. So, what you guys will be doing is rtively simple. In ssblowing, there are three furnaces. One, just a regr furnace to make the molten ss. Then, the, and I swear to the gods don¡¯t you dareugh now Stahl, ¡¯Glory Hole¡¯ to keep the temperature of the ss up while working it, and then, atst, the annealer to gradually cool the ss down when you¡¯re done." Eisen exined and looked over at Stahl who still couldn¡¯t hold back at least a bright grin. "I¡¯ll need at least one person helping me out to make sure I don¡¯t identally hit the ss against anything or something. I¡¯m going to be working with it at the end of a long tube so that it might be a bit wobbly. And then maybe if I need any help with the different shaping, I¡¯m going to need someone to hold different tools in ce while I work the ss with them. And in case it¡¯s needed, I¡¯m also going to need someone to prepare things like metals for the process of making Fumed ss, which is the process of capturing the gases from vaporized metals inside of the ss." He exined, and the four of them nodded their heads. "As for the other things, you¡¯ll all just be carrying stuff around or preparing materials for me to use. I doubt you¡¯ll be able to do much more than that at the moment, sorry." Eisen exined, before looking at Stahl and Alnico. "By the way, do you know where you want to go stat-wise? Because if so, this might be a good chance to teach you some of the different crafting skills that are supported by those stats. Only if you want, of course." Eisen suggested, and the two of them nodded their heads. "Alright! I definitely want to do something musical and bard-like, so I¡¯m going to focus on my mental stats as well as my agility, and then a little bit endurance to get my stamina higher. Evalia told me what she needs, " Alnico exined with a grin, so Eisen nodded. "I see. Then that¡¯s going to be things like Alchemy and Enchanting. Maybe a little bit of woodworking if you¡¯re interested in making your musical instruments. You should also focus on learning magic that helps with music in general though because it would be dumb not to, considering your future stat exposition. What about you, Stahl?" "Hmm, I want all the stats. Like, all of ¡¯em." He said quite straight forward before Eisen chuckled. "All of them? So you want to keep your stats even?" "Yup. I guess I¡¯ll be an all-rounder. That means I¡¯m always going to be worse than others that focus on it, but I can find some goodbinations, right?" "For sure. As you saw in the Duel between Brody and me before, I didn¡¯t use anybat skills. The onlybat skill I have is swordsmanship in the first ce. If you manage to integrate anything you do into the other parts, I don¡¯t think you¡¯ll fall behind either. Just think about it, if you know how to use a sword, you can make a better sword. And then, because you know everything about the sword because you made it, you¡¯re going to be able to use it even better." The old man pointed out with a smile before the others swiftly nodded, and Stahl spoke up. "I see... That definitely makes sense!" He answered and grinned as he stemmed his fists on his hips triumphantly for whatever reason, and then pointed toward the door. "Alright, now let¡¯s go and make this Core Guard!" Stahl yelled out with pure excitement in his voice before Eisen increased his size and stepped forward, cing his hand on his Grandson¡¯s back. "It¡¯s ¡¯Core Guardian.¡¯ But yeah, let¡¯s go." Chapter 247 Glassblowing The group of five then made their way over to Eisen¡¯s workshop, where the old man immediately summoned his Staff from his soul storage and created the three furnaces he would need, the central furnace to melt the ss, the glory hole to keep the molten ss hot, and then the annealer to slowly cool it down. Behind him, Kiron and Komer were helping Eisen carry some of the materials that he needed, which were, for now at least, just three different ones. Silica sand, which is just a very fine granted, pure sand with a low amount of impurities, the same limestone that he used in the metal extraction for Fafnir¡¯s scales, and then the material which was a pain to find, sodium carbonate, also known as Soda Ash. It was quite hard to find a store that would sell Soda Ash just by itself, and in the end, Komer luckily managed to find a ssblower that was kind enough to sell it. "So, what first?" Stahl asked excitedly, and Eisen just smiled at him and stepped over to the polished metal te that he leaned against the wall, which he then ced on a table once more created with his element. Seeing that, Komer ced the bag he was holding on the ground and stepped closer. "What¡¯s that for?" "I¡¯ll use it as a marver, which is just a metal te that I¡¯m going to use to help me shape the ss. But don¡¯t touch it, because I¡¯m heating it right now." Eisen told them, before remembering that he didn¡¯t tell everyone about one of the most critical parts of their ¡¯tasks¡¯ yet. "Oh, all of you, when you¡¯re helping me using any tools, make sure that they¡¯re hot enough. If the tools are cold, they are going to make the ss crack instantly, and I don¡¯t want that to happen." He said and then grabbed the bags with the materials for the ss before pouring the ratios that he was personally used to into the crucible acting as the central ¡¯furnace¡¯ and then turned to Komer. "I¡¯m making just regr ss right now, but I want to add other materialster as well. You also managed to buy the coloring agents from the same ssblower that you got the soda ash from, right?" The old man asked, and Komer smiled and nodded his head. "Yeah, we got a bunch of them. Not every possible color gradient of course, but like a dozen or two different ones." The young merchant answered, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "I see, thanks. Oh, and could you grab some of the low-rank mana crystals from the storage as well? I want to use them as an enchantment-carrierter." Eisen exined, and Komer nodded his head before rushing out the door, while Kiron looked at Eisen excitedly as his scaled tail was slightly wagging back and forth. "And what will you be making now?" The half-dragon asked, and Eisen scratched the back of his head while waiting for the silica, limestone and soda ash to melt down, liquify, and turn into ss. "For now, I think I just want to make something rather normal. Some ss cups maybe, so that we can rece the Self-Filling Cups and use the mana crystals for something else. I was also thinking about some bottles for the alcohol I¡¯m going to be making soon. Then, of course, things rted to that, like Wine or Whiskey sses, or decanters even. Oh, and I also want to make some proper, well-made Mana-Spectacles." After Eisen¡¯s exnation, Stahl scratched his cheek in thought beforeing up with an idea. "How about you make some unique potion bottles as well? I mean like, make bottles that will cause others to think ¡¯Oh, I know who made those, they¡¯re good, instantly.¡¯" He suggested, and at the start of the idea, Komer came back into the room, and couldn¡¯t help but agree with that idea. "I actually wanted to talk to you about that as well! So far we¡¯ve only been selling straightforward, t-surface bottles, which is fine for the Low-grade potions that are sold in high quantity at a rtively low price, but especially for higher-grade potions, it would be a good idea to make those unique bottles. Some High-Grade potions are very expensive, so having something that people recognize will make them feel calmer and less reluctant to buy our products again, just like Stahl said." Komer added, and Eisen didn¡¯t need to think about it for long. "Sure, sounds good. Let¡¯s talk to Evalia and ask her toe up with a few designster." He suggested before taking a look at the crucible to check up on it and then saw that it was ready. And after heating the pipe that he would use to blow the ss with, he stuck the end of the pipe into the molten ss and twisted the pipe around a little bit to get some of it onto it, before then moving over to the Marver before beginning to get to work. He started to twist the pipe around a bit and pressed the end t against it to make a cylinder shape, all the while blowing into the pipe to cause a bubble in the center of the ss to grow to make it hollow. And after a while, Eisen looked over at the four others standing around him just watching him. "One of you, grab the knife over there, but use the glovesying next to it." Eisen said, and before he even finished the sentence, Stahl already jumped over to the little magic ¡¯toolbox¡¯ that Eisen made to keep the tools hot. Stahl quickly put the leather gloves on and grabbed the knife that he was instructed to, before bringing the de over to the Marver. "And what now?" He asked, and Eisen smiled lightly. "Hold the knife next to the end of the ss and keep holding it as tightly as you can. Try not to wobble or anything; this is still ss we¡¯re working with." After Eisen exined what his grandson needed to do, Stahl squatted down and held the small knife in front of him with both his hands, before Eisen moved the ss against the knife, before twisting it around so that the other end of the ss would be cut off. "Alright, perfect. Please take that scoop over there and put this ss back into the crucible. But hold it into the furnace for a little while first to let it melt down a little bit more again." Eisen instructed him, and Stahl swiftly nodded his head before the old man looked at his other grandson, Kiron. "Come here, hold the pipe for a moment. Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s not as hot, and you just need to hold it steady." Slowly, Kiron came closer and took the pipe out of Eisen¡¯s hands, before the old man stepped to the ss still attached to it and took the knife that Stahl used just now, holding his hands directly underneath the ss before cutting it off of the pipe. Since his hand could stand the heat, he just needed to be careful not to bend the ss somehow, but he was extra careful, so this luckily didn¡¯t happen, and it stayed in the shape that he wanted. He slowly brought the ss Cup over to the ¡¯box,¡¯ the annealer, that he created and opened the front up just with a thought, before cing the cup inside. "Alright, now, let¡¯s wait a little bit for this cup to finish so that I have the skill going forward." Eisen said with a smile and then began to lean against the wall while slowly making the annealer cool down to a temperature where the cup was ¡¯safe¡¯ from just randomly cracking. And a little whileter, Eisen opened the annealer back up and put his hand inside of it, grabbing the now only slightly warm ss cup. He waved the information screen that appeared to disy the information for the cup away immediately, and just looked at the ¡¯ssblowing Skill learned¡¯ notification for a moment and then smiled. "Perfect. Alright, let¡¯s continue." Eisen said immediately and stepped back over to the crucible and once more picked some ss up with it and, in an exact copy of the process from before, made another cup that was nearly identical to the first one. And then another one, and another one, and another one, until Eisen made a total of 12 nearly identical cups, which was enough to make his ssblowing skill rank up to 1. After cing the cups to the side somewhere where nobody could just identally bump into them, Eisen took one of the mana crystals into his hand together with an enchanting marble. "What¡¯re you doing now?" Alnico asked as she leaned in and looked at the two unfamiliar items. "Oh, I¡¯m enchanting this mana-crystal with my mana sight ability now. And while I¡¯m at it, I¡¯ll just make a few enchanted with Visualization, I guess." He exined, and Alnico looked at him a bit confused. "Eh... don¡¯t you need to carve something for enchanting?" Al then asked, but Eisen just chuckled in response. "This is a different kind of enchanting. Yeah, usually you carve things for enchantments, but you can also enchant things with abilities. Right now, I can only use rtively shallow abilities that I have, but at some point, I can also use abilities that other people have." Eisen exined while he did what he was describing, simply enchanting some mana-crystals with the mana-sight ability, and others with the visualization ability. Then, he ground the mana-crystals with the mana-sight ability down into a fine powder and added them into a new batch of silica, limestone, and soda ash to create ss with this ability. Eisen hoped that this would adequately work and waited for everything to melt down properly. "So that kind of stuff works? I thought you¡¯d need to enchant itter, and in the first ce, I wasn¡¯t aware you could mix mana crystals into the ss." Komer asked curiously, as he did somewhat know about how enchantments worked as he had the skill himself, despite not using ability enchantments so far. "Well, the same principle is used in other things already. For example, let¡¯s just take Bree¡¯s dress. I made it out of magic fabric. Magic fabric is just woven out of magic thread, which was made out of mana crystals. And the mana crystals used for the dress were enchanted with a ¡¯Growth¡¯ ability enchantment by a friend of mine." Eisen exined the first part of Komer¡¯s question, before then swiftly moving onto the second. "And as for the other thing, it¡¯s just like alchemy. Combining mana crystals with herbs seems less natural thanbining mana crystals with ss crystals, doesn¡¯t it?" Eisen exined before Komer nodded his head. "Huh, didn¡¯t think of it that way yet..." He muttered to himself, while Eisen just smiled and grabbed some of the molten ss. "Yeah, it took me a while to think of it as well. Then I mixed the Red-Dragon¡¯s Crystals with the metal I was extracting from the petrified eggshell, and it worked, so I thought this should work as well. I could probably just enchant the ss itself, but the effect would surely be stronger like this." The old man exined as he began to form the ss on the hot Marver, just shaping it into a tube again, but this time not blowing into the pipe and just trying to shape a solid ss cylinder, before he turned to Kiron. "Hold this again, alright?" Eisen asked, and the Half-Dragon swiftlyplied and took over, while Eisen took a knife and cut off slices off of the cylinder-like it was some pepperoni he was preparing so that he could put them on a pizza. And then, Eisen just carefully brought those ss-slices over to the Annealer one after another to let them cool down. He would just shape themter so that he could properly use them for eye-sses. Chapter 248 Space Usage While waiting for the ss-slices to cool off a bit, Eisen started working on something else so that he could finish the items for the sses and monocles that he would be making. He unsummoned glory hole and reced it with a regr forge that he could work metal with, before throwing a regr Mythril ingot into it. It was easy to make mana flow through to activate the actual enchantment, while being quite light and sturdy, so it was a pretty good choice for something small. Once it heated up enough, Eisen grabbed it out of there with some tongs and then began to hammer it into the shape of wires with different thicknesses for different parts of the sses. And then, while letting those parts cool off, he reced the forge with a glory hole again to continue working on some ss items and then looked over at the four standing next to him. "Go grab the lenses and ce them down on that piece of cloth over there, please," Eisen asked them, and Alnico and Stahl quickly did as asked, while Eisen started on another batch of new ss which he mixed with a particr material. Before, he made the death-prevention potion out of Kinzo roots, and after that, he continued removing water and boiling things away from that potion as much as possible until he could turn it into a pure powder. That powder was then mixed with the silica, soda ash, and limestone and then turned into ss. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if this would work, and if this would give off a bad smell or taste, but he at least wanted to try, because if he could make ss that helped with preservation, then it would be the perfect material for jars meant for preserving and pickling. And the Kinzo roots turned the ss just slightly darker, as Eisen quickly noticed, but otherwise it seemed to be pretty muchpletely normal. The old man picked up some of the ss with the pipe and brought it over to the Marver, where he swiftly began to twist and elongate the ss while blowing into the tube to blow the bubble up, all the whilst Eisen was pressing the ss into a somewhat cuboid shape, although with all the edges heavily rounded to allow for some excellent storage. He gave the end a bit more of a thinner rounding to it while keeping the toppletely t, just so that the openingter wouldn¡¯t be the same size as the actual jar¡¯s circumference to avoid spilling. And then, he called one of the others back to him to hold the pipe for a while again while Eisen carefully cut off the end of the jar and ced it into the annealer so that he could use it as a lidter on, before also cutting the actual Jar off the pipe and carefully carrying it over to the annealer as well. "Alright, now back to the grind." Eisen said and stretched a bit to properly get into the ¡¯work¡¯ mood so that he could continue on and on to make more of these jars. And he did until he used up all parts of the current batch of ss that he prepared, which prompted him to move onto the next few items. Bottles for the Mead that Eisen had made a good while ago that was still aging inside of the carriage even now. There was an empty room on this ship that Eisen wanted to use for a little project that he would get into in a little while rted to that. A little while ago, one of Melissa¡¯s skills ranked up again, letting Eisen choose a new type of Bee for her to create, and he wanted a ¡¯Production Bee¡¯, of course with Melissa¡¯s consent, which would be able to create more high-quality honey at a faster pace. So Eisen had to use this chance to start getting into ¡¯Farming¡¯ Honey, right? And for that, he not only needed bottles for the mead he would be making out of that honey, but some proper jars for the honey itself which would also be sold at some point. But for now, Eisen tried mixing the ss with both the crystal structure from the actual ¡¯capsules¡¯ containing the honey as well as the honey crystals that could be found at the center of some hives. Of course, since Eisen currently didn¡¯t have many of thetter, he just added a little bit of them into the whole batch, although he used as much of the ¡¯capsule¡¯ crystals as he wanted, which seemed to give the ss just a slight hint of that honey-golden color. He actually made a prettyrge batch of ss this time, because he wanted to use the bottles and jars he was about to make, or rather their creation-process itself, in order to Rank up his ssblowing Skill to 2, which Eisen figured was enough to get at least started on the Core Guardian¡¯s ss-parts that seemed to make up arge part of its head. And after continuing to create the hexagonal bottles and jars for another few hours, Eisen finally managed to Rank his skill up, gaining the ability to use mana in the creation of ss items now. "Alright, finally," Eisen said to himself as he looked at the corner and saw all the different ss items either stacked up onto each other orying next to each other before the old man began to smile and looked at the time. "It¡¯s getting a littlete now, so lets all head to bed, alright?" Eisen suggested and unsummoned the three ¡¯furnaces¡¯ that he made in this room, while Stahl, Alnico, Komer, and Kiron nodded their heads. "Today was super interesting, though! You made a lot of pretty cool stuff!" Al eximed, and Eisen just replied with a smile as the small group made their way out of the room. "Thank you, and I hope you four can help me with everything else tomorrow then? Such as pouring the mead from where they are now into the bottles." Eisen asked and stepped up the stairs to the main deck, while everyone swiftly agreed to help out again happily. "Then head to the sleeping area now, I¡¯ll be up in the meeting room to check up on Fafnir and the other originals, and afterward I¡¯ll head to bed myself." The old man told them before he turned around and headed up the stairs to the top floor, looking around at the vast ocean around him as he did so, lightly smiling as he enjoyed the fresh air of the sea, and then stepped into the meeting hall in a bright mood. Fafnir was still sleeping on top of the Dungeon Gate that he created, so he figured that the others were still inside, and as such Eisen opened the door up and was immediately met with a pretty intriguing sight. First of all, a prettyrge, bulked-up Wolf running around as he was trying to catch up to Brody. Then, there was Xenia as she was using magic to excavate arger area and turn the main-room into a far bigger space, while Brody used the dirt-ground as a base to nt some different nts such as grass or flowers around, and Evalia was working on something like an artistic archway out of a little bit of wood to invite others to step further into the Dungeon. "Huh..." The old man muttered to himself as he looked around some more and then stepped up to Jyuuk, who was currently the one closest to him. "So, what are you all doing?" The old man inquired before Jyuuk brightly smiled as he looked at Eisen. "We¡¯re trying to upgrade parts of the dungeon! We thought it would be pretty cool to have arge, peaceful starting area where, if we make this essible to the public, people can, for example, search for others to join their party, or we can set up some stalls in here and sell potions and stuff like that." Jyuuk exined before he lightly frowned and chuckled. "Seriously? I mean, yeah, that¡¯s a pretty good idea. Who came up with it?" He asked, already somewhat capable of finding the answer considering that nobody here was that business-minded to think of something like that right off the bat. "Well, when I was outside a few hours ago, I ran into Komer, and-" "Figured, no need to say any more than that. So you want to turn this into a grassy-teau?" Eisen asked curiously and took another look around, while Jyuuk immediately nodded and Eisen continued, "Hmm, maybe it would be a good idea to build some proper buildings in here. Like a small vige with ces like weapon or armorsmiths, alchemists for potions as you said, and other things like that. But either way, I now understand what you, Xenia and Evalia are doing, just somewhat figuring out ways to make the area here look better... But what is Brody doing?" Surprised, Jyuuk turned around and looked at the Demon-Orc halfling continue to y around, brawl, and run from the massive wolf. "Oh, Brody and I were trying to figure out ways to make even stronger wolves. For example, we started with the feral wolf and continued to train him for speed and then for strength. It grew in size quite a bit, and it should be pretty interesting now. But that¡¯s a ¡¯Rare¡¯ type ording to the menu, so it¡¯s not going to appear that often in the dungeon no matter what we do. It¡¯s going to be more of a ¡¯pack¡¯ leader or something." He answered, and Eisen curiously smiled as he crossed his arms. "Interesting. And in just a few hours? That¡¯s a pretty fast pace, isn¡¯t it?" "For sure it is, but that only worked because of abination between my element and Brody¡¯s energies. With my element, ¡¯Circle of Life,¡¯ I can somewhat ¡¯Super boost¡¯ my monsters for a short amount of time, as well as resurrect them immediately as long as I do it within a few seconds, right? I somewhat used the same principle. I managed to super-boost these dungeon monsters, and because of their general nature, their adaptivity grew immensely as well. And then, Brody used his Yin-Energy to manipte their mana-flow somehow and increase the growth of specific muscle regions. And then, that happened." Jyuuk exined as he pointed at the massive wolf that was at least two to three timesrger than the wolves that appeared at the beginning, and Eisen nodded his head. "I see... Let¡¯s buy some other beast-like monsters and try to do the same thing with them at some point." Eisen suggested before Jyuuk immediately smirked. "That¡¯s the n so far, yeah! We were already thinking about what kind of monsters we should buy. We thought about a ¡¯Theme¡¯ for the first floor, or maybe even the first few floors, and that¡¯s ¡¯Forest.¡¯ So basically, we wanted to think about turning the dungeon area itself into something simr to just a forest, maybe with some areas that seem like some sort of ancient ruins or something like that. You¡¯ll have to ask Evalia design-wise, she¡¯s the one that came up with the idea." With a smile, the Monkey-Beastperson turned back to the ground and continued trying to spread the grass and flowers around, while Eisen made his way over to Evalia to ask her about it, just as Jyuuk suggested. He walked up behind the young artist and took a look at the wood she was carving into at the moment while she was humming some tunes, and soon enough Evalia noticed Eisen and turned around. "Well, hello there!" She eximed, and Eisen returned the swift greeting and then began to talk to Evalia some more about the ideas that the old man had. Chapter 249 Greg "Hmm, so you want to build actual huts in here?" Evalia asked after she heard the start of Eisen¡¯s exnation, and the old man nodded his head. "Yeah, that would be pretty cool, wouldn¡¯t it? Like, having this area as a little supply vige, and then the actual dungeon starts deeper down." He suggested once more, and Evalia thought about it for a moment and then nodded her head. "That sounds like a good idea, yeah. I was thinking somethin¡¯ like that as well ¡ª just the front as a safe space, and then this area like a dark, overgrown tunnel. The first idea was to make it a ¡¯Forest¡¯ theme, but I was thinkin¡¯ in stages. This floor a stone brick tunnel, the next level a simr tunnel just far more overgrown with trees¡¯n¡¯nts everywhere, and then for the third, we can clear out a super big area." She exined before Eisen slowly nodded his head and smiled. "Sounds good to me. But can we already make three floors for the dungeon?" Eisen asked with a bit of surprise in his voice, and Evalia swiftly nodded her head. "Mhm, right now we can make three floors, excluding the core room of course." The young artist answered as Eisen smiled and then looked at the space behind them that was continuously growingrger through Xenia¡¯s magic which she used to keep excavating more area. "Alright, let¡¯s figure that all out then. Tomorrow, I¡¯m getting started on the Core Guardian, and when it¡¯s finished, we should be able to speed things up a good bit." Eisen exined and then made his way back to the door, telling the others to keep experimenting if they wanted to, although they shouldn¡¯t do anything crazy or permanently break anything. And then, the old man stepped out the door and made his way to his chair, where Caria and Melissa were already sleeping, before picking the two small girls up and logging off. --- Slowly, Benjamin climbed out of the capsule and sat down on a chair he had in his bedroom for a while, to catch a slight breath, before he stood up and made his way to the bathroom across his door to take a look at the mirror because he felt like something was off. And there definitely was. "I¡¯ve gotten thinner, huh..?" He muttered to himself as he looked around his face and body for a little while. His clothes and facial hair would cover that change up a bit, considering that he hadn¡¯t lost that much weight, but he noticed that his body was slowly losing in mass, and Benjamin was sure that wasn¡¯t a good thing in the slightest. While Benjamin was sshing some water into his face, he heard a knock by the door. "Yo Gramps, Dad said we¡¯re going grocery shopping in a bit, you want toe with?" Benji asked through the door, noticing that his grandfather went in there a little bit ago, and the old man dried his face up and opened the door as a response. "Sure, I¡¯ll be ready in a few minutes," Benjamin told his grandson before walking back into his room and getting dressed to go outside, and on his way to the living room, he heard thendline ring. As he wasn¡¯t quite there yet and didn¡¯t want to let anyone wait, Benjamin yelled to those that were sitting in the living room. "Can anyone get that?" He asked, and soon enough, he heard the ringing stop as Sophia answered the phone. "Hang on a second, I¡¯ll ask." She said as she took the phone away from her ear and then covered the microphone up with her other hand so that the caller couldn¡¯t hear her speak. "Grampa, some guy called ¡¯Greg Lennings¡¯ called, do you-" She asked, and immediately Benjamin¡¯s eyes shot open as he rushed over to her and practically ripped the phone out of her hands before taking it outside, passing Tony on the way. He also heard Sophia say the caller¡¯s name, and his face immediately lost all color. Both Benji and Sophia were quite confused at what was going on and wanted to follow their grandfather, but luckily, Tony wasn¡¯t absent-minded enough to just let them do that and held his hand in front of the door leading to the garden. "Sorry, leave your Grandfather alone for a little while... yeah..?" Tony asked the two of them, who turned their heads and looked at each other confused before just nodding in agreement, returning to the couch burdened with worry. In the meantime, Benjamin was holding himself back from crushing the phone in his left hand. "Why are you calling here?" He asked with a severe tone, obviously saying that he didn¡¯t want to talk to whoever was at the other end of the line, while that person began tough. "C¡¯Mon, why so mean? Can¡¯t I check up on-" The man asked while the connection crackled a little bit, making his words impossible to hear for a little bit before they were audible again a few secondster. "-¡¯re acting like I killed someone!" As he was grinding his teeth, Benjamin breathed in and out a few times to calm himself down enough to talk to the man that infuriated him even more than Michael did just by breathing and living. "Shut it, Greg, you know just as well as I do why you shouldn¡¯t ever call here again. There are dozens of reasons why you shouldn¡¯t, and I doubt there¡¯s one actual reason to call me that you don¡¯t know the answer to yet. I¡¯m not giving you any money, I¡¯m not interested in any bullshit deals, and I¡¯m also not-" "Hey hey, calm down!" Greg interrupted on the other side of the line, coughing deeply after doing so, before starting to speak again with a little bit of slurred speech thatsted for a few words and then disappeared. "I¡¯m not calling for anything. I just wanted to let you know that I¡¯m in town for a few days and wanted to see if you want to grab some lunch for old times¡¯ sake! You don¡¯t always have to make me out to be worse than I am, b-" "Don¡¯t you dare finish that sentence. I swear to god, if you even think about crossing the border to this town, then this won¡¯t end well for you." Benjamin responded immediately in a threatening a voice as he possibly could muster at this or any other given moment. But it seemed like Greg didn¡¯t care about that. But Benjamin knew he wouldn¡¯t care, he never did. "Toote, already staying at some random shitty hotel here in town. I met someone that seems to know you here! His name is-" "For Fuck¡¯s sake, Greg shut the hell up and listen to me. You will note close to my house, and you will note close to my family. If I even smell a hint of that rancid, stinking sewer water you call Cologne, I¡¯m calling the cops over here. There¡¯s more than enough reasons for them to arrest you. So I suggest you hang up the phone, sit down in the car you came here with, get your assfy in the buttprint of the man you stole that car from, and then drive as far away from here as fast as you can. Do you understand me?" Benjamin said loud and clear, not being able to help himself but end up screaming his lungs out at the end. Tony heard it, his grandchildren heard it, and probably Greg heard it not only through the phone but even through the window of his hotel at the other side of town. "..." On the other side of the phone, Benjamin could still hear Greg¡¯s unhealthily loud and uneven breathing, although he stayed entirely and utterly silent otherwise. Benjamin figured, or rather hoped, that was it, but Greg was always the kind of person to exceed his expectations. "Well, you¡¯re a bit of an asshole right now, you know that?" Greg said with a solemn tone in his voice. Even after all he had done that Benjamin was trying his hardest to forget him over, he was still acting like he was the victim. Everything had to revolve around him, and if anyone or anything went against the flow that Greg was trying to create, he reacted like this. "All I ever wanted to do was to help you! You¡¯ve been stuck in those shitty, hot rooms all your life, doing what? Work? C¡¯Mon man, you know just as well as I do that you¡¯re just not made for that stuff! You¡¯re just like me! So how about you calm down, Ie over to your ce, and we hang out a bit, yeah? You still owe me that bottle of 85¡¯er Whiskey, remember?" He eximed, and Benjamin just knew that he was wearing the cheesiest, dumbest grin on his face as he was saying that, thinking that he was 100% correct like always. "You¡¯re insane; you need help. Never contact me again, and just leave." Benjamin answered quite clearly and hung up the phone, feeling like just throwing it across the yard, or sprinting into the smithy to smash it with his hammers. But he didn¡¯t. He stopped himself and closed his eyes, simply breathing in, and then breathing out, before turning around and stepping back inside while blocking the number that the call came from. Extremely worried for both his Grandfather and Father who was clearly shaken up, even though Tony didn¡¯t talk to Greg in the first ce, Benji stood up and grinned broadly, hoping to change the topic. "Alright you two old bags,e on! We need to get groceries! I¡¯m driving!" He eximed as he pointed toward the door with keys in hand, trying to force everyone to think about something else. And seeing this as a chance to do just that, both Tony and Benjamin swiftly engaged and made their way to the front door, before the group of six made their way to the local superstore of all things to shop for a bit while Sean and Katy were immediately trying to sprint toward the toy isles apanied by Benji who was secretly, or rather not so secretly, just as excited as they were as well as Sophia, who now had to babysit three idiots while Tony and Benjamin did the actual shopping. After a little while they managed to already get about half the things that they needed to get for the next week and then reached the cereal aisle, where Benjamin noticed a woman with a small girl sitting in the shopping cart next to her trying to take a cereal box to put into her car, but she was rather short and didn¡¯t actually reach it. So, instead of watching her try to climb up there to grab it, Benjamin wanted to do them a favor and grabbed it for them, extending his left arm toward it and pulling it off there, handing it to the small girl. "There you go, littledy," Benjamin said with a broad grin as he leaned forward a little bit. And then, the girl began tough a bit and swung the cereal box around widely, before it slipped out of her hand and directly hit the old man¡¯s right arm. It wasn¡¯t a hard hit, it was thrown by a toddler after all, and the cereal box really wasn¡¯t heavy or hard either, but Benjamin felt a painpared to the pain he felt when the burning hot coals dug themselves into his skin a few years ago. Benjamin tried to hide it as much as possible while the mother thanked him for his help before she turned around and made her way to the next aisle. And once she was out of sight and he confirmed that it was only Tony there with him, Benjamin squatted down to the ground, trying not to scream his lungs out over the pain that he was currently feeling in his right arm. He even buried his teeth in his left lower arm just to somehow keep his mouth shut and distract him from the pain, but to no avail. Seeing his father in that condition, Tony squatted down next to him and helped him up. "Dad, I think we really should have you checked out. Do you want me to bring you to the hospital?" He asked with incredible concern as he was trying to prop Benjamin somehow up while the old man was losing some of his strength in his legs, but Benjamin just shook his head. "No, not yet. We just need to get home; I¡¯lly down in the capsule, and forget about the pain for a while. Let¡¯s just make an appointment so that we don¡¯t have to sit in the waiting room all day, yeah?" Benjamin suggested, and knowing that his father wasn¡¯t to be fought with over things like this, he reluctantly agreed. "Fine, but we¡¯re going home right now then. Let¡¯s check these things out for now. I¡¯ll call Benji and let him now." Tony said as he and his father slowly brought the shopping cart to the front to pay while he took his phone out of his pocket and chose to call his son who was probably running around somewhere at the other side of the store. Quickly, the group paid for everything, and everyone made their way back to the car and then home, constantly worried for Benjamin. And soon enough, they finally reached the house again, and Benji quickly jumped out the door after pulling the parking brake to help his Grandfather out. But on their way to the door, they bumped into thest person that they especially didn¡¯t want to run into, it was Greg, showing a broad smile on his face as he saw Benjamin, despite his current condition. "Hey there, Big Brother!" Chapter 250 Brother With his eyes ripped open, Benjamin stared at the man waiting for them in front of the door. Worried, the old man looked over to his son who was helping Katy and Sean out of the car, and it was quite apparent that Tony was feeling sick. "C¡¯Mon, what¡¯re you doing? Invite me in already; I¡¯ve been waitin¡¯ for an hour!" Greg eximed with a bright smile and began tough while cing his hand on his beer-belly. Outwardly, he seriously looked nothing like Benjamin in the slightest, but nheless, he still said ¡¯Big Brother¡¯ just now. Withplete confusion in his voice, Benji looked at his grandfather that he was currently holding up. "Grampa, what¡¯s going on? Who is that?" He asked before Benjamin ended up swallowing his saliva and just kept staring in front of him, slowly removing himself from his grandson to try and stand on his own. "What am I doing? What are you doing? I told you never toe close to us ever..." Benjamin eximed as he ground his teeth, and Greg looked at him with a frown. "Yeah, but that was just a joke, wasn¡¯t it? Listen, Ben, stop-" Greg tried saying as he came closer to the old man, but was swiftly interrupted. "Benji, call the police, please. And you, if you want to leave this ce outside of a police car, then I advise you to leave right now. Understand?" Benjamin said quite clearly, not even daring to say his name just because he knew that he wouldn¡¯t be able to hold his anger down then. With a loud sigh, Greg then shook his head and continued tough, while Benji pulled out his phone and called the police as his Grandfather told him to. "For what reason should I do that? I just wanted toe to visit my big brother again, that¡¯s not illegal, is it?" "Just shut up and leave. Right now." Benjamin told him before Greg once more just sighed as he took some cigarettes out of his pocket, and in that brief moment of him moving his jacket to the side, Benjamin could quite clearly see a gun jammed into Greg¡¯s pocket. He probably didn¡¯t mean to threaten Benjamin subtly, he was way too dumb for that, but rather just forgot that he had it there. But nheless, Benjamin knew how far Greg would go without a gun, so seeing him carry one of the most deadly weapons known to man was terrifying. And it seemed like Benji noticed as well, and after a quick scare told the police about it as well. Just a few secondster, police sirens could be heard while Benjamin looked over at his son and grandchildren. "Hide behind the car! Hurry!" He told them, worried that Greg might do something that couldn¡¯t be reversed. Luckily, as the town was rather small and everyone here knew Benjamin and where he lived, the police soon arrived with three different cars as a safety measure against armed criminals. "Show me your hands!" One of the cops yelled out as he came closer to Greg with his hand on his holster, ready to grab his gun if needed. They couldn¡¯t tell whether or not he was carrying a gun with him, so in case he didn¡¯t, they weren¡¯t allowed to point his gun at him. After all, he was standing there at the moment, not doing anything. "Damn, you actually, called the cops on me?" Greg asked with an angry expression as he stepped closer to the police with his hands in the air as if this was something that happened every other day. Quickly, once Greg came closer to one of the police cars, he was pushed against it while his legs were driven away from each other before he was then swiftly searched. And after only two or three pats, one of the policemen pulled a small handgun out of Greg¡¯s pocket. "Sir, do you have a license for this?" He asked, but Greg just nodded his head. "Of course I do! I¡¯m not an idiot!" But soon enough, one of the policemen that were checking Greg¡¯s priors on the on-boardputer called out to the policeman currently handling him. "He is currently on parole after an incident of violence in New York State, and his Parole Officer didn¡¯t hand in anything that allowed him to leave the state either." After a swift nod toward the senior officer, the policeman that found the gun handed it to his colleague and pulled Greg¡¯s hands behind his back, swiftly handcuffing him. "Sir, you¡¯re under arrest for multiple cases of broken parole, including the carrying of a gun and leaving your state of parole without official permission. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court ofw. You have the right to have awyer present during any questioning. If you cannot afford awyer, one will be appointed for you if you so desire." The policeman said as he helped Greg sit down in the back of the car, and while he was taken to the police station, the senior officer made his way over to Benjamin. "Mr. Joyce, is everyone here, alright? Did he injure you in any way?" He asked, but Benjamin swiftly shook his head. "No, we¡¯re fine. I would like it if you could keep him as far away from us as possible." "No need to worry about that. As I¡¯m sure you just heard, Greg broke his parole, so he will be brought back to New York state and most likely be put back into jail there." The Senior Officer reassured, and Benjamin slowly nodded his head. "I see, thank you." He said, and slowly, Tony and the four kids made their way to their grandfather concerned, before the Officer smiled and nodded at the five of them. "Mr. Joyce, if it is alright, I would like to ask you some questions about why he was here just to make the process easier." The Officer requested before Benjamin nodded his head. "Of course. Come inside then; I need to take a seat right now." Benjamin said with an inviting smile, trying to hide his, still quite evident, exhaustion from everyone, before the group soon made their way into the house and began to bring the groceries that they did end up buying to the kitchen, while Benjamin and the Officer sat down in the living room. "Alright, what can you tell me about him?" The Officer asked, and Benjamin looked over at Tony and nodded at him to tell him toe over, before he brought over some cups of coffee, offering one to the officer, who thankfully epted. Usually, he wasn¡¯t allowed to receive anything from a Civilian under any circumstances, but as he was talking to the most well-known and kindest man in town, he let that rule slip for a little bit. "That man is my maternal half-brother, Gregory Lennings," Benjamin exined, and the officer looked at him in surprise. "Oh, is that so? Is there a specific reason you¡¯re not on good terms." Immediately, Benjamin nodded his head. "He was born soon after I left home and began to travel. I only met him when I invited my mother and her new husband to my wedding, and he always seemed like a little bit of a brat, but then at some point, he turned into a narcissistic criminal. He pulled my son into his gang and nearly ruined his future. Other things happened, but that is the greatest reason why I utterly despise him." The old man answered before the Officer nodded and continued to the more pressing questions. "Is there a specific reason why Mr. Lennings came here today?" The Officer asked, but Benjamin swiftly shook his head. "Not that I¡¯m aware of, he mentioned something about me owing him a bottle of whiskey for some random reason, but I¡¯m pretty sure he just wanted money. He¡¯s more than aware of my financial disposition, and it¡¯s not the first time he¡¯s tried to get his hands on it through any means. This time was quite harmless." Benjamin exined, and now even Tony was a bit surprised, as he was not aware that Greg came here before like this, as he let his father and the officer continue their conversation. "I see, have you considered a no-contact order? That way, if you even see him around you, he will be immediately be brought away from you with just calling us." The officer answered, but Benjamin shook his head. "A no-contact order won¡¯t do anything. Greg came here with a gun and broke his parole; I don¡¯t think he¡¯s going to care about a piece of paper telling him what not to do." Benjamin replied, and the officer slowly nodded his head with a sigh. "I understand what you mean, but imagine a different situation. Greg gets out of prison, which I¡¯m expecting him to return to for a few years and most likely without the possibility of parole, and thenes here without doing anything illegal on the way. We can do something about harassment, but that¡¯s just limited to telling him off on the first few cases. If he hadn¡¯t done anything illegal today, he would still be running around this area. With a no-contact, we can always have him be brought as far away from you as possible." The officer exined before Benjamin briefly thought about it before nodding his head. "Sure, I¡¯m going to think about it. But for now, I doubt we have to worry about running into my brother again." The old man said with a light smile, and the officer nodded his head before standing up. "Of course, we¡¯re going to make sure you don¡¯t have to look at his face again." He said and then headed to the door, as Tony followed him to show him out, and before leaving the room, the officer turned to Benjamin again. "Have a nice day, Mr. Joyce!" He said with a smile and then left before Tony shut the door and made his way back to his father, merely dropping down onto the couch with a loud sigh, his face as white as paper. "Today was far more exhausting than I thought it would be when I woke up this morning..." He said as he began to rub the bridge of his nose to calm down before Benjamin lightly chuckled. "You can say that again. But don¡¯t worry, you heard Jim, I¡¯m sure we won¡¯t have to deal with him again any time soon." The old man responded, and Tony slowly nodded his head. "I guess so... But... What should we tell the kids..?" Tony asked in a grave, and worried tone, afraid that he may have to reveal that part of his past to them now before Benjamin looked at him with a sad frown. "We¡¯ll tell Sophia, Sean, and Katy what they need to know, meaning that he¡¯s my half-brother and that he¡¯s sick in his head, but that we won¡¯t see him again. But as for Benji... Tony, I think he deserves to know. He¡¯s 18 years old; he¡¯s going to college soon. You can¡¯t keep it a secret forever." And just when Benjamin said this and Tony realized that he was right, Benji interjected. "Keep what a secret?" He asked, and Tony immediately jumped up and turned around as he faced his son, who was seriously confused and worried. "Dad, keep ¡¯what¡¯ a secret?" Benji asked again before Tony slowly swallowed the saliva that was building up in the back of his throat and pointed at the couch. "Just sit down, I¡¯ll exin." He said, and slowly, Benji did as suggested, before Benjamin stood up. "I¡¯ll be in the capsule if you need me." The old man said and made his way to his room, on the way making sure that none of the other three could hear the conversation between father and son that was currently going on. The conversation where Tony was telling Benji about all the things that he did in the past. About the meaning of his tattoos and the scars that they were supposed to hide. Tony told Benji about the time where he was trying to stay alive by selling drugs and beating and stabbing other people, and about the time where he was part of even nearly crippling another man. And of course, about the time that Tony spent scamming other people as part of one of Greg¡¯s Gang¡¯s great business ideas. Tony even spoke about the time he spent in juvie, and how he was let out on parole just before he met Benji¡¯s mother. This conversation ended quite swiftly, with a loud yell, as a young man sprinted to his room and sat down in his capsule to get away from his father. Chapter 251 Maroon Eisen soon woke up in the game again, standing up with Caria and Melissa in his arms and Fafnir, who seemed to have climbed onto him while he was sleeping, on his shoulders, before making his way to the main deck almost immediately, because he was sure that Stahl wouldn¡¯t be in a great mood and didn¡¯t want him to do anything stupid. And sure enough, he soon found the young man sprinting out the door onto the deck before pacing back and forth, mumbling to himself. The skeleton Sailors gave him a look or two, but other than that, nobody reacted all that much. "...fucking shit... why wouldn¡¯t he tell me about that..." Eisen heard him say as he got closer to the green-haired boy before the old man spoke up. "Stahl, are you alright?" He asked, and Stahl immediately snapped his neck in his direction and gave him something at the level of a death stare. "Alright? No, I¡¯m not fucking alright! You kept that shit secret from me too!" He yelled out, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "I did. And I know that you aren¡¯t feeling happy about this, but no matter how much you hate your father right now, he hates himself even more. So don¡¯t take it out on him, alright?" He said, and Stahl kept on frowning angrily. "Well, what the fuck AM I supposed to do? I¡¯m fucking pissed!" Stahl yelled out, and Eisen responded with a sigh. "Come on; I have an idea. Parc and Rouge should have gotten the sword and shield you wanted ready at this point. And I¡¯m going to give you the leather armor I made for myself a while ago. We¡¯re going to stop for the first time today, so while the Figurehead is put on the ship and the food and materials are put on the ship, we¡¯re going out for a little while. Just you and me, hunting down some monsters. How does that sound?" The old man suggested, and Stahl nodded his head while keeping his frown up the whole time. "Alright, good! Then get your stuff from Parc and Rouge, I¡¯ll grab some potions and backpacks that we might need, and then we¡¯ll meet at the same room we were in yesterday. We¡¯ll only be getting to town in about half a day, so until then, I want to finish some parts for the Core Guardian." After Eisen said this, he ced his palm, which was muchrger than usual considering that Eisen was currently in his Titan-Form, onto the boy¡¯s head. Stahl turned away quite quickly because he was still mad, but Eisen didn¡¯t mind and just made his way to his workspace, as he ran into Kiron on the way, who swiftly apanied him there. Quite soon, Eisen then set Caria, Melissa, and Fafnir down next to the Half-Dragon, before Eisen took a look at the Blueprints, trying to use his ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Mind¡¯ skill to somehow turn them into a proper, 3D construct that he could look at and reference. And after a little while, Eisen looked through all the parts and managed to split them up into each material and material type, and he figured out that he could just think about ¡¯inspecting¡¯ each element of that floating 3D construct and he would get any information about it that the Blueprints gave him. For now, he wanted to start with the ss parts, because he wanted to get those parts figured out first, considering that it was some of the mostplicated. Almost the whole ¡¯Brain¡¯ was made of ss, with dozens of different types of it included in the entire construct, none of them being a regr, basic ss. Some just needed a little bit of infused mana, while others required a specific, precise amount of base materials to be mixed into the ss, with many different effects for each one. Some were just mixed in by fuming the ss in a specific manner, and others also needed tiny enchantments covering their whole surface area. This Core Guardian was indeed an incrediblyplex project that might take a good while to finish, but Eisen didn¡¯t mind that. He was rather excited about it. Eisen didn¡¯t exactly know where to start, because there didn¡¯t seem to be any necessarily direct order for anything. "I guess I¡¯ll just start with the simple ss, huh?" He muttered to himself as he mixed a small number of materials for a single batch of regr ss together and poured it into the crucible that he made with his magic. And during the whole process, Eisen was continuously pouring a steady amount of Mana into the materials. Once everything was molten down, the old man soon began to work with it, trying to make seriously tiny ss parts in the shapes that he was supposed to, and when the ss was slowly cooling down, Eisen noticed that the ss was just so slightly milky, meaning that it wasn¡¯tpletely transparent and see-through, which showed Eisen that he did everything correctly for this ss. The small, hollow spiral which was a little bit of a pain to make was then ced into the annealer, and Eisen could rx a little bit. And around that time, Stahl and Alnico joined the group in the workspace as well. Stahl still had a pretty angry expression on his face, and Al was quite worried about her cousin, but in the end the two of them just sat down next to Kiron, Caria, Melissa and Fafnir, where Al swiftly started to y with the threetter. From then on, Eisen spent a few hours merely mixing the different ss batches and creating the tiny parts, which he all ced somewhere safe so that they wouldn¡¯t identally get broken. But then, Eisen ran into a little bit of a problem. He had about two-thirds of the ss parts for the brain done, but the rest required a material that Eisen didn¡¯t have, a particr metal for the Fuming. It seemed to pretty rare, and a material that was needed for a few other parts as well, but Eisen was quite unsure how to get it, simply because he never heard of it before. ¡¯Margon.¡¯ Due to the text that was describing the functions of the metal inside of the ss and other parts of the construction, he figured that it was some sort of magic metal, but he had simply never heard of it before. "Kiron, do you know of a Magic Metal called ¡¯Margon¡¯?" He inquired with the half-dragon, who swiftly shook his head. "Sorry, I have never heard of it before," Kiron answered, so Eisen scratched the back of his head with a wry smile. "That¡¯s fine, I need to find someone that can tell me the base material for it, and then we should be able to turn it into the magic version with the infuser. I¡¯ll be back in a bit." Eisen told them and swiftly made his way out the door, in search for either the two Fey-Kin bundles of Knowledge or Xenia, who ¡¯literally¡¯ knew more about magic than anyone here. Soon, he ran into Sky, who was quietly reading a book in a calm corner of the ship. With a smile, the Blue-Haired Fey-Kin boy stood up and looked up at Eisen, "Hey there!" He eximed in a bright, excited manner. For some reason, Sky was only like this when he was only interacting with Eisen or Bree, but when someone else joined in, he would be pretty cynical and annoyed with everything anyone said or even thought. "Morning, Sky! I need your help with something. Have you ever heard of the Magic Metal ¡¯Margon¡¯?" He asked, and soon, Sky looked at him with surprise. "Margon? I mean, yeah I¡¯ve heard of it. It¡¯s a Magic Metal made of Maroon, but it¡¯s an impossible metal, isn¡¯t it?" He asked confused, and Eisen ended up sighing loudly. Maroon, a metal that only existed in this game. It was one of the rarest metals in this world, and was specifically known for its property of being incredibly magic-resistant, so it truly was impossible to even think about turning it into a magic metal, because it simply rejected any kind of mana from any source. "Are you sure?" Eisen asked, and Sky nodded without hesitation. "Yeah, I¡¯m 100% sure! In the Magic Forest I grew up in, we had a prettyrge amount of Maroon, but we could never use it because of its qualities. Fairies are known for their magic talent, after all, so any metal that any type of magic is useless against makes it pretty hard for us to use. But there was this story about a Knight that wielded a sword made of Margon, and he used it to slice through magic! Maroon just acts like Magic isn¡¯t there at all. The Magic that bounces against it acts like normal, but nothing at all happens to the metal. But Margon basically makes the magic disappear, and in the story, the Knight could use the magic that he sliced through on his own with the sword as a conduit! But Margon can¡¯t be made, so it was nothing but a story. I was actually trying to get my hands on the book, but I couldn¡¯t find it anywhere..." Sky answered, but Eisen almost immediately shook his head to and fro. "No, no, it can ¡¯definitely¡¯ be made... But I don¡¯t know how..." He muttered to himself, and Sky looked at him, confused. "Huh, what do you mean it can definitely be made?" "Ah, you know about the blueprints I have for the Core Guardian, right? Well, I need Margon for that. And because it was me that made those blueprints, I¡¯m pretty sure they¡¯re trustworthy and wouldn¡¯t just have some random, non-existent metal on it." He answered, and Sky jumped up excitedly. "Seriously?! We can actually make Margon?!" The Fey-Kin boy asked with a loud voice, and Eisen replied with a light chuckle. "I think so, yes. Let¡¯s go and ask Xenia about it, and maybe she knows something. If she has heard of it, I¡¯m sure she looked into why magic doesn¡¯t work on it, and that might give us some hints about how to turn it into Margon." He answered and then made his way back up the stairs to the Meeting Hall, where the other Originals were also sleeping before, with Sky in tow, and he soon met Xenia there sketching out some theoretical magic circles. And when she saw Eisen enter the room, she soon closed the book down and looked at the old man, noticing that he was looking for her. "Can I help you?" She asked with a smile, and Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Yes, have you heard of Maroon before?" He inquired, and it seemed like Xenia didn¡¯t need to think long before nodding her head. "Yup, I have. It¡¯s that anti-magic metal, right? They had a little bit of it at the Mage¡¯s Guild in Handor, and I was allowed to test a few things on it once. It was fascinating!" She eximed before Eisen nodded at her with a smile. "I see, then would you maybe have any idea what it would take to infuse Maroon with magic to turn it into the Magic Metal Margon?" Eisen asked, but Xenia scratched her cheek for a while before seemingly remembering something. "I mean, I¡¯m not sure if that helps, but I did find out a few things then. When using any type of element on the metal, nothing happens, it doesn¡¯t budge in the slightest, even magic that would usually be able to lift this ship. But when I tried using all six basic elements on it, it moved just the slightest, tiniest bit. Not much, and it might have just been the floor underneath it that gave in a bit, but I¡¯m pretty sure that it moved because of the magic." She exined before Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard. "All six elements, huh..?" He muttered to himself beforeing up with a small n. "It might be a waste of money and time, but it¡¯s worth a try. Do either of you know where we can get Maroon?" Eisen asked Xenia and Sky, but both of them shook their heads. "I don¡¯t, sorry," Xenia said with a wry smile before Sky tilted his head to the side. "But what was the idea you got anyway?" Sky asked, and Eisen just smiled. "I¡¯m going to infuse Maroon with all six elements at the same time." Chapter 252 The Transcended Eisen crossed his arms in thought while Xenia and Sky looked at him in surprise. "You want to infuse Maroon with the six basic elements at once? How do you want to do that?" Xenia then asked, and Eisen began to move his fingers through his beard. "I¡¯m not 100% sure how I should go about it, but so far, I have a prettyrge amount of Earth and Fire mana stored in the carriage. Maybe we can somehow find a ce with a lot of Water and Air mana as well, but the problem should be Light and Dark mana. Oh, and of course we need to get Maroon as well." Eisen answered quite swiftly before Sky nodded his head with a frown. "Yeah, and that¡¯s going to be pretty hard... Although I think there is an ind where we¡¯re going that has a lot of it. The Fairy Forest I¡¯m from is on another continent, so going there for Maroon isn¡¯t the best idea." The Fey-Kin boy told them, and Eisen continued moving his fingers through his beard. "It¡¯s fine if we don¡¯t get it immediately. I can prepare any parts for the Core Guardian that don¡¯t need Margon, and then finish it when we get our hands on it." After the old man answered this, he took another look at the 3D representation of the blueprint, which was created with the help of his ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Mind¡¯ skill, trying to filter out any parts that need Margon. That still left him with around 95% of the whole build, as not necessarily a lot of Margon was required, only for the most central parts of the entire structure. "But if it¡¯s on the inds, that¡¯s perfect." The old man added atst, before scratching his chin with a smile. "I guess I¡¯ll get to work on the other parts until we get to the next harbor then. And over the next few days, I¡¯ll start working on everybody¡¯s items." "Ooh, nice! So you¡¯ll start working on my staff then as well?" Xenia excitedly asked but was swiftly disappointed when Eisen shook his head. "Sorry, I¡¯ll work on those itemsst. I want to Rank my Enchanting skill up once more so that I can use other people¡¯s abilities so that we can create materials perfectly fitting with your element." He answered, and the High-Elf loudly sighed as she hung her head low, although she did understand the logic in that. Either way, Eisen wanted to cheer her up a bit. "But don¡¯t worry, I have another item for you that I¡¯ll get to in a bit. Should be ready this evening at thetest." As Eisen said this, Xenia¡¯s face immediately lit up with curiosity and excitement, so the old man could only reply with a light chuckle and then looked at the High-Elf and the Fey-Kin again. "Thanks for the help, you two. If you need anything, just let me know, and I¡¯ll get right to it." Eisen said before he turned around and once more made his way back to his workspace, where those that were watching him work before were already waiting for him toe back. "Sorry for the wait, everyone. I¡¯ll continue now. So, for now, we can¡¯t continue the ssblowing. There¡¯s a material that¡¯s needed for the rest of the ss parts as well as some other parts of the Core Guardian¡¯s Body which we don¡¯t have, which is pretty hard to get our hands on. So for now, until we reach the stopping point at the harbor today, I¡¯m going to make some of the other parts. Do you still want to help?" Eisen asked Kiron, Stahl, and Alnico, as the Half-Dragon and Alnico swiftly nodded their heads, while Stahl just kept sitting silently in the corner, before he slowly shook his head. "Well, that¡¯s fine, then. You¡¯re free to watch, but you can also go and do something else if you want. If you do, just meet me at the main deck when we get to the harbor, yeah?" Eisen asked, and Stahl sighed quietly. "Nah, that¡¯s fine, I¡¯ll stay here. I just don¡¯t feel like helping out right now, sorry." He answered as he began to fidget with a part of his green hair that was sticking out over his eyes before his grandfather smiled at him. "That¡¯s totally fine. For now, I think it would be best to work on the metallic skeleton. It¡¯s simply made out of Steel and enchanted as far as I can tell from the blueprints. That¡¯s going to take a little while, just because of the number of parts we need. Overall, I won¡¯t need too long to make each part, but the steel will go through tempering. After I¡¯m done with each part, I¡¯ll ce it into the tempering oven. You two, please take care of taking the steel out of that tempering oven, as well as preparing the next material to work with." Eisen began to exin as he stepped out the door of the workshop and began to make his way to the material storage with Kiron and Alnico in tow before the young girl chose to ask a question. "And what does that ¡¯preparing the next material¡¯ mean exactly?" She asked, just so that she could adequately help out, and Eisen just smiled. "That just means that I want you to ce the metal into the forge at the right time. It takes a few minutes to heat up, and obviously, it¡¯s faster for smaller parts than it is for bigger parts, so keep that in mind, yeah?" Eisen asked the two of them before they nodded in unison and followed Eisen into the Material storage-room, where the old man swiftly stepped over to arge amount of steel that was prepared. After telling them how much of what size to take and bringing them to the workspace again, and then bringing some of the ingots back to the material storage and switching them out with actual steel as Kiron had grabbed a few cast-iron ingots by ident, Eisen was ready to start with the skeleton. It was humanoid for the most part, although the dimensions showed that the whole Core-Guardian would end up only about 1 meter tall. In response to Eisen telling that to the others, Kiron took a look at the Blueprints and turned to the old man in surprise. "Grandfather, if the Core-Guardian is truly only about a meter tall, then I think this has been created in the image of Halti," Kiron said with a smile before the old man looked at him with a bit of confusion. "Halti, what are those?" He curiously asked, and Kiron swiftly began to exin while Eisen changed the crucible into a proper forge and the Annealer into a tempering oven while making the glory hole disappear. "Halti are creatures of the Underdark. There aren¡¯t many of them, but they can be found in some of the Underdark¡¯s ruins. They have a lifespan of about 1000 years, and they are usually subordinate to strong people and protect areas of importance for them until they die, even after their Master¡¯s death. Most of them are incapable ofmon speech, although mainly that¡¯s because they forgot how to. And I¡¯m pretty sure that the Core Guardian is in their image. They are somewhat gnome-like in size, although they have proportions not too dissimr to simply shrunken-down humans, albeit with a slightlyrger head and hands." Kiron exined as he ced the Blueprints back down onto the table before Eisen slowly nodded. "Halti, huh? Interesting." Eisen muttered to himself as he ced the first ingot into the forge to heat it, before turning to Kiron again. "But what is the Underdark? I haven¡¯t heard of it before." He asked, and Alnico and Stahl listened just as curiously. "Ah, the Underdark is a giant cave the size of a continent, quite literally so. It¡¯s underneath the continent western to this one and spans almost every meter of it. Not only is the Flora unique to any other ce, but it has incredibly unique monsters there, and it has different weather as well. There¡¯s a volcanic region with flowing magma hundreds of times hotter than regr magma directly next to an area made up of frozen ciers that don¡¯t melt no matter what heat they are exposed. It is the harshest area on this, and the one civilization that used to live there is now extinct, with the only residue of them being the ruins, some of the monsters, as well as creatures like the Halti." Kiron exined before he ran his fingers over his scaled neck. "Although because the environment itself is so harsh, there are creatures there that are even stronger than ancient dragons, believe it or not." And after Kiron said this, Eisen was more than a bit confused. "What do you mean? I thought Ancient Dragons are Rank 10, is there anything higher than that?" "There is one stage above it, yes. But you have to be aware, a Rank 10 monster at level 1 is only about as strong as a level 600 person, while a Rank 10 Monster at Level 99 is about as strong as a level 800 person. And the stage beyond that can only be beaten by five that peaked, like you. My father actually reached that stage. Once a monster reaches the limit of their body, they end up Transcendent, and nearly all limits are taken off their body. As my father did so with his mind and morals intact, he was allowed to ascend to godhood, but there are barely any that are capable of doing so." Kiron exined before he wrily smiled at the old man. "There are actually only six of them on this, one on each continent including the Underdark, although they were sealed up in the past so that they cannot roam around." He added atst, and Eisen nodded at him with a smile. "Interesting. I didn¡¯t know about that, thank you, Kiron." The old man said, excited about finding out something like this before he noticed that the ingot he put into the Forge already heated enough. Eisen grabbed the bright yellow ingot and ced it onto the forge with the tongs and began to hammer onto it while thinking about the different materials that could be acquired from monsters like that, while Kiron swiftly ced the next ingot into the forge so that Eisen had something to work on once he was finished. While Eisen imagined the might of such monsters, Alnico chose to ask more about them, which Eisen wasn¡¯t opposed. In the past, he was always rtively interested in things like ss mythology, meaning that he did know a bit about it here and there, but when he started ying this game, his interest just grew a hundredfold! Especially after Caria and Melissa hatched out of their eggs and began to evolve, Eisen didn¡¯t pass on a chance to hear more such stories about things that even he had never seen or heard of in his life. "And do you know what those monsters are like?" Al asked curiously, and Kiron thought about it for a little while, before shaking his head. "I do not; it has been a while since they have been sealed, after all. The only thing that is currently known about them is that each of them takes after one of the basic elements. The Transcendent of Darkness is in the Underdark, which was part of the reason why it was named as such, and the Transcendent of Light is on top of it in the western continent. The Northern continent has the transcendent of water, the southern has the one of fire, the eastern the transcendent of air, and the central continent has the transcendent of earth, the youngest and overall weakest of all of them." The half-dragon exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in excitement, because he really couldn¡¯t wait for the time where the yers were strong enough to take such monsters on. Chapter 253 Grandson, Grandfather, Giant Spider For the next few hours, Eisen continued making the steel bones and tempering them inside of the tempering oven with the help of Kiron and Alnico, who were both doing quite well overall. Sometimes they ced the metal into the forge too early or toote and made everything stutter a little bit, but it wasn¡¯t an issue big enough to mess anything up overall. Stahl spent his time practicing some magic together with Caria and Melissa, and even Fafnir took a liking to the unusual effects that the two monster girls could cause and tried to start manipting the little bit of Dragon fire that he was now able to use as well. Of course, it didn¡¯t work just yet, and Eisen had to stop working once or twice to make sure that the small Living Dungeon didn¡¯t identally burn everything down, but overall, the four of them seemed to have a pretty fun time on their own as well. At the end, when the ship got close enough to the harbor, Eisen chose to stop with everything for now. They managed to finish about three fourth of the whole steel skeleton base, although none of it had been enchanted, so far. He would try and continue with the rest after Eisen and Stahl came back from their small hunting-trip, although that just depended on how long it would take them to set out with the ship again. While Eisen and Stahl were waiting on the main deck, the old man swiftly talked to Komer. "Alright, so you please take care of everything again, yeah?" He asked with a smile, and the young merchant immediately nodded his head. "Aye, Aye, Cap¡¯n!" Komer eximed with a salute, and Eisen replied with a light chuckle. "Stahl and I will be out hunting for a little while, so please send me a message about an hour before we depart again," Eisen said with a smile, and once more, Komer nodded his head. "Will do. Have fun out there then. But is it just you two going?" Komer asked a bit concerned, but Eisen didn¡¯t have any worries about that. "Yeah, just the two of us. The monsters in this area are all at most rank 1 or 2, and I can handle that even without a weapon. But I¡¯m taking my Zweih?nder with me as well, and if I need to, I¡¯m sure I can scare some of the low-leveled monsters away with my demonic form and my different titles." He exined before Komer scratched the back of his head. "That¡¯s not what I mean; I¡¯m more worried about Stahl. I know the type of expression he has right now; he looks like he just wants to run away somewhere." The young merchant answered so Eisen looked at Stahl before inevitably nodding his head. "I get what you mean, but that¡¯s exactly why we¡¯re doing this. And we¡¯re going on Cabarum, so even if he levels up a bunch and puts ¡¯literally¡¯ every single one of his stat points into Agility, I¡¯ll be able to catch up pretty quickly. I doubt I¡¯d even need Cabarum for that." Eisen said with a smile before he turned around and looked toward Stahl, who was waiting for the skeleton sailors to properly stop the ship so that he could get off it. "Anyway, please just message me before we set off again," Eisen told Komer again, before the young man nodded his head, and Eisen made his way over to his Grandson, who was wearing a backpack on his back, had his sword in a simple leather sheath, and his shield strapped to his back, hanging onto his rucksack. Eisen thought that Parc and Rouge did a pretty great job at making the sword, sheath, and shield, and he didn¡¯t have anything toin about in the slightest. The old man himself swiftly grew to titan size as he pulled Cabarum over to the exit area for the ship and then bound his Zweih?nder, which seemed like a rtively thin shortsword in Eisen¡¯s hands now, in cloth and put it into a part on his leather apron meant for different knives. It was still a littlerge for that, but it was better than having to hold it continuously, in Eisen¡¯s eyes. Before Eisen knew it, Jyuuk¡¯s Skeleton Sailors docked the ship and a few of the workers at the harbor bound it into ce so that it couldn¡¯t drift off. "Alright, you ready?" Eisen asked his grandson, who quietly nodded his head before he and Eisen made their way off the ship and through the rtively small ocean-side town toward one of the gates. When they left the town, Eisen and Stahl swiftly sat down on top of Cabarum¡¯s back and made their way to a good hunting area in a nearby forest to start things off. And soon, they found an area with a few Rank 0 wolves, and Eisen jumped off Cabarum¡¯s back before Stahl did the same. "What now?" Stahl asked as he looked at the beast that was bearing its teeth at them, although slightly hesitant to approach due to Eisen¡¯s presence. "Seems like it¡¯s a bit scared of me. Just use that chance and go for it. It¡¯s alone, so before any of its pack notice that it¡¯s fighting, try to finish it off. It¡¯s just like real life, so going for weak points such as the head or neck is the best choice to finish this quickly." Eisen exined, and Stahl slowly nodded his head before taking his backpack off and handing it to Eisen so that Stahl could freely move before he put his shield onto his left arm and then tightly grasped the sword with his right hand. Approaching carefully, Stahl continuously held the small kite-shield forward before the wolf had enough of it and began to ran at the young man, who bashed his shield forward against its head and staggered the wolf. Immediately afterward, Stahl swung the sword downward in a straight line and hit the wolf¡¯s neck, although he only managed to cut into the side, but not deep enough to fatally damage it. The wolf was bleeding a good bit, but it didn¡¯t start barking or howling, and just jumped at Stahl again. And this time, the young man stabbed his sword forward and hit the chest of the wolf, piercing right through the heart. Immediately, the wolf copsed on the ground, and Stahl stabbed his sword through its neck, finishing it off. "Nice, I leveled up!" Stahl eximed with a smile, before looking at some other notifications. "Oh, and I got two skills as well! Shield Arts and Swordsmanship." The green-haired man exined to Eisen, who nodded his head curiously before squatting down onto the ground in front of the wolf. "I see, then maybe ask Brody about thoseter. Or you can go straight to Horan, Brody¡¯s Demonpanion. He also uses a sword and a shield, almost exclusively, so he might know a good bit about it as well." Eisen suggested, and Stahl nodded before looking at his grandfather. "What are you doing there?" He asked, and Eisen lightly chuckled as he pushed one of his knives into the flesh of the wolf to skin it, before telling his grandson that he was doing just that. "I¡¯m gathering the materials from them. The skin can be turned into leather for some simple items, and the fangs and ws are good materials for potions." He answered before Stahl slowly nodded his head. "Ah... I got it... So are you going to do that for everything?" Stahl asked, wondering if this wouldn¡¯t take a lot of time off hunting, but he was relieved when Eisen shook his head. "I¡¯m only taking the skin from this one. As a little souvenir, I guess." The old man chuckled, before finishing the skinning and folding it up before cing it into a bag meant for these materials. He swiftly pulled the most essential fangs out of the wolf¡¯s mouth and then pulled out all the ws that were in good condition, before he was ready to move on. "Alright, let¡¯s get the next one. When you hit Level 15, let me know. That seems about the right time where you should be able to fight against Rank 1 monsters." He exined before Stahl slowly nodded his head, taking a look around. Swiftly, he noticed a small group of three wolves and looked at his grandfather to see if it would be a good idea to go for them, and Eisen just nodded his head. "Go ahead. If anything goes wrong, I¡¯ll take care of them." Eisen said as Stahl sprinted toward the wolves and began his next fight. For a good while, Stahl and Eisen continued walking through the forest, fighting any wild and aggressive animal they came across until the green-haired boy finally hit level 15. Triumphantly, he turned around and looked at his Grandfather. "Level 15! Now I can fight actual monsters, right?" He asked excitedly, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Yes, you can. I was told there are some Spider Monsters around here. You don¡¯t mind spiders, right?" Eisen asked just to confirm, and Stahl just shrugged. "I don¡¯t mind them, no. But if you mean spider monsters, do you mean spiders the size of dogs?" Stahl asked, and Eisen nodded with a light chuckle. "Yeah, I do. At least that¡¯s what Sky and Bree told me, so I¡¯m guessing it should be true." He added before Stahl scratched his neck. "Well, I¡¯m sure there won¡¯t be many yers around these parts then, huh?" "Most likely not," Eisen confirmed before the grandfather-grandson team made their way deeper into the forest that became darker and darker around them. And when the silence was bing near-to unbearable, Stahl spoke up. "Grampa... Why... didn¡¯t you tell me about Dad?" He quietly asked before Eisen looked at Stahl with a conflicted expression. "I¡¯m sorry that I didn¡¯t, but it wasn¡¯t my right to tell you. Your father was the only one that should have done that, although maybe a few years earlier." The old man answered, and Stahl slowly began to grip his sword more tightly as he began to get angry. "You think?" Stahl asked sarcastically, "Who¡¯d have thought that telling your son that you¡¯re criminal scum as early as possible was a good idea?" He muttered, and this time, Eisen became angry. He grabbed Stahl¡¯s shoulder and immediately twisted him around. "Don¡¯t you dare talk about your father that way without knowing what happened," Eisen told Stahl, who ripped himself away from his grandfather¡¯s grip. "Without knowing what happened? Are you fucking with me? I can¡¯t talk bad about the fact that my father ¡¯literally¡¯ lied to me about who he is for my whole life?" Stahl asked with slightly teary eyes, and Eisen shook his head. "Your father never lied to you. He¡¯s the same person that you have always known him as. Maybe he hid his past from you, but that was just because he was scared about how you would react. He hates himself more than you ever could, I know that, but he was scared that you could hate him even more." Eisen told him and squatted down in front of Stahl. For a few moments, it seemed like Stahl was alright, but soon enough he turned away and just sprinted into the other direction, deeper into the forest. "Hey, stay here!" Eisen yelled after him because he knew that there was probably monsters deeper down in the forest that were too strong for him to handle, but Stahl just didn¡¯t stop. So, Eisen ran after him. Overall, Eisen caught up to him pretty quick, but because of his current size he just had to shrink down to normal again so that he could run through the forest that was getting denser and denser by the step. And soon, monsters appeared as well. It seems like Stahl had managed to avoid them perfectly, but then they all went after Eisen, which cost him a little bit of time as well. For a whole ten minutes this game of cat and mouse continued, until Stahl suddenly stopped in the center of arge clearing with the only bit of light in the whole area. "Finally! What the hell are you doing running off like that?" Eisen asked angrily, and he was just about to give his grandson a knock over the head before noticing that Stahl was staring at something above them. Seeing that Eisen had caught up to him, Stahl continued to run back in the direction they came from, and Eisen began to grind his teeth and yelled at Cabarum to bite into the boy¡¯s cor to pull him to safety if necessary because Eisen currently had to deal with something else. There was a giant spider whose size wasparable to that of Bolremgar or Aylrentyrth, and who had swiftly blocked every possible entrance or exit after Stahl retreated. Chapter 254 Mother of Spiders A giant spider, the size of an ancient dragon, stood directly in front of Eisen, but what he stared at was not any one of its eight crimson red eyes, but rather an information window that he had just pulled up. His friendslist. There were three modes to the names there. They could be green, which meant that the yer was online. They could be grey, which meant that the yer was sleeping or offline, and they could be red, which meant that the yer died and the death-penalty was currently put on them. But luckily, Stahl¡¯s name was currently grey, meaning that he had managed to find a safe ce to log off. Eisen wanted to follow his example, but he was unable to log off due to the fact that he was midbat. That meant that Eisen had to take care of that Spider first. He immediately activated all of the skills that gave him stat bonuses and grasped his Zweih?nder tightly, before using his Truth-Seeing Eyes to check the most basic information of the monster. [Mother of Spiders][Rank - 4][Level - 15] [HP - 10000][MP - 10000] [Titles] -[Area Boss] "Oh great, me alone against a Rank 4 monster...?" Eisen muttered to himself and immediately attempted to build up a distance between him and the ¡¯Mother of Spiders¡¯ and began to think about how he should go about this. Monsters with Boss titles were said to get a massive boost to their stats, which was also shown in the fact that it had so much HP and MP. He fought against a Boss monster before, back in the goblin town, but this one was a rank higher and probably quite a pain to deal with alone. But at least Eisen had a slight advantage in one sense. The giant spider continued to attempt and trap him in its silk which was moving around as if it had a mind on its own, but all that Eisen needed to do was to heat his body as much as possible with his element, which was simple to do considering that he was in his demonic form at the moment. He even took his staff out of his soul storage to attempt and make his fire even hotter. But at the moment, Eisen was still running from it without even trying to attack it somehow. He was lucky that the clearing wasrge enough for that; otherwise, he would have had an even harder time. "Think you moron, think!" Eisen muttered to himself. He was even considering just letting the spider kill him and have that be that, but he felt like that was the absolute worst choice at the moment, so he continued trying to figure out ways to kill the spider. When Eisen finally came up with an idea, he immediately reversed his movement and twisted his body around, before sprinting at the spider, choosing to aim at the legs first and foremost. In Eisen¡¯s head, it was the best idea to pick the hind legs, because that might cause the spider¡¯s back to slump down, which might, in turn, allow him to climb onto it so that he could attack its abdomen, with that being one of its weak points. While Eisen was trying to destroy or at least damage the legs, he covered each one in a thickyer of rock made with his element, while trying to focus the high heat inwardly that would hopefully roast everything in its way. He would have tried to do the same directly to the abdomen, but it was too far away, so Eisen didn¡¯t have any direct control over it. It was hard enough as it was to try and do it to the lowermost area of the Spider¡¯s legs, but anything else would have practically been impossible. After a while, the leg seemed to be pretty damaged and quite fragile, so Eisen unsummoned his staff and instead grasped his Zweih?nder andrge hammer, pointing the tip of the sword against the cracked up leg and basically used it as a chisel with the help of the hammer, which made it possible for him to instantly destroy the leg which hindered some of the spider¡¯s movements. For about ten minutes, Eisen then attempted to do the same thing to another one of the legs, and due to the sheer weight that the legs were carrying, for just a brief moment, the abdomen mmed against the ground, giving Eisen the chance to climb onto it. ¡¯Literally¡¯ stabbing the Zweih?nder into it to keep himself up there in case the spider tried knocking him off his body by shaking around, Eisen slowly climbed further and managed to get all the way to the top. But that wasn¡¯t the weak-spot that Eisen was going for, he was looking for the thinnest part of a spider¡¯s body, the area where the abdomen and the sternum of the spider were connected. Carefully, Eisen slid down to the front of the abdomen, of course not forgetting to do as much damage to the spider as possible on the way. The old man swiftly summoned his staff again while still using his sword, and even using his wings to support somewhat and stabilize himself so that he wouldn¡¯t fall off, and then heated the area as much as he just possibly could. Of course, the spider tried twisting and turning, even crushing Eisen between its body a few times so that the spider nearly killed him, but luckily, Eisen could still hold out. Eisen repeatedly checked the information of the spider to see if it was losing health, and it was currently at about half its total HP, which was still nearly four times Eisen¡¯s total HP, but now it came to the moment that the old man was waiting. The connective area became so dried up, hot and brittle that Eisen could stab his sword right through it. With his leg, he stomped against it a few times, and then even grabbed his staff to push it deeper into the spider¡¯s body. That immediately reduced the Mother of Spiders down to about a fourth of its original HP, so now Eisen just had to finish it. He ced his hands over the opening that he created and filled it with his element, to include every nook and cranny. It probably wouldn¡¯t do as much damage as Eisen wanted it to, but it should still do arge amount, considering that Eisen was about to turn all of the rock that he poured deep into the wound into hot, hot mes. It turned out to be actually quite explosive, and the body was ripped into two parts, killing the spider immediately while Eisen dropped down to the ground. Surprisingly, he was able to catch himself with his wings, but that wasn¡¯t what Eisen was thinking about, ignoring the notifications that appeared all around him, Eisen picked up his sword from the ground and just grasped it in his right hand while holding his staff in his left hand. His size was fully increased, and he was in hisplete demonic transformation before he logged off. --- Immediately, Benjamin tried standing up out of the capsule, but of course, that took a little longer than he wanted it. He could hear some yelling in the living room,ing mostly from Benji, so the old man tried to go there as fast as he could. The fight took him about an hour total, after all, so 15 minutes passed here in the real world. A lot can happen in 15 minutes. But just when Benjamin nearly reached the living room, he heard Tony speak up, angrier than he ever heard him in the past few years. "What, do you think I want my past to be that? Do you think that I hid that from you for shits and giggles? No, I hid that from you because I was embarrassed and always hated myself for making such a dumb mistake! No, for making those dozens and dozens of dumb mistakes! Ever since then, I paid for the mistakes I made, but I always tried to keep you out of that! I gave you whatever you wanted! Even when my car broke down and we were missing some of the money to repair it, I always got you the newest videogame console! In the short time that we had ¡¯literally¡¯ not enough money to eat, I gave you all of my food and then ate the leftovers. Benjamin, I love you more than anything in the world, so why are you mad at me for something that happened before you were even born?!" Tony yelled out angrily toward his son, who he only called in his full name when he was talking about something serious, while Benjamin-Senior made his way to Sean and Katy¡¯s room to make sure they didn¡¯t hear anything about the fight that even hurt the old man¡¯s heart. Benjamin never liked seeing his son like that, scraping for money to even be able to buy food, and he offered him more than enough money to buy more money than a restaurant used in a year. The only times that Tony epted was when it came to Benji, Sean or Katy. For example, once as a child, Benji was extremely sick, and Tony was worried about paying the hospital bill, and since his wife was currently pregnant with Sean, he immediately epted Benjamin¡¯s offer to pay for it so that he wouldn¡¯t cause too many hardships for his wife, son and soon-to-be-born child. While Benjamin was trying to keep his youngest grandchildren distracted, he could still hear a little bit from the fight in the distance, so he attempted to speak loud enough over it so that Sean and Katy couldn¡¯t listen to it. In the meantime, he also grabbed the gadget that was connected to the capsule to send a message to Komer and ask him to grab the carriage and some people and bring it to the front of the town. With hisst thought before logging off, Benjaminmanded Cabarum to run back there, because he wanted someone to use the carriage toe over to the forest so that they could gather the materials of the Mother of Spiders that he so hastily killed. He probably ruined a lot of excellent materials, but anything is better than nothing, so Benjamin didn¡¯t want to pass on the itemsing from a boss monster. "Grandpa, there¡¯s skeletons in the game, right?" Sean asked curiously, and with a bit of surprise, the old man nodded his head. "Yeah, there are. A friend of mine is a necromancer, which means that he can control them. We have them sailing our ship at the moment, so that¡¯s pretty fun." He chuckled a bit before Sean began to look at his grandfather with bright eyes. "Whoa, that¡¯s so cool!" He eximed, and Benjamin ced his hand onto the boy¡¯s head. "Of course, it is. But I wasn¡¯t aware you liked Skeletons that much, Sean." Benjamin added, and the boy¡¯s face immediately lit up. "Mhm! They¡¯re scary and fun, and cool!" The young boy giggled, but Katy just grimaced at the thought. "No, they¡¯re icky! Cute, fluffy furbabies are much funnerer!" Katy eximed as if wanting to start a fight with Sean. But despite rarely speaking more than a few sentences at a time, Sean was quite witty at times. "You have a skeleton inside of you right now, you know?" He responded immediately and ced his finger onto the center of his sister¡¯s chest before Katy began to look at him in confusion and a bit of horror. "S-Say like right now!" Katy responded, and now Benjamin looked at her in confusion and a bit of horror considering the fact that she knew that type ofnguage at such an age, but before the old man couldment, Sean continued. "I won¡¯t! Do you know how your whole body hurts sometimes? Dad says that it¡¯s ¡¯Growing Pains,¡¯ but in reality, it¡¯s just a skeleton trying to take over your body!" He eximed with a nk expression before Katy immediately jumped up as the color in her facepletely drained. Swiftly, she turned around, stepped to the door, slowly took the first step outside, and then sprinted toward the living room with tears in her eyes, "Daaaddddyy!" Chapter 255 Samurai After Katy sprinted toward the living room, and Benjamin hastily tried following her, the old man finally caught up and saw her in her father¡¯s arms, while Benji was sitting quietly on the couch with tears in his eyes. They were pretty quiet for the past few minutes, so Benjamin was unsure if they left the room or if they managed to calm down, but now the old man could happily see that it was thetter. "Huh, Gramps? You logged off too?" Benji asked with a bit of surprise, while Katy was telling her father about what Sean told her. "Of course, I did. It took a little while because you left me alone with a Boss Monster that was trying to kill me, but yeah, I logged off." The old man responded before Benji scratched the back of his head. "Sorry, I was a bit... drastic... Sorry if that thing killed you..." He apologized, but Benjamin shook his head with a loud sigh. "It didn¡¯t kill me, don¡¯t worry. I killed it, actually. I asked Komer to make his way there so that we can properly collect the materials, so they should be there in a little bit. Don¡¯t worry about it at all. You and your father had something going on, and I¡¯m d you at least somewhat dealt with that." Benjamin said as he ced his left arm on his grandson¡¯s shoulder and slowly nodded, before looking over at Tony. "I¡¯ll be back in the capsule. And sorry about letting Sean tease Katy like that." He said with a wry smile, and Tony nodded his head with a long sigh before continuing to try and calm down his daughter. "I¡¯m going to be there in a few minutes as well; I just need to calm down a little first..." Benji admitted before Benjamin slowly nodded his head and made his way back over to the capsule, nearly tripping a few times on the way because his body was getting weaker. And soon, he managed to return to the game world. --- A few minutes earlier, inside the game... --- "Damn these fucking spiders! I wish I were Pyro from Team Castle right now so I could burn this whole forest down to the ground..." A Young man eximed in a loud and clear voice as if he was talking to someone else, despite that obviously not being the case. "But either way, I think we got pretty lucky here, all the spiders on this path here are dead! I already have the stuff for the Adventurer¡¯s Guild¡¯s Quest, but I¡¯m sure this is some secret hidden quest that¡¯s gonna give me a whole bunch of dat loot!" He continued to say and held the small torch that he bought in the nearby town. "Who knows, it might have something to do with that event at the wharf back in town with that Giant ass ship just appearing out of nowhere! I doubt it¡¯s a coincidence! This note wasn¡¯t here thest time I was here at the very least." Once more the man added before his eyes moved over to something floating in the air before he swiftly stuck the sword he was carrying into the ground to make an ¡¯OK¡¯-Hand in front of his face. "Thanks for the donation, ABCKing!" He eximed before reading through the message attached to the donation and cackled a bit in response. "Well fuck you too, King, I¡¯m not a pussy! If you can afford the DICAP, you can see it next week! The spiders are ¡¯literally¡¯ bigger than my fucking head!" The man yelled out before pulling the sword back out of the ground and stepping further through the path, before reaching an open area, the only one that was illuminated by any light in this deeper part of the forest. Thick cobwebs were covering every single surface, but luckily that didn¡¯t directly include the spiders, meaning that the young man could concentrate on something else. The body of a Giant Spider bigger than a house split up into its back and front sides, and a big statue was standing directly where the Spider was cleaved into two. It had giant wings that were spread out as if therge metal statue had justnded. From what the young man could see, the figure was made entirely of iron or steel, with some veins of Gold running all over its body and two big golden horns on the top of its head. It had two items in its hands, a sword that was about as long as the young man was tall, and a staff even longer than that, although they looked rtively small in the statue¡¯s hands. Excitedly, the young man stared forward and made his way into the area carefully but happily. "Chat, I think we just hit the Jackpot! Give me some of ¡¯dem lucky pogs so that this doesn¡¯t turn out to be a trap! And if you want me to be super lucky, maybe even use your Switch Prime, eh?" The young manughed to himself as he made his way toward the statue, expecting anything, absolutely anything, to happen. And when nothing did, he triumphantly looked at the statue. "I¡¯m guessing this is some random loot thing that you can find instead of bosses?" He muttered to himself, still loud enough so that his stream-chat could hear him before he attempted to grab the sword and pull it out of the statue¡¯s hand. "Come to papa!" He eximed, but the sword didn¡¯t budge at all. More and more, the young man tried to pull the sword out with all his strength, before suddenly, it seemed like the sword was finally moving. "Oh yes chat, I think I¡¯m getting there!" He eximed although he was quite surprised when he was suddenly hanging from something, the ground above him, as the statue grabbed his leg and suddenly turned into a fully-fledged demonic creature, merely staring at the man with golden eyes. --- Meanwhile, from Eisen¡¯s perspective... --- Slowly, Eisen felt himself return to the game, but at the same time noticed that his right arm had gotten a bit heavierpared to before. And when he looked down at it, he couldn¡¯t believe his eyes. Some random person, a yer, judging from the outfit he was wearing underneath the light leather armor, was currently trying to pull his sword out of his hand. So of course, not going to let that happen just like that, Eisen grabbed the man¡¯s leg and held him up on it. "What the hell do you think you¡¯re doing?" Eisen asked, trying to figure out who the man was talking to a little bit ago, but the man reacted differently than expected. "Ch-Chat, I think I¡¯m going to die now, so the stream will most likely continue in a few hours..." The man stuttered, but Eisen just let out a loud sigh and let go of him, the man dropped to the ground as he looked back at him. Surprisingly enough, the pupils of the stranger were currently a bright red, which he just recently learned from Zyra to be a sign that someone was ¡¯Live Streaming¡¯ or ¡¯Recording.¡¯ Eisen didn¡¯t know how live streaming would work from inside the game, but he heard that Prime Industries brought out a specific gadget meant to make it possible to enjoy streams from the game ¡¯live¡¯, by creating something like a mock time-dtion to feed the information to the user. But as he didn¡¯t honestly know how it worked, and neither did he care too much, he hadn¡¯t read about it more than a few sentences. And then he noticed that he went offline with his both his transformations active, Eisen swiftly deactivated them and turned to the yer. "Sorry about that, kid. Don¡¯t know if you were nning on fighting this thing, but it¡¯s toote now." Eisen said and crossed his arms, noticing some lights in the distance in one of the paths leading to where he currently was, and from the sound apanying those lights, Komer and a few of the others had made their way here. Confused at what was going on, the young man stood up and took a closer look at the now regr-sized, or rather still quite ¡¯giant¡¯ despite being somewhat more natural, person, and immediately recognizing him from somewhere. The man looked to the side, probably at some information window from what Eisen could tell, before looking at Eisenpletely baffled. "Erm, are you perchance Eisen? The Original, Eisen?" The man asked, and the old man formed a light frown on his face before nodding. "You didn¡¯t appraise me, so I guess you just recognized me?" He answered, and immediately, the man jumped up, not wanting to pass on that chance. "Whoa, that¡¯s so awesome! I wasn¡¯t aware there was a yer that was strong enough to kill something like this yet, even amongst the Originals! If you don¡¯t mind, do you want to team up a bit and continue hunting?" The man asked with a bright smile, but he was somewhat surprised when Eisen shook his head. "Sorry kid, I¡¯m a bit busy at the moment," Eisen said as he walked over to the Mother of Spider¡¯s head and took a look at the different parts. The man was a bit grossed out about it, but he chose to look away and continued trying. "Come on! I¡¯m sure my viewers will love you if we hang around each other a bit! I¡¯m looking through my chat right now, and everybody¡¯s loving your buff old-man avatar already! A bit unrealistic, but it¡¯s the dream of any of us to look like that in fifty years, so I get where you¡¯reing from, Bro! I¡¯m Samurai, by the way!" He eximed, but Eisen once more just shook his head and sighed loudly. "Kid, I already said no. You can help me out a bit, but hunting time is over. My friends and I are going to take this spider apart and then take it with us." Eisen said as he turned around and looked over at the peopleing over toward him and Samurai, right now. Surprisingly, all the yers came along, but none of the NPCs did. "Brody, bring me a few of the preservation jars!" Eisen eximed, and the Demon Orc Halfling swiftly stepped into the carriage and then quickly made his way over to the old man. "Damn. For a geezer, ya did a real job on this son of a bitch. What was it, a Rank four?" Brody asked as he looked at the Mother of Spiders with a broad grin, while Eisen nodded his head and ced one of the preservation jars into the hands Samurai, who was currently trying to figure out what was going on. "Kid, hold it steady, please. And yeah Brody, a Rank 4 area boss. It was surprisingly easy to kill; it just took a long time." Eisen said as he put his hands into the edges of one of the Spider¡¯s eyesockets to pull the eye out, considering that he had recently found that every part of a monster can be useful for things. Carefully, he ced the eye into the jar, while Samurai was staring down at the eye before another man spoke up. "Mhm,rge monsters usually have high Endurance and Strength, but low Agility. And you were probably a pretty nice match against it because of your fire." Jyuuk exined, while Eisen slowly nodded his head, trying not to damage the other eyes which were all ced into the oversized jars with preservatives. "That¡¯s basically it," Eisen answered, before the two other Originals also walked up to them, with only one person acknowledging the existence of Samurai. "Who¡¯s this guy?" She asked, and Eisen just shrugged. "Some Alpha. He was trying to take my sword from me while I was logged off, and then went on to say some random stuff about teaming up to hunt." And so, while Samurai was holding a jar with a spider¡¯s eye, his stream became the most popr current stream on his tform, as he was the only one that had ever seen one of the originals. But right now, he had all five of them together in a single frame. Chapter 256 Announcemen "Holy shit, are you seriously the five originals?!" Samurai asked with unparalleled excitement in his voice, and Brody slowly nodded his head while looking at him. "Yup, that¡¯s us. And who¡¯re you?" The Demon-Orc asked, taking note of the fact that Samurai was currently streaming or at least recording footage. "Ah, I¡¯m Samurai! You may know my Switch Streams; I¡¯m actually pretty popr!" He answered with his hand on his heart and a cheeky grin on his face, before Eisen turned over to Alnico, Stahl who had caught up with everyone, and Zyra. "Is that true, do you know who this is?" With a loud sigh, Zyra nodded her head before she approached Samurai in a way that it just seemed bothersome, although that seemed to be Zyra¡¯s general approach to anything and everything. "Yes, that¡¯s him, alright... Samu, what are you doing here?" "Wait, Zyra, what are YOU doing here?" The young man asked withplete confusion before Evalia raised her hand. "She¡¯s my guest, you know?" And now, utterly confused, Samurai looked back and forth between Zyra and Evalia. "Wait, you know Nataly Klein?" He then finally asked Zyra, and she nodded her head with a nk expression, while Stahl could physically be heard facepalming. "Dude, just stop. What¡¯re you even doing here? Considering that your stream is still going, it¡¯s obvious that you just want to cash in on everyone being here." Stahl pointed out before Samurai turned around toward him with a re. "And what do you want, you Jacksepticear-lookin¡¯-ass?" He annoyedly asked before Eisen looked at him with a frown. "Samurai, was it? Yeah, don¡¯t talk to my Grandkid that way, thanks. I don¡¯t care if you try to steal from me, but leave everyone else here alone." He continued before turning over to Jyuuk. "Do you think we can use the venom nd for anything?" Immediately, Jyuuk nodded his head. "For sure! I know a way or two to make these to continue producing venom even if they aren¡¯t connected to anything." The Monkey-Beastperson pointed out, while Samurai just looked at Eisen with confusion. "Dude, you can drop the old man act, we¡¯re all amongst yers right now, right?" The streamer pointed out, and for a moment, Eisen looked at him baffled before starting tough loudly. "Alright kid, you know what? If you can guess my real age within five attempts, I¡¯ll do two things. I¡¯ll start acting like that age, and I¡¯ll take you with us so that you can film us for your stream thingy. Alright?" Eisen asked him, before continuing with another smile, concentrating on one thing in the back of his head. "But if you can¡¯t guess, you¡¯re going to help us take this thing apart with nopensation." [Quest given to Samurai] Eisen gave him a quest to do two things. One, so that this whole thing would be binding, and Samurai would have less toin. And the other was to spread the fact that Originals can give quests. It was an essential part of their leadership role, so it was okay if people knew beforehand. With a shine in his eyes, Samurai then looked at the notification that appeared in front of him, before turning back to Eisen. "yers can give out quests?!" He asked excitedly, but Xenia shook her head while frowning at Eisen. "No, only we five can. But what the hell, Eisen! Now every yer will ask us to give them quests so that they can easily advance!" The High-Elfined, but Eisen just replied with a smirk and a wink, before he looked back at Samurai. "Anyway, just try now." He told the streamer, who quickly nodded his head, but wanted to know something first. "Sure, but what are those question marks in the Reward and Failure sections?" "Oh, those are always there in case we want to give extra rewards and things like that," Eisen answered, and then Samurai crossed his arms. "Nice, I like extra rewards! Chat, wish me luck!" He eximed, before pointing directly at Eisen. "Your real age is 25!" "Wrong, higher," Eisen responded, crossing his arms with a smirk as he was wondering where Samurai would end up, as the young man seemed worried already. "Erm, 30?" "Wrong, higher." "50?" "Wrong, higher." "65?" "Wrong, higher. Last try, kid." Eisen said with a smirk while Samurai was attempting to deal with both the fact that Eisen was, apparently, that old, and that he would be ruining his chance to hit it off with the five people that would be doing amazing things every single day. "Alright,st effort attempt! I think that you¡¯re actually way older, and made your character seem middle-aged so that you can relive your youth!" Samurai eximed onest time, "I think you¡¯re 90 years old!" He eximed, but Eisen just smiled at him. For a moment, Samurai thought he did it, but soon enough, he heard a loudugh from behind him,ing from Stahl and Alnico. "Damn, I wasn¡¯t in a great mood, but this shit¡¯s cheering me up. Sorry dude, my Gramps is 70. You failed whatever quest he gave you." Stahl said with a grin as he pushed his hands into his pockets, and confused, Samuel looked over at Eisen who swiftly nodded his head. "Yep, you failed kid, sorry," Eisen said with a grin before the notification popped up in front of him and the three question marks that appeared at the end of the failure punishments lit up and then changed to something else. "W-Wait, what?! All yers lose the right to ask you for quests! What the hell?!" Samurai yelled out, confused and looked over at the information screen in the corner of his eye, where hundreds of thousands of people were currently yelling at him and telling him what an idiot he was. In the meantime, Brody beganughing loudly, and Xenia let out a sigh of relief, while Eisen crossed his arms and nodded his head. "Yes, you all just lost that privilege. We¡¯re still going to give out quests, but just to those that earned it. If we don¡¯t give you a quest,in to Samurai, and not to us." Eisen said with a grin, and the young man began to freak out before Eisen started tough. "Hah... You¡¯re streaming right now, right? That means people can see us live when you look at us?" The old man asked just to make sure, and Samurai slowly nodded, before Eisen slowly turned to the other originals and whispered something to them, trying to make sure that they were on the same page. They already talked about something like this, but considering that Samurai¡¯s stream seemed to be pretty busy, it was a great chance to take to spread the word. "Alright, I guess that got everyone¡¯s attention, huh? Let me make something clear. Nobody ever had the privilege to just get a quest from us. You can¡¯te up to us and just ask us for one. We will give out quests, but quite rarely so. But as that is the case, we will give you all a quest right now ¡ª an ¡¯unofficial¡¯ quest, of sorts. We, the five originals, have founded a Guild called . At some point, we will hold interviews with people to be let into the Guild. But for that, you need to hit a few requirements." Eisen eximed, making sure that Samurai was keeping his eyes on the group of five before he continued. "The requirements to be interviewed are simple. Be at least level 50, and have all the skills most important to your upation at least at Rank 3. The interviews will be case-by-case. If you think you have what it takes to be part of our guild, work toward that. We will announce at ater time when those interviews will start." Eisen said with a smile before he looked at Samurai, and now not at the ¡¯Cameras¡¯ that were his eyes, but the actual person. "Turn the stream off for a bit, will you?" The old man asked, and Samurai slowly nodded his head before stepping away from the group for a bit to speak to the viewers of the stream to finish up for the day, while the originals talked to each other. "Was it a good idea to announce that this early? I mean, we¡¯re a Rank 0 guild right now." Evalia pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head. "Don¡¯t worry about that. We¡¯ll be on the inds for a good while anyway, and as I just said, we¡¯ll announce the date for the interviewster. ¡¯Later¡¯ is rtive, so we can even wait a year if we have to." The old man pointed out before he turned to the big spider behind him. "Anyway, now that that¡¯s dealt with, let¡¯s deal with this big girl," Eisen said as he put his hand against the dead Mother of Spiders, before Xenia slowly nodded her head, immediately turning around and sprinting to the carriage. "I¡¯ll deal with it from over here, yeah?" She asked, and Eisen nodded with a sigh. "Let¡¯s get started. Jyuuk, would you please deal with the more sensitive areas like the venom nd. Brody and I will deal with the Carapace. Everyone else please just assist." The old man said before the group immediately got to work, with Samurai even joining in after he stopped streaming to help out as part of his punishment for failing the quest. The only ones that didn¡¯t help out were Vardia, K, Zyra and Alnico, who were all still level 1 at this point as such couldn¡¯t help if they wanted to, which they didn¡¯t because they were dealing with a giant spider to be taken apart into its smallestponents. And then at some point, when everything from the thorax was removed, including the legs which were then in turn also taken apart, it came to the abdomen. The first thing that they took out was the easily reachable things, such as the book lungs, the silk nds, and the spinneret. Then came the ovaries, which were holding a lot of unfertilized eggs that might be useful for some different concoctions or necromantic experiments. But that gave Eisen an idea. This monster was called ¡¯Mother of Spiders,¡¯ and judging from that name, it would have made sense that there would be a nest around this area. It was more than likely that all the spiders in this forest were her children, but there was also a good chance for some spider-eggs justying around. Activating his ¡¯truth-seeing¡¯ eyes, Eisen then took a look around to find those fertilized eggs, as he was looking for a third monster to tame. And just as he expected, he located something with the help of those eyes! At the corner of this bright, open area was a dead tree-stump covered with cobwebs all over, just like everything else, but it also had a slightly stronger glow of mana inside of it than other areas, as it was apparently densely packed with string that was created with the help of the ¡¯Mother of Spider¡¯s magic, most likely to just protect the eggs. "Grampa, what are you doing there..?" Alnico asked confused, trying to figure out why the old man suddenly strayed from the group and just made his way to a seemingly random spot in the area, but the old man just smiled at her. After Eisen approached the dead tree, he quickly took a look inside, using a stick that wasying next to the tree just to see if anything was moving in there. And sure enough, a few hundred, tarant-sized spiders crawled out of the tree stump, as they had apparently all just recently hatched. With a loud sigh, Eisen took another look into the dead tree, thinking that there probably wasn¡¯t any unhatched egg in there. But he thought wrong! There was a single, pure ck, round egg inside of that tree. Chapter 257 Overgrown Spider Zombie Carefully, Eisen reached into the tree stump and grabbed the pitch-ck egg that he found in there. After pulling it out, the old man removed the cobwebs that were stuck to it and then ced the egg into his backpack before returning to the group. "So, what were you doing there?" Alnico asked again, and Eisen crossed his arms with a smile. "I just grabbed something interesting. I¡¯ll show youter. We have everything from the spider that can be useful, right?" Eisen confirmed before he looked around at the others. And since they didn¡¯t seem to have anyints, he nodded at Jyuuk, who appeared to be eagerly waiting for this chance. Jyuuk grabbed a bag out of his backpack and threw the contents onto the dead Mother of Spider¡¯s body that was taken apart for most useful parts. After that, Jyuuk closed his eyes and extended his hands forward, before the space in front of those hands began to slowly shift around as a sign that mana was being used. But not only that, but the air also took on a slightly grey color, which Eisen figured was because Jyuuk was using his element for this to speed things up and heighten his chances. Soon, the things that the Beastperson spread out on the corpse cracked open, and roots began to extend outward from the seeds, grasping onto any free space that was avable to them, before pitch-ck flowers started to bloom all over. This sight alone was quite impressive already, as the somewhat gruesome scene that was going on before actually turn somehow beautiful, but what then happened was even more so. The flowers withered after a few seconds, and in an area spread around where they had sprouted before, new ones grew and then did the same. Only the petals ever withered, while the roots stayed in ce and intertwined with everything else, while the Spider¡¯s sternum pulled what was leftover from its legs against it again and filled out all of the space with roots instead. The legs soon began to slightly move under the control of the roots and necromantic energy that Jyuuk poured into the corpse, before the front and back of the bodies connected again. After only a few minutes, the mountain that was just leftover goop turned into a fully-fledged spider made of pitch-ck roots and spider parts. Oncepleted, the whole creature began to crack all over, and Jyuuk pushed his hands up in excitement. "Yes! Finally! I resurrected a Boss!" Jyuuk eximed with a broad grin before that grin turned into a sour expression instead. "Ah, shit..." He said with a sigh, and Eisen slightly tilted his head to the side. "What¡¯s wrong?" The old man asked with a bit of worry, and Jyuuk scratched the back of his head. "Well, because of the strength of the undead, I either need topletely ¡¯delete¡¯ the undead I have stored right now so that I can store the Spider, I can have all the undead on my hand out all the time until you make that Necronomicon you talked about for me, or I can have the spider itself out. Both of thetter are going to be pretty bothersome on the way back." He exined, but Eisen still didn¡¯t understand the problem. "I thought Necromancy isn¡¯t condemned, so I¡¯m sure you can keep the undead you have around you. I can see the problem with the big girl right here, but not really with the other undead." He pointed out, but Jyuuk shook his head. "It¡¯s not condemned, but people don¡¯t like to see it either. I mean, who would want to see a dead body walking around? And I have two zombies with me, and even if they¡¯re Overgrown and most of the grossest areas are covered up, they¡¯re still not nice to look at." Jyuuk answered, "Especially not in a big crowd." With a frown, Eisen began to move his fingers through his beard. "Then let¡¯s just keep the ¡¯Grossest¡¯ Undead in the carriage, and then we¡¯ll all walk in a circle around the others so that they can¡¯t be noticed that well," Eisen suggested before Jyuuk just shrugged. "I guess that¡¯s fine," Jyuuk responded, and while that conversation was going on, a new group of five that had just now formed spoke amongst each other. "Holy fucking shit, what did that Monkey Dude do just now?" Samurai asked, and he soon was met with a re from another Monkey Beastperson. "Hey, that¡¯s my Onii you¡¯re talking about!" K eximed with a pout before she crossed her arms, and Samurai scratched the back of his head apologetically before Stahl spoke up to answer the question. "That¡¯s Jyuuk¡¯s ¡¯Overgrown Necromancy.¡¯ That¡¯s what he calls it, at least. It¡¯s abination of the nt control skill and necromancy. He enhances it with his element, though, so it¡¯s probably not something that everyone can do." Stahl pointed out with crossed arms, and Samurai slowly nodded his head in wonder. "Yeah... That¡¯s really fucking dope though, gotta admit. Can¡¯t wait to have my Mana Maniption rank hit two so that I can choose my element." Samurai said with a bright grin, before he scratched his cheek, turning to everyone curiously. "Actually, what would you guys want for an element? I heard that there¡¯s basically an infinite amount of unique elements for everything." He said with a grin, and Alnico was the one that answered first. "Hmm, I¡¯d like something that has to do with Music. I¡¯ve been working toward a Bard-like upation, so I¡¯m sure I can get something like that." She exined, and next Zyra opened her mouth. "I think something that lets me use lots and lots of cool magic arrows might be interesting." "I just want a cute, fluffy, explosive element!" K added, and Stahl smiled wrily. "Well, one of those things is not like the others..." He muttered quietly to himself before continuing. "Honestly, because I don¡¯t know where I want to go with everything yet, so I don¡¯t know what kind of element I want either. I mean, something shy would be cool, but I¡¯ll probably get some sort of a supportive element that I can use passively with my other skills." Stahl exined, and then Samurai nodded his head immediately. "Oh yeah, I get that! Right now I have a swordsman upation just so that I can level up beyond 15, but I want to get something Samurai-esque. So anything that fits with that would be pretty dope." Samurai said, and then Stahl noticed something as well. "Well shit, I don¡¯t have an upation yet... Didn¡¯t get past level 15..." Stahl muttered to himself, wanting to p himself for not noticing earlier. A good portion of what he and his grandfather were doing in the forest was just a waste, then. "Oh, do you want to get a warrior type upation as well just as a ceholder until you know what you want to do? I can introduce you to my trainer in town." The streamer offered, but Stahl shook his head. "Nah, that¡¯s fine. I don¡¯t want to limit myself to that. If I do, I can¡¯t get a full type of different upation, after all." He answered before Alnico nodded her head as well. "Yeah, and even then, we don¡¯t need to meet some trainer and go through random upation training. The Originals can give out upations as well. That¡¯s something that anyone can learn, though." She added, and Samurai turned around and looked at the originals in wonder. "Oh, really? I heard about how yers can get that Trainer title as well, but I wasn¡¯t aware they could all do that to start it off..." He muttered, before noticing something else going on. About a dozen different overgrown undead had gathered around the group of originals, and currently, a ck mist wasing out of Jyuuk¡¯s hand as it tried to cover the Overgrown Spider Zombie¡¯s body before that mist swallowed it whole and it just disappeared. And then, Eisen called out to the group. "Hey everyone, we¡¯re done here. We¡¯ve got to get going." The old man told them, before the small group of the five of them swiftly approached, and Eisen then turned to Samurai. "Well kid, nice meeting you. And thanks for the help, and letting us use your stream thingy for advertisement." Eisen said, but Samurai seemed to have had a different idea. "Erm, Sir... could I maybee with all of you?" He asked before Eisen looked at him with a frown that was perfectly matched with a cold re. "And why do you want to do that?" Immediately, a shiver ran over Samurai¡¯s spine, and he swiftly shook his head. "It¡¯s not like that! I¡¯m not going to stream anything you won¡¯t allow me to! I was basically streaming after theunch; for the most part, I publish cut videos. So even if I record things, you can have me cut out anything you don¡¯t want to have others see!" He exined, and Eisen looked over at Zyra, as she was the only one that knew him before this. "So, do you trust him more than me?" The old man asked, and Zyra just shrugged. "Eh, 1:1." "Well, I guess that¡¯s that. But why do you think we should take you with us? Is there anything in it on our side?" Eisen asked, but Samurai just responded with a dumb smile, unsure what he should say before Brody pulled the old man to the side and the other originals followed. "Actually, I think that¡¯s a pretty good idea. Since the ¡¯Alphas¡¯ in our group are all so low-leveled, we wanted them to hunt a bit on their own, right? With a bit of supervision here and there, of course, but overall we wanted them to go off alone every once in a while? They were missin¡¯ a tank and primary damage dealer anyway, and I think that fits Samurai pretty well." Brody pointed out, and Eisen looked at the other three, who were all also more experienced in games than Eisen was, and they nodded their heads. "To be honest, that¡¯s a pretty good point. I mean, none of us necessarily have the time to babysit the ¡¯Alphas¡¯ and pull them to our level. For one, at least Jyuuk, Brody and I have to work every day, so we¡¯re not there a lot in the first ce. And then, only you and Evalia are left, and you¡¯re technically nonbatants. You have to deal with other stuff as well, especially after we take over the first city on the inds." Xenia pointed out, and so, Eisen was left with no other choice but to call over the four that would end up working together with Samurai to ask them. "So, would you mind forming a party with him?" Eisen asked, fully ready to say ¡¯No¡¯ if any of them were entirely against it, but to his surprise, they all werepletely up for it, even the quite cynical Zyra. "He¡¯s a bit of a dick sometimes, but other than that, he¡¯s a pretty nice guy." She exined, and then Stahl and Alnico nodded as well. "Yeah, he¡¯s actually one of the few super down-to-earth streamers. Most act super high and mighty all the time, but he doesn¡¯t seem to give a damn about anything and just wants to y games." The Green-Haired boy added, so Eisen ended up sighing loudly, now having little reason to say no. "Alright, Samurai, you can join us. We¡¯ll exin everything on the way, and then you can choose whether or not you want toe along. Oh, and on the whole way to our destination, no streaming or recording. We want to keep where we are a secret for now." Eisen exined, so Samurai nodded with a bright smile. "Nice! Thanks!" Samurai yelled out, and Eisen sighed loudly before stepping over to the carriage to get everything ready for the departure from the forest, before remembering one thing. He still didn¡¯t look at the notifications that appeared before he logged offst time. Chapter 258 More Coins While the old man took a look around the inside of the carriage to make sure that they seriously had whatever materials they could get while keeping them sorted in a way that they couldn¡¯t break during the transport, and even making sure that the parts of the Spider¡¯s Carapace that was bound to the roof couldn¡¯t fall off, Eisen opened the notifications that had appearedst time that he didn¡¯t look at then. -- [You killed a Boss Monster on your own. Lone Wolf title unlocked] -- [Title - Lone Wolf] [Description] You showed that you have the strength to oppose strong enemies even alone. [Effect] +5% to all stats when fighting alone -- [You are now Level 102] -- [You were able to catch your fall with your wings! You feel more ustomed to them, and they are now able to carry your weight slightly] -- [The Souls of Fallen Warriors thank you for avenging them] -- "Huh, interesting..." The old man muttered to himself, greatly appreciating the effects of the ¡¯Lone Wolf¡¯ Title that maye in useful at some point. And after Eisen increased each of his five basic stats by two points with the new Stat Points, he got by leveling up, and he took a closer look at thest two notifications. As he didn¡¯t understand thest notification, he concentrated on the one about his wings. "They are able to carry my weight slightly?" Eisen wondered, before stepping to the side and activating his demonic transformation, in response to which Stahl looked at him confused. "Grampa, what are you doing? Didn¡¯t you say we should get going?" He asked, and Eisen swiftly nodded. "Yeah, I know, I just want to try something out first. It only takes a few moments, don¡¯t worry." The old man responded, before concentrating on his wings and having them spread out behind him, which covered a quiterge area, which is why he had to step back a little bit further. Then, Eisen swiftly pushed them down and could then, for just a few moments, feel his body be so much lighter. With a grin, the old man once more spread his wings out and lightly kneeled, before stretching his legs out instantly while at the same time pushing his wings down again, allowing him to jump ten meters into the air! Due to his, at this point, inhuman strengthing from his legs, he was already able to jump much higher than usual. But now, he truly reached an impossible height. But whatever goes up has toe down sooner orter, and for Eisen, it was sooner thanter. The ten meters that he was in the air were quickly crossed again, but just before Eisen hit the ground, he once more pushed his wings down to at least somewhat break his fall. The dust from the ground spread around the area while Eisen deactivated his demonic transformation and stepped back toward the group of yers, that was watching the whole scene with a mixture of utter,plete confusion and excitement. "Holy... I wish my element was transformative like that!" Jyuuk eximed excitedly, looking at Eisen with jealousy in his eyes before the old man chuckled. "Don¡¯t worry, if you want wings, I¡¯m sure you can get them somehow. Who knows, maybe you can borrow Aotori or Akatori¡¯s sooner orter?" Heughed, and Jyuuk nodded his head immediately. "Wait, you¡¯re right! I heard that Beast Connection could do something like that atter ranks... So surely Minion Connection can as well!" Jyuuk yelled out with a bright smile, and Eisen nodded his head before looking at Evalia, who also seemed somewhat interested in it. "Out of the originals, you¡¯d probably be the only one besides me that can do that directly with her element. Brody doesn¡¯t have an element at all, but maybe he can do it with his Energy sooner orter as well, but that¡¯s uncertain. Xenia might be able to ask spirits to help her with that, and as we just established, Jyuuk might be able to do that with Minion Connection. But you can probably just use your magic paint to form wings, right?" Eisen suggested, and Evalia slowly nodded, thinking about it a little bit. "I¡¯ll figure that out on the shipter, but for now I think I draw a good amount of attention, at least amongst yers, already." Sheughed, and Eisen nodded his head with augh. "Good point might be better not to try that out yet. And I¡¯ll make you the mask and ¡¯cloak¡¯ before we get to the next town, don¡¯t worry." Eisen promised before the group was interrupted by Samurai, who just heard something pretty interesting. He was already freaking out over the fact that you could actually fly like this in the game, but there was something else as well. "Did you just say ship? As in, that giant ship in town with the Dragon Statue being mounted to it at the front?" The streamer asked confused, and Evalia nodded her head. "You got it, that¡¯s our ship. We¡¯ll be on there for a little while soon." She answered with a wink, although that wink wasn¡¯t directed at Samurai, but rather Stahl, who Evalia noticed to be in a pretty rough mood at the moment. Either way, Samurai didn¡¯t notice, "That huge ship is yours, how much did you pay for something like that?! That¡¯s insane!" He eximed, and Eisen looked over toward Komer, who nodded his head and went through the notes he took, flipping through until he found the relevant page in his notebook. "Ah, we spent about... 50 Gold on that. Well, the ship alone, we then also had to spend another 20 gold so for everything else in regards to supplies, materials, bedding, and so on." Komer answered, and Eisen moved his fingers through his beard. "How did we actually get that much money?" Eisen asked with a bit of surprise, and Komer just shrugged. "I told you how I made a few deals here and there outside of selling what you made, right? We got about 10 Gold coins in profits from that so far. I set up an ount at the Merchant¡¯s Guild, and I get money transfers into it. On our way back, I¡¯ll check-in and grab any money we might need at the Guild in town, just in case. Then, your items always ended up being sold in the upper silver range, especially on busy days when people were trying to pete¡¯ for an item that they especially wanted or needed. That alone would have already been enough for the materials, but the others donated some funds as well." Komer exined as he pointed to the others, who were all smirking a little bit, and Eisen began tough. "Well, I didn¡¯t know about that. Thanks for the help, you four. And good job on keeping up with everything, Komer." He said, but once more, Samurai interrupted them. "Wait, we¡¯re talking about Gold coins, right? The thing that I¡¯ve ¡¯literally¡¯ never even seen before? Those gold coins?" Samurai asked, confused, and Komer nodded his head. "Yup, Gold Coins. If we shouldpare it to real-world money, coppers are in the cent range, silvers in the dor range, and gold in the hundred-dor range. Of course, that¡¯s not directly urate, because you can get a lot of stuff for a silver coin, but for the gold coins, it should be somewhat urate? Oh, and so that you know, we didn¡¯t buy the ship, Eisen made it. Otherwise, we maybe would have been cutting it close with a Crystal Coin." Komer said with a wry smile, and immediately, Samurai¡¯s jaw dropped. "I wasn¡¯t aware you could make ships like that here... But seriously, a Crystal Coin? Isn¡¯t that like the highest currency there is?" "Actually, it¡¯s not," Komer said as he scratched his cheek, and now everyone, and not only Samurai, was confused and looking at the Merchant, who swiftly chose to exin. "There¡¯s another stage to it... The upper stage is usually only used in country-to-country deals, so mostmon people don¡¯t know about it. The currency advancements go: Copper, Silver, Gold, tinum, Crystal, ck-Copper, Mythril, White-Gold, Matikum, and then atst Mana. The worth isn¡¯t the most important thing with coins, but the worth that the games give them. Like, you can buy a ton of ck Copper with a single gold coin, but a ck Copper coin is worth much, much more than a Gold coin. It¡¯s a system implemented by the God of Trade." Komer exined, and then scratched his cheek as he was feeling awkward because everyone was looking at him. "Huh... Is that so?" Eisen muttered to himself and crossed his arms. "Anyway, Samurai, Komer was talking about the price of the wood that we got at a heavily reduced price. We then turned that wood into the ship. Anyway, now, we have to get going, we should set off before night." Eisen suggested, and the others nodded their heads before the old man jumped on the front bench of the carriage to drive it to town, while everyone else got ready and somewhat split off into a few groups or pairs, with Brody, Xenia, and Jyuuk acting as the defensive unit against any monsters that may think to attack them, while Komer joined Eisen on the bench. "So? Want to tell me something?" Eisen asked after a little while, noticing that the merchant was a bit fidgety before Komer nodded his head slowly. "I¡¯m done with the quest." He said with a wry smile, and Eisen looked at him in surprise. "And what¡¯s bad about that? I thought you were excited to finish it." Eisen pointed out, and Komer nodded his head. "I mean, I kinda am, but I¡¯m just not satisfied with what I made in the end. Just a few super boring effects, really." He sighed loudly, before taking the ten packs of each ten ¡¯Coins of Fate¡¯ out of his backpack and held them in front of Eisen, who swiftly took a look at them to confirm they were all unique to each other. Slowly, he then nodded his head. "Don¡¯t worry, Komer. Do you think I was able to make things like this carriage or the ship from day one? I spent a few years just making tables and chairs, or even simple baseball bats. It all starts boring, but sooner orter, you can use your imagination to make cool things. Now, you¡¯ve done well. You finished the quest with flying colors." He said with a grin, before some notifications appeared in front of both Komer and Eisen, although Eisen received on that was not just a notification telling him about thepleted quest. -- [Komer is on his path to acquiring a Unique upation subordinate to the Merchant upation. To get there, he now just has to make himselffortable with the ¡¯Coins of Fate¡¯ that he had created] -- Surprised, Eisen looked at the notification and then to the young merchant. ¡¯This is probably something I can see because I started guiding him, right? Is that it?¡¯ He thought to himself before Komer smiled at him. "Nice, thanks! But... what do I do with all of these now?" The young merchant asked with a wry smile, before Eisen chuckled at him, already having an idea what the notification might mean. And as he figured out how to create hidden rewards when creating quests, as Eisen did during the little mock-quest he gave to Samurai, he chose to provide Komer with a small surprise. "That¡¯s quite simple, isn¡¯t it? Use all of those coins, one after another. Concentrate on the actual enchantments and the actual movement of the coin as well. When you¡¯re done with that, tell me." He said, and soon, Komer¡¯s eyes concentrated on something else, the second quest that he just received from Eisen. -- [Quest given to Komer] Chapter 259 Reunited Surprised, Komer looked at Eisen next to him, his eyes moving back and forth between the old man and the notification in front of him. "Another Quest? Are you sure?" He asked, confused, and Eisen just nodded his head with a smile. "Yeah, I¡¯m sure. The effects on the coins aren¡¯t that amazing anyway ording to what you told me, so it¡¯s a good practice to use them. And who knows, maybe you can find out some more things about them when using them." Eisen said, and Komer slowly nodded his head with a smile on his face. "Alright, I¡¯ll try! Although, what with the question marks in the reward section? I know you told Samurai that it¡¯s for ¡¯Bonus Rewards,¡¯ but it wasn¡¯t there on thest quest... so... want to tell me what it is?" Komer asked curiously, but Eisen just smirked and shook his head. "You¡¯ll see when you finish the quest. But don¡¯t rush it, seriously concentrate on the coins and see if you can enhance or influence anything." Eisen said, and Komer nodded his head with a grin before jumping off the bench so that he could walk on the ground and use the coins without either identally setting anything on fire or pouring water all over the ce. And once Komer left, another young man stepped up. "So, you exined a lot of stuff already, but what were those figures around you when you were offline? And also, why were you made of metal?" Samurai asked curiously, walking up directly next to the carriage. Before answering, Eisen took a close look at his eyes to make sure he wasn¡¯t recording or streaming and then spoke up. "When yers log-off, they usually turnpletely white, right? As if they lost all their color. We originals have a different thing for that. For example, I turn into metal, and Jyuuk grows bark and moss all over his body. I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s something simr to how mana works. At first, all mana ispletely pure and white, but when you level up and rank your skills up, it slowly gets a color, and at some point even a ¡¯texture.¡¯" Eisen exined, remembering the mana that he saw when he looked at the gods with his truth-seeing-eyes, "I¡¯m sure you won¡¯t just stay white like that, but over time, the stronger or more skilled you be, your form when you¡¯re offline or sleeping is going to change as well. I mean, you won¡¯t see it anyway, so it doesn¡¯t matter that much." "Huh, that¡¯s cool!" Samurai eximed with a grin, before asking something that Eisen just glossed over, because he didn¡¯t understand what Samurai meant. "And what about those figures? A show on the World of Magic channel in TV showed low-level ghosts and spirits earlier today, and they looked somewhat like that." He added before Eisen looked at him with a frown, before remembering the notification he received back then. "Did you see if they had any equipment on them? Like swords, shields, staffs, anything really." Eisen asked, and after a moment of thinking, Samurai shrugged. "I guess something like that. So, what is that about?" Samurai asked, trying to get as much information as he can, obviously for personal gain. But a kid like him had to wake up early to try and trick Eisen into spilling information like that. Informing another yer on general information like prices for different items and materials was somewhat his part in this world as a figure of guidance, but that was something that all yers would figure out sooner orter, so Eisen had no quarrels about having Komer tell him about that. Showing someone like him direct information on his abilities, however, was not something that Eisen just wanted to do without a reason, especially if he didn¡¯t know anything about that ability. "Well, if it looked like people that were fully equipped, then maybe they were actual undead. I heard there¡¯s a monster called ¡¯Shy Ghost¡¯ in this forest, so they might have just run away when you came to the clearing." Eisen said with a straight face, just lying to Samurai to get him off his back. "Oh! That exins it, I guess!" Samurai answered, and while the young man made his way back to his new ¡¯group,¡¯ Eisen thought about what he said. It was evident that those figures that Samurai saw were the ¡¯Warriors¡¯ that thanked Eisen for killing the Mother of Spiders, at least that was the only usible exnation in his mind right now. He would go and ask Jyuuk and Xenia if they knew anything about thatter, but for now, he still had a title that he didn¡¯t look at, that might exin everything. [Title - Soul Whisperer] [Description] You conversed directly with souls and treated them with respect so that they will do the same for you. [Effect] Skills that deal with Souls will receive a 10% benefit; Stray Souls may try to speak to you And with that, Eisen nodded his head, after having confirmed that this was the actual ability he gained through the title. It was a shame that he wasn¡¯t able to talk to the souls of the people from before that Samurai imed to have seen, but this would inevitably not end up being thest time that he had the chance to do something like this. But even so, it was good that Eisen had such a title that might allow him to get into many more curious and interesting situations. It was just that before then, it might take a while, and until then, Eisen had a new creature to take care of. With a smile, he grabbed the ck sphere that he found in the dead tree and took another look at it, just confirming that he read right before. [Albino Spider Egg] "Alright... I¡¯m sure something interesting will happen when this hatches. But first, what¡¯s wrong with the shell..?" Eisen muttered to himself, before running his fingers over the surface of the egg, noticing that something was off. The ¡¯eggshell¡¯ was sliding around a bit as if it was just something used to cover up what was inside. And in the end, precisely what seemed to be the case. Due to the, possibly a little rash, movements of Eisen¡¯s fingers, the thinyer outside the egg ripped apart, revealing what was underneath. Apletely translucent, ss-like sphere, with a crawled up a little white spider in the center, floating in a slightly milky liquid. Immediately, Eisen covered the egg up again, because he was sure that direct sunlight, of which there wasn¡¯t all that much in a part of the forest as deep as this, wasn¡¯t that great for the unborn spider. "So that¡¯s why it has that, huh?" He thought to himself as he looked at the ck, paper-like substance in his hand that was probably supposed to protect the egg from any light. From the brief glimpse that Eisen got of the tiny spider, it was very tiny, the same size that a regr spider one would find under their couch would be,rge enough to maybe, barely reach every corner of Eisen¡¯s thumb¡¯s nail. "Let¡¯s just keep it safe for now." The old man quietly said as he ced the egg back into his bag,pletely wrapping it up with beautiful, smooth cloth so that nothing could go wrong. And from then on, the trip back to the city was uneventful for the most part. Every once in awhile, Komer would ask for a health potion because he hurt himself because of the effects of the coins, but other than that, nothing was going on. Soon, they reached town again, and the group then made their way to the ship, with a few people splitting off to get a fewst-minute things done, like Komer going to get the money from the Merchant¡¯s Guild or Samurai grabbing all of the items he left at his Inn. And of course, they also had to make sure that Jyuuk¡¯s undead were at least somewhat hidden, just as they spoke about before. But the hardest part about all of this was getting onto the ship again, because there were a lot of people around it, especially yers that were trying to get onto it to take a look around. And then, in the front, there were even some people that Eisen recognized, and wanted to get away from there before a certain someone in his group returned. "Come on you dumb lizard, I told you, you¡¯re mine! That Moron that stole you from me isn¡¯t here now, so you can¡¯t do anything about it." A particr dark-red hairedbat merchant yelled out, and Eisen signaled everyone to be quiet as he stepped off the front bench of the carriage, stepping closer toward the young man who was standing at the bottom of the nks leading up onto the ship, where Kiron was trying to get him to go away. With heavy, slow steps, Eisen moved closer as his steps became heavier and heavier the more Eisen increased his size before arge shadow began to cover the wooden pier as he activated his demonic transformation. Slowly, the old man squatted down directly behind the merchant, which brought the two of them to an eye-level of each other, while Kiron began to smile brightly at his appearance, and the people on the ship that was with Eisen¡¯s group were slowly gulping nervously at the sight of that, although those that were actually close to the old man were scared shitless. Noticing the looks of everyone, the man slowly turned around, instinctively taking a step backward when he saw the giant face of this giant demon that became even more frightening since theyst saw each other, and Eisen just looked at him with a smirk. "Well hello there, Merc." He said, and Merc immediately pushed his hands into his gauntlets that he had attached to his belt, grasping them tightly. "Wh-What do you want?" Merc asked nervously, before the old demon in front of him, just chuckled. "What do you think I may want?" He asked with a serene smile, but Merc didn¡¯t know what to do or say and looked around so that someone may help him. And in the meantime, Eisen inspected Merc. [yer - Merc][upation - Combat Merchant][Level - 99] "How¡¯s your Level-100 quest going?" Eisen asked, pretending to be sincere, and Merc looked at himpletely confused. "Wait, you didn¡¯t Appraise me, so how did you-" "You think I need to appraise you to know how strong you are? Please, you¡¯re nothing but a kid trying to get back at someone that took away his toy." Eisen said with a grin, now moving from a squatting position to a cross-legged one, as he figured he didn¡¯t need to be as prepared to move as he thought, before looking at Kiron who was still standing behind Merc. "Just that the ¡¯toy¡¯ in this case is not a toy, but my Grandchild. And as any good grandfather should, I take care of my grandchildren. I protect them from any danger; I make sure they are feeling well and have eaten enough. And most importantly..." Eisen slowly muttered as he extended a hand toward Merc, his enormous hand directly pressed against his throat, although he didn¡¯t grasp it before the old man continued to speak, "...I would kill for my grandchildren." With a light smile, Eisen then slowly closed his hand and then continued, while Merc was trying to get Eisen to let go. But prepared for something like that, Eisen had already used his element topletely connect his fingers and thumb so that they were a closed circle around Merc¡¯s neck. "And I don¡¯t only take care of my actual grandchildren, but those that I can see to have been my family in another life. Like your brother, Komer, for example, he¡¯s a good kid, you know? So you shouldn¡¯t bully him that much." Eisen said with another smile, before slowly picking Merc up off the ground by his throat and moving him over to the edge of the pier, holding him above the water. "And now, if you¡¯re smart enough to see that you shouldn¡¯t cross me or anyone I care about again, you better stay underwater until we leave." He said with a smirk, before letting go of Merc and letting him drop into the water, before turning his head and looking at the second person that this was addressed to; Samurai, who had just caught back up with the group after hurrying to his Inn, but was now staring at Eisenpletely terrified. Chapter 260 Conflict Resolution Eisen slowly stood up again and took a look around at the crowd that was currently watching him in a mixture of confusion and fear, before he began to smile brightly. "Now then, everyone, please resume your regr day, will you?" The old man asked, keeping up hisplete demonic transformation as well as his Titan-size. Of course, the NPCs all immediately rushed away because they were affected by Eisen¡¯s Charisma stat and his titles, but that didn¡¯t work all that well on yers. And a handful of them were actually Merc¡¯s goons, and then immediately pointed their weapons at Eisen. "Tsk, can¡¯t¡¯cha be more careful, you geezer? If Guards show up, this is gonna be super annoying." Brodyined with a frown and stepped up in front of the goons to take over the role of dealing with them, while some of the NPCs on the ship quickly brought the carriage on-board. And slowly, a hand grasped onto the side of the pier, as Merc climbed back up, nowpletely drenched. The water would dry pretty quickly, but it would still take a few minutes until then. "You goddamn fucker... Who do you think you are that you¡¯re just going ahead and treating me like this?" Merc asked with his teeth grinding against each other, before something suddenly shot across the pier and hit Merc into the side, as he wasn¡¯t paying attention. It was a spear of ice that soon disappeared again. The spear wasn¡¯trge, and neither did it do a lot of damage to Merc who simply shrugged this sudden attack off, but the wielder of this was most likely aware of this. With a grin, Eisen turned around and looked at Komer who was holding his selfmade coins of fate in his hand. "A-And who do you think y-you are?" Komer stuttered, obviously nervous, but still trying to ovee his older brother in his own way. Immediately when Mercyed his eyes on the young man, his face twisted in anger. "Oh, the little kid wants to y too? Alright, then be my fucking guest!" Merc eximed as he began to step forward swiftly, immediately making his way over toward his younger brother, but he wasn¡¯t able to do anything, as Brody immediately stood in his way after pushing Merc¡¯s goons into the water. "Well who¡¯d have thought a little prick like you could be such a nice host? But sorry kid, this ain¡¯t your party." He replied, and Merc simply red at Brody and tried to keep going. To him, there were only two people that were a threat to him. His older brother, and the smirking Demon that was just watching this whole thing. "Shut it, loser. Plebs like you would ne-" As Merc began to speak, he suddenly felt a quite surprising change in his environment. He was only blinking, but when he opened his eyes again, the whole world had already turned on its head! At least that was what went through his mind at first, because he felt the rough reality bump against his head. "Oh? So I¡¯m a Loser now?" Brody asked, and just then, Merc remembered the face of this man that was introduced to the world as the ¡¯Original of Combat¡¯. "You know what, yes you are!" Merc yelled out, his temper as annoying as ever, as he stood up and got into abat stance. At least to him that was abat stance. "You¡¯re tryin¡¯ to call me a loser and then butcher boxing by just trying to get into a stance? You¡¯re way too stiff, kid! In a fight, you need to be tense at the right ces at the right time, but otherwise just bepletely rxed so that you can react to your opponent as soon as you can!" Brody yelled out, apparently actually more personally insulted by the way Merc was trying to fight than by his actual insults, before the Demon-Orc moved behind Merc with a few swift motions of his feet. "Stop slumpin¡¯ over like that! Keep your back straight and your shoulders further back!" He eximed as he grabbed merc¡¯s shoulder and ced his palm onto his back, simply pulling on the former and pushing thetter to correct his posture, before starting to fix all the little mistakes that Merc had in his stance. And that didn¡¯t go unnoticed by the others either. "Is... Is he actually trying to give him tips on how to fight better? Before he would end up fighting him?" Zyra asked confused, and Komer was just staring forward, trying to hide the fact that he was shaking in fear over what his brother might end up doing in real life after all of this was over. But there was someone else that was still freaking out over another event. "Wait, are you all just going to ignore that Eisen just threatened me? Didn¡¯t you see what the hell he just did?! He was looking at me the whole time!" Samurai eximed toward the members of his new group, but Stahl and Alnico just looked at him with a shrug. "You mess with our grampa, you mess with life and death." Stahl exined quite simply, and Samurai just stared at him with the same expression he had before, and asked a new question that just popped up in his mind. "What the fuck does that even mean?!" In the meantime, Brody had continued giving Merc a few tips, although the Combat Merchant ended up grinding his teeth in response. "Fuck this shit! Just stop this already!" He yelled out angrily and looked at Brody angrily, instantly just throwing gauntlet-covered fists at him. But of course, he would need to practice a little more if he wanted to even put a scratch on Brody. With a swift motion, Brody kicked away Merc¡¯s feet from the back, causing him to fall backward. But instead of letting him hit the ground, Brody catched him by cing his foot in the ce where his neck would end up. And with a simple stick that he picked up from somewhere a little bit ago, he pushed against his knees from below, causing his shins to stand up off the ground perfectly vertically, while the rest of his body was perfectly horizontal. And this was a pretty tough position to quickly stand up from. "Alright everyone, get on the ship, I¡¯ll keep this moron busy in the meantime. We have everything we need for departure, right?" Brody asked as he looked at Komer, who nodded his head in response, just quickly rushing past Eisen, Brody and Merc onto the ship, where he was now safe. They swiftly removed the ropes safely binding the ship into ce in the harbor, while the skeletons were preparing to start sailing. Now, only Eisen and Brody were missing. And Eisen took this chance to once more look at Merc with a grin. "Should have just left us alone." He said with a grin, before looking around at the other yers, whose pupils were all glowing red as they were either taking pictures or recording this. With a sigh, the old man then stepped onto the ship just before it began moving, looking at Brody with a nod. And so, the Demon-Orc swiflty kicked his leg up and caused Merc to flip mid-air before mming back onto the ground before Brody joined the others on the ship, which now immediately began moving, while the attention of the yers shifted from the ship over to Merc, who was ring at the departing group angrily. But on the ship itself, everybody was staring at Eisen, some of them a little scared, and some of them just annoyed. Although that all swiflty changed when Eisen deactivated his transformation and everyone calmed down a little bit. The people that came along from the church, which were the ones that were scared, slowly calmed down and then made their way back to their regr routine, while the ¡¯central¡¯ group that actually knew Eisen more closely, which were the ones that were annoyed, came up to the old man. "And why the hell did you have to pull that just there? Who even was that?" Xenia asked with a frown, and Eisen moved his fingers through his beard. "That? That was Komer¡¯s older brother, and the person that owns the Monster Shop that I freed Sky, Kiron, and a lot of the monsters, that Jyuuk now has tamed, from." Eisen exined, and immediately, everyone that wasn¡¯t there for that event and wasn¡¯t aware what Merc looked like now slowly nodded their heads in understanding at Eisen¡¯s reaction. With the exception of Samurai, that is, who swiftly showed how horrible he was at reading the mood. "Huh? Who¡¯re Kiron and Sky?" The young man asked, and the two in question quickly looked at him with a frown. "The more important question is, who the hell are you?" Sky asked as he held one of his books under his arm, and Kiron nodded his head, also wanting to know the same thing. "Heh, good that you ask! I¡¯m the Great Samurai! Bask in my glory!" He eximed before pulling his sword out of his sheath and pointing it up into the air, before Eisen sighed loudly. With a frown, Sky looked through the book he was carrying until he found the correct page, before cing his palm on it while continuing to stare at the man in front of him. "Come out, Samurai." He eximed, and Samurai the yer tilted his head to the side, before noticing the small letters detaching themselves from the page before twisting around themselves and forming a pure-ck figure about a foot taller than Samurai, wearing a full set of Eastern Armor while it had its hand on the long, thin sword by his hip. Slowly, Sky looked back and forth from the figure that just appeared and Samurai, before nodding his head. "Thought so, you¡¯re not actually the ¡¯Great Samurai¡¯. Eisen, do you want to answer for him?" The Fey-Kin boy asked while both Jyuuk and K were freaking out over the fact that Samurais were an actual thing in the game world, before Eisen nodded his head. "He¡¯s an Alpha. A rather annoying one, but he¡¯s going to be forming a party with Stahl, Al, K and Zyra." He exined, before continuing with a sigh when he noticed that Samurai was looking at the Inkheart-Samurai in front of him with a stupid grin, "And he¡¯s not ¡¯The Great Samurai¡¯, his name is ¡¯Samurai¡¯ and he has a way too big ego." The old man added, before Sky slowly nodded his head, although he still kept frowning at the man currently looking the Inkheart-Samurai up and down. "If this is someone you trust, then so be it, Grandfather." Kiron added, before Eisen shook his head with a sigh. "I don¡¯t directly trust him, but he doesn¡¯t seem too bad." The old man answered before he turned around and looked at the person that he wanted to talk to about something that happened just now. "Komer, what was that you just used on Merc?" He asked, and Komer slowly held up one of the Coins of Fate. "I used one of these... The effect was to either shoot an ice spear against a target, or to freeze my arm over..." Komer exined, and Eisen scratched his cheek with a frown. "Is that so? How many more of those coins do you have?" "Not many, just a handful, really." Komer answered, and Eisen nodded his head. "Alright, then only use the ones that can harm you yourself when others are around." He said, and the young merchant replied with a nod. "Alright..." He answered, before making his way to an open spot to continue the quest, and the old man himself chose to make his way to the carriage to properly sort through the items that they gathered from the Mother of Spiders. Chapter 261 Silk Spinner Eisen stepped up to the carriage and was swiftly followed by a few people, Sky, Bree and Kiron, as well as Eisen¡¯s two tamed monster girls. Even Fafnir was making his way over to them. They were pretty curious about what was in the carriage and what it actually was that was strapped to the roof, so Eisen swiftly exined it to them. "When I was out in the forest with Stahl, I ran into a boss monster called the ¡¯Mother of Spiders¡¯. I killed it and these are the materials that we gathered from it." Eisen exined, before Sky, Bree and Kiron stared at Eisen with wide open eyes. "You killed a Boss Monster alone? That¡¯s so cool!" Bree eximed with a grin on her face, and Eisen nodded his head with augh. "Yeah, it kind of is, huh?" He answered, before Sky took a closer look at all the materials stacked on top of each other. "You can surely make a lot of stuff with this, right?" Sky asked, and the old man immediately nodded his head. "Actually, I¡¯m sure I can. I noticed it before already, but these carapaces are a little weird, or rather, they¡¯re not directly what I expected. They somehow act pretty metallic." He exined, and now Kiron answered to the old man¡¯s curiousity. "Ah yes, that is how many bug-type monster carapaces are, isn¡¯t it?" "Is it? I never actually managed to get my hands on any, so I don¡¯t directly know. It just seems a little weird to me in my head." The old man answered before grabbing all the carapace-pieces and putting them to the side, because he wanted to take them to his workspaceter where he could start experimenting with them. "Hmm... I¡¯ll have to talk to Jyuuk and Xenia about the eyester... I don¡¯t know to what extent the different parts of them can be used..." The old man said deep in thought, before he then took a look at the Silk nd and the Spinnerets, which were also somewhat metallic in nature, although they also had a few crystal aspects to them, and obviously also the regr biological parts. But either way, Eisen already knew what he wanted to do with these, and as such he grabbed those parts as well and handed them to Bree, who was eager to help out again. "Alright, let¡¯s bring these materials downstairs, alright?" Eisen suggested before he grabbed a big pile of the carapace pieces and Kiron swiftly did the same, while Sky grabbed some of the lighter, smaller parts. They had to go up and down the stairs a few times to bring everything into the material storage, but soon enough they had everything properly stored. "And what are you going to do now?" Bree asked curiously, before Eisen winked at them and made his way to his workspace. Stahl, Komer and Alnico already told Eisen that they wouldn¡¯t end up helping this time around, so it would now end up being a different group, with Bree watching the old man work for the first time in quite a while. "For now, I¡¯m going to finish an item that I promised to give to Xenia." Eisen said and then swiftly stepped over to the box where he ced the Mana-Sight lenses as well as the thin Mythril-Parts. "It won¡¯t take long, though, I only really need to put everything together and fine-tune some things." He exined, before making some seats for everyone with his element as well as a table where heyed out all the different parts. First, Eisen set together the different mythril parts to make the base for the sses. He carved some enchantments onto the side so that any mana that would be poured into any part of the mythril would immediately be supplied to the lenses, which he then worked on next. Eisen swiftly shaped the lenses into the right size and shape with his exacto-knife that he made for leatherworking and tailoring back then, for which he made a few mythril des to put in. Some of those des were specifically enchanted to help with transmutation, so that Eisen could easily cut through things like ss, which you normally wouldn¡¯t be able to cut through with a regr knife. He then rounded the edges with some sandpaper, going from roughest to smoothest so that the ss wouldn¡¯t end up scratched up in any ce, while also using this chance to adjust the fine details so that the lenses would sit perfectly and tight in the mythril frame. And then, around the edges, Eisen carved a thin, simple enchantment that you wouldn¡¯t be able to see while looking through the lenses regrly, just to further enhance the visual aspects of the ability enchantment that was ced on the lenses. "Alright, done." Eisen eximed with a satisfied smile, before the notification with the item¡¯s information immediately popped up in front of him. [Mana Spectacles] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A pair of sses made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. The sses have been enchanted to allow a clear sight of Mana in exchange for the regr colors seen throughout the world. It has a mythril frame, making it quite light and durable, as well as easy to use with little mana. [Effect] Ability; +10 INT, +10 WIS [Requirements] 50 INT; 50 WIS; With a slow nod, Eisen swiftly tried looking through the lenses while pouring mana inside of it, and soon saw the clear view that he had through the lenses before turn ck-and-white, while a few mist different colors could be seen all around belonging to the natural environment and different people on board of this ship. "Perfect. Alright, I¡¯ll message Xenia toe down here while I work on a small etui for the sses." Eisen told the others as he ced the sses down to the side and grabbed a small piece of wood before starting to carve away at it. And a mere minuteter, Xenia already ripped the door to the room open. "You finished the item you wanted to make for me?" She asked excitedly, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head. "Yup, here they are. A whole new pair of proper, easy to use Mana Spectacles." Eisen told her and reached over to grab them, but it seemed like Xenia was a bit quicker. "Oh, these look pretty nice! But the lenses aren¡¯t crystals, right?" Xenia asked as she swiftly tried them on, and the old man nodded his head. "Yeah, they aren¡¯t. I enchanted a Mana Crystal with the Mana-Sight ability, then ground that down and added it to a mixture of materials for making ss. Those lenses are made with that ss. I have some more of those lenses just in case, so if they should break, crack or scratch up, just let me know." The old man exined as he continued to carve the small wooden etui that the thin sses could fit into while Xenia wasn¡¯t using them. "You can do that?" Xenia asked a bit surprised, and the old man nodded his head. "Yeah, you can. It¡¯s the same principle as alchemy, isn¡¯t it? I did the same with Fafnir¡¯s scales, actually." Eisen exined as he looked over at the small living dungeon in the shape of a dragon, and the High-Elf slowly nodded. "Hmm, I didn¡¯t think about that all that much yet, but you¡¯re right... If organic and inorganic materials can be mixed through alchemy, then it makes sense to mix inorganic and inorganic materials with other skills as well..." She muttered to herself, thinking about some kind of magic theory again, before she noticed that everyone was staring at her. "Oh, sorry! I was working on another project and I was getting stuck on an issue, but I think I have a pretty good idea on how to solve the problem now! So thanks, Eisen! For the sses and that tip." Xenia said with a smile, and Eisen nodded at her. He was d that she had finally warmed up to him, she was just as Cynical at the beginning as Zyra constantly was, after all. Buttely, Eisen really didn¡¯t notice any of that. Just when Eisen was thinking that, Xenia turned around and wanted to leave, but the old man swiftly stopped her. "Wait just a second, I have something else for you." Eisen said, holding up the small square box he was currently cutting in half horizontally, before Xenia looked at him and tilted her head to the side. "And what is that?" She asked curiously, but Eisen just chuckled. "It¡¯s nothing special, just an etui. I doubt you want to wear those sses constantly, after all. So just put them in here while you don¡¯t need them." Eisen suggested, before Xenia slowly nodded her head, really appreciating the thougthfullness that Eisen showed to her. Swiftly, Eisen finished cutting the box in two parts and then ¡¯hollowed¡¯ both of those parts out so that there was actually enough space for the sses, and then glued some simple cloth onto the inside so that nothing would scratch anything up. Then, the old man just added a simpletch and a small hinge, and then handed the etui to Xenia. "It¡¯s pretty simple right now, I¡¯m not necessarily the most artistically talented person there is. You can surely ask Evalia to fancy it up a bit though." Eisen suggested, and Xenia slowly nodded her head with a light smile. "Sure, I will. Thank you for this." She replied and quietly turned around before making her way out of the room, keeping the sses on her face. "What was that about?" Sky asked a bit confused, but Eisen just looked at him with a frown. "What do you mean? That I made the sses and etui for her?" He asked, but the Fey-kin boy shook his head. "No, no, not that. Doesn¡¯t matter, just continue with whatever you wanted to do next." Sky reassured, and the old man swiftly nodded his head. "Alright, I probably should do that then." The old man said before grabbing the two materials, or rather parts, that he really wanted to figure out now, for which he swiftly called Jyuuk down to the workspace. "Yes, can I help?" The Monkey Beastperson asked with a smile, and Eisen nodded his head, before showing him the parts he wanted to work with. "Huh, are those the Silk nds and the Spinnerets?" Jyuuk asked surprised, before Eisen once more nodded. "Mhm, yes. I would like to turn this into something like a silk-string spinner. Maybe somehowbine it with the principle behind the spinning wheel that I use to make magic string so that I can feed it different materials for different effects, but I¡¯m not sure how exactly I should go about this. Do you think I¡¯ll need necromancy for it?" The old man inquired, and after a little bit of thinking, Jyuuk nodded. "You might, yes. How these work is actually quite simple, the silk nds produce the protein mixture, which is the actual silk, in a liquid form. Then after a small acid bath, the spinnerets give it an actual use. You know how spiderwebs work, right?" Jyuuk asked and Eisen nodded his head, but Caria swiftly raised her hand. "Uncle Jyuu, Caria and Melly don¡¯t know!" She eximed, so not being able to resist such a cutie, the Beastperson went ahead and exined it. "Ah, of course! You see, different prey for the spider gets stuck in the web, right? But the spider can actually move around it without an issue. Many people might think that spiders just don¡¯t get stuck to their own silk, but that¡¯s not really true. Some of the silk is sticky, and some isn¡¯t, the spiders just remembers which are safe to walk on. So they practically make themselves a simple, safe path. The different silk for those areas is made in these things here, the spinnerets." Jyuuk exined to the two little girls who listened curiously, and then moved on to talking to everyone again, because this was probably not something that everyone necessarily knew. "Each of the Spinnerets has a different task. One makes the safe silk for webs, another one the sticky silk. Then there¡¯s one that makes silk to trap prey, and so on. Those tasks are predefined by the general structure. At least that¡¯s the case with regr spinnerets of Spider Monsters I¡¯ve inspected so far, but these... are pretty unique..." Jyuuk pointed out as he took a closer look, and Eisen looked at him surprised. "Unique? In what way exactly now?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk swiftly answered. "Well, the semi-metallic outeryer is the first, but that was already the case with the general carapacial structure, so that wasn¡¯t necessarily too much of a surprise. What I think is unique here mostly is, beside therge number of a total of twelve while most species of spiders only have around four or six, the fact that it has these crystals inside. That wasn¡¯t the case even with a species of spider I dissected that was known for wielding Silk-Magic." Chapter 262 Necronomicon "So this is something unique to the Mother of Spiders? Interesting." Eisen muttered, before Jyuuk nodded his head immediately. "Mhm, definitely. If you want, I can experiment with everything a bit and see if there are any non-necromancy rted ways to produce silk with these things." With a smile, the old man then crossed his arms and moved his fingers through his beard, "That would be great, thanks. Ah, and I was nning on making the necronomicon for you in a bit because I have all the materials ready, so I can get to binding it pretty quickly. If you can give me any bones of skeletons you used tomand or something, or some other necromancy-rted material, then it would be great if you could give it to me so that I can include it in the process." Eisen asked, and Jyuuk thought about it for a little while, before nodding his head. "I have a few bones like that actually, yes, and I don¡¯t directly have a material like the gems you used on my Beastiary, but I can try something else?" Jyuuk suggested before grabbing one of the mana crystals on the table and slowly using some skills on it, before the crystal slowly turned deep ck. "Erm... What did you just do?" Eisen asked with a frown, before Jyuuk smiled at him. "Ah, right, maybe you don¡¯t know... You¡¯ll have to ask Xenia, or Sky, Kiron or Bree here, if you want to know more, but there¡¯s a few skills that have their own type of ¡¯Mana¡¯, so to speak. Necromancy is one of those skills. You can only use the ¡¯Necromantic Mana¡¯ directly in connection to the Necromancy skill though, so what I did just now was basically try to turn this gem into an undead, which immediately changed its nature." Jyuuk exined and handed the Necromantic Mana Crystal to Eisen, before the old man slowly nodded his head. "Huh... So that¡¯s a thing, then?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk swiftly nodded. "It¡¯s only that easy with things like Mana Crystals, although I don¡¯t know why. I¡¯ve been experimenting with the Necromantic Mana a bit to see how it changes the bodily functions of my zombies, and... one of my tamed beasts, actually..." Jyuuk said a bit embarrassedly, and Eisen looked at him with a frown. "You¡¯re trying to turn one of your living monsters into an undead?" Eisen asked with a frown, because that seemed like a pretty inhumane thing to do, but the Beastperson swiflty shook his head. "No no, it¡¯s not like that! Rather, you know how Animals first evolve into Monsters, right? Sometimes that happens through gaining experience, and sometimes that happens as a natural consequence of being exposed to a lot of mana. And technically I¡¯m not using the Necromantic Mana on an animal I have already tamed, but an egg, so that kind of makes it better...?" Jyuuk asked as he scratched the back of his head, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Kind of, I guess." The old man admitted, and Jyuuk sighed lightly and nodded. "Yeah, I know it¡¯s a horrible thing to do..." "It¡¯s not necessarily. As long as you¡¯re not harming whatever currently is in that egg, I guess it¡¯s not a big deal. Just curious, but let me guess... You¡¯re trying it on an Eagle egg?" Eisen asked, and with a bit of surprise, Jyuuk looked at him and nodded his head. "Yeah, how did you know?" Jyuuk responded with a frown, and even the others were looking at Eisen confused at how he got to that conclusion. "Well, you already have Akatori, who is going to turn into a phoenix sooner orter, and the Aotori, who is going to turn into the water or ice equivalent sooner orter. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if you were just waiting for me or Xenia to get our Enchanting skills to rank up to four so that you can create wind, earth, light and dark versions as well. Or would Necromancy count as the dark one?" Eisen asked, and immediately, Jyuuk¡¯s face began to flush a light red. "Whaaat..? I would never ask that of you..." He muttered as he looked away, before Eisen just responded with augh. "Sure you wouldn¡¯t. But isn¡¯t this all a bit overwhelming? You already have so many tamed beasts." The old man pointed out and in the meantime began to prepare everything for working on the book with a bit of help from Sky, Bree, and Kiron, while Caria and Melissa were just listening and ying around with their elements as a ¡¯Practice¡¯ of sorts. "Actually..." Jyuuk said as he looked at Eisen with aplex expression, "I was thinking about setting some of them free at the inds." He exined, before Eisen looked at him in surprise. "What do you mean? Is everything okay with them?" He asked with concern, but Jyuuk immediately nodded his head. "Oh yeah, don¡¯t worry! They¡¯re all fine, but it¡¯s just that I have so many tamed beasts that it¡¯s getting an issue. I barely have any of them out in the open. Right now, I have the eagles fly around so that we have eyes all over the ce, while Gobu is trying to help out all over the ship. And because each one of the inds is apparently so uniquepared to any of the others, I want to find a good ce for each one of them to live, so that they¡¯re not just stuck in the Beastiary all the time." The Monkey-Beastperson exined, before the old man nodded his head with a light smile. "Well, that¡¯s actually a pretty good reason to do that, yeah. But we should be careful with that, I doubt your monsters are all strong enough to live on the inds." Eisen pointed out, and Jyuuk nodded his head. "I know, but I know that I can at least find a ce for Gobu and the Eagles beside Akatori and Aotori. And don¡¯t get me wrong, I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll still be around all the time, but when they¡¯re not my tamed monsters, they¡¯re going to stay peaceful toward us and maybe even stay in the area for a while. I love them, but I can see that they¡¯re unhappy with what it¡¯s like." Jyuuk pointed out, before he scratched the back of his head. "And as for Gobu... I feel somewhat ufortable having him as my tamed monster, to be quite frank. He¡¯s slowly starting to learn to speak, so that doesn¡¯t make it easier. Ipletely understand and support it when they¡¯re so child-like like Caria and Melissa, but Gobu is basically ate-teen or early-twenty male. And that makes it awkward. And I can¡¯t deal with awkward. Gobu surely notices that I¡¯m ufortable as well, so I think when we get to the main ind that¡¯s supposed to be inhabited by Monsters like Goblins, Kobolds, and monster races like that, he will surely fit in." Jyuuk exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "I understand that. Did you talk to him about it yet?" The old man asked, but Jyuuk just shook his head. "Not yet, I¡¯ll get to that soon. Anyway, I¡¯m sure you¡¯re busy as is, so I don¡¯t want to keep you from working on stuff for too long. I¡¯ll bring you the bones real quick, and then I¡¯m going to train my monsters a bit more." Jyuuk said with a light smile and bowed ever so slightly, before he turned around and left the room. Then, the old man looked at the materials he had for the Necronomicon he was about to make. "Alright, let¡¯s get to work then." Eisen said as he cracked his knuckles, before turning to the group that was listening to the conversation, and his eyes ended up getting stuck on Caria and Melissa, who were staring at him with sad eyes. "Are you going to leave Caria and Melly too?" Caria asked, and Melissa immediately nodded furiously, wanting to know the same thing. "Leave?" With a light smile, Eisen kneeled down in front of the two of them and shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not leaving you two alone, no matter what." Eisen said, before he looked over at the three others that seemed to also feel simr to Caria and Melissa about this. "I¡¯m not going to leave you three either. Doubt I¡¯d be able to get rid of you even if I wanted to." The old man chuckled, before he sat down again, starting to bundle up the different sheets of paper. Especially two of the group, all of which were now cheered up, were incredibly interested in the process, Caria and Sky. Caria seemed to be interested because the paper was made of natural nt fibers, while Sky was simply interested in how books were actually made, because he was carrying them around constantly and never acutally managed to watch that process this closely. And noticing the reasons that the two of them had, Eisen chuckled lightly. "Sky, want me to teach you how to bind books after I finish this one? It¡¯s not thatplicated as long as you have a little bit of stamina and are good with your hands." The old man suggested, and swiftly, Sky nodded his head immediately. "Yes, please! That would be great!" He said excitedly, and with a satisfied smile, Eisen then looked over at Caria. "And now to you, littledy. If you¡¯re interested in how to make paper, just take a look and see if you can figure it out, yeah?" He asked with a smile before handing a few sheets of paper to the small Myconid, who was excited just as if she just found a puppy under the christmas tree. "Alright, for now, I¡¯ll just get started." The old man said with a smile, before grabbing one of the Necromantic-Mana Crystals and stepping over to the Spinning Wheel that he ced in the corner so that he could constantly make magic string whenever he needed to. And after fidgeting with the wheel a bit so that it would produce slightly thicker stringpared to usual out of the mana crystals, Eisen swiftly pressed the crystals against the funnel that would then basically ¡¯suck¡¯ them in, before grabbing some beeswax that he also had in this room, just making sure to hold it around the string as it was getting rolled up to produce some nice, waxed Necromantic Magic String that he could use for the bookbinding process. The rest was just as Eisen had done a million times before, stacking the different ¡¯Bundles¡¯ of paper on top of each other before swiftly moving his needle through the holes that he put into the paper before to bind everything up. And after then cing some cloth around the spine of the book, Eisen attached some thick, ck paper to that cloth, before grabbing two pieces of thin wood, each just a littlerger than the pages. With some of the rolled up magic string that Eisen prepared to be basically a thin rope that he then glued to the spine with a few inches inbetween each other, Eisen then attached the wood as some proper hard front and back covers, which would then be the base to attach the leather. The old man chose to go with some thin, already pretty dark leather, which he then swiftly dyed a nice, deep ck to be perfect for the ¡¯Theme¡¯ of the book. When everything was nice and attached, Eisen swiflty began to carve some simple, decorative parts into leather, once more using the sigil on Jyuuk¡¯s ¡¯Original Coin¡¯ as a reference, just making the crown of the tree point downward this time, while the roots formed a vague shape of a skull. Into that carved base, Eisen then inserted the Bones from one of Jyuuk¡¯s former undead, before looking at the whole finished item with a satisfied smile. Chapter 263 New Idea "Alright, I¡¯ll hurry up and bring this to Jyuuk so that he can unsummon some of his Undead. And then, I think we should stop here for the day. It¡¯s getting prettyte, actually." The old man said with a smile, and the group of five nodded their heads. "Okay-Dokey!" Bree eximed with a grin and jumped up immediately with her fingers joined together behind her back, while the others followed her example and stood up as well, before Eisen looked at Sky. "Tomorrow morning, I¡¯ll show you the basics of Bookbinding, okay? So try to sleep properly so that you¡¯re ready for that!" Eisen grinned, in response to which Sky nodded his head excitedly. "And as for you... Kiron, please don¡¯te down here tomorrow." Eisen said as he moved his fingers through his beard, before the Half-Dragon looked at him confused, and in a little bit of a panic. "G-Grandfather? Did I do anything wrong? If you-" He started, but Eisen immediately interrupted this small misunderstanding. "No, no, it¡¯s not like that. I¡¯m going to work on some items for you tomorrow, and I want them to be a surprise." With a wink, the old man unsummoned all of the things that he created inside of the room with his element, while Kiron calmed down again. While Bree, Sky and Kiron made their way to their sleeping quarters, Eisen picked up Caria and Melsisa and made his way over to where Jyuuk was most likely to be found at the moment, therge training room where he spent most of his time on this ship with his beasts, just trying to practice different things with them and improve their skills. At the moment, he was actually standing in front of the undead Mother of spiders, trying to improve her body a bit more. When he turned her into his undead in the clearing, he really just made it so that the rough shape of a spider would be kept up, but now he really thinned out some areas of it while nting different seeds in certain ces for different effects, like some that would be useful as recements for the eyes, and some that would be useful as recements for the different organs that the group took out of her. And when Jyuuk saw the old man approach him with therge ck book in hand, the beastperson smiled excitedly. "Ooh! Is it done already?" He asked with a grin, and Eisen nodded his head, swiftly handing the deep ck book with bone details over to him. "Yes it is. I used the Necromantic Mana Crystals you gave me as Magic String to actually construct the book, while I used the bones on the front, as you can see. I want to start properly tanning some leather soon, and Caria is also getting interested in paper, so I might be able to give you an improved version sooner orter." Eisen exined, and Jyuuk gratefully nodded his head. "Thank you, Eisen. This is a truly amazing item." He said with a smile, before the Beastperson read through the different information and notifications, before grinning broadly. And before the grin even came to full fruition, the Necronomicon had already disappeared into thin air. Surprised, Eisen looked at Jyuuk curiously, before the young man swiftly made the book re-appear in his hands. While moving his fingers through his beard, the old man then began to chuckle. "So you were able to put it into your soul storage, huh?" He asked, and Jyuuk nodded his head with satisfaction. "Yes I was, luckily. My Soul Storage is full now, but I don¡¯t really have anything else to put in there anyway." Jyuuk said with a grin and Eisen just nodded. "I¡¯m sure our Soul Strength will gradually increase over time when we get to the point where we have Rank 4 or 5 skills and we can store more items. So there¡¯s no need to worry about that." He pointed out, before Jyuuk inevitably nodded his head and smiled. "You¡¯re right with that. Anyway, thanks for the Necronomicon, I¡¯ll treat it well. For now, let¡¯s go to bed though. You were nning to do the same thing, right?" Jyuuk asked, before Eisen nodded his head. "Yeah, I was. I think some of the others are already asleep as well. Is Xenia still up?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk nodded his head. "She is, but... why are you asking me that?" Jyuuk answered, his cheeks blushing a little bit, but Eisen could only respond with augh. "Ohe on, you have to wake up earlier if you want to trick me! I know you two have a thing going." Eisen chuckled, but Jyuuk immediately began to look around nervously. "Eisen! We¡¯re not really a thing-thing yet, you know? We¡¯re a thing, but we¡¯re not a thing! So please don¡¯t tell anyone about it, I really don¡¯t want to ruin this..." Jyuuk exined with a sigh, also looking at Caria and Melissa as he was saying so, because he was aware that they were arger threat at yelling out such secretspared to the old man that was carrying them on his shoulders. "Don¡¯t worry, your secret is safe with me." The old man said with a smile, before turning around and slowly making his way back to the door, stopping just before closing it behind him again. As if he forgot the most important thing in the world and was beating himself up for his idiocy, Eisen pped his forehead and turned around again, looking at Jyuuk with a serious expression. "Oh, just before I forget, but what are your and Xenia¡¯s ring sizes again?" He asked, and even from a distance, Eisen noticed that Jyuuk¡¯s face immediately turned red out of embarrassment. But before he couldin, the old man already turned around and closed the door behind himself. "Ah, how fun it is to mess with young people." Eisen chuckled as he looked over at Caria, who was trying to somehow manipte the nt fibers from the paper while obviously just forcing herself to stay awake, and then at Melissa, who was already taking a nap on Eisen¡¯s shoulder. "Let¡¯s get you two to sleep for now, I¡¯ll talk to Xenia in a bit." The old man said with a smile, before, with his increased size, grabbing the two young girls and cupping them in his arms to give them a ¡¯bed¡¯ of sorts. And then, while Caria was slowly joining her younger sister in her nap, Eisen made his way to the Meeting room, where Xenia liked to spend a lot of time because it was usually pretty quiet there. Although at the moment, it was rather loud. Koro, who was receiving private lessons from Xenia, and the High-Elf in question herself were currently fighting quite loudly. "All I¡¯m saying is that it would be quicker and easier to do it my way! Free-Form Enchantments are a thing already, so why can¡¯t I just turn the base shape into a free-form and remove the base lines?!" Koro asked in an angry voice, before Xenia could be nearly heard audibly grinding her teeth as she responded. "And all I¡¯m saying is that you¡¯re a moron! There¡¯s a reason why enchantment circles are the norm! Even free-form enchantments have rules to them!" She answered in a voice even overpowering the young man¡¯s, but Koro continued yelling even further. "And why the hell aren¡¯t you telling me that reason then? All you¡¯re saying is ¡¯There¡¯s a reason¡¯ without telling me that damn reason!" The oldest of Eisen¡¯s apprenticesined, before exactly that apprentice¡¯s mentor spoke up. "Both of you, zip it. The kids are sleeping." The old man said with a frown, and immediately, Koro and Xenia¡¯s attention moved over to him. Now more quiet, as they didn¡¯t actually dare go against what Eisen told them especially after that rtively ¡¯brutal¡¯ disy at the pier in town earlier today. "Eisen, tell your little rat of an apprentice that he should listen to what I say!" Xenia demanded, while the ¡¯rat¡¯ in question simply clicked his tongue, "You should rather tell this old hag that she should exin things to me better!" With a loud sigh, Eisen looked at both of them. "Koro, listen to what Xenia says. I know you don¡¯t agree with her all the time, but she¡¯s far, far more knowledgeable about any of this than you can even dream of." Eisen said immediately, and just when Xenia looked over at Koro with a smug smile, while Koro was trying toin again, Eisen continued to speak. "And Xenia, knowledge doesn¡¯t make you a good teacher. Please try to exin it to him in a way that you would want me to teach you craftsmanship. In a simple, step-by-step manner. Listen to hisints, but don¡¯t let him rule over the lessons." The old man added, and Xenia¡¯s smug smile immediately disappeared before she nodded her head. "And now, Koro, get to bed, it¡¯ste. You¡¯ll continue some other time, and when that timees, try to be more open to what the ¡¯Master of Magic¡¯ tells you about Magic theory." Eisen said with a frown, and Koro slowly nodded his head, turning to Xenia to swiftly apologize before leaving through the door, leaving Eisen and Xenia alone, if you excluded the two monster girls sleeping in Eisen¡¯s arms. "So... I guess I¡¯ll go to bed as well then... Talk to tomorrow?" She asked, trying to change the topic as soon as possible, but Eisen didn¡¯t let her off that easily. "Yeah, not that quickly. Xenia, try to be at least a little considerate, alright? There¡¯s a reason why I made him a Craftsman apprentice, and not a Magicraftsman apprentice like Parc and Rouge. He has issues with his temper that make him resort to dangerous means if he¡¯s under pressure. So try not to knowingly increase that pressure anymore, alright?" Eisen asked her, and the High-Elf slowly nodded her head. "Y-Yeah... Sorry about that..." She apologized, but Eisen simply responded with a loud sigh. "Sorry, I didn¡¯t mean it that way. You¡¯re not ¡¯Knowingly¡¯ doing that, I know you wouldn¡¯t provoke anyone to do something dangerous. Just be careful from now on, okay?" The old man asked, before Xenia nodded her head quietly. "Erm... I meant to ask you something, actually. You seemed pretty interested in what I showed you earlier about mixing the ss for your sses with enchanted mana crystals, and I was wondering if you were interested in helping mee up with a new metallic alloy." The old man asked, before Xenia raised her head and looked at Eisen surprised as he sat down in his chair so that he could at least let Caria and Melissay down on his legs properly. Excitedly, Xenia nodded her head, the sadness and nervousness in her expression immediately disappearing. "Oh?! Really? What kind of alloy? I mean, obviously it would be something magical in nature, otherwise you wouldn¡¯t ask me, but what exactly is it? Do you want to figure out a new way to infuse metal with mana?" She asked, but Eisen immediately shook his head. "No, no, that¡¯s not what I mean. In the first ce, infusing metal with mana makes it really brittle. Even mythril is really not useable for anything other than magic items or specific areas in weapons. It¡¯s got an incredible defense against blunt damage, but strong pressure can still bend or even crack it quite easily. What I mean is something different, I just don¡¯t have a broad knowledge about different concoctions and potions like you do, so I need your help." Eisen exined, and Xenia tilted her head to the side in a bit of confusion. "Wait, potions? Why are you talking about potions now..?" She asked, before the realization finally hit her. "Is that what you want to do?" Xenia added, growing more and more excited at the idea before Eisen nodded his head. "Exactly. I want to make potions, just instead of using water as a base, I want to use metal as a base." Chapter 264 Cripple "Potions with a metal base?" Xenia asked with surprise, and Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Yes, I¡¯m sure it should be possible to an extent. I want to experiment a bit with that at some point, maybe make metallic items that can help your regeneration just by holding them. But for now, I want to enhance Steel to the maximum that it can be for a sword." The old man exined, and Xenia swiftly thought about it and scratched her chin. "Hmm... Well, I do have a few ideas for that. There¡¯s a bunch of potions that help with Combat capabilities, and I think I know a few that specialize in swordy from the top of my head... What kind of sword are we talking about?" She asked, and Eisen swiftly handed Xenia one of the lenses that he wanted to use to make ¡¯Monocles¡¯ that other people could see his Visualization through. "HereHere, take a look." The old man said, before activating the transformation to his eyes together with the carved enchantment, before activating his truth seeing eyes. Then, in the middle of the air, a giant greatsword about three meters in length appeared. There wasn¡¯t much decoration, but that was because Eisen just wanted to show Xenia the rough size and type of the sword. "Something like that? You said Kiron uses these kind of giant swords, right?" The high-elf asked, looking the de up and down before closing her eyes in thought, "Hmm... I think I know a good potion for that, and we should have all the materials for it." She exined, before Eisen smiled brightly. "Is that so? What kind of potion is it?" He inquired, and Xenia just grinned, incredibly curious about this new type of magical creation as well. "It¡¯s a potion that increases strength, while also increasing swordsmanship abilities. Here, I¡¯ll write the recipe down for you." The High-Elf exined before grabbing a nk piece of paper and swiftly starting to write a few ingredients and ratios onto it. "I do suggest you attempt making ¡¯Metallic Potions¡¯ with base ingredients, like a simple Low-Grade Health or Mana Potion. That should give us a good bit of insight into how metal changes the effects of the potions." She told the old man, who swiftly nodded his head and took the recipe quite gratefully. "Thank you. I¡¯m going to be working on it in the morning, so juste over there if you want to watch a bit." Eisen said with a smile, and Xenia slowly nodded her head. "Alright, I will. Thanks." Xenia responded, before sitting down where she usually logged off, and prepared to do just that. But just before she did, Eisen stopped her. "Wait, don¡¯t log off yet." He said, before Xenia looked at him with a bit of surprise and confusion, before the old man exined his reasons. "There¡¯s something you really need to talk about, isn¡¯t there?" Eisen asked, and immediately, Xenia looked at him with a nk expression, unsure what she should say or do at this moment. "What do you mean? I¡¯m fine?" Xenia asked in a questioning tone, before Eisen frowned a slight bit. "Xenia, it¡¯s fine. I¡¯m aware that something is up. It started back when you wanted to gift me the homunculus... Did I hurt you that much then?" He inquired, but Xenia immediately stood up and shook her head. "No, no! It¡¯s not like that!" She yelled, worried out of her mind and trying to rush to fix the misunderstanding. But noticing that she was being a bit too loud for the two small monster girls, she continued while trying not to be as noisy. "Yeah, sure, I felt a bit hurt at the time, but in the end you were right. And just because of you, Fafnir came to live, so it turned out much better than I ever could have h oped. It probably wouldn¡¯t have properly worked out with the figurehead anyway." Xenia exined, and Eisen just looked at her with a frown that was paired with a confused expression. "Then what is it? Did something outside the game happen?" Eisen asked once more, and slowly, Xenia nodded her head, looking away nervously. Now even more worried, as he most likely wouldn¡¯t be able to help much with issues happening in the real world. There, he had his own problems to think about at the moment. "I... I don¡¯t really feel safe where I am right now..." Xenia exined, and Eisen looked at her with a light smile, trying to somehowfort her. "Want to tell me why you don¡¯t feel safe?" He asked, and after a few seconds, Xenia nodded her head again. "I guess..." She answered, and then she began to exin what had been going on. "A few years ago, I was going out with this guy I met in high school... We had a date then, but after finishing high school, we didn¡¯t see each other again until Senior year in college, because he transferred to where I was studying. We seemed to hit it off pretty well, and when we were dating for a few months, he slowly began to change. He became more controlling, o-obsessive, and... vi-violent..." Xenia exined, slowly starting to shake at the sheer thought of it, but she managed to calm down when Eisen gave her a reassuring smile. "I wasn¡¯t allowed to go out anymore, which ruined the little bit of a social life that I had. After I finished college, he got angry at me whenever I went to work because I was leaving him alone at our ce... And then, when I came home, he was drunk m-most of the time and often h-hit me... But when he b-burned the books my father wr-wrote in front of me, I managed to finally get away from him... For a few weeks..." Xenia said, her voice bing more quiet over time as her nervosity and fear grew again. "...He began to follow me, and I wo-would end up seeing him everywhere I looked... And then, when I finally managed to bu-build a rtionship again, he... attacked my boyfriend at the time..." Xenia said with a wry smile, and Eisen continued to listen. "I ended up mo-moving across the country to the east coast, rented some cheap apartment in a small town, and tr-tried to just get away from him... But over the past fe-few days, life¡¯s been horr-horrible. I ran into some rel-religious freak insulting me for what I was wearing, but he was talk-talking to some guy that was obviously carrying a gun... And then, I found a letter in the mail, without any-anything on it on the envelo-lope... it...it was from my ex..." She exined, getting incredibly scared again. Eisen ran his hand over her arm, because that always calmed his kids down when they were freaking out about something back in the day. He really wanted her to stop talking about this, because parts of what she said seemed too familiar to him. But even then, it was probably nothing, so he continued trying to calm her down and distract her. "Xenia... How about you just tell me about the town you live in now? Smalltowns are usually filled with pretty nice people, right?" Eisen asked, and Xenia nodded her head, trying to engage the topic-change. "Y-Yeah, it¡¯s sup-super nice there... There¡¯s th-this market every Sunday morning, and there¡¯s this stand with su-super nice Quesadis, so th-that¡¯s nice... But there¡¯s only like o-one hairdresser ar-around, and it¡¯s a men¡¯s b-barbershop... So that¡¯s n-not so nice... But my apartment is r-right next to this nice bag-bagel shop that sells all kinds of w-weird v-versions called ¡¯Astro Bagels¡¯, and-" Xenia began to exin, but suddenly stopped and looked into the air, before starting to shake immensely and nearly copse out of fear. "S-Someone¡¯s in my ap-" She started saying with fear in her voice, before her body changed into her log-off form. And a secondter, Eisen¡¯s did as well. --- "Benji! Tony! Come over here!" Benjamin yelled immediately, standing up out of the capsule. His whole right arm and shoulder felt as if they were burning up, but he really didn¡¯t care about that right now. He was feeling in peak condition anywhere else in his body as well, so there wasn¡¯t too big of an issue with moving around. Immediately, a shirtless Tony ran through the door, as he was in bed before now, followed by Benji and Sophia right behind him. "Dad, are you okay?" Tony asked with clear worry in his voice, but was quite surprised to see his father moving around like normal, except that he just wasn¡¯t using his right arm at all. "Yes, I¡¯m alright. But get dressed, ande to the car with me. Benji, youe too just in case. We need to get to Astro¡¯s right now. Sophia, you take care of Sean and Katy while we¡¯re gone." Benjamin told them as he put on his jacket, while everyone was looking at him confused. "You want to go for a bagel run at 11pm? Dad, they¡¯re closed right now. Don¡¯t scare me like that..." Tonyined, but Benjamin immediately shook his head. "I don¡¯t mean Astro¡¯s itself, I mean the Apartmentplex next to it." The old man said with a frown, immediately making his way over to the door, while Benji and Tony were looking at him confused, although they were still following him. "What¡¯s going on?" Benji asked with clear worry in his voice, before Benjamin opened the front door and immediately made his way to Tony¡¯s car. "I¡¯ll exin on the way there, but we need to go now." The old manmanded, and Benji and Tony swiftly put on their shoes and ran to the car, although Tony still had the time to get dressed at the very least. Immediately, Tony started the engine and pulled out of the driveway, and Benji started to ask about what was happening. "So, will you tell us now what¡¯s going on?" Benji asked, and immediately, Benjamin started to exin. "We need to go there to help someone who I think is in danger right now." He exined, and there wasn¡¯t that much more time to exin much more, as Tony already pulled onto the parking lot of the apartmentplex that Benjamin was talking about. "Is this the right ce?" "Yes, we¡¯re right. Benji, keep 911 dialed, and when I tell you to, call them. I¡¯m not exactly sure what¡¯s going on, or if I¡¯m even right with this, but if I am, she¡¯s really in trouble." Benjamin said and jumped out the car door before Tony could even properly park the car. Benji immediately followed behind, and Tony did the same once he actually parked. And it didn¡¯t take long for Benjamin to figure out that he really was right with his thoughts, as he heard some yellsing from one of the ground-floor apartments. "St-Stop th-this, p-p-please... I don¡¯t- I don¡¯t know why you-you¡¯re do-doing th-" "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" A man¡¯s voice replied immediately to the pleading screams of a young woman, and Benjamin quietly looked at Benji and nodded his head, before Benji sprinted out the building and held the phone against his ear, while Benjamin slowly stepped into the slightly open front door of the small apartment. "Dad, what are you doing?" Tony asked, trying to pull him back again before the old man turned around and shook his head at his son with a calm expression. And Tony knew what that expression meant, so he immediately let go of Benjamin and just let him go. On his way in, Benjamin took a look around to try and find where the voices wereing from, before he noticed the light at the end of the small hallway. He stood next to the door to the lit-up room, trying to figure out if there was any direct danger. Benjamin wanted to wait like this for the police to arrive, and only do something if things escted. Sadly, things escted pretty quickly when the man spoke up. "What can a little cripple like you do, huh? I did everything for you! I cared for you, I drove you ces, and I always got you whatever you wanted and needed! But then you fucking left me, so this is your own fault!" Chapter 265 Fearsome Decisions When Benjamin heard the man say these things, he took another look around the, quite barren, apartment. And now, he noticed things that he really hadn¡¯t even really registered before at all. Like the fact that the single step up to the room that seemed to be the livingroom had a small ramp covering it. Or that there were tons and tons of different medicationsying around, while the carpet in front of the door had a few straight-lined markings from repeated use. There weren¡¯t many high shelves around, and if there were, only the lower sections would be filled with anything. "You barely evene out of this shitty little apartment! What are you even doing in here?! What¡¯s this big ass thing in the corner, huh?" The man asked loudly, before starting to hit what seemed to be the capsule with his bare hand, while a certain young woman screamed at him to stop. "N-No, pl-please don¡¯t! A-Anything but-but that... I-I¡¯ll listen to yo-you, but l-leave the ca-capsule alone..." Jasmin, who Benjamin knew as Xenia up until now, begged the man. "Oh? Of course you¡¯ll listen to me, that¡¯s going to happen no matter what. But you seem to be pretty attached to this thing, so I should probably take care of this for us." The man answered, now seeming a little more calm for some reason. Soon, after a few moments of silence, Benjamin knew what was about to happen after hearing that the man was huffing about something, probably because he was struggling to pick something heavy up . The old man knew exactly what he was about to do, and he really didn¡¯t want to let that happen. So, what he did, was simple. He knocked something over to make a loud noise. Immediately, the man seemed to drop whatever heavy thing he picked up, and slowly made his way to the door to the room. "Who the fuck¡¯s there? What are you doing in our apartment?" The man asked loudly as he stepped through the door and took a look around to try and find someone. Now, exactly two things could happen. One, the man looked to his left first and would end up seeing Benjamin. If he was armed, that meant nothing good for him. Second, if the man looked to his right first, Benjamin would most likely be able to immediately overwhelm him. Lucky for Benjamin, the man first looked to his right, and immediately, the old man slung his left arm around the man¡¯s neck from behind, holding him in a tight chokehold. Looking into the bathroom mirror, the man then managed to make eye-contact with Benjamin and also noticed that his right arm was simply dangling down. In an effort to free himself, the man tried a lot of things, first of all, just trying to overwhelm Benjamin in strength, which was something incredibly unreasonable. The man was short and scrawny and obviously lived an unhealthy lifestyle, while Benjamin was quite tall and strong, so despite the fact that he was able to only use his left arm, Benjamin still had the upper hand in this situation. But Benjamin didn¡¯t ount for one thing, which was that the man he was up against was someone that fought so dirty that he would even beat a girl in a wheelchair. Apanied by a sudden surging pain in his right arm, Benjamin¡¯s whole body tensed up for a moment before slumping down all at once. Immediately, he stared at the spot where he started feeling the pain, and could only see a red lump of meat with a shiny knife sticking out of it. Due to the weakness and dizzy mind that apanied his pain, he really didn¡¯t notice that the man took a vase lying on a cupboard and was currently preparing to hit Benjamin over the head with it either. The only thing that saved him with this was that Benjamin lived in a small town. "This is the police! Show us your hands!" An officer yelled out, seeing the slumped up man on the ground and the other man in a threatening position toward the first man. Confused and scared, the man that had just stabbed Benjamin turned around toward the officer. "Oh, thank god you¡¯re here! This man broke into my girlfriend¡¯s apartment! I was just defending myself, really!" He exined with a pleading, scared expression, and the Officer slowly nodded his head and tried to assess the situation. From where he was currently standing, all he could see was a young, thin and weak person that was shaking out of his boots in front of a tall giant of a man. "Sir, where exactly is your girlfriend?" The Officer asked, quite aware of who that ¡¯Giant of a man¡¯ was, and doubting that he would be able to assault someone for no reason. "M-My girlfriend is in her room! This man just assaulted her! She has anxiety, so please go and help her!" The man exined, and the officer made his way through the hallway into the room that the man described, seeing the injured womanying on the ground, obviously scared, as she was staring at Benjamin. "M¡¯am, can you stand?" The officer asked, and still confused at what just happened, Jasmin shook her head, slowly raising her hand to vaguely point at the wheelchair. "Sorry M¡¯am. Can I help you sit down on it?" The officer asked, while his colleague took care of the situation in the hallway. Swiftly, Jasmin nodded her head, and the officer soon picked her up under her armpits and helped her take a seat in the wheelchair, before starting to ask about the situation. "Can you tell me about what happened here?" He inquired, and immediately, Jasmin¡¯s whole body began to shake at the thought of it. Noticing that her ex was staring into the room, trying to make her lie for his sake. Now she had to choose. Would she choose the man that showed nothing but kindness to her, or the man that showed nothing but horror to her? Anybody would wish it was the former, but Human nature says otherwise. "Th-That man br-broke in-into my apar-partment and at-attacked me..." She muttered as she slightly pointed toward Benjamin, trying to look away because she felt horrible for doing so. "John, call two ambnces and a female emergency shrink." The officer said, and soon, a beeping noise could be heard in the background as the other officer did just that. With a bitter expression, the officer looked at Jasmin again. He was aware of who Benjamin was, and was actually one of the policemen assigned as his protection during the period of a few weeks after the break-in a few years ago. So he didn¡¯t really want to believe that he could do something like this. "M¡¯am, are you sure it was that man that assaulted you?" The officer asked, and with tears in her eyes, Jasmin slowly nodded her head, feeling like throwing up just for saying something like that. Bitterly, the officer stood up and turned toward Benjamin, although he saw just a slight hint of something that made him think that Jasmin lied. The man that had said to be her boyfriend was smiling, if just for a split second. And it wasn¡¯t the relieved kind of smile, but one that said ¡¯I got away with it¡¯. But like this, he couldn¡¯t do anything other than to do what he had to do, if the victim herself didn¡¯t say who actually hurt her like that. Although just then, something else happened. "Grampa! Grampa, are you alright?!" Benji yelled into the hallway as he tried running in, seeing that Benjamin was kneeling on the ground. "You! What the hell did you do to my grandfather?!" He asked angrily as he stared at the man who was most likely the perpetrator of all this, before the officer in charge looked at him confused. "Wait, who are you in all of this?" He asked, and Benji stared at him confused. "I¡¯m Benjamin Joyce, the one that called you!" He exined, and the officer looked at his colleague with a frown. "Make sure nobody in here moves, I¡¯ll talk to the kid." The officer said and then swiftly stepped through the hallway and toward Benji. "You¡¯re the caller?" The officer asked just to confirm again, and Benji immediately nodded. "Yes, I am! My grandfather is in there right now, and he¡¯s obviously hurt! So go help him!" "Can I ask you why you were in this building?" "My grandfather said something about a woman in here being in danger, so we rushed over here immediately! The door was open when we got here, so my grandfather went in while I called you!" Benji exined, and then looked into the hallway, making eyecontact with Jasmin who just rolled her wheelchair out of her room. "Xenia! So you were in danger?!" Benji asked, and the officer looked back and forth between them confused. "M¡¯am, do you know this man?" The officer asked, and slowly, Jasmin stared at Benji, then her ex, and then Benjamin, before slowly starting to break down, trying to instinctively guard her head. "Y-Yes I k-know him... I-I lied, th-that man isn¡¯t m-my boyfriend, he att-attacked me..." She exined, now pointing at her ex, who ripped his eyes open immediately. "You little bitch! What the hell are you even saying?!" He yelled, but at that point, one of the officers already stepped up behind him and handcuffed him, starting to pull him out of the apartment. At that point, the ambnce finally arrived as well and a few people came rushing into the apartment, immediately taking a look at Benjamin and Jasmin in turns. After a while, both of them ended up being brought to the nearest hospital, and Benji and Tony immediately drove after the ambnces. Finally, an hourter, Benjamin was given a room to spend the night. The old man was for the first time in a physical condition befitting his age, weak and frail. "Grampa, don¡¯t scare us like that..." Benji said quietly as he sat down on a chair next to the bed, and Tony slumped down on one of them as well, while Benjamin simply chuckled. "I¡¯m sorry, I really didn¡¯t mean to." "Why are you taking this so lightly? You were literally stabbed into your arm, Dad. Earlier today, you copsed from being hit there by a cereal box." Tony grumbled, and Benji immediately ripped his head toward his father. "Wait, that¡¯s what happened at the grocery store? I thought he fell!" He eximed, but Tony slowly shook his head. "Sorry, we didn¡¯t want to worry you... we wanted to tell you and Sophia about his condition when we got home, but then... you know..." Tony exined quietly, and Benji slowly nodded and looked away. While the room became cold and silent, a knock could be heard against the door. "Hello, Mr. Joyce?" A Nurse asked, and immediately, Benjamin, Tony and Benji immediately looked at her with a nod, before the Nurse chuckled a bit surprised and pointed at the old man. "I meant Joyce Senior, sorry. I brought a visitor, the woman that was brought here together with you earlier." She exined, and Benjamin immediately nodded his head, trying to sit up properly in the hospital bed, while Jasmin was slowly brought into the room by the Nurse. She was obviously quite ufortable at the moment, but it was quite clear why, considering the staresing from not only Tony, but even Benji, who were both simply mad at the fact that she nearly had Benjamin arrested for something he didn¡¯t do. Noticing that this was the case, Benjamin looked at his son and grandson with a smile. "Tony, please go and call your brother and sister for now, alright? And Benji, you go and call Sophia to tell her what¡¯s going on as well." Benjamin asked of them, and slowly, the two did as asked, ring at Jasmin on their way out. It was silent for a few moments, and when the Nurse chose to leave the two of them alone, Jasmin spoke up. "E-Eisen, I-" "Benjamin." The old man interrupted, before Jasmin looked at him confused, "H-Huh?" She asked, but he simply replied with augh. "My name is Benjamin. I¡¯m only Eisen in the game. Your real name isn¡¯t Xenia either, right, Jasmin?" Benjamin asked with a smile, and the young woman slowly nodded her head. "Y-Yeah... Yo-You¡¯re right... I... I just wan-wanted to s-say sorry about wh-what happened... I j-just..." She started trying to exin, but was getting incredibly worked up, so the old man shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry about it. I get it. It¡¯s fine, really. My arm ispletely broken anyway, so I barely even felt anything then. I guess I was just feeling a bit shocked at seeing so much blood back then." Benjamin exined to calm her down, but Jasmin still felt guilty. "B-But I-" Jasmin tried to say, but was once more interrupted by Benjamin. "Jasmin, it¡¯s fine. Really. You don¡¯t need to worry about me, worry about yourself right now. You went through something really scary. I think you should go back home andy down in your capsule, you seem a lot morefortable in there than out here." The old man said, before smiling at her. "I¡¯ll be joining you in the gameter as well. Once all the legal stuff is figured out, I¡¯m going home as well." Benjamin exined just as a Doctor was entering the room. "Sorry, miss, would it be alright for you if I can talk to Mister Joyce alone?" The doctor asked as he looked at Jasmin, who slowly nodded her head before quietly being brought out to the hallway again. Once the door was closed, the Doctor immediately turned to Benjamin. "Mister Joyce, I thought I exined to you before that it¡¯s really not reended for you to leave any time soon. I can¡¯t do anything if you really want to leave, but as a professional, I really have to stay that it would be beyond idiocy to leave in your condition." The Doctor exined, and Benjamin just smiled at him with a light nod. "Don¡¯t worry, I know. I¡¯m staying here." Chapter 266 The Situation After a little while, Benjamin finished talking about all the things that needed to be talked about with the Doctor, like what would happen next, and what would need to be done afterward. Once that conversation was over, Benji and Tony stepped into the room again and the old man spoke up immediately. "So, bad news, but it seems like I¡¯ll have to stay here for about two more days. The doctor told me he would prefer if I stayed for at the very least a week, but that¡¯s only for regr checkups. I¡¯m going to call Samuel real quick and let him know about the situation, because I¡¯m pretty sure that the capsule can be used to monitor basic physical functions at all times" Benjamin exined, and both Benji and Tony nodded their heads. "Melody and Natsuo said they¡¯re going to call you in a bit. They can¡¯te over again at the moment, but they at least want to talk to you." Tony exined tiredly, and Benjamin nodded his head before looking at his grandson. "You please exin to everyone that I¡¯m not going to be able to y for a while. I should be back a little while before we get to the inds, though, so I¡¯ll catch up on everything I need to do then. And don¡¯t worry about what you tell them. They don¡¯t know much about what¡¯s going on, but I trust them enough to let them know about what¡¯s actually happening with me, and what happened with me before." Slowly, Benji nodded his head as he scratched the back of his neck. "Are you sure you don¡¯t need to rest any longer?" He asked, but Benjamin shook his head. "I don¡¯t really think so, no. There¡¯s just going to be some checkups for a while, and while they¡¯re at it, they¡¯re going to figure out the situation with my arm. But other than that, I really feel absolutely normal, so you don¡¯t need to worry about me." The old man said reassuredly, before continuing. "Oh, and please don¡¯t be too harsh on Jasmin. The situation is far moreplicated than it seems to you right now." Benjamin asked of his son and grandson, who both looked at each other a bit confused. "Jasmin? Who are you talking about, Dad?" "Sorry, Benji called her Xenia before. The young woman in the wheelchair. And don¡¯t be surprised when you tell her about this. I told her I¡¯d be joining her in the gameter, but I obviously can¡¯t do that for now." Benjamin smiled, and Benji once more slowly nodded his head. "Fine... I¡¯ll talk to her, don¡¯t worry..." He answered, before the old man chuckled in response. "Thank you. Now, please, get home and properly exin everything to Sophia, Katy and Sean as well. Tony, could you stay here a little longer?" "Of course, Dad. I¡¯ll stay here as long as you want me to." He immediately replied, and Benji also nodded his head and grabbed the keys from his father, before he made his way out the door and to the exit of the hospital. And when Benjamin was sure that Benji couldn¡¯t hear him speak, he told Tony the truth. "Son, please don¡¯t let any of the kidse visit me in the hospital over the next few days." The old man asked of him, before Tony looked at him confused. "What do you mean? Why not?" Slowly, Benjamin ran his fingers ever so slightly over his arm, immediately feeling the pain connected to it, before he turned to his son again. "The situation¡¯s a bit harsher than I expected." --- Tiredly, Benji stepped into the cold car and stared at the steering wheel in front of him. For a few minutes, he just sat there, trying to figure out what was going on, and when he finally managed to calm down, Benji started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, before driving back to his Grandfather¡¯s house. There, he was immediately met with Sophia, Katy and Sean, all trying to figure out what was going on. And so, Benji exined what happened. Katy began crying, and Sean nearly did as well, while Sophia was just looking at Benji scared. "Is Grandpa really alright?" She asked, and Benji soon nodded his head. "At least he told us he is. But you know Grandpa, he¡¯s great at hiding that stuff... But for now, let¡¯s all just try to get to sleep, alright? We¡¯ll go see Gramps tomorrow morning." Benji said reassuredly, and everyone slowly nodded, although Sophia looked at Benji with a frown. "I think I¡¯m going to stay with these two tonight, they seem pretty upset so I don¡¯t want to leave them alone." She exined, so Benji just smiled at her and then made his way to his room, quietly sitting down in his capsule. --- Stahl woke up on the top deck, just where he had logged offst time, leaning against the wall. The ship was slightly waving around, and the sun shone into his eyes, while one of the overgrown skeletons that were in charge of the ship looked at him with a frown, despite not having eyebrows, as well as a bucket filled with water and a mop. "H-Huh? Sorry, am I in your way?" Stahl asked quietly, and the Skeleton immediately nodded its head, before Stahl jumped up and stepped away to let the skeleton do its job. And the first ce that Stahl went was the meeting hall, where he immediately saw a few, still sleeping figures. Jyuuk, with his tree-like overgrown form. Or Evalia, who looked like a colorfully painted marble statue. Then there was brody, whose body seemed to have just turned into a rock for whatever reason, and of course Xenia, whose body became like a crystal-structurepletely covered in random runes. And atst, of course also the Titan-version of his grandfather¡¯s metallic body, while two small metallic girls were sleeping on hisp. Quietly, Stahl sat down on one of the empty chairs, and chose to just wait for someone to wake up. In the meantime, he continued doing the magic practice that he¡¯d been doing all the time, which seemed to calm him down a little. Basically, he created tiny mana figures that roughly seemed like humans without any discernable external features, which he just controlled to do different things. Sometimes, he just copied what another person was doing, so he seemed to have be more proficient at doing just that. He even got a skill just through doing this, and it helped his mana maniption out immensely as well. So now, Stahl was just ying around and trying create copies simr to the figures that he was seeing around himself at the moment. And once the people were done, he created a copy of the room he was in. And since nobody woke up at this point either, Stahl continued expanding the small model-like copy of the ship made of pure mana. At some point, it seemed like someone woke up, but Stahl was just far too caught up in the creation of this model to notice it. Soon enough, Stahl finished the ship made of mana and then looked around the room, noticing that Brody, Jyuuk, and Evalia were standing directly next to him, just quietly watching what he was doing, while Xenia sat on the other side of the table, just staring at the sleeping Eisen the whole time, as if she was waiting for him toe back. "O-Oh, you¡¯re up... Sorry, I was waiting for you, and I just kind of got caught up in this..." Stahl muttered to himself, acknowledging the notification that let him save the Ship in a ¡¯Model Database¡¯ or something like that, and then swiftly made the ship disappear with a wave of his hand. "Everyone, I need to tell you something..." Stahl said quietly, and Brody crossed his arms curiously. "What¡¯s up kid? Anything up with your Gramps? He¡¯s usually the first one up!" The Demon-Orc halflingughed, intending for this to be a joke, but Stahl slowly nodded his head. "Yes, actually..." He replied, and now immediately, everyone looked at Stahl with worry, most of all Xenia of course. "What do you mean? H-He told me he¡¯s okay!" The High-Elf eximed, which confused Brody, Jyuuk and Evalia even more, but Stahl just nodded his head. "Yes, he¡¯s okay, but he won¡¯t be able to y for a few IRL days. He said he should be back before we reach the inds, though..." He exined, before he slowly scratched his arm nervously, before slightly looking at Xenia. "He¡¯s in the hospital right now. Earlier today, he was stabbed in his messed-up arm, so that really, really must have hurt." "No, no! He-He said th-that he d-d-doesn¡¯t ha-ave any fee-feeling in his arm!" Xenia eximed feeling even more guilty than before, but Stahl immediately shook his head with a frown. "No, that¡¯s not true at all. At the slightest contact, his arm hurts like hell and his whole body copses." He said, slowly getting somewhat annoyed to have to exin something like this. "Wait, what¡¯s going on here? Xenia, what do you know about all of this?" Jyuuk asked with worry in his voice, hurriedly stepping over to the young woman as he tried to calm her down, before Xenia slowly stopped shaking. And then, she exined the rough situation of what happened, and while Jyuuk was simply holding her so that she would manage to rx, Brody turned to Stahl. "You and the geezer live in the same town as her?" He asked surprised, and Stahl just shrugged. "Well, my Grandfather lived there for more than fourty years, I¡¯m just there to visit him... But I guess..." He responded, and Evalia triedughing a bit to at least somewhat calm the situation down. "What a coincidence, huh?" She chuckled obviously ufortably, before Stahl just smiled at her a little bit. "Just don¡¯t worry about it. My Grandfather is the strongest man I know, so he¡¯s going to end up fine. He¡¯s obviously a bit sick, but that just means that his lifespan of 1000 years was cut down to around 300." Heughed, trying to engage how Evalia attempted to light the situation up. This situation wasplicated, and Stahl felt just horrible sitting herughing while his grandfather was literally in the hospital, but he truly believed in what he said. Benjamin Theodore Joyce would without a doubt live through this, there was no doubt in his mind that that was the truth. "For now, let¡¯s just think about it like he¡¯s on vacation. He¡¯sing back in a bit, so let¡¯s not act like he¡¯s dead." Stahl suggested, before crossing his arms with a broad grin, before the others nodded their heads. "Geez, you¡¯re really that guy¡¯s Grandson, huh?" Brodyughed loudly, and Stahl simply followed his example. "Of course I am! You should have noticed from my Devilish Good looks!" "So I guess for now that means we should do what we would have done normally, right? And we need to figure out what to tell the NPCs." Evalia muttered, before Stahl simply shrugged. "Let¡¯s just go with ¡¯He told us he will sleep for a while this time aroundst night¡¯." Stahl suggested, and everyone seemed to be at least somewhat okay with this. And after a long sigh, Stahl thought about how to word everything correctly. "I actually have a request from you guys... I know it might be a bit selfish, especially in this situation, but..." Stahl started saying, trying to ask for something he wanted to ask about for a good while now, and the others looked at him with a bit of surprise. "Of course, kid. Shoot." Brody said with a smile, before Stahl scratched the back of his head with a wry smile. "Erm... Could all of you maybe teach me everything you know?" Chapter 267 Stahls Smithing The four originals that were currently there looked at Stahl with surprise, and after a few moments of startled silence, Brody spoke up. "You wanna know everything that we know? You realize that¡¯s gonna take a while, right?" He pointed out, and Stahl immediately nodded his head. "Of course I know that, and I¡¯m talking mostly about the basics here. I want to be able to do a little bit of everything." Stahl exined, before the four of them looked at each other for a few moments. Evalia, Jyuuk and Brody agreed basically immediately, because they didn¡¯t have much to do on the ship at the moment anyway, but Xenia took a while longer, mostly to regain herposure. But soon enough, even she nodded her head. "Alright, before then... I¡¯ll need some time to get the basic crafting skills that my gramps has. That means cksmithing, tailoring, leatherworking, alchemy and enchanting. Then I can work toward things like Brewing and Bookbinding if I need to. Can any of you tell me any tips how I can practice other things while working on that?" Stahl asked curiously, and Brody immediately nodded. "I can really only suggest Meditation. You¡¯ll probably need a bunch of mana for alchemy and enchanting, so Meditation¡¯s gonna help you with that." The Demon-Orc halfling exined, and Jyuuk also immediately nodded his head. "I also suggest taking any chance you can get at taming a monster. That skill will constantly increase over time while your monster is off doing something as well. And depending on what kind of monster you get, you might be able to have it assist you with your other tasks." Jyuuk suggested, and quietly, Xenia also nodded her head. "I-I suggest trying to u-use your mana the least amount as poss-possible..." She said, before Stahl looked at her confused. "You want me not to use my mana? But why that?" He asked, and Xenia swiftly exined after taking a few deep breaths. "Because if you r-reach rank 2 in mana maniption while only ha-having crafting skills, then you¡¯ll get an element that ha-has to do with that. If you want to be an all rounder, th-then you should wait for that until you learned different disci-sciplines..." Xenia exined, and Stahl had to admit that it made sense. "Alright, thank you. Then I guess I should ask you for helpst... I¡¯ll just use my mana enough to get enchanting and alchemy up to rank 1, and the same with Necromancy..." He muttered to himself, before slowly turning around and stepping up to the door, before realizing something important. "Erm... We don¡¯t actually have any workstations on this ship... So how am I supposed to start with cksmithing?" Stahl asked the others, before Jyuuk scratched the back of his head before waving his hand to the side. Arge me shot up immediately and soon turned into the shape of Akatori. "Here, take him with you. His mes might be enough to heat up a little bit of metal enough. And then also..." Jyuuk slowly muttered before summoning his Beastiary and slowly flipping through the pages, before nodding his head. Immediately afterward, arge lizard that looked a lot like a Komodo Dragon, just with grass growing on its back. "And this big boy as well. He¡¯s a Rock-Type Monster with a few spells, so he should be able to somewhat help contain Akatori¡¯s fire." He exined, and Stahl nodded his head with a smile. "Thanks my dude. I¡¯ll bring them back to you when I¡¯m finished with cksmithing, I doubt I¡¯ll need them for other things anyway." Stahl answered, before making his way to the door and down to the workspace at the bottom of the ship, where a certain young man was already excitedly waiting, although his expression became a bit more cynical when he saw Stahl instead of Eisen. "Oh, hey. Do you know when Eisen ising down here?" Sky asked, but Stahl simply scratched the back of his head with a wry smile. "Sorry... He¡¯s noting today... For about a week, he probably won¡¯t wake up. When he went to bedst night, he apparently wasn¡¯t feeling well and then told the others about it. Really sorry, man." Stahl answered, and Sky¡¯s expression immediately slumped down. "O-Oh... I see... Erm, I guess I¡¯ll see youter, then..." Sky answered with a deep sigh, before Stahl scratched the back of his head again. "You... wanted to learn Bookbinding, right?" Stahl asked, and Sky turned around with a frown. "Yeah... What about it?" "I don¡¯t know much about it, but I do know a little bit of the techniques... And you know books a lot better than I do... Erm, I know you probably wanted to learn it from Gramps, but how about you surprise him by already knowing how to when hees back? I could use a littlepany in there as well. Or rather,pany that I can actually talk to..." Stahl chuckled as he looked at the Lizard and Bird that were following him, before Sky looked at the young man somewhat suspiciously, before slowly nodding his head. "...Sure... That might be nice..." The young Fey-Kin answered, remembering how Eisen told him to try and be more sociable before. With a smile, Stahl then opened the door to the room and stepped inside, exining what he wanted to do for now. "So, I don¡¯t actually have any skills right now, like at all. I have appraisal, Shield Arts, Swordsmanship, Mana Maniption and Mana Modeling. While my grandfather is asleep, I want to learn a bunch of different skills and get to the point where I can gain an interesting upation. For that, I want to learn the basic skills that my gramps learned as well, starting with cksmithing, then Tailoring, and then Leatherworking. At that point, we should be able to figure out stuff for a book, right?" Stahl said with a smile, and Sky nodded his head quietly. So once again, Stahl was the one that engaged the conversation. "Alright, then I¡¯ll get right to it! My Grandfather had some tools around here, so..." He muttered and took a look around the room, before grabbing the basic Steel Cross-Pein hammer that Eisen was using for quite a while, and then looked at the Rock-Lizard. "Can you make a super hard t surface here, and something like a box with a small opening over there?" Stahl asked with a smile, before the Lizard gave out some kind of growl-like sound and did just as it was asked, before Stahl told Akatori what to do as well, and asked him to heat the inside of the makeshift furnace up as much as possible, before cing a small iron ingot into the mes. "Now, let¡¯s hope I manage to do it properly..." Stahl muttered out nervously, before Sky sighed loudly. "I¡¯m sure you will. And here, let me help you out as well." He said before grabbing one of the books he was carrying and flipped to a certain chapter, before speaking up. "Come out, Teacher." Immediately after Sky said this, a ck figure appeared in the center of the room. It was a middle-aged man, wearing a cksmith¡¯s outfit and a bandana over his forehead. "Huh? Who¡¯s this?" Stahl asked surprised, only roughly aware of how Sky¡¯s ability worked. And soon, the Fey-Kin boy exined. "This is the product of a small experiment. For the most part, I was always summoning imaginary creatures or people, or was using simple stories told about them to summon figures representing people that really existed. But now, I tried familiarizing myself with different people¡¯s Bioghraphies or Autobiographies, to see if that would change anything. I found that I can summon either a plete¡¯ figure of the one the biography is about while they were in their prime, or I can summon different versions from different chapters of the biography. This right here is the version of thest Generation¡¯s Grandmaster cksmith of when he was teaching apprentices. Go ahead and use him for whatever you need, I guess, my mana is higher than it used to be before." Sky said with a loud sigh before sitting down against the wall, simplymanding the Inkheart Teacher to help Stahl. "Oh, nice! Thanks dude!" Stahl eximed with a bright smile, before he thought about what he needed to do next. "Hmm... It seems hot enough, so maybe- Oh, no?" The young man was just about to use some tongs to grab the iron ingot he put into the furnace to pull it out again, but he was swiftly stopped by the ¡¯Teacher¡¯, who immediately shook his deep, ink-ck head, as if telling Stahl to wait. And a little whileter, the Inkheart Teacher tapped Stahl¡¯s shoulder and then pointed at the ¡¯forge¡¯, so Stahl took that as a sign that he was supposed to use it now. "Alright..." He muttered out to himself quietly, nervously trying to grab the ingot with the tong in his left hand before bringing it over to the ¡¯Anvil¡¯ made by the Rock Lizard, and soon ced the ingot onto the t surface. Slowly, he used the hammer in his right hand to, somewhat shakily, shape the ingot into what he wanted. Although he didn¡¯t actually know what he wanted. So for now, all that Stahl did was try to turn it into the rough shape of a small de, because that was all he could really think of. Strike after Strike, Stahl continued shaping it, and he was incredibly proud of what he was able to do like this! It was his first time, after all. He repeatedly had to re-heat the metal in the forge before actually being able to finish it, and when he did, he saw the notification in front of him. [You Created a Poor Decorational de] [cksmithing Skill Learned] "Eh..?" Stahl muttered to himself, confused at the notification talking about a ¡¯Poor Decorational de¡¯, so he swiftly concentrated on it and made another notification appear. [Poor Decorational de] [Quality - Lowest][Rank - 0] [Description] An incredibly poor quality dull de made by a nameless craftsman. It has neither a handle nor a sharpened edge, so it is not actually useable for anything other than decoration. [Effect] None "Hm? Something wrong?" Sky asked confused, noticing that the Inkheart teacher wasughing his lungs out, albeit as he couldn¡¯t make any sounds, it seemed more like a pantomime¡¯sughter. Quietly, Stahl shook his head and silently ced the de into the forge again so that he could reuse it and make something new. "No, nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong at all. I just made a national treasure that would be too dangerous in the hands of the wrong person, so I have to get rid of it immediately." Stahl exined, simply staring into the mes produces by Akatori, before Sky returned to reading one of his books. "Sure... Weirdo..." He muttered to himself. But after a while, Stahl actually looked over at Sky again with a questioning expression. "Erm, actually, what does my grandfather usually use to give an edge to the des he makes?" He asked with a wry smile, and Sky sighed loudly before walking over to the corner to one of the cloth-covered objects. "How about you try one of the Grinding Wheels? Seriously, are you actually Eisen¡¯s grandson..?" Sky asked with a wry smile, before Stahl scratched the back of his head embarrassedly. "Heh... Sorry about that, my first time doing this..." "I get it. Just hurry up, I want to make a book..." Sky said quietly, and then sat back down against the wall, before Stahl nodded his head, looking back at the ¡¯de¡¯ heating itself up in the forge, while Stahl simply closed his eyes and rxed, trying to remember what he saw the many times he watched his Grandfather work onissions ten years ago or so. Step by step, Stahl went through what he could remember, and even dug up things that he couldn¡¯t remember anymore. He wouldn¡¯t be able to figure out any incredible techniques like this, and he wouldn¡¯t suddenly get ten times better, but at the very least, he would be able to remember all the steps that his grandfather always went through when working with metal like this. Chapter 268 Knives and Teddy Bears "Okay, first, I need to wait for the right temperature... Before, it was a bright yellow..." Stahl muttered to himself, simply staring into the forge as he did so. After a few minutes, exactly that temperature was reached, and Stahl grabbed the dull de out of the forge and turned it back into a simple lump of metal to basically ¡¯reset¡¯ everything. And then, he really started trying to get everything started. "Think about what Gramps always rambled about... Not too strong, just barely strong enough for what you want to do... I need to be quick, but I shouldn¡¯t rush anything... Just concentrate on the metal, and slowly shape it into the clear form you have in your mind..." The young man continued, carefully trying to hold the metal via the tongs in his left hand, while using the hammer in his right hand to carefully change the shape of the metal. Seeing that Stahl was getting really into it now, the Inkheart Teacher actually did his ¡¯Job¡¯ and corrected some things about Stahl, although not by much. He helped him hold the hammer more efficiently, and made sure that Stahl wasn¡¯t grasping the tongs too tightly and end up leaving an imprint in the metal. The rest, Stahl had to figure out on his own. Soon, he ended up with a shape simr to the dagger he had before, but much more clearly an actual dagger, with a proper, straight edge that just needed to be ground sharp now. He even made sure to include that thin piece of metal so that he could attach a handle to itter. But for now, Stahl sat down at the grinding wheels, trying to figure out how to use them. With a confused expression paired with top-notch puppy-eyes, he looked over toward Sky, who soon noticed the young, green-haired man¡¯s expression and sighed loudly. "There¡¯s a gem in the center of the wheel. Pour your mana inside of it, and it¡¯s going to start spinning. You don¡¯t need a lot, so don¡¯t needlessly waste your mana with it." Sky exined, and Stahl nodded his head with a grin. "Alright, thanks!" He replied, before doing just what he was told. Although, just before he pressed the metal against the wheel, he noticed something else. He was currently sitting at the finest Grinding Wheel there was, and he was pretty sure he had to start rough and then go finer. So, he sat down at the roughest Grinding Wheel and did just that. He held the de¡¯s edge against the rough surface, unsure of what to do next. "Wait, Gramps never just holds it against it, he..." Stahl muttered, and then copied motions that he saw his grandfather use sometimes, slowly going against the movement of the Grinding Wheel with the edge, and moving it slightly sideways, repeatedly going over the same areas. And then, it was done, for the most part. It was actually already quite sharp, so Stahl was pretty satisfied for his first proper creation! Yes, this was absolutely his first creation, the iron he was holding absolutely never had any other shape other than that of an ingot before today! "And now I¡¯m just missing a handle..." Stahl whispered to himself, slowly stepping up to the equipment that Parc and Rouge made for him to see what the handle was there. "Is it just leather? Nah, it¡¯s too hard for that... There¡¯s wood underneath, but how do I get it around it?" He asked quietly, before scratching the back of his head. "Do I really need to make a handle for this? It¡¯s not going to go beyong rank 0 at the moment anyway, so it¡¯s not really necessary, now is it? And that would be woodworking, wouldn¡¯t it..?" Stahl muttered to himself, but Sky, who seemed to have overheard all of it, swiftly spoke up and corrected him. "If you¡¯re doing something just as a small part for another skill, that counts toward the ¡¯other skill¡¯. So if you technically use woodworking to make a wooden handle for a metal item you¡¯re currently making, that counts toward cksmithing. If you have the woodworking skill already, it gives a little proficiency, but it¡¯s not enough to learn the woodworking skill. You need to make a fully wooden item for that." Sky exined, and Stahl slowly nodded his head. "Huh... I see. Thanks!" The young man said with a grin, before just looking at the small de in his hand. He would only be making these pure metal items, so that he could re-use the metalter again, and so, he saw the de as finished and saw a notification pop up in front of him. [Simple Iron de] [Quality - Average][Rank - 0] [Description] A small iron de made by a nameless cksmith. It doesn¡¯t have a handle, so it cannot be properly used for its purposes, but the edge is sharp enough to cut into things. [Effect] None With a loud sigh, Stahl made the notification disappear and then scratched the back of his head. "I guess i¡¯s not too bad for my second try?" He muttered to himself, before just shrugging and cing the metal back into the forge to once more let it heat up to be worked with his hammer. In the meantime, he checked his status and saw that he gained a little bit of proficiency in the cksmithing skill, and nodded his head in satisfaction. "Alright, if all of the skills level up at that pace, I should be able to finish Leatherworking in a few hours, and then we can start on the book." Stahl exined to Sky, who just quietly nodded his head without looking up from his book. And so, Stahl continued to repeatedly work the same metal over and over again into the same shape each time, and finally managed to rank the skill up to one at some point. "Akatori, Rock-Lizard dude, thanks for your help!" Stahl eximed with a grin, before telling the two monsters to deactivate their skills, because he was now done with cksmithing and didn¡¯t really require their help anymore. "Okay, now I just need some cloth... Alright, this should be good enough." Stahl muttered to himself before quickly appraising the pure white, somewhat weirdly shiny piece of cloth he was holding. [Magic Cloth][Quality - Highest][Rank - 3] "Magic Cloth..? And it¡¯s a Rank 3 material, so if I use this, then I should probably be able to level up a lot faster, right?" Stahl asked as he turned to Sky, who slowly lifted his head from the book and shook his head. "Nope. You most likely can¡¯t even use it yet. I don¡¯t have the Tailoring skill, but I think that counts as something you learn to use at ater rank. And using materials with ranks higher than your skill¡¯s rank is really, really hard. One rank above is bearable, two ranks above is nearly impossible, and you most likely won¡¯t be able to scratch a material three ranks above your skill¡¯s rank. Well, using it might be possible if you try hard enough, but anything you make will be far, far worse in quality than you could want, if you¡¯re not at the right rank." Sky exined before waving his hand to unsummon the Inkheart cksmithing teacher. "Oh, and I don¡¯t have Tailors or Leatherworkers, so you¡¯ll have to deal with that on your own." The Fey-Kin said with a grin, and then swiftly looked back at his book, leaving Stahl to simply sigh loudly. "Fine, fine... Then I can¡¯t use this yet... Hmm, then what can I use..?" Stahl muttered to himself as he swiftly left the room to look for some fabrics that he would be able to use, before finding something rather unexpected amongst the materials. For some reason, there was a ck suit, with a red tie and red handkerchief, as well as a ck shirt. Its whole arm waspletely ripped up, so it was really shredded to pieces. "Hmm... Maybe I should try and fix this?" Stahl muttered to himself. He never made anything from scratch, but at the very least, he knew how to somewhat sew things back together. He fixed one of Katy¡¯s stuffed toys once when she identally ripped it up. "Oh, that would be a nice idea as well... There¡¯s some kids on the ship, so they¡¯ll surely be happy to have something to y around with." He told himself before he grabbed the ripped up suit, a big mountain of cotton, and a bunch of cloth simr to jute fabrics in their texture and strength. "Alright, this should be enough..." Stahl muttered to himself, before making his way back to the workspace and sitting down in front of the simple t surface that the Rock-Lizard created before leaving at Stahl¡¯s request. "Okay, now some needles and thread..." He said quietly as he took a look around the room and found just what he was looking for in the corner, before nodding his sead with a grin. "First, I need to figure out what it should look like." Stahl told himself before slowly holding his palm forward and creating a small model of a very simple teddy-bear. And then, using that small mana-figure as a reference, Stahl made some sketches on paper, which he then cut out with a knife he found, to make temtes. The first thing that he then did was cut those parts out. ¡¯Tailoring¡¯, or rather just sewing in this case, was something that was rather easily done at home without needing any extraordinary materials or tools, so Stahl knew somewhat how this worked, if not from doing so a few times himself then just because he saw it in TV or in some random videos online. After cutting everything out, Stahl then swiftly sewed each surface together in a set of ¡¯Limbs¡¯, meaning that he made two separate arms, two separate legs, the torso, the head, and the ears. And he did that by sewing the parts together inside-out, because that would make it easier to his the sewing-lines. "Wait, do I need to fill the limbs with cotton now and then sew everything together, or do I need to sew everything together, and THEN fill everything with cotton?" Stahl asked himself before shaking his head in realization. "First sew everything together while it¡¯s inside-out, then flip it back so that the inside is back where it belongs, and then fill it... otherwise I wouldn¡¯t be able to hide the ces where I sewed it together well, right..?" He muttered unsure, but simply shrugged. If he did it wrong now, he would do it the right way next time. Carefully, although he was trying to do it rtively fast to finish this as soon as he could manage, Stahl sewed the different parts together and finished the inside-out teddy-bear, and then he grabbed some of the cloth and bundle it together. There was still an opening around the ¡¯crotch¡¯ area of the teddy bear, which Stahl then used to flip the teddy around again, and then used to fill the whole thing as tightly with cotton as he could. And after he did so, he swiftly sewed the small hole shut, sewed a small triangle-shape into the head of the teddy as a nose, and then added two buttons as eyes. "Aaand finished!" Stahl eximed with a broad grin, happily reading through the notification telling him that he received the Tailoring Skill, as well as the information about the small teddy bear that he made, which actually ended up with a ¡¯High¡¯ Quality! "Huh, maybe I¡¯m actually pretty talented at Sewing!" The young manughed, and Sky looked at him with a wry smile and a frown. "Why, because you managed to make a child¡¯s toy?" He asked, and Stahl simply smiled at the young Fey-Kin boy. "Yes! Because I managed to get a High Quality without even having the skill beforehand!" Stahl chuckled, before cing the teddy bear to the side again. "And now, I¡¯ll make a few more, and then fix this suit up a little bit..." "Wait, Suit?" Sky asked surprised, before Stahl looked at him with a frown. "Yeah, why?" "Because that¡¯s Eisen¡¯s Suit." Chapter 269 Bookbinding for Dummies "This is my Grandfather¡¯s suit?" Stahl asked surprised, and Sky immediately nodded his head. "Yeah, I¡¯m actually pretty surprised that he hasn¡¯t repaired it yet. Although now that I think about it, he¡¯s only been wearing the leather apron and wool pants ever since then..." He muttered, before Stahl looked at him with a frown. "And why is the suitpletely ripped up like this?" Stahl asked curiously, and Sky could only scratch the back of his head. "Oh, that... Yeah, that was a bit extreme, wasn¡¯t it... I don¡¯t know if he told you about it yet, but back in Handor there was this Shaman leading some organization, and he threw curses upon curses onto Eisen¡¯s arm. To avoid being taken over, Eisen then ripped his arm off..." Sky that with a wry smile, feeling awkward about saying something like that so openly, because it was a seriously crazy thing. "O-Oh, that... Yeah, he told me about that..." Stahl answered, slowly remembering that he did know about it, before Sky continued. "Actually, it turned into some kind of weird magical mass afterward, a Mass of Yin, apparently. It¡¯s in the safe right now, but it¡¯s a pretty weird thing to look at, really." Sky exined, and Stahl asked a few questions about that ¡¯Mass of Yin¡¯, although Sky wasn¡¯t really able to answer any of them. "We literally don¡¯t know anything about it. There¡¯s probably a Mass of Yang that can be created somehow, but we just don¡¯t know how, or if that¡¯s a good idea, even." Sky answered before he sat back down properly, and then looked back at his book, "Anyway, just get to work again, I want to try bookbinding soon..." The Fey-Kin chuckled, and Stahl slowly nodded his head. For a while, he made some different plushies in the shape of different animals, and when he finished five of them, he was nearly at Rank 1 already and ced the suit in front of him, quietly muttering to himself. "Alright, so everything isrgely in one piece, it¡¯s just the one sleeve that isn¡¯t... Although it in itself is also in a piece, just that the ce where it was ripped-off wasn¡¯t..." He quietly observed, before leaning back against the wall and thinking about what he should do. "Should I patch it up? Or should I make a new sleeve? Or can I somehow just re-attach it to the main-body of the suit?" Stahl asked himself, before considering all three possibilities, before choosing to just take a look. Slowly, heid the jacket of the suit down on the rock surface andid the sleeve against the shoulder part where it used to be attached to, making sure that it was parallel to the other, still-attached sleeve. And then, he tried filling out the area inbetween the sleeve and the shoulder part of the suit with mana, to see how much fabric he would end up needing to use. "Hmm, if I cut the rough parts here away, I should be able to attach a patch pretty easily, but it wouldn¡¯t look good in the end... except if I maybe..." Stahl muttered to himself, before starting to grin and getting a pretty good idea. "Sky, do you know if my grandfather wanted to get rid of this suit?" He inquired, before the Fey-Kin boy looked up and shook his head. "No clue, but I doubt he wanted to do anything with it. Otherwise he would have long fixed it." Sky answered, and Stahl nodded his head,ing to a conclusion with what he wanted to do. So, he ced the suit to the side for now, and then grabbed more fabrics to make another stuffed toy or two, because he just made the decision to use the Suit as a base for a pretty neat project on his own, once he got all the crafting skills he needed. And once he finished another stuffed toy, his Tailoring skill ranked up to 1, so he moved on to Leatherworking. There wasn¡¯t much Rank 0 leather there, because neither Eisen nor his apprentices used anything below Rank 1 or 2 leather, but there was at least a little bit there that Stahl hoped to be able to use until he reached Rank 1 in Leatherworking. "Okay, now..." Stahl muttered to himself as he sat down in front of the table, before looking over at Sky. "Alright, I¡¯m starting with leatherworking now. I¡¯ll get it to Rank 1, and then we can get started on a book. But do you know anything that I could do with leather that takes up the least amount of material, while giving me the most amount of proficiency?" He asked, and Sky scratched the back of his head. "Well, make something small and simple to start it off with... No matter what kind of item you make as your first, you¡¯ll only end up at Level 1 anyway, so you shouldn¡¯t waste it. Maybe make something that you can thenter use as a part of somethingrger. The more detail something has, the more proficiency it should give you." Sky exined without looking up from his book, and Stahl slowly nodded. "Coolio, thanks." The young man answered, before thinking about what he should do then. "Well... I guess I can make a leather bracelet or something and work more on thatter..." Stahl muttered to himself, before doing just that. He swiftly cut out a strip of leatherrge enough for his arm, pressed a few lines into the edges, and then made holes into the two ends where he then put in some thick leather string, so that he could bind it shut. And that quickly, Stahl managed to learn the Leatherworking skill. It wasn¡¯t a high-quality item, but just as Sky had said, it didn¡¯t need to be. It just had to be enough so that he could learn the skill. And now, the work really began. "Alright, I want an upation where I can do practically anything, so I need to be prepared for all kinds of situations. Maybe a tool-belt would be a good idea then?" Stahl muttered to himself, and swiftly grabbed a piece of paper, where he sketched a few ideas on, swiftly gaining the drawing skill as well. And soon, Stahl came up with a pretty good idea for a nice utility belt, although it wasn¡¯t actually something that could be worn as a belt. In its size, it was also a bit more like a wrestler¡¯s champion-belt, so it really would be a bit annoying to actually wear, so it may end up being something he would just sling over his shoulder. And so, Stahl swiftly began to work, cutting out all the pieces that he would end up needing first. For this Utility Belt, Stahl wanted to do something with ¡¯bags inside of bags¡¯, where he would be able to simply keep smaller pouches just bound to the belt, so that he might be able to get a little extra proficiency out of this, as he would be making multiple smaller finished items that would end uping together to one big item. For example, he created in total four bags meant for ¡¯Recovery Pills¡¯, like the Health or Mana Pills that Eisen gave him before, or simr items with effects that might be useful to have avable at all times. Then of course there were also some small bags meant to just hold potions, which he could have done through simply cing somepartments into the belt itself, although that would require the potion bottles to have a single size that was shared amongst all of them so that they could fit perfectly into thosepartments, but now he just needed to make a new small bag whenever he had a size of bottle that didn¡¯t fit into any of the other bags. And then there were of course things like sheaths in a few different sizes that could be attached and detached depending on what kind of items he needed, and some small pouches meant for small collectable items like herbs or monster-drops, although they technically didn¡¯t drop anything and everything needed to be cut off of them. Either way, each one of the small bags gave Stahl a good bit of proficiency in his Leatherworking skill, and when he attached a number of the bags onto the utility belt, ced the others onto it, and then saw it as finished, Stahl gained enough proficiency so that he finally ranked his Leatherworking skill up to 1. [Customizable Utility Belt] [Quality - Average][Rank - 0] [Description] A simple Belt made by a nameless Leatherworker. It has multiple ces where numerous different bags, pouches or sheaths can be attached, depending on what kind of situation the user of this belt is in. [Effect] None "Nice!" Stahl eximed with a grin, before he looked over toward Sky with his arms crossed. "I¡¯m done, let¡¯s work on a book now!" Immediately, the young Fey-Kin ced his books to the side and jumped onto his feet, stepping over to the rock ¡¯table¡¯. "Alright, so what do we need exactly?" Stahl asked with a smile, and Sky just thought about it for a little while before answering. "Well, paper, waxed thread, cardboard, glue and leather, I guess. Oh, and a little bit of cloth." He answered, and Stahl slowly nodded his head before stepping out the door to rush to the material storage, where he immediately grabbed all of those things and returned as swiftly as he could. "Okay! My grandfather puts the paper into bundles or something, right?" Stahl asked before Sky nodded his head. "I think so, yeah. He puts five or six together, puts holes into them, and then just sews the paper together?" He said, trying to remember what exactly needed to be done. "Right, I think so too. Hmm... how was the stitch again..?" Stahl muttered to himself as he closed his eyes, trying to remember what he saw in videos online before, as well as what he briefly saw through his grandfather¡¯s work. "Anyway, let¡¯s first just get the paper ready to make a thin book." Stahl suggested, and Sky nodded his head as well, before both of them started to do just that. They each got about 10 bundles of five sheets of paper each, and put a few holes along the spines of each bundle, before Stahl tried to start. First, he tried to push the needles through the holes in the way that he thought to remember, putting it into the first hole on one end, pulling it out in the next hole, then putting it back in the next hole after that, and pulling it back out in thest hole, before moving onto the sheet of paper directly above that and repeating the same thing. Sky tried doing the same, following Stahl¡¯s example as he did so, and after a little while, they both managed to sew all of their bundles together. "And now I know what¡¯s next!" Sky eximed, now really sure what needed to be done, because he specifically remembered Eisen doing this next step. "Now we need to put cloth on the thin side here, I think Eisen called it ¡¯Spine¡¯, and glue it on there... I think a little bit needed to go to the front and back as well, but we won¡¯t glue it there. Instead, we¡¯re putting a thicker piece of paper onto that." Sky said with a smile, and Stahl nodded his head. "Oh, right, I guess that was it..." He muttered, d that Sky managed to fill in, because he would have otherwise just glued the cardboard onto the sides. "And now, I think it¡¯s the covers, right? How do we attach those, though?" Sky asked, and Stahl scratched the back of his head before remembering part of what to do. "Well, I think we can just put the cardboard on there, and then glue it onto the spine with more cloth." Stahl suggested, and Sky nodded his head. "Oh, right! I think Eisen was using some thin rope, but that was probably just to make those thicker parts on the spine. I don¡¯t think that¡¯s necessary, so that probably works." Sky added, so the two of them did just that. They loosely ced cardboard a littlerger than the sheets of paper onto the front and back, and then glued it onto the book with some cloth so that it could hold onto it properly. And atst, it was the leather. This part was rtively easy to figure out, as it was now just a big, square piece of leather, with the edges slightly cut off, that was then ced onto the book and glued on there. After both Stahl and Sky did that, they looked at each other with frowns. "Well, it¡¯s not the best book I¡¯ve ever seen..." Sky muttered out, and Stahl nodded his head before looking at the item in his hand. "Yeah, but it¡¯s good for a first try without proper instruction, right?" He proposed, and Sky shrugged, before both Stahl and Sky chose to simply see the book as finished now, both of them getting the Bookbinding skill. Chapter 270 Art Teacher "I really made one myself..." Sky muttered out to himself quietly, staring at the quite roughly made, small notebook in his hands. With a smirk, Stahl nodded his head and looked at the blue-haired fey-kin. "Is that really so important to you?" Stahl asked, and without hesitation Sky nodded his head. "Of course it is. I like books more than people, after all. Well, more than most people. Except for Bree, Eisen, my Mother... and you¡¯re not too bad either, I guess." Sky said with a wry smile, and Stahl just grinned at him. "Ooh, look who loves me all of a sudden~!" He eximed, and immediately Sky looked at him with a wry smile. "Alright, I take it back, you¡¯re horrible." Sky answered, before the green-haired boy simplyughed again. "Dude, I¡¯m just kidding. So, wanna return the favor of me helping you out with the book?" Stahl inquired, and Sky looked at him with a frown. "Hey, I don¡¯t owe you anything! I gave you some tips as well!" Sky protested, but Stahl just shook his head. "Not what I mean. I just want you to give me some pointers on the Scribe skill. I wanted to go see Evalia in a bit and ask her to teach me about art skills, and writing is an artistic thing, right? It should be useful for Crafting, Art and Magic anyway, so it¡¯s a good skill to know." Stahl pointed out, and Sky swiftly nodded his head. "Oh, that¡¯s fure sure, yes. You know how Art skills work with charisma, right? There¡¯s a lot of books written by famous artists with their charisma infused into it, so you feel more strongly about what¡¯s going on in the story. It¡¯s obviously useful for magic if not for the fact that you can make things like magic contracts, then because it¡¯s a good way to make a quick enchantment circle, which is where it goes into crafting as well. So you have a point." Sky exined as he fiddled with something in his pocket before pulling out a simple ink pen. "But all I can say is to just write into that book for a while, and soon enough you should get the skill, and then after that you will be told when you can make magic scriptures, contracts or scrolls, and you should be able to ask Xenia about that as well. She does know more about that area of Scribing than me." The Fey-Kin exined, and Stahl nodded his head before graciously epting the pen from Sky. "I see, thanks then! Then I¡¯ll be off! If you want to practice bookbinding some more, there¡¯s still a bit of Rank 0 leather left. And we can buy some more when we stop thest time before heading off to the inds." Stahl pointed out, before stepping toward the door with a smile, and Sky slowly nodded his head, as the two of them soon split up. On the way, Stahl managed to see a worried Bree and depressed Kiron, who seemed to be in that state due to the fact that Eisen wouldn¡¯t be waking up for a few more days. And with a wry smile, Stahl just continued walking, because he really didn¡¯t know what to say to those two. He wasn¡¯t really feeling all that great about it either, as he did really know the reason behind his temporary leave. Stahl himself was incredibly nervous and scared, so he didn¡¯t feel it in him to cheer people up that were showing it so openly. So for now, Stahl wanted to distract himself with a self-given task, which was to learn all kinds of skills and gain an upation that allowed him to be an omnipotent Deity of this world! With that in mind, Stahl then happily made his way over to the ce there Evalia was working most of the time. It was directly in the center of the water surface, and had a thick, mana-crystal window directly in front of it so that she was able to safely watch what was going on above water and below water at all times. It was really a great sight, especially in the areas with especially clear water, or at night when you could see the colorful shimmer of luminescent sea-monsters ignite the bottom of the ocean. No wonder Evalia liked to be here that much. "Eyo, you¡¯re hopefully decent, cuz I¡¯min¡¯ in either way." Stahl eximed just as he opened the door, and was immediately met with a rather extraordinary sight. There was a small, incredibly colorful monster, most likely temporarily charmed by one of Evalia¡¯s skills, following the ship and swimming directly in front of the mana-crystal window, as if trying to show its scales off to the beautiful young artist standing in front of her easel as she was humming a quiet song. A sight like that made even the distracted and usually so confident Stahl stutter for a little bit as he simply stared at what was in front of him at the moment. And a few momentster, Evalia seemed to have noticed him as well, looking over to him with a big smile. "Oh hello there! Didn¡¯t expect you toe by so soon!" She eximed and soon returned her sight to what she was painting, and Stahl slowly stepped closer as he scratched the back of his neck. "Hah... Yeah, I just finished learning a few crafting skills, so I wanted to move onto Art next, because it oveps in a lot of areas... So... here I am!" Stahl eximed, and Evalia nodded her head, keeping up her smile. "Alright, that¡¯s fine by me! Just wait a second, I¡¯m about to finish this painting up, so go ahead and take a seat!" She eximed with a smile as she, for just a moment, looked over toward the small table and chairs in the corner of the room. At first Stahl had thought that his grandfather made them for her, but that was rather unlikely. They were incredibly beautifully carved, as if each piece was taken out of a single block of wood, and there were so many intricate, tiny parts in its decorative nature that it really didn¡¯t seem like anything his grandfather would make. He was more utilitarian, and this was obviously made by an artist, so they were most likely created by Evalia herself. Either way, Stahl quietly sat down on one of the chairs and continued watching Evalia while trying to work on a small item that he thought would give him a useful skill. He grabbed a small block of wood on his way to this room, so that he could carve something out of it to gain the woodworking skill. Carving was a sub-category of Sculpting, counting toward that skill, so he would be able to gain proficiency for both the Sculpting and Woodworking skill whenever he worked on wood in an artistic way, although thetter would gain a little lesspared to the former. And when Evalia finished her painting, Stahl had finished a rtively small, straight wooden ruler, which really just required him to straighten everything out and make some markings. It wasn¡¯t anything special, but it was enough to do its purpose, and Stahl immediately gained the Woodworking skill. And so, he stood back up and ced the ruler down on the table before approaching Evalia to take a look at the final product. And now that he took a look at it, he really wasn¡¯t sure what exactly he was looking at. In any other scenario that meant that a painting was so bad or abstract that it was hard to know what was supposed to be shown, but in this case, it had another reason. The paint on the canvas was literally flowing around, copying the movements of the small colorful monster that was still swimming next to the window. That was exactly where Stahl didn¡¯t know what he was looking at. Was he currently really looking at the painting, or rather at the monster swimming outside? It was a bit weird to see a painting like that, but after a few moments, he somewhat got used to it, and instead looked over at Evalia, who was looking at him, earnest for his opinion. "This is just... amazing... seriously... I knew you were great at such things, but this is on a whole other level..." He muttered out, before noticing another peculiarity, although now not on the painting, but rather on the painter. "Were your eyes always that colorful?" Stahl asked suddenly, and Evalia slowly stumbled back a bit before looking at him in surprise. "Well, I surely didn¡¯t expect you to take that chance to flirt with me..." She chuckled, and Stahl immediately realized what was going on. "O-Oh, no! That¡¯s not what I mean! Well, you do have beautiful eyes in any situation, but right now I meant that your eyes seriously were ¡¯colorful¡¯... As in every color there is..." He exined with a light blush on his cheeks, before Evalia remembered what was going on. Obviously she didn¡¯t miss the ¡¯beautiful eyes in any situation¡¯ment either. "Ah! This is my element, you know? I infused it into my eyes, and that lets me see more vibrant colors than usual. It¡¯s pretty useful when I want to draw beautiful sceneries, because I can make my paint just as vibrant as I see the world in that moment, so that I can show it in my art." Evalia exined, and Stahl slowly nodded his head, just continuing to stare at the slightly shifting colors in her iris. "Anyway..." Evalia then said after a little while. She enjoyed such direct eye contact with Stahl, but there was something else that the two of them needed to do now, so she didn¡¯t want to push that away either. "You said you wanted to learn Art skills? What kind? Music, Painting, Sculpting?" Evalia asked, and Stahl began to scratch the back of his head. "Well, I want to learn one of every kind, if possible. I know how to y the Guitar already, so that would take care of music. I¡¯ll just have to take care of learning that skill. I guess I just need some pointers on drawing and sculpting, then." Stahl answered, before Evalia sighed loudly. "Just Drawing and Sculpting? I was giving some examples, not three choices, you know?" Evalia said quite clearly, before Stahl looked at her confused. "The artistic skills that I have are different music skills for different instruments, singing, acting, dancing, sculpting, drawing, photography, , and a few different crafting skills that I use for artistic purposes. If you want to be taught by me, I¡¯ll have you learn all of these skills. Well, beside the instrument-specific music skills, I guess. Just having you get one sub-type of each of those should be enough." The young artist exined, and Stahl slightly tilted his head to the side with a wry smile. "...Eh...?" He asked, and Evalia crossed her arms with a chuckle. "What, you think that I¡¯d let you half-ass through learning my passion? Think again." Sheughed, so Stahl slowly nodded his head. "Y-Yeah, I get it, I was just a bit surprised... So, what are we starting with?" Stahl asked with a smile, before Evalia just chuckled and stepped over to the corner of the room, where she swiftly grabbed the Guitar that Eisen made for her a little while ago. "Let¡¯s start with what you can do already, I guess. Just y me something. If you keep ying constantly for about twenty to thirty minutes, you should get to Rank 1 with it. That¡¯s the rank you wanted those different skills to roughly have, right?" Evalia asked, and Stahl slowly nodded his head, before starting to pull on the strings of the guitar, slowly starting to y a rtively simple song while Evalia began to exin a few different important things about artistic skills. Chapter 271 Awkward Dancing "First, artistic skills are for different things. Either, just for regr appreciation, or to cause some kind of effect in another person. Like looking at a painting that a great artist made will give you some small stat or regeneration bonuses. Listening to a certain song, will strengthen you in a specific way. And then, there are skills that have other effects as well, such as directly charming enemies, or somehow managing to hide in any situation. Thest one is something learned through Acting, by the way." Evalia exined with a smile as she curiously listened to the song that Stahl was ying, while Stahl himself in turn curiously listened to what Evalia was saying, even immediately waving away the notification that appeared to tell him that he learned the Guitar-ying Skill. "Alright, so art skills are support skills then, I guess?" He asked, and Evalia immediately nodded her head. "Basically. At the very least, it should be pretty hard to survive a fight with just art skills, although depending on what you do, you can, as mentioned, temporarily charm monsters and have them fight for you." Evalia told the young man, who kept listening curiously. "So for now, we¡¯re going to have you learn skills that are rtively easy to learn just like this. As in instruments, painting, singing, dancing, and so on. But a skill like acting is something that we¡¯ll wait for until we get to town." She exined, so Stahl once more nodded in response. "Got it. But why exactly is that?" He asked with a wry smile, and Evalia just chuckled. "Well, acting is easier to level up the more you convincec another person. And here, everyone knows who you are exactly, so having you go around and act a certain way different to usual might be a teeny tiny bit awkward. So, when we get to the next town, with different prompts for your personality that I¡¯m going to give you, I¡¯ll tell you who to talk to for what reason, and you go for it." "Huh, that makes sense... Yeah, trying to act in front of everyone here might be a bit awkward, as you said..." Stahl responded to the young artist and nodded his head, before remembering something else, "Oh, and you mentioned Photography, right? How do we do that?" With a grin, Evalia just leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms in response to that question. "Eisen made some ¡¯Camera bots¡¯, as he called them. If we take those andmand them to save certain things in their memory, it counts as photography." "Oh really? Nice, I didn¡¯t know that." Stahl said curiously, and Evalia chuckled with a smile. "Yeah, I didn¡¯t know either, and then I suddenly got the skill." She exined, and Stahl continued ying rather nervously, as he wasn¡¯t aware that there were that many different skills. And he was also nervous, because he was pretty sure that the other ¡¯Originals¡¯ would act in a simr way. Including his grandfather, who would maybe even get him to learn even more crafting skills when he got out of the hospital. Either way, for a little while longer, Stahl simply continued ying the guitar until his skill ranked up to one. And then, he was given a flute, which he was swiftly instructed on how to y, before having to y it for an hour. After that followed a drum, and then even a musical keyboard, although it was just rather simply constructed. And after about three hours, Stahl was finally done with the instruments, but just when he wanted to take a break, Evalia just brightly smiled at him. "And now we¡¯re moving onto singing!" She eximed, before Stahl slowly nodded his head and nervously did as instructed. He was rather nervous about singing in front of Evalia, but luckily, she was just giving him basic singing lessons, where he had to hold a tone for a long time or copy a certain tone with his voice. So it wasn¡¯t actually as embarrassing, and rather fun to do in the end! And after that, they moved onto dancing, where it then again turned a bit embarrassing. Of course dancing in simple, pre-shown movements was also a way to level the skill up, but the easiest way seemed to be to actually dance with another person. So, Stahl and Evalia did just that. Stahl knew how to dance a little bit, but only to the extent of not utterly embarrassing himself at Prom. On the other hand, Evalia was practically as good at controlling her body as those meditating monks Stahl once read about, who were able to do crazy things with their bodies. So, it became a bit awkward when Stahl couldn¡¯t really keep up at all, and he simply ended up reaching Rank 1 in dancing through repeated stumbling and stepping on a cute girl¡¯s toes. "Okay, after you literally cost me a good portion of HP, we¡¯re moving onto drawing. It¡¯s getting prettyte, though, so that should be thest thing we¡¯ll do today. Tomorrow, we¡¯ll work on Scribing, Sculpting, and then Photography." Evalia exined with a smile, and Stahl swiftly nodded his head. "Gotcha. Alright, what do I need to start with then?" Stahl asked, and Evalia just shrugged. "It¡¯s art. Just paint whatever you want. Different focuses give different amounts of proficiency, depending on how well you actually fulfill the goal of that focus. You already have the drawing skill, so you just need to make a few big, kindaplex drawings, or a bunch of small, simple drawings to get it to Rank 1." She exined with a light smile, before Stahl nodded his head and looked at the canvas that Evalia handed to him. "What to draw then...?" The young man quietly muttered to himself before thinking about it closely, and then remembering the small Mana Model that he had worked on in the morning, choosing to just take it as a reference. Slowly, he created the model with his mana again after it had been saved in his Mana Modeling skill, and then began to paint what he saw. In the end, it really didn¡¯t look too shabby. But ¡¯too shabby¡¯ also means that it wasn¡¯t necessarily great, which it by no possible means was. It was just average, something that would most likely get a ¡¯B¡¯ in art ss. And Stahl was fine with that, it was much better than the Dagger he attempted making before as his first try at cksmithing. But that wasn¡¯t thest painting that he would be making throughout the rest of the day, and he slowly began to understand why Evalia said that this would be thest thing they would do today. The other skills gained proficiency rather steadily, because they were ¡¯Action-Based¡¯ skills that could be performed semi-constantly and gained a steady amount of proficiency, but a skill like drawing was ¡¯Item-Based¡¯, meaning that Stahl was gaining only a little bit of proficiency during the action, and the most amount after actually finishing an item. So, it would take a good bit longer to rank these skills up than Stahl had expected at first. But even then, he didn¡¯t mind. Because it was fun to paint. --- After finally ranking his Drawing skill up to 1, Benji logged off and swiftly stepped out of the capsule, so that he could face reality again. The tough reality, in which Benjamin was in the hospital, while Benji was having fun hanging out with everyone in the game. And Immediately after stepping out of the capsule, Benji got dressed and put on his shoes, before stepping out to the livingroom, where his father was already waiting. It was still pretty awkward between them, but at this point they at the very least managed to talk the most important things out, and Benji finally understood what an asshole he was being. Of course, in Benji¡¯s mind his anger was quite justified, because his father who kept on preaching about always doing the right thing and never hurting anyone or breaking thew ended up being a former criminal. It was just that his reaction was utterly disgusting. Calling his father names, insulting him, and even just running away from what was going on was something that Benji wasn¡¯t proud of. At all. But it happened, so he couldn¡¯t hide from it. Although that mentality was part of why Benji got so mad, as his father always taught him to own up to their mistakes. And at least now, Tony was trying to do that. A littlete in Benji¡¯s opinion, but better now than never. "So... When are we going to the hospital?" Benji asked somewhat awkwardly, and Tony slowly scratched the back of his neck as he properly sat up, looking at his son with a sorry expression. "We¡¯re not..." He answered, and Benji immediately looked at him with a frown. "What do you mean, we¡¯re not going to see him?" The young man asked, once more slightly getting angry at his father, before thetter answered. "Your grandfather asked us not toe visit him. At least not right now. To start it off with, today he¡¯s not going to be in once single ce anyway, because they¡¯re running all kinds of tests on him to see how they can best fix what¡¯s going on with his arm. Maybe tomorrow we can go see him, but for today, let¡¯s let him just rx the little time he has to do that." Tony exined, so Benji slowly nodded his head and sighed. "I guess..." He answered, slightly looking at the ground with a somewhat sad expression, before Tony spoke up. "Don¡¯t worry, he¡¯sing back Thursday anyway. It¡¯s not like your grandfather is dying." He said with a smile, trying to reassure his oldest son, although he rather did the opposite. He scared his youngest daughter. "W-?What do you mean, grampa is dying?!" She asked with tears in her eyes. "First, Sean tells me I have an icky skeleton in me, and now grampa is dying?!" Katy asked as tears began to flow down her cheeks, and Tony immediately jumped up from the couch and sprinted over to her, trying to calm her down by exining that he was saying the opposite, which was that Benjamin wasn¡¯t dying at all, and that he would return in top health in a few days. "Really? Grampa is going to be fine..?" Katy asked with a quiet sniffle, and Tony nodded his head as he continued tofort his daughter, running his hand over hear head slowly. "Of course he is, don¡¯t worry." He answered, and in the meantime, Benji was exining the situation to Sophia, telling her that Benjamin asked that they wouldn¡¯t visit him today. "Oh... Are you sure we should listen to him? Shouldn¡¯t we at least go see him for a few minutes?" She asked, but Benji just shrugged. "I think so too, but if Dad and Grampa say so, then I guess we shouldn¡¯t... Erm, want to go out for a run with me?" The young man asked, and Sophia looked at him in surprise. "Run? You?" "What¡¯s that supposed to mean? You know what, nevermind that, I don¡¯t want to hear the answer to that... Yes, I obviously run, I got part of my schrship for College is an athletic schrship after all. I¡¯ve just beenzing around all the time the past few days and stuffing my face, so I really need to get to it. And it¡¯s a good way to distract myself right now. And since I¡¯ll just be sitting in the capsule all-" "Fine, fine, I get it... Don¡¯t need to hear your life story... I¡¯ll just change real quick, then we can go, I guess. I can finally wear something normal for sport, and not just sweatpants and sweatshirts..." Sophia added as she quietly yawned and made her way back to her room, while Benji did the same to get dressed in a more proper outfit for running as well. And then, the two cousins went and worked out together. Chapter 272 Sculpting After going for a run together with Sophia, the two teenagers swiftly logged back into the game. Now, Tony would be spending his time taking care of Sean and Katy, so Sophia had more than enough time to go back to being Alnico for a while. And quite coincidentally, the young woman had simr ns as Stahl did, as she also wanted to get a few more lessons from Evalia about different musical skills and how to use magic together with them. And so, the two cousins swiftly greeted Evalia together. "Huh, you two wannae and learn stuff together?" She asked with a grin, and Stahl swiftly nodded his head, "Yeah, I really just need to learn the basics and then grind for proficiency anyway, so I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be able to correct any mistakes I make while you¡¯re giving Al a few direct pointers." He answered, sitting down at the table in the corner before Evalia smiled at him. "Alright, sure. Do you wanna keep going where we stoppedst time? I¡¯ll just tell Stahl what he needs to do, and then I¡¯ll join you." She suggested, and Al nodded her head with a smile before making her way to the other corner of the room where most of Evalia¡¯s instruments were kept. "So, we said we¡¯d get to Scribing next, right? How much do you know about the skill?" She asked with a smile, before Stahl just scratched the back of his head and shrugged. "Not too much, it¡¯s just writing, right?" Stahl asked a bit confused, and Evalia swiftly nodded. "Sure, but there¡¯s much more to it than that. In order to gain direct proficiency in it, you need your writing to have a purpose. For example, Komer¡¯s leveling his Scribing skill up nicely because he¡¯s writing down calctions and notes for everything merchant-rted. I leveled up mine through Caligraphy and Poetry. So you¡¯ll really have to find your own way of doing stuff, I guess. As long as you¡¯re not writing random words without purpose, you should be able to get it to rank up to 1 in an hour or so. I have some brushes and ink here as well if you want to try that type of Caligraphy." Evalia exined, so Stahl slowly nodded his head. "I see, thanks! Sky lent me a pen, so I think I¡¯ll at least use this for a while." He answered, before Evalia nodded and turned around, heading over toward Alnico. "Okay... so I need to write something with meaning?" Stahl muttered to himself quietly, just ying around with the pen in his hand as he looked down onto the sheet of paper. "I guess... I can turn this into a Journal or something?" He asked, and just ended up shrugging a bit. He was at the start of his ¡¯Journey¡¯ throughout the game, so he still remembered basically everything that was going on. As such, maybe doing something like that would really be a nice idea, just to keep the memory somewhere at all times. "I guess that¡¯s a nice idea then." Stahl lightly shrugged, before swiftly starting to write into the small book that he made, from the moment that he ¡¯appeared¡¯ in the world, from the perspective of an NPC. After all, if an NPC happened to find this book and ended up reading a ton of game lingo, that might end up getting Stahl in trouble, so he preferred not taking that risk. And so, Stahl started writing about his ¡¯background¡¯ information from within the game, just as Eisen hade up with, as an introduction to the journal, before he started to actually write about what happened the past few days. About the town he appeared in, and what he did until his grandfather and the others came to pick him and the other ¡¯Alphas¡¯ up, and how they were then brought to the ship and ended up meeting everyone. Stahl even continued writing when his Scribing skill reached Rank 1, because he was getting somewhat caught up in it and really just wanted to continue writing about everything that happened so far up until this very moment, before he swiftly looked up from the paper and toward Evalia, who seemed to be trying to take a peek at what he was exactly writing about from over his shoulder. "Hey! Don¡¯t look into a Gentleman¡¯s Private Journal!" Heined jokingly, before smashing the book shut and standing up. "So, you peeker, next is sculpting, right?" Stahl asked, and Evalia swiftly nodded her head with a lightly wry smile. "Yup. I have a little bit of wood and a carving knife for you, so go ahead and get to work." Evalia answered, pointing at the nearly two meter tall log of wood and the tiny knife in his hand, before turning to Evalia with a frown. "Seriously? You want me to carve something out of that, with this?" He asked with a wry smile, and Evalia nodded her head immediately. "Mhm. Have fun!" She eximed, and Stahl looked at her with a sigh. "Somehow I feel like you gave up on me since yesterday." "Oh, it¡¯s not that at all! It¡¯s just that this is so straightforward you don¡¯t really need any pointers. It has the same rules as Drawing, just in 3D. Depending on what you want to aplish, you will get more proficiency the better you aplish it. Easy as that." Evalia answered, so Stahl slowly nodded and stepped up to the log in front of him, that he most likely wouldn¡¯t be able to pull his arms aroundpletely even if he tried. And so, Stahl swiftly got to work, and did that with two first steps. One, cutting off a thin, t surface vertically up the whole log, and two, setting the log down to be horizontal, using the t surface that he had just cut off so that the log wouldn¡¯t end up rolling around now or ever. As such, Stahl swiftly sat down in the corner with that log in front of him, somewhat walling him into the corner as if he was trying to build a fort, before he started to work on some wood. First, he worked with a small block to simply get the skill. And for that, he simply created a small carving of a cat sitting on its butt. As simple as that. It was neither much, nor was it especially good, but apparently at least enough to get the skill, which was all that Stahl wanted. And because he already had the woodworking skill, the task of then working on therge log became much easier, because the knife slid through the wood more smoothly. Just like that, Stahl began to work on his epic disy of wooden art, where he once again created a detailed copy of the ship they were currently on, but in a much grander way. On the ¡¯surface¡¯ he created a stormy ocean with giant waves, some even reaching the same height of the ship¡¯s tallest mast, while below the surface a giant ocean monster about twenty times the size of the ship was moving around peacefully, most likely creating those giant waves in the process. And that was really it, there wasn¡¯t necessarily much going on, but instead of Complexity, Stahl went for detail. Not only did he try to create a texture to make it seem like there were actual bubbles as well as seafoam on top of the water, but he even went so far as to create detailed versions of people he knew walking around on the ship. Obviously he also gave the monster arge amount of detail, and individually created some finely detailed scales, taking the patterns he saw on the scales of Fafnir as a reference. And in the end, Stahl was quite happy with the result as well. [Ship in a Monstrous Storm Scultpure] [Quality - High][Rank - 0] [Description] A wooden sculpture created by a nameless sculptor. It disys arge ship sailing on wild waters created by an enourmous underwater creature. [Artistic Value] 78 "Oh, nice!" Stahl eximed as he checked both the description of the sculpture as well as his status, noticing that he not only created something with a higher artistic value than he managed on his paintingsst night, but also managed to gain more than half the proficiency levels needed to rank the skill up to 1. "Well... It did take nearly three hours..." The young man then sighed as he stood up and stretched, before Evalia walked up to him. "You worked quite some time on that. It does look pretty nice, gotta admit. ¡¯Ship in a Monstrous Storm¡¯ is an interesting name too, and that artistic Value is more than I expected your first proper sculpture to have." She said impressed, and Stahl nodded his head with a grin. "Oh yeah, same! I didn¡¯t expect that either! Wait, why are your eyes colorful like yesterday again?" Stahl asked a bit surprised, and Evalia chuckled. "Well, I inspected it with my magic. As long as it has an artistic value, I get a prettyrge benefit to appraisal as long as I have my eyes infused, and I get some neat special info as well." She exined, so Stahl slowly nodded his head. "Huh... nice. Anyway... Is this really the easiest way to rank the sculpting skill up? I already spent a lot of time on it." He said with a sigh, before Evalia apanied him, overpowering his sigh. "¡¯A lot of time¡¯? You did that in three hours, you never would have normally been able to make something like that in just three hours. Be d the game assists you with that stuff, otherwise you¡¯d still be sitting there in a week. Scultping is just something that takes a good bit longer than other things, so you need to be patient. Even painting took you longer to rank up than the other skills, right?" Evalia asked with a lightly wry smile, before Stahl nodded his head. "I¡¯m pretty sure that¡¯s the case with any ¡¯Item-Based¡¯ skills... Although you need to ask your gramps about that, he has the most of those out of all of us. They take longer to level up, but the direct pay-off after doing so isrgerpared to ¡¯Action-Based¡¯ skills." Evalia exined, while Stahl curiously listened. And after Evalia exined a bit more, she just pointed behind herself at a few more, smaller logs of wood. "Just work on those for now, those should be enough to rank the skill uppletely." She suggested. "Alright, will do! Oh, and anything with an artistic purpose will end up leveling my Sculpting skill up instead of woodworking, right?" He asked, once more just to make sure, before Evalia nodded her head and returned to helping out Alnico. "Mhm, basically." She answered with a smile, so Stahl sat down and cracked his knuckles as he took a look at the wooden blocks and logs with a grin. "Then let¡¯s get to work." He muttered to himself. First, he grabbed the smallest blocks of wood he could find, carving out actually pretty tiny pieces. Luckily, because of his thoughts and intention, which the game was perfectly able to read as long as he thought about them strongly enough, they were actually seen as the part that they were supposed to be despite not actually being recognizable as such without any help from the creator. So, one after another, Stahl continued making small pieces of wood in peculiar shapes, then numerous spheres, before moving on to other parts, which all also had a pretty unique and weird shape individually. But because they were seen as exactly what Stahl intended, and he carved intricate patterns on the surfaces to make them artistic, they became not only fuel to rank his Sculpting skill up, but a perfect piece for the big ¡¯item¡¯ he wanted to create with numerous skills, that he started working toward when he started trying to fix Eisen¡¯s suit. Chapter 273 Essence "Huh? What¡¯s that pile of... stuff... you made there?" Evalia asked confused, and Stahl simply grinned at her. "Nothing special, just something I¡¯ll need for another project I¡¯ll work on some other time." He answered, and Evalia smirked at him as she crossed her arms. "Oh, I see, I¡¯m interested to see that finished project at some point then." She said with a chuckle, before Stahl nodded his head and stood up to properly talk to the woman in front of him. "I¡¯ll show you in a bit then! It should be finished before Grampses back..." Stahl said with a smile, and Evalia nodded her head. "Nice. Anyway, let¡¯s move on to thest skill you¡¯ll learn, alright?" "Ah, right! Photography, wasn¡¯t it?" He asked curiously, and Evalia nodded her head, already swiftly grabbing the sphere that she brought over here as well as the simple mana-crystal ¡¯tablet¡¯ that came with it. "Yup! Eisen made it so that all of us can control this thing. So, CB-1, wake up, float in front of us, and connect to device!" Evalia eximed, before the sphere in her hand began to shake for a moment before it unfolded itself, revealing it¡¯s perfectly round body and two big wings, which it immediately used to float in the same spot, while the screen in Evalia¡¯s hand started to disy what it was seeing, which was just Evalia and Stahl standing next to each other. "Oh! So that¡¯s what it was! Gramps asked me and my dad to help him out a bit to try and figure out proper configurations before I even started to y! Pretty cool, though." The young man said with a grin, before Evalia nodded her head with a smile. "Mhm! Now, just tell it to ¡¯Take a Picture¡¯, and it will show you a still image of whatever it was seeing at the moment. We can¡¯t save the pictures anywhere, but it¡¯s enough to gain proficiency in the skill. It takes a little bit because it¡¯s not really a camera meant to take pictures, but you should manage in a few hours. Just don¡¯t ¡¯spam¡¯ taking pictures, that¡¯s just going to halt your proficiency gain immensely." She exined before scratching the back of her head. "I advise you take this with you and justmand CB-1 out loud to take pictures whenever you feel like it." Evalia suggested, so Stahl swiftly nodded his head. "Alright, sounds good! Is it alright with you if I leave all the parts here for now? I don¡¯t really know where else to put them, and here is pretty safe. I doubt any of the people you brought with you from Handor would dare break in here and even steal something, after all." Stahl said with a smirk, and Evalia just nodded, not able to refute it, although she was somewhat d she didn¡¯t need to worry about stuff like that. "Mhm, then I¡¯ll just see youter tonight during Dinner! I heard it¡¯s a pretty nice stew today." Evalia said before Stahl nodded at her and stepped out the door, leaving the artist alone with Alnico, while Stahl made his way to his next ¡¯Trainer¡¯. Jyuuk. Luckily, he had to work prettyte in the day in real life this time around, so he ended up ying for another in-game day. Otherwise, Stahl would have possibly missed a pretty good chance, because Brody was offline, as he was working, and he meant to go to Xeniast because he didn¡¯t want to get his element pre-maturely. And he knew quite well that Jyuuk would most likely be found in the training area, where not only he, but also Brody and the otherbatists on the ship from amongst the people from the church were training in the daily. "Eyyoo, Jyuuk!" Stahl eximed with a grin, CB-1 flying behind him while Stahl told it to take a picture of the room. With a smile, Jyuuk made his way over from the corner where he was trying to get some of his undead to learn somebat abilities. "Good day Stahl. So you¡¯re done learning from Evalia? She told me about the progress you made yesterday, and it¡¯s quite impressive, I must say." The Beastperson said with a smile, before Stahl nodded his head slightly embarrassed. "Haha, not really, I just learned a few skills and got them to rank 1. All that did was increase my Mental stats a little." He said with a smirk, so Jyuuk chuckled and nodded his head. "I see. So you would like to learn from me now, yes?" Jyuuk asked, before Stahl immediately nodded his head, so the Monkey swiftly smirked and waved his hand to make the young, green-haired man follow back to the corner where his undead were currently waiting. And instead of handing him some bones to y around with for necromancy, or even seeds to make grow, what Jyuuk handed him were three books. One about numerous different species of nts, one about numerous different species of animals and monsters, and one about general anatomy in different species. "Huh?" Stahl asked surprised, before Jyuuk smiled at him. "Thergest reason why I have such high control over my undead and monsters is because I know what they are. For my monsters, I know their traits as living creatures, and try to enhance those natural traits as best I can. It allows me to care for them better in different ways. But it is most noticable in my nt Control and Necromancy, you see? If I didn¡¯t know about all the nts in different books, I wouldn¡¯t be aware of what they can do, and how they would be useful. Sure, I could just use generic species, but that¡¯s no fun." Jyuuk chuckled, while Stahl just tilted his head to the side a bit confused, still unsure what Jyuuk was trying to tell him. Noticing this, the Beastperson continued. "In order to bind enemies down, instead of just using any nt with natural strong qualities, I may use nts with naturally adhesive qualities. While enhancing the proteins that make up those adhesives on a basic level, I will also enhance and change the structure of the roots, maybe interchanging them with another species¡¯ so that they have a better hold in the earth. And when ites to undead, it¡¯s quite obvious why my knowledge is useful, right? I can easily notice any mistake in their bodily structure, I¡¯m able to give them artificial muscture by using different nts, and in some cases, I even use special species of flora to give them new abilties or just strengthen their general, basic features. And as such, so that you can have that knowledge as well, I will have you learn what¡¯s in those books." Jyuuk exined with a smile sorge that it pressed his eyes shut, before Stahl slowly nodded. "A-Alright, I guess I¡¯ll just study then..." Stahl sighed, but Jyuuk shook his head. "Of course I won¡¯t just have you study like a regr student, but in a rather special way. I have marked the pages for this ¡¯lesson¡¯ in the books. We¡¯re starting with ¡¯Floressence¡¯." Jyuuk exined, pointing at the book about nts on the top of the pile Stahl was holding, before Stahl nodded his head. "Oh, and we¡¯re of course going to learn about souls as well. It¡¯s a bit more spiritual, and not necessarily my area of expertise, but as my way of handling it is about taking on different characteristics of souls, it should be fine." Jyuuk chuckled and took out numerous small poutches out of his backpack, and Stahl looked at him surprised as the two sat down in the corner of the room to get a better look at everything. "Now, first, let¡¯s take a look at these different herbs. I¡¯m not sure if you learned about it yet, but these are incredibly important in alchemy, but also in other purposes. This will require you to use a bit of magic, but not too much, so it shouldn¡¯t be enough to have you rank your skill up." Jyuuk exined before pulling out a single seed out of one of the pouches and bnced it on the tip of his finger. Soon, the seed cracked open and it began to grow and grow, before covering Jyuuk¡¯s entire finger. And then, he pulled Stahl¡¯s hand forward, took out a knife, and cut across his palm. "What the- Dude, what are you doing?!" Stahl asked confused, unsure if Jyuuk was trying to kill him all of a sudden, before Jyuuk chuckled. "Just wait. Show me your palm again." He said, before Stahl hesitantly did so. And immediately, Jyuuk touched the ce where Stahl now had a small cut, before it nearly instantly healed up. "This is a herb with healing properties. It¡¯s used in Mid-Grade health potions. What you do within alchemy is quite simple. With the help of mana crystals and mana, you extract the properties of certain nts to cause a certain effect. This here is the same principle. Usually, just touching this herb will do nothing. Even when you chew it up and eat it, it¡¯s only going to maybe slightly help your vitality for a little while, but it won¡¯t have any direct effects shown on your status." Jyuuk exined, but Stahl just looked at him confused as he pulled on the skin on his palm to really make sure the wound was closed. "Then how did you do that just now? Was that some type of magic?" Stahl asked, and Jyuuk tilted his head to the side with a questioning expression. "I wonder. It¡¯s not really magic, but it¡¯s not not magic. It¡¯s a bit of both, and neither, I guess? You see, it¡¯s more of a ¡¯Life Essence¡¯ skill. You could say that the control of ¡¯Life Essence¡¯ is a type of magic, but in my opinion, it¡¯s not really. You need mana to manipte it though, so I get it. I guess you know about my nt Control skill, right? It¡¯s what I use to make my ¡¯Overgrown Undead¡¯. But the skill I used just now is called ¡¯nt Maniption¡¯." Jyuuk exined, but now Stahl was even more confused. "Huh? That sounds like the same skill though." He asked, growing quite curious at this, before Jyuuk continued. "You see, ¡¯nt Control¡¯ is about controlling the physical form and body of nts. You can make them grow faster, you can make them be more nutritious, or you can make them sturdier. Basically, it controls any technically non-magic attributes. ¡¯nt Maniption¡¯ however is about controlling the essence of nts. Something that¡¯s somewhat there, but not really. It¡¯s not magic, so it can¡¯t truly be noticed by magic-perception skills, but it¡¯s there in everything. Most of the time, for creatures with strong essences, those essences mixed into their mana so it¡¯s hard to see the difference if you looked at both next to each other. But what I did here was take the essence that was inside this nt and pulled it out so that I could heal your palm." Jyuuk exined, and Stahl could only look at Jyuuk¡¯s finger curiously. "Really? So you have a ¡¯Healing Finger¡¯ now?" Stahl asked, but Jyuuk swiftly shook his head. "No, healing that small cut exhaust every bit of essence inside of the herb, so it¡¯s dead now. It was a freshly grown nt, after all." Jyuuk answered. "Oh... So basically, Essence is a finite fuel that can be found inside of nts?" He asked, and Jyuuk immediatley nodded his head. "Exactly. nts may be alive, as shown by the fact that they have Life Essence, but they aren¡¯t truly living. Only creatures that are truly living can replenish their life essence." He exined, so Stahl nodded his head. "Interesting... Hmm, this would be quite interesting to use for Alchemy then if this is already doing what you want it to do, right?" Stahl asked, and Jyuuk nodded. "Yes, it is, actually. I only recently found this effect when working with Xenia, so I was not able to inform Eisen of it yet, but through the experiments Xenia and I did, this would be an incredible way of enhancing any potion!" Chapter 274 Witherless Rose "An incredible way to enhance potions? Not just a different way to make potions?" Stahl asked a bit confused after listening to Jyuuk¡¯s exnation, and the Beastperson swiftly nodded. "Yes, a way to enhance potions. There¡¯s two issues that are basically non-avoidable while making potions usually. First, that there will be some impurities in the potion itself, and second, that not all the essence will stay inside the potion. Your grandfather usually keeps the water he gets after making potions to use as a base forter potions, but it would be much, much more effective to simply get back regr water without any essence in it. So basically while working on a potion through alchemy, you have to do what I just did and pull all the essence in a nt into the center of the reaction that happens with the mana crystals. I¡¯ll show you this part of things now, and Xenia will show you alchemy some other time." Jyuuk exined, before scratching the back of his head and then took a look around to make sure nobody was listening in. "She¡¯s at the police station right now because of what happened with her ex, and the situation has to be figured out a bit more. She said she doesn¡¯t feelfortable in her apartment anymore, so she might move again..." He exined, just to get Stahl caught up with everything, before the young man scratched his cheek. "Oh, I see... I mean, whatever helps her feel safe, right? That¡¯s the most important thing right now." He added, and Jyuuk immediately nodded his head. "Yes, of course. Erm, anyway, let¡¯s start this lesson now. What I want you to start doing is one by one go through the marked pages in the ¡¯Floressence¡¯ book, and then make that nt grow. I have written on all the bags what they are, so don¡¯t worry about needing to figure that out." Jyuuk suggested, and Stahl swiftly nodded his head. "Alright, sounds good. So it¡¯s nt Control first... and the first nt that I¡¯ll control is... grass?" Stahl asked surprised, and Jyuuk immediately smiled. "Yes, exactly. Grass may not seem all that important, and it¡¯s not necessarily something you¡¯ll need inbat, but it¡¯s one of the greatest assets you can have outside ofbat. Grass with deep-running roots are a great part of what keeps the ground underneath our feet stable. And not only that, but if you control its size, it can be a great cover in situations where you want to stay hidden, while being a great staple food for herbivore monsters you may tame." He added, so Stahl continued to listen, before Jyuuk added the most important reason. "That, and it¡¯s one of the easiest nts to grow, so a great practice for beginners to figure everything out." Jyuuk exined with a smile, so Stahl slowly nodded his head. "Gotcha. So, I have the seeds here, and what do I do then? I just pour my mana inside of them?" Stahl asked, before Jyuuk nodded. "Yes, basically. Just by pouring your mana into a seed, you will give it natural nutrients and have the nt grow in the most natural way it can, albeit at high speeds. Then by letting your mana flow into the actual nt that grows from the seed, you can control its growth, such as the shape it grows in, how tall it grows, and what areas should be focused on." He exined, so Stahl grinned and swiftly got to it. "Alright, I guess I should start, then." And so, Stahl held the tip of his finger against the seeds on his palm and poured his mana inside of them, before the seeds slowly cracked open and a few roots came out of it, although nothing happened after that. He managed to gain the nt Control skill through it, but he was still incredibly confused, so the young man then looked over toward Jyuuk. "What just happened? I thought you said it would grow like normal?" "I said it would grow in the most natural way it can. You were barely able to give it enough nutrients through your mana to start its growth, so it immediatley died afterward. That¡¯s just how it is for the first time, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be able to actually have it grow grass now that you have the skill." He pointed out, so Stahl slowly nodded his head. "I see... Then I¡¯ll just try again." Stahl sighed before sorting out the few seeds that actually reacted to his mana, and then continued with the ones that didn¡¯t grow. And this time when he tried to pour his mana inside, the roots grew a bitrger and there seemed to be just a tiny inkling of grass forming, before the nt died off again. "Let me know when you can make it grow to 10 centimeters just by controlling the seed itself." Jyuuk said with a smile, before Stahl nodded his head, staring down at the seeds in his hand again in disappointment. Noticing his expression, Jyuuk then chose to give him a little something. "You know, once you can properly control your skills and mana, you can do great things." He chuckled as he cupped Stahl¡¯s palm in his own two hands after cing a small, special seed in the center of the pile of grass seeds. This surprised Stahl of course, but he could feel some movements inside of the now closed-off space, and before he knew it, Jyuuk had removed his hand while the seeds on his palm began topletely cover his hand, then his arm, his shoulders, and then the rest of his body. It felt as if he was beingpletely swallowed by a nt, until he wasn¡¯t. Instead of having grass and roots cover him, he now only had a few thin vine-like roots covering his arms and fingers, filling his body with a feeling of hot and cold at the same time. "There, now at least your mana shouldn¡¯t run dry for a little while. It reduces the speed at which Mana Maniption gains proficiency as well as a negative side-effect of increasing your mana regeneration, control and output, but in your case, you only have positive effects, because you don¡¯t want to rank the skill up again for a little while. So just keep going for now." Jyuuk smiled and turned around, before stepping over toward his undead again, leaving Stahl to his task. "Whoa, this is so dope..." Stahl muttered excitedly, before grabbing another handful of grass seeds and continuing to learn nt control. --- "Finally! Jyuuk, I¡¯m done!" Stahl eximed a few hourster, finally having finished the tasks he had been given for all the different nts. He had them grow naturally, then had them grow in specific ways, and then even had to hold out against Jyuuk¡¯s magic trying to make the nts wither. But now, he finished thest task that had been given to him in regards to nt control, despite long having passed Rank 1 in the skill. He had less skills to learnpared to what Evalia taught him, but Jyuuk had him do a lot of specific things instead of just letting him do whatever he wanted, so it took a bit longer. "Good, good! Nice color, good quality... Yeah, we can move on to nt Maniption now." Jyuuk nodded, and Stahl jumped up with a smile. "Yes! Wait, do I need to do that for all the nts I made grow as well?" Stahl asked, but Jyuuk swiftly shook his head. "No, no, there¡¯s no need for that. It¡¯s the same principle in every nt, and as long as you know what their features are, you can properly extract their essence." Jyuuk exined, before taking a look at the Herb currently growing on Stahl¡¯s palm, which was the same one that Jyuuk had used to demonstrate nt Maniption before. "You have just grown this herb to forget its own health and body as long as it can have the strongest healing qualities possible, right?" Jyuuk asked just to confirm once more, and Stahl nodded his head. "Alright, then what I want you to do now is to fill out every part of that herb with your mana. Not outside, though, only inside of the nt." He added, so Stahl swiftly did as told before the Beastperson continued. "Once you have done that, you will have to think about the nt¡¯s property that you just enhanced, its healing properties. Have your mana mix with those properties. And then, all you need to do is pull that mana back out of the nt." Jyuuk exined, so Stahl slowly nodded his head and did just as told. A few momentster, the herb in his hand had already crumbled up and died, while Stahl was trying to properly control the essence-infused mana. "Now is a pretty tought part. You¡¯ll learn with Xenia how to control it, but what¡¯s going on right now is that you have control over is mana, but the essence is working against your will, or rather, it¡¯s just not working with you. You should have already gained the nt Maniption skill, so now quickly go and use the essence-infused mana to grow another version of that herb, once more attuned perfectly toward its healing properties." Jyuuk told Stahl, who swiftly tried to do exactly what his Life-rted skill-teacher exined. "You should have a just so sligthly better version of that herb now. At your nt Maniption rank, it should have only been a miniscule increase, butter, doing such things bes normal. Instead of using only one nt to get an effect, you but multiple nts in a row. Let¡¯s take simple seeds as an example. You make one seed sprout, and have it encapsule the second in its roots. Then, you do something like you just did with the first nt and directly pour the essence-infused mana into the second seed. You repeat the same process again to get a stronger nt and effect in the third seed." Jyuuk exined, so Stahl simply nodded his head. "Okay, got you. And what do I need to do to increase my skill rank for now?" Stahl asked, quite curious about all of this, and wondering what else he could do. "You repeat that process until the proficiency level is at 25. Then, you do the same just for a different effect, being the effect attuned toward size. Increase its size as much as possible, and it will also be shown in the essence. Then you take that essence, and form an evenrger nt. Repeat that until your proficiency level is at 50. Then, you take a nt with a high defensive nature, and increase exactly that defensive nature in the same manner until your proficiency level is at 75. And then, you will take the essence-infused mana from the nt you get from the first loop, then another strand of essence-infused mana from the nt from the second loop, and essence-infused mana from the third loop, and pour them all into a rose seed at the same time, and have it grow naturally. Take the essence from that rose, and pour it into another rose seed to have it grow naturally. Then again and again until you rank up." Jyuuk said with a smile, before Stahl slowly nodded his head, although he was smiling wryly, feeling like that process might end up a little boring, as he was really just going to repeat the same thing over and over again. But aware that Jyuuk most likely knew the most about these skills, Stahl just did what he was told until he reached the proficiency level 75. From the three nts that he now had next to him, the one with the increased size now being nearly at his height despite being nothing but simple grass, Stahl swiftly took all the essence in three different ¡¯strands¡¯ as Jyuuk had told him to. It was veryplicated to do this, as he had to properly concentrate on all three at the same time, but once he got them somewhat stable, all he had to do is pour them into the rose seed that Jyuuk gave him. The color of the rose was incredibly vibrant like Stahl hadn¡¯t ever really seen before, while its stem seemed to have something like a light bark growing on it. And it was probably twice as big as it usually would be as well. "Holy... Alright, Shouldn¡¯t¡¯ve doubted him... This stuff really works..." Stahl muttered quietly before continuing the practice, now taking the essence from this rose and transfering it over to another. He repeated this over and over, and when he finally ranked his skill up to 1, Jyuuk told him to just continue one more time. And then, the flower that had grown one meter in size and looked as if it was a small tree with thin bark that was sprayed in red paint suddenly turned into something else. It was the size of a regr rose, the color of a regr rose, and it didn¡¯t seem to have any peculiarities about it at all, at least outwardly. He knew that it was quite special when Jyuuk, instead of telling Stahl that he messed up, simply smiled at the young man. "Good job, Stahl. You just made a Witherless Rose." Chapter 275 Necromancy and Soul Arts Stahl looked up at Jyuuk a bit confused, and then back down at the rose he was holding in his hand. "What¡¯s a ¡¯Witherless Rose¡¯?" He asked, and Jyuuk swiftly exined with a smile on his face. "Well, as the name suggests, is a Rose that doesn¡¯t wither as long as you don¡¯t meddle with its essence in any way. It¡¯s an ingredient for a few potions, and most importantly, it¡¯s something amazing for Overgrown Undead, because a flower with so much life that it doesn¡¯t naturally die is something incredible when paired with pure death in the form of Undead." Jyuuk exined, before then grabbing a bag that was rattling the moment he picked it up. "You can use it for anything you want, but I suggest waiting until you figure out if there¡¯s any way it can benefit you directly." He smiled as he poured the contents of the bag out onto the ground, showing that it just contained numerous bones. "But for now, we will move on to anatomy studies." Jyuuk said with a grin on his face, and Stahl slowly nodded his head as he stared at the bones, which were quite obviously not just from one animal. "This pile of bones contains the bones of five different monsters. You will not only sort them, but also assemble them into a rudimentary skeleton." Jyuuk exined, before Stahl once more just nodded. "Alright... And you want me to figure out which of these is what animal? Did you mark them down somewhere as well?" Stahl asked as he began to flip through the pages, but was sorely disappointed when he found utterly nothing. "Wait, you don¡¯t want me to assemble or sort them without even knowing anything about them, right?" Stahl asked with a wry smile, and Jyuuk simply grinned at him and simply turned around. "Take your time, Stahl." With a loud sigh, Stahl then looked at the pile of bones and the current time that he had set to be disyed in the corner of his eye. "Alright, it¡¯s about three pm right now... I guess I really need to hurry now to learn all the skills before tonight..." Stahl said as he scratched the back of his neck, beforeying the book to the side and first sorting through the bones to see if there were any direct differences in them so that he could sort them. "Hmm... This one is definitely from the bird, because it¡¯s hollow... I guess I can at least sort these out already then." Stahl muttered to himself before taking a look at all the bones and flipping through the section about birds to see if he could figure out what they came from, before noticing a small peculiarity in the bird¡¯s skull. "The beak is cut down the middle vertically, huh? Let¡¯s see, is there any like that in here?" He asked himself and then continued looking at the pictures and reading the different descriptions. "...one unique trait of the Desert Crow is the beak that splits up into four individual parts instead of two, as is with every other species of the Crow family. Alright, so it¡¯s a Desert Crow. I guess I¡¯ll assemble themter after I actually sorted through them..." Stahl sighed loudly, before once more taking a look at the bones. "This one¡¯s bone marrow is deep ck, surely that¡¯s also pretty unique." Stahl told himself, slowly realizing that Jyuuk didn¡¯t just give him an impossible task, but one that could be done by at least somewhat paying attention to what you were doing. And so, Stahl swiftly managed to sort through the different bones more quickly than he expected, and then got to the part of ¡¯assembling¡¯ them, for which he needed some help from Jyuuk again. "You¡¯ve managed to sort through them already, huh? Good job." The Monkey smiled, before squatting down in front of the different piles. "Okay, so what you need to do is simply pour your mana into all of the bones at once, and with the intention of creating a body move them into the shape you want. That¡¯s about it. But you have to have that clear intention in your mind at all times, or else everything is going to copse." Jyuuk exined, before swiftly continuing to an important part of necromancy. "At rank 0, you can¡¯t create bodies that act on their own yet. For now you will have to just try to make them move like a ¡¯puppet¡¯. Once you assembled the body, connect your mana in the different ces that you need to, and then control everything overall. First do it with one, then a second, then a third and so on, but don¡¯t overdo yourself. It drains a good bit of mana, but with my nt¡¯s support, you should be fine for a little while." Jyuuk exined, and Stahl swiftly nodded before getting to work again, flipping to the page describing the bone structure of the first of the monster that he would turn into a mock-undead, a Coyote-like creature. He followed Jyuuk¡¯s instructions, and soon managed to make the bones move like he wanted them to at least to an extent, and then after a bit of practice managed to assemble the skeletal body one bone after another. Stahl gained the Necromancy in the middle of doing so, which already gave him a good boost to this practice even at Rank 0, and then made the skeleton slowly move around when he finished its body. "Nice!" Stahl eximed with a broad grin as he watched the clunky skeleton-coyote walk around, before trying to ¡¯save¡¯ it forter while assembling the second one by just having it stand-by. Concentrating on the second undead was quite tough, because he at the same time still needed to heavily concentrate on the skeleton-coyote, but after figuring out some tricks here and there while he was at it, he managed to finish this rtively small task. And so, he had the two skeletons run around at the same time, do different things together, and even stages a small ¡¯fight¡¯, although that just resulted in their ribs interlocking with each other and getting stuck. Overall, Stahl managed to get up to three skeletons up and running like this at the same time, before his skill finally ranked up to one, allowing him to create actual undead. And so, after Jyuuk told him it was alright to do so, Stahl did just that and now had five small undead animals apanying him, although the ¡¯Desert Crow¡¯ skeleton was something rather sad to look at, as it wasn¡¯t actually able to fly anymore. "Don¡¯t worry, at Rank 3 of Necromancy you¡¯ll get the ability to have your undead level and rank up as well, and a Skeletal Bird will surely get an ability to fly like that." Jyuuk exined, and Stahl slowly nodded his head, although he felt a bit different about it. "I probably can¡¯t make ¡¯Overgrown Undead¡¯ like you, right?" Stahl asked just to make sure, and Jyuuk swiftly nodded. "Most likely not. You can try, but the only way I¡¯m able to create them is by using my element to make it as if my undead and the nts actually became a single entity over by elerating their growth and having them fuse. Unless you get a simr ability, or find a way to actually multitask in such a way that you can control the direct movements of the nts while in every ce for multiple undead, then it will most likely not work out." He exined, so Stahl just nodded. "That¡¯s fine, just wanted to make sure. I¡¯ll figure something else outter in my own way, but until then, can we move on to the next skill?" Stahl asked with a smile, and Jyuuk replied with a smile. "Of course we can. Here, take this." Jyuuk said before grabbing a small marble out of his pocket and handed it over to Stahl, who looked at it a bit confused. "Next, we¡¯re working on ¡¯Soul Arts¡¯." Jyuuk exined, and Stahl immediately nodded his head with excitement. "Oh, that¡¯s the thing where you ovey your body with different stuff, right?" He asked, before Jyuuk nodded and began to exin. "Mhm, that¡¯s it. What you¡¯re holding right there is a ¡¯Soul Stone¡¯. The outside is the actual ¡¯Stone¡¯ part and inside of there is the soul. Your grandfather uses them for ¡¯Soul Engineering¡¯, and I use them for ¡¯Soul Arts¡¯. I quite coincidentally found that if you use necromancy on a recently-deceased monster, within ten seconds of its death, instead of having it turn into an undead, it produces a soul stone that keeps the features of monsters. There¡¯s more ways to manipte how many features you get, but that¡¯s something we can¡¯t do that well right now. What you need to do to acquire ¡¯Soul Arts¡¯ now is to simply pour your mana inside of the stone and try to ¡¯Converse¡¯ with the soul." Jyuuk exined, but Stahl just looked at him with a frown and a wry smile. "Converse? You want me to talk to this?" He asked, but Jyuuk shook his head with a chuckle. "No, no, not talk, ¡¯Converse¡¯. You need to show it your will through your thoughts in the form of a direct image. That right there is the soul of a simple Deer, meaning a regr animal. Pour your mana inside and think of havingrge antlers on your head." Jyuuk suggested, and Stahl slowly nodded his head before doing just what he said. Slowly, his mana seeped through the outeryer of the soul stone with quite a bit of resistance, but when it reached the inside, Stahl concentrated on that one image, himself with two antlers. And as he was doing so, he felt that the soul stone became lighter and lighter in his hand before finally disappearing into nothingness. "Wait, are soul stones consumables? And did I just mess up?" Stahl asked confused, but Jyuuk shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, the soul stones disappear while you¡¯re using Soul Arts. And no, you didn¡¯t mess up." Jyuuk chuckled before pointing at the top of his head, as if trying to tell Jyuuk to try and feel if there was something on top of his own. And truly, he felt his hand move through something! It wasn¡¯t anything strong, more like the ¡¯resistance¡¯ you feel when blowing sharply onto your skin, but there was definitely something there. "At some point, you should be able to give them an actual physical form so that it¡¯s like your body actually changes. Just like this." Jyuuk exined before grabbing a soul stone, which swiftly disappeared between his fingers as the Monkey grew sharp ws. They were different from the mist-like form that Jyuuk showed before, and Stahl was quite surprised to see that they were basically part of Jyuuk¡¯s body as if he created his character to have them. "Over time, like with ¡¯Tool Connection¡¯ or ¡¯Weapon Connection¡¯, you will gain familiarity with souls, and the more familiar you are with a specific soul, the stronger the transformation you can undergo. This here is a transformation that I use to be able to climb more easily, because I can bore these ws even into rock. They aren¡¯t all that useful for fighting, though, because the soul of the monster they came from seems to be passifistic." Jyuuk said with a smile, before his ws disappeared and were then reced by the soul stone he was holding before. "It constantly drains a bit of mana to keep the transformation up, by the way, so I would suggest figuring out how to get it back into soul-stone shape before you pass out." "Right..." Stahl said quite nervously, although it might just be that his heart was beating so much out of excitement for learning so many cool skills today. Either way, he didn¡¯t want to end up falling unconscious because of mana-exhaustion, so he swiftly tried to just do the same thing as before, just in reverse. Stahl immediately poured his mana into his ¡¯antlers¡¯ and then imagined them back in the soul stone shape, and then he was soon holding the small bead in his hands again. Chapter 276 Thul "Nice! I have soul arts at Rank 1 now!" Stahl eximed after finishing the continuos practicing of using different soul stones in different ways, before Jyuuk stepped back over to him. "Alright, perfect. Now, thest thing is taming. But this is a pretty bad ce to do that, because we can¡¯t really find any good monsters for you to tame. And it has to be at Rank 0 for you to do that at the moment, so I can¡¯t ¡¯give¡¯ you any of my tamed monsters either." Jyuuk said as he scratched the back of his neck, before Stahl had a small idea. "Can¡¯t I just dive into the ocean and grab some random fish from there?" He suggested, but the Beastperson immediately shook his head. "No, you really can¡¯t. We¡¯re in the middle of the ocean, the ce we¡¯re currently at has a good few Rank 3 and 4 monsters. I mean, I can send in one of my monsters and have it bring back something for you, but..." Jyuuk muttered quietly in thought as he looked at the young man next to him, who was looking at him with hopeful eyes. "Fine, fine, we¡¯ll do that. But I¡¯m going to have him bring back the first Rank 0 creature it can find, so it¡¯s somewhat a lottery." The Beastperson said with a sigh, before Stahlughed loudly and pat Jyuuk on the back. "Thanks, Dude! Now, undead Battallion, follow me to the top deck!" Stahl eximed loudly and looked at his five skeletal animals and pointed toward the door, while Jyuuk waved his hand with a sigh to unsummon his own undead before following him. Soon, they made their way to the top deck, and Jyuuk was currently looking through his Beastiary, more specifically the pages containing water monsters, beforeing to the conclusion to just go with the Ocean Serpent. The Eagles, with the exception of Akatori, were also Water-type monsters, but that didn¡¯t mean they were especially capable of swimming amazingly, so a swift and agile Ocean Serpent was really the best choice at the moment. Swiftly, in a light blue mist, the sea serpent from the Beastiary that slung itself around Jyuuk¡¯s arm before turning into the long snake that looked quite a lot like an Python. "Kaiyohebi, go down into the water and look for a Rank 0 creature. Bring it back alive." Jyuukmanded, before the snake swiftly hissed and slid down his arm and directly to the edge of the ship and into the water. "Now it¡¯s just waiting, I guess. Although it shouldn¡¯t take too long." Jyuuk pointed out with a smile, before Stahl nodded his head and looked at CB-1, which was still floating above him, taking pictures whenever Stahl told it to. And so, Stahl chose to use the time he now had to continue telling it to do just that so that he could finally rank up his Photography skill. He was also ying around with his skeletal undead a little now and as such did his best to just level his necromancy skill up a little more. And a little whileter, the Ocean Serpent Kaiyohebi returned to the ship with something in its mouth. "Ooh! What is it, what is it?" Stahl asked excitedly as he squatted down in front of the snake, which opened its mouth after Jyuuk told it to, dropping the ¡¯prey¡¯ into a small bucket of ocean water that they prepared. "It¡¯s... An octopus?" Stahl asked confused as he looked at the small wiggly creature get used to its new surrounding, and Jyuuk nodded his head. "Mhm, an octopus..." Jyuuk said as he scratched the back of his head. He knew he didn¡¯t expect much, but an octopus was rather... Weird, in his opinion. However, Stahl seemed to be pretty excited anyway. "Nice, that might evolve into a pretty interesting monster then!" Heughed, and Jyuuk chuckled with a nod. "Yeah, who knows, it might turn into Cthulhu or something at some point." The Monkey said with a smirk, and Stahl grinned broadly. "That would be dope, really... But how do I tame it now?" He asked, before Jyuuk smiled. "Well, there¡¯s a few ways to do so. You can earn its trust, or start a ¡¯forced¡¯ connection." Jyuuk exined, before squatting down next to the bucket together with Stahl, and then continued. "I would suggest thetter. Gaining the trust of an animal like this might be pretty tough." "Alright, but a forced connection sounds pretty... rough." Stahl said with a sigh, but Jyuuk immediately shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, what you¡¯ll be doing isn¡¯t forced, I wouldn¡¯t teach you to do that anyway. How a forced tame usually works is to use your mana and pour it into an animal or monster¡¯s body. You then take over it¡¯s ¡¯source¡¯ of mana, as some call it, and that way you can forcefully link its soul to yours. But you will only ¡¯approach¡¯ the source of its mana. If it reacts positively and then epts your approach, you¡¯ll have tamed it. First, try to hold it on your palm." Jyuuk exined, before Stahl nodded his head and did as instructed, trying to pick the slightly slimy, wiggling creature up out of the bucket. "Okay, what now?" He asked, finally having contained the octopus within his hands, before Jyuuk continued. "Just do exactly what I said. Use your mana and turn it into a single strand while leaving it connected to your body¡¯s mana, then lead that strand into the Octopus¡¯ body. Because it¡¯s Rank 0, there shouldn¡¯t be any resistance, and rather a ¡¯pull¡¯, so just let your mana be pulled by it, but only let it move forward slowly. Stop right when the pull gets stronger than at the start." Jyuuk exined in quite a lot of detail, before Stahl nodded his head and then did just that. Slowly, he moved the strand of mana into the octopus¡¯ body and immediately felt the ¡¯pull¡¯ that Jyuuk was talking about, and after a few moments, the pull became much, much stronger and the strand advanced a lot faster, so Jyuuk immediately reacted and stoped its movementspletely. "I stopped... what now?" Stahl inquired, before Jyuuk simply smiled at him. "Now you just need to wait for the notification telling you that you tamed it, or for your mana to be rejectedpletely from the body." Jyuuk exined, so Stahl nodded his head, now simply waiting for any kind of reaction. And a few momentster, Stahl saw the notification in front of his eyes. [You have tamed an Octopus] [Taming skill learned] [Name your tamed beast] With a grin, Stahl read through these notifications before saying the name that he thought of out loud, using what Jyuuk said before as a ¡¯reference¡¯. "Your name is Thul." Stahl said, and the notification telling him about the fact that the name was epted appeared, before Thul the octopus slung its limbs around Stahl¡¯s fingers, as if to hug him. "Thul? As in ¡¯Cthulhu¡¯?" Jyuuk asked with a smile, and Stahl simply responded with a nod. "Yup, exactly! Now, what should I do next with this little guy?" He asked with a grin, before Jyuuk just crossed his arms. "Neither Brody nor Xenia are avable right now, so I suggest just ying around with him for a while. That¡¯s the fastest way to have both your skill and Thul himself rank up." Jyuuk exined, and Stahl nodded his head with a grin. "Gotcha! So that¡¯s it for the ¡¯Life and Death¡¯ portion of my lessons, I guess?" Stahl asked with a grin, before Jyuuk immediately shook his head. "Well, I expect you to read through thest of the three books I gave you as well. The one with the different species of animals and monsters in it. Just try to remember the most important aspects of each species¡¯ family. But other than that... Yeah, we should be done. Come to me if you have some more questions though. Oh, and the vines with the help for your mana should wither when you go to sleep the next time." The Beastperson said with a smile, before slowly making his way back to the door and the stairs to make his way back down to the training area. "Alright, I guess I have some free time for the rest of the day. Let¡¯s figure out the situation with you guys for now." Stahl said with a grin as he looked at his five undead, before following Jyuuk to the stairs to make his way to the Workspace, where he would, as the name of the room implied, work on something. And to his surprise, Stahl found not only Sky, but also Bree and Kiron in there. Sky was working on some more books, while Bree and Kiron helped and watched. "What¡¯s up, you three?" Stahl asked with a smile, before they all looked at him and the six creatures apanying him. "Well, I¡¯m getting proficiency in bookbinding and scribing... But what were you up to the whole time?" Sky asked with a wry smile, and Stahl justughed. "I finished learning Art skills with Evalia this morning, and just now I finished learning Life and Death rted skills with Jyuuk. These are some Undead I made, and this lil¡¯ guy here is my first tamed monster, Thul!" Stahl eximed as he held his hand forward, showing them the small octopus which was still clinging to his fingers. "Ooh, how cute!" Bree yelled out as she took a closer look at Thul, before Kiron just smiled at Stahl. "Amazing how quickly you managed to learn all those skills. Most wouldn¡¯t be even patient enough to learn half of them." He said, and Stahl nodded his head with a grin. "Of course, that¡¯s just because I¡¯m amazing!" Stahl yelled out with a broad smile, before Sky scoffed at him and nodded his head sarcastically. "Yeah, and you¡¯re humble too." The Fey-Kin boy chuckled, although he didn¡¯t expect Stahl¡¯s serious response. "Duh, obviously, I¡¯m the best!" He smirked, obviously just joking at this point. "Anyway, I really love talking about myself, but I¡¯m here for something else. I want to work on some ¡¯improvements¡¯ for these guys." Stahl said as he pointed at the skeletal animals behind him with his thumb, and Kiron looked at him curiously. "What kind of improvements are you thinking about?" The Half-Dragon inquired, but Stahl just shrugged. "Not really sure, to be honest. I might enchant them after I learned about the skill from Xenia, but for now I just want to fix some deficits on their bodies. Like, make it so that the Birdy here can fly." Stahl exined before sitting down on one of the chairs that the others seem to have brought in. They also brought a table, by the way, because they couldn¡¯t use something made of magic all the time, as they didn¡¯t have the skills required for that and didn¡¯t want to bother anyone else too much. "And how exactly do you want to do that?" Bree asked with curiosity in her eyes, before Stahl looked through the supply of different materials that he brought over before. "Well, one of my ideas was to simply make fake ¡¯wings¡¯ for it. I was thinking about using very light, thin leather, or maybe some cloth even. Some of the joints that these guys have are damaged, so they aren¡¯t moving all that well, so I also want to switch those out with other parts if I can. Maybe just some wood for now, because making them out of metal takes longer. I¡¯ll just be able to rece them again anyway... And I guess everything after thates once I learned enchanting and alchemy. I might be able to get an interesting material or way to work through it, after all." Stahl said with a smile as he ced his ¡¯Desert Crow¡¯ skeleton down on the table, already swiftly taking measurements of whatever he wanted to switch out, while also making some rough sketches about what kind of other parts he could implement in the skeletons¡¯ bodies. And when he was doing so and rambling on about his ideas, Sky, Bree, and Kiron could all see that Stahl was truly Eisen¡¯s grandson. Chapter 277 - Dias de los Muertos "Hmm... Well, what it alles down to is one thing... I can¡¯t make wings for you yet, Des." Stahl sighed loudly as he finished looking through the different books about animals and their anatomy, before the others all looked at Stahl confused. "What do you mean? I thought you wanted to use cloth for that?" Bree asked with her head slightly tilted to the side, and Stahl nodded his head. "I thought that would be a good idea, yeah, but in the end, it¡¯s just really not. What I had in my head was a wing structure like you have, Kiron, but Bird wings workpletely differently, with the different feathers somewhatyered on top of each other. I thought I could just add a little cloth somewhere, maybe strengthen it with some wire, but it seems like that¡¯s not a good idea. I¡¯m going to wait until I get transmutation or something to make feathers for Des so that I can construct some proper feathers." He exined, before looking at his undead once more in deep thought, while Kiron then looked at him with a frown. "And what do you n on doing instead now, Stahl?" He asked, but Stahl just shrugged. "I¡¯ll rece the joints, and make some simple ns for when I actually do have the Alchemy and Enchanting skills. I want to first work on the bones and inner bodily structure before starting with anything on the outside." Stahl exined, before Sky¡¯s head slightly perked up. "Inner bodily structure? What do you mean?" He asked curiously, and Stahl just shrugged and scratched his cheek. "I¡¯m not 100 percent sure yet, but I¡¯ll just try to figure out some ways to strenghten them even more. Like, maybe I¡¯ll slowly turn them into zombies instead of skeletons by adding more organs, or I¡¯ll add some unnatural functions to them, like putting a storage module inside of them. I really don¡¯t know yet." Stahl said with a sigh, and Sky chuckled. "Damn, I¡¯m impressed. You were reborn a few days ago, and you¡¯re already working that hard?" He asked, and the young man just smirked. "Who do you think you¡¯re talking to here, of course I am! Would be boring if I wasn¡¯t working hard!" Stahl eximed, before he grabbed some wood and just got to work on recing the joints. That didn¡¯t take all that long, because there were only about half a dozen that needed actual recements there, and everything was being held together by his necromancy, so he soon enough already didn¡¯t have anything to do. "I guess I could give you guys a bit of a paintjob while I¡¯m waiting, huh?" Stahl muttered and stood up from the table, picking up Des as he did so, before stepping back to the door. "I¡¯ll go back to Evalia¡¯s Atelier for a while. See you guyster." Stahl said with a smile as he left, Thul attached to his arm, while the skeletons with a few wooden joints were following him as Sky, Bree and Kiron continued with what they were doing as well. And a few momentster, Stahl had reached the door to the Atelier and stepped inside, where he found Evalia and Alnico still practicing some musical skills. "Alright, stop killing the cats or I¡¯ll call Peta." Stahl said with a grin, before Al instantly red at him. "What are you doing? Don¡¯t you need to learn stuff from Jyuuk?" She asked with a frown, but Stahl just shook his head. "Nope, done with that. Brody and Xenia aren¡¯t online at the moment, so I¡¯ve got to pass the time. Oh, and by the way, these are my undead and my cute little tamed beast." He said with a broad grin, and immediately Al came rushing over. "Wait, is that an octopus? What, want to turn him into a Kraken?" She asked with a smile, and Stahl shrugged. "I mean, that¡¯d be dope, but technically Kraken are a type of giant squid, you know?" He replied, before swiftly turning to Evalia. "Anyway, I want to give my skellies a paintjob, so can you sponsor the actual paint again?" Stahl asked, before Evalia nodded her head. "Sure! What¡¯s the color palette?" She asked, before Stahl scratched the back of his neck in thought before looking at Des the Desert Crow Skeleton which he was currently holding, and then thought about what he should go for style-wise, and came to a swift conclusion, because there was only one real possible choice he could make. "Dias de los Muertos, obviously." Stahl replied, and Evalia looked at him surprised. "Oh, I thought you¡¯d go for something like graffiti. I mean, you¡¯ve seen the controversies about that one artist painting stuff like that, right? ¡¯Cultural Appropriation¡¯, and whatnot, so do you think that¡¯s a good idea with two top content creators on board?" She asked, and Stahl just scoffed for a second. "What do I care, it¡¯s my culture." Stahl replied, but Evalia looked at him with a frown. "Dias de los Muertos is mexican..." She muttered confused, before Stahl slowly nodded. "I¡¯m Mexican... Well, Half-Mexican, Quarter-Japanese, and then whatever my Grampa is. I think he has German roots?" Stahl exined in a questioning tone before looking over at Al, who just shrugged. "I guess?" She answered, before Evalia looked at both of them with an embarrassed smile. "Oh... Well, I guess I should never assume, then." Evalia chuckled nervously, before Stahl shook his head, although his expression was getting softer and sadder the more the conversation progressed. "Nah, don¡¯t worry about it. My Mom didn¡¯t look very hispanic either... And even the Genes in my Grandfather¡¯s body are extreme, so neither my dad, Al¡¯s mom, or both of our uncle look very half-japanese." Heughed, before Evalia looked over at Al because she was feeling a bit unsure due to Stahl specific word choice of speaking in past tense about his mom, and she slowly nodded her head, so Evalia kept quiet about it. "Well, either way, ¡¯Dias de los Muertos¡¯ means ck, white, and other than that simple vibrant colors?" Evalia asked with a smile, and Stahl nodded. "Mhm. Well, I probably won¡¯t need white, the bones are sun-bleached already, but the rest should be useful. Ah, for the heck of it, give me some white just in case." Stahl said with a grin, and Evalia nodded her head before taking a few small wooden cups, one after another filling them with one color of her magic paint each. "Alright, thanks! We should really sell your paint, it¡¯s so high-quality!" Stahlughed, and Evalia chuckled as well. "Well, we will do that actually, yeah." She replied, so both Stahl and Alnico looked at her a bit surprised. "Really now? That was supposed to be a joke... Wouldn¡¯t that be a lot of work?" Stahl asked, but Evalia shook her head. "Nope, once Eisen gets his Enchanting skill to rank up one more time, he¡¯ll make an automatic mechanism or something." The artist exined, and Al nodded her head, "Sounds like Grampa. Anyway, Stahl, stop bothering us. We need to keep going with this!" Sheined and Stahl just red back at his cousin before sitting down at the table in the corner of the room with Des directly in front of him. "Now, let¡¯s get to work, shall we?" Stahl muttered to himself before taking a closer look at the whole coloring of Des¡¯ and the other skeletons¡¯ bodies to make sure everything was fine, and then dipped the tip of his paintbrush in the ck paint before starting to trace over the most important ¡¯outlines¡¯, and then moved onto the different, vibrant colors, choosing to go with the same colors for all five of them, just to keep something like a ¡¯theme¡¯. And at the end of it, he actually came to a conclusion. "Alright, I¡¯lle up with something else to get you to fly, bud. You look way cooler this way." He said as he looked at Des, who was simply sitting there on the table without moving in the slightest. "Guess I have to wait to get you all to Rank up, huh?" Stahl said with a smirk, hoping to somehow get these to turn into a special type of skeleton that actually just looked like this colorful type of skeleton, for different reasons. One, he somehow had to embrace the artistic side of his skills, which would be the one he was the least-likely to use for the most part. And this was a good way to do that. Two, they just looked really cool. And Three, he suddenly felt the urge to dive into his mother¡¯s culture a bit more. As Stahl was deep in thoughts, staring at his skeletons, he barely noticed the fact that Al tapped his shoulder just now. "Soo... it¡¯s prettyte, and we should probably log off, right? It¡¯s nearly lunchtime as well." She asked, before Stahl nodded his head with a smile. "Alright, sure. Let me just clean up a bit, and I¡¯ll join you for lunch in a few minutes." Stahl responded, and Alnico nodded her head before taking a seat by the wall, before her body swiftly turnedpletely white as a sign that she logged off. With a wry smile, Stahl then just did what he said he would do, simply putting away the cups with the leftover paint that he was given by Evalia and then grabbed something out of his pocket together with a pen, starting to fill his new Journal up with what happened during this in-game day, once again doing so from the pure perspective of an NPC, evening up with in-game usible reasons why he knew about Dias de los Muertos type painting, which was simply that he ¡¯just knew about it, and didn¡¯t know why¡¯. It was his grandfather¡¯s usual excuse, so it would most likely end up fine. And after a little while, just when he finished up transcribing everything, he heard someone approach him from behind, cing her hands on his shoulders. "Erm... Evalia, that you?" Stahl asked with a frown, and the young woman leaned forward, pushing her head next to his so that she could take a look at what he was doing. "Yup. Writing a diary now, huh?" She asked with a smirk, just to tease Stahl, who just nodded his head. "I mean, I prefer calling it a Journal, but I guess that¡¯s all it is." He answered, so Evalia chuckled a little before staying silent for a few seconds, then saying something in a calm tone. "See, I just wanted to say sorry about before for being so insensitive." Evalia said, taking her hands off his shoulders and sitting down on the other chair. "As I said, don¡¯t worry about it... You only said stuff about being Mexican. I was the one that mentioned my mom." Stahl replied, simply scratching his cheek as he did so. "I guess... But if you want to talk about it, you can tell me, you know?" She asked, slowly moving her hand closer to his, before Stahl just smiled at her. "Maybe at some point, don¡¯t really feel like it right now though." He replied with a light smile, and then in turn moved his hand slightly closer to hers as well. "... You know, I was in Mexico during Dias de los Muertos once on vacation, it was really nice." She said with a smile, and Stahl nodded his head. "I¡¯ve heard... I¡¯ve never actually been there myself, although it¡¯s on my bucket list." "Oh, you definitely should go, it¡¯s so nice! There was this one girl that was supposed to perform during a parade, but she was nervous because of all the people. And like in movies, I actually gave her a little ¡¯believe in yourself¡¯ speech because she was a fan of my music and I didn¡¯t just want to let her be like that, although it had to be tranted by my friend, and she ended up singing in front of everyone. She messed up here and there, but overall, it was a total sess." In a lightugh, Stahl looked deep in Evalia¡¯s eyes, before his expression turned serious. "Trust me, I know. The truth is, I just lied. I was in mexico before, and that was where we met. Evalia, that girl was me." He said with a smile as the fingertips of the both of them just barely touched, and Evalia quietlyughed as she and Stahl slowly locked their fingers together. "You¡¯re an idiot." Chapter 278 - Combat Drill With a loud sigh, Benji stepped out of the capsule and made his way to the Kitchen, where Sophia was already getting some food ready. "Took you long enough, what were you doing in there?" She asked with a frown, and Benji simply shrugged. "Just had to finish some stuff up. By the way, how¡¯s your music practice actually going?" The young man inquired, while Sophia looked at him with a sigh. "Not well, to be honest. I mean, it¡¯s going great and all, but it¡¯s not as much fun as I imagined, mostly because that¡¯s not necessarily my style of music. I¡¯m more of a..." "DJ?" Benji finished his cousin¡¯s sentence, before she nodded her head. "Mhm, basically. But that¡¯s not really a thing in the game, so..." "Why shouldn¡¯t it be a thing?" With a smirk, Benji began to help his cousin make some food, before she looked at him confused. "What do you mean? It¡¯s medieval fantasy, obviously there wouldn¡¯t be DJ stuff and remixing." Quietlyughing, Benji just shook his head. "I can really just confirm with you if I¡¯m right when I learn magic from Xenia, because I can just ask her then, but I¡¯m pretty sure something like that should be a thing as an element. And it¡¯s definitely possible to save audio-information in crystals, because that¡¯s what Grampa did for his Automata and Camera Bots, so it¡¯s most likely possible to interact with it and manipte it. Maybe there¡¯s no direct skill for it, but at the very least you should be able to find a way to be a DJ in the game." He exined, before Sophia looked at him with bright eyes. "Seriously? That would be really cool! Talking about skills, though, how many do you have now..?" She asked curiously, before Benji went through it in his head. "I¡¯m not exactly sure? 20? Only so far, though... I¡¯m going to be learning more from Brody and Xeniater." He said with a wry smile, and Sophia just chuckled. "Damn, that¡¯s insane. Maybe you¡¯ll unlock a rare ¡¯Skill Hoarder¡¯ upation." "Just youugh, but I¡¯ll be really dope!" He protested, and Sophia continuedughing, as the two cousins continued to make food for themselves, Tony, Katy and Sean, before the two of them sat back down in their capsules. --- When Stahl woke back up inside of the Atelier, his hand was still holding Evalia¡¯s. Luckily, Stahl seemed to have logged on a few seconds earlier than Alnico, so he managed to stand up before she saw them hold hands, as he, and Evalia too, would prefer not to openly talk about this just yet, because neither of them really knew what ¡¯this¡¯ even was. "Oh, Brody¡¯s online!" Stahl eximed with a smile as he checked his friendslist, and Al looked at him with a smile. "Well, then go before he logs back off!" She told him, and the young man nodded his head before stepping out the door as Thul was still waking up, and his freshly-painted undead were following behind him. And swiftly, Stahl made his way to the training room, where he unsurprisingly found Brody testing some moves on a dummy. Before Stahl could even greet him, Brody had already turned around. "Alright kid, you¡¯rein¡¯ to learn some of my skills?" He asked with a grin, showing his shining teeth as his tusks were nearly boring into his skin. "Yup, obviously!" But stahl didn¡¯t really care about that horrid scene, as he was far too excited for that. "Alright, then let¡¯s get started. Punching a Dummy all day is pretty boring, ya know?" Brody said as he kept up his broad grin, before Stahl nodded his head. "I bet it is! Good thing I¡¯m not an idiot!" The young man responded, before Brody¡¯s excited grin just turned slightly dumbfounded, before he began tough loudly. "Good one, kid. First, we¡¯ll start with getting you the unarmedbat skill. Hmm, I think I should tell you some theory first, huh?" Brody said with a loud sigh, before swiftly starting his exnation. "Alright, with Combat Skills, you have to be aware that you only have general skills, and your style will really depend on you. At Rank 5, your skill will be upgraded toward a skill of that specific style. But I¡¯m sure your goal is to exactly not stick to a single style, but instead be able to do a bit of everything, right?" Immediately, Stahl nodded his head with a broad smile. "Yep, that¡¯s basically it! So, what are we starting with, then? Boxing, Judo, Karate?" Stahl asked, but Brody looked at him with a wry smile. "You¡¯re kiddin¡¯, right? We¡¯re only working toward the skills, you know? Martial arts heavily depend on the right form and specific movements. With other types of skills you might get away with learning the basics and just going from there your own way, but if you want to learn from me, I ain¡¯t letting you do this half-assed. You¡¯re getting the skill to Rank 1, and then we¡¯ll move on to the next skill. But from now on, at least once a week, real life, you wille and train with me. That means four days in a row in here." Brody eximed, and Stahl looked at the fighter with a surprised expression. "If you don¡¯t think you can do that, then forget about it and leave." The Demon-Orc said strictly, but Stahl immediately shook his head. "Oh, no, that¡¯s not why I was hesitating! I¡¯m starting college soon, so I was thinking how I¡¯d best fit it in with my schedule." He exined, before Brody just replied with a smile. "Right answer, kid. Alright, as I said, we¡¯re starting with unarmedbat. It can roughly be cut up into four differentrge techniques. Punching, Kicking, Throwing, and Holding. We¡¯re going to go through all of that just so I can see what your idea of everything is, and so I can see your natural intuition. You haven¡¯t done any martial arts yet, right?" "Nope, just some stuff here and there in middle school, because my Gym teacher was pretty MMA obsessed. Now, where do I start? Punching, right? What do I punch?" Stahl asked with a grin, before Brody swiftly stuck out his thumb and pointed it at himself. "You¡¯re punching me. And don¡¯t worry, I doubt you can do triple digit damage even with a sword. So just go ahead and throw a punch at me with all your might." Brody said with a grin, and Stahl slowly nodded his head, although he was just so slightly hesitant about it, and just tried to punch Brody¡¯s chest with all that he could. And in return, he received more damage than he dealt. Thetter of the damage values being null. "What the- Dude, did you attack me somehow?" Stahl asked confused, but Brody just shook his head. "Nah, kid. My Endurance stat is around 200 right now, so I¡¯m basically a rock from your perspective. Your stats are at the level of a below-average adult. Obviously you would only hurt yourself when punching a rock. But let¡¯s move on. Go ahead and kick me." Brody said, simply crossing his arms, before Stahl slowly nodded. With all his might, he swung his leg from the side to kick Brody¡¯s hip, but once more, all that happened was that he himself got damaged. "God dammit! Again? I might end up killing myself at this rate!" Stahl eximed with a bit of annoyance, but Brody just passed that by and moved on. "Mhm, anyway, try to throw me to the ground now." He told the young man, who nodded his head and tried to do something that he remembered would work against even a stronger and heavier opponent. He moved his foot behind Brody¡¯s and then pushed against his chest with his hand. This time he didn¡¯t actually hurt himself, but that was because nothing happened. "Well, good enough. And now, somehow try to pin me down." Brody said with a sigh andid down on his back, keeping his arms crossed, before Stahl looked at him with a wry smile. "This is gonna be a long day, isn¡¯t it...?" Stahl muttered with a sigh, before he did as he was told. --- "Shoulders back. Arms parallel. And stop clenching your fists that way all the time." Brody once more corrected Stahl. It¡¯s been about two hours since they started, and Stahl had actually gotten the Unarmed Combat skill and nearly got it to reach rank 1 already. And so, Brody had started actually properly training him, although that mostly just included showing him the moves and having Stahl copy him, while sometimes letting Stahl use him as a training dummy. And so, everything became a continuous circle of different kinds of punches, kicks, throws and pins, until Stahl finally managed to Rank his skill up. "Fucking finally! Brody, it ranked up, so let¡¯s move on for now, alright?" Stahl suggested with a grin, and Brody nodded his head with a deep sigh. "Sure, alright. Overall, I¡¯d say you¡¯ve done pretty well with unarmedbat, although you technically didn¡¯t fight anyone yet. We¡¯ll do some mock-fights in our lessons from now on, so that you can get some proper experience. Oh, and obviously you¡¯ll be going out to figth some of the monsters on the inds as well once we go there." Brody exined as he got some of the weapons ready that they would be using next, before Stahl nodded his head, although he was confused about something. "Got it, but... Are you sure that¡¯s a good idea? I mean, those are all Rank 3 monsters, right? I know you all said that we¡¯d find a ce to Level up low-level fighters, but even then... That¡¯s a bit much for the start, right? It takes a while to level up to that level as well, so-" "Obviously you¡¯ll level up a bit more, but as soon as you can even think about fighting them, I suggest you do. Fighting enemies stronger than you not only helps level up quicker, but also gives you more proficiency in your skills. Personally, I¡¯d say to get your upation as soon as your Grandfather is back, and then level up a good bit even on the ship if possible. There¡¯s some sea monsters that will surely give you some nice experience." Brody pointed out, and Stahl nodded his head with a grin. "Got it! I¡¯ll do that!" He responded excitedly, but Brody swiftly tried to move on. "Anyway, let¡¯s move on now. You have Swordsmanship and Shield Arts, right?" Brody asked just to make sure, before Stahl nodded his head, and was instantly given a small shield and a sword, while Brody cracked his knuckles. "Then let¡¯s just grind a bit for now, shall we?" The Demon-Orc asked with a grin, before Stahl tilted his head to the side nervously. "Erm, what do you mean with ¡¯Grind¡¯ exactly?" He asked, but Brody just continued grinning. "Pretty obvious, right? We¡¯re taking turns attacking each other. I aim at you, and you defend with your shield, and then immediately counterattack with your sword. Then I¡¯ll punch the shield again, and you counterattack. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m gonna go easy on ya, kid." Brody exined, and before Stahl could even ask him if he was serious, he already threw a swift jab at him. He just so slightly aimed at the shield, so that Stahl only had to move it a tiny bit to be able to defend against it, but even then he was just barely able to do so, and most importantly, it still damaged Stahl. "Dude, be careful! I thought you¡¯d hold back!" He protested, and Brody nodded his head with a grin on his face. "Oh, but I am holding back." Brody responded with a smile, before looking at Stahl¡¯s sword. "So, when¡¯s the counterattacking?" He asked in a mocking tone, before Stahl ground his teeth and swung his sword at Brody, who simply brushed it off with his arm, before Stahl muttered something to himself. "Yup... This really is gonna be a long day..." Chapter 279 - Magic Mastery In the afternoon of the in-game day, Stahl had learned all the weapon-skills that Brody told him to, at least their basics, and was now simply sitting there, meditating to get the skill to Rank 1. Brody had to leave, because he was just on an extended break from work and needed to return to teach another ss, so Stahl had to practice the skills on his own for a while. And now, meditation was the only skill that still had to reach Rank 1 out of the skills that Brody had taught him, although that also changed after a little while, and when Stahl heard the little ringing telling him that a notification appeared, he swiftly deactivated the meditation and just took a look at it with a sigh. "Alright, this one¡¯s gonna be pretty boring to level up if I don¡¯t find anything good to do while I¡¯m at it." Stahl muttered out to himself, before standing up from where he was sitting and checking out his friend¡¯s list to see if a certain someone was online. "Yes, finally!" He eximed as he noticed that Xenia¡¯s name was written in a light green as a sign that she was online, and then made his way out of the training room and up to the meeting hall, where Xenia spent most of her time. There, Xenia was currently talking to Komer, while Koro was sitting at the table, drawing an Enchantment circle onto a piece of paper. With a wry smile at the sight of his grandfather¡¯s avatar simply sitting there in its metal form, Stahl approached them as he scratched the back of his neck. "Eyooo! I¡¯m ready to take my Magic Lessons!" The young man eximed, before Komer turned around and looked at him with a smile. "Ah, right, you were gonna do that. Well, I¡¯ll leave you alone then, see youter. Xenia, we¡¯ll talk about it some moreter, I¡¯ll figure the logistics out for now." Komer said and made his way to the door with a wave, before Stahl looked at Xenia confused. "What¡¯re you gonna talk aboutter?" He asked, but Xenia just shrugged. "Oh, Komer was thinking about selling different basic magic contracts or scrolls, and we need to figure out proper pricing for them." She exined, so Stahl nodded his head with a smile. "Gotcha! Anyway, should we get to it now? You¡¯re thest one I need to learn from. Well, except Grampa... He¡¯s most likely going to make me learn some more skills as well." Stahl said with a smirk as he looked at the metallic figure, before Xenia nodded. "Probably. Should we go outside for that? I want to talk about something alone. Koro, keep drawing the enchanting circles." She exined and stepped to the door, before the two of them, plus Thul and the skeletal animals, made their way to the small roof-area on the top of the meeting-hall. It was usually quite windy there, so they never actually used it because it was a bother most of the time, but right now it didn¡¯t seem like a big issue. "Alright, so what did you want to talk about?" Stahl asked with a light smile, already knowing the reason why Xenia asked him to talk outside, and Xenia slowly turned to him. "I... Want to say sorry... Th-There¡¯s a lot of stuff going on in my re-real life at the moment, but that doesn¡¯t excuse th-that I nearly had Eisen arrested..." She said with a bitter tone, and Stahl just responded with a long sigh. "Listen, I¡¯m going to tell you the truth, I¡¯m he pissed. But... It happened. Grampa told me not to be a bitch about it, so I won¡¯t be. You had your reasons as well. Anyway, let¡¯s just move on from that and have me learn some magic, alright?" Stahl suggested, and Xenia slowly nodded her head. "Sure... Let¡¯s get back inside then... We¡¯ll start with magic-crafting skills, but for the rest, we should probablye back outside." The High-Elf exined calmly, before they made their way back inside after the short talk and sat down at the table. "Let¡¯s start with enchanting. Right now you can only use basic elemental runes, meaning fire, water, wind, earth, light and dark, and can only make ¡¯create¡¯ enchantments. So that¡¯s what we¡¯ll be doing, having you make ¡¯Create¡¯ enchantments of different elements until you get the skill to rank 1." She started, and Stahl slowly nodded his head, taking the mythril needle that he was given into his hand and looking down at the t crystal te in front of him. "There¡¯s some tools as well that you should probably use for now to get straight lines and proper circles." She suggested, handing him said tools, before Stahl did as Xenia was exining to him. She was basically rambling a lot about different things, but in the end, she manged to at least properly tell Stahl about the basics. Luckily she now had a bit of experience in teaching others because of Koro. That, mixed with the fact that she was feeling pretty awkward around Stahl because of everything, made it that she could keep her rambling to a minimum while telling him the maximum amount of needed information. And so, Stahl learned the Enchanting skill and brought it to Rank 1 pretty swiftly. He had already heard about the mechanics of enchanting through his grandfather before, so it didn¡¯t take him all that long to get a hang of it in the end. That meant that they soon moved onto Alchemy. And again, that wasn¡¯t much either, it really just meant that Stahl made a fewrge potion batches, and then soon reached Rank 1 in alchemy. He would work to rank Enchanting and Alchemy up again after he learned the other magic skills so that he would be able to learn Transmutation and Ability Enchanting as well, because that was something that his grandfather used quite a lot in all kinds of different items. "Okay, so we¡¯re done with these two now. Next is actual magic. Do you know where Manaes from?" Xenia asked, and Stahl just scratched the back of his neck. "From the core of our souls, right? Like, that¡¯s where the source of our mana is." "That¡¯s true for us, but other than that, Mana is something that exists at all times at all ces. It¡¯s basically an infinite energy that dwells everywhere, but it depends on the ¡¯vessel¡¯ how much mana is actually present. Even regr animals have mana in their bodies, they just don¡¯t know how to use it. The biggest variations within the whole ¡¯Magic¡¯ category is where the mana you use for magices from." She swiftly exined, but Stahl just looked at her confused. "Doesn¡¯t it always take mana to use any type of magic?" He asked confused, and Xenia nodded her head. "Basically, that is true. Magic is taking the mana from our bodies to cause an effect. Sorcery does that by using a Magic Circle as a ¡¯tool¡¯ that uses our mana to fuel itself. Technically, sorcery, as well as enchanting, cause their effect by taking mana from the environment. And then there are types of magic that use mana as a sort of ¡¯offering¡¯. That includes Miracles from priests, that exchange their mana for divine energy, Druidism, which exchanges mana for natural energy, and Witchcraft, which enchanges mana for World Energy. Well, world energy is used by a lot of different things, not just by witchcraft." "Huh... Wait, do you also have a Priest skill?" Stahl asked confused, and Xenia immediately nodded her head. "Yes, I do. It¡¯s not as strong as for people with Religious upations, but it lets me cast simple miracles. I have a priest skill to follow the God of Magic, and that simply allows me to strengthen my magic by mixing it with the divine energy I get through the blessings." She answered while Stahl listened curiously, although he was slowly facing a small issue. "Then... Can I even learn a skill like that at the moment? Don¡¯t I need to visit a church for that?" "Actually, you don¡¯t. It¡¯s the Pastor that usually bestows those skills, and there¡¯s a lot of them on this ship. For what you¡¯re going for, I rmend getting the skill from someone following the God of Skills." Xenia suggested, before Stahl slowly nodded his head. "Huh, that might be a good idea... Erm, but that¡¯s not the first thing we¡¯re doing now, right?" Stahl asked, and Xenia shook her head. "Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯re not. First, you¡¯ll learn some mana-skills. Right now my suggestions are Mana Modelling, Mana Copy, Mana Search, Mana Double as well as Mana Doll. I¡¯m guessing you have Mana Maniption already, so it¡¯s just those five." The High-Elf exined to Stahl, who swiftly began to grin. "I already have Mana Modelling! That¡¯s what I was doing when I was waiting for you all the other day." Stahl answered with a smile, before Xenia nodded her head slowly. "Right..." She muttered, feeling ufortable remembering what happened then, so Stahl swiftly moved on after noticing this. "Anyway... So, what¡¯s Mana Copy?" He inquired curiously, before Xenia exined it to him. "Basically, it¡¯s just copying something with mana, that¡¯s about it. There¡¯s different ways to do it, though. You can for example just model something out of mana to look like something else like you do with Mana Modelling, or you pour mana into an object, fill it out everywhere, and then pull that mana out of that object while having it keep its ¡¯structure¡¯, so that you can basically take over the shape of the object." She told him, so Stahl slowly smiled. "Is that it? Well, I guess then I can just..." He muttered and ced his hand onto one of the books he got from Jyuuk the day before, using it as a reference to copy it in the second way that Xenia described to him, simply filling out every part of the book before pulling the mana back out of the book. And just like that, Stahl had gained the Mana Copy skill. Using that skill, Stahl then copied his own body to the deepest extent that he could, as well as Thul and his skeletal animals. This continued repeatedly until Stahl¡¯s Mana Copy skill reached Rank 1, at which point, Xenia made him move onto the next skill. "And now, create the copy of yourself and manipte it to walk. And don¡¯t forget to put the clothes you copied on it. That should give you the Mana Double skill. At the beginning, it might seem a bit weird that it¡¯s a separate skill from the Mana Doll skill that you¡¯ll learnter, but at higher ranks, you¡¯ll notice a real difference between the two skills." She exined, and Stahl did as Xenia told him to immediately. Over the past few days, that was really all he was doing. He was told something, and he did it. Sometimes he gave a funny, snarky remark back at them, but most of the time he simply did so, continued grinding the skill through repeated actions, and then moved on to the next skill. It would most likely pay off in the end, but for now, it was rather annoying that he had to grind these continuosly in such a boring manner. He would much prefer to be able to go out and actually use the skills in a constructive manner, although that wasn¡¯t possible considering that they were stuck on this ship at the moment. "Alright, now just keep your mana double there at all times. Shouldn¡¯t take too much mana to keep it up and have it follow you." Xenia exined as she looked at the pure-white version of Stahl just mindlessly standing there, before she moved on. "Now, do the same with one of your undead." She said with as smile, before Stahl sighed loudly, already creating the figure of Des. Chapter 280 - Golems and Sorcery And so, quite swiftly, Stahl made the copy of Des move around, and even fly around as it was weightless mana he was ying around with, and like that gained the ¡¯Mana Doll¡¯ skill. "Alright, and what exactly is the difference between ¡¯Mana Double¡¯ and ¡¯Mana Doll¡¯?" The young man asked curiously, before Xenia swiftly exined it in the best way that she could. "Well, at the start, there¡¯s not really much of a difference, just as I said. Butter, Mana Double will really be able to copy you. At Rank 5, like many other skills, it might even rank up to be a ¡¯Higher Grade¡¯ skill. Some people that use it a lot got a ¡¯Perfect Double¡¯ skill, which quite literally creates perfect copies of yourself with all your skills. You¡¯ll be able to ¡¯switch¡¯ between those doubles as well and control itpletely. Mana Doll will simply be more potent at ltaer ranks. You can control more dolls, your dolls will gain sentience, and will be actual creatures. That¡¯s basically the biggest difference." She exined to him, before Stahl nodded his head with a smile. "Huh, nice... That means I have a lot of skills that can make me the absolutemander of an army right now, huh?" Stahl asked with a grin, before Xenia slowly nodded her head with a light chuckle. "I guess you do. Necromancy, taming, Mana Double and Mana Doll... And then Golemancy, when you learn that skill as well. And on top of that, there seem to be a lot of different skills with that kind of behaviour. Who knows, you might even be able to get summoner-type skills depending on what kind of upation you end up getting." Xenia said with a smile, finally having at least somewhat rxed, before Stahl cracked his knuckles. "Alright, then let¡¯s get to it! You just mentioned Golemancy, right? How do I get that skill? I already controlled CB-1, and Imanded Cabarum and Aulu before as well. What else do I need to do then?" He inquired a bit confused, and Xenia nodded her head. "You see, so that you can actually properly learn the skill, you need to be the master of a Golem first. And then, whatever kind of control, even the control over CB-1 and Eisen¡¯s automata, will end up giving you some proficiency." She answered the young man, who nodded his head, although he tilted his head to the side. "Don¡¯t I need to get my Enchanting skill to Rank 2 for that to get Ability Enchanting?" He asked, but Xenia shook her head. "Not really, I can just give you a golem core for that. You only be the ¡¯Master¡¯ of the golem if you activate it, not by making it." She exined, so Stahl slowly nodded his head. "I see... Well, then should we do that? I can level the skill up over time that way then." Stahl suggested, and Xenia slowly stood up and walked over to her bag, out of which she grabbed a few small balls, handing one of them over to stahl. "Search a good body for it, and thene back to me." She said with a light smile, and Stahl simply ended up grinning. "Only gonna take a minute!" He eximed, jumping up from the chair and running out of the meeting room and then down the stairs, before swiftly making his way to the, currently empty, Atelier, where he grabbed all the wooden body parts that he made as part of his Sculpting lesson from Evalia the other day. And so, truly after just a few minutes, Stahl had already returned with the numerous decoratively carved wooden parts, which heid down on the ground in front of Xenia. "I already have a body for it!" He eximed, before Xenia nodded her head slowly. "Yeah... I can see that... Or at least parts of a body." She muttered confused, before Stahl simply squatted down onto the ground andid the parts down in the exact right shape. And then, it seemed quite obvious what this was. It was a wooden mannequin, although not one in a shape that you may expect. The small carvings on the outside of the body made it seem like something was supposed to go inside of them to create a different kind of body altogether, although Xenia wasn¡¯t sure which ones were actually there for the actual parts, and which ones were pure decoration. There was just one area where something was missing. In the center of the chest, there was something like a deep, gaping hole with spirals moving down inside of it into a ¡¯slot¡¯ for something, and Xenia quite swiftly understood the use for that hole. "You meant to turn this into a golem all along?" Xenia asked, and Stahl nodded his head with a smile. "Yup! Well, not any kind of golem, but you¡¯ll seeter when my skill ranks are a bit higher." He said with a wink, before taking the spherical golem core that he was given by Xenia, trying to push it into the hole in the center of the chest. It took a little bit of Transmutational help from Xenia, but in the end, the core was sitting as tightly inside of the chest as possible. "Although... I have to admit, this isn¡¯t necessarily the best ce for that core. The crystals as well as the process that allows you to ce multiple enchantments on it make it so that the crystal can be shattered with a bit of concentrated force, different to regr mana crystals which are basically un-breakable." Xenia exined, but Stahl just replied with a shrug. "That¡¯s fine. This guy¡¯s not necessarily going to be abat-golem anyway. More of an all-rounded assistant, I guess." Stahl said with a smile, and Xenia just slowly nodded her head before watching Stahl activate the golem core. Immediately, all the different smaller wooden ¡¯body parts¡¯ that were just pressed against each other up until now started ckering around and moving until they turned into a real, properly connected body while the golem core began to glow in a faint light, although so far it was justying on the ground without moving. "Well... It gave me the Golemancy skill, but what the hell is this guy doing?" Stahl asked confused, before Xenia simply shrugged. "You didn¡¯t give it anymands yet, and it doesn¡¯t really know how its new body is supposed to act. It¡¯s different from Eisen¡¯s automata, which immediately knew how to move their bodies due to the fact that their bodies were specifically built to be able to work in a specific way, while also being created with the help of Beast Crystals, which made them used to the body of a beast. This guy here knows nothing, though." Xenia exined, so Stahl just scratched the back of his neck and nodded. "Alright... Golem, stand up." Stahlmanded, before the wooden parts began to rattle and the Golem perked the center of its body up, although it was standing four-legged right now. "Golem, Copy how I¡¯m standing." With a loud sigh, Stahl corrected the golem, and it soon tried to stand up like Stahl was, although, as it was doing so quite clunkily, it fell a few times and showed a nice, peculiar ability. Because it was made of multiple parts simple pressed together, it could de-tach parts of itself and then quite simply re-attach them. Stahl would most likely even be able to switch the different body parts over time to make the golem stronger as well. And while Stahl was thinking about this, the Golem finally managed to stand up straight on its two legs. "Good enough, I guess?" The young man muttered out as he looked at the slumped-over figure and then turned to Xenia, who did seem quite curious about this type of golem. "What are we doing next?" Stahl asked, to get her out of her hypnosis-like state where she couldn¡¯t think of anything else but what was in front of her, before the High-Elf perked her head up in a bit of surprise. "Oh, right... Well, next is Sorcery. We¡¯ll figure out proper spells once you get your element, so until then, you should use these to cause strong effects. And in general as well, because Sorcery lets you be a lot more all-rounded than by only using your element, because it can quite simply support every type of action. It just depends on the magic circle." She exined, so Stahl slowly nodded his head as Xenia swiftly demonstrated what Sorcery really was once she grabbed her wand. With a few swift motions, she formed arge circle in the air with her pure mana. Then, she created a pentagram inside of that circle, filling each of the five triangles out with different runes, before then adding runes to the outer ring as well. And atst, she simply tapped the center of the pentagram, before the Magic circle shattered into pieces as if it was ss, and those pieces then began to envelop Stahl. And a few momentster, the pieces simply disappeared. [Your INT and WIS stats have temporarily been enhanced by 10 points each] "Oh? You gave me a boost?" Stahl asked surprised, and Xenia nodded her head. "It¡¯s only going tost for about half an hour though, so it¡¯s nothing too special. But as you could see, a Magic Circle works much in the same way as an enchantment circle, just that the Magic Circle disappears after one use." She exined, so Stahl nodded his head, although he was a bit confused about something. "Then why didn¡¯t you need to sketch the effect into the center of the Pentagram?" He asked, and Xenia swiftly exined. "First, it¡¯s a Pentacle, the base of quite a few basic magic circles that are supposed to cause an effect." She said, and Stahl sighed loudly. "Right, Pentacle... Don¡¯t know the difference, but go on please." He replied, so Xenia continued to exin. "Well, quite clearly, because it wasn¡¯t necessary. An enchantment is something constant that continues to exist after many uses. It¡¯s always the same no matter what you do with it. That¡¯s why it needs a directly specified image, because borrowing one from the user might cause some issues. But a Magic Circle isn¡¯t something that can be ¡¯saved¡¯. It¡¯s a one-use thing, so it¡¯s enough to use your own mental image while you¡¯re activating it. That actually helps it be specialized toward every situation. If you have something that shoots a ¡¯bullet¡¯ it, lets you aim more precisely, for example." "Huh... Got it. And just wondering, is this something that has different ¡¯styles¡¯ as well? Brody told me a bit about it, and that any skill that gets an upgrade at Rank 5 has different ¡¯styles¡¯, although it¡¯s usually called other things. Does sorcery have that as well, depending on what kind of Magic Circles you usually draw?" Stahl inquired curiously, and Xenia nodded her head with a bit of surprise. "Oh, good that you already knew! Exactly, yes. There¡¯s a few different ways to cast sorcery. Evalia is actually trying to use her element to make ¡¯Sorcery Painting¡¯, so that¡¯s most likely going to turn her sorcery skill to be something like ¡¯Art Sorcery¡¯. Some Scribes had their Sorcery turn into ¡¯Word Sorcery¡¯. It all depends on what you do with it." She answered with a smile, so Stahl crossed his arms with a grin on his face. "Interesting... So Sorcery also has free-form things like enchanting does?" Stahl asked, so Xenia swiftly answered. "Yes, although there are a lot of forms known to be quite good for certain types of effects. Such as the Pentacle is something amazing for boost sorcery." She answered, before Stahl took the simple wand that Xenia had prepared for him and poured his mana inside of it before holding it in front of himself. "Then I¡¯ll y around a little now!" Chapter 281 - Shamanism With a broad grin on his face, Stahl spent the next hour or two simply creating different magic circles, ying around with different mechanics as he did so. He even figured out a few neat ways to use it together with his other skills, by simply strengthening those exact skills in itself and some weapons. There was a certain type of sorcery called ¡¯area sorcery¡¯, which would, for a short time, change an area into something else. It wouldn¡¯t actually change the physical appearance of anything, but it was something of a position-based boost-magic. You could create healing effects in the area, or you could create skill-boost effects in a certain area, so that was something that Stahl was really concentrating on while practicing sorcery. The base effects were quite simr to his Grandfather¡¯s ¡¯Crafting Space¡¯ skill, after all, although that was still a good bit more potent and far, far easier to use. Eisen just had to think of the activation and what skill to activate it for, while Stahl had to spend a good time to actually draw the magic circle required to cover the whole room, which was basically just an array of multiple magic circles ced at each ¡¯boundary¡¯ of the effect range. But either way, Stahl soon managed to finish learning sorcery, before he opened his Status and noticed that his Mana Maniption skill was already at Level 90, meaning that it wouldn¡¯t take all that long for him to Rank it up to 2 now, which was the point at which he would gain his element! Before then, though, Stahl wanted to make sure he had learned all the skills that he really could, so he swiftly moved to Xenia again. "Whates next? Just ranked my Sorcery skill up!" He eximed with a smile, before Xenia stood up from the chair next to Koro¡¯s, who the High-Elf was still teaching about proper useage of Magi-craft-skills. "Next is about the ¡¯Exchange¡¯ Magic that I talked about. The most notable ones being Shamanism, Witchcraft, and Praying." She exined, before starting to talk about each one in a little bit more detail. "Shamanism exchanges mana for ¡¯Spirit Energy¡¯ to create Curses and Blessings. Witchcraft, as mentioned before, exchanges mana for ¡¯World Energy¡¯ to create all kinds of effects, often bound toward specific items or people, instead of a stand-alone effect. And then Praying is a skill that changes depending on your Deity, so we¡¯ll have to look into that when we go to get you the skill." She exined, and then stepped over to the door. "We¡¯re going back outside now, Shamanism and Witchcraft is easiest when done in natural environments." Xenia said and stepped out of the room, and then back up to the area on top of the meeting room, before handing Stahl a knife. "For shamanism, using ingredientsing from the dead or the living is quite normal. So, we¡¯re using your blood. Cut your finger, and then drag it over the wood to draw a small circle. Oh, and ce your mana over the cut to keep blooding." She told him, so Stahl quietly sighed before inevitably nodding his head. "Fine..." He answered with a wry smile and took the knife he was given into his hand, before dragging it over the surface of his finger to create a shallow cut. With his mana then covering the small opening, the mana simply dripped out as if through a just-so-slightly opened tap. And then, he squatted down onto the ground and drew the small circle just as he was told, before looking back up at Xenia. "That¡¯s it, you can stop now. But keep the mana inside of the cut, just don¡¯t bleed inside the circle." She said with a smile and then handed Stahl a few items, while he stuck his finger into his mouth so that he wouldn¡¯t bleed all over the ce. He was given a small bundle of different herbs, finely ground down white powder, and a bowl filled with water. "First things first, cover the whole area that you just created with your blood in your mana, like a half-sphere so that you can cover everything that happens next. Then, ce the bowl into the center of the circle, and pour the ground-down bones inside of it. After that, you have to mix it around with one end of the bundle of herbs, until it bes thick enough to hold the herbs without them touching the bottom of the bowl. And then, you need to put a few drops of blood at the top of the bundle of herbs, and then ignite that end." She exined step by step, before Stahl slowly began to do as he was told. He first created the small mana-area, then poured the white powder into the bowl, mixed it around with the herbs that he then stuck inside of it vertically and then drenched in his blood, before grabbing a ¡¯fire starter¡¯, which was simply a long mana crystal that would create fire at the end of it. "And now, repeat what I say." Xenia said, as slowly ck smoke was starting to rise from the herbs, before Stahl nodded his head and listened, and repeated her words as soon as he could. "Oh spirits of the other realm, take this offering of mine and show me your power." With this, rtively short, chant, the ck smoke that was rising so far started moving as if in reverse, as if being ¡¯pulled back¡¯ into the fire. And when all the smoke that rose before disappeared back inside of it, the me itself turned pitch ck, while Stahl noticed that the mana that he covered the small circle in disappeared the more the me burned. [Shamanism Skill Learned] [You created a ck me] [ck me] [Quality - High][Rank - 0] [Description] A me blessed by the spirits. Even without any fuel, it will now forever continue burning if not obstructed. It is a basic item needed for many Shamanistic Rituals. "A ck me?" Stahl asked confused, and Xenia nodded her head with a smile, before pointing at the bowl. "Here. Better try to keep that me safe. You can only do this ritual once a week." Xenia said as she handed him a small mana-crystal container, which he was able to close with something like a ¡¯lid¡¯. Carefully, he opened the container up and simply ced it over the fire that had consumed everything inside of the bowl, even the water, before swiftly moving the container as if ¡¯scraping¡¯ the mes out of it, before closing the lid up. "Good. The ck me is one of the more basic tools that you will need for Shamism. There¡¯s an equivalent for the three other physical base elements. ck water, ck wind, and ck earth." She exined to Stahl, who slowly nodded his head as he looked at the ck me inside of the crystal container, which was somewhat acting like liquid, simply filling out every part of it, without burning or dirtying the insides. Although then, he noticed something in what Xenia just told him. "Wait, ck wind? How does that work?" He asked confused, and Xenia just shrugged. "It¡¯s like a small Whirlwind that¡¯s just pitch-ck. Like a ¡¯Tornado in a bottle¡¯." She exined, and Stahl scratched the back of his neck. "Right... Well, are the others also as simple?" "Basically, yes. You¡¯re going to need a few different materials, but they all work with the same small, circr blood-base. Oh, and you can¡¯t use that one now, the blood basically lost all its ¡¯Power¡¯... You can blow it off pretty easily without leaving a trace, and then you just have to remake the circle. Should we get started?" Xenia inquired, before Stahl nodded his head, slowly continuing to draw on the ground with his own blood. This really was not something for squirmish people. --- "And now?" Stahl asked, sitting in the center of arge circle of blood with a cross inside of it, each portion having one of the four ¡¯ck Elements¡¯ inside of it. There were other materials, apparently representing the four seasons, inside of each portion. Fire represented summer, wind autumn, earth winter, and water represented spring. These were all represented through simple fruits or herbs, some of which had to be grown by Stahl himself so that they could all actually exist at the same time. "Now the chant. And remember to properly move to each side, okay?" Xenia asked him, before Stahl nodded with a deep sigh. "Sure, so let just start. The order starts with Fire and Earth, turned to Wind, and then Wind and Water, turned to Fire, right?" He inquired once more before Xenia nodded her head. "Yes, and then back to Fire and Earth while facing wind, and then to Wind and Water while facing Earth, and then back." She answered, while Stahl nodded his head and extended his hands so that he could just barely reach the containers filled with the ck Fire and the ck Earth with his fingertips. "Oh spirits of the other realm, take these blessings and the power within me to awaken your virtue. Move through the minutes, through the hours, through the days, and let me acquire the power of the circle of nature." Xenia swiftly said, and Stahl simply repeated the chant, twisting his body to change his position every second, while Xenia continued. "By the fire, earth, wind, and water blessed by you, I swear to treat this gift with honor." And so, after this chant was finished, Stahl ended in the position he started in, before he felt his body heat up and cool down at the same time, before a notification appeared in front of him. [Your Body has been blessed by the Changing Seasons. You now have ess to season-specific rituals] "Yes! Sess!" Stahl eximed, before standing up and stretching a bit, looking excitedly at the notification informing him that the ritual worked, before he noticed the one behind it. "And I ranked the skill up as well!" He eximed, so Xenia looked at him with a smile. "Good job. There are some other important rituals you need to do, I wrote them down for you. They are so that you can better connect with the four physical elements, which increases the chance of a sessful ritual involving that element. And then, I also wrote down the ¡¯upgrade¡¯ rituals for the elements, which you can do in a week from now. But make sure to follow them correctly, because if you fail, you have to start again with the mes at Rank 0." Xenia told him before she handed him a few sheets of paper, which the young man gratefully took. "Thanks! Now... Witchcraft and Praying?" Stahl asked, starting to clean up the mess that everything created after falling to dust, excluding the four elements and their containers, while Xenia nodded her head with a light smile. She was feeling surprisingly calm like this, and she was really d that Stahl didn¡¯t seem to be mad at her over what had happened. She didn¡¯t understand why, as she herself hated her for it, but at the very least Stahl didn¡¯t seem to have an issue. "So, Witchcraft is pretty simr, but it¡¯s more of an ¡¯Item Skill¡¯, because you pair different materials together in different, specific ways to cause an effect when the item is used, consumed, or simply held even. Sometimes it needs a chant, sometimes it doesn¡¯t. Depending on what you do exactly, it is a good idea to call upon the help of different deities within those chants. Although you shouldn¡¯t switch all the time, because there¡¯s also something like a ¡¯familiarity¡¯ with gods. For different rough tasks, choose a different deity. And you will most likely need to build a shrine for them as well, which cane in many different forms." Xenia exined, and Stahl slowly nodded his head as he scratched the back of his neck with a brightugh. "Gotcha... So more random pairings of materials I need to remember." Chapter 282 - Loving Shrines "So, what does such a ¡¯Shrine¡¯ entail exactly?" Stahl asked as he leaned against the railing of the area above the meeting room that they were currently at, before Xenia swiftly grabbed a small pouch out of her pocket. It in itself was simply a small jute bag, but it had a few colorful strings tied to the top, and it obviously wasn¡¯t just a simple bag. "This, for example. A shrine can have many different forms, and everything that ends up acting as a conductor for prayer toward a god counts as one. This bag here contains different nts and gems that are usually connected with the God of Magic. The strings on top are simply colors often connected to him. You can¡¯t do much with something like this, but it at the very least helps you with every day things, or is a good base to work with when going forrger rituals." She exined, before stepping up closer toward Xenia, who leaned forward to take a better look at it, although he swiftly turned away again. "Oh damn, the smell of that stuff is strong as shit!" Stahl eximed with a wry smile, and Xenia nodded her head with a sigh. "Yes, it is. I usually have it packed away in another bag together with the other ¡¯Handheld Shrines¡¯." She exined, before Stahl slowly crossed his arms. "Alright, and I really just need a small bag like that filled with nts and rocks?" Stahl asked with a frown, and Xenia nodded her head. "Basically, yes. As I said, anything that acts as a proper conductor is enough. And it¡¯s not ¡¯rocks¡¯ it¡¯s gems and crystals. You should know that they have a lot of magic power by now." She answered before handing Stahl a different small bag with Brown and Green strings tied to the top. It didn¡¯t smell nearly as strong, but it was still quite pungent, like the sap of a tree stuck to your fingers after going out for a walk in the forest, and picking up small pieces of wood to y around with. With a somewhat calm feeling, Stahl then looked at Xenia. "What do I do now?" Stahl asked, before Xenia just smiled back at him. "Now, you¡¯re going to make a nice sd." She exined, and Stahl looked at her in surprise. "Sd? Seriously? Not aplex concoction, not some legendary cursed item, but a sd?" He asked with a wry smile, looking down at the bag he was holding again. "Yes, a sd. And preferably before the sun goes down, we¡¯re getting to the next town tomorrow morning." The High-Elf said with her arms crossed, before Stahl nodded his head. "Alright, and what kind of sd am I making then?" He inquired, before Xenia handed him a few ingredients, which one usually wouldn¡¯t necessarily expect in a regr sd, most of which being different leaves and herbs you can find in most forests, as well as some small nuts. "A sd with this. The ratio doesn¡¯t matter, just go for it by gut feeling. This should actually give you the cooking skill as well, now that I think about it." She said with a lightugh, before Stahl nodded his head and ced the bag to the side, before sitting down cross-legged on the ground, with a wooden bowl and the different ingredients in front of him. But when he grabbed the first few leaves, Xenia stopped him. "Yup, stop. Just think a bit, I said Witchcraft is about receiving energy from the World, and in no way did you do that yet, right?" Xenia told him, and Stahl nodded his head with a frown. "Yeah, but I only did that at the end with Shamanism as well. I thought maybe thates afterward." He responded, so Xenia just shrugged. "Good point, actually... Well, then let me just exin. The bag I gave you is my Shrine for the God of the Forest. What you need to do, is pour your mana inside of that bag and have that mana connect straight to your own body. It¡¯s easier if you wear it around your neck, actually. It¡¯s already been established as a shrine, so the effect happens immediately." She exined, before Stahl sighed loudly and used the string around the opening to hand the bag down from his neck, before he poured his mana inside of it. And immediately, he could feel something that he didn¡¯t expect at first. There was a gentle flow of mana slowly being established in the ce where the mana from his body and the mana inside of the ¡¯Shrine¡¯ bag connected, the former leaving his body, thetter entering his body. But the mana that he had poured into the bag had changed, and had a pretty different feeling to it overall. While regr mana was both hot and cold at the same time, this mana was simply cold, but pleasantly so, like a light breeze. Surprised, Stahl looked up at Xenia, who was currently wearing the Mana Spectacles that Eisen had made for her, and she nodded in satisfaction. "Okay, good. The world is giving you its energy after you made an offering to the God of the Forest. Now, you need to try and somewhat ¡¯iste¡¯ that energy so that you can pour it into the different ingredients while you¡¯re making the sd." Slowly, Stahl nodded his head and then did as he was told, trying to move the ¡¯World Energy¡¯ away from his usual mana. Luckily, it acted basicallypletely like mana itself, so he didn¡¯t need to worry about not being able to control it. And soon enough, with slightly chilly fingertips, he finished putting together the sd, and was surprised to see the result. [Cooking Skill Learned] [Witchcraft Skill Learned] [You made a Witch¡¯s Forest Sd] "Oh! So that¡¯s really a thing then..?" Stahl asked with surprise as he saw the notifications, all the whilst being pretty d that he got two skills at once, before Xenia nodded her head. "Of course it is! It¡¯s Cooking Witchcraft. There¡¯s many types of it, though. I have a book or two somewhere around here with some different types of Witchcraft, you just have to take a look at which ones you like the most." She exined, so Stahl stood up with the sd bowl in hand. "Meaning basically, Witchcraft is making different things and pouring World energy inside of them?" Stahl asked, and Xenia scratched the back of her neck. "That¡¯s somewhat it, yes, but not necessarily. Sometimes you need a proper ritual to work everything out, especially for high-grade items. And I¡¯m not sure you¡¯re necessarily going to be able to make better items with this just by pouring world energy inside of them while you¡¯re making them, I haven¡¯t actually tried that out yet. It might just somewhat define them differently." Xenia exined, so Stahl slowly crossed his arms. "Huh... Alright, got it. Well, what am I doing next, though? Just making more sd?" He asked with a smirk, but Xenia shook her head. "No, no, that was just an easy way to get you the skill, because you don¡¯t actually get it by making a shrine. But you can gain a good amount of experience by making shrines, so that¡¯s all we¡¯re doing until you ranked up. Then we¡¯re getting you the Prayer skill, and I teach you what you need to do with Divine Energy. And then, you figure out everything else you need to, get your element, and then we continue." Xenia said with a light sigh, feeling a little tired after today, and Stahl scratched the back of his neck with a smirk. "Got it. I¡¯m actually really excited for my element! I think I¡¯ll learn a few more crafting skills though... Right now, I barely have any proper ones of thempared to my other elements, and I want to get a proper bnce going." He exined, as the two of them, plus Thul and the undead, returned to the Meeting room, where Xenia grabbed a few different materials and items, as well as a book with information on different gods, before Stahl then began to create small ¡¯Shrine Bags¡¯ for different deities. He chose to go for six major gods. The gods of Combat, Craftsmanship, Magic, Life, Death and Art. He thought that would be a good enough choice, and Xenia didn¡¯t seem to have anyints either. The gods she chose for her handful of shrines were a bit more precise, all of them being lower gods under the gods of Nature or Magic. The rest of the proficiency that Stahl needed to gain was done so by crafting different things, mostly food, in the form of small snacks, so that Stahl could level up his new cooking skill as well. And then, they finally reached the second-tost hurdle to ovee before properly finishing his lessons under Xenia. The Prayer skill. As it was time to have Dinner now anyway, and everyone made their way to the dining hall now, Stahl and Xenia chose to ask the Pastor for the god of Skills to give him the Prayer skill afterward. And quite coincidentally, Xenia, Stahl, Jyuuk and Evalia got to the Dining Hall at the same time, so it was obvious what happened next. Xenia and Jyuuk chose to sit somewhere alone for a little while, and Stahl and Evalia did the same, although it was far more awkward for thetter couple to do so. "So... How was your day?" Evalia asked after a while once they sat down with their food, before Stahl chuckled lightly. "My day was great, really. I trained a good bit with Brody, and then learned Magic from Xenia. We¡¯re continuing after dinner, so that I learn how to use ¡¯Divine Energy¡¯, and then that¡¯s it for now until I get my element." He exined, before Evalia smiled at him. "Alright, good, then you have all the time in the world tomorrow, right?" Evalia asked with a big grin, and Stahl already knew why she asked, and it wasn¡¯t just for the ¡¯Acting¡¯ skill practice. "Yes, I have time nearly all the time we¡¯re in town tomorrow. I¡¯ll need to go and meet with Komer for half an hour or so, because he¡¯s letting me do the purchases tomorrow so that I can get the Trading skill and then get it to Rank 1, but other than that, I¡¯m all yours." Stahl replied with a wink, before Evalia returned a smile. "Got it. We¡¯re actually staying in town a bit longer than we expected at first, so how about... You and I go eat Dinner together tomorrow?" The young artist asked with a light blush on her cheeks, and Stahl looked at her with a frown, although not a real one. "Aren¡¯t we eating together right now?" He asked, before Evalia looked at him surprised and down at the food, before nodding. "R-Right..." She replied with a sad tone in her voice, before Stahlughed quietly and reached for Evalia¡¯s hand, while his own was nervously shaking. "I¡¯m kidding. Of course I want to go out with you tomorrow night. You¡¯re unexpectedly shy sometimes." The young man replied, but Evalia just replied with a light re. "Well what do you expect... I haven¡¯t done any of this stuff before... Dating is hard if the world immediately finds out about it, especially when you¡¯re a teenager." She said with a sigh, but Stahl just smiled. "Oh, so you don¡¯t want the world to know? I already posted it on social media..." Stahl said embarrassedly, once more just kidding, and this time Evalia at least caught on to that. "Of course you did. No, but seriously... I would prefer that nobody finds out about this before, you know... We actually have an idea what ¡¯this¡¯ is." The artist exined, so Stahl simply nodded his head. "I was thinking the same thing." Chapter 283 - Miracles After eating in the Dining hall, with a few weird looks from people like Samurai and Alnico, thetter being suspicious about everything while the former was simply jealous that Stahl was eating with Evalia, Stahl and Evalia split up again for the rest of the day, and the young man simply met back up with Xenia, so that the two of them could go see the Priest to the God of Skills. All of the church personnel, such as the priests and nuns, was sitting together, so it wasn¡¯t really that hard to find him either. And so, the two of them stepped up to the elderly man. "Hello, could we maybe bother you for a second?" Stahl asked respectfully, before the man turned around with a smile. "Ah, Miss Xenia, young Stahl, of course. You cane and ¡¯bother¡¯ me whenever you wish to." He responded, especially respectfully toward Xenia, and swiftly stood up, as he was apparently nning to do so anyway because he had finished eating. "How can I be of help to you two?" The Priest asked with a smile, and Stahl swiftly spoke up. "I¡¯m currently looking to learn the Prayer skill to pray to the God of Skills. May you help me with that?" He asked calmly, and the Priest nodded his head with a smile. "Of course I may, son. Come with me somewhere more quiet, alright?" "Lead the way." Stahl responded with a nod, before both Stahl and Xenia followed the Priest out of the Dining Hall, while Xenia was actually rather surprised how calm and respectful he was toward the Priest, as he usually was quite loud and energetic. The Priest lead Xenia and Stahl into the area where the the church personnel slept and lived their daily lives on the ship, where a small room acting as a church had been constructed. "Now, my son, please kneel down in front of me, ce your palms onto your heart, and close your eyes." The priest exined as he brought Stahl up in front of the actual shrine of the church, so Stahl did just that. "May Grohl be with you, guide you through the world, and give you the gift of skills." With these words, the priest began to say a quite long ¡¯chant¡¯, or rather ¡¯prayer¡¯, after which Stahl felt a burning heat in the center of his body in response to that prayer, before Stahl was told to open his eyes again. "You are now a son of Grohl, young Stahl. May the gods be with you." The priest said with a single slow nod, following which Stahl looked in front of himself and saw a notification pop up. [You have learned the Prayer Skill] [You are now a believer in the God of Skills Grohl. This information will be disyed in your Status] "Thank you, father. May the gods be with you." Stahl said with a smile as he slowly stood up. He wasn¡¯t actually religious, like at all, but he didn¡¯t technically have an issue with religion itself, just with how some people, like Michael, acted and justified it through their religion. So of course he would respect someone so devout to something he truly loved, while doing nothing but show the same love to others around him. After a little bit of small-talk, Xenia and Stahl left the small temporary church again, and the High-Elf and the young Human made their way back to the meeting hall to finish things up there. They ended up being alone there, because Koro didn¡¯t have to study 24/7 for the test at the end of the venture. "Alright, I¡¯ll just ignore how you turned into another person back there, and we¡¯ll move onto business." Xenia eximed with a light sigh, before Stahl nodded his head with a smirk. "Hey, I can¡¯t help it that I¡¯m just the perfect guy that¡¯s able to do the right thing in any situation." He said and winked at Xenia jokingly, before the High-Elf just shook her head a few times while rolling her eyes. "Well, anyway, let¡¯s get started now. The good thing about the God of Skills is that once a day, he makes it possible to speed up the growth of one of your skills. Not by much while your skill is such low-level, but you know. Other than that, the raw Divine Energy can be used to do different things, which are mostly going to be a small benefit to any one of your skills, as long as you use the energy correctly. That means you won¡¯t get an increase just by having the divine energy somewhere in your body, but you¡¯ll need to cover the right area of your body or tool with it. Meaning, for example your hands when molding y, or your hammer whne smithing." She exined, before Stahl looked at her in surprise. "Isn¡¯t that kind of OP? I mean, just effect wise, that makes this the best possible prayer skill, right?" Stahl asked, but Xenia shook her head immediately. "It¡¯s what you most likely wanted to achieve in the first ce, but it¡¯s a perfect Jack-of-All-Trades skill. It¡¯s pretty good at supporting all abilities, but it¡¯s never going to be better at one single thing than the Prayer skill of someone with a different god. The benefit you gain for Magic isn¡¯t even nearly what my benefit for magic is." Xenia exined, so Stahl slowly nodded his head with a sigh. "Gotcha. But well, it¡¯s pretty neat that I can help the growth of a single skill for a day. Especially atter ranks, that¡¯s going to be pretty neat, right?" Stahl asked with a smile, and Xenia shrugged, before sitting down on her chair. "Depends on if you can actually properly use Divine Energy. It¡¯s pretty easy, to be honest. What you need to do is gather the mana you want to ¡¯offer¡¯ to your god in the center of your chest, where you press your palms, and then simply say the prayer. For more mana that you¡¯re sending off, you¡¯ll need a longer prayer." She exined, before giving Stahl a piece of paper where the different prayers for the different ¡¯levels¡¯ of mana-offering were written down. "Got it... and that¡¯s it? After that, I just get the Divine Energy?" Stahl asked a bit surprised, and Xenia basically just replied with a smile. "Basically. The mana that you gathered will slowly turned into Divine Energy from the center outward while you¡¯re praying. And then, you just need to use it like regr mana." Xenia exined, so Stahl nodded his head and looked at the paper, before holding his palm to his chest, gathering his mana there, before saying the prayer. "Oh Grohl, God of Skills, may you be with me and me be with you." He eximed, and he soon felt his mana turn into a burning hot energy. "Alright, what now? How do I cast the Miracles?" Stahl asked with a smile, before Xenia began to exin. "To enhance on of your skills, bring sufficient divine energy to the spot where your mana emerges from, and then feed it to that spot while thinking about the skill you want to enhance. But other than those Deity-specific things, there¡¯smon miracles that anyone¡¯s able to use, although the Divine energying from some gods is better for certain tasks. Anyway, one of themon miracles is a simple divine heal, or regr buffs like speed, strength, or defense. Just pour the divine energy into whoever you want to cast it on and think about the effect you want." Xenia exined, so Stahl nodded his head with a grin. "Interesting! At this point, I can really fill in at any spot, can¡¯t I?" Stahl eximed, before first pouring the Divine energy into the spot where his mana emerged from, like Xenia had exined, and used it to enhance the growth of the ¡¯Prayer¡¯ skill. This was thest thing he was practicing today, so it would make sense to do that, and then save the next one for either Trading or Acting tomorrow. And after that, Stahl once more prayed with the same prayer, and then looked at Xenia with a smile. "I guess I¡¯ll use the boost effects on you now!" He said, before moving the Divine Energy out of his body and toward the surprised Xenia. Once the Divine Energy, which quite easily moved through the Mana in Xenia¡¯s body, was inside of her, he then spread it all around her body and then thought about turning the Divine Energy into something boosting her speed. With a confused expression, Xenia then looked at Stahl and smiled wrily. "Why did you give me a speed boost of all things?" She asked, and Stahl just shrugged. "I dunno, you¡¯re not really doing anything for the rest of the day anyway, right? So I just gave you a boost for the first thing that came to mind. Oh, and... Does regr mana travel through other people¡¯s bodies so easily as well?" Stahl asked, and with out a second of hesitation, Xenia shook her head. "Not at all, no. First of all, I expected the divine energy and directly let it enter into my body consciously. But most importantly, Divine Energy can¡¯t be used by people to do bad things to others, only good, so our bodies are made to automatically ept it. It¡¯s possible to ¡¯defend¡¯ yourself against it, though, like trying to flex your muscles to make energy like that harder to pass through, just by condensing your mana." Xenia exined swiftly, while Stahl just continued to listen. "Huh, neat..." Stahl muttered out quietly, before just shrugging and once more praying for more divine energy to continue practicing until his Prayer Skill reached Rank 1. --- The next morning inside of the game, Stahl woke up and swiftly stretched, before heading off for breakfast with his small ¡¯group¡¯ in tow, that group being his undead, his Golem, and Thul. And at breakfast, he swiftly met Komer, who Stahl wanted to talk to anyway. "Yo dude!" Stahl eximed with a grin as he sat down next to the Merchant, who swiftly looked up in a bit of surprise while stuffing his face with bread. "Oh, what¡¯s up. By the way, did your entourage increase yesterday?" He asked as he pointed his butter-knife at the wooden Golem Clunkily following behind Stahl, before the young man simply grinned. "Yup! That¡¯s a golem I made yesterday. Well, I made the parts the day before yesterday, but I turned it into a golem only yesterday. But I¡¯m leaving it and the Undead on the shipter, only taking along this lil¡¯ dudester." Stahl exined as he rubbed his finger over the octopus¡¯ head. "Right. Anyway, let¡¯s talk about our dealster. We¡¯re going to buy more supplies and materials. We¡¯re especially bringing more wood with us, because we don¡¯t exactly know the environment on the main ind, and we don¡¯t know if there¡¯s enough things to gather to build a provisionary base while we take over the town at the center of the ind. There¡¯s obviously a source of food there, because the monsters there need to survive somehow, so there¡¯s surely also a ce where we can nt food. But even then, we don¡¯t know if the monsters there are really edible, so we¡¯re buying meat as well. Then we¡¯re buying fabrics, because the middle of the summer ising close, and it¡¯s only getting colder from now on. On top of that, we¡¯re sailing north." Komer swiftly exined what exactly they needed to buy, and for what reason it needed to be bought, to a quite immense extent. He continued rambling on like that for a few more minutes, before Stahl scratched the back of his neck nervously at all the stops they¡¯d need to make. He really wanted to help out, while also getting his Trading skill, but he also wanted to spend as much time with Evalia as possible. "You got all that?" Komer asked, and Stahl nodded his head slowly as he looked through the pages of Komer¡¯s notebook, where he had written down all that needed to be bought and done soon. "Holy crap, you¡¯re really prepared, aren¡¯t you..?" Stahl muttered surprised. He heard that Komer was trying to scam people before, and when, Eisen first met him. And to see such a huge change now was really insane. "Of course I am. It¡¯s fun to do this stuff in my opinion. I¡¯m sure your grandfather told you about what I was like before, but that was just because I was really not motivated to work my ass off. Then Eisen came along and changed that." Komer exined with a smile, and Stahl couldn¡¯t help but grin either. "He¡¯s really changed your life, huh?" Stahl asked, and Komer nodded his head immediately, without hesitating even for a moment. Chapter 284 - Haggling "Stahl!" The voice of a young woman could be heard as she was looking for a young man, who swiftly turned around from stepping off the ship, noticing Evalia approaching him. "Oh, hey!" Stahl eximed with a bright smile, and Evalia smiled back at him. "So... How about we meet at the marketter when you¡¯re done with everything?" She asked, so Stahl immediately nodded his head. "Sure! I¡¯ll just message you when I¡¯m going there then." Stahl responded, so Evalia smirked back at him. "Alright, then I guess I¡¯ll see youter?" Evalia asked once more, so Stahl simply nodded again. "Of course." He said as he swiftly turned around and made his way over toward Komer, who was currently talking to the workers at the harbor. Stahl really wanted to finish the trading as soon as he could. And after Komer finished talking with them, he turned to one of the workers from the ship, told him something, and then jerked his head toward the street to tell Stahl that they should get going now. "What did you ask those guys? The guys from the Harbor I mean." Stahl then asked curiously, before Komer looked at him with a smile. "I was talking about fees, of course... The Harbor¡¯s pretty full at the moment, so a big ship like our¡¯s is a bit of a hassle to deal with. I managed to haggle it down a bit though. Oh, and I asked for the nearest Bookstore as well." He exined, so Stahl lightly tilted his head to the side. "A bookstore? Why that? I thought we only needed to get materials and stuff like that." Stahl added, and Komer nodded his head. "Yeah, but we need to know the actual locations of the shops. Most bookstores at least offer maps of the town, and although they aren¡¯t necessarily filled in with most information, a bookstore owner is usually someone pretty knowledgeable. So, we¡¯ll ask him to fill us in. Oh, and obviously for Sky as well, I told someone to let him know where it is." The young merchant answered, before Stahl quietly whistled impressed. "Nice, I wasn¡¯t aware of that. But just wondering, you¡¯re still basically just wearing your starter clothes... Why is that?" Stahl asked, and Komer looked down at his body before shrugging. "No real reason. Eisen said he¡¯d make me something more merchant-like at some point, but he didn¡¯t get to it yet. And as long as I have the money, people don¡¯t care about what I¡¯m wearing as long as I¡¯m notpletely dirty and somewhat respectable-looking." He exined, before scratching the back of his neck, pointing at the a store at the end of the street with a wooden sign disying a book as well as a writing pen. "That¡¯s the bookstore. Ever haggled before?" Komer asked with a smile, but Stahl just shook his head. "Not really... Usually I just pay the price people tell me. You can¡¯t haggle at McRonald¡¯s, after all." He said with a smile, and Komer nodded his head with a smirk. "Yeah, you don¡¯t usually haggle when ordering food anyway, at least not when it¡¯s a small order at a restaurant or food stall. If it¡¯s what we¡¯re gettingter, we¡¯re hagglin¡¯, but otherwise, that¡¯s not the norm. Anyway, you have the confidence to haggle, so I¡¯ll just show it to you at the bookstore, and then we¡¯re going to some random stall to get you the Trading skill." Komer suggested, while Stahl just nodded and followed behind him, before they made their way into the Bookstore. There, Komer immediately stepped up to the counter and looked at the man behind it. "Good morning, Sir. We¡¯d like to buy a map of town, if possible." Komer said with a smile, cutting right to the chase, before the man nodded his head with a simr business-smile. "Of course, wait just a second." He replied with a nod, before stepping up to the shelf behind the counter and looking at a few different items, making some small talk while he was at it. "Are you two travelers, by chance?" The man asked, and Komer immediately replied with a bright smile. "Yes, Sir, we¡¯re just passing. We¡¯re leaving again in the evening." He answered, so the man nodded his head and with a smile pulled a rolled up piece of paper out of the shelf, opening it on the counter and weighing it down with some small pieces of metal at the corners. "This is our basic map of only Kahn. As you can see, it¡¯s quite clear and easy to see the different streets, even the alleys, as well as the individual houses. We also offer a version of only the streets including the street-names, a version with this amount of detail with the street-names, as well as a map of the outside of town so that you can navigate the fields and forest if you wish to." The Man exined with a smile, and Stahl just shook his head. "That¡¯s fine, this map here is more than enough." Komer answered, and at this point, Stahl noticed the situation change immensely, as if a lever was switched that tensed up the atmosphere. "dly. That would be 50 Copper coins, then." The man said, before Komer began to slightly shake his head and blink quickly as if surprised, or even borderline insulted. "50 Copper? That is quite a sum, isn¡¯t it? I¡¯m more inclined toward 5 copper, personally." The merchant answered, and now it was the man¡¯s turn to act baffled, although Stahl was rather unsure whether he was acting as well, or actually baffled. "Sir, I¡¯m sorry that we can not sell this map for only 10 Copper coins. We can put the number down to 40, though." "How do 10 sound?" "...I offer 30, but I can not go down any further, Sir." The man replied, all the whilst keeping up a bright merchant-like smile, although Stahl noticed that he was most likely not nearly as calm as he was showing himself to be, but Komer just continued. "15?" "Sir, myst word is 20. I will not budge any further than this." The man eximed finally, and Komer smirked as if he got the man where he wanted him. "Alright, let¡¯s go for 25." Komer said with a smile, before the man looked at him confused, although d that he got to sell the map for a higher price than he would have settled on. But Komer still wasn¡¯t finished, "But on top of the 25 for the map, you mark down the locations of a few shops that we need to visit after this. Deal?" Komer asked with a smile, before the Man nodded his head, feeling somewhat relieved that he wasn¡¯t asking for anything else major. And after Komer then asked about the exact locations of different shops to be marked down on the map, he and Stahl made their way back out of the shop, before Stahl turned to the young merchant with a wry smile. "Damn... You¡¯re really a Devil, aren¡¯t you?" Stahl asked, and Komer just shrugged. "Hey, I got us a 50% discount, stopining. He wouldn¡¯t have sold it for that price if it had brought him to ruin. And I¡¯ll give you a little tip here..." Komer said, before quietly looking around and speaking to Stahl in a low voice. "With my element, I can see a rough price range of what an item is worth when I infuse it into my eyes. The range for that map was 20 to 40 copper. He was asking for far too much anyway, so I started the lowest I could go. He knew that I far underpriced it, but he also knew that I knew that he overpriced the map, so he epted the starting ¡¯bid¡¯. I was going for the lowest eptable price, because any lower than that will really not bring him any profit, and I didn¡¯t want to do that to him. But, because that was the spot where he only barely made profit, I raised the price and asked for a small favor instead. He was aware that we¡¯re travelers, because he asked about it at the start, so instead of doing us the favor for free to get us to be returning customers, he could have asked for a fee to tell us the locations of the shops. And instead, I raised the price I would pay him a little into the ce I wanted to get to anyway, and then added the favor into it." Komer exined quite lengthily, while Stahl listened quite curiously before scratching the back of his head. "Couldn¡¯t you have just taken the 20 he would have given you and asked for the favor anyway?" He asked curiously, because he was really just unsure how you should normally handle such things. "I probably would have if I didn¡¯t need that favor, but with it, I thought I¡¯d use that chance. I know especially I shouldn¡¯t say that, but you know, I kinda wanna turn over a new leaf. So, this is how I deal with things. That way, when we get back to this town, he¡¯s going to have positive memories of me as a customer, if he remembers me at all." Komer exined, and that did really seem to make sense to Stahl, although he was curious about something else now. "You just said ¡¯when we get back¡¯, as if it was a sure thing... why that?" Stahl asked, and Komer just turned to him with a wry smile. "Wait, you didn¡¯t ask anyone why we¡¯re stopping herest?" "Not really, no..." The young man responded, somewhat embarrassedly, before Komer replied with a sigh. "This is thergestmercial town in the area, and quite coincidentally, also one of the closest cities to the Inds through the regr routes. There are some that are a bit closer, but those are all Military-controlled, because people have been wanting to take the inds over for a while now." "And why didn¡¯t they manage to? Surely they should have stronger forces than we do, right?" Stahl then asked, but Komer just shrugged. "Not a single clue. I think it has something to do with the fact that they¡¯re inds of the gods, but I really don¡¯t exactly know. You¡¯ll have to ask Sky about it, he knows more about them than anyone on the ship." With a lowugh, Stahl nodded his head before crossing his arms. "He knows the most in general, doesn¡¯t he?" But immediately, Komer shook his head, which surprised Stahl a good bit. "Nope. He and Bree are pretty on-par on the amount of their knowledge. Bree knows most things that you will need in your daily life in any way, and she¡¯s pretty knowledgeable about general geography, skills, magic, and so on. Sky just knows a lot more about different myths and legends, because he grew up in one." He exined, and noticing Stahl¡¯s confused expression, Komer continued. "Sky grew up in a Fairy-Forest. That kind of ce is inessible by regr people or monsters, only those with special permissions can get in there. It¡¯s a ce filled with all kinds of magic, and it has a lot of really strong, legendary creatures in there. Because of that, the Fae had a lot of information about legends and myths." Komer exined, before pointing at a random stall with a few small items. "Anyway, get over there and get the Trading Skill, please. We need to get going so that everything will be delivered in time." Komer exined, and Stahl nodded his head. "Gotcha. Any item in particr you want me to buy?" Stahl asked, while Komer shrugged. "I¡¯ll take a look around and see if there¡¯s anything interesting. Just butter them up for a little while." "Gotcha, Boss!" Stahl responded before rushing over to the stall he was told to and then took a look at the different items. And to his surprise, there was something else going on. A young woman wearing a beginner-yer¡¯s clothes was standing behind the stall, acting as a saleswoman. Chapter 285 - What Just Happened "Good morning, dear customer! How may I help you on this beautiful day?!" The saleswoman asked with a loud voice, before Stahl looked at her with a wry smile, and just to make sure, asked the most important question. "Erm... Just browsing for now. But just wondering..." Stahl answered, before scratching the back of his neck. It was obvious that the young saleswoman, who was not in any sense of the word unattractive, was expecting him to randomly ask her out, or ask her for her contact information, but she didn¡¯t expect what Stahl really asked next. "Are you by chance an Omega, Delta, or Alpha?" Stahl asked, and the young woman looked at him in surprise, before crossing her arms with a smug expression. "Hehe, none of those three, young customer! I¡¯m sure you haven¡¯t noticed due to the clothes that so many of the Artificials are wearing when they first appear, but I am one of this world! I am- Wait, what the hell are you doing just appraising me out of nowhere?!" The saleswoman asked with a wry smile, goosebumps forming on her arms after the weird feeling you experience when being appraised, but Stahl was just too bothered to care. She was obviously a yer, but if she was going to pull some Chinubiyo bullshit, then he didn¡¯t want to deal with it. [yer - Donni][upation - Merchant Apprentice][Level - 23] "Mhm, Donni, listen here, I know that you¡¯re one of the three things I just asked you. I¡¯m an Alpha, just so you know. So just drop the charade, and-" "H-Haha, you¡¯re mistaken, dear customer! I am no-not one of those! Indeed, I am the secret sixth Original! Bask in my glory!" She eximed, and Stahl just turned around with a wry smile, looking at Komer who had a simr expression on his face. "Heh, if you don¡¯t believe me, then ask these three!" Donni eximed, waving her hand to the side, where three young men stood with smug expressions. One of them was a quite tall but skinny, and was wearing dark red mage-robes and held a staff with a bright red crystal at the top. Another one was rather short and had pitch ck hair with dark leather armor, as well as two daggers in their sheats, one on each side of his hips. And thest one was really just an extremely average guy wearing full te armor, a kite-shield bound to his lower arm, and a simple one-handed sword in its sheat to his right. "Do not worry, young citizens! She truly is the sixth original, she has proven this due to her extreme prowess when ites to being a merchant! She doesn¡¯t want to be known as such, though, because that would most likely influence her business!" The average-looking guy eximed, while the shorty was just picking his nose, and the tall guy was looking away as if all of this was bothersome. "Komer, what the hell is going on right now? Am I having a stroke?" Stahl asked confused as he turned to the young merchant behind him, who was simply staring at a singlerge rock, seeming more like a small boulder at this point, standing behind the stall. "Erm, Miss Original, what do you want for this big rock behind here? The one under the ck cloth?" Komer asked with a wry smile after he managed to get a peek at the rock from underneath the piece of cloth, before Stahl looked at him with a frown, before Donni turned to Komer with her arms crossed. "Hmm... The boss said not to sell that under any circumstances..." Donni muttered to herself, before Stahl sighed loudly, grabbing a random gem, and holding it in front of himself toward the young woman. He was aware that the boulder had something special to it, so he wanted to get his business out of the way before Komer did his thing. "First, sell me this. What do you want for it?" Stahl asked, and Donni turned around and smiled. "Ah, that¡¯s 20 copper!" She eximed with a smile, before Stahl scratched the back of his head and looked at Komer, who looked at him with a bit of surprise at that price, immediately nodding his head, meaning that it was at a good price already. "I¡¯ll give you 10." Stahl said with a smile, and Donni nodded her head immediately. "Alright! Hehe, I¡¯m getting better and better at bartering~!" She said, before Stahl silently held his hand to the side while Komer did the same with a silver coin in hand, simply letting 10 copper coins drop out of it onto Stahl¡¯s palm, before the young man silently paid for the small gem, which let him receive the Trading skill, before Donni turned back to Komer. "The boss is gone for a few minutes... I think he wanted to do something with it, but if you give me 1 Gold coin, it¡¯s all yours!" Donni said with a wink, fully expecting Komer to try and Haggle immediately, but rather than that, he took out a piece of paper and a pen, mming it on the table. Swiftly, he filled out a few things here and there, and then turned it toward Donni and held the pen toward her. "Can you sign this? Sorry, it¡¯s a tick of mine, I need to have people sign stuff all the time." Komer said, obviously quite nervous for some reason, and Donni looked at Komer confused. And that confusion immedaitely turned into shock when Komer pulled out a gold coin just loosely from his pocket. Obviously he pulled it out of hispressed coin, but to anyone not knowing that, it would have looked as if a gold coin was just such small change to him that he would have it loosely in his pockets. And so, Donni and the three random guys thought so as well. With the thought in her mind that the boulder was just a random rock, Donni immediately went to sign the document. She was really just joking with the ¡¯one gold coin and it¡¯s all yours¡¯ thing, but now that this random guy really did it, she obviously had to sell it. And when she did so, Komer did something surprising. He took his pen, stabbed it into his arm, and then used his own blood to write something onto the back of the document. While that was going on, Donni looked at a certain middle-aged man excitedly. "Ah, Boss! Look! I did it! I managed to sell this stinky old rock!" She eximed, and immediately the owner of the stall looked at Donni with confusion. "W-Wait, you don¡¯t mean this rock, do you? Do you?!" He asked as the two guards that were following him looked at each other nervously as well. "Huh? What¡¯s wrong? Yeah, I just said I sold it, why?" She asked confused, and Komer managed to reply for her. "Because you just sold Maroon worth a few ck Copper coins for a single gold coin..." Komer said with a wry smile, nearly copsing onto the ground at the ridiculousness of this situation, before Donni looked at her boss happily. "What?! I sold you something worth a few copper coins for one gold?!" She asked excitedly, before her boss looked at her with eyes that could kill. "No, not a ¡¯Copper¡¯ you moron, ¡¯ck Copper¡¯!" He yelled out, and now every merchant from the surrounding stalls was listening, before Komer began to exin. "ck Copper coins are the currency above Crystal Coins... Meaning a single copper coin is worth 100 crystal, 10000 tinum, one million gold, 100 Million Silver, or 10 Billion copper..." Komer exined with a wry smile, feelingpletely confused at the raw sum of that money. Sure, he wouldn¡¯t ever be able to exchange that much with the exchange limits set for the gold-to-money exchange system that would be established for the game, but even then... That was most likely not the kind of sum yers were supposed to meddle with. And all of the others knew so as well. But for some reason, that much money was just sitting there directly behind a random stall in a random merchant town, guarded by nothing but a piece of cloth and an idiotic merchant apprentice. "N-No, that¡¯s not the case! That¡¯s not the case at all! This is mine, she had no right to sell it!" The man eximed in aplete panic, but Donni just looked at him in shock. "N-No, you said I should sell everything here in our plot if I can!" "Yeah, but not the one thing I told you not to sell! It¡¯s protected by a fucking rank 8 protection circle anyway! You know what, that doesn¡¯t matter in the slightest! Kid, if you know what¡¯s good for you, you¡¯ll just walk away." The man said with a wry smile, before even the Guards stepped up to his side threateningly, but Komer expected this, and as such showed them the contract that he justpleted with his scribing skill. "Technically, I¡¯m currently the owner of that Maroon. The contract was signed and approved by the God of Contracts." Komer eximed, before looking at the guards with a grin. "It has my and mypanions¡¯ full protected in mind for the following year, so don¡¯t even try to touch us. Anyway, how about we go somewhere less crowded and talk about the situation there, alright?" Komer suggested, turning around with to the guards. "Isn¡¯t that a good idea, Royal Protectors?" He asked, and the Guards looked at each other with shock in their faces, before nodding their heads. "Apany us to the Lord¡¯s mansion immediately. We will be taking the Maroon with us so that it is constantly within your sight, do not worry." One of the Guards eximed, before Komer nodded his head and looked at Stahl with a grin. "Sorry, I think we¡¯ll need to push what we had nned today back a bit. Tell the others we might need to stay a day or two longer. And tell your grandfather to check his CCG." Komer said, and Stahl nodded his head confused. He knew that ¡¯CCG¡¯ stood for ¡¯Capsule Connection Gadget¡¯, as in the phone-like gadget that let him chat with yers like normal even outside the game. Komer most likely nned on filling him in on everything like that. And so, Komer was being escorted by two ¡¯Royal Protectors¡¯, one of which stored therge rock in a some kind of spacial-ring of some sort, while the owner of the stall was following behind them, trying not to pass out. And so, Stahl stood there alone surrounded by four idiots. "What just happened?" The tall idiot asked, and the short idiot tilted his head to the side. "Did that guy say 10 Billion Copper coins?" He muttered, and Stahl immediately nodded. "Mhm, he did..." "Drag, Dier, Dark... Was I justpletely ripped off?" Donni asked, and Stahl once more immediately nodded. "Yes, because you¡¯re obviously not an original..." "I know, but it helps sell things to Artificials..." She admitted, before Stahl shook his head in confusion and just quietly stepped away, leaving not only the three D¡¯s but also theirpletely new fourth member alone. --- "And he really said Maroon?" Evalia asked after she was filled in on everything by Stahl, who just nodded his head, still not fully understanding what exactly happened. "Yeah, that was that really rare material that Grampa needed for the Core Guardian, right?" "I think so... But that¡¯s kind of insane... We really need to keep in touch with Komer through all this, who knows what the hell he¡¯s up to in there?" Evalia asked, and Stahl simply shrugged. "I have no idea, but he apparently created some kind of magic contract beforehand, so he¡¯s seemingly protected through all this. He even said the ¡¯God of Contracts¡¯ epted it." "I¡¯m so confused..." "So am I..." Stahl quietly answered, before Evalia, who was currently wearing the rtively simple wooden ¡¯Mask of Hiding¡¯ she was given before by Eisen as well as a long robe with a hood, leaning against Stahl¡¯s shoulder as the two of them were sitting at a well in the center of town. Chapter 286 - Acting on Instinct "So this ¡¯Donni¡¯ girl was trying to pretend she was an Original? Really?" Evalia asked with a smirk, before Stahl nodded his head with a sigh. "Mhm. Don¡¯t know why though, she didn¡¯t seem to be the brighest." He replied, before Evalia justughed. "Yeah, I know those kinds of people. Anyway, put on your top-hat, we¡¯re going in." She said with a grin on her face, before Stahl looked at her with a wry smile. "Sure... And you really think we should do this? Seriously, that kind of thing?" He asked just to make sure, before looking down at his body which was covered in a formal suit, and he was even wearing white gloves, a monocle, and as Evalia had just mentioned a Top hat, which Stahl put onto his pink hair. And all of those things were created with Evalia¡¯s Element, which she can use to create such outfits for a short time. "Of course it is! The more extreme we go, the better!" Evalia said with a grin, before Stahl scratched the back of his head and sighed deeply. "I guess... Although I don¡¯t understand why we went from me speaking in a weird ent to someone at a stall to THIS..." He replied, and Evalia just smiled at him before stepping up to his side, locking arms with him. While Stahl was wearing such a suit, Evalia created a big pink, shy dress for herself. She wasn¡¯t wearing the mask anymore, but even then, it should be possible to hide herself quite well, because he doubted yers would expect her to walk around in such a shy outfit. And even Stahl was surprised how different she looked, so it was a quite high-quality Disguise, especially with the small mole she put right above her lip, her pink hair to match Stahl¡¯s, and the small decorated umbre that she could hide her face with if she needed to, which she created by simply adding some of her magic paint to an old ripped up umbre she found. "Don¡¯t worry, Honey, we¡¯ll have a grand time quite soon." Evalia said with a smile, her entpletely switching from southern to clich¨¦ high-ss british. "Of course, Dear..." Stahl said with a smile as he slipped into his role, trying to remember to properly speak like a noble would, even if he couldn¡¯t fake such a convincing ent. And so, Stahl and Evalia stepped into the store in front of them. The auction-house. As they were currently in a Merchant-Town, the Auction house seemed more like a small skyscraper than a normal building. The bottom floors werepletely packed with people, and that of course also included some yers. And it was actually quite easy to differentiate between yers and NPCs in this scenario, because, as they passed through the crowd in a dignified manner, the NPCs immediately made way, while the yers simply kept standing where they were, only turning around a little to see what kind of ¡¯Event¡¯ this was. "Honey, let us move to the higher floors. I feel ufortable with all these stares." Evalia exined, before Stahl nodded his head with a stern expression while looking at mostly the yers, who were the only ones that were really staring at him and Evalia. Most of the NPCs tried to just look away, most likely because nobility wasn¡¯t exactly known to be kind, and they didn¡¯t want to attract the attention of people that were most likely nobility, or at least extremely rich people, judging from their demeanor, speech, and clothing. "Yes, My Dear. Out of the way, rats." Stahl eximed with a scowl, as if he was looking at pure trash when he stared at the yers, which really didn¡¯t help the image that nobility already had. With obvious annoyance on their faces, the yers moved out of the way, although one of them seemed to think that this situation was worthy of a different reaction, because he deliberately moved to stand in front of Stahl and Evalia out of spite. "Honey, I think one of the rats has a hearing problem." Evalia said with a disgusted expression outwardly, although she was grinning inwardly. A conflict was the easiest situation to level the Acting skill up in, after all. And as Stahl was told to make such a conflict rise up further due to that exact reason, he started wearing a simr expression to Evalia, although he mixed in some anger into his face. "It sure does seem so, my Dear. Rat, do you have hearing problems? We know a quite proficient Veterenarian in the area. Or a butcher, if you prefer to have us make you visit them." Stahl said in a mocking tone, before the yer simply became even more annoyed. And that was when Stahl noticed something interesting. His pupils were glowing red, which meant that he was an Alpha, as only they had the permission, or rather ability, to record videos or stream at the moment. "How peculiar, my dear. It seems this little rat is one of those rabid Artificials we have heard so much about." Stahl said with a surprised expression, turning it toward excitement for a certain reason that Evalia caught onto quite swiftly. "Oh how nice, Honey! So this rat does have some worth after all!" "It sure does seem so. Artificial Rat, may you be interested in being our servant? We are currently in need for a Jester!" Stahl eximed, before Evalia nodded her head with an ecstatic expression, like a young child at a zoo, although she still somehow kept up that dignified and elevated exterior, before the yer unsheathed the sword by his side and pointed it toward Stahl and Evalia, saying four short words. "Vote. Kill or Spare." He muttered with a quite nk expression, and basically everyone beside the yers that were aware he was currently streaming began to look around confused, before the yer began to count down. "10. 9. 8." He said in a one second tact, while Stahl and Evalia looked at each other confused, although quite dedicated to keep up the act. "How wonderful, Honey! The rat can count!" She eximed, before Stahl nodded his head with a birght smile. "Truly magnificent! Magnificent, I say! He may be worth more than expected, Dear." Stahl answered, all the whilst the yer continued counting, unimpressed. "3. 2. 1." He finished, before looking away for a second and then grinning like a maniac. "Good choice." The yer said with a deep voice, before slowly stepping forward toward Evalia and Stahl, both of which knowing what just happened. The yer asked the viewers of his stream whether he should ¡¯kill or spare¡¯ them, and the viewers most likely voted for the former. Of course, the numerous guards that were in the room also noticed that something was going on, but it didn¡¯t seem like the yer cared in the slightest. And he was far closer to Stahl and Evalia than the Guards, so nobody could do much against the inevitable swing that came next. Just that, before the de reached either Evalia or Stahl, thetter had used hisbat skills inbination with dancing, and swiftly evaded the blow, and Evalia quite clearly was able to do the same, although she simply stepped to the side, while Stahl stepped behind the yer. They didn¡¯t necessarily expect such an oue, but it wasn¡¯t like they were helpless either. The yer was most likely higher-level than Stahl, but Evalia was at around level 90 at the moment, and Stahl had stats far higher than normal for his level, considering that he had so many different skills. And the synergy between those skills worked wonders as well, as Stahl was just able to show. "Oh Deary me, I¡¯m afraid this rat is far too wild wild. I¡¯m sorry, my Dear, I doubt we can take it home with us after all." Stahl said with a bitter smile as he held his hand to his chest, while everyone else was trying to figure out what was going on. "How regretful. Well, Honey, I¡¯m sure you know what you should do now, don¡¯t you?" Evalia asked with her hands folded up and ced against her chin with a bright smile, and Stahl nodded his head immediately. "Of course I do, my Dear." Stahl responded, although he was rather unsure if he would really be able to overwhelm this yer. Sure, he trained with Brody, but only for a day! So he wasn¡¯t actually that proficient at anything in particr. But the fact that he was able to use a lot of things at least a little bit in numerous ways was actually exactly what ended up helping him this time around, because he was able to improvise quite well. And as the yer turned around to take another swing at him, Stahl took off his top-hat and mmed it right into his face while winking at Evalia, who snapped her fingers and caused it to ¡¯melt¡¯ and cover his eyes. While the yer was trying to get this weird thing off of his face and iled his sword around wildly while he was at it, Stahl simply took a step back out of range of said sword and leasurely returned to the back of the yer, where Stahl held his arms behind his back and acted with a swift kick into the back of the knee to the yer¡¯s leg, causing him to stumble forward. And while the yer was trying to figure out what exactly happened, Stahl moved his hand in front of the yer¡¯s stomach and swiftly opened up a certaintch, before pulling away his hand to swiftly steal the yer¡¯s belt. As the beginner¡¯s clothes fit absolutely perfectly anyway and the belt was just there to attach different things to, the pants didn¡¯t end up dropping down, but two things did change. One, Stahl had now learned the ¡¯Pickpocket¡¯ skill, and two, he now had a weaponparable to a short whip with a metal bit at the end. With a few circr motions, Stahl swung the belt around his arm to hide it for a moment while the yer managed to stand back up and finally removed the ¡¯molten¡¯ top hat from his eyes, before he turned to Stahl with an angry expression. It did seem like he didn¡¯t notice that he had something stolen from him, which Stahl didn¡¯t mind in the least. Because now that the yer swung his sword down again, Stahl pulled his arm from his back and moved the belt to have it swing around the yer¡¯s arm, before violently pulling on it, causing the yer to lose bnce and once more trip over, now directly into Stahl¡¯s direction. Now that Stahl at least managed to get something to stick to the yer, he tightly grabbed the end of the belt he was holding already, before then once more moving to the side and grabbing the other end of the belt just as tightly, letting him basically control the arm of the yer. And after pulling the belt around the front of the yer¡¯s neck, he simply pulled on the belt and had the arm of the yer move to a position where he had his elbow directly in front of his adam¡¯s apple, while Stahl pushed the yer¡¯s hand to change position and have the de pressed directly against the back of his neck. And now, to finish the job, Stahl tied the end of the belt around the sword a few times, then pulled it to the front, and simply closed the belt again. At this point, when the yer even tried moving his arm, he would end up cutting himself in the back of his neck, which he surely wanted to avoid. And while now not only the NPCs and other yers, but also Evalia and even the Guards were looking at Stahl in confusion at what just happened, Stahl stepped in front of the yer with the end of the belt still in his hand, so that he basically just needed to pull on it to have the yer kill himself with his own de. With a light smile on his face and his head slightly tilted to the side, Stahl moved his fingers through his own pink hair and then leaned in toward the yer, whispering the sentence that would most likely infuriate any immature, already angry gamer into his ear. "Get Rekt, Noob." Chapter 287 - The Truest Magic Of All With a light smile, Stahl stepped away from the yer, whose face showed that he would want to rip off Stahl¡¯s head with his hands just about now, but considering the tangled-up position he was in, any kind of rash movement would cause for the yer¡¯s own head to be ripped off instead. And so, as everyone in the Auction House avoided Stahl due to what had just happened, the young man stepped up to Evalia, before then cing his left hand onto his own back lightly and extending his right hand toward the young woman. "Shall we go, my Dear?" Stahl asked with a smile, before Evalia snapped out of it as well and nodded her head with a smile. "Of course, Honey. Thank you for showing that rat its ce." She responded, before taking Stahl¡¯s hand as the two of them swiftly left the auction house. One of the guards was trying to follow them, but they had already slipped into the nearest alley and had Evalia change them back into their regr outfits and appearances, while the young artist swiftly put on her mask and cloak. The Guard looked at them suspiciously for a moment, but then immediately moved on in search of the two people that had caused such an immense ruckus. "Huh, that went a lot better than I thought it would." Stahl said with a wry smile as he scratched the back of his head, before looking over at Evalia, who still seemed to be quite baffled from what happened. "Better than you thought? That was amazing! Where¡¯d you learn moves like that?" She asked, before Stahl just shrugged. "I really don¡¯t know. I activated any skills that could improve my footwork even a little bit, my martial arts skills and my dancing skill. And that seemed to have worked pretty well, because my body basically dodged on its own there." He exined as he scratched the back of his head, and Evalia just smiled at him. "That¡¯s honestly amazing! I had not the slightest clue that you could do that! But how did you get the idea to take his belt and do all that? That in itself is really impressive." She eximed, but Stahl simply shook his head. "Just came to me, I guess? I was trying to look around and figure out what I could use as a weapon, when I saw the belt. I took it off of him, got the Pickpocketing skill, and then... yeah, then all that afterward happened just kind of intuitively, but it worked out a lot better than I thought it would." He said with a smile, before moving on to something more important. "Did you get anything about his name? A guy walking around and letting his chat decide what to do seems pretty troublesome." "Definitely, especially considering he has the kind of chat that would want to kill random people. Alright, I¡¯ve got to give it to them, we were pretty despicable." She replied with a wry smile, and Stahl, without any hesitation, nodded his head. "True, you were a bit of a bitch in there." He said with a nk expression while scratching the back of his head, before Evalia simply punched his side. "You weren¡¯t any better, asshole." Evalia replied with a smirk, before Stahlughed back and put his arm over Evalia¡¯s shoulders as the two of them started walking out of the alley. "Alright, then let¡¯s just be assholes and bitches together." He said with a smirk, before opening his status window and checking his skills. "Nice, that whole thing helped me level the skill up by 70 Levels!" Stahl eximed excitedly, before Evalia nodded her head and leaned against Stahl as they walked. "I figured that would happen. You stayedpletely in that role the whole time. It was kind of scary for a moment, actually." Evalia admitted, and Stahl rubbed the side of her arm. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not actually that scary. I¡¯m just a really, really good actor." Stahl sighed, as if trying to get rid of the bothersome weight of pure talent, and Evalia justughed in response. "Sure you are. Anyway, we should probably figure out another role for now, right?" Evalia asked, and Stahl slowly nodded his head, trying to figure out what they should do next, before it came to him. "Hmm, do they have ying cards anywhere around here?" Stahl asked curiously, and Evalia looked at him surprised. "ying cards? Why that?" She asked, and Stahl simply grinned at her. "Because I just figured out what we¡¯re doing next." --- "Come one,e all, and see the wonderful magic of this here gentleman!" Stahl eximed loudly as he stood there in the middle of the marketce in an outfit not too dissimr to what he was wearing in the other ¡¯performance¡¯, just that the suit he was wearing now was extremely colorful and bright. Of course he attracted a bit of attention, although most just dismissed him. Magic was an everyday thing, after all. But then, Stahl swiftly took the chance when he saw a curious child gazing over toward him as he was passing Stahl and Evalia, who this time around didn¡¯t change her own appearance. Swiftly, Stahl rushed over to him and literally slid across the ground to kneel in front of the child and his mother, who looked at him confused. But Stahl just payed attention to the child. "Hello, little boy! Are you having a wonderful day with your beautiful mother?" Stahl asked, at the same time trying to butter up the mother as well, before the young boy slowly nodded his head. "That is such a great thing to here! Kid, do you want a candy?" The young man asked with a smile, before the boy tilted his head to the side while Stahl presented the candies from a well-known store that was actually within sight of Stahl¡¯s current performance. Slowly, the boy looked up to his mother, who shook her head suspiciously, so the boy did the same. "Awe, shuck! Seems like I missed the mark with Apple-vor, huh?" Stahl asked as he hung his head low disappointedly, before rasing his finger, to show that he got an idea. Of course, all of the noise slowly attracted some people that wanted to see what was going on, and as Stahl was acting quite goofily, everyone seemed to notice that he was just a regr old, albeit weird, street performer. "Alright, let¡¯s do this, alright? Here, I know a really cool magic to let us change the vor! I¡¯ll ce this into my hand, and then you need to press onto the candy as hard as you pooossibly can and then say the vor you want, alright?" Stahl asked with a smile, before the boy looked up to his mother again, just that she this time nodded her head, a little curious now herself. So, Stahl ced the small Apple-vored candy onto his palm, before extending it toward the boy, who did as Stahl had told him and pressed down onto Stahl¡¯s hand with his, before saying, "Cherry!" in a truly adorable voice. And with a grin, Stahl nodded his head. "Perfect choice, kiddo! Now, take a look at-" Stahl eximed before opening his palm, revealing that it waspletely empty, not even the candy that was there before could be found anywhere. "Huh? Where¡¯d it go?" The young performer asked with a scared tone, before turning his head hurriedly to see if it dropped onto the ground, before the boy spotted a small red candyying on the brim of Stahl¡¯s hat. So, with a big smile, he pointed at it. "Your hat!" He eximed, so Stahl stopped and tilted his head to the side confused. "My hat?" Stahl asked, slowly putting his hand onto the very top of the top-hat he was wearing, and then the boy shook his head. "No, not there!" He said with a giggle, before Stahl moved his fingers down to the rim, patting it everywhere except the spot where the candy actually was. "Are you sure you¡¯re not lying to me, kid?" Stahl asked with a light frown paired with a small pout, before the boy shook his head. "It¡¯s right there!" The boy yelled out, before Stahl opened his mouth with a big smile. "Ah, I got it!" He eximed, before once more grabbing the top of his hat, simply pulling it off of his head. And what came next was practically a flood of the same bright red, cherry-vored candy flowing out of it onto Stahl¡¯s body. "You meant that it was inside of my hat the whole time! Good eyes, kid!" Stahl eximed with a bright smile, before swiftly picking the candies up from the ground and cing them into the hat, before extending it to the boy. "Here, take one, kid." He said with a wink, before the boy, with bright, cheerful eyes, grabbed one of the small red candies happily, and with permission from his mother unwrapped it and stuffed it into his mouth. So immediately afterward, Stahl stood up and walked around the crowd that had formed, specifically to all the kids, offering them some of the candy as well, before swiftly putting the hat back onto his head after returning to the spot he was standing at before, with his back against a wall, while the crowd began to p a little for him. And next, Stahl looked around at everyone around him and bowed forward with one hand behind his back, while the other one grabbed the, now suddenly empty, top-hat and held it in front of him respectfully. "Thank you for arriving so soon! This is the only time that I am holding this special performance, so be d that you got to see it and tell your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren about this once-in-a-lifetime urrence!" Stahl eximed, just to try and at least somewhat hype everything up more, before he looked around at the crowd and stuffed his hand into the top-hat, before pulling out a set of cards which he swiftly yed around with a little bit. "Now, Ladies and Gentlemen! I would need the assistance of one of you! Are any of you interested?" Stahl asked with a grin, continuing to y around with the cards, before one man raised his hand. "Ah, there we have it! All of you, apude our volunteer for a moment!" Stahl eximed as he stepped forward toward the man, holding it over toward him. "Pull any one card from this pile, please." The young man was with a smile, before the man from the crowd nodded his head and did so, before Stahl shook his hand for a moment and made a pen appear out of seemingly nowhere. "Now take this pen, if you please, and draw anything that you wish onto that card!" The performer exined, so the man did so before Stahl took the card again and went around the crowd, simply showing them the card so that everyone knew what it was, before stepping back to the wall he stood in front of before, and then held the deck on one of his palms before pushing the card that the man drew on into the middle of the deck so that everyone could see. And then, stepped back up to the man with a smile on his face, before grabbing the top card of the deck and flipping it around, revealing the card to the one that the man drew on before. "Ah shuck, not again! How did I mess up this time..?" Stahl eximed with annoyance in his voice, although that was quite clearly part of the act, before holding his finger up as if he got an idea again. "Hmm, maybe this one works then... If this didn¡¯t work, then how about this!" Stahl eximed as he swung his arm forward with the card he grabbed between his middle and index finger, but before anyone could notice, Stahl¡¯s hand was empty. "Dammit, not again! This time around!" He yelled out once more, and then in a simr fashing swung his hand forward, and a card truly reappeared between his fingers, just that it was the card that the volunteer drew on before. And now, not only that volunteer, but everyone else was once more quite impressed. Magic was a thing, and these things were definitely possible with elements, but this particr performance somehow didn¡¯t seem to involve any regr magic in the slightest! But both Stahl and Evalia knew what this really was! It was the incredible power of Sleight of Hand! Chapter 288 - Kiss "Thank you, thank you! I had an incredible time today, and I hope all of you did as well! But now, I¡¯m afraid that I have to say goodbye!" Stahl eximed with a clenched fist and a pained expression as he turned away from the crowd, which had grown to be quiterge at this point. And not only had Stahl managed to rank his Acting skill up, but also the new ¡¯Sleight of Hand¡¯ skill which he got, which absorbed the ¡¯Pickpocket¡¯ skill. And on top of the ¡¯Sleight of Hand¡¯ skill, due to some other tricks he did that weren¡¯t exactly connected to ¡¯Sleight of Hand¡¯, he even got the ¡¯Magic Trickery¡¯ skill! He even managed to make a little bit of money because people kept throwing coins toward him as a ¡¯payment¡¯. There were apparently also a few yers gathering around, watching the whole scene curiously. And then, with a light smile on his face, Stahl stepped around the ce, summing up all that he had done during the performance, although that was just what he was doing outwardly. In reality, Stahl had a wand tied to his shoe, and as he was walking around, was drawing a Magic Circle to prepare for the big finale! With Evalia¡¯s help, it seemed like nobody really noticed, because she was able to somehow conceal what Stahl was doing with her element. "Ladies and Gentlemen! Children and Elders! I truly thank you for your appearance today! We had a lot of fun, isn¡¯t that right?" Stahl asked loudly, winking at the young child which ended up helping him get all of this rolling, before the crowd began to Cheer and p loudly, while some even whistled to show how much they enjoyed everything. "Then once more, I have to ask of you to spread the word around! Tell the world about he who has shown you the wonders of a world you did not even know about! The world of fantastical wondrous mystery! Of things that cannot be exined even through Science or Magic alike! This experience is a unique one, at the very least it was for me! I truly hope that you thought the same." Stahl eximed before standing in the center of the clear area surrounded by the crowd, which was quite coincidentally also the center of the Magic Circle. And as he extended his hand to grab Evalia¡¯s, the young artist smiled underneath her mask and used her element to try and conceal them, while Stahl activated the Magic Circle. And it wasn¡¯t just any kind of Magic Circle! It was a support circle, that was supposed to help the growth of certain nts. nts that would wither after a few minutes, but while theysted, were incredibly beautiful and a sight to behold in themselves. And while the whole crowd payed attention to the sudden growth of the flowers, Stahl and Evalia slipped away into the nearest alley and into the next street over, where Evalia had already changed their appearances for them. "Now, that was quite a surprise, wasn¡¯t it?" She asked with augh, and Stahl simply held his hands behind his head before shrugging, "Kind of, but mostly, it was just a lot of fun." He responded, before Evalia nodded her head. "Definitely! I didn¡¯t know you could do that kind of stuff!" Evalia eximed, before Stahl just grinned. "Yeah, telling the girl you¡¯re going on a date withter in the day that you spent three years learning trick magic is usually not that good of an idea, believe it or not." "Huh, weird, I don¡¯t get that at all..." She responded with augh, before scratching her cheek. "Although it¡¯s a lot less fun if you know the tricks behind it... Like letting the candy you put back into your hat slide down the back of your shirt, or the thing with only making it look like the card was put in the center, and then pulling it out of the pile again and switching it out with a random card..." Evalia muttered quietly, before remembering something she herself was curious about. "But how did you know the kid was going to choose Cherry vor for the candy?" She asked, and Stahl just grinned at her. "Luck. It¡¯s the most popr vor at the shop we bought them at. If he had chosen something else, I¡¯d have done a different trick with the vors I had in my pocket and then went around to the other kids to ask for their preferences." Stahl exined, so Evalia nodded her head slowly. "Huh... Neat..." "Neat, indeed! Now, let¡¯s not think about that! I managed to rank up all the skills we went into town for up to 1, except Trading, but I¡¯ll figure that out when Komer¡¯s backter. When we¡¯re back on the ship I¡¯ll figure things out with some more crafting skills before Grampses back, then ask for his opinion about other skills I should get. I feel like out of the Originals, he¡¯s the one thates closest to a ¡¯Jack of all Trades¡¯, so he might have some good ideas. But until then..." Stahl said with a smile and looked to the side at Evalia, grabbing her hand gently. "We¡¯ve got some other stuff to do." --- "And then, my roommate actually went across the hallway and nearly beat up our dorm neightbors." Evaliaughed quietly before she continued eating her food. It was now the evening, and after having a fun day strolling through town and shopping for random souvenirs or just sight-seeing, Stahl and Evalia made their way to a pretty High-ss restaurant, which they for some reason managed to get a table reservation for quite easily earlier in the day when they went to look for ces to have their date. And now, as the two of them were sitting at a pretty quiet corner of the restaurant which was luckily quite cut-off from the rest of the restaurant and as such didn¡¯t have to fear being seen by other yers, Evalia and Stahl were using this chance to talk about some fun stories. "Your roommate seems pretty hot-headed..." Stahl responded with a wry smile and a light chuckle, and Evalia nodded her head. "She was, yeah, but she was really cool anyway! She didn¡¯t even seem to care about who I am, and just treated me like any other bitch out there, and I was really d for that." Evalia exined, so Stahl couldn¡¯t really say anything bad against her. "I get that. Well, I don¡¯t really get that, I¡¯m only well-known in my high-school... I do hope my roommate in college is going to be chill though." Stahl admitted, and Evalia shrugged. "I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll be fine. If you can¡¯t deal with them, you can alwaysin and request a change, or juste y the game and chill with me to cool off." Evalia suggested, before Stahl nodded his head and smiled. "Sounds absolutely lovely." He responded as he smiled back to Evalia across the table, before looking to the side, like many other times during the past few hours. And now, Evalia finally asked him what was up with that. "Is there a mirror somewhere you¡¯re looking at yourself through, or what the hell are you doing?" She asked with augh, before Stahl looked back at her with a wry smile. "Sorry, I should be paying attention to you, but... I got this notification here, and it says that I¡¯m ¡¯Getting closer to one of the Two Paths¡¯, and all I can think of with that is-" He started to exined, before Evalia looked at him in surprise. "Eisen¡¯s Demon title?" The artist asked and Stahl simply nodded his head. "Yeah, but from the exnations that we were told, Demons are supposed to be ¡¯Unique Beings¡¯, and most of the time it¡¯s that way outwardly. But all I did was perform in front of a bunch of people, and I was dressed up like a goof, but it was pretty obvious that I¡¯m a Human, so I don¡¯t really get it." "I mean, maybe... that kind of Trick Magic isn¡¯t really a thing here?" She asked, and Stahl lifted his eyebrows in surprise. "What do you mean, Magic is an every day thing... The lights here are just a type of magic, probably through enchantments, but it¡¯s still a magic." "Yes, but what you did wasn¡¯t ¡¯Magic¡¯. There was no mana involved in the slightest except for the end where you made the flowers grow, was there? And because everybody can use mana, with exceptions like Brody, it¡¯s natural to use Mana or Magic for that kind of performance. But you didn¡¯t, and I¡¯m sure that at least a few of the people there noticed that. Maybe that¡¯s why it¡¯s a start toward getting a Demon title?" Evalia suggested, and Stahl slowly nodded his head. "I guess so... I mean, maybe I can figure out a way to turn myself into something different with my element as well. I mean, you can do that, right, Evalia?" Stahl asked, and the young artist scratched her cheek with a wry smile. "I mean, I guess so... Although it feels weird to be able to be a demon that easily. I mean, when the first ¡¯Artificial¡¯ bes a Demon after Eisen and tells people how to get there, I¡¯m sure there¡¯s going to be a bunch of yers deliberately trying to be Demons. So maybe it would be a good idea to try and get it out of the way before that happens." Evalia muttered and Stahl nodded his head. "Seems like a good idea. Especially when people figure out that my Gramps is one... There¡¯s tons of people on forums trying to pick everything apart, and now that they have new knowledge via the Streamers, there are already some people wanting to figure out how exactly Gramps could turn into that figure." Stahl exined, before leaning back in the chair and shrugging. "Anyway, sorry for staring at the notification all the time. I¡¯m all yours now." The young man said before waving the notification away and looking back at the woman on the other side of the table. "Good!" Evalia replied and smiled brightly, before the two of them continued eating and talking about different things, and at the end of the Dinner, Stahl swiftly payed for everything and the two of them made their way out of the restaurant, although Evalia was nning on putting her mask and cloak back on. "No no, you¡¯re not doing that. We¡¯re going back to the ship without that stuff on." Stahl eximed, before Evalia looked at him with a frown. "There¡¯s still lots of ¡¯Artificials¡¯ around, you know..? Should I change our appearance again or something?" She asked, but Stahl shook his head. "Nope, I have a way better idea, soe with me." Stahl suggested as he held out his hand toward Evalia, who grabbed it with a loud sigh, as Stahl lead her not toward the Harbor, but surprisingly to nearest gate leading outside the town. "And what exactly are we doing out here now?" Evalia asked confused, before Stahl just smiled at her. "Well, we¡¯re at a Harbor-Town, and I heard a little rumor about a nice beach. So I thought we¡¯d use this chance to finish the evening off in the most clich¨¦ way ever and go for a walk on that beach." Stahl said with a smile, before Evalia looked at him with a wry smile. "Really? You know that the beach is annoying as hell, right? And there might be monsters around as well, so..." "Just don¡¯t worry about that. I¡¯m sure we can deal with a few random monsters." Stahl answered with a wink, before continuing to lead Evalia along the different roads directly outside of town toward the beach, where the two of them went for exactly the kind of clich¨¦ walk that Stahl was talking about before. They took their shoes off, went through the wet sand with the sun just breaking through the surface of the ocean at their side, while they continued talking about different random things. And then, at the end, just before thest light of the day disappeared, the two of them kissed for the first time. Chapter 289 - Eisens Return "Stahl!" A young man eximed as he ran into the workshop that the green-haired Jack was working in to learn some more crafting skills, before he turned around and looked at the one that just entered the room. "What¡¯s up, Sky?" He asked with a smile a he set down the ss he was working with to get the ssblowing skill, before the Fey-kin boy smiled brightly at Stahl. "Eisen woke up!" He yelled, and Stahl immediately ripped his eyes wide open and dropped his tools, not caring for what was going on at all. "Bird dude, lizard dude, you can go as well now!" Stahl yelled at Jyuuk¡¯s two tamed monsters that once more helped him out with his crafting. And then, Stahl immediately sprinted out of the room and up the stairs to the meeting hall. Stahlpletely tried to not think about what was going on with his grandfather at the moment, because even on the second day, he didn¡¯t want to be visited. And apparently now, he suddenly came back home without saying anything andid down in the capsule. On his way, he happened to meet Evalia, who was also making her way up to the meeting hall to see if everything was alright with Eisen. It¡¯s been a few days since their date in game-time, and the two of them were doing really well, although they still didn¡¯t make anything ¡¯Official¡¯. At this point, though, basically everyone knew that something was going on between them, because they didn¡¯t try that hard to hide it either. But now, neither of them really said anything and just hurried to meet the Giant of a man who finally returned from the hospital! As the yers were the only ones that knew about Eisen¡¯s condition, with the exception of Samurai, K, Zyra and Vardia, only they gathered, as well as the NPCs that were especially close to Eisen, meaning Sky, Bree, and Kiron. "Grampa!" Stahl eximed as he ripped open the door, hitting it immediately against the chest of the old man he was looking for. And without a second word, Stahl threw himself at his grandfather to hug him, because he was worried out of his mind about him. "Hey, hey, be careful!" The old man said with augh as he returned the hug, before Eisen stepped out of the door with a smile, just to breathe in the air properly. "Ah, great to be back." He said with a smile, before Eisen looked to the side and typed something up, sending it to Stahl via the chat, and the young man nodded his head toward his grandfather after reading the message. "Now, all of you. Want to fill me in on what happened while I was asleep?" Eisen asked with a smile as he leaned against the railing, just enjoying the wind a little more, before Brody spoke up first. "Well, the kids ended up doing a few crazy things. And with that, I mean Komer and Stahl in particr. The rest of us really just stuck to regr training, I¡¯d say." The Demon-Orc exined, so Eisen looked at the two young men who were mentioned, before nodding his head. "Then let¡¯s head back inside and talk about it, shall we?" Eisen suggested with a broad grin and stepped into the room again, sitting back down on his chair, where Caria and Melissa were still sleepily rubbing their eyes. But before anything else happened, Stahl leaned back in the chair he sat down in and looked at Sky with a nod. And so, nervously, the young Fey-kin stood up and grabbed one of the books that he was carrying with him, bringing it over to Eisen. "Erm... You were gone for a while, so I didn¡¯t get to learn Bookbinding from you. So I got Stahl¡¯s help, and we figured it out on our own. So... This is for you..." Sky said with an obvious blush on his cheeks, even though he was trying to hide it from everyone. With a bright smile, Eisen extended his arm and ced in on the top of the young fey-kin¡¯s head. "Yeah, sorry about that. So, then let me just take a look at this..." Eisen told Sky, and while everyone was curiously looking at the scene of the old Titan-Sized man flipping through a regr-sized book with a man in the body of a child standing next top him, Eisen started to read through the book that Sky had prepared for him. It was filled with numerous information about everything that may be important to him in any way. A Compendium of materials of magical and non-magical nature alike, as well as the ces where they could be found, and how expensive they usually were. And on top of that, there was even somehow a number that told him how much was in the storage at the moment, even though he didn¡¯t really know how that worked. It did seem like the actual number was somehow different to the others, so maybe Sky used one of his Scribe abilities for that. He most likely got some help from the others for this project anyway, so maybe Xenia helped him figure out a way to scan and calcte the amount of materials, while then transfering it to the paper in the book. But what was most valuable to Eisen in this book was the fact that there was a detailed description of what those materials were mostmonly used for, and what their natural abilities were. And that was valuable to Eisen as he could only really know of the value and qualities of materials that existed in real life. Due to the fact that he was now most likelypletely unable to continue his craft in real life, and would need to continue with such things here in the game world without any hope of continuing to do so in the real world. "Oh, you even put different cuts of meats from monsters in here!" Eisen eximed with a bright smile, which had continued to grow even brighter the more he flipped through the book anyway. And as the old man then turned toward Sky, Eisen made all of the week-long work that went into it worth it. "Thank you, Sky. I love it!" The old man said, and Sky smiled brightly, just like a child really would. He really wasn¡¯t a child, and most of the time he didn¡¯t act like it either, but sometimes, in moments like these, Sky acted like his outer appearance suggested. Most of the people currently in the room didn¡¯t know that Sky could be like this, or that he could even smile in any situation other than when people got hurt, so this was an incredible sight to everyone. And now, the happy Sky, even though he noticed that everyone was looking at him weirdly, made his way back to his chair and sat down next to his sister, before Eisen turned toward the two young men that he was quite curious about now. "So, who out of the two of you wants to go first?" Eisen asked as he showed his pearly whites, before Stahl immediately responded, wanting to brag about what he had done to his Grandfather, who luckily seemed to be in a better mood and mindset than he had expected initially. Stahl was kind of pissed off that they weren¡¯t allowed to visit him for some reason, because he was obviously hiding something that he didn¡¯t want them to know about, but in the end, as long as he was fine that¡¯s all that mattered to Stahl. And after what had happened with his father before, Stahl didn¡¯t want to have a huge fight with another family member in the very same week. On top of that, it would surely just make Xenia, who was already seemingly quite messed up after seeing Eisen again, even more upset. "So... While you were asleep, I¡¯ve been working toward a special upation. I¡¯ve learned Crafting skills on my own, which you might need to help me with in a bit, and I¡¯ve learned under Xenia, Evalia, Jyuuk and Brody as well. Well, I¡¯m still learning under them... I¡¯m kind of cycling around everyone to try to get my skills up as high as I can. I also got the Trading skill, a pickpocket skill, and a few other neat skills that I brought up to Rank 1. I managed to get some of them to Rank 2 already, though. Still waiting a bit to get my Mana Maniption skill to Rank up again though." Stahl exined quite proudly, before Eisen looked at him in surprise. "You¡¯ve learned all of those categories of skills? How long was I out?" He asked with a bigugh, before Stahl crossed his arms with a smug smirk. "Yup, I¡¯m amazing, aren¡¯t I? I¡¯ve got my tamed monster right here as well! His name is Thul!" "An Octopus?" Eisen asked, once more surprised, and Stahl nodded his head again. "Mhm! And also, I have a Golem that I¡¯ve been working on quite heavily, and five cute little skeletal animals that I¡¯ve painted!" Stahl exined, before scratching the back of his head. "Although I can¡¯t show you the golem yet, he¡¯s notpletely finished..." Stahl exined, and Eisen nodded his head. "Don¡¯t worry, show it to me when you have time. And show me what you can do with your skillster as well, of course! Also..." Eisen eximed, although he started grinning wrily as he looked at Stahl. "... If you¡¯ve learned from the others, then I¡¯ll properly have you learn from me." He told his grandson, who slowly nodded his head, already having expected such a thing. "Then you and I will talk more about thister, arlight?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Stahl immediately nodded his head. "Alright, and now-" The old man started to say and then looked at Komer, although he was swiftly interrupted by a notification telling him that someone was trying to forcefully open the capsule, and that he would be logged off for safety purposes. --- Confused, Benjamin looked around himself inside of the capsule and then at the bright light that flooded into the capsule. "What the fuck, Grampa?!" Sophia yelled out as she looked down at the old man, really not able to hold back any sort of her anger in any possible way. Benjamin understood why she was that way, so he let her. Sophia was wearing makeup, something which she usually never did, because she just got back from her Date with Kim. "Oh, Sweetie, you¡¯re back already? I didn¡¯t think we could expect you so early!" The old man said with a big grin, before he sat up inside of the capsule. It was quite hard, as he couldn¡¯t properly get a grip on anything, and his sense of bnce was quite a bit off as well. "Don¡¯t give me that shit! What the hell is going on?! Why didn¡¯t you tell us about this?" She yelled out angrily, and Benjamin simply looked at his Granddaughter with a soft smile. "Because I myself was scared. I waspletely terrified of what was going on. I¡¯ve been talking to a Therapist at the hospital about all of this, actually, and he said that it waspletely natural and that it¡¯s okay to be scared and all that crap. But I was still scared, Sophia. I¡¯m sorry for not telling you, but I guess I just didn¡¯t want to believe it myself." Benjamin exined, while he heard someone slide down the wall outside of his room. Most likely that was Tony, who was listening in on the conversation and didn¡¯t know how to deal with everything himself. "But hey, it has one good thing. I finally lost thosest few pounds everyone keeps talking about!" Benjamin said with augh, although he himself knew that he was more than just forcing himself to keep that smile up, while his Granddaughter simply threw herself at her Grandfather in tears. And so, the old man sat there, hooked up to numerous tubes and cables, staring down at the ce where his right arm once was. Chapter 290 - What was lost, and what was found Confused at why his grandfather had suddenly logged off again, Benji also followed his example and went to swiftly log off to see what was going on. He jumped out of his capsule and sprinted toward the old man¡¯s bedroom, seeing that his Father was sitting down on the floor, leaning against the wall in the hallway, and when Benji stepped inside, he couldn¡¯t believe his eyes. "What... the hell... is going on..?" He asked confused, staring at the scene in front of him, of Sophia standing in front of Benjamin¡¯s capsule crying while the old man wasying inside of it, looking as if he literally merged with the, highly modified, capsule through numerous cables and tubes. And the worst of it all was one thing. Benji wasn¡¯t sure if he was hallucinating, or if he was really seeing the truth of what was going on. Either way, he was horrified. "I guess... we should have this conversation now, huh?" Benjamin muttered out and called his son toe in from the hallway, so that he, Benji and Sophia could sit down around the capsule, as Benjamin wasn¡¯t supposed to leave it just yet. "Yes, I¡¯m pretty sure we should..." Benji muttered, while Tony slowly came into the room and sat down on his Father¡¯s bed, while the old man began to speak. "When I was in the hospital, it was quite quickly found that something horribly went wrong with me. The biggest issue being... the tumorous growths within my arm." Benjamin exined quietly, and Benji and Sophia stared at their grandfather in disbelief. "Tumors? W-Wait, what the hell are you talking about?" Benji asked confused, and Benjamin swiftly continued. "I apparently didn¡¯t have them for all that long, but they increased the pressure on my already injured muscles and bones, and then at the Barbecue... I broke my arm when I pped Michael... Or rather, my bonespletely splintered apart in numerous ces. And the ces around those fractures were exactly where the pressure was the highest, so my flesh was pressed directly into the bones and basically cracked them up more any time I moved my arm. And then, the knife that was stabbed into my arm was thest straw, and it severed misced integral muscles in my arm." The old man told them, before looking to his right with a bitter expression. "They really, really tried all they could, which is why it wasn¡¯t done immediately, but... In the end, my arm hat to be amputated." Benjamin told them, and while he was speaking about all of this, the smile that he had on his face prior to this had basicallypletely disappeared at this point. "Just like that..?" Benji asked with disbelief spelled onto his face, before the old man nodded his head. "Just like that. My arm has been messed up for a while now. It was a wonder I could even use it to the extent that I could. And now... It just gave in. Luckily, the tumors were only inside my arm, and not anywhere else in my body. I¡¯m as healthy as ever, I just have a limb lesspared to before." Benjamin told them, before he looked down at his body, only now really noticing the reality of what this situation looked like. "And then why are you hooked up to all of this now? Grandpa, please, stop lying to us!" Sophia eximed, but Benjamin shook his head. "I¡¯m not lying to you this time. I was operated yesterday, obviously they want to monitor me. The cables are just there so that every part of my condition can be seen by the doctors at the hospital at all times. The tubes give me the pain meds that I need as well as just some regr nutrients that my body may becking. I¡¯m not allowed to leave the capsule at the moment, but at least once a day, a doctor will being to check on my condition properly. This is just cautionary, really." With frowns on their faces, Benji and Sophia looked over at Tony for confirmation of all of this, and he swiftly nodded his head. "Yes, he¡¯s telling the truth this time. He really is fine, I was there during the conversations with the doctor. This is just regr procedure, although maybe a bit more extreme than usual, because your grandfather is pretty old already, and this kind of situation doesn¡¯t happen often, with someone requesting to have the treatment done at home, within a piece of high-tech machinery." Tony answered, before Benjamin nodded his head. "Exactly, I... I¡¯m... I¡¯m..." The old man tried to say, although he seemed to be getting more tired and tired every second all of a sudden, before Tony turned to Sophia and Benji again. "Seems like the pain meds are kicking in. Dad, go on and sleep for a bit, or rather, go y that game for a while. If you need anything, just call for me." Tony said with a smile, before the old man slowly nodded his head and leaned back inside of the capsule, before Benji closed the capsule for him, and the old man started the game with hisst thoughts before he would have dozed off anyway. And so, quietly, Benji returned to the capsule, while Sophia went back to the livingroom, where Kim was waiting for her. The two of them were going for a walk around town, before she heard some people gossiping about her Grandfather¡¯s condition, like people do in any given situation. One of them seemed to be a nurse at the hospital, and spoke about the amputation, so Sophia tried to immediately call her grandfather. He didn¡¯t pick up, of course, but Sophia then swiftly called her uncle instead, who let her know that he came home already. So, with Kim¡¯s full support, she then practically sprinted back to the house, where she managed to see the people from Prime industries leaving at the same time as the medical team, as they had to coborate in the setup for everything. Sophia sprinted into the bedroom of her grandfather, ignoring her unclepletely, and then tried to just rip the capsule open. In retrospect, she was aware that it was one of the dumbest things she¡¯s dely, even including the escapade with her ending up drunk at the barbecue, causing the wholeing-out-situation to go bad. "Hey... are you alright?" Kim asked in a soft tone, absolutely worried for Sophia, and she slowly nodded her head. "I¡¯m... I... I don¡¯t even know what I am... That was pretty tough to look at..." She exined, so Kim swiftly stepped up to her and simply hugged her. --- "Sorry about that, everyone... Guess it was something of an ¡¯aftershock¡¯ of the long sleep.." Eisen exined with an embarrassed expression, but the others around simply sighed in relief when they noticed that the big guy woke up again. "That¡¯s fine, it was just a bit sudden, that¡¯s all... And then Stahl also fell asleep..." Sky answered as he scratched his chin, and Eisen sowly nodded his head. "Yeah... Again, sorry. Anyway, I¡¯m pretty sure Stahl should be waking up pretty soon as well, so let¡¯s wait for him for now, and then continue where we left off before?" Eisen suggested, and the others didn¡¯t seem to have an issue with it. So, in the meantime, Eisen looked over at the other originals. "You four... Can we talk alone about something right now?" Eisen asked, and while the others looked at him confused, the four of them slowly nodded their heads. Xenia in particr stood up with shaking knees. Jyuuk tried helping her a bit, but she ended up wanting to do it alone, apparently. And so, the five of them slowly made their way out of the room together and then up to the roof of the meeting hall, where they hoped to be able to talk in peace. Because Eisen wanted to fill them in now as well. "Y-Yes..?" Xenia asked nervously, and Eisen just smiled at her. "I want to tell you what¡¯s going on, or what was going on with me before. To sum it up..." The old man said in a quiet voice, and then looked around at the others with a light smile. "My arm was amputated yesterday." And suddenly, the four of them ripped their eyes open wide. "Wait, what do you mean it was amputated? You said you had issues with your arm, but from what you said, it didn¡¯t seem that bad..." Jyuuk asked confused, and Eisen replied with a nod. " Yes, I know. Because I didn¡¯t really tell anyone the whole truth about it. I just wanted to let you know, because despite our obvious age differences, I trust all of youpletely, so I would just like you to know." Eisen exined, so the others slowly nodded their heads, although Xenia in particr was still quite messed up over everything. The five of them continued speaking about all of this for another little while, but at the end of the conversation, Eisen asked Xenia to stay up there with him for another moment, as he wanted to talk to her privately for a little while about what had happened before, and the High-Elf quietly stayed behind, holding her own arms to keep herself from shaking as she looked at the ground. "Xenia..." Eisen said calmly, and the young woman seemed to jump immediately at the mention of her name, before the old man simply ced his hand on his shoulder. "You didn¡¯t do anything wrong, so don¡¯t think you did. I can¡¯t say I know how you feel, but at the very least I understand it. Fear is something horrible, and it can make you do things that you don¡¯t want to do. So I¡¯m not angry, or upset, or even disappointed. I¡¯m just d that you got through this, and are trying to move on." The old man exined with a smile, before Xenia looked at him in surprise as she slowly started to tear up, and the two of them began to talk about some things. Xenia continued apologizing for two minutes straight even after what Eisen told her that she didn¡¯t need to. Then, they talked more about what had happened, and what was about to happen. And when they cleared all of that up, Eisen and Xenia made their way back into the meeting room as well, where Stahl was now also waiting again. And so, Eisen sat back down on his chair, where Caria and Melissa immediately tried to sit on hisp again, although they have been doing that for thest week or so that they have been asleep. "Alright... I was told by Komer that we had to stop for a few days at thest town, although he didn¡¯t tell me why yet... What exactly was going on there?" Eisen asked curiously, as he really didn¡¯t know what had happened yet, and just wanted to move on from the heavy topics for a little while. And before Eisen knew it, Stahl grabbed a bag that he had with him, and poured it out on the table. They were 20 small, translucent items with printings on them that Eisen recognized from literally every single coin there was, which made them official, actual money instead of just random crystals. "Komer... Are those..." Eisen asked confused, and Komer nodded his head with a grin. "A few things happened while you were gone. One, I found out that my current moneypression limit is at the Crystal Coin level. Two, I made a shit-ton of money for us. And three..." Komer said with a smug expression as he ced another bag on the table, revealing a few small ingots of a certain deep red metal. And while Eisen¡¯s confused face morphed into an excited one, Komer crossed his arms and confirmed what this was. "...I got us a little bit of Maroon." Chapter 291 - Important Deals It was on the day that Komer had bought the Maroon from the ¡¯Fake Original¡¯ Donni, the fourth member of the Triple D¡¯s. The royal knights ced the maroon into a special storage item and then led the young merchant, as well as the original owner of the Maroon, to the Lord¡¯s mansion. "You will now speak to the first prince of the kingdom, Aaron James Lightheart. Understand this honor, and treat his highnessh with the respect he deserves." One of the Royal Guards exined when they stood inside of the mansion in front of arge door leading to a private room. Slowly, the door was opened, and Komer was let inside together with the stall owner as well as the Royal Guards. And inside of the room, Komer could see a quite attractive young blond man sitting in front of the window, currently taking a sip of his tea. Swiftly, the Guards bowed down to the prince, which was what Komer was waiting for to confirm if he was really the right person, because he didn¡¯t want to embarrass himself by addressing the wrong person. And after bowing down as well, the Prince stood up with a frown and stepped up to the four people that just entered the room, before looking at one of the guards. "You. I was told you would only be bringing one person along, the owner of the Maroon. Which one of these is that owner?" He asked in a dignified tone, before the Guard that was addressed spoke up. "The situation is quiteplicated, my prince. The owner is the red haired young man, but the one we made the deal with is the middle-aged merchant over there." The Guard exined, before the Prince looked at Komer and the Stall Owner confused. "Alright. You two, take a seat over here, I think we should talk about this all." The prince exined before waving his hand over to one of the two couches, while he himself sat down on the one opposite to the one that he had pointed at. "Maid, get us some tea, if you please." The Princemanded, and the Maid that stood next to the door nodded her head and bowed down, before hurrying out the door to get what Prince Aaron had asked for. "Now tell me, what urred with this situation? I was told that everything went smoothly. Apparently not so much." The Prince said as he crossed his legs and looked at Komer and the Stall owner with a deep frown, before the Stall Owner swiftly spoke up. "Your Highness, th-this man stole the Maroon that I was supposed to sell to you!" He eximed, and immediately, the Prince red over at Komer with a re. "Is this true? If you did, that is quite impressive. This town has protection againstmon thievery, so anyone capable of stealing such a highly protected item must be incredibly skilled. Although I find it hard to believe that such a man would walk right into his doom with a bright smile such as yours. Would you tell me what urred from your perspective?" Prince Aaron asked, and Komer slowly nodded his head. "Of course, your highness. You see, I am a Merchant by nature. A rather young one, but nheless, a Merchant. So I of course have done my best to learn to take advantage of any situation, and have also meddled in Magic Contracts, to makerge transactions safer. Today, as I was instructing a colleague of mine on something, I happened toe across a small stall, run by a rather ipetent young woman. I don¡¯t mean to be rude, but that is what it is. Using my appraisal skill, I then happened to be able to appraise therge mountain of maroon painted to look like a rock, while it was covered simply in a sheet of ck cloth. There surely was protection magic cast upon it, but even then, it was quite careless to leave it alone like that under any circumstances." Komer swiftly exined, trying to present the situation in the most formal way that he could, before swiftly continuing speaking about how he actually bought it. "As I am aware of the worth of Maroon, I of course attempted to purchase it, and the saleswoman at the stall sold it to me for a gold coin. To confirm that I had truly purchased that material, I created a Magic Contract, which was near-to immediately epted by the gods." Komer exined, and the Prince slowly opened his mouth to ask more about this, but before he could make a tone, the Stall owner spoke up. "And that is exactly what I can¡¯t believe! She had no right to sell the Maroon under any circumstances, so he must have done some shady business to get his hands on it!" The stall owner exined, and Komer simply looked over at him with a smirk, while the Prince leaned back to simply listen to this conversation happen. "And that is exactly where you may be wrong. Did you create a work contract with the young woman working at your stall?" Komer asked, and the owner swiftly nodded his head in confusion. "And did you specify what exactly she was supposed to sell?" He then added, before the owner once more nodded. "Yes, of course! I hired her to work at the stall, and at the stall exclusively! I didn¡¯t want her to be able to steal the items there, so as iis procedure, I specified anything on the grounds of the stall, excluding the actual stall, to be able to be sold by her." The Owner exined, before Komer simply looked at him with a smirk, before the Stall owner realized what he was getting at. "B-But I told her specifically not to sell the maroon while I was gone! And in the contract, I specified that I was allowed to verbally tell her what she was allowed to sell, and what she wasn¡¯t!" He eximed, so Komer simply looked at him and smiled again. "I see... Let¡¯s just say that is truly the case. Did you truly tell her ¡¯Do not sell the Maroon¡¯, or did you tell her ¡¯Do not sell that Rock¡¯?" Komer asked, and the Stall Owner opened his eyes wide, before falling into a panic. "W-Wait, no, that-" "¡¯That¡¯ what, dear Sir? The young woman listened to what you told her. She didn¡¯t sell a rock, she sold the material specified in the contract I had her sign. Maroon. So, as approved by the gods, the material within the spacial storage of the ring one of these guards is carrying is mine, and now, it is up to me what to do with it." Komer said, the smile that he wore on his face immediately disappearing, while the Stall Owner could feel his stomach turn into a hole. He had worked so much for this deal! The Stall owner was in reality an ex noble of another country, who was banished from there and now fleed back here, before trying to build up a business as a Merchant. And then, the Stall Owner managed to get his hands on a material from the mystical fairy forest, because a certain elven merchant gave him some hints here and there how to get it. The stall owner didn¡¯t know why, but he didn¡¯t care much either, as it would make him a rich man! But now, all that he had done over the past few years was for nothing! He wouldn¡¯t be able to get a Noble title back, and he would still be a poor man at the end of the day. But then, the man that had caused that spoke up. "Let¡¯s proceed with the regr ns, but I just want three or four things in return." Komer exined, and both the Prince and the Stall owner looked at him confused. "I want 10% of the Maroon, 5% of the total price you would pay this man for the rest of it, as well as a private deal with not only the lord of this town, but also you, your higness. This man here can have whatever else you promised him in return for the Maroon, but I won¡¯t budge about my part in this." Immediately, the Prince formed a broad grin on his face before nodding his head. "If that¡¯s all you want, I don¡¯t mind. You, get out of this room, you can wait outside until we are done. And one of you guards, call the Lord of this town over immediately so that we can speak about this." Prince Aaron said immediately, sending the Stall owner away, before he stood up confused and did as he wasmanded to, and for a little while, the Prince simply tried to figure out who this man in front of him was, and Komer could feel shivers ovee his body as a sign that he was being appraised. But Komer just let him do so. It¡¯s not like he had anything to hide. And he had the contract to protect him as well. Although, even if he was killed, he would just end up being able to log in in a few hours again. And soon, the Lord of the town entered the room, before bowing to the Prince and taking a seat next to Komer. "Then let us start this, now. What do you want, Komer?" The Prince asked, confirming to the young merchant that he really was appraised by the Prince. With a smile, Komer spoke up. "I am coborating with a few quite powerful people, who are currently attempting to form their own country. When that happens, we wish to immediately sign something like a non-aggression, protection, and support treaty with this country." Komer exined, and not only the Prince, but the Lord and every Guard in the room was now looking at him confused, before Komer spoke up. "Oh, and do not misunderstand me. Only the ¡¯Non-Agression¡¯ Treaty would be mutual, the Protection and Support ones would not. In any case that other countries try to attack us, which they will, you would need to protect our country. And the ¡¯Support¡¯ treaty is just for shipment of proper construction materials, sources of food in case of shorings, as well as a workforce if necessary. That treaty would only be a thing for a short time, though, until we are able to properly establish ourselves." With a deep frown, the prince crossed his arms and leaned forward, seemingly getting serious about this conversation all of a sudden. "A Country? You do realize that all thend of this continent belongs to a country already, don¡¯t you? That means that if you havend, no matter how small it is, to create your own country, that would already give you a deal with a country, and it surely is not with this one." The Prince eximed, and Komer leaned back and grabbed the cup of tea that he was handed by the Maid from before, sipping at it calmly. "As far as my knowledge goes, the particrnd that we will turn into our country has not been taken by any country yet." Komer exined, before the Lord of the town suddenly realized what he was talking about. "You don¡¯t mean the Inds of the Gods, do you?" "I do." Komer immediately answered him with a stern expression as he turned to the Lord of the Town. "And with that, we already get to what I want from you. This town will be the main hub of travel to our country, so arge amount of shipments of any kind will being through this town. I want a deal ofplete protection for shipments directly approved by our country." Komer exined, before the Lord and the Prince looked at each other, both realizing what he was talking about. "With your confidence, what kind of people are you working with? Nobody has even been able to set foot on those inds for hundreds of years." Prince Aaron told him, before Komer simply continued grinning. Chapter 292 - War Behind The Scenes "You made a deal with the Kingdom? No, more importantly, how exactly did that guy get all of that Maroon?" Eisen asked, incredibly confused about what exactly he should focus on from the story he was just told. "Mhm, I made a deal with the kingdom. And I have some ideas about who exactly ¡¯handed¡¯ him that Maroon." Komer replied, before he swiftly continued speaking more about the actual deal he himself made. "Anyway, the deals, besides the non-agression treaty, apply at the point at which we actually directly establish our first town, because creating a country requires a ¡¯Country Core¡¯, which is apparently quite tough to get. We can request up to a certain amount of materials and workers for a duration of six months after that town is established, and if we want any more than that, or if we want materials or workers after the first six months are over, they will continue supplying us for another six month in return for regr payments. After that, the country itself will stop giving us those benefits. Either way, we won¡¯t need to worry." The young merchant exined, mainly to Eisen as the others had already heard the gist of it, while the old man nodded his head. "How much is that set amount exactly?" He asked next, before Komer grabbed his notebook, flipped to the right page, and then handed the book to Eisen, so that he could take a look for himself. "There, it¡¯s calcted through the regr market worth, and split through the type of material. We¡¯ll have to let the Kingdom know exactly what we need the materials for though, so we can¡¯t just request the max amount of everything all at once. Oh, and the Protection Treaty will be a thing for only a year, because that seemed to be the longest amount of time that the Prince could decide right off the bat. At that point, we¡¯ll have established ourselves pretty well anyway, and since we have a great defensive base on the inds anyway, I doubt we¡¯ll have that many encounters with different countries." Komer exined, and Eisen nodded his head after looking over the numbers, handing the book back to Komer. "Alright, got it. And I¡¯d guess the Non-Aggression treaty will be active for longer than that?" The old man asked, before Komer swiftly nodded. "That¡¯s a treaty with an indefinite end-date. Basically, if we do anything messed up, they can call the treaty off, and vice versa. But every five years, there¡¯s a chance to ¡¯call it off¡¯ officially, but otherwise we have protection from the gods that they can¡¯t do anything against us." Komer told them, and Eisen replied with a simple grin. "You¡¯ve really outdone yourself with this one, Komer. Good job!" Eisen eximed with a broad grin, before Komer scratched his cheek with a smirk, and then chose to spoke about the other topic that Eisen asked about. "And when ites to who told the other merchant about how to get the Maroon out of the Fairy Forest, I have a clue about who it was. He said an ¡¯Elven Merchant¡¯ gave him the tips. In the way that he spoke about him, it seemed to me that he didn¡¯t really know him before that... And what kind of Merchant would give another Merchant a tip of that scale without taking advantage of it themselves?" Komer asked with a serious expression and a frown on his forehead, and Eisen nodded his head with a sigh. "Hastings..." Eisen muttered, before starting to move his fingers through his beard. "It seems like he¡¯s doing a lot of things behind the scenes, huh? Let¡¯s say it really was him, what benefits would he get from that..?" The old man asked as numerous thoughts went through his brain, before Stahl spoke up. "Well... The Merchant would owe him one." He said, and the others looked at the young man while prompting him to keep talking. "Let¡¯s just think about it this way, Komer said that the Merchant was promised a Noble title, right? That means that he¡¯s gettingnd, which will most likely include a town. He¡¯s already controlling Handor, so maybe he¡¯s trying to spread out his control to have someone everywhere." Stahl suggested, before Eisen nodded his head. "That does seem right, actually..." The muttered, but Sky seemed to not bepletely happy with that exnation. "Sure, that¡¯s probably part of it, but it¡¯s more than that... Judging from how much the Maroon was worth, it was probablypressed quite a bit. Yeah, that much Maroon is something at the level that not many countries have, barely any, to be exact, but would a country really spend that much money and give out a Noble title to an exiled noble from another country that was most likely banished for criminal acts?" Sky asked, and while the others thought he was being suspicious about whether those rewards were really the ones that he got, but Sky was trying to get at something else. "And on top of that... Why would they give such one-sided deals to us? And that with no discussion at all? They just let it happen? And just with a really, really tinyyer of Maroon, it¡¯s possible to negate basically all magic. It¡¯s a really soft material and basically useless against a child¡¯s strength, but that can be fixed by using mythril as a base and thenyering it with a tiny bit of Maroon. Listen, what I¡¯m trying to get at is that, from my perspective, they¡¯re preparing for War." Sky said quite quickly, and Eisen slowly nodded, not really able to refute that possibility. "If they are, it¡¯s good that we¡¯re at least out of range for everything on the inds, and that we hopefully can¡¯t be dragged into anything." Eisen answered, before scratching the back of his head. "I hope we¡¯ll be able to somehow catch onto what happens on the maind so that we can see. So, if any of you find out anything important through any means, let everyone know immediately." Eisen said, especially saying certain things in a certain way so that all of the yers fully understood what Eisen was talking about, which was that he was asking everyone to make sure to check out any videos, streams, or forum posts that might tell them about anything major that was going on while they couldn¡¯t find out anything themselves. And with that, Eisen stood up, preparing to finish everything up and get things done that he wanted to deal with before everything happened in real life. But before he left, Komer stopped him again. "Oh, Eisen, wait a second! The Maroon actually isn¡¯t the only thing we prepared for you..." Komer exined with a smirk, before he stood up as well and looked over at Xenia, before he nodded at her and let her exin. "We... we got you elemental mana.." Xenia exined quietly, before Eisen looked at her confused, and then she swiftly continued, as the others were all also looking at her, waiting for her to continue speaking. "Basically, when Komer made the deal with the Lord of the town we were in, he asked him to get crystalized mana from any nearby mines... I made the Mana Batteries, and we saved everything inside of them. We didn¡¯t manage to get any Dark and Light elemental mana though, so we need to figure something out for that, but Stahl actually had an idea how we could do that..." She exined, looking at the young green-haired man, who ended up just nodding his head. The others were expecting him to be grinning like a mad-man, as he always was, but he really wasn¡¯t in the mood for that, which was only understood by the originals at the moment. "Huh? Oh, right. Erm, I looked through the ¡¯Mana Spectacles¡¯ you gave Xenia a little bit, and I noticed that the light you see through it is actually infused with mana. But because light-elemental mana is just white, it¡¯s pretty tough to notice. It¡¯s probably pretty tough to do that for elemental mana that lingers around like water-elemental mana from the ocean, or air-elemental mana from, well, the air, but I figured that we could try and create a light-elemental mana collector, taking something I ¡¯heard¡¯ about as a basis." Stahl exined in a quite monotone voice, although he did purposefully entutate the ¡¯heard¡¯ part, so that the other yers understood what he was talking about. ¡¯Sr Panels, huh...?¡¯ Eisen muttered out to himself, before he slowly nodded his head and just smiled. "Alright, sounds good. Let¡¯s build thatter then. I guess we just need to find a way to get Dark-Elemental mana now, and then we can try to make Margon!" The old man eximed with a bright smile, and Stahl shrugged before continuing. "Yeah, about that... We¡¯re getting close to one right now." He exined, but Eisen just looked at him confused, before pointing out one of the windows. "You can see it in the distance. A Dark elemental mana source." The young man said, before Eisen turned around and faced in the direction he was told to, where he really could see a quite singr dark spot." "We figured the location out with Bree and Sky¡¯s help, because it¡¯s a rtively well-known ce, and then I instructed my Skeletons to go that way." Jyuuk then exined, before Sky spoke up again. "Yeah, but the problem with that ce is that Dark Elemental monsters are incredibly, incredibly tough to deal with, because they are quite evasive, and because of the mana source, also pretty strong. But because their bodies have been influenced by so much mana, they don¡¯t have much physical strength, and are mostly magical. But now that we have Maroon, we don¡¯t need to worry about that, and can try to somehow create something to gather the mana from there and coat it with Maroon so that it can just go to the mana source without any issues." The Fey-Kin boy exined, as the group had already thought about this quite thoroughly while Eisen was gone. With a smile on his face, the old man then simply nodded his head and crossed his arms, before grabbing the, quite heavy, maroon ingots. It was just as he was told, Maroon was a metal that was quite easy to mold. With a bit of pressure, which was technically inhuman, as Eisen did it with all his strength, it was possible to make a dent into it. "Alright, good. Let¡¯s do this. Do any of you have ideas for how we¡¯re going to get everything yet?" Eisen asked curiously, before the others looked at each other embarrassedly. "Actually, not yet... Using the Maroon to avoid as much conflict down there was basically as far as it went." Stahl admitted in the end when noone else was speaking up, so Eisen nodded his head. "That¡¯s fine! Then tell me, how do you actually grab mana from a mana source?" The old man asked, before Xenia slowly spoke up. "There¡¯s a specific kind of Enchantment Circle that makes it possible... It¡¯s kind of a mixture between scribing and enchanting, though, because you¡¯re basically creating a contract with the world that allows you to take the mana." She exined, before Eisen nodded at her with a smile that also included happiness over the fact that she didn¡¯t stutter anymore during that whole exnation, which meant that she finally calmed down. "Hmm, if it¡¯s a mixture between scribing and enchanting, do I actually need the scribing skill to make that enchantment circle?" Eisen asked with a frown, before Xenia nodded her head. "Yeah, you do... You need it at Rank 2, at which point you can make proper contracts." She answered, so Eisen replied with a sigh. "Got it... Then who here has Scribing at Rank 2, and a proper base for Enchanting?" Eisen asked with a smile, before two boys raised their hands. Stahl and Komer. Chapter 293 - Fate Merchant "Then get your asses up, you two. Come with me to the Work area. And Xenia, can you write down the most important part of the enchantment for us?" The old man asked, and the young High-Elf nodded her head with a smile and grabbed a piece of paper, before one of the two that offered their help to Eisen came up to him. "Hey, so... While we¡¯re waiting, can we go and talk about the Quest?" Komer asked with a wry smile, before Eisen looked at him and immediately nodded his head. "Of course! Then let¡¯s go outside and talk about this in private." Eisen suggested as he stood up, setting Caria and Melissa down on his chair, even though they wanted toe with him, and then the old man and Komer made their way out to the roof of the meeting room again, which had be a little bit of a ¡¯private¡¯ area, apparently. "Alright, you¡¯re done with the Quest?" Eisen asked the young merchant, who nodded his head excitedly. "Yep! I mean, it was really just flipping coins, and then the cleanup after each flip... So it didn¡¯t take all that long, really." Komer admitted, before Eisen nodded his head with a grin. "Yeah, sorry for just disappearing on you for a few days." Eisen said apologetically, but Komer just shook his head. "That¡¯s fine, I only missed out on a bit of experience, right? Well, that and whatever the question-marks are in the quest..." He replied, and Eisen looked at him with a smirk. "Well... About that..." The old man said with a wry smile, before he looked at the young merchant in front of him. "Good job, youpleted the Quest." Eisen told him, before a notification seemed to appear in front of Komer at the same time that Eisen saw one as well. [You have led Komer on the right path toward the Unique upation ] And immediately, Komer¡¯s eyes opened wide in surprise. "What?! Yes!" The young merchant yelled out to confirm the notification, before Eisen simply continued smirking. "Holy shit..." Komer muttered out quietly, before looking up at Eisen. "Did you know about me getting an upation?" He asked with an excited smile, before Eisen nodded his head. "I got the notification that I¡¯m leading you in the direction of a unique upation, and it seems like the Quest took that on and turned it into a hidden reward." The old man exined with a smile on his face, before Komer nodded his head excitedly. "That¡¯s actually really cool! Oh, and I got the skill ¡¯Fate Perception¡¯ together with the upation!" Komer eximed as he read through all of the notifications with a big grin, and Eisen simply chuckled. "Is that so? What does the description of the skill say?" Eisen asked curiously, before Komer nodded his head and opened some different notifications before reading through them, staring into the middle of the air as he said, "¡¯You are now able to perceive the fate of other beings. Mend it, mold it, and use it to your advantage¡¯ is what it says. Hmm, then maybe..." Komer muttered out, before he looked in front of himself at Eisen. Slowly, the old man could see a few things happen now. For one, everything beside Komer¡¯s actual body, including his clothes or hair, began to float as ifpletely weightless, while the young Merchant¡¯s eyes turned turnedpletely white all the way through. "Huh... That looks like a pretty powerful skill..." The old man chuckled to himself, before Komer responded with a smile. "Is that so? Erm... Honestly, I don¡¯t really know what it is what I¡¯m seeing here. There¡¯s something like a golden hue everywhere in front of me..." Komer muttered out, staring in front of himself and trying to figure out what was going on, before he sighed and turned around toward the ocean. "W-Wait, what... E-Eisen, are you here? Eisen!" Komer said in a panick, but Eisen simply ced his hand onto the young man¡¯s shoulder, which seemed to calm him down a bit. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m here. What are you seeing?" Eisen asked with a frown, but Komer simply turned back around. "Nothing... I mean, now I see the golden hue again, but before, it was ck...pletely, pitch ck..." Komer muttered out, and Eisen simply looked at him with a frown. "Really, you just saw nothing? Then what is the golden hue you¡¯re talking about?" Eisen asked, before Komer shrugged. "I don¡¯t know, really. Although, wait... Wait!" Komer eximed, before turning around and stepping in the direction of the darkness, although surprisingly, he was suddenly able to movepletely normal inplete darkness. And then, the merchant grinned broadly. But before Eisen could actually ask what was going on, Komer responded. "I saw you! The golden hue was you!" He eximed excitedly, but Eisen just tilted his head to the side a slight bit, and Komer responded with a smirk. "No, rather, I saw your fate! That golden hue is you in the future, or what you could be if you keep going this way!" "I don¡¯t get it, then why did you have to run over here to figure that out?" Eisen asked confused, and Komer just grinned. "Because you were too big for me to notice! We were standing pretty close next to each other, but you were five meters tall or something! So I saw the golden hue of your form further increased in size!" Komer exined, and Eisen looked at him surprised. "Five meters? Huh..." Eisen muttered out, before Komer looked at him curiously. "I just wonder how far away this ¡¯fate¡¯ still is..." The young man muttered, before he looked over toward the source of a certain noise, where he could see another Golden figure, which he didn¡¯t recognize right away. "Eisen? Caria and Melly are bored!" A young Myconid eximed with a pout on her face, and then Komer opened his eyes wide as he also noticed another golden figureing from behind the first one. "Caria and Melissa... A few years older?" Komer muttered to himself confused, before Eisen turned down toward him with a frown. "What? What do you mean, a few years older?" The old man asked, before Komer pointed toward the two monster girls. "I see Caria and Melissa a few years older! I mean, I can¡¯t see many details, but it¡¯s obviously them now that I think about it... They¡¯re both a little bit taller, for the most part... It¡¯s not a big change, but maybe..." "You can see a Monster¡¯s most probable evolution?" Eisen asked, ending Komer¡¯s sentence just the way he himself intended to. "I think so, yeah!" He responded, and Eisen looked at him with a smirk. "I see... that¡¯s pretty nice. Hmm, then maybe what you see for me now is what I would look like after all my skills ranked up again... Or maybe what it would be like when Iplete my next level-up quest as it is now?" Eisen suggested, and Komer shrugged. "I don¡¯t know, either way, it¡¯s pretty cool!" Komer answered, before Eisen nodded his head with a smirk. "It is, yeah. Try it out on the others a bit!" Eisen suggested, and Komer nodded his head with a smile, before he deactivated his skill and then followed the old man, who picked Caria and Melissa up and stepped back down the stairs in front of him, before they made their way back into the Meeting Room, where Komer swiftly demonstrated his interesting new skill and looked around at the others around him. "Alright... I mean, basically, nearly everyone looks the same as they do now... Although, I do think that Sky and Bree might be a little taller?" Komer said as he tilted his head to the side. Immediately, the two Fey-Kin twins looked at each other with bright expressions at the fact that they would be able to grow, before Brody asked about something Komer just said. "And who doesn¡¯t look the same? You just said ¡¯nearly¡¯." The Demon-Orc Halfling asked, and Komer scratched the back of his neck. "Well, everyone with monster-blood, I guess. As I just said, Sky and Bree seem a little taller. Faires are technically monsters, right? Eisen¡¯s change is the most noticable, because he¡¯s 5 meters tall in my eyes right now. Then, the others that changed are Caria and Melissa, who seemed to have gotten a bit older, Brody, Kiron, and even Jyuuk. He¡¯s the only one without monster-blood who changed, though." Komer exined, before everyone looked at Komer, hopeful to have him exin in what ways they changed. "So... Brody, your tusks and horns are bigger. Kiron, your wings slightly changed, and you seem somewhat taller as well. And Jyuuk, the only change that I can tell you for sure is that your tail became longer?" Komer asked with a wry smile, before the Monkey-Beastperson spoke up. "Huh... Brody, do you have a transformative skill?" Jyuuk asked, but the Demon-Orc just shrugged. "I don¡¯t have a skill, it¡¯s just part of my Demon Racial skill. A Demon¡¯s horns grow bigger the stronger it gets." He replied, so Jyuuk nodded his head, beforeing to a conclusion. "Alright, so then right now, you can only see actual physical changes. My tail has actually already changed a bit, because I¡¯ve been working on leveling a skill up that lets me utilize it better. I¡¯m guessing Kiron¡¯s body changes overall the more he goes against the ¡¯Stolen Strength Curse¡¯ and regains his stats. Brody¡¯s horns and probably tusks as well change as he levels up enough, and why the big guy changed is also pretty obvious in my opinion." Jyuuk suggested, before he looked at Sky and Bree. "Do you know if Fey-Kin grow physically older as they level up?" He asked, but Bree shook her head immediately. "Well, not directly! But Half-Monsters end up mock-ranking-up sometimes every 100 levels. It¡¯s mostly a subtle change, but their body¡¯s physicality increases in general a lot. Mostly that only starts happening at level 200 or 300 though... Maybe because Sky and I are still young and not 100% physically mature, that happens~?" She suggested, and Komer ended up shrugging in response to it. "Well, maybe, we¡¯ll have to confirmter. I¡¯ll just keep checking every once in a while, and then if the new image I have of you with the ¡¯Fate Perception¡¯ changes, I can just tell you about it, and we can try to figure out what the hell it is that I can see! Oh, and-" Suddenly, Komer just stopped talking in confusion as he stumbled back a bit. "Everything alright?" Eisen asked with a frown, before Komer slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, everything¡¯s fine... My sight just turnedpletley golden all of a sudden, and I guess it¡¯s because of this guy here..." He suggested, before deactivating his skill and turning around to take a look at the small dragon that was standing behind him, who ended up just tilting its head to the side in confusion. "Mhm... Fafnir¡¯s change is the greatest... He turned from being about 1 meter long, to directly being 5 meters long..." The Merchant pointed out, and Eisen looked at the small living-dungeon dragon in surprise, before looking down at Caria who the old man was holding in his arms. "I mean... I guess that makes sense. When Caria was at Rank 1, she was pretty tiny as well. Fafnir is about as big as she is now, and he¡¯s only Rank 1, so arge change at early ranks seems pretty natural, right?" Eisen suggested as he looked over toward Jyuuk, who nodded his head. "I mean, I guess? Maybe it¡¯s going to slow down, but maybe he¡¯s going to keep growing at that rate, and will end up over 600 meters long at Rank 4..." He muttered quietly, before scratching the back of his head. "Although, if he¡¯s going to stick to Eisen, he¡¯s most likely going to turn into a humanoid creature sooner orter... Just like Caria and Melissa." The Monkey suggested, before the others began to chuckle, and Brody spoke up. "I mean, at least it¡¯s going to be a dude this time around, and not another little girl." He pointed out, although he was currently looking at Eisen¡¯s back, "Huh? What¡¯re you doin¡¯, you geezer?" Brody asked, before Eisen turned around and held forward the ck sphere he had in his bag. "Oh, nothing... You guys just reminded me of something." Eisen admitted, before the sphere in his hand slowly began to shake, seemingly having just waited for Eisen to pick it up again. "My third tamed Monster." Chapter 294 - Maroon Scales "Your third tamed monster?" Stahl asked confused as he looked over at Fafnir. "Wasn¡¯t he your tamed monster as well?" He asked, but Eisen shook his head quite swiftly. "No, no, because it seems like Fafnir¡¯s nature as a Dungeon is stronger than his nature as a monster in the sense of ¡¯Ownership¡¯, I¡¯m his Dungeon Master, and not his Tamer." The old man exined, before Stahl slowly nodded his head. "Oh, right... That was the situation... Alright, yeah, now that you say it, otherwise the others couldn¡¯t have been in the Dungeon all the time." Stahl said with a sigh, before Eisen turned over toward the four other originals with a grin on his face. "Oh? So you were inside of there a lot? I¡¯ll take a look at what you were doing thereter, but for now, I¡¯ll first have to deal with this little one..." Eisen exined as he looked back at the sphere in his hands, before the others looked at it in curiosity as well. And a little whileter, Eisen noticed that the outer, protectiveyer just so slightly deted in one spot, which meant that the tiny white spider in the center of the egg most likely managed to crack the shell up in one spot, and the protectiveyer simply sunk in there. A few more secondster, the thin, ck protectiveyer split open at the spot that it deted before, and the moment that the tiny albino spider climbed out of the egg properly, a notification appeared in front of the old man. [You have tamed an Albino Spider] [Name the Tamed Beast] With a smirk on his face, Eisen let the tiny spider crawl into his fingertip, where it, as he saw before, barely would have covered his fingernail if he hadn¡¯t increased his size. "Well then... Erm... Jyuuk, is this guy here actualy a guy or a gal?" The old man asked as he lifted his head up and noticed that especially Xenia was looking at him with a weird expression. "Y-You said you wouldn¡¯t get another insect!" She protested, but Eisen tilted his head to the side. "Well, it¡¯s not an insect..." He muttered, and Jyuuk nodded his head. "Yeah, it¡¯s obviously an Albino Salticidae! So it¡¯s an Arachnid, and not an Insect!" The Monkey Beastperson eximed quite clearly, and with that, Eisen already had a good name for it. "Doesn¡¯t really matter what you are. But I guess I¡¯ll call you Sal!" Eisen eximed with a smile, before the small spider on Eisen¡¯s thumb tapped its legs around as if dancing, before another notification appeared in front of Eisen. [The Tamed Beast has been named Sal] "Alright! Now you¡¯re officially part of the family, bud." Eisen said with a smile on his face, before he scratched the back of his neck. "Although... I don¡¯t really want to just let you loose anywhere, so..." The old man muttered, before sighing loudly. "What¡¯s wrong?" Stahl asked, noticing his Grandfather¡¯s expression, who simply looked back at him with a wry smile. "I just now realized how much I have to do and catch up to. Hmm... Alright, for the rest of the day, I¡¯ll stay in the Workshop. If anyone else needs to do something there, let me know and I¡¯ll make some space for you. And Stahl, we¡¯ll need to finish the ¡¯Training¡¯ at the inds if you¡¯re fine with it, there¡¯s some things you¡¯ll have to do there anyway if you want toplete my side of it... I have to finish the items for everyone first. Oh, but you and Komer, please work together on a small crystal item with the mana-source extraction circle. I¡¯ll do the rest." The old man exined as he slowly stood up, and Stahl nodded his head. He didn¡¯t really feel like doing much at the moment though, but it was fine in the end. He¡¯d just chill with Evalia for the rest of the day after the enchantment circle was done, and then do whatever he needed to tomorrow. And just after Eisen made his way out of the room with his three tamed monsters, plus his dungeon, in tow, Stahl opened his eyes wide. "Shit..." He muttered out, and the others looked at him in worry, before Evalia spoke up, "What¡¯s wrong?" She asked worried, and Stahl scratched his cheek. "Well... I just dropped the ss and tools to the ground when I heard that Gramps woke up..." He replied, before Bree looked at him with worry and nervosity in her eyes. "Then you should probably go after him and clean everything up..." "Yeah, that¡¯s a good idea..." Stahl responded, before jumping up and hurrying out of the room to do just that. --- And after Stahl cleaned the Workspace up and apologized for the mess, he immediately left again. Eisen didn¡¯t like how Stahl avoided him that much, but it wasn¡¯t like he didn¡¯t understand it. One day, Stahl thought his grandfather was going to be fine, and the next day he saw him hooked up to wires and tubes with an arm missing. Anyone would be upset, especially if they were tantly lied to, so it was all Eisen¡¯s fault in the end. "Alright, then let¡¯s get started for now..." Eisen muttered to himself before walking over to one of the boxed in the corner and grabbing a certain small creation that he made a while ago, before he began to pull the scales out of its body. They were mostly uniform, so then, Eisen could create a simple mold with them as a base so that he could simply recreate the scales using Maroon instead of the original material. And when that mold was finished, Stahl grabbed the ingots of the Maroon and tested a few things out. "Hmm... Alright, so I can¡¯t melt it down with my element..." The old man said with a sigh, before holding it in front of Fafnir¡¯s snout. "Can you try your Dragon fire on it?" Eisen asked, and Fafnir swiftly nodded his head before opening his mouth just so slightly, before releasing a little bit of his mes, but even they didn¡¯t seem to be able to heat it up at all. "Then maybe this?" The old man muttered to himself before grabbing one of his chisels and his hammer to split off a small piece of the metal off of one of the ingots to experiment with, although this was only possible because it was a quite soft metal anyway. And then, Eisen put the small chunk of Maroon into a small steel bowl, and then tried to heat the steel up. And to his luck, the Maroon began to soften up further, and then in the end slowly melted down. "Alright, so at least this works. Shouldn¡¯t be too hard, then." Eisen said with a smirk on his face, before he added more Maroon to the hot steel bowl to continue melting it down, although he only added just enough to create the scales, and then poured it into the molds he made. Although he didn¡¯t think about one thing. The molds were made out of his element, so instead of actually working, the Maroon simply flowed through the magic and was heading straight for the ground. But luckily, Eisen was able to react quickly enough and then held his hand underneath the melting metal, and as his hands were resistant to high heat, he was able to simply pour it back into the steel bowl. "Hmm... Then what can I use..? I can¡¯t use Transmutation on it either..." Eisen muttered to himself, before he looked at the small mountain of mana crystals next to him. "I guess I could..." The old man whispered, before creating a small thin crystal stick and put it into the Maroon. It seemed topletely negate all the effects of actually letting it let mana flow through it, though, and otherwise, the metal simply ¡¯ignored¡¯ the mana crystal, like water did Aquaphobic fabric. "Alright, good enough, I guess." Eisen muttered to himself, "At least I won¡¯t need to worry about getting it out of the mold." And so, Eisen swiftly created mana-crystal molds for CF-1¡¯s scales, and then poured the molten metal into them. After a little while, it finally ended up setting, and Eisen just needed to flip the mold over and the Maroon scales dropped out of it. "Hahh... I wish it was always this easy..." The old man chuckled, before starting to ce the first scales into the ces they were on the small Camera-Fish¡¯s body, and when it was all done, he turned around with a smile, as he heard a knock on the door, and in came Komer and Stahl, swiftly delivering the small mana-crystal piece to Eisen. "Alright, thank you, you two. Just to make sure I get how this works, the enchantment doesn¡¯t need to be activated, but is activated by the mana source itself, right?" Eisen asked, before the two of them nodded their heads. "Mhm, exactly, actually! Oh, and is that the finished thing that will get to the mana source?" Komer asked curiously, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head. "Yes, it is. I just hope that the Maroon doesn¡¯t mess with any of it, otherwise we¡¯ll have an issue..." The old man muttered to himself, before Komer and Stahl looked at each other confused. "Wait, what do you mean?" Stahl then asked, and Eisen turned to them surprised. "You¡¯ve had this for a few days and didn¡¯t notice yet? You can¡¯t properly use mana when you¡¯re holding Maroon, and it even hinders mana regeneration... My hopes are that, because the Maroon only touches the metallic frame and none of the important ces for the actual mana flow, CF-1 will work like normal, but we¡¯ll need to see. Either way, I¡¯ll have to modify things more than expected." The old man exined with a sigh, before grabbing a piece of high-tensile brass that he brought with him on his way to the Workshop. "I¡¯ll make another protectiveyer around the Eye and the ce where the tubing will being out ofter so that nothing can happen. I hope, at least." The old man exined, before Komer sighed loudly. "Alright, so I guess there we have the negative..." Komer sighed loudly as he scratched the back of his head, and Eisen looked at him confused. "What are you talking about?" He inquired, before the young Merchant exined. "Well, a Material like Maroon that¡¯s basicallypletely immune to any kind of magic is insane, so it has to have some kind of negative to it. I don¡¯t know how we didn¡¯t notice yet, but I guess it makes sense to be that way. It¡¯s a material perfect for defense against magic, but in turn, you won¡¯t be able to use any kind of magic either, and because everyone really uses even a little of it in a fight, that makes it pretty tough to use, doesn¡¯t it?" "Not necessarily." Eisen exined with a smirk on his face, and noticing that Komer and Stahl didn¡¯t follow, the old man exined as he started working on the Maroon-Protection parts out of Brass. "We know someone who doesn¡¯t have an ounce of mana in their body, don¡¯t we?" Eisen asked with a smirk, and immediately, Stahl and Komer opened their eyes wide and looked over to the side, directly at the tiny white fluffy spider sitting on the top of Caria¡¯s hat. "You don¡¯t mean... You want to use all that Maroon for some kind of Mecha suit for Sal?" Stahl asked with a wry smile, but Eisen just sighed loudly. "I¡¯m talking about Brody, boys." "Right, that makes a looot more sense..." Stahl then admitted, before Eisen nodded his head and smirked. "It does, doesn¡¯t it? I mean, if we at some point find a good source of Maroon, I¡¯ll make some equipment out of it for him. Although most likely not purely out of it, but more like an alloy... It¡¯s too soft otherwise." Eisen exined, before continuing to shape the Brass underneath the swing of his hammer. Chapter 295 - Dark Mana After Eisen finished changing CF-1¡¯s body into a version that could be used during the Dark-Elemental mana retrieval, the old man continued and started working on something else that he would be using for it. "Alright, I have a few Dark Elemental Gems here..." The old man muttered to himself, and Stahl and Komer, who had chosen to stay and watch for a while, looked at the old man in surprise. "Why do you need those?" Komer then asked curiously, before Eisen turned around and grabbed some mana crystals. "Well, I¡¯m going to make a mana crystal that can properly conduct Dark-Elemental Mana, and then turn that into Magic String, and then attach that to the enchantment that you two made. And also, I¡¯ll be using them to make proper Elemental Mana Batteries, like you also did with the other batteries." Eisen exined, so Komer nodded his head in understanding. "Gotcha..." He replied, and then, Eisen did just that. He swiftly merged the dark elemental gems with some mana crystals, and then turned those into magic string that would be able to properly conduct mana while being rtively ¡¯mendable¡¯ and easy to use in such a situation, while being a quite strong type of string. The type that he made was actually quite thick, because he didn¡¯t want it to be able to just suddenly rip up. And after the Magic String was done, Eisen swiftly created the mana batteries that he needed and hooked them up to one end of the string, before hooking the other end up to CF-1. "Alright, we should still have a little bit of time before we get in range of the Mana Source... Until then..." Eisen said to himself, before grabbing a small needle, which he swiftly cleaned and sterilized, as well as a few Health Potions, heating the tip of the needle up with his fingertips, before then pressing a small piece of cork to the back of his ear, simply pressing the needle through it. And of course, everyone was watching in surprise. Stahl knew that his grandfather had earrings, but he didn¡¯t expect him to just pierce his ear all of a sudden like this! "Huh? What¡¯s wrong?" Eisen asked as he looked at especially Komer¡¯s expression, and the young merchant looked at him with a wry smile. "Wh-What are you doing..?" He asked, and the old man just returned a frown. "I pierced my ear? And now I¡¯m putting a mana crystal piece inside of it so that I can easily stretch it out to the level of the tunnels I¡¯m used to." Eisen exined right as he was doing just that, simply using transmutation to fill the hole with mana crystals, and then repeated the same thing for his other ear. "And... What do you need those health potions for?" Komer asked, and Eisen just shrugged. "Just testing something out, really. I want to keep slowly drinking them to have my ear-lobes repeatedly heal and get used to the shape they¡¯re at while I¡¯m slowly increasing the size." The old man exined, before he ced one of the open health potions against his lips, slowly letting it pour down his throat as he ced his fingers against the two mana-crystal pieces, slowly letting them extend as the potion took effect. And so, after a few minutes, Eisen¡¯s earlobes were at the size that he was actually used to! "So, why exactly did you do this all of a sudden?" Stahl asked, and Eisen replied with a smirk. "For one, because I like wearing them, and I haven¡¯t been doing that at all for a while. Then, because I have an ability that lets me store my tools inside of this type of essory. And atst, for a little bit of ast surprise for a special someone." Eisen exined, and then went over to the Forge that he created with his element beforehand, swiftly throwing in a small steel ingot. He wouldn¡¯t ever do this kind of thing in real life, but in the game, his ears were most likely able to take such weight without issues. After they heated up properly, Eisen turned the pieces of metal into small rings, also preparing bases for other parts such as other simple earrings as well as other rings or different types of essories while he was at it. And when they were done, Eisen looked at them with satisfaction, after making sure they were able to actually fit properly wherever they were meant to go, and then made the forge disappear swiftly. "Hmm, why aren¡¯t you putting them in yet?" Komer asked confused, and Eisen just smiled. "Because they aren¡¯t done yet. I want to have Evalia carve something out of them, and then work further with that in some other ways." The old man exined, before the two young boys nodded their heads, and Eisen swiftly picked Caria and Melissa up after carefully setting Sal down on his thumb, and then asked Stahl and Komer to bring CF-1, the Elemental-Mana Battery, as well as the cable connecting the two of them. And then, they all made their way to the main deck, where the others also already seemed to be waiting. "Huh? Eisen, what did you do with your ears?" Brody asked surprised, and the old man replied with augh. "Just making some essories. Evalia, here they are, by the way. You remember the designs we talked about before?" The old man asked, and the young artist nodded her head as she received the different rings and parts, before smiling at the old man. "You got it!" She replied, before looking at Eisen¡¯s ears. "Yeah, I think I¡¯ll make the tunnels first..." Evalia said with a light chuckle, and Eisen nodded. "Thanks, I appreciate it. So... Are we close enough now?" Eisen asked as he turned toward the ck area that really wasn¡¯t all that far away from them any more, and Xenia replied with a nod. "Yes, now we just need to put whatever you made into the water and somehow get it to the Mana Source..." She exined, and Eisen just shrugged as Stahl brought out CF-1. "We just need to have this guy swim there. And best of all, we can watch everything happen." Eisen exined, before setting his three tamed monsters down properly, and then grabbed CF-1 from his Grandson, before holding it over the railing of the ship. "Anything else we need to do before I put it into the water?" Eisen asked with a smile, but the others simply shook their heads, so Eisen slowly began letting the fish into the water by the magic string, and when he was inside of the water, Eisen had CF-1 connect to its screen, and then began tomand it to get closer to the Mana Source, which they were able to quite clearly see with the Mana-Sight Eisen had installed on it. "Oh, it¡¯s working already!" Eisen eximed a bit surprised as he looked at the Mana String with his mana sight, noticing that it waspletely dyed in ck. "Wait, already?" Xenia asked a bit surprised as she ced her Mana Spectacles on her nose, seeing that Eisen was right. "Well, then maybe we just need to stay here like this for a while and don¡¯t need to risk anything by having CF-1 go further in?" Stahl suggested, but Eisen shook his head quite swiflty. "No, this is far too slow. It would take a few hours to fill the battery up at this speed. And we have about a dozen batteries that need to be filled up. Getting right to the center of the source would probably be the quickest." Eisen exined, before the others nodded their heads and kept staring at the small screen in the old man¡¯s hand. "Hmm... Surprisingly, nothing is happening, huh?" Eisen muttered as he looked around, truly surprised that none of the monsters the others spoke about were attacking CF-1 yet, but all he could notice now was a deep sighing from the yers. "You had to Jinx it, didn¡¯t you..?" Stahl asked, and just as he was saying it, the mana string simply snapped, and Eisen looked at it with a frown. "What weird timing, huh... CF-1,e back." Eisenmanded, wanting to re-attach the string, but before he knew it, the screen in his hands wentpletely ck. "Wait, what just happened?" The old man asked confused, and Brody crossed his arms as he looked at the water. "Some monster swallowed the little guy..." He pointed out, and Eisen simply rubbed the bridge of his nose annoyed. "Great... Now I have to go get it, don¡¯t I?" Eisen asked before stepping up closer to the Railing, while the others just looked at him confused. "Wait, what do you mean? We have more than three quarters of the amount of dark elemental mana we wanted, so isn¡¯t it fine?" Evalia asked, but Eisen shook his head. "It¡¯s not. I don¡¯t want to waste the Maroon..." He exined, before leaning against the railing and grabbing a piece of a mana crystal, and transmuting it into another shape which he could bite down onto, before carving something onto one side of the mana crystal. "What are you doing there?" Xenia asked curiously, before Eisen just shrugged. "I¡¯m making a mouth-piece so that I don¡¯t need to worry about air underwater." He swiftly exined, before Jyuuk spoke up in response. "Eisen, down there, you won¡¯t need to worry about air rather than the monsters down there... They¡¯re about Rank 3 or 4 on average, I would guess, and there might even be a few Rank 5 ones in the area..." The Beastperson exined, but Eisen just smirked. "Well, if that¡¯s the case, then I¡¯ll just need to worry about that when anything happens, won¡¯t I?" Eisen responded before he finished the mouth-piece, and then grabbed the two mana batteries that weren¡¯t filled up yet, and then activated his demonic transformation and then began to carve into his arms at the ces that weren¡¯t covered by the fullbody craftsman¡¯s enchantment, and then swiftly increased his own size to the maximum that he could. "I¡¯ll be right back." Eisen exined, and before anyone could say anything, he already dropped into the water, from quite a height at that. "What the hell just happened...?" Stahl asked confused, but none of the others could really answer that question. And then, just a few momentster, the deep ck water in the distance began to bubble and boil, while pitch-ck steam rose up into the air. It seemed like a quite bright light shone through the water while all of this was happening, although nobdy could tell what exactly happened. And another few minutester, they noticed a pair ofrge golden horns push up through the water surface, while giant wings pulled the Demon¡¯s upper body out before pping a few times to dry themselves off, and the old man appeared with apletely ming body while he was holding CF-1 by the Mana String still attached to it. And while the whole scene itself was already quite surprising, what was even more surprising was that it seemed like Eisen was standing directly on the water surface, although quite soon, it was shown that it was rahter quite different, while the body of arge sea-monster appeared directly underneath Eisen¡¯s feet, with its bodypletely burnt in numerous ces. With a light grin on his face, Eisen then simply jumped off of the back of the dead monster while utilizing his wings, letting him nearly instantly cut the distance between himself and the ship in half, before he then dove back underwater, and a mere momentter he shot back out the water directly next to the ship and with the help of his wings, managed to grab onto the railing before pulling himself up at it to appear right in front of the others again. "Alright, now we just need to worry about the Light Elemental Mana." Chapter 296 - Earrings A little while before Eisen returned to the ship... --- The old man swiftly dropped into the water and could immediately hear hissing sounds as the water hit his hot skin, although that disappeared just as quickly as it came, because Eisen was soonpletely submerged in the ocean. The mouth-piece that he enchanted with the air element especially to create Oxygen so that he would be able to properly breath underwater as long as he kept supplying it with his mana worked like a treat, and he soon found that his wings were also able to move quite well underwater, just as he hoped. With a few ps, Eisen was capale of swiftly propelling himself forward, and with his Truth-Seeing eyes, he was able to perfectly search for the area where the elemental mana was acting different to everywhere else, which soon brought him to the Monster that swallowed CF-1. And it was truly gigantic. It even took a while to properly find the spot where Eisen was able to actually appraise the monster, but when he did, he simply kept staring forward. [Abyss Whale][Rank - 4][Level - 28] ¡¯Alright, then for now I need to bait it...¡¯ Eisen thought to himself, d that the whale was so huge, before the old man decreased his size to the smallest that he could, which was to the size of about 80 centimeters. And using that size, Eisen was able to actually get quite nimble, although that still wasn¡¯t enough. While having his demonic form active, which was an ability on its own, Eisen infused his whole body with mes, even his wings and horns, and soon he began burning in hot golden mes. And without a moment of hesitation, he was attacked by the ¡¯Abyss Whale¡¯, which had started to attack Eisen after getting damaged by the light given off by his body. Luckily, the Whale didn¡¯t necessarily seem to be the smartest creature in the area, and opened its mouth a slight bit, giving Eisen the chance to slip through and look for CF-1. Even more to Eisen¡¯s luck, the small Maroon-ted bot was stuck between the Whale¡¯s tongue and its teeth, directly weakening it due to the direct contact and the fact that the ¡¯Abyss Whale¡¯ was a creature heavily influenced by magic. And after grabbing the string, and trying to make sure that Eisen wasn¡¯t touching the Maroon directly, the old man pumped the heat on his body up as much as he could. It wasn¡¯t incredibly effective inbat, but even then, such heat would at the very least damage anything, especially considering that he was doing ¡¯proxy¡¯ damage, but technically just heating up the water, which then in turn boiled and damaged the whale. Not only that, but Eisen was also trying to damage the Whale in any way possible, while also trying to grab onto its flesh as it was moving around its tongue, attempting to get rid of the intruder. Taking the little time that he had, Eisen then simply attached the end of the string back to the two mana batteries. It took a little while, but soon enough, the whale opened its mouth again and pushed out as much water as it could out of its mouth, and Eisen simply let his body go when this happened. The moment that he was outside, Eisen let go of CF-1 and had it swim further toward the mana source, while the old man himself kept trying to distract the Abyss Whale to let the Fish-Bot continue its business. And a few more minutester, Eisen made it return to his hand and then held it by the string, before continuing to attack the whale. Due to the hot boiling water, its skin was already getting burnt and was bubbling up, and it didn¡¯t take long until Eisen finished the creature off either. [You are now Level 107] [Swimming Skill Learned] [Naval Hunter Title Unlocked] And so, noticing that the Whale¡¯s body was slowly rising to the surface of the water, Eisen swiftly swam on top of it and then let it push him up. Soon, he was back at the surface and looked around, and when Eisen saw the ship, he jumped into its direction with all his force and then dove back under the water, using his wings to propel his body upward, which let him actually reach the railing of the ship just barely. With his strength, it was then easy enough to pull himself up while deactivating his demonic transformations, before the old man stood in front of everyone with a smile as his body already began to dry off. "Alright, now we just need to worry about the Light Elemental Mana." Eisen pointed out as he stretched and ced everything down onto the ground, turning back toward the pitch-ck body of the Abyss Whale. "We should also haul that huge body on here somehow, there¡¯s surely a good bit of meet or oils to get from it..." He exined, only now actually noticing that something was going on with everyone, before Brody began tough. "Holy shit, you¡¯re as ridiculous as ever, you geezer!" Brody eximed, before looking over toward the giant corpse as well. "Jyuuk, you have anything we can use?" The Demon-Orc asked with his constant grin on his face, before the Beastperson scratched the back of his neck. "Sure, I can try something out..." Jyuuk replied with a wry smile, before grabbing something out of his bag and pouring it out on his palm, revealing it to be a bunch of seeds. Nearly at the same time, Jyuuk summoned Aotori and gave her some of those seeds. Slowly they began to grow a little and slung themselves around Jyuuk¡¯s arms, while Aotori began to fly in the direction of the Whale while Jyuuk continued making the long vines grow longer and longer, until Aotori managed to reach the corpse of the whale. And through the long vines, Jyuuk then let his mana flow to the very end, where he made the seeds that Aotori carried over burrow their roots into the dead body of the whale. "Now I just need you guys to help me pull." Jyuuk exined with a wry smile on his face, his body already behind weighted down immensely by the already quite thick vines. But the others swiftly did as asked and helped the Monkey pull the Whale¡¯s body closer until it hit the side of the ship. "And who¡¯s going to take the thing apart now? We can¡¯t just haul the whole thing up here, can we?" Brody asked as he crossed his arms, but Eisen swiftly began to smirk before releasing a loud whistling noise to make a bunch of certain golemse over. The tiny Golems that had been continuosly working on reparing the small damages to the ship over the past while. Eisen had created all 90 crafter golems already, as he had nned, but now, he swiftly had Aulu alsoe over with a bag of enchantment marbles in its mouth. He bought a huge, giant supply of them a while ago, so he had enough to ¡¯waste¡¯ them like this. One after another, Eisen removed the ¡¯Woodworking¡¯ ability enchantment and reced it with the ¡¯Dismembering¡¯ ability, before swiftly sending the golems down to the whale, instructing them in what ways to bring up which parts. "At this point, we just need people to properly package everything. The fridge we made for the ship should be big enough to hold arge amount of everything." Eisen pointed out, before swiftlymanding the small Four-Armed Cyclops golems to listen tomands from the others that were currently around. "For now... I think I should help with the whole Light-Elemental mana gathering item..." The old man exined as he moved his fingers through his beard, but Xenia, Stahl and Komer stopped the old man. "That¡¯s fine, we¡¯ll work on it ourselves... You probably want to get to work with the items for everyone, right?" They told him, and Eisen slowly nodded his head with a deep sigh. "Yeah, actually. We¡¯re getting really close to the inds, and I would like to start everything there as soon as possible." He exined, "So thanks, I appreciate it. If you need any help, don¡¯t hesitate to tell me, though." Eisen told them with a smile, before turning around, wanting to make his way down to the Workshop although he was stopped by Evalia, who seemed to have two small items ready for him. "Heeere you go! My part in these is done!" The young woman eximed with a smile, before Eisen nodded at her and took a look at the two small tunnels for his ears as well. "These are really amazing! Thank you! And take your time with the others!" Eisen told her, and then really made his way back to his workshop with his monsters in tow and CF-1 in his hand. Back in the actual Workspace, Eisen then swiftly created a bench with his element and sat down on it in front of a table, which was also created with his element. "What is Eisen doing with the rings?" Caria asked as she tilted her head to the side curiously, before Eisen simply smiled at her. "I¡¯m just finishing them up, and then I¡¯m putting them into my ear in ce of the mana crystal ones." The old man exined, before grabbing the gems that he had prepared for this, which were the me of the Earth-infused gems. "Alright... My crafting-space skill lets me store one tool from each crafting skill inside an essory... And these are cksmithing and Tailoring... So the best would be thebined me of the earth gem for cksmithing, and the me attuned me of the earth gem for Tailoring..." The old man muttered to himself, before enchanting those gems like he had just said and then slowly grabbed his Exacto knife with one of the des he enchanted with transmutation, and then swiftly cut the gems up into the right shape and size for the different sockets. "And now, I just need to set them inside of there..." Eisen said to himself, before just so slightly transmuting the metal around the gem to keep those tiny jewels properly in ce. The tunnel for cksmithing was designed to, in a way, look like a forge with the steel being the brick and the gems the burning coal ced around the inside of the tunnel. The one for Tailoring rather looked weirdly a lot like cloth texture-wise, and the gems that Eisen was setting into ce were acting as the ¡¯String¡¯ keeping different pieces together in an intricate way. And when he was done, the old man smiled at both of the tunnels with a smile. "Done." [cksmith¡¯s Earring] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A Ring-Shaped Earring created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen and the Heavenly Artist Evalia. In itself, the earring is supposed to represent the Forge a cksmith works with, and a peculiar gem has been added to heighten the representation further. [Effect] +5% Benefit to cksmithing; +15 STR; +20 END; +15 AGI [Requirements] cksmithing Rank 2; 70 STR; 80 END; 70 AGI [Artistic Value] 389 [Stored Tool] None [Tailor¡¯s Earring] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A Ring-Shaped Earring created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen and the Heavenly Artist Evalia. In itself, the earring is supposed to represent the Cloth a Tailor works with, and a peculiar gem has been added to heighten the representation further. [Base Effect] +5% Benefit to Tailoring; +25 AGI; +25 END; [Requirements] Tailoring Rank 2; 90 AGI; 90 END [Artistic Value] 390 [Stored Tool] None With a grin on his face, Eisen nodded his head and then grabbed the two tools that he wanted to store inside of the earrings. One, his Large Hammer, because it was much more of a hassle to carry around. And then, a simple needle, because it was good to just have one around in emergencies to fix clothes up if necessary. Swiftly, Eisen then took the mythril earrings out of his ears and ced the cksmith¡¯s Earring into his right ear and the Tailor¡¯s Earring into his left ear, before finally picking up Sal again, because there was one reason why he wanted to make these Tunnels first. Slowly, Eisen brought him up to the tunnels and then smirked. Because of his truly tiny size, this was actually possible now! "Come on little buddy, take a seat." The old man told the tiny albino spider which then carefully climbed onto the gems on the inside of the cksmith¡¯s Earring, happily just sitting there. Chapter 297 - Respect "Alright, and now that that¡¯s done... Let¡¯s move on to the actual work." Eisen eximed with a grin on his face. And after summoning his staff, Eisen swiftly created a crucible, as he was about to experiment with a certain new type of material, which might be a great asset if it ended up properly working. Metallic Potions. First, Eisen got all of the materials ready, grabbing some steel, as it was the material he had most of, and attempted turning it into small shavings by scraping over the surface with a chisel, so that it would melt down more easilyter. The next materials were regr simple materials for a Health Potion, which were just mana crystals and amran petals, which Eisen swiftly ground down into fine powders, and then mixed together with some of the steel shavings, which Eisen had continued grinding down further and further until they also turned into a somewhat even powder. "Then I¡¯ll just have to try this, I guess..." The old man muttered to himself, before simply pouring the mixture into the crucible he made, starting to heat it up immediately. And while the steel was starting to melt, Eisen started trying to keep stirring the hot liquid around somehow. A little whileter, when Eisen felt that the steel shavings hadpletely molten down, the old man poured it out into a cast that he made in order to form it into a small ingot, and he was soon faced with bar of steel with a just so slightly red tint to it. [Low-Grade Health-Steel Ingot] [Quality - Low][Rank - 3] [Description] A metallic potion alloy created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. As it didn¡¯t manage to mix together properly, it has a low quality and is even worse than regr steel and does not have major Health-Effects when used in item creation With a deep frown on his face, Eisen quickly threw the ingot to the side and chose to start again, just in a different way. "Hmm, maybe it¡¯s no good to do it while using already proper metal?" He muttered to himself, grabbing a small chunk of the iron ore that he was going to use to make Kiron¡¯s sword and then threw that chunk into a bowl, where he swiftly ground it down. And after then using the t riffled bowl to get the metallic parts out of the overall powder, Eisen mixed that with ground down limestone and coal, and then added the mana crystal and amran to it, before then pouring this new mixture into the crucible. However, that wasn¡¯t the only thing that Eisen was doing next. He already knew that transmutation could be used tobine materials, and even though he wasn¡¯t technically able to do so with anything but crystal structures just yet, he was at the very least able to ¡¯imitate¡¯ the process, which he was doing to ensure that the metal would properly mix with the other two materials. Surprisingly, Eisen was actually able to manipte the molten metal quite easily, and was even able to ensure that the sludge that wasn¡¯t supposed to be part of everything split off properly. After a little while, it seemed like the steel had been properly extracted, and Eisen the whole thing cool down a bit after waiting for the steel to push out some more of the carbon so that it actually turned into proper steel. "Alright, then let¡¯s see how this one worked..." The old man muttered to himself as he grabbed the cooled down metal block, and then removed the hardened sludge with a chisel, before he looked at the small ingot of red steel. [Low-Grade Health-Steel Ingot] [Quality - High][Rank - 3] [Description] A metallic potion alloy created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has inherent healing effects, and just carrying something made of the metal with you will increase your health regeneration just so slightly. Eisen nodded his head satisfied, and as he didn¡¯t really see any issues with the ingot, he simply ced it to the side to maybe make another essory out of them. Right now, Evalia was finishing up the rings for his beard, but the old man still had a few spots for more ear-piercings, so maybe making an essory like this would be quite useful. Either way, now that Eisen confirmed that such things were really possible, the old man wanted to move on to the next part. The actual creation of the metallic potion alloy that would be the base for Kiron¡¯s quite literally giant sword. With a grin on his face, Eisen then made his way over to the ce where the Carriage was being kept, as he ced some Ironbark wood into the mana infuser a few weeks ago, infusing it with his element as much as he could. [Average-Grade me of the Earth High-Ironbark] [Quality - High][Rank - 3] [Description] Ironbark that has been infused with the me of the Earth element. Due to this, the wood petrified and became as hard as stone, while giving off some heat on its own. "Perfect! Now, I hope that I can still turn this into charcoal..." The old man muttered to himself as he scratched the back of his neck. "The regr Ironbark that I used to make Charcoal before ended up being a pretty great base for it." Eisen said as he took the wood out of the infuser and reced it with some othermon materials that might be useful when infused with his element, and then made his way back out of the carriage, filling up one of the barrels that he made to create Charcoal before up with the wood as tightly as he could. "I¡¯m gonna guess that regr fire is not going to be hot enough to light this up, so I¡¯ll have to use my element... I hope the barrel itself is going to survive this..." Eisen said with a smirk as he carried it outside to the main deck, where he could already see a few workers carrying the Darkness-Whale meat, after it was wrapped up a bit, over into the direction of the stairs, as they would bring it to the kitchen area after this to have it cooled. "Ahh, this makes me hungry already... Hmm, I could prepare some smoked Darkness-Whale meat as well for preservation..." Eisen muttered to himself, before he noticed that three certain people were also helping out with everything going on, which was mostly the carrying-around of the meat. Eisen¡¯s apprentices, who he probably should have seen earlier as well, now that he thought about it. "Hey, you three. How are the tasks I gave you going?" The old man asked, before the three of them turned around with big smiles. "Oh, everything¡¯s great..." Koro answered immediately, noticably annoyed at having to work on only learning about enchanting and potion brewing for a while now. After Xenia said she couldn¡¯t really tell him any more than that, Koro went and started helping Parc and Rouge out with the item creation for whatever might be needed at the inds, although he still wasn¡¯t allowed to use enchanting or alchemy, which set him back quite a bitpared to the other two. "Huh, seems like you¡¯re not happy with studying?" Eisen asked, and the young man immediately grumbled back. "How¡¯d you guess that..?" He muttered, and so, the quite unamused Eisen immediately grabbed him by the shoulder. "Koro, you realize who you¡¯re talking to here, right?" The old man asked him with a deep frown as he turned Koro around to look at him, while he just replied rather angrily, "Seriously? Are you pulling the ¡¯First the Peaked¡¯ Card here?" He asked, but Eisen just looked at him confused and shook his head. "No, I¡¯m pulling the ¡¯You asked me to make you my apprentice¡¯ Card. And as my apprentice, I expect you to be respectful to me, do you understand that?" Eisen said as he began to grind his teeth at his young man¡¯s reaction, but Koro just shook his head. "I would if you actually taught us anything yet! All you¡¯ve been doing is tell us to ¡¯Do this¡¯ and ¡¯Do that¡¯! I¡¯ve learned more from Xenia than you all this time!" Koro replied angrily, but Eisen just turned around and ced the barrel down to the ground as he summoned his staff, not only encasing the barrel in it, but also creating a table, a bench, and a wall that was supposed to protect against wind. "Sit down." Eisen told him, before Koro looked at him confused, trying to figure out what he was talking about, before Eisen simply told him exactly what it was. "If you¡¯re going toin about me not teaching you anything, thene. Show me that you didn¡¯t waste anyone¡¯s time, and show us that you can responsibly work with enchantments." "Wait..." Koro muttered confused, as Eisen looked back at him with a nod as he had the parts of his element behind him increase the heat inside of the barrel. "Yes, we¡¯re having the test now. And then after that, I will teach the three of you all at once. I figured it was unfair to teach the two of them what they had to do before you had the chance to properly join them, but apparently you would have preferred not being able to put what I taught you into practice. So now we¡¯re changing that. I¡¯m giving you the materials, do what you will. Use alchemy and enchanting, nothing else, to create aplex item with a fair amount of utility." The old man said in amanding tone as he created a seat for himself and sat down on it and increased his own size, his earrings luckily following the example of the old man¡¯s body, giving Sal more space toze around in, while Caria and Melissa sat down on Eisen¡¯sp and Fafnir simply sat down next to the seat like a dog would. "Go and bring the materials and tools you need here. When there¡¯s mes at the top of this pipe, I expect you to be back. When those mes went out again, I expect you to be finished with the item." Eisen told him, and just now realizing what was truly happening, Koro stared at the top of the pipe attached to the barrel before turning around and sprinting off to the material storage, practically feeling Eisen¡¯s angry stare on his back. And when Koro was out of sight, Parc and Rouge stepped up to the old man. "Erm, we know that you¡¯re angry, but was it really a good idea to put that much pressure on him...?" Rouge asked with a wry smile, careful not to upset his Teacher any more than he already was. But to his and Parc¡¯s surprise, he looked at them with his regr smile. "Hm? I¡¯m not really angry, I did that just to put that pressure on him... Well, I¡¯m a little mad, maybe. I expect him to be respectful toward me, but in this case he was right. I didn¡¯t teach you guys anything yet, but I will do that starting from tomorrow on. I¡¯ll have to teach Stahl about a few things as well, because he¡¯ll most likely be going off on his own for a while when we get to the inds, but I¡¯m also going to start to teach you three something. But before that, I have to figure out if I can trust Koro with the pressure of my actual lessons." The old man said, and the two boys looked at each other confused. "Your...¡¯Actual¡¯ lessons?" Parc asked as he slightly tilted his head to the side, and Rouge swiftly finished the thought that his friend had. "You telling us to help everyone out by making items or by cooking for everyone each night wasn¡¯t part of your lesson yet..?" He asked, and Eisen shook his head. "No, no, it was. I wanted to give you proper experience with everything, of course. But I didn¡¯t ¡¯Teach¡¯ you anything yet, so they weren¡¯t technically lessons, just self-practice." Chapter 298 - Swordmans Steel A little whileter, Koro returned from the Material and tool storage area, carrying all that he needed to over to the ce Eisen prepared in a hurry, before he ced all of it down on the table. "That all you need?" The old man asked with a frown, having returned to his ¡¯Angry¡¯ act, while Koro just nodded his head. "Yes, it¡¯s all I need..." He responded, before quickly grabbing the first materials and a mortar and pestle, before grinding everything down, apparently going for a potion first. Judging from the materials that Koro was using, that seemed to be a potion meant to increase someone¡¯s defense by causing a state simr to petrification on the surface of your skin. It would decrease your agility and greatly increase your weight as well as side effects, but those side effects were simply prove to the intensity and strength of the ¡¯transformation¡¯. So of course, Eisen was now quite curious, because he wasn¡¯t sure how Koro wouldbine this potion with an enchantment. But soon, he managed to see. As Koro¡¯s Alchemy skill wasn¡¯t at Rank 2 yet, Eisen told him that he would end up helping him when it came to the raw shaping of different materials, so when he was needed to, Eisen created a small cylindrical ¡¯container¡¯ out of a mana crystal, which the potion that Koro made was poured into, before the container waspletely sealed. And then, Koro began to enchant the outside of the container. On the two ends, he made two rtively simple enchantments, although Eisen couldn¡¯t exactly see any of the runes or images that he used, so he was quite curious. But after the two enchantments on the two t ends of the cylinder were finished, Koro connected them through a few lines that he drew inbetween the middle circles inside the enchantment, where he ced the different elemental runes before to describe the raw type of the enchantment. And inbetween those lines, Koro then carved a few different runes, which seemed to be just some supportive text in order to strengthen the enchantments. And soon enough, the item was finished, actually not too long before the mes at the top of the pipe connected to the barrel went out. With a curious smile, Eisen then grabbed the small cylinder and took a closer look at it and its description. [Effect Extractor] [Quality - Above Average][Rank - 1] [Description] An item used to extract the effect of the potion contained within created by a nameless enchanter. Through this process, itt is possible to easily ¡¯Toggle¡¯ the effect whenever the user wishes to. The Extractor currently contains a . [Effect] Total 10 Minutes of the Effect Quite surprised, Eisen looked at the description of the item he was holding, before starting to smile with satisfaction on his face, and then threw the item back to Koro. "Exin to me how it works." The old man said, before his apprentice slowly nodded. "Alright... It has two sides, and while the enchantments are technically part of the same enchantment, they can be used individually to each other. Using the one with the body with the ¡¯Aura¡¯ around it activates it, and the one with the body without the ¡¯Aura¡¯ deactivates the effect." Koro exined before swiftly cing his finger on the ¡¯Activation¡¯ enchantment, and soon his skin became a slight bit darker and more gray and more uneven, just simply more ¡¯Rock¡¯ like. After that, the young man ced his finger on the ¡¯Deactivation¡¯ Enchantment, before the effect slowly began to fade. Nervously, Koro then looked at Eisen, waiting for his choice before the old man stood up and made all the things he made with his element disappear, beside the table that the items and tools were still on, before he turned around toward the barrel, which was still glowing in a bright yellow light. Having been ignored, Koro already thought that he failed, but those thoughts were soon disproven. "I offer you to be a Magicraftsman Apprentice." Eisen said with just a nce at the young man, before Koro began to smile brightly and excitedly. "Yes! Thank you so much!" Koro eximed, while Eisen was waiting for the barrel to properly cool down, and then looked at his newest full apprentice again. "Well, you showed that you can do it. Now... Komer, you were listening as well, right?" Eisen asked as he looked over toward the young merchant standing just a little bit away, as he came back down from the meeting room after noticing that something was going on, joining the others that had gathered around Koro and Eisen as the test was going on. "Yup, I was." The Fate Merchant replied, before Eisen just crossed his arms. "Take Koro with you and let him tell you the principle behind the enchantment, and then sketch that enchantment down. Maybe ask Xenia if she has any ideas for improvement on the actual enchantment, and then work together with her and Evalia to figure out a design and base material that isn¡¯t Mana Crystal. Maybe a nice woodyered with something that potions can¡¯t affect at all. Then, you please figure out proper pricing for the different ranks. Oh, and please, when you ask Evalia to design it, please ask her to add a function where you can fill it up with your own potions." The old man exined, before Koro tilted his head to the side confused. "Huh..? Wait, what¡¯s going on now?" Koro asked confused, and Eisen just shrugged. "You came up with a good item concept, so now, you¡¯re going to work on it with the others to make it something that can be sold." Eisen told him with a wink, while Koro was still looking at Eisen unsure of what was going on, because he, all of a sudden, wasn¡¯t angry anymore in the slightest. And on top of that, his item being praised so much was something he didn¡¯t expect at all either! "You read my mind! If we sell it and at the same time have a good amount of potions around as well, it¡¯s probably going to give us a good bit of profit~!" The money-crazed young man said with a happy expression, pulling the item out of Koro¡¯s hand, before Komer pulled him along the area and toward the stairs with a bright smile on his face. "Oh, and you two, please make sure that he doesn¡¯t mess anything up. If you notice that he falls back onto ying around with enchantments like it¡¯s nothing big, then stop him and let me know." Eisen told Parc and Rouge, who both nodded their heads, before Eisen grabbed the barrel that seemed to have cooled down enough to be taken down into the bottom of the ship without issues. "Of course! We¡¯ll make sure he doesn¡¯t mess it up again!" Rouge eximed immediately, before Eisen nodded his head with a smile and then began to carry the barrel back to the stairs. "Then I¡¯ll leave it to you two to clean this here up as well, alright?" He said with a wink, pointing at the items and materials still left on the me-Of-The-Earth table, and the two boys nodded their heads, before doing as they were told. When Eisen got back to his Workshop, he could finally get to work. He opened the steel barrel up and looked inside of it, and was happy to be faced with lots and lots of deep ck coal. "Perfect! I knew this would work! Although... I doubt the Barrel is going to hold out too long if I keep doing it like this..." Eisen muttered to himself, before just shrugging and finally preparing for the actual creation of the item he made the charcoal for. First, he grabbed everyst bit of the ore that he himself mined and then began to grind it down into a fine powder, before swiftly splitting it up into the actual iron-oxide bits and the rock with the help of the riffled bowl, letting the non-metallic parts be carried off by water. "Surprisingly, that¡¯s a good amount, huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself with a light whistle, happy that there would end up being enough raw steel in the end after all, and he didn¡¯t need to worry about alloying the Metallic Potion with regr steel. With a smile on his face, and excited to properly work on a big project again, Eisen began to grind down the charcoal that he made just now, which was surprisingly tough to do, because the charcoal itself was just so much harderpared to regr charcoal, as well as the regr old limestone and then mixed it together with the iron-oxide that he got from the ore. After that, he swiftly added the ground-down materials for the potion that Xenia told him about. First came ground-down earth-gems, as well as the leaves of a nt called Kathkusa, which were a potent means to create strenght-increasing potions. Then, there was the dehydrated pulp of a root known as ¡¯Swordmaster Root¡¯, because it, as the name implied, was a good way to gain a benefit to Swordsmanship Skills. And atst, there were the mana crystals, all of which were ability-enchanted with the Swordsmanship skill. Once Eisen mixed the powders together properly, he poured about a quarter of the mixture into the crucible, as that was all Eisen had space for, and began to increase the heat, all the whilst continuing to mix everything around and once more using transmutation to somewhat help with the mixing of the of the potion materials with the molten steel. Eisen also continuosly tried to make sure that the sludge would properly be split off of the main metal. After the first batch was done and Eisen turned it into a bunch of ingots, the old man repeated the same thing three more times to use up all of the mixture, and then ended up with a quiterge batch of a certain metal. [Swordman¡¯s Steel Ingot] [Quality - Highest][Rank - 3] [Description] A metallic potion alloy created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It can inherently strengthen the Swordsmanship of anyone who carries an item made of this metal with them. It has a uniquely high ability to let magic flow through it due to the materials added to the actual steel portion of this metal. It is the perfect base for creating swords. With a grin on his face, Eisen crossed his arms and looked at the literal mountain of the light-gray metal in front of him. "Alright, then lets get to work now." Eisen said to himself as he turned the crucible next to him into a proper forge, and ced his finger against his right earring. It surprised Sal a little bit, but the tiny albino spider simply went back to his nap after Eisen managed to grab his Large Hammer and then increased his size to the maximum that he could, which was the maximum height Eisen could turn while still being able to properly work inside of this room. Swiftly, Eisen threw two ingots into the forge, and when the first two ingots were hot enough, Eisen grabbed them out of the forge and ced them on top of each other while cing the next two ingots into the forge, ttening them both together as much as he could, and then folded the two pieces over, then ttened it again, then folded again, and then ttened it again, until the two ingots were perfectlybined into a single piece of metal, while the impurities were spread evenly across it, so that there wouldn¡¯t be a specific area of the metal that was weaker than the rest. Then, Eisen grabbed the next two ingots while cing the metal he was working with until now to the side and put two new ingots into the forge, before folding the two new ingots together in the same way as the first two. Once they werebined, he took the next two pieces and reced them with new ones in the forge. He repeated this until all of the base ingots were properlybined, and then started the whole process again from zero, just using therger,bined and folded ingots as a single one, which meant that he was now folding two of those already-folded ingots into each other. This whole thing was repeated until Eisen was left with a single huge piece of metal, which he was now able to turn into Kiron¡¯s sword. Chapter 299 - Giant Blade Having the big piece of metal in front of him now, Eisen cracked his knuckles and began to properly heat that piece of metal up. It was rather hard to do so, simply due to the sheer size, but Eisen knew about this beforehand. And so, the old man chose to go for a rather thin sword, at least thin if one considered the size of the de. Eisen had already created this de within his own mind through ¡¯Deep Visualization¡¯ before, so he didn¡¯t want to waste he bonus he would get for that and chose to recreate the de that he made then, albeit in a slightly different way that was simply more refined, although the basis for everything was quite simr. Eisen had asked Kiron before out of curiosity how he would usually fight with such arge de, and what the good and bad parts of such a weapon were. The Good parts were simply that Kiron seemed to be made for that kind of weapon, it was like an extension of his own body whenever he used something so overwhelmingly heavy. The bad parts were simply that he sometimes had issues properly holding a weapon like that in a hurry, because he needed some time to prepare for something like that, especially ever since he lost his strength when the ¡¯Experience Theft¡¯ ceremony was tested on him. So, Eisen tried finding a solution for such an issue in a way that it wouldn¡¯t influence the actual weight of the weapon. And soon, after doing some research online, the old man found a quite interesting design of a handle that extended further into the area of the actual de to allow for a more stable grip if needed. As such, the design that Eisen thought to be quite interesting in the end was simple. The normal shape that a sword just had, although the actual de started at the width of the hilt¡¯s guard, and the hilt itself extended further into the de by the same length that the hilt already had. The grip that would be inside of the de was then surrounded by an eliptical, open area, technically splitting the two parts of the hilt up into two. With such an image in mind, Eisen then began to work, using a technique that he hadn¡¯t actually used ever since he created his own sword, which seemed to be working even better than expected due to the fact that Eisen was using a Mythril hammer and the steel itself was partially made with mana crystals. The old man poured mana into his hammer, more specifically the part that would directly hit the metal, and then transferred a slight bit of the mana into the de whenever the hammer and the metal touched. He had been actually doing this ever since he started folding the metal together, which was part of the reason why he started with such a high number of ingots to begin with, and that helped to already even the mana out more. The metal itself, which had been a light gray to start it off with, had turned slightly more pale through this, actually closing in on a white tone, which the old man thought to actually fit quite well. Kiron had crystal scales, but that didn¡¯t mean that you could just see through them onto his skin. They were a slightly milky white-blue color, their nature itself was just that of crystal structures. And so, a white color would most likely actually look quite good inbination with the clothes the old man had been nning to create for Kiron for a good while now as well, which he would actually get to directly after finishing the de. With a smile on his face, hoping for a happy reaction from the young half-dragon, the old man then properly began to shape the metal into the image he was hoping for. Every impact of his hammer with the metal in front of him changed its shape, and every part of it turned more and more into its creator¡¯s vision. It took on more mana every single moment, and it took on more of Eisen¡¯s will at the same time. The only thing that Eisen could think of while he was changing the metal to what he wished it to be excited the old man to a level that he could only feel at such a moment. It was the reason why he still took on such a task at his age, and why losing his arm was something that he didn¡¯t mind to the extent that he should have. After all, even if his body broke down in the real world, he still had this fake one to make up for it. And he would enjoy the time that he had left as much as he could. With such thoughts, the de in front of Eisen had taken the finished shape that he wanted, and all that then needed to be done was to temper it properly. As a light smile formed on Eisen¡¯s face as he looked at the pure white de in his hands, Eisen changed the setup of the Forge into that of a tempering furnace, although he once more relied on a technique he didn¡¯t in a little while. Partial tempering. Only the center of the de¡¯s body would be tempered, while the areas that would be turned into the actual edge were protected against the heat-treatment. And so, Eisen did just that, trying to keep the heat in those specific areas as much as he possibly could. And in the meantime, Eisen worked on everything else that he needed to. First of all, the handles. Quite swifly, the old man grabbed some of the leftover petrified wood that he prepared for this project and began to work it with his carving de. The handle itself was simply straight, and it wouldn¡¯t end up being decorated all that much either. Eisen preferred to go for utility with this part, and swiftly chose to carve a simply enchantment onto the wood that was supposed to help out with properly keeping the de in Kiron¡¯s hand by ¡¯sticking¡¯ to his palms when he used mana to activate those enchantments. Later, after attaching the wooden handles to the de, Eisen would cover those handles in some leather to make it neater and easier to grip for a long time if necessary. At least that was all the case for the main handle attached ¡¯outside¡¯ the de. The middle one would be a rather special type of handle, the idea for which he got through Koro before. He would make it possible to insert certain items that would transfer an effect onto the de into the handle. Eisen technically already did something simr when he made Jyuuk¡¯s steelbat pole, but that was actually quite rudementarypared to what Eisen was capable of making now with the help of enchanting and alchemy. So with this one, Eisen would be taking a step in a slightly different direction, with variable items that were capable of changing the weapon itself to a certain extent. Eisen created a small hollow area inside of the wooden handle where you would be able to set those items into, and then also set that handle to the side to prepare for the rest of the work for this item, which was mostly made up of properly choosing different materials to increase the effect of theplex enchantment that Eisen would be cing onto the de, which would work simr to theplex enchantment ced into the eyes of his camera-bots. One of the parts of theplex enchantment would be the variable part inside of the central handle, while the others would be general enchantments meant to increase the integral strength of the weapon as well as its maneuvarability and sharpness. "Alright, and now, all I really need to do is wait for the de to finish tempering, huh...?" The old man said with a smile on his face, before looking at the small window with the time in it that he had in the corner of his eye. "Should be another hour... Hmm, I should be able to get started on the clothes then." Eisen muttered quietly before swiftly standing up and stretching a bit as he ced his hammer back into his right earring and made sure to properly deactivate all of the skills that he always instinctively set while starting to work, including his Crafting space skill, his ratial skills, as well as his demonic transformation. Although suddenly, he noticed a certain tiny creature sitting at the tip of his nose, before the old man just chuckled. "Sal, what exactly are you doing there?" Eisen asked, but Sal just looked back at him, more specifically Eisen¡¯s eyes. It seemed like he took a bit of a liking to their golden color and peculiar shape, and was now disappointed that they disappeared. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll keep them activated for you." Eisen said with a light smile, noticing that Sal started wiggling around in a little dance again. It wasn¡¯t that often that he simply walked around in his demonic formtely, as he usually just activated it for certain reasons like crafting,bat, or pure intimidation tactics. But this didn¡¯t feel all that bad either. And soon, Eisen made his way to the material storage and grabbed some magic cloth, different leathers, regr cloth, as well as different types of string, which the old man swiftly brought back to the Workshop. Back in there, Eisen then simply got to work. He already had a rough idea of Kiron¡¯s body and how hard it sometimes was to move around with his tail and wings, which was the main reason why Kiron actually wasn¡¯t wearing anything but a pair of regr old, wide pants with a hole manually cut out to fit his tail through. But what Eisen now wanted to do was to make him something neat, something nice and stylish that Kiron could wear whenever he wanted to, whether it was casually or even inbat. Of course, he didn¡¯t pretend to be a fashion designer capable of such things. Even with the suit he made for himself some time ago he was copying a suit that he bought at some point earlier in his life. But in this case, Eisen wanted something unique, and the one that helped him with that was Evalia. After taking out the designs that the young artist so happily, the old man once more took a simple look at them. The outfit was made up of midnight ck pants as well as a vest in the same color. That was it. Kiron wasn¡¯t able to properly wear shirts, because his transformative ability that he had at the peak of his strength was lost together with his other abilities, so it was quite literally impossible to easily put a shirt on without putting it together around his body. So a simple vest with wide openings for the arms was probably the best, as Kiron would be able to fit his wings through there as well. And the pants were really the smallest issue with anything that was going on, as they just needed the hole to fit his thick tail through. And as Kiron specifically mentioned not liking to wear shoes, as it apparently felt weird whenever he did so, Eisen didn¡¯t need to figure out how to make some for him either. So all that needed to be done was making the simple pants and the vest, as well as the other items that Eisen wanted to make to apany those things, such as a belt to put a few different items onto, as well as some sort of sheat to keep the sword he would be making into while he wasn¡¯t using it. And while the issue of trying to make something that could actually hold such arge and heavy item was annoying enough as it is, Eisen wasn¡¯t even sure if it was a good idea to handle it this way anyway. After all, with a sword of the size that the old man was preparing, it was quite unlikely that Kiron would be able to properly move around anyway, even whenparing it to the already awkward situation with his wings and tails. Although, just as he thought about that fact, Eisen had another quite interesting idea, which he would try and find the materials for as soon as he could. Chapter 300 - Vest and Pants With a smile on his face, Eisen began to cut the pieces for the pants out, which really were just four nearly identically shaped pieces of midnight ck cloth on the outside, as well as the somewhat silk-like magic cloth four times in the same shapes. The reason for that was quite simply that Eisen was going to put ayer of the magic cloth on the inside of the pants, just to increase general defense and longevity, as well as the simple feeling when wearing the pants. He would be doing the same thing with the vest, although that had a few other peculiarities to it. Either way, for now, Eisen was working on the pants. After grabbing the small needle out of his left earring, Eisen began to swiftly put the four pieces of midnight ck cloth together and then cut a small slit into the cloth on the front of the pants to create the holes for the pockets, as he then simply flipped the edges of that cut over and sewed them onto the main part of the pants to strengthen the edge while creating a proper opening to put your hands into. And once Eisen added two more pieces of ck cloth to the back of those pockets and attacked the thin, light piece of cloth to those parts on the inside of the pants as well, Eisen had finished those pockets at the very least. After that, Eisen swiftly moved on to other parts like the zipper area or the general edge around the openings of the pants, mostly trying to properly get the part for the hole for Kiron¡¯s tail in the back 100% right. As he didn¡¯t want there to be an opening that would let anyone see Kiron¡¯s ass, it had to be tigth, but if it was too tight, it would be ufortable to wear, so he really had to be careful. Luckily he was able to get the circumference of the tail¡¯s base right with the help of his skill, as it allowed him to figure those types of things out nearly instantly. With a smile on his face, finally happy with what he ended up with, Eisen then just added the small pieces of cloth to put a belt through, and then added the Magic Cloth to the inside of the pants. After that was done, Eisen did a few simple tests, just pulling on the pants a little bit in different to see if the backstitch in the crotch area really was properly done to make the area a little more flexible, or if the pants were properly tight but not too tight everywhere. And when he was satisfied with this, Eisen folded the pants up and moved on to the vest. This part really wasn¡¯t hard either, as he now just had to make the rtively thin, width-wise, piece of cloth on the back, as well as the two pieces of cloth for the front of the vest that would allow it to act as a jacket. The reason that the back part was rtively thin was simply to allow Kiron to properly move his wings around, so the vest would simply cover the areas of Kiron¡¯s back inbetween, as well as above and below, his wings. The front, however, was just in the shape of a regr jacket, although the arm-holes were a lotrger than normal to make space for the wings to fit through. After Eisen cut the three pieces of cloth out, he swiftly sewed them together and created three total pockets, one chest-pocket for small items as well as two regr pockets that you usually had at the sides of a pocket. And then, Eisen simply attached the magic cloth he cut out for the vest to the inside and then added the button and the slits on the vest so that Kiron would be able to close it when he needed or wanted to. Just like that, Eisen soon nearly had two items finished. The reason for the ¡¯Nearly¡¯ was quite simple. Eisen was aware that it was possible to synergize certain skills with each other quite well, and two of the skills that Eisen wanted to try and somehow put together were the Enchanting and the Tailoring skill to be able to create stitched-echantments. If it was possible to do so, Eisen would add some enchantments to the outside and inside of the pants and vest, although if it wasn¡¯t, the two pieces of clothing would already be finished. In order to try this out, the old man grabbed a leftover piece of cloth-scrap and used some of the Magic string he had to stitch a simple enchantment into it. It really was just a small wind enchantment, because that was one of the easier and definitely the least messy enchantment that Eisen coulde up with to try such things out. And soon enough, Eisen saw the Enchantment as finished and poured his mana into it, and then felt a weak gust of wind hit his face as the cloth he was holding before was blown out of his hand. "Alright, perfect. This should really be quite interesting then, huh?" The old man chuckled to himself as he then began to swiftly stitch the enchantment he wanted to put on the clothes into them. They weren¡¯t really necessarily high-tier enchantments, but they were the type of enchantment that was able to passively increase the defensive stats of equipment. It might passively drain a few MP from Kiron per minute, but that was really all it was, so it wasn¡¯t a huge deal either. Eisen only ced the stitched-enchantments around the edges as well, becuause he felt it looked better that way, and he didn¡¯t want to create clothes that were covered in random runic writing all over the ce that was easily noticed, so Eisen attempted to create free-form enchantments that worked with raw shapes instead of runes, as well as writing that it was possible to properly integrate it into those patterns with. And the patterns that Eisen was using for this project were the patterns on the scales of his father. While Trygan mostly had a humanoid shape when Eisen saw him, there were still a few draconic parts about him, which mostly just were things like small scales scattered on his arms. The old man managed to remember those parts quite well, and as every type of dragon seemed to have a unique pattern on their scales, Eisen was able to represent this type as well. It was quite simr to what Kiron had on his scales as well, but it was a slight bit different due to the fact that he was a half-dragon and not a full-blooded one. Either way, Eisen soon managed to finish those stitchings on the vest and the pants, and then looked at them with a satisfied smile on his face, seeing those two pieces as finished. [The Dragon King¡¯s ck Pants] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] Midnight ck pants created by the Omni-Craftsmeister Eisen. It has a hole for a tail on its backside. As they have ayer of Magic Cloth integrated in them, their natural effect has been enhanced. The enchantments in the shape of the Dragon King¡¯s scales that were added to the outside add more general defense and give a benefit to any Draconic Abilities. [Effect] +35 END, +25 AGI, 5% Benefit to Draconic Abilities, -5 MP per minute [Requirements] 100 END, 90 AGI, 40 WIS [The Dragon King¡¯s ck Vest] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A Midnight ck Vest created by the Omni-Craftsmeister Eisen. The overall shape helps any winged wearer, as the vest has been made to ount forrge, unwieldy wings. As it has ayer of Magic Cloth integrated in it, its natural effect has been enhanced. The enchantments in the shape of the Dragon King¡¯s scales that were added to the outside add more general defense and give a benefit to any Draconic Abilities. [Effect] +35 END, +25 STR, 5% Benefit to Draconic Abilities, -5 MP per minute [Requirements] 100 END, 90 STR, 40 WIS With clear satisfaction shown on his lips, Eisen nodded his head and ced these two items to the side, before then standing up and taking a look at the progress of the sword. "A little bit more, alright..." He then decided, before he went back to his table and grabbed some leather so that he could work on the belt. It really was just a simple item, as it only required a long piece of leather to have a metal ¡¯Latch¡¯ of sorts added to it. But now that Eisen was aware that these patterns could give a small benefit to Draconic Abilities, he didn¡¯t want to hold back in the slightest with the belt either, choosing to cover itpletely in the patterns of Trygan¡¯s scales through simple leather-carving. And of course, Eisen also added the possibility of attaching different items to the belt as well, by adding extra ¡¯holes¡¯ to hook things into to the top of the belt. The smirk on Eisen¡¯s face didn¡¯t disappear as he punched the holes into the belt and then attached the small metallic piece to one end of the belt and then saw it as finished, giving him a ¡¯Dragon King¡¯s Belt¡¯. The most important effect of them was the benefit to Draconic abilities, as the old man had expected, especially considering the amount of detail Eisen went for with this. "Perfect! Now, I guess it doesn¡¯t make too much sense to create a regr sheath for a sword like that, does it..?" Eisen muttered to himself as he turned around and looked at the de that was just about finished with its tempering. As the old man was moving his fingers through his rock-beard, as he was in his demonic form, Eisen thought about what the best choice for that would be, and then came to the conclusion that a sheath for a such a sword would just be an extra burden, as long as Eisen didn¡¯t create the type that he had thought about creating a little while ago, a ¡¯Spatial Sheath¡¯. Using the same principle of Spatial Rings that Eisen had heard about so much, Eisen wanted to create something rtively small and light that Kiron could carry with him that only the handle would stick out of, so that he could simply pull the sword out of nowhere, which might also be a great advantage in a fight anyway. Either way, such an item would need to wait until Eisen had the ¡¯Spatial Gems¡¯ that were needed for it. He also wanted to create a huge backpack in that way for Bree as well, which she would probably end up being able to carry a whole house inside of. "Anyway..." The old man muttered to himself and then stepped over to the Tempering-Oven and grabbed the pure-white sword out of it with a smile on his face. "Perfect." He whispered as he held the increadibly heavy item in his hands, making sure to inspect it everywhere even with his Mana-Sight to see if there was anything wrong with it. But noticing that this was not the case, Eisen just moved on and stepped over to the grinding-wheels in the corner. First, starting with the roughest type, Eisen swiftly began to grind the edge into the de, which in itself already took quite some time. And now that the old man thought about it, ever since he got he ability to ignore high heat and pressure to his hands, he was able to speed his crafting up quite a bit. Technically, the de was still too hot too touch for any regr person, but Eisen didn¡¯t have to mind that and could just continue to work with it right off the bat, which was something that he truly didn¡¯t mind at all. Being in a happy mood, Eisen began to whistle a little bit as he finished grinding the edge of the giant white de. Chapter 301 - The Dragon Kings Giant Greatsword While Eisen¡¯s whistling could be heard even outside the Workshop¡¯s door, the old man just continued to work like always. A good whileter, the old man finished the edge of the item and did the good-old paper-test. After holding the de so that one of the edges was faced upward, Eisen simply dropped a piece of paper onto it edge-first. And before he knew it, the paper was split into two without losing speed in any way, as if the two halves were never togther in the first ce. Happy that the de had the sharpness that Eisen wanted it to have, the old man then stood up and ced the giant, slightly more than two meters long chunk of metal down onto a table that he made with his element, and then grabbed all the other items that he needed to finish this up now. First things first, Eisen added the two handles into it, which was simply done by glueing the two halves of each handle together around the thinner piece of metal that Eisen prepared for this. And once the wooden parts were attached properly, Eisen began to add a long strip of leather to the outside of each of the handles, covering it tightly in it in and attaching it with some glue. The leather was just so slightly damp, so that it would end up tightening when it dried, so that it would push both the wooden halves of the handle together more tightly, while also pressing itself properly against that wooden part of the handle. The handle in the center of the de was actually rather peculiar. It was rather two handles, as there was a chunk missing directly in the center of the handle. And that spot was exactly where it would be possible to attach the differend modules to create different effects on the de itself. For now, though, Eisen just added a simple, regr chunk to it with no effect at all, so that it could be properly grabbed. "Alright, and now... let¡¯s get to the enchanting..." Eisen muttered to himself before grabbing the mythril carving needle from next to him, as it was a different type of needle to the one he had in his left earring for sewing, and then swiftly began to work. In this case, he was actually following the specific design for an enchantment that Evalia and Xenia came up with together, as Eisen really wanted this to end up being a dignified, powerful item, and give off just that type of aura. And the best way to create such an aura in this way was to ask the two of them. As should be clear at this point, Eisen was the type of person to put utility above artistry. And that wasn¡¯t necessarily because of his pure mindset, either. He just never was immensely artistically talented, that was all. He had good hand-to-eye coordination, so he was able to create quite impressively realistic drawings or sketches, but he never had the artistic creativity to create art that was purely that, art. He did like to consider himself an artist in the past, telling himself that the things he was creating were art in and of themselves and that he simply expressed art through utility, but in hister years, Eisen realized that such thoughts were unnecessary. Eisen didn¡¯t need to be an artist, he just had to be the best craftsman he could be. So that¡¯s what he was, and then chose to leave artistic parts to those that were actually good at such things. And that Xenia knew more about enchantments in every possible way was as clear as day as well, because he could neverpare his knowledge that he gathered only ever since he started ying this game to someone who literally studied mythology and legends surroundings numerous types of supposed magic or magical artifacts. So, following what they told him was the best thing to do, really. They did a great job creating the enchantments on the outside of the ship together as well, and when Eisen saw the actual design for theplex enchantment for the de, he wasn¡¯t in the least bit disappointed either. Because the old man already prepared all the materials, such as the enchanted gems, for this beforehand, he only had to worry about the actual carving and setting of the materials. And with a grin on his face, Eisen began doing just that. As the needle in his hand moved over the surface of the metal and slowly shaped it to the old man¡¯s will, Eisen could really only think about the item that he was going to finish soon, incredibly curious about the stats and effects of it. After a while, the intricate, decorative enchantments were finished, and all that needed to be done was to set the gems into ce and then finish the image-work of the enchantments, which was apparently done in interesting ways as well, simr to what Eisen was using with his more abstract ways of using images to finish enchantments. They were nothing but patterns, patterns that were easily recognizable as certain things and could without issue be connected to them. At least individually. But as they entered the ocean of images that were ced into the enchantment, they simply added onto the peculiar decoration. And as ast addition to this, Eisen chose to fill the carved parts in with a metal that was most likely the most perfect addition to this de, as it would most likely not only increase the flow of mana, but also the overall strength. And just as Eisen was thinking that, the old man grabbed the container with the molten me-of-the-Earth mythril in it into the carvings, making sure to have it set in a way that it would be even with the rest of the de¡¯s body. As mythril actually had a light blue tint to it, no matter what element it was infused with, it was actually still perfect to make it Kiron¡¯s de, as the colorbination of the light blue of the mythril and the white of the de seemed to fit quite well to the color of the Half-Dragon¡¯s scales. On top of that, as the enchantments were overall supposed to have a simr shape to the patterns on Trygan¡¯s scales, like Eisen had ced onto the vest, pants, and belt already, it looked simply magnificent with this added detail. Soon enough, the mythril properly set, and Eisen made sure to fix the few areas where maybe a little bit of the metal was missing, or where there was too much of it, and then began to finish the whole thing up with a nice polish. After the old man grabbed a piece of soft cloth and covered it in the metal-polish, he swiftly set the de down on hisp and began to clean the whole de up. The Steel-Potion alloy that Eisen used as a base for the de was already the perfect metal for swords, at least ording to the description on the material itself, but that didn¡¯t seem to be just due to the stat increase. For some reason, the metal gave off some kind of inherent beauty that just fit to a de in any possible way, so Eisen was d that he got the idea for such materials that would heavily increase the range of materials that he was now capable of using once more. It was a shame that he had to start at the ore-level in order to create such alloys, but maybe sooner orter, he would figure out a way to properly create metallic-ptions different to the way he did it this time. As the old man was thinking about such things, he had already finished properly polishing every tiny part of the de, and was able to practically mirror himself in the surface of it. With a smile on his face, Eisen stood up and made his way out of the room, his size fully increased and his demonic transformation still activated, as Caria grabbed the vest and pants and Melissa grabbed the belt, as the two of them were following behind as they were riding on Fafnir¡¯s back to catch up. Eisen himself was able to perfectly wield this item as he was the creator of it, but it was still incredibly, incredibly heavy. He wasn¡¯t sure if that would change when he actually saw the item as finished, but for now, it was not something that any normal person would be able to swing, or even hold, in real life. With that in mind, Eisen made his way over to the person that requested such an item. He saw him before, just waiting an ¡¯Patrolling¡¯ the main deck of the ship, which is what he was doing most of the time when nobody needed his help with anything. As the old man opened the door in front of him and stepped out into the open area, he was soon faced with not only Kiron, but the other originals as well. Komer, Stahl, Vardia, Zyra, K and Samurai were there as well, and even Alnico seemed to have logged on in thest little while. Surprisingly, even Kirisho as there as well, who Eisen hadn¡¯t actually seen in a good while now. Well, he had seen her, but they didn¡¯t properly talk anymore since the day that Kirisho spent watching the old man work a little while ago. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure why, but it seemed like she was actually avoiding him for some reason. He didn¡¯t want to think that was the case, but that was simply the conclusion he ended uping to when he thought about everything. It seemed like the Darkness Whale had been properly taken apart as well, so the NPC workers were gone, and Eisen suddenly noticed that Sky, Bree and Dien were behind him, who had noticed the old man walk around with such an enormous item and curiously followed him outside. And as it was practically impossible to ignore Eisen at the moment, as he was three and a half meters tall, had golden mesing out underneath his rock-skin, as well as golden horns on his head and giant wings on his back, and coincidentally currently carrying a sword that was about as tall as the old man in his regr form, which happened to also be quite giant already. And the sword itself was also an incredible eye-catcher, as it was a bright white and had a peculiar design and shape to it. Of course, everyone was rather surprised and curious seeing such a weapon in his hands, but a few certain people knew exactly who it was for. While the originals looked at the half-dragon to see his reaction, Kiron himself just couldn¡¯t believe his eyes, or even ears when his grandfather spoke up. "As you are the first one that actually asked me for an item, you¡¯re the first one to get one. Sorry that it took this long." Eisen told him as he held the weapon in front of him and then smirked. "This de is now finished." [The Dragon King¡¯s Giant Greatsword] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 4] [Description] A Giant Greatsword created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. It is a de amongst des, not only through its unique size, but also through its raw qualifications as a de brought upon by the material used in its creation. The body turnedpletely white afterrge amounts of mana have been mixed into the material, strengthening it immensely. Its body is covered in enchantments that not only strengthen its sharpness and wieldiness, but also increase the effects of magic used through the de, which is supported through the Mythril ced into the carvings. Especially Magic of Draconic Nature is supported immensely. Due to the type of enchantment and a peculiarity added to the central handle inside of the de¡¯s body, it is possible to change or add certain effects whenever it is wanted. The handles have been enchanted to make it harder to lose the grip to them. [Effects] +50 STR, +40 AGI, 10% Benefit to Draconic Abilities, 10% Benefit to Magic Infusion, 10% Benefit to Swordsmanship, Hard to lose grip [Requirements] 200 STR, 150 AGI, 150 END, 100 INT, 100 WIS Chapter 302 - Progress With a broad grin on his face, Eisen waved the notification away, and then waited for Kiron to take the de into his hands. And when the young half-dragon did so, the old man was surprised to see that he actually could do so. It had pretty steep requirements, after all. "This..." Kiron quietly muttered out as he ran his hands over the cold metal, before he looked up at the old man in front of him. "...this is just beautiful..." He muttered out, before a light smile formed on his face, before Eisen nodded his head with a grin. "Well, what do you expect? I put all of my effort into it!" Eisen exined as he slowly deactivated his Demonic transformation and looked at the half-dragon in front of him. "So, how about you do this old man a favor and show me what you can do with this beauty?" As Eisen suggested this, he quickly crossed his arms and looked at the others next to him, hoping for some kind of volunteer, and the one that the old man figured to be the first to step forward was none other than Brody, who couldn¡¯t help but just smile as he looked at the weapon. "A-Are you sure?" Kiron asked surprised, and Brody immediately nodded his head in response. "Of course! Don¡¯t worry, this won¡¯t be a proper fight, I think we¡¯re all just curious about whether or not you can actually swing something like that around." The Demon-Orc pointed out, before Kiron couldn¡¯t help but just nod his head nervously. "Right... Alright, then.. should we just start it here?" Kiron suggested, and Brody nodded as he stepped over to an open area, apparently just wanting to fight bare-handed. "Oh, Kiron, just a moment! I have something else for you." Eisen eximed, and Kiron looked at him surprised while Caria and Melissa brought forward the Vest, Pants and Belt. "How about you wear these for this one?" The old man suggested as he swiftly created a small wall with his element that Kiron could quickly change behind of, and the half-dragon nodded his head and swiftly put the clothes on, although he still needed a little help with the vest. He wasn¡¯t used to wearing something like this, so it was hard to get his wings through right off the bat. But then, Kiron was ready for the fight, stepping up toward where Brody was waiting nervously. "Alright... Let¡¯s start..." Kiron then said with a smile, before the Demon-Orc in front of him just nodded and got into the right stance while Kiron himself also started preparing. He tightened his grip around the main handle of the sword as he held the giant mass of metal in front of himself and began to let his mana flow through not only the handle but all of the enchantments on the de while the mythril helped carry the mana to every single part of it. And soon enough, the de was surrounded by an ever so slight glow, before something else happened as well. The glow that had been surrounding the de changed its shape and slowly began to act like mes. Slightly white, translucent mes which Eisen had seen once before. "Alright, this is going to be interesting..." Eisen muttered to himself as he looked over toward Brody. "You sure you don¡¯t want to use a weapon?" The old man asked with augh, while Brody scratched the back of his neck and nodded his head. "Fair point... Can I borrow the Zweih?nder? A Sword versus Sword fight seems a lot more fun anyway." Brody replied with augh, while Eisen just nodded his head and swiftly went to get the de from his workshop, and then handed it to the Demon-Orc Halfling. "Here you go." Eisen told him with a smile as Brody took the de into his hands and swung it around a little bit. "Let¡¯s get this show started, huh?" Brody suggested with augh, while Kiron just nodded his head. And nearly immediately, the two of them jumped forward toward each other, and when the two des made contact for the first time, the fight was already over. It happened so quickly that Eisen had no idea what had actually happened, but he could tell when he heard the sound of half of the Zweih?nder¡¯s de hitting the ground. "What... just happened..." Stahl asked confused, not able to help himself but to react that way. With a clean cut, something that they hadn¡¯t even noticed, the Zweih?nder was cut in two, while the rest of the sword that was still in Brody¡¯s hand began to burn in the crystal mes, although Kiron seemed to have enough control over them now to make them disappear immediately. "Progress. That¡¯s what happened." Eisen said with a smile on his face,pletely iparable to the smile that he usually wore. This one was the most genuine, ecstatic, and child-like smile that any of the group had seen from Eisen so far. And that smile had a simple reason. Over his whole life, Eisen had learned so many different things and attempted to bring them to the highest level that he could. Toward theter part of his life, the old man noticed one thing. He was unable to push his creations any further. He used any material that he could get his hands on, and made things that most craftsmen would see as the peak on the daily. But that was where it stopped. No matter what he did, Eisen couldn¡¯t continue to bring the things he made beyond a certain quality. But now, he did. The Zweih?nder was one of the first items that Eisen made in this game, and could be seen as a good point of referece for his ability in real life. It wasn¡¯t at the level of the best items that he made then, but it was close enough. And now, the Greatsword that Kiron was holding was something on his current level. In the first ce, creating such huge items wasn¡¯t something easy to do in any situation, but due to the old man¡¯s size-increase ability, it wasn¡¯t much different to creating a regr longsword. He was able to use a material that was impossible to acquire in the real world, and used techniques that Eisen would have just dreamt of at any other time. But by putting all of those new things together, Eisen¡¯s progress wasn¡¯t locked anymore. He could continue experiencing new things and new materials and grow to a level far beyond what he could have achieved before ying this game. So of course Eisen had an utterly ecstatic smile on his face, how couldn¡¯t he? And it seems like Eisen wasn¡¯t the only one that was happy about this. Both Kiron and Brody were incredibly happy at the moment. Kiron¡¯s reaction was understandable, he managed to acquire such an amazing weapon. But Brody¡¯s reaction was rather unexpected. "What the hell is Brody so happy about? Didn¡¯t he just lose?" Samurai asked, rather confused about what was going on, but Stahl, who had learned under Brody, shook his head immediately. "He didn¡¯t lose... His weapon lost, but not him... If he had wanted to, he could have probably killed Kiron in an instant. But it wasn¡¯t a fight in the first ce, so I¡¯m pretty sure he wanted to properly give Kiron a chance to test the weapon and then went for a straight-on encounter. And then it showed just how insane such a weapon is." The young man pointed out, and his suggestion was immediately supported by the person that knew Brody the best. "Probably that¡¯s what happened." Vardia said with a light smile on her face. "Otherwise he would never be happy like that, you know?" She exined and then slowly made her way over to her husband, while Eisen looked over toward the others that were currently there, more specifically Komer, Stahl and Xenia. "Did you guys finish the Light-Element collector?" He asked, and Xenia nodded her head before she pointed at a few sr-panel-like tes by the side of the main-deck. "Mhm, we did. Most of them are at the top of the Meeting Room, but we wanted to show them to you as well." She exined with a smile, before Eisen nodded his head and activated his Truth-Seeing eyes as he stepped closer to the panels, seeing that there really was a bit of light-elemental mana inside of them already. "Interesting... How much is the collection rate?" The old man asked, and Komer scratched the back of his neck. "Erm... 1000 MP worth per hour per unit? It¡¯s hard to put a value like that on elemental mana, right?" The merchant pointed out and Xenia nodded her head. "Yeah, but that¡¯s roughly the number. Anyway, if you want to, we could probably start on the metal infusion now. Or at least attempt it." The High-Elf suggested, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Alright, let¡¯s do that. I¡¯ll bring the infusion-setup to the meeting room. The Mana Batteries are up there already, right?" The old man asked, and they all swiftly nodded their head. "Good. We need at least low-grade Margon... I hope we have enough mana for that." Eisen said with a sigh as he made his way over to the stairs and walked over to the ce where the carriage was stored, quickly grabbing the parts of the infusion-setup that were needed right now and then went back to the workshop and grabbed the maroon he had there, including the scales that he put on CF-1 before. After the old man gathered all of these things together, he made his way back to the Main deck, where most of the people had split up again, and only Kiron was really left there, looking at the giant de with a smile, while the cut-up Zweih?nder wasying next to him. "O-Oh, Grandfather!" Kiron eximed as he saw the old man approach him, before Eisen replied with a smile. "Seems as if you like it, don¡¯t you?" He asked, and the Half-Dragon couldn¡¯t help but nod immediately. "Yes! Yes I do! I really, really do! It¡¯s such a magnificent weapon! The one that I had before my strength was lost cannot evenpare to this one, and it is only at Rank 4..." Kiron exined, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile on his face. "I see, that¡¯s nice to know. And how are the clothes? I hope they¡¯re not too ufortable." Eisen asked, but Kiron just shook his head. "Oh, oh no! They¡¯re not ufortable in the slightest! It has been a while since I wore anything on my chest, so I at first thought that it might be weird at first, but the vest feels as if I had worn it for years already!" He exined, so Eisen simply chuckled quietly. "I¡¯m d to hear that. And really, thanks for letting me make something like that for you. I¡¯ll be in the Meeting Room now. If you want to see if we can really turn the Maroon into Margon, you¡¯re free toe with me." Eisen suggested, before Kiron nodded his head and stood up, holding the Greatsword by the central handle with only one hand, while he picked up the pieces of the Zweih?nder with his other one, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help but ask about this. "Actually, how can you handle such a weapon so easily?" He asked curiously, and Kiron just shrugged lightly. "My swordsmanship skill is acutally a derivative. When I brought it to Rank 5 in the past, it turned into ¡¯Greatswordsmanship¡¯. Most of my skills were reset when my strength was stolen, but at the very least my derivative skills didn¡¯t return to their regr form." He exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Interesting." He replied as the two of them slowly made their way up the stairs of the ship, into the Meeting room where they would now be casually creating a truly legendary metal. Chapter 303 - Dance your Heart Out With a smile on his face, Eisen began to set up everything that he needed to and changed the systems around a little bit so that there could be six inputs from different sources, and then created a small container where all of the Maroon that would be needed could be ced into. Eisen actually didn¡¯t need a lot of Margon in order to create the Core Guardian, not even half a pound, so it was rtively easy to create a small container that would make it possible to truly keep all of the elemental mana inside of it at all times. "Okay, is everything ready?" Eisen asked as he looked around at the others in the room that had been working on their own tasks for this project as well, and when he had confirmation from everyone, he hooked the six different mana-crystal cables up to the infuser and started everything up, hoping that this would work. With his Mana-Sight active, Eisen kept staring at the small piece of metal and the colorful flows of mana, hoping to be able to discern what was going on. It appeared as if the Maroon was justpletely nullifying the elemental mana that hit it immediately, up until thest of the six types hit it as well. At that point, the container began to fill itself up with the mana, before the thing that Eisen had hoped for happened. The Maroon slowly began to absorb the mana that was around it. "Yes!" He eximed with a bright smile on his face, and the others, with the exception of Xenia who had been following everything with her Mana Spectacles as well, all looked at the old man curiously. "Is it working?" Komer asked, and the old man nodded his head with a grin. "It is, yes. Now, let¡¯s just hope that it works well enough. At the rate that everything is going, we should run out of the first type of mana in..." Eisen muttered to himself as he tried to figure out the time, and Stahl sighed loudly and spoke up. "8 Hours, 15 Minutes, 32 Seconds." He said, and the old man nodded his head with a smile. "Exactly. So, it¡¯s getting prettyte already, so I suggest we all just go to bed and see what¡¯s going on tomorrow morning." Eisen said with a smile as he looked out of the window, noticing the pitch-ck sky outside, before the others nodded their heads. "Alright, let¡¯s go for that!" Xenia eximed excitedly, before Eisen nodded his head and sat down on his chair. He himself was probably the only one amongst the yers that wouldn¡¯t be logging off, because even if he did, he would fall asleep immediately anyway, if he could wake up in the first ce. So, he would stay up as long as he could within the game, and just make sure that everything was working infusion-wise, while spending some time with his little monsters. One after another, everyone left the room with the exception of the originals. The other four swiftly logged off and turned into their ¡¯asleep¡¯ state, and Eisen just sat there with a light smile as the room was being ignited by the different types of mana mixing together inside of the infuser. And so, Eisen looked at the two little girls in front of him, as well as the spider that he picked up that was sitting on his thumb, while Fafnir jumped up onto hisp. "Alright you four... Do any of you have a suggestion about what we should do now?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Caria immediately raised her hand. "Ooh! I have an idea! Let¡¯s get Sally to evolve!" She suggested, and Eisen looked at her with a smile before turning his sight toward the small spider. "Would you like that?" The old man asked, and the tiny white spider responded with a little dance. "Alright, then let¡¯s try that." He responded, before he grabbed a small mana crystal from his pocket and ced it on the table in front of him, slowly splitting off another chunk, which was simr to Sal in size. With a little bit of maniption, Eisen then managed to create a small crystal-spider copy of the Albino Spider, which Eisen then slowly manipted to start moving. And as he was constantly using transmutation to do so, it was also a good way to get some more proficiency for his alchemy skill, even if it was just a little bit. "Now, let¡¯s just y around a little bit. What do you suggest we do first?" Eisen asked with a smile before Melissa spoke up excitedly. "Web! Web!" She eximed and Eisen nodded his head. "A web, huh? Alright, sounds good. Sal, do you know how to make string?" Eisen asked, and Sal immediately began to dance, which Eisen just took as a ¡¯Yes¡¯. "Then let¡¯s try making your first web." He said before creating a small arch out of a mana crystal, and then began to split off a few bits of thin, string-like mana crystal off of the crystals that Eisen had, attaching it to a part of the arch while letting the crystal spider start working on a web before Eisen looked at Sal. "How about we have a little contest? You versus me, the best web-maker wins." The old man suggested, and Sal immediately hurried over to the other arch that Eisen created, starting to make his own web so that he wouldn¡¯t lose to Eisen. And of course, both Caria and Melissa began to cheer on both of them at the same time, excited to see either of them win. The whole thing actually took quite long, unexpectedly long in Eisen¡¯s opinion, but soon enough one of them won, and the one who did began to dance his little trademark dance, while Eisen just chuckled and shaped a part of a mana crystal into a tiny trophy and had his mana-crystal spider hand it over to Sal. "Congrats, little guy." He said with a smile on his face, while Sal took the trophy into his arms and was then soon surrounded by a bright light as his body began to grow immensely. Right from the size of Eisen¡¯s fingernail when he was regr-sized to the size of his fist. And with a smile on his face, Eisen then picked the, still quite fluffy, white spider up on his palm and looked at him happily. "Congrats again, Sal. This time on bing Rank 1!" Eisen eximed, before Sal seemed to take a closer look at himself and then wiggled happily before starting to dance again to show his excitement, while Eisen looked at his status. [Sal] [Race - Large Albino Spider][Rank - 1][Level - 1] [HP - 200][MP - 300] [STR - 6][END - 7][AGI - 13][INT - 9][WIS - 12] [Skills] -[Dancing][Rank - 1][Level - 5] -[String Control][Rank - 1][Level - 2] "Oh, so you¡¯re apparently more set to being either a magician or a dancer, huh?" Eisen asked with augh, while Sal just tilted his head to the side and looked at the old man with his eight red eyes. "Well, either way, how about we get you started on magic, alright?" He suggested, and once more, Sal just stared back at Eisen, seemingly a bit confused. "You know, this kind of thing." The old man answered as he held his other hand upward and created a raw, small ¡¯me of the Earth¡¯ above his palm, and Sal immediately began to dance, although he seemed interested in something else as well. Immediately, he climbed along Eisen¡¯s arm and up his chest onto his face, staring into the old man¡¯s eyes directly, before Eisen understood what he meant. "Huh, so you want to learn something that has to do with eyes? Well, that makes sense, you have eight of them... Let¡¯s just try a few things out then." Eisen suggested before he activated his truth seeing eyes and then practically ripped Sal from his face, because he wanted to keep looking at the small golden things in the old man¡¯s head. "Alright... Well, you should feel it inside of you now, right? That little bit of warm, weirdly cool energy?" Eisen asked as he ced his fingertip on Sal¡¯s back, before pouring a little bit of his own mana into his body so that he could get a rough idea of what it was like while Eisen used his Mana-sight to properly see if Sal was really properly manipting his own mana. Slowly, the spider nodded his head, before Eisen gave him the first few tasks and tricks, suggesting to just press¡¯ the mana into a single spot a few times and then move that around, because that was one of the first things that he himself did. And soon enough, seeing that Sal seemed to have surprisingly good control over it already, Eisen told him to try and move the mana into one of his eyes. Immediately when Sal did so, the eye surprisingly turnedpletely white, even when Eisen turned off his Mana-Sight. "What... is going on... You can¡¯t normally see the effect of regr mana like that so easily..." Eisen muttered out, before he scratched the back of his neck. It would probably make sense to ask Jyuuk and Xenia when they logged back on, but for now, the old man just had to make sure that Sal wasn¡¯t identally hurting himself and opened the spider¡¯s status again, although he saw a few rather surprising changes. [Sal] [Race - Large Albino Spider][Rank - 1][Level - 3] [HP - 200][MP - 300] [STR - 3][END - 4][AGI - 7][INT - 18][WIS - 24] [Titles] -[Blessed by Mana] [Skills] -[Dancing][Rank - 1][Level - 5] -[Mana Maniption][Rank - 0][Level - 24] -[String Control][Rank - 1][Level - 2] Confused at the sudden change of Sal¡¯s stats and that new title that appeared out of nowhere, Eisen figured it was exactly that title that was the reason for that change of stats, and so, the old man took a closer look at it. [Title - Blessed by Mana] [Description] A title belonging to only a few, which shows itself in albinism. It is anchored deep inside a creatures body even if they cannot yet use mana, but is then truly unlocked the first time they use it. [Effect] Halves STR, END and AGI stats; Doubles INT and WIS stats; makes it easier to learn and level magic-based skills; makes it harder to learn and level physical skills; Eisen slowly looked at the small spider, more specifically his movements, and then scratched the back of his neck as he looked at Sal, who had basically just been forced into what to be by the world itself. And now that he saw Sal¡¯s stats, he could see that he was really moving more sluggishly and somewhat slumped, which Eisen really had never seen in a spider before. But nheless, Sal continued dancing around, even if it was a lot harder to do so now. Carefully, Eisen began to exin to the tiny spider that it would probably be quite hard for him to properly dance now, but Sal didn¡¯t care at all. He probably didn¡¯t realize what Eisen was saying, but nheless, the small spider just continued dancing happily, all the whilst it was turning more and more of its eyes white. Confused at what exactly was going on, Eisen activated his truth-seeing eyes and then saw what that was. All of a sudden, Sal had learned how to manipte mana to such an extent that he was able to manipte ten parts of mana individually, eight of which went into his eyes, while Sal was continuosly splitting the others up as well to put them into his legs so that he could prove Eisen wrong. And surprisingly enough, Sal really did begin moving faster again, even if just the tiniest bit. It seemed like Sal didn¡¯t care about that title in the slightest, and just wanted to continue dancing his heart out. So of course, Eisen didn¡¯t think twice about supporting the tiny creature in that dream. Chapter 304 - Weird Dream A few hourster, it was time for Eisen to finally go to bed as well, and as his in-game body only needed three or four hours of sleep at this point, he would be able to wake up before the the first type of elemental-mana ran out. With his four small monsters, including the living Dungeon fafnir, sitting on the old man¡¯sp, Eisen then just swiftly closed his eyes and dozed off into sleep. But instead of waking up immediately again as he was used to, he found himself inside of a weird space, which he seemed to remember from somewhere. He seemed to be really tiny, and inside of a giant house filled with numerous tools and materials which Eisen himself would just love to have. And then, in front of him, there was a giant version of Eisen, albeit slightly different here and there. It was the same scene as in thest ¡¯Dream¡¯ that Eisen had, just far less hazy. Slowly, the giant version of Eisen leaned forward and grabbed the old man from the ground, grasping him tightly. Eisen was actually quite surprised, as he was able to really feel everything that was going on as if it was real life and as if he was really getting grasped, although he most likely imagined him and his mind made him believe that it was the case. Either way, Eisen just stared forward at the giant in front of him, who slowly began to speak, although no sound was released from his mouth. At first, the Giant Eisen seemed to be rtively calm, although after a while, he began to get rather angry and started screaming, although Eisen still wasn¡¯t able to hear him speak. And then, all of a sudden, he woke up and found himself inside the meeting room. It wasn¡¯t like the regr feeling Eisen had when waking up, more as if he scared himself into waking up in this dream, and the old man felt rather lost for a few moments due to the sudden change of his environment, as if he switched instantly between two settings. Eisen seemed to be the first one that was awake, and he slowly stood up and let down his monsters off of hisp before he activated his truth seeing eyes and rubbed his face, somehow feeling rather lethargic at the moment. It was a weird feeling to have within the game, as Eisen had never felt this before. But he figured that things were just a bit weird at the moment because of the medication he was on, and that the game was handling things like the ¡¯Wake-up¡¯ procedure differently, which would exin his dizziness after waking up as well as his current lethargy. Either way, Eisen soon seemed to feel the energy return to his body as he looked at the infuser and the batteries, seeing that everything still seemed to be working properly. The old man looked to the side at the time floating next to him and then moved his fingers through his beard. "Another hour, huh?" He muttered to himself and then chose to just step out the door for a moment to get some air and something to eat. Together with his Monsters, Eisen then made his way down to the kitchen and grabbed a few pieces of dried meat as well as some pickled vegetables and fruits, before making his way back to the main deck, where Eisen just leaned against the railing in front of him and looked at the sun as he started to feed Fafnir, Melissa and Sal. Caria didn¡¯t need to eat as she could take in nutrients from the air and the sun pretty easily. And as Eisen scratched his cheek quietly and bit off a piece of the meat in his hand before pairing it with a cup of his personal storage of mead, the old man began to think about what he needed to be doing today. He had a pretty busy schedule, actually. Now that he would, hopefully, get the Margon that was needed for the Core Guardian, he also needed to get another item ready, the Pot that was used to strengthen souls. He already had a recipe for it and just needed to get everything ready, and after that he needed a specific soul to continue with everything, after which Eisen would be able to actually finish everything up. Then, he also needed to continue working on the different equipment and tools that everyone needed. The regr equipment and tools for the regr workers and the low-level people were already being made by Eisen¡¯s apprentices all the time, so Eisen himself would be working on anything else, which meant quite a bit of work. He managed to get Kiron¡¯s items out of the way first, and next, he would be working on items for the other originals so that they were prepared everything, because the old man was pretty sure they were the most important force in the whole process of taking over the inds, even if everyones¡¯panions were also incredibly strong. Next, Eisen needed to work on the items for thosepanions, starting with the most important items for thebatists, which included armor and weaponry, or tools to activate their ability, and then the supportive items for everyone, which included things like bags, potions, food, and so on. For the most part, Eisen could probably leave the creation of some of the supportive items to his apprentices as well, as those items were things that were needed in bulk, but Eisen actually wanted to use the chance to start properly making some nice items inrge batches again. He did really enjoy making things like that as well, because it was a rather rxing activity in his opinion. Anyway, for now, Eisen had a rough idea of what needed to be done, although it was quite clear he wouldn¡¯t be able to finish everything in a day. There were also the lessons for his apprentices, as well as Stahl, to take care of. He would probably be able to work on items while they were working on their own different tasks as well. "Well, I guess it¡¯s time to get back up there now... Maybe some of the others are awake as well." The old man muttered to himself with a smile as he put away the food and his drink and made his way back into the meeting room, where two people were already awake, Xenia and Evalia. As Jyuuk and Brody needed to work, the old man knew that they wouldn¡¯t be there anytime soon anyway. "Morning!" Evalia eximed with a smile, and Eisen smiled back before he looked over toward Xenia, who was wearing the Mana Spectacles on her nose and was currently inspecting the infusion process. "Morning, you two. So, anything interesting going on there, Xenia?" Eisen asked with a smile, and the young High-Elf immediately nodded her head. "Actually... I think so, yeah. I can¡¯t be exactly sure right now because of all the mana inside there, but- Holy Mother of-" Xenia eximed as she turned her head over to the side and happened to see Sal, who had grown to the size of arge fist after his evolutionst night. "What happened?!" The young woman asked with a wry smile as she moved away a little while Sal just tilted his head to the side confused. "He just evolved. He won¡¯t hurt you, don¡¯t worry. Even if he wanted to, he probably couldn¡¯t, at least not with his body." Eisen said with a wry smile as he looked at the spider on his hand, before Stahl and Alnico stepped through the door to the meeting room, the former quickly asking about what the old man just said. "What do you mean? He¡¯s a giant-ass spider, how couldn¡¯t he be able to hurt us..?" He asked with a wry smile as he looked at the suddenly sorge creature, and Eisen just scratched the back of his neck. "Well, you see... Last night, I was practicing a few things with him, and then he evolved and became able to use mana. So of course, we started to practice mana a bit, because that¡¯s one of the easiest ways to get a monster to Rank 2 in my experience, beside through Combat of course. But when he started using Mana, he got a title called ¡¯Blessed by Mana¡¯..." Eisen said with a sigh, and Xenia immediately perked her head up. "Wait, what?" She asked confused, and Eisen nodded his head, d that Xenia seemed to know about it. "Apparently it¡¯s a title that sometimes appears in monsters with Albinism? Wait, no, I think it causes albinism in monsters... I¡¯m not exactly sure, either way, it halves his physical stats, doubles his mental stats, makes it easier for him to learn magic skill and makes it harder to learn physical skills." The old man exined as he looked down at Sal, who noticed that everyone was looking at him and saw it as a good moment to start dancing! With a chuckle, Eisen then rubbed over the Albino Spider¡¯s back and then looked at the others. "But as you can see, he really doesn¡¯t give a damn." He said, before Xenia seemed to start being rather conflicted. And from what Eisen could guess, it was because she really wanted to see what the ¡¯Blessed by Mana¡¯ title caused exactly, and if it gave Sal some special abilities that weren¡¯t mentioned in the skill description, but really, really didn¡¯t want toe into the direct vicinity of the small crawler. "Do you want to wait until he has a more humanoid form?" Eisen suggested, and Xenia slowly nodded her head with a wry smile. "Yeah, that would be alright, I guess... At least a half-humanoid form like an Arachne would be fine, but like this... I don¡¯t think I can deal with that..." Xenia muttered quietly, before Eisen nodded his head and just looked over at the Margon again. "Well, I¡¯ll let you know when that happens. So, just another ten minutes or so, right?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Stahl looked over to the side, probably at the clock, and then nodded his head before answering the question. "Mhm, just roughly ten more minutes. Let¡¯s hope this worked..." The young man said as he scratched his cheek, and Xenia slowly nodded. "Oh yeah, it definitely did change, don¡¯t worry. I was trying to tell Eisen about it before, but then I kind of freaked out..." She said nervously, still eye-ing Sal as she did so, before she swiftly continued and tried to ignore the creature that quite literally caused goosebumps all over her body by just existing. "So... It seems like over time, the absorption rate became faster. At the start, it did so quite slowly, with let¡¯s say... 1 MP per second from each element, so most of the elemental mana stayed inside of the container. Luckily it couldn¡¯t ¡¯escape¡¯ and just stayed in there, though. Anyway, over time, the Maroon started to absorb everything faster than before. Now it¡¯s at roughly... 100 MP per second from each element." Xenia exined, once more looking at the container to confirm that she really saw everything correctly. Although then, Evalia looked at the High-Elf rather confused. "Wait, doesn¡¯t that speed up always for any material? Because mana can flow through it more easily?" She asked, but Xenia swiftly shook her head. "No, it¡¯s usually the opposite. A material usually has a certain max ¡¯Capacity¡¯ of mana it can take in, and it takes in more mana the less it already took in, and the closer it gets to the capacity, the slower it takes in more mana. The capacity slowly grows with the rank-change of the material caused by the mana, but the mana doesn¡¯t speed up anymore after slowing down once. But the mana absorption for maroon, or margon, is just incredible!" She exined, and Eisen began to chuckle quietly. "Not what you would expect from a metal that repulses all magic, huh?" Chapter 305 - Soul Refination A few more minutester, Eisen carefully detached all of the mana-crystal tubings from the infuser, and then opened the small container up, grabbing the metal from inside of it. Outwardly, it didn¡¯t seem to change in the slightest, but just judging from the feeling it gave off when Eisen was touching it, itpletely changed. Before, the Maroon was cold, nearly freezing, although its temperature wasn¡¯t really that low. It was just the feeling of losing the mana to the metal which caused something like that, and now, it seemed more like the metal was both hot and cold, the same feeling that Mana itself had, simply more pronounced. From what Eisen could tell just right off the bat, the natural flow of his mana sped up in response to him touching the Margon, which seemed to be exactly what its function was supposed to be. Basically, it was the ss-fiber cable of magic materials. At the very least, that was the initiate magical effect that Eisen could feel. Other than that, while Maroon was quite soft and gold-like in its texture, Margon seemed to be incredibly tough. "Hmm..." Eisen muttered to himself, before he activated his element in its most basic output after pouring it into the Margon, which seemed to be basically heavily strengthening it by a few times. "This is a serious change, isn¡¯t it?" The old man said with a smirk on his face, and especially Xenia nodded her head excitedly. "Yeah, that¡¯s amazing! D-Do you need all of it..?" The High-Elf asked with a wry smile, but Eisen just smiled before scratching his cheek. "This surprisingly ended up as... Average Grade?" Eisen answered in surprise as he looked at the information on the material, quite surprised, before he quickly continued. "Well, it¡¯s a lot higher than I needed it to be... So I probably don¡¯t need to use just as much. I can probably spare some for you, don¡¯t worry. I¡¯ll work on something." The old man said with a wink, before taking the Margon with a broad grin and crossed his arms. "You were hoping I¡¯d make a staff for you with it, right?" Eisen asked, and Xenia slowly nodded her head embarrassedly. "Alright, then just think about how exactly you want the staff to look, and if you have any certain functions you definitely want it to have. I¡¯ll finish up the Core Guardian first." Eisen answered with a chuckle and then turned around before making his way to the Door, excited to finish this project up. On his way to the workshop, Eisen stopped by the material storage to grab a few different items and ressources he would be needing, and then excitedly opened the door to the workshop with his monsters following behind him. "Let¡¯s get started, shall we?" Eisen said with a smirk on his face and summoned his staff to prepare the three furnaces needed for ssblowing, although he first needed to take care of something else. He needed to figure out if the Margon could be molten through his elemental mes, or if he needed to use some other way to heat it up. Slowly, Eisen created a small me on the tip of his finger, basically using it like a blowtorch, and then held that me against the surface of the Margon. Luckily, the me didn¡¯t disappear, but rather became hotter than it was before through the influence of the Magical metal, and swiftly began to heat the margon up. It seemed like it was still technically simr to noble metals like gold or silver in the way they acted when being molten, just like before when it was still Maroon, and the melting point was still rtively low, making it perfect for fuming. "Perfect..." Eisen muttered to himself before letting the Margon cool down again and setting it to the side, before mixing everything together for the first small batch of ss that he would be needing, melting the silica, limestone, and soda ash down together to create the rather beautiful material, mixing it together with a few different materials as well. After he finished it, he swiftly began to shape the ss into the form he needed it to be, most of which was just thin tubing in different lengths, and then set everything into the annealer until he had everything ready. But now, instead of using the annealer too cool the ss down to room-temperature, Eisen used it to cool the ss down to a good temperature to have it fumed, which was the point at which ss was still roughly moldable, although not easily. Simply, it was on the colder side of ss that you would work with in ssblowing. Then, Eisen swiftly creating something like a stationary blowtorch with his element, with a little shallow indent right where the opening was on the inside. And after forming some of the Margon into a tiny pellet, Eisen ced it into that indent and prepared to melt it down, although it took a few moments to figure out the proper temperature considering that the Margon naturally strengthened any type of magic as if ¡¯Upscaling¡¯ any and all of the magic¡¯s qualities. Either way, it didn¡¯t take long until Eisen got used to it, and at that point the Margon had already molten down into a small drop and was ready to be used for fuming. With an actually rather excited smile on his face to see what the fumed ss would look like in this way, Eisen swiftly began. And, while trying to specifically not touch the outside of the ss, Eisen changed a bit about the me, to make sure that the actual ¡¯core¡¯ of the me didn¡¯t leave the magic blowtorch, and only the outeryer of the fire was outside of it, carrying the margon, which had turned into a fume-like state due to the high heat, with it into the inside of the ss tubes. And as he was doing so, Eisen was actually following rather specific instructions that he read about on the blueprints, using transmutation to properly carry the Margon fumes along every part of the tube. And there was another bit Eisen was paying attention to. Knowing that the Margon was of a higher grade than initially needed, the actual effect of the Margon was obviously also higher than needed, so the ss tubings needed a lower density to properly work as well, meaning that Eisen could save a little bit on the amount of material that he would be using. Either way, after only a few moments, the ss was starting to change color due to the Margon fumes that were forming a small web around the inside of the ss tubes, while coloring the surrounding ss in different colorful shades surrounding the color red. Some parts were orange, some were purple, but all in all it was just quite a beautiful thing to look at. The dark red webbings were moving in a rtively stable way, meaning that they were forming something like a uniform pattern. And the same thing happened over and over again with the other tubes, and Eisen also expected this to happen with the central piece of the structure. The spherical ss golem core that Eisen would be creating next. And as he needed a few crystal-parts of Soul Stones as well as the actual strengthened soul that Eisen would be creating with the help of the souls contained inside those soul stones. For that, Eisen would be needing the special pot, and luckily, he had everything that he would be needing for that recipe. First, he needed some y, which he could create with the help of his element, and then make a bit more mendable and moldable with a little bit of water to then mix the y with some other materials, and then he could use that new type of y to form the special type of pot, add the carvings to the outside, swiftly dry it with his element, and then use that pot to strengthen the souls. And that was exactly what Eisen then did. The materials that he mixed into the y were some ground-down soul stones and mana-crystal powder. And as this was going to be a very basic pot meant to strengthen nk souls, that¡¯s all that needed to be done, and Eisen could swiftly move on to shaping the pot. As the y was made of his element, it was possible to shape it quite easily, and he soon had the special y pot in front of him. After that, Eisen used one of his molding tools that he made to more easily shape mana crystals to scrape along the surface of the y to put the carvings onto the outside, where were really just quite simply patterns which the old man copied from the recipe he wrote down after looking into it a little while ago. When that was done, all that Eisen needed to do was to have the y heat and bake itself, which was something that could happen since Eisen ranked his element up thest time. And soon, Eisen finished the special pot and gained another new skill at the same time, the Pottery skill. With a smile on his face, Eisen then waved the notifications away before moving the souls that were floating next to him, as he had to ¡¯Free¡¯ them to use the soul stones for the pot, and then moved the first one inside of the Soul-Refinement pot, and then tried to activate the refining process. [A nk Soul has been set as the core of the refination. It will have the benefit inside of the pot, but you still need to be careful not to ce any souls with a higher soul strength inside, otherwise the central soul will be devoured and control over the process will be lost] Eisen nodded his head and then looked at the other souls next to him again. Luckily, the soul he used as a base already had a rather high soul strength, and now he could simply start to feed it starting from the nk soul with the lowest soul strength. He slowly led the soul along toward the openning of the small pot and pushed it inside, where he could see something like a low light before the information screen about the refination process changed a little, increasing the central soul¡¯s soul strength by about 5 points, while the ¡¯Integrity¡¯ was raised by 1. "Hmm, this might take a little longer than I thought..." Eisen muttered to himself as he moved his fingers through his beard. The soul that he would be needing for the Core Guardian was rather specific. It had to be a Rank 0 soul with 100 Soul Strength, something that couldn¡¯t normally be a thing naturally except when using refination, while all of the soul¡¯s "Stats" needed to be at 10, the limit for Rank 0 nk souls. And if the change continued to be so minscule, then Eisen would probably need quite a while to finish the soul refination. Although the old man didn¡¯t really see why he couldn¡¯t try to speed the process up a little bit. Instead of cing one inside of the pot, Eisen swiftly ced two inside of there, although he made sure that the sum of their soul strength wasn¡¯t higher than the central soul¡¯s, just in case that also messed things up somehow. And soon, noticing that the soul perfectly absorbed the other two, Eisen grinned and just one after another ced a steady flow of nk souls into the pot, making sure that there really wouldn¡¯t end up being an issue or conflict with the soul strengths. Just a little under an hourter, Eisen managed to look at the soul which had literally reached the very peak of Rank 0, and was now finally ready to start putting the Core Guardian together. Chapter 306 - Core Guardian First things first, Eisen began to ce the different parts together in the right way so that he properly knew which ones belonged to which part of the Core Guardian¡¯s Body, and then slowly and carefully began to construct the body. Overall, it seemed to be created in a way that the inside was mostly made up of crystal and ss structures, as well as incredibly functional areas, and the outside was made up of different types of metal as a casing, the inside of those different metal tes were all covered in different types of enchantments. And technically, Eisen wasn¡¯t just done with everything yet, as he still needed to create the potion that would act as something like ¡¯Blood¡¯ to the Core Guardian, which was a weird amalgamation of seemingly random herbs, roots, or flowers, whose effects not only seemed to be counterproductive, but sometimes even quite contradictory to each other. But Eisen was sure there was some sort of logic behind all of this, and as such chose to just follow the instructions and see what happened then. After all, if you¡¯ve never tried a recipe, how could you know how to improve on it? With such a mindset, Eisen continued working on putting the different parts together, starting with the crystal structures on the inside that were surrounding the metal skeleton. The old man first worked on each of the limbs first, as it seemed to be rtively easy to attach them to the torso if he did so first. When the ss parts were all properly attached to each other, Eisen then added the metal casings and then ced the different parts together, although he made sure to leave a little space in the center so that he could ce the special type of Golem Core into the centerst. After a while, Eisen soon had the metallic, robotic body in the shape of a Halti, a gnome-like creature from the Underdark. And then, he only needed to ce the core into the center of the body and then add the ¡¯Blood¡¯ to everything. There even seemed to be a quite special ¡¯Startup¡¯ procedure, so Eisen had to be careful not to mess anything up for that while filling the body up with the potion. Either way, in order to create the Golem Core, Eisen had to basically mix the materials meant for a regr Golem Core into the materials to make ss, add a little bit of a soul-stone crystal to that, and then needed to create a small hollow ss sphere. Inside of that sphere, while Eisen was actually still blowing the ss, he had to quite literally ¡¯Blow¡¯ the soul into that ss sphere, and then after that fume the inside of the sphere through one of the two holes inside of the sphere, which would thenter be connected to the ss tubings. And for the most part, that was it. As the Golem Core had an actual soul inside of it, it didn¡¯t need the two special enchantments to be ced onto it, which might have also been part of the reason why he couldn¡¯t start the Core Guardian up in a way that he normally would start up a Golem. Either way, when Eisen put everything together and added thest metal te to the chest, the old man swiftly stood up and made sure that nothing wasying on the floor directly surrounding the Core Guardian, and then created an enchantment directly underneath the Core Guardian. Theyout for the enchantment as well as a detailed description of the image one was supposed to have was actually included inside of the blueprints as well, so Eisen finished the job quite quickly as he just needed to ¡¯do it¡¯, and not figure out ¡¯how to do it¡¯. After a few moments, the enchantment circle was finished, and all that now needed to be done was to make the potion and pour it into the Core Guardian¡¯s mouth, and then infuse arge amount of mana into the ss-Golem Core. The Potion was rtively straightforward to make as well, although it did require a few techniques that created arge amount of waste, like manually pulling the actual potion out of therge mixture of things, which created a weird gray sludge that you really didn¡¯t want to identally touch. And after therge amount of the potion was finished, Eisen swiftly poured all of it into the Core Guardian¡¯s mouth at a steady rate, even rtively weirdly ¡¯massaging¡¯ the neck directly underneath the jaw¡¯s joints, making the artificial muscles that the old man had to add here and there react and then help carry the potion into the actually important parts of the Core Guardian¡¯s body. Once Eisen was done with that, all that was left to do was to pour the mana into the Core Guardian¡¯s Golem Core. When the old man started doing so, though, a notification appeared in frotn of him. [Startup Procedure of a Core Guardian Initiated. 1000 MP Left] "That much..?" Eisen muttered with a wry smile and then looked at his status, noticing that this was roughly two thirds of the mana that Eisen currently had left after all the work that went into the creation of the body, and then sighed deeply. "Guess I¡¯ll have to go grab some potions after this." The old man said with a smirk and continued to pour the mana into the core at the fastest rate that he could steadily manage, while the number on the notification kept dwindling more and more, before it finally reached zero. [Core Guardian Startup Procedure activated] [Basic Knowledge will be given to the Core Guardian. Specific Knowledge will be learned when it connects with its Core] Slowly, the Core Guardian¡¯s body began to move, and Eisen at first thought that he would hear a lot of horrid sounds from inside of it due to the initial adjustment at the very least damaging some of the ss parts inside of the Guardian¡¯s body. But surprisingly, none of that happened! All that Eisen could hear when he tried listening closely was the potion that he prepared slowly starting to flow around, before the Core Guardian¡¯s face also started reacting. Its metallic eyelids slowly moved and revealed the two crystal eyes that were prepared beforehand, and then the corners of its mouth began twitching just so slightly, before the Core Guardian slowly sat upright, looking around rather confused. And that in itself was something that then in turn confused Eisen. This creation of his was moving as if it was alive, blinked when it looked around, and even seemed to be somewhat scared, as it didn¡¯t seem to know anything just yet. Although, just when that thought crossed Eisen¡¯s mind, the Core Guardian¡¯s eye twitched a little and it moved its hand to its head with a grimacing expression, before it ripped both of its eyes open immediately and then stood up upright, jumping to its legs nearly immediately as if in a military academy and Eisen was the instructor that just caught it cking off. "This is... amazing..." Eisen muttered quietly to himself as he looked at the naked, androgynous, somewhat child-like figure in front of him. Of course Eisen himself knew what it was, and its skin wasn¡¯t a natural color, right now it was just a very metallic gray tone and was lightly glistening at the little bit of lighting that Eisen had in his Workshop, but if one took care of that and maybe painted the metallic skin, the Core Guardian may as well lookpletely like an actual, living person, especially due to the sight amount of Micro-expressions on its face, and the slight wobble that its body had. It was truly like a person, but Eisen waspletely aware that it was made of nothing organic in the slightest. It was an artificial creation, the process of which was done 100% by this old man. "You are beautiful..." Eisen whispered as he grabbed the Core Guardian¡¯s arm to check if it really was still just metal, or if some kind of weird magic stuff was going on and the core guardian wasn¡¯t just switched out with an actual person, although it was probably the worst moment for Eisen¡¯s grandchildren to appear in the room. "Err... Yeah, Grampa, what¡¯s going on?" Stahl asked with a wry smile and a frown on his face, as it looked to him like his grandfather was kneeling in front of a naked, gray-skinned child, but Eisen didn¡¯t care up the situation and just spoke up with a broad grin. "I finished it! Come on, take a look! He- She- It, whatever, we¡¯ll have to figure that outter, is the Core Guardian!" Eisen eximed with an ecstatic expression from the moment that he confirmed that the Core Guardian¡¯s skin really was just made of metal still, and Stahl looked at Eisen and the small figure confused. "Wait, what?" He asked and immediately stepped up to the figure and touched its shoulder, noticing the cold feeling of steel, before he opened his eyes wide. "Holy shit!" Stahl yelled excitedly, and while Alnico was also quite impressed, she stayed silent through all of this and just watched, before Eisen looked at his two Grandchildren with a grin. "You two, go take Fafnir with you and make him create the Entrance to the Dungeon in the meeting room, then tell the originals to make their way to the Core Room, please." Eisen asked excitedly, and Stahl, who had just recently learned the beauty of such creations, nodded his head immediately and sprinted out of the room, taking the living dungeon and his cousin with him as he did so, while Eisen kept looking at the Core Guardian. "Alright, let¡¯s get you dressed for now." Eisen said with a smirk on his face, although the Core Guardian swiftly responded, in a rather cold and emotionless voice, although far more human than Eisen ever expected it to be. "I do not require clothing. They might be hindering as I fulfill my purpose." It responded, simply staring forward toward the wall without moving for a moment, but Eisen just responded with a wry smile and pulled a simple robe over its head. "Yeah, sure. I¡¯d prefer it if you wore clothes, though. This should do for now, but we¡¯ll figure out something betterter." Eisen exined with a smile, and the Core Guardian just stood there like a statue, before Eisen¡¯s initial excitement finally died down a bit as he looked at the notification next to him. [Legacy Creation - Core Guardian] [Name - None][Connected Core - None] [Rank - 0][Level - 0] [Description] The Legacy of the first that peaked, created by himself. With the help of knowledge that it is given by the world, it is able to control a single core perfectly and knows anything that has to do with it. It bes the core, and the core bes it. If the Guardian is destroyed, so is the Core, and if the Core is Destroyed, so is the Guardian. Somewhat surprised, Eisen looked at the weird format of the information screen, which seemed to be something like a mix-match between the information screen of a creature and the information screen of an item. And while the old man was confused that it was at ¡¯Level 0¡¯, or more specifically confused about the fact that it was even able to level up in the first ce, he figured that his newest Creation would probably be the best to answer such questions. However, there was a different issue that Eisen wanted to figure out first, which was the fact that this newly ¡¯Created¡¯ Core Guardian still had no name. And even if the old man was aware that it might not be the best choice of name, but for some reason, it felt like an interestingbination considering that this Core Guardian would end up connected to Fafnir. Either way, Eisen stepped up to the door of his Workshop and looked at the metallic figure wearing a simply cloth robe behind him. "Let¡¯s go, Sigurd." Chapter 307 - Sigurd and Fafnir With the quite short metallic figure following behind Eisen, the old man swiftly made his way to the Meeting Room, where he soon saw Fafnir sleeping on top of the stone-brick gate, and without hesitation Eisen opened the door and motioned toward Sigurd. "After you." He said with a grin, and the Core Guardian stepped through into the dungeon without a reaction, while Alnico and Stahl were standing next to the door. "Do you two want toe along as well?" Eisen asked with a smile, and the two of them slowly looked at each other, while the rather excited Stahl nodded his head. "I mean, I definitely do. What about you?" He asked his cousin, who slowly and silently nodded her head. "Then Stahl, you go on ahead, I want to talk to Alnico a little bit." The old man exined with a smile, and the young man nodded his head and went into the dungeon, immediately heading for the next door that led directly to the Core Room, while Sigurd was just waiting inside of the dungeon next to the main entrance until Eisen stepped in. And while the old man told Caria, Melissa and Sal to go on inside as well, slowly looked at Alnico in front of him and then looked around to make sure nobody was listening in on them. And the first thing that Eisen did was embrace his granddaughter. "I¡¯m sorry, Sophia, I shouldn¡¯t have juste back in my current state without telling you about it." Eisen said with a light smile, and Alnico, who was slightly surprised, just stayed silent for a moment and slowly returned the hug, before slowly opening her mouth. "Yeah... You really shouldn¡¯t have..." She answered quietly, before her grandfather simply slowly rubbed his hand over her back, "Just... Why did you pretend to be fine? We¡¯re not kids anymore... Well, Benji and I aren¡¯t, I get that you weren¡¯t 100% honest because of Sean and Katy, but... Having you lie to us just feels very, very bad..." Alnico exined as she slowly stopped hugging her grandfather and ran her hand over her eyes to get rid of the tears in their corners. "I know, I just thought... No, I shouldn¡¯t try to make any excuses... I¡¯m just sorry, Sophia, I won¡¯t lie to any of you from now on, alright?" The old man answered with a light smile, and his Granddaughter soon nodded her head with a smile on her face. "I guess that¡¯s fine..." Alnico replied, and the two of them slowly made their way into the dungeon, having now finally cleared up a big part of the lingering emotions fromst night, where Alnico had opened up Eisen¡¯s capsule to talk to him. And now, with Sigurd and his three tamed monsters following behind him and Alnico walking next to him, Eisen made his way to the Core Room, where Xenia, Evalia, Stahl, and the ghostly form of Fafnir were already waiting. "Wait, that¡¯s the Core Guardian?" Xenia asked surprised, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Mhm, they¡¯re called Sigurd." Eisen said with a smile, and Stahl immediately cracked up. "Wait, you named the one that¡¯s supposed to guard Fafnir after the person that killed Fafnir in mythology?" Stahl asked with a grin, and Eisen just nodded his head. "Yeah, I thought it was a funbination. Anyway, Sigurd, that¡¯s the core. How about you connect with it and we get started?" Eisen suggested, before the short Core Guardian nodded its head and stepped forward toward the floating purple crystal, cing its hand on it. And quite soon, Fafnir¡¯s ghostly body seemed to walk toward Sigurd as if hypnotized, before the Guardian¡¯s head slowly turned toward the small dragon and kneeled down, its lips slowly moving upward while it ced its hand on Fafnir¡¯s head. At the same time, Eisen received a notification. [Core Guardian Sigurd has connected with the Living Dungeon Fafnir¡¯s Core] [Any and all information on Dungeons that will be needed to support, strengthen, and protect the dungeon will be learned by Sigurd automatically] With a smile on his face, the old man waved those notifications away and started stepping forward toward Sigurd and Fafnir, although Eisen could hear a loud, very ufortable sounding from Sigurd¡¯s body all of a sudden, apanied with another notification. [The Core Guardian Sigurd¡¯s nature will change to better fit the Core¡¯s Nature] [Evolution of the Core Guardian will be initiated once everyone exits the Dungeon] Confused, Eisen immediately stared forward while he pulled up the information window for the dungeon and ¡¯overwrote¡¯ the entrance with a different, temporary door so that everyone could immediately leave. "Everyone, get out, hurry. Seems like Sigurd¡¯s in pain..." Eisen muttered out as he looked at the figure of the cramped up, convulsing Sigurd as the young Core Guardian seemed to be in a lot of pain, and Eisen just wanted to hurry so that Sigurd could ¡¯Evolve¡¯ and the pain would stop. While the others were also quite confused as they were specifically asked to go inside the Dungeon a few minutes ago, they also noticed that something was going on, and as such listened to the old man and hurried out of the door, although they were still rather confused because they didn¡¯t get the same notifications that Eisen did. But when they left the Dungeon through they door, the wooden door immediately shut down and it didn¡¯t seem as if it would be possible to open it at the moment. Although soon, just a few momentster, the door opened up again, and a certain figure stepped out of it. The color of its metallic skin had changed, but it was still quite clearly metallic as far as Eisen could judge visually, and instead of a steel-like Gray, the color changed into something like a very pale, white skin, something simr to Xenia¡¯s skintone, actually. But there were some parts that seemed to be quite tattoo-like, for example two dark red triangles, the same color as Fafnir¡¯s scales, underneath Sigurd¡¯s eyes, which had also changed quite a bit, now being basically alsopletely like Fafnir¡¯s eyes. And while Sigurd waspletely bald before, now, it had some dark red metallic hair on its head reaching down to its hip. The shape of Sigurd¡¯s face had also changed quite a bit, be slimmer and more feminine, while the rest of its body seemed to have followed in that sense, bing just so slightly more curved. It seemed like Sigurd¡¯s voice also followed that same principle, however. "Wee. As I have been introduced as before, my name is Sigurd, it is an honor to meet you all." The Core Guardian exined with a smile, slightly bowing forward, before it turned around and opened up the way for everyone to enter again. "Well... that¡¯s a little bit of a surprise..." Evalia said with a wry smile, before she swiftly stepped into the dungeon through the stone-brick arch, and everyone else did the same. And when they entered, they somehow already noticed a few subtle changes, like the terrain turning into a more natural shape, having a light slope to it, and Sigurd swiftly spoke up. "I have already noticed your intent on turning this space into a rather natural-looking form, as if you enter and open space in a forest. Isn¡¯t that correct?" The Core Guardian asked with a smile, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head. "Yes, that¡¯s exacty right, actually. The first three floors are supposed to end up in a forest-like style, and you would be entering some overgrown ruins from this ce and end up in an actual forest on the third floor." Eisen exined quite swiftly, before Sigurd nodded its head. "I see, that shouldn¡¯t be too hard. Now, I¡¯m sure you all may have a few questions about what my abilities are within this space, isn¡¯t that right?" Sigurd asked, once more smiling, and Eisen immediately noticed that it really did change quite a lot personality wise after that ¡¯Evolution¡¯ as well, although something rather surprising happened next, which made the old man freak out nearly immediately. Sigurd fell to dust that swiftly disappeared into nothingness. Of course Eisen figured that this was part of Sigurd¡¯s abilities, but it was still quite shocking to see one of his creations just ¡¯Destroy¡¯ itself like that, although it soon enough re-appeared just a few meters further to the side. "The First ability is that I can move freely within the space of this dungeon. No matter if its from the deepest corner of the deepest level to the very entrance, I can go any distance instantly. Of course,bined with this ability, I haveplete and utter knowledge about anything and everything that¡¯s going on within here as well. For example, I am capable of telling you the exact number of des of Grass inside of this room. I can tell you exactly how much space all of our bodies take up within this room as well." Sigurd swiftly exined, and Xenia nodded her head with a curious smile. "Alright, so basically, you¡¯re omniscient and omnipresent within the dungeon?" The High-Elf asked just to put those abilities into proper words, and the Core Guardian nodded its head. "That¡¯s a good way to sum it up, yes. But other than that, when any change to the dungeon goes directly through me, it will cost considerably less DP. Well, the change maybe isn¡¯t that great when talking about lower-grade purchases such as those you have currently avable, and the amount of DP that I can save will change over the course of different ranks of this dungeon as well, but I will inform you if there is any major change anyway." Sigurd then added, before Eisen nodded his head with a grin on his face. "Interesting... Well, you seem pretty reasonable and intelligent, so it would probably be alright to leave the maintenance of the Dungeonpletely to you, right?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Sigurd nodded its head immediateley with a just so slight bow forward. "Of course. As I am incapable of being further apart from Fafnir than five meters currently anyway if I were to exit the Dungeon, I have to be here either way, no matter what role you give me. But from the knowledge I was given, I¡¯m aware that such is the role of most Dungeon Core Guardians anyway." Sigurd exined, and soon enough, Stahl opened his mouth to ask about something that the core guardian in front of them just said. "Wait, you just said that you were given knowledge, right? Where exactly did you get that knowledge from?" Stahl asked, and immediately, Sigurd turned toward the green-haired young man with a sour expression,pletely different to the one it was wearing when looking at Evalia, Xenia, Eisen and his monsters. "From the core." It answered swiftly and snappy, before turning back toward the others with a bright smile, with a main focus on Eisen, while Stahl looked at his grandfather confused. "Sigurd, I¡¯m quite curious about that as well, so could you borate on that?" Eisen then asked, and Sigurd immediately nodded its head. "Of course, Master. I-" "And before you continue, please don¡¯t call me Master... Considering how you look, that¡¯s not going to help the image I might get in the future..." The old man interrupted, before Sigurd, who stopped speaking rather confused then nodded its head. "Right... Then what do you wish for me to call you?" The Core Guardian asked, and Eisen just shrugged. "Eisen, I guess. Just not Master." Eisen responded, before Xenia looked at him with a smirk. "Yeah, I get what you mean... Adding another Loli to your collection might not be very helpful." She added, before Sigurd snapped her head toward Xenia. "Mistress, what do you mean with ¡¯Loli¡¯? I do not know that word." Sigurd said, and immediately Xenia¡¯s face became slightly flushed and she shook her head. "N-No, that¡¯s fine... I don¡¯t think we need to go over that..." Xenia answered quietly. Chapter 308 - Dungeon Abilities In order to change the topic after noticing how ufortable Xenia got after being asked what a Loli is, which was something that she should have expected considering that she was the one that mentioned it, Eisen moved on. Well, a few weeks ago, he would have also liked to ask what it was, but at this point he already asked his grandchildren about it. And ever since then, he really understood that the image he was giving off by having two young girls with him at all times, not excluding Bree or Sky, thetter being the male equivalent of a ¡¯Loli¡¯, a ¡¯Shota¡¯. And that really just strengthened the fact that he really wanted Caria and Melissa to keep evolving further so that they wouldn¡¯t look like really, really young girls anymore. "Let¡¯s talk about thatter, Sigurd. And I don¡¯t know about the other two, but as I just said, please call me ¡¯Eisen¡¯ instead of ¡¯Master¡¯. Maybe the others want to be called ¡¯Mistress¡¯ or ¡¯Master¡¯, but I don¡¯t really. Either way, could you continue exining your abilities, starting with how you got all of that knowledge?" Eisen inquired, before Sigurd turned back toward him and nodded its head. "Of course. As mentioned, my knowledgees from within the actual Dungeon Core. As all Cores, including but not limited to Dungeon, Guild or Town cores, are at the very least in part your creation, you added specific knowledge to all such cores that can be taken in by us Core Guardians, which were also your creation." Sigurd exined, and Eisen looked at the Dungeon Core Guardian rather surprised, as he knew that his in-game character was supposed to have some kind of connection to the one that created the Dungeon cores, but not that he literally helped create any type of core. "Are you sure it was me that helped make them? It seems more Magical in nature, so it would make more sense if Xenia helped out in that area." Eisen added, but Sigurd shook its head. "The existence of Mistress Xenia is not within my basic knowledge. I do know about her due to the fact that she was made an Administrator, but the only existences I know of which every Core Guardian knows of are those who created the Cores. That would be you in any case, and in my case specifically the Creator of all Dungeons, Matthew Anticra." "Matthew Anticra, huh..." Eisen muttered to himself as he remembered the ghostly figure that he encountered when he found the dungeon core as well as the blueprints to create Core Guardians. "Indeed. Because Dungeon Cores cannot be artificially created by regr people, every Core Guardian is bound to know about you, at least the basic things there actually are to know, but Town and Guild Cores can be reproduced. The whole method of creating them still includes the information that Core Guardians need to know to properly work, but they will not include the knowledge about you." Sigurd exined, before Eisen nodded his head with a smile, thinking that he should probably ask Sigurd about himselfter, and then the old man wanted to move the conversation onto another topic. "Alright, that¡¯s quite interesting to know. But I more want to really ask you if you can really fulfill the tasks that I have been thinking about up until now. The probably most important being the automatic expansion of the Dungeon on your own judgement," Eisen exined, and Sigurd, actually rather surprised, nodded its head. "I am capable of doing so, yes. I just ask of you that you tell me what exactly you want me to do, and I will fulfill that task when I have the chance to." Sigurd answered, but Eisen swiftly shook his head. "That¡¯s not exactly what I mean. What I¡¯m asking you is not to work on tasks over time, but that we¡¯ll give you a rough theme that we would like, and you just let your creativity flow. Maybe we¡¯lle in every once in a while and figure out if we want anything in specific to be added or changed, but for the most part, it would be quite a good idea if it was possible for you to make most decisions on your own." The old man exined, and slowly, Sigurd nodded its head. "That... Seems like something I may be able to do, yes." Sigurd answered, seemingly rather nervous about such a task, but Eisen just smiled at the Core Guardian. "Well, that¡¯s good to know. So, we actually worked on rough ideas for the first three floors already, as we mentioned, but just those rough ideas. Like what each ¡¯Part¡¯ of the dungeon is supposed to look like. So the first task you would have is to support us when we¡¯re working on everything inside of this entrance area. After that, when ites to the ¡¯Ruin¡¯ area, we would like you to create a good maze, and maybe see if it¡¯s possible to change things here and there every once in a while after we make the dungeon open for the public." Eisen exined with a smile, and Sigurd swiftly nodded its heaad. "I can surely manage thetter of those tasks. Creating a maze is within my ability. But for the former, I will still require further assistance in a few areas. I have basic knowledge about construction of different rooms, but I am not quite sure about whether or not I can create a realistic forest as you may imagine this. I may require the assistance of Master Jyuuk for such a task, although he does not seem to be here at the moment." Sigurd answered, before Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Of course, don¡¯t worry about that. When Jyuuk is awake again, he¡¯s surely going to be more than happy to help you out with that in order to create a nice environment. And you will have our assistance with anything that needs to be done as well, of course." The old man said with a smile, and Sigurd replied with a light bow forward. "Thank you. For now, I have a suggestion, however. It would surely be beneficial to create humanoid forces that I can designate as a specific workforce. And as I can freely control the ces where monsters are spawned, and their natural spawn rate, I can ensure that the humanoid monsters will not be naturally spawned." Sigurd exined, seemingly getting quite excited to get right into the dungeon-building, before Eisen looked over toward Evalia and Xenia. "That¡¯s a good idea, right? If we have an actual ¡¯Workforce¡¯, it should be possible to save quite a lot of DP." Eisen said, and Xenia slowly smiled. "Definitely! Oh, and if we turn this first space into something like its own little vige with shops that everyone can buy or sell different things that they need at, how about we turn those humanoid monsters into the ¡¯Vigers¡¯?" Xenia suggested, as she seemingly already thought about a few different possibilities of how to y around with the Dungeon, and before anyone else could even reply, Sigurd already smiled brightly in response. "That is a great idea, Mistress! If you allow me to buy the option, then we can start to think about what monster would be a good choice to use for which area!" The Core Guardian suggested, and after Evalia also gave her ¡¯Okay¡¯, Sigurd did just that and soon expanded the menu by a few options, expanding the list by three basic monsters. Goblins, Kobolds, and Lizardmen. And the one that could give the most information on these diffe monsters at the moment was Stahl, who had been learning more about these types of monsters as part of Jyuuk¡¯s lessons. "Alright, so in my opinion, it would really be a good choice to buy all three of those monsters. Goblins, although they aren¡¯t usually very strong, are quite naturally agile and rtively dexterous, so I think the best ce to use them would be as the face of everything. They can get pretty smart as well, and if we give them something in return, as they are pretty greedy, they will 100% do their work diligently. They would be able to sort documents if we have them, take care of sales, and even document transactions themselves if we can teach them how to write." Stahl exined, and before the others even had a chance to give their opinion, Sigurd had already scoffed in response. "Really? You want Goblins to be the front of the whole operation? Out of the three monsters, they¡¯re the ugliest ones and would just scare everyoen away. Personally, I would choose Lizardmen for that, just because of their glorious, healthy scales and beauty!" Sigurd eximed, and in response, Stahl just smiled wrily. "I¡¯m not going to deny that, but for P- Erm, Artificials... Wait, Grampa, can we tell Sigurd about that? Even if we don¡¯t, wouldn¡¯t some people thate in here talk about that stuff if they¡¯re just amongst themselves?" Stahl asked, and immediately, the old man turned his head over toward Evalia and Xenia, who also seemed to be quite unsure, although Eisen scratched the back of his neck. "Well, it¡¯s fine for Caria, Melissa and Sal, so it¡¯s probably fine for Sigurd... Erm, Sigurd, one thing that you might need to know is the existence about artificials, and they have a rather different knowledge to-" "Oh, Ma- Eisen, I know about yers! They are some of the most important knowledge that has been ced into my mind." Sigurd replied with a smile, its face already quite differentpared to what it was when it was talking to Stahl just now. But never mind that, Eisen was thinking about something else for now. "Wait, what? You know about yers?" The old man asked with a deep frown, and Sigurd nodded its head. "Indeed I do. I also know that such knowledge can only be spread to other yers or those that are part of their soul such as tamed beasts. And as I am capable of differentiating between such things within a mere thought, that is not an issue." It answered with a bright smile, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "I see... Well, that¡¯s good for sure. Let¡¯s just continue to let Stahl exin his opinion on everything, alright?" Eisen suggested, and while Sigurd was trying not to let its expression drop at the mention of Stahl¡¯s name, the Core Guardian swiftly nodded without another word. "Alright... Well, Sigurd, you definitely have a point. If Goblins didn¡¯t have those basic qualities that make them a good fit ability-wise, I wouldn¡¯t have suggested them as the front-of-the house either. But when it cames to yers, at the very least they will probably not mind seeing especially very outwardly monstrous creatures act civilized. That sounds bad, but it¡¯s really the case. To them, this world is just a game, so they want to see new things. And when it¡¯s something that¡¯s even new and extraordinary to the people of this world, then that¡¯s going to be even better." Stahl exined, and even Sigurd didn¡¯t seem like it couldin about anything anymore, and seeing that the Core Guardian seemed to want to let Stahl finish now, the young man quickly continued. "And while Lizardmen might really be a monster-race that¡¯s easier to look atpared to Goblins, due to their naturally high strength and low agility, they are more fit to do manualbor like carry products around, or general security for the starting area here. If we end up getting this dungeon to a high rank, they will surely end up quite strongbatists as well and would be the perfect choice to push troublemakers out of the area. We could even offer a ¡¯Rent-A-Bodyguard¡¯ service for yers on the lower end of the suggested level range, and then have that ¡¯Bodyguard¡¯ be one of those lizardmen as well." Stahl suggested with a bright grin, although Eisen looked at him with a light frown mixed with some disbelief, and the young man simply sighed. "Fine, it was Komer¡¯s idea... Anyway, in my opinion, Kobolds are the ones that are the best all-rounder race, because they are pretty adaptive in their general nature and have a pretty t stat exposition. If we have items made here as well, they would probably be the best choice of monsters for crafters, and they definitely are the best choice for the more detailed fine-work when ites to construction, while the Lizardmen should probably do the rough brunt of everything." Chapter 309 - Teaching Young Dogs Old Tricks After listening to Stahl¡¯s suggestions, the rather disgruntled Sigurd executed them just as the young man had exined after the Core Guardian was asked to do so by Eisen. The old man hoped that Sigurd would end up warming up to other people, although that seemed to be quite far away, and Eisen didn¡¯t want to ¡¯Force¡¯ Sigurd to be all buddy-buddy with Stahl either, because that wouldn¡¯t help the situation in any way. So instead, all of Stahl¡¯s ideas had to be voiced by Eisen, Evalia or Xenia. Eisen had considered turning Stahl into a Dungeon administrator as well, but it seemed like he hit the limit of everything in that area, so instead, Eisen turned Stahl into a Dungeon Moderator. He wouldn¡¯t be able to make any major decisions himself, but he would at the very least be able to manually change parts of the dungeon. Sadly, though, it seemed like Sigurd¡¯s opinion of Stahl hadn¡¯t been elevated all that much, but it at the very least didn¡¯t re at him all the time. "Okay, I have just purchased the three types with the points that we had so far, and at the moment I can summon five of each type without having them be a regr part of the spawn-map." Sigurd exined to everyone, and soon a total of fifteen figures appeared in front of everyone. Five Goblins, five Lizardmen, and five Kobolds. "Alright, then let¡¯s get started, shall we?" Eisen said with a smirk as he took his staff out of his soul storage and created a load of furnaces, anvils, and tables in the corner of therge room, before Xenia looked over at him with a confused expression "Wait, what are those for? And why do you need that many?" She asked, and Eisen just smirked at her. "They¡¯re for me, the five Kobolds, Stahl and my apprentices." The old man exined, before he chugged down a few mana potions to fill up his mana again, and then looked back at the High-Elf. "Stahl and Alnico are getting everyone that we may need here, so please sit down with Komer and Sky and teach the Goblins how to calcte and write if you have the time to spare." Eisen asked of her with a smile, and Xenia slowly nodded her head, although she didn¡¯t seem to be all that happy about it. "Sure... That¡¯s fine, I guess." She answered with a wry smile as she looked at the five ugly, short and green-skinned creatures messing around a few meters next to them, and Eisen then swiftly moved on to Evalia. "And could you sit down with Sigurd and figure out good designs for everything? Maybe some decorations that it can ce at important areas or something like that." Eisen suggested, and the Heavenly Artist swiftly nodded her head and smirked. "Will do!" She eximed before turning over toward the Core Guardian with a bright smile, although Sigurd seemed to want to know something else. "And who is going to instruct the Lizardmen on what to do?" It asked, and just then, the person that the old man had in mind stepped through the Dungeon¡¯s door. With a curious smile, Kiron slowly stepped through toward the group, and Eisen swiftly appointed him as a Dungeon Moderator as well, before he turned toward his draconic Grandson. "Hey there, Kiron. You mentioned how you always wanted to be the leader of a group of artificial Lizardmen before, right?" Eisen said with a grin on his face, and the Half-Dragon tilted his head to the side rather confused. "Did I?" He asked with a light frown, and Eisen nodded his head. "Of course you did! Well, here they are!" The old man eximed as he pointed at the five Dungeon Monsters that were staring at Kiron with excited expressions. For the most part, Kiron did look like a Lizardman, after all, just that the had wings and a different color of scales, as the dungeon-Lizardmen¡¯s scales had a simr color to Fafnir¡¯s scales. "No, but seriously, could you teach them a few things here and there? Basically, make sure that they get as big and strong as you are, alright?" Eisen suggested with a smile, and Kiron slowly nodded his head. "Sure, Grandfather. Erm... And how do I do that?" Kiron then asked with a wry smile, and Eisen just smiled. "Basically just regr muscle-training. They¡¯re dungeon monsters, so they will adapt pretty quickly. Just make them carry heavy things, do basic exercises, show them how to use an axe and a shovel, and so on." The old man then answered, so Kiron slowly scratched his neck. "I see. Yes, I can surely do that. Do you want me to teach them how to fight as well, or just pure manualbor?" He asked, and Eisen scratched his cheek in thought. "Well, for now, manualbor is enough. But at ater point we¡¯ll need some Lizardmen that can fight as well." Eisen exined, so Kiron nodded his head with a smile and stepped up to a rather open area, carrying his sword on his shoulder, and the Lizardmen, which were all about half a meter shorter than Kiron, who himself was just a slight bit shorter than Eisen was. And just when Eisen was thinking about how that would probably be the scene of Kiron taking a walk with his own children, it seemed like everyone else also entered the dungeon. And after Eisen assigned everyone as a Dungeon Moderator so that they could actually directly work on things within the Dungeon, the old man turned toward the Kobolds. "Alright, Dog Boys, follow me." Eisen eximed with a smile as he also waved his hand at Stahl and his apprentices to tell them to make their way to the workstations, while the Bipedal Dog-like monsters followed behind the old man. And after handing out some tools to those Kobolds, each one getting a different type, Eisen stepped up to the workstation in front of all the others. "Okay! Lessons are starting now. I¡¯ll start rather basic so that the Kobolds can understand, but they should be able to learn pretty quickly, so don¡¯t worry." Eisen exined with a smile on his face, and quite swiftly, Koro lifted his hand rather confused. "Erm... Why are we learning how to do all of this with monsters that barely have proper hands?" He asked with a wry smile, and Eisen just shrugged. "They¡¯ll adapt. And these guys will be the main construction and crafting-force for the dungeon. They¡¯ll help build everything, and then also craft items for the people thate into the dungeon." Eisen exined with a smile, and Koro slowly nodded his head and Eisen looked over toward the Kobold that was given the cksmithing tools. "You,e over here." Eisen told him, and the Kobold swiftly did what the Dungeon Master ordered, before the old man slightly leaned down toward the, also rather short, creature and showed it how to hold the tools, using it as a way to demonstrate everything to the others as well. As he said, he would be starting with the very basics. Luckily, the Kobold already had five somewhat human-like fingers, so they really would probably just change shape to hold the tools even betterter. Affter showing everyone, with the exception of the four other Kobolds who were just watching diligently, how to hold the tools properly, Eisen moved on to proper stature and movement during work, even focusing on things that the others hadn¡¯t really thought about. "It¡¯s something thates naturally with time as long as you try even a little bit, but at some point, you¡¯ll hopefully be able to maneuver your workspacepletely blind. That means that you¡¯ll be able to start working without putting needless attention toward setting yourself up properly, but that everything will turn into a smooth motion and demonstrated everything, now just telling the Kobold to mimic what Eisen was doing. He stood in front of the furnace and while sliding his feet over the ground, immediately turned around and then stood in front of the anvil, ready to get to work. "The more you familiarize yourself with your environment, the morefortable you¡¯ll feel as well. It¡¯s little things like that which can help you bring items to a new level. It¡¯s actually one of the most important things to further yourself. Whether its that little dent on your handle that you burrow one of your fingers in all the time, or the crack in the ground that you avoid while moving around your workshop, having all of those peculiar little things there at the right time can just help your mentality out. But in the end, you should still be able to work in any situation, so you shouldn¡¯t rely on the fact that you know your environment either." Eisen exined, and while this was just a quite shallow theoretical part that the old man wanted to point out, it was still pretty important in his opinion. But either way, as the next step, Eisen moved onto actual forging. Well, something that had to do with it, at least. "Each of you, take an ingot of steel and take about a centimeter of its thickness uniformly." Eisen told them, although he had to show the Kobold which material was which, and everyone quickly grabbed the right ingot, slowly cing them into the furnace. And that was their first mistake. "Take it out again. I never said to heat it up first, did I?" The old man smirked, before the others looked at him confused, and Koro swiftly spoke up again. "But how the hell are we supposed to do that then?" He asked, and Eisen just shrugged. "How you normally would do it. Just that this time around, the steel isn¡¯t hot and soft, but cold and hard. Trust me, in the long run, this is all going to help you." Eisen reassured his most troublesome apprentice, and after everyone took their ingot back out of the furnace, they did as they were told. Although the Steel barely even budged, and if it did, not even a whole millimeter. But everyone continued withoutining out loud, although it seemed like especially Koro was grumbling to himself. Of course Eisen had to help the Kobold out properly at first as well, because this was the first time it was doing something like this, but as the old man had expected, the Kobold¡¯s body was changing at a pace noticable to the blind eye. It had grown in size by a few centimeters, and its shoulders had be wider, while the muscles that it had been using during the process of crafting were bulging up a little more and the Kobold¡¯s fingers were bing a bit longer and more defined like a Human¡¯s. Even the originally light gray fur on its body had begun to change its color and became a little darker, setting it apart from its brothers even more, while the four of them were still just patiently sitting there and waiting for their turn. It took quite a while for everyone to finish the task, however, and even then, everyone seemed to have taken a little bit of damage due to hitting the hard steel repeatedly without a proper break. In real life, Eisen wouldn¡¯t have given such an immense task anyway, and would have just told his apprentices to hit the steel for a few minutes, because it was practically impossible to do there, but due to the system actually helping out with such things, the steel slowly changed its shape and became a little tter, just as Eisen had wanted it to. "Good job, everyone." Eisen said with a smile as he handed out a few health potions so that none of them would identally drop dead after slowly chipping at their health. "Now, let¡¯s heat the steel up a little bit and do the same again." Chapter 310 - Stop Messing Up It took a good while for everyone to actually finish the basic tasks meant to make them get used to the materials they were working with, but soon enough, they actually reached the step of forming the metal into an item, so Eisen began to speak about such a task as well. "When you work with a material, you always, under any circumstance, need to be aware of what that material can do. You need to be aware of its strengths and weaknesses, general durability, and most importantly, what it will be used for. Do you understand what I¡¯m trying to say with that?" Eisen asked as he looked around the five in front of him, including the Kobold whose body had changed even more to be perfect for smithing, and before the others could even take their time to think about it, Koro had already spoken up, just like any other time Eisen had asked a question today. "You need to know what material is actually best for something, right? Maybe when someone goes against certain monsters, they¡¯ll need certain materials to make the fight easier, like silver for werewolves." Koro suggested, and Eisen slowly shook his head. "That is indeed important, but that wasn¡¯t exactly what I meant. Let¡¯s say two people ask you to make a knife for them. Both are out of the same type of steel, both with a wooden handle. The materials are exactly the same. Do you understand what I¡¯m saying now?" Eisen asked once more, trying to give someone else the chance to respond, and while Rouge actually started speaking, he was swiftly interrupted by Koro, who continuedd giving his own answers. "Oh, so body type? Like, you need to make sure that people can move around with a knife properly, so you¡¯ll need to change the shape to fit that?" He asked, and once more, Eisen shook his head. "Still not quite right. Rouge, do you want to answer?" The old man asked, and the rather short and thin young man nodded his head. "Yeah... Well, do you mean that even if both want a ¡¯Knife¡¯, it can just be for very different things? A knife can be used for preparing leather, for dismantling, cooking, or in the end also fighting. And the shapes of items for those different tasks vary a lot as well. And then it can get even more specific within the area of one task..." Rouge answered as he scratched his cheek, noticing the rather annoyed re from Koro next to him, but Eisen interrupted that miniscule exchange quite swiftly. "That¡¯s exactly right. Koro, what you were doing was exactly what you shouldn¡¯t do. Yes, there are a lot of times where people wille for knives they can use inbat, but especially you should know that knives aren¡¯t just for fighting. After all, you used to be a Chef¡¯s Apprentice." The old man pointed out, and Koro slowly nodded his head with a frown on his face. "Anyway, let¡¯s move on from that. The reason why I¡¯m telling you about this is that it is always best if you are able to familiarize yourself with as many different types and shapes of items as possible, so that you don¡¯t have to do any ¡¯Tests¡¯ and can just go ahead and work on the item right away. That¡¯s something that will be learnt over time as well, but theory is still something important even within smithing. Here, I have a book on different metallic items that can be made just through cksmithing, you¡¯ll be making a few different items from this book." Eisen told them, and after he did so, he flipped to the first page that he wanted them to work on. And while they started individually working on that item, Eisen started working on what he himself wanted to do when it came to smithing, the items for the other Originals, and for that, he already took out a few pitch ck crystals which he had Jyuuk prepare for him. They were the necromantic Mana Crystals which were created by practically attempting to turn a regr mana crystal into an undead, and Eisen would be using these to work on an item for the very same Beastperson that gave these to him. First things first, Eisen would alloy this crystal with the metal, which he already prepared the materials for. As he had found out sometime before, it seemed as if regr crystals could be alloyed with metal in the same way that regr metals would be alloyed with each other, and it didn¡¯t have to be done from the most basic level like with Metallic Potions. The reason for that seemed to be just that the biological materials that would be added to metallic potions usuall burnt up and became useless if they were just added to the mixture. But what the old man could do right now was to simply grind down the necromantic mana crystals and add them to the molten down metal. And that metal base was quite simply steel alloyed with a little bit of lead. Within the area of metallic symbolism, Lead was a metal quite often connected to death due to its poisonous nature, which was quite perfect for the type of weapon that Eisen wanted to make. And as he didn¡¯t really expect Jyuuk to be the kind of person to lick his weapons or randomly scratch people with it, the only ones that could really be affected by the lead in any were the monsters Jyuuk would be fighting against, although they had other issues to worry about when they were fighting against him. Either way, as Eisen had expected, due to the necromantic mana crystals the metallic alloy had turned into a quite deep ck color. And after Eisen turned the alloy into a few smaller ingots, the old man began to repeat the same process that he had been doing when working on Kiron¡¯s weapon, simply folding the ingots into each other while hammering his mana into it to spread it around. And as the weapon was supposed to be something of a mixture between a staff and a regr meelee weapon, the additional magicbatibility added to everything in that way really only helped. And after a while, Eisen had a rtivelyrge piece of metal in front of him. It wasn¡¯t really all that much metal whenpared to Kiron¡¯s weapon, but it was ratherparable to the amount of metal that Eisen had needed for the Zweih?nder before. What followed next was Eisen then taking that deep ck metal, which for some reason seemed to have only gotten darker after Eisen infused it with his mana which was theplete opposite to what happened with Kiron¡¯s sword before, and shaping it into the shape of a half-crescent to create the type of shape one would expect from a scythe. And after that half-crescent had been finished, Eisen sat down in front of the grinding wheels which he had went to get before and then began to grind the inside of the metal to create a nice sharp edge, before he ced the de to the side. After all, it wasn¡¯t finished yet, but he would be working on the grip during the woodworking-lessons which came on another day. All of the crafting-lessons would continue every day until everyone got to the inds, where everyone would then first work on setting up the temporary base, which was also a good time to get started on different lessons in the area of masonry. After Eisen finished his own item, he walked around the five other workstations that he created with his element before and took a look at the items that the others made. To no surprise, everyone managed to do quite well with the exception of the Kobold, but there seemed to be a clear visible gradient of quality that could be seen on the item caused by the Kobold¡¯s rather rapid growth. And as the material that the Kobold was working with was simple iron, as it was also incapable of working on steel at the start, as it had to work on the cksmithing skill like any other entity first, it would be rather easy to re-use the iron some other time. ording to Sigurd, the way that Dungeon Monsters learned and leveled up their skills was rather unusual. For one, they had a limited amount of ¡¯Skill Slots¡¯, currently set at 1 due to the rank of the dungeon, and that skill couldn¡¯t get to a rank higher than the dungeon¡¯s rank, although it would level up at an insane speed until it reached that rank. That was also the reason why Eisen chose to not teach all of the Kobolds at once, instead wanting to have them learn other production-rted skills. One of them would get masonry, one would get woodworking, one tailoring, and thest one would get alchemy. He was unsure whether or not he should maybe choose enchanting for one of them, but that would most likely be a rather bad idea considering that none of the Kobolds seemed to have double-digit intelligence, which was a thing that really showed in the general manner that they interacted with the world around themselves. "Alright, all of you, show me what you made." The old man then said with a smile on his face as he looked at the five in front of him, and they brought the items forward, and he soon noticed that especially Rouge and Parc came a long way. They hadn¡¯t gotten rid of their individual bad habits just yet, but the overall quality of their items was astronomically different to the items they made before. Stahl¡¯s item was quite good as well, far better than Eisen expected from a beginner in this area, but he was happy that his Grandson seemed to have gotten some of the old man¡¯s craftsmanship talent. And then, when Eisen looked at Koro¡¯s item, he couldn¡¯t believe what he saw. "This is..." The old man muttered to himself, and with a smug smile, Koro crossed his arms and nodded his head. "Mhm, I used the same techniques as you did!" He answered, and Eisen looked back at him with a nk expression that immediately made everyone, beside the one person that should have reacted, shudder. "What did you do?" The old man asked with a frown, trying to figure out of he heard him wrong for some reason, but it seemed like Koro misunderstood that question. "You were folding mana into the metal, right? I did that too! I didn¡¯t really get the reason behind the folding, but it seemed to have worked pretty-" Koro eximed, although he soon was faced with a rather surprising sight. The metallic item that he had just worked on slowly started to glow due to the heating from Eisen¡¯s hand, before the old man simply formed a fist with the nearly-molten steel in his hand andpletely crushed the item, turning it into a hot lump of metal. "Koro, when exactly did I ask you to do that?" Eisen asked as he simply stared at the young man in front of him, who now also slowly began to realize that Eisen wasn¡¯t impressed, but incredibly angry. "W-Wait, but I thought-" Koro began to stutter, but Eisen just stepped over to Koro¡¯s forge and threw the metal into the forge before he interrupted him. "Then stop thinking." The old man told him, before cleaning his hands of the metal residue and looking back at Koro. "If you don¡¯t stop trying to be so much better than the others by not following my lessons, then you can leave right now and you¡¯ll be the first one who¡¯s going to be on the ship when we go back to the continent." Eisen eximed, before Koro simply looked up at him confused. "Don¡¯t try and tell me you don¡¯t know what I¡¯m talking about now. You used incredibly unnecessary techniques that will just end up wearing the metal out considering that we¡¯re re-using the steel for other items after this. Using mana while forging can do wonders for items like the ones I am making, that are supposed to be a final product, but it will only make the steel harder to re-use. And on top of that, you didn¡¯t even do what I told you. I said to make a very, very simple letter opener. You made a dagger. The dimensions are literally inside of the book." Eisen said told him with a deep frown before rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I knew I should have checked on you while you were working as well, but I thought I could at least trust you with physical crafting..." The old man sighed, but then shook his head and stepped up to the book with the different examples of items inside of it, then flipping to another page. "Let¡¯s hope you can do better next time." Eisen said with a frown, and Koro slowly nodded his head as he returned to his own workstation while Stahl, Rouge and Parc did the same silently, although the Kobolds caught Eisen¡¯s attention quite swiftly. Not only the cksmith-Kobold, but the other four were on their back, showing Eisen their stomachs while shaking heavily. At the very least these guys seemed to respect him even more now. Chapter 311 - Anti-Magic Weaponry "Can you feel this?" A middle-aged man asked with a lightly bitter smile as he sat behind Benjamin, who had left the capsule for his daily test from one of the doctors from the hospital. With a wry smile, the old man nodded his head. "Yes, I do. It hurts quite a bit, so please don¡¯t be so harsh." Benjamin asked of the doctor, who just started to write something down on his notepad before standing up and walking in front of the old man. "Alright Mister Joyce, seems like your body is still quite sensitive especially around your right shoulder, but that¡¯s obviously to be expected. Luckily there is no nerve damage to be seen anywhere, and the issue with the sudden spasms in your body rted to pain seem to bergely gone as well. Your rate of recovery is truly astounding, I have to admit." The Doctor said with a smile on his face, and Benjamin chuckled in response. "Of course, if I have one thing to speak for me it¡¯s my vitality!" The old man replied, and the Doctor nodded his head with augh. "Seems to be so, yes. Well, I can¡¯t promise anything, but considering how well your body has been reacting to the medication and the speed of your general physical recovery, we might be able to get rid of the high-level pain medication sooner than expected. You would still have to rest most of the time, but it would be a good idea to go on small walks once or twice a day with the help of your family. Luckily you have a quiterge property, so walking across the yard and back should be enough." He exined, so Benjamin continued to smile. "Those are great news, thank you." The old man said with a smile on his face and the Doctor nodded before packing up the diffe equipment that he needed for checking Benjamin out and then helped the old man sit back down inside of the capsule properly again, and then made his way to the door. "Then I¡¯ll see you tomorrow, Mister Joyce." The doctor said and then slowly made his way into the hallway and to the front door, greeting Sophia, Benji and Tony on the way, before the three of them came into the room after showing the doctor out. "So, what did he say?" Benji asked with his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall, and his grandfather just slightly grunted as he re-adjusted the way he was sitting. "Nothing much, just that I¡¯m recovering better than expected, and that after they stop drugging me until I¡¯m unconscious every day, I should take a few walks in the garden every day." Benjamin answered, before telling them all a few more details about things, like how long and in what way he was supposed to do what part of the recovery and what kind of medication he was actually on, something which he wasn¡¯t able to dost time, because he fell asleep mid-conversation. Or rather, mid-sentence. And after the old man did that, it was time for him to return back to the game world, where other tasks were waiting for him. --- "Kobolds,e over here." Eisenmanded as he crossed his arms, back inside of the Dungeon space, and the five Dog-Boys came rushing over toward him. Up until now, he had only instructed the cksmith-Kobold, and today, he would be doing the same for two other Kobolds, because he would start getting to work with Woodworking and Tailoring. "You, continue practicing smithing. And you four, you choose amongst each other who gets to learn today." Eisen told them, and he immediately saw that the four basic Kobolds looked at each other and then began to growl deeply out of their throat, as if to say ¡¯It¡¯s my turn¡¯, or something like that. And while they were doing that, Eisen created a forge for the cksmith-Kobold and for himself, because Eisen had to work on some other items today first, all of the metallic parts of the items that would be part of Brody¡¯s Arsenal of numerous weapons. And in order to do that, Eisen had been ying around with Maroon for a little while, trying to figure out the best way to integrate it into the weapons, and figured that it would be easiest to just alloy it with some steel. And so that he would have enough materials to work with, he spent arge part of thest evening preparing enough charcoal to work with, as he wouldn¡¯t be able to use his element to heat the Maroon-Steel alloy up. Eisen didn¡¯t necessarily have much Maroon to work with anyway and didn¡¯t want to use all of it up at once, despite this being the only proper use that the old man found Maroon to have like this, as nobody else would be able to actually fight with a weapon or use a tool that drained their mana while they were using it. And while the Maroon-Steel maybe didn¡¯t have such effects to the same amount as the regr Maroon did, it at the very least heavily absorbed mana to the point where only a level 100 mage that focused on Wisdom would be able to hold off against it with their high mana regeneration. And even then, the Maroon would make it impossible to cast any spells, so that would still make it incredibly useless. So, Eisen figured that he should make something with it for the one person that he knew of that didn¡¯t have any mana to begin with! Brody! But as mentioned, Eisen didn¡¯t have much Maroon-Steel to work with and as such narrowed it down to a few simple weapon-types to work on, which he contacted Brody for to ask what kind of weapon of that type he would want exactly. A Jian, a type of double-edged straight sword, A chain whip, A dagger, A set of Batons, as well as a spear. Those were the metallic weapons that Eisen would be working on. Only the metallic ones, however, as there were a few other types of weapons that Eisen was going to be making for Brody out of different materials. And first, Eisen would be working on the Jian. Taking the grey-red metal that Eisen prepared beforehand, the old man ced it into the Forge, which was the first time in a while that he was using a forge that was heated up with coal instead of his own element, which for some reason pumped him up even more. Just like that, Eisen then started working on the different des first, because they were rather basic items and all kind of simr to each other, especially the dagger and de-part of the spear. After finishing the de parts of those three items, and nearly identally throwing the still-hot dagger-de onto the ground by forgetting that there was Maroon inside of the metal and that he had to ce things down on surfaces other than those made of his element, Eisen moved on to the batons. The old man figured that these didn¡¯t need to be all that special in their basic shape either, and just started creating the metal rods before cing them down to the side to cool as well. And next came the item that would take the most amount of time out of all of the items he would be making for Brody, the chain whip. Creating the basic pieces wasn¡¯t that big of an issue, as they were really just thin rod cut up into even parts, and then bent into the shape of a chain-piece. But as Eisen didn¡¯t want any parts to bend mid-fight and then cause the whole thing to break apart, the old man really wanted to make sure that the chain-pieces were basically perfectly uniformly self-connected pieces of metal, which was rather annoying to do considering that he had to do so while the chain-piece was already connected to an already-finished piece, so the old man had to fiddle around with a lot of parts. Either way, Eisen managed to finish everything quite quickly still, however, and then in the end only needed to create a small steel weight which was then connected to one end of the chain. "Alright, next I guess I really only need to make the handles, huh?" The old man muttered to himself as he scratched the back of his neck and then began to clean up after himself, waiting for the hot coals to cool off properly before handling them and packing them away to be used for other thingster. After Eisen was done with all of that, he already started preparing the workstations for the Woodworking lessons that were the lessons for the first half of the day, and then got all of the materials and tools that he needed out of storage, before already starting to teach one of the Kobolds that had ¡¯Won¡¯ the fight over bing the first to be taught about how to hold the different tools. After all, it would just speed everything up if the Kobold gained a little bit of knowledge on everything before the others wereing to join the lessons. And just as Eisen was thinking that, the four others made their way into the Dungeon space and then stepped over to the area where the old man was already waiting. "Alright, let¡¯s get started, shall we?" Eisen suggested with a bright smile, before he jerked his head over toward the tables he made with his element. "Today we¡¯re starting with woodworking." The old man exined and then immediately began to speak. "Now, just like with cksmithing, the most important and most basic thing to start with is figuring out the right material to start working with in woodworking. When you just want to carve small figures, choosing a rtively soft wood may be the best idea, but if you want a very sturdy chair or table, then you should better choose a firm and hard wood. And aftercare is an incredibly important part of woodworking as well, so that none of the things you make just start to rot away in front of you. Simrly to yesterday, I want you all to first getfortable with the different materials. You have a few different types in front of you that we¡¯ll work with today, and I¡¯m leaving it up to you to decide which task will get which one. Just take the smaller pieces into your hand, rip at it, try to bend it, smell it, anything that might help you with your choice of materialter on." Eisen exined, and the five of them, including the Kobold, quickly did as they were told. The Kobold seemed to be rather happy while just chewing on the wood, and it took a little while for Eisen to notice that it hadpletely forgotten the task and was just ying around, but when the old man took the wood away from it for a moment and then once more told it what to do, the Kobold quickly got used to its new task. It still seemed to like biting into the wood, but at the very least it didn¡¯t chew on it, just a small bite into a piece of it to help figure out how hard the wood was. And Eisen wasn¡¯t necessarily opposed to a peculiar method like that either. But the others chose the more conventional ways, just trying to split the wood up a little bit, or trying to scratch parts of it off, and all of those were rather valid methods to get used to the wood in Eisen¡¯s opinion. He would have liked it if he could have made them fell the trees for that wood, but woodfelling would be a lesson for another day, for example once they got to the inds and began to cut down trees to get materials to construct basic huts. Chapter 312 - Changes in their Bodies A little bitter, while everyone was working on making a few different items made of wood, Eisen started working on the wooden parts of the different items, as well as itemspletely made of wood as well. He had a few different magical types of wood ready, as well as normal types of wood. And so, Eisen swiftly got to work on the different handles for Brody¡¯s items. He wanted to start working on the Scythe first, because then he would be able topletely finish up the items meant for one of the originals, but he had some other ns for the handle which he needed Jyuuk¡¯s direct help with, just so that they could figure out something interesting that would interact amazingly with the Beastperson¡¯s movement. So instead, Eisen started working on some other items. And the handles that the old man made for the weapons weren¡¯t all thatplicated either. Again, as he didn¡¯t need to ce enchantments on the wood, because Brody was unable to activate them, he was saving quite a bit of time. It felt a little underwhelming, however, as Eisen had been using different types of magic or enchantments to push an item to new heights, but now he couldn¡¯t do that. At least that¡¯s what Eisen¡¯s thoughts were for about a second, until he realized that this just made it another challenge! Even if he couldn¡¯t directly use anything directly magical in the process of making this item, as the Maroon even turned magical materials back into regr materials, there were surely a few ways to push this item even further! And the old man had a rather good idea for that already, and he had a potion that was quite fitting for everything as well, a potion that was simply made to increase basic stats. Luckily, even Maroon didn¡¯t make potions useless, so the old man could swiftly change a few parts about the potion and then applied it to the finished handles to treat the wood properly, making it quite literally seep deep into the wood before attaching the handles to the Maroon-Steel alloy parts of the items. Even then, the items ended up rather disappointingly simple, but at the very least they had some interesting effects to them, and due to applying the potion to the wood beforehand, it seemed like the stat bonuses were a slight bit higher as well, which was something that the old man was quite happy about. And so, just like that, after wrapping the handles in some leather, Eisen had finished the four weapons with metal in them meant for Brody. The Batons werepletely metallic all the way through, so those were already finished beforehand, but now the Chain Whip, the Jian-Sword, the Dagger, as well as the Spear were nowpleted, and Eisen could set them to the side happily. To take a little bit of a break before moving onto the purely wooden items that Eisen wanted to make for Brody, the old man chose to take a quick look at the items that everyone was making out of the different types of wood that Eisen had given them, especially making sure that Koro wasn¡¯t experimenting in any way, and he was especially impressed with the growth of the Kobold once more. The Woodworker-Kobold had also grown to a height simr to the cksmith-Kobold¡¯, but overall, its body had be a slight bit slimmerpared to its brother and it had a better dexterity in its fingers, while its fur had be a nice hazelnut brown. Such great changes over a short amount of time were truly amazing to look at, so Eisen was sure that the Tamer upation would be incredibly popr once the gameunched. He himself gave his tamed monsters quite a bit of freedom to do what they wanted, but as he noticed from Jyuuk from him experimenting with creating an eagle ¡¯infused¡¯ with necromantic mana, people would surelye up with amazing ideas to create all kinds of curious monsters that were never seen before, with unique abilities that Eisen would just love to see. At the very least, he was incredibly interested in how the basic Kobolds¡¯ bodies would change after he gave them different tasks, because the cksmith and Woodworker Kobolds had changed so greatly as well. Either way, not only the exterior growth of the Kobold impressed Eisen, but also the growth of its abilities, considering that there was once more a clear gradient in quality between the different wooden items. The first one was barely recognizable to have a shape in any way simr to what it was supposed to be, while thest one was at a level you might see from a low-tier hobbyist. Of course, it wasn¡¯t nearly as good as a professionals¡¯ yet, neither was the work of the cksmith Kobold, but the Kobolds grew far, far quicker than Eisen could have ever imagined. It seemed like the Goblins and Lizardmen were making amazing progress as well. There was an amazing exterior change in thetter especially, as they ended up adapting to what Kiron looked like in different ways. For one, they all grew to be around Kiron¡¯s height, some of them shorter, and one of them even about half a meter taller than Kiron, but they all had inmon that their scales had changed a slight bit. They still had a red tinge to them, but overall, they became simr to Kiron¡¯s scales. They were simrly pale with a hint of red in them instead of the hint of blue in Kiron¡¯s scales, although the red in the Lizardmen¡¯s scales was still quite a bit stronger. They seem to have be generally more gem and crystal like as well, although more like a well-polished rock than an actual crystal. Either way, it was obvious they were trying to copy Kiron. But even the Half-Dragon apparently gave them different tasks, such as one being the ¡¯Head¡¯ of the operation and instructing the others on what to do exactly, while of course still doing work himself, and the others doing different tasks when it came to general ¡¯brunt¡¯ work, and only the one that was far taller than Eisen was the one that had only learned how to lift stuff, and that increase in strength seemed to have drained its mental strength, as it was more like a robot now instead of an actual living creature. And as for the Goblins, they all seemed to have uniformly changed and were still looking generally the same, with maybe a few differences here and there, but overall they had simply grown a little bit, their stature became healthier, their jaws aligned with each other to get rid of the overbites, and they generally became a lot more human-like, basically. Xenia, Komer and Sky made the choice to get them some clothes as well, and that seemed to only help their physical changes turn them more human-like even more. After Eisen returned to the workstations after taking a look at the progress of the other groups, as well as telling Sal off for trying to create a giant cobweb in the tunnel that would end up as the ¡¯Ruin-Maze¡¯ area of the dungeon, he gave his group the next task that had to do with woodworking, after telling them a bit of in-depth, boring theory, while he himself continued with the items that he himself still needed to make. Once more, Eisen continued with Brody¡¯s weapons, although he really only had two basic wooden ones in mind at the moment. The monkeystick and the bow. He was aware that there were many different bows as well, so he had asked Brody what kind of bow he would like to have, and in the end chose a simple longbow. The Monkeystick itself was rather simple as well, and Eisen finished it rather quickly as it was nothing but a straight staff, but he figured it was a good idea to add a few other pieces to it, like some of the leftover Maroon-Steel which he already shaped properly yesterday. All he needed to do then was to attach the two rather small caps to the ends of the Monkeystick, and then that part was finished. Then came the bow. As mentioned, Brody wanted a longbow, and left the specific choice of the type to Eisen, so he figured he¡¯d just go with his gut and not make any specific type of bow, but just follow the general rules of bowmaking and then see where he¡¯d end up. First, Eisen grabbed some of the wood that he had already prepared for something like this, and he already carved it into a thick stave beforehand with the rough length that the bow was supposed to have, and then, with Bree¡¯s help, dried the wood out to the ideal point. And then, all that he needed to do was carve the wood into the shape that he wanted it to have, a quite simple, just ever so sligthly rounded shape, basically, with the thickest part obviously being in the middle. He already made sure to get the rough size of Brody¡¯s hand down so that he knew not to make the part that would end up being held either too thick or too thin. After he got the oak wood into the right shape, he smoothed everything down and then carved two notches at either end of the bow at the right angle so that he could properly attach the string that he prepared for this, the Magic string. And as he wouldn¡¯t be adding anything with Maroon to the bow, it was fine to use magic string as well. It was simply a very sturdy material that was quite unlikely to stretch beyond the point that it was at from the beginning, except if you enchanted it to be that way. And after Eisen tightly attached the magic string to the two ends, he chose to swiftly get a helper to pull on the bowstring a few times so that Eisen could see how the wood was bending. After all, if you made two different bows in the exact same shape, they would most likely end up bending a little differently due to the natural differences in density in different parts of the wood. And in order to fix that, and to ensure that the bow would be able to bend perfectly in any situation, Eisen would have just scraped a fewyers off of the bow¡¯s back, the side which would end up facing the target, and then tried to see if that fixed the behaviour of the bending. Although, that was only if Eisen¡¯s natural intuition failed him and he messed something up in the carving, which really didn¡¯t happen all that often, or rather ever. That¡¯s why he skipped over that step when he created the bow to put Komer in his ce when they first met as well, because such things usually never happened to him. So of course, they didn¡¯t happen this time either. But then again, that also meant that thest two items that Eisen wanted to make for Brody were done as well, and as such, he ced everything to the side and just moved on to the next items. More specifically, now Eisen would be working on the item that he wanted to make for a certain High-Elf. Luckily, as Xenia was able to quite easily reproduce the infusion-enchantments that Eisen himself was using to create me-Of-The-Earth items, the old man was able to use materials that were perfectly attuned toward the young woman¡¯s element. And on top of that, Eisen also had some more of the Margon leftover, and although he didn¡¯t want to use all of it, as he wanted to create a second Core Guardian for the Town Core they would hopefully find on the main indter. But even then, just the little bit of Margon that Eisen was going to use for Xenia¡¯s staff would push it to an incredible, incredible level and power her magic up immensely. Chapter 313 - Staff of the Elemental Spirit First things first, Eisen started to get to work with the different ¡¯Elemental Spirit Magic¡¯ infused materials. As the old man had expected, the materials had all be incredibly, incredibly soft, as that was just the type of element they were infused with. While Eisen¡¯s own element was a heavily physical one and as such turned some of the materials he infused it with way harder, albeit more brittle, Xenia¡¯s element was a conceptual one that let someone interact with non-physical creatures. So of course, it made sense for it to be that way. Although the ¡¯Elemental¡¯ part of Xenia¡¯s element seemed to add another pretty interesting effect to all of the materials, which Eisen was able to see especially in the different gems that were enchanted. While they also became a bit softer, their elemental nature was strengtehned heavily. The Earth-Gem was possibly the only one that became a bit denser, heavier, and harder. The water-gem was somewhat like jelly, while the Air-gem seemed to be nearly weightless. The fire-gem flowed around slightly like gems and became hot to the touch. The light and darkness gems both became somewhat weirdly cotton-like, and Eisen was able to basically pull them apart with his hands, although the gem kept reattaching and returning to its other half no matter what was done, and either of them gave off either a soft light, or pulled the light around itself in to cause darkness. Eisen was sure he would be able to have a good bit of fun ying around with these materials. The wood that Eisen chose as a base of the staff was elemental High-Ironbark, or more specifically, part of the tree¡¯s core. As that part especially was increidbly hard to begin with, it was still quite hard even after being infused with Xenia¡¯s element, making it the perfect material to work with. And as for the other materials, Eisen had a rather simple solution for how he could make them easy to work with. To start it off with, Eisen split the Margon that he would be using on this staff into three equal parts, and then split one of those parts up into another six, even smaller equal parts. After simply melting each of those parts down individually to each other, he mixed them with each one of the six different gems that Eisen had. To his luck, that alone seemed to for some reason strenghten the magic of the gems to such an amount that they not only increased in size, but their peculiar effects became even stronger, and Eisen even had to ce the water-gem into a bowl while keeping the air-gem inside of a bag to make sure they couldn¡¯t disappear somewhere. And after taking half of each of those Margon-Strengthened Gems, Eisen mixed a half of each half, so a quarter of each gem, with an equal part elemental-infused mana crystal, and then mixed the other gem-quarters together into a single gem. And then, Eisen took the second-third of maroon and mixed it with an infused-mana crystal, and just like that, the old man finished preparing all the different materials for the staff. "Alright, now, don¡¯t waste any of the probably most expensive material on this, please..." Eisen muttered to himself and then started to get to work assembling everything. First, the element High-Ironbark was shaped into a regr, simple form for a staff that Xenia would be able to hold quite easily with one hand. Eisen added a core of infused-mana crystal into the center of the staff which he had turned into an elemental mana-battery. On the outside of the staff, Eisen added a simple free-form enchantment to strengthen the flow of mana inside of the staff, and then used thest third of the Margon to fill those enchantments out. And just for a little extra touch, and as the old man didn¡¯t have enough Margon to fill the carvings outpletely to the top, and could only put a thin strand of it along each part of the carvings, Eisen ced some ¡¯Elemental Spirit Mythril¡¯ over it. For some reason, this mythril had somehow kept its shape, while bascially beingpletely like mist. It was something really interesting to work with, and due to its nature, it simply looked incredible being added above the Margon, which elerated the flow of the mana inside of the mythril and made it bascially look like a river of mist that was forming an enchantment on the outside of the staff. And then, at the top of the staff, Eisen started to really get to work with everything. First things first, at the top of the staff came the gem with all of the different typesbined into it. It turned into a rather weird material, if Eisen had to be honest. It was basically weightless when it was just floating around, but the moment that the old man touched it, it became pretty heavy. It was obviously pretty hot and would have most likely damaged anyone that touched it by a few points if the old man¡¯s hands weren¡¯t immune to heat. But the weirdest thing was that it at the same time gave off light and pulled it into itself, making it look like an eclipse, somehow. It waspletely pitch-ck in the center, but it had a small ring of light around it no matter what position one looked at it from. And it seemed like due to the water-gem, that exact light was flowing around like water would, and it seemed to weirdly reflect Eisen in itself, although he wasn¡¯t able to see anything due to the fact that the center of the sphere was pitch-ck. It was really something weird to look at, but that was as expected as far as Eisen was concerned. And it fit the Original of Magic quite well on top of that, considering how contradictory and weird mana in itself felt to Eisen. But either way, Eisen wasn¡¯t done yet. He swiftly started adding the different other gems to the outside of the multi-gem that was floating in front of him, and luckily, it seemed like they were directly sticking to its surface and Eisen didn¡¯t need to use transmutation to fuse them together in a single thin area. But just like that, Eisen was able to create a quite interestingndscape on the outside, basically creating a small world around it. The Water-gems became the ocean, the Earth-Gems the continents, the air-gems ended up forming actual clouds while the fire gems were turned into the baseyer of everything, which could be seen like magma underneath some parts of the ¡¯. And the Light and Darkness gems ended up especially interesting. With a few extra enchantments here and there on some different parts of it, Eisen was able to create a small ¡¯sun¡¯ and a ¡¯moon¡¯ moving around the ¡¯, like in some medieval model of the sr system where the sun revolved around the earth and not the other way around. Either way, Eisen really liked what he ended up with, and now swiftly began to enchant the whole thing with some mana maniption in a few different parts, and then, when it was basically finished, he called Xenia over to enchant some other parts with her element, just to add onto everything. And when she saw what the old man created, she couldn¡¯t really believe her eyes. "Wait, is that the staff you wanted to make for me?" She asked a bit confused, and the old man simply nodded his head with a grin on his face, before Xenia couldn¡¯t help her excitement and immediately tried to grab it, but was swiftly stopped by the old man. "No, no, stop. Not yet. Firste the finishing touches, and then you can y with it." Eisen told her as he held the, incredibly light, Staff above her head where she couldn¡¯t reach it, and then continued. "I need you to enchant a few parts of it with your elemental magic skill. That¡¯s thest of it, though, and then we¡¯re done." He exined and handed Xenia a few enchanting marbles, before swiftly instructing her on what needed to be done exactly, before he swiftly saw the item as finished. [Staff of the Elemental Spirit] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 4] [Description] An incredible Staff created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. Its materials have been infused with high amounts of ¡¯Elemental Spirit¡¯ Mana and have transformed into new materials bearing its traits. Magic of this element will be immensely strengtened when used with this staff, while mana of any other element will be repelled. Not even pure mana will be epted into this staff. Due to Margon that has been added into parts of the staff, the magical effects are heavily strengthened, and the contradictory gem at the top of the staff has gained a peculiar effect through it. [Effects] Immense Strengthening to (+100%); [Requirements] 300 INT, 300 WIS, Elemental Spirit Magic Skill Rank 4, Mana Maniption Rank 4 With a grin on his face, Eisen read through the description of the staff and was quite impressed with the effects. He wasn¡¯t sure if this was purely due to the Margon or due to the fact that it was a rank higher, but this Staff quite literally put Eisen¡¯s own to shame. It doubled the effect of Xenia¡¯s magic and even gave her another ability to use. Although, even then, the requirements seemed to be incredibly steep as well. As far as he knew, nobody on this ship had reached 300 in any stat yet, and none of the yers had a single Rank 4 skill, although they were all slowly getting rtively close to achieving thetter. It made sense for the requirements to be insane, though, considering the effects. Although it seemed like Xenia was rather unhappy with this fact. "WHAT?!" She yelled out as she read through the item¡¯s information, unsure if she should be happy or sad, "Eisen, this is probably the best item you could have ever made for me, but why the hell do the requirements have to be so high?!" She eximed as she looked at the old man, who simply ended up scratching the back of his neck. "Well, at the very least you¡¯ll have a good item ready for you when you reach that point, right..?" Eisen asked with a wry smile, and Xenia just started at him with a nk expression before sighing loudly. "I guess you¡¯re right... Guess I¡¯ll just have to work harder, huh..? Even though my element is not even at Rank 2 right now...Because I don¡¯t have a spirit yet..." She muttered quietly, before Eisen looked at her with a light smile and then checked out the ability that was mentioned within the staff¡¯s information, before grinning broadly. "I¡¯d guess we can change that. The ¡¯Elemental-Spirit Finder¡¯ ability lets you do just that, and its active at all times as long as someone who meets the requirements hold it." Eisen exined, and Xenia tilted her head to the side confused. "Yeah, but we don¡¯t have anyone that meets those requirements." She answered, before the old man took the nearly weightless staff from the young woman again. "That¡¯s not quite right, actually. I may not be able to use it because I don¡¯t have the required mana, but as the crafter, I can ignore the item¡¯s requirements. That means, as long as I¡¯m holding it, the effect of the gem at the top can be used. Try and activate your spirit-sight." The old man suggested, before Xenia slowly nodded her head, with obvious excitement and nervosity on her face, before her eyes slowly began to glow ever so slightly, although really not by much. And the moment that the young woman then looked at the contradictory gem at the top of the staff, she once more couldn¡¯t hold her excitement as she stepped up to the gem and pressed her face against it to see better, even though it was obviously slightly damaging her due to the heat. "It found one!" She eximed, and then turned toward the old man with a bright smile. "There¡¯s a Darkness elemental near here!" Chapter 314 - Darkness Elemental "A Darkness elemental? What do you mean?" Eisen asked rather confused, before Xenia grabbed the end of the staff and sligthly tilted it so that she could get a better look at everything. "Basically, this just turned into a magnifying ss... kind of? And I know what elemental spirits look like because I can see them inside of everyone¡¯s body... So I can see a Darkness elemental in the distance right now. Although..." The high-elf muttered to herself, before scratching tilting her head to the side slightly. "It seems kind of weird, to be honest..." She exined, and the old man looked down at Xenia with a frown. "What do you mean, ¡¯Weird¡¯?" He asked, and Xenia swiftly exined. "Well... We¡¯re still in the dungeon, right?" She asked with a wry smile, but Sigurd quickly appeared out of nowhere directly next to the two. "My Mistress, that is simply because you can still see the outside world through the walls of the Dungeon. It is as if we¡¯re in apressed space right inside of Fafnir¡¯s body, so what you¡¯re seeing like that is simply directly outside of him." The Core Guardian exined, seeming rather curious about the item at the top of the Staff as well, before Xenia slowly nodded her head. "I see... Thanks, Sigurd... But either way, it doesn¡¯t seem to be that far away. Eisen, should we leave the dungeon for a moment and see where the Elemental actually is?" Xenia asked with a light smile and dog eyes, knowing that Eisen still had work to do, but even then the old man couldn¡¯t really say ¡¯No¡¯ to her just like that. After all, this would only help Xenia¡¯s skills further so that she would be able to properly use the staff at some point or another, and that¡¯s just exactly what the old man wanted to happen. It wouldn¡¯t be great if it simply stood around in random ces, after all. "Fine, but let¡¯s hurry up then." The old man replied and immediately stepped toward the exit while Xenia followed him, and the moment they were outside, Xenia continued trying to pinpoint the location of the elemental. "Ah! It¡¯s behind the ship!" She eximed excitedly before getting closer to the windows and trying to see how far exactly it was away, before noticing something rather peculiar which made her feel slightly like an idiot. "So... It seems like the gem isn¡¯t a magnifying ss..." She exined with a wry smile, but Eisen just looked at her confused, before Xenia told him what she meant. "It seems to focus directly on nearby elementals in a certain direction... Sure, it might magnify it, but that¡¯s not directly how it works... That¡¯s my guess at least, because I can see the elemental even without it... Because it¡¯s following about ten meters behind the ship..." Xenia told the old man in front of her, who simply shook his head with a deep sigh. "Really? Then why didn¡¯t you notice it beforehand?" Eisen asked with a frown as he crossed his arms, before the High-Elf just shrugged. "I don¡¯t know, I don¡¯t use Spirit Sight that often!" She answered immediately, and Eisen slowly sighed. "Alright, at the very least we know how this thing works now. If it¡¯s a Darkness Elemental, maybe it¡¯s been following us ever since we went to the Mana Source. Do you know how we can get it on board?" Eisen asked curiously, and Xenia just scratched her cheek. "Maybe we can just ask the skeletons to slow down a little bit... now that I can see it properly, it seems like it¡¯s just barely fast enough to to match our speed, so it should be able to get here when we slow down." She exined, so the old man nodded his head and stepped out of the door and went down to the floor below the meeting room, the control center, where the ¡¯Captain¡¯ of the Skeletons was sitting most of the time, and asked it to slow the ship down. Immediately, the Skeleton stood up and saluted to the old man, before ttering its jaw while looking outside to the main deck, where the other skeletons seemed to react nearly immediately by pulling up the sails. "Alright, that was easy enough, I guess." Eisen muttered to himself and swiftly made his way back up to the Meeting room, although it seemed like Xenia was at the very top of the structure so that she could get a clearer look at the Elemental from there. And to her surprise, it seemed like the elemental was able to get there quite swiftly now and ¡¯Climbed¡¯ up the side of the ship. It didn¡¯t really ¡¯Climb¡¯ anything, it was more like it slid across the surface. Eisen himself couldn¡¯t see any of this, but luckily, Xenia exined to him what was going on. "The elemental is up here now... It¡¯s a Darkness elemental in the shape of a... snake? I guess? It¡¯s kind of sea-serpent-ish, but it¡¯s made of ck mist..." Xenia exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Do you want to make a contract with it? That¡¯s how it works, right?" The old man asked, and Xenia nodded her head, seemingly in response to both questions, as she extended her hand forward. And before he knew it, Xenia opened her mouth and was speaking, although what came out of her mouth wasn¡¯t english, or anynguage that he knew of, actually, and soon enough, a three meter long pure ck snake appeared out of basically nowhere. "It worked!" Xenia eximed as she threw her arms up excitedly, and Eisen immediately turned to the High-Elf. "What exactly just happened?" He asked with a wry smile, and Xenia just grinned at him. "I was speaking in the spiritnguage. I can do that by just infusing my throat with my element, and whatever I¡¯m saying will be directly tranted into the Spirit Language. Basically, I asked the Elemental if it wants to form a contract with me, and it epted and told me its name, so here it is!" She eximed while the pitch-ck snake began to climb up Xenia¡¯s arm and slung itself around her whole body. "You hate spiders more than anything, but you¡¯re fine with a three meter long snake? And didn¡¯t you say it¡¯s mist-like?" Eisen asked, and Xenia nodded before rubbing her hand over the snakes head. "Yeah, well, Snakes and Spiders are very different! And yeah, when you make a contract with a Spirit, their form slightly changes, especially so with elementals." She exined, before the snake began to move again, this time stretching its body directly into the air, before disappearing into nothingness again. "I see... And what was that?" Eisen inquired, before he and Xenia slowly made their way back to the Dungeon entrance. "Ah, that¡¯s just Ragnar disappearing back into the ¡¯Spirit Realm¡¯, which is what the version of the world when seen through spirit-sight is called. Until they¡¯re needed, that¡¯s where one¡¯s spirits are. They can¡¯t interact with the regr world like that, but they¡¯re still technically here and can see everything that¡¯s going on." She exined, and Eisen nodded with a smile before asking her about the name ¡¯Ragnar¡¯ that she chose for the Serpent, but Xenia shook her head immediately. "Oh, no, a summoner doesn¡¯t give a name to a spirit. The Spirit already had a name, and it was ¡¯Ragnar¡¯. Well, that¡¯s what it is when spoken in english... In the Spiritnguage it has hundreds of variations, and the right variation is only used when you have the right intent in your mind. Every spirit has a unique name in the spiritnguage, after all." Xenia told the old man, who just nodded his head curiously. "And what exactly can you do with ¡¯Ragnar¡¯ now?" Eisen asked her, and Xenia just scratched her cheek. "Well, let me just check..." She answered before seemingly pulling up an information window. "Ah, it seems like Ragnar is specialized in ¡¯Constraint¡¯, so that¡¯s probably all it can do as well. It¡¯s going to hold enemies in ce, basically. Pretty fitting for a snake like that, huh?" Xenia told Eisen, and the old man just replied with augh. "I guess so, yeah. Well, either way, here¡¯s your staff. If you want me to help you look for more Spirits, let me know." Eisen told her with a smile, before he remembered something that wasn¡¯t on his mind at all for a while now. "Or rather... Can you help me with something if you¡¯re not too busy teaching the Goblins?" Eisen asked Xenia, and she quite furiously nodded her head. "Of course! After making me a staff like this, I owe you one!" She eximed, and the old man replied with augh. "That¡¯s good to know. I need four different magic metals... We should still have just enough of everything for it. If you have the time, can you infuse some gold with fire elemental mana, some silver with earth elemental mana, some iron with air elemental mana, and some bronze with water elemental mana? One pound each." Eisen asked her with a grin on his face, although he felt rather stupid for forgetting about all of this up until now. After all, the box that he found inside of his soul storage was one of the few great mysteries of this world that Eisen had not a single clue about what it had to do with. For now, the old man figured that he should at least use the leftover elemental mana to create the different metals to unlock the box. "Oh, sure, I can do that... erm, which materials are which exactly?" Xenia asked with a wry smile, before Eisen just chuckled in response. "There¡¯s a small sign in front of them that tells you which one it is. And besides, you have appraisal, don¡¯t you?" Eisen answered, before the High-Elf slowly nodded her head slightly embarrassedly before stepping out of the dungeon again to make her way to the material storage. "Alright, now, let¡¯s continue... what else did I need to make?" Eisen muttered to himself as he stepped up to the area where his apprentices, as well as his Grandson and the Woodworker-Kobold, were currently working. They were all seemingly finishing up one item each as thest part of the Woodworking lessons, so the old man figured he had enough time for one more small item, and he already had a rather good idea what that item should be. With a smile on his face, Eisen grabbed a piece of wood that he asked Komer to buy for him especially for this project. It was a special type of material called ¡¯Fleeting Wood¡¯,ing from an Ent-type monster simr to that ¡¯Brawling Tree¡¯ that Brody kept mumbling about every once in a while, just one that instead of trying to fight whoeveres into its ¡¯Territory¡¯, it¡¯s a type of Ent that just runs away from anyone. The material itself isn¡¯t necessarily an especially high-quality one, but it¡¯s something rather hard to get due to the Ent¡¯s behaviour, so the material is a little pricy. But even then, Eisen figured it was a good base to use for Evalia¡¯s mask that would help her hide from any yers that might recognize her, as the ¡¯Fleeting Wood¡¯ was a type that was often used to create equipment for assassins, thieves, spies, and so on. Basically, anyone that needed to be as inconspicuous as possible. And that was just perfect for Evalia outside of ¡¯Performances¡¯! So, Eisen swiftly grabbed the piece of paper with the design for the mask on it, and then hurried up and carved it out of the wood. The mask itself wasn¡¯t really that much of a special shape, just that it was made to perfectly fit Evalia¡¯s face as well as possible. It had a little bit of an outline of her facial features, but for the most part, it was just a nk, t mask. At least on the outside. On the inside, Eisen had quite a bit of fun ying around with a few different things. First of all, he ced the smallest Mana Battery that he could manage to create while keeping a ratherrge level of mana-storage capabilities into the mask, and then continued creating an enchantment that was covering the whole inside of the mask, basically just doing one thing, cing a ¡¯Hiding¡¯ effect on the person that was wearing it. On top of that, the old man treated the mask with the help of an ¡¯Sneak Potion¡¯, which allowed someone to blend into the environment more easily. And after Eisen did that, all was left was to paint this mask in bright, absolutely not inconspicuos colors, just like he and Evalia had nned. Chapter 315 - Fleeing-Shadows Cloak "Alright, next, we¡¯re moving onto Tailoring lessons. You, switch out with the other Kobold that ¡¯Won¡¯ earlier. You can keep working over there next to the cksmith Kobold to practice." Eisen exined as he summoned his staff and created another workstation just a little bit further away, and the Brown-Furred Woodworker-Kobold nodded excitedly before basically sprinting off toward the workstation while another, basic Kobold took its ce. And while Eisen had his apprentices and his grandson set everything up for the lessons, the old man began instructing the Kobold on what it needed to do exactly in regards to how to hold the different tools or the different movements that it needed to make. After everything was set up, Eisen exined some theory to them, before giving them a few tasks and telling them to make some different items, while Eisen got to work on some items himself. The first thing he wanted to work on was the cloak, which he would be creating out of dark blue magic-fabric. In general, it wasn¡¯t really all that hard to make the cloak base. The thing that needed the most work apart from cutting everything out was to attach the hood to the base piece for the cloak. The rest was just a regr, simple process. But of course that wasn¡¯t where the old man stopped at. With some magic string ability-enchanted with enchanting, because he figured out that this helped strengthen the effect of stitched-enchantments with a few tests, and then stitched something into the inside of the cloth, simply by only pushing the needle halfway through the thickness of the cloth and then back instead of all the way through. That took a little bit of fiddling here and there, because Magic-Cloth acted a little weird every once in a while, but overall it was still a rather straightforward process that simply took a few times longer than regr enchanting. The stitched-enchantment on the inside of the cloak was quite a simple one in the end, although Eisen did try to make sure that it wouldn¡¯t end up lookingpletely horrible either. The enchantment was just to strengthen the effect of ¡¯Hiding¡¯ Evalia that the mask already gave her, although he added a different enchantment to the face-opening of the hood. There, he created an enchantment that would create a small ¡¯Shadow Wall¡¯ in front of Evalia¡¯s face to make sure she couldn¡¯t be recognized under any circumstances even if she somehow forgot the mask. But Eisen didn¡¯t only stitch an enchantment to the inside of the cloak, but also the outside, which was part of the reason why he chose to only push into the cloth to make up for half its thickness, so that he could use the other half to make the other enchantment. This time, Eisen especially tried to make everything look good. Evalia and Eisen came up with a design for the cloak as well, and that included patterens such as the ones that the old man was currently putting onto the outside of the cloak, trying to integrate them into the enchantment as well as possible. It ended up working surprisingly well to help the free-form speed-boosting enchantment, actually. And the reason why Eisen chose to go for that type of enchantment was just so that Evalia was able to flee more easily when she needed to. Either way, this cloak was soon finished, and the old man was damn happy with it as well. [Fleeing-Shadow¡¯s Cloak] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A cloak created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Due to the different enchantments ced on it, it makes it easier to hide your whole body, while especially creating the possible effect of hiding your facepletely. [Effect] +35 AGI; +20 END; ; +15% Benefit to actions with the intent of ¡¯Hiding¡¯ [Requirements] 100 AGI, 70 END, 50 WIS; Non-Stat-Increasing effects require appropriate behaviour to activate "Alright, perfect!" Eisen eximed as he chose to wave the information window away before cing the cloak to the side, and then got to work with another material. Luckily, they had bought one of the cloth-making machines and ced it inside of the material storage area, because Eisen really needed it for the next item he was about to make, an item made with a rather special material. Because he would now be making Mage¡¯s Robes and a Hat for Xenia out of Magic Cloth made with magic string that Eisen made with the help of ¡¯Elemental Spirit¡¯ element infused mana crystals which were then ability enchanted with the ¡¯Elemental Spirit Magic¡¯ skill itself. It wouldn¡¯t be as much of an insane item as the Staff that Eisen made for Xenia, but it would also be able to boost the efficiency of her Magic skills, especially when it came to handling her new elemental. And as the fabric was incredibly light due to the ¡¯Spirit¡¯ part of Xenia¡¯s element, it was a good base item for something like this anyway. In the end, the colors that Eisen chose to go for with this item, and he managed to dye these pieces of cloth with the help of Evalia¡¯s magic element, were a silver and ck color. The ck being the base and the color for the majority of the robe, while the silver was just the color for the details. The robes weren¡¯t all that difficult to make either, as there were just a few more steps involvedpared to making the cloak that he just created for Evalia, as in adding sleeves for the arm and actually sewing the whole thing shut instead of leaving it open in the front. Once more, Eisen chose to turn the decorative parts of the cloak into an enchantment covering the whole surface of the robes, which were supposed to simply help with the regeneration and maniption of mana within one¡¯s body, which the old man figured to be a rather good idea for a Mage¡¯s Robes. And the same was going on with the pointed Witch¡¯s hat that Xenia usually wore. The basic creation of it was rather simple to do, and then Eisen stitch-enchanted the whole thing before using Hardening on the outside to make it a bit ¡¯Stiff¡¯ so that it would keep its pointy shape. Just like that, Eisen finished two more items. And the rest of the day, all that Eisen chose to do was to create different basic clothes for everyone, especially the new yers that were all still in their starter-outfits. He got all of their sizes and wishes for clothes beforehand, so it was a rather simple process. And as none of them were armor, or anything meant forbat, all that the old man needed to do was create the actual shirts, pants, jackets, and so on, and didn¡¯t feel that it was necessary to go as far as to enchant them. Of course he still tried to make them great items, like he did with any item that he ever created, but there just wasn¡¯t anything special to them. In between making a few different clothes-sets, Eisen taught the others some more theory and gave them more tasks, especially eye-ing both Koro and the Kobold, the former to make sure he wasn¡¯t trying to copy Eisen¡¯s stitch-enchanting again, and thetter to make sure its body was changing properly. And oh did it change. Out of the three Craftsman-Kobolds that the old man ¡¯created¡¯ so far, the Tailor-Kobold was by far the one with the most dexterity, and most defined hands. It was rather slim in its build and a lot shorter than the other two, altough still taller than a regr Kobold, and its fur had changed into a nice, light red color. Eisen didn¡¯t really understand the reason for the diffe fur-colors, but he didn¡¯t really need to know either. He was just d that the fur did change, showing the old man that the Kobold was learning properly. With a smile on his face, at the end of the day, he was able to dismiss everyone rather happily, excited to move on to teaching them about the next few crafting skills tomorrow. But until then, what Eisen needed to do was rather simple, as it was just finishing up what he was working on. The others were all slowly making their way out of the dungeon, which had gathered a good bit of DP in the progress, helping Sigurd expand the tunnels and even upgrade the walls inside of it to look like Rock already, despite them not looking like stone-brick walls just yet. Now, only Eisen, the fifteen special dungeon monsters, Eisen¡¯s tamed monsters, the Ghostly Representation of Fafnir, as well as Sigurd were left inside of the dungeon. Basically, everyone was watching the old man work, because they were simply curious at what their ¡¯Dungeon Master¡¯ or ¡¯Tamer¡¯ was doing at the moment. And especially after handing out a few different clothes to the different monsters, the three changed-kobolds getting outfits fitting their skills, the Lizardmen getting outfits that were easy to move and carry things in, and the Goblins simple ¡¯suit¡¯ like outfits with vests and formal pants and shirts. Especially the Goblins didn¡¯t seem especially happy with any of this, but Sky, Komer and Xenia managed to get them civilized enough to make sure they wouldn¡¯t end up ripping their clothes off their bodies over the course of the past two days. Luckily so, because Eisen didn¡¯t really feel like remaking them at the moment. And of course, Eisen also made some more fitting clothes for Sigurd, who was still wearing the robes that he had given it after building it. Apparently Sigurd thought it was unnessary to do that, but Eisen himself was of a different opinion. "We can¡¯t just let you run around in some random robe that doesn¡¯t even fit you, Sigurd. After connecting with Fafnir, you¡¯ve be rather expressive, and considering the way that your body changed after your evolution as well, most of wich don¡¯t actually seem to have a direct function, it¡¯s obvious that you also want to look good, right?" Eisen asked with a smile, before the young Core Guardian simply nodded its head, not wanting to fight the old man about it. Eisen was somewhat d about that, and somewhat wasn¡¯t. He liked that Sigurd ended up agreeing with him and epting his gift, but then again, Eisen wasn¡¯t really sure if that was the case because Sigurd actually thought so or if it just agreed because it didn¡¯t want to disagree with him. The old man hoped that this would change over time, after all, even if Caria and Melissa looked up to Eisen, they still were pretty cranky sometimes and voiced their displeasure over a few different situations in the past, so he didn¡¯t see why Sigurd shouldn¡¯t be able to do so. Even Kiron, who had been acting simrly glorifying toward Eisen at the start was now acting rather carefree every once in a while, although for the most part, it seemed like the dignified Kiron was simply part of his actual personality. He did have a god¡¯s blood in his body, after all. Either way, after Eisen finished up giving the items to the monsters in the dungeon, Eisen chose to make his way outside and was swiftly followed by Caria, Melissa and Sal, although it seemed like at first, Sigurd wanted to stay inside of the dungeon. And after only a little bit of convincing, Sigurd agreed toe outside with them. After all, even if Sigurd was the Dungeon Core Guardian, it said that it would be able to be outside as long as it was within a five meter distance of Fafnir. And considering the size of the young Living Dungeon, that wasn¡¯t really an issue. Besides, Eisen would like it if Sigurd became a bit more sociable toward people other than the Dungeon Administrators and Eisen himself. But before the old man was going to take the young Core Guardian to meet the inhabitants of the ship, Eisen would need to take care of the four different metals that Xenia was disying oh so happily to him in the Meeting Room. Chapter 316 - Dream-Reading "Oh, they¡¯re finished already?" Eisen asked rather excitedly as he took a look at the four different magic metals, each infused with a whole different element. The Gold had turnd into ¡¯ming White Gold¡¯ after being infused with the Fire Element. And now, like the name suggested, it was just pure white while being slightly hot to the touch. The Silver had just turned into regr Mythril, a slightly blue metal that was capable of absorbing blunt damage. As for the Iron that had been infused with the air element, it became incredibly light and weak High-Iron. Regr Magic Materials were already a pretty bad fit for physical uses, meaning that they were a bad choice for weapons or armor, but this ¡¯Breathing High-Iron¡¯ seemed to be even worse. It didn¡¯t bend to regr pressure from Eisen¡¯s fist like the old man had initially expected it to due to the low weight. Instead, it quite literally formed a crack in the center. But the material that Eisen was most interested in was thest of the four metals, the Orichalcum created by infusing bronze with the water element. After he first heard about this peculiar metal, Eisen had read up on it and found that it was supposed to be the toughest, hardest material there was! And in some ways, that did indeed seem to be true, as it seemed to be able to hold off against a good bit of physical damage, but this partr version was rather soft to the touch, somewhat reminding Eisen more of tough y than a metal. That quality was most likely a thing due to the water element and wasn¡¯t a natural quality that Orichalcum had, however. Either way. Eisen was d that he got to see such new, nice materials that ended up giving him a few neat ideas that he wanted to try out in the future, but would hold on to for another while until he was able to actually producerge amounts of different materials. "Yes, everything¡¯s finished! You just needed them from the lowest grade, right? Luckily the elemental mana was enough for that though..." Xenia answered with a smile, before Sigurd stepped up next to the old man and took a look at the materials. "Hmm, what do you need these metals for?" The Core Guardian asked while Fafnir stepped up next to its side and pushed his head against its palm, apparently wanting to be pet, before Eisen just smiled at Sigurd. "For a little puzzle. But we¡¯ll unlock it tomorrow morning when the other originals are awake. This probably has something to do with them as well, after all." Eisen pointed out, before the High-Elf in front of him sighed loudly, nodding her head in response. "Right... We need to wait..." She muttered out disappointedly, but Eisen just chuckled as he sat down on his chair with his size fully increased. "Sorry, I¡¯m just as curious as you are, but I feel like the others should see this as well." Eisen exined, and Xenia shrugged quietly. "I guess... Well..." Xenia said and then looked around to make sure nobody that wasn¡¯t allowed to hear about this actually did end up hearing her, and then looked back at Eisen, "I¡¯m actually not going to be there tomorrow... I¡¯m taking a look at a new apartment..." She exined in a whispering voice, and the old man just raised his eyebrows. "Oh, you¡¯re moving again?" He asked, before Xenia nodded her head. "Yeah... I k-kind of want to get away from that apartment..." The young woman slightly stuttered out, and Eisen couldn¡¯t me her in the slightest. After all, the only reason she moved there in the first ce was to escape from her abusive, stalking ex-boyfriend. But as he found her just a short while ago, her whole reason for being there was just gone, as if it disappeared into nothing. Although Eisen had a different idea. "Do you want to get away only from your apartment, or the whole town?" He asked with a light smile, before Xenia looked at him rather confused. "What do you m-mean, exactly?" She inquired immediately, and Eisen just slowly shrugged. "Well... In a few weeks, my grandchildren and my son will leave the house again either for work or school. Sure, my son and my two youngest grandchildren won¡¯t be far away, but I¡¯m sure all of them would be happy if they knew I wasn¡¯t alone in that big house. It¡¯s a bit out of distance of the other houses in the area, after all, so none of my neighbors can actually see my house. Having someone else there would be quite reassuring, in my opinion." Eisen pointed out, and now, Xenia got only more confused at what Eisen was trying to say, so he simply continued, hoping she would catch on before Eisen had to really say it. "You know, my house is pretty roomy. It does have an upstairs and a basement, but I¡¯m never there all that much anyway, so you wouldn¡¯t need to worry about stairs. After the break-in into my house a few years ago, we installed a pretty high-tech security system as well, and I¡¯m good friends with the top guys at the police department. It¡¯s only a few minutes away, actually. On top of that, I have a nice porch and garden, and I could use a helping hand for cooking or other basic chores." The old man said with a smile on his face, although he actually started drifting off for a while. "Hmm... Although, getting some bots for cleaning would be a good idea anyway... I wonder, is thepany that made the bots in my basement still a thing?" He muttered to himself quietly, and now, Xenia was slightly catching onto what Eisen was actually talking about, although she felt too awkward to actually properly ask about it in case she was just utterly wrong. "W-Wait, d-do you me-mean that I sho-should..." She asked confused, and the old man replied with a slight sigh. "I would love to have a roommate, at the very least. So, would you like to move in with me, Xenia?" The old man asked with a smile on his face, but before he really got an answer, Xenia¡¯s body formed glowing runes all over her body while her body and her clothes themselves turned into crystal structures. "Well, I guess I should give her a little time to think about it." Eisen chuckled to himself before taking a look at his monsters in front of him with a smile on his face before they all climbed onto hisrgep. And while the old man made space for them all to cuddle up on top of him, he noticed that there was a particr person that seemed slightly jealous. "Come on, go to sleep with us as well." Eisen suggested, but Sigurd just shook its head immediately. "A-A Core Guardian is kept running through the energy of their core. We don¡¯t require sleep." It replied, but Eisen just smiled and extended his hand before picking Sigurd up and setting it down on hisp next to his monsters, making sure to create a nice armrest with his literal arms. "You say that, but the Dungeon your Core belongs to is ratherzy, you know? Fafnir sleeps all the time!" Eisen eximed with a grin on his face, and Sigurd slowly just nodded while obviously trying to hide its face. "Then, I guess that¡¯s it for today." Eisen said with a smile, before leaning back and closing his eyes, slowly dozing off into sleep. And what awaited him then was once more not his room, or the inside of the capsule, but instead the same dream-world that he was in thest two times that he actually just slept while in the capsule. The dream started off the same way, with the giant version of Eisen in front of him again. Once more, Eisen was picked up by his super-sized representation before it tried saying something, although this time not as fiercely. Instead of yelling at Eisen, the giant simply seemed to repeat one word over and over again. As its mouth was open the whole time, Eisen got a good look at the Giant¡¯s tongue-movement to at least get some hints toward what it was saying. First, it pressed its tongue against the roof of its mouth and then against its bottom, before it pronounced the first syble with its jaw slowly moving up and down. It somehow seemed to Eisen as if this giant version of him was aware that he couldn¡¯t hear it, and was trying to pronounce the word as well as it could so that Eisen could read what it was saying off its lips. And after saying the first syble, it moved on to the second, where it pressed its tongue against the roof of its mouth again. It repeated the same thing over and over again, until Eisen got a slight clue at what it was saying. For some reason, just as that thought crossed his mind, the Giant moved on and set Eisen down to the ground, before reaching over to the side into the mes that were burning in the firece, or more specifically the coals underneath, and then it used the soot to draw onto its own face. And in a quite simple shape, at that. Just quickly around its eyes and then to the sides, as if going to the ears. It reminded Eisen of a certain thing, although he felt rather confused at the moment at what this weird dream was. But just when Eisen was thinking that, he found himself back in the meeting room, without any transition in the slightest. It just felt as if he suddenly appeared back inside of there, and his brain had to get used to that fact first. It was the same unpleasant feeling as thest time that he had this dream, although this particr one was far worse, and Eisen tried his best to really remember what happened in the dream. "It said something... What was it again..?" Eisen asked himself, somehow feeling confused at the fact that he wanted to figure out what just happened so badly. It was just a dream, and to be frank, not even nearly the weirdest one that he¡¯s had in his life. But noticing that the old man was in such a rush, and that his sleep-transformation hadn¡¯t even properly worn off before he started moving around, Brody and Jyuuk stood up immediately and walked over to Eisen. "Careful, old man." The Demon-Orc told him as he held onto Eisen¡¯s shoulder, while Jyuuk tried to figure out what was going on exactly. "Are you okay? Are you in pain? Do you have a negative reaction to your medication?" Jyuuk asked with worry in his voice. He had asked Eisen about a bit more information about what exactly he was taking after his arm was amputated so that he could make sure Eisen wasn¡¯t reacting weirdly within the game. That was an important information for Prime Industries to have as well, because it really wouldn¡¯t be good if the capsule¡¯s technology caused some form of weird reaction with different meds, but luckily, this didn¡¯t seem to be the case at the moment. "I¡¯m fine, don¡¯t worry... I just... need a piece of paper..." Eisen muttered to himself, and he grabbed one of the ones that were alwaysying on the table together with a pen, before trying to write down exactly what he had heard or seen within the dream. And in the end, he managed to figure out that the word he had read on lips of the Giant version of him was the word ¡¯Lion¡¯, and on top of that, he remembered the soot-drawing on the Giant¡¯s face. He tried to draw that on the piece of paper as well to see if he could find any connection, but he really couldn¡¯t. But someone else that knew about it as well ended up doing so in his stead. With a curious smile, Stahl, who had stepped into the meeting room during themotion after logging back on, looked at the piece of paper and grinned. "Oh, are you telling them about Grandma¡¯s ¡¯Roon in a Lion¡¯s Mask¡¯ thing?" Chapter 317 - Unlocking the First Layer "What¡¯s that supposed to mean?" Brody asked confused at Stahl¡¯s question, and the young man tilted his head to the side confused. "Wait, that¡¯s not it? Then why did you write that down..?" He inquired slowly, before Eisen slowly shook his head. "It¡¯s from a dream... I think I told you all about thest dream I had with the Giant version of me in it, and this time, it was trying to tell me something again, just this time more directly... I guess? I don¡¯t really remember what exactly happened though... But I think that it was trying to tell me the word ¡¯Lion¡¯, and then drew that kind of mask onto its face..." Eisen exined, and once more, Brody just sighed and asked, "Yeah, but again, what does that mean? "Oh... It¡¯s something that my Wife used to say... It¡¯s simr to the ¡¯Wolf in Sheep¡¯s Clothing¡¯ saying, just in a weirder way. A Roon is supposed to be a mischievious animal, sometimes representing criminality due to the ¡¯Mask¡¯ on its face. And that the Roon is wearing a Lion¡¯s mask means that it¡¯s trying to pretend to be chivalrous and good, even if it¡¯s not. I guess I know why I wanted to figure that dream out now, huh...?" Eisen said with a smile on his face, before Jyuuk looked at him confused. "Erm... Why, exactly?" He asked as he scratched his cheek with a wry smile, and Eisen just chuckled. "I¡¯ve been thinking a lot more about my wifetely. So maybe I just wanted to hear that sentence really badly again?" Eisen suggested with a light smile on his face and then simply ended up sighing. "Well, either way, it was just a dream." He added and then leaned back in his chair, finally able to somewhat rx his mind again, before he looked at the still-offline Xenia and Evalia. Eisen hoped the the former was able to think about his suggestion a little bit so far as well, but he wouldn¡¯t pressure her. It was up to her if she would take Eisen¡¯s offer or not, and he would respect her decision, so he guessed that he just needed to wait. "Well, I guess if you¡¯re fine, then I can go train now, right?" Brody asked with a grin on his face, but Eisen shook his head nearly immediately. "Actually, no. Wait a little bit until Xenia and Eia are back, I want to unlock the firstyer of the Puzzle Box with everyone here." Eisen exined, and the Demon-Orc sat back down with a broad grin immediately. "Huh, I wanna see that. Guess I¡¯ll wait with ya." Brody replied as he leaned back in his chair, and Eisen looked over at Jyuuk with a smile on his face. "And while we¡¯re waiting, I wanted to ask you to do something." Eisen said with a grin, before the Beastperson tilted his head to the side again. "Yeah, what do you want me to do?" He inquired, before Eisen just smiled. "Well, first of all, I know that you¡¯ve managed to support your undead with the help of your nts, so you¡¯re already kind of mixing necromancy and nt control... But can you do that even more directly? Like, use necromancy to grow something?" He asked, and Jyuuk immediately opened his eyes wide. "I mean... Maybe I can... I haven¡¯t ever tried, but... Necromancy is using the energy of death to your advantage to breath new life into things that stopped living... And pretty often, dead things are used as a source of nutriets for different nts, so... I guess I can try..." He muttered to himself and then pushed his hand into his pocket before grabbing a small seed out of it and then closing his eyes. "Hmm... It doesn¡¯t really work... The Essence inside of it is basically opposing the Necromantic energy..." Jyuuk muttered quietly, and Stahl slowly spoke up with an idea of his own, as he was the only other person in the room that really understood what he was talking about. "Well, how about you try to actively rece the essence then?" He suggested, and Jyuuk thought about it for a while before slowly nodding his head. "I can maybe do that if I momentarily halt the death of the nt with my element... But otherwise, even a tiny bit of life essence willpletely reject necromantic energy..." The Beastperson slowly muttered to himself, before he stopped for a moment and covered the area around his hand and the seedying in them with his element to control the natural flow of life more easily, before starting to manipte the life essence within the seed to pull it outpletely. As it was a seed, there didn¡¯t seem to be much essence inside anyway, luckily, and Jyuuk could swiftly work on that process, immediately pushing necromantic energy into the seed by trying to turn it into an undead version of itself. Technically, as it didn¡¯t have any life essence anymore, it was already considered dead by necromantic energy, but it didn¡¯t physically die yet due to the help of Jyuuk¡¯s element and his fine control. And then, a few momentster, something sprouted out of the seed, and a small dark red rose, its color closing in on ck, grew out of it. The thorns on the side seemed more like actual small needles than regr thorns, and the whole flower gave off a slightly eerie feeling. "It worked..." Jyuuk muttered to himself quietly as he took another look at it. "It¡¯s dead, but it¡¯s also alive... That¡¯s amazing!" The Beastperson eximed, and Brody tuned in as he had something he didn¡¯t understand. "Wait, isn¡¯t that just a regr undead then?" He asked with a frown, but Jyuuk immediately shook his head. "Oh no, not at all! A regr undead is neither really dead, nor really alive. It¡¯s something inbetween. This flower here is both dead and alive!" Jyuuk eximed excitedly before grabbing his Necronomicon out of his soul storage and summoning one of his undead. "I need to use this on them..." He muttered out quietly before cing his finger on the overgrown Zombie¡¯s forehead, causing all of the nts on its body to wither immediately. "Erm... Eisen, I¡¯ll do your thing in a bit... I just kind of want to ¡¯Practice¡¯ a bit first, alright?" Jyuuk asked with a light smile on his face, continuosly staring at the undead in front of him, before Eisen just chuckled in response "Knock yourself out. It most likely won¡¯t take long to do what I wanted to ask you for anyway." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and Jyuuk immediately nodded and burrowed through his bag to find the right seeds, and then began to reassemble the Zombie¡¯s overgrown body again. Compared to before, it simply looked a lot darker and more menacing in every sense of the word, although at the same time, it apparently got a lot stronger as well. So this was only better in any way! Jyuuk continued to do this for the other undead in his arsenal, and even one after another called the Undead Sailors up into the Meeting room to change them, although he saved the Overgrown ¡¯Mother of Spiders¡¯ Zombie forter, as it required a lot more time to properly work out, and as the two halves of the body were literally only kept together with the help of the nts, Jyuuk would either need to do everything very, very carefully and slowly, or create a huge mess by splitting its body up again momentarily. So Jyuuk rather preferred waiting for a little while, although, before he could actually help the old man behind him with whatever he wanted him to do, Xenia and Evalia both ended up waking up only a few minutes apart from each other. A little while ago, Komer and Alnico came into the room as well, curious about why all the originals were sitting there together again. "Alright, so everyone¡¯s here, huh?" Eisen said with a smirk on his face, still sitting on his chair while covered by his monsters, including the living dungeon and its core guardian before he extended his arm forward and held his palm up. Nearly immediately, a small, ornate box appeared on it which the old man quickly ced on the table in front of him before looking at the four different pieces of metal. "Let¡¯s finally unlock this thing and take a look at what¡¯s inside." The old man muttered with a smile before the others could even really react, as they either just woke up or just entered the room, because he simply couldn¡¯t help himself. He had forgotten about it for a while, but in the end, Eisen was still really curious what was inside of this box. It probably wasn¡¯t the only ¡¯Layer¡¯ that the box had to it, but as long as they were able to figure out what they needed to do next, the old man would be happy. Slowly, Eisen ced the pieces of metal onto the necessary spots, and nearly immediately the box reacted. It nearly immediately ¡¯sucked¡¯ the metal into it, and then... nothing happened. For a short while, at least. Just a few moments after Eisen began to think about whether or not he did something wrong, the lid of the box split open into four parts that simply dropped to the side to create a t surface, two times as wide and long as the box was, although pretty t inparison. But that wasn¡¯t all, as now the four walls of the box began to move, and anotheryer of them suddenly appeared and folded upward, doubling the box¡¯s height, before doing the same again to make it four times as high as it originally was. It was still open at the top, although that also changed pretty soon, and triangr walls folded up from the side of the box and formed the top. "Wait... that¡¯s it? It turned into another box?" Brody asked with a wry smile, and Eisen nodded his head curiously. "It did, yeah. Sky,e over here for a second." Eisen told the young Fey-Kin, who he had called up here just so that he could see what would happen. After all, he was the one that decyphered thenguages on the outside of the box. With an excited grin on his face, Sky then practically sprinted up to the table and tried to look at the box that was now much biggerpared to before, and took a look at the carvings on the outside of it. "Hmm... Seems to be the same writing asst time... Wait, it¡¯s just going to take a few minutes..." Sky muttered out quietly, and then took a piece of paper and wrote a few letters down, and after the first few words that were formed, Eisen could already see whatnguage this was. It wasn¡¯t spanish likest time, it was French. And once Sky managed to finish writing the sentences, Eisen could immediately trante it. "¡¯Life and Death, what Combines both but rejects either?¡¯ That¡¯s one sentence... Then the next one is ¡¯Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there is some that can not be seen by any eye¡¯... Then ¡¯Unfathomable strength is impossible to reach, so Surpass Impossibility¡¯... After that the sentence is ¡¯The Power to surpass anything is but a small part of the world¡¯... But thest one is simply ¡¯Create or Destroy¡¯." Eisen exined with a frown, although he immediately figured out what the first one wanted from them. "There¡¯s a small hole in the center... Jyuuk, give me that Rose you just made..." He told the Beastperson, who nodded his head confused and did as he was asked, and Eisen swiftly ced it into that small hole. Immediately, it fell to dust and the hole disappeared and was reced by a small slit, which opened up quite soon and revealed a small eye as it was just staring in front of it, and the old man began to grin broadly. Chapter 318 - When the Unknown becomes Known With a broad grin on his face, Eisen turned to the other originals and crossed his arms, before nodding his head, "Good that I waited for all of you to be here. I¡¯m pretty sure we all need to do something for this. Next would be Evalia with some form of art, then Brody with a feat of strength, after that Xenia with some form of magic, and then me with some crafting, I¡¯m guessing." The old man eximed with a grin on his face, before Evalia nodded her head with a light frown. "Erm... It was ¡¯Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there is some that can not be seen by any eye¡¯, right...?" She asked rather confused, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, that¡¯s just a rough trantion, though." The old man exined, before Xenia nodded her head quietly and then stepped up to the box. "I have a pretty good idea what it wants from me..." She muttered out, before slowly opening her mouth and starting to sing a short song, or rather just the chorus of one. And quite coincidentally, a line nearly identical to the one that Eisen said appeared in it. And after that, the eye slowly blinked a few times before it began to twist around its vertical axis before practically popping out of the socket and starting to float in the air. And then, the eye grew arms and legs, and ended up looking a lot like a small toy, while everyone looked at Evalia rather surprised. "I was aware you were great at improv, buting up with something like that out of the blue to fit the line, good job." Stahl said with a smile on his face as he looked at the young woman from across the table, somewhat expecting some kind of quick or witty response, but instead, Eia just nodded her head quietly. "Well, Anyway... That worked, but what is this now?" Jyuuk asked with a frown that he had on his face ever since the thing with the box asking for something like the rose settled into his mind for some reason. And before anyone else could even respond, Brody already tried to cut the small thing up with a knife, but instead, the knife was stopped at its ¡¯skin¡¯. "Just the next thing we need to do. And that ¡¯Feat of strength¡¯ the old geezer mentioned must be that I cut this thing apart, right?" He asked with a frown on his forehead and his eyes not wavering from the thing floating in the air. "Wait a second, I have something to give you... Try it out while you¡¯re at it, I guess." Eisen said with a light smile, although he didn¡¯t really understand why exactly Evalia, Jyuuk and Brody were so serious all of a sudden. "Fafnir, open the gate to the dungeon, and Sigurd, could you get the weapons I made for brody?" The old man asked with a smile on his face, but the Core Guardian immediately smiled smugly. "Hehe, there¡¯s no need for that!" Sigurd eximed, before disappearing into a mist and re-appearing a few momentster with the weapons that Eisen made for Brody in its hands. "I can jump in and out of the Dungeon without the gate being open!" It eximed with a smile on its face, so Eisen ced his hand on the Dungeon Core Guardian¡¯s head and rubbed the metallic red hair. "I see, good job, then. Thanks for getting these." The old man told the Core Guardian, who happily nodded its head before turning toward Brody. "I made you five metallic weapons made with a Steel-Maroon Alloy, and two regr wooden weapons, although the monkey-stick has a few bits of the alloy at its ends as well." Eisen exined, and confused, Brody tilted his head to the side. "The Maroon-Steel weapons immediately start draining mana from you if your regeneration isn¡¯t high enough. But you don¡¯t have mana, so that doesn¡¯t matter." Eisen exined with a smile on his face, and the Demon-Orc nodded his head with a grin before grabbing the Jian, the sword, and holding it in both of his hands. "Thanks. Maybe it works with this..." Brody said as he pushed his teeth together and shed at the thing floating in the air once more, and then again and then again, but every single time the de was just stopped without damaging to thing¡¯s body. "Come on you little fucker! Just break already!" The Demon-Orc yelled out as he continued swinging the de at it, seemingly desperately, and Eisen slightly sighed. "Brody, it¡¯s okay if you can¡¯t do it yet. Maybe it requires a certain Strength Stat to be able to be destroyed." The old man pointed out, but it seemed like Brody just didn¡¯t care at all. He ground his teeth together further before shaking his head. "I don¡¯t give a fuck, I¡¯m not leaving this room before that thing¡¯s gone." Brody eximed from behind his pressed-together teeth, and then something else, something rather unexpected happened. Brody¡¯s body turnedpletely white, as white as snow, while the de in his hand turnedpletely ck. For a little while, it seemed like Brody was preparing for something, and the ck in the de and the white in his body slowly seemed to start ¡¯Glowing¡¯, while the white-ness spread even to Brody¡¯s clothes and the floor he was standing on, while the sword seemed to let out a deep ck smoke. And then, all of a sudden, Brody¡¯s foot slightly inched forward just a tiny bit before the small, toy-like thing floating in the air split in two, right down the center, before the ck and white shattered off of Brody¡¯s body as if they were a thinyer of ss covering his whole body, before the Demon-Orc Copsed down onto the ground, seemingly out of exhaustion. And the only way that Eisen knew that someone could get exhausted like that all of a sudden was through Mana-Exhaustion, so Brody probably used up all of his energy in that one move. In the meantime, while everyone was looking at Brody to make sure he was alright, the figure that had split in half turned into the next ¡¯Task¡¯. One of the two halves turned into a book, while the other half turned into a pen as it was Xenia¡¯s turn now. But everyone but the High-Elf didn¡¯t notice that yet. "Brody, are you okay?" Eisen asked with a deep frown, trying to help the Demon-Orc up, before he simply nodded his head. "I¡¯m fine... That¡¯s just a Limitbreaking Swordsmanship ¡¯Move¡¯... It¡¯s called ¡¯Perfect Bnce sh¡¯.... A prettyme name, I know..." Brody said with a wry smile as he sat down on his chair and rxed a bit. "It¡¯s basically a finishing move. It¡¯s REEEAAALLY strong, trust me... But in return, it puts me at zero, and I can¡¯t fight afterward anymore... Even my HP is in the double digits right now..." Brody exined with a light grin on his face, seemingly just happy that he was able to break whatever that ¡¯Toy¡¯ that was there before was. "Right... But-" Eisen said, wanting to ask about what was going on, before Jyuuk turned over toward Xenia. "Are you alright? What¡¯s going on? Do you have a panick attack?" He asked with pure worry in his voice as he ced his hand on the back of his shaking nearly-girlfriend, trying tofort her. And Xenia slowly nodded her head and stepped up to the book and pen, grabbing the letter to write something onto the cover of the book. The moment that Eisen saw this, he was utterly confused, however. "¡¯Timothy Charles - Notes¡¯..." Eisen slowly muttered as he read what was on the book, and then looked over toward Xenia confused, before the book began to change its shape again, showing that the young woman wrote the right thing onto it. And what happened next really just shocked Eisen. The book itself turned into another small wooden box, while the pen turned into a note. The old man slowly stepped up to both of those items and then first picked up the note. ¡¯Your Choice. Continue or Stop¡¯ the note read, and there was nothing else on it at all. Confused, Eisen took a look into the box, finding nothing but seemingly freshly-cooked rice inside of it. And then, the note dropped out of Eisen¡¯s hand as he just stared at the small container confused, before Sky stepped up to the old man and tilted his head to the side. "Rice? Does the box want you to cook it or something?" He asked curiously, but Eisen just shook his head slowly, before looking at Fafnir. "Open the gate." He told the young living dungeon in the shape of a dragon, who slowly did as told and jumped off the chair and then up into the air before the door leading inside of the dungeon appeared directly below it. "Sorry, we need to go right now. And when I say ¡¯Go¡¯, I mean Jyuuk, Evalia, Brody, Xenia and I. Nobody else. Just us." Eisen said, even turning toward his tamed monsters to tell them not toe, before he looked at Sigurd. "And if possible in any way, don¡¯t listen to what¡¯s going on in the Core Room." Eisen said in amanding tone, before the Core Guardian looked at the old man confused, but nodded its head in the end. "Y-Yeah, I can... But why-" Sigurd asked, but Eisen shook his head. "Don¡¯t ask. Just wait out here, all of you." Eisen told them before opening the door to the dungeon to let the other originals inside and then grabbed the ¡¯Puzzle Box¡¯ together with the Cooked rice and the note that he had dropped to the ground before following the others into the dungeon. Immediately he created a doorway to the core room and then closed the exit out of the room off so that nobody could follow them. And the moment that the Core Room¡¯s door closed shut, Brody turned toward the old man. "What the fuck! What is that shitty box?!" He yelled out angrily, and Eisen shook his head slowly. "I have no idea... But... No, I just really don¡¯t know... Jyuuk, what did you notice about the flower thing?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck. "Well... You were probably asking for it to make an item, but that the box asked for that couldn¡¯t be a coincidence... I¡¯m not legally allowed to tell any of you this, but I trust you, so keep this to yourselves... I am working on a government project right now, it¡¯s still top-secret at the moment." Jyuuk exined before he sat down on one of the steps leading up to the Dungeon Core, cing his chin onto his palm. "The project is about just what the box asked for. I¡¯m supposed to create a method to create near-perfect preservation by making a living being¡¯s body slow down to near-death, although it would still allow the being to act as if in peak physical condition. Basically, you¡¯re alive, but you¡¯re also dead. But you¡¯re also neither, so you¡¯re practically rejecting both. But until now, the furthest we got was being able to preserve different flowers in that way..." The Beastperson exined quietly, before shaking his head. "No, but that can¡¯t be what that meant! Maybe the box figured out that I just did that and then asked for the flower? I mean, Prime Industries couldn¡¯t have known about it in any way... As I said, it¡¯s a government-project..." Jyuuk muttered out quietly, but then Evalia spoke up next. "You can say that again! That line you said was from a song I came up with as a kid, called ¡¯Eye of the Beholder¡¯. I never brought it out because it didn¡¯t feel good enough yet, and literally nobody knows that the idea for it even exists!" She eximed, and everyone slowly turned their heads over toward Brody, who already knew what he was supposed to say. "That thing... Erm, my Father had a rough past and had a tattoo of an eye on his chest from that time... He then turned that tattoo into a ridiculous fucking one-eyed thing, which was exactly what that was out there... When someone left the group that my father was in, others would hunt them down, kill them, and then cut the eye-tattoo in half... Same with my father, so I kind of figured what I had to do..." Brody exined, growing more quiet and quiet, and next, Xenia spoke next nervously. "M-Mine was simr to E-Evalia¡¯s thing... The L-line that Ei-Eisen tranted was simr to-to an important l-line my father wanted to shape his n-next book around before he di-died... It was only in the note-notebook, and I never showed it to any-any-anyone..." The young woman exined, while Jyuuk, who had noticed she wasn¡¯t doing well, stood up again and continued trying tofort her, while Eisen was the next that spoke up. "The note gave me a choice. I don¡¯t know what that choice is exactly, but... This box here is the kind of container that Kuchikamizake is made in, from cooked rice... My Wife was a shrine maiden when I met her, and she used to make Kuchikamizake back then. I still have the bottle of the one she made when I first met her down in my basement. Only my children and grandchildren know about that. I never talk about my wife with anyone else, and nobody that isn¡¯t a fully-armed swat-team can get into my basement in any way." Eisen exined, and then looked around at the others with a confused expression. "What is going on here?" Chapter 319 - Notes "Did Prime Industries hire PI¡¯s to look into stuff like that?" Brody asked with a frown and leaned against the wall, before he noticed that Jyuuk looked at him confused for a little moment, so the Demon-Orc sighed and look at him. "Private Investigators, dude." He exined, so the Beastperson slowly nodded his head. "Oh... I mean, it¡¯s possible, but... None of my research ever left the building I¡¯m working in, and I never spoke about it with anyone... Except if they went ahead and stole the documents illegally, I doubt it¡¯s possible..." He answered, but Evalia tilted her head to the side. "It¡¯s Prime Industries, they literally have some of the best technology in the country... Maybe they hacked into the servers or something?" She suggested, but Jyuuk shook his head. "No... The document storage is analogue for that project... There aren¡¯t any servers involved..." He answered, and then turned his head to look at the young woman directly next to him. "And even then, Xenia said that that line was from one of her Father¡¯s notebooks... And she told me that he never released any of the stuff inside of that in any possible way. Except if they broke into her apartment and looked through the notebook, it would be impossible to find that line..." Jyuuk exined, and now Eisen spoke up to try and get the thoughts in his mind together. "So... There¡¯s three possibilities to this... One, this is some kind of sick idea of a surprise that the higher-ups at Prime Industries prepared for us in the form of this Puzzle box. Two, they are trying to somehow threaten us, and are trying to tell us that they are able to find out anything that they want, even if it seems impossible. And three... No, that¡¯s... That¡¯s too ridiculous..." The old man said, although he shook his head at the mere thought of thest possibility, but the others wanted to know what he was trying to say. "Speak up, you geezer. What¡¯re you sayin¡¯?" Brody asked as he stepped up closer toward him, and Eisen moved his fingers through his beard, trying to figure out what was going on. "The Third possibility... This isn¡¯t a game..." Eisen said, although he felt ridiculous just thinking about that possibility, and the others also didn¡¯t seem to be too conviced. "Alright, sure. I know you maybe don¡¯t really know about it cuz you¡¯re a million years old, but technology is amazing these days. The game can read our thoughts anyways, so maybe it just read some of our most prominent memories. Makes more sense, right?" Brody said with augh, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Right... That would make more sense... Sorry, I guess I¡¯m just kind of not really used to this kind of thing. It feels way too real..." The old man chuckled, before looking at the box. "Although I find the order rather weird. First it asks for four different magic metals, and then immediately afterward it asks us about very private things? Let¡¯s say that what Brody said happened, and it just read our memories, why the hell would it make a jump like that?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck. "Well, maybe it wants to ¡¯Lead¡¯ us in some way? Maybe for the first step it needed to make sure you reached a certain spot with magic items and materials... Then, it needed to make sure that we were all together to unlock the box?" He suggested, so Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Maybe... Well, I guess we¡¯ll see in a bit..." Eisen said with a sigh before grabbing the small box filled with rice and increased his size so that he could fit all of the rice into his mouth at the same time, and then did just that, emptying it into his mouth. "Errm... Didn¡¯t Eisen say that he was supposed to make this... kuchikamizake thing? Why is he eating the rice?" Evalia asked confused, and as Eisen¡¯s mouth was full, the old man couldn¡¯t answer and exin and instead looked over toward Jyuuk, hoping that he could exin. "Oh, well, Kuchikamizake is made by chewing cooked rice and spitting it back out into a container..." Jyuuk exined, before Evalia¡¯s mouth twisted in slight disgust as she looked over at Eisen, who just nodded his head and slowly spat the white liquid out. "Mhm, that¡¯s how it¡¯s made." The old man replied, before cing the container now filled with the chewed-up rice onto the top of the puzzle-box, before the container slowly lowered itself into the box and that same box reacted once more, turning itself into a t tform, before a pole appeared from the center of the round tform and turned into a ckboard, with five sheets of paper pinned to the front of it, each one with a different symbol on it, the five symbols on the ¡¯Original¡¯ nes. "I guess that¡¯s that, then, huh?" Eisen asked with a light smile on his face, grabbing the piece of paper with his own symbol on it, before the others slowly did the same with the sheets of paper apparently meant for them, although none of them could read what was written on their respective sheet. But once the five of them were picked off of the ckboard, that same ckboard copsed into itself and then turned back into a box, although with a slit at the top, probably to take the pieces of paper back into itself. "Alright... Can any of you read your notes?" Eisen asked as he turned to the others, but they all shook their heads before the old man took a look at the writing. "Hmm, thenguages are all different... Let¡¯s go and ask Sky about itter..." The old man said with a light smile, and just before he opened the door to exit the dungeon, he turned over to the other originals. "And all of you, before we know what¡¯s actually going on, don¡¯t mention how the tasks rte to any of you to anyone." Eisen told them, and they nodded their heads before following the old man outside. There, back in the Meeting room, Eisen turned to everyone else, and all of them seemed to be incredibly worried about what just happened. "Sorry about that, the note said we had to go somewhere absolutely private immediately." Eisen told them with a smile, lying to them without even blinking. "Oh, alright... We thought something happened." Stahl replied with a wry smile on his face, and Eisen shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, everything is fine. But Sky, we need to figure out some things. We unlocked the next ¡¯Layer¡¯ of the box and then got these notes here. All of them are in differentnguages." The old man exined to the Fey-Kin boy, before the originals handed the notes to him. Curiously, Sky took a look at the pieces of paper before scratching his cheek. "Eisen, yours is the samebination of Dvergun and I?tum as before... Xenia¡¯s is ancient Elvish, Jyuuk¡¯s seems to be a variation of the ancientnguage of Beastpeople... Evalia¡¯s note is written in the Ancientnguage of Humans, and thest one is... Hmm..." Sky muttered quietly as he took a closer look at Brody¡¯s note, although he wasn¡¯t sure what exactly he was seeing. "Erm... I¡¯m guessing it¡¯s a mixture of Orkish and the ancient Demon-Language. Because Demons are very long-lived, thetter is still spoken sometimes so it shouldn¡¯t be hard to figure it out, but I¡¯m not sure if there¡¯s any writtenpendium about the Orknguage..." The Fey-Kin boy exined while scratching the back of his neck, and Stahl swiftly spoke up. "Oh, there¡¯s a Priestess of Uria on the ship, she might be able to help..." He exined, and the others looked at the young man surprised. Xenia would have said this before, but she was still feeling a bit shaken up about everything. She was surprisingly fragile, now that Eisen thought about it. Quickly, noticing that the others didn¡¯t catch on, Stahl continued, "Oh, Uria is the Goddess of Monsters...People with her prayer skill canmunicate with non-vocal monsters, and they can learn different monsternguages more easily. There are some Ork viges that speak the ¡¯Common¡¯ Language, but I¡¯m sure you¡¯re talking about the actual ¡¯Orkish¡¯, as in what not-so-intelligent orks use, right?" Stahl inquired, and Sky nodded his head swiftly. "Yeah, that¡¯s my guess so far at least! I¡¯ll go and talk to the priestess!" Sky said excitedly, but Eisen shook his head and stepped forward. "No, no, you try and deciphher the other notes, and while you¡¯re doing that, I¡¯ll go and meet her real quick." Eisen exined before just smiling at them all and stepped out the door without waiting for an answer or waiting for any sort of reaction. Eisen didn¡¯t even take his monster girls with him, and just stepped down the stairs without any hesitation. And his goal was a quite specific one, the small chapel that was constructed near the living-quarters of the ship, where Eisen luckily met nearly all of the different priests, priestesses and nuns that hade together for joint prayers, which he was more than d to see, because this was perfect timing. After waiting for their prayers to be done, out of simple respect, Eisen stepped to the front of the altar they had created and prepared to speak to the priests. "Good morning, all of you." Eisen said with a smile on his face, before everyone looked at him with bright smiles. "Good morning, Lord Eisen. Is anything wrong? You don¡¯te here often like this." One Priest, the former head-priest of the church in Handor, inquired and smiled, before Eisen crossed his arms. "Haha, I didn¡¯t expect to be so easy to see through. Well, I do have two inquiries right now. For one, I would need the Priestess to the goddess Uria to assist us with something rted to the Ork Language." Eisen exined, and the young woman stepped up soon after being mentioned and nodded her head. "I am d to help, Lord Eisen." She replied, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile and then moved on to the second topic, the reason why he actually came down here himself. "Thank you. And the other thing is that I, quite simply, would like you all to tell me if there is any way to talk to Gods directly." He asked, and the Head-Priest tilted his head slightly and shook his head. "Not a simple one, at least. There have been few people that directly conversed with gods, and those that did were Arch-Popes or Heroes." The Priest exined, before Eisen scratched the back of his neck and then sighed loudly. "Is there really no way to go and talk to them?" Eisen asked, and slowly, the priest turned around and looked at the others for help, and one of them stepped forward and spoke. "Actually, I think there might be a way, and it could be on the inds we are heading toward." The Priest exined, and then swiftly continued after noticing that Eisen wanted to hear more. "The Inds, ording to what you yourself told us, are directly connected to different gods, right? There should definitely be a way to contact them there, or at least send them a message. As they have already spoken to you before, you must have a connection to them in some way, so they might respond to you." Slowly, Eisen nodded his head and just ended up grinning in response to that idea, before he crossed his arms, "Alright, that¡¯s a good idea. I¡¯lle and talk to you again once we reach the inds in a few days then." The old man exined, before slowly exiting the room again, and then went back to the main deck with the Priestess of Uria behind him, and then slowly muttered to himself. "Well... that didn¡¯t help at all... Something has to be going on here, I just know it. " Chapter 320 - Necromancers Scythe While Sky and the Priestess to Uriu worked on the notes, everyone else got back to their regr tasks that they would have went for otherwise as well, which was mainly just the work in the dungeon, and Eisen continued teaching his apprentices and his grandson a little more about crafting, and was currently working on the Alchemy skill. He himself wasn¡¯t actually all that knowledgeable about the magical parts of that skill, so he got Xenia¡¯s help to exin anything but the physical crafting aspects to them. The Kobold that was taught the Alchemy skill had also changed now, growing just a slight bit while bing rtively thin, and its fur was now a dark blue color instead of the gray that the Kobolds all had before then. In the meantime, while the others were working on some practice-items themselves, Eisen continued working on some more items for the others, and actually got the chance to have Jyuuk grow the tree that he wanted to use as a base for the Scythe, which was done simply by cing the sapling into the opening meant for the ¡¯Handle¡¯ part of the scythe, before Jyuuk started to grow a thin tree out of a specific type of wood that Eisen wanted to use, a sapling for a ¡¯Wailing Willow¡¯, a type of tree that attracted ghost-type undead monsters. So of course, now that it was Necro-fied through Jyuuk¡¯s necromancybined with his element, the thin tree was rather horrifying. All over the bark, it had things that looked like crying faces pulled into length through the growth, while it gave off a weird, eery feeling simr to the Rose from before. And Eisen didn¡¯t really change much about this now, and chose to simply leave the bark on the ¡¯Handle¡¯ part of the Scythe, although he did smooth parts out here and there. He also made sure to ce some different necromancy-infused gems and crystals into diffe spots in the tree, mainly the eye-sockets of those crying faces, and then also enchanted everything nicely, including a fine enchantment to support the use of necromancy, but also strength inbat. Not only that, but Eisen also created a small slot for a specific gem which would be added once Eisen was able to use ability enchanting with abilities from other people, which wasn¡¯t that far away considering that his enchanting skill had risen to level 70 of Rank 3 already. But for now, the Scythe was done. [Necromancer¡¯s Scythe] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A Scythe created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. The different materials used to construct this have been directly infused with necromancy and as such strengthen anyone¡¯s ability to use it as long as they are holding it. Therge de at the top is sharp enough to cut through any enemy. [Effect] 20% Benefit to Necromancy; +20 INT, +20 WIS, +60 AGI, +50 STR [Requirements] Rank 2 Necromancy; 50 INT, 50 WIS, 100 AGI, 90 STR With a smile on his face, Eisen handed the Scythe over to the Beastperson currently standing next to him, watching everything curiously. "Oh, damn, I¡¯m looking really like a Shinigami right now, huh?" Jyuuk asked with a smile on his face as he swung the scythe around a few times, before smiling wrily. "It¡¯s a bit different to the staff though, gotta admit... It¡¯s going to take a while to build the skill up again though." Jyuuk said, and Eisen looked at him while scratching the back of his neck. "Sorry about that, but I figured it shouldn¡¯t be too hard to catch up now that we¡¯re heading to a ce with a lot of monsters. And besides, the Staff skill you have should also help a little, right?" The old man asked, and Jyuuk kind of just shrugged. "I guess so." He said, before looking at the Scythe again, "I guess I¡¯ll practice a little." Jyuuk suggested and turned around, preparing to exit the dungeon again, although he turned around just before leaving through the doorway. "I... I get what you mean... It all feels too real, but even then, ¡¯That¡¯ theory is a bit too... you know?" The Beastperson said as he scratched his cheek, and it seemed as if he wanted to say something else but just shook his head instead before just exiting through the doorway. With a deep sigh, Eisen himself just got back to work and continued teaching his students about Alchemy, and then took the time that he had to continue working on the items for the other mainbatists within the ¡¯Inner Circle¡¯, choosing to make a new item for his first everpanion next. A Warhammer for Bree. "Now then, let¡¯s get to work." The old man said with a smile on his face before grabbing some different materials to use, the main ones being Steel and his me of the Earth Mythril. But Eisen had something that he wanted to try out first. Mythril in any form wasn¡¯t really good forbat when used as aplete material. You could put a mythril te on a solid base, but other than that, it had a terrible durability and would break down pretty easily. It was great when using for general tools, mostly because they were usually used in a controlled environment in a way that one hadplete control over what was happening, but it was truly horrible for weapons. So, the first thing that Eisen wanted to try was to alloy the Mythril with the material he most trusted, Steel. He chose to melt the steel down first, as it had a higher melting-pointpared to Mythril, and then just added the magic metal into the mix, trying to make sure they wouldbine as quickly as possible with the help of transmutation, in the same process that he had used while making the metallic potions or while mixing the steel and Margon for Brody¡¯s weapons. And after a little while, the Steel-Mythril alloy was done, and Eisen did a few test-swings to see how well itbined, and what its properties were exactly. "Hmm... It¡¯s definitely less brittle... It obviously has less of the Mythril-effect, but that was to be expected..." Eisen muttered to himself, trying to figure out how well this would work for the hammer. "Alright, this should work pretty nicely." Eisen said with a smile on his face and then quickly continued on from the general test onto the proper shaping of the metal into what it needed to be. And what it needed to be was a hammer with two sides to it, one side being the t ¡¯Hammer¡¯ side, the other being a sharp spike. The Shape that Eisen thought he should go for for the hammer side was simr to that of his own Cross-Peen hammer, just slightly less ¡¯Developed¡¯, meaning that the thinned-out parts were a bit thicker, and it just had a roughly simr shape. And the spike was just that, a spike with a shape simr to the tip of a Pickaxe. It was a rather simple design so far, but he and Evalia spoke about coborating with item-creation a bit more so that the old man would create the base item, and Evalia would add an subtle, artistic touch to it. This War-Hammer would be a pretty great start for that as well, though. Of course, Eisen would give her a rough sketch of the enchantments he wanted to ce on the items beforehand, so that she could work around that and maybe integrate the enchantments into the item a bit better. That also meant that Evalia was giving him a few rough design ideas for numerous types of items already, so he followed the design idea that Evalia gave him beforehand as well, and chose to just slightly twist the pyramid-shaped spike around, before finishing the head like that. And after making sure that the metal was properly cooling off, Eisen started working on the handle. Once more, Evalia had given the old man a rough design that he should shape it into, which the young artist would then use as a base for her own art. Actually, currently she was trying to figure out how to best work on the finishing of another item, her own mask. Considering that she suggested they would ¡¯Hydro-Dip¡¯ the mask in paintter, she had to figure out a way to properly do that, and was experimenting with a few different smaller items just for that. Once she was finished trying to figure out the best way to paint the mask, Eisen would go over to her, have her finish it, and then actually ¡¯Finish¡¯ the item, meaning that he would just consider it done after a little bit of fine-tuning, meaning that he would smooth out any areas where the paintyered too much, apply ayer of something else that would keep the paint properly on the mask, as even if it was magic paint, it still acted like regr paint in some situations. Either way, for now, Eisen wanted to finish the wooden handle for the hammer, then give it to Evalia, have her carve into it in an artistic way, and then bind it in leather or attach a few smaller metallic bits here and there as well as some gems for magic effects, and then attach the head of the hammer to the handle before presenting it to the young Fey-Kin. After a little bit of work, trying to adjust the general size and shape of the handle properly so that it would work well for Bree, Eisen brought the two parts of the item over to the Artist, who was already eagerly waiting for them, before she started to get to work with it immediately. And now that the parts for the War-Hammer were done, the old man continued and started working on the next item. He would have liked to construct a backpack with the help of some Spatial Gems, but he still didn¡¯t really get his hands on any as they were somehow way harder to get than expected, so he was still unable to do so. He had actually been trying toe up with a good few ideas of what could be done with Spatial Gems, although he somewhat stole some of them from TV shows or movies. Tents that wererger inside than outside, Construction-Golems with built-in material storage, or simply ways of mass-production for certain items by creating containers that could hold much more than it seemed they could in order to save a lot of space. Either way, Eisen was really excited to be able to try creating such things soon, and as the ¡¯God of Space¡¯ was a thing, the twin brother of the ¡¯Goddess of Time¡¯, he was sure he would be able to find some spatial gems or other simr or even better materials on that god¡¯s respective ind. It was probably one of the harder inds to conquer, considering that the God of Space was a high-ranking God, but they might be able to at least scavenge some scattered materials without even needing to conquer the ind just yet, and if they did, that would mean that the old man could really create a whole type of new, interesting item. He was especially interested in it for one reason... If he found a way to create pressed buildings¡¯, the end-goal of the spatial items he wanted to make, it would be ridiculously easy to travel and create colonies on the inds! They could make a house on a safe ind, ¡¯Shrink¡¯ it down somehow, and then just plop it down when it¡¯s needed! And most importantly, he would be able to create actual, furnished workspaces that didn¡¯t require him to use his element for them. Those magic forges and tables were nice and all, but nothing went over the smell of hot coals, or the feeling that a nice wooden table to work on gave off. Just thinking about it made Eisen grin like a madman. "Ah, how nice that would be... I¡¯ll finally have nice workshops to carry around with me again. Those were always super convenient, weren¡¯t they? Just throw them down on the ground and... Wait..." Eisen muttered to himself, taking a step backward from his magic workstation before grasping his face in confusion. "What am I talking about..?" Chapter 321 - Ego-Items Eisen stood there in front of his magic workstations, his hand over his face as he was trying to figure out what exactly was going on. Why did he say that just now? Why did he speak as if he had made something like that before? His mind was just hazy as if he was drunk, and he had no idea what exactly he was doing or was supposed to be doing, but then, all of a sudden, that feeling of haziness disappeared together with the feeling of Eisen feeling like something was wrong. Eisen simply felt... Ecstatic. He thought he saw a light blue flicker of a notification for a moment as well, but that was probably just imagination, together with what he just said. There surely wasn¡¯t anything wrong with it at all! Technically his body was being pumped full of drugs at the moment, and he had noticed a bit of an effect before already in the sense that ¡¯Waking up¡¯ felt a lot weirder than usual, so his mind drifting in weird directions in illogical ways was probably also part of that, at least that was so within Eisen¡¯s own logic at the moment. "Alright, then let¡¯s continue, shall I?" Eisen said with a smile on his face, even feeling in such a great mood that he nearly would have started to whistle just there and then, but he was able to hold himself back from that. For now, he had something else to take care of, which would start with reading through the note that Sky walked over to him with. "Here, I managed to finish yours pretty quickly. Luckily it tranted into the Common Language this time. It seems to be something simr to a Level-Up quest, basically it requires you to do a bunch of different things, although in a different way still." Sky exined, before handing the old man both the original note as well as what Sky managed to decypher from it, before Eisen tilted his head to the side just so slightly. "What do you mean ¡¯in a different way¡¯?" He asked, and Sky scratched the back of his neck. "Well... I¡¯ll just show you, this up here is a number, and it¡¯s a number out of ten. Right now it¡¯s ¡¯1¡¯. My guess from concept and the writing around it is that there are ten tasks, and you are at the first one, which is to... Reach Level 300... After that, the writing will probably change and reveal the second task." Sky exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Huh, I see... But level 300, isn¡¯t that going to be really hard to reach? Not even mentioning the time it will take to level up in the first ce, it¡¯s going to take a long time to finish the two Level-Up quests I have to do, right?" The old man replied, and Sky nodded his head while scratching his neck. "I mean, it¡¯s for sure going to take a while, but you Originals and Artificials level up a lot faster than regr people... Usually, reaching level 300 from 100 would reach maybe half a year of non-stop fighting, but for you guys it might take a month of a nice, calm pace?" Sky suggested with a wry smile, and then continued, "Although, considering where we¡¯re going, it might be even faster. It¡¯s not like any of you are as strong as your level suggests, so you can take monsters that are a good bit stronger than you to make you level up even faster. Especially with the items that you make, they have insane effects..." Sky pointed out, before the old man began to chuckle and smiled at the Fey-Kin in front of him. "That¡¯s a fair point. And at the very least, I¡¯ll have something nice and steady to work toward again once I reach level 199." Eisen said with a smirk, before he remembered something. "Ah, right, talking about something nice to work toward... I¡¯ll not work on items for you yet, because I don¡¯t exactly have any way to create a good material-base for it. I could just make a book for you, but that would be a bit boring, right? Instead, I¡¯ll wait for my Enchanting skill to rank up again, and then I¡¯ll infuse some materials with your element." Eisen exined with a smile, and Sky nodded his head. "That¡¯s fine! It¡¯s not like I¡¯m in a rush with anything... And considering that I¡¯m still not even Level 20, the monsters that I¡¯ll be able to fight in the first ce will be pretty low-level..." He pointed out, and Eisen just scratched the back of his neck. "Well, that¡¯s true... But I¡¯m working toward Ranking the skill up again, so I¡¯ll have something ready for you pretty quickly." Eisen replied, and Sky nodded his head with a smile and then looked at the other notes in his hands. "For now, I¡¯ll have to give these notes to the others. They all seem to say the same thing though, that each of you have to reach Level 300." Sky exined, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile before the young Fey-Kin boy turned around and made his way to the nearest Original within the dungeon. "I guess I¡¯ll need to work on some weapons for myself as well, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself as he moved his fingers through his beard, trying to simply brainstorm a good type of weapon for himself, although it would probably take a while until he found something really good. Either way, for now, he wanted to make some more general supportive items until Evalia finished the decorative parts on Bree¡¯s hammer. He had some more other items he wanted to make in mind, but that had to wait until either the four other new yers beside Stahl, including Alnico, leveled up a bit more, or the old man managed to reach Rank 4 in his crafting skills to be able to manipte the final rank of the items he was making. For example, he was really excited about properly making a nice magic bow for Zyra, some gauntlets for K, or a Samurai-Armor and a Katana for Samurai. But he couldn¡¯t really do that for now, and as such had to wait for a while. And all of the other items he wanted to make required either a special rank or a special material that the old man didn¡¯t currently have ess to, and as such, he now had time to just experiment a bit! Of course, that was mainly just done inbetween teaching his students about different skills! And he had a certain n for what he wanted to make next, and called Sigurd over toward him just for that. "You called?" The Core Guardian asked with a smile, before tilting its head to the side just so slightly, "And is everything alright? You seemed a bit dizzy before." Sigurd pointed out, and Eisen just shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m fine. I was just speaking to myself and was messing around a bit." The old man replied, before continuing on with what Eisen actually wanted to ask this unique creation of his about. "Can you exin to me how you work exactly? I simply followed the blueprint, but I don¡¯t exactly know all that much about why I was doing all that." He exined with a wry smile, and Sigurd nodded its head slowly. "Of course. I am not sure how far yourck of knowledge about me extends, but I could start at the basics. By nature, I am an Ego-Item." It exined quite swiftly, cing its hand to its chest, and Eisen tilted his head to the side confused. "An Ego-Item?" He asked, and Sigurd nodded its head swiftly. "Yes. Ego-Items are creations infused with a soul. To be more specific, I am an Ego-Golem, and my soul is contained within my core. Ego-Golems are some of the easiest-to-create Ego-Items there are, as even regr golems already copy what a living being is supposed to act like. I don¡¯t know the specifics about other Ego-Items, though, I am sorry." Sigurd apologized, but Eisen just shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, you know more about it than I do anyway. So is that why your Status-Screen is a mixture between an Item-Description and a Monster¡¯s Status?" Eisen asked, and Sigurd nodded its head immediately. "Yes, I think so at the very least." Sigurd exined, before scratching its metallic cheek. "There is a Knowledge-Compendium in the form of a Library avable for purchase once Fafnir and I reach Rank 4, there may be some information about Ego-Items there?" The Core Guardian Suggested, but Eisen just chuckled. "That¡¯s fine, we already have two Knowledge-Compendiums in the form of Bree and Sky. I can ask them about that type of item." Eisen exined, and Sigurd nodded its head with smile. "Alright, you do that. Oh, and just so you know, we have managed to extend the tunnels quite a bit so far, up to the point where we could create the second floor. It¡¯s going to take a while to get the required DP, but when that happens, we can increase the size of the space." The Core Guardian exined, and Eisen just smirked. "Oh, is that so? So are the monsters spawning inside there already?" The old man inquired, before Sigurd nodded its head. "Yes, they are. For the most part, there are two or three wolves together, but inrger rooms we have a pack led by therge wolf that Master Brody created." It answered, so Eisen moved his fingers through his beard with a grin. "Could you talk to Jyuuk and Brody about adding one or two other beast-type monsters into the area? Just having wolves sounds a bit monotone, right? And by the way, how does the ¡¯Loot¡¯ system work in Dungeons, I heard you can find some treasure here and there usually." Eisen said, and Sigurd simply smiled back and began to exin. "Yes, it is possible to set treasure to be created within the dungeon, although it will generate by decreasing the DP collection, so I would not advise to do so yet." Sigurd suggested, "Well, it seems as if you don¡¯t have questions for me anymore. I will be on my way now to speak to the two Masters, then." It exined, and disappeared into mist before Eisen could even react, leaving the old man to think about a few different things yet again. And the main thing that he wanted to think about was the creation of Ego Items, and figured that he should make his way over to Sky to ask him about it, hoping that he would be able to give him some information. After all, Ego-Items seemed to be a type of item that were rather rare in the world and might be counted as a legend or myth, so the probability that the young Fey-Kin boy knew about it was rather high as far as Eisen was concerned. And after making his way over toward Sky, who was currently speaking with Xenia about her note, the old man waited patiently for that conversation to be over, and Sky swiftly turned to Eisen while Xenia rushed away, seemingly still feeling unsure about how to react to Eisen¡¯s offer of having her move in with him. He was genuinely concerned for her, and considering that she seemed to have health-issues going beyond her being in a wheelchair, judging from the different medications that Eisen saw at her home, it might be a good idea to not have her be alone all the time, just in case. But either way, Eisen wouldn¡¯t push her, and instead just wanted to speak to Sky, so after a bit of exnation about what he wanted to do exactly, Eisen came to the conclusion of his question. "Basically, would you be able to tell me a bit about Ego-Items?" Chapter 322 - Ordinarily Ecstatic Sky looked at Eisen and then nodded his head, agreeing to tell him about Ego-Items. "So... Basically, you¡¯ll need a special skill for that, to start it off with..." The Fey-Kin pointed out, and Eisen looked at him confused. "Wait, but Sigurd told me that it is also an Ego-Item." The old man pointed out, before Sky shrugged and smiled wrily. "It¡¯s a bitplicated and I don¡¯t know too much about it, so all I can tell you is that it¡¯s only possible to make specific ego-items with the help of a special skill. Maybe it¡¯s because the blueprints are a Legacy item, or some other reason I can¡¯t even think of... Either way, I know that only Grandmaster-Level crafting upations can make Ego-Items." Sky exined, before tilting his head to the side just so slightly. "I think it¡¯s an upation-skill, although a rather early one... The third or fourth one, maybe. Wait, your upation, is it a Master-Level or a Grandmaster-Level?" Sky asked curiously, and Eisen looked at him with a nk expression and then shook his head. "I don¡¯t know. But you know a surprising lot about upations, Sky..." Eisen pointed out, and the young Fey-Kin nodded his head immediately. "Yeah, I¡¯ve been trying to inform myself about upations as much as possible when I didn¡¯t manage to get one..." He replied, but then swiftly continued speaking. "Either way... How did you get your upations?" Sky asked, and Eisen began to smile lightly, feeling slightly nostalgic although it technically hasn¡¯t been as long as it felt. Although, it has been more than two months within the game world, and Eisen spent most of his time in the capsule these days, so it made sense that it felt so long. "Well, a few months ago, I was offered four different ¡¯Master-Level¡¯ upations. At least I think they were that, because they had ¡¯Master¡¯ in them..." "Oh, your ¡¯Omni-Craftsmaster¡¯ upation is abined one... That makes sense, yeah... Well, in that case, it should be a Grandmaster upation. At the very least it¡¯s a high-tier master upation... And you do have two high-ranking upation skills already, right?" Sky asked in response, before Eisen nodded his head with a smile, "I think so, yes." "Then I guess you¡¯ll seeter, if you¡¯re going to work on leveling up anyway. And the Ego-Item creation skill... It¡¯s a...bination Skill? I think that¡¯s what they¡¯re called?" Sky said with a wry smile, before scratching his cheek slightly embarrassedly. "I don¡¯t actually know too much about skills... Ego-Item creation interested me because it¡¯s in a lot of stories, but I don¡¯t know all that much about this stuff beside when ites to the upation system... You¡¯ll have to ask Bree about what kind of skill the Ego-Item creation skill is. And because not many Ego-Items flow through the market, I can only really tell you two theories about how it works... One, you take an already-finished item and ce a soul inside of it, or two, you use the soul itself in the creation of the item." Sky exined, so Eisen listened curiously before sighing loudly in a bit of disappointment. "Well, I would have liked to create an Ego-Weapon for myself to use while leveling up, but it seems like I¡¯ll need to make another weapon to use for all that in the first ce." Eisen said with a lightugh, before looking down at the young fey-kin. "Well, thanks for your help, Sky." The old man told him, before turning around and making his way back toward the workstations to tell his students that he would be off for a little while, and then stepped over toward the dungeon-gate and left, stepping back into the meeting room before trying to find Bree. For some reason, however, Eisen really didn¡¯t find her anywhere. He looked everywhere she might be, her and Dien¡¯s room, all the gathering areas such as the top-deck, the chapel or the ¡¯Cafeteria¡¯, although the only person that he found was the young woman¡¯s partner, the Blood-Chimera Dien as he was currently speaking to a young child, who also seemed to be part monster. The traits really weren¡¯t all that strong within that child¡¯s body, but you could see it here and there, for example in the eyes, the ears, the teeth, and so on. It was never something major, but it seemed as if the child was struggling with some parts about itself. Eisen himself was a half-monster, but as he was born to a dwarven mother and a Giant Father, both races being humanoid, it wasn¡¯t seen anywhere inside of his body. As he was growing up, he did feel different to the pure-blooded children that he had met, because he was so tinypared to them because of growing up in a giant-vige, but- "What... I... What the hell am I doing..? I¡¯m Benjamin, not Eisen..." He whispered to himself, slowly realizing what exactly had been going through his mind right now again, stumbling backward when his mind caught up with his heart, in the same dizzy way as before. And nearly in the same way as earlier when he was messing around with the idea of portable workshops, all the doubt in his mind disappeared immediately, and he was filled with ecstatic emotions. There seemed to be a notification with a weird color in the corner of his eye, slightly purple instead of the regr light blue, but it disappeared before Eisen could really confirm that anything was really there. But then again, he didn¡¯t really care all that much, and just shrugged it away. He didn¡¯t know why he was feeling so good all of a sudden, but he didn¡¯t mind in the slightest! Eisen was getting a little carried away with his ¡¯Roleying¡¯ before, even doing so in his mind, but in the end he managed to catch it himself and just figured he was a little tired and was day-dreaming too much. Either way, for another little while, Eisen then continued waiting for Dien and the Child to finish speaking, and the Blood-Chimera sent the part-monster off to y with his friends, before Dien turned toward the old man with a smile. "Is everything okay? I noticed you were stumbling around a bit? Did you drink anything?" Dien asked with a wry smile, pretty concerned, but Eisen shook his head andughed out loud. "Oh no, don¡¯t worry! Just feeling a little tired, that¡¯s all! But you reminded me that I have to work on some alcohol again, thanks!" He excliamed, so Dien simply nodded his head with an awkward smirk. The Half-Elf never really felt all thatfortable around Eisen, considering that what Dien had been part of doing to Kirisho still had to be in the old man¡¯s mind. Eisen never really acted all that open around him either, and was rather cold to himpared to how he treated the others, and Dien knew what it meant to be cold. After all, he was a Frost-Mage, and literally every other mage that he met with an ice-type element was usually a bit of an unfriendly dick. Dien was trying not to be, but he had to admit that he was rather straightforward as well and had a hard time opening up, so he knew how to recognize such things in other people. But Eisen really just acted like that toward Dien, and was super warm and cozy when talking to nearly anyone else. He did know that Eisen at the very least didn¡¯t hate him, considering that he saw what Eisen did to that Merc-guy that was the former ¡¯Owner¡¯ of Sky and Kiron at one of the towns they stopped at before. Dien was d that he wasn¡¯t hated, but having Eisen act so chipper toward him all of a sudden felt pretty unsettling as well, so he really didn¡¯t know what exactly to say or do, but luckily it seemedl ike Eisen wanted to take that responsibility onto himself. "So, what were you talking about with that kid?" Eisen inquired with a bright smile on his face, and Dien just shrugged and looked over toward the end of the hallway, where the child was speaking to some of its friends now. "That child is a part-monster. He doesn¡¯t have enough Monster-Blood to affect his abilities in any major way, meaning he doesn¡¯t have a monster¡¯s racial skill, but it still affects his appearance, and that¡¯s the worst part to deal with as a part-monster. Seems like his father was a Changeling with some monster blood, but was hiding his monster parts with his Changeling racial-skill. And then, when the child was born, it had those monster parts outwardly and was then practically ¡¯Thrown away¡¯ by the mother and lived in the orphanage in Handor ever since... I was just trying to help him ept his monster parts." Dien exined with a bitter smile, remembering the feeling of being left behind because of reasons like that pretty well, and just as the Half-Elf was trying to figure out how to move the conversation to a better, happier ce, although he didn¡¯t expect to find Eisen¡¯s hand on his shoulder nearly immediately. "Thanks for doing that. It¡¯s good that children like him have someone like you to help them through tough times." Eisen told him with a smile, and now, Dien was absolutely freaked out over the way Eisen was suddenly treating him. "R-Right... Erm, it seemed like you were waiting to talk to me about something?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Yeah, I was! I¡¯m looking for Bree right now, do you know where she is?" The old man inquired, and Dien tilted his head to the side confused. "She¡¯s not in our room?" Dien asked surprised, but Eisen shook his head, so Dien continued asking questions while the old man continued shaking his head. "Is she at the infirmary helping out some of the sea-sick kids again?" "Nope, checked there." "At the training area to boost thebatist¡¯s stats or endurance?" "Not there either." "Is she polishing the small ship-repair-golems you made again?" "I don¡¯t think so, at least she wasn¡¯t in the room where we keep them on standby." "Then did you check the Crow¡¯s Nest? She¡¯s up there a lot." Dien asked, but Eisen shook his head with a smile. "I didn¡¯t, actually. Somehowpletely forgot about that, thanks." The old man replied, already preparing to leave toward the main-deck to see if he could find Bree at the top of the mast, but he was swiftly stopped by Dien. "Erm... Are you sure you¡¯re alright?" The Elf and Blood-Chimera Halfling asked, but Eisen nodded his head without hesitation. "Oh yeah, I¡¯m simply ecstatic right now!" He replied, and Dien¡¯s frown grew deeper at that response. "Is there any reason for that? Did something good happen? Did you make another amazing item?" Dien asked, but Eisen shook his head with a shrug. "Not at all, I just feel pretty good without a single reason! You¡¯re acting like that¡¯s a crime, haha!" The old man replied with augh. "Right... Erm, anyway, when you find Bree and spoke to her about what you wanted, could you tell her toe to me? I¡¯ll probably be in our room..." The young Half-Elf pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head with a grin. "Of course!" He replied and then turned around and made his way through the hallway toward the stairs, in order to look for Bree at the top of the highest mast within the small crow¡¯s nest. It wasn¡¯t necessarily a ce that was needed for anything, considering that they had a lot of ways to look into the distance without climbing up that high, for example through Jyuuk¡¯s Minion Connection or Eisen¡¯s Camera Bots, but it seemed like a good idea to have something like that just in case. "Well, Bree seemed to like it up there for some reason... so good idea that I added this into the ns." Eisen muttered to himself before starting to climb up this mast, on this utterly ordinary day where nothing special happened at all. Chapter 323 - In the Nest "Bree, are you up here?" Eisen asked as he approached the top of thedder leading up to the Crow¡¯s nest, and the young Fey-Kin girl stuck her head covered in bright pink hair over its edge. "Huh? Oh, Eisen! What are you doing up here?" She replied with a smile on her face, and the old man just chuckled as he climbed into the crow¡¯s nest. "I wanted to talk to ask you a little bit about a skill I want to get. You know a lot about these things, so..." The old man exined as he leaned back against the edge, and Bree nodded her head excitedly. "Of course! What skill is it?" Bree asked excitedly, and Eisen answered her happily. "It¡¯s an ¡¯Ego-Item Creation¡¯ skill, Sky told me a bit about it but he wasn¡¯t able to tell me all that much." The old man said, and Bree thought for a little while with her eyes closed before looking into the air next to her, probably looking through her database, and then nodded her head. "I can tell you about it, yep! What exactly do you want to know?" As Bree looked up to the old man in front of her, she held her hands behind her back happily, because it¡¯s been a while since she and Eisen were alone like this, just talking to each other. "Basically anything at all... I really don¡¯t know anything." Eisen replied, so Bree nodded her head and turned her sight back into the center of the air and then spoke up again, "Well, the type of skill it is is just a ¡¯Synergy Skill¡¯, meaning that it will only work together inbination with other skills. The exact version you get depends on your upation, though. If you¡¯re a Weaponssmith, then you¡¯d get a ¡¯Ego-Weapon Creation¡¯ skill. Hmm... Ah, you need to have a Grandmaster-Level upation... And it¡¯s a regr upation skill that you will get when reaching level 200 or 300... It¡¯s a high-tier skill, but because Crafter¡¯s usually don¡¯t have as high a level asbatist do, they get high-tier skills rtively early on..." She exined, while Eisen listened curiously to the exnation, and then asked a question in response. "Alright... That all makes sense... Do you have any idea what the actual crafting is like then?" He asked, and Bree seemed to continue reading through her database entry again before shaking her head. "I don¡¯t know the actual methods, sorry... But I do know there are different stages to it! Like, at the start you can¡¯t make items with a real ¡¯Ego¡¯, or with Ranks or Levels... They¡¯ll just slightly grow their stats in response to being used. It¡¯s easier to build up connectivity with ego-items if you treat them well... That kind of stuff. And onlyter, probably at Rank 3 or 4, you would be able to create ¡¯Thinking¡¯ items that are somewhat like living beings in the form of items!" The Fey-Kin exined, so Eisen nodded his head with a frown. "Then do you know why exactly I could make Sigurd? It said that it was a type of Ego-Item, an Ego-Golem." He exined, so Bree tilted her head to the side just so slightly and then shrugged. "The Blueprints, maybe? I mean, as items, they¡¯re literally indistructable through any means... So they¡¯re most likely Divine-Quality items, right? That might be it... Divine-Quality items have very weird effects, so maybe because you¡¯re the owner of the blueprints, it made it possible for you to create Sigurd as long as you stuck to the instructions." Bree suggested, so Eisen nodded his head slowly as he moved his fingers through his beard. "Maybe so, yes. Well, I guess I can try to y around with processes simr to what¡¯s described in the blueprints to try and figure out how far I can go with the Ego-Golem creation... Thanks for your help!" Eisen replied with a smile on his face. Even if he didn¡¯t get all that much new information, it was still good that he managed to hear a few things that he heard before from others again, just to make sure that the information he had was actually properly consistent with itself. But Eisen had something else he was curious about as well. "And why exactly are you up here so often?" He asked, and Bree simpy replied with a big smile on her face, "Ah, I have my Scanner on at the moment! It let¡¯s me literally save the direct path we¡¯re taking from thest town to the inds, and it¡¯s a good way to get proficiency~! I¡¯m scanning the fish and nts in the water or the few birds in the sky while I¡¯m up here as well, and there¡¯s always different ones without me needing to worry about trying to find anything~! And because a Crow¡¯s Nest is made to make you find things in the distance, it extends my Scanner¡¯s Range a little bit! Also... It¡¯s just pretty." She exined with a grin on her face, before Eisen just smiled at her and nodded his head. "I see, good to know where we could find you, then. I¡¯ve got to get going again now, but be free toe join us in the dungeon in a little bit, the gate is in the meeting room." Eisen exined as he was starting to climb back down thedder, but soon remembered that he was asked to do something else as well. "Oh, and Dien said that he¡¯s waiting in your room and wants to talk to you about something as well." He told her, and Bree nodded her head with a bright smile and started following the old man down the high mast, before the young Fey-Kin made her way to the area with all of the cabins and Eisen stepped back up the stairs to get back to the meeting room, and with that the dungeon, where his ¡¯Students¡¯ seemed to be waiting due to having finished thest task of the Alchemy lesson. And so, Eisen figured he should just take a look at what they made, first checking on Stahl¡¯s potion. And what the old man saw when he looked at the bottle, was a spiral of an Average-Grade Health and an Average-Grade Mana potion, intertwined in each other but notbined. "Hmm, exin to me what you did." Eisen asked, and Stahl began to grin. "Well, a regr potion is already pretty thick, right? At least it¡¯s not as thin as water. But even then, if you pour it into a bottle with another potion and shake it, it will definitelybine and either cause an unwanted effect or explode on you. I figured I should go with rather simple potions to demonstrate my idea, because those shouldn¡¯t do anything horrible when mixed together. So, what I did was to simply use a little bit more Mana Crystal powder while making the potions, just enough to make them so thick that they wouldn¡¯t naturallybine, but not thick enough that ingestion wouldn¡¯t work anymore." Stahl exined, and then held up the small bottle with a smile. "And then, I basically just asked Thul to twist the potion bottle around in a circle while I poured the two different potions slowly into it, and here you have it! Oh, and Thul managed to level up pretty well too!" He eximed with a smile, and Eisen nodded his head slowly. "Hmm, so it gives both effects now?" Eisen asked, before Stahl grinned broadly. "Yup! Well, it gives half the effects of a Health Potion and half the effects of a Mana potion, but that¡¯s just because there¡¯s simply half of each in this. That can be solved by putting it into arger bottle, though." He pointed out, before Eisen smiled in response. "Interesting..." The old man muttered before opening the bottle up and simply downing the content, swishing it around in its mouth a little, and then nodding. "Mhm, it doesn¡¯t even really mix in my mouth now, good. The quality itself is also pretty high, so good job on that. Well done, kiddo." Eisen said with a smile and ced the bottle down on the table again before moving onto Rouge. "So, what did you make?" The old man asked, and Rouge handed the bottle he prepared over to him, before starting to exin. "It¡¯s a vored potion. Especially High-Grade potions or those with very apparent effects taste horrible. So I was trying to figure out if different fruit extracts changed anything about the effects of potions, and when I noticed that they didn¡¯t, I started doing the same with one of the worst-tasting potions. It tastes a little like cherry now. The aftertaste is still bad, but at least the bad taste won¡¯t throw you off initially while fighting." The young apprentice exined, and Eisen took just a little sip of the potion to see the vor, and was pleasantly surprised that it was actually somewhat good, although the horrid aftertaste slowly crept up on his tongue. "Yeah, I know what you mean, it¡¯s pretty bad... But good job on changing the vor a bit. Did you use a special method?" Eisen asked, and Rouge just scratched his cheek while continuing to exin. "Ah, I kind of just de-cored some cherries, smashed them up with the mortar and pestle, split the pulp off the juice, and then dehydrated the juices before mixing them into the other materials." He exined, before sighing out loudly. "It reduces the effect of the potion a little though, and with some potions it might change the effectpletely, so this method isn¡¯t really the best to use... If you want, I can try and work on this idea a bit more." Rouge said, so Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Good idea, do that. Good job." He replied and then moved on over to Parc, who was excitedly waiting for his turn. "What did you make?" Eisen asked him, before Parc crossed his arms and looked at the the different candy-like itemsying on the table in front of him. "Hmm, hardened potions?" Eisen asked confused, but Parc shook his head. "No, they¡¯re candies! Potion candies! Stahl brought back a bunch of super nice candies from thest town we were in, and I got the idea to make these! I didbine it a little with cooking, though... Was that fine?" Parc asked with a wry smile, and Eisen nodded his head. "Mhm, that¡¯s totally fine. I asked you toe up with a potion-based idea, so as long as these mainly are supposed to be used like potions, that¡¯s fine." "Okay! Well, mainly what I did was just make hard-candy with water, sugar and corn syrup, and then mixed the materials for the potions together into that... I didn¡¯t do that twisting-thing though, sorry, I just wanted to see how this would work first." Parc said apologetically, but Eisen shook his head. "That¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry. It¡¯s mostly about the idea right now. So, I¡¯m guessing you¡¯re supposed to just put them into your mouth at the start of battle and keep the effects for a while?" "Mhm! Exactly!" Parc replied, and then pointed at the small red candies with a smile. "These are Health Candies." And so, Eisen grabbed one of them and put it into his mouth, before taking a knife and scratching his arm with it to lose a little HP, before noticing that, after the first few drops, new blood already wasn¡¯ting out of the small wound because it had started to heal. "Good, good... Works like a treat." The old man said with a wink, and then stepped over to the next apprentice, although he turned around to Parc again. "Good job to you too. And now, Koro. You basically already passed this one this one up because you showed me a good new idea in your test to be a Magicraftsman, but I noticed that you were still working on something. What is it?" Eisen asked with a light, suspicious frown, and Koro slowly handed him the small, see-through balloon in his hand with red mist inside. "I just made a thin, softenedyer of mana crystal, filled it with Potion-Mist, and added a small separate part as a ¡¯plug¡¯, and made that plug so that it was pretty havy to be able to throw the balloon properly. When you throw it on the ground, the plug pops out and the mist spreads around." Koro exined in a rtively monotone voice, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile, happy that Koro didn¡¯t do anything extreme this time around. "Alright, well done. This is rtively simple, but probably also quite useful." The old man said with a smile and then swiftly stepped over to the ¡¯Apprentice¡¯ who was the only one that was told not toe up with their own idea just yet, the Kobold. And after checking through the different potions that Eisen had the Kobold make, he nodded with satisfaction, ready to move onto the next skill. Chapter 324 - Combat Golems For the next parts of the lessons, the Masonry lessons, Eisen had the five students of his, including thest Kobold, work together with Sigurd inside of the Maze-tunnel area, where they would end up simply cing the bricks into the starting area of the tunnels to even get the skill in the first ce. After all, they hadn¡¯t done any Masonry yet, so this was a good chance to at least show them a little bit of what to do. And while they were doing all that, Eisen was doing something else. He was currently trying toe up with a good n for his own ¡¯Weapon¡¯. Just a little while ago, Eisen realized something important. He was a craftsman, so he should fight in a way that a craftsman would and should. Of course, he would still make himself a regr de, but the majority of the fighting would not be done by himself. Instead, Eisen would create some Golems to do that for him. But first things first, he wanted to experiment with cing souls in the center of Golem Cores. Eisen repeated the same process as before when he created a soul to use for Sigurd, creating a nk Rank 0 soul enhanced to the highest possible peak, before cing it into the center of a golem core which didn¡¯t have the soul crystal added to it, and then took a look at the item. Or rather, he wanted to. [Failed Creation] [You have failed to create an Ego-Golem Core] With a sigh, Eisen then began to scratch the back of his neck confused. It was rather confusing that he was unable to even make the golem core, considering that he didn¡¯t do anything differentpared to when he was trying to make it for Sigurd. Although, considering that ¡¯Intention¡¯ was a pretty big deal within the game, Eisen figured that he really had to be making this for a Core Guardian in order to be able to create any type of Ego-Golem Core. "Dammit..." He muttered to himself before releasing the ¡¯Peaked¡¯ soul back into a different container made up of Soul Stone Crystals, and then chose to just start working on the Golem¡¯s Body now. And so, Eisen sat down together with Evalia, trying toe up with a good idea for a design, considering that she seemed to be rather interested in this, and even had a few sketches ready beforehand. The one that the old man liked the most was the one where it was basically just apletely Armor-d figure. That was a good idea, in Eisen¡¯s opinion, for multiple reasons. For one, he would be able to create some full metal armors again, which was a good idea before working on the armor he wanted to make for Brody¡¯s Companion, and it was also a good base to work on enchantments with, because he would be able to ce a lot of enchantments on the individual pieces that would be ced together to make up the figure as a whole. The concept that Eisen wanted to expand on was a Mannequin-like construction process, because that seemed to be something that Stahl did before as well, although he hadn¡¯t seen that Golem around yet for some reason. Eisen would create the different ¡¯Limbs¡¯ and then attach them to each other individually. That way, it would hopefully be easier to repair or upgrade the golemter, because it meant to simply rece the pieces with other ones. He would even be able to change the different pieces out depending on his needs. But, Eisen had toe up with a good idea of how to properly enhance the Golem¡¯s body. He was thinking about creating an Automaton with gears again, but that didn¡¯t seem to be the best choice when it came to a Combat-Golem, considering that Gears easily misced themselves when an object was faced with a lot of sudden, brute force, which was what happened a lot during a fight. But even then, a simple golem that was made out of solid metal somehow seemed wrong in his opinion. It seemed like a waste, somehow. So, while Evalia was working on the design for a golem, Eisen chose to design the functionality of the area directly surrounding the golem core, as well as the golem core itself. For now, Eisen would create a spherical golem core instead of one with a special shape, just because it didn¡¯t actually seem to add all that much necessarily in the type of body he would be giving the golem. Of course he would be adding something like Soul Generators for extra mana, if needed, as well as mana batteries to store excess mana. Then, Eisen figured it might be a good idea to add a little bit of a storage module just so that the Golem would be able to keep items close by that it might need a lot of the time. Other than that, Eisen wanted to add a few enchantments to the whole thing to make sure that the body was properly being controlled, at which point he managed to reach the conclusion of how he would enhance the actual body. He would simply enchant the spherical metal joints to make sure the body was kept together perfectly, like a piece of metal to a giant ma. Other than that, the limbs themselves would be enchanted heavily as well to make sure the Golem had proper structure and agility in its arsenal, and just like that, Eisen would probably be able to make sure that the body would be able to move around properly instead of hanging down like most other golem bodies seemed to do when they weren¡¯t specifically told to ¡¯Stand upright¡¯ or something like that. And just when Eisen thought that the concept he came up with was rather interesting, he was given the design by Evalia, or rather, the two designs, because she hade up with three ¡¯Characters¡¯ of sorts. They all seemed to have the same bodily structure made up of metallic, armor-like parts, just with different focuses. One of them, a ratherrge golem, slightlyrger than Eisen himself, which Evalia temprorarily dubbed ¡¯Tank¡¯ had a structure like it was wearing full te armor, and Evalia even designed equipment for it, a Large sword just a slight bit smaller than the one that Eisen made for Kiron, as well as a tower shieldrge enough to cover the Golem¡¯s body up to its shoulders when ced steadily onto the ground. The second Golem was temporarily dubbed ¡¯Damage Dealer¡¯, with an average build. It seemed to be supposed to be rather fast and agile, and while it was also wearing armor, it had something like a cloak over its head and some bags by its hip, making it seem rather thief-like. Judging from its equipment that Evalia drew for it, the Golem would be able to switch between Close-Combat, with the help of a shortsword, and Mid-Rangebat using a small crossbow set into its arm. And as for the third golem, it seemed to be a mage-type. When Eisen read that the third one was dubbed ¡¯Support¡¯ and saw that it was supposed to be a mage, he thought that it would be wearing something like an actual cloth-robe, but it seemed like that it really didn¡¯t. It was actually wearing something like metallic robes, at least that¡¯s what they looked like. In their make-up, the robes seemed to be somewhatyered and scale-like in how they worked, although they were just rings of metal stuck on top of each other, although there were apparently still a few cloth parts spread around the body. But in the end, Eisen really liked these three designs a lot. They were a pretty good base for when Eisen would be able to figure out how to create Ego-Golems as well, or rather, when he managed to get that skill, which would hopefully wouldn¡¯t be too far away. Either way, once Eisen was given these designs be Evalia, he could properly start working on figuring out their functionality. The ¡¯Tank¡¯ would get a storage module inside of its back, simply because it was the physicallyrgest and it would be a waste to simply create a big block of Steel. Other than that, it would of course get the Soul Generators and Mana Batteries, as well as a setup to be infused with the earth element once Eisen managed to get his hands on a way to generate it. He could simply use his own element to support the Tank¡¯s body, but that would probably simply make it useless forbat, just because Eisen¡¯s element did barely any direct damage. Because of that, he would rather want to wait for a better time. The ¡¯Damage Dealer¡¯ would get a small ¡¯Latch¡¯ set into its arms so that it would be able to simply ce the crossbow onto its body for better bnce. Then it would of course also get the same mana setup as the Tank, just in a way to make way for the ¡¯Wind¡¯ or ¡¯Fire¡¯ elements, maybe even both. After all, the wind element was said to be the quickest element, while the fire element the one with the highest amount of direct damage, so they were both good choices of elements to give to a ¡¯Damage Dealer¡¯. Other than that, it would get built-intches in the side of its hip to attach a few different bags, as well as a sheath and a quiver for bolts meant for the crossbow. It might also be a good idea to somehow give it an enchantment on the cloth hood so that it would be able to hide itself easily, simr to the enchantments that Eisen ced on Evalia¡¯s cloak, just specialized forbat. And atst, the ¡¯Supporter¡¯ would get a higher-tier soul generator, or rather just more of them, as well as more mana batteries. For this one, Eisen also really needed to get his enchanting skill to rank 4, because he wanted to make use of Bree¡¯s element, which was a direct support element that was able to make her cast numerous supportive spells. Eisen¡¯s enchanting skill was about 30 levels away from ranking up again, so that meant that he would need toe up with some kind of idea to get his enchanting skill as high as possible as quickly as he could, because they would reach the inds rtively soon, and he wouldn¡¯t have all that much time to work on the Golems once they got there. "Alright, then let¡¯s get started, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself with a grin on his face, more than just happy to start on another big project now, although before then, he had to finish his day of work with his students. He would have enough timete at night to start on everything, and because he only seemed to need about four or five hours of sleep within the game to perfectly get rid of any of his exhaustion, he would be fine tomorrow to continue teaching his students about something else. He might actually be able to squeeze three lessons in in a single day because he didn¡¯t need to teach any of the Kobolds anymore now, although he would just have to see about what to do with the lessons tomorrow then. For now, Eisen simply stepped down the tunnel of the brick maze and began to take a look at what everyone was doing. This was a rather straightforward task, because Eisen really just told them to use the bricks that Sigurd was creating by just making certain areas of the stone walls disappear to create the stone-brick wall. But then, Eisen got a rather interesting idea as he was watching his students stack the bricks on top of each other. And idea which would also at the same time help him get proficiency in Enchanting, while helping to create this maze. "Sigurd, you mentioned that small ¡¯Safe Area¡¯ at the end of each Floor before, right?" Eisen asked with a broad grin, and the Core Guardian immediately appeared next to the old man. "The one with the Dungeon Teleporter to get Adventurers back to the beginning?" "Exactly, that one. How about we don¡¯t just make this ¡¯Safe Area¡¯ a ce to return to the start, but a ce to recover from the fights of the floor they were on?" He asked with a grin as he grabbed one of the stone bricksying in front of him, and Sigurd simply tilted its head to the side confused. Chapter 325 - Mana-String Later that day, Eisen chose to make a slight change to his ns. Instead of starting to work on the Golems, he would start working on his enchanting skill in a certain way. The lessons for the day were over, so now Eisen was at the end of the first floor, where the stairs to the second floor wouldter be together with the ¡¯Safe Area¡¯. And Eisen was now standing inside of that ¡¯Safe Area¡¯ with Sigurd and the five Kobolds that Eisen taught, although Eisen really just cared for one of them at the moment. The Masonry Kobold. Yesterday during the lessons, it had changed considerably as well, and had be a simr height to the cksmith Kobold. It¡¯s fur was a slight red-brown, simr to regr bricks, and its whole body had bulked up although its arms and legs were still able to move quite swiftly with smooth motions. "So, Sigurd." Eisen then said after he properly took a look at that Kobold again, and the Core Guardian nodded its head with a smile. "Yes?" It asked, and Eisen looked at the screen floating in front of him. "In the options, it says we can now spawn ¡¯Masonry Kobold¡¯s. But you said we can only have five Kobolds at once without them regrly spawning in this area. If possible, it would be great if we could have about five Masonry Kobolds here at once, is there any way?" Eisen inquired, and Sigurd nodded its head immediately before waving its hand, making a small door appear. It was simr to the door that appeared usually leading to the Core Room, just slightly smaller, and the feeling it gave off was pretty different as well. And after the door opened, Sigurd looked at the Kobolds with a smile. "The four of you without the Masonry skill, get inside there until we call you out again." It told them, and slowly the Kobolds did as said and stepped through the gate, before the door closed shut and the whole thing disappeared again. "That¡¯s basically a ¡¯Storage Room¡¯ for our monsters. When they¡¯re inside of there, they¡¯re in a whole different space, so we can spawn four more Masonry Kobolds. They won¡¯t be just as proficient as the one we have here, because this one actually learned to reach Rank 1 and they were created with it. That also means that they won¡¯t ever reach its natural proficiency, though." Sigurd pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head with a grin. "That¡¯s fine, they just need toy the bricks I gave them." Eisen answered, and Sigurd nodded its head before four more red-brown Kobolds appeared, although they looked slightly different to the one that Eisen had ¡¯created¡¯. The color of their fur wasn¡¯t as prominent, maybe slightly ¡¯washed out¡¯pared to the original Masonry Kobold, and they were slightly shorter as well. "Hmm, that makes it easy. You four, this guy here¡¯s your ¡¯Leader¡¯. So listen to him." Eisen eximed as he pat the back of the original Masonry Kobold, before exining what exactly they had to do. "Big guy, you¡¯re coordinating everything, while these four will each take a wall to work on. When I hand you a brick, you give that to the right Kobold, and hand me a new one, got it? Take this as a bit of practice as well." Eisen exined with a wink before sitting down in the center of the square room and a small pile of stone bricks behind him before taking out his carving needle. "You all ready?" Eisen asked with a smile, and the ¡¯Leader¡¯ Masonry Kobold nodded excitedly before handing the old man the first brick, which he swiftly began to carve into. And what he was carving into this was quite simple as well. Five of the brick¡¯s sides were covered in enchantments that would cause all kinds of positive effects like elerating HP, MP and Stamina regeneration. And then the empty side of the brick was the one that would be on the ¡¯inside¡¯ of the room, so that nobody would be able to tell this ce apart from other rooms at least visually. Considering that the bricks were of magical nature due to being created by the Dungeon-System, that made them a great base for such enchantments, and because Sigurd could perfectly controll this space, and because it had an immense amount of mana in its arsenal, the enchantments could be active constantly while someone was inside of the room. And most importantly, due to the sheer amount of bricks that would be needed to create the walls, the floor, and the ceiling for a five by five by three meter room, this was the perfect way to gain proficiency in enchanting. --- Another few hourster, Eisen¡¯s part of the task was done. He finished enchanting all of the bricks that could ever be needed within this room, as well as an excess of about 5% just in case something went wrong, and now just needed the Kobolds to finish everything up. "I have to say, this was the perfect way to practice. The skill is at level 98 now! I¡¯ll surely be able to Rank it up quite soon then." The old man said with a light whistle before checking the time floating in the corner of his sight. "Hmm, I guess I can get started on their bodies already..." He muttered quietly and chose to exit the dungeon and make his way over toward his workshop. Eisen could have just stayed in the dungeon and worked there, but like this, Fafnir could wake up as nobody was inside of the dungeon, besides those entities belonging directly to it, and on top of that he had all of the materials he might need near his workshop, so he could just go and grab whatever he needed whenever he needed it. And what Eisen figured to start with first and foremost were the hands, because they included some of the smallest pieces while having a lot of joints, so Eisen could try and figure out how to enchant those joints in the best way. So, with a smile on his face and his monsters following behind him, Eisen summoned his staff and grabbed some steel before creating a forge and anvil with his element, just before he heard a knock at the door. "Eisen? You in here?" Jyuuk asked as he stepped into the room, carrying a small wooden crate, and the old man nodded his head and swiftly created a small table to ce that box down on. "Yeah, you need me for anything?" He asked, but Jyuuk juts shook his head with a smile. "I don¡¯t particrly need you to do anything, I just wanted to give you something. Xenia and I sat down together and started working on an item for you, although just some rough parts of it. We didn¡¯t know what exactly you wanted to make with it, or how you wanted the machine to look like, so... Here are the parts?" Jyuuk said with a wry smile as he uncovered the crate, revealing a few parts that the old man recognized pretty well, as well as a bunch of crystal structures surrounding them. "Hmm, the Silk nds and Spinnerets from the Mother of Spiders?" Eisen asked surprised and Jyuuk nodded his head with a grin. "Mhm! We figured out how to make use of them. So, there are the spinnerets meant to make thread for webmaking, one being sticky the other being normal." Jyuuk exined before grabbing two of the spinnerets and setting them down on the table, before turning them around and showing Eisen aplex enchantment on each of them. "So, this enchantment here lets you define the output. Don¡¯t know how it works, but you can just pour your mana into it and then think about what you want it to be. For the sticky thread you can choose how sticky it is as well, like you can also actually make it to be a normal thread, but in general you can choose just how thick it is or how strong it is. There are two of each of these here. Then there are two spinnerets that let you define a crystal or gem material to turn into thread, two spinnerets to do the same with non-crystal materials, two spinnerets that will turn mana and elemental mana into thread, and atst two spinnerets that... well, we couldn¡¯t figure out what they do yet, actually... But maybe you can!" Jyuuk eximed with a smile after grabbing each of the spinnerets out of the box one after another, and Eisen slowly nodded his head with a grin on his face. "Interesting... But wait, did you say non-crystal materials?" Eisen asked surprised, and Jyuuk nodded his head with a smile. "Mhm! Wait, let me show you... Erm, can I use this chunk of steel?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen just slowly nodded his head before the beastperson grabbed the small steel nugget that wasying on the table before holding it against the enchantment at the back of the small box that they had constructed around the spinnerets. And before Eisen knew it, Jyuuk was pulling steel-thread out of the tip of the spinneret! Curiously, Eisen took the metallic thread into his hands and twisted it around his fingers, pulling on it to see what it was like, before grinning broadly. "This isn¡¯t just thin steel... This is both thread and steel... This is great!" Eisen eximed with a smile on his face as he looked at the small item in Jyuuk¡¯s hands, "How does it work, even?" He asked, and Jyuuk just scratched the back of his neck with a smile and began to exin. "Each of these boxes has a bit of the Silk-nds inside of them directly connected to the Spinnerets. Each Silk nd has actually been specialized toward the task that the specific spinneret has as well. Anyway, the enchantment basically reces the process of taking the material apart and feeds it to the silk nd, which turns it into a special version of the material throught the magical attributes set inside of it, and then hands the special version of the material-silk to the spinneret, which gives it its form. We kind of got the idea from the Spinning-Wheel you have to make magic string." Jyuuk pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head with augh. "I see! Well, thank you for this! This should actuallye in pretty handy!" Eisen exined, and then next grabbed one of the boxes with the spinneret that could turn mana into thread. "So... this one here can make mana-string?" He asked curiously, and Jyuuk nodded his head with a wry smile. "Yeah, but it can¡¯t be used just when made of pure mana... I mean, you can make it, but the string will just phase through everything. And it just barely registers as your own mana... Xenia managed to slightly make it shake, but that¡¯s it." The Beastperson pointed out, but Eisen just shook his head. "Oh no, if it¡¯s like I think it is, then this is actually really amazing..." Eisen muttered to himself before pouring his mana into the input-enchantment, and on the other side of the small box a bit of floating string appeared out of basically nowhere. And then, Eisen ced his finger to his left earring and pulled out a small needle, before grabbing the end of the thread and pulling it through the hole in the needle, and Jyuuk looked at him surprised. "Wait, you can move it?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head with a grin. "Mhm, Mana-String is like that, you just need to infuse your mana into your finger-tips and then slightly pull it along. It¡¯s a pain in the ass to use, but when you can manage to, it¡¯s actually one of the best materials I could ask for at the moment." Eisen exined with a smile before he removed his fingers from the string and then ced them against the needle instead, before pulling them away from there as well, revealing a smallpletely white needle made of mana. And after cing the needle back into his left earring, Eisen grabbed two small tes of steel,pletely ignoring the fact that Jyuuk was trying to ask him something. With a few swift motions apanied by a broad grin, Eisen moved the mana-needle with the mana-string through the steel as if sewing two pieces of cloth together, and when he was done, the needle disappeared and he snapped the end of the string apart by just pulling at it. Smiling broadly, Eisen then held the two tes of steel forward, trying to pull them apart in front of Jyuuk. "See? With Mana-String, you can basically sew anything together. I used to know this one kid, he was an apprentice at a Tailor back in the day and kept trying to use magic to somehow help his work. Then he got an element to make mana-string, and broke off his apprenticeship at the tailor to be an adventurer. The next time I saw him, he sewed the bodies of two High-Ogres together and-" Eisen exined with a nostalgic expression on his face, but before he could finish his story, Jyuuk grasped his arm, and at the same moment, Eisen was ovee with dizziness as he could feel his heart beat throughout his whole body. His fingers, his feet, even his nose felt so much more sensitive for some reason. It was good that this extended toward his ears as well, so he could hear Jyuuk¡¯s whispered-questions as loud as if he yelled it in his ear, meaning he had no chance to overhear it. "What are you talking about? How do you know all that?" Chapter 326 - Keeping It Together For a few moments, Eisen and Jyuuk stared at each other confused, before the Beastperson looked at the old man with a wry smile. "Who exactly were you talking about just now?" He asked, and just then, his concerned expression nearly immediately changed to a light smile. "It was probably just you ying around a little with your backstory, right? You do like to do that a lot." Jyuuk pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head with a chuckle. "I guess I¡¯m getting carried away a lottely, this happened more than just once today." The old manughed, before Jyuuk nodded his head and looked at the two metal tes that the old man was still holding. "But either way, I wasn¡¯t aware that that was how you use mana string! I¡¯ll let Xenia know about it, so she mighte by to take a look at it tomorrow." Jyuuk said with a smile and then slowly turned around, leaving the room as if he was skipping along his path. And then, Eisen looked at the spinnerets with a smile, before cing them over to the side to just use them for some other stuffter. For now, he had to get started with making the parts for the first Golem¡¯s hand. He ripped at the two pieces of steel just to see how stable it was, and noticed that it was actually rather hard to split them up again. But then, the old man remembered the Maroon he had in one of the boxes in the corner, which he swiftly grabbed and ran over one of the steel tes, nearly immediately absorbing the mana that made up the mana-string, causing the lower one of the two small pieces of steel to drop down onto the table in front of Eisen, who just nodded his head with a smirk. "Alright, that¡¯s a thing to remember, then." He said with a light whistle before throwing the two pieces of steel into the forge to turn them into the first parts for the first steel-finger. When the small chunks of steel started glowing a bright yellow, Eisen grabbed them back out of the fire and grabbed his hammer from next to him. For a moment he wanted to take the one from his earring, but considering that Eisen was working on a pretty small part while in his regr size, that would be a bit overkill and really not a good idea in the slightest. And soon enough, using his Mythril hammer, Eisen managed to shape the different pieces of steel into the shapes they were meant to be, adding more and more into the forge in order to heat up the materials that he needed. After a little while, the old man had all the different piecesying in front of him. There were of course the parts for the fingers together with their respective joints, but there was also the main centerpiece for the palm and back of the hand together with some other parts that were meant to be added in different ces around that centerpiece to allow for proper, smooth movement of the hand. Eisen was actually rather impressed, as this was part of Evalia¡¯s designs! Through practicing animation and by watching people she would draw sometimes that often, she was rather familiar with that type of intricate movement, and wanted to make sure that the Golems¡¯ hands didn¡¯t end up too stiff to do anything. And Eisen appreciated that a lot! He didn¡¯t make this kind of item that often, at least he didn¡¯t do so in the past hundred years or so as far as he could remember, and- "Stop... that..." The old man muttered to himself as he grasped the worktable in front of him dizzily, although that swiftly disappeared again and turned into ecstacy, letting Eisen continue on as normal. Of course, this didn¡¯t end up just passing by Eisen¡¯s monsters either. "Eisen... Caria, Melly and Sal are worried about you... Are you okay?" Caria asked with a frown, before Eisen turned down toward the young Myconid and nodded his head. "Of course I¡¯m okay, don¡¯t worry sweetheart. I¡¯m just a bit too old for my own good, so this kind of thing happens sometimes." Eisen expained and winked at her as he ced his hand onto the tip of her cap, but Caria just slowly nodded and sat back down on the bench, a little bit away from the hot fire of the forge, and kept ying with Melissa and Sal, although she seemed to be less excitedpared to before, and kept turning her head to look at Eisen all the time. And while that was happening behind the old man, Eisen himself just looked back at the parts in front of him, happily grabbing the first steel-marble that would act as a joint between the tip of the index finger and its center-piece, before intricately concentrating on the item in front of him, because that was necessary for this kind of small item, considering that Eisen then started to use transmutation to create a 3D enchantment in the center of the small metal marble, pushing the excess-materials out of it instead of keeping them inside. It took a lot longer than Eisen would have liked it to, but soon enough he managed toplete the ¡¯Maism¡¯ enchantment that he wanted to create for the exact parts that the metal-marble would connect to, so that it wouldn¡¯t stick to other pieces at all. And then,with a small enchanting needle, Eisen began to carve onto the outside of the marble to finish it off, before pouring his mana inside of it to initially activate it for this first test. Just a few momentster, two thirds of the index finger of the first golem¡¯s right hand were connected to each other, but soon fell apart again as the enchantment wasn¡¯t constantly supplied with the mana it needed to function. Eisen was aware that his Golemancy itself would take care of this issue already, just keeping the body roughly together properly all the time even if the enchantments weren¡¯t active, but the old man had another n for all of this, although he could only really execute it when he finished the whole hand. And so, Eisen continued with his n for another little while, until he finished thest joint of the whole hand and received a notification in response. [Enchanting reached Level 100 in Rank 3, upgrading to Rank 4] [You can now use Ability-Enchanting with other People¡¯s Abilities] [Due to Ranking-up your Enchanting Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] [Notice: All Rank 4 crafting skills allow you to control the rank of the item you create using that Skill] With a bright smile on his face, Eisen then nodded his head excitedly, happy to be able to finally create so many more interesting items for everyone now, before the old man turned back toward the items on the table in front of him, because he would explore the possibilities of these two new abilities tomorrow. For now, he wanted to try out how his idea would work out. First, Eisen activated all of the enchantments inside of the joints at the same time, and before he knew it, the whole metal hand snapped together like it was supposed to, although it was still simply hanging low instead of being ¡¯Stiff¡¯ like Eisen would have liked it to be. And for that, Eisen grabbed one of the Mana-String Spinnerets and poured his mana inside of the enchantment to create a bit of Mana-String, and then tried to pull on it. It was a bit hard for him to repeat the same thing he did before for some reason, so maybe that was just beginner¡¯s luck. Either way, after a bit of fiddling around with it, Eisen managed to do everything as he did before, even replicating the copy of the needle again. And when Eisen was then ready to work with everything, he swiftly ran the mana-needle into the part of the hand where the arm wouldter be ¡¯attached¡¯ and then began to run the string through the palm and toward the tip of the index finger, before snapping the string apart again at the tip of the first finger. It was for some reason rtively easy to do this like this, but when it was actually attached to some of the objects, it really wasn¡¯t. It was truly fascinating to Eisen! Either way, the old man repeated this whole thing again and again for the same finger, and soon enough, while the four others were still hanging low, the index finger had a bit of ¡¯Stiffness¡¯ to it like a real finger would. After all, even if you let go of every control over your hand for a moment and just let it hang, your fingers wouldn¡¯t twist in unnatural ways and would stay rtively ¡¯straight¡¯ against the palm. Happy that the old man was able to replicate this rather easily with the help of the Mana-String, he repeated this again and again for the other fingers, until the whole hand was finished and acting like an actual hand would. And to his luck, the mana-string didn¡¯t seem to activate the enchantments either, which the old man was afraid of for a moment. After all, he didn¡¯t want the mana-string to be absorbed immediately, that would be counter-productive after all. Eisen continued ying around with the hand a little bit, trying to see how far the fingers could really be moved, and was happy to see that it was quite simr to a human hand¡¯s movements, although a really dexterous one. For example, the fingers could move about a tenth to a third, depending on where exactly on the finger it was, further than normal into any direction before there was the type of resistance that would usually make you think ¡¯If I continue, I¡¯ll break the finger¡¯. It still looked rather weird to see all the fingers pulled upward like that, but it was within reason. And like this, Eisen managed to even fix one of the biggest worries he had with all of this. Like this, he would be able to create something simr to the ¡¯Muscles¡¯ that he ced onto his Automata¡¯s bodies, without in any way influencing the design or structure of the Golems¡¯ bodies toward the negative. "Perfect. First part is done then, I guess." Eisen said with a smile on his face before cing the metallic hand, which was designed to look somewhat like an armor¡¯s gauntlet, to the side and unsummoning the workstations that he made with his element, and then picked his monsters up with a smile. "Let¡¯s go to sleep for now." Eisen said as he smiled at the three of them and made his way up toward the meeting room, where Sigurd and a sleeping Fafnir seemed to already be waiting for him. "So, how did the ¡¯Safe Area¡¯ end up?" Eisen asked the Dungeon Core Guardin, who simply smiled brightly and crossed its arms happily. "It¡¯s amazing! It¡¯s really, really amazing!" Sigurd eximed with a smug nod, obviously proud to be the guardian of its dungeon, "After you left and the Kobolds finished up the room, the option to make a ¡¯Recovery Room¡¯ appeared in the dungeon Menu! So even the system recognizes it to be a good idea~!" It exined happily, and Eisen nodded his head with a grin. "Good to know, yeah. Well, I¡¯d hope to be able to extend on it a little more at some point. Not on the first floor, but depending on how far we go, maybe add a whole small area with an Inn for people to sleep or eat in for a night, depending on how deep the dungeon goes. It can only help us, right?" He suggested, and Sigurd immediately nodded. "That¡¯s a great idea!" It eximed, before Eisen chuckled and sat down on his chair with his size increased, before all of his monsters, including Fafnir and Sigurd, sat down on hisp, and the old man slowly dozed off into sleep. And as he had expected, within his dream, he soon found the Giant Version of him waiting, although something was different now. Up until now, whenever Eisen was dreaming, he couldn¡¯t hear anything at all, as if he had gone deaf. But now, he heard everything that was going on. The fire cracking on the other side of the room, the wind outside the building they were in, and most importantly, the breath of the Giant Version of him apanied by a chuckling sound. Chapter 327 - Remember Eisen stared up at the Giant version of himself as it was sitting in front of him, just grinning down at him while showing his white teeth. And then, all of a sudden, Eisen¡¯s whole body shook as the Giant spoke. "Seems like you have started to remember me, haven¡¯t you?" The Giant asked while keeping his grin up the whole time, and Eisen stepped forward with a deep frown. "What are you?" He asked in a loud voice, but the Giant just chuckled in response. "Should have expected you to ask that. It is quite simple. I am you. Or rather, I was you, and you will be me." Confused, Eisen listened to the Giant¡¯s words, before thetter simply crossed his arms, while the former tried to figure out what it was talking about. "What do you mean? What¡¯s going on here?" Eisen asked, but the Giant¡¯s eyes simply slowly moved to the side with a deep sigh. "I mean exactly what I say, and it should be rather obvious what¡¯s going on. You¡¯re remembering who you used to be, but ¡¯he¡¯ is fighting against us doing so." He exined, but Eisen just stared back up at the Giant¡¯s eyes, before the Giant sighed loudly. "I can¡¯t show you yet, you are still to far away for that. I don¡¯t know how to exin it, but-" The Giant began, but then immediately stopped speaking, now looking at Eisen with a deep frown. "There isn¡¯t much time left. I need you to remember one thing. Out of this conversation, I need you to take a single word with you." Leaning forward, the Giant seemed to prepare to say whatever word it was that was so important. "Grardour." That one word reverberated throughout Eisen¡¯s mind, as if it engraved itself into his brain, before the old man suddenly found himself back inside of the meeting room, with the strongest bacsh so far. It was as if Eisen¡¯s whole body was limp for a few moments, each second feeling like a thousand years just passed, during which Eisen could only think of that one word which the Giant version of himself had told him while his sight span around itself in numerous ways at once, before Eisen returned back to normal as if someone mmed a full-speed car into a wall. It took a few moments for Eisen to collect himself, but soon enough, he felt normal as if nothing happened. And in his mind, nothing did happen. "Hmm, I didn¡¯t have that weird dream again, but that still felt super weird just now..." Eisen muttered to himself as he slowly stood up while letting his monsters off of him and then exited through the door before turning toward Sigurd. "Could you make your way into the dungeon again and let the five masonry kobolds know to continue working on the maze? I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be able to do that all yourself at this point, but it might save us a little bit of DP in the long run, right?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Sigurd nodded its head with a simr expression. "Yes, will do." Sigurd replied before disappearing into a light mist as she ¡¯Teleported¡¯ herself into Fafnir¡¯s body into the space of the Dungeon, while Eisen made his way toward his workshop, grabbing not only the hand he already constructed there, but also the different Spinnerets as well as a lot of steel, as much as he may need. And thetter of those things were done rather simply, as Eisen just told Fafnir to open the gate inside of the storage area, and then Eisen brought therge amount of steel that they had into the area where he and his students would be workingter today, together with the materials that were needed for today¡¯s lessons, which were made up of Leatherworking and Enchanting, and maybe ssblowing if there was the time. As for what Eisen would be doing all day, that should be rather obvious. For one, he would call everyone that he wanted to make special items for into the dungeons and create material-infusion parts from their elements. But as it would take a good amount of time for those materials to be done, Eisen would spend the rest of the time working on the three golems, starting with the ¡¯Tank¡¯ golem, who Eisen already created the hand for. After Eisen ced all the needed materials into the dungeon, he brought Fafnir back up into the Meeting Room and had him create the gate there instead, before Eisen stepped back into the dungeon and grabbed his staff from his Soul Storage, swiftly creating the workstations that would be needed for Leatherworking, before setting them up properly to hop right into the lessons once the others came. And while Eisen was waiting, he figured he could get started on the next parts already, which he then quite swiftly just did, first throwing the steel for the second hand into the forge. In the same manner as yesterday, Eisen then created the different parts for the hand, all in a shape that made it seem as if they were from a gauntlet. And then, Eisen created therger parts. The arms, the legs, the feet, and then the parts for the chest, although the old man wanted to save the head forter, simply because it also had a lot of smaller parts as well as very intricate mana-crystal structures. Of course, Eisen also made all of the joints as well as some smaller ¡¯Covers¡¯ that would be added to help with the ¡¯Armor¡¯ feel of the Golem¡¯s body, and then, Eisen sat down with the torso in front of him. As was nned, the torso was incrediblyrge, but also made in a way to make sure the Golem would be able to move properly by using multiple pieces to make up the whole upper body. The first thing that Eisen did was to work on the rather simple ¡¯Storage Module¡¯ inside of this Golem¡¯s back, which was finished quickly by just adding a small hatch in front of the open space that the old man added while making the piece. And after finishing that storage module in the lower back, Eisen worked on what needed to be ced into the chest of the Golem. First, he ced the Mana-Batteries inside and hooked them up to the soul batteries that came afterward, and then even already ced the Earth-Mana-Batteries into the chest as well for when Eisen managed to get his hand on a way to create this element. Then, Eisen closed the chest down again from the back, and then started to work on the ce where the Golem Core would be cedter. It seemed to be a rather risky move to ce it into the center of the chest, but Eisen didn¡¯t really care. That was part of Evalia¡¯s design, and considering the way that it would look, Eisen had to qualms about doing so. And it wasn¡¯t like the Golem Core wouldn¡¯t be protecited at all, considering that Eisen would ce some other pieces around it to make sure it couldn¡¯t be broken that easily, so there really wasn¡¯t anything major to worry about anyway. "Alright... Now, let¡¯s get to the enchanting, shall we?" Eisen said with a grin on his face, grabbing the first steel-marble belonging to the left hand, starting to enchant its inside with the help of transmutation. --- About an hourter, Eisen was in the middle of teaching his students a bit more about leatherworking, while at the same time transmuting the 3D enchantment into the center of the right elbow¡¯s joint, before Stahl just couldn¡¯t take it anymore. "Holy mother of- Grandpa, what the hell are you doing with those things all the time?" He asked loudly, feeling a little annoyed and unable to pay proper attention while watching his grandfather y around with those metal balls the whole time, and Eisen looked at Stahl rather surprised. "Oh? I¡¯m enchanting..." Eisen exined, and Stahl sighed loudly in response. "What do you mean, enchanting is to carve something into a surface, right? But what are you doing with those balls all the time, it makes me really damn curious!" He eximed, and Eisen replied with a light chuckle, before shaking his hand and grabbing the right hand of the Tank Golem from behind him, before throwing it to his grandson. Eisen noticed that not only he, but his three apprentices were feeling quite curious and somehow even nervous at not know what the old man was doing the whole time. Confused, Stahl looked at the metal hand and tilted his head to the side. "Erm... A Gauntlet? What does this have to... Wait, no, this is solid metal, right?" Stahl asked confused as he inspected the whole hand from every perspective, before noticing the small metal marbles. "Yes, that¡¯s the hand of a Golem I¡¯m working on. The metal balls are unfinished three-dimensional enchantments that I¡¯m using as the joints." Eisen exined, and Stahl raised his head surprised. "Wait, you¡¯re also working on this kind of Golem?" He asked, but Eisen just raised his eyebrows in response. "Also? Is that project you don¡¯t want to tell me about a golem?" The old man inquired, but Stahl just scratched the back of his neck before throwing the metal hand back to his grandfather. "Not telling. But sorry, until now it was kind of obvious what you were working on, but you were just fiddling around with the metal balls all the time... Erm, but how do you do 3D enchantments?" Stahl asked with a wry smile, but Eisen just chuckled and shook his head. "Not telling." Eisen winked, and ced the hand back down onto his table before turning back to his students. "You¡¯re learning enchantingter, I¡¯ll tell you then. But for now, let¡¯s finish the Leatherworking, shall we? And sorry, if it distracts you all, I¡¯ll work on the jointster." Eisen said apologetically, and continued the Leatherworking lesson like normal. And while the four of them were working on some bags, Eisen then did what he said he would, continue working on the joints. It wasn¡¯t like the enchantments wereplicated, it just took some time to properly shape the steel in an even way even with transmutation. It was rather easy with mana crystals or other simr structures, but it still took quite a while and was rather tough to do when it came to other materials like metals, especially hard ones like steel. But even then, it was just a matter of time until Eisen managed to finish all of the inner parts of the joints and then swiftly began to carve all of the runes on the outside of the small marbles and spheres to finish everything off, before testing out by setting everything roughly together and just pouring his mana into each and every joint. The metal made a loud sound as it snapped together everywhere, and Eisen was more than happy to see that the mountain of steel that he prepared ended up turning into a rather nice-looking figure, although it was still rather mountainous considering that it was taller than Eisen himself. Next, Eisen grabbed the mana-string spinneret from the box next to him and created the needle made of mana as well, before pulling the mana string through the hole at the end of the needle before swiftly moving it through the body, although he got another idea just then. Swiftly, Eisen created a second needle and took the other spinneret, before pulling some mana-string through the hole of the second needle, then working on the other half of the body with this needle. Considering that Eisen was controlling the needle with his thoughts at the moment anyway, as long as Eisen thought about the needle¡¯s movements mirroring each other at all times, everything would most likely work out fine. And then with swift movements prolonging themselves beyond the end of the task that Eisen had given his students by a good while, causing them to stand up and watch what the old man was doing, Eisen sewed the metallic limbs together. Chapter 328 - Metal-Faced After Eisen finished putting the body of the ¡¯Tank¡¯ Golem together with the exception of its head, the old man stood up with a grin and took a closer look at it rather happily. "Perfect." Eisen muttered to himself and turned around, all of a sudden noticing his four students behind him. Curiously, Stahl leaned forward and took a closer look at the metallic body, "Huh, it looks like armor... But it¡¯s solid?" He asked with a grin, and Eisen nodded his head. "Mhm, basically. But get back to work now." The old man told them, and then began to take a look at the items that they made. They were just bags, so there wasn¡¯t anything too special about them, and Eisen swiftly moved on to thest part of the Leatherworking lessons. A lot of things in it were simr to tailoring, and although there were a few techniques that you could only apply to Leatherworking that they didn¡¯t know yet, for the most part the four of them were already aware of how to handle Leather as a material. And even if that didn¡¯t reach the depth that Eisen wanted that to have for them, there wasn¡¯t a lot he could do about that considering the small amount of time that actually went into these lessonspared to what it should be. For now he wanted to get them to know the basics about everything that they might need, which was partially so that Stahl would be able to finish up Eisen¡¯s lessons and the old man could start teaching his apprentices in more detail. Either way, after giving them a few more exnations, Eisen gave them their next task and then moved on to working on the Golem¡¯s head. To fit with the theme of everything else, it was mainly just supposed to look like a helmet, but something of a mixture between a regr head and a helmet. It looked a bit weird, but also pretty cool as far as Eisen was concerned. For one, the head was supposed to be able to switch between two ¡¯Modes¡¯ of sort. They weren¡¯t really modes, but when the Golems weren¡¯t inbat, a few panels could be pulled to the sides of their faces to reveal a head that was more in the direction of being humanoid, although it still had helmet parts to it. And then, while in Combat, those panels could be pulled forward to turn the head into a full-on helmet. First, Eisen started to work on the base for the head, which was the actual head-part. In any other situation, Eisen would have made a mold for something with a high amount of details like this, but considering a certain special ability that Eisen had, that really wasn¡¯t necessary. To start it off with, Eisen created a chunk of metal in the rough shape of a head, and then grabbed the still-hot piece and sat it down on the magic-table in front of him while infusing his hands with his element, specifically to give off a high amount of heat as much as possible. It drained a little bit off his strength to do so, but even then, considering that the Steel was so hot, Eisen was able to push into it with his hands, because they were immune to high heat. And just like that, Eisen was able to start molding the steel with his hands, and slowly turned it into a quite simple face. Of course, the jaw was a seperate piece to the rest of the head, but other than that, it ended up looking pretty nice in the old man¡¯s opinion. "Well, I did follow Evalia¡¯s sketch... so obviously it looks good." Eisen chuckled to himself as he looked at the metal face he was holding. It seemed to have a naturally stern expression, and the facial shape seemed to be a little square and ¡¯Rough¡¯ in some ways. And it wasn¡¯t that the face wasn¡¯t handsome, but it was the kind of face that would make it easy for someone to scare little children. And after creating the jaw in a simr manner, Eisen let both parts cool down properly before working on some other smaller parts, which he had Jyuuk help him with. He knew roughly the size and shape of teeth, but he wasn¡¯t really that knowledgeable about it, and because Eisen wanted the face to be at least somewhat realistic, Jyuuk advised him on the exact shapes of the specific teeth, even helping the old man mold them a little with the help of Eisen¡¯s ¡¯Transmutation¡¯ enchanted tools. "Hmm, did you think about enchanting these? Maybe it would be possible for the golems to use it inbat somehow? Like, in a tough situation just bite the heck out of their opponent?" The Beastperson suggested, and Eisen chuckled before nodding his head. "Actually, yeah, I¡¯m nning on enchanting the metal partster. Just not yet until the whole body is done. I can take it apart pretty easily anyway. For example, I was thinking about cing three-dimensional enchantments into the hands of the Supporter to make it possible for it to cast magic with its hands. Maybe give it a ¡¯Healing Touch¡¯ or something. But for the others, I was mainly nning on cing a few properly carved enchantments onto the skin." Eisen exined, and Jyuuk nodded his head with a smile. "Ah, got it! Well, do you need my help with anything else?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen replied using a grin. "Yes, actually. I want you to help me with the eyes, ears and nose, and taste as well, actually. I worked on something like that for Aulu and Cabarum before already, but I think I can do a lot better with your help." The old man pointed out, before the Beastperson scratched the back of his neck with a grin. "Haha, I see. Well, then I guess helping out a little can¡¯t hurt, huh?" He replied with a smirk, and Eisen nodded his head before taking out a few different materials, some of which he really didn¡¯t have much anymore. "Alright, I have about 4 Crystal Eyes left. Size wise, they should berge enough to make two or three out of each one, though. I would like to work on these first. Then we have some more of the crystal pieces that you collected for Fafnir¡¯s body before. What should we do to make these work properly for a Golem?" Eisen asked curiously, before Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck and just thought about it for a while, and then grabbed one of the crystal eyes. "Well, for one, we can of course change the structure of the eye around, and add a few different materials into this. If you get the materials ready and prepare the eyes properly, I can do most of that for you." Jyuuk pointed out, and then looked at the other small crystal piecesying on the table before starting to think about what they could do with these beside just cing them into the right areas of the Golems¡¯ heads. "Well... Other than enchanting them, I¡¯m not 100% sure we can do all that much with the others, sorry." Jyuuk said with a wry smile, and Eisen nodded his head with a sigh. "Alright, I get it. Then I¡¯ll just get started on that in a bit. I¡¯ll call you when I have everything for the eyes ready, yeah?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk nodded his head and went on his way himself. "Alright... Now... I guess I should rather work on the different metal-parts first, huh?" Eisen said with a sigh, before turning around and looking at the pile of steel that was meant for the creation of the two other Golems. And so, Eisen swiftly grabbed the first chunk of steel and threw it into his forge. --- "Rouge, pay attention. Your mana is wavering." Eisen pointed out as he went and made his rounds to check on his students a little bit, noticing that Rouge, who was currently working on one of thest tasks for the Enchanting lessons, had a slightly unsteady flow of mana going at the moment. It was important to have a steady amount of mana inside of the needle you were enchanting with, otherwise the enchantment would heavily lose out on quality. But it seemed like Rouge quickly nodded his head and corrected this small mistake. And with a smile on his face, Eisen continued walking, especially keeping an eye, both of which were in their ¡¯Truth-Seeing¡¯ mode, on the flow of mana around Koro. After all, enchanting was the reason for him not having been a Magicraftsman-Apprentice in the first ce. But it seemed like Eisen didn¡¯t really need to worry all that much, because everything seemed to be going fine, and then chuckled while grabbing one of his enchanting needles and getting to work on the outer-enchantment on thest metal joint that Eisen had to make for the Golems, before sighing lightly. "Alright, finally..." The old man muttered to himself and ced the joint inbetween the left upper arm and left lower arm of the Supporter Golem, before swiftly activating all of the joints at the same time and grabbing the mana-string spinnerets to get to sewing everything together. Once more, it actually took rather long to do so, considering the sheer amount of mana-string that he needed to use, so his students had to wait a little bit until the old man was finished and was able to take a proper look at what they made. But after a little while, Eisen managed to finish up and then went to take a look at the different enchantments that his students made, although there wasn¡¯t anything majorly impressive in them. It seemed as if they all somewhat just wanted to move on to the thing that they had most interest in right now after seeing Eisen fiddle with the metal-balls all day. "I guess I¡¯ve got no choice... Did all of you get enough practice with Transmutation in?" Eisen asked them, and the four of them immediately nodded their heads without a moment of hesitation in their expressions. "Good. Then, here are the basics..." The old man said with a light smile while handing out some mana-crystal spheres to everyone, and then began to exin what exactly they needed to do to make a three-dimensional enchantment, and then crossed his arms with a stern expression. "And as a warning to all of you, three dimensional enchantments may have the exposition to be more effective than regr enchantments, but because of that, the bacsh when something goes wrong with one of them is even greater as well, and it¡¯s easier to mess up something. So I advise all of you to make sure you can properly concentrate on everything while working on them." Eisen exined, and Koro seemed to be rather annoyed at that. "But you were literally making them while teaching us! As if it was just a casual thing... so why do we need to pay that much attention?" He asked, and with a light sigh, Eisen took a step closer toward Koro and crossed his arms. "Maybe because I have a liiiitttle bit more experience at doing this kind of stuff than you do? Just a teeny tiny bit." The old man pointed out, and Koro began to frown in response again, but just kept quiet while grinding his teeth, so Eisen turned around and stepped away toward his Golems again, and then turned around toward Koro. "We¡¯re having a talkter tonight. Now, all of you, make a simple three-dimensional enchantment in the way that I told you to. Just try it, if something goes wrong, I¡¯lle and help out." Eisen told them and then turned back toward his golems with a light sigh. He really hoped to be able to have a proper talk with Koro to figure out how to get him to be less angry and annoyed all the time. Because the way things were going right now didn¡¯t seem good in the slightest. Chapter 329 - Perfect Eyesight After Eisen finished all of the metallic base parts for the golems and ced the different parts that were needed into the upper part of their torsos, meaning the soul generators and different mana batteries, he moved on to making the things for the the sensory organs. First, the old man grabbed his Alchemy set and started to work on a potion that was supposed to increase sight in different ways, and then tampered with the material ratios to make it a slightly thick consistency, simr to very thick gravy, and then used hardening to try and make it the right thickness to be used in the Golems¡¯ eyes. And next, Eisen prepared a little bit of ss, although not to blow it, but simply to make the lenses. And in order to do that, Eisen once more mixed the materials for the same potion into the silica, soda ash and limestone, and added a good bit of mana-crystal powder to make it more resilient. All that the old man then needed to do was pour the ss out into some small molds to get the shape right. Once ss hardened properly, Eisen then began to enchant the six lenses a little bit. They were rtively simple enchantments which were just once more supposed to enhance sight, however. The other sensory organs, such as those for the ears and noses, were also enchanted to enhance their specific use, although there didn¡¯t really seem to be a good way to properly enhance them otherwise, just as Jyuuk had said when Eisen spoke to him about it. And then, Eisen grabbed the Crystal Eyes that he had leftover and swiftly grabbed a few chunks off of them, slowly shaping them into hollow eyes, before cing them to the side to where the other materials for the eyes wereying while Eisen quickly sent a message to Jyuuk to let him know that he was finished. While the old man was then waiting for the beastperson to arrive and work on the eyes with Eisen, he then ced the crystal pieces for the ears into the ear-cannals that he had prepared in the Steel-Heads, and the pieces for the noses into a rtively deep part in the nasal cavity which he had hollowed out. "The stuff for the eyes is finished?" Jyuuk asked as he took a look around at the bodies of the three golems, and Eisen nodded his head with a smirk. "Mhm, they¡¯re finished. And after we finish the eyes, I¡¯ll get to enchanting them as well." He exined, and then grinned before looking at the Golems. "The eyes and these guys as well, of course." Eisen chuckled before handing Jyuuk the different things for the first set of eyes, which he grabbed quite swiftly and then nearly immediately got to work. And it seemed like it didn¡¯t take all that long to finish the eyes up either, because Jyuuk soon waited for Eisen to help him close them up! "Alright, and now I just need to figure out the Iris?" Eisen asked, before Jyuuk nodded his head with a smile. "Mhm, I¡¯d say so, yes. I suggest you make it some kind of paste as well, at the very least something that can spread or stretch so that the pupil can shrink and grow when needed." Jyuuk pointed out, so the old man nodded his head and sat down with some materials in front of him. And what he figured the best choice was to use a gem, and preferably a gem that fit together with the element that fit together with the specific golem. And that, more exactly, would mean an earth gem for the Tank, a Fire and a Wind gem for the Damage Dealer, and a Light and a Darkness gem for the Supporter, because ¡¯Support¡¯ magic was a type of concept magic. But what Eisen did next was not directly work on the irises of the golems¡¯ eyes, but instead he stood up and left the room with what he would basically describe as a mountain of gems. And then, Eisen made his way over to where he saw Bree before, simply on the main deck, speaking to Dien. He was hoping that she was still there, but he really couldn¡¯t know, after all a few hours had passed since then. But to his luck, it seemed like they were still there! And without hesitation, Eisen then stepped up to the young Fey-Kin with a smile on his face. "Hello there, you two!" Eisen eximed with a grin, and Bree looked up at the old man with her natural excitement written on her face. "Hey Eisen!" She replied, and the old man just chuckled a bit. "So, I would like to ask you a favor. Could I try to enchant something using your support element?" He asked, and Bree nodded immediately. "Of course! I didn¡¯t know your skill was at Rank 4 already!" Bree replied, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Just yesterday, yeah. It¡¯s just going to take a few moments." He exined and pushed his hand into his pocket and grabbed a few enchanting marbles, before cing them on Bree¡¯s open hand, before Eisen encapsuled her hand with his own two hands. "And just to make sure, the skill is called directly ¡¯Support Magic¡¯, right?" Eisen asked, hoping that he wouldn¡¯t identally waste these enchanting marbles by using them with the wrong ability, and Bree nodded her head happily. And so, Eisen slowly closed his eyes and poured his mana into the marbles, before letting the marbles slowly pull in some of Bree¡¯s mana, and then Eisen just concentrated on that one ability. Just a few momentster, the enchanting marbles were now enchanted with Bree¡¯s element, which Eisen was more than just d to see when he inspected them. "It works!" He eximed excitedly, and then immediately went on to finish the ability-enchanting process by moving the ¡¯Support¡¯ element onto some prebined Light and Darkness Gems, and then onto each one light and darkness gem, which Eisen would use for the irises. "Thank you." Eisen told Bree with a smile, before cing his hand onto the top of Bree¡¯s head, before looking at Dien as well. "Do either of you know people on this ship with the pure earth, wind and fire elements?" He asked, and Dien immediately nodded. "Yeah, there¡¯s a bunch of them, actually." He pointed out, and Eisen looked at him surprised. "Really? I thought the majority of people get special elements?" The old man asked in return, but Dien just shook his head immediately. "The opposite, rather. About two thirds of people get one of the basic elements as their first, and only a third of people get a special element right off the bet, although even people with the basic elements get a special elementter in life when their element upgrades itself, if they should pursue that. But for example, Children can also get an element, but it¡¯s impossible for anyone under the age of 15 to get a special element. That¡¯s one of the ¡¯Adult¡¯ privileges, I guess." Dien pointed out, so Eisen slowly nodded his head with a grin. "Ah, got it... Then I¡¯ll be off to the orphanage¡¯s area, I guess." Eisen chuckled and waved at the two of them before stepping down the stairs into the belly of the ship and headed directly to the area that he was speaking about, and soon entered the room where all of the children were currently ying, although some of the older children were sitting around in the corner of the ship. Some of them seemed to have just started puberty, so they wereining about stuff whenever Eisen saw them, but he figured they were the safest bet of people to ask for the three elements he needed. And with a smile on his face, Eisen then decided to squat down in front of the group of young teenagers, although most of the younger children were already making movement rather tough because they started climbing on top of the old man. "Hello all of you, how are you?" Eisen asked, and a young, red-haired girl replied with a bright smile. "I¡¯m great! These guys aren¡¯t though, they¡¯re so mopy!" She eximed, and Eisen chuckled in response. "Yeah, I get it. Don¡¯t worry all of you, we¡¯re going to be a the inds in about two days, then you won¡¯t be stuck on this ship anymore." He exined to them, and the first one to respond now was a young, rather ¡¯chunky¡¯ young beastperson boy, and judging from his characteristics, he seemed to be a Grizzly-type. "As long as there¡¯s going to be food there, I don¡¯t care." The boy replied, and Eisen tilted his head to the side with a smile, "Isn¡¯t there enough food on this ship for you?" He inquired, and another child seemed to want to answer for the boy aftering to sprint over from the other side of the room rather quickly and quietly. "Nah, nothing¡¯s enough for that guy. He never stops eating, ya know?" That other child said, and Eisen simplyughed once more. These three seemed to be the oldest children of the current group as well, and just judging from their characters, Eisen figured they were just the people he was looking for. Quite quickly, he activated his Truth-Seeing Eyes and took a look at the ce where their mana originated in their bodies, noticing small colored dots within all of them. "You three, want to do me a favor?" Eisen asked, and the three kids looked at each other and the old man surprised, but ended up happily doing so. And then, Eisen left the room again with a bunch of enchanted crystals and gems, also happy to know that there were a few promising young children around. All of the children were pretty energetic, and those that were just very angry or pessimistic about everything were in the vast minority, but even they would end up finding their true purpose on the inds. After all, it would be impossible not to find anything that they liked to do in any one of the many, many towns that they were creating. He really wanted to give the children from that orphanage a ce to live, and in general just wanted to create a ce that everyone could feel safe at, and where everyone could feel like they belonged. With those kind of idiologic thoughts within his mind, Eisen stepped back up the stairs all the way to the meeting room, sitting down at the table where Jyuuk was already waiting for him, seemingly having finished the rest of the eyes to the point that he himself could reach without transmutation. "Oh, done already?" Eisen asked as he grabbed a few of the gems that he was going to use for the Irises, and Jyuuk nodded his head, curiously watching what Eisen was going for, "Mhm, it didn¡¯t really take that long. You just need to help me fix everything in ce properly." The beastperson replied, before Eisen nodded his head and then swiftly did as asked, covering the four eyes that still needed to be finished in his mana before using transmutation in a few small ces. "Alright, perfect. Thanks, Jyuuk." Eisen told him with a smile, before first transmuting the enchanted light and darkness gems that he made with Bree¡¯s help, encapsuling the light gem within the darkness gem, kind of fusing it together in some small parts, before he simply softened the whole thing down and used the small de enchanted with transmutation to cut out two small circr pieces as the irises, slowly and carefully cing them onto the spot in the eye where they were meant to go and fixated them there with some light transmutation. "Huh, ck and White Central Heterochromic Eyes... Nice." Jyuuk muttered, and Eisen chuckled in response as he closed the first eye up with a thin protectiveyer of mana-crystal-ss and then did the same thing with the second eye, before looking up at Jyuuk again. "Is it good like this?" Eisen asked as he showed the eyes to the Beastperson, who just ended up slowly nodding. "Yeah, basically perfect. So how will you enchant these now?" Jyuuk asked, before Eisen just slightly shrugged while preparing the irises, made by encapsuling the green wind gem in the red fire gem, for the Damage-Dealer¡¯s eyes. "Just rtively simply, really. Just something to make them hold in ce properly, because it wouldn¡¯t be that great if they popped-out midbat. In the end, I can always take them out again and enchant them if I get some good idea." Chapter 330 - The Last Straw Atst, Eisen was nearly finished with the main preparation for the Golems, although he still had a few more things to do here and there. For one, he needed to add the ¡¯Information Storage¡¯, aka the Brain, into the head as well. And for that Brain, Eisen had a rather good idea, because it seemed the perfect base for a three-dimensional enchantment. So first, Eisen created a rough oval brain-shape and then began to get to work with the use of transmutation, swiftly hollowing a few ces out here and there and using the materials that he used for that to create the actual ¡¯Models¡¯ for the definitions and the center. And the center simply got a small crystal brain, while the surrounding ¡¯Element¡¯ spheres got a rune representing the word ¡¯Thought¡¯. After that, Eisen simply ced the brain into the hollow area in the head that he prepared for it, and filled the area surrounding the crystal brain in a potion that was supposed to increase the intelligence stat for a little while. After that, Eisen got to cing the eyes into the head as well by simply transmuting the metal around the edges to be a bit softer to make it possible to just push the eyes into the specific sockets, and with the help of the enchantments and a little bit of mana-string affixiation, Eisen didn¡¯t have to worry about having the eyes drop out. And then, Eisen ced the Steel Teeth into the upper and lower jaws, although they weren¡¯t enchanted yet, because he figured that he could do that over time, before properly attaching the lower jaws, which had some simply mana-crystal tongues already ced into them, to the rest of the heads, of course once more using the mana string to support the structural integrity. Then, all that was left to do was ce the heads onto the bodies. This also happened rtively quickly and easily, because all of the necessary parts were prepared beforehand. Of course, once the head was attached, the old man had to properly add the metal ¡¯tes¡¯ that would turn it into a helmet design at the proper ces on the head, and then moved them all around a little bit to make sure that they couldn¡¯t get stuck while switching ¡¯Modes¡¯. Then, Eisen turned the bodies around and continued working on the mana-creation area, using the specific gems that he ability-enchanted to create elemental-mana generators that were hooked up to the elemental-mana batteries. Once that was done, the mana batteries were hooked up directly to the slot where the Golem Core would be cedter to properly connect the extra mana to the actual Golem. Atst, the only things that Eisen now had to do were to create the weapons and ¡¯Special¡¯ parts on the Golem¡¯s individual bodies, as well as the few cloth-parts, before enchanting the golem¡¯s bodies. So actually, there was still a good bit to do before they would be finished. The first thing that Eisen then chose to make were the items for the Tank-Golem, the Tower-Shield and the Greatsword. And while waiting for all of the metal for the shield to heat up a bit, the old man chose to take a look at the three-dimensional enchantments that his students ended up making. First, Eisen looked at Stahl¡¯s creation. It seemed to actually be rather simr to what Eisen made as his first three-dimensional enchantment, just slightly different in concept. Instead of floating around and returning to whoever activated the enchantment, the small sphere could be thrown pretty far through highly-reduced gravity, but would end up trying to follow the nearest target, although it was mainly just able to change the trajectory ever so slightly. So it was basically a thrown-homing ball. "Interesting. But how exactly does it find the right target?" Eisen asked his grandson, who just scratched the back of his neck with a wry smile. "The nearest ce with a lot of mana beside the user, I guess." He replied, so Eisen just sighed. "Maybe try to find another solution. If you want to use this kind of thing in a fight, you¡¯d end up identally hitting the Mage in your party, who is coincidentally Brody¡¯s wife. So, better try not to do that." The old man exined with a chuckle, and Stahl simply slowly nodded his head. Then, Eisen moved on. Parc¡¯s three-dimensional enchantments was capable of covering itself and the user¡¯s hand in ayer of rock, to basically turn someone¡¯s hand into arge rock-hammer. "Well, the shape is pretty rough, and if you don¡¯t have a high enough strength stat your arm will be ripped off, but I like it, well done." The old man said with augh before deactivating the enchantment, "I¡¯ll y around with this a little more, yeah? I want to test the durability of the rock." He added, before moving onto Rouge¡¯s enchanted crystal. And what it did was also pretty interesting. It wasn¡¯t directly useful the way it was per-se, but it was interesting nheless. The three-dimensional enchantment would, when activated, simply turn the whole sphere invisible. Eisen actually identally dropped it while looking at it after activating the enchantment, and he had to activate his mana-sight to find it again. "The concept is well-thought through, but the item it was used on just wasn¡¯t the best. If this can be made smaller and ced into arrow-heads, this would turn into a real pain in the ass." Eisen exined before carefully cing the enchanted sphere back in front of Rouge, before he then moved on to thest of the four students. And from what Eisen could tell when looking at the enchantment through the translucent sphere, it seemed to be supposed to cause a dyed-explosion, exactly ten seconds after the enchantment was activated. "So basically, this is a re-usable magic grenade?" Eisen asked while pulling his eyebrows up a little bit, and Koro nodded his head. "Mhm, it is! Depending on the mana input, the size of the explosion changes as well!" He exined as he took the enchantment from Eisen again, and by having his mana-sight active, Eisen could notice that Koro seemed to have activated the enchantment for some reason. But either way, his mana was moving from his hand into the enchantment for activation. "What are you doing?" Eisen asked with a frown, and Koro tilted his head to the side. "Hmm? Oh, I¡¯m just refining the image in the center a bit more, I¡¯m not really happy with it." He exined, and immediately Eisen opened his eyes wide before extending his hand forward to grab the enchanted sphere from his apprentice, before activating the three-dimensional enchantment from Parc that he still had in his hand, making it cover his hand, including the enchantment-grenade in rock, before Eisen quickly turned around and squatted forward while increasing his size as much as he could to cover the whole thing more easily. And before Eisen knew it, a notification appeared in front of him. [Your lost your right hand. Sleep to Recover] Immediately, Eisen stared downward at his right arm, noticing that the rock from Parc¡¯s enchantment was slowly disappearing because no mana was being fed to the enchantment, just to reveal the pile of blood and flesh contained inside of it as it dropped to the ground. With unbelievable anger on his face, Eisen just stood up, turned around, and stepped up to Koro, grabbing him by the cor with his left hand before dragging him toward the dungeon gate behind him while lowering the temperatue of the forge where the steel was currently still heating up. Of course, everyone rushed up to Eisen after hearing the explosion, just to see that he was losing arge amount of blood from hispletely crushed-up and ripped-off hand. Eisen¡¯s hands may be immune to high heat and pressure, but only in specific situations. For example, his hands weren¡¯t able topletely defend against high-tier magic explosions, because magic simply worked different to regr heat. He wouldn¡¯t be able to just perfectly defend against regr fire attack magic either, after all. But even then, Eisen figured that he wouldn¡¯t end up in a situation where he had to worry about that anyway. After all, he wasn¡¯t abatist, and even then wouldn¡¯t fight with his bare hands anyway. He wouldn¡¯t have thought that he would lose his hand to his own apprentice. And considering the strength of the explosion that was strong enough to even crack through Eisen¡¯s demonic transformation, Koro most likely would have died if Eisen hadn¡¯t grabbed the crystal sphere before it blew up. And the two people next to him, Rouge and Parc, probably wouldn¡¯t have been able to get away unscathed either. For that alone, Eisen couldn¡¯t believe what the hell just happened, and simply threw the rather shocked Koro on Eisen¡¯srge chair in the meeting room. "H-Hey, don¡¯t be so rough! It-It¡¯s going to heal anyway, right? You¡¯re immortal, so what-" Koro eximed, but before he knew it, his whole body was ovee with a feeling that he hadn¡¯t experienced to this extent before, as Eisen repaired his demonic transformation, although he wasn¡¯t able to fix his hand just like that, and stared down at Koro with his deep golden eyes, speaking up in a deep, raspy voice that seemed aeons away from what Eisen¡¯s voice was to begin with. Koro was scared shitless. "Shut up." Eisen said in a monotone voice, his rock-face seeming like a simple statue, and Koro¡¯s whole body began to shake. It seemed like he was trying to speak, but he just couldn¡¯t. "Are you trying to tell me you did that on purpose?" The old demon asked, but Koro just slowly shook his head. "N-No, of course not! I wouldn¡¯t ever-" "Then why the fuck would you be dumb enough to activate it? Your skill is at Rank 2, Koro. To be able to edit already-finished enchantments, you need to be able to delete the parts you want to edit. You literally learned all about them, or what the fuck were you doing while Xenia was trying to teach you?" Eisen asked as he began to grind his teeth together, feeling like he was being held for an idiot just now. And then, Koro just stayed quiet, but Eisen wouldn¡¯t have that and mmed his left hand on the table in front of Koro before leaning forward toward him. "That wasn¡¯t a rhetorical question. Answer me. What were you doing while she was trying to teach you?" He asked, but Koro just wasn¡¯t able to say anything anymore. "Don¡¯t you realize that you could have died just there? And not only you, but Parc and Rouge as well? Yes, Stahl and I can just wake up again as if nothing ever happened, but you can¡¯t. Your idiocy is astounding, Koro." Eisen said and then stood directly in front of Koro with his arms crossed. "Stand up." Eisen told him in amanding tone, but Koro seemed to still not be able to do anything, so instead, Eisen just once more grabbed him by the cor and pulled him along. Everyone that was in the dungeon before was currently standing there, watching what was going on, and were starting to follow Eisen as well. And the ce that the old man ended up at was his Workshop. With one swing of his arm, he simply threw Koro inside of there and then stripped him of all the tools he had on his body, before taking any materials that wereying around in the room out, with the exception of cloth to act as a nket. "Until we get to the inds, you¡¯re staying here. Then, when the first ship leaves this ind, you¡¯ll be on it." The old man said in a strict tone, but Koro just began to panick. "W-Wait, but-" "Don¡¯t you dare try toin. From the start, I told you that you will need to follow every single thing I say if you want to be my apprentices. And what do you do? Make an enchantment that¡¯s far above you and nearly kill yourself before you even became my apprentice. Continuosly try to impress me with stupid shit I never allowed you to do. Over and over again, you showed how impatient and selfish you are, trying to push Parc and Rouge to the side to be able to seed on your own and be my ¡¯Top Apprentice¡¯. And now, you were acting as conceited as you could be. You noticed that I was actually kind of impressed with your enchantment, and then went ¡¯Oh, but I didn¡¯t make it as good as I could have, so I¡¯ll fix this here¡¯ and then immediately tried to change it right in front of me while ignoring the rules of a whole skill, endangering you and everyone around you." Eisen exined quite lengthily, before slowly starting to shut the door to the Workshop. "That was thest straw." Chapter 331 - Tank "Eisen, are you sure this is the right thing to do?" Rouge asked nervously as he looked at the old man after he had closed and locked the door to the Workshop, and Eisen simply nodded. "I am." He replied, before slowly making his way back to the meeting room, where he sat down on his chair with a deep sigh, looking around at all the concerned faces around him. "Listen, I won¡¯t budge on this. He messed up one too many times, he can¡¯t pull that kind of stuff and think he can get away with it." Eisen exined, and then just shook his head disappointedly. "I thought he could be a really good apprentice, and an amazing craftsman in the future. He can still pursue that for all I care, but he won¡¯t be doing that anywhere near us again." Eisen told them, before the others looked at each other somewhat nervously, before the old man just shook his head and leaned back in the chair. "I¡¯ll be back up in an hour, should be enough to heal my hand." Eisen pointed out, before he swiftly dozed off into sleep while feeling the stares of everyone on his arm. Slowly, Eisen felt himself be surrounded by darkness. At first, he figured that he would return to talk to the Giant Version of himself again, but instead, that didn¡¯t seem to be the case at all. Instead, he was simply floating in an empty space with pure ckness around him. He probably wouldn¡¯t be able to wake up considering the time that he went to sleep, as it was one of the times where the capsule would be pumping another dose of the medication into his body, but he didn¡¯t expect to just... Be there. Eisen hought he would just wake up immediately after closing his eyes, ready to get back into the Dungeon, but he ended up spending a whole hour inside that dark, empty ce. And then, after that hour passed, the world came back into existence like normal, although he, weirdly enough, didn¡¯t feel that awkward feeling that he always did when waking up during the past few days. The first thing that Eisen did after that one hour was to take a look at his hand, happy to see that it ended up healing just like the old man hoped it would. And then, he stood up and made his way into the dungeon to continue with everything like nothing happened to his hand in the first ce. Immediately when they saw him enter the ce, the other Originals, Eisen¡¯s students, whose number had dwindled to three including Stahl, Kiron, Bree, Sky and Komer, as well as Fafnir and Sigurd came rushing up to him. Eisen¡¯s monsters were already sticking to him like glue ever since he woke up, so it wasn¡¯t hard to find them either. "Grandfather! Are you alright already?" Kiron eximed, looking at Eisen with worry, before the old man just chuckled and looked at the still-worried people around him, "Don¡¯t worry, losing a hand is nothing against what I did back in Handor, is it?" The old man said with a wink, and those that were there for that immediately remembered that time and inevitably nodded their heads. "Now, let¡¯s move on from this and return to what we were doing before. I¡¯m really fine." Eisen said, before turning his head toward Xenia, "Actually, could you wait for a moment? I want to ask you something." The old man exined, and hesitantly the others agreed to do what he suggested, before Xenia looked at him nervously. "So, two things. First, did you decide about what I asked you yet?" He asked, and the High-Elf slowly closed her eyes nervously and held her left arm, nearly boring into it with her fingernails. "A-Actually... If... If you still want me there... W-Would it be alright if I m-moved in with you..?" She asked, and Eisen just looked at her happily and chuckled. "Of course, I would love to have you join me in my home. I¡¯ll talk to my son about it and hire some movers to help you out." He exined before slowly moving his fingers through his beard. "I woulde and help out as well, but as you know... There¡¯s a bit of a situation going on." The old man said with a quietugh as he pointed at his right arm, and Xenia slowly nodded her head, feeling a bit overwhelmed by being epted without question. "Th-Thank you... I-I¡¯ll let you know when I¡¯m ready..." She replied, and was just about to turn around and leave before Eisen ced his hand on her shoulder, trying to stop her. "Wait, wait, I said there were two things I wanted to talk about, didn¡¯t I?" Eisen chuckled quietly, and then immediately continued. "This whole thing reminded me of the Mass of Yin that we still have locked away. Shouldn¡¯t we try to figure out how to make a Mass of Yang already?" The old man asked, and the High-Elf¡¯s ears slowly began to wiggle, something that Eisen hadn¡¯t really seen her do before. But at the very least, it seemed like she was excited, at least from Eisen¡¯s perspective. "E-Erm... I need to prepare a little, but I think I can manage to make a blessing opposite to the base curse that was put on your arm, but... Do we need to make the Mass of Yang in the same way?" Xenia asked, and the old man just nodded his head with a smile. "It seems like the safest way, doesn¡¯t it? You just need to ce as many concentrated blessings on my arm as you can until my body starts being overwhelmed, and then I rip it off. Sounds easy enough, doesn¡¯t it?" Eisen asked with a smile, although he moved his fingers through his beard in thought immediately afterward. "Although... Just a little bit ago, while I was yelling at Koro in my Demon Form, it seemed like it turned more toward being gruesome, right? My actual form, I mean." Eisen asked, and Xenia just slowly nodded, considering that the memory was still pretty fresh in her mind. "Yeah... I thought I imagined it, but it might have actually been like that..." She replied, so Eisen nodded his head. "I see, got it. Then I¡¯ll just have to figure out if I can somehow do the same thing, just more turned toward Yang?" Eisen suggsted with a smile, before Xenia slowly shrugged. "Maybe... But erm... I¡¯ll just go and work on everything now, then... I¡¯ll let you know when I¡¯m done." She exined, and then immediately turned around and made her way toward the Dungeon Gate, exiting it without any hesitation. And with a just so slightly weird feeling in Eisen¡¯s stomach, the old man then turned around and made his way back to the area where he and his students would be working, and then just looked at them with a light smile, while they were all waiting for him. "So... About what just happened..." Eisen started, but Rouge and Parc immediately spoke up, while Stahl just kept quiet. "Eisen, we understand why you did what you did. It seemed a little extreme at first but... We get it. He messed up over and over again, and... Endangered all of us... If you weren¡¯t who you are, then you would have lost your hand, and wouldn¡¯t have been able to work until we managed to see someone that can use Divine Healing, or could manage to find a Perfect-Grade Potion..." Rouge told Eisen, and then looked over toward his friend with a light smile, who then spoke next. "But even then... Can¡¯t you at least let him stay on the inds for a while longer? He¡¯s going to be a good help when ites to physical crafting, even if he can¡¯t properly use magical crafting..." Parc pointed out, before the old man slowly just looked at them and smiled. "We¡¯ll see. But either way, he won¡¯t stay as my apprentice, no matter what. I won¡¯t allow someone to learn under me when they can¡¯t even follow the simplest rules that I give him. And you maybe haven¡¯t heard it, but his first thought wasn¡¯t that of regret either. His first reaction was ¡¯It¡¯s going to heal anyway, you¡¯re immortal¡¯. He literally blew the hand of a dwarf off. The Hand. Of a Dwarf. Using an explosion. That¡¯s not an easy thing to do, it really isn¡¯t. And then he tried to tell me that everything was fine, becaues I¡¯m ¡¯Immortal¡¯." Eisen said with a sigh and then shook his head before taking a look at the workstations and noticed that they seemed to slowly be crumbling, and then swiftly repaired them while making Koro¡¯s workstation disappearpletely. "And now, I¡¯m going to give you all a little bit of time to work on some projects yourselves with the skills you¡¯ve learnt about so far. You can ask me or anyone else you want for help, you can work on something together, or you can not work on anything at all, although I suggest you do so. I¡¯ve got to finish up the Golems now as well, so please excuse me." Eisen told them and then turned around before stepping up to his own workstation while increasing his size with his demonic transformation active, thetter being the norm when he was craftingtely. Eisen simply wanted to give them a little time, because he was sure that their nerves wereying pretty nk after all of that as well, so they could just work on whatever they wanted to for the rest of the day to just calm down. On top of that, it would give Eisen a chance to work on his own stuff for a little while longer. "Alright, then let¡¯s get to work, shall we...?" The old man muttered to himself before heating the steel that was still inside of the magic forge up again, and then he grabbed the pieces of steel and began to work on them. He didn¡¯t do anything special, and really just shaped it into a big, slightly rounded square, already trying to work in some of the decorative parts into the huge b of steel. And then when the basic shape was done, Eisen sat down in front of the shield and began to properly shape the metal into what Eisen could see on the sketch he was given by Evalia before, and then quickly ced a few Earth-Element Enchanted Gems into the front of it in some specific ces. Usually, a shield like this would require a steady, stable handle, but this one just really didn¡¯t. Instead, it would be possible for the ¡¯Tank¡¯ Golem to directly connect and disconnect its arm to and from the Tower Shield through a small piece set into the inside of the shield that could be stuck into the side of the Tank¡¯s arm. And next, with a simrly uplicated item, Eisen created a Greatsword, a bit smaller than the one he made for Kiron before. Once more, same as with the shield, he used the folding-technique to properly ce mana into the steel before shaping it into a simple, straight Greatsword. The Design itself wasn¡¯t actually overwhelminglyplicated with the weapon, and seemed to only need to impress with its size. Either way, after setting a piece of an earth-enchanted earth gem into the handle together with more parts that could be connected to the Golem¡¯s direct body, Eisen looked at the two weapons with a smile, preparing to create the counterparts for the shield on the Golem¡¯s body. For the Shield, Eisen simply created a fewtches on both the arms, either on the back of the lower arms, that could simply snap into the shield itself, and then created another smallertch on either of the shoulders so that the tank would be able to properly support the shield while defending against a really heavy attack without the shield sliding to the side somehow. And for the Sword, Eisen created a fewtches that could snap onto pieces on the handles as well as one in the center of the back of the de if necessary, and ced thosetches onto the Golem¡¯s fingers. Of course, in a way where they could just ¡¯disappear¡¯, or rather twist, into the actual body again to seem as if they were never there, same with thetches on the arms. And so, all the pieces for the Tank Golem were finished. Chapter 332 - Crossbow After finishing the items for the Tank Golem, Eisen moved on to work on the rest of the items for the Damage-Dealer Golem, with the exception of the hood, because he would be working on a special little piece of cloth for thatter on. So the first thing that Eisen had to make was a Crossbow that could be hidden inside of the Golem¡¯s arm. The structure of a crossbow was rtively simple, actually. It was basically just a small bow with a handle, even if it worked a little differently. First, Eisen threw some steel into his forge, although it wasn¡¯t the steel that he regrly used. Instead, Eisen was now using ¡¯Spring Steel¡¯, a specific type of steel that was able to easily return to their original shape despite significant bending or twisting, which was perfect for a crossbow. Usually, while it was a very cheep and readily-avable material, Steel in general was very heavy and as such tough to carry around with you or actually properly steadily hold to prepare for a shot. But considering that the Golem waspletely made of Steel anyway, that wasn¡¯t an issue to begin with. And on the other hand, due to the natural stiffness of steel, it was able to more easily store energypared to other materials, allowing crossbows made of steel to be used with bolts with simr dimensions that a regr bow¡¯s arrows would offer. When the Steel was hot enough to be forged, Eisen swiftly grabbed it out of the mes and began to hammer onto it, basically just shaping it into a long t bar, although at this point Eisen had a choice to make. Should he give the Golem a smallerpound crossbow, which would allow for quicker re-load speed but lower range and strenght, or should Eisen give it a recurve crossbow, which took a bit longer to handle and reload properly, but would end up giving the bolt a lot higher speed and strength. And in the end, Eisen figured out which he should go for, although that would require a few changes to the initial n. At first, Eisen was nning on hollowing part of the arm out to create a ce for a crossbow to be stored and then be pulled out, but instead, Eisen would do something a little different, which would end up saving him some time as well. And that meant that he had to change a few things about the shape of the limbs, the parts at the front of the crossbow, to make them more ornamental. When Eisen was done with that, he grabbed the Damage-Dealer Golem¡¯s arm and swiftly began to work the metal a little bit, trying to ¡¯carve¡¯ a little bit out of the lower arm, because he was going to simply turn the arm into the crossbow directly, instead of adding a crossbow to the arm. Considering that the crossbow was directly part of the Golem¡¯s body, that meant that it was able to control it nearly perfectly anyway, and would be able to control the pull-back of the string and the release automatically. Of course, that meant that Eisen had to remove one of the ornamental armor-tes on the lower arm, although he already had a good recement for that. And the recements were the limbs. It would be visible that there was a split in the middle of the te, but that didn¡¯t matter all that much in Eisen¡¯s opinion. The thing that mattered most was that they two ¡¯tes¡¯ could properly switch to the ¡¯limb¡¯ mode, which he did by making it possible for them to first twist by 90¡ã across the surface of the arm, and then flip upward by 90¡ã while setting themselves properly in ce to be used. To his luck, it seemed like the rtively simple system worked pretty easily, and the two tes couldn¡¯t be twisted until a small pin was removed from inside the turning-mechanism, which was only essible from inside the actual arm, meaning that you could only activate it with abilities like transmutation or through the Golem itself. And while making sure that Eisen was properly out of the way and couldn¡¯t be injured, he slowly used his mana to try and pull the pin a little bit back, immediately releasing the two limbs, making them basically spring forward into their proper position. "Alright, that works well enough, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself and moved the pin back to the spot it was before to make sure the bow would stay in ce now as well. Then, Eisen started to get to work on properly putting the string onto the crossbow, for which he would simply use the same string he would use for the cloth. String with a ratio of 1:1:1, of mana-crystal to steel to me of the earth mythril. Eisen had to fiddle around with the spinning wheel he was using to make magic string before now to be able to put the three types of thread from the spinnerets inside of it and have the spinning wheel automatically twist it into string. And Eisen then used that string for both the crossbow, and would thenter turn it into some proper cloth to use. And after Eisen twisted one end of the string around one end of the limb and attached it there properly, pulled it through the pin that would be used to actually draw the crossbow, and then back around the end of the other limb, the old man pulled on the pin a few times to see if everything worked properly and then smiled. "Alright, should be good." The old man muttered to himself and then swiftly used transmutation to pull back the small pin inside the twisting-mechanism to turn the limbs back into the simple ornamental te, although he swiftly ced some of the wind-enchanted wind gems inside of those tes forter, and then moved on to the next item he would be making for the Damage-Dealer. The sword. It would be a rtively simple straight longsword. It had a simr design to the sword that Eisen made for the Tank Golem, just a lot smaller. And as Eisen was working on the de, he once more used the folding-technique on the metal. The de itself wasn¡¯t all that hard to create either, and since the handle was once morepletely metallic as well, Eisen didn¡¯t need to switch to any other crafting skills but cksmithing either, which also saved him a little bit of time. Once Eisen set some fire-enchanted me-gems into some parts of the de, he then moved on and had to switch his crafting skill anyway, because he was now starting to make some leather bags and a quiver for the golem to keep some useable items like bolts in. In and of itself, that didn¡¯t take long either, because Eisen only worked on the basic items for now, and would get to enchantingter when everything was done and he could concentrate on it properly. The bags got some simple metal hooks as well to be able to be attached to the small holes in the sides of the Damage-Dealer¡¯s hips, before Eisen finally moved on to thest Golem, the Support-Golem. And for that, Eisen stepped over to one container where he started infusing steel with Support-Elemental Mana before, in order to create materials for a proper staff. It seemed like the Steel just barely reached Lowest-Grade, but even then, that was better than nothing, and because the staff was going to be made nearlypletely of steel, it would be possible to simply remove the few gems and ce the staff into an infuser to have it slowly rank up a bit more, because such things needed to be done with each individual material of an item. But instead of using purely the Support-High-Steel, Eisen chose to intertwine it with another magic material,pletely normal High-Steel, to make it possible for the Golem to cast other general spells more easily as well, ones that didn¡¯t necessarily have much to do with support. And so, Eisen swiftly created the spear-like shape of the Staff and set the support-enchanted gems into it together with some regr mana-infused gems and crystals. Just like that, Eisen finished nearly all of the different items for all the golems, and all that was needed to be done now was to add the steel-mythril-magic cloth to the Damage-Dealer and Support Golems and then enchant the bodies of the three golems. Atst, Eisen would then just need to ce the Golem Cores into their chests, and they would be finished! So, Eisen quickly hurried and brought therge amount of the special string he had been preparing out of the dungeon. More specifically, Eisen made his way to the cloth-making machines and started to hook the rolls of string up to it. He didn¡¯t need much cloth anyway, so Eisen figured he could just wait for it to finish then and make sure that the machines could handle it properly. And while he was doing that, it seemed like Brody had something he wanted to talk about. So of course, Eisen epted the Demon happily. But while Brody slowly started to speak, Eisen could only notice something else... something that he hadn¡¯t seen at all from the Demon-Orc in front of him at all so far. "Brody... Did you polish your horns?" Eisen asked with a light smile, and Brody looked up at the old man confused and surprised, before crossing his arms while fletching his teeth just so slightly. "Yeah, and what if I did?" He replied, but Eisen simply shook his head with a chuckle. "Nothing, just that I would appreciate some tips of how to take care of my own demon-form hornster then. But sorry, I didn¡¯t hear what you said until now, can you start again?" The old man asked with augh as he moved his fingers through his beard, and Brody replied with a sigh. "To sum it up, we all are acting weird as fuck." He pointed out, and Eisen looked down at Brody confused. "What do you mean? How are we acting weird?" The Giant-Dwarf inquired, and Brody replied with another deep sigh. "I only noticed through meditation myself, because it lets me concentrate pretty well, but didn¡¯t ya notice it yet? The thing Xenia started doin¡¯ with her ears, me carin¡¯ for some dumb horns, some of the stuff that Evalia sketched is from the wastnds even if she couldn¡¯t know about it, and Jyuuk suddenly does some really weird stuff with the souls and his monsters. Nothin¡¯ inhuman, ya know, just stuff that doesn¡¯t seem logical from the way he acted ¡¯till now. And most importantly, you." Brody started, and Eisen looked at him with a frown, trying to figure out what he meant. "You¡¯re definitely not ¡¯roleyin¡¯. You might think you¡¯re doin¡¯ that, but ya ain¡¯t. Ya keep talkin¡¯ about shit that supposedly happened in this world even if ya couldn¡¯t know about it, and you know how to do shit suddenly without any logic behind it. Like with the Mana-String." Brody pointed out, but Eisen looked back at him and started to feel slightly dizzy all of a sudden, while Brody continued to speak. "And to be honest... That idea you had seems to make a lot more sense the more I think about it." Brody exined, and then scratched his head confused. "To be honest, I¡¯m startin¡¯ to get some weird dreams as well, ya know? They ain¡¯t nearly as vibrant as the ones you spoke about, but I sometimes just end up in some wastnd-area... I heard that I was the second to peak, and maybe..." After a few moments, Brody¡¯s speech seemed to slow down and then just stoppedpletely, and he just stared forward for a few moments, and at the same time, the same happened to Eisen as well. And now, there was something that Eisen couldn¡¯t really ignore in the corner of his sight, although he still couldn¡¯t recognize what exactly was written on it. But what Eisen could tell was, that it was a blood-red notification. Chapter 333 - Three Golems "Well, just let me know when you can help me out with my horns then." Eisen said to Brody with a smile on his face, and the Demon-Orc Halfling nodded his head with a grin. "Ya got it. See youter!" He eximed and then swiftly left the room, while Eisen was just left standing there with a bright smile, waiting for the cloth to be finished, although he soon again noticed the notification in the corner of his sight, which seemed to be flickering in and out of existence constantly. But due to the deep-red color, it really wasn¡¯t all that easy to ignore it, so he somewhat wanted to try and figure out what it was. But no matter what Eisen did, he just didn¡¯t manage to pull the notification up in front of him, and whenever he tried to turn his head, the notification simply moved along together with his head. At the very least, Eisen was able to make out one word, at least barely. "Hmm... What¡¯s that? Gar... no, Grardour? What¡¯s that supposed... to..." Eisen muttered to himself, and all of a sudden, a sharp pain overwhelmed Eisen¡¯s head and he nearly dropped to the ground because he suddenly lost his balence, when the memories of thest dream he had came rushing back to him. "Grardour... He told me to remember that word, but what..." Eisen asked in a quiet whisper as he slowly managed to regain hisposure. And then, once more, a feeling of ecstacy rushed into Eisen¡¯s mind, but now that Eisen had a point to focus on, he managed to defend against it. There still seemed to be a light haze entering his mind that made it hard for him to take himself seriously, but he at the very least didn¡¯tpletely think that what he was talking about what ridiculous. And another thing happened. The red notification stopped flickering as violently, although it still stayed in the corner of Eisen¡¯s sight, but he was able to somewhat ignore it now and just tried to at the very least act as if his head hadn¡¯t been influenced again. He had no idea what was going on, but he couldn¡¯t just freak out over what might be nothing after all. And so, Eisen simply leaned back against the wall and began to whistle a happy tune, trying to just pretend as if he was overly happy all of a sudden, and then, when the cloth was finished, Eisen quickly grabbed it and rolled it up before bringing the mixture of three different types of string back to the Dungeon. Afterying the cloth out on one of the Magic worktables Eisen created afterward, he swiftly tried to just cut through it, even if it seemed to be rtively tough to do so. That was to be expected though, considering that it had steel-thread mixed into it. But even then, that seemed to just make it a little tougher, so Eisen could swiftly move on and then quickly prepared the few pieces of cloth that he needed for the Golems. For the Damage-Dealer, it was really just the hood that needed a little cloth, while the Supporter had some cloth-parts in the sides of the metallic-robes and inbetween the different rings that made those robes up. And with the help of some Mana-Thread, Eisen was able to very easily just sew the pieces of cloth onto the metal base that were the Golems¡¯ bodies. Once all of the cloth parts were added to the nearly 100% Metallic Golems, Eisen just couldn¡¯t help himself but grin broadly. They looked beautiful in his opinion, and that was basically the only word that he could think of that could properly describe them. But even then, these Golems weren¡¯t finished just yet, and were still missing their finishing-touch. First, Eisen began with the Tank-Golem, and grabbed one of his Mythril needles before sitting down in front of the huge metallic body, slowly setting the tip of the needle against the chest around the spot where the Golem Core would be cedter on, slowly getting started on the enchantments. And so, Eisen gave the Golem a Fullbody-Enchantment that was able to strengthen its body and its defense. On its de, it got some enchantments that were meant to simply increase the damage of it, while its shield got enchantments that were meant to increase the possible defense. But that wasn¡¯t all, considering that Eisen still had a reason to ce the different gems on the weapon and shield, for which he called his Knight and Brody¡¯spanion Horan over to him. With an excited smile, Eisen swiftly enchanted all some of the gems on the de with Kiron¡¯s Giant-Greatswordsmanship, and some of the gems on the Tower Shield with Horan¡¯s Tower-Shield Arts. And after thanking especially thetter of his two helpers, because Eisen didn¡¯t really know him all that well yet, he moved on to another enchantment that he wanted to ce into the tworge gems that he ced on both the Tower Shield and the Greatsword. An enchantment that was inspired by what one of his Apprentices created. After cing his palm on top of the gems, Eisen created three-dimensional enchantments that would allow thickyers of rock to grow around the shield and sword for further fortification. And then, to top it all off, Eisen filled the carvings of the enchantments in with mana crystals that have beenbined with the leftover Earth-Enchanted Earth-Gems. Evalia wouldter try to paint over them, so that they wouldn¡¯t be visible normally, but when active duringbat would end up glowing lightly. Next, Eisen moved on to the Damage-Dealer Golem, and began to work on the next fullbody enchantment. Onto its legs, Eisen added enchantments meant specifically for speed and filled them in with Mana-Crystals mixed with leftover Wind-Enchanted Wind-Gems, although some parts got some Fire-Gem-Versions. Those enchantments reached up to the belly, at which point they slightly ¡¯Intertwined¡¯ themselves with the other enchantments that were meant for attack strengthening, which Eisen filled inrgely with Mana-Crystals mixed with Fire-Enchanted Fire-Gems, and parts around the hands or the crossbow especially got the Wind-Gem-Versions. The gem ced into the center of the crossbow, directly at the spot inbetween the two limbs where every single bolt would glide over, Eisen ced an three-dimensional enchantment with a simr concept to the enchantments he ced onto the Bolts, although slightly different. It was more of a ¡¯Bestowal¡¯ enchantment, that would cover the bolts in wind to push their speed and range to another level. Of course, the other smaller gems were ability-enchanted with the skill from someone on the ship that had a Crossbow-Rted skill. On the other hand, the sword he made for the Damage-Dealer Golem, which was also coveredpletely in Fire-Gems that were enchanted with Swordsmanship, with the exception of therge fire-gem, which Eisen gave a three-dimensional enchantment that would cloak it in mes. And then, after adding some stealth-rted stitched-enchantments into the cloak, Eisen moved on to thest of the three Golems, the Supporter Golem. And the first thing that Eisen did for this one was to work on the three-dimensional enchantments inside of the Golems¡¯ Hands. Those enchantments were supposed to heavily enhance the ability to use Support-Magic that was casted through the hands, and Eisen even filled the hollow spaces up with the Support-Enchanted Gems. And after adding enchantments that were supposed to basically increase and strengthen the flow of mana artificially created through the Golem Core at ater point to the rest of the body as well, Eisen filled the enchantments outside of the hands up with pure Support-Enchanted Gems, and the rest of the body got those gems mixed with mana-crystals. And atst, the metal Staff that Eisen made for the Support-Golem then was enchanted as well. And the Skill that Eisen ced on the Gems ced into that staff was Xenia¡¯s very own ¡¯Sorcery¡¯ Skill. Of course, Eisen figured he should also add a three-dimensional enchantment that was supposed to cover the Staff in Support Magic, although he once more had to fill some of the empty spaces out with Support-Enchanted Gems so that the element could be properly defined. And just like that, Eisen was done. Thest thing that he had to do was to create the Golem Cores, which was practically the easiest part about all of this. And Eisen didn¡¯t ce any special enchantments onto the cores either. He didn¡¯t any any special materials, or a special method to create them. Nothing at all. All he did was create regr old Golem Cores. After all, they wouldn¡¯t stay in there all that long, considering that Eisen would switch them out as soon as he was able to create Ego-Golem Cores. Luckily, the Memories that they had gained would stay with them, as Eisen wasn¡¯t going to switch the Crystal Brains out. It was just that, until they became Ego-Golems, they would be a bit dimwitted, if they were witted at all. With a smile on his face, Eisen slowly ced the Golem Cores into the center of the Golems¡¯ Bodies, one after another, covering each one in a protectiveyer of mana-crystal. Slowly, Eisen grabbed the three golems by the shoulders while his size was increased and set the upright against the wall, before calling the other originals over toward him. After all, all of them were pretty interested in it, and were helping out a good bit as well. Well, beside Xenia and Brody, but those two volunteered to take over the part of teaching them different methods of how to use their abilities and weapons and such. Eisen really wanted to see these move around as soon as possible, but in the end, he still had to wait for Evalia to finish applying paint to them to make sure the crystals inside the enchantments couldn¡¯t be seen normally, and when she was done, the old man nodded his head with a smile. Curious to see how these three would work, Eisen looked at the other originals with a grin,pletely ignoring the fact that he potentially had something far more worrysome to think about, which came to him in the form of the small red notification in the corner of his eye. But for now, Eisen really, really didn¡¯t care about that. He just wanted to see if these would work, and especially how well they would work. If they were able to fight right off the bat, or if they would need to be trained first. All in all, Eisen was just excited like a little child on christmas, ready to y with his newest toy. Slowly, Eisen poured his mana into the three Golem Cores all at once, and the first thing that could be heard were creaking sounds that appeared through the metal getting used to being part of a Golem. Soon, the enchantments all over the Golems¡¯ Bodies and weapons began to glow while activating for the first time. The Tank¡¯s Shield and Sword, as well as the Golem¡¯s lower arms became covered in ayer of rock while its body became covered in brown glowing enchantments. A gust of wind exploded outward from the Damage-Dealer¡¯s left arm as the crossbow opened up and its sword caught fire at the same time, and the enchantments began to glow in either a light green or red. And atst, the enchantments on the Supporter¡¯s body began glowing in a golden light, while its hands seemed to practically radiate energy, and the staff that it was holding gave off that same energy. Just like that, three Golems rose from the dead. --- Meanwhile, on a particr small Ind... --- A man, at least a being in the shape of one, sat inside of an ancient crypt in front of a fire. At the moment, the man was slowly pulling one of the metallic tes off of its bark-like skin while a needle in his hand began to glow in a white light. Just then, something else happened, and three of the five statues directly behind the man formed cracks, each starting to let out some differently-colored light. The first one that formed such cracks was thergest of them all, a statue of an armored man holding a Giant Shield and Sword. The second one was the second-smallest of the statues, in the shape of an armored woman with a cloth-hood over her head, holding a crossbow in her left hand and a sword in her right. Thest one that began to show those cracks was also wearing a metallic armor, just like any of the other statues, but held a thin, spear-like staff in its hand. Confused, the man stood up andyed the metal te it was holding to the side, grabbing a crystal sphere from his side before that sphere began to glow brightly, simply illuminating the dozens over dozens of shattered Golem Cores and numerous different materials surrounding him and the mes. With a dark, raspy voice, the man chuckled and held its metallic hand up to his wooden face with a light smirk. "Interesting." Chapter 334 - Great Golems With a grin on his face, Eisen looked at the three Golems in front of him, slowly stepping around them while taking a look at their whole bodies, especially the glowing enchantments, to make sure everything was working properly, before then going for a few tests. "The three of you, deactivate all enchantments but those in your joints." Eisenmanded, and immediately, they did as they were told, and theyers of different elements as ced on the weapons disappeared together with the glowing enchantments. "Now, pull the covers on your faces back." The old manmanded next, and from then on, it all turned into simply trying to figure out if all the functions that they had worked properly. And once Eisen made sure this was the case, he turned around and looked at Brody and Xenia, both of which seemed to be rtively excited. "So, can I count on you to teach them to move properly?" The old man asked, before the both of them nodded their heads and Eisen looked back at the Golems. "The three of you, listen to themands of all five of us from now on. Tank, Deedee, follow Brody. Supp, follow Xenia." Eisen told them, and the three Golems swiftly responded by stepping behind either Brody or Xenia, albeit somewhat clunkily as they had to get used to their bodies first, but Evalia wanted to ask about something else. "Tank, Deedee, and Supp? Are those supposed to be their names?" She asked with a wry smile, and Eisen just nodded and shrugged. "Yeah, why not? Tank already feels pretty nice, Deedee for ¡¯Damage-Dealer¡¯ as in D-D, and Supp as short for Supporter." He exined, and Evalia nodded her head with a sigh. "I mean, they do feel pretty good to be perfectly honest... Yeah, fine. Oh, and while you were gone, I dide up with two more Golem ideas if you¡¯re interested, but that can wait untilter. You used up a lot of materials already, right?" Evalia asked, and Eisen began to move his fingers through his beard with a light smile. "Oh yes, you can believe that I did... Especially Tank took up a lot of Steel. But in the end, it was worth it. Their Durability, which is equivalent to our HP, is high enough to be equivalent to people at level 250 or higher, even. They have great strength and agility, although their general speed seems to have suffered a little because of the material..." Eisen muttered as he looked through the Golems¡¯ information windows, before scratching his cheek confused. "There¡¯s something weird, though..." The old man pointed out, and the four other originals looked at him confused. "What do ya mean, ¡¯Weird¡¯? These guys themselves are weird enough already, if you just think about it." Brody pointed out, but Eisen simply continued looking at the information windows with a light frown. "What¡¯s weird is that each of them have an effect that I don¡¯t recognize. And I don¡¯t just mean that they¡¯re effects I¡¯ve never seen before, because basically all of them are new to me. I just simply can¡¯t see how they got these effects. And just the name is pretty..." The old man whispered quite confused, and Xenia looked at Eisen with just so lightly twitching ears, making him remember what Brody said before. Eisen still seemed somewhat sceptical toward everything, though. He thought that something was going on, but even then, deep down he had this feeling that it¡¯s all just nonesense. And that feeling seemed somewhat artificial to him in and of itself. But either way, for now, Eisen wanted to try and ignore it until they had some more direct clues to what was happening, so he just quickly listened to what Xenia seemed to want to ask. "And what is the effect?" She inquired rtively excitedly, and Eisen just sighed and moved his fingers through his beard. ". And when I look at the description of the effect, all it says ¡¯The Reincarnation of one of the Great Golems¡¯." Eisen exined with a confused and curious frown, before he looked around at the others. "Did either of you hear about these ¡¯Great Golems¡¯?" He asked them, but they all simply shook their heads, so the old man just replied with a smile and scratched his cheek. "Then I guess there¡¯s no choice but to ask Sky. Sigurd, can you let him know that we need him for something real quick?" Eisen asked with a smile, and a few secondster, the Core Guardian appeared in a slight mist. "Done." It replied, and Eisen turned toward the other side of the giant room that was the current space inside of the Dungeon, before seeing the short blue-haired boy approach them. And it didn¡¯t take that long for him to arrive either, and Sky then looked up at Eisen while letting his sight drift over to the Golems a few times. "You need me for something?" He asked, and the old man nodded his head immediately. "Yeah, I do. Do you know what the Great Golems are?" Eisen asked, simply trying to immediately get to the point, and Sky replied with a bright smirk. "Of course I do!" He said, and for a few seconds, Eisen and Sky just looked at each other, waiting for the other person to speak up. Usually, Sky knew that whenever Eisen asked things like this, he wanted to know something about them and the young Fey-Kin would just immediately move on and start doing so, but he, for some reason, wasn¡¯t doing so now. "Then could you tell us about them? We don¡¯t know what they are." Eisen exined with a wry smile, but now Sky just began to blink a few times in a row and pulled his head slightly back in confusion as he looked over at the Golems. "What are you talking about? You made replicas of three of them..." Sky said and slightly pointed at Tank, Deedee, and Supp, and Eisen turned around toward Evalia confused. "Did you know about them after all?" He asked her, but Evalia just shook her head trying to understand what Sky was saying. But then, Brody held his forehead for a few moments as if in pain before stepping up and looking at Sky. "What¡¯re the names of the Great Golems Eisen replicated exactly?" He asked, and Sky looked up at the Demon-Orc with a confused frown. "Well, the names of the Great-Golems are kind of weird, but they did change the way we speak about party members now a good bit... Erm, the big guy is called ¡¯Tank¡¯. The one with the staff should be ¡¯Supp¡¯, short for ¡¯Supporter¡¯. And the one with the crossbow there is ¡¯Deedee¡¯... That¡¯s simply how you pronounce the first two letters of the ¡¯Damage Dealer¡¯ role..." Sky exined, and Eisen¡¯s mind immediately began to rush around the ce, although it seemed to be forced to calm down soon after. And then, the old man noticed that the Red Notification in the corner of his eye moved further into his sight, and he was now able to read another word, ¡¯To¡¯, so what Eisen could read then was ¡¯To Grardour¡¯, although he still didn¡¯t know what was going on exactly. But what he did know was that he just had to pretend as if nothing was wrong. "Haha, what a coincidence. I called them that as well. But yeah, we didn¡¯t know exactly what they were, so we wanted to make sure we got everything right." The old man said with a wink, trying to go with the first lie that came into his head, and Sky slowly nodded his head with a frown. "Right... Erm, but why didn¡¯t you make ¡¯Croco¡¯ and ¡¯Ranger¡¯? Well, I guess Supp can use other magic other than Support Magic as well, and Deedee has the crossbow to use on range as well, but those two should still be on a different level..." Sky pointed out, and Eisen swiftly turned over toward Evalia. "Those two other designs you made, what did they look like and what could they do?" Eisen asked her, and Evalia just smiled at him, seemingly having lost to the ¡¯Ecstatic State¡¯. "Hmm, one of them was a child-like Witch with mainly Crowd-Control Abilities, and the other one was an Archer with a Bow the size of its Body." She exined, and Sky nodded his head immediately. "That¡¯s Croco and Ranger, alright. Well, I guess if you have them nned anyway, do you have any idea when you¡¯re making them? The stories about them were some of my favorites, but I can¡¯t find many books about them that can be used with my Inkheart Magic..." The Fey-Kin boy said, and Eisen just replied with a bright smile and crossed arms. "Well, it¡¯s going to take a little longer for all of the special materials to be finished for the rest of the items I want to make, so until those are done I¡¯ll go ahead and just work on them if you like them that much." Eisen answered, and Sky began to grin brightly. "Cool! Oh, and actually, there¡¯s a story about them going to the ¡¯God Inds¡¯ as far as I remember... There¡¯s a lot of stories about that, actually, about a lot of different people and magical creatures doing so... But nobody really ever knew what the God-Inds were until you came along and told us about the ind group in detail. They might be there somewhere still! Golems don¡¯t age, after all, and that was apparently the chronologicallyst story about them as well." Sky pointed out, and Eisen immediately lifted his eyebrows as he remembered a few details all of a sudden. He was already told before that there was an ind with Golems within the group before, and one of the Gods that Eisen saw during the ¡¯Meeting¡¯ during the Prime-Industries tour looked to be a Golem as well, at least judging from the fact that it had something like a core in the center of its chest and was made of rock, but Eisen didn¡¯t want to assume anything... "Is there a God of Golems?" The old man asked, and Sky slowly nodded his head. "Mhm, there is. He¡¯s a lesser god, though, and his name is literally ¡¯Golem¡¯. He was the first Golem that came into existence, so the whole type of construct has been named after him." He expkained, so Eisen crossed his arms with a smirk on his face. "Alright, then I¡¯ve got a pretty good idea of where we¡¯re going after conquering the central Ind." The old man said with a smirk and then turned to the others again. "We¡¯ll be headed to the ind of the God of Golems afterward." The old man exined to them, speaking as if there was no further discussion about it, and there really wasn¡¯t, and the only one that had something against it seemed to be Brody. "What, why do we have to fight those guys, it ain¡¯t fun if your enemy doesn¡¯t bleed!" He eximed, and Eisen replied with a deep sigh, trying to ignore what the Demon-Orc actually just said. "Most Golems are naturally slow, so especially someone like you should be able to fight against them easily. They die once their core is destroyed, and they apparently give hefty experience. And I personally don¡¯t think the Golems on the Ind of a God, no matter if he¡¯s a lesser god or not, will be made of just mud or sand. And they won¡¯t be made of decayable materials either, at least not of flesh. So, what other materials could there be on the ind?" Eisen asked with a smirk, and Xenia slowly began to respond. "Most likely rock, ore or processed metals, or crystals..." She exined, and the old man nodded his head immediately. "Exactly. Just what we need to create houses that won¡¯t disappear by not having mana fed to them." He said with a grin, and then slightly shrugged, "And finding a few Historic Golems that myths are written about is a great bonus, don¡¯t you think?" Chapter 335 - More Golems With a wry smile on his face, Eisen now stood in front of two more piles of steel, which amounted to about half the steel that they had left on the ship at the moment which wasn¡¯t reserved for other projects or weapons yet, so Eisen might be cutting it a bit close in case there were some emergency projects that needed to be taken care of once they arrived at the inds tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, depending on how the weather was when they actually got close to the inds, but if they would really be able to find the amount of materials on the Golem-God¡¯s Ind as Eisen hoped they would, then that wouldn¡¯t matter too much anyway. And since the two extra golems would just be even more help toward reaching that goal, Eisen could continue with good conscience as well. "Now, let¡¯s start all over again, shall we..?" Eisen muttered to himself with a sigh, considering that he had hoped to be able to move on toward a different project, but in the end, this wasn¡¯t all bad either. Swiftly, Eisen started to get to work and threw some new steel ingots into his forge, and while they were heating up started to think about what element to best give them. "For Ranger, that would be of course Wind... And ording to what Sky told me, I should also give him Water as an element..." The old man quietly whispered before moving his fingers through his beard. "And for Croco, Darkness and Light, although not in a special-element way like for Supp, but rather just the regr wind and darkness elements seperately." Eisen thought to himself, and then nodded his head to himself, although he really wasn¡¯t sure how easy it would be to find people with the light or dark elements on the ship. He hoped it would be rather easy, but he couldn¡¯t really say for sure. Either way, once the steel ingots started glowing in a bright yellow, Eisen grabbed them out of the forge and quickly got to work on creating the different parts for the two Golems¡¯ bodies. Croco¡¯s body was really the size of a young child, and while it was still wearing armor, it had a simr robe designpared to Supp, although Croco had a pointed Witch¡¯s hat on her ¡¯Helmet¡¯, and the sleeves of her robes covered her arms up to the tips of her hands. Overall, the robes seemed just far toorge for her body, but Eisen figured it wasn¡¯t an Issue if that was the design for the Original Croco as well, which Evalia had apparently replicated one to one. As for Ranger¡¯s body, it was the one that seemed most in-human, although just through a single change in its body. Instead of one elbow per arm, he had two, which was probably the case to make it possible to draw the giant bow that he was carrying. Although even then, that was only within the ¡¯Combat Mode¡¯ and the third section of the arm would pull back into the regr lower arm to make it look rtively normal, even if his forearms were rtively bulky due to that. Other than that, the rest of Ranger¡¯s body didn¡¯t seem all that peculiar, and he once more looked just like a man wearing full-metal armor. Eisen was actually really excited about making the bow and arrows for Ranger, because the bow in itself was already quite unique, not even considering the size of the weapon. Beyond that, Eisen figured that he would need toe up with a proper method to increase the different senses for Ranger in particr, because it was necessary for him to be able to see the furthest and have the best hearing, at the very least in the old man¡¯s opinion. Those two senses of his always seemed to be the most important to Eisen when he was hunting. In order toe up with a good enhancement method, Eisen asked a few people, including Sky who was the one to request that Eisen would build the two other Golems sooner in the first ce, to go around the ship and ask everyone on information on their elements, and then let Eisen know about any that might be useful when it came to elemental-infusion for the eyes, ears, or even nose of Ranger. But until then, Eisen had to actually finish the rest of the body. If it had to be so, the ears, eyes and nose could be thest pieces that he would end up setting into the body, with the exception of the Golem core of course. The next little while was spent with Eisen creating all of the metallic base parts that needed to be prepared, before then moving onto cing things like the soul generators, batteries, and so on into the chests of both of the two Golems as well as creating the three-dimensional enchantments in the joints that would keep the Bodies together in the first ce. And as this part was a rtively long-winded work, even if it didn¡¯t necessarily take much concentration on Eisen¡¯s part, the old man could figure out a few smaller things while he was working on it, like what materials or methods to actually use while making the bow for Ranger and the special ¡¯Staff¡¯ for Croco, before beginning to prepare the materials that took a little longer to makepared to others that were just ready to use after minimal preparation already. Once Eisen then finished the different Joints, he activated them all and made all of the different joints connect to each other while Eisen himself got to work on connecting everything with the help of Mana-Thread. After everything was connected, Eisen then ced whatever he could already ce into the head, into the head, which really just ended up being the brain as well as the ears, nose and tongue for Croco, because even this to-be Witch¡¯s eyes didn¡¯t have the necessary materials that Eisen wanted to use for the eyes. He had the gems, but he still didn¡¯t enchant them with the specific elements yet. And even if the bonus it would give was miniscule, the old man wanted to wait for when he had that all, even if the eyes themselves were already finished, with the exception for Ranger¡¯s eyes. But it seemed like he could get to work rtively quickly, if he was lucky, as Sky, Kiron and Bree, the ones Eisen sent to ask around for everyone¡¯s elements, as well as their general skill-build, soon returned with the information on everything the old man needed. "Hmm... Telescope, Whisper, and Animalistic?" Eisen asked pretty surprised as he saw the names for those Element-Names, and Sky nodded his head with a smile. "Mhm, the Telescope is the Element of a Priest of the Goddess of the Night. He¡¯s apparently a hobby-astronomer as well. Basically, it makes it possible to see very far into the distance or see very small things as well. The Animalistic Element belongs to a Beastperson we have on board, and he¡¯s apparently pretty close to his animal-side, and he seems to have a pretty high-rank tamer-upation as well, although I don¡¯t know how he ended up homeless in the church... Anyway, that element lets him turn more animalistic, and can bring out animalistic parts in different things and people." The Fey-Kin exined with a wry smile before scratching his cheek, and Eisen nodded his head, although he was more curious about thest element that Sky didn¡¯t exin yet. "And what about the Whisper one?" He inquired, and Sky ended up just shrugging. "I don¡¯t know why someone would have an element like that if they aren¡¯t involved in sketchy business, so I feel pretty weird about this, but... The owner is a really boring, regr woman, and the element lets you hear the quietest whisper from across hundreds of meters." Sky exined, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile, before crossing his arms. "Alright, can you bring these three to the Meeting-Room then? Just knock on the door three times and Sigurd will let me know about it." Eisen exined, positive that the Core Guardian heard Eisen say this as it was aware of everything going on within the Dungeon, and the two Fey-Kin siblings and the Half-Dragon nodded their heads before making their way out of the Dungeon again, and Eisen then got to work quickly setting everything up for the extra infusion-capsules, of which Eisen had a good few lined up within the Dungeon at the moment, and then about twenty minutester, when the old man was just about finished preparing everything for the items he was going to make for the two new Golems, Sigurd appeared in front of Eisen in a cloud of mist. "Seems like everyone¡¯s in the Meeting Room, Eisen." The Core Guardian pointed out, and the old man nodded his head before grabbing different enchanting marbles, crystals, and gems, because it was necessary to transfer the enchantment from an enchanting marble over to another item as quickly as possible or else the marble would crumble soon. And when Eisen stepped out of the Dungeon, he was soon met with the faces of three different people. One of them was a highly-transformed Beastperson, something that Eisen could only recognize from Jyuuk activating his ratial skill, even if this man¡¯s transformation was even stronger than that and he looked basically like a bipedal wolf instead of a beastperson. Then, there was a young Priest with deep ck hair and sses on his eyes standing next to him who Eisen had already spoken to a few times before. Thest of the three was a young woman with a seemingly nd exterior, although it was so nd that it seemed somewhat intentional. "The three of you, thanks foring here so quickly. I require a little bit of assistance with the creation of a Golem from you three, althought that would only amount toward me infusing your element into a few smaller materials. For example for eyes that can see further than any person¡¯s, ears that can hear a fly p its wings a mile away, and a nose better than that of any beast in existence." The old man chuckled, and the three people quite quickly agreed to helping out, and before he knew it, Eisen had all the materials that he needed. The different sensory organs would probably be overkill for any of the other Golems though, otherwise he would have tried to do something like this beforehand for them, so he didn¡¯t really need much, considering that he would be simply using the elements to create an infuser, even if he did ask the Priest with the ¡¯Telescope¡¯ element if Eisen could enchant a few more materials with it, because he really thought that it would be a great asset in general, especially after asking them all to try and demonstrate their ability. Actually, the ¡¯Whisper¡¯ element seemed pretty useful too after that demonstration, because it seemed to also allow the user to have their voice carried somewhere in the far distance, so Eisen asked to enchant it onto a small Wind Gem, because the element somehow seemed to have derived from the Wind Element. Either way, after a little while, Eisen had all of the materials that he needed and then quickly moved on toward other business, which came stepping through the door in the form of the next group of people that Eisen needed some help from, which was really just made up of two kids with the Light and Dark elements. And once the old man enchanted some materials with their elements as well, the old man stepped back into the dungeon to finally get to work on finishing thest two golems. And after Eisen set the different infusers up and ced the elemental-mana generators into the chests of the two new Golems as well, Eisen sat down in front of different chunks of steel that would turn into a Giant Bow as well as a Metallic Broom. Chapter 336 - Croco and Ranger First, Eisen got to work with the Broom, because it seemed to be rather straightforward. As there was no special element needed for this, Eisen simply used some High-Steel that he already had around and forged it into a simple straight staff shape, before then slightly bending the staff to seem more like it was simply a wooden branch that you may findying around, before bending the end into a slight spiral-shape so that it could hold things like antern, which Eisen would be makingter as well. And after the branch was done, he grabbed the re-built Spinning-wheel to allow input from the different spinnerets and then put it on a setting to make the string pretty thick, before using three different inputs. One part Mana-Crystal enchanted with Xenia¡¯s Witchcraft Skill, one High-Steel and one Witch¡¯s Birch. Considering that a normal broom would use straw, Eisen figured he should use some natural ingredient in this as well and then remembered this material with a quite fitting name, figuring that there had to be a reason for it to be called that. Once the old man then had all the string that he needed, heid it out in a zig-zag directly next to each other, as if folding it, and used transmutation to make it harder and tougher before bundling the different pack of hardened string together properly. Then, Eisen pushed the end of the Steel-Broomstick into one end of the bundle and attached it tighly with the help of some mana-thread and a little transmutation, before simply cutting up the other end of the string-bundle. Now that the base was done, Eisen of course ced a few gems here and there into the surface of the broom and then got to work on the Lantern, putting together a mixture of ss that the old man added some more Witchcraft-Enchanted Mana-Crystals into and then formed the whole thing into a simple oval bubble, with a t underside, which Eisen cut offter, and a slightly pointed tip, as well as a small square of ss cut out at the side and in total five small lines pushed deeper into the bubble. And while the ss was cooling off inside of the annealer, Eisen got to work on the metallic parts for the Lantern, which was once more really just made up of High-Steel. For the underside of thentern, Eisen formed a simple pentagonal te with a few holes to ce the rounded bars into. And for the top of thentern, Eisen created a pentagonal pyramid, once more with holes for the rounded bars, as well as a hook to properly attach it to the Broom. Of course, Eisen also made a fewtches and extra parts for the part of the five-sidedntern that could be opened up to exchange the candles that would be ced inside for different effects. And then, Eisen put everything together swiftly and hooked thentern into the end of the Broom, finishing the base for this item quite swiftly. Of course there would still be enchantments ced onto and into the Broom, but Eisen would do all of thatter. For now, Eisen would just get started on the bow next, for which he would once more use Spring Steel like for the Crossbow that he made for Deedee. The Bow was quite particr in itself as well, because the whole weapon design that Evalia came up with was a three-in-one bow. Meaning different bows for different strengths and ranges. The Regr size for a bow like used in most Archerypetitions, a recurve bow, then a Recurve bow the size of a Large Longbow, and then the truly Giant Recurve Bow. In real life, such a bow would probably be impossible to use, or even make in the first ce, but in this game it would most likely be possible, and Eisen really did enjoy the challenge of making an impossible item like that useable. So first, Eisen made the bases for the three different bows, which were just two metallic bars for each one with each limb curved toward the user, and then at the point where the bowstring would be, back away from the user. Once the different limbs were finished, Eisen got to the part that would hold all of them together, the part that would actually be held by Ranger. And all that was really needed was a handlerge enough for the two giant limbs that had some slots for the other limbs set into it. Because the Giant and Large limbs each were made to be able to have the next-smaller limb set inside of them to an extent, mostly toward the center of the bow, but enough to make sure that each smaller bow was supporting therger ones and vice versa. It all actually worked in a pretty nice synergy with each other, although the fine-tuning was a bit more annoying than Eisen thought. After binding the same steel thread as used for the crossbow, except that the mana-crystal used to make the magic thread for this one was enchanted with Archery, around the ends of the bows, Eisen continued trying to pull on everything to test it out and make sure everything was fine, but whenever he changed the slightest bit about the thickness of the smallest bow, it would have a huge effect on thergest bow, so he really had to make sure not to overdo anything and make sure that everything was fine. And once the thickness of the bows were figured out, all that Eisen needed to do was properly work on making it possible for the different bows to switch their ¡¯Mode¡¯ as quickly as possible, although that didn¡¯t end up being that hard in the end. All that Eisen needed to do was ce a small piece into each lower limb of the bows that would make it possible to roll up the bowstring to tighten it into ce. Usually, it would be just set into the limbs themselves in a way that they were nearly invisible, which Eisen achieved by adding another few ¡¯Maism¡¯ enchantments that would only apply to a specific string of the bow, and with a little bit of the Golem¡¯s control, it would be able to easily switch between the modes within a few seconds, at least that¡¯s what Eisen hoped. It seemed like the Golems were able to use the weapons as part of their own body as long as they ¡¯Woke up¡¯ with them attached to their bodies, so Eisen simply ced some moretches onto the handle of the bow to snap onto Ranger¡¯s hands, and everything should probably work just fine. Although for all of that to work, there was a requirement that the items weren¡¯t already seen as standalone items, so if Eisen went and thought of this bow as ¡¯Finished¡¯ before he thought of the whole Golem as finished, then he wouldn¡¯t be able to make the Golem connect to the item. Either way, once Eisen finished the Giant Bow and figured out the different mechanisms of it, Eisen set a few gems into the different parts of the bow and then moved on to something else, which were the different quivers for Ranger, because together with three differently-sized bows, he would also get three differently-sized types of arrows, thergest being more like a spear than an arrow. In the end, it didn¡¯t really take that long to make these, because they were simply tubes of leather which Eisen would strap onto Ranger¡¯s back. "Hmm... I guess I can enchant them now, huh?" The old man muttered to himself with a slight sigh, as he would have preferred to ce the different sensory organs into Ranger¡¯s head before doing so, but it seemed like the old man had no choice, considering that they would probably just be finished in thete morning of the next day. After all, it was already prettyte in the day now already, so it was to be expected for not all the materials to be finished. So, Eisen swiftly sat down in front of the two metallic bodies and got to work. First, he enchanted Croco¡¯s body, although all that the old man did was ce simr enchantments as Supp had gotten into Croco¡¯s hands as well, just instead of enhancing the Support Element, it would help out Croco¡¯s general magic-casting. Other than that, Eisen simply made sure to create enchantments that would for one make Croco¡¯s body lighter through the Gravity element, which was only possible due to the sheer amount of Soul-Generators Eisen ced into her tiny body, making her about one tenth of her original weight. And all of those enchantments were filled in withbined dark and light gems, because the Gravity Element was abination of the two as well. But on top of that being the case, Eisen enchanted the dark-gems with the Witchcraft skill, and the Ligh-gems with Sorcery, to enhance those two abilities within Croco as well. Then, the Broom was turned into a three-dimensional enchantment that would make it float enough to even carry Croco¡¯s light body, and those enchantments would be kept active through the help of some extra soul-generators ced into the core of the Broom. And in order to keep all of the gravity-reducing enchantments that Eisen used for Croco running, Eisen had to use 95% of all the souls that Eisen had leftover or was currently using for Soul Generators fueling some infusion capsules, trying topress them all as much as he could. Hopefully he would be able to do so with the actual Compression ability that he would gain at Alchemy¡¯s Rank 4, because for now most of Croco¡¯s torso was made up of those Soul Generators. And then, Eisen of course also enchanted the different gems on the Broom with Sorcery and Witchcraft, and then used therge central gem in the middle of the Broom to generate a dark mist that would wrap around the broom, while thentern would end up giving light to the whole thing. Speaking of, thentern was enchanted by Xenia instead, with a magic circle stemming from Witchcraft itself that would be able to use the different abilities of different candles created through Witchcraft. After Croco¡¯s body was properly enchanted, Eisen moved on to Ranger¡¯s, and enchanted the arms and legs with enchantments to help speed which were filled out with wind gems, while Ranger¡¯s hands shoulders and upper torso were enchanted with enchantments to help dexterity in the hands and stability in the upper body, and those enchantments were filled out with water gems, because water was known to be both mendable and stable. As for the bow, it was obviously just enchanted with wind magic that would help the velocity and range of the arrows that were shot. The gems were enchanted with Archery for the most part, while therge central one was enchanted to cover the bow in wind magic. And then Eisen ced another ¡¯Granting¡¯ enchantment around the ce where the Arrow would shoot through, which would cover the arrow in either wind or water magic, depending on what Ranger wanted at the moment. And in the end, that was mostly it. Eisen ced Croco¡¯s Golem Core into her chest and quickly activated it, creating a fourth Reincarnation of the five Great Golems. As she was activated, the first thing that happened was that she began to float in the air with the help of the Broom, which was currently attached to her hand, while the enchantments all over her body, which had been covered by Evalia¡¯s metallic paint already, began to glow. After Eisen made sure that everything seemed to work properly, he then sent Croco off to learn from Xenia together with Supp, while the old man started to prepare whatever else was needed for Ranger¡¯s sensory organs. Chapter 337 - Shattered Undead Golem For the rest of the day, Eisen figured he should go and try to take a look at what his students were doing, before checking on his soon-to-be ex-apprentice. First, Eisen chose to see what Rouge and Parc were making for themselves, and to his surprise, they were working on tools! More specifically, they were using the things that they learnt over the past few days in order to enhance their tools to the peak that they could manage, and Eisen really couldn¡¯t help but nod his head proudly. At the very least these two seemed to be ready to properly listen to what the old man had to say. And then, with an already pretty good mood, Eisen moved on toward his Grandson, who surprisingly was working on what seemed to be a wooden mannequin hand, so the old man kept watching curiously. Although, it seems like Stahl himself was rather ufortable being watched so intensely. "Erm... Gramps, can I help you somehow?" He asked with a wry smile, and Eisen swiftly shook his head as he just continued watching. "Not really, I¡¯m just here to watch. Oh, but why exactly are you making a Hand?" Eisen asked, and Stahl sighed deeply before handing the wooden piece over to the old man. "Because this is thest thing I have to do for the big project I¡¯ve been working on for a good while now." Stahl exined, and Eisen looked at him with a rather surprised expression, especially when he saw that the wooden hand wasn¡¯t actuallypletely wooden, and Eisen was only able to see the piece¡¯s underside from where he was standing. On its back, it had ayer of metal directly attached to the wood, and with his Mana-Sight, Eisen was able to see what seemed to be necromantic mana in the wood¡¯s center, although there was some concentrated regr mana in the center of that necromantic mana. And judging from what Eisen could see, what Stahl was currently doing was properly merge the metal tes with the wood using a mixture of transmutation and nt control. "Hmm, alright, keep going, then..." The old man muttered and gave the wooden hand back to Stahl, who nodded his head with a sigh and then poured his mana into the hand some more, before he started to polish the surface of the alloy that Stahl used for the metal tes, from what Eisen could tell, it was probably partially mythril, steel, and some smaller amounts of different types of metals mixed into it. It seemed to basically just be an alloy that existed for immense defensive capabilities, and Eisen could see that Stahl was folding his mana into the metal as well. And that reminded Eisen of something else that he wanted to know, "Actually, did you manage to get your element yet?" The old man inquired, but Stahl shook his head with a wry smile, "I¡¯ve been trying to hold off as long as I could... I even had Xenia, Jyuuk and Evalia use different de-buffs on me to slow my Mana-Maniption growth down as much as possible, but it still reached Level 99 for Rank 1 already... So I should get there pretty soon." Stahl exined, so Eisen just responded with a light chuckle and nodded his head. "I see, then let me know what happens when you get your element." Eisen suggested, and Stahl smirked in reply, "Will do, but until then, I have something else I wanted to show you... I mean, I¡¯ve been using something that I¡¯m not sure if you¡¯ll be happy with, but either way, I thought it looked pretty cool... I had to change the size a little bit, because the effect for the clothes-growth or shrinking doesn¡¯t apply for Golems apparently, but I think it turned out pretty well." Stahl pointed out and then squatted down in front of a piece of cloth that wasying on the floor, and Eisen could see a humanoid figure underneath that cloth, and curiously watched as he saw the wooden hand snap onto what seemed to be an arm. "Alright, let¡¯s try this again then." Stahl suggested and pulled the piece of cloth away, revealing a... something. Eisen really wasn¡¯t sure what it was, because it was a mash-up of so many different things, but after a little while, Eisen was able too see through what was going on at least a little bit. The base of it was a wooden Mannequin, although it was heavily enchanted to a point where Eisen figured that it would need an immense amount of mana, and Stahl seemed to have somehow gained the Soul Engineering skill without the old man¡¯s knowledge and went ahead and created some Soul Generators, because Eisen was 100% sure that he wasn¡¯t the one that made the ones that were currently inside of that body. Inside of the Mannequin¡¯s body was a humanoid skeleton, and Eisen really, really had to wonder where Stahl managed to get that on this ship in the middle of the ocean. But inside of those bones seemed to be something like mana batteries, which were fed by the mana from the Soul-Generators, and even the bones themselves were apparently once more heavily enchanted. Then, on the outside of the wooden body was a heavily modified version of the suit Eisen made back in Melroe, which was then destroyed in Handor when he ripped his own arm off. For some reason he just didn¡¯t feel the need to repair it any time soon, and just let ity around somewhere, although he actually somewhat forgot where he left it, and it seemed as if that was what Stahl was talking about when he was saying he wasn¡¯t sure how much Eisen would like that he used it. But he really didn¡¯t care, he only wore his Leather-Apron and his Wool-Pantstely, after all. Amongst the notifications to the suit were some sections that were exchanged with leather, which Stahl apparently used to hide the fact that he simply sewed the right sleeve back onto the suit as well, and some metallic decoration and armor parts. The areas that were d in metal tes were really just all the areas that were exposed to the air, although that only included one side of each limb so that movement would be possibleter on. And the thing that stuck out the most to Eisen right now was the fact that there was a hole in the chest that was currently exposed and showing a few parts of the bone-ribcage. Slowly, Eisen brought along a pitch ck sphere, which seemed to be a Golem Core with more twists than a Bop-It. For one, it seemed to be hollow with some kind of liquid inside of it together with what looked to be a simple seed. And then, it also was pitch-ck and covered in high amounts of necromantic mana, which made Eisen think that Stahl used necromantic mana-crystals as a base to create this. Confused and curious, Eisen then simply watched Stahl ce the ck Golem Core into the center of the chest, and then poured his mana inside of it. Immediately, the Golem Convulsed and its limbs twisted in unnatural direction, and Eisen could hear very un-nice sounds that were probably not meant to be an actual thing. But that wasn¡¯t the end of everything. First, Stahl extended his hand forward towrad the Golem-Amalgamation. "Stop, stand upright." Stahlmanded, and the Golem slowly stopped, even if it seemed to not be able to control its body all that well. Slowly, Stahl stepped forward and closed the buttons of the Suit¡¯s ck Shirt before cing his hand on the dim ck light that shone through the shirt. And before Eisen knew it, he could hear something shatter, as the light momentarily disappeared. For just a moment, it seemed as if the Golem¡¯s body was trying to fall to the ground, but just when that thought popped into Eisen¡¯s head, it properly stood on its two legs again, and stood back up like Stahlmanded it to. And with a grin on his face, the young, green-haired man then turned around toward his grandfather and smirked without limit. "Yo Gramps, say hi to the newest Limitbreaker on this ship." He said happily, and Eisen raised his eyebrows surprised. "Oh? Well, what exactly did you do to get there?" Eisen asked curiously, before Stahl just scratched the back of his neck and pointed at the Golem-Thing behind him. "Didn¡¯t you see all that just now? I thought it was kind of obvious that I made a golem?" He said questioningly, and Eisen sighed deeply, rubbing the top of his Grandson¡¯s way to pet it and to annoy him at the same time. "Don¡¯t y dumb with me, you know what I¡¯m asking." The old man chuckled, before pointing at the Figure, although Eisen still wasn¡¯t sure what it actually was, because it didn¡¯t seem to be a full Golem at the very least. "Yeah, I get it, I¡¯m just kidding. Well, basically, I wanted to go forward and create an Overgrown-Golem-Undead." He exined with a grin, and Eisen raised his eyebrow again, before Stahl just sighed deeply and opened the thing¡¯s shirt back up again, revealing a destroyed Golem Core kept together by roots. "To be exact, it¡¯s called a ¡¯Shattered Undead Golem¡¯. I created a Golem Core using the principles of Necromancy and created an Undead Golem Core that can be ced inside of an Undead¡¯s chest to strengthen it, even if it makes it impossible for it to grow through the Necromancy-Ability that lets your undead level up. Then I filled that Golem Core up with a Growth-Enhancer that I made through a ceremony mixed between Witchcraft, Prayer to my God, and Shamanism so that it would grow in a way that it would break through anything without actually destroying it, and then ced it into the center of the Golem Core as well. Then I activated the wooden Golem-Skeleton mixture with it and made the nt in the center grow with that special Growth-Enhancer. It didn¡¯t work up until now, but then I saw how you managed to connect different items to your golems to make them part of their bodies, so I did the same and never saw any of the things I made as finished, so this was basically a gamble on my part that could have possibly killed us all." Stahl exined with a bright smile, and Eisen just looked at Stahl with a wry smile and shook his head. "I swear, if I didn¡¯t prefer to keep an eye on you after what you just said, I¡¯d send you back to the maind together with Koro..." Eisen said with a sigh, but Stahl just shrugged. "Hey, thatst part was a joke. Xenia and Jyuuk helped me out with the Growth-Enhancer and the choice of seed I should use, so there wasn¡¯t really any major danger. The worst that could¡¯ve happened was that the Golem Stopped working because the core was destroyed." Stahl exined, before looking away and scratching his cheek, "... Probably..." He whispered, and Eisen sighed deeply. "Sigurd." Eisen said and immediately, the figure of the Core Guardian appeared next to the old man, waiting for him to continue speaking. "What exactly is the process of creating a Dungeon Core?" He asked, and Sigurd ced its finger to its chin and thought about it for a moment. "Well, I don¡¯t know exactly, but I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s some form of mixture of different types of crystalized energies, such as World or Divine Energy. Why?" It asked, and Eisen just crossed his arms and kept looking at Stahl, who was slowly noticing what Eisen was trying to get it. "And what exactly would happen if a Dungeon Core broke?" Eisen added, and Sigurd just shrugged its shoulders. "This is theoretical, right? You don¡¯t actually want to try and destroy the Dungeon Core or anything, but are just trying to give an example to this dunce? I mean, destroying Dungeon Cores is impossible as far as I know, but considering that you¡¯re one of the people that made them, it might be possible..." Sigurd said somewhat panicky, and Eisen just chuckled and nodded his head. "Don¡¯t worry, just theoretical." He exined, and Sigurd then slowly continued. "Well, if you were to somehow make it possible to destroy a Dungeon Core... It would probably release all of the highly concentrated energies which are literally able to control all of matter, space, and time, which would probably end up creating either an explosionrge enough to destroy half a continent, or an interdimensional wormhole." Sigurd exined, and Eisen raised his eyebrows once more as he looked at Stahl, who was just scratching his cheek again, with a wry smile, "Right... I¡¯ll try not to go forward with such dangerous experiments anymore..." "Haha, good. I mean, Xenia and Jyuuk know what they¡¯re doing, so the most what could have happened probably was just what you said, but I¡¯d like it if you were at least aware of what could happen if you mess around with those types of energies." Eisen exined, and then looked to the side at the clock floating in the air. "Anyway, I have to see Xenia in a bit, and I also have to speak to Koro again. Good job, that¡¯s insanely impressive, Stahl." The old man said with a smile and then turned around before making his way to the Dungeon Gate, although a slight thought crept up to his mind as he was walking. He never used Divine or World energy before, and he had not a single clue to what Dungeon Cores were made of before now, so how did he know that Sigurd could help his point? Chapter 338 - Letter of Recommendation "This is getting kind of repetitive... I really need to figure out what¡¯s going on." Eisen muttered to himself as he was trying to hold off against the sudden feeling of ecstacy that overcame him while at the same time acting as if it managed to work on him. He didn¡¯t know what exactly was going on, but he knew that it was something sketchy. Just the fact that there was a sudden notification that he couldn¡¯t control nor even properly read was enough proof to him. Either way, now, Eisen would move on and go to see Koro once more after they had both managed to calm down a bit. The old man made his choice, and Koro would not be allowed to learn under him from that point forward, but even then, Eisen wanted to make sure that Koro understood why he was doing this all. He knew how easy it was to get bitter about such things, especially for people as young as Koro, and Eisen wanted him to take this as one of the harshest lessons in his life. Koro could have seriously injured or even killed someone there, and that just wasn¡¯t alright in the slightest, especially because he didn¡¯t seem to understand what exactly he did wrong initially. Eisen really hoped that he would be able to make him understand nheless that this shouldn¡¯t stop Koro from pursuing a passion like this, just that he should never make such a mistake ever again. He would wish him luck in life, and then Eisen would move on. It wasn¡¯t the first time that he had to let an apprentice go, and this wasn¡¯t actually the harshest way that he did so. One time, back when Eisen was actually still taking apprentices, he would teach them in his workshop at home, and one of the young men tried to break into Eisen¡¯s basement. At the time, Eisen didn¡¯t have ess to such high-tech security systems yet, so the apprentice managed to get in, although he seemed to be rather disappointed at the fact that there was nothing but alcohol down there. He probably figured it was some kind of treasure vault filled with expensive materials, and began to freak out when he found that this wasn¡¯t the case at all. And of course, people that freak out make mistakes, and the apprentice did the mistake of running into some freshly-bottled bottles of Whiskey and breaking them. One of Eisen¡¯s other apprentices, who was currently on break and getting some water from the Kitchen, overheard the sound and let Eisen know. Of course, Eisen didn¡¯t hesitate to throw his apprentice out head-first either, because this just wasn¡¯t alright. Many of his apprentices over the years were pretty rough in their attitude, often getting angry or just being far too careless. Some of hister apprentices were actually Tony¡¯s friends from his gang, who Eisen saw to not be bad kids and chose to take in for a little while and bring them up to their feet as productive members of society. Many ended up being quite troublesome in the long run, but overall, they treated Eisen with respect and never went so far as to try and exploit him, with some exceptions of course. "Hmm, I should try and see if I can call some of them together again. I wonder, would they be able to afford capsules these days?" Eisen wondered to himself, trying to think about what he remembered his apprentices being up totely, before shrugging with a smirk. "Yeah, I guess I shouldn¡¯t worry about that, they all ended up pretty sessful, huh...?" He chuckled to himself as a slight feeling of nostalgia overcame him once he stood in front of the door, on the other side of which Eisen would be able to find Koro. Slowly, the old man unlocked the door and stepped inside. Immediately, he could see Koro squatting in the corner, simply pulling his knees up to his chest silently. He looked at Eisen for a moment, before his eyebrows immediately tilted toward the center of his face in anger. With a sigh, Eisen stepped further inside and sat down on the ground in front of Koro before crossing his arms. "Be angry all you want, but you and I both know that you¡¯re the one that messed up." The old man pointed out, but he could simply see some of the muscles on Koro¡¯s arms tense up, probably in even more anger. Just so slowly, with a calm state of mind, Eisen closed his eyes and activated his demonic transformation. Whenever he was crafting, he just activated it without a single thought, and it seemed to just turn into his regr old base transformation. But when Eisen was angry and trying to be intimidating with his Demonic Transformation active, it seemed to slightly change. The mes all over his body seemed to bee darker, while the golden parts on his body did the same, as if bing ¡¯Dirty¡¯. His wings seemed more like they used to before, far more rugged and edged, and in general, his body seemed to just give off an energy of ¡¯Anger¡¯. This became especially apparent to Eisen when he was yelling at Koro before. It was probably because Eisen was more connected to his Demonic side nowpared to a few weeks ago, but he just hadn¡¯t really noticed this all that much before that time. But if it was possible to turn more toward an angry ¡¯Yin¡¯ side, it should be able to turn more toward a calm, happy ¡¯Yang¡¯ side as well. And with his current state of mind, Eisen hoped that it was enough to get there. After all, if his Yin side was able to scare people more easily, his Yang side should be able to lift other peoples¡¯ moods again. Slowly, the old man looked at his body and noticed a few changes, of which some were more noticable than ever. It seemed as if the golden mes inbetween the cracks in Eisen¡¯s skin were now actually somewhat metallic in nature, weirdly enough, and there were a few metallic golden lines running through the rock he had as skin in his demonic form. And as for his wings, which Eisen could only really see from the corner of his eye, the old man noticed that they seemed ¡¯Softer¡¯, even if they were a bit bulkierpared to before. In general, they started to seem slightly more as if they were about to grow feathers and turn into an Angel¡¯s wings. There was probably a little change to Eisen¡¯s eyes and his horns as well, but he really wasn¡¯t in a situation where he wanted to check on that. Carefully, Eisen then extended his hand forward toward Koro and ced it on the young man¡¯s shoulder. "Koro, I know that you¡¯re probably feeling pretty lost right now, but please, just try and understand what exactly happened." Eisen said with a light smile, before Koro slowly turned back toward Eisen, and his sight became softer and calmer. "You created something that put yourself and your friends in danger. You could have really, really hurt yourself to a point where you may be unable to continue working in these crafts, Koro." Eisen exined, and slowly, the young man nodded his head before hiding his face behind his knees again. "And I know that you realize that you went wrong somewhere. After all, otherwise you could have just used transmutation to open the door. It was just a smalltch, not even a proper lock, so you could have done so easily." Eisen pointed out, before Koro just somewhat nodded again, and Eisen slowly began to smile. "This is not the end for you, Koro. You can still continue working as a craftsman, you just won¡¯t learn how to do so from me..." The old man exined with a smile, before getting another idea, which he would be actually quite happy with. "Have you ever heard of Melroe before, Koro?" He asked, but Koro quietly shook his head, so Eisen replied with a chuckle. "I figured so. It¡¯s an amazing town, but it¡¯s in the Dwarven country and pretty far away from Handor. There are some pretty amazing craftsmen there as well, and one of them is a rather chaotic Magicraftsman, specialized on making heavily enchanted tools, potions, and even toys. You seem to be simrly chaotic, so you might be able to learn from him better than you can learn from me." Eisen exined, before rubbing over Koro¡¯s head. "If you do well there, then who knows, I might be willing to have youe back and work with us on the inds, but you seem to have a pretty tough time listening to what I have to say. Maybe it will work better there." Eisen suggested before standing up with a smile, preparing to leave again, "When we get to the inds and the first ship departs, I¡¯ll send you back to the maind with it, together with a letter of reendation and enough money to get you to Melroe. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll do well there." Eisen told Koro and then opened the door again, slowly stepping out before closing and locking the door behind him, actually rather happy with the idea he came up with for a reason different to the one he just pointed out. "And there¡¯ll be an ancient dragon that can see through any type of lie who I¡¯m quite well acquainted with. Let¡¯s hope he agrees to keep an eye on you as well, huh?" Eisen whispered to himself with a light chuckle before making his way through the interior of the ship again, heading to another ce for now. He seemed to have figured out how to turn into a ¡¯Yang¡¯ Demon, so if Xenia managed to prepare everything for the Blessings, then they should be able to attempt to create a ¡¯Mass of Yang¡¯ now. Of course, Eisen made sure that he didn¡¯t have anything else that he had to do for the rest of the day, because he wouldn¡¯t be able to do all that much with one arm less than usual. Something that he actually managed to figure out pretty well during the past few years, and especially during the past few days. Swiftly, Eisen stepped into Xenia¡¯s research room, which was pretty much just a private storage from the looks of it, because it was packed to the brim with numerous different books, crystals, wands, and other items even just remotely connected to her work. And inside, Eisen could see Xenia together with Supp and Croco, where Xenia was trying to teach them about what they had to do, although she seemed rather confused about something at the moment. With a smile on his face, Eisen moved further into the room, and the young High-Elf quickly noticed him. She seemed rather surprised at the fact that he came in with his Demonic Transformation activated, although she quickly moved on toward what seemed to be troubling her. "Eisen! I meant to talk to you, other than enchanting the items with specific skills, did you teach them anything yet? Like, anything at all?" Xenia asked, but Eisen immediately shook his head rather confused. "Nothing, why are you asking? Is something wrong?" He inquired, but Xenia just began to smirk as she slowly shook her head. "Nothing¡¯s wrong! This is great, actually! My guess it¡¯s part of that ability that they have, but they can handle themselves incredibly well! They can both use sorcery without issues, and Supp can use a lot of different Support Spells right off the bat, while Croco was able to start working on Witchcraft preparations pretty quickly as well. It¡¯s astounding!" She eximed, and Eisen quickly noticed that her long, pointed ears were wiggling furiously, so Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but respond with a simple chuckle. Chapter 339 - Mass of Yang "So, both of them are doing better than you expected?" Eisen asked, trying to sum up what Xenia was trying to tell him, and the High-Elf immediately nodded her head. "That¡¯s an understatement, but yeah! I mean, whatever Croco is making when ites to sorcery seems to be on a little bitrger scale, but that¡¯s why she¡¯s a ¡¯Crowd Controller¡¯, she¡¯s supposed to be able to do a lot ofrge scale magic. And actually, considering that her staff literally let¡¯s her fly around, she¡¯d be able to pretty easily create truly giant Magic Circles, wouldn¡¯t she..?" Xenia muttered to herself in thought, and the old man just chuckled in response. "Well, let¡¯s just see about that when we get to the inds. I¡¯m sure there¡¯s going to be a pretty good chance to test their actualbat capabilities out there." He pointed out, before crossing his arms with a smile on his face. "Now, should we get to business now?" Eisen suggested, and Xenia slightly tilted her head to the side before nodding swiftly, "Oh, right, the blessings..." She muttered to herself before turning around in thought, looking around the room as she did so, and then grabbed a few different materials before pulling a chair into the center of the room, "Sit down, I need to reach your whole arm properly." Xenia exined, and Eisen nodded with a smile and sat down on the chair, while thinking about how happy he was that she was able to distract herself enough to not be stuttering all the time anymore. And then, swiftly, Xenia grabbed a small paintbrush and dipped it into a small pot with white paint, before starting to exin. "So, this is Blessed Paint, and I¡¯ll use this as a base for everything else. Basically, I¡¯ll be painting your whole arm with this now, and then we need to wait for it to dry. That should be able to contain and pull all of the blessings I¡¯ll put on youter directly onto your arm." Xenia said while Eisen just nodded his head, watching as Xenia did just what she said. And when the old man was trying to grab another brush and help out, the High-Elf stopped him. "Nope, I¡¯m painting this onto your arm while using Divine Energy, so as long as you don¡¯t have the Prayer skill and enough saved Divine Energy, don¡¯t even try." She told him with a frown, and Eisen just sighed and nodded his head, and instead chose to just take a look at the two Golems standing next to him. "Hmm... You two, show me your hands, please." Eisen told them, and the Golems immediately did as asked, holding their enchanted hands forward so that Eisen could take a look. And while Xenia was still painting his left arm, the old man used his right arm to properly test the flexibility of the three-dimensionally-enchanted fingers to make sure that everything was working without issue. Basically, it was just a little bit of an in-depth test of their hands. They were the most fragile thing about these two, so Eisen wanted to make sure nothing could go wrong. After a little while, Xenia then tried to get Eisen¡¯s attention again, telling him that she just finished up everything on his arm. Curiously, Eisen then took a look, while Xenia got the next few things before pulling up a table next to the old man while the pain began to slowly dry. "Alright, this on here is a small-scale ceremonial circle... ce your arm onto it, please, with your hand directly in the center." She exined to him, so Eisen did as asked andid his arm onto the table with the different light-red drawings on it once the paint dried. "Now, let¡¯s go for it. Do you know how blessings work exactly?" Xenia inquired, but Eisen simply shook his head, prompting her to begin exining. "Well, for the most part, Blessings are of divine nature, put into existence through wonders cast by priests. Those are the blessings that affect your stats and abilities while not doing anything to your body. But then, there are more intrusive blessings created through Witchcraft and Shamanism, which will end up changing your physical body in order to create those stat- and ability-increasing effects. The changes aren¡¯t usually all that major, but they show in the same way as Curses do. Sometimes through sudden markings all over your body, changed eye-, hair- or skin-colors, or smaller growth that might take the shape of bone-like structures." Xenia exined, and then began to cover Eisen¡¯s arm in a few different nts, or poured some potions over it, before grabbing a small box that she hadying next to her, cing her hand on it and then she muttered something quietly to herself that Eisen himself couldn¡¯t understand. A few momentster, when she was finished, she ced her hands onto Eisen¡¯s arm and grasped it as tightly as she could before turning to the old man with a wry smile. It seemed like she was rather nervous about this part of everything, although she was weirdly collected, as in that Eisen didn¡¯t understand why she was so collected all of a sudden. "Ah, and just so that you know, in order to make sure that the blessings would be aggressive enough to try and take your body over, I chose the ones that would change your physical appearance the most. It¡¯s all staying in your arm, but even then, it might be a bit tough to look at." She exined, but Eisen just shook his head with a smile. "Just keep going, I¡¯ll be fine." He replied, so Xenia nodded and began with everything. It took a bit longer than what Razer did back in Handor to his right arm with all the curses, but that was to be expected, really. Razer had a specialized upation that let him literally throw around numerous curses all at once, while it was just a part of Xenia¡¯s specialization. But even then, it seemed like this was all far more efficient than Eisen expected it to be. Immediately after the first blessing was cast, Eisen¡¯s hand grew in size immensely, turning rtively monstrous despite being a blessing for some reason. And instead of staying as it was, the rock on Eisen¡¯s arm slowly turned intoyers of bone, while the golden lines that were already running all over Eisen¡¯s body were slowly growing to cover his whole arm quite tightly. And after a few more Blessings, Eisen could barely recognize that that mass was actually an arm, because the growths caused by the different blessings were all impeding on each other immensely, basically crushing Eisen¡¯s arm. "Heh, seems like there really is too much of a good thing, huh?" Eisen asked with a chuckle, and Xenia just looked at him with a frown and a wry smile, seemingly not in the mood tough just as much as Eisen was. "Right... Well, anyway, it should get there pretty soon... The way you described it, the curses went out of control when your arm was in a simr state as this, right?" Xenia asked, so the old man moved his right hand through his beard with a nod. "Mhm, as far as I remember at least. It already seems like it¡¯s extending above the center of my upper arm a little more than it¡¯s supposed to." The old man pointed out, so Xenia sighed in relief, happy that this would be over rtively soon. And as such it was, actually a good bit quicker than either Eisen or Xenia thought it would happen. Immediately when Eisen saw the notification he was waiting for appear. [Warning! Your Left Arm has be a unique entity oversaturated with curses. If these Blessings are not removed or the arm not removed from the main-body, you will be taken over and turned into a monster that will mindlessly y those around you. In that case, the yer will be seen as dead, and will respawn at thest ce of sleep after penalties have been applied] "Alright, perfect. But in both cases I¡¯d turn into a monster that will kill everyone, huh?" The old man muttered to himself as he slowly stood up, practically ripping his hand off of the table, before grabbing one of the knives in his Leather apron. After all, it would be far easier to cut it offpared to ripping it off, at least as far as Eisen was concerned. "So, do you want to watch this?" Eisen asked as he turned toward Xenia, who seemed to be rather unsure if she wanted to see it for research purposes, or if she wanted to look away for mental purposes, and in the end chose to go for thetter while Eisen stabbed the knife into his arm, just above where the blessings stopped. It was a bit tough to get through his rock-skin, but after a little while, he managed to do so and then just cut through the skin underneath without any issues. And when he reached the bone, Eisen simply ced the Knife to the side, grabbed the lower half of his left arm and just cracked through his bone with a few swift motions. Immediately, Eisen got a notification telling him that the problem was resolved, but that he now had one less arm until he slept. At the moment, he was losing a lot of HP due to the blood loss, but Eisen managed to resolve that by just covering his stump with his element and drinking a health potion. And now that he thought about it, Eisen was actually rather d that he didn¡¯t bring his monsters with him, because that wasn¡¯t a sight he wanted children to look at. Andst time when Eisen ripped off his right arm, Caria and Melissa were pretty angry with him already, so maybe it would be good to not let them see all that much of this. "Xenia, I¡¯m done." The old man eximed, so Xenia slowly turned around and took a look at the bulky arm that Eisen was holding in his right hand, before scratching the back of her neck. "Alright, good. ce it down here, I¡¯ll keep watching it for a little while to see what happens... You better go catch some shut-eye and get your arm back now." She suggested as she spointed at another table with a small mana-crystal te, where Eisen ced the white arm which was already starting to change its shape while convulsing in weird ways. "And then when it turns into a Mass of Yang, we¡¯ll just need to figure out how tobine the two of them, if possible at all. And what that¡¯s even going to do for us in the first ce." The old man said with a smile and stepped toward the door, properly saying goodbye to Croco and Supp as well as Xenia before making his way out of the room. On a straigth path, Eisen then walked up the stairs into the meeting room, where he was immediately faced with multiple people looking at the old man confused. "Oh damn it, Eisen, not again." Brody said with a somewhat annoyed sigh and then crossed his arms, "You went to see that Koro kid again, right? Did he pull some crap on you or something?" The Demon Orc asked, but Eisen shook his head trying to calm the others down. "No no, don¡¯t worry. Xenia and I were trying to make the mass of Yang by using my left arm as a base to cast numerous blessings on it, and then I cut my arm off. It should be changing into a mass of yang as we speak, actually." The old man exined as he sat down on his chair tiredly, looking around at the room with a wry smile. "But at the very least it can only get better. I mean, I doubt I can beat my record of losing limbs twice in a day." Chapter 340 - Aluminum Arrows Soon, Eisen woke up in his chair again and slowly looked to the side with tired, heavy eyes, trying to make sure that his arm really grew back properly. "Ah, good..." The old man muttered with a sigh, and then looked around the room, noticing that Fafnir seemingly climbed on hisp after he closed the dungeon, and Sigurd swiftly appeared directly next to him and went to sleep on Eisen¡¯sp next to the monsters as well. And when it came to the monsters, they were all snuggled up against each other on Eisen¡¯s left side, seemingly having wanted to make sure that his arm would be fine. "Good morning, you five." Eisen said with a chuckle, and they all slowly raised their heads toward him, happy to see that he was alright again. "Eisen!" Caria eximed and immediately stood up on Eisen¡¯sp to hug his face, while Melissa hugged his chest and Sal climbed up his shoulder to snuggle against the side of his face, while Sigurd swiftly disappeared and re-appeared standing on the ground with its arms behind its back. "That was a true shock yesterday, I have to admit." Sigurd pointed out, and Fafnir just stretched for a few moments before jumping off of Eisen¡¯sp, sitting down on the floor while waddling his tail around. "I know, I know, sorry that you all had to see something like that twice in a day." Eisen apologized before scooping his three monsters up in his arms so that he could stand up properly, and then set them down on the floor. "So, I¡¯ll have to finish up Ranger¡¯s body now, then I¡¯ll activate him and send him to train with Brody.... Then I¡¯ll head to the control center to see how close we are near the Inds, and use the remainder of the time to work on a handful of items...There should probably still be some time though, so while the workers are preparing for when we reach the inds, I¡¯ll just spend a little more time with all of you. How¡¯s that sound?" Eisen suggested with a smile on his face as he looked at his monsters, including Sigurd and Fafnir, with a smile, and the five of them seemed rather happy about that as well. And so, Eisen swiftly turned to Fafnir, "Can you open the gate?" He asked the small dark-red dragon, who just turned away with a yawn and slowly began to walk, before jumping into the air to make the gate appear. "Thanks, bud." The old man chuckled and then stepped toward the door, opening it with a smile, before heading over toward the area where all of his things were currentlyying, immediately making his way to the infusion capsules that were enhancing the sensory organs. To his luck, it seemed to be possible to infuse different materials inside of an item together as long as the item wasn¡¯t seen as finished just yet, so the old man was able to just ce the two already-finished eyes into their ¡¯Telescope¡¯ infusion capsule. And when Eisen deactivated the infusion and grabbed the two small spheres out of it, he was rtively surprised to see that the Green and Blue central-heterochromic eyes, meaning that there were two different colors within a single iris, had changed a little bit. Not by much, but the milky-white crystal eye had turned slightly transparent now, and it was giving off a slight glitter. On top of that, just by seeing through the transparent areas, Eisen noticed that what was beyond those areas was just so sligtlyrger than it was supposed to be, which showed Eisen that it seemed to have worked. And so, with a bright smile on his face, Eisen brought the eyes and the ear- and nose-pieces over toward Ranger, slowly setting them where they were supposed to go, before adding the Golem Core into the center of Ranger¡¯s chest. And then, all that Eisen did was activate the Golem Core, before Ranger¡¯s body swiftly reacted. "Alright, good." The old man chuckled to himself and pulled Ranger¡¯s information-window up as he began to instruct the golem on how to enter ¡¯Combat¡¯ and ¡¯Default¡¯ mode, the biggest difference being that all of the enchantments would need to be deactivated and his fore-forearms had to retract into his forearms. "And now, let¡¯s test this out, shall we?" The old man muttered to himself after confirming that Ranger was also a ¡¯Great Golem¡¯s Reincarnation¡¯ and grabbed one of the very simple spear-arrows that he created yesterday to test the bow out and handed it to the Golem. "Xenia said that they already knew how to handle everything pretty well, so... Ranger, enter Combat mode and shoot this arrow against the opposing corner." Eisenmanded, and immediately, the enchantments on Ranger¡¯s body activated before the bow became cloaked in wind, while only a specific string ¡¯popped¡¯ up out of it, which was thergest of the three Eisen added into the bow. Carefully, Ranger set therge wooden spear-like arrow onto the bow and then pulled on the string as far as he could manage, bending the spring-steel of the bow like it was nothing, before simply letting go of the string. And before Eisen knew it, the water-covered giant arrow shot toward the other side of the room and crashed into the indestructible wall of the dungeon, immediately shattering the arrow on impact. It flew so quickly that Eisen had a bit of trouble actually keeping up, but in the end, it was indisputable that it did fly. And Eisen was more than just ecstatic about it. "Perfect! The bow actually properly works!" Eisen eximed as he looked at Ranger and told him to enter ¡¯Default¡¯ mode again, and just when he did, a certain Demon-Orc came sprinting over toward him. "Wait, what the hell was that just now?" Brody asked confused, trying to figure out what that giant bent-metal-staff was, before remembering the designs. "That wasn¡¯t an arrow, was it? Like, a Giant Ass arrow?" He inquired with a wry smile, but Eisen just nodded his head with a chuckle. "It is, actually. I made a handful more for training. They¡¯re just made of cheap wood as well, so don¡¯t worry about them breaking either. You are going to train him, right?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Brody just began to grin broadly before grabbing Ranger by the shoulder, starting to pull him toward the dungeon gate, which Eisen took as more than enough of an answer. "Alright, the arrows don¡¯t necessarily need to be that high quality as long as they¡¯re sturdy enough to survive the impact. The tips are the most important thing, really, although that¡¯s just in terms of enchanting... Sigurd, can you create four more cksmith-Kobolds and send them out here together with the Original cksmith Kobold?" Eisen asked with a smile, and before he knew it, Sigurd appeared next to him together with a door next to it. Immediately the door opened up and five ck-Furred Kobolds stepped out before Eisen summoned his Staff and quickly created five different workstations for them, although he still wasn¡¯t exactly sure what he wanted them to make in what way exactly. "So... The best materials for arrows are light and strong, aren¡¯t they..? I don¡¯t have that much Mythril left to waste it on arrows that might be lost... Steel is too heavy for an arrow... Folding Mana into it already makes it a lot lighter as far as I can see, so maybe it would be possible to work on that concept even more?" Eisen muttered to himself before stepping back over to the different infusers, grabbing specifically the infuser that he made for the Air Element. "Hmm... Sigurd, is Xenia awake?" Eisen asked, and a few momentster, Sigurd appeared next to the old man and nodded its head. "Just barely so, but yes. Want me to call her inside?" It asked, and the old man nodded silently while trying to figure out a good method to work with this Air-Elemental Mana. And soon enough, Xenia came up to him after entering the Dungeon, so Eisen quickly turned to her, asking what he wanted to know immediately. "Do you know if it¡¯s possible to manipte mana that isn¡¯t yours?" He asked, and Xenia looked back at him confused. "Erm, you can¡¯t directly manipte it like your own, but you can ¡¯Lead¡¯ it along by using the same principles as transmutation. Why exactly are you asking?" She inquired, and Eisen began to exin what exactly he wanted to do, and Xenia looked at him with her arms crossed. "Well, can¡¯t you just infuse some metal with the Air element then? That should make it pretty light, right?" She asked, and Eisen nodded his head with a light sigh. "Yeah, but Magic Metals are very brittle. The only one that can be used for physical means is something like Mythril, but that¡¯s just because it reduces direct impact onto itself. But even then, room-temperature mythril will shatter when you try to bend it with your hands instead of actually bending. So if I use a regr magic metal infused with an element that makes things lighter but physically weaker, I can¡¯t even be sure that it won¡¯t shatter before actually hitting the Target." Eisen exined to her, so Xenia slowly nodded her head, finally understanding the actual issue. "I mean, we have a little bit of Aluminum, and it¡¯s not a horrible material for arrows either... But we don¡¯t have that much of it so I would like to try to avoid having to use it up. Although we didn¡¯t have to use it all that much until now, so maybe it¡¯s going to be fine?" Eisen muttered to himself, before turning back to Xenia. "Thanks, I¡¯ll try to use the method you told me to fold Air-Mana into some Aluminum. I¡¯ll let you know how well it works. Oh, and by the way, did anything happen with my Armst night?" The old man asked, before the High-Elf slowly nodded her head and began to grin. "Yup! The change seems to have started and it¡¯s going through a simr press of natural transformation as your other arm back then, so we probably just have to wait a little while now." She exined, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile before nudging his own head toward the exit. "I¡¯ll be headed to the Material Storage now, want to tag along on your way to your research room?" Eisen asked her, so Xenia just kind of shrugged and chose to follow Eisen in the end as the old man went to retrieve some of the aluminum that they hadying around. It might be just enough to a set of 20 arrows of each size, but in that situation Eisen would be using up each and everyst bit of Aluminum, which made him hope that he was able to find some of it on the inds. After all, he wanted to work on a few projects using Aluminum in the near future. After retrieving the metal, Eisen brought it back to the Dungeon and then gave some of each to the different Kobolds, letting one of them work on the bodies for the smallest arrows, two of them for the medium arrows, and the other two, including the Original cksmithing Kobold, as well as Eisen himself, work on the bodies for thergest arrows. And so, after throwing the metal into the forge, Eisen quickly got to work once he waited for the metal to heat up, although he wasn¡¯t letting the Kobolds work just yet, because they wouldn¡¯t be able to fold the air-mana into the metal. Instead, Eisen prepared different pieces of Aluminum for them, splitting the different ingots up into sizes where one ingot of each size could be turned into one arrow of each size. Slowly, Eisen took some of the metal and ced the mana-infuser next to his ¡¯Anvil¡¯, letting the Air-Mana just cover the whole area, while Eisen tried to use this chance to just push the elemental mana against the aluminum, trying to get it to stick to the surface, before beginning to fold it in order to get the air-mana to stay in the aluminum. Chapter 341 - Arrowheads For a little while, Eisen continued preparing the different ingots that he would then one after another hand over to the Kobolds responsible for the different sizes of arrows. It seemed like it was possible to really fold the elemental mana into the aluminum as Eisen had hoped, although it was far less efficient than when Eisen tried to do the same with his own mana, which was kind of understandable if one thought about it. But even then, the ingots became incredibly light, and while they maybe weren¡¯t as strong and durable as Eisen would like them to be, as long as one took proper care of these it would be possible to use them over and over again. And if they ended up breaking, if someone picked up the pieces, Eisen would be able to re-forge them as well. Basically, they were the perfect base for arrows, so as long as Eisen properly managed to make arrowheads and fletchings that were well-bnced to each other, the arrows would surely be able to travel a fair distance without issues. After Eisen finished the Aluminum he would use for the arrows, he moved on to make some of the spear-sized arrows by basically just creating thin, straight metal tubes. After finishing ten of them, Eisen chose to just move on to the next part, the arrowhead, and chose to go for steel with this one. It might be a bit heavy, but as long as he could figure out a good fix for the bncing issues that would apany that heavy weight, it should be fine. The type of arrowhead that Eisen wanted to go for regrly was a simple hunting broadhead, which was used by hunters because it made it easier to prate into the flesh of animals, which was just perfect for the leveling-purposes Eisen had in mind. They were the types of arrowheads most people thought of when they imagined an ¡¯Arrow¡¯, with a simple triangr shape to them. What Eisen chose to go for for these was a simple t type, as if a small two-edges de had been stuck to the tip of a stick, which was basically what it was. In order to make the steel as low a burden to the arrow as possible, Eisen thought it would be a good idea to also fold some of the Air-Mana into it, and on top of that, he didn¡¯t make ¡¯Full¡¯ arrowheads. That meant that he really just created the metallic ¡¯lines¡¯ for the triangr shape on the outside so that the edge could be somewhere, as well as some thin supportive pieces leading from those ¡¯Lines¡¯ to the tip of the arrow¡¯s body. It wouldn¡¯t really allow for a lot of enchanting, but Eisen still wanted to try his best. And in the end, to create arrows with special effects, Eisen wanted to go for different arrowheads anyway. Basically, he wanted to try and implement some of the ideas that he had gotten from his apprentices while looking at their three-dimensional enchantments. For example, he wanted to create blunt arrows that would create a chunk of Rock at the tip just before impact to increase the force. Then, he wanted to create some homing-arrows using the principle that Stahl tried out with his enchantment. And then, he even wanted to try and figure out a way how to properly make some explosive arrowheads. In general, Koro¡¯s idea wasn¡¯t actually bad, it was just that he treated his work mindlessly without thinking about what he was doing. But those explosive arrowheads would probably have to wait until Eisen managed to get his hands on enough materials to mass-produce arrows. He might even try and work on a way to properly produce Carbon Fibers, which were supposed to be the apex of arrow-materials. Eisen himself always preferred to use metallic tools over carbon fiber, because the feeling was just so different, but he himself had to admit that Carbon Fiber might as well be the best choice possible for arrows. Carbon Fiber Arrows were light, fast, and durable, all that you could ask for. He would keep using his regr old, basic materials when it came to other items, but when there were some new-age materials that were indisputably one of the best possible choices for a certain type of item, Eisen would try not to be that stubborn and try to find a way to properly work on them. On top of that, Carbon Fiber Arrows were probably the ones that would be the easiest to sell to yers, simply because they were already used to them. Eisen didn¡¯t really expect anyone that didn¡¯t already have archery experience in real life to try and be an Archer in the game, and while those types of arrows were pretty expensive, they were probably the type most often used in practice. And it wasn¡¯t like the kind of people that had the money to spend on a capsule would need to worry about the price of Carbon Fiber Arrows. Either way, for now, Eisen created the diffely-sized basic arrowheads, fifteen for each size, and then moved on to the special arrowheads that he wanted to use next. Two of each size would be turned into the ¡¯Extra Blunt¡¯ arrowheads, as Eisen figured to call them. Basically, they were just a small piece of rounded steel, slightly wider than the body of the arrow, the perfect base for three-dimensional-enchanting. Eisen figured that it would be a pretty good idea to try andbine part of Stahl¡¯s three-dimensional enchantment with Parc¡¯s three-dimensional enchantment. Stahl¡¯s would make it possible to find out if there was something directly in front of the arrowhead, and Parc¡¯s would make it possible to cover the arrowhead in a thickyer of rock. It wasn¡¯t really thatplicated tobine it either, because Eisen ced Stahl¡¯s enchantment into a small marble which was ced into the front-end of the hollow space of the arrowhead¡¯s body which would constantly be active, and then allow a bit of mana to pass to the enchantment in the actual tip. And the other three arrowheads were ones that Eisen figured to be the ones that would be used mostly for extremelyrge enemies or for out-ofbat purposes, because they were supposed to directly stick to the surface that they hit and then bore inside to make sure they wouldn¡¯t end up loosening under any situation, except if a small pin was forcefully pulled-out. And then, around the arrow¡¯s thinned-down body, Eisen would wrap a stable rope that would drop off of the arrow once it stuck to whatever surface it attached itself to. This would probably be mainly used using thergest arrow-type, but Eisen still wanted to make sure that they would be prepared for any possible situation. The mechanism would be rtively simple. There would be an enchantment at the tip that would take the pressure that the arrow would receive on impact and force it into the arrow¡¯s hollow body. There, it would activate the mechanism to drop the rope while pushing itself out of the open-end of the arrow, where another enchantment would be ced that would focus that pressure to create an extra boost, that would allow the arrowhead to push into even hard surfaces a little bit. And then once inside, small pins would press out of the arrowhead to properly attach everything into the surface. And just like that, Eisen hoped to be able to create a way to create help to climb up steep cliffs, or to hold downrge monsters. Next, Eisen made the thing fletchings, which were rtively simple as well. They were triangles ced at the end of an arrow to allow for proper bnce during the flight, and Eisen wanted to use them to make sure that the arrows were bnced weight-wise in general as well. And for the fletchings, Eisen chose to go for three fletchings per arrow, which would be slightly pointed to the side so that they could create a rotary-motion during the flight. Just like that, when he attached all of the arrowheads and fletchings to the arrow¡¯s bodies, Eisen was finished with them and could just put them to the side for when they would end up actually hunting on the inds, which would be one of the first things they did after creating the basic structures. For the most part, people could stay inside of the ship while the main-ind was being taken over. After all, there were supposed to be ruins there, which might be able to be turned back into proper buildings for everyone to live in, especially once it¡¯s been turned into a town by activating the Town Core that was supposedly there. But until then, Eisen wanted to create some more items with the materials he had been infusing for a little while now, and the items he wanted to make were mostly wands or staffs for the Mages or Sorcerers on the ship which would also try to help take over the inds. Although, Eisen still had some other things to take care of as well, which included teaching his students. It would be Stahl¡¯sst day learning under Eisen now, so he really wanted to make sure to teach them properly today as well. He cut yesterday¡¯s lessons short because of what happened with Koro, but today, he wanted to teach them a little bit about ssblowing and Cooking as thest two lessons that Stahl would be a part of. Of course he would continue teaching Parc and Rouge more in-depth about everything, but that would be a stopping point for the old man¡¯s grandson for now. He mighte to learn a little more from Eisen at ater point, but for now, that would be it. And so, Eisen prepared all that needed to be prepared for the ssblowing lessons, and while he was waiting for his students to arrive, the old man already started working on the different elementally-specialized staffs and wands. Soon, though, the three of them made their way into the Dungeon, and Eisen started teaching them about the most important parts about ssblowing. And as he expected, most of the ss that the three of them were working broke pretty quickly, although Stahl did a pretty good job because he already had the skill. But Parc and Rouge were currently working with ss for the very first time, and it wasn¡¯t necessarily the easiest material to work with. Actually, one of the scars on Eisen¡¯s arm came from ssblowing. When he was trying to work with ss for the very first time, the thing that he made, Eisen really wouldn¡¯t be able to remember even if he properly tried, because it was basically just practice to make some random shape out of it, dropped to the ground and ended up shattering into a thousand pieces. One of those pieces ended up being flung into the air before cutting into Eisen¡¯s arm pretty shallowly. It wasn¡¯t anything all that bad in the end, but the ss got dirty when it dropped to the ground, and that dirt was then burnt into his wound. He had to get the edges cut out, which erged the wound a bit and caused a small scar to appear on the side of his thumb a few weekster. Since then, Eisen always tried to properly and turn away at least a little bit when he could tell that one of the things he was working on was about to break, although that didn¡¯t always work, especially when he stood too close to them. That¡¯s why he had especially many scars and markings on his hands and legs from when he identally touched different hot materials, when something ended up breaking in his hands, or when something dropped to the ground directly in front of his legs. But luckily, Eisen was now able to even recover a lost arm, so he wouldn¡¯t need to worry about getting more scars. Chapter 342 - Pen-Troubles With a smile on his face, Eisen continued working on the different items for people on the ship, and then began to work on an item for Sky, a book for himself to write into. And after that, he would finally finish up the Warhammer for Bree as well. Evalia finished the decorations a good time ago, but Eisen was yet to enchant it properly. There would most likely be a fair amount of time for that, though. After all, he only had those two items he needed to finish up from the items he was asked to make. Brody¡¯spanions never asked him for anything, after all, so he didn¡¯t want to impose on them and make items without them actually asking about it. Either way, for now, Eisen grabbed the materials that he had been infusing with Sky¡¯s element and got to work. Actually, all of them seemed rather... weird, now that Eisen actually took a look at them. The paper that Caria managed to make for him seemed to be generally stronger than it was before, and while it wasn¡¯t thicker, it would be harder to rip it apart identally and it didn¡¯t seem like it would let any ink through either. On top of that, the surface seemed weirdly like it was ¡¯Flowing¡¯. It didn¡¯t really make sense to him at first when he was just running his fingers over it, but when he grabbed an Ink-Pen and tried writing something on it, Eisen understood what was going on. The Ink stayed on the page as if it was written on it normally, but when Eisen tried to write over the letters, what he wrote before then seemed to just immediately dissipate, as if being pushed off of the page. It was pretty weird to look at, put Eisen didn¡¯t really mind it. It would only help Sky out, after all, this would mean that he could actually use the book for a good while instead of Eisen having to make more and more all the time. And then, the leather that Eisen infused with an element also became somewhat weird in the old man¡¯s opinion, even if it was different to the pages. The leather became just far smoother and softer than before, but it didn¡¯t lose any of its strength. Basically, it was as if it turned into the perfect leather for an item that you would hold for a long time. "How exactly does that make sense for ¡¯Inkheart¡¯ Magic..?" Eisen muttered to himself, before just shrugging. After all, he would surely find out sooner orter when Sky actually tried to work with it, and in general it should be able to enhance his Magic either way. For a while, Eisen was considering making him a staff, but he didn¡¯t really understand how a staff would be helpful to Sky at all. Sure, he was capable of casting regr magic, and was actually rather good at it in exchange for being unable to cast any sort of ¡¯Inner¡¯ or ¡¯Supportive¡¯ Magic, but he never actually used Sorcery or Magic in any way other than in the form of summoning his Inkheart Creatures. "Hmm, I could still make him a Pen-Wand, just in case..." The old man whispered as he moved his fingers through his beard, and then began to smile with a satisfied nod, thinking that this would be a great idea. If it was useable as a regr pen as well as a wand, that would just be perfect. "Then I¡¯ll make the book first..." Eisen said with a smile and quickly grabbed some of the spinnerets, swiftly creating a little bit of thread out of some Inkheart-Infused Crystals before looking at Melissa next to him. "Can you give me some of your Wax?" The old man asked, and Melissa immediately nodded proudly before holding her hand forward, creating a small hexagonal hole where a small Bee with some wax in its mouth stepped out of, so Eisen began to chuckle and ced his hand on Melissa¡¯s head. "Good job, thank you." He said thankfully, before taking the small chunk of wax and using it to quickly run over the thread that he just made to properly wax it for the use in the book. And then, Eisen grabbed some of the paper, formed it in bundles, sewed those bundles together and then quickly stood up, althoug he was soon stopped when he saw Sky approach him. "Oh, perfect timing!" Eisen eximed, and Sky looked at him surprised and tilted his head to the side. "Huh? Why that? I just wanted toe by because I was a bit bored... But what..." Sky wanted to ask, and Eisen swiftly handed the Fey-Kin boy some rolls of Magic Thread made out of the Inkheart-Crystals. "Could you go to the area in the material storage with the cloth-tables and turn these into some cloth? You can use the smallest machine there, and it won¡¯t take long either, but it would be great if i could save some time working on this." Eisen exined to Sky, and he took those rolls of thread into his hand, still rather confused. "Err, sure? But what are you working on?" He asked, before Eisen just smirked at him and winked. "You¡¯ll see. I¡¯ll prepare everything else before youe back, so it shouldn¡¯t take long to finish everything up then. So get going, will you?" The old man said with augh, and Sky just looked at him with a frown, trying to look past Eisen to see what he was doing, but Eisen managed to block his sight quite skillfully with his giant body. "No peeking." He told Sky with a wink, and the Fey-Kin boy sighed before nodding his head and turning around, quickly heading back out of the Dungeon. And this gave Eisen more than enough time to prepare all that he needed to prepare for both the book and the pen-wand. With a smile, Eisen grabbed some of the leather and quickly cut it into shape, doing the same with the different pieces of cardboard and thicker paper that he needed in order to make the book. Since he had already finished sewing the bundles of paper together beforehand, that was all that Eisen could really do before putting everything together, And so, he chose to move on toward the next item, the pen. And the type of pen that Eisen wanted to go for was a simple fountain pen, because that seemed to be Sky¡¯s preferred type to write with. It¡¯s been a while since Eisen made a pen in general, but it didn¡¯t need all that many special parts to it, so it should be fine. First, Eisen grabbed a small piece of gold that he ced into the infuser as well, just in case Eisen wanted to use it for something, and he was d that he did so. Gold was a pretty popr material to use for pens, even if it actually never touched the paper itself. "Hmm, did we have any Iridium?" Eisen thought to himself, trying to figure out if they had ever bought, or even found, any type of quantity of the metal used to make tips for most pen nibs, simply because it was hard, strong, and didn¡¯t wear off as easily as other materials might. And so, Eisen figured he should consult a certain book that he had in his front pocket, the one that Sky had given him before. "Metals... Metals... Ah, Page 56... And then... Oh, perfect! Iridium! We have... 20 grams? Huh, more than I expected!" Eisen eximed with a surprised smile before cing the book back into his pocket, and began to work on the parts for the pen, now that he knew that he could create a Inkheart-ck-Gold nib without worries. ck Gold was a material that seemed to be a little softer than even regr Gold, so Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if it would be able to survive as a pen nib for a long time if it was used directly in order to write. But now that he didn¡¯t have to worry about that, Eisen continued with his actual work. Quickly, he heated the small piece of gold that he would use up to melt down a little, and then poured it into a t mold, trying to thin it out as much as possible before pushing thin mana-crystal tes into the mold in specific ces to create the proper shape of the Nib, so that Eisen would only need to bend it a little bitter. Small and thin pieces like this were so finnicky that not even Eisen wanted to bother with ¡¯Forging¡¯ something like that. And forging was a little bit overkill anyway, considering that it was gold he was talking about. Gold wasn¡¯t really forged anyway, simply because of how soft it was. It was better to just melt it down and use a mold to create the shape you want instead. Gold was mostly used as decoration instead of a base-material anyway, so it didn¡¯t make much of a difference if it was forged or poured into a mold anyway. And while Eisen waited for the gold to harden properly, he got to work on the other pieces such as the Feed, which just as the name suggested, would ¡¯feed¡¯ the nib the Ink through a small slit in its center. It wasn¡¯t really aplicated part, and Eisen just made it out of some Inkheart-High-Steel, but because it had a lot of different ¡¯Fins¡¯ by the side of it that would regte the proper flow of the Ink, it was a little tedious to make as well. But as mentioned, it didn¡¯t take long, so Eisen could swiftly move on. Next, he quickly created the rest of the metallic parts that could be made out of ¡¯Inkheart-High-Steel¡¯. It for some reason turned ink-ck through the infusion process, but it fit beautifully together with Gold color wise, so Eisen didn¡¯t really mind it. And the metallic parts that he made next were the cap, so that the pen wouldn¡¯t dry out, and the ¡¯Body¡¯ of the pen, before bringing these two small pieces over to Evalia with some gold to request her to decorate everything a little bit. While Eisen was on his way, he quickly rushed to the material storage to grab a little bit of Iridium, and then swiftly returned to his workstation to further work on the Nib. But when he tried to grab the piece of gold that he prepared for that, he found that it suddenly disappeared into nowhere. "Hm? You guys, where did it go?" Eisen asked his Monsters with a frown, but they were ying a little bit so they didn¡¯t seem to have paid attention, so the old man sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Sig-" "It was Thul." The Core Guardian replied before Eisen could even finish its name, and the old man looked at it surprised. "Thul? As in, Stahl¡¯s Octopus?" He asked, and Sigurd nodded its head in reply. "Yes, it seems to have been interested in it and then grabbed it out of the mold. It¡¯s ying with it near your grandson now." Sigurd exined, and before Eisen could even ask why it didn¡¯t stop Thul from doing that, the old man just made his way over toward Stahl¡¯s workstation to look for the octopus and sighed deeply when he found it. Quickly, he grabbed Thul from the ground and began to smile wrily. "Come on, where is it?" Eisen asked, and confused, Stahl stepped over toward him, seemingly having just ced part of his task¡¯s items into the Annealer. "Everything alright, gramps?" He inquired, but Eisen shook his head with a frown. "No, Thul was ying around with some ck Gold I wanted to use for an item and dragged it over here. But I can¡¯t seem to find it anywhere." He replied and quickly activated his mana-sight, hoping to find it more easily, before he sighed deeply. "Oh, really now?" Eisen eximed annoyed, and Stahl looked at him confused, before the old man exined why he was so upset. "Thul ate it..." He said, then handed the octopus back to Stahl. "Can you try and make it throw it up?" Eisen asked, and Stahl just shrugged. "Maybe, although-" And before he could finish his sentence, Thul¡¯s body began to glow lightly, and Eisen immediately knew what was going on. Thul was evolving. Chapter 343 - Inkheart Slowly, Thul grew in size in Stahl¡¯s hands to about double what it was before, but the most noticable change wasn¡¯t just that, but rather what could now be found on its skin. It was covered in decorative ck Gold, glittering in the light of the Dungeon. With a deep sigh, Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked at Thul with his mana sight, and to his luck, there wasn¡¯t even the tiniest bit of the Inkheart Mana left inside of the Octopus¡¯ body. The ck gold, a material which confusingly wasn¡¯t actually ck but still had the regr golden color, didn¡¯t have any of that mana in it either, but it was indisputably ck gold. With a sigh, the old man looked at his Grandson with a frown and a light smile as he shook his head. "In the future when you have kids, better try to teach them not to eat random stuffying around, yeah?" He suggested, and Stahl nodded his head with an embarrassed smile. "S-Sure... Sorry... But don¡¯t talk about me having kids yet, I¡¯m only 18... And I doubt I¡¯d be a good dad." Stahl protested slightly, but Eisen just shrugged, preparing to turn back around. "Well, you¡¯re saying that now, but once you be a father, that¡¯s going to be different. And on top of that, even if you¡¯re a bad father, Evalia will surely be a good enough mother to take care of your children anyway." Eisen chuckled, before Stahl sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "Obviously she would be, but- W-Wait, Grampa, how...." The young man replied, just now finally realizing what his grandfather actually just said, "H-How¡¯d you know that we¡¯re..." Stahl asked, and Eisen looked back at him with a smile before winking at him. "It¡¯s a bit obvious, isn¡¯t it?" He smirked and then made his way back to his own Workstation, while Stahl was trying to hide how weirdly embarrassed he was at being seen-through that easily. "Alright, now... Let¡¯s do this again, shall we?" Eisen said with a light smile and then looked at the mold in front of him. Now that Eisen had the Iridium, he figured he could change a little bit about the process of making the Nib anyway, and quickly heated it up and formed it into a thin, t, edge for the tip of the nib and then ced it into the mold before pouring some new molten Inkheart-ck-Gold into it as well, once more waiting for it to cool down now. "I guess I should make the stuff for the Ink now, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself, before once more turning around toward Stahl, "So, can Thul make Ink?" He asked, and Stahl scratched the back of his neck, still a little embarrassed, before nodding his head. "He has an ¡¯Ink Production¡¯ skill, so I guess... It¡¯s at Rank 1 now as well, actually..." Stahl replied, so Eisen came a bit closer and squatted down toward the creature, turning to Stahl again. "Is it only regr Octopus Ink, or can he make other types as well? More specifically, can he make pure-ck Ink?" Eisen inquired, so Stahl slightly shrugged and seemed to open Thul¡¯s status window, slowly reading through some different things. "Erm... I guess? He probably should be able to. And he has another skill now, ¡¯Omnivorism¡¯... I guess that¡¯s from eating the Gold? But I¡¯m pretty sure that they can interact pretty well with each other." Stahl pointed out, and then began to scratch his chin in thought as he began to mutter to himself, "Cephalopods create Ink through their Ink nd, and then it¡¯s stored in the Ink Sack... Usually those nds work by taking different nutrients from food and turning it into something else, so if Thul can gain nutrients through things like even metal, then maybe it¡¯s possible to carry those different things through the Ink nd to create special types of Ink through the ¡¯Ink Production¡¯ skill..." Stahl muttered to himself, and Eisen raised his eyebrows rather surprised at the way that Stahl was speaking about Skill interaction, although he was also pretty interested in whether or not that would be possible. That would mean that Eisen would just need a few bottles to keep a lot of Ink in, as well as the different small capsules to put the Ink into the pen. "Hmm... Stahl, are you finished with your items?" Eisen asked him, and Stahl nodded his head with a shrug. "I guess? I have a few smaller bubbles to make, but those are finished rtively quickly... Why are you asking?" He inquired, and Eisen began to smirk. "Well, what would you think about getting a little Quest to work toward instead of the rest of the ssblowing lesson? You¡¯ll still need to Blow ss, but different things to Parc and Rouge." The old man suggested, and that seemed to pique his interest a fair bit. "Hmm, I wouldn¡¯t mind that... What¡¯s it about?" He asked, and Eisen crossed his arms with a smirk. "I want you to make ten one liter ss bottles, and fill them each with a different type of Ink." Eisen said with a smirk, but Stahl just scratched his cheek. "Ten liters of Ink? Isn¡¯t that a bit much?" "Of course, that quest won¡¯t need to be finished by today, but I think it¡¯s a good enough punishment for Thul for eating my Gold. It makes him work a little bit instead of just sitting aroundzily, and it¡¯s a good way to increase his skill and overall levels. Just work on the ss bottles until the end of the ssblowing lesson, and then you can also take a break and then continue the cooking lesson as normal." Eisen suggested, and Stahl slowly nodded his head, epting those ¡¯conditions¡¯, before Eisen officially turned it into a quest for his Grandson. For now, they had enough Ink tost them all a little while longer after all, so it wasn¡¯t a big issue in the first ce. And on top of that, Eisen was pretty sure that Stahl didn¡¯t think about the fact that he had to figure out a way how to split the Ink off of the mucus that would be secreted togehter with it, and Eisen felt like teasing him a little bit. Either way, now that this issue was being taken care of, Eisen was going to fill up one of the small ink capsules that he made up with some regr ck ink and then ced it to the side while he waited for the body and cap to be finished by Evalia. And a little whileter, the elementally-infused ck gold tipped with Iridium cooled down properly, and all that Eisen then needed to do was create the small hole in the middle of the nib as well as the small slit leading to the tip, before cing it onto the feed, which Eisen quickly connected to the handle, before cing everything to the side, because a certain young Fey-Kin just entered the Dungeon again. "Ah, there it is!" Eisen eximed with a smile, before happily receiving the small piece of cloth from Sky, immediately getting to work on finishing the Book, before Sky tilted his head to the side. "Wait, that cloth was supposed to be for a book?" Sky asked with a wry smile, and Eisen nodded his head. "Mhm, but not just any book. It¡¯s nearly finished, so you won¡¯t need to wait long to see." The old man chuckled as he finished everything up, and while the glue was drying, he noticed that Evalia arrived with the cap and the body, or barrel, of the pen, having decorated it pretty nicely with the ck gold. "Thank you." Eisen told her with a smile, and Evalia crossed her arms happily, "Don¡¯t worry, I love workin¡¯ decoratively with Gold!" She eximed, and Eisen nodded his head with a chuckle before screwing that handle into the body. Next, Eisen grabbed one of the small gems that he had also infused with Sky¡¯s element before cing an enchanting-marble into the young Fey-Kin¡¯s hand, preparing to enchant the gem with the Inkheart-Magic Skill. Once that was done, Eisen ced the small gem into a small spot in the Nib as a centerpiece, basically directly behind the breathing-hole. Then, Eisen began to enchant the small ck-Gold nib with something that would allow for better flow of mana through it, before screwing the handle off of the body and cing the ink-capsule into it, setting everything back together, before testing the pen-function out a little bit by writing something onto some paper he had next to him. A few minutester, it seemed like the Glue of the Book had dried properly, and Eisen grabbed it with a smile on his face before starting to carve into the leather with a bit of Evalia¡¯s help to decorate it properly, and before he knew it, everything was finished. After cing the Pen onto the Cover of the Book, Eisen smiled as he acknowledged them as finished and handed both to Sky. [Inkheart Grimoire] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A Grimoire created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen, with artistic assistance from the Heavenly Artist Evalia. All the materials used to create this Book have been infused with the Inkheart Element, making it possible for whatever is written into this book to trulye to live. [Artistic Value] 331 [Effect] +20% Benefit to Inkheart Magic; +5% Benefit to Scribing; +20 INT, +20 WIS [Requirements] Inkheart Magic Rank 3; Scribing Rank 2; 70 INT, 70 WIS [Inkheart Wand-Pen] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3] [Description] A Wand created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen, with artistic assistance from the Heavenly Artist EValia. All the materials used to created this wand have been insfused with the Inkheart Element. While Being a Wand, due to the way it was constructed, it at the same time can function as a Fountain Pen. [Artistic Value] 329 [Effect] +15% Benefit to Inkheart Magic; +15% Benefit to Scribing; +20 INT, +20 WIS [Requirements] Inkheart Magic Rank 3; Scribing Rank 2; 70 INT, 70 WIS With a smile on his face, Eisen looked at Sky¡¯s face as he began to stare at the two items as well as their descriptions, before he stared back at the old man confused. "Wait, what? A Grimoire and a Wand?" Sky asked, and Eisen nodded his head with a chuckle, "Come on, try them out a little. The Ink is the same type of Magic-Ink made by Evalia that we usually use, but I¡¯m on it to create a few different types so that we can use a type attuned toward your element as well. Or rather, Stahl and Thul are." The old man said with a wink, before Sky slowly nodded and opened the book to the first page, slowly starting to write something into it, although Eisen didn¡¯t really know what it was exactly. And a little whileter, it seemed like Sky finished what he wrote onto the Page, before starting to smile brightly as the letters of the page seemed to shift around on their own, and now Eisen finally understood the true reason of why the paper was that way. Slowly, the letters began to form a shape that Eisen didn¡¯t recognize right away, but once the letters stopped moving so wildly, he could see what it was, and Sky just couldn¡¯t help but smile. "I figured that at some point it would be possible to create sceneries using my element instead of just characters... All because I wanted to see this ce again... I can¡¯t go back, there exist no drawings about it, nothing that might be a good enough recement. And I¡¯m not good enough at Drawing to create it myself... But I do remember a story about it... So here it is..." Sky exined with a smile that turned more bitter by the second, although in the end, it was simply quite nostalgic in nature. And while Eisen ced his hand on Sky¡¯s shoulder tofort him, he looked at the two pages which had turned into a ck-and-white, seemingly animated, drawing of a forest, with the leaves of the trees quite literally swaying in the wind, while in the center of the drawing stood a slim, short woman, with two pixie-wings on her back. Chapter 344 - Mother Nature "Oh? So this book can disy what¡¯s going on inside of the stories written into it?" Eisen asked as he looked at Sky, trying to confirm that that was exactly what at the very least seemed to be going on, and Sky nodded his head slowly. "Apprently so, yeah... Eisen, this is amazing, I don¡¯t know how to thank you, this is just... Awesome!" Sky eximed, and Eisen replied with a smile. "Well, I¡¯m d you like it, bud." The old man chuckled and rubbed his hand through the Fey-Kin¡¯s blue hair, before he leaned in a bit closer and took a look at what was actually disyed on the pages again. "And that¡¯s the Fairy Forest?" Eisen asked as he raised his eyebrows, and Sky nodded his head with a slightly bitter smile, "Yeah... It is... This Story is called ¡¯The Queen of Fey¡¯, and that in the center there is her." Sky exined to Eisen and then scratched the back of his neck, "Bree¡¯s and my mother was a close retainer to her, actually... I¡¯ve met the Queen a few times before, although only a handful. Well, to be fair, I¡¯ve ¡¯seen¡¯ her twice a year, but I only spoke to her a handful of times." The Fey-Kin boy told Eisen, who once more looked at him quite surprised. "What do you mean you¡¯ve seen her twice a year?" He asked, choosing not to delve too deep into what Sky mentioned about his mother so that he wouldn¡¯t hurt him somehow. With a smile, Sky then turned to the old man and began to exin what exactly he meant. "Ah, you see, there¡¯s two big ceremonies in the Fairy Forest, the Wake of Spring, and the Sleep of Fall." Sky exined, and then scratched his cheek with a light smile. "Fey themselves are heavily connected to nature themselves, because the first Fey were Spirits given true Life, but the Queen of Fey is an existence like no other, an embodiment of nature. She¡¯s sometimes called ¡¯Mother Nature¡¯, even. In the Wake of Spring, she quite literally wakes up and gives a blessing to the world to properly start Spring. And then, throughout Summer, she sits in the center of the forest to connect with nature, while the Forest grows around her. Then in Fall, the Queen goes to sleep and doesn¡¯t wake until the next Spring, and during her absence, Winter happens." Sky exined with a smile on his face, seeming weirdly sad and happy when speaking about Spring in particr. "The Queen is basically absent at any time, so her Retainers act as protectors during that time, and it¡¯s always the most powerful Fey of each seasonal type." Sky exined, but Eisen just looked at him curiously. He hadn¡¯t heard that much about Fairies yet even if he was travelling with two Fey-Kin siblings. "Seasonal Types? Are Fey split up like that?" Eisen asked, and Sky slowly nodded his head. "Mhm, they are. There¡¯s four types, Fey of Summer, of Fall, of Winter and of Spring. Well, there¡¯s also Fey of the Day and Fey of the Night, but those don¡¯t live in the Fairy Forest." Sky exined, before continuing to speak about Fairies because he noticed that both Eisen and Evalia seemed pretty interested. "Erm... I think how it went was that back when Fey were first given life, there were six ns, one for each of the basic elements. Summer was Fire, Fall was Wind, Winter was Earth, and Spring was Water. Of course, Day was Light and Night was Darkness. The Queen was a special existence, and the first Fey in existence, and she wasn¡¯t bound to a single element, but had all four of the ¡¯Physical¡¯ elements. She ended up uniting the six ns of the seasons within the Fairy Forest. The Queen¡¯s two Children were born respectively with the Light and Darkness elements for some reason, and they started leading the Fey of Day and Night, because those Fey didn¡¯t have as much of an elemental connection with the Fey. Thenter, they went to war with each other, and the ns of Day and Night were banished from the Fairy Forest." Sky slowly exined, and it seemed like as he was telling this story to them, the scene on the pages gradually changed to show exactly what Sky was talking about at the time. That seemed to happen because the story Sky just told them was the story that he wrote on the pages, and the book reacted to the fact that Sky was speaking about it. "Alright, yeah, this book is really amazing..." Sky added with a smile when he noticed these changes as well, and Eisen just once more chuckled. "Well, without an Element as Amazing as yours, that would never be possible either." The old man replied to him, and Sky just began to smile as he looked at the pen in his hand as well. "Oh, and I was wondering, but why are you making Thul and Stahl make Ink?" Sky asked, seemingly wanting to change the topic, because while he felt somewhat nostalgic and happy while talking about this, Sky at the same time felt pretty bitter and sad about everything as well, and Eisen caught onto that fact and began to move his fingers through his beard. "Ah, you see, her magic Paint has to be used pretty quickly, or else it just disappears, so it¡¯s not good as storage. I was thinking about making some ¡¯Infinite Pens¡¯ with her element before as well that just need mana to write, but that would for one drain way too much mana, and it wouldn¡¯t make it possible to use special types of Ink like metallic or crystallic ones, and my hope is that it will be possible with Thul¡¯s Ink. After all, your magic should just be strengthened even more with the help of those special types of Ink." Eisen exined with a smile on his face, and Stahl ended up slightly nodding, although he next just scratched his cheek and held the pen into the air, before writing a word there through sorcery, although the writing was ink-ck, and Eisen looked at the Fey-Kin surprised. "Well, I can do this kind of stuff with my element already as well, so I guess... I do need Ink for it though, because my element basically just ¡¯carries¡¯ the Ink and breathes life into it, so with a type that was more fit to casting magic, rather than being the product of magic, that would surely be rather useful." Sky said with a smile, before taking the small bottle of ink that he had next to him, moving it along the lines that he drew to put it back into the bottle so that he wouldn¡¯t waste it. "I wasn¡¯t aware you could do that!" Eisen eximed with a smile, and Sky chuckled slightly, "Yeah, I know, I recently ranked my element up to 3, so I became able to then. It¡¯s probably supposed to synergize with Scribing and Sorcery, although I don¡¯t directly know how I should cast stuff like that... I mean, I get how to do Sorcery, but I doubt I¡¯m supposed to juse use it for normal sorcery." Sky exined to them, and Evalia seemed to have a pretty good idea. "Oh, I think I know. You see, with my Magic, I can do something simr and paint into the air. I managed to do it only a few times before cause I didn¡¯t have many chances to practice, but when I create a painting in the air like that an¡¯ then activate it, I can affect the world to be more simr to my painting, so I can create small things out of elemental magic, or cause buffs and debuffs. I think you might be able to do something simr, just through writing." She exined, and Sky scratched the back of his neck and chose to just try this out then. Slowly, he began to write into the air with his element and the Ink in his pen, and chose to describe a small ball of water to float in the air in front of him. And when he activated it, a small, fist-sized sphere of water was formed out of the letters, although that ball of water dropped to the ground immediately. "It works!" Sky eximed excitedly and looked to the side at Evalia with a smile, although, at the sight of that Sorcery, Eisen started feeling a slight headache. And as the old man rubbed the bridge of his nose, he looked at Sky. "Erm... Right now, you used a whole sentence... Now, try to just write ¡¯Water¡¯ to cause that effect with an image in your head." Eisen suggested, and confused but rather excitedly, Sky did so, and the exact same thing happened, and the sphere was the exact same size, even if the water seemed to drop to the ground quicker than before. "Eh? Wasn¡¯t that far more efficient?" Sky asked surprised, and Eisen nodded his head, still trying to rub away that pain. "Yes, I figured so. It¡¯s still sorcery, it worksrgely with the image in your mind, right? I think you should try to think more abstract... The sentence you wrote was ¡¯A Sphere of Water Floats in Front of Me¡¯, but you didn¡¯t specify where it floats in front of you. Ten centimeters, ten meters, it didn¡¯t matter. Same with the size, you didn¡¯t say howrge it was supposed to be, you did all of that with the image in your mind. I¡¯m sure you could try to reduce that same sentence to ¡¯Floating Water Sphere¡¯ and get the exact same effect, but you¡¯ll have more freedom. You use less mana and Ink, but can fully concentrate on the distance and size of the sphere, but you won¡¯t need to worry about the action, element, or shape." Eisen told Sky in a rush of information, saying all of this as if it was just a fleeting thought in his mind, although he wasn¡¯t sure where that information came from. After all, Eisen¡¯s own Sorcery Skill was at Rank 0, Level 1, and he himself wasn¡¯t necessarily all that interested in it. But even then, Eisen had a weird understanding of how Sky should use his own version of Sorcery. Did ite from his understanding of Enchanting? Or was it just weirdly obvious in the end, and others thought that it was too obvious? Either way, the Pain in Eisen¡¯s head became stronger, and it wasn¡¯t a pain that he had felt while within the game at all, at the very least not to this level. He felt a little whoozy sometimes, but nothing at the level of what it was at the moment. Although, it seemed like Eisen wasn¡¯t the only one that was reacting weirdly to something. Evalia, who had been leaning up against the table and holding her body up with her arms just so slightly copsed for nothing but a moment, as if she lost the strength in her arms and legs momentarily. Eisen himself wasn¡¯t feeling that bad, it was just a strong migraine but nothing all that horrible, so he was more worried about Evalia because such sudden loss of strength shouldn¡¯t happen within a game like this. And after helping Evalia sit down on a chair, Eisen made his way out of the Dungeon and quickly stepped down the stairs to the main deck to see if something was going on, noticing that Jyuuk, Evalia and Brody were currently on the main deck as well, although they were all reacting pretty weirdly as well. Xenia and Jyuuk were holding onto the Railing as if they lost their strength momentarily as well, and Jyuuk and Brody were rubbing their foreheads as if they were having a migraine as well, although Brody¡¯s seemed a lot worse considering his expression. Behind him, Eisen could hear that Evalia was stepping down the stairs as well, apparently the physically weakest of all of them at the moment. Eisen wanted to protest and tell her to sit down, but he couldn¡¯t at the moment. All that he and the other Originals could do was stare forward toward the Inds they were closing in on. Chapter 345 - Angel For a while, it seemed like the five Originals were stuck in a single moment, staring at the Inds in front of them, and the one that managed to snap out of it first was Eisen, who swiftly went around and ¡¯Woke¡¯ the others up again. "Hey, are you all alright?" Eisen asked, trying to ignore the lingering pain that he felt in his head, and the others slowly nodded their heads, seemingly able to slowly recover from what just happened as well. And it was weird, just beyond the fact that they couldn¡¯t really control what they were doing for a moment there. Nobody else, not even the NPCs reacted any different to normal, it was just the five of them. And Eisen was sick of it. Without hesitation, he pulled the other Originals to the side, or rather the front of the ship, and then looked around, seeing a certain person on the other side of the ship, one of the three that helped Eisen create the sensory Organs for Ranger, and just to make sure that his suspicion was right, he crossed his arms and acted as if he didn¡¯t notice her, leaning in toward the others before starting to whisper as quietly as he could while slowly increasing his size. "Alright, so we¡¯re all aware that this world is that of a game right?" Eisen asked as a start of everything, and noticing that nothing was happening, he continued, although he still left the others quite confused. "Well, we¡¯ll be at the inds soon, and I think we should-" Eisen began to say, bing more quiet and quiet by the moment, before he stopped speaking and pped his hands together with as much force as he could, creating an incredibly loud noise somehow. It wasn¡¯t loud enough to reach the other side of the incrediblyrge main deck, however, and if at all just incredibly queitly. But on the other side of the ship, the ¡¯nd¡¯ woman with the ¡¯Whisper¡¯ Element held her hand to her ear startled, and Eisen began to sigh deeply as he stared at her, pissed off beyond what he was able to show. "Get the fuck over here right this moment." He said in a rtively quiet voice, and the other Originals were still quite confused, although Eisen continued to stare at the other side of the Ship, slowly waiting for the Woman toe closer. And noticing that she didn¡¯t, Eisen chose toe to her. His size was increased to the max already, so all that he had to do was slowly turn into his demonic form. And it wasn¡¯t just his basic demonic form either, but one of the two that he found to have quite recently. With Dark mes inbetween the cracks of his body that seemed as if they were swallowing the light around him instead of producing it, and wings that seemed as if a wild animal had ripped them apart with its ws, Eisen stepped closer toward the woman, and once more managed to confirm one of his suspicions. While all the other NPCs on the deck were shaking in fear at the sight of Eisen in this horrid form, the woman simply stood there with a light smile, trying to act as if nothing was wrong. Slowly, Eisen stepped in front of her and pressed his teeth together at the fact that his mind went into a direction other people would hold him mad for. And no matter how much Eisen wanted to convince himself that this woman was an executive of Prime Industries sent to spy on the Originals, the conclusion he came to was another one. "You. Angel. If you don¡¯t tell those meddling Gods to leave us be, I will rip each and every single one of your feathers out one after another. We are just about tond on the inds. If they want to speak to us, make them give us an audience, or have them wait until we see them. But I don¡¯t like being spied on." Eisen whispered to her so quietly that nobody else could have heard it, not even any normal person standing in front of him, but he knew that someone with such an element was able to hear him. And as Eisen expected, instead of trying to say that it ¡¯Wasn¡¯t like he thought it was¡¯, or that ¡¯He was wrong¡¯, the woman simply began to smile broadly. "As Expected of those even the Gods feared. I was asked to keep an eye on you, but it seems like I got a bit careless considering yourck of strength. Your wit is as in-" "Shut the fuck up." Eisen told her angrily, and all of a sudden, even the Angel took a step backward. "R-Right. Anyway, I¡¯m sorry, I have my orders, I can¡¯t-" "I told you to shut the fuck up. I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on here, and how I knew that you¡¯re an Angel, but I know one thing. You angels piss me off." Eisen said as he ground his teeth, although he suddenly felt a pain in his head that he couldn¡¯t fight off, and a few momentster, Eisen¡¯s transformation was deactivated and he was back in his regr size, smiling lightly while everyone on the ship that had been paying attention to what just happened was smiling as well, slowly just moving away from Eisen and the Angel, and even the other Originals stopped paying attention and were talking about some random casual stuff. The only ones that seemed to have any idea of what just happened were Eisen and the Angel, although even thetter was confused at what was going on. "W-Wait, why is- How is everyone..." She asked confused, looking around, trying to figure out why nobody was paying attention to anything anymore, but Eisen just shook his head with a wry smile. "I don¡¯t know, kid. I just know that I¡¯m tired of repeating this whole thing over and over again. There¡¯s just one thing I want to know. You heard me say that this was a game before, didn¡¯t you?" Eisen asked with a light smile, although all that could be noticed from his voice was exhaustion, and the woman slowly nodded her head, so Eisen moved on to the question he wanted to ask. "Then tell me. Beside the yers, the gods, and apparently you as their servants are the only ones that know about this being a game. But your perspective is different to that of us and the yers, so I just need to know... Is this really a game? So much is happening that I just can¡¯t believe that anymore." Eisen said, just so slightly clenching his fist, before the woman just looked at Eisen while shaking her head. "I... don¡¯t know. The gods were told that it was so by the Great Goddess¡¯ Father. None of them understand what such a ¡¯Game¡¯ that he spoke about truly was, but why shouldn¡¯t the Gods believe an Existence so much higher than them? There are doubters, such as my Master, the God of Truth, and he wanted me to follow you to see if we can find out. I¡¯m sorry that I can¡¯t tell you." The Woman apologized, before slowly turning around with a light smile, stepping toward the entrance into the body of the ship, while Eisen turned around as well and stepped through the small crowd of people that formed to look at the inds in the distance, all of them seemingly not having heard a single whisper of what Eisen and the Angel just spoke about. And with an unfulfilling feeling in Eisen¡¯s body, he moved on toward the other Originals. If this world was so against letting anyone know the truth, he would y along. He would pretend that everything was fine, that there was nothing to worry about, and most importantly, that this ce was truly nothing but a game. At least until he fulfilled the task that the blood-red notification in the corner of his sight seemed to give him, which was now fully within Eisen¡¯s sight and could even be slightly manipted by him to move behind or in front of him, even if he still couldn¡¯t make it disappear. [Speak to Grardour] --- For another good while, the ship had to simply circle the inds to find the best path to properly get close to the central Ind, and once they had found it, low tide had already set in and it was too dangerous to pass through, so they had to wait there at a safe distance from the inds until high tide set in again. The rest of the day was spent quite leisurely by everyone. Eisen began to teach his students about Cooking while finishing up some more items, before then logging off that night, because it was time to get checked on by his Doctor again. Slowly, Benjamin leaned up a little bit and opened the stuffy capsule up, before slowly standing up in preparation for the check-up. He was still connected to the capsule through the cables and tubes, but he was still able to at the very least reach the window to open it up and get a little bit of fresh air, although it took a few moments to realize that nothing was happening because he was trying to open it with his right hand. "... Right..." The old man muttered to himself with a sigh and then used his left hand instead, before breathing in some of the air from the window. He was feeling pretty good for the most part, but his legs were hurting a little bit from standing up so suddenly. He was a little hungry, or rather, his stomach was grumbling because he hasn¡¯t eaten anyhing solid but was just supplied with nutrition through liquid. Slowly, Benjamin looked to his right at his missing arm and then sighed, before scratching the back of his head. "Well, I guess I still have my arms in the game, huh?" Benjamin said with a smile, and then sighed deeply to himself. "Get yourself together, old man..." He muttered and then sat down on his chair next to the capsule, just waiting there for a little while. And before he knew it, Benjamin¡¯s Docor stepped through the door. "Ah, Mister Joyce! Nice to see that you felt like standing up, but for now, try to wait until someone is there to help you, alright?" He asked Benjamin with a smile, and the old man nodded his head, returning a smile as well. "Of course, sorry. I just needed a little bit of air." Benjamin exined, and the doctor nodded his head before stepping up to the Capsule with a nod, plugging a cable into some random port before opening hisptop, so that he was able to get detailed statistics on how Benjamin was doing throughout the day. "I see, that¡¯s good to know. Well, Mister Joyce, seems like you¡¯re doing alright overall, but there are a few problematic spikes with your heart-rate every once in a while. Thest, and probably biggest one, was just about two hours ago. I¡¯ll go ahead and test your blood-pressure again." The Doctor exined after looking at the Latpop¡¯s screen for a few moments before walking up next to Benjamin and pulling up his sleeve before getting to work on measuring his blood-pressure, while being asked some more questions. "How are you feeling otherwise? Do you have any headaches, or other problematic pains anywhere?" Benjamin was asked, but the old man just sighed. "No real headaches at the moment. My eyes hurt a bit, but that¡¯s probably just because of the bright light from the window. Other than that... It feels like I have hundreds of knives stabbing me over and over again in my right arm, I guess? That¡¯s probably those phantom pains you hear about all the time from movies..." Benjamin exined, and the Doctor nodded his head. "For the light, I can just suggest to get some blinds for this room so that you aren¡¯t immediately hit by that much light when you stand up, and try to just slowly open those blinds to afortable level. And as for your arm, I¡¯m afraid there isn¡¯t much I can help oyu with at the moment. You¡¯ll get used to your new situation in a while, and those pains should disappear with time." The Doctor reassured Benjamin, who just slowly nodded his head. "Of course." Chapter 346 - The Colors of Truth Slowly, Eisen woke back up inside of the Game and stood up from his chair, letting the five that were sitting on hisp down to the ground, before making his way out of the room with a smile on his face, simply looking into the distance toward the Inds. It seemed like the Skeleton-Troupe was getting ready to sail into the areas between the inds, but as the area they had to enter first was rather dangerous, they apparently wanted to wait for Jyuuk to wake up to get their Master¡¯s opinion. He probably would end up waking up rtively soon, at least Eisen hoped so, and until then, the old man wanted to just make sure that everything was prepared for thending on the central ind. Once they started moving again, it was only about four hours or so away, meaning that they would probably get there around noon, and Eisen wanted to have at the very least a very, very basic camp set-up by night. It would probably take a while, but once at the very least space was created for thebatists and base-supporters to stay at during night or whileing back to report, it would be time for everyone to properly set out to different parts of the central ind. Once the first group found the central Ind¡¯s Town Core, they would notify the other groups, and then everyone would gather at that ce in order to take the town over in any way possible. Then, they could start constructing a proper town with support from a Town Core, and the Town Guardian that Eisen would create for it. Now that he had all of the materials and already went through the process once before, he would probably be able to finish another one within a day or so, at the very least that¡¯s what Eisen figured in his mind. He would actually have to try to say that for sure. And until then, Eisen gathered those of his own group around him. He was pretty sure that his group was thergest one just judging from the head-count, with the exception of Jyuuk and his Monsters, but Eisen felt pretty bad about splitting the group up again, because everyone was either pretty integral to Eisen, or would be upset being split up from him. His direct group was made up of his five newly constructed weapons, his Golems, Kiron, Sky, Bree, Eisen¡¯s three monsters, and apparently even Fafnir and Sigurd wanted toe along, even if especially thetter had little to nobat experience. Technically, Fafnir was recognized as something of a Dragon himself, just a pretty unique type, so he would most likely be quite useful inbat outside of the Dungeon space as well. And so, Eisen gathered all of them around him and began to figure out basic tactics. It somehow felt like he split the group up again after all, but considering that they would be together at all times for the most part, it wasn¡¯t really like that. It was just that they acted independently of each other within a fight. For one, the Golems would always act as a Unit on their own, which would be directly controlled by Eisen so that they could take care of arger surface and always have someone standing guard as well. Then, the other group had Bree as a supporter, Sky for specialized situations where a specific type of unit was needed or useful as well as just general low-number support. Kiron was able to cause immense damage with his Sword, while having amazing defense through his scales, so he would be the Vanguard of the group. Then, Caria was able to be supportive through constraintive actions, Melissa was able to bring a lot of quick,paratively low-damage, forces to the table, while Sal would probably dance on Eisen¡¯s head. The old man himself would step in wherever it was necessary, and wanted to do his best to use his Demonic Transformations to either calm enemies down to make them lower their guard, or scare them into retreat. On top of that, there was another person that seemed to want to apany Eisen, even if the old man didn¡¯t really expect that to be the case at all. It was Kirisho, who approached Eisen and his group while they were making ns. "Could... We speak momentarily?" The Mist-Spirit asked Eisen, who simply nodded his head and excused himself, following Kirisho to a ce that was slightly more isted, where she turned to the old man, holding her own amulet, which she had been wearing around her neck for a while now, and Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard. "So, can you tell me now what has been going ontely? It seemed like you¡¯ve been avoiding me somehow." Eisen pointed out, and Kirisho slowly just nodded her head. "Yes... I have been avoiding you. Or anyone, truly. Ever since the curse ced on me has been removed, I have started to remember parts about my life that I had forgotten. There are many things that seem to have happened that I myself never would have expected of me. I foolishly thought I was innocent and pure, but I found out that I was rotten and... soiled..." Kirisho exined to Eisen, but he simply smiled and shook his head. "I understand what you mean with remembering things you never expected, trust me with that. But I can tell you that it¡¯s not that you be more rotten the more you remember, you be more pure, at least in my definition." Eisen pointed out, but Kirisho looked at him confused, not understanding what he meant, so the old man just exined it with a light smile. "White isn¡¯t the only color that can be pure. So can ck. Or red. Or Purple. Or green. Any color can be pure. Until now, you were unpure because you were not the color you were supposed to be. Curses and memory-loss dyed you something fake. But the more you return to the person you once were, the more you wash off the colors you have been artificially painted in." Eisen told her, although he realized that it probably wasn¡¯t all that much help, or even encouraging at all, and then just slightly chuckled. "And just so that you know, just because you haven¡¯t found your color yet, that doesn¡¯t mean that you will end up finding yourself to be horrible, or bad." Eisen said with a smile, before he turned over to the side when he noticed the sunlight of dawn rising above the inds of gods hitting his eye from the side. And it seemed like because the sun was reaching them through such divinend, the sunrise didn¡¯t just appear in shades of red and blue and what was inbetween that, but it seemed basically like a whole rainbow that someone randomly mixed together all over the ce. "Just look over there. There¡¯s many colors to see, but each and every one of them is beautiful." The old man said with a smile, and slowly, Kirisho turned toward the side as well, before grasping her amulet tightly. "Thank you." She said quietly, and then slowly turned to Eisen. "If you are alright with me, would it be alright if I joined you and the others in conquering the Inds?" She asked, seemingly nervously, and Eisen nodded his head. "Of course, you will surely be amazing help." The old man admitted, and then slowly made his way back toward the others in his group again, with the new person that joined them behind him. For some reason, it felt to him like he was talking to himself there as well. He was feeling like he was going mad or senile, or even worse, that all of those thoughts and subtle memories appearing in his head were actually his own. And slowly, Eisen was realizing that it wouldn¡¯t actually be that bad if thetter of those things might be true. Once more, the old man looked around, noticing a certain person again, although she seemed to stopped trying not to be noticed. If people were able to just ignore what happened yesterday, it didn¡¯t matter what she acted like. And she apparently wasn¡¯t even trying to hide the fact that she listened to Eisen and Kirisho as well just now, because she was leaning on one of the railings on one of the upper decks in front of the meeting room, just staring at the old man with a smirk. Slowly, he began to sigh and smiled back at her, before turning around to the others. "Excuse me, there¡¯s someone else I need to talk to for a moment. Can any of you fill Kirisho in on everything?" Eisen asked, before the old man stepped toward the Angel on the other side of the ship, who seemed to have noticed his intention. After all, she listened to him say it. Rather nervously, considering what happened yesterday, she made her way over toward Eisen as well. "Anything you need from me?" She asked him, and Eisen just began moving his fingers through his beard. "Yes, actually. For one, I would like to apologize for yesterday." The old man said with a smile on his face, and the woman looked at him surprised. "You... Want to apologize?" She asked, and Eisen nodded his head. "Of course I do. I was rather angry, you see. It seems like my mind is trying to remember something, but someone is trying to prevent that. I¡¯m not sure if that anger came from me, or the me that¡¯s trying to be remembered, but I couldn¡¯t control myself. So yes, I apologize for that." Eisen told her, and the Angel crossed her arms with a wry smile and began to scoff slightly, showing how truly different her actual personality was to what she was pretending it to be. "Someone¡¯s trying to prevent you from remembering something? The hell¡¯re you on about?" She asked, but Eisen just raised his eyebrows, before the Angel realized what he was talking about and smiled wrily, "...Right... Well, Apology epted, I guess. Anything else?" The Angel inquired next, so Eisen once more nodded. "Yes, something else. I would like toe to an understanding with you. One that¡¯s mutually benefitial, at that." "...I¡¯m listening..." The Angel replied, and Eisen smirked and then crossed his arms as well. "Your God and I have the same goal. We want to figure out what¡¯s going on here, and what the truth is. So, my suggestion is that I tell you all that I know, even what I know from the ¡¯Other Side¡¯, and you tell me what I want to know. You probably have a few more limits due to being a God¡¯s Servant, but we can work around that, surely." Eisen suggested, and the Angel raised her eyebrows surprised, before looking at the old man suspiciously. "I can¡¯t tell you any divine knowledge, and that¡¯s probably the only thing you wanna know... So this seems pretty one-sided, doesn¡¯t it?" She asked, and Eisen shook his head. "Oh no, not at all. You¡¯re probably misunderstanding what I¡¯m asking for here. I don¡¯t want to know what the gods know. If that was possible, that would make things a lot easier. I want to know everything you can find out down here. When I ask you to find something out for me, you go and try to find out as much as you can." The old man said with a light smile, and the Angel began to smirk in response to that suggestion. "Hmm... My Master is quite a curious one, so I highly doubt that he would mind me trying to find out what I can down here anyway. And me identally spilling the beans to someone other than him shouldn¡¯t be an issue. He¡¯s pretty leisurely, after all. And even if he has a problem with it, I should be able to calm him down with the knowledge from the other side... So I¡¯d say you have a deal." The Angel said with a smirk as she extended her hand, and Eisen returned the gesture as well. "Then I home we can work together, Angel." The old man said, but she simply shook her head in response to him. "Please. Call me Raziel." Chapter 347 - Landing "Raziel, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself with a light smile, and the woman in front of him tilted her head to the side. "What, you don¡¯t like my name?" She asked, obviously faking to be insulted, and Eisen shook his head and chuckled. "No, no, that¡¯s not it. Don¡¯t worry about it. Well, for now, just think about what exactly you¡¯d like to know from me, and then once the town is established,e see me and I¡¯ll tell you whatever you want." Eisen told her, and was just about to turn around and leave when a certain red-haired young man approached him. "Hey, just wanted to give you the numbers about our provisions and materials and stuff. You said you wanted to know about how much was used during the trip, right?" Komer asked as he looked down at his notebook while writing something inside of it. "Ah, thank you, Komer. Could you try and go ahead and figure out how many provisions every group would need over the course of the next few days as well? I know it¡¯s not directly within your area of expertise, but you know the numbers of what we have the best of all of us." The old man replied, and Komer then lifted his head slowly. "Alright, will do. Then I think I¡¯d just need specific numbers on who is in what group, and things like their endurance stats. That seems to change how much we need to eat and drink as well." Komer pointed out, before then suddenly noticing Raziel all of a sudden, which he somehow didn¡¯t before. "Oh, eh, I mean... F-From a perspective of an Artificial, I mean..." The young merchant said seemingly pretty panicky, before Eisen raised his eyebrow and leaned in toward him, whispering something into his ear. "Eh... Sure, but why?" Komer asked in response, and Eisen just chuckled and crossed his arms curiously. "Just do it, I¡¯d like to find out what you see." "Sure..." The young merchant said before scratching the back of his neck, while his irises and his pupils suddenly disappeared. But in response to what Komer was seeing with his ¡¯Fate Perception¡¯ surprised him quite a bit. "Holy- Wait, weren¡¯t you human? Are you a half-monster or something? But ording to Jyuuk, Half-Monsters shouldn¡¯t show such sudden growth... Then maybe, do you have a Skill that lets you grow wings at the next rank?" Komer asked excitedly as he leaned in a little bit, while Raziel just moved her sight over toward Eisen confused, before the old man chuckled. "Komer can see people¡¯s Fate, you know? And I guess there¡¯s no hiding your fate to anyone." The old man exined with a smirk, before Raziel replied while smiling wrily, "Right... Erm, Kid, listen-" "Kid? I¡¯m 20, you can¡¯t be that much older than me!" Komer protested, but Eisen chuckled lowly while Raziel began to grind her teeth annoyedly. "For the love of- You attract an annoying bunch, you know? Are all of you like that?" Raziel asked, but Eisen just moved his fingers through his beard with a light smile and then looked at Komer again. "Long story short, this is Raziel. She¡¯s got a peculiar ability, and will work for me as a frence informant." "Oh, an Informant!" Komer eximed and deactivated his Fate Perception, before taking a better look at Raziel again. "Ah, you¡¯re that woman with the ¡¯Whisper¡¯ Element, right? It does seem pretty useful... Well, more than my element at the very least... But anyway, if you¡¯re an informant, do you think you co-" "Nope." Raziel answered without hesitation, "I only work for this guy because it¡¯s benefitial for my main employer anyway, so sorry to disappoint you." She said rtively annoyedly, and Komer scratched the back of his neck again before smiling wrily. "Damn, would have been useful to have someone with wings that can help me out around some towns in the future..." He said with a sigh, before looking back at Eisen. "Well, anyway, just get me that list of the different groups or tell me who I should talk to for that, and I¡¯ll figure everything out." Komer said and then handed some sheets of paper to Eisen before turning around and leaving, and Raziel looked at Eisen with a wry smile again. "You serious? This guy got a Fate upation? What kind is it?" Raziel asked, and Eisen smiled at her lightly, "He¡¯s a Fate Merchant. Although... Maybe..." Eisen muttered quietly, before moving his fingers through his beard. "You said you can speak to people in the distance with your element as well? Can you call Komer back for a moment?" The old man asked Raziel, who raised her eyebrows in confusion, but swiftly did as asked. Eisen could see Komer shudder on the other side of the ship and then turn around in surprise and confusion, while Eisen waved him over again. "Urgh... That¡¯s also part of your ability? Hearing that feels so weird..." Komer protested slightly, and Eisen crossed his arms and moved on before Raziel couldin. "Well, no matter how weird it is, I¡¯d like to make a suggestion. Come with me and my group to conquer part of the central ind. I want to level you up to a point where you can get one or two new upation skills." Eisen suggested, and Komer looked at him confused. "Erm... You know that the onlybat capabilities I have are the few attack enchantments I put on my coins? And most of them will damage me half the time..." Komer pointed out, and Eisen simply smirked but shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry about that. I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll be able to figure something out. The first thing we¡¯re doing is bring everyone to level 100 before doing anything else. If the gap between levels is too big, only the person that killed the enemy gets experience, and those that did other type of damage don¡¯t. Then, as long as you can do a little damage to a bunch of monsters, it should be fine. And who knows, maybe your Level 100 upational skill lets you fight pretty well." Eisen suggested, and Sky scratched the back of his neck with a wry smile. "I guess? I mean, I get what you¡¯re saying, so we probably should do it like that..." Komer said with a wry smile, and Eisen just smirked at him. "Go get another weapon though, just in case. Maybe a Wand or Staff. Your mental stats are your highest, after all. And thene back here, we¡¯re speaking about tactics at the moment." "Sure... Then I guess I¡¯ll see you in a bit?" The young man replied and then turned around once more, although he was feeling pretty nervous and excited this time around. "And now, I¡¯ll go back and speak to my group. We¡¯ll speakter, Raziel." Eisen told the Angel next to him, and then also turned around and made his way back toward the different people currently speaking to each other, and they continued to speak about what needed to be spoken about. --- "Alright, careful now!" Eisen eximed as the Ship closed in on what seemed to be a broken-down Harbor. Any but one piers werepletely broken down as well, but one of them seemed to be stable enough to walk on, so they would stop the ship as close to the pier as they could and then start with repairing any parts of it that seemed too unstable to initially use, before bringing whatever they could down the ind. Eisen was rather confused as to why there was a Harbor here, although it did somewhat make sense if there was supposed to be a ruined town on this ind as well. There didn¡¯t seem to be any monsters nearby either, so it was a rtively good spot to stay for a little while. Slowly, the Giant Ship approached the pier and then stopped, before some of the skeletons jumped off the ship onto the pier and began to fasten the ship against it to make sure it couldn¡¯t float away, although the ship itself had also let down the Anchor, so there shouldn¡¯t be a major issue with that anyway. Either way, after the Skeletons bound everything against the pier, the first group of people made their way off of the ship, and that group was made up of the five originals. The first thing that everyone did was do what they could to turn the area directly around the Harbor into a ce that could be used. There didn¡¯t seem to be any houses or huts nearby either, though. Anyway, while Eisen and Jyuuk surveyed the area, with respectively either Mana-Sight or through some flying monsters, Brody stood guard and Xenia and Evalia started to tten the area out a bit more with magic. And soon enough, the first group of workers coulde ontond and then began to work on the basic structures that they would build to create a little bit of a base, even if those structures were only made up of tents and simple wooden huts. Quickly, different materials were brought off the ship, as well as rations, and everyone that could somehow help ended up helping, even the kids did what they could. And then, by night, they managed to turn the area around the Harbor into a rtively safe ce to stay at for a little while, and Eisen gathered a certain group of five together around the beach, before calling four others to him as well for another reason. "So, from tomorrow on, you five will fight here on your own. You understand that it¡¯s going to be pretty dangerous, right?" Eisen asked them with a frown, and the group of yers nodded their heads, before Eisen looked at them with a smile. "Good. Now, send me a message every once in a while to let me know how everything¡¯s going, and especially, how your equipment is doing. The equipment you have right now should be alright until roughly level 50 or 60, although considering the strength of the monsters here might change that. For now, Brody agreed to apany you for a day or two to make sure you don¡¯t instantly die from the monsters on this ind. We don¡¯t directly know how strong they are. But once we confirmed everything is alright, he¡¯ll leave you alone as well." Eisen exined to them, and then began to make sure that their equipment was really alright. He was especially worried about Alnico, though. She was the Bard of the group and got a ¡¯Musician¡¯ upation from Evalia a few days ago, but that meant that she was the only one without an actual weapon. But Alnico, in return, didn¡¯t seem to be the happiest with the old man¡¯s worry. "Grampa, calm down! I¡¯ll be fine, the others are here with me as well." She protested, but Eisen could just reply with a sigh. "Fine... But again, message me as often as you can! And Zyra, Samurai, when you stream, make sure not to mention where we are directly, at least not yet. And what else..." Eisen muttered to himself, trying to remember what the other thing he wanted to ask them was about, and then when he remembered, looked at the Originals that he called to him before as well. "Everyone got proper upations?" The old man asked, and Evalia and Brody nodded their heads, before the Demon-Orc spoke up. "Mhm. Maybe I overdid it a little, but they did pretty well in whatever training I gave them, so I gave them the highest grade upation I could give them. Although, they were still rtively basic upations, so they weren¡¯t ¡¯Master¡¯ grade or somethin¡¯. They¡¯re the kinda thing that will change to Master grade when those kids do something special and advance their upation on their own." Brody exined, and Evalia said the same. "Mhm, Al¡¯s upation is just before hitting that ype of grade as well, but it¡¯s still just a ¡¯Musician¡¯. It¡¯s still a high grade upation though." Evalia exined, so Eisen nodded and then turned his head to look at the one person of them that didn¡¯t have an upation yet. "Then let¡¯s get this over with as well." Chapter 348 - Jack of All Trades "Let¡¯s get this over with? Why do you have to make it sound so troublesome..?" Stahl asked with a wry smile, and was only met with a light smirk from his Grandfather. "I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about." The old man then said, before Stahl crossed his arms with a frown. "Right... Well, you want to give me an upation then?" Stahl asked curiously, and Eisen nodded his head and looked to the others as well. "You four are alright with it as well, right?" Eisen asked them, so the others simply nodded their heads. That was the n from the start after all. "Okay, Stahl, now don¡¯t ept the upation until all five of us offered you one." The old man told his grandson, and then checked the possible upations that he could give Stahl, before nodding his head in satisfaction. "Then I guess I¡¯ll just start. Stahl, I offer you to be a Multi Craftsman." The old man said, and then looked over to his right where Brody was standing. "Hmm... Stahl, I offer you to be a... Chameleon Combatist." Brody eximed next, and it seemed like everyone was rather surprised at the name of that upation, but it seemed to make sense to them all somehow, and next Jyuuk spoke up. "Then Stahl, I¡¯m going to offer you to be an Otherworld Naturalist." The Beastperson said with a smirk on his face, although he seemed rtively nervous, or rather excited, to see what upation Stahl was going to get was. "I guess I will offer you to be a Versatile Mage." Xenia said next while cupping her chin curiously, and atst, it was Evalia¡¯s turn, and she smiled as she crossed her arms. "And atst, Stahl, I¡¯ll offer you to be a Gifted Artist." The young woman told him atst, before Stahl really couldn¡¯t hold his excitement and curiousity, and then looked at the notification in front of him. His excitement seemed rather blunted all of a sudden, but nheless, Stahl nodded his head with a broad grin. "Of course I¡¯ll ept!" He eximed, and multiple notifications seemed to appear in front of Stahl, who began to read through the different things, before his smile grew evenrger than it was before, as if the slight disappointment he seemed to be feeling at the upation he got was just a lie. "Oh fuck yeah!" Stahl yelled out and crossed his arm with a grin as he looked at the originals in front of him. "So... My upation is called Jack of All Trades... The name was rather disappointing, but... This is just amazing! So, to start it off with, my Jack of All Trades upation doesn¡¯t let me learn any skills at all and I currently lost nearly all skills I have in possession except my upational, racial, and general skills." Stahl exined with a light smile, and the others were looking at him both shocked and confused, especially at how he was reacting. "Wait, what?! Doesn¡¯t that mean your character is ruined?!" Samurai asked confused, but Stahl just shook his head with a smile on his face. "Not at all, actually." Stahl told him, before crossing his arms excitedly. "That¡¯s because my upational Skill makes up for it." The young man exined, "It¡¯s called ¡¯upation Jumper¡¯. It lets me literally jump between upations. The ones I currently have avable are Multi Craftsman, Chameleon Combatist, Otherworld Naturalist, Versatile Mage, and Gifted Artist." Stahl exined, and once more, Samurai began to yell. "Isn¡¯t that fucking overpowered then?!" He asked, but Stahl shrugged with augh. "Maybe, but it seems like the benefits I get from the upations are heavily cut from what they should be, and I¡¯m heavily limited depending on what upation I¡¯m in... Erm... There¡¯s currently a cooldown of twelve hours, and ording to the information that I got... I can only learn and use skills of the type of upation I currently have. So with the Multi-Craftsman upation, I can only use crafting skills, and I¡¯ll get heavy disadvantages inbat, so I¡¯ll be useless in a fight. But in return, I get the upational Skills of all of a different upation I have whenever I switch to that upation." "Hmm... I guess it¡¯s not too overpowered then? It still fucking unfair, though..." Samuraiined, and immediately, all the originals looked at each other and then at Samurai. "You realize that during the whole time Stahl has been ying the game, he¡¯s done nothing but learn aboutl kinds of skills, right? And to a level that most people that learn about them within the game probably won¡¯t." Eisen pointed out, and Samurai sighed deeply and shrugged. "I guess." He replied somewhat jealously, before Eisen turned toward his Grandchildren and the rest of their group. "Now, I¡¯d say you all should go to sleep rtively soon, I know I will, so that you can get going in the early morning." Eisen suggested, and they all nodded their heads and then made their way toward the tents that had been set up for them while continuing to talk about Stahl¡¯s upation, and the Originals looked at each other as well. "That¡¯s a really cool upation, to be fair... So I get Samurai¡¯s Jealousy." Jyuuk pointed out, and Brody nodded his head in reply. "Definitely." The Demon-Orc replied, before he began to run his fingers over his horns, while Eisen justughed. "It surely fits him quite well. But I have the same suggestion for you guys, better get to bed early. Evalia, said you¡¯re joining up with Brody¡¯s group for at the very least the next few days while Brody himself is off, right?" Eisen asked them, before the Artist nodded. "Yup. Can¡¯t really go off on my own." She replied, and Eisen nodded in response before looking at Xenia and Jyuuk. "Then your group is just you two, right?" "Should be enough, honestly. I have a fair amount of monsters, and Xenia¡¯s magic is really strong as well." Jyuuk exined, and Eisen began to move his fingers through his beard. "Got it. Then, Dien is staying here as a defensive Unit because his element is good for that... My group is heading off as soon as everyone is awake, although that shouldn¡¯t be an issue, really. So then the only thing that¡¯s left is..." Eisen muttered to himself, trying to think about what else needed to be done, because there definitely was something, until he swiftly remembered. "Right! Xenia, I¡¯d like to check on my arm, if possible." The old man said with a smile, so the High-Elf nodded her head. "Got it. It probably turned into a Mass of Yang by now, so it¡¯s good timing." Xenia pointed out, and so she and the old man made their way over to the Pier and back onto the ship, where they quickly headed for Xenia¡¯s research-room. Xenia swiftly stepped over to a box covered in cloth, and pulled the cloth off of it, showing a pure-white sphere just sitting inside of a crystal-box. "Perfect." Eisen muttered to himself as he stepped closer, slowly opening the box up before grabbing the sphere with both his arms. "Hmm, it doesn¡¯t really seem all that different to the mass of yin, to be fair. Can you grab it for a second?" Eisen asked her, and Xenia nodded her head with a smile and then stepped up to one of the walls, before drawing a magic circle into the air in front of it, and when the Magic Circle was finished, Xenia tapped the middle of it and ayer of wood simply ¡¯scattered¡¯ off of the wall, revealing a simple small door, which the High-Elf quickly opened up and stepped inside the room beyond it. A few momentster, she returned with the pitch-ck sphere in her arms, unchanged from what it was back then. And when the two spheres got closer to each other... nothing much happened. They did react a little and began to shake, but other than that, nothing was going on. Although, it did seem as if they were shaking at an even interval at the moment, which was about every twenty seconds. "Hmm... Do you think it¡¯s a countdown to something? Maybe they need to stay together for a while?" Xenia suggested, and Eisen just shrugged in response. "Maybe, we¡¯ll have to see." The old man replied, and then ran his hands over the surface of the Mass of Yang. "This really does feel a bit weird when I consider that this used to be my arm." Eisen chuckled, before Xenia slowly nodded her head with a wry smile, before audibly swallowing her own saliva. "Erm... Speaking of... H-How is your arm in real life?" Xenia asked, before she opened her eyes wide at the realization of what she just said. "I-I mean yourck of! W-Wait, that sounds even w-worse..." She began to panick, and Eisen just smiled at her and set the mass of yang down again. "Xenia, don¡¯t worry about what you say. It¡¯s a tough situation, but I¡¯m fine. There was no avoiding amputation." Eisen told her with a light smile, but the High-Elf still seemed to worry about her choice of words, so he chose to just move on to a different topic. "Oh, I don¡¯t think we properly spoke about it before, but your Father was Timothy Charles?" The old man asked, and Xenia looked at him surprised before slowly nodding. "Y-Yeah... He was..." She replied, and Eisen began to just smile. "I did really enjoy reading his novels when they first came out. Fantasy never really was my thing, but the way he portrayed it was so vivid that I couldn¡¯t help myself but keep reading." Eisen said with a lightugh, before Xenia seemed to calm down a bit, and the two of them continued to speak about Xenia¡¯s Father¡¯s books for a little while, before Eisen looked at the time and chose that it was the best moment to head off. "So Xenia, I think I¡¯ll carry both of the masses with me tomorrow and see if they¡¯re going to change their reaction somehow. I think that¡¯s the only way to really find out what to do with them, right?" The old man suggested, and Xenia just lightly smiled at him. "Probably." She said, so Eisen nodded his head and took the other sphere from her, and then the two of them made their way out of the Ship again and toward the ce where the others from their respective groups were sleeping, before Eisen sat down and activated his Demonic Transformation with his size increased as much as possible, so that he could cover his whole body in his wings in a way that it would be possible to even look inside or steal the spheres that he was holding, and then slowly dozed off to sleep in that state. --- The next morning, Eisen woke up and then slowly deactivated his transformations with a tired and heavy body, before taking a look around him, noticing that it was still rtively dark out, so it was probably just before sunrise. After cing the two spheres down in front of him, Eisen swiftly stretched and began to prepare to set out by packing all of their provisions together, which he did with the help of his monsters as well as Kirisho, the only other person from his group that was awake. Even Bree and Sky were still sleeping! They didn¡¯t need much sleep, but they still needed some, and Eisen preferred it if they would get it done before they headed out into a ce that nobody had conquered in hundreds or thousands of years. And then, when the sun finally rose, Eisen woke everyone up and then just waited for Komer to log in, which he coincidentally did within a few moments of the old man thinking so. "Does everybody have all that they need?" Eisen asked, once they all confirmed it, the old man led his group away from the camp. Chapter 349 - Kobold + Goblin = Koblin "Alright, out of all of us here, the ones that need to be level up the most are Sky and Komer. The rest of us are already within a simr range. Are you two ready?" Eisen asked his group with a smile, and they both nodded their heads, Komer carrying a simply wand and staff with him to work on his Sorcery, and Sky holding his new Grimoire to his chest, where he seemed to have written down most of the stories that he would like to use inbat. "Then, the n is quite simple. If we encounter arge group of monsters, Kirisho will cover them in her mist and confuse them, and I¡¯ll send in my Golems as a Vanguard. I¡¯ll be able to see the monsters with my Mana-Sight, after all. And then, when they seem to be heavily weakened, Sky and Komer, you¡¯re going in and doing whatever you can to fight them. If we find a small group of monsters, we¡¯ll try to restrain them as much as possible, and then Sky and Komer will try to kill them somehow." Eisen summed up, just to make sure that everyone understood what should be done, and then moved his fingers through his beard. "And once you two hit the point at which you have to work on your level-up quest, we¡¯ll help out with those quests as much as possible to get you two to level 100, and then we¡¯re moving on to the tactics we worked out yesterday. Sound good?" The old man asked with a smile on his face, and then looked over toward one of his Golems. "Croco, go fly ahead a little to see if you can find any Monsters." Eisen told her, and the young-looking Golem nodded its head and quickly jumped onto her Broom and flew into the sky to do just that. "Ranger, you make sure to pay attention to whatever you can as well. We¡¯re in a pretty thick part of the forest right now, but try your best, please." Eisen asked of the Golem with the Giant bow, who nodded his head and stared forward with his lightly-glowing eyes. And a little whileter, Croco returned and jumped off of her broom tond directly in front of Eisen, pointing the tip of the broom with thentern attached to it deeper into the forest, and it seemed like Ranger also noticed something and prepared his bow on the medium-setting. "Alright everyone, move quietly." Eisen told them and then looked over toward Kirisho, telling her to prepare in case there was arge amount of Monsters, and when they reached the area where Croco saw monsters to be, Eisen raised his eyebrows surprised. It was a group of five, so not that many, and the group included fivepletely different races of monsters, of which Eisen could only recognize three. A Kobold, a Goblin, and a Lizardman. One of the others seemed to be something like a Bi-pedal rat, and after a quick inspection with his truth-seeing eyes, Eisen confirmed it to be called a ¡¯Ratman¡¯. But thest of them was one that Eisen had no idea how to react to. Physically, it seemed to be a mixture of a Goblin and a Kobold, and its race was even called ¡¯Koblin¡¯. "Huh..." Eisen muttered to himself, remembering that the different monsters here on this central ind were supposed to be these humanoid-types, and that some of them even cross-bred. Either way, quickly, Eisen looked to the side to tell them about what he found out through his inspection of them. "They¡¯re all high-level Rank 3 monsters. They have pretty crude weapons, so they seem to be some of the weaker Monsters on the ind." Eisen exined to them, before Sky already began to smile wrily. "Heh... Rank 3 Monsters being the weakest of an area..." He muttered nervously, but Eisen just winked at him. "Don¡¯t worry, you can deal with them." The old man said reassuringly, before Sky slowly nodded and looked at Komer next to him to make sure he was prepared as well, while Eisen himself wanted to test something else. He would surely be able to deal with Rank 3 monsters pretty easily even directly unarmed, even if he didn¡¯t have his Golems, so the old man had no issues stepping forward toward the group of five. After all, he first wanted to make sure that they were actually hostile. If not, it would make taking over the ind a lot easier. "Hello there, you five." Eisen said with a smile on his face as he stepped closer toward them, and immediately, the five different monsters began to stare at him. And before Eisen even knew it, they all sprinted toward him hungrily, preparing to take him apart with their teeth. "Well, it was worth a try. Ranger." Eisen said with a sigh, and immediately when he did so, one of the super-blunt small arrows flew past Eisen and hit thergest of the monsters, the Lizardman, into the center of the chest, which ended up throwing him to the ground. And while Eisen turned around and made his way back to his group, Deedee and Tank rushed past him with their swords drawn, preparing to cut them down. Or rather, they prepared to cut through their legs so that they wouldn¡¯t be able to run away. "Eisen, the hell was that?!" Komer asked confused, but Eisen just shrugged. "Not all monsters are bad, actual monsters. Just take my cute grandson here, he¡¯s a kind one." The old man said with a smile and looked over at Kiron, who was holding his sword over his sholder to properly carry it, and tried to look away embarrassedly at being called Eisen¡¯s ¡¯Cute Grandson¡¯. "See?" Eisen chuckled, and Komer just sighed as he looked back at the five monsters, but was rtively surprised to see that they had been reduced to being nearly-dead already. "Your turn." The old man told Sky and Komer, and they slowly stood up and made their way closer into the area. And while Sky summoned one of his Inkstone Creatures to finish the monsters off for him, Komer drew some magic circles into the air with the staff to do so. And soon enough, the five monsters were finished off, and Eisen looked over toward the young woman that was basically half-backpack. "Shall we get to work?" He asked her, and Bree nodded her head with a smile, while the two of them quickly made their way over toward the dead monsters, swiftly extracting the Mana-Crystals from them. After quickly washing the blood off of them, Eisen and Bree put the Mana-Crystals into the backpack before Bree re-filled Sky and Komer¡¯s mana. "And now, let¡¯s continue." The old man said with a smile, and before he knew it, they noticed the next group of monsters. And then the next, and then the next. Over the course of the day, not only did the group start facing stronger and stronger monsters, moving on to Rank 4 ones by evening, but Sky and Komer got more used tobat as well, and they were able to go against small groups of two or three on their ownter. Komer was actually confident enough to use his Coins of Fate in the fights. They sometimes ended up hurting him a little, but both Supp and Bree quickly reacted by healing him whenever that happened. And that somewhat confused Eisen a good bit, to be fair. After all, he himself never activelymanded Supp to do so, and some shallow thoughts aren¡¯t enough to count as amand. That meant that Supp was actually able to properly adapt to certain situations on his own, a clear sign of intelligence. Something that he wasn¡¯t really supposed to have. But it was the same thing with the other Golems. While they couldn¡¯t grow further without getting their parts reced just like this, they were somewhat acting as if they were already Ego-Golems, because they were capable of partially thinking on their own. It was most likely part of the effect they had on them, but even then, it seemed pretty weird to Eisen most of the time. Either way, whenever something like that happened, Eisen simply tried to properly keep all of that in mind forter, so that it would help when trying to figure out what the Great Golems really were. Or rather, where they were. Due to therge group, and because the only ones to get any experience were Sky and Komer and because they were fighting Rank 4 monsters now, Sky and Komer both managed to push themselves to the Level 90 range by that evening. And while Eisen was preparing the food for everyone, and Kirisho¡¯s Mist spread around their camp like a ring in order to scare any Monsters that might want to approach off, the two of them were starting to speak about how amazing they thought all of this was, especially the immense increase in their stats. "Just by getting my intelligence and wisdom this high, my Inkstone Summons are so much stronger now! And I can keep them up way longer!" Sky eximed excitedly, and Komer nodded his head as well while activating his Fate Perception. "I definitely wasn¡¯t aware stats changed this much... My Fate Perception is so much clearer as well, and it seems like I can see more into the distance with it. I still wouldn¡¯t be able to walk around like this, though..." Komer muttered to himself, and before he knew it, golden particles were floating around in front of his eyes. "Well, Dinner is ready, and I¡¯d prefer it if you could see what you¡¯re eating." Eisen said with a smile as he sat down on one of the benches that he made with his element as well, while Komer quickly deactivated his Fate Perception with a smile on his face. "Right, sorry. But this is actually really awesome...I can¡¯t wait for level 100! I really want to know what my second upation skill is going to be..." Komer admitted with a smile on his face, and Eisen justughed lightly. "It¡¯s surely going to be pretty interesting, just like your first skill." The old man replied and began to eat, while Komer just smiled brightly and excitedly. "My first one was just an information storage... I really don¡¯t know what I¡¯m supposed to expect with my upation from this point on." Sky then said as he scratched his cheek, and Eisen simply smiled at him. "Don¡¯t worry, yours is surely going to be just as amazing. Now, eat before it gets cold!" Eisen told Sky with a smile on his face, before the old man looked over to the side at Bree. "Actually, what was your Level 100 skill?" Eisen asked, and Bree quickly shook her head for some reason, "I didn¡¯t get one. I got two skills when I first got my upation, so I didn¡¯t get one at level 100... Some upations are like that." Bree pointed out with a light smile, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "And you¡¯re really happy with being an Archivist, right?" The old man asked her, and with a little hesitation, the pink-haired Fey-Kin nodded her head. "Well, I¡¯m not unhappy about it! I like my Scanner and Database skills! And I do like my upation as well!" She replied with a bright smile, but Eisen shook his head. "That¡¯s not what I asked. You know that there are literally five people in your direct vicinity that can get you an upation advancement that fits you more, right? Maybe some special form of an Archivist, just in a way that it fits you a bit more." Slowly, Bree¡¯s head slightly drooped down for a few moments, before she raised it again to look at Eisen with a bright smile. "Thank you! I¡¯ll think about it!" Chapter 350 - World of Ink Later that night, Eisen took a closer look at the two spheres he had with him, and by now wrapped in some cloth to properly carry it around. The vibrations every ten or so seconds were pretty annoying at the start, but after a while, Eisen managed to get used to it. It seemed like the rate of the vibrations became a bit faster, dropping by a second or so, but Eisen really couldn¡¯t say for sure. He had to wait a little longer to be able to say so definitively. And until then, Eisen would just keep them on his back like he did until now. Since he wasn¡¯t fighting on his own but justmanding his Golems, he didn¡¯t really need to worry about them getting damaged somehow or him losing them, after all. But either way, for now, Eisen just grabbed these two spheres tightly and went to bed again. It seemed like he had a simr dream to a few days ago, with just an empty, ck space all around him while he was fully aware of him sleeping, but it didn¡¯t really seem like he was able to actually do anything like in a Lucid Dream. It didn¡¯t seem like he was in there for the whole duration of his sleep, it was just for an hour or two, but even two hours seemed infinitely long in an empty space without any type of sensual stimtion. After the two hours were over, Eisen woke back up and quickly stood up on his legs tiredly. And while rubbing his eyes to properly wake up, the old man made his way out of the small ¡¯tent¡¯ that was created, seeing that the mist was still all around them. Kirisho seemed to have gone to sleep as well, but the mist luckily was kept up properly even then. The Golems were still standing around the small camp though, so even if any monsters came through, they might have been able to get rid of them before Eisen even woke up. With a light smile, Eisen summoned his staff and created a quick fire so that everyone could warm themselves upter. It was incredibly cold during such a moment, after all. "Hm? Wait..." Eisen muttered to himself, trying to figure out why this was so weird, and after a few moments he simply chose to pinch his arm to confirm if that was it. "Yeah... I didn¡¯t use to feel pain at that level..." The old man whispered, and then just shook his head lightly, trying to just move on, but this weird feeling still kept staying inside of Eisen¡¯s stomach the whole time. A lot of weird things happened so far, and Eisen was able to properly move on from them without much issues. But this tiny thing, the marginally small increase in the level of pain or physical stimulus that Eisen was feeling, somehow messed him up at a level that he couldn¡¯t describe. Throughout the whole time that Eisen was working on breakfast, he was trying to hurt himself in tiny ways, trying to figure out if he was just imagining it after all, but each and every time, every small cut, actually hurt. It wasn¡¯t actual pain, but it was pain. Not like this feeling of ufort or pressure that wounds usually felt like within the game, but actual pain. The small cut on his finger actually burnt a little bit after a while, and Eisen couldn¡¯t be more grateful for the fact that this change happened after he tried to create the Mass of Yang. He really wasn¡¯t sure if he would be able to do that if he actually felt pain even nearlyparable to real life. Either way, for now, Eisen still tried to ignore it to the best of his ability, and continued to make breakfast for the others, who were one after another waking up. And once they all ate, they took down the tents and continued moving further toward the center of the ind, where the strongest monsters seemed to gather. Eisen didn¡¯t really notice when it happened, but at some point, they even seemed to start walking on an old, overgrown road. It really wouldn¡¯t have been recognizable for most, but Eisen noticed a few weird parts about the path they were walking. All of the nts on the path were youngpared to the trees around them, there were more t rocks gathered underneath their feetpared to before or even just a few meters further to the side, and at some parts, mainly when they were going up some hills, it seemed like the path was ttened out in a way that it wouldn¡¯t be just as steep as it usually would be. At the very least, they now had at least some sort of clue toward finding that ruined town! One after another, they kept encountering small groups of monsters, more and more the further they followed the overgrown road. And soon enough, both Sky and Komer were at a point where they needed to work on their level-up quest, and Eisen was actually rather jealous at how easy it seemed to be for them. Especially Sky seemed to be able to get there quite quickly, considering that most of his skills were at Rank 3 already. And Komer as well, he only had to use a certain amount of ¡¯Fate Items¡¯ in order to get to Level 100 now. And so, around noon, the two of them already managed to get to a three-digit level, and they were more than just excited about their new skills! "Whoa! Fate Item Creation!" Komer eximed excitedly as he stared at the notifications in front of him, and then looked over toward Eisen. "It absorbed two of my skills though... Do you think that¡¯s fine?" He asked nervously, and Bree quickly raised her arm and nodded her head. "Yuup~! When a High-Grade Skill absorbs other skills, you can use those other skills like normal still~. Which were absorbed?" She asked curiously, and Komer scratched his cheek with a smile. "Erm... Scribing and Enchanting." He exined, so Bree just smiled at him. "Alright, then it should be fine! You might not be able to create enchantments that are at the powerpared to before, but making Coins of Fate should work better now~! And you can obviously just write like normal anyway, but maybe you can make something like... Fate Contracts?" Bree suggested with a slightly wry smile toward the end, not sure what it might let him do, and Komer slowly nodded his head. "Hmm... Yeah, maybe... I¡¯ll just have to try, I guess." The Fate Merchant said with a bright on his face, before the young Fey-Kin turned over toward her brother. "And what about you?" She asked happily, and Sky looked over toward her as if surprised, and then just chuckled. "Oh, it¡¯s... It¡¯s an Element-Based Skill that needs to use up elemental mana to function... So basically a more powerful spell..." Sky exined, and Bree looked at him with a curious smile. "Oh! That¡¯s awesome!" Bree eximed, and Eisen slightly raised his eyebrows, curious at what that skill was like. "So? What can you do now?" He asked, and Sky just smirked and flipped his Inkheart Grimoire to the first page, where the depiction was still showing the Queen of Fey, just floating there, in the center of the... "The Queen of Fey." Sky eximed as he ced his hand onto the page, and the letters on it immediately popped off of it before starting to float around the area, seeping into the grass and trees around them, before everything slowly began to change and morph around, before a figure appeared in the center of thepletely ck-and-white space. On the page, she seemed quite short, but now, the Queen of Fey was truly anything but short. She was actually about three meters tall. If she was shrunk down to a size where her limbs were at a regr size, she would probably be quite short, however, so maybe that¡¯s why Eisen thought so. But nheless, it seemed like one of the things that Sky wanted to happen, did actually happen. Just a few days ago, when Eisen gave him the Grimoire, Sky spoke about wanting to be able to pull the scenery described in the stories out and create it around him, and now he was able to do just that. "My new Skill is called ¡¯World of Ink¡¯. For now, it seems to only change the physical surrounding, and in a very obvious way, but at some point it might be able to replicate everything properly. In the colors of the actual Fairy Forest." Sky exined, wiping away one of the tears in the corner of his eye. It seems like even if this was all created through magic, it was a good enough representation of the ce he grew up at to make him react like that. Eisen wanted tofort him somehow, but it seemed like his sister already did so without hesitation and quickly hugged Sky. A few momentster, Sky turned back around toward the others with a light sniffle while the ck ink that seeped into every part of the area moved back toward the book, "Well, either way, this should be pretty useful. Maybe when I have even higher mana than now, we can use this as a recement for a camp when I find a story that includes one. Erm... But right now, I already have a story that should be some help for stronger opponents." Sky pointed out, and then flipped through his Grimoire before showing it to the others, and especially Eisen ended up smiling lightly. "Oh? Interesting. Yeah, keep that in mind. If we encounter a boss, that story should be more than just useful." Eisen said with a smile on his face, cing his hand onto the top of Sky¡¯s head before cracking his knuckles as his smile became a grin. "Now, let¡¯s go ahead and properly start through with this." Eisen suggested, and everyone else nodded their heads as well before following the old man further along the path they were walking on until now, and soon enough, they started to see some ruins in the distance. Nothing much at the start, but some small destroyed structures, and a ratherrge mass of them beyond those few. "I guess we¡¯re here now." Eisen said with a smile on his face and looked over toward Ranger. "Take a look at how many there are." The old man told him, and for a little while, Ranger¡¯s eyes lit up again while he stared into the distance, and after a few moments, Ranger turned toward Eisen and raised his hand. First, he held up one finger, then four, and then two. "Hmm... 142 just within sight here, huh? Alright, all of you are alright with doing things we nned yesterday, right?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, but it seemed like some of them were rather unsure about it, and especially Kiron was feeling like it wasn¡¯t a good idea. "Grandfather, I¡¯m your Knight, are you sure that I shouldn¡¯t stay with you?" He asked, but Eisen quickly shook his head. "Without you, these guys don¡¯t have any front-fighters, you know? And if I need your help, you¡¯ll get a message from me. I¡¯ll just be a minute or so away from you anyway, so you can just rush over to where I am." Eisen told him, and Kiron slowly nodded his head. "...Alright... But on some of the other inds... Can we fight together?" Kiron asked with a light smile, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head. "Of course we can." Eisen told him with a smile, before looking to his shoulder, where Sal was currently sitting. "Come on, you go with your big sisters, Sal." The old man said with a smile and picked him up, but instead of letting go, Sal instead just grasped onto Eisen¡¯s hand as tight as he could. "Hey, the three of you have to be able to be independent a little bit as well. So just go with the others for a bit... We¡¯re meeting back up in a little while anyway." Eisen said, and slowly, Sal let go and climbed onto Caria¡¯s shoulder, although rather sadly at that. And then, Eisen turned around and went ahead toward the ruined town on his own, while the others went a bit further east first before doing the same. Chapter 351 - Commanders and their Boss Surrounded by his golems, Eisen made his way further toward the ruined city, trying to make sure he had all monsters in front of him in mind with the help of his Magic Sight. Soon enough, it seemed like two incrediblyrge Lizardmen stood in front of the entrance to the area. At least that was their main characteristics, but neither of them seemed to be full Lizardmen. One of them had a fur covering its stomach, while the other one had whiskers and a different facial shape to usual lizardmen. And the moment that they saw Eisen and the Goelms, they grabbed the weapons they had stuck in their tattered clothes and sprinted toward him. "Tank." Eisen said with a frown, and immediately, thergest of the Golems stepped forward and began to run toward them, before mming his tower shield against both of the two monsters, before swinging his Greatsword toward them and cutting them up, before Deeded jumped in as well and did her best to finish the two of them off. "Hm, that went pretty well, now didn¡¯t it?" Eisen muttered to himself and squatted down in front of the monsters before grabbing a knife from his Leather Apron to cut the Mana-Crystals out of their chests, before storing them inside of the storage-module in Tank¡¯s back, all the whilst rubbing the coin around his neck. And swiftly, they moved on to make their way deeper into the town. Some of the ruined houses had been turned into ces for the different monsters to live in, apparently, and Eisen did his best not to disturb them too much. In the end, he really only wanted to kill the monsters that attacked him and the Golems first, especially after seeing some of the younger monsters. They didn¡¯t really have a civilization there, but nheless, these monsters were far smarter than the ones on the maind, and through that it seemed like there were more of them that were harmless. In this situation, it was actually Eisen that felt like a monster attacking a vige of regr people. But then again, Eisen could see some of them doing horrible things, like violently ripping each other¡¯s bodies apart, trying to vite other monsters, and the things that angered Eisen most, them trying to kill or eat the children. And whenever Eisen could see this, or they were actively attacking him, he didn¡¯t hesitate much either. With just a single word, his Golems would move and start attacking others for him. He didn¡¯t seem to get as much experience as he would when killing the monsters himself, but it seemed like he got a majority of it at the very least. And with his Golems made of Pure steel, none of the monsters had much of a chance anyway, especially because Tank was able to stand in their way. And then if the Golems got Damaged, Supp reacted and somehow immediately repaired them with his support magic which had apparently somewhat changed to be useable on the Golems as well. Either way, at the end of the day, Eisen was able to leasurely step through the ruined town at a slow pace. And soon, he reached an area that was quite different to the area before the closer Eisen got to the center of the ruined town. Everything was much cleaner, some of the buildings seemed to be paritally repaired, and the monsters had risen in strength a fair bit and were now high-level Rank 4 monsters. But that didn¡¯t mean much in the face of Eisen¡¯s Golems, especially when his Golemancy Skill ranked up and gave the Golems better control over their bodies. And from then on, it seemed like the Monsters were carrying small amounts of precious gems with them, although Eisen didn¡¯t really know the reason behind it. He simply ced them into Tank¡¯s storage module without thinking about it much. It wasn¡¯t until a few hourster that Eisen reached what seemed to be something like a town-square, and Eisen encountered a new type of Monster in this town. They were far more humanoid in general, and their equipment was of a much higher quality as well. On top of that, some were even riding on wolf-like monsters and preparing to attack Eisen and the Golems with what seemed like a proper tactic. One of the Monsters, the seemingly strongest one, raised its spear forward toward Eisen and then yelled something out, and all of the monsters now surrounding Eisen immediately started sprinting toward him and the Golems. "Croco." Eisen said with a light sigh, and immediately the Armored-Witch Jumped onto her Broom and flew into the air, starting to create a magic circle over the town square. It took a while to finish, but while she was working on it, the other Golems got to work as well. Supp was strengthening his fellow Golems, Tank was holding off and pushing back the vanguard, Deedee was just running around the ce cutting apart whatever Monster she could get a hold of, while Ranger shot some arrows at the monsters hiding in different parts of the ruined buildings, and Eisen tried his best to remember where exactly each of the arrows ended up so that he could gather them againter. But that got a bit hard when Eisen suddenly started paying attention to the vibrating spheres he had bound to his back again, which had definitely sped up to vibrating about every 4 seconds. And now that Eisen payed attention to them once, they would be stuck in his mind for another hour or until something else big happened that managed to get his mind off of it. However, none of what was going on right now was ¡¯Big¡¯, or able to get Eisen¡¯s mind off of any of it, he was just feeling tired of this. Not that he was bored, this was incredibly exciting, but on the other hand, it wasn¡¯t. In the back of his mind, Eisen always had a tiny thought of ¡¯Why am I doing this?¡¯, and he had no idea how to get rid of that thought. But soon enough, the fight was over, and Eisen started to make his way around the area to gather the mana-crystals and arrows again, before the old man and his Golems continued to move on toward the center of the ruined town. And another few hourster, Eisen pushed through to what seemed to be a castle, and then he sent a message to the other groups to let them know that he probably found the ce they were looking for. At the very least, there was a small crystal giving off the same type of mana as Dungeon Core inside of there. A little whileter, the most important groups finally gathered where Eisen told them to, but the old man just stood there in a bit of a haze, just staring in front of himself quietly. "Erm, you good?" Brody asked with a frown, and with that, Eisen immediately snapped out of it. "Huh? Oh yeah, I¡¯m fine. I was just feeling a bit tired, that¡¯s all." The old man said with a wry smile, and Brody nodded his head without hesitation. "Yeah, you can say that again! I was watching over those brats all of yesterday and I started feeling so... Exhausted all of a sudden. Shouldn¡¯t have run outta Stamina for the day yet though, and my energy ain¡¯t exhausted either, so it¡¯s weird." Brody replied while seemingly scratching some dirt off of his horns, and Eisen just nodded his head with a frown. Hopefully this was an ind belonging to an important god, because he really, really wanted to speak to one of them After a little while, once the Originals gathered, they stepped forward toward therge gate of the Castle, and each of them got a notification. [You are about to enter the Space of a Boss. Only six people can enter at a time. When either side is annihted, the door will open again] "Six people? Well, this is a pain in the ass, then..." Brody said with aining sigh, and Eisen just ended up shrugging. "We¡¯ll be fine. It says six ¡¯People¡¯. The five of us plus whatever is connected to us. So Jyuuk¡¯s Monsters and Undead, my Golems and monsters, and one more person cane along." The old man pointed out, so Brody shrugged. "Yeah, but who should we take along then?" Xenia asked with a frown, so Eisen started to look around and quickly found the other half of his group, before he made his way toward them with a smile on his face, looking down at Sky. "Hey, we¡¯re going to need your help." Eisen told Sky with a smile, and the others immediately looked at Eisen confused. "Wait, you need just Sky¡¯s help? What about us?" Kiron asked, seemingly kind of hurt, and Eisen slowly nodded. "I¡¯m sorry, only six people can enter, and I would like to use Sky¡¯s World of Ink to turn it into a ce for our advantage. The Town core is inside of there, so after we take it over, I¡¯ll create another Core Guardian for it that we can hopefully leave the task of overseeing the reconstruction of town to. Then we¡¯re going to make some ns and travel to the next ind. There, we¡¯ll fight together again, don¡¯t worry." Eisen told Kiron with a smile, and with a frown, the half Dragon just nodded his head and turned around, stepping away without another word, but Eisen just stood there, unsure how to react. "...Well..? Sky, can youe along? You won¡¯t need to fight much, but we don¡¯t know what it looks like in there, so it would be a good help to have you with us." Eisen said, trying to move on for now, and then Scratched the back of his neck as he looked at his Golems with a weird feeling in his stomach, and then looked back at Sky who just slowly nodded his head and followed the old man back to therge gate at the front of the castle: The spheres Eisen was carrying were basically going crazy at this point, but the old man just chose to ignore that as well. He really didn¡¯t know why he was feeling so lethargic all of a sudden, but the other originals seemed to be in a simr mindset. All of them were pretty tired, although Evalia was the most awake out of all of them and still seemed pretty energetic for the most part. And when Eisen returned with Sky, the six of them, plus entourage in the form of monsters or golems, made their way inside of the room, which turned out to be a throne-room of sorts, but it had five seats on the other side, all of them having one monster seated inside of them, although only one seemed to be in totalmand of everything. Quickly, Eisen inspected all of them one after another. [High-Kobold Lord][Rank - 4][Level - 99] [HP - 30000][MP - 10000] [Titles] -[Ind Commander] [High-Goblin Lord][Rank - 4][Level - 99] [HP - 10000][MP - 30000] [Titles] -[Ind Commander] [High-Ratman Lord][Rank - 4][Level - 99] [HP - 20000][MP - 20000] [Titles] -[Ind Commander] [High-Lizardman Lord][Rank - 4][Level - 99] [HP - 40000][MP - 5000] [Titles] -[Ind Commander] [Half-Dragon][Rank - 5][Level - 15] [HP - 50000][MP - 50000] [Titles] -[Ind Boss] "Oh?" Eisen muttered with a frown, and then looked to the others after noticing that none of the monsters seemed to want to attack just yet. "High-Race Lords for the four different types of races in this town. Rank 4, level 99, each of them. Then the one in the middle is a Half-Dragon, Rank 5, Level 15." The old man exined, and they all snapped their necks in his direction. "Rank 5? Are you kidding me?" Brody asked confused, and the old man nodded his head. "Those are... What, supposed to be Roughly Level 160 to 200? And a Boss at that? Do you guys think we can really beat all of them at once?" Evalia asked a bit worried, and Eisen once more nodded his head in response. "Of course we can. But first, let me try something else." The old man told them, slowly stepping forward toward five of the strongest monsters he had seen so far. Chapter 352 - Amused Smile With a light smile on his face, Eisen approached the five monsters sitting there on the other side of the room, with that small purple crystal floating above their heads. From what Eisen could tell, the Half-Dragon was a metallic one, he seemed to have bronze scales at the very least, so he had an exposition to be a good guy, at the very least from what Eisen understood about the different dragon factions. "Well, hello there, you five." Eisen said with a smile as he pushed his left hand into his pocket and raised his right in a slight, chest-height wave. And that not only confused the people behind Eisen, but also the Monsters in front of him. "King, why is this human not scared of us?" The High-Ratman asked as he turned to his right, but the Half-Dragon simply kept staring at the old man in front of him. "Surely they are just an idiot, yes? But we cannot leave this space, so who knows what is going on out there..." The High-Goblin pointed out, before Eisen raised his brows with arger smile on his face. "Oh, so you can¡¯t leave here? Is there any reason why?" Eisen asked them, but was swiftly ignored when the High-Lizardman stood up and cracked his knuckles. "Mens not need to know. Mens die now." Right now, the Lizardman was about a meter taller than Eisen, and was probably thinking of him like a literal ¡¯Small Fry¡¯, but Eisen didn¡¯t have that. Slowly, he increased his size to the max he could muster while transforming into a Demon as well. "Ah, what a shame, I would have liked to speak to your King a little longer. Then how about we start a little bit of a contest?" Eisen suggested, and it seemed like his transformation managed to get the monsters¡¯ attention, so the old man quickly continued. "One after another, you all show us your strength inside an arena prepared by us. If we manage to kill you or push you out of the arena somehow, we win that round. If you manage to kill all of us, you win." The old man said with a smile on his face, running his hand through his rock-beard, but it seemed like the four Lords didn¡¯t want to listen at all. "Mens think that we are dumb. We not dumb. Mens dumb! No arenas in room!" The Lizardman eximed while the others stood up as well, surrounding Eisen one after another, but they were quickly stopped by their King. "Stop it." The Half-Dragon told them, and the Lords looked over toward him before the Half-Dragon just began to smirk, cing his head down onto his palm, "This sounds interesting. But as my dear friend here just said, this room is no arena. We are unable to leave here ever since I became the Boss, so we cannot visit another one either. "Haha, that really won¡¯t be an issue. Sky, if you will?" Eisen asked with a smile as he turned around, and the young Fey-Kin stepped up with his Grimoire in hand, before flipping to the right page. "Hell¡¯s Collosseum." He eximed, and quickly, the letters from the book flew outward and seeped into the ground and the walls, slowly shifting everything around before increasing the size of the room a bit even, and now, the the group stood inside of a Collosseum with arge man standing in the center, who was probably the one Sky would have summoned using his regr spells. "Interesting. Then let us start this fight. You four, choose your own order. Follow their rules. If one of you dies or is pushed out of the arena, the next one moves on. Although, I don¡¯t truly know the reason behind giving up after being pushed out. This should still be quite fun." The Half-Dragon pointed out, and immediately the four Lords looked at each other and began to speak to each other about the order, while Eisen deactivated his transformations and made his way back to his group, all of which were waiting for him to exin what just happened. "Eisen, why did you just go and do that? And why did you say ¡¯Or is pushed out of the Arena¡¯? If one of them is nearly dead, he can just leave, and thenter they can kill us together!" Jyuukined, but Eisen shook his head with a smile on his face. "Well, I have a bit of a different idea, actually. And it starts by not killing any of them." He said with a broad smile, but the others were simply confused at what he was trying to say, before Eisen continued to exin. "As I said, the actual ¡¯Boss¡¯ is a Half-Dragon. He seems reasonable enough as well, and his Draconic Parent is a Bronze Dragon, so a side that we¡¯re working together with. Then, his other side is obviously a person, just judging from his form. He¡¯s Rank 5, so he shouldn¡¯t know transformation yet either, at least ording to what Kiron told me. But this one seems to be seen as aplete monster, judging from how it managed to be a boss. And when ites to convincing Monsters, we have one person here that can¡¯t be beat at that, isn¡¯t that right?" Eisen asked with a wink as he looked at the Beastperson, but he just looked back at the old man confused. "Y-You want me to tame him?" He whispered, and Eisen chuckled with a nod. "Well, if possible, at least." The old man replied, but none of the others really understood why they would do that, so Eisen let out a deep sigh. "He has fullmand over these four lords. Four lords which correspond directly to the four races in this town and on this ind. I doubt we managed to even kill 5% of the monsters in the ruined town, except if all of you went forward and tried to actively hunt them. So, if we manage to tame the Half-Dragon, we proxy-tame the four lords, and with that proxy-tame arge part of the monsters on this ind." Eisen told them with a grin, and immediately, they began to smile in a simr way to the old man, although Sky was just standing there, still quite nervous about everything, which Eisen didn¡¯t miss either. "You can stay in the back and just let your Inkheart Creature fight for you, don¡¯t worry." Eisen told him, so Sky slowly nodded his head and rushed into his position, before everyone else also got ready. "Remember, try to restrain them if they try to move forward, and then push them back away. And then, we just need to brute-strength them out." Eisen said with a smile, before he cracked his knuckles and looked at the other side of the arena, where the first opponent was already waiting. The High-Lizardman Lord. "Me be mens first opponent. Me kill mens quickly." The Lizardman eximed as he cracked his knuckles and stepped forward toward them, so Eisen immediately sent out his Golems to start everything off, with Tank doing his best to hold the Lizardman Lord back, even mming his shield into the ground before activating the rockyer. Ranger was shooting out therge arrows at him with as much power he could muster, while Croco cast de-buffs on the Lord and Supp cast buffs on everyone in the group, not only the golems, and Deedee began to run around the Lord to damage him as much as possible. In the meantime, Jyuuk summoned his Overgrown Giant Spider Zombie and tried to push the Lizardman to the back as much as possible, also summoning his heavyweight monsters, while Xenia tried to cast high-tier gravity spells that were supposed to push him to the back a bit more. Evalia tried to cast strength buffs on everyone in the group while casting a weakness de-buff on the Lizardman, and Brody attempted his best to use his Outer Energy to push him away as well. And of course, with so many different people not trying to kill the Lizardman, but instead attempting to push him away with as much force as possible, even such a strong creature couldn¡¯t do much but try to resist. And while he managed to do so for a good while, that was all he could do. He was unable to attack them in any way, and considering that he was suffering damage from multiple sources, he was just getting weaker by the moment. As such, this was just a battle of pure endurance, and the Lizardman seemed to lose out on that end. Soon, he began to be pushed back toward the edge of the arena, and when this started, he couldn¡¯t help himself but stumble a bit here and there as well, and was soon thrown out of the arena, with literally none of the others damaged beyond a few scratches here and there. Sure, they were quite exhausted, but if that was all there was to it, they would be fine. After all, they just beat the one with the most physical strength. The Goblin-Lord was apparently a Mage, judging from the amount of MP he had, and just judging from the build which Eisen was able to coincidentally inspect pretty well within the dungeon, the Kobold-Lord was seemingly set for speed instead of strength. They might be slightly annoying to get a hold of, but once they were restrained at all, it wouldn¡¯t be an issue to push them away. But as for the Ratman-Lord, Eisen really wasn¡¯t sure what he had to expect. He had no knowledge about what they were like at all, and his HP and MP were split evenly in the middle. Hopefully it would be easy to deal with him. "Alright, next one, please!" Eisen eximed with a smile as he stared across the arena directly toward the Half-Dragon, while the Lizardman sat back down angrily, and the Kobold jumped down into the Arena. And exactly what Eisen expected happened next, the Kobold began to run at incredible speed, wildly around the Arena. It seemed like not even Brody would be able to catch up to him, but on the other hand, that probably wasn¡¯t really necessary either. "Ah, good job, bud." Eisen said as he looked down and saw Sal down at his feet, a thin thread attached to his abdomen. With a smile on his face, while everyone was trying to figure out what the Kobold was trying to do, Eisen picked Sal up and stepped to the point in the arena directly opposite to where the other end of the thread was attached to. And it wasn¡¯t any thread either, but it was a special thread that Sal just recently learned how to create. It was far harder than usual, and sure, while it wasn¡¯t as tough as the thread that Sal¡¯s mother could produce, it was enough for what Eisen was nning. "And now, Caria, Jyuuk, if you please?" Eisen asked them both, and they nodded their heads before touching the ground around them, and while numerous roots and vines started to extend from around Jyuuk, Caria rather grew a bunch of small mushrooms that were slowly spreading across the arena. Either way, it was enough to mess up one¡¯s footing. All of this was happening while everyone that was able to defend rtively well managed to restraint the Kobold to one half of the arena, one of the two only areas that weren¡¯t covered in either roots, vines, or mushrooms. And with a little ¡¯Slip-Up¡¯, Eisen told Tank to step away to create a path for the Kobold to ¡¯Escape¡¯. And the Kobold did just what Eisen expected, and in order to avoid tripping over the vines and mushrooms, he chose to jump, aiming for the second open spot. Although, while doing that, the Kobold missed the fact that there was a very strong and thin thread in the center of the room, just at the height that the thread could be found. But even then, it wouldn¡¯t have been strong enough to stop the Kobold¡¯s Movements. Instead, the thread was supposed to carry a certain other, very light creature, which the Kobold directly jumped into. And before the Kobold could react, he was restrained by Xenia¡¯s summon, Ragna. That gave the group just enough time to push the Kobold away and out of the arena. "I¡¯m so confused... How the hell did that n just work..?" Sky asked as he stood there next to Eisen, and the old man just chuckled in response. "Because we have proper tactics. Usually, I¡¯m sure we were supposed to fight them all at once, but we would have died immediately. But because we can fight them one versus many, we¡¯re at an immense advantage. Although..." Eisen exined with a smile and then turned over toward the Half-Dragon, still sitting on his throne on the other side of the room, simply showing an amused smile. "Maybe I wasn¡¯t the only one calcting a way to win." Chapter 353 - True or False Immediately after the High-Kobold Lord was pushed out of the Arena as well, the next of the group jumped down into the space. The High-Goblin Lord. He had a rtively high-quality staff with him, and now just slowly held it forward toward the group while standing on the other side of the room, twisting the tip of the staff around in a circle. "Xenia, what¡¯s he doing?" Eisen asked the Magic-Expert standing next to him, but she seemed just as confused as the old man himself, "I don¡¯t know for sure either... But I think it¡¯s a way for him to use his element?" She suggested with a frown, and Eisen slowly nodded his head and kept looking at the Goblin. For now, he really didn¡¯t want to have everyone attack it because he was unsure what the Goblin could do. Slowly, as elemental mana was poured through the staff and added into the circr motion, the gray energy slowly began to move on its own and only kept on speeding up. And soon enough, Eisen could see what was happening, and he knew for sure when he head something crackling and snapping continuosly. The gray energy continued spreading on forward while bright shes of light instantly appeared and then went away as quickly as they came. "I think... That¡¯s supposed to be a Tornado releasing lightning..." Eisen said with a wry smile, and immediately looked over toward the others. "Golems, get away to the other side of the room, and all of you throw away whatever metallic things you have on you!" The old man yelled out, and everyone quickly did as he said, with the exception of one of them. "Brody!" Eisen eximed, prompting the Demon-Orc to get moving already, and with a bright grin on his face simply exposing his tusks even more then usual, Brody grabbed his Juan, his straightsword, and sprinted forward. It seemed like the Goblin thought that Brody was an idiot for rushing in, but he really couldn¡¯t expect what happened next. With swift, circr motions, Brody basically dodged the lightning, at least that¡¯s what it looked like. Instead, the reality was a little different. It wasn¡¯t that Brody was avoiding the lightning, but the Lightning was avoiding him! The Lightning was created through magic, and the sword that Brody was using was made using a Maroon-Steel alloy, capable of rejecting any type of magic thrown against it. So of course, whenever Brody held his de in the direction that the next strike of lightning came from, it would bend into the opposite direction. Although, even then, Brody was still impressive enough to be able to properly see the Lightninging before also moving his de in the right position. And soon enough, Brody was in the center of the ¡¯Tornado¡¯, and began to quite literally slice it apart. The parts that he disconnected from each other like that soon re-connected, but it cost the whole thing quite a lot of speed and momentum. On top of that, while Brody was closing in on the High-Goblin, Eisen made his Golems approach him from behind, and their nature as purely-metallic beings made it so that the lightning was naturally attracted to them, and away from Brody, which allowed him to continue shing through the tornado with only minimal amount of damage to worry about. And soon enough, Brody managed to close in on the High-Goblin, and immediately stabbed him with his de. It didn¡¯t prade deep, it really was just a shallow cut that wouldn¡¯t usually be able to be much use against a Boss-Grade monster, but what Brody was out for wasn¡¯t do damage his Health, but his Mana. Anyone in contact with the metal would naturally have a bit of their mana drained. Usually it wouldn¡¯t be enough to really be seen as a threat either, especially to a mage, but Brody didn¡¯t just have one of these weapons. Literally each and every one that Brody had on his person at the moment was pushed directly against the High-Goblin to stop him from freely using magic, and it seemed to work quite well. At the very least, it worked well enough for everyone else to begin pushing the High-Goblin away to the edge of the Arena to throw him out of it. Finally, it seemed like even the Half-Dragon was at least a little surprised at what just happened. But none of them really had enough time to think about what to do next, because, before they even knew it, the Ratman dropped down into the Arena, although he soon enough already disappeared in a hole in the ink-ck ground. "Well, this doesn¡¯t seem good..." Eisen muttered with a sigh, and quickly activated his Mana-Sight, trying to figure out where the Ratman was, and he soon found him heading toward the physically weakest of the group, Sky. "Jyuuk, create as many leaves with paralyzing properties as you can. Xenia, dampen them up a bit." The old man told the two of them quickly as he rushed over toward Sky and immediately picked him up so that he couldn¡¯t be targeted as easily, while the two that Eisen just spoke to nodded their heads and got to work. "Everyone else, keep moving as fast and randomly as you can." Eisen yelled out, and before he knew it, the Ratman, who seemed more like a Mole-man all of a sudden, broke out of the ground where Sky was standing before, and then immediately rushed back underground. This was definitely the longest fight of all of them so far, although nobody was actually fighting, but instead just rushing all over the ce. But that quickly changed when Xenia and Jyuuk finished their tasks, and Eisen started using his element to fill up the numerous holes that the Ratman just created in the ground, with the exception of a few of them, which were quickly filled up with the damp leaves and then once more covered with Eisen¡¯s element, which the old man then used to get the leaves to start burning to create as much smoke as possible. And now, the old man just needed to follow the Ratman¡¯s movements underground, which all of a sudden seemed to have turned quite eratic. As quickly as he could, the Ratman-Lord dug over to a rtively empty spot and opened up another hole, which had a lot of white smokeing out of it, while the Ratman was just trying to pull himself out with the little bit of strength he had left in his arms. Although, that was quite unnessary, considering that he was already grabbed by the old man and casually ced out of the arena. And then, the only thing that Eisen could see when he looked at the Half-Dragon was an excited expression, quite different to that curious grin from before. "Now then, what a surprise. You seemed quite weak to me before, but apparently you¡¯re stronger than I thought." The Half-Dragon eximed with augh, before he slowly stood up from his throne and made his way toward the Arena, slowly jumping down into it while catching his fall with his wings. And now, the reason why Eisen was so confident that his n worked was exposed to even the others, although the only one that recognized it other than the old man was Sky. "Trygan¡¯s Insignia!" He eximed, pointing at the rusty ne around the Half-Dragon¡¯s neck. "Oh, so you recognize this?" The Half-Dragon asked with a chuckle as he grabbed his ne with a smile, "Truly, this is the insignia of the Crystal Dragon King Trygan, a god of pure, true Justice!" He replied with an expression ofplete respect when speaking about him, and Eisen turned over toward Xenia. "You mentioned powers that priests from different gods get before, right? Now, what was it that people that follow Gods of Justice get again?" The old man asked, and Xenia just began to smile, rxing a bit as he did so. "They can judge if something is true or false... And although Trygan¡¯s version is weaker and allows for different things in return, it should be enough." She said with a smile, and Eisen nodded his head as he crossed his arms behind his back and slowly approached the Half-Dragon, who was respectful enough to not attack Eisen right off the bat considering that he didn¡¯t seem the intention to do so either. "Now, let me guess, you are a Priest to Trygan?" Eisen asked, and surprised, the Half-Dragon nodded his head, "Of course I am! My Draconic Blood is strong in me, and while my father is a quite useless being to his greatness, I try to be a good help to him." He replied, so Eisen just smiled. "I see, then how about we y another little game before starting the fight? It is, of course, rted to Trygan." "I¡¯m listening..." The Half-Dragon said, quite amused and intrigued, before Eisen began to exin the quite simple rules. "Using the ability to judge a truth from a lie, you will tell me if five different things I say are true or not. For everything you get wrong, we get one second to freely attack you. If you get none of them right, we get 10 seconds in total to attack you how we want." Eisen suggested, and the Half-Dragon raised his brow in surprise. "You are surely aware that you already entered a position that only you benefit from, don¡¯t you? Do I get anything in return if I get it right?" The Half-Dragon asked, and Eisen nodded his head. "Of course you do. You see, there are six people here in this group, the rest are beings or structures directly connected to one of us. For each time you get it right, one of us will sit out of the fight that we¡¯re about to have, including whatever beings or structures belonging to us we have here." Eisen told them, and immediately, the group behind him began toin, but the old man just turned around and winked at them, so they swiftly settled back down. "Intriguing. It should speed this whole ordeal up a little, so let¡¯s go ahead with it." The Half-Dragon said with a smile, so Eisen nodded and grabbed a small piece of paper out of his front-pocket together with a pencil, slowly writing all of the answers down on it in order in a way that the Half-Dragon couldn¡¯t see. "Now, first. My name is Eisen, and I am Giant-Dwarf Halfling." Eisen said with a smile, and immediately, newints could be heard behind the old man, but the Half-Dragon just chuckled and nodded his head. "That is true." "Correct. Evalia, leave the Arena, please." Eisen told the Artist with a smile, and even if she wanted toin, the old man didn¡¯t even let her finish the first word and just once more told her to leave the arena. "Second. I am far, far older than you think I am." The old man said next, and now, quite surprised actually, the Half-Dragon nodded his head once more. "That is also true." "Again, Correct. Sky, leave the arena and take your Inkheart Creature with you." Eisen said, so Sky did as he was told and left the arena as well, standing next to Evalia in the area where people were supposed to sit and watch. "Third. I¡¯m a Combatist." The old man told the Half-Dragon, who now just began tough and shook his head. "That¡¯s a lie. And it¡¯s quite obvious to see even without Divine Energy." "Well, once more, you¡¯re correct. Xenia, if you may?" The old man asked with a smile, before the High-Elf did as asked and left as well. "Fourth. I am the first Person in this world that ever reached the maximum Level and peaked." Confused, the Half-Dragon looked at Eisen and frowned, seemingly wanting to repeat checking the question again. "That is... True." The Half-Dragon muttered finally, so Eisen just nodded his head with augh, "Correct. Brody, could you leave next?" Eisen asked, so the Demon-Orc rtively reluctantly did so. "And fifth... Trygan, the Crystal Dragon King, was born out of an egg which was hatched by me, before I tamed him, brought him with me along in my life, raised him as my son, and got him onto a stage of Transcendence, at which point he was granted Godhood, and Trygan still calls me Father to this day." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and for a few moments, the Half-Dragon stumbled backwards and grabbed his head. "Oh? Is the reaction rather strong this time around?" The old man asked, and the Half-Dragon nodded his head. "That... That is true..." He replied, so Eisen formed a bright smile and nodded his head. "Correct." Chapter 354 - Getting the Town Core "You... You¡¯re trying to tell me that you are Trygan¡¯s Father?" The Half-Dragon asked confused, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile on his face, "Basically, yes. Now, you won with an overwhelming victory. Just one person left to fight you." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and the Half-Dragon stared just staring at him. "I... I don¡¯t understand..." Confused, the Half-Dragon took a step back, seemingly trying to figure out what was going on, before Eisen slowly made his way to the edge of the Arena to leave, because he wouldn¡¯t be the one to ¡¯Fight¡¯ the Half-Dragon. On his way out, Eisen leaned in toward Jyuuk with a light smile on his face. "Stand where I was standing before and unsummon all your undead and monsters." The old man told the beastperson, who just looked at him confused but nodded his head, doing just what the old man suggested and stood right where Eisen¡¯srge footprints could still be seen. "Alright, can the fight start now?" Eisen asked from outside the Arena while he picked his monsters up and made sure that his Golems were outside as well, before the Half-Dragon looked over toward him and slowly nodded his head, even if he somehow seemed to have lost his will to fight against them, but nheless prepared to start the fight, pressing his hands together in fists, and from what Eisen could tell, he d his whole body in Divine Energy, and then he slowly took a step forward, which was the point at which the whole fight started. Slowly, Eisen just snapped to fullfill the rest of the Half-Dragon¡¯s reward for beating them in the game. His monsters and Golems were already gone, but coincidentally, there still was some of his element all over the ce, and it would just be a little bit of an unfair advantage for Jyuuk if it was there, after all. It was just so, that coincidentally, Eisen¡¯s element was the only thing keeping the ground together, which had priorly been pulled apart and loosened up through the roots, vines and mushrooms whichter just withered and disappeared, before then being riddled by numerous tunnels created by the High-Ratman Lord. So, all of a sudden, the ground copsed and, just so coincidentally, the only stable ce was where Jyuuk was currently standing. And considering how distracted the Half-Dragon was, he wasn¡¯t really able to react quickly enough, and was pulled down together with the rest of the ground, and ended up getting stuck inbetween the rocks. He probably would have been able to get himself out of it with brute force, but considering that he was really not motivated enough to do so, the Half-Dragon just stayedying there. "Oops." Eisen said with a light smile on his face, and everyone slowly turned toward the old man with confused expressions, although there was one personughing. At first Eisen thought it would be Brody, because he usually was the first tough in tense situations, but instead, it was the Half-Dragon. "Hahah... What aplete loss this was, huh?" He asked with a smile, while Jyuuk climed down toward him to try and finish the n up. "Hmm? Ah, so you¡¯re trying to Tame me, aren¡¯t you?" The Half-Dragon asked all of a sudden, and the four Commanders looked at Eisen¡¯s group shocked, while the old man himself just crossed his arms and kept listening, even if themanders wanted to seemingly throw the rules out of the window and attack all of them right now. "Well, I wasn¡¯t happy being a Boss anyway, so sure, I don¡¯t mind at all." The Half-Dragon said with a smile, and seemingly willingly became one of Jyuuk¡¯s tamed Monsters, even though he seemed to have had a choice. And soon, a notification appeared in front of everyone. [The Ind Boss has been defeated] [You are now Level 149] With a broad grin on his face, Eisen turned around and looked at Sky, "You can deactivate your skill now, if you want." The old man told him, and Sky slowly nodded his head and opened his Grimoire back to the page where the story was supposed to be, before returning the room to what it was before. Even all of the damage that had been created simply disappeared as if nothing ever happened in the first ce, before the door that the group had entered through before opened up again. And with a smile, Eisen simply made his way into the direction of the four High-Lords, and they slowly stepped to the side confused, before Eisen increased his size and reached for the small crystal floating above the thrones. [You have acquired a Town Core. In order to activate it, you have to be the Master of a Guild] "Perfect." The old man said with a smile and quickly ced the small crystal into one of the front-pockets of his Leather-Apron, before making his way back toward the door. "Now then, let¡¯s introduce you five to the others." Eisen told the Boss and his Commanders, although the High-Lizardman seemed to take an issue with it. "Mens notmand us!" He yelled out, but was quickly stopped by the Half-Dragon. "Stop it. Listen to him. Listen to all of them, please." The Half-Dragon said, and slowly, the Lizardman red at Eisen, although the old man himself didn¡¯t pay attention to him all that much and just made his way out of the door where the rest were already waiting patiently. And after giving the people from the different groups some quick exnations, Eisen turned to Jyuuk. "Now then, release him again, will you?" The old man asked the Beastperson, who looked at Eisen with a wry smile, "Wait, wasn¡¯t your whole n to use him to control all the monsters on the ind through proxies..?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen nodded his head. "It was, but now that I¡¯ve seen what the five of them are actually like, we don¡¯t need to worry. They¡¯re all intelligent enough to be reasoned with, and if they follow such a strong believer in Justice like our new buddy here, we don¡¯t need to worry about that. And I have another, even better idea how to deal with everything." Eisen pointed out, so Jyuuk slowly nodded his head and scratched his neck. "Well... Then I guess I¡¯m releasing you again?" Jyuuk told the Half-Dragon with a wry smile, but even he didn¡¯t know how to react. "Wait... You want to leave me be?" The Half-Dragon asked, and Eisen nodded his head. "Oh no, not at all. You¡¯ll be working your ass off under the Command of someone else. Those four as well, by the way, but we¡¯ll speak about thatter. First off... What¡¯s your name?" Eisen asked the Half-Dragon, and he just shook his head. "I do not have a name. I have not met my mother, and my Father told me that I, as every dragon, have to earn my name." The Half-Dragon exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Well, lucky that Jyuuk didn¡¯t name you yet. After all, he would have called you Buroryuu." The old man said with a smile, but Jyuuk just stared at him in shock. "W-Wait, how did you know?" He asked, and Eisen looked at him with his eyebrows raised, so Jyuuk crossed his arms with a pout and looked to the side, "..That would have been a great name..." "Anyway. All of you, stay here a little longer and introduce yourselves to them. I¡¯ll go and look for Kiron." Eisen said with a smile, and immediately turned around and made his way through the area in front of the castle, trying to see if he could find Kiron like this already, but when he noticed that he couldn¡¯t, he instead tried to look for some of the others that were in Eisen¡¯s group before. And they were rtively easy to find. "Eisen!" Bree eximed happily as she ran over toward the old man, and Eisen smiled in response and ced his hand onto the young Fey-Kin¡¯s head, looking at Komer and Kirisho as he did so. "Did either of you see Kiron?" He asked, and Komer slowly nodded his head. "I think he just went for a walk, I guess?" He said with a wry smile, and then slowly sighed. "He was pretty upset about not being able to fight with you." Komer pointed out, and Eisen nodded in response, "Yeah, I know. I¡¯m going to apologize to him about it as well." Eisen told him, before slowly moving his finger through his beard. "But to you as well, I¡¯m sorry that I left on my own earlier. I was just a bit focused on leveling up as quickly as possible, so I wanted to go off alone for a bit to see how it would work out." The old man exined, and Komer, Bree and Kirisho immediately nodded. "Don¡¯t worry about it~! We know about that as well, so it¡¯s fine!" Bree eximed, and Komer nodded immediately afterward, "Definitely, yeah. Although, I have to admit, considering how many we were, it was probably a good idea to split up again. Especially with your golems, who were basically a perfect party on their own..." The Fate Merchant replied, so Eisen chuckled in response. "Yeah, I know. It¡¯s pretty interesting to see them fight, but I think I¡¯ll try to figure out something else, and just rely on them until I can turn them into Ego-Golems." The old man exined, before he turned over toward Kirisho and nodded at her with a smile, and she just returned a smile to him as well. "Well... I think I should get going now and see if I can find him anywhere around here." Eisen told them, and then slowly turned around before heading toward the streets of the ruined town, trying to use his Mana-Sight to find Kiron. And it took a good while, but soon enough, Eisen found him in a small house, just sitting on what seemed to be a chair. The only mana Eisen was seeing was that of Kiron, and it at the very least seemed like he was sitting on something, so Eisen figured that was the case. Slowly and quietly, the old man stepped into the ruined house and quickly saw Kiron sitting on a staircase leading to the next floor, his Sword leaning against the wall next to him, even if it barely fit into the room like that. "Hey there." Eisen said with a smile, and immediately, Kiron raised his head up to look at the old man. "Ah... Grandfather..." He replied, seemingly more sad than mad at this point, and Eisen just continued smiling at him. "I¡¯m sorry about before, really. I know you¡¯re my Knight, and you want to be there to protect me, and I just went off with some Golems. That was pretty insensitive of me, wasn¡¯t it?" The old man asked, and Kiron quickly stood up and shook his head. "It¡¯s not like that! I just... I couldn¡¯t..." Kiron muttered quietly as his gaze moved over toward his Giant Greatsword, and now, Eisen realized what his issue actually was. "I see... Well, if you want to show off, how about I introduce you to someone that might make that possible?" Eisen asked with a light chuckle, and Kiron looked at Eisen with wide open eyes, "Sh-Showing off is unbing of a Knight, I shouldn¡¯t think like that!" Kiron eximed, but Eisen just smiled at him and stepped up next to his Draconic Grandson, cing his arm around his shoulder. "Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s not unbing at all. And you would actually help me out a fair bit if you did, actually." The old man told Kiron, who slowly nodded his head in reply and just went along with his Grandfather, back toward the area in front of the Boss-Room. And a certain other Half-Dragon there was getting pretty excited when he took a look at Kiron, and the Crystal Half-Dragon was pretty excited at seeing another person that seemed to be just like him. Chapter 355 - The Knight and his Squire "Another... Half-Dragon..?" Kiron asked confused as he stared at the Bronze-scaled person in front of him, who in turn seemed quite excited as well. "Crystal Scales! A-Are you in any way have rtions to the Great Trygan?!" The unnamed Half-Dragon asked with a wry smile as he further approached Kiron, who just looked over toward Eisen confused. With a slight nod from the old man, Kiron then looked back at the other Half-Dragon. "Well... Yeah... He¡¯s my father..." The Half-Dragon Knight exined, before the unnamed half-dragon just formed an ecstatic expression on his face. "Th-The Great Trygan¡¯s Son! It is an honor to meet you, your holiness!" He eximed and immediately chose to kneel in front of Kiron, one hand on his chest, before Kiron just turned toward his Grandfather, once more utterly confused. And it seemed like one of the fourmanders had something to say about this as well. "Ah, yes, our King is quite... Energetic, when ites to the Crystal Dragon Trygan." The High-Goblin Lord pointed out, slowly approaching them while using his staff as a walking-stick, before Eisen turned toward him and the three other Lords that followed him. "I see. Well, maybe we can desensitize him to such things. And I¡¯m d to see that you four are slowlying around as well." Eisen said with a smile on his face, although the High-Lizardman just crossed his arms and pushed air out of his nostrils, seemingly still angry or annoyed. "Anyway, this man here is, as you have seen, a Half-Dragon as well. His father seems to be a Bronze Dragon, and it seems like he¡¯s both a priest and open to fist-fights." Eisen said, trying to turn around toward the others to see if there was a proper term for that in Games, and Jyuuk slowly spoke up. "A Pdin then, probably." The Beastperson pointed out, before Eisen smiled back at him, "Right, a Pdin. Well, either way, as that is the case, I would like to suggest something." The old man pointed out, and then turned over toward Kiron again. "I would like you two to fight. Just a small duel, but just so that we can figure out some things." Eisen pointed out, and Kiron looked at his Grandfather confused. "Wait, what? Grandfather, I am d to see that you believe in me, but... I have the strength I had at Rank 4, and just judging from a raw impression, he seems to be at Rank 5 at the moment... That is quite a difference, is it not?" Kiron asked with a frown, but at that point, the other Half-Dragon was already getting quite excited. "A Fight with none other than the Dragon King¡¯s Son! How Delightful!" He eximed and sped his hands together, and Eisen just chuckled and turned back to his Grandson. "He might have higher raw strength, but you¡¯re probably above him when ites to experience. On top of that, you experiencec Rank 10 before, and got there with your own power, so the way you can move is still on another Levelpared to him, isn¡¯t it?" Eisen asked, and Kiron audibly swallowed his saliva before nodding his head. "I... I understand. I will fight him. But... What other reason do you have for wanting me to fight him?" Kiron asked, and Eisen just started moving his fingers through his beard and smiled. "Well, for one, I truly want to see you when you¡¯re going all-out for once. I¡¯m sure out of simple respect, our Pdin friend here will do the same." "Of course I will!" The Bronze Half-Dragon interrupted, and Eisen just chuckled and nodded at him, turning back to Kiron. "But well, once you fought him, and beat him, you will have established clear superiority when ites to strength. He¡¯s not a Boss anymore, so his Health, Mana, and other stats seem to have returned to normal as well." Eisen exined, but once more, Kiron was pretty confused at what Eisen was trying to say. "And why is it that you need me to establish physical superiority?" He asked, and Eisen chuckled and kept moving his fingers through his beard. "It¡¯s no good if a Knight is weaker than his Squire, now is it?" Immediately, Kiron looked at Eisen surprised, and even the other Half-Dragon seemed simrly confused, "Oh, right, I didn¡¯t mention that yet..." The old man replied with a smile on his face, "Currently, things are still quite messy. But nheless, we will be establishing a Country here, and especially once I be King, I will need Knights to protect me and the Country. Obviously you will be the top of all Knights, but it might be tough to take care of everything yourself." Eisen pointed out, and slowly, Kiron began to form an excited smile on his face as well at hearing how he will be intrusted with such an important position in the future, but it seemed like someone else had something against it. "Country? Mens not make country. We make country. Mens leave now." The Lizardman said angrily, but Eisen just rubbed the bridge of his nose annoyedly as he slowly increased in size to the max that it could be while at the same time activating his demonic transformation, although not any version of it, but theplete Yin Version made to instill fear. "Sit down and wait until we get to you. Understood?" Eisen asked with an angry tone, but while the Lizardman seemed slightly scared in response, he didn¡¯t back off either. "Stop it! Listen to them. You called me King, but it feels like he might be a better person to take that role on. So stand down." The Bronze Half-Dragon said with a re directed at his Commander, who in turn seemed to be inclined to listen all of a sudden. Seemed like the Half-Dragon was still respected even in his mind. So, with a sigh, Eisen deactivated his transformations and returned to his regr state, before looking at the two Half-Dragons. "Now then, do you two want to start now?" Eisen asked, as if all that just now never even happened, and the two of them slowly nodded their heads, while Eisen made everyone give them a little space, before intiating the unofficial duel. "Are the two of you ready now?" The old man asked the two of them, and they both nodded their heads, before Eisen pped his hands together as a sign to start the Duel. And before he knew it, Kiron began to swing his Giant Greatsword around his body as if it was just a stick, while the Pdin Half-Dragon seemed to have d his body in Divine Energy again. Just a few momentster, both of them began to rush forward and Kiron swung his giant de at the other Half-Dragon¡¯s body. But he in turn seemed to have quite nimbly dodged the heavy weapon, throwing himself to the ground and stopping his fall with his wings, before using his tail as support to push his body up again once the Danger passed, immediately trying to attack Kiron with his bare fists, but at that point Kiron had already used the momentum gained from the mass of his weapon to have his body twist around in a circle as well, making it possible for him to slowly pull the weapon closer toward him and cover his body in the t side of the sword like a shield. The Divine Energy released through the attack of the Pdin seemed to even push through the de a little, however, and did a little bit of damage to Kiron, even if not a lot. But even then, Kiron didn¡¯t lose his cool and pushed his foot against the t side of the de to quickly gain some momentum, and by moving backward and slightly squatting, Kiron was able to move the de over his head, and then immediately started a counterattack by mming the de down at the other Half-Dragon, but this time around, Kiron used the little bit of time that the Pdin couldn¡¯t see the de topletely d it in his element, the Devouring Crystal mes, which were seemingly able to burn on anything at all and rece it with more mes that were only able to be put out by Kiron himself or even stronger magic. But of course, due to being a quite heavy item, the Giant Greatsword didn¡¯t move that fast, quickly being dodged by the Pdin. However, what Kiron was aiming for wasn¡¯t actually directly him, but instead the gravel-like ground that they were standing on. Due to the sheer force created by the impact, all of the little rocks and grans of sand were thrown in all directions, most of them covered in Kiron¡¯s element which slowly began to take the small pieces apart. And the Pdin wasn¡¯t able to get away quickly enough and was soon hit by Kiron¡¯s Crystal mes, which he didn¡¯t manage to get off of himself no matter what he did, securing a way for Kiron to cause constant, stable damage to the Pdin. Now, as long as Kiron was able to hold out long enough until the crystal mespetely depleted the Pdin¡¯s health below half of its original, a rule set by Eisen, Kiron would win. And it seemed like the Pdin noticed this same fact, and quickly chose to go for a counterattack. Swiftly, he swung his wings around and caused all of the dirt, dust and sand mixed into the gravel to start flying around in a cloud that would hinder Kiron¡¯s sight at least momentarily, which seemed to be more than enough time for him to attack safely. And so, the Pdin practically threw himself at Kiron and began to hit him over and over again. At the very least, that was until Kiron had enough of it, and just mmed the tip of his de into his ground, using the same momentum to push himself up unto the de in a handstand. At first, everyone was quite confused at why he was doing it, but soon enough it became rather clear what Kiron was trying to do. He had his mes eat away at the ground that his de was connected to to loosen it up at just the right moment, before using his wings to his advantage in order to properly gain momentum. And with exactly that momentum, Kiron twisted his body forward and pulled his Greatsword with him, mming it against the pdin to cause a huge amount of damage. And due to the cloud of dust that the Pdin himself created, he wasn¡¯t really able to properly dodge either. The Pdin wanted to get himself off of the de that now basically ripped his shoulder apart, but at that point, the fight was already over. "Alright, that¡¯s it! Kiron won!" Eisen eximed, and slowly used his wings from his demonic transformation to get rid of all the dust, showing the scene quite clearly. "Now then... Let¡¯s get this guy out of you, shall we?" Eisen asked with a smile, grabbing the Sword by the de as well as the Pdin¡¯s shoulder, pulling or pushing on them respectively to get the de stuck in the Pdin¡¯s body out of him. "Anybody capable of healing, please help out here if you can." The old man eximed before calling Bree over toward him, because she was the one that had all the different first-aid kits with her. And after the first few people began to heal the Pdin¡¯s shoulder either through Wonders or Healing Magic, Bree, who was one of them, turned toward Eisen. "I think... Kiron might have damaged him too much... We might need a Perfect-Grade Potion, or someone with far stronger magic..." She told him quietly, but Eisen just raised an eyebrow and shook his head as he looked at the wound which had already closed most of the way. "No, no, it¡¯s fine." Eisen said and quickly grabbed a small item out of his chest pocket, the spinneret capable oof creating mana-thread, and then looked at Bree. "Use your element and pour it into this, please." Eisen told her, so she looked at him with a slight frown but nodded her head, and while she was doing so, the old man poured just a little bit of his own mana into the enchantment as well so that he would be able to control the thread that would be created as well. "It is fine, at the verytest after my next Evolution, my arm will have returned to peak condition. Do not underestimate a Dragon¡¯s vitality." The Pdin said, but Eisen just looked at him with a frown and just gently ced his hand onto the wound. "Mother of- What are you doing?!" The Half-Dragon Pdin eximed, and Eisen just smirked at him. "Testing your ¡¯Dragon¡¯s Vitality¡¯. Just shut it and let me help you out, will you?" The old man said with a smile before starting to use the Mana-Thread to close the Pdin¡¯s wound, and turned toward Kiron while he was doing so. "Congrats on winning. It was a great fight." Chapter 356 - Medicinal Knowledge Soon enough, Eisen finished stitching the Pdin¡¯s shoulder up some more and then covered his arm in some of his healing salve before covering it in some of his bandages, and all of a sudden, some notifications appeared in front of the old man. [Surgery Skill Learned] [First-Aid Skill Learned] [Surgery Skill absorbed First-Aid Skill and became Medicinal Knowledge Skill] "Huh..." Eisen muttered to himself in response and then waved the notifications away. That new skill will surely end up pretty useful sooner orter. "It¡¯s already... Feeling a lot better." The Pdin pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Of course it does. Stitching wounds up is a lot better than just letting it hang there like that." Eisen exined, surprised to see that this wasn¡¯t reallymon knowledge in a world like this, before moving his fingers through his beard. "Well, for now,e to me every morning and evening and I¡¯ll switch the bandages out for you. It¡¯s apparently a type of wound that can¡¯t be healed easily through magic, so we¡¯ll have to just use magic to assist natural healing." Eisen exined while scratching the back of his head, and then did a few basic things that he learned throughout the past few years of having his own arm treated. It seemed like thatst attack from Kiron did quite a number on the Pdin, but that was within expectations, if Eisen was to be perfectly honest. At least he didn¡¯t lose any limbs, those would be issues far harder to fix. "Look to the right for a little while. Kiron, can you help me make sure he can¡¯t see his hand?" Eisen asked, and confused, he nodded his head, sitting down next to the two of them while the others that were around them started slowly setting things up for a camp, although the other originals were waiting for Eisen to finish. Jyuuk was actually quite surprised to see that Eisen was handling himself so well in the area of medicine, because that was somewhat his area of expertise, but Jyuuk didn¡¯t really mind all that much. It was better if Eisen could take care of everything. But in the meantime, the Beastperson wanted to do something else in order to pull the fourmanders over to their side properly without having to tame them. And the way to do so was to summon a certain young man. Or rather, a monster in the shape of a green skinned, actually quite handsome young man. "Gobu." Jyuuk said with a smile as he saw the figure of his tamed High-Goblin standing in front of him, and immediately, the High-Goblin lord looked at them surprised. "Oh, one of my Kin, I see?" the Goblin Lord asked and approached them with a light smile on his face, and Gobu seemed to actually be simrly surprised at this situation. He looked at Jyuuk and tilted his head to the side confused, before Jyuuk just smiled nad looked at the Goblin Lord. "Yes, Eisen found him in a Monster Shop in a town on the maind, and I tamed him in his stead because it is part of my upation. I thought it would be a good idea to introduce you two, because you are both High-Goblins." Jyuuk exined, so Gobu looked away from Jyuuk and toward the High-Goblin Lord, before pointing at him and then at himself. "Hmm, so he is incapable of speech like most of our Kin. Well, with time, you will surely learn. But it is nice to see that he is treated so well by you." The High-Goblin Lord said, just what Jyuuk wanted him to, and the Beastperson nodded his head. "Of course, I would never treat him badly. And in the same way, we will never treat those of all of your kins badly, you can trust us with that. On our way here, we were attacked, and we killed those that we had to defend ourselves against, but otherwise all of us left all Kobolds, Lizardmen, Goblins and Ratmen, as well as their offspring, alone." Jyuuk exined to them, and the High-Goblin began to rub his chin with a smile. "Is that so? Interesting. You seem quite genuine with that. I will speak to the others and try to convince them, although the hardest should be my Lizardmanpanion." The High-Goblin exined, and with a grateful smile, the Monkey nodded his head. "Thank you, that is greatly appreciated. And if it is not too much to ask, could you take Gobu along with you for a little while? I want him to spend some time with other Goblins." Jyuuk suggested, so the High-Goblin Lord slowly nodded his head. "Of course, he cane with me if he wishes so." The High-Goblin Lord said, and with a nervous and excited smile on his face, Gobu slowly nodded, and then swiftly followed the Goblin Lord as he was walking back toward the other Commanders. In the meantime, while Jyuuk began taking care of one of the issues that Eisen was worrying about, the old man himself continued trying to figure out the extent of damage done to the Half-Dragon Pdin¡¯s arm by one after another touching his fingers to see if he could properly feel it, before also running his fingers along the inside of his arm, pressing down strongly in some of the more sensitive areas of the arm to see if he could properly feel the pain connected to it. It seemed like he could at the very least feel everything, even if he had a tough time moving his fingers, but that was something that Eisen had expected. "Alright, it should heal after a little while, but try to move your fingers a few times a day, but don¡¯t overexcert yourself until your shoulder is healed. I¡¯ll speak to Jyuuk so that he cane and take a closer look as well." The old man exined with a smile and then stood back up, before crossing his arms and standing in front of the two Half-Dragons. "So, after that fight, Kiron is the stronger one of you two. But there are some other things we need to speak about. First, where exactly are you from? I doubt you were born on this ind." Eisen then said, and the Pdin nodded his head. "Yes, I was not. There is a small vige of us on a nearby Ind which has numerous types of dragons living on it. I was born and raised there, and a few years ago, I began to travel and ended up here, bing the Boss of this Ind." He exined, and surprised, Eisen raised his eyebrows at that exnation. "A Vige of Half-Dragons?" He asked, but the Pdin quickly shook his head. "Oh, there are merely four half-dragons within that vige, but we live together with a tribe of Dragonfolk and a tribe of Humans which lived on the ind for hundreds of years. There are a few Dragons as well, of course, including my father and the parents of the other Half-Dragons." The Pdin exined, and with wide open eyes, Kiron looked at the Half-Dragon in front of him. "There¡¯s more near here..?" Kiron asked, and the Pdin slowly nodded his head. "There are, yes. The Ind is not too far away from this one, but it might be tough to enter the ind if you are not of dragon blood. There is a Sea Dragon which protects it from unwanted intruders. On top of that, the mindless Monsters on that ind are at least at Rank 5 as well." The Half-Dragon Pdin added, before Eisen smirked in reply. "Well, at the very least we have one of our future stops just set up for us. We¡¯ll work on a detailed nter, for now, I want to know if you have any attributes of a person on you, or if you arepletely seen as a Monster." Eisen asked, and the Pdin scratched the back of his neck. "Some smaller things, maybe, yes. It is easier for me to learn skillspared to the Dragonfolk or pure monsters, but that might be due to my level of self-awareness as well. I truly cannot say how far it extends." The Pdin told them, so Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Alright. Then we¡¯ll just see about that. Kiron, teach him the ropes when ites to Knighthood and take him as a Squire. Just go over the theoretical stuff for now, and when his arm recovered, train him properly." Eisen told Kiron, who raised his brows surprised. "Is that truly a decision you can make that easily? I am not sure if he would be happy learning under me." Kiron pointed out nervously, but Eisen just smirked and pointed at the ecstatic expression of the Half-Dragon Pdin. "I-I see... Alright, Grandfather. I will teach him what it means to be a Knight." Kiron said with a slow nod, epting his new role, before Eisen smiled at him. "Thank you." The old man said, before looking at the castle that they were still standing next to, before taking the small purple crystal out of the pocket in his chest. "Do you know why this crystal was there with you?" Eisen asked the Pdin, but he just shook his head. "It was simply there. We were supposed to protect it, seemingly, although I never cared too much about a mere gem." He exined, and Eisen began to move his fingers through his beard. "Well, it is a bit more than a mere Gem. I can show youter, but for now... Bree, where a Town Cores usually ced?" He asked the Fey-Kin standing near him, who quickly thought about it and then scratched her cheek. "While they can¡¯t be destroyed, they are usually still kept in a safe ce. The castle is prettyrge, so I think there might be a specific room for it." Bree exined, and Eisen nodded his head as he looked at therge door they were standing next to. "Got it. Then let¡¯s get inside there and properly look for it, huh?" Eisen said with a smile as he walked up to therge door and pushed it open, although he was not only surprised, but also confused when he saw that the interiorpletely changed. "What...?" He muttered confused, so Bree quickly tuned in again, "Ah, that¡¯s normal! That was a Boss-Room, and now that the Boss isn¡¯t there anymore, it changed back to what it was before!" She eximed, so Eisen sighed and nodded his head. "I see. Well, it was pretty weird to have the Throne-Room be the first ce to enter anyway." The old man chuckled and turned around toward the different people standing near him, telling them to get into the castle and start searching for a good room for the crystal to be ced, and then made his way inside of there himself as well, his own group simply being the Originals and none of the others, not even Eisen¡¯s monsters, because they were all searching for the room on their own. "But really, didn¡¯t all of that work out a little too well?" Brody asked with a wry smile, and in the end, Eisen just shrugged in response. "Maybe, but it wasn¡¯t supposed to be hard for us in the first ce. Prime Industries wants us to create a country here, after all. They wouldn¡¯t have told us about that so soon if they didn¡¯t think we could do it that easily." Eisen replied, so the Demon-Orc scratched the back of his neck, "I guess so. Still felt too easy, and boring." Brody added with a sigh, and even the others felt kind of weird about having finished this all so quickly, but Eisen just chuckled in response to them all. "Don¡¯t worry about it, everything worked out, so let¡¯s just look for the Town-Core room and make it ¡¯Official¡¯." Chapter 357 - Treasure Room It didn¡¯t actually seem to take all that long in order to find the right ce, and while the castle was surprisinglyrge, it wasn¡¯t like it was abyrinth. Theyout was quite straightforward, so Eisen managed to deduce the ce where the crystal would be rtively easily. It would most likely be in the safest ce that it could be, which was in the catbs underneath the castle. These, however, were in turn a bit more confusing, as they were supposed to be. It seemed like they were supposed to be an emergency escape route designed to confuse intruders. But luckily, with the help of some of Xenia¡¯s magic, they managed to find a quiterge room pretty quickly, and it was directly in the center of the Labyrinth-like catbs. And there, to everyone¡¯s surprise, they didn¡¯t just find a room with a ce that the town core could be ced at, but they found a second core, although this one was far, farrger, just barely properly fitting into the room while floating like it was, despite the very high ceiling. When Eisen slowly set his hand onto the crystal, he got a notification that confirmed what he thought it was. [You have found a Country Core. In order to create a country, you need either 10 Towns of any rank or 1 Rank 7 Town] "Hmm... Interesting." Eisen said with a smirk, and then turned to the others. "Well, I was told this would be here somewere. This is a country core, so once we took over enough of the Inds, we can create a Country here." The old man exined, and the others looked at him quite surprised. "This is way too easy, isn¡¯t it?" Jyuuk asked with a wry smile, but Eisen just shrugged lightly, "Better than being too hard to actually figure out." The old man pointed out, so the Beastperson just kind of nodded in response. "Alright, for now, let¡¯s try to find a good ce to set the Town Core up for now. It¡¯s probably supposed to be ced somewhere here as well." Eisen muttered to himself as he looked at the area that the town crystal was floating above of, before finding a small slot in the floor, which seemed to be the perfect ce to put the Town Core into. And so, slowly, the old man did just that, and it seemed to fit like the town core was taken out of this spot in the first ce, which it, to be quite fair, might have been. Slowly, Eisen just began to smirk and poured his mana into the Town Core, guessing that this would be how they could activate it, before a notification appeared in front of the old man again. [In order to create a Town under the leadership of the Guild , the Guild has to reach Rank 1] With a frown on his face, Eisen began to let out a deep sigh and turned to the others, scratching the back of his neck as he did so. "Well, apparently we can¡¯t create a Town just yet. We first need to have the Guild reach Rank 1, and for that we need a Guild Core..." The old man exined, before Brody began to grind his teeth annoyedly. "Why the hell do so many things need cores?" He asked, but Eisen just smiled at him. "Don¡¯t worry, it shouldn¡¯t be too tough to get one if we work toward it." The old man said, before picking the Town Core back up. It might be safe here, but Eisen really didn¡¯t want to risk anything, and as such rather just took it with him for now. "Let¡¯s try and see if the others found anything interesting." Eisen pointed out, so the other Originals agreed and the five of them made their way back out of the catbs, before Eisen all of a sudden got a notification, saying that Komer messaged him. Surprised, he switched to the Chat-Screen. [Komer] Ground Floor, opposite side to the entrance. Secret door. Treasure room With a light smirk, Eisen waved the notification away and looked at the other Originals again. "Seems like Komer found the treasure room, let¡¯s go take a look." He exined to them, so Evalia raised her eyebrows surprised. "Oh, a Treasure Room? Really? I wonder what¡¯s in there..." She muttered curiously, and Brody just shrugged and held his arms up behind his neck. "Prolly nothing. The ce ispletely run-down, so I doubt there¡¯s anything left." "Well... Let¡¯s see about that." Xenia replied, "How would Komer have known that it¡¯s a treasure room otherwise?" The High-Elf pointed out, so Brody slightly frowned and then nodded his head with a smile. "Fair enough. If it¡¯s a treasure room, I hope they have some awesome ancient relics there. I mean, what Eisen makes is probably at that level already, but there¡¯s still a difference to a real, ancient piece of maigcal treasure." Brody said with an excited grin, and Jyuuk chuckled in response to that. "Never took you for the Fantasy Geek type." The Monkeyughed, and Brody responded with a light punch to his shoulder. "Good thing I ain¡¯t one. I¡¯m a historical-weaponry geek." He replied, so Jyuuk just returned another smirk, the meaning of which somehow stayed hidden to Eisen while the others all seemed to understand it. "Aha... youngsters these days..." Eisenughed with a smile on his face, but the others just turned their head toward Eisen and raised their eyebrows in unison. "It feels somehow weird being called a ¡¯Youngster¡¯ by Eisen..." Xenia pointed out, and Brody slowly nodded. "Ya got that right... The Geezer may be a Geezer, but he ain¡¯t givin¡¯ off that kinda feeling." The Demon-Orc added, and Xenia, Jyuuk and Evalia nodded immediately. "Right?! Eisen, are those just your genes, or do you have some kind of miracle moisturizer? Like, one of those ¡¯It will make you look 10 years younger¡¯ creams, just that it actually works?" Evalia asked curiously, and Jyuuk nodded his head quite curiously as well. "I mean, we are working on a side-product like that because my research team was asked to, but we didn¡¯t actually finish it yet, so it was really surprising to hear so much confirmation that you really look like that." Jyuuk pointed out, and the four others, including Eisen, now ended up turning toward the Beastperson in turn. "If you cause a Zombie Apocalypse, can you warn me beforehand, by the way?" Evalia asked with her head tilted to the side, "I want to have a little time to hide out in Eisen¡¯s Bunker basement..." "What do you mean ¡¯If you cause a Zombie Apocalypse¡¯? In the first ce, we didn¡¯t even enter the animal testing phase yet, and pathogenical spread of internal diseases in near-to-impossible from nts to living creatures. Some nts can be disease-carriers by having the pathogen on their outeryer, but what we¡¯re making is directly integrated in the nts themselves, so that¡¯s basically impossible." Jyuuk replied, and Xenia looked at him with a wry smile. "Babe, I swear, if you actually do cause the Zombie Apocalypse, you¡¯ll be the first fodder to the Zombies." She said, and immediately, Evalia concentrated on another fact about what she said, "Oh~? You¡¯re at the ¡¯Babe¡¯ phase already~?" She asked with a curious smirk, and both Xenia and Jyuuk looked at each other nervously with slightly flushed cheeks. "S-Sorry, it slipped out..." Xenia apologized, but Jyuuk shook his head, "It¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry. We never really tried actually hiding it like Stahl and Evalia." The Monkey-Beastperson pointed out, and now it was Evalia¡¯s turn to get flustered. "Wh-What? I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about..." Evalia said and tried to look away in surprise, so Brody justughed loudly, "Wow, for being a world-reknown Actress, you¡¯re a really shitty liar, aren¡¯t you?" The Demon-Orcughed, but Evalia just ignored him. "Oh shut it, as if you¡¯re always in peak condition for a fight!" She eximed, and at that point, Eisen started to remember a story that he heard about a few years ago. "Hmm, actually, wasn¡¯t there that one time where you got your wisdom teeth removed and on your way home beat up some burrs?" Eisen asked, and Brody smirked and crossed his arms with a nod, "So you¡¯ve heard about that, huh?" "Haha, yes, I was at a hospital that day and all that their TV¡¯s could get in were some news stations, and nearly all of them were showing the same report about the ¡¯High Hero¡¯. Especially the interview afterward was pretty interesting." Eisen said with a lightugh, and Evalia looked at Brody with a confused, wry smile, immediately turning away from him afterward. "Right, well... Not everyone can be a musclehead like you and react that well in every situation." Evalia said slightly embarrassedly as she scratched her cheek kind of nervously, but Eisen swiftly ced his hand onto the top of her head. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m pretty sure everybody knew about it already. And you don¡¯t need to be scared or nervous because of anything. I¡¯d be delighted to have a Granddaughter-In-Law like you." The old man chuckled, and for a moment, Evalia calmed down and smiled at him softly, although she then quite swiftly realized what he was saying and began to smile like an idiot out of nervosity. "Wh-What, Granddaughter-In-Law..? We¡¯re not at that point yet..." She replied, so Eisen just continued smirking. "Oh? ¡¯Not Yet¡¯, I see?" He asked, and Evalia just buried her face in her hands while walking over toward Xenia, swiftly beingforted by her. "Well, let¡¯s keep speaking about thister, I think we¡¯re here now... Komer said to go to the room directly opposite to the entrance, and that there¡¯d be some kind of hidden room here..." The old man said quietly and then swiftly activated his Mana-Sight, before finding a very light residue of mana on one of the bricks on the wall, figuring that it was there due to an enchantment being activated. Slowly, the old man poured his mana into that spot, and just as he expect, it was sucked in by an enchantment which quickly spread the mana out into different parts of the wall, before a spot of it basically crumbled to pieces, just to reveal some stairs leading further down. "Huh... Interesting." Eisen said with a light smile, and swiftly, he and the other Originals made their way from the rtively inconspicuos room into the room that seemed to be hiding at the end of the stairs. And there, he found Komer sitting on the ground, surrounded by literal mountains of coins and gems. "Ah! All of you! This is amazing!" The young merchant eximed as he waved his arm toward the coins, "You have no idea how much money there is here! Just the coins should be at least one Crystal coin! And there¡¯s not just regr money, there¡¯s a lot of different precious crystals and gems, and all of them are worth a good sum of money as well! There¡¯s some high-quality materials to work with here as well, and some weapons, tools, and so on!" Kiron eximed excitedly, so Eisen just looked at him with a smirk and nodded his head. "I see, interesting. Did you coincidentally find a Guild Core around here?" Eisen asked, and after a little bit of thinking, Komer nodded his head and jumped up, walking through the rtivelyrge room to head to a ce where a lot of different crystals seemed to be gathered, pushing a few of them to the side before grabbing a purple, nearly pink, crystal and throwing it over to Eisen. "Yup, here it is. There¡¯s some things that I can¡¯t figure out otherwise as well, because I couldn¡¯t even inspect them yet. I ced those that I found to the side over there, if you want to take a look. You can probably inspect it with your eyes." Chapter 358 - The Other Side Surprised, Eisen stepped over toward those items with his eyebrows raised in curiosity, before squatting down and taking a look at what Komer pointed toward. From an initial look, they seemed to be simple crystals or gems, although there did seem to be something interesting about them. And when Eisen picked one of them up, he managed to figure out what it was that seemed so ¡¯Interesting¡¯. Just texture-wise, they didn¡¯t seem like naturally-formed crystals at all. Instead, they reminded Eisen more of Crystalized-Mana for some reason. So, obviously quite curious, Eisen activated his Truth-Seeing Eyes and inspected them. [nk Core] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 8] [Description] The nk Base for a Core created by the ??? Eisen as a prototype. It has been created by crystalizing numerous types of energies together at the same time, a process Requiring Immense control. It has been inscribed with basic information, but still hasn¡¯t been given a specific type yet. "Huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself confused, and the others looked at him curiously. "What is it?" Brody asked instantly, and the old man turned around with a smirk. "Well, it¡¯s a nk Core, which I apparently made myself." The old man exined, and the other originals, and Komer, looked at him confused. "What do you mean you made it?" The merchant asked, and Eisen just shrugged. "Exactly what I mean when I say ¡¯I apparently made it¡¯. It says it¡¯s a ¡¯nk base for a core created by the ??? Eisen¡¯. Those question marks are also there when I inspect the Puzzle Box, so it¡¯s most likely not someone else called ¡¯Eisen¡¯." He told the others, and then squatted down onto the ground, trying to take a look at the other items that were there, but they all seemed to be nk Cores of different ranks, but all of them were at the ¡¯Perfect¡¯ quality. "Interesting..." The old man whispered, before cing the crystals to the side and activating his mana sight, although the others just looked at him confused. "What are you doing now?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen just moved his fingers through his beard as he looked around the room. "Well, if I was supposed to be the one that made these cores, I¡¯m guessing I had a part in building this castle as well. And if that¡¯s the case, this room is definitely not just a regr room. And most importantly, there should be something else here..." The old man said, and once more, Jyuuk stepped closer toward Eisen with a frown. "And what would that be?" He asked, and Eisen just shrugged. "Right now, I personally find the idea of creating the cores incredibly amazing and intriguing, and if I was the one to make these small cores, I surely yed around with different types as well. And if I¡¯m right, something as amazing as this room here should be one of the ces that I..." The old man said with a smirk on his face as he ran his hand over the wall, trying to find any ce that seemed off, before seeing what he was looking for. "...equipped with a Guardian." The old man said with a smirk as a part of the wall crumbled simrly to before, revealing a short, dust- and rust-covered mechanical body. "Ah... Nobody took care of you over thest few hundred years, huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself as he squatted down in front of the broken-down Core Guardian, trying to pick it up with a smile on his face, although, the others behind him seemed just confused at what actually was going on. "Eisen, what are you talking about? You¡¯re speaking as if all of this was actually made by you..." Evalia said with a frown, but Eisen just smiled brightly and tilted his head to the side just so slightly while looking at the five people in front of him. "Don¡¯t worry about it, all of this will seempletely normal to you in a bit." The old man told her, and for just a moment, all five of them seemed pretty concerned, although they then started smiling happily. "Wait, another Core Guardian?!" Komer asked excitedly, and Eisen just kind of smiled, trying to hide how disappointed he was at actually being right with what he just said. "Mhm, I think so. Or well, something like a Core Guardian, at least." The old man muttered as he created a table toy the mechanical body down on, slowly starting to at least clean the dust and cobwebs off of it. "Hmm... The basic structure seems to be pretty simr, but it¡¯s different to a Guardian¡¯s body." Eisen pointed out, and then quickly used his Truth-Seeing Eyes to inspect the figure, and then just slightly grinned. "It¡¯s a Helper to the actual Core Guardian specifically for this treasury. I think the Guardian ced here was one supposed to protect at least the whole castle, and then there were some like this meant to help out here and there." Eisen exined, before slowly going over the mechanical body with his hand to find ces that were still alright, and others that needed to be reced under any circumstance. "Ah, could any of you maybe try and figure out if everyone here in the castle is alright?" Eisen asked, and surprised, the others looked at the old man with the smiles caused by whoever was trying to make them forget about their past. "Why that? Isn¡¯t itpletely abandoned?" Jyuuk asked, but Eisen shook his head. "Probably not. This one¡¯s a Helper, so the actual Core Guardian has to be somewhere here. And I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s going to be in a good mood after this long." Eisen pointed out, so the others just slowly nodded their heads. "Alright, we¡¯ll go take a look then! We¡¯ll let you know if we find something!" Evalia eximed as everyone happily made their way to the stairs again, although Eisen asked Komer to do something else. "Ah, if possible, could you go outside to the entrance of the castle and do something for me?" Eisen asked, and the young merchant nodded his head. "Of course! What do you want me to do?" He inquired, so the old man just smiled at him. "Then, if you can, could you just open the door, and in a clear voice, with nobody around you at all that could hear it, say ¡¯Who Whispers, Lies. Who Whistles, does not¡¯? You cane back into the castle if you want, but please don¡¯te back here just yet." The old man told Komer, who seemed rather confused, but quickly agreed and made his way up the stairs. And then, once Komer was gone, Eisen began to slightly whistle while looking over the whole body of the Core Helper, slowly removing the parts that seemed to be impossible to save, or scraping off parts that seemed to be just shallow damage to the hull, before trying to figure out if any of the ss within the Helper¡¯s body broke as well. And as he was doing so, a rather annoyed woman stepped down the stairs. "Could you choose a better code next time? This is a huge, empty ce, so there¡¯s echos all over the ce." Razielined, but Eisen just chuckled lightly in response. "Sorry, I figured it was the most appropriate in this situation. Anyway, do you know anything about this town?" Eisen asked the Angel, who just crossed her arms and shook her head while walking through the treasure-filled room. "Not much, sorry. All that I do know is stuff I found out while searching through town myself." She pointed out, so Eisen slightly raised his eyebrows and turned his eyes to look at Raziel, as if telling her that he was waiting, so the Angiel simply sighed in response. "Fine. Seems like you already found one of them, but there¡¯s a bunch of broken-down things like that all over town, most of them were dragged into houses by the monsters though. Some of them seemed in aparatively good condition, others not so much, but there wasn¡¯t a single one that was still functional." She exined to Eisen, who now looked at her surprised. "Oh? All over town? Huh, then the Guardian might have been a Town Core Guardian after all. It did seem like it was somewhat active..." Eisen muttered to himself, remembering how the Town Core was floating above the thrones before, and then nodded his head satisfied. "Hmm, I hope we can find the Guardian so it can exin some stuff to us." The old man said with a smile, before looking at Raziel again. "Thanks for that info. But you¡¯re sure you don¡¯t know anything else about this town? I mean, do you know anything about this Ind itself?" He asked, and now, the Angel swiftly nodded. "Well, I do know something about this ind, actually." She exined, and then crossed her arms as she leaned back against the wall. "But first, it¡¯s your turn. Tell me something about your side. What¡¯s it like there?" Raziel asked curiously, so Eisen chuckled and nodded his head as he made his way through the room to see if there were any materials he could use to rece the parts of the Core Helper that couldn¡¯t be used anymore. "First of all, there¡¯s no real magic on ¡¯my side¡¯. Well, there might be. Some people believe in real magic and the supernatural and such, but the general consensus is that it doesn¡¯t exist. On the other hand, our civilization is far, far more advanced than yours, even if that isn¡¯t always a good thing." Eisen exined, but Raziel crossed her arms with a frown. "Please, you¡¯re saying you¡¯re more advanced, but you don¡¯t have Magic? Take this seriously, please." Raziel told him rather angrily, but Eisen justughed in response. "I¡¯m not joking, really. Through scientific advancements, we managed to create amazing things that are simr to magic, though. For example, we can instantlymunicate with people on the other side of the with Phones." "Instantly?" She asked rather curiously, and Eisen nodded his head, "Mhm. I couldn¡¯t tell you how they produce or take them in, but this works with ¡¯Waves¡¯. Like soundwaves, which you should be familiar with, just that they take a different form to sound. One phone gives off a signal in the form of those waves, sends it to the nearest ce that collects those signals in the shape of a metal tower, and then sends that signal is taken in by that tower, processed, and moved throughout the world via cables to the ce closest to the phone you want to call, which will then give out that signal again." Eisen exined, scratching his cheek as he did so, "At least I think that¡¯s how it works." The old manughed with a wry smile, and Raziel rubbed her chin curiously. "I see... Metal towers, things that don¡¯t necessarily work through magic... So it¡¯s the work of Dwarves or Gnomes, then?" She asked, but Eisen quickly shook his head. "No, no, there¡¯s no Dwarves or Gnomes there. Only Humans." Eisen told her, and immediately Raziel opened her eyes wide in surprise. "Wait, there¡¯s only humans? Seriously? How did you manage to advance that far then? I doubt Humans could deal with monsters on their own enough to be able to advance like that!" Raziel eximed, but Eisen just smiled and shook his head. "I¡¯ll tell you how that can be true next time. For now, it¡¯s your turn again. Tell me what you know about this Ind, please." Eisen asked the Angel, who just replied with an annoyed sigh and nodded her head. "Fine, but you better remember to actually tell me, got it?" She asked, so Eisen just nodded. "Of course, but please keep going for now." The old man told her in return, so the Angel nodded her head. "Right... Well, basically, this Ind isn¡¯t one of the gods, but apletely regr ind taken over by the first that peaked, you." Chapter 359 - Prototype "Hmm, so that was it, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself in response to the ¡¯Big Reveal¡¯ from Raziel, and the Angel looked at the old man with an involuntary sigh. "That¡¯s it? What, did you figure that out already?" Raziel asked with a frown, and the old man just shrugged his shoulders in response. "Kind of, but not really. I mean, there¡¯s items here made by me, for example those nk cores over there or even this Core Helper. And those other mechanical figures you spoke about are probably also Helpers like that. And considering that some of the parts of the castle have been constructed like I would have done it, that made me guess it already. But you just confirmed it, so thanks for that." "Hahh... Really now?" Raziel asked with a frown and crossed her arms, "Well, all that I know is that you were the first to settle here, and then afterward the inds of the Gods came and surrounded it. I don¡¯t know why, but that¡¯s what happened." The Angel exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head and quickly summoned his staff, creating a workstation right then and there, and the Angel looked at the old man confused. "Wait, what are you doing?" She asked, so Eisen just smiled at her and ced one of the ingots that he had picked up into the mes of his forge. "Preparing to repare this Helper here, of course. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s going to be able to properly function, though. There seem to be some other bigger damages that I can¡¯t directly see just yet." Eisen told her, and Raziel just shrugged. "Gotcha. Well, I¡¯m off again. Cya, old man. Next time, it¡¯s your turn to tell me some more again." Raziel eximed as she began to walk up the stairs again, just before Eisen actually properly took a look at everything inside of the Core Helper¡¯s body, because he could now properly concentrate on it. And for that, he used a skill that he really didn¡¯t use for quite a while. Mana Copy. Quite swiftly, Eisen poured his mana into the body of the Core Helper and began to reconstruct each and every part of its body with ease, and thenpared it to the visualized version of the blueprints that Eisen still had saved. "Hmm... Seems like there¡¯s a few pieces missing, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself before scratching the back of his neck. "But most importantly, there¡¯s got to be some kind of hole in its body... All the ¡¯Blood¡¯ is gone..." The old man whispered and quickly moved the Mana-Copy around a bit more, before soon finding something that seemed quite off. "There it is... Well, it¡¯s small enough, so I guess I can patch it up... The ce is pretty peculiar, though." Eisen pointed out to himself, because it really was a peculiar ce. It was a small hole directly in the center of its neck. It wasn¡¯t a rough hole either, but one that seemed to have been made with proper tools, and even in a way that the ss tubes didn¡¯t shatter but simply ended up letting whatever tool, which Eisen guessed to be a simple needle, into its interior. "So someone extracted the potion, huh..?" Eisen muttered quietly and began to frown while he grabbed the ingot out of the forge and began to shape it into the right tes for the body to rece what had to be reced. And after that was done, Eisen created a small batch of ss and just patched the hole in the tube up, before starting to move his fingers through his beard. "Too bad there isn¡¯t an Alchemy set down here..." The old man whispered and carefully let the Core-Helper down to the ground, just so that it wouldn¡¯t somehow end up falling to the ground and breaking even more through the natural deterioration of Eisen¡¯s element while he wasn¡¯t nearby that would destroy the table the Helper wasying on. Once that was done, Eisen quickly made his way up the stairs and opened the secret door up again, and then stepped back into the hallway before activating his mana-sight. He didn¡¯t bring any Alchemy Set with him on the trip to this town, and it would take far too long to go grab it at the Harbor. As such, Eisen hoped that he would be able to find the workshop that had to be in this castle if it really was Eisen that constructed it. "Hm?" The old man muttered involuntarily as he noticed something different to what he was looking for, which was that somewhere on the second floor, a lot of people seemed to have gathered around something. So, Eisen figured he should go take a look at what that was as well. Once he found the stairs, he rushed up them and made his way over toward the group of people, before immediately seeing exactly what he was hoping for. "Ah, is that the Town Guardian?" Eisen asked around as he looked at the others, although they all were kind of unsure whether or not it was. "Well, we found itying here on the ground at the very least... And it looks a bit different to other Guardians, right?" Jyuuk asked, and the old man swiftly nodded his head, because it did. Instead of a short, immature body, this Guardian here was rather tall and thin, and judging from the clothes it seemed more like a Butler than a Guardian, but with his Truth-Seeing Eyes, Eisen was able to confirm that this was supposed to actually be the Guardian. "Did any of you find a workshop here in the castle?" Eisen asked, and Bree swiftly jumped up from amongst the crowd and spoke up. "Yup~! Well, not in the castle directly, but outside!" She eximed, and in response, Eisen just raised his brows and then swiftly picked the Guardian up. "Well, show me there, if you can." Eisen said, and at the same time mentally ordered Fafnir and Sigurd to go to the spot that Bree was leading them to as well, before the old man turned to the people in the group. "If any of you found any Guardian-like figure here, or any of their parts at all, let me know as quickly as you can." Eisen told them and then hurriedly followed Bree out of the building into the Garden area. And Eisen could immediately see the building that was most likely what Eisen was looking for. "There it is! Well, I didn¡¯t go there yet, but I could see some parts of it that looked like your forge or other tools that you use through the windows..." She exined, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m sure that¡¯s it. Although I wonder... This used to be a Hedgemaze, wasn¡¯t it?" The old man muttered to himself as he began to step through the heavily overgrown path, all the whilst the two spheres that he was still carrying with him were starting to vibrate like mad, and the rate was only elerating more and more the closer that they got to the structure that seemed to be Eisen¡¯s workshop. It didn¡¯t take that long to find the right path to the center of the hedgemaze, and once they got there, Eisen was rtively surprised to find something there. And that something was just as surprised to find Eisen there. "M-M-M-M-Master Eisen?!" It eximed, taking a break from trying to cut the already pretty-evenly cutwn, and immediately rushed over toward the old man. "I-I-I-It¡¯s an H-H-H-H-Honor to see you ag-g-g-g-ain!" The Core Helper eximed with a bright smile, and Eisen just looked at it confused. From the way it looked outwardly, it should definitely not be able to actually move. Half its face was gone, and it was missing an arm and a leg and was using an old branch as a recement for the letter. "Hey there... What are you doing here?" Eisen asked, and the Core Helper proudly held its remaining hand against his chest. "I-I-I-I-I was prep-ep-ep-eparing for your return by cut-cut-cut-cutting the Lawn!" The Helper excliaimed excitedly, and Eisen raised his brow confused once more. "I see... Can we speak inside?" The old man asked, and immediately, the Core Helper¡¯s Half-Expression immediately change to one of pure horror. "I-I-I-Inside, you a-a-a-a-ask?" The Helper asked, and Eisen nodded his head as he approached the door of the run-down building that seemed to be his Workshop, although he soon stopped when he heard the Helper yell out. "O-O-Of course you w-w-would want to speak in-in-in-inside! D-D-D-Dumb Consta-sta-stant..." The Helper muttered to itself, even slightly hitting its head because it was annoyed at itself due to the mistake it made. And while it was doing so, Eisen simply opened the door to the Workshop and stepped inside, letting out a deep sigh at seeing just how run-down everything was. Everywhere was dirt, cobwebs covered all the corners, and some of the equipment was broken. "Were you supposed to take care of the Workshop?" Eisen asked the Helper, Constant, and in response it quickly nodded its head. "Y-Y-Y-Yup! Well, th-th-th-the whole garden, incl-cl-cl-cluding the workshop." Constant replied, so Eisen slowly nodded his head and sat down on one of the chairs that seemed to be at the very least somewhat stable enough to properly sit on. "Constant,e here." Eisen said after letting the Guardian down to the floor, and the Helper hurried over toward the old man with a nod. "How can I-I-I-I-" "You can¡¯t help me, I¡¯m helping you." Eisen told it and quickly took a look at the state its body was in. And quite swiftly, Eisen found the source of the greatest issue at the moment. "I know that I¡¯m not familiar with all those terms, but I doubt this is what people mean when they say something is buggy..." The old man muttered to himself with a sigh as he slightlyrgened the hole inside of one of the ss-tubes making up Constant¡¯s brain, and then quickly just tried to force the tiny bug that had crawled inside of it out again. And when it was outside, Eisen swiftly closed the hole back up with a little bit of extra ss, cleaned the patch up a little, and then looked back at the Core Helper, who was just standing there as if petrified. "Constant?" Eisen asked, and in response, Constant quickly blinked a few times and then looked around. "Oh no, what a terrible state this ce is in. I¡¯m sorry for letting it decline this far, Master Eisen." Constant apologized with a slight bow, even if that meant that it nearly fell over forward, seemingly not having noticed that it was missing two limbs. "Don¡¯t worry about it. I¡¯ll repair you real quick, and then I want you help me out in the repair of the Core Guardian." Eisen told the Helper while trying to figure out if it had any major internal injuries, but was d to see that it seemed to be mostly external. "Master Eisen, would Sir Fuul not be a better choice to repair first?" Constant asked as this was happening, but Eisen shook his head. "Not really. As I said, I need your help. And you¡¯re the first one that I found that might be able to help me figure out what this town is, or rather was." Eisen exined, so with a slight nod, Constant epted the old man¡¯s choice, while Eisen himself just started slowly detaching the most broken-down and rusted metal parts on Constant¡¯s outer hull before also smoothing out the edges of the parts that were still useable to make it easier to attach new parts to the hull. "I hope it¡¯s not ufortable?" Eisen asked, but Constant immediately shook its head. "Of course not, Master Eisen. But once more, I truly have to apologize for the state that I have let this ce decline to. I know how much you value a clean and orderly workspace." Constant apologized, but Eisen just shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s not your fault. You had a little guest in your head. I¡¯m d that you¡¯re still functioning though, all of the others have had their blood taken from them." "Blood..? Then it surely must have been that wretched Failure..." The Helper muttered quietly, and Eisen just formed a frown. "What do you mean, Failure? Sorry, my memory isn¡¯t what it used to be. What is that Failure, and why are there so many Guardians or Helpers in this town?" The old man asked, and Constant slowly nodded its head. "I see... Well, I guess I should exin then. About how this town, , came to be." Chapter 360 - Constant "This town is called ¡¯Prototype¡¯?" Eisen asked, surprised, and swiftly, Constant nodded its head in response. "Yes, that is what the name of this town used to be. And the reason for that is quite simple. This was the first town that was established using a Town Core, while also being the ce where you used to test numerous ideas out. And here, you also started working on the concepts of ¡¯Ego-Items¡¯, ¡¯Magic Inscription¡¯, and ¡¯Artificial Evolution¡¯. Your research into Ego-Items resulted in us Core Guardians. Those that are outside of the castle may also have been constructed simrly, but they are neither connected to a core themselves nor are they connected to the Guardian and became Helpers, as I did." Constant exined, slightly flinching every once in a while when Eisen started fixing the ¡¯stumps¡¯ that were its arm and leg, and the old man slowly nodded his head. "Interesting. Is there any reason why I wanted to do that?" Eisen asked, but Constant shook its head. "Sorry, I do not know your reasons behind this, Master Eisen. All I know is that you were trying to create Artificial Life. And it did seem like you managed to do so, however, in a different form and situation than you had hoped." "Artificial Life? Like a Homunculus?" The old man inquired curiously, but once more, Constant shook its head. "Simr, but no. As I have been given the task to watch over your workshop, I was here whenever you came to work on a project, but I can only exin what I understood. What you were attempting to create was a true, artificial being epted by the gods, a person. And not just any person, but artificial ones that were of a specific race. Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and so on. But in the end, all you had managed to create were the Warforged." Constant exined, and immediately, Bree jumped over toward them, surprised. "The Warforged?! Eisen created the Warforged?!" She asked with a shocked expression on her face, and the Helper nodded his head. "Yes, Master Eisen did create them. They were supposed to be beings of beauty and honor but were then desecrated through War when the method to create them was stolen, and as such, became the Warforged. They are a mixture of the living and machines like us and became a mixture of People and Monsters, so they did not end up being what you hoped to create. The ¡¯Failure¡¯ is one of those Warforged. A Horrid being, traveling throughout thends to get its hands on whatever of your creations it can to strengthen its body. And after Master Eisen left us, we were there for it to feed on. I am afraid to say that I do not remember if I encountered it as well, but I am sure that the Failure was who took the Blood from my fellow Guardians." Constant exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "I see..." The old man muttered to himself, and at that point, another figure appeared in the doorframe. It was Sigurd, with Fafnir standing directly behind it. "Huh?" Sigurd asked, confused as it approached Eisen, Bree, and Constant, "Another core Guardian?" Sigurd asked, and Eisen swiftly shook his head. "Yes, although it¡¯s technically a ¡¯Core Helper¡¯ because it¡¯s not connected to a core but the core Guardian. The Guardian is there on the floor." The old man exined, and with a frown, Sigurd crossed its arms annoyedly. "And why does it get to be so tall? At least the other one is my size, but the Core Guardian is annoyinglyrge..." Sigurdined, and Eisen just chuckled in response, while Constant looked at Sigurd confused. "A Core Guardian? But what type may you be?" Constant asked, so Sigurd raised its arm and let Fafnir approach and press his head against its hand. "I¡¯m the Dungeon Guardian to this guy here!" Sigurd eximed, and Constant excitedly looked over toward Eisen. "You have finally created a Living Dungeon, Master Eisen?" Constant asked, but Eisen just raised his eyebrows surprised. "You know about it?" He inquired, and Constant immediately nodded. "Of course, I do! It was one of your steps of research when working toward Artificial Life! You had managed to create Cores that were capable of growing like Monsters artificially, but just through those Cores, you were not able to create life. Then you found their uses as Town, Dungeon, Country, or Guild cores. Following that, you changed the way that we Core Guardians functionpared to the old generation outside the castle, and us new Generation became able to connect to cores or other Guardians. But then, after noticing the certain conditions and peculiarities of the requirements of leveling up, especially for Dungeon Cores that were able to only level and rank up for the first while after being established, you chose to create different Living Versions of those cores, but as far as I am aware you never ended up creating a Living Dungeon!" The Core Helper exined, while Eisen instead curiously listened, and then as he was starting to create recement-parts, he had Constant continue his exnation. "Hmm, I think you made a few Living Towns... One is still wandering through the deserts of the Fiery Continent to the south. Another is swimming through the oceans. And another dug itself down deep into the earth with its citizens. The Living Country evolved peculiarly and became the foundation for the easternmost continent. And the Living Guilds also evolved quite peculiarly, but they became quite humanoid and became the central pieces forrge Guilds." Constant exined, and Eisen looked back at the Helper with a wry smile. "I did have more of an impact on this world than I thought I had, huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself, and Constant immediately nodded its head excitedly. "Of course you did, Master Eisen! How could you not have?" It eximed proudly, while Eisen just started smiling wryly, feeling slightly overwhelmed at all of the things that this ce¡¯s version of him was supposed to have done. "So... About that other thing you mentioned..." The old man started, somehow feeling like he wanted to change the topic, "Magic Inscription, was it?" He asked, and Constant once more swiftly nodded, although Eisen then promptly told Bree to keep its head steady so that it wouldn¡¯t end up throwing some of the parts in its head out of it. "Ah, yes... Magic Inscription was one of the Original Skills created in coboration between Master Eisen and Miss Xenia." Constant exined, and immediately continued, "It is a truly amazing Skill, especially when watching you work using it. Itbines different principles from different magic-rted crafting skills. As far as my shallow understanding in this topic reaches, it works by expanding the Mana and World energy contained within a crystal and then... You shift things around!" The Helper pointed out, but Eisen just raised a brow confused. "I shift things around?" He asked, and the Helper once more just nodded. "Yes? You exined it to me once, it is a far moreplex manner of enchanting, letting you directly inscribe the energy that makes up different Crystals instead of only inscribing the physicalyer. Of course, there is still an effect on the physical object, but it works in a very different way. I think." Constant added, so Eisen just turned his head over toward Bree. "Do you know what the Magic Inscription Skill is?" Eisen asked her, and Bree slowly nodded her head. "I think so... But it¡¯s a really rare skill, and I don¡¯t know how to get it either..." Bree exined to Eisen, who just slowly nodded in reply. "That¡¯s fine. Maybe I can find some notes on it somewhere around it... But Constant, why was that skill important in the process of creating artificial life?" The old man asked next, but it seemed like not even Constant was aware of that part of it, and just tilted its head to the side. So, Eisen sighed slightly and ced some of the different pieces he already prepared so far to the side and was now working on the internal parts for Constant¡¯s Recement-Arm and -Leg. "Anyway, Constant, is there coincidentally some extra storage for your guys¡¯ blood somewhere here?" Eisen asked, and after a little bit of thinking, the Helper nodded its head. "I think so; it should be in the storage for regr materials under here..." Constant exined, and Eisen grunted in response and mmed his hand onto the table next to him annoyedly at the fact that the Helper didn¡¯t tell him about that yet. "B-But I¡¯m the only one that knows where it is right now! So repairing me was a good idea after all, right..? Right..?" Constant asked with a wry smile, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Mhm, right. I¡¯ll finish your arm and leg up, and then we¡¯re going down there to grab some of the blood. I already somewhat fixed another one of you in the Treasury, and it only needs some blood now as well." Eisen exined, so Constant looked at Eisen, surprised. "Jard¡¯s blood was also stolen?" The Helper asked, and the old man just nodded his head in response. "If ¡¯Jard¡¯ was the Core Helper taking care of the Treasury, then yes. It had the same hole in the back of its neck as the big guy here." The old man pointed out before Eisen thought of something else that he was kind of curious about. "By the way, why don¡¯t you find it weird that I don¡¯t remember anything?" Eisen asked Constant, who just scratched its cheek, the one that was actually still there and shrugged. "It¡¯s not my ce to question what you tell me, Master Eisen. Even if you told me that you¡¯re in reality a frog or a de of grass, I would believe you without a second of hesitation. You have never lied to me before, so I don¡¯t see why you would do so now, even after losing your memories." "I see... Well, thanks for trusting in me that much then. And I¡¯m sorry for letting all of this happen to you guys." The old man apologized as he finished all the different parts and brought them over toward Constant, slowly starting to attach them to its stumps. "There is no need to apologize. I doubt you ever wished for this to happen, and you warned us that it might be ourst time meeting you the way you were back then." Constant replied, slightly flinching in response to some of the rougher things that needed to be done to attach everything to its body correctly. "Ah, and do you have any rough idea of how all the different monsters ended up living and overflooding the town?" Eisen asked, but Constant tilted its head to the side in response. "There always were monsters living in town from the start. I think it was just that without proper leadership, they went slightly rogue." Constant pointed out, so Eisen, Bree, and Sigurd looked at him surprised. "Really? So there were always Kobolds, Ratmen, Goblins, and Lizardmen living in town?" Eisen asked, and swiftly, Constant nodded again. "Yes, as far as I remember, at least. That was part of the Experiment connected to this town." Constant exined, and once more noticing that Eisen wasn¡¯t sure what it was talking about, the Core Helper continued. "Well, Towns can grow to the next rank by increasing their wealth or popce. You wanted to see if that would only count people, or also monsters that properly live in this town." The Helper pointed out, so Eisen began to grin. "Oh? Interesting, so do you know the resolution to that Experiment?" The old man asked, and Constant just scratched his cheek. "As far as I know, monsters count just as much as people, as long as they aren¡¯t directly tamed and properly live in the town under itsws." Chapter 361 - Serio While getting a few more exnations about the town and its popce from Constant, Eisen finally finished attaching new limbs to its body, which Constant seemed to be able to use without any issue. All that was left to do then was to cover the right half of its face with new metal tes, and it would be fully repaired. That process didn¡¯t take a long time either, and since the Core Helper wasn¡¯t able to talk during that time, for obvious reasons, nothing much was spoken about then in general. "Alright, now... Constant, show me how we can enter the Storage." Eisen told the Helper, who immediately jumped up in response, first properly trying out its new arm and leg. "You got it, Master Eisen!" Constant eximed and saluted with a chuckle, before disappearing in a cloud of mist, simr to what Sigurd did whenever it teleported through the Dungeon. And a few momentster, the stone-floor slowly began to crumble away and turned into a stairway, which Constant slowly stepped up back into the room through. "Here we go." Constant smiled with its hands behinds its back before the old man raised his eyebrows with a surprised smile on his lips before following him down to the other area, telling Bree to wait there in case someone else wasing, while Sigurd and Fafnir came down with them. "So, this is the Material Storage?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Constant slowly nodded its head. "Yes, it is! A few of the materials here seem unusable at this point, though. I¡¯m sorry that I didn¡¯t take better care of everything." Constant apologized, but Eisen shook his head. "It¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry about it. Now, where is your guys¡¯ blood stored?" Eisen asked, and Constant pointed into the corner of the room. "Over there." The Helper pointed out, so Eisen swiftly made his way over there, seeing perfectly sealed metal-barrels as well as ss bottles filled with the dark red liquid. "Alright, perfect. This should be enough for you..." Eisen muttered quietly and grabbed one of the smaller bottles, before squatting down in front of the Core Helper, grabbing it by the wrist before pullings its arm out forward, slightly tapping along the inside of the elbow before a small te popped off, which the old man quickly removed and then ced the tip of the special-made bottle against the littletch that has been created specifically for this reason. "Is this all of the Blood that I made for you guys? I figured I¡¯d have stored more than that just in case." The old man said with a frown, and Constant swiftly nodded its head. "It may be all that you have created for us, but these barrels can hold much more than you may think." Constant pointed out, and with a slight frown, Eisen ran his fingers over the surface of the metal before raising his eyebrows surprised. "Oh? A Metal-Crystal Alloy?" Eisen asked, surprised, and Constant immediately nodded again. "Yes, as far as I remember, these barrels are an Alloy of Steel and Spatial Gems, and the inside has been enchanted with even more Spatial Gems, while there is also ayer of specially-made Gold-Paint on the inside to stop the metal from decaying due to the Potion-Blood." "Spatial Gems?" Eisen asked, surprised, before moving his fingers through his beard. "How much more than usual can these barrels hold, if that¡¯s the case?" Eisen asked, and without much thinking, Constant swiftly replied. "These particr Barrels about 25 Times more than the original volume. But that is only so because the quality of the material was subpar. You have once created an item the size of a simple Stein, which could hold more liquid than all of the liquid-storage barrels herebined." Constant exined with a smile, and Eisen smirked lightly in response. "That item is not coincidentally here in this Storage, right?" Eisen asked, but sadly, Constant shook its head. "I¡¯m afraid not. But there seem to be about five more of these metallic Barrels, ten more of wooden barrels capable of holding ten times their original volume, arge number of regr barrels as well as numerous bottles or other sorts of liquid containers that are still usable. There used to be a lot more, but time did not seem to be very kind to them. Once my blood has been filled up, I will immediately start cleaning up and collecting the re-usable materials." Constant told the old man, who nodded with a light smile. "Alright, that makes things a fair bit easier... Are there any Spatial Gems around in here?" Eisen asked, and Constant swiftly replied, "Yes, they should be in Area 2C." The Helper pointed out, looking toward the other side of the room, so the old man just began to grin. "Perfect. Anyway, you should be filled up now. Go ahead and clean, and in the meantime, I¡¯ll fill the Guardian back up." Eisen said with a smile as he grabbed some of therger bottles filled with the Core Guardians¡¯ blood and swiftly brought them back into the central area of the workshop with the help of Sigurd, who could quickly deposit whatever it wanted within the dungeon. "Now then... Let¡¯s do this..." The old man muttered to himself and quickly picked the Town Guardian¡¯s body up from the ground, cing him down on one of the seemingly marble, work surfaces, simply because it was the closest. But when he did so, Constant appeared directly next to him. "Master Eisen, if you wish to fill Serio¡¯s Body with more blood, then I rmend you use the simple rock surface. The White Marble one was meant for Enchanting, wasn¡¯t it?" Constant asked with a light smile on his face, and Eisen looked back at him, surprised. "Wait, in what way is this meant for enchanting?" Eisen inquired, confused, and in response, Constant tilted his head to the side. "White Marble allows for Ability Enchantments, does it not? This version may take a slight bit longer than the small balls you made, but the enchantment¡¯s strength is usually much stronger and more stable than that." Constant pointed out, and immediately, Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose annoyedly. "Of course, why didn¡¯t I think of that yet..? Obviously, it was white marble, how didn¡¯t I make that connection yet? It was the material that allowed for enchanting; it never was a special item." Eisen muttered to himself with a frown, before sighing out deeply and turning back toward Constant. "Thanks for letting me know. I¡¯ll move... Serio somewhere else." Eisen said with a smile, picking the body of the Guardian back up before bringing him over toward a different surface that didn¡¯t seem to have anything special about it, before slowly starting to patch the hole in the back of Serio¡¯s neck up, and then swiftly opened the smalltch in the inside of the Guardian¡¯s elbow up before starting to fill it with blood. And a little whileter, it seemed like Serio began moving again, slowly opening its eyes in response. But the very moment that Serio saw the old man, it tried sitting up. "E-Eisen!" It eximed, but the old man himself pushed the Guardian¡¯s upper body back against the table. "Good morning, Serio." Eisen told it with a smile and continued to fill it up with more of the blood, while Serio seemed to get somewhat sentimental. "You have returned!" It eximed, and Eisen just smiled at the Guardian. "I have, yes. But without my memories. I¡¯m sorry, but from my perspective, this is the first time you and I are speaking with each other." The old man said, and Serio smiled brightly in response, a reaction that Eisen did not expect in the slightest. "That means it worked?!" Serio asked, and immediately, Eisen just frowned and pulled the empty bottle of potion-blood away from the Guardian¡¯s arms. "Sigurd, another bottle. It needs some more." He said and then turned back toward Serio, confused. He already realized that theck of blood made them a little delirious, so Eisen wanted to make sure that Serio was in the right state of mind for everything. However, before then, Serio seemed to take offense to something else. "¡¯It¡¯? Eisen, it has been thousands of years since you havest spoken about me using that word... I am a man, so please talk to me like that from now on, please." Serio asked with a frown before Eisen looked at him surprised. "Oh, sorry about that. Until now, the only Guardian I spoke to was Sigurd... Do you take issue with me calling you ¡¯It¡¯ as well?" Eisen asked, but Sigurd just shrugged its shoulders in response. "Not really. I don¡¯t care, really." Sigurd replied so Eisen turned back to Serio. "Well, I¡¯m sorry anyway." Eisen told Serio, but he just smiled in response. "I know it wasn¡¯t your intent to be hurtful." Serio answered, so the old man just nodded his head and smiled. "Yeah, it wasn¡¯t. Well, anyway, you should be filled up pretty well now. Have any issues moving your body?" Eisen asked the Guardian in front of him, but he shook his head. "Of course not. This body you have given me is in perfect condition." Serio exined with a smile, and Eisen just nodded. "I see, good to know. You have a little rust around your joints, though, so we¡¯ll have to treat thatter. But it doesn¡¯t seem to be that big of an issue then. Come on, let¡¯s speak a little more on our way to the Treasury." Eisen suggested, and with a smile, Serio nodded his head. "Of course. Although the way will surely not be as long as you think it is." Serio eximed and just grinned, waving his hand to the side, before... nothing happened. "Hm?" Serio asked, confused, the way he was acting, not really fitting his butler-like exterior. "Oh, it seems like the Town Core reverted to a Rank 0 state. As such, I seem to be unable to create gates." The Town Core Guardian apologized, but Eisen just shook his head with a smile on his face. "Don¡¯t worry about that. We can just walk, can¡¯t we?" Eisen told him and then turned to the side. "Constant, why aren¡¯t you up here yet?" The old man asked with a sigh before the figure of the Core Helper appeared next to him, and Serio¡¯s expression became ted. "Constant! It is you, old chum!" Serio eximed as he extended his arms forward before Constant quickly jumped into them. "Sir Serio!" Constant replied just as tedly, before the two of them hugged, although their metallic skin caused a few clunking-sounds in response. "Sorry for noting earlier, Sir! I was feeling nervous about facing you after my failure as a garden-keeper!" The Helper replied, but Serio shook his head. "Do not worry about such unimportant matters, my friend!" Serio answered immediately, and the two of them started speaking about ¡¯Old Times¡¯ for a little while until Constant returned back to the Storage to continue cleaning up, and Serio was now ready to leave as well. "Now then, shall we go and meet Jard? Was his blood also stolen from him like mine was?" Serio inquired after a little while, and Eisen nodded his head. "In the exact same way, actually. But let¡¯s talk about thatter when all of your Helpers are functioning again properly. And before then... Can you tell me why you look different from your Helpers?" Eisen asked, and Serio swiftly nodded his head. "Of course. Quite simply, you constructed me with an Elf¡¯s body in mind. Many of the First-Generation¡¯s bodies in town are inspired by numerous races, you see?" Serio exined swiftly, and Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard with a frown. "And then why did the Helpers and the final blueprints end up being inspired by the Halti?" Chapter 362 - Guild Core "Hm? The Halti..? I¡¯m not entirely sure why you went for that, sorry. But around that time, one of the people that you had been coborating on some projects with passed, so that might be a reason for it. Or maybe it was just entirely coincidental, and you simply wanted to save on the material cost by creating smaller bodies." Serio suggested, and Eisen slowly nodded his head as they all made their way through the garden, although the two spheres that Eisen once more heavily distracted him. "For God¡¯s Sake- What is actually going on here?" The old man asked with a frown as he annoyedly grabbed the two spheres from his back before Serio looked at them in surprise. "Oh, Masses of Yin and Yang?" He asked, and Eisen turned toward him in response, "You know about them?" The old man inquired, so Serio simply nodded. "Yes, of course I do. They are materials that can only scarcely be acquired, but it is nice to see that you still take an interest in them even after losing your memories. But why did you notbine them yet?" Serio asked the old man, who just replied with a frown. "And how exactly do I do that?" "Ah, right... You have created a small ceremonial ce for that somewhere here in the gardens, but Constant will most likely have to clean everything up further until you can properly make use of it." The Core Guardian pointed out, so Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Alright, good to know. Do you have any idea why they are vibrating, though?" The old man asked, but Serio simply ced his hand against his chin and smiled. "As far as I remember, those vibrations are supposed to help find a suitable ceremonial ce. The faster the pace of vibration, the closer you are." The Guardian exined swiftly, so Eisen replied with a sigh. "Got it... It would have been pretty nice to find out about that earlier." The old man muttered to himself before Serio nodded his head. "Hmm, have you already found the Servants¡¯ Quarters? It is quite dirty here, so we could use someone to take care of that." Serio pointed out as they entered the castle again, but Eisen shook his head. "No, we haven¡¯t found the ¡¯Servants¡¯ Quarters¡¯ yet, as far as I¡¯m aware, at least. Were those servants other Core Helpers?" Eisen asked, but immediately Serio shook his head. "They were made up of both First Generation Guardians, as well as Kobolds, Lizardmen, Ratmen or Goblins, who coexisted in this town with the First Generation Guardians. Compared to them, the Town¡¯s Popce was only made up of 5% of Guardians, so we only had one in each area of work to instruct the others. Because Guardians have an indefinite lifespan, that was the most suitable arrangement." Serio exined, so Eisen moved his fingers through his beard in understanding. "I see interesting. But can¡¯t you find those broken-down Guardians for us? You should be able to see everything going on in this town, right?" The old man asked, and Serio did nod in response, but he seemed to do so somewhat reluctantly. "Usually, yes. But my Core has been reduced to a Rank 0 state, as I aforementioned, and as such, I am incapable of making use of such functions. The Core Helpers are assigned to a certain ce through ¡¯Ry Cores lesser versions of regr cores, which work semi-independently to the core they belong to. As such, they have higher control over those areas, and have Omniscience and Omnipresence that one would usually expect a Core Guardian to have due to that fact." With a smile on his face, Serio walked through the hallway of the castle next to Eisen, Bree, Fafnir, and Sigurd and exined all of this. Especially Sigurd seemed to be interested, considering that it was really only now hearing more things about those that were like it. "Hmm, then we should probably fix that soon. We have to first activate a Guild Core so that we can activate the Town Core, but that shouldn¡¯t take too long. There should be a Guild Core within the Treasury. We¡¯ll find a good ce for the Guild Core, then we¡¯ll bring the Town Core to the room in the catbs, and then after that, we¡¯ll work toward activating the Country Core." Eisen exined to the Town Core Guardian next to him, who swiftly nodded his head. "Ah, that is a good idea. There is indeed already a ce that you had used in the past to hold meetings with other people of Importance, and you had ced the Guild Core you were using at the time there. I can show that ce to youter, it is rather tricky to find your way there." Serio exined, and in response, the old man began to chuckle. "Yeah, I already figured out that this castle has a bunch of hidden paths and functionalities." He pointed out, so Serio nodded. "Of course, there were many that wished to infiltrate this ce, after all. They were never able to do so, but you always liked to prepare, ¡¯Just in case¡¯." The Core Guardian exined, so Eisen just smiled at him and continued on walking through the castle, until they reached the room with the hidden passage meant to give them ess to the Treasury. And swiftly, they stepped down there, and Eisen immediately began to fill Jard¡¯s body up with the Potion-Blood that he brought with him. And after the first one or two liters, the Core Helper¡¯s eyes slowly opened up, even if just halfway. "Hey there, Jard." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and with his eyes still closed, Jard began to smile slightly and spoke in a tired voice. "Ah, good morning, Master Eisen..." Jard replied and slowly tried to raise his hand to rub the sleep out of his eyes, although that didn¡¯t really seem to help much. And then, the old man swiftly began to exin the situation to Jard, who scratched his cheek after hearing about everything. "That¡¯s right, someone came in here... I tried fighting them off, but they were a lot stronger than me... But at least they didn¡¯t manage to steal any... thing..." Jard began to say, although his expression suddenly seemed to just freeze. It was only when Eisen fully filled Jard¡¯s blood back up, so the old man thought something was wrong, but he was still surprised to see what happened then. Jard immediately disappeared in a small cloud of mist and teleported to the ce where Komer was sitting before, staring down there angrily. "What kind of little fuckwart touched the money?! We¡¯re missing 13 tinum, 87 Gold, 49 Silver, and 3 Copper... In the first ce, who the fuck made such a mess here?!" Jard yelled out in apletely different manner to before, as if he changed personalities immediately, and Eisen swiftly interjected to calm him down. "I¡¯m pretty sure that was apanion of mine. He canpress coins, so he might have identally taken a few of the coins from here." The old man exined, and immediately the wide open and angry eyes on Jard turned back into their tired version. "Aah... So that was it... If it was a Companion of Master Eisen, it¡¯s fine... But could you tell thatpanion of yours toe here and help me sort through the coins? I can¡¯t sleep in such a messy room..." Jard exined with a soft smile while he then began to transport himself through the room, starting to sort all of the different items and coins out into neat piles of coins, crystals, gems, or even various tools or weapons, changing the whole room to look absolutely iparable to before. It had less of a ¡¯Treasure Room¡¯ feeling like seen in movies with mountains of treasure, but it had changed to a properly sorted and neatly organized space instead, just the way Eisen liked it. He was still confused over what just happened, however, and slowly turned over toward Serio. "Sorry for thete exnation. But as this is the room with the most precious items in the whole town, it had to be properly protected. So you created Jard in a way that he could ¡¯save¡¯ his power for intense outbursts of energyter. Through that, however, his personality may have be rather peculiar. Usually, he is quite sleepy and calm, but when something is off, he bes a hot-blooded maniac." Serio exined, so Eisen just slowly nodded with a deep sigh. "Well, at the very least, this part of the castle is properly protected then, huh?" Eisen asked with augh and then turned toward the ce that Jard was currently standing at. "Could you possibly bring me a Guild Core, if there¡¯s one in this room?" Eisen asked, and before he even knew it, Jard transported himself to the other side of the room, picked up a small crystal, and then teleported himself to stand directly in front of Eisen. "Here you go." Jard said with a tired smile, before immediately transporting himself back to work. "Alright, then I¡¯ll let the others know to meet us somewhere central... I think the best choice would be to establish this ce as a proper town again and then use the Omniscience you gain through that to find First Generation Guardians. We¡¯re already working toward gaining the trust of some Monster-Lords to make it possible to make sure the Monster-Portion of the popce starts acting properly again." Eisen exined and happily looked at the Core before opening his Friendslist to send the four other Originals a message, before looking at Serio. "Where is the entrance to the room you mentioned?" Eisen asked, so Serio just smiled and nodded, "Just tell them to meet us at the bottom of the highest tower." He suggested, and Eisen then swiftly did just that before the group made their way there. It didn¡¯t seem to be that far away from the entrance to the Treasury, so they ended up there first, and one after another, the others joined them at the bottom of the Tower, and Eisen swiftly introduced Serio to them. And when all of them were there, Eisen turned toward Bree, Fafnir, and Sigurd. "If possible, could you three maybe try and help the others look for more Core Helpers? That might really save a lot of time." Eisen pointed out, and without any hesitation, they quickly made their way off and left the five Originals alone with the Town Guardian. "Why did you ask them to leave?" Jyuuk asked with his eyebrows raised, and Eisen just began to move his fingers through his beard. "We might end up speaking about yer-Stuff, so I didn¡¯t want Bree to hear. And I didn¡¯t want Bree to be the only one that I was sending off, so I asked Sigurd and Fafnir to go with her. On top of that, they¡¯re probably actually going to be a great help looking for the other Guardians and Core Helpers." The old man pointed out, so the Beastperson just slowly nodded his head in response. "Ah... Got it." He replied, so Eisen just smiled and turned toward Serio. "Now then, how do we get into that Guild-Room?" Eisen asked, considering that this was supposed to be the bottom of the tower even though there weren¡¯t any stairs, and Serio replied by tapping his foot a few times onto the ground in a specific pattern before the ground that they were standing on began to shake a little bit. "Excuse me, it¡¯s been around 100 years since it¡¯s beenst used." Serio apologized, but before long, the central tform of the circr room began to move up with the six of them standing on top of it, slowly lifting them up into another ce above them where a hole seemed to have opened up as well. And inside of there, Eisen raised his eyebrows in surprise, seeing another broken-down Core Helper sitting on one of the chairs around the table. "Hm? There was a Helper just for this room?" Eisen asked, surprised, "Or was that one of the First Generation Guardians?" The old man inquired, but Serio swiftly shook his head. "Oh no, not in the slightest. This one here is at the same grade as me, she is a Core Guardian. More specifically, she was your Guild Core Guardian, but... The old Guild Core seemed to have shattered." Chapter 363 - Ruth "The old Guild Core shattered?" Eisen asked, confused, and Serio slowly nodded his head in response, exining why this seemed to have happened, "You see, Guilds aren¡¯t created through Guild Cores but contracts between people and the world. When you five, the founders andst members of your Guild back then, got rid of your experience, the Guild disappeared as well, and the connected Guild Core shattered in response." Serio exined quite naturally, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but frown. "Alright, we¡¯re talking about that wordingter... But for now..." Eisen muttered to himself and stepped toward therge table at the side of the room, slowly cing the Guild Core where it seemed to be supposed to be ced, the center of the table, and then looked at the others behind himself. "We¡¯ll figure out if we can connect her to the new coreter; for now, we¡¯ll just add a Guild Core." Eisen exined quite swiftly, before slowly pouring his mana into the Guild Core, prompting a notification to appear in response. [You have activated a Guild Core for the Guild ] [ Guild will be set at Rank 1] With a slight nod, the old man turned back around toward the others, "We¡¯re now a Rank 1 Guild, so we can activate the Town Core in a bit." Eisen exined, so the others slowly nodded in response, although Brody seemed to be rather curious about something, "That¡¯s cool¡¯n¡¯all, but why exactly are there so many Core Guardians ¡¯round here?" He asked, and then the old man realized that he hadn¡¯t told the others about the situation yet at all, and then began to move his fingers through his beard, before turning toward Serio. "I think it would be better if he exined it. I don¡¯t know all the details yet either." And when Eisen told the other Originals this, they all looked toward the Core Guardian standing there, while Eisen slowly made his way over toward the Guild Core Guardian sitting slumped-down on one of the chairs around the table, trying to figure out if she had any damages, and Serio began to exin what Eisen had been told quite swiftly as well. In the meantime, Eisen began to slowly shave off some of the parts on the Guild Core Guardian¡¯s body, although she seemed to be in the best condition than any of the other Guardians, maybe with the exception of Serio. But either way, it didn¡¯t take long for Eisen to fix her until she should be able to function correctly, so he then just had to figure out how to connect her to the new Guild Core. "...and so, to sum it all up, this town has always been a safe haven for those that peaked and theirrades." Serio eximed when he finished exining the basics, and the other originals looked at each other for a moment and then nodded. "Gotcha, then." Brody said with a slight sigh, before crossing his arms and sitting down on one of the chairs at the table, and seemingly instantly, Serio began to smirk slightly. And he did so, even more, when the others also sat down at the table, although none of them understood why exactly he was acting that way. So they just asked. "Is everything alright?" Jyuuk asked, and Serio nodded his head immediately. "Of course, everything is more than alright. To be exact, everything is just as it¡¯s supposed to be." Serio said with a slight smile, but the four originals didn¡¯t really understand what he meant, so Eisen, having now really finished everything up, took a closer look at the table and then just chuckled. "You¡¯re all sitting on your old seats." The old man pointed out, and the others looked at him, confused, even Serio seeming quite surprised. So, Eisen exined. "Jyuuk, your chair is the only one with an open lower back, because of your tail. Brody, the table in front of you is scratched up because you have the tendency to get a bit impatient when you¡¯re bored. There¡¯s a slight dent in the table directly next to Xenia, where I¡¯m guessing she always used to ce her staff, while a few spots of the table in front of Evalia are a lot more deteriorated than the rest of the table. I¡¯m pretty sure she ended up painting some parts of it and then removed the paint when she noticed I would get mad at her, but then ended up removing the protectiveyer on top of the wood a bit as well." Eisen exined, and the four Originals looked at him with smiles. "Damn, you¡¯re taking the backstory really serious, aren¡¯t you?" Evalia asked with a wry smile before Eisen slowly let his eyes drift over toward Serio, who just slowly nodded his head to tell Eisen that his deductions were correct. So, Eisen just stayed silent and looked at the Guild Core Guardian. "Serio, what¡¯s her name?" The old man asked as he slowly tried out a few things, such as pouring his mana into the Ego-Golem Core in the center of her chest, and Serio simply smiled. "Ruth." "I see... then, Ruth, let¡¯s try this out, huh?" Eisen muttered with a smirk and kept some of his mana inside of her Ego-Golem Core and then moved the rest over toward the Guild Core while leaving all of it properly connected so that he could ¡¯hook up¡¯ Ruth and the Guild Core with each other. And when he did so and let go of the control over his mana, it seemed to just nearly instantly disappear while the Guild Core and Ruth¡¯s Ego-Golem Core slightly lit up for a short moment. Then, Ruth began to move again and slowly sat up on the chair she was sitting on before looking around. "Ah, sorry! Was a me-me-me-meeting scheduled for today? Ehm..." Ruth muttered in a slight panic, stuttering in a simr way that Constant did before Eisen removed the bug, before disappearing in a cloud of mist before a sound of shock came from a small room connected to the one they were currently in, and Ruth swiftly reappeared again. "Sorry... All the be-be-be-beverages went bad... I know I was supposed to keep track of it..." She apologized before she slowly seemed to realize that something was off, "Wait, no, no, you all left... And I was wai-wai-waiting here for you before... No, the Core Sha-Sha-Sha-Shattered, but..." Ruth started muttering confused, but Eisen slowly ced his hand onto her shoulder and began to exin what seemed to have happened, before Ruth nodded her head in response. "I... I see. But the-the-the-then you did it, huh? You managed to get rid-rid-rid-rid of your experience?" Ruth asked, and once more, Eisen frowned in response to that wording before the old man stood up and started looking around, noticing that there were numerous, seemingly tiny enchantments all over the walls of this room, and then looked over toward the other Originals. "You four, for just a moment, consider the possibility that this isn¡¯t a game, but that this is a true, real world. Just consider it for a moment." Eisen told them with a deep frown, and after looking at Eisen confused for a while, Xenia scratched her cheek. "Eisen, what are you talking about? That¡¯s kind of... insane..." She pointed out, and in response to all of the worried faces in front of him, Eisen could only do one thing. Smile like a madman. "Perfect. Ruth, Serio, let me guess, this room was made for us all to talk inplete freedom to each other?" Eisen asked, and without hesitation, the two Core Guardians nodded their heads. "Exactly so. As expected of you. This room was made to make it impossible for deities, even the Great Goddess or the Man standing above her, to listen in on anything that would be said in here." Serio exined, with his arms crossed behind his back, and Eisen slowly nodded his head and headed toward the chair that seemed to have been his own back in the day. "Perfect," Eisen said with a smile, looking at the other Originals. "Then let¡¯s talk." --- "But... No, that¡¯s... That¡¯s just insane..." Evalia replied, confused, and the others seemed to be in a simr state of disbelief. "Exactly, that¡¯s just impossible, isn¡¯t it? That kind of thing isn¡¯t actually real!" Jyuuk exined, and Eisen nodded his head in response. "Of course, it isn¡¯t supposed to be real. But as far as I¡¯m concerned, it is. So I have some requests from all of you for now." The old man told them, and nervously, the four other Originals listened to him. "One, do all you can to finish the tasks given to us by the Puzzle-Box as soon as possible," Eisen told them, and of course, they all nodded their heads. "Two, try to subtly find out leads that may only make sense if you had a perspective of a yer, while also knowing that this world might be real." He added next, and once more, the other Originals nodded in response. "And three. Never, under any possible circumstances, speak about the fact that this world might be real outside of this room." The old man said, but this time around, the others seemed somewhat confused at it. "Wait, what do you mean? Why shouldn¡¯t we talk about it?" Brody asked with a frown, "If this ain¡¯t really a game, then shouldn¡¯t we tell people about it?" "We should, obviously. But we can¡¯t, that¡¯s just it. The moment that we speak about it, someone or something is trying to make us forget about everything connected to such thoughts, or just think of it as normal. There¡¯s a chance you¡¯ll think nothing of this conversation then either, and all of this was for naught." Eisen pointed out, so Brody slowly nodded his head, somewhat settling down. "Well, at the very least, until any of you start seeing a red notification." The old man added, and the moment that he did so, both Ruth and Serio rushed in front of him. "An Artificial Notification?!" They asked nearly simultaneously, and Eisen just slowly nodded his head. "If that¡¯s what they¡¯re called, then yes. It started appearing after I was made to forget about everything a few times. It tells me to ¡¯Speak to Grardour¡¯." He exined, and immediately the two Core Guardians nodded their heads. "I see, of course, that would be a great ce to hide informative items for you." Serio muttered out while cupping his chin between his thumb and index finger, before Eisen raised his brows in response. "Could you exin? If you remember, we don¡¯t know anything." The old man said with a sigh, and swiftly, Ruth jumped up and started to tell them about it. "Well, there were a lot of Dou-Dou-Dou-Dours here a few hundred years ago, right? We held a meeting he-he-he-here, didn¡¯t we?" She asked, and Serio slowly nodded his head. "Yes, yes, that was a thing, wasn¡¯t it? What a fun time that was seeing such great figures." The Town Guardian replied with a light chuckle, while Eisen just stared at them with a frown. "Once more, who is Grardour? And what are Dours in general?" Eisen asked with a sigh, and Ruth nodded her head in response. "Ah, so-so-so-sorry! Well, ¡¯Dour¡¯ is the term used to ref-ref-ref-refer to a Giant-n¡¯s Chief, a Giant-King basically. And ¡¯Grar¡¯ is the word for ¡¯mes¡¯ in I?tum... So the Grardour is the King of mes, as in the Chief of the Fire-Giant n!" Ruth exined, and Eisen looked at her surprised, seeming to remember Ailren mentioning different Giant-ns back when they first spoke to each other in Eisen¡¯s Dreamscape, where he received a Quest from the Ancient-Gold-Dragon in the form of a cat. "I see, and why exactly do you think I¡¯m supposed to speak to the current Grardour?" Eisen asked the two Guardians, who just looked at each other for a moment and then back at Eisen. "Well, it¡¯s quite simple, really... You are the son of the first Grardour." Chapter 364 - The Town of Prototype Confused, Eisen leaned back in his chair and just looked at Serio with a frown. "What exactly do you mean?" The old man asked, but Serio simply replied with his regr, unchanging smile, "Exactly what I said. You are the son of the first Grardour, I really don¡¯t know any more than that, sorry." The Town Core Guardian exined with an apologetic expression before Eisen just nodded his head. "Well, if that¡¯s the case, then it makes a little more sense. Where exactly do Giants live, then?" Eisen asked, and Ruth quickly began to exin, "On a con-con-continent actually not too far from here! The Gi-Gi-Gi-Giant Country makes up nearly the whole continent, even if that coun-coun-country is then split up into different areas for the ns again." She replied, and the old man slowly sighed. "Well, then I guess I need to figure out a way to get over there." He added, before Serio tuned in as well. "I highly suggest you raise your level before you do, however. It is a continent of Giants, after all. And not only the Giants themselves arerger than us, but the monsters there are as well. Due to that, the point at which they should be fought is at least 100 levels higher than normal for their Rank, and there are many Rank 6 or 7 Monsters." Serio pointed out, so Eisen looked over toward the other Originals. "What Level was the rmendation for Rank 6 or 7 again?" The old man asked, and Jyuuk quickly replied, "Hmm... Rank 1 is to Level 30 or 40, Rank 2 is to Level 50 or 60, Rank 3 then to Level 100, Rank 4 to Level 150, Rank 5 to Level 225, Rank 6 is Level 300, Rank 7 then around... 400? And Rank 8 was 500, Rank 9 then 700, and Rank 10 was all the way to Level 1000..." The Beastperson exined swiftly, so Eisen began to frown deeply in response. "So I shouldn¡¯t go until Level 400 or 500, then. Great...." Eisen sighed in response, rubbing his eyebrows, but Brody immediately shook his head, "Nah, those Level Rmendations are when you¡¯re alone. If we¡¯re all goin¡¯ together, we should be able to deal with stuff there at Level 300 if we focus on avoiding them, and we¡¯re already all aiming for that anyway." And as Brody pointed that out, Eisen inevitably began to smile and then nodded his head. "I see. Then thanks for your guys¡¯ support in this. Either way, it seems like raising our level should be the focus for now. And if possible, let¡¯s just try and see if we can finish the tasks from the Puzzle-Box up. The item itself is called a ¡¯Treasury¡¯, sopletely opening it might be more helpful than we think." Eisen said, and the other Originals swiftly nodded their heads as well before the old man stood up from his chair. "Then let¡¯s head down to the catbs again and activate the Town Core now. For the next few days, I think we should go ahead and reconstruct the town with the help of the Lords and the different First Generation Guardians that Serio will help us find in town." The old man told them as he headed back toward the ce where the floating tform was before, just waiting for the others toe along. And while the other Originals were having a hard time epting what they were supposed to assume was true, Eisen figured that it was an excellent choice to let them know about everything. After all, why wouldn¡¯t he? They were just as involved in this as he was, so it would be idiotic to try and ¡¯Protect¡¯ them from that truth. Although he technically didn¡¯t even know what that truth actually was, that¡¯s something that time would uncover. For now, they all, the five Originals and the two Core Guardians, made their way back into the Catbs and through a few neat tricks and hidden functions built into them, it seemed like it was possible for them to just walk there in a straight path without needing to worry about finding the right way again. And then, when they finally reached the ce with therge Country Core again, Eisen swiftly ced the Town Core into the slot beneath it and promptly chose to activate it. [The Town of has been re-established under the Guild . The Town¡¯s Rank has been set at 1] [Eisen has been assigned as the Lord of the Town . Lord of Title Unlocked] [It is possible to change the name of the town] "Keep the name." Eisen said with a smile, and a confirmation notification swiftly appeared before the old man turned around toward the other Originals. "Then, wee in Prototype." The old man chuckled and then looked at Serio, who was tapping his foot on the ground with a frown. "Is everything okay?" Slightly surprised at suddenly being spoken to, Serio seemed to snap back into it and immediately shook his head, "Is Everything okay? Is ANYTHING okay?! The Town is in utter shambles! It¡¯s just been 100 years, what happened here?" Serio eximed, "Whole structures disappeared, others changed their stylepletely, and the Popce was reduced to mindless monsters! I¡¯m d I can only see about 10% of the Town at the moment because this is already horrendous enough!" With a deep huff, Serio crossed his arms, before Eisen just slightly chuckled in response. "Well, we can try and change that as soon as we can. Let¡¯s get back to the others at the front of the castle. We need to properly speak to the Lords as well about figuring the situation with the monsters out." The old man pointed out, and as the group began walking, Jyuuk scratched his neck, seemingly wanting to distract himself from the topic from before as well. "I¡¯m pretty sure we have, at the very least, the High-Goblin Lord on our side. Gobu¡¯s been with him for a while now, so the Goblin-Lord was probably able to see that we treat everyone well, even if they¡¯re monsters. The Ratman might have also understood somewhat, he and the Goblin seemed to be the most intelligent, besides the Half-Dragon, but the problem would surely lie with the Lizardman and Kobold Lords." Jyuuk exined, so Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard in response to that, "Don¡¯t worry, I have a pretty good idea for that already." He pointed out, before slowly stepping up next to Xenia, "Now that we mention ces to live, Tony mentioned to me that you two already spoke about everything a little bit. You¡¯reing by around noon tomorrow to take a look at the house for the first time?" Surprised, Xenia slowly nodded her head and began to fiddle with her long ck hair as she did so, "Y-Yeah... He said he could pick me up around the time that you¡¯re awake then..." The High-Elf pointed out, so Eisen nodded his head in response. "Sounds good to me." Eisen told her with a smile on his face, before Xenia just slowly nodded her head, and the group swiftly made their way back out of the catbs, through the hallways of the castle, and then back out to the front of the castle where the majority of people that came along trying to get here were gathered. And when they got out there, Eisen, Jyuuk, and Serio swiftly made their way over toward the High-Monster Lords, figuring that it would be a good idea to just go with a few people, while the others would begin exining what would be done next to everyone else. With the four Lords, and Gobu, in front of them, Serio took a closer look and then raised his metallic eyebrows surprised, "Oh, I wasn¡¯t able to properly see this before, but now that I look at them this way, I know these Four." Serio pointed out, and the four Lords turned toward the Town Guardian. "You do?" Eisen asked with a frown, and Serio swiftly nodded. "Yes, at least as far as I can tell. Back when I was still functioning properly, I remembered a few extraordinary men amongst the Monster-Popce. It seemed like they ranked up some more and soon became Lords." Serio said with a smile, and the High-Goblin Lord returned the surprised expression that Serio had on his face. "Indeed is that so... It is a pleasure to see you again. I wish for you to excuse theck of control that we had over those of our races." He apologized, but Serio simply shook his head. "Do not worry, it is mostly my fault for allowing myself to cease proper function in the first ce. But please, it would be more than just helpful if you could assist us in returning this town to the Glorious state it was in the past." With a slight nostalgic smirk, Serio crossed his arms behind his back, and the Goblin-Lord chuckled slightly in response. "You have my support, at the very least. If my Kin can grow to such a fine being under them, then maybe they can do the same with the rest which have returned to their Feral nature." The High-Goblin Lord told them, and Jyuuk and Eisen looked at each other with pleasantly surprised expressions, not having expected things to happen so quickly. And next, the High-Ratman Lord stepped up next to the Goblin as well, "If Goblin Lord says so, it has to be a good idea. I will help too." He exined with what seemed to be supposed to be a smile, but the Kobold and the Lizardman Lords still seemed to be against it. At the very least the Lizardman was, the High-Kobold Lord seemed somewhat intrigued by his Comrades¡¯ decision, but was apparently slightly on the fence. So, Eisen called over someone else, which he had mentally manded¡¯ toe to the front of the castle beforehand. "Fafnir, could you create a gate?" Eisen asked the Living-Dungeon in front of him, who simply jumped into the air and swiftly caused the space to appear, while Eisen then turned toward Sigurd, leaning forward to whisper into its ear. "Tell the original Kobolds and Lizardmen toe out." Eisen asked it, and the Dungeon Core Guardian swiftly disappeared into a cloud of mist, while Eisen looked at the two opposing Lords. "If you two are alright with it, how about we speak in here for a little while? We have something to show you." The old man suggested as he slowly opened the wooden door of the Dungeon Gate, and while the High-Kobold Lord nodded and chose to enter the Dungeon, the High-Lizardman Lord decided not to, even if he did seem somewhat intrigued. And so, thinking that this would probably be enough to end up convincing them, Eisen swiftly stepped inside of Dungeon with the Kobold-Lord behind him before they were immediately approached by the five original Craftsman Kobolds that Eisen ¡¯created¡¯. "These are... Kobolds?" The Kobold Lord asked in a surprised and unsure voice, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Yes, they are. Well, these are special Kobolds, but nheless, they are Kobolds. I personally taught them different abilities. We support them, and in return, they support us. That¡¯s how it works for us." Eisen exined, and for another little while, the Kobold-Lord tried to converse with the Dungeon-Kobolds, even if everything declined to simply staring at each other with weird nods and slight growls. Either way, at the end of it, the High-Kobold Lord left the Dungeon with a bright grin on his face, ready to help out with Town. And then, the only one that was left to need some convincing was the High-Lizardman Lord, who chose to ¡¯trust¡¯ in them for a little while and slowly stepped into the Dungeon together with Eisen, where he soon saw the different Lizardmen that had been raised in there. Chapter 365 - Combining Yin and Yang After finally convincing the four Lords, everything could properly start out. While the four Lords were escorting a small group of people to the Harbor to pick up the others, the people that were already at the castle could get things started by setting the castle up correctly for everyone to live in there for a little while, until the first houses were actually finished. And in the meantime, Eisen was working on something else. One after another, Serio identified where the easiest-to-repair First-Generation Guardians were in the town and then had a few people bring them to Eisen in his workshop in the Garden, where the old man luckily had the perfect assistant. He just had to say the word, and Constant brought him whatever materials or tools Eisen needed to repair the Guardians, and soon enough, the first of them was already able to walk and talk again. It seemed like the first generation Guardians were constructed a little differently, mostly just being a lot simpler overall whenpared to the ¡¯Second Generation¡¯ Guardians, so the old man was able to see through everything rtively easily and swiftly repaired them. They had slightly different blood to the one that the Second Generation was using, although even then, it seemed like they had more than enough to supply the entire Guardian-Popce in this town a few times over. And to the old man¡¯s surprise, the First Generation Guardians each seemed to have specific roles to them as well, which was mostly assigned due to the race that they were shaped after. The Dwarven-Guardians were craftsmen, the Elven-Guardians were often salesmen, or the Beastperson-Guardians were often Guards. Of course there were exceptions because all of them were allowed to choose their role themselves, but that seemed to be the general rule. After a little while, Eisen finally finished about a dozen Guardians, trying to focus on those that seemed to be able to repair the houses, and then swiftly sent them out to start on the construction work on the buildings closest to the castle with the help of whoever was currently avable. Of course, due to the Town-System, Serio was also able to aid in general construction work of the buildings. The Town-Guardian spoke about specialized buildings a little as well, something which Jyuuk also mentioned to Eisen when he suggested creating a town in the first ce, but none of the buildings that were being repaired were any of those specialized buildings. Eisen didn¡¯t really understand the system behind those structures, but ording to what Serio exined to him, they were supposed to be able to boost specific abilities or skills. For example, a specialized Marketce building would boost someone¡¯s Trading Skill, while a Combat-Arena would give a slight boost tobat-oriented skills. One of the most essential structures, however, seemed to be the Cathedral. The one that used to be constructed there in the town was mostly destroyed, but Serio was already getting onto slowly having it rebuilt through the Town-System, which allowed for structures to be created through some sort of magic, even if it was rtively slow. But just the presence of a working Mason would speed the process up on top of the work that the Mason themselves would be able to do. When the old man finally finished repairing all of the guardians in the area of the town that Serio was currently able to govern, while Serio himself actually exined all of these things to him, Eisen got to work on something else. Something that he wanted to take care of for a good while now, simply because the current situation annoyed the shit out of him. With a slight sigh, Eisen quickly picked up the two vibrating spheres and called Constant to him, who swiftly appeared with a bright smile. "Is the Ceremonial ce ready?" Eisen asked him, and the Core Helper supposed to care for the Castle¡¯s Garden swiftly nodded his head. "Ya got it! And your three sweet Monsters helped me out as well! Caria made the flowers around the ce grow again, Melissa¡¯s bees helped remove annoying bugs and Sal... Sal was just the heart of the party! A nifty little fe, don¡¯t you think?" Constant asked with a bright smile, and Eisen could just reply with a slightugh. "Of course. He¡¯s not physically strong, but he has a good exposition for magic. He¡¯s still learning, but I¡¯m sure once he gets his element or ranks up again, he¡¯ll be able to properly help out besides through Dancing." The old man said with a chuckle, and Constant raised his metallic eyebrows, surprised. "Oh, so you saw it? I wasn¡¯t aware the windows faced that way." Constant said with his head slightly tilted to the side, and Eisen just smiled at him in response. "I don¡¯t need to see it, Sal dances all the time." Eisen exined and then swiftly followed Constant out to the Garden, before nodding in satisfaction. In a single day, the horribly overgrown garden was returned to a beautiful, well-kept state, and Eisen could only appreciate such a thing. "You did an incredible job out here, seriously." The old man pointed out before remembering something else. "Ah, when I came down into the Garden from the castle, I could see arge open area behind the hedge maze. Was there supposed to be anything?" Eisen asked curiously, but Constant simply shook his head. "Not as far as I¡¯m aware! It was always just arge open space, and you all sometimes used it for Large-Scale Item-Tests." Constant replied swiftly before Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "I see... Caria, Melissa, can youe over here for a moment?" Eisen asked them with a smile, and the two small monster girls swiftly approached the old man. The first thing he did, for now, was to simply check the status of them, and opened Sal¡¯s as well while he was at it. "Hmm, so you¡¯re all about to Rank up again, huh? Then you must have been a great help in the fights before." Eisen told them as he picked the two of them up on his arms, and Sal climbed onto the old man¡¯s head before Eisen increased his size and tried to show them therge open area behind the hedge maze. "You see that ce there, right? That whole open space up to the point where the small river is?" Eisen asked them, and immediately Caria nodded her head. "Yup! Caria has good eyes!" She exined smugly, and Eisen just slightly smirked in response and continued. "Can you two work together on something there? I would love it if you could create special Beehives there that can create honey from a single type of flower. For example, make a hive for just Amran-Bees and surround it with a bunch of Amran flowers. Then another hive for just Byron-Bees and surround it by a bunch of Byron Flowers." Instantly following the old man¡¯s suggestion, the two young monster girls looked at each other with dedicated expressions and nodded their heads happily at Eisen, who happily decreased his size again and set them down onto the ground. "Thank you, that¡¯s going to be a great help. And if any of the flowers seem to die soon, or if any of them are of bad quality, how about you have Sal help you as well? I¡¯m sure he¡¯s going to be great at picking flowers." The old man added and immediately could feel Sal¡¯s small feet wiggle on the top of Eisen¡¯s head, probably meaning that he was excited about it. He didn¡¯t want Sal to be left out, but he also figured that could be an excellent chance to get a few nts for potion-making or even Brewing, something that he wanted to get started with again soon. And so, the three small monsters hurried over toward the open space, and Constant and Serio looked at the old man somewhat surprised. "Master Eisen, you really want to turn that space into a... Flower Field..?" Constant asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Yes, anything wrong with that?" "Not wrong per-se, but surprising." Serio replied before Eisen just frowned at him in response. "Why, did I not like such things in the past?" He asked with a light smile, and without hesitation, both Constant and Serio shook their heads. "You never really cared for little things like that toward the end. Your only goal was the creation of Artificial Life. Of course, you still created other items, but... All of it was to aid you on your path to fulfill that goal." The Town-Guardian exined, and Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard and just smiled at the two of them. "I see... Well, let¡¯s just hope I don¡¯t return to that." The old man told them, and then looked at the two spheres in his arm. "Either way, let¡¯s just get going with this." Eisen suggested, and the two Guardians nodded their heads in response, before Constant led Eisen through he Hedgemaze to another, slightlyrger area that the old man passed without minding it before. Back then, it seemed like nothing special, just a bit of dirty water around a small hill, but now that everything was cleaned up and the old man could see the carved half-sphere made of rock that was just so overgrown before that he thought it to be a hill. And even under the now-clean water were carvings for enchantments. "This is something tobine these two?" Eisen asked, before starting to think about the meaning of Yin and Yang again, before realizing what this all was supposed to be. "Hmm... Yin, North side of a Hill, South bank of a river." The old man muttered to himself and went around the carved boulder before finding a spot in it that one of the Masses seemed to fit into perfectly, and swiftly pushed the Mass of Yin inside, before walking to the other side of the stone-ball. "Yang, South Side of a Hill, North bank of a river." He added, and then quickly ced the Mass of Yang into the spot that seemed to be meant for it. "And now?" Eisen inquired as he looked at Constant, who just swiftly stepped up to the carved half-sphere and pointed at the top of it. "Just activate it." He exined, so Eisen swiftly did just that, increasing his size to properly be able to touch the top of the half-sphere, and then slowly poured his mana into the central area. And when he did, the whole thing began to slightly glow in response, before the Masses of Yin and Yang began to vibrate at an immense rate and then started shrinking down just so slightly over time while the carvings on the half-sphere were filled up by the masses, which seemed to slowly creep up to the central-activation ce at the peak. After a little while, when they finally reached that ce and touched, the spots where Eisen ced the masses seemed to be nearly empty, only leaving behind two gems, one ck where the white mass of Yang was before, and one white where the ck mass of Yin was previously. And then, slowly, at the top of the sphere, another sphere formed, even if it was acting somewhat weirdly. It was starting to quickly shift between a pitch-ck to a bright-white and back through numerous tones of ck, although the rate of the sphere¡¯s color-shifting slowed down considerably to a point where the change of the shades became nearly impossible to notice. When all of the masses of yin and yang seemed to be pulled entirely out of the carvings again, something else happened that considerably confused Eisen. After all that just happened tobine the two masses into a single one, they simply split up into two again. One pure-white sphere and one pure-white sphere. Sure, they seemed slightly different from before, but Eisen thought that this was supposed tobine the two masses with each other. Although, to his surprise, Constant pped his hands together happily. "Great! It was a sess!" Chapter 366 - Dial "So, this was supposed to happen?" Eisen asked surprised, and Constant immediately nodded his head. "Of course it was. Yin and Yang are two halves of a whole, and while they can¡¯t directly exist without each other, they aren¡¯t necessarily mixed at all times. You canbine them pretty easily, but you can just as easily split them up again. Just try it for a moment. I¡¯m actually really curious what forms they took this time." Constant replied without hesitation, and Eisen raised his brows in response, reaching out to grab the two spheres. And when his finger tips touched them, waves were created that moved across the surface of the masses, as if they were just water, and the old man continued trying to somehow grab them, although his hand just ended up pushing through into the spheres. But since neither Constant nor Serio were saying anything, Eisen figured that this was supposed to happen. And then, the old man could feel something hard inside of the spheres, and then chose to swiftly pull them out of it. When he did so, Eisen noticed that he all of a sudden had two metal ingots in his hands, even if he didn¡¯t really recognize what type of metal they were. "Huh?" Eisen asked confused, and Constant looked at the old man with an excited smile. "Oh, it¡¯s metal this time! So it¡¯s going to be what, tools?" The Core Helper asked, and Eisen raised his eyebrows in response. "Could you exin? What do you mean with ¡¯this time¡¯? And to be perfectly honest, this isn¡¯t really enough for tools... Maybe small knives?" Eisen replied, but Constant immediately shook his head. "Right, you don¡¯t know about it anymore... Well, each time youbine the masses of Yin and Yang, you get a different type of material out of it! Awesome, right? And Just take the rest out of there, you¡¯ll have more than enough metal!" Confused, Eisen raised his eyebrow in response to what Constant just told him, before pushing his hands back into the two floating spheres, once more pulling out some metal ingots. And then again, and then again, while the spheres were simply shrinking in response, until the spheres themselves turned into metal and dropped down as well. Now, Eisen really had quite a lot of materials to work with, and after a quick appraisal with his Truth-Seeing Eyes, Eisen didn¡¯t really find out much. The ck metal was simply called ¡¯Yin¡¯, and the white metal was called ¡¯Yang¡¯. "Hmm, this is... Interesting." The old man said with a slight sigh, and the two Core Guardians looked at the old man with bright smiles. "Of course it is, especially once you found out what you want to make with these. Whatever you choose, these will be the perfect materials for any possible situation. Although, as you have found in the past, Yin Materials are Destructive, while Yang Materials are Constructive, so that is something to keep in mind." Serio pointed out, and in response Eisen moved his fingers through his beard in thought. "Hmm, so Yin Materials are supposed to be for weapons, and Yang Materials for tools?" Eisen asked, and with an excited smile Serio nodded his head. "Exactly so." He replied, and swiftly headed toward the half-sphere¡¯s two sides, grabbing the fist-sized gems that were left inside of the slots Eisen ced the masses inside of before. "It also seemed to always be quite useful when you included these in the creation." Serio exined and handed the gems to the old man, who took a quick look at them and handed them to Constant, who had already began transporting the materials into storage. "Well, I guess I should be able to take my time with that for now. I want to test a few other things out while the re-construction of town is going on." Eisen pointed out, although he soon looked into the sky and noticed that it was already getting pretty dark. "That means I should probably hurry up if I want to do that." The old man chuckled, before they headed back toward the Workshop, where Eisen swiftly took a look at all the different equipment and workstations that were inside, a lot of which seemed to have been broken-down by time, and then ended up staying at the White-Marble Workstation for some thinking. "Now then... Constant, can you tell me how exactly to use this?" Eisen asked with a slight sigh, and the Core Helper immediately appeared next to him. "Of course I can! I think!" He replied, and Eisen chuckled while the Helper began to exin. "As far as I¡¯m aware, it¡¯s pretty straightforward. Just ¡¯enchant¡¯ the worksurface and then pull the enchantment from the worksurface into the item! Although it doesn¡¯t just work with Ability-Enchantments, but also regr ones. And when you pulled the Enchantment onto an item, you won¡¯t need to re-apply it, so it¡¯s useful for mass-production." Constant told the old man quite swiftly, and Eisen simply nodded his head in reply. "That¡¯s it, huh..? Well, I guess I¡¯ll try for now." Eisen muttered to himself, quickly grabbing the mythril carving-needle from the ring braided into his beard, and then quickly got to work. The first thing that Eisen tried to do was ce a rtively simple enchantment onto the Marble surface, which was the Dexterity-enhancement caused by his Dwarven Racial Skill. And now that he noticed it, that racial skill was pretty close to ranking up to 4 soon as well, so Eisen was excited to see what would happen then. The same applied to his Giant Racial Skill, and the old man really wanted to find out how muchrger he could grow afterward. Either way, after Eisen did so, the old man started carving an enchantment into the marble surface as well. Due to the size and uniformity of the Marble te, Eisen was able to very easily create aplex enchantment on it. The White-Marble was actually so easy to work with that it nearly reminded Eisen of Mana-Crystals. The enchantment that he created had a rtively simple goal, to pass on the ability-enchantment onto someone¡¯s whole hand, and inside of the smaller enchantment circles in thatplex enchantment, Eisen ced enchantments that were supposed to do it for each of the fingers individually. And after the old man did that, he created a new type of way to specify everything as well. As the marble worksurface wasn¡¯t square, but instead rectangr, Eisen only used up about half of the surface for the regr-formplex enchantment. And the other half was used specifically to create another enchantment that could be used to properly regte the strength of the dexterity-enhancement. For that, Eisen actually took inspiration from one of the Magic Circles that Xenia was ying around with before, an interactive spell that could be used to rece an instrument, which she wanted to create for Evalia in case of an emergency. And it worked by creating an object out of mana with conditions attached to each ¡¯string¡¯ or ¡¯button¡¯, so that it could actually be properly yed. But Eisen wanted to take that concept and slightly change it around, so that he could create a Magic-Dial that could be turned and used to easily influence the strength of something instead of having to figure out how much mana to use for the effect-strength you wanted. This was for a smaller item that Eisen thought might be nice to have, and if he didn¡¯t want to properly test out if this Marble-surface worked with both an ability enchantment and a regr enchantment, he would have just created an easily-adjustable me enchantment. Maybe for a Stove or oven, even, so that it could be the kind of thing that could be sold. And when this second enchantment was finished, Eisen connected it to the actual Dexterity-Enchantment through a straight line. When Eisen finished the enchantment, he grabbed a simple mana-crystal and held it above the Marble-Surface like Constant had told him to, and then in the same way as he usually did with the Enchanting-Marbles, pulled the ability enchantment from the marble-surface to the mana-crystal. Before he knew it, Eisen was holding a Mana-Crystal with a carved surface, and then looked over it quite surprised. "This really is the exact enchantment I made, huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself, before grabbing some leather that he had ced on a table next to him beforehand, swiftly creating a simple leather glove out of it, even if the ¡¯Fingers¡¯ of the glove stopped right before the first joint. And after that Leather-Glove was finished, Eisen ced the enchanted Mana-Crystal onto the back of the glove, attaching some mana-crystal thread to it before making those threads run through each of the fingers to properly reach every part of it. Beyond that, Eisen even created some other small mana-crystal parts that he then attached to the glove, in a way that the mana-crystal parts could be attached to the outside of the fingers without actually hindering the finger-movement like a regr glove would. Basically, the leather-parts of the glove were supposed to be a simple base for the enchanted pieces to be attached to. And then, the old man ced the glove onto his right hand and poured his mana into the part of the carved-enchantment designated for the activation, and immediately the round dial made of mana appeared above the central mana-crystal. Luckily, Eisen was able to touch it without problems, and then quickly just turned it a little before while wiggling his fingers around, already noticing a good difference the further he twisted the dial to the right. "Perfect." The old man muttered to himself with a smile, and then quickly tested everything out with a few practice-tasks, repeating the same thing with the dial turnedpletely down, and then another time with the dial turned all the way up, just to make sure he wasn¡¯t just imagining that the dial actually worked. "Now then..." Eisen said to himself and took the glove back off, and then quickly stepped up to the marble surface again, swiftly deleting all the enchantments on it. But before Eisen could continue with the next ¡¯Experiment¡¯ with these kind ofplex enchantments, he noticed the surprised expressions from both Constant and Serio. "You¡¯re actually going forward with that kind of enchantment, Master Eisen?!" Constant asked with a big, broad grin on his face, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, why wouldn¡¯t I?" a "Because you never did before," Serio exined, "You did it a few times, but whenever you did so, you sighed annoyedly and tried to figure a less convenient way out, thinking that it was too ¡¯Futuristic¡¯." The Town Guardian exined, and with a wry smile, Eisen just shook his head. "I¡¯m just going to hope that it wasn¡¯t because I was trying to keep a medieval theme..." The old man sighed, but without a moment¡¯s hesitation, Constant shook his head, "Oh no, it was exactly because of that!" He replied, and Eisen just stared down at the Marble Worksurface slightly embarrassedly. "Well, that¡¯s... Awkward then." The old man said as he moved his fingers through his beard with a wry smile, but Serio swiftly shook his head. "It wasn¡¯t your fault, you weren¡¯t allowed to lead Civilization past the point it is at right now." The Core Guardian exined, but Eisen just raised his brows confused. "Wait, what do you mean exactly?" Eisen asked in response, and Serio swiftly began to exin, "Well, it was part of your Lifetime Quest. Or Rather, Quests. Every once in a while, at seemingly random times, you were given Quests that made you do certain things, or made you stop doing other things. Amongst what you were not allowed to do was that you couldn¡¯t bring Civilization past the point of what you somehow called ¡¯Medieval Europe¡¯, although I never truly understood what either of that was supposed to mean." Chapter 367 - Spatial Gems While grinding his teeth against each other out of simple annoyance, Eisen continued to work on what he wanted to do before. After all, he had no idea how he was supposed to respond to what he was just told. He was supposed to keep everything like Medieval Europe? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Eisen really, really had no idea what was going on, but for now, he wanted to just ignore everything and keep crafting. This world was the only ce where he could do that now, and if there was anything threatening that, he would spend as much time creating things as he possibly could. For now, the old man grabbed another material that he wanted to y around with, the Spatial Gem. There were a whole bunch of them in the Material Storage, so this was the best chance for Eisen to do just that without any hesitation. And now, all he needed to do was to figure out how you were supposed to turn the spatial gem into something to make spatial storage avable, and to his luck, Serio seemed to be able to help with that. "Well, we do have a library, and as far as I¡¯m aware, we should have a few books about such things in there. It might take a while to find the right one, however. Even if I have a strong awareness of what happens in this castle, it is still hard to figure out such things." The Town Guardian apologized, "But nheless, I will look for a few Books containing such methods." Serio added, and when he did so, Eisen raised his eyebrows in response. "If there is one, could you also bring me a book about Magic Inscription? If it¡¯s supposed to be a more advanced version of enchanting, it should be really useful in creating items." The old man pointed out, so the Town Guardian simply nodded his head and immediately disappeared in a cloud of mist, while Eisen was then left alone to work on something else. He really wanted to work with Spatial Gems, but he couldn¡¯t do that until he figured out the method to do so, so instead he figured he should work on a few other items that might be useful along the way, and as he did so he turned toward Constant. "Could you grab a few me and water gems for me?" Eisen asked, and before he knew it, the Core Helper swiftly disappeared and re-appeared with the materials in his hands. "Alright, thank you." Eisen said with a smile, and then swiftly started working on more enchantments on the Marble-Surface, this time focusing mainly on the ¡¯Setting¡¯ enchantment, because he wanted to figure out how versatile this could be. In the end, the base effect was just a regr me enchantment, but the settings were prettypared to usual enchantments and their setting function that could be used by changing the amount of mana you pour inside of it, even if they actually took up about two times more mana than the base enchantment to function. When Eisen tested this out and ced the enchantment onto the me gem, he swiftly activated the enchantment and made the settings appear, which were really just two different dials. One would allow you to change the size of the me, and the other would allow you to change the heat of the me. And while it would be much more useful tobine those two dials into one for the type of day-to-day use that Eisen wanted to make items for, he really just wanted to y around with this a little. And when he did so, he got a really, really great idea, and swiftly sent a message to one of his grandchildren, asking her how much they managed to level up through fighting the regr beast-type monsters on the ind, because the humanoid ones really seemed to be a little much for them for now, and Alnico swiftly replied to the old man, exining a few of the things that they did up until now. Seeing that they seemed to be doing pretty well level-wise, Eisen replied to her again, asking her and the others toe to the castle, because he wanted to give Al an item that he would be making soon, and that it might be a good time to work on a few basic items for the others as well, if Stahl didn¡¯t take that role over yet. Of course, Alnico quickly agreed, and Eisen told her that he would send over someone to escort them once they reached town so that nothing would happen, which would really just be the one of the lords, so that none of the monsters would attack them, as well as someone that the five yers already knew, which would probably be Brody, just in case something happened and they needed to fight something they couldn¡¯t deal with. And then, Eisen quickly got to work on the item that he wanted to create, or rather, he started testing everything out a bit. The first thing that he wanted to make was a simple recording-device, for which he used some of the materials that he created using Raziel¡¯s element. He knew that Alnico was a huge fan of electronic music, and that she loved really futuristic gadgets. She actually seemed to be the most excited when she saw something so futuristic like a hologram back during the Prime Industries tour. So, thinking that this would be a good chance to ¡¯Rebel¡¯ against whoever it actually was that was pulling the strings behind everything that was going on, Eisen chose to go all the way with this project. And so, the actual base-item for the recording device wasn¡¯t actually all thatrge, and basically just the size of a slightly bulky USB-Stick. This small device had a few parts to it, for one, the part that would be able to actually ¡¯Record¡¯ something, which was a crystal infused with Raziel¡¯s element. Then, there was a piece that was just there to transfer the information that was recorded to a small receiver, as well as a small piece made to save the data on the actual recording device. And then, there was the part that Eisen really had to y around with now, the central piece, the ¡¯Settings¡¯ menu that would control everything. Eisen had a few ideas how he would be able to create something like that, but he really wasn¡¯t sure if he would be able to do it just like he was nning to, because it would require a prettyrge area for the enchantment. On top of that, it came really close to programming, something that Eisen himself wasn¡¯t really all that familiar with, but at the very least he was able to use his own mental image for a lot of different parts of it to make things work through the logic of enchantments instead of having to actually make it work through the direct logic of programming. But even then, he still couldn¡¯t manage to create what he wanted to on the Marble-Surface all that well. He would probably be able to manage everything if it was a bitrger, however. And just when he was thinking about all that, Serio returned with a few books in his hands. "I found a few that might be useful to you. There¡¯s a book about Gem-Usage with a chapter about Spatial-Gems, a few notes on different items, and as you wanted, a book about Magic Inscription." Serio exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head in response, curiously flipping open the book for the Magic Inscription first. He hoped that he would be able to learn the skill soon and maybe use it for the items he wanted to make, but it seemed like that was destined to go wrong. It turned out that Magic Inscription was an advanced version of Enchanting that you can get only when the Enchanting Skill hit Rank 5. Now that Eisen thought about it, that did make a lot of sense, but that was still kind of annoying. Although at that point, something else happened. Like normal, he had activated his strength-bonus from his ¡¯A Giant¡¯s Strength¡¯ racial skill when the cooldown ran out, and that was apparently enough to push him over the edge. [A Giant¡¯s Strength reached Level 100 in Rank 3, upgrading to Rank 4] [Strength flows through your whole body, Skill Effect increased by 20%] [Due to Ranking-up your A Giant¡¯s Strength Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END] With a slight smirk on his face, Eisen realized something else that this meant, something that he really didn¡¯t make use of up until now would probably end up bing far more useful. Swiftly, Eisen chose to go forward and decrease his size as much as he possibly could, noticing that he was now just about 50 Centimeters tall. His maximum height probably gained another half meter or meter at least, so that was nice too, but for now, Eisen had to really make use of his tiny size. Although, he did notice something just then... His clothes didn¡¯t really shrink together with him all the way. "Hmm, so there¡¯s a maximum range for that as well, huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself with a sigh and quickly increased his size again until he was back to normal and then turned toward Constant. "Could you get me some leather and wool-cloth? If possible, the types that are most heat-resistant." Eisen asked the Core Helper, who swiftly disappeared in response, while Eisen figured this to be a good chance to work on the Spatial Gems. After all, he somehow had to store his different attires for certain sizes. He wouldter have to make another set for his maximum-increased size as well. It would take a little bit of time off of the time he had to work, but it was fine in the end. For now, Eisen grabbed the book that Serio mentioned that was about different uses for gems, and then quickly skipped to the chapter for the Spatial Gems. "¡¯In order to create a Subspace with the help of a Spatial Gem, you require a Rank 4 enchanting skill.¡¯ Good, I have that... And then... ¡¯It is necessary to work very carefully, as the bacsh from failing to enchant a Spatial Gem in such a way is quite aggressive¡¯. Figures, to be honest... Wait, it¡¯s just that?" Eisen asked surprised as he finally hit the ce with the description of the enchantment that was needed to be ced onto the Gem, and the old man just sighed in response. It was a rtively simple Three-Dimensional Enchantment. It could probably be enhanced pretty easily as well, though, exactly because it was so simple. The first thing that Eisen did was just grab one of the smaller Spatial Gems and then tried the three-dimensional enchantment that was described in the book out on it. And before he knew it, he had finished his first Spatial-Item. He didn¡¯t really understand why he needed a Rank 4 Enchanting Skill, but it probably had to do with the overall stability of the enchantment, so it did somewhat make sense to the old man, even if he would¡¯ve been thoroughly annoyed if he had noticed this fact before his Enchanting Skill hit Rank 4. Either way, after finishing the small item, Eisen nodded his head with a bit of satisfaction and quickly tried it out, just pouring his mana into the spatial gem. And immediately, his mana was pushed through the gem and formed a small, slightly glowing circle in front of Eisen. Figuring that it wouldn¡¯t hurt to try it out, Eisen grabbed a small tool that he had in his Apron and pushed it into the hole, and then immediately noticed that it disappeared and was instead reced by what seemed to be a mana-version of the item, just floating above the circle. Although, the circle became a fair bit smaller in response to having the item put inside, which Eisen figured out was to simply show the amount of ¡¯space¡¯ still left inside of the gem. Chapter 368 - Compression "Hmm, this isn¡¯t really all that nice to look at, now is it?" Eisen muttered to himself, before stepping back over toward the marble worksurface, at which point Constant had already brought over whatever items the old man may need. So, Eisen figured he should first try to create the tiny version of his outfit and then move on toward finally finishing the items that Eisen wanted to make for Alnico. And it didn¡¯t really take all that long to finish the creation of that small Apron and pair of tiny wool pants up, considering their size, so Eisen swiftly decreased his size as far as he could again and swiftly tried it on. Seeing that it seemed to fit pretty well, the old man nodded in satisfaction and then moved on toward what he wanted to do, jumping up onto the Marble Worksurface using his Demonic Transformation¡¯s Wings. And then on there, Eisen grabbed the smallest mythril needle that he had and got to work, hoping to be able to properly work on a veryplex enchantment for this. The enchantment that Eisen wanted to ce onto the central piece of the recording device was focused around the interactive ¡¯setting¡¯ part of it. For that, he wanted to simply create a small disy that would appear, which would let you control what was going on. So you could record whatever you wanted, change the sensitivity of the ¡¯microphone¡¯, and even y what you recorded out loud or send it to a nearby receiver. That part of it wasn¡¯t necessarily the reason why Eisen needed to create asplex an enchantment as he could, it was because he wanted to add a function simr to a ¡¯File Explorer¡¯ where you could properly sort through different recordings. It took Eisen quite a while to figure this part of it out, and this was by far the longest that the old man spent on trying to figure out what kind of enchantment to make, but at the end of the day, he was luckily able to get to a rtively steady point where he was happy with what he made. But the bad part about it was that it required quite a lot of mana to function, but the amount of mana that was needed couldn¡¯t be created by such small Soul-Generators, and any mana-battery that he could ce onto the device to keep it small enough wouldn¡¯t even be able to keep the effect up for 10 seconds. And it wouldn¡¯t be great to need to use mass amounts of mana for what was supposed to be just a tiny part of the overall Item that Eisen wanted to create for his Granddaughter. So instead, Eisen was constantly working on somehow transmuting something while he was working, and then swiftly ranked up two skills just a few minutes apart from each other, thetter being the one that Eisen was actively working toward. [A Dwarf¡¯s Hands reached Level 100 in Rank 3, upgrading to Rank 4] [Your hands are those of a true craftsman, effect increased by 20%] [Due to Ranking-up your A Dwarf¡¯s Hands Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 END] [Alchemy reached Level 100 in Rank 3, upgrading to Rank 4] [You can now depress orpress items and materials using transmutation] [Due to Ranking-up your Alchemy Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] With a satisfied smirk on his face, Eisen swiftly changed out of this small crafting outfit and changed back into his regr-sized one, before turning toward Constant. "Get me as many Mana-Crystals as you can, please." Eisen asked the Helper with a smile, and he swiftly disappeared and one after another started bringing back the items that the old man had asked for, before Eisen himself quickly began tobine a lot of them into a prettyrge crystal, which then ended up being big enough to chisel a full-scale statue of Eisen out of it, before the old man began to work on another item, although Constant and Serio both seemed rtively confused at what he was actually doing. But what it was, was actually not thatplicated. He was ying around with how far he can bring thepression ability before, and it seemed to be nearly impossible topress that giant mana-crystal to the size that Eisen wanted it to be just like this, and as such wanted to try making an item for exactly that purpose. And because it needed to be pretty stable for that, the old man figured it wouldn¡¯t be enough to make it out of leather like the Dexterity-Glove he made, but instead would need to be a stable, full-metal gauntlet. And the metal that Eisen chose as a base was a Steel-Mythril alloy, using his own me-Of-The-Earth Mythril for that. Other than that, he would also be ting the inside of the Gauntlet with some of the FotE-Mythril, he just didn¡¯t want the base of it to be a brittle metal like that. And so, after smithing all of the different pieces for the Gauntlet out of the Steel-Mythril Alloy, the old man swiftly put everything together and then grabbed a few gems, before starting to actually think about which would be best, and then turned toward Serio and Constant. "Does either of you know what element fits best to Compression? It feels somewhat like earth would be a good idea, but it at the same time feels more like a concept, so using abination of Light and Dark gems would also fit..." The old man asked the two Guardians, who both just looked at each other unknowingly. "Sorry, we¡¯re not exactly sure about that. I would reend trying both, although it is true that the earth element is often connected to high-pressures, which Alchemical Compression might be based on as well, isn¡¯t that so?" Serio asked, and Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard. "I¡¯m not convinced... It¡¯s not exactly based on pressure, at least not as far as I¡¯m aware. Pressure wouldn¡¯t press crystals materials together, it would just... shatter them. So maybe it¡¯s more conceptual after all?" Eisen asked himself, but in the end, he didn¡¯t reallye to aplete conclusion and just chose to go for hte Light- and Dark-gembination for now, and if it didn¡¯t seem right then, he would switch the pieces in the Gauntlet out for Earth-Gems. So, next, Eisen swiftly moved on toward creating the gems that he needed. First of all, he ability-enchanted the Marble surface with his newpression ability, and then carved a simple enchantment to use thatpression ability onto the surface in front of it, changing smaller parts about the carved enchantment to specialize it for each part of the inside of the two Gauntlets, and then created a central mana-crystal enchanted simply to be used to define the strength of thepression and ced it onto the back of of the Gauntlets, swiftly connecting it with the other gems through some mana-crystal thread that Eisen could just slightly transmute to connect with each gem or crystal part. And when the two Gaunlets were done, Eisen was quite proud of the effect. [Compression Gaunlets] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 4] [Description] A Pair of Gauntlets created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Due to the enchanted gems ced on the inside, it is possible to heavily enhance the amount ofpression possible on things you touch. It has a central enchantment created simply to change the strength of the enchantments. [Effect] +20% Benefit To Compression Speed; Strong Compression; +20 INT, +20 WIS [Requirements] Rank 4 Alchemy; 100 INT, 100 WIS [As you are the creator of this item, you can ignore the Requirements] With a smile, Eisen swiftly put the two Gauntlets on and poured mana into them, making the two dials swiftly appear above the crystals on the backhands of the Gauntlets, and the old man swiftly turned them both to Maximum before starting to get to work on the Giant Mana-Crystal. Slowly, he started pressing into the different areas, and just by pushing his hand into it, he swiftly created a Handprint inside of the crystal. It felt slightly weird to him actually, especially when he began to move his hands around the surface to smooth everything out. While it felt like he was scooping away some parts of the crystal, those parts that he scooped away nearly instantly seemed to disappear, because they were alreadypressed onto the rest of the surface. And while Eisen was working on the outside with his hands, he used his mana topress the center of the crystal at the same time, so that he could actually finish this rtively quickly. But there was something else weird about thisrge crystal, or rather about the process ofpressing it. When he tried it out with one of the smaller crystals before, he wasn¡¯t really able to do much to it, but now he alreadypressed it down heavily to about a fifth of its original size. Sure, it didn¡¯t seem like he could do much more than this and was now just trying to really push each and every part of it to the max, but the difference was way toorge to just be caused by these two gaunlets, even if they did drain a huge amount of mana from him and had that vague ¡¯Strong Compression¡¯ ability on them. In the end, though, Eisen didn¡¯t want toin about anything that solely worked in his benefit, and as such just continued to work on this, before he noticed something peculiar that he had a lot of fun ying around with. As Compression was basically just an application of transmutation to use external force to press a material together, now that he had these gauntlets on, he was able to practically push the mana-crystal away from the inside of his hand. And due to that, it felt nearly like he was just moving around some very tough dough instead of a crystal, and as such was able to furtherpress it by just ¡¯folding¡¯ the center of the crystal to the outside. And when he was finished, Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction and finally deactivated the Guantlets, cing them to the side as he did so, and then swiftly squatted down to pick the crystal, which had now been reduced to a far, far smaller size, and tried to bring it to the Marble-Surface, even if the whole thing was incredibly heavy now. But nheless, due to Eisen¡¯s strength stat which had risen above 200 only recently, the old man was able to pick it up either way. It might be more problematic for Mental-Stat based people, but as Eisen wasn¡¯t going to use this whole thing anyway, he didn¡¯t worry about it all that much. Swiftly, Eisen ability-enchanted the incredibly dense mana-crystal to turn it into a Mana-Battery, and then split a small piece of it off, and was more than just happy to see that the mana that could fit into the battery was more than enough to keep the small recorder¡¯s functions up for a few minutes, which should be enough considering the n that Eisen had for the items he was making for Al in the first ce. Because the whole thing would most likely consume a mass-amount of mana, Eisen would of course need to create an incredible source of mana for the items, and because the central-piece of it was already somewhat bulky as is, it probably wouldn¡¯t be an issue to ce such arge mana-battery inside of it. The only issue was the weight, although Eisen was somewhat hoping to be able to fix that in some other ways. For now, he had toe up with something else as well, a way to actually create, or collect, all that mass amount of mana. And when Eisen was trying to think about that, he inevitably thought about how nice it would be to be able to make use of the natural mana in the environment, of which there should be more than enough topletely load the dense mana-battery up at least for a little while. Although when he thought that, he just now realized that he just got his hands on the method of creating crystalized mana. Chapter 369 - DJ With a slight smile on his face, Eisen swiftly gathered some mana above his palm, trying to use his new Alchemy-Ability topress it as much as he possibly could. And just like he expected, mana could bepressed an insane ammount, meaning that even after using 1000 MP and reached the limit to hispression, he had a crystal that was maybe the size of his fingernail. But even then, this was great! He could finally create crystalized mana on his own, which meant that he now had a way to collect mana! At the very least, that¡¯s what he was hoping was the case. The reality was that, even with high amounts of mana in the environment, it was incredibly hard to actually create arge amount of crystalized mana. For one, it was far harder to actually manipte mana that wasn¡¯t your own, and that counted double for ambient mana. Then, Eisen wasn¡¯t able topress it just as much as he was able topress his own mana, which also did make a fair amount of sense to him. Either way, Eisen knew that he had toe up with a good idea to actually collect mana rtively easily. Of course he could always just use Soul-Generators, but souls weren¡¯t exactly the most convenient ressource to get your hands on, so Eisen wanted to rather try and find another way. After all, he was already using a massive amount of mana-crystals for the Mana-Battery, so he didn¡¯t want to be overly wasteful of other materials like that. "Alright, let me think about this properly... Withpression, it is possible to, to an extent, collect ambient mana. Arge amount of it is lost when trying to ¡¯clear¡¯ its element, so the only proper way to fuel it would be with a mana source?" Eisen muttered to himself, although Constant seemed to have an even better idea. "Then why are you even trying to clear the element anyway?" The Core Helper asked, and immediately, Eisen raised his eyebrows in response. "Of course... Yeah, that¡¯s actually a really good point..." The old man muttered to himself, and swiftly started to create the first protoype for a collection device, enchanting a crystal with thepression ability in a way that it would only affect surrounding mana and crystalize it directly around the center-crystal. That crystalized mana would then be taken in by a simply mana-absorption enchantment and added to a temporary mana-battery, mixing the element in with the mana generated by the Soul-Generators that Eisen did want to spare for this. Not only would that allow for special effects depending on the area you were in, but it would also make sure that some mana could be saved. "Perfect... Hmm, I¡¯ll work it in a bit betterter, but for now, let me just work on the base..." Eisen whispered and then swiftly got to work, but when he actually looked at the time, he realized that it was just about time to go to sleep, so the old man instead let his monsters know toe back to the workshop while looking at the two Core Guardians next to him. "Serio, has everyone properly settled in at the castle?" Eisen asked, and the Town Guardian swiftly nodded his head. "Indeed they have. Most of them are already sleeping in the different rooms as well. Some of the monsters in town were already calmed down by the Lords and they started training them to be more civilized again, so they should be amazing help in the reconstruction of town. Through the actual system, about 10% of the area we now have control over has been reconstructed as well, although all the mana that has been saved up in the core has been used up, so we will need to wait a little while to continue that way." Serio exined, so Eisen moved his fingers through his beard in satisfaction, and sat down in front of one of the worktables in this room, writing a short list of materials and tools that he needed the next day, handing it to Constant. "Alright, then thank you for your hard work, you two. But Constant, if it¡¯s not too much to ask, could you grab what we have of these things and bring them up here by tomorrow morning?" The old man asked, and the Core Helper immediately nodded his head. "Of course! You can count on me, Master Eisen!" Constant eximed, and Eisen slowly nodded with a grateful expression. "Thank you. Then I will be heading to sleep now. We will speak tomorrow." The old man said as he looked at the three monsters stepping through the door, picking them up onto his arms with a smile on his face before sitting down in the corner of the room, slowly dozing off into sleep. --- The next morning, when Eisen woke back up, he was soon surrounded by a huge mountain of materials, which he swiftly recognized as the exact ones that he wanted Constant to get for him. And then, he figured he should just quickly get to work already, for which Eisen first created a certain small alloy that was name-giving for his granddaughter, Alnico. The material itself wasn¡¯t all that hard to make, and was just basically a mixture between three different materials, plus Iron as a bncing-material. In order to create Alnico, he needed Aluminium, Nickle, and Cobalt, all of which he luckily had on hand. He would also add a small amount of copper as well, because it was simply often done to create the alloy. And it didn¡¯t take long for Constant and Serio to realize that that the old man got to work either, and as such swiftly appeared in the workshop to watch him do his thing, something which they seemed to have missed quite a bit. After the metal alloy was finished, he swiftly got to work on actually turning it into a permanent ma, because that was what this metal was used for, and it was a perfect material for the mas that needed to be ced inside of speakers as well. When the metal had cooled down a fair bit and Eisen could properly see that the metal had properly alloyed and be what he wanted, the old man turned the heat of the forge inside of this ce up to 810¡ã Celsius, at which point it was properly maized and turned into the permanent Ma that Eisen needed. Next came the part that Eisen himself was a slight bit unsure about. It¡¯s been a fair while since he¡¯s even looked inside of a speaker, so he wasn¡¯t 100% familiar with how they properly worked. He did spend the time that he was sleeping in the game in his Desktop mode instead of just sleeping regrly so that he could research it a bit on the inte, which helped refresh his memory a good bit, but Eisen still wasn¡¯t 100% sure he would be able to do this perfectly on the first try. But that wasn¡¯t an issue, after all, he could do this as much as he wanted to. He had more than enough materials, after all. Either way, after Eisen finished creating the ma, he created the ¡¯Cone¡¯, which was the part that was vibrating to create the different soundwaves that a speaker gave off, which the old man made out of copper, a rtively light but also quite stable material. He was mainly using this as a test material anyway, he might still switch it out for something elseter. And that cone was swiftly enchanted to allow for better transfer and creation of sound, both through a vibration-enhancing enchantment and through a conceptual enchantment connected to that vibration-enhancement, for which Eisen quite literally just went for a ¡¯Sound-Enhancement¡¯ enchantment. The other parts were also actually more straightforward than Eisen expected, and the only thing that he really had to worry about was the way that electricity would be transfered into the voice coil, although that was actually rather easily done when Eisen yed around with some enchantments. Because they were both, in the loosest sense, simple energy, it was surprisingly easy to change mana to electricity, and as this was regted through enchantments anyway, it also wasn¡¯t too hard to properly create an enchantment that was able to work with direct ¡¯input¡¯ sources. In the end, Eisen swiftly created a simple speaker, although he took it apart and re-made it because he wasn¡¯t totally happy with how it ended up. So, after a few more tries, Eisen figured he got the hang of it and then had a few speakers to work with, although at that point, he was already todl that his grandchildren and their group arrived in the area of town regted by the Town Core. "Hmm, Serio, could you maybe meet them and let them know that I¡¯m not done yet? I should be ready by... afternoon?" The old man said as he moved his fingers through his beard, and the Town Core Guardian swiftly disappeared in a cloud of mist, re-appearing a few minutester to tell Eisen that they would just spend that time helping out around the area, while Eisen continued to work on what he wanted to make for Alnico. It was the mostplicated item that he was going for out of all of the ones that the old man would be making for that group, so it also would take a little longer, especially because modern electrical engineering wasn¡¯t his strong suit. On the other hand, he would probably be able to handle everything with magic and enchantments, although the Problem with theck of programming-capabilities came in for the moreplicated ones. Either way, for now, the old man continued to work. He had now created the most important limbs of the item, so next was the body to connect those limbs to, meaning the actual speakers. In the end, they were just some small metal boxes with information-receivers inside of them, a gravity enchantment to make them float if wanted, as well as a bncing-enchantment to make sure it wouldn¡¯t flip over somehow. Then, after that, came the ¡¯Head¡¯ and ¡¯Heart¡¯ of the item. The ¡¯Heart¡¯ was of course made up of all of the different items that Eisen had made so far to power the whole item and make sure that the different ¡¯abilities¡¯ could be used, while the ¡¯Head¡¯ was made up of all of the logical things such as enchantments for the actual part of interaction with it. Of course, Eisen wanted to make everything aspact as he possibly could, but there was still a limit to that. He had another solution to that issue. The ¡¯Heart¡¯ would be a backpack created with the help of spatial gems to increase the size of the space inside to fit everything properly. It might not be able to fit anything else beside that, but that wasn¡¯t too big a deal either. At the very least, it would be able to store the heart and the speakers, when it came to general items, Eisen woulde up with some ideas for that as well. And then, the ¡¯Head¡¯ of everything would also be ced inside of the backpack, but would have a connective interface to activate everything in the form of another item that Eisen would be makingter. But first, he had to actually create that ¡¯Head¡¯ as well, and that took another long time, and Eisen even had to return to his minimal size. Hourster, when he was finally finished with everything enchantment and equipment-wise, he got to work on the other things, the backpack, and the connective interface. The backpack ended up being an cloth backpack, the cloth being a mixture of spatial-gem thread and aluminum thread. Then, the inside of the backpack got a few more stitched-enchantments to make sure that the backpack was actually capable of having asrge a space inside as possible, after which Eisen slowly put everything inside, making sure that whatever was needed to be used from the outside could actually be used. After that came the connective interface, in the form of a pair of over-ear headphones with small interactive setting menus on both sides. Eisen even added another microphone that could be hooked up to the control-system, and then, after finally finishing everything, sat down on one of his tables exhaustedly. The physical work wasn¡¯t actually what exhausted him, it never was, but it¡¯s been a while since he¡¯s had to think about what he was doing that hard. And if Eisen was being honest, he didn¡¯t even really mind it either. After all, it was in order to make a DJ-Set for his Granddaughter, while at the same time defying the will of whoever was toying with him. Chapter 370 - Remix When Eisen finally seemed to have finished nearly everything up, there was a single thing that he still needed to make. The Data-Drives for Different songs in the form of Vynil-Record sized discs made of mana-crystals, just because Eisen figured that was a nice way of keeping a song that Alnico would prepare. After all, Eisen definitely still had the ssic ¡¯Disc-Joyckey¡¯ in his mind, instead of the ¡¯USB-Jockey¡¯ which DJ¡¯s had apparently be over time. Like that, Alnico would be able to use the recording device to record sounds of her surroundings, edit them with the help of the ¡¯Interface¡¯ Eisen had created, and then save them on thoserge Mana-Crystal-Records forter. And at that point, Eisen was done, he finished the item for his Granddaughter which tired him out way too much. At the very least he would be able to go ahead and work on regr projects for a little while, which were mainly things rted to the reconstruction of the town. It was no good if he didn¡¯t actually help out as the Lord of the town, after all. So, with the backpack, headphones, recording device and small box of disks in hand, Eisen turned toward Serio, "Alright, where are those five right now?" The old man asked him, but the one that answered was Constant instead. "Ah, they are currently in the gardens, actually. It seems like young ¡¯Samurai¡¯ and ¡¯Zyra¡¯ are speaking to small floating spheres, though. I¡¯m not entirely sure what¡¯s going on, to be honest..." "Huh... Those might be cameras for them to use..." Eisen muttered to himself, and then swiftly stepped out of the workshop and properly breathed in the air of this garden. He didn¡¯t leave it for a whole day, after all. And then, Eisen made his way out of the center of the Hedgemaze toward the entrance to the Gardens, already seeing the five of them, Stahl, Alnico, the two streamers Samurai and Zyra, as well as Jyuuk¡¯s younger sister K. It seemed like Stahl already gave everyone a little bit of an upgrade to their equipment, which was mainly seen in how shy everything was all of a sudden. He knew that his apprentices never paid much attention to visuals in such a way either, just like the old man himself, so it couldn¡¯t have been anything that they made. On top of that, Samurai was actually wearing something like a Samurai¡¯s armor already, and had two Katana on his hips, onerge and one smaller one. K¡¯s Gauntlets for some reason looked like an animal¡¯s paws, and she was now wearing boots as well, and the old man quickly noticed that the boots had paw-prints on their bottom as well. Zyra¡¯s bow was nowrge and shy, had lots and lots of gems and crystals attached to it, and the arrows in her quiver didn¡¯t seem to be the regr kind either. And then, there were of course Stahl and Alnico, who were the only ones whose equipment hadn¡¯t changed majorly, probably because both of them needed such arge amount of different things, Stahl because he literally had five different professions that he needed different tools or weapons for, and Alnico because she was currently a musician that yed a bunch of different instruments. At least the equipment for one of them would be narrowed down in a few moments. He knew that Alnico maybe wasn¡¯t at the right level yet, but Eisen knew that she focused on her mental stats as well as her agility, which were the only stats seen as a requirement. Other than that, the user needed to have a musician-type upation, and it was quite obvious that she passed that point. She might be short a few stat-points, but it would be a nice goal to work toward, and she was at the very least able to use the Recorder to already record a bunch of sounds to mix together in different ways. Eisen still remembered how she so proudly showed him the first track that she made on her firstptop, just using the sounds of different animals, and he was pretty sure she kept that kind of hobby up, using random sounds to mix them into proper tracks that were surprisingly nice to listen to even from Eisen¡¯s perspective. Either way, the moment that Stahl and Alnico saw the old man, they practically sprinted toward him as fast as they could, because both of them were quite curious about what kind of item the old man had prepared. "Grampa! So, what is it? Is the item inside the backpack?" Alnico asked curiously and already wanted to extend her hand toward it, but the old man simply held his arm up so that she couldn¡¯t reach the backpack. "First, what are your intelligence, wisdom and agility values?" The old man asked, and with a smug smile, Alnico crossed her arms. "Intelligence and Wisdom are 150, Agility is 100. Our levels rose really fast, after all." Alnico said with a smirk, so Eisen just chuckled in response and nodded his head. "Alright, perfect. That¡¯s enough for you to use these, then." Eisen said with a smile and quickly handed the backpack to his granddaughter, who in the first ce had a bit of trouble even holding the heavy item, and she immediately tried to open it up, although there was a little issue with that. "Erm... Gr-Grampa... Where¡¯s the Zipper?" She asked, and Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard. "What Zipper?" He chuckled, and Alnico just looked at him confused, so the old man exined. "You see the slight purple color, right? That¡¯s because the cloth I used to make this backpack is a mixture of spatial-gem and aluminum. The Gem in the front of the backpack is an ¡¯ess¡¯ gem, that you can use to take a few certain items out of it, although they¡¯re just that, a few certain items. But, no looking yet." Eisen told her with a smirk, and then showed her the next item, the small USB-Stick Sized recording device. "Now, don¡¯t be that disappointed, sweety." The old man said with a smile, as he poured his mana into the small item and made the small, floating disy appear, before he swiftly clicked on the ¡¯record¡¯ button. "This is way better than you think it is." Eisen said into the microphone-part of it, then stopped the recording, and made it y the sound again. And because of the way it was saved, through magical means, it sounded nearly as if Eisen himself had said it again. "Wait, what? Is that a phone?" She asked confused and the old man quickly handed her the item, which Alnico looked over with incredible curiosity. "It¡¯s not a phone, it can only record sounds, save a small amount, and then y them again." Eisen said with a smile, but Alnico was still really excited about it. "Even so, this is so cool! This looks so high-tech!" She eximed, while Stahl leaned in with a mixture of Geeky excitement and professional curiosity, "You can say that again, how did you make that?" He asked, and Eisen justughed and chuckled in response. "Don¡¯t worry about that. Anyway, because those can only save a small amount of sounds, here are a few discs to save them on. Of course, these can also go into the backpackter, don¡¯t worry." Eisen told her as he handed her the Mana-Crystal Records, but Alnico looked at the old man confused and full of excitement. "And how exactly do I save things on here?" She asked, and Eisen just chuckled and just winked. "Just wait a little, I¡¯m exining it in a bit. Here¡¯s another item for you which belongs to the whole set." And then, Eisen swiftly took the headphones out and ced them onto Alnico¡¯s head, while helping her put the quite heavy backpack on. "Now, pour a little bit of mana into the right side of the headphones." Eisen told his granddaughter and took a step back, and curiously, the young girl did as told and held her finger against the t surface, before a small disy appeared in front of her. It wasn¡¯t a notification, so others could see it as well, and especially Stahl was excited about what this all was. "And then, for now, go for the ¡¯Base Mode¡¯. I didn¡¯t really know what you needed, so I put the most basics things in there. You can create new settings with it yourself, just know that that takes a lot of mana to do and properly save everything. And the more windows you have open the more mana it drains as well of course. You can see the remaining mana there in the corner of the screen." Eisen said with a smile, kind of nervous because he really wanted everything to work out properly, and when Alnico pressed on the ¡¯Base Mode¡¯ button, a few different, new disys appeared all around her. One of them was somewhere that could hold and y records, created by making the mana there especially dense, and the rest was really just the ssic ¡¯DJ-Table¡¯ stuff with all of those knobs and buttons. Researching what all of that actually took the brunt of the time of when Eisen was in his Desktop mode, and even then, and even then, most of them weren¡¯t actually connected to anything yet. Eisen really worked incredibly hard on this, and failed a few times to such an extent where he nearly blew himself up a few times because the enchantment-arrays broke apart, but luckily, he managed to fix a few minor things in everything by adding ¡¯Mind¡¯ Crystals into the mix, one of the parts used to create regr golem cores. Eisen figured that if they were able to make Golems understandmands and think, they would also be able to at the very least handle the control of all of the different functionalities, so the most central pieces all had those mind crystals at least somehow integrated in them. "This is just so fucking awesome!" Alnico eximed ecstatically, immediately ying around with the different settings and dials to get used to it, and properly put the headphones onto her head. "And how exactly does it work now? Like, how can I actually make music?" She asked, and Eisen just chuckled in response. "Well, the way I thought to be a good idea was that you record different things using the recording item, and then make one of your remix-things out of it. Then you can save that remix on one of the Records, and reuse it when you need to. Ah, right, just so you know, but it¡¯s made to absorb a small amount of ambient mana, so depending on the area you¡¯re in, the music you¡¯re making might have a few different effects." Eisen warned her, and Alnico swiftly nodded her head in response, basically unable to fathom how awesome this item was to her. "Alright, then let¡¯s try this out..." Alnico muttered to herself, and then turned toward Samurai, who was also more than curiously approaching her. His pupils weren¡¯t red at the moment, so it seemed like he stopped streaming or recording, or whatever he was doing before. "Freak, say something." The young girl asked, and with a frown, Samurai crossed his arms and looked away while pouting, "I¡¯m not a freak." He said, and immediately Alnico grinned and made that sentence repeat itself over and over again, before just sending it over to the receivers of her new DJ-Set. And then, when she did so, she began to twist a few of the dials around, pushed some buttons, pulled a few switches, changed sound-levels of different aspects, and simply began to y around with this new item for a while. It seemed like she was really happy with it, so Eisen was more than just d that he made this, and then slowly turned toward Stahl, letting Alnico do her thing. "So you¡¯ve been working hard as well, huh?" Eisen asked, and the young man slowly nodded his head in response. "Yeah, I was a craftsman for a little while yesterday, and whenever we got the chance, I upgraded everyone¡¯s items, and worked on a few cameras for them. It¡¯s based around your CB¡¯s, though, so sorry about ripping your ideas off. But well, they¡¯re basically just Golems with small soul generators hooked up to gravity enchantments." Stahl exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head. "I see, that does seem pretty straightforward. You should think about selling them, though. They might end up pretty popr." Eisen pointed out, before the young Jack of all Trades replied with a smirk. "Well, what do you think I¡¯m nning? I already spoke to Komer about it. He did seem pretty excited about it, but he was worrying about the fact that he has so many items to sell but no actual shop yet." "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m already thinking about something for that." The old man chuckled in response. Chapter 371 - Energetic "Now then, I¡¯m guessing I can leave the task of making items for your group to you, then?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Stahl immediately nodded his head in response. "Of course you can, Gramps." The young man replied, before Eisen turned toward Constant, "Bring Stahl into the material storage, and let him pick out a few materials that he wants to bring with him." He said, and with a broad grin on his face, Stahl swiftly followed the small Core Helper toward the Hedge-Maze, although he was rather confused at why they were going that way instead of into the castle. "Alright... For now, I¡¯ll be off, trying to help reconstruct the town a little more, but just send me a message if you need me for anything." Eisen told the other four, and although Zyra, K and Samurai were replying to him, his own Granddaughter seemed to be too busy for it, and instead was just trying to focus on her remix. With a defeated, broken heart, Eisen slowly made his way into the castle and immediately through it toward the town on the other side of it, and then swiftly noticed how much progress was really made so far. Most of the houses that Eisen could see around the gates of the castle were maybe still somewhat run-down, but they were obviously repaired to the point where you could live in them again. Eisen could also see a tower in the distance, probably belonging to the church, and chose to first make his way there. A lot of the priests, priestesses and nuns were seemingly already there to prepare everything for the children, so the old man thought it would be a good spot to start helping out as well, considering how much work should still be left to do. And when he got there, he swiftly greeted everyone and stepped inside, before being met by a rather surprising sight. Not only were the higher-ups of the church-staff here, trying to organize everything, but there were a lot of children here already as well. The whole ce seemed far more intact than Eisen expected it to be. But none of that was what surprised Eisen the most. The children, especially the younger ones, were ying with some of the Monster-children, some Lizardmen and Kobolds were working on the reconstruction, and the Pdin Half-Dragon was there as well, trying to help everyone out with everything. So, the old man swiftly approached them. "Hello there, any way I can help out?" Eisen asked, and everyone quickly turned around toward him before the Pdin nodded his head. "Of course you can help out! We are currently deciding on which deity to be ced central within the cathedral¡¯s main-hall, although we can¡¯t truly decide. I, of course, think this Ind should be dedicated to the great Trygan. As his father, you should agree with me, do you not?" The Pdin asked, but Eisen just raised his brows and looked at the former Head-Priest at Handor¡¯s church. "Can you show me that main-hall?" He asked, and swiftly, the former head-priest did as asked, turning around and heading toward therge door at the back of the ¡¯Reception¡¯ area. Besides the Castle, the cathedral was thergest structure in the whole town, so Eisen expected this ce to be incrediblyrge. And he was right, it seemed more like a small football stadium than an actual church, and along the walls were a lot of statues lined up, although none of them seemed to be recognizable in the slightest. Their rough humanoid shape was still there, but other than that, they really were just blocks of stone. But Eisen saw through the setup rather easily. "Alright, shouldn¡¯t be too hard to decide on it now." Eisen said with a slight sigh, before everyone looked at him rather confused, so the old man just exined. "This cathedral never had a single god, it was a cathedral for all great gods, each represented in the same way and extent." He told them, "All the inds in this ind-group belong to a certain deity. If they have any towns on them, I expect their patron-deity to be that god or goddess. On the other hand, this ind we¡¯re on right now is not directly connected to any deity, so I¡¯m pretty sure this cathedral was constructed to be central and uniform, treating every deity the same." Eisen exined to them, and the others slowly understood, before Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard. "I¡¯ll ask Evalia to make the statuester, so all of you try to support her as much as you can. She may have seen the gods before, but she doesn¡¯t have a perfect memory either." He told them, before looking around the room once more. "But other than that, this ce was really well-repaired already, huh?" The old man asked, and the former head-priest swiftly nodded. "It does seem so, yes. Through the Town-System, such immense tasks are rather easy to fulfill, aren¡¯t they?" The Priest asked with a smile, and Eisen just nodded his head in response. "Seems like it, yes. Well then, just let me know if you need anything made for here, I¡¯ll get right to it then." Eisen suggested, before slowly making his way back out of the church, before looking around the ce again and noticing just how far things hade already. The Lords apparently had all the monsters under perfect control, and the ones that Eisen was seeing here in the area were acting pretty well. Of course, some of them were more monster-like in their behavior than others, but that was something to be expected. "Alright... Now, then let¡¯s just help out in other ces, huh?" Eisen asked himself, swiftly looking for the closest ce that was currently being reconstructed, swiftly trying to help the monsters and First Generation Guardians that were there. Together with their help, and the Town System¡¯s reconstruction, everything happened incredibly fast, and the vast majority of ces in the small area that was controlled by the Town Core were ready to be moved into, which was something that a lot of people then swiftly did. By Serio¡¯s supervision, he assigned different people to different ces, and if it was aparativelyrge house, he would ask some people if they were fine living there together as roommates. Of course, everyone swiftly epted, and were in return asked to help as much with construction as possible. Other than that, Serio tried to let the First Generation Guardians return to their old houses, although some of them were basicallypletely destroyed over the years and needed to be rebuilt in a new manner. And then, there were the different houses that weren¡¯t meant as a living-space. As this was the area directly in front of the castle, it was the ce most suited for different Shops, Workshops, and even guilds to settle down. They would need to invite some people from the guilds toe over at some point to set up ces like that, but of course, that had to wait until the town was taken over again. It probably wouldn¡¯t take that long, because Serio was seemingly able to expand his ¡¯Territory¡¯ once the area he currently had under control was in good shape, so it would most likely only take one or two weeks for the town to be back in its old state. Then, it would be necessary to actually establish sea-routes for people to migrate to the new town. It was ratherplicated to get there at the moment, so it would be nice to take over the different inds closest to the maind as soon as possible, although those seemed to be still a little bit out of reach for everyone. But as far as Eisen could tell, everyone was preparing for that already, slowly training certain people as specialized troupes to take control of inds, which Eisen was more than just d for. Eisen wanted to leave Komer in charge of handling things like that for now, because he was the one that was sitting in an office and trying to figure a lot of things rted to migration control, import and export supervision, as well as the different deals that he made with the country closest to them right now. It would probably take a really long time to actually take all of the inds over, but Eisen was sure that they could properly do so if they did so patiently enough and prepared properly. The old man was having a lot of people prepare for the trip to the Golem Ind already as well, because it was a good ce to go to level up and collect ressources at the same time, and of course it was also a great next ce to stop at in general, especially because it might give a few clues to one of the more recent mysteries that opened themselves up when Eisen created the five ¡¯Great Golem Reincarnations¡¯. Either way, for now, Eisen wanted to help out around the ce for another day or two, and then they would go ahead and take over some more inds. Eisen wanted to rush forward with the n of creating a country, which seemed to only take five towns, as in five inds in Eisen¡¯s situation, and then he would return to the maind and travel around a bit, trying to look for the three other dragons that he needed toplete tests from, and then he needed toplete the tasks that the piece of paper from the puzzle box. He might actually be able to leave the work of taking over the other inds to the other originals, but he wanted to at least be there for the Golem King¡¯s and Crystal Dragon King¡¯s inds. As they were the next two towns they would take over, that wouldn¡¯t take too long either, and until then, the regr yerbase would have joined the game and Eisen could take on a few requests, finally. Things like that always helped him get his thoughts straightened out a little bit. And so, for one and a half days, all that Eisen did was help out in other ces, trying to build some furniture, handing out useful small items like Self-Filling Cups or the small easily-adjustable burners that Eisen created to test the new ¡¯Setting¡¯ menu out. Other than that, there really wasn¡¯t much that Eisen did, other than spending some time with his grandchildren, getting to know the Lords some more, or trying to socialize with the monsters and First-Generation Guardians. And before Eisen knew it, the old man had to log out to be checked-out by the Doctor, as well as for eating something with Xenia, even if he wouldn¡¯t be directly eating anything due to being constantly fed through that nutrient-solution hooked up to his body. --- When Benjamin woke up inside the capsule, he slowly sat up and opened the capsule up, before pulling his legs over the edge to sit up straight for a little while. He was feeling pretty good right now, and beside the still-lingering constant phantom pain that he was feeling in his nonexistent right arm, Benjamin was in peak condition, even if his stomach felt really empty and he lost a bit of weight. He was advised to work out a little more anyway after his body properly recovered from surgery, so Benjamin would try to make use of his uselesslyrge amount of money and invest in some proper equipment, so that he could build his body back up inbetween sessions of ying the game, even if he wasn¡¯t entirely sure why he was so obsessed with ying it despite knowing that some real big shit was going on. But just as Benjamin was thinking about this, his son knocked on his door and slowly opened it up after the old man asked him toe in. "Hey, so I¡¯ll be going to pick up Jasmin now. The Doc should be on his way as well. Benji and Sophia are in the livingroom with Sean and Katy right now." Tony told his father, who slowly nodded his head and smiled at him in response. "Alright, then I¡¯ll see youter." Benjamin said with a smile, before Tony just smiled back, happy to see his father this energetic again. Chapter 372 - Heading to the Island of Golems "Alright, good as always, Mister Joyce. You¡¯re healing well, you¡¯re responding amazingly to the medication we¡¯re giving you and you don¡¯t have nearly as much of a muscle deterioration as we expected you to have. Truly astounding, that¡¯s the only word I can think of right now." The Doctor said with a smile and wrote a few things down in his notes, before turning toward Benjamin again. "Now then, I¡¯ll see you tomorrow then." The doctor added, before shaking Benjamin¡¯s left hand and making his way to the door again, at which point Benjamin could hear someone else entering the house as well. It seemed like Tony and Jasmin had arrived, so the old man tried to move toward the small table standing in his room to sit down on a chair there, while moving the other one out of the way so that Jasmin could properly sit in front of the table as well. And before Benjamin knew it, the young woman rolled through the door of the old man¡¯s room and joined him at the table, before Benjamin quickly greeted her. "Nice to see you, Jasmin. Even if we only just spoke about half an hour ago anyway." He chuckled, and Jasmin slowly nodded her head while setting the break of her wheelchair, before turning to Benjamin nervously. "So this is your house... It¡¯s way... Larger than I expected..." She said, obviously trying her hardest not to stutter, so Benjamin nodded his head in response and looked out the window. "Yeah, I know, I may have gone a little bit overboard when I built it, but it was supposed to be my dream-house, so I really couldn¡¯t resist it." Benjaminughed, and Jasmin slowly nodded her head. "Of course, you being the one that built it does exin it... I saw DJ-Set you made for Alnico... It¡¯s really insane. It should take a lot of mana, right?" Jasmin asked, seemingly wanting to switch to a topic that she was able tofortably speak about rather than being nervous while speaking about random things, which Benjamin didn¡¯t mind at all either. "It does, yes, but the battery I made can keep the whole thing running for a whole week straight. The Soul-Generators can¡¯t bring it that much, though, so I added a mana-collector so that ambient mana can be grabbed and prioritized." He exined, and Jasmin immediately nodded her head with a bright smile. "So that was what was happening! I was taking a look at it with the Mana-Spectacles, and I thought that I saw the mana around it acting weirdly!" She replied, and Benjamin slowly nodded his head. "That collected mana will be stored indefinitely, but can also be changed into raw mana if Sophia wants it to. There aren¡¯t that many batteries for ambient mana inside of the backpack." "Right, about the backpack... You made it using spatial gems, didn¡¯t you?" Jasmin asked him, and the old man replied by simply nodding his head. "Yes I did, there¡¯s a fair bit of them inside of the material storage under my workshop. You should have a few in your research room as well, right?" Benjamin inquired, and Jasmin sighed in response. "Yeah, but I haven¡¯t been able to turn it into items like you have. Sure, I enchanted them, but I¡¯m missing out on so much because I literally can¡¯t do anything with my hands..." The young womanined, but Benjamin just chuckled in response. "Don¡¯t worry, especially in the game, you¡¯ll be able to properly learn how to do things like that. That, or you can try to find one of those Crafting-Based Spirits you mentioned before. They did seem pretty interesting." Benjamin admitted, and Jasmin slowly nodded her head in response. "Sure, I guess I can do that... At the very least on the Craftsman God¡¯s Ind there should be a few of those." She said while scratching her cheek, and Benjamin nodded his head in response. "Of course. Although I¡¯m pretty curious about what kind of monsters there are on that ind in the first ce." The old man said with augh, before moving his fingers through his beard with a smile on his face. "Now then, do you want to eat something?" Benjamin asked, and Jasmin slowly nodded her head in reply. --- Back in the game, Eisen swiftly got to work with thest few preparations that needed to be done for the trip to the Golem King¡¯s ind. They would be able to now use a lot of the space that used to be living-quarters for therge group of people that was brought to town to instead store materials to potentially bring back to the main-town on the central ind. And while the trip wouldn¡¯t take that long, only about half a day, Eisen wanted to prepare as much as he possibly could on the actual ship-ride, for example, he wanted to create another Core Guardian to then connect it to the new town-core which they were supposed to find on the ind. What actually needed to be done for that was quite simple. They needed everything on the actual ship, and because it was a little bit away, they did so with the help of the Carriage, which Eisen had some of the people left on the ship bring over. Of course, together with that carriage came Eisen¡¯s failed apprentice. He was allowed to walk around freely now, after all, he wasn¡¯t really a prisoner, but was just ced on a bit of ¡¯House Arrest¡¯ to make sure he couldn¡¯t mess around too much. But considering that the whole town was under constant supervision of Serio, Eisen didn¡¯t have to worry about him doing anything unwanted. There was supposed to be a first shipment of different construction materials and fooding from the country soon, and Koro would be sent back with them, and then had to make his way to Melroe and learn under Eisen¡¯s own ¡¯Teachers¡¯. "Alright then, let¡¯s get going now then." Eisen said with a smile as he sat down at the front-bench of the carriage, turning around to look at the doorway in the back of the carriage, which they were using to transport all of the people that needed toe with them to the ship easily. It worked on the Ship, after all, so why shouldn¡¯t it work on the Carriage? That¡¯s at least what Eisen figured would make sense, and to his luck, it worked like a treat and everyone was able toe with them rtively easily. It probably wouldn¡¯t have made too much of a difference anyway if the different groups came with them just like that either, though, considering that the ones that came with them now were only the five originals and their respectivepanions, plus the Pdin Half-Dragon who was being trained by Kiron to be a Knight. A few hourster, Eisen could finally see the harbor in the distance, and because of Eisen¡¯s five golems, they could manage to make their way there without having to stop due to monsters either, so Eisen was pretty d about that. When they reached the ship, Eisen swiftly drove the carriage on the deck and let everyone know that they coulde out now, and the first thing that was done was that Jyuuk summoned the Sailor-Skeletons while Eisen let the few people that were keeping watch of the ship while everyone else was gone know that they could leave now as well, sending them off with Croco to defend and lead them to town. Eisen chose her to do that because she was the only one that could get to the ship even after the group set off, something that they did not too long after making sure they really had everything they needed. And then, while actually traveling, Eisen got started on making the next Core Guardian. He had all the materials that he needed for that, so he really just had to do what he had been ¡¯practicing¡¯ over the past few days while repairing the different First and Second Generation Guardians. And because there was actually a little bit of maroon, and even enough Margon to make a few more Core Guardians, in the Treasury, Eisen didn¡¯t need to worry about using the materials for a core guardian, because before he found out that they had more materials avable, Eisen wasn¡¯tpletely sure if he really should go ahead and use up everyst bit of such an expensive material, but now he didn¡¯t need to think about that anymore and could just craft to his heart¡¯s extent. Eisen would have liked to create a different visual for the Town Core Guardian now that he found out that they weren¡¯t all based off of Halti, but it seemed like because the blueprints were only made for that type of Core Guardian, he wasn¡¯t able to do anything but repair those other type of Guardians. He wouldn¡¯t actually be able to create any Guardians that weren¡¯t created using the blueprints as a guide, at least not until he was capable of creating Ego-Items in general. Either way, for now, Eisen created just another one of the short guardians, and then soon had itying in front of him, luckily just when they reached the ind, and then put the body away inside a small item that he and Xenia worked on together, a small ¡¯Box¡¯ made usingpressed spatial gems on the inside and magically-infused wood on the outside to support the spatial gems some more. The spatial-gem surfaces were of course enchanted as well, and in the end, it turned into an item capable of taking in just one other item, although that item could be asrge as Eisen¡¯s whole in his new fully-increased state. That meant that it was a great way of bringing arge amount of Golems, and Eisen¡¯s five Golems were swiftly stored inside of five of them as well. It actually seemed like they could take in corpses as well, so it was a good way to easily store the corpse of a monster with high-value materials to take it apart in a better environment. Other than that, Xenia and Eisen both also worked together on enhancing Bree¡¯s backpack a bit, although Evalia did also help with that, even if it was just through turning different materials into paint, which was then applied onto the inner surfaces of Bree¡¯s backpack in thickyers. And those materials were mostly more spatial-gems ability-enchanted in certain ways to enhance and change the way certain things were stored, and in the end, Bree¡¯s backpack was able to store about three times more than normal! The young fey-kin was also pretty excited about that, because while increasing the storage space, it also heavily decreased the weight of items ced inside of it, so Bree was excited about properly trying it out. Sadly, Eisen couldn¡¯t try his idea of a ¡¯Spatial Tent¡¯ out yet, because he didn¡¯t want to waste materials like that. Either way, soon enough, the ship was ¡¯parked¡¯ near a suitable ce and everyone swiftly got off of the ship, and Jyuukmanded his skeletons to sail the ship to a safe ce a bit further away from the ind so that, just in case something on the ind took an interest in the ship, it wouldn¡¯t be able to actually get to it. But the moment that they stepped onto the actual ind, it was pretty clear that something was off with this ce. While the nts seemed to be pretty normal, one of the first creatures that they encountered on the ind was a squirrel. While the others were just a little surprised about how it seemed toe out of nowhere, both Eisen and Jyuuk knew that something else was going on. There was something wrong about it, and trying to confirm it with each other, Eisen and Jyuuk looked at each other momentarily, before Jyuuk quickly used his nts to capture the critter. And when Eisen stepped up to it, he could confirm that his suspicion was right pretty quickly. This animal¡¯s fur wasn¡¯t actual fur, it was dirt. And so was the rest of its body. After pushing his hand through the loose dirt that was its body, Eisen swiftly pulled out a small orb from its center and watched as the squirrel¡¯s body just crumbled. "Seems like even small animals like this are golems on this ind, huh..?" Chapter 373 - Golems Owner "Jyuuk, can you take a look and see if the nts are normal?" Eisen asked with a frown as he looked at the tiny golem core in his hand, before just crushing it between his fingers, and the Beastperson swiftly nodded his head and moved toward the nearest tree, although nothing seemed to be off with it. "At the very least the ones around here are all normal, but I don¡¯t know about what it might be like deeper in the ind." He pointed out, so Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard and looked at the others with a light smile. "Well, then let¡¯s just see about that. If any of you find anything interesting, let the others know about it. And be careful, Golems can basically take any shape, and if even critters are ones, then who knows what other things might be Golems." Eisen told them, and the others nodded their heads before everyone slowly split up into their groups. And now, Eisen stood there again with his own group, his five golems inside of the boxes in his own backpack. He figured he shouldn¡¯t necessarily have all of them out at all times, so he would just pick the right ones for different situations, although for the most part, Ranger and Tank mighte in the most useful. "Alright, we need to be really careful from now on. Kirisho, you try and stay at the back of the group with me, Golems won¡¯t show any reaction to your mist. Everyone should try to use attacks that cause a lot pressure to a single spot, even if it doesn¡¯t do a lot of damage. As long as it can clear up the space around the Golem Core, everything will be fine." Eisen told them as they all began moving, and everyone in his group started listening closely to what the old man had to say, and before they all knew it, it seemed like they already faced their first proper ¡¯Opponent¡¯, a boar seeminglypletely made of dirt, simr to the squirrel, although this boar had some grass growing on its back. While trying to dig up some ground with its hind-hoof, preparing to sprint forward toward them. And when it just began moving like that, Eisen got a rather good idea. For enemies like this, it would probably be enough to deal with them in such a way, so Eisen quickly turned toward Bree and asked her to get ready with her hammer, although she was supposed to use the pointy side instead of the t side. Slowly she nodded her head and held the hammer like Eisen told her to, while the old man took his own hammer out as well. While positioning themselves so that they could easily dodge, Eisen told Bree to hold the head of the hammer down toward the ground and just loosely hold the end of the handle. And just when the boar got into their range, the two of them stepped to the side and Eisen mmed his own hammer directly onto the t surface of Bree¡¯s hammer to cause a sudden increase of speed, while the tip of the hammer prated into the boar¡¯s dirt body, directly hitting the Golem-Core like Eisen wanted, and in response, the Boar just crumbled to dirt while the shards of the Golem-Core were justying there. "Well, this might have been a bit unnecessary, but at least we know that this kind of thing works pretty well damage-wise." Eisen muttered to himself before looking at the notification in front of him. [You are now Level 150] "Hmm, even this guy gave that much experience?" The old man asked surprised, before looking at the others with a smile on his face. "Anyway, I wanted to try this out as verification forter, let¡¯s just move on for now. Dirt-Golems shouldn¡¯t be hard to deal with." Eisen suggested, before they started moving again, and Eisen looked at the Pdin next to him to find out a little more about hisbat style. "So, you fight by cloaking your body in divine energy, right?" The old man asked him, and the Bronze Half-Dragon nodded his head surprised. "Oh yes, by doing that my whole body gains a little bit more strength, agility and endurance, even if just slightly. But for the most part, I can use the Divine Energy as a weapon of sorts. And because Divine Energy cannot bepletely stopped by regr defenses, I have an advantage against heavy-strength opponents. On top of that, whenever I get hurt, a little bit of Divine Energy is used up to start healing me, although it can only do so when ites to lesser injuries. Not like the one I currently still am suffering of." The Half dragon exined, looking over at his shoulder that was still covered in bandages, and Eisen nodded his head in reply. "Well, it seems to be healing pretty well, so by the time we¡¯re moving over toward the Ind you grew up on, you should be able to use your arm like normal. And that is a pretty interesting way to fight, by the way." The old man chuckled, and the Pdin replied with a smile on his face as well. "I¡¯m surprised you were able to notice that, by the way. Most are unaware of the way I fight even afterbat is over." He replied, before Kiron just smiled smugly, re-adjusting his giant sword on his shoulder. "Of course he noticed, Grandfather has the eyes of a Dragon, after all." The Crystal Dragon pointed out, before the Pdin just tilted his head to the side confused. "The Eyes of a Dragon?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head in reply. "Yes, I got something called ¡¯Truth-Seeing Eyes¡¯ after bing a Dragon¡¯s Champion." The old man exined while swiftly activating his truth-seeing eyes to demonstrate, and coincidentally, just at that time his proficiency seemed to have been pushed over the edge. [Truth Seeing Eyes reached Level 100 in Rank 2, Upgrading to Rank 3] [You can see one¡¯s true form] [Due to Ranking-up your Truth Seeing Eyes Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] "Huh..." The old man muttered to himself, before just waving the notification away, and then looked back at the Pdin. "Anyway, here, for the most part I use them to see Mana, but I can use them for a lot of different things. Right now, I got the ability to see someone¡¯s true form, actually." Eisen told them, before slightly curiously looking at everyone in the group, although none of them seemed to show any difference, with the exception of Kiron. It was something of an ¡¯Ovey¡¯, and while, with this ability active, the ¡¯true¡¯ form seemed to take priority, he could still focus on the ¡¯False¡¯ form, so it was rather easy topare the two of them. First of all, Kiron¡¯s true form seemed to be just slightly different to how it was right now, with just a few minor differences. In his true form, Kiron was simply a lot more human. For example, his feet were a lot smaller and more human, he didn¡¯t have ws at all anymore, not even on his hands, his general body-shape was more like that of a person¡¯s as well, but the biggest difference was that Kiron¡¯s wings were hidden. Was this what he looked like before having his strength stolen from him? After all, that apparently also changed his form back to what it was at the rank his strenght was equal to. Well, that¡¯s something that time would show. He was slowly gaining his strength back again, after all. Either way, Eisen was feeling pretty happy about seeing what Kiron looked like originally. Although, while Eisen was thinking about that, another Golem appeared in front of them, but there was something weird about it. Eisen still had his ¡¯True Form Sight¡¯ on, and when he then looked at the Golem, which seemed to be just another dirt-golem outwardly, Eisen for some reason saw something else. He saw a humanoid figure standing there in ce of the dirt-golem, although it had no details to it at all. It was just a nk, paper-white figure with no clothes, eyes, mouth, or anything on it, really. "What?" The old man muttered to himself while the others began to fight the Golem to destroy its golem core, and when that core shattered, the humanoid figure disappeared with it. "What¡¯s wrong?" Sky asked with concern on his face, and Eisen just shook his head slowly, "Nothing, really, I¡¯m just wondering what exactly it was that I just saw. It looked like a person at first nce, but it really wasn¡¯t one. Sigurd, can youe out for a second?" Eisen asked as he looked at Fafnir, before the small Core Guardian swiftly appeared out of a cloud of mist. "How can I help you?" It asked, and Eisen looked the Core Guardian up and down before shaking his head, although just when he wanted to say that it was nothing after all, he did end up seeing something. There was a small connective line between Fafnir and Sigurd, as if they were supposed to be a single entity, which they technically were. "I just wanted to confirm something..." Eisen muttered to himself before pulling his backpack off his back and taking out one of the boxes out of it, and then swiftly opened it up to make Ranger appear in front of him. And then, Eisen also saw something else again. It was himself, somehow. A figure, simr to what his Mana Doubles looked like in their pure-mana state, although there, weirdly enough, seemed to be three different ¡¯States¡¯ for Ranger. Once where it was just Ranger¡¯s current outer appearance, then the one where Eisen could see himself, and then another version of Ranger, with only a few minor differences, like scratches all over his body and a more expressive face. "Well, just ignoring the fact that you¡¯re supposed to be the reincarnation of another golem, I¡¯m just going to guess that looking at a Golem Like this shows its ¡¯Owner¡¯." Eisen muttered to himself as he looked at Ranger, and then swiftly put the Golem back into the Box. "Alright, so it seems like we can find out where these Golems are actually alling from with this new ability." Eisen said with a smirk on his face, and the Pdin Half-Dragon opened his eyes wide in surprise. "Is that so? That was always a mystery that even my father was curious about. I travelled through here on my way toward the ¡¯Central¡¯ ind as you call it, and the golems sometimes seemed to just appear out of nowhere." The Half-Dragon admitted, before Eisen slowly nodded his head in reply. "Well, good to know we have someone here that¡¯s been here before. But well, for now, let¡¯s look for another golem." Eisen said with a smile before stepping along the path in front of them. And it didn¡¯t take long to find more of them, and their bodies kept getting stronger and tougher the closer they got toward the center of the ind, and then finally, the first humanoid golem appeared, and at roughly the same time, the area seemed to be more artificial as well. That meant that the path seemed like it was properly made to be walked on, and the general structure of the area seemed pretty artificial, although Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure what it was that made him think that. Either way, when Eisen now took a look at this new, humanoid golem made of rock, he could swiftly see the same figure as before, and this time it was much clearer than before, and seemed to have actually a few dents in its head that might make it look like a proper face. And so, they continued on along this same path, trying to find golems that gave Eisen a clearer image on who their creator was. Chapter 374 - Fluke The group continued on walking through the weirdly artificial area, before they started finding a path made of stone bricks, which they chose to swiftly follow, because beside the Golems themselves, this was the most advanced type of structure that they had seen on this ind. Although, before long, they could see something else in the distance, so Eisen swiftly activated his Mana-Sight to try and figure out how many Golems there were this time around, although the old man was rather surprised when he ended up seeing not a single Golem Core at all, instead just a small dot of red mana, as well as a cluster of green mana, the type of color which seemed to belong to nature mana. "Be careful, I think there¡¯s a person there. I don¡¯t know who it might be, so be careful." Eisen warned the others, before he once more looked at the cluster of green mana, noticing another small dot moving around the area toward Eisen and his group. And when Eisen deactivated his mana-sight, he could see what that small dot was. It was a small mechanical ball, just rolling around on the ground in their direction. It stopped basically directly in front of them and then stopped moving, before Eisen looked at it with a frown, once more using his mana sight to look at it, and then he noticed that there was a thin thread of mana connecting the mechanical ball to the cluster of green mana. With a smile on his face, Eisen chose to just pick it up and then immediately took a look at what it was constructed like, simply because he was rather curious and he wanted to somehow bring whoever was sitting there behind the rocks toe out. It might be a bit intimidating if a group of armed inviduals came up to you all of a sudden, after all. But before Eisen knew it, the ball split up into five parts, each part clinging to one of Eisen¡¯s fingers, before extending a little further to cover the old man¡¯s whole hand, pulling it together into a fist before heavily increasing in weight, pulling Eisen¡¯s fist down to the ground without allowing him to move at all. "Now, that¡¯s a bit of a surprise." The old man chuckled before the others in his group quickly came up to him out of worry. "Eisen, what happened?!" Bree asked, but Eisen just winked at her with a smile. Eisen could feel that the inside of the sphere was heating up a lot, but because of Eisen¡¯s racial skill, it didn¡¯t do anything to him at all. Instead, Eisen swiftly just decreased his size and reced the part around his hand with the hardest, densest rock that he could make with his element, before slowly pulling his hand out of it, careful not to make any sounds that might let whoever controlled this thing know what was going on. And then, Eisen swiftly activated his demonic transformation and began to increase his size to his new maximum, switching into his new leather-apron and wool-pants behind a wall made of his element, before using his wings to go for a strong jump to thennd on the other side of the rocks. Of course, Eisen figured it would be best to go for the Yang-Side of the transformation, and looked basically like a rock-statue slowly being painted in gold. And not only the person that Eisen was now facing was surprised and confused at what was going on, but Eisen himself was also rather surprised. Because right there in front of him sat a young man, at least Eisen figured he was young, who had tree bark-like skin covered in moss in a few areas, as well as metal tes covering different parts of his body, although mainly in the areas that seemed vital for different type of movement. His arms were nearlypletely made of metal as well, and one of the metal tes belonging on the inside of his left lower-arm was currently opened up, and the man was fiddling with some crystal wires and gems inside of there which were ced on top of his flesh, something that Eisen was surprised to see he had considering that he basically looked like a living tree otherwise. "What the-" The man muttered confused, and grabbed one of the boxes next to him before throwing it on the ground in front of Eisen with a lot of force. The box split open, and before Eisen knew it, the earth underneath his feet opened up in a box-shape, before the square hole closed itself shut at the same height of the ground again. Although, there was one part that the man didn¡¯t take into ount. Eisen¡¯s height. Instead of taking his whole body in, it only reached up to Eisen¡¯s legs. And the old man was able to get out of there pretty easily by once more just slightly decreasing his size and pulling himself out, before increasing his size again. "You done?" Eisen asked with a wry smile, still looking at the man with a bit of curiosity, although it seemed like the man still had something against speaking to the giant golden demon in front of him, trying to hurry up and put the metallic panel back onto his arm. When he did so, a bit of cracking came from his hand as everything settled down, and the man quickly pushed his hand against the ground, creating a spear of rock that just pushed itself into the direction of Eisen¡¯s face. "What do you want?" The man asked with a deep, raspy voice, but before he knew it, the rest of Eisen¡¯s group had already arrived and surrounded them, all pointing their weapons at him. "For one, I would kind of want you to stop doing all of this." Eisen said with a wry smile and quickly used his transmutation to counter the man¡¯s transmutation, because what he just did wasn¡¯t magic, despite the way it looked. Seeing that he was currently stuck in a situation with near to no escape, the man just sighed and leaned back against the rock behind him. "Fine. Now then, what else do you want?" The man asked with a frown, before Eisen sat down on a bench that he made with his element, swiftly recing the small fire in front of them created using a me gem with a campfire created using his element as well. "Well, I still want to ask you something else, but before then it would be nice if you could stop pretending that thing behind you is just a regr rock." The old man told him, before the man clicked his tongue and crossed his arms. "Damn, didn¡¯t expect you to see even that." The man said with a frown and snapped his metallic fingers while standing up, "Wake up." Hemanded, before the rock that he was leaning against before slowly started forming cracks before turning into a very, very roughly humanoid figure. It had giant forarms and tree stump-like legs, and just two small holes as eyes. It¡¯s torso seemed to have a lot of differentpartments, and a little bit of sound from inside of thosepartments could be heard in response to different materials in there moving around. But that wasn¡¯t all, because when the Golem finally stood uppletely, the rock surface on the outside began to crumble away, revealing a t metallic surface underneath. "Huh, so you¡¯re using a Golem to carry your materials and luggage around, huh?" Eisen asked with a slight smile, before the man nodded his head in reply. "Yeah, what about it." "Oh, nothing much. But well, except one thing, maybe." The old man said with a straight expression, his Yang-Demonic Form slowly morphing to his Yin-Demonic Form. "One of those liquid tanks has Guardian Blood in it, doesn¡¯t it?" Eisen asked as his bright golden eyes became darker and darker by the second, as if they were a clear void that was sucking in all light around it. "What, you mean that potion? What about it?" The man asked, while the others slowly realized what Eisen was thinking. "Where¡¯d you get it?" Eisen asked, slowly choosing to increase the heat around the man, who seemed to be slowly starting to freak out about it. "Why should I-" "Answer me." The Demon asked, with a clearly pissed off expression before he turned toward the Pdin to give him a signal, and the half-tree half-metal man crossed his arms in response, as if trying to shield himself off the pure heat a little bit. "I stole it from another warforged. What about it?" Slowly, Eisen turned toward the Pdin, who nodded his head at Eisen in response, before the old man looked back at the warforged in front of him. "Where is that other warforged?" Eisen asked next, and the man just frowned in response and shook his head. "No clue. Was leaving the ind when I got here." Once more, Eisen turned toward the Pdin, and after getting a nod from him as well, Eisen sighed in response and deactivated his demonic transformation, although he stayed in his increased size, simply because he felt surprisingly good and calm as tall as this. "Fine." Eisen said annoyedly, before turning toward Fafnir, and in response Sigurd already appeared before the old man could say anything. "You ever seen anyone like it?" Eisen asked the Warforged, before he slowly shook his head in response, although he was rather curious and leaned in closer toward Sigurd. "I... Haven¡¯t... But this is a Golem, isn¡¯t it? It seems quite life-like... Although I don¡¯t understand why it¡¯s so tiny, what kind of uses could it have like that? It surely won¡¯t-" The man said with a curious frown, although Fafnir quickly stepped up between them and opened his mouth just so slightly to gather some of his dark-red mes in there, immediately making the Warforged step back immediately. "Oh, I¡¯m far more useful than some half-baked Golem-Wannabe like you." Sigurd said with a frown, crossing its arm in response, before the Warforged opened his eyes wide in surprise. "It even has intensive voice settings! You have to tell me who made this... Wondrous creation!" He eximed, but Eisen just picked him up by one of the metal tes connected to his back and pulled him away from Sigurd. "Then that would be me. But more importantly, let¡¯s talk about who you are and why you¡¯re here." Eisen asked him, while the others also slowly settled down, noticing that he wasn¡¯t as big of an issue as they thought he was, before the Warforged smirked at the old man in front of him. "The name¡¯s Fluke. Just heard that this is supposed to be an ind of Golems, so I figured it might be worthing to take a look. As your Golem there just said, Warforged are Golems in a sense. I wanna strengthen myself, so that¡¯s why I came here. What about you, who the hell are all of you?" The Warforged asked, and Eisen just slightly frowned before shaking his head. "First, Sigurd isn¡¯t just a Golem. It¡¯s an Ego-Golem, with proper thought, a life, a soul, all that stuff. So don¡¯t treat it like an item." Eisen told him, and then crossed his arms. "Would you believe me if I told you that I¡¯m the one that first created the Warforged as a race in the first ce, and that I¡¯m now here to turn this group of Inds into a country?" He asked, but Fluke just replied with an annoyed sigh. "No, I wouldn¡¯t." He said, so Eisen just shrugged. "Then I¡¯m just a random Half-Giant you don¡¯t have to concern yourself with. These are mypanions. Now, I have ast question for you, and then we¡¯ll leave you alone. Did you find any ruins?" Eisen asked him, and Fluke nodded his head. "Mhm, the ruins of the Great Golems. They¡¯re a bit further north if you wanna go there." Fluke told them, and with a smirk, Eisen nodded his head. Chapter 375 - Artificial Soul Stone For the next hour, Fluke simply led the group further along the road, and Eisen seemed to have found someone else to speak about the creation of items with. "Hmm, interesting, so you used gears connected to a rotary device around the core so that the different body parts can be used with more power?" Fluke asked curiously after Eisen told him about his two Automata, who were waiting on the ship, and the old man nodded his head in reply. "Yes, although I did also create Mana-Crystal Muscture for them to support that type of movement even more, and to properly make sure they can¡¯t move in unusual ways." Eisen replied, and Fluke instantly nodded while crossing his arms. "Yeah, I did something simr with my big guy here. Due to the Golem Cores, they¡¯re able to control every part of their body properly, right? But I found that when their body itself doesn¡¯t hold them back from moving in a certain way, Golems have the habit of using the most ¡¯convenient¡¯ type of movement to fulfill the task at hand, ignoring that it might damage their body or what¡¯s ced inside." Fluke said with a deep sigh, and Eisen slowly took one of his boxes, which he had ced into hisrge front-pocket now, because it was about asrge as his backpack when he was in this increased size, wearing hisrge outfit. "I have a few golems with me right now, and what I did was basically create something simr to muscture out of Mana-Thread." Eisen pointed out, swiftly taking Tank out of his box, simply because he was the one whose box Eisen grabbed first, "I¡¯m not sure if you can see it, but if you take a look between here, you should see a slight glow inbetween the joint and the rest of the limb." The old man exined, slightly turning Tank¡¯s elbow to expose the joint to Fluke, who opened his eyes wide in surprise. "Damn, how¡¯d you get your hands on Mana-Thread? Can that little spider guy make it? Ah, and you created enchanted joints to keep its body together, huh? I simply connected the joints of my big guy here to the limbs the regr way. But a maism enchantment is a pretty good idea, even if pretty mana-intensive. Since it¡¯s probably abat golem, that should make it easier to switch out damaged parts though..." Fluke muttered out as he leaned in, before noticing something else that he didn¡¯t pay attention to yet, just because Tank was sorge. "Huh, you made a golem inspired by the Great Golems? I¡¯ve gotta admit, it looks nearly exactly like the real thing." The Warforged said surprised as he rubbed his chin, and Eisen nodded his head in surprise, "Yeah, that¡¯s exactly it. And what do you mean by ¡¯Nearly exactly like the real thing¡¯? Did you meet any of them?" Eisen asked, but Fluke just shook his head. "Well, not exactly. But the ruins we¡¯re heading to are their ¡¯Resting ce¡¯. I don¡¯t know what exactly happened, but they apparently their Cores were slowly starting to break down, so they came here to spend the rest of their time, settled in that building, and then... Yeah. Not too long ago, it seemed like even their statues gave in, though." Fluke pointed out, before Eisen raised his brows and quickly ced Tank back into the box. "Again, what do you mean? What statues?" Eisen asked, but Fluke just scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. "Just take a look for yourself, we¡¯re here." The Warforged exined and pointed forward, toward a ce that seemed basically like just a hole in the wall of a cliff that the road was leading to. "I¡¯ve turned that ce into my base ever since I got to this ind, and I found some pretty precious stuff in there as well, so I barricaded the entrance with another construction of mine." Fluke exined, and as the group finally reached the ce they were heading to, the Warforged Tinkerer ced his hand onto the wall, before twisting his hand around, causing a circr split in the wall to appear, twisting around together with Fluke¡¯s hand. And before Eisen knew it, the rock covering the wall crumbled down and revealed apletely metallic door, which slowly began to fold down into itself, before just turning into a cube at Fluke¡¯s feet. "Come in." Fluke told them with a light smile and swiftly stepped through into the space beyond there, and Eisen could immediately tell that Fluke wasn¡¯t lying in the slightest. There were numerous mechanical creations, some finished and others very far from being finished,ying on the floor, there was a pile of shattered Golem Cores in one corner, while next to that there were a few different precious materials such as Gold, Silver, different Gems, and so on. And right on the other side of the door that they just stepped through were five piles of rubble. "There they are. Three of them shattered basically at the same time, and the other two shattered a dayter. I tried to clean up a bit, but the materials used to create the statues werepressed an insane amount, and I somehow wasn¡¯t able to dpress them in the slightest. In the end I managed to move them around a little bit with a piece of high-pressure machinery, but even that broke after a few minutes." Fluke exined, before swiftly turning toward the group in front of him while crossing his arms. "Now then, why exactly did you want toe here?" Fluke asked, but Eisen just slowly moved his fingers through his beard, "We were hoping to be able to find any clues to the whereabouts of the Great Golems." The old man exined, using his Mana-Sight to try and find any hidden mechanisms, although he found something very different. In the middle of each pile was an incredibly dense mass of mana, so Eisen was more than just curious, stepping up to the pile closest to him. "Well, my guess is they created those statues of themselves and then ced their own Golem Cores into their hands. Each of them was holding their left arm forward, and their hand seemed like it was supposed to be holding something. The Cores probably shattered and then just... disappeared." Fluke exined, and Eisen slowly turned around and looked at the Pdin Half-Dragon, who was given the task to check every tiniest thing that Fluke was saying to see whether he was telling the truth or not, and after the Pdin nodded his head toward the old man, Eisen just sighed. "Well, let¡¯s just see about that." He said and ced his hand on the pile of rubble madepletely of heavilypressed rock, just like Fluke said. "I just told you, they¡¯re impossible to move. Not only are they way to heavy because they¡¯repressed, they¡¯re also item-protected. As if they have an insane requirement ced on them. Not many people can ce requirements on simple rocks, let me tell you that." With a sligh chuckle, Eisen shook his head in response, and then simply picked the first rock up with ease. "These aren¡¯t simple rocks. In the very end, these were probably the bodies of the Great Golems. And the rock may be heavy, but they¡¯re not as heavy as you think they are. The requirements are insane though, and that¡¯s because these are part of a Divine Quality item." Eisen said with a simple smirk, burying through the pile, "The requirement ced on these was probably something like ¡¯Have your racial skill at most at Rank 0, level 1¡¯. Or ¡¯Kill a God¡¯. Or maybe even, ¡¯Pick me up¡¯. Something that¡¯s practically impossible to do because it¡¯s impossible not to level your racial skill up just by living. Or because you can¡¯t kill a god. Or simply, because it¡¯s a paradox." Eisen exined, before swiftly picking up the tiny sphere in the center of the pile, surrounded by anotheryer of rock, which Eisen managed to quite easily remove. "How do you know that? I couldn¡¯t even appraise any of them." Fluke said with a frown, "And if that was true, you couldn¡¯t pick them up either." But in the end, Eisen just sighed while the group behind him looked at the old man with a curious expression, rather than that of a person currently listening to a crazy old man ramble on, like Fluke figured what would happen. "It¡¯s easy, isn¡¯t it? Out of every person on this world, there¡¯s always one person that can use an item no matter how insane the requirements are." Eisen said with a smile, and then took a closer look at the item in his hand. [Artificial Soul Stone][Great Golem - Tank][Rank - 10] With a smirk on his face, Eisen swiftly went around the other piles of rock and swiftly pushed them to the side to look for the other Soul Stones that were in there and soon enough, he had the souls of all five of the Great Golems in his possession, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but just startughing slightly, while Fluke was trying to figure out what exactly was going on, until he remembered what this Giant old man said before. "Holy Fuck- You weren¡¯t joking! You created the Great Golems, so you also-" He eximed confused and looked around himself immediately before sprinting to the other side of the room as fast as he could, quickly sitting down in front of a table there, before a small part of his index finger opened up and dropped a small needle out of it, although it was still connected to the finger. And before everyone knew it, the needle began glowing due to heat, and Fluke began fiddling with an item in front of him using that needle. In the meantime, while everyone was more confused about what Fluke was doing than what the old man just found, Caria, Melissa and Sal curiously stepped up to the old man, trying to take a look at what was happening there. "Pretty rocks!" Melissa eximed, but Eisen chuckled in response and shook his head, kneeling down in front of the three of them. Eisen was kind of sad that none of them ended up ranking up after all, but both Caria and Melissa were at Rank 3, level 99 and seemed to need to fulfill some kind of requirement to rank up, while Sal was still a few levels away from bing Rank 2. "These aren¡¯t just rocks. With these, we can bring back some really amazing people. Even more reason to bring my level up as quickly as possible to get the Ego-Item Creation skill." Eisenughed, before swiftly stashing these soul stones away in his front pocket, which seemed to be the safest ce to the old man right now. "Now then, let¡¯s-" Eisen started to say, but before he knew it, Fluke finished what he was working on and sprinted back toward Eisen with it, immediately activating it in front of him. And what that item did was quite simple. The one meter by one meter cube split up into about 25 smaller cubes, each of which quickly turned into a small bug-like creature, which then started to crawl all over Eisen¡¯s body, over each and every part of his body. "Fluke, what are you doing?" Eisen asked with a wry smile, trying not to identally crush one of them, and Fluke just started grinning. "You think I¡¯m letting the chance pass to inspect an immortal being¡¯s body? Right..." The warforged replied with a smirk on his face, curiously watching the small mechanical bugs crawl over the old man¡¯s body. "Erm, what exactly did you say you came to this ind for?" Eisen inquired confused, and Fluke crossed his, mostly mechanical, arms, "I¡¯m trying to be the perfectbination of something that lives, and a Machine. You¡¯re the one that can help me achieve both, with your body!" Chapter 376 - Warforged "Did you just..." Sky asked with a wry smile as he looked at the Warforged in front of him, who was curiously looking at Eisen in different angles, and Fluke swiftly nodded his head. "Of course, what¡¯s so weird about what I said? He has an immortal body, so it¡¯s going to help me further my biological parts. He¡¯s the greatest Master Craftsman in existence, so he¡¯s going to be able to help me further my mechanical parts." Fluke pointed out, and still with a wry smile, Sky just nodded his head and turned around toward his sister, trying to see if only he thought he heard something pretty weird just there. "I can help you, but only if you help us as well." Eisen told Fluke, who swiftly nodded his head in response. "What can I do?" He asked, before Eisen crossed his arms after the bugs finally started climbing off him. "For one, not invade my privacy like that. At least ask me beforehand. And then, help us find the ruins of the town that are somewhere on this ind." Eisen told him, but Fluke just raised his brows surprised. "Ah, you wanna go there? I ain¡¯t so sure if that¡¯s a good idea, the Golems appear there, and only the strongest ones stay behind. Especially the King Golem on the ind is really annoying to deal with. Its Core may be exposed, but it¡¯s even tougher than the rest of its body." Fluke sighed annoyedly, "I sent some drones into the Boss room, but they were destroyed nearly instantly. One of them managed to climb on top of the King Golem, but even then, it was just destroyed with a smack after it tried to destroy the core." Slowly, Eisen began to move his fingers through his beard with a nod, "Well, show us the way anyway, will you? We need to get there pretty soon." Eisen exined, so Fluke just slowly nodded his head. "I guess so. But I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯ll really be able to be of much help within the town. Being a Tinkerer is awesome, but when I¡¯m facing enemies like that, I have to make a lot more drones than I have avable right now." Fluke pointed out, so Eisen just slowly nodded his head. "Don¡¯t worry about that, just show us where the town is. You don¡¯t even need toe in there with us if you don¡¯t feel like it." Eisen told him, so Fluke just shrugged and nodded his head. "Sure. But in return, you help me out a little here as well." Fluke said with a smirk on his face, before the old man chuckled in response. "That seems fair. Thene on, we should get going as soon as we can, right?" "Ehh, yeah, just wait a moment, I¡¯ll switch out some of the stuff in my big guy here." Fluke exined, before tapping the arm of his Golem, and then made his way over to the area of the room where a lot of different cubes and spheres wereying around, before he turned around toward the old man with a grin, "Help yourself to some of the materials here if you want to!" "Thanks, I¡¯ll take you up on that. Oh, and could I take a look at some of those broken items over there?" Eisen asked, and Fluke immediately nodded his head in response. "Of course you can! Do anything you want!" "Alright everyone, go ahead and take a break. Eat and drink something if you need to as well, we¡¯ll probably be walking for another good while." Eisen told them, before everyone slowly nodded and then sat down on some steps near the entrance, while Eisen quickly stepped over toward the broken parts that wereying around all over the ce, and was swiftly followed by his youngest tamed monster, Sal. "Awe, what a good boy, at least you want to spend some time with this old man, huh?" Eisen asked with a smile, before the small spider began to dance in response and climbed on Eisen¡¯s hand, up to his reallyrge shoulder now. After all, Eisen was a bit more than four meters tall now. Although, that changed pretty swiftly when Eisen shrunk down to a size more suited to fiddling with these kinds of small mechanisms, meaning his smallest size possible. And using the cover that his huge leather apron gave him, he changed into his out fit for that size and ced his other clothes to the side. He really should make something to keep his clothes in, huh? Either that, or he should get onto making items that could change their size even more than usual. Thetter would probably be the better idea, and considering his Size change ability, that would probably be rtively well-executable. He just had to y around with thatter, for now, Eisen just moved on and started ying around with the broken parts a little bit, grabbing some of his tools while Sal, who was pretty excited seeing that Eisen was so much more like his own size now, danced even more excitedly. "Alright..." The old man muttered to himself and swiftly grabbed the piece that seemed to be most intact, properly trying to inspect it. It was really incredibly well made, even if there seemed to be a few shorings when it came to the state of the interior materials. Outside, everything was really in a great condition, but inside, it was pretty scratched up, and even the different gems that were inside there had scratches on them. One of those gems was a ruby, so Eisen was pretty surprised to see that Fluke managed to get his hands on a diamond-tipped tool. Or rather, that he was using one at all. For the most part, things like shaping gems was much easier done using transmutation, and it was a lot safer as well. Gems were easily shaped using transmutation, it was easy to re-attach parts you identally removed too much of, and when it came to gems and crystals, ¡¯evening out¡¯ the density within an item was pretty easy, so you didn¡¯t have to worry that much about making certain parts denser than others, especially when it came to small pieces like that. And Eisen knew that this wasn¡¯t done with a mana-crystal tool as well for a very simple reason. Mana-Crystals were outside the Mohs Scale. The Mohs scale always had a really easy concept to it, and basically every crystal or mineral structure could be included in it. It was a simple 0 to 10 scale, with Diamonds being a full 10. If a crystal or gem was able to scratch another gem, it had a higher Mohs value than the gem that was scratched. It was a really simple concept, in the end. But Mana-Crystals were outside of that Scale, because neither could they scratch any gem up, not even something soft like Talc, which was a simple 1 on the Mohs scale. But on the other hand, Eisen once managed to test this kind of thing out with a small decorative diamond he found, and even that diamond wasn¡¯t able to scratch a mana-crystal up. They were able to be crushed up using the right methods, sure, but even so, they couldn¡¯t be scratched by other gems or minerals. So, that¡¯s why Mana-crystals were outside of the Mohs scale,pletely without any assignable value in that system. So, it was pretty surprising that an enchanter with obvious alchemy abilities, judging from how he spoke about being unable to dpress the rocks earlier, would use a tool integrating a diamond. Was there any special reason to do that? Could there in some way be a direct benefit to using this method? Surely there had to be a proper, well-exinable reason to it, besides just saying ¡¯It¡¯s more fun that way¡¯. Sure, it is, but it¡¯s vastly more inefficient that way. Either way, beside that Ruby, there was something else that Eisen was pretty interested in, which was the actual material that was used for everything. On first nce, it looked a little like brass, but when Eisen could feel all of the small bug-like things crawl all over him, he noticed that it very much wasn¡¯t Brass at all. "Hmm... a bit of silver, a little gold... copper... there¡¯s some crystals mixed in as well... And the base is iron?" Eisen muttered to himself after trying to figure all of it out properly, before Fluke stepped up behind Eisen. "That¡¯s right, but... What the hell is going on?" Fluke asked, looking at the figure of the half-meter tall old man, who was just four meters tall a few minutes ago, so the old man swiftly raised his brows and hid behind his huge clothes for a moment while changing, and then swiftly grew in size again to quite literally ¡¯grow into¡¯ his clothes. "I¡¯m a Half-Giant. It¡¯s my size-change ability." Eisen exined, so Fluke slowly nodded his head before handing Eisen an ingot of the seemingly very same metal that was used to make all of these items. "Got it. Anyway, that metal is a creation of my old man. Or rather, of my old man¡¯s body. As you know, we warforged are born with metallic parts in different parts of our bodies, but the actual metal is rather random. My father¡¯s was that, at least from what we could tell. It¡¯s rare to have crystal-alloys, though, at least where I grew up. The Daughter of the Chief of the Vige I grew up in is especially rare, she has purely crystal parts for her non-biological pieces." Fluke pointed out, before Eisen slowly nodded his head before moving his fingers through his beard. "I see, so your Father¡¯s Metal parts were so sturdy you figured you should use it?" Eisen asked, so Fluke shrugged and nodded his head. "Yup, basically. My original metallic parts were an alloy of Silver, Copper, Iron, and about 50% Gold." Fluke said with a sigh, "Those ratios were the same as with my Dad¡¯s, but because of the crystals in the alloy, and because he was just a guard, the heavy weight didn¡¯t bother him. On the other hand, it was a bother for me as a Tinkerer." Fluke said with a sigh, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "I¡¯m sure it was. So you switched your metallic parts out?" Eisen asked, and Fluke scratched the back of his neck with a nod, "Yeah, although nobody in my vige was really happy about it. They let it pass because I at the very least didn¡¯t rece my sigil. So that¡¯s the piece on my forehead here." He exined, pointing to his head, where Eisen swiftly saw what he was talking about. Eisen didn¡¯t recognize the shape, so he didn¡¯t think much about it. "Huh, so that¡¯s what that was." Eisen muttered to himself, but Fluke just raised his brows in response. "You¡¯re saying that like you don¡¯t know about it." The Warforged said with a frown, and Eisen swiftly smiled at him and moved his fingers through his beard in response. "Well, that¡¯s because I don¡¯t. I don¡¯t have memories of my life before a few months ago. My skills and levels were reset as well, by the way, so I might not be able to help you out as much as you think I can." Eisen exined, and Fluke immediately opened his eyes wide in response. "So you really were speaking about a reason to level up then! I thought I misheard something..." He muttered quietly, before Eisen nodded his head in response. "Yes, so I¡¯m sorry if I can¡¯t uphold my part of everything to the extent you would like. At the very least my body is still immortal." Eisen said with a smile on his face, before Fluke just sighed and shook his head. "That¡¯s fine, you apparently made those Golems from before a few days ago, so you¡¯re still good enough to give me some great insight into my own body." Chapter 377 - Road to 200 After everyone got ready, and Eisen finished inspecting some of the broken-down items that Fluke made, the group swiftly moved on with two new members, the Warforged and his Carrier-Golem. The further that they got to the ce the town was supposed to be, the more the group encountered stronger golems, with better materials making up their bodies. Some were made of low-quality iron, some even steel, and then there was the asional Gold Golem as well. For some reason it seemed like whenever a Golem Core was destroyed, depending on the material that their bodies were made up of, they would get more experience in response as well. For example, the few Gold Golems they found gave them about three times as much experience as a normal one, even if they only encountered a handful of them. In general, the Amount of Golems that they encountered increased a lot, so instead of being able to casually walk around, everyone had to really do their part, and Eisen even had to ¡¯Unpack¡¯ all of his golems at some point, and because the Golems were supposed to be far, far stronger than any of the people in the group, they gave a lot of base experience to everyone, and it didn¡¯t take long until Eisen got a new little notification. [You are now Level 199] [Level Up Quest - Road to 200] [Description] You have reached level 199 and as such, have gained the right to work toward reaching level 200. These are your requirements as calcted by your actions so far: -cksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Alchemy Skills at Rank 4(2/5) -Racial Skills at Rank 4 (Complete) -upation Skill Crafting Space at Rank 4, Crafter¡¯s Mind at Rank 3 (0/2) -Mana Maniption, me of the Earth Magic at Rank 4, Mana Double, Mana Copy at Rank 3 (0/4) -Woodworking, Cooking, Drawing, Tool Connection, Soul Engineering, Truth Seeing Eye, Farming, Mining, Masonry Skills at Rank 3 (3/ 9) -Reach a Soul Strength of at Least 300(Iplete) -Spend A Total of 24 Hours practicing within your Soul Realm(0/24) [Reward] Level increased to 200 [Failure] Not Possible "Ah, there it is." Eisen said with a smile on his face after ranger shot through thetest Golem Core, and nodded his head in satisfaction. "Hmm, most of these things don¡¯t seem too far away... the 24 hour practice is do-able as well... Alright, let¡¯s do this, then." Eisen smirked to himself, before the others in his group turned to him confused. "Did something happen, Grandfather?" Kiron asked, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head. "Yeah, I just got my next Level Up Quest, so I¡¯d like to get to it pretty soon... How far away is the town, Fluke?" The old man asked, and Fluke looked up into the sky for a few moments before looking around the environment. "Not too far. Maybe another one or two hours." Fluke exined, so Eisen moved his fingers through his beard with a nod. "Perfect, then I hope we¡¯ll be able to deal with the Golem King quickly." "Yeah, although, judging from the fights so far, it shouldn¡¯t be a huge issue." The Warforged said with a wry smile, looking at the young pink-haired girl who was stashing away lots of materials inside of her backpack, while Eisen nodded his head. "I guess so, but even then... Hm?" Just when Eisen was about to respond, he was sent a message by one of his fellow Originals. [Jyuuk] We found the town, it¡¯s at the easternmost part of the ind. Shouldn¡¯t be hard to miss, it¡¯s surrounded by some hills, everything else is pretty t Confused, Eisen raised his eyebrows and looked over toward Fluke. "Where did you say you found the townst time again?" He asked, and the Warforged crossed his arms with a slight frown, "At the westernmost part of the ind, why?" "You¡¯re not coincidentally very bad with directions?" He asked, but Fluke just stared back with a nk expression. "I literally have apass in my hand. No, I¡¯m not bad with directions." Fluke replied and then pointed into the distance. "We just be able to see it over there, the town was directly in the center of some hills acting like walls." Fluke said, and with a slight frown, Eisen stepped over toward Bree¡¯s backpack and reached inside, grabbing one of his own small mechanical tools, throwing it in the direction of that Fluke was pointing at before mentallymanding it to start flying further in that direction while connecting to the device in Eisen¡¯s hand. "And a few momentster, it was pretty clear that something else was going on. At the spot where Fluke was saying the town was supposed to be was instead a giant crater, and Eisen smirked in response as he showed the screen to the Warforged. "Seems like we should head east instead. A friend of mine just let me know that it¡¯s in that direction, so we should probably get going there." Eisen told him and the group, before Bree opened her eyes wide in response. "Wait, East?! Isn¡¯t that where Jyuuk and Xenia were going?" She asked, as if something horrible just happened, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, Jyuuk messaged me... Something wrong with that?" He exined and Bree looked at her brother with shock in her eyes, and Sky seemed to react in a very simr way, so that Eisen couldn¡¯t just let that be. "Both of you tell me what¡¯s going on right now." The old man told them, worried that something was going on, before Bree looked down at the ground embarrassedly, "We made a bet with them to see who found the Town first..." With a wry smile, Eisen slowly shook his head and sighed out deeply while catching CB-1 as it was deactivating itself mid-air. "And what did you bet?" He asked while the group slowly started moving, and Sky scratched his cheek with a wry smile. "One week¡¯s worth of Dessert?" Sky exined, so Eisen just sighed once more, although he inevitably began tough. "Now, that¡¯s something I haven¡¯t heard in a long time." The old man said with augh, just remembering back at how something simr happened with Tony, Natsuo and Melody when they were kids. Tony and Melody¡¯s were only about two years apart in age, but Natsuo was a whole five years older, so he ended up turning into a little bit of the ssic ¡¯Mean Older Brother¡¯. For the most part, he was just messing with them in ways that they had no chance to fight back. For example, Natsuo would often just sit in front of the TV, and when there were episodes of a show he saw before but Tony and Melody didn¡¯t, he would bet with them about what would happen next in the show while pretending he never saw the episode before. Usually, they bet small things like Dessert, so this whole thing kind of reminded Eisen a little bit of that. "Well, I guess that¡¯s good to know then. I¡¯ll make sure the two of them get their winnings." Eisen said with a light chuckle, and immediately, Bree and Sky stared at Eisen as if he just stabbed them in the back, "H-How could you?! I thought you would help us out, maybe give us our actual dessert in secret... But you would do something like that?!" Bree asked with shock in her voice, and Sky nodded his head and looked down at his book. "I knew it, the heroes in stories are all just lies, aren¡¯t they?" Sky said with a frown, and Eisen simply began tough as the group began to walk toward the east during the flow of this conversation, "Stop being so melodramatic, will you?" The old man asked them, and the two Fey-Kin twins looked at each other with sad expression. "What a grim old man he is." Sky said first, and Bree immediately nodded her head, "You couldn¡¯t be more right." While just smirking as the two of them were saying this, Eisen kept walking forward with the group behind him, and signaled at them when the next golem was within sight. And so, the group just continued on toward the east, while Bree and Sky were still crying about the loss of the greatest treasure there ever was. Dessert. --- And a few hourster, they all reached a rtively t area, in the middle of which therge hills could be seen that both Fluke and Jyuuk mentioned. But the Warforged was still rather confused about everything. "That¡¯s so weird... That¡¯s definitely the town, but I could¡¯ve sworn it was back where we were before..." Fluke muttered quietly, and Eisen slowly crossed his arms and looked at the hills while activating his Truth-Seeing Eyes, smirking as he did so. "Oh, I¡¯m sure it was." The old man said next, before Fluke looked up at him confused, but Eisen didn¡¯t seem to want to continue the exnation any further. Instead, he just picked up the pace a little, somewhat rushing the group to hurry up as well as he was doing so. He didn¡¯t even worry about collecting every little piece of precious materials, and was just staring at the hills in front of him. And soon enough, Fluke warned them about something. "Wait, I think there¡¯s a new type of Golem! Seems like a flying ice-type?" The Warforged said while preparing one of his items that could even be used at a range, but Eisen swiftly stopped him and just extended his hand forward in the direction of that ¡¯Flying Ice Golem¡¯, which swiftly approached the group andnded on Eisen¡¯s index and middle fingers, before the old man looked at the Eagle with a smile. "Nice to see you, Aotori. So Jyuuk¡¯s nearby?" The old man asked as he started to run his hand over the Ice-Covered Bird¡¯s head, and Aotori herself swiftly leaned into his hand as he was doing so, slightly nodding her head. "Alright, then let¡¯s hurry up, shall we? Can you show us where Jyuuk is at exactly?" Eisen asked the Eagle, and she quickly replied with a single nod and then pped her wings, causing a bit of cold air to spread around the area, before she started flying again, probably right toward where Jyuuk was waiting for them. And so, the group swiftly followed them, while Fluke somewhat embarrassedly went back to fiddling with one of his items using the tools hidden in his fingers. "That reminds me, wasn¡¯t Jyuuk attempting an experiment with his Necromancy and an Eagle-Egg?" Kirisho asked curiously, being reminded of it when she saw the first monster that the Beastperson had tamed, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Yes, I¡¯m pretty sure it worked rtively well, but the natural aging slowed down heavily, so at the same time it¡¯s taking far longer for the egg to initially hatch. It should be there soon though. Probably." Eisen pointed out, and the Mist-Spirit smiled back at him. "The way I am right now, I¡¯m unable to tame any monsters, so I¡¯m kind of jealous when I see your three cuties or how pretty Jyuuk¡¯s are." Kirisho admitted with a lightugh, and Eisen raised his eyebrows in response. Kirisho usually stayed very silent and closed-off, so he was really surprised to see her in that way, but Eisen didn¡¯t really mind it at all. After the conversation he and Kirisho had on the day before reaching the central ind, they didn¡¯t really speak all that much, and especially when hearing her say something like that, Eisen felt like he wanted to do something for her. It was true that she wasn¡¯t able to properly use a lot of abilities that other people took as normal as a Ghost-type monster, but Eisen already had a pretty nice idea, and swiflty turned toward the woman next to him. "Kirisho, what¡¯s your favorite animal, by the way?" Chapter 378 - Friendly Bickering "My favorite animal?" Kirisho asked surprised, and Eisen nodded his head in reply. "Yes, your favorite animal. Or rather, if you had to choose a single one, what animal would you choose to tame?" He added to his question, and Kirisho slowly held her hand in front of her mouth and thought about it for a little while, seemingly trying to hide a smile from Eisen. "If I had to choose, then maybe I would say a fox?" Kirisho exined, and without even questioning it, Eisen nodded his head with a smirk. "A Fox, huh?" Eisen asked, and Kirisho nodded her head. "Yes, but why exactly did you want to know that?" The Mist-Spirit asked from Eisen, but he just winked at her with a smile on his face. "You¡¯ll see." The old man told her, and Kirisho slowly nodded her head, before Eisen turned toward Fluke, trying to speak to him without Kirisho hearing him. "I want to speak to you about an item I would like to createter. From the way you¡¯ve been speaking so far, you¡¯ll probably stick along even in town, right?" Eisen asked him, and the Warforged nodded his head, surprised and curious about what Eisen wanted to make exactly, "Well, that¡¯s what I had in mind, at least. As I said, I¡¯m not sure how much help I could be there, but I¡¯ll try my best." "Don¡¯t worry, you were a great help so far." Eisen replied immediately, "Especially when we were facingrge, rougher golems, your creations really helped out a lot." He told the man next to him, and Fluke just smiled back. "Is that so? Nice to hear that." He responded with a smirk, and Eisen looked in front of him after hearing a little bit of noise in the distance, although he wasn¡¯t really surprised to see that it was just Jyuuk and Xenia fighting some Golems. "Ah, there the two of them are." Eisen smiled, and before he knew it, the two of them also looked toward the old man and approached the group when they finished off thest golem in front of them. "Great, you came pretty quickly." Jyuuk said with a happy nod, quickly taking Aotori back in onto his skin, before he turned toward Fluke and his carrier-golem. "Wait, did you make two more Golems while you were traveling?" He asked surprised, but Eisen immediately shook his head with augh. "No, no, this is Fluke, a Warforged. The same race as the ¡¯Failure¡¯ that the others mentioned back in Prototype. And that behind him is Fluke¡¯s Golem." Eisen exined, so Jyuuk scratched the back of his head embarrassedly, "Oh... Sorry about that, then. Nice to meet you, Fluke. My name is Jyuuk, and this here is Xenia." The Monkey Beastperson said with a slight bow forward, before Fluke shook his head in response. "That¡¯s fine, happens all the time when I¡¯m travelling. Warforged may be considered a race of ¡¯People¡¯, but there aren¡¯t many of us, and we usually keep to ourselves, so not many other people really saw any of us." The Warforged Tinkerer exined in an understanding voice, so Jyuuk replied with a nod, although he was interested in something else right now, slowly approaching Fluke¡¯s back, squatting down behind him to take a closer look at thergest spot of his exposed Bark-Skin on his whole body. "I heard what Warforged are like, but this is truly surprising. Do you have regr internal organs? Is just your outeryer made of bark, or are you wooden all the way through? And these metal pieces seem practically fused to you..." Jyuuk said curiously, and Fluke nodded his head as if it was nothing. After all, he was the kind of person to do practically the same thing to Eisen before. "Yes, we have internal organs, although it sometimes happens that they are metallic as well. That¡¯s just on rare asions though, but I for example have a metallic heart. It coincidentally doesn¡¯t act like metal though, but regr flesh, which we do have. It¡¯s a bit different in its making to regr meat, but..." Fluke said and slowly removed a panel on his arm to subtly show his work off a bit as well, "Here, it¡¯s not really proper flesh that all of you have, it¡¯s more of a mixture of nts and flesh. It can connect practically perfectly to non-organic matter if you just leave it there for a while and let it ¡¯Heal¡¯ onto you." The Warforged exined, seemingly more than just happy to have someone else to speak about his body with. Eisen was really interested in his mechanical parts, while Jyuuk was curious about his biological parts, so the three of them would surely be able to speak about a lot of fun things together! But before then, there was something else that needed to be done. "Are the others nearby yet?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk swiftly nodded his head in response. "I sent my other eagles out, and they seem to have found them. Their group is about an hour away from here if they don¡¯t run into any tough Golems." Jyuuk pointed out, so Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Alright, good. Then let¡¯s just wait for them and prepare. Did you find a good spot to enter already?" Eisen asked, before Xenia replied to him. "There¡¯s three entrances in the form of tunnels. But there are a lot of golems in each of them, so we didn¡¯t go inside yet. The most useful for fighting against Golems is Brody, after all." Xenia admitted, so Eisen just chuckled and began to move his fingers through his beard. "That is definitely true, he should make it possible for us to finish the fight with the King Golem pretty quickly." Eisen responded, although the only one that didn¡¯t really understand it was Fluke. "In what way? The King Golem is probably a lot stronger than you think it is... It¡¯s a Rank 5 Golem, you know? And it¡¯s a Perfect Quality one as well, so it¡¯s basically at the peak of the strength it can have. And through bing a boss, it was surely empowered as well." Fluke pointed out, before the Pdin Half-Dragon standing next to Kiron spoke up in response. "Well, maybe not as much as you think. The state as a boss increases your stats a fair bit, you have more Health and Mana to use, and a certain few of your abilities are strengthened. But a Golem¡¯s strength reliesrgely on the materials they are made of, and they don¡¯t directly have any special abilities in the form of skills that can be strengthened. Its materials will surely be incredible, but as far as I am aware, we can work around that through Sir Brody?" The Pdin suggested, and Eisen immediately nodded his head in response. "Exactly my thinking. And because the Golem Core is apparently exposed openly, as long as we can make any one of Brody¡¯s weapons hit the core at least once, we should be able to damage it a fair bit." He replied, before turning toward Fluke. "You said you managed to get a look at it through one of your creations? What exactly was the King Golem like?" While scratching his cheek, Fluke swiftly exined, "It¡¯s just a huge golem made of stone-bricks. Proportion-wise, it¡¯s simr to my big guy here, but he¡¯s about ten meters tall." The Warforged Tinkerer exined to them, so Eisen nodded his head in thought. "Alright, that shouldn¡¯t be too tough then. Especiallyrge golems are pretty slow, right? I doubt we¡¯ll have too much trouble hitting the Golem Core." Eisen said, but both Jyuuk and Xenia looked at him with a wry smile the very moment he said it. "Could you stop trying to actively Jinx us here?" Xenia asked him, but Eisen just looked at her confused, "What do you mean? I¡¯m just trying to say that it¡¯s probably going to be an easier fight than we thought it would be." The old man replied, before Jyuuk sighed out deeply in response, shaking his head as if he was disappointed. "You¡¯re going to make us lose if you keep going like that..." Jyuuk told him, and as such, the conversation swiftly derailed from talking about the actual boss to the fact that they would ¡¯definitely lose¡¯ because of Eisen. And not because Eisen didn¡¯t havebat capabilities, but because he said they would most likely win without much problem. And then, thest group arrived, stopping that conversation from getting away from the actual topic too much. "Get with the times, old man. Learn what words mean before you¡¯re too senile to do so." Brody said with a frownedbined with a smirk, before Eisen turned around toward him and crossed his arms. "Huh? Oh, it¡¯s just you, Brody, barely saw you down there." Eisen replied with augh, but Brody looked up at the 4 meter old man and didn¡¯t back off either. "Now that you mentioned it, aren¡¯t you supposed to stop growing by the time you¡¯re 20? Now look at you, older than modern civilization and experiencing a growth spurt again." Brody shook his head back and forth slowly while crossing his arms, for some reason trying to act disappointed, although Eisen just smiled back. "Be careful what you¡¯re saying or I¡¯ll make an item that forcefully shrinks you down to a meter, and then we¡¯ll see who¡¯sughing about a sudden change in height." Eisen replied to the Demon-Orc, who just stared back at Eisen, nodding his head with satisfaction. "You got me there, let¡¯s just call this one a draw." Brody said with a smile, but before anyone else could say anything, the Combatist swiftly looked at Fluke. "What¡¯s that? Cyborg Groot?" Brody asked as he turned toward the rest, and Evalia, Jyuuk and Xenia all looked at him, obviously mentally drawing theparison. The others didn¡¯t know who or what ¡¯Groot¡¯ was, and even though Eisen did know it, he would feel bad for Fluke if everyoneughed about it all of a sudden. "I¡¯ll just take that as apliment. Because I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about." The Warforged replied, and Eisen nodded his head as he looked at the new group that joined them just now. "This is Fluke, a Warforged. He¡¯s going to be helping us out a little bit here in the town." Eisen told them, and Brody just shrugged in response. "Cool. So, should we get going? The town doesn¡¯t seem asrge as Prototype, but it should still take a little while to find the boss, right?" Brody asked the others, although Eisen quickly shook his head. "Not necessarily. Fluke was here in town before, and he knows where the boss room is, so we¡¯ll probably be able to get there pretty quickly." Eisen pointed out, although Fluke crossed his arms in response. "Yeah, I¡¯m not so sure about that. It might look like the town I was at before, but this is definitely in apletely different ce. I don¡¯t know what happened to the other one, but this isn¡¯t the same Town that I enteredst time." Fluke replied, and before clearing the misunderstanding up, Eisen listened what the others had to say about it after exining what actually happened. "Fluke wanted to bring us to the town, but we were walking toward the western end of the ind. At the ce where Fluke said to have found the townst time was just a huge crater." Eisen exiend to them, and Brody raised his eyebrows curiously. "Oh? Did someone just obliterate the whole town?" The Demon-Orc asked, but Xenia tuned in next and shook her head, "That¡¯s unlikely, maybe that town was just an illusion and the crater was just always there? There should be a few spells like that..." She suggested, and Jyuuk also nodded in response to that suggestion, "Maybe you ate something from the forest that was unbing and hallucinated through that?" He added, but in the end, none of them really had any clue toward what actually happened, and Fluke just got pissed off. "Well, all of you are wrong. You too, Fluke." Eisen said with a smile, but the Warforged just crossed his arms annoyedly, "What do you mean? The town couldn¡¯t just have stood up and walked over here. But something had to... have..." Fluke said, and in the middle of the sentence realized what was going on. "The whole town is a Golem, isn¡¯t it?" Chapter 379 - Hugs With a smile on his face, Eisen nodded his head in response to Fluke¡¯s question, "Exactly. The whole town is a Golem. And most Importantly, it seems like the Golem and Town core are eitherbined, or just very close together. I can¡¯t exactly tell from here, but I know where those two ces seem to be." Eisen exined, and before he knew it, the others just looked at the hills behind them excitedly. "That means that the whole town will just stand up randomly and walk around the ind?" Jyuuk asked curiously, and Eisen nodded his head in response. "Something along those lines, probably." He replied, and when he did, swiftly looked back at the town. "But there¡¯s some other high-mana spot in town, it might be the King Golem, but it might also be the ce where all the Golems are supposed to appear from. It¡¯s pretty deep underneath the town, though, so I doubt we¡¯ll be able to really get there." Eisen pointed out, before he looked at the nearest tunnel in front of them. "Anyway, we should probably get going pretty soon." The old man told them, before he looked around at the other groups. "There¡¯re apparently a lot of Golems inside the tunnels, so it would be best if we figure out a good tactic to either disrupt them and get through to the other side as quickly as we can, or destroy them one after another." "Hmm, usually, my Maroon weapons work pretty well against them in that way. I¡¯m mostly using my Monkey-Stick or Batons against them, because des will just get blunt, and when I do, whenever I hit them they can¡¯t control the ce that I hit them at for a few moments, and that spot is pretty easily destroyed." Brody exined to the others, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Perfect, we expected something along those lines already. Fluke, I need your help with a small idea for some items for that, it should make the fights easier." Eisen pointed out, and the Warforged raised his brows in response. "Oh? Sure, what¡¯s the idea?" Fluke asked with a curious smirk, and Eisen nodded his head and then turned to the others before going off with Fluke, "Let¡¯s get closer to town, in case it shows any signs of trying to move. Then we¡¯ll just have to sprint into the tunnel either way and try our best." He told them, before Eisen turned toward Fluke again, quickly speaking with him about his idea. "So, what we need are small mechanical tools that can move on their own and use transmutation." Eisen exined to him, before Fluke raised his eyebrows and thought about everything for a moment. "Hmm, why exactly? That Demon said something about using a Maroon-Based weapon? Just ignoring about how he got his hands on it, if it gets into contact with a golem, it disrupts their control by nullifying the mana around it. So what you¡¯re trying to do is make something that can automatically dig through that spot using transmutation?" Fluke asked, before Eisen nodded his head with a smirk. "Exactly, good to see we¡¯re on the same page. Usually, transmuting a Golem isn¡¯t possible because of the mana spread around the body, right? So, my idea is to basically have Brody attack with his monkey-stick, preferably in the center of the chest, and then have that tool jump onto the spot and make a small hole all the way through to the Golem core, so that my Ranger Golem can hit it and shatter it." The old man suggested, and without hesitation, the Warforged nodded his head. "That certainly sounds like a good idea." Fluke replied, and then quickly called his Carrier-Golem over to him, swiftly climbing up onto its back using one of the bars attached to the back for grip, opening up one of thepartments. "Let¡¯s see... I do have something in that direction, but it¡¯s not something I¡¯ve used all that often, and its transmutation isn¡¯t all that potent either." Fluke replied before he took out a small drill-like item with three legs attached to its base. "I have about four of these with me at the moment. As I said, I haven¡¯t used them in a while, and their potency isn¡¯t very high. Shouldn¡¯t be too hard to re-enchant them though. Just give me a few minutes, and I¡¯ll get right to it." The Warforged said with an excited smile and hit the tip of his foot against a spot in the center of the Carrier Golem¡¯s back, causing a small tform to pull out, which Fluke swiftly sat down on while fiddling with the Drills. "Thank you, that¡¯s a great help. In the meantime..." Eisen muttered to himself, swiftly taking out Ranger out of his box, before taking a look at the arrows he had leftover, making sure they were all in proper condition to be shot like that. And after exining the tactics to the Golem with his Giant bow, Eisen moved on and chose to spend the time that everyone would use to take a little bit of a break and prepare for the fights in town for something a little different, and swiftly sat down with his youngest tamed monster, Sal. "Alright then, let¡¯s try and get you a little bit more experience, shall we?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, rubbing the head of the small creature, before moving his fingers through his beard. "What do you want to do most? As far as I can see, there are three main areas you can move in, Dancing, Magic, or using String. It would be pretty great if we couldbine all of them, but that might need to wait a little bit longer. What of those three things do you want to do most right now?" Eisen asked him, and Sal tilted its head to the side and then began to tap Eisen¡¯s hand, which the young Spider was standing on, with his legs. "I¡¯m going to guess that means dance, then?" Eisen asked, and Sal immediately started to dance happily, before Eisen moved his fingers through his beard. "Do you remember back when you used magic in your eyes like I did? How about you try something like that, but do it for your legs. And then while you¡¯re moving your leg, concentrate to properly move your mana into that direction as well. If you do that, and in that way level up your Mana-Maniption, then you might be able to get a ¡¯Dance¡¯ element or something like that." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and as if he was more excited about this than anything that happened in his life so far, Sal immediately began to dance, and Eisen used his Mana-Sight to take a look at what he was doing exactly. Slowly, all of his legs were gaining some more concentrated mana in them and Sal¡¯s legs were moving a lot quicker while he was dancing. It wasn¡¯t necessarily an amazing orplicated dance, but it still moved Eisen¡¯s heart to see Sal try so hard. "Good Job, buddy!" Eisen eximed immediately and checked Sal¡¯s level, noticing that it had already increased to 99. If he fulfilled all the requirements to Evolve, then he would probably get there very soon. Although Eisen didn¡¯t expect it toe this soon. Slowly, while he was dancing, Sal¡¯s body was enveloped in a slight glow and he grew in size still dancing while he was at it, but not only did his body grow a little in general, but his head in the front of his body was reced by a humanoid upper body. And when the glow disappeared and Sal evolved, Eisen managed to see that it seemed like Sal was only one evolution away from bing properly human-like, just like Caria and Melissa. For now, even the small, young child-like upper body was covered in a white carapace, and he still had two fangs in front of his mouth and eight spider-like eyes, but he now also had two extra limbs, two arms, at the side of that torso. And looking down at his new body and twisting around to look behind himself, Sal started to wiggle around for a moment and then started to dance again, although in a more organized and rhythmical fashion. "Well, that was a lot faster than I expected. Godo job, Sal." Eisen said with a smile on his face, rubbing the top of Sal¡¯s head, before he heard a slight screeching from the side. "Xenia, it¡¯s fine, one more evolution and he¡¯ll probably look even more like a cute little boy than he already does." The old man reassured the High-Elf currently hiding behind her boyfriend, "Wh-What..? I¡¯m not scared, what are you even talking about... Sal looks fine just like he is... Although, I of course won¡¯t have anything against it when he evolves to be more humanoid..." She replied, and hearing her speak, Sal turned toward them with a bright smile, at least that¡¯s what it looked like he was doing. Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure. But soon enough, Eisen began to chuckle, "Xenia, I love how you¡¯re trying to be supportive to not hurt his feelings, but you realize hees after his older sisters, right?" Eisen asked her, before Xenia looked in his direction from behind Jyuuk, "What do you mean..?" She asked, and Eisen justughed. "They all love to hug people that are nice to them." He exined, and just when he was doing so, Sal began to walk into Xenia¡¯s direction with his arms spread out wide, and Xenia immediately began to panic, unsure what she should be doing. So, to help her out a little, Eisen instead called over to Sal, "What are you doing, buddy? I¡¯m kind of hurt that I¡¯m not the first person you want to hug with your new arms..." He said with a slight smirk as he looked away, trying to hide exactly that, and now Sal was panicked in turn. Immediately, Sal sprinted back over toward the old man and climbed onto his leg and up to his torso to hug him as tightly as he could, and while he was doing so, Eisen already called Caria and Melissa over, who were just as excited about the young spider¡¯s new ability. And when the two of them approached and Sal saw them, he quickly climbed back off of the old man and hurried over toward them, and the three young monsters immediately started ying around a little bit with each other. In the meantime, while Eisen was watching his cute little children y, Jyuuk was taking care of his own main-monsters, including but not limited to a Large ming Bird, a Bear literally currently made of shadows, a Buckrge enough for Eisen with his fully increased size to ride on and still think that he was too small. "This is so... Weird." Sky muttered to himself with a wry smile as he looked at this scene, seemingly saying what everyone was at least subconsciously thinking, and before long, Fluke climbed off the back of his Carrier Golem with all of the self-moving drills finished up, before he walked up to Eisen. "I¡¯m done, it can open up a wide hole using transmutation, and if it¡¯s lucky enough, it might even be able to destroy the Golem Core itself with its drill. Who knows how deep the effect prates." The Warforged pointed out, swiftly handing them to the old man, who more than just happily took them and then stood up, before making his way over toward Brody, swiftly exining the n that Eisen came up with. "And then, after you hit their chest, just try and somehow get these drills onto that spot in their chest and we¡¯ll take care of the rest. All you need to do is make sure that the mana in that area is disrupted as much as possible." Chapter 380 - King Golem "Got it, I¡¯ll try. Dunno if that¡¯s something I can really control." Brody said as he scratched one of his tusks with a wry smile, and Eisen nodded his head, "That¡¯s fine, really. Anything is going to help." Eisen pointed out, before he handed Brody the Drills and turned toward the others with a smile on his face. "Now then, should we go?" The old man asked them, and everyone swiftly nodded their heads and got ready, before the wholerge group made their way over toward the tunnel, before Jyuuk frowned as he looked in there, seemingly having used one of his mosnters to scout everything out. "The tunnel is aobut 200 Meters long, and there¡¯s about 50 golems in there..." He pointed out with a sigh, before Eisen shrugged andughed a bit. "Well, that¡¯s going to help everyone level up quite a lot, isn¡¯t it?" Eisen asked, "We were already prepared for a fight, so let¡¯s go ahead and just get started." He suggested, before the group slowly stepped into the tunnel, swiftly taking care of the first Golem that they encountered right in front of the entrance. Using the tactic that Eisen came up with, Brody used his-monkey stick and tried to push it into the center of the Golem¡¯s chest before dodging anything that it might want to do in retaliation before cing the drill onto its chest. Immediately the drill reacted and bored into the Golem¡¯s body, opening up a good path to work with before climbing back out, and Ranger then swiftly shot one of hisrge arrows and shot it into the center of the Golem¡¯s body, shooting directly through the thinyer that was still left between the open air and the core to directly shatter that core, causing the Golem to drop down. And then, instead of working toward collecting the materials, they swiftly moved on to the next golem. After all, they could collect the materials when they took over the town and everything was a little bit safer. "Alright, seems like it¡¯s working." Eisen eximed as he pulled the arrow out of the wall, swiftly hurrying to give it back to Ranger, while everyone else also did their best. Whenever Brody damaged a part of the Golems¡¯ mana flow, he would ce a Drill, but when he was momentarily out of drills, he would try and damage other parts of the golems¡¯ bodies as much as he could, before waiting for others to arrive that could help destroy those parts as well. Some of the group were basicallypletely unable to do anything major in this fight, just due to the sheer amount of people inside of the reltively narrow tunnel. For example Kiron, he wouldn¡¯t be able to safely swing his sword around in there, even if he would be great help against enemies like this. But in the end, everone that could help a little bit ended up doing so to speed the process up, and before they knew it, they pushed through to the other end of the tunnel, before Fluke took the lead to show them where the King Golem was exactly. They spent a few more hours just fighting different Golems inside of the town that became stronger and stronger the deeper into town they went, but just before the sun seemed to start going down, Fluke brought them to the center of the town to arge, cylindrical building with a dome-shaped roof. There didn¡¯t seem to be anything else connected to it, really just that building, but what Eisen found interesting was that it was right where he saw the mass amount of energy that seemed to be the golem core before. It seemed like the core was a little bit underneath the ground, but it was definitely the ce, and there wasn¡¯t too much of a distance to the core either if you stood directly above it. Either way, if this was where the King Golem was supposed to be, then they had to get inside of there. But before then, they needed to make a choice. "Alright, who¡¯sing inside?" Eisen asked the group, because the room was probably once more limited to just six people, but it seemed like it didn¡¯t take long to decide this time around, because everyone swiftly looked at Kiron. "You want me to go inside with them?" The Half-Dragon asked surprised, looking over toward Fluke, "I figured he woulde along... He was the one that showed us here, after all." But in response, Fluke immediately shook his head and opened his eyes wide. "Are you crazy? I¡¯m a Tinkerer, and nothing that I have is of any use against the King Golem." He replied before looking toward the five that seemed to go inside in any case. "An Artist and a Crafter Going inside does also seem insane to me, though..." Fluke said with a wry smile, but Eisen immediately shook his head. "I have my five Golems, and they should be a lot of help as well." He pointed out before looking at Evalia, who crossed her arms with a nod. "And you can bet that I can pull my weight in there." She said with a smirk, so Fluke just scratched his cheek and nodded his head in response. "Right, sorry..." He apologized, and Eisen chuckled and swiflty turned toward Kiron. "I mean, you¡¯ll be a lot of help. Considering the size of your weapon, you¡¯ll be a lot of help." Eisen pointed out, before Kiron slowly nodded his head in response, stepping up to the five Originals in front of him, before Eisen stepped up to the door at the front of the building, swiftly pushing it open. They could already see the Giant Stone-Brick Golem in the center of the room, with its core just directly in the center of its chest, exposed to everyone. "Alright, then let¡¯s get inside, shall we?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, taking the first step, followed by the four other Originals as well as Kiron, and when they were all inside, the door automatically shut behind them and the King Golem slowly stared moving, turning toward the intruders immediately while Eisen opened up the five boxes with his Golems inside. "We probably won¡¯t be able to speak to this one about everything, huh?" Eisen muttered with a wry smile, before stepping to the back of the room to make way for everyone to fight, while Evalia started to paint something in the air to cast a buff on the group, before pulling the guitar from her back and starting to y it. "Now then! Let¡¯s get started!" Brody eximed excitedly while he, Deedee, Tank and some of Jyuuk¡¯s Monsters got started attacking it, while Ranger immediately tried shooting the King Golem¡¯s core. And he did manage to do so immediately, but the core didn¡¯t even form a crack. "It really is pretty tough, huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself as he made Supp cast some buffs on his fellow golems, while making croco create arge-area restrainment spell. Xenia was just trying to shoot spells at it as much as she could, while Jyuuk couldn¡¯t really help out at the moment due to the fact that his weapon was now a Scythe. He seemed to be able to use it really well usually, but in a fight like this, his weapon would just get dull way to quickly while not doing any real damage. On the other hand, Kiron was doing a surprising amount of damage while he was working nearly perfectly in sync with Brody. The Demon-Orc would weaken an area, and Kiron would then swing his de at that area to get rid of the rock as soon as possible. For a while, the two of them just focused on the King Golem¡¯s legs, and while the King Golem was able to get a few attacks against everyone in as well, due to its slow speed in anything and everything it was doing, everyone managed to dodge its attacks pretty easily. And then, finally, the Golem Core started to crack, and everyone that could reach it, quickly attacked the area¡¯s of the core with the cracks in it already. And after a while, the core shattered, and the King Golem¡¯s whole body fell to pieces. "Well then, this was pretty easy after all, huh..? I guess Eisen didn¡¯t Jinx it after all." Jyuuk said with a relieved smile, but before he knew it, the old man looked at Jyuuk with a wry smile instead. "Yeah... The fight isn¡¯t over yet." Eisen said and started frowning, telling everyone to take a step back, and although they were confused they did trust in what the old man was saying. "It was ayered Golem Core, we only shattered the outeryer. It was hard to see while everything was dropping down, but I can still see the core with my mana-sight." Eisen pointed out, and just when he was speaking about it, another core, somewhat smaller than the one from before, slowly rose into the air, being pushes up by a new mass of rock. But that new mass of rock wasn¡¯t made up of the same stone-brick material as before, but something like a high-mineral type of rock, something like unprocessed metal-ore. And out of that new material, a new King Golem formed itself. It was a few meters shorter than the original King Golem¡¯s body, but this one seemed to be a lot tougher, and the Golem Core was covered in more areas as well. And before everyone knew it, something else happened as well. The Stone-Bricks of the old King Golem¡¯s body were starting to move as well and swiftly put themselves together into a smaller version, about half as tall, as the original King Golem, and the shards from the old Golem Core were seemingly moving to form the new Golem Core for that smaller King Golem. "That¡¯s bullshit!" Brody eximed with an annoyed frown, but Eisen just chuckled at him in response. "Don¡¯t worry, there¡¯s more of them, but they probably aren¡¯t as strong as the other one." Eisen pointed out, and before he knew it, the two new Golems started to move around, and did so a lot quicker than before. Especially the new ¡¯Main Body¡¯ did, but soon enough, after concentrating on the new ¡¯Replication¡¯ of the King Golem for a little while, they managed to take that one down first, and this time around it seemed to luckily stay down as well. And then, after fighting the second phase of the main King Golem for a little longer, they managed to destroy that body as well, and then, that body crumbled as well. But once more, there was another Core inside of it. Just like before, the smaller Golem Core was pushed up by a new material, this time by what seemed to be Iron, and the rest of the materials of thest phase came together around the rest of the destroyed Golem Core. And after this one was destroyed came the next phase, and now the King Golem¡¯s Main Body was shorter than Eisen in his current maximum size, and the ¡¯Replication¡¯ Golem was always half as tall as the King Golem of the phase before that. After the current phase of the king golem was done, where it had a Golden body, it moved on to what seemed to be thest phase. The Golem Core itself. It just ¡¯Folded¡¯ open and turned humanoid on its own, and was the size of aparatively tall human. But what was the issue here wasn¡¯t the Golem¡¯s size, but the fact that it was now incredibly fast, so fast that not many of the others could actually properly keep up with it. But due to consistent efforts from everyone in the group, they managed to beat the ¡¯Replication¡¯ Gold King-Golem, and could then concentrate on the actual King Golem. Slowly, more and more cracks formed on its body, and after a long, tough fight, its body finally shattered into pieces. Chapter 381 - Judah "This time, is it FINALLY dead?" Brody asked annoyedly as he stepped up to the pile of crystals and kicked it with a bit of anger in his voice, before he turned to the others as a notification appeared in front of them, telling them that they beat the Ind Boss. "Neat." Evalia said with a smirk on her face, "Finally reached Level 199... Takes pretty long to as support..." The Artist said with a deep sigh, and the others looked at Evalia with nod. "Yeah, I¡¯m pretty sure we¡¯re all working on the quest right now. There¡¯s still a lot of different things that need to be done, but it¡¯s not as bad asst time." Jyuuk replied as he waved his notifications away, and Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard as he stepped around the room, "That is true, yes. But after we established this as a town and connected the Core Guardian to it, I¡¯ll be spending a day in my own Soul Realm through Deep Visualization as part of my Level Up quest." The old man pointed out, and Brody nodded his head immediately, "Right, yeah, I also had to spend a lot of time in my Meditation... Didn¡¯t actually manage to finish that up yet though, still have a few hours left." The Demon-Orc exined, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Then let¡¯s just get to thatter. I¡¯m not sure if we¡¯re going to be able to make use of the Golems in town, but if we can, reconstruction of whatever may be broken should happen rather quickly. And while we¡¯re doing all that, we should work toward our quests before moving onto the next ind." Eisen suggested as he looked toward Kiron with a smile. "And what about you? Did you get a bit of a nice increase as well?" The old man asked, before Kiron immediately nodded, "Yes I did. I seem close to the point I was at when I ranked up to Rank 5." The Half-Dragon exined, and Eisen just smiled at him, "I see, that¡¯s good to know then. While you¡¯re waiting with the others, how about you use the time to train a bit more with the Pdin?" He asked, and Kiron quickly swung his de over his shoulder to be able to hold it more easily and then smiled back at the old man. "That sounds like a good idea, yes. Do you want me to help you get the materials out of here?" The Half Dragon asked and stepped up to the pile of gold in front of Eisen, which he and the Golems were already grabbing just now to bring them outside. "That would be nice, thank you. I think once we leave the room, it¡¯s going to return to what it was supposed to be like in the central ind, so I want to get whatever we can before that happens." And as such, they did just that. Quickly, everyone beside one person brought some of the materials outside and then let the others know that their help might be needed, and then they all quickly collected the different Golem Core Shards and other materials such as Iron or Gold. And when everything was cleared out, everyone stepped outside and closed the door, before that door was directly opened again. "It really is different now. But that was quite a surprise... To think that you really were able to beat the King Golem without as much as a major injury." Fluke muttered surprised as the five Originals slowly made their way into the new room. "Well, what do you think, they¡¯re the five that peaked." Sky said with a wry smile as he looked up from one of his books, before Fluke turned his sight to the backs of the five people there. "Wait, not only Eisen, but those other four also..." The Warforged muttered to himself, seemingly wanting to follow them into the building out of immense curiosity, before he was quickly stopped by quite literally everyone in the group. "Yeah, about that, you¡¯re not getting inside there." The Fey-Kin boy said with a frown, and Fluke turned toward him confused, as if trying to ask ¡¯Why not?¡¯, and Sky quickly picked up on that. "You¡¯re not going to follow them because we just met you today. In Prototype, a lot of Guardians had their blood stolen from a Warforged, and then we coincidentally find a Warforged with the same goal as him on the next ind over. And the moment you heard who Eisen was, you went a bit insane and had a bunch of bugs crawl over him. Not to forget, the first time you even saw us, you attacked Eisen in a way that would cripple a normal person. So yeah, you¡¯re not necessarily trusted yet." He said with a sigh, and Fluke scratched his cheek with a wry smile, slowly nodding his head. "Fair enough. Guess I gotta earn your trust then, huh?" Fluke asked, and Sky immediately nodded his head, "Yup." In the meantime, inside of the building, the five Originals took a closer look around at everything. It really was a fair bit different now, even if not by a lot. The main difference was the decoration and state of the room, as well as the staircase now leading down into another room in the center of the space, even if nobody could see what the room below actually was. But at the very least, Eisen had a guess, "That¡¯s probably the Golem Core and Town Core down there, at least that¡¯s what it looks like from here." The old man pointed out as he deactivated his truth-seeing eyes again, before the others looked at each other with a bit of thought. "Alright... Then, who¡¯s going to be the Lord of this town?" Xenia asked around. Usually they would have liked Eisen to be the Lord again, because all of them would have liked to be the Lord of another ce, such as the Inds as the God of Combat, Magic, or Art. But in the end, they did need someone to be a lord. "Don¡¯t worry, for now we just have to concentrate on getting more towns, so all of us will be the lord of one town. I¡¯m pretty sure the Lord of a Town can be switched outter on as well, so we¡¯ll figure that out when we formed a country." Eisen reassured them, so the High Elf swiftly chose to step up for this task if that was the case. "It¡¯s part of my expertise as well, so I guess I¡¯ll be the Lord for now, then." Xenia said with a smile on her face, before Eisen nodded his head as the group started to descend the stairs in the center of the room, while Eisen already grabbed the box with the Core Guardian inside of it. And as they stepped into the room below them, they were surprised to see what this room actually was. It was a room madepletely of crystal, the walls, the rest of the stairs, everything. And Eisen pretty quickly recognized what those crystals were. "Guess I was right... This room is the Golem Core." Eisen said with a wry smile, and Xenia slowly nodded her head as well. "Yeah, seems that way... But wouldn¡¯t that mean it¡¯s super brittle? It doesn¡¯t seem like the kind of material we could make stairs out of..." She pointed out, but Eisen just shook his head as he ran his hands over the crystal areas and took a closer look. "This is a pretty dense one, so it¡¯s seemingly highlypressed. It should be fine, really. But take a look over there." Eisen said with a smile on his face, jerking his chin slightly toward the center of the room toward the purple crystal set into a crystal pedestal. Or rather, the edges of the Town Core were merged with the edges of the Golem Core pedestal. "Alright, as I thought... They Golem and Town cores are somewhatbined. Not really, but it should have some pretty curious effects on the Golem." Eisen said with a smile on his face, moving his fingers through his beard as Xenia approached the Town Core. "You just poured your mana insidest time, right?" She asked the old man, who simply nodded before the High Elf did just that as well, quickly causing the Core to Glow up. And that glow spread across the Golem Core and caused the whole room to light up for a few moments. [The Town of has been re-established under the Guild . The Town¡¯s Rank has been set at 1] [Xenia has been assigned as the Lord of the Town ] "This town was literally called Golem?" Eisen asked with a slightugh, before looking toward Xenia, "Want to change the name, or do you want to keep it?" The old man asked her as he grabbed the Core Guardian out of the box, and Xenia scratched her cheek before shaking her head. "I think I¡¯ll keep it, sounds pretty nice." She replied, before she looked toward Eisen and the Core Guardian. "Can I activate it?" Xenia asked curiously, and Eisen nodded his head, "Of course, that was the n." As Eisen was chuckling, Xenia swiftly stepped up to the child-like body of the Core Guardianying on the ground, before swiftly pouring her mana into the Ego-Golem Core in the center of the Guardian¡¯s body. And after a little bit of creaking here and there, the Core Guardian slowly stood up and just stared at Xenia without emotions. "Now then... Connect to the Town Core here." The High-Elf told the Core Guardian, and before she knew it, the Guardian stepped toward it and ced its hand onto the Town Core. "So, did it work?" Evalia asked Xenia, and she swiftly turned back toward the Artist and nodded her head with a smile, "Mhm, it did. But we¡¯re supposed to leave the room now to let the Artificial Evolution happen." "Then let¡¯s go." Jyuuk said with a smile, swiftly starting to step up the stairs while followed by the other Originals, and the Moment that all of them stepped back into the room at the top of the stairs, a figure appeared through a cloud of mist. This one seemed a lot more mechanical than Eisen expected, as if it was really focusing on showing off that it was an artificial, mechanical being, different to the other Guardians that Eisen saw until now. It may now be clear that they are mechanical, due to some scratches or rust still left on their bodies, but it was very clear that they were supposed to look as life-like as possible. And even this Guardian¡¯s voice was pretty mechanical and robotic. "Nice to meet you. I am the Guardian of this Town . Tell me what to do." It told the Lord of the Town, Xenia, and she slowly turned around toward Eisen. "Well, do you want to tell it? You¡¯ve been doing the most nning when ites to the towns." Xenia admitted, so Eisen just smiled in response and moved his fingers through his beard. "Alright, then don¡¯t mind if I do. But before then, Xenia, did you name it yet?" The old man asked, but Xenia shook her head swiftly in response, "Not yet, but I think Judah might be nice?" She suggested, and Brody raised his eyebrows in response, "What kinda name¡¯s that supposed to be? Damn, your kids are gonna be bullied someday..." The Demon-Orc said with a sigh and shook his head disappointedly, but Xenia just red at him without hesitation. "The first person that made a Golem in Mythology was called Judah, moron." She replied and swiftly turned toward the Town Core Guardian. "Alright, Judah, listen to what Eisen has to say." Xenia said, seemingly now having made a decision after Brody¡¯sment, and the Town Guardian swiftly turned toward the old man in response. And Eisen then quickly got started trying to figure a lot of things for the town out. Chapter 382 - Fox Golem "Alright, Judah, are you just connected to the Town or also the Golem that the town is ced on?" Eisen asked, and judging from the Guardian¡¯s appearance, Eisen could already guess what the answer to that question was, but he simply wanted to be sure. "The Town is the Golem, and the Golem is the Town. I can dictate its path, the creation of more golems done by this Town, and the behavior of said Golems." Judah replied immediately, so Eisen grinned broadly, as this was just what he was hoping for. "Now then, how are all the Golems actually created?" Eisen asked next, so Judah quickly replied. "A special crystal of divine nature is set on the underbelly of the Golem. While the Golem is moving, it creates more Golems along its path." "Huh... Well, that¡¯s perfect, then." Eisen said with a smirk on his face, before the others looked at him confused. "How¡¯s that perfect? Isn¡¯t it just annoying to have an infinite amount of enemies around?" Evalia asked, but Eisen immediately shook his head. "Of course it is, but you have to think about it. Golems need to be created. They aren¡¯t like monsters that can breed and multiply their numbers that way. At some point, we¡¯re letting people get here, right? So of course, some of those people would want to be able to go out and level up a bit, especially the Artificials. But the Golems would at some point run out. Since we can manipte the creation of Golems through Judah, and manipte those Golems afterward, we can create safe routes for people that just want to travel, and specific hunting-grounds for those that want to level up." Eisen exined to them, before he turned back toward Judah. "And most importantly, we have a basically infinite workforce as well. Judah, it would be great if you could get to the reconstruction of the town and make the golems both not attack anyone, and help out with that reconstruction as much as possible. Xenia, can you supervise all of that, and that we have all the special buildings we need as well?" Eisen asked her, and the High-Elf immediately nodded her head in response, before the old man looked toward Brody. "Then if everyone is alright with it, I think Brody and I should get to the long parts of our Level-Up Quests. After that we¡¯ll help out with whatever is needed, of course." Eisen told the others, and the three others were happy to make sure everything would work out properly, while Brody stepped up toward Eisen, and the old man slowly crossed his arms. "Now, do you need to meditate in a special ce, or can you do that anywhere this time around?" In response, Brody just began tough and shook his head, "Nah, don¡¯t worry. It¡¯s just basic old meditation. Time passes a bit quicker now while I¡¯m meditating, and I can set a ¡¯timer¡¯ as well. And other than that, I can practice stuff like my energy control, so I¡¯ll be fine. What¡¯re you gonna do in your ¡¯Deep Visualization¡¯ thing?" Brody asked, and Eisen just smiled back at him, "What do you think I¡¯m going to do?" "Fair point... Well, then have fun with that. Let¡¯s just sit down here or somethin¡¯, I¡¯ll wake you up if something¡¯s wrong." The Demon-Orc told Eisen, and the old man nodded as the two of them sat down against the wall of the room so that they wouldn¡¯t bother anyone. And then, while Brody sat down cross-legged and started his Meditation, Eisen quickly did something simr, although he just sat down regrly and closed his eyes, trying to quickly get into the state of ¡¯Deep Visualization¡¯, which would bring him into his Soul Realm. And just a little whileter, he found himself inside of the same room that he was in this time, even if the room was a little bitrger this time around. Either way, immediately, Eisen got to work with what he wanted to practice. And what he wanted to practice was the item that he wanted to get Fluke¡¯s help with. The two of them were already talking quite a bit about different methods of creating things like automata beforehand, and Eisen got a few really neat ideas through that conversation. But for the most part, Eisen just needed to y around a little bit. The best thing about all of this was that he was technically meditating right now, which would heavily slow down the rate at which he lost stamina, meaning that he could just stay inside of his Soul Realm the whole 24 hours that he needed to straight. "Alright then..." The old man started, but was soon put off by the echo that appeared through his talking. He wasn¡¯t in here for a good amount of time, so he would just need to get used to this again over a little bit of time, but it didn¡¯t seem like the kind of thing that would take long. First, Eisen created a few different materials with his will so that he could experiment with the perfect material for the metal base. He was first thinking about using brass like with his two Automata, but he figured he should use a different material to fit better with his ns. The material that Fluke was using didn¡¯t necessarily seem to be the best material there was for Eisen¡¯s items, but they were surprisingly efficient when used for tinkering like Fluke was doing. The reasons for that were rtively simple. For one, the crystals inside of the metal, and gold inside of it. It seemed like some of the negative qualities of gold were lost through the qualities, for example the low melting temperature, how soft it was, and the weight seemed to have decreased a little as well. Fluke luckily told Eisen what kind of crystals were inside of the alloy so that he could figure all of that out. Because normally, it seemed like Gold also had a lot of qualities of magical nature that it obviously didn¡¯t have in the real world. For one, it worked as an amazing mana-conductor! So when it came to making magic items, Gold was always a good material to use for smaller parts at the very least. So first, Eisen created an alternate verison of Brass that had some crystals alloyed inside of it to increase strength and mana-flow. And other than that, Eisen also chose to ¡¯Imagine¡¯ a bit of that alloy infused with mana. It was pretty weird sometimes in this space, while Eisen could imagine whatever he wanted, things still seemed to work like they usually would if he didn¡¯t just imagine in, and the brass seemed to be actually a little bit different in how it acted after being infused with mana. And Eisen was actually pretty d to see that, because that meant that he wouldn¡¯t end up thinking up an item that wouldn¡¯t actually work when trying to actually create it. So then, Eisen swiftly got to work with all the materials that he now had, and then began to work on the different parts for it. The item that Eisen wanted to practice creating now was a small mechanical Fox simr to an Automaton in its structure, but also fairly different. As Kirisho exined to Eisen, she wasn¡¯t able to tame anything in the form she was now, but considering that she had mana, it would surely be possible for her to connect to a Golem if she tried to. And if not, then Eisen would just activate the Golem and tell it to treat Kirisho like its owner, like a small loophole. Andter on, Eisen would also switch the Golem Core inside of the Fox out for an Ego-Golem core so that Kirisho could actually have something like a proper tamed animal that she could raise from the get-go. Or rather, if Eisen was lucky and his upation skill for Level 200 was the Ego-Item creation skill he wanted, then he would try and Rank that skill up as much as he could and then, when he could create proper Ego-Golems, would go ahead and make the first version an Ego-Golem right off the bat. But for now, he needed to work on this. To start it off, Eisen had to figure out the actual body of a Fox. He already had a rough idea of what it was like, but he would need to first get Jyuuk¡¯s help with this before actually properly making the item. For now, it would be fine if he just did it how he thought it would be good, because he wasn¡¯t really creating an actual item anyway. First, Eisen created all the different parts, starting out with the bones. It was something that he had done a few times before, so it wasn¡¯t that big of a deal, it was just a slight bit smaller than the other ones he made so far, that¡¯s all. So, Eisen soon enough finished everything for that, and then he sat down and got to work with the things he ¡¯learned¡¯ from Fluke and the Guardians that he repaired and built so far. What was important for something like this was a properly artificial mana-flow. If something was there to dictate that flow, in the shape of something like mana-crystal thread, then the mana would flow along that path. It was basically like blood-vessels, just that the mana was flowing through them instead, as if carrying ¡¯Magical Nutrients¡¯ through your body to keep you running. Usually that wasn¡¯t something you were able to see all that well, especially not with a low Mana Maniption Rank, but at this point Eisen could also somewhat feel that there were these small flows of mana throughout his body other than the central clump in the center of his body where his heart was. So, Eisen figured he should try and simte those kind of ¡¯Mana Vessels¡¯ as well, and even if they weren¡¯t normally something physically there, with Golems it might be a good idea to do so. And then, Eisen got another idea for how he could work with that. First, he imagined a roll of somewhat thick mana-crystal thread, together with a source of mana thread. And then, he attached the mana thread to a mana needle and slowly moved it through some of the mana-crystal thread, before cing the mana needle into the actual steel needle. And just like that, he had some mana thread encapsuled inside of mana-crystal thread. Eisen wasn¡¯t actually sure if this really did anything or if this was just a waste of time, but as far as Eisen was concerned, it seemed like a rtively good idea. And so, by slightly hardening the mana-crystal thread so that it would keep its shape more easily, Eisen created what for now seemed like just a model of a Fox¡¯s skeleton and bloodflow. Although, the bloodflow would being only now. What Eisen wanted to do for this was also something simr to the mana-crystal thread, just that he wanted to try something else out. He wasn¡¯t entirely sure if it would work like that normally, but Eisen quickly created a second flow of the mana-crystal thread encapsuling the mana thread, and then manipted the mana thread to act as if he was using transmutation, so that he was able to practically pull the core of the mana-crystal thread out of it using the mana thread to get a thin, hollow tube that Eisen would be able to fill up with a fitting type of potion to act as support to the whole body. Of course, all of that was already hooked up to a small ¡¯ceholder¡¯ golem core inside of the ribcage, which was basically just a small crystal sphere in the size that Eisen wanted to have the actual golem core to beter on. Chapter 383 - Practice Time When Eisen finished all of these base things up already, he started trying to figure out the best structure for the rest of the Fox¡¯s body. After all, he would need to construct it around the blood and mana veins now, and even though they weren¡¯t just asplex as the regr circtory system was, they still they were still something that was rtively tough to work around, but Eisen ended up managing this just fine. After all, the next step was to bulk the Fox¡¯s body up a bit anyway, by just adding the different gears now. And instead of creating aplex puzzle of different gears and tubes, Eisen only ced some gears around the different joints that needed support in their movement, and then chose to hook those gears up to each other in a simr way that Fluke was sending signals through his body, which was through crystal cables, such as very thin mana-crystal thread that was bundled up like ss-fiber cables were. And those cables were then hooked up to the small gems in the center of the central gear of each bundle of gears to activate the proper rotation of it. Of course, these cables were also hooked up to the Golem Core ceholder so that the flow of everything could be properly controlled. Then, Eisen also added a mana battery and a soul-generator into the body of the Fox Automaton, also directly hooked up to the Golem Core ceholder, and then, Eisen just added a few different crystal structures for things like eyes, ears, nose and tongue, as well as the brain of course, into the Fox-Head and then started carving a few things onto the skeleton, something which he would most likely try to do with the marble workstation that he somewhat ¡¯Stole¡¯ from his own workshop on the central ind, but for now, he just carved into it with a regr needle, because this was just supposed to be a prototype anyway. Either way, Eisen then quickly carved into the whole skeleton and then moved onto one of the parts that would make the Fox more Unique to Kirisho, in the form of a small crystal ced at the end of the spine, where Eisen normally would have ced a tail, but now, he quickly created a three-dimensional enchantment that was supposed to create mist in the shape of a fluffy tail, as dense as possible while still keeping mist-like properties. That was the thing that Eisen was most unsure about how he should create it. Here in this Soul Realm, he could basically imagine any type of ability-enchantment that he wanted as long as he could put it into a specific form, but in reality, it wasn¡¯t that easy. Kirisho¡¯s mist wasn¡¯t an ability of hers, it wasn¡¯t created in the same way that other people created their magic element. Her whole being was mist, she only seemed to have an ability to control it. So, Eisen had to somehow figure out a good way to work around that issue, maybe try and take part of her actual mist and imnt it into the Fox, because right now Eisen was still not capable of Ability-Enchanting things using core abilities of someone¡¯s being like that. It seemed to be something of the same level as the ¡¯Growth¡¯ enchantment that¡¯s currently ced on Bree¡¯s shirt. And although, now that he thought about it, that enchantment was something far more high-tier than Eisen imagined. Eisen remembered Morrom saying that it was an ability based off of a regr person¡¯s ability to grow through levels, but now that Eisen thought about it, it seemed a little more like an Ego-Item, didn¡¯t it? The old man wanted to go back to Melroe anyway, at the very least in order to visit one of the other Ancient Dragons that Ailren spoke about, the one on the highest mountain in the Dwarven country. For that, he would need to pass around that area anyway. But when he went there, Eisen wanted to really ask Morrom about what his levels, abilities and ranks were. Because if Morrom was able to replicate the effect of an Ego-Item through a simple enchantment, that meant that his enchanting skill¡¯s rank was insanely high, didn¡¯t it? For the most part, Eisen already knew that Morrom was very skilled, after all, he was supposed to be a Grandmaster. But then, Eisen thought that that didn¡¯t mean much, and that it was simply an assigned role with little behind it, simply because he thought it was just a regr old game, but now that he was aware that this didn¡¯t seem to be an actual game but something far, far beyond that, Eisen actually realized how insane such a level of ability was, especially for people of this world. Either way, after derailing in his thought like that a little bit, Eisen moved on toward the next part of the Fox Automaton. It was now able to create a dense mist in the shape of a tail, and by running some mana-thread through that tail while it was active and connecting it to the gem that actually created that mist, Eisen was able to somehow give it a sort of structure and ability to move around like a regr tail would be able to. That would mean that the threads would be there all the time, even when the tail wasn¡¯t active, however, but considering that Eisen wasn¡¯t nning on making it so that the Fox could actually deactivate the tail, it wasn¡¯t that big of an issue, really. And then, Eisen quickly reced the Golem Core ceholder with an Actual Golem core. Other than that, Eisen quickly moved on toward the rest of this Fox-Golem¡¯s body, which he created out of his Brass-Crystal alloy. And so, the Fox quickly started looking like a proper Fox and not like some sort of grim anatomical model of one, and then, Eisen only needed to add the fur and he would be done with this prototype. While the fox¡¯s Brass-Skin had turned into a very very light color, close to white, due to the crystals added into it on top of having mana folded into it, Eisen wanted to turn the fur itself to have a few pitch-ck parts about it, even if notpletely so. The reason for that was to just fit Kirisho¡¯s own style. While her skin was very pale, she wore something like a dark ck dress all the time, and her hair was just as dark. And so, Eisen quickly created some fur for the fox, in a simr way as he created the fur for his other automata, by oveying everything with numerous strands of mana and using transmutation to pull the metal into them, using the same metal for that. But in some parts of the Fox¡¯s fur, Eisen added some Darkness Gem fur. He was aware that Necromancy was derivative off of the Dark element, so considering that this Fox was supposed to be a Ghost¡¯spanion, it fit pretty well as far as Eisen was concerned. Although then again, he could also just add Necromantic mana-crystals, and then it might possibly also give a certain special effect. It didn¡¯t matter too much though, because for now, he finished this item. [You have Mentally Gone through the process of creating a Mist-Fox Golem. If you now actually create a Golem like this, it is easier to reach a higher quality rating and achieve better effects] And soon enough, Eisen found himself back inside of the room that was formerly the King Golem¡¯s Boss-Room, but swiftly returned back into the state of Deep Visualization after making sure that the counter on his Level-Up quest went up the three odd hours that he spent inside of his Soul Realm. Before he knew it, Eisen swiftly returned to the room inside of his Soul Realm, where he quickly got to work on the next item, because he wanted to really just wanted to use this time as efficiently as he possibly could. He was already steadily leveling up his Crafter¡¯s Mind skill due to being in here, so that was a really good thing, considering that he had to bring it to Rank 3. But first, Eisen needed to start working on the next item. He had nothing specifically in mind, but he wanted to somewhat y around with some ideas for how he could use the Yin and Yang metals. As far as he was told, the Yin metals were supposed to be good for Weapons, and Yang metals were supposed to be good for Tools, but he wanted to put the most that he could into both of them. For that, he wanted to create only to different items, each using up all of the metal while bing Ego-Items, so that Eisen could raise them to a ce that they were really amazing. It might be a little bit of a waste to use everything up so selfishly, but after all, he literally ripped out both his arms to get the materials, so he figured he could be at least a little selfish about it. So, Eisen quickly imagined two metals that were as close to the Yin metals as possible. He never used them before, and with a single touch Eisen managed to feel that they acted a bit different to regr metals that he was used to, but he had no idea how exactly. So until then, he would just try and practice to get the type of item he wanted to make right. And so, Eisen quickly started to work on a weapon first, and what he wanted to make was a simple sword that he could hopefully use at each and every height. This alone would be a good practice, because he didn¡¯t make a size-changing item before. Either way, for now, Eisen needed to get to work creating the de itself, which he did by simply starting to fold the different ingots of metal that he ¡¯imagined¡¯ into each other, trying topress them at the same time as he was doing so. If he created an upressed weapon out of all the Yin metal he had, he would end up with a de asrge as the one he made for Kiron, and while he did want to make a broad Greatsword, its base-state was supposed to be for when Eisen was in his base-size. After he folded all the metal into each other and created a chunk of metal the size that he wanted it to be for his de, he swiftly got to shaping it. And the style that Eisen went for was basically a giant knife, as in arge, broad, one-edged de with the rough shape that a knife had. And so, the process of making that de was not too dissimr to making a knife, just that the handle was a little bit thinner proportionally. Before he knew it, Eisen finished the de for this item and swiftly attached a nice handle to it. It was just a simple one, though, a wooden base wrapped in leather, because he just loved the feeling of leather on his hands. He would probably turn it a little more decorativeter on, but for now, Eisen just wanted to work with it like this. Because now, he had to figure out the best way of working with his size-changing ability, and now that he had a lot more experience with how to work with the settings, he knew that he could hook different effects up to different conditions that the user needed to fulfill, and while there was a limit to that, it was the perfect thing for him right now. Swiftly, Eisen enchanted the whole de¡¯s body with enchantments that were supposed to support the structural integrity of the de even while it was changing shape, as if ¡¯containing¡¯ something in a shell, while also hooking the ability enchantment on the actual de, the Size-Changing, up to a small gem in the handle that was supposed to check for the user¡¯s state. If Eisen had his size increased using the size-changing ability, the de would scale up together with him, and if he had his size decreased in the same manner, the enchantment would push forward a ¡¯negative value¡¯ and scale the de down together with him. It probably wouldn¡¯t work perfectly, as in that that de wouldn¡¯t change the same maximum anount that Eisen could change, but it seemed to work out well enough. Chapter 384 - Multitool After finishing the prototype for the Yin-de, Eisen moved on to the next item. He wasn¡¯t actually able to test the Yin-de out, but judging from the name of the item that was disy in the notification before he was pulled out of his Deep Visualization, ¡¯Size-Changing Greatsword¡¯, Eisen figured that it should work out at least somewhat. He was able to re-do enchantments as much as he wanted anyway, so he would try these enchantments out with a few other items before cing them onto the de, and then it would probably work out just fine after Eisen could figure out in what ways they were issues with what Eisen was nning. Either way, now that he created the item in his Deep Visualization state already, the size-changing effect would probably just end up stronger as well. But now, Eisen wanted to work on the next item, the tools that he wanted to make out of his Yang-Metal. And in this case, it was plural, because Eisen did really want to make multiple tools out of it, although it was still supposed to be part of one singr item, so that he would be able to increase the level of all of his tools at once when he turned it into an Ego-Item. For that, Eisen would need to create either something like a Toolbelt, or a multitool. He was rather leaning toward thetter, because a Toolbelt seemed like it was really just supposed to be the container that was holding tools rather than the tools itself. So then, Eisen just needed to figure out how to create a good, proper multitool. He already had a few ideas, but it was a bitplicated and maybe wouldn¡¯t really work all that well at all. As it would probably end up being his most bulky tool, Eisen wanted the base of it to be just a Hammer, because it might give him the most space to y around with. And especially for this, Eisen was getting heavily inspired by Fluke¡¯s items and mechanisms, because they usually ended up being a lot bigger than they look. ording to the warforged, this was done with the help of a few different gems, although the most important part about it was that it was created using a Spatial-Gem Tipped tool. Eisen wasn¡¯t aware of that up until then, but it seemed like it was possible to create stronger effects if you created different enchantments using specialized gems that were connected to that enchantment. Because Fluke only had ess to a tiny bit of a Spatial Gem, he only had that tool and had to figure out how to best use it for what he wanted to do, and through that seemed to have reached a point where he was very proficient at creating items that were actuallyrger than they looked from the outside. But for now, Eisen quickly created the tool that he would build everything around, a simple chisel. The Hammer-Shape was simply supposed to be the shape that the whole multi-tool would have when fully ¡¯ced together¡¯. But he needed to start at the smallest base step. It was the same principle as Matryoshka dolls, where everything was justyered on top of each other. So, Eisen quickly created a simple chisel with a proper handle, so far not wrapped in leather, and a regr old thin tip. And then, Eisen created the next item that would be ced on top of that chisel, the de of a knife. And it really was just a de this time around, as if someone just removed it off of a knife in a straight cut. Where the handle would usually be attached, Eisen created a small hollow opening that the chiselhead would fit in perfectly, and then created a smaller version of the same maism enchantment that Eisen ced on top of his Golems¡¯ joints so that he could properly keep the de in its ce when it was put on top of it. Eisen would ce maybe a small soul-generator into the handleter to keep them running at all times, because that was supposed to be the base-state. Connected. Eisen added a bit of a function to it where he could disable the maism for a moment to be able to pull the de off again, otherwise it would just end up stuck on there forever, considering the strength and stability Eisen wanted the de to have when he needed it. And then, Eisen created another,rger handle, hollowed out so that it could just be ced on top of the smaller handle, and then got to work on the nextyer of the tool, the actual hammer. Considering that the hammer was supposed to be able to be able to turned into other states as well, Eisen created it out of a few different pieces, one of them being the central base that wouldn¡¯t change at all when it was in this rge tool¡¯ state. So, Eisen quickly made another enchantment in the same fashion as in the de, hollowing out a bit of the central base so that Eisen could just push the base on top of the knife and connect it to therger handle to close the whole thing up. And then, Eisen had to figured out a good way to be able to switch between the different states, and in the end chose to just have it be something that could be done manually by pulling everything into the right position by hand. So, Eisen quickly put the different smaller pieces together into the tworger pieces, and then attached them to a bit of a ¡¯rotation¡¯ mechanism on the base while locking it in certan ces, which would allow for four different states to be achieved. When both therger pieces were in the ¡¯needle¡¯ or ¡¯pick¡¯ shape both were pulled to opposing sides of the base and set in ce there, it would be a pickaxe. Then, the picks could be folded up to be tter, and if they were then pulled to the same side and connected to each other while being horizontal to the vertical handle, then it would be a hoe. If they were then twisted so that the ¡¯de¡¯ part of it would be vertical to the vertical handle, it would be an axe, if everything was really properly set in ce and sharp enough. And if that axe-de was pulled to the top of the base and the different pieces were set in ce to be more round, it would be a shovel. Of course, trying to figure this out so that it worked properly took Eisen a few hours on its own, but soon enough, he managed to do it, even if it wasn¡¯t directly the most perfect solution. He had enough time to work through all of this a few more times, so that wasn¡¯t an issue, however. Either way, when the two different main pieces were pulled to opposing sides of the base again and then folded up properly, everything would set in ce to turn into the hammer-state. And therger handle that Eisen could ce over the smaller one for the Knife and Chisel-state was also a bit switched up, and the piece that could be seen from the outside there was actually hollow with a spiral inside of it along the inner walls, and Eisen simply screwed another thinner handle into that so that he could just pull it out if he needed a longer handle. Thest part that Eisen needed to do was now actually also rather simple and easypared to the mechanism for the fourrger tools that he integrated into this single one, which was just the smallpartment inside of the Hammer¡¯s base for needles. He only really needed needles at this point in time as one of those smaller tools, so that¡¯s the onlypartment he needed to make. And for that, Eisen took a small, thin square of metal base and made small holes with spirals on its inner walls so that he could screw in the heads of a few needle into there, which he would specially make to have that kind of needlehead, so that he could just push them into the holes that Eisen made inside of the spot where the metal square was taken out of. And after finishing thsoe needles, Eisen was done with this version of it, and swiftly saw this whole multitool as finished while it was in its Hammer state with all of the different parts inside and on it, and before he knew it, some notifications appeared in front of him and he was back outside of his Deep Visualization state. [You have Mentally Gone through the process of creating a Complex Multitool. If you now actually create a Tool like this, it is easier to reach a higher quality rating and achieve better effects] [Crafter¡¯s Mind reached Level 100 in Rank 1, Upgrading to Rank 2] [Your mind can handle more information at once, +10% Benefit to all abilities connected to this skill] [Due to Ranking-up your Crafter¡¯s Mind Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] With a smirk on his face, Eisen sighed out for a few moments, happy that the Multitool was epted as a proper item on top of ranking up this one of his skills, and then checked his quest status. He was now about ten hours into just working on the tools, and everyone else seemed to be currently asleep, so Eisen himself also just went back into his deep visualization state, returning to practicing and improving on the concept for the Multitool. The Greatsword he made before was rather straigthforward, and he didn¡¯t really feel like having it be something like this that could switch what it was either, so he didn¡¯t need to keep practicing it inside of here, but for now Eisen just wanted to repeat everything for the Multitool from the grounds up with the knowledge about the mistakes that he madest time. "Really, this is incredibly useful, isn¡¯t it..?" Eisen muttered to himself quietly, really happy that he didn¡¯t have to waste any materials at all in the process of all of this, before also taking a look around himself, noticing that the room he was in was now just a fair bitrger, probably as an effect of the Skill¡¯s Rank-Up. With a smirk on his face, Eisen just continued on and returned to making the Multitool again, as he had nned, and after a few hours, he managed to do so easily and even enchanted the tool a bit more heavily, and this time around when finishing the creation and left the Deep Visualization state again, a different notification popped up in front of Eisen. [You have Mentally improved upon the process of creating a Complex Multitool] "Hmm... Well, fair enough, I shouldn¡¯t have expected another bonus." Eisen sighed slightly disappointedly, and then simply returned back into Deep Visualization before working on one more improvement for the Multitool, which was to give it the same size-changing effect as the Greatsword that he made for himself. And considering all the other enchantments Eisen already ced on top of the different parts of the multitool to make everything work properly, this was far moreplex and tough to do than Eisen wanted it to be in any situation, but luckily, he managed to finish everything up before long. The whole thing was covered in enchantments at every single part of it, which Eisen might need to work on to make it a bit nicer to look at, but he might be able to get Evalia¡¯s help with that again. She always happily helped him out with that, after all. Sometimes, it at the very least partially seemed to be so that she could suck up to her boyfriend¡¯s grandfather, but that¡¯s nothing that Eisen was worried about. As long as she treated his grandson right, why wouldn¡¯t he enjoy being sucked-up to? Chapter 385 - Mass Production Machinery After Eisen finally fine-tuned everything for the Multitool so that it would probably also change its size properly, the old man still had about 6 hours left to spend inside of his Deep Visualization state. He quickly returned back there, because even if he didn¡¯t have a proper idea of what he should practice next, Eisen figured it would be better to think in there, as it would also count toward the goal in his Level-Up quest. And then, Eisen figured he could just try practicing the creation of some other size-changing items as well, such as size-changing pants and aprons, so that he could re-make them properly and use them for himself. The two special-size ones that Eisen was using and switching between at the moment were a little annoying to carry around everywhere, especially therger one. And considering that clothes were already able to change their size to fit their wearer, it would probably work out pretty well. For the Apron, Eisen created a little bit of ayered one, using two thinner pieces than he would usually use as the outer pieces, and cing a thin mana-crystal sheet inbetween those two pieces. For now, Eisen quickly enchanted that mana-crystal sheet it with his size-changing ability and an in-depth enchantment that was supposed to properly react to the size-change of Eisen and react appropriately. After that, Eisen simply softened the crystal sheet a bit so that it wouldn¡¯t hinder Eisen¡¯s movement and ced it inbetween the pieces of leather. The crystal sheet was about half an inch shorter than the leather in every direction, so you weren¡¯t really able to see it from the outside once Eisen sewed the leather together. And as Eisen expected, this worked surprisingly well and he was soon given the notification that he mentally went through the process of creating a Size-Changing Leather Apron. He probably could have enchanted it with other things as well, such as defensive enchantments to that he didn¡¯t need to worry as much inbat, but he wasn¡¯t nning on continuing to fight from this point on, so it was fine in his opinion. He would only level up as much as he needed to throughbat, and at this point, he only really needed to reach level 300. It might be better to get a bit stronger than that anyway, but Eisen still didn¡¯t really worry about it all that much. Either way, after finishing the Apron, Eisen moved on toward the wool-pants, which were rtively easily made as well. For one, he ¡¯Imagined¡¯ the material for his wool pants to be, obviously mostly wool, and the rest to be mana-crystal enchanted with his size changing ability. It was pretty easy to skip through these kinds of steps. He was able to make this exact same material in reality as well, so it wasn¡¯t an issue to skip that step for once. And then, after making his loose pair of pants out of it, he swiftly enchanted it using stitched-enchantments to make it react to Eisen¡¯s size-changing, the same as the Apron, and then, the item was done. It didn¡¯t really take that long for Eisen to finish these two items, so he now still had a little over three hours to spend on making smaller items, and figured it wouldn¡¯t be a horrible idea to just try and brew a few different things. He didn¡¯t spend all that time on his Brewing skill for a good while, and he also still didn¡¯t really work on the quest he got from Gordon... Luckily, he grabbed as many spatial barrels and bottles that Eisen could from the material storage on the central ind, meaning that he could start producing that kind of thing rtively soon. He would also need to properly work on a system to mass-produce potions more efficiently so that Komer had some stuff to actually sell. Eisen already advised him to properly get a shop in the harbor town that the young merchant made a deal with and hire some craftsmen with the money he made so far, so Komer told him that he would speak to the peopleing to make the delivery about it, and maybe he would go back there with them for a little while and figure all of that stuff out. Right now, he was on the central ind mass-producing contracts, however. For one, because he wanted to figure out if he could make some interesting new contracts with his new Fate-Item Production skill, and also because they needed it to get more guild-members. Thinking about that, Eisen got another nice idea. He wouldn¡¯t practice making the alcohol, after all, that¡¯s something he made a living with even in real life for a few dozen years now. Eisen really had no need to practice any of that stuff, so instead, he would work on systems to mass-produce items, starting with one thing that was really just essential. The printing-press. But not just any printing-press, one capable of making magic contracts en-mass. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if that was already a thing, but if it wasn¡¯t, it was a good thing to get a lot of attention right at the start of the game. A lot of people would start ying and level up rtively quickly. They probably had only had a few in-game days until the first people became level 100 and unlocked the Guild-System. And considering that was the case, especially those early-birds will need to find someone to make the contracts for them, and if there¡¯s a rumor going around about a shop that can sell arge amount of Guild Contracts for rtively cheap, they would rush to that shop pretty quickly to buy those contracts. After all, the first people that would get to that point were people that most likely concentrated on solelybat skills, and probably weren¡¯t all that interested in gaining the Scribing skill to make their own contracts. It was only about one more in-game week until the regr yerbase would join the game. Until then, Eisen wanted to finish up business on Trygan¡¯s Ind as well so that he could return to the maind. He would have a fair amount of time to work on projects on the ship, so he should concentrate on these kinds of mass-production devices that Komer could make use of as well while Eisen wasn¡¯t near him. Back in the Deep-Visualization state, Eisen quickly started to work on the first mass-production tool, the printing press, and first tried to work the concepts out. And in the end, it wasn¡¯t necessarily all that hard to make the printing press. With the help of Evalia¡¯s element, he could make it so that there was always magic Ink on the press when it was needed. And other than that, Eisen simply needed to ce a few mana batteries and soul generators into the base, as well as create a simple mechanism to lock the press in ce while the paper was ced underneath, press it down when told to, and pull it back up automatically as well. But that wasn¡¯t enough for Eisen. He wanted to make everything even more mass-producable, and created a ce to keep the paper in, before the top sheet would be pulled off and set underneath the press automatically. And then, Eisen needed to work on the moreplicated part about it. Either, he could make it so that diffe print-tes needed to be made for each contract type, where then only the different specialized bits that needed to be pre-filled in for each situation needed to be added, or he could create a ¡¯Setting Enchantment¡¯, like the one he used for Alnico¡¯s DJ set, that would let you edit different contract presets before using transmutation to create the letters for all of that on a piece of metal. Obviously, Eisen preferred thetter. So, Eisen tried creating that kind of enchantment-array, although he made a simplified version for now so that he could test whether or not the transmutation would properly work on the piece of metal. Well, he wouldn¡¯t actually be able to test this out, considering that he was thrown out of the state of deep visualization whenever he finished an item. But hopefully the rough item description he got when trying to inspect the item-name in the notification he always got would help him out a little. It was always just very rough, because the circumstances in Deep-Visualization were obviously heavily favorable toward actually being able to create something, so it would never really say how well it worked or how it was done, just basically list the rough functions that were supposed to work in some way or another. And before long, Eisen finished this simply printing-press prototype. To his luck, all the items that he was making were actually saved within his Crafter¡¯s Mind skill, so he could take a look at what they actually looked like and what Eisen did exactly whenever he wanted to. But the moment that Eisen came out of the Deep Visualization, he already dove back into it to work on the next mass-production prototype. Basically, it was supposed to be something to help make and enhancerge amounts of potions using multiple steps. Something of a supersized regr setup with an automatic grinder and extractor, and of course also a system that would make bottling them an easy job. First, Eisen wanted to make the grinder part of everything, and it really wasn¡¯t thatplicated in the end. The way Eisen tried to properly make this work was by basically creating a supersized mortar and pestle and taking it from there. The mortar was therge bowl that everything was kept in, and the pestle was just connected to a bit of a ¡¯Rail¡¯, that would not only turn spin around on its own vertical axis, but also would be moved around in a circr motion around the whole bowl to get everything. This was of course done through a simple enchantment setup. The bowl and mortar themselves had ayer of mythril on top of them so that mana could be easily infused into the materials if needed and wanted. Either way, for now, the Grinder part of the setup was done. Eisen preferred to make these all seperate items so it was easier to mix-and-match different parts, considering that different potions sometimes needed different special techniques to actually make them work. And so, during the next little while in his Deep Visualization, Eisen was just working on those different things for the different techniques, for example the heated stirring of the pot in specified patterns, or the movement of mana inside of the liquid in specified patterns, so that it might even be possible to produce high-grade potions automatically. And as for the regr extraction system, that was rtively easy as well, because it just required everything to be heated up enough, although Eisen also wanted to make use of the technique that Jyuuk taught him, which was the extraction of essence. Or rather, what Eisen wanted to do was to make sure that the essence could be kept within the actual potion-part of everything, so that none of it would be left in the waterter on, to slightly increase the effects of the potions. And after that, Eisen wanted to go for another step, which was the refination of the potion to extract the actual potion itself and get rid of any and all impurities left inside of it. Then, the potion could be either bottled directly or turned into pills. It would reduce the effect a slight bit, but in the end, they were a bit more convenient to use, so that didn¡¯t matter much. In the end, Eisen spent a few hours longer inside of his Deep Visualization then he needed to, so that he could properly figure out all of the different things that were needed for that type of mass-production. And once they would leave the Golem Ind, Eisen would immediately get started and work on actually creating a proper prototype. Chapter 386 - Town Tortoise Finally, Eisen was finished with all that he needed and wanted to do in his Deep Visualization state, and happily looked at the notification, d that he managed to get one of them off his list. And then, while quickly starting to gather proficiency in his magic rted skills, Eisen quickly activated all of them for now. First, he created all of the Mana-Doubles that he could, three at the moment, and then started making them shift inbetween his different elemental states, from fully mes to fully Earth and back, while making them do a few random things all the time, for example, throw small mana-crystal balls from one double to the next, while at the same time doing something to let Eisen practice his mana-maniption by letting each of the doubles change the shape of the ball a little bit. One of them would turn it into cube, the other into a pyramid, and the other back into a ball. And they were doing all of that to three different mana-crystals, so that each of them had one crystal at each time. But all of this was more than just mana-intensive, so the old man constantly had some mana-potions on the ready while also hoping for Bree to be able to help him out. Especially because he would also try and gain proficiency in his Mana Copy skill at the same time by enveloping the whole area around him in his mana and saving whatever he could find in his skill. It was all a pretty weird feeling, but because of Eisen¡¯s current level, he was at the very least able to hold out for a little while when having all of these active. Nonbat magic often drained a lot less mana thanbat magic, after all. But still, the scene was pretty weird to everyone who soon saw the giant old man casually step out of the building in that manner, with those three doubles behind him. And to top it off, Xenia¡¯s ears started flinching slightly the moment he approached her and enveloped her with his mana as well. "What the actual hell are you doing?" The High-Elf asked, considering that she was able to sense mana to an extent due to her race, and Eisen just chuckled at her with a smile on his face. "Just working on my Level-Up Quest, that¡¯s all." Eisen exined rtively quickly, and Xenia just looked at him with a wry smile before sighing out somewhat. "Right, of course you are... I mean, that¡¯s pretty clever... You¡¯re practicing what, three skills right now? Mana Double, your element, and mana maniption?" Xenia asked curiously, and Eisen quickly shook his head with a smile. "Well, four actually. The mana around me isn¡¯t directly part of mana maniption practice, it¡¯s for mana-copy." Eisen exined to her, and immediately, Xenia took a step back out of the range of the mana, and Eisen looked at her with a frown. "Ohe on, I nearly finished copying your heart!" The old manined jokingly, before the other Originals standing next to them also looked at Eisen weirdly. "You¡¯re just copying our innards, and not our body itself?" Evalia asked with a frown, before Eisen raised his eyebrows. "What, of course I am." He replied, before noticing how incriminating that sounded, before trying to reassure them a bit. "Oh, don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not copying those areas in detail. I was speaking more of your general physical structure, as in your arms, hands, legs, head, those areas. Of course I¡¯m staying away from those ces." Eisen chuckled as he moved his fingers through his beard, while the other Originals slightly calmed down again. "Let¡¯s just kinda move on from that, eh? So, what did you do in your deep thingy the past day?" Brody asked as he crossed his arms curiously, and Eisen smiled back at him rtively happily. "Ah, I made a few prototypes. For one, a de and a multitool made out of respectively my Yin and Yang Metals, then some size-changing clothes so that I don¡¯t have to carry outfits around with me all the time, and then a few Mass-Production Machineries." Eisen exined rtively calmly, although that sounded just insane to do within 24 hours. "Wait, you managed to do all of that in a day?" Jyuuk asked because of exactly that, and Eisen nodded his head. "Oh, yes, I did. Within my Deep Visualization, things like weight don¡¯t really matter all that much, and I can basically move the different parts in the right position telepathically if I wanted to. It usually would have taken a bit longer to try and figure all of that out, but because I didn¡¯t need to make any preparations and could start whatever I wanted with whatever materials I may need, everything was sped-up." The old man replied, and both Evalia and Xenia, who also had some aspects of crafting in their upations, looked at Eisen jealously. "That¡¯s such a cheat..." Evalia said with a wry smile, but Eisen just shook his head. "It would be unfair if I could actually keep the items, but I can¡¯t even test them out. I can go through the process of making the items and increase the chances for better effects, but that¡¯s all there really is to it. It¡¯s useful for sure, though." Eisen said with a slightugh, but the other two were still pretty jealous about a skill like that, but Eisen just moved on because he wanted to take a look at how town itself was doing right now. "So, what¡¯s the state of town?" Eisen asked as he turned toward Xenia, and she quickly just opened an information window, apparently, and took a look at the information she got from it. "Well... A bunch of the buildings are finished up it seems, the Golems are helping out a whole lot... And it seems like due to Judah, the Golems are acting a bit more intelligent and coordinated as well. A few shop-like buildings were reconstructed already, and it seems like some of the golems want to man those shops. Some are acting somewhat like guards, and others are just trying to make sure that the town is clean. It would be more helpful if some people were here, but for now, this doesn¡¯t seem so bad. I¡¯m pretty sure we can lure a few Golemancers over here for sure. And when the Artificials get strong enough for the area, it should be a ce for a lot of them to pop into as well." The High-Elf swiftly exined to the old man, before she turned toward Evalia with a smile on her face. "Our little artist here actually spent the past day remodeling a lot of the golems to make them look more humanoid, they look incredibly life-like. She even painted them!" Xenia eximed, and Evalia slowly nodded her head with a smirk. "Yup, as part of trying to rank my skills up. Ah, I also made a statue for the Church. It¡¯s pretty small, but there surprisingly already was a building for it here. That Pdin Dragon Dude helped me set everything up properly, but a Priest to the Golem God needs to bless it first, and then it¡¯s a proper church." Evalia exined, before slowly ring at Xenia, "But stop patronizing me, you¡¯re only like four years older than me..." She said while crossing her arms with a, quite obviously, fake pout, before Eisen chuckled and nodded his head. "I see, that¡¯s good to know. Well, one of the mass-production items I prototyped was an automatic printing-press. I¡¯ll be travelling across the maind after we set the town on Trygan¡¯s ind up, so I¡¯ll make a printing-press and just spread ¡¯recruitment¡¯ flyers. We need a few more people for the central ind as well, but most importantly, we need to just get the word out." Eisen suggested, and Jyuuk looked at Eisen with a wry smile, "You can make a printing-press but you make Komer hand-write contracts right now?" "Well, the printing press would just give an incredibly small amount of proficiency, if any, and Komer does need Scribing proficiency. And he can probably make some special Fate contracts as well, so that¡¯s why I told him to work on all that. And those contracts are mainly sub-guild contracts, and contracts to make sure that we can properly integrate Starlight, Komer¡¯s Merchant Company, into its own sub-guild as well. And of course recruitment contracts so that everyone can invite promising individuals into their sub-guilds." The old man replied, and Brody looked at Eisen with a slight frown, "What, you want us to be Guildmasters as well?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head immediately. "Oh, yes, I thought we already spoke about that. It would be great to have a few specialized sub-branches, for example a branch focused onbat, then a branch focused on magic, one on crafting, art, taming, and so on. At the very least, that would make everything a little easier to manage, especially if I can create Guild Core Guardians for each Sub-Guild¡¯s Core." Eisen pointed out, and Brody scratched the top of his head in response. "How bothersome. Can¡¯t we just give that task to some pencil-pushers?" While the Demon-Orc suggested this, Eisen just simple smiled at him and shook his head without hesitation. "I only feelfortable handing such a position to people that I trust." Eisen chuckled, and at this point, Brody couldn¡¯t really protest anymore and just epted his fate to be the Guildmaster of a Subguild. "Now then, should we gather everyone and get back to the area with the ship?" The old man suggested, and right when he said that, Xenia crossed her arms and looked at him with a smug smile. "Oh, but we¡¯re already there!" She eximed, before Eisen raised his eyebrows surprised. "Ah, you made the Town bring us there, huh? Did you manage to take a look at that Divine item that Judah mentioned?" Eisen asked, and Xenia swiftly nodded her head. "Yeah, I have actually! It¡¯s pretty interesting, really, although I don¡¯t exactly know how the crystal works, it¡¯s probably just some source for something simr to an element." The High-Elf exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head as the group slowly made their way to the nearest tunnel and quickly stepped through it, giving Eisen the chance to take a proper look at the Golems that Evalia reworked. He really was incredibly impressed, that was something that Eisen couldn¡¯t help but admit. For a few moments, Eisen thought he might identally mistake some of them for actual people, but they were really just standing there stone-faced, and the paint that Evalia applied to them didn¡¯t directly hide all of the metallic aspects to them. Either way, they were impressively realistic, as the old man expected from Evalia¡¯s work, and soon enough the group made their way outside of the town, at which point Eisen could quickly see the ocean in front of him already, but then slowly turned toward Xenia with a curious smile. "Could you show me what it looks like when standing up? I want to take a look at that crystal as well." The old man asked her, and the High-Elf quickly nodded her head and seemingly just thought about thatmand for a few moments, before Eisen could practically feel the ground shake underneath him. And after the ground in front of him split up and rose into the air, Eisen quickly took an interested look at this giant Golem in front of him. It didn¡¯t seem to have any direct animal-inspiration to it, but just judging from the rough shape and size of the limbs and head, Eisen could only think of a Tortoise. And soon enough, Eisen also spotted the thing responsible for the Golem Creation, therge crystal spanning nearly theplete underbelly of the Town-Golem. Currently, numerous golden drops were randomly forming all around the crystal and slowly moving toward the center of the crystal, where they allbined together into arge sphere. And before Eisen knew it, that sphere dropped down into the center of the crater, followed by another small water-like droplet, which Eisen just figured to be the actual golem core, because when the droplet hit the mass of gold, he could see that the precious material just started moving around. Chapter 387 - Leaving the Golems Island With a curious smile, Eisen turned toward Xenia, "I¡¯m pretty sure we can¡¯t remove any of it?" The old man asked, and Xenia shook her head with a sigh. "Sadly not, I did try it out as well." She replied, before Eisen chuckled in response and nodded. "I see, too bad. Well, it¡¯s a divine material, so it was to be expected. I¡¯m d we can somewhat control it in the first ce. Now, I¡¯m guessing the others are already near the beach?" The old man asked, somewhat disappointed that he wouldn¡¯t be able to make apletely automatic Golem-Generator, and the other four swiftly nodded their heads. "Mhm, they¡¯re just waiting there, we knew you¡¯d be waking up sometime around this time." As the Heavenly Artist told this to the old man, Eisen just slightly smiled and followed the four others to the beach, while Xeniamanded the Town-Golem to sit back down and ¡¯go to sleep¡¯. "So, leaving the townpletely to Judah is a good idea?" Eisen asked, and Xenia nodded her head immediately. "Oh, yeah, it¡¯s fine. I can open the town-menu from anywhere, apparently, so I can see if anything¡¯s wrong. And because Judah is technically a golem connected to me, I canmand him from anywhere." The High-Elf answered, so Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "I see, makes sense." The old man admitted, and soon, he saw the others of the group sitting and talking together on the beach in the sunlight, just rxing a little bit for now. There were some Golems walking around in the area, but as they were under control of the town , they didn¡¯t attack any of them. This was an incredibly useful thing in the old man¡¯s opinion, especially considering that this would usually make it insanely easy to level up up to a certain point. As soon as Eisen saw the others, or rather as soon as they saw him, Eisen¡¯s monsters as well as Bree, Sky and Kiron, jumped up and made their way over toward the old man, "Eisen!" Caria eximed and quite literally jumped on top of the old man, while Melissa, who was riding on Sal¡¯s back, just waved at Eisen a little, because she seemingly felt a little unstable on top of the Arachnid. And while Xenia swiftly continued walking to get away from Sal for now, Eisen paid attention to something else. Caria and Melissa both... Evolved! He didn¡¯t know what exactly happened to make them evolve in the past day, but Eisen was more than just happy to see that two of his tamed monsters were now Rank 4. It seemed like Caria had evolved to a ¡¯Myconid Druid¡¯, getting rid of the ¡¯Lesser¡¯ prefix in front of her race-name. She had grown in size a little bit, and the dress she was wearing was now far too short for anything that Eisen wanted to allow in any possible way, even if Caria was an adult, but it seemed like the others already noticed this as well and tried to put some cloth around her hips. The Dress hadn¡¯t hit the growth-limit yet, but because Caria grew more in height than in width, the Dress didn¡¯t ¡¯Scale Up¡¯ properly and had be too short for her current body. Before, Caria looked like she was in maybete Kindergarten or early elementary school, but now, she was a fair bit taller and looked as if she was inte elementary school! On the other hand, Melissa had moved on from being an ¡¯Empress Bee¡¯ to being a ¡¯Great Empress Bee¡¯. And although there wasn¡¯t really anything all that ¡¯Great¡¯ about her physically, she had grown a little as well and became a cute, early elementary school child. The wings on her back had be more prominent, but she seemed to be able to ¡¯fold¡¯ them away pretty easily so that they wouldn¡¯t be an issue. Her dress seemed to have a bit of an issue with ¡¯scaling up¡¯ as well, so Eisen figured he should try and make her something new as well. And while he was at it, he could just make something like a jacket for Sal, so that the little guy wouldn¡¯t feel left out. "How amazing you two are! How did you manage to rank up?" Eisen asked the two of them with a smile, and Caria pressed her fists against her hips with a smug smile. "Hehe, I... Don¡¯t know! But it happened, so I¡¯m happy!" She replied, and Melissa simrly didn¡¯t seem to be entirely sure what happened, "I don¡¯t know either..." The young ¡¯Great Empress Bee¡¯ said shily, but Eisen just smiled at the two of them and rubbed the top of their heads, simply happy that the two of them Ranked up again, and then took the chance to check on Sal¡¯s status as well. It seemed like in the past day, his mana-maniption was leveled up surprisingly much, and he was close to Ranking the skill up to 2, something which he might manage by the end of the day if he really tried, and Sal¡¯s general level increased a fair bit as well. His other magic skills were also leveled up pretty nicely, and he gained a few more mana-based skills. And he was already aware of how he got them, even if it was pretty surprising. "So you showed Sal a few Magic skills, huh?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face as he turned toward the High-Elf standing a little bit further along at a safe distance from the spider-monster, before Xenia slowly nodded her head. "It was really hard, so you better be grateful... Although, I did only really show him the basics..." Xenia added as she scratched her cheek, before Eisen chuckled in response and picked his three monsters up a little, just to pamper them for another while. "Well, thank you, I appreciate it." Eisen told her, and soon enough, Jyuuk turned toward all of them, pointing at the water. "My Skeletons are moving the ship closer already, should be here in a few minutes. Do any of you want to do something else here, or should we just move right on to the next Ind?" Jyuuk asked them, but everyone just swiftly looked at each other before then choosing to go to the next ind right away. Especially Kiron and the Pdin seemed extremely excited about this. "Alright then." Jyuuk said with a smirk and then quickly turned toward the ship which started getting closer and closer to them, and while this was happening, Eisen turned toward the person that was standing next to everyone to send them off properly. "Fluke." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and the Warforged turned toward the old man as well. "Think about that offer I made you?" As Eisen said this, he began to chuckle slightly, and Fluke scratched the back of his neck. "Well, for now, I can¡¯te with you, I¡¯m nning on staying here a little longer. It should be able to help my research out, especially considering that the Golems seem to act a little different now. I¡¯m heading to the continent you came from in a few weeks, though, so it would be great to see you again then." Fluke pointed out with a slight smile, and Eisen nodded his head in reply, "You should head to a town in the dwarven country to the west of the continent. It¡¯s called ¡¯Melroe¡¯, they have a few incredible craftsmen there, and I will head there myself again soon." Eisen suggested, before the Warforged just smiled and extended his hand forward for a handshake. "Alright, I¡¯ll try and see if I can find it when I¡¯m there." Fluke replied, and Eisen shook his hand with a nod. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Fluke." Eisen told him, and the Warforged nodded his head in reply, "Likewise." Fluke then slowly sent the group of, who chose to make use of different spells to easily create a simple bridge over toward the ship so that they could just casually walk on there. After that, the group immediately started making sure they really had everything, before Jyuukmanded his skeletons to start moving the ship toward the next ind with the help of Sky and Bree, the only ones that had the Cartography skill, before Eisen swiftly turned toward the Pdin to speak to him about something that he had mentioned before. "So, you said there was some kind of Dragon that¡¯s supposed to protect the ind from unwanted intruders?" Eisen asked him, and without hesitation, the bronze-scaled Half-Dragon nodded his head. "Yes, exactly. He makes sure that everyone is an ally of the Dragons, any dragons at that, and only lets those inside that are. Your ship has a Dragon¡¯s Figurehead, so it the Guard should be pretty happy with that already. On top of that, while he may not be a true dragon, but he still is one... You should have no qualms in getting through... And if the Guard can see who you truly are, he may as well bring us to the Ind even faster than we usually would have been there." The Pdin pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head. "I doubt there¡¯s going to be an issue if you say it like that. But we¡¯ll see about that when we get there." Eisen replied, and then quickly looked at the time, before moving his fingers through his beard. "Alright, Bree, Sky, you said it should take about five to six hours, right?" "Yup, that¡¯s the fastest and safest route, at the very least." Sky pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head with a slight sigh. "Then let¡¯s get there and rest on the ship for the night after that. And in the morning, we¡¯ll go on a straight path to the Vige." Eisen suggested, but the Pdin shook his head in response. "It¡¯s not going to be that easy, probably. There¡¯s a few rather dangerous monsters on the ind, most of them being at a low Rank 5, so we¡¯ll have to make sure we get around their territories to avoid issues. I know a few shortcuts, though, so it still won¡¯t take too long." The Pdin reassured, so Eisen just nodded his head in response. "I see, then I hope we can count on you for that tomorrow. But for now, I think you¡¯ll have to excuse me, I have a little bit of a project to work on." Eisen told the others with a smile on his face, before he turned toward Fafnir. "Could you summon the Gate?" The old man asked, and Fafnir slowly stretched his body and then jumped into the air, making the stone-brick door and gate appear as he did so. "Thank you." Eisen said and swiftly shrunk down, now wearing an oversized apron and pants, and then stepped into the dungeon, with his three monsters swiftly following him inside, while Eisen saw a fair bit of progress inside of the Dungeon itself. The first noticable thing was that instead of stepping into the open field, Eisen was now inside of a building, with stone-brick walls and wooden floorboards, as well as something like a, so far, rough counter on the other side of the room manned by three Goblins. There wasn¡¯t much else inside of there right now but a few seats, said counter, and what seemed to be a basic teleportation-circle meant for returning Dungeon-Dwellers. "Well then, interesting." Eisen said with a smirk on his face, before Sigurd appeared in a cloud of mist right next to him and nodded its head with a smug expression. "Yup! I¡¯ve been having the monsters build it for a little while now. Pretty nice, huh? In the back room there¡¯s supposed to be some space for documents and such. The others told me that most towns try and document who enters and exits a dungon the best that they can, and I figured this would be a good way to do so, so that I can concentrate on managing the actual Dungeon-Diving parts." Chapter 388 - Printers "This is really impressive, Sigurd, I have to admit. When I have the time, I¡¯ll work on a few more things for this ce here and there so it doesn¡¯t look just as empty." Eisen told the Core Guardian with a smile, and they then swiftly made their way through therge door to the side of the room that was supposed to be the exit. And when he did so, he soon saw a few of the Lizardmen and Kobolds working together on constructing the rest of this small ¡¯Vige¡¯. They even ttened the ground a little already to create something like a rough path to guide people along the town. "Hmm, interesting. Ah, that big space over there is probably meant as a marketce, right?" Eisen asked as he increased his size again and looked in the direction of arge square area in the center of the whole dungeon room that was ttened down simr to the makeshift path. "Yes, exactly. The construction is a bit more concentrated on other parts of this ce though. In the end, stalls are more easily made than houses. And I can¡¯t make that kind of thing myself yet, all I can do is grow some trees for everything." Sigurd pointed out, before Eisen slowly nodded while moving his fingers through his beard. "I see... I¡¯m going to help out when I can. That¡¯s probably only going to really happen when we¡¯re on our way back to the maind, there¡¯s a few bigger projects I need to work on." Eisen exined with a slight sigh, "I really want to help out, though. What a shame." The old man said with a frown, and then quickly downed the next mana-potion to properly keep up all that was happening with his Mana-doubles at the moment, before Eisen then cracked his knuckles and moved on to his work, making his way over toward the area that he had the materials that he might need at any point already stashed away. And then, Eisen swiftly unsummoned his Doubles, because he simply didn¡¯t want to lose concentration while working because of them, and then moved on to swiftly creating whatever workstation he might need for this now and grabbed some steel. First, he would be making the printing-press, and he wanted it to be stable enough to not break down while the old man was away. The base of the press was just a small metal box in that case, with a stable top surface, because it was where the paper would be pressed down onto. Inside of that box, Eisen would thenter ce Soul Generators and Mana Batteries, but first, he needed to actually create that box, which was rtively swiftly done by creating simple metal panes. It would have worked just as well just pouring it into shape, but Eisen figured it would increase the quality of the finished item if he did it manually. And then, after the base was finished, Eisen created the frame for the actual press-parts. Eisen made four metal bars, one for each corner of the base, and then made more metal bars to connect all of them together at the top so that they would all end up stable enough. And in the ce where two of the bars would cross each other, Eisen would then attach the actual press-part of the printing press while it wasn¡¯t being used. Along the four vertical bars, where the edges of the press would be, Eisen created some slits to put the press into their so that it would be somewhat ¡¯Guided¡¯, before filling the walls of those slits with parts of an enchantment-array that wouldter connect to the enchantment actually moving the press up and down. And after that, Eisen had to actually work on the press. He was using metal for that in his a Deep Visualization, but in the end, that probably would be a subpar choice. Mana-Crystals were much easier to use. For one, they were easier to transmute, so the enchantment for that would save on a little bit of mana, they couldn¡¯t deteriorate or bend over time, and it was easier to enchant them so that they would automatically cover themselves in ink. For now, Eisen simply quickly created a mana-crystal te and then worked on the enchantments for the interactive part of it, using the marble workstation that Eisen took from the workshop on the central ind. Although, ¡¯Workstation¡¯ was probably a little bit too much, as Eisen only had the actualrge marble b with him, but it was rtively easy to create a base for it using his element. Once Eisen had everything set up, he quickly started working on the different enchantments. First, he created the ¡¯Interface¡¯ that would allow you to type up some things on your own to have printed. It wasn¡¯t all that hard in the end, at the very least whenpared to what Eisen did for Alnico¡¯s DJ-Set. And on top of that, Eisen already practiced this enchantment in Deep Visualization, just that he had to create something a little bit more detailed and versatile this time around. Basically, this small enchanted crystal would be the most important item to differentiate between the different types of printing-presses. It was in a ce rtively hard to ess without opening the whole thing up though, which Eisen did deliberately so that nobody could actually mess with it, but he would be creating a different crystal that was capable of color-printing. This one was specifically made for Magic-Contracts, but the other one would be made so that Eisen would be able to actually copy a picture and have it transfered over onto something else so that he could mass-produce different flyers or advertisements as well, just in case it was needed. Well, it would be needed, considering that Eisen wanted to make use of somerge posters to advertise the Dungeon in the towns he was in, and of course to advertise Komer¡¯s shop or his own services as well. Although, for those kinds of things, the actual press would be a little different as well, so that Eisen could make use of one of Evalia¡¯s special abilities to attract even more people to them. Especially yers would be attracted to them if he could properly figure that out. But first, Eisen needed to make sure that he could properly finish this regr printing-press before trying all that other stuff out. For the most part, everything was mostly done, Eisen just needed to enchant the mana-crystal te with Evalia¡¯s element-creation and set it to a high-mana ck ink, add the transmutation process inbetween the Interactive menu and the crystal te, and then add the rest of the enchantment to have the press actually press down onto the paper. "Ah, right, I need to add the Scribing as well..." The old man muttered to himself as he slightly sighed, quickly setting another crystal to the side to do that in a bit. Then he could just fuse that crystal with the crystal te and properly finishing all that. Then, at least the base printing press would be done, and Eisen could add the paper-dispenser to itter after testing it out properly. For now, Eisen quickly stepped out of the dungeon and made his way outside the dungeon to enchant everything with the help of Sky, who had the highest Scribing skill of everyone on the ship, and Evalia, so that Eisen could get her element. And then, Eisen quickly moved on and started to actually assemble the press by setting the crystal te into a steel casing, whose insides were enchanted so that the transmutation would work more easily for everything. Atst, Eisen was finally finished with the printing press! Luckily, it wasn¡¯t all that muchrger than a regr printer because the old man tried topact it as much as he possibly could, which made it really perfect for the intention Eisen had for it, to make a lot of them avable to Komer. But for now, Eisen just had to actually test it. After seeing this item as finished, the old man quickly poured his mana into the small gem that was supposed to be a ry for the setting-gem, and Eisen then swiftly started to type up a very simple, random document. It wasn¡¯t actually anything specific, though. He would have typed the base for a contract type in already if he could actually remember how everything had to be, but considering that he only remembered the rough wording of a few of the most important sentences, that was nothing that Eisen would be able to do so easily. For now, he would make do with this random one, and then hit the ¡¯ept¡¯ button to the right, before squatting down to be able to see the mana-crystal te to make sure it was really changing its shape. And to Eisen¡¯s more than pleasant surprise, it worked very quickly, and after about a dozen or so seconds, everything was properly set up and Eisen could get to work printing this onto the first piece of paper. Soon enough, the old man activated the respective enchantment and then happily watched as the surface of the crystal-te became dyed ck before pressing down onto the paper. Just a few moments after that, Eisen was holding the piece of paper with the random text that he wrote up. "Now then, this works a lot better than I thought it would, huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself, "This kind of thing probably already exists, though, so it¡¯s nothing too revolutionary... Although, I didn¡¯t really see any magic contracts readily for sale anywhere up until now." And just after thinking about that, Eisen looked at the time, happy to see that only about 2 hours passed, and he managed to make this really quickly. "As I thought, making them at least once before really does help a lot..." While the old man was speaking to himself, he quickly got to work on the next item. Or rather, the second one of this same item. Because Eisen was nning on making at least half a dozen of this exact type, four for Komer and two for himself, although those for himself would be changed a slight bit so that he would be able to easily switch out the ¡¯Modes¡¯, between the regr Writing-Based and the Picture-Based printing, as well as the special type of Picture-Based Printing that Eisen wanted to try and figure out. In the end, though, when they arrived at the ind, Eisen didn¡¯t manage to finish up a single one, because he was making all of the different pieces in bulk at once so that he didn¡¯t need to switch between skill-settings for his Crafting Space skill or for the sigil on the center of his chest in his Demon-Form. They were both important parts of his process at this point, but it was somewhat bothersome to have to change it all the time, especially because Eisen very often forgot and only noticed in the middle of his work for another piece. So, because of that, Eisen had nearly all the pieces ready, but wasn¡¯t able to actually assemble anything yet. But it was fine, he would probably be able to finish it up within a few hours when he got back to it. For now, there was something else that the old man had to deal with, and due to that, quickly stepped through the entrance area and out of the Dungeon, quickly making his way toward where the others were standing. Eisen was pretty tired right now because he¡¯s been awake for a while now, considering that the Deep Visualization didn¡¯t drain any stamina but also wasn¡¯t considered sleep, so he wanted to get this all over with as soon as he could. And what he wanted to get over with exactly was the conversation with the giant dragon-like see-creature that was raising its head out of the water in front of the ship, creating giant waves as it did so. Chapter 389 - Kai The Sea Dragon that errected its body high above the ship slowly stared down toward the group as a cold mist surrounded the area, not letting any of them see even the rear end of that dragon. With a deep voice that reverberated throughout the ocean, the Dragon started to speak. "Who art thou to pass to these holynds?" The Dragon asked, before the Pdin Half-Dragon spoke up loudly, "Oh Great Guard, I am an inhabitant of this Ind, and these are the trustedpanions to Dragons." He eximed, and the Giant Sea Dragon seemed to want to try and take a closer look, leaning forward with his giant ice blue eyes. But before they could continue any more than that, the Dragon¡¯s pupils shrunk down as if in shock and he moved backward at the same time. "M-M-M-Master?!" The Dragon eximed as he looked at a certain one of the five originals, while the Pdin just raised his brows and turned over toward them, unsure what was actually happening. "Y-You¡¯re finally back! It¡¯s been years!" With a somewhat excited voice, the Dragon seemed to start even wagging its tail, creating giant waves all over the ce that made the ship wave around left and right. And before they knew it, the Dragon¡¯s whole body became covered in a slightyer of mist before shrinking down, causing a figure to appear at the height of the Dragon¡¯s snout. And then, that figure started dropping down toward the group at high speeds, aiming for the one that seemed to have tamed it all those years in the past. This time around, it wasn¡¯t Eisen, however. Instead, it was the Tamer of the group, Jyuuk, who was soon tightly embraced by a young, well-endowed woman. She had lengthy ears and light blue hair and eyes, and a few scales running along the back of her neck and her arms, but other than that, she looked just like a normal person. "Ahh, it¡¯s been so long~!" She eximed with a pleasured, gleeful expression as she rubbed her face on Jyuuk¡¯s chest, while the Monkey Beastperson was just holding his hands up and looking toward Xenia in horror as to say ¡¯I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on¡¯. But then, it seemed like even the Dragoness realized what was going on around them, looking at the woman her master was looking at so intensely as well, before pressing herself off of Jyuuk immediately, actingpletely different to before. Just now, she acted like a spoiled child, but after that she was acting in a quite dignified manner, bowing slightly forward toward Xenia. "Long time no see, Mistress. Excuse me for that, but it¡¯s been so long since I¡¯ve seen your Husband that I couldn¡¯t resist myself~." She exined with a light smile, tilting her head to the side just so slightly, although her words gave everyone quite the shock. Especially Jyuuk and Xenia themselves. "H-H-Husband?!" Xenia asked with a stutter as her face became dyed red, while the same happened to the Beastperson standing next to her. However, Eisen had a little bit of a different thought right now. "Huh, that makes sense..." Eisen muttered to himself, although he quickly tried to avert the topic to somethingpletely different, "Anyway, you, Guard, we can enter the ind now, right?" The old man asked, but the others were simply confused about why he was trying to change the topic all of a sudden. With a slight frown, Jyuuk spoke up in response to thosee thoughts, "Eisen, shouldn¡¯t we talk about this a lit-" "No." Eisen interrupted him immediately. "Think about what I told you in the Guild room. Don¡¯t say anything about this. Think about it, but don¡¯t say a single sble about anything in rtion to this." As the old man red at them, making their whole bodies shudder for a moment, everyone was pretty unsure about what was going on, especially those beside the Originals, so Eisen quickly took the lead. "Our experience was stolen from us. I don¡¯t doubt that Jyuuk was the one that tamed you in the past, but right now, neither he nor any of us remember that happening, I¡¯m sorry." The old man exined, before the Sea Dragoness looked at Eisen in shock. "What? You actually... I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t know..." The Dragoness said, epting all of this a lot more than Eisen thought she would at first, and her wording was pretty weird to Eisen as well, as if she already expected it somewhat. "So that¡¯s really what it was, huh? I did feel our connection weaken to where it was nearly inexistent, but I didn¡¯t expect that to happen... It happened a few times before, not to this extent, but..." The young woman said with a bitter expression, before Eisen just slightly smiled at her, "Don¡¯t worry, even without memories of you, Jyuuk isn¡¯t the type of person to treat you like you don¡¯t have anything to do with each other. Right?" Eisen asked with a smile as he turned toward Jyuuk, who nodded his head in response. "Of course, there¡¯s no reason to!" Jyuuk eximed in response, before he looked over toward Xenia standing in the corner of his eye, "As long as you don¡¯t try to do things that count as cheating on her, obviously..." He added, and immediately, the Dragoness nodded her head wildly. "Yes yes, I can do that! You always told me that, after all... But if you don¡¯t know about me anymore, do you remember my name~?" She asked, although her expression was neitherpletely sad nor really happy, just something awkward inbetween. "Erm... That¡¯s pretty hard, and Eisen I swear to whatever gods are listening, if you-" Jyuuk tried to say, but the old man quickly interrupted him with a smirk, "I¡¯d say something like Umiryuu, Kaiyoryuu, or Kairyuu to shorten thetter." Eisen suggested, and Jyuuk¡¯s face, which barely just returned to its regr color, once more became dyed in crimson when the Dragoness nodded her face. "What, how¡¯d you know?!" She asked confused, while Eisen just started tough out loudly. "Well, I was always called Kai, though~." The Sea Dragoness said with a smile, still surprised that Eisen was able to guess her name earlier than Jyuuk. "Dammit Eisen, what the hell?" Jyuuk asked embarassedly, but Eisen just chuckled in response, and while this was all happening, the Pdin had something to say about all of this. "You... Are the great Guard? Sent here by Trygan himself to protect the ind from invaders?" The Pdin asked, but Kai immediately shook her head and tilted it to the side as she did so, "Huh? No, I was sent here by Jyuuk... Trygan¡¯s a cool guy overall, but that old geezer¡¯s just so... stiffly and uptight whenever I hang out with him... So why would I hang around here and protect his ind for him? I came here because Master asked me to!" Shocked at having the Deity he literally prayed to every day being called ¡¯Stiffly and Uptight¡¯, the Pdin didn¡¯t really know how to react. But there was something else that was much more important in what she just said. "What do you mean ¡¯Whenever you hang out with him¡¯? Do you have a way to contact him?" Eisen asked, and Kai slowly nodded her head. "Mhm, I do. It¡¯s part of my abilities~! Actually, I¡¯m not just a regr Sea Dragon, I¡¯m irvoyant! And so, I can get in contact with him through my Dreamscape~!" She exined, and immediately, Eisen opened his eyes wide in surprise. "Right, yeah... I already met a dragon that met me in my Dreamscape... Can you let me speak to Trygan tonight?" Eisen asked, and Kai interlocked her fingers behind her back with a nod. "Of course! Just you, or the others as well?" She asked, and Brody immediately spoke up. "Obviously us as well!" Brody eximed, but Eisen instantly shot that suggestion down. "No, only me." The old man said, but Brody looked at him annoyedly, "What do you mean, why do you want to do all of this on your own? It involves us just as much as it does you!" Brody pointed out rather annoyedly, bordering on anger, but Eisen had a rather simple answer. "Listen, if you¡¯re seeing red, go ahead ande with me. If not, then I¡¯m not letting youe along." Eisen said with a quite clear, unwavering voice, and Brody just clicked his tongue and turned away, while Kai tilted her head to the side confused. "Master, what does being angry have to do with it?" She asked, but Jyuuk just shook his head. "Nothing, don¡¯t worry about it..." The Beastperon replied, while Eisen nodded his head and looked at the time, before turning back toward Kai. The ¡¯seeing red¡¯ part wasn¡¯t about anger, even if he wanted that to be what it sounded like. Instead, it was about the red notification that was still constantly floating around Eisen. He was able to move it behind his head so that he wouldn¡¯t be able to see it even if he tried, but even then, it seemed to be a sign that he was able to ¡¯Break through¡¯ the mind-control that made everyone forget about what they were talking about. The others didn¡¯t see these yet, so they weren¡¯t able to fight through it no matter how much they wanted to. And considering the conversation Eisen wanted to have with Trygan, that wasn¡¯t something they could afford. "Can you send me there right now?" Eisen asked, and Kai nodded her head in response. "Sure! Right here?" She asked, so the old man nodded his head, sitting down cross-legged in front of her. "Then we¡¯ll move toward the ind tomorrow, we should be safe no matter what with Kai around." Eisen pointed out, and before anyone there even knew it, Kai extended her hand toward the old man and tapped his forehead, and extending from that spot, Eisen¡¯s whole body turned to metal as he entered a sleep-like state. From Eisen¡¯s perspective, he could slowly see the world around him just freeze, as if someone hit pause on everything. And then, with every blink, a little more of the world around him until then was reced with a bright sky, although deep underneath him, there seemed to be a vast, infinite ocean. And when the area directly around Eisen was reced, he found himself in a Marble Pavilion with a single round table in the center and two chair ced on either side. And on one of those chairs sat Trygan, smiling surprised as he looked at Eisen. Immediately he stood up from his seat and looked at the old man with a smile. "Father! How... Unexpected... Pleasantly so, of course! I expected Kairyuu as usual, but to think that you came here through her... I¡¯m d to hear you made it to my Ind already!" Trygan eximed, and Eisen just slightly smiled as he looked at the weirdly young-looking elderly man in front of him. It wasn¡¯t that he was both old and young like Eisen weirdly enough was, but Trygan just looked young. He had a long beard and white hair, but he didn¡¯t have any wrinkles at all, he simply gave off an ¡¯Old Air¡¯ somehow. "Yeah, we met Kai only a few minutes ago, though, and she already nearly endangered Jyuuk and Xenia¡¯s rtionship, and then made a Half-Dragon that deeply believes in you question what kind of god you are." Eisen exined with a light smile, before Trygan chuckled in response and motioned to the chair opposite to the one he was sitting in before. "Yes, Kairyuu is like that, is she not?" The Dragon God said with a light, pleasant smile as he served some tea to Eisen, while the old man just sat down on the chair. "So? Is there a reason you wanted to see me?" Trygan asked, and the old man nodded his head with a slightly bitter wry smile, "Yeah, I¡¯m sorry that it wasn¡¯t just me wanting to see my son. Of course that is true, but there is another reason as well." "And what would that reason be?" Trygan asked in response, quite curious about it, before Eisen just smiled at him. "I want you to tell me what Samuel told all of you guys." Chapter 390 - Scale "Samuel... Who might that be?" Trygan asked in response to Eisen¡¯s request, and the old man looked at him with a deep frown. "The Great Godess¡¯ Father." Heexined, and Trygan opened his eyes open in surprise. "Oh, so his Greatness¡¯ Name was Samuel..?" The Dragon King asked, seeming a little more shocked than surprised, and Eisen nodded in response. "Yes, and I need to know what he told the Gods in rtion to what this world is." The old man exined, so Trygan slowly moved his fingers along his beard after setting town his cup of tea. "There wasn¡¯t much that he told us. He said that this World is one created for entertainment, for the mere pleasure of those who are now called ¡¯Artificials¡¯. That none of us are real, and are just ¡¯Information¡¯. He said it in other words, of course, but that is the gist of it. His Greatness exined other things as well, how we had to act if we evere in contact with an Artificial, and how we should act toward the rest of the world as well." Trygan exined quite swiftly, and Eisen listened quietly, incredibly mad at the whole fact that he was saying that. "And you believed that?" Eisen asked him, and Trygan slowly nodded his head. "Of course, why shouldn¡¯t I believe the one with power beyond what even any of us Deities can imagine?" The Dragon replied, but Eisen just stared at him with a cold gaze. "I¡¯m going to ask again, you believed that? And this time around, tell me the truth." The old man said in a clear voice, but Trygan just turned to Eisen with a confused expression. "I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about, Father. His Greatness-" "Trygan." Eisen interrupted the Dragon with a deep stare, "I won¡¯t allow another one of my sons to be dragged to the ground. I¡¯m starting to remember things that never actually happened to Benjamin Theodore Joyce. They are things that happened to Eisen. And sometimes, I¡¯m not sure who my memories actaully belong to. I know that you¡¯re a loyal person, but your loyalty isn¡¯t a thing that someone¡¯s status can earn." Eisen said with pure anger in his voice. He was sure that Trygan was being manipted somehow as well. He knew that this wasn¡¯t just a game, that this was a real world. He didn¡¯t know how or why or when any of this happened, but it did. And Eisen felt fatherly emotions toward Trygan as well, without truly knowing where they came from. But before Eisen knew it or could even get some sort of answer from Trygan, the Crystal Dragon King just took another sip of his tea and continued on with apletely unrted topic. "Father, did you get to the center of that Puzzle Box yet?" He asked, and with a bit of surprise, Eisen shook his head. "Then I think you should concentrate on that for now. But until then, I have some other matters to attend to." Trygan said with a light smile directed toward Eisen. And before the old man could say anything in response, the world around Eisen was changing back to his view from the ship. But when just the Pavilion was left from Eisen¡¯s dreamscape, Trygan told Eisen something else, standing up and walking off of the Pavilion as he did so, before he was slowly surrounded by a bright, twisting mist. "You are right, however. My Loyalty isn¡¯t something that Status can buy. It is something that only a selected few have ever gotten from me. But those that have it, will never lose it as long as even a single shard of my existence is left." Trygan told him, as his body grew in size into that of a Majestic, beautiful Dragon, with Enormous horns and wingsrge enough to house a football arena. And then, something floated toward Eisen from Trygan¡¯s chest, a scale from right where they began again on his throat. It was quiterge,rge enough to make a giant Towershield out of if he wanted to. "Try and keep it as a souvenir without using it for Craftsmanship, alright Father? You¡¯re going to need it at the point at which you meet my sister." Trygan said with a broad smile on his draconic face, and soon, Eisen found himself back on the ship, still holding the scale in his arms. And now that he thought about it, considering that he went into his Dreamscape in his fully increased size... This Scale was a lotrger than Eisen initially thought it was. But there were many more important things that Eisen needed to somehow figure out. Obviously, Trygan saw through everything as well, but he wasn¡¯t really able to speak to Eisen about it for whatever reasons there may be. The old man still didn¡¯t know much about how everyone was being controlled, after all. Although, there was something that Trygan revealed to the old man. Multiple things, actually. One, Trygan knew about what was supposed to be at the center of the Puzzlebox. Two, the key to unlocking it probably had something to do with Trygan¡¯s scale. And atst, three. Trygan had a ¡¯Sister¡¯. He already had a rough idea of who it might be, just looking at the rough lore that Eisen knew about this world, but he didn¡¯t want to say so for sure. Either way, right now, Eisen was feeling a few different emotions. Sadness that even Trygan¡¯s memories were being manipted like that, Happiness that Trygan wasn¡¯tpletely lost, and annoyance that he wasn¡¯t allowed to Craft something using a part of a literal God. And while Eisen was stemming his body up with the help of that scale, the old man noticed a few steps behid him, before he turned around and saw two draconic faces look up at him. Both of them quite curious, although for different reasons. Kiron was curious about seeing a scale that were simr to his own, and the Pdin Half-Dragon was curious because this was obviously the Dragon King¡¯s scale. And before thetter could storm toward the old man, that old man quickly grabbed one of the empty boxes out of his apron meant to storerge items and stashed it away inside there, causing the Bronze Half-Dragon to stare up at him disappointedly. But for now, Eisen had something else to worry about, rubbing his eyes out of tiredness as he made his way up the stairs to the meeting room. He had to shrink down a bit, because he didn¡¯t exactly fit inside of there perfectly with his new fully-increased size, and then just turned toward the other originals, who were sitting in here as if waiting for Eisen. "So, what¡¯d he say?" Brody asked, his chin pressed against the surface of the table while his wife, who was finally online again, which she wasn¡¯t often considering that she had some other things to take care of even if her husband didn¡¯t,forted him by running her hand through his hair, as if Brody was a child. With a slight smile, Eisen stood at the front of the table and crossed his arms. "That his Loyalty belongs to us. He gave me one of his scales, it seems to be part of unlocking the puzzle box... Although I really don¡¯t know in what way. We¡¯ll have to see in the future." Eisen exined to them quite swiftly, before he once more looked at the time and just started moving his fingers through his beard, turning toward the others to answer any questions that they had, and when the group came to a few minor conclusions that Eisen didn¡¯t see as harmful toward being seen as necessary for ¡¯Memory Control¡¯, the old man chose to just sit down on his chair and doze off into a proper sleep, so that he could get back some of his stamina for tomorrow. And before he knew it, the old man found that he woke up again, perfectly revitalized as much as could be possible. It was still pretty early, and the others still spent around two hours, real world time, out of the game even if their characters didn¡¯t need as much sleep anymore. That meant that Eisen would have a few more hours, in-game time, to spend on making a few essential items for the trip. And those essential items were... clothes. For himself, the size-changing Apron and Pants, and for his three monsters some new clothes as well, even if he wasn¡¯t entirely sure what he wanted to make for them. Caria seemed to want just another cute dress, so Eisen would give that to her without hesitation. And while Melissa also did like her dress, it seemed like she wanted to set herself off a little bit from her older sister who she was following behind of constantly until now, even if she was still basically just doing that. Then for Sal, Eisen wanted to make something like a nice vest that he could wear, or something in the direction of a suit-jacket. For some reason, even if Sal was a child, Eisen figured that would look really cute and great on him, so he chose to go with that in the end. So, the old man swiftly made his way back into the Dungeon toward the area where he was usually crafting, before first working on the monsters¡¯ clothes. Caria¡¯s dress was rtively simple again, just a straight red summer dress with a ring around the hips to seperate it slightly from the chest area. And while the lower and upper parts of the dress were a nice red, Eisen made the broad ring white, just to still keep Caria¡¯s normal color palette. Then, Eisen worked on Melissa¡¯s clothes. He wanted to still make something dress-like, but something that fit better with the often very sleepy Great Empress Bee. And of course, to more easily hide her literal hive-parts when she was using her element on her own body again. And for that, one thing came to Eisen¡¯s mind. An oversized yellow hoody and ck jogging-pants. Satisfied with that idea, Eisen quickly got to work with all of that as well and swiflty cut everything he needed out of the cloth he had avable to him at the moment and put them together into clothes at Melissa¡¯s size. Of course, Eisen also made some space for her wings in the back of the hoody, although he did make it so that she could put her wings through the slits if she wanted to actually use them, or just leave them inside of her hoody otherwise, without you really being able to see the slits when she wasn¡¯t using them. Atst, Eisen moved onto thest clothing item for his three monsters, the vest for Sal. Considering Sal¡¯s incredibly paleplexion, really just pure white, Eisen figured that a simple ck or dark gray would be the best choice for the color, and then quickly made a simple vest out of that, although he did fancy it up with a little bit of decoration in different ces. It was a lot of fun to make these things for them, and most of all, it was just insanely adorable to watch the three of them in their new outfits. And so, with a gleeful mood in response to the pure adorability-vibe the three gave off constantly, Eisen started working on the clothes for himself, the Apron and the pants. As a base for those items, so that he wouldn¡¯t waste anything, Eisen used his current Apron. It was more thanrge and thick enough to do all of that, after all. And for the pants, Eisen already made his way to the material storage and set one of the fabric-weavers up so that he could make the mana-crystal and wool fabric using the enchanted crystal. And then, just a little whileter, Eisen finished the actually very simple clothes up, and was more than just happy to see that they worked just like expected. Proportionally, they didn¡¯t grow or shrink just as much as Eisen himself did, but that¡¯s also something he expected. For example, when Eisen grew by 100%, his clothes would have grown by around 90-95%. But that was something he could deal with, in the end. Chapter 391 - Reaching the Island of Dragons Around the time that Eisen was finished with the different clothes-items, the old man stepped back out of the Dungeon and then spent the rest of the time that he had for now until everyone was up to level his magic skills up some more. For now, he wanted to do his best with his Mana Doubles, summoning all three of them for just that. His Skill was at Level 99 by now, so it most likely wouldn¡¯t take too long until it finally ranked up. And the things that Eisen made the three of them do looked somewhat ridiculous from the outside, trying to make them do a lot of different things at once. For example fist-fight with each other or throw each other further into the distance. Of course, Eisen also simted some craftsmanship using them and mana-copies of his workstations, and barely fifteen minutester, a notification popped up in front of Eisen. [Mana Double reached Level 100 in Rank 2, Upgrading to Rank 3] [Your Doubles can act out very simple tasks on their own] [Due to Ranking-up your Mana Double Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] With a slight smile on his face, Eisen chose to immediately try this out while summoning the fourth Mana Double that he could now create, and then quickly gave them amand in the same form that he wouldmand golems. "Walk forward." Eisen told all of them, and swiftly, they quickly did so without hesitation. Until now, Eisen had to properly control each and every motion of their bodies consciously, and if he stopped doing that, the Doubles would also stop moving. He didn¡¯t seem to be able to give themmands moreplicated then ¡¯Keep moving that way¡¯ or ¡¯Move your arm in that way¡¯. It would help fill in a lot of the gaps that Eisen may be having in the control over these Doubles, and it would lower the load on his head immensely. For now, this would help Eisen a lot, especially if he wanted to mass-produce items more easily. Whenever he tried to make the Doubles Copy his movement, whatever they made ended up pretty botchedpared to what Eisen was making, and it was hard for them to actually use a lot of the techniques that Eisen was using, especially those connected to mana, because those still required conscious control of Eisen, which made him mess up with his own item a little. But they woulde in useful especially when it came to the construction of the printers now, at the very least the simple base parts. And just while Eisen was checking if the Level-Up quest really was properly updated, the rest of the group came along from the Meeting room. "Ah, good morning, everyone." Eisen told them with a smile on his face, and swiftly unsummoned his mana doubles while slowly spreading the mana that he was using on the mana doubles as far as he possible could to start copying the whole ship. Xenia¡¯s ears started twitching for a moment again when she noticed the mana being moved around, but now that she knew that Eisen¡¯s copying wasn¡¯t really an issue, she didn¡¯t really say anything. Other than that, Jyuuk seemed to have startedmanding the skeletons to start moving the ship again, while Kai, who was still clinging to his arm, slowly let go and scratched her cheek. "Well, I guess this is a bye for now again..." She said with a sad expression, and Jyuuk looked at her confused, "What, you mean you¡¯re noting along?" He asked her, and the Sea Dragon quickly shook her head. "Yes, I¡¯m not. Back then, youmanded me to stay here and protect this ind. I didn¡¯t, and still don¡¯t, know why, but you said that only those that are the kin, whether through blood or conversation, of Dragons should be let through to the ind... And even if I don¡¯t know the reason, I trust enough in you to know that it had to be a good one. If you don¡¯t remember it right now, I can¡¯t just abandon this role." Kai said with a slight, bitter smile on her face, and the Beastperson slowly scratched the back of his neck. "Then I¡¯lle back here every once in a while to keep youpany. And if I should ever remember my reasons, it would be great if you coulde with me, if those reasons were taken care of." The Monkey said with a smile on his lips, and Kai just swiftly slung her arms around his neck in a deep hug. "Thank you..." She told him in a quite genuine tone, before she took a step back and held her hands together in front of her body, slightly bowing forward toward the group. "And thank you to all of you as well. It was nice to have someone other than that Geezer to talk to for once." The Dragon chuckled, and slowly stepped over to the edge of the ship. "Then I¡¯ll see you on your way back." Kai said, before she pushed her body over the railing and dropped into the water, before she disappeared there without a trace. "Now then... She was quite fascinating, wasn¡¯t she?" Eisen asked with a slight chuckle, before Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck with a nod. "Yeah, she was... It was nice to see her again..." The Beastperson admitted, and immediately, Eisen pped his hands together to pull attention toward himself, so that Jyuuk couldn¡¯t even go down the path of why he said ¡¯Again¡¯. If he pulled any attention toward it, his ¡¯Mind¡¯ would be reset, and he would feel as if everything was justpletely a game again, at least for a little while. "Well, for now, let¡¯s concentrate on the ind ahead of us, shall we? We should get to the beach in a little while... How long will it take for us to get to the vige from here?" Eisen asked as he turned toward the Pdin Half-Dragon at the back of the group, and he slowly stepped up toward the edge of the ship, still quite taken aback from what the ¡¯Great Guard¡¯ was actually like. After taking a proper look at the ind in the distance, he just thought about it for a little while and then crossed his arms. "Maybe half a day, I would say. Not taking into ount any enemies that we may be unable to avoid, that is." The Pdin exined to them, before Eisen slowly nodded his head with a smile on his face. "I see... Well, that¡¯s not an issue. It should be more than just helpful to be able to level everyone here up a little more." Eisen pointed out, and then slowly turned toward Brody, the one he expected to be the closest to finishing his level-up quest. "How far along are you, by the way?" He asked, and Brody seemed to open some information boxes first to check, and then smirked at the old man. "Just gotta rank up one of my skills once more. It¡¯s already close to Rank 4 though, so I might be able to get there by the time we get to the Vige." The Demon-Orc pointed out, and the four Originals beside him looked at him quite jealously, although Eisen himself wasn¡¯t really that far away from it either. All the skills that he still had to rank up now were rtively close to ranking up, with the exception of his Crafter¡¯s Mind skill, which Eisen was trying to use for a lot of things constantly right now anyway. For example, the things that he was scanning over the past few days were rtively easily made use of with that skill, making it possible for Eisen to mentally take the different structures apart and basically turn them into ¡¯Mental Blueprints¡¯ for this. He might actually be able to make a small interface-item that would let Eisen transfer those mental blueprints over to the printers to let him print those and pass them around to some of the craftsmen that Komer would most likely hire for hispany. If things like the mass-production machines broke in any way, they had to know how to fix them, after all. And as long as Komer made sure to handle those kinds of things using contracts, it most likely wouldn¡¯t end up being an issue to let them see it, as long as they wouldn¡¯t pass this kind of thing around to just anyone. Other than his Crafter¡¯s Mind skill, Eisen needed to work on a few other skills that he could probably level up rtively easily on his way back to the maind inside of the dungeon, for example his more ¡¯Physical¡¯ crafting skills, such as cksmithing, Tailoring, or Leatherworking, as well as skills that generally needed some more space to work with, such as Farming, Mining or Masonry. It would probably still take a few more days until he was able to actually finish the quest, though, but at the very least it didn¡¯t have a condition such as bing a ¡¯Champion III¡¯ this time around. The ¡¯Champion II¡¯ condition was probably something that was just a thing because of the timing of his first level-up quest ovepping with Bol¡¯s test. "Well, if you should manage to get to Level 200 before we¡¯re at the vige, I think you should try and go ahead and hunt a little bit." Eisen ended up saying to the Demon-Orc, who just crossed his arms with a knowing smirk, "You¡¯re just saying that because you want Draconic Materials, aren¡¯t you?" He asked the old man, who ended up just chuckling and moving his fingers through his beard. "Who knows? Maybe I do, maybe I don¡¯t. I definitely won¡¯t say no if I¡¯m offered some." Eisen replied with a wink, and Brody justughed while nodding his head. "Sure, sure, I¡¯ll get you some stuff to work with. By the way, we still have the venom from the egg, don¡¯t we? Any ns for that?" Brody asked him, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Oh, yeah, actually. I wanted to first try and split the dissolved flesh from the actual venom parts, but I had a few issues figuring out which parts belong to which, so Jyuuk¡¯s been helping me out and took a look at it the best he could. When I can actually split it up properly, there¡¯s a potion I heard about that I want to try out with it." The old man exined with a smirk, and Evalia raised her eyebrows surprised, "You really mean a ¡¯Potion¡¯, not a ¡¯Poison¡¯, do you?" She asked him, and Eisen looked at her with a silent smile, not responding to her question, before turning back around toward the ind, which had now gotten close enough for the group to properly set off and step down onto it. "Well, anyway, let¡¯s just get going now. If it takes about half a day, we should hurry up. If the path isn¡¯t too troublesome, we should take the carriage this time, might speed it up a little." Eisen suggested, before he turned toward the Half-Dragon Pdin to see if he had anything to say against that idea, and when Eisen could see that he didn¡¯t, the old man happily made his way to where the carriage was kept and pulled it up to the main deck with Cabarum¡¯s help. Swiftly, the group brought the carriage to the ind when the ship finally came to a halt, and everyone beside Eisen, the Half-Dragon Pdin, and a select few others made their way into the dungeon via Fafnir¡¯s gate ced inside of the carriage. "Alright, from here, where do we need to go?" Eisen asked as he shrunk down, happy that he didn¡¯t need to change his clothes for that anymore, and the Pdin looked around while sitting down on the front bench of the carriage next to Eisen, before pointing forward toward a small path amongst the trees. "The best start should be over there." Chapter 392 - Through the Dragon Jungle For a little while, nothing much happened. They were just driving the carriage through the thick, jungle-like forest, which surprisingly had a rtively well-intact path just running straight through it. And whenever that really wasn¡¯t the case, Jyuuk and Xenia would work on that a little bit, Jyuuk using his nt Control, and Xenia using Fire Magic, which she obviously managed to control perfectly. Eisen could have done this himself as well, but he was concentrating on using all his mana to spread it around himself in asrge an area as possible to copy everything around him. At least, until Eisen¡¯s skill ranked up, giving him just a bit of a speed- and quality- boost to his copying. But even then, Eisen didn¡¯t stop trying to copy as much as possible, although he concentrated a bit more on the wildlife this time around. It wasn¡¯t like he was able to actually feel everything where his mana was, he just had a weird awareness about those parts, but at the very least he could see when something was moving around unnaturally. That would then be copied by Eisen and reproduced for the Half-Dragon Pdin, so that he could tell Eisen if they were any trouble to them or just some critters. But to Eisen¡¯s surprise, even those critters were of draconic nature. While even squirrels or bugs were Golems on the Golem God¡¯s ind, it seemed like every single creature on here was somehow draconic, or at the very least reptilian in nature. But most of what Eisen had noticed the most so far was that there were a lot of really tiny ¡¯Wyverns¡¯ Flying around. Normal Dragons had four legs and then wings on their back, but Wyverns seemed to have either four legs with their front-legs being directly part of their wings, or two legs with wings as a recement for their front-legs. Most of those that Eisen saw until now where thetter, and were mostly at the size of Birds. There were a lot of different ones, though, and Eisen thought that they were actually really cute. If they were treated properly, maybe Eisen should suggest to Komer about opening something like a Pet-Shop with this kind of harmless,paratively weak monster. Of course, it would bepletely different to the Monster-Shop that Merc had in the capital, just something humane like one would expect a proper pet-shop in reality to be. Usually it was illegal to open that kind of shop in a town, simply beause of the dangers that monsters represented, but with Komer¡¯s contacts, he could probably figure something out. Eisen and Komer were actually messaging back and forth during this trip and speaking about this suggestion, and Komer, who was currently on his way back to the maind and made sure that Koro was there with him as well, actually seemed to be pretty interested in that idea as well. Of course, he already made a few financial preparations in order to buy a good enough building to set up his first shop in, and it seemed like the Lord of the Town already prepared a ce that Komer might like. From the ns he was shown, it was rtively central in the merchant-district, but the actual building was in a more run-down, back-alley area of that discrict. It seemed like the Lord wanted to make use of Komer to maybe push the worth of that area up a bit more, and the prices of the buildings were extremely cheappared to other areas, considering that nobody else really wanted to set up there because it was basically riddled by the ¡¯Scum of town¡¯. And hearing all of these things, Eisen had a rtively fun suggestion, even if Komer himself was quite surprised at it. It was a bit risky, but Eisen knew that it would be worth a try, and would be an amazing investment if everything ended up really working out. And the Lord of the Town should be very happy about it as well, considering that Eisen suggested to Komer that he should buy as much of the same street as the guild could possibly afford. Of course Komer would be a bit surprised at that, but in the end, after the old man¡¯s exnation, Komer understood his reasoning, and was more than just excited about that. "Hmm... What about this one?" Eisen asked, interrupted in his thoughts as he noticed the movement of what seemed to be another different monster, quickly showing the mana-verson of it to the Half-Dragon next to him. And then, the Pdin opened his eyes wide in response to the Monster-sighting. "We really need to keep going... Perpendicr to the direction that that monster is moving..." the Pdin exined immediately, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in reply. "Alright, that means either southeast or northwest. Which way?" The old man asked, motioning Jyuuk and Xenia to get ready to get rid of the nts in front of them, and the Pdin quickly tought about it and then answered after just a few moments. "Southeast." He told them, seemingly in quite a rush and fairly frightened, so Eisen was pretty curious about what exactly he was worried about. "What kind of monster is that? It was pretty small, so we probably could have dealt with it, right? It wasn¡¯t that fast either." Eisen pointed out, looking at the raptor-like figure floating above his hand, but the Pdin simply shook his head. "It isn¡¯t that one I¡¯m worried about. It is simply a precursor to the actual monster I¡¯m worried about, a Mountain-Drake. They are huge high rank 6 Monster, of which there are only about two or three on this whole ind, and these small creatures are in a symbiotic rtionship with them, leading the Mountain-Drake to possible prey which it will usually very easily kill, and then the symbiotes will feast on that prey. The Mountain-Drake itself doesn¡¯t need sustenance in that form, but simply wants to get stronger by increasing its level." The Pdin exined, and Eisen raised is eyebrows in response, and not only he seemed to be quite interested in that monster. Jyuuk himself was also more than just curious. "A Giant Drake..? C-Can we maybe go and take a glimpse..?" The beastperson asked curiously from inside the carriage, but the Pdin just immediately shook his head. "Don¡¯t be mad! We cannot afford getting seen by the symbiotes, or else they will hunt us until we¡¯re dead." The Half-dragon replied, and Jyuuk¡¯s head just started drooping disappointedly, so Eisen just chuckled in response. "Don¡¯t worry, Jyuuk, you¡¯ll be able to see some Giant Monsters at the verytest when we head to the Giant¡¯s Country, right?" Eisen asked, and he immediately nodded his head. "Oh, right! Of course! Ipletely forgot about that~!" He said excitedly, and Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard, "Although I am interested in how it¡¯s able to survive without eating..." The old man muttered to himself. He would surely be able to make a great survival item, or at least something like a potion with whatever part of that Drake made it so that it could live like that without issue. "Well, even then, I¡¯m happy that we found a ce with a steady supply of Soul Stones. Although my Soul-Strength is way too low to handle them for anything but mana-batteries..." Eisen said with a slightugh, before Jyuuk raised his eyebrows in response to what Eisen just said. "Right, Monsters are only supposed to have them at Rank 5 normally, huh?" Jyuuk muttered quietly, and then, Eisen could hear him get up from his seat to walk around inside of the carriage a little, and Eisen guessed it was to take a look at the souls that he had given a form to already, which the old man stacked up inside of soul-stone cubes in the corner. "That reminds me... What are you going to do with these?" The beastperson asked, taking one of the cubes and bringing it to the window in the front of the carriage, and Eisen slightly turned his head to take a look at it. "Oh, I¡¯m going to use them for Ego-Item practice. I wasn¡¯t entirely sure back when I made them, but now I know that that¡¯s probably one of the most important reasons to making them. For example, there¡¯s one that¡¯s kind of like a ne, so if I make a piece of Ego-Jewelry using it, for whatever reason, the growth potential should be a bit higher." Eisen exined, before chuckling slightly, "At least that¡¯s my guess, I¡¯ll have to test it out when I actually have the skill." The old man said with augh, and Jyuuk nodded his head with a whistle. "Then I¡¯ll get you a bunch of souls for that... The Scythe makes it pretty easy, actually. Although I really do look a lot like a Death God now..." Jyuuk exined, and Eisen once more justughed, "That was kind of the idea behind me making you a Scythe, to be honest. I thought it fit with your image." He told him, and Jyuuk justughed back in response. "Eh, makes sense. So... Any idea when we¡¯ll be there? It¡¯s been about five hours since we started moving, right?" Jyuuk asked as he turned toward the Half-Dragon Pdin, who didn¡¯t need to think long about it. "We were able to get through the forest a lot faster than I expected, so... We should be there in around an hour, I think." The Pdin exined to them, trying to ignore the fact that they were speaking so casually even though such a strong and dangerous monster was in the area. "Huh, sounds good. Oh, by the way, is the vige a properly-established town? Or is it just a regr settlement?" Eisen asked, already pretty sure to know the answer, and the Half-Dragon swiftly shook his head, "It¡¯s just thetter. We do have that ¡¯Town Core¡¯ in our possession, but we were never able to establish a town without creating a ¡¯Guild¡¯, which we weren¡¯t able to do without knowing what it even was. But with your help, we should be able to do so very easily, right?" The Pdin asked, and Eisen nodded his head immediately. "Of course. I also have another Core Guardian for all of you, so your vige will most likely experience rather rapid growth. Building-Repairs can be handled very easily as well, roads can be created without an issue, and most importantly, there¡¯s always someone watching what¡¯s going on inside of town and directly around it, so you will all be warned when something is attacking." Eisen pointed out, and the Half-Dragon slowly nodded his head in response, just smiling broadly. "I see, I don¡¯t know how to thank you. This was part of the reason why I left the Ind, if I should be honest with you. I wanted to see if I can find out what a ¡¯Guild¡¯ is so that we can make use of the crystal." The Half-Dragon exined, before Eisen nodded his head in reply. "Well, don¡¯t worry, you will be able to from now on." The old man exined, and from then on, he simply started exining the benefits that the Town Core really gave to them, and how they should handle all of that. They probably shouldn¡¯t need to worry about protection, considering that they have a few Dragons living with them in or near their vige, and they seemed to alwayse to help when they were needed. And before any of them really knew it, the Pdin stood up on the footing of the bench and extended his hand forward into the distance. "Over there, that¡¯s my vige!" He eximed happily, his tail wagging back and forth while he was at it. Although, before they could even approach any further, arge creature approached them in the distance, with Bronze Scales shining in the light, while the Pdin¡¯s tail immediately stopped moving and his whole body froze up. Chapter 393 - Distracted Dragons The Bronze Dragon that approached the group slowlynded in front of them in an intimidating fashion, pushing out its chest and pulling up its snout, to even more create the feeling of it ¡¯Looking Down¡¯ on them with its ring eyes. "So you¡¯re back, I see? Back from that useless little trip?" The Dragon asked in a deep voice, and the Half-Dragon Pdin just started grinding his teeth as he stared back at it, for the first time acting truly eratic and ¡¯disrespectful¡¯ toward anyone, as far as the group had seen at least. "Shut the hell up, you damn Lizard!" The Pdin eximed, and immediately the Bronze Dragon, slightly taken aback, lowered its head to stare at the Half-Dragon in front of him. "Is that any way to greet your father?!" The Dragon asked him and Eisen, simply curious about how this whole thing would unfold, crossed his arms and made sure that the carriage was standing still. "Oh shut it already! You didn¡¯t exactly greet me very nicely either!" With that, the Pdin crossed his arms with dedication of not wavering against this Dragon, who didn¡¯t react all that happily to this fact. "You¡¯re about 500 years too early to try and speak back to me, you hear? You¡¯re barely 30 years old!" The Dragon replied rather angrily, but the Pdin just sighed and shook his head angrily, "I told you, why the hell are you trying to brag with your age, not my fault you didn¡¯t getid till yourte 400¡¯s." The Pdin eximed, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself butugh a little bit at thatment. This really did seem like ssic Father-Son banter to him, even if on the more hostile side of things. But now that Eisen did this, he pulled the attention of the Dragon toward himself. "And who is this? Why did you bring along someone this weak?" He asked with anger in his voice, but Eisen just raised his brows with a smile and moved his fingers through his beard. "Oh, so I¡¯m weak to you, now am I?" Eisen asked as he looked at the Dragon, who just replied with a huff, "Of course you are! My useless son brought a human along, how else should I be describing you?" The Dragon eximed, seemingly just wanting to rile everyone up. But of course, he didn¡¯t expect Eisen to just y along. "I see... I see..." The old man then said with a smirk as he stepped off of the carriage, stepping closer toward the Dragon while steadily increasing his size and activating his Demonic Transformation, and for a little bit of extra effect, tried to tune it as much toward the Yin state as he could at the moment. He wasn¡¯t really angry at the moment, so it didn¡¯t work out as much as he had hoped to, but it should be enough. And as Eisen then stood in front of the Dragon, around half as tall as its head was at the moment, he simply looked up to it and smiled. "You¡¯re about a Hundred Thousand years too early to try and speak like that." The old man said with a smile, and surprisingly enough, the Dragon took a step back, startled at Eisen. The old man was aware that his intention was to do that, but he didn¡¯t expect a Dragon to react that strongly. And Eisen had just a single reason for why he reacted that way, and chose to take it even another step further, using his Truth-Seeing Eyes to at least find out this Dragon¡¯s name, and then just formed a slight smile on his face, which just seemed extremely creepy and gruesome with the current vibe that Eisen gave off. "Don¡¯t you remember, Argonthur? Don¡¯t you remember my voice? My Stature? My Face?" Eisen asked him, and immediately, the Dragon took another step back and d himself in mist, transforming his body into a different shape. The shape of a Human, currently bowing in front of Eisen with his forehead pressed against the ground. "O-Old Man Eisen, I-I¡¯m sorry that I didn¡¯t recognize you!" The Dragon, now in the form of a well-trained middle-aged man, eximed, trying to apologize vehemently to him. "Oh~?" Eisen asked with a sligh grin on his face, squatting down in front of the man, slowly tuning his transformation over toward the Yang side, just smiling kindly as he extended his giant hand toward the man in front of him. "Don¡¯t worry about that, young man. But please, be kinder to your son from now on, will you? He is the Squire to my most important and strongest Knight, after all. I expect a great many things from the talent that he has shown so far." Eisen told him, and immediately, the man in front of him raised his head in response, taking Eisen¡¯s hand with a calm expression before being pulled up by the old man, and then turned toward the Half-Dragon Pdin who just stepped off the carriage weirded-out out of his mind, while Jyuuk and Xenia were just watching with curiously amused expressions from the Carriage¡¯s window. "My son, I¡¯m sorry about before. I¡¯m d that you¡¯re finally back here with us." Argonthur told him, while Eisen slowly deactivated his different transformations and then ran his fingers through his beard with a chuckle. "Now then, that¡¯s better, isn¡¯t it?" The old manughed, before Argonthur immediately turned toward Eisen with a bright, smiling expression. "Of course, of course. I was just worried about him, that¡¯s all..." The Dragon exined with a wry smile, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "I see. Well then, how about you show us to the Vige for now? We have some business to take care of with the Town Core." As Eisen told this to Argonthur, the Dragon in human form immediately nodded his head, rather furiously at that. "I will let everyone know about your Arrival!" The Dragon eximed and turned around, sprinting toward the vige, although he seemed to have forgotten a rather vital ability of his. "Don¡¯t you think you would be faster as a Dragon?" Eisen yelled after him, and without a word of reply, Argonthur was covered in mist and turned back into his Bronze-Dragon form, just leaving Eisen tough a bit again, while Eisen and the Pdin sat back down on the carriage to keep driving in the direction of the vige silently. Only a minute or twoter did the Pdin sort his thoughts out and turned toward Eisen. "You... You know my father?" He asked, but Eisen just shook his head with a smile. "Not as far as I¡¯m aware. But Dragons all seem to have the ability to sense things that aren¡¯t normally seen, felt or heard, so when he reacted so strongly before, I figured he remembered me instead. I probably used to know him. It does make sense, if you think about it." Eisen exined, and the Pdin just slowly nodded his head. "Of course..." The Half-Dragon replied, before Jyuuk pulled his head through the Carriage¡¯s window. "You have to give me a few tips there, Eisen. Being able to tame a Dragon with a pure intimidating vibe should be very helpful to me..." He pointed out, and Eisen justughed in reply. "I guess so. Who knows, maybe you can figure something out with your element." Eisen pointed out, before slightly turning his head toward Xenia, "You have a pretty good connection to the one with the probably most in-depth theoretical knowledge about magic in this world. Try and use that a little." Eisen smiled with a wink, and then turned back to what was in front of the group, the small Vige, where people seemed to have gathered rather quickly, although the only ones that seemed extremely nervous or excited were the six dragons just sitting there, each with a human or Dragonfolk partner in front of them, while three Half-Dragons were standing next to them as well. And one of the Dragonfolk was even holding a small Half-Dragon baby in their arms. From what Eisen could tell at first nce, beside Argonthur, there were Steel, Silver, Blue, Red and ck Dragons there, the only one who didn¡¯t seem to have a child being the Blue Dragon. Eisen was rather surprised to see Chromatic and Metallic Dragons living so harmonously, but Eisen guessed it made sense. After all, this wasn¡¯t the ind of Metallic Dragons, but the ind of Dragons, of any type. And soon enough, Eisen stopped the carriage in front of therge group of people and then quickly signaled Sigurd to make everyonee out of the Dungeon, and soon enough, they all did, before Fafnir closed down the gate and stepped out of the carriage as well. Everyone besides the six full dragons there paid more attention to those three draconic beings, the Pdin, Kiron, and Fafnir. It made sense, really. The Pdin used to live here, so people should recognize him. Kiron was a Half-Dragon with Crystal scales, and considering the Ind they were living on, this must mean a lot to them. And one of them was a type of Dragon that they¡¯ve never seen before as well, so that must have been especially surprising. And soon enough, the five Originals stepped up to the front of everyone to take over for now, considering that the Dragons must be able to recognize them all. "Thank you foring so far, dear... I am sorry, Lord Argonthur didn¡¯t inform us of your names. All he yelled out was that the ¡¯Old Guys¡¯ wereing. But we wee you either way, as guests of our Lords." An elderly, weakly man with red tattoos simr to the ones that Sigurd had over its body, exined, and Eisen just chuckled and looked at the Bronze Dragon with a smile on his lips. However, both Xenia and Evalia were pretty upset over being called old, "Hey, who¡¯re you calling old here?! Do you know my skincare routine?!" Evalia eximed angrily, and Xenia immediately nodded her head, too upset to even say anything, and immediately, Argonthur pressed his head against the ground. "I¡¯m sorry!" He yelled out, immediately making the Vigers look over toward the Dragon confused, while the other Dragons were also slightly freaking out at different degrees. Only the son of the ck Dragoness and a Dragonfolk man crossed his arms with a huff. "Heh, I don¡¯t see it with those prettydies there, but at least those three guys look super old, right?" He asked andughed as he looked over toward the Half-Dragoness a little further to the right, standing directly in front of the Red Dragon and his Human partner, who chuckled slightly in response. While Kiron was rather nervous about seeing other humanoid Half-Dragons for the first time, the Half-Dragon Pdin standing next to him didn¡¯t find it nearly as funny. "All of you, be quiet immediately!" He eximed, but the ck Half-Dragon just chuckled and shook his head, "Oh, you feelin¡¯ really strong, huh? Where¡¯s the issue in saying it how it is, right Mom?" He asked, looking up at his panicking ck Dragon Mother, before making a confused expression. Trying to figure out how to make up for this, it seemed like all of the Dragons looked at each other for a moment and then simultaneously transformed into their human shape, surprsing everyone even more. It seemed like it required something special for them to do so. "Wh-What are you saying, you idiot? Didn¡¯t your father train you well enough for you to know when you¡¯re facing people stronger than you?!" She asked as the pale-skinned woman in a pitch-ck dress looked at the Half-Dragon in front of her, but it seemed like even the Dragonfolk man didn¡¯t really understand her reaction. "Honey, these people aren¡¯t stronger than us, you know? I think it¡¯s your senses that need to be checked." The man pointed out, before all of the Dragons, now in humanoid form, turned toward the five Originals, just now realizing that something was off. Until now, they were too distracted by their fear of these five to notice how weak they had gotten. Chapter 394 - The Half-Dragons "It¡¯s true, they¡¯re a lot weaker than before..." The Red Dragon added with a frown, and even Argonthur stepped forward confused, "Wait wait wait, but that before was the same eerily terrifying feeling that Eisen always gave off when he scolded us!" The Bronze Dragon replied. "Hmm, you¡¯re the best of us at sensing that kind of thing as well..." The Silver Dragoness turned Human added with a frown, and Eisen just slowly nodded his head in response to them all as he took a step forward with augh. "Well, it is indubitably us that you remember, it¡¯s just that we don¡¯t really remember you. We lost our Memories and our strength." Eisen exined, and he could notice Brody grumbling from behind him at dislike of Eisen incinuating their weakness, before the Dragons looked at them confused. "You... What?" The Blue Dragon asked with a deep frown, before Eisen just chuckled. "As I said, we lost our Memories and our strength, but we¡¯re on a good way toward gaining our strength back. Brody already reached Level 200 again." Eisen exined, but everyone was just still rather confused at what he was talking about, so the old man simple sighed and shook his head with a frown, turning toward Bree to ask her to give him one of the storage-boxes, which she swiftly did without hesitation, before Eisen just quickly took the Giant Crystal Scale out of it, pressing it into the ground as he did so. Immediately, everyone that was there, beside the Dragons and Half-Dragons, looked at the scale with wonder in their eyes, as if they had just seen their god himself. "Now then, I think this should be enough to show that we¡¯re on your good side, shouldn¡¯t it?" Eisen said with a broad grin, and immediately, the elderly man from before stepped up toward him, before also looking at Kiron once more. "This is a Scale of the Great Trygan, is it not?" The Elder asked, slowly extending his hand toward it, and Eisen nodded his hand before pulling it away. It was an important item, so he didn¡¯t want some random person to take it from him somehow. "Yes, it is." Eisen replied, before the Elder audibly swallowed his Saliva. "Then... That means this is the son of Trygan?" He asked, looking toward a rtively embarrassed Kiron, before the Half-Dragon Pdin nodded his head immediately. "Yes, he is!" He eximed, cing his hand on the Crystal Half-Dragon¡¯s shoulder, "This Incredibly Strong Man right here is indeed Trygan¡¯s son, and this man¡¯s Grandson here! And by the way, I¡¯m learning under him to be a Holy Knight." The Pdin said, obviously just trying to brag a little here, before the Elder extended his hand toward Eisen, seemingly too hesitant to do so for Kiron, before shaking the old man¡¯s hand furiously. "It is an Honor! Who would have expected we would be able to meet the the Holy Spouse¡¯s Father!" The Elder eximed with a smile of glee on his face, although he seemingly misunderstood something here. All six of the Dragons behind the Elder seemed to want to clear that misunderstanding up but were too nervous to approach them, so the Elder soon had a chance to speak again, "Now it makes sense why the Lords treat you with such respect! Excuse my rudeness, I¡¯m our Tribe¡¯s Elder, Grunak." The Elderly man exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head with a smile. "Wonderful to meet you, Grunak. You can just call me Eisen. Well, I think we should get right to the point here, however. There are a lot of things I would like to do before the day is over, because at the very least I want to depart quite soon, so would you be able to show us to the Town Core?" Eisen asked, not even trying to fix the misconception that Grunak was under, which was something that none of the people that knew the truth missed. "Grandfather, but-" Kiron started, however, Eisen just turned around and winked at him to interrupt him, "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll tell them sooner orter. I feel like things will be a bit more troublesome if we let them know about the truth." The old man exined with a whisper, before turning toward the Dragons with a slight smile, as if to tell them not to resolve the misunderstanding either, and the Elder Grunak immediately nodded his head. "Of course, of course! Make way, and prepare a feast for tonight!" The Elder eximed as he turned toward the Vige, while Eisen once more spoke to his group. "Alright, Pdin, Kiron, you twoe with us. The rest of you, please get a tour around the vige to see what ces need the most immediate work, alright? Oh, and Bree, can you give me the box with the Guardian?" Eisen asked, and the young Fey-Kin girl immediately nodded her head and turned toward Eisen with a smile. "Here you go~!" She eximed, and Eisen smiled at her and happly received the small box, before increasing his size back to the maximum he could, because he felt a bit morefortable this way, and then stashed the box away inside of the front-pocket of his Apron. This of course surprised the Vigers a fair bit, but for now, Eisen ignored that while the Elder led the group of seven, Eisen¡¯s group, as well as the Dragons and their children, with the exception of the Half-Dragon Toddler, toward thergest building in the Vige. And while this was happening, the six Dragons were speaking amongst each other about what might be going on, while the three Half-Dragons bunched together as well, trying to pull the Half-Dragon Pdin toward them as well to speak about Kiron. The Pdin didn¡¯t really seem happy about what they were saying, but from what Eisen could tell, especially the more brutish ck Half-Dragon wanted to start a fight. Well, of course, Kiron currently seemed unarmed because Eisen created a small box for him as well to keep the sword in while outside of Combat, and without that sword, Kiron may not look all that intimidating to people that were raised by full-blooded Dragons. It seemed like Kiron noticed what they were speaking about as well, so Eisen chose to take the initiative and quickly inspected all of the Half-Dragons. And it seemed like they were all Low-Level Rank 5, simr to the Pdin when they first met him. Kiron managed to beat him then, and since then Kiron recovered a fair bit of his strength as well, stat-wise putting him equivalent to a High-Level Rank 5 Monster. Eisen was sure that Kiron could take care of all of them even at once, because Kiron¡¯s strength seemed to truly shine when he was up against a lot of enemies and when he couldn¡¯t spare even a moment for wasted or unnecessary movements. Even Brody was pretty impressed with Kiron¡¯s movement, of course Kiron never won against the Demon-Orc in a fight even once, but Brody was still impressed by him even then. But it seemed like neither the ck Half-Dragon, nor the Red or Silver Half-Dragonesses seemed very impressed with his strength and wanted to show their ¡¯superiority¡¯ throughbat, so Eisen figured they should use this all to recruit a few more Squires. Eisen already spoke about this to the other Originals, and none of them seemed to really mind the idea that Eisen came up with then. It meant that the third slot for a Town connected to the Guild would be filled up by a Lord who wasn¡¯t one of the five Originals, but everyone was fine with that, especially considering Kiron¡¯s obvious connection to this Ind. But first, they needed to actually see the Town Core to confirm that it was the real deal. Although, as Expected, the Town Core was simply floating there directly underneath thisparatively Large Building¡¯s ceiling. But considering Eisen¡¯s maximum height, he could very easily grab it from there, and then looked at the Elder with a smile. "We can activate this Town Core through our Guild, meaning that this Vige will gain stronger Protection and faster progress." Eisen started, and the Elder immediately nodded his head with a gleeful expression, "Ah, I see! So you indeed have a ¡¯Guild¡¯? I don¡¯t know how we can repay such a favor!" The elder eximed, but Eisen raised his eyebrows in response, d for this perfect set-up to rile the Half-Dragon youths up a little. "Well, it¡¯s not really a favor. One of us will be the Lord of this town, and we will integrate an entity that can and will know everything happening here as well. Of course, as the Elder, you will still have Authority over your people, but using one of us, we can properly make sure that you get whatever ressources you need so that you can grow beyond your current state." Eisen exined, and while the Elder did seem a little hesitant all of a sudden, the Dragons didn¡¯t seem to have that hesitation at all. "Ahe on, just do it already, we know we don¡¯t really have a choice here." The Red Dragon said with a sigh, making the Elder ept the decision happily as well, so Eisen just chuckled and nodded his head. "Yes, you don¡¯t really. Sorry about that." Eisen told them, and just then, what Eisen wanted to happen did happen. The Half-Dragons picked a fight. "What, who would allow some strangers to suddenlye and take control of this ce?" The Red Half-Dragoness eximed, supported by the ck Half-Dragon, "Exactly, you can¡¯t just do that!" He yelled out, and immediately the ck Dragoness and the Red Dragon turned toward their Children with terrified expressions, before trying to apologize to the Originals. But Eisen was rather happy about this. "Oh, don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s fine. Well, you three appreciate strength over anything else, don¡¯t you?" He asked, and the ck Half-Dragon immediately nodded. "Of course we do. But you all said you¡¯re barely level 200, so why should we trust in your strength?" He asked, and Eisen just chuckled and ced his hand onto his Grandson¡¯s shoulder. "Then how about we show you our strength. You three against my Grandson and his Squire." Eisen suggested, and immediately, Kiron and the Pdin looked at Eisen confused, before he just smiled at them with a reassuring nod. And immediately, the ck Half-Dragon nodded his head. "Sure, as if we¡¯d lose to some unarmed, pampered prince and a weak Priest?" He asked, and Eisen started to smirk as he looked over toward Brody, who was unsure whether or not these guys wereplete idiots, or just actually as bad at reading their opponent as the ck Dragoness said before. Either way, the Demon-Orc now also wanted to see them getting their asses kicked. And while the six Dragons and the Elder wanted to stop this all from happening, before they knew it, the group made their way to the central za were there was a lot of space to move around, and while the three Half-Dragon opponents went to get their weapons, the Pdin wanted to exin their fighting methods, although surprisingly enough, Brody took that step over as he looked at Kiron. "The Silver one is a Mage, the Red one is an Archer, and the ck one probably fights with a heavy weapon simr to yours." The Demon-Orc exined, and the Pdin and the Dragons looked at him rather surprised, because he seemed to bepletely correct. "How did you know?" The Pdin asked, and Brody just sighed and shook his head. "What, are you an idiot? The Silver one is thin and unmuscr in any way, but she seems pretty dexterous. And Silver is a naturally magic material, so it makes sense for them to have a good exposition for Magic. The Red one has broad shoulders and strong legs, and from the muscle-groups that were most defined when she flexed her body up angrily just now were those that are most important in Archery. But judging from how quiet and quickly she walks, she¡¯s probably more used to using Archery while moving. And for thest one... Well, he¡¯s not necessarily defined anywhere, but he has the highest amount of raw muscle mass of all of them there. He seems pretty slow physically and, no offense, also mentally, so he¡¯s just a brute. His lower arms are pretty thick, and his finger strength seems quite high as well... My Guess is that he fights with something dumb like a wooden log." Brody pointed out, and while the ck Dragoness was burying her face in her hands out of embarrassment, the three Half-Dragons approached again. The Silver one with a Staff, the Red one with a Bow, and the ck one with arge, scratched up wooden log. Chapter 395 - 10 Seconds "Well then, you guessed it pretty well, huh?" Eisen asked with augh, and Brody nodded his head with a shrug. "It¡¯s kinda obvious they don¡¯t have higher quality weapons here. The Staff is just a stick as well, and the bow is barely passable, so it kinda makes sense that the big one doesn¡¯t have a proper weapon that he should be using instead of... that." The Demon-Orc sighed, and Eisen slowly crossed his arms and started looking around the area. "Fair point, the buildings are pretty run-down, the quality of the streets isn¡¯t that high either... Most of the clothes they¡¯re wearing are pretty ripped up, so..." Eisen muttered quietly, and then he turned toward the six Dragons standing next to them with a deep frown. "How could you let this ce decline like that? If you really knew us, then you should also know that none of us would let this kind of thing pass." Eisen pointed out, and the Blue Dragon slowly nodded his head. "We know, we¡¯re quite sorry about that. Nobody here really has the raw exposition to be good craftsmen, and about ten years ago, we had to move viges because the old one waspletely destroyed to nothing but ashes. We¡¯re sorry." He exined, and Eisen just ended up sighing in the end. "It¡¯s fine, we can deal with thatter. The town will be established in probably around ten minutes." Eisen replied immediately, and it seemed like the Half-Dragons that heard him were quite annoyed at that statement. "Hah, right! As if we¡¯d lose to you!" The ck Half-Dragon eximed, burying his ws inside of the wooden so that he could hold it more easily, and Eisen thought he should try and make use of one of the new abilities that he gained very recently when his Mana-Copy skill ranked up to 3. He was now able to copy motions as well, as if he was recording something. It was kind of hard to do that though and it required constant attention, but Eisen was sure that he could manage somehow. And so, Eisen quickly spread his mana around the area that they were supposed to fight in, and the Silver Half-Dragoness seemed to have somewhat noticed this fact as well, but just kept quiet about it. Out of the three of them, it seemed like she was the most hesitant to fighting as well, so Eisen just smiled at her with a nod and then started concentrating on copying everything, while Kiron slowly grabbed the box out of his pocket and pulled out his sword, immediately making the three Half-Dragons look at him surprised. Especially the ck Half-Dragon, who was probably quite aware of how hard it was to handle such a heavy item. But even then, Kiron seemed to be able to swing this de around as if it weighed near to naught. "Ah, right, before I forget..." Eisen muttered to himself and then quickly called the Pdin over to him, before grabbing his hand to start wrapping it in some cloth, like most fist-fighters usually did to properly protect their hands. But Eisen had a little bit of a different reason. While it was possible to use Necromantic Mana and infuse it into a crystal, the same was possible with other types of energy, including Holy Energy. Over the past few days, Eisen had Xenia fill up a crystal with as much basic Holy Energy as she could muster, something which she appreciated because it meant she could level up her skill a little more for her Level-Up Quest, and then, Eisen used that crystal to create some ¡¯Holy Cloth¡¯, as Eisen figured he could call it, and mixed in some parts of other crystals to enhance its use in directbat. That Cloth was then specially made into bandages that the Pdin was now wearing on his hands and lower arms, which would hopefully enhance hisbat capabilities a little. "Thank you!" He eximed, and Eisen just nodded his head and smiled at him. "Of course. I¡¯ll make you something betterter as well, don¡¯t worry." The old man told him, before then turning to his Grandson. "Both of you, do your best." Eisen said with a wink, and the two Half-Dragons then quickly turned toward the other three, before the Duel was properly started by Brody, who would be overlooking this with a strict eye. "Start." The Demon-Orc eximed, and immediately, the Red Half-Dragoness started properly pulling on her bow, and Eisen concentrated his movement-mana-copy on her so that he could get a proper idea of how she used her items. And while the bow was pulled to the back properly, he focused on the Silver Half-Dragoness who was casting a spell on the arrow, apparently, and when the arrow properly left her bow and flew toward Kiron and the Pdin, the ck Half-Dragon also started moving forward, basically dragging the log across the ground the whole time before just pulling it forward to the front of his body for the first attack. But what he didn¡¯t expect was that by that time, his target had already moved away to attack two very different people. The Red and Silver ones stood at the back, the Red one basically directly in front of the Silver one, and before anyone knew it, Kiron swung hisrge de forward horizontally and stopped his de just where it would be able to cut into both their necks at the same time. At least that was the n, but the Half-Dragoness quickly rushed to the side before the de hit them while preparing another shot, and in response to Brody loudly clicking his tongue in the background, the Red one became distracted for a moment, which Kiron used to trip her over with his tail. And just when she pulled her head up to keep walking, Kiron already twisted his body around to once more do the same thing he wanted to do before, just from the other side. Now, Kiron¡¯s de was pressed directly onto the Red one¡¯s throat while the tip of his sword was in front of the Silver one¡¯s. In the meantime, the Pdin also took care of the ck Half-Dragon. His movements were incredibly slow, and it took a while to recover from any attack that he did, so the Pdin had more than enough time to get a few attacks in with the other Half-Dragon, constantly using Holy Energy to do general, spread-out damage to important body-parts of his. So of course, it didn¡¯t take long for him to get his final hit in either, a simple, open palm shot to the bottom of the ck one¡¯s lower jaw. The Holy Energy prated his skull and made him stagger in confusion a little bit, because while it maybe didn¡¯t do any physical damage, it was enough to interrupt proper, logical thinking. And when the ck one ended up letting go of his Log, the Pdin had enough time to make use of one of the techniques that Brody taught him, a simple way to hold an oponent bigger and heavier than you down. He flipped the ck one onto his stomach and pressed his knee into his lower back while pulling one of his arms onto his back while twisting it in the most unnatural direction, and on top of that used his tail to make sure that the ck one couldn¡¯t somehow use his own. And so, the fight which had started merely 10 seconds ago was already decided. "The Winners are Kiron and our Bronze Buddy." The Demon-Orc said with a proud grin, considering that he did spend a lot of time over thest little while making sure these two gained more proper techniques for theirbat-style. But one of the three losing Half-Dragons had something slightly against this oue. Well, all of them did, it was just that one of them was the fastest in speaking up. "Hey, that¡¯s not fair! He distracted me!" The Red Half-Dragoness eximed as she pointed at Brody in response to him clicking his tongue during the fight, but the Demon-Orc just twisted his face in annoyance. "The fuck¡¯re you talking about?" He asked while crossing his arms, before the Red Half-Dragoness just red at him. "You deliberately made noise to mess us up, you asshole!" She yelled, and while the Red Dragon was feeling his soul slowly leave his body at what his Daughter was saying, Brody stepped up closer toward her with anger in his eyes. "Alright, let me make something very, very clear here. Yup, I clicked my tongue, but that wasn¡¯t deliberate. I wouldn¡¯t ever mess up a fight like that on purpose. It was nothing but a reflex at your selfish idiocy. Just ignoring the fact that theposition of your group ispletely messed up, if this was a real fight, your friend over there would be dead and you would have just let this happen. What a fucking coward are you? You didn¡¯t even turn around to check if she was alright, not for a single moment. That¡¯s why I clicked my tongue, because you¡¯re a pathetic idiot." Brody said with an angry re, making the Red Half-Dragoness back off with each and every word that he said. "B-But even then, this was so unfair! Look at that guy¡¯s weapon, that¡¯s just an unfair advantage!" She eximed, and Brody couldn¡¯t help but grind his teeth in response to this. "Right, and a three versus two isn¡¯t an unfair setup? On top of that, the other one fought bare-handed. Just because you¡¯re not smart enough to understand that you should have nned this all properly beforehand doesn¡¯t mean you¡¯re allowed toin afterward. Now, shut the fuck up already or I¡¯ll snap your bow in half." Brody told her annoyedly, before turning around and heading toward the other Originals while mumbling to himself, and Xenia slowly looked at him with a wry smile. "Everything alright at home?" The High-Elf asked, and Brody slowly kept grumbling and looked away from her, "Of course, I¡¯m happier than I¡¯ve ever been, I have a lovely, beautiful wife, we¡¯re expecting a bab- I¡¯m happy, alright?" In the middle of hte sentence, Brody stopped himself from continuing to speak, but at this point, the other Originals already heard what he started to say. Everyone else was luckily kind of busy gathering around the five Half-Dragons, so they could speak somewhat freely. "Oh, so that¡¯s what it is? You getting cold feet about being a dad?" Xenia asked, kind of split between mocking him and actually feeling sympathetic to him, but Brody immediately shook his head. "What, no! I¡¯m excited about being a dad, I really am, but..." He said and then started rubbing the bridge of his nose, "We found outst night... She did like five pregnancy tests and they were all positive, but we didn¡¯t go to a doctor yet to find out for sure. But when she called her parents, they of course said they¡¯d being over immediately, and my inws are very, very... very..." "Annoying?" Eisen suggested with a smile, and Brody immediately nodded his head. "That¡¯s a calm way to put it. Her dad¡¯s been trying to talk to me about closing the martial-arts school down for years now to start some bullshit as an office guy in hispany." "Ah, yes, I remember In-Laws like that. My Wife¡¯s were the same, they wanted to convince us to stay in Japan and wanted me to learn under my father-inw." Eisen pointed out, before Brody nodded his head. "I bet... I mean, I ain¡¯t gonna budge, it¡¯s not like that, but he keeps making me feel bad about everything I¡¯m doing. It¡¯s probably gonna be the same with the capsule." Brody said with a sigh, and Eisen chuckled in response. "Well, it¡¯s gonna end up find if you and your wife are on the same page with this." The old man said, and Brody slowly nodded his head and smiled. "Yeah, we are." Chapter 396 - Dreki After moving on from their conversations, the five Originals made their way over to the other Half-Dragons, who were surrounded by some of the Vigers and the Dragons. "Now then, as nned, we will choose one of us to be the Lord of this town. Is that alright with everyone now?" Eisen asked, and the ck Half-Dragon red at him and clicked his tongue. "Fine, but that doesn¡¯t mean we¡¯re going to let you just do whatever you want, got it? If any of you do some-" "Just shut up already!" The ck Dragoness yelled out angrily, "What the hell¡¯s gotten into you?! Shut it and stop acting like an idiot!" She screamed at her son, who just looked at her with a surprised expression, before Eisen chuckled to loosen things up a little bit. "Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s fine that he¡¯s worried. Or rather, it¡¯spletely normal. But I don¡¯t mind you having a say in it, under one condition." Eisen told them with a grin, and not only the half-dragons, but also the actual dragons looked at the old man confused and surprised. "You will all have to join your friend here in bing the new Lord¡¯s Squires." Eisen exined as he ced his hands on both Kiron¡¯s and the Bronze Half-Dragon¡¯s shoulders, before the former looked at his Grandfather confused. "Wait, G-Grandfather, but-" He started, but Eisen just chuckled slightly, "I thought it would be nice for you to be the Lord, after all, you¡¯re the one with the greatest connection to this ce." The old man told the Crystal Half-Dragon, and he just stared back at him. "Are... Are you sure?" Kiron asked, seemingly not against the idea, even if he was still unsure if it was a good idea. "Yes, I¡¯m sure. It should help your leadership abilities a fair bit, at least. But still, are you alright with these three bing your Squires as well?" Eisen asked him, and the Half-Dragon slowly nodded his head. "Of course! I¡¯ll be able to shape them into some good fighters!" He eximed gleefully, and Eisen chuckled in response while nodding his head, turning back toward the three Half-Dragons in question. "Then let¡¯s hope these three will take up this chance as well." The old man said, and they stared at Eisen as if humiliated. Although then, one of them chose to step forward. "I... I would like to be a... Squire, was it? I don¡¯t know what it means, but if it allows me to help out, then I would love to do whatever it takes." The Silver Half-Dragoness eximed, before the Red one looked at her confused while grabbing her arm. "What do you mean? You can¡¯t be serious!" She said angrily, "You don¡¯t even know what it is, so how can you agree like that?" Without hesitation, Kiron slowly stepped forward and ced his hand into the center of the chest. "A Squire is one learning to be a Knight. A Knight, on the other hand, is someone wholly dedicates hisplete being to a cause or a lord. The cause being justice, and in this case the Lord being my Grandfather. At the cost of their life, they will do whatever they may to make sure both their cause and lord survive beyond them... Even if I pledged not toy down my life so easily." Kiron said with a slight smile, more than just happily remembering the pledge from back then, before he slowly turned back to the Half-Dragons in front of him to convince them. "Please, I can see that you have great potential. You may have acted rashly, but your reason was the protection of your people, and that is a cause one can only call honorable. Let me teach you what it means to be a Knight, and be the strength of Justice." Kiron told them with a soft smile on his face, but the ck Half-Dragon just once more clicked his tongue loudly. "Talking about justice or whatever... If you can make me stronger so that I¡¯m not gonna lose next time we fight, I¡¯m in." He said with a rather annoyed voice and stepped closer toward Kiron, while the Silver Half-Dragon also made sure to finally do what she meant to do, while the Red Half-Dragon just stood there confused. "What about you? Will you join us as well?" Kiron asked her, before she just started grinding her teeth. "Fine, but only for Silver... If you do anything to hurt her, I¡¯ll cut your throat open." The Red one replied, and Eisen smirked slightly in response, seeing that Kiron was growing in such a way. "Now then, let¡¯s get started, shall we? Everyone that can at least think they¡¯ll be able to stack some stones on top of each other, gather up around here and wait for a while, please." Eisen told them and quickly cracked his knuckles before handing the Town Core to Kiron together with the box containing the Core Guardian, and then looked over at his fellow Originals. "Do you guys want to stay here? It shouldn¡¯t take too long, I just want to make sure everything is working properly." Eisen exined, and the others quickly nodded their heads, before the old man started to figure out some roles that each Original should fill. "Jyuuk, grow some strong wood, please. For different things, of course, but we¡¯ll need to have the materials ready for construction. Brody, see what ces should be reinforced for defense against the moremon monsters we¡¯ve seen so far. Then Xenia, try to tten the ground some more and destroy whatever buildings may be abandoned without doing too much damage to the materials. And atst, Evalia... Come up with a few good architectural designs that fit to the ind." Eisen told all of them, and everyone quickly got to work with these things, while the six Dragons stepped up to Eisen as well, looking up to them nervously. "Is there any way we can help as well?" They asked, and Eisen looked at them with a frown before moving his fingers through his beard in thought. "Well... For one, how about you finally let your children know what kind of test or trial they need to beat to get some actual names?" Eisen suggested, and they slowly nodded their heads with sligth embarrassment on their faces, and two of them, the Steel and Blue Dragons, one of which only had a toddler and the other didn¡¯t have a child at all, looked at each other, unsure what they should do, and Eisen got a rather good idea for that. "And you two... Hmm... Steel Dragons are pretty strong physically, while Blue Dragons are great at flying, right?" The old man asked them, and they both nodded their heads immediately. "Yes, exactly!" The Blue Dragon eximed, "I¡¯m the fastest out of all of us, and he is the strongest of us!" He replied, before Eisen nodded his head satisfied. "Good, then you please fly around the ind and look for a few materials, and you bring them here, alright?" Eisen asked as he looked at the two of them, writing down a small list on a piece of paper in his pocket, before handing it to them. Without hesitation, the two Dragons turned around and ran off to do their task, while Eisen started smiling happily. "Ahh, how nice it is to be able to concentrate on crafting, huh?" The old man chuckled to himself, before he looked at Kiron and the vige Elder with a smirk, "Let¡¯s get back to the Town Hall, shall we?" He suggested, and the two of them nodded their heads before following Eisen back there, while everyone else stayed behind to work on some other task that they may have been given. And when they got back to the Town Hall where they grabbed the Town Core in the first ce, Kiron quickly let the crystal float into a good spot and then poured his mana inside of it as per Eisen¡¯s instruction, before a notification appeared in front of Kiron and Eisen. [Guild Member wants to establish a Town under the Guild . Allow?] "Yes, allow." Eisen said, and while the notification in front of the old man disappeared, Kiron¡¯s seemed to have only been reced with another one. A little nervously, the Half-Dragon looked at the Town Core directly in front of him and breathed out deeply, before saying the name that he wanted to give this town. It seemed like the Vige itself didn¡¯t have a name, and considering that it was the only one on the ind, they didn¡¯t really need a name until now either. So, the Elder allowed Kiron to choose. "I name this town ¡¯Dreki¡¯." He eximed, using the Old Norse word for ¡¯Dragon¡¯, somehow, and then a new notification appeared in front of Eisen. [The Town has been established under the Guild ] With a smile on his face, Eisen just waved the notification away and looked over toward his Grandson. "Good job, I¡¯m proud of you, bud." As the old man told this to Kiron, the Half-Dragon slightly smiled and took the Core Guardian out of the Box in his hands and made sure it wasying on the ground properly, and then activated it, once more as per Eisen¡¯s instructions. And aftermanding it to connect to the Town Core, Eisen, Kiron, and the Elder had to leave the building before the Guardian appeared in front of the three of them in a cloud of mist. While the Elder was just standing there rather confused, Eisen was looking at the Core Guardian with curiosity to see what its first artificial evolution turned it into. Largely, it seemed surprisingly simr to Sigurd in its general outer appearance, just with a generally slightly different build and hair-color and style, but you could see that they did look pretty simr to each other. On top of that, they both had the same tattoos as the elder and most of the Human vigers seemed to have all over their body. "Hello there!" The Guardian greeted with a bright smile, and then quickly turned toward Kiron. "How can I help you?" He asked, before Kiron looked over at his Grandfather, who ended up just slightly smirking. "Well, basically, we need you to turn this into a proper town. Properly take care of the streets, re-build the houses, create proper defenses, and so on." Eisen exined, and then crossed his arms while looking at the Guardian. "One of us is currently working on some general concept designs for a style that we would like to follow, so please work together with her when starting those types of projects." Quickly, the Guardian nodded its head, ready to get to work whenever needed. Something which it seemed to have already started, considering that the streets were already turning into a more organized version of themselves around the group. "I think I found who you were speaking about. Evalia, is that not right?" It asked, before Eisen nodded his head in response. "Yes, exactly. Then please make sure to instruct whoever can help, how they can help you." The old man suggested, before the Core Guardian disappeared in another cloud of mist. Chapter 397 - A Single Bottle For a little while, everyone continued to try and help out with the further construction of town as they possibly could, and by the evening of the same day that the town of ¡¯Dreki¡¯ was established, the Town Hall waspletely rebuilt in stone while the streets were properly re-built as well. Some old and unnessary buildings were destroyed and started being reconstructed for diffe purposes, while the walls were pushed further out to the edge of the area that the town core could govern, while also making sure they were reinforced as much as possible. Otherwise, the houses stayed as they were, at least for now, until all the vigers were properly informed on these decisions. Of course, nobody would lose their house, it would just be re-built in the same way that it was beforehand, just using stone instead of nearly rotten wood. The different designs that Evalia came up with seemed to be mostly epted by the Vigers as well, although that was to be expected. With Evalia¡¯s Charisma stat, it shouldn¡¯t be hard to convince people. Eisen¡¯s stat was steadily growing every once in a while as well, but it was still iparable to an Artist¡¯s Charisma. But either way, considering that he now had the time to do so, Eisen figured he should work on a few items for now. After all, the Blue and Steel Dragons went out of their way just to bring him some Draconic Materials. Or, rather than materials, they were whole corpses, one of them being a ratherrge serpent simr to a supersized Viper. "Hmm... Where did you find this one?" Eisen asked them as he started taking the snake apart with Jyuuk¡¯s and Bree¡¯s help to salvage as much as he possibly could, before the Blue Dragon crossed his arms with a smile. "Oh, you see, there are a few in the more central are of the Ind. One of them is actually an ¡¯Ind Boss¡¯. It¡¯s kind of annoying to take down even for me, so I left it alone for now. And it doesn¡¯t bother us, so..." The Blue Dragon exined, before Eisen slowly raised his eyebrows. He thought there wouldn¡¯t be one on this ind, considering that it was tough enough to get onto here already because of Kai, but apparently it was simply unrted to the Town Core. "Hmm, is that so...? Just wondering, but howrge is that Ind Boss?" He asked, and the Blue Dragon thought about it for a moment and then quickly turned back into his Dragon form, stretching himself as long as he could. "As thick as the base of my tail, and twice as long as my body." The Blue Dragon exined quite swiftly and then turned back into his Human form, stepping back toward the old man, who couldn¡¯t help himself but smirk. "I see, I see... Hmm... Sigurd, could you get out a bag of Silica for me?" Eisen asked as he turned toward Fafnir with a slight smile, although the small artificial Dragon just tilted his head to the side confused, before the Core Guardian swiftly appeared with a small pouch in hand. "Here you go. I doubt you need a lot, do you?" It asked, and Eisen shook his head. "Just need to show them for a moment." He replied, slowly opening the pouch and holding it over toward the Blue Dragon. "Did you at any point find arge amount of sand like this? It¡¯s Silica Sand, something like ground down quartz." Eisen exined, and the Blue Dragon slowly cupped his chin in thought. Eisen figured they had at least some, considering that the Town Hall had ss-windows that seemed to be made using Silica. "I personally don¡¯t think so... But I don¡¯t pay too much attention to the ground..." He replied, and as they were talking, the Red Dragon stepped over toward them. "Silica, huh... Yeah, we have it, but we don¡¯t use it much. There¡¯s a ce to the south with a bunch of it." He pointed out, and Eisen simply started to grin broadly. "Bree, can you grab one of the seed-packets from your backpack that I gave you and give it to Jyuuk? The one with the red ribbon." Eisen asked her with a grin, and the young Fey-Kin simply nodded her head and jumped up, swiftly heading over toward her backpack to grab the small pouch. "Hmm? What is this?" Jyuuk asked curiously as he opened the bag, and then looked over toward Eisen with a bright smile immediately afterward. "Alright, what do you want me to do?" The Beastperson asked, and Eisen just smirked at him. "Over the next two days, prepare as much of it as you and Caria can, and please get Bree¡¯s, Sky¡¯s and Xenia¡¯s help as well. Even Evalia¡¯s if needed, her paintings might help a bit. There¡¯s an open spot ofnd behind the vige that should be good enough for paddys." The old man exined and then quickly returned to the demantling of the monsters in front of him, while the Beastperson looked at him curiously. "And what are you going to do in the meantime?" Jyuuk asked him, but Eisen just turned around toward him with a smile, "I¡¯m making a bottle." He exined, and while the Dragons around him were rather confused, Eisen continued with the demantling as quickly as he could, trying to ce everything he could away while Eisen handed the meat out to the Vigers. He really only needed the scales, bones, and different organs, after all. Either way, immediately when Eisen was finished with that, he looked toward the Red Dragon with a broad grin. "I have to get a few materials, but bring me to the ce with the Silica in about 20 minutes." The old man told him, and then quickly disappeared toward the carriage, where he swiftly grabbed whatever could be needed for this and then headed into the Dungeon to make sure everything was ced inside of there for now. And then, when those twenty minutes were over, Eisen was carried over toward that Beach by the Red Dragon, apanied by Fafnir and Sigurd because they had his tools and equipment, and Brody as an escort and because the Demon-Orc said he was ¡¯Bored¡¯. After a little while, the red Dragon sat them down where he remembered the ce with all of the Silica sand to be, and with a broad grin, Eisen could confirm this to be the right ce. Then, it was only the matter of moments before Eisen got to work with what he wanted to do. Make a bottle. Creating a huge container for it with his element, Eisen started to shovel as much of the Silica sand into that container as possible. He would need to make sure that he really only got pure silica in a little bit, but this sand seemed rtively pure so it shouldn¡¯t be a huge issue. "Wait, didn¡¯t you say you wanted to make a bottle?" Brody asked with a frown as he saw the raw amount of sand and soda ash that was put into the container after the un-pure parts were moved out of it, and Eisen nodded his head immediately. "Of course. Well, I might make a few more, but my n right now is just for a single bottle." He exined, before he started to fill other materials into the container as well, such as ground down mana crystals that he previously enchanted, before swiftly starting to melt it all down while pouring arge amount of mana inside of it to help out the mixing-process a little. And then, while standing on the surface he made with his magic with his size fully increased, the his mes ignited the world around him in a bright light, while the old man opened a small hole in the container to let some ss pour out of it. Eisen then started to work with arge amount of ss at once, a rather insane amount, forming something like arge, hollow tube out of it. It didn¡¯t really look like a bottle at all, but to Brody¡¯s and the Red Dragon¡¯s surprise, it apparently wasn¡¯t even supposed to be. Because soon enough, with the help of his Mana-Doubles that Eisen now found a great purpose for, the old man quickly cut a slit along the length of the tube and folded it open to turn it into a rounded piece of ss. After making sure that it would hold in this shape, Eisen made use of his Doubles to make them hold it in ce properly together with him, and once the ss wouldn¡¯t be able to ¡¯droop¡¯ anymore, Eisen ced it into an annealer that he specially made for that piece of ss. But when Eisen finished this, Brody really just had to ask about it. "Alright, I get that there¡¯s a lot of people trying to do abstract art these days, but in what universe is that a bottle?" The Demon-Orc asked with a wry smile, and Eisen looked at him with augh and rubbed the sweat from his forehead. "Brody, that¡¯s just a piece of the bottle. If I could grow asrge as a normal Giant, I might be able to make it in one piece, but like this I have to use a lot of different pieces like a puzzle. I made the edges with a little bit of a ¡¯pattern¡¯, so it should be easier to link the different pieces up with transmutationter." With a confused expression, Brody looked at the man in front of him and tried to figure out what he was talking about, before he remembered one of the pages in the book that Eisen got from someone, ¡¯Perfect Booze¡¯, about snake wine, as well as the conversation with the Blue Dragon earlier. "Wait, wait, wait... Don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re trying to turn the Ind Boss into Alcohol?" Brody asked, and Eisen shook his head with a frown. "What, of course not!" He eximed, and got started in making the second piece for therge ss-bottle that he wanted to make. And just when Brody was calming down a little, Eisen looked at him with a smirk. "I¡¯m going to turn the Rice I asked Jyuuk to make into Alcohol, then drown the Ind Boss in that wine inside of the bottle I¡¯m making right now to turn it into a beverage with medically restorative capabilities." The old man exined, and not only Brody, but also the Red Dragon looked at him confused. "What are you talking about? It¡¯s a Rank 7 Monster!" He eximed, but Eisen just turned toward him with a frown. "So what? What Rank are you and the others?" The Old man asked him, and the Red Dragon just looked at him with a wry, confused smile. "R-Rank 8... But the Ind Boss has really annoying abilities, it¡¯s going to be incredibly bothersome to-" "Don¡¯t worry, we don¡¯t need to kill it. All we need to do is lure it into the bottle, close it up, and make sure that the snake falls asleep inside of the alcohol." Eisen pointed out, before the Red Dragon continued to stare at him confused, while Eisen himself continued to work on the ss-pieces for the bottle with the help of his Doubles. He somehow had to work on Gordon¡¯s Quest, after all, and Eisen figured that a good way to make up for the fact that he basically ignored it for so long was to start out with a bit of a Spectacle when he returned to the maind, enough to make the news spread all the way to the Capital, where the Dwarven Brewer should already be waiting for some news from the old man. And then, using one of the buildings that Komer hopefully managed to purchase in that street, he would open a liquor store officially run by Starlight, selling all kinds of weird alcoholic beverages. Some simply with a weird or unusual taste, and others with incredible effects on one¡¯s body. But all of them should be enough to attract a little bit of attention especially amongst yers. Chapter 398 - Snake Wine And when the first light of the morning shone onto the old man, Eisen had just finished with thest piece of ss for the giant bottle of snake-wine that he wanted to make. Well, or rather than that, thest piece for one of the ten otherrge bottles that Eisen made to be able to make some ¡¯Smaller¡¯ versions, even if these smaller bottles were still four meters high. But the most important things for now weren¡¯t actually the bottles, but rather what was happening at the Vige. After cing all of the pieces of ss into the Dungeon, where they would be safe for now, Fafnir, Sigurd, Brody and Eisen were brought back there by the Red Dragon, and from a distance, Eisen could already see exactly what he was hoping for. A rather giant mountain of rice, and a rather ecstatic Japanese guy standing right in front of it. When they approached that mountain of rice, Eisen quickly jumped off the Red Dragon¡¯s back and stepped up toward the Beastperson in front of it. "So... You worked pretty hardst night, huh?" Eisen asked him with a smirk, and Jyuuk immediately nodded his head in response. "Of course we did! Especially Caria was of a lot of help, though." Jyuuk said with a smirk as he looked over toward the small myconid girl tiredlyying on Cabarum¡¯s back. "How so?" The old man asked, slowly approaching Caria to take her off of the Horse Automaton¡¯s Back, waking her up in the process, while Jyuuk exined what he meant. "Well, it seems like her element ranked upst night, and the mushrooms she can grow using a person¡¯s ¡¯Essence¡¯ can now act as independent soldiers of sort, taking part of the abilities of the person. She seems to be able to influence which abilities to concentrate on, though. So, Caria grew a lot of Mushrooms off of my body, some using my nt Control ability, and others using my Element. Using the help of those guys, we were able to make everything grow a lot faster, and the collection went over far quicker too." With a smug expression, after hearing that Jyuuk was talking about how great a help she was, the Myconid crossed her arms with a smile and nodded her head just once. "Hehe, of course! The Great Caria can only be helpful to anyone, there¡¯s just no other way!" She eximed and then pointed into the air with her finger, while Eisen chuckled slightly. "Of course, of course. Now, Jyuuk... I need your help with something else as well. Your element can probably help speed up the process of fermentation, right?" Eisen asked him, before the Beastperson slowly nodded his head. "Probably, I haven¡¯t really tested it so far, but... In the end, it allows me to make nts rot very quickly as well, so a controlled fertilization shouldn¡¯t be too hard." He pointed out, before Eisen nodded his head with a smirk. "Perfect, then let¡¯s get started, shall we?" Eisen suggested and immediately cracked his knuckles, before quickly getting to work using some mana-crystals to create as big a container as he possibly could. He didn¡¯t want to use the ss bottle that he prepared for this, after all, the ss bottle was for the finished product and not the fermentation-process itself. But after finishing that container, which ended up being about four meters in height and width, even if the crystal-walls were really quite thin, before Eisen started shoveling the raw glutinous rice into that container, before starting the regr process of simply cooking rice. First, Eisen washed it properly, got rid of the dirty water, and then started to cook the rice like you normally would to eat it, using his element to heat everything up. And while the rice was cooking, Eisen turned toward Jyuuk to ask him to do something else. "Alright, you probably know how Rice-Wine is made using Chinese Yeast Balls, right?" The old man asked, and Jyuuk nodded his head immediately. "Yeah, of course. There¡¯s some kind of mold in there that breaks the starch down into sugar, which the yeast then turns into alcohol. Why?" The Beastperson asked, and Eisen just smirked at him. "I¡¯d like you to create such a mold colony for me, if you can." Eisen asked him, and with a wry smile, Jyuuk just sighed in response. "Couldn¡¯t you have told me earlier..? Fine, give me like thirty minutes." The Beastperson replied and then sat down on the ground with a little bit of raw rice and a mana-crystal in his hands, before seemingly trying to really work on creating that exact type of mold that Eisen just asked for. "Thank you. In the meantime, I¡¯ll prepare a little bit more rice, I guess." Eisen chuckled, continuing to create more mana-crystal containers, something pretty wasteful of the crystals, now that Eisen thought about it. He could re-use themter on, something which he definitely would do, and using simple depression, Eisen was able torgely increase the amount of mana-crystal that he could use for these things. They were just supposed to be an easy material to use and re-use, after all, so it was fine if they weren¡¯t as dense as before for now. Either way, after a little while, Eisen got enough containers up and ready to be able to make enough rice-wine to fill therge bottle up enough. After all, it didn¡¯t need to be filledpletely, considering that the giant snake would need to get inside of there as wellter on. "Alright... Now we just need the yeast and mold." Eisen said with a smile on his face, already preparing the yeast that he needed for everything in a seperate container, before Jyuuk brought over arge crystal-tter covered in mold, slowly starting to pour it into the bowl as well while letting it regrow constantly. "This should work like a treat, really." Jyuuk said with augh on his face, before taking a proper look around at the mass amount of rice-filled containers. "And you want me to elerate the fermentation of all of these..? You know I need to get to sleep soon, right? You should probably sleep a little as well, you know, for ¡¯that¡¯." Jyuuk pointed out, and Eisen just nodded his head with a smile. "Don¡¯t worry, I have the time in mind. And it¡¯s fine if you just help out to jump-start everything. Within an hour or so, you should be able to push it along to a point that would usually take around two or three days at least. At that point, the bubbling should start, and when you wake up again, we can finish it up, and tomorrow I¡¯ll pour that wine into the bottle and we¡¯ll head over to the Ind Boss with it." Eisen said with an excited smirk, but Jyuuk seemed rather conflicted about this whole thing. "Weren¡¯t you the one worried about me hurting the eagle chick using my necromancy?" He asked, but Eisen turned to him and nodded his head. "Ah, I see what you mean... Well, some might see it as cruel, but in the end, drowning your enemy is a valid way of killing it. We could just somehow try to injure it in a non-physical way as well and then stuff its body into the bottle. In the end, I¡¯ll most likely be using its materials anyway, so I don¡¯t see much of a reason why this shouldn¡¯t be alright." The old man pointed out, before Jyuuk scratched the back of his head with a nod. "Right, I guess. Well, anyway, should I get going right away?" Jyuuk asked him and pointed at the rice-containers, before Eisen nodded his head in response. "Yes, please. I¡¯ll just mix the yeast and mold in for now, just wait a little." The old man exined and quickly grabbed therge bowl, simply pouring a little of the mixture on top of each container of cooked-rice, starting to stir it into everything as much as he could. And then, Jyuuk started to get to work with using his element to properly start the process that Eisen was hoping for, after the old man quickly closed each container shut properly. Just as Eisen had figured, around an hourter, everything already started to bubble in response to the start of the actual fermentation-process while the rice started to float on the liquids pulled out of it. And when that hour was over, Jyuuk quickly got to sleep after working through the whole night in response to Eisen¡¯s request, while the old man himself stayed up a little longer to finally put all of the pieces of therge bottle together so that they could fill it up as soon as they could. Of course, after connecting all of the pieces, which in and of itself was already quite the spectacle, Eisen also started to enchant the surface of the ss, on the inside. It was supposed to be an enchantment to help both keep the snake in, while also making sure that some properties of the snake could properly be extracted. Due to the sheer size of the bottle, Eisen enchanted it from the inside, and chose to just spend his sleep inside of there, staring at his work in a way that he hasn¡¯t done before while dozing off. --- A few hourster, when Eisen woke back up, he was surprised to see that the bottle was surrounded by a lot of people who were curiously trying to take a peak at the structurerger than most of the houses in town that appeared over night, and some of those that took a look were part of Eisen¡¯s group. Of course they knew that Eisen was the one that made it, after all, even if he didn¡¯t announce it to them, this kind of item had ¡¯Eisen¡¯ written all over it. The fact that Eisen was sleeping inside of it also helped them figure this out, though. And when the old man saw everyone standing outside, he quickly used his demonic transformation to jump back out of the bottle and thennded in front of them with a broad smile. "Alright, good afternoon, everyone." The Old man said, slightly stretching his body after just waking up, and the first one to speak up was Evalia. "What the actual fuck is this?" She asked confused, and Eisen tilted his head in response, "What do you mean? It¡¯s the bottle I said I¡¯d make." He replied, and Evalia looked at him and the bottle behind him in absolute horror. "You said you¡¯d make a bottle, not a house!" She eximed, but Eisen just started tough. "Well, Brody was also pretty surprised yesterday. But anyway, I¡¯m making Snake-Wine using the Ind Boss, so the bottle needs to be thatrge." The old man exined, and with a confused expression, the Heavenly Artist looked at the giant bottle and at Eisen in his fully-increased size. "And how do you think you¡¯ll be able to get it there?" She asked, and Eisen quickly pointed at the six Dragons that once more gathered near them. "With their help, of course." He replied, and without even fighting it, the Dragons epted that they had to do this without fighting back. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure why they just did whatever all of them wanted to so quickly, and why they were so scared of him and the other Originals. So, he wanted to somehow get them to jump over their shadow and talk back to him finally, which was why he was telling them to do a lot of different things for him. Of course, that was just part of the reason, he really enjoyed being able to use literal Dragons to help him out with a lot of troublesome things. He even wanted to take it so far as to ask one of them to bring him to the maind by flight. For one, it would be way faster, and two, it would simply be a lot cooler. Chapter 399 - Dragon Wine "Hmm... So I just need to speed this up even more for a while?" Jyuuk asked as he approached Eisen after waking back up, and the old man nodded his head in reply. "Yes, we¡¯re just turning this into alcohol, nothing more." Eisen exined to Jyuuk, all the whilst thinking that he really wanted to put Jyuuk¡¯s enchantment on a bunch of crystals to simply create a lot of fast-fermentation chambers. He might do thatter, but for now, the rice-wine needed to finish properly. Eisen went around and took a proper look at each of the chambers that were being influenced by Jyuuk¡¯s element, just to make sure that everything was working as it should, and that the only mold that was spreading on the top of the rice was white instead of ck. Of course, Eisen also poured some more water into the containers as well, and then, just three or four hourster, which Jyuuk could onlyst with the help of a lot of different potions from Eisen as well as support from Bree with her insane amount of mana, the rice-wine was all finished, and all that Eisen now needed to do was to pour it into the bottle. For that, he simply climbed up to the top of the bottle and had one of the dragons hand each container to him, and Eisen then quickly poured it inside through a sift to make sure none of the rice or mold could get into the bottle with the actual rice-wine. So, just like that, the bottle was filling up just as much as Eisen wanted it to, before he closed the top off by re-using one of the containers from the rice to turn it into something like a ¡¯Crystal Cork¡¯. Of course, Eisen first got rid of the rice for that, although it was rather Jyuuk that went straight past everything that had to do with fine-control and made it so that the rice would rot immediately, so that it could be used as something like a rice-mulch to help the growth of nts from here on as well. And so, Eisen was done with the preparations for a nice bottle of giant Snake Wine. "Alright, the color is nice, the fragrance as well... Guess I should just taste-test it, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself, pulling out the small, one liter-sized bottle that he filled up with the same wine before while he climbed down therge bottle. "Do any of you want to try?" Eisen asked them with a smile on his face as he looked at the dragons and the other Orginals, and the first one to raise their hand was... Caria. "I want to!" She eximed, trying to reach for the bottle in Eisen¡¯s hand, but the old man just chuckled at her and shook his head. "In a few years, honey." The old man told her as he rubbed over the top of her head, before slowly making some small, shot-sized cups for the others out of mana-crystal, handing them out to the ten people in front of him, filling the cups up one after another. "I haven¡¯t had Rice-Wine before... Is it good?" Evalia asked as she looked at the mostly clear liquid, trying to hold it up high enough so that Caria couldn¡¯t reach it, while Eisen nodded his head in reply to her. "It is really good, yes. I prefer it colder, but it¡¯s fine like this for now." The old man pointed out as he poured a small cup for himself, immediately cing it against his lips to drink it. And after the first small burn of alcohol disappeared from his throat, Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction while the others started to drink it as well, and especially Jyuuk was quite surprised. "Huh? It¡¯s far better than I thought... Usually Alcohol that had its fermentation sped up like this tastes so... Fake to me, but this is really good." The Beastperson pointed out, before Xenia slowly pulled the cup away from her lips as well. She didn¡¯t seem to be a fan of it necessarily, but tastes differ between people, after all. "How are those processes usually sped up?" She asked him, and Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck. "Well, I¡¯d guess highly controlled conditions, types of mold or yeast that are especially aggressive in their work, or through the addition of certain chemicals, I would say." He suggested, but wasn¡¯t entirely sure if that was really right or not, but Xenia ended up shrugging in response to what the beastperson said. "I mean... Your element speeds up normal biological processes... It¡¯s more like a time element or something like that, where the whole rice was enveloped in it for everything to happen... So while for us it was just a few hours, to the rice it was more like a week or two? So it¡¯s kind of different, right?" The High-Elf pointed out, and Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Of course. This is pretty high-quality, probably also because of the high amount of mana that it absorbed due to the constant influence of mana." The old man pointed out, before he turned over toward the Dragons next to him. "And, did you like it?" With a smile on his face, Eisen ced the bottle away, because it was empty now, and the Dragons immediately nodded their heads. "It¡¯s a lot better than the alcohol we usually have here..." The ck-Dragoness pointed out, and Eisen just slightlyughed in response. "Well, then maybe you should try and change that and figure out a few neat recipes for yourselves." The old man suggested. "I can give you a few tips to work off of if you want to as well." Eisen exined, before especially the Bronze Dragon nodded his head quite quickly. "That¡¯d be great! I wouldn¡¯t mind drinking this some more." As the Dragon in human form wasughing loudly, Eisen slightly pped his hands together with a bright smile. "Perfect, then let me give you all the first tip. Or rather, the first lesson, on how to make snake wine. Of course, this will be a practical lesson." And while Eisen was saying this, he stepped back toward the bottle behind him, already letting the Dragons guess what the ¡¯lesson¡¯ was about. --- "Alright, so... The ¡¯Ind Boss¡¯ is inside of arge field over there. It¡¯s surrounded in brick walls, and it doesn¡¯t seem to be able to leave that area either." The Blue Dragon swiftly exined to Eisen and the others, before scratching the back of his neck. "What tactic should we use?" He asked next, and Eisen slowly turned toward the others while looking at that round area in the distance with the giant serpent rolled up in the center. "We¡¯ll just force it into the bottle, of course." Eisen pointed out, before he looked over toward Jyuuk with a smile on his face. "And we¡¯re doing it like you would do to any snake, right?" The old man asked, and Jyuuk immediately nodded his head. "Mhm... Although this is my first time seeing an aggressive Rank 7 monster... Usually, snakes aren¡¯t agressive, but Monsters, especially boss monsters, may be a bit different. And we probably shouldn¡¯t cut it up and let it bleed into the wine either... The first thing we need to do is hold it down, get it into a steady grip. Hmm..." Jyuuk muttered to himself before looking around at the whole ¡¯Arena¡¯ once more. It seemed like they would be able to all enter together, which was a good thing for an opponent like this. But then, Jyuuk seemed to notice a whole other thing that would turn thisplete fight around, probably to their advantage. "A lot of people died in that area... They¡¯re all carrying weapons or wearing armor, so it¡¯s probably a battlefield... With their help and through my new skill, we should be able to turn it around pretty well, huh..?" Jyuuk, who also recently finished his second level-up quest, muttered to himself, before Eisen slightly raised his eyebrows surprised, before lowering them in a frown. "This seems... Weird." Eisen muttered to himself quietly, but the others just looked over toward him confused. "What do you mean, ¡¯Weird¡¯?" Xenia asked, and Eisen just kept staring at the serpent with a nervous expression. "We¡¯re on an ind where every animal is some sort of dragon in any shape or form, so why is the Ind Boss a snake? I was asking myself that for a while now, but considering what you just said, I¡¯m pretty sure that¡¯s not a snake, but a Nidhogg. Serpent-Dragons that feast on corpses of those who have falled in battle." Eisen exined, and Jyuuk clicked his tongue annoyed. "Really? Then I¡¯ll have to expect most of the undead to be eaten, huh..?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head in response, continuing to stare at the creature in the center of the area in front of them. "Yeah, exactly." With a slightly wry smile, Evalia then started to scratch her cheek somewhat nervously. "Well, does that mean we shouldn¡¯t try and trap it in the bottle? I mean, that¡¯s not going to be snake wine anymore, right?" She asked, and Eisen simple turned over toward her andughed. "Evalia, what do you think is more impressive? Giant Snake Wine, or Dragon Wine?" He asked her, and while the six Dragons next to him were rather horrified at the thought of having one of them be turned into an ingredient for alcohol, while being d that it was just a lesser, unintelligent dragon, the young woman nodded her head. "Fair enough... Then should we get going?" She suggested, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Let¡¯s do that, yeah. So, as Jyuuk said, the n is to hold it down as much as possible. So you six should try to spread as much around its body as possible, and we¡¯ll focus on the head." The old man said as he looked at the six Dragons, who all slowly nodded their heads while the group approached therge open hole in the wall of the ¡¯Graveyard¡¯ area. And when they got close enough, Eisen was able to really confirm his theory. That this Monster was a Nidhogg. After informing the others of this, it was already nearly toote, because the Serpent-Dragon already took notice of them and rushed over toward them as quickly as it could. Of course, the Six Dragons, who would be able to actually easily just kill it on their own, set the giant bottle of Snake-Wine down in the ce that Eisen told them to, and then hurried over toward the Nidhogg to hold it down. And then, the others quickly rushed to its head to make sure it couldn¡¯t use any sorts of breath-like attacks. Using mainly Eisen¡¯s Golems and Jyuuk¡¯s new Undead from this area to aplish this, the group quickly managed to start pushing the Nidhogg¡¯s mouthpletely shut. "Alright, now, just slowly pull it backward!" Eisen eximed while he rushed over toward the Nidhogg¡¯s Tail, to preparing a little bit of a ram that it could be pulled up on. And with the help of the physically strongest, the Steel Dragon, the tail was quickly pushed into the top of the bottle after the crystal cork was removed. And of course, Eisen was constantly supplying the enchantments that he ced on everything with arge amount of mana to make sure that the bottle couldn¡¯t be destroyed by the Nidhogg from the inside. The toughest bit came when about half of the Nidhogg was already inside of the bottle, though, because it seemed to want to try and push two wings that were hidden directly against its body up until now to the outside to free itself, so they needed to be pressed shut at least for now. But soon enough, only the head needed to be pushed into the bottle, even if the wine was starting to push over the brim of the bottle, especially because the Nidhogg was wildly moving its wings around to continue trying to escape. But it couldn¡¯t do anything against the strength of the Dragons, and soon enough found itself justpletely inside of the bottle, which Eisen quickly covered up by the crystal cork. For a little longer, the Nidhogg tried to fight what was happening, but soon enough, it stopped movingpletely. Chapter 400 - See You In A Little While "So we really killed the Ind Boss by stuffing it into a big-ass bottle?" Brody asked with a wry smile, and Eisen slowly nodded his head with a broad grin. "Seems like it. Well, for now, it just has to stay like this. Probably should be good enough to serve when I¡¯m back on the maind." Eisen muttered to himself quietly, moving his fingers through his beard as he did so. And in response to that, Jyuuk looked at Eisen surprised. "Oh, right, you wanted to leave rtively soon, right?" "Mhm, maybe today, even. We just need to bring this bottle to the ship, and then I should be good to go." Eisen pointed out, before closing his eyes in thought as he was doing so. "Are you fouring along as well, or do you want to increase the amount of towns we have while I¡¯m gone?" The old man asked them, and Xenia quickly replied. "Well, I should probablye with you at least... I still have the Trial with Bolremgar open." She pointed out, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Sounds good. What about you three?" Eisen asked. For a little while, they continued thinking, before they came to a quick conclusion. "If Xenia is going back, I¡¯ll go with her." Jyuuk exined swiftly, and Brody nodded his head as well. "The Ind of the Combat God is the only one I really wanna go to, because there might be some interesting people or techniques to find, but it¡¯s a pretty tough Ind, apparently. So I¡¯ll just get back to the maind as well and travel there a bit more, do some quests, that kinda shiz." After the Demon-Orc spoke, Evalia also nodded her head. "Yeah, I don¡¯t really think being here all the time does me any good either. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m abatist, so it should be better to just travel around in moreparatively safe areas on the maind andplete quests for more Charisma as well... Level up my skills a bit by performing in front of people... And I was talking to Stahl as well, they all apparently want to get back to the maind again as well." She pointed out, and especially in response to that, Eisen looked at her surprised. "Oh, really?" He asked the young artist, who swiftly nodded her head. "Mhm. It seems like Stahl, Alnico, and K started..." Evalia said, noticing that the six dragons were looking at her rather curiously as well, so she quickly came up with some way to speak around it, "Doing the same thing as Kyra and Samurai, and it seems to be going pretty well for them. But they want to go back to the Maind, because they really haven¡¯t gotten the chance to do any quests or do things for some of the Guilds, which they all really wanted to do. I figured I could tag along at least a little bit." Evalia pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head in response. "Sounds good. Then that means that everyone ising along, huh?" The old man chuckled. "That¡¯s good to know. Well, we just need to let the others know that we¡¯reing back to the central ind in a few days to pick them up." Eisen suggested, before turning around with a happy grin as he looked at the giant bottle behind him. "I bet they¡¯ll really love this one here as well, huh?" Eisen asked as he slowly ced his hand onto the giant ss-bottle, before once more looking at the Dragons in front of him. "Let¡¯s bring this to the ship first and then get back to town, alright?" He suggested, and the Dragons slowly nodded their heads, happy that all of this would be over soon. --- After the Steel Dragon finally let the bottle down onto the giant ship, the group immediatly moved on back to town so that they could pick up everyone that they needed to and then return with the help of the carriage, and possibly a bit of a Dragon-Escort through the different ¡¯Territories¡¯ of town that the Pdin Half-Dragon spoke about on their way to the vige after they first got to the ind. But once they arrived there, Eisen was met with a bit of a surprise. "You... Want to stay here?" The old man asked as he looked at the Half-Dragon in front of him, who swiftly replied with a nod. "Yes, but of course only temporarily." Kiron exined, "I just want to make sure that this town can progress properly, as is my duty as its Lord, and I want to learn more about my Dragon side as well. Like this, I can also properly train my new Squires as they prepare for their name-giving trial as well." With a slightly bitter expression, the Crystal Half-Dragon exined this to his Grandfather, as well as the Lord that he swore to protect. And now just letting Eisen leave alone like that was rather the opposite, wasn¡¯t it? "I see..." Eisen started, smiling softly as he ced his hand onto Kiron¡¯s shoulder. "Don¡¯t worry about these things. Stay here as long as you want, and then return to the Central Ind. From there, you can just take one of the regr ships that will being back to the maind." The old man told him, just smiling at him. "Hmm, but you¡¯ll need to be properly prepared for that... I can make you some cloaks... And then you should be able to get to one of Komer¡¯s shops rtively easily. He should be able to give you a good, safe connection to wherever I am at the moment. Of course, we will just be able to message each other as well, because you¡¯re my Knight. Hmm..." The old man muttered quietly, starting to think about how to deal with this kind of situation the best, before Kiron quietly chuckled in response. "Thank you for worrying so much, Grandfather. I will let you know when I am on my way to the maind, of course." The Half-Dragon exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Thank you. But still... You should be careful whening back to the maind. You and the others are technically monsters, after all." Eisen told him with a bit of worry, considering that the first time he met Kiron was when the Crystal Half-Dragon was sitting right in front of him in a dirty, small cage after being captured by people. Of course, that would probably be hard to do now considering how much stronger Kiron was now than back then, and especially with the help of four more Half-Dragons, they would probably be fine. But Eisen still wanted to avoid trouble as much as possible, mainly because he didn¡¯t necessarily trust yers not to do anything against them. So of course Eisen was worried, but as long as he could make sure they could get to Komer¡¯s shop safely, it should end uppletely fine. "Alright... Then, I guess this is it, huh? We won¡¯t be seeing each other for a little while." The old man said with a soft smile, and Kiron slowly nodded his head. "Seems like it. Do you... Want to apany us back to the Ship?" Eisen asked the Half-Dragon, who just slowly nodded his head in response to the question his Grandfather asked him. "I would love to, thank you." He replied, and Eisen just smiled at him. It seemed like there wasn¡¯t necessarily all that much left to do in this town for now, so Eisen figured it would be best for them all to leave as soon as possible, because they really needed to hurry up if they wanted to get back to the Merchant Town before the regr yerbase started the game. "Is everyone here?" Eisen asked while Fafnir was already setting up the Dungeon inside of the carriage, before everyone from the different groups slowly made their way into the carriage, with the exception of Eisen and Kiron. Although, Argonthur was also sitting right next to them on the front-bench of the carriage, because he ended up being chosen as the group¡¯s ¡¯Escort¡¯ back to the beach. And on their way there, Eisen started trying to y around with his element a little more so that he could properly level it up for his level-up quest. In the end, what he chose to make were rtively simple ¡¯Path-Markers¡¯ that, as the name implied, marked a path. This was supposed to be for new people that woulde onto the ind in the future, so that they were able to find a safe route through the forest as long as they entered the ind from the same beach that the others did. These ¡¯Path-Markers¡¯ weren¡¯t thatplex either, just y-Pirs, made from the earth part of his element, that Eisen then fast-baked with the me part of his element. It was of course possible to miss the red-brown pirs amongst all the trees, but they should still be at least a little bit of help. Although in the end, Eisen really just made them because the creation of items using his element gave him the most proficiency in his skill out of anything that he tried so far. It cost him more mana to actually make a proper item that can be seen as an item out of his element, but it turned out fine as long as Eisen properly watched his mana and chugged down some potions whenever he ran too low. In the roughly three hours that the group was on their way back to the beach, Eisen managed to increase his proficiency by roughly five whole levels! This was a pretty major increase, considering that this skill of his was rather stagnant in its proficiency-gaintely. Eisen also managed to make good use of some of the Mana-Copies he made, managing to create small figures on the top of each small ¡¯Path-Marker¡¯ to show what kind of monster was most prominent in the area. These Markers really didn¡¯t have any other reason but to make Eisen get used to speed-building fine details with his element, though. It was rather easy to create his forges and workstations now, just because he had them saved as spells, but these pirs were all made without the use of any spell, even if he had been given the chance to turn it into one. But it seemed like skills leveled up easier if you used them without too much assistance, so Eisen figured that he should really do it like this more often from now on. Maybe he would be able to actually just passively level the skill up like that, then. Although, even if that wasn¡¯t necessarily the case, it would be useful practice if Eisen wanted toe up with new things that he wanted to, or could make using his element. Although, it did seem like none of the others noticed that Eisen was even doing this, considering that he left the pirs behind the carriage each time they made their way along the path, and nobody was actually looking to the back of hte carriage, so it made sense. Either way, soon enough, after a bit of casual conversation between Kiron and Eisen, as well as a pretty nervous Argonthur sitting right next to them, the group made their way back to the Ship and then started to haul the carriage onto that ship. And then, only the old man and Kiron were left on the beach, while the others were already waiting for Eisen to join them so that they could get going soon. With a bright smile on his face, Eisen gave his grandson a deep hug, "See you in a little while, Kiddo." The old man told him, and Kiron slowly nodded his head. "See you in a little while." He replied, before Eisen activated his Demonic Transformation and jumped over toward the ship, waving at Kiron while they started to depart. Chapter 401 - Dungeon Plans "Now then... Are we heading off toward Kai first?" Eisen asked as he slowly turned away from looking at the ind and toward Jyuuk, who slowly nodded his head. "That¡¯s the n at least, yeah. I know she said she wouldn¡¯t leave that ce until I remember the reason why she was there in the first ce, but I¡¯m pretty sure she has some kind of ability to control sea monsters as well. So I wanted to ask her to get some of them to pull the Ship somehow so that we can get to ces more easily." Jyuuk pointed out, and Eisen immediately replied with a nod and moved his fingers through his beard. "Hmm, that¡¯s a good idea. I was thinking about something simr before as well, to be honest. I¡¯m d we¡¯re on the same page, though." The old man chuckled, slowly stepped forward toward the giant ss bottle with the Nidhogg in it, making sure that it was properly attached to the floor, and then turned toward Fafnir. Of course, the Sleepy Dragon wasying on the ground next to the central mast in the shade, while Sigurd wasying next to him, using him as a pillow. "Sorry to interrupt you to, but could you possibly open the Gate? You can keep sleeping afterward." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and the two of them slowly stood up and stretched tiredly, before Fafnir jumped into the air and Sigurd disappeared in a cloud of mist, opening the door of the Dungeon gate for Eisen from the inside once it was properly built. "Here you go." It said, and Eisen nodded his head in response, slowly rubbing his hand through its metallic hair as he stepped inside, and then he turned toward the Core Guardian next to him while they were stepping through the ¡¯reception¡¯ area back outside toward the area where Eisen was usually working. It seemed like the small ¡¯Vige¡¯ was making a fair bit of progress in its construction, because most of the buildings seemed to be finished at least on the outside. Some of the Kobolds and Lizardmen were still working on trying to furnish the ces very basically. "Hmm... How¡¯s the rest of the Dungeon going so far?" Eisen asked, and Sigurd quickly waved her hand to the side and made a small model of the general dungeonyout appear. The first floor was split up into this ¡¯Vige¡¯ area and the maze, which was running over a few yers¡¯ in and of itself as well, with the small ¡¯Recovery¡¯ room right in front of the stairs to the second floor. The first floor had mainly wolves running around in it, as well as a few traps here and there, as well as a generally confusingyout. The second floor was solely the ¡¯Overgrown¡¯ maze, with roots, vines and moss covering the walls, which she aplished with Jyuuk¡¯s help, and another Recovery room right at the end of it. While this floor also had the wolves, on top of that it had a few different animal-like monsters, like foxes, rabbits, and so on. The kind of thing you would find in a forest, basically. And the deeper you went into that maze, the more diverse the different monsters became. Then there was the third floor. Right now, it seemed like Sigurd was only focusing on opening up as much open space as possible, and was still very much in the process of doing that even now. Later when the size they wanted was achieved, Jyuuk would work on creating a Forest there with the help of the Dungeon System, with even more diverse types of monsters. "Hmm, alright, alright... And then at the end of the third floores the first Mini Boss?" Eisen asked as he took a closer look at that part of the map, and Sigurd swiftly nodded its head. "Yes, although for now, it¡¯s going to be the final boss. We¡¯re still just Rank 1, so we can only make three floors. And then after that we can make five more floors. I already spoke about it with Evalia, who was more than just great help in designing the whole Dungeon, and she suggested that we change the theme for the floors every ten floors, so we would keep going with the forest theme and push the boss we will ce at the end of the third floor to the fifth floor, and then get a harder boss for the tenth floor, and then we change the theme." Sigurd exined, before the old man slowly nodded his head in response. "That sounds like a good idea, yes. But I hope that Evalia already came up with some ideas for other forest-themed floors then?" As Eisen was starting to set everything up for his work, Sigurd just shrugged in response. "I¡¯m not entirely sure, but I¡¯d guess so. At the very least she had an idea for the ninth and tenth floor." The Core Guardian pointed out, and the old man raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Oh really? And what would that idea be?" Eisen asked it, but before Sigurd could respond, it turned to the side and looked toward the entrance. "Well, let¡¯s let her exin." Sigurd suggested, while Evalia approached with a bright smile, her brush on her back and some mana potions in-hand, and when she came closer she looked at Eisen happily. "So, what are you two talking about?" She asked, and Eisen swiftly crossed his arms. "About your floor ideas for the forest area." As the old man replied, Evalia nodded her head immediately and turned toward him excitedly. "Oh, yeah! So, for one, my n was to set another floor inbetween floor two and three, something like a ruin-area. Especially after seeing ¡¯Prototype¡¯, I had a few good ideas for that. So it¡¯s going to be a bit of a nicer change inbetween the maze and the forest, and will probably fit in with the idea you had in mind. Then, there would be the fourth floor, now the third floor, and then we would have the fifth floor, where the first mini-boss would be... It would probably also be a bit more of a normal forest, just with more open areas where stronger monsters would gather, a few more hills, and that kinda stuff." While Evalia exined this, Eisen was trying to imagine exactly what she was saying in his mind, and figured it would be another good chance to use his visualization, and so quickly made a small mental model of it to have it float in the air in front of himself. "For the sixth floor, I would love to just have a giant river running through it, and the exit to the next floor would be at the end of that river. Just to make it so that people have to think a little and can¡¯t just brute their way throughpletely..." Evalia suggested, "And then on the seventh floor, you would end up in a bit of ake that you would of course then need to leave and get back into the forest. For the eigth floor, the trees would start to be a bitrger than normal, you know? Like a Redwood forest, just that normal oak or birch trees are supersized. That¡¯s just a setup for the ninth floor, though, where the whole floor would be built around a giant, really giant, Tree! And the tenth floor would be morebyrinth-like again, where you would move through the tree itself, with some sections outside of it on top of the branches, and then the boss-fight would be at the tree-crown with something in teh direction of a Dryad!" With a smug expression, really happy with the idea she came up with, Evalia crossed her arms and nodded once, before Eisen chuckled slightly in reply and moved his fingers through his beard. "Alright, sounds good to me. I¡¯m sure once we actually get people inside of the Dungeon that use it like a Dungeon is supposed to be used, we¡¯ll be able to level Sigurd and Fafnir up nicely. But your n has a lot ofrge open spaces nned for it, right?" Eisen asked, before the Heavenly Artist in front of him quickly nodded her head. "Yup! That¡¯s why I¡¯m here right now, I¡¯m going to paint the walls in here." She exined, so Eisen raised his eyebrows surprised. "Fair enough, with your element and ability, it¡¯s going to be rtively easy to make a realistic environment like that, huh?" Eisen asked, and Evalia nodded her head immediately. "Exactly. The n is to build a bit of a wooden wall around here directly in front of the wall so that nobody can touch it and ruin the illusion, and for the other floors, we¡¯re going to ce either cliff-walls that can¡¯t be climbed or a dense growth of trees or something like that around the edges for that. To make it a little more realistic." Evalia pointed out. With a light smirk, Eisen then just nodded his head. "Alright, then good luck with that. Just... If we¡¯re going to split up again on the maind, we won¡¯t really be able to do that, will we? At least we won¡¯t have anything like you¡¯re going to do for this room." And while Eisen pointed that out, Sigurd immediately shook its head. "Well, a lot of stuff that you all do is actually now in the construction menu, you know? The Recovery room, certain traps that you guys made by hand, or these buildings here. So I¡¯m sure that such a ¡¯Fake World¡¯ will be added as well." Sigurd exined to the old man. "Huh, is that so?" Heughed in response, somewhat embarrassed that he didn¡¯t notice that despite being the Dungeon-Master, and then simply crossed his arms. "If that¡¯s the case, then there¡¯s nothing to worry about. Although, would you mind maybe working on a bit of a model for what you are imagining the Dungeon Floors to be?" Eisen asked Evalia, who quickly nodded her head in response. "Of course, I¡¯ll get right to it when I¡¯m done with this room. Which I¡¯m gonna start to give you some time to work on whatever you were working on." Evalia told the old man, looking past him at the different pieces for the printers, which were stillying around unassembled, before Evalia quickly made her leave toward an open area of the room to start her work. "Alright then, if that¡¯s all nned-out... Let¡¯s get started, huh?" Eisen said to himself and quickly made his mana-doubles appear in their full demon transformation while Eisen himself transformed as well, scratching the proper sign into his chest under the apron while activating his Crafting Space. Luckily, this skill was close to leveling up again as well, meaning that he would be able to finish one more task for his Level-Up quest. And then, the old man quickly got to work to assemble the rest of the printing-presses with the help of his mana doubles. With the new ability he had that allowed him to make them act out very simple motions on their own, this was much, much easier. Of course, he still had to be extremely aware of whatever they were doing, but considering that most of which had to be done was simple assembly work without much that they could break, this wasn¡¯t an issue either. So with the help of these doubles, Eisen managed to finish up the work on the Printing-Presses within nothing more than an hour, and could then move onto the next mass-production system. The one meant for brewing potions, for which Eisen chose to get started with the grinder first and foremost, because it was simply the item that he made first while in his Deep Visualization as well, and figured it would be as good a ce as any. Chapter 402 - Potion Distillation First, Eisen wanted to make a small prototype for the potion-distition system. After all, he wanted to make sure it properly worked, and supersizing it afterward would be a rather easy thing. And like that, he could have a mobile version to use for himself as well, to make his potion-making easier. So, Eisen quickly started to make the bowl for the grinder, and made it out of simple steel on the outside,yering it with a thinyer of mythril on the inside. This was so that Eisen wouldn¡¯t be wasting as much Mythril as he usually was up until now, and then moved on toward the most important mechanism. The automatic grinding. It really wasn¡¯t necessarily thatplicated. After he made a mythril-covered steel pestle, he quickly added a simple metal ring with grooves inside of it to the ¡¯handle¡¯ part of it, and then made two more rings that wereyed into each other. The outer ring of those two would make the inner ring move, in a circr motion, while the inner ring itself would properly hook into the grooves that Eisen made on the ring on the actual pestle before. This was done with rtively simple enchantments, using ¡¯maism¡¯ and ¡¯detection¡¯ enchantments. Both the inner and outer ring had each four small crystals set into them, each at any time connected to only one of the four crystals of the other ring to cause a constant, quick circr motion. The inner ring would turn in a clockwise direction, although it was rtively easy to change it to counter-clockwise. If all the crystals that were attracted to each other were to be at the right position, directly touching each other, then the detection enchantment would notice this fact and switch out which crystal would be attracted to which. If you saw it as a clock, the outer-ring crystal at 12 would now be attracted to the inner-ring crystal at 9 and vice-versa, the outer ring crystal at 3 would be attracted to the inner-ring crystal at 12, and so on. And that would constantly change and instantaneously switch to cause a fast-paced motion. And it was actually rather easy to build in some resistance to allow different speeds for different materials by adding another gem to the inner ring to cause a changeable amount of ¡¯Drag¡¯ that would slow the motion down. This might be rtively counter-productive for some materials, but in the end, this was the best choice that Eisen coulde up with considering the different requirements for different types of materials. There were especially some that needed especially high-speed-grinding because certain parts needed to be ground down to a fine powder before the full-part could cause a reaction with the air. And while Eisen could probably manage that, it was far easier to just do it this way. And because the ¡¯Drag¡¯ enchantment worked with a simr principle as the ¡¯Maism¡¯ enchantment, the different crystals interacted very nicely with each other and actually reduced the necessary amount of mana a little bit. Now, the whole pestle just had to move in circr motions around the whole bowl, and for that, Eisen also had a little bit of a simr idea as before, just that it worked with a few more crystals than before. The ring would be hooked into a piece above the bowl to let it be moved around the whole area of the bowl properly without issues, and then the different maism-crystals would just be there to actually guide the ring in a circr motion, where only ever one or two crystal-pairs would be active at a time to make the whole thing move around steadily. And just like that, the whole thing was finished, so now Eisen only had to properly enchant the pestle and the bowl for Alchemy to make it possible to actually grind down different materials that usually couldn¡¯t be ground down, like mana-crystals for example, and of course to increase the quality of everything a bit more. Then Eisen covered the top of the bowl uppletely and made a small hatch on that cover that materials could be filled into and poured out of when everything was done, and poured his mana into the activation-spot at the center of the cover and made the settings appear, before he carefully ced some small mana-crystal chunks into the bowl and started to slowly get everything started. Soon enough, the pestle started moving in a circr motion rtively quickly, and the mana-crystal was quickly ground down into small pieces. It was rtively even right now, but it took quite a while to properly grind the crystals down to the preferable stage. "Hmm...." Eisen muttered to himself and quickly deactivated the whole thing, taking the de-tachable cover up with a small snapping sound before taking out the pestle to change that around a little more. "Hmm... Maybe it¡¯s too smooth right now..." The old man muttered to himself and slowly stood up, stepping over to one of his grinding wheels to roughen the mythril-surface up a little more. If the surface of the pestle was too smooth, the crystals wouldn¡¯t properly be broken down at all, mostly just being pushed around because there was no grip anywhere. But when the surface was too rough, some pieces would get stuck in there, and it would be hard to grind things down beyond a certain fine-ness. It wasn¡¯t really that tough to find the right roughness for the surface, so it didn¡¯t take long to grind the mythril to that point either. The more annoying part was the surface of the bowl, because Eisen wasn¡¯t able to actually use the grinding-wheel, so he had to adjust it by hand. But then again, that only ended up taking maybe half a minute longer, so it wasn¡¯t a big deal. He really just kind of skipped past this step, because he didn¡¯t really need to do it when he tried it in his Deep Visualization. First of all, he couldn¡¯t really test it out there anyway, and the Mythril probably naturally turned just the roughness that Eisen was thinking about subconsciously, so it wasn¡¯t needed. With a slight sigh, Eisen put everything back together, "At least now I know what to pay attention to while working in there, huh?" The old man muttered quietly, before he quickly put new crystals into the automatic-grinder to test everything out again. This time around, everything worked a lot faster than the first time around, so Eisen could only nod his head in satisfaction. "Alright, perfect." Eisen muttered out, and then quickly moved on to the next piece of the Potion-Mass-Production System, the piece that wouldbine any materials together. This wasn¡¯t hard to do, and just needed some fan-like des at the bottom of a bowl that would be moved using maism enchantments just like before. Then came the actual distition system. That in and of itself wasn¡¯tplicated to make either, because this just required a simple metal bowl that could heat the liquid inside of it up properly. Although that was just the base-version of it. For the actual item that Eisen wanted to make for the regr potion-making process, Eisen also needed to use one of Jyuuk¡¯s abilities, which allowed him to manipte the essence inside of different nts. While the heat would be pushed into the liquid, Eisen would also try to make it so that this ability was properly applied to the liquid at the same time, to keep the ¡¯essence¡¯ in ce to make sure none of it would be carried off with the water. And then, that water would be ced into another container where you could make sure it was properly rid of any possible impurities so that it could be re-usedter on. Then came the next part, using once more another container to make sure that all impurities were properly removed from the potion, which would be done by leading it through sifts of different strengths inside of a tube with a slightly roughened-up inneryer to grab onto any small pieces that may be inside that didn¡¯t properly dissolve while the potion was made. As for thest piece for the system to make regr potions that didn¡¯t require any special methods, Eisen wanted to make a small Magical Refination system, to once more extract just the parts of the potion that were actually needed. Eisen did something like that before already, while he was making the potion that allowed him to break through his Alchemy skill in the first ce. That potion maybe made it a little easier to do so, but technically, the same process should be possible for regr potions as well. For this, Eisen used part of the mechanism that he used for Alnico¡¯s speakers, so that he could create a constant and steady pulse inside of the liquid to make the purest form of the potion split off from any amount of water that might not be needed. Of course something like this already happened by just making the water evaporate naturally, but Eisen was sure that everything could be condensed even more, to about half the volume that a potion usually had. At the very least that was Eisen¡¯s goal with this. The liquid would be slightly thicker than a normal potion, but that issue could be solved using simple liquification. The Enchantment for this was once more pretty tough to figure out properly, but in the end, Eisen was sure that he managed to do just what he wanted to do. And when he tried it out with a potion that he had on hand, he found that it really did work surprisingly well. With the pulse from above, the parts of the potion with the ¡¯densest¡¯ amount of essence in it were pushed to the bottom of the bowl, while the water stayed at the top. And of course, any essence that might have been pulled out of the potion together with the water would be pushed back toward the actual potion in theter pulses. Then, the whole actual potion that sunk to the bottom would be like a singr entity sticking together perfectly, while the water at the top could be gotten rid of rtively easily. Of course, Eisen also made some tubes to properly connect each piece to make everything more automated. Like that, with the activation of a small enchantment, atch would open at the bottom of each bowl to make the potion run through to the next part. The only part that Eisen was having a little bit of trouble with in this setup was the sifting-tube considering that the different sifts might get clogged up. But in the end, considering the size that it would have at the end and the low amount of impurities usually found in potions, it would probably be fine to just clean the tube at the end of a day of full production without any issues. Like this, Eisen was now able to create an automatic production machine formon low and average grade potions! Once everything for this small prototype was properly set up, Eisen quickly started to get to work, trying to test it out with a simple Low-Grade Health Potion, because it only really needed two different materials, mana crystals and amran petals. First, Eisen ced some amran petals for a single potion into the first bowl and had it grind them down, before making the hatch open and the powder poured into the bowl underneath it in the setup. Then the hatch closed again before Eisen ced the mana crystals inside and repeated this same thing. In the actual set-up, Eisen would probably make a bowl for each different material, so that it would simply be ¡¯cleaner¡¯ in some way, but for now, for this small setup, this should probably more than just fine. Either way, after everything was ground down, Eisen activated the process for the ¡¯Mixer¡¯, which would fill it up with water and properly stir everything together, before letting it pour into the next bowl. There, the actual distition happened and the water ended up in a small bowl Eisen set at the end of the tube for it, and then the actual potion entered the tube with the different sifts, before entering the ¡¯refination¡¯ bowl, where the pulses started to happen rtively soon. Then after that, the bowl was tilted to the side to let the water out through a very fine sift, before the actual, very thick and jelly-like potion was now poured into another seperate bowl. And just like that, Eisen made an extremely refined potion. Chapter 403 - Ocean Turtle "Hmm, this works well enough, huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself as he looked at the liquid with a thick, honey-like consistency, and then slowly just tried to give it a taste. Usually, the Low-Grade Health Potion didn¡¯t taste all that bad, even if it was somewhat medicine-like, so Eisen wanted to make sure that the taste of this was actually passable when even more concentrated than usual. If it tasted horrid, then nobody would want to buy it either way. And when Eisen scooped some up with his finger and ced it on his tongue, he immediately noticed that the taste was actually quite strong, and pretty unpleasant, especially if you had to use a few of them at once. "This is no good at all..." The old man muttered to himself, and then tried to remember what Rouge did during the Alchemy lesson. He had added some ground-up dried berries to the mixture at the start to give it some better taste, but if he did it like that, then those things would just end up being lost in the process because they were sifted out, or would simply not be pushed to the bottom of the bowl in thest step. Then that meant that it needed to be vored properly afterward, so Eisen had to try and spend some time in the Ship¡¯s kitchen to figure some things out for that when he actually properly made everything that he needed for the setup. Either way, for now, the old man had to take these different pieces and supersize them, and try to make as many of them as he could. For now, he wanted to make five different setups. Four for low-grade mana and health potions, as well as the same setup just for their average-grade versions. So first things first, Eisen quickly got to work and made the actual metal pieces that he needed to, and then applied a thinyer of mythril to the parts that needed it using some slightly heatened-up Mythril, liquification, and regr transmutation at once so that he could evenly apply it as if it was some sort of paint. Of course, after that he quickly roughed the mythril surfaces for the grinder up properly as well, and then moved on to make the setup like it was needed. Due to the size of everything, Eisen wouldn¡¯t be able to stack everything on top of each other to let the contents of each bowl just drop into the next through a thin pipe, so he instead needed toe up with a different solution. He would still make a hatch at the bottom of each bowl, but that would just make the contents drop into another small container where they would be scooped out along a pipe with the help of a spiral with a diameter as wide as the interior of the pipe itself, to make sure everything could be moved through like intended. That way, it would be possible to actually ce the bowls directly next to each other, because the pipes would be able to lift the different liquids or powders up to the ce where the next bowl needed to be filled up as well. And the rest of the work was just supersizing everything else that he made, so while it did take him a fair few hours to do so, it wasn¡¯t something major. But while he was in the middle of his work, two more people entered the Dungeon. Kairyuu and Jyuuk. "Ah, hello again!" Eisen eximed as he looked over toward the two new people, although Kai seemed pretty surprised to see five nearly identical Demons standing there, working on somerge metal constructions. "Yeah, hello again... What are you doing here?" The Sea Dragon asked, surprised and curious, and Eisen slightly chuckled and quickly motioned over to the smaller setup that he already made. "Look over there, it¡¯s supposed to be a Potion Mass-Production system I¡¯m working on." The old man exined, before Jyuuk took a look at the thick potion still left inside of thest bowl, quickly inspecting it. "Erm... If you make something like that, won¡¯t that kind of mess up everybody else that wants to open a business as a potionmaker?" Jyuuk asked, but the old man shook his head and winked at him with augh. "Not really to be honest." The old man replied, and he had a quite simple reason for that. "The Potions that Starlight will sell will work on a very simple principle. Quantity. If you need a potion quickly, there will always be one avable. But because they¡¯re mass-produced like this and made through a machine, their quality should be stuck at ¡¯High¡¯. And the only potions with such a high quantity will be Low and Average Grade Mana and Health Potions, so the most basic there are. It shouldn¡¯t be that tough to set yourself apart as a smaller business if what you make is of high quality." Eisen exined quite swiftly, and Jyuuk just slowly nodded his head in response. "Huh, so you did think it through, huh..?" The Beastperson muttered to himself, before Eisen looked at him and the Sea-Dragon-turned-human next to him. "Now then, did Jyuuk speak to you about our idea yet?" With a smile on his face, Eisen crossed his arms and looked down toward Kai, who just simply smiled. "Mhm! I do have one sea creature under control that should be some help. It has a ¡¯Fear Aura¡¯, so it¡¯s going to keep other monsters away from you as well, and while it¡¯s not necessarily that much faster than your ship, it¡¯s going to be a steady speed because you won¡¯t need your sails, and that also means you won¡¯t have to rely on airflow and different currents as much." She exined and interlocked her fingers behind her back wth a broad smirk, making Eisen pretty curious about what kind of creature it was. "Is that so? Is it outside already?" Eisen asked curiously and slowly deactivated his transformation and rubbed some of the sweat from his face with a cloth, before Kai nodded her head. "Mhm, we connected it to the ship already as well~!" And so, the three of them swiftly made their way out of the Dungeon so that Eisen could take a quick break and see what kind of monster it actually was that would be pulling the ship from now on, and to his, quiterge, surprise, he was soon met with the face of a turtle staring at him, as if grinning broadly. But confusingly enough, it seemed like the front of the ship was directly where part of its shell usually was, and when Eisen looked over toward Kai to wait for her to exin, he was just met with a smug smile. "It¡¯s an Ocean Turtle!" She eximed, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "I can see that, yeah... But is it alright like this? What about its shell?" The old man asked, before Kai quickly nodded her head to calm Eisen¡¯s worries down. "Oh yeah, it¡¯s fine! It can control its shell as easily as mana. And it¡¯s so thick that we don¡¯t need to worry about hurting it either, it¡¯spletely fine like this. I wouldn¡¯t force it to do anything it doesn¡¯t want to anyway." The Sea-Dragon said reassuredly, before Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard with a nod. "Is that so? Well, I have to say, at least the connection should be strong like this, huh?" He asked and stepped over to the edge of the ship, seeing that parts of the turtle¡¯s shell were literally pressed against the wooden hull of the ship, not letting it loose at all. "For sure, as long as it doesn¡¯t end up cracking any of the wood, we should be fine." "Yeah, let¡¯s hope it doesn¡¯t..." The old man replied to Jyuuk next to him, and then nodded his head. "Well, if that¡¯s it, then I¡¯m sure we should be able to make it to the central ind again very easily as well." "And on top of that, there¡¯s a path that we¡¯ll be able to take that we couldn¡¯t take before because the waves were too strong, but now we should be able to do it. Kai said she knows which path I¡¯m talking about, and that it shouldn¡¯t be an issue for the Ocean Turtle to move through there. It seems like it can use magic to control the water a little as wel." Jyuuk pointed out, leaving Eisen to just smile in satisfaction. "Well then, if that¡¯s the case..." Eisen muttered quietly and then quickly stretched his body out for a moment, noticing that the sun seemed to be slowly going down. "Will you be staying for dinner, Kai?" The old man asked, and the Sea-Dragon slowly looked over toward Jyuuk who nodded his head without hesitation. "Then I would love to!" She replied, before Eisen chuckled in response, before noticing something else that might be a bit of an issue. "Well... Is it an issue for you to eat the meat of Dragon-Type monsters?" The old man asked, but Kai immediately shook her head. "Not at all! I actually like Dragon meat a lot~!" The Sea-Dragon exined, and Eisen just slowly nodded his head in response. "I see. Then I¡¯ll let you know when I¡¯m done." With a smile on his face, the old man figured it would be a good a time as ever to start working on some food, although it might actually be prettyte for dinner when he finished now that he thought about it. Either way, for now, Eisen just quickly made his way over to the Kitchen where all the meat from the Dragon-type monsters that were hunted for him wereying around in the kitchen. "Luckily we left the Sea-Monster meat at the central ind, huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself with a smile. The sea monster that they encountered and took apar near the darkness-mana source gave them quite a lot of meat, after all. Either way, there was only a little of that left now, because they didn¡¯t need as much of it for their trip and figured it would be of more use in the town for the townfolk of Prototype that actually needed to eat. But for now, the old man quickly took a look at the different meats that he had. To his surprise, despite them all being technically amphibious in nature, some of them ended up having red meat instead of white meat like Eisen expected them to have. Eisen didn¡¯t really understand why that was, but as long as they weren¡¯t poisonous, the old man didn¡¯t really mind. Meat was meat, and meat was delicious. Either way, first, Eisen quickly started by picking a nice piece of meat, and ended up finding a piece that seemed to be perfect to slice into some steaks. The raw meat itself seemed to have a pretty high quality in itself already, so Eisen was pretty excited about eating itter on. So, after slicing it up into pieces that seemed to have an appropriate thickness, Eisen quickly started to season it by using a dry-rub made up of salt, pepper, cumin, thyme and a few other smaller amounts of spices that Eisen personally enjoyed quite a lot, and then set the meat to the side while letting the pans heat up properly while he started to work on some other small side-dishes. For one, Eisen just figured he could make some simple pan-fried potato slices, which didn¡¯t really need that much seasoning beyond salt as long as they were properly prepared. While slicing them up properly, Eisen got some of his doubles to do other routine work like slice things up for some sds or simply mix other parts together, and soon enough, after preparing everything so that the meat had nice, thick crust, the old man brought the tes out of the kitchen toward the Dining hall. Chapter 404 - Mall "Oh damn, this is really good!" Brody eximed as he took the first bite of the meat on his te, and Eisen chuckled in response. "Yeah, and it¡¯s not really seasoned thatplicatedly either. The meat itself is really good." The old man pointed out quite swiftly, while he also kept eating some of his food, watching as especially Kai seemed to enjoy everything a lot. It¡¯s been a while since she¡¯s eaten anytihng that was actually properly cooked, after all, so it made sense for her to be happy about it. Either way, during all of Dinner, Eisen was thinking about how to further improve on the potion-production system, and in the end managed to get a pretty good idea when he thought about the actual Ranks of the items. He didn¡¯t think about the fact that they would have to be ¡¯seen¡¯ as finished, after all, so maybe he should add a function to the system to let that happen by itself? If he could do that, then he probably would also end up being able to make it so that the items had different ranks. After all, now that his Alchemy skill was at Rank 4, he did gain that ability for that skill, like he did for every single one of his Rank 4 crafting skills so far. And so, Eisen ended up just spending the rest of his dinner with his Truth-Seeing Eyes active to start visualizing the enchantment in front of him, trying to figure out if there were any issues in his idea so far. The enchantment itself wasn¡¯t necessarily that tough, the only thing that Eisen was worried about was at what point this should be done. It could be something done in the step of actually filling the potions into bottles, or it could be done manually by an employee using a simple item which he would need to make quite a few of then. Considering that Eisen¡¯s own Alchemy skill was used to enchant the whole mass-production system, it probably wouldn¡¯t end up recognizing anything but his own ¡¯Recognition¡¯ Ability, as Eisen dubbed it for now. "Hmm, that means that I..." The old man muttered to himself, staring forward into the empty space in front of him, while the others around the table that he was sitting on were looking at him nervously. "Erm, is everything alright?" Sky asked with a somewhat wry smile, and Eisen was pulled out of his thoughts for a moment. "Huh? Oh, yes, everything is fine, don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m just trying to figure out the best n of action for an item." The old man exined, before moving his fingers through his beard, smiling lightly. "Actually, let¡¯s just ask your guys¡¯ opinion." Eisen said and then swiftly started to exin the situation while the others looked at him surprised, "So, I was just working on a potion mass-production system, right?" The old man started, "And now I¡¯m not sure when the item-recognition should happen, meaning at which point I should have the raw potion turn into an actual potion item. At the point at which it is filled into the container, or when it¡¯s sold to the customer." Confused, the others looked at each other for a moment, before Brody ended up shrugging. "What does it matter at which point it happens? It¡¯s going to be easier to do that when the potions are being filled, and like that nobody else can ¡¯recognize¡¯ them, right?" The Demon Orc suggested, but Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Well, only I will be able to recognize them as items, because the potions will be made using my alchemy skill. But the real issue is that the potions are supposed to be recognized for different ranks. From Rank 3, even potions have requirements, so we will need to set them lower than that, but we also shouldn¡¯t lose the ability to set them to the maximum Rank they can have. And that¡¯s the issue, I¡¯m not sure if it¡¯s going to be better to make a set amount of potions for each rank and sell them like that, or if the rank should be set depending on the person, so the cashier should ask something like which rank they want or something like that. That way we won¡¯t make too much of one rank, after all. It would be bad if we couldn¡¯t sell them properly." Eisen exined, and now the others also understood the issue that Eisen was having. "Hmm... Maybe I should just call Komer and talk to him about it..." The old man muttered to himself, and Evalia quickly replied, "I think that¡¯s the best idea, I doubt any of us have any experience in that field, really." With a nod, Eisen slowly opened his friendslist to see if Komer was currently online, and when he saw that his name was dyed green, he quickly pressed the ¡¯Private Chat¡¯ button, before a small window appeared in front of Eisen. [Requesting Private Chat] And just a few momentster, it was reced with another one. [Connecting...] With a smile on his face, Eisen looked at the others at the table. "I¡¯ll be right back." He exined, and before he knew it, he found that the world around him changed into a pure white space, with only Komer slowly appearing in front of him. "Ah, hey there!" The young merchant eximed when he saw the old craftsman in front of him, and Eisen chuckled and stepped closer toward him, while Komer just smirked. "So, why¡¯d you call? Want to hear about my awesome progress?" He asked, while Eisen simply nodded. "Of course, that and I want to ask your opinion about something. Let¡¯s start with that, alright?" Eisen suggested, so Komer just replied with a curious nod, before the old man got started, exining the whole situation that he told to the others just now to the young merchant as well, and he ended up cupping his chin in thought. "I think for potions with lower value and high mass-production capabilities, it¡¯s fine to ¡¯recognize¡¯ them while they¡¯re being finished up. Makes it easier to sell a lot of them at once. Nobody wants to stand in line for a few minutes if someone decides to buy potions in bulk... As for the more high-grade potions with a lot of value... We should think about the second choice. I don¡¯t know if you created production systems for those kinds yet, though, or if that¡¯s even really possible... But when we have a low quantity of high-grade or special potions, then we should really do that depending on the buyer¡¯s needs." Komer exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head in reply. "I see, sounds good. Then I¡¯ll do that. For now, I¡¯m making five different mass-production systems. I suggest using each one for each a Low-Grade and an Average-Grade production of health and mana potions, at least at the start, and reserve one for different types of potions." As Eisen pointed this out, Komer crossed his arms in thought. "Is that really the best idea? There¡¯s a lot of different potions that don¡¯t need special methods, and the building I want Evalia to redesign when you¡¯re all back for the Magic-Item Shop is prettyrge, so I don¡¯t just want to sell a handful of different potion types there." The merchant replied, and while Eisen was so curious that he just wanted to ask him about those buildings already, he didn¡¯t want to rush anything and just figured he should let that wait until this part of the conversation was over. "Well, it¡¯s not necessarily hard to change which modules belong together, because the only things that really needs to be changed are the grinders. It was just a suggestion because I figured Health and Mana potions are pretty basic." Eisen replied to Komer, who was listening with a light smile. "Of course that¡¯s true, but also because they¡¯re so basic, we should make sure to have other non-basic potions in the shop. Even if they¡¯re unnessary, more choices make a shop seem more impressive. Of course we shouldn¡¯t overdo it, but I think we should offer about five or six different types on the main disy, mostly the more expensive and important ones of course, and then have anotherrge amount of different potions lined up grocery-store style in that section." "Is that so? Well, then let¡¯s just do it that way. As i said, as long as everything is properly cleaned inbetween, it¡¯s not that hard to do all of that. Then just try and figure out what potions you want to sell exactly, we¡¯ll test everything out when I¡¯m back." Eisen pointed out, and Komer nodded his head while seemingly remembering something else. "Ah, by the way, I managed to get in contact with an importer for Silica and arge supplier for Soda Ash, so if you also have a way to mass-produce the different bottles, we can actually do that now." Komer pointed out, so Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Sounds good, then let¡¯s do that. I¡¯ll figure it out soon." The old man said, mentally starting to already figure out some ideas for that, before remembering the other topic there was to speak about. "So, tell me about the buildings you managed to buy." Eisen asked, before Komer smiled broadly in response, crossing his arms proudly. "Oh, I didn¡¯t just buy any old buildings. I bought a whole block in the center of that run-down area." Komer exined. Eisen looked at him surprised, unsure if he was actually serious about what he just said right there, but judging from his expression, the young man was more than just serious. "A whole block, huh?" Eisen grinned, so Komer immediately nodded his head. "Yes! The whole area was in possession of the Lord because the buildings were abandoned or taken over because the owner had too much debt. He was actually pretty happy to sell the whole ce to me, and that just for a single one of our crystal coins!" "Really, only one? Did you take a proper look at those buildings? They¡¯re not about to break down, are they?" Eisen asked, but Komer quickly shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, there is some work that needs to be done, but I have more than enough money with me to hire people for that. And with magic, the reconstruction is pretty easy." "Haha, as expected, you¡¯re really quite capable, aren¡¯t you?" The old man asked with a loudugh, making Komer just scratch the back of his neck embarrassedly, "Thank you! Well, the reconstructions so far are going pretty well, and I¡¯m working on turning into something like a shopping-mall with a fewrge shops run by us, and the rest can just be rented out to other people, like you suggested." "I suggested a Strip-Mall, not an actual mall. But this is much better, yes." The old man pointed out, before just smirking lowly in response. If they could properly rent out those spaces forparatively cheap to people that could be trusted to make high-quality products, then not only would that give them a steady ie, but it would also let them lift the reputation of the area up higher. That would make it easier to gain the favor of lords of other towns so that shops could be opened there as well, and it would of course also spread the name ¡¯Starlight¡¯ to new customers. Eisen really hoped that this would be enough to push Komer above his two brothers in this sick petition¡¯ that their father came up with to choose the heir of the business. But somehow, it actually seemed like Komer wasn¡¯t necessarily all that interested in that, and might have more fun building up his own thing like this than take on thepany of his father. Although in the end, it didn¡¯t really matter much, because if Komer could pull this off properly, he would definitely end up being sessful enough to get the freedom of choice. Chapter 405 - Changing After disconnecting from the Private Chat, Eisen quickly stood up and got started clearing the table of the dirty dishes, which the others of course quickly helped him with. "That was really great!" Kai eximed happily and walked up to Eisen, who just looked at her with a light smile. "It surely wasn¡¯t enough to fill you up, but I¡¯m d you enjoyed it. If you want, I can cook some of the other meat for you through as well." The old man told her, slowly moving his fingers through his beard, before Kai quickly shook her head. "That¡¯s fine, that¡¯s fine, I don¡¯t need to eat all that much! I¡¯ll just see if I can find some fishter if I get hungry again." "Alright, if you¡¯re sure about that, then I won¡¯t fight you about it." Eisen replied, before he swiftly looked over toward the other Originals. "So, is there anything else that needs to be done right here, or is everyone fine if we leave soon?" The old man asked, but Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck and looked over toward Kai with a wry smile. "Let¡¯s just spend the night here again, I¡¯d like to speak to Kai about some things." Jyuuk pointed out, so Eisen slowly shrugged in response. "That¡¯s fine to me. Then we¡¯re just leaving tomorrow morning. I¡¯ll head upstairs and take a nap for now." And as the old man said this, he slowly winked at the other Originals as a signal that it was time for the checkup with the Doctor, for which Eisen quickly made his way to the meeting room and sat down on his chair, of course while his monsters quickly snuggled up to him, and then just logged off. --- "Ah, Mister Joyce, I was just about to wake you." The moment that Benjamin logged off and opened the capsule, he saw the Doctor already standing in front of the capsule. With a slight nce at the Clock, Benjamin was quickly aware that he stayed in the game a little too long right now. It was Saturday, so they pushed the appointment a littleter into the day, but it seemed like the old man didn¡¯t manage to keep up with that perfectly with all of the things that were going on in the ¡¯Game¡¯. "Sorry, I hope you didn¡¯t wait long." Benjamin said, but the Doctor immediately shook his head. "Not at all, don¡¯t worry. I just got here five minutes ago, so I took the time to take a look at your current values while you were inside hte capsule." The Doctor replied, so Benjamin simply smiled and sat up properly, slowly exiting the capsule to stand up a little bit. "Hmm, it seems like your body is doing extremely well despite you not moving much for quite a while now." With an astounded expression, the doctor took a closer look at Benjamin¡¯s overall physical state, and the old man couldn¡¯t help himself butugh in response. "Of course, it would be a shame if muscles I worked on for more than 50 years were to just shrivel up after a few days." The old man eximed, and the Doctor chuckled and started on the basic physical check-up to see how Benjamin¡¯s shoulder reacted to theck of an arm, before he nodded his head in satisfaction. "Your body really is astounding, your muscles and tissue adapted to the new situation as if your body has always been like this. Over the next few days, I suggest starting to slowly take some walks, as I mentioned before. First a bit through the house, then when you feel like you don¡¯t have any issues with that, start walking a little through the garden, and at some point you will surely be able to return to walking through town. I expect that to be in a week or two. Due to the medication and the stress on your whole body, your stamina should have been impacted greatly, so don¡¯t overdo yourself." With a nod and after taking some notes, the Doctor packed all of his things back together and made his way out of the room, although he turned around as he was doing so. "Ah, and if you want, I can bring a catalogue of different types of prostetics tomorrow that we could look at for when your shoulder properly recovered." He suggested, so Eisen just slowly nodded his head. "Thank you, I would appreciate that." The old man said, before the Doctor left the room again, and Benjamin sat down on his chair for a little while, and Tony slowly entered the room with a seemingly worried expression. "Hm? Is everything alright?" Benjamin asked his son, who slowly shook his head. "Not... not really. So, I¡¯ve been speaking to Melody a lot over the past few days, and she kept saying that Michael still wasn¡¯t home. We figured he just stayed at a Hotel or something like that and wanted to take his time getting back, but he¡¯s not back even now. I know that Michael is a prick, but he¡¯s still Sophia¡¯s dad, so if something happened to him, or he did something to himself, then..." Tony started, but Benjamin just looked at him with his eyebrows raised. "He¡¯s still in town, of course." He told him, but Tony for a moment just stared at him confused at what he said. "What do you mean..?" "Both Greg and Xenia- sorry, Jasmin, mentioned him, didn¡¯t they? Greg talked about a ¡¯religious guy¡¯ that knew us and riled him up a little, right? Jasmin mentioned that she saw Greg and a religious guy speaking as well when she was outside her building, and she lives next to the only hotel in town. It was kind of obvious to me that it was him, but Michael himself didn¡¯t do anything yet, so I figured we should just leave him be." Benjamin exined to Tony, who slowly ended up grinding his teeth and nodding. "Then if he¡¯s still in town, we shouldn¡¯t let Sophia and Kim walk around together alone, right? What if he sees them?" Tony asked, but Benajmin swiftly shook his head, "I¡¯m sure he already did. I mean, he can try to do anything to her if he wants to, but if he does, then I¡¯ll kill him." The old man said with a light smile, before Tony slowly sighed in response. "Right, of course you will. I¡¯ll tell Sophia and Kim to be careful, maybe they should only meet here for now." But just as Tony was about to leave the room, Sophia was standing there in the doorframe, seemingly having heard all of it. "I don¡¯t think that¡¯s necessary..." She told her Uncle, who just looked at her with a frown. "I know he¡¯s your father, but especially people like him can end up more dangerous than you would think, you know?" Tony pointed out, although Sophia immediately shook her head. "That¡¯s not what I mean... Of course I¡¯m scared that Dad will do something... But this Monday on noon, Kim is getting her capsule and will start ying the game, so we¡¯re going to be able to hang out in the game instead. I mean, Evalia and Benji are basically dating just through the game, so..." Sophia pointed out, and in response, Tony raised his eyebrows. "Benji and who? What do you mean ¡¯dating¡¯?" He asked, confused about why he didn¡¯t hear anything about this yet, and just then, Benji walked past the door and heard them speaking, before stopping and staring at his cousin. "You ratted me out? What the hell!" The young adult eximed as he pushed his hand forward toward Sophia, who just slightly smirked and shrugged. "Oops." She replied, and Tony looked at Benji confused. "You¡¯re dating someone you met in the game? You should know that people on the inte aren¡¯t always who they pretend they are!" Tony eximed, but Benji looked at him with a wry smile. "Ehm, nah Dad, in this case I¡¯m pretty sure I can be safe to assume that she¡¯s who she says she is..." He replied, looking over toward his grandfather. "Right?" Benji asked, so Benjamin swiftly nodded his head. "Actually, yes, in this case it¡¯s pretty safe. I mentioned Evalia before, right? And you saw her in the trailers as well, and actually, didn¡¯t I already mention who Evalia is in reality?" Benjamin asked, and slowly, it seemed to dawn on Tony who they were talking about. "That Evalia? As in ¡¯Nataly Klein¡¯-Evalia?" As Tony asked this, all three of the people currently in this room beside him nodded their heads without a moment of hesitation. "Now then... That¡¯s... I don¡¯t even..." Tony started confused and then just looked at Benji, before cing his hand onto his shoulder with a light smile. "I... I¡¯m proud of you, son." "Dad, what the fuck..." Benji replied with a wry smile, and Tony looked at him with a slight chuckle. "What do you mean? Can¡¯t I be proud of my son who managed to woo a person that literally everyone has heard of before? And only positive things, at that. Like this, we can truly show off how charismatic the Joyce family truly is!" Tony eximed, before both Sophia and Benji looked at their grandfather. "Yeah, I think if you want to pull attention to the Joyce¡¯s, then you should rely on Gramps for that. Because he¡¯s the person that at least half the online discussions tagged with ¡¯World of Magic¡¯ are about." Benji replied, before Tony raised his eyebrows surprised. "Isn¡¯t your grandfather just casually spending his time in some workshop?" He asked, and both Sophia and Benji had to fight hard not to startughing immediately. "Right, he¡¯s literally working toward bing the King of a country that every single yer will head toward at one point or another, he¡¯s the champion of two Ancient Dragons, is the literal father of a God, and makes absolutely insane items. Oh, and of course he¡¯s also the Guildmaster of the only Rank 1 Guild there currently is in the whole Game." Benjiughed, in response to which Tony stared at Benjamin confused. "Erm, what have you been doing exactly? I¡¯ve been reading through information on the game for a while now for my application, but I literally haven¡¯t heard about any of that yet..." Tony pointed out, letting Benji simply nod his head. "Of course not! It¡¯s not something you¡¯re usually able to do, it¡¯s just because of the backstory of ¡¯Eisen¡¯. He has insane connections, so he¡¯s basically being pushed to being at the peak of everything." The young man exined jealously, but Benjamin simplyughed in response to what was just said. "Well, it¡¯s not all just puppies and rainbows, you know? There are some serious things going on as well, for example the situation with Kiron and his grandparents, the illegal and inhumane trading of monsters as done by Komer¡¯s brother, the fact that the ¡¯Game¡¯ doesn¡¯t actually seem to be a game and is just a parrallel world or something like that, and of course also the Failure running around destroying my Guardians." Benjamin said to them with a deep sigh, and although the old man meant all of thatpletely seriously, because a part of what he said waspletely ridiculous, the others just slightlyughed in response. "Stop joking arround, it¡¯s a ¡¯Parallel World¡¯? Is that some in-game lore we haven¡¯t heard about yet?" Benji asked with augh before looking at the clock on the wall, "Anyway, I¡¯m going out for my run now. See yater, losers." The young man eximed as he rushed out the door, swiftly followed by Sophia, who just wanted to get some food. "Ah, Dad, we¡¯ll speak about Michael some moreter... I¡¯ll talk to Sophia first, alright?" Tony asked, quickly following his niece to the Kitchen, leaving Benjamin to sit there alone in his room, while the old man just stared at his remaining hand. "Of course it¡¯s ridiculous..." Benjamin muttered to himself quietly, before slowly drooping down and resting his face inside of his hand, slowly grasping it tighter in frustration at what was going on. He was definitely changing. Just a few minutes ago, he announced that he would kill his son-inw if he did anything to Sophia with a smiling expression. And while Tony thought he was joking, Benjamin himself knew. He was dead serious. Chapter 406 - Berries Eisen slowly stood back up from his seat in the meeting room and made his way down toward the main-deck again. It was still dark out, so everyone was still sleeping right now, but Eisen just wanted to work on something for now. Nothing specific, just anything. So he figured it would be a good idea to finish up therge automatic brewing system and try it out once so that he could also work on a recipe for a good voring for the potion. For now, there wasn¡¯t that much more that actually needed to be done. Most of the basic physical work of setting different parts together was something that Eisen made his doubles do, and the enchanting and alchemy could be handled by Eisen himself pretty easily. But just when Eisen was trying to fix the motions that one of his Doubles was doing imperfect while making one of thest metal pieces for the system, a notification appeared in front of the old man. [cksmithing reached Level 100 in Rank 3, Upgrading to Rank 4] [You can now work with Metals that possess special properties] [Due to Ranking-up your cksmithing Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END] With his eyebrows raised, Eisen looked at the notifications, especially curious about what the second one was telling him. "Special Properties? Don¡¯t silver or Maroon count toward that already..?" The old man asked himself as he waved the notification away, and then moved his fingerst through his beard in thought. "Hmm, I guess I should just ask Constant..." The old man muttered to himself, and then just returned to his work. It was no use for him to try and figure out what ¡¯Special Properties¡¯ on metals were, he wouldn¡¯t be able to find it out on his own anyway. So for now, Eisen concentrated on the mass-production system for the potions as well as the item to allow for those potions to be recognized as such. The best way that Eisen came up with for that was to do so when closing the bottle down while the cork would be pressed into the top, so the old manbined those two things. When it would find a bottle underneath it, it would grab that bottle to ohold it in ce, push the cork in, and then properly ¡¯recognize¡¯ the bottle. At the very least Eisen figured it out for the potions already, the pills would maybe be a little harder. Evalia was working on designing a good container to store them as well, so he kind of had to wait for that before he could make the system for it. Either way, after a little while, the old man spent his time enchanting everything properly, and then finished it up by setting the first mass-production system togheter, making his way over toward his materials to grab some mana-crystals and arge amount of amran-petals, which the old man quickly gave into the grinder and then slowly poured his mana into the crystal that was supposed to make everything start. The actual enchantments were powered by Soul Generators, of course. And when everything started, Eisen started to put the materials into the grinder they were supposed to go into. With his increased size, the old man was able to look into them pretty easily, so he could make sure that everything was working properly. At the point at which everything was ground down evenly, the grinding stopped and the pestle moved itself up a bit to let everything flow out through the hatch at the bottom, where the two powders were quickly carried up to the top of the next bowl and poured inside there. When nothing kepting anymore, the container filled with water and everything was mixed together quite smoothly, both with a rotator at the bottom and another small ¡¯paddle¡¯ that was supposed to go against the regr flow of the red liquid. Then, another hatch opened up and the spiral also soon started to carry the water up itself. When everything then was inside the next bowl, the liquid started to heat up and the water started evaporating. When then only the actual raw potion was left, it was carried up into the start of the spiraling tube that was supposed to help sift whatever small pieces of crystal or amran that may still be inside out of the potion, before the rest was swiftly poured into thest container, which started to soon pulse pretty quickly and strongly in response to pressing¡¯ the actual potion while pulling more unnessary water out. After that process was done, Eisen manually pulled the container to the side and let the water leave a fine sift at the side, while the honey-like potion was left inside of it, which Eisen quickly poured into another bowl with the help of a little bit of liquification to make it flow a bit faster, and then returned it to its basic honey-like state. "Alright... Let¡¯s get started with that, then." Eisen muttered to himself, before he moved back over toward the Dungeon-Entrance and brought the bowl outside, and Fafnir swiftly closed the gate down before he and Sigurd followed the old man together with the three young monster children toward the Kitchen. And so, Eisen then started to think about the best method of voring this. Luckily, it shouldn¡¯t make the quality of the potion go down to vor it like this. It might make it a bit harder to hide the medicine-like vor, but at least nothing would be actually wasted. So to get started, Eisen grabbed a few different fruits that might fit well with this, although he very quickly managed to narrow the vors he wanted to go with down to either strawberry, raspberry, or elderberry, simply due to the fact that they were all red berries, and that fit better with the ever-red Health Potion. On top of that, if you turn elderberries into syrup, they can help with simple cold of flu symptoms, so that kind of thing might bounce off to the Health Potion. Eisen did actually know a potion recipe against those kinds of diseases that used elderberries in the actual potion-making process, so it was clear that they were actually supposed to help with that. Either way, Eisen now just wanted to get to work. First, he wanted to see if he could simply mix ground-down dried berries into it, and then swiftly used a small dehydrator, which he made using one of Bree¡¯s dehydration spells together with her element, and then ground the three different types of berries down in a small bowl, before scooping up a little bit of the potion and mixing it with those powders. To make that happen more easily, Eisen liquified the potions as much as he could manage. After a little while, it seemed like the potions and the powders seemed to havebined properly, and after tasting a spoon of each of it, Eisen sighed in disappointment. "Well then... The potion¡¯s taste is a bit too overwhelming for this..." The old man muttered to himself, before cing the bowls to the side for now. There was a little bit of aftertaste of the different berries Eisen tried to add into the potions on his tongue still, but just an aftertaste wouldn¡¯t be good enough. So instead, Eisen started to try and make some syrup out of them to concentrate the berry-vor some more. In a saucepan, Eisen first crushed some of the strawberries into a pulp with a potato-masher, and then added water to it before bringing the whole thing to a boil, before reducing the temperature and let everything simmer for a few more minutes. Then, Eisen poured everything into a bowl through a fine sift to stop the pulp from getting through with the juice, and then pressed down onto the pulp a little to actually make sure as much juice woulde out as possible. When that was done, Eisen quickly put the juice back into the, cleaned, saucepan and added sugar to it, in total it would be one cup of sugar for every cup of juice, and once more brought everything to a boil while mixing the sugar into the juice. After that, the temperature was reduced again and everything was simmered, until the juice became viscous but still a little runny. Then Eisen quickly poured the strawberry syrup into another small bowl and set it to the side to let it cool, before moving onto the Raspberry and Elderberry syrups. Eisen was pretty sure that this wouldn¡¯t necessarily work all that well, but Eisen just wanted to try it out, because maybe he would be pleasantly surprised! Although, when Eisen actually tried to stir some of the potion and the syrups he made together and then tried it, he found that while it did taste alright, he really didn¡¯t want to have to use this much sugar for the potions to make it work, because sugar was pretty expensive here. More expensive than the other materials, at least. So instead, Eisen got another idea that he wanted to try out, and it would really just require one or two more steps in the mass-production machines. First, Eisen liquified the potion as much as he could to bring it closer toward water, and then started to mash the berries down again. And now, instead of adding water to the berries like before, Eisen mixed some of the potion into it, and started by trying to bring it to a boil, and then simply simmered it for a few minutes again. Everything seemed to already be thickening up a little more, but it should be fine, really. Afterward, Eisen once more just sifted the pulp out of the potion mixed with the berry juice, and then ced everything to the side to cool down while Eisen made the next versions with the other berries. In the end, Eisen tried the slightly thick liquid, which ended up with a simr consistency to a regr potion, and nodded his head in satisfaction. It was kind of sweet, but not overly sweet, tasted nicely like the different berries, although not so much that you would think of drinking the potions like soft-drinks. Meaning, you definitely did notice that it was still supposed to be a potion. With a smile on his face, Eisen filled the vored potions into some sses so that he could have the others taste-test themter to see which they liked the most, and then started to think about what he could do with the leftover fruit-pulp. In the end, some of the potion was absorbed by the pulp, so it would be just aplete waste to throw it away. Komer already mentioned that he wanted to open something like a confectionary shop, or just a ce where people could buy different sweets and snacks and such, so Eisen figured he should try and somehow turn the pulp into something that could be used for that. And it surely wouldn¡¯t be that hard either, as Eisen already had a few pretty good ideas, because he did some of these things already with leftover pulp after making jelly or jam before. It could be spread thinly on a sheet and then dehydrated to be turned into a slightly chewy, healthy snack like that. It could be mixed into dough for breads or cakes, and just used as a filling by itself or after being mixed with some sort of whipped cream or simr things. Of course, it could also be used to make berry-vored alcohol, although that didn¡¯t really fit into a confectionary shop. And due to the fact that there was some of the potion left inside of it, it would have some passive healing effects as well. Eisen would just try out a few of these things in the next few hours and let the others decide which things they liked most, and would then make them again for Komer to see if he felt like they could actually be sold. Chapter 407 - More Dragons After a little, Eisen finally finished up with some of the ideas that he had that the leftover berry-pulp could be used for, and really ended up with a few nice things, although most of which were just the things that he thought about doing beforehand. But it should still be at the level of being sold at a shop, especially because of the effect that everything made with the berries had of replenishing some of your health, considering how the pulp came to be. The thing that Eisen most wanted to know right now was something else, however. He really wanted to know if the others liked the three different potion-vors that Eisen tested out, and he gave all of them some sses with each a little bit of the different potions inside, just enough so that they would be able to actually taste everything properly. The effect of the potion didn¡¯t really suffer at all, it was just that the volume increased a little bit. But considering that the volume decreased by ¡¯extracting¡¯ what the potion really was beforehand, it was still less than what a regr potion had, and was a slight bit more potent, as far as Eisen could tell. Either way, for now, Eisen just wanted to see if only he liked these potions, or if the others did as well. And to his pleasant surprise, all of them were quite happy with each of them! And they liked the different small snacks and pastries that Eisen made over the past one or two hours using the pulp as well, so Eisen was really d about that. "So, but now, which ones do you like the most? I don¡¯t think we should start with three different vors to be sold, at least not right off the bat, so I want to narrow it down to one of them." Eisen pointed out, although he was pretty sure he could already exclude at least one vor of potion. The elderberry. Taste-wise it maybe wasn¡¯t really that bad, but it wasn¡¯t anything special or majorly enjoyable, especially not whenpared to the other two. And since it didn¡¯t actually seem to add another effect to the potion like Eisen hoped it would, there wasn¡¯t any reason to keep going with that. In the end, just like he expected, nobody chose the elderberry one as their favorite, and the strawberry one was chosen as the favorite of the most people, so Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction. "Alright, good to know. Thanks." The old man said with a smile on his face as he slowly headed out of the room, and was swiftly followed by some of the others because it seemed like it was about time for them to set off toward the Central Ind again. While they were standing on the main-deck, and Eisen was once more just checking if the bottle of Nidhogg-Wine was stable like it was right now, Kairyuu came over toward him with a bright smile, like she had done for the others already as well. This would be thest time they would see each other at the very least in a little while. "Heeyyooo, old man!" Kai eximed, and Eisen turned toward her with his eyebrows raised,ughing as he shook his head. "I¡¯ll just pretend that it¡¯s a type of Dragon-Greeting that I haven¡¯t heard of before." The old man said with a smile, and Kai just smiled at him, showing her bright white teeth. "Hehe, alright~! Erm, anyway... I wanted to give you something. I don¡¯t exactly know why, but that stuck-up-... sorry, Trygan told each of us to give each of you one of our scales when we meet you." Kai said with a smile, although she scratched her cheek with a wry smile, "Although only you... We weren¡¯t allowed to give it to Master for some reason..." The Sea-Dragon admitted and quickly pulled something from behind her back, a scale that she already prepared for this apparently, and she swiftly handed it to Eisen. "Oh, thank you..." Eisen muttered quietly, looking at the dinner-te sized scale with a wry smile. "So there really was some other reason behind getting Trygan¡¯s scale.." The old man whispered, before Jyuuk walked up to them, having overheard something that Eisen himself also wanted to ask about. "Erm, Kai, what do you mean with ¡¯We¡¯? Aren¡¯t you alone here?" The Beastperson asked with a slight frown, before the Sea-Dragon quickly nodded her head. "Mhm, I¡¯m alone! But I don¡¯t mean me either, I mean the others~! Soryuu, Yamaryuu, Sabakuryuu, Shinryuu and Fushiryuu!" Kai exined quite swiftly, before both Eisen and Jyuuk raised their eyebrows. "Jyuuk..." The old man started to say, and the monkey himself seemed to start getting pretty excited at what those names seemed to symbolize, although he was put back down pretty soon, "Your naming sense sucks." Esien sighed deeply, before Jyuuk looked at him annoyedly. "Hey, are Caria, Melissa, and Sal really that much better?! You just used what they were in their name as well!" Jyuuk tried defending himself, but hearing the noise, the other Originals came over and tuned in. "At least he didn¡¯t just trante their race-name into some othernguage one to one. Anyway, what¡¯re we talking about right now?" Brody asked, and while Jyuuk red at him, Eisen started to try and figure that out himself. "Hmm... Yamaryuu would be a Mountain Dragon, Sabakuryuu a Desert Dragon... then I¡¯d guess the ¡¯So¡¯ from Soryuu belong to ¡¯Sora¡¯, so that would be a Sky Dragon... But why are there two that belong to death?" Eisen asked with a slight frown, moving his fingers through his beard, and Jyuuk shrugged. "I don¡¯t know, maybe there¡¯s one undead Dragon and one murderous Dragon!" He suggested excitedly, but Eisen quickly shook his head. "What if the ¡¯Shin¡¯ from ¡¯Shinryuu¡¯ isn¡¯t actually ¡¯Death¡¯, but belongs to ¡¯Shinrin¡¯ for ¡¯Forest¡¯? That would make sense to be fair, and then Fushiryuu would be the undead dragon while Shinryuu is a forest Dragon. Is that right?" Eisen asked Kai, who nodded her head with a wry smile. "You know you could have just asked me, right? But yes, you¡¯repletely right... Although Yomiryuu isn¡¯t an Undead Dragon, he¡¯s an Undeath Dragon. He wasn¡¯t resurrected, but just always possessed Necromantic Mana instead of regr mana." Kai replied, and Jyuuk nodded his head slowly. "Huh, then that¡¯s probably simr to the Necromantic Phoenix I¡¯m trying to hatch..." The Beastperson muttered, and then looked back at the Sea Dragon in front of him. "But well, I¡¯m just going to guess that they¡¯re all Dragons I tamed in the past?" Jyuuk asked Kai, who swiftly nodded her head. "Mhm, exactly! We¡¯re all Unique Dragons, and even if we didn¡¯t reach transcendence, we¡¯re all pretty amazing, hehe!" Kai exined with a smug smile, before Eisen looked at her with a curious expression. "And where exactly can we find them, then?" He asked her, and Kai slightly shrugged in response. "I dunno exactly, just roughly. Soryuu¡¯s usally on that one Living Town you made that¡¯s flying around all over the ce... I think Yamaryuu enjoyed the Mountains in the Giant Country, and Sabakuryuu is in the wastnds a lot. As for Shinryuu, I know he¡¯s in the forests of the western continent, although that whole ce is basically onerge forest, and Fushiryuu might be in the Underdark? She usually liked it there, at least... I can¡¯t find them exactly with my irvoyance, so I can only guess." And so, Kairyuu started to exin the rough position of each of the five other Dragons, which was more than just enough help. "Hmm, those ces do seem pretty interesting... I¡¯d like to go there at some point for sure... I guess that just gives me specific locations to go, huh?" The old man said with augh, and Kai just slightly shrugged. "Well, sure. As I said, I don¡¯t know why we¡¯re supposed to give you one of our scales each, but that¡¯s what Trygan told us." She exined, so Eisen just slowly nodded and packed the scale away. "Well then, again, thank you." Eisen replied, and then just started to think about what exactly he should be doing next, and where he should be going after this. But for the next little while, everyone just kept talking to Kai a little more, but soon enough, she jumped back into the water and swam off in her dragon form, while the Giant Turtle the ship was attached to started moving in the direction that they needed to go. "Alright, I¡¯ll head back to the Dungeon for now. Let me know when we¡¯re back at the central Ind, I kind of want to keep working as long as I can right now." Eisen said with a smile and slightly cracked his knuckles, excited for work, before the others nodded their heads and let the old man step into the dungeon. Evalia also headed inside there, though, because she still didn¡¯tpletely finish painting the room. It wouldn¡¯t be a huge issue if it had been just about a specific color that everything needed to be painted in, she could have finished that in an hour or two using her element, but considering that everything needed to be ¡¯animated¡¯ and Evalia wanted it to switch between night and day in here as well, it took a fair bit longer, although it didn¡¯t really seem like she had that much more to work on for now. At the moment, while it did all seem incredibly realistic already, since the ¡¯painting¡¯ wasn¡¯t actually finished yet, the effects weren¡¯t nearly as strong as they would be afterward. And because this was a dungeon, things like that might be enhanced a bit more when actually finished as well. Either way, Evalia was doing a really great job like this, and it made Eisen pretty motivated to get to work as well. For now, though, Eisen really just had to make thest pot to finish the potions up with voring before he made the bottling-system. In the end, that just required one morerge container, and the potion would be liquified properly in the pipe moving it to that container, so all that needed to be done was to smash down the berries inside the bowl and then mix the potion inside while heating everything up properly. That could all be handled in one extra piece, so it was finished pretty quickly. And then, after the pulp would be sifted out of the vored potion, everything would be poured into the container for the bottling, which wasn¡¯tplex either. It just needed to open a small hole for a little while and let the liquid through. But for that to work, Eisen actually needed some bottles first, and that was a whole other ordeal in and of itself. In the end, ss-bottle mass-production wasn¡¯tplex, all that needed to be done was to make the actual ss, press it into the basic shape with a mold, then put that shaped ss into another,rger mold and then blow air into the top of that ss to fill the mold out properly and actually make the bottle hollow. And just because he could and it wasn¡¯t hard or all that mana-intensive as you would think to do it that way, Eisen was unsure whether or not he should really go with the basic metal-molds, or if he should make transmutation-based ¡¯Invisible Molds¡¯, to let people actually see how the bottles were shaped. There was a reason why television shows where the production-process of different things was shown were pretty popr, a lot of people were simply curious about it, or thought that such things were satisfying to look at. So Eisen figured that if the actualst step of the production, as in the shaping of the bottles and then immediately afterward the bottling of the potions, would be shown to customers like a ¡¯Store Gimmick¡¯, that would be pretty neat. Chapter 408 - Bottled Up For now, Eisen just figured he wanted to try the idea that he had for this out, but for that, he of course needed to first make the mechanism to actually make the molten ss and then push it out in certain amounts so that it could be used for the bottles. Usually, the way that this was done was by pushing out a steady cylinder of molten ss out of a hole and have a de cut it up in steady intervals so that everything would be the same size. Eisen figured it probably wouldn¡¯t be tooplicated to try and do that as well, and so, Eisen got to work trying to do this. The first thing that he made was the container that was supposed to heat the ss up to the point that it was going to melt andbine properly. Because all of the things that needed to be added crystalized pretty quickly, albeit in different forms and purities, when they were molten regrly, Eisen figured that it would be enough to simply have a direct transmutation-based flow inside of the container that would run through it andbine the different parts together so that the ss would be the same quality all the way through. And then, at the bottom of that container, Eisen wanted to add a bit of an enchantment that would both make sure that a steady amount would be pulled out, while cutting the ss up once enough left the container. Once more, that wasn¡¯t really necessarily that big of an issue when basing all of it on transmutation, so next, Eisen had to work on how to properly have the ss move around. Depending on what the setup of the ¡¯Mall¡¯ that Komer was working on would be, it might be tough to build the actual ss-melter directly in the vicinity of the yers, so it might be necessary to create a longer line that the ss could move through without an issue. With Eisen¡¯s element, and once more some help of transmutation, that didn¡¯t seem like an insanelyplicated matter either. The thing that Eisen was worrying about most was the actual ¡¯Production-Line¡¯. In the end, the old man chose to go with a very simple concept of having the bottom and top of the ss-cylinder be set steadily in ce with metal parts, while the actual ¡¯Shaping¡¯ would happen through transmutation. This simply made it easier to make sure no idents could happen with everything. One tube would be set in ce properly in the metal parts and moved further along the production line, and then stop at the point where the bottle would be turned into its base-shape, then move along again to the point where the bottle would be turned into its final-shape. And this wasn¡¯t really thatplex either, because transmutation could rtively easily be used to press things away, so for the base-shape Eisen had to simply let a transmutation enchantment pull everything into that shape and then another one push everything else into that ¡¯pull¡¯ area. And as for the next one, the only thing that was needed was a ¡¯push¡¯ enchantment, where only the outeryer would have mana like that, and the center would be ¡¯hollow¡¯ of mana, and the ss would be blown up with air and pushed against the push areas, but wouldn¡¯t be able to continue on like that. Basically, as if there was an invisible mould there. Just like that, Eisen hoped to be able to make it work just like intended. As the old man expected, it took a while to make the production line work properly, but soon enough with a few different enchantments and mechanisms, everything worked and was run by as little mana as possible. To his luck, it wasn¡¯t thatplicated to make the ¡¯mould¡¯ enchantments either, seeing how Eisen could simply take his mana copy of the bottles that Evalia designed and modeled out of y and have his mana take that shape, while then controlling the properties of that mana toward interacting with things using transmutation. For now, Eisen just filled the melter up with Silica, Soda Ash and Limestone, and then started the process by pouring his mana into the small crystal that he set up for it. Soon, Eisen was able to see that everything was melting properly, was pushed out at a steady pace, and then cut up into even pieces, before being brought to the transmutation moulds. The small bottles ended up looking really nice just like this, and after they were released by the metal parts and went further along the production line, Eisen picked one of the dozen or so bottles up and just held it in his hands for a little while to try and see if it was really good like this bnce-wise. With transmutation, you could never know if one part was too strongly pressed together, especially now that Eisen had the actualpression ability connected to Alchemy, but it seemed like there wasn¡¯t really any issue with all of that. Now, Eisen just had to make sure that the bubble in the center of the ss was actuallyrge enough for one regr potion-portion, and that it was really the same size in all of them. This was done by simply pouring the exact same amount of water into each bottle. To his luck, if there was some sort of major discrepancy, Eisen himself didn¡¯t see anything. So he was sure that there wouldn¡¯t be any issue with this when actually using itter on. Now, the only thing that was left to do was to directly connect these bottles to the bottling-system. While they were on the way to that system, they would slowly start to cool down to the proper temperature that was needed, and then they would be led into a thinner ¡¯Path¡¯ so that only one bottle each could get through, and then one bottle after another, they would simply be grabbed by the neck, filled up with the potion, and then they would have the cork put into the top and at the same time recognized as finished items. What would happen afterward was a very simple thing, they would just end up being pushed into a collection center where they would have to be sorted into shelves by hand byt he employees. That¡¯s just how it was. With a little bit of fiddling around, Eisen managed to make everything work rtively smoothly, and soon, he had a basicallypletely finished mass-production machine for low-grade Health Potions. Now he only had to change the recipe for the bottle¡¯s ss a little bit, and everything would be ready to go and be set up in the ces that Komer bought. Of course, Eisen then spent a little bit more time just mass-producing this system, which he did with the help of his four Doubles, which he connected to his movements to have them directly copy whatever he was doing. He had to supply them with some leftover hammers, but in the end, as long as Eisen only relied on them to do the base work and he properly finished everything up and fixed any mistakes that may have been caused, the old man was able to push the different systems to still have an extremely high-quality. The enchanting needed to be done by himself, obviously, but at the very least he could work on this mass-production system a little quicker. Like that, Eisen had time to work on some other items as well. And when he finally finished everything and had time to think about the next project, the old man¡¯s thoughts slowly drifted toward his Level-Up quest again. And so, the old man chose to work on some cloth or leather items so that he could level up his Tailoring and Leatherworking skills. For that, Eisen figured he should make some sketches, to level his Drawing skill up more as well, and then ask for Evalia¡¯s opinion. Just like that, Eisen quickly got to work, sitting down at a small table to Sketch, which was quite a big change of pacepared to all the heavy-duty smithing and enchanting that Eisen has been doing over the past few days. Eisen thought of himself to have an alright style, maybe not amazing, but he was sure he didn¡¯t dress horribly. Although that was something rather hard to truly believe considering that Eisen has only been wearing a leather apron and wide, three-quarter cloth pants for a very long time now. Either way, for another little while, Eisen just continued to sketch a few things. But all of those outfits were quite basic, there was nothing special about them. Of course, a clothes¡¯ shop would need those as well, but those would probably mostly be outfits for the people born and raised in this world, rather than the ¡¯Artificials¡¯ that would being here. From the little bit of research that Eisen made, it was very clear to him that a lot of people wanted to be extremely shy, wear bright and unique clothes, and have ¡¯awesome¡¯ weapons. Eisen could make everything that someone asked him to make, there was no doubt about that in his mind. But when it came to getting ideas for things that were extremely visually pleasing, or artistic, or even just ¡¯beautiful¡¯ to anyone but another craftsman, then Eisen was pretty sure he was at the lower end of thedder. So, noticing that Evalia was nearly finished with painting the walls and seemed to want to take a break, he quickly asked Sigurd to call her over toward him, and she quickly made her way over toward him, curious what he needed her help for. "What do you need, eh?" She asked excitedly and plopped down onto the ground directly next to Eisen, who slowly showed her the designs that he came up with so far. "A little bit of artistic and youthful advice." The old man chuckled, and Evalia raised her eyebrows surprised. "Hm? What do you want to make clothes for?" Evalia asked, slowly starting to look through what Eisen put onto the paper, and the old man swiftly started to exin. "Mostly because I want to level up my Tailoring and Leatherworking skills. I figured while I was at it, I could make a few different items for a clothes shop that Komer mentioned." "Oooh~! That sounds exciting..." Evalia admitted with a bright smile, and then slowly cupped her chin between her index finger and thumb. "Hmm... So, I think we should differentiate between casual, and upation clothes. In most games, people don¡¯t need to change ¡¯armor¡¯ or something because they don¡¯t actually feel it, but here they do, so they¡¯ll surely want to take some stuff off, especially when ites to Combatists... I think crafters and artists are the most likely to stay in their clothes, though... What you came up with seems pretty casual, although only in real life. In this game, it still needs to be more unique when catering to yers..." She pointed out, and quickly grabbed a pencil, starting to work on a quick design herself. Eisen figured it looked a bit overwhelmingly weird, but he trusted in Evalia. It¡¯s been roughly 40 to 50 years since he could have been counted as part of the game¡¯s main demographic, so he had no idea what teenagers and young adults wore these days. And like Eisen figured, Evalia confirmed that people will be much more open in a game like this. This was the perfect chance to actually express yourself however you wanted, because you were able to change your whole body where nobody would be able to recognize you anyway, so it made sense for the clothes to need to be a little... crazy. But slowly, Eisen actually managed to get a rough hold of what might be popr when sold, especially when he could think about it like trying to take the most essential thing of what a profession was and trying to turn it into an outfit. And just like that, Eisen had around two dozen different full-outfit designs, as well as a lot more basic clothe-piece designs, to work with. Chapter 409 - Fire-Red Adventurer "Hmm, and you think these pouches should really be sold together with the outfit instead of on their own?" Eisen asked Evalia as he looked at some of the designs that included a few different types of items in them, and Evalia kind of scratched her cheek. "I mean... I haven¡¯t gone to an actual clothes-store for a few years now, but it¡¯s usually that full outfits are disyed on Mannequins, and the different pieces are sold seperately, right?" She asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Fair enough... And most clothes-shops do also have bags or wallets and those things... So it should probably work like that... I¡¯ll just suggest it to Komer when we get back to the Maind, and then we¡¯ll see. First, I should actually make all of these... Can you help me with the dyeing a little?" The old man asked, before Evalia swiftly pushed her thumb forward. "Of course!" She replied, before Eisen walked over toward where some of his other machinery was, and where he also finally put up a cloth-weaver, and then picked out a few different scraps that he was ying around with for a little while to test the different Silk-Spinnerets out properly, so that the two of them could pick the best ones. This wasn¡¯t only about how useful the clothes were now, after all, but also about how fashionable they were! So it made sense to ask Evalia for that as well, considering she¡¯s the one that came up with the far majority of designs that Eisen would be working onter. And so, they picked out some different cloths that seemed good enough, and Eisen quickly started to work on making the different types of thread that were needed for this. "Just call me when you need my help, I¡¯ll be staying here in the dungeon for a little longer~!" Evalia said with a slight whistle, before Eisen just nodded his head in response and smiled at her. For a fair while, all that Eisen was doing was make some thread, of course while also letting his doubles do a lot of this pretty simple work, and when he had the materials to get started on the first outfit, the old man swiftly got started. The first one was an outfit that Eisen and Evalia both figured to be one that could be worn in-battle and out-of-battle, although it wasn¡¯t necessarily a ¡¯casual¡¯ outfit. It was made up of a sleeve- and hood-less leather jacket, a broad leather belt, high leather boots covering even the wearer¡¯s thighs, as well as hot-pants and a crop-top, as Evaliapared it to. Eisen didn¡¯t really know about those clothes, but he figured it looked nice enough, so he didn¡¯t reallyin about it either. For now, Eisen just got to work on the leather jacket. It had a few belt-like parts on it instead of buttons so that it could be closed, and it did really look pretty nice, albeit not something that Eisen himself would like to wear. The jacket himself really wasn¡¯tplex to make, just a few pieces of properly treated leather that were cut into shape and then stitched together. Of course, what made it ¡¯special¡¯ this time around was the leather that was used. So that it could actually be readily avable, Eisen figured he shouldn¡¯t use something like leather made from the lesser-dragons that were hunted for Eisen, so he just saved those for another time. The one that Eisen ended up going with was leather belonging to a bison-like me monster. Due to that, it had some natural resistance to fire, and it would probably also end up helping out me-magic based abilities. Eisen figured that it would fit because a lot of rogues relied either on air or fire magic, the former to be able to get around more quickly and quietly, and thetter to more instant damage. It just depended on whether you were more of a scout, or a proper front-fighter. Either way, Eisen also wanted to make the same outfit, just with leather from a wind-fox instead of this fire monster. And to make the differentiation a bit stronger, and to fit the ¡¯me¡¯ theme a bit more, Eisen asked Evalia to dye the leather either deep red or soft green respectively. The same leather was used for the boots and gloves as well, which Eisen quickly made togehter with the jacket-base while he was working on the special leather. The gloves were a rather simple job, especially because they were finger-less, and for the boots, Eisen only cut out the pieces for now and didn¡¯t make the actual boots just yet. For the other leather-pieces, Eisen used a less special leather, although it was still known to be pretty strain-resilient. These would be used for the belts that Eisen would be adding to the outfit, which was very swiftly taken care of. Belts were a beginner-tier item to make, after all, because there wasn¡¯t really any stitching needed. You just needed to cut arge piece of leather into shape, punch some holes into it, add the buckle, and then you would be technically done. Of course the edges would be pretty rough in that case, but in the end, that was enough to make an actual belt. And while it maybe looked a bit tougher, even a broad belt like Evalia suggested wasn¡¯t an issue, because it was really just aparatively thin belt with somerger pieces of leather sewed onto it in straight lines. So as that was the case, Eisen could even use the regr belt-buckles that he alway made for this. And then, after running the belts that woulde onto the jacket through the specific straps needed for them, the old man quickly moved on to the cloth-based pieces, because they were quicker to make than the boots. He really didn¡¯t make that many shoes in the game yet, and the few that he did end up making were quite bare in the end. So Eisen was actually pretty excited about the different possible enchantments that would be opening up to him with shoes. And especially due to the construction-method of most shoes, Eisen was pretty sure there was more than enough space to fit in some nice enchantments that wouldn¡¯t even be noticable to the naked eye. Either way, first, Eisen had to work on the ¡¯Model¡¯ of a food that he would be working around to shape the leather properly. That didn¡¯t take all that long either, and Eisen just quickly carved the foot out of some wood, trying to go for a size that someone with a build that fit the outfit Eisen made would most likely have, and then swiftly just sanded it a little to make it actually smooth. And then, Eisen grabbed the different types of leather that he wanted to use for this, some smooth, others suede, and each in different thicknesses depending on the need. Of course, Eisen already cut everything for this out, although the only thing that he used the me-resistant leather that was dyed red for was the parts of the shoe that would be seen on the outside, because those parts didn¡¯t necessarily need to be as wear-resistant as the pieces that the foot would actually end up touching. And so, Eisen quickly got to work putting the different pieces for the boot¡¯s foot-part together, because it would be annoying to work with the pieces that were supposed to cover the leg attached already, and then glued the inlining leather into it already, in the ces that needed it. Of course, there were also different, thicker parts that were already ced into that leather piece, for example thicker parts for the heel or the toes. All those pieces came onto the suede iying leather, and the outer, smooth leatheryer was ced around that iyingyer. The outeryer was just a little bit longer than the iyingyer toward the bottom of the shoe, but even though it seemed unnecessary, it was an important part of the general construction of the boot. Eisen then quickly grabbed the insole, the part that as well as a few thin nails and swiftly hammered them trough the insole into the wooden foot. They were very thin nails, and Eisen only did so in two different parts of it so that there wouldn¡¯t be numerous holes in it. Either way, once he did that, the old man quickly pulled the leather piece that he already prepared for this over the model of the foot, and then swiftly started to use more of the same nails that he used before to hammer the edges of the leather into the insole while tightening everything on the top of the foot properly, really pushing it around the different parts of the wooden foot. And then, after properly having pulled the leather around it, Eisen started to remove some of the nails from the leather, but just a few of them toward the tip of the boot, and peeled the outeryer of leather back so that he could properly glue the inneryer onto the insole, while using a file to smooth everything out. And so, bit after bit, the whole iyer was glued onto the insole, and the outeryer was glued onto the inneryer, with the exception of that bit of the outeryer that was longer than the inneryer. Now, Eisen could remove the nails that he put into the insole before, and then swiftly started to smooth the bottom of the shoe out perfectly so that it was hard to see where the insole stopped and the inneryer of the leather started. Then, some cork was glued to the bottom of the shoe, which Eisen then once more just smoothed out, before adding a thin metal te into the center of the underside, which would both help support the foot, as well as the boot¡¯s structure itself. Afterward, Eisen added the next piece of leather, the midsole, which as the name implied was the piece ced inbetween the insole, which would touch the foot, and the outsole, which would touch the ground. The midsole and outsole were a slight bitrger than the insole, however, and they were the reason that Eisen made the outeryer of leather a bit longer than usual, so that he could properly glue that outeryer of leather onto the pieces of the midsole that stood out. And then, after adding the welt around that ¡¯curve¡¯ that happened to do doing that like a ring by double-stitching it onto the boot, Eisen only needed to add the actual outsole and the heel now. The reason why he used this method of making that part of the boot was because it was simply tougher and more water-resistant than it would be if Eisen made it using the regr method. It simply made sense to do it like this, considering that the boot was supposed to be part of an ¡¯Adventuring¡¯ outfit. After adding the outsole and stacking pieces of leather on top of each other and then smoothing everything out some more, the old man nodded his head in satisfaction. He didn¡¯t add any enchantments inside of this one yet, but at the very least he wanted enchant the underside properly to make the grip of the boot on the surface underneath better, both through the enchantment¡¯s effect itself, and through the riffling that the enchantment was creating. Then, after removing the wooden foot and adding the parts of leather that were supposed to cover up the leg, and then repeating the same process again for the second boot, Eisen was finally finished with his first outfit. [You created a Fire-Red Adventurer¡¯s Jacket] [You created a Pair of Fire-Red Adventurer¡¯s Thigh-High Boots] [You created a pair of Fire-Red Adventurer¡¯s Hot-Pants] [You created a Fire-Red Adventurer¡¯s Crop-Top] [You created a Fire-Red Adventurer¡¯s Broad Leather Belt] [You created the Item Set ] Chapter 410 - Up To Something With a grin on his face, Eisen moved his fingers through his beard, smiling in satisfaction. It¡¯s been a while since he made something that actually counted as an item-set, after all. Item sets required at least five different items to be meant to be used together, so it made sense that this was the case after making this whole outfit. Slowly nodding his head, Eisen then just moved on toward the next outfit, which would be basicallypletely the same as the outfit that Eisen just finished, just using a different type of leather, in a different color. Now that Eisen managed to get into the flow of making shoes again with the first pair that he made, he was able to finish the second pair quite a bit faster than the first one. And so, after a little while, Eisen had already finished the next outfit. [You created the Item Set ] Whistling happily, Eisen ced this outfit to the side next to the other one, cing Evalia¡¯s Designs on top of them so that he could bepletely sure which outfit was supposed to be which. The next outfit was less leather-based, instead being madepletely of cloth, needing actually quite a bit of it, although not that much of it was used to cover up skin. Simr to before, it had something in the direction of a short pants simr to the hot-pants as well as a shirt that left the belly exposed, although in this version, it seemed to be supposed to be ¡¯cuter¡¯. It was pretty frilly, and the shirt did cover the shoulders up. The part that needed the most cloth surface-wise was the thin, see-through ¡¯Jacket¡¯, even if it couldn¡¯t really be called that. It was supposed to be ¡¯like wings¡¯, as Evalia exined it. While it would hang down, the bottom of the jacket would be practically weightless and floating around directly behind the wearer. Eisen thought it would end up pretty annoying, but he didn¡¯t fight about it too much. Apparently, the idea that Evalia had behind it was that this outfit was supposed to be for a ¡¯Battle Princess¡¯, a very cute outfit that you could wear in and out ofbat. It definitely wouldn¡¯t offer much resistance, so Eisen maybe had to think about working around that in some form or another. But in the end, nobody had to buy it if they didn¡¯t want to, and Eisen himself knew quite well that there were other ways to fight than just through head-on collisions. For now, the old man managed to swiftly put all of this together. It wasn¡¯tplex, after all. The thing that was mostplex about this whole thing was theposition of the cloth itself, which was a mixture of regr thread, crystal thread, andter even mana thread that was woven into everything. The mana-thread was mixed with crystal thread in a proportion of 2:1 of mana-thread to crystal-thread, and because of the way that everything was made, it seemed like the thread was properly working like Eisen intended it to. Since mana itself was weightless, the cloth naturally had the properties that Evalia said she wanted it to have, which was simr to how things like cloth or hair floated underwater. And in order to properly cause the difference between the top and bottom of the cloth without you being able to see any direct stitching wasn¡¯t hard to cause either, he simply had to have the weaver use different thread for different sections of the cloth, and everything ended up working out just perfect. And after Eisen made some simply ballerina-like cloth shoes with solid soles, as well as a small, thin belt to keep your weapon attached to, as well as two thin cloth-gloves, the old man was swiftly met with the notifications that he wanted to see, although there was only one that was of actual importance with this slightly pink-purple outfit. [You created the Item-Set ] With a smirk on his face, Eisen swiftly waved the notification away and ced this new outfit to the side as well, before looking at the pile of paper next to him, which he wanted to work through and make each and every one of these outfits at least once, and the different single-piece items multiple times if possible. And so, that¡¯s what Eisen spent the next few hours with, before he was met with some nice notifications that were only about half an hour apart from each other. [Tailoring reached Level 100 in Rank 3, Upgrading to Rank 4] [You can now work with Cloths that possess special properties] [Due to Ranking-up your Tailoring Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 END] [Leatherworking reached Level 100 in Rank 3, Upgrading to Rank 4] [You can now work with Leathers that possess special properties] [Due to Ranking-up your Leatherworking Skill, you gained +1 AGI and +1 END] Just like when his cksmithing skill ranked up, Eisen was met with the term ¡¯Special Properties¡¯, that he really didn¡¯t understand at all. He figured that especially the leather he¡¯s been using up until now would have some with ¡¯Special properties¡¯ amongst them, considering how some of the leather ended up having properties like fire-resistance or damage-absorption, thetter of which Eisen sadly only saw once so far. Maybe he really just had to ask Bree or Sky about it, and if she wouldn¡¯t be able to fill the old man in, then maybe he would be able to hear about it from some craftsmen on the maind. After all, one of his first Destinations would be Melroe, so at the verytest, he should be able to hear it then and there. But for now, Eisen just continued making the clothes that he was working on, considering that he managed to finish making all of the outfits as well as around half the single-piece clothes so far. Then, another few hourster, Eisen finally finished making all of them, so the old man was basically at a point where he could properly show them to Komer and have him decide which ones could end up being sold. Of course, Eisen wouldn¡¯t be making them all on his own, but instead some other craftsmen could be hired for this kind of work. And it wasn¡¯t necessarily possible, or easy, to make mass-production machines for these items or sets either, so Eisen figured that it would be something that could help a lot of Tailors, or aspiring Tailors, out by hiring them for this simple routine-work. For now, Eisen quickly moved on and looked at the pile of clothes in front of him happily. To his luck, small items like these could instantly be transported by Sigurd, so he could just leave them in here and then ask the Core Guardian to bring them out when it was necessary to do so. Then, Eisen swiftly looked at the clock, just to see how long it was supposed to be until they would reach the central Ind, before nodding his head in satisfaction. "Alright, still have about half a day left, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself, and then, for at least a little while, chose to help out a little with the construction of this small ¡¯vige¡¯ that was being built in the dungeon, so that Eisen could level his Masonry skill up some more. His Farming, Masonry and Mining skills were the ones that were furthest away from being at the point where Eisen would be able to get them off the list, even though the Masonry skill was technically pretty close to getting to rank 3. He just didn¡¯t really use it that oftenpared to his other skills either, while he absolutely hasn¡¯t used his Farming and Mining skills ever since he got them. They were still at the same level as back then. So, Eisen wanted to get all his other skills properly off the list of things that needed to be done, so that he could properly work on those two skills for a while. That meant he had to sketch a bit more, properly try to delve into Mana Maniption as well as his Element, and of course also try to raise his other low-leveled skills to make it easier to reach and maintain a Soul Strength of 300. Those were basically things that needed some grinding to them, but that wasn¡¯t ever anything that bothered this old man, so there wasn¡¯t any issue with it in the end. For now, Eisen just had to make sure that he could practice whatever skills that he could fit in at the same time to the best of his ability. For example, he would try and use his Medicinal Knowledge skill at some hospital on the maind as well, it seemed like it woulde in useful in the future, after all. Either way, the old man wanted to help out with this Dungeon as much as he could for now anyway, considering that he nned on setting it up properly for the first time the moment they reach the maind, and maybe have Evalia help the advertisement a little bit. Then things like entrance fees or other issues could be handled inside of the actual Dungeon by the Goblins, luckily. Other than that, maybe Eisen should try and help out in the third floor as well, maybe him digging away at the walls, as long as they¡¯re stone, could help him with his Mining skill as well. He figured he should be able to help out a fair bit around town on the central ind by working on some farms, which would probably end up pushing his skill to at least rank 2 if he managed to go as far as he was thinking right now. After all, Eisen was pretty sure that he had a fairly strong grasp on how long it would take for different types of skills to level up at this point, especially if he already managed to gain the experience to level them up a little bit. Just as Eisen was working and helping out to put up some walls on one of the few buildings that were left to be built, the other originals entered the dungeon in a frenzy, which Sigurd quickly informed both Eisen and Evalia of. Swiftly, the two of them made their way over toward them, and before they could even ask, Brody quickly spoke up. "Those piece of shit brothers are at it again." The Demon-Orc said while grinding his teeth, and Eisen raised his eyebrows confused, before Xenia sighed deeply and began to exin the situation in a bit more detail to what Brody just offered. "It¡¯s Merc and Cial, they¡¯re up to ¡¯something¡¯. We don¡¯t know what, but they¡¯re definitely nning something together with Antonio, that Elf guy you spoke about." She exined, but Eisen stared at her, unsure of what she was talking about. "What do you mean? How do you know that?" Eisen asked, and Xenia slowly looked at him with a frown. "They¡¯re streaming it." Xenia replied, before Jyuuk crossed his arms annoyedly. "It¡¯s all over the ce, they¡¯re just doing whatever they want! It¡¯s apparently been a few hours already, and I just heard about it when I logged off for a minute, but it¡¯s all over the news. They held something like some bullshit ¡¯press conference¡¯, announcing that they¡¯re founding a Giant Guild that everyone is free to join as long as they hit a few, pretty simple conditions. We don¡¯t know what Antonio has to do with it, but they spoke about him as a ¡¯benefactor¡¯... There¡¯s definitely something going on." The beastperson told Evalia and Eisen, before thetter started grinding his teeth in deep, heavy annoyance. "Where did they hold that press conference?" Eisen asked them, and Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck with a wry smile, "The Capital of the continent¡¯s central country, I think. Apparently they went back there to do all this stuff." "At least that..." Eisen muttered to himself, before moving his fingers through his beard. "We have a way to contact part of the Royal family through Komer, maybe we can use that to find out some deeper information on everything..." He whispered, before Evalia slowly made a suggestion that none of the four others would have expected. "If you want... Stahl and I can do some infiltration-work." Chapter 411 - More Rank-Ups "Infiltration? What exactly do you mean? Your face is one of the most well-known around, I literally made you a mask so that you can hide your identity...? Do you think that¡¯s really a good idea?" Eisen asked Evalia with a surprised frown, before she swiftly nodded her head. "Mhm, I do. I can somewhat use my element to change parts about my face around, and I can dye my hair in different ways, and fake my clothes as well. It¡¯s pretty unreliable, but as long as I try to stay around NPCs, then it should be fine." She replied, and Eisen slowly nodded his head while moving his fingers through his beard. "And Stahl¡¯s upation is perfect for infiltration as well, isn¡¯t it?" The old man asked, before Evalia nodded her head in reply. "Yup, exactly what I was thinking. And especially when he actually gets his Demon title, he¡¯s going to be more than capable of doing something like that." Evalia pointed out, and in response, the other Originals looked at herpletely surprised. "A Demon title?" Brody asked with a wry smile, "Damn, I¡¯m jealous..." He sighed, before Evalia slightly scratched her cheek with a chuckle. "Oops, I guess you didn¡¯t know yet, huh? But yeah, a while ago, we were performing on the streets and Stahl got into a disguise I helped him with, and seemingly really moved a lot of people then. He got a notification telling him he¡¯s close to ¡¯stepping onto the path of yang¡¯, or something like that." Evalia pointed out, and Eisen raised his eyebrows with a smirk. "Is that so? Interesting..." He muttered to himself, before continuing to move his fingers through his beard, and in the end, simply nodded his head in response to Evalia¡¯s suggestion. "Alright, let¡¯s try and go for the infiltration. We somehow need to try and figure out what they¡¯re up to before they¡¯re actually acting on it. They should try and gather members for the first little while of the regrunch, right?" Eisen asked the others, and Jyuuk immediately spoke up, thinking that he had a rough idea of what they might be thinking in that regard. "My guess is that they will wait at least two IRL weeks before doing anything major. A lot of people pre-ordered the capsule, but the majority will still buy it only after a little while passed, just to see if the game is actually worth it. It¡¯s pretty expensive, after all." The Beastperson pointed out, and Eisen sighed slightly in response. "Then we need to do our best to properly form a country as soon as we can at that point, huh? That should give us a lot more power on the continents as well... So we will at least be informed if they¡¯re nning anything that has to do with us." Eisen figured, slowly trying to think about what needed to be done to prepare for all possibilities. "Hmm, or maybe... We should just try to meet Antonio soon. When I met him the first time, his level was in the 100¡¯s, after all. Oh, and there¡¯s something else I need to speak to you about, but it¡¯s Guild business, so we should wait to continue this conversation until we¡¯re in the Guild-room in Prototype." The old man pointed out, and then looked back at Jyuuk, "How far are we away from there, by the way?" He asked, making the beastperson scratch one of the patches of hair on his cheek with a wry smile, "Like three hours? Maybe? Kai said the turtle wasn¡¯t that much faster than our ship, but it doesn¡¯t need to be really careful so it can travel at max speed basically all the time. I¡¯m guessing we¡¯ll be able to reach the maind in just three days from prototype as well, so we should be there like a day or two before Launch." "Alright, sounds good. Then, if there¡¯s anything you want to deal with in Prototype, try and prepare so you can do that as quickly as you can so that we can leave pretty soon again." Eisen pointed out, before he looked at his quest information and slightly sighed in response to what he was reading. "I¡¯ll get back to work now; I should properly try and level my skills up as much as I possibly can." The old man muttered quietly, while the others also swiftly chose to get back to what they were doing before. Eisen¡¯s ¡¯Guild Business¡¯ was an obvious message to tell them that there were aspects to this that were rted to their pasts as the Originals within this world and that they couldn¡¯t continue speaking about this here and now. And so, Eisen immediately got back to work and helped finish the rough structure of the buildings up some more, all the whilst trying to make the most use out of his two upation Skills, Crafting Space and Crafter¡¯s Mind, trying to use both of them on top of each other. For one, he was using his visual abilities to properly ¡¯scan¡¯, even if it wasn¡¯t really a scan per-se, the environment and the physicality of the different monsters, while re-constructing them via his visualization while also breaking down certain things into blueprints. Then, he was attempting to make his visualization help him manipte his crafting space a little bit, because he really never tried that before. He could change stuff around a little, like where exactly the space would be rtive to his position, but until now, there wasn¡¯t anything that the old man could do about the shape or size himself. It ¡¯snapped¡¯ right into each spot inside of small rooms, but what Eisen wanted to do was something else. Using Visualization, he could make sure that he actually properly had the space in sight at all times, and then, using the principles ofpression, Eisen was able to press¡¯ the crafting space down a little. It was starting to drain mana to keep the crafting space up like this, however, but Eisen coud deal with that. This once more just boosted his crafting abilities more, so he was able to look past that. On top of that, considering how much proficiency he was gaining in his two upation skills through all of this, the old man didn¡¯t mind this at all and just continued on doing exactly this for another while. When the buildings were finished, Eisen also took the chance to further his drawing and ¡¯scan¡¯ a little more by trying to sketch what he was able to pick up using his Crafter¡¯s Mind skill. It was something pretty rough to keep up concentration-wise, and Eisen knew that he really had to take a calm break by just Mining and Farmingter on, but until then, Eisen would just concentrate on whatever skills he could at once And so, within the next three hours that it took them all to reach the central ind, Eisen managed to level a bunch of his skills up. For one, his Crafter¡¯s Mind skill now had a new ability that let Eisen learn information that he couldn¡¯t normally be able to find out and save that information as well, with the consent of the other party, his Crafting Space skill was now able to boost two skills at once and his Drawing skill got a speed-boost. And in order to push his Soul Engineering skill into rank three, Eisen also quickly gave a form to two or three souls, and with that ranked his skill up, gaining the ability to make ¡¯Soul Amalgamations¡¯. It followed the same principle as enhancing a soul by feeding it other souls, although it was actually very, very different. Instead of having one soul that would be better in its ability, Eisen was now able to push multiple souls together into the space that one soul would normally upy. When it came to more advanced things, such as the creation of Ego-Items, the former of those two methods would be the better, but for simple Soul-Engineered items like Soul Generators, thetter was the better choice, because like this, Eisen could really enhance the amount of mana that a single generator could produce, which he swiftly made use of, of course, although just for a few more important generators. And then, the next while was spent by Eisen just creating numerous different pots out of y made with his element, both to increase his magic skills¡¯ level and to increase the level of his pottery skill, which he managed to push to a high Rank 1 already. His Mana Maniption and me of the Earth Magic skills were really close to ranking up now as well, and Eisen figured he would be able to finish that all up on everyone¡¯s way back to Prototype, which they all of course swiftly embarked on. There wasn¡¯t much time to lose, after all, so they brought the carriage out as quickly as they could, and Eisen did his best to simply try and make sure that the path from the broken-down ¡¯Harbor¡¯ was turned into something like a brick-road, just to further use his element as much as he could. This was done by simply shaping his element into brick-like forms and using a y-like, it was a fair bit tougher than y when heated up properly and as such couldn¡¯t be counted as proper y, substance to piece them together as he was doing so. Of course, this was only really possible because Eisen was using a constant stream of mana to aplish this, while Bree and Sky were taking turns driving the carriage itself. The path was just broad enough to fit the carriage on it as well, so Eisen would probably widen it a little on the way back. And just as Eisen had hoped, soon enough, he managed to rank his Elemental Magic skill up to four! Just one more rank away, and Eisen would be able to make use of that ¡¯Elemental¡¯ that Xenia mentioned a while ago, saying that an elemental was growing inside of everyone¡¯s body through the Elemental Magic skill. Either way, the skill¡¯s Rank-Up sadly didn¡¯t really give him any other ability, it was just the element bing more useless inbat while growing for its use in crafting even more than before. Other than that, his Mana Maniption skill was only a couple levels away from reaching Rank 4 as well, so Eisen was trying to spend as much time as he could properly training it using simple routine practices that Xenia showed him a while ago, that she said to be able to help with a steady proficiency growth, at least for that skill. And that was being done all the whilst they were moving through the still broken-down areas of the town. Most areas here were at least ¡¯pacified¡¯ by the lords, but because the Town Core technically didn¡¯t reach this far, the reconstruction took far, far longer than for the inner areas of the town. There weren¡¯t a lot of monsters left here anyway, because most of them chose to move to the center of the town, because it was safer there and there was an actual, certain ¡¯quality of life¡¯ there. And it wasn¡¯t tough to see what exactly that ¡¯quality of life¡¯ meant, becuase the change wasn¡¯t gradual, but instead like a proper cut-off line. And that cut-off line was exactly where the control of the Town Core reached. None of the roads had any cracks in them anymore, all of the buildings were reconstructed, and while there maybe weren¡¯t that many people directly next to that cut-off line, there weere some to be seen in the not-so-far away distance. Just through that, the old man was feeling prettyplex emotions. Sure, he liked that everyone seemed to be having fun deeper into the town, but the change from ¡¯Prototype¡¯ to the rest of the town was truly insane, something that really wasn¡¯t seen all that often anywhere. There were major differences between the slums and the ¡¯rich¡¯ area of towns that Eisen visited in the past, but it was never this strong. Chapter 412 - Remix Element Eisen really wanted this town to advance as quickly as possible, although that would only be really possible as long as the Guild advanced to the next Rank. That, on the other hand, required more people to join the Guild. Size wasn¡¯t the only factor that yed a role in ranking a Guild up, but it was definitely an important part of it. So, taking that into ount, Eisen was sure that they should start trying to get more people into the Guild, maybe through some of those streams that Stahl and Alnico also started recently. Or they could of course just go slow with everything and just let everything process slowly, but that seemed like a subpar decision in this situation. After all, they couldn¡¯t just sit idly around while Merc, Cial, and Antonio were up to something. Either way, as soon as they entered the actual town, a certain Elf-Inspired Core Guardian appeared in front of the carriage, one arm behind his back the other in front of his chest as he bowed down. "Wee back. We were expecting you." Serio eximed with a bright smile on his face, before Eisen nodded his head and chuckled. "Nice to see you too, Serio. Now then, how¡¯s the situation at the moment?" Eisen asked with a smile. He did check into the situation of town as ording to the Town Menu, but it was always different seeing the rough data in numerals than it was seeing the actual town. But to Eisen¡¯s delight, it seemed like town was doing really well for itself, and the First Generation Guardians that Eisen repaired were trying their best to properly teach the monsters a few different things that were necessary for them to know if they wanted to live in a town like this. Apparently, a few of the younger monsters already evolved to be even more humanoid than normal, basically just meaning that their hands and legs were slightly more human-like, and they were also showing pretty high intelligence just as a basis. With a smile on his face, Eisen crossed his arms and continued to practice his mana-maniption in the background while taking a proper look at town. "Alright... So, part of town is arge area meant for fields, right? We¡¯re stopping by the Castle first to get some things over with, but after that it would be great if you could show me that area for a while." Eisen pointed out, before Serio immediately nodded his head. "Of course, I will make sure everything is properly prepared for you there. Is there anything you want to do specifically?" The Core Guardian asked, and his creator swiftly nodded his head in response to that very obvious question. "Ah, yes, I would like to use this chance to level my Farming skill up. It¡¯s part of my level-up quest, so I need to bring it to Rank 3 as soon as I can." The old man pointed out, before Serio nodded his head immediately in response. "I see, you and Stahl sure are alike, are you not?" He asked, before Eisen raised his eyebrows surprised, "Oh? Did he also go to the fields for that same reason?" The old man inquired, and the Core Guardian immediately nodded his head. "Quite soon after they came here even, yes. He is just doing so on a rtively small plot, however, so you should have more than enough space to work yourself to the bone." Serio exined, so Eisen swiftly nodded his head with a satisfied smile. "Perfect. Sounds like my Grandson, alright." The old manughed loudly, and soon enough, the castle was directly in front of the group. Eisen stopped the carriage in the front and let Cabarum and Aulu loose for a little while, before the old man chose to soon step into the castle. Although just before he could finish that, he heard a loud sound in the distance behind him, which he figured could onlye from one person. And to his pleasant surprise, it truly did turn out to be Alnico, just as he had expected. She currently had he DJ set up and running, and was on her way over toward Eisen. Although, there seemed to be something else going on at the moment as well. The DJ set was certainly active, Eisen recognized everything that he made instantly, after all, but there were some parts to what was currently there that Eisen himself didn¡¯t make. But with his mana-sight, Eisen could swiftly confirm that it truly was exactly what he thought it was, Alnico¡¯s element. It seemed like she was making this much noise on purpose, just to get Eisen¡¯s attention, and it obviously worked just like a treat. Soon, the old man had his Granddaughter standing in front of him again. "Grampa, I haven¡¯t told you yet after I actually got to try this in action, but this is such an insanely awesome item!" She eximed immediately while moving the different notification-like disys to the side so that she could properly look at Eisen, who slowly nodded his head with a grin. "That was the n, hahaha. Seems like you added a lot of different setting to the menus, huh?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, getting a simple bright smirk and a nod from Alnico. "Hehe, yup! And also, my element works amazingly with this! I just got it a few days ago, and it¡¯s called ¡¯Remix¡¯! It seems like it was made to work with this kind of item, as well, because what I can do with it is basically enhance the effect that my real-time remixing has on the environment! If I make the speakers spread the mana around with the sounds as well, I can even temporarily jumble things in the area around! It stops when the track¡¯s over, but until then, I can basically control everything within the direct range of my music!" Alnico eximed, letting Eisen only raise his eyebrows surprised. "Huh? Isn¡¯t that kind of a super strong element?" The old man asked as he turned over toward Xenia, and she just nodded her head in response. "It is... if you can actually change the physical environment around, then it¡¯s basically a high-tier spatial-magic derivative, isn¡¯t it?" The High-Elf muttered quietly, seemingly more than just curious about what was going on, and Alnico just smiled brightly in response. "Well, it¡¯s super amazing, so~!" She pointed out, before Eisen simply chuckled and ced his hand on the top of her head with a bright smile on his face. "I¡¯m d you like it. Where are the others right now?" The old man asked, before Alnico scratched her cheek in thought. "Stahl¡¯s in the fields, and Samurai and Zyra are... ¡¯streaming¡¯." Alnico said, deliberately whispering thest word so that only Eisen could hear, because there were NPCs around, and then swiftly continued. "And K¡¯s spending some time in the garden right now." Alnico exined, so Eisen nodded his head in response. "Alright then, thanks. We¡¯ll head off to the Guild room for now, but afterward I¡¯ll be going to the fields were Stahl is at the moment as well." Eisen pointed out, before Alnico quickly nodded before the five Originals swiftly made their way through the Castle, right toward the bottom of the tower where they wentst time. "That¡¯s a really awesome element... Don¡¯t we all have kind of boring onespared to that?" Jyuuk asked with a slight frown, and Eisen simply sighed while the beastperson¡¯s girlfriend red at him with her side-eye. "Says the guy that can speed up or slow down any biological procress, standing next to the woman that can change her and others¡¯ appearancespletely while painting the walls of a room to be indistinguishable from the outside. By the way, what about our Demon-Orc friend here, whose Element literally isn¡¯t an element but apletely different type of energypared to mana. Of course, your girlfriend¡¯s ability to see basically every type of spirit there is, even those that don¡¯t even exist yet inside of people¡¯s bodies, and then make contracts with them, and my element allowing me to create nearly every type of variation of dirt and rock while heating the area up to the point where even metals melt down, which literally gave me the chance to turn into a Demon, are somewhat boringpared to that." Eisen pointed out, before Jyuuk sighed in response, seemingly somewhat embarrassed about it now, something that Eisen couldn¡¯t help but chuckle at. "Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯re good. It¡¯s something very different to what we¡¯ve been using until now, it makes sense that you¡¯re interested in it, really." The old manughed as the group reached the spot where the tform would rise into the air, before Serio tapped the floor in the same pattern and rhythm asst time, causing the tform to slowly rise into the air. And the moment that he could see the room at the top, he also noticed a quite pleasant smell from there, which Eisen quickly recognized as he looked at the guild-table. "Now then, what a nice surprise." The old man said with a slightugh, noticing that Ruth was standing in front of the table, slightly twitching around, before smiling happily. "I pr-pr-pr-prepared your usu-su-suals!" She eximed happily, and Eisen nodded his head in response and made his way over toward his chair and sat down inside of it with a smile, looking at therge cup in front of him which was just perfect for his current size and scale. With a quick whiff, Eisen confirmed it to be a nice, giant cup of aromatic, hot ck coffee. "How did you get this here..?" The old man asked, and Ruth just smiled at the old man happily. "Hehe, the co-co-coffee and tea cabi-bi-bi-b was one of the few things tha-tha-that were still in peak-conditon!" Ruth eximed smugly, making Eisen just smile more. "I see, I see. Thank you, then, Ruth." The old man said, before he leaned back in his chair, taking a sip of his coffee as the others sat down on their chairs with surprised expressions as they looked at the cups and their contents in front of them, seemingly quite happy to see what they were given. "Okay, what is it that you wanted us to speak about?" Jyuuk asked as he sipped his tea, and Eisen just slightly smiled, before trying to confirm something before moving the conversation somewhere else. "First of all, let¡¯s try and speak about something else that came up recently. The little thing that Kai mentioned." Eisen said with a smirk, looking at Jyuuk and Xenia as he was doing so, making the two of them look at each other embarrassedly. "Sh-She was just joking around! Right?" Xenia suggested with her facepletely dyed red, before Jyuuk immediately nodded his head. "Right! Definitely, there¡¯s no way... Or... is there?" The Beastperson asked, slowly staring at the High-Elf next to him, before turning away while scratching his cheek. "I mean, I guess it¡¯s not impossible, right?" Jyuuk admitted, making Xenia¡¯s face flush in a deep red color even more, before Eisen simplyughed a little, looking over at Serio and Ruth, who were both pretty confused. "So, were Jyuuk and Xenia married?" The old man asked them quite clearly, and without hesitation, the two of them nodded their heads. "Of course they were! They were the prime example of love! Well, the prime example of a great marriage, rather. Brody was always the Prime example to show pure andpletely love." Serio pointed out with a slight chuckle, before the Demon-Orc in question stared at them confused. "Eh, the hell¡¯re you talking about? Who was I with here?" He asked, rather angrily at the mere idea of having cheated on his wife, but it seemed like that wasn¡¯t exactly what the Core Guardian was trying to say. Eisen kind of knew what Serio was trying to say, considering that he wasn¡¯t the first to have mentioned it. "Oh, it¡¯s quite the opposite. As far as my knowledge goes, throughout the tens of thousands of years you were alive, you have never been in any sort of rtionship, always staying true to the one love that you lost, your Wife from the ¡¯other side¡¯." Chapter 413 - Plowing Through "Wait, so... that was true? Seriously?" Evalia asked surprised, and Brody chuckled quietly in response and buried his face in his hands for a moment as if relieved, before sighing deeply and raising his head again with a smile on his face. "Everything alright?" Eisen asked the Demon-Orc, who simply nodded his head. "Yup, everything¡¯s perfect. I was kind of wondering if I¡¯ll be able to really deal with this whole situation now that I¡¯m bing a Dad, but apparently there was nothing to worry about after all, huh? If I can manage tens of thousands of years single, I can manage another 60 years as a Dad." Brody smile softly, and while Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard, happy that Brody would be fine like this, Evalia spoke up as she was fiddling around with her own fingers underneath the table nervously. "So... Now it¡¯s a taken that this ce is really another world..?" She asked, and Eisen looked around at the others at the table and slowly nodded his head. "I think it is, yes." He replied to her, before grasping therge cup of coffee in front of him a bit more tightly. "For now, let me just exin why I wanted to speak here... Right now I was just testing if this ce is really safe or not." Eisen started, and as the others seemed to grow more tense, the old man continued, "We didn¡¯t really go into depth with it, but ording to Serio and Ruth, it seems like we didn¡¯t have our experience ¡¯Stolen¡¯, but instead ¡¯Gave it up¡¯." He said, and Serio immediately nodded his head in response. "Yes, indeed. We don¡¯t know much about it either, but when you left, that was the idea that you came up with. We don¡¯t know any details, sorry." The Core Guardian pointed out bitterly, before Eisen just smiled at him. "Don¡¯t worry, I get it. But either way, now that we started speaking about a certain person again, I noticed that things don¡¯t really add up." With a slight sigh, Eisen picked his cup of coffee back up and started to drink it again, and a few secondster, Evalia slowly started to nod her head, seemingly understanding what he meant. "Antonio told you that he was part of the people that stole our experience... And that he tricked us into having that done to us..." Evalia said, before Eisen nodded in response. "Mhm, exactly. I think there are four usible possibilities now. One, Antonio was trying to y himself up, and he wasn¡¯t really that important in the whole ordeal. Two, he had his memories altered to think that¡¯s what happened. Three, Antonio is somehow on our side and wants to y the bad guy to guide us, although I think that¡¯s the least usible one." Eisen pointed out, before Jyuuk slightly pressed his eyebrows together. "And what¡¯s the fourth possibility?" He asked, and Eisen just looked down at the table and started to tap it with his finger nervously, feeling like that idea is ridiculous, but at the same time would make sense. "Four... Antonio is the Avatar of someone from Prime." Eisen told them, "And if that one is right, it might be..." He started, "Samuel." "Samuel? What do you mean? What does he have to do with it?" Xenia asked nervously, seemingly in disbelief over that idea, and Eisen just nodded his head. "Obviously Samuel is pulling the strings here... Or at the very least, he¡¯s there on the surface. There might be someone else above him, but Samuel became the ¡¯father of the great goddess¡¯, giving him enough power to control the actions of the gods. Some gods are seemingly distrusting of him, but luckily we have someone from that side with us now. And-" Slowly, Eisen stopped speaking, because he noticed that the others were grasping their heads in pain, while trying not to lose their bnce on their chair. And Eisen slowly understood what exactly that seemed to be. "Ah, perfect. The red notifications, huh?" The old man asked, and the others looked at him surprised, seemingly really starting to see them in the corner of their sight now. "Well, then you¡¯ll need to know something about that, you see?" Eisen started, just smiling at them as he did so, "When you can start moving the notifications around like normal ones, you will start to feel pain in here again." He exined, and the others stared at him confused. "Wait, what?!" Jyuuk asked, "You¡¯ve been feeling regr pain again? Since when?" He asked, and Eisen closed his eyes in thought. "I would say a couple of days after ripping my arm off for the mass of Yang." The old man pointed out with a slight chuckle, and then slowly shook his head. "But that doesn¡¯t matter now. There are potions that dull pain receptors for a while, I can make them for you if you want." The old man said, and leaned back into his chair with a sigh. "Although, now that I think about it... I should have noticed earlier that stuff is inconsistent." He muttered, making the others once more look at him confused. "What do you mean?" They asked him, before Eisen just exined a few of the things that he meant. "Let¡¯s just start with that potion in itself. Why does such a potion exist if we don¡¯t feel pain? Sure, for the ¡¯NPCs¡¯, maybe, but if this was a game, the NPCs wouldn¡¯t feel pain either. Then, there is how we were told that we weren¡¯t allowed to cause major physical or mental injuiries at the level of torture to others, but considering the existence of ve Cors and what happened in Handor with the curses on my arm, I would say that rule isn¡¯t taken all that seriously at the very least. And of course, there then isbat, where we are supposed to mindlessly kill any monsters thate across our path." Eisen pointed out to them, and slowly, the others seemed to also realize that some of the things they saw in the past were really weird to even exist here. "B-But then what about stuff like our clothes that shrink or grow to fit us perfectly? We don¡¯t need to take any shits or piss, and we never get seriously dirty! What¡¯s with that then?" Brody asked, seemingly getting somewhat riled up at the idea of all of this, and before Eisen could reply, Serio spoke up. "Oh, that is the God of Comfort¡¯s doing, isn¡¯t it? I don¡¯t truly know why or how, but he is one of the mightiest gods in that he can actually affect our realm directly like that. It seems like a couple thousand years ago, those things you mentioned weren¡¯t like they were now, and then the God of Comfort gained a bit more power." Serio pointed out, and while grinding his teeth annoyedly, the Demon-Orc just hit the table. "What the fuck is going on here?!" Brody eximed angrily, before Eisen tried to calm him down. "Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯re going to find out." The old man said with a slight smile, before swiftly moving onto a sligthly different topic again, just to give the other four here some time to think about everything properly. "For now, let¡¯s leave it at here. Now that you have the red notifications, you should all be able to hold on to your thoughts properly. Is there anything you four want to speak about?" Eisen asked them as he slowly stood up, but the others simply shook their heads in response, before the old man himself just smiled. "Then let¡¯s get out of here and go for a walk, alright? I wanted to get to the fields anyway, and with Jyuuk¡¯s help, maybe I can level my skill up a bit faster." The old man chuckled as he made his way back over toward the tform that they could leave this room with like an elevator, and the other Originals silently stood up and followed him. Seems like they were still really confused and weirded out about everything, but of course they were. How couldn¡¯t they be? Even Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure what he was supposed to think about all of this. So for now, it made sense to take their minds off of all of this by doing some leisure farming, at least that¡¯s what Eisen himself was thinking. The others, however, seemed to have a different idea of what each of them wanted to do. Slowly, as the tform was lowering itself down, Brody spoke up first. "I... I think I¡¯ll just sit down in the carriage and log off for a while... I kind of wanna just see my wife right now." The Demon-Orc pointed out, and Xenia and Jyuuk also nodded their heads. "We¡¯ll head somewhere alone for a little while as well... Just to think. Sorry that I can¡¯t really help you out after all..." Jyuuk said, trying to look at Xenia for confirmation, which he swiftly got in the form of a nod. So in the end, only Eisen and Evalia were left, and were swiftly led out of the castle, through the town, and toward the area meant for all the fields. There, a small area of green could be seen while being slowly cut down, and the two Originals quickly made their way there, because that¡¯s exactly where Stahl seemed to be, and when the young man saw them, he quickly took a break and rushed over toward them, although Evalia seemed somewhat surprised at the fact that he was working while shirtless. "Pretty hot day today, huh?" Eisen asked with augh, and Stahl immediately nodded his head. "Yup, it¡¯s the middle of summer in here as well right now, isn¡¯t it?" The young man asked as he just slightly smiled at Evalia, before Eisen quickly had Sigurd grab some pieces of metal and some wood from the Dungeon, before creating a forge real quick. "Huh, what are you doing?" Stahl asked pretty curiously, and the old man started tough. "What, did you think I¡¯d be plowing this whole field by hand with a Hoe?" Eisen asked, and now not only Stahl was curious about what he was making. And before they knew it, Eisen created a dozenrge pick-like long pieces of metal, just so slightly bent, before he quickly changed the forge to a table where he got to work on carving wood into proper shape for what he wanted to do, and Stahl just looked at him jealously at how quickly he was able to do all of that. But soon enough, Eisen created a long wooden bar with a dozen small pieces attached to it, where Eisen swiftly ced the pick-like metal pieces, before he moved onto making two moveable bars with parts that couldtch onto each other, specifically rounded so that they could be properly held or put in front of someone¡¯s body. So now, the others were slowly realizing what Eisen was making for himself. And for a little while, Eisen just carved some simple enchantments into the metal parts to make burrowing through the dirt easier. Before the old man quickly brought thisrge tool over toward the area where he would start his own field-work, quickly putting the rounded wooden bars in front of his body, and then, of course with his size fully increased, started to pull this Eisen-Powered Plow forward. "Grampa, are you actually being serious right now?" Stahl asked with a wry smile, as he ran up next to the old man, who just nodded his head with augh. "Mhm, why shouldn¡¯t I be? This gives me a lot more proficiency than I could get in this same amount of time, and I can cover a farrger area in total. It just makes sense, doesn¡¯t it?" The old man pointed out, and Stahl slowly nodded his head. But in the end, Stahl had a little, fun idea. "Gramps, you mind if I stream you doing all this?" Chapter 414 - Streamed "You want to stream me?" Eisen asked in reply to Stahl¡¯s question, who swiftly nodded his head. "Yeah, kind of. If you¡¯re fine with it. This kind of stuff is just pretty unique, so it should be a good way to show other people that there really isn¡¯t a limit to what can be done. That, and it¡¯s just hrious." Stahl said with a smile, and Eisen sighed deeply in response and then nodded his head. "Fine, go ahead. I don¡¯t really care all that much." The old man replied, and before he knew it, Stahl¡¯s pupils turned red as a sign that he was streaming. Stahl started to just speak to Eisen a bit about this and that, seemingly to entertain the viewers, all the whilst the old man was just literally plowing through the field, spreading some seeds around as he was walking, which Caria, who was sitting on the Plow Cross-legged, immediately made grow, which turned all of this into a pretty interesting scene. And to Stahl¡¯s surprise, something else happened just then. "Holy shit, I have ten times my regr amount of viewers... Gramps, I love you..." The young man eximed, and Eisen just smirked slightly as he continued to plow through everything, before he got a little bit of an idea. It didn¡¯t seem to directly count as a Farming skill, but it should be close enough in that direction. And after the first half of the field area that Eisen wanted to finish up today, Eisen tried out something else. "Now then, let¡¯s test this out, shall we? How about we show the Demon system off a little bit." The old man suggested, and Stahl raised his brows surprised and nodded his head immediately. "Oh damn, yeah! Do that, please!" He eximed, immediately giving his grandfather a thumbs-up, before the old man asked Caria to get down from the plow for a little bit. And then, Eisen tried to take his Tool Connection to another new point, because he figured this would be a good enough point to try. He did something like this kind of with his tools already, but only directly around where his hand was touching it. So for now, Eisen wanted to try and make his Demonic Transformation move on over to the Plow as well. He wasn¡¯t entirely sure if it would work, but tools and outfits usually reacted to this kind of stuff pretty easily, so Eisen was hoping that this would work. And, while he was transforming, he went for his Demon of Yang form, the positive side of things. And through that form, Eisen was also hoping that it would take a little bit of an effect on his Farming skill so that he would be able to make better and stronger nts, and with that, gain more proficiency in his skill. Just like Eisen was hoping, the gold strands all over his body slowly extended toward the plow and enveloped it at as well, turning the metal parts into gold while the rest of the plow was simr to the rest of Eisen¡¯s skin. "Now then. Let¡¯s try this again, shall we?" Eisen asked with a smile as he slipped his finger underneath his apron and carved the rune for ¡¯Farming¡¯ into his chest, before he looked at Caria and asked her to sit down on the plow again, which the young Myconid quickly did while Melissa and Sal stayed with Evalia. And then, Eisen started to plow through the rest of the area for the fields while spreading more seeds, and Caria made them grow naturally in the strongest possible way that she could. It took a while for them to properly finish this all, but because of the speed that Eisen was moving atter on, it only really took an hour or two to finish all of it, and Stahl¡¯s viewership only increased more and more during that time. Soon, Eisen ced the plow to the side and cracked his knuckles with a smile on his face. "Alright, let¡¯s farm all of this." The old man said with a grin, happily grabbing the scythe that he made before for this. The only thing that was nted here was wheat, because Bread was a necessary staple-food. After this, he would move onto another crop, of course, but for now the old man figured that he should do this, although mainly because it allowed him to cut everything down pretty quickly. When Eisen actually properly tried to let it happen, the Scythe slowly turned more demonic as well, and once more the metal parts turned into gold while the rest turned into rock with golden mes underneath it. "For this, stay a bit away, alright? Ah, and Melissa, spread out some of your bees to make sure to warn me if anyone or anything is in the field." The old man said, and reflexively, Stahl turned over toward the young Bee-Girl, who nodded her head and held her arms forward. "Yup, look at this, Chat, that little girl there is indeed a Monster! A Great Empress Bee, to be exact~!" Stahl eximed, and hearing him, Melissa nodded her head happily while swarms of bees flew out of the long sleeves of her hoodie. Luckily, Stahl couldn¡¯t see the Hive in her body open up, but the scene of that many bugs inside of that shirt still steemed pretty horrific to his viewers. "Don¡¯t worry, as I said, she¡¯s a bee herself. Technically." Stahl said reassuringly as he looked at his chat, and then turned back around toward Eisen, who was in the middle of his work already. With swift movements, the old man was cutting down the wheat swiftly, and some of Caria¡¯s Mushroom Minions were picking them up and bringing them away to a ce where the wheat could properly be piled up. And so, Eisen spent another little while just farming like this, with satisfyingly smooth movements cutting the wheat down. Just like that, another two hourster, the old man was done cutting the field down, and happily deactivated his Demonic transformation. "Great!" Eisen eximed, before Stahl nodded his head in reply. "Yeah, this really is great! That was so awesome, gramps!" Stahl eximed excitedly, and the old man quietly chuckled. "I think we¡¯re happy about different things. My Farming Skill reached Rank 2 a while ago, now I just need another few dozen levels to Rank it up again." Eisen pointed out, cracking his knuckles as he was doing so. "Alright Caria, up for another round?" The old man asked with a smile on his face, and while the Myconid immediately nodded her head, Stahl raised his eyebrows surprised. "You want to keep going? It¡¯s been like 5 hours already!" The young man pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head. "Mhm, I know. But we should still have another couple of hours till sundown. And even throughout the night, we should be able to farm with this little angel¡¯s help here. We¡¯re only leaving tomorrow morning anyway." The old man pointed out, making Stahl just look at him with a wry smile, staring at Evalia confused, forgetting that he was still streaming. There wasn¡¯t anything bad about her being shown, but it drew a surprisingly weird kind of attention to the stream of people that weren¡¯t thinking with the right head. While Eisen was working on the field, Evalia had seemingly just been working on a small drawing in a sketchbook, so Stahl slowly walked up to her. "So, what have you been doing for a while now?" Stahl asked her, and surprised, Evalia looked up from the notebook. "Huh?" She asked, holding the notebook to her chest while shaking her head. "Nothing, don¡¯t worry about it..." Evalia told Stahl. "Just animation practice... heh..." Evalia admitted, and Stahl raised his eyebrows surprised, "Ooh, animation? And yes, folks, that¡¯s right, if you work toward it, you can animate in a sketchbook here in this game. Now Evalia, show me for..." Stahl said with a grin on his face, reaching out toward the book in her hand and grabbing it from her, before taking a quick look at it, "...a moment..." He said next, unsure what he was supposed to say to this, because this was a seemingly rather... spicy... animation depicting the two people currently standing in front of each other. Immediately when he noticed this, Stahl shut the notebook, opened the stream window, and cut the part about what was in the book out. He had a bit of a dy added into everything for something like this, after all. "Ehem, well, that¡¯s about it for today¡¯s stream, y¡¯all... See you guys next time..." Stahl said and quickly ended the stream, before taking out a small hand-mirror to check if his eyes were really not red anymore, and then turned toward Evalia. "What the actual fuck?!" He asked as he turned toward her, "You¡¯re making something like THAT while you have two children next to you?" Stahl asked, obviously just embarrassed about it, and Evalia slightly scratched her cheek with a wry smile. "W-Well... Yeah?" She replied, and Stahl sighed deeply. "Next time, let me know, that way we can get you some proper reference." Stahl said with a slight smirk, only getting somewhat embarrassed in retrospect, although Evalia stared at him as if in shock. "I mean... We¡¯re going back to the maind soon, so we should be able to get some proper privacy there somewhere..." Evalia pointed out, and Stahl¡¯s face immediately flushed red. "O-Oh? I mean... sure... We-We can-" Stahl started to say, but was quickly interrupted by Eisen, who swiftly noticed that the two of them were stuck in an obviously awkward situation. "Stahl, can youe over here and help me out a little?" The old man asked, and without hesiation, Stahl turned around. "I¡¯ll be right there!" He yelled out as he turned toward Eisen, before looking back at Evalia. "We¡¯ll speakter about this, then? And... about ¡¯this¡¯... a bit more as well?" Stahl suggested as he pointed at the notebook now back in Evalia¡¯s possession, and Evalia nodded her head. "Sure..." She said, and then Stahl swiftly leaned in toward her to kiss her, and after that he hurriedly moved over toward his grandfather. "So, what did you need my help with?" Stahl asked, seemingly unaware that Eisen just said this to get the young man out of that situation from before, and the old man swiftly sighed in response. "Nothing, really. Just help Caria out in growing the nts, maybe?" He suggested, so Stahl slowly nodded his head in response. "Sure..." Stahl said, while Eisen continued to move the plow through the field again to unearth the roots of the wheat from before. This time, everything was far quicker thanst time, and Eisen was able to rtively quickly get started with the next repetition of harvesting, although this time, it wasn¡¯t wheat that was nted but instead corn, simply because Eisen had the seeds for it with him, and like that, simply cut each area twice, once to the actual corn off of everything, and then another time to get rid of the thick stems. And it seemed like just due to the sheer size of this field and because he did all of this manually, the old man was able to level his farming skill up to the Level 90-Range already. At that point, leveling skills up always became a lot harder than for the first 90 levels, but by simply cutting down another small area of nts that he asked Caria and Stahl to grow for him, he soon managed to get his Farming skill up to rank 3 before the sun even went down. With a broad grin on his face, Eisen looked at all of the things that he himself farmed just today, and then turned over toward Serio with a grin. "Can you bring these things way yourself through teleportation, or should we get a cart and bring it back?" The old man asked, but the Core Guardian just shook his head reassuredly. "Don¡¯t worry, I can deal with this myself." Chapter 415 - Living Torpedo "Now then..." Eisen muttered to himself, trying to stretch his body properly after all this repetitive work. Luckily his stats were so high at this point, otherwise he never would have been able to get the Farming skill to Rank 3 within a single day. Usually, it took far, far longer to do that kind of thing. For now, the old man just looked at the time properly, and then moved his fingers through his beard as he turned toward Serio, who was currently preparing to move all of what was farmed to a different location. "Are there any sort of mines here in town?" The old man asked, but Serio slowly shook his head. "None that I¡¯m aware of, sorry." The Core Guardian replied, so Eisen just nodded his head with a sigh. "Guess that has to wait a little longer, huh?" The old man muttered to himself, and then looked over toward his Grandson again. "Then do you want to help me out to level some of my other skills up?" Eisen asked, and Stahl raised his brows surprised. "Heh? What other skills do you need to level up?" The young man asked curiously in reply, and Eisen quickly checked his status out and moved his fingers through his beard. "Hmm... Just my Rank 0 skills... So Sorcery, Lockpicking, and Swimming." The old man pointed out, and Stahl scratched the back of his neck in response. "Sure, then how do you need my help?" He asked, and Eisen closed his eyes and thought about it for a while. "Basically just to let me know what kinds of different Magic Circles I should make, and help me make an unpickable lock." Eisen suggested, before Stahl looked at him confused. "Well, I get the first one, but why do you want to make an unpickable lock if you want to level your lockpicking up?" Stahl asked, and Eisen just smirked at him. "It¡¯s going to be a lock that returns to a random state when it was picked, that¡¯s what I mean. So that I don¡¯t need to make a few dozen locks or something like that." Eisen exined, making Stahl look back at the old man surprsied. "Oh, that sounds neat... How do you want to do that?" "That¡¯s exactly what I could need your help with, to figure out a way to create random patterns through enchantments." Eisen pointed out, so Stahl just nodded his head. "Well, that¡¯s not necessarily thatplicated... But alright, sure. I¡¯ll work on something. But how do you want to practice swimming?" "Don¡¯t worry about that, I¡¯m just going to make a small pool or something like that." He pointed out, looking back toward where Serio was before, although he had just disappeared in a cloud of mist, and then spoke to the Core Guardian. Luckily, Serio was able to at the very least know exactly what was going on in open areas like this, so he could hear Eisen perfectly. "Is there any ce for that kind of thing?" The old man asked, and Serio just nodded his head in response when he appeared a few momentster. "Yes, there is. There would be the castle¡¯s central courtyard, or the garden, of course. In thetter, you would also have sufficient materials for whatever you want to make." Serio pointed out, so Eisen just shrugged and nodded. "Fair enough. Then let¡¯s get back there. Serio, are you sure you don¡¯t need any help?" "I¡¯m alright, don¡¯t worry." The Core Guardian replied as he transported the next little bit of the wheat away, and Eisen, his monsters, Evalia and Stahl then swiftly made their way over to the castle, although Evalia soon split up from them and chose to make her way through town a little bit to see if there were any ces she could help out. And so, Eisen and Stahl simply made their way through the castle together and then stepped into the Garden, where Constant quite swiftly appeared in front of them again. "Ah, Master Eisen! Wee back!" He eximed, so Eisen justughed in response. "Yep, I¡¯m back. Just to let you know, I got a pretty nice idea for what I could make with the Yin and Yang ingots." The old man exined immediately, so Constant stared back at him quite curiously. "Oh! Really? What is it you want to make?" The Core Helper asked, but Eisen just rubbed his hand over his head with a smile. "For now, could you give Stahl a few mana crystals to work with? We need to do something first, I¡¯ll tell youter." Eisen pointed out, so Constant nodded his head swiftly. "Of course! And what do you need right now?" The Core Helper asked, and Eisen just smiled at him. "A little bit of crystal as well. I don¡¯t think I need anything else." Eisen pointed out, and Constant swiftly disappeared, before returning with tworge chunks of mana-crystal in his hands. "Here you go!" He eximed, so Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Thank you." The old man said, before quickly getting out his Staff and walking over to an empty area, where he swiftly started to construct the ¡¯pool¡¯ in the rather umon shape that he wanted it to have for just a certain reason. "Alright, then let me know when the random-generator is ready." Eisen said as he turned toward Stahl, who slowly nodded his head while looking at the structure that was forming in front of Eisen, in the shape of just a giant, horizontal loop. "Sure..." He muttered, while Eisen simply created a square window made of mana-crystal in the side of that loop, and then created an opening at the top of it, which Eisen swiftly climbed into. Then, using a regr wand, Eisen tried to get started with his Sorcery-Practice and started to make a water-creation magic circle so that he could start filling this entire loop up with water. And to that magic-circle, Eisen added a condition that it would continuosly keep the water going while Eisen was supplying mana to it, so that he didn¡¯t need to repeatedly create this same magic-circle over and over again. A little whileter, Stahl stepped up to the window that Eisen was sitting behind of and knocked on it to get the old man¡¯s attention, holding the seemingly-finished enchantment in front of himself. With a smile on his face, Eisen nodded his head and yelled out toward Stahl to ask him to make a mask that would allow Eisen to breath underwater, which the young man swiftly did. Using that time, Eisen managed topletely fill this loop up with water. Afterward, the old man stepped back out of the loop and then made his way over toward the workshop in the center of the hedgemaze, where Stahl was currently working. After taking a good look at the actually pretty simple enchantment, the old man quickly started working on a system to properly ¡¯set¡¯ the different types of lock then. It seemed like Stahl actually took the random-generator far enough to control the whole ¡¯pin-generation¡¯ sequence on its own, meaning that all that Eisen needed to do was to hook this up to a proper lock, and make a mana-signal run over toward this enchantment every time that the lock was opened. And for that, Eisen just needed a small transmutation setup that he added to change the ces where the mana-crystal pins could split up so that the lock could be opened. Then the only thing that needed to be done was to create the casing, the tumbler, and then set all of the different pins inside together with some springs that would push the pins back out when no pressure was on them. Just like that, the unpickable lock was finished, and Eisen could get started pretty quickly. Of course, Eisen tried the lock out a few times outside of the water before putting on the mask that Stahl made for him and stepping into the water-filled tube that Eisen created out of his own element. First things first, Eisen tested the lockpicking out a few times underwater without swimming around, and then swam a few times around the loop while unlocking it more, before Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction, then starting to create the first enchantment that he wanted Stahl to show him, an enchantment to increase the current inside of the loop, as per the old man¡¯s request. Using the small wand from before, Eisen created that enchantment that would react whenever he passed through it with his body and increase the current just a tiny bit more. Of course, instead of swimming with the current, Eisen did his best to swim against the current, because that gave him far more proficiency in this skill. And so, Eisen swiftly managed to properly create a system where he could practice both lockpicking and swimming at the same time. Now he just needed to add sorcery into it, which wasn¡¯t all that hard either. Whenever the old man got back to the window, he would stop and wait for the next magic-circle to be shown to him, and the old man would stick his hand through a small opening that was created specifically for this and then created the magic-circle outside of the tube like that. It might be a little bit of a waste of time if he could just do it like normal afterward when he got outside of the tube again, but in the end, skills gained more proficiency if they were used properly in unfavorable conditions, which was another reason why his Lockpicking skill was leveling up so nicely. And so, Eisen did this same thing for a few hours on end, until Stahl had to go to sleep. But at that point, the old man already got a rough grasp of what exactly needed to be done to create the most proficiency-efficient enchantment, and tried his best toe up with his own ideas for some after Stahl left. Just like that, this weird and surprisingly efficient method ended up getting the old man rank-up after rank-up, and when the sun came back up in the morning and Stahl returned, Eisen was still swimming inside of the tube. His swimming skill was the only one that needed to Rank up another time now, so Eisen ced the lock outside a little while ago and was just swimming inside of there now, really trying his best to fight against the insanely strong current that was pushing against him now. But finally, when the other Originals were gathering around the loop as well, the old man was finally done, and grasped onto the wall that he himself made with his element, practically ripping away at it. The tube opened up and water shot out of the small hole like it was a Fireman¡¯s Water-hose, before the old man swiftly climbed out of that water and properly stretched, taking off the mask that by now was practically stuck to his face, even having deeply imprinted himself in his skin. It looked kind of ridiculous, but nobody wanted tough at Eisen, because this whole idea was just ridiculous in and of itself. "You were really inside there the whole night..?" Jyuuk asked with a wry smile, and Eisen nodded his head in reply as he slowly activated his elemental transformation in his me-state to quick-dry himself. "Yup. And I managed to rank up three more of my skills up to three. Swimming, Lockpicking, and Sorcery." The old man exined, and then happily smirked in response to properly confirming one of the other things that appeared on his status throughout this whole ordeal. On top of now being able to breath underwater naturally for about half an hour, having gained the ability to pick locks with his mana, or simply create ability-based magic-circles, Eisen had gained the title , which heavily increased his underwater speed. Chapter 416 - Bouquets "You¡¯re insane." Brody pointed out quite clearly, trying to sum up whatever could be said about this whole thing, and Eisen just slightly chuckled. "Maybe I am, yeah." The old man replied, while he slowly turned toward Constant with a smile on his face. "Where exactly can I put all this water?" Eisen asked him, and Constant scratched the back of his head and thought about it for a moment. "Well, about a 100 meters further that way there¡¯s a thin river, you could put it in there. Serio, would there be any flooding along that river?" The Core Helper asked the Guardian next to him, considering that Constant didn¡¯t know everything about anything outside of this garden. Slowly, Serio just nodded his head in response. "It should be fine, don¡¯t worry." The Core Guardian replied, so Eisen nodded his head and started to create a tube to lead toward that pretty small river not too far away, it was just barely deep enough to touch Eisen¡¯s knees, and the old man then quickly connected that tube to the loop and made the water flow into there, even if the water was moving along at quite a high speed now. Either way, afterward, the old man moved on and made his way back to the others, before properly making sure that the loop disappeared. And then, the old man cracked his knuckles in thought. "Alright, now I just need to get Mining a bit higher, huh?" The old man muttered to himself, and then looked over toward the other Originals with a slight smile on his face. "Is everone ready to leave again?" Eisen asked them, and the four swiftly nodded their heads, before Eisen turned toward Serio. "Can you quickly let everyone that wants toe back with us know about it as well?" "Of course." The Town Core Guardian quickly replied, and then disappeared in a cloud of mist, before Eisen looked at Sigurd and Constant. "Now, we¡¯ll go get some materials from the storage, and then we¡¯ll leave for the Harbor again." The old man told them with a smile, while the other Originals, as well as Stahl, made their way toward the ce where the Carriage was set-up at the moment, while Eisen started to exin his item-ideas to Constant. "Oooh! So you want to make items that you will be able to always use from now on?" Constant asked curiously, and Eisen nodded his head in response. "Basically, yes. I want to first make sure that I can properly create actual Ego-Items that can grow through different ranks, and then I¡¯m going to go ahead with those ideas. What else did I make with them in the past?" The old man asked, before the Helper scratched his chin in thought. "Well, out of any cloth you got, you made high-tier clothes that you then gave out as presents or sell them to other people in any sort of business. Yang ones you would give to nobles you befriended, artists, and even a king, once. Yin clothes you would bring to Underground markets and have them sold off to the highest bidder. Ah, once there was an assassin you were acquainted with that you gave some of those to." Constant exined, and then continued to think about it more. "When you got crystals, you used them as a basis for enchantments or potions, although I don¡¯t know if any of them are still leftover anywhere, or what they even really do. As for the rare instances where you got Leather or even nts, you would go ahead and do smaller things with them, like turn them into leather-based outfits or bags, or turn them into potions. Although once, you and Master Jyuuk went to another Continent and nted Yang saplings in the Underdark, and Yin Saplings directly above there in the Forest Country above." Constant exined, and then he opened his eyes wide in response when he remembered something else. "Then of course there¡¯s the time that you got two ¡¯Essence Drops¡¯ and nothing else. I think you used them on two earth Lizard eggs. Although that was something that I only heard from you myself. I think that was the first time you tried to harvest ressources from Masses of Yin and Yang, nearly a hundred thousand years ago." The Core Helper pointed out, before Eisen raised his eyebrows, starting to justugh loudly in response. "Huh? What¡¯s wrong?" Sigurd asked, both curious and worried about why Eisen suddenly started tough like this, and the old man shook his head with a smirk. "Nothing, nothing. But this practically just confirmed one of the things that I was trying to figure out really badly. Anyway, all kinds of things can appear through that, huh? Was there any time that a finished item appeared?" The old man asked, but Constant just shook his head in response. "Nope, not realy. Well, all of them are processed somehow, meaning that they don¡¯t just appear in their base state... Cloth needs to be woven as well, and metal ingots don¡¯t grow on trees." The Helper pointed out, so Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Fair enough. Do you know what actually happens when the masses are harvested, though? I mean..." Eisen started, thinking back onto when he was interacting with the Spatial gem that he enchanted a while ago. "It looks somewhat like some sort of sub-space, doesn¡¯t it?" "Yeah, you mentioned something about it before, but just in passing... I think it interacts with a Demonic Realm? But I don¡¯t really know, sorry." With a smile, Eisen shook his head, slowly stepping into the Workshop in front of him, before turning around toward his three monsters. "You three, go ahead and check up on the flower-fields that you were working on before." He suggested, and without hesitation, the three young monster children nodded their heads and rushed toward where thatrge open space was, and then, Constant, Sigurd, Fafnir and Eisen made their way down to the material storage, where Sigurd swiftly picked up all of the Yin and Yang ingots, as well as a few tools that seemed useful enough to Eisen. And then, the old man himself simply made his way over to where some of the bottles and barrels were kept. He already took most of them with him, just because they were useful, but he wanted to see if he missed anything that might be useful here. Especially these kinds of storage methods were useful to Eisen, considering that they would just be traveling around via carriage. Of course, they could probably store a lot of stuff inside of the Dungeon while it wasn¡¯t used, but it would probably be used a lot soon. And on top of that, once Fafnir grewrger, the Gate would probably growrger as well, so it might not actually be possible to just open the gate inside of the carriage mid-drive anymore at some point. But sadly, Eisen didn¡¯t really find anything that seemed to be able to help him out all that much, and just made his way back out of the material storage together with the others soon enough. Back in the actual Workshop, the old man once more went through all of the things that they had with them and that might be needed in the future, before scratching his cheek in thought. "I¡¯m not missing anything, am I?" The old man asked himself, and Constant tilted his head to the side with a slight smile. "Ah, that habit again?" The Helper asked and slightlyughed, before Eisen raised his brows surprised. "What do you mean? Did I use to be pretty forgetful?" Eisen asked, but Constant simply shook his head. "No no, that¡¯s not it, really. It was just so that whenever you were asking yourself if you forgot anything, you had everything you needed, and whenever you left thinking you really had everything without a doubt in your mind, you always forgot something. Mostly smaller things, but still. You just got distracted a lot back then, you were a busy man, after all. Still are, of course." Constant exined, so Eisen just slowly nodded his head with a slight smile. "I see... Then let¡¯s hope that still holds true, huh?" The old manughed, stepping out of the workshop as he waited for the three monster children toe back to him, which they quickly did with each a small bouquet of flowers in-hand. Caria¡¯s was Red and White, Melissa¡¯s was Yellow and ck, and Sal¡¯s was as colorful as it possibly could be, having just a bunch of random pretty-looking flowers bunched together. "Oh, how pretty! Who are they for?" Eisen asked them, and without hesitation, the three young children pushed their hands forward and held the bouquets in front of the old man. "For me?" The old man asked with a smile on his face, and the three quickly nodded their heads, so Eisen swiftly smiled at them and took the bouquets from them. "How nice of you, thank you." He replied, and quickly looked at them before handing two of them over to Sigurd for a moment, while Constant was looking at the scene with a weirdly bitter expression. Of course, Sal and Melissa were shaken up at having their bouquets handed away, but they, and Constant as well apparently, were quickly surprised when Eisen just gave them to the Dungeon Core Guardian so that he would be able to properly grab some leftover threads from a pocket in his apron to tie it around each of the bouquets, so that they wouldn¡¯t fall apart just like that. Of course, Eisen was carrying all three of them with a smile on his face. "I¡¯ll put them into some waterter, thanks, you three." The old man told them, kneeling downward to rub over their heads with his hand, all three of them more than just ecstatic at how happy Eisen seemed to be, before Eisen noticed Constant¡¯s almost shocked expression. "Is everything alright?" Surprised, Constant nodded his head in response to Eisen¡¯s question, "Y-Yeah, everything is alright..." The Helper replied, so Eisen just slightly frowned and nodded his head in response. "Alright, sure... Well, let¡¯s get going now. Constant, you¡¯re joining us on our way to the Carriage, right?" Eisen asked him, so Constant slowly nodded his head. For the whole way back toward where the others had already all gathered, Eisen really just felt Constant¡¯s direct stare at the back of his head. He didn¡¯t necessarily want to ask Constant about it in front of everyone, so Eisen figured it could wait until after the Dungeon gate was set up and the first people were getting inside. It took everyone a little while for everyone to settle in for the drive, and during that time, Eisen quickly stepped over to the side with all of the Core Helpers and Guardians that Eisen knew from here already, meaning Serio, the Town Core Guardian, Ruth, the Guild Core Guardian, and then the Core Helpers Constant and Jard. And then, with his arms crossed in front of his body and a slight smile on his face, Eisen looked at the four of them and asked a very simple question. "What was I like before?" Chapter 417 - Past Personality "What were you like before?" Serio asked surprised in response to that question, and Eisen simply nodded his head. "Yes, I would like to know. From all the things you told me, there¡¯s some parts about the old me that are vastly different to my current me. I never used to be so obsessed over any one things, and I don¡¯t know what I usually did with gifts from other people, but judging from Constant¡¯s expression before, I¡¯m sure it wasn¡¯t anything great. And to top it off, my Workshop is the northernmost part of the whole town, and it¡¯s a fair bit away from the castle, surrounded by a hedgemaze. I don¡¯t remember ever cutting myself off like that." Eisen pointed out, and in response, the four Guardians looked at each other for a moment before Serio slowly spoke up. "You... You used to be very cynical. Cold toward others around you. You were always smiling, but your smile from back then was vastly different to the smile you have now. Now, it¡¯s genuine, back then, I doubt it was." The Town Core Guardian slowly exined, and Eisen looked at him with a nod, while Constant spoke up next. "The only thing you ever thought of was crafting, Master Eisen, and it was all supposed to somehow lead up to the creation of artificial life. And about before... I witnessed one time, where a young Kobold child gave you flowers that it picked for you... Without hesitation, you thanked it for the flowers, and in a single motion started ripping out the petals and turned them into a state where you can immediately work on a potion with them, before standing up and leaving without another word." With a slightly sad expression, Constant tried to avoid Eisen¡¯s gaze, and the old man was slowly getting choked up in a way that he hadn¡¯t in a very long time. Next, Ruth seemed to have something she wanted to say, but she stayed quiet instead while Jard took her hand and spoke for her. "There was one time... where I was asked to bring something to the Guild room. It was weird, because I was never supposed to leave the Treasury to properly protect it, so I knew something was up. And then when I entered the Guild room, you..." The Tired Guardian started, and then looked over toward Ruth next to him, before continuing, "You were crying. I don¡¯t know why, Ruth never told me, but there still were tears in your eyes. I handed you what you wanted me to bring you, and then left again. That¡¯s the first time I ever saw you in any state but your endless fake smile." The Helper pointed out, and Eisen slowly looked at these four in front of him and started moving his fingers through his beard. "Was I a bad person?" Eisen asked them, but without hesitation, the four of them immediately shook their heads. "Of course not! It wasn¡¯t that you were a bad person, you just weren¡¯t very open! The only being in this world that has lived longer than you is the Great Goddess, although I¡¯m not even necessarily sure about that. There are things in the past that only you two can speak witness to. Thinking like that... It would be umon for you not to be a bit cynical." Serio exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in reply. "I see." He muttered quietly, and then smiled at the four of them. "Then if I can re-gain my memories, I hope that I won¡¯t returning to being that kind of person." The old man said, and quickly took a step forward toward the four Guardians in front of them to give them a hug before his departure, which all of them seemed to be genuinely surprised about. "Haha, I guess I wasn¡¯t a hug-person back then?" Eisen asked them, and they all shook their heads immediately, without a moment¡¯s hesitation. "Then just know that I am now, and that you¡¯ll get another big one when I¡¯ming back here in the future." With a wink, the old man slowly let the four of them go and made his way back toward the carriage that was standing just a little bit away from them, sitting down on the front bench of the carriage while making sure that everyone that wanted toe was really inside of the Dungeon at the moment. While waving at the group of Guardians, Eisen then started to drive the carriage away from the castle and toward the distance in the direction of the Harbor. --- "Now... What can we do on this ship for now?" Rouge and Parc asked Eisen, who simply crossed his arms with a bright smile. "I¡¯m going to keep teaching you, of course. Until now, we weren¡¯t really working together as Master and Apprentices, but from now on, we will. When we get to the Maind, we¡¯re going to start traveling around, and I want to try and set up shop at as many ces as possible. So while that¡¯s happening, I¡¯m going to try and teach you in more depth usingissioned items as an example. Of course, we¡¯re going to go over theory as well, but you know what I mean." Eisen exined to the two of them with a bright smile on his face, before he started moving his fingers through his beard, while his Apprentices were smirking excitedly. "In town, you were mostly working on basic things like farming tools, weapons, simple armor, clothes, and then things like furniture, right?" The old man asked them, before the two quickly nodded their heads in response. "Yes, exactly. We were trying to help out wherever we could, so we wanted to make sure everyone from Handor was properly settled in, and that the ¡¯Guardians¡¯ also had everything they needed. So that was basically it." Rouge exined in response, so Eisen nodded his head slowly in response. "Alright, then that was probably enough raw experience of those kinds of things to start out with. Fafnir, could you open the gate?" Eisen asked the Dragon-Dungeon, who slowly stood up, stretched, and then jumped up to create the gate, before the three of them stepped into the Dungeon again. "So, erm... What¡¯s with that giant bottle?" Parc asked in the end, something which Rouge was slightly afraid of doing, and then Eisen just started tough. "That? Yeah, it¡¯s a bit of a supersized version of Snake Wine. It¡¯s filled with regr Rice Wine and I trapped this snake-like Dragon inside there. The Dragon itself is called a ¡¯Nidhogg¡¯, so it¡¯s Nidhogg Wine." Eisen exined with a loudugh, and Parc and Rouge simply side-eyed the dead creature in the bottle as they entered the Dungeon behind Eisen. They were already inside here before, so they weren¡¯t exactly surprised by this interior here, nor by the seemingly infinitely-stretching environment that was painted onto the walls, but by the machinery that Eisen constructed before. Most of it was just lumped together, so it was hard to really see what everything was and did, but after the old man¡¯s exnation of everything, the two stared at everything excitedly. "This is so cool..." Rouge muttered quietly, especially looking at the finely enchanted parts of each type of machinery, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Thank you, I¡¯m d you like it, then." The old man pointed out, before turning toward the short boy next to him. "Thest part of the Potion-Setup was actually inspired by your idea from before. With this setup, it wouldn¡¯t work properly to mix voring into it at the start, and depending on the potion, it might cause some unwanted effects, so I did that step at the end." Eisen pointed out, and Rouge slowly nodded his head excitedly, before turning toward Parc as well. "I want to try and figure out a good way to work on potion-candy as well, but that requires a whole new setup. It¡¯s going to take a little while, but I¡¯m going to work on that at some point. Until now, it¡¯s just going to be vored potions and pills." Eisen exined, and then slowly ran his hand over the metal surface of the Potion-brewing setup, before Parc quickly shook his head. "That¡¯s fine! Erm, but I do have another question about this..." The young man pointed out, looking over toward the Bottle-Making setup. "This works with transmutation, right? Why didn¡¯t you just make a regr metal press? Wouldn¡¯t that be more mana-efficient?" The young, tall-built Apprentice asked, so Eisen slowly nodded. "Of course, of course, but in this case, I figured this could be used for marketing as well. When there¡¯s a disy case where it¡¯s directly shown how the bottles are made in front of the customers, they¡¯re going to feel more drawn in, won¡¯t they?" Eisen suggested, so Parc slowly nodded his head. "Oh, that¡¯s true..." The young man replied with a mutter, trying to properly inspect every part about this machinery, and Eisen figured he should let the two boys take a look at everything on their own for now. "Try not to break anything, you two. I¡¯m going to be on the third floor for a while, if you need me." Eisen pointed out, swiftly opening the window that would let him create a gate to the third floor, although it already appeared in front of him just then, and Eisen just smirked at Sigurd who appeared right next to it. "Thanks." The old man said and smiled at the Dungeon Core Guardian, slowly patting its head as he stepped through the door into the space behind it, before he found himself in a truly giant space that currently had nothing but rock walls and a dirt floor, as it seemingly wasn¡¯t ready yet. "Wow, this is really going to be pretty huge, huh?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, and Sigurd nodded its head in response immediately. "Yes, although it¡¯s already nearly done. Another 100 meters into each direction, and then this space is going to be finished." The Core Guardian pointed out, before handing Eisen the pickaxe he was surely about to ask Sigurd to bring to him. "Haha, thank you. Now, then let me know if I¡¯m digging into the wrong directionter." Eisen told Sigurd, and then swiftly activated his Demonic Transformation, using the new technique that he learned before of how to extend his demonic transformation onto his tool. While he was technically destroying things while mining, it seemed like that skill still counted as a ¡¯Constructive¡¯ skill, so one that counted more toward Yang. It seemed like the Yin side really was just supposed to be for fighting, for some reason. Either way, Eisen didn¡¯t really care either, as long as he could use the right transformation to this. And soon enough, the pickaxe turned into its demonic state, with the metal parts now golden and the rest like cracked-rock with golden mes underneath. "Let¡¯s hope that this didn¡¯t ACTUALLY turn into gold, huh?" Eisen muttered with augh on his face, and quickly started to carve the rune for the ¡¯Mining¡¯ skill into his chest, before he quickly got started. With a quick swing toward the rock-wall in front of him, Eisen managed to already create a pretty strong cracking all over, and with the next one, all that was loosened up came crumbling down. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if this would really properly help with his Mining skill, but this was definitely better than just running around, doing nothing or trying to think of something else to do. Like this, he could build up the connectivity with this pickaxe as well, which might end up helping Eisen out in the mining in the future, even if just slightly. Etiher way, for now, Eisen figured that doing this was the best thing that he could do, and like that just swiftly continued. Chapter 418 - Level 200 More and more, the rock wall in front of Eisen started to crumble down into fine dust and pebbles, which were all swiftly taken care of by Sigurd. With each swing of the pickaxe, a little more of the surface disappeared, and Eisen¡¯s Mining skill was slowly gaining proficiency, soon reaching Rank 1. And a few hourster, he even managed to bring it pretty close to Rank 2 as well, but at that point, Eisen was already too exhausted to continue working. After all, he had spent all ofst night trying to gain proficiency in three other skills, something that exhausted him quite a lot, now that he properly thought about it. And so, Eisen simple slept for a little while and then woke back up in the exactly same ce that he went to sleep in, still grasping his pickaxe. Figuring this was the best choice for now, Eisen just continued and continued, simply cracking through the rock walls around him to dig it down, finally reaching even Rank 2, but at that point, Eisen was practically unable to gain any more proficiency beyond five levels, even after working for a few more hours. The amount of proficiency he gained for this had shrunken down so much that it was nearly nonexistent, so this would be the stopping point for Eisen right now. But then, Eisen got a bit of an idea, and immediately turned around. "Sigurd, make an exit." The old man said and started to step forward at a quick pace, and he stepped into the gate that appeared in front of him without a moment of hesitation, before looking over the edge of the ship. They left the area of the Ind-Group, and were now back in the regr ocean. Eisen had hoped that they maybe were still there, but apparently the speed of this Turtle they were attached to wasn¡¯t to be underestimated. And then, Eisen just took a quick look at the ocean with his Mana-Sight, trying to find a good ce for his n, and then nodded his head in satisfaction when he found it in the distance, before cing his fingers into the corner of his mouth to release a loud whistling to get the Ocean Turtle¡¯s attention. "Stop here for a moment." The old man eximed, while the others that were on the Deck came up to the old man. "What are you doing?" Jyuuk asked confused, and Eisen cracked his knuckles as he just smiled at the Beastperson. "Dying our arrival by a few hours, if that¡¯s alright. This is the perfect chance for me to level my Mining skill up, it¡¯s the only thing I have left that needs to rank up for me to reach level 200." Eisen exined swiftly, and Jyuuk sighed in response. "What do you mean exactly?" He asked once more, so Eisen quickly started to exin. "Down there is a pretty high density of earth elemal mana, and that¡¯s usually a sign for ore-veins. Me trying to mine something like that underwater should help me level my skill up a little quicker, shouldn¡¯t it?" Eisen pointed out, before Jyuuk nodded his head in response. "Fine, but hurry up. How long do you think you¡¯ll need?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen shook his head with a shrug. "Not sure, exactly, maybe six, seven hours?" He suggested, before slowly turning toward Sigurd to ask it to bring him some metal, which the Core Guardian quickly did, and then Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck. "Alright, that¡¯s do-able. If it helps you rank up your skill more quickly, it makes sense to, I guess." Jyuuk replied, so Eisen nodded his head and quickly started topress the metal in his hand as much as he possibly could, before transmuting it around his ankles. It didn¡¯t need to be anything special right now, he just needed something heavy to weigh him down. And so, with his Apron taken off so that he wouldn¡¯t identally lose anything, Eisen swiftly stepped over toward the edge and activated his Demonic Transformation while putting on the air-mask that Stahl madest night, before jumping into the water head-first. Now, Eisen for the first time actually managed to see the difference between his swimming from before to what it was now. When he wanted to move, his body was practically shooting through the water, as if he was falling through air. It was pretty insane, but especially with his metal-anklets, Eisen was able to push his body down to the ocean floor like he intended to, and then for double-reassurance, started to transmutate the stone his feet were touching to grasp onto him, so that he wouldn¡¯t lose his bnce underwater like this. And so, for now, Eisen immediately started to swing the pickaxe against the rock. Just through the water itself this was insanely hard to do, and the rock was barely cracking apart whenparing it to what it was like in the Dungeon, but this really was perfect. That was exactly what Eisen needed to level his skill up as much as possible over the next few hours. The rocks that Eisen managed to crack like this were all quickly flung upward in the next swing, and then fell back down onto the old man like slow rain. But a little whileter, Eisen finally managed to find the exact reason why he wanted toe down here. And that wasn¡¯t just the metal ore, but it was the hot surface of seemingly magically hotva. Eisen didn¡¯t know why it was here, but soon enough, the old man managed to crack through the surface above it, causing what was practically an explosion of heat and bubbles, which had to be visible on the outside. Of course, this ce was a fair bit away from the ship, because Eisen didn¡¯t want to hurt the Ocean Turtle. Now, on top of the water-pressure and slow movements resulting from them, Eisen now also had to deal with the immense heat and restricted sight caused by thisva, which was pushing his speed a little further. And so, for the next few hours, Eisen spent as much time mining there as he possibly could, trying to get as much of the metal as possible because that would also bring the amount of proficiency he could earn a fair bit higher. The reason why Eisen didn¡¯t just create something like thisva on his own using his own element was that he wouldn¡¯t experience any major difort from that. He somewhat felt the heat, but he wasn¡¯t able to be damaged by it, so it wouldn¡¯t help him increase the speed of his proficiency-gain. Then, when it seemed like the sun above the water was starting to set, Eisen finally got the notifications he was hoping for. [Mining reached Level 100 in Rank 2, Upgrading to Rank 3] [You can now mimic the effects of a Pickaxe using your mana] [Due to Ranking-up your Mining Skill, you gained +1 STR and +1 END] With a grin on his face underneath his mask, Eisen spread his wings out above the bubbles caused by the magicalva, which already pulled him upward a fair bit. And then when Eisen properly pped his wings a few times, he just shot out of the water, a fair bit higher actually, and then just dropped down toward the wooden surface, stopping his fall with his wings once more. "Alright then, everyone." The old man said while cracking his knuckles, looking forward at the others who had gathered here on the deck just to speak for a while this evening. Once Eisen had deactivated his Demonic Transformation, he quickly opened his status and clicked his tongue, before looking at literally any one of the others. "Who here will let me stab them?" Eisen asked in a quite clear, and serious, tone. His ¡¯Medicinal Knowledge¡¯ skill was the only Rank 0 skill he still had left right now, and since things like ¡¯Surgery¡¯ were part of that, Eisen figured the best way to level it up would be to give someone a wound and stitch it up afterward. But of course, in this situation, that was a bit of a freaky scene. "Gramps, we¡¯re literally streaming right now, what the fuck." Stahlined, and Eisen looked around at him, Alnico, Samurai, K and Zyra, confirming that they really all had red pupils at the moment. "Huh, alright. Well still, any volunteers?" Eisen asked, and with a sigh, Stahl raised his hand. "Fine, go ahead..." He replied, before Samurai, K and Zyra looked at him in shock. "Dude, he just asked to kill you, what the hell?" Samurai pointed out, but Stahl just shook his head immediately. "Who said anything about killing me? I¡¯m sure he has a good enough reason for wanting to stab me." Stahl pointed out, and Eisen immediately nodded. "Of course I do, I¡¯m going to stitch it back up after that to level one of my skills up." The old man pointed out, and Jyuukughed in response, having returned from telling the Ocean Turtle to get moving again. "Medicinal Knowledge, huh?" He asked, and Eisen just smiled, "Yup." "Well, how¡¯d it go underwater? Did you manage to get your Mining to 3?" Brody asked curiously, before Eisen nodded in response. "I did, yes. Now I just need a few more points in my Soul Strength and I¡¯ll get to Level 200." Eisen pointed out, quickly taking out one of his knives as well as the mana-thread spinneret, before slowly cutting into Stahl¡¯s skin. He wouldn¡¯t be feeling any pain through this, so Eisen figured it was fine. There wouldn¡¯t be things like scars either, considering that it was a pretty shallow wound. Either way, for now, Eisen swiftly started to stitch Stahl¡¯s arm up again just to cut him another time, then stitched him up there, until his whole arm was practicallypletely covered in cuts. "Alright, alright, I think we should stop here, my HP is getting scarily low..." Stahl pointed out, but Eisen slowly shook his head. "Just let me finish this one here..." The old man said, so Stahl slowly sighed, looking at the others in the round with a wry smile, before Samurai just crossed his arms and shook his head with a smirk. "Hey, you¡¯re the one that volunteered." Samurai said mockingly, and Stahl just raised his left, unupied, hand and flipped him off. And while this was happening, Eisen had a notification pop up in front of him. [Soul Strength reached 300. New Soul Storage slot unlocked] [Level Up Quest Complete - Road to 200] [Description] You have reached level 199 and as such, have gained the right to work toward reaching level 200. These are your requirements as calcted by your actions so far: -cksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Alchemy Skills at Rank 4(True) -Racial Skills at Rank 4 (True) -upation Skill Crafting Space at Rank 4, Crafter¡¯s Mind at Rank 3 (True) -Mana Maniption, me of the Earth Magic at Rank 4, Mana Double, Mana Copy at Rank 3 (True) -Woodworking, Cooking, Drawing, Tool Connection, Soul Engineering, Truth Seeing Eye, Farming, Mining, Masonry Skills at Rank 3 (True) -Reach a Soul Strength of at Least 300(True) -Spend A Total of 24 Hours practicing within your Soul Realm(True) [Reward] Level increased to 200 [Failure] Not Possible [Tasks Completed] [You are now Level 200] [Congrattions! You reached level 100 and have now gained a new upation skill!] [Ego-Item Creation Skill Learned] Chapter 419 - Ego Item With a satisfied grin on his face, Eisen waved the notifications away and sat down next to the others before handing Stahl a health potion while using a tiny chunk of Maroon that Eisen stored in ayer of mana-crystal, so that it wouldn¡¯t be able to cause any negative effects, to get rid of the Mana-Thread Eisen used on Stahl¡¯s arm. "So... I finished the quest just now, and I did really get ¡¯that¡¯ skill." Eisen said with a broad smirk, before the others looked at Eisen with surprise. "Really? Isn¡¯t that a bit OP to get this early..? I thought Bree said you¡¯d probably get it around Level 300 or something..." Stahl said, obviously pretty jealous, and the old man just chuckled in response before crossing his arms. "Well, who knows, your old man¡¯s old man is pretty great, so that was to be expected, right?" Eisen said with a smirk, just trying to show how excited he was that he got this skill so quickly, and then ended up slightly yawning while his eyes became droopy, all the whilst Stahl was rolling his eyes with a slight smirk. "I¡¯ll be heading to sleep now, really should have slept a bit earlier, huh...?" Eisen muttered quietly as he stood back up, and then made his way over toward the stairs, turning back around toward the others before walking up them, "Goodnight, all of you." The old man told them with a wave, which was quickly returned to him before Eisen made his way to the meeting room, where he quite swiftly dropped down onto his chair to get some sleep. And then, the next thing he knew, Eisen woke up in the morning with his monsters on hisp, who the old man swiftly asked to climb off him so that he could stand back up. While stretching his body out a little, because it seemed to start being slightly ufortable sleeping in a chair, now that the old man was able to actually feel things like pain in this world. Maybe he should make himself a bed sometime soon as well, so that he wouldn¡¯t have to sleep like this all the time. Either way, without hesitation, Eisen made his way down the stairs and toward where the Carriage was kept, before swiftly stepping into there to get all of the souls that Eisen had given a shape to already. Although first, Eisen maybe had to actually somehow figure out how he was supposed to actually craft using souls in the first ce. He was told that it was about using the souls in the crafting process, so Eisen figured maybe he should just get started with that then and try it out somehow. After handing Sigurd the different boxes with the souls in them so that it could bring them into the Dungeon, the old man himself also made his way into that Dungeon to try some different methods out. For now, Eisen figured something simple might as well be the, well, simplest way to start. And as such, he chose the soul in the form of a quite nd ne with a gem in the front of it. From what Eisen could tell, the ¡¯gem¡¯ was really just a piece of crystal simr to mana-crystal, so that was a great way to start. The rest of the ne was seemingly thick metallic thread, and as far as Eisen could tell, it was something in the direction of Steel Thread mixed with Gold Thread, something that Eisen could do pretty easily. But in the end, Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure how he was supposed to do all this, and tried to take a closer look at the Soul, attempting to fiddle around with it a little to find out if anything changed. And to his surprise, something did change. In the way that he was able to control this soul, that is. Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure if this was something he could do through Soul Engineering or through Ego-Item Creation, or both, but what he was sure of was that he could pull the soul apart into its singr pieces. For example, he could pull the gem out of the socket, pull the thread apart so that it was simply made of each singr strand. At least that¡¯s what it seemed like at first, but after looking more closely, Eisen became aware that it only looked that way. Most of the soul was pulled away, at least the parts that gave it a visual appearance, but there was still the basic there. It was as if Eisen was able to pull these parts away from the soul just momentarily, which was confirmed by all the pieces snapping back into ce the moment that Eisen gave up direct control over it. Like that, Eisen was sure he would be able to get this done somehow. Once more, Eisen pulled everything apart, first ¡¯grabbing¡¯ the gem, or rather mana crystal, that would be in the front, and then used it as a reference to cut a mana-crystal into shape with his transmutation-tools. When the crystal was in the right shape, Eisen simply pushed the two pieces together as if he wasbining two crystals with each other, and then, the small, light crystal swiftly floated back over toward the soul¡¯s ¡¯Base¡¯, now seemingly having be part of it. He could still pull it away like before, but it seemed a bit harder to do so, as if it was truly inseperable from the soul itself now. And so, Eisen swiftly got started with the other parts, quickly creating the metallic base for the gem in the exactly right shape for the ne. Just like that, the old man was able to add another part to the soul in the shape of a ne, at least once he managed to set the crystal properly into it. Only then did the soul connect with the metal piece. Swiftly, Eisen then created metallic thread with the spinnerets that Jyuuk and Xenia made him a while ago, and cut it up into the right length to add to the ne. For now, as a little bit of a test, Eisen just ced the ends of each thread into the right ces, but didn¡¯t twist the thread around itself to turn it into proper string yet. And the moment that Eisen set everything into ce and started trying tobine the actual metallic threads with their soul-version. The moment Eisen started this, it was like the threads immediately twisted themselves into the right positions, and the string was like it was properly woven by hand. With a slight smirk, Eisen then just grabbed the ne and nodded his head in satisfaction, before seeing it as finished. [Ego Ne] [Rank - 0][Quality - Perfect] [Description] A Ne with the innate ability to grow made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. The method of creation allows the ne to grow further, albeit slower. It was created using a Soul as the base. [Effect] None [Growth] 0/25 [Notice: An Ego Item will take part of any experience you earn while using or wearing it] Surprised, Eisen looked at the information screen and the notification and then moved his fingers through his beard confused. "So it¡¯s an actual Crafting skill and not a support skill?" Eisen muttered to himself, pretty annoyed to see that the ne was at ¡¯Rank 0¡¯ instead of Rank 4, like he would have liked it to be, and then crossed his arms with a frown. "Well, that¡¯s weird." The old man sighed, and then rested his cheek on his hand, looking at the ne. "Maybe I should try another method..?" He asked himself, especially staring at thest sentence of the item¡¯s Description. It specifically said that this item was made using the soul as a base, so maybe he could somehow use the item as a base and force the soul into that item. For now, the Imp figured that it couldn¡¯t hurt to try, and as such grabbed the next soul, which was in the shape of a small dagger. And so, Eisen quickly started creating a dagger that had exactly that shape, while pulling the soul of the item over the metal, trying to literally push the part of the soul corresponding to the de into the metal meant or it. In the end, this method worked as well, and the soul was now connected to the Dagger, and the only thing that was left was the handle. Right now it was somewhat like a ghostly hue in the shape of a handleying over it, so it was more than just easy to properly get the shape right, even if it was a bit moreplicated to ¡¯force¡¯ the soul into the wooden handle this time around. It was like the soul was practically rejecting the wood, like two mas would when each of their positive pole was pushed against each other. But with a little bit of extra strength, Eisen was able to properly manage everything, and once the wood broke through the soul¡¯s first ¡¯Layer¡¯, he was able to move it around like normal. And a little whileter, Eisen had finished his second item using the Ego-Item Creation skill. [Ego Dagger] [Rank - 4][Quality - Perfect] [Description] A Small metal dagger created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It¡¯s simple in its outer apperance, but it had a soul imnted in it, allowing it to grow. Due to the method of creation, it can grow quickly, but has a low limit to its growth. It was created using the Dagger as a base. [Effect] +25 Agi; +15 STR; +15 END [Requirements] 100 AGI; 80 STR; 80 END; 50 INT; 50 WIS [Growth] 0/10 "Oh!" Eisen eximed in pleasant surprise, happy to see that this time around, it was actually a proper Rank 4 Item. Weirdly enough, it seemed like the Effects were rather low, but maybe that was this way because it was suppsoed to be able to grow stronger than this dagger could be normallyter on. "Alright... Then that means there are different benefits to each type... But in general, like this I¡¯m kind of limited to the shape of the soul. What if I use a nk soul, or one with the shape of a monster already?" Eisen muttered to himself, and quickly grabbed some soul stones with either of these qualities, starting to make three daggers that looked exactly like the one Eisen just made, one using a nk soul, one using a monster-soul, and one without any soul at all, just as a reference. Just like that, Eisen had three Daggers that lookedpletely the same, but were vastly different to each other. It seemed like using the nk Soul, the growth was ¡¯Average¡¯. Meaning regr speed and regr limit, which was set at 15. Growth-wise, the same was the case with the Monster-Soul, but its Effect-Stats were slightly different, more focused around strength and endurance than agility, an effect that seemed to have been caused by the type of monster that the soul came from. And with the regr Dagger, Eisen was just able to confirm that the regr base-stats would be a little higher while requiring neither intelligence nor wisdom. Like that, the old man was able to find out a lot of things about which method was better for which. The Soul-Based method was perfect if you had a soul in the truly perfect shape for your needs, something that Eisen could influence by giving them the shape himself, but this didn¡¯t give any wiggle-room at all. The finished item would have to be in the shape of the soul, but in return, it would be able to grow a lot stronger than other Ego items. With the Item-Based method, Eisen had a little bit more wiggle-room, but if he made the item and the soul¡¯s shape fit together, then the growth speed would be increased. nk souls gave items something like a ¡¯Generic¡¯ Growth that could be added to any item, and the Monster-Souls would give extra effects depending on which monster they came from. And so, aftering to these conclusions, Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but just smirk. Because this was all really amazing in his opinion. Chapter 420 - Like a Charm After a few more pretty simple attempts at creating different types of Ego-Items, Eisen managed to already Rank this new Skill up to 1, which he was pretty excited about. It seemed like he would only be able to make Ego-Items that could actually properly grow in a simr form as the Guardians, who were technically Ego-Golems, once he was around Rank 3 or maybe even 4, although he hoped the former to be the case. For now, Eisen did a few different things so that he could properly test out the rules of Ego-Item growth, and in the end not only turned all of the different Souls that he had given a shape to into Ego-Items, but also created a few different items made with nk Souls. And the items that he made were made multiple different times, each time exactly the same. For example, Eisen made some rings, some nes, as well as things like more daggers or small shields. And the reason for this was that Eisen wanted to hand them out to Stahl and Alnico¡¯s group, as well as the other Originals to see if there was any difference in the growth. When the skill ranked up to 1, it gained the ¡¯Ability¡¯ to let the physical shape of the item slightly change the more it ¡¯Grew¡¯, although it didn¡¯t seem to be anything at the level of evolution, but rather a small optical change befitting the way that the item grew. It probably wasn¡¯t anything major, but it seemed like the kind of thing where it would change its size and shape just so slightly to fit the user¡¯s body, movement, andbat type better. Eisen could only really look at the first of those three things properly for most people, except when it came to those that he was traveling with. It wasn¡¯t like Eisen would just waste precious souls on any person that came along and ordered an item form him, but at some point, once his Ego-Item Creation skill was a bit higher, Eisen would most likely be able to make it so that items actively change their shape depending on the person currently using it, simr to how clothes changed their size. But that would probably take a little while, and first Eisen had to look at the extent of the physical change as well. Of course, for that purpose, Eisen also made items like that for himself, Bree, and Sky, just so that he could already get a rough idea for these things through them. They weren¡¯t necessarily abat-focused party, but considering the low, although Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if it really was low or not, amount of growth possible, he was sure that they would be able to get it to the peak pretty quickly. Either way, for now, Eisen was really jus trying to ¡¯grind¡¯ as much proficiency as he possibly could. Although, he did already try to figure out if he was somehow able to work with a little bit of a trick... For one, that would be by using clusters tobine different items. The main reason why Eisen wanted to do that was to try and get some souls ready that had the shape of the different tools that the old man needed for the Multitool, just to thenbine the soul together like an ¡¯ordered cluster¡¯, so that he would be able to create the multitool just like Eisen wanted to, to the best of his ability. Of course, he would have to cheat a little and make the shapes of the different souls a bit awkward, but Eisen figured it should work out somehow. But for now, Eisen should just continue to try and create more ego-items to level his skill up. However, at some point, the souls that Eisen had already given a form to ran out, so he had to make new ones, and right now he was storing the souls in clusters of five, so he pulled one soul out from the one cluster that had only three souls to begin with, and then got started. In the end, the vibe that Eisen got for this form was that of a small Kitchen Knife. And Eisen wasn¡¯t sure why, but the mental image that he instinctively got for this was a Knife, made to looks slightly like a small Katana in its shape, with a handle that had grooves to ce your fingers onto, as if you squeezed some y with one hand. And the handle itself was made out of metal as well. That wasn¡¯t so weird in itself, it just seemed off for this kind of item. At first, Eisen thought that maybe he got it wrong, but not at all! The soul seemed to really like the soul it was given right now. So, Eisen just shrugged and continued, taking the next soul of the now two-piece Cluster to give a shape to it as well. The vibe that he got from this one was that of a weapon, a Katana, although the shape itself wasrger, and the shape seemed simr to that of a kitchen knife. And the handle should have the same grooves as the knife that Eisen formed just now. It was basically the same thing as that Knife, justrger and more specified to be a weapon instead of a tool, at least that¡¯s the Vibe that Eisen got. Once more, the old man thought that something was wrong, but when he made this item and ¡¯offered¡¯ it to the soul, and it epted it without any issue. Confused at what was going on, Eisen made thest of the three souls, and this one here turned out to be something like Brass Knuckles, with small des running out the two sides, as well as sharp edges at the front. Eisen wasn¡¯t exactly sure why, but he was pretty sure that the de parts were supposed to be simr to that to a Katana or Kitchen de. That¡¯s the vibe he got, at least. It was kind of like that weird knowledge you had while dreaming. You could see a pumpkin with a wig, and you would instantly know that it¡¯s your grandmother and wouldn¡¯t even find the fact that she wore a wig weird, even if you noticed it. That¡¯s the level of instinctive knowledge. It was just there in his head, really. So even if Eisen wanted to think that something had to be going on, the third soul epted the item Eisen made in the image he had in his mind as well, with a pretty high eptance, even. And then, Eisen came to a single conclusion. Because the souls were clustered together, they ended up influencing each other somehow and partially mixed together. It was pretty weird, but it opened up a few possibilities as well. He didn¡¯t necessarily have to make the shape for the soul right away, he could just take his time. So if he looked at some souls to find a good image and clustered it with ones that seemedpatible, he might be able to more easily control exactly what kind of high-growth ego-items he could create. Eisen was hoping that he would be able to give shape to whole clusters at once, but in the end, that was a rather lost hope. With a slight sigh, Eisen ced the third soul he just made to the side to the other two, before grabbing the third cluster with a slight frown. "Now let¡¯s hope that these arepatible enough with each other..." Eisen muttered to himself quietly, and then started to work on the forms for these souls. And sadly, three of the five souls were practically randomized items that didn¡¯t seem like they would have any use at all. For example, a chain-sword with a crystal-de and a golden handle that could create mes around itself, or a hot ball of golden chains with sharp edges, with the core being a crystal. They were all rather useless, but in the end, Eisen figured that two of them seemed good enough. One was a golden chain-ne, a small crystal decoration in the front in the shape of a sword, which had the de reced with mes. And the other was basically just that crystal decoration in the front, except that its handle was made of gold and had more golden chains wrapped around it. The second one wasn¡¯t muchrger than the first one¡¯s decorative piece either, so Eisen figured that maybe these two could somehow bebined with each other in one way or another. Or rather, that these two could be perfectlybined, as long as he was able to yer¡¯ the ego-item creation somehow. And so, Eisen swiftly got to work with this, and swiftly created the small decorative piece on its own as an Ego-Item. It seemed to act like something like a charm that would count as active as long as it was held, so the old man figured it should be simple enough to level up. And then, Eisen tried tobine it with the ne-shaped soul, and although it seemed to try and grip onto the charm, it ended up failing to do so multiple times, although it seemed like it did so just barely. Deep in thought, Eisen started to move his fingers through his beard, humming to himself for a few moments, "Maybe there¡¯s some condition for it?" The old man asked himself before remembering how he had to bring the soul to the maximum Soul Strength a rank 0 soul could have in order for him to be able to use it for the Core Guardians. In the end, Eisen might need to bring the growth of this small charm to the max, and then he could try again. It might not work even then, but that was the best idea Eisen had at the moment, so maybe he should just try and hunt some underwater monsters for experience while on his way to the maind. There wasn¡¯t much else to do than that and craft, after all, and this was an important part of his research for finding out as much about Ego-Items as he could. "Hmm..." Eisen muttered to himself and quickly stood up, making his way to the Dungeon Entrance so that he could try this out, if in any way possible. Or rather, as long as he made some wooden, disposable arrows for Ranger that were made to specially push through water more easily, it shouldn¡¯t be too hard to get some experience that way. If he remembered the position they were supposed to be at right around now correctly, then the monsters in the area should be around Rank 3 as well, so they will probably not really stand a chance against Ranger. For now, however, Eisen just had to take a look outside to see if there were any monsters even around, and held the charm in his hand as he was doing so. While walking to the edge of the ship, he grabbed Ranger¡¯s storage-box and swiftly ¡¯summoned¡¯ him like that, before asking Sigurd to grab some wood so that the old man could quickly carve some arrows like that. Or rather, so that he could carve harpoons like that, because that really was what he was making. They were supposed to fit in Ranger¡¯srge-bow setting, so that they would have the most power possible, and in the end, the only enchantment Eisen ced on it was a ¡¯Pierce¡¯ enchantment specialized for water and flesh, and one after another, handed the harpoons to Ranger so that he could shoot them into the water at the nearby monsters. Eisen didn¡¯t get enough experience to level up through any of this, but he was d to see that the Charm was growing like... a charm. It made sense, though, considering that it was technically only a Rank 1 item. The stat-bonus effects weren¡¯t that great either, but at the very least, Eisen managed to get it through the fifteen growth-levels pretty swiftly, and was even able to watch the physical change of the charm through this a little. Nothing much changed, just that the mes seemed a bit more vivid. Either way, now, Eisen could try to add this to the other soul again. Chapter 421 - Aged Cluster With the charm in hand, and Ranger back inside of the storage box, Eisen made his way back into the Dungeon to try this next step out. Hoping that this would properly work, the old man carefully grabbed the soul in the shape of a ne and ¡¯disconnected¡¯ the decorative part in the front, before trying tobine it with the charm in his hand. At first, it seemed like it wouldn¡¯t work again, but after a few moments of continuosly trying as hard as he could, the soul and the charm finallybined with each other, and the charm was pulled onto the rest of the soul. With a smirk on his face, Eisen quickly hurried up and grabbed some of the goldyered thin ¡¯bars¡¯, or rather sticks, that he then used to bend into the shape of the chain-links, before putting them together. Once the old man had a chain of the right length necessary, he quickly connected the chain to the loose ends of the chain wrapped around the charm using transmutation, before connecting the chain to the soul as well. And so, the old man was now holding a new item. [Ego Charm-Ne] [Rank - 1][Quality - Perfect] [Description] A Ne with the innate ability to grow made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. An Ego-Charm that fully grew to the highest of its ability was used to create this, strengthening its ability to grow. The Soul has been used as the base. [Effect] +10 INT; +10 WIS [Requirements] 90 INT; 90 WIS [Growth] 0/50 Surprised, Eisen looked at the information disyed in front of him, smirking lightly as he was doing so. "Interesting..." The old man muttered to himself, d to see that there was such an effect. The effects on this were lower than the charm¡¯s when it fully grew, but it seemed like this was higher than it normally would be for a rank 1 ne, especially considering that it was an Ego-Item, which usually seemed to have lower stats than normal to start out with. But either way, the growth potential on this ne was far higher than any other Ego-Item that Eisen made so far. For now, Eisen figured he should just keep it around to see if the growth was any different to before, so the old man wrapped it around his hand, considering that he already had the coin around his neck. Although, now that he thought about it, it was pretty weird that this was an item that was justpletely useless, while also being utterly indestructible. And Eisen did actually try before, but no matter what he did, the coin never bent or reacted to heat, despite obviously being made of metal. And on top of that, it was a metal that he didn¡¯t recognize in the slightest. Eisen figured he should try and look into that at ater point in time, and for now, he just wanted to try something else out, for which he took all of the soul clusters apart again and went to take a look at each and every one of their soul-realms, without actually giving a shape to any of them. The reason why he didn¡¯t was pretty simple as well, because Eisen wanted to cluster souls together that were as simr to each other, or that had the greatest synergy with each other, as possible. So there were a few souls in the form of essories, swords, tools, and so on, that Eisen put together into a cluster. It seemed like that alone wasn¡¯t enough to make them mix together closely like that, so Eisen made his way back out of the Dungeon to call over a certain man that might be able to help with this. --- "You want me to do what?" Jyuuk asked surprised, currently training with his beasts, and Eisen just repeated what he said again. "I want you to use your element on these Soul Clusters. I found that the souls somewhat mix together, and I think that effect might be stronger if a lot of time passes for these." He exined, and Jyuuk nodded his head in response. "Yeah, I get what you mean, but I haven¡¯t really tried using my element on souls yet..." The Beastperson pointed out, and with a smile, the old man nodded as well. "Maybe you haven¡¯t tried yet, but it should work. Your element is called ¡¯Cycle of Life and Death¡¯, not just ¡¯Cycle of Life¡¯, right?" "Fair enough... Let me just try, then." Jyuuk responded and then swiftly ced everything in his hands down onto the ground next to him, before while Eisen held the soul-cluster of five different souls over toward him. With his hands over the cluster, Eisen wasn¡¯t really able to see much of what was going on with them at the moment, but he was pretty sure that everything was working. Otherwise, Jyuuk would have probably just stopped after a few seconds. But soon enough, Jyuuk stopped and uncovered the cluster, and Eisen looked at it surprised. Before, the souls were somwhatparable to filled waterballoons ced into a bowl together. They were pressing against each other tightly, but they were still their own seperate entity. However, now, it was more like the souls somewhat started pulling each other in, as if merging on the edges, kind of like slightly molten gummy-candy that was pressed together. "Huh..." Eisen muttered to himself surprised, and then took the cluster back from Jyuuk, trying to pull the different souls apart from each other. It was a bit harder to do so than normal, but soon enough, Eisen was holding the first soul in his hand, or rather, it was floating on top of his hand, and then Eisen swiftly entered that soul¡¯s soul-realm to take a look at how much it changed. These souls were all supposed to be for different types of swords, and from what Eisen remembered, this one here should have been like a cuss beforehand. Now, it grew longer and thicker, and had less of a curvature, even if it was still noticable. The handle didn¡¯t have the regr hand-guard anymore, but now rather had a handle that you had to slip your fingers into directly, as if the handle itself was gripping onto the wielder, and it was protecting the hand that way. With a smile on his face, d to see such a change, Eisen nodded his head and then looked at the second soul. And to his surprise, it was nearly the same as the ¡¯cuss¡¯, just a bitrger and less curved. For the most part, you would at the very least recognize these two as a ¡¯Set¡¯ of swords, and it didn¡¯t seem like it would be tough to bine¡¯ or yer¡¯ them like he did with the ne. And after checking the three other souls, Eisen confirmed that the others were very, very simr to these two souls as well, with just a few minor differences inbetween each weapon that Eisen may have to work on a little. Either way, for now, it seemed like Eisen would be able to create a quite interesting growing sword. He would just make one of them and send Brody out to the area around the merchant town with it for a while to have him level it up, and then he would try to integrate it with the next soul, then send brody out again, and repeat the whole thing until heyered everything five times in total. Although, this meant that Eisen had to make the item for the first weapon twice, something that he really just thought about only now. With a smirk on his face, Eisen then took out four more soul-clusters and asked Jyuuk to ¡¯age¡¯ them with his element, and the final versions seemed pretty interesting. For the cluster with tools, Eisen ended up with something in the rough shape of a hammer, meaning that the handle and the tool-head ran through each other like a ¡¯T¡¯, just that one side of the head was a chisel, and the other something like a twisted pick. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if this was useable at all, but he would try it out, at least. The cluster with essories had turned into something like an essory-glove, with five rings for each finger, which were connected in a row through thin chains. Each individual ring was then connected to a metal wristband, at least that was the ¡¯final stage¡¯ that Eisen would end up with. The first few ones were slightly different sometimes. As for the cluster with charms, which were a seemingly pretty ¡¯popr¡¯ shape for souls, they all were pretty simr in the first ce, but now they nearly all turned into something like a pointed snail-shell made of metal, and decorated with different patterns and gems. Then atst, there was a cluster with the rarest soul-shapes that Eisen found so far, the cluster with Masks. To Eisen¡¯s surprise, while they were all vastly different from each other beforehand, for example one being a Dragon-Mask, another one was a Goblin-Mask, and there was even a Tengu-Mask in the mix, they all ended up perfectly the same to each other. Just a smooth, white oval mask with openings for eyes, and nothing else. At the very least, these wouldn¡¯t need to be physically changed to yer¡¯ them, the only thing that needed to be done was to properly level this mask up, and then Eisen might be able to see what this mask was about. Luckily, he didn¡¯t have to try and figure out a proper order for these, but could just move on with whichever of these mask-shaped souls he wanted to. At least after he gave them a proper shape, which was the first thing that Eisen did now, spending a few hours on making the in total 30 different items, 25 to give the souls from the five clusters their form, and then five to make the first Ego-Item of each cluster. Apparently, it seemed like Ego-Items couldn¡¯t only level up throughbat, but just by doing different things they had ¡¯synergy¡¯ with. For example, Eisen would be able to increase the growth level of the weird tool through working with it, the essory-glove maybe just by wearing it and doing things with that hand, the mask had to be worn and used as a disguise, and so on. So, Eisen figured he should do these things, and then swiftly put the essory-glove onto his hand, ced the charm into his front pocket, and put the tool into a free spot on his Apron, before bringing the Sword to Brody and the mask to Evalia. Evalia usually wore a mask when she was outside, so maybe she could rece it with this one for a little while to avoid being seen. It should help a little even if it wasn¡¯t enchanted, after all. Either way, for now, Eisen figured he should just try and do his best and work with each of these items as much as he could. He hoped that the charm would gain some growth-levels just through being carried around while Eisen was working, so he just figured he should try that out. Or first, Eisen had to try out what he could actually do with the tool in his hand. The first ¡¯stage¡¯ tool had something like a straight needle on one end and a t surface on the other, so Eisen figured he could try and use this for crafting. Or at the very least to help out in the construction of the few different things that were still being built in the Dungeon, so that¡¯s what he did. The essory-glove was a bit annoying, but that was just because Eisen wasn¡¯t used to wearing something on his hands while working. He was pretty sure that he would just end up getting used to it fairly soon. And if that wasn¡¯t the case, Eisen could just ce it to the side and work on leveling it upter. Chapter 422 - Ego Goblin Over the next few hours, Eisen simply did his best to properly level these Ego-Items up. It was rtively easy for the Tool, once he finally found a proper use for it, but the other items, meaning the charm and the essory-Glove, didn¡¯t really gain all that much experience at all. Eisen figured that especially these things had to be passively leveled up throughbat, because there usually wasn¡¯t a direct use for them, at least not as far as he could tell. He wasn¡¯t even aware that charms like these extisted before he made these Ego-Items and knew what ¡¯type¡¯ of item they were. But for the most part, Eisen figured that he could just wait for another little while and just keep them with him, because it wasn¡¯t like they didn¡¯t grow at all. The Charm was rather annoying because it didn¡¯t seem to grow unless directly held, but since the tool could be held in one hand, it was mostly fine. Either way, for now, the only item that Eisen could ¡¯Upgrade¡¯ was the tool, and it was surprisingly tough to do so, simply because there was more resistance in the metal than usual, as if it simply didn¡¯t want to change its shape. He figured that he wouldn¡¯t be able to actuallly break this tool down into its raw parts and retain something like an ego-item effect, but it seemed like this level of change was fine, meaning that Eisen didn¡¯t need to worry about enchanting these at some point, or re-adjusting them for different purposes or situations. Once Eisen ced this tool into the next soul and had thembine again, the tool had pretty high growth capabilities, meaning that this time around it would probably take a little while to get it done again. The necessary ¡¯Experience¡¯ for the next growth-level seemed to grow nearly exponentially for these, and because this tool now had roughly 15 more growth-levels avable, that would mean some extra time that was needed for sure. Either way, for now, the hammer that Eisen was holding was roughly like an actual hammer that he could use for creating metal-based objects, so he spent another little while just preparing more ego-items while using the item as the base, now experimenting with different nk- and Monster-Souls. For example, he wanted to see if there was any difference making multiple of the same item, using a soul with each simr soul-strength, just with different ¡¯stat¡¯ focus on each soul. It would take a while to actually see a difference, but again, this just meant that Eisen had something to do while travelling around. He still had to reach level 300 for the ¡¯Quest¡¯ that the puzzle-box had given him in the form of the small notes. Considering the amount of time the leveling itself would take, Eisen was sure that he had more than enough time to work on that. But the most important thing was to, for now, rank his skill up some more so that he could make Ego-Items with Ranks and Levels, which was the point at which they also gained something simr to ¡¯thought¡¯, at least that¡¯s what Eisen was hoping. From the information that he had about Ego-Items so far, that seemed to roughly be the case, however. Then, he would do a few things to start things off. For one, he would try and ce the souls of the Great Golems into his ¡¯Great Golem Reincarnations¡¯ to hopefully ¡¯revive¡¯ them somehow. And then, he would also start working on his Yin Weapon and Yang Multi-Tool, so that they could properly grow as well. The only thing Eisen wasn¡¯t sure about was if there was some sort of Growth Limit even if he ended up being able to give them Ranks, which was something he really, really hoped not to be the case. Either way, he would just have to wait and see. And that, Eisen would be doing tomorrow morning, because for now, he wanted to get some sleep. --- "Yo." Brody said, squatting on the table in front of Eisen while holding the Ego-Sword that Eisen gave him yesterday, "Gimme another one. This one¡¯s at its limit." The Demon-Orc exined, and the old man looked at him with a slightly surprised expression. "I just woke up, wait a moment." Eisen replied with augh and then stood up, before taking a proper look at the sword that Brody was holding. "Hmm... Yeah, it did already reach the Growth-Limit... Could I see the other Ego-Items I gave you for a moment?" The old man asked, setting the monster-kids down onto the ground properly to let them go off and y for a while, and Brody quickly grabbed the different items, which Eisen also quickly inspected. "Hmm, these aren¡¯t at that high a growth-level yet... But from what I can tell, it really focuses on your stat-exposition, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself quietly, and then looked over at Fafnir with a smirk on his face. "Could you open the Dungeon?" The old man asked, before the small Dragon did so and Brody and Eisen quickly stepped through the gate. And on their way over toward the ce where Eisen was usually crafting, Eisen turned over toward Brody. "Now, it seems like you liked this sword?" He asked him, before Brody immediately nodded. "You can say that again! It¡¯s unconventional in its shape, but it¡¯s light, fits perfectly into my hand, and it¡¯s nice to see something literally grow better like that. It¡¯s a shame that it¡¯s at its limit, but otherwise I¡¯d say it¡¯s pretty neat." Brody pointed out, and Eisen just chuckled at him before he grabbed the crystal-box with the soul for the next yer¡¯ in it, while pointing over toward a small spot right next to them. "I¡¯ll get this one done in a moment, you can take a look at the others if you find anything interesting. Those are actually Rank 4 weapons instead of Rank 1 ones, so they might be suited to actually be used. I made some of them to fit the image I had of the Monsters whose souls I used, so don¡¯t be surprised." Eisen exined, and Brody looked at him with a smirk. "I¡¯m gonna take a look, but what exactly do ya mean with ¡¯get this one done¡¯?" He asked, and Eisen pointed at the box in front of him. "This is the whole reason I gave you this sword, I¡¯m trying to yer¡¯ different Ego-Items on top of each other. It resets the growth, but the starting stats and the growth-potential are higher." The old man exined as he slowly started to grind down some parts of the sword, bend some others, and add some smaller parts all over it, before Brody looked back at him surprised. "Oh damn, really? Can you do that with these as well?" He asked, but Eisen just looked at him with a shrug. "I didn¡¯t get to try yet, but I¡¯m sure I could. There¡¯s probably a limit and rules to it, but I¡¯m going to try my best to figure everything out." The old man pointed out, and then slowly started to push the sword in his hand into the soul in front of him, swiftly creating the nextyer for this Ego-Item. And so, with a broad smile on his face, the old man handed it back over toward Brody, who seemed to have picked out a few different items as well. "Let me know when you brought something to its growth-limit again, and I¡¯m going to try to reset it." Eisen exined, and the Demon-Orc nodded his head immediately, happily taking these different weapons with him. "Thanks, old man! These are some really neat weapons!" He eximed, and Eisen just slightly chuckled in response, looking back at his status. "Just a few more levels till Rank 2, huh..?" Eisen muttered to himself, before he grabbed another soul that was right next to him. Now, he wanted to try something else out, just to see how well it would work. It would also allow him to use the Ego-Tool on a ¡¯bigger¡¯ project, but that wasn¡¯t the main reason for trying this out. First things first, Eisen created a golem made of metal, using the body of one of the Goblins in this Dungeon as a basis. They looked a bit different than Goblins that existed in the ¡¯wild¡¯, like the one this soul came from, but at the very least he could reference them to fill in the gaps that the soul was showing. And then, after a very, very simple and rough Golem body in the shape of a Goblin was created, iparable to theplexity of the five Great Golem Reincarnations, Eisen created a Golem Core, mixing the crystal with a soul-stone crystal and a mind-crystal, because the Ego-Items didn¡¯t have their own ¡¯thought¡¯ just yet, and then enchanted it in the different ways necessary, before cing the Goblin-Soul into the center of the Golem Core. Then, Eisen ced that Golem Core into the Center of the Goblin-Golem¡¯s Body and activated it. Immediately, like normal, the Golem Core reacted to the Body, just that something else interesting happened. Certain parts of the metal bent in weird, or rather unusual ways. Usually the Golem¡¯s body wouldn¡¯t do that, but in this case, it was as if it was changing the body to get used to the soul¡¯s shape better. Especially the face, which Eisen didn¡¯t really spend all that much time on, became far more detailed, and before the old man knew it, the Goblin stood there slightly hunched over and looked at Eisen before jumping backward as if scared of him. "Come back." Eisen said in amanding tone, and while the Goblin did as asked pretty quickly, it seemed like it just really, really didn¡¯t want to do that at all. "Huh..." The old man muttered to himself quietly, before sitting down in front of the Goblin-Golem while moving his fingers through his beard, trying to figure out how much Souls really influenced the Ego-Item itself. Right now, it seemed like the Ego-Golem was able to ¡¯think¡¯ like normal because of the mind crystal, but otherwise, it probably wouldn¡¯t be able to do that. For the most part, Eisen figured he should maybe try and see how much like a Goblin this Golem really was, after all, this was the most insight into an Ego-Item that the old man had gotten so far. And so, for the next little while, Eisen spent more time trying to figure out this Golem¡¯s behavior than doing anything else, watching it interact with the monsters of this floor while he himself was still working on some different items. For the most part, it really did seem like this Golem was just a normal, boring Goblin, just that it had a metal body. Of course there were differences, for example it was far less angry and aggressive, but it seemed to be pretty curious about a lot of things and spent a fair amount of time following the Dungeon-Goblins around as well while they were preparing for their work that would start sometime in the next few days. Throughout the whole next day, this Ego-Goblin was running around wildly, although when it was time for Eisen to go to sleep again after spending the whole day making more ego-items and finally bringing his new skill to Rank 2, the old man figured it was the best choice to take the Ego-Goblin apart again, and do it another little ¡¯favor¡¯. The old man was aware that even souls with the shape of the monster they inhabited actually wanted to have another shape, and while Eisen didn¡¯t give a form to souls that already had a form a lot so far, he knew that he could still do it, even if it was slightly annoying to do so. And so, after helping him out in his research, Eisen took the Ego-Golem Core out of the metallic body and opened it up, taking the soul out of it again, before interacting with the interface to start the ¡¯Form-Giving¡¯. Chapter 423 - Five Demons, One Bottle "Ooh! There it is!" Bree eximed from the Crow¡¯s Nest of the ship, pointing into the distance beyond the Turtle¡¯s head. It¡¯s been a bit more than three days since they departed from the central ind, and the group was getting close to the Merchant¡¯s Town that they set as their destination. And so, excited about that, Bree chose to spend the time she was in the Crow¡¯s Nest anyway to act as a lookout for the town. And it seemed like while the group managed to spot the town, the town spotted them as well. After all, it was hard to miss a giant turtle approaching town, and now that they were this close to town, the water was getting more shallow as well. As that was the case, the Turtle wouldn¡¯t necessarily be able to go all the way to the town anyway, and swiftly dove under while it still could while ¡¯disconnecting¡¯ the ship from its shell. And after poking its head over the edge of the ship one more time to say goodbye, the Ocean Turtle made its way into the distance back toward the inds. It seemed like the mass of people that had gathered around the harbor was pretty d about that as well, although they were also still impressed by the Giant ship that was approaching them. Now that they could actually do something again, the Sailor Skeletons controlled the ship nearly perfectly to send it off into a free spot that seemed to have been assigned to them by the Workers at the Harbor, and the moment that they were properly attached to everything there so that they couldn¡¯t float away, a Worker walked up to the ship and swiftly asked for the fee, although it was constantly eyeing the giant bottle in the center of the ship. "Erm, if that¡¯s supposed ta go ¡¯ere, I doubt that it¡¯s gonna be able to fit through the streets that eas¡¯ly. Want me to call ya a specialized Transport?" The Dwarven man asked, but Eisen just simply shook his head with a smile on his face. "No thank you, we¡¯re fine. But you could help me anyway. I¡¯m sure you noticed that there¡¯s been some construction work in a run-down area of the Merchant District, right?" The old man inquired next, while the other people on the ship were slowly starting to get off to stretch a bit and just to feel steady ground underneath their feet, and the Worker nodded his head. "Aye, f¡¯course ah did. Hard not ta notice, it¡¯s the talk of town." The Dwarf said with a broad smile, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but smirk in response to that. "I see... Could you maybe point me toward where that area is? I haven¡¯t been here in town yet." The old man admitted, and the Dwarf once more nodded and pointed his muscr, short arm along the harbor. "Just head there, and when ya see the Tavern with the bright green door, ya go left. Go straight ahead from there, and then ye¡¯ll be in the Merchant District. Then when ye¡¯re in the central za, ya should be able to find it pretty eas¡¯ly if ya follow the road to the east. But ask anyone around there for help if ya need ta." The Dwarf pointed out, before Eisen just smiled at him with a nod. "Thanks for the help, then." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and then looked over at the other Originals standing near him. "I¡¯ll be off to see Komer now. If you need any help, or need me to upgrade your items, just let me know." Eisen told them, and the others swiftly nodded their heads and went off with their own groups, so Eisen was left with Sky, Bree, Kirisho, his three monsters, Fafnir and Sigurd. "Kirisho, can you make sure that the kids are going to be fine? Especially make sure that nobody tries anything with Sal and Fafnir, if you can." The old man asked the Mist-Spirit, who just nodded her head in response and quickly took Caria¡¯s and Sal¡¯s hands, while Melissa sat on her younger brother¡¯s back. There wasn¡¯t much time to get Sal experience, so right now he was still very monster-like, so Eisen wanted to make sure nobody would try anything. And Caria had the tendency to run off on her own, so it made sense to hold her hand anyway. Since Fafnir was toozy to do anything but sleep, as long as you kept an eye on him, he wouldn¡¯t be hard to take care of. Well, Eisen was sure that it was going to be fine, since he doubted that they would be the most attention-grabbing, considering what Eisen was about to do. With a grin on his face, Eisen slowly increased his size to the maximum that he could, already making the Dwarven Harbor-worker stare at him confused, but that confusion was only increased when the old man transformed into a Demon. For this, Eisen chose the Yang-Form, because it would help calm anyone down that might be scared by Eisen, while also help preventing others to get scared in the first ce. Then, Eisen waved his hand to the side and summoned his Doubles, all in full-demonic transformation and at their maximum size as well, before he took out his staff, which looked more like a wand at his current size, and oveyed his own body and the bodies of the four doubles with an extra amount of his element attuned toward earth, because that would simply give them more physical strength. The Demonic Transformation wasn¡¯t affected much by it, just that Eisen¡¯s rock skin maybe seemed a little harder. Either way, for now, Eisen pressed his back against the front of the bottle, spreading his wings out across the surface as much as possible, while making his Doubles do the same to four other parts along the base of the bottle, for the most amount of stability possible. And then, Eisen quickly grabbed onto the base of the ss bottle and started lifting it up, before using his element to connect his hands with those of all his doubles so that he couldn¡¯t identally slip, before slowly heading toward the edge of the ship to get this bottle off. After finallypletely stepping onto the stone harbor, Eisen turned his eyes toward the Dwarven Harbor-Worker and smirked. "Thanks for the Help, again." The old man said, and then started to carry the giant bottle of Nidhogg-Wine through the town along the path that Eisen was told. Most people that saw this of course immediately stepped to the side, some of them seemingly being yers that were either streaming or filming this whole thing, which was part of the reason why Eisen did all of this in such an immensely noticeable manner. He could have just ordered a specialized transporter like the Harbor Worker suggested, and it would have also attracted attention, but not nearly as much attention as this. And what Eisen wanted to get was all of that attention, as an advertisement for two things. One, for the Dungeon, and two, for Komer¡¯s shops. On top of that, this would most likely help Eisen work toward ¡¯strongly influencing other people¡¯ as was a condition for his Demon Title to bepleted. Later on, Eisen would ¡¯open up¡¯ the Dungeon in the form that he was in right now, and of course he would also passively lead people toward Komer¡¯s shop right now by carrying the bottle in this form. Eisen hoped that there was actually a ce that this bottle could be stored, otherwise he would have to somehow have this guarded all the time, which was rather annoying to think about. Either way, that¡¯s something that Eisen would have to think aboutter on, but for now, he had to focus on bringing this bottle there in the first ce. After a little while, it seemed like they were at the za that the Dwarf from before was speaking about, and Eisen took a look around the area to find the east road. Through the mass amount of people on the za itself, there was of course even more attention gathered. And so, when Eisen finally reached the run-down area that Komer described to him before, the old man could already see the right ce in the distance, although something else seemed to be going on there at the moment. There was arge amount of Guards in front of the only area that seemed to be under construction here, as if closing a certain part of it off. And of course, seeing Eisen¡¯s figure in the distance, a lot of them made their way over toward Eisen and held their weapons toward him and Eisen¡¯s Doubles. "N-No step closer!" One of the Guards eximed, and Eisen just looked down at him and smiled. "Don¡¯t worry, I only have a Delivery for Starlight." Eisen exined, and the Guard that spoke to Eisen looked at the others confused. "You¡¯re not... a Monster?" The Guard asked, and Eisen chuckled and shook his head. "No no, I¡¯m not. Well, technically, I¡¯m a Half-Monster, but my Status is that of a Person, yes. This is just a small transformation to make me strong enough to carry these, and those here are Mana Doubles." Eisen exined, and it seemed like due to Eisen¡¯s Yang-Transformation, they were more inclined to ept it, especially because Eisen exined everything so calmly. "Then could we ask you to wait here? There is a Guest of High Status Currently visiting Starlight." The Guard exined calmly, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile on his face, slowly setting the bottle down onto the side of the street where the Guards asked him to, and Eisen swiftly made his Doubles Disappear, before leaning against the bottle with his Transformation Deactivated. At this point in time, Eisen didn¡¯t even want to try hiding his face, simply because there was little reason to. Either way, the majority of people that had gathered behind the bottle were now trying to take a look at Eisen himself, and the old man took that chance to simply advertise the ¡¯Mall¡¯ that Komer was building. Just like this, not only did a lot more people find out about the existence of Starlight, but they also now knew the exact location! And that was really perfect in the old man¡¯s opinion. After around an hour, however, most people already left, and the only ones that were still there, curiously lookingat everything were some yers that thought maybe this was an ¡¯Event¡¯ of some sort. He did feel some goosebumps every once in a while, meaning that people appraised him, and he figured that those people were the yers. That way, they started figuring out that Eisen was a yer as well. Some were disappointed that they couldn¡¯t get a quest and were left, and the ones that were even more curious now stayed around for another little while longer, and that chance was quickly grasped by Fafnir and Sigurd, who figured they should try and advertise the Dungeon already a little. Of course the yers were unsure, but considering that the one talking to them was a young girl with a race that they didn¡¯t recognize while standing right next to a small Dragon, they thought maybe it was true, and just took the flyers that Sigurd was giving out with them before also finally leaving now that they did get something out of staying this long. And just as a little extra, these Flyers were marked to give them ¡¯priority entry¡¯, in case it got too busy around the Dungeon entrance. And so, for now, Eisen and the others were left alone, and just when he was thinking about messaging Komer again, a few people stepped out of the door that seemed to be the main-entrance of the ¡¯mall¡¯. For one, it was Komer, as well as two people escorted by some Guards, even if one of them had double the Guards with him than the other. The Guards were at different ¡¯Tiers¡¯ as well, with some of them being obviously far stronger and better-equipped. For now, Eisen just raised his arm in a wave to get Komer¡¯s attention, before the young merchant seemed to turn back toward the other two ¡¯important¡¯ people, before one of the weaker guards seemed to run up to the Guards in front of Eisen, and the old man overheard what he said. "Let theme in." The Guard said, pointing at the four-meter tall man leaning against the bottle. Chapter 424 - Prince With a bit of surprise on their faces, the Guards acting as a protecting wall in front of the Starlight area stepped to the side to let Eisen and the others through, before the old man turned to one of the Guards with a smile. "Could you make sure nobody does anything to this bottle?" Eisen asked as he pointed at the bottle of Nidhogg Wine behind him, and the Guard nodded his head very slowly, although he wasn¡¯t entirely sure what anyone was supposed to do to this. And so, Eisen and his entourage made their way through the area over toward the others while being led by the Guard that ran up to them. "Good morning." With a smile on his face, Eisen stepped up to them, just for a moment decreasing his size to his regr size to extent his hand over toward them, while Komer looked at him with a wry smile. "Eisen... Nice to see you again, but you¡¯re talking to the Lord of this Town and the Prince right now." The young Merchant exined quietly, while the two men that the old man just mentioned simply looked Eisen up and down to try and see what kind of person this man was, who was running around the streets barefoot, wearing only a pair of seemingly loose pants as well as a dirty, soot-covered leather apron, although they were more than surprised to hear Eisen respond. "I¡¯m aware, don¡¯t worry." The old man told Komer with a wink, and then turned back toward the men in front of him. "But they¡¯re still men, aren¡¯t they? And I don¡¯t bow to men." Eisen said with a broad smile, and although all the Guards and the Lord seemed to be more than just upset, the Prince just started tough. "How interesting. A Mere... poor Craftsman with such an attitude..." The Prince chuckled, holding his gloved hand in front of his mouth, and while Komer already turned around and rested his forehead against the door in frustration over how this conversation is about to go, Sigurd quickly transported herself in front of the Prince with an angry expression. "Heh? A Poor Craftsman?! A Poor, Craftsman?! Do you even know who this man is? You wouldn¡¯t even hope to be able to pay for his services if you sold your left leg, you mutt!" Sigurd yelled annoyedly, and while Bree was looking around panicky and Sky started tough loudly, the Prince, Lord, and Guards just stared at the small figure that appeared out of nowhere, although one of the Guards, seemingly the one leading them, quickly pulled out a spear and held it in front of Sigurd¡¯s Throat. "If you value your Life, I wouldn¡¯t say that again." The Guard pointed out, but Sigurd just side-eyed him and clicked its tongue. "Right, as if you can ever hit me." The Core Guardian said with a sigh, something which the Guard didn¡¯t seem to take lightly to, and pushed his spear forward trying to ¡¯threaten¡¯ Sigurd further, although before he knew it, its figure disappeared in mist and re-appeared directly on top of that Spear, while Fafnir started paying attention to this as well and slightly opened his maw, threatening to shoot out mes out of his throat toward the Guard, although he soon stopped when Eisen started tough. "Come on you two, don¡¯t escte this situation. I have to admit, I don¡¯t look like the wealthiest person right now. But how about we head inside for a moment and have a little bit of a talk?" Eisen suggested, and Komer nodded his head in response, "Let¡¯s do that..." He muttered, and it seemed like the Prince and Lord were intrigued enough to ept that suggestion and turned to follow Komer inside, altough Eisen looked at them with a smile and moved his fingers through his beard. "Oh, where are you heading?" The old man asked, looking over toward Fafnir with a smile while mentally telling him to open the gate, and then slowly held his hand over toward the tattered wooden door. "With ¡¯Inside¡¯, I meant a rather different ce." Eisen pointed out, and Sigurd swiftly opened the door from the inside, showing the space beyond the door, before Eisen slowly stepped inside, just waiting for them toe in, while Komer smirked wrily and nodded his head. "Alright, let¡¯s herd inside there, then." The young man said as he looked at the Lord and Prince, holding his hand toward the Gate, who slowly stepped inside, following their Guards. "What... is this space?" The Prince asked, looking around and across the room, just staring at the Goblins sitting behind the counter, before Eisen smiled at him. "A Dungeon, obviously." Eisen pointed out, swiftly stepping through the door to the outside, and the Moment that the Sky behind the wooden wall appeared, Komer immediately followed him with excited eyes. "Holy- You really pushed this beyond, right?! How did you make that sky?" The Merchant asked, and Eisen chuckled in response. "Evalia painted it. It¡¯s basically real, isn¡¯t it?" "It definitely is..." Komer muttered quietly, and the Lord just stared at Eisen intensely. "What is this supposed to mean? In no way whatsoever is this a Dungeon! It has to be something else!" The Lord eximed, and Eisen immediately shook his head. "It is very much a Dungeon." Eisen exined as he ced his fingers to the edges of his mouth and whistled loudly to make a certain Monstere to him, the cksmith Kobold. "Just appraise this guy here." He said, and seemingly not only the Prince and Lord did so, but all of the Guards as well, and they were all more than surprised to see this Information unique to Dungeon Monsters in front of them. "So, now to the main business. My name is Eisen, Guild Master of , which is directly affiliated with and is soon to be a Guild-Branch of. While I might seem like a poor Craftsman to you, I¡¯m the Lord of the town of , which is built on the central Ind on the Group of Inds to the North of this Town, and I have been personally asked by the Gods to construct a country there, meaning that I¡¯m soon to be a King." Eisen exined quite clearly, and without hesitation, the Prince and Lord snapped their heads over toward Komer to see if Eisen was telling the truth, and the young Merchant simply nodded his head at them, before Eisen kneeled down directly next to sigurd and ced his hand onto its shoulder. "By the way, I must thank you for the possibility of us getting some Maroon, otherwise I would have never been able to create this little one here." Eisen exined, before Sigurd stared at him annoyedly. "Do you have to call me ¡¯Little One¡¯? Not my fault I¡¯m so short..." The Core Guardianined, and Eisen just slightly sighed and shook his head. "You spend way too much time with Sky, you two are far too Sarcastic." After he muttered that quietly, Eisen looked at the Prince and Lord, who were trying to process everything that Eisen just said, before Eisen turned toward exclusively the Lord. "For now, I would like the possibility of being allowed to ce this Dungeon somewhere within this town, or within the direct vicinity of this town. Is this in any way, shape or form possible?" Eisen asked him, and it took a little while for the Lord to react to that sudden question. "As long as it¡¯s done in an orderly fashion, I don¡¯t see any issues with it... I will speak to someone about a good locationter." The Lord replied, unsure how he should react know that he knew who Eisen was, before the old man nodded his head with a smile on his face. "How about the Central za?" Eisen suggested, and the Lord looked at him close to shocked. "What? The Central-" "The Central za? As long as there¡¯s enough space and it¡¯s handled properly, that should be an alright location. But most importantly, I will pay you as much as you want if you sell this Dungeon to me." The Prince said immediately, but Eisen just shook his head without hesitation. "No thank you." He replied, and the Prince ground his teeth and continued, "I said I would pay you anything at all. If you¡¯re about to found a country, you need money, right? Sure, there is the deal about supplies, but even you must know that supplies aren¡¯t enough to found a country." "I¡¯m aware, but still, no thank you. I¡¯m not going to sell Fafnir and Sigurd to you for your little war." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and the Prince ripped his open wide. "How do you-" He asked, and Eisen sighed out slowly. "It¡¯s not that hard to figure out, Kid." The old manughed, and the Prince just once more stared at Eisen, now angrier than before. "Do you not realize that saying such things can lead to war?" The Prince asked, and Eisen simplyughed loudly. "Right. Listen, it doesn¡¯t matter in the slightest what I say, you aren¡¯t going to start a war. Your father is nobody but a coward who wouldn¡¯t hesitate for a mere fractured thought to bow to me and lick the ground I¡¯ve walked on. And if you think that even if a war started, you have the slightest chance of beating us, you are more than just mistaken. What do you have? Ten, twenty thousand Soldiers? Maybe some Rank 7 or 8 monsters you¡¯ve tamed? And what we have is a base that you didn¡¯t hope to be able to conquer over the hundreds of years that you¡¯ve spent in thisnd,panions and allies that are strong enough to wipe out your whole army with a single swing of an arm, as well as personal life experience that overwhelms anything that such a measly young man like you may hope to have." The old man said, although he didn¡¯t really recognize any of what he was saying as his own words, but those of Eisen, using the memories of his old self. And while the old man was trying to properly organize his thoughts again, because he was currently in deep disarray, the Guards surrounded Eisen without a moment of hesitation, while the Prince was just staring at him confused, before he turned over toward Komer. "Who is that man?" The Prince asked, and with a slight sigh, the young Merchant stared at Eisen, who nodded his head and looked at the Prince. "I¡¯m going to exin it to you as long as these Guards and the Lord of town leave." Eisen said while rubbing the bridge of his nose, and while the Guards just came closer to Eisen with their weapons drawn toward him, the Prince slowly nodded his head. "Fine... All of you, leave." The Prince said in amanding tone, although the Guards wanted to protest. But without a second of hesitation, the Prince repeated his words, just louder and angrier, and the Guards made their way outside hesitantly, bringing the Lord outside as well. It was obvious that the Prince was nervous being left alone in this situation, which was understandable, but it seemed like the Prince was aware that this was an opportunity that he couldn¡¯t miss. And while the Prince was just looking at Eisen, Komer, Sky, Bree and all of the others nervously walked up to him. "Are you alright?" Komer asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, I¡¯m fine, I¡¯m just feeling a little overwhelmed right now, don¡¯t worry about it." The old man said reassuredly, not wanting another wave of the mental maniption toe over everyone in here, before Eisen turned toward the Prince. "So as to not beat around the bush, my name is Eisen, as you know. But I¡¯m not just any ¡¯Eisen¡¯, but the Eisen. The First that peaked, half Giant, half Dwarf. A while ago, me and the four other that peaked lost our Experience and were reset to Level 1 without any memories of our lives until now. The Artificials that are appearing all over the ce are creations made of that Experience." Chapter 425 - Conflict "You want me to believe such a thing?" The Prince asked, nearly insulted at this revtion, even if he seemed to be conflicted about whether or not it might actually be true. After all, considering the things that are surrounding him at the moment, meaning this Dungeon space that appeared out of nowhere as well as what apparently is an artificial creation that is nearly indistinguishable from a regr person, not to mention the fact that Eisen had the ability to change his size, something that not many races could do, are all things that not many normal people could aplish. "Believe it, don¡¯t believe it, it¡¯s up to you. But I suggest you believe it, because if you do, then you will be able to gain an ally you could never even imagine." Eisen said with a slight, calm smile, now that he managed to gather his thoughts after that short connection to these old memories. With a deep, nervous stare, the Prince looked at Eisen and asked the only question that was on his mind at the moment. "And... And what if I don¡¯t believe you?" The Prince asked, and Eisen just slightly smirked and stared back. "You will gain an enemy you never wanted to make." Eisen said, and the Prince immediately took a step back nervously, before the old man startedughing loudly. "That¡¯s what you thought I¡¯d say, right? Don¡¯t worry, if you don¡¯t believe me, you can just leave the Dungeon and act like this conversation never happened. I don¡¯t n on starting any wars." With a soft smile, Eisen started to move his fingers through his beard. "And sorry for insulting your father like that, I was just slightly overwhelmed there for a moment." Eisen pointed out, and the Prince slowly nodded his head. "It... It¡¯s fine... You¡¯re not wrong." The Prince admitted with a wry chuckle, before the old man smirked in response. "Oh? Well, that¡¯s quite interesting. Seems like you¡¯re a bit more reasonable than I expected you to be. Is there a way for me to convince you that I am telling you the truth?" Eisen asked him, and the Prince thought about it for a moment, before he slowly nodded his head. "Yeah... Actually, yeah, there is... There¡¯s a secret ¡¯Term¡¯ that has been passed down the generations, and only the Royal Family and those that Peaked are allowed to know it... If I can actually tell you those two words, then you seem to be telling the truth. If I can¡¯t... Then it¡¯s probably a lie." The Prince pointed out, and then slowly approached Eisen, before cing his mouth toward the old man¡¯s ear, cing his hands around it. Slowly, Eisen¡¯s eyes opened wide and he stared at the Prince surprised. "Prime Industries, huh..?" Eisen muttered quietly, and the Prince slowly nodded his head, practically shocked. "So that¡¯s really it, huh..? You... You truly are Eisen? THE Eisen?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head, while Komer looked at Eisen confused, and Kirisho was even more confused about it, considering that she was the only NPC here that wasn¡¯t allowed to know about this being a ¡¯game¡¯. "Wait, wait, wait, Eisen, what do you mean? How does he know that? ¡¯Your Highness¡¯..." Komer started, doing air-quotes as he was at it, "Are you secretly a-" "He¡¯s not." Eisen said quite clearly, interrupting Komer because he was already aware what he was about to say, "He really isn¡¯t. He¡¯s not an artificial, he was born in this world, that¡¯s indisputable. There are a lot of things we might need to speak about at some point, Komer. Until then, just trust me with this one, alright?" Eisen asked with a wink, and the young Merchant slowly nodded his head in utter confusion. "Now then, seeing how you trust that I¡¯m telling the truth now, I need to speak about something else. Two people, one man and a woman, will try to infiltrate a certain group that is forming in the capital. They are backed by Antonio Hastings, and the two Leaders seem to be two Merchants by the names of Merc and Cial." Eisen exined, and the Prince slowly nodded his head. "Yeah... I was sent information about them...We¡¯re already investigating them, but there isn¡¯t anything wrong with what they are currently doing. For what reason do you want them to be infiltrated?" The Prince exined, and Eisen swiftly crossed his arms. "Because we¡¯re not sure if Antonio can be trusted, and we want to know more about him. And of course to keep Merc and Cial in check." The old man exined, and the Prince slowly nodded. "And... What sort of support do you want?" "Quite simply, the best way would be to have you pretend to try and support their group by ¡¯giving¡¯ them two trusted people with great abilities. On top of that, I want you to set up a meeting between me and someone that has the ability to fake their status from appraisers." Eisen exined quite simply, and the Prince slowly nodded his head. "That¡¯s it? You don¡¯t want me to break the group up forcefully? You don¡¯t want me to question anyone?" Surprised, the Prince looked at Eisen, who simply shook his head in response. "I don¡¯t. It¡¯s as simple as that. If you give me a way to contact you, I¡¯m going to tell you when and where you could meet the two people that will infiltrate that group. But they will only go after I was able to meet that person that can fake their status." Eisen exined quite swiftly, and the Prince started to smile wrily. "Alright... Sounds fair. Then... You will help our country during the way in a few months¡¯ time?" The Prince asked nervously, and Eisen slowly sighed. "Depends." He replied, "If you want our help, then you better have a good reason for fighting this war in the first ce." "We don¡¯t." The Prince replied immediately, staring down at the ground, and the old man looked at him surprised, before that surprised expression turned rather annoyed. "What do you mean, exactly?" "We don¡¯t have a good reason. As you said, my father is a fool. And fools are easy to influence. He wants to start a war with the Country of Giants..." "The Country of Giants? You¡¯ve got to be kidding me." Eisen said, grinding his teeth onto each other annoyedly while rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I know it¡¯s insane! My Father was influenced by some extremists... Giants are technically Monsters, so they say that they shouldn¡¯t be allowed to have their own Country in that way..." Eisen sighed deeply and stared forward at the Prince. "Change of ns. I¡¯m going to see the King straight away." The Old man said angrily, but the Prince immediately shook his head fearfully. "You can¡¯t! You really, really can¡¯t!" He eximed, but Eisen just stared at him coldly. "And why can¡¯t I?" The old man asked, and the Prince slowly gulped, loud enough for this sound to be heard from everyone, before replying, "His Guards are currently Level 500, the Castle has practically been taken over by the men of those that influenced my father, and they are also at a simr level. Considering how long Artificials have been appearing for, I don¡¯t think you can be at a level higher than 100 after having lost your experience, am I wrong?" "Yes, you¡¯re wrong, I¡¯m at Level 200. But it doesn¡¯t matter, he won¡¯t be able to just kill me anyway." Eisen replied, and the Prince stared at Eisen deeply. "It doesn¡¯t matter even if you can convince or force my father, we have already sent messengers to the Giants, and they don¡¯t seem to have taken kindly to it either... They are now fully preparing for war as well... And I don¡¯t think they will try and ept any form of apology on our side considering the conflict between our countries since generations ago..." "What kind of conflict are you speaking about?" Eisen asked with a deep frown, and the Prince sighed deeply. "There was a war before, and while we didn¡¯t win... Our country managed to kill two n Leaders... The Leader of the Fire, and the Leader of the Mountain ns... The war ended with a non-conflict treaty, but the tension between our countries never ceased..." "Fine. I have to speak to the current Grardour anyway. I will gain strength and then meet with the King before heading to the country of Giants. I will try to solve this issue for you, understood? But for that, you need to do your utmost to hold off the actual war as long as you possibly can. If the war starts, I will not help you fight my own people." Eisen told the Prince, and then looked toward the building acting as an entrance to the Dungeon. "Now, we¡¯re leaving. There are other things I need to take care of with Komer in private. We will set the Dungeon up afterward, and leave again in a few days." The old man said in a clear tone, heading over toward the door, mad as he could be, followed by all the others. Of course, the moment he stepped back out through the gate he was met with suspicious gazes from the Guards, but Eisen just red at them and stood next to the Entrance to the Starlight Building, before the others came out as well, with the Princeing out directly after Eisen himself. "Come here or to the Dungeon Entrance the moment you find one of the people with my requirements, and then I will send those two over to the Lord¡¯s castle to meet you." The old man said in a clear voice as he looked at the Prince, although the young royal simply nodded his head and looked at his Guards. "Let¡¯s go." The Princemanded as he looked at his Guards, and they made their way along the road, and all the other Guards that barricaded the street followed behind. Once they were gone, Komer looked at Eisen intensely, obviously wanting to know what exactly just happened. "Eisen, what was that just now?" The young Merchant asked, and the old man simply smiled at him. "Don¡¯t worry about it. For now, let¡¯s just worry about Starlight-rted things. First, where can we ce the mass-production machinery right now?" "Fine, but exin it to me at some point, got it?" Komer sighed, before Eisen chuckled and nodded his head. "Of course, of course. Let¡¯s just go inside now. Fafnir, youe on too." Eisen said as he looked at the small Dragon sleeping on top of the gate, before he stood up and stretched, jumping off of the stone bricks before the gate crumbled into nothingness and disappeared. "I¡¯m going to get the bottle as well. It should fit inside here, right?" "Mhm, it should. We can bring it to the right ceter, for now this is fine, I guess." Chapter 426 - The Starlight Guild "So... How does this work, exactly?" Komer asked as he took a closer look at the machinery that Eisen set up in the space that Komer suggested for it, before the old man started to exin everything in detail before actually cing some of the different materials into everything to show the process to Komer. "Mostly, it does everything on its own, the only steps that you need some people for are the initial step of providing the materials, as well as the final step of getting the finished items out." Eisen pointed out, and then poured his mana into the setting-menu crystal for the Printing Press. "Here, you can type in whatever you want and have it printed in magic Ink. You can then save some different formats in here and print however much you want of it as long as there¡¯s enough mana and paper." He said, before turning toward the Potion-Brewer with a smile, cing his hand onto one of the bowls. "This one here might seem unnessarilyrge right now, but this was the best way to ensure a high-quality producting out at the end. By the way, because the potion is pretty concentrated, I added another step at the end to give the potions a bit of a better vor." "Oh? How that, exactly?" Komer asked curiously as he stepped up to the bowl that Eisen was speaking about, and the old man swiftly crossed his arms and exined. "Do you know how to make juice?" He asked, and Komer slowly scratched the back of his head. "Just smash fruit?" "Basically, but usually, you add water to the fruit beforehand so that the actual fruit-juice isn¡¯t as strong and can properly be pulled out of the pulp. Just instead of water, we¡¯re using the potion here after it¡¯s been liquified. After that, one potion is going to a bit smaller, a little more potent, and tastier than a regr potion." The old man exined, "And then after you properly extracted all the juice that you can use, the pulp can be used for other things like pastry or candy, even." "Ahh, that¡¯s pretty smart... Hmm... Speaking of, do you coincidentally know any good bakers or candy-makers? I tried to make an offer to a popr Candy shop near the za to open arger one in the Mall, but they declined... Seems like a lot of the people here are pretty sceptical about it." Komer pointed out, letting Eisen move his fingers through his beard with a slight frown. "Actually... If you don¡¯t mind a few old men gathering here, I might know some people. The son of a Candy-Maker I worked under for a while, he¡¯s a little younger than me... It¡¯s not food-rted, but a friend of mine is a great Barber, and he seems to be thinking about ying as well, his hands aren¡¯t in a good enough shape to work anymore..." Eisen muttered quietly as he moved his fingers through his beard, and Komer looked at the old man surprised. "A Barber? I mean, I did notice that hair keeps growing at a regr rate... Actually, even faster as I was leveling up... Maybe that would be a good idea... The only barber around here is pretty small." Komer pointed out as he cupped his chin, and Eisen raised his eyebrows. "Then I¡¯ll let him know that there could be some work waiting for him. And his skill is to be trusted, I went to see him for thest 40 years whenever I needed a haircut. Well, as long as I was in town." "Perfect, I¡¯ll set something up then. This block is pretty big, so there¡¯s space for a ton of shops." Komer pointed out, while Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Definitely, I was surprised, really. Sure, the buildings don¡¯t seem to be in that great of a shape because nobody has been caring for them, but you can see that the Workers you hired are doing a great job in the restoration." "Thanks, I hand-picked them, actually." Komer admitted with a smirk, before he and Eisen shut the machinery down again and headed out of the space they were in right now, which was in a bas.e.m.e.nt area, back toward the open, central space in the center of the block of buildings, where Kirisho had been waiting with the others. "Ah, and do you think Evalia and Jyuuk cane over soon as well? I wanted to ask both of them for some help with this ce. I was thinking about an open ss roof above here for some natural sunlight, and then have some grass and different nts like trees or bushes here for something like an ¡¯Indoor Park¡¯. I could use their opinions." "Sure, just message them and ask. We spoke about it, and thetest that we¡¯re going to leave is when thest wave of ¡¯Artificials¡¯ starts." Eisen exined, so Komer slowly nodded his head with a smile. "Good, good. So, you said you wanted to open a shop for Alcohol as well? I mean, obviously, considering ¡¯That¡¯ thing there." Komer said with a wry smile as he pointed at the Giant bottle in front of them, and Eisen just chuckled. "Mhm, if that¡¯s fine with you. I¡¯m not sure what ns you had for this ce." Eisen pointed out, and Komer shook his head immediately. "Just pick whatever shops you want, you¡¯re technically the one paying for ALL of this. There¡¯s enough space for everything anyway. But my question was rather leading up to another one. Meaning, if you wanted to open up something like a Bar that also sells the alcohol bottled, just a shop that sells regr alcohol, or a shop that sells the ¡¯special¡¯ stuff in that book of yours." With augh, Eisen nodded his head immediately, crossing his arms with a smirk. "I would like both, really. But it¡¯s hard to sell them in a single shop together, so I was thinking of maybe splitting up one space into two with another wall in the middle, sell Gordon¡¯s Creations from one half, and more serious stuff from the other. Including a Bar might not be a bad idea either." "Sounds good to me, really. Just give me some ns for the shops, and I¡¯ll let you know when it¡¯s done. And then about the clothes you showed me, we¡¯ll just have to see which are most popr, I can¡¯t really say yet. We should get a small selection of everything together and then go from there. Now, what about Weapon and Armor Shops? The Potion-Shop is going to be a sub-area of the Magic-Item Shop, I reserved a pretty big space for that, but right next to that is another prettyrge space that I thought fit there pretty well." "I could make some items for that, but maybe we could make that something that¡¯s a little more of a ¡¯Buy-and-Sell¡¯, where we can get some of the items the new Artificials will be making to be sold there? Those kinds of items are harder to mass-produce, after all." Eisen pointed out, before Komer immediately nodded his head. "Of course, of course, I was thinking that we should try and work on a ¡¯Buy-and-Sell¡¯ basis for most ces. Of course, depending on the shop it¡¯s going to be a bit different, but I would like to turn this into a good ce for Crafter¡¯s to make some good money as well." Komer pointed out, and then as he looked over at the three young Monsters next to Kirisho, he remembered something else. "Right, what about that Pet Shop? I mentioned it to the Lord, and he didn¡¯t necessarily seem happy about it. But depending on the monster, he said it might be fine. We¡¯ll need to set up another contract for that, though. Even here, the only trading of living creatures that¡¯s allowed is the trading of Lifestock like Cows, Sheep, or Chicken, as well as animals like Horses to pull carriages. But the types are heavily limited for those as well." "Then we should tell someone trustworthy to go around and bring some of the Monsters we¡¯ve seen here. They¡¯re pretty cute in my opinion, and some of them are supposed to be even good as Mage-Familiars." Eisen said with a smirk, and Komer raised his eyebrow surprised. "Oh, aren¡¯t those pretty rare?" "Mhm, they are. Mage-Familiars are a few very specific, critter-sized Monsters with a high amount of Magic in them. If I hadn¡¯t tamed Sal already, he probably could have been a Mage-Familiar as well." The old man said and rubbed his hand over the small, eight-legged boy¡¯s head. "Neat. Well, anyway..." Komer said and then slowly started to scratch his cheek, seemingly waiting for something, so Eisen justughed loudly when he realized what was going on. "Right, right, let¡¯s turn Starlight into a Guild-Branch, shall we?" Eisen asked with a light smile, and Komer excitedly nodded his head. "Yes, please!" He eximed, grabbing the contract from his bag before handing it to Eisen. "Prepared as always, huh?" The old man asked and chuckled, swiftly creating a table with his element that he could write on. "Now... I¡¯m pretty sure I could do this on my own without the others." Eisen muttered quietly and then quickly took a pen to write the different information down, before swiftly signing at the bottom. Then, the old man handed the pen to Komer, who swiftly signed the Magic Contract as well. And when both of them saw the contract aspleted, the piece of paper started to catch fire at the corners and thenpletely burnt up. [Guild-Branch has been established. Appointed as the Branch-Head] [Guild-Branch can merge with Merchant Company ] With a bright smile on his face, Komer then got out the next Contract, which seemed to be the one meant to properly connect the Branch to the Merchant Company. "This one here¡¯s a Magic Contract as well, but we¡¯ll need to get it approved by the Merchant¡¯s Guild before signing it as well. Should we head over there? This ce here is pretty protected, so we can just leave everything here without an issue." "Alright, sounds good to me." Eisen replied with a smile on his face, and then looked over toward the others. "Let¡¯s go, then. After we go to the Merchant¡¯s Guild, we¡¯ll set up the Dungeon for the public for the first time." The old man exined with a smirk on his face, and the others slowly stood up, although Caria, Melissa and Sal ran toward the old man, simply because they were pretty clingy. "I guess I don¡¯t have anything specific to do today." Eisen chuckled slightly and picked the three of them up, and with his fully-increased size, he was able to carry all three of them at once, although it wasn¡¯t like they gave him any other choice at the moment. And so, the group swiftly made their way over toward the Merchant¡¯s Guild to set Starlight up to belong to the Guild-Branch. Chapter 427 - The Dungeon is Open! "Nice, it¡¯s official now!" Komer eximed excitedly, now that his Company had properly been established as a Guild-Branch for . "Well, I think I should head back for now... I need to order a lot of different things for now, so I need to get that over with..." He muttered quietly and pulled out the notebook from his back pocket and flipped it open, before Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "Sure. We¡¯re just going to head over toward the za now. If you need my help with anything, just let me know." The old man suggested, and Komer nodded his head and held two of his fingers to his forehead in a salute, "Aye aye." And thus, Komer swiftly turned around and made his way back through Town toward the Starlight Buildings, while Eisen and the others made their way over toward the za which they had passed before once already. "Oh?" Eisen voiced surprised as he looked at a small spot being cleared out by Guards in a pretty central space. He recognized one of the Guards as one of those that were escorting the Lord of this town, so the old man figured this was the ce that was being opened up for the Dungeon. Once Eisen stepped up to them, that was confirmed as well. "Here you go, Sir! As promised by the Lord! Use this plot for as long as you want!" The Guard exined, waving his hand toward it, and while the Merchants from the surrounding Stalls were looking at him curiously, Eisen himself just nodded his head and cracked his knuckles. "Alright, then let¡¯s get started, shall we?" The old man suggested as he turned toward Fafnir, and Sigurd swiftly appeared in a cloud of mist carrying some stone-bricks. Then, while starting to whistle, Eisen swiftly ced the bricks down and held them in ce with his element to make de-construction easierter on. And in swift motions, Eisen was now starting to build a small stone-brick structure, simply to make the single-door Gateway seem less weird on its own, while pulling even more attention toward it by making everything bigger. A few people were seemingly already gathering curiously at this, especially because they were surprised at how fast this was happening, but soon enough the structure was already finished. It looked basically just like a Stone-Brick Cube, before Eisen ced tworge posters beside therge hole in the front. They were made in the special way that Eisen wanted them to be made, with colored, slightly animated Pictures depicting the Dungeon¡¯s interior. Then at the top, above the Hole, Eisen hung a wooden sign that read, ¡¯The Living Dungeon. Rank 1, Three Floors¡¯. The moment that this sign was hung there, the people that had gathered were even more confused. Was this supposed to be just some sort of Information stand? That was what they were thinking at first, sure, but soon enough they found out that this very much wasn¡¯t the case when Fafnir jumped to the top of the hole and made a stone-brick frame appear that just fit perfectly into that hole, beforeying down and falling asleep in that nest-like spot that Eisen specially made for Fafnir toy downfortably. And then, the moment that the wooden door appeared, Eisen smiled in satisfaction and turned around toward the Crowd. "To any young Adventurers here... Come on in and have some fun." He eximed in a loud voice before opening the door to the Dungeon and stepping inside, showing arge, wooden room inside of it, although it should have just been a dark, small stone-brick room. It seemed like one of the people there was especially curious and swiftly followed the old man inside, and judging from his excited demeanor, Eisen figured that this was a yer, even. And as he looked around, Sigurd appeared in front of him and smiled brightly. "As this is your first visit, please sign in at the counter with one of our employees. I¡¯m afraid they won¡¯t be able to answer you, but we made sure to train them for these situations." Sigurd pointed out, crossing its arms behind its back while turning toward the counter manned by the Goblins, and the young man slowly approached one of the counters, before immediately having a small crystal sphere ced in front of him. That sphere was then tapped by the goblin a few times, and the young man, seemingly having understood what he was supposed to do, poured his mana into the crystal, feeling a quick shiver all over his body. This was a specialized Crystal-Ball that Eisen made for a general, basic appraisal of someone¡¯s name, upation, and level, and in the background also whether they were a yer or not. Then, the Goblin simply smiled at the young man and pointed at therge door next to the counters. "Am... Am I supposed to go through there?" He asked as he turned toward Eisen, who just nodded his head with a chuckle. "Mhm. Go ahead, you¡¯re the first outsider in there." He said with a wink, and excitedly, the young man stepped through the door, before being met with bright sunlight. "We¡¯re outside again?" The young man asked, but Eisen just chuckled and shook his head as he stepped up next to him, seeing that he now had red pupils, which was just the perfect situation. "Not exactly. Let me give you a little tour." Eisenughed, pushing the yer against the back to make him walk forward along the rough path. On the other side of the small vige, you could already see the entrance into the actual Dungeon area, but that would be thest ce they would go to. "You can see this as a ¡¯Safe Base¡¯. We¡¯re inside a Dungeon, but you won¡¯t need to worry about Monsters here. Over there is a small Marketce where you can sell materials and items you got within the Dungeon, and where you can buy a few different things like Health or Mana potions, food, water, as well as Maps... Although those are rather pricy for now." Eisen admitted with a wink, walking past the stalls currently manned by the Alchemy and Woodworking Kobolds, before then heading to the rger¡¯ buildings. "And then over here, you can get weapons or usable items like throwing-knives, arrows, or simr, while also getting basic items repaired. For different weapons or armor, you need to go to different ces of course, obviously." Curiously, the young man sucked up everything that Eisen was telling him, intensely staring at whatever Eisen was currently speaking about. And then soon enough, they reached the end of the Tour, the entrance to the Dungeon in the form of a dark corridor with a few ssic torches connected to the walls. "Now then, kid. Have fun in there." Eisen said with a bright smile, pushing the yer inside. He was a bit taken aback at first, but soon enough, he started walking inside, and as a passing message, Eisen yelled something after him. "Watch out for your legs, the Rabbits always go after them!" He eximed with a slight smirk, and although Eisen noticed that the yer turned around for a moment there, he had swiftly continued to make his way deeper into the Dungeon. And as Eisen was heading back toward the Dungeon-Entrance, he noticed that there were a few people inside of here, even some that didn¡¯t seem to be Adventurers, but rather curious merchants of sort. There was some trouble going on inside of the reception area with people that didn¡¯t really understand that the Goblins were harmless, but they were swiftly stopped in their actions by Sigurd, who luckily had everything under control. And so, Eisen just stepped out of the Dungeon and took a look at the line that had alreay formed in front of the entrance. With a slight smirk on his lips, Eisen crossed his arms and then noticed a few people with the specially marked flyers standing there in line as well, so the old man swiftly walked up to them. "Ah, you¡¯re the ones that were waiting around before, weren¡¯t you?" The old man asked as he looked at them, and they slowly nodded their heads, before one of them swiftly spoke up. "Mhm, we did! When we heard that there really was a Dungeon here, we came rushing over immediately! But the line¡¯s just so long..." She exined, so Eisen just chuckled and grabbed the Flyer she was holding. "Don¡¯t worry, with these, you can skip to the front with some special service. Just walk up to the stone hut with them in your hand, and the one that gave these to you before will appear immediately." He exined, so the handful of yers slowly and nervously looked at each other before nodding their heads, doing just as Eisen told them to. And when Sigurd appeared in front of them with a broad smile, those that hadn¡¯t seen this happen yet were just so much more intrigued, while these handful of yers were led into the Dungeon with ¡¯Priority Treatment¡¯. Inside, they would be allowed to directly get registered at the counters, and then would even get a Map for the first floor. Eisen was aware that maybe this was a little unfair, but he figured this kind of thing was a good way to further promote this. After all, everyone wanted to get stuff for free, so if Eisen continued with this kind of thing in whatever town he stopped and set the Dungeon up at, it might be nice advertis.e.m.e.nt for the Dungeon as well. Although, Eisen doubted that it would be all that hard to pull a lot of attention to it, considering how Unique it was. Either way, for now, Eisen figured that he could use this chance to rx a little, and to watch people to maybe get some more new ideas to work with. Of course, he still had his newest upation skill to level up to get it to Rank 3, but considering that he only had one to two dozen levels left, he could probably get that done by ¡¯upgrading¡¯ all of the items he handed out, which was something Eisen would prefer over making so many more Ego-Items. So for now, the old man just swiftly increased his size to the maximum that he could and then sat down on top of the stone-brick structure, because why not? There was still enough space inbetween his legs for everyone to enter the Dungeon, and like this Eisen also had a way to make sure everyone was behaving out here. But not only that, Eisen was also using this chance to y with the three Monster Children that immediately climbed onto hisp! He was hoping for Sal to Rank up to Rank 3 pretty soon, because he was the one that Eisen was worried about most right now. Caria and Melissa were both at Rank 4, so Sal was pretty weakpared to them, especially since his physical stats had such minimal growth. Either way, the old man didn¡¯t let that discourage him and just practiced a few things with them in a yful manner, not caring at all for the crowd of people just staring at the old man from below. Chapter 428 - Going Out Later that day, in the evening, most of the people that entered the Dungeon in the morning had left it again, having reached the end of the third floor. It seemed like all of them had an incredible amount of fun, so Eisen was pretty d about that. And to top it off, Fafnir himself got a fair amount of Experience, and actually reached level 40 just today! If this continued for another day or two just like this, then that would mean that Fafnir might be able to Rank up to 2 before the regr yerbase joined the game! Either way, seeing how well everything was working and how well Sigurd managed the yers entering and exiting the Dungeon, Eisen feltfortable going to sleep for now, directly on top of the small stone-brick structure that Eisen built around the gate. And then the next morning, Eisen was able to see a prettyrge ¡¯wave¡¯ of people going to the Dungeon, trying to enter it. It seemed like most of them were actually yers, so Eisen figured they were those that either didn¡¯t have that much time left in their day and had to go to sleep before entering the dungeon, or simply were in another, nearby town beforehand when they found out about the Dungeon through the streams that a few of the yers here were doing. Yesterday, a few people already recognized Eisen and were mumbling amongst each other, but right now, after Eisen woke up, there were a few people that walked up below him, seemingly wanting to just speak to him. So, Eisen pushed his body off the box and crossed his arms as he stood in front of them, still in full-giant mode. "Anything I can help you with?" The old man inquired, and one of them immediately nodded their head. "Yes! We would like to know if we could maybe record you for a day or two, for something like a ¡¯a day in the life of Eisen¡¯?" They asked excitedly, but the old man slowly shook his head. "No thank you." He replied quite clearly as he took out some boxes from his backpack, which was currently attached to a strap on his Apron, because it didn¡¯t increase in size with Eisen, and then swiftly took out Tank, Deedee, and Ranger from there, setting Ranger down at the top of the box so that he had a good position to look at everything from, and then turned back around toward the people standing there quite baffled. "E-Erm, I... I think that might be some good advertis.e.m.e.nt, you know? I mean, I have nearly two million followers..." One of the people that made that ¡¯suggestion¡¯ pointed out, but the old man just raised his brows in response. "What¡¯s that supposed to mean? Followers where? I¡¯m not seeing anyone beside you three." Eisen pointed out with a sigh, ying the role of the ¡¯Tech-Senile Geezer¡¯. "Sorry, I have to go see someone right now, so just tell your ¡¯Followers¡¯ that they won¡¯t be able to see a day in my life." He apologized and swiftly turned back toward the Dungeon Entrance. "Sigurd, I¡¯m off to see the others at the Inn. I put those three out here just in case. Command them however you want, just don¡¯t kill anyone." Eisen said with a clear voice, before the people behind him, as well as those standing in the line around him, looked at the old man confused, before the Core Guardian appeared in a cloud of mist in front of Eisen. "Gotcha, I¡¯ll take care of everything here." It replied with a salute, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile before turning away and picking up the three monster children so that they could make proper use of Eisen¡¯srge size to get to the Inn that Bree, Sky, and Kirisho went to yesterday night. But it seemed like there were a few people that weren¡¯t really happy with the reply they got. "Come on, just let us film you! It¡¯s not going to cost you anything! It¡¯s literally free advertis.e.m.e.nt, what the hell else do you want?" The same one from before, seemingly something like a group-leader, pointed out, and just then Eisen could see his pupils sh red. Without hesitation, the old man stopped moving and extended his hand toward the young man¡¯s head to cover his facepletely while giving him a little bit of a scare. "I told you not to film me. Turn around and go away, or I¡¯m going to crush your skull." Eisen said with a slight sigh at that end, simply frustrated from dealing with this, and while the yer was trying to somehow get Eisen to let go of him, the old man himself just shook his head disappointedly and let go. But just of his head, of course. Instead, now he picked the yer up by his h.i.p.s and set him down on the tallest roof that Eisen could reach like this. "You might have a better view from here." The old man pointed out before turning away and continuing down the road in the direction of the Inn. It seemed like he was still attracting a fair bit of attention,ing from a mixture of Eisen¡¯s height and the angry young man yelling at him from a rooftop while his friends were trying to somehow help him down. Either way, soon enough Eisen reached the entrance to the Inn that the others were staying at for the night and decreased his size in front of the entrance before stepping inside and heading to the room that the others were staying at, swiftly knocking on the door. And the one that opened it was, surprisingly, Dien. He was with some of the others yesterday, but it seemed like he chose to sleep in the same room as Breest night, although Eisen was pretty surprised that Sky was alright with that. "Morning." The old man said as he smiled at the Half-Elf, Half Blood-Chimera in front of him. "You guys alright in here?" Eisen asked as he peeked his head inside without waiting for an answer from Dien, and the two Fey-Kin inside the room swiftly stood up from their beds. It seemed like both of them were quite exhausted, although Bree wore a broad smile on her face and Sky had an incredibly pale stone-face. Looking around the room once more while Kirisho appeared from her amulet ced on Sky¡¯s bedside Table at the moment, the old man just sighed. "Bree, Dien, be more mindful of Sky next time, will you?" The old man said as he shook his head, and Dien immediately started freaking out and shook his head. "N-No no, Sky was definitely asleep! We made sure of that!" He eximed, but Eisen just pointed over toward the Fey-Kin with a cold stare pointed at Dien. "Does it look like he was sleeping at allst night? I think the only one that actually slept here was Kirisho, and she¡¯s dead." Eisen pointed out, making Dien slowly look over at Sky with an apologetic expression. "Erm, sorry about that...." "Tsk, nevermind that." Sky replied immediately while clicking his tongue and slowlyid back down in his bed. "I¡¯m going to SLEEP now. Something which I only need to do roughly every three days for a whole night if I want to, and you ruined that for me, Dien. Every three days, for f.u.c.k¡¯s sake! Now leave, you elven miscreant!" The young Fey-Kin yelled out, and so, Dien slowly stepped up to Bree¡¯s bed, got dressed, and then the two of them made their way back toward the door. "So you two are going to be together all day?" Eisen asked them, and Bree swiftly nodded her head. "Mhm! We¡¯re going on a date~!" She eximed happily, and in the background, Sky could be heard pushing his face into his pillow and yelling out of frustration. "Then it¡¯s only us for now, huh?" The old man asked as he looked at Kirisho, who slowly nodded her head with a soft smile on her lips. "It seems so." She replied, and Eisen swiftly extended his elbow toward her, as if offering it to be hooked into by her, which she quickly epted and did just that with a light chuckle. "For now, let¡¯s just go for a walk then. I would like to see this town a little more." Eisen pointed out, and Kirisho swiftly nodded her head. "Likewise." She replied, before Eisen swiftly took Caria¡¯s hand, who in turn held Sal¡¯s while Melissa was riding on his back. "When we were stopping her before and I was sleeping, you went here with the others, right?" The old man asked Kirisho, who slowly nodded her head. "Yes, but I didn¡¯t get to see anything, really. I felt a bit too nervous to go out, so I returned to the ship as soon as I could." She admitted, covering her face with the part of her dress which was slung around her arm. "Haha, I see, I see... Well, there¡¯s no need to be nervous this time around." The old man exined with a smile on his face, before the Mist Spirit next to him nodded her head in response. "Let us hope so." She said quite clearly, before they stepped back out of the Inn together and made their way along the road in front of them. For a while, they were basically just sight-seeing, trying to find nice ces to eat lunch at, and just spoke about random things in the direction of ¡¯It was crazy when -that- happened¡¯, or ¡¯We should go -there- at some point¡¯, meaning that Eisen was telling her about his ns for travelling around the continent to find thest three Dragons that were referred to him as ¡¯Trainers¡¯ so that he could be a proper, full Champion. Otherwise, there wasn¡¯t much on Eisen¡¯s end that he wanted to do beside level up as much as he could on his way to find those Dragons, and then sometimes set up shop in different ces that they passed to properly level his skills up some more while traveling. It wouldn¡¯t be hard to transport the items with Sigurd and Fafnir¡¯s help, at the very least, so the old man was d that the had those two. It seemed like Kirisho had a few things she wanted to do as well, though, or rather, she wanted to ¡¯see¡¯ different ces. She spent a very long time stuck in a cave with an old man, so it just made sense that she wanted to somewhat see the world. Even after being ¡¯put back together¡¯, she was mostly stuck in either a ship, a carriage, or a small, ruined town. That¡¯s not that kind of sight you would like to see after getting your life back after a hundred years. Chapter 429 - Rank 2 Dungeon "Alright then... You got everything? Nothing was stolen or identally left inside by someone?" Eisen asked onest time, and Sigurd immediately shook its head with a sigh. "As I told you thest five times, everything¡¯s cleared out, nobody and nothing that¡¯s not supposed to be there is left in the Dungeon, so we should be ready to go." The Core Guardian pointed out, and the old man looked down at it with a slight frown, crossing his arms. "What is that supposed to mean? Just because I¡¯m a bit worried? It¡¯s not like Fafnir is a normal ¡¯Monster¡¯, so there might be an issue with the evolution, right?" Eisen replied, and Sigurd just shrugged in response. "I¡¯m also going to evolve, and I feel like it should be fine." The Core Guardian exined, "So just take it easy and let¡¯s head off, and then find a proper spot to Evolve that¡¯s outside of puplic view." "Fair enough, then... What about you, do you guys have everything?" Eisen asked as he then turned toward the rest of the group, which was currently loading whatever they might need into the carriage. And exactly that rest of the group was made up of Kirisho, Sky, Bree, as well as the three monster kids. Eisen was pretty sure none of them necessarily needed anything special, and because they would be able to store a lot of things inside of the Dungeon itself, they had more than enough space to work and sleep inside of the carriage. Right now, it was the early morning before the ¡¯Official Launch¡¯, which was just about four in-game hours away now. Eisen was pretty sure that a town like this Merchant Town wasn¡¯t a starting location, but just in case, the old man wanted to leave before that many people started ying all at once and might mess some different routes up here and there. It might be pretty chaotic for a while, so Eisen just wanted to stay away from any ces that might be yer-intensive for a day or two until everything calmed down a little. Over the past few days inside of this Port-Town, Eisen just did a few minor things and even took a little break from crafting. Even if he loved it, taking a break every once in a while was nice as well. That didn¡¯t mean that he didn¡¯t craft at all, he did still ¡¯Upgrade¡¯ the different Ego-Items that he handed out to different people and took a proper look at all the different ways that those items changed so far. He managed to get his Ego-Item Creation skill to Rank 3 like this as well, but he didn¡¯t really work on anything in specific yet like he wanted to. For the most part, Eisen figured that he could just spend the time they¡¯re in the carriage for this anyway. He was hoping that Fafnir would still just open a gate at the same size as it is right now after evolvingter on so that he could work properly inside of the Dungeon and maybe help out a little with the further Dungeon-Construction, but most importantly, he wanted to have that space to be able to properly smith. As for the things for the ¡¯infiltration¡¯ that Evalia and Stahl would be doing, Eisen managed to meet with the person that had a ¡¯Status Fake¡¯ ability, which Eisen swiftly used to enchant some items that he had prepared for those two, with the single focus being to hide the fact they¡¯re a yer by removing the actual ¡¯yer¡¯ tag, change their name into a different one with a first andst name, and remove any titles that another person might be able to use to derive Stahl and Evalia¡¯s identity. Eisen seemed to still be able to see through it with his truth-seeing eyes, but people with just a regr ¡¯Appraisal¡¯ seemed to be unable to do that. It even faked out the special ¡¯Appraisal Sphere¡¯ that Eisen made for the Dungeon, surprisingly. But the reason that Eisen wanted to pretend that Evalia and Stahl were NPCs was pretty simple. To Merc and Cial, NPCs seemed to be things to be used, and they would probably not think of any NPC as an actual threat to them, so they might get careless. And on top of that, it was just another way to make sure Stahl and Evalia couldn¡¯t be recognized. After all, after a single swift appraisal of those two, if anyone was suspicious of them somehow, they would be able to see that they aren¡¯t yers and would just take it as a coincidence. Otherwise, beside then actually sending them off to meet the Prince after filling them in on everything, nothing else happened. Komer would be staying here in this town for a while and would make sure that the mall would properly hit it off, but after that, he would meet back up with Eisen somewhere to maybe open other shops in different ces. Of course, Komer was also the one that was left with the responsibility of taking care of different shipments from and to the inds, as well as sending new people to the different inds either as settlers or visitors. The whole thing was happening through the Lord, who was convinced by the Prince to cooperate with them no matter what they wanted to do, so Komer was able to deal with it pretty smoothly. And so, right now, Eisen and the others were about to set off toward their first destination... Melroe! They specifically chose a path that only had a few smaller towns along it that they could bypass depending on the situation. "Then let¡¯s go now, shall we?" Eisen suggested with a broad smile on his face after having hooked Cabarum up to the carriage properly, and as the others didn¡¯t seem to have anything against it either, the old man just swiftly led the carriage off of the ship and onto the roads of this town, in the quickest path toward the gate in the direction they wanted to go, although just when they got a fair bit away from town, the old man got a chat message to take care of. [Jyuuk] Been looking for these for a little while now, should be good enough, right? Confused, the old man looked read through the message and was just about to ask what he was talking about, when a certain red, ming eagle approached the carriage from the side andnded on the old man¡¯s arm with a bag in his mouth. "Oh? What¡¯s this?" Eisen muttered to himself and held his hand out, before Akatori dropped the bag into his palm. And after rubbing his head against the old man as a ¡¯Goodbye¡¯, Akatori quickly flew off again, and Eisen took a look at the contents of the bag. To his surprise, there were nearly two dozen soul stones in there. Half of them belonging to ¡¯Gray Wolves¡¯ or their monster derivatives, and the other half belonged to Gargantuan Steeds or their monster derivatives. With a light smirk on his face, Eisen just nodded his head and immediately replied to the Beastperson. [Eisen] They¡¯re just perfect, thank you And so, Eisen now had the proper materials that he needed to turn both Cabarum and Aulu into Ego-Golems, although just then, Eisen noticed a different, third type of Soul Stone inside, one belonging to a small, red fox. The old man spoke to Jyuuk about his idea of making a small Fox Ego-Golem for Kirisho, and said that he would go ahead and look for a soul stone for that. For now, the old man ced the bag into his chest pocket and continued driving until the group finally found a good ce to start Fafnir¡¯s Evolution. When he reached Level 100 in Rank 1, Eisen got the option to let him Evolve instead of activating it immediately. Whether this was because of Sigurd or because Fafnir was a Dungeon didn¡¯t matter, Eisen was just d that it didn¡¯t happen with any yers inside. He didn¡¯t know what would actually happen in the process, after all. Either way, for now, there was no choice but to try and start the evolution. With that mindset, Eisen brought Fafnir out to the side of the road while Sigurd transported itself into the Dungeon. "Then let¡¯s start that Evolution, shall we?" Eisen said with a light smile as he went through the Dungeon-Menu and selected the Evolution-Option, and Fafnir¡¯s body immediately started to grow a fair bitrger. If he was at the size of a small- to medium-sized dog before, now he was at the size of a Newfounnd. Meaning, pretty damn big, at least whenpared to before. Eisen was sure that Fafnir would continue to growrger andrger over time, meaning that sooner orter, he wouldn¡¯t even fit into the carriage anymore, which was something pretty concerning as far as Eisen was concerned. [The Living Dungeon has Ranked-Up to Rank 2 and gained Five more floors, as well as a number of new options] "Well then... Let¡¯s just take a look inside, shall we? Fafnir, open the gate." Eisen said immediately, and the small, at least whenpared to others of that kind, Dragon swiftly did as asked and jumped into the air, causing a new Dungeon gate to appear. It was a fair bitrger, obviously, and as long as Eisen pulled is head down a little bit, he would probably be able to walk through there in his fully-grown form. "Dammit... Can you make it any smaller?" Eisen asked with a slight frown, considering that this wouldn¡¯t fit into the carriage at all, and Fafnir slowly stood up from the top of the gate and jumped off of it. While this gate was disappearing, Fafnir just rolled up on the ground in a sleeping-position, and in front of his body, a new gate appeared, the same size as the one from the Rank 1 Dungeon were, so Eisen sighed in relief. "Perfect. Good job, bud." Eisen chuckled and quickly ran his hand over Fafnir¡¯s sleeping head a few times, before he swiftly opened the door to the Dungeon and stepped inside, where Sigurd was already waiting for him. It didn¡¯t seem like it changed all that much, besides how the tattoos changed a little, but Sigurd definitely seemed pretty excited. "Ta-Dah!" It eximed happily, and Eisen nodded his head with augh. "I¡¯m d you¡¯re happy, then. Erm, but listen, I think we should see about what we should do with the gate when it¡¯s in itsrge version..." The old man said and slowly turned around, and could already see that the door had changed a bit as well from this side. Mainly, there was arge gate like therger Rank 2 one, but inside of that gate there was still the regr Rank 1 Gate which was currently open. The Ceiling was barely high enough to make therger gate not reach past it, so Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction. "Nevermind, then. Let¡¯s just look into it when you two reach Rank 3. For now, should we go ahead and start working on the next floor?" Chapter 430 - Launch A little whileter, once the next floor had actually been established, Sigurd started spending all of its time on expanding the space a little more considering theyout of this next floor. And so, Eisen just stepped back out of the Dungeon and had Fafnir wake up again, before making him open the smaller gate inside of the Carriage so that they could get moving already. "Sky, Bree, can you two take care of driving?" The old man asked, and the two Fey-Kin siblings immediately nodded their heads without hesitation. "Yup~!" Bree eximed with a happy grin and swiftly climbed through the window at the front of the carriage to sit down there, before Eisen opened the wooden door to the Dungeon with a smile on his face, stepping inside to now start properly working on something important. First, he stepped outside and walked to a spot where he would be able to work pretty nicely and then sat down on the floor, creating a worktable out of his element while grabbing the five boxes with the ¡¯Great Golem Reincarnations¡¯ in them as well as the five Souls belonging to them. And so, the first thing that Eisen did was just take them out one after another to remove the Golem Core from their chests, before Eisen swiftly started to work on re-making them with just a few exceptions. Instead of adding the ¡¯Mind¡¯ and ¡¯Soul¡¯ crystals, Eisen ced one soul into each of the five Golem Cores to turn them into Ego-Golem Cores. There was something else that Eisen left out, but he wasn¡¯t entirely sure if that would let this work properly. The next thing that followed was just Eisen cing the Golem Cores back into the Metal Bodies before activating them anew, all at the same time. [You have given the Great Golem Tank a new Form] [You have given the Great Golem Deedee a new Form] [You have given the Great Golem Supp a new Form] [You have given the Great Golem Ranger a new Form] [You have given the Great Golem Croco a new Form] [The Five Great Golems have been Reincarnated] At the same time as those notifcations appeared, the metal bodies of the Golems were creaking loudly, as if changing every single part about them despite not changing the way they looked in the slightest. The metal was shifting along the surface and twisting around itself in a way that seemed rather confusing, but in the end, the Golems one after another stood up and stretched. "The hell?" A rather deep voice sounded out from Tank¡¯s mouth as he looked down at his hands confused and tried to find out what was going on. "What just happened?" Croco then asked, but it seemed like none of the other three had any answer to that, although they got it pretty soon when their ¡¯Memories¡¯ from their crystal brain reached their soul, which was the same time that they noticed Eisen standing next to them. "You... You re-made us...?" Deeded muttered confused, before Tank just stared at Eisen angrily. "Don¡¯t f.u.c.k with me! What do you want form us this time?!" He yelled loudly, but was quickly stopped by Supp before he could. "Tank, stop it... You know that something is going on... You lost your memories, didn¡¯t you, Eisen?" The Support Golem asked with what seemed to be supposed to be a slight frown, and the old man just nodded his head astoundedly. "Yeah... Yeah I did... I¡¯m just confused at how you were able to change your bodies to such an extent..." Eisen muttered quietly, but Tank just crossed his arms and grumbled. "We literally have souls that transcend the ¡¯Ancient¡¯ grade by nearly a hundred times, you think we can¡¯t change a metal body a little?" With a slight frown, Eisen stared at Tank confused, before a few different things started to click in his head. While grinding his teeth, the old man then asked something that he wasn¡¯t sure he wanted to hear the answer to. "Ah... You were experiments, weren¡¯t you..?" Eisen muttered, and once more Tank just ground his teeth together and walked up to Eisen, "Ah, so you DO remember..." The Large Golem replied angrily, grabbing him by the throat, or at least that¡¯s what he did for a moment before letting go confusedly. "Wait, how..." Tank whispered quietly and looked at his hands. "I can... Attack you?" He asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head while rubbing his neck. "Mhm, you can. Listen, I don¡¯t properly remember things from before a couple of months ago, but there are chunks here and there. But what I said right now was just a conclusion... I probably made you to try and work on that ¡¯Lifetime Quest¡¯ about creating artificial Life, right?" Eisen asked, and without hesitation, Deedee replied with a nod. "That¡¯s basically it, yes, but more importantly, tell us how Tank was just able to attack you! Without beingmanded to, Golems can¡¯t attack their owner, not even Ego-Golems..." She exined quietly, so Eisen just crossed his arms. "Well, that¡¯s because I left out the ¡¯Ownership¡¯ enchantment. Or rather, I changed it around so that your Core could still be seen as a Golem Core, without me actually owning you." Eisen replied, and the five Golems looked at each other momentarily. "Is... Is that really so?" Supp then asked, and Eisen simply nodded. "Then as free... Golems... we can do whatever we want?" "You can. Is there anything in specific, then?" The old man inquired, and Supp just slowly nodded his head. "I would like to leave and never see you again, if you¡¯re alright with that..." The Support Golem said quite clearly, and the others seemed to want to join in with that idea as well. "We love you... at least I do, but... You kept us alive for tens of thousands of years and just used us for your benefit... And then told us to forever stay inside of that Temple... And THEN youe and resurrect us again? It just hurts..." Croco added quietly, holding onto her broom, and Deedee ced her hand on the short Golem¡¯s shoulder. "It¡¯s just unfair... You were our friend when we were alive, and we died trying to protect you... We were happy to see you again at first, but then we found out why you actually turned us into Golems..." "To sum it up, you¡¯re a horrible person." Tank added to what Deedee said, and the old man just stared at them, not knowing what he was supposed to do or say, and then Ranger spoke. "If you truly want to help us, allow us to do this." The Golem said, but before Eisen could respond in any way, some others took charge of it. "Stop bullying Eisen!" Caria eximed as she ran up to Tank and hit his legs as hard as she could, although that seemed to only end up hurting her hands instead. And while she was doing that, Melissa got out as many of her bees as she could and made them cover the five different Golems, while Sal was simply panicking about what was going on, although he also seemed to be pretty mad about hearing Eisen being spoken about in that way. And at the same time, Sigurd also appeared in front of them. "I don¡¯t care who you five are, or for how long you¡¯ve known Eisen, but how can you just say something like that? Not after a hundred, not after a thousand, and definitely not after a hundred thousand years would Eisen ever treat his friends like that, I¡¯m sure of that!" But it seemed like that rather annoyed Tank once more, and he pushed Caria out of the way to get closer to Sigurd. "Listen here, twerp. I used to be a Titan when I was alive, and the Vige I lived in was inside of the Giant Country, near the Town that the Grardour lived in. We went to see the different Grardour hundreds of times, but not a single time did Eisen allow me to go home, not even after message came to us that my parents died. He just said ¡¯No¡¯, and I couldn¡¯t go because he had more control over my body than I could." He eximed, and then pointed over at the others. "It was the same with them! They were never allowed to go to the ces most important to them, neither were they allowed to see the people most important to them! Eisen went to those ces numerous times without us, but not even once were we allowed to go! We had to live with the fact that people saw us as abominations, as sick jokes without Eisen stepping in to do something! He just stood there and had us take it all on while he was busy fooling around!" And so, while shaking all the bees off of his body, Tank pushed past Sigurd and stepped up to Eisen, getting his metallic face as close to him as he could without actually touching him. "The sight of him makes me sick. I¡¯m going, and there¡¯s nothing you can do about it." Tank said in a clear voice and just headed over toward the Dungeon Exit. And so, the five Great Golems, just minutes after being resurrected, left Eisen again. Tank and Supp seemed to be the ones most dedicated to leave, and Croco the one that most wanted to stay with him. Either way, they made their choice, one that Eisen didn¡¯t know how to react to. In the end, there wasn¡¯t anything that he could do about it, but he still felt quite bitter about seeing them leave like that, after saying such words to him about things that he didn¡¯t even remember doing. For a little while, Eisen just sat there, trying his hardest to remember anything that had to do with the great golems at all. But no matter how hard he tried, it was just an empty hope that he didn¡¯t seem to be able to fulfill. And just when the old man was trying to give up, a notification appeared in front of him. [Over the past few weeks, multiple groups of people started ying the game! First the Originals, who did their very best to properly build a base for others yers to have the most fun they can! Then, the Omegas, who have already spread across the continent while trying to build their own Trading Imperiums! The Alphas, whose sheer kindness and happiness was more than enough to connect this Game World with our Reality! And atst, the Deltas, who finally gave a chance to others to experience this World through their eyes to join them on an incredible aventure! In five mere minutes the first regr yers will join this world, so all of you, treat them the best you can! All of us at Prime Industries thank you for your cooperation!] Chapter 431 - Fox With a slight sigh, Eisen pushed his body up and waved the notification that appeared in front of him away, before just stepping back into the Dungeon. It was fine that the yers were there now, but he was feeling quite ufortable with the new knowledge that was just given to him about what kind of person he was before. "If I lived that long... Then maybe it could be..." He muttered to himself. After all, the ¡¯Eisen¡¯ of the past lived 100 Thousand years, as far as the old man was aware. And he knew people that changed who they were from the grounds up in a single decade, so it wasn¡¯t too hard to consider it possible. And from what he heard at , he was pretty cynical sometimes toward the end, meaning that it was more than just possible for him to have be just a truly bad person like that. He hoped that it wasn¡¯t the case, but after being told all that just now, Eisen simply didn¡¯t think he could actually deny it. At the very least he gave them their ¡¯Free Will¡¯ like his Instincts told him to... At first he wanted to just make it a proper, regr Golem Core, but then he changed his mind basically drastically and made an enchantment so that the souls would practically own themselves. It wasn¡¯t actually him that started all the enchantments, Eisen simply gave everything a bit of a ¡¯jumpstart¡¯. The old man wasn¡¯t sure why exactly he did it, but as mentioned, it was just that his instincts told him that¡¯s what he was supposed to do. Maybe it was the old Eisen shining through and telling the current Eisen that his actions were a mistake, but he wasn¡¯t entirely convinced of that. For now, Eisen just wanted to work on something else, and as such went into the Dungeon together with Aulu, to start it off there. He basically already confirmed that it was possible for the ¡¯Souls¡¯ inside of Ego-Golem Cores to learn the information saved inside of ¡¯crystal brains¡¯, so Eisen was pretty sure that it should be the same with Aulu, and she should be the same cute wolfdy as she always had been. And so, the old man slowly made hery down on her back and opened her chest up carefully by removing some of the threads holding her leather-skin together and then carefully took the Golem Core out of her chest, before getting started on making another one that he could rece it with, swiftly cing one of the wolf-souls into it. Just like that, the old man then managed to rece the Golem Core with an Ego-Golem Core making use of a basic Wolf Soul. Eisen was pretty d to see that there were multiple of a few ranks of Gray-Wolf Monsters above that, reaching all the way from Rank 1 to Rank 5, and the same was the case with the Horse-Souls for Cabarum Later. And the reason why he was happy about it was quite simple. Right now, Aulu had changed into a Rank 0 Ego Automaton, and while it didn¡¯t necessarily say that she had a Rank Limit of 0, Eisen figured it made sense that he somehow had to ¡¯Upgrade¡¯ her using other souls as well, just like he had to with regr Ego-Items. He would just need to wait and see about thatter on when he got her to level up all to the peak of Rank 0, which probably shouldn¡¯t take so long. But either way, Eisen was more than just happy when he saw Aulu move around. At first, it seemed like her ¡¯Memories¡¯ hadn¡¯t connected to her soul just yet and she just started trying to growl at Eisen, but after a little while, she just started to snuggle up to Eisen like she often did anyway. "Ah, there¡¯s my good girl again, huh?" The old man chuckled slightly, happy that he was able to properly keep Aulu along with him for a while now, at least that¡¯s what it seemed like. He probably wouldn¡¯t have trashed her either way, considering that she was too weak to take any of the monsters Eisen could fight against now anyway, but it was practically impossible to take her with him at all to anywhere, which Eisen wasn¡¯t necessarily happy about. For now, while Aulu was running around in the Dungeon space ying with some of the Dungeon Wolves, the old man swiftly started preparing the Ego Golem Core that he would then ce into Cabarum¡¯s body instead of the Golem Core that he had inside of him at the moment. He didn¡¯t want to do so just yet, because it seemed like Aulu¡¯s ¡¯Stats¡¯ had been reduced pretty heavily already, and Eisen just figured he should take his time to find a nice spot for them to level up and then switch Cabarum out, so that he wouldn¡¯t end up too weak to pull the carriage. Just technically from his body, Cabarum shouldn¡¯t be too weak, but you could never really say what he would end up as. The Physical base didn¡¯t really always matter anyway, apparently, considering that the tiny girl Caria¡¯s current stats were already far higher than Eisen¡¯s were when he started out. Just from the physical standpoint, it would be nonsensical for her to be stronger than him, but the reality would have been different. Either way, for now, there was another Golem that Eisen had to work on. And so that he could properly do that, he swiftly turned over toward the Mist-Spirit calmly ying with the Monster Children. "Kirisho, would you mind and, just for a couple of hours, wait outside of the Dungeon? There is something I need to work on, and I don¡¯t think I really want you to see it just yet." Eisen exined with a slight smile, and Kirisho looked at him with a surprised expression but slowly nodded her head, "Of course... As long as it is nothing dangerous to you, it is alright with me." She admitted, so the old man just chuckled and shook his head. "No, no, it¡¯s nothing dangerous, don¡¯t worry. I simply don¡¯t want you to see the item I¡¯m about to work on just yet. That¡¯s all there really is to it." Eisen exined to her, and Kirisho slowly nodded her head and made her way toward the ¡¯Reception Building¡¯, although she curiously peeked over her shoulder a couple of times on her way there. And it seemed like she wasn¡¯t the only one that was curious about what Eisen was about to make. The others, meaning the three Monster Children as well as Sigurd, swiftly made their way over toward the Old man as well, huddling up together next to him to get a proper look at what exactly he was about to make. To start it off with, Eisen thought about trying out a bit of a new way of creating Golem Cores. Sure, he should be able to create an Ego-Golem in this manner quite easily, but Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely positive if that was enough for his purposes. He wanted to give Kirisho something that would basically be aplete, true fox, with the exception of it being made of a bit more metal than usual. And for that, Eisen thought that maybe it could help to ¡¯extend¡¯ the reach of the Golem Core a little, and ended up getting a pretty nice idea for that. But to start it off with, Eisen had to actually create the body of the small Fox to start it off with. He took a look at the soul, grabbed it out of the Soul Stone a few times just to see whether or not he got the size and general proportions right for this soul, and then swiftly started working, creating a simple metal skeleton out of an alloy of different magic metals. The two main metals for that were Mythril and Matikum, the metal created when infusing tinum with enough Magic. As Eisen really wasn¡¯t able to ¡¯Specialize¡¯ this metal toward any specific element, considering that Kirisho¡¯s mist wasn¡¯t a skill but rather an innate part of her bodily structure, and Eisen wasn¡¯t able to use such a thing for Enchantments yet. So, this part would have to stay like normal. Of course, Eisen also alloyed it with some Brass for general strength and even a little bit of White Gold, to give it just a little bit more of a raw boost. And so, after properly working on somehow strengthening the outer surface of the metal, the old man had some nice, strong, magic-metal bones in front of him. They were still far easier to bend or breakpared to regr Brass, maybe, but considering that this didn¡¯t seem like a ¡¯Combat Pet¡¯ kind of Golem, Eisen didn¡¯t think he had to worry about that all that much. In the end, it would still have a stronger body than a regr fox would, after all. Either way, after finishing that Skeleton, Eisen swiftly put it together and then started on the creation of the Golem Core, and swiftly turned it into thick crystal thread. And using a method that Eisen used before already, Eisen pulled Mana-Thread through that crystal thread and used transmutation to simply pull the ¡¯core¡¯ of that thread out of it to hollow it out and turn it into a thin tube. As Eisen hadn¡¯t turned every part of the Golem Core, which Eisen had specially mixed with the Soul Stone Crystal beforehand already to properly contain the soul, into thread, he ced the rest of that Golem Core safely into the center of the Metal Skeleton and connected different parts of the hollow thread throughout the ¡¯Body¡¯, hardening it in different ces to make sure it would keep its shape, and then connected the ends of that thread to the Golem Core using transmutation, to make sure that it would end up as ¡¯One piece¡¯. Once that was done, Eisen grabbed something else. The small prototype version for the automatic Potion-Brewer, which Eisen swiftly tried to use to create ¡¯Potion Jelly¡¯ for a very specific potion recipe. And that potion was called a ¡¯Healthy Body¡¯ potion. Basically, it removed any minor physical injuries or diseases, helped with your stamina and health regeneration, and added a slight bonus to physical stats. The reason that Eisen wanted to turn this into Jelly was quite easy as well... The regr potion itself had a quite weird texture to it, mainly because it was very, very thick in its potion state already, as it was made using the pulp of specific fruits and roots. Those would bepletely dissolved in the end, so it wasn¡¯t like there were any chunks inside, but the consistency was practically like thick pudding. So when Eisen made potion jelly out of it, and to top it off the ¡¯Compressed¡¯ version as was created by the Mass-Production machine, it was basically one solid, wobbly chunk that was hard to pull apart. Basically, it was like raw meat, which was just the texture that Eisen wanted, and its color was basically snow-white, which Eisen didn¡¯t mind all that much. It might look nice when peaking out from under the pitch-ck fur, after all. And so, Eisen swiftly set this ¡¯Meat Substitute¡¯ to the side and started building the different connection pieces that were supposed to support the movement, before cing that meat substitute onto the frame, and then atst just hardened that meat substitute in different ces to create a skin-like surface at the top, before moving onto creating a metal fur using a pitch-ck metal alloy, once more supposed to help with mana-flow. But then, toward the tail, Eisen created a ¡¯Mist Tail¡¯, using the ¡¯Mist¡¯ rune to create it around something like a mana-thread wireframe. Then, the only thing that was left was to add the soul. Chapter 432 - Weapon Core With a slight smile on his face, Eisen slowly let the soul into the Golem Core and watched as it spread out throughout the thin ¡¯Tubes¡¯. "Alright... Everything is working nicely..." The old man muttered quietly as he took a look at especially the ¡¯Mist Tail¡¯, which was pretty hard to properly create. So that it didn¡¯t look too weird to have a white tail while the rest of the fur ispletely ck, Eisen added other white details throughout the whole fox-body. The crystal eyes were simply ck, and the parts where some ¡¯skin¡¯ was visible, it was clear to see just how white it was. Eisen really did like the way that this Fox turned out, he had to admit to that. It probably wouldn¡¯t be the strongest Golem, but especially after managing to maybe rank up once or twice, its body should have made up for all the small, unfavorable details that it might have just when seen from a purely physical-structure-focused point of view. "Then it¡¯s time..." Eisen whispered quietly and made his way over toward the Dungeon gate with the small, unactivated Fox-Golem in his hands. All that was left was for Kirisho to pour her mana into the Golem Core, and it should be possible for her to take control over it. And as it has the soul of an actual fox inside of it, it will act just like one, and will as such hopefully make up for the disappointment that Kirisho was feeling at not being able to tame anything or keep anything as a pet. And the moment that Eisen opened the Dungeon Gate, he could already see Kirisho sitting at the back of the carriage as she was sitting in the doorway with the door opened and her feet dangling out, while she seemingly just wanted to take a look at everything that was happening in the forest around them. "Kirisho?" The old man asked with a light smile, and the Mist Spirit slowly turned around. "Yes? Oh, is the item you were working on before ready?" She asked curiously as she stood up and turned toward him, soon noticing the ck ball of metallic furying in his hands. "It is. Here..." Eisen muttered quietly and extended his hands forward to give the small ck fox golem to her. "I know it¡¯s not technically a real animal, but it¡¯s close enough there. It¡¯s a Golem with a Fox¡¯s Soul inside of it. You should be able to activate the enchantments, so you will be seen as its Mistress. Ah, and because it¡¯s an Ego-Golem, it can level up as well. I¡¯m not entirely sure in regards to Evolution, but..." Just when Eisen was trying to properly finish up his exnation, he saw that Kirisho was just staring at him in confusion, seemingly wth tears in her eyes. "Thank you, Eisen... I didn¡¯t expect you to... Gift me something like this..." She said with a bright smile and held the Fox more tightly, before looking down at it. "So I just need to put my mana inside of it?" Kirisho asked, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head in response. "Mhm, exactly." He replied quite clearly, and the Mist-Spirit just looked at him with a light smile while the Golem¡¯s fur starting waving around slightly, although that seemed to only be an ¡¯illusion¡¯ caused by the shifting of light caused by mana. And so, soon, the body of the Fox started slightly creaking for just a moment or two, and then soon it stretched itself. Eisen expected it to be freaked out at first, as anyone would be, but Jyuuk apparently chose a Fox that was very specifically very calm and kind-natured, so that they didn¡¯t have to worry about this kind of thing at all, something that Eisen was more than just d about in retrospect. The very moment that it seemed to notice its new location and body, the Fox did seem somewhat scared, but soon rxed when Kirisho started snuggling it. "Be careful, its fur is made of metal thread, so you might end up hurting yourself." Eisen exined immediately, but Kirisho just shook her head with a smile. "Don¡¯t worry, smaller things like that don¡¯t really hurt me. My Body technically isn¡¯tpletely solid anyway, after all." She chuckled and just swiftly looked at the Fox Golem in her arms, looking it deep into the eyes. "She¡¯s wonderful, thank you, Eisen." The Mist-Spirit exined with a smile and without letting Eisen react in any way, she stepped up next to him, ced her hand onto his shoulder to pull herself up a little, and then nted her lips on the old man¡¯s cheek. And then, Kirisho simply hurried past the old man to not give him the chance to say anything and made her way into the ¡¯Open¡¯ grass area inside of this small Dungeon Vige, while Eisen turned around and looked at her back surprised, while Sigurd just looked at him with a slight smirk. "Oh~?" It asked and slightly chuckled, before Eisen just smirked and shook his head. "It¡¯s not like that. Anyway... Now that that¡¯s done..." The old man said and ended up grinning broadly, "I have the time to work on those, don¡¯t I?" Eisen muttered to himself, swiftly stepping through the door out of the reception, directly toward the area where Eisen was usually crafting things, and turned toward Sigurd on his way. For some reason, he was feeling pretty pumped up at the moment, so he wanted to use this rush of energy to get started with the creation of his Demon-Metal based weapon and Multi-Tool. "Can you get me all of the Yin Metals that we have?" Eisen asked the Core-Guardian, who swiftly nodded its head in response and disappeared in a cloud of mist, while Eisen swiftly set up the Elemental Forge and got his tools ready. And the moment that Sigurd appeared in front of him with the first few Ingots in hand, the old man got started on his work. Without hesitation he ced them into the forge and waited for them to heat up while he prepared in any other way that he could, either by using his Crafting Space, attuning his Demonic transformation as far toward the Yang side of things as he possibly could to better support the ¡¯Creation¡¯ aspect of everything, and then carved the ¡¯cksmithing¡¯ rune into his chest into the center of his Fullbody enchantment while adding anotheryer of his element to his body to even further increase his movement. For a couple of minutes, all that Eisen did was just grab one of the ingots out of the forge and hammered onto it for a moment to see what temperature was best for this metal, and once he figured that out, properly got started. First things first, Eisen began by folding the metal into each other while using Alchemy-Basedpression in a ¡¯New¡¯ manner. He already managed to do something simr before, when he was just constantly pushing his mana into the items he was forging every time his hammer hit it, but this time around, he wanted to push his mana forward as if in a ¡¯Wave¡¯, simr to what the Potion-Massproduction Machine did when trying to pull some of the more useless parts out of the potion by pressing the useful parts away. And now, Eisen did the same thing withpression, trying to properly push therge amount of metal into as small a space as he could. He had the proper image in his head, so he knew how far he needed to go to properly shape the metal into that shape. Like this, the old man both folded the hot Yin metals into each other while alsopressing them at the same time, an act which seemed to be surprisingly easy in the manner that he was doing it now. That didn¡¯t mean he couldpress things much further than before, but at the very least it helped him do so more quickly. Of course the old man also added a bit of a ¡¯Secret ingredient¡¯ in the creation of this, a soul with a special background. He didn¡¯t end up finding a soul that let him have the direct shape and size that he wanted for this item, so he figured he could go with this, considering that it still allowed the item to go through ranks. Through his experiments, Eisen managed to find out a bunch of things in regards to how the souls and methods affected the growth, after all. Either way, soon, Eisen had thisrge, heavy piece of metal in his hands and had turned it into the right shape that it needed to be, together with the handle and handguard. The only thing that was left now was to figure out if this needed some form of tempering, considering how different this metal was to other metals that Eisen knew of so far. Letting out a slight sigh, the old man took a close look at it and ran his hands over it, just trying to let his intuition decide. "Alright, I guess I should..." The old man muttered to himself as he made his way over toward the grinding wheels to first grind the edge into the side of this one-edged de, and then afterward pushed the de into a tempering oven where he could perfectly control which ces it did what at. And then, Eisen got started with the preparation for the rest that needed to be done, swiftly grabbing a few different precious gems that he figured could be useful, and ended up using some of the reserved pieces of Yin Metal that he didn¡¯t integrate into the base weapon itself for them as well, properlybining the ground-down metal with the different ground-down gems to get a single, useful piece. It was quite dark in color and had a slightly red color to it if you lit it up, which Eisen really didn¡¯t mind. And then, Eisen grabbed a chunk of that piece and started to enchant it somehow, in a way that Eisen thought could possibly be risky, although there was nothing left but to try. Using the Marble Work-Surface, Eisen got started on the enchantment for this gem, which was made up of his Swordsmanship Skill as an Ability enchantment as well as arge-scale, quite detailed enchantment that covered the whole Marble surface, which had a rtively weird pattern to it. In the end, Eisen was pretty sure that surface-wise, more ces had been carved down than stayed t. And that enchantment had a few general purposes of increasing the item¡¯s effect, especially in regards to Swordsmanship and Demonic Actions, while also having a few different spots on it that were supposed to ¡¯connect¡¯ to other pieces, four in total, all of them directly lined up with each other. On top of that, it was of course also supposed to take direct control of the growth-change that was going on with Eisen. Then, Eisen got started on another enchantment while that one was just there on the marble surface. The small part of the ¡¯Yin-Metal Gem¡¯ that Eisen ced to the side got a different ability enchantment, the ¡¯Growth Change¡¯ ability, as well as a three-dimensional enchantment to properly add onto that. It would be the core of the growth-change for this weapon, as well as the ce where a special, tiny piece would be ced to act as a centerpiece for this whole item, even though he didn¡¯t exactly add that in yet and had it sitting right next to him. And then, Eisen ced the rest of the enchantment currently still on the marble surface onto this piece. That turned it quite brittle, as Eisen expected, but he was sure it would be fine considering what he was nning. As the sword itself was done tempering around now, Eisen swiftly got started on the enchantments on this, which would all be based around the hole in the Sword¡¯s Body, leading out like webs from four different spots around that hole. After that, Eisen filled those carvings in with the rest of the Yin-Metal-Gem material that he had and then simply ¡¯popped¡¯ those out again with the help of a little bit of minimal transmutation, trying to add anotheryer of enchanting to everything. These four ¡¯crystal webs¡¯ of enchantments that Eisen now had were all enchanted with the same enchantment as was ced on the outside of the small sphere, which was easy to do with the marble work-surface, and then they were ced back into their specific spots. And atst, the small gem-sphere that Eisen enchanted in twopletely different manners and turned quite brittle was ced into the hole in the sword-body and connected to the four webs properly, before Eisen ced the small special piece he had inside of it. And that piece was the ¡¯Soul Nucleus¡¯, as Eisen called it. There was always one more ¡¯central¡¯ piece inside of a soul that seemed to act as a central part, so for this Sword, Eisen used anything but that nucleus in the basic creation by for example ¡¯folding it in¡¯ or something like that, and ced that Nucleus inside of the small sphere, covering the whole thing up with another, protectiveyer of the Metal-Gem material. It had to be protected properly, after all, what Eisen just made was a ¡¯Weapon Core¡¯. Chapter 433 - Tool Core [Demonic Yin Ego Sword] [Item Rank - 5][Quality - Perfect] [Ego Rank - 0][Level - 1] [Description] A Demonic Ego Sword created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Through a method inspired by Golem Cores, this Sword has gained superior Ego Growth whenpared to other Ego Weapons. It was created out of purely Demonic Yin Materials and as such is attuned perfectly toward Combat. Until the Ego Rank reaches the Item Rank, this Sword will gain Stat Effects superior to a regr Sword¡¯s of the same qualifications, and can then grow from there. [Effect] [Requirements] 150 INT, 150 WIS, 100 STR, 100 END, 100 AGI; Demonic Nature Eisen looked through the item information and just nodded his head excitedly. It wasn¡¯t great that this item didn¡¯t have any current effects beside the Size Changing, but he should be able to change that rtively quickly if Eisen went around and fought against a few Rank 3 or 4 monsters, which he should be able to take even without a weapon. And so, the old man swiftly set this item to the side happily. He was really d that he had such a nice weapon now, and couldn¡¯t wait until he had the chance to try it out a little. For now, however, Eisen had to work on another item as well, the Yang Multitool, before working on the item that Eisen thought up for the two Gems that were left over when the Masses of Yin and Yang were absorbed. First things first, the old man just split the pile of this white metal up into different parts, all depending on which ¡¯section¡¯ it would be part of. He wanted topress this a little as well, so he had to n this out more than when it came to the Sword which was really just a single chunk of metal. And so, when Eisen had everything ready, he swiftly got to work and started on the smallestyer, the Chisel, and then added the nextyer, the de of the Knife-part of the Multitool. Of course, Eisen already ced small mana-crystals into different parts of these to keep these together with Maism enchants that would act seperately to the ¡¯regr¡¯ enchantments that Eisen would ce on thister on. Then, Eisen made the next pieces, the second handle, which would be simply ced around the first handle, and then added the ¡¯base¡¯ for therger tools to this. Considering that Eisen made this Multi-Tool a couple of times while in the state of Deep Concentration, he was able to do all of this quite swiftly without needing to think about it all that much. After that, the old man smithed all of the different parts that could be moved around the base in different angles and orientations to form either a pickaxe, a regr axe, a shovel, a hoe, or a hammer, and then ced everything together before adding the ¡¯third handle¡¯ so that he could actually have a proper grip on everything when using this tool in its pickaxe, shovel, or axe modes. The only thing that Eisen then had to do was to simply add the small section that had smaller things like needles inside of it that could be screwed out of it quite swiftly. And then, Eisen got started on the ¡¯Tool Core¡¯. This time around, the first handle would get a ¡¯sub-core¡¯, so that the chisel and knife would work even when not directly connected to the main-core. That would mean that the different parts couldn¡¯t be that far away from the main core, however, and that wasn¡¯t really that big a deal anyway. In the end, the old man did something simr as for the ¡¯Weapon Core¡¯, just that he didn¡¯t focus the basic enchantment onbat, but on crafting, obviously. And once more, Eisen used a yang-metal-gem mixture to fill the enchantments on the Multitool with before enchanting these different ¡¯webs¡¯ individually as well. Soon enough, Eisen managed to finish this Multitool again and ced everything together, cing the ¡¯Tool Core¡¯ into the top of the base that the ¡¯Big Tool¡¯ parts were connected to, and then put the ¡¯Soul Nucleus¡¯ into the center of the Tool Core. And in the end, Eisen now had this white hammer in his hand, with a main handle that he could screw in to and out of itself for different lengths and multiple different modes that it could take on. Just like that, Eisen saw this piece as finished with a satisfied nod. [Demonic Yang Ego Multi-Tool] [Item Rank - 5][Quality - Perfect] [Ego Rank - 0][Level - 1] [Description] A Demonic Ego Tool created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Through a method inspired by Golem Cores, this Multitool has gained superior Ego Growth whenpared to other Ego Tools. It was created out of purely Demonic Yang Materials and as such is attuned perfectly toward Creation. Until the Ego Rank reaches the Item Rank, this Multitool will gain Stat Effects superior to a regr Tool¡¯s of the same qualifications, and can then grow from there. [Effect] ; [Requirements] 150 INT, 150 WIS, 100 STR, 100 END, 100 AGI; Demonic Nature With a smirk on his face, Eisen just cracked his knuckles and took a close look at both the Yin Sword and the Yang Tool, before making his way toward and out of the Dungeon Gate as swiftly as he could, and peeked his head out of the window at the front of the carriage. "Well then, you two... Could you stop for a moment?" Eisen asked the two Fey-Kin siblings, who looked at him startled and did as asked, while Eisen took a look around himself with his Mana-Sight active to search for some Monsters, before seeing a few different moving spots in the distance. "I¡¯ll be right back. Just wait here for a little while and take a break. Oh, and if you could, it would be great if you could feed Cabarum and Aulu as well." The Old man chuckled as he made his way away from the carriage with his new Multitool in a section of his Apron, while it and his Sword both grew in size together with him, while Eisen changed his Demonic Transformation, and as far toward the Yin state as he could. Because first, he would test out the Sword, although he turned around once more before being out of audible reach for Sky and Bree. "Oh! Before I forget, there¡¯s some Pastry in the Reception area! Treat yourseves a little!" He eximed with a loudugh as he hurried off excitedly, soon reaching the spot with the different monsters. It seemed like they were simple Orcs, bi-pedal pig-like Monsters with a horrid smell to them. They were pretty strong and often wandered in groups. The old man figured there was something like a Field-Dungeon for Orcs around these parts as well. Usually, due to their wild and intelligence-free nature, Orcs didn¡¯t react to mental attacks, however right now when faced with a being like Eisen, they couldn¡¯t help themselves. He was far stronger than these Rank 3 monsters, double their height, and just looked outright terrifying in this Demonic Form. But to their demise, Eisen managed to swing the de across the first Orc¡¯s body quite swiftly. He noticed that there wasn¡¯t really much of a stat benefit for this weapon right away, even if it was just in the fact that there was more resistance in the Orc¡¯s body than Eisen expected. Either way, soon, this Orc had one arm less and had its torso nearly cut in half, but was still alive, even if it was struggling to stay that way. And with just another quick attack, Eisen finished this Orc up. It didn¡¯t make him level up, as this was supposed to be hard-enough as is at Level 200 even when farming with Rank 5 Monsters, but his Sword gained a fair bit of experience! In one go, it leveled up to Level 16 and gained a few stat bonuses, even if put together they could be counted on both hands. It was just Rank 0 in its ego-growth, so it made sense for there to only be little benefit. Eisen was surprised that there even was any sort of benefit like that at that Rank at all. But he didn¡¯t think he shouldin and just continued on. And so, for a little while longer, Eisen just yed any Orc that was around here, soon enough bringing the Level to 100, although he wasn¡¯t entirely sure what he was supposed to do now. After all, it wasn¡¯t like a notification appeared when that happened that let him actively let the weapon Rank up like with the Dungeon. So instead, Eisen had a good enough chance to try and figure out how to properly let this kind of Ego-Item ¡¯Rank Up¡¯, grabbing another nk soul. But nothing that Eisen tried to do really worked. He tried to push this soul into the core or push it just simply into the item itself, but the weapon didn¡¯t ept it at all. And that¡¯s when Eisen had a little bit of a different idea. First, Eisen ced the Soul Nucleus into the hollow crystal core and then ¡¯scooped¡¯ the rest around with his hand, rubbing it along the surface of the sword with the intent of letting it just seep in. And so, soon enough, it seemed like the ¡¯Soul Mass¡¯ was properly added onto the Sword and the two Nuclei started floating around each other inside of the Core, before Eisen checked the Item-Information. Right now, it said that its Ego-Rank was at 1, and its Level at 0. "Hmm, so maybe I just need to make it level up a little?" The old man muttered quietly and stood back up and properly grasped the handle of the pitch ck sword in his hand. "Now then, where¡¯s the next ones?" Eisen asked himself and quickly made his way further through this part of the forest-area. This was acutally harder than Eisen thought, considering just howrge he was at the moment. But soon enough, the old demon reached a clearing, where a stronger Orc than usual waited for him, surrounded by about half a dozen regr Orcs. This one was carrying a quiterge, rusted and dull sword in one hand and a bent and dented tower-shield in the other, and was about three meters tall, meaning that it was still shorter than Eisen. And just when Eisen wanted to approach that ¡¯Leading¡¯ Orc, it turned around, apparently in response to an arrow shot at it from the opposite side of the clearing from Eisen¡¯s perspective. Eisen concentrated on what was going on from there, and soon noticed a group of three yers approaching the Orc. One Archer, one Warrior, and one Mage, although the Warrior and the Mage seemed to be yelling at the Archer at the moment. "What the f.u.c.k are you doing?" The Warrior eximed, but the Archer just stared back confusedly "I was trying to get rid of any of the Orcs that I can!" He yelled in response, but the Wizard simply ground his teeth and continued running from the horde of Orcs already hunting them on top of these new Orcs. "You just aggro¡¯d an even stronger Orc! We can¡¯t even take on these Rank 3 ones!" The Wizard pointed out as the group made their way into the clearing to try and get past it as quickly as they could, although then they suddenly saw the Giant-Ass, winged Demon standing there and stopped in their track. It seemed like even they were quite terrified right now, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help but just smirk. "Now, now, that¡¯s kind of rude, isn¡¯t it?" The old manughed, slowly stepping forward, pressing down the grass underneath his feet while swinging around his weapon easily. "If you guys need help, you shouldn¡¯t be like that toward the one person that could offer you that help." Chapter 434 - Repairs With slow and calm steps, the old Demon made his way toward the Orcs that were following the yers, swiftly swinging his de around horizontally right above the yers¡¯ heads toward the nearest Orc¡¯s neck, slicing right through it without even that much resistance to it this time around. And so, the Orc¡¯s body simply fell to the ground while the head was flung away,nding right in front of the feet of the other Orcs. With a single swing of his sword, Eisen then swiftly got rid of the blood that was left on hisrge Demonic Sword and then ced the tip of it into the ground as he smirked at the Orcs, the dark mes from underneath the cracks of his skin spiking up momentarily while all of the pig-like monsters were stopping thier pursuit. "Run." The old man said in a deep, loud voice, and immediately the monsters did as suggested, turning as fast as they could to get away from Eisen. The only one that was left was the one Rank 4 Orc, even though even he seemed quite nervous when faced with this terrifying being. With a loud squeal, the Orc swung his de toward Eisen who simply had to take a step back to avoid it, the same with the attack after that and the one after that one. Again and again, Eisen simply avoided this monster¡¯s attacks, before the old man got rather bored with this. "Let¡¯s just finish this one, then." He said, with a wink directed at the three yers, before swinging the sword in his hands downward directly onto the Orc¡¯s front, slicing deep into itsrge belly and basically splitting its face up in two. And then, Eisen just ced the de into the center of the Orc¡¯s chest and pushed through, making him feel the resistance of the Mana Crystal. With another quick push, Eisen then caused a loud crack to sound out as he pressed the Mana Crystal out of the Monster¡¯s back, breaking its spine as he was at it. Just out of curiosity, Eisen checked up on the sword in his hand and noticed that the two Nuclei properlybined with the help of the experience this Orc had given them, although it seemed to have only been enough to bring it from Level 0 to Level 1. Technically a monster like this should have been able to give the Ego Sword a bunch more levels, but maybe the initial step from Level 0 to Level 1 took a fair bit more? Maybe Eisen should kill a few more Orcs just to actually confirm whether that theory was correct or not, but just as the old man was moving his fingers through his rock-beard, he noticed something hitting the side of his head. It wasn¡¯t enough to prate his skin, and it just barely did any damage to him at all, but that was expected from an arrow shot by such a low-level Archer. "Now, now, is that the proper way to thank me after I saved you?" Eisen asked with a deep sigh, while the Mage and Warrior were staring at the Archer in disbelief that he actually did something that idiotic. But Eisen didn¡¯t really mind all that much. Considering his current appearance, something like that was to be expected, after all. What he was more curious about was the state of these guys¡¯ weapons. They were all incredibly rudimentary and mostly broken down, and the Warrior¡¯s sword and shield were even quite rusted and dented, as if they just picked them up somewhere. With a slight frown, Eisen squatted down in front of them and took a closer look. The yers themselves were a bit too nervous to even move at all, which worked in the old man¡¯s favor as he inspected all of the weapons, making him stare at the three with pure disgust. "Don¡¯t tell me you just picked these items up from monsters you beat..." The old Demon asked, cing his hand into his face in disappointment while his wings were tensing up out of annoyance. Especially, when the Warrior spoke up. "W-We did... Is... Is that not what you¡¯re supposed to do? Use Monster Drops?" The Warrior asked, and Eisen just ground his teeth and shook his head, extending his hand forward. "Give those to me." He said rather annoyedly as he sat down on the ground cross-legged. The yers were confused, but soon enough, the Wizard did as told, seemingly because he just wanted to get this over with. He was obviously expecting to have this weapon just taken away from him, although he was more than just surprised at what actually happened. Eisen ced the sword down next to him, not worried at having it taken away at all, considering the stat requirements on it as well as the general, raw weight of the item, and then shifted his Demonic Transformation over toward the Yang side as he grabbed his Multitool from his Apron, swiftly pulling off the ¡¯outeryer¡¯ to get to the knife bit. The boys were obviously confused at what was happening, especially what was going on when this Demon pushed his hand under his apron for a little while and fiddled around with something on his chest, but Eisen didn¡¯t pay attention to them. "You have a focus? Sorcery or Mana Maniption?" The old man asked as he looked at the Mage, who looked back surprised and then swallowed deeply. "S-Sorcery?" He asked, and Eisen just stared back at him and sighed. "That a question or your answer?" He asked as he started to carve over the surface of the Staff to change its shape into a more refined state while exposing and opening up broken or rotten parts, thetter of which he swiftly scooped out with the tip of the Knife. "My... My Answer!" The yer replied, so the old man nodded his head. "Good. But work on Mana Maniption as well, all of you. Maybe wait until you¡¯re maybe around Level 80 or 90, or maybe even until you¡¯re above level 100 if you can, but bring that skill to Rank 2 and you will gain an incredibly useful element. You won¡¯t be able to get far in this world without it." The old man exined as he reached for the mana crystal he just pushed out of the Rank 4 Orc¡¯s body, cleaned it up real quick, and then used it to rece some of the different parts that Eisen had to remove, while filling in general gaps in the whole thing before he handed it back to the yer. "Once you can afford it, get a proper staff made of something like Wizard¡¯s Oak, it¡¯s a strong and basic material. This one here is basically regr wood, won¡¯t do you any good in the long run." The old man exined as he looked at the other two yers, of which the Archer swiftly handed Eisen his bow. "Well then, I¡¯m surprised. This bow ispletely unbnced, but you managed to hit your target anyway. If you weren¡¯t this rude, you might actually end up a quite skilled, popr Archer." The Demon chuckled as he pulled on the bow a few times to just test how it bent and then carved over the back of the Bow a little in different parts to fix some of the issues with it, before swiftly snapping and removing the string to rece it with some nice mana-crystal thread that he spun with the spinnerets in his Apron¡¯s chest-pocket. And then, the old man simply handed it back and waited for the sword and shield from the Warrior, which he reluctantly handed over. Immediately, Eisen started to just remove all of the rust and dents, and then sharpened the edges again with a handheld grindstone he had with him. Like that, a little whileter, Eisen was done with the basic ¡¯repairs¡¯ of these trash items. "Now then." Eisen eximed as the yers were looking at the re-worked items with surprised expressions as the old man crossed his arms, "I suggest you all go back to town and learn crafting skills. Warrior, you learn cksmithing. Archer, you Woodworking. And you, Mage, Enchanting. Those are the ones you NEED to know in my opinion, just to make basic improvements and care for your items properly. And help each other out however you can as well. So Warrior, you make arrowheads for the Archer, Archer, you make handles for the Warrior and staffs or wands for the Mage. And Mage, you enchant the other guys¡¯ weapons properly. And learn somemunication and tactics as well, if you can." The old man exined quite swiftly as he stood up and patted the dirt and dust off his pants and ced his Multitool, which had managed to level up to 9 with this little amount of work, back together and into his Apron, before he turned around with a slight sigh, his sword back in his hand. But just when Eisen just wanted to leave, one of the yers yelled after him. "Wh-Who are you?" The Warrior asked nervously, and the old man just turned around and smirked. "Just a humble Craftsman, bud." And so, feeling goosebumps all over his body in response to being appraised three times, the old man chuckled and left, using his wings to properly propell him forward in a new manner. He jumped up into the air as strongly as he could and propelled himself in his fully increased size where his wings were huge, and then shrunk down to as little a size as he could handle and enjoyed his quite light body being propelled forward as he used his wings to just keep gliding pretty far. Soon enough, the old man made his way back into sight of the carriage, although it seemed like there were some problems there. Eisen should have realized it when meeting those other yers just now, but this ce was surely close to a starter town, so it had to be swarming with yers. And as he left the carriage alone with two people that looked like children with bright colored hair as well as arge horse that, at first nce, looks like its made of gold... That could probably invite some trouble. Which seemed to be exactly what happened. "Come on, I just want to hitch a ride! Can¡¯t be too much to ask, can it?" One of the yers asked, while Eisen chose to just watch from inbetween some bushes until it escted, just because he wanted to see what exactly would happen. He would never let anything happen to Sky or Bree, obviously, he just really needed to see how regr yers would act in this kind of ce. yers that weren¡¯t specially chosen by Prime Industries. "Sorry, we can¡¯t do that! But if you follow this road, you can get to a prettyrge town in just a few hours if you want to!" Bree eximed with a bright smile. This didn¡¯t seem all that useful an information to the yers at that moment, but it seemed like Bree was slightly panicking in the back of her head as well. "Listen, Kid, I don¡¯t like your attitude." A young woman eximed, her character¡¯s appearance obviouslypletely built to look as attractive and noticeable as possible, but Sky just ground his teeth and stared at back at her. "And I don¡¯t like yours, so get away now, please. We don¡¯t want any problems, just leave us alone and do your own thing." With a slow sigh, the yer that spoke first shook his head from left to right and then pulled out a small knife. "Then I guess we need to deal with it this way, huh?" Immediately, Eisen just closed his eyes in embarrassment at the intelligence of this man. Eisen checked, he didn¡¯t even have an upation yet... And Sky and Bree were both close to Level 200. The other yer had an upation, but she was only level 10 right now. This was more than just embarrassing, but he figured he should just let this happen for now. Sky was pretty pissed off at those two, so Eisen thought it would be a good idea for the Fey-Kin to let off some steam. Chapter 435 - Demonic Hunt The male yer swiftly swung the battered wooden club in his hand down toward Sky, but the young Fey-Kin just sighed and closed his book, quickly using it to defend against this weak attack. "I just said we don¡¯t want any trouble, didn¡¯t I? Just leave, or you¡¯ll feel regret in a few seconds." Sky pointed out to him, but the yer just looked at him confused, although he didn¡¯t have much time to think about what just happened, because he soon had a small boot in his face as the yer was kicked away, sending him flying a couple of meters away. It seemed like that alone drained most of the yer¡¯s health, but it luckily wasn¡¯t enough to kill him. The lucky part about that was that Eisen could see this unfold further. "Wh-What was that?" The female yer asked, staring at her friend confused, before Sky slowly turned back to his book and started slowly flipping through it with an annoyed expression. "That, you dimwitted fool, was regret." "Hell yes it was!" Bree eximed immediately, pulling her foot back to the ground after kicking the yer in his face. Although then, Bree turned around toward her brother and tilted her head to the side. "Wait, what was it?" She asked, but Sky just shook his head and smiled back at her. "Don¡¯t worry about it, sis." He replied, and then ced his hand onto the current page of his book. "The Titan Porter,e out." Sky said, clearly activating a specific story, as ck letters popped off the page and came together in front of the two yers, creating what seemed like arge hand-pulled wooden cart as well as a four meter tall figure, which Eisen figured to be the ¡¯Titan¡¯ of that story. And so, Sky closed the book and pointed it at the two yers who were trying to understand what exactly was suddenly happening just now, before the blue-haired Fey-Kin boy just ended up slightly smirking. "Those two need to be delivered a few miles along this road. If you would please take care of that, that would be great." Sky asked of his own Inkheart Summon, before the Titan held his middle and index fingers against his forehead in a salute-like motion, and then swiftly stepped up to the two yers, grabbing them quite swiftly before cing them down into therge cart, which the Titan then stepped in front of with a big grin on his face as he started walking. Sky would have just left it at that, but the tied-down yers, as they had to be properly fastened so that they wouldn¡¯t fall out during the transportation, both had quite loud mouths... Especially the male yer, who said something he shouldn¡¯t have. "C¡¯Mon you goddamn bitch! You¡¯re like eight, respect your elders a little!" He yelled out, and immediately, Sky snapped his back toward them, who were being pulled along the road in the direction of the Merchant town that Eisen¡¯s group came from, and smiled brightly. "Ah, Porter... This is an urgent delivery. So, Godspeed." Sky said with a smile, which was obviously just hiding extreme annoyance and anger, before the Titan immediately nodded his head and started literally sprinting along the road as quickly as he could, leaving the group¡¯s sight within just a few moments. And now, Eisen simply couldn¡¯t help himself anymore, starting tough out loudly. "Well, well, well, that was handled pretty nicely, wasn¡¯t it?" The old man asked as he returned his size to his regr state and deactivated his Demonic transformation, before both Bree and Sky looked at Eisen surprised. "Y-You were there?" Sky asked him, and the old man just nodded. "Mhm, I was. Thanks for ending it with, well... Minimal... violence." Eisen told them with a wink directed at Bree, who buried her face in her hands, before Eisen climbed up onto the bench to sit inbetween them while he ced his sword and Multitool into the Carriage¡¯s actual interior. He would take a look at thatter, but for now, this would be fine. They should get out of this area first before moving onto taking a break, after all. And so, the old man chose to take his time for a little longer and just drive the carriage for now. It would be about a one to two week trip to Melroe at the very least, not taking into ount some prolonged breaks to set up a shop or a dungeon in some towns, or the time that would be needed to bring Cabarum to an eptable Rank when recing his Golem Core. As Eisen didn¡¯t necessarily have all that much to do for now, he figured that moments like these were nice enough. Just like that, the group made their way to an area where a lot less yers should be at the current time, considering the average Rank of Monsters, at roughly 4 or 5 at the moment, which in Eisen¡¯s opinion was simply perfect to let Cabarum and Aulu level up a while. For now, the old man just switched Cabarum¡¯s Golem Core out with the one that he had prepared beforehand, and then watched as the Large Metallic steed turned much more life-like than it had ever been before. Now, he seemed to actually have a proper Character to him instead of being just something that looked like a horse on the outside. "Now then... You guys can go ahead and take another break, I¡¯ll be going for a bit of a hunt for now. The Monsters around here have quite useful ressources with, on, or in them. I¡¯ll be back soon enough, should just take an hour or two." The old man pointed out as he continued caring a bit for the two Ego Automata¡¯s bodies to make sure they were ready forbat, and then cracked his knuckles excitedly. He already switched out some of the sensory Organs he put into them a little while ago with ones infused with the same Element he used to make Ranger¡¯s sensory Organs, just so that they could properly use their bodies like they were still alive. And so, Eisen swiftly sat down on top of Cabarum¡¯s back, as he would use Aulu as a Bloodhound of sorts, and smiled and waved at the others as the old man made his way deeper into the Monster-riddled forest which was surrounded by a few cliffs to turn it into what was basically a self-contained area with quite Unique Monsters, as the old man had heard before. This ce might be a proper Field Dungeon as well as far as Eisen knew, but he didn¡¯t really care all that much right now. It was a good chance to let loose for now. Aulu wasn¡¯t justrge enough to hold his body properly while his size was 100% increased, so Eisen adjusted his size to the perfect point for the Gargantuan steed underneath his bottom, riding him into the forest. "Aulu, let me know when you found something." The old man said with a smile on his face, and the Metallic Wolf just stared at him and wagged her tail, which Eisen just took as an ¡¯Alright!¡¯. And so, she soon reacted to a nearby Monster right ahead of them, the presence of which Eisen soon confirmed through his Mana-Sight. The reason that these monsters here were unique was quite simple. They were Rock Monsters, basically like small, actually living Golems. Whether they were kept together by magic or some other means was unknown to Eisen, but he was pretty interested in them, anyway. Especially because some of them were madepletely of Ore, or some even were Geode-Like, meaning that they had crystal formations inside of them. And as most of them were quite slow, they were suitable targets for hit-and-run tactics so that Aulu and Cabarum could level up a little through that as well. It seemed like Aulu was just gaining experience by finding enemies already, but Cabarum would gain experience through a rather special means. The old man was attacking the Rock Monsters, he was still seated on Cabarum¡¯s back, and as he was a Golem he was seen directly as a tool, meaning that he gained a fair amount of experience through that. So of course, it made sense that Cabarum was leveling up a fair bit quicker than Aulu. And so, Eisen then soon tried to just get to the ¡¯Rank Up¡¯ stage with Cabarum quite swiftly. He wasn¡¯t sure how exactly he was supposed to do this, but Eisen figured that he should just put the extra soul in there with the other one while bundling the two of them up. Eisen guessed that this would be enough for now, and to his surprise, he could already see that Cabarum had be Rank 1, albeit still level 0. That ¡¯Level 0¡¯ probably meant the phase of the two souls actually connecting, and figured that experience should help with that, quickly hurrying on to continue giving Cabarum more experience. Soon enough, the two soulsbined and Cabarum became Level 1 again. But there was something that Eisen was noticing, now that he had been using these two Automata in actualbat for the first time. They were actually seen as ¡¯Tools¡¯ to him, despite him not seeing them as such. And considering that this was the case, Eisen should be able to use things like ¡¯Tool Connection¡¯ on them. Although most importantly, there was something else that Eisen wanted to try with the two Ego-Automata, which would surely help him level the two of them up. The old man ced his hands on them and then slowly concentrated on a technique that he had only learned to make use of quite recently. By thinking of them as extensions of his own body, Eisen was able to have them seen as such in a certain situation. While his Demonic Form was active. As the old man¡¯s body slowly grew a thick rock skin and cracked up to reveal dark mes with a slightly golden base, wings sprouted on his back and horns rose up from his forehead, simr things happened to the two Automata. Their metallic fur turned to stone with a slight shine as it cracked up and showed the same mes as Eisen had over him. Their eyes turned into a dark, muddy golden color while things simr to small horns appeared on their foreheads. They were just tiny, barely noticeable really, but they were definitely there. Eisen somehow waited for them to grow wings as well, but he figured that was a bit too much then. And so, the old man sat back down on the back of his now Demonic Steed, holding the pitch-ck sword in his hand as it, too, was affected by Eisen¡¯s demonic Transformation. Just like that, Eisen started a truly Demonic Hunt. Chapter 436 - Preparation Just a couple of hourster, Eisen managed to bring both Aulu and Cabarum to Rank 3, which he was pretty d about. At this point, at the very least the Horse Automaton Eisen was sitting on should be able to continue his job like normal. And so, Eisen just returned to the carriage with the two Demonic Automata with him. He was wondering if he could somehow extend it even to the whole carriage, but that might have to wait a little longer... He at the very least needed an asion. Part of his Demonic Title told him to go to hell and get approval from the Gods of the Underworld, so he figured that would be a good enough time for that. Either way, now, the old man deactivated his Demonic Transformation, also turning Cabarum and Aulu back into their regr forms, before hooking Cabarum back up to the carriage to have him pull it properly again. Luckily, it seemed like everything worked out alright and the Metallic Horse was able to pull the carriage without any issues whatsoever. It seemed like the was another issue, however. And that issue could be found in the form of Jealousy. "That¡¯s so not fair!" Caria eximed with a huff as she crossed her arms and looked out the carriage¡¯s front-window, "Why can they level up with Eisen but we can¡¯t?!" She asked, and Eisen looked at them surprised before cing the small Spatial-Gem Orbs filled to the brim with different highlypressed ores and gems into a crate in the carriage. "Well, they¡¯re both just Rank 3. You two are Rank 4. I did want to go out with Sal sometime to bring him to Rank 4, but only if he really wanted to." Eisen pointed out with a light smile as he looked at the Spider-Boy, although he quite swiftly nodded his head in response, while Caria and Melissa both still seemed pretty annoyed at not being allowed to go and level up. With a slight sigh, Eisen crossed his arms and thought about it for a while, beforeing to a conclusion. "Well, we¡¯re heading back to Melroe for now. We¡¯re taking a break once at a small town, and during that time I¡¯m going out with Sal to bring him to Rank 4, and then we¡¯ll see what we can do in the Mountains. Alright?" The old man suggested, and the three monsters quickly nodded their heads in response. "Yay!" Melissa eximed happily, but Eisen just sligthly rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Before then, all of you need to tell me how exactly you want to fight. Until now you only took on passive roles, but now you guys will be more active. If you want some kind of staff or weapon, just tell me, alright?" Eisen told them with a strict expression, before the three children quickly nodded their heads and excitedly rushed through the Dungeon gate to figure all of that out, while Eisen himself made his way out of the carriage and back onto the bench at the front again, where Sky and Bree were both waiting. "Do you think that¡¯s really a good idea? I mean, they¡¯re just... kids... Outwardly and Inwardly..." Sky pointed out with a slightly concerned frown, and the old man immediately nodded his head. "Of course, I would prefer for them to grow safely through actions, but neither Caria nor Melissa have been gaining any major amount of experience through that anymore. And if they simply can¡¯t level up withoutbat at this point, they¡¯ll be stuck in a Child¡¯s body forever. Especially you should know that that¡¯s not necessarily a great thing." The old man said with a smirk, and Sky just looked back with a frown, slowly nodding in response as Eisen started to drive the carriage forward. "And either way, from how it went so far, Caria will probably be like a young Teenager at Rank 5, and then at Rank 6, I¡¯d guess she¡¯d be like she was in her Late Teens. Melissa seems to be a step behind in that regard, but still." The old man exined, before moving his fingers through his beard with a slight frown. "I am quite curious about Sal¡¯s physical progress in that regard though... Well, either way, for now, let¡¯s just go forward with my n, shall we? Once we reach that other town, things should have settled down with the new Artificials." Just then, Sky and Bree stared at Eisen confused and surprised, because he said something they didn¡¯t hear about yet. "New Artificials?" The Pink-Haired Fey-Kin asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Yes, new Artificials. The ¡¯Final Wave¡¯ of sorts. Thousands, or even tens of thousands of them already appeared since earlier today, I¡¯m pretty sure. And from now on, there will constantly be new ones appearing all over the ce." Eisen exined to them, "You actually already met two of them a little while ago." The old man chuckled, making the two siblings realize that that¡¯s what those two that Sky sent off with the Titan Porter were. "Isn¡¯t that kind of... scary?" Sky asked with a frown, and without hesitation, Eisen nodded his head. "Of course it is, but you don¡¯t need to worry. There might be some bad guys amongst them, but nothing will ever happen to either of you, I¡¯ll make sure of that." The old man reassured them with augh, but for some reason, neither of them could really feel safe with the thought of so many fake beings popping up all over the ce. After all, they knew how ridiculously insane the five people they were based on were... How could the Artificials be normal in any way? --- "You need any help over here?" Eisen asked with a slight chuckle as he stepped through into the small space that had been established as the currently deepest possible floor, before Sigurd appeared right behind him with a slight nod. "Please... You said we¡¯d arrive at town when? Tomorrow? I¡¯m not even done creating the raw space for Floor 7, not to mention this Floor 8! It¡¯s been established and all, but it just gets exponentially slower the more I focus on multiple floors in construction..." It exined, seemingly rather stressed, and Eisen just chuckled before grabbing his Multitool with a smirk. "Don¡¯t worry, this old man is going to take care of Floor 8! Just let me know immediately if I¡¯m doing anything wrong, and then focus on finishing Floor 7. If we can¡¯t finish in time, we can even work on thest floor while everyone is going through the first seven anyway. That shouldn¡¯t be an issue, right?" Eisen suggested, and Sigurd slowly nodded its head. "I guess... Then thanks... For now, this space just needs to be widened evenly... so possibly make it spherical, if you can." The Core Guardian asked of the old man, who swiftly nodded his head in response. "You can count on me." Eisen chuckled, swiftly grabbing his Multitool with a broad grin on his face, changing its shape into that of a Pickaxe before increasing his size as much as he could. As Eisen gained the Mining Ability of being able to break things down with mana, this was actually a rather easy job, considering that the old man could nowpress his mana properly. And so, Eisenpressed his mana inside of the Pickaxe itself and tried to infuse it with the ¡¯Breakdown¡¯ Ability all the whilst letting mana naturally seep out of his body into the surrounding areas to slowly and passively break them down to make Eisen¡¯s job a bit easier. And so, the old man just continued on and on with mining out the raw rock that this Dungeon space was made of. Every time he cracked some up and made it fall to the ground, it would just disintegrate nearly instantly, which was quite pleasant if he had to be honest. This meant that Eisen could just continue on mining without worry. But most importantly, this gave Eisen¡¯s new Multitool a lot of experience, enough to let him upgrade it to Rank 2, joining the Sword at that stage! Physically, the two Ego-Weapons hadn¡¯t necessarily changed that much, there were just minor parts. For example, the handles changed their shape to fit more easily into Eisen¡¯s hands, or the weight distribution changed just so slightly to better fit Eisen¡¯s movement. But the biggest change in these two items really wasn¡¯t the physical part, but rather the ¡¯Mental¡¯ Part. The Higher the Ego-Rank rose, the more passive support he got from them. For example, the Demonic Sword sometimes seemed as if it was moving into a certain direction itself, as if to fit Eisen¡¯s intent to make it possible to move it even faster, or to switch directions more swiftly. This was more subtle with the Multitool, but it definitely was still there. The first time that Eisen noticed it for this Yang tool was when he was changing the ¡¯Mode¡¯. For a moment, Eisen could have sworn that the move-able pieces were going into the right position far more easily than at the start, or rather nearly on their own. All of these could be things that Eisen was imagining, but he would surely see the truth behind it in the future if he kept using this tool and his new weapon properly. It was a shame that he wasn¡¯t able to properly make use of the Dungeon himself to level up, but that was a sacrifice he had to make. Right now it wasn¡¯t like the monsters here in the Dungeon were really all that much trouble to him anyway, so he wouldn¡¯t be able to level up using them for now. Either way, for now, Eisen continued on digging up the whole space that Sigurd wanted him to, before the Core Guardian appeared next to him with a broad grin. "Floor 7 is nearly ready! Growing everything right now with Caria¡¯s help, and then I¡¯m installing the fake sky! But for now I¡¯ll take over here~!" Sigurd said, seemingly a fair bit less stressed after seeing the amount of work that Eisen had done so far. "Alright, then I¡¯ll see if there¡¯s anything else I can do until we get to Town." The old man said with a smirk on his face, because he actually already had a pretty good idea about what he could try to make. After all, his n was to set up a shop, and there was one thing that many people here in this world that opened shops had before opening a proper shop.... A Stall! And that stall was something that Eisen would be working on next, and it was supposed to be a pretty neat one as well. Chapter 437 - The Changeling The first thing that Eisen did to properly work on his stall was create the actual base for it. Since it wouldn¡¯t be that big, it could be brought out in one piece now that Fafnir evolved, so he luckily could construct it here and pop it down wherever he could. For the base, the old man figured it wouldn¡¯t necessarily be all that important to choose any special material, although he did try and choose one that was pretty hard, and ended up choosing regr oak. In the end, the base stall wasn¡¯t anything special, it was simply a table in a ¡¯U¡¯ shape, where the open side would be ced directly up to the Carriage, with some wooden boards around the outside and a ¡¯ring¡¯ along the top of the stall where Eisen could hang a few items from. And then started to work on actually turning this into a high-tier stall. First, what Eisen needed was something like a cash-register, for which he grabbed one of the crystals that he enchanted with Komer¡¯s element while he had the chance to, and then quickly turned it into a round disc, with a small crystal at the front that would control everything. The disc itself was enchanted to properly produce the effect of either splitting the coins up or pulling them togehter, while the small regr crystal at the front was enchanted to give Eisen a proper ¡¯interface¡¯ to let him choose what exactly would happen, meaning that he could quite easily choose how many of which type of coin should be ¡¯handed out¡¯ to him, or whether coins that were ced on top of the disc would bebined with the coin ced into the small slot underneath the disc, which Eisen made out of some wood to make it slightly less conspicuous. In the end, it was just slightlyrger than a coin was, so it could be easily held in one¡¯s hand. After this neat item was done, Eisen tested it out by cing a copper coin into the slot andbining it with a few coins of different kinds before giving a few coins back out. It seemed like everything worked quite well, so Eisen carved a small round spot into a part of the inside of the stall and ced it inside of it by basically just ¡¯screwing¡¯ it inside so that it could be taken out rtively easily as well. Then, Eisen grabbed some of the barrels that were supposed to be made using spatial gems and ced and fastened them into the right side of the stall. These were the smaller variant, outwardly seeming to just be able to hold maybe 6 or 7 liters, although in really it was more like ten times that. And these would thenter be filled as much as possible with different basic potions. Eisen also had some more special potions to sell, but he wanted to openly disy those in specially-made ss jugs. They looked quite nice and were pretty colorful, so they were a great way to attract some people to the stall as well. Otherwise, Eisen just made a bunch of different disys for some of the more ¡¯special¡¯, or rather over-the-top, items, made a bunch of disposable items like arrows and bundled them up in packs of five, ten, or twenty and prepared the proper ce to set them down as well. Then there were the simply regrly useful items for beginners to have like lighters, made using me enchantments, self-filling cups, as well as ces made for items like staffs and wands. Eisen hung a few of therger pieces at the top of the stall around the small sign that just had Eisen¡¯s hammer-symbol on it, as well as a small sign that said ¡¯Affiliated with Starlight¡¯. Otherwise, Eisen just equipped the inside of the stall with a few things like simple spatial-containers to hold different crafting materials or smaller items that Eisen made in bulk, and then he was basically done with his preparation. The only thing he had to do then was make a bunch of regr items for the stall to actually be sold. It might end up seeming somewhat cluttered, but Eisen figured that he could change the disy around a little depending on what people are most interested in. In the end, Eisen just spent the whole night doing nothing but work on these items in bulk. Well, not the whole night, he did end up sleeping a little while so that he could properly take care of the stall. It seemed like Sigurd was able to finish the next floor up properly as well, and now only had to ce the different monsters there. They weren¡¯t necessarily as extremely changed around as the wolves on the first floor were, but Eisen tried his best to emte the things that the others did to an amount. And then, as Eisen stepped back out of the Dungeon, he took a look at Sky and Bree with his regr smile on his face. "So... This town is rtively small, right?" He asked, and Bree swiftly nodded her head in response. "Mhm! It¡¯s just baaareely not a vige anymore though. So it¡¯s really not that big. And it doesn¡¯t have a Dungeon yet either, so we¡¯re lucky!" She eximed, so Eisen just chuckled and looked ahead along the road, trying to somehow see the ce already. He thought he saw a little bit in the distance, but it was still a fair bit away, so it would probably take another hour or two to get there at this point. Although, it did seem like they were getting close to a town, considering how yers became more frequent. They had a handful of run-ins over the past few days, most of the yers were pretty pleasant, but there were a few that Eisen figured to be quite annoying or rude, so they just took care of that properly. But right now, they were starting to see some yers every couple of minutes, even. They were usually doing their own thing, but there were someone that was hoping to hitch a ride to town, seemingly. Eisen thought he shouldn¡¯t be rude, and as such chose to ept them in the carriage, considering that it was just a single person. And, Eisen himself was pretty interested in this man as well, for a few reasons. For one, his skin was so pale it could be seen as pure white, and he had slightly lengthy ears. That made him think he was a High Elf at first, but when he took a closer look, he very much wasn¡¯t a High Elf. That would have been weird, considering that the only reason that Xenia was allowed to y a High Elf was that she was an Original. It was probably the only Elven race that couldn¡¯t be chosen by regr yers. His eyes werepletely white all the way through, without pupils or irises, and he had ck rings around them. His whole body was pretty slender and outwardly seemed quite frail, while his hair was a pale shade of blue. And ording to what Eisen¡¯s inspection of him told him, he was a ¡¯Changeling¡¯ yer. Eisen didn¡¯t know this was a thing until now, but apparently it was! It seemed like a pretty interesting race, so Eisen couldn¡¯t help but ask a few questions as they were sitting in the back of the carriage, although the yer himself was apprently more interested in the three monster kids and Fafnir, who, despite the Dungeon Gate currently being closed, was stillzily sleeping on the floor. "So..." Eisen said with a light smile on his face, "Changeling, huh?" The old man asked, and the yer quickly turned toward the old man whose face was slightly hidden in the darkness of the carriage. "Mhm, that I am. The name¡¯s Dragoon, by the way." He pointed out, and Eisen nodded with a slight smirk. "Nice to meet you, I¡¯m Eisen. So what are you doing in this area?" The old man asked, before Dragoon just smiled back. "Simply traveling through. I¡¯m pretty interested in monsters, so I want to see a lot of different kinds." He exined, so Eisen slowly started moving his fingers through his beard. "Oh, so that¡¯s why you¡¯ve been staring at the kids this much." The old man said with a smile, and Dragoon immediately snapped his neck toward him. "I¡¯m not some pervert or something! It-It¡¯s my upation skill, it¡¯s a special Appraisal sub-type... I can recognize them as monsters with my whole body without even actually appraising them... so I can also tell that everyone beside me in this carriage is technically a monster, right..?" Dragoon asked, before Eisen raised his brows surprised, just nodding his head. "Not directly, but you¡¯re right. Those two in the front and me are half-monsters, but we¡¯re still people. And don¡¯t worry, I figured it was something like that. And a special form of Appraisal, huh...? I figured, Monster Researcher should have that kind of thing." Eisen replied slightly impressed, and Dragoon just slightly smiled as he calmed down and leaned back against the wall behind him, before realizing what Eisen just said. "Huh? How do you know my upation... You didn¡¯t appraise me..." He muttered quietly, and the old man just smirked and crossed his arms as he let his golden eyes sh up for just a moment. "Let¡¯s say I have a special form of appraisal as well. So I could also see that you¡¯re an Alpha Artificial." The old man chuckled, and Dragoon stared at him surprised. "R-Right..." He muttered, before starting to look around himself through the carriage, noticing the bunch of different tools that were hanging on the walls as well as the few items scattered around. "Y-You¡¯re a craftsman?" Dragoon asked, trying to change the topic, simply because he felt slightly intimidated by Eisen¡¯s current presence, and the old man nodded his head in reply. "That I am, bud. Why, need anything made?" Eisen inquired, and the Changeling thought about it for a moment then scratched the back of his neck. "Erm, kinda... But how much are your rates? I¡¯m Rank 3 in the Tamer Guild, but I don¡¯t really have THAT much money..." Dragoon inquired, and the old man just smirkedand shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry about that for now, just go ahead and tell me what you want made, and then I¡¯ll give you a rough estimate. Who knows, if they¡¯re interesting items, I might give you a little discount." With a wink, Eisen leaned back against the wall of the carriage, just waiting for the Changeling in front of him to speak up, before Dragoon scratched his cheek and then quickly did so. "Alright then... For one, I would love to have an item to help me gather and save information about monsters that I find. I do have a database skill for that, but it feels kind of boring like that, you know? I like the feel and aesthetic of a proper item in my hands." Dragoon admitted with a slight smirk, and the old man slowly nodded his head in response. He figured things like that might be the case with some yers, considering the vast amount of gadgets or tools you can sometimes see in movies orics and such. "You said ¡¯For one¡¯... Is there something else you want as well?" The old man asked curiously, and Dragoon slowly nodded his head as he stood up, starting to look Eisen up and down. "Sorry, this might feel slightly ufortable..." He muttered, and as Eisen started to feel insane goosebumps all over his body, far stronger and more intense than what he felt with a regr appraisal, Dragoon¡¯s body slightly started to change. He bulked up quite a bit, his face turned more defined and white facial hair grew from him as his skin turned into a somewhat tanned regr skin color instead of the pale skin he had before. And before the old man knew it, Dragoon changed into a shorter version of himself. There were a few parts that were slightly off, so it wasn¡¯t directly a perfect copy, but if you saw Dragoon and a slightly shrunken-down Eisen next to one another, you would think they were siblings that looked very simr to each other. His clothes didn¡¯t change, but that was something Eisen somewhat expected. Even if Dragoon could change his clothes in this manner, he figured that he wouldn¡¯t want to expose this much skin. "Because I¡¯m a changeling, I can change the way I look, but I¡¯m still a few ranks and a couple hundred levels away away from being able topletely copy the way someone or something looks, especially when ites to the size... So if possible I would like an item that can maybe ¡¯Fill in the Space¡¯ to make me at least seemrger." Dragoon asked, and with a grin on his face, Eisen ced his cheek onto his palm. "You found just the right Craftsman, kid." Chapter 438 - Jagger "Alright, everything should be done in a couple of hours... But just to be safe, how about youe here again around sundown?" Eisen asked Dragoon with a smile on his face, and the Changeling slowly nodded his head in response. "Eh, sure... Sounds good." The young yer replied and then slowly made his way away from the small market where Eisen was currently standing and looking for a ce to set up. It seemed like to set up a proper stall here, he had to first speak to someone in the Merchant Guild, but luckily it was right adjacent to the marketce, so it wasn¡¯t hard to find. And just to make sure that nothing would happen to the carriage while Eisen was inside, he left Kirisho, who had finally woken up, out there with Bree and Sky and had Aulu and Cabarum both somewhat act as ¡¯Guard Animals¡¯, just to show that the carriage did indeed belong to someone. Fafnir and Sal were still inside of the carriage, though, considering that they were both the only ones that really looked like Monsters outwardly. And so, Eisen just stepped right into the small Merchant Guild and made his way over toward one of the counters. As this was a rtively small town, there wasn¡¯t much going on, although there did seem to be a couple of yers inside of here. Eisen was aware that some of them recognized him, or at least somewhat knew they saw him before without actually recognizing him as ¡¯Eisen¡¯ from the World of Magic Trailer. But even then, nobody really walked up to him yet with troublesome requests, so he didn¡¯t really worry about it. For now, the old man just wanted to properly be allowed to set up a stall at the market, and as such quickly stepped up to the counter, where a middle-aged man was already waiting for the next ¡¯customer¡¯. "Good morning, Sir. How may I help you?" The Guild worker asked, and Eisen just got right to the point, thinking that the Guild Worker would apprectiate this as well. "I would like to set up a stall in an empty spot in the market." Eisen exined, and the Guild worker slowly nodded his head. "Of course, of course. Then I would only need your Guild Tag, please." The Worker exined, but Eisen quickly shook his head and took out a small note from one of the pockets in his apron. "I myself am not part of the Merchant Guild, but I¡¯m working with the Starlightpany. Here, this is a contract with the Head of thatpany that says I¡¯m allowed to do so under their name." The old man exined, and the Guild Worker looked at it with a light frown and ced the sses hanging around his neck by a thin chain onto his nose to take a look. "This is another one of those cheap fakes, is it not? I came to expect it from those ¡¯Artificial¡¯ young¡¯ins, but a man like you should know it is not right to do so." The man said with a sigh and pushed the contract back without even taking a proper look at it. "Right... Just that, if you were to try and appraise that seal at the bottom there..." Eisen tried to say, attempting to direct the guild worker to the Prince¡¯s Seal, considering that the Prince was now seen as a great benefactor to Starlight and carried obvious power that would open up a lot of possibilities to Eisen in regards to setting up shops or stalls like this, but the Guild Worker simply shook his head and took his sses off. "Please leave now, and I will not have to call any Guards for attempted fraud." The middle-aged man said, and just when Eisen was about to get quite annoyed, someone stepped up behind him. "Tsk, tsk, tsk..." They clicked their tongue three times, and when Eisen turned around, he could see a group of three yers standing there, each with obviously clich¨¦ punk-like outfits and haircuts. "Come on, old man! A man of your advanced age trying to cheat my good buddy here, that¡¯s just no good, is it?" The ¡¯lead¡¯ punk said as he stepped up to the counter, leaning against it while holding himself up with his elbows, as he just somewhat red at the Guild-Worker, who seemed to have grown quite nervous. "Although... If you hand some shinies over, I can put in a good word for you. They really listen to me here. Ain¡¯t that right, bud?" The punk asked as he looked at the Guild Worker with a sly grin, and Eisen slightly sighed and activated his Truth-Seeing Eyes. Obviously the punk was pretty surprised, but Eisen didn¡¯t care too much anyway. This yer apparently was just above Level 100, and the Guild Worker was around Level 70, a level that could be said to be ¡¯Average¡¯ for NPCs like this withplete nonbat professions, especially because NPCs already gained experience a lot slower than usual. Considering that this punk was a pugilist, Eisen figured that something was going on in the background. There were already a lot of shifty things going on with this ¡¯Game¡¯, so Eisen wouldn¡¯t be surprised if Prime Industries¡¯ message of ¡¯not torturing¡¯ NPCs or yers would be ignored as long as it wasn¡¯t made a huge deal out of. And so, Eisen figured he should make use of a bit of a neat trick he found a while ago. With His ¡¯Medicinal Knowledge¡¯ at Rank 2, and his rtively new abilty of actually ¡¯seeing the truth¡¯ with these eyes, he was able to somewhatbine them, it seemed. Meaning, as long as he alsobined these abilities with his mana-sight, he could see which ces on someone were injured in some way. And when Eisen then looked at this Guild Worker, he could see that his arms, legs, back, and stomach were immensely bruised, while Eisen could also see something else when trying to just ¡¯see the truth¡¯. It seemed like Eisen could actually see through the facade that the old man had put up on the outside, and his ¡¯real self¡¯ was shaking in wild fear of this punk. "Hmm..." Eisen hummed quietly, before turning toward the punk next to him and kicking away is legs. Because of the way he was leaning against the counter, he immediately dropped onto his back while hitting the back of his head as he was doing so. "What the- The f.u.c.k¡¯s your problem?!" The punk asked angrily, and Eisen just slightly sighed as he looked over at the door, which was standing open to let in fresh air at the moment. It was peak-summer in the game right now, so it was actually pretty hot around these parts. Either way, for now, Eisen just held his hand to the side and pulled his Demonic ck sword out of his soul storage, using his new slot that opened up when he reached 300 soul strength, and then immediately swung it toward the young man, who had just managed to stand up again. But of course, Eisen didn¡¯t use the actual edge, but instead the t side of the de. Things like these were the whole reason why he didn¡¯t give this sword two edges, after all. And due to Eisen¡¯s quite superior strength, the young punk was immediately flung out the door and into the center of the Market, while Eisen ced the de back into his soul storage and turned back toward the Guild Worker, while the two background-punks were quickly rushing toward the leader-punk to help him out. "Well, as I was saying-" Eisen started saying, but the Guild Worker quickly interrupted him again. "Wh-What are you doing?!" He asked, obviously upset, while the other guild workers were all quite intimidated by the old man as well. "I¡¯ll take care of thatter, for now just-" Once more, Eisen attempted to point the Guild Worker toward the seal at the bottom of the contract, but was just interrupted when the punk came running back into the Guild building, trying to take a swing at Eisen. But the old man wouldn¡¯t have it anymore, he was already annoyed as is by these guys, so he just stared at the Guild Worker angrily. "Just appraise that seal already, dammit! It¡¯s the Prince¡¯s Seal, it¡¯s legit, call as many people as you need to, but it¡¯s not a damn fake. Learn to do your job sometime. But other than that, what did these guys do to you beside beat you ck and blue? Did they somehow threaten you?" Eisen asked while he was reinforcing his skin with as much rock as he could to defend against the little damage the yer was doing to him anyway, and the Guild Worker stared back at Eisen confusedly. "Th-They... They¡¯re threatening most shops around here... These guys are a small part of a bigger group around here... They are much stronger than we are, so we can¡¯t do anything about it, and even the Lord knows about it and lets it happen, because the group bribes him..." The Guild Worker exined, before Eisen squatted down onto the ground annoyedly. "I just wanted to peacefully set up a stall, and this is what happens..? Why can¡¯t artificials just be normal, for god¡¯s sake?" Eisen muttered to himself quietly, and then looked back at the Worker. "Do your job for a couple of minutes, I¡¯ll take care of it." Eisen said in a clear voice, and then finally turned around to the three yers that seemed to have surprisingly shaven off a fair bit of his health already. Although, they couldn¡¯t do much when Eisen grabbed the Lead Punk¡¯s throat and started pulling him behind him, slowly increasing his size as he left the Guild Building. Of course, this drew a fair bit of attention toward him, but Eisen didn¡¯t care all too much right now. He was annoyed with these Artificials. This ¡¯group¡¯ seems to have been a thing for a while, so who knows, maybe it¡¯s actually a group founded by NPCs. But Eisen couldn¡¯t really be sure about that. Although in the end, it didn¡¯t matter. Slowly, Eisen increased his size as he stepped forward into the center of the market, all the whilst activating his Demonic Transformation, which ended up once more turning him into a nearly five meter tall Yin Demon. And with a clear, but loud, voice, Eisen tried to show his annoyance off a little. "I will say it once, and only once, so listen closely. And any artificials that are here, you all ESPECIALLY pay attention and spread this out to as many people as you can. I don¡¯t care who you are, I don¡¯t care what you are, but if you think you can act like the sc.u.m of the world, you are heavily mistaken. Because if I ever hear of any gangs, groups, or organizations that make the life of the regr person hell, thest thing that anyone that was part of those sees is this very face. And just to show that I¡¯m not joking." Eisen said with obvious annoyance, and then tightened his fist around the yer¡¯s body, before a notification appeared in front of the old man. [You killed yer . He will revive in Four(4) hours Game-Time] Chapter 439 - Regrets Slowly, the figure whose head was enveloped in Eisen¡¯s hand just now disappeared as if falling apart into particles of light, and the onlookers around this Market were trying to understand what just happened, so Eisen exined it to them as Guards surrounded him. "This one here was an Artificial. And I¡¯m not sure if this is a known fact yet, but Artificials are immortal. He wille back in four hours." The old man eximed, trying to stop the infliction of fear for a moment by switching from his Yin state to his Yang state. "I am aware that this might have been something a little extreme to see, but I assure you, this man wille back as healthy as before. Sure, he might be a little angry, but I¡¯m going to be here to take care of that." Eisen yelled out next, making the people all around him whisper to each other about a lot of different things, but it seemed like they somewhat calmed down at the very least. And so, Eisen wanted to turn around and get back to the Merchant Guild to finally get his stall aproved, although it seemed like the Guards had something to say against that. Although for some reason... They were smiling at him as they were doing so. They were rxed, despite the fact that Eisen just crushed someone¡¯s head with one hand, literally killing him. And he wasn¡¯t even an actual Demon yet... but even then, these forms seemed to hold a lot of power. Well, Eisen¡¯s Charisma stat increased a fair bit as well over the past few weeks, so it was pretty close to entering the triple digits, so he figured it somewhat was to be expected? Either way, for now, the old man seemed to have to cooperate with these Guards. "Follow us. We will-" "Stop!" The voice of a Middle-Aged man eximed. It was the Guild worker from before, who was holding the contract Eisen gave to him before in his hands, carrying it as if it was an ancient treasure that could fall to dust with one wrong touch. Seems like he finally appraised the Seal. "I am sorry for doubting the legitimacy of this contract, my Lord." He eximed as he kneeled down in front of Eisen, pushing the contract forward to give it back to him, although the Guards were rather confused. "Erm... Once more, follow us, please..." One of them said, not understanding what was going on, but the Guild Worker basically gave him a death stare as he did so. "You fool! Your head will roll if you even attempt to do so! Those men have been doing bad things to everyone in this town, all that this Lord here did was act in the name of Royalty!" The Guild Worker eximed, trying to show the prince¡¯s seal to one of the Guards, who quickly took a look at it with Appraisal and then took his time to read through the information he got. And once he started understanding what the Guild Worker was talking about, the Guard turned around to the others, and gave out amand to them. "W-We will not be arresting this... this man. Return to your posts, I will speak to our Lord..." The Guard eximed, and then continued trying to properly convince them to do so, and soon enough, they did as they were told and went away, leaving Eisen to stand there in his Demonic Form like that. "Well then, thanks for the help." Eisen said with a slight smirk and winked at the Guild Worker, before kneeling down to him to whisper something. "Those people standing with the carriage there belong to me, let them set up wherever they want." The old man exined, and while mentally giving Sigurd amand to properly sort this all out, Eisen pped his wings a few times to properly get some momentum into them before using them to propel himself away into the distance over the town walls. He would use this chance to just pretend he only just arrived. Nobody really paid attention to the regr Eisen as he was walking around before after all, and because Eisen¡¯s Demonic Transformation was already mostly done within the Guild Building, nobody out here should be able to recognize him if he just returned in his regr form through another gate. And that was exactly what Eisen then did, and after a little while, he made his way back to the market, where it wasn¡¯t very hard to find the stall. It wasn¡¯t a veryrge town, after all, so the marketce wasn¡¯t thatrge either. It seemed like everything worked out properly in the end as well, considering that nobody was really looking at Eisen weirdly. "Well then, let¡¯s get started now, shall we?" Eisen asked as he stepped through into the stall with a smile on his face, although both Sky and Kirisho were looking at him surprised, and even slightly shocked, although Bree didn¡¯t seem to mind what just happened all too much. "Wasn¡¯t that a bit too... too much? You just killed a person... And now you¡¯re working like nothing happened?" Sky asked, slightly nervous now, before Eisen nodded his head. "Mhm. As I said, that was an Artificial, and Artificials inherited the immortality of the Originals. He¡¯s really going to be back in a couple of hours, right where he was sleepingst. "Erm..." Kirisho started, "Wasn¡¯t that still a bit too... gruesome? I¡¯m sure he was in a lot of pain, dying in such a way..." She asked, but now, Eisen shook his head. "He wasn¡¯t. Artificials don¡¯t feel pain. Sure, it probably wasn¡¯t very pleasant, but it couldn¡¯t have gone beyond what it feels like having your head tightly wrapped in some cloth. A bit of pressure, but no pain." Eisen exined quite clearly, and Sky and Kirisho looked at each other confused, and even Bree was now paying attention again. "Wait, what? Artificials don¡¯t feel pain?" Sky repeated, before Eisen looked at them slightly surprised. "You didn¡¯t know? Neither way I until a while ago, remember? That was the whole reason I could rip my arms out by hand, you know? I¡¯m starting to get the feeling of pain back slowly, but it¡¯s still less than usual." He exined, and then crossed his arms, trying to think about why that might be the case. "I¡¯m guessing... It¡¯s because the soul and the body aren¡¯t perfectly connected? The experience pulled in certain souls and then tried to give them a body, but maybe the body isn¡¯t ¡¯Perfect¡¯. Either way, I know they don¡¯t feel any pain." The old man reassured, and Sky slightly sighed out. "Immortal, insane warriors that don¡¯t feel pain, huh? Isn¡¯t that a little bit too much?" The Fey-Kin boy asked, and Eisen shrugged with a chuckle, d to see that both Sky and Kirisho calmed down again. "Maybe it is, yeah. But the Changeling we met before was also an artificial, and he was a good kid. And so are my Grandchildren, Jyuuk¡¯s sister, Brody¡¯s Wife, and Evalia¡¯s friend. There are good people, there are bad people, same for Artificials. They¡¯re probably only going to be fighting amongst each other anyway, so don¡¯t worry about them messing things up. That¡¯s what the Originals are here for, anyway, to keep them under control." Eisen exined to them, before starting to make sure everything was really set up and working properly, and then looked over toward Sigurd, Sky and Bree. "So, can you three go set up the Dungeon in itsrge-gated mode outside of town? The road to the east seems to be the busiest, so I think you should do it there to draw in as many people as possible." The old man exined, and the three of them nodded their heads quite swiftly, before making their way through town. Eisen really hoped that everything would properly work out, and he figured he should just go check up on them a littleter on. "Alright... Then I guess I should just get started, huh?" Eisen muttered quietly as he sat down on a chair with a small table in front of him, and then turned over toward the three monster kids standing right next to him. "Could you three go grab me the materials I need? Ah, and Caria, could you make a bit of paper for me?" The old man asked with a smile on his face, and the three of them immediately did as asked, rushing into the carriage while Kirisho walked up next to the old man, holding the Fox Ego-Golem in her arms. "Are you... Are you sure you are alright? I¡¯m sure that wasn¡¯t an easy thing to do even for you..." The Mist-Spirit inquired, trying to make sure that Eisen really was alright after what just happened, but the old man just smiled at her. "Oh, it was horrible. The feeling of crushing someone¡¯s head is nauseating to the point of wanting toy down and die this very moment. But even then, those feelings disappeared very quickly, because it seems like the person that I used to be doesn¡¯t mind doing such things. And right now, that is taking up my mind much more than what I just did to that young man." Eisen exined, basically forcing himself to keep this smile up, something that he was weirdly able to do as if this bright smile was the only face he could make, as if it was a mask glued onto his real face. And then, without waiting for an answer or reaction, Eisen happily took the materials that the kids were so kind to bring him and ced them down onto the table in front of him. "Now then..." Eisen muttered quietly and started taking his Multi-tool apart to its Knife-Stage, and just when he set the de onto the leather, he felt a cold, but also at the same time warm, touch from his side. "Don¡¯t worry... I know how such a thing feels... Actions that you would think you should regret, but don¡¯t... I truly know this just too well." Kirisho said reassuringly as she wrapped her arms around Eisen¡¯s head and pulled him toward her, as if trying tofort him somehow, while the old man just continued looking at the leather in front of him. "Thank you." He said in a clear voice, before he noticed that someone was currently looking at the items on disy in the front of the stall, trying to stand up to take care of it, although the Mist-Spirit next to him swiftly let go of him and ced her hand onto his shoulder. "I will take care of this, you go ahead and keep working." She said in her usual quiet, melodic voice, and then took a step forward to speak to the potential customer, while Eisen just slightly smiled and cut into the leather to prepare everything for the item he was making for Dragoon the Changeling. To start it off, he wanted to work on the first item that he requested, the item to let him properly save and gather information about monsters in a proper, ¡¯physical¡¯ manner. In the form of a book, a beastiary. Chapter 440 - Working on Requests Basically, most parts about this book werepletely and utterly normal, with the exception that Eisen used Mana-Crystal thread made of mana-crystals enchanted with Dragoon¡¯s special Appraisal ability. And well, he also had Caria try and wove in some parts of other thread, enchanted with Dragoon¡¯s Database ability, into the actual paper as she was making it, but in the end he could work on everything like it was just any normal book. The part that would turn this item into one that was actually useable in the way that the young Changeling described it was a small lense that Eisen would ce onto the front of the book. It would be constantly attached to the book via some string, both to make it easier to transfer the information onto the paper and also to make sure that the lense would be hard to lose. It was the center-piece for this item, after all. When it came to the lense itself, Eisen actually made it out of ss mixed with some mana crystal, once more enchanted with the special appraisal ability, and it had a simple High-Iron ring with a few very thin lines of White-Gold thread on the inside. As magic metals also seemed to help with other intelligence-based ability other than just magic, Eisen figured that would be a good idea. Either way, Eisen then tried to shave parts of the lense down in a way that would make it possible to use it as a sort of magnifying ss to make it possible to inspect monsters from a little further away than normal. And then, the old man got started on the enchantments for this lens, which was a simple enchantment meant to enhance the range and effect of Dragoon¡¯s Appraisal. With a satisfied nod, Eisen tried to look through everything, finding that, while most of the lens was obscured due to the carvings, it was still possible to see through the center of the lens as normal. Eisen figured that should be enough. And then with just a little bit of mana poured into the lens, it would activate the effect and push the information through the thread that connected the lens to an enchantment ced inbetween the hard cardboard Eisen used as a base to put the leather onto and the piece of paper meant to hide that cardboard on the inside of the book. That enchanment would then process the information and ¡¯write¡¯ it onto a free page. He did kind of have to use a small gem enchanted with Evalia¡¯s element for this as well, but he figured it was fine. It was hidden and quite small, just big enough to produce the little bit of Ink that would be necessary to write onto the pages. After Eisen then carved into the cover of the book and tightly attached the thin metal base that would allow the lens to be snapped off rtively easily, but not too easily to have it randomly fall off, he pushed the lens into the Book Cover and nodded his head in satisfaction. "Seems good like this." Eisen muttered to himself with a light smile, and then recognized this item as finished before waving the information page away after confirming that everything seemed to work as intended. He didn¡¯t want to try it out yet, considering that he didn¡¯t want to fill the book up with anything that Dragoon didn¡¯t want in there, but he figured it would work well enough. And after cing the book to the side together with some more stacks of the same paper Eisen used to make this, so that Dragoon could have some pages reced once the book filled up, the old man got started on the next item. It had been going on inside of a ¡¯hidden¡¯ room behind the wooden walls in the Dungeon for a while now, the production of cloth meant for the boy¡¯s cloak. He asked Bree and Sky to bring it with them on their way back, so he guessed he had to wait for that to be finished for now. But before then, Eisen didn¡¯t necessarily have all that much to do. All he needed was the cloth made using the special thread Eisen was woving, with two parts mana-crystal enchanted with Dragoon¡¯s Changeling ability, one part mana-crystal with Eisen¡¯s growth-change ability, and then again three parts regr cotton thread. Using that same thread, just without the three parts regr cotton, Eisen would then sew the proper enchantment into the inside of the cloak, fit it to the dimensions Eisen saw Dragoon have before, and then he would be basically done. So that meant all he had to do now was wait for Sky and Bree to return, and until then, Eisen could care for some of the customers. A few more people gathered when Eisen was momentarily working on the ss lense just now, because he was doing so within the boundaries of the stall, but they stayed when they saw the quality of the different itemsying on disy in front of them. And Kirisho was also doing an amazing job taking care of these customers. Maybe she had experience as a sales- or clerks-woman when she was still alive? Either way, Eisen was pretty d to see that she was fitting in so well. Once everything calmed down a little bit again, the old man figured he should take a look at one of the screens inside of his Apron, the one connected to CB-1, who was flying around the area the Dungeon was set down to let Eisen get a rough idea of what was happening around there. It seemed like there were a couple of people trying to enter through the gate, just as Eisen expected, although not all of them necessarily seemed to be adventurers orbatists. A few of them might have been just quite curious. But Eisen didn¡¯t really care too much as long as they didn¡¯t cause any trouble. People dying inside of the Dungeon should give a fair amount of experience to Sigurd and Fafnir as well, although Eisen hoped to only let that happen to yers, meaning that NPC¡¯s were actually given a bit of preferential treatment. Because Sigurd was there and could overlook each and every part of the Dungeon and those inside of it at all times, the Core Guardian make sure to properly guide any injured NPC¡¯s to either the ¡¯safe room¡¯ at the end of the floor where they could teleport to the start using the tforms, or the start of the floor they were currently on to get to the safe room of thest floor, just depending on what was closer. Although even then, Sigurd would only do that if the lives of those NPCs were actually in danger if they didn¡¯t manage to get out. After all, that would be too unfair otherwise. If the ¡¯Living Dungeon¡¯ actually became as big a deal as Eisen expected it too be, he figured that some people would start noticing that only yers ever died in there and startining or try to use unfair tricks, but that was an issue that needed to be taken care of when it appeared. And soon enough, Eisen also managed to spot Sky and Bree getting out of the Dungeon, so the old man made CB-1 fly right in front of them. Although it did seem to surprise them for a moment, they soon rxed when they noticed it was just one of Eisen¡¯s items. On top of that, they seemed to have understood what the old man wanted to hear about as well. "Everything¡¯s going as nned, and we got that cloth for you as well. There¡¯s a bunch of people trying to ¡¯scout¡¯ the Dungeon out though. They¡¯re obviously not capable of fighting as well. A couple of rich guys were running around trying to find ¡¯the one in charge¡¯, but Sigurd was able to avoid them pretty easily and make sure they weren¡¯t causing any trouble." Sky exined as the two Fey-Kin kept walking forward back toward the Town gates, and Bree nodded her head excitedly as she grabbed the straps of herrge backpack and walked next to her brother. "Yup yup!" She eximed, and Eisen just chuckled in response before making CB-1 do a ¡¯nod-like¡¯ motion, which was surprisingly tough to figure out considering that it was nothing but a big eyeball with wings. "Now stop watching us so one-sidedly, it¡¯s creepy..." The Fey-Kin boy admitted with a slightly wry smile, so the old man simply agreed and made CB-1 turn off inside of Sky¡¯s hand, where it probably rolled up and covered itself in its metal-and-leather wings, although Eisen now wasn¡¯t able to actually confirm that anymore. Either way, as they were on their way now, Eisen figured he should get to preparing everything that he might need at all to make this item, although it didn¡¯t really take all that long, considering that he just needed a table, some thread, and his Multiool which included needled and a knife in it. And so... the old man really could only wait, which he did for the next little while until he could see the two Fey-Kin siblings approach the stall. Once they actually reached it, Bree quickly put her backpack onto the ground and switftly reached into it to grab the cloth that was made inside of the Dungeon, and Eisen happily nodded his head. "Perfect. Thanks, you two." The old man said with a satisfied smile and looked at the ck cloth, which was dyed with a very simple setup made using Evalia¡¯s element. And so, the first thing that Eisen did was properly cut the cloth up into the different pieces that he needed, and considering how simple the shape of a cloak was from a Tailor¡¯s perspective, that was done pretty quickly, same with the sewing, which realy just required Eisen to sew in long lines for a little while longer than for other clothes. Like most cloaks Eisen was familiar with, this one also had a hood, just because it seemed like it would be a good fit for someone that wanted to be able to change their appearance more easily. Then, the only thing that was left to do was the creation of the sewed enchantments on the inside of the cloak. It always felt a little to risky on the outside, considering that thread was easily cut or snapped in two especially then, so putting it on the inside seemed like the better choice to Eisen. It would also hide the actual effect of the cloak to people that might be proficient at reading Enchantments. All the enchantments really did, however, were to support the shapeshifting ability of Dragoon and put the ¡¯Growth Change¡¯ effect onto him to an amount to fit the target that he was changing into. And then, the only thing that was left for Eisen to do was a very simple thing. Into the neck of the cloak, and the lower end of the book¡¯s spine, Eisen ced his ¡¯Craftsman¡¯s Symbol¡¯. Chapter 441 - Dungeon Management In the evening, or rather in the middle of the night, when the regr Merchants had already closed down their stalls and the only ones really walking around town were thugs, Eisen was waiting for Dragoon toe back to see him to pick up the items. He was a littlete, but the old man figured it wasn¡¯t that big a deal. Sigurd had only closed the Dungeon down just now anyway and was now on its way back into town together with Fafnir to pick everything from the stall up. But just when Eisen was thinking about the Changeling, he was approaching the Stall from the other side of the market and quickly looked around himself to find the right ce, soon finding Eisen just standing there, waving at him to get his attention. "Sorry for beingte. Something came up that I had to take care of." Dragoon apologized, but the old man shook his head in response. "Don¡¯t worry about it. Anyway, here¡¯s the two items you requested. The item to store the information is just a beastiary. There¡¯s some extra paper if the pagespletely fill up." Eisen exined, while the Changeling grabbed the leather book and flipped through it excitedly. "Whoa, this looks pretty cool! Will it just automatically fill with monsters?" He inquired, but Eisen swiftly shook his head. "Not really ¡¯automatically¡¯. Here, you can pop the lense at the front off. Then when you focus it on a monster and just pour your mana inside of it, it¡¯s going to fill a page up with the proper information." The craftsman exined, making Dragoon nod happily. "Awesome!" He eximed, before taking a look at the cloak. "And this will really let me change my size as well when changing into something or someone?" The changeling inquired as he ced the book down for a moment and then pulled the cloak around to his back to put it on, before pulling the hood up as well. "It should, yes. How about you try it out on me again?" Eisen suggested, and the young man nodded his head quite swiftly and once more just stared at the elder in front of him. His eyes were moving around rapidly as Eisen felt another immense, ufortable shudder, before he then had a ¡¯copy¡¯ of himself standing in front of him. It still wasn¡¯t perfect, meaning that this version was still an inch or two shorter than Eisen, but it was definitely an incredible improvement to thest time. "Nice!" Dragoon eximed, before de-activating the enchantment again. "These are both really damn cool." With a broad smile on his face, that¡¯s what Dragoon muttered to himself, and Eisen just nodded his head. "Yeah, they were pretty interesting for sure. So, about the price for these..." The old man started with a slight smile, and Dragoon¡¯s transformation swiftly stopped as he returned back to his pale-faced version. "R-Right..." He replied, before Eisen just started tough loudly. "Don¡¯t worry, don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s not a major amount. You¡¯re the first properission I took on in a while, and the items were something slightly new as well, so I¡¯ll just have you pay the material costs." The old man said with a wink, and Dragoon raised his brows surprised. "Really? Awesome!" He eximed, and Eisen slightly chuckled as he and the young yer finished the transaction and Dragoon slowly left the area the stall was in and stepped through the market, all the whilst Sigurd and Fafnir made their way back to the stall as well. "Was that the changeling guy you made those items for?" The Core Guardian asked, before Eisen nodded his head in reply. "Mhm, he was. But nevermind that for now, I¡¯ll tell you more about the itemster. How did everything go on your side?" He inquired curiously, and Sigurd just sat down on the counter of the stall, which had been cleared up pretty well, and started to exin what happened. It seemed like for the most part, everything worked out pretty well, everyone was rtively civilized and nice, but there were the asional few that didn¡¯t really get the concept of this new type of Dungeon and tried to attack the Receptionist-Goblins or the Kobolds and Lizardmen working in the town. Of course, Sigurd could intervene pretty easily and just threw those guys right out of the Dungeon by pushing them through a temporary gate, but those weren¡¯t even the ones that really annoyed the Core Guardian the most. Instead, it were the people that were conceited enough to think they owned the ce and started looking down on other Dungeon-Goers. Most of those were part of the newest yer-Group, seemingly. They pushed their way through to the counters no matter how long the line or thought it to be unnecessary to even go to the counters at all and stepped outside into the town anyway, and didn¡¯t even consider the fact that they had to wait before entering the actual maze so that they wouldn¡¯t end up just running directly behind a group. Of course Sigurd tried its best to make sure everything was working orderly, but at times things happened at two ces at once, so it had to take care of some things with the help of the monsters. "Hmm, do you perhaps need a Core Helper or two? Or I can just make a few Golems that connect to the Dungeon that you can act as Guards." Eisen suggested, and Sigurd immediately nodded its head, without even needing to think about it. "Yes please, I would really appreciate that. Those Golems would be enough, I really just need proper enforcers in case I¡¯m busy." It pointed out, before the old man nodded his head slowly as Sigurd starting bringing the stall into the Dungeon. And while the Dungeon Core Guardian was doing that, Eisen was thinking about something else that seemed like both a good, and insane idea. "Just wondering, but what happens when someone that isn¡¯t part of the ¡¯Dungeon Team¡¯ tries to destroy parts of the Dungeon?" Eisen asked, and Sigurd just shrugged. "Nothing. They just can¡¯t actually destroy anything. Sure, there¡¯s certain things they can ¡¯permanently¡¯ destroy, and that¡¯s specific items like crates, barrels, chests, and so on that were bought in the Dungeon Menu. But those are simr to monsters and are just reced in the spot the destroyed ones were before." Sigurd exined swiftly as it swiftly disappeared in a small cloud of mist to bring away one of thest pieces, while Eisen slowly shook his head. "No, no, that¡¯s not exactly what I mean. What I would like to know is if they can destroy things like the walls of the maze, for example." He added, and as Eisen told Aulu and Cabarum to stop sleeping behind the carriage so that he could hook thetter up to the carriage, Sigurd crossed its arms in thought and continued. "Well... When ites to things like walls, trees, or even the buildings or stalls made from the wood from those trees, they can be destroyed, but they¡¯re far tougher than the regr versions would be? And even if they¡¯re destroyed, they will immediately start regenerating, so no damage is permanent. Even insanely high damage should be repaired within a minute at most, and with ¡¯insanely high¡¯, I mean damage that could make a tunnel between two corridors of the maze." The Core Guardian exined, so Eisen just nodded his head in satisfaction. "Is that so? Well, well, well, seems like one of the floors needs to be expanded a little more, doesn¡¯t it?" Eisen stated, making Sigurd and the others look at Eisen questioningly, because that was a rather weird conclusion he came to. Although, Eisen¡¯s reasoning really wasn¡¯t all thatplicated. "Well, I think it just makes sense, doesn¡¯t it? We have a fair bit of DP left, and I think we should try and invest it in something that might fit to a future theme, even, I don¡¯t really know what you and Evalia nned for the next Hundred or so floors." The old man exined and made Cabarum pull the carriage into ce so that they could just make their way inside and start driving to the ¡¯grinding¡¯ area near Melroe that Eisen promised to have Sal level up at. "Could you stop speaking so cryptic and just exin?" Sigurd asked, both curious and slightly annoyed, although Eisen just ended up slightly chuckling before sitting down at the front bench of the carriage. "I¡¯ll exin on the way. Let¡¯s just get going for now." The old man suggested, and while Fafnir made tiredly made his way into the carriage toy down on there followed by the Monster kids, Kirisho sat down next to Eisen and the Fey-Kin siblings just sat down in the back as well, while Sigurd transported itself directly next to Eisen so that it could listen to the old man¡¯s exnation. "Now then... There¡¯s the ¡¯Environmental Material¡¯ tab, right? You already bought things like water, rock, dirt, bricks, and so on there that you used to make the different floors." Eisen started, before Sigurd slowly nodded its head. "Yeah? And what about it? Is there anything special inside of that tab?" The Core Guardian asked curiously, before Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Of course there is. It was unlocked when you reached Rank 2 as a sub-material for Rock." "Hmm, a Sub-Material for rock? That could only be..." Sigurd muttered quietly, and then opened its eyes surprised. "Oh, so THAT is what you want to do? You know you won¡¯t be able to use any of the materials outside of the Dungeon though, right? They¡¯ll fall apart into mana the moment they leave through the Gate. I mean, I guess as long as the gate is open, the materials should hold up for a little while as long as they¡¯re within my own Range-Limit..." It pointed out, before Eisen just slightly chuckled and nodded his head. "I know, I know, don¡¯t worry. But for a few Helper-Golems, that should be more than enough, shouldn¡¯t it? And that¡¯s exactly what I¡¯m counting on." With a loudugh, Eisen steered the Carriage through the streets of this small town toward the gate, although Kirisho, who was sitting next to Eisen with the small Fox Golem on herp, looked at Eisen and Sigurd curiously. "Could you maybe fill the rest of us in as well?" She requested with a slight smile, and so the old man just nodded his head as he took a look around. "Of course, just wait a moment, we¡¯re about to reach the gate. I¡¯ll exin properly once we¡¯re out there." The old man promised. Chapter 442 - Handsome Boy "Good, now, go ahead with this one." Eisen said with a slight smile on his face as he restrained a ¡¯Hill Boar¡¯, a rtivelyrge variant of an ¡¯Earth Boar¡¯, although it was just a Rank 4 Monster. It was quite strong and had immense defensive prowess, and while it was quite fast when running in a straight line, it was close to incapable of turning while moving at speeds beyond its regr walking-speed. While it required a fair amount of patience for Eisen to do so, soon enough he managed to just cut into its limbs to make it too hard to keep its heavy body properly on its feet, meaning that Eisen could rtively easily hold it in ce to let Sal attack it and finish it off with some spells. Especially at the start, Sal was a bit hesitant about actually killing monsters, but in the end he somewhat just got used to it. And he managed to go forward with some pretty interesting techniques as well. For one, as his body had such a high connection to magic, he was able to quite easily enhance his movements to get around different monsters without worry. It didn¡¯t fully make up for the halving of his stat-gain in agility, but it was good enough for now. But the most interesting part about everything was actually the technique he had when it came to creating spells. As he was already capable of letting out thread out of his abdomen, he would usually simply spin it around his fingers in different patterns to create a reusable magic-circle with the help of the thread. Due to the size, that may only allow him to cast simple attack spells like bolts or spheres, but in the end that was more than enough practice. The thread usually snapped pretty quiclly as well after being used a couple of times, so Sal was constantly trying to re-make the magic-circles on the hand that currently didn¡¯t have one on it yet so that he could keep on attacking without a break. Of course, he couldn¡¯t only do this kind of thing when using only his fingers at a base. He managed to do the same when trying to use his arms to allow attacks that are a bit bigger, and he even made a magic-circle that allowed him to propell him upward pretty strongly by using his feet as a base. But the thing that he was currently working on was the type of web one would expect a spider the size of Sal to have, using the trees in this forest as a base for it while Eisen was taking care of the boar. And for this one, Sal even added something a little new. It was slightly tough to really understand this magic circle that Sal made, considering that his view of magic was more abstract than others¡¯, so there were patterns that Eisen would have never even thought of using. Either way, when Sal finished therge web magic circle, he climbed down from the web with a thread still connected to the very middle of the web, and then rushed up to the snout of the Hill Boar to tie it around it, and then turned toward Eisen to give him a thumbs-up. "Well then, go ahead and activate it." The old man said, wanting to finally let go of this dirty beast, and Sal quickly tapped the center of the thread he used to connect the boar to the web, and before Eisen knew it, that web started to glow brightly as Eisen took a look at the flow of mana with his Truth-Seeing Eyes, and quickly noticed that arge amount of natural mana was being sucked in at the back of the web and pushed through the thin thread after being changed around a little, and when the first bout of that mana reached the boar, Eisen let go so that he wouldn¡¯t identally end up in the crossfire. Although, the old man probably didn¡¯t need to worry, considering that it seemed like the attack only happened inside of the boar, as it quite swiftly started spitting out blood before dropping onto the ground. Anyone else probably wouldn¡¯t have understood what exactly just happened, but as Eisen observed the flow of mana even further, he understood. What Sal did was quite simple. He used the natural mana as a base ¡¯material¡¯ for the spell, which is exactly how most Sorcery-Magic Circles worked, especially ones at such a scale, and the thread was simply used to extend the range of the spell Then inside of the boar, all of the blood inside of its body was simply frozen instantly. And then the blood-ice was manipted to form spikes to destroy the Boar¡¯s body from the inside. It was a rather gruesome attack, but Eisen figured it worked good enough in preserving the materials of the boar, so he didn¡¯t really mind all that much. But more importantly, the death of this Hill Boar triggered something else. Sal finally gathered enough experience to Rank up to 3! As a light enveloped him, his body grew a fair bit until the light disappeared again, and Eisen could see that exactly what he thought would happen, happened. His abdomen still looked roughly the same, just that there were some slightly different patterns and that it was simply farrger than before, but the biggest change was with Sal¡¯s humanoid torso. He now had actual skin! He was still basicallypletely white, but at the very least he didn¡¯t have a carapace anymore, and a rather cute, child-like face, and hair of course! His eyes were still like that of a spider, of course, although the size slightly changed around a bit. Sal had two ¡¯central¡¯ eyes in the ces that regr eyes would be, but at the outer sides of each eye were three smaller, button-sized eyes. They all still looked very spider-like, but he figured that even someone like Xenia might be able to deal with Sal the way he was now. "Well, well, well, who¡¯s this handsome little guy here?" The old man asked with augh as he ran his hand through Sal¡¯s hair, before the boy started to giggle in response. "Hehe, it¡¯s just me!" Sal eximed in response, before Eisen just chuckled and nodded his head. "Of course, of course, how could I not see that?" Eisenughed, "Now, want to continue on with leveling up a little more?" The old man suggested before Sal immediately nodded his head excitedly and started following behind Eisen as he went to look for the next ¡¯prey¡¯, all the whilst Bree was happily taking the hill boar apart and had Sigurd transport all the pieces into the dungeon so that Eisen could take care of the meat, skin, and other materialster on in peace. And so, for the next couple of hours, Eisen and Sal continued on having the young boy level up as much as possible, and by the end of the night, considering that Eisen could make use of pretty strong monsters to speed the process up, Sal was already quite close to reaching Rank 4 when they all got back to the carriage. "Now then..." Eisen muttered quietly as he helped Sal into the carriage with his body that was now far harder to fit into such a space than before, but they managed to get him into the Dungeon to let him walk around a bit morefortably. If this continued on, Sal would have the hardest time out of anyone to fit into the Carriage, except if he somehow turned bi-pedal instead of octo-pedal. Eisen hoped for such an evolution, but it wasn¡¯t anything that he could force to happen, after all. For now, Eisen made the choice of just bringing Sal to Rank 4 in the area around Melroe where he wanted to let Caria and Melissa level up as well, just while being a bit more focused on Sal at the start to bring him up-to-par. "Let¡¯s get back to Melroe, shall we?" The old man suggested as he looked at Bree with a slight wink, and Sky raised his eyebrows confused. "Wait, Bree, you were in Melroe before?" He asked, and his sister looked at him with a bright smile. "Yup~! It¡¯s where I met Eisen!" She eximed happily, and Sky sighed deeply in response. "Could you have mentioned that sometime..? I thought we¡¯re just going to the ce where Eisen first got... It¡¯s going to be really troublesome now, isn¡¯t it?" The young Fey-Kin asked as he scratched the back of his neck, and Eisen turned to him with a slight chuckle. "Really, why is that?" He inquired, before Sky just turned to him with a slight frown, the type of expression that you had when you were annoyed with something out of embarrassment. "Well, I have to thank the people there for taking care of Bree, then..." Sky admitted, before Eisenughed loudly with a swift nod. "I see, if that¡¯s the case, then I¡¯ll introduce you to everyone there. It¡¯s just another one-day trip, so be excited till then." Eisen eximed and slightly stretched before starting to ¡¯feed¡¯ Cabarum and Aulu their Oil. "Can you two take care of the Driving, then? I want to properly work on the Dungeon-Golems." The old man exined, before the two Fey-Kin siblings nodded their heads nearly in sync. With a slight smile at that sight, Eisen stopped feeding the two Automata and then made his way into the back of the carriage, and then directly into the Dungeon, where he didn¡¯t even take a step out of the reception-building and instead opened a gate to an area of the lowest floor that Sigurd figured could use a little more expanding anyway. And so, the old man then used that area as a little excavation-spot, because the Core Guardian spent thest little while turning the rock here into... ore. Simple Iron ore. Of course, there was also another little spot prepared that Eisen wanted to make use of to turn some of the trees herepletely into charcoal by enveloping them with his element and heating them up for a while as he was working. That meant he first had to cut them down as well, of course, but that wasn¡¯t that big a deal. Either way, soon enough, Eisen managed to properly mine the Iron Ore and told Sigurd to stop the automatic destruction of the bits and pieces that always dropped off while mining, so that he could properly keep the Ore around. Luckily, it was surprisingly dense ore as well, and because it was created through the dungeon, it was as pure as it Iron Ore could be. Just a couple of hourster, the currently deepest floor gained a cave that could be turned into a secret room for those that liked exploration, and Eisen had a lot of Iron Ore, which he swiftly started grinding down into powder as much as possible. In the end, the Iron ore he had here was part of the Dungeon, and regr yers couldn¡¯t actually destroy it. It would just ¡¯regenerate¡¯ immediately before they knew it. But when Eisen worked with this, it didn¡¯t act like that at all, even if it still stayed the same to yers. So if Eisen made some Golems with the metal he got from this Dungeon-Iron Ore, he was able to create indestructible Guards and Enforcers for the Dungeon. Chapter 443 - Welcome Back As soon as Eisen finished properly extracting all of the metallic parts from the ground-down ore, which in itself took a few hours, he filled those metallic parts intorge crucibles made with his element, added some ground-down limestone, and then some ground-down charcoal, using the charcoal that he created out of the trees grown within this Dungeon. Once everything was in ce in the right proportions to one another, Eisen properly made the crucibles heat up as much as possible to melt everything down, of course also trying to use his mana to properly help with the metal extraction process a little more. A little whileter, Eisen then had a couple of huge chunks of rock in front of him, for which he swiftly took everything off of the Multitool to only leave the Chisel, which he then used to swiftly crack away the rock parts away from the metal. He had quite a lot here, enough to make maybe Half a dozen Golems depending on the way he actually created them. The rock-parts that Eisen removed from the Dungeon-Steel were then re-absorbed by the dungeon before the metal-chunks were moved to Eisen¡¯s working-area. "So you actually managed to make metal from the Dungeon Walls..?" Sigurd asked, quite astounded, and Eisen nodded his head with a smirk. "You bet I did. And it¡¯s even quite high in quality... A shame that this can¡¯t leave this ce." Eisen said with a sigh as he held his hand to the side and made his Staff appear, swiftly creating a forge out of his element. "Well, let¡¯s hope these guys will actually turn into good Golems, huh?" The old man chuckled, before Sigurd just stood next to Eisen and the forge, trying to watch curiously. "Hmm, is there any reason you wanted to make them out of steel though? They would have been good enough when made out of Rock, right?" The core guardian pointed out, before Eisen nodded his head in response as he ced the first chunk of Dungeon-Steel into the Forge. "Of course. But I figured it would stand out if there were rock-statues in the reception. I¡¯m going to make them look like decorative Armor-Sets and then fill them up to the brim with regr stone. We should always hope that they won¡¯t need to be used, so they should look good even then." Eisen pointed out, and Sigurd swiftly smiled as it understood what Eisen meant. "That does make sense!" It eximed, before smirking slightly, "Evalia would probably kill you if you ced random rock-statues into the reception anyway." Sigurd muttered, and Eisen just returned a grin as he properly grasped his multitool in its hammer-mode and started to work the metal to be tter, so that he could properly split it up into smaller pieces to make the parts for the Full-te Armor-Sets. In the end, Eisen figured that they didn¡¯t have to be all that thick necessarily, which was the only reason he would be able to make six of the armor sets together with some swords and shields. As it was pretty thin, the metal bent rtively easy, so Eisen had to be more careful than usual about howrge he made each piece. After all, therger it was, the harder it was to properly handle it, especially when it was as unstable as this. Luckily though, he recently learned to properly use all of his abilities to his advantage, and just summoned one of his Mana Doubles to help him out with keeping everything in ce. And as it was made of mana, he didn¡¯t need to worry about any obstacles either, considering that he could simply make the mana in the path that Eisen wanted to strike disappear or move somewhere else momentarily. And so, Eisen soon finished the first set of armor. And then the second, then the third, and then the other three, even if it did take him the whole night to do so. He was feeling pretty tired, and it would most likely only take around five or six hours to get to Melroe, so he figured he should get some shut-eye soon and just finish the actual Golems upter on and then make the swords and shields when he found the time otherwise. But soon enough, Eisen woke back up and noticed Aulu trying to lick his face, covering him in oil as she was at it. "Ahh..." The old man sighed as he stood up and quickly wiped his face with a nearby piece of cloth before kneeling down in front of Aulu. "Well then, thanks for waking me up, girl. Let¡¯s go take a look at how long it takes until we¡¯re there, huh?" Eisen chuckled as he saw a gate open in front of him, probably created by Sigurd to let him out of his cave hidden behind the wall in the ¡¯Floor 0 Town¡¯, as it was apparently dubbed by some of the people that entered it before over thest while. "Good morning." Eisen said with a bright, slightly excited smile as he stepped out through the Dungeon Gate and looked at Sky and Bree, as well as the mountains that were a lot closer than he expected them to be at this point in time. "Morning~!" Bree eximed happily as she turned around, as currently Sky was steering, and Eisen looked out the window curiously. "Wait, this area is the one right around the eastern gate already, right? We¡¯re there already?" He inquired surprised, before Bree just grinned at him happily. "Mhm! We took a little shortcut, so we got here a bit earlier than expected!" The Fey-Kin girl replied happily, before Eisen sat down on the bench in the Carriage with a smile on his face. "Well then, I guess that means we¡¯re back already, huh?" Eisen asked himself in a whisper, before he just crossed his arms and waited for them to actually get there, waiting with Caria and Melissa on hisp while Sal was looking at him curiously from inside the gate. After all, he couldn¡¯te out and join the two young girls on Eisen¡¯sp in the carriage, but Eisen was somehow feeling too giddy not to watch them enter the town through the Carriage¡¯s window. Otherwise he would have went inside and yed a bit with Sal in there too. Maybe ten minutester, the whole carriage turned dark as they entered the long tunnel, and Eisen could already hear some people and carriages around them, making him somehow even happier to be back. And it didn¡¯t take long for the light at the end of this tunnel to shine through into the interior of the carriage either, and the old man immediately saw the bright town of Melroe, spiraling down deep into the ground and high along the mountains around him, with numerous different buildings built along the walls to waste as little space as possible. Before the old man knew it, he already heard a familiar voice. "What the- Bree, is that you?" A Dwarven man asked, and Eisen swiftly let down Caria and Melissa and stepped out of the carriage as well as it was slowing down to a halt. "Good morning, Gralmar." The old man said as he set his foot onto the sloped road, looking at Gralmar, the Innkeeper of the Inn that Eisen stayed at the whole time he was in Melroe. "Eisen too! Good to see ya, old man!" The Dwarf eximed immediately as he sat the bag over his shoulder down onto the ground as he first hugged Bree and then walked up to Eisen as well, first shaking his hand before being pulled into a slight hug as by the old man as well. "Nice to see you again." Eisen said with a light smile, and Gralmar immediately nodded his head. "Ye can say that again! ¡¯Specially cause of how stressful thest couple a days¡¯ve been. Wee back to town, you two!" The Innkeeper said with a heartyugh, before he noticed a tap on his shoulder, the source of which was Bree. "Gralmar, here! Let me introduce you to my dear Brother!" She said with a broad grin as she pulled Sky from the bench at the front of the carriage, trying to make her brother introduce himself. "Th-Thank you for taking care of my sister for so long. My name is Sky, nice to meet you." The Fey-Kin boy said nervously as he extended his hand forward, and Gralmar looked at him surprised for a moment before continuing tough as he shook Sky¡¯s hand. "Why¡¯d ya never mention ¡¯im before?" Gralmar asked as he turned toward Bree, and she just smiled back at him. "I didn¡¯t know about him either until we left here, actually..." She admitted, and Gralmar looked back at her surprised. "Well, that¡¯s a story I¡¯d like to hear. Bring yer carriage away, I¡¯ll prepare a room for the three of ya." The Innkeeper said with a smile, but Eisen swiftly stopped him just as he wanted to leave again. "Actually, can you make it one of therge rooms? We could need some extra space." The old man pointed out, so Gralmar just nodded his head. "Ya got it!" He replied, picking his bag back up from the ground before throwing it over his shoulder again as he made his way into the direction of the Inn. "Come on, you two. Let¡¯s get going, we¡¯ve got a bunch of people to meet today." Eisen told them, quickly whistling toward Cabarum to make him get going again while Sky and Bree sat back down on the front bench. Swiftly, they brought the Carriage over to a rather inconspicuous ce before telling Fafnir to open therge gate, and connected that gate to the ¡¯open space¡¯ in the starting town instead of the reception, and then let Cabarum and Aulu run around there. As the two of them technically weren¡¯t alive, they could just stay inside of the Dungeon without any issue even while the gate was closed. And so, instead of making their way to the Stables, and with that the Inn, first, they made their way to the shop that was currently closest to them. . The Smithy belonging to Denmir Dimhide, Eisen¡¯s first ¡¯teacher¡¯. Swiftly, Bree and Sky stepped through the door while Eisen made sure the monster children, and the sleepy Fafnir, were properly following along, causing a quite unusual sight to any current onlooker. "You guys wait here in the front, I¡¯ll hurry and get Denmir." Eisen told the others with a smile on his face, although it seemed like there was someone that had something against that. Someone that was obviously a yer seemed to be working here at the desk right now, something that surprised Eisen a fair bit considering that it seemed unusual for yers to want to do that, and they stepped up in front of the door to stop the old man from entering. "Sorry, but that¡¯s Employees only. And Master Dimhide is busy right now, so don¡¯t disturb him. Come backter." The yer said in a clear tone, although Eisen just raised his brows surprised. "Aha, sure. It won¡¯t take long." Eisen replied, trying to push through, but the yerpletely blocked Eisen¡¯s ess to the handle and didn¡¯t seem to want to budge, so the old man just sighed and shook his head. "You really want to do this?" Eisen asked with a slight grin, and the yer nodded with a determined expression, before Eisen¡¯s grin just grew. "Alright, then let¡¯s do it this way..." With a slight sigh, Eisen shook his head disappointedly and crossed his arms. "Oi, what kind of Grandmaster is this supposed to be?! This sword isn¡¯t even sharp enough to count as a butter knife!" The old man yelled out, obviously loud enough to reach into the smithy behind this door, and the yer¡¯s face went pale as the sounds of people working in there slowly stopped and loud, stomping footsteps approached the door from the other side. "What kind of moronic son of a whore said that?!" Denmir asked as he ripped the door open, first watching the yer take a step to the side before seeing the man d only in a leather apron and wool-pants standing there. And that man just smiled back. "This one." Chapter 444 - Meeting them again "Ye¡¯re back!" Denmir eximed in surprise, and Eisen just chuckled as he nodded his head. "That I am. How are you, Denmir?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, and the Dwarven cksmith justughed loudly as the yer was watching everything confused. "I¡¯m great, what d¡¯ya expect? Those Artificials ¡¯re annoying the shit outta me, but they¡¯re not all bad." With a broad smile, Denmir took a step further into the front of the shop so that he wasn¡¯t standing in the doorway, winking at the yer that was standing behind the counter. "Yeah, I¡¯ve already met one of them. Let me guess, you¡¯re using your apprentices for cheapbor?" The old man asked, and Denmir just smirked back at him. "I don¡¯t know what ye¡¯re talking about. This one ¡¯ere wanted me ta teach him how to smith, so I asked ¡¯im to first watch the shop for a while. Workin¡¯ on a new, impressive item, after all, so I¡¯m busy as is." The cksmith pointed out, making Eisen just smile back curiously. "Oh? Well, If you¡¯re busy right now, how about youe to the Inn¡¯s bar around sundown and tell me about that item? And then I¡¯m going to properly introduce you and the others to everyone here." Eisen said as he pointed at the Monster Children walking around the Shop curiously while Kirisho tried to make sure they didn¡¯t mess anything up, and Bree and Sky just stood by, either happy or nervous respectively. "Ya got it, ya geezer! See ya there, and ye better have an item ready that¡¯ll shove me outta my socks." The cksmith eximed, excitedly making his way back into the smithy after obviously greeting Bree again as well, although he didn¡¯t pay much attention to the others. And with a smile on his face, Eisen stepped out of the Shop,pletely ignoring the baffled yer, while the others swiftly followed behind him. "That Dwarf was a grandmaster..? Really?" Sky asked with a wry smile after they left the ce, and Eisen nodded his head with a smirk. "Mhm, he is, believe it or not. There¡¯s four of them here in this town, and we¡¯ll go see all of them." The old man pointed out, and Sky nodded his head with a slight sigh. Grandmaster or not, they weren¡¯t really all that impressive whenpared to Eisen, at the end of the day. Sure, they could currently make items of a higher rank than him, but that was all. Eisen¡¯s actual quality of work was still far beyond what those four could achieve, Sky was sure of that even without properly seeing their items. The next ce they stopped at was a clothes shop, run by the Dwarven Lady Folmirra Brighthood, Eisen¡¯s Tailoring ¡¯Teacher¡¯. With a smile on his face, the old man stepped up to the door, causing a quiet bell to ring out. Across the room, behind the counter, sat the middle-aged Dwarven Woman, currently looking down at some cloth that she was decoratively stitching into. "Wee! I will be right there, I just have to finish this really quickly! Go ahead and have a look around until then!" She eximed with a bright smile on her face, although she didn¡¯t raise her head from the piece of cloth she was working with, so Eisen figured he should just let her work for a while and instead just took a look at the different things that Folmirra had on disy here. She did have some clothes in children-sizes here as well, but Eisen figured it might be a waste to buy clothes for the Monster children for now if he didn¡¯t know how quickly they were going to grow over the next while, considering that Eisen wanted to go outside with them to make them evolve. Bree and Sky, however, were looking around with the intention of buying different clothes for different asions. They did only have one pair of clothes right now, and while those didn¡¯t exactly end up getting dirty, it was still nice to have a few different things to wear instead of just having one outfit. And even Kirisho was looking at the Dress-Magazine that Folmirra hadying around with sketches of different dresses that could be made to-order, considering that not all of them could be disyed inside of this shop. It wasn¡¯t that big, after all. "Hmm, if you wanted something new to wear, you could have told me, you know?" Eisen told the Mist-Spirit with a slight chuckle, but she just shook her head. "Don¡¯t worry about me, I can not actually wear anything besides this dress... At least not currently. I might in the future, however, so I will tell you then." She pointed out, and the old man just slowly nodded his head, feeling like he just said something pretty insensitive to her. With a slight sigh, the old man chose to just keep waiting until Folmirra was finished. And this moment actually came rather soon, as she finally ced the piece of cloth down and then raised her head. "Sorry for the dy, how... may I..." She started asking, before slowly stopping as she realized who it was standing in front of her. "Eisen, Bree! Oh, how lovely!" Folmirra eximed and stood up from her chair, swiftly making her way over toward the two of them to greet them properly. "When did youe back?" She asked, and Eisen just smiled back at her. "Around twenty minutes ago, maybe. And we brought a few new friends as well." The old man pointed out, trying to show Folmirra the others, although just at that moment, a few yers walked in through the door. "Well, I would love to keep talking with you some more, but..." She said as she slowly turned toward the other customers, and Eisen just shook his head. "It¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry. We went to see Denmir already as well, and he¡¯sing to the Inn¡¯s Bar around sundown. If you¡¯re off of work by then, how about youe over as well? I wanted to go and invite Jekyll and Morrom as well, so it would be a small get-together where we can properly catch up. A lot happened since we left, after all." Eisen told the woman in front of him, and Folmirra swiftly nodded her head. "That would be lovely! But if you¡¯re going to see Jekyll now, he is also quite busytely, and you know how moody he is anyway, so don¡¯t be surprised if he doesn¡¯t have much time to speak to you." She warned, but Eisen just kept smiling. "That¡¯s fine, really. There were some other things I wanted to take care of today anyway." The old man replied and Folmirra quickly made her way over to help out the customers. This was a Luxury Tailor, after all. "Then let¡¯s keep going and meet Doctor Jekyll, shall we?" Eisen asked as he opened the door, and Bree looked at him excitedly. "Whoa! Jekyll is a Doctor? I didn¡¯t know that!" She eximed, but the old man just shook his head in response. "Sorry, it was just a reference you couldn¡¯t know of." Eisen pointed out, as he slowly started to hear whispers from Folmirra¡¯s customers, who seemed to be yers, behind him. It seemed like they heard Eisen speak up and understood what he was talking about somewhat, realizing that Eisen was a yer as well. They were paying attention to him anyway, considering the different monsters and children he had with him, as well as his extraordinary build and outfit, so they probably just happened to overhear him. He was probably about to be recognized by them, so the old man simply pushed the others through the door a bit quicker and then swiftly led them all out onto the street again. "Let¡¯s just hurry up and get going to see Jekyll for now." Eisen told the others with a smile, and then quickly led them further through the town. Especially the children were rather excited at the sight of the town stretching out below and above them. It was a pretty unique town, after all, even Eisne thought so, and he was currently the Lord of a Town mainly inhabited by Sentient Machinery and Monsters... And after Eisen brought them over one of the bridges to enter the other spiral, they swiftly stepped down it and soon found the Leatherworker they were looking for... The shop called , a reference Eisen still thought to be quite amusing. Or rather, considering that this town wasn¡¯t "Created" by any game-creators like he thought it to be at the start, it was a rather amusing coincidence. "Good morning!" The old man eximed the moment he stepped through the entrance while the door to the back, to the workshop, was currently closing, letting Jekyll Jackson see Eisen for just a moment. And just a few secondster, the Dwarf-Beastperson Halfling stepped out of the Workshop with a grin on his face, although he was obviously pretty exhausted. "Well, well, well. Look who¡¯se and crawled back here. Want to work for me after all, huh?" Jekyll asked with a grin on his face, and Eisen slowly shook his head. "Sorry to disappoint, but we¡¯re just stopping by for a little while. Seems like you could use some more hands, huh?" The old man asked, and Jekyll clicked his tongue and nodded his head. "These damn Artificials are driving me crazy! I mean, I get it, you want something that looks ¡¯Cool¡¯ or ¡¯Dope¡¯ or ¡¯Awesome¡¯, but I don¡¯t f.u.c.k.i.n.g know what that¡¯s supposed to be ya f.u.c.ker!" Jekyll eximed annoyedly, and Eisen crossed his arms while smirking. "I get you, but it¡¯s surely interesting to get the possibility of making so many new things, huh?" The old man asked, and Jekyll just red at him without hesitation. "That¡¯s what I was thinking at first too! But none of my Apprentices can make things that those Artificials are happy with, so I¡¯m stuck with making all of it!" He yelled out rather angrily, "I have to get back to work as well, the artificials aren¡¯t patient in the slightest... Want the work to be done in a few seconds, those f.u.c.kers..." Jekyll muttered quietly. "Well, then how about you finish the work you have for today ande to the Inn¡¯s bar by sundown? I can pay you for any profit you lost as well, if you want." Eisen suggested, and Jekyll turned around with an eyebrow raised. "Oh, now ye¡¯re speaking mynguage. Is that one of those ¡¯Pog¡¯ moments some of those Artificials were speaking about?" The Dwarf-Beastperson Halfling muttered curiously, before making his way back into his workshop. "Either way, I¡¯ll be there. See yater." "Alright, see you." Eisen replied, and then turned back to the others with a grin. "And now, let¡¯s go on and meet Morrom and Koro, shall we?" Chapter 445 - Scouting "Hmm, are you sure that Koro actually went here..?" Sky asked with a slight frown, and Eisen just nodded his head in response. "Yes, I¡¯m positive. I put an enchanting on the letter I gave Koro that you need to be very specific with to activate it, and you usually wouldn¡¯t see it either. It was activated a week or two after Koro left, and sent me a small ¡¯signal¡¯ to a receiver so that I could know it was actually activated." Eisen pointed out with a wink. Of course he would try to make sure he knew whether or not Koro finally listened to him for once. Of course, there was always the possibility that Koro somehow managed to find and figure out the enchantment himself, but the old man doubted that, really. There was little reason for him to try and do so, after all. The activation of the enchantment required proper research of it, although a Grandmaster such as Morrom should have been able to figure it out with a nce, and it would reveal its purpose. So except if Koro really went rogue and wanted to throw Eisen off, the old man figured he should really have found his way here. And in order to confirm that, Eisen hurriedly made his way over toward , although especially this shop was really swarming with people, it seemed. It made sense, considering that this was the only Magic-Item-Based Shop in the whole town, and Magic was most likely the most interesting topic for any yers. And so, Eisen figured he should try his best to just get through there without any trouble. And Eisen also had a pretty good idea for that as well, turning toward Bree with a smile on his face, before properly exining the ¡¯n¡¯ that Eisen had to get rid of these yers. He managed to inspect all of them properly, and most of them seemed to be rtively low-leveled, so Eisen figured there was a pretty good bait he could go for. "Alright, you got what you have to say?" The old man asked, and Bree nodded her head with a bright smile and extended her hand forward to give him a thumbs-up as she stepped into the shop and Eisen hid a little bit so that none of the yers would recognize him. And as soon as the door closed, Eisen started paying attention to what was going on in there, and soon heard Bree¡¯s voiceing from inside. "Hello! Are there any Artificials here? There¡¯s someone down at the mines that¡¯s giving out quests to every artificial that¡¯s there! A Level 20 Craftsman took it, and instantly jumped to Level 100! It was super cool!" She eximed, and considering her personality, it wasn¡¯t hard for her to pretend to be extremely excited. It wasn¡¯t really the most well thought-through n Eisen hade up with so far, but he doubted that at this early stage of the game, yers would consider not listening to an NPC in such a situation. And to his luck, he knew people pretty well, because soon a literal horde of yers ran out of the door and down the spiral to find whoever this young girl was just talking about. Not all of them fell for it, or rather they were more hesitant, but it still made it easier for Eisen to go into the shop without being recognized by anyone, and most get a chance to talk to Morrom in a quiet environment. Just like that, the very moment that Eisen heard a surprised Dwarf-Elf Halfling yell Bree¡¯s name, the old man stepped through the door and smiled broadly. "Not only her, buddy." The old man said with a grin, making Morrom just stare at him excitedly. "You¡¯re back already! I didn¡¯t expect you this soon!" Morrom eximed, and Eisen just chuckled in response as he walked forward and gave the short man in front of him a hug as Morrom himself stepped up from behind the counter. "Well, we have some business to take care of around here anyway. Now, from the way you¡¯re speaking, it sounds like you knew we wereing. Koro got here, huh?" Eisen asked, and Morrom slowly nodded his head. "Yup! But as you said, he¡¯s pretty troublesome sometimes... He nearly blew his worktable up with an enchantment he made... I apprecitate the help he¡¯s been, though!" The Half-Elf replied immediately as he stepped up to the door to the workshop in the back, but Eisen just slightly smirked at him. "Morrom, on one of the first days that I worked here with you, youpressed more than half of your workshop into a fist-sized ball. He¡¯s the perfect apprentice for you." The old man said, and Morrom just slightlyughed in response. "Haha, well, it seems like he is more passionate about Magic-Based Crafting than other, more physical types of it... So I guess so. He has been helping out at the other guys¡¯ ces though." He pointed out, before looking up at Eisen¡¯s face. "Well, it seems like there¡¯s a lot to catch up on, considering how many new faces I¡¯m seeing here, but..." Morrom added, "Koro mentioned you have two other apprentices? Where are those..?" "Oh, nothing to worry about. After we came back from the Inds, I told them to go back to Handor for a few days. I think Koro did the same, at least I advised him to. All three of them are Orphans, so I wanted them to go see their parents¡¯ graves again before they¡¯re literally travelling and staying in ces all across the continent. They should be on their way over here, though." Eisen exined, so Morrom slowly nodded his head. "Makes sense." He said eptingly, and then quickly stepped to the other side of the room, and Eisen could already see the young man he was looking for sitting there. "Hey, Koro, there¡¯s a guest for you." The Dwarf-Elf said with a grin on his face, and his apprentice slowly turned around and opened his eyes wide as he instantly spotted Eisen standing there. "Eisen?!" He asked surprised as he jumped up from his work, currently grinding down some herbs, and the old man nodded with a chuckle. "Mhm, here I am. Just wanted to check up on you a little. Seems like you¡¯re doing well here." Eisen pointed out, and Koro slowly nodded in response, although he really didn¡¯t have much of a smile on his face. "Not that you..." He muttered quietly to himself so that the old man could barely just overhear him, and Eisen raised his brows in response although Koro then swiftly shook his head. "Nevermind. Good to see you all again. But I have to get back to work, sorry..." The young man said quietly and instantly sat back down, before Morrom instantly stared at the back of his head and then at Eisen¡¯s expression. "What happened between you two..?" He asked with a whisper, and the old man simply smiled. "I¡¯ll exinter. It seems like you¡¯re busy, no matter how much we could lure the Artificials away... How about youe to the Inn¡¯s Barter tonight around sundown? Koro cane as well, of course, but only if he wants to. No need to force him." Eisen suggested, and Morrom slowly started scratching the back of his neck. "Alright, sounds good. Then I hope you¡¯ll properly introduce everyone here." The Half-Elf said as he looked at the group of people behind the old man, and Eisen himself just smiled back at him. "Of course, don¡¯t worry about that. Well, I guess I¡¯ll see youter tonight then, bud." Eisen said, just as he turned over into the direction where Koro was currently sitting. "See youter, Koro. Work hard!" He eximed, and then slowly stepped back out of the Workshop into the front of the shop. "So what are you going to do for the rest of the day?" Morrom asked while he was walking the group to the door, and Eisen just smiled back at him. "We¡¯ll set up a stall and a small surprise right outside town." Eisen pointed out, "I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll at least hear news of thetter." And so, with a slight grin, Eisen left the Dwarf-Elf halfling standing there more than just curious, and made his way up the spiral to get to the marketce area, which luckily was right next to the area with all of the guilds. For this town, as it was rather small and narrow, they did need a permit as well, and this time around Eisen hoped to be able to get it a little more easily than before. To his luck, he could go right in, waited in line for a little while, and the receptionist quickly got everything to work with priority treatment because of the Prince¡¯s Seal, and then, as the others made their way to the spot that a guild worker led them to where they can set up the stall, Eisen made his way over to another guild instead, to meet some people he thought were quite nice and could fit into Prototype, at least judging from what he thought the few times he actually met them. And so, he stepped into the still not all that busy adventurer¡¯s guild. There were a lot more people here, as expected, but in the end, Melroe was still a Crafting town that mainly drew yers with crafting upations here anyway. There were some rare and unique monsters around here though, and the Dungeon wasn¡¯t anything to scoff at either, so at least a couple of yers were in here right now. To the old man¡¯s pleasant surprise, he already saw one of the two people he wanted to speak to. Garon, the Guildmaster of Melroe¡¯s Adventurer¡¯s Guild. "Hello there, could you possibly help me?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face as he stepped up to the young man, who turned around surprised. "Hm? Sure, what can I do for you?" He replied, and then squinted his eyes together for a moment. "Wait, aren¡¯t you that pretty impressive old guy from a while ago? The Limitbreaker?" He asked, and Eisen just nodded his head in response. "That¡¯s me. Good that you remember me, Garon. That¡¯s because I would like to talk business with you." Eisen pointed out, but the Guildmaster just crossed his arms and shook his head. "Sorry, I¡¯m pretty busy right now. Please speak with one of our employees about such things." Garon replied, apparently feeling troubled by this, but Eisen quickly stopped him and pushed his hand into his pocket, before pulling out a single small coin out of it and held it in front of Garon¡¯s face. Immediately, the Guildmaster recognized it as what it was supposed to be, and just stared at Eisen confusedly. "W-Wait, how..?" He asked, "Is that real?" "Of course it is. Now, do you feel any more inclined to speak with me?" Eisen inquired, and Garon scratched the back of his head. "Argh, fine... Come with me, my wife is taking care of paperwork anyway, so it¡¯s good timing..." Garon sighed and turned around as he stepped up to the stairs. On the next floor above them, they then made their way into the office, where Eisen swiftly recognized Jaz, Garon¡¯s Wife, sitting by the desk. And the first thing that Eisen did was of course to activate his mana-sight to see if there were any troublesome devices in here, although that luckily didn¡¯t seem to be the case. "Alright, perfect, now that I have both of you here... My name is Eisen, I am the first of the five people that Peaked in this world. My experience was taken by a certain group and then used to create the Artificials currently appearing all around this world. Now I¡¯m undergoing to process of founding a country on the ¡¯God Inds¡¯, and I want you two to be the heads of the Adventurer¡¯s Guild in that Country." The old man said, before either of the two could even offer him a seat or something to drink, and just when Garon was about to throw Eisen out for the ridiculous things he was spouting, a certain other person stepped through the door that Eisen sent here to scout Garon and Jaz. She was actually the one that let Eisen know about the situation with Koro as well, but he didn¡¯t really want to tell that to the others, who weren¡¯t even really aware of her existence. "Don¡¯t worry, you two." A young woman chuckled as she opened and stepped through the door, wearing the uniform of this Adventurer¡¯s Guild, as she was a recently employed Receptionist, "I can reassure you, he is telling you the truth." Raziel the Angel said as tworge wings spread out from her back. Chapter 446 - Goliath "Wait, wait, wait, what¡¯s going on here?" Garon asked, utterly confused at the angelic figure standing in front of the now closed door. "Exactly what I just said was going on. I¡¯m scouting you two to be the head of the Adventurer¡¯s Guild in the country I am founding. Raziel here did me the favor of looking into you two a little, so she¡¯s been working here for thest week or so." Eisen exined quite swiftly, and then turned over toward the Angel standing next to him. "Isn¡¯t that right?" He asked, and she slowly nodded her head, although she seemed to be rather annoyed by it. "Mhm... Been a bit of a bother, but what can you do, huh?" She said, directing a gaze toward Eisen to let him know that he had to fulfill his side of the dealter, to tell Raziel about things from ¡¯the other side¡¯. "Do you really expect us to just believe you?" Jaz asked all of a sudden as she stood up, seemingly reacting rather aggressively to what she assumed to be a bad joke. "Original." Eisen said in a clear voice, "A Title that the five that peaked have. You still have my information here, you know I have that title." The old man said, and Jaz slowly turned toward Garon. "I¡¯ll go get it..." The Guildmaster muttered and hurried over to the file cab standing against the wall, while the old man just sighed. "I know you won¡¯t believe me, but I hoped you would at least believe a literal Angel. Raziel, what are you even good for?" Eisen asked with a slight smirk, and the Angel just stared at him wrily. "You can be happy that I¡¯m aware that¡¯s a joke, or else you¡¯d be dead by now." "Haha, I¡¯d... Oh! That would be a good way to prove it!" Eisen said all of a sudden, and Jaz, Garon, and even Raziel looked at him confused. "What do you mean?" Garon asked with a deep frown, and Eisen just chuckled in response. "The first Artificials appeared two months ago. You know that I¡¯ve been here for longer, and I appeared right outside the town at level 1 without even my racial skills or titles... A month before the first Artificials appeared. So, that¡¯s proof enough that I¡¯m not an artificial, right?" The old man pointed out, and both Jaz and Garon looked at each other for a moment. Eisen figured that especiallyrge Guilds were constantly exchanging such information, so this was probably the kind of thing that both Jaz and Garon were aware of being true. "Well then, the only thing I need to do is die then, isn¡¯t it? The only living beings in this world that are truly immortal are the Artificials, and the five that peaked. So, I¡¯ll just die and prove it to you." Eisen pointed out with a broad smile on his face, something that seemed quite horrid to everyone present, although then, the old man¡¯s face turned grim. "Hmm, although... There¡¯s a level pentalty... I hope I won¡¯t be pushed out of Level 200..." Eisen muttered quietly, and that was something else that prompted Jaz and Garon to look at him in disbelief. "You were Level 70 just two months ago, do you really want us to believe you managed to reach Level 200 in that time? What did you do, kill Dragons like they were flies?!" Garon asked angrily, this time him being the one that was reacting overly aggressive, although Eisen could justugh about that. "No, no, it¡¯s just part of the circ.u.mstances. I think it should all be clear with time. Now... How about you tell me whether you ept my proposal or not? My Level is something I¡¯ll have to worry about at ater point, then." The old man said with a smile on his face. "Don¡¯t joke with us. Just leave already, you already wasted enough of our time. And you, I don¡¯t know if you¡¯re a Changeling or just have a skill or element like that, but you can leave with him." Garon said in a clear tone, however, Eisen just sighed deeply in response. "Ahh, why will nobody ever listen to what I tell them?" The old man said, although his general demeanor and tone changed as if there was a difference of heaven and hell inbetween before and now, and Garon¡¯s body immediately tensed up so much that it basically made it impossible for him to keep moving. "I didn¡¯t build this world into what it is from the grounds up for people to think I¡¯m some senile old man. Garon, Jaz, the choice is up to you. Follow me or don¡¯t follow me, but thetter would be the worst choice you have ever made in your short lifes. Come by the Inn and give Gralmar or whoever is there a message for me if you want me to show you the proof for my words." The old man said and slowly opened the door in front of him, simply stepping out, while Raziel followed him, despite even her being quite tense and nervous now. As she hid her wings again, she hurried up next to him, "E-Eisen, just calm down. I get you¡¯re angry, b-but you can¡¯t-" "I can¡¯t what exactly, Raziel? I can¡¯t get mad considering the situation I¡¯m in, where I and those I care about are being toyed with? But even then, I can¡¯t bring myself to just go and abandon this world, because I¡¯ve spent here longer than my soul even existed on the other side... How can I not be filled with despise at myself and those living with such lies? Sorry that the current me is a little too immature to keep the anger built up over millenia bottled up." And so, with these words, Eisen stepped down into the main hall of the Adventurer¡¯s Guild, simply stepping out of there. And as if these doors were some magic item that was supposed to make everyone happy, the old man did his best to make sure he wasn¡¯t showing his actual mood to those currently waiting for him at the Stall they set up while Eisen was gone. Just before they were noticed by them, Eisen turned toward Raziel, who was still feeling quite nervous about all of this, although she was empathising with what Eisen was speaking about. "I¡¯m sorry, but let¡¯s speak about thister. I overdid it in there." The old man admitted as he stepped over to the actual Stall again, where Sky immediately looked at him with a slight frown. "What took you so long? There¡¯s already someone trying toission you!" He eximed, and Eisen slowly raised his brows in surprise, before he turned over toward the figure standing in front of the stall. It was a tall man, whose height and build wasparable to Eisen¡¯s. His skin was quite rough and had a slight, pale charcoal tone to it, and he basically looked as if he was carved out of stone. The man had a bald head, but in return had a full gray beard on his chin. There was a friendly smile on his lips, and his crystal clear blue eyes seemed nearly piercing. "Ah, you¡¯re the craftsman here?" The Man asked, who Eisen confirmed to be a yer quite swiftly, and the old man quickly nodded his head. "That I am. The name¡¯s Eisen, nice to meet you." The old man said and extended his hand forward for a handshake. "Gaurkon, likewise." The yer replied, and Eisen just slightly smirked. "Been a while since I¡¯ve seen a Goliath." Eisen pointed out with augh, and Gaurkon just nervously scratched the back of his head. "Haha, is that so? Erm, anyway, I think that boy already told you, I would like you to make an item for me." Gaurkon replied, seemingly nervous about the rule of not revealing to be a yer, so Eisen just looked back curiously. "Is that so? Then what would you like me to make for you? Just request anything, I¡¯ll be able to make it work. Just be prepared that you will have to pay the respective price." Eisen exined, and the Goliath just nodded his head with a smile. "Makes sense. Well, I already went to that super good cksmith here in town, but he said he was too busy to work on the kind of item I want... I would like to get my hands on a Magic Greatsword." The yer pointed out, so Eisen just moved his fingers through his beard curiously. "A Magic Greatsword, huh? What exactly should be magical about it?" The old man inquired, and Gaurkon scratched the back of his neck. "Well, my upation is ¡¯Magic Knight¡¯, and right now I¡¯m carrying around both a staff and a sword, but it would be great if you could somehowbine it? Like, a Sword that doubles as a staff?" He requested, and Eisen crossed his arms with a slight frown. "You¡¯re aware that something like that will heavily impact the durability of the sword? Magical Materials for staffs are quite brittle and not really meant for physicalbat." The old man pointed out, making Gaurkon sigh in response. "Yeah, I¡¯ve heard that as well... That¡¯s why I wanted to go see that ¡¯Denmir¡¯ cksmith here, because I figured someone like him might be able to help me with that. If it¡¯s not possible, then-" "Hm? Oh, I never said it wasn¡¯t possible. I was just saying that you would need to be more careful with the final item. And it probably won¡¯t have the final capabilities of a full staff either, but it should still end up working like one..." The old man muttered quietly and continued moving his fingers through his beard as Gaurkon looked at him surprised. "That¡¯s great then! When can Ie pick it up?" The Goliath asked with a bright, excited smile, and Eisen just swiftly looked at the time and came to a quick conclusion. "Come by sometime around 6 tonight. But before then, I need some more information. Is there any way in particr that you want it to look like? Do you have an element already?" The old man asked, making Gaurkon swiftly nod. "Oh, yeah, of course. My Element is ¡¯Dark-Light¡¯. Basically, I have both Darkness and Light as an element, and can somewhat shift between them, if that makes sense?" Gaurkon asked, and Eisen raised his brows with a slight smile. "Mhm, it does, actually. Then here, just a moment... for the sword I¡¯ll have to get something from you then. I¡¯ll be grabbing your arm, and it¡¯s going to feel like I¡¯m trying to pull something out of it, like a cold gust of air. Just let it happen, alright?" Eisen asked, and the Goliath nodded as he held his arm forward before Eisen started exactly what he exined, which was one way of taking abilities from someone to enchant items with. It didn¡¯t actually work without the other person¡¯s consent, but it seemed like it mattered little how much they knew about what they were consenting to, which worked in Eisen¡¯s favor, considering that he could really just take whatever ability he wanted, and to any extent that he wanted as well. And so, the old man quickly enchanted some crystals with two different things. First, Gaurkon¡¯s ¡¯Dark-Light¡¯ element, as well as his Goliath Racial Skill. Chapter 447 - Magic Sword There wasn¡¯t any reason in particr that Eisen grabbed his Customer¡¯s Racial Skill, but Eisen simply figured that if he had the chance, he should make use of it. Other skills could be usually gained regrly, and if it was a special sort of skill, there should still be a simr one that Eisen could learn and then make use of, but Racial skills were at a different level of Unique, so just in case he ever needed the Goliath Racial skill, he had it around. He also made an extra of the Racial skill of the Changeling that he made the book and cloak for the other day. It might be able to help him out in his Demonic Transformation at some point, after all. Either way, for now, Eisen figured he should just get everything ready, and even swiftly mentally made a design, using his ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Mind¡¯ skill, to visualize the Greatsword that Gaurkon wanted as the Goliath described it. He was wearing ck and purple armor with white edges and details and had a red cape on his back, so Eisen figured he should try to make the de fit that somewhat. Luckily, with the help of visualization, he could directly turn the Greatsword he thought up into a mental blueprint and could even describe all of the materials and as such quite swiftly had a list floating in front of him. "Alright then... That should make us end up with roughly... 50, maybe 60 Silver." The old man said with a slight nod, and Gaurkon looked at him with a wry smile. "Got it... Luckily I still have that much left, haha..." Heughed quietly, before Eisen just chuckled. "Don¡¯t worry, if you shouldn¡¯t have all the money, we can also lower the price and you just make up for it by trading me some rare crystals, gems, metals, and so on. Anything I can craft with, basically." The old manughed, so the Goliath simply nodded his head in relief. "Thanks. So then I¡¯ll be backter tonight." He said with a nod, so Eisen just gave him a quick thumbs-up and quickly turned around to the inside of the stall. To properly save some space, since it was close to impossible to widen the streets any more than now, the bigger stall-spots had an area carved into the mountain wall that they could store things or work in. It seemed slightly tight for Eisen¡¯s liking, but this was a Dwarven town, so it was to be expected. He had all the space he technically needed for this, especially as his workstations could all nearly instantly appear and disappear, being made of Eisen¡¯s element and all. "Then let¡¯s get this started, shall we?" Eisen said with a smirk on his face and quickly got out his staff, creating a small smithy inside of the carved-out space as he turned toward Sigurd. "I need some steel, Evalia¡¯s metal-dye, gold, silver, and some darkness and light crystals and gems." The old man said, and before he knew it, Sigurd appeared and ced a few of the items that Eisen needed onto the ground, making it possible for him to get to work already. With a crack of his knuckles, Eisen threw the steel into the Forge and swiftly started to hammer it into arger chunk of steel toter form the actual de out of. Of course, as usual, Eisen was folding the metal and infusing it with mana as he was at it, although this time around it wasn¡¯t his own. Instead, it was with the elemental mana that the simple elemental-mana generator that Eisen made produced. It wouldn¡¯t turn the steel into Elemental High-Steel, and it wouldn¡¯t change the actual strength of the metal much differently t o when using normal mana, but it would help out with letting the Goliath¡¯s element flow into it and give a slight bonus as well, which was the whole goal of this de. But other than the elemental mana, Eisen also folded something else into this metal. The smaller chunks of steel that Eisenbined, through melting them together, with Dark-Light crystals and gems, made by alchemicallybining the darkness and light variants. Once more, this had a simr reason as the elemental mana. Luckily, such things only strengthened metal, even if it was barely noticeable due to the rather small amount. Eisen just wanted everything to help out with the mana-flow again. Other than that, Eisen simply added some of the metal-dye to get the right color he wanted. Either way, for now, Eisen simply finished the actual de until he was happy with it, and then started to work out the enchantments to ce on the sides, which he wouldter fill with the Elemental White-Gold and Mythril that he was currently infusing behind him. With Eisen¡¯s current setup, it would only take a couple of hours to get materials at a satisfactory point, so he would just have to wait for a while. Of course, in the meantime, once Sigurd got everything that Eisen needed outside, the Core Guardian and Draconic Living Dungeon made their way to the outside of town to set the actual Dungeon gate up, just like Eisen asked them to. He hadn¡¯t finished the Dungeon Golems yet, but he would do soter on. For now it should be fine here anyway, considering the percentually small amount ofbatists around. The others were using their time simply helping out at the stall by selling items to the customers. And so, the old man could spend all the time he had on the de, and simply continued figuring the enchantments out and quickly ced them onto the de, before starting to grind the edges into it. Once that process was done, he just took the de and pushed it into the thin tempering-oven that Eisen form-fitted to this de to mainly temper the center of the de¡¯s body while mostly leaving the edges alone. And while the metal parts were finishing up, Eisen got to work on the handle, at least part of it. Once more, there would be some certain pieces that were made of magic materials. Of course, a whole handle made of Magic Wood would be far too weak, so it would mostly be made of regr wood with some carved-out parts being filled with magic wood. It would bepletely wrapped in leather anyway, so it didn¡¯t matter how it looked in the end, so Eisen wasn¡¯t worrying about making it ornamentally pretty. He still thought the enchantments on the handle were quite beautiful, but that was just from the standpoint of a craftsman. Soon enough, he was just done with the regr base. All that he needed now were the magic materials to finish everything up and put the whole de together. As such, Eisen chose to take the rest of the time he had to spend waiting by just properly caring for customers, making some smaller magic items that were requested that could be finished very quickly, or simply making more items to stock the stall up a little. He had the time, so why not? But soon, around an hour before Gaurkon woulde back for the item, the materials were done being infused, so he then just got to work. He alloyed the Elemental White-Gold and Mythril with the infused Dark-Light crystals and used them to fill in the enchantments on the de, before carving the pieces for the handle out of the Elementally infused magic wood and just puzzling everything together, glueing it together with wood-glue around the metallic handle-piece attached to the de, before tightly wrapping it in soaked leather. It would dry quite quickly and then end up tightening around the handle to both make sure the handle stayed in ce, and to make sure the leather wouldn¡¯t drop off. Well, Eisen also kind of sewed it in ce with mana thread, but that wasn¡¯t the important part. What was important, however, was that after cing an elementally infused Dark-Light gem into the base of the handle, Eisen was soon done with therge de that was just a slight bit shorter than the Goliath was tall. "Perfect." The old man said with a satisfied smirk on his face, and chose to just spend the couple of minutes that he had until it became six to polish the de for Gaurkon. It should look great, after all. Through the help of the metal-dye, the de itself had a slight purple tinge to it, and the material filling out the enchantments had a white color, as simr to the one on the Goliath¡¯s armor as possible, and the leather for the handle was then simply dyed a dark red to fit the cape Gaurkon was wearing. Soon, the de was practically shining, and Eisen was more than happy with it. And when Gaurkon came around to pick it up, he was more than just happy with what he was seeing in front of him. "Whoa, that looks awesome!" The yer eximed as he was handed the de, although soon, a small problem came around... Gaurkon didn¡¯t exactly fit the stat requirements just yet. He was close, and he would still be able to carry it around properly in a sheath, but wielding it forbat might be tough. "Dammit, so close!" Gaurkon yelled out bitterly, but Eisen justughed loudly as he shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, this way you have a proper upgrade once you reach the right ce. By the way, take this with you too." The old man said as he took a piece of paper out of his chest-pocket and handed it to the Goliath in front of him, who was currently sorting out the agreed amount of money on the palm of his hand. "What is it?" The Goliath asked curiously, so Eisen just smirked in response. "Nothing special, it¡¯s just a description of what ce uses which material. So something like a simple blueprint. That way you can have it reforged once you grow out of it, in case you take a liking to it." The old man said with a smirk, "Of course, it¡¯s also going to make repairs easier if you bring it to a cksmith that might not be overly familiar with this kind of item." "Huh, neat. Well, thank you! Then here you go... I luckily managed to get all the money together." Gaurkon said with a wry smile, sad to see all that money he worked for gone all of a sudden, although Eisen just chuckled quietly. "Thank you. It was a pretty nice item to work on. Treat it well, will you?" Eisen requested with a wink, and the Goliath quickly nodded his head in response. "Haha, of course! I¡¯ll rmend you to my friends!" He eximed as he was making his way away from the stall, and Eisen just returned a wave while slightly smiling. Chapter 448 - Fed Up Soon after the Goliath left, Eisen cracked his knuckles and started cleaning up the scraps that were leftover from the creation of the Magic Sword, and then happened to nce at his Multitool stillying on the worktable. That reminded him, there was something that he still hadn¡¯t made, that was supposed to go with his Demonic Sword and Tool. There were the two gems that were left when the Masses of Yin and Yang were absorbed. Eisen still wasn¡¯t entirely sure what he should use them for... He had an idea, but he went back on that already. Considering how Eisen now actually felt pain here, he didn¡¯t want to have to rip his own arm off multiple times in a row just to get more of these. "Hmm..." The old man muttered quietly, and in the end chose to simply... Let them be. He would use them when he really had a reason to. And right now, he didn¡¯t. As he wasn¡¯t really sure what to use them for, it seemed like a bad idea to just maky any old item with these rare gems. "Well, guess I¡¯ve got to find out more about Demons?" Eisen muttered to himself, although just then a thought that he really, really hadn¡¯t payed attention to crossed his mind. The ¡¯old¡¯ Eisen also was a Demon, apparently... But what kind of Demon was he? Was he the ¡¯Golden Eyed Demon¡¯ as well, or did he have another title..? There was no use thinking about that for now, he just had to ask some of the Guardians in Prototype at some point, although he felt quite dumb for not asking about it yet. Either way, for now, Eisen just continued cleaning up and ced his Multitool properly onto his Apron again and then got rid of everything inside of the small space carved into the wall behind the stall, before looking at the others currently helping out in the stall. "Let¡¯s start clearing up soon. I already let Sigurd know, so they should being back in a bit as well." The old man pointed out, and the others nodded their heads before Eisen himself took a look at the earnings for the day. "Hmm... Excluding what Gaurkon gave us... 30 Silver, huh? That seems good enough for small items like this." Eisen said with a satisfied nod, "Although, I guess it¡¯s really most profitable to work on items like that, huh?" The old man chuckled quietly to himself before cing the small money-exchange item back into its slot, and then helped packing everything else up as well to make it easier to move it into the Dungeon when Sigurd was back. And then, once they were done with that, they all just sat down behind the stall for a while to wait for Sigurd and Fafnir, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but keep looking at the fox that Kirisho had been constantly holding in her arms. "You really like it, huh?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, and the Mist-Spirit swiftly nodded her head in response. "Yes, she¡¯s quite a beauty, isn¡¯t she?" She chuckled as she ran her hand through the Fox Ego-Golem¡¯s metallic fur. "I¡¯m d." The old man returned, and then slowly looked toward the three monster-children ying around with each other a bit, before Kirisho slowly looked at Eisen curiously. "Erm... Do you... Do you remember your children?" She asked, and Eisen raised his brows surprised, before just looking back at her. "What do you mean?" Eisen replied, and Kirisho turned over toward Sky and Bree, both of which also seemed to be quite curious about this, and then looked back at Eisen. "Well, we have met three of your Grandchildren... Kiron, Stahl, and Alnico. So that means you must have children as well. We know about Trygan, however... What about the others?" She asked, and then slowly started to hug the Fox a bit tighter, while Eisen just smiled back, and just when he was about to open his mouth to respond to speak about Melody, Tony and Natsuo, he felt a wave of self-disgust and horror hit him, and he simply instinctively convulsed his body forward as he pressed his hand onto his mouth in fear of throwing up. "E-Eisen, are you okay?!" Bree eximed with clear worry in her voice, and the old man just stared down at the ground underneath him. He... He didn¡¯t remember. But it was clear that he had rtionsh.i.p.s here in this world, whether they were romantic or merely carnal... After all, the only one that abstained from such rtionsh.i.p.s amongst the Five that peaked was... Brody. And surely, in a hundred thousand years of rtionsh.i.p.s of any form, he must have had children, right? But he remembered none of them. Eisen knew that things were going on, and that it wasn¡¯t his fault that he didn¡¯t remember- Although, he actually didn¡¯t know WHAT was going on, and from his recent knowledge, it seemed like he maybe was the one at fault of losing his memories. "I... I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t..." Kirisho muttered immediately as she jumped onto her feet and looked forward at Eisen with worry at what was going on. It seemed like she understood exactly what Eisen¡¯s reaction to that question meant. However, the old man himself simply forced his own hand away from his mouth and looked back up with a smile. "I¡¯m fine, don¡¯t worry. Sorry, I don¡¯t remember any of them. I will let you know when I do." Eisen chuckled and then swiftly stood up again, his whole body tensed up because he practically had to force himself to move. "Ah, perfect! Sigurd and Fafnir areing already!" The old man eximed to change the topic and moved to the front of the stall to walk toward the two of them, to get away from that situation as quickly as he could. After all, he couldn¡¯t actually tell them about the situation that was going on. Just with that thought, Eisen turned around toward the ce where he figured a certain angel would be, and then with a quiet voice said, "If you find out exactly what happens when Artificials reveal the situation... I will tell you everything about my life over there." He said, and then quickly turned back toward Sigurd and Fafnir, who had been proudly walking up to him. "So? How was business today for your side?" The Core Guardian asked with a slight smirk, and Eisen just smiled back at it. "Made roughly 80 Silver, finished a biggerission... Stuff like that. Pretty boring otherwise. And for you two?" The old man inquired as he started rubbing his hand over the small Dragon-Dungeon¡¯s head, and Sigurd crossed its arm with a broad grin. "Haha, our situation was much better! There was a smug artificial adventurer who held a big¡¯ol speech in front of the Boss-Room to his party members, also all Artificials, and they died during the first wave! It was hrious, haha!" It eximed and Eisen raised his brow with a smile. "Well, well... I wasn¡¯t aware you were so sadistic." Eisen chuckled, and Sigurd shook its head immediately. "Hehe, it¡¯s not that part that¡¯s making me happy~! You know, sometimes inside of the Dungeon when an artificial dies, they leave behind things that aren¡¯t directly on their body! And coincidentally, they just so happened to drop this little piece of paper here~!" Sigurd exined and held forward the note, before Eisen took it and raised his brows in surprise at what he saw. "The Silver Treasure of the Sky?" He read, "It¡¯s a... treasure Map?" Eisen asked surprised, and Sigurd nodded its head immediately. "Yup! So cool, right?!" It asked, and Eisen nodded his head in response. "It is, actually. Now we don¡¯t have to search the whole ce to find her." The old man said and swiftly rubbed his hand through Sigurd¡¯s hair, while it just looked up at him surprised. "Huh? To find ¡¯her¡¯?" It repeated, so Eisen simply smirked at it. "Yup. The Silver Dragoness... Marcear, was it? She lives on the highest mountain of this Dwarven Country, and this here is describing the route on top of that mountain... At least as far as I recognize from maps. And obviously, ¡¯Silver Treasure of the Sky¡¯ means the gift you get from Marcear after you pass her trial." Eisen pointed out as he pushed the note into the front pocket of his apron. "Thanks, you¡¯re saving us a fair amount of time." The old manughed loudly and then turned toward the Stall. "Come on, let¡¯s pack up and get to the Inn." Eisen pointed out, and the Core Guardian excitedly followed behind together with the Living Dungeon, and the Stall disappeared before anyone knew it. Of course the onlookers were quite surprised to see this, but Eisen simply couldn¡¯t help himself but smirk at their reaction, before the group made their way through the town toward the actual Inn they would be staying in, and Kirisho ended up slowly stepping up beside him. "Eisen... Are you sure you don¡¯t want to speak about what just happened?" She asked with concern in her voice, and the old man just slightly turned his face toward her and winked, "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯mpletely fine. I was just freaking out over nothing right there." Eisen pointed out and then turned back forward, while Kirisho simply looked at him bitterly and nodded her head. "I see..." She muttered quietly. Soon enough, the group made their way to the actual Inn around sundown and stepped into the rather busy structure. It took a while for them to actually make their way through, although at some point Eisen just didn¡¯t want to bother anymore and just forced his way through to the bar while making sure the others could follow behind, and the Bar area was even busier than the entrance. The only spot that didn¡¯t seem busy was the private room in the back, where he figured Gralmar had set everything up for them, something that he happened to confirm when the door to the private room slowly opened and closed again when an employee came out of there, and he happened to catch a nce of Denmir sitting there. Slowly he turned around toward the others and tried to let them know where to go, while some ¡¯Artificial¡¯ Bards were ying loud music on a small stage in the corner. This ce had basically turned into a nightclub. Now that he thought about it, in real life, it was around 2am at that moment. Soon enough, Eisen finally managed to push through to the private room¡¯s door, although there were apparently some others that wanted to get in as well, but were held back by the ¡¯bouncer¡¯ standing in front of the door. Considering that Eisen didn¡¯t know them, he figured that the bouncer did his job well and just smiled at him as he tried to approach the door. "Sorry old man, this room¡¯s invite only." The Bouncer said, and Eisen stopped moving immediately. "Really, again?" He asked annoyedly. Eisen was really getting fed up with these things. That in itself was quite weird though, considering how immature it was... Buttely, it felt like he had been getting more immature anyway... "Just leave and get to the regr bar, please." The bouncer added, and Eisen just sighed deeply and shook his head. "Sorry, I¡¯m Eisen, I¡¯m the one that called the whole meet-up in there together. So please, step aside, and let me meet my friends." "Hm, that¡¯s a new one. Sorry pal, I don¡¯t know ya, so-" "Right, this isn¡¯t going anywhere." Eisen said with a slight frown on his face and simply grabbed the bouncer by his shoulders and forced him to step aside before opening the door to the private room. "Hey, what are you doing?!" The Bouncer yelled angrily, but Eisen just turned to him with a re while Denmir, Folmirra, Jekyll, Gralmar and Morrom all did the same. "And what are ye doing?! Let ¡¯im in already!" Gralmar yelled out, and the bouncer just looked at Eisen confused as the old man himself just let the others go in first, holding back some random guy that wanted to sneak his way in, and then stepped into the room himself, shutting the door behind him. Chapter 449 - Recaps Always Sound Crazy "What a bother." Eisen said with a light scowl directed at the door when it was finally closed, and then turned toward Gralmar. "I don¡¯t think you had these private rooms thest time I was here." The old man pointed out as he sat down on one of the seats in here, and was quickly handed arge cup with beer in it by the Innkeeper. "Yup. Good thing ¡¯bout a mining town is that it ain¡¯t very hard to find someone that can carve out more space. Really needed it after all those artificials got here... Every single night, it be just party after party! ¡¯Specially bad this time ¡¯roung though." The Dwarf said with a sigh, and Eisen nodded his head with a slight frown. "Mhm, Artificials will change a fair bit about this world, I can assure you." The old man said with a sigh, and then quickly downed the whole beer in his hand, while Morrom just started tough. "Man, with a guy your size, we¡¯d need a whole barrel to get you drunk, huh? I remember the first day you were here, with barely any stats at all, you got knocked out pretty quickly." The Dwarf-Elf Halfling chuckled, and the old man just smirked back at him as he ced the cup down on the table. "Oh? If size is the issue here..." Slowly, Eisen¡¯s whole body started shrinking down until he reached his own personal limit, turning him into the smallest person in this room very, very quickly, "I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll have to worry." He added as he slowly increased his size to normal again. "Well, guess ya really found yerself as a Giant now, didn¡¯t¡¯cha?" Denmir asked with a broad grin, before the old man just chuckled. "Seems so, yes." He replied, all the whilst Jekyll was rather focused on something else. "Erm, what¡¯s with all the twerps ¡¯round ya? And the Dragon?" The Dwarf-Beastperson Halfling inquired, so Eisen just smiled at him. "I¡¯ll get to thoseter, for now, I think there¡¯s someone else that wants to say something." Eisen pointed out and turned over toward Sky with a wink, before the Fey-Kin boy just slowly nodded his head and walked up in front of the table nervously, although he soon rxed again. "My name is Sky, I¡¯m a Half-Pixie, Half-Human. A long time ago, my mother died and I had to leave my home, just to be captured by illegal Monster Traders. Eisen saved me from there, and we soon found out that... I¡¯m Bree¡¯s Twin Brother. I have been traveling with them ever since. So now, I just want to thank all of you for being so kind to my sister while she was here." Sky exined quite swiftly, before he looked at the astonished faces around the table. "Her Brother? Laddie, you had a brother? Why¡¯d ya not tell us ¡¯bout that?" Denmir asked surprised, and Bree just smiled back at him brightly, "Hehe, I didn¡¯t know it either until I met him~!" She replied, but Sky quickly scoffed in response. "Well, Bree and I weren¡¯t the only ones that met part of their family." He pointed out as he turned over toward Eisen, who just smirked and nodded his head while the others looked at him surprised. "I happened to find a certain young Half-Dragon named Kiron. Turns out, he was my Grandson in the end. He became my Knight before we found out, though, and right now he¡¯s training some other Half-Dragons to turn them into more Knights though. Although, they are on their way to Prototype again to get back to the maind." The old man said, quickly noticing that there were a lot of parts the others couldn¡¯t really keep up with, and Jekyll tried to first take apart the first part of that. "So... on of yer kids f.u.c.k.i.e.d a Dragon?" He asked, and Eisen shook his head with augh. "No, no, one of my kids f.u.c.k.i.e.d a human." The old man replied, making Jekyll frown in response. "I¡¯m talkin¡¯¡¯bout the parent of Kiron." "I know." "But ye said he¡¯s a Half-Dragon..." "He is." "So one of yer kids slept with a Dragon..." "Yeah, I know what you¡¯re trying to say, but that¡¯s not it." "Then what is it?" Folmirra interrupted finally, not wanting this weird conversation to go on any further, and Eisen just slightly smiled at them. "Just what I said. One of my kids fathered Kiron after falling in love with a Human woman. And that kid of mine just happens to be Trygan, the Crystal Dragon King." He pointed out, slowly taking out one of the boxes he had with him and quickly pulled therge Crystal Dragon Scale out of that box. After trying to figure out if what exactly Eisen just said was really the truth, the five others in this room all just stared at the old man as Morrom loudly swallowed his saliva. "Eisen... What happened after you left?" He asked, and the old man just smirked as he leaned back in his seat. "Well, let¡¯s go with the most important points, shall we?" The old man chuckled, and then got started. "We left with the carriage, and soon found an oversized Hive that I then burnt down. I took the Queen Bee egg from that, which happened to hatch and turned into this cute little Melissa here. Then we made our way to Ornier, on the way met a young scammer who I built up to lead a quiterge Merchant Company, as well as an Elf that turned out to be a horrible person that may or may not be in cahoots with the Evil Dragon Queen... In Ornier, I met the Brewer Gralmar referred me to as well as Evalia, one of the others that peaked and then had their experience stolen, got to shards of an amulet I needed to gather, and raided the monster shop that Sky already told you about. Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo, I¡¯m publicly fighting against two Artificials and scare the shit out of the people of Ornier, giving me a Demonic Title." The old man satrted in a bit of a rant, swiftly transforming his body into his Demonic Form to show them he was telling the truth. "Then after that, we made our way to Handor to have all five of us that peaked meet up... Actually there, I got thest shard of the amulet from Bree¡¯s Ex-, and now again current, Boyfriend, raided the hideout of an evil organization, and then somehow ended up having to take care of people from a church, orphanage, and homeless shelter all the whilst finishing up a second Draconic Trial... Then the five of us that peaked built a huge ship to get to the ¡¯God Inds¡¯, a rather dangerous ind-group, and before then I picked up a number of people that turned out to be dead family members or friends of the five that peaked that were resurrected as Artificials... I fought a Giant Spider and got the egg that Salter hatched out of... Then we made our way to those inds. On the way, the five of us created an artificial creature using a Dungeon Core that I had found a few weeks prior, the Dragon you see right here named Fafnir, as well as a Core Guardian, Sigurde and say hi." The old man said and stared into nk air for a while, before the short, red-haired figure appeared in a cloud of mist right above the table. "Heyo!" It eximed, just to disappear again. "Then, finally at the Inds, we found a town called ¡¯Prototype¡¯, which was filled with numerous monsters and broken-down guardians, which I repaired to take over the town as its Lord again. Turns out, the old me built that town, so we just re-built it and moved on to the other inds, met a bunch of nice people, founded some more towns, and then we got back here... Besides meeting and making a deal with the prince of Litgern, nothing much happened..." Eisen exined, rather quietly toward the end, slightly frowning as he tried to remember if anything else important happened. "Oh, and I wanted to make a Giant Bottle of snake wine with the boss monster of Trygan¡¯s Ind, but it turned out to be a Nidhogg, so it ended up just being Dragon Wine." And after that, Eisen quickly grabbed another another cup of Beer that a Waitress currently brought into the room. "Thanks, Dear." He said with a smile as he quickly drank from the beer to calm his throat down a little, although the others didn¡¯t really know exactly how to react. And Eisen didn¡¯t even speak about everything that happened, but they were still weirded out this much. "Eisen..." A Female voice said as mist streamed out from the ne currently ced around Eisen¡¯s arm as a bracelet while Kirisho was ¡¯asleep¡¯, as the Mist-Spirit appeared sitting right next to the old man. "Wasn¡¯t that a bit too much at once?" She asked, and the old man raised his brows surprised as he turned over toward the others. "Was it? Sorry about that. But it wasn¡¯t all that bad, Recaps just always sound way crazier than what actually happened!" "Erm, I was there for most of it, it was actually a lot crazier than it sounds." Sky pointed out with a slight frown on his face, and Eisen looked back at him surprised. "Really? Huh, didn¡¯t seem that bad to me..." He replied with a wry smile, whilst the five in this room still just stared at Eisen with worry in their eyes. Denmir and Morrom already knew about who Eisen was, though it might still be a bit too much to hear about things like this actually going on. "What kinda crap are ye even mutterin¡¯ right ¡¯ere?" Denmir asked confused, while Eisen just looked over toward him with a light smile on his lips. "That mean you want to hear the detailed version? I mean, we have all night, right?" Eisen suggested, and the five of them looked at each other to look for the others¡¯ confirmation, before they all simply nodded. "Yes, Eisen, tell us about what happened since then... With those... organizations... Dealers... You being a Demon, and whatever was going on on those inds... And most importantly, what¡¯s actually going on with the fact that you¡¯re one of those that peaked..." Morrom said quietly, simply looking at Eisen with determination, although the old man simply replied with a loudugh. "Hey hey, no reason to be so serious, is there? Just lean back, have a bit of a nice drink, and listen to what I have to tell you, alright?" The old man suggested, and just smirked at the people in front of him. Chapter 450 - OWD "I can¡¯t believe... That all of that happened..." Morrom muttered quietly as he downed some more of his liquor and stared forward, still constantly trying to figure out if he could find any clue at that the small Dragon next to Eisen was seriously an artificially created creature instead of a real dragon, "Especially the part with you using a Dungeon to create life..." "Well, you probably heard about it, didn¡¯t you?" Eisen asked with his brows raised, and the others looked at him confused. "Heard what exactly?" Folmirra then inquired nervously, and the old man just smirked. "The Dungeon that appeared outside of town today?" The old man added as he slowly leaned forward and rubbed the underside of Fafnir¡¯s maw. "Hm? Wait, wait, ye¡¯re saying THAT was this dragon? But how? It¡¯s so tiny!" Denmir eximed with a bit of doubt in his voice, so Eisen just looked at Fafnir and winked. "Come on, show¡¯em, bud. And please, the small version, alright?" Eisen suggested, and the Dragon annoyedly stood up and stretched its body before walking up in front of the table where he swiftly rolled up as a stone-brick door was constructed from bottom to top. "Let¡¯s take a little After-Drink walk, shall we?" The old man chuckled as he stood up and opened the door inside of the gate, swiftly stepping inside the reception area, as the others slowly followed him. "¡¯D-Dis is spacial magic? Oh, the Dragon is a link to the Dungeon!" Denmir eximed, thinking that he finally understood it, but Eisen shook his head in response. "Not at all. It¡¯s just like I said a couple of times before, Fafnir himself is the Dungeon." Eisen exined, and the other Half or full-dwarfs behind him couldn¡¯t help but look around wondrously. "I ain¡¯t a craftsman meself, but this... this even astounds me, old man..." Gralmar muttered quietly, before he quickly noticed the Goblins sitting behind the counter, ying with cards that Eisen made and sold sometimes. "W-What are those?" He asked as he pointed his hand forward, and Eisen just smiled. "Dungeon Goblins. Don¡¯t worry, they¡¯re totally harmless. Can be a bit rude... But Customer service, eh?" The old man chuckled, and then stopped quite swiftly and looked down toward Gralmar, the Innkeeper that was also part of the customer service in that Inn. "Sorry." He smiled wrily, but the Dwarf just shook his head without hesitation. "Heh, don¡¯t worry about it... Ye¡¯re right." "Hmm, so through here starts the actual dungeon, then?" Jekyll asked curiously as he slightly drunkenly stumbled over toward the door next to the counters to open them up, but Sigurd quickly appeared in front of him and shook its head as it opened the door for the Half-Dwarf. "Sorry to say, but that¡¯s not the case. First is the town, and thenes the Dungeon." The Core Guardian pointed out with a rather strict and cold expression, and Jekyll turned around with a frown. "What kinda town¡¯s the twerp speakin¡¯ about." "Twerp? You wanna say that again? You know I can instantly create a gate and throw you into the boss room, right?" The Guardian replied with a frown, before Eisen walked up to them to break this small fight up. "Stop it, you two. And yes, Sigurd was speaking about a town. Well, it¡¯s more of a 10-House vige than anything, but it¡¯s probably going to end up growing a little." The old man pointed out as he stepped out of the door, waiting for the others to follow him before they saw the night-sky above them as simple decorations illuminated the paths and the different houses. "Oh... Holy mother of..." Morrom muttered quietly as he looked around himself, really not believing his eyes. "Holy Mother of Art, huh? Yeah, Evalia did a pretty great job painting the sky here." The old man pointed out, and the five others immediately snapped their necks at him. "The Sky is a painting?" Folmirra asked in shock, and the old man nodded with a smirk. "Mhm, it is. All of the other open-space rooms were made in a simr way, but Evalia didn¡¯t have to hand-paint all that." "You appeared a couple of months ago with no memories, and ye¡¯ve already aplished somethin¡¯ this amazin¡¯..." Denmir muttered quietly, before he suddenly felt something rub up to his side. "Oh, well this is a familiar face! Aulu, ain¡¯t that right?" Denmir asked with a smile on his face as he leaned down to rub through the Automaton¡¯s fur, and she quickly pushed her body further onto him to get even more and more intense rubs. "Hm? Wait, ain¡¯t she a little too... Animated?" The Dwarf asked confused, so Eisen just nodded his head in response. "Oh, yeah, that¡¯s because of the Wolf Soul I ced into her body a while ago." And now, it seemed like Eisen said something even weirder than anything he said before, because the five others, although Gralmar really the least of them all as he wasn¡¯t a Craftsman, looked at Eisen intensely. "Eisen, do you mean you have an Ego-Golem Creation skill?" Morrom asked, so Eisen raised his brows in surprise and shook his head. "Not directly." He said, swiftly walking up to a part of the wooden wall built around this town to make the fake sky more believable, swiftly pulling on part of it to open the hidden door up, just to reveal the item storage ced behind there, immediately showing the others numerous different items, most of which were the Ego-Items Eisen created en-masse just to level his skill up. "I have the ¡¯Ego-Item Creation¡¯ Skill. I can make any type of Ego-Item." He pointed out, and then looked over at Aulu, "Whether it¡¯s an Ego-Golem," He started as he pulled the white Multi-tool from his apron and summoned his ck Greatsword from his Soul Storage, ", or Sword or Tool," And then, he held forward his arm, showing off the essory-Gaunlet as well as the Charm-Ne that he wore as a bracelet, "Or even Jewelry and Charms..." He pointed out, while the four Grandmasters in front of him looked at each other surprised. "Didn¡¯t you say you¡¯re just level 200?" Folmirra inquired, so Eisen nodded his head in response. "Mhm, I am. I know it¡¯s on the early side, but is it such a big deal?" The old man asked surprised, so the others nodded their heads immediately. "Of course it is! I have Ego-Smithin¡¯, Folmirra Ego-Tailoring, Jekyll Ego-Leatherwork, and Morrom Ego-Core Creation! Havin¡¯ a skill that can make any sort of Ego Item is nearly unheard of!" The Dwarven cksmith eximed, and Eisen raised his brows confused. "Huh, I wasn¡¯t aware of that... Well, either way, that¡¯s how it is. Sorry..." The old man said with a wry smile, and the others just stared at him, before looking at each other nervously. --- "Got it? Ye... Ye¡¯re not gonna go ¡¯round just telling random people ¡¯bout who ye are... righ-right?" Denmir asked as he leaned against the wall, obviously having had a little bit too much to drink to even walk properly as Eisen tried to lead him out of the Inn, looking over toward Gralmar with a smile. "Sorry about these guys, I think the news hit them a little harder than they hit you." He apologized, trying to make sure that none of those four suddenly went off anywhere on their own, something that really didn¡¯t seem like a good idea considering their current,pletely drunken state, where Eisen was even unsure how they were even able to properly walk. Although, saying they were able to ¡¯properly¡¯ walk might be a little bit too much as well, as they weren¡¯t really doing so in what you can even call a crooked line... It was more of a dented egg than anything. If anything at all. Morrom was actually out cold, so Eisen was carrying him right now. "Ah, don¡¯t ye worry about that... I didn¡¯t understand most of what ye all talked about toward the end anyway, so there¡¯s no wonder I didn¡¯t freak out as much... Although, it be still a great honor to be able to call someone like ya me friend, Eisen." The Dwarven Innkeeper admitted with a smile on his lips, before the old man himself just slightly chuckled in response. "Likewise, Gralmar. I¡¯m just going to bring these guys home, and then I will be right back. Thanks for preparing the rooms for us." Eisen said, looking up at the windows of the rooms the Dwarf prepared for them, where all the others were already sleeping, while Eisen chose to go and bring these four away alone, although Kirisho also chose to tag along. It had still been pretty full in the Bar area though, so she retreated to her Amulet for a little while out of nervosity. "Don¡¯t¡¯cha worry yer old head about it. Ye¡¯re older than I thought ye were, so let¡¯s hope ya ain¡¯t gonna go senile or get OWD on the way." Gralmar said with a smile, and Eisen raised his brows at hearing an unfamiliar term, although he simply passed it off as a ¡¯disease¡¯ in this world that he didn¡¯t know if yet. It made sense that there were more diseases like that here, considering the crazy mutations that even living beings undergo in their lifetime... What must Mana do to bacteria? Either way, for now, Eisen just made his way through town, quickly bringing away each of the four Grandmasters to their home, even helping some of them inside into their rooms before leaving them to sleep off their drunkenness before their next workday, and soon, Eisen made his way back to the Inn, at which point Kirisho finally stepped out of her amulet. "Are you alright?" She asked with a light smile as she looked at Eisen, who had a rather exhausted expression on his face right now, now that there was nobody to notice whether or not he was smiling anymore. For some reason, hepletely forgot about Kirisho... And he didn¡¯t care much whether she saw this side of him either. It wasn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t care about her opinion, he simply feltfortable when she was around, so he didn¡¯t feel like he had to hide it. "I¡¯m not sure if I am, to bepletely honest here." The old man admitted with a slight, bitter smile, and Kirisho looked at him surprised. "Did anything happen? Is it about what Gralmar said before?" She asked concerned, but Eisen swiftly shook his head with augh. "No, no, it¡¯s not tha-" "Don¡¯t worry, we all know you aren¡¯t going to go Senile anytime soon, and Otherworld Disease isn¡¯t that bad to handle!" She eximed, trying tofort Eisen, but the old man just stopped in his step and stared at Kirisho intensely. "Other...world Disease?" Eisen repeated questioningly, and Kirisho nodded her head. "Oh, haven¡¯t you heard of it? It was a big thing even while I lived... You start to strongly believe that there is another world other than this one. The Details are pretty coherent, so people think it¡¯s somehow magical in nature." She exined with a smile, simply trying to bring Eisen onto another topic, but the old man just stared at Kirisho intensely. "Tell me everything about that Disease that you know." Chapter 451 - Reality "Oh?" Kirisho asked surprised, "Why would you want to know about that?" She inquired, and Eisen just continued to stare at her. "The Angel I¡¯ve been working with is going to tell me whether I can actually exin it to you or not, so just wait for that a little while. For now, trust me and please just tell me what that ¡¯Otherworld Disease¡¯ is." The old man told her with clear determination in his voice, and the Mist Spirit slowly nodded her head. "Otherworld Disease is... Something that people of extremely high levels sometimes get... And something that people of extremely high age get, so many Elf Elders apparently have it... It¡¯s a disease that affects your mind, and you start thinking of this whole world as... Fake." Kirisho exined, and then looked to the side bitterly, while Eisen couldn¡¯t believe what he was hearing. "They think that there¡¯s another world that stands above this one, that this world is a creation of that world. Usually it would have just been seen as a specific kind of mental illness, but they all kept muttering the same thing. ¡¯Earth¡¯, like the element... I don¡¯t know why, nobody does, but there arerge organizations that take care of people like that. The Church brings in whoever they can to heal them at least somewhat, and some countries even have policies to report anyone that has that disease so that they can get proper treatment. However, they¡¯re all tak-" "That piece of shit." Eisen muttered quietly as he formed his hand into a fist as he started to walk toward the Inn with Kirisho hurrying after him. "Eisen, is everything alright?" She asked nervously, "Who are you speaking about?" Kirisho added, but Eisen just ignored her. "I¡¯ll tell youter. I need to get to sleep. Tomorrow morning, the Kids, you, and I will head toward the tallest mountain to meet the Dragon, so if there¡¯s anything here you want to get done, go ahead." The old man said, grinding his teeth angrily as he pushed the door to the Inn open, pushing himself through the couple of yers still walking around here because they only just logged back in. "Eisen, stop!" Kirisho eximed as she followed behind the old man, stepping up the stairs as quickly as she could, but the old man himself just shook his head. "Kirisho, as I told you, I will exin everything to you as soon as I can." "But can you not tell me what you can now?" She asked as she extended her arm forward to stop Eisen, "What Angel are you speaking about, what made you this mad, and what does the Otherworld Disease have to do with all this?" The Mist Spirit yelled out, the first time that Eisen has ever seen her this upset, and the old man just shook his head. "As I just told you, I will exin it to you when I can. All those things will make sense... Or maybe they won¡¯t, but things will be clearer. Just please, Kirisho, do you trust me?" Eisen asked her as he turned around toward her with an angry expression, standing just in front of the door to his Inn room, and the woman in front of him just looked down at the ground and then slowly disappeared inside of her amulet without giving Eisen an Answer for what he wanted to know. Although that was a good enough answer in itself. Slowly he opened the door to the room, and the moment it shut behind him, without even sitting down, he logged off right then and there. --- Without hesitation, Benjamin pushed the Capsule open and stepped out of it dizzily. He¡¯s always been feeling like thistely when he logged in or out of the game. Either way, that didn¡¯t matter right now. Benjamin had been going on a few walks these past few days, meaning that he was rtively stable on his feet, and he immediately ripped the door in front of him open and rushed toward the Livingroom, where the first thing he did was pick up the phone, dialing a number that he remembered as if it was his own birthday, considering how often he had called it over the past little while. "Answer your phone for chri-" "This is Samuel Morgan, I¡¯m currently not avable, but if it is urgent leave a message after the tone."The old man was quickly interrupted by Samuel¡¯s Answering Machine, and then just ground his teeth until the peep tone sounded out. "I don¡¯t need to tell you who this is, because you already know. This is the, what, 30th Message I¡¯m leaving you? I know that you¡¯re f.u.c.k.i.n.g with me and the others, I know that you¡¯re f.u.c.k.i.n.g with the yers, but if you dare f.u.c.k with a whole poption of a world from your God-Like position, I swear to god I will be the man from that side and make you regret ever-" "Aggression Detected in caller¡¯s voice. For the Recipient¡¯s safety, the call will be interrupted." Angrily, Benjamin stared down at the phone in his hand as the call really ended right there, and he looked forward at the TV where he saw his own reflection. He really didn¡¯t look good right now... He had lost so much weight just from his muscles barely being used, he hasn¡¯t been eating properly, and he was constantly filled with amounts of medication that could knock out a room of drug addicts. Benjamin knew that such things couldn¡¯t continue anymore, but what choice did he have? He couldn¡¯t deny that he was changing. And while he didn¡¯t have any specific memories, he knew that he belonged into that other world... He said it himself, didn¡¯t he? Eisen had lived in that ce consciously for a hundred thousand years... While Benjamin lived seventy over here... Over there, he had experienced things that nobody in this or that world had ever experienced... Benjamin belonged there, he was Eisen, but Eisen wasn¡¯t Benjamin. Sure, his perspective was different because the memories of his first 70 years of his life were the only ones he could remember, but... What if he had the rest. Would he even care for the family he had here anymore? Would he still love them? Or would he truly be the horrible person that Eisen had apparently been toward the end... No, the horrible person that he had been throughout that whole life there. He forced the souls of his friends into fake bodies and made them do as he wanted them to, he... Eisen was... Benjamin... was... "Dad?" A Voice suddenly asked, "Is everything alright?" Tony inquired with worry in his voice, and Benjamin slowly turned toward him. "Y-Yeah... I¡¯m fine..." The old man said, slowly turning toward his son with a light smile on his face as Tony himself turned the light on, and then opened his eyes wide startled at what he saw, although he then blinked a few times and shook his head as he rubbed his eyes. "Did something happen?" Benjamin asked, because that seemed like a rather weird reaction, and Tony shook his head. "No, no, your eyes just looked weird. I¡¯ve been staring at theputer screen for the past three days without a break, so when I turned the light on... Your eyes looked yellow for a moment there, it was... weird." Immediately, Benjamin ripped his eyes open confused. "What are you talking about? You didn¡¯t turn the light on..." The old man said, although he was probably just trying to convince himself of the truth as he looked around. Everything was just as dark as it was before, after all. It was still blurry because he just woke up and stepped out of the capsule, but it was definitely dark... After all, everything looked just ck and gray... Immediately, the old man rushed past his son and sprinted into the bathroom, just to confirm what was going on. It... It couldn¡¯t be, that would just be weird. Quickly he ripped the door open and stepped up in front of the mirror above the sink to take a look at himself properly. The TV screen¡¯s reflection didn¡¯t properly show color, after all... But now that he had this reflection in front of him, Benjamin could see it as well. His eyes, glowing in a light golden color with two vertical cat-eye-like slits down the middle. "What the f.u.c.k..." The old man muttered as he ground his teeth together angrily, and then slowly closed his eyes, because he didn¡¯t really want to believe it, and then concentrated on one thing. To see a certain thing that these eyes allowed him to see. And soon, when he opened his eyes again, the figure that he saw in the mirror changed. He still had the two golden eyes, but now, it was like there was a mist-like white figure standing in front of him. But nothing else around Benjamin had changed, everything else was just the same gray as it was before. Even Tony as he stood in the doorframe waspletely gray. Did that mean... That Benjamin¡¯s body had mana, but nothing else around here did? No, that wasn¡¯t exactly right. There were some spots in here that had mana, three to be exact... One in Benjamin¡¯s room, one in Benji¡¯s, and one in Sophia¡¯s... "What are you doing?" Tony asked confused, but Benjamin just pushed his son out of the way as he made his way to his room again, concentrating on the ce where so much mana was gathering. The Capsule. It was as Natsuo said, current technology wasn¡¯t supposed to be able to handle full immersiveness like World of Magic was supposed to have. That¡¯s because this wasn¡¯t technology... Well, not only technology, but throughout this whole machine, threads of mana were running as if supporting everything. But in the end, they ended up together at one small point where the mana was the most intense. "Don¡¯t f.u.c.k with me here, is this seriously it? I didn¡¯t make it up?" Benjamin asked himself as he grasped at his face and fell to his knees in front of the capsule, and Tony walked up right behind the old man. "What did you make up?" He asked with pure worry as he ced his hand onto his Father¡¯s back, while the old man just continued to mutter. "Wait, so maybe it was back then as well..?" Benjamin asked himself as he turned over to his son. "Can I ask you to do something for me?" With a bit of a frown, Tony nodded his head as he looked at his father. "Of course, I-, wait, Dad, something¡¯s seriously wrong with your eyes! They¡¯re actually yellow, and bleeding!" The young man said as he quickly tried to pull the phone out of his pocket and wanted to call an ambnce, but Benjamin just shook his head as he ced his hand onto the screen to stop him from doing so. "No, I¡¯m fine. This isn¡¯t something a doctor could fix anyway..." The old man said, and slowly closed his eyes, deeply concentrating before he opened them again. The world had returned to normal to his eyes, and Tony was even more confused. "What did you just do..?" Tony asked, but Benjamin just looked at him with a wry smile. "I¡¯ll exin it to youter... For now, I need you to get someone here for me..." The old man requested, and Tony slowly ced his phone down on the ground and looked at his father intensely, realizing that this was a rather serious situation. "Who?" He just asked quietly, and Benjamin looked his soon deep into his eyes. "Michael." Chapter 452 - Dungeon Golems "Michael? Why do you want me to get him here?" Tony asked confused, "Does all of this have something to do with him?" He inquired, looking at his father with worry and confusion in his voice, and the old man just shook his head. "Not directly... I just want to confirm something... I¡¯ll use that chance to make sure he neveres back here again as well..." Benjamin replied, slowly pushing his body up again with the help of the capsule. "I¡¯m going to exin everything to you when I know what to actually exin..." He muttered quietly, so Tony just silently nodded as he walked to the door again, although he stopped and turned back around toward his father before leaving. "Are you sure you don¡¯t want to go to the hospital..? I mean-" "If anything is wrong, we¡¯ll know tomorrow. The doctor ising again anyway." Benjamin pointed out, so Tony just turned back around with a slow nod and closed the door behind him, while the old man got back into the capsule and closed it down. He really did know what he had to do now. Things were bing clearer, but as they were, each issue that Benjamin thought he already figured out was shown to be made of numerous other issues to form something that was very different to what he thought. But he was sure about one thing, something that was finally confirmed. He wasn¡¯t imagining it. And for some reason, that calmed this old man¡¯s mind down incredibly. --- Soon, Eisen found himself back in his other body, standing there in the middle of his room in the Inn, where the others were already gathered around him nervously. "Morning." The old man then said with a smile on his face as he looked at them, and Sky crossed his arms with a frown. "Were you too drunk to even make it to your bed?" The boy asked, but Eisen just shook his head with augh. "I don¡¯t think so, but who knows what I was thinking? Well, either way... For now I think I¡¯ll be heading out." Eisen pointed out as he looked out of the window, seeing the town already being quite busy, and the others around him looked at him surprised. "You want to set the stall up already?" Sky asked, but Eisen shook his head. "With ¡¯heading out¡¯, I mean heading toward the next Dragon. I¡¯m taking the kids with me to have them level up on the way, something that I¡¯m going to be doing as well, but I would apprectiate it if you guys could hold the base up here." The old man pointed out, and Bree looked up at him shocked. "What? You want to go without us?" She asked with a slight pout already building up on her face, and Eisen just looked down at her. That was his n, at least. He wanted to just move without stopping, but as Sky and Bree sleptst night... They wouldn¡¯t need any more sleep for a couple of days. The route to the ce the Dragon was supposed to be didn¡¯t have any towns on the way, so he at least wanted Sigurd and Fafnir to stay here to level up while Eisen was gone... And since his apprentices should be arriving rtively soon, he wanted someone to be here to pick them up. "You sure you two want toe along?" The old man asked, just to make sure, and the Fey-Kin siblings immediately nodded their heads. "Of course we do! We know you keep saying it might be dangerous facing a Dragon without taking thier trial, but I doubt they¡¯ll do anything when they find out who you are to them, right?" Sky pointed out, and Eisen raised his brows and sighed with a slow nod. "Fair enough. Well, the route I want to take is a bit rough, and there probably won¡¯t be space for the Carriage there, so we¡¯ll have to go on foot. There should also be some climbing, and probably some leaping. Still fine with it?" The old man pointed out, and while Sky was a bit more hesitant, Bree immediately nodded her head. "Yup, of course we are!" She eximed, speaking for her brother at the same time, so Eisen just sighed and smirked at them. "Got it. Then let¡¯s go grab some provisions for the trip. Sigurd, you and Fafnir will be fine just having the Dungeon up for a while, right?" Eisen asked as he turned toward the Dragon, and the Core Guardian swiftly appeared in a cloud of mist. "Mhm, don¡¯t worry about that. I wanted to have it up for a couple of days in a row anyway, to actually give more people a chance to get to thest floor." It exined, "But Before then-" "Yeah, yeah, don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll assemble the Dungeon Golems first." Eisen interrupted, and Sigurd smiled back. "Thanks!" "Alright then... Sky, Bree, could you go take care of provisions then? Oh, and Bree, please open up enough space inside of your backpack, we¡¯ll be facing a bunch of monsters, so we might need it." Eisen pointed out, and the young Carrier quickly nodded her head. "Will do~!" "Thank you. Then I¡¯m going to take care of the Dungeon Golems and let the others know about Rouge and Parc. I told them toe to the Inn once they get here, so I¡¯ll pay for a room for them in advance and ask Gralmar to pass on a message." The old man exined, slowly stepping up to the Gate that was currently appearing behind him to get into the Dungeon and finish everything up real quick. "Alrightly, we¡¯ll be back hereter!" Bree eximed as she grabbed her brother¡¯s hand and pulled him out of the Inn room, while Eisen stepped into the Dungeon. As Sigurd hooked up the entrance to the ce where the Golem Parts were, he could instantly get to work. He really was nearly done already, and would just need to make the Golem Cores, the Dungeon-Rock base, and then ce the Dungeon-Steel Armor on them. He would just give them weapons he made for practice before for now and make Dungeon-Material weaponster when he was back and had more time. There were even some Crystal Structures that could be made with the Dungeon, ording to Sigurd, so Eisen wanted to look into whether or not those could be used to rece parts of the ¡¯Golem Core¡¯ recipe with, to make even those more resilient, so that just in case the Golem was actually somehow destroyed, it might just set itself back together. "Could you fill that space up with some more rock?" Eisen asked as he ced the six golem Cores he made for now down onto the ground, and Sigurd quickly did as asked and the wall of rock next to Eisen just got closer to him, so the old man quickly stood up started to destroy the rock in certain ced to give him a rough base, and then used the chisel-mode of his multitool to properly give it a proper shape, and repeated that six times as well. Then, Eisen just ced the armor tightly onto the rock and filled out any gap there was with even more rock, to make it fit tightly, and then quickly moved his element inbetween the rock and the metal, heating it up as much as possible to make both soften up a little, using the chance to just make them melt together tightly. And that was done with every part of the six Golems, so it took a bit longer than it usually would have. The only thing that was left to do then was to activate the Golem Cores that Eisen ced into the center of the Golems¡¯ chests, but that wasn¡¯t anything that Eisen himself would do. "Now, try to manipte the Dungeon¡¯s mana to go into the Golem Core to activate it." The old man suggested as he looked over toward Sigurd, although it just looked back confused. "Wait, you¡¯re not going to activate them?" It asked, and Eisen shook his head. "They¡¯re supposed to be Dungeon Golems. Not like I can take them out there anyway, and since I¡¯m the Dungeon Master, I should be able tomand them anyway, right?" Eisen said with a slight shrug, and Sigurd just nodded its head. "Fair enough... Then I¡¯ll just try." The Core Guardian said with a nervous expression, pressing its hand against the chest of the first golem to try and channel the Dungeon¡¯s mana through its body into the Golem¡¯s core. Soon, Eisen could hear the sound of rocks and metal shifting as the Golem Core took control over its new body. "Ooh! It works!" Sigurd eximed excitedly, and Eisen nodded his head in reply as he took out his Sword. "Mhm, it does... Let me just test it out for a moment. Golem, stretch out your arm to the side. And Sigurd, make it so that the Dungeon doesn¡¯t let me ¡¯Edit¡¯ it for a moment, and then go ahead and keep going." He said with a smile as the Dungeon Golem obeyed the old man¡¯smand and held its arm away from its body, while Sigurd concentrated on fulfilling the rest of Eisen¡¯s request. And after wrapping the de in his element turned toward rock, to give it more strength and durability, Eisen swung it down onto the metal armor, immediately feeling strong resistance. It seemed like he really wasn¡¯t able to ¡¯edit¡¯ the Dungeon right now. So, after pushing a bit harder, Eisen soon pulled the Demonic de back and took a look at the Golem¡¯s arm. The metal of the armor had just a small dent, although that soon fixed itself and returned to its regr state, so Eisen nodded his head with satisfaction. "Perfect. These should be good to go then." The old man said with a smile on his lips, swiftly looking over toward Sigurd who nodded its head excitedly. "Mhm! That¡¯s actually really nice. And we did get the option of making ¡¯Guardian Golems¡¯ now... Seems like they¡¯re only going to be able to use materials that we can construct with, so for now Brick, Rock, Ore, and things like that." Sigurd exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Perfect. That means we really won¡¯t have to worry. These guys will be the main force in the front here, and if there¡¯s something troublesome anywhere else in the Dungeon, you could create them there and take care of it, right?" Eisen suggested, making Sigurd immediately smirk brightly. "Yup! Basically, it¡¯s a security system, hehe~!" The Core Guardian said with augh, and Eisen just smiled as he opened the option menu and created the Dungeon Exit behind him. "Sounds good. Then I¡¯ll be back in a bit, yeah? I¡¯ll help look for a good spot for them, I¡¯m just going to speak to the others first." "Coolio, see youter!" Sigurd replied, so Eisen just nodded and left the Dungeon with a light smile on his lips. Chapter 453 - Setting Out "Alright, so everything¡¯s set up properly?" Eisen asked to confirm just one more time as he stood right next to Sigurd and Fafnir at the ce where they would be opening the Dungeonter on. "Yes yes, just go on already. The sooner you go, the sooner you¡¯ll be back, right?" Sigurd pointed out with a sigh, and Eisen just nodded with a slight smile on his lips. "Mhm, that¡¯s right. Then go on, open the Dungeon, Fafnir." Eisen said as he smiled toward the small Living Dungeon, before he did as asked and jumped into the air, making therge gate appear underneath his body. "Then we¡¯ll be off. Go and see any of the others if something¡¯s wrong." The old man suggested, and then swiftly turned around while Sigurd disappeared inside of the Dungeon. "Alright kids, get on Cabarum." Eisen said as he quickly picked up Caria and Melissa and sat them down on top of the Mechanical Horse¡¯s back while Sal climbed on top of him himself. For now it was fine that Cabarum was out here, since the path wasn¡¯t that rough here yet, andter when Cabarum couldn¡¯t walk there anymore, Eisen just had to ce Cabarum into the specially-made box he made to store him. "Now then, Aulu, walk in front of us and alert us if there are any monsters." Eisen told the mechanic wolfdy, who quickly barked and turned around to sprint off just a little bit. "Then let¡¯s go." The old man suggested as he looked at the others, and quickly snapped his finger to tell Cabarum to start walking as well while Sky and Bree were walking next to him, and a little while after they started moving, one of the Fey-Kin siblings already spoke up. "Now then, where are we going first?" Sky asked, and Sky quickly turned his eyes to the side to ess the mental map he made with Visualization and stared at the first cross that Eisen marked down on it. "A hunting area with average Rank 4 and 5 monsters to let the three of them level up some." Eisen exined, so Sky slowly nodded his head in response and looked back down at his book, "Gotcha. Then I¡¯ll save my mana for that." The Fey-Kin suggested, but the old man next to him shook his head. "It¡¯s fine, you can take a break then if you want to. I won¡¯t say no to some help, but it¡¯s not really necessary as long as we don¡¯t overdo ourselves. We¡¯re going against some of the weaker bunch first anyway to get Sal to Rank 4." Eisen said, so Sky shrugged. "Eh, that¡¯s fine. We¡¯ll just have to seeter then." "Yup." Eisen replied with a smile on his face on his own, and then just looked forward along the path in front of them. It seemed like there were some yers running around this area, but it wasn¡¯t that big a deal. Most of them were just looking for new areas to level their skills up at, or looking for new monsters to get their general level up further, so they didn¡¯t pay too much attention to Eisen and that group, even if they did stick out a fair bit. "Soo..." Bree said after a little while as she looked up at Eisen, "What do you think this Dragon will be like?" She asked curiously, so Eisen moved his fingers through his beard in thought as well. "Well... Can¡¯t really say, but I have a feeling she¡¯s going to be calmer than Bolremgar. She¡¯s a Silver Dragoness, so she¡¯s probably got a pretty big exposition for magic... So I¡¯m guessing she would be pretty intelligent." Eisen smiled as he looked down at Bree, who just nodded her head excitedly. "Ooh yeah, and I bet she¡¯s also pretty... pretty!" She eximed, so Eisne just slightly chuckled in response. "Mhm, I bet she is. But we¡¯ll just have to see. She probably likes puzzles, considering how she made a map and riddle like this so that people can find her." "Ooh, I like riddles! But they¡¯re so hard, because sometimes I don¡¯t know if I just don¡¯t know enough monsters..." Bree muttered quietly as she fiddled with her fingers nervously, "Like, what walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening? I don¡¯t know, maybe some quadrupedal monster that likes to change things up? But the answer was ¡¯A Person¡¯? What kind of riddle is that, that doesn¡¯t make sense!" She eximed with frustration in her voice, but Sky next to her just sighed deeply and shook his head as if in disappointment. "¡¯Four legs in the morning¡¯ is when you¡¯re a baby crawling around, ¡¯two legs¡¯ is when you¡¯re a child or a.d.u.l.t that can walk, and ¡¯three legs¡¯ is when you¡¯re old with a walking stick. The ¡¯Morning, Noon, and Evening¡¯ mean the start of life, the middle of life, and the end of life." The boy exined, and Bree looked at him surprised. "Whaat? That¡¯s the reason why? That doesn¡¯t make sense! Nobody has such a short lifespan..." Sheined, but Eisen just chuckled as he looked down at her with a wry smile, "It¡¯s a Metaphor, Bree." The old man pointed out, and Bree looked back at him with an embarrassed expression. "Oh, right..." "Hmm, but just curious, that reminds me of something... Is there a monster that¡¯s like a roon, just with a lion-head?" Eisen asked, and Bree closed her eyes in thought for a moment before shrugging. "I don¡¯t know, maybe.... Why are you asking?" She inquired curiously, and Eisen just smiled at her. "Nothing, it¡¯s fine, just curious." The old man told her, and then looked back forward. For the next little while, they talked about this and that, just to pass the time while they were walking, and enjoying the sight of the mountains around them as they started their climb up one of the mountains, while Eisne kept updating his mental map a little with the help of his mana copy skill to copy and analyze the area around him. And that went on for roughly the whole day, and aroundte afternoon, they finally managed to reach the hunting area that Eisen wanted to go to first. It was basically just a quiterge teau on top of the mountain with differentyers to it, each of thoseyers holding quite a lot of monsters. Eisen figured that it was a quite good ce to hunt, considering that it was rtively open and the monsters didn¡¯t seem like tough opponents either from what Eisen heard. "Now then, let¡¯s get started. Sal, youe first." Eisen said with a smile as he quickly increased his size and held his arm out toward the young Monster. "Alrighty~!" He eximed, and Eisen slowly let him down onto the ground as he looked at Caria and Melissa as well. "We¡¯ll be back in a bit, and then you two can hunt a little as well." The old man exined to them, but first just went on alone with Sal, while Bree was walking behind a bit behind them to give them the necessary support that they might end up needing, while Sky stayed there together with Cabarum, Aulu, and the two monster girls. "Alright, bud, now go ahead and tie down that one over there." Eisen said as he pointed his hand over into the distance toward a lonesome monster, so the young Spider just nodded his head and ran his hand over his abdomen to grab some thread and then started to create a quick Magic Circle with his arms as a base, while Eisen just watched for now. Soon, Sal sighed out deeply and just pressed his arms together slowly, as if smashing the web that he just created inbetween them. Although it seemed like it was something very different that he hade up with. "Oh?" Eisen muttered quietly, before Sal grabbed the smashed-down web and bundled it up into a ball, before handing it to Eisen. "Throw it there." Sal said as he pointed at the Monster that Eisen had told Sal to tie down, so the old man just sighed and nodded his head. "Sure." He answered, and quickly did as asked, throwing the spider-thread ball against the monster through a simple pitch, and the moment that it hit it, the ball started to glow and immediately exploded outward into hundreds of threads that each slung themselves around the monster to tie its legs against its body, causing it to just fall onto its side. "Well then... These seem quite useful, huh?" The old man chuckled and quickly summoned his sword as he walked up to the monster and swiftly stabbed into its throat in a way that it wouldn¡¯t instantly die, and then told Sal to finish the monster off himself, which the young Spider swiftly did. It seemed a bit gruesome from the outside, telling what, at least from the h.i.p.s upward, was just a young boy to kill something so easily, but... That¡¯s just what it was. And Sal didn¡¯t really seem to mind it all that much either, considering that he had been asking to level up here. Either way, soon, Sal managed to finish that monster off without an issue, and gained a couple of levels from that before Eisen and Bree quickly started to take the monster apart into whatever could be needed from this one in particr. Once they were done collecting the ws, fangs, and mana crystal, they just continued on forward and repeated something simr for another monster. And then for another, and then for another. And that went on and on until Sal finally reached Rank 4 by continuosly killing monsters so much stronger than him just level-wise. When he evolved, he once again grew in size, like Eisen expected, but something else changed. It was like a proper humanoid body was slowly splitting off of the spider body. Basically, now he looked like a boy with the upper body covered in regr skin and extremely humanoidplexion, and the lower body covered in a spider-like carapace. That meant that his two front legs also looked like properly humanoid legs now, although he still had a regr spider-like body ¡¯stuck¡¯ to his back, meaning that he still had a spider-like abdomen and sixrge spider-legs behind him, but Eisen figured that within the next evolution, even that all might disappear from what it all looked like so far. And so, with a smile on his face, Eisen rubbed his fingers through Sal¡¯s hair. "Then let¡¯s go get your sisters and go level up some more, huh?" He suggested. Chapter 454 - Marionette After Eisen, Bree and Sal had returned to where the others were waiting for them, instead of going out to hunt immediately, they made the decision to sleep first so that they could hunt as long as possible after that. Since Eisen wasn¡¯t really all that tired just yet, he didn¡¯t need to sleep that much and soon woke back up in the early morning time, where he quickly noticed that there were three people speaking right behind him. He had been leaning up against Cabarum as heid down as well, so it seemed like they simply didn¡¯t see that his sleep-transformation wore off. "Yeah, he¡¯s been acting a lot differenttely..." Sky said quietly, and next, Kirisho¡¯s voice could be heard as she agreed. "Eisen is just quite angry, or rather frustratedtely, is he not?" She asked, and it seemed like even Bree had to agree. "I haven¡¯t seen him like that yet, yeah... Especially in that town before? Where he... he killed that man..? Wouldn¡¯t he usually have stayed there to at least properly make sure that group stops messing around?" She pointed out, "It just seems like he¡¯s really focused on one thing..." "From what we¡¯ve heard, that¡¯s what Eisen has always been like, right?" Sky added, "In prototype, they said that Eisen was obsessed with creating artificial life... And now, he¡¯s obsessed with finding out... something. I¡¯m not sure what exactly he wants..." "I think it might have something to do with Otherworld Disease..." Kirisho added, and Sky seemed quite surprised at that. "Otherworld Disease? I¡¯ve heard of it, but it wasn¡¯t a thing where I grew up... What is it again?" He asked, and Bree just scratched her cheek and responded. "It¡¯s where you strongly start believing that there¡¯s a world other than this one... But Kirisho, why do you think it has to do with that?" Bree asked, and the Mist Spirit just lightly smiled at her and slowly shook her head, "I¡¯m not entirely sure, sorry... But he asked me about it, and when I exined to him what it was, he just got incredibly angry, and... quite scary." "Should we just ask him about it?" Sky suggested, but Kirisho immediately shook her head in response, "I don¡¯t think we should... He said he was working together with someone... It might have been a joke, but he said it was an Angel? No matter that, Eisen told me that he will exin everything to us when the timees..." "Then should we just let Eisen live with whatever¡¯s going on alone?" Sky asked with a deep frown, and Bree shook her head, "I think the others know what¡¯s going on... So Evalia, Brody, Jyuuk and Xenia... So if he needs to speak to anyone, then maybe he will speak to them?" She suggested, and in response, the others couldn¡¯t do anything but agree and hope. "Don¡¯t worry." Eisen said in a voice loud enough so that the others could definitely hear him, and Sky immediately jumped up, "Y-You were awake?" He asked, and Eisen slowly stood up and turned toward them as he nodded his head. "Yes, I was. And really, trust me, I will tell you once I find out what exactly is going to happen when I do. Because something will happen, it¡¯s out of my control, because this knowledge that I have is not something that you are supposed to know. And yes, I¡¯m working with an Angel to get her to find out what exactly happens once such knowledge is revealed. Once I know, I will-" "Are you serious? Just telling us is going to put us in danger? Is it some sort of spell that will influence us just knowing of it?" Sky asked with clear doubt in his voice, but Eisen immediately shook his head. "No, that¡¯s not it. The Asshole standing atop the Gods just doesn¡¯t want anyone to know. As I was saying, once I know what exactly is going to happen when I reveal it, I¡¯m going to prepare countermeasures." Eisen exined, so Sky just slowly turned his face away. "And when will you know?" He asked, but Eisen just slowly moved his fingers through his beard unknowingly. "I can¡¯t say that. The Angel will contact me once she knows. But while she is researching it, I want to go ahead and finish this task that I myself have given me that starts with reaching level 300. Or get as close to it as possible, at least." The old man exined in a clear tone as he turned around toward the three monster children behind him. "We¡¯re going out to hunt for the day. Now then. Are you guysing? If we go the right route, there¡¯s a shortcut at the other side of the teaus that we can take. There¡¯s apparently a lot of monsters in that area though, so everybody here will have to fight a little." Eisen pointed out, and the three of them quickly nodded their heads before Kirisho picked up the small Fox Golem in front of her feet, while Aulu and Cabarum both stood up from where they wereying before, and Sky and Bree started picking whatever they had put down onto the ground as well. "We¡¯reing..." Bree said quietly as they were doing so, and Eisen just smiled at them in response. "Alright, then let¡¯s go." Eisen said with a smile as he turned around and started walking, with the others right beside him. And so, then they started hunting again, although everyone else beside Caria, Melissa and Sal was just acting as support in case something was wrong. And soon, the three of them had a rtively good tactic going. Caria would use nt control to tie the monsters down, and she and Melissa would do as much damage they could do over time through thorned vines or numerous different types of Bees, all the whilst Sal was preparing a good spell to attack and hopefully finish the monster off with. And during that time, Sal even unlocked his element! It was a conceptual element as well, so it was abination of the Light and Dark elements. Sal¡¯s element was called ¡¯Marite¡¯... It seemed weird until Eisen actually thought about why this was the case. For one, he did everything with his threads, probably just to practice and out of fun, and even picked different things up with the threads. And on top of that, he usually would control his own body with the help of his mana, or rather support his body¡¯s movement with his own body, although it was rather the first sometimes. His mana could react quicker than his body could, so he used it to dodge iing attacks, for example. In that rtion, it somewhat made sense, although Eisen still felt kind of bad that it was this kind of element instead of one rted to Dance, something that Sal apparently would have rather gotten. "Don¡¯t worry, bud, like this, you might be able to dance even better!" Eisen pointed out as he spoke to the spider boy about it, and soon it seemed like he himself didn¡¯t mind having it either. For now he couldn¡¯t really do all that much with his element yet, but that wouldeter on after he practiced with it a bit. Although, it did seem like he was able to control his threads a lot better already, just having his element at Rank 0... Due to his ¡¯condition¡¯, he was practically a highly magical creature, after all, so it somewhat did make sense. Either way, after Sal got his element, the hunting only sped up, especially considering that the three monster kids were leveling up pretty well, so soon enough they moved on to Rank 5 monsters to make the leveling-up pick up speed even more. But even then, they still didn¡¯t manage to rank up in a single day, despite ughtering nearly the whole poption of this particr monster on top of these teaus. It didn¡¯t really seem like they would be able to rank up anytime soon, until a certain wolfdy found something pretty interesting. "Oh? Is this a cave?" Eisen muttered curiously as he squatted down and looked at the narrow hole in front of them, and then slowly turned toward Bree. "Can you get out CR-1?" The old man asked as he turend around toward her, so Bree nodded her head and dropped her backpack of her back and got the rolled up Camera Rat Golem out of it, swiftly handing it to Eisen, who just made it activate and crawl right into the hole, soon seeing something pretty interesting down there as he looked at the disy screen in his hand. "Well then, this is quite interesting..." He whispered with a grin on his face, and quickly ced his hand onto the rock in front of him, quickly pouring his mana inside of it, using abination of his Mining Ability to crack rock down easily and Transmutation to quickly widen the whole in front of them into an entrance they could all fit into. "What¡¯s down there?" Sky asked, and Eisen just turned around with a smile. "More monsters. Rank 5 and 6. They¡¯re the same kind, Thick-Skinned, Quadrupedal, weird mixture of boar and bull. The few Rank 6 ones are pretty big though, so we might need a better strategy for those..." Eisen muttered quietly as he started stepping into the cave entrance he just widened up, and continued to ¡¯dig¡¯ the path until they finally got to an area where that wasn¡¯t necessary anymore. "Do you think that¡¯s a good idea?" Sky asked, just to make sure, and Eisen nodded his head in response. "I do, yeah. We should be able to do this pretty well, and especially with the Rank 6 monsters that I can see, the three of them should be able to Rank up once more by morning. Might require a bit of assistance from everyone, though. Especially you, Kirisho. If you¡¯re fine with it." Eisen pointed out, and after looking back at Eisen slightly startled at having her name called all of a sudden, she just nodded her head. "Sure... What do you want me to do?" She asked quietly, so Eisen just turned away, quite aware that she was pretty ufortable around him right now. "Just spread your mist around in there and manipte the monsters to somehow split up, so that we can attack them one after another." The old man suggested, so Kirisho slowly nodded her head in response. "Alright, got it..." She said quietly, so Eisen just nodded his head and made his way deeper into the cave, wishing that he could just get this all over with already. Chapter 455 - Rank 5 "Caria, tie down the one to the right first. Melissa, make your soldiers concentrate on the one on he left." Eisen said in a clear tone as he stood behind the group of monsters, holding his Sword in his hand just in case either of the two monsters was about to go out of control, while both of them quickly did as asked, before Sal shot off one of his attacks made with his thread-magic-circles, concentrating on the monster¡¯s legs. This luckily did enough damage to the Monster to let Melissa slowly drain its health even more by focusing her soldiers on the areas specifically damaged by Sal¡¯s attack, while Sal created another magic-circle to attack the other monster that Caria was holding down, and once the attack hit, they simply quickly switched, and Caria started holding down the Monster on the left while Melissa¡¯s soldiers attacked the one on the right, and Sal shot another shot against the Monster¡¯s legs to make it harder for it to move, and the whole thing repeated itself over and over again until both of the monsters ended uppletely dying. Luckily, they had Kirisho¡¯s thick mist around them to make sure that these two monsters were the only opponents at this time. And like this, they swiftly managed to cut down one of the Rank 6 Monsters¡¯ entourage, and could now face that monster alone. They had actually been down here in thisrge cave system for quite a while at this point, from what Eisen could tell, roughly a full day of continuosly hunting monsters. But soon, that would be over, considering that all three of the Monster Children had were only another level away from leveling up. Even Eisen leveled up a little bit, despite not actually attacking anything for the most part, if he could avoid it. That was just how this system worked, so Eisen couldn¡¯t really do anything but grumble to himself about it. "Is everyone ready to fight it?" Eisen asked the others, and everyone quickly nodded their head, as this time around, everyone had to make sure they could jump in, in case anything went wrong during the fight. The Rank 6 Monsters were still a little tough for the three monster kids to handle alone, even if they slowly got the hang of it tactic-wise. "Alright then. Kirisho, can you lure it in?" The old man asked, and without an answer from the Mist-Spirit, she did just that and the wall of mist around them split open before arge monster came rushing into the area that the group had ¡¯barricaded¡¯ themselves in. Immediately when it got in range, Caria made roots grow from the ground, the seeds for which she had nted beforehand, that grabbed onto the monster¡¯s front-feet, making it fall down onto its face, and that chance was immediately used by the Myconid to try and tie it up even more, while Sal shot the first attack that he had prepared already, something that Eisen was actually the base for this time around, and even in his giant and demonic form, so that Sal could sling the web around his wings. The moment that the enchantment activated, the air around Eisen¡¯s body froze as arge, sharp, circr de of Ice shot out from the magic circle, and as it was flying around, Sal immediately shot some thin, translucent threads out of his fingers that connected to that circr de, as Sal continued climbing around on the cave ceiling, where he had strategically positioned himself directly above the monster, using his Marite Element to manipte the de around the monster, cutting into its skin numerous times in numerous ces, while Caria tried to make sure that as little roots were in the way while that was happening. But soon, the de of ice had molten too much and simply shattered at the next impact with the monster¡¯s body, and then immediately some of Melissa¡¯s bees, ones with poison that was supposed to pacify and calm the monster down as much as possible, started attacking the open wounds that Sal had opened up, while the Spider himself started going into the area of assistance for now by pulling and pushing the bees around with his element to make sure they weren¡¯t somehow damaged by the monster¡¯s movements as it was trying to escape its capturers. And soon enough, the Monster did just that, but at that point, something that Caria had been doing already took effect. She had been creating Mushroom-Soldier copies of this monster, that were all ready to be pulled off now, something that Sal now did. Luckily, his Marite Element perfectly interacted with his threads, as he was now able to manipte them as if they were another limb, and just shot out some of the threads that he then slung around the base of the mushrooms to cut them off, and the moment they dropped to the ground, the thick stem split into four legs, as a dozen, Retriever-Dog sized mushrooms that looked like Boar-Horse hybrids stood up and surrounded the monster they grew off of, and immediately started running into its sides while Caria worked on the next mushroom right in front of the Monster, while Sal was creating the next magic circle using Eisen¡¯s wings as a base, while Melissa¡¯s bees continued attacking different weakpoints, such as eyes, nose, ears, as well as the already-open wounds, while the dozen mushrooms did their best to make the monster slow down. "Ah, seems like they won¡¯t really need our help this time around." Sky said with a slight sigh as he closed his Grimoire down and just tiredly sighed, and Eisen chuckled in response, "Let¡¯s hope so, yeah." The old man said, as he watched Caria grow a special type of poisonous mushroom that she created using a poison that Eisen made through Alchemy. Its stem alone was the size of a grown man and had multiple small holes in it connected to the hollow interior of the stem, and they slowly started to suck in air to push into the spherical mushroom-cap that was filled with numerous small beaded versions of the poison that would pop on impact with something hard. Soon enough, the mushroom-cap was filled with enough air, and Caria quickly made roots grow around the bottom of the mushroom that soon covered it whole, with the exception of one of the airholes and a circr area facing the monster. She even made a small ¡¯shaft¡¯ pointing at the monster, before the mushroom-cap simply popped and the poison-beads shot at the monster all at once, popping once they hit its face and body, seeping into the numerous wounds that were created by her own roots¡¯ spikes, Melissa¡¯s Bees, and Sal¡¯s ice de. And as the rest of the roots and the mushroom that Caria made started to wither away, Sal¡¯s magic Circle was finished and was quickly activated. This time around, it was a simple ice spear, that Sal still grabbed onto with his element to basically pull it into moving as fast as it possibly could. That spear then quickly shot through the Monster¡¯s side, right into its heart, before it copsed on the ground. They tried doing something like this before already, just that Sal¡¯s spear-attack was the opener, and when they tried that, the ice-spear was just stopped by the monster¡¯s muscles and shattered before reaching any vital organ at all. Just if the monster was as weakened as it ended up being would it work well enough to literally shootpletely through the monster¡¯s body and open up a hole that one could basically look through, just like right now. And basically at the exact same time to each other, the three monster children¡¯s bodies started to glow in a bright light as their bodies changed. Seemed like the experience that they got from this monster really was enough to push them over the edge and made them evolve, like Eisen had hoped it would. First, there was Caria. She had physically grown a bit older again, and she looked like she was roughly 15 years old right now, although she was still rtively petite and short. Her Cap had basically turned into a literal Witches¡¯ Hat that she could even take off to reveal her bright red hair. While her skin was still pale, and her irises were still really dark, although everything in a range that could be seen as normal for a Human. She basically looked as if she was a regr teenage girl now. Luckily, her dress managed to grow with her pretty well, so Eisen wouldn¡¯t have to make a new one for her. As for Melissa, she also grew in age quite a bit, and could be seen as maybe 12 or 13 now, and her bright yellow hair was still just shoulder-length somehow, although Caria¡¯s seemed to just grow longer and longer, as it now reached her h.i.p.s. Not much really changed about her other than that, with the exception of her Wings changing their size and shape a little bit more than Eisen would have expected. The Hoody she was wearing was still oversized on her and you still couldn¡¯t even see her hands. The biggest change, however, happened to Sal. Physically, it seemed like Age-Wise he was at roughly the same age as Caria, so around 15, and was a little taller than her. His white hair was still rtively short and unkempt, and he had a quite thin build. The spider-like abdomen had disappeared from himpletely, and his lower body now had regr, albeit pale, skin. He still had some carapace around his the back of his arms and legs and his actual back, but for the most part, you wouldn¡¯t expect him to be a monster either. Especially because his eyes changed a fair bit as well. He had two regr-sized eyes, and then three small eyes around the sides of those eyes that just seemed like small, barely noticeable wrinkles when they were closed. And just when Eisen was thinking that this was a huge change for Sal, the boy just dropped backward onto the ground. "Erm... Having two legs is so... Weird." Sal muttered quietly as heid there, his arms and legs stretched out to the side, and Melissa leaned above him with a nod. "Tell me about it." She said quietly. She experienced something simr as well, after all, going from six to two legs to walk on a few evolutions ago. "Hmm, I think I can..." Sal muttered quietly as he pushed himself off of the ground and tried to stand there stable, before he pressed his palms onto his h.i.p.s, before numerous thick threads shot out of his hands that soon formed some fake spider legs that helped Sal stand up properly. "Still not perfect, but better, I guess..." The boy muttered quietly, before noticing something else that was pretty important. "Erm, could I get some pants?" Chapter 456 - Pants "You¡¯re a lot more talkative all of a sudden, huh?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face as he looked over toward Sal, whose lower body was currently simply covered in some thick threads to act as temporary pants while the group made their way back to the surface and Eisen could get started on making actual proper pants for the young boy. "Apparently so, dunno why." Sal said with a smirk as he was walking around, trying to rely less and less on the fake spider legs he made of thread and more on his actual legs, and Eisen just lightly smiled back. "Well, I don¡¯t mind it. And what about you two? You¡¯re both growing up really well too." The old man pointed out, and Caria just looked at him with a big, bright smile. "Hehe~! I know, right? I¡¯m so tall now~!" She eximed happily, while Bree looked over toward her jealously, considering that Caria was now a fair bit taller than her. "Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll grow up some more as well." Eisen said reassuringly, and the Fey-Kin girl just huffed and nodded her head. "I know, I¡¯m sure I will!" She yelled out confidently, while Eisen just smirked in response and looked forward with a smile on his face. "Either way, for now, I think you three are alright being where you are, right? I think it should get pretty tough to level up for you guys now, at least with the monsters that we can find around here." Eisen pointed out, and Bree sighed deeply as she nodded her head. "Mhm, the highest-leveled group-monsters that are here are Rank 7... On the whole continent, I mean... I think there¡¯s some areas with Rank 8 or 9 monsters, but only in three or four ces? And luckily, there barely are any Rank 10 monsters here... On the other continents though... That¡¯s a different story." The Fey-Kin pointed out, "I¡¯ve never actually been there myself, but I¡¯ve heard that on the other continents, ¡¯regr¡¯ monsters start at Rank 5! That¡¯s insane, right?" She asked, so Eisen slowly raised his brows in surprise. Well, it didn¡¯t seem like the other continents had such a high poption of people anyway, so that would be a good reason why. "Hmm, fair enough... Where I grew up, the monsters were super tough, so I barely went out to anywhere, ever..." Sky replied with a slight frown, and Eisen just ced his hand on top of the boy¡¯s head with a smile, "Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯ll go there at some point to take a look at all the ces you missed." Eisen suggested, and Sky looked back up at him and nodded his head. "Thanks, I¡¯d love that." He replied, just before they could see the sky above them as they finally left the cave system. It was in a bit of a different ce as they entered, but it actually worked to their favor, as they were closer to the ¡¯shortcut¡¯ area that Eisen was speaking about before. The moment they got outside, the old man took a quick look around with his mana-sight to see if there were any monsters in particr around here, or if there was something weird or unusual he could see, but soon enough he just sighed in relief as he closed up the cave entrance one everyone left. "This ce is pretty off from where the monsters are, apparently. So let¡¯s set up camp here and rest for the night. We barely stopped in there, after all." Eisen pointed out as he turned his eyes toward the time-disy floating next to him. It was pretty close to the time where his doctor would being to check up on him, after all, so he should get out and get ready, and check the phone that surely didn¡¯t have any messages left on it by a certain Prime Industries employee. "Sounds good. I¡¯ll get a fire going, then!" Bree suggested, but a certain young man quickly stopped her as he held his hands forward to let out some thread, quickly forming a magic circle in his hands while Caria got started on growing a little bit of wood that could be used for the fire, and soon enough, Sal just let the thread-magic-circle down onto the wood as it slowly started to heat everything up, and then created stable mes. "Like this it¡¯s going tost all night!" Sal pointed out with a smug grin, and while Bree just looked at the fire heavily impressed, Melissa looked at her ¡¯brother¡¯ with a slight frown. "Stop trying to impress anyone here, it¡¯s hard to take you serious without pants." She pointed out, and Sal just turned over toward Melissa annoyedly. "Says the least intimidating Rank 5 monster I¡¯ve ever seen! You¡¯re like, five inches tall!" Sal eximed, and quickly stared the girl in front of him down, although Eisen quickly stopped the two of them. "Quiet, you two. Sal, I¡¯m about to start working on your pants, soe here so I can take your measurements. And Melissa, you please go ahead and help Bree with the food-prep, yeah?" The old man asked of the two of them, something that they quickly agreed to, although they were still throwing res at each other. And once the two of them were a bit more ¡¯alone¡¯ and could speak in peace, Eisen chose to just ask Sal about some things. "So, are you upset over having less legs?" Eisen asked, and Sal cupped his chin in thought and then quickly shook his head. "Not upset, it¡¯s a bit... weird? But like this I can actually properly learn to dance, right?" The Spider-Boy pointed out, and the old man just chuckled in response. "I see. I¡¯m d you still like dancing, then." "Heh, of course, how could I not? It¡¯s super fun!" Salughed loudly, and Eisen just smiled as he quickly started making some mental notes of what Sal¡¯s proportions and direct sizes now were after his transformation, to make him some nice, fitting pants and maybe a new vest that fit him a bit better. Some shoes maybe wouldn¡¯t be a bad idea either. "Hmm, got it. Then I¡¯ll try to make something that helps with your stamina problems. Oh, and can you still enhance your movement speed by pulling and pushing yourself along with mana?" Eisen asked curiously, and Sal nodded his head in response immediately. "Mhm, of course I can. Even if I¡¯m super... fleshy now, I¡¯m still the good ol¡¯ me." Sal responded, so Eisen nodded his head with a smile as he quickly asked Bree to give him some of the cloth that he asked her to bring just in case some clothes ripped on the way. "Color-Wise it won¡¯t be a great match right now, so sorry about that. I¡¯ll make you something better when we¡¯re back in Melroe. Oh, and I hope you¡¯ll be fine walking barefoot for now..." Eisen pointed out, "I have neither leather nor cork with me..." "I¡¯ll be fine. I mean, Caria¡¯s walking around without shoes, and you¡¯re not worrying about her." Sal said as he pointed at the girl happily ying around with her ¡¯hat¡¯ that she could now actually take off of her head, and Eisen smirked in response. "That¡¯s because she¡¯s a Myconid. She absorbs her nutrients through contact with the ground, so she doesn¡¯t really like wearing shoes. But you and Melissa are different. Especially you, Sal. A Dancer has to take care of his feet, right?" Eisen pointed out as he quickly cut out the four pieces that he would need to make these quick makeshift pants, and Sal shrugged. "Oh right... And with only two legs, you have to be especially careful, huh?" Sal asked, while Eisen just smiled and started sewing the pieces of cloth together, and Sal quickly noticed something when he was doing so. "Actually, how can you do that so quickly? It¡¯s like you can manipte your thread better than I can mine..." Sal muttered quietly, and Eisen just chuckled and shook his head. "It¡¯s not that I can control it amazingly, it¡¯s that I know how to avoid mistakes, so it might look like that. But all I¡¯m really doing is letting the thread follow behind my needle." Eisen pointed out, and Sal slowly nodded his head as he held his hand forward and let a bit of thread out of the tip of his finger, before he quickly started to y around with it in the air in a few different ways, and Eisen chose to take that chance to inspect what he was doing with his mana-sight. "You¡¯ve got your element in every part of that, right?" Eisen asked, and Sal slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, that makes control easier, right?" But immediately, Eisen shook his head. "Not necessarily. Of course it depends on the situation, but you should try and concentrate on only the necessary areas. If you have some thread and move it forward, if you move every part of it at once, sure, you will be able to move it with good, nice, steady control. But you don¡¯t always need that. Instead of splitting your concentration on all parts of the thread, concentrate only on one end and pull the rest of the thread along with that. It¡¯s going to have the same effect, really." Eisen exined, and Sal raised his brows and chose to try just that, although he immediately managed to apply the same thing to different other techniques, for example when ¡¯folding¡¯ or ¡¯twisting¡¯ the thread around, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help but chuckle at that. "Yep, exactly like that. Much easier, right?" Eisen asked, and Sal nodded his head immediately. "Yeah, and a lot faster!" The Spider-Boy pointed out, before Eisen smirked and stood up, pushing the pants that he had just finished into Sal¡¯s arms. "There you go, good job." Eisen said with a smile, "I¡¯ll go get started on Dinner then, so put those pants on. After that you can go ahead and keep practicing if you want." The old man suggested, so Sal nodded his head in response as he smiled brightly and pushed his legs into the pants that simply fit him perfectly, before Eisen walked up to the worksurface that he had priorly created for Bree and Melissa with his element so that they could properly take care of the prep-work so that Eisen could start working on Dinner with what they had prepared. It wouldn¡¯t be anything special, just something tasty and filling that was satisfying to eat on a trip out like this. After they had finished eating, Sky and Sal both worked on cleaning the dishes up a little while Eisen ¡¯fed¡¯ Cabarum and Aulu their oil as the sun slowly started to set. And then, Eisen logged off. Chapter 457 - Father and Son "Good day, Mister Joyce." The Doctor said with a smile on his face as he stepped into the house, where Benjamin was already waiting on the livingroom couch. He didn¡¯t have a need for such immense medication anymore, so he luckily was free to walk around like this now. "Good day, Doc." The old man replied with a smile, as the Doctor approached him to check up on his general health, wanting to just get right into this. He¡¯s beening here every day for a little while now, so it was obvious he and everyone else would get used to it. "Could you lift your shirt for a moment, please?" He asked, so Benjamin stood up and did just as asked, before the Doctor pressed the cold Stethoscope onto Benjamin¡¯s chest. "Now take a deep a breath as you can." The Doctor instructed, and Benjamin did just that, before breathing back out when he was prompted to. And after repeating this a few times, the Doctor just slowly nodded his head with a slight frown. "Hmm, it seems like your Lung Volume might have gone down a little from before the operation... I expected something like that though, so no need to worry. You¡¯ve been going on those walks like I told you to?" The Doctor asked with a smile, and Benjamin simply nodded his head in response. "Yes I have, don¡¯t worry. It¡¯s a bit of a weird feeling... Since my bnce is a bit off now, haha." Benjamin slightlyughed, and the Doctor just nodded his head with a light smile. "Don¡¯t worry, soon enough you can get a prosthetic and that won¡¯t be an issue anymore. Have you experienced any troubles since I¡¯ve been here thest time?" "Actually..." The old man said quietly, "My eyes have been hurting a littletely. Could you maybe take a look?" He asked, so the Doctor slowly nodded his head. "I¡¯m not an optometrist, but I can try and see if anything¡¯s wrong." The Doctorughed lightly and then slowly took a small light out of his bag and held it in his hand while first taking a look at Benjamin¡¯s eyes without them. "Hmm, they are slightly irritated, it seems. Now, please hold your hand over your left eye while I check on your right eye. Try to keep your right eye open, alright?" The Doctor asked, so Benjamin just slowly nodded before he quickly saw the bright light shining into his eye. It was a bit ufortable, but not that big a deal, although it seemed like the Doctor really wasn¡¯t happy with what he was seeing right now. "There is a bit of a dyed reaction... And it¡¯s not reacting as quickly as I would like it to..." He muttered quietly, "Now please remove your hand from your eye, but keep your eye closed until I tell you to open it." The doctor said, and once Benjamin did as asked, and once he was told to open the eye, the Doctor seemed to just continue frowning. "That doesn¡¯t look too good. Did you experience any change in your eyesight? Did things get blurrier than usual?" He asked, and Benjamin slowly shook his head. "Not as far as I¡¯m aware, sorry. But is there a serious issue?" Slowly, the doctor shook his head in response as he packed the light away. "It¡¯s not all that serious yet, but we should keep an eye on it. Your Iris¡¯ reaction strength and speed of closing and opening your pupil is a little too low. So just try and be careful around bright lights, if in any way possible." The Doctor warned, "This might be a dyed reaction to your medication. I¡¯ll bring a colleague with me in the next few days to take a closer look and check up on your eyes again. For now, should we keep going with the regr checkup?" He suggested, so Benjamin just slowly nodded his head, before they then did just that. And soon after the doctor left, Tony, who had been in the kitchen the whole time, walked up to his father. "You didn¡¯t ask him about that color-changing thing?" He asked, and the old man simply shook his head. "I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s not something that current medicine can actually exin. I just wanted to make sure its effect on my body isn¡¯t that bad." "Dad, what actually is that...? Can¡¯t you just exin it to me?" Tony asked, before Benjamin sligthly sighed and looked down the hallway. "Are the kids around?" He inquired, and Tony shook his head. "Sophia and Benji went out to grab some ice-cream with Sean and Katy." "Alright, then I¡¯ll try to exin it to you. Or rather... let me show you." The old man suggested, and walked up to the couch. "Turn on TV." Benjamin said loudly, and the TV shed in a bit of a bright light and then turned on, ying thest channel that it was on. "Web-Search ¡¯World of Magic First Trailer¡¯." The old man said next, and quickly, the disy changed and showed the search results, and Benjamin quickly made the television y the first result. For a little while, Benjamin just let the video y for a while, until the close-up frame of his face in his Demonic transformation appeared, and the old man stood right next to the television screen. "Dad, what¡¯s this..? That¡¯s you, right?" Tony asked confusedly as he looked at the TV, before Benjamin just nodded his head and closed his eyes. He was soon met with a slight burning sensation in his eyes, but that soon subsided when the change took effect. "It is." The old man said, as Tony managed to see two instances of the exact same pair of glowing, golden eyes in front of him. Well, Benjamin¡¯s might have been a light bit more pale inparison, but nheless, these were surely the same thing. Soon, when he noticed that Tony noticed what Benjamin wanted him to, the old man closed his eyes and disabled the effect again. "As you could just see, these things are something I acquired in the game." Benjamin said loudly, before he sat down on his armchair, motioning at the couch next to him to let Tony know to sit down on there. "Come, there¡¯s a lot we might need to speak about." --- "Dad, no way, that¡¯s just impossible..." Tony said confusedly, before the old man just nodded his head. "Of course it is. And so is the mere existence of the capsule. If you think about it, that alone is proof enough, isn¡¯t it?" "As I said, there¡¯s just no way... Magic? This just sounds ridiculous... Those are probably just some weird contact lenses, right?" Tony said as he stood up, seemingly getting quite angry right now, unsure whether Benjamin was ying a dumb prank, or if he was telling the truth. And then, Benjamin got an idea to show actual proof of this. He focused on his inner self, on his very existence, and on the mana that he saw he had inside of him when he looked down at himself with his mana-sightst time. It was close to impossible to actually move it around like this, and it caused him quite strong difort, and when he actually tried to push it out through his palm, he just noticed that it waspletely impossible. And so, Benjamin had to take to some more extreme means, slowly standing up to get to the kitchen. He pulled open the kitchen drawer and took out a knife, cing the handle into his mouth while Tony looked at him confused. "Dad, what are you..?" He asked, and Benjamin just bit down onto the knife handle and cut into his palm with the de. "Holy shjt, what the f.u.c.k are you doing?" Tony yelled out, immediately pulling the knife out of Benjamin¡¯s mouth before trying to grab a towel, but Benjamin quickly stopped him from pressing onto the wound and held his hand forward with his palm up. "Come on now, you¡¯re doing this all the time over there, you old geezer..." He muttered to himself, pressing his teeth together while concentrating on letting his mana out through the deep cut that he opened up in his skin. And blood was a good carrier of mana as well anyway, so that might have helped as well. Either way, soon enough, Benjamin heard the sound of metal hitting the floor and quickly looked at Tony, who dropped the knife in his hand out of confusion as he stared at the air in front of him, which was waving around in response to the little bit of mana that the old man let out of his body. He was feeling pretty dizzy after that little bit though, so he quickly stopped doing this and just started pressing the towel that Tony was holding against his palm with his fingers as if forming a fist around the cloth. "So? Believe me now? That right there was what mana does when in the air." The old man said in a clear voice, and Tony just kept staring at Benjamin¡¯s hand confusedly. "Then... Then everything you told me is the truth? I have siblings over there? Nephews and Nieces? Wait, but if you have that, then what about the kids? Do they have that ¡¯mana¡¯ thing now too? It made your eyes bleed, so what if-" "Don¡¯t worry, I think I¡¯m a bit of a special case. At least I hope so... I¡¯m going to let the others know toe here so I can check on their bodies and see if anything is wrong with them." Benjamin pointed out, and Tony raised his brows surprised. "The others? As in, the other ¡¯Originals¡¯ you told me about?" Tony asked, and the old man nodded his head. "Mhm. As far as I¡¯m currently aware, the five of us are the only ones that could have such a strong connection to that ce... We are the only ones that peaked, and we¡¯ve spent such a long time there... I think that¡¯s a condition to let this kind of thing happen." Benjamin said in a clear voice, "Well, maybe Samuel might be a bit affected as well. I don¡¯t know how long he spent there." The old man sighed, and Tony looked at him confused. "Samuel? Samuel Morgan? What does he have- Of course, he¡¯s the lead of that project... You think he did that all to you?" Tony asked quietly as he leaned against the kitchen counter, still trying to properly process all of this, and Benjamin nodded his head. "I do. He¡¯s the one in control of every single god of that world... Well, nearly every single god. I think a son of mine might be a pretty good actor... Either way, from the moment that I found out that something was amiss, I haven¡¯t been able to contact him. Not through official, nor unofficial means." Benjamin exined, and soon, Tony raised his head from staring at the floor and looked at his father. "Wait, did you just say that your son is a god?" Chapter 458 - Leap "Well, he¡¯s not really my ¡¯Son¡¯-son. He¡¯s a Dragon whose Egg I hatched, and then I raised him like a son before he transcended and became a god." Benjamin exined, "But it seems like I really did raise him well. He¡¯s a God of Law and Righteousness, so..." The old man pointed out, before he lightly raised his brows, while Tony just stayed silent to properlyprehend everything. "Actually, this doesn¡¯t make sense..." Benjamin muttered, and Tony slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, it doesn¡¯t..." "No, not ¡¯this¡¯ here... You see, there were five Golems over there, the ¡¯Great Golems¡¯ that I created, apparently using the souls of five friends of mine that died... And that seemed to have happened 100 Thousand years in the past... So how could it be that I treated those five so unfairly, while I treated Trygan like my son?" He muttered quietly, and Tony lightly scratched his cheek in response, "In what way did you treat them unfairly?" He asked his father, and the old man just quietly sighed. "Well, it seems like they all lived in different towns or viges, and after I ¡¯resurrected¡¯ them as Golems, I didn¡¯t allow them to ever go back there... And I think I might have generally just treated them like they¡¯re not people? That¡¯s what it sounded like, at least." Benjamin exined, and Tony looked at his father with a slight frown. "I mean, didn¡¯t you just want to protect them?" He suggested, and the old man just raised his brows in surprise. "Protect? What do you mean?" He asked, so Tony lightly crossed his arms in response. "Okay, so... First of all, it seems like even you don¡¯t know the whole story. Maybe there was just some other side to it that the five of them didn¡¯t know about, that you didn¡¯t want them to know? I mean, back then, Greg tried to contact us once, right? A couple of months before I actually joined him." Tony pointed out, and Benjamin just slowly nodded his head, prompting his son to continue. "We didn¡¯t know what kind of business he was in... And when he especially approached me because I was the youngest, you literally forbid me from ever going anywhere near where he wanted me to meet him. You pulled me into your car once and even had to deal with the police after that... And the reason you did that and didn¡¯t just let me go was that you knew it would ruin my life... Then I finally got away once, and just a year afterward I had more drugs in me than CVS, got my girlfriend pregnant, and was facing a Lifetime Jail sentence because the gang tried framing me for a murder..." Tony exined, "When you went over there, you already went through this all with me... So maybe you were especially protective? That¡¯s what you¡¯re like, after all..." Slowly, Benjamin nodded his head in response, "Maybe... But I can¡¯t know that yet. Maybe I really was just a really weird, horrible person? And when, or if, I remember my life then, what if I turn into that person again?" "Dad, seriously, don¡¯t worry. You¡¯re not the kind of person that can be cracked by time... No matter how insanely long it was." Tony said reassuredly, so Benjamin just smiled back at his son and then held his arm out to pull him into a hug, although Tony quickly stopped him and pointed at the blood-soaked towel he was holding. "Let¡¯s take care of that first, alright?" He suggested, so Benjamin slightly chuckled and nodded his head. "Let¡¯s do that." The old man replied, and then slowly pulled the towel away from his hand, looking down at the wound he had forgotten about. The deep cut that would have usually made him swear nonstop for the next century, that simply felt numb to him now. --- "Good morning, everyone." Eisen said with a smile on his face as he quickly stood up and stretched his body, looking at the others who were either currently in the process of waking up, or already wide awake. "Morning." Sky said, belonging to thetter category, and his sister smiled brightly at the old man as well, "Good morning!" She eximed, Eisen¡¯s mood slightly lifted already, and the old man quickly got to work preparing this morning¡¯s simple breakfast, and roughly an hourter, the group packed everything up and then continued on their way. Just a little while after they started moving, Sky walked up next to Eisen to ask him a question. "So... What kind of shortcut is it that we¡¯re going for?" The boy asked, and the old man just smiled and quickly handed him one of the lenses that let him see Eisen¡¯s visualization, before the old man himself quickly activated his elemental transformation in his eyes together with the special sight-transfer enchantment ced on them in this state, and then quickly formed a rough map of the area, before marking the regr route in red. "So, that¡¯s where we usually would have gone, right?" Eisen pointed out, and Sky slowly nodded his head. "Mhm, and we¡¯re on the t teaus to the left here, right?" Sky asked, so Eisen immediately smirked and nodded, "Exactly. You gave me the map in the first ce, so it makes sense you would know." The old manughed, and then marked a new route in green from where they were now. "And that¡¯s the shortcut we¡¯re taking." Eisen exined, and Sky just looked at him with a wry smile. "Err... you know that there¡¯s a ravine there?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile. "I do, yeah. But the gap in the spot we¡¯re going is just roughly, what, 100 Meters wide? I can jump that with my wings." "Yeah but we can¡¯t-" "Sky, you¡¯re a half-pixie, you weigh maybe half of what a human with your proportions would. I can carry you and Bree very, very easily. And I can jump that distance more than just once." The old manughed, and Sky ended up simply slowing down in response to what Eisen just said. "Do we... HAVE To do that?" He asked, and with a sigh, Eisen shook his head. "Well, there¡¯s three possibilities. One, we do it this way. Two, we go back and have to live with a full day¡¯s walk more than if we keep going here. Three, you find a story about something that can fly us to where we¡¯re going safely." Eisen pointed out, and Sky slightly looked down at his grimoire with a sigh. "Fine..." The Fey-Kin boy sighed, and Eisen just slightly smirked andughed, before he looked ahead of them, already seeing the slight peak that he would be jumping off of in the distance, as wel as the mountain beyond that peak that the path was continuing on. And once they got up there, Eisen swiftly packed Aulu and Cabarum both back into their spatial storage-boxes, and then he quickly increased his size as much as he could and activated his demonic transformation. "Alright, who¡¯sing first?" The old man asked as he was mentally nning out how he should properly do this tond safely, and everyone beside Sky immediately raised their hands. Well, except Kirisho, but she was inside of the ne that Eisen had, hopefully temporarily, handed off to Bree, so she would just end up tagging along. "Hmm, then I¡¯ll take the kids first, and then you guys, alright?" Eisen suggested as he looked at the two Fey-Kin siblings, and although Bree seemed slightly disappointed, Sky nodded his head both in nervosity and relief. "Thene on, you three." Eisen said with a smile as he leaned downward and scooped the three of them up in his arms, and then started pping his wings up and down to get the momentum going already. And while it didn¡¯t actually lift his body up, he still felt basically weightless right now, and then quickly started running toward the edge of the peak and jumped toward the other side of the ravine, continuosly trying to properly glide over there, before suddenly flipping his wings to stand vertical to stop his forward movement, and then dropped thest meter or so down to the ground, where he quickly set the three children down. "Alright, now be good and wait here for me, yeah?" Eisen asked of them, and they just quickly nodded their heads in response, before Eisen smiled at them and quickly jumped back toward where Sky, Bree and Kirisho were waiting for him. Quickly, he ran his arm through the straps of the backpack to have it safely on him, and then held his other arm downward toward the siblings to tell them to sit down on it, which they swiftly did. "Are you... Are you sure that this is really a good idea?" Sky asked, and Eisen just slightlyughed, "Of course it is, don¡¯t worry." Eisen said reassuredly, before he started running again and then quickly jumped away from the Peak, once more gliding to the other side of the ravine where the three monster children were already waiting. And while Sky pressed his fingers inbetween the gaps of Eisen¡¯s rock-like skin while he was jumping, Bree seemed to actually really enjoy this somehow, and just excitedly looked up at the old man once he set the two of them down. "That was so cool! I want wings like you as well!" She eximed, and Eisen raised his brows in response, "Hmm, you¡¯re a half-pixie... So maybe you can get them if you rank your pixie racial skill up some more?" The old man suggested, and Sky looked back at them after pressing his body against the wall with a terrified expression. "Oh please no... I really did not enjoy that..." The Fey-Kin boy sighed, "Why couldn¡¯t there just be a bridge there?!" He asked annoyedly, so Eisen just slightlyughed and ced his hand on top of the boy¡¯s head with a smile. "There¡¯s literal hordes of monsters on the other side there... Bridges would be a bit too dangerous, wouldn¡¯t they?" Eisen suggested, and Sky just slightly sighed as he nodded his head in response. "I guess? Let¡¯s just... Keep going now, alright? The Dragoness surely lives in a pretty t area, right? I mean, her body is surelyrge, so..." Sky muttered hopefully, and Eisen just smirked at the boy reassuredly. "Stop worrying this much, everything is going to be fine. Let¡¯s just keep going, and we¡¯ll find her soon enough. No need to try and figure anything out before we even get there. And you won¡¯t fall either, we¡¯re all here and can make sure of that." Eisen said, finally deactivating his transformations as he handed Bree her backpack back. With a slight sigh, Sky just nodded his head in response, "Let¡¯s hope so..." Chapter 459 - Ancient Silver Dragoness "Urgh... I still feel super weird right now..." Sky muttered quietly as he looked toward the edge of the path, which led straight down into the deep gorge below the group, and Eisen just slowly ced his hand on top of the boy¡¯s head and smiled at him. "Don¡¯t worry, Sky. I already told you, nothing will happen to you. And on top of that, we¡¯re nearly there, so just hold out a little longer." The old man exined, and Sky slowly nodded his head in response and tried his best to just keep looking at the path in front of him. Usually, the Fey-Kin was reading while he was walking, but this time around he didn¡¯t even feel close to confident enough to do that... Considering that one wrong step may as well mean his eternal demise. In the meantime, while Sky was contemting what he needed to do to best stay alive as long as possible, Eisen was looking around to see if he could already notice any clues to where the entrance to the ce the Silver Dragoness Marcear settled down at was. He did have the map right in front of him, but it was still a little tough to properly figure everything out, especially because the terrain here was so confusing and interwoven. Soon enough, however, the old man noticed something... weird. It felt like he had seen this exact sight sometime before, so what exactly was going on? They walked through something like a tunnel, because that was the only path out, and then they followed the path at the end of the tunnel again... "Whoa! Look Eisen, another one! Do you think a monster dug these?" Bree asked curiously as she looked up at the old man, and Eisen just slowly shook his head in response as he sighed deeply, staring at the entrance of the tunnel carved into the side of the mountain. "Not really, I don¡¯t think so. Just a second..." Eisen said with a bit of a frown as he activated his Truth-Seeing Eyes with his Ability to see through lies, and as such could quickly see that something was amiss. The whole tunnel itself seemed to be something like a spell, and it most likely just led them to a part of the path they were on before. And while this tunnel was fake, there was a part that was simply hidden. Right next to the tunnel, the path continued, a part of the mountain wall was just made invisible so that you wouldn¡¯t normally be able to notice. "How bothersome..." The old man sighed and swiftly took a step forward onto the spot where the invisible path was, and he immediately felt resistance underneath his foot, although there was something else he noticed more. "Eisen! What are you doing?!" Sky asked as he tried to grasp the old man¡¯s arm, because to him, it looked like he simply was about to take a walk off the edge. With a wry smile, Eisen started to chuckle and moved his fingers through his beard as he shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, Sky." The old man said and pushed his weight on the foot that was on steep, invisible path and grabbed the wall next to him for bnce as he turned around with both his feet on the ground, making it seem as if he was floating in the air. "H-Huh?" Sky muttered confused as he took a closer look at Eisen, before he himself justughed quietly and took out his staff, putting ayer of his element onto the invisible path. "Probably another part of the Dragon¡¯s Test. Just step on the rock I made, it¡¯s ced on the real path." The old man said reassuredly, trying to turn the rock into steps so that they could climb it more easily, and the others slowly nodded before following the old man. And it didn¡¯t take that long for them until they managed to find the end of the invisible path, just roughly five minutes by foot, and the path continued on normally like that. "Make sure you pay attention to your surroundings, everyone." Eisen suggested, "That probably wasn¡¯t thest test that Marcear prepared here. But for the most part... It seems to be rted to trickery and magic, both of which I can see through." He exined, and just like he thought, soon enough they were met with something else that was quite troublesome. At arger, tter area that was seemingly artificially excavated to allow for some rest while ascending the mountain, there was a half-dead travelerying on the ground, his blood covering nearly the whole area. In his hand, he was holding a map simr to the one that Eisen already had, and once the old man stepped up in front of the traveler, he slowly looked up at him and quietly grumbled. "P-Please, h-help me..! I wa-" "Yeah, you can¡¯t trick me, Marcear. I can see this is just an object disguised as a person through magic... Hmm, seems like an explosive... You want to blow us up if we do something to this guy?" "I-I don¡¯t know what you are talking about... I came here t-to find honor and treasure an-and ended up pursued by a mon-monstrosity..." With a deep sigh, Eisen shook his head and picked the figure in front of him up by the cor. It seemed like a pretty intense and high-tier illusion. "Got it... And what is the reason behind this all? If we don¡¯t go pursue the monstrosity immediately, we¡¯ll end up dead?" Eisen asked, and the fake traveler stared the old man in the eyespletely baffled at what he was seeing. "How in the heavens- You received those from that damned Aylrentyrth, did you not? Fine, you can continue on to meet me, you have already proven your worth..." The fake traveler said as it just disappeared, before a small, round, pitch ck bomb appeared in its stead. It looked like one of those ssic cartoon-bombs, really. With a slight sigh, Eisen chose to pick it up and for the rest of the way up inspected it. When he stepped forward to continue on moving, he slowly turned around toward the others who were looking at him rather surprised, or maybe ¡¯astonished¡¯ would be a better word, and the old man just smiled at them. "Are you alling? Seems like the rest of the way will be rather easy and straightforward." Eisen pointed out, and just like he thought, they were practically allowed to go up the mountain in a straight path without any more interruptions or tricks being yed on them. And soon enough, they found themselves in front of arge cave entrance that Eisen couldn¡¯t help but just smile at. "Oh, this looks just like Ailren¡¯s cave..." The old man muttered quietly, and before he knew it, from inside of the cave a loud voice yelled out. While it was rtively deep, it was still pretty feminine and even a bit melodic, if Eisen had to be honest. It simply sounded like an older woman¡¯s voice, really. "Don¡¯t you dare say that name in my home!" That voice yelled out as with heavy steps, arge Dragon stepped out of the cave. Compared to Ailren and Bol, this one was much smaller and slimmer, but it was obvious that this was the Ancient Silver Dragon that Eisen was looking for right now, so with a bright smile, the old man just smiled at the figure. "Sorry about that. Marcear, I assume?" Eisen asked as he increased his size to the maximum that he could to at least somewhat bring him closer to her eye-level, although she could still quite easily re down at him. "Such I am, yes. So you are a man that has passed that useless fool¡¯s trial?" Marcear asked with a stern expression, while Eisen slowly turned toward Bree and winked at her, the signal to make her bring out the small box where Eisen ced a rather special item. "I have, yes. And I have to admit, his methods were a bit... rough, for my liking, but in the end I can¡¯tin too much. He gave me a rather nice ability, after all. I also passed Bolremgar¡¯s trial." Eisen exined with smile, and Marcear scoffed in response at what Eisen was saying. "Don¡¯t think too highly of yourself just by passing two fools¡¯ trials. You were able to see through my Magic by sheer luck, so-" "Sorry to interrupt you, but I would actually like to get this over with rather quickly, so it would be kind of you to stop acting so high-and-mighty in front of me, alright?" Eisen said with a smile as he was handed the box by Bree, and just when he could see that Marcear was growing rather angry, he opened the box up and pulled Trygan¡¯s Scale out of it. "This is one of your King¡¯s Scales that he has gifted me for a single reason. My name is Eisen, I am the first that peaked, and as such raised Trygan the Crystal Dragon King as my son. I am many, many, many times older than you, and if you were speaking to the me from a few months ago, you would be trembling in fear. So if you please, just give me your trial." The old man suggested with a bright smile on his face, and Marcear stared deeply at the scale in front of her, before she immediately transformed her body into a humanoid one. She was simply an old woman like this, although one that kept her body in shape quite well. She was wearing a witch¡¯s hat and had long silver hair, as well as silver robes on her body. She quickly hurried over toward Eisen and bowed forward. "Sorry for my impudence... That truly is my King¡¯s scale..." She said quietly and then stood up straight again. "But... Do you truly need to take my trial, if that is so?" Marcear asked confusedly, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "Yes, actually. All my experience was robbed of me a few months ago, so now I have to rise to strength anew, and right now, I am traveling through this continent to meet five different Ancient Dragons to be a true Champion." Eisen exined, so the Silver Dragoness slowly nodded her head in response, nervously looking at the scale that Eisen was still holding up. "Th-Then shall we enter the cave? The Trial will be held there..." She exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head as he shrunk his body back down and ced the scale back into the box it was in before, before the group was quickly brought into the cave. Chapter 460 - Unwrap "Now then, what exactly is going to be my trial this time around?" Eisen asked curiously, and Marcear the Silver Dragoness slowly turned toward him with a light smile as she tried to properly gather her thoughts about what was just revealed to her. "Originally, it would have been a trial to make you search for the truth, a riddle of sort once more. This cave is filled with quite a lot of natural mana, you see? And the type of mana is one of mystery and deception, so it is the perfect ce for such a trial. But as I am aware that such things seem to be quite useless against you now, with those damned golden eyes, I will give you an alternate trial... One that is more rted to my Gift." She exined with a light smile on his face as she led the group through the cave system, and Eisen raised his brows curiously. "And what is your gift, if I¡¯m allowed to ask?" The old man inquired, and the Dragoness slowly turned back around and smirked at him, "Let¡¯s keep that a bit of a secret for now. Although it shouldn¡¯t be too tough to guess what it is when you receive my trial, but let¡¯s see about that." Marcear replied, so Eisen nodded his head with a smile, before the Dragoness led the group into arge, empty cavern, and then stood in the center of the space. "Please, it would be good for you to stand back and stay there, if possible. I will require the space of this whole room to create the trial." She exined, so Eisen nodded his head and then just leaned against the wall, summoning his staff to create a ce where the others could sit down for now. They¡¯ve all been walking for quite a while, after all. Over the next little while, roughly two hours to be exact, Marcear created numerous Magic Circles all around the room,yering them and putting them intobinations that Eisen thought to be insane and practically impossible if you weren¡¯t one of the most skilled Sorcerers there were in this world. Although, for the most part, Eisen really tried his best not to pay attention to what she was doing. The test was most likely rted to reading these Magic Circles, so Eisen didn¡¯t want to needlessly cheat by reading and decyphering them before the trial even started. Soon after she was done, Marcear returned to her Humanoid form and then walked back up to Eisen with her hands interlocked behind her back. "Now, everything is ready. But be aware, just because I know you are somehow rted to our King, although I am somewhat doubtful about whether your identity as the first that reached the top of this world is truthful, this does not mean that this trial is any less dangerous than it would be if you were anyone else." Marcear exined and then slowly turned around, to the giant array of Magic Circles behind her, with many of them simply floating in the air, connected to the others. "Your trial is to unwrap these Magic Circles. I am not sure if you are aware, but by infusing a Magic Circle not created by yourself with your own mana, you can slowly take it apart as long as you know the right method. Basically, you are taking control of the Magic." Marcear exined, "It would usually be impossible to do, as you can only do such a thing with a finished magic circle, and those would be activated immediately in any other situation... But in this case, that is the trial you have to pass." The Dragoness exined to Eisen, before a notification popped up in front of him. [New Quest - Ancient Silver Dragoness¡¯ Trial] [Description] The Ancient Silver Dragoness Marcear has given you a personalized trial to be her champion. Correctly unwrap the theplex array of Magic Circles to pass, or you will face a heavy bacsh. [Reward] Title, Marcear¡¯s Gift [Failure] You will not be able to take any more of the Dragons¡¯ Trials [Time-Limit] 24 Hours "Oh?" Eisen asked surprised as he read through the Quest notification, slowly looking at Marcear with a smile. "You really want to give me 24 Hours for this?" Eisen asked, slowly looking over at the Magic Circle array, trying to figure out if that was a realistic amount of time or not. In response, the Dragoness simply nodded her head. "I would say a full day may even be too little time. But for someone as great as you im to be, it must be achievable, is that not so?" Marcear asked, before Eisen just slowly grinned in response and nodded his head. "Sure, I¡¯ll just have to try my best then, isn¡¯t that right?" Eisen answered with a slightugh, and swiftly stepped up to the Magic Circle array covering nearly the whole space of the room, starting to read the runes that were written in them, just walking around the room to see if there were any differences between them. And just a couple of minutes or soter, he justughed loudly. "Oh, okay, so most of these won¡¯t even have a direct effect?" The old man asked with a light smile and turned around toward Marcear, who was more than just surprised. "You found that out this quickly..? Were you not a craftsman?" She asked, and Eisen nodded his head in response. "Mhm, so what? I¡¯m good atprehending what I see, it¡¯s a big reason as to why I even got this skilled." Eisen pointed out, and then quickly stood in front of any random one of these magic circles. In the end, while they all looked vastly different with numerous different processes and shapes to each and every one of them, they all had the same functionality. They were each connected to a number of other Magic Circles and had something like an ¡¯order¡¯ to them. The order at which the connected magic circles had to be deactivated, so that the current Magic Circle itself could be safely ¡¯unwrapped¡¯. And because each connected Magic Circle had numerous other connections to them, it really was ratherplicated to choose the right order for things, because some magic circles were needed as unlock-conditions for multiple different magic circles, meaning that there was something like a specific order to each and every one of these magic circles, all leading down to a single one that had to be unwrapped first, and that was actually rather tough to find... Or at least it would be, if Eisen didn¡¯t have his Visualization that helped him map all of this out in a way that let him deduce the order very easily. And the skill itself even supported that deduction, because it took care of some parts that Eisen marked on its own, so the old man was really quite happy about that. "Hmm... I see... So to unlock the firstyer, it¡¯s going to have to start... here." The old man muttered quietly as he ced his hand onto the first Magic Circle and pushed his mana inside, slowly starting to unwrap it. It was surprisingly tough to do so... But in the end, as long as Eisen could properly understand the magic circle first, he could basically use his own mana to split it up into its simplest parts and then take those parts away from mostplex to simplest. And when Eisen finished that and opened his eyes, he saw that the Magic Circle had really disappeared. This seemed to be a basic ability of Sorcery, so this would probably help Eisen level that skill up a fair bit now... "Hmm, does Xenia know about this?" Eisen wondered curiously as he quickly rushed around the Magic Circle array and then started unwrapping the second magic circle. And then the third, the fourth, and even the fifth. With each of them, the magic circle became moreplicated to unwrap, even if they didn¡¯t necessarily look much worse than the others from the outside. But when actually trying to do all of this, it was rather annoying. "Haah... Five out of 132..." The old man sighed slightly, and quickly continued on unwrapping magic circle after magic circle, the giant array slowly getting smaller and smaller as the first ¡¯Layer¡¯ was properly being taken apart at a speed that Marcear couldn¡¯t reallyprehend. Well, of course she would have been able to solve something like this within an hour at most, but this man here was merely a little over level 200..! And he didn¡¯t even have a Mage-Type upation, so this was honestly just insane and something that shouldn¡¯t normally be possible. "Is he truly..?" She muttered quietly, slowly starting to actually believe what she was told before, and next to her, Caria, Melissa and Sal quickly started to chuckle. "Of course, of course! What do you expect from him? He¡¯s really awesome, isn¡¯t he?" Caria pointed out excitedly, and both Sal and Melissa nodded their heads in response, before Marcear took a closer look at these three children. "Could you three possibly be... Monsters..? Hmm, from what I can tell, you should be from the Myconid, Antoph, and Arachnid families..." Marcear asked as she took a closer look at them, while the three monster children just nodded their heads in response. That was right, after all. "Did you gain abilities to transform yourself into a humanoid form, much like us Dragons?" Marcear asked curiously, but now, they shook their heads. "Nope, these are just our bodies. Evolved to look this way." Sal exined, before Marcear raised her brows surprised. "Myconids are humanoid in nature, so it may not be too surprising to see a high-ranking one in such a form... But you two are not meant to look like this in the slightest, are you? And your ranks are quite... low, at leastpared to what I mean with ¡¯high-ranking¡¯." Marcear muttered quietly, and Melissa just smiled brightly. "Hehe, all because of Eisen!" She eximed, and Marcear slowly nodded her head as she looked at the old man who was unwrapping all of these Magic Circles as easily as if they were balls of yarn, "Is that so..?" She asked, utterly astonished, while Eisen himself just continued working on the task of this trial. Over the next few hours, all of this was just really repetitive business, and soon Eisen managed to get rid of thest, insanelyplex, magic circle of the firstyer. Well, it was the firstyer of a total of three, so it wasn¡¯t necessarily that big a deal just yet. While cracking his knuckles, Eisen started to make his way around this newyer to see if there were any major differences, and then soon saw that exactly that was the case. "Really? Now I will be attacked while I unwrap them?" The old man asked with a wry smile, and Marcear slowly chuckled. "Of course. It isn¡¯t impossible to imnt defenses into a Magic circle like that. You¡¯ve done well so far, so keep doing your best." She said, so Eisen slowly sighed and nodded his head as he started to try and read all of these magic circles to try and figure the system of thisyer out properly. Chapter 461 - Champion III Just as Eisen had expected, whenever he tried to unwrap one of the Magic circles of the secondyer, he was attacked in some way by the Magic Circle itself. Usually it was just something generic like mes that shot out against him, or lightning that was meant to stun him, but there were also the asional debuffs there that he had to somehow deal with. In the end it wasn¡¯t that big a deal, considering that he could very easily avoid all of the attacks by just cing a Mana Double there instead of himself. That meant that it took a bit longer to actually unwrap the Magic Circles, but it was still easier than doing so while fending off such bothersome attacks. Other than that, the system was really mostly the same, and Eisen had to figure out the right order to properly get rid of all of the Magic Circles, which wasn¡¯t that hard considering that he already got the hang of that during the firstyer. And so, the secondyer broke downpletely just around three hourster, and Eisen was met with thest of theyers. This one here seemed a bit moreplex than the other two, however. This time, he had to seemingly do something else to properly unwrap everything, because every single one of the Magic Circles was ¡¯Shattered¡¯ in a way that it still functioned. That meant that if a magic circle was split up into two pieces, then those pieces could be onpletely opposite sides of the room. The Magic Circle wouldn¡¯t be able to cause an effect in that case, but these magic circles didn¡¯t have an effect anyway. They had the ¡¯defensive¡¯ parts that still worked even now, and they could still send on a signal that Eisen unwrapped the Magic Circles in the wrong order. The most annoying part about that was that he had to somehow pull the different pieces along the capsule-shaped surface they were ced on that was containing thest part of the trial. Because he could only unwrap the magic circles if the Magic Circle was currently put together... But that caused another problem. Because the ¡¯effect¡¯ of the Magic Circles was a ¡¯Timer¡¯. If Eisen didn¡¯t unwrap them quickly enough, they would still send the ¡¯failed¡¯ signal along to the others and the whole thing would copse and probably blow up around him. "How annoying..." The old man muttered quietly as he turned around toward Marcear with a wry smile, "Are you sure you guys aren¡¯t the evil ones? Because this here seems really bad..." Eisen sighed as he slightlyughed and went around theyer of Magic Circles while mentally marking them to figure out the proper order as quickly as he could. "Hmm... I see, then I need to first..." Eisen whispered, "And then pull that there, and..." Slowly, Eisen began to be deeply absorbed in his thoughts before slowly nodding his head in satisfaction, and then ced his hand in front of a piece of a magic circle, quickly encapsuling it with his mana to make it that he could move it around without activating anything. And just like that, the old man started putting the first Magic Circle together and immediately started trying to unwrap it with the help of his Mana Double while frozen spikes shot out from certain parts of the Magic Circle to attack Eisen. "Son of a..." Eisen grumbled as he dodged one of the spikes, albeit just barely, and continued unwrapping the Magic Circle. And so, the old man started to slowly unlock the thirdyer of these Magic Circles, moving different parts of them around as if to simply solve numerous small puzzles. But in the end, the rest was once more the same as the others, he was just under a bit more pressure while unwrapping each Magic Circle, that¡¯s it. Soon, maybe five hourster, Eisen also managed to make the thirdyerpletely shatter, revealing the veryst part of the trial. The moment that the thirdyer broke open, numerous three-dimensional Magic Circles started spreading throughout the room, and from what Eisen could tell on first nce, most of them were ¡¯shattered¡¯ magic circles as well. But something seemed different about it this time... Slowly, Eisen started mentally putting all of the different pieces together, and then had a collection of numerous different three-dimensional shapes in front of him, ranging from pyramids to tubes. And weirdly enough, it seemed like not even theserge, plete¡¯ shapes were actually properly finished Magic Circles, and could then be put together again afterward. And when Eisen did that with his Visualization, he was surprised to see what this ended up as in the end, although it was a rather pleasant sort of surprise, even if he felt a little bit confused behind the reasoning for an magic circle like thise. With his pearly white teeth showing due to the big, broad grin on his face, Eisen just got to work and tried his best to somehow move the different parts of therge Magic Circle together properly, and it seemed like especially Marcear was surprised at the order that Eisen was putting everything together through. "How does he know what it is supposed to be already?" She asked herself confusedly as she watched the old man work in an unusual manner. Instead of first putting the different parts of the three-dimensional Magic Circle together in the obvious order and then moving thoserge pieces around, he just started immediately adding the three-dimensional Magic Circles into the final shape they were supposed to take. And that shape was that of a Workshop. Including Forge, Anvil, oil-barrel, everything that was needed, really. In the end, it wasn¡¯t just a smithy, though, it seemed like there were other types of workstations around as well. And that workshop filled out practically the whole room, making use of the extra parts of the magic circles hidden between the rocks on the ground and ceiling that appeared after Eisen broke the thirdyer. "And that in such a time..." Marcear muttered quietly to herself. Eisen had only spent maybe 12 hours working on this trial so far, and he was already nearly done with it. Or rather, he was done with it, because when he the Dragoness was thinking just that, thest piece was ced and Eisen started to spread his mana around therge three-dimensional magic circle to start unwrapping it, although he was immediately stopped by the Ancient Silver Dragoness as he tried to do so. "Wait, wait, wait!" She eximed, and Eisen turned around toward her surprised. "Hm? Did I do something wrong?" He asked, and Marcear slowly shook her head in response. "No... Not at all... You just finished your trial... Congrattions..." She said quietly, and the old man raised his brows as some notifications appeared in front of him. [Quest Completed - Ancient Silver Dragoness¡¯ Trial] [Description] The Ancient Silver Dragoness Marcear has given you a personalized trial to be her champion. Correctly unwrap the theplex array of Magic Circles to pass, or you will face a heavy bacsh. [Reward] Title, Marcear¡¯s Gift [Failure] You will not be able to take any more of the Dragons¡¯ Trials [Time-Limit] 24 Hours [You have finished the trial of the Ancient Silver Dragoness Marcear and have be her Champion] [Title became ] "Already..? But isn¡¯t the Magic Circle still here?" Eisen asked confusedly, and Marcear slowly nodded her head. "Yes, but you aren¡¯t supposed to unwrap this one... Sorry, this is maybe the first time that I have given this test to someone, so I didn¡¯t fully think about my wording perfectly. This here is part of the demonstration of the Gift I am giving you." Marcear exined quite clearly, and Eisen raised his brows in surprise as he looked around the Magic Circle curiously, trying to figure out what it does. "Oh... So basically the area that the Magic Circles fill out can actually be turned into a solid material? Meaning that this can be a proper Workshop?" Eisen asked, and Marcear slowly nodded her head in response. "That is so, yes. And the reason for that is that you will be learning a new method of craftsmanship today. You seemed to be specialized in Smithing, so that is the most prominent part of this Magic Circle." Marcear exined, and with a smile, Eisen just shook his head. "Sorry, I¡¯m not actually specialized in smithing." The old man pointed out, and Marcear raised her brows surprised. "What do you mean? That is a cksmith¡¯s outfit you¡¯re wearing, and a hammer on your waist, is that not so?" She pointed out, and with a quietugh, the old man picked the hammer up and quickly pushed his finger into one of the gaps in the hammer-head to make it so that the parts could be moved, before he quickly turned the hammer into a pickaxe. Then he simply popped therge-tool-head off to reveal the knife, and then the chisel underneath. "I¡¯m not specialized in any field of craftsmanship." Eisen pointed out, before he thought about what he just said and shook his head, "Sorry, rather, I¡¯m specialized in every field of craftsmanship... That should fit it more closely." "Is... Is that so?" Marcear asked slowly, "Are you truly the first of those that reached the peak?" Marcear asked nervously, and Eisen nodded his head with a sigh. "Yes, or at least I was. I¡¯m missing the vast majority of my memories from back then, and I¡¯m not even close to having a fraction of my old power." Eisen pointed out, and Marcear slowly nodded her head. "I see... Then please, excuse my for my rudeness before." The Ancient Dragoness said, although she still didn¡¯t seem to be particrly nervous around Eisen after hearing this. It was understandable, really, neither Aylrentyrth nor Bolremgar really treated him any differently, so there was no reason to expect it from Marcear. "Ehem, now then, let¡¯s begin, shall we? There are still other ces to work beside a Smithy." She exined in a clear voice as she stepped up to what seemed to be the activation point for the Magic Circle and then simply did what one would do with that activation point. Use it to activate the extremelyplicated Magic Circle. And before Eisen knew it, the whole room had changed immensely, and it had basically be the type of perfect, seamless clean Workshop that Eisen usually preferred and loved to work in. With an excited smile, he looked around and then cracked his knuckles. "Alright, then tell me. What is your Gift, and what Materials are we using?" Eisen asked curiously, and before he knew it, Marcear held her palm upward and instantly created a small Magic Circle that had some mes floating above it. "The Material we are using is this. And my Gift is the ability to do that." Chapter 462 - Magic Craftsmanship Carefully, Marcear ced her hand on the old man¡¯s chest, before Eisen started to feel a warm energy enter his body as a notification appeared in front of him. [Magic Craftsmanship Skill Learned] "Oh? Magic Craftsmanship..?" Eisen muttered quietly before he raised his brows in response to what he just read, before smirking slightly. "So basically the ability to turn actual magic into items?" The old man asked, and Marcear nodded her head in response. "Quite exactly, yes. The trial I had you go through was to see if you truly had a deep enough understanding of magic to work with it in this manner, and if you already had experience to control and manipte it in normal manners." The Dragoness exined before Eisen just slightly smirked in response. "Should¡¯vee here earlier. It sounds interesting, really. Alright, tell me what I need to do." The old man suggested, and Marcear pushed her hand forward toward the table standing next to her and seemed to push her mana out of it, creating four different small blocks of crystalized mana. "It is quite basic. Mana carries intent, so depending on your intent, it will behave differently. If you wish to forge it, it will act like metal. If you wish to turn it into clothes, it will act like cloth. These here should be enough to let you try out different categories already. Once mana starts to crystalize, it should be easy to work with, although it is also possible with it in its regr form." The Dragoness exined, so Eisen smiled brightly as he grabbed the first of the blocks of crystalized mana. It probably wouldn¡¯t be often that he could make something using a Dragon¡¯s Mana, so he should try his best. "I¡¯m guessing for now I can only work with pure Mana?" Eisen said as he carried the crystalized mana over to the forge, and Marcear slowly nodded her head. "Yes, that should be the limit of your current Skill." She exined, so Eisen cracked his knuckles and kept smiling as he looked at the crystalized mana. "Steel." He said, and then threw the crystalized mana into the forge while Marcear looked at him surprised. "Did you already assign how it should act to it?" She asked, so Eisen nodded his head, although it caused him a little bit of a headache thinking about it. "Oh, yeah... The old Eisen probably knew how to do this, maybe the action is ingrained in me?" The old man figured, and it wasn¡¯t a lie either. He just instinctively did it, so that was most likely the case. Soon enough, it seemed like the crystalized mana had heated up enough, even if its color didn¡¯t change much. It had something like the glow of hot metal, anyway. The base color of the mana was more like silver, and it practically seemed like it was the regr metal when Eisen looked at it before. It was the mana of a Silver Dragon, after all. But, it now acted like steel, at least simr to it, so this felt a bit weird to work with for the old man just looking at it. Either way, Eisen then just grabbed his multitool and set it properly into its hammer-state before starting to forge the crystalized mana into shape. There wasn¡¯t necessarily a lot of it, so Eisen couldn¡¯t make some amazing high-tier item, which was to be expected considering that his new skill was at Rank 0 right now anyway. So for now, the old man just wanted to make an item that could make use of multiple different materials, and ended up choosing a simple Dagger for that. He could use Metal for the de, wood for the handle, leather to wrap the handle, and gems for enchantments or decoration. The crystalized mana was a little awkward to work with. Sure, it acted like metal and could be bent and dented into the right shape, and it even felt weirdly like metal when Eisen touched it, but it was clear the moment that Eisen started working with it that it absolutely wasn¡¯t metal. It just felt weirdly artificial, somehow. Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure what kind of benefit Magic Crafting had, but he hoped that it was worth it. If not, he wouldn¡¯t really be using this skill much, and that would just be a shame. Soon enough, the old man managed to finished the metal part of the dagger and then quickly got started with grinding an edge onto it, and it even gave off the regr sparks Eisen was used to when he was doing it. And then, once the de was done, he grabbed the next piece of crystalized mana and looked down at it. "Oak." He said, and immediately the Silver-Colored and -Textured mana started to feel a little more like wood in Eisen¡¯s hand, even if not really. Especially that part was pretty weird as well. Swiftly, the old man changed his Multitool to its Knife-State and started to carve into the Crystalized mana, quickly carving it into the proper shape of a handle. This didn¡¯t really take that long, so Eisen could swiftly ce it onto the de. Luckily he didn¡¯t need any glue or something, since the pieces just connected with each other once Eisen ¡¯willed¡¯ them to. Then, he grabbed the next piece of crystalized mana and simply used transmutation to press it t, into the right thickness, and then slightly sighed to himself as he muttered, "Cow¡¯s Leather", and then used his knife to cut through it to turn it into a single long strip that he wrapped around the handle of the Mana-Dagger, properly making sure that it stayed attached. And then, for thest part of Crystalized mana, Eisen didn¡¯t have to ¡¯assign¡¯ it anything, since it was already a crystal-structure, and instead just used transmutation to grab a chunk off of it and then tried to carve it into shape using the knife by covering the edge with a thinyer of his own crystalized mana to use transmutation properly. Then, Eisen simply pressed the gem into the small spot at the bottom of the handle and pulled out one of the small needles that he had inside of the Multitool to carve an enchantment into the nearly-finished mana-de. It was basically just something like an enchantment meant to increase the speed and cutting strength of everything, so nothing all too special. "Alright then. It¡¯s done." Eisen said with an unsure expression. It wasn¡¯t bad working with the mana, it just felt ¡¯wrong¡¯ to him, at least a little bit, so he wasn¡¯t sure if this item was really that great. [Silver Dragon¡¯s Mana-Dagger] [Rank - 0][Quality - Perfect] [Description] A Dagger entirely made of mana created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. The Mana usedes from an Ancient Silver Dragon. It is a spell in the shape of a Weapon meant for high speeds. "Hmm... A Spell in the Shape of a Weapon?" Eisen asked with his brow raised and turned toward Marcear, who just nodded her head slowly, astounded by the speed at which the old man created this piece. "Ah... Yes, that is the nature of this skill... It is a spell, but at the same time it isn¡¯t. There are many opponents that are immune to physical attacks, but with a weapon created like this, even they will be able to cause damage. And due to the nature, you can use it to closely interact with mana." She exined, and Eisen looked at the Dagger with a bit of a grumble. "Is that it?" He asked disappointedly. Sure, it was a nice item, but it wasn¡¯t anything special. The only real use it had was in very, very specific situations, so having a whole skill for it seemed a bit... disappointing. "Hm?" Marcear asked surprised, not having expected the old man¡¯s response to the skill, "I think it may be hard to truly grasp it like this, but..." Marcear pointed out and then slowly raised her hand, creating the same small me spell as before. "Try cutting through this fire." She suggested, and Eisen slightly sighed and figuredd it couldn¡¯t hurt to try. Carefully, he ran the dagger through the mes and they quite literally split up for a moment, and the upper half of the mes simply rose up higher and then disappeared, while the lower half stayed there with a t upper surface. It looked pretty unusual, but at the same time was enough to make Eisen feel a little more excited. "You need to understand, such a weapon is a spell, as I said. It interacts with magic in a different manner to regr, physical items. And of course, this here is simply pure mana, and your skill is at the lowest rank. If you had made this daggerter on with a higher rank, it would have surely taken on part of my nature. And if youter use your ability to make the same weapon out of me magic, it will be a weapon of wieldable mes. Something that will give a new perspective to mages, because it will allow them to use their mental prowess to their physical advantage. After all, a Spell grows stronger depending on who the user of that spell is." Marcear exined, so slowly, Eisen became more and more impressed with the possibilities of this skill. It would definitely open up a lot more possibilities if he learned to properly make use of it, both for him, and for those that received these tools or weapons. "Interesting... Xenia is going to be excited hearing about this." Eisen muttered to himself as he looked down at the dagger in his hand. It was slightly translucent, and seemed weirdly-ss like. Basically, everything about this item was weird, that¡¯s all there was to it... And as Eisen was looking down at the dagger, he noticed something else that was going on in front of him, which was that the Ancient Silver Dragoness turned back into her Dragon form and was currently pushing a lot of mana out of her body, which amalgamated right in front of her into a small point. It took a whole few minutes before she stopped exhaustedly and handed the product of this work to the old man, who was now holding arge, heavilypressed mass of crystalized mana the size of the old man¡¯s head in his arms, and it was incredibly heavy, meaning that this must have more mana than Eisen could imagine. "Erm... What¡¯s this?" The old man asked, and Marcear looked down at him with a light smile, "A Small gift for you, for passing this trial so swiftly." She exined, so Eisen smiled up at her, happy that he could have something to make a great item with once his skill level rose a bit more, although there was something else that he also wanted to request. "Thanks, but... Could I possibly also get one of your scales?" Chapter 463 - Gliding Through "One of my scales?" Marcear replied before Eisen simply nodded his head. "Yes, if possible. I am currently working together with the others that peaked in the past to unlock something, and to me it seemed like I might require Trygan¡¯s Scale to do that. That¡¯s what it seemed like he was hinting at when he gave it to me, at least. So I just want to make sure and try to get Scales from different Dragons, just in case I end up needing them." Eisen exined, so Marcear raised her brows in response and then just sighed as she transformed back into her Dragon form, and then pushed one of her ws underneath one of her scales, simply popping it off of her shoulder. "Try not to lose it... The only reason I am giving this to you is that our King did as well. Now, the trial is over. Those children don¡¯t seem to be a good fit for my gift, so giving them a trial is out of the question." Marcear exined as she looked over toward the others, who were currently sleeping off the tiredness they gained during their trip here, and Eisen just slightly smiled at them. "I get it, we¡¯ll be on our way. We have to get back to Melroe soon anyway." Eisen pointed out as he turned back to Marcear, and she soon smirked back at the old man. "For that, I think I can be of a little help. It will not lead you directly there, but I have hidden away a secret passageway that leads to the foot of the mountain. It should be just a day¡¯s walk to Melroe once you get down there." Marcear exined, so Eisen raised his brows. "Really? That would be really helpful, actually, thank you." The old man said with a smile, and Marcear simply chuckled as she made her way over toward arge rock in a corner of the room and pulled it away with raw strength instead of magic. The loud sounds this produced even ended up waking the others, so they walked up behind the old man as he looked down the steep tunnel in front of them. "Hmm, is it like this all the way down?" The old man asked, as it seemed rather tiring to walk down this path, because it was too steep to actually walk on and you practically had to climb, and Marcear slowly nodded her head. "So it is, yes." She exined, and Eisen sighed lightly as he took a closer look and then just sighed. "Well, nothing we can really do about it, then." The old man said, before he got a little bit of an idea, and quickly increased his size to the maximum that he could and at the same time activated his demonic transformation, which came to a bit of a surprise to Marcear. "Oh, I was not quite aware that you were capable of such... change." She pointed out, and Eisen just lightly smirked, "It would be weirder if you expected it, wouldn¡¯t it?" He replied as he sat at the edge of the steep tunnel and looked at the others. "Alright, now everyone, please take a seat on myp or arms." The old man told them, and they simply did so without an actual moment¡¯s hesitation, although Marcear herself was rather confused, before she watched as Eisen¡¯s body became covered in mes, even more than were already covering him. "Is it too hot for you guys?" The old man asked, the tone of his voice slightly raised through the transformation, although he quickly got confirmation from the others that they were fine, and he then looked down at Sal. "Can you bind everyone to me, Sal? Caria, you please with some vines as well, if possible. Don¡¯t want anyone to fall off." "Wait, you don¡¯t mean to-" Marcear muttered quietly, and Eisen just looked at her with a wink as he looked at the tunnel in front of him, "I do. Thanks for the Scale and Your mana, and of course also your Gift. It was lovely to meet you." Eisen said with a smile and then slowly shifted his weight forward once everyone was tightly secured to him. And once it was inevitable for him to fall forward, he simply jumped away from the edge and started quickly gliding through this tunnel. It was meant for a Dragon to quickly fly through, so it was obvious it wasrge enough, and it was surprisingly straightforward as well, meaning that once Eisen got the rough hang of it, he could really just keep his body slightly tilted in one direction. This tunnel was obviously artificially excavated, so it made sense to be easy to fly through. Although, Eisen wasn¡¯t actually flying, he was just gliding while pping his wings as much as possible to keep his body up with all of the extra weight on him right now. "I feel sick..." Sky muttered quietly after a little while, and Eisen looked down at him with a bit of a smirk, "Don¡¯t throw up on me, please." The old manughed, and Sky simply grumbled in response. He was obviously not enjoying this as much as Bree and the three monster children. But luckily, it was over actually pretty quickly, because they soon reached the end of the steep tunnel and everything became more t than before, so Eisen chose to slowlynd there as carefully as he could handle, which was still rather rough, actually. And when he finally stopped and both Sal and Caria removed what they used to keep everyone on Eisen¡¯s body, the old man noticed a notification in front of him. [You have traveled a long distance gliding with extra weight, so your wings have grown in strength] Surprised, Eisen waved the notification away and pped his wings a few times, and soon noticed that his feet were slowly being lifted off the ground, albeit just barely. He would be able to fly like this, but he might be able to keep his body in ce in the air for a little longer, so that was nice. "Interesting." Eisen muttered quietly, and then looked around at the others, cing his hand on Sky¡¯s head as he was calming down from that wild ride just now. Thinking that they deserved a little break, Eisen grabbed one of the boxes he had in his apron and took Cabarum out of it, "Come on, for the rest of the way, you can stay on here." Eisen said as he looked at Sky, so the Fey-Kin boy just slowly nodded his head. "Thanks..." He grumbled while the old man quickly helped him sit on top of the Horse¡¯s back, and then put the three monster kids and Bree behind him as well. Cabarum¡¯s back was incrediblyrge, a lotrger than a regr Horse¡¯s, so they all had space there as long as they tried to sit closely together. Of course, that meant that Bree couldn¡¯t carry her backpack on her back for this, so Eisen took that task over for now, quickly throwing it over his shoulder. He had deactivated his Demonic Transformation, but he still had his size increased to the maximum, so Bree¡¯s backpack didn¡¯t actually look as ridiculouslyrge on his back right now. It seemed surprisingly heavy to him, though... Either way, in addition to Cabarum, Eisen also got Aulu out to have her walk in the front and react if she noticed something troublesome, and then the group got moving again and made their way through the t part of this tunnel, before finding the exit. It was hidden pretty well, this time around with a spell that covered the opening. And on top of that, there was a rock-wall right in front of the opening, so it was very hidden either way. Nobody would voluntarily go back here, after all, since there was just no reason to. Swiftly, the group started making their way through to the front of the rock wall and then along the path that didn¡¯t seem to be that far away, and then started making their way back to Melroe. And Marcear was right, it would only be roughly a full day¡¯s walk away from here, like she thought, although that was only the case if you were really walking. But instead, Eisen was currently rather jogging, and at his size, that was like running for other people. Of course Cabarum and Aulu could handle that speed as well, so it really only took them a third of the time to get back to the area around Melroe, which still meant that Eisen had to jog for quite a while, and he pulled quite a lot of attention toward him doing that as well, and most people they encountered simply stepped to the side immediately as they saw the Giant Man and Horse with the children on its back approach. And when the sun started going down, the group finally made their way back to Melroe. They were currently on the other side of town to where Fafnir and Sigurd set up the Dungeon, unluckily, but like this they could get to the Inn on their way and see if Parc and Rouge made their way to town already. It took a little while for them to get through the gate, because some random yer was causing some trouble, but soon they could get inside and made their way through the town, soon reaching the ce they were looking for, and after everyone got off of Cabarum¡¯s back, the old man put the Horse and Wolf Automata into the box again. He had a soul, so Eisen felt a little bad for doing this, but the Inn seemed to be rather full again, so he didn¡¯t want to walk inside with both of them when he really didn¡¯t want others to pay too much attention to him... Although maybe that meant that he should wear some other, less noticeable clothes sometimes... Either way, the old man opened the door and stepped inside, quickly followed by the others, and then walked to the Inn¡¯s front desk that was currently manned by not only Gralmar, but two workers that were taking care of the onught of room requests. The moment that Gralmar saw Eisen, he started to smile brightly and pointed at the stairs, "Thank god you¡¯re back, please just go take care of that business upstairs. We recently expanded, so we have more rooms... There¡¯s some trouble in room 268, I¡¯m pretty sure, but I can¡¯t do anything about it..." The Dwarf exined as he pulled Eisen closer, "It has to do with those Knights of yours..." He added quietly, and Eisen raised his brows immediately as he turned around. He quickly rushed up the stairs followed by the others who didn¡¯t fully know what was going on since they didn¡¯t hear what Gralmar told Eisen, but soon, the old man found the trouble that Gralmar was speaking about while activating his Mana-Sight. Inside the room, he noticed seven figures, two that seemed to be humans, and five that quite obviously weren¡¯t humans. And in front of the room, a group of yers was standing, just knocking on the door with heavy hands, trying to get inside rather aggressively. Chapter 464 - Reintroduction "Open the f.u.c.k.i.n.g door already!" A Rather brutish, tall-built man eximed. He had a simple, rather boring looking Greatsword hanging on his back and wore very little clothes, somehow. He also had twopanions with him as well, but they were simply standing next to him, grinning broadly at what the ¡¯leader¡¯ was doing. And as Eisen would have expected, these troublemakers of course were yers. "Excuse me, what may you be doing right there?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face as he interlocked his fingers behind his back, and the man turned around with a deep frown as he looked right at Eisen, and just red at him. "Huh? The f.u.c.k? Why you wanna know that? This is my Hidden Quest, so f.u.c.k off!" The Man yelled at Eisen, and then turned back toward the door. "If you don¡¯t open right now, I¡¯ll break the door down, you hear me?!" He practically screamed, although he soon felt a firm grip on his shoulder. "I¡¯m going to repeat my question just once more, alright?" Eisen asked with a bright smile as he forcefully turned the yer around and then used his overwhelming strength to make sure he couldn¡¯t get out of Eisen¡¯s grip, before the old man continued to speak, "What may you be doing right there?" He added, and the yer just kept ring at him as he tried to get away from this old man, although the two yers apanying him seemingly were a little more observant than their Leader. "Are... Are you Eisen?!" One of them asked, and the other just looked at one of the Game¡¯s most famous yers as if he was a deity, "Can I get an Autograph? I¡¯m a huge fan!" He eximed, but Eisen just lightly smiled at him. "I will, if you finally answer my question. This fe here seems to have issues with his ears." Eisen chuckled quietly, and the two yers immediately nodded their heads. "Alright! We-" "Hey, shut the f.u.c.k up! I don¡¯t care who this guy is, I ain¡¯t gonna let him-" The brutish yer interrupted, but soon felt the grip on his shoulder strengthen as he was pushed onto his knees, "How rude, let your friends speak, will you?" Eisen said in amanding tone, and the yer red up at him, but somehow couldn¡¯t bring himself to speak anymore. So, with a smirk, Eisen looked back at the other two. "Go on." He told them, so the one that was interrupted before continued. "We... We saw these five people in cloaks, right? Obviously that was damn suspicious, so we thought we could get an interesting quest if we followed them... And then we found out that they¡¯re actually Monsters, so obviously it had to be some kind of quest prompt, right? I mean, what kind of Monsters just walk around a town like that? So we followed them here, and they went into this room, but they wouldn¡¯t open up no matter what we said or did..." He exined, and Eisen slowly sighed and shook his head. "Sorry, boys, not everything is a quest. And this definitely isn¡¯t. So go, and leave them alone, will you?" The old man asked of them, and while the two seemingly weaker yers were ready to agree, the brutish one was anything but that. "Oi, what are you on about?! Of course this is a quest, what else could it be?!" He yelled out, and Eisen sighed deeply as he shook his head disappointedly and just let go of the yer¡¯s shoulder, slowly squatting down to meet him on eye-level, since the yer was still on his knees. "My Grandkiding to visit, and bringing his friends along. That¡¯s what. And just a little warning... If you don¡¯t leave right now, I¡¯ll throw you out that window, alright?" Eisen exined as he pointed at the window at the end of the corridor, one of the few windows this Inn actually had, and then stood back up and stepped up to the door, although he soon felt something sharp hit his back and cut into his skin, and it was annoying as hell. It didn¡¯t actually damage Eisen that much, and it barely cut deep enough to draw blood, but a cut is a cut... And now that Eisen felt a little pain here as well, he did feel a bit of a burn... And that in a spot like that, how annoying. With a sigh, Eisen looked at the others to tell them not to fight the yer back, before extending his hand toward Bree who quickly handed the old man a potion. "Haha, how do you like that, you f.u.c.ker?!" The brutish yer asked as he tried to keep pushing his greatsword into the old man¡¯s back, and Eisen grumbled quietly as took a quick step forward and downed the potion to heal his back. "Not that much, to tell you the truth. Although mainly because you didn¡¯t take care of that sword... It¡¯s blunt, dirty, and basically just a hunk of Iron." The old man sighed, and slowly held his hand to the side, making a pitch-ck, one-edged Greatsword appear in his hand that somehow reminded the yers of a Kitchen Knife. "Let me show you a trick or two, alright?" Eisen suggested, and then looked over at the other two yers, "Open the window for me, will you?" He asked, and the yers quickly nodded their heads and did as asked, although the Brute just looked at Eisen confused. "Wh-What?! You didn¡¯t take any damage at all?!" The yer asked with clear confusion, but Eisen just raised his brows annoyedly. "Not at all? I drank a potion, didn¡¯t I? Well, either way, that matters very little..." Eisen pointed out, and quickly grasped his Sword with both of his hands and swung it at the Brute, although obviously with the back so that he wouldn¡¯t instantly die. He still might, but Eisen didn¡¯t care what happened to him outside. And immediately when the Sword hit the yer¡¯s stomach, his body practically folded in half and was propelled backward, right out of therge window at the end of the corridor. Just like that, Eisen got rid of a bit of a pest, and then smiled at the two other yers. "Thanks for the help. Come by the Market tomorrow, you should be able to find my stall there, I¡¯ll make the two of you something." Eisen said with a wink, and while the yers excitedly ran off, the old man turned back toward the door while Sky looked at him confused. "Wait, you¡¯re even making an item for them? Didn¡¯t they annoy them just as much as that big guy?" The Fey-Kin boy asked, and Eisen shrugged. "They were pretty helpful, and they don¡¯t seem like bad kids. In the end, that¡¯s just what they are, kids. So I better make sure they hang out with the right crowd." Eisen smiled, and then knocked on the door with a grin. Or at least he wanted to, but before he touched the wood, the door already opened up, revealing an excited Kiron standing there, "Grandfather!" He eximed, and Eisen immediately took a step into the room and gave the Half-Dragon a Hug, "Wee in Melroe, my boy." Eisenughed, "Just arrived, huh?" He asked, before Kiron just nodded his head happily. "Mhm, that¡¯s right. Thanks for dealing with all that out there." Kiron said with a smile on his lips, before noticing the three Monster children behind Eisen. "Look at you! Caria, Mellisa, you have grown a lot! And that boy, is that you, Sal?" With a smug grin, the boy nodded his head and crossed his arms, "You got that right. It is I, the great-" "Idiot." Caria interrupted quietly, although it was still heard by Sal very clearly. "Eh? You have something to say, you weed?" "Wh-What? Did you justpare mushrooms to weed?" Caria asked, incredibly offended by that, and Sal just nodded. "Yeah, a weed is anything you don¡¯t want around, right?" "You... little..." Caria muttered as she ground her teeth with murderous intent, although Eisen soon stopped both of them as he pushed Caria¡¯s hat down onto her face while giving Sal a quick knock on his head. "Quiet, both of you." Eisen said in a clear voice as Bree quickly closed the door behind the group, "Sit down at that table. And stay quiet." The old man told them, and the two of them did as told and sat there with a grumble, and Melissa was nice enough toe along with them despite not having done anything. "Sorry about that." Eisen apologized as he looked at the others, and then quickly went on to greet Parc and Rouge, who jumped up the moment Eisen came into the room. Apparently the trip back home was pretty refreshing for them, and cleared a lot up. They were more cheerful than thest time Eisen saw them, at least. "Great to see you two again as well." Eisen said with a smile, "You came prepared to work your asses off, I hope?" The old man chuckled, and his Apprentices immediately nodded their heads. "Of course we are!" Rouge eximed excitedly, and the old man smiled as he turned toward the four others in the room, Kiron¡¯s Half-Dragon Squires. "So, training went quite well, I hope?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Kiron immediately nodded his head proudly. "Amazingly well, yes. With proper techniques, they became incredibly tough opponents. I¡¯m not sure if I can take them all at once anymore, really." The Half-Dragonughed, and the ck Half-Dragon grumbled quietly. "Of course you can, with a sword like that..." He muttered, something that Eisen couldn¡¯t help but overhear. "Hey, hey, don¡¯t push it all onto the weapon, alright? Kind of devalues Kiron¡¯s talent, doesn¡¯t it?" The old man pointed out, "I¡¯m making some weapons for you all soon as well, so don¡¯t worry about that." Eisen said, and then smiled at them. "Now, how about you guys re-introduce yourselves? I¡¯m positive you passed those trials of yours." The old manughed, although he already knew the answer to that. After all, he inspected them with his truth-seeing eyes already to see if it was the case, and they all really had their ¡¯Name¡¯ field finally filled out. And so, the four Half-Dragons stood up and stepped up in front of Eisen, and the first to speak was the Bronze Half-Dragon, the Pdin that once was Prototype¡¯s Ind Boss. "Nice to see you again. My name became Argon." He said, and next, the Red Half-Dragoness spoke. "My name is Rudia." She exined. "I am now Selena." The Silver Half-Dragoness said next, before the ck Half-Dragon spoke up as well, his arms crossed. "And I¡¯m Morgus, ya hear?" Chapter 465 - Confrontation "Well, well, and you¡¯re all my Grandson¡¯s Squires now?" Eisen asked with a smile as he looked at the four half dragons in front of him, while Kiron was standing next to the old man, happy to be back around him, before the Pdin Argon and the Mage Selena excitedly nodded their heads, as they were seemingly quite attached to Kiron. Rudia just slightly smirked, apparently being happy with her current position as well, although she simply wasn¡¯t as expressive of such emotions. When it came to Morgus, on the other hand, he just scowled annoyedly. It was obvious from the start that he wouldn¡¯t directly ept Kiron as his Leader, but they seemed to have a bit more of a Rival-Rtionship instead of being enemies. With a light chuckle, Eisen looked at the time and then cracked his knuckles. "Well, most of us just got back from a rather long trip, so I hope you don¡¯t mind if we head to bed for now. I¡¯ll be awake in maybe 5 hours again anyway, so I¡¯ll get to work then." The old man pointed out, and then slowly turned toward the door, although Kiron quickly stopped him. "Grandfather, you will not sleep here?" He asked, and the old man scratched the back of his neck. "I mean, the room is full enough as-is with you five sleeping here as well. And while the kids and I can sleep anywhere without issue, Sky and Bree can¡¯t. So yeah, I wanted to get another room." Eisen exined, and Kiron¡¯s tail slowly started drooping down toward the ground before the old man sighed in response. "Fine, I¡¯ll just get a room for those two, and-" "You know we can do that ourselves, right?" Sky pointed out with a slight frown, and the old man raised his brows and slowly nodded, "Oh, right, sorry." He replied, and then watched as Sky quickly turned around and left the room, while Bree started slightly panicking at that sight and hurried to follow her brother. "I guess I¡¯ll just sleep here then. You three, will you be fine?" Eisen asked with a weirdly gutted feeling as he looked at the three kids next to him, although he noticed that Sal already made a hammock for himself, Caria was sitting on a mushroom justrge enough for herself that grew right out of the ground, and Melissa was simply cuddled up on the ground, pushing her knees into her hoodie while her Bees crawled around her to make it morefortable for her. And with a slight sigh, Eisen just looked back at Kiron. "That¡¯s a good enough answer, huh?" Heughed, and then just leaned against the wall with a smile, "Then-" "Huh?" Morgus interrupted the old man, surprised at what he was doing, "You wanna sleep on the ground or somethin¡¯? You¡¯re old, so get in bed, I¡¯ll sleep on the ground." The Half-Dragon pointed out, but Eisen just shook his head with a slightugh, "Oh, no it¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m literally unaffected no matter what situation I go to sleep in." He said, and then raised his brows curiously, "Although... Hmm, Parc, Rouge, we¡¯ll have to try something out tomorrow, so make sure your hammers are in good shape." Eisen whispered curiously, and immediately, the two apprentices looked toward Kiron confused, to see if Kiron thought he was speaking about what they thought he was speaking about, so the Half-Dragon slowly scratched his cheek. "Grandfather, you don¡¯t mean you want to heat yourself up, right?" Kiron asked, and Eisen immediately shook his head with augh, "Don¡¯t be silly." He said, and while they for a moment rxed, that soon changed, "Parc and Rouge will be heating me up. Or maybe I should ask Denmir to... Either way, I¡¯ll be asleep, so they have to do the work." Eisen exined, and while Kiron, Parc and Rouge were trying to figure out if this was a good idea, Rudia slowly spoke up. "Erm, what exactly are you all talking about?" She asked and Eisen just started tough a bit and then winked at her. "I think you¡¯ll understand in a bit. Well, I¡¯ll see you in the morning. Goodnight." Eisen said with a wave before logging out of the game. He noticed that Rudia was rather confused as the old man became silent, but he would have to see their reaction when he came back in a little while. For now, Eisen just got out of the capsule. --- Once he ced his foot onto the ground, Benjamin ced all his weight on it and then proceeded to stretch his body out for a bit, and then made his way through his bedroom toward his door and stepped into the hallway. It was early morning right now, but surprisingly, Benjamin could already hear someone in the livingroom. They were too silent to be Katy and Sean, and Sophia and Benji should still be ying the game right now, so the only choice left was Tony. But when he approached the Livingroom, the one voice he heard became two, and Benjamin immediately recognized the owner of that voice, and slowly stepped into the space in front of him. He quickly saw the tall, blond, blue-eyed man that married his daughter in front of him, although he was vastly different to thest time the old man saw him. Now, he was practically a wreck. Dark rings under his eyes, messy hair, a dirty suit, and he was just shaking as he bit into his fingernails nervously. And the moment that he noticed Benjamin, Michael jumped up, simply scared, although he soon saw Benjamin¡¯s arm and couldn¡¯t avert his eyes anymore. Hisughter started with a quiet chuckle, but quickly moved toward a maniacal exmation, where neither Tony nor Benjamin were entirely sure if it really was augh or a terrified scream. "You... You got what you deserved! You were punished by God for your sins! H-He took your flesh to repay me for what you did to me!" Michael yelled out, and Benjamin just red at him as he took a few steps toward him. "Quiet." Benjamin told him, although a bit of Eisen seemed to be slipping out right now, because not only Michael had his eyes focused on the old man with a shocked expression, but so did Tony, who was just about to make Michael stay silent. But in the end, Benjamin couldn¡¯t really help himself. He¡¯s just been so angrytely. "Sit down." The old man added next, and Michael¡¯s legs immediately gave in as he dropped back onto the couch, just cowering in front of Benjamin as he kept approaching and closed his eyes for a moment. "The only reason you¡¯re here is to answer me a very simple question." He said, and then opened his eyes again, although they were now changed into their golden state. "Are these the reason you called me the Devil thest time we saw?" The moment that Benjamin opened his eyes and Michael could see the light golden glow they gave off, the man just sunk into the couch, pressing his body against it as if he just wanted to escape from the old man. "Hmm, that¡¯s answer enough, huh?" Benjamin muttered quietly, and then sighed deeply. He honestly despised Michael on any possible level, but... He was still the man that Melody married as well as Sophia¡¯s father. So, Benjamin tried to make use of another ability of his. Heat coursed throughout Benjamin¡¯s whole body, and he immediately felt dizzy in response to the extreme fever he immediately developed as his skin became red due to the heat. He had an immense headache and felt stinging pains around his shoulderdes, while his skin felt like it was about to be ripped apart. It was hard for Benjamin to even stay standing despite all of this, but in a manner of luck hidden in demise, his body had gone quite numb over the past few days and weeks, so the old man was able to manage the pain he was feeling as he squatted down in front of Michael, speaking with a calm voice that somehow immediately made Michael stop shaking, while Tony was simply in awe. "Michael, I... I think you misunderstood something. These eyes? They are nothing more tha... than a gimmick; a trick. Color-Changing, Electronic contact-lenses. I am no devil, I¡¯m just an... old man. My arm had to be removed because I was sick..." Benjamin exined, and the moment that Michael registered what he just heard, he shook his head in response. "No, no! You... you are the devil! I was told so, the night before then!" Michael exined histerically, and Benjamin immedaitely looked at the man in front of him with a deep frown, "Michael, I¡¯m sick and dying... I lost my arm, and have to see a doctor every day. Would the Devil leave this world so easily?" Benjamin asked, and slowly, it seemed like Michael was being convinced of what he was saying. "But that means... I tried to have him hurt you and them... An innocent man, and my own daughter..." Michael muttered quietly as he sunk in deeper into the couch, although now it was because his body was losing all of its strength and he couldn¡¯t hold himself up anymore. Benjamin slowly directed a light gaze toward Tony and locked eyes with him, and from his son¡¯s expression he could tell that he was thinking the same thing. Michael was speaking about the Greg incident of him just appearing in front of the house like that. With a deep sigh that seemed to take all of Benjamin¡¯s strength, the old man said thest thing that he could while his body was being influenced by his attempted Yang Demonic transformation, "Life isn¡¯t ck and white. Think for yourself. Who do you care for, who do you want to be? Do you love your daughter and your wife more than your god?" Benjamin told Michael, before immediately stopping everything that he had been trying to bring over from the game-world and dropped down onto his armchair, holding his hand in front of his mouth because he felt like was about to throw up. Benjamin¡¯s body was still red because of how his body clearly overheated, but at the very least the stinging pains from his head and back were gone now, and his skin wasn¡¯t being ripped apart anymore. It seemed like despite his body not epting it, Benjamin¡¯s transformation worked at least partially and managed to convince the currently easy-to-influence Michael into questioning his own thoughts, and Tony slowly spoke up, giving him thest push. "You see it, don¡¯t you? Just speaking exhausts him so much now... The Devil would never allow anyone to see him like that, would he?" He pointed out, and Michael slowly sat up straight and then jumped up from the couch and immediately ran away from the livingroom. Both Benjamin and Tony were confused and surprised, but they soon saw that Michael simply ran to the kitchen to throw up. Chapter 466 - Incidents The moment that Benjamin and Tony heard Michael start throwing up, Tony turned to his father with a bit of concern in his eyes, "What¡¯s going on, what did you just do?" He asked with worry and quickly rushed over to Benjamin to help him sit back up properly. With his eyes a bit blurry, Benjamin started to breath in and out slowly to somehow get rid of his nausea, and removed his hand from his mouth while turning his eyes toward Tony, "Something that let¡¯s me influence others in a positive way... I can encourage them, bring them to change for the better... although I doubt that would have worked if Michael wasn¡¯t a mess before this..." Just as Benjamin was trying to exin everything a bit further, he heard quick footsteps from the hallway as Benji came rushing into the Livingroom, "Turn on TV, channel 3." He eximed immediately before either Benjamin or Tony could react, "Benji, what¡¯s going on all of a sudden?" Tony asked, trying to somehow block him from seeing Benjamin¡¯s current condition since it was a bit hard to exin, but the teenager just kept staring at the screen that suddenly lit up. It switched to a national news outlet that Benjamin didn¡¯t really enjoy watching all that much. Rather than ¡¯news¡¯, they spoke more about ¡¯Who-dates-who¡¯ kind of stuff. Basically, high-school on a national level, and celebrities were the Sports-Team and Cheerleaders. And the moment that the sound of the channel came in, Benjamin couldn¡¯t believe what he heard. His sight was still a bit too blurred and his eyes were pretty dry, so he couldn¡¯t actually see what the screen showed right now, but the sound was enough topletely understand what was going on. "... Standing in front of the Los Angeles Residence of World-Reknown Multi-talent Nataly Klein. Last night, a group of heavily armed men invaded this residence in hopes of finding Miss Klein, and while in the process caused a fire that destroyed half the building. Miss Klein seemed to not be in this residence at the time, but her current location is under tight lock. Two of the Invaders were arrested by the LAPD, but the rest of them got away. If you have any clues about their current location, inform the LAPD immediately." Confused, Benjamin turned toward his grandson, "Is she okay? Did you speak to her?" The old man asked, and Benji immediately nodded his head. "I¡¯m on the phone with her right now... She¡¯s actually on her way here right now, and they¡¯re even bringing her capsule. They got a call about this just now and-" "Give me the phone." Benjamin said immediately, not even letting Benji finish speaking before pulling the phone out of his hand, "Evalia, you there?" The old man asked while Benji looked at him confused, and it seemed like the woman on the other side of the call was just as surprised. "Huh? Eisen?" She asked, and the old man immediately replied, "You will have more ess to the situation than I or the reporters. Contact the police and say that you might have an idea why they came into your house, and ask if the two men they arrested already said something about a weird dream, or a voice without a visible source, or something supernatural in any way." The moment that Benjamin said this, Nataly stayed silent for a few moments, although soon she could be heard again. "How... how do you know about that?" She asked, and the old man ground his teeth angrily and looked at Tony. "Son, go pick up Jasmin. She wanted to bring some of her things over already anyway, right?" "Got it." Tony said immediately and hurried over to the door to put his jacket on and grabbed his keys. He didn¡¯t understand what exactly was going on, but he knew that the situation was serious, although Benji was just confused. "Grampa, what¡¯s going on? Why¡¯s Jasmining here? And... is there a bum throwing up in the kitchen?" Benji asked, and his grandfather just shook his head, "I¡¯ll exin in a bit, don¡¯t worry." He said to Benji, and then turned his attention back to Nataly, "When will you be here?" Benjamin asked, and Nataly seemed a little surprsied before holding the phone away from her head, seemingly to ask the driver of the van they were in. Of course she wouldn¡¯t go on a long trip like this without security, so it made sense she was apanied by some others. "Erm, seven, maybe eight hours the way it¡¯s going now, why?" Nataly replied, and Benjamin just sighed deeply. "Alright, that means you¡¯ll get here today at least... I¡¯ll exin everythingter. Trust me." The old man said, and then handed the phone back to Benji, before he looked around and stood up while Tony called over to him. "I¡¯ll be back in 20. Benji, keep an eye on Michael and your grandfather." Tony told his son and then went outside, closing the door behind him shut, while Benji jerked his face toward the kitchen again, "Wait, that¡¯s Michael?!" He yelled out, before other footsteps could be hearding from the hallway, and two young girls appeared there, Sophia and Kim, although Sophia immediately pushed Kim back into the hallway when she spotted her father to protect her. "Wh-What are you doing here?" She asked loudly, and it seemed like the exhausted Michael slowly turned his eyes toward his daughter and tried to stand back up after sinking to the ground. He really looked quite prizing to what Sophia was used to from her father. But she immediately quieted down when Benjamin spoke up, "Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯re speaking about himter. Just sit down on the couch, all of you." "B-But Gramps, I-" Sophia tried to protest, but immediately did as her grandfather said when she saw his expression, pulling Kim behind her while blocking Michael¡¯s view of her. Benjamin then just sat there trying to dial the right number, although his sight was still not in the best state right now, so he handed the phone to Benji instead, "Can you call Andrew Jones¡¯ Number for me?" The old man asked annoyedly, frustrated that he couldn¡¯t even do this right now, but Benji just quickly did what Benjamin asked him to before the old man held the phone against his ear, and after a few seconds, Andrew already answered. "E-Eisen..?" A quivering voice asked from the other side of the phone, and immediately, the old man knew that his suspicious were right. "Brody, are you okay? Did something happen?" He asked with obvious worry in his voice, and the man on the other side of the phone that Benjamin had never experienced like this before was basically sobbing now, although he was doing his best to hold it back. "G-Got me in a bad moment, old man... It¡¯s... Jess was..." He muttered quietly, and the old man opened his eyes wide in shock, "What happened with Jess?" Benjamin asked, and Andrew¡¯s crying slowly died down, and his voice instead became angry. "It¡¯s the Triad, I just know it... It happenedst night, and I went out for a run because I didn¡¯t have anything else to do... When I came back, the door was ripped wide open, and a group of f.u.c.k.i.n.g assholes stood around Jess who was just holding her stomach in pain... One of them used metal knuckles to f.u.c.k.i.n.g punch her stomach! They killed my unborn child!" Andrew yelled out, loud enough for the others in the room to hear what he said. "I¡¯m... I¡¯m sorry, Brody... I..." Benjamin said, as he was just not entirely sure how he should react or what he should say, and then sighed out deeply to get his mind in order, "Get anything you need, anyone you want to bring, ande to my house. As soon as you can." "Ah, about that..." Andrew said quietly, "I don¡¯t think that will be possible." He pointed out, and Benjamin started to frown, "Why not?" He asked, and just when he asked that, he realized why. "I saw a group of guys around my wife after they killed my child... Why do you think?" Andrew replied, before Benjamin leaned forward nervously, and his next sentence confused all three of the teenagers sitting on the couch in front of him. "Are any of them still alive?" Benjamin asked, and from the other side of the phone, the old man could practically hear how Andrew formed a grin as a part of Brody slipped out. "Heh... Old man, if all that shit from that side is real, deep down you should know me the best and the longest out of everyone in the existence of everything... So you should know that I won¡¯t let those f.u.c.kers get away that easily." A shiver ran down Benjamin¡¯s back, knowing that what Andrew just said was filled with pure bloodl.u.s.t, but Benjamin just tried to approach this in a way that wouldn¡¯t turn his friend into a killer. "You can still take calls, so you¡¯ve not been arrested, right?" Benjamin asked, and Andrew just slightlyughed, "What, you think the police have balls enough to meddle in Triad Business? I¡¯m rather expecting a gang of heavily armed chinese to storm in here any moment now. And I¡¯ll be here, waiting for them." The man exined, but Benjamin just ground his teeth and tried to get him to do anything but that. "Brody, you will not do that. You will get your shit together ande to my house, you hear me? My bas.e.m.e.nt is impossible to get into, it¡¯s second only to Fort Knox. Your Wife will be safest here. Also, if youe here, I¡¯m going to tell you who is at the end of the chain of all of this happening." Benjamin exined, and immediately, Andrew replied, "What do you mean? You know people from the Triad?!" He asked angrily, but Benjamin immediately denied that fact. "Of course I don¡¯t! Listen to yourself, Brody. I mean the one that¡¯s making this all happen. Trust me, I can¡¯t exin it right now, but I will once you get here. Now start thinking like an a.d.u.l.t, and don¡¯t take the risk of your wife having to lose both her child and her husband. Got it?" The old man said in a clear voice, getting louder as if yelling at him, and Andrew stayed silent for a few moments and then sighed. "Fine, we¡¯ll be there by tonight... Still have some things to take care of..." Andrew muttered quietly, and then added, "And it¡¯s not what you think, don¡¯t worry... Thanks, old man." He replied, and then simply hun up, before Benjamin leaned back on his armchair and sighed deeply as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Is... everything alright?" Benji asked quietly, but Benjamin just shook his head, "Not really. Can you help me out again and look for Fukuda Haruo on the phone?" The old man asked, although Benji just shook his head and ced the phone onto its base station again. "That¡¯s Jyuuk, right? Nat said that she¡¯d call him, so don¡¯t worry about that for now and tell us what¡¯s going on." Benji said, but the old man just sighed quietly, "I can¡¯t. I¡¯ll need to speak to the others about this first, and then, maybe we¡¯ll tell you as well. But for now, there¡¯s something more important." Benjamin pointed out, and Sophia looked at him with a deep frown. "What do you mean, ¡¯more important¡¯?" She asked, and Benjamin just turned his head to the side to look at what he meant, "It¡¯s sobbing in the kitchen right now." Chapter 467 - Apologies Slowly, Benji, Sophia and Kim turned around toward the Kitchen, where they soon saw Michael try to stand up again, before he slowly made his way to the livingroom. Immediately, Sophia jumped up and Benji tried to block Michael¡¯s path, because he was obviously trying to walk up to his daughter right now. Michael didn¡¯t really have much energy in him right now and slowly turned toward Benjamin to see what he was supposed to do, and the old man just nodded at him before looking at Sophia. And with a tired, defeated expression, Michael just looked at his daughter from across the room. "I¡¯m... I¡¯m sorry, Sophia..." He muttered quietly, his eyes red and swollen, and the girl looked at her father surprised. She hadn¡¯t ever heard him apologize for anything before, at least not genuinely, "I know that the way I have been acting was wrong... I was just so convinced I had to act like that that I didn¡¯t treat you and your mother right..." Michael exined, as a tear slowly ran down his cheek and he dug his fingernails into his arm as he saw that Sophia was simply scared of what he might do. "Do you know why I started believing in God like this?" He asked, and slowly, Sophia shook her head in response. "When I was young, I was raised by a man that could be said to be anything but religious... A drunkard, addict, abbuser... It didn¡¯t take long for his body to give in, so I was left alone... Then, the family that took me in was a family of Latter Day Sai-... Mormons... It was the first time I received genuine love, so this religion was everything to me after I had nothing left anymore." Michael exined, and even Benjamin felt somewhat bad for him after hearing about this for the first time. "But now, I lost something that I care for even more because of my obsession with religion... I fell deeper than ever, even deeper than the man that raised me ever could have... I¡¯m truly, genuinely disgusted by what I have be. I can understand if you never want to see a single hair of mine, but just know, who matter what happens, no matter who you are and who you are with, whether you be religious, atheistic, or even satanistic, I will always love you as my daughter... It might take a while for me to be able to openly show that, but I¡¯ll do my best to work on myself..." Doing his best to stop himself from freaking out and basically breaking down, Michael just stared at the ground while everyone else stayedpletely silent. And then just a few secondster, every one of which felt like an eternity, Sophia spoke up. Of course, what she was just told was strong enough to make her mind waver, but years of fearfully hiding who you are can¡¯t be that easily turned around. "Is... Is that so?" She asked, just looking over toward her father with aplicated expression, "Then prove it to me... There¡¯s half a bottle of cooking wine in the fridge... drink it all right now... That way I can see that we really are more important to you than-" "Sophia." Benjamin said with a rather strict tone, immediately making the girl flinch and look over toward her grandfather, "Even if he did close to everything wrong, he¡¯s trying to make it right. Don¡¯t force him to do something that¡¯s against what he believes in." The old man said with a deep frown, and Sophia slowly looked down at the floor, "B-But how else should I know..?" She asked, but before Benjamin could actually reply this time, he heard some ss tter against ss followed by a small popping sound. While his sight was still not what it would usually be, Benjamin was still able to make out what exactly was going on right now. He hadn¡¯t even hesitated. The moment that Sophia told him to, Michael made his way to the kitchen and opened the fridge, and immediately opened the bottle of wine and started pouring it down his throat. "Michael, stop it!" Benjamin eximed, but the man simply didn¡¯t listen to him, and although he was obviously struggling to drink it all, he forced himself to down the half liter of wine in just a few seconds, before cing the bottle down on the counter, his already dirty white button-up now covered in a few spots of red from the wine that was pouring down the sides of his mouth. While trying to hold himself back from immediately throwing up, since he had already been feeling sick, Michael then turned back toward his daughter. "I-Is this enough..?" He asked quietly as he tried to hold his body up with the help of the kitchen-counter, and Sophia just stared at her father. She hadn¡¯t expected him to actually do it... She had never even seen her father around alcohol, not to mention drinking it. Sophia was just experiencing ratherplicated feelings right now, and just couldn¡¯t handle it anymore and ran out of the livingroom through the hallway, while Kim just slightly awkwardly followed her to see if she was alright, while Michael just stood therepletely defeated, while neither Benjamin-Senior nor -Junior could believe what they just saw. "Benji, there¡¯s a bucket under the bathroom sink, could you get it real quick?" Benjamin asked as he did his best to stand up again, and just walked up to Michael while Benji did as asked. "Come here,y down on the couch for a while." The old man suggested, and Michael just slowly shook his head, "I can¡¯t, I need to speak to Sophia..." "Just let her think for a while, alright?" Benjamin suggested, cing his hand on the back of his son-inw. He really couldn¡¯t stand him before, and it wasn¡¯t like Benjamin justpletely forgot about the way Michael has acted ever since he married his daughter, but to the old man it seemed like he really wanted to turn things around, maybe get a little less extreme. Benjamin never cared or minded that Michael was religious, the way he acted while using his religion as an excuse was the thing he really didn¡¯t like. And that was the part that even Michael seemed to have understood to be anything but good at this point. Michael had a few things about him that Benjamin actually respected, like the fact that he didn¡¯t mind standing up for what he believed in, and that he wanted his family to live a healthy lifestyle. And it wasn¡¯t like he always acted like aplete ass either, those times were just a little too frequent for Benjamin¡¯s taste. Carefully, Michael dropped down onto the couch, and Benjamin slightly sighed as he told him to properlyy down. He wanted Michael to calm down properly and then hopefully fall asleep before or immediately after the wine actually kicked in so that he didn¡¯t end up drunkenly doing some stuff that nobody wanted to happen. And then by tonight once most of the others arrived, they could start asking Michael about the thing that happened to him before the barbecue that he mentioned only momentarily. Soon, Benji came back with the bucket and ced it down next to Michael¡¯s head so that he had somewhere to throw up in if it was necessary, and for a short while, the old man and his grandson just sat there in silence while they waited for Tony toe back, and just when Benjamin was thinking that he was taking his time, he heard the sound of the door opening, as well as two pairs of footsteps. That alone was weird enough... Since Jasmin was in a wheelchair. So, Benjamin immediately jumped up, although he was actually rather pleasantly surprised when he saw who the extra person with them was. "Jyuuk?" Benjamin asked, and the japanese man who was currently holding a phone to his ear turned over toward the old man. It took a short moment for Benjamin to recognize him, since he looked quite different to his in-¡¯game¡¯ character due to the natural changes that came with being a Monkey-Beastperson. And soon, the young man smiled at Benjamin and nodded his head. "Evalia, we just got to Eisen¡¯s house." Haruo reported with a smile, and Benjamin sighed in relief. It seemed like everyone would be here by tonight, even if he hadn¡¯t been aware that Haruo came to visit Jasmin. With a big smile, Haruo then hung up before Benji¡¯s phone quickly started ringing again, and Benjamin walked up to Haruo and Jasmin once they came in. "Nice to finally meet you like this." Haruo said as he slightly bowed forward, and Benjamin just chuckled and pulled him into a hug, even if it was a rather weird hug with just one arm. "Likewise. So you came to spend some time with Xenia? Why didn¡¯t you tell me about it?" The old man asked, and Haruo scratched the back of his head with a wry smile, "It was a bit of ast-second decision, and I just arrived as well. I will exin it to youter, once we¡¯re alone and the others get here." Haruo exined, so Benjamin nodded his head. "Alright then, sounds good to me. For now... Tony, could you go down into the Bas.e.m.e.nt with Jyuuk and set it up a bit? The third underground is currently empty and only has some emptyrge-scale barrels..." Benjamin exined, although he then remembered that Tony wasn¡¯t even there when he spoke to Andrew, so he just sighed and moved his fingers through his beard. "Brody ising, and their situation is a little dangerous. Same with Evalia¡¯s, actually... Either way, we need a ce where they¡¯re all safe. You can change the temperature to be more normal, and I¡¯ll get some futons out or something, so-" "Dad, I get it. You just rest and go back there, you seem to have other, more important things to deal with." Tony interrupted, and the old man just slowly nodded his head, greatful that his son was so understanding and helpful. Haruo himself wasn¡¯t sure what was going on entirely, but he did hear about Nataly¡¯s situation just now, so he figured that was a good enough reason to help out, and Benji figured he should do the same thing. And so, while the bas.e.m.e.nt was being prepared for everything, Benjamin made his way back to his room to get back into his capsule. He really had to continue as quickly as possible. Level 300 was a fair amount of time away, but that didn¡¯t change anything about the fact that it was something Benjamin had to try and achieve as quickly as he just possibly could. Chapter 468 - Metallic Magic Circle Eisen slowly opened his eyes and looked around himself, soon seeing that everyone seemed to still be asleep, although the Monster Children woke up pretty soon at the very least. And so, Eisen simply left behind a note telling the Half-Dragons and Eisen¡¯s apprentices where he was going. He really should use the time he had in the best possible way. And that ¡¯best possible way¡¯ was something that required a little privacy. There was a reason why he was given Marcear¡¯s gift, it was supposed to be an ability strong enough to be of help in a war against Evil Dragons, so he figured he should make use of it in the best way that he could. "What are we doing today?" Caria asked curiously, and Eisen just smiled at her as he gave Gralmar the note he wrote for Sky and Bree to let them know where he was as well once they woke up, "We¡¯re making something special today. Or at least we¡¯re preparing to make something special." Eisen exined, and it seemed like even the Innkeeper was a bit curious as he overheard this. "Oh? Something that even ye see as special... I sure would love to see that." Gralmarughed, and Eisen just looked back at him before quickly replying, "Hmm, then I¡¯ll show you once it¡¯s done." The old man replied, and then just waved at Gralmar as he then left the Inn, quickly making his way toward Denmir¡¯s smithy. He wanted a little bit of privacy for this, so that should be the best ce for that. Eisen stepped up to the shop¡¯s door and started loudly knocking on it to get Denmir to open up, and the sleepy dwarf soon made his awy to the door and did just that. "Eisen? When did ya get back? And what are ye doin¡¯ here so early?" Denmir asked, before Eisen just lightly smiled and ced the Dragon-Mana Dagger that he made into the Dwarf¡¯s hands as he made his way inside toward the actual smithy, and just a few momentster, Denmir ran up behind him. "Was this forged out of mana? Is that the gift of that Dragon ye met?" The Dwarf inquired curiously, in response to which Eisen just nodded his head. "Mhm, it is. Ah, by the way, Melissa, can you send some of your bees out to let Sigurd and Fafnir know that we¡¯re back?" The old man asked, and the young girl quickly did as asked and extended her hand forward, before around half a dozen fist-sized bees came crawling out of her sleeve and then flew off. "Hmm, then what are ye making now?" Denmir asked, "Somethin¡¯ else outta mana?" He added, simply incredibly curious about the process of this, and Eisen nodded his head. "Yes, exactly. The skill is currently at Rank 0, I need to bring it to at least Rank 3 to make something out of this. Well, I don¡¯t need to, but that¡¯s what I want it to be at for this." Eisen pointed out and removed the cloth that he had bound around therge sphere of Silver-Dragon Mana and handed it to the Dwarf next to him as he started to prepare to use one of the smithies that seemed to have not been used over the past few days. "Oh? What is this? Crystalized Mana, perhaps?" Denmir asked, instantly seeing through it despite it outwardly looking and feeling like silver, just as Eisen had expected of a Smith of his caliber. "Yes, arge amount of Crystalized Manaing from Marcear, the Ancient Dragoness I went to meet. I don¡¯t want to waste it, so I have to raise my skill level a bit." The old man exined, and then started topress his mana until it turned into crystalized mana in front of him, and then finally reached a chunk of the size of Eisen¡¯s fist, which he figured might be enough to make a small item. He hoped that Bree would wake up ande soon, she should be able to help him out with this immensely. Although, Denmir then made another suggestion. "Hmm, I think I will get Morrom, he should be able to help ya with this." The Dwarf pointed out, and Eisen raised his brows a bit surprised. Of course he would be able to help! Compression was an Alchemy ability in the first ce, so someone that had to have their Alchemy skill at a rather high rank should be able to help a fair amount. "That would actually be great, to be honest." Eisen replied as he assigned the mana crystal chunk to be like Steel and then threw it into the forge, while the Dwarf quickly made his way out of the shop to get this done. Denmir was actually rather excited and wanted to see Eisen work, but that seemed to only really be possible once Morrom was there as well. So for now, Eisen would work without Denmir there, and he should be back before Eisen was done with whatever piece he was working on now. Although that in itself was something that Eisen was wondering about as well. What could he forge out of metal-like mana to make proper use of it? He didn¡¯t have enough to repeatedly make weapons, and he definitely didn¡¯t want to just make random weapons anyway. But then, the old man noticed what was in his peripheral vision, Sal who was testing out some new ways to make thread-based magic circles now that he could push thread out of his fingers, and Eisen just got a little bit of an idea, and instead of forging the mana into the shape of some item, he turned it into wire with different lengths and thicknesses, although all of them were too thick and strong to be bent while cold, since the mana was actingpletely like Steel would, even if it felt simply fake. Luckily, Eisen¡¯s hand could handle this level of heat very easily, so the old man could take the hot mana-steel wires and bend them into shape, twisting and turning them around each other properly, creating a Mana-Steel Magic Circle, although in the end it was rather built like an enchantment since it had a specific image connected and imbedded in it, and that image was rather simple. It was supposed to helppress mana more easily. After Eisen bent the wires around each other and created the right shape, he held it back into the mes, at which point Denmir and Morrom arrived at the Smithy again, and the Dwarf-Elf Halfling looked at Eisen surprised. "You got backst night and you¡¯re already working like this?" Heughed, and then took a look at what Eisen was actually forging, and then raised his brows surprised, "Hmm, Denmir said you could forge mana... you turned crystalized mana into a magic circle?" The Halfling asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, trying not to lose too much focus on his work as he was exining. "Mhm, I¡¯m hoping that it makes it reusable." The old man exined, but Morrom slightly frowned and sighed, as if he wanted to say something, but for now just let Eisen continue. After the mana-steel magic circle heated up to the temperature that Eisen wanted it to again, he took it back out of the forge and then hammered the different parts of it where the different wires had been connected to each other to make them practically inseperable. And like that, the old man was soon finished and just let the Magic Circle cool for a while before looking it over again and would then see it as finished. While that was happening, the old man just turned around and properly greeted Morrom, before hearing what he had to say. And to Eisen¡¯s surprise, Morrom didn¡¯t say anything at all and instead just held his palm forward and pushed out some mana that soon crystalized and turned into a magic circle. Once it was done, instead of activating it, Morrom extended his hand and grabbed the rim of it, and then started to wave the magic circle around. "This is basically what you just wanted to do, right?" Morrom asked, and then just slowly activated the magic circle, although all it did was create a light gust of wind before the whole crystalized mana-circle disappeared for it, "Even if the magic circle is made with crystalized mana, you can¡¯t use it more than once. You can only do that with special materials, but not with crystalized mana itself." He exined with a slight sigh, but Eisen raised his brows suspiciously. "Was that an item just now?" Eisen asked, and Morrom looked at him confused, "No? I made it myself just with my Mana Maniption and Alchemical Compression?" He replied, but the old man shook his head in response, saying that wasn¡¯t what he meant. "No, was that actual Magic Circle seen as apleted item, or was it just seen as a regr magic circle?" Eisen asked, making the Dwarf-Elf halfling look at Eisen surprised, "It was a regr magic circle, so a sort of spell. Meaning, it can¡¯t be turned into an item." He pointed out, but with a chuckle, Eisen shook his head and grabbed the Dragon-Mana Dagger that he showed to Denmir before and handed it to Morrom. "That¡¯s exactly where you¡¯re wrong. When I visited Marcear, the Ancient Silver Dragoness, I just passed her trial and got the skill ¡¯Magic Craftsmanship¡¯. Meaning, I can turn literal mana into items. I can ¡¯assign¡¯ a material to the mana that it will act as. The whole Dagger you¡¯re holding was made using crystalized mana, and only crystalized mana. Technically, that Dagger is a spell, apparently." Eisen exined, and Morrom looked down at the dagger and ran his hands over it, tried to bend it, and even attempted to cut his finger with it, but at least Eisen could stop him from doing thest of those things. And when Eisen took the Dagger away from Morrom again, the Half-Elf looked at the old man excitedly, "That¡¯s... that¡¯s just amazing! Having spells like this is just insane!" Morrom eximed, "A Spell in the form of an item... How amazing..." He muttered quietly, and then stared at the Magic Circle as it was currently cooling, and slowly took it into his hands. Morrom was also a half-dwarf, so his hands had the same resistance to heat as Eisen¡¯s own, but the old man still didn¡¯t like that he was touching an unfinished piece of his. "Put that down again, will you?" Eisen asked with a slight frown, and Morrom justughed embarrassedly, "Sorry about that..." Morrom apologized, and put the hot magic circle back to where it was cooling before, while Eisen just slightly sighed. Chapter 469 - Mana Items A little whileter, the Magic Circle was finally cool enough for Eisen to go over it again, so he quickly chose to just clean and polish it a little. It was supposed to be a Magic Item, but right now it was still a bit dirty from the forge¡¯s soot. Soon enough, the Magic Circle turned back into the pure white color that it had before, considering that it was made out of crystalized mana, and Eisen nodded his head in satisfaction as he looked at it and saw it as finished. [Solid Magic Circle] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description] A Magic Circle that was turned into an item by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It was made using raw crystalized mana and has a steel-like texture and weight. [Effect] [Usability] 100% With a smile on his face, Eisen held the magic circle over toward Morrom and Denmir, who looked at it with intense curiosity, before the old man made a suggestion, "Morrom, do you think you can use that to make me asrge an amount of Crystalized Mana as possible?" He inquired, and the Elf-Dwarf halfling immediately nodded his head. "Of course! I want to see what else you can make with this!" Morrom eximed, and just at that moment, a certain few people made their way into the Forge as well, "Hmm, so this is the ce Grandfather learned his cksmithing Skill?" Kiron muttered quietly as he pulled the hood over his head down, and both Morrom and Denmir looked at the five figures in the front in shock. "H-Half Dragons?!" Morrom eximed with a bit of excitement in his voice, and Eisen smirked a bit as he wiped his hands clean for a moment, and then walked up to Kiron with a smile, cing his hand on his shoulder. "This boy here is my Grandson, Kiron, who I¡¯ve told you about. And these four are his Squires." Eisen exined, and they quickly all introduced themselves to the two men, before Morgus walked around the smithy and looked at the weapons that were hanging around here. "Hmm, ya don¡¯t have anything that¡¯s more like Kiron¡¯s sword here? Like a big ass club or somethin¡¯?" Morgus asked, and Denmir raised his brows curiously, "Kiron¡¯s sword? Hmm, could I take a look at that, if ye¡¯re fine with it? I assume Eisen made it, am I right?" Denmir asked, and Kiron nodded his head as he pushed his cloak to the side, revealing the hilt that stuck out of the thin, rather small sheath. But that was really just supposed to be a bit of a trick to surprise opponents that saw it. The part of the hilt that stuck out was just a third of the actual hilt, and the inside of sheath was covered in ayer of specially enchanted Spatial Gem topletely envelop the Giant Greatsword that Kiron just pulled out and held in front of the Dwarven cksmith, who truly couldn¡¯t believe his eyes. "Wh-What is this monstrosity..?" Denmir muttered as he ran his fingers over the sword before looking at Kiron, "I would love to see ya swing this de sometime, youngd..." The Dwarf pointed out, all the whilst Eisen took the first chunk of Mana Crystal that Morrom started preparing for him and ced it into the sword. "Kiron¡¯s 150 years old, bud." Eisen pointed out, and Denmir snapped his neck around and looked at the old man confusedly, "What do you say..?" "Oh, and he¡¯s also technically Rank 10, but the iplete Experience-Steal system was used on him so he lost all his stats. He¡¯s not as strong, but he¡¯s still Rank 10." The old man added, and Denmir stared forward at Kiron with a wry smile, "A-Ah, is that so..?" The Dwarf muttered quietly as he let go of the de and just looked at Kiron respectfully, because he was scared shitless, basically. With a sigh, Eisen chose to just change the topic a bit, "Morgus, I¡¯ll get to your weaponter, I¡¯ll just bring this new skill of mine to Rank 1 and then I¡¯ll get started. In the meantime, Parc, Rouge,e over here for a second." The old man said, and the two of them excitedly made their way over to him to hear what they should do. "Sigurd and Fafnir should being after clearing the Dungeon out, so once they do, grab the Potion Mass-production system and show it to Morrom a bit. The Ingredients should all be in the Dungeon as well, so try to get started on a barrel of each Medium-Grade Health and Mana Potions, as well as a some Strength-, Agility-, and Defense-Enhancement potions, each worth a small barrel. It doesn¡¯t need to get done today, but sometime within the next couple of days would be perfect. And put priority on the enhancement potions if you can." Eisen exined, and the two of them quickly nodded their heads in response as they wrote down what needed to be done on a small piece of paper. "Then, try and make a few bundles of arrows for Rudia. Work together with her if possible, the Arrows are supposed to fit her Archery-Style. If you need my help, juste here, I should be spending most of my time today in here." He exined next, and then scratched his chin a bit, "And if you¡¯re not too busy, go to the Market with Sky, Bree, and Kirisho and take care of theissions, and maybe fill up some of the stock." The old man suggested, so the two boys immediately nodded their heads. "Will do!" Rouge eximed, and Parc quickly asked, "Should we start with the arrows first until Sigurd and Fafnir are here?" With a slight smile, Eisen just nodded his head, "Go ahead and do that, yeah." Once they heard their Teacher¡¯s reply, the two of them immediately ran toward Rudia and started asking her a few questions, before Morrom and Denmir slightlyughed, "They¡¯re an enthusiastic bunch, aren¡¯t they?" The Dwarf asked, and the Half-Elf soon just sighed. "I wish Koro was like that. He¡¯s just super gloomy most of the time." Morrom sighed, and Eisen lightly shrugged as he started to shape the Metallic Mana again to make another Magic Circle out of it, since it increased his proficiency a fair amount, "Well, of course he¡¯s gloomy." Eisen pointed out, "He blew up my hand, you know? Then I threw him out." He pointed out, and Morrom just lightlyughed. "Blew up your hand? Isn¡¯t it fine?" He asked, thinking that Eisen was exaggerating, but Eisen turned toward him and shook his head, "I¡¯m not joking, he literally blew my hand up. He didn¡¯t have the enchantment erase-ability yet, and he tried to edit an already finished enchantment." "Wait, he did that?" Morrom asked, quite shocked, and Eisen nodded his head in response, "Yes, he did. The feedback caused an explosion, but I contained it with my hand and element. In the process, my hand was literally obliterated and I couldn¡¯t work for the rest of the day." "I mean, isn¡¯t it fine then? If you could work for the rest of the day, it couldn¡¯t have been that bad... Why did you throw him out? Everyone makes mistakes sometimes." Morrom pointed out, and Eisen looked at him with a frown. "Morrom, I¡¯m immortal. My limbs regrow while I¡¯m sleeping. He literally blew my hand up. It was ripped into literal pieces and left me with nothing but a stump. Actually. As if you cut my hand off. And that despite the pressure and heat resistance from my Dwarven Racial, my fully increased size through my Giant Racial, and my element perfectly attuned toward rock, as hard as it could be." Eisen exined in detail, and Morrom just smiled wrily and nodded his head while scratching his cheek, "Alright, fair enough... I get why you threw him out then... That could have killed some people, huh?" "My point exactly." Eisne sighed, and then turned back toward his work while Morrom and Denmir started to speak to each other about the possibilities of the Magic Craftsmanship skill. And so, for the next few hours, Eisen worked as quickly as he could toward making a few Solid Magic Circles, and was then left with the skill at Level 98, so he just needed to make one more item and he would get it to Rank up. Even then, he already made a dozen Magic Circles, so he didn¡¯t necessarily feel like adding another one for now. Instead, all the talk between Morrom and Denmir gave Eisen a rather interesting idea that he just had to try out, and to Eisen¡¯s luck, at that point, Sigurd finally entered the Smithy that had be louder after more people actually started toe in to work. "Eisen! There you are!" Sigurd eximed with a smug expression, and the old man nodded his head with a grin as he looked at the Core Guardian. "The Dungeon seemed to have been a hit. Fafnir can evolve again, right?" The old man asked, and Sigurd immediately nodded its head. "Hehe, you got that right! Also, I got to use your Golems a couple of times, they were so fun to use!" Sigurd exined, so Eisen just slightlyughed in response. "Sounds good. Just tell me about thatter when we have the time to rx a little. For now, could you give me my potion-brew setup? The regr one, not the mass-production one." Eisen asked, and without hesitation, the Core Guardian nodded its head and disappeared in a cloud of blue mist, before re-appearing just a few momentster with parts of the setup, which Eisen quickly grabbed and ced down on a table. "Hmm, what are you trying to do now?" Morrom asked rather curiously as he looked at the setup, and the old man just slightly smirked as he took the different parts out of Sigurd¡¯s hands and properly connected them, before the old man just smirked and held a chunk of crystalized mana over a bowl. "Water." He said, and immediately, the white mana fell apart into a liquid, and Morrom finally understood what he wanted to do, "You¡¯re making a potion out of pure mana?" Chapter 470 - Potion-Spell With a smirk on his face, Eisen nodded his head as he looked at Morrom next to him, "That¡¯s exactly what I¡¯m trying, yes. I don¡¯t know how well it¡¯s going to work, but it could be worth looking into. I mean, if this works, once I can use elements to make items, I could technically use Bree¡¯s ¡¯Support¡¯ mana as a base for potions. It should be a great asset." The old man said, all the whilst Bree opened her eyes wide in excitement and ran up to Eisen¡¯s side to take a closer look at what he was making. "Whooa! That sounds so fun!" She eximed, and Morrom slowly nodded his head, since he really shared that opinionpletely, "It really does... Usually, no matter what shape mana takes, you would basically just be taking in raw mana again. Like, you can try to chew on crystalized mana, and your body will re-absorb it, albeit with a bit less than you originally put into making it... That is the same with liquified crystalized mana, but I truly wonder what it¡¯s like in the form of an item..." Morrom muttered quietly, and Eisen just slightly chuckled as he started to mix together some ground-down herbs and even crystalized-mana powder to rece mana crystals, and then mixed everything with the mana that Eisen assigned to act like water. Soon, the pure white liquid turned dark green through the herbs, before Eisen started to boil the ¡¯water¡¯ away, resulting in a rather viscous dark green liquid as well as the rest of the white mana that was pulled back out of it in two separate containers. And with a smile on his face, Eisen quickly grabbed another piece of crystalized mana and assigned it to act like ss, just to use transmutation to turn it into a bottle, filling the ¡¯potion¡¯ into it before pushing a small piece of crystalized-mana, assigned to be like cork, onto it and then saw it as finished. [Dexterity Potion-Spell] [Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0] [Description] A Potion-Spell created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. It was made nearly exclusively out of pure mana, causing the way the potion acts to change. Instead of having to actually consume it, it is enough to interact with the bottle and wish for consumption. [Effect] +5% Dexterity for 30 Minutes [Magic Craftsmanship reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1] [You can now use elemental mana to create items] [Due to ranking up your Magic Craftsmanship skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS] Eisen looked at the notifications in front of him and then waved them to the side, before throwing the potion over toward Denmir, who had just started working as well, and grinned at him, "Try it out." The old man suggested, and Denmir tilted his head to the side before he shrugged and started pulling the cork off, although Eisen stopped him from doing so. "No, no, don¡¯t drink it. Concentrate on the bottle as if you¡¯re manipting mana, and just think of the effect applying to you." Eisen told him, and Denmir raised his brows surprised, "Huh?" The Dwarf asked with a frown and then held the bottle tightly before doing just that, and soon, the bottle fell apart into nothingness before Denmir moved his fingers around a little. "It worked?" He asked, and Morrom immediately started freaking out over this, "Holy shit, a potion you don¡¯t need to drink? Isn¡¯t that a huge advantage in a fight?" The Half-Elf asked, and Eisen immediately nodded his head in response, although he then started moving his fingers through his beard. "Hmm, I¡¯m sure especially Brody would appreciate it, but he can¡¯t use mana..." The old man muttered to himself in thought, and Morrom turned toward him confused, "Huh? Can¡¯t use mana?" He inquired confusedly, and Eisen nodded his head in response. "Oh yeah, Brody¡¯s a Demon-Orc Halfling so he couldn¡¯t really use mana outside his body, so at some point it became a different type of energy. I mean, he¡¯s the only one that can use the Maroon-Steel weapons I made, so that¡¯s a good part, I guess. But otherwise it seems a little inconvenient since he can¡¯t use enchantments at all." Eisen exined, and just when he did, Denmir turned around immediately and stopped working, "Ye made items with Maroon?!" The Dwarf asked with obvious passion for the material, and Eisen raised his brows slightly surprised. "Yeah, I did. Actually, I didn¡¯t only make items with Maroon, but also Margon. Sigurd is actually made using it." Eisen exined as he handed the potion-brew kit back to the Core Guardian in question, since he really just wanted to try that part of it out for a bit, and it immediately started smirking brightly while both Denmir and Morrom stared at it. "M-M-Margon..?" Morrom stuttered quietly, "Like the fictional material? Something legendary like that?" "It¡¯s not fictional at all, Morrom. Maroon nullifies all magic, but if you put in all six basic elements into it at once, it will start absorbing them and after a mass amount of it will turn into Margon. At that point instead of nullifying magic and mana, it starts turning into a superconductor of sorts." Eisen exined, and before he knew it, Morrom squatted down in front of Sigurd to take a look at its body, although the Core Guardian itself obviously felt ufortable at that, so Eisen pulled him up by the back of the cor again. "I¡¯ll show you some of itter, alright? I only have a tiny chunk of Margon left, and a little bit of Maroon as well, but I¡¯ll let you y around with it, alright?" The old man suggested, and Denmir and Morrom immediately started nodding excitedly like little kids, before Eisen turned toward Bree, Sky and Sigurd. "Can I ask you three to set the stall up in our spot? It should still be reserved for us. If not, then just go see people in the guild again and tell them you belong to me." Eisen said, and just when he did, he remembered that he forgot something rather important that he had to take care of as well... He meant to meet Jaz and Garon and show them the proof for who he was... But he didn¡¯t do that yet so they probably assumed he just left after messing with them, so he had to get that der. With a deep sigh, Eisen scratched the back of his head and then looked at the five Half-Dragons in the room, although out of them, he was rather focused on the four that Eisen didn¡¯t make proper weapons for yet, and then called out to the first one amongst them that he would make items for. "Argon,e over here." Eisen told him, and the Bronze Half-Dragon quickly came rushing over, before the old man crossed his arms, "Do you have any other notablebat-rted skills beside hand-to-handbat? So other weapon proficiencies?" The old man asked him, and Argon slowly shook his head in response, "Not really, actually. I mean, I tried some other things out, so I have low-rank weapon based skills, but Hand-To-Handbat is the highest rank." Argon exined, so Eisen nodded his head in response and started to mentallye up with a design for a weapon if that was the case. "Then show me the types of moves you use most often." The old man suggested, and Argon tilted his head to the side surprised and scratched his cheek, "Just in here?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head in response, "Mhm, and if you can, try to use your mana in the same way that you usually would use your holy energy. This is so that I know what to focus on." Eisen exined, so Argon quickly understood and did as asked, demonstrating a few moves that Eisen closely inspected with the help of Mana-Copy and his mana-sight. To Eisen, it seemed like while Argon was technically fighting with his hands, what was far more impressive was his footwork. Since Argon¡¯s fighting was based on heavy, albeit slow, attacks, he had to be quick on his feet to make up for that. And most of the time, the thing that he relied on duringbat seemed to realy be his holy energy that he would practically shoot out of his hands. It was slightly simr to how Brody made use of his Yin and Yang energies, actually. And so, Eisen came up with a conclusion for the item, and quickly enchanted a mana-crystal with Argon¡¯s Prayer skill to somewhat generate a little holy energy, or at least integrate it into the actual item Eisen would make for him to enhance that a bit. Of course, he also did the same using Argon¡¯s Hand-To-Hand Combat skill so that he could make use of this as well. "Alright, then let¡¯s get started." Eisen said with a grin as he took a look at the materials currently avable to him, and to his luck, Denmir actually allowed him to use whatever materials he could find in the storage, so he didn¡¯t really need to worry about such things for now. And so, the thing that Eisen did first was to get some Bronze, which he swiftly folded the Prayer-Enchanted mana-crystal into, and then made use of the Holy-Energy that Argon himself chose to give Eisen for this, which the old man quickly folded into the Bronze, which soon changed the metal¡¯s color into a pale-brownish tone, and Eisen then repeated this same action, just with Steel instead of bronze to get a more stable base for everything. And so, the old man split off parts of both of these chunks of holy-metal, and turned both of them into t sheets before cing the hot bronze-sheet on top of the hot steel-sheet, hammering them together while ttening them even more to make sure both parts of the metal were properly attached to each other. Of course he used a little bit of transmutation to support that as well. Then, the old man got started on punching out small scale-shaped pieces out of this doubleyered metal sheet, enough to cover two gauntlets and boots, and then got started on constructing the gauntlet- and metal-boot-bases in ayered manner using the holy-steel, before enchanting the metal bases to then ce ayer of the holy-bronze onto those bases, although just very thinly. Then, Eisen chose to make use of the marble-workstation that Sigurd luckily left here to mass-enchant the scales that he punched out with enchantments to increase the flow of holy energy, and gave each of them the prayer ability-enchantment. At least that was the case for the gauntlets¡¯ scales. The scales for the boots, however, gained enchantments to increase movement speed as much as possible and to increase maneuverability. After cing those scales onto the items they belonged to, Eisen finished the Pdin¡¯s Gauntlets and Boots. Chapter 471 - Bow, and Pillar Prep "Argon." Eisen said with a smile on his face as he approached the Pdin Half-Dragon with the items in hand, and swiftly handed them over to him, "The boots are supposed to support your movement through increased speed and agility, and you can actually stop your movement with them more easily as well. The Guantlets should let you fight like you normally do, just with a bit of extra punch, you know? For once through the fact that they¡¯re made of metal, and then because they¡¯re made to increase the flow of your Holy Energy." The old man exined, before Argon looked at them rather excitedly. "These seem quite amazing... I will try them out right away!" Argon eximed, although Eisen managed to m him down rather quickly, "Or how about you wait until you all have your weapons, and then your spar a bit in the Dungeon?" The old man suggested, since he didn¡¯t want Argon to just go ahead and use his proper Holy Energy-based moves inside of this actually rather tight smithy. "Oh, that sounds even better!" He replied enthusiastically, and with a slight sigh, Eisen turned toward the next one of them. "Selena, I¡¯ll need your help next." Eisen told her, and the Silver Half-Dragoness swiftly stepped up toward him. "Yours might take a little longer toplete because I need to prepare the special materials first. But it¡¯s going to be worth it, trust me. Do you have a specific element yet?" The old man asked her, and with no hesitation, she nodded her head. "Yes, I do! It¡¯s a rathermon element for those that grew up on the Ind... ¡¯Draconic¡¯." She exined, and Eisen raised his brows in response when he heard the name of that element, "Is that so..?" He asked, and then ced his hand onto the Dragoness¡¯ arm, slightly surprising her. "Wh-What are you..?" She asked nervously, and Eisen looked back at her surprised, "I¡¯m trying to ability-enchant this gem with your element to make a material-infuser." Eisen pointed out, so Selena quickly nodded her head embarrassedly, "Of course, of course, go ahead!" She eximed, so Eisen just slightly sighed and did just what he said he would, although there was something else he wanted to ask about as well. "Other than for your Staff, could I make use of your element for another project of mine? I will be working on it in a few days from now, but it would be great if I could. It would be an amazing addition." The old man pointed out, although he was still hiding what exactly that ¡¯project¡¯ was all about. It was rather obvious that it had to do with Eisen¡¯s new skill, and since it was a pretty mysterious skill in itself, everyone was rather curious about what kind of project he wanted to gather a ¡¯Draconic¡¯ element for, including Selena herself, of course. "Y-Yes, go ahead... If you need my help with anything else, let me know!" She eximed, so Eisen just greatfully nodded his head in response and then started to construct the proper infusion system, quickly starting on creating the different materials he wanted to make use of for the staff. Luckily, Denmir allowed Eisen to do this here as well, something that the old man was rather happy about, since he didn¡¯t want to do all this somewhere where just anyone would be able to see. "Now, Rudia." Eisen said next, looking over at the Red Half-Dragoness, who was patiently waiting for her turn, although it seemed like Morgus was a bit annoyed that he would be getting his own itemst out of the group. Even then, at least he knew how to stay silent sometimes, so that was a good quality for him to have. "Alright, tell me, what kind of Archery are you focused on? Long range, short range, mobile..?" Eisen asked curiously, and Rudia slowly thought about it for a moment before scratching the back of her neck, "I would say I¡¯m most confident in short range archery... I¡¯m also confident in my shooting speed... Like, dynamic archery while in actualbat, you know?" She asked the old man, and he swiftly nodded his head in response. "I get what you mean. A Shortbow it is, then." The old man said with a satisfied smile, and then grabbed some of the wood that he asked Sigurd to leave behind before leaving, before starting to n the actual bow out, trying to figure out what enchantments might be the best to be put onto this bow, and then he just got started with the carving. First things first, Eisen created the rough structure of the bow¡¯s body using a stiff, but at the same time rtively stic, piece of wood, and then used some threads made using a metal-crystal mixture as the base, the crystal of course having been enchanted with Rudia¡¯s Archery Skill. And using this bowstring, Eisen then started to test the flexibility of the bow to carve away at some parts to make sure it could really be used properly, before then starting to enchant the bow with different important enchantments. Of course there were the basic ones that were supposed to help with the drawspeed and the speed of the arrow itself, but then there was also something else that Eisen wanted to test out with the help of Sal¡¯s Marite element. He enchanted a gem with it and ced it onto the center of the bow¡¯s body, right where the arrow would travel by, literally touching the gem while at it, and then started working on a little bit of a system for that. Basically, the gem, when mana was pushed inside of it to activate it, was supposed to create something like a small crosshair, that Eisen created using the simr system he came up with for the setting-menus, in front of the user¡¯s eye. And then that crosshair could be used to mark the next target that the Marite-threads would be able to use. Because what they were supposed to do was pull the Arrow directly toward the target that was ¡¯marked¡¯ using the crosshair. Just like that, the Arrows would hopefully end up being literally guided toward the target, something that should be able to help with the mobile archery especially. Of course it wouldn¡¯t rece the need for proper aim, since all the Marite-Threads should be able to do is slightly ¡¯fix¡¯ the arrow¡¯s trajectory. Either way, it should help a little bit at least, that¡¯s what the old man was hoping for. And so, within just a few hours, a high-grade shortbow was finished that the Half-Dragoness could make use of from now on. It actually became ratherte in the day, now that Eisen thought about it. He would probably be able to start with Morgus¡¯ item if he hurried up now. Or at least, he could be able to start setting everything up to be able to make Morgus¡¯ item tomorrow morning, so that he could then make Selena¡¯s staff with the finished magic materials and make use of the rest of the time he had to try his very best to rank his Magic Craftsmanship skill up as much as he could by creating different items that should help him level up more quickly in the future, while also making the trip to see the next Ancient Dragon a fair bit easier. "Rudia." The old man said as he pulled on the bowstring a few more times and handed the shortbow over, making the Half-Dragoness look at the item more than just excitedly. "This is truly incredible, Eisen. Thank you!" She eximed, although she seemed to be quite eager to test it out as soon as she could. "Parc and Rouge will make some arrows for you to test it out in the Dungeon during that Spar tomorrow, so don¡¯t worry." Eisen said with a smile on his face, before Rudia quickly nodded her head and then joined Argos in admiring their new items to fight with, before Morgus came up to the old man. "So, you¡¯re making my item now?" The ck Half-Dragon asked in a deep, rough voice, and Eisen just smirked back at him, "I¡¯ll get started now. It¡¯s getting a bitte, and making your weapon is going to take a little longer than what I made for Argos and Rudia. It will be done tomorrow, don¡¯t worry." The old man exined, before Morgus sighed deeply, seemingly a bit annoyed, and even a little jealous, at the fact that the other two got their things before he did, but Eisen reassured him. "Don¡¯t worry, the wait will be worth it, just like it will be for Selena." Eisen pointed out, and then held his hand outward, "Your arm, please." The old man said, and Morgus sighed deeply as he stretched his arm out, letting Eisen take the ¡¯Pir Combat¡¯ skill from him and enchant it into a fair amount of mana crystals, gems, and other crystals. "Why do you need so many from me..?" Morgus asked with a bit of concern, and Eisen looked at him with a frown, "You¡¯ve been fighting with a log so far, the item I¡¯m making for you will be simr to that, just far, far better. It¡¯s going to have a fair bit more volume than their items." The old man exined, before Morgus simply slowly nodded his head in response. "Err... I guess that makes sense." He replied, so Eisen just nodded, "Of course it does. Now,e on and help me grab the materials." Eisen told him with a sigh, and before making his way to the material storage, made his way over toward Denmir who was getting ready to finish up for the day himself. "There anythin¡¯ I can help ya with?" The Dwarf asked curiously, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head in response, "Yes, actually. I need to use arge,rge amount of metal. It¡¯s too much for me to say that I¡¯m taking your offer to have it for free. So I¡¯ll pay you for the materials in advance." The old man exined, before Denmir raised his brows and then looked at the old man curiously. "Ye¡¯re gonna use that much..? What materials do ya need?" Denmir asked, and Eisen quickly exined the two main materials he wanted to make use of, "Mostly it¡¯s Steel, maybe 80 to 90% of it, and the rest is silver. Well, Mythril, but my own type of mythril, so I¡¯ll be needing silver." "Hmm, then I get ya. Alright, just show me how much ya need and then we¡¯ll speak ¡¯bout the price for everythin¡¯." Denmir suggested, quickly wiping his hands and forehead clean from dirt and sweat before following the old man and ck Half-Dragon into the material storage, where Eisen immediately started grabbing immense, truly immense, ammounts of steel and silver at the level that Denmir didn¡¯t really expect, nearly taking two thirds of Denmir¡¯s storage of either of those metals. "Wh-Why do ya need that much?" Denmir asked, and the old man just smirked, "To make an incredibly heavy metal pir, that¡¯s why." Chapter 472 - Proof "A Pir?" Denmir asked in response once Eisen exined the item to him, and the old man nodded his head in response, "Yes, Morgus has been fighting with a log so far, and his mainbat skill is ¡¯Pir Combat¡¯, so I¡¯m making him a metallic Pir." The old man exined quite quickly, and Denmir slowly started rubbing his chin through his beard, "Hmm, I hear ya... Then what are yer ns for these metals?" The dwarf asked curiously. With a smile on his face, Eisen just held up some of the Silver, "As I said, I¡¯ll be turning this into my own version of Mythril, then alloy it with some of the steel to make it less brittle and retain a bit of the effect the Mythril has, and then cover the main steel body with a thickyer of it. The inside will then probably have a 3D Enchantment core." Eisen told him, so Denmir just slightly whistled, thinking that this was a rather interesting idea. "Now then, I¡¯d love to see that, old man." Denmir said with a slight grin, and Eisen simply nodded his head in response, "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll be working on it mainly from tomorrow morning on. For now I¡¯m just infusing the Silver, and getting all the materials ready so that I can get started immediately." The old man exined, and then slightly cracked his knuckles as they started bringing everything to the forge in the far corner of the room that Eisen had been working at all day today, and then set everything up to properly prepare, and Eisen then slowly turned toward Denmir again. "Could I maybe stay here tonight? So that I can get started directly when I wake up tomorrow." The old man suggested, and Denmir looked at him with a slight frown, "Ya wanna sleep in a smithy?" Denmir asked, and Eisen just shrugged in response. "It¡¯s not like there¡¯s any difference to how I sleep no matter if I¡¯m in a bed, or if I¡¯m standing upright. So don¡¯t worry about that." Eisen said reassuredly, and Denmir just scratched the back of his head and nodded his head, "A¡¯ight, then ye can stay ¡¯ere. Just don¡¯t mess anythin¡¯ up, ya hear?" The Dwarf said with a wink, and Eisen just nodded his head with a smile and looked over toward Kiron. "Could you let Sky and Bree know about that? So that they don¡¯t worry?" Eisen asked his draconic grandson, who simply smiled back, "Of course, Grandfather. But is something wrong? You kind of seem in a rush to get to sleep." The Half-Dragon pointed out, and Eisen raised his brows in repsonse. "Oh, sorry, I guess I am. The earlier I sleep, the earlier I can get started on the items and the earlier we can leave again to meet the next Ancient Dragon, and at the same time it will allow me to level up a lot quicker if we go to areas with higher-ranked monsters than here." Eisne exined with a smile on his lips. Even if this wasn¡¯t a lie, it was only half the reason. He rather just wanted to get out of the capsule and check on the others again, and see if the situation escted or calmed down a bit. He was especially concerned because of Michael, although he seemed like he wouldn¡¯t wake up anytime soon. "Hmm, I see. Well, we will all do our best to assist you in that task." Kiron exined, before Eisen just nodded his head and smiled at his grandson, being rather thankful to have him around again. But in the end, since it became incredibly tough to level up now that Eisen became Level 200, he was pretty sure that it would take an immense amount of time to get to Level 300. Maybe a couple of weeks in real life, even. It was a bit bothersome, but it was something that Eisen had to live with, since Level 300 was a ce that he had to reach as soon as possible to advance in unlocking the puzzle box. "Thank you. Now then, the Silver is being infused now, so I¡¯ll be heading off to sleep. Should be awake again in four of five hours, and I¡¯ll get to work right then. You guys go ahead and head to the Inn." Eisen told the Half-Dragons with a smile on his face, and then looked at the three Monsters-turned-teenagers next to him. "What about you three? Do you want to stay here or are you going to the Inn together with Kiron?" The old man inquired, and as if Eisen¡¯s question waspletely idiotic, all three of them looked at Eisen with a nk expression and got started on setting up their own ¡¯beds¡¯ for the night, so the old man couldn¡¯t do much but just sigh. "Fine. Alright, then I¡¯ll be going to sleep now." Eisen told the others with a smile, before Denmir led the five Half-Dragons out of the smithy and locked the door, before Eisen just closed his eyes and logged out. --- Carefully, Benjamin climbed out of the Capsule and then walked to his door. His ¡¯attempted¡¯ transformation yesterday didn¡¯t do his body any good, but it seemed to him that he at least somewhat recovered again. His body was still aching all over, but it was only at the level of sore muscles after working out, so he didn¡¯t mind it too much. As Benjamin stepped out of his room, he soon saw the two people that came here early in the morning standing in the kitchen, speaking to each other. Michael still seemed to be out cold, and the others were seemingly in their rooms, somehow trying to deal with this whole situation a little better. And so, the old man had a good chance to speak to Haruo and Jasmin for a while, since he didn¡¯t really do so when they arrived. But just when he started seeing Haruo¡¯s face, he noticed that something was very, very off. "Did something happen?" Benjamin asked, and Haruo swiftly turned his face toward the old man before sighing deeply and nodding his head. "Yeah, something did happen..." The Japanese young man replied, "A former co-worker lit up my researchb. You know, the one I told you about before about... preservation research." Haruo exined, "All the experimental data is gone, higher-ups are considering to shut the project down altogether due to the financial loss that came with all this, and I might lose my job..." With a slight frown, Benjamin looked at the young man and sighed deeply, "Were you supposed to work there today?" He asked, and Haruo looked at him surprised and nodded. "Yes, usually I would have, but my higher-ups told me I still have vacation days I didn¡¯t use, so I had to leave soon, so I figured directly was a better time than ever." "That choice might have saved your life, Jyuuk." Benjamin told him, before Jasmin looked at the old man confused. "Saved his life...? You think he would have died if he stayed there?" She asked, seemingly rather nervously, and Benjamin just nodded his head, "Yeah, I do. It¡¯s going to make more sense tonight, don¡¯t worry..." Benjamin said reassuredly, and Jasmin and Haruo looked at each other with clear worry in their eyes. "Is everything okay with you? Did something happen here?" Jasmin asked, and the old man sighed deeply and nodded his head in response, "You could say that. But not just here, all over the ce. Last night, Brody and his wife were attacked by the Triad, Evalia¡¯s house was broken into by armed men that probably were out for her life, and now Jyuuk¡¯sb was burnt down while he was supposed to be working there. A couple of weeks ago, the stalker you moved because of hunted you down and nearly killed you in your apartment, while at the same time being the trigger for me getting my arm literally cut off. Just a bit before that, one of the most despicable human beings who I hate to call my brother appeared here with a loaded weapon, asking for money, brought here by the man currently sleeping on my couch." Benjamin exined, summing up all the things that made him think that something was really off at the moment, and the two Lovers looked at each other confusedly. "What are you trying to say?" Haruo asked, and Benjamin looked back at them with a sigh and pressed his eyes shut, "Haah... I wanted to show this to you a bitter when Evalia and Brody were here, but I guess now¡¯s good as well." The old man started, and then slowly opened his eyes again as his sight became ck-and-white, a sign that his Truth-Seeing-Eyes were active. And the very moment that they did, both Haruo and Jasmin couldn¡¯t believe what they were seeing and just stared at the old man silently, before he just de-activated them again. "Sorry, they¡¯re a bit hard on my eyes, so I can¡¯t have them active that long..." Benjamin apologized, and Jasmin looked at the old man in shock before starting to speak, "B-But h-how did you do-do that... that¡¯s a tr-trick, right?!" She asked, and Benjamin just shook his head and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Haruo did so for him. "No, it¡¯s not... There is actually a reason why I chose to take my overdue vacation right now..." He stated, and slowly started to unbutton his shirt, before pulling it off of his chest, letting it just hang by his elbows. And then, Benjamin couldn¡¯t believe his eyes anymore either, "That is..." The old man muttered and slightly leaned in toward Haruo. His rtively pale skin had changed colors in a few spots, as if in the form of patterns. It wasn¡¯t that easy to see at first, but once you reallypared everything, you could really see that some parts of Haruo¡¯s skin had a pink, blue, green, red, or yellow tint and Benjamin soon realized what this all was. "That¡¯s your Beast Storage, isn¡¯t it?" The old man asked, and Haruo immediately nodded his head in response before showing his hand, which he had been hiding in his pocket the whole time, as well. He held both of his hands next to each other to show that there really were some changes on his right hand as well, where the storage of his Undead usually took ce in the form of Bone-Tattoos. "They started appearing a couple of days ago. Or rather, I noticed them a couple of days ago... They might have been there a while longer. I went through some simple tests, and the pigment of my skin has not changed at all to what it normally would be ording to the values. Despite that obviously not being true." Haruo stated, and Benjamin frowned deeply in response. "I see..." Benjamin muttered quietly, "I think your skin and my eyes are proof enough, huh?" The old man muttered quietly, and Jasmin turned her eyes away from Haruo¡¯s skin and looked at Benjaminm, "P-Proof for what?" She asked with a slight stutter, and Benjamin looked at her with a nk expression, the muscles in his face not moving at the level of him basically being dead. But nheless, this gave both Haruo and Jasmin iparable goosebumps. "That I¡¯m not crazy, and the ¡¯Game¡¯ really is just another world." Chapter 473 - Pillar "What..? How could this be..?" Jasmin asked quietly, "That¡¯s just impossible, isn¡¯t it..? Science can¡¯t-" "It¡¯s not science, Xenia." Benjamin said clearly, "It¡¯s Magic. It¡¯s nothing that can be directly exined by science." The old man pointed out, and with a confused expression, Jasmin rubbed her eyes underneath her sses. "But if you have the possibility to literally make another world, why would you turn that other world into a videogame?" She asked, but Benjamin didn¡¯t have an answer for that either, "I really don¡¯t know, but it¡¯s obvious that someone is trying to stop us from finding out why. There¡¯s obviously someone trying to kill us using other people." He pointed out, and Haruo turned toward the old man with a frown. "Do you have any idea who it could be..?" The young man asked, and Benjamin slightlyughed in response, "Are you kidding? How could I not know, or at least have an idea. It might not be him, of course, we obviously don¡¯t know all parts of the story. But there¡¯s one person that I all of a sudden can¡¯t reach no matter how much I try and what kind of messages I leave behind. The guy that¡¯s literally be a God amongst Gods on that side." The old man said, and Haruo lightly nodded his head in thought. "Samuel..." Haruo replied, but Jasmin just shook her head immediately, "N-No, it can¡¯t be Samuel! Come on, he-he¡¯s totally h-harml-l-less, right?" She stuttered out, and Benjamin shook his head in response. "I¡¯m sorry, I don¡¯t think he is." --- Eisen woke up with an annoyed expression apanied by a deep grumble. The conversation he just led with Haruo and Jasmin was pretty hard, especially considering the amount that Jasmin was panicking through all of it. But in the end, they managed to rx a bit, and they all made their way into the bas.e.m.e.nt spaces to calm themselves down, while Eisen stepped back into the game. "Let¡¯s do this, I guess..." The old man sighed, and took a look at the Silver that he had been infusing with arge amount of elemental mana to turn it into me-of-the-Earth Mythril of the rank that Eisen wanted it to be, and then just threw some steel into a crucible to melt it down enough, and then added some of the mythril, quickly mixing the two molten metals with the help of transmutation, before pouring it out into a mold to turn it into ingots. And while the alloy was cooling, Eisen got started with the rest of the item and threw some steel into the forge, folding them into each other together with some of his mana, and then shaped it into arge, thick tube, roughly two meters in length and a bit below half a meter wide, and a hollow tunnel in the center of it that was roughly ten centimeters thick, which was more than enough for what Eisen wanted to make. While thisrge piece of metal was cooling down as well, the old man grabbed some crystals, gems, and so on andbined some of them with each other, of course including the crystals that Eisen enchanted with the Pir Combat Skill, and turned it into a two meter long, ten centimeter wide staff, and then simply got started on turning it into a 3D enchantment that would push the effect of itself out onto the pir that wouldter surround it. Basically, what the enchantment was supposed to do was to support any sort of movement that the wielder was intending on. Since a Pir, especially one nearly wholly made of metal, was incredibly heavy, it was rather unwieldy, so this should and would help out a fair bit with Morgus¡¯ fighting. Of course, that support wasn¡¯t the only effect that the 3D enchantment had, otherwise it was also meant to increase the outward force upon contact with an enemy, as well as enhance the general durability of the whole item. Blunt weapons degraded especially swiftly, after all. And then, once Eisen was done with this enchantment, he started to do his best to enchant the inside of the pir as well, of course with the help of the marble workstation, and then enchanted the outsideyer of it on top of that, although this time by hand. Once he was done with that, Eisen threw the Mythril-Steel alloy into the forge until it was rather close to its melting point so that it was rtively easy to shape. This wasn¡¯t something good for regr forging, but since Eisen wanted the Alloy to be pushed into the enchantments on the outside of the pir, and wanted to simply cover the outside of the pir with it, this was a different story. Actually, the first thing that Eisen did with the alloy was to fill out the enchantments to create a t surface and then simply turned the alloy into t sheets that he could easily wrap around the outside. And just like that, by the time that Denmir came to open up the shop, Eisen was nearly done with the pir already. All that he had to do then was to add the handles to it, enchant it, and add the extra tes to the two ends of the pir. Since usually, Morgus pushed his ws into the wooden log to get a good grip, he would have trouble doing the same with this one, so Eisen created a few slits along the sides of the pir, especially many around the two ends, that Morgus could push his whole fingers into. "Well then, that¡¯s quite a beast, ain¡¯t it?" Denmir asked excitedly as he looked at the item that Eisen was working on, and with a bit of augh, the old man nodded his head in response. "That¡¯s one way to put it, sure." He replied, and then took his carving needle to run over the Mythril-Steel Alloy surface to enchant the outside with enchantments that would work in coboration with the central 3D enchantment. This took a while in itself, just considering the raw surface of therge metal Pir, and when the enchantments were done, the five Half-Dragons came back into the Smithy as well after their day¡¯s sleep, telling the old man that the others already went on with their own tasks, like setting up the stall or making items, something that Eisen was alright with. It wouldn¡¯t take him too long to finish this, so then he could make Selena¡¯s Staff and help the others out a little bit, and they could start making their way out of town tomorrow morning. It should take only a week or two to get to the next Dragon then. Either way, for now, the old man continued his work, although just when Eisen wanted to start on the panels meant for the two round surfaces, a certain young Half-Dragon interrupted him. "Yo, is this mine? It looks pretty... good?" Morgus said with a weirdly questioning tone, and Eisen sighed deeply in response, "Hey, be more appreciative here, got it? I¡¯m making that for free, and even paying a fair amount for the materials. If you don¡¯t want it, I¡¯ll smelt it down again." The old man sighed, and Morgus opened his eyes surprised and shook his head as he tried to grab the pir, "Nah, don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m fine with-" "Don¡¯t you dare touch that or you¡¯re losing a hand." The old man said and turned around toward Morgus, taking his Sword out of Soul Storage and holding it right inbetween the ck Half-Dragon and the Metal-Pir. "R-Right..." Morgus replied with a wry smile and then quickly took a step backward as he looked at Kiron, "Your Grandfather is even crazier than you are..." He pointed out, and the Crystal Half-Dragon nodded his head excitedly, "He is, isn¡¯t he?" While Morgus just looked at Kiron with a confused expression, Denmir was quite curious about the Sword that Eisen just pulled out of nowhere, "This... What is this..? Such a metal..." The Dwarf muttered quietly, and Eisen simply sighed in response. "I¡¯ll exin itter. Basically, it¡¯s a Yin-Alligned Demonic Metal. Here, go ahead and take a look, but don¡¯t scratch it up. It¡¯s gonna get mad at me if you do." The old man said and handed the sword to the Dwarf, but Denmir just slightlyughed in response, although when he saw the Weapon Core, he realized that it wasn¡¯t actually a joke. "Th-This is an Ego-Weapon? And of this high quality of ego, even!" He eximed in surprise, before Eisen just nodded his head and threw some of the mythril-steel into the forge again to heat it up, "Of course it is. I literally had to rip both my arms out to get that metal, and I used the Yin-Alligned metal up on that sword. I¡¯m not repeating that for the random chance of getting more metal again..." The old man exined, but then just sighed and shook his head. "Just look at it, look at the enchantments, and so on, but don¡¯t try to actually wield it or it¡¯s going to get a bit annoyed at you. Its Ego has high possibilities even if its not high in ego-strength yet. But even then, it can still mess around a bit if it wants to." The old man pointed out, and Denmir immediately nodded his head in response, simply getting started on closely inspecting the weapon he was just given for a bit, while Eisen concentrated on his work again. He simply wanted to make high-density covers for both ends, nothing special. He would enchant them a bit to further help with the movement, since it was rather easy to influence movement from those end parts, but the main part about them would be that they would be slightlypressed for more weight and a bit of a higher effect. Eisen couldn¡¯t do this with the whole surface of the pir, but it was fine for the two end parts, since he had the materials to do so. It would simply be wasteful, and turn the whole pir a lot heavier, if he did it with the outeryer. Either way, for now, the old man managed to make twopressed, round tes and then folded them around the ends of the pir, waiting for them to cool down properly while slightlybining them with the main pir using transmutation, before swiftly enchanting it. And then, the old man swiftly pushed his fingers into the handle-slits of the pir and picked it up to test its bnce, and with a satisfied smile, handed the insanely heavy item to Morgus, who received it with a big, dumb grin and immediately wanted to test it out. Even if it was a slight bit too heavy for him. Chapter 474 - Draconic Staff "Just wait a little while longer, I¡¯ll make Selena¡¯s Staff and then we¡¯re heading to the market, alright?" The old man told the Half-Dragons, most of which seemed to be more than just excited to finally test out their new items. Especially Argon and Rudia, actually, since they¡¯ve had them sincest night already and had to just have them sit around all night without having been used yet. Morgus, who Eisen expected to be the one to try and test it out in here, was actually just inspecting his new weapon properly and trying out different ways to hold it, which was perfectly fine for Eisen. It was rather different to what he was used to, after all, so him trying to learn how to even carry it was rather obvious. But either way, Eisen didn¡¯t really want to keep everyone waiting for too long, and then swiftly got started working on Selena¡¯s staff. First things first, Eisen grabbed arge amount of mythril, a type that he actually infused with Selena¡¯s ¡¯Draconic¡¯ element, and was rather happy to see that it stayed solid and actually seemed to be somewhat like a metallic Dragon¡¯s scales, including the patterns that were usually found on them. And so, it was rather obvious what Eisen would be making out of this metal... Scales for a tiny metallic silver dragon. He ttened parts of the Mythril and punched them out into the right shape, just so slightly bending them depending on where they were supposed to go, and then sat them to the side to cool. Once therge amounts of scales were done, Eisen ced the rest of the Draconic Mythril into a crucible and chose to smelt it down, alloying it with some White Gold, also created by infusing Gold with the Draconic Element, and different gems and crystals that were also infused with the same. And while everything was still liquid, Eisen got started and grabbed some of the ¡¯Draconic¡¯ infused wood and started carving it into the shape that he wanted. And the shape that Eisen wanted was that of a tiny dragon¡¯s skeleton. It was a bit annoying to do due to the small size of some parts of it, but after that, Eisen swiftly enchanted the wooden skeleton and filled the enchantments in with some different crystals and gems, and then created different Gem and Crystal organs for the tiny Dragon as well, even if they weren¡¯t functional and just static like a figurine. Once everything was set in ce, the old man grabbed some of the Mythril, White Gold and Crystal Alloy and turned it into thin sheets that he swiftly bent around the Wooden Skeleton to act as a base while pushing the hot metal into every nook and cranny with his fingers and transmutation, to keep parts of the skeletal structure on the outside, for example the rough shape of the spine and facial structure, and so on. And with the base set into ce, Eisen used the rest of that same alloy to add onto that base and give the Tiny Dragon some better shape, proper wings, and basically just model it into a realistic tiny dragon without its scales. Because those scales came afterward. But of course, not without the Tiny Dragon¡¯s body being enchanted underneath, each slit that a scale would be pushed into being perfectly integrated into the design of the enchantment. Not only that, however, even the scales themselves were enchanted, albeit with the help of the marble workstation that allowed for mass-production of enchantments. Obviously, all the enchantments that were ced on this Tiny Dragon¡¯s body were supposed to help with the flow of mana, both elemental and non-elemental. Some of the organs were even technically different types of mana batteries that could store raw or elemental mana as well, so that Selena wouldn¡¯t have trouble casting any spell she wanted to. Once Eisen then just pushed all of the freshly-enchanted scales into the Tiny Dragon¡¯s body, the central part of the staff was finished, but it wasn¡¯t done just yet. Using some Draconic-infused wood, which was given a core of Draconic Mythril and Crystals, was basically just a straight pole with a small t tform at the top. Right now, even if it was enchanted, this part of the staff didn¡¯t really look all that great. Rather boring, actually. But when Eisen ced both parts of the staff together, the actual staff and the Tiny Dragon, it revealed its true form. It was like a staff meant to carry a pet more easily, with the tiny dragon perched up on the small t tform at the top, its front legs sitting on top but its hind legs holding its bnce underneath, with its long tail wrapping around the pole. It was slightly unbnced right now, being rather top-heavy, so Eisen added a slight bit ofpressed metal to the bottom to make up for it. But luckily, since the materials were all infused with mana, their weight was greatly reduced whenpared to normal anyway, so it didn¡¯t need too much bncing and was still easy to carry around even for a long time. And so, just like that, the Draconic Mage¡¯s Staff was finished, and Eisen looked at the item with a satisfied expression. With this, all five of the Draconic Knights, including Kiron of course, were fully equipped when it came to weapons. Luckily they didn¡¯t actually have that much of a need for armor, since their scales themselves were an incredible defense, but Eisen was still thinking about what kind of armor might be best for them and would work on it on the trip away from Melroe to the next Dragon. With a smile on his face, the old man put his Multitool back together and pushed it back into the spot it was usually hanging from on his Apron again, cleaned himself up a little from the soot and wooden shavings that were stuck to his clothes, and then grabbed the staff next to him to bring it over to Selena, who was already looking at the piece with curious eyes. "Here you go, a Staff made just for you." The old man said with a smile, and then handed the staff over to the Silver Half-Dragoness in front of him, who gratefully grabbed it and ran her fingers over the tiny dragon¡¯s body. "It looks so real!" She eximed, and Eisen chuckled in response, "If I¡¯m good in one area of design, its realism." The old man replied, and then with a smile on his face turned over toward Denmir, who was still inspecting Eisen¡¯s sword as closely as he could. "Now then, do you like it?" The old man asked, and without a single moment of hesitation, Denmir nodded his head in response as he looked up at Eisen, who was now standing right beside him. "This truly is a magnificent piece, ye can be sure¡¯o that..." The Dwarf muttered quietly, "Ye don¡¯t coincidentally wanna sell it to-" "Sorry, no deal, even if you¡¯re my friend. As I said, I literally ripped both my arms out to get this metal, so I¡¯m not going to let this go that easily." The old man pointed out, and Denmir lightly sighed in response. "If ye say so. Say, how¡¯d a man like me get the chance ta get his hands on such metal?" Denmir inquired curiously as Eisen ced the Sword back into his Soul Storage, and then looked down at the Dwarf. "Be at least a Demon candidate for both the Yin and Yang path, get your Demonic Form, and then have a part of your body infused withrge amounts of positive energy to get a mass of Yang once you remove that part of your body, and then have a part of your body be infused withrge amount of negative energy to get a mass of Yin in the same manner. Then you need aplex ancient magic item to open a portal to the Demonic Realm, where you can then grab a random type of Demonic Material." The old man exined, and Denmir slightly stared back at him with his eyes slightly squinted and then muttered to himself. "Demon candidate, huh..?" He whispered quietly, and Eisen just sighed to himself, "Haah... Right, try your best, Denmir. Come to the Inn again tonight, since we¡¯ll be leaving tomorrow we should all have another drink." Eisen suggested with a light smile, and Denmir raised his brows surprised. "Ye¡¯re leavin¡¯ already?" He asked, before Eisen nodded his head in response, "Yeah, the situation is actually pretty bad at the moment, so I need to be on my way to get a better chance at unlocking the puzzle box I showed you the other day." Eisen exined as he got started cleaning everything up around the workstations he worked at, with Denmir going ahead to help him, before the Dwarf slightly sighed. "Then at leaste back again in a couple¡¯o months, will ya?" Denmir asked, before Eisen just nodded his head with a light smile as if it was obvious, "Of course I will, don¡¯t worry about that." The old man replied, and then finished up the cleanup. "I¡¯ll let the others know about tonight as well, so ye can go ahead and stay at yer stall." Denmir then said all of a sudden, and with his brows raised in surprise, Eisen just lightly smiled back at him gratefully, "Thank you. But I¡¯ll have to go to the Adventurer¡¯s Guild before I go to the stall, so if you end up looking for me, that¡¯s where I¡¯ll be if I¡¯m not at the stall." Eisen exined, before Denmir looked at him surprised. "Adventurer¡¯s... Ye¡¯re signed up there?" The Dwarf asked, and Eisen just slightlyughed and nodded his head, "I am, but I¡¯m still just rank 1. I ended up being a little too busy for Guild business." Eisen pointed out, so Denmir shrugged. "Ah, I getcha. Everyone¡¯s wanted ta be a famous Adventurer once or twice in their life, but it¡¯s not for everyone. Even if yer strong enough, it simply ain¡¯t yer callin¡¯." "You¡¯ve got that right. Although, considering that I¡¯m also still just Rank 1 in the Crafter¡¯s Guild... I don¡¯t think it¡¯s about ¡¯Calling¡¯, it¡¯s more like I¡¯m toozy to take care of things like material gathering..." The old man said with a lightly wry smile, and Denmir sighed deeply in response. "I¡¯d be takin¡¯ care of that if I were ya. Or else ye¡¯ll have someone goin¡¯ around stealin¡¯ yer Crafter¡¯s insignia, ¡¯specially after they found out who ye are." The Dwarf pointed out, but Eisen just lightly smiled. "Let¡¯s hope that doesn¡¯t happen." Heughed. Chapter 475 - Reveal With a whistle as he approached the stall, Eisen swiftly looked at Fafnir with a light smile, "Open the smaller gate." The old man said, "And hide the entrance if you can." He added, before the Dragon swiftly stretched its body and just did as asked, stepping into the space carved into the rock wall behind the stall and rolling up on the ground while making a simple door appear out of nowhere. "You five go ahead and get in there to practice a bit. Sigurd, you try and supervise that some, if you can." Eisen told the Core Guardian, who swiftly nodded and looked at its Master, "Sure. Are you staying here now?" Sigurd asked, but Eisen simply shook his head in response, "I¡¯m afraid I have to take care of something first." Eisen exined, and then turned over toward Bree and Sky while the Half-Dragon Knights made their way into the Dungeon, passing Parc and Rouge who were both working on the inside of the carved out space behind the stall. "I¡¯ll leave the stall up to you guys a little bit longer for now, alright? I¡¯ll be back in a little while, it shouldn¡¯t take too long anymore." Eisen exined, and the two Fey-Kin siblings simply swiftly agreed and seemed to be perfectly fine with waiting a little while, so Eisen swiftly turned toward the three Monster children and told them to stay here at the stall as well so that Eisen could really do whatever he needed to do without worry. With a lightly smiling expression, the old man stepped along the roads and made his way toward the Guild he was looking for, the Adventurer¡¯s Guild. Once he stepped inside, without a single moment of hesitation, Eisen stepped up the stairs and made his way toward the Garon¡¯s, the Guildmaster¡¯s, office, where he luckily found the man in question while Jaz came up running behind him. "Hey, what do you think you¡¯re doing here again?" Jaz asked angrily, trying to stop the old man, but he simply kept on walking with his overwhelming physical strength whenpared to her. Garon himself also immediately jumped up and red at the old man, but he himself without a moment of hesitation made his way into the room and summoned his Sword from his Soul Storage before Garon immediately took up a fighting stance. "You want to go, old man? Don¡¯t you dare-" But before Garon could even finish his sentence, Eisen swung the de downward, causing blood to stter onto the ground to shock both Jaz and Garon as a lump of meat fell onto the ground and the old man ground his teeth, "Damn... hurts like a bitch." Eisen sighed deeply, trying to ignore the dull pain, and then stared at the two people just standing there confusedly. "I have not consumed any potion, you can test my skills in a bit to see that I don¡¯t have any weird abilities that make this all possible, and I will answer any question you have in one hour." Eisen said in a clear tone, as he figured that should be long enough to have his handpletely grow back after being cut off, and then he logged off and stayed inside of Desktop mode. "Rover, Speed up my perception of time to the max and log me back into the game once one hour passed in-game." The old man said and then plopped down onto the armchair in this cabin-like environment that he set as his ¡¯Desktop¡¯ before and waited for the small floating sphere to appear. "Will do! Anything else I can help you with?" Rover asked, but Eisen just shook his head and sighed deeply, trying to pass the roughly seven minutes that it should take for him from his point of view by just thinking a bit about the different things that were going on right now and that would be happening once he logged back into the game. While he was at it, he even thought about a few practice items he could make with his Magic Craftsmanship skill before Rover appeared in front of him again. "You will now be logged back into World of Magic, have fun!" Rover eximed with an enthusiastic voice and Eisen swiftly started concentrating again when he already noticed himself being back inside of Garon¡¯s office, and then let himself drop down onto the couch he logged out in front of, raising his left hand that had grown back like there was no issue there to begin with. "It¡¯s back. Believe me now?" The old man said, and Garon and Jaz stared at Eisen and then immediately shook their heads, "I-It has to be a trick!" Jaz eximed, "You might just be one of those Artificials!" She added, but Eisen simply crossed his legs and rested his elbow on the couch¡¯s armrest, cing his cheek onto his palm tiredly. "I¡¯vee sign up at this Guild before the first Artificials even appeared at any ce in this world. Isn¡¯t that proof enough that I¡¯m not one of them?" The old man pointed out, and Jaz just shook her head immediately, "Of course not! It-" "Why us?" Garon interrupted quite swiftly, and while Jaz looked at him confused, Eisen just started smirking since he liked where the conversation was going, and Garon soon continued, "If you really are who you say you are, why are youing to a town like this and trying to convince a third-rate Guild Master and his wife to apany to your country?" The Man inquired, and Eisen smiled back at him. "Perfect question. It¡¯s rather simple. Jaz, you¡¯re part of the Irengard family, aren¡¯t you?" The old man asked, and Jaz swiftly nodded her head, rather confused and even scared, "Well, I am, or rather I used to be, friends with your grandfather and grandmother. Back in Prototype, the town you will being to, I saw a painting with a woman that looked nearly identical to you, and when I asked my... assistant, he told me that she was Ingrid Irengard, so I had Raziel investigate you, since I don¡¯t really believe in coincidences like that. I mean,e on, I was friends with a talented woman like that, and a woman two generationster that looks directly like her ends up living in a town that I myself founded? As if that could be a coincidence." "Wh-What are you even talking about, my gr-" "Don¡¯t even pretend, you¡¯re not a good liar, Jaz. You know just as well as I do that your grandparents were great people, although your parents ruined that a little bit. That ne you¡¯re wearing. Show it to me." The old man said, and Jaz immediately grabbed her chest where the small locket was supposed to be hidden underneath her clothes as she turned away. "Also don¡¯t try to hide it, I can basically taste the condensed mana. Your grandmother seemingly wore the same one, and you don¡¯t seem to be able to open it." Eisen told Jaz, and the young woman slowly nodded her head and opened the ne up behind her neck with shaking hands, and slowly handed it to Eisen. And by simply pouring his mana inside of the small item, the locket opened with a click and the old man returned it to Jaz, who looked at it once and then opened her eyes wide, "H-How, but..." Jaz muttered quietly, "Nobody could ever open it... And you could do it within a split second..? We managed to have an appraiser check the requirements, it literally can¡¯t be opened! The requirement is to not possess any mana, but you need mana activate the enchantment! It¡¯s an impossible item! And the enchantments could never be removed either, so how?!" Jaz asked, practically yelling, and Eisen sighed deeply in response as he pointed at the item. "Appraise it again. Right now." Eisen said in a clear tone, and the woman swiftly looked down at it and did just that. Sure, Eisen helped out a bit with a half-activated demonic transformation, but she seemed to want to do it anyway. "A Divine Quality Locket... It even says that it¡¯s impossible to be used in the description... The only way you could have opened this is if you..." Jaz muttered quietly, "If you really are him..." She muttered quietly, and the old man swiftly smiled back at her. "Exactly. So, that¡¯s proof now, isn¡¯t it?" Eisen pointed out, and with an immediate nod, Jaz dropped down onto her knees, "Y-Yeah, of course it is..." She replied, and showed the item description to her husband, who just stared at Eisen confusedly. "But if this is proof enough, why didn¡¯t you just do thisst time? And why did you just cut off your own hand?" Garon asked, and Eisen just lightly smiled at him. "Well, the reasons for that are rather simple, if I¡¯ll be honest. For one,st time, my instinct told me not to. Or rather, my instinct forbid me from even noticing the locket. The reason for that is what is on the inside of that locket right there. I was unaware of something rather important at the time, and that is the extistence of the ¡¯Otherworld Disease¡¯." Eisen exined, "Inside there is proof of a certain thing. And there wee to the reason for why I just cut my hand." The old man added, and with a deep, even scared stare, Garon and Jaz both stared at Eisen with intensity that was beyondpare, before Garon slowly asked. "Wh-Why exactly..? I don¡¯t understand..." He said, and Eisen just lightly smiled, even if there was a slightly bitter undertone to it. "For one, I needed some time to think about whether I really should do this. After all, it might ruin your life, or even end it." The old man said with a light chuckle as he stared down onto the ground, "And then, it would have been an apology. It hurt like shit, after all, so it might make up for the result at least a slight bit." Eisen exined, but in the end, neither Garon nor Jaz really knew what was going before Jaz slowly stared at the inside of the locket in her hand after pulling the front face a bit to the side, and then opened her eyes wide in shock as she dropped the locket onto the ground. She didn¡¯t even know why she did it, it was simply out of instinct, and the air slightly began to crack the moment the locket hit the floor, as if it was a ss pane that was just about to shatter, as Eisen started to speak and looked at the image inside of the locket. He had finally gotten the information that he needed from Raziel through a small note, so he chose to test it out right here. "To the Artificials, this world is nothing but a game. A Videogame created by apany called Prime Industries. My true, or rather original name, is Benjamin Joyce, and my world lives in the belief that yours is a fake, nothing but a simtion. But that actually isn¡¯t true, since it seems like Prime Industries is a Clich¨¦-Evil organization that somehow wants to use this world for their benefit." The old man said, and the moment that he did so, the air finally shattered and opened a hole into a space that was purely ck behind it, and a muscr, heavy figure stepped out of it with scars covering its bodypletely from head to toe. And as Gonor, the God of Combat, stepped out of the ck space and set his foot down onto the ground with a quake, Eisen just lightly started to smirk and averted his eyes from the picture of the New York Skyline, copied from a generic postcard you could get at any New York souvenir shop, that was inside of the locket. Chapter 476 - Immunity Gonor looked around the room and stared deeply at the two people in front of him who he instinctively knew to have learned about the truth of this world. But in reality, he was rather interested in something else. And that was the one that revealed such information. "The first couple ones were rather boring... but now it is you? You conceited old man..." Gonor muttered quietly, but Eisen just smirked at him, sitting in ce as he started ripping the piece of paper in his pocket into pieces, the piece of paper that he had found in his Apron after waking up this morning that was left behind by Raziel. He wasn¡¯t aware how she got into the Smithy, but Eisen was sure she had one or two tricks up her sleeve that she didn¡¯t want him to be aware of. The note said that whatever Artificial reveals the information will be killed by Gonor without any hope for revival, while the people of this world will have their ¡¯current¡¯ them killed, resetting them to what they were like before the information was given to them. The only person that could do both of these thigns at the same time was Gonor, the god of Combat, and it seemed like he was given the task to take care of these things amongst the gods, despite his other responsibilities. "Now then, let¡¯s get this over with." Gonor said with a rather nk expression as a de formed in his hand, although he was basically stuck in ce when he heard what Eisen said next, "Samuel is lying to you, you know?" With a deep re, the God of Combat stared at the man in front of him, "What do you even know? You¡¯re just some random old fart that doesn¡¯t know anything of this ce, aren¡¯t you?" Gonor said with a growling voice, and Eisen¡¯s smile swiftly disappeared. "Gonor, sit down." The old man said with a deep voice, pointing at the couch opposite to him, and while Gonor seemed to want to do anything but that, his legs brought him over toward the seat and he lowered his body onto it. "This world is no game." Eisen said in a clear voice, and Gonor justughed in response as he crossed his arms, "Nonsense! The Administrator said so, didn¡¯t he?" Gonor pointed out, but Eisen sighed deeply and then stared at the god in front of him. "You¡¯re scared of Brody, aren¡¯t you?" The old man asked, and Gonor just frowned deeply and red at Eisen in return, "Scared? What nonsense!" He eximed, practically yelling, but Eisen returned a re that made even a god shrink in his seat. "Lower your voice, stop being so disrespectful. You don¡¯t need to hide it. While you may not be scared in a usual sense, you surely must feel threatened. The god ofbat, unable to beat a single man? Sounds impossible, doesn¡¯t it? Amongst the gods, you are the one with the greatest singr might. So what would happen if Brody had chosen to take you and the other gods on? Would you have survived, or would you have ended up killed?" The old man asked, but before Gonor could respond, Eisen already continued speaking. "You know, just recently, when I spoke to that man ¡¯over there¡¯, he was crying. A man of such might, brought to his knees by the actions of a single person. And that is Samuel Morgan, the man you know as ¡¯Administrator¡¯." "Of course, he is...!" Gonor started, although he was obviously incredibly agitated at what Eisen just said, as if filled with anger over not having been the one to inflict such defeat on Brody himself. "He is what? Stronger than you?" Eisen asked, and Gonor immediately stood up from his seat and stood in front of Eisen, "The Administrator is above me, of course! I am not a true existence, I am a fake! A fake that couldn¡¯t beat another fake!" "But this anger is real, isn¡¯t it?" "Of course it is! If he is just as fake as I am, then why did he have to be better than me?! I am supposed to be the strongest, but if what that man says it¡¯s true, we were both created at the same moment!" Gonor yelled out, making the inside of this room shake while both Jaz and Garon were close to passing out while standing due to the sheer pressure that Gonor gave off, one that Eisen may have been able to feel, but somehow didn¡¯t mind in the slightest. And with a grin, Eisen continued to bathe in that pressure. "So you¡¯re not angry about someone being stronger than you, but that someone is stronger than you without having earned it?" Eisen asked, and Gonor pushed the de that he had pulled out of nowhere directly onto the old man¡¯s throat, albeit only strong enough to draw a few drops of blood. "Don¡¯t speak as if you know me, you real one. A fake like me-" "As I just said, you¡¯re not fake in any way. You¡¯re real,pletely real, just like anyone else in this world. You were born, you grew, you ascended to godhood, and made choices yourself that brought you here. You earned your ce, Gonor." Eisen said reassuringly, and with a light growl, Gonor pulled the de away again. "What do you want from me?" The God asked, and Eisen swiftly stood up and smiled at him. "A few things. For one, I want you to gather everyone that doesn¡¯t believe in the words of Samuel and try to convince as many other gods that he is lying. And two, I want you to give me immunity. Don¡¯t worry, I will not just shout the truth out on the street, but I will tell it to those few that I need to put my trust in." "And why exactly would I do either of that?" Gonor asked, and with a clear voice, Eisen replied as if it was obvious, "So that you can get out of Samuel¡¯s control, of course. Don¡¯t worry, I doubt there will be any repercussions for this. Since you are even being swayed by me, it¡¯s obvious that Samuel can¡¯t brainwash you, and killing you will also be rather hard." Eisen reassured him, and with augh, Gonor looked at the old man in front of him. "I¡¯m giving you one year. If, within that year, you can¡¯t show me absolute proof that you can get rid of that bastard, I¡¯m killing you and anyone that you told about the ¡¯truth¡¯." Gonor said in a clear tone, and then turned around toward Jaz and Garon with a grin that showed his white, sharp teeth, "You lucked out this time. Let¡¯s hope he finds that proof I want to hear." The God of Combat told those two, and then stepped back into the ck space behind the crack in space that had formed before, and both Garon and Jaz immediately copsed onto the ground, luckily while still being conscious. "Wh-Wh-What was th-that?" Garon asked with a deep, fear-filled stutter, and the old man turned toward him with a broad smile on his face, "More proof of who I am, don¡¯t you think?" Eisen pointed out, and then swiftly took out a small piece of paper and gave it to Jaz. "If you¡¯re going to take the offer I spoke ofst time, go to the ce shown here and speak to ¡¯Komer¡¯, a young man with bright red hair. I¡¯m going to let him know that you might get there, and he will give you a spot on a ship going to Prototype, the town where you will set everything up in. The rest will be taken care of then and there. Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯re not in a rush, though. Take care of whatever you need to first and foremost." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and then silently left the room, leaving the two people in there behind for now, just stepping through the hallway and back down the stairs into the main space of the Adventurer¡¯s guild, with everyone just staring at him, since they obviously noticed the screams that came from there before. And so, stepping through that small crowd, Eisen made his way back outside and then directly toward the Stall. Since he could now do it, he wanted to just tell them about everything right away, justpletely reveal all of the information about this ce and what was going on on the other side, and the fact that the Artificials are basically otherworldy travellers. He wanted to tell them about everything, each and every part of the truth. But for now, he didn¡¯t. For now, Eisen just greeted the others with a smile on his face and made sure that everything was working out properly. That there were enough items to sell there on the stall. He helped out Parc and Rouge a bit, instructing them on what they could do better, and practically just trying to be a good teacher to them. Of course he also took some of the load off of Sky and Bree by helping out to actually sell some of the items, although he could rather constantly feel the re of a certain spirit on the back of his head. Kirisho, who was looking at Eisen both nervously and suspiciously, and Eisen did really understand the reason for that. He had been acting rather weirdtely, after all, and it seemed like Kirisho noticed that more than anyone else. But hopefully, all of these things would change once Eisen revealed the truth. And while Eisen was rather tense the whole time because of this, he also felt pretty relieved since this meant that he finally didn¡¯t have to lie to his friends like this anymore. "Eisen, are you alright?" Sky asked after a little while, noticing that the old man wasn¡¯t really paying too much attention to what was going on at the moment, a state in which Eisen couldn¡¯t really be found that often, and Eisen raised his brows surprised at suddenly being spoken to and nodded his head. "Oh, yeah, I¡¯m fine, don¡¯t worry." The old man said with a light smile, and although Sky seemed rather unsatisfied with that answer, he didn¡¯t want to push further while there were this many people around. Instead, the group simply continued on working for the rest of the day, and then packed everything away in the Dungeon as the five half-dragons made their way outside with satisfied expressions after properly testing their new weapons. And then, the group made their way to the Inn and were swiftly led into another private room, where everyone else was already waiting for them, but instead of sitting down, Eisen had Fafnir open the gate to the Dungeon and then stared at everyone while standing in the doorframe, "Everyone,e inside of here. I have something to tell you." Chapter 477 - The Truth they needed to hear Once Eisen had led everyone into the Dungeon, he sat down on one of the couches in the waiting area of this reception-house that everyone started in and then waited for the others to do the exact same. "Alright, what do you need to tell us?" Sky asked curiously, but before Eisen said anything, he looked at the amulet around Bree¡¯s neck. "Kirisho, youe out as well." The old man said, and soon, mist rushed out of the gem at the amulet¡¯s center to form the Mist Spirit¡¯s body, who was standing there just rather nervously. "Now then, everyone¡¯s gathered, it seems..." The old man pointed out, and then with a nk expression looked at everyone that had gathered here, "I fully trust you all. However, since this issue is one that affects this whole world, as well as your whole life just by knowing about it, let me start by saying that it¡¯s alright if you leave now in case you don¡¯t want to hear it. Especially you two, Parc and Rouge." Eisen exined, "You¡¯re still practically children, you don¡¯t have to put your lifes in danger for my selfishness." The old man told them, however, everyone that was there simply looked at Eisen curiously and concerned for what this information was. Seeing that nobody seemed to have the intention of leaving, Eisen sighed deeply and smiled, "Then have it your way." Eisen said, and then crossed his arms as he leaned back on the couch. "Besides this one, there¡¯s another world called ¡¯Earth¡¯. There is no magic, there are no monsters, and a status in nonexistent as well. There, apany called ¡¯Prime Industries¡¯ brought out a new sort of game to entertain other then. That game is called ¡¯World of Magic¡¯. Five people were given an important role to act as a base for extensive knowledge to be added into the game, and were allowed to y it earlier than others. Those five were Brody, Evalia, Jyuuk, Xenia, and I. And the world from the ¡¯Game¡¯ is this one. And the yers of that game are the Artificials that are appearing all over this continent now. Well, in reality, that¡¯s just what those Artificials believe, but at this point all of us ¡¯Originals¡¯, the five that peaked, have already figured out that this actually is another true world." Eisen exined, practically ignoring the faces of everyone around him. And then, Kirisho just stared at Eisen with an anger-filled expression, "How dare you lie to us like that! You heard about the Other-World disease, and now you¡¯re pretending like it¡¯s real?! You have to be joking!" Kirisho eximed, but as she was doing so, Eisen had been looking at the expressions of the others and noticed a particr change. They were tense during Eisen¡¯s exnation, but soon after, they just started smiling like idiots. And the exception to that were Kirisho, Sigurd, the five Half-Dragons, and Eisen¡¯s Monsters. Everyone that was technically a ¡¯Person¡¯ was affected by the ¡¯Mind Control¡¯, seemingly. "Oh? Interesting..." Eisen muttered quietly, but before Kirisho could continue letting her anger out on Eisen, Denmir already started to speak, "Really great atmosphere in ¡¯ere, but why¡¯d we have tae in? What¡¯d ya wanna tell us?" The Dwarf asked, and Kirisho as well as everyone else that was technically seen a ¡¯Monster¡¯, as well as the Core Guardian Sigurd, stared over toward him confusedly. "Mister Denmir, Grandfather just told us... It seemed ridiculous, but to just ignore it..." Kiron said with a slight frown, but Eisen swiftly shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, I should have figured this would happen. But I guess this is as good a chance as any. Samuel, you piece of shit,e and talk to me sometime again instead of going for such cowardly tactics. Now then, let¡¯s keep going until one of us gives up." Eisen grinned, and then stared back at the group of people in front of him. "The artificials and Originals are from another world, and the artificials think of this world as a game." The old man repeated, and the others once more seemed topletely forget what Eisen just said and started anew, while all the monsters looked at him confused. "H-Hey, what are you even talking about, old man?" Morgus asked with a wry smile, and Eisen, without paying too much attention to the Half-Dragon, repeated it once more, "The artificials and Originals are from another world, and the artificials think of this world as a game." "Stop it already! Stop doing whatever you¡¯re doing!" Kirisho eximed, and all the people looked at her confused and surprised at her suddenly yelling like that, but before they could speak, Eisen got started again. "The artificials and originals are from another world, and the artificials think of this world as a game." Eisen said, and by now, the third time, it seemed like something started to change in the others. Especially in Sky and Bree, who were Half-Monsters, looked at Eisen with confusion. It seemed like it took a bit longer for them to fall under the control this time. So, Eisen once more repeated what he was saying. And then again, and then again, and again, until Sky and Bree both were no longer affected anymore. "What are you doing to them?!" Kirisho asked angrily, and Eisen turned his eyes toward her with a deep re, "Are you kidding me? You think I¡¯m doing this to them? I¡¯m literally telling them the truth. Do you want me to tell you other things? Benjamin Joyce, my real name. Tony, Melody, and Natsuo Jonathan, the names of my three children from that world. Benjamin Marcus Joyce, my grandson who came into this world as ¡¯Stahl¡¯, and Sophia Joyce-Aren, my granddaughter who came into this world as ¡¯Alnico¡¯. Then there are L, L, Sean and Katherin, my four other grandchildren from there. Samuel Morgan, the name of the man that literally trapped me in another world for One Hundred thousand years, making it impossible for me to see any of them! Unsure if they were even alive, if they knew I was gone, and what was even happening! All I¡¯m trying to do here is finally get my own life under my own control!" Eisen yelled out, pure anger pouring out of his body now that he finally had the chance to speak about all of this. Maybe him doing all this brought the original Eisen out a little more, but the old man couldn¡¯t really tell. He didn¡¯t care that much then either, "All I want to do is get the help of some friends so that I can do that, is that too much to ask for?! I want to get my memories back, memories that I spent a myriad of lifetimes .u.mting, and you¡¯re pushing the me on me? Kirisho, what do you have against me all of a sudden?!" The old man yelled out, and the woman in front of him stared back with a fearful expression, and Eisen swiftly noticed the expressions of everyone in the room. "Well then, seems like this time around, he couldn¡¯t control you anymore. You just heard what I said, I¡¯m from a different world. The artificials think this is nothing but a game, but it very obviously isn¡¯t. I need your guys¡¯ help to get my memories back, and then literally free this world of the control that Samuel has put it under." Eisen exined to them, slowly sitting back down onto his couch, while everyone was just staring at him. For a while, everyone was quite silent, but then, Kirisho spoke up. "Before I died, I was in an asylum... it was raided, and some people used everyone there for experiments, thinking they would be easy to take advantage of... Until a little while ago, I was only aware that this was the case, I didn¡¯t remember why I was there, however. Once we had our conversation, I did..." The Dead girl exined, and Eisen raised his head back up and felt his stomach sink in the very moment he did so, realizing why Kirisho had been so upset and held-back over thest little while. "I... used to have Other-world disease... I thought you were mocking me, or angry that people would dare have such a disease... That¡¯s the reaction many people have to it... But it¡¯s actually real..?" Kirisho asked, pressing her hands in front of her face as she was seemingly ovee withplicated emotions she herself didn¡¯t truly understand, and Eisen then swiftly stood back up and rushed over to her. He didn¡¯t know what came over him just there, yelling at her like that... "I¡¯m sorry, I truly didn¡¯t know. I was angry at the fact that Samuel would have people that know about this be treated as if they were sick. That¡¯s what made me mad that day." The old man exined, kneeling down in front of Kirisho and cing his hand onto her arm, "Sorry if I made you think that I was mad at you." Eisen said with a light, sad frown, but before he could do anything else, the others spoke up. "Eisen, what are you even saying? A different world..? Are you going crazy?" Jekyll asked confusedly, really not sure if he was truly believing what Eisen just told them, but the old man just stood back up and helped Kirisho do so while he was at it. "Let me tell you the story from the beginning." The old man said with a slight sigh, and then made his way back to the couch, followed by Kirisho who then sat down right next to him, and started to speak. "Five years before I started ying the ¡¯Game¡¯, or rather five years before I was born in this world, I was approached by a rather new technologicalpany..." The old man started, and then started to tell them about everything that went on with him on the other side. How he was raised, how he travelled around that world, how he met his wife and married her, and how he lost her. How he became a master craftsman after spending his whole life on practicing for it, and how he then lost all of that when his own brother broke into his home, costing him the ability to use his arm for more than minor tasks. Then how he started ying this ¡¯game¡¯ that he helped out a few years prior, and with that re-gained the ability to work. From this point on, he had already told them his story from this world as far as he could remember it, but now the gaps were filled in by what happened on the other side. Finally he could speak freely about his thoughts like this. Chapter 478 - Recruitment "That¡¯s..." Morrom muttered quietly after hearing the full story that they were all just told, feeling ratherplicated about all of this being revealed, and at the same time, Folmirra seemed to grow rather nervous, "There¡¯s Millions of people here that think of us as lesser than them, to who this world is just a game... What if they get bored and end up going on sprees of ughter here... I doubt they would care too much..." Folmirra pointed out, and it seemed like everyone else was starting to get just as nervous about the possibility of this. And that was when an idea that Eisen had before popped back into his head, "Then how about you alle to Prototype. It would be incredibly useful to have you around there." The old man suggested, before they all just stared at Eisen in surprise. "Us? Come an¡¯ join yer country?" Denmir asked with a slight frown, and the old man just nodded his head, "Yeah, I think it¡¯s a good idea. I mean, you don¡¯t necessarily have to stay on Prototype. Once we take over some more of the inds, there will be the Ind of the God of Craftsmanship as well." Eisen pointed out, and before he knew it, Morrom leaned back on his seat and was the first to nod his head. "You know what? Sure. I don¡¯t really have too much of a reason to stay here forever." The Elf-Dwarf Halfling replied with a light smile, "And if what you just told us is 100% of the truth, then I would feel morefortable in a ce filled with those that might know more of the truth." He added, and Jekyll also slowly nodded his head as he leaned forward. "I can¡¯t make that choice myself, but ya can bet that I¡¯ll speak to my wife ¡¯bout it. Of course, without tellin¡¯ her about all this..." Jekyll said, which Denmir immediately agreed with, "Ye¡¯ve got that right. Although, me an ma¡¯ wife have been speakin¡¯ about movin¡¯ before, so it might not be too much an issue." The Dwarf pointed out, before Folmirra sighed deeply. "My Husband and I have also spoken about it, but that would have only been when the girls were ready to move out." She exined, "They have their friends here, so I don¡¯t want to drag them across the world like that. But I will agree with Morrom, I would also feel safer for them if they could stay in a ce like that... You surely have patrols set up there to make sure these Artificials don¡¯t try anything, right?" Folmirra asked, but Eisen immediately shook his head. "Nope, patrols are unnecessary in that town. Well, making a few Golem Enforcers and connecting them to the town might be good... Anyway, there¡¯s a Core Guardian connected to the Town Core, and he can see everything that¡¯s going on in the town. Of course he limits himself to the streets if there isn¡¯t any imminent danger inside of a building, so don¡¯t worry." Eisen exined, and Folmirra then opened her eyes wide, "Well, then that does seem to be something that would make the town rather safe, indeed." She pointed out, and the old man just nodded his head with a light chuckle. "True enough, yes. Either way, I¡¯m waiting for your guys¡¯ answer. I will most likely be heading back to the inds after getting to meet thest two Dragons." He exined, "The Inds seem like a better ce to level up quickly. But the Dragon business seems to be important to unlock the puzzle-box, so..." Eisen exined, "And all three abilities I have from it are insanely useful as well... Anyway, I did the same with Jaz and Garon from the Adventurer¡¯s Guild, but I¡¯m going to give you all something like a small letter that you just need to give to a kid called ¡¯Komer¡¯ at the Harbor Town, and he¡¯s going to know what to do." The old man said, and once he was done, he heard a small chuckle from next to him. "Aye, it¡¯s gonna be very lonely without all of ya ¡¯ere." Gralmar chuckled out, and Eisen looked at him with a slight frown, "The invite extended to you as well, you know?" Eisen replied, and the Innkeeper looked at the old man rather surprised. "Ye sure about that? I can understand these four, they¡¯re Grandmasters, but I¡¯m nothin¡¯ more than a regr old Innkeeper." The Dwarf tried to say, although Eisen didn¡¯t really believe that at all. "Yes, you¡¯re the only Innkeeper in a town filled with four Grandmasters and some of the highest natural Mythril Production rate on the continent. Then you also just so happened to be able to refer me to a Master Brewer after I mentioned that I was interested in learning about it. You can¡¯t trick me, Gralmar, you¡¯re more than you let on." With a slight sigh, Gralmar just shook his head in response to that, "Sure, I know a couple great people, but I meself am nothin¡¯ much to speak of. Just a regr person." The Dwarf once more tried to exin, but Eisen still didn¡¯t believe that. "That¡¯s exactly what I¡¯m talking about. A regr person doesn¡¯t just happen to be friends with people like that. When I went to meet Gordon, he was basically pushing me away rather forcefully when I first came in, but once I gave him that letter you gave me, he immediately changed and epted me like one of his closest friends. Even if you really are just a regr Dwarf that chose to be an Innkeeper without doing anything else extraordinarily amazing in his life, the fact that you happen to know people like that is great in and of itself. You have something that I would love to have in my country, Gralmar." Eisen exined to the Dwarf in front of him, and Gralmar himself just ended up loudlyughing in response to what was just said, and then looked at the old man with one of his brows raised. "Ye sure ye want me there?" Gralmar asked, and Eisen nodded his head reassuringly, so the Dwarf himself looked at Eisen with a broad grin. "Then I will try me best, ya geezer." The Dwarf eximed as he stood up. "For now, I think we should head back out and have a proper drink, don¡¯t¡¯cha think? After that conversation, every one of us should want to down a few." The Innkeeper suggested, seemingly genuinely touched by how Eisen thought of him, and then made his way to the door together with the four Grandmasters, while the rest stayed in the dungeon for a bit longer to speak to Eisen alone again, since they had experienced the old man a lot more intensely than they did in the past. And the moment that the five of them left, Bree jumped onto Eisen and immediately hugged him while practically sobbing, "I-I-I¡¯m sorry I didn¡¯t-didn¡¯t-didn¡¯t notice you were going thr-thr-through that!" She eximed and grasped the old man¡¯s apron, while the old man himself just ced his hand onto her head with a smile on his face. "Don¡¯t worry, how could you have? Something like this is thest thing you should expect, after all." Eisen pointed out, and Sky slowly nodded his head, seemingly experiencing ratherplicated emotions right now. "Even so, we- Or rather I- didn¡¯t think about the fact that there really could have been something like... this, going on with you. You were just acting so differenttely, and it was kind of scary... But now that I know there¡¯s a reason for it, I¡¯m sorry for how I acted toward you as well..." The Boy said, and Eisen just sighed with a light smirk and pulled him into a hug as well. And while his eyes were drifting, he noticed his two apprentices looking at him with sad expressions as well. "Are you two alright?" The old man asked, and both Parc and Rouge swiftly nodded their heads, "Yeah, it¡¯s just simr to what Sky was saying, I guess. We didn¡¯t really expect that something like this could even be going on..." Rouge exined, and Parc then swiftly added, "For sure, but... That makes you even more amazing! Knowledge from a different world, and then a hundred thousand years to refine that knowledge... You really are the greatest Teacher we could¡¯ve hoped for." The boy said, and Eisen just lightly smiled at them with a thankful expression. He was d they were taking this so well. Although on the other hand, in a world filled with actual magic and different ovepping realms, the idea of another world might not seem as far-fetched as it would on Earth. So maybe Eisen was expecting a bit of a stronger reaction to everything, although in the end, he really wasn¡¯tining. On the other hand, someone else wasining a bit, "Another f.u.c.kin¡¯ world, that shit¡¯s crazy!" Morgus eximed as he stood up with a deep frown, and Eisen looked at him rather surprised in response to that reaction, "So we¡¯re just gonna have to ept that as the truth? Isn¡¯t that insane?" The ck Half-Dragon asked, and Eisen looked at him with a light smile. "I know that it sounds crazy, but that¡¯s what it is. Don¡¯t worry, even if you don¡¯t fully believe me now, I¡¯m going to try my best and make sure that you will believe it at some point." Eisen exined, although before Morgus could say anything, Kiron swiftly stood up and replied in his stead, "Don¡¯t worry, Grandfather! You would never lie about such a thing, I am sure of that! And it does actually exin a lot, especially if you consider the seemingly random rtionsh.i.p.s of different artificials of random races iming to be siblings, or even parent and child... But either way, Grandfather, I fully believe in your words!" Kiron eximed, making Eisen just slightly chuckle in response. "Thank you, Kiron. I really appreciate it." Eisen pointed out, and then looked over toward the Dungeon entrance, "Go ahead and make your way back into the Inn if you want. I think you could all really use a drink right about now." Eisen suggested, and with his arms stretched into the air triumphantly, Sal was the first to rush out, although the old man red at the Spider¡¯s back as he did so, "Oh, and the children are just getting juice. Don¡¯t you dare try and drink anything else without me exactly knowing what it is." The old man pointed out, and could immediately feel Sal¡¯s disappointment as the five Half-Dragons simply pushed the Monster-Boy into the room, followed by Caria and Melissa, as well as Sky, Bree, and Eisen¡¯s two apprentices, and even the Core Guardian who seemed to at least want to pretend to give Eisen and a certain Mist-Spirit a little bit of alone-time. Chapter 479 - Recovery Eisen and Kirisho just looked at each other silently for a little while before the Mist-Spirit spoke up, asking what seemed to be on her mind since Eisen started telling the other world¡¯s side of his life-story, "You mentioned your wife from over there..." She started quietly, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, before the Ghost continued, "Was that this ¡¯Hanako¡¯ that you mentioned when we first met? The woman you confused me for?" Kirisho asked, before once more, the old man nodded his head. "Yes, that was her." He said with a light smile, and the Spirit slowly raised her head, "You had other wives here in... this world, didn¡¯t you?" Kirisho inquired. With a ratherplicated expression, Eisen moved his fingers through his beard, "I wonder. I don¡¯t truly remember any rtionship I had in that form from here... I have not met any of my blood-descendants in this world either, so I don¡¯t have any leads to finding that out. But considering that I have lived for 100 Thousand years, it doesn¡¯t seem quite so unlikely that I was able to move on." The old man exined, before the Spirit slowly nodded her head. "I see... Eisen, do you think that even without that much time, you would find it in yourself to move on again?" She asked, but the old man just slightly chuckled, "Of course. It is not like I still cling to Hanako. I am ready to move on, but I just never knew where to, so I thought I could just linger for a while longer." He exined, and Kirisho raised her hand in front of her mouth, hiding half her face with her Kimono-like robes, "Is that so?" Kirisho muttered quietly, and Eisen just slowly turned over toward the door, ready to make his way outside, but then spoke again first. "Since I currently don¡¯t know who I even am anymore, the time to move on seems like it has to wait a little longer." He started, slowly heading toward the door before cing his hand on the handle before turning his body back around toward Kirisho, "So please, until I remember myself, just be patient with me." Eisen smiled, and the Mist-Spirit looked at him rather surprised, still keeping her mouth hidden from him while slightly turning away with a slight nod. "Of course." She replied, and Eisen simply smiled and opened the door, slowly stepping out of the Dungeon where everyone was already waiting with some drinks ready for everyone. Although ¡¯some¡¯ would probably be a bit of an understatement, and Eisen couldn¡¯t really me anyone either, considering what everyone here just found out. And so, both Kirisho and Eisen joined the group by sitting down next to them, and then started their second ¡¯Farewell¡¯ party here in Melroe in this private room. And of course, Eisen let Parc and Rouge drink a little as well. They were technically ¡¯a.d.u.l.ts¡¯ over here, and since they were only drinking Mead and Beer, and no hard liquor, Eisen didn¡¯t really mind it as long as he could keep an eye on what they were drinking exactly. Although, since they both were craftsmen, they did haveparatively high endurancepared to other upations so that they could keep their work up properly, despite being just Apprentices. But not just those two got to drink a bit of alcohol for the first time today, but even Sal and Caria had a little bit to drink, since their bodies were like those of 15 or 16 years olds right now. Melissa still had to wait a while, however. And Eisen wasn¡¯t really surprised to see that while Sal was obviously extremely weak to Alcohol, due to his abnormal state of having his physical stats cut in half, Caria seemed like she would be able to drink even the two full-blooded dwarves in this room under the table. Since she seemed rather fragile just judging from her body, one wouldn¡¯t really expect that, but on the other hand she was a Rank 5, nt-based monster. She could take toxins like that pretty well, apparently. Either way, everyone seemed to have a fair bit of fun tonight, using this little time they had to try and forget about what they were speaking about before at least for this evening, before the reality would set in tomorrow morning and everyone had to properly get prepared for possibly making their move to Prototype. Eisen was a bit disappointed that Koro didn¡¯te along and have a drink, but in the end, he figured it wasn¡¯t that much of a surprise, since the boy still seemed quite bitter about everything that happened, and Eisen really didn¡¯t expect anything but that either, considering his personality. Once the evening came to an end, everyone slowly started to make their way either toward their own home or toward their Inn rooms, and Eisen sighed out deeply as he sat down on a chair in his room once everyone had gone to bed. He of course wanted to make sure that everyone would be fine for now, so he waited a little until everyone that seemed to have had a little too much alcohol before was properly asleep to log off himself. And for now, he did so with Kirisho¡¯s Amulet added to Eisen¡¯s current ne hanging from his neck. --- With a groan, Benjamin pushed the capsule open and sat up, taking a look at the blurry room around him as it returned into focus after waking up. And to his surprise, he wasn¡¯t alone in his room. In the Corner of the room stood a tall-built, muscr man with a rather grim expression on his face and his arms crossed, basically just showing off his well-toned muscles even more. "Yo." The man said, and with a slight chuckle, Benjamin stood up and looked at him. "Well, well, I wasn¡¯t aware you made your character that much more handsome." The old man pointed out, but the other man just groaned slightly and smiled wrily as he extended his left hand to pull Benjamin into a hug. "F.u.c.k off, you damn geezer." Andrew sighed, before Benjamin just smiled and properly greeted him, "It¡¯s nice seeing you, Brody." "Same to you, Eisen." The man said, and with a light and bitter smile on his face, Benjamin looked at him for a short while, "Are you doing alright?" He asked, but Andrew just pressed his palm onto his forehead and shook his head in response, at which point Benjamin spotted the small, seemingly fresh cuts and wounds on Andrew¡¯s neck, arms, and even face. "Not really. Still feel like makin¡¯ those bastards regret ever f.u.c.kin¡¯ with me and my family, but... You were probably right, it wouldn¡¯t have done me any good in the end. Still feel like havin¡¯ a drink though..." Andrewughed lowly as he closed his eyes slightly, the dark, pitch-ck rings underneath his eyes slightly crumpled up. "You know I literally have enough to drink to knock out the whole town, right?" Benjamin pointed out, and Andrew slightly chuckled and nodded his head. "Yup, saw that down there when we got our stuff inside... By the way... I hope you don¡¯t mind I brought along two more people than mentioned..." The man pointed out, as if he just remembered mentioning it, and Benjamin just shook his head immediately. "Don¡¯t worry, there¡¯s enough space for everyone. Who did you bring?" He asked, and Andrew swiftly sighed in relief, "My olddy and lil¡¯ sis. They live in the apartment above the wife and I, same building as my dojo, so I couldn¡¯t really just leave them there..." "Of course, don¡¯t worry, then. Then let¡¯s go, let me greet everyone." Benjamin said, although the moment he started walking to the door, another man stood in the door of his room with a rather annoyed expression and looked at Benjamin and Andrew. "Sorry, that will only be possible after we¡¯re done with the checkup." Benjamin¡¯s Doctor pointed out, and the old man sighed and looked at Andrew, "Sorry, could you just wait in the livingroom for now?" He asked, and Andrew just nodded his head, switching ces with the Doctor who practically came storming into the room while Andrew left. "Everything alright?" Benjamin asked, and the Doctor just red at him, "That¡¯s what I would like to know. Your son just told me that you nearly copsed this morning. Why didn¡¯t you immediately call me when that happened?" The Doctor asked, and the old man just smiled at him. "Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s not that big a deal. I was just feeling a little weak." Benjamin pointed out, but the Doctor looked at him with a rather annoyed expression even then. "Let me just check up on your data..." The Doctor sighed, and quickly got out hisptop, typing a few things in, and then frowning deeply, "Directly following this morning, your values were at a very dangerous level of disarray, and fluctuating heavily. Your heartrate went down, then up, then down, then up, same with your blood pressure, and I don¡¯t even want to mention your lung-function... But when you were inside of the capsule just now, everything was incredibly stable, and even better than we¡¯ve seen over the past few days... I guess this would be called the calm after the storm then, huh?" The doctor said, seemingly growing more relieved the more he was looking at each of the values, and then sighed deeply. "Even if it seemed to have miraculously worked out this time, try not to repeat whatever made you this stressed out in the morning. It probably won¡¯t ever turn out this well." He pointed out, and then went over everything more calmly, while Benjamin was thinking about what this might mean. Of course, on a whole different level to what the Doctor was thinking about. Maybe Benjamin¡¯s body was starting to handle the mana a bit better? If that was the case, then would he be able to actually use things like magic over here at some point? It seemed rather unlikely, but technically, he did already do so. He expelled some of the little mana he had out of his body through the cut he caused on his hand, which could be seen as the most basic form of magic. It was a bit insane, but it didn¡¯t seem that unlikely, once he actually thought about it. Nothing seemed impossible at the moment, considering that a couple months ago, the situation that Benjamin was currently in was one that everyone would have called the definition of ¡¯impossible¡¯. Finally, it seemed like now everything was starting to go his way a bit more. Hopefully soon, he would recover Eisen¡¯s memories. Chapter 480 - Important Meeting After bringing the Doctor to the door, Benjamin closed it behind him with a deep sigh. He was d that everything turned out fine in the end, but it seemed like what he did this morning was still something rather risky. Although, on the other hand, he literally tried to activate his Demonic Transformation, so it was pretty obvious that it would be risky. Either way, for now, everyone was here. He saw a truck in the driveway as well, so Benjamin figured that Nataly got here a while ago as well while he was still in the capsule, although nobody else was currently around him here. Even Michael apparently woke up. His Jacket was still hanging by the door, so it seemed like he was still in the house, though, so Benjamin started making his way to the ce he figured everyone currently was. The bas.e.m.e.nt. He made his way into the room where the entrance was and then stepped down the rotary stairs all the way down to the second underground floor, and then went through thisrge hall to make his way to the entrance for the stairway to the third underground floor. The third underground floor was meant to be a ¡¯Luxury¡¯ item floor, with the most expensive stuff Benjamin had, so he wanted it to be doubly safe, since he wasn¡¯t only nning on storing booze here, but some of his other expensive things as well, such as things that his Teachers made that he took with him as souvenir while he was travelling the world as a young man... Some of those were worth more than a hundred times what they did when Benjamin got them. Really, the only downside to these three underground floors was to get the permit for it... But once that was done with, he just hired apany to dig everything out for him without disturbing the building above. Anyway, with a smile on his face, Benjamin stepped up to the door that was there, but he soon saw a man step out from the space beyond, one that he didn¡¯t recognize, "No entrance." The Man said, and Benjamin¡¯s smile immediately disappeared. "This is my house, bud. I think I can enter here." Benjamin reassured him and tried to step past the man, who just ced a hand on the old man¡¯s chest and tried to push him back, "I said no entrance. Gone senile already?" The man asked with a light smirk, and Benjamin red at him. He was angry as is having to experience this kind of stuff in a world where every second person was skilled at killing, but he didn¡¯t want to experience it in his own home. So it seemed like he let out a little bit of Eisen to respond to the man, who seemed to be one of Nataly¡¯s bodyguards. "If you don¡¯t step to the side right now, I¡¯m going to crush your throat with a hand that has held tools every single day for 50 consecutive years, and then dispose of your body inside one of these many makeshift caskets that I have avable to me. Now f.u.c.k off before that bes more than just a threat." The old man red with an expression subtly filled with anger, making the bodyguard flinch lightly in response, and before the situation escted even more, Nataly stepped out through the door as well, seemingly having overheard what just happened here. "Jimmy, what the hell are you doing?" She asked with a deep frown, and the Bodyguard turned around to her in surprise and started to stutter, "I-I erm... I wanted to give you all the space to talk in private like you asked for..?" "We¡¯re only gathering here like this to speak to that man in the first ce, didn¡¯t you listen before?" Nataly said with her arms crossed, but the Bodyguard looked at her confused, "I thought you meant to speak to someone called ¡¯Benjamin¡¯... Isn¡¯t he already in there?" With a deep sigh, Nataly shook her head, "That in there may also be called Benjamin, but he goes by ¡¯Benji¡¯. This here is the actual Benjamin we were waiting for, Benji¡¯s Grandfather." The young woman exined, and the Bodyguard turned around with a shocked expression, "I¡¯m sorry for being rude, Sir! It was a misunderstanding!" He apologized, and Benjamin just sighed a bit in response and shook his head. "Don¡¯t worry, my reaction might have been a little over the top as well." Benjamin pointed out, and then just stepped past the bodyguard before actually greeting Nataly. "Thanks for the help, Evalia. It¡¯s nice to see you." The old man said with a smile, and Nataly swiftly replied with a smile on her own, "Likewise, but sorry about that just now. He¡¯s a bit rude, but he¡¯s a good guy in the end. I trust him, so..." Nataly pointed out, but Benjamin just shook his head. "It¡¯s fine. Now, should we get downstairs and get started? Benji is downstairs as well?" Benjamin asked, before Nataly slowly nodded her head. "Actually, it seems like everyone in the house is down here, with all of your grandchildren..." Nataly said, and for a moment, Benjamin didn¡¯t really mind before he realized what she just said, "I literally have each and every single thing that I made in the past and didn¡¯t sell down there, including numerous knives, swords, hammers, clubs, and other extremely dangerous items... Why are they all down there?" The old man asked with a slight groan and rushed down the stairs and entered the space beyond them, soon seeing everyone gathered in the more open part of the room instead of the area where Benjamin had been disying his itemstely. With a slight sigh of relief, he just stepped into the room and properly greeted everyone again, especially Brody¡¯s mother and sister who he hadn¡¯t met before, and then took a look around at the makeshift beds and other sorts of furniture. "Hmm, I would have made you something morefortable... Can someone give me a hand?" The old man asked, and Benji looked at him with a wry smile immediately, "You think this is a good time to joke like that? Rather, finally tell us what¡¯s going on, Grampa." Benji said, and the old man looked at his grandson with a light frown. "You sure you want to hear it?" He asked, and Benji nodded his head as if it was obvious. "Alright, thene with me. We¡¯re talking in the control room. Brody, Evalia, Xenia, Jyuuk, Tony and Michael,e with me. Benji, only if you really feel up to it. It¡¯s not a topic I necessarily want you to know about. And as for the rest... I¡¯m sorry, but I don¡¯t think I can let youe with us." The old man said, although quite soon, someone protested against that. "And what a bout me? Why can¡¯t I know about it?" Sophia asked with a deep frown, and the old man looked at her with a light smile, "Because Michael is here right now. You¡¯re probably not in the right mindset to really listen to what I have to tell you all. I¡¯m going to sit down with you and exin it some other time, alright?" Benjamin asked, and although Sophia still wasn¡¯t happy being left out like this, she was at least fine with the fact that she would find out soon after all and ended up agreeing. And then, everyone made their way into another room in the corner. It was a fair bit smaller, and currently there were some racks lining the walls that Drone Stations were meant to be attached to. Since this third floor wasn¡¯t finished yet, the central ¡¯Drone Station¡¯ wasn¡¯t ready yet either, but it was a rather safe room to talk about this kind of thing, since it waspletely closed off and still had the same amount of protection as the rest of the third floor. There were a few stic fold-up chairs in the corner of the room that some people here swiftly grabbed and sat down on, before Benjamin sighed deeply and got started, first wanting to discuss what had been going on with one specific person in here. "Michael." He started, "Now that you¡¯re in the right mindset again, tell us about that dream you had the night before the barbecue." The old man told him, and Michael slowly nodded his head and nervously buried his fingers in his own arm. "I don¡¯t remember much of it, really... There were a lot of bits and pieces all intertwining with each other, all telling me that Benjamin was a bad person, that he was the Devil... That he was evil, and a Demon... I can¡¯t really exin it, the imagery I have in my mind doesn¡¯t really speak of such things at all, it¡¯s just... That kind of dream-internal knowledge you have? Something that wouldn¡¯t usually make sense, then makes sense if it¡¯s in a dream and you take it as the truth..." Michael exined, and Benjamin then slowly nodded his head. "And what happened during the barbecue?" Benjamin asked, before Michael slowly continued, "I was tense, and aggressive. I know that I was often like this anyway, but just never that extreme, and I actually called a little girl a ¡¯s.l.u.t¡¯... I just felt like everything was against me in that moment, that everything was something that the Devil I thought Benjamin to be was nning and orchestrating for the purpose of... I don¡¯t even know what purpose... It seemed to me like everything was going to be alright at some point, and I calmed down. Until I saw that man..." Michael pointed out, and immediately everyone looked at him with curiosity over who that man was. "I think he came up to me at some point and introduced himself as... Sa... Samuel? Could that be it? Samuel Morgan? Either way, the moment I saw him, heard his voice, and shook his head, all that aggression and tension just came bubbling up again... I didn¡¯t realize it then, but he was the reason I thought of Benjamin as a devil, wasn¡¯t he?" With a scoff at how ridiculous this all was, Benji stared at Michael with an annoyed expression, "What, you think anyone is going to believe such a ridiculous excuse? You¡¯re going to push what you did on Samuel? He¡¯s just a cool, fun dude, what kind of reason could you have to get so angry when seeing him?" Benji asked, but everyone else in the room looked at Benji as if he was a bit in the wrong here. After all, he was the only one, beside Michael himself, who didn¡¯t know what was going on in the ¡¯game¡¯. So, Benjamin spoke up instead, "Thanks Michael, we understand. It doesn¡¯t seem to bepletely your fault. Just try to better yourself, alright? And don¡¯t let Sophia coerce you into drinking that much wine again." The old man said, and Michael slowly nodded his head and then left the room, as was nned after he told them what happened exactly, while Benji just stood there confused. "What? You¡¯re really taking it as an actual excuse?" He asked with a deep frown, and Benjamin just nodded his head, "Yup, we are. And let me show you why." The old man said, and then swiftly closed his blue-gray eyes and opened them again shortly after, revealing their now golden color. Chapter 481 - Privileges Seeing Benjamin¡¯s now golden eyes, Andrew, Nataly and Benji looked at him with utter confusion. Since Haruo, Jasmin and Tony already saw them and were aware of what was going on, they didn¡¯t have such a strong reaction. Those other three, on the other hand, didn¡¯t believe what they saw, "How the hell did you do that? Are those, like, AR contacts or something? I heard something about those, but-" "They¡¯re not contacts, Benji." The old man pointed out with a clear tone, and then swiftly stepped into the corner of the room so that he could have everyone in sight at the same time, since he didn¡¯t really want to use this all that much. And then, he activated his Mana-Sight. Immediately the gray environment was then lit up by four different figures filled up with bright energies. Three of them were the regr Mana that Benjamin already knew, and one of the figures was made up of two energies constantly intertwining with each other and splitting up at the same time. Once he confirmed that this really was the case, Benjamin immediately deactivated them again and then held his hand over his eyes as he pressed them shut. This was a rather ufortable feeling, like his eyes were about to burn up, but he didn¡¯t use them as long asst time so there probably wouldn¡¯t be anysting damage. Hopefully. "Alright, managed to confirm it. Jasmin, Haruo, Nataly and Andrew, the five of us have mana, or in Andrew¡¯s Case Yin and Yang energy, inside of our bodies. Benji doesn¡¯t have a speck of it though, so-" Benjamin exined, and immediately Benji sighed out deeply in response, "Grampa, what are you talking about? Is everything okay?" He asked, thinking that his grandfather was just messing around a bit, although everyone else in the room was aware that this was something vastly different to what Benji himself was thinking. "So it¡¯s true? It¡¯s actually real, it¡¯s not just a game? And we were trapped over there for dozens of Millenia?" Andrew asked as he stared down onto the floor in shock, and Nataly was too shocked to say anything. And while they were dealing with this on their own for a little bit to get their minds into order, Benjamin turned over toward Benji. "So, I¡¯m going to just go out and say it without anything around it. The ¡¯Game¡¯ isn¡¯t actually a game. It¡¯s a different world that we were apparently ced into at different times to shape it into what Samuel wanted, I guess. I couldn¡¯t really figure that part of it out yet, of what his reasons for it were. Either way, as you heard before, Michael was seemingly influenced in a supernatural manner, and my guess is that it was Samuel." Benjamin started, and before Benji could say anything, the old man continued. "Around the same time, Greg appeared here all of a sudden carrying a gun. Just a little whileter, Xenia was attacked by her stalker. Last night, a group of people broke into Evalia¡¯s house, probably with no good intention. The triad attacked Brody and his wife, and Jyuuk¡¯s researchb was burnt down. That isn¡¯t a coincidence. I think Samuel might be freaking out and trying to get rid of us or something. Maybe he wanted to-" "Grampa, what the f.u.c.k are you talking about?" Benji asked angrily, heading for the door as he was doing so, "I know I said that I wanted to be part of the conversation, but if you don¡¯t want me here, don¡¯te up with such a ridiculous f.u.c.k.i.n.g lie." "For f.u.c.k¡¯s sake, do I have to stab myself again to prove it to you?" Benjamin eximed, and Benji turned around confused, "Stabbed? What are you talking about?" Benji asked, and everyone else was seemingly just as confused about it, with the exception of Tony. "Actually... What did the Doc say about it? Is it a bad cut?" Tony asked his father, but the old man just shook his head and removed his left hand from his eyes, showing Tony his palm, "Bad? I wish." Benjamin said with a wry smile, revealing his hand with not even a single recent blemish on it. Like the cut from before was just a lie. "It... It¡¯s gone..?" Tony asked as he grabbed his father¡¯s hand and held it closer to his own face to properly see what was going on, and Haruo swiftly walked over to the old man as well, "What? There definitely was a cut here before..." The young man pointed out, before Benjamin just nodded his head. "Yes, there was. But when you two saw it, Jyuuk and Xenia, it already healed for the most part. Benji, to prove to your father that this is real, I cut into my hand with a kitchen knife to let some mana out of my body, since skin somehow restricts that, apparently." The old man pointed out, and slowly, seeing how everyone else was seemingly rather serious and even Nataly was rather shaken up over all this, Benji was growing a bit more confused over whether this was actually real. And then, Benjamin started to exin everything to Benji so that he was caught up on it, although he really couldn¡¯t believe what he was hearing right now and slid to the ground along the wall in shock, "You¡¯ve got to be f.u.c.k.i.n.g with me... That¡¯s real? You¡¯re all serious?" Benji asked, his breathing slowly speeding up, "That world is f.u.c.k.i.n.g real?!" He yelled, and Benjamin looked at him with a calm expression. "Yes, it is. Now, please stay quiet if you can, alright I don¡¯t want others to find out about it if they shouldn¡¯t. But there is something more important. Do any of you know what happens when you reveal to the ¡¯NPCs¡¯ that their world is a ¡¯Game¡¯ and Artificials are ¡¯yers¡¯?" The old man asked, and it seemed like none of them really ever thought about that, although Benji had an answer to that question. "Yup... I saw a stream clip about that. A ripple in the air opens and some guy steps out and immediately kills the yer and forces a log-out without them being able to log in again." Benji exined quietly, and his grandfather immediately nodded his head. "Exactly that, yes. But luckily for me, when I did it, that ¡¯guy¡¯ recognized me and didn¡¯t kill me immediately. So, I managed to convince him to give me immunity to the rule, meaning I can now tell others about the truth, as long as it¡¯s within limits." Benjamin told the others, and immediately, the four other Originals looked at him with confusion. "When you did it? What do you mean, who did you tell?" Jasmin asked immediately, and the old man swiftly exined, "Practically everyone in my group. Sky, Bree, the five Half-Dragon kids, Kirisho... Then there were also Gralmar, Morrom, Jekyll, Denmir and Folmirra. Thetter four are Grandmaster Craftsmen, and Gralmar has quite high-tier contacts. I invited those five to Prototype. Oh, and then there were also Garon and Jaz, the people from Melroe¡¯s adventurer¡¯s Guild. Jaz is the descendant of an old friend of mine- of Eisen, sorry." Benjamin exined, and everyone looked at him in shock. "Why¡¯d you tell all those people..?" Andrew asked with a wry smile, and the old man looked at his friend with a slight grin, "To bring them over to our side. Because from now on, we¡¯ll be messing with the bnce of that world." The old man exined, and while the others were trying to understand what he meant, he continued. "We¡¯re collecting every single great expert, master, or prodigy there is and bringing them to the inds. It seems like even Samuel can¡¯t directly do anything against us five, so we can just go ahead and do it without worries." "And why would we exactly be doing that?" Haruo inquired, although he seemingly wasn¡¯t exactly against it, just a little confused. So, Benjamin exined. "Two reasons. One, so that we can get any help we might possibly need to get back to who we were, to get our memories from our time over there back. I don¡¯t know about you, but I personally don¡¯t want to forever forget 100 Thousand years of my life. And then two... to mess with Samuel." The old man exined, as if it was obvious, and in response, Andrew started to slightly smirk. "Hmm, is that so?" He asked, "I mean, I like the idea of messing with that son of a bitch, if I¡¯ll have to be honest. But that¡¯s not all there is to it, right? You must have an even better reason, am I right?" Andrew pointed out, and with a sigh, Benjamin nodded his head. "Guess I can¡¯t hide it from you, huh?" The old man said, and then sighed deeply, "With the help of special people like that, we can properly make sure that our strength as a country increases. If we have anyone that¡¯s anything on the inds, yers and NPCs alike will be drawn there automatically. Once our size is increased and our rank as a country increases, we get certain privileges that are on a whole other levelpared to before. That¡¯s the only reason I¡¯m even still trying to found a country, since I usually wouldn¡¯t have done so because the one that suggested it was Samuel." Benjamin exined, and rather curiously, Nataly looked at him, "What kind of privileges are you speaking about?" She asked, and Benjamin just slightly grinned in response to that question. "For one, there is a ¡¯King Council¡¯ thing every year, which every Rank 3 country is invited to. There are 5 circles to that council, and with every rank above 3, you can move a circle further and get more privileges amongst that Council. For one, each circle has their own meetings with a different level of information-exchange. And a higher-circle country can ess any information of a lesser-circle country, as long as that lesser-circle country has been part of the council for five years. Like that, we will be able to gain all the information that we may ever need on that world." Benjamin exined. "Since that world is being manipted to make it more exciting for yers, I want any information I can get to properly protect that world and work against that maniption. Then of course, being part of the council also allows us to have ess to countries we usually wouldn¡¯t have yet, since there is a travel-ban between the continents right now. That all is the main reason I want those privileges." The old man exined quite clearly, and hoped that the others agreed with his idea. Chapter 482 Updates After Benjamin continued exining his n, it seemed like the others were at least slightly convinced of everything, although one of them here had something that they wanted to ask. "Am I also going to be able to use magic if I keep ying the game..?" Benji asked with a slight frown, but the old man just chuckled and shook his head. "I doubt it, really. The lowest amount of time that any of us have spent over there is sixty thousand years, which was when Evalia was born over there. And she seems to have aparatively low amount of mana in her bodypared to the others, so I think you¡¯ll be fine until you spend at least a couple thousand years over there. And I doubt that will happen anytime soon." The old man pointed out, and Benji sighed deeply in response. "I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯m supposed to be d or disappointed..." He replied, "On one hand, I like the life I¡¯m living right now, but on the other hand... it¡¯s fucking magic..." The young man muttered with a wry smile, and Benjamin turned toward him. "I¡¯ll let you know in the future if there¡¯s a reason to be worried or excited. Once I get my memories back, I should have a clear gist of what¡¯s going on and how everything works." Benjamin pointed out, before he looked back around the room. "How is everyone doing level-wise? Any of you close to 300?" Benjamin asked, and they all just shook their heads, although Andrew did seem a bit hesitant. "I mean, I was at 287 when Ist logged out, so... That¡¯s pretty close, right?" "Of course it is. And it¡¯s actually perfect. We need to get the tasks on the paper done as quickly as we possibly can. I think if we can, we should take turns on the capsules, since we don¡¯t have enough for everyone to y at once all the time. Although I can¡¯t let anyone else use my capsule, since it¡¯s been modified to properly monitor my condition." The old man exined, and Haruo swiftly spoke up. "Don¡¯t worry, out of everyone here, you¡¯re the one that seems to have most going on beside needing to level up. Although... Maybe Benji and Evalia are busy as well?" He suggested, and Benjamin looked at them with his brows raised, havingpletely forgotten about the task he gave them a while ago. "Oh, now that we¡¯re talking about it, how¡¯s everything going on your guys¡¯ side? Did you manage to get in?" Benjamin inquired curiously, and Benji sighed deeply in response as he nodded his head, "Yup, we did, but it¡¯s pretty annoying. Because we¡¯re faking that we¡¯re NPCs, everyone¡¯s treating us like morons or tools. But at least you were right, we¡¯re allowed to be there for some meetings, although none that Antonio was at." Benji exined, before Nataly immediately nodded her head and added onto that. "And really, it seems like those without Antonio aren¡¯t really that important. They¡¯re just there to make the higher-leveled yers and NPCs feel good and important. They share rough information about what¡¯s going on in the area, things like dungeonyouts and rumors about some random unimportant stuff." She added, and Benji lightly scowled. "Worst of all, they¡¯re all just trying to rub each others¡¯ backs to get favors. And whenever there¡¯s some pretty girl, especially the yers are just swarming them... And because, at those meeting, everyone feels important, they don¡¯t stop to try and talk to Nataly either." The young man pointed out, "I¡¯ve had to literally create diversions with my Trickster upation to get around properly..." "Trickster?" Benjamin asked curiously, and the young man just shrugged and nodded his head, "Yup, collected another few upations. I have Trickster, Orator, and Innkeeper now. I went around the capital to get them to help me out a bit. Although, the ¡¯Trickster¡¯ one I just wanted for my Demon Title since it seemed to fit. Orator I use when I¡¯m walking around in my NPC disguise, and Innkeeper is to get information. The prince set us up in a high-tier Inn and gave us temporary ownership of it." "Why did he do that? I don¡¯t think that was in the agreement?" The old man pointed out, not that he minded getting some freebies, he was just a bit surprised, that was all. "Eh, I think he just wants to crawl up your ass or something." "Fair enough." Benjamin chuckled, and then started looking around at the others again, remembering something else important, "What time is it right now?" He asked into the room, and Tony swiftly tilted his wrist toward himself to look at his watch and then looked at his father again to tell him the time. "I think I have to go again, then. We¡¯re heading out to see the next Ancient Dragon in a bit. Since we don¡¯t really have a clue about where he could be besides the ¡¯Jungle¡¯, I¡¯m not entirely sure how long it will take." Benjamin exined, and Haruo swiftly looked at him with excitement. "Oh! You should go to the town I woke up in. It shouldn¡¯t be too far away from Melroe. Maybe they have a clue. Well, even if they don¡¯t, there¡¯s some good high-rank hunting grounds around there that should be able to allow you to get to Level 300 if you fight there for a good while." He pointed out, so Benjamin looked at him with a curious smile, "Well, I would love to see that ce, you spoke about it pretty excitedly." "Yeah, it¡¯s really nice! And the Flora and Fuana are so versatile in that area as well, so you should be able to get a bunch of new materials." Haruo exined. "Alright then. I¡¯ll let the others know." --- With a slight groan, Eisen stood up from where he went to bedst night, leaning against the wall, and then looked around the room, noticing that most people here were still asleep. So, the old man just made his way over toward Fafnir to wake him and Sigurd up before the core Guardian appeared in front of him and smiled brightly. "We heading out?" It asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, although he was signaling Sigurd to be quiet and made his way out of the room, followed by Sigurd, Fafnir, and the three monster kids. "Let¡¯s go outside, I want to set the Carriage up before we leave." Eisen exined, and Sigurd nodded its head in response, "Gotcha. We¡¯ll probably just need the carraige itself without the stuff inside, right? Since we need some more space this time around?" It figured, so the old man thought for a while and turned toward it. "Yeah, sounds good. I want to have Fafnir evolve just outside of town so that we can get started on the next few floors as soon as possible, and I don¡¯t know if he¡¯s going to fit into the Carriage after that." The old man pointed out, and Sigurd slowly sighed and nodded as well. "Yup, he seems like he¡¯s gonna grow a fair bit again..." Sigurd agreed, so Eisen simply sighed and looked down onto the Dragon with a lightly wry smile, "How much trouble you¡¯re bringing us, huh bud?" Then, Eisen swiftly stepped down into the lobby of the Inn past Gralmar, who was currently dealing with some customers, and just greeted the Dwarf with a quick wave. Although, it seemed like he didn¡¯t really sleep all that much despite how drunk he was. And Eisen couldn¡¯t really me him either. Not everyone would be able to take things like this as easily as Eisen did... On the other hand, he did technically have 100 Thousand years to process it, and this all was probably just stuck in his subonscious somehow even if he didn¡¯t consciously remember any of what happened. Either way, for now, Eisen would let Gralmar deal with all these people that wanted to either give back a key or get a room in advance after just arriving in town, and thenter when Eisen and the others were going to go ahead and leave, he would go and say goodbye to him properly. "You two, can you get the carriage out of the Dungeon right here?" Eisen asked after they stepped into an spot right next to the Inn, where the part that stuck out of the cliff-wall from tworger structures formed bit of an alley, even if it was only roughly five meters deep. But quite swiftly, Sigurd and Fafnir did as asked, with Fafnir opening a gate that then connected to the ce where they set down the carriage in the Dungeon instead of the reception area, and then they pulled the carriage, that Sigurd had been emptying outpletely for a little while now, out of the Dungeon with Cabarum¡¯s help, and then brought the carriage over closer to the Inn, just waiting for the others to wake up. Although, he was rather surprised to see that before any of the others got out, four others already made thier way toward the Inn to send the group off. With a smile on his face, Eisen looked at the Grandmaster Craftsmen of this town. For a little while, they were just speaking to each other, before the rest of Eisen¡¯s group stepped out of the Inn, closely followed by Gralmar. Everyone swiftly gave their items such as luggage or weapons to Sigurd who stashed everything away in the Dungeon, and then everyone slowly got ready for departure, with Eisen once more reassuring the five in front of him that he really wanted them in his country, before Gralmar pulled him to the side a bit and handed Eisen a notebook. Surprised, the old man looked down onto it and flipped it open, soon seeing numerous names and addresses inside of it, as well as their upation, each page containing one person¡¯s information as well as a small letter glued to the page. "What is this?" Eisen asked curiously, and the Innkeeper crossed his arms with a slight sigh, "Somethin¡¯ ye might need. I figured ya were gonna want to try and bring those guys to yer country as well, or at least meet ¡¯em. So, those are some of the greatest people I know, with some letters directed to each of ¡¯em." Gralmar exined, "Some of those guys¡¯re a bit weird, but none of ¡¯em are bad fes." With his brows a bit raised in surprise, Eisen kept flipping through the pages. "A miner, woodcutter... Modeler? There¡¯s a lot of different people in here... I knew you had a lot of great contacts, but I wasn¡¯t aware it was to this extent." Eisen pointed out, making Gralmar just slightly chuckle in response. "That¡¯s just what happens when you travel as much as I used to." Chapter 483 Dragon Rider Eisen and the others just waved at the four grandmaster craftsmen and the Innkeeper as they started riding their carriage toward the right tunnel to exit town. It was actually a little bit cramped in the back, although that was because literally everyone beside Eisen was back there right now. Once they left town, Kiron wanted to sit back down on the roof, and Bree and Sky would take over driving for most of the ride. And if he needed to, Eisen could just shrink down a bit. But this was all just the case when considering the possibility that Fafnir was toorge to fit into the carriageter on once they had him evolve. Something that Eisen was looking for a good enogh spot for currently, until he found a ce with nobody really closely around, and then just stopped the carriage to get Fafnir out. "Sigurd, you ready?" Eisen asked with a curious smile, and the Core Guardian swiftly appeared out of nowhere and nodded its head, "Yup, ready as I¡¯ll ever be!" It eximed, so Eisen just lightly smiled and allowed Sigurd to start the evolution process, making the Core Guardian disappear inside of the Dungeon again. Just then, Fafnir¡¯s body was enveloped in light and his body started to grow and morph, just so slightly changing shape on top of size. In total, Fafnir¡¯s back-height while he was on all fours was simr to Cabarum¡¯s, meaning that the consequence was now very clear. "Yeah, you¡¯re not fitting into the Carriage, bud..." Eisen said and then started to look the dragon¡¯s body over a bit, trying to figure out in what way he changed other than just size-wise. He now had two small horns starting at the sides of his forehead running back over his scalp, and his wings seemed to be more sturdy and capable as well. In general, Fafnir¡¯s ws and fangs were sharper andrger as well. His body was now giving off slight constant heat that would make it rather ufortable to keep your hand on his scales for a while, but it wasn¡¯t noticeable just a couple of meters away from him. Fafnir¡¯s body had apparently grown a lot stronger as well, at least that¡¯s what Eisen judged from the slight muscr bulk he gained. "Hmm, maybe..." Eisen muttered quietly, before then trying something important out, "Fafnir, open the gate." Eisenmanded, and without hesitation, the Dragon jumped high into the air and created a giant gate underneath his body, roughly seven or so meters in height. But the gate didn¡¯t only change in size either. The ¡¯Border¡¯ that was before just made of regr stone bricks was now more decorated. At the side were tworge stone pirs with Draconic carvings on them, and the door itself was sturdier than ever before as well. Before, it seemed like it could break down with a single slight push, but now that it was made of well-treated, thick, and strong wood, that seemed rather unlikely. With a smile on his face, Eisen increased his size to the max and pushed the new gate open, soon finding himself in the new reception area. Since the reception area had now been properly set as an ¡¯Asset¡¯ for the Dungeon, it seemed it was rather easy for Sigurd to make it that it was slightly changed during the process of evolution as well, just like the regr floors were. The regr dungeon parts would be gaining extra strength and size, would start being slightly more decorated and intricate, and in the case of the forest areas, more vibrant, as if overflooding with life, at leastpared to before. Butpared to that, the reception area had actually changed rather rapidly. They already spoke about it sometime before, but Sigurd at some point suggested to make the reception area some kind of ¡¯Hangout¡¯ spot to get people to stay there for longer and leech as many DP off of them as possible to increase the size and range of the dungeon more easily. So now, that had started! Since the size of the entrance gate was now sorge, Sigurd just added a second floor to the reception building and generally made it ¡¯blow up¡¯ in volume, and was currently busy trying to set some tables and chairs down there. Generally, it looked really nice! The second floor had a half-circle gap inbetween its edge and the gate so that you could practically just look at the gate opening, or out through it if it was open. But once Sigurd noticed that Eisen was now actually inside of the Dungeon, it appeared in front of the old man with a broad grin. Sigurd itself hadn¡¯t changed much, really. The patterns on its body were slightly different again, but other than that, it seemed to be mostly the same. "Soo? How do you like it?" It asked with a broad grin, before Eisen just slightly chuckled in response, "I like it a lot, actually. But if this reception building is thisrge, we need to increase the size of the rest of the town as well, right?" The old man pointed out, and Sigurd nodded its head as if it was already expecting that. "Of course, of course! But not that we¡¯ve ranked up again and we have umted a fair bit of DP, we can increase our limit of Monsters that we have out at a time without constantly having iterations of them spawn! So I was thinking that each ¡¯Basic¡¯ type would get two more versions of it as assistants to decrease the load of everything!" Sigurd exined, so Eisen just slightly smiled and nodded his head in response, "I see, that sounds like a good idea. Do that if you can, yeah. But I think for now, there won¡¯t be anyone to help you out. If you noticed, Fafnir¡¯s a bit toorge to fit in the carriage, so I just thought of another task for him." Eisen pointed out, and Sigurd raised its brows curiously, "Oh? What kind of task?" It asked, before Eisen just started to smirk broadly, "Just wait and see, I¡¯ll be getting started with that in a bit." The old man pointed out, "I just wanted to check and see how everything¡¯s going in here right now. It¡¯s looking good, really." "Thank you! But still, I¡¯m pretty curious about what you¡¯re nning on doing now..." Sigurd exined, but Eisen just chuckled in response. "Fine, fine, I¡¯ll get started already. I might need to make an extra itemter on though, but I don¡¯t really know just yet." Eisen pointed out, "After all, I¡¯ve never tried this before..." Heughed quietly, and then made his way out of the Dungeon with a slight smile on his face, swiftly telling Fafnir to close the gate again, and then looked over toward Bree and Sky as they were getting into position to drive the carriage from now on. "I¡¯ll always be around you, so just yell if something¡¯s wrong, alright?" The old man told them, and Sky slowly started to frown, "Why, what are you doing? And where are you going?" The Fey-Kin boy asked, and Eisen just smirked as he ced both his hands onto Fafnir¡¯s back and pushed his body up onto his back while slightly increasing his size to be a better fit for the shape of Fafnir¡¯s body. "I¡¯ll just be around here hunting a bit, that¡¯s all." Eisen exined with a smile on his face, and even from inside the carriage, the five half-dragons and Eisen¡¯s two apprentices were staring outside at him, while Sky was just baffled. On the other hand, Bree was rather excited, just like the three Monster Children that joined Eisen on Fafnir¡¯s back to support him during the fights toe. "You¡¯re going to ride a dragon intobat?" Parc asked with an excited grin, and the old man just softlyughed in response, "Yup, you could word it like that." Eisen pointed out, and then ran his hand over the dragon¡¯s head. "Sorry bud, but you¡¯re alright with not sleeping for a while, right?" Eisen asked him, before the Dragon just nodded his head in response, making his rider just grin slightly. "Well then, should we get going again? I¡¯m itching to level up right now." The old man pointed out, and Bree swiftly got Cabarum to move, while Eisen made Fafnir do the same. For now, there wasn¡¯t much around here that could give Eisen any proper experience, as all the monsters were maybe rank 3 or 4, and that really wasn¡¯t much of a challenge to Eisen. Either way, after an hour or two, they finally reached an area where some stronger monsters were living, so Eisen swiftly made Fafnir speed up while he exined the tactics to the Dragon he was riding on, the three monsters in front of him, and the Core Guardian that simply knew everything that was going on around here. "Alright, once we see a monster, I want Caria to restrain it with vines, Sal to help my sword hit its vitals through his marite magic, and Melissa to get her Drill- and Carrier-Bees to extract mana crystals from those monsters bodies and then bring them here, just dropping them into the air directly above us, so that Sigurd can instantly bring them inside, alright?" Eisen suggested, and it seemed like everyone was swiftly agreeing to the tactic, although the old man didn¡¯t expect them to majorlyin anyway. And while these obviously weren¡¯t the greatest tactics he could havee up with, they ended up working pretty well! The monsters currently in the area here were those that lived in packs, so they always met multiple of them at once, so the kind of speedy take-down that Eisen¡¯s tactic was hoping for was perfect here. But of course, since Eisen had his Demonic Yin transformation active and was using his Demonic Sword, he was basically just ripping these monsters apart anyway. And it seemed like Sal¡¯s Marite-magic based control that was guiding Eisen¡¯s de toward the Monster more quickly was synergizing amazingly with the weak consciousness that the de itself currently had that was basically just capable of slightly guiding itself toward the target as well. Maybe this way the Sword¡¯s consciousness was able to learn how to improve on this ability a bit? That would surely be amazing, although Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure if that was going to happen. But either way, he didn¡¯t really need to be sure anyway. He just had to wait. Either way, this de of his would develop into a great item, Eisen waspletely sure of that. And just as he was thinking that, the old man managed to level up for the first time today, a quite nice turn of events. [You are now level 205] Chapter 484 Advancements [You are now Level 257] "Oh, how lucky." Eisen said with a light smile on his lips, swiftly waving the notification away as he got rid of the de in his hand. After cing it into his Soul Storage, some of the blood that was on it before dropped down onto the ground, not having anything to stick to anymore. "What¡¯s lucky?" Sal asked as he turned his head to look at Eisen, and the old man just chuckled as he had Fafnir slow down and jumped off the Dragon¡¯s back, "I leveled up just now." Eisen exined, before Sal whistled in response. "You¡¯re getting even stronger. As expected of the man who managed to tame the great me." The Spider-Boy pointed out with a satisfied nod, before Caria looked at him with a wry smile, "Really? Great? You..?" She asked, her expression simply showing disgust while Sal turned around and stared at her angrily. "You don¡¯t have to be that mean all the time!" He eximed, before Caria red back at him with annoyance in her eyes, "Eeh? You¡¯re saying that now, after you were experimenting using my Mushlings all ofst night?" Caria replied, before Sal crossed his arms with a huff and looked away. "What, there¡¯s so many of them, and they have the same mental power you do, so they¡¯re really easy to control with my Marite Magic. What do you want me to do, just not practice and possibly be no help to Eisen?" The boy asked with his eyes slightly squinted, and Caria just started grinding her teeth, "Oh, if that¡¯s how it is, then how about I practice a bit as well? I bred this new type of restraining vine that I couldn¡¯t use yet." As the young girl said so, the ground under Sal started to split open in a few small spots and pitch-ck thorny vines started to climb up from there, although they immediately shriveled up once Eisen tapped Caria¡¯s shoulder. "The two of you, stop it already." Eisen said with a slight sigh as he took his Demonic de out of his Soul Storage, as he just ced it in there to get rid of the blood real quick, and then turned down toward the de as it was shaking around in his hand. "And you stop it as well, got it? Or else I¡¯ll just start fighting with my fists." The old man told his Ego-Sword with a deep frown. Due to the constant fighting during this trip for the sake of leveling up, Eisen was able to push the de¡¯s Ego-Rank all the way to 5, at which point it actually started moving on its own, albeit at the level of a dog. Either way, for now, Eisen would be standing ¡¯Guard¡¯ while the others were setting up camp for tonight. It was thest night that they had to do so, since tomorrow they would be arriving at the vige where Jyuuk woke up at. Although, Eisen wasn¡¯t really standing Guard, considering that he had literally five half-dragons for that. Mostly, he was just on lookout for nice materials that he might be able to use. Meaning, that he swiftly squatted down in front of the monster that gave him his level-up just now. "Hmm, so..." He muttered quietly as he ced his sword down to the side and red at it for a little while to make it stop fidgeting around like it was, and then swiftly pushed his fingers into the small socket that it had on its left shoulder. It seemed to have something like this at each joint of its ape-like body. They seemed to be something like seeds trapped inside of rubies, and when Eisen inspected it, all he managed to find out was that it was an ¡¯Experimental Seed¡¯. "So someone is ying around with animals around here, huh?" The old man whispered, and then just sighed, before a voice slowly spoke up. "We have found quite a lot of these, haven¡¯t we?" Kirisho asked, as mist streamed from the amulet around Eisen¡¯s neck and formed the woman¡¯s body, before Eisen just nodded his head in response. "Yes, seems so. I mean, it seems like we should be able to grow these, but Caria isn¡¯t getting any sort of reaction from it." The old man exined, and Kirisho seemed to think about it rather strongly. "Is there any weird mana connected to it?" She asked Eisen, who had no good answer for that, "Yes, and No." He pointed out, "It¡¯s just arge amount of Natural mana. An incredible amount of it, really. But there¡¯s something else mixed in as well, I just can¡¯t tell what it is. But since it¡¯s an ¡¯Experimental Seed¡¯, that was to be expected." The old man pointed out with a slight sigh. "I mean, this is a ce with a surreal amount of natural mana, and since these animals are getting more and more, we¡¯re surely getting closer to the source of it. Maybe someone at the town knows anything." Eisen suggested, and then stood back up while picking his de up, and then made his way over toward the small camp that the others were currently producing. Although it wasn¡¯t much of a camp... They just had Fafnir open the Gate and set up slight protection around it, that¡¯s all. To be fair, that made it a rather easy-to-remove camp, so they never had to work too long to get everything back. Either way, for now, Eisen joined the others while trying to tame his mad demonic sword. --- Benjamin pushed his body out of the capsule and stepped out toward the door, swiftly making his way into the kitchen, where Andrew was currently standing, eating a bowl of cereal while looking at therge TV in the livingroom. With a slight sigh, Benjamin stepped into the kitchen and got out a small pan from the cab, "Mornin¡¯." Andrew said nonchntly, although the old man had something else to say about this. "You know that the reason I asked you toe here was so that YOU would be protected as well, right? Standing out here in the open won¡¯t be much help for that." Benjamin pointed out as he ced the pan over the stove and ced a little bit of butter into it while grabbing a bowl as well as some eggs from the fridge. "I know, I know. But it¡¯s been like three days, if they were gonna get mad over shit, I¡¯d have already been called because they burnt down the dojo or something..." Andrew pointed out, pushing another spoon of cereal into his mouth while Benjamin just sighed. And while the old man started one-handedly cracking some of the eggs over the bowl, all of a sudden, Andrew and Benjamin could hear the ringing of a phone, which Andrew swiftly pulled out of his pocket, "Coincidence." He pointed out and then hurriedly answere the call without even checking who called him, "Jones here, how can I-" Andrew started, and was then swiftly interrupted by the voice of a rather entric woman, "Ah, Miss Pesterfield, nice to hear from you." The young man pointed out, and for a few seconds just listened to the woman¡¯s rambling before sighing deeply. "Ma¡¯am, we¡¯ve given more than enough notice, even if it did happen all of a sudden. We called whoever we could, including you, sent out e-mails to everyone, and there¡¯s even a notice on the Dojo¡¯s front door. There won¡¯t be sses for the next while." Andrew sighed, and a few secondster shook his head annoyedly as he looked at Benjamin. "I¡¯ll be right back..." He said, and then held the phone back to his ear as he started walking around the livingroom to talk to this woman, while the old man just slightly smiled and started getting some simple things ready for now. He put some eggs into the bowl and then swiftly started whisking them around to get all the yolks to break up, before pouring them into the low-heat pan and using a rubber spat to slowly scramble the eggs and then took a short break to put some bread into the toaster, and then kept continuosly moving the scrambled eggs around in the pan. Once they started setting a bit, he properly seasoned the eggs and properly mixed everything around, and once the scrambled eggs took on a creamy constistency and the toast was ready, simply put the bread on a te and then slowly poured the creamy scrambled eggs onto them, and then faced a bit of a predicament, at which point Benji stepped into the kitchen tiredly. "Huh? Gramps, what are you doing? Why are you trying to cook again? Just rest properly, geez..." Benjiined and swiftly stepped over toward the old man, and looked at the te in front of his grandfather with surprise. "Benji, I can make scrambled eggs without hands if I need to. As long as I can hold the spat and pan-handle in my mouth, I¡¯m fine. I just need a little help with the pepper mill..." The old man pointed out, and Benji just smiled wrily as he grabbed the wooden piece with a nod, and then put some extra pepper on it before handing the te to Benjamin. "Yeah, sorry about that. Dad¡¯s kinda making me just as crazy as he is about all this stuff..." Benji exined, but the old man just shook his head as he ced the te down on the kitchen isle and sat down on one of the stools, "I appreciate it, really. But I¡¯m fine, I¡¯m in peak condition. Maybe a couple of pounds lighter, but I¡¯ve put on a few healthy pounds again, so nothing to worry about." Benjamin exined, and Benji just slightly sighed. "Well, if you say so..." The young man said, and properly stepped into the kitchen as well to get his day started, "Oh, the strong coffee¡¯s in the top. I¡¯m sure you need it right now." Benjamin pointed out as he bit into his breakfast, and Benji immediately froze up. "I¡¯m not sure what you¡¯re talking about..." He said quietly as he looked away, and the old man looked at Benji surprised, "Really? I could have sworn you and Evalia were offline all ofst night... Despite mentioning how you two wanted to properly get information on the Guild Building¡¯syout..." "O-Oh, that? Yeah, the n changed, we didn¡¯t do thatst night, but we¡¯ll be doing it tonight. Last night I just wanted to properly sleep a bit, I¡¯ve been feeling a little exhaustedtely." Benji pointed out, and Benjamin sighed slightly in response. "Benji, I saw Evalia leave your room a couple minutes ago, wearing the her shirt the wrong way." Chapter 485 Grenade Spell "I... I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about..." Benji pointed out with a wry smile, but his grandfather just stared at him with a nk expression, "I was your age once too, you know?" "Okay, fine, you were right, she was with mest night... but please for the love of god, don¡¯t say anything that makes me want to rip my ears off." The teenager interrupted immediately, but Benjamin just sighed deeply in response and shook his head disappointedly. "Be kind to this old crippled man for once..." He said with a light sniffle, and Benji looked at him with a wry smile immediately, "Hey, you lost the right to use the ¡¯Cripple¡¯ card the moment you made your breakfast just now." While clicking his tongue, Benjamin stood back up and ced his empty te into the sink, before looking at his Grandson with a slight smile, "Either way, just have fun with Evalia. I want to reach the legendary stage of ¡¯Great-Grandparent¡¯ soon." He pointed out and then turned around, slowly making his way toward the livingroom while Benji just embarrassedly yelled at his back, "I hate that you knownguage like that now!" "Right, right..." Benjamin replied quietly as he sat down on his armchair, and at the same time, Andrew finished his call and exhaustedly dropped down onto the couch. "I hate... people." Andrew whispered quietly, lightly looking at Benjamin as he was doing so. The old man looked at his friend with a smile, "Well, at least you won¡¯t have to deal with those kinds of people in person for now." He pointed out, making Andrew raise his brows lightly in response. "You know what? Good point, ya geezer." He replied with a softugh before seemingly remembering something, "Finally arrived at the next town?" With a slide shake of his head, Benjamin replied, "Not yet, we¡¯re getting there soon though. We¡¯ve been encountering something called ¡¯Experimental Seed¡¯ more and more. I wanted to ask Jyuuk about it once he and Xenia woke up." "Experimental Seed? Like... for nts?" Andrew asked with a puzzled expression, and Benjamin just leaned back in his armchair as he lightly tapped the armrest in thought, "Technically yes, but it¡¯s encapsuled in seemingly random gems. Sometimes it¡¯s rubies, sometimes emeralds, and other times sapphires. But whenever I try to take the actual seed out of it, that seed immediately rots and can¡¯t be grown anymore." Benjamin exined, before Andrew scratched his chin a bit. "Huh... Yeah, I have not a single clue what that might be, ask the ntmeister." Andrew said, pointing at the hallway behind the old man. Once Benjamin turned around, he could already see Haruo standing there with a bit of confusion written on his face. "ntmeister?" Haruo asked with a slight frown, and Andrew just shook his head, "Nevermind. Well, you heard most of it, didn¡¯t you? What do you think?" "I haven¡¯t heard of anything like that while I was still there, so it must be rather new. Just ask around the town a bit, they should be able to tell you at least a little about it. It might be some sort of new method of advanced nt-growth that a yer came up with." Haruo pointed out, "Even if we have special positions, that doesn¡¯t mean that there aren¡¯t others that are pretty skilled at what they do." With a slow nod, Benjamin swiftly nodded his head, "Fair enough... Although I doubt that it¡¯s just for advanced nt-growth. Neither do I think it¡¯s something at the level a yer could already achieve. Roughly half the monsters in the area that I¡¯ve met had those ¡¯Experimental Seeds¡¯ where their joints were. None of them grew or anything, they were just there." Benjamin exined to them, and Haruo swiftly grew a fair bit more attentive. "Oh? A Monster-based experiment... Hmm, I mean, while I was in town I DID hear about some Naturalist that was experimenting with somehow artificially increasing the strength of people by fusing them with non-human things like nts, but... He was more of aughingstock in that town. Maybe he managed to get some kind of new ability or skill?" Haruo suggested, and Benjamin stared moving his fingers through his beard in thought. "Huh... A sudden new powerful skill... I think I should visit that Naturalist sometime. Maybe he knows something about the Dragon I¡¯m looking for." Benjamin pointed out, before Haruo just lightly shrugged in response. "Sounds like a good enough theory, yeah." --- Back in the other world, Eisen swiftly stood up from where he had gone to sleep and looked around. It seemed like everyone else was still sleeping, so Eisen figured he should let them do so for a while longer and just work on leveling his new skill up a bit. He didn¡¯t have that many chances to work with it over the time that they were travelling, but at least Eisen managed to bring it to Rank 2 already. And the Yang-Multitool was also at Ego-Rank 4 now. It was seemingly helping Eisen¡¯s movement a bit more, more easily reacting to what he was nning to do. In general, the multitool let Eisen work a fair bit quicker than he did before, at least in some situations when it came to heavily detailed work. He was incredibly curious about how much it would help once its Ego-Rank reached Rank 5. But for now, Eisen just started working with some more elemental mana to make some magic arrows for Rudia. There wasn¡¯t any specific reason for it though. They were simply useful against monsters that had high physical but low magical resistance. And on top of that, since they were rtively easy to make and basically any version of Elemental-Mana Arrow had some sort of use, it was a good way to level his skill up. What Eisen found recently when ying around with these and enchanting them was rather interesting as well. When Eisen enchanted these Mana Items, the enchantments were basically functioning like Magic Circles, meaning that he could make direct use of different magical properties of each of the elements. There were some arrows made with Caria¡¯s ¡¯Mushroom Forest¡¯ element that Eisen made so that they would create a ¡¯Mushling¡¯, like Caria called them, of the target once it was hit. With Sal¡¯s ¡¯Marite¡¯ element, Eisen could make an arrow that would create a thick thread between where the target was hit and the ground to keep it in ce a bit more. And of course, there were many other applications and ways that Eisen could y with these Mana Items. He was actually able to slightly look past that fake and artificial feeling that it gave him when working with the materials because of that. Either way, after making a few more bundles of those arrows, Eisen figured he should continued experimenting with the Mana Items that he had been thinking about for a fair while now. The ¡¯Instant Potions¡¯ as Eisen called them. If he could produce them in bulk, they would definitelye in useful. With just a little bit of mana, you would be able to use the potion without even grabbing it, which could be a life-saver in a life-and-death battle. Either way, for a while now, Eisen was trying to concentrate oning up with goodbinations for potions, in the sense of which element would be a good fit for which potion, and would now try that out. Whenever he had the chance during the trip, Eisen would stop and collect any crystalized mana from random mines and save them in Mana Batteries, so he had a fair amount of at least the four basic elements now. First came a potion he wanted to make using the Fire Element. He pulled some of the elemental mana out of the battery andpressed it into arge enough crystal before then simply setting it to act like water. Then, the regr process began. Eisen mixed the Fire-Water with some ground-down crystalized fire-mana and then added in the regr herbs and roots like normal. Luckily Fire Mana itself wasn¡¯t hot until it was ¡¯lit up¡¯ by the user, so Eisen could mix it properly like this. And then once everything was mixed, he just boiled the Fire-Water away and was then left with a couple rtively simple attack-damage enhancing potions. In total, there was enough for six potions in total. Two of those potions were filled into a bottle made with Fire-Elemental Mana, two into a bottle made with pure mana, and two into a regr bottle. The reason he split it up like this was to see how the containers would change the effect of the potion, of course. And there was also a reason why he had two potions for each bottle type. Since it was possible for Eisen to influence the Fire-Mana a bit now, he simply did what one usually would with Fire-Elemental mana. He made it burn. Immediately, three of the bottles¡¯ contents started burning. And with the next thought, Eisen set all six bottles as finished items. But before he knew it, the ss bottle with the burning contents shattered immediately, and the mana-potion disappeared before hitting the ground. Eisen was slightly disappointed to see that, but he didn¡¯t really expect anything else anyway. Either way, next, he looked at the other bottles. The ming-contents of the Fire-Mana bottle were burning a bit stronger and apparently also hotter than in the Pure-Mana bottle. It seemed like the bottles with the ming-content had a time-limit to be used, and the longer you waited the lower the effect of it was. They started with higher effects, but within roughly five hours, it would be lower than the effect from the non-ming contents. "Hmm, then the best would be to add an enchantment to the cork to make it that anyone can light the potion up when needed, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself, and then ced the bottles to the side with a light grin on his face, just staring at the oneplete Fire-Mana bottle with the ming contents. "A me in a bottle, huh?" Eisen muttered quietly, and then thought about it for a while. "What if..." He whispered, and then slowly started to divert his thoughts away from the potions again. What he would make now would work simrly, but would have a vastly different result at the end of the day. First things first, Eisen got some more fire Mana into apressed state, and then had it act like water before... freezing it. It seemed a bit weird considering that it was Fire-Mana, but once Eisen actually tried to use the freezing-enchantment that he made to preserve food more easily, he found that it worked like normal. It also made sense in a way, since it was also possible to heat up crystalized mana as it was set to be metal-like, so of course it should also be possible to freeze it. Either way, once the Fire-Mana was frozen in ce, Eisen formed it into a sphere and then started to turn it into a 3D enchantment, or basically a 3D spell, and soon encapsted it in a thinyer of Fire-Mana turned into ss. Now, Eisen just had to wait for the Fire-Mana to melt again. And just like he thought, the enchantment stayed in ce like it was, since it was created using mana as a base, technically at least. The Fire-Mana was still flowing around like water inside of the sphere while Eisen enchanted the ss-like surface to shatter five seconds after mana was pulled out of it. Basically, you could start everything by putting your mana inside, and then it would start the timer once you pulled it out again. Simple as that. Either way, then, Eisen made it so that the Fire-Mana inside of the sphere would start to burn, and then swiftly made his way to one of the work-in-process Dungeon Floors to test this out. Since the floors 11 to 20 would have a ¡¯Desert¡¯ and ¡¯Ravine¡¯ theme, there wasn¡¯t much growing here, especially not this early in their construction. So, Eisen swiftly poured his mana into the enchanted sphere and threw it as far away as he could, pulling his mana out as he was at it, and then counted down. And exactly five secondster, Eisen¡¯s could see therge magical explosion of pure mes in the distance, flinging Sand and dirt toward him. Just now, Eisen created a Grenade Spell. Chapter 486 Meeting Brak "This works a lot better than I¡¯d have thought..." Eisen muttered quietly to himself, and then just started to smirk lightly as he thought about what else he could make to make his life a little easier. The grenades were fine and all, but they weren¡¯t exactly the best choice in a forest, even if it was a magical one that extinguished all sorts of fires instantly. But there would surely be other versions that one could make with this, wouldn¡¯t there? Slowly, Eisen thought about it and then returned back to his workstation, swiftly creating some crystalized Earth- and Air-Mana, as well as just a little bit of crystalized Fire-Mana. In a simr fashion to before, Eisen created a smaller version of the grenade that he just made, but since it was far smaller, it would have only a fraction of the forcepared to before. On top of that, Eisen also created the enchantment to focus less on the mes¡¯ heat and more on the explosion¡¯s force. This small bead was roughly the size of Eisen¡¯s fingertip, and then Eisen started creating a few pebble-sized chunks of Earth-Mana, each of which he enchanted so that they would give off heavy force on any impact. Of course, this was only possible due to the marble-workstation, though. And then, Eisen created anotherrger sphere, the size of the original grenade, and then used some mana-thread to suspend the tiny bomb to float in the center of the sphere, before filling it up to the brim with the small earth-mana pebbles. And the gaps inbetween those earth-mana pebbles were then filled with Air-Mana turned into water. Of course, Eisenpressed the air-mana crystals that he used for this even more densely so that they would create immense pressure inside of the sphere once turned into air. And then, Eisen closed the hole in the outer sphere that he used to fill it up with and enchanted the outer sphere. With this new grenade in hand, Eisen then made his way back into the work-in-progress floor and then spoke, "Sigurd,pare this explosion to the explosion from the grenade before." Eisen told the Core Guardian, who swiftly appeared right next to Eisen and nodded its head, curiously waiting for the old man to throw it. After pushing his mana into the grenade, the outer sphere turned into hard rock like Eisen wanted it to, and he could already feel it starting to slightly shake in his hand due to the sudden release of therge amount of air inside of it, while the small enchanted pebbles turned into rock and were hitting against the outer and inner sphere, constantly scratching againt it. Now, all that Eisen needed to do was properly throw it and pull his mana out of it, something that he did within the next moment. And before he knew it, he could hear the loud noise of an explosion, once more with some dirt and sand flying toward him. But before any of the dirt and sand could hit him, Eisen felt a strong pain on the inside of his elbow and swiftly looked down at it. "Well, at least I know it works..." The old man sighed, looking at the remnant of the pebble that just hit him as it disappeared and crumbled down into nothingness, "Hmm, maybe I should make it so that they disappear shortly after the explosion... So that nobody will be hit by any stray pebbles..." Eisen muttered to himself, and Sigurd turned toward him with a slight frown. "I think that¡¯s a good idea... One of those flew 152 meters just now..." It exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head in thought, "I see... I mean, this is working pretty well so far, so once I can tweak that and get a bit more used to the production process, they should be pretty interesting tools." "You can say that..." Sigurd said with a wry smile, and before they continued speaking about all of this, the Core Guardian raised its brows with a smile, "Alright, everyone¡¯s up and ready to go now. Seems like you can¡¯t destroy my floor any further for now." "Come on, you can fix that little damage in a minute." Eisen sighed, and Sigurd just shrugged and created a gate to bring Eisen to the reception area, "It¡¯s about the principle. Now, let¡¯s get going." Sigurd suggested, so Eisen nodded his head and stepped through the gate before looking around the room, soon spotting Sky. The old man stepped up to the Fey-Kin boy with a smile and asked, "So, how long do you think it¡¯s going to be until we get to town?" In thought, Sky closed his eyes and scratched his cheek, before looking up at Eisen, "Maybe six, seven hours if we go at the speed we¡¯ve been until now? I mean, this Jungle is so dense that it¡¯s hard to know if the paths on the map we have are actually real. They could be overgrown already..." Sky pointed out, "If we¡¯re unlucky, it¡¯s going to take maybe half a day. But not longer than twelve hours." "Hmm, I see." Eisen muttered quietly, moving his fingers through his beard as he was doing so, "Then we should better get going, huh?" --- After roughly nine hours, since there were indeed a few paths that weren¡¯t traversable anymore, the group finally managed to reach the town that they were looking for. While they were at it, they actually passed a ce where nearly every monster was one that had ¡¯experimental seeds¡¯ imnted in them, but now that they were here at town that amount got less again. At least that gave Eisen a rough clue of where the source of those seeds was. For now, since it should be rather weird to see someone approach while riding on a young dragon, Eisen got off of Fafnir¡¯s back, but in turn increased his size to his maximum possible height, out of a weird instinct, actually. The group soon approached the gate in the distance and could already see some yers around, albeit a rather small amountpared to what they expected. They stopped in front of the gate in front of the Guard that was currently standing there. The Bear-Beastperson looked at the rather weird group and smiled wrily, "Let me guess, you¡¯re Artificials?" The Guard asked, but Eisen just shook his head with a smile on his face, "No, no, rather the opposite, actually." Eisen said with a smile, swiftly using his truth-seeing-eyes to inspect the Beastperson and soon found out his name, raising his brows in surprise. It was the Beastperson that Jyuuk told him about! The first one that he spoke to here in the game, actually, "We¡¯re here because our friend Jyuuk suggested we should. He said everyone here was pretty helpful when he found himself around here a couple months ago." Eisen pointed out, and the Bear-Beastperson looked up at Eisen with a light smile. "Jyuuk? As in the Monkey-Beastperson Tamer?" He asked, and Eisen immediately nodded his head, "That¡¯s him. Well, technically he¡¯s not just a tamer anymore. He¡¯s incredibly skilled at Necromancy and nt Control as well." "Huh, that¡¯s a weirdbo... Life and Death in one, huh?" The Guard muttered quietly, and Eisen chuckled quietly, "It sure is. Well, anyway, can we enter town? We don¡¯t really have much luggage with us." Eisen pointed out, although that was a big ol¡¯ lie. They had a literal town as their luggage inside of Fafnir. "Hmm, we¡¯ll just take a quick look at the back and then see, alright? By the way, the name¡¯s Brak. Nice to meet you..." Brak said and extended his hand to shake Eisen¡¯s, the tone of his voice suggesting that he wanted to learn this old man¡¯s name as well. And so, Eisen chuckled and decreased his size to properly greet Brak as well, "Eisen, nice to meet you too." He said, shaking the baffled man¡¯s hand before increasing his size again. "Y-You¡¯re not just a big titan...?" Brak asked with a wry smile, and Eisen swiftly shook his head with augh, "Not at all. I¡¯m a half-giant actually. Can you guess my other half?" The old man asked with a wink, and Brak looked at him with a slightly nervousugh, "Erm... I¡¯ll think about it for a while and then give you my guess, alright?" Brak suggested, so Eisen just slightly shrugged. "Sure, take your time." With a slight sigh, Brak looked around the group a bit more while some other guards took a look at the actual carriage and the others inside of it, "Actually, I¡¯m just slightly curious, but... Is that actually a Dragon..?" Brak asked, and with a slight frown, Eisen moved his fingers through his beard and thought about it for a while. "Let¡¯s say yes... Technically he is? But somehow he isn¡¯t either? That kind of thing." Eisen exined, and that answer was absolutely unsatisfying for the Bear-Beastperson. But he didn¡¯t have much time to think about that, because the Guard that just opened the door to the carriage jumped backward in shock with a loud gasp. Immediately, Brak ran over toward him to see what was going on, and once he looked into the carriage swiftly spotted seven figures sitting there. Two of them were obviously people, but the other five... Not so much. Brak mmed the door shut and then stared at Eisen confusedly, "You-You have that many monsters with you..? Are you a tamer as well?" Brak asked with a wry smile, and Eisen stared at him with a deep frown. "Hey, I only have three monsters, these three." The old man pointed out as he pointed at the three children standing right in front of him, and then stepped up to the carriage. "One of those ¡¯monsters¡¯ you¡¯re talking about is my grandson and at the same time my knight, and the other four are his squires. They¡¯re Half-Dragons, they¡¯re smarter than most people." "Okay, okay, there¡¯s a lot going on that¡¯s confusing me right now. First off, if those five are half-dragons, then that¡¯s another story. This town has pretty good rtions with a Copper Dragon around here, so we know they¡¯re not like other monsters. But why are you calling those three kids... monsters...?" Brak asked, but before he even needed to finish the sentence, the three of them swiftly demonstrated what was going on. Sal opened his six smaller, closed eyes. Melissa opened up her hives and had numerous bees crawling out of her hoody. And then Caria... Just stood there. She didn¡¯t have a good way of demonstrating anything like that, really. But either way, at least this was all enough to convince Brak that the three of them weren¡¯t actually normal children. Chapter 487 Surprises "Here you go, this is the new Inn... we had to build one after all those Artificials starteding here." Brak pointed out, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head with just a light smile, "Got it, thank you. Well then, is the market around here as well? Oh, and do you need a permit to set up a stall here?" The old man inquired, and the Bear-Beastman that guided them through town after his shift ended just looked at Eisen surprised. "You want to set up a stall? I mean, you can just sell stuff from the streets. Technically you could set up your own stall as well, but most people that sell from proper stalls rent one from the town for a day." "Oh, perfect!" Eisen replied immediately, "So we can just pick any spot?" He asked, and Brak slowly nodded his head in response. "Yeah, basically." He said with a bit of a puzzled expression, and Eisen turned over toward his group, "Alright, we¡¯re setting up the stall over there, and then you two are heading out of town again, right?" The old man asked as he ran his head over Fafnir¡¯s snout, and before Brak could ask who he was talking to, a short figure appeared on top of Fafnir¡¯s back. "Yup. I¡¯m really curious about how people around here fight. They should be able to navigate the forest really easily, right?" Sigurd asked excitedly, and Eisen moved his fingers through his beard in thought, "You would think so. Let¡¯s just see. For now, let¡¯s do that then. I¡¯ll head inside and get us rooms for tonight already, so go ahead and pick a nice spot for us." The old man suggested, but was quickly stopped when some mist streamed out of the amulet around his neck. The woman that was formed from just that mist simply smiled at Eisen and shook her head, "I will do it. You can go and choose yourself." Kirisho suggested. Smiling, the old man replied, "That would be great, thank you." "Of course." Kirisho replied, and then swiftly turned around and headed toward the Inn, before Sky looked up at him, "You think we should really let her do it alone?" He asked, and Eisen nodded his head in response. "Yeah, why not? She¡¯s a lot better with people now, and she doesn¡¯t freak out as much in general. If there¡¯s an issue, she can just return to the amulet instantly anyway. So let¡¯s believe in her for a bit." "Fair enough." Sky replied with a light shrug, before the group started making their way toward the marketce, followed by a nervous Brak, "H-Hey, that just now, was that a Ghost?" He asked Eisen, who nodded his head as if it waspletely normal. "Yeah, she is. Why?" He asked, and Brak just returned a wry smile and shook his head, "Nevermind..." He muttered, and then looked over toward Parc and Rouge with a nervous expression, "A-And what kind of monster-blood do you two have in you? Or are you full monsters as well?" Brak asked, and both of them just looked at each other before Rouge stared back at him, "We¡¯re just humans..." He pointed out, and for some reason, Brak didn¡¯t really know if he should be relieved or disappointed at this revtion. Either way, he didn¡¯t have much time to think about it, since he had something else to worry about once the group reached the marketce and found the right spot. Because immediately when that happened, Sigurd hopped in and out of the dungeon and started setting up the whole stall piece by piece, and within just a few minutes, it was mostly set up and just needed to be sorted properly by everyone. And then, Eisen had a bit of a question for Brak. "Alright, so... Is there any ce where I can properly smith around here?" Eisen asked, and Brak scratched the back of his neck and pointed down the street, "Well, the smithy is down there... It¡¯s a bit set into the ground though, because it would be pretty dangerous otherwise..." Brak exined, and Eisen moved his fingers through his beard with a light grumble. "So I can¡¯t just smith out here?" Eisen asked, and Brak looked at him confused, "Erm, no? There¡¯s no smithy out here... And even if there was, that would be too risky. Even if the whole forest can¡¯t properly catch fire, some smaller parts of it can, and will." The Bear-Beastperson pointed out, so Eisen just slightly sighed in response. "Got it. Then I think I¡¯ll head off to meet that Copper Dragon instead. If I hurry now, depending on the trial, I might be back by tonight or tomorrow morning..." He muttered to himself, and Brak looked at him confused, "Hey, hey, not everyone can take a Dragon¡¯s trials. And even if you could, wouldn¡¯t you be taking it a little lightly?" "I think it¡¯s the opposite, really." Brak was swiftly interrupted, by none other than Kiron who proudly stepped up to the side of his Grandfather with a broad grin before that old man could even say anything, "I think every Dragon whose trial my grandfather took so far vastly underestimated him. He will pass any trial with ease!" Once more utterly confused by what he just heard, Brak looked at Eisen, hoping for him to clear up what Kiron was speaking about. And so, the old man did just that. "Yes, I¡¯ve already taken three trials and passed them. The trip we¡¯re on right now is to get to thest two dragons in the first ce." Eisen exined, and Brak really didn¡¯t know how to react anymore. He wasn¡¯t sure if he should even believe this story he was just told. "Erm... Yeah, if you want to find him, I¡¯ll draw you a map, I guess?" Brak said with a wry smile, "Juste to my house with me, I¡¯ll give it to you there." The Bear-Beastperson suggested, so Eisen just nodded his head with a smile and looked over toward Sigurd and Fafnir, "Alright, then you two,e along as well. We¡¯ll head out of town together. Parc, Rouge, try to make some smaller items if you can to replenish the stock a bit. And you five, please just make sure nobody messes with the stall or Sky and Bree, alright?" Eisen asked of the Half-Dragons in front of him, out of which Kiron was the first to agree. "Of course, Grandfather! Good luck on your trial!" He eximed, and Eisen just lightly chuckled and nodded his head, "Thank you. I¡¯ll try not to disappoint you." The old man said with a light smile, and then just slowly turned around, following Brak together with the three monster kids as well as Sigurd and Fafnir to his house. Of course, they also took Aulu and Cabarum with them, so that they couldter actually get to the Dragon quickly. Brak¡¯s house wasn¡¯t that far away, actually, just a ten minute walk that Eisen used to properly take a look at the town. Or rather, for the town to take a look at Eisen, since the old man was still walking around with his size fully increased. It just feltfortable to him to be thisrge, so that¡¯s the choice he ended up making, no matter if he pulled that much attention to him. In the end, it didn¡¯t really matter anymore anyway. Once they reached Brak¡¯s house, the Bear Beastperson stepped inside and took a few minutes toe back out with a folded up piece of paper in his hand, swiftly giving it to Eisen, "Here you go. It¡¯s not aplicated trip, but just to be sure. Mostly you have to just go directly east. There will be a ratherrge and obviously unnatural tree. And with unnatural, I mean that it¡¯s made of things like metal, crystals, rock, and so on. You can¡¯t miss it, really. Either way, on the far side of that tree, there is the entrance to a cave built underneath that tree. That¡¯s where the Copper Dragon lives." With a curious expression, Eisen took the map and tried to imagine the tree. And in the end, he also managed toe to one conclusion. That the ¡¯Experimental Seeds¡¯ really were something created through this Copper Dragon¡¯s Gift. It would be too big of a coincidence otherwise. Crystal Seeds, and Metal Trees. Those had to be connected somehow. "Perfect, thank you." Eisen replied, "I¡¯m treating you to a drink once I¡¯m back." He said with a wink, and Brak just looked at him with a wry smile, "Sure you will. Well, either way, be careful. The whole area around thatrge central tree is made of unnatural materials, and are pretty dangerous. There¡¯s some nts that are basically just needles or daggers, and then there might just be random fruit falling down from the trees that can be really really dangerous if you¡¯re hit by them. They¡¯ll also be made of metal, rock, or crystals after all. So just be careful, it¡¯s not a fun area to be around. But at least there aren¡¯t any monster there." Brak exined. With a broad grin, Eisen crossed his arms excitedly, "Seems like we won¡¯t have much of a material shortage anytime soon, huh?" Eisen muttered with a loudugh, and then extended his hand to shake Brak¡¯s again, just as another proper ¡¯Thank you¡¯. And then, rather excitedly, Eisen looked down at the map and made his way out of town in the direction that it sent him. Just a little while outside of town, the smaller group stopped again, however. Since now, it was time to set the Dungeon up. They needed a good spot to do so, of course, since now they would be opening thergest gate. It would naturally draw some attention to it, which is exactly what they wanted, but it would require a fair amount of space, which was hard to get in the jungle. But luckily there was a little bit of a clearing directly at the side of the road that wasn¡¯t really that hard to find. You could spot parts of the Dungeon Gate pretty easily while walking down the road, at least. "So, all the floors are ready to go and properly set up?" Eisen asked Sigurd, just to make sure that everything was really ready and he wasn¡¯t pushing it to open the dungeon, but the Core Guardian just shook its head immediately in response. "Don¡¯t worry, everything¡¯s just perfect. We can properly get started now. You just go and get your fourth Champion title." Sigurd suggested, and with a light chuckle, Eisen nodded his head. "Fine. I¡¯ll be back soon. Just try to somehow let me know if anything is wrong, alright?" The old man asked, and then swiftly climbed on Cabarum¡¯s back together with the three monster children, to finally meet the Copper Dragon. Chapter 488 Reunition On Cabarum¡¯s back, with his size decreased to normal again so that the others properly fit on his back as well, and with Aulu running right next to them, Eisen swiftly made his way toward the ce that Brak told him about. With the map that the bear-beastperson made him, he was able to actually find it pretty easily! Despite the quite confusingyout of the whole jungle.But at one point, the map became slightly unneeded, and that was when they reached the area of the forest that was formed out of non-biological materials. Just to take a look at everything a bit closer, Eisen stepped off of Cabarum¡¯s back and immediately felt a sharp pain in his bare feet."What the-" Eisen muttered instinctively, and ced his hand onto Cabarum for bnce as he looked at the underside of his feet. And immediately, the old man found needles stuck in there. Looking at the ground at the spot where he just stepped, he also swiftly found the source of those needles. The grass.It was just like Brak described. Even grass was dangerous here. With a slight sigh, Eisen pulled the needled out and proceeded to cover his feet in a thickyer of his elemental rock as a recement for shoes, which he for whatever reason simply didn¡¯t want to wear.Now that he didn¡¯t have to worry about hurting himself anymore, the old man squatted down and pulled another one of those needle-like des of grass out of the ground. It was actually quite interesting to look at once he actually held it. The reason for that was the weird attributes that this metallic-grass had.It was slightly simr to bronze from its basic makeup but was just as green as regr grass would be. Of course, that was an aspect that bronze just had when the copper inside of it rusted. But the tone of green wasn¡¯t usually this vibrant, it was usually pretty pale like it was for the statue of liberty.But the color wasn¡¯t its only interesting attribute. Otherwise, the way it acted in itself was quite interesting as well. When Eisen had itying on his palm, it was like a regr de of grass, albeit a slight bit heavier, and changes to the shape of his palm as it wasying there. But when he put any sort of pressure on it, for example squeezing it inbetween his fingers, it would immediately straighten up and harden, turning into a proper needle."Hmm... I wonder if I can melt this down and have it retain these qualities... This would be a great aspect for Armor. Maybe some leather armor with a thin film of this bronze?" Eisen thought to himself, immediately considering the possibilities of this material, and then just grew more and more excited."Let¡¯s see what else we have here." The old man muttered quietly, and then swiftly looked around the area, finding the first fruit-bearing tree of this non-biological property. First, Eisen took a look at the three itself, which seemed to be something like a type of ore with incredible mineral content. If you melted this down, you could get a fair amount of actual metal out of it. But well, that was the bark.Using his Multi-tool, Eisen removed some of that firstyer of the bark. Although, he was a bit unsure if he should use his axe or his pickaxe... In the end, he chose to use thetter just to be safe. And once the first bit was gone, the rest came with it quite swiftly. This was actually pretty weird as well, albeit in a different way than the grass.The color once more was way too... life-like. And the way it acted wasn¡¯t quite normal either. It was definitely pretty high-quality ore, but it was as flexible as regr bark that you would find in a rainforest."Interesting... I¡¯ll have to ask that Copper Dragon about itter. He should probably know..." Eisen muttered to himself, and then looked at the tree in front of him again, the area where he removed the bark.The old man scratched over the surface for a bit to see what it was, and then crossed his arms in thought, "That¡¯s just a type of rock, isn¡¯t it? It seems to be simr to marble. This would surely look quite nice if properly worked." He pointed out, "And since it¡¯s technically a tree, the marbling should be quite interesting as well. I wonder, can this be used like wood...? This ore is just a bit heavier as regr bark as well...""Do you want to fell this tree?" A voice asked before suddenly Kirisho stood next to Eisen. With a deep sigh, the old man just nodded his head, "Of course I do. Just think about what I could make with this. This opens up so many new things for me...""Right? With that kind of flexibility and durabilitybined in one, you can really go far. Especially with the actual metal extracted from them.""Exactly, that¡¯s what I was thinking as well. There has to be some sort of physical agent inside of this to make it this flexible, so that has to be retained in the final metal, or rather alloy.""Well, it might also be magical, couldn¡¯t it? Alchemical Softening is a thing, so if you properly attune which parts you soften to what extent, flexibility like that shouldn¡¯t be too far off.""No, no, there¡¯s some part in this that¡¯s..." Eisen replied, finally pulled out of his deep thought toward the end of it. Who had he just been speaking to? The voice was rather familiar, so...Immediately, Eisen turned his head to the side, seeing the familiar face of a being currently made out of both metal and wood on the outside. "Fluke?" The old man asked with surprise in his voice, and the Warforged immediately replied with a smirk and properly approached Eisen, "The one and only." He said, and then greeted Eisen with a quick handshake."What are you doing here? When did youe back to the maind?" Eisen asked with augh, and the Warforged just crossed his arms, "Well, I got to the maind maybe three two or three weeks ago. I went to look for you after that and heard rumors about a ¡¯Living Dungeon¡¯, which I figured to be that small Dragon you had with you. So since that ¡¯Living Dungeon¡¯ was traveling into this direction right here, I came as well and then heard about this part of the forest... I just couldn¡¯t resist." Flukeughed, "Who¡¯d have thought I¡¯d meet you here?"With a chuckle, Eisen just nodded his head, just as surprised to see this Warforged here, "Well, after I got here I sent out my drones to find anything interesting, and they found a person here, so I came over to see who it was and saw you." Fluke pointed out, so Eisen just smirked."This really is a fair coincidence, huh?" He replied, just staring at Fluke, waiting for him to say something else about that. And since he didn¡¯t, Eisen sighed deeply and shook his head, "This obviously isn¡¯t a coincidence. Tell me, how did you actually find me." The old man told the warforged, and he raised his brows confusedly and shook his head."I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about! It really was just a coincidence!" Fluke eximed, and Eisen slowly raised his hand up to chest-height and snapped, "Lookouts. Come out." The old man said, and while Fluke was rather confused, all of a sudden a loud buzzing could be heard. Or rather, it wasn¡¯t a singr buzzing, but the buzzing of numerous bees tuning together from all around them.From underneath Cabarum, from in-between the des of grass, and even from the trees around them, a multitude of bees crawled out. They seemed to have taken different patterns and colors before, but now that they were moving, they all turned into a dark blue color. "There was not a single drone around here, Fluke. If there was, we would have seen it. Isn¡¯t that right, sweetie?" Eisen asked as he looked over toward Melissa, who wasmanding and constantly receiving information from all these bees.With a bright smile on her face, Melissa immediately nodded her head, "Yup, there was nothing around! Mister Fluke just came right over." She exined, so Eisen crossed his arms with a frown, "So? You heard her.""Yeah... I did." Fluke sighed, "Fine, I give up." The Warforged admitted, and then scratched the back of his neck, before starting to exin what really happened."Just when I was preparing to leave the Golem Ind and head to the maind, I happened to meet five people... Or rather, five golems. The Great Golems." Fluke exined, and Eisen immediately stared at him with a deep frown."What did you just say?" He asked, "The five great golems? Did they introduce themselves as such?" Eisen asked, and Fluke slowly nodded his head, "Y-Yeah, I remember seeing them from before, and they remembered me as well. I spoke to them about everything that happened... It seemed like they were feeling ratherplicated about everything, I guess." Fluke pointed out, "I asked them why they left you, and even if they didn¡¯t want to directly speak about it, at the very least they told me what you were nning on doing next. And at the time, the best lead they gave me was that you wanted to meet five ancient dragons, and they could even tell me the exact names and rough ces they were supposed to be.""Well, I did speak about the dragons while they were around, so that part makes sense." Eisen muttered quietly, and then waited for Fluke to continue exining the situation."Since you apparently had an order in mind, I figured instead of following you, I should make my way to the dragon one step ahead of what you were nning, and then ended up here in this area. I spoke to Cracton a bit, and he gave me my first trial. I¡¯m working on it right now... It¡¯s probably going to take a while, though. And then, finally, you got here." Fluke exined, "Sorry for lying like that. But those five asked me not to tell you about me meeting them if I met up with you."With a slight sigh, Eisen just shook his head and scratched the back of his neck, "Don¡¯t worry about it. I understand. Thanks for telling me about it in the end, though. So how long have you been here?""Just a couple of days. My first trial requires me to take care of a sapling until it shows its first fruit..." Chapter 489 Interes "You need to take care of a sapling for that long? Wouldn¡¯t that take you a couple of years?" Eisen asked with a slight frown on his face, thinking that this trial was a bit over the top, but Fluke swiftly shook his head."Not exactly. These seem to naturally grow quicker... And since they can¡¯t be influenced by regr nt control, I can¡¯t cheat the system either. But it should just take roughly a month, I¡¯d say. Judging from the growth so far, at least." The Warforged pointed out. With a slight nod, Eisen started moving his fingers through his beard curiously, "I see... A nt that can¡¯t be controlled by nt control, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself."Mhm. It¡¯s the same with any of these trees, they simply can¡¯t be controlled like that." Fluke exined, and Eisen just smiled, "Well, fair enough, I guess." He said, and then looked around the tree they were still standing under and extended his hand toward one of the fruits that were hanging from it.From their shape, they seemed to be like simple apples, but actually they werepletely made up of a Ruby-Like material. It was far softer than a regr ruby though, that was for sure. It even had an apple-like fragrance.Curiously, Eisen just held it in front of his mouth and tried to take a bite out of it, since it technically was supposed to be a fruit, but Fluke just looked at him with a wry smile, "Erm, I don¡¯t think those are actually edible..."However, just when the Warforged said this, he could hear a loud crunch as Eisen took a bite out of it as if it simply was a rather hard apple. With every chew, it sounded like he was grinding up ss, but the old man actually rather enjoyed it."Hmm, interesting..." He said after swallowing, "It tastes pretty good, and there seems to be a remnant of some sort of juice in it as well. It is apple-like but vastly different. I wonder if these will have any effect on potions... If so, fruits like this would be the perfect addition for the vored potions..." Eisen pointed out, before taking another bite from it while noticing Fluke¡¯s expression."What¡¯s wrong?" He asked, and Fluke just smiled back wrily, "I tried taking a bite from those as well and nearly shattered my teeth..."With a confused expression, Eisen just raised one of his brows in response, "You just have to make use of the same principle you do when grinding crystals like this down for alchemy. Just think of your teeth as pestles and you¡¯ll be fine.""Is that actually that easy..?" The Warforged asked, but Eisen just shrugged as he finished the crystal apple. "Anyway, this will all definitelye in useful in some way." He added, "The Dragon, is it that way? That¡¯s therge tree I heard about, I think.""Mhm, Cracton is that way. There¡¯s a cave entrance underneath one of the roots, it¡¯s not hard to find. He should be down there." Fluke exined, "Then let¡¯s go get my Trial from him." Eisen replied."Sure, but... I think you should know something about him first.""And what would that be?" The old man asked curiously, and Fluke just sighed and exined it to him in detail. But Eisen himself couldn¡¯t really believe what he was just told.---"Argh, stop it! Close the gate already!" A loud voice yelled out angrily, echoing throughout the whole cave it came from the moment Eisen pushed open therge metallic gate ced at the end of the cave¡¯s entrance."This is a joke, isn¡¯t it?" Eisen asked with a wry smile as he stepped into the room, and Fluke slowly shook his head in response, "I¡¯m afraid it¡¯s not... Cracton hasn¡¯t left this cave in the past hundred years... He just stays in here and reads...""You¡¯ve got to-" Eisen muttered annoyedly, and then turned over toward his three monsters with a deep sigh, "Melissa, get as many Sunbees out. Sal, make some glowing thread, and Caria, make some Glowshrooms." The old man said with a deep groan as he pushed the gate open even more to let in as much sunlight as even possible while the monsters did just as asked.Something that the Dragon inside really didn¡¯t like, "Didn¡¯t you hear what I just said?! Close the gate! It¡¯s too bright in here!" He yelled out, and Eisen just sighed deeply."Cracton, get off yourzy ass and go outside at least once every few years. I know that Dragons have a long lifetime, but that¡¯s no excuse to live like aplete bum." The old man eximed, and therge copper dragon on the other side of the room slowly stood up and started approaching Eisen, albeit with closed eyes due to the light, and growled deeply."Who are you to tell me such a thing? A mere mortal like you! I won¡¯t need to worry, in a few years, you will be dead anyway! If I don¡¯t kill you right here and now, that is." Cracton eximed, a poisonous green mist slowly seeping out of the corners of his mouth. But before he could continue, Eisen already took out the giant crystal scale that he was carrying around in spatial storage. The moment he noticed the mere presence of that scale, he stopped and took a step back."Y-You, but how?! How do you have a scale like that?!" He asked, and Eisen sighed deeply, rather annoyed for some reason, "Doesn¡¯t matter, just shut it and listen up. I need to take your trial here and now, so please let me know what I need to do. And once I passed that trial, we¡¯re going on a walk outside."With a slightly nervous chuckle, Cracton sat down again and transformed himself into his humanoid form. It was rather scrawny and thin, just like Eisen somehow expected. He had pale white skin like snow from being in here this long and obviously wasn¡¯t even very clean."Of course, of course, excuse my rude behavior. Just please don¡¯t tell on me, will you?" Cracton asked, and the old man sighed deeply, "Now you¡¯re acting like a child? Interesting. But nevermind that, just please, tell me your trial. I¡¯ve already taken three of them.""Got it, got it..." Cractonughed nervously, rubbing his own hands as he slowly turned around, looking at the giant pile of incredibly old booksying there, "I¡¯m quite interested in gathering different unique knowledge, you see? So, my trial is nothing but to make me something that piques my interest out of the nts in this part of the forest. Your time limit is one week, and you can make as many items as you want. But, you need to present them to me all at once. If any of them interest me, you will pass the trial. Of course, you can ask me to look at them at any point during this next week."While he was moving his fingers through his beard, Eisen slowly nodded his head. That was actually a pretty interesting trial, something he didn¡¯t expect. It was pretty straightforward though."Alright." Eisen agreed, "Sounds good to me." He added, and while Cracton seemed weirdly relieved, the old man said something that he really didn¡¯t like, "I¡¯ll get the materials myself, so get out while I¡¯m working. You won¡¯t be interested if you see what I¡¯m working on from start to finish." Eisen pointed out, but Cracton couldn¡¯t help himself but look at him confusedly."Excuse me?" He asked, and Eisen just crossed his arms, "What would you like more? Staying in here, or getting to see something interesting?" The old man inquired, and with a deep sigh, Cracton kicked the ground a bit as if he was a child that just lost an argument."Getting to see something interesting..." He admitted, so Eisen smiled lightly, "Good, then that¡¯s what¡¯s going to happen. I¡¯ll let you know when I¡¯m ready to start working."Just when Eisen wanted to leave again, he remembered something, "By the way, can I use parts from this tree itself? The one we¡¯re under?" He inquired, and Cracton slightly tilted his head to the side confusedly and then slowly nodded."Sure? I mean, I guess you can use the fruit and some of the smaller branches, and obviously the leaves... Just don¡¯t take anything that would majorly influence the development of the tree, will you?""Of course, of course, don¡¯t worry." Eisen said reassuringly, before slowly making his way out of the current cave as he cracked his knuckles while Fluke ran up next to him."What the hell did you just do?" The warforged asked confusedly, and Eisen just lightly chuckled, "I just got a way to freely indulge in making anything I want using free materials, that¡¯s what. Hmm, I think I should let the others know that it might take longer than a single night after all..." He muttered quietly to himself."Erm... it seems like you know exactly what would intrigue him... Could I ask what that would be?" Fluke asked curiously, and Eisen just started smirking in response to that question, "It¡¯s something that anyone like that would enjoy. An addictive snack and drink." The old man pointed out and then looked over toward Melissa."Could you get your bees to gather as many nuts, berries, and fruit as they can? But only from these material nts."With a quick nod, the young girl agreed and swiftly ced her thumb and index finger into her mouth to whistle loudly, "You heard the man! Swarm out!" She eximed before at the same time numerous more bees flew out of any ce in her hoody as possible."And why exactly did you ask for materials from this tree?" Fluke inquired, squinting to even be able to see its top, and the old man just kept smirking."I¡¯ll exin in a bit. For now, I suggest you clear the area out a bit." Eisen pointed out as he increased his size to the maximum and activated his demonic transformation, just slightly starting to p his wings."And what exactly-" The Warforged tried to ask again, but before he could finish the sentence, Eisen already pushed his body into the Air and jumped incredibly high with the help of his wings. Since they increased in strength ever since Eisen was gliding town that tunnel starting at Marcear¡¯s cave, he was able to actually somewhat fly now, even if not for too long. But he was still able to jump incredibly high up, and then just used the side of the tree to propel him even further by kicking off of it whenever he had the chance.And just like that, Eisen soon made it to the first branch he could stand on, soon making his way over toward the nearest fruit. The fruit that was the size of Eisen¡¯s whole body. Chapter 490 Fourth Trial After pulling out his Multitool, Eisen swiftly turned it into its pickaxe form as he looked at the fruit in front of him.Just like this tree was simply overly giant, these fruits were as well. And Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure what kind of fruit it was either, at least he didn¡¯t recognize it like this. It was stillpletely made up of crystal structures, however. On the outside, it had an emerald-likeyer, and the center had some ruby spheres scattered inside of it. It was simr to pomegranate, just that the actual ¡¯seeds¡¯ were apple-sized and that it was green instead of red.Thinking that he could surely make something nice with this, Eisen swung the pickaxe at the stem a couple of times and caused the pomegranate-like fruit to drop down. And with a loud thump, it soon reached the ground again.And so, Eisen moved on to the next fruit. It was very simr to the one before, just that the crystal structures it was made of were different. It had a ruby shell and sapphire seeds. Once more, Eisen made this drop down.In general, Eisen tried to get one of each possiblebination of gems to drop down onto the ground, and then simply jumped back down, catching his fall with hisrge wings. After reaching the ground again, Eisen swiftly started gathering the fruit up, swiftly splitting them open.When he did so with the first one, he soon encountered a thick liquid that gushed out toward him the moment that an opening formed. "Erm... What¡¯s this?" Sal asked curiously as he leaned forward toward the split-up fruit, putting his finger into the liquid to give it a taste before opening his eyes wide."It¡¯s really good!" He eximed, and Eisen slowly raised his brows as he scooped up some of the liquid with his hands, "Hmm... It seems to be just regr fruit-juice..." Eisen muttered quietly and swiftly tried a gulp of it, immediately agreeing with Sal on the taste, and then swiftly created some crystal cups to give everyone a taste of it while Eisen taste-tested the crystal seeds."What does it taste like?" Fluke asked curiously, and Eisen smiled lightly in response as he nodded his head with satisfaction, "I thought it would be pretty citrusy, but it¡¯s really just sweet. The consistency is apple-like, but the taste is more like that of a berry." He exined, "I think I can make something interesting with this for sure.""So you really want to cook something for Cracton?" Caria asked, before Eisen just smirked in response, "Something like that, yeah." He replied with a chuckle, and then slowly turned over toward the pile of fruit and berries that Melissa¡¯s bees had already collected, slowly nodding his head."That should be enough, Melissa. Thanks." The old man said, "Let¡¯s get all of this down into the cave already. I¡¯ll try and fell some trees for now." He pointed out, swiftly turning his multi-tool into its axe-mode as he increased his size to the maximum and activated his demonic transformation tuned toward the Yang form to empower the multi-tool a little.And so, Eisen stepped up in front of the first tree that seemed to be one of those with that marble-like rock in the center, and just swung the axe into its side. Now that he actually tried this out, he noticed that weirdly enough, both the pickaxe and axe worked simrly well when trying to fell this kind of tree. Something that he weirdly appreciated.Once the first tree was felled, Eisen moved on to the next, and then the next, and then the next, splitting each tree up so that he would only have the actual log to work with while cing the sticks and metallic leaves to the side.And once he held one of the smaller branches in his hand, he tried out something he was curious about. With as hot a me as he could create just on the surface of his hand, he tried to burn the wood up. To his surprise, it seemed like it actually worked just like Eisen wanted it to and soon lit on fire, although parts of it were also heating up in the same way that he would expect it from that ore-like material."Interesting." He muttered quietly to himself before he put the fire out and swiftly started carrying the heavy rock-logs down into the cave, just stacking them up on each other, before he went back outside.There was one more material that he wanted to get. With a focused eye, Eisen stepped around the giant tree in front of him and searched for the right ce to start, and then soon found a spot where there was a rather thick split in the bark.Thinking that this was the perfect spot, Eisen jumped up there and mmed his axe into the bark while wedging his feet inbetween the already-existent split, and started to carve out some of the bark so that he could pull it back. It took him a little while, but soon, Eisen managed to actually cut into the bark enough so that he could pull away arge square piece of it.It was high-density ore, so of course, he would try and make something out of it, there was no question about that.Either way, now that he had all of this, Eisen stepped back into the cave and started preparing everything he needed to do before actually starting to craft, and then turned over toward the Dragon nervously waiting behind him."Well then, I think I¡¯m ready to get started. So? Are you gonna leave?" Eisen asked, and with a slight sigh, Cracton nodded his head, "Of course. But I hope everything will be worth it...""Don¡¯t worry, it will. Oh, and don¡¯t be surprised, but I¡¯ll probably need to go outside a couple more times. And the bees will be flying out and in the whole time as well.""Just please, start already..." Cractonined and nervously started stepping outside toward the light and then just sat there outside in some shade.And while Fluke couldn¡¯t actually help Eisen with this, he could at the very least spectate at little, "So, you¡¯re going to make a snack out of wood? Rock-Wood?" He inquired, and with a light chuckle, Eisen immediately shook his head."No, no, I¡¯m not starting with that yet. I¡¯m first making something to get rid of this whole mess right here. Sky would kill Cracton if he saw this..." The old man pointed out, looking toward the mountain of books simply thrown on top of each other, and then turned toward the logs, and swiftly started stripping them of their bark to get just the raw wood of all of them, which in itself already took a couple hours due to the sheer amount and size of the trees.Once that part of it was done, the next was rather obvious as well. Eisen simply turned all those logs into as many nks as he could. But of course, since the log was round, there were some scraps left over, which Eisen swiftly just ced to the side, since he would be using it for somethingter.This monotonous task of creating the nice, marble-colored nks with a wood-texture was done rather soon luckily, and once Eisen was done with that, he could move on to the next step. Although at that point, Fluke noticed something."Couldn¡¯t you have done all this outside?" He asked with a slight frown, and the old man immediately nodded his head, "Obviously.""Then why didn¡¯t you? And instead asked Cracton to leave?" The warforged inquired, and Eisen just smirked, "To get him to go outside, obviously." Eisen pointed out as he started stacking up all the wood-scraps and cing them tightly into a box created with Eisen¡¯s element."Huh..." Fluke muttered quietly, unsure how he should react considering Cracton¡¯s strength, but Eisen just kept whistling a bit. After he ced all the wood-scraps into the box, Eisen closed the box up at the top with the exception of a thin open tube facing upward and then started to heat up the interior of the box as much as he could to turn this wood into a type of charcoal.And while this was happening to that wood, he started working with all of the nuts and fruits that the bees collected for him. That included, for example, removing the shells from nuts like peanuts or walnuts, and removing the seeds from the fruit.Since this was all supposed to be for a dragon-sized snack... He needed a fair amount of it. This took him a few hours in itself. Luckily he had some helpers to assist him in sorting everything out and getting rid of the scraps or seeds he didn¡¯t need. Or rather, ¡¯getting rid¡¯ meant ¡¯cing to the side¡¯ in this situation, since all of them were still valuable metal or crystal materials.And then, Eisen simply started to roast therge number of nuts so that he could use themter.Soon, the special charcoal was finished, and Eisen took a look inside of the box, seeing really just a singlerge chunk of it. It was like a weird mix between charcoal and molten rock, but Eisen was sure that it would end up working out properly once he tried it out.The next step was to extract the metal from therge chunk of bark that he removed from the tree, for which Eisen swiftly ground down all of that special charcoal as well as some limestone-like material that he encountered in this forest as well, which luckily had literally everything that he could ever dream of material-wise.After grinding down the bark as well and removing any of the obvious dirt and rock chunks that didn¡¯t have anything important in them, Eisen heated everything up together and started the extraction process of the metal.The resulting metal was really rather interesting. While it obviously actedpletely like metal, for the most part, it was only a fraction of its regr weight and was far more flexible as well. It had great tensile strength, really. It was the perfect material for what Eisen wanted to turn it into.And seeing what Eisen was turning them into made Fluke react rather disappointedly, "You just went through all of that work, only to turn that metal into nails and... what are those, screw-caps for jars?""Exactly, yeah.""And why would you do that?" Fluke asked with a wry smile, and the old man sighed deeply in response, "Because it¡¯s easier than making glue that can hold wood nearly as heavy as rock together. I¡¯m making a bookshelf for a Dragon, obviously it needs to be stable. And the screw-caps are to make the snack I¡¯m makingst longer." Chapter 491 Nuts and Jam "Ah, so you¡¯re going to make some jars or something like that?" Fluke asked, before Eisen just nodded his head, "Mhm, exactly. I would have preferred to make them out of ss, but since one of the few things I couldn¡¯t find was Silica, I¡¯ll just make them out of wood." The old man exined, "But for now, I should really just build the bookshelves."Just as Eisen was saying so, the old man waved his arm to the side and created his mana doubles to make them help him with his work. Basically, they were just supposed to hold everything up while Eisen himself was hammering everything in ce.And a few hourster, the white marble-wood nks were converted into arge amount of bookshelves. With a smile on his lips, the old man turned around toward both Sal and Melissa, "Could I ask the two of you to sort all the books that areying around into there?"And without even having to wait that long, Sal immediately started weaving threads that he used to pull the books into the right positions in the shelf, "I thought you¡¯d never ask..." The Spider boy muttered quietly, seemingly having waited for this for quite a while now.Then, Eisen got started on the ¡¯snacks¡¯. It wouldn¡¯t really be that much of a snack, but more of an ingredient, since you wouldn¡¯t eat either just on its own. Usually not, at least.Either way, while Sal and Melissa were working on the bookshelf, Eisen was getting started on working with the nuts some more. As he already roasted them before, now he just needed to grind them down, for which Eisen used the smaller handle of the multi-tool, since he specifically made it to be able to be used for things like this, and worked until all the metalic and crystal nuts were ground into a fine powder. Thinking that it would be a good addition as well, Eisen added a little bit of a flower that seemed to be madepletely out of rock-salt. After all, salt and nuts were always a goodbination.But once it was actually a little ground down, Eisen needed to use another tactic for everything, since otherwise this would take far too long. And so, he created a quick enchantment to continuosly rotate a crystal part that was sitting just so slightly loose in another crystal part, to which Eisen then attached some of the metallic, razor-sharp leaves.Eisen didn¡¯t know why he didn¡¯t do this to begin with, maybe because he wanted to make sure that they could actually be properly ground up at all since they weren¡¯t like regr nuts. But either way, now that everything was already a little ground-down, Eisen just continuosly poured his mana into the makeshift blender and watched as the nut-powder continued being ground down.A couple minutester, Eisen just scraped the powder away from the sides of the bowl it was in, d to see that it already got a little bit moist. And after blending it some longer, it just got more and more liquid, and not too long after Eisen started, he finished his nut-butter. Just like that.After he was done with the first bowl, Eisen gave it a little bit of a taste-test with his pinky, and was actually more than just pleasantly surprised. Sure, it had a slightly metallic aftertaste to it, but it wasn¡¯t really unpleasant. He actually kind of liked it. The color was vastly different to what usual nut-butter would be. Usually it would be some sort of brown tone, but now it had a dark red tone to it, because the majority of the nuts were made of ruby.It was actually a pretty pleasant color in Eisen¡¯s opinion. In total, this was aplete sess as far as he was concerned.Then, Eisen just had to make the wooden jars and fill them with that nut-butter, turn the rest of the nuts into nut-butter as well, and then start working on the jam.The jars weren¡¯t really that hard to make, as he just had to hollow out some logs and then fill it in with therge amount of nut-butter made from nuts that were constantly being supplied to him through Melissa¡¯s bees, and then he could ce the metal lids on top of some of thoserge jars, while others stayed empty for the jam to be addedter.For jam, Eisen wanted to try out a few different variations. For one, he wanted to try out some of the different berries and fruit that could be found here in this forest, and then the different types of seeds inside of therge pomegranate-like fruit that Eisen took from the giant tree. They actually all tasted rather different to each other, and if he separated them by type the color should be rather interesting as well, so that was something work ying around with.To his luck, since sugar, or anything direct sugar could be extracted from, was also one of the few ingredients that couldn¡¯t be found in this forest, he was allowed to use regr sugar from outside after asking Cracton about it.So, the old man just created a couple ofrge saucepans from him element and cut the different fruit intorge chunks. These were then ced into thoserge elemental saucepans which were already slightly heating up, and mixed in some sugar, salt, and juice extracted from a crystal lemon. He started slightly mashing the fruit up until it just had a chunky texture.Then, that mixture was brought to a bil that Eisen frequently stirred for maybe 20 minutes until it had a thick and jammy texture, and then just waited for the jam to set and be done.Removing the heat from the elemental saucepans, he started waiting for everything to cool down for a little while, and could then move on to testing everything.To start it off with, each of these jams looked just amazing because they were practically translucent. Technically they were made from crystals, so in general they were quite pleasing to look at. But not only that, the taste itself was great as well.In the end, Eisen chose to go with a jam made from the sapphire pomegranate-seeds, since the taste seemed to fit best with the nut-butter that Eisen ended up making. And color wise, it also seemed to be a quite nice match.And so, Eisen continued to make more of that specific jam, and poured the rest away into other wooden jars to keep for himselfter on, and then just chose to turn everything into a slightly more ¡¯snack-like¡¯ shape so that Cracton could taste-test them properly.And that shape really was just that of a small ball with a jam center and a thick nut-butter exterior that Eisen slightly hardened to keep its shape. At that point, Eisen was done.Of course, it wasn¡¯t anything extravagant, but what was he supposed to make with these materials otherwise that would be interesting? It wasn¡¯t like there was anything about these materials that let Eisen think about anything in specific that would be perfect. Sure, the wood from the trees seemed to be more fire-resistant than normal, but that¡¯s because it was basically rock, making it far heavier. So, it wasn¡¯t a great material for anti-fire-shields.He could have tried to make a whip or something like that out of the needle-grass, but that was the first idea that popped into his head, and even Fluke seemed to have the idea, so he was sure that Cracton already saw something like that, so he wouldn¡¯t be interested in it anymore.The only real choice that he had was making something that Cracton was obviouslycking, such as the bookshelves, and something that seemed so boring nobody would ever make it for Cracton. But since this Ancient Copper Dragon didn¡¯t leave this cave in so long, he shouldn¡¯t really know that much about culinary culture. And Eisen actually didn¡¯t find anything much about the nut-butter and jam mixture in this world, surprsingly.So he was sure that this would interest Cracton more than some random attempt at making an item that was supposed to impress him. Because that wasn¡¯t the task. All that he had to do was make something that got Cracton¡¯s curiosity rolling, and that could be anything. Especially since Eisen made him leave the cave, which Cracton did without any sort of possible entertainment to keep him busy. He had to have been thinking about what Eisen possibly made, which would have instinctively brought some curiosity with it.Of course, that probably wouldn¡¯t be the case if Eisen didn¡¯t show the crystal scale to Cracton, something that had obviously awoken the dragon¡¯s natural curiosity toward who Eisen himself was.So, just like that, Eiro called the Ancient Copper Dragon back into the cave, to which he swiftly obliged and rushed into the space again."Alright, you¡¯re done?" He asked excitedly, seemingly more happy about finally getting to go inside again than anything else.Once Cracton made his way into the cave again, the first things he noticed were the bookshelves on the other side of therge space."That¡¯s what you made? Not some kind of weapon, tool, Golem... But shelves?" Cracton asked with slight disappointment, and Eisen simply nodded his head with a light smile."Yep. It just kind of bothered me to see all those booksying around on the ground like that. So, to have you treat them a bit better, I figured this might be a good idea." The old man pointed out, and Cracton just took a closer look, turning into his humanoid form to take a closer look, "Well, it¡¯s certainly quite a nice gesture. And while I didn¡¯t expect it... it¡¯s not really that interesting. They¡¯re just shelves, you know?" Cracton pointed out, and Eisen nodded his head immediately."I know, I know, don¡¯t worry. That was just something so that I could try using this special wood a bit." Eisen admitted without any sort of shame, "While of course at the same time giving me an excuse to send you outside." He added, not trying to hide it in the slightest.And then, Eisen got out the ser-ball sized sphere of nut-butter and jam, waiting for Cracton to turn back into his Dragon form to taste-test it, "What is this? Some sort of pill to help your physical performance?" Cracton asked, actually seemingly interested, and the old man shook his head."Nope. It¡¯s just something to eat. You seem like the kind of person who would enjoy having a snack like this while reading." Eisen pointed out, and swiftly handed the sphere to the dragon, who swiftly gave it a taste.And soon enough, he opened his eyes wide in response to the taste filling his mouth."This is actually quite delicious! Someone attempted creating a dish for me before, but it was nothing but an assortment of crystal fruit in the end that he crumbled down since he did not know about the correct method of handling them. But you on the other hand, seem to haveplete knowledge about that." Cracton eximed, seemingly actually interested in this. Chapter 492 Champion IV After Cracton continued eating some more of the nut-butter and jam, he finally nodded his head, "It¡¯s not the most interesting thing I¡¯ve seen, but it¡¯s definitely a rather unique way of utilizing special materials like this. And as the fruit of this forest¡¯s trees don¡¯t rot, using them for nurishment instead of tools or weapons is truly perfect." The Ancient Copper Dragon exined, so Eisen raised his brows surprised, "They don¡¯t rot, really?" The old man asked, but the Dragon simply shook his head."Of course not. They are a unification of that which lives, and that which never can live. It gained the ability to grow from the former, and the abilitiy to persist from thetter." Cracton told Eisen, and the old man just moved his fingers through his beard curiously."Interesting. Well, anyway, does this mean that I¡¯ve passed the trial?" Eisen inquired, and the Dragon smiled broadly, "Yes, you have. My Gift is yours." Cracton exined, simply breathing out toward the old man, who felt his body immediately warm up.[Title became ][Material Growth Skill Learned]"Material Growth, I see?" Eisen muttered curiously, and Cracton slowly turned into his humanoid form, squatting down in front of Eisen with a copper coin and a seed in his hand."I will show it to you once. I am sure you have learned Alchemy?" Cracton asked, and the old man slowly nodded his head, "One of my first skills, yeah.""Perfect. Then you should know of Alchemicalbination of two materials, right?" After seeing Eisen nod again, the Ancient Dragon continued to exin, "Then this will be quite easy. What you need is the material in one hand, and the seed you want tobine it with in your other. And as if you arebining two materials through Alchemy, youbine the seed and material with each other." Cracton exined, slowly just rubbing his hands together before he held a small, metallic seed, the copper coin having disappeared."This seed will grow many times the regr speed it usually will, but regr nt control is not possible for this. Once you reach Rank 5 with this skill, you will be able to start controlling these nts simrly, however." Cracton told the old man in front of him, who curiously squatted down as the dragon nted the small seed in the cave¡¯s floor. And soon, a small copper rose grew from it, with sharp edges around the petals."Well then... with this, I probably won¡¯t need to worry about running out of interesting materials, huh?" The old manughed loudly, and Cracton looked at him with one of his brows raised, "Indeed, but be aware that the materials you can gain from such nts could be vastly different to the base material. As you have surely seen while you were working with them just now.""Of course, don¡¯t worry. I was actually already thinking about how to make use of some of those qualities." Eisen pointed out, and then remembered something else that he wanted to ask about, and then pushed his fingers into one of the pockets of his apron before pulling out one of the small ruby-enveloped seeds that he found inside of the monsters local to the regr forest-area."Is this something created with that skill?" Eisen asked Cracton, who leaned in a bit closer to take a look, "It is, yes. It works quite simr to an item someone made for me a few weeks ago. I think it¡¯s supposed to be something ability enhancing?" Cracton said quietly, and the old man slowly looked down at the experimental seed."Can you remember who it was?" Eisen inquired, before Cracton thought about it for a second and then slowly nodded, "Yes, it was Leopard-Gazelle Beastperson halfling. A pretty rare mix as far as I remember. He mentioned that he also lives away from other people, so if you want to find him, you might have to look for a while.""Oh? What made you think I want to find who made this?" The old man asked with his brow raised, and Cracton looked at him with a light frown, "Why else would you have asked me?""Fair enough. Well, thank you, then. I think I¡¯ll just have a small talk with him. He¡¯s been experimenting with local monsters, so I want to make sure he doesn¡¯t mess around too much.""That might be a good idea. But now that you have be a Fourth-Grade Champion, you surely will want to be a true champion. Any clues toward which dragon you are meeting next." Cracton asked with pure curiosity, so Eisen immediately nodded his head."Yes, Ailren suggested that I should go visit Zortady in the deserts." Eisen pointed out. Immediately, Cracton opened his eyes surprised."Ailren? May you be speaking about Aylrentyrth?" The copper dragon asked."Yeah, you two are old friends, right? That¡¯s why he told me toe visit you."Cracton¡¯s surprised expression swiftly turnedplicated after he heard what Eisen just said to him, "Friends? Well, I doubt that Aylrentyrth used such words. We are not truly friends, but more like... Enemies?" Cracton pointed out, before shaking his head in the same thought, "That is not quite right either... We are not on bad terms, and we have a cooperative rtionship, but friends might be a bit too far.""Well, Ailren didn¡¯t actually say the word ¡¯Friend¡¯, I just kind of assumed." Eisen pointed out, although weirdly enough, Cracton actually seemed somewhat disappointed after hearing the old man say this."Is that so..?" The Dragon asked quietly, and Eisen just scratched the back of his head, feeling slightly bad about this, "But I¡¯m sure he feels that way about you. How about you go visit him sometime to find out? Do you know where Melroe is?""Melroe... Melroe... That is the town underneath Aylrentyrth¡¯s nest, is it not?" Cracton asked, and Eisen immediately nodded his head, "Mhm, it is. It¡¯s a pretty cozy, nice town, so I can just rmend going there for vacation sometime anyway. But well, thank you for letting me take your trial, Cracton. I do need to go and meet my friends again, however." Eisen exined to the Ancient Copper Dragon, who just slowly nodded his head in response."Oh, of course, of course! Have a nice trip... That young Warforged can keep mepany in your stead." Cracton pointed out, and Fluke just looked at Eisen with a wry smile, feeling a bit nervous about being left alone with the Dragon like this. And so, with a light sigh, Eisen looked back at him, "Don¡¯t worry, I doubt he¡¯ll bite you. Are youing outside with me?" Eisen asked Fluke, who swiftly nodded his head, just to try to leave as soon as he could and finish the trial as quickly as somehow possible.Once the group was back outside of the cave underneath therge tree, Eisen got on Cabarum¡¯s back together with the monster-children, and properly strapped the wooden jars filled with the ¡¯rejected¡¯ jam to the Horse Automaton¡¯s sides, and then turned over toward Fluke with a smile."So, when do you think we¡¯re going to see you again?" Eisen asked the Warforged with a smile, and Fluke himself just responded, "Whenever I¡¯m finished with my trial, I will try to meet up with you. Do you know where you will be going after traversing that desert?""I think mostly my n is to head over toward the Harbor town that we use to travel between the continent and the inds for a while. At least that¡¯s the n right now." Eisen exined to Fluke, who nodded his head with a slight sigh. "Alright, then I¡¯ll head over there when I¡¯m done here." The Warforged said, so Eisen nodded his head with a warm smile."Then I will see you there, hopefully. Good luck on your trial." The old man told Fluke, and then properly said goodbye before riding off on Cabarum¡¯s back together with the monster children.Of course, on his way back to the town, Eisen was thinking about quite a lot of things, mostly about what he could make with these special types of nts, or where he should best try to nt these materials. There might also be some ways to just utilize it for decoration if he ended up nting some crystal-based nts. There might also be a way to make something to cause specific effects, like a flower whose scent will increase your strength, or a tree that when you sleep under it, your stamina increases more quickly and you need less sleep.That would be interesting, at least, even if not as useful as Eisen was probably thinking it was.Either way, for now, Eisen just had to try and practice with this skill, and for that he would need to create arge amount of nts with random materials and just scatteringly nt them all over the ce. This should let him at least figure out a different way to best increase his skill proficiency.For that, Eisen would of course need arge amount of raw materials and seeds, however, neither of which should be too hard to get considering that this whole thing was apparently also possible with just rock or maybe even dirt. Eisen was actually rather curious if he could give a soft Cedar wood the hardness of Oak, or if this could just be used to easily cross-breed different nts.He should definitely look into that in a bit.But first, the old man had to get back to town to let the others know about the sessful trial, and then take a little bit of time to maybe fulfill amission or two. It¡¯s been a while since he¡¯s worked on an interesting one, so he wondered if people in this area had other needs than those in Melroe. Or rather, that they needed different thing was pretty obvious, but Eisen wanted to see just how different their needs were.It should just take a couple of hours to get back now, which the old man used to think and theorize. There wasn¡¯t much else to do right now after all, especially not since Cabarum¡¯s back was rtively tight with all three of Eisen¡¯s monsters sitting on it together with him. Usually he may have started carving something, but now there really wasn¡¯t the space for that.Soon enough, however, they could finally see the town again, and Eisen looked forward with a d expression. They actually passed the dungeon as they were approaching the town, and business seemed to be booming right now, so Eisen had Melissa send a bee over there just to let Sigurd know that they were back.And once they reached the gate in the early morning of the day after they headed off, Brak the Bear Beastperson couldn¡¯t believe his eyes. Chapter 493 Roleplaying Brak looked at Eisen as the old man stepped off of Cabarum¡¯s back, "Wait, don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re actually already done..." He muttered with a wry smile, but Eisen just lightly smirked and nodded his head, "Of course I am. Otherwise I wouldn¡¯t be back here already." Eisenughed loudly, and Brak really couldn¡¯t believe what he just heard."No way, there¡¯s literally no way that in a single night you could go all the way there AND finish the trial." Brak said with a deep frown, and Melissa, who Eisen was currently helping down from Cabarum¡¯s back, just looked at him smugly, "Eisen could have finished earlier if he didn¡¯t make bookshelves for Cracton first!" She eximed, in response to which the Bear Beastperson just stared at Eisen confusedly."Well, yeah, I knew what I would be able to pass with. And Cracton had a ton of booksying around, so I made him some shelves to keep them on first.""R-Right, because that¡¯s the correct reaction..." Brak muttered quietly, and then just proceeded to wave the old man through the gate, "Go on, the others should still be at the Inn I showed you yesterday.""Thank you. I¡¯ll be right there. Oh, and we¡¯re leaving tomorrow morning, so if you want that drink I promised you,e to the Inn tonight." Eisen pointed out, so Brak slowly nodded his head, "Sure, sure. Thanks..." He replied, before Eisen quickly stepped into town and made his way toward the Inn while looking down at the amulet around his neck."Kirisho." The old man said, and the next moment, the mist-spirit¡¯s body was slowly formed next to him. Of course this caused some confused or surprised stares from other people, but they all somewhat got used to that already."Yes?" Kirisho asked with a soft smile, and Eisen just lightly smiled back for a moment before asking his question, "Which room did you get in the Inn? So that we don¡¯t have to ask for the room at the reception.""Ah, it was room 114, I think. I got it for two days, like you asked." She exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head, "Perfect, thank you. Then I¡¯ll be heading to sleep for a little while first, so I can properly work from noon to midnight."The group slowly made their way over toward the Inn that the others already stayed inst night. Eisen stepped through the door and through the room over toward the stairs without hesitation to get to their room, and once he got there just knocked on the door."Sky, Bree, Kiron? I¡¯m back." The old man eximed through the door, and just a few momentster, he could hear footsteps rushing over to the door before it slowly opened up to the inside, revealing the short pink-haired girl."Wee back!" Bree said with a bright smile, so Eisen just stepped inside while momentarily cing his hand on top of her hand and rubbing through it yfully, and then looked at the others as they were slowly waking up, with the exception of Rudia and Morgus who just continued sleeping like normal."Good morning, everyone. So, luckily enough, I managed to get my fourth Champion title. Now we just need to head to the desert and get thest one." Eisen pointed out happily, "So we¡¯re heading out tomorrow morning. For today, we¡¯ll just keep the stall open a bit longer and let Sigurd close the dungeon properly. Also, I¡¯m going to be sleeping for a few hours beforehand." The old man pointed out as he moved his fingers through his beard tiredly.It was actually pretty weird, ever since he started to feel pain, he also started to feel exhaustion a bit more, at least in a more realistic way instead of just feeling it when you nearly ran out. It simply became more gradual."Should we just keep working on restocking the stsall then?" Rouge asked as he was trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes, and with a smile Eisen nodded his head, "Yes, that would be great, thank you. I¡¯ll head to the stallter as well, so I¡¯ll take care of the requests then."And with that in mind, Eisen just leaned against the wall with a smile on his face, and then proceeded to log out.---But soon enough, Eisen already logged back in. Nothing much really happened while he was offline, he just spoke a little with Brody¡¯s mother and sister, that was all. Brody¡¯s mother was actually a great woman, and despite the situation they were in, she stayed really positive and kept lovingly speaking about how proud she was of her son. She even mentioned some stories from when he was still in high-school, some that Brody himself seemed to have been rather embarrassed about.Of course Brody¡¯s younger sister wasn¡¯t as optimistic as her mother. She was just twenty years old and suddenly had to hide away in some basement. Nobody would be that happy about it, especially when concert tickets went to waste. But at the very least she wasn¡¯t reckless and demanded on going anyway. She understood that the situation with the Triad was really, really bad, of course.Either way, once Eisen woke back up, he simply made sure that the three monster children were awake as well and then made his way out of the room, locking it behind him. With a swift step, the old man walked down the stairs and stepped out of the Inn with a light smile on his face.He was d that things were at least somewhat going his way at the moment. Eisen was able to level up pretty well, and on top of that got his next Champion title. He somewhat hoped that he would be able to level up and get at least close to Level 300 on the way to the desert, or maybe even on the way back. Because managing to finish the Level-Up quest would be annoying and time-consuming enough. But at least once they were back at the Harbor-town, he could make use of the skills he had to level up for that to help Komer expand his shop even further.The construction had been finished for a good while now, and the shop finally happened shortly after that was the case, and Eisen constantly heard people speak about it. yers that were speaking about going there sometime just to see it once, others who were specting on how Komer managed to get the money and contacts for all of that, and even the official ¡¯World of Magic¡¯ News-Channel on TV.This actually sounded weird to say because Eisen never expected a 24 Hour new-channel to exist just to report things on an assumed videogame. Sure, it wasn¡¯t actually a game, but everybody else thought so, so it was still a bit weird to Eisen. But either way, Komer was already rising to be a big deal.Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure what Merc and Cial, Komer¡¯s brothers, would try to do because of this, but at least the old man would be in that town soon to potentially find out and keep an eye on things.But for now, there was still something else that Eisen needed to do before then, which was to finally get some requests done."Hello there." The old man said as he approached the stall, swiftly stepping behind it, and was greeted by the others in return as well. Immediately, Eisen grabbed the small box that was meant for people to put their requests into, but didn¡¯t really find anything that stuck out to him.And then, there was a person that stuck out to him suddenly standing in front of the stall. Eisen hadn¡¯t even seen him approach. But since he was staring at the items on disy so intensely, Eisen figured he could need some help."Can I help you somehow?" The old man asked, and the other man slowly lifted his head, letting Eisen properly see him. He figured this was the case, but this man also seemed to be pretty old, and had pale white skin that actually was nearly gray in color. He had dark rings underneath his eyes, and a rather grim expression as he held his hands behind his back."No, no, it¡¯s fine. I¡¯m a merchant myself. The dead suggested I should just do some... research..." The man, who seemed to be an elderly shadow elf, pointed out. He then proceeded to pick up one of the bundles of arrows, pulled one of them out, and scratched the metal surface against his teeth."What are you doing?" Eisen asked him with a frown as he pulled the items out of his hands, and the Shadow Elf just looked back as if Eisen was the weird one, "Just what I need to to see if it¡¯s real! If it¡¯s rough, it¡¯s real, and if it¡¯s smooth it¡¯s fake! And that, good sir, is fake!" The man eximed, and Eisen just sighed deeply."What you¡¯re talking about are pearls. This is steel. Metal. It doesn¡¯t work that way." Eisen pointed out, and for a second, the other man seemed rather perplexed and averted his gaze, "Wh-What, no way... The ancient dead have told me, they would not lie. You must be wrong!""The ancient what..? Well, that¡¯s fine. You don¡¯t need to buy arrows. Is there anything else you would like to buy instead?" Eisen asked with a light smile, just wanting this man to buy something and leave, and he immediately nodded his head."Yes, yes, the dead have told me that you take requests. If possible, I would like a staff in the shape of one of those Farmer Shotguns." The Shadow Elf said, and with a confused expression, Eisen activated his truth-seeing eye, finally starting to figure out what was going on right now.[yer ¨C Dentex][upation ¨C Necromancer][Level ¨C 128] Chapter 494 Shotgun "You want a staff." Eisen repeated, and the elderly man in front of him, Dentex, slowly nodded his head, "Yes.""A staff that looks like a shotgun?" He asked again, before Dentex once more just nodded, "Yes."With a slight sigh, Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked back at him again, "You know what, sure. Sounds good. Do you have an element?" Eisen asked him, and the elderly man, who most likely was just a kid pretending to be an old man, crossed his arms with a smug expression."Of course I do! It is one that the dead have led me to! It is the shadow element!" Dentex eximed, obviously being way too loud at the moment, before Eisen grabbed a couple of gems and crystals, "Then please extend your arm, I¡¯m going to use that element in the making of your staff. Do you want me to make it so that you can use it well for necromancy as well?" He inquired, and after a bit of thought, Dentex shrugged and nodded his head."I am already one with the dead, but it can¡¯t hurt to be more than one.""Sure it can¡¯t." Eisen replied, and then swiftly started to enchant some crystals and gems with Dentex¡¯s shadow element as well as his necromancy skill and then ced them away, "You cane pick it up tonight. If you¡¯re not here by then, I¡¯m going to leave it with the Crafter¡¯s Guild here in town, so I¡¯ll give you a note... And he¡¯s gone..." The old man said with a grumble, and then crumbled the piece of paper that he was writing on up again."Well, let¡¯s hope he¡¯ll be here." Eisen thought to himself, but Sky just looked at Eisen confusedly, "What the hell was that guy on?" He asked, and Eisen turned toward him and leaned forward, "That was an artificial. They¡¯re weird like that sometimes." He whispered, so Sky just sighed annoyedly."Let¡¯s hope they don¡¯t get murderous..." Sky muttered, and Eisen slightly chuckled, "I don¡¯t think that¡¯s going to happen, don¡¯t worry." He said, and then turned away toward his two apprentices.Since Eisen couldn¡¯t get started with the staff just yet in the first ce, as he had to first create the magic materials that he needed, he chose to maybe just help those two out a bit."Do you two need any help?" Eisen asked curiously, but both of them just shook their heads, "Not really help, I think." Rouge pointed out as he held one bottle of a potion he just finished refilling up, "More like...""Tips? Or my thoughts on how you¡¯re doing?" The old man figured, and Parc swiftly smiled, "That¡¯s what we¡¯d like at least, yeah.""Then let¡¯s do exactly that." The old man said, and then started watching Parc and Rouge work, trying to copy their motions with mana-copy so that he could properlypare them to what they would end up moving like a couple weeks or months from now."Parc, loosen up a bit, you¡¯re too tense. You¡¯ll tire yourself out too quickly if you keep going like that." Eisen pointed out, "Try not to hold the hammer that tightly, and don¡¯t try to move every part of your arm at once. Just let certain parts of your arm control the others and tense up when you need to." Eisen exined, trying to demonstrate what he meant, and Parc slowly nodded his head and tried it out again.Parc was currently trying to get rid of the dents in a shield, and since it was the item that a customer gave him for repairs, he had to do as good a job as possible.Seeing that Parc¡¯s movements immediately improved, Eisen turned toward Rouge and looked at him a bit more closely. Rouge was working on restocking the stall¡¯s potions, and all that Eisen could help him with right now was telling him that he shouldn¡¯t try to rush like he was and concentrate more on grinding things down evenly.But otherwise, his technique was perfect, as it was something that Eisen¡¯s apprentices had been doing a rather fair amount since they started working under him.For now, Eisen figured that they were both doing a rather good job, and as such he didn¡¯t necessarily have much to help them out with or tips to give them, and instead chose to simply work together with them a little bit to take some of the load off of them.For a few hours, that¡¯s what Eisen was doing, until the materials for the shotgun-shaped staff was done, and the old man swiftly stood up and grabbed the materials that he had been infusing for the past couple hours and ced them into his apron after he increased his size to the maximum so that he actually had enough space to do so.And then, Eisen looked down at the others, "I¡¯ll be heading to the local smithy now. It shouldn¡¯t take too long."But with a grumble, Sky stared back up at the half-giant and crossed his arms, "Can¡¯t you just get everything done here? It¡¯s not like you don¡¯t have control over your element.""It¡¯s fine, I get that people might be worried about fire in a dense forest like this. Let¡¯s just make sure that nothing can go wrong. I¡¯ll head to the smithy, and thene back here when I¡¯m done." Eisen exined, and then with a smile turned around and started making his way through the town toward the ce he was looking for.And with a smile on his face, Eisen stepped through the door, although he did have to decrease his size a little, and then looked around the shop, looking for someone to help him out.But since Eisen didn¡¯t really see anyone here in the front, he chose to just head to the door to the back and knocked on it. A couple momentster, that door was then swiftly opened up and hot air streamed toward the old man."What?" A deep, grumbling voice asked, and Eisen soon identified the source of that voice. It was a rtively young Bull Beastperson, maybe twenty or so years old, and he looked Eisen up and down immediately, just forming a grimacing expression."I wanted to see if I could possibly make use of your smithy for a few hours." It won¡¯t take too long, really." Eisen said reassuredly, but the young Bull just kept grumbling to himself and then shook his head as he was about to close the door."We¡¯re full." He said, but before he could actually close the door, Eisen ced his hand in front of it and kept it open. He was far, far above the average level for regr cksmiths, after all, so his strength was iparable to this young man¡¯s."Could I please speak to the owner of this smithy instead?" Eisen asked with a light smile on his face, and with an annoyed groan, the young man turned around and yelled into the smithy, "Dad! Someone wants to talk to you!" He eximed, and a few momentster, another Bull Beastperson appeared in front of Eisen, although this one was far taller and obviously stronger as well. He was quite bulky, really, and Eisen was honestly wondering how he was able to fit hisrge horns through this door."What is it?" He asked with a slight frown, obviously simrly rude as his son, and Eisen just repeated what he asked before, "I would like to make use of your smithy for a few hours. I¡¯m going to pay you for it, of course.""Hmm..." The Bull Beastperson hummed quietly, and kept looking him up and down, "If you can show me somethin¡¯ that you made, we¡¯ll see. There¡¯s a lot of people that want to use space in the workshop these days, so we can¡¯t let in just anyone." He pointed out, and Eisen slowly nodded his head.That did make sense. Most people weren¡¯t able to create their own smithies like Eisen was just using magic, so they had to make use of already-existing smithies. So, Eisen figured he could just show off his Multitool, and swiftly pulled it out of his apron and handed it to the Bull."Here you go. Everything I have on me I made myself, but that¡¯s one of my more special pieces." Eisen exined, and the Bull took a look at it with a slight frown."This ain¡¯t just a hammer, is it?" He asked, and Eisen immediately shook his head, "Exactly, it¡¯s not." The old man exined, and then started taking it apart to show that it could be turned into different tools at once.But when it was turned back into the hammer-mode and the Bull tried to actually hold it like he would a usual hammer, the multitool immediately increased its size and seemingly became even heavier than it usually would, making it impossible for the bull to lift it off the ground again."What the?" The Bull cksmith asked with a puzzled expression, and Eisen looked down at the multitool as well, "Ahh, please don¡¯t tell me that it¡¯s going to get as cranky as the Sword..." Eisen sighed annoyedly as he ced his hand on it and swiftly transferred his will to it to make it turn back into the size it was supposed to be at while picking it up."Sorry, this tool is actual an Ego-Tool. It¡¯s in the upper end of its fourth ego-rank right now, so it¡¯s a little hard to control when it gets annoyed.""Y-You have an ego tool? Did you make it yourself?" The Bull Beastperson asked immediately as he stared at it, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response, "Yeah I have. Is that enough to be able to use your smithy?""Use my smithy? If you were younger than me, I¡¯d let you inherit it!" He eximed immediately and then pushed the door open some more and just waited for Eisen to step inside."Just use whatever you need to, free of charge!" The bull yelled out as he tried to clear a workstation up. He knew that only incredibly skilled people were capable of creating Ego-Items, so it made sense for him to be that excited. But reassuredly, Eisen just shook his head."Don¡¯t worry, I have everything I need already with me. I just need to work on a request someone gave me." The old man pointed out, and then slowly started to take the different materials he now had with him out of his apron and looked at the forge that the Bull had prepared for him. Without hesitation, Eisen got started with his work. Chapter 495 Copyca Once the metal that Eisen put into the forge properly heated up, the old man started to properly beat it into shape to turn it into the parts that he needed to be metallic. For one, that was the actual shotgun barrel, and then there was also the part that the actual shotgun shells were ced into. Of course they wouldn¡¯t be actual shotgun shells, but rather, Eisen would give Dentex a couple of mana-batteries that he could rece whenever he wanted to. So he could have a pack of a dozen small mana-batteries, have ten of them filled up at all times and constantly rece the ¡¯ammunition¡¯ inside of the shotgun-staff.Overall, it wasn¡¯t really all that hard to create this, since it didn¡¯t actually need to work like a shotgun was supposed to work. That would have been a whole other request. Sure, Eisen could technically make it work and give Dentex a bunch of mana-bullets that he could use, but that would make the staff useless if he didn¡¯t find someone to make new ones for him. And that should be rather tough in and of itself, at least that¡¯s what Eisen figured to be the case.So, Eisen would just create it so that it was basically just a staff, and then encourage the creation of bullet-like spells inside of the actual barrel. Once he was done with the barrel, he could simply enchant the inside of it to be a magical elerator, so it should be possible for Dentex to just create a small orb inside and then shoot it out at high speeds like that. Basically like a cannon instead of a shotgun, really.Then of course, just to make it a bit more ¡¯realistic¡¯, Eisen also added the trigger, getting everything ready quite swiftly. Luckily, Eisen also enchanted a small gem with Dentex¡¯s ¡¯recognition¡¯ of an item or spell to make it finished, so that all he had to do was just pull the trigger and the spell that he was forming would immediately be activated.At least that was the n that Eisen was going for. First, he had to just keep going with what he was doing for now. Beforehand, Eisen had folded powder from a mana-crystal that had Dentex¡¯s necromancy skill enchanted on it into the shadow-element infused material, and could like that probably get a pretty good influence toward both the shadow element as well as necromancy.And then, Eisen also figured that while he was here, he should just try and get the alloy for the actual magical support ready, the alloy that he would be filling the enchantments with to increase their flow and strength.All of the metallic materials, like the white gold, ck copper, and mythril, had been infused with the shadow element, while all the crystals and gems that Eisen ground down and added to the mix were enchanted with the necromancy skill.In the end, Eisen was left with a ck metal even darker in color than the mixture of shadow-high-steel and -mythril, which already was nearly ck. In the end, the parts made of base-metal alloy had an actually rather matt tone to it, while the one made with the noble alloys was rather shiny the moment that it cooled down a bit.Eisen wasn¡¯t exactly sure why the base-metal alloy was matt like that, but it was probably an influence of the shadow element. Magic metals did act in very weird ways sometimes. Eisen was just d that the mythril he made from the shadow element could actually still be used, since he had alloyed the silver he made it from with a little bit of iron beforehand.For the most part, a couple of hourster, Eisen was already done with the base for the shotgun item, and now only had to work with the magic wood, carve the enchantments, fill the enchantments in, and then give everything a finishing touch here and there.With an actually rather satisfied expression, Eisen ced everything that he made to the side and started cleaning up after himself, although when he started doing so, he noticed that he had gotten quite a few of onlookers as he was working. Some of them actually seemed to be yers, now that Eisen took a look at them properly.But even then, the owner of the smithy, that Bull Beastperson, as well as his son were just as astonished as the yers were considering the speed at which Eisen had been working."Holy shit, isn¡¯t that Eisen?!" One of the yers asked one of his friends, who took a closer look at him and then swiftly nodded his head, "I think so! That¡¯s so weird, I thought he was supposed to be in Ornier right now!" He pointed out, and immediately, Eisen snapped his neck and looked at the yer."What did you just say?" He asked with a deep frown, and the yer started looking around himself before pointing at his chest, "M-Me?" The yer stuttered slightly, and Eisen immediately nodded his head."Yes, you. What did you just say? Why am I supposed to be in Ornier?" Eisen asked, "Is something happening in Ornier?" He continued. It¡¯s been a while since Eisen had been there, after all. The capital city of the human country. Sure, he would be going there at some point to deal with everything Merc and Cial were doing, but for now Eisen didn¡¯t want to mess anything up for Stahl and Evalia. They really had everything under control."Huh? Aren¡¯t you having that duel with Merc and Cial?" The yer asked with his head tilted to the side, and Eisen immediately stared back at him, "What did you just say? Why would I have a duel with them?"The yer looked back at his friend confusedly, but that friend seemed just as confused as the first yer himself, "A lot of... Artificials have been talking about it. I mean, there¡¯s definitely a person there that looks identical to you there. They¡¯re even wearing the same ne as you are... Or one of them, the one with the red and ck coin? Well, apparently that Eisen there told Merc and Cial that he wants to fight them ¡¯mano a mano¡¯.""Are you kidding me?" Eisen asked with a deep, annoyed frown as he immediately opened his friend list and messaged Stahl about this. And a couple of minutester, after his reply came, Eisen looked back at the two yers in front of him."Can I ask you two for a favor? I¡¯ll even turn it into a quest for you. I¡¯m giving each of you a type of item that little to no artificials should have yet. Alright?" Eisen asked them, and the two yers immediately nodded their heads excitedly."Of course! What do you want us to do?" One of them asked, so Eisen swiftly crossed his arms as he exined what they had to do, mentally turning everything into a proper Quest for them to work on."I want you two to spread the fact that the Eisen in Ornier is real. In any possible way. Tell it to as many merchants as you can, as many adventurers, artificials, anyone that¡¯s heading out of this town soon, alright?" Eisen told them, and with happy expressions, albeit while being rather confused, the two yers immediately epted the quest they just received and then made their way over to their workstations to clean up and head out so that they could get that done just now.And as they were doing so, the older of the two Bull beastmen came up to Eisen, "I know it might not be any of my business, but what the hell was that just about?" He asked, and Eisen slowly shook his head, "There¡¯s a fake running around pretending to be me. And I want as many people to gather around in the ce where that fake is, so that I can show as many people at once as I possibly can that he indeed is a fake."And as Eisen was exining that, he kept sending messages to Stahl to tell him the n. It seemed like neither Stahl nor Evalia really knew what was going on with that fake Eisen, just that it was a surprisingly good fake.They had tried figuring out who it actually was, but apparently that didn¡¯t end up working out all that well in the end, because that only brought some suspicious looks toward them. But at the very least, those two were able to find out something else. And that was the n that Merc and Cial had.The two of them created that whole fake situation to get as much attention on them as possible, even more than they had already. By beating the ¡¯Leader¡¯ of the originals, as those two called Eisen, they wanted to show their superiority. But at the same time, since it was that fake Eisen that requested that duel, it was seemingly also supposed to but Eisen himself into a bad light, turning him into someone that tries to bully the weak.This actually annoyed Eisen more than he could say, and made hime up with a change of ns. The ¡¯Duel¡¯ was in one in-game week, and Eisen and his group should be able to reach Ornier within that week if they didn¡¯t make any stops along the way. From Ornier, it should just take another two in-game weeks to reach the desert, so it wasn¡¯t that big a deal as far as Eisen was concerned.This might actually let them try and figure out where thest dragon actually was at as soon as possible. But on the other hand, this meant that Eisen couldn¡¯t actually deal with whoever was doing those experiments on the monsters. Instead, Eisen had another idea for that.One that he hoped would be able to make as many people move at once as possible, to just ruin the day of whoever was literally turning living beings into test-subjects. And that was by creating a quest that anyone could take.There were a couple ways of doing that, but in the end, the one that Eisen chose to go with was the simplest and quickest one as far as he was concerned. After picking up all the shotgun-staff parts that he managed to finish here, he made his way outside and swiftly increased his size to the maximum that he could, before yelling out loudly. But of course, Eisen did so as he hid behind a wall, creating the quest in a way that would make Eisen¡¯s name not appear in it."Listen here, all of you! Near this town, there lives someone that is using the Ancient Copper Dragon Cracton¡¯s gift to experiment on living creatures! Whoever can stop him from doing so without killing him will be rewarded extensively."And the moment that Eisen yelled this out, he decreased his size to normal and started walking into the center of town while looking in front of him curiously as if he was seeing the same notification everyone else was. Chapter 496 Dragon Liquor Once Eisen returned to the stall, he quickly and quietly exined the situation to everyone before trying to hide himself a little bit better, so that no yers would be able to spot him and figure out that it was Eisen that gave out the quest in the end. That would work against spreading the rumor that the Eisen in Ornier was the real one after all.But when everyone knew about everything, Eisen just figured he should keep going with creating the shotgun-shaped staff, and for now just swiftly carved the stock out of magic wood, which was the perfect part to ce a few general internal mana-batteries other than the ones that could be ced into the actual item by hand, so that all the enchantments ced on the staff could actually keep running for as long as necessary.And once that part was carved, Eisen just carved the forestock, both the stock and forestock were used to hold a shotgun steadily, with the forestock being the spot you would ce your hand onto. And then, all that Eisen needed to do was enchant everything and then put the whole item together.The first part that Eisen enchanted was the barrel, which he turned into a magical elerator so that magical projectiles could actually be shot out from this if wanted. Other than that, Eisen also just created the general magical-support enchantments that he would ce on any staff, the type to help with the flow of your mana, and then started working on the ¡¯trigger¡¯ enchantments so that you could actually set a spell off using the trigger if needed.It wasn¡¯t actually as hard as Eisen thought it would be at first, quite straightforward, actually. That meant that quite soon, Eisen was actually at a point where he could just put everything together, something that in itself didn¡¯t take all that long. Then Eisen just had to fit all the enchantments properly together and finish the whole piece off by filling the enchantments in with the extra noble-metal alloy he made for that.And so, quite soon, a rtively dark-colored shotgun was created, one that actually didn¡¯t look all that bad. Eisen was never a gun-freak, but even he would hang this kind of piece above his chimney. Once he was done with this, the old man just ced it to the side to work on some other things for now, although there really wasn¡¯t anything that interested him enough to make it here where he couldn¡¯t really work that freely.So he would just have these requests registered with the Crafter¡¯s Guild and then send them here through other Crafter¡¯s Guild outposts. There was a pretty hefty fee for that, but in the end, Eisen didn¡¯t really have to worry about the money anyway.So for now, Eisen chose to simply start re-stocking everything that was slowly running out on the stall, like the items that neither Parc nor Rouge were confident enough to make just yet. But that wasn¡¯t an issue, since Eisen himself could make those rtively quickly.And around evening of that day, Sigurd and Fafnir reached the stall again, although the dragon obviously pulled quite a lot of attention to itself, especially amongst those that visited the dungeon before. But for now, they just open the smallest gate right here and handed all the items they could to Sigurd through the door so that there was no dy in her transportation and they could get rid of everything properly.That meant that just a little whileter, the stall that had been standing here for the past two days disappeared even quicker than it actually appeared. But instead of staying at the Inn tonight, there was a slight change of ns for what they would be doing next.They would just head straight for Ornier, just to be safe. Anything could happen on their way, so the group just wanted to be properly prepared.And just when Eisen was about to bring the Shotgun-Staff to the Guild to have it take care of that, a certain elderly man appeared right in front of the craftsman."I have returned." Dentex pointed out, and Eisen slowly turned around toward him with a deep frown as he nodded his head, "Yes, you have. Perfect timing, actually. Here¡¯s your item." Eisen said with a slight sigh and pushed the shotgun-shaped staff into Dentex¡¯s hands, before the yer slowly looked down at it."Ahh, magnificent. This is a nice piece. The dead are overjoyed with this. You have done us a great service." Dentex said, and immediately tried to turn around and leave, but before he could do so, Eisen ced his hand onto his shoulder and stopped him from leaving."First, I think you owe me a little something." The old man pointed out, and Dentex just turned around and stared at him with a light, confused frown before seemingly realizing his mistake."Oh, of course, of course!" He eximed, and then stood in front of Eisen before slightly bowing forward, "Thank you." Dentex said, and then once more proceeded to try and leave, once more being stopped by Eisen."I was talking about the money you owe me for that. It¡¯s 70 Silver." Eisen pointed out, "And don¡¯t even pretend you don¡¯t have that much money, you¡¯re above level 100, you do." The old man said, and with what seemed like a quiet curse directed toward Eisen, Dentex pushed his hand into the pouch by his side and pulled out a gold coin, slowly handing it to Eisen with a bit of regret, seemingly.And so, Eisen swiftly extended his hand toward Fafnir and was then given the coin-exchanger that Eisen made for the stall, and swiftly pushed the gold coin into it before having it push out thirty silver coins which he then handed to Dentex."There you go. Thanks for doing business with me." Eisen said with a light smile, before Dentex just let the coins drop into his pouch and turned around while grumbling, "Thank you, you too."And so, keeping the role of a creepy old man all the way, Dentex started walking through the town and soon tried the staff out a bit.Once he was gone, Eisen simply turned back toward the others and suggested they all just go now, and swiftly stopped by at the Inn since he still had a little business there. Like he thought, Brak did actually make his way there as well, and was actually waiting for Eisen.So, Eisen quickly sat down at the same table as Brak, quickly exining that something came up and they had to leave earlier than they expected.With a slight nod, Brak sighed out deeply, "I see. If that is so, then there¡¯s nothing I can do about that. But as far as I remember, you do owe me a drink, don¡¯t you?" The Bear Beastperson pointed out, and with a light smile, Eisen quickly raised his hand to get one of the waiters over to their table, "What is your most expensive bottle?" The old man asked, and the young waitress slowly turned around and looked at the barkeeper confusedly before looking back at Eisen."It¡¯s a pretty special bottle, actually. It¡¯s ¡¯Dragon Liquor¡¯, made only with ingredients specially created by dragons. It was said that the Dragon King once bathed in the one batch that exists of it. But it¡¯s pretty expensive, so...""How did you get Liquor like that?" Eisen asked immediately with a deep frown, and the waitress just lightly smiled back at him, "Ah, this town often gets quite special gifts, since it was founded by the third person that peaked, the master over life and death!" The waitress exined, and Eisen raised his brow slightly in response."Oh, so it¡¯s like that, huh?" The old manughed slightly, shaking his head as he was starting to feel a bit dumb. It didn¡¯t ur to him before, but if Eisen and the others actually yed a bigger role in them losing their experience than anyone wanted to let on, then it would be obvious they would try their best to give themselves the perfect starting points.And the most perfect of all starting points would be at a ce that you yourself constructed with your sweat and blood, wasn¡¯t it? Thinking about it like that, Eisen was sure that the towns where the others, Brody, Xenia and Evalia, woke up near also were towns founded directly by them."That could mean there¡¯s something even more special about all those ces... Is it the dragons? Their specializations?" Eisen muttered, before he slowly turned toward Brak, "Or their people..?" He thought to himself, although Brak was justpletely confused.Seeing this, Eisen just looked back at the waitress, "I¡¯ll take the bottle of Dragon Liquor, please." The old man said with a smile, and with a deep sigh, the waitress just shook her head, "Sir, it costs two tinum coins. I¡¯m afraid that is not something you should be able to afford." She pointed out. It may seem a little rude to say to others at first, but considering the way that Eisen was dressed, and the fact that he wasn¡¯t even wearing shoes, the old man couldn¡¯t really me her.So, the old man slowly pushed his hand into his apron and then pulled out two small coins. Of course, that part in this apron was a special spatial item that Eisen created as a wallet and nothing else, so it was rather safe for him to keep evenrge amounts of money in."There you go." Eisen said with a light smirk, and the waitress just looked at him and at the coins confusedly, before picking one of them up and appraising it.Simrly to how the prince¡¯s seal worked, coins had a special property about them that could let anyone appraise them to instantly find out if they were real or not. And the moment that the waitress did so, she tightened her grip on that coin and nearly dropped to the ground because her legs grew weak."A-Are those actually... Actually tinum coins?" The waitress asked confusedly as she turned around toward the Barkeeper, trying to call him over as quickly as possible, while Brak just couldn¡¯t really believe what was going on exactly."Yeah, what¡¯s wrong?" The Barkeeper asked after finally making his way over to the table, and the waitress immediately showed him the two tinum coins, and then slowly looked at Eisen again."Th-That bottle of ¡¯Dragon Wine¡¯ is really not worth that much money, you know? I mean, it has insane effects, but why would you waste your money on booze like that..?" The barkeeper asked, and with a light smile, Eisen just rested his cheek on his palm, and a sentence from the original Eisen slipped out."Cause I¡¯m the one that made it." Chapter 497 Fake Status "You¡¯re the one that made it...?" The barkeeper asked confusedly, and Eisen slowly raised his head again and ced his hand down onto the table, realizing that something he didn¡¯t actually want to say slipped out just now, "Nevermind that. Just bring me that bottle. If you say it¡¯s not really worth that much, then there¡¯s no reason not to sell it to me for this price, is there?" The old man pointed out, and the barkeeper slowly nodded his head.He turned around and made his way into the back room, a couple minutestering back out with a small, purple-tinted ss cube, which he then ced onto the table."The Liquor is in here. This is a special spacial item." The barkeeper exined to Eisen, who slowly nodded his head and poured his mana into the cube, before it slowly started to fold open as if it was just a hollow box. But instead of just staying t, it kept folding open before it turned into a 50 centimeter-diameter disc.And out of that disk slowly rose a ss bottle with a light blue tint, in the shape of a dragon¡¯s leg."Is this it?" Eisen asked, and the barkeeper slowly stared down at it confusedly before nodding his head, "Yeah, it is, but how did you open it..? You¡¯re supposed to recite a spell while you do..." The barkeeper exined, but Eisen just slightly shrugged in response as he looked at the draconic leg in front of him."Really? What is the spell?" The old man asked, and after thinking for a while, he went into the back-room again, seemingly not having it perfectly remembered after all, and then came back outside."The Dragon King calls upon you, calls upon you so. The time is prime, the time is now, the time is ever, the time is never." The barkeeper exined, and Eisen slightly raised his brow in response to hearing that ¡¯spell¡¯, "Really? That¡¯s the spell that was supposed to open it up?""It is, that¡¯s how we were able to confirm it, anyway." The Barkeeper exined, and Eisen slowly raised his brows as he looked at the bottle, trying to inspect it.[Dragon Liquor][Quality ¨C Perfect][Rank ¨C 7][Description] A Bottle of Liquor made by the Dragons. It was created in a mysterious manner.It has been gifted to the town founded by the third that peaked. It has to have the option to be sold in the Inn ¡¯Summertime¡¯s Bar. It is to be sold at the price of 2 tinum Coins.[Effect] Ability for 24 Hours; Ability for 24 Hours; Ability for 24 Hours; Ability for 24 Hours;[Requirements] Title or above"Hmm..." Eisen hummed quietly. Sure, it was a pretty interesting drink with seemingly great effects, but he was surprised that there were rules of how it was to be handled inside of the description. Although, just as Eisen was thinking that, something else popped up in front of him.[A fake status has been seen through. The real status will now be disyed][Message in a Bottle][Quality ¨C Divine][Rank ¨C 10][Description] A bottle created by the ??? Eisen. The liquid inside is truly the of the fake status, and will have the effects as seen there with the same requirements. However, the hidden reality of this is quite different.It is a message created by the ??? Jyuuk directed at himself. Only the ??? Jyuuk will be able to see the true message. Not even the creator ??? Eisen can learn of it on his own after.[Effect] Receive Chapter 498 Career Change Once the ¡¯duel¡¯ had officiallymenced, Merc and Cial confidently faced the fake Eisen, "Come on, show us what you can do! We¡¯re here to protect these people from you!" Merc eximed loudly, just pointing forward at the fake Eisen.But with a grand, evilugh, the fake just replied, "Hahah! You think an Original like me can lose against a fake like you two?! Just my title shows that I¡¯m better than you, doesn¡¯t it?!" The fake yelled out, and it was immediately obvious that the crowd surrounding the three of them was getting pretty heated, especially once the fake turned around and looked at the other people directly."All of you are just lesser beingspared to me, understood?! Me, Eisen! The Original of Craftsmanship!" The fake eximed, and the real one just wanted to drop down onto him immediately to just cut him in two for that statement. For one, he was feeling personally insulted at that, since it obviously was supposed to be insulting, but the fake even got his title wrong."What a piece of shit..." Eisen muttered quietly to himself as he was still just floating there while pping hisrge wings around. He was actually pretty surprised that they didn¡¯t notice him. Although, Eisen was pretty far away, the only reason he was even able to hear them was because of an item he made using Raziel¡¯s element a while ago to strengthen his hearing ability a bit for situations like this."We will prove to you that this is not the case, you wicked man!" Cial eximed, pointing the heavily unbnced staff forward toward the fake, "For all of us! Artificials and people of thisnd alike!""Oh really? Then show me what you can do, kid!" The fake eximed, before slowly turning around toward another person that apparently was supposed to be some sort of helper that handed the fake a giant hammer. And it really was giant, with the hammer-head behind basically asrge as the fake¡¯s whole torso. But in return, the long handle was obviously way too light... It was just stupidly unbnced!Although, he did give Eisen a pretty good idea after that... "This is it! The Legendary cksmith¡¯s hammer, which belonged to none other than the first man that peaked!" The fake eximed. And the idea that the real Eisen was given wasn¡¯t to start wielding a hammer as a weapon, but rather to try and see if there were any sorts of actual-life applications for warhammers when it came to smithing.It surely wouldn¡¯t turn out an amazing item, but a giant hammer like that did seem useful when it came to especiallyrge items. Maybe when he travelled to the Giants¡¯ Country he could make use of an idea like that.But on the other hand, the hammer that the yer was holding was obviously just a simple rank 4 item. The yer¡¯s level wasn¡¯t all that high, after all. It did seem like he was wearing an item to obstruct others from using appraisal on him and his items though, although Eisen¡¯s truth-seeing eyes were able to see through him immediately.He was also able to appraise Merc and Cial, noticing that they were both just at the beginning of the Level 200 range, so they should be easy targets for Eisen.And then, the old man applied something that he should really try out now. He was pretty sure he heard that there were systems that were implemented to make sure your character couldn¡¯t artificially be made to look like another person or their character during character creation, except if you simply looked like that in reality. And since Eisen doubted they just so happened to find someone that looked this much like Eisen that was willing to y the bad guy in this, the old man assumed that the fake was something like a changeling.He did find someone like that before, after all. And when Eisen actually tried to inspect this yer a bit more intensely bybining his appraisal with his truth-sight, as thetter was something that heavily improved the performance of the former, albeit costing a fair bit of mana.It seemed like the yer was actually a Changeling-Titan halfling, making his base-build actually rather familiar to Eisen¡¯s. All he had to do was bulk himself up a little more, change some details in his face, as well as his hair-color to look like Eisen.It was pretty weird that he was able to do that this easily. Usually, as he learned during his interaction with Dragoon, the changeling he met a few weeks ago, you needed to actually ¡¯scan¡¯ a target so that you could copy their body. But when Eisen thought about it, the changeling racial skill wasn¡¯t the only skill that could change your appearance, so he might have some that helped him out in this whole ordeal a bit more.Either way, now that Eisen figured out all that he actually had to know about these three people in the center, he had them continue their little act while he looked around the rest of the crowd to see if there were any other important people.For one, it seemed like the priest that they hired to get the duel ready was indeed real and apparently properly sanctioned the duel, which Eisen could see through the thin mist of divine energy covering the whole space that had been appointed as space for the ¡¯duel¡¯. He didn¡¯t seem to be aware of any trickery, so Eisen just continued looking around the crowd to see if there was anything weird going on, or if there was someone that maybe wasn¡¯t supposed to be there mixed into the crowd.But luckily, the only ones that Eisen could spot were his five dragon knights, or rather his one dragon knight and the four dragon squires, mixed into the crowd in different locations to handle it if things went haywire. Of course, they wore special disguises created through Evalia¡¯s magic that hid that they were actually Half-Dragons, and their weapons were inside of special spacial items that Eisen made them on the way.There did seem to be even some nobles that lived inside of Ornier here trying to watch the ¡¯show¡¯ unfold, and they had people build something like small stages for them to watch from, which just seemed weird to him. Although, the rumors of the real identity of the ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ probably went around, and since he was the one that caused a bit of terror inside of Ornier a couple months ago, Eisen did understand that some of the more important figures were curious about it. The whole stage-thing just seemed weird, really.Just as Eisen was looking around the crowd and judged that there shouldn¡¯t be anyone dangerous in there beside the whole thing that was set up underneath the area that they used for the duel, it seemed like the duel actually started right underneath the old man. Apparently, for now, the fake Eisen had the upper hand with his attacks, although it seemed pretty obvious to Eisen that the whole thing waspletely set up. It would be even if he didn¡¯t know about it in the first.But soon, when it seemed like Merc and Cial were about to lose, things started to turn around after some kind of weird speech about the two of them having to believe in themselves and each other, while Eisen was just receiving a constant onught of messages from Komer saying how sorry he was about how embarrassing his brothers were turning this situation.Although, Eisen just ended up smiling and sent another message back to Komer.[Eisen] No need to apologize. I¡¯ll take care of itAnd just when Eisen sent that message off, he started to stop flipping his wings to just make his body drop down toward the ground at a high speed."...that¡¯s why we¡¯ll utterly beat you, Eisen!" The old man overheard Merc yell out toward the end of his speech, although he was obviously rather confused when the whole ce was just suddenly covered in dust in response to Eisen pping his wings quickly just before he arrived at the ground to stop his fall."Oh, will you?" The old man asked with a broad grin on his face, floating just a bit above the ground with his truly giant figure. Since he could now turn roughly five meters tall, he was literally more than double the height of anyone else that was currently here. And his giant wings and demonic horns didn¡¯t necessarily help out with the confused reaction that literally everyone there showed.Although, as to not scare anyone, Eisen had transformed as much into his Demonic Yang form as he possiby could. He simply wanted to turn this situation produced for Merc and Cial¡¯s advantage around so that it would work out properly for him instead.Of course, everyone immediately started asking about who or what this creature was, and many yers took up their weapons in case they needed to fight as well, but before anything else happened, Merc and Cial slowly managed to regain theirposure.Eisen looked fairly different, but they still had the image of him in his demonic form burned into their memories, so they knew that it was him. "You! You are the real one, aren¡¯t you?! I knew that this just had to be a fake! Can¡¯t even take a duel you called us to serious, huh?!" Merc yelled out immediately, and Eisen could hear the whispers of people around him that were specting about what was going on, actually believing what Merc just said.And before Eisen could say anything else, the fake Eisen stepped up behind the real one and seemingly deactivated all of his own transformations, "Boss, what are you doing here? This wasn¡¯t part of the n! I thought I was doing well!" The fake eximed, and Eisen slowly turned around toward him and for just a moment turned his demonic form into the yin one as his foot touched the ground for the first time."Be quiet, you low-life." The old man said, with as much impact in his voice as he could possibly produce. Not many yers knew about it, since only extremely high-level monsters were capable of this usually, but it was a false assumption to think that yers weren¡¯t affected by things like fear inside of this game. Sure, they didn¡¯t feel it like NPCs, but at a certain point, the abstract ¡¯fear¡¯ status became utter and absolute ¡¯Terror¡¯.That was actually something like a de-buff that yers could experience as well. Their bodies would freeze up and start shaking, their sight would turn blurred, and their defense dropped immensely for a while. It wasn¡¯t a de-buff thatsted that long, but all that Eisen needed were the few seconds that it didst.And due to the immense level difference of above 100 levels between Eisen and this fake, it was obvious that the fake would be affected by it. When the fake was freezing up, and the onlookers started freaking out over this, Eisen held his hand to the side and had a pitch-ck sword appear on his palm.With a grin on his face, Eisen just looked at the fake, "I would consider changing your career, your acting was utterly horrible." The old man said, before slowly holding the giant ck sword in his hand above his head with only one hand."If I could suggest something, then it would be the one thing you seem useful for. How about you be my personal experience farm?" Eisen asked with a light smile as he swung his de diagonally downward, with the help of the de¡¯s ego quickly changing directions to cut off the fake¡¯s head. Chapter 499 Turning South With the fake¡¯s head now flying through the air, the body immediately dropped to the ground. It seemed like the fake¡¯s base health was pretty high, so he didn¡¯t immediately die after being decapitated. He would be dying soon, but for now, he was still alive and didn¡¯t fall apart into light just yet.Eisen caught the head of the yer in his hand and looked right into his eyes with a deep re, "If you ever even mutter my name, I¡¯m turning your life into hell." The old man said, and then just started holding the head by its pretty long hair before turning around toward Merc and Cial."That goes for you two as well, you know? Putting this whole show into scene without knowing who you¡¯re actually dealing with." Eisen told them, just so slightly chuckling as he was doing so, "You¡¯re real idiots, aren¡¯t you?"Soon, the fake¡¯s head just disappeared in a bright light, since the yer died, and Eisen started holding his Demonic de back toward Merc and Cial as his transformation once more became the Yang transformation.But it seemed like Merc and Cial were both still extremely terrified at what they were just shown, even if the NPCs all somehow rxed the moment that Eisen changed his transformation, if only a little."C-Cial!" Merc yelled out, "Let¡¯s do ¡¯that¡¯ now!"In response, Cial swiftly turned toward his brother and nodded his head as his two wings of light just disappeared. And from what Eisen could tell with his mana-sight, that was because he was gathering his mana inside of his staff to send it into the ground, probably to get that giant magic circle under Eisen to activate.And as Cial was doing that, Merc grabbed an item out of his pocket. It just seemed like a ss-sphere with ck mist inside of it on the outside, but with his truth-sight, Eisen could see what it really was. Inside of that sphere was a monster. And a pretty strong one as well, at that. It seemed to be a giant Minotaur wielding two axes the size of Merc¡¯s whole body.Eisen was pretty confused why they chose this kind of effect for the Magic Circle underneath him, but now he understood. The Magic Circle was supposed to transform something, although Eisen at first thought it was supposed to be Merc or Cial. But apparently instead, it was this Minotaur.With a fair amount of curiosity, Eisen just swung his sword over his shoulder and waited, something quite off-putting to both Merc and Cial.Either way, seeing that Cial was seemingly ready to go, Merc threw the ss sphere onto the ground. It shattered into pieces and let a ck mist escape that was soon formed into the body of a minotaur double the height that Eisen now was.It was standing right in the center of the magic circle that was ced underneath the area, the one that Cial just activated. As the Minotaur let out an eardrum-shattering scream that scared more people than Eisen¡¯s Yin form, considering that he had focused his attention on the fake instead of the people, its body was enveloped in a bright light as it grew even more in size than before, now bing roughly 15 meters tall.It¡¯s dark brown fur became pure white, and it was suddenly wearing an armor made ofpressed mana, seemingly.It seemed like Cial wasn¡¯t the only one that fed mana to the magic circle, but all of his goons in the crowd did as well. And with a rather curious smile, Eisen looked up at the creature before turning around toward Cial."How did you actually do that?" He asked them, "Let me guess, you merged this Minotaur¡¯s body with that of a Light Spirit?" The old man inquired, and Cial started smiling broadly."That¡¯s right! A monster like this is many, many times stronger than it usually would be! And it¡¯s under ourplete control! So, Eisen, you¡¯re done!" Cial eximed, just as the Minotaur swung its axes at the old man.But Eisen just kept standing there with a light smile, slowly opening one of the boxes in his apron to make arge scale appear. And with all the strength in his body, Eisen held that scale in front of his body. He easily managed to resist the damage of this Minotaur¡¯s initial attack, and then ced the scale back into the box as he looked back at the Minotaur."Hmm, I see. Seems like a bit of tough luck for you guys." Eisen said as he looked into Merc and Cial¡¯s direction, although the two of them didn¡¯t really seem all that convinced."Heh, and why do you say that? Just because you¡¯ve got a pretty good shield?" Merc yelled out, and with a bit of a chuckle, Eisen shook his head, facing away from the Minotaur. And it seemed like the Minotaur wanted to attack him again, but just before then, it turned away and looked at something else on instinct.An instinct that came from the Light Spirit¡¯s side. But at that point it was basically already toote, because its leg had already been wrapped by a Darkness Spirit that started climbing up its body.The Minotaur started swinging its axes around wildly, to try and somehow get out of the restraint that it was being put under through this Darkness Snake, but before it could actually get anything done, its thick magical armor was cut through in a single stroke as if it was butter.As it was iling around in response to see where that attack came from, the Minotaur really wasn¡¯t able to spot anything. And that was because the attacker actually was invisibile. Invisible through ayer of magic paint ced on their body.Attack after attack, the Minotaur kept being damaged, the magical side of its strengthpletely ignored, until it was forced to drop down onto its stomach due to its limbs being cut up.Once the minotaur wasying there, it seemed like the control-ring that was ced around its neck was broken open, as a man stepped up directly in front of the minotaur¡¯s face, simply cing his hand onto its face during its heavy breathing."Shh, boy. All¡¯s good. You¡¯re alright now. Sorry to have put you in so much pain." Jyuuk said with a light smile, trying to calm the minotaur down as much as possible. While Jyuuk was doing that, Xenia had been doing something to the Minotaur¡¯s body, seemingly trying to extract the light spirit again.And that was something that soon seemed to have worked, since the Minotaur shrunk back down to its normal size andpletely lost its magic armor. It¡¯s fur was still white even now, probably as a side-effect, but Eisen could now spot a spirit standing in front of the High-Elf.It seemed to be a White Knight with arge sword in his hands, and armor that covered its whole body. With a kneel, it looked up at Xenia, who simply ced her hand onto the Spirit¡¯s forehead as her Darkness Spirit climbed up her body again.With that, these two hadpletely taken over the force that was meant to kill Eisen within a matter of minutes. But of course, it wasn¡¯t just those two there. Besides them, there was of course also Brody, whose Maroon-Steel Alloy swords were the reason he could cut through the magic armor that easily.And right next to him stood Evalia, who turned the others invisible to make this work. While Eisen slowly deactivated his demonic transformation, the old man stood there in his regr form, albeit still five meters in height, and stared forward at Merc and Cial, as the ten-meter tall, angry Minotaur stood behind Jyuuk. The Light Spirit that used to be merged with it was behind Xenia. Both of those originals standing beside Eisen together with Brody and Evalia.They managed to get all five of them online at the same time, luckily. Evalia brought her own capsule with her from LA, and they just had to get Xenia¡¯s capsule from her apartment. And then Jyuuk and Brody could use Benji and Sophia¡¯s capsules for this little while."What?!" Cial yelled out inplete and utter confusion, unsure of why this was all happening, and Merc was unsure just the same. Although to a rather different extent. He immediately turned around and just started to run away into the crowd, seeing that the situationpletely turned south for them.But the moment that he actually entered the crowd, a certain half-dragon swiftly threw him back into the open space with a swing of his giant sword."Not today, bud." Kiron eximed as the cloaking that he was given by Evalia wore off, and Merc immediately remembered Kiron from back then, immediately trying to run away into another part of the crowd, although all that happened was that he ran into another Half-Dragon, at which point all of them stepped out of the crowd and took out their weapons."Sorry about this, Merc, Cial. But we¡¯re going to take over your little n for now." Eisen exined to them with a smile, before starting to look around at the crowd, which was more than just impressed at what was unfolding in front of them."Everyone, listen closely! My name is Eisen! The Original of Mechanical Arts! These four Are Xenia, Evalia, Jyuuk and Brody, the Originals of Magic, Artistry, Living, and Combat." He eximed, "The man that was fighting here before was not me, he was a fake. A trick to make you think I¡¯m the bad guy here." The old man eximed, and more and more, everyone started to speak amongst each other, and as many people as possible wanted to step over to where they were all facing to get as good a view on this speech as they possibly could.And at that point, Eisen got started with his proper announcement."The five of us are soon going to found a country. If you wish to be a part of that country, a country with ressources and diversity above anything you may have seen before, then try your best to join the Guild! Whether you want to fight, craft, experiment with magic, enjoy being in nature, or simply want to indulge in what you love the most no matter how important or grand it is, anyone is wee!" Eisen yelled out, and immediately the crowd became rowdy.After all, this was a chance that they never expected to be able to get. Many were just thinking about what they could do to possibly stick out while entering the guild to get a high position in there, while others were simply dreaming. Chapter 500 Finishing them off As the five Originals stood there, right in front of Merc and Cial, thetter two didn¡¯t know how to exactly react. Of course they were rather confident, but they weren¡¯t confident enough to say they could fight against their own trump-card, plus five high-level yers, plus five seemingly high-rank monsters."Wh-What do you want?!" Merc yelled out immediately, "You¡¯re already trying to take thepany from us, so what else do you want to do?!"With a slight grumble, Eisen immediately shook his head and approached the two of them. Since his sword realized that Eisen was a little pissed after what Merc said, it was trying to swing around on its own, so Eisen just ced it back into his soul storage for now."We¡¯re trying to take thepany from you? All we¡¯re doing is backing up your youngest brother, that¡¯s all it is." The old man pointed out, and Cial stared at him confusedly, "All you¡¯re doing is ¡¯backing¡¯ him up? That¡¯s got to be a fucking joke! You¡¯ve literally given him enough money and contacts to turn his shitty littlepany into such an imperium within a couple of months!""Actually, that¡¯s not really true." Eisen said with a light smirk, and both Cial and Merc seemed rather confused, "Sure, I did help him quite a bit, but that money together with the n of creating that ¡¯imperium¡¯ alles from Komer." He exined, "And the whole fact that you don¡¯t think he would be capable of it is more insulting than anything I¡¯ve heard today. Even when that fake got my ¡¯Original¡¯ Title wrong."And with that, Eisen slowly stood back up and turned around toward the other Originals again. At that moment, Merc was ovee withplete and utter anger that blinded him more than he could exin or evenprehend.He seemingly activated some skill of his, and jumped forward toward Eisen at a high speed to try and take a swing at him. But before he could actually reach Eisen, he mmed right into the floor as his face was hit by a heavy metallic pir. The next moment he realized it, he was surrounded by five Half-Dragons, each of them holding their weapons toward him to somehow try and restrain him, "I wouldn¡¯t try that ever again if I were you." Morgus pointed out. Eisen was actually rather surprised that he took this task so serious, but he was pretty d about it as well.Meanwhile, probably thinking that this was a good chance to escape, Cial tried to run away again, although he quite soon found that he became literally incapable of moving as two teenagers and one pre-teen stepped up into the whole area as well. One of the two teenagers was moving his fingers around weirdly, in response to which Cial¡¯s body started moving on its own.He turned back around and clunkily stepped over right next to where his brother was, before being forced onto his knees."Thanks, Sal." Eisen said with a light smile, and the Spider-Boy just lightly shrugged.As all of this was happening, the onlookers were simply freaking out even more than they were before. Of course, they freaked out in a positive sense, out of excitement instead of fear."Now, what should we actually do with you two?" The old man asked as he turned around, looking at the other originals with a smile. Out of them, Brody was the first to speak."Shouldn¡¯t we just kill them to get it over with already?" He suggested, but the very next moment, Evalia had another suggestion, "Or we could grab their armor and make them run around town naked? You know, the whole ssic humiliation thing.""Sure, that could work, but... Who knows if they¡¯re really gonna be embarrassed? They seem pretty shameless to me." Jyuuk pointed out next, the Minotaur breathing out of his nose angrily right behind him as Xenia also came up with an idea, "I think maybe we should just have them give us as much information on stuff as they can? Maybe like telling us where Antonio is? And then we can do one of those other suggestions." She said, and in the end, Eisen just nodded his head."That does sound like a great idea, I have to admit. So you two, tell us. Where is Antonio? I think telling us quickly would be a rather good idea, before Evalia and Brody be impatient." Eisen told Merc and Cial, both of them obviously incredibly nervous.And Merc immediately gave in, "W-We don¡¯t actually know where he is! Sure, he gave us a bunch of stuff, but he¡¯s barely here! He has some kind of teleport ability, he can just disappear and reappear somewhere else instantly!"With a deep frown, Eisen looked at those two before turning his head toward Argon, the half-dragon pdin. He slowly nodded his head, "He¡¯s telling the truth." Argon said reassuredly and Eisen sighed deeply in annoyance."Great, what a bother to deal with. Fine, you two can go." Eisen said annoyedly as he turned back around, and the others looked at him confusedly, "You¡¯ll just let them go?""Of course. Killing them won¡¯t do us any good anyway. They¡¯ll just be backter. And I doubt they¡¯re going to give us any good experience either.""Fair point..." Jyuuk muttered quietly, as the half-dragons slowly ced their weapons back away as Sal loosened the control he had over Cial.While Xenia¡¯s two spirits disappeared from everyone¡¯s sight, Jyuuk stored the minotaur in his Beastiary, taking up a double-page on its own. Brody seemed a little disappointed that he wasn¡¯t able to have a proper fight today. It seemed like he really could have used this chance to let off a little bit of steam."Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll definitely be able to fight some strong guys soon." Eisen said reassuredly, and while Brody seemed just so slightly excited after hearing this, the others were embarrassed at the fact that he did get excited over it."That¡¯s fine then..." The Demon-Orc Halfling replied to Eisen, before they all just started to walk away in a manner that signified to everyone that they were done with this whole thing that just happened here. They were just talking about seemingly casual stuff right now, the kind that you wouldn¡¯t talk about if you felt nervous.The crowd split open, and the Originals, Half-Dragon Knights, and Monsters stepped through to the other side. It seemed like some people were trying to follow them, but everyone soon split up into their regr groups while basically disappearing as if they were capable of teleportation as well.But in reality, everyone just made use of Evalia¡¯s element to cloak themselves and then ran away as quickly as they could manage.For now, everyone would regroup with the other people they were with and head back to the Harbor-Town, since that was where they would all be meeting again next to get back to the inds and finally level up together.The exception to that were Evalia, Stahl, and Eisen. Of course, this also meant that the rest of Eisen¡¯s group would be heading toward the Harbor-Town as well. Only Eisen himself, his three monsters, Kirisho, and Sigurd and Fafnir would be heading somewhere else.The others of Eisen¡¯s group, his two apprentices, the five dragon knights, and of course Sky and Bree, really weren¡¯t all too happy about it, but there was a pretty good reason for it.Right now, Eisen¡¯s main goal was to get the Title as quickly as possible while hopefully also leveling up a fair bit on his way. Since Fafnir could run way faster than the carriage could travel at its max speed, they should be able to arrive far quicker. And while Fafnir couldn¡¯t directly fly like a regr dragon just yet, he was capable of jumping incredibly high and gliding along a fair distance, which would most likely also speed the whole process up a bit.And while Fafnir enjoyed sleeping a lot, he didn¡¯t actually require that much sleep, since most of his energy was just instantly replenished by the Dungeon Core inside of him. Of course, at some point he did need to sleep, but it took a fair while until he actually HAD to do so.Just like that, the old man got onto Fafnir¡¯s back together with the three monster children, although it did get a slight bit cramped, and then turned over toward the others of his group, out of which Bree was, like normal, the most sentimental by many, many lengths."You¡¯reing back soon, right?" She asked with a light sniffle as she looked down onto the ground, just kicking the dirt in front of her, and the old man just sligthly chuckled and nodded his head as he reached down and ced his hand onto the top of her head."Of course I am. It¡¯s going to take a week or two at most. Don¡¯t worry." Eisen said reassuredly, before Bree just slowly nodded and hugged her brother. Weirdly enough, as far as Eisen remembered, she never reacted this strongly when she and her literal lover were split up for weeks at a time.It was both weirdly concerning and ttering at the same time. With a smile on his face, the old man just turned to look at everyone. "As I just said, we¡¯ll be back in two weeks the verytest. Until then, if you get too bored in the harbor town, I suggest just helping Komer out here and there. I¡¯m sure he¡¯s going to appreciate it." Chapter 501 Steel Nes [You are now level 295]With a pleasantly surprised expression, Eisen looked in front of him as he opened his status and just quickly put his five new points into his stats.[Eisen][Race ¨C Giant-Dwarf Halfling][upation ¨C Omni Craftsmaster][Level ¨C 295][Guild ¨C World¡¯s Peak][HP ¨C 6932][MP ¨C 6932][STR ¨C 362][END ¨C 362][AGI ¨C 363][INT ¨C 362][WIS ¨C 362][CHA ¨C 43][SS ¨C 344]"Hmm, my stats rose a fair bit, huh?" Eisen said with a light smirk before waving his status away again, and then looked in front of him into the distance of the desert again. What he just killed was a Desert Worm, an annoying monster that made it practically impossible to keep moving in a straight line.Usually they weren¡¯t that hard to deal with, but as they were able to create annoying sinkholes, it got tougher and tougher to just keep on running. The biggest issue was when a couple of Desert Worms came together and basically created a single huge sinkhole.Luckily that only happened to Eisen once, but he was able to actually rather easily get rid of them by using smaller versions of his magic-grenades and throwing them into the sinkholes whenever he found them. He actually used Frost-Mana for this, since most of the monsters in this Desert were extremely weak to the cold.It was pretty tough to then try and collect their materials, but as they didn¡¯t really have anything that Eisen thought to be useful anyway, he just let most of them underground for now where they would be taken apart by the ambient mana pretty soon.And all those Desert Worm corpses made it easy for Eisen to avoid the other pest of this ce, the Sand Vulture. While they were fine most of the time, they kept circling above Eisen constantly. Their bodies seemed to create sand on its own that kept dropping down onto him, and that was incredibly annoying to the point of Eisen seriously considering to make a gun to shoot them down whenever he saw them.But once the Desert Worm corpses were around, the Sand Vultures finally stopped annoying him all the time so that they could keep moving more quickly again.Just after the sun went down, Eisen spotted some lights in the distance, ones that didn¡¯t seem to be just created through some luminescent monsters, "Alright, it seems like we¡¯ll finally be at a town soon." The old man said as he looked down in front of himself, and Melissa swiftly made one of her bees fly further ahead just to check the ce out a bit."Yes, seems like a normal town. Not another bandit hideout." Melissa exined as she slightly turned her head around toward Eisen, who simply returned a smile."Oh, good. We managed to get some good materials from there, but other than that, they were rather annoying." The old man muttered quietly as they continued riding on Fafnir¡¯s back toward the town that they found, slowing down once they approached the gate.Standing in front of the gate was a Demon, currently just leaning against the wall in boredom. Although, once he spotted Eisen, it seemed like he grew a slight bit excited again. Or rather, when he spotted the dragon that Eisen was riding on.He drew his weapon nearly immediately, although he grew quite disappointed when Fafnir slowed down and Eisen stepped off his back and approached the gate with peaceful intentions, "Good evening." Eisen said with a smile, and the guard sighed deeply as he looked back at the old man, "Yup."Slowly, the guard started to take a look at Fafnir with clear excitement, and just nced at the three monster children and Eisen himself for only a moment before returning back to the gate to open it up."You cane through now." The Guard told them and with a grateful smile, Eisen stepped through the gate and was swiftly followed by the others.The towns in this desert really had the feeling of those ssic arabic desert towns with t-roofed houses. Despite it being night, there were numerous people walking around and trading different goods with each other. It seemed like instead of money, while it was still used a fair amount, most of the NPCs used actual items to trade for other items."Hmm... Interesting." The old man muttered quietly, before immediately proceeding to step through the town with a light smile on his face, trying to inspect as many of the different things here that he could. There were actually quite a lot of spices that he couldn¡¯t get that easily in other parts of the continents that Eisen instantly bought as much as he could of.Even if he were to be able to get these spices somewhere else, they would most likely not be nearly as fresh and high-quality as what he managed to get his hands on now. Of course, that didn¡¯t only count for spices, there were also materials here that were quite different to usual ones. Even armor that was traded here wasrgely cloth, albeit one woven from special monsters.Either way, there was one thing that was vastly different to a usual desert-town that Eisen knew about. There were numerous artificial rivers, ponds, and aqueducts spread throughout the town. Especially the aqueducts connected to small drinking fountains that anyone could easily ess to make sure they wouldn¡¯t dehydrate.It was rather obvious that this water was created through magic, which made Eisen just want things like that in ¡¯real¡¯ life even more. Droughts could be solved so easily like that.With a quiet grumble just directed at himself, Eisen kept walking through the town, letting Fafnir drink a little at the rivers, just like the other animals here did.While they were taking a small break for now, Sigurd appeared right in front of the old man with a curious expression, "Who exactly are you looking for?" The Core Guardian inquired curiously, and Eisen just smiled back at it before slowly moving his fingers through his beard."Do I really look that lost?" Eisen asked with a light chuckle, and then kept turning his head a little more while answering Sigurd, "I¡¯m trying to see if i can find the area with all the guilds in this town. One of them has to have some more information about the Dragon we¡¯re looking for. At one of the other towns, they already told us that we could probably find out a little more directly here in this area.""Let¡¯s hope they didn¡¯t just say that to get rid of us, eh?" Sigurd pointed out with augh, before Caria looked at it with a deep, concerned frown, "Wait, they can do that?!" She asked nervously, but the core guardian looked back at the myconid and shook its head."Just kidding. Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯ll be fine. The others somehow made it possible to be found as well, so." Sigurd replied, before Eisen just lightly smiled and kept looking around, "Hmm..." He hummed, "I really want to get this done soon... It was said that those with that be the champion of five dragons can speak to Trygan." The old man muttered, and slowly mist poured out of his amulet to turn into the form of Kirisho."You are doing this all to speak to your son again?" She asked, and with a light chuckle, the old man nodded his head, "Well, of course I¡¯d like to speak to him again, but I¡¯m not sure if Trygan is going to let that happen. You see, when we were in Ornier, Ipleted one of the points of my Demonic-Title, to inflict strong emotions of any kind onto five thousand people. Now I just need to ¡¯ascend to heaven and fall to hell¡¯, and be ¡¯acknowledged by the gods of the heavens and the underworld¡¯. All my meetings with gods were rather ¡¯unofficial¡¯, things that I didn¡¯t necessarily earn, or those that were kept hidden. Now it¡¯s an official asion." Eisen exined clearly.He really hoped that it would count this time. Then again, it might be harder to find a ¡¯god of the underworld¡¯ to impress. Eisen hadn¡¯t even heard much about them. Well, he did ask Komer to research a bit about it, since he had a weirdlyrge amount of contacts all over the continent at this point.Thest time that Eisen spoke to him, he still didn¡¯t find anything though. There were appaly hints toward where an entrance to heaven and hell might be, however.Both of them seemed to be somewhere on the god inds. Eisen expected the entrance to heaven to be there, to be fair, but the entrance to hell apparently being there as well really came as a surprise to him.They just had to find the entrances rtively soon. Once Eisen made his way to hell, he would surely be able to find some kind of God to impress there.That¡¯s what Eisen was hoping, at the very least, even if it wasn¡¯t something he could directly confirm. Gods were often rather moody, after all. And beings that lived for such a long time must get really bored at some point. Somehow, Eisen understood that part of it the most, even if he didn¡¯t remember his insanely long life in this world."Hmm, I think I know where we can look for a bit of information." Eisen pointed out. He had been looking around with his mana-sight a little bit as well, and soon spotted the figure of what seemed to be a Lizardfolk, humanoid lizards that seemed to be officially people, although many were still a little hesitant about them.To normal people, they looked basically identical to Lizardmen, after all, which were a race of monsters. Either way, Eisen swiftly chose to make his way over toward the ce where he spotted the figure of a Lizardfolk, soon seeing that it wasn¡¯t the only one of its kind here.There were numerous other Lizardfolk inside of the same building, so Eisen figured he was in the right ce. Lizardfolk as a race were believes of Trygan, so they saw all ancient dragons as his disciples. Especially when Eisen saw the name of the bar they were currently in, he couldn¡¯t help himself but smile broadly.The bar was fittingly called . It seemed rather unlikely that he wouldn¡¯t be able to find any information on the ancient steel dragon he was looking for in this area. This would be too much of a coincidence otherwise, after all.With a smile on his face, Eisen swiftly pulled the curtains that acted as a ¡¯door¡¯ to the bar to the side and stepped into the room, before he was met with numerous Lizardfolk¡¯s stares."Oye, this ain¡¯t a ce for humans to be." The barkeeper said immediately, but Eisen immediately chuckled as he stepped further in since Fafnir¡¯s snout was pushing into his back, "Good thing I¡¯m not a human, aye?" Chapter 502 Rumors "Is- Is that really a dragon?!" One of the people in the bar asked out loud, but another one immediately tried to look at it more closely, "But how? It¡¯s metallic, but has red scales!" He eximed, and with a bit of a chuckle, Eisen ran his hand over Fafnir¡¯s snout."If you wish, you cane and take a closer look. Of course not for free, however." The old man pointed out, and with a chuckle from the other side of a room, seeminglying from a Lizardfolk yer, sounded out, "What¡¯s this, a petting zoo?" He asked, but Eisen just looked over toward him and shook his head immediately."No, no, of course not. And I don¡¯t wont money either, I just want a little bit of information, which I¡¯m sure that at least one of you should be able to give me." Eisen exined to them as he took a closer step inside, although he obviously wasn¡¯t nning on sitting down and having a drink or anything like that.After a few moments, the first of the Lizardfolk stood up and approached Eisen. He was rather tall and had a couple scars over his chest and face, and some of his scales were currently missing as if ripped out, "Well, what do you want to know about?" He asked with a grin, and Eisen looked at him with a soft smile himself."I would like to know where I can find the Ancient Steel Dragon Zortady." Eisen exined to them, although he was instantly met with a loudugh."What, you seriously want to meet Zortady? Sorry, but he doesn¡¯t let just anyone approach him." A Lizardfolk sitting on a nearby table yelled out, and the one that stood right in front of Eisen continued exining, seemingly just as amused by this old man¡¯s thoughts as the other Lizardfolk."Ancient Dragons give out trials, you know? But not all of them want to bother with interactions with others, so they just give trials to those that have already be other Dragons¡¯ Champions. And Zortady goes so far that he doesn¡¯t even let anyone meet him if they aren¡¯t a Champion already." This Lizardfolk exined, and with a bright smile, Eisen just looked back at him."Is that so? Good to know. Now please, tell me where he is. It seems like you all do actually know a little about him." Eisen pointed out, and while most of the people in this bar just keptughing more and more, the one that stood in front of Eisen rather red at him as if he was just personally insulted."Didn¡¯t you hear what I said? You have to be a champion already, so bugger off." He pointed out, and Eisen sighed deeply before cing his hand onto this Lizardfolk¡¯s shoulder with a firm grip. "I have a literal dragon with me, but you don¡¯t think I could be a champion?" Eisen asked with a light chuckle, "What kind of logic is that?"To onlookers, it may have seemed like Eisen was just weirdly touchy and that¡¯s why he ced his hand onto the Lizardfolk¡¯s shoulder, but the Lizardfolk in question instantly knew what was actually going on.With immense strength that came from this man that didn¡¯t even seem to break a sweat at using force that would take others years to even dream of, the Lizardfolk¡¯s whole body was being pushed down. It was as if his weight had increased manyfold. If the floor was made of wood instead of rock, it may have already splintered into a thousand pieces as well."F-Fine, I¡¯ll tell you! Just let go of me!" The Lizardfolk eximed slightly fearfully, and Eisen slowly released his grip and smiled at the man in front of him, "Is that so? Then thank you. Let us talk outside." The old man suggested, before immediately turning around and pushing Fafnir away from the entrance again.And as the Lizardfolk followed Eisen outside, the others in here just seemed to be more than simply confused at what exactly just happened here.Either way, once they were outside, Eisen already upheld his half of the deal and let the Lizardfolk get a closer look at Fafnir while they were making their way over toward an open area where they hopefully wouldn¡¯t be disturbing anyone else too much.The Lizardfolk ran his hands over the scales of this young Dragon in front of him with a bright expression. "This is really amazing... I have never seen or heard of such a dragon before." The Lizardfolk exined, and Eisen just nodded his head."Of course not, he¡¯s a unique creation, after all." Eisen said, but before the Lizardfolk could even try to ask him about what he meant, the old man started asking his own questions."Now, I think you should be able to tell me where Zortady is, right?" Eisen asked, and with a light frown, the Lizardfolk nodded his head. "Outside of town, maybe twenty kilometers north. During the day, Zortady usually sleeps out in the open sun near a rather small oasis. But I do not know where he is during the night, sorry.""Hmm... That¡¯s fine. Do you by chance know what Zortady¡¯s trial is about?" The old man inquired, and the Lizardfolk thought for a while before shaking his head, "I do not know exactly what it may be, although I have heard a few rumors. If they¡¯re enough for you, I can tell you about those.""That should be enough, yes. I¡¯m going to find out soon enough, anyway." Eisen pointed out. Since he really just wanted to get a rough idea of what skill or ability he would get from Zortady, everything was fine.With a slow nod, the Lizardfolk swiftly started to exin what he heard, "One of the things that seem important to Zortady is to have things split, sorted. This does not apply to people, of course, but when ites to different items I have heard that he is quite intense. If it is sorting by color, size, shape, he seems to do so a lot."With a quite surprised expression, Eisen just stared at the Lizardfolk confusedly. Did that Dragon have OCD or something? "Anything else that might be useful to know?" The old man inquired, since he wasn¡¯t entirely sure if that could actually give him a proper hint toward what kind of skill he might get after passing the trial.After a bit of thought, the Lizardfolk scratched his leathery chin and nodded his head, swiftly telling Eisen some more rumors about Zortady. Most of them seemed to be quite in tune with that ¡¯OCD¡¯ assumption that Eisen had in mind, so he wasn¡¯t entirely sure what exactly the trial or the actual gift could be.He had a few possible ideas in mind, but none of them seemed all that high-tierpared to the other dragons¡¯ gifts. Anyway, once Eisen got all the information that he could get from the Lizardfolk, he chose to make his way out toward the town¡¯s northern gate now.Sure, it was just the beginning of the night and twenty kilometers were traversed incredibly quickly, but Eisen didn¡¯t want to waste any time by getting an Inn room or something like that if he could sleep inside of the dungeon just the same.The old man rode Fafnir through the cold desert, trying to avoid any monsters as much as he could. There were a couple of ice-types that were running around here at night, actually, even if they were still a bit different to regr ice-type monsters. They were usually justrge, lethargic, and still had a desert theme to them. It was just that they gave off incredibly cold air as they were walking around.But with the help of Eisen¡¯s element and Fafnir¡¯s running-speed, the group managed to make their way through the desert at a high speed. It took a while for them to end up finding the oasis that the lizardfolk spoke of, but once Melissa sent out her bees to search for it for them, it really wasn¡¯t an issue anymore and they managed to pinpoint it within a few minutes.The actual Oasis actually had a couple of tents currently set on it, most likely from travelers that didn¡¯t manage to make it all the way to town during the day. There were some campfires as well, with peopleughing, drinking and speaking to each other, but Eisen really had no interest in that."Fafnir. Open the smallest gate." Eisen told the Dragon as he helped the three monster-children off of his back, and the red dragon quicklyid down on the ground under a tree. It was pretty hard to see it because his body was nearly perfectly hiding it, but at the same time, a wooden door appeared in front of Fafnir¡¯s body.Eisen and the others stepped inside, immediately finding themselves in a ¡¯private room¡¯ built into the walls of one of the forest floors, the one with the giant river in it. From inside the main space itself, you couldn¡¯t spot the room no matter how much you tried to, but like this, one of the walls was basically just a giant window that gave you an amazing view of the whole floor.Inside of there were some beds and even a couch, basically a space that was made to let Eisen and the others properly rx in the dungeon if they needed to."You three can head to bed already, I have to think about some stuff for a little bit first." Eisen suggested as he looked at the three monster children in front of him. They seemed pretty tired, considering that they were on the move constantly for nearly a week now, so Eisen didn¡¯t want them to have to stay awake.Eisen¡¯s fatigue still recovered perfectly just by sleeping a few hours in this world, so he didn¡¯t have to worry about that part of things too much.Slowly, each of them made their way into their own bed and swiftly fell asleep, before Eisen sat down on one of the couches and leaned back on it. He was pretty mentally exhausted after the trip, even if nothing really happened this whole time.But since exactly that was the case, and Eisen spent most of his time just aimlessly killing monsters and having their mana-crystals extracted, there was a lot of time to think and reflect on some things that happened so far.A lot of the time, the thought of ¡¯Do I really want to know¡¯ came up, but Eisen himself didn¡¯t even find a proper answer for that. He just sometimes felt that maybe it would be easier and in the end better if he just didn¡¯t know about it.That was a thought he had a lot, sure, but he was so close to finding more and more information. He would soon be able to work on his level-up quest and hopefully rush through all the tasks that the puzzle-box gave him after he became level 300.It was weird. He both did, and did not want to know. Chapter 503 Split it up Eisen ended up just going to bed on the couch and then spent a little bit of time speaking to the others about general new developments. It seemed like Brody just finished his level-up quest and was now getting started on his next task, which required him to learn a specific technique from a specific ce on the ind-group, so he was currently travelling back there for that very reason.The old man was pretty curiou about what kinds of things these tasks could end up being. The ¡¯technique¡¯ that Brody was supposed to learn was obviously something specially chosen for him to do, so the others woudn¡¯t get the same task.Either way, there was not much reason to try and specte about it without the possibility to find out. The second task from the notes could entail literally anything and everything that one could think of. Eisen would just need to hurry up and keep hunting monsters to find out.It might be useful if there was some sort of field dungeon around this area of the continent, but it was hard to find monsters that were challenging for Eisen as he was getting close to level 300 anyway. He was pretty sure there wasn¡¯t even a single actual dungeon that would let him level up inside of it on the continent.They really had to go to the inds afterward if they wanted to continue getting stronger. Once they would end up going to the Giant country, they would be able to find more challenging monsters, hopefully.Slowly, the old man stood up from the couch he was sleeping on and turned around to take a look at the beds, where the three monster children swiftly stood up and stretched."Sigurd, get the gate ready please." The old man said with a deep sigh as he watched thest bit of metal disappear from his skin, and then made his way over toward the ce where they said to always ce the gate when it was needed. And the very moment he was stretching his hand out to grab the doorhandle, the gate constructed itself there and Eisen actually had something to pull on.The moment he opened the wooden door, he was met with a bit of sand flying into his direction, since it was apparently a pretty windy morning. Once he stepped outside, Eisen took the chance to stretch a little bit. Most of the travellers that had been camping at this oasisst night seemed to have already departed, so he freely increased his size to the maximum before activating his demonic transformation.Eisen swiftly jumped into the air and used his wings to bring him up as high as possible as everyone else also got out of the dungeon and Fafnir slowly woke up as well.The Lizardfolk from yesterday said that Zortady usually slept near this Oasis during the day, but it was clear that he wouldn¡¯t be sleeping within sight. He was apparently not someone that appreciated social interactions, so Eisen thought that it wouldn¡¯t make sense for him to be close enough for people to actually find him within a couple minutes of looking.Well, most people didn¡¯t have the abilities that Eisen had either. Being this high in the sky, Eisen was able to look through the area for miles. And with his mana-sightbined with truth-sight, Eisen was able to make sure that he could look through any sort of sight-obstructive magic that Zortady may have cast to protect himself from being seen.Since natural-mana had a pale color whenpared to the mana dwelling within living beings, Eisen was also able to swiftly see all the beings that were currently gathered in this desert. And soon, although it was actually harder than Eisen would have thought, he thought that he saw something in the distance that could be the mana of a steel-dragon.Eisen dropped himself down toward the ground again and deactivated his transformations before asking Melissa to make her bees search the area that Eisen specified to see if there really was some sort of dragon over there.In the meantime, the old man helped the monster children onto Fafnir¡¯s back before sitting down there himself."I think we found something... It¡¯s really shiny and big, but the bees said they¡¯re too scared to approach." Melissa exined to Eisen. With a slow nod, the old man just asked Fafnir to run into that direction, "That¡¯s probably it, then. I would be surprised if your bees weren¡¯t afraid of approaching a Rank 10 monster.""Well, we¡¯re not afraid of approaching Rank 10 monsters either though." Sal pointed out, and Eisen lightly shrugged, "Melissa¡¯s bees rely on their instincts a lot more than you three do. You all are too smart for that, after all." The old man replied, before Melissa, who was sitting right in front of Eisen right now, looked at the boy in front of her with a wry smile."Two thirds of us, at least." She said quietly, and with a loud gasp of surprise, Sal turned his head around and looked at his sister in shock, "Caria, what are you doing? You shouldn¡¯t speak like that about yourself." Sal told her with a light smile."I mean, it¡¯s nice to see that you¡¯re epting the truth, but yo-" Before Sal could finish speaking, Caria started loudlyughing as thin roots came out of her fingers and wrapped themselves around Sal¡¯s neck."Haha, oops. Seems like you¡¯re right, my instincts are kicking in. " She exined, but swiftly let go of Sal when Eisen told her too.With a deep sigh, he looked at the two of them and ced his hands on their shoulders with a firm grip, "Could you two stop with your banter for once? I know you don¡¯t like that you¡¯re sitting this close to each other all the time, but if you continue, I¡¯ll have to leave either one of you or both of you with Sky and Bree the next time I have to be somewhere quickly like this." The old man told them, but with shocked expressions, they turned around and looked at Eisen."Please don¡¯t!""Yeah, we¡¯ll be good!" They both protested immediately, so Eisen slowly shook his head with a light grumble, "Let¡¯s hope so." He said, and then formed his lips into a soft smile, "Because I like having the two of you around, you know?" The old man pointed out, and then stretched his hand over their heads to reach Melissa, who seemed to feel a bit bad after hearing Eisen speak to Caria and Sal like that."Don¡¯t worry, the same counts for you. But you¡¯re always a good girl anyway, so I don¡¯t have to worry about you as much." Eisen exined, before Melissa started lightly giggling and hiding her face with the sleeves of her hoodie.For now, Eisen just kept looking forward for a while, until he noticed a blinding shine in his eyes, and immediately had Fafnir slow done. With his hands in front of his face, Eisen could somewhat figure out what exactly was going on right now.The Steel Dragon wasying in the sun, and his extraordinarily shiny scales were reflecting the sunlight perfectly toward all directions. Eisen was pretty sure that Zortady¡¯s scales had to be at an insane temperature, really.With a bit of curiousity, Eisen stepped off of Fafnir¡¯s back and chose to approach Zortady by foot. And the moment that the old man wanted to open his mouth to greet him, Zortady managed to do so before Eisen."Yes, yes. You¡¯re already a Champion and now want to take my test. Considering that this is the test before your fifth champin title, your test is going to be a bit tougher, is that alright with you? If not, I don¡¯t actually really care." Zortady exined, getting right to the point while he didn¡¯t even open his eyes.With a quiet grumble, Eisen simply agreed, "Sure. Then tell me, what is the trial?" He asked, and Zortady quickly exined."In this area around me, there¡¯s three different types of sand mixed together. I want you to split the sand up into their specific type,bine the sand-crystals together with Alchemy, and then use thoserger crystals to make an item for me. You can¡¯t directly mix the crystals with each other again, however. And if I can extract even a single grain of the wrong type of a specific type of crystal, you fail the trial." Zortady pointed out, and Eisen looked at him with a confused expression."That¡¯s a joke, right?" Eisen asked with an annoyed grumble, but it really seemed as if that wasn¡¯t the case, so the old man just shrugged and got started."Fine." He muttered and waved the notification that appeared in front of him away while Kirisho¡¯s mist started pouring out of her amulet while she looked at Zortady angrily, "What kind of trial is this? Does he want you to sort the sand crystals by hand?" She asked, but Eisen immediately shook his head."Of course not. It¡¯s just a reallyzy, way too easy trial. I¡¯m a bit disappointed, actually." The old man exined as he continued stepping away, and then looked at Fafnir."Sigurd, get me the high-density crystalized mana, please." Eisen said, before the Core Guardian appeared in front of him with arge crystal the size of its own body in its hands."Here you go!" It eximed, before Eisen quietly nodded his head, "Thanks. Oh, and some mana crystals as well, if you can?""Of course!" Sigurd replied, and as he received the mana crystals, Eisen thought it over again a bit, "Well, to be fair, it should be pretty hard to use method if you don¡¯t have the Magic Item Creation skill." He pointed out, before practically scooping away a part of the high-density crystalized mana and ced it into the crystal tub that he made and immediately started dpressing it a bit until it filled out the whole tub."Steel." Eisen said, telling the mana to act like metal, and then immediately started liquifying it.Eisen quickly scooped up some of the sand and dropped it onto the metallic-mana-liquid. And from then on, Eisen slowly started to extract a little bit of the steel-mana at a time while dpressing the whole liquid to make it less dense bit by bit.He had great control over all this just because this was his own mana, so that¡¯s the reason why he chose to use this instead of actual steel.Soon, some of the sand crystals started dropping down to the bottom of the liquid, until only one specific kind was left over. Eisen scooped that up with his hand and immediately startedbining them with each other before cing thatrger crystal to the side. Like this, it was actually rather easy to split one of them up. And the rest could be done with the sand currently at the bottom of the bowl. Chapter 504 Draconic Demon Form Continuosly, Eisen kept filtering a specific type of sand out of the mix and thenbined all of the smaller sand crystals into threerger crystals for each specific type of sand.Either way, for now, the old man managed to get this part of it done, although he was still rather disappointed at how easy this trial ended up being. He had hoped that it would be a little harder, especially after Zortady said that he would make it tougher due to it being Eisen¡¯sst trial.For now, the old man had no choice but to ept it as is, and then kept going. What Eisen noticed while splitting the sand up into each type was that they were practically made for this sort of method. The grains were of vastly different sizes depending on which type of sand they were, after all.Considering that this was the case, this was rather easily done and Eisen managed to split everything up for the most part. Thebination of the grains was actually the more annoying part, because he wasn¡¯t able to just scoop them up andbine them together like he may have wanted to. Instead, he had tobine each and every tiny grain with another grain.Sure, due to their size it was basically enough to just move his mana through the grains realtively slowly to aplish this, but it was still a little bit annoying as far as Eisen was concerned.Soon, however, Eisen had enough materials to actually consider creating an item. And then, he had to really think about that for a little while. There wasn¡¯t much that he could make with just crystals other than decorations or enchantment-based items, after all."Hmm, maybe I can make something that makes the task itself easier?" Eisen muttered quietly to himself. Now that he had basically threerge grains of sand with him, he would probably be able to create enchantments that would allow for a heavily specified maism enchantment to suck just a single type of sand up into itself.Then maybe those grains of sand could be processed into something else by using transmutation. Thinking that this was good as anything that he would be able toe up with in this heat, he figured he should just get started. Eisen turned all threerger sand-crystals into cylinders using transmutation. The insides of those cylinders then received the sort of maism enchantment that Eisen had thought up.Of course he created it with the marble workstation, which Sigurd just directly ced onto the sand so that Eisen could keep working out here within sight of the Ancient Steel Dragon.By pushing a bit of mana inside of one of the tubes, Eisen managed to make them practically ¡¯suck up¡¯ a specific kind of sand. Like that, the old man was able to already make the filter-tub that he made before obsolete and just continued bypressing the mana crystals and crystalized mana again and handing them back to Sigurd.Like that, Eisen was able to pretty quickly get more sand that he could then use to create morebined crystals to keep working.Out of the new crystals that he was able to form, Eisen created some more, albeit rounded ones, tubes that the first tubes would feed the sorted sand into. While the first tubes would be practically pulling the sand upward, these would just let it slowly drop downward and feed it into theplex three-dimensional enchantment at the bottom of the tubes.First, the small ring would keep ¡¯sucking¡¯ the sand onto its walls with another maism enchantment, and would then beginbining the closest crystals with each other.Like that, after being fed enough crystals, it would create a round crystal b that would be just so slightly pushed down to make space for new crystals to bebined with each other. Basically, this was a mechanism to create crystal rods out of the sand.And the whole thing was then finished by using some of the leftover crystals to create a tub, which Eisen had to annoyingly push together after changing their shape because he wasn¡¯t allowed tobine together the different types of crystals anymore.At least he managed to fill the gaps inbetween that afterward, so it was fine. Either way, Eisen could now push the tubes into their holders at the rim of the tub, fix them in ce, and then just enchanted the actual bowl so that it would provide all of the other parts of the item with mana if some was pushed into the bowl.It wasn¡¯t thatrge an item, but it should probably be enough to satisfy Zortady and what the ancient dragon had in mind for the trial. After all, considering howzy he seemed to be, he would probably appreciate that the second half of the trial was something that made the first half of the trial easier.And so, with a bit of a grumble, Eisen stepped up to the Steel Dragon again, although his eyes were still blinded, and held the item forward toward Zortady."I¡¯m done. Please try it out." Eisen suggested clearly, since he really just wanted to leave as soon as he could again. He felt that Zortady was pretty annoying... And the light that he reflected off of him was even more so.With a deep groan, Zortady slowly stood up and stretched, sand falling out of the gaps inbetween his scales as he was doing so, before he turned into his humanoid shape. Like Eisen would have expected, the skin of Zortady¡¯s humanoid form was that of the kind of person that spent every single moment of their freetime suntanning. After all, this was what Zortady did in his dragon form.Sure, Eisen himself wasn¡¯t exactly pale either, but at the very least he wasn¡¯t a scrawny old man like Zortady. Eisen was old, but anything but scrawny. Zortady took a look at the item and immediately understood what it seemed to be for. With a light smirk on his face, he squatted down onto the ground and scooped up a handful of sand that he ced into the tub that acted as the base for this item.And after pushing his mana into it, with a bit of a rattling sound the sand was sucked up and transported to the end of the rounded tubes. Just a little whileter, some crystal rods were pushed out of the ends of the tree tubes and dropped onto the ground when there wasn¡¯t any more sand left tobine it with.Zortady handed the item back to Eisen and then picked those three rods up and took a closer look at them. It seemed like he pushed some mana into them, but then just nodded his head in satisfaction. "Alright, these rods are perfectly pure, at least. It seems the crystals you made that item out of are pure too. Well, I guess that should be enough for you to pass my trial, huh?" Zortady asked with a light smile that contradicted his otherwise tired expression, and then looked at Eisen."Alright, you¡¯ve passed my trial." The Ancient Dragon said, and some notifications appeared in front of Eisen.[Title became ][Extraction Skill Learned][You have earned the right to ascend to bing a true Champion. You will be summoned for an audience with the Crystal Dragon King Trygan in 1 minute][Summoning Interrupted by Crystal Dragon King Trygan][The Crystal Dragon King has epted your strength and dedication. Title became ][As a , you have the right to be amongst those who lead the army of the Crystal Dragon King in the war against the Evil Dragon Queen][You have earned the gift of the Crystal Dragon King. Ability Learned andbined with your Soul][ Ability already part of your Soul. Ability rediscovered][ abilitybined with ability and became ability][Redundant Gift will be transformed into Experience instead][You are now Level 299][Level-Up Quest started]Eisen looked at the storm of notifications in front of him and just started tough loudly. "Haahh.. Just like I thought." The old man eximed after waving all of the notifications away.For now, he really didn¡¯t care too much about that ¡¯Extraction¡¯ skill. It was rather obvious what it was all about, after all. It would most likely just let him split alreadybined materials up again. It would definitely be useful in the process of salvaging what is left of alloys, and it would definitely make it easy to get high-purity materials in the future.What Eisen really wanted to try out was his new ability, the ¡¯Draconic Demon Transformation¡¯. Like normal, he tried to activate the transformation he was used to, but it seemed to have changed a fair bit to what it was before.First of all, without even using his size-changing ability, Eisen¡¯s body grew to three meters in height. His skin was still mostly made of rock, but instead of being just metallic-golden veins, he had golden crystals growing on him. It was as if all the cracks in his body were filled up with those crystals and produced a shine.The enchantments on his body as well, they were all filled in with golden crystals.The thin part of Eisen¡¯s wings, the part that would actually allow him to propell himself, became slightly translucent, while his regr rock-skin became more smooth and obviously far harder than usual. It seemed like his back was suddenly covered in scales as well, although they were mostly the color of his rock-skin, even if a bit darker. Those scales covered his back, his shoulders, his neck, and the back of his legs and arms.His fingers had practically turned into ws, although it seemed like he could turn them back into regr fingers again. And then, there were the parts that Eisen wasn¡¯t able to actually see just like this, for which he got a little bit of help from Sigurd by being handed a mirror.Eisen was able to see his own face and immediately saw the rather surprising changes. His eyes had changed a little, and while they were still golden, they had a far stronger shine to them and basically seemed more feral like those of a real dragon.His beard had parts of those golden crystals woven into it, while his horns had turned into the same golden crystals. But on top of that, he didn¡¯t just have tworge horns anymore, but instead two pairs of them. One pair was the same size as before, albeit in a slightly different shape, while the others were maybe half the size and ced right next to thoserger horns. They had a roughly simr shape, just a slight bit more stretched into length, it seemed.But somehow, despite his transformation suddenly changing this much without him intending for this to happen, Eisen really didn¡¯t mind. With a broad grin on his face, the old man changed his size to the maximum that he could, and was able to grow to a total size of roughly eight meters like this.Eisen looked down onto the body of the rather surpised Steel Dragon as he exined a few things to him to receive one of his steel scales. Once he managed to convince Zortady, he just turned around and then looked into the direction where he needed to go now.Once he made sure that the three monster children were safely on Fafnir¡¯s back and Fafnir would be able to follow behind him, Eisen jumped off the ground and used his new, strengthened wings to push himself up into the air. It seemed like he was even able to properly fly without using tricks now. Chapter 505 Fligh As Eisen carried himself through the air, all he could think about was how great this felt. He was actually just flying through the air, seeing the desert deep beneath him. It seemed beautiful to him, that¡¯s all that Eisen could call it, really.Underneath him, the old man could spot Fafnir in the form of a red blotch, and so he chose to just stop pping his wings for a while to drop back down toward the ground. Just a dozen or so meters above the desert ground again, Eisen pped his heavy, nearly shining wings and stopped his fall before just dropping the rest of the way like this, creating what was basically a small desert storm as he was at it.With a broad grin, Eisen turned toward Fafnir, and with that the three monster children as well as Sigurd, and squatted down a bit. "I think we should just get straight back home now, don¡¯t you guys think?" Eisen pointed out, and then proceeded to extend his hand toward the three monster children to pick them up. With his fully increased size of roughly eight meters now, the size of his apron increased together with him and the apron¡¯s pockets were nowrge enough to actually house the three of them again. Of course they would need to use Sal¡¯s magic to hold on just in case, but this would allow for fairly quicker movement.Especially once Eisen then picked Fafnir up as if he was carrying a pup, because that was theparative size between them right now, and made sure to keep holding onto the young dragon as well. It seemed like he would really be able to get home a fair bit quicker now.With a strong jump paired with a p of his wings, Eisen shot up into the sky at a rapid speed and soon started flying forward again. Eisen was surprised to notice that this fair bit of extra weight didn¡¯t change anything about how well he could fly right now, so he thought it couldn¡¯t hurt if he added another extrayer to this.Slowly he started to fill his wings up with his element as densely as he possibly could, evenpressing it inside of them, and tuned his elementpletely toward mes.With a few nces toward his wings as he was flying, Eisen could spot that this added an extrayer of golden crystals to his wings and actually fairly increased their size. Through this, Eisen¡¯s flight sped up even more, and he could see the towns and viges pass by underneath him.Just a few hourster, he could see the terrain changing from a desert into a t teau covered in grass that kept bing healthier and greener the further Eisen flew. It originally took them two days to get this far into the desert, but now they were able to get this far back within just six hours. With a broad smile on his face, Eisen slowly looked down."Are you all doing okay?" Eisen asked, his voice carrying surprisingly well despite the loud noise of the wind constantly passing them, and it seemed like everyone was actually enjoying this trip a fair bit. Even Fafnir was apparently quite happy about being this high in the sky. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if he ever saw this young dragon this excited before.And so, Eisen thought he came up with a rather good idea. He tried to adjust the way he was holding Fafnir so that he was just grabbing him by the sides of his body, and then started to instruct him."Alright, let¡¯s practice flying a bit now, alright?" The old man suggested, and could soon feel Fafnir¡¯s tail hit his leg after moving around excitedly, "Keep your body a bit tensed up to the point where you¡¯re actively controlling every part of your body. So don¡¯t slouch, alright?" Eisen said, and he could soon feel Fafnir¡¯s muscles tense up just like the old man instructed, and then moved on."Spread your wings out as much as you can." In response to this instruction, Fafnir slowly did as told and tried to spread his wings out while they were already travelling at this high speed. It seemed like the wind pressure was intimidating him a lot, and Eisen could feel that Fafnir was being pulled back a fair bit. So, the old man slowed down a little again and let Fafnir try again, while Eisen made sure that Fafnir was holding his wings correctly so that there was as little air-resistance as possible from the front."Sal, bind Fafnir and I together, but leave maybe ten meters of thread loosely." The old man suggested, and the spider boy, swiftly understanding what it was for, did just as asked and hooked the old man and Fafnir together for safety.And then Eisen kept speaking to Fafnir some more."Keep your body like that. You know how to glide a little already, so just try to do just that." Eisen said, and after receiving a small grunt from Fafnir that seemed to be an ¡¯Okay¡¯, the old man slowly let go of Fafnir¡¯s body.He was just gliding there like this for a little while, albeit while constantly dropping in altitude. But luckily, that¡¯s exactly what the thread Eisen had Sal use to connect them was for. Like this, Fafnir could just practice gliding for a while without needing to worry about dropping down to the ground. It was basically like tandem-flying.Since the thread also helped Fafnir keep the same speed that Eisen was going at up a bit more easily, the dragon could just concentrate on learning how he needed to move his wings. The method of how to do so was ingrained in his very soul, so he was actually able to learn this fairly well.With a broad smile on his face, Eisen happily watched while Fafnir was starting to get the hang of it. Although a few hourster, it seemed like both the dragon, and the draconic demon, were both a little exhausted, so Eisen chose to descent nearby in a rtively open area.There were only a few rank 3 monsters around here as well, so there was no need to worry all that much about being attacked either. And so, Eisen just cut the thread that was connecting him and Fafnir and let the Dragon sleep for a little while, while Eisen just leaned against a giant boulder and rxed a bit while Sal, Caria and Melissa went out to stretch some.Slowly, mist started to stream out of the amulet connected to the ne around Eisen¡¯s neck and turned into the figure of Kirisho on top of the old man¡¯s palm."You have quite enjoyed this trip back so far, haven¡¯t you?" She asked with a light chuckle, and with augh on his own, Eisen just nodded his head, "I really have. It¡¯s been fun. And I¡¯m d that the trip back won¡¯t be taking too long. Since I have my level-up quest now, I can start working on it really soon as well." The old man pointed out, and slowly chose to just pull up the screen of his Level-Up Quest. He had briefly looked at it already, but he didn¡¯t really register too much about it. In the first ce, he hadn¡¯t expected to all of a sudden level up a couple more times like that, so he wasn¡¯t entirely sure how to react to all of a sudden getting his quest far earlier than he thought he would.[Level Up Quest ¨C Road to 300][Description] You have reached level 299 and as such, have gained the right to work toward reaching level 300. These are your requirements as calcted by your actions so far:-cksmithing, Tialoring, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Alchemy Skills at Rank 5-Racial Skills at Rank 5upation Skill Crafting Space at Rank 5, Crafter¡¯s Mind at Rank 4, Ego-Item Creation at rank 3-Mana Maniption, me of the Earth Magic at Rank 5; Mana double, mana copy at Rank 4-Woodworking, Cooking, Drawing, Tool Connection, Soul Engineering, Farming, Mining, Masonry, Woodcutting Skills at Rank 4-All Draconic Gifts at rank 4-Be a King-Spend a total of 3 days in flight[Reward] Level increased to 300[Failure] Not possibleEisen looked through the skill-rank requirements and just ended up ncing at them just so slightly, since he had already basically expected such requirements in the first ce, but he was a bit surprised because of the ¡¯Be a King¡¯ thing. Sure, these requirements were specifically calctaed by the system for Eisen, so it knew that he was rtively close to bing a king, but it still felt pretty easy to be something impossible to aplish.Since this was the easiest, or rather only, thing that could be messed up by external forces, Eisen was slowly starting to grow a bit more nervous. A lot of things depended on him bing a King. Without that, they wouldn¡¯t be able to unlock the puzzle-box anymore, and that would most likely result inpletely stagnant self-discovery. Meaning, all five originals would have a harder time finding out who they used to be. And that wasn¡¯t something that Eisen wanted to happen at all.With a slight groan, Eisen waved the quest-screen away and grumbled a bit to himself. All the other parts, those that were rted to generically leveling up skills, weren¡¯t all that big of an issue. Eisen just had to spend some time crafting as much as he could. It would literally just be a matter of time until Eisen managed to get his skills to rank up again. It would most likely take a lot of time, to be fair, but even that was something that Eisen didn¡¯t necessarily mind.He loved crafting, after all. So he didn¡¯t mind doing so constantly, he just didn¡¯t like that it would still take so long until he was able to finish this quest.Either way, thinking that Eisen should try to get ready to keep flying, he stood back up and just stretched a bit. His whole body created loud cracks that were at the level of a building copsing, although that was really just Eisen¡¯s body adjusting to his movement again. He picked the three monster children back up, had Kirisho return to her ne, and then asked Sal to connect him and Fafnir again.And so the old man picked the dragon back up and continued flying. Once he was ready to do so again, Eisen let Fafnir try to fly alone once more. Just like that, they continued along the rest of the way, until they could spot the harbor town and the ocean in the distance. Chapter 506 Lets go to the mall A little bit away from town, at a spot that seemed to not have any people around, Eisen prepared for his descent. This time around instead of letting himself drop down, he was actually trying to glide down there and properly use his wings for a controlled descent.The moment that his feet hit the ground, he picked up the three monster children from his apron and ced them onto the ground while snapping the thread connecting him with Fafnir again before deactivating his new demonic transformation while shrinking down to his regr size.He climbed onto Fafnir¡¯s back with the children and then started to ride the dragon the rest of the way to town instead, so that there was nobody that could freak out over seeing a Draconic Demon flying toward the town. Although, there were probably a few people that spotted him, but Eisen figured it wouldn¡¯t be an issue if he just turned back into his regr form. He doubted anyone would be able to really recognize him as that being.Eisen approached the town and was swiftly let in since he didn¡¯t have a carriage that needed to be checked this time, and then made his way through town as quickly as he could. Of course he wasn¡¯t on Fafnir¡¯s back for this anymore, since this town was rather busy, but instead he simply stepped off and tried to push his way through the crowd.How he increased his size to his five-meter maximum to get everyone to properly notice him and step out of his way helped as well, of course. Some of the people seemed to recognize him, however. They tried to follow him, but instead of humoring them for a while, Eisen just kept walking while the children were riding on Fafnir¡¯s back still.Soon, Eisen reached the building of the Starlight Company, this huge mall that seemed to have a fair amount of customers at the moment. Dozens of people were streaming in and out of the building at the same time, so Eisen was rather d to see that everything was going well.The old man stepped up to the entrance, that he was luckily able to pass through, since Komer had the building constructed so that it could even fit thergest amongst Titans, and then just stood there for a little while trying to take a look at the ce from the inside.There really were some nts and trees nted everywhere, and it really just seemed quite scenic no matter how Eisen looked at it. There were of course numerous shops here, many even run by NPCs and yers, meaning that Komer¡¯s n to rent everything out worked quite well, but the ones that had the most business get to them were thergest shops that Komer himself was running.Everything was properly set up in the magic-item shop, and Komer wasrgely advertising different contract scrolls as well as potions. The section thetter was ced was even properly made to now disy the process of forming the ss bottles as well as filling them with the actual potions using the mass-production system, like Eisen suggested it could be shown.Then there were of course the other stores run by komer that were for example selling different materials for arts or crafts, and music stores were some different instruments could be bought.And to Eisen¡¯s surprise, Komer apparently managed to get everything ready for the Pet-Shop already. Well, notpletely. It wasn¡¯t actually open yet, seemingly, but there was arge advertisement for it right in front of the entrance to that shop, and basically everywhere around the whole mall."In three days, huh?" Eisen muttered quietly as he looked at the date for that shop¡¯s opening, and then just chose to keep walking around a little bit to take a look at some of the other shops, those that weren¡¯t run by Starlight.But while Eisen was walking around, a notification soon popped up in front of him telling him that Komer wanted to chat with him. Quickly epting, another message appeared in front of him.[Komer] Come to the outside of the north entrance, there¡¯s an employee entrance there. I¡¯lle downstairs and let you inWith a light smile on his face, Eisen waved the notification away and chose to do like Komer said, quickly making his way toward the north entrance and stepped back outside. He looked around for a little bit until he spotted another, actually quite well-hidden door to the side of the northern entrance.And as that door was opening up, Eisen shrunk back down to his regr size and had Fafnir step in first, while Eisen was trying to make sure none of the yers that were following him coulde through this door to follow them.After Eisen himself stepped into the building and the door closed, the old man first looked down at the young man standing there. He was wearing the suit that Eisen made for him a while back, seemingly trying to look as neat as he could, and had his hair slicked back.Of course they first properly greeted each other with a short hug, and then continued along the hallway in front of them that would lead them toward the stairs upward into the ¡¯meeting rooms¡¯. Komer was seemingly also renting spaces upstairs out as apartments and guild-halls, even. Surprisingly enough, a fair amount of people actually chose to take advantage of this."Most of them are unbearably rich though." Komer grumbled quietly, and Eisen looked back at him with a brow slightly raised, "Says the currently most-likely heir of a billion-dor conglomerate." The old man pointed out, and Komer just looked back with a light smile for a moment and then turned back forward. This seemed slightly weird to Eisen, but Komer seemingly tried to act as if nothing was wrong, so the old man respected his wishes and yed along, "Right, but those guys act like they literally own the world. They¡¯re like how I used to be, to be honest. Some of them even tried to give offers to Jyuuk, Xenia and Brody to join their guilds whenever they saw them walking around.""Oh?" Eisen replied quietly, "I¡¯m sure none of them replied in an especially nice way, huh?""Yeah... I¡¯m not going to lie, I actually had to bribe some guards before because Brody tried to attack one of the people that kept trying to invite him over and over again. He was an annoying ass, sure, but I think Brody still kind of overdid it trying to turn him into whatever-his-name on a stick."With a light chuckle, Eisen nodded his head as they all started walking up the stairs that seemed to lead to the top floor, the penthouse that Komer constructed at the top of the mall.Once they made their way up there, Eisen was actually rather surprised to see that they could quite literally see every part of this town right now. This mall was the highest structure in the whole town, seemingly."Well then, this is a nice sight, isn¡¯t it?" The old man chuckled, and Komer just slightly smiled as he sat down at the table where currently the sleeping Xenia and Jyuuk were sitting as well."Go ahead and sit wherever." Komer pointed out, so Eisen swiftly did just as the merchant suggested. And as he was sitting down, Eisen noticed the dim light of a crystal floating a few meters above the table, protected by what at first nce seemed to be simply decoration hanging from the roof."Ah, so this is where you ced your sub-guild¡¯s crystal?" Eisen asked, before Komer immediately nodded, "Yup. I figured, since this would most likely turn out to be thergest ce that Starlight is owning anytime soon, this would be the best ce to put it." Komer pointed out, and the old man slowly nodded his head."Got it, got it. I¡¯m just curious, but is there any ce I could set up shop here for a while from now on?" Eisen asked with a light smile, and with a soft chuckle, Komer stood back up and chose to walk toward the hallway behind him, "I figured that you guys would be asking for things like that, so I had some special rooms built for each of you. A training room with walls that have physical resistance, including a bunch of dummies and training weapons for Brody. Then a room with magic-resistant walls as well as a research section, of course split up by another wall just to be safe. I filled a room with a bunch of instruments and art-supplies for Evalia, and the walls are made to support painting-type magic if she wants to paint on the walls. For Jyuuk, I..." Komer said, and then slightly started to scratch the back of his head."I didn¡¯t know what exactly to put, to be honest. Sure, I gave him some growth-beds and materials to work with, but other than that, I didn¡¯t really know what to put. He has so many different tamed monsters, after all." The young merchant pointed out, before they reached arge door at the end of the hallway."And then, there¡¯s a room for you that I filled with anything you might need. And that really is just a set-in marble workstation, specific workstations for Parc and Rouge, as well as arge space that can support your magic a bit more so you can have higher control over your mes in your forge. I didn¡¯t set anything specific in there so you could change your sizes, and possibly use the space to build somerger things." Komer exined as he pushed the door open, showing Eisen therge space that was just as Komer described it to be. Parc and Rouge were currently working here to Eisen¡¯s surprise, actually."Ah, you¡¯ll just have to enchant some of the crystals set into that room¡¯s walls with your element, I couldn¡¯t find anyone with the me of the earth element that could do that instead, sorry." Komer apologized slightly, but Eisen justughed loudly and happily."Oh, don¡¯t worry about that! This is great! Thank you!" Eisen eximed, immediately getting him the attention of his two apprentices, both of which dropped what they were doing instantly to greet their teacher."You¡¯re back!" Rouge eximed loudly, and immediately, Eisen could hear some footsteps in the distance before Komer continued."Right, I also gave everyone bedrooms up here." Komer exined to the old man, who slowly turned away after greeting his apprentices properly, just to see five half-dragons and two fey-kin make their way toward him with happy and reliefed expressions. Chapter 507 Starting the grind With a bright smile on his face, Eisen swiftly greeted everyone and then started to exin the situation of what exactly happened on his trip to see thest dragon. Of course, the thing that Eisen was most excited to reveal was his Draconic Demon transformation, and the fact that it brought along his Demonic title just like he had hoped it would. And then there was how he had leveled up to get to level 299."So you¡¯re ready to get to Level 300 now? I¡¯m just working on my quest to get to Level 200..." Komer pointed out slightly jealously, and the old man just looked at him with a chuckle, "Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll get there soon." Eisen pointed out, "Your quest shouldn¡¯t be too tough, right?""Right, but it¡¯s still pretty annoying, especially when I have to take care of so much paperwork... Seriously, this isn¡¯t what I imagined would happen when I started p-" Komer muttered, although he ripped his eyes wide open and then looked around with a startled, wry smile and soon stuttered, "When I st-started p-p...nning to follow you! That¡¯s it, yeah!"With a deep sigh, Eisen shook his head and looked down at the young man, "For a merchant, you don¡¯t always have a great way with words, huh?" He asked, and then just looked at the others, "Don¡¯t worry, they all know. They¡¯re aware of the whole ¡¯Game¡¯ and ¡¯yer¡¯ thing. Actually, it seems like they know a little more than you do when ites to this situation." Eisen pointed out, and Komer just stared at the old man confusedly."Wait, what? Are they yers too? But... heh? I¡¯m confused, just..." Komer mumbled, really unsure how he should be reacting right now, but Eisen just shook his head."They¡¯re not yers. They¡¯re people of this world." Eisen pointed out, and then ced his hand on Komer¡¯s back for a moment as he led the young man along the hallway, signaling the others to give them a little bit of space for now.And so, since nobody else seemed to have done so until now, Eisen chose to tell Komer all that he needed to know about what was actually going on in this ce. This world, their original world, how both were indubitably real, the same with their inhabitants.Then there was of course the part with Eisen¡¯s guess of Samuel trying to either heavily injure or even kill the five originals in the world where they were actually capable of dying without a chance of resurrection.Of course, Komer had a rather tough time believing all this, meaning that he didn¡¯tpletely believe it from the beginning, but the more Komer realized that Eisen was actually being serious, the more he was wavering.Sure, there were some weird things going on, but he never expected it was something like this. Because this was literally just insane instead of just weird. Eisen moved his fingers through his beard and just lightly smiled at Komer as he headed back toward the hallway, "I can understand if you¡¯re hesitant to believe me. But really, I just told you the truth. Fair enough, a truth that not even I fully understand, but a truth nheless. We¡¯ll be able to exin it to you some more rather soon, I¡¯m sure."And with those words, Eisen made his way back into the room that was supposed to be his own workshop in this building, and then took a look at the wall covered with numerous different materials prepared by Komer beforehand.With a smile, Eisen swiftly grabbed a couple of literally random gems, crystals, metals, and even some bones and scales from different monsters and sat down in his workspace while surrounded by the others, who were curiously trying to see what Eisen was about to do with these.Once the old man had prepared everything and sorted them into rather weird groups. Basically, he had each material on its own, as well as each materialbined with any one other material grouped up, and then looked over at Caria with a smile on his face."Alright then, Caria, can you give me five different types of seeds? I think what would be good would be Rose, Apple, Melon, and then some hazelnuts and seeds for any berry-bush that you may have?" Eisen asked her, and with a bright smile and quick nod, Caria pushed her hand into the small spatial pouch that she had with her at all times. Even she couldn¡¯t grow things from nothing, after all.She swiftly produced four of the five types of seeds, but it seemed like she didn¡¯t have any hazelnuts at the moment, although Komer slightly grumbled and turned around, saying that there should be some in Jyuuk¡¯s room. He was seemingly quite curious about what Eisen was going to try doing, so he hurried up and tried to go get them immediately, even if he was still trying to cope with what exactly he was just told.Either way, first, Eisen prepared the base materials properly. For one, he tried to ¡¯merge¡¯ the material-groups together, even if he didn¡¯t directly merge them and just roughly attached them to each other so that you couldn¡¯t easily pull them apart. And then, Eisen split up each material and material-group into five smaller pieces, and then slowly grabbed one of the Rose seeds as well as the small chunks of regr mana crystals.And now, as if he wasbining two crystals with each other, Eisen split his mana up into two ¡¯types¡¯ and pushed one type into the seed while the other went into the mana crystal, before slowly merging them together.The now crystal-seed was ced to the side while the others looked at it rather curiously. "What is it, exactly?" Sky asked curiously, and Eisen just lightly smiled, "Well, rtively soon, that¡¯s going to grow into a mana-crystal rose." Eisen exined with a smile on his face, and then looked over toward Sigurd, who was also curiously watching the old man work."Can you nt this in that hidden space we¡¯ve made on one of the forest Floors?" Eisen asked with a smile. There was the ¡¯Bedroom¡¯ inside of the dungeon that Eisen and the others were frequently using on their travelstely, and right next to that, Eisen and Sigurd started building another space directly adjacent to that which Eisen wanted to use to experiment with the material-growth skill.With a quick, yful salute, Sigurd grabbed the crystal-seed and disappeared inside of the dungeon beforeing back a few momentster, at which point Eisen had prepared the next rose seed. And then the next, and then the next, and all that happened at first was Eisen continuosly creating more seeds out of the materials so that Sigurd could nt them properly.And while he was working, Eisen soon found that he was sadly unable to create seeds out of the bones and scales just yet. It seemed like this kind of thing had to wait a bit longer. So instead, Eisen chose to just continue making seeds out of the numerous materialbinations that he had there.Or at least that¡¯s what he was nning, but even then, he wasn¡¯t able to actually go through with it. With a deep grumble, Eisen looked down at the ground and asked Sigurd to store these materials somewhere forter. "I hate Rank 0 skills." The old man grumbled, and then started working on something else as well, although it was something that everyone seemingly thought to be quite weird.Because what Eisen was doing now was justbining two different types of crystal with each other before splitting them back up. And that was all that Eisen was doing while seemingly trying to think."Erm, what are you doing right there?" Morgus asked with a slight frown, and Eisen looked at the ck Half-Dragon with a smile and quickly exined, "This is the skill I got from thest of the five Dragons I visited. It¡¯s the Extraction skill, so now I can split items I¡¯ve put together back up." The old man pointed out, and then looked at the crystal in his hand.The process of splitting something up was actually quite simr to the process of putting two materials together. In thetter, you had to split your mana into two parts, push either part into the one material, and the other into the other material, and then you just had to bring the two types of mana together again.If you wanted to extract something, you had to split off part of your mana from the mana inside of a material made of different parts. For example, with these crystals, Eisen would think of his regr mana inside of it as the wholebined crystal. But he would make himself aware that they were two different types of mana, each belonging to either of the materials, and then he would pull one of the types of mana out of his regr mana.And like that, Eisen was able to rtively quickly and easily get this done. Thinking that this would be a rtively easy way to practice and bring the extraction skill to Rank 1 for now, the old man just kept going while receiving some other information from everyone.For example, information on how the mall was going, how many people were currently traveling to the inds, and of course what kind of items Eisen could be making for the mall. He had to quite literally work non-stop for a few days, or even weeks, anyway. So he wanted to at least use that time to work on something useful.For his leatherworking and tailoring skills, Eisen already had a few good ideas, like just making a mass amount of clothes, bags and shoes, but when it came to different weapons, Eisen was a slight bit more hesitant, because weapons were something that was needed the most. He didn¡¯t want to waste his time making 100 swords if only ten were needed, and the shops instead required 90 more shields.Since pretty clothes and bags were a luxury, that was another deal of course, so Eisen didn¡¯t mind making too much of one since they would most likely end up being sold rather soon anyway.So, Eisen was swiftly told that he would be getting a list about everything that might be needed at the shops in a bit, and so, the old man chose to get started on the items that he knew would be needed first.With a crack of his knuckles, Eisen pulled out his hammer from his apron and looked at it with a smile, excited to see it get to the point where Eisen could bring it to Rank 5 soon. Chapter 508 Gut-Feeling "Next sword done." Eisen announced as he confirmed the piece of metal in front of him properly having turned into the item that the old man wanted it to be. He reached the hand that was currently holding the sword to the side and handed it to Rouge, who quickly got to work on polishing it some more to prepare it to be sold."What item¡¯s next?" The old man asked, before Parc immediately ced some more materials in front of Eisen, all of them properly prepared for Eisen to work with them instantly, and the young man quickly exined, "A warhammer, 150 centimeter handle, the hammerhead 50 by 30 by 30rge at least. One side is supposed to be a pick." Parc exined, and Eisen immediatley nodded his head as he grabbed the piece of wood that Parcid down next to him and then looked at his tool, quickly catching the pieces of it that just automatically dropped off.With a smile Eisen looked at his multitool, that had finally been turned into an ego-item with an ego-rank of 5 a couple of days ago, and then got started on his work. The multitool could switch its modes basically on its own now without Eisen needing to do any of it manually. It would just react to what Eisen wanted to do and then change its mode ordingly."Any element?" The old man asked as he turned toward Parc, but the young man just shook his head, "No, just a regr one. But still enchanted, of course."With a quick nod, Eisen continued his work and started using the white knife in his hand to carve into the wood in front of him to properly turn it into a handle that was easy to grab onto. Then he also prepared both ends of the long handle for either the hammerhead or the counterweight on the other hand, just to make sure that it would be easy to safely attach either of themter on.It didn¡¯t really take all that long to get this part of it done, so Eisen next just turned around and ced the steel that was prepared already into the forge. Once it had heated up properly, Eisen grabbed it out of the forge and started hammering it into shape, although he left a little bit of excess for now so that he could more easily carve the metal into shape afterward.And of course, that step came after the rough shape was done, and Eisen just sted the outside in heat so that it would turn softer more easily before using his chisel to basically push it into the right shape. He even used his fingers sometimes, but for the most part, he just tried to use his tools.Of course, the decoration wasn¡¯t all that prominent with this hammer, Eisen still wanted to give it a bit of a shape so that the collision with enemies had a stronger impact at least visually. Then, the old man cracked his knuckles to loosen his fingers up a little bit and then let this hammer-head cool for now while he ced the me-of-the-earth mythril alloyed with mostly steel, into the forge.A couple of minutester, the metal had be hot enough to work with and Eisen grabbed it out of the forge to hammer it into a thin panel, which was soon punched into the right shape so that the old man could pull it over the front of the warhammer.Luckily, it was rather easy to tten the mythril-steel alloy on the warhammer¡¯s surface while pushing it into all the small nooks and crannies that it needed to go, at least when Eisen was using his fingers to directly push it around. He really could have used this sort of ability in the past in the other world. Well, if he had this sort of ability, he probably never would have started ying in the first ce, since he would be able to continue his work in real life. Eisen never would have been injured in the first ce, and would have never felt the need to escape into a virtual world. Even if he now knew that this world was anything but virtual.Either way, Eisen swiftly continued and tried to keep pushing the mythril-steel alloy into ce while it slowly cooled down and hardened. Once it was hard and cool enough to do so, Eisen ced his finger toward the side of the hammer and soon saw one of the needles twist out of it before dropping onto the old man¡¯s finger.With a satisfied smile, Eisen just got started on carving into the metal, enchanting it with the basic stuff in the direction of ¡¯force¡¯ or ¡¯durability¡¯, simply the kind of thing that most blunt weapons without a specific purpose were enchanted with. It wasn¡¯t like this was the item that someone requested orissioned, it was simply an item that Eisen was preparing to be sold at a shop in the mall.When the hammerhead was properly enchanted, Eisen handed it over to Parc so that he could get going with sharpening the pick at the other end, and then grabbed the handle himself so that he could enchant it with the regr old handle-enchantments. And those usually went into the direction of increasing the grip that you had on the handle, something that was important especially with extremely heavy items like this.Other than that, Eisen simply grabbed one of the many metal spheres that he had made beforehand and heated it up a little bit to give it a slight indenture that the handle could be rather easily attached to in a little bit.Of course, this sphere already had a three-dimensional enchantment in it to react to the current orientation of the item and then counterbnce it. Eisen just had to carve a bit more onto the outer surface to make sure the enchantment was properly attuned to this specific warhammer.By the time Eisen was done with all this, Parc also finished sharpening the pick, so Eisen could finally put the whole item together. He ced the hammerhead onto the ground upside down and then just pushed the handle inside of the small hole that Eisen started making with his hammer and a chisel, and then increased just so slightly bypressing the parts around the hole some more with transmutation.And now that the handle was inside that hole, Eisen just dpressed the steel until it fit tightly around the handle without any chance of identally ripping apart while it was swung around.Then Eisen just had to do the same with the counterweight on the other side of the warhammer, and then looked at it closely with a quick nod."Alright, seems good. Parc, Rouge, what do you think?" The old man asked as he turned toward his two apprentices, but the two of them just quickly nodded their heads excitedly, "It looks really great!" Rouge eximed, and Parc immediately agreed."Yeah!" He added, but Eisen just chuckled a bit and shook his head, "No, no, that¡¯s not what I was asking. Thanks anyway, though." The old man pointed out, "It¡¯s like what we were trying the other day, what do you think the effects of this will be? If you know what you need to focus on, how the whole system works, and how different methods and materials influence the final item, then it should be rather easy to figure out in what range the item effects will be, right?" Eisen exined, before Parc and Rouge both just went quiet for a little bit."True..." Rouge muttered after a little while, although he didn¡¯t seem all that confident after hearing Eisen¡¯s opinion on this, "Don¡¯t worry, just go with a wild guess from your gut for now. If for any item you make, or if you¡¯re there for the production of an item by another person, then just do your best and guess. If you¡¯re too far off, then you can start thinking about why the actual result was so different from what you thought it could be. Slowly but surely, you should develop a feeling for it." The old man exined to them reassuredly, and both of his apprentices nodded his head.Although, someone else had a bit of a question in this regard, "And you have that feeling for it despite only working with this stuff for a few months? You said you don¡¯t have stats or levels over there, right?" Morgus asked with an annoyed grumble.The five half-dragons, together with sky and bree, were basically constantly watching Eisen work for the past while if they weren¡¯t busy training. Of course, Bree also spent quite a lot of time with Dien, so these seven weren¡¯t always here. Well, Sky mostly was, although he probably paid the least attention out of all of them since he was constantly reading something.Either way, with a smile on his face, Eisen turned over toward the ck-half dragon and swiftly answered his questions, "Yes, we don¡¯t have things like that over here. But even then, I picked up my first hammer when I was maybe six or seven. And a lot of things when ites to general logic are things that I am currently receiving from the Eisen from before our experience was stolen." The old man exined, and Morgus slightly grumbled, "Sure, good excuse." He muttered, and Eisen just chose to ignore Morgus for now. He was aware that this half-dragon had a bit of a hard time epting everything that Eisen had told them asplete truth, but that was simply how it was.The old man turned back toward his two apprentices and waited for an answer. It seemed like it took them a while to get there, but they both managed to make rtively good guesses, and once Eisen actually ¡¯finished¡¯ the warhammer, he showed the information to the two of them so that they could see how far off they were.They were actually far closer than Eisen would have thought they were, but since they couldn¡¯t really exin to the old man why the effects were exactly what they were, Eisen figured it was really mostly gut-feeling. And that was fine for now, it¡¯s what he suggested, after all. But it was important to be able to find the logic behind your gut-feeling, or else you wouldn¡¯t get anywhere. Just living on gut alone was never a good choice, at least as far as Eisen was concerned.Even if he often made choices that others may seem as rash or emotion-driven, it¡¯s not like he ever made any major moves without at least thinking it through a little. Chapter 509 Mock-Spiri Eisen pushed one of his needles through the cloth in his hand, and in the next moment just snapped the thread and tied it to the other end of the thread that he had just returned to. And just like that, Eisen finished making another shirt for the clothes-shop down in the mall. Out of his main crafting skills, the only ones that weren¡¯t close to Rank 5 just yet were leatherworking and tailoring. He had spent a good while working on a bunch of different potions and enchantments, a process that spanned a couple of days.In general, Eisen had been spending every free moment trying to work. He spent a couple of hours outside of the game, to let ¡¯Eisen¡¯ rest a little, but whenever he got back he was already inside of the workshop, ready to keep working. His apprentices had a little more freetime, of course. Eisen had them help out at least eight hours a day, and for the rest of the day they could choose to do whatever they wanted to. Sometimes they chose to help Eisen some more, and the rest of the time they just worked on some smaller projects themselves, went for walks around town, and actually made some more friends from around the town. Eisen was pretty d to see that they weren¡¯t as absorbed into everything as Eisen himself was at their age.He had basically dropped out of high-school just to keep practicing, after all. Right now, the old man was trying to bring all his main crafting skills to level 99, something that he luckily achieved by finishing thisst piece of an outfit. With a light smile, Eisen got ready to bring his crafting skills to Rank 5. Since the fifth rank was an important point for any sort of skill, Eisen wanted to take his time to explore any and all changes there were with these skills.At rank 5, a skill can evolve. Mostly, it could turn into a variety skill. For example, if Eisen had only ever made weapons with his cksmithing skill, then that cksmithing skill would turn into the weaponsmithing skill. But it seemed like even if a skill didn¡¯t turn into a variety skill, it usually just stayed the regr skill while opening up the door to learn more skills. It was the same with enchanting and the magic inscription skill.Very rarely, however, if one was capable of making use of a skill better than the rank would insinuate, it was possible to simply get a direct upgrade to the skill that you had at the moment. For example, the cksmithing skill would turn into ¡¯Advanced cksmithing¡¯. And that¡¯s exactly what Eisen was aiming for. Of course, the abilities that he got in the past wouldn¡¯t change, and the rate at which his proficiency was going to rise would be iparably low to normal, meaning that it might take two or three times longer to rank up to 6 than it normally would, but in return, Eisen would get something even better.Any effect of an item created using the advanced cksmithing skill was increased, while the requirement was heavily decreased, while giving Eisen the ability to actually ¡¯edit¡¯ such effects and requirements a little bit. That was the most important thing to Eisen at the moment. Equipment could change an incredible amount over a person¡¯s ability that it would be dumb not to try and get this advanced skill.Since Eisen was above even a Limitbreaker, a Skybreacher, it was obvious that he had arge part of what he needed to get the advanced cksmithing skill down already, but there was something else that he needed to do as well. And that ¡¯something else¡¯ was the creation of a special sort of item. An item that transcended the skill itself. That could either mean just breaking the limit while making the item that he needed to rank the skill up, or that could mean using abilities that weren¡¯t part of the regr skill to make the item.There weren¡¯t that many people with the advanced cksmithing skill, but since he luckily knew one of the few that did, he was able to get a few tips. The same was the case with the other advanced skills, tailoring, leatherworking, alchemy and enchanting. He was friends with all the people that knew about how to get the advanced skill, and coincidentally, those four people would be arriving in this town quite soon.Today, actually.Roughly two weeks ago, Eisen was sent a letter by them saying that they made the choice to move to the inds, and that they would start travelling to the harbor town soon. And the date they told Eisen for their arrival was today.The old man was sure that they didn¡¯t somehow miscalcte, and since they surely had all they needed to properly get to this town in a straightforward manner, Eisen wasn¡¯t worried about them getting to the town a bitter than they said they would either.It would probably still take a little while, and since Melissa¡¯s bees were already heading out to see if they could spot the group approaching, Eisen was sure he could take his time and try his best to bring some of his other skills up in the meantime. And since he was quite curious about them, as they were the most out-of-the-way skills he had, Eisen chose to get started with advancing the skills he got through the dragons. Luckily, what he got through Trygan was an ability instead of a skill, because Eisen wasn¡¯t necessarily in the mood to try and bring another Rank 0 skill up all the way to four. The Material-Growth skill already ranked up once, though, same with the extraction skill. The former ranked up just because the seeds that Eisen created finally grew up properly, and thetter because Eisen kept ying around with it.Right now, Eisen was simply trying toe up with some ways to further increase those two skills. He might try to use the crystal nts in particr to practice enchanting with special effects though. But just when he was thinking about that kind of thing, another idea came to mind.Eisen quicklypressed some of his mana on his palm, until it was just a small rock, and then grabbed one of the rose seedsying on the table in the corner and simply tried tobine them. Just like this, it didn¡¯t really work, however. Crystalized mana in itself wasn¡¯t a material, after all. It was more like a fuel, of sorts. You could use it to activate enchantments or to store excessive mana forter, but you couldn¡¯t usually craft with it. Usually."Mana Crystal." Eisen said with a light smirk on his face, assigning another type of crystal¡¯s behaviour to this crystalized mana before trying again. And behold! Eisen was able tobine the seed with the crystalized mana now.With a curious smile, Eisen handed the seed over to Sigurd and asked the core guardian to nt it as well so that Eisen could see what exactly would happen, before trying to repeat the same thing with some other types of mana. And those types were really just different elemental types. Either the basic ones that Eisen had ess to, or even a bit of the mana that the others here had. It seemed like especially Kiron¡¯s Crystal-me and Sky¡¯s Inkheart elements would turn into quite interesting roses. But for now, Eisen just had to wait and see. It took a couple weeks for these to sprout as well, after all.Either way, since the old man justbined mana with something living, it reminded him of a project that he wanted to work on since getting the magic-craftsmanship skill in the first ce, and as such, quickly got out some of therger clumps of mana that he had.First, to test it out in the first ce, Eisen chose to go ahead and try it with the base elements. He took arge amount of earth elemental mana-crystals and slowly assigned different materials to them. For example, there was arge amount that he simply assigned to be rock, while others became mana-crystals and some were even turned into marble.One of those mana-mana-crystals was then used as a base. Eisen formed it into a sphere with transmutation and then grabbed some of the mana-marble-balls to enchant it with everything that a golem core needed. Before moving on, Eisen simply grabbed a nk soul and ced it into the hollow interior of the unfinished golem core to turn it into an ego-golem core.Then, the mana-rock was used to create a rough, maybe one meter tall humanoid body. Sure, there wasn¡¯t any sort of detail, and Eisen didn¡¯t try to use the systems that he usually did with trying to give the golem different joints to ease the possible movement. This was really just a rough prototype to see if this would work at all.And with a light, curious smile, Eisen got started and started just so slightly turning the earth-mana into actual rock. Of course, he didn¡¯t go all the way, but just stopped midway. It was like the point at which elemental spirits usually were at. Because what Eisen wanted to create was nothing else but an artificial elemental spirit.Once the old man poured his regr mana into the mana ego-golem-core, he soon started to notice some changes on the golem¡¯s body. It actually started to move! It was kind of weird actually. Since its body was still mostly made of mana, it was able to change the volume of its body to an extent. Its limbs in particr were shifting in size a bit, and its whole body was constantly either growing or shrinking by roughly twenty centimeters.This slowed down after a while once it got used to its body, of course, but for the most part its body was still kind of shifting and changing the whole time. "Hmm..." Eisen hummed quietly. It seemed to work, sure, but... was there really a reason behind it? It wasn¡¯t actually like a spirit, after all. It was more like an... intelligent spell, more than anything else. This might be useful in some other situation, but as a recement for a spirit, probably not so much.Eisen would show it to Xeniater and then ask for her opinion, but for now, the old man just wanted to make some more of these mock-spirits made of different elements, just to give Xenia as much to y around with as possible. He really wanted to make use of this somehow. They needed as much manpower when going to the giant country as they could get. Chapter 510 Caravan For now, Eisen created a number of these mock-spirits, using whatever different types of mana he could currently ess. That meant of course the six basic types of mana, although he had to pay some people a little bit of money so that he could take their element to be able to create all six of the basic elemental types of mana. He could just go ahead and try to buy the crystalized mana somewhere, sure, but he would rather just be able to create it on his own rather than have to wait for ¡¯Shipments¡¯. Either way, for now, Eisen just created that basic, one meter tall humanoid golem out of any element that he had so that he could figure out what kinds of uses they had. For now, he figured that he should wait and use whatever chances came up in the future to figure out what exactly he could use them for. And since it would probably make it a lot easier, Eisen asked everyone to take care of this with their ¡¯own¡¯ golem. So, for example, Sky walked around with the ¡¯Inkheart¡¯ golem, Caria with the ¡¯Mushroom Forest¡¯ Golem, and Melissa with the ¡¯Hive¡¯ Golem. He even made sure that they were the ones to activate the golems in the first ce, so that they would actually belong to them. Although, it seemed like Melissa managed to figure out a use for her Mock-Spirit already. The mock-spirit basically lookedpletely like a figurine made of beeswax, the outside of its body covered inrge hexagonal holes. And of course, it seemed like Melissa was able to make them crawl through those holes. Like with the bees that were currently in Melissa¡¯s own body, the total volume of the bees far exceeded what the small body could have logically taken in. But, since Melissa¡¯s element seemed to work like normal, the others figured it would be a good idea to try out to see if their mock-spirits worked like normal as well. And before Eisen knew it, he could see the one-meter tall version of one of Sky¡¯s Inkheart summons walking around the room, before the Fey-Kin excitedly turned over toward the old man, "This is great! I¡¯m barely using mana to keep it up, and there doesn¡¯t seem to be a direct time-limit on this either!" Sky exined, and Eisen raised his brows with a light smirk. "Really?" He asked, "Got it... Then I think I have a pretty good idea for how I could improve on that body." The old man pointed out with a satisfied nod. If he just made it easier for that body to move, meaning that Eisen should add joints and the proper, detailed construction method that he came up with for other golems to it, as well as a couple of enchantments that enable it to both change its size andpress and depress its body at will, it should be possible for Sky to use this mock-spirit for most of his summons, at least those that were humanoid. For Melissa¡¯s, Eisen could probably just increase the surface area some more to give more ces to ess it, or make it more of a ¡¯cluster¡¯ of mock-spirits so that Mellisa could make ¡¯specialized¡¯ mock-spirits for different types. Maybe Eisen could even actually turn those spirits into bees that were supposed to mimick the way that the type of bee they were supposed to ¡¯store¡¯ looked. And while Eisen was ying around with these ideas, the old man was informed of something else. Melissa walked over toward him and tugged on the leg of his pants to get Eisen¡¯s attention, and when the old man looked down at her, she just smiled back and said, "They are close to town. The southern gate." Melissa exined, and with a broad smile that immediately grew on Eisen¡¯s face, the old man nodded his head. "Got it, thanks." He replied, and then grabbed the towelying on the table next to him before wiping his hands and face down a bit and then looked over toward the others, "I¡¯ll be back in an hour tops." The old man announced as he stepped out the door, "If you want to, try and figure out some good ways that you want me to change your mock-spirits in that time." Eisen suggested. With a smile on his face, happy to see that everyone was finally arriving, Eisen made his way through the penthouse and headed toward the other side, toward the balcony where Komer was currently sitting while taking some notes and bathing in the sunlight. By now, it¡¯s been a good while since Eisen revealed what exactly was going on with this world, or rather that this was an actual world at all, and while Komer still didn¡¯t feel perfecltyfortable with that idea, he did grow used to it a lot more after he spoke to the other originals about it a little as well. "Oh, taking a break?" Komer asked with a smile, and Eisen lightly chuckled and nodded his head, "I think you could say that. I¡¯m going to go pick up everyone that came from Melroe and bringing them over for now. The next ship is just heading over there in another week, right?" The old man asked, and Komer slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, thest one just left, and we only have two ships that go back and forth all the time at the moment. There just aren¡¯t enough people that want to go there right now to justify buying more... Is that alright?" Komer inquired, and Eisen immediately nodded his head, "That¡¯s fine, that¡¯s fine. I wanted to work with everyone a little more anyway, so it¡¯s perfect, actually." Eisen pointed out reassuredly, and then made his way over toward the edge of the balcony. That, however, made Komer frown a bit. "Erm... what are you doing?" He asked, and as Eisen slowly activated his Draconic Demon transformation and grew in size while tworge wings sprouted on his back, Komer already figured out what exactly he wanted to do, "Oh... that. Just try not to cause a ruckus? You kind of look like a monster like this, so..." "Haha, I know, don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m just going to head outside of town immediately, so there shouldn¡¯t be an issue." The old man pointed out, and then ced his foot on the railing at the edge of the balcony, before pushing his body over the edge and jumping forward. Eisen pped his wings and looked around the town from above. Immedaitely he chose to fly toward the right gate and flew past the town walls to see if he could spot anything around, and soon had some bees flying next to him that he quite quickly recognized. "Alright, then show the way." Eisen suggested, and the bees quietly buzzed before flying off, swiftly followed by this old man in the form of an airborne demon. Eisen kept looking around in search for the group, although it really didn¡¯t take all that long to find them, considering that they were travelling in a three-carriage caravan. And to be fair, since all five of the people that Eisen invited were travelling with their families, this scale did make sense for them. But either way, since Eisen could see one of his buddies driving the carriage at the very front, the old man simply dropped down from high above toward them. Of course, he used his Yang form for that so that he could avoid startling the horses as well as the younger children that were travelling with them, since Jekyll had three daughters that were all younger than ten years old. The old man startedughing loudly as he stood in front of the carriage-caravan that was starting to slow down, before Denmir looked at the figure with surprise, "Wh-What the-?" He eximed, "Eisen? That you?" The Dwarf yelled out, and the three-meter tall demon immediately nodded his head and approached them with a broad grin. "You bet it is." He pointed out, slowly deactivating his transformation again, and Denmir just looked at him with a wry smile, "Oi, don¡¯t startle me like that, ya hear? Yer demon form looks a lot different than it used ta!" With a light chuckle, Eisen just approached Denmir and shook the dwarf¡¯s hand as a greeting, "Sorry about that." Heughed, and inside of the carriage Eisen could see Denmir¡¯s wife as well as his son and daughter, respectively 15 and 17, confusedly looking outside. Beside just those three, Morrom and Koro were also sitting in there, even if they weren¡¯t quite as confused about seeing Eisen pop up all of a sudden. "Hello there." Eisen smiled, and quickly went around the back, waved at Jekyll who was driving the second carriage real quick, and then went to greet the people inside of this carriage, especially the three belonging to Denmir since Eisen didn¡¯t actually officially meet them before. He saw Denmir¡¯s wife and son around the smithy a handful of times, but he never really spoke to them beside a quick greeting either. "Nice to properly meet you three. My name is Eisen, and I¡¯m going to be leading you through this town toward where you will be staying for the next week until the ship to bring you to the inds is ready." The old man exined to them, and Denmir¡¯s wife slowly nodded her head and smiled back, although the two children were a bit more nervous. They only really exchanged brief greetings, since Eisen didn¡¯t want to hold everyone up too long, and then the old man made his way over toward the next two carriages to greet everyone in those as well, before Eisen just stepped up next to Denmir¡¯s leading carriage again. "Alright, let¡¯s go." He suggested, and Denmir nodded his head before Eisen joined him on the front of the carriage. And so, Eisen just led this group toward the town¡¯s closest gate, entered the town with them, and then led them through the town toward the mall and its employee entrance. For situations just like this, there was of course also something like an indoor parking lot built under the building that they were able to ce the carriages under, and there were of course also stableboys that could take care of the animals. While everyone was just woundrously looking at everything around them as if this was justpletely insane, Eisen led them up the long stairs toward the penthouse. With a smile on his face, Eisen just watched as especially the children were just looking around incredibly curiously and excitedly, and that excitement and curiosity grew just the more when Jyuuk casually came out of his room with some of his smaller animals and undead climbing all over his body to greet everyone. Chapter 511 Special Existence "This is..." Morrom muttered quietly as he looked forward at two more legendary beings than he was used to by now, simply sitting next to each other on a couch while discussing random things that nobody else in the room really understood. Well, nobody else beside Komer, actually. "..pletely insane..." Jekyll finished, taking the liberty to continue Morrom¡¯s sentence, and the young man immediately nodded his head, "Yup, that¡¯s it... I kind of just forgot to... to..." The elf-dwarf halfling mumbled as he looked around and got distracted by the numerous umon enchantments ced around this space that Eisen had been working on since he got here a couple weeks ago. With a broad smile on his face, the old man just started tough loudly. "I¡¯m d you like the ce." He pointed out, "It¡¯s technically Komer¡¯s. He designed the ce together with Evalia. It¡¯s really nice, isn¡¯t it?" Eisen exined, and then looked over toward the young man in question, "Right, the extra guest rooms were ready already, right?" The old man asked, before Folmirra looked at him in surprise. "Guest rooms? I figured we would be staying in an Inn for the next week?" She pointed out, but with a smile on his face, Komer shook his head, "Don¡¯t worry, this penthouse spans the same area as the mall down there. We have more than enough space." He exined reassuredly and then looked at the children of the five people that Eisen invited. "We even have a pool up here. It¡¯s still pretty hot this time around, so if you feel like cooling down, just let me know." He exined with a casual smile, and they all quickly nodded their heads, even if they didn¡¯t directly understand what a ¡¯pool¡¯ was supposed to be. Either way, for now, Eisen called over the others to have the five half-dragon knights carry everyone¡¯s luggage to their rooms, because they really didn¡¯t have much else to do at the moment, while Eisen chose to give everyone a small tour together with Komer. And the longer they proceeded, the more everyone just becamepletely confused and impressed at the things that this ce offered. "I-If ye can afford a ce like this so easily, are ya sure ye¡¯re gonna need me over there?" Gralmar asked nervously, "Ain¡¯t everyone gonna be expectin¡¯ this level offort?" He asked, and with a slightugh, Komer shook his head. "Obviously not." He said, as if it was obvious, "You truly don¡¯t understand, huh? Every artificial dreams of getting the true feeling of medieval fantasy by crossing through this world, and that can¡¯t be achieved with this level of modernism. I personally care very little for such things, so I made this ce look like this, but most artificals will prefer an inn that just screams ¡¯this is where adventurers huddle up¡¯!" Komer exined, and the five here that knew the truth behind the artificials confusedly looked at Eisen to see what was going on. "Yes, he¡¯s an artificial. But despite how young he is, he¡¯s the best businessman that I personally know. What he¡¯s saying is the truth. We¡¯ll give you whatever you need to get everything started though, of course. We have more than enough money." Eisen pointed out, before Komer smugly nodded his head. "Got that right we do. And in an even morepact way than before. I can store coins more densely now." He pointed out, and Eisen slowly smirked at him, "Oh, perfect." The old man said with satisfaction in his voice, and Komer immediately nodded his head. "Yup! I just ranked a few of my skills up, and I¡¯m starting to figure out how to make Fate Contr-" "Komer, let¡¯s finish the tour first and then keep talking about that, alright?" Eisen suggested, and Komer slowly nodded his head with a wry smile, "Right, sorry about that. I¡¯m just excited, I¡¯ll be leveling up to 200 soon, you know? I can¡¯t wait to-" "200?!" Komer was once more interrupted as the 17 years-old son of Denmir couldn¡¯t believe what this guy just said, "How old are you?!" He asked, and while usually, Denmir would have probably made him shut up because of the tone that his son took, right now everyone was just far too curious to say anything about that. "Eh? I¡¯m 20 right now, but I¡¯ve just been here a few months now. As Eisen said, I¡¯m an artificial." Komer pointed out, and everyone just kept staring at Eisen nervously. "B-By the way, what level are you right now again?" They inquired, and with a light smile on his face, Eisen quickly replied, "I¡¯m working on my level up quest to get to level 300 right now. Still going to take a while tough." He pointed out, "Our quests are a bit harder. The only ones of us that reached level 300 so far are Brody and Jyuuk. Jyuuk actually leveled up just a few days ago." Eisen pointed out. "Level 300..." Morrom muttered with a wry smile, "How the hell did you manage to do that so quickly... You really are a craftsman, right? Not somebatist?" "You guys gave me my upation. Of course I¡¯m still a crafsman." The old man replied. And from then on, while the others did staypletely silent during the rest of the tour, they were all just marvelling at the sight of these two people leading them through this giant apartment. Komer chose to show the others around a bit more alone, but Morrom, Gralmar, Folmirra, Denmir and Jekyll chose toe along with Eisen into his new workshop. "Alright then." The old man started, "Sorry to push this onto you all this quickly, but I need your help." He exined. "I¡¯m trying to get Advanced crafting skills. I have the five skills that I learned from you guys at level 99 of rank 4, so they¡¯re soon to rank up, so I want to know what exactly I should do to ensure that I can get the advanced variants." Eisen exined ot them immediately, but all five of them looked at each other for a moment before turning to the old man again. Even Gralmar, who didn¡¯t have a crafting-based upation, was aware that Eisen¡¯s request waspletely ridiculous. "That¡¯s a joke, right?" Morrom asked, and Eisen looked at him confusedly. Was it that hard to get the advanced skill? That¡¯s what he assumed after that reaction, although apparently, it was rather the opposite. "There¡¯s no way you¡¯re not going to get the advanced variants. And you¡¯re also definitely going to get their ¡¯perfected¡¯ versions when you hit rank 8 with them." Folmirra pointed out. "Just the fact that you are you should get you those skills." Morrom added, and Eisen looked back at them with surprise just written on his face. "Really?" Eisen asked. He heard it was supposed to be incredibly hard to get that skill, but seemingly it wasn¡¯t nearly as bad as he thought it was. That, or Eisen didn¡¯t really have a clue about how skilled he really waspared to normal craftsmen in this world. Or maybe he just tried to forget about what kind of an existence he really was, and just wanted a little bit of normality. "I see..." Eisen muttered quietly, "Then I guess I should try my best to simply make the best item I can, huh?" The old man pointed out, and started thinking about what he could try making now. Maybe something that made use of all five of these skills at once would be a good idea. The old man sat down on the ground cross-legged and started to think about it a little bit when an idea popped into his head that didn¡¯t seem all too bad in his opinion, considering that the item would probably be a fair amount of help to Komer around here. With a light smile on his face, the old man simply chose to speak to the others here about it a little bit, and since they seemed to be quite curious about that idea as well he figured it would be as good an idea as any. First things first, Eisen started working on one step that he had gone though a fair amount of times already. He created bones out of metal. For this particr one, Eisen figured that an alloy with a high percentage of magic-metal was a good idea, though, just to make it easier for it to move around and be influenced by magic. Once the metallic skeleaton was done a few hourster, Eisen got started on the next piece where he would be experimenting a little bit. Since he had to find a good way to include tailoring in this build, Eisen figured that it might be interesting to try creating internal organs out of cloth. Basically make them plush-organs, really. Of course he didn¡¯t just use regr cloth, but different types of metallic-, magic-, or crystal-variants. He couldn¡¯t just make them out of wool, that would be pretty... instable, probably. Either way, after a while, Eisen managed to properly reproduce a number of internal organs through the special types of cloth, even if they were basically just ¡¯Bags¡¯ and ¡¯tubes¡¯ at the moment. Because next, Eisen worked on the special concoctions and potions that he was going to use to fill all of those organs in to make them actually ¡¯functional¡¯ to an extent. Eisen was aware that this wasn¡¯t actually required, since it would end up being an ego-golem, but since this never hurt any of the golems he made before, it seemed like a good enough idea. And sure, Eisen could have just asked the others for help on this project, but he figured that would be just cheating and wouldn¡¯t end up help him toward getting the advanced crafting skills at all. Either way, when evening came around, Eisen had finished creating everything and filled the organs up with the different jellies, slimes, sponges, and liquids that he created through alchemy. Then, with the help of mana-thread, Eisen quickly started to put the basic skeleton together and then ced the cloth-organs inside of it. Then came the next special threads around everything to act as muscles before the old man covered the muscles in another thinyer of cloth. But this cloth was even more special. It was actually something like a mixture between cloth and leather, since the thread the cloth was made of was created using actual leather. And on top of thatyer of the leather-cloth, Eiro ced regr leather in a way that you would be able to see the stitches as little as possible and fit everything around tightly. And without even giving this thing any details for its face, Eisen just smiled and closed everything beside the chest up. Because in there, he was about to ce another rather special item. Chapter 512 The Strongest Bodyguard Eisen grabbed a mana crystal and slowly started to dpress it so that it would turn to be three to four times the size it was before. And since the crystal was already the size of a ser ball before then, that meant that it really turned ratherrge. He started just enchanting it with a ratherrge array of differentplex three-dimensional enchantments that Morrom actually seemed to be quite interested in. And then, Eisen moved on and took another crystal that he wouldter be cing into thatrger crystal. He had a few smaller orbs made of specific gems and crystals to enhance the enchantments ced on each of them. First, the central,rgest orb there was had the ¡¯Magic Sensor¡¯ skill. It was a skill that let you shoot out pulses of mana to quite literally sense your surrounding. He just copied it from Xenia, of course. Some of the other, smaller orbs had different specific abilities of Eisen¡¯s truth-seeing eyes enchanted onto them. There were the information-appraisal, mana-sight and truth-sight abilities. Other than that, there were a few orbs enchanted with different elements, the same ones that Eisen had been using to enhance Cabarum and Aulu¡¯s senses. All these orbs were then ced onto therger orb with the magic sensor skill before that construct was given aplex three-dimensional enchantment so that all of these abilities could properly be integrated into what the magic sensor could find. Now, when activated, this construct would push out a pulse of mana made up of regr mana, as well as Raziel¡¯s sound-based mana and that beastman¡¯s ¡¯Beast Sense¡¯ mana. After that was done, Eisen opened up hole justrge enough to fit this item through it into the veryrge mana crystal and ced it into its spot around the outer ring of hollowed-out orbs. Around that piece, Eisen then started forming enchantments meant to increase the strength and decrease the mana-cost of the enchantment, while also increasing the detail of the information that was retained. The information taken through the pulse would then be fed into another crystal enchanted with the mana-copy skill to make it easier to retain this information while properly putting it into a direct ¡¯shape¡¯ instead of having it stay an abstract clump of raw data. This would all then be saved inside of an extra information-storage crystal that Eisen made and hooked up to everything as well. And since this actually was a rather small amount of enchantments for the size of this crystal right now, Eisen continued on and ced other enchanted structures into therge spherical crystal. For one, instead of just having that ¡¯general¡¯ enchantment to figure out the information of everything in the surrounding, Eisen created a ¡¯specific¡¯ information-gathering enchantment that would also hook up to that ¡¯general¡¯ enchantment. If there was some sort of issue, using the data of where the source of that issue was, another enchantment would send out a more concentrated pulse into that direction that was meant to gather as much direct information as possible. Since it was supposed to be abat-type golem, that information was obviously meant to be about different people or monsters. And just to achieve that as much as possible, Eisen used some of Jyuuk¡¯s specific appraisal skills for different types of creatures, as well as one ability that he copied from that Changeling he met a while ago, Dragoon. While he copied his abilities to make him some items, Eisen also ced some extra copies onto some other crystals. And one of the abilities that Eisen was trying to make use of was the enchantment meant to give as much direct physical information about the target. A changeling was supposed to use that to figure out the actual creature that they would be changing into. It was rather mana-intensive though, so this whole thing would be activated just once per target. Either way, using these arrays of abilities, Eisen would be able to have this golem know as much about the enemy as even possible. And that information would then be fed to the nextplex enchantment. And that enchantment was one that was made up of nearly all of Brody¡¯sbat-proficiency skills. Part of the thread that Eisen had been using for the muscles was aplexbination of a lot of the more basic of those skills as well, to practically rece the need for ¡¯muscle memory¡¯. Really, this would just be the perfect bodyguard around here. The thing was that the more attention Eisen and the other originals were gathering, which was an at astronomical high right now, the more people that were rather troublesome would start acting up. Since Komer already was a target for some of those troublesome people anyway, he really need some protection. And since he had all the protection that he could have in real life already, ording to Komer himself at least, the only part that needed to be taken care of was the ¡¯game¡¯. And even if Komer¡¯s character could respawn after being killed, it would be a huge loss if something happened to the mall. And if some of those troublesome people chose to mess with the NPCs working inside of the mall, that would cause a whole other array of problems. And sure, Eisen saw that Komer had incredibly strong abilities, but the thing with those abilities was that they were entirely based on luck. While the different magic attacks that Komer could make use of were strong enough to easily fight people that were a couple dozen levels higher than him, the only reason why that was to was that they had an incredible amount of risk connected to them. That risk was reduced the more money Komer spent to use the abilities, but money didn¡¯t grow on trees. Well, not yet, Eisen wanted to trybining some coins with seeds sometimes, but until that worked out, Komer¡¯sbat was incredibly expensive. And not only was it expensive, but some of the repercussions that Komer may have to face could do immense damage to Komer himself. So, Eisen didn¡¯t want to make Komer defend the mall all by himself. The inds would be safe, Eisen was sure of that, but they didn¡¯t have direct jurisdiction of this town despite having some deals with the Lord of this town and a prince of this country, so they couldn¡¯t properly defend this town like the towns on the inds. So, Eisen was working on a bodyguard that could protect Komer and this ce if necessary. For that, he even used leather with incredible defensive abilities from one of the dead monsters from Trygan¡¯s ind. It was pretty rare, but for that it had defense that was even stronger than most armor Eisen was capable of producing at the moment. Then there was the thread underneath, partially made of the very same leather, together with other materials that were just known for their strength and defense, as well as a bit of Eisen¡¯s own very densely infused mythril that had his element fed to it for more than a month now. The old had also turned some of that mythril into special paint using an item he made with Evalia¡¯s element as well as some of the Ink that Stahl and Thul, Stahl¡¯s tamed monster, had produced for the quest that Eisen gave him. That paint was then absorbed by that leather for a couple of hours to make it even stronger. Of course, he was also using a slightly different version of that paint to dye some cloth for the outfit that Eisen would be giving this golem. It was supposed to be an incredibly overpowered strong golem, since it may need to face a lot of different, rather strong opponents. Either way, once Eisen ced all of the different abilities that the Golem could ever need into thatrge sphere, he added the actual Ego-Golem core into the center of the sphere and then moved on. He started covering the area around the spherical crystal in his mana,pressed as much as he possibly could without it actually crystalizing. It was like a very thick mist at the moment, that Eisen made sure to push anywhere inside of this crystal where he could, and then he just started topress the whole thing. Of course, to help him with that, he actually used some magic-items, some of those hardened magic circles that he made before, so that he could actually just scale it down properly. Soon enough, the highly enchanted sphere returned to the size of the ser ball that it was at before, and then waspressed even more and more until it was just at the size of a tennis ball that Eisen carefully set into the center of this golem¡¯s chest, pushing it through until he was able to ce it into the heart which Eisen then just had to close up. The jelly that Eisen ced into the heart was one that was supposed to be heavily shock-absorbent to make sure the golem core was properly protected from any sort of damage. After Eisen closed the heart up, he properly sewed the muscles in ce there and covered them in theyer of special leather-cloth as well as the actual leather for the chest. With a light smile, Eisen looked down at the Golem¡¯s finished body. Luckily he had ced any sort of mana-generators and -batteries that could be needed into the body already, or else it might have been harder topress that golem core down to the size that it ended up being. Either way, the old man looked around and then found the cloth and even more leather that he would be using to make this Golem¡¯s outfit, although the others were rather surprised to see that Eisen actually just kept on going like this. "Of course I¡¯m going to keep going, it¡¯s supposed to be an incredible item, after all." The old man pointed out with augh before looking back at the materials, "And let¡¯s be honest, it¡¯s going to be disturbing enough as is without a face, I don¡¯t think having it walk around naked is going to be a great idea." Eisen exined, before grabbing some of the ck and white, special cloths. Once more they were a special-mix of metallic, crystal, and other rare-material threads, and were dyed with the aforementioned special paint that Eisen created out of the highly-infused mythril. At the moment, it was actually ratherte in the night, but everyone was still curiously watching Eisen work, even if Gralmar excused himself for a couple hours at a time, since he wasn¡¯t nearly as interested as the other four were, but he still kept popping in every once in a while to see the progress. And now, the old man just started his work, producing nothing but a clothes¡¯ item that he had actually made more than just once over the past couple of weeks anyway. And that clothes¡¯ item was a formal ck suit with a tie, handkerchief in the chest-pocket, as well as ck shoes. Inbetween theyers of cloth always was a thinyer of metal just so slightly softened to be able to bend a bit ording to the golem¡¯s movements, and the shoes of course also had metal-caps and soles. That formal suit was then ced onto the Golem, and with a bright smile, Eisen could proudly announce that this item was finished. Chapter 513 Faceless Ego-Golem Eisen looked at the Golem in front of him and just smiled a bit as he made sure that everything was really alright with it outwardly. With a satisfied nod, he pushed mana into its core and saw it as finished. [You created a Faceless Ego-Golem] [Faceless Ego-Golem] [Quality ¨C Perfect][Item Rank ¨C 5] [Ego Rank ¨C 0][Level ¨C 1] [Durability ¨C 10.000][Mana ¨C 7100] [Agility - 250][Dexterity - 200][Intelligence - 10][Wisdom - 10] [Description] An Ego-Golem created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. Its body has been made out of some of the most durable materials avable for this rank, making it near-to-impossible to be damaged by low-level opponents. It senses the world through pulses of mana that give it a myriad of information that is retained for as long as possible. This Golem is capable of making use of different martial-arts, weapons, and techniques to fend off enemies. [Abilities] , , , , , , , , , , , With a broad smile on his face, Eisen looked at the Golem and made it stand up. Luckily, most likely due to the high amount of Combat-Mastery skills, it had a pretty good innate control of its body and was able to stand up immediately without the initial period of ¡¯wonkiness¡¯ that other golems usually had. "Hmm, good." Eisen muttered quietly before just stretching a bit, "This one seems to be doing pretty well, huh?" The old man said with a light smirk and turned toward the others who were all curiously staring at the Golem¡¯s body. "Go ahead everyone, take a look." Eisen chuckled before they immediately did as told and properly checked everything out. Meanwhile, Eisen was focusing on something else that he was more than d to see. And that was that his Multitool¡¯s level hit the maximum of rank 5, so Eisen would be able to upgrade it again now. It was a long timeing, to be perfectly honest. After all, his Sword had made it pretty close to that range as well during the time that Eisen was just out there hunting. The same counted for the three monster children, all three of them passed level 70 for rank 5. With a satisfied expression, the old man figured that it would be a good idea to get started with this before moving on and making more of this Bodyguard golem, even if those would be ¡¯lesser¡¯ versions. Eisen couldn¡¯t waste such materials that much right now, after all. Maybe once his material growth skill ranked up some more, but not right now. The rest of those really high-tier defensive materials that were infused with Eisen¡¯s special mythril that by now hit rank 6 in its material rank would be used to make equipment for the others for when they were headed to the Giant Country. "Holy mother of- What actually is this cloth?" Folmirra then eximed, since she seemed to be noticing the ¡¯repelling¡¯ effect that Eisen¡¯s mythril put onto it just by touching it, "It¡¯s like it¡¯s pushing me away!" She pointed out, and Eisen lightly shrugged. "Basically, it is like that." He pointed out and just chose to grab a small mana crystal out of one of his apron¡¯s pockets, "You four, step a bit to the side." The old man suggested, and curiously everyone did as he said before Eisen just threw the mana crystal at the Golem¡¯s chest with a fair amount of force behind it, but the mana-crystal simply bounced off nearly at the same speed that it hit it in the first ce. "It¡¯s because of my special mythril. Pretty cool, huh?" The old man pointed out as he went to pick the mana crystal up again before noticing that the others were looking at him with hopeful eyes. With a slight sigh and wry smile, the old man pointed over toward the corner of the room, "I have a bunch of it over there, and I¡¯m growing some Mythril Trees right now as well. Use whatever you want. Folmirra, if you want to try that, I have a setup over there so that you can turn different materials into thread, and then from thread into cloth. And it acts like actual cloth, so no matter what material you use, you¡¯ll be able to work with it using your tailoring skill." Eisen pointed out, and then looked at some of the other setups around here. "Then there¡¯s the mass-production setup for potions, the leather-tanning station where I make leather using some different potions as a base to give it special effects, and of course there¡¯s the alloying and melting-station so that you can easily turn any ore into an ingot, and then that ingot into an alloy." The old man exined, and everyone seemed more than just excited over this. "And... And we can really just use this ce however we like?" Jekyll asked with a light grin on his face, before Eisen just once more nodded his head, "Of course. Act like you¡¯re at home." He told them as Eisen stepped over toward one of the shelves ced up against the wall before taking out a small orb. "But I suggest you do that in the morning. There¡¯s no real rush, after all." Eisen pointed out and then brought the orb over toward the table that he made with his element before, while everyone slowy nodded their heads despite still staring at what Eisen was holding in his hands. "You guys alright? Not tired yet or anything?" Eisen asked, "Even I¡¯m tired, and I barely feel that over here." The old man pointed out, but the four of them immediately denied that they were tired in the slightest, like children would, and Eisen simply shrugged and let them continue watching him while Eisen chose to upgrade the Ego Multitool. The old man took it apart first and ced all of the different parts down on the table seperately, before Eisen cracked the orb open and pulled the soul that was inside of it out. He separated the nucleus from the rest of the soul and ced it to the side while Eisen started working with the mist-like substance that stuck together like one wouldn¡¯t really expect it to. It was like a really, really light cotton. The old man slowly started rubbing that mist-like substance on the different parts of the multitool and practically fused it into the soul that was already integrated into the item. Once this step was done, Eisen held the part that had the Tool Core ced into it up and made a small hole into the crystal without hitting any of the enchantments. Using alchemicalpression, Eisen slightly shrunk the soul nucleus down and pushed it through that hole to bring it into the center of the core. After that he simply fused the two souls together a bit and then had to just use this for a little while to get it done. That, or he could feed it a bunch of mana crystals to get that done more quickly. Eisen thought it was a little bit wasteful, because the rank-6 mana crystals he would be needing for that to actually make it worth it were stillparatively hard toe by. Rank 7 was the ¡¯soft cap¡¯ for the monsters on this continent after all. Meaning that most reached their limit when they reached rank 7, even if there were a few exceptions in some parts of the continent. Either way, this made the rank-6 and above mana crystals really hard toe by sometimes, even if Eisen had some of the best sources anyone could hope for at the moment. Eisen put the multitool back together and just swung it a few times. Right now it didn¡¯t react that much yet, meaning that its ego was basically put out ofission, like it usually was whenever Eisen just upgraded it. Eisen figured that it was just trying to ¡¯concentrate¡¯ on integrating the new soul into itself. Once he made sure that everything was working alright for now, Eisen simply looked at the others with a light smile, "Well, I¡¯m heading to bed now. You should do the same." He pointed out, and despite seeming a little bit disappointed, the other four nodded their heads and amde their way out of the room to get to their own bedrooms here, joining their spouses. Everyone but Morrom, at least, he just slept in his own room alone. And Eisen himself just turned around again and sat down in the corner of the room where he wouldn¡¯t be bothering anyone if it should take him longer than expected to wake up again, before slowly logging off. --- Benjamin stood up out of the capsule and stretched a bit. The right side of his neck felt pretty stiff for a while, but that was most likely because he wasn¡¯t able to stretch that side of his shoulders that easily anymore... It was a bit annoying, but he could live with it. The old man made his way out of his room and wanted to open the door to the bathroom just on the other side, although he soon noticed that it was upied. "Sorry! I¡¯ll be right out!" Nataly eximed from in there while Benjamin just let go of the doorhandle and leaned against the wall behind him. A few momentster, the young woman stepped out of the bathroom with a light smile on her face. "Yo." She said with a light wave of her hand, and the old man chuckled and looked at her as he stepped into the bathroom to clean his face, "You¡¯re going outside with Benji now, right?" The old man asked, and Nataly immediately nodded her head. "Yeah, we didn¡¯t really go out that much on this side because of the whole ¡¯a guy we really trusted turned out to want to kill us¡¯ situation, but we got Brody to act as a bodyguard for us today. He wanted to go out and buy some things as well. So we feel pretty safe." Nataly pointed out, so Benjamin lightly nodded his head and dried his face. "I see. Then have a fun day, you three. And try not to pull too much attention toward you." "Haha, don¡¯t worry, we¡¯ve got that handled." Chapter 514 Upgrading the Multitool Eisen looked around the room after waking back up and pushed himself off the floor the next moment. The old man just grabbed a piece of wood, some steel, and some leather just to warm up a bit for the day. He stretched his arm out and pulled his staff out of his Soul Storage before proceeding to create a forge for himself. He threw the steel into it and had it heat up while Eisen got started on carving the wood a little bit using the multitool. This was also just so that Eisen could get started on having the multitool get used to itself before he started working. He didn¡¯t want its ego to properly rank up while he was working again. That happened when he upgraded it to its fourth ego-rank, and the hammer just suddenly swung to the side without Eisen expecting it, so the item he had been working on was bent into the wrong direction a little bit. It was an easy fix, but Eisen was still annoyed about it to this day, simply because he hated doing even small mistakes like that. The old man got started and kept carving into the wood, and then took the steel out to turn it into the shape of a kitchen-knife. Slowly it seemed like the multitool was changing, not only in its ego-rank, but even physically. It didn¡¯t change all too much visually, but there was still a slight change there. For example, the knife was curved a little bit differently toward the tip, and the same with the de for the axe-mode when he looked the whole item over. Other than that, it seemed like the surface of the hammer increased a tiny bit. It wasn¡¯t to the extent that Eisen could say that this absolutely and undeniably was the case, it was just that everything seemed just so slightly off to how Eisen was used to with this tool. "Hmm, does that mean...?" The old man muttered to himself, and then chose to continue working on this knife a little more. Actually, probably a little too much, now that Eisen thought about it. He took some other materials and integrated them into the outeryer of the metal by heating the knife itself up and then just hammering it in, or just by dipping it in a molten version of it. Eisen even cut away some parts of the de. It looked pretty weird, but now the back of the de had some half-circles cut out so that you could push down onto it with your fingers. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure why exactly he made this, he just wanted to keep working on one piece some more. Usually that helped the multitool. And he didn¡¯t want to work on somethingrger, just in case everything ended up getting out of control. Either way, the old man kept on changing the shape of the de more and more, until it looked very, very different to what Eisen had been nning at the start when he ced the steel into the forge. It had been covered in a few differentyers of different magical materials that the de was either dipped into, or had it merged with the outside by hammering it on. The old man keptpressing the de as well so that this fact couldn¡¯t really be seen outwardly. But when even Eisen figured that it was enough and he started sharpening the de roughly for now, the edge revealed a rainbow of differently colored magical materials. It looked pretty interesting, actually, even if the raw shape of the knife made it pretty tough to use. The handle itself had been changed pretty strongly from its intended form as well, as Eisen simply kept going on and on withpressing it and giving it more and moreyers as well. Some of thoseyers were wood, others were crystals and gems, and sometimes Eisen even dipped the handle into molten metal as well. And toward the end, Eisen wrapped it in leather, the surface of which he had enchanted to the point of it basically being rough like sandpaper. Of course, to avoid this he filled in those carvings with some materials as well. But those materials were once more a mix of a lot of different ones, so in the end, the whole knife became not only weird in shape, but also in color. It was practically a rainbow knife. For some reason, it was simply incredibly fun to y around like this once in a while. And when Eisen figured that this would be enough, the stats of the item were surprisingly high as well. Of course not as high as they would be with a well nned-out item, but it had a few nice effects that Eisen didn¡¯t know he could cause just by mixing materials together like this. It seemed like this seemingly randomyering of materials, isntead of just alloying them, gave this knife pretty unique properties. And when the others, so Denmir, Folmirra, Morrom and Jekyll, made their way into the workshop as well, they were just as surprised as Eisen was about how good this item was. It would be hard to actually use it, since it weighed far too much after beingpressed this heavily, but everyone agreed that it was usually pretty fun to just mess around like this every once in a while. But the whole reason why Eisen ended up working so hard on this was that no matter what he was doing, the hammer didn¡¯t rank up. Its Ego-Rank just kept on staying Rank 6, Level 0, and the proficiency bar for the level was stuck at 99%. This kind of thing usually happened pretty quickly, but for the past hour, just nothing happened at all no matter what he did. Eisen figured that maybe actually finishing the item would do the trick, but even then, it didn¡¯t work. So, the idea that Eisen had before seemed to have been confirmed in the worst possible way, "Hahh.... Don¡¯t tell me I have to actually somehow upgrade it physically as well now?" The old man muttered quietly. It would make sense if he did have to do that, though. Since the item was physically changing, Eisen figured that its actual rank would increase now as well, and its Ego-rank and item-rank would finallybine. He had hoped that it would work just like a monster¡¯s evolution, or the type of evolution that Core Guardians went through when the core they were connected to upgraded, but it seemed like this was a bit different when it came to tools like this. He tried asking the others, since they all also had Ego-Item creation skills, albeit specialized for their profession, and they told him that if they had items like that, although they never made an item that was able to level- and rank-up just in the same way that Eisen¡¯s multitool and sword did, they would just try reforging it sometimes, or adding new materials onto it. Just actively changing it in some way or another. With a light smile on his face, Eisen nodded his head. That would mean that he might end up spending the rest of the day having to test out methods to safely upgrade this multitool instead of continuing to work, but Eisen didn¡¯t really mind all that much. He did have all the time he needed, and if this helped bring the proficiency for the next level up for his skills a little bit higher up, there was no reason why Eisen should reallyin. For now, the old man tried the method that seemed the most logical to him. Sure, the Yang Metal was an amazing material to make tools, but it wasn¡¯t the BEST material to do so. There was no way that a single material would be the best for every single category, after all. So, Eisen chose to add a smallyer of other materials onto the item in some ces, just like he had done with the knife he just made. Of course, it wouldn¡¯t happen just as chaotically as that. The first step was to change the edges of the different des. Eisen went to pick out materials that he knew were good for cutting and then chose to set it up to be infused with his element mostly turned toward mes, so that it would turn halfway into a magic material, but notpletely. Since the me-part of his element usually helped with cutting things apart, and with being swift and precise, this was the best option for edges like that as far as Eisen was concerned. Well, at least for the edge of the chisel and knife, and the tip of the needles at least. The edge of the axe and tip of the pickaxe would be getting a different material that was infused with his element mostly turned toward Earth. Woodcutting and Mining weren¡¯t the kind of skills that required a high amount of precision, after all. The most important thing was swinging it with a lot of force and technique. Of course, precision was still needed, but it wasn¡¯t nearly as important as for things like cooking or carving. Force was the most important part in Eisen¡¯s own opinion. Then after those materials were halfway turned into magic materials, Eisen alloyed them with a few gems that were enchanted with some of Eisen¡¯s skills for whatever part they would be used for. So the de would get woodworking, cooking, and other such precise skills, the needles would get Tailoring, Leatherworking and Enchanting. The axe would be mostly get the Woodcutting skill alloyed into it, while the parts of the Pickaxe¡¯s tip got the Mining skill. On the whole edge, that was a rather small part, so it didn¡¯t matter that there would be two slightly different materials there. To properly put those metals onto the item, Eisen just so slightly carved away the parts of the edge that wouldter be covered, albeit just a tiny amount that most people might not even notice on first nce. The shavings from those parts were of course also alloyed into the materials that wouldter be applied to the edges. And so that everything could be put on there, Eisenpressed the different materials as they were melting down, and then dipped the edges into the dense liquid. Using his fingers, Eisen properly spread everything while it was hardening, making sure topress it here and there for proper bnce again, and then just set each part down to the side while he was working on the others. After that, Eisen just had to sharpen the edges again properly, something that he really tried to do as good as possible, even using whetstones that he hadn¡¯t been using for a fair while to make the edges as sharp as they possibly could be. Chapter 515 Lots of Rank-Ups After the edges of the multitool had been reced, Eisen moved on to the blunt surfaces. Meaning mainly that of the hammer, but also of the ¡¯pestle¡¯ that was built into the multitool¡¯s handle. At least for the hammer, the choice of what to do was clear. He had to use the mythril that he had been infusing for over a month, the same that he had turned into paint so that he could use it for the Golem yesterday. The old man just chose to melt this mythril down a bit before alloying it with some other materials. Those materials included, but were not limited to, some Yang-Metal shavings from the surfaces of the multitool that Eisen would be recing now. Eisen also ced some other crystals and gems into it, most of which were enchanted with the cksmithing skill, of course. Then, the old man alloyed it with some more metals that were halfway-infused with his element so that they didn¡¯t fully turn into a magic-metal. Once Eisen had all that he needed for this, hepressed the metal a little as he started hammering it into shape using one of his other hammers, since his regr one was obviously currently out ofission. What he made were basically just two caps that Eisen could ce onto the hammer properly. Once the two metal pieces were done, Eisen kept one of them on a heat so that it would stay hot a bit longer, while he just heated up one of the sides of the multitool¡¯s hammer module and then pressed one of the hot tes onto the hot side of the hammer, before proceeding to hammer it into ce by using this hammer to hit into a t surface. This part was mainly just so that Eisen could properly make the hot metals fuse together a bit, he still went over the metal afterward with another hammer to make sure that everything was really in the shape that it was supposed to be. Then he just repeated the same with the other half. With the slightly upgraded multitool in his hands, Eisen then just started to slightly smirk as he reced the round, rough cap that he had ced onto the handle so that he was able to make use of it like a pestle. And after Eisen changed this, he chose to just test this out a little and hammered onto some metal. He had to say, the mythril really changed how well this multitool¡¯s hammer worked by gxies. Eisen would be able to speed up his work even more using this now, most likely. He should have upgraded it like this sometimes before already! But just when Eisen was thinking this, he suddenly noticed something else. And that was that the hammer slowly turned incredibly, incredibly light until it just started floating there. But at some point Eisen was unable to move it around despite it just floating there weightlessly. White light started spreading across its surface, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but smile as he realized that it was finally ¡¯evolving¡¯ now. Soon, the hammer regained its regr weight and dropped to the ground, and luckily Eisen was fast enough to catch it before it hit the ground. As far as Eisen could see, it didn¡¯t really change all that much outwardly. Here and there, some parts became even sharper or more curved, but in general they were changes that Eisen just realized he liked a lot after seeing them on it. The changes were really minor, but the way that the multitoolid in Eisen¡¯s hand changed immensely. But not only that, the moment that Eisen thought about it, the multitool changed into a different mode in the quickest way possible. Eisen could just lightly throw the hammer into the air maybe ten or twenty centimeters, and what wouldnd in his hand was the knife, while the rest of the parts simply attached themselves to Eisen¡¯s apron automatically where they were supposed to go when Eisen didn¡¯t need them. It was the perfect tool by now already! Eisen really couldn¡¯t wait to see what it would turn into when he managed to upgrade it to Rank 7, even if that was something that was still months in this world away. With a crack of his knuckles, Eisen had all the parts snap back onto the multitool before going to grab some of the materials that he had been preparing. Now with this, he would definitely be able to rank his skills up easily while producing more of those bodyguard golems. The old man quickly got started and prepared everything that he needed for the bodyguard golems. His n for now was to make a total of a dozen of them, including the golem that Eisen had made yesterday. Like this, he could more easily mass-produce them by focusing on one skill at a time. First, Eisen made the mass amount of metal bones that he needed for this out of the actually quite massive lump of metal alloy that he had been melting together for this. He basically just scooped some of it up every time and then got to work. The 11 sets of metal skeletons were done toward the end of the day, and Eisen¡¯s cksmithing proficiency for thisst level of the rank rose up all the way to 95. Eisen was pretty sure that he would be able to get it to rank up once he created these 11 properly. There wasn¡¯t much metal that he had to work with now anymore, after all. Besides the stuff for underneath the clothes, of course, but those were just thin metal tes that were cut into shape and softened a bit, nothing more than that. Either way, since Eisen didn¡¯t need all that much sleep anymore, he simply continued on working on this and moved on to making the cloth organs. His two apprentices had been working on getting all these special materials ready all day so that Eisen could just keep working without any worry. He cut apart the cloth into the sizes that it had to be before cing them to the side, of course sorted so that Eisen knew which potion or concoction he had to put into which er and he couldn¡¯t identally mess it up somehow. But after the old man finished all these sets, he chose that it was time for him to go to bed as well. He spent a little bit outside of the capsule just going on a walk outside to get to the fresh air with his other body, but soon he came back into this world and then continued his work. Eisen started grinding down his materials inrge amounts and then turned them into the potions, jellies, and concoctions that he needed for the organs. The old man filled the cloth organs up and then sewed them together so that he had 11 sets of properly connected organs that were then ced into the skeleton. Of course, the heart was always still open, since that¡¯s where the golem core would be cedter on. Next, Eisen started working on the muscles that he had woven together using special threads, also prepared by his apprentices, and soon there were a bunch of bodiesying in front of Eisen. It looked as if he was a serial killer that had skinned his victims and was just staring at them now. Eisen properly got started with this and then started cutting the leather parts into shape, but at that point, the day was already over. He technically didn¡¯t finish that many ¡¯steps¡¯ in total today and yesterday, but considering that he had been doing those steps for 11 golems, he was able to actually save some time with this instead of wasting it, like it somewhat seemed to Eisen every once in a while. After Eisen slept the roughly four hours that he needed now again, the old man could get started on cing the skin onto the golems. Again, he first ced ayer of special cloth directly onto the muscles before covering that cloth with the leather. Of course, none of these materials were just as high-tier as the ones for the first Bodyguard Golem Eisen made, but that didn¡¯t meant that they were low-grade either. They were still pretty amazing materials. The old craftsman managed to finish all of these golems and then just sat down and mass-produced the suits for them. He was able to finish 8 of thempletely before it was time for him to go to sleep again. The next day, Eisen finished the rest of the suits and ced them onto the golems, before starting to get to work on the golem cores. He first mass-produced each individual part that he needed for that, so the individual sub-controllers, and then put them together into the 11rger crystal-spheres. The rest of the day was just spent with Eisen then enchanting the rest of theserge Golem Cores and cing the souls into them. Eisen then one after anotherpressed these special golem cores in the same way that hepressed the one for the first bodyguard golem, and ced the cores into the Bodyguard Golems¡¯ hearts before closing them uppletely. Eisen looked at the Golems and then one after another started pouring his mana into the golem cores and had them stand up while he saw them as finished. Amongst the 11 practically identical information screens, there were five other notification-sets that Eisen was focusing on just a little bit more than them. [cksmithing reached Level 100 in Rank 4, upgrading to Rank 5] [Due to your limitless ability with the cksmithing Skill, it has be the Skill] [Tailoring reached Level 100 in Rank 4, upgrading to Rank 5] [Due to your limitless ability with the Tailoring Skill, it has be the Skill] [Leatherworking reached Level 100 in Rank 4, upgrading to Rank 5] [Due to your limitless ability with the Leatherworking Skill, it has be the Skill] [Alchemy reached Level 100 in Rank 4, upgrading to Rank 5] [Due to your limitless ability with the Alchemy Skill, it has be the Skill] [Enchanting reached Level 100 in Rank 4, upgrading to Rank 5] [Due to your limitless ability with the Enchanting Skill, it has be the Skill] Eisen looked at the notifications one after another inplete confusion, "What..?" Eisen muttered to himself quietly, "Mastered Skills?" He asked himself, trying to see if he could somehow remember any information about any sort of ¡¯Mastered¡¯ skill, but he really wasn¡¯t sure. This definitely came incredibly unexpected. And so did the notification that came next. [Due to your achievements, you can upgrade your ss to . Will you ept?] Chapter 516 New Methods With a slight frown that was paired with a confused expression, Eisen stared at the notifications in front of him and then quietly grumbled to himself as he looked over toward the others. "You four,e on over for a moment, please." The old man said, and a few momentster, the group of four that had been taking a break from working on a few things themselves just took a break and walked over toward Eisen. The old man closed his eyes for a moment and crossed his arms, "Have any of you heard of a ¡¯Mastered¡¯ Skill?" The old man asked them, and the four of them just looked at each other for a moment before Denmir spoke up, "Hm, I think it¡¯s the skill ya might when yer skill reaches Rank 10?" Denmir suggested, before Folmirra quickly nodded her head. "Yes, that¡¯s what I¡¯ve heard as well. There are very, very little craftsmen that have achieved so, and not all of them would get this kind of skill, so it¡¯s hard to say." The woman exined, and Eisen just sighed deeply and then started rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Well, then I¡¯m pretty curious about what I¡¯m getting a couple ranks from now." Eisen started, and the others looked at him confusedly, before Morrom slowly understood the gist of it and started opening his mouth with a wry smile, "N-No way... You didn¡¯t..." "I did. I just ranked up the five skills I learned from you guys, and they became, well... ¡¯Mastered¡¯ Versions of themselves." Eisen exined, as he slowly looked at the notifications and tried to see a bit more detail on them. It seemed like all of the abilities that he had gotten before were still the same, just far, far more potent than they were before. It seemed like Eisen barely had any limits in what he could do with these five skills now. "Something else happened too..." Eisen started. Denmir, Folmirra, Jekyll and Morrom already seemed far too perplexed to say anything right now, and while it may have been a bad idea to try and stack more onto that, Eisen chose to just get it out of the way. "I was given the choice to upgrade my current ¡¯Omni Craftsmaster¡¯ ss into ¡¯Godly Craftsmaster¡¯. So there¡¯s that." The next half hour or so, Eisen just had to face the onught of questions from these other five, together with the feeling of him being maybe a little bit too worried about getting the Advanded Skill series... This one was much better, wasn¡¯t it? "I guess there¡¯s no reason not to ept. Upgrade my ss." Eisen said out loud as he looked at the notification in front of him, prompting this one to disappear just to be reced by another. [As you have a currently open Level-Up Quest, upgrading your ss is not possible. Your ss-upgrade will proceed once you finished the current Level-Up Quest] "Or don¡¯t." The old man sighed, "I have to finish the Level-Up Quest first." After looking at Eisen a bit more closely, Jekyll started to frown slightly, since he was thinking that something was just a bit off. "Why are you looking like that?" He asked, and Eisen slowly raised his head surprised. "Hm? What do you mean?" Eisen replied, before Jekyll sighed deeply and crossed his arms, "You seem kind of disappointed. As if you wanted something else. Eisen, you just got abination of skills that I can surely say no living soul currently has. Then you were given the chance to get a ¡¯Godly¡¯ crafting ss, something that also currently no living soul has. The things you wanted were far, far worse than what you ended up with. So why are you disappointed, of all things?" Jekyll asked, seemingly actually getting slightly pissed off at how Eisen was acting, and the old man simply looked back at him, thought about it for a few moments, and then came to a rtively clear conclusion. "It was just far, far too easy." Eisen exined, and all four of them looked at Eisen confusedly, before the old man exined. "Sure, there have been a lot of mysteries that we¡¯ve been trying to figure outtely, but everything has been going so well. During the 70 years of my life in the other world, I havee to find out that you can only get somewhere if you work really, really hard. But here? Ever since I¡¯ve been here, I¡¯ve been ying around, having fun, and basically just doing whatever I felt like. And as the reward for that, I was given things that others here work literally hundreds of years toward to even get the chance at acquiring it to no avail. Just like that." Eisen pointed out, although Morrom looked at him with a deep frown. "The fuck are you talking about? Are you trying to say that all the work the ¡¯other¡¯ Eisen did was for nothing? He himself worked for 500 years to peak. There¡¯s a reason why you look this old. Giants have a lifespan of up to 1000 years, dwarfs of maybe... 80 or 90? You were reaching the end of your life, and-" "I know." The old man replied, "I know all of that. But I didn¡¯t work for it. This old man here didn¡¯t. Eisen did, but I didn¡¯t. I¡¯m living off the fruits of someone else¡¯sbor. And even if I know that technically it was my ownbor, I don¡¯t remember any of it. It wasn¡¯t actually me. The thing is, I just keep expecting something bad to happen. And the longer everything works out perfectly, I fear that the worse the repercussions will be." With a quiet grumble, Eisen just sighed and looked at the time floating right next to him, "I¡¯m going to keep working for now." He said, "Sorry for my attitude about this. I just somehow can¡¯t bring myself to be cheerful right now." Eisen expained to them, before choosing to get started with another project. One where he could maybe somehow really make use of his two racial skills some more. They were close to ranking up to five, so there was a pretty good reason for not trying to continue on with all of this. First things first, Eisen turned around toward Fafnir, who was currently sleeping in the corner of the room. Sigurd was preparing a part of the dungeon to be expanded a little right now, so they weren¡¯t out in the open currently, "Fafnir, open the gate." Eisen said quietly, and Fafnir slowly stood up and stretched a bit just to roll back up on the ground while opening the second gate. "Sigurd, connect the gate to the material garden." Eisen said as he ced his hand onto the door before pushing it open. In front of him was the scene of arge room that Eisen had been nting a lot of different things in. For one, nearly all of the floor, expcept a small path running through its center, was covered in material-grass. It acted a little bit different to what Eisen saw in the metal forest before, but that was probably because he didn¡¯t choose the exact right metal. After all, he had used a couple of different materials as a base to create different strips of this grass, and they all acted slightly different to each other, so that was Eisen¡¯s guess for now. In here, Eisen was doing a few experiments simply on how different materials influenced the growth of different nts, he was growing materials to use in things like he was about to do, and of course he was also trying his hand at selective breeding. Eisen wanted to see if it was possible to turn a nt-family that started off with high-carbon steel back into iron after a few generations. They took a little while to grow, so Eisen couldn¡¯t say for sure how well it was working just yet, though. Either way, for now, Eisen just walked up to the area at the back of the room, while covering his feet in ayer of rock so that he wouldn¡¯t hurt himself by walking on the special grass, and took a look at the different trees. Eisen got out his multitool and had it near to instantly turn into its axe mode, before Eisen immediately cut through one of the trees made entirely out of steel. The old man looked at the tree and then first tried something else out. Alchemical Compression. Eisen covered the metal trees in ayer of his mana, and then ¡¯pressed¡¯ it into the smallest size that he could manage. And that size was really ridiculously small. The five-meter tall tree had been squeezed down to a head-sized sphere. With a wry smile, Eisen tried to pick that sphere up, although that was really quite hard to do considering its confusingly heavy weight, but once he managed to hold it properly he could quickly carry it into his workshop. Eisen ced the ball of metal into a crucible he made with his element and then started to melt it down. It seemed like the others were pretty curious about what he was doing at the moment, although they really couldn¡¯t expect what happened next. The old man decreased his size as much as possible and stood in front of the crucible. He pressed both of his fists directly onto each other, taking off any sort of essory that he had on them, and then had the crucible pour the molten, heavilypressed steel onto Eisen¡¯s hands. "Wait, Eisen, what are you doing?!" Morrom asked in shock, "Are ya crazy? Not even you could have hands that can handle that heat for a long time!" Denmir added, before Eisen just nodded his head. And the next moment, a number of potions appeared in front of him after being ced there by Sigurd. But they weren¡¯t any potions either, they were the special mana-potions that could be activated near-to-instantly by just ¡¯absorbing¡¯ them. What Eisen wanted to do was quite simple, really. "I¡¯m going to keep this metal here hot at all times. And then, I¡¯m going to try increasing my size with my giant racial skill. If there isn¡¯t any space for my all of my body to change, it usually doesn¡¯t work. It¡¯s as if there¡¯s just a wall there that I can¡¯t break through for my own safety. I¡¯m going to abandon my safety for a bit to try and break through that wall. That will both strain the pressure- and heat-resistance of my hands, as well as my size-changing ability." Eisen exined to them, "I think this will let me level my racial skills up simultaneously pretty easily." Chapter 517 Racial Upgrades 517 Racial Upgrades Eisen was standing in his workshop with his handspletely enveloped in hot metal. It wasn''t like it was hot enough to hurt him right off the bat, but after a while, even a dwarf''s hands would lose out a little bit. Once more, Eisen chose to increase the size of his body forcefully despite his hands being inside of the metal. He could feel the pressure increasing as his hands were being pressed together. It felt like they usually would have been broken and crushed into a single mass already. The old man was even taking a bit of damage through this, although he was quickly being healed by either Bree or one of Eisen''s potions whenever he lost a little too much. "Is..." Sky started with a slightly nervous, wry smile, "...that actually working?" He asked, and Eisen turned toward him with a slight grin, "Surprisingly, it actually is. The rate at which I gain proficiency is much higher than if I were to just use my skills regrly." Eisen pointed out. "And I was actually thinking of a way to increase the speed a little more." He added, before turning around and walking up to Morrom. The half-elf was currently working on a small enchantment-idea he had, and just raised his head when he saw the old man. "Erm... yeah?" He asked, not able to avert his eyes from the mass of metal around Eisen''s hands, and the old man just lightly smirked at him, "Could I ask you to help me a little?" The old man suggested, and Morrom lightly raised his brows before just nodding his head. "Sure, what do you need my help with? Removing the metal?" He asked, but Eisen simply shook his head. "No, no. I can just melt this away if I need to, don''t worry. I need you to create a maism-enchantment on the ground that only attracts this specific metal." Eisen told him, and Morrom lightly raised his brows in response. "And why exactly do you want me to do that?" He asked, even if he did technically understand why he wanted to go for this, "Right now I''m just making use of general abilities of my racial skills, the ones that I can use at any time without the skill ''technically'' being active. So I want to try and use my Giant''s Strength skill a little bit, at least." Eisen exined to him. Morrom lightly shrugged and epted that as a proper exnation. That was actually a solid method that people with that kind of skill used to level it up, after all. The rest that was involved with this was a bit over the top, though. Morrom just spread out ayer of mana crystal on the ground and ttened it so that Eisen could stand on it, before simply creating the kind of maism-enchantment that Eisen asked for. The old man stepped onto the mana-crystal tform and then poured mana into it from his feet. Immediately Eisen could feel the pull on his arms. It was to the amount that usually, he would have expected his arms to pop out of their sockets on Eisen''s shoulders. But even then, Eisen was able to still hold out for a while, and then just activated his Giant''s strength skill. That actually made it far, far easier to hold out with this. So, Eisen increased his mana-output and with that also increased the strength of the pull directed at the mass of steel around his hands. Since the metal even pushed itself inbetween the gaps of Eisen''s fingers now, and Eisen just opened up a little bit of hollow space in the center of his fists, he was able to properly grab something like a ''Bar'' there and pull the mass of metal up on that instead of simply having it hang on his wrists. It was like that at first, and he was actually taking a fair amount of damage just through that. Not to mention, it hurt a fair amount, considering that Eisen was no actually capable of feeling pain in this world. The hot metal itself was pretty unpleasant, but because of his innate resistance to heat on his hands, it was still bearable to an extent. Either way, for now, Eisen just stood there, with a piece of metal that was far, far, far heavier than anything anyone had ever carried before on Earth just around his hands. He kept trying to increase his size and breaking through the steel over and over again, causing more and more damage to his hands. This continued for not only the rest of the day, but even the next day. Of course, while Eisen was sleeping, he had squatted down cross-legged and was just sitting on the tform instead of standing there, but it was still a fair amount. And around the evening of the next day, some notifications that Eisen really wanted to see finally appeared. [A Giant''s Strength reached Level 100 in Rank 4, upgrading to Rank 5] [You have discovered who you truly are by diving into the depths of your racial skill. The skill became the skill] Eisen couldn''t help himself but smile when he saw these notifications. He had be the kind of giant that he was supposed to be again, huh? The old man just opened the detailed information of the skill and looked it through. In total, not much had changed from the abilities that were listed here, but there was still something slightly different about everything. Enough to be an immense difference. For one, the potency of all the abilities had increased by a fair amount, to the extent where the extra strength that Eisen gained through this awakened skill had made it easy to carry the piece of metal on his hands around. But then, there was something else as well. Another, new innate ability that came with this skill. And that was an ability that increased the general ''performance'' of his body. It seemed like a simple passive buff at first, but when Eisen read through everythign, it turned out to be far more amazing than that. Sure, there were the generic passive buffs to his crafting-rted strength and speed, but there were other parts about it as well. For example, his body had be able to resist high temperatures. It didn''t seem to be to the extent of his Dwarven Hands, but it was still pretty incredible as far as Eisen was concerned. Like this, he would be able to survive inpletely different environments than normal. "Well, that''s a pretty pleasant change." Eisen pointed out to himself. At least he felt a bit more fulfillment from getting the upgrade to this. Sure, it was still out of his control what kind of upgrade he got, but at the very least he was actually somewhat straining himself to level this skill up. Still, Eisen wasn''t done yet. His other racial skill was at level 99 as well, and even in the upper 90''s when it came to proficiency, so it surely wouldn''t take long to rank this skill up anymore either. With an excited smile, Eisen just kept pushing through. He wanted to get this done today, really. Tomorrow, the next ship would be departing for the inds, after all. The others were currently taking a bit of time to just sight-see here, and buy a few things that they Bree was on another date with Dien, and even Sky chose to sit on the roof to read out there instead. 16:49 Eisen wanted to just spend some more time with everyone for now, even if he didn''t know exactly were told would be hard toe by on the inds for now, for example specific types of food or materials, and most of the others were apanying them. Otherwise, the five Half-dragon knights were spending their time just training with brody, while Komer had started instructing the dozen Bodyguard Golems on what they were supposed to do specifically. Bree was on another date with Dien, and even Sky chose to sit on the roof to read out there instead. Eisen wanted to just spend some more time with everyone for now, even if he didn''t know exactly where that urge came from. For one, he would be soon heading to the inds as well so that he could get the ''King'' stuff out of the way, but but the half-dragons and bree were always around him anyway. And it wasn''t like he would be alone at any point anyway, because the three monster-children were most likely going to follow him around as long as they lived, and even if not, he still had Kirisho with him inside of the amulet around his neck. Either way, there was no need to think about this kind of thing right now. Eisen just kept on trying to increase his size for a while. Although roughly ten or so minutester, the steel suddenly started heavily bending and split open before falling to the ground due to being broken open by immense pressure. And as Eisen stood there confusedly, he noticed the other notifications that popped up at the same time that the metal broke open. [A Dwarf''s Hands reached Level 100 in Rank 4, upgrading to Rank 5] [You have discovered who you truly are by diving into the depths of your racial skill. The skill became the skill] The old man raised his hands surprisedly to take a look at them, and then just waved the notifications away before he opened the skill info for his newly upgraded racial skill. Simr to his Giant-racial skill, the Dwarf-racial skill was mostly simr and just gave Eisen''s hands a basic increase in its abilities. It seemed like especially the heat and pressure resistance got a fair upgrade, though, at least judging from the fact that Eisen was able to break open the steel shell this easily. With a slight sigh, Eisen just cracked his knuckles a bit and then stretched his fingers out a little bit into all directions, to get rid of the stiffness from having them stuck in ce for the past one and a half days. Eisen would test out what his new hands could doter, first, he wanted to try something else. Eisen slowly started increasing his size a bit more, until... He hit the ceiling. The literally 7-meter high ceiling. And to Eisen, it didn''t seem like he was anywhere near his size limit. And so, the old man chose to just make his way outside onto the balcony. There was at least enough space there, even if the danger of him being discovered was higher. Once he made his way there, the old man stretched a bit and then repeated what he did before, slowly increasing his size. Both Sky and Komer, who were sitting there just casually talking to each other, then stared at the figure of the old man that continuosly kept increasing in size more and more. The figure that only stopped growing when it hit 15 meters in height. Chapter 518 More Proficiency Eisen looked down onto the balcony and the actual roof of the whole building, "Well, this is a bit more than I expected..." The old man pointed out with a wry smile, and then quickly started to decrease his size again. He would head out of townter on so that he could safely test this size out together with his Draconic Demon form, which would increase his size even further. The old man scratched the back of his neck as he stood there while Sky and Komer both just stared at him in confusion, "What the fuck was that? Since when can you turn that... huge?" Komer asked immediately. With a light smile on his face, Eisen just crossed his arms, "I just ranked up my Giant Racial skill, and it seems like the upgrade that I got was a SERIOUS upgrade." He exined to them. "It¡¯s like you¡¯re an actual Giant now, right?" Sky asked, actually somewhat excitedly, and Eisen thought about it for a moment and then shrugged, "I might stille out a little short depending on which n we¡¯re talking about." He exined. It was just a feeling he had though, and he couldn¡¯t exactly say which n was supposed to be howrge exactly. Eisen sighed slightly and then cracked his knuckles before heading back toward the door, "Let me know when everyone is back. I¡¯ll keep working for a while." "Eh?" Komer suddenly replied, and Eisen turned around with a brow raised, "What is it?" He asked, and Komer just scratched his cheek a bit, "Oh, I somehow expected that you¡¯d keep testing this out some more. You might be able to do a lot of really insane things with your size that huge." Komer pointed out. With a bit of thought, the old man started running his fingers through his beard and then turned fully back toward Komer, "And what exactly do you mean with ¡¯really insane things¡¯?" Eisen asked slightly curiously, and Komer just slightly grinned in response. "Something that¡¯s undoubtedly going to help both of us." Komer exined, and Eisne just approached him again. "Alright, tell me more." "Got it! Okay, so. There are a few things that your help could be used for. They¡¯re technically just manualbor things, but with your size and items, you should be able to finish work that might take weeks within a couple of days. And it should help your level-up quest as well!" Komer continued, "For one, someone illegally imported a world tree sapling and then had a group of naturalists support its growth with nt control. Thend that the tree is on was seized by the kingdom, and I managed to buy the rights for thatnd. Under the condition that the tree is felled. The tree has three times the thickness of the tree we used for the ship, even if it¡¯s just twice as tall. Either way, we can keep two thirds of the wood as long as we deliver the rest to the Prince. I figured that the wood from that could be a good material for you." With a lightly raised brow, Eisen just crossed his arms and looked down at Komer, "Is that so? Hm, something like that..." He muttered, "Might be a pretty good chance, huh?" The old man pointed out, and then just nodded his head in satisfaction. "Alright, good. Let¡¯s do that. A tree of that size should be a good enough sorce for Woodcutting Proficiency. Just tell me where the tree is, and I¡¯ll get it done. Is there anything that you want to do with thend afterward? I doubt you¡¯d just buy it for the tree and then let me have all the wood." "Haha. You know me pretty well, huh?" Komer replied with a slightly ufortableugh, "You see, there¡¯s a reason why I had to buy thend that the tree stood on instead of just the tree itself. The tree¡¯s roots spread out to cover an area of one square kilometer. Since with the tree, thatnd became unusable otherwise, and not many can fell it, it became cheap as dirt. Literally. It was sold to me at the price of unusable wastnd, despite being an area that has incredibly dense ambient mana. Just having the right to use thatnd to procure different materials is worth many, many times what it will cost us to fell the tree, now that you can grow to that size." "I see. Dense ambient mana, huh?" The old man muttered, "That means that it¡¯s perfect for nting things, right?" Eisen asked, before Komer immediately nodded, "Mhm, exactly. If you have naturalists with proficient understanding of mana, the effects of nt control can be boosted by so much." He exined, and Eisen immediately started smiling broadly. "I get it. Then I¡¯ll let Jyuuk and Xenia know as well. And make sure that the seeds are ready by the time the ship leaves tomorrow, I¡¯m heading off immediately afterward. We¡¯ll take care of business there, since I also have to increase my Farming proficiency some more." The old man suggested, and Komer simply kept smiling as if everything went just like he wanted it to. "Well, that¡¯s pretty pleasant to hear." He replied, before Eisen just smiled back, "But is it fine if I use all thatnd to nt some of my material seeds after we¡¯re done? We can¡¯t increase the speed of that, but if the area has as much mana as you¡¯re saying it does, then their speed of growth should still be ellerated." "Oh yeah, that¡¯s totally fine, don¡¯t worry about it. I¡¯m sure the three of you will be able to get me far, far more than I¡¯m even expecting of you." The young Merchant pointed out, before Eisen kept looking at him curiously. "And was there anything else? It sounded like cutting down that tree wasn¡¯t the only thing I could do." Eisen pointed out, and Komer quickly nodded his head. "Right! Because of an onflood of monsters caused by an Artificial, a quarry was abandoned." Komer exined, and Eisen just kept looking at him curiously, "And let me guess, you also bought up the quarry?" "Nope!" Komer replied immediately, "Just yesterday a Boss monster appeared there, so it became an official Field Dungeon. And the right to thend the field dungeon was built on belongs to whoever clears it." "I see... Then shouldn¡¯t-" "I ask Brody? Yeah, he¡¯s already on it, don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m not asking you to hunt monsters for me. What I am asking you to do is to head to that field dungeon and do a little bit of mining work there if you want to." With a satisfied expression, Eisen just nodded his head and kept moving his fingers through his beard, "I see, I see. Well, that sounds like a good enough ce to level my mining skill up then. But really, you¡¯re expanding yourself to have your fingers anywhere you can have them, huh?" Eisen pointed out, and Komer just slightly chuckled. "Well, what else can a businessman do?" He replied, and then slightly turned away, "Especially since this is an actual world and I can¡¯t afford to y around anymore and have to treat everything I do seriously..." "Haha, sorry for breaking your illusion like that. Well, either way, thanks for giving me those chances, bud. I¡¯m going to head off for now and keep working on some other skills of mine." Eisen suggested, before he started making his way back toward his workshop. There, Eisen simply cracked his knuckles and chose to go get some materials. He sat them down in front of him and thought about what to do for a little while. He figured he could continue on with the next part of his quest in chronological order for a bit. And the next part was to rank up his upation skills. The Crafting Space skill was the most bothersome one, as far as Eisen was concerned, since there was only one ability that would let him at least somewhat properly let him control how fast the skill leveled up through actual hard work. And that was the ability to manipte tools within the crafting space. Eisen thought about what exactly to use this ability for, and in the end, simply chose to try andbine all three of his upation skills for a bit. Eisen activated the crafting space skill and slowly pulled the multitool away from his apron using that skill. Luckily, through the tool¡¯s intelligence, this movement was immediately supported. Then, he activated his truth-seeing-eyes and then switched to the Visualization mode. Eisen visualized himself standing there, holding the Multitool, and then just tried to have it move around a little bit. It seemed like with thisbination, things worked surprisingly well. But when the old man tried to have that ¡¯visualization¡¯ of himself pick up the materials, that didn¡¯t really work all too well. And so, Eisen added part of a mana-double onto the visualization, and that was the left hand, the one that would be used to move materials around. Just like that, Eisen could have this other version of him start working. Eisen had to stand right next to it for now, and then tried to just make it work in order to forge something like a small metallic hand. Technically, it wasn¡¯t really all thatplicated. It was just a hand in the simplest sense. Basically, it was just made up of the ¡¯main¡¯ part of the hand that included its back and palm, that was connected to five caps that acted as fingertips via metallic thread. And so, since Eisen made it as a ¡¯tool¡¯, it was recognized as such after it became an item, and Eisen could use it together with the crafting space skill to move it around, and as such quickly reced the mana-double hand. And after making another one of those ¡¯hands¡¯ that would then be holding the actual tool, the old man got started and had this ¡¯visualized Eisen¡¯ start working on an ego-item. After having it work for a while, Eisen got another idea. He slowly sat down in the middle of the room cross-legged and closed his eyes, before starting to cover the whole space in his mana so that he could constantly keep his mana-copy information on this space updated. He then visualized that space inside of his mind, with him standing at the position where that ¡¯visualized Eisen¡¯ was standing before. He was just holding the multitool like regr now. And so, like this, Eisen was able to act as if he was still physically working, even if he technically was just sitting there on the ground. All the whilst an invisible figure made up of two rough metal hands was working on the item that Eisen was imagining. Chapter 519 Storage Space For a while, Eisen was really just sitting there, controlling those three items, the two mock-hands and his multitool, as if he was actaully standing there and working, even if the reality was very different. Eisen was slightly surprised at how well this was working out, considering that the items that he had been making ended up being pretty good. Of course, they didn¡¯t reallye close to what Eisen could do usually, since he was right now technically just thinking about making the item. Without the physical part of it, the touch, the resistance, the exhaustion, it became a little bit boring. But that didn¡¯t matter for now, since this was all so that Eisen could level up his three upational skills. Using ¡¯Crafting Space¡¯, he was controlling the mock-hands and the multitool to move like he wanted them to. Then, using ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Mind¡¯, Eisen was properly visualizing himself to stand there and work on items. And the items that he would be working on were simply different Ego-Items. For roughly two hours now, Eisen had been doing this while meditating to make sure he wouldn¡¯t run out of mana during this whole process, until he noticed the door opening. \"Yeah, that was really interesting, right?\" Morrom eximed as he stepped through, and Denmir immediately nodded his head in response, \"Mhm, those were some pretty unique items, aye? These artificials have pretty nice ideas sometimes.\" Denmir pointed out, and Jekyll quickly chose to change the topic to something else. \"Talking about ¡¯ideas¡¯... Do any of ya have an idea of what¡¯s goin¡¯ on here?\" The Half-Dwarf asked and everyone stared at the... things that were just floating around randomly and crafting an item. And before anyone could make a suggestion about what was going on, Eisen simply greeted them. \"Haha, don¡¯t worry, this is simply a method to level my upational skills up.\" \"I figured you were controllin¡¯ this, but still, how? Your element isn¡¯t a ¡¯Metal¡¯ element, right?\" Jekyll asked next, so Eisen simply shook his head, \"It¡¯s part of the ¡¯Crafting Space¡¯ Skill. It lets me control tools freely within the space. I¡¯mbining it with some other skills to be able to make those things move like I would.\" The old man pointed out, before quickly making one of the metal hands wave at the group of four. \"What an insane skill that is...\" Denmir muttered, slightly jealously, it seemed. Simply agreeing, the other three nodded their heads. Then, Eisen simply continued on with this. And sure, while his Ego-Item Creation skill was already at Rank 3 for a while now, but Eisen figured it was still a good chance to get some mor experiments rted to how different souls affect ego-items, and how different people affect the ego-items they¡¯re given. So right now, Eisen was simply making basic items like daggers, swords, shields, bows, and so on. These would thenter be sold to, or simply given to, yers or NPCs that seemed like they had an interesting character. It was really just to see what would happen to Ego-Itemster on, and then to see what they would turn into after they¡¯ve been ¡¯maxed out¡¯. The old man was pretty sure that he would never hear about the majority of them animore, but it still seemed worth it. But of course, making ego-items wasn¡¯t the only thing that Eisen thought about doing. Especially since the Ego-Item skill¡¯s rank was already at 3, he could simply move on freely and do whatever else he felt like. That for example included, but wasn¡¯tpletely limited to, cooking, drawing, and woodworking a bit here and there. Those were skills that he really had to rank up as well, after all. Well, his woodworking skill¡¯s rank was already at Rank 4, but carving things out of wood was still a good practice for this, since it required pretty dexterous actions for the mock-hands to follow up on. The bad thing about the cooking was that Eisen couldn¡¯t actually taste-test it easily, but at the very least, he could simply smell it and at least somewhat tell if everything was going in the right direction. And this whole thing continued for the rest of the day, until Eisen¡¯s ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Mind¡¯ skill reached Rank 4. Its level was already in its upper 80¡¯s when Eisen started using it this early afternoon, but it seemed like this method was just perfect to make the skill level up quickly. Eisen would be sure to remember that. But since he now didn¡¯t need to constantly be viewing everything from the hypothetical position of the mock-Eisen, the old man chose to do something else that was focused more on the actual movement of that mock-Eisen instead of being able to make proper items. And that started with cutting through the thread that connected the metal palms to the fingertips on the two mock-hands. Then, the old man simply continued and made the rest of the segments of the fingers to add onto that. Without connecting any of the parts, Eisen tried his best to make it so that these small metal pieces, which Eisen actually had turned into finished items so that they could be seen as a tool, move around. It took a minute or so to properly get everything into position, but soon enough, Eisen had a metallic hand floating in front of him that had basically just air where its joints would usually be. After Eisen made the second hand as well, he started making the feet. And after that, the legs, the arms, and even the torso. Of course, he only added the most integral parts, so he didn¡¯t create intricate things like bones or muscles on this, but they were literally just lumps of metal that Eisen was controlling as if they were tools. He did have to cover the whole thing in his mana andpress it a little bit, but just enough until his mana could somewhat hold the metal parts together a bit, so that the metal body was capable of moving around just so slightly. And using this prettyrge ¡¯collection¡¯ of tools, Eisen did a few pretty simple things. It was basically the same kind of stuff that he had his mana doubles do back when he first got the mana double skill. Simple, basic physical excercise, where Eisen tried his best to make the metal parts stay in ce as if they were really part of a proper body. There was no proper reason behind this, and Eisen would simply melt all of the parts making up this guy¡¯s ¡¯body¡¯ down the moment his crafting space skill ranked up to 5. Eisen was basically just ying around a bit. And in the end, he didn¡¯t try to hide that fact either. For example, he made extra parts for this guy, so that he had four arms instead just two, and then added another section to the legs, all the whilst not even giving him a head. Because of the extra section on the legs, it just looked awkward if it still tried to walk normally, so Eisen made the legs twist around so that they were like an ostrich¡¯s. Basically, the ¡¯thigh¡¯ went backward instead of forward, the ¡¯knee¡¯ bent forward, and then the invisible joint connecting the lowest segment to the whole leg simply twisted backward like a regr knee. The way it was walking around looked pretty weird like this, but weirdly enough, it didn¡¯t necessarily look bad. Either way, after that, Eisen added another segment to the arms as well, even if all the joints twisted in the regr way an elbow did. The figure looked pretty creepy, but it was still a good practice even if it drained a lot of mana from Eisen. Well, the others seemed a little bit concerned over what Eisen was doing in here like this, but the old man simply continued on adding things to this really, really weird metal being that could only walk through Eisen¡¯s control over it. The old man gave it a tail, an actual head made up of a ball of metal and a rough jaw, some horns that went onto that head, and even some spikes onto its back where its spine would be. It looked pretty monstrous toward the end, but Eisen just tried to make sure that he could keep leveling this skill up. He had been using it literally all the time ever since he got his ss, after all. It was just the basic ability of creating a space where crafting abilities were increased, but still, he didn¡¯t craft without this skill active anymore. It went so far that Eisen sometimes instinctively tried to activate the skill in the other world when trying to make himself breakfast. So, it was pretty annoying that the skill still was at just rank 4. Although, as if someone heard Eisen¡¯sints, the old man noticed that the skill was at Level 99, and its proficiency was in the upper 90¡¯s as well! It seemed like despite already spending a couple of hours on just ying around with this skill like this, Eisen was able to get it to rank up sooner than expected. The old man continued making this weird figure do a bunch of random things, and simply finished it off by having it walk into therge crucible that Eisen created for this by itself. The metal parts were slowly heating up, and Eisen pulled out his mana to keep the body together more easily so that it wouldn¡¯t hinder the metal heating up somehow. It soon started glowing in a bright orange color, before the smaller parts, like the toes, tail segments, and fingers, slowly started to melt away. Therger parts started shrinking because they were losing metal from their surface as well, and soon, the only thing that was still there was the torso. And just when Eisen¡¯s control over this metalpletely disappeared, a notification appeared instead. [Crafting Space reached Level 100 in Rank 4, upgrading to Rank 5] [You can now store materials inside of an extra space] Eisen waved the notifications away with a light smile. upation skills couldn¡¯t be upgraded by having them reach rank 5, so Eisen hadn¡¯t been expecting anything either. But that didn¡¯t matter for now, since the old man was pretty curious about this new ability. Eisen waved his hand to the side and started thinking about that ¡¯extra space¡¯ to appear, before what was basically a box the size of his carriage appeared in front of him. It was madepletely of wood, and was just so slightly decorated around the edges. One side of it was open, and simply showed a small empty room. Chapter 520 Monsters can be good Eisen looked at the space in front of him and raised his brows. This seemed pretty interesting, really. The old man stepped inside of the storage space and could feel the texture of the floor changing to the wood that this space was made of. Even when Eisen extended his hands toward the walls, they were really there, as if he had just ced this box somewhere in the open. It seemed a little bit unwieldy, though. Maybe Eisen could y around with this some moreter. For now, the old man grabbed a mana crystal out of his apron and ced it onto the ground before stepping back out of the storage space. He quickly made it close, and the ¡¯Box¡¯ shrunk down until it disappeared from Eisen¡¯s sight within just a moment, taking the mana crystal with it. When Eisen opened the material storage again, the mana crystal was in the same spot that it was when Eisen closed it. \"Whoa, that¡¯s so cool!\" Caria eximed excitedly as she tried jumping into the box, \"Close it again!\" She yelled out, and Eisen looked at her with a light smirk and shook his head. \"Seems like I cant, sorry.\" The old man told her, and the Myconid stepped back out of the material storage and with a disappointed sigh. \"Who knows, maybe in a couple of ranks I can store you as well?\" Eisen suggested, which weirdly enough seemed to cheer Caria up. For now, Eisen just smiled and cracked his knuckles. \"Then I guess I should ce whatever materials I may need in here, huh?\" The old man suggested, before Sigurd appeared right next to him. \"But why? I¡¯m usually there, right?\" The core guardian pointed out, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head, \"Exactly. ¡¯Usually¡¯. But that also only applies when we¡¯re travelling. For example, the dungeon has been near this town for a couple weeks now, so you¡¯ve been here only half the time when you chose to close it down every once in a while. This is just in case you¡¯re not around sometime.\" The old man pointed out, and Sigurd slowly nodded its head, simply because it agreed with what Eisen was saying even if it didn¡¯t necessarily like it somehow. Eisen looked around and made his way over toward the storage sections of this workshop, quickly throwing in a couple of different types of metal, cloth, leather, wood, and of course gems and crystals, literally stacking everything up to the roof. Luckily, it seemed like when Eisen actually something into this space, it couldn¡¯t drop out of it through the wall that wasn¡¯t there as long as Eisen didn¡¯t want it to. And on top of that, Eisen could even choose which walls were there. For example, he couldpletely close the whole thing down, or he could remove all of the walls, including the floor and roof, and just have the materials loosely flow around. For now, Eisen chose to y around with this a little, and made the box float around a bit so that it waspletely closed again, before cing it down regrly on the ground. And then, he removed the floor and said that it was fine if all the materials left the box, and then just pulled the box up. Of course, like this, all the materials that Eisen gathered just toppled over and spread out on the floor, but at least the old man knew that it could be used this way. Afterward, there was something else that Eisen wanted to test out. He noticed it a little bit before, but Eisen could apparently make the box move through the walls and floor, and then open it there. Eisen pushed the box against the wall and made it move through all the way until the limit. And it seemed like the limit was until the side of the box that was facing Eisen was aligned with the wall. And now, Eisen couldn¡¯t remove any of the other walls either, but when he slightly pulled the box out, the parts of the box that weren¡¯t ¡¯inside¡¯ of the wall could be removed anyway. Since Eisen ced the box right next to the door, he stepped outside for a second, but noticed that the box didn¡¯t actually stretch out through the other side. So, a bit disappointedly, Eisen had to give up on the idea of using this ability to walk through walls. But then, Eisen chose to try something else and then pushed the box into the ground while just keeping the top open. Like this, he could just move the box around and gather up all the materials that he spread out on the ground beforehand. It was actually pretty satisfying, somehow. With a light smile on his face, Eisen ced the material storage box away. For now, he figured it was as good a time to get to bed as any. He yed around with this a bit now, and he would be able to y around with it some more tomorrow when they reached that giant tree that Komer mentioned. It seemed like tomorrow, Eisen would get a pretty great chance to level his woodcutting skill up. For now, Eisen simply chose to let the monster children get in their beds for tonight and then logged off. The next morning, Eisen woke up and pretty quickly stretched himself, making some of his bones make cracking sounds in response. Eisen quickly made his way over toward the door and walked out into the hallway. It was pretty early right now, but Eisen could already hear voices from the main living area. It was the day where Folmirra, Denmir, Jekyll, Morrom and Gralmar, together with all of their families, would make their way to the inds after all. The ship apparently arrived a little bit before sunrise, and the shipments on it had to be taken off it before others would need to be loaded onto it before passengers could board it. But even then, it made sense that everyone got up early on the day of their departure. \"Good morning, everyone.\" The old man said to them, and the greeting was quickly returned by the others. \"Now then, are you all excited to see what the inds are like?\" Eisen asked them, and was quickly met with mixed reactions. The adults did seem especially excited, although it seemed like the older children weren¡¯t necessarily that happy about it. That even included Koro, Eisen¡¯s formed apprentice. \"Some of ¡¯em are worried, because it¡¯s just a ¡¯boring ind¡¯, as they say.\" Denmir pointed out, and Eisen lightly raised his brows and looked at Morrom, who just shrugged. It seemed like Koro was annoyed for another reason. \"You know, those inds aren¡¯t boring at all. The ce you¡¯re going for is partially inhabited by Guardians like Sigurd,\" Eisen started and then pointed his thumb to his right before the Core Guardian appeared out of thin air and just waved at everyone, \"and then partially inhabited by a couple different humanoid monsters like Goblins, Kobolds, Lizardmen, and so on.\" This revtion slightly surprised everyone, and everyone¡¯s families stared at Eisen confusedly, \"Ah... they didn¡¯t mention that?\" The old man muttered with a wry smile as he looked at the others, and immediately, Denmir¡¯s son jumped up from where he was sitting and crossed his arms as he approached Eisen. \"What the hell?! You¡¯re tellin¡¯ me that we¡¯re gonna live in a ce infested with stinkin¡¯ monsters? The fuck¡¯s with that?!\" He eximed, although he was immediately pulled backward by Denmir. \"What the fuck do ya think yer doin¡¯? Don¡¯t speak to ¡¯im like that!\" The father scolded, even if the son didn¡¯t seem all that convinced to stop just yet. \"Why should I? There¡¯s no reason for us to-\" \"Listen here, boy.\" Eisen said with a light smile as he stared down at the young man with a deep re, \"With the exception of my two apprentices, not a single member of my direct party is a full ¡¯person¡¯. I¡¯m a half-monster. These three are full monsters. A beautiful young ghost is currently sleeping in the amulet around my neck. Sigurd, who you just saw, is a golem. Fafnir is obviously part dragon. Then there¡¯s the five half dragons, one of which is my grandson together with his squires. And not to mention the two fey-kin that are sitting right behind you.\" Confusedly, the young man looked at the others behind him and tried to figure out what he was talking about, and just saw Sal staring at him. The boy simply smirked, and for a moment shed his six spider-like eyes that were usually closed and nearly invisible to the naked eye. Denmir¡¯s sun slightly shivered and took a step back, but Eisen just sighed. \"I¡¯m not telling you this so you feel threatened by us. I¡¯m telling you this so you understand that just because someone is a ¡¯monster¡¯, doesn¡¯t mean that they¡¯re something to be innately feared. You shouldn¡¯t trust all monsters, but a good many of them are just like people.\" Eisen exined to him, and then slightly scratched the back of his neck as he stood back up properly. \"I¡¯m pretty sure that the majority of them should know how to speak a bit by now, even if it¡¯s just in broken sentences.\" Eisen exined, \"They work, they have families, and they live regr lives. At least now that the town has been reconstructed properly. They¡¯re even seen as proper citizens of the town through the town core ced there.\" Eisen kept exining to everyone why the monsters there were really no threat in the slightest, and that the main purpose of those in the town was to make sure that others were safe, especially when it came to new arrivals like these guys, who were far weaker in strengthpared to these innately powerful monsters. After a while, they seemed to be mostly convinced, even if Koro¡¯s mood was still incredibly sour. He wasn¡¯t mad because of the monsters, after all, but instead still pissed off because of the fact that he had toe with Eisen to that ind after all, even after the old man threw him out. Eisen understood that Koro may be pissed about that, but Eisen still was of the opinion that it waspletely justified. And it seemed like Koro was growing pretty well under Morrom. Morrom had simr chaotic energies as Koro did when it came to work, and since Morrom seemed to have perfected the art of containing damage from failed items, Eisen waspletely convinced that he was the perfect teacher for Koro. He may not be able to see it just yet, but hopefully in the future. A future that would start on the inds. Chapter 521 Demonic Lumberjack Eisen looked at the departing ship and just waved at his group of friends that was making their way over toward their new home now. Soon, the people on the ship became too small to properly make out, so Eisen chose to just turn around and be on his way as well now. He spoke to Jyuuk and Xenia a bit ago about making their way toward the ce where the giant tree was currently standing as well to turn the whole ce into farnd and to properly make use of the seemingly quite potent mana in that area. \"Alright, then I¡¯ll be off now.\" Eisen told Komer with a light smile on his face, and the young man just nodded his head as he turned away from the workers that he was just speaking to, \"Got it. The tree is guarded so that nobody can get close to it, but they were told you¡¯reing. Message me if there are any issues, and when you felled the tree and prepared it properly. Ah, and just use that whole space to make whatever you want to make. And take your time.\" Komer told Eisen, who simply nodded his head in response. \"Got it. I know roughly where to go, so let¡¯s head off now.\" Eisen suggested and cracked his knuckles as he looked at the others. \"Erm, is that way really a good idea?\" Sky asked, and Kiron seemed to immediately agree with him, \"Yeah, it seems a bit... risky.\" The Half-Dragon pointed out, and Eisen just looked at him with a brow raised. \"Hey, you five can just take this as a chance to practice a little. Fafnir will be doing the same as well, after all.\" Eisen said reassuredly. But it seemed like none of the Half-Dragons really liked that idea all too much. \"Yeah, I doubt we¡¯re gonna do that, thanks.\" Rudia replied, and Morgus immediately nodded his head, \"Yup, takes way too long to get our wings to properly carry us, ya know?\" The ck Half-Dragon pointed out, and Eisen slightly smiled at them. \"Well, if you change your mind, just let me know.\" The old man suggested, just as the group made their way over toward the closest gate. Once outside of town, Sigurd quickly ced the carriage down there, albeit without Cabarum and Aulu. And now, everyone made their way into the carriage, of course with the exception of Fafnir, since he was a slight bit too big. And with a crack of his knuckles, Eisen simply started growing to his new maximum size of fifteen meters, before activating his Draconic Demon form. Just as he expected, he grew even more than before and was now roughly 22 or 23 meters tall. The only ones here in this group that had seen this so far were the three monster children and Sky, so of course the reaction from the five half-dragons and Bree showed their immense awe and surprise at that. \"What the fuck-\" Morgus yelled, seemingly freaked out, although the reaction from some of the others was a little different. \"Grandfather!\" Kiron eximed, \"You are truly enormous now, since when could you grow to such a size?\" He asked, before Eisen just lightly chuckled and looked down at him, \"It hasn¡¯t been that long.\" The old man replied, and then simply started picking the carriage up pretty casually. He looked at the young Fey-Kin staring out of the front of the carriage with an excited expression and just smiled, \"Bree, how about you try and sit down instead of leaning out like that? I¡¯ll try to hold the carriage as steadily as possible, but it should still be pretty unsteady at times.\" The old man exined, and Bree simply nodded her head without hesitation. \"Of course! But Eisen, you just look so cool!\" She eximed, and Eisen just lightly chuckled as he watched Sal quickly connect Eisen and Fafnir through some thick thread so that Fafnir could properly practice flying again. Eisen tightly grabbed the carriage and even used his element to make the rock from his hands envelop the carriage at its side in a way that it was practically impossible for it to slip out. And then, the old man looked down at the ¡¯box¡¯ in his hands and smiled, \"Hold onto something, we¡¯re heading off.\" Eisen warned, turning his head to the side to look at Fafnir as he was currently sitting on his shoulders to make sure he could hold on during ¡¯liftoff¡¯. Eisen started running forward a bit, making the ground quiver underneath his step, and then slowly pped his wings before his body was being slightly lifted off the ground. Just before Eisenpletely lost all contact to the road he was on, he simply kicked off to give himself a little boost that made it possible for him to simply fly off into the distance rather quickly. Eisen felt Fafnir¡¯s ws dig into his shoulder as this was happening, even if it was just the outermostyer. The old man¡¯s skin was made of rock at the moment, after all. Noticing that Fafnir was a bit startled at the sudden speed, the old man tried to reassure the dragon and had him climb down toward Eisen¡¯s hands where he was currently holding the carriage. Everyone in there didn¡¯t seem to have held on much better, but at the very least they were now able to manage sitting down properly without stumbling over again, since Eisen was doing his best to keep up a steady pace while holding the carriage as even as possible. Fafnir slowly climbed on top of the carriage over Eisen¡¯s arm and then spread his wings out. He was immediately pushed back off the carriage and was now only hanging onto the thread. Using his feet, Eisen managed to slightly help Fafnir regain proper form, and the young Dragon then simply spread his wings out again. It took a little bit of effort to keep the same speed that Eisen had up, but at the very least he was able to manage it to an extent. Eisen slowed down a little bit for a while to make it easier for Fafnir to control his ¡¯flight¡¯, which was mainly just gliding in the end, and then sped up more and more. This continued until Eisen was able to see the tree in the distance. That truly giant, hundreds of meters tall tree. And that was only the part of the log that could really be seen, the leaves at the top together with the branches weren¡¯t counted toward that. And Eisen could immediately spot the roots that Komer had mentioned, roots that spread out for hundreds of meters as well, digging through the rock and dirt that the tree stood on. There were a fair few portions that were on top of the ground, even if it did seem like most of the roots were obviously underground. The old mannded in front of the tree, before immediately being approached and surrounded by a group of Guards. Eisen quickly let the carriage down onto the ground and snapped the thread connecting him with Fafnir so that the dragon could walk around normally, before deactivating his transformations and returning to his regr size. \"It¡¯s fine, it¡¯s fine, I¡¯m a person.\" The old man said, trying to reassure the guards that were surrounding them. And it made sense that they were scared of Eisen, after all, just a few moments ago he was a more than 20 meters tall monstrous creature. But it seemed like they still didn¡¯t properly rx, so Eisen got out the item that Komer gave him to show to these guys, just to make sure that they could be sure Eisen was the one that was supposed toe and fell this tree. The old man called out to one of the guards holding the scroll and handed it to him. He read through it a couple of times, and then excused himself to seemingly go get a superior that could actually make the decision to let Eisen through. And it didn¡¯t take long for someone toe over there either, the Guards¡¯ captain, and he quickly approved for Eisen toe through and get everything done. Although, all of the guards still seemed to be rather suspicious of Eisen at the moment, which he didn¡¯t me them for in the slightest, really. \"Hmm, this is going to take a while to get done, even at my maximum size...\" The old man announced to his group, \"Sigurd, Fafnir, just set the dungeon up somewhere around here. You guys can rx inside for now, I¡¯ll let you know when I need your help.\" Eisen told them, something that was quickly followed up on. Fafnir jumped into the air and arge gate appeared directly undearneath him, before the gate opened up and everyone stepped inside. Seeing that the guards were rather confused at seeing this, Eisen simply smiled at them. \"You can go ahead and join them, if you want. We have fresh food, cold refreshments, and even games like darts or pool to y if you want to.\" Eisen exined to them, although the Guard Captain just looked at the space behind the gate with a light, suspicious frown. \"Who are you...?\" He asked, and Eisen simply sighed as he started slowly increasing his size and approached the tree, \"What, did you expect the guy who was sent here to fell that giant tree single-handedly to be a normal person?\" The old man replied immediately. \"We have the prince¡¯s backing, I think you can trust us. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve heard of it, but that¡¯s the ¡¯Living Dungeon¡¯ that¡¯s been travelling around the continenttely.\" Immediately, the Guards started muttering amongst themselves. Most of them didn¡¯t really get the chance to see that ce before now, after all, but they definitely seemed to be more rxed after being told this. After all, the ¡¯Living Dungeon¡¯ was something that many, many people went into. There were pretty strong, dangerous monsters in there, but nobody ever lost their life. Well, a couple of times Artificials died, but since they simply returned a few hourster, that wasn¡¯t really seen as much of an issue by most people, considering that the Artificials themselves were nothing more than a little frustrated whenever they revived. That being said, Eisen then simply made his way over closer toward the tree before pulling out his multitool and having it turn into its axe mode. It seemed to grow pretty nicely with Eisen at this point in time, it seemed like the upgrade to his Giant racial skill even affected this items that he ced his growth-ability onto a little bit, since the multitool was growing with him just absolutely perfectly, same thing with his apron and pants, actually. Eisen slowly activated his Draconic Demon transformation, and then had the transformation carry over to the axe. Right now it was rather small in his hands, since the draconic demon transformation didn¡¯t count as a direct ¡¯size change¡¯ like with Eisen¡¯s Giant-Ability. But rather, it was something else. But luckily, Eisen could simply transfer such transformations over to items that he was using as well, so quite soon, the axe grew in size until it was perfect for Eisen once more. And as this 22 meter tall old man stood in front of the tree with that demonic axe in his hands, he started trying to figure out what the best approach for this would be. Chapter 522 Timber! Eisen looked around at the tree and chose to for now simply cut slightly into the giant Ironbark tree so that he had a slight guideline, so that he could make sure that the back-cut was really on the same level as the notch-cutter on. This would really be an intense impactter on, that was for sure, so Eisen really had to be careful not to mess this up. Once the guideline was finished, Eisen started looking around the area a little bit. He wanted to find the best direction for the tree to fall to. Although, since there was really nothing around here, any direction would be fine. It was just that Eisen wanted to look for a ce with the hardest ground to make sure there would be as little damage to the terrain as possible. Eisen nned on reinforcing the ground through his elementter on as well, of course, but that didn¡¯t mean that he could simply let it fall down anywhere. A solid base was always important, after all. Once he found a good ce where a lot of the roots above the ground had somewhat gathered together, Eisen figured that it was the perfect ce and simply directly made his way back to the tree to get started. Considering the size of this Ironbark tree, Eisen thought it would be the best idea to put an outline onto the log again to make sure the notch was even and really the right depth more easily. After that second guideline was done, the old man simply got started. With all his force, he swung the Draconic Demon Axe into the wood as deeply as he could. It was hard enough to just make the guidelines, due to the strength of the bark, but actually trying to cut the notch into the wood was a challenge in and of itself. The enormous size-difference didn¡¯t really help all that much either, but Eisen was positive that he would be able to handle it all pretty soon. Eisen cut his way through theyers of the Ironbark tree, cutting away at at the area contained byt he guidelines taht he made before until he had finally cut away roughly a third of the way of the tree¡¯s total diameter. The scrap would that was created through this alone was a literal mountain, and Eisen had sigurd properly save it all inside of the dungeon so that Eisen may get the chance to look for some way to use itter on if he could. After the notch was finished, something that took actually half the day, Eisen made his way to the other side of the tree to get started with the backcut. Eisen swung therge axe into the wood over and over again, cutting deeper and deeper. But since it was far harder to get deep into the log just like this, considering how thick the log was, Eisen had to improvise a little bit. He pushed in his element that was turned toward rock inbetween the thin gaps created through the axe,pressing it as much as absolutely possible. Of course, Eisen always made sure that the rock wasn¡¯t in the way when Eisen was hacking at a certain part of the log. But what Eisen was trying to do was simply slightly dpressing a few parts of the spots inside the mass ofpressed elemental mana. That way, the extra pressure from below would hopefully elerate the act of the tree toppling over. And it only took a couple more hours until the old man started hearing a couple of cracks here and there created in the wood just through it slightly leaning forward. But it wasn¡¯t falling just yet, so Eisen figured this was the perfect time to make sure everyone was really inside of the dungeon right now, so that nobody would end up identally being injured, and then covered the area where the tree would hopefully bending with his element. He tried to make sure that it was the hardest that it could be, before Eisen returned to the far side of the log and continued cutting into it. And once it really started slightly tilting forward, Eisen chose to do something that you usually should never do when felling a tree, since you would never be able topletely control the way that a tree was falling. But this time around, Eisen was confident that it was a bit easier to actually control, and even if he couldn¡¯t, then he may get crushed for now but would then simply be forcefully logged off for an hour on the other side. And that was something that Eisen could deal with, really. The reckless thing that Eisen did was simply push his fingers into the crack that had formed inbetween the two parts of the log through Eisen cutting into it, and while dpressing the parts of his element that were also underneath, Eisen pulled and pushed the main log upward with as much force as his body could muster. Of course, that wasn¡¯t all. Eisen also had the others help a little bit. Caria and Sal were working together to actually pull the log down on the other side, while Melissa prepared bees to bring them away from there the moment that the tree started falling in that direction. That was something else that you normally should never do when cutting a tree. Either way, what those two monster-teenagers did was quite simply. Sal connected parts of the roots to the log using his magic threads while turning that whole system of threads into a three-dimensional magic-circle to increase the pull. In the meantime, Caria tried her best to actually directly use the roots to physically pull the log toward them. Like that, they were using both magical and physical means to help the tree topple over. Soon, the log started cracking more and more, and Eisen could feel that he started needing less and less strength to push against the bottom of the log, so he yelled toward Melissa to get her to bring Caria and Sal away from where they were standing. After a little while, Eisen noticed that it had really be inevitable for the tree to fall, so he removed his hands from the bottom of the log and just watched. It was really an incredible sight. Such a giant thing, simply felled within a single day. Eisen couldn¡¯t really help but chuckle at that. The tree hit the ground not too long afterward, producing an enormous quake on the ground paired with a gust of wind that nearly blew the monster-children off their feet. The old man was pretty sure that the tree was damaged considerably even though he ced his element there, but at the very least, the main part of the log wasying there now. Eisen would simply cut away parts that amounted to a third of the whole tree¡¯s wood before preparing it like the guards wanted to take it with them. They most likely wouldn¡¯t be able to transport any of this in a single part, after all. And Eisen didn¡¯t mind doing that either, since it would still help him level up both his Woodcutting skill, as well as his woodworking skill. When the dust that was pushed around by the tree finally subsided, Eisen looked forward at the tree and quickly made his way over toward the leftover stump. With a quick jump, while holding the three monster children, Eisen managed to get there pretty swiftly, and then just took a look around. The horizontal log really stretched out for hundreds of meters. Quite a surreal sight, it was something that Eisen could only repeat to himself over and over again. \"Well then, this is pretty nice, huh?\" Eisen pointed out with a light chuckle directed at himself, before he just stretched a little bit. And as his bones and joints started cracking a little bit to relieve the slight pressure and tension that had built up, Eisen noticed that there were some people trying to get his attention from the side. Because of the loud crashing sound, the dust, the quake, and the gust of wind, it was practically impossible for the guards inside of the dungeon not to notice that something happened out here. In no way did they expect that it was just the giant tree being felled already... They really didn¡¯t think this would happen anytime soon, really. Since they managed to rx pretty well inside of the dungeon, they seemed a slight bit disappointed at having to ride on carriages for a couple of days soon again. Although, since it would take a couple of days to properly prepare all the wood like they wanted to have it, that wasn¡¯t really an issue. It took Eisen nearly a whole day to get through the log once, so there was no way that he would be able to finish preparing it by tonight. So the Guards didn¡¯t really have to worry about that. \"So, I¡¯m done for the day. You guys can just leave it like that for now, I¡¯ll get to work tomorrow morning and try to prepare the wood for you as soon as I can. But for that, I would also need some kind of preferred dimensions that you would like the wood to be cut into, otherwise it¡¯s just going to be my own choice. \"O-Oh, yeah, sure...\" The Guard Captain muttered quietly while looking at the giant man as he shrank down back to regr size, deactivating his draconic demon transformation, and Eisen simply kept stretching himself a little. With a smile on his face, d that this was handled now, Eisen made his way toward the dungeon and stepped inside, before Sigurd opened a gate for him so that he could get to where the others were at the moment. They were just rxing in a pretty nice part of one of the Forest floors as if having a pic outside. Reading, eating, training, all that kind of stuff. \"Wait, you¡¯re done already?\" Bree asked excitedly, and Eisen lightly chuckled, \"I felled the tree just now, yes. But other than that, this is still going to take a while. I¡¯m going to be working on something using that wood right here, after all. And then there¡¯s going to be the thing about removing all the leftover roots in the ground, and then preparing the ground properly to turn it into farnd, before spending a couple of days just speed-farming together with Jyuuk and Xenia. So... we¡¯ll be here for a little while.\" Eisen exined to the others, \"So go ahead and rx for now. Because after I manage to get my level up to 300, we¡¯re helping out the other Originals do the same, and then we¡¯re heading to the Giant Country.\" Chapter 523 Chopping it up The next morning, Eisen quickly made his way outside as Sigurd appeared in front of him and handed him a piece of paper. \"Morning! This is the specs you asked the Guard Captain for yesterday.\" The Core Guardian exined, before Eisen slowly looked the sheet over, \"Morning, and thanks. Then I¡¯ll get right to work.\" Eisen said before he stepped out the gate in front of him into the morning sun. The specifications for this weren¡¯t really all that special. It seemed like Eisen just had to cut the section that he was going to prepare for these guys up into nine ¡¯strips¡¯, and then cut those strips into three parts. That was something that Eisen could do pretty easily, he was quite sure. Eisen looked around and then made his way to therge log. He first tried to use his Crafter¡¯s Mind skill to properly ¡¯measure¡¯ how much volume all the wood in total actually had, and then stepped along the log itself to try and find the right spot to cut it up. And when he did, Eisen simply increased his size to the maximum again while activating his draconic demon transformation and pushing that transformation onto his multitool as well. The old man started hacking into the wood to once more just start making something like a ¡¯guideline¡¯ so that he could create a straight cut. And from then on, all that Eisen really did was hack into the log as much as he could. He obviously couldn¡¯t reach the centerpletely like this, considering the sheer size of this log, but at the very least he was able to prepare a good base to be able to cut it up further using some other means. And since Eisen was able to dig away at the ground underneath the log, he could pretty easily reach it from any direction that he needed to. The only problem really was just the reach. And to solve that, Eisen had Sigurd give him some mana-crystals that merged together and pushed into the cut that he just created in the log. It took a lot, but since Eisen could simply dpress the crystals a fair amount, he didn¡¯t have an issue really filling every nook and cranny in. But what followed then was the slightly annoying part. What he did was just so slightlypress the mana-crystal again in its thickness, so that it could rotate around the tree¡¯s center pretty easily. And then, Eisen started to create a 3D enchantment inside of this round mana-crystal b, simply turning the b itself so that he didn¡¯t have to walk around all the sides. This actually made it pretty easy. Either way, the enchantment that Eisen ced onto this crystal was pretty easy. For one, Eisen enchanted the whole thing with the woodcutting and woodworking abilities, and then made it push out something like a de of mana in its center that would keep pushing into the wood continuosly. It took a while to reallyplete it, which was to be expected considering the size that it required like this, but when it was done, Eisen just started pushing his mana inside while continuosly making the mana-crystal b, or ¡¯wheel¡¯, twist around the tree¡¯s center. It would end up taking a fair while, which was why Eisen wanted to first use the axe to cut into the log as much as he could, but soon enough, Eisen could hear some cracks in the center of the wood. Since he removed a couple meters underneath the whole section of the log that Eisen wanted to remove, the raw weight of it helped out with getting it to snap in half. That didn¡¯t necessarily make it a clean, perfect cut, but Eisen could just clean it up a little bit afterward. Soon, the now rtively thin part that connected the two sections of the log just snapped and the section that he would prepare for the guards to take with them dropped down onto the ground. Eisen lightly smiled when he saw that this method really worked. For now, Eisen chose to get started with pre-sectioning the log a bit. In general, that only consisted of hacking the guidelines into the log again so that he could rtively easily hack it up into the nine strips first. Although, there were a couple of meters on one side that Eisen didn¡¯t pre-section, since he wouldn¡¯t be cutting into them. This was just so that Eisen could keep the strips in ce and properly connected while he cut all the strips up into three more pieces, to make his job easier. This was usually just a technique that you used when trying to dice up things like vegetables or fruit, but Eisen figured there was no reason not to make use of it right here. That would just make it easier to make sure the pieces were in one inform length all the way. After Eisen did all this, he simply started hacking into the log a little bit already. He figured he could cut the guidelines a little bit deeper for now. The next day, Eisen continued, and hoped that he would at the very least be able to cut up the first section into the pieces that he needed. Since the whole thing was supposed to be cut up into nine ¡¯strips¡¯, Eisen didn¡¯t actually need to cut all the way through the center. He basically just needed to always cut into the guideline deep enough until it reached the intersection of it and the next guideline. Eisen was pretty d about that, really. The crystal-wheel didn¡¯t really give him any proficiency after all. Maybe a few percent, but in general it was pretty much a waste. And for the whole day... this was it. That was all that Eisen was doing for that day and the next two days afterward. Hacking into this wood along the guidelines for the ¡¯strips¡¯, even though those ¡¯strips¡¯ were still many times thicker than any regr tree could get. Finally, Eisen could just get started on cutting it up into the three sub-sections. This was the easy part really. Eisen swung his axe and hacked into the wood as deeply as he could. Over the past few days, it seemed like his multitool¡¯s axe-mode had grown slightly ustomed to this special Ironbark wood, since it was cutting through it far easier. Well, that, or maybe because the woodcutting skill¡¯s level rose from the bottom of rank 3 to its top. He was only a couple of levels away now from ranking it up, after all. The old man kept cutting through the wood until the first sectioned strip was done. Like this, Eisen could just easily take it away from there, ce it down in the spot where the Guards said they wanted to have it, and then he could more easily reach the other parts of the wood deeper down. And then, piece after piece, Eisen just cut down the log into the sectioned strips that he properly stacked up on top of each other, while having Sal bind them together using his threads to make sure that they couldn¡¯t somehow fall over and injure someone on ident. Just a couple of hourster, this part of the log became less by a third. Then, Eisen repeated it for the next section as well and properly ced the nine strips down nearby. And when evening came around, all that Eisen had to do was properly cut up the part of thest section that was stillpletely connected. The old man walked around the back and just started hacking into the t side. It was just a couple of meters thick, so it wasn¡¯t all that hard for Eisen to get this part done, since he was able to just hack away at this t surface and was able to make the rest of the sectioned-strips drop down one after another. By the time the sun actually fully went down, Eisen managed to finish this part of the job and prepared everything properly. It seemed like the Guards were still incredibly impressed at the speed that eisen was able to do this, despite them practically just sitting around drinking and eating inside of the dungeon over the past few days, continuosly giving Eisen and Sigurd more and more DP to make use of. That was the main reason to make the first floor this hospitable, after all. Eisen made sure to bring all of the sectioned strips of wood over toward a ce where the Guards could more easily start delivering all the wood to the nearest town where they could start processing it into other parts and pieces of different shapes and sizes. And once that was done, Eisen finally got started on something else. He was able to properly prepare everything for his own, personal work. The project that he was nning on was a bit overwhelming, but he was sure that it would be the perfect thing to do, especially considering the n of heading to the country of Giants soon. After all, while Eisen was gigantic already, it did seem like there were monsters that were literally mountainous. So, you needed something that could face it to make up the difference in size more easily. Since Eisen got his hands onto a giant log, that was coincidentally one of the strongest types of naturally existing wood there were, the old man should be able to create the perfect wood-giant to help them out. Eisen would probably end up giving him something like metallic weapons, or add harder materials onto a few certain parts of its body, but for the most part, Eisen would be making it using this wood. Using the time he had outside of this world while his body here was resting, Eisen was speaking to Evalia to speak about some designs for this that were both functional and actually good-looking. Somehow, they ended up with something like a giant samurai that had the bark act as something like natural armor. Eisen did really like this design though, and he was pretty sure he could properly get this done sometime soon. It would take a long time, but it was a pretty nice project that Eisen could ce a lot of functionality into. He wanted to finish the requirements for all of his crafting skills using this project, after all. Chapter 524 CMon, give me a hand! Just so that he could get a good idea for what he wanted that Wood-Giant to function like, Eisen started using his visualization in a slightly simr way to the manner that he tried to gain as much proficiency as possible in his crafting space and crafter¡¯s mind skills. But instead of actually physically trying to make a ¡¯double¡¯ of himself create items, he just wanted to pretend as if that was the case. He basically just wanted to go through the whole process of building that wood-giant for now. And since Eisen didn¡¯t want to practice actually making it just yet, he didn¡¯t use the deep visualization state. That would require him to already know how exactly he wanted to do. He had already taken care of the visuals together with Evalia, but the mechanics still were an issue. On one hand, Eisen could just try to scale his regr Golem-Mechanics up so that they were fitted into the wood-giant¡¯s frame, but that seemed like a slight waste. After all, since the wood-giant was supposed to end up being maybe 40-45 meters tall at the very least, there was really a lot of space to make use of. Inside of the joints, the bones, and of course the ce where Eisen usually ced things like artificial organs. This wood-giant was supposed to be one that was capable of helping take care of mountain-sized monsters, so it needed a fair amount of physical capabilities. Thinking that, since Eisen was first trying to n out the actual body, the old man figured that the hands were the best ce to start nning. The wood-giant would of course get a weapon that fit its scaleter on, but there would surely be situations when it had to simply use its hands instead of being able to use a sword. For one, climbing was a pretty good part. That meant that its hands needed to for one, be dexterous enough to make climbing feasible. So, Eisen had to take good care of the joints for one. But that shouldn¡¯t be too hard, since the joints should end up being more thanrge enough to house a couple of good mechanics and enchantments. Other than that, Eisen also thought that he had to change the texture of the fingers a little bit. Maybe turn them hook-like to make it easier to dig into something. Or better even, basically turn the fingertips into enchantments that would allow the wood-giant to make use of transmutation to burrow his fingers into non-biological surfaces, at least. A mixture of both sounded pretty good as well. Since Eisen brainstormed some ideas for climbing with himself now, he thought about the actualbat part, and what kinds of enchantments he should put onto it in general. In what ways it should have non-wood materials, and in what ways the bark-armor would be best integrated into the hands. It didn¡¯t take long for Eisen to actually somewhat figure all these parts out, and in the end, he figured that the hands were a rtively good, and easy, way to actually test a few things out. And so, the old man made his way over toward the tree and looked around for what sections might be the ones that he should best use. He still had to strip the bark away anywayter on, and that would take a fair while in itself, so Eisen thought this was also a good chance to inspect the tree for any sort of damages. In the end, Eisen made his way all the way over toward the tree¡¯s crown and was now climbing through this ce to see if there was anything interesting to use here. And then, he thought about it for a while. \"The best thing for the hands would really be one of these branches, huh?\" He muttered to himself as he ran his hand over one of them. Since these branches seemed to have a lot more flexibility whenpared to the main log, it seemed to be a pretty good material to use in this situation. In the end, Eisen tried his best to find branches that were roughly the right size already, meaning at the very least 20 fingers wide. Toward the end, Eisen managed to find some younger branches that seemed to be the perfect fit, so Eisen quickly felled them. In the end, just detaching these smaller branches from the main tree felt more like regr woodcutting than actually felling this main tree. The branch was more like the size of a regr tree, after all. Either way, soon, Eisen managed to gather the branches that he needed, together with a couple of reserves, and then brought them back to the stump that Eisen would simply use as a ce to craft for now. And after setting the branches down on there, the old man quickly got to work. With his size fully increased while even his Draconic Demon Form was active, Eisen was able to pretty easily strip away the bark of these branches, since it was basically just like carving regr sticks now. After the branches were stripped, Eisen cut off a bit of the branches¡¯ bases forter, and then tried his best to shape each of them into a singr finger already, even if it for now was fully connected and didn¡¯t have joints yet. One after another, the branches took the shape they were meant to until Eisen could ce them to the side. He actually made the fingers a little bit thicker than the end-product should end up being, since that would make it easier to actually fine tune everythingter on. Eisen looked at the two-meter long fingers and slowly nodded his head when he was really satisfied with their size, and then started to cut through the fingers right where their joints usually were, and then gave each ce that would be connected to a joint an inwardly hollow shape before grabbing the parts that he cut off the branches beforehand. These were simply turned into wooden spheres for the joints, and for now Eisen just tried his best to make sure that they fit together well size-wise instead of focusing on the functionality. Either way, what Eisen did then was to simply hollow each of these wood-fingers from where Eisen rounded them out for the joints beforehand, while still keeping the ¡¯wall¡¯ thick enough to ensure that the fingers wouldn¡¯t crack easily. Eisen still tried to keep a little bit of the ¡¯curve¡¯ for the joints there and made sure that the hollow spaces weren¡¯trge enough to let the joints in. And on top of that, Eisen tried his best to assist the whole thing with transmutation, so that he wasn¡¯t just scraping the inside of the fingers out, but instead could just pull the whole ¡¯core¡¯ out rather easily. This was, Eisen was able to start properly turning these cores into their own self-contained mechanical pieces, which would act as a recement for the bones. They still took inspiration from bones shape-wise, but for the most part, they didn¡¯t have much inmon functionality-wise. These bones were basically the containers for the enchantments for the hand. They would end up just being a section of therger enchantment-system that was the whole hand, which was part of the bigger system as the arm, which then was part of the whole body¡¯s enchantment system. Basically, these things were supposed to reallybine muscture, bones, blood & mana flow, as well as the central nervous system. This was for one done by filling these wooden-cores with different hollow tubes, crystal-thread bundles, and the basis for a three-dimensional enchantment that Eisen would try figuring out with Xenia¡¯s helpter on. Either way, all of this in itself already took a fair while, since Eisen was working on everything rather slowly, as he still wasn¡¯t 100% sure how he should go about things when he first started working on them. After Eisen finished changing these cores around, he simply started working on the actual ¡¯skin¡¯ or ¡¯shells¡¯, or however you may want to call it. To start it off with, Eisen started to try roughing the insides of the fingers up a little bit instead of having them be smooth and t, so that they had a bit more natural grip to them. Then here and there, Eisen turned a few parts of the fingers into things like hooks and spikes. Real hands would be quite terrifying if they were like this, but Eisen figured that, since this thing was probably not nning on holding someone else¡¯s hand anytime soon, it should be fine. Although... Eisen¡¯s n was to turn it into an ego-golem so that it could take care ofplexmands more easily, so it might actually end up turning sentient enough to do just that at some point. If that time came, it shouldn¡¯t be too hard to smooth everything down anyway, even if it should probably happen naturally after climbing a few times. Either way, after Eisen added the raw shape to the inside of the fingers, he also got started on carving the ¡¯fingerprints¡¯ in the form of highly-detailed enchantments that were meant to make use of the transmutation ability that Eisen ced into a small gem in the center of the enchantment to burrow into things like rock or even wood more easily. \"I should probably fill this in as wellter.\" The old man muttered to himself quietly, as he ced the first of the fingertips to the side to continue with the next one, all the whilst trying to figure out what materials would be best suited to this. Once he got done with the fingertips, Eisen moved on to the joints. They were definitely one of the most important parts about the wood-giant, or Eisen¡¯s golems in general, since they were the parts that allowed for theplex movements that Eisen had in mind. Since these joints were a fair bitrger than regr ones, he could really fit in a lot more into here than he was used to, even if he still chose to keep the brunt of what he usually went for. Two ces where the joints and the ¡¯limbs¡¯ connected to it were actually physically connected, as well as a general three-dimensional enchantment that would both hold everything together magically while allowing for the movement. But Eisen figured that this was a good chance to make use of one of his ¡¯Draconic Gifts¡¯ and include it in everything as well. It simply seemed like the perfect ce to include magic items. Spells were often a lot more versatile and had a farther range as well as more independability whenpared to enchantments since they were separated from the material they were ced onto. But at the same time, since instead of simply taking mana and transforming it, they were made of mana themselves, which made the effect oftentimes much stronger. So, for now, Eisen chose tobine the effect that both enchantments and magic circles had, by creating a three-dimensional enchantment with a three-dimensional spell-item in its center. Chapter 525 The Wood-Giants Hands Eisen shaped the crystalized mana into a three-dimensional spell that was meant to support the agile and dexterous movement of the Wood-Giant¡¯s body from inside the hands before enveloping it in ayer of mana-crystal. The outside of that crystal was then enchanted so that it would be possible to actually make proper use of the spell. Then, all that Eisen needed to do was simply remove part of the wooden sphere that would act as one of the joints and then ce the enchantment-spell item into the center before properly cing the wood back to where they it was supposed to go. Following that, Eisen started forming the different extra parts that he needed before creating the enchantments inside of each of the joints. These enchantments were really mostly just made to take the mand¡¯ from the central spell-item and actually put it into action. For that, with each joint, Eisen connected all the parts that he needed to properly to those wooden cores that Eisen made, which were a mix-match of anything inside of your body that wasn¡¯t skin. That included crystal-muscture, veins for blood and mana flow, as well as thing like bones for the general structural integrity and something simr to a central nervous system to make it easier for the Golem Core to control this huge body. Once he got all of these joints ready, he just basically had to finally put the fingers together. And since there was a little bit of natural strain to everything through the muscture, therge fingers could still be bent a slight bit by hand but were mostly just straight as they wereying there on the ground. Either way, next, Eisen had to move onto the central part of the hand that Eisen could connect everything to. Of course, Eisen first created the ¡¯base cores¡¯ for everything and put them into the right ces for the bones. Other than that, Eisen would also add a few moreyers of muscture to everything while filling in some general gaps so that the hand could move properly and grip tightly like it was supposed to. The part that the old man had to think about the most, however, wasn¡¯t that mechanism that he already created multiple times. But rather, it was the part in the palm that would allow forbat. For one, it was supposed to be something that allowed the Wood-Giant to properly hold onto the sword that Eisen would be making for it at some point. But other than that, it was also a good ce to ount for hand-to-handbat. Other than the knuckles, of course. But since Eisen would be cing ayer of metal onto the knuckles, that was a seperate issue. In general, through the palm, Eisen wanted to let it make use of techniques simr to the ones that Brody usually used with his Yin and Yang Energy. Because quite often, when he used the external yin energy, he would transfer that into the body of the other person through his palm. It was actually also pretty simr to the way that the Half-Dragon Pdin, Argon, fought using Holy Energy. Eisen was wondering which kind of element would be most appropriate for a wood-giant, and the only thing that he could reallye up with was the nature element. Eisen tried tobine it with Brody¡¯s Yin energy to make it something ¡¯external¡¯ like that, but in the end, ¡¯Energy¡¯ and ¡¯Mana¡¯ seemed to be twopletely different things. It was like trying to merge wood and rock into one thing. And technically, while that was something that Eisen aplished with the use of his material-growth skill, that was just an exception to the rule. Eisen still wasn¡¯t able tobine Energy with Mana no matter what he tried. So, he had toe up with other ideas instead. He had been messaging Xenia to ask her about whether or not there were some kinds of energies that were good for this, or if there was any sort of elemental mana that she rmended the most. The Minority of the energies that Xenia, and as such Eisen, actually had ess to were made to be used inbat. Of course they could still be used for it in a pretty roundabout way, but for the most part, the only energies that could be used for direct contact that they knew of were the Yin and Yang Energies as well as Holy Energy. Since neither of those really fit the Wood-Giant, Eisen just continued thinking about mana, and in the end, just ended up choosing to use multiple different elements. Since the body was enormous, Eisen should be able to create quite a few storage containers for different types of mana. And as long as he made a modr part about the Wood-Giant where Eisen could then simply add more mana-convertion enchantments to turn mana into an element, then it should be fine. The bundle of mana-crystal thread with mana-thread cores was capable of moving around any element anyway. So as long as Eisen made sure that the rest of the Wood-Giant was also made for just that, it should really be fine. In the end, Eisen even starteding up with the idea to create extra ¡¯fullbody enchantments¡¯ onto the wood-giant so that it would be able to infuse its own body with an element for a short time, just like Eisen usually did. It should be pretty hard to do so fully, of course, but even a bit of an increase should be a bit of help. Either way, for now, Eisen wanted to finish working on the hand itself. The central part for it would be a thick crystal disc that would practically push out mana whenever necessary. At the same time, while it was capable of pushing out energy, Eisen also enchanted it so that it could attract another enchantment with a very specific ¡¯Code¡¯. That ¡¯code¡¯ was really just a small crystal that Eisen mixed with a basically random amount of other gems and crystals that he split into smaller pieces so that it could be used as such a ¡¯code¡¯. Either way, for now, Eisen tried his best to make it so that mana could be properly pushed out of the palm in a strong gust. Since the wood-giant was going to be an ego-golem, it would end up being capable of simple mana-maniption anyway. So while this maybe wasn¡¯t technically necessary, it would still be a huge help, especially since it would most likely be hard to find a soul that was used to handling such arge body. Other than this piece that would be set into the center of the palm, Eisen also started creating the ¡¯skin¡¯ for the wood-giant out of some of the ironbark wood. And then, Eisen started stripping away some of the actual Ironbark as well and started attaching it properly as the ¡¯armor¡¯. And just like that, when Eisen properly put everything together, the two giant, four meter long hands were finally done. With a satisfied expression, Eisen looked at those two things and smiled while picking them up in hisrgest size possible. As far as the old man could judge, this was a definite sess. Eisen looked around with a light smile and then just ced the two hands back down onto the ground, or rather the stump, and then started thinking about what else he should get started with. For now, the old man would just have to simply get started with cutting the log up. He had to somehow get it away from here at some point anyway. This would for now also allow Eisen to simply finish up with his woodcutting and woodworking skills. Thinking that he didn¡¯t necessarily have much else that was overly important to do right now, Eisen got started with his work. For now, he just tried to think about what pieces he would exactly need and tried to make guidelines into the log to make sure that he was really going to be able to make therger pieces. And at the same time, he also tried to pay special attention to the bark that would end up being needed for everything. Sure, he would definitely need to stitch different parts of it together to properly make armor out of it, but he wanted to use as many full pieces as he possibly could. So, Eisen first created those outlines for the armor, and even began to strip the bark away from the Ironbark log whenever he could. In the end, Eisen would really need to spend a lot of time cleaning all of this up. He really underestimated the final size of this tree if he had to be honest. But that didn¡¯t matter, it wasn¡¯t like Eisen was under a major time-constraint at the moment. Eisen simply had to steadily increase his skills. And on top of that, once Eisen finished the Wood-Giant, he would have an enormous helper that he would be able to use for things like pulling the roots ouf of the ground and transporting the leftover wood somewhere where it didn¡¯t bother anyone. After stacking some of therge panels of the bark on top of each other, Eisen simply chose to, for the rest of the day, continue trying to cut the actual log up. In the evening, he went to sleep and when he woke up, he started cutting everything up again. And this continued for the next couple of days, until the whole tree waspletely taken apart and Eisen had all the base materials that he actually needed to get started on creating the Wood-Giant. Chapter 526 The Wood-Giants Organs What Eisen did first to properly construct the Wood-Giant was to create the individual pieces. That meant that he had to make the joints, the special bone-shaped cores, as well as arge,rge,rge amount of extra thread that he could use for the main muscture. Eisen had already used a special type of mixture for the hand¡¯s muscles, albeit just so slightly altered to the main ¡¯recipe¡¯ so that they were more dexterous. That special mixture that he used to mass-produce giant bundles of thread was made up in part of different gems and crystals enchanted with different properties that would allow the muscles to actually act like muscles and be properly interacted with. The other part they were made up of was different alloys for proper strength as well as things like magic-metal to further increase the flow of mana through them. They had the materials that they needed with them in the dungeon, so Sigurd had the Humanoid Dungeon monsters on the first floor mass-produce it and then ced each big bundle of it down onto the ground in front of the gate whenever it was done so that Eisen could just grab it whenever. Either way, the muscles were a part that would have toe just before the end, so just before Eisen attached thest ¡¯shells¡¯, or the ¡¯skin¡¯ and armor, to the Wood-Giant¡¯s body. First, Eisen had to work on the Wood-Giant¡¯s interior. And ¡¯Interior¡¯ meant ¡¯Organs¡¯. As the Giant¡¯s body was quite big, that came to show that the organs would be quite huge as well. So, Eisen had a fair amount of space to work with for the different systems. The ¡¯Heart¡¯ would end up being the system that makes the Golem-Blood flow through the veins while also equally distributing and creating mana to keep the different systems actually running. And not only that, but the heart would also end up housing the Golem-Core so that it would be able to actually handle all that distribution subonsciously. But then there were still the other organs. Since the Golem didn¡¯t actually need to breathe, Eisen thought that it instead was a good idea to turn the lungs into giant mana-storage centers, just like he already did with most of his other golems. Just that this time, there would be a farrger variety with a farrger amount of mana that could be stored. Since Eisen couldpress crystals an insane amount with his ¡¯Mastered Alchemy¡¯ Skill, the mana batteries that would end up fitting into the lungs would be able to store tens of millions of MP. With a satisfied expression, Eisen just got started andpressed and enchanted everything how he needed to, quickly creating arge amount of pure-mana batteries, as well as a high number of different elemental batteries. These batteries were then all properly connected to the ce where the Golem-Core would end up beingter on, so all Eisen needed to do was to really create the golem core and then hook the threads and ¡¯cables¡¯ up to it. Then, there were the other parts of the Wood-Giant. Eisen figured another important one to be the stomach. Of course, the Golem wouldn¡¯t be able to eat anything. Or rather, it wouldn¡¯t need to. But instead, he would be able to store things by swallowing them. Eisen still had a fair amount of spatial gems with him, after all. Since that was the case, he could really create a pretty big spatial storage, since the stomach wasrge enough in itself. And luckily, with one of Eisen¡¯s newest Abilities, the material storage, he could most like further increase the potency of the storage system. And as Eisen tested already before, liquids were seen as a type of material, so Eisen was able to store them in his material storage as well. For now, the way that Eisen wanted to go through with this was rather simple. He would simply make differentrger containers for different types of materials, mainly three different ones, however. Liquids, Solids, and even Gases. The Liquids and Gases would have more sections to them, of course, since those would end up mixing together otherwise. Eisen created wooden, slightlypressed shells for the stomach and then covered the inside with ayer of a heavilypressed molten alloy made up of different magic metals, gems and crystals enchanted with the material storage ability, and of course, the spatial gems enchanted with the same ability. Other than that, Eisen also carved some more enchantments into the metal-crystal alloy. In the end, the stomach was now split up equally into the three states of matter, and the liquid and gas states also had three sub-sections to them so that three different specific kinds could be stored in each. And then, when the stomach was mostly put together, Eisen created a simple sorting system that would make sure the things that were swallowed by the Wood-Giant would end up in the right section. It required a little bit of programming-like logic, but that wasn¡¯t as much of an issue to Eisen anymore since he had a fair amount more experience with enchanting now. After the stomach was done as well, Eisen started thinking about some other internal organs and what kinds of uses they could have in this Wood-Giant. The only parts with a proper use that Eisen coulde up with for now were the Liver and the Kidneys. Quite simply, the Liver was supposed to do the same job as a regr liver. It was supposed to process the contents of the blood to ensure theposition remains the same. So, Eisen wanted to create something like a potion-brewing system inside of the liver. It would simply end up being something like the mass-production system, simply a slight bit re-shaped so that it would properly fit into the space of the liver. And of course, on top of that, there would be a condition ced onto it to make sure it would only create the Golem-Blood when there wasn¡¯t enough inside of its body. Eisen would create a small extra storage space inside of the cavity that would stay behind in the ce where the dder and intestines could usually be found. Those were the only parts that Eisen figured to be rtively ¡¯useless¡¯ inside of the Wood-Giant. He wanted to store a lot of different things in there, really. Not only the materials needed for the blood, but also different tools and weapons that the Wood-giant could make use of. That storage space would get an extra sorting condition before entering the stomach to make the ingredients for the potion enter that other storage space. Eisen figured that he could see that storage space as the ¡¯dder¡¯, just topare it to something at all. Since Eisen already had a potion-mass-production system leftover in the dungeon, he just needed to reforge some parts of it and ce it into the shell that he created for the liver. Then, he of course also ced something like an analysis module inside of it that would check if there was anything foreign in the blood. That foreign thing would then be filtered out, and the blood would be refilled through the potion-brewing system shortly after. After the liver was done, he got started with the kidneys. Basically, those would be another small storage system that would take care of some of that foreign matter in the blood. It would be a just-in-case system, of course, but Eisen wanted to be prepared for anything just in case. Either way, after he was done with these internal organs, he created spaces where he would ce a couple of different tools. Things like smoke bombs, grenades, throwing-knives, et cetera. The Wood-Giant¡¯s lower stomach would be able to be ¡¯flipped¡¯ open so that the Giant could ess everything pretty easily. And then, the only internal organ that was left for this wood-giant was one. The brain. It was one of two things that Eisen took inspiration from the core-guardians from. One of those two things was the golem-blood flowing through the Wood-Giant¡¯s veins. And the other part was the special hand-blown ss-brain that would be covered in a very, very thinyer of Margon inside of it. Eisen melted down the different materials that he needed to make the special ss-brain, which included a very basic ability. One that Eisen only recently became able to make use of. After he got the ¡¯Mastered Enchanting¡¯ skill, he became able to use very basic abilities, the type that were ingrained in the soul even. That, and purely physical abilities. And the physical ability that he wanted to make use of now was the processing power of the human brain, which he enchanted onto numerous crystals that he mixed into the ss. After the ss had molten down enough, Eisen used a pipe to properly blow the ss into a long pipe. It seemed like Eisen¡¯s multitool was slightly jealous that he was using another tool, however... Which seemed slightly weird to him, if he had to be perfectly honest. Either way, after Eisen blew the ss into the shape of ss tubes, he tried his best to shape them into the ss brain all the whilst adding the Margon that he had been trying to create more of over the past few weeks into the inside of those ss tubes. Since Eisen was doing this while in his regr size, the pipes were that thin as well. But Eisen still tried to create the brain in the full size that was necessary for the Wood-Giant. It took a while, until the end of the day even, but in the end Eisen was able to get this done as well and just made sure that the ss was properly cooling inside of arge annealer. Since this all took two days already due to the sheer size, Eisen figured that it wouldn¡¯t be an issue to take a third day to put everything together. And that¡¯s exactly what Eisen did. He first created the full skeleton out of the special bones that included not only the base bone but also some veins and muscles, and then proceeded to ce the main organs, beside the heart, into ce. After the main organs were set in ce already together with the extra spaces that Eisen added into the ces where the intestines would usually be. Then, he quickly got started with setting the muscture into ce everywhere where it needed to be, exept the ce where Eisenter had to insert the heart. The heart that he would now create so that it could properly pump and distribute the golem-blood and mana, while also housing the ego-golem core for this wood-giant. Chapter 527 The Wood-Giants Body Eisen got started with creating the Golem Core for the Wood-Giant shortly after he finished the 40 meter tall base, which was justying on the ground while propped up with the help of some of the roots still scattered throughout the area. First things first, Eisen created the crystal base my mixing mana crystals with different other types of gems. This core itself would just be maybe 20% too small, while also having the regr shape of the heart that Eisen wanted to create. Theyer outside of it would mainly be for protection against external attacks in any way. It was even more important than usual to do that this time around, because Eisen wasn¡¯t going to just form a regr golem core, but ssblow one with an extra ingredient. Eisen ground down the crystal mixture that he worked on and added some limestone and silica sand to it. The old man started melting it down to the point where it had just started liquifying and then started mixing it around with the help of transmutation, just before he added the special ingredient to this. After Eisen got the mastered alchemy skill, he had be able topress things far more, and that also included souls. It seemed that he could actuallypress them to the extent of them actuallybining with each other after a while, instead of just slightly ¡¯merging¡¯ together like it had been the case up until now. The nuclei themselves seemed toe together. But that also meant that the loose part of the soul had increased in volume, and Eisen was now using that part of the soul as an extra ingredient. He had scooped it up from the soul and was slowly mixing it into the soon-to-be-ss by hand as it continued melting down. After a little while, once only thebined nuclei were left, the ss had be one and Eisen was ready to start. He wrapped the nuclei in some soul-stones and then ced them to the side for now while he got started on blowing therge hollow heart with materials that had been pre-enchanted as they were supposed to so that he didn¡¯t have to worry about that anymore. Either way, Eisen just got started and kept on expanding upon the heart and increased it in size more and more. It came close to shattering a couple times, even, because it nearly fell off the pipe that Eisen was blowing it with, but luckily Eisen had his mana-doubles that could hold the ss-heart up without giving it any sort of imprints. Like that, it only took a couple hours to finish this, and of course Eisen also blew some Margon into the inside of the ss. The pattern looked quite beautiful, even if that wasn¡¯t the goal anyway. But while Eisen¡¯s mana-doubles were holding the heart up, the old man started to carve some enchantments onto the outside, and even inside of it by using his crafting space skill to control the needles remotely. After Eisen enchanted everything, he just got started with the next part of the golem core, and that would be the liquid that would end up filling it. The magic-item potion. Eisen made use of a couple of different elements for this, but he quickly produced a potion out of mana that should be able to help out with everything. That was because that base potion was really just the magic-item version of the golem-blood that Eisen would be makingter. But that wasn¡¯t all, because what Eisen did then was rather simple. He filled the potion into the hollow ss-heart and then hardened itpletely until it was unable to keep flowing. It was basically as hard as the crystalized mana that it had been originally created out of. And since that was the case now, Eisen was able to further enchant the whole thing, simply creating moreyers to this golem core. For one, he used something simr as he did for the bodyguard golems, trying tobine different types of abilities into one via a sub-enchantment for the bigger picture. But this time, it was all of course only rted to things that the Wood-Giant actually needed to know. Things like swordsmanship, hand-to-handbat, knife-throwing, such things on thebat side. Then, Eisen also gave it a bunch of different magic-based skills that it could make use of. For example, there was the Mana-Double skill, the Mana-Model or Mana-Copy skill, and of course once more the Mana-Sensor skill, just in case it was necessary for it to use it. The Wood-Giant still had regr sensory organs on its head, even if he didn¡¯t create them yet, so it wouldn¡¯t actually need to use the Mana-Sensor skill all the time. They were just there to help. And other than that, Eisen just figured that it was a good idea to give him basic skills like Mana-Maniption and the elemental-skills that Eisen had already used to give it the different elemental mana batteries. Other than that, Eisen just gave it some minor abilities and skills that could be useful to it at some point. Either way, inside of this hardened-potion, Eisen also created the pathway for the blood to actually flow through and be ¡¯pumped¡¯ throughout the body via something like a sorting or logistics system. Basically, it would make the golem blood that entered the blood one way exit other ways depending on where it was needed the most. And then, Eisen could just ce the soul-nuclei into the center of this core and was basically done with the Golem Corepletely. Next, Eisen started wrapping it in multipleyers of special cloth made specifically to hold back direct, strong attacks, as well as defend against things like simple tremors. It was basically supposed to make the golem core be isted and feel as if it was never moving at all, basically. When Eisen was finished wrapping the core up, he added the wooden-shell to the outside, made out of especially highlypressed wood that would be able to protect the heart even more. Eisen ced the heart where it was supposed to be and then connected all the different tubings to it, all the whilst also properly finishing up the muscture for this wood-giant. This practically closed the golem¡¯s body up for now. And then, there were only the sensory organs left. The ears, nose, and tongue were basically just supersized and more highly-enchanted versions of the things Eisen normally ced into his golems, but the eyes were special ones. Especially since he was able to more easily work on intricate mechanics due to the size of the eye, Eisen chose to work on a system that would basically make it possible for the Wood-Giant to see literally as far as the curvature of the would allow it to. For now, it had the same basic principles as binocrs, really. Different lenses ced in front of each other at certain distances to allow for observation of an object at a distance. And using magic, that distance could be enhanced many times over! And to top it off, since a Golem Had control over its whole body perfectly, as long as Eisen made sure that there was a system in ce to easily change the distance inbetween some of the lenses that Eisen added, while also making it possible to add some extra uncurved ¡¯filter¡¯ lenses, it would not only be possible to see the distance in general but also use things like mana-sight or appraisal from miles away! It would be the perfect scout, despite its giant size! Especially in the Giant Country it should be still rtively easy for the wood-giant to blend into the environment, since everything was supposedly super-sized there. This enchanted lense-system was pretty intricate, really. And Eisen was d that he was able to use it at all, and that was just because he chose to create such a huge body for the wood-giant. After a while, Eisen was done with the lense-system itself, after blowing some ss into the right shape for it. And then, he created the bases for the eyes themselves, also out of ss. Eisen added someyers of shock-absorbing jelly on the outside of the eyes to protect the ss a little bit. He did add some materials that should have hardened the ss as well to make it harder to shatter in the first ce, but in the end, it was still ss. It might still shatter right off the bat if it was just touched in a weird way. Either way, for now, it seemed like Eisen waspletely done. He had all of the bones, muscles, and organs and other physical systems inside of the body finished. So all that was needed now was the actual ¡¯skin¡¯ and the ¡¯armor¡¯. Since Eisen already created all the pieces for that, he basically just needed to puzzle it together for now. The feet, the arms, the legs. Chest, everywhere Eisen just added the baseyer of skin. In some parts it had a little bit of metal support, for example on its back, on its head, and on its elbows and knees, but for the most part it was really just wood. And even the parts that did have metal were pretty thin, and mainly just a small extrayer underneath where the armor wouldter be. The armor was something that was added on rtively quickly, since all that Eisen needed to do was to properly merge and stitch it into ce using mana-thread as well as other types of thread like metallic or crystal ones to act as support to that mana thread. Eisen actually stayed up prettyte just to finally finish up the armor, and just went to sleep when the sun finally came up again. When he woke back up, it was noon of the hopefullyst day that Eisen would be working on the actual golem. And the thing that he would be making here would be the enchantments on the wooden base skin. Then he would need to put the armor actually onto the wood-giant and then enchant that as well. After that, Eisen could just get started on the actual weapons and tools and things like that. The old man really wanted to make a giant Katana somehow, especially after working with this wood for so long. This was a really time-intensive project, really, since even if Eisen wanted to, he couldn¡¯t actually always just stay in his giant form if he wanted to pull this off properly. That would be a waste, after all. Since Eisen could get more detail done in his smaller size, there was no reason not to take advantage of that for the most powerful golem that Eisen would make any time soon. Chapter 528 The Wood-Gian Eisen had a couple of different items in mind for the Wood-Giant¡¯s arsenal. There were of course its main weapon, the katana, and it¡¯s off-weapon, the wakizashi. But other than that, Eisen still wanted to give the Wood-Giant a couple of other items that it could use depending on the situation. In real life it would be pretty hard to upscale them like this, but luckily, Eisen could use enchantments and magic to his advantage. One of the items that he wanted to make was a smoke-bomb. And it wouldn¡¯t be just any smoke-bomb, but one that was going to make use of Kirisho¡¯s mist. Usually Eisen wouldn¡¯t have been able to do that, it would have been impossible a couple of weeks ago, since Kirisho¡¯s mist wasn¡¯t a skill. It was part of her body. But now, Eisen was able to make use of even abilities like that, as he already had with the brain of the Wood-Giant. Kirisho¡¯s mist was really the best choice for things like smoke-bombs for different reasons. Not only did it have the capabilities to explode outward rapidly, but its shape was also easily manipted while capable of confusing enemies. So, it could basically be thrown toward a group of pursuers and they wouldn¡¯t be able to find their way out of the mist anymore, since it travelled with them. The other item that Eisen wanted to make was a bit more dangerous. It would be basically just like a grenade that would stick to surfaces it was thrown against. For that, he would make two variants as well, both of which would be based off of the grenade that Eisen made before. One of them would simply be supersized for as much damage as possible. And another one that just had many regr-sized sticky-grenades inside of it. That one would just shatter in the air and spread out the regr-sized grenades around the area. Beside those explosives, Eisen also wanted to create some throwing-knives to enablebat at a distance. These would end up being connected to the Giant¡¯s hand through some magic thread that Eisen would end up using Sal¡¯s abilities to create, just to make sure that the giant weapons wouldn¡¯t suddenly be wasted, and to possible create different uses. Maybe it could be used to even pull the giant up somewhere or restrain other monsters. For either of these, Eisen wanted to create roughly a dozen to start off with. Maybe he would create more of themter, or maybe he could even create systems that automatically produced them for the Giant so that it could act without restraint even when Eisen wasn¡¯t around. The first thing that Eisen started working on was the smoke bomb. It was actually rather simple, really. Especially for this one, the construction-method was a rather simpler one. Eisen just needed to create a shell and enchant the outside so that it would shatter on impact after mana was infused into it. And the inside would be made to activate the small sphere in the center of the smoke-bomb and work together to near to instantly start dpressing the highlypressed mist inside of the shell. So that he would have a proper use for all the leftover wood, Eisen got started turning it into the shells and and properly enchanting those shells both on the outside and on the inside. Thetter was done by controlling the needles from a distance again, of course. Eisen made a small hole in one of the sides and started holding the item quickly made to produce the same kind of mist as Kirisho had. While filling it into there, Eisen of course also did his best to dpress it as much as he possibly could. It basically turned into a solid mass inside of the shell. The old man pushed the three-dimensionally-enchanted ball that he just made into the center of that mass, pushing it away using transmutation. This ball was really just made to quickly be able to dpress this mist, while also giving it something like a mand¡¯. Thatmand could be things like ¡¯stick to the enemy¡¯ or ¡¯spread out as much as possible¡¯. Just so that Eisen didn¡¯t need to make different kinds of smoke-bombs. Either way, after this, Eisen just needed to close the hole up and he finished the first of the batch! And for the next little while, Eisen was just working on the other dozen. For now, Eisen would make a baker¡¯s dozen, actually, so that he could have one of each type to test out. Well, besides the throwing-knives of course, since those weren¡¯t supposed to be consumed or anything like that. Next, Eisen hurried up and grabbed one of therge masses of crystalized fire mana and repeated the process that he went through for the first grenade that he made a few weeks ago, just supersized, then enchanted the outside of those to stick to other surfaces, and then repeated that another dozen more times. And atst, Eisen created numerous regr-sized grenades with the same sticky properties that would activate a few moments after the shell was broken, and then just filled all those grenades into an extra shell that was made to break a few moments after mana was pulled out of it while turning thepressed air-mana filled into the gaps inbetween the grenades into regr air to make them spread out a little bit more. It wasn¡¯t highlypressed, really. Just a slight bit. Eisen didn¡¯t want the grenades to be flung into all directions, after all. After these were done, Eisen got started with the throwing knives, thest step. He chose to go with the ssic Kunai design, simply because they were a pretty good fit for what Eisen had in mind. After all, that design already had rings that the thread could very easily be attached to. This was all a really easy job when Eisen fully increased his size and activated his draconic demon transformation. From this size, it was basically just like he had to make a kunai that was twice the size to normal, after all. And that wasn¡¯t all too hard in the slightest, and Eisen was able to finish this within a couple of hours somehow. The Mastered-cksmithing skill made shaping metal nearly as easy as forming soft y, while not getting rid of the satisfying resistance it had to it. It was a nice feeling really. Once the twelve kunai were done, Eisen added the thread-reels into the rings. The total length of the thread in there was actually roughly five kilometers. It was really, really thin, after all, while also being incredibly strong. Eisen was using a mixture of thread that he made himself using the spinnerets from the Mother of Spiders that was just so slightly changed around by Sal, who gave an extra twist to it so that the threads could be rtively easily controlled. After that, Eisen added a small part to those rings that could be detached and actually worn as a ring if needed to, so that the wood-giant couldn¡¯t lose the other end of the thread. Eisen quickly filled everything into the right storage segments before finally starting to work on thest two items. The Katana and Wakizashi, supersized for the wood-giant. The old man chose good, high-quality steel as a base and created an alloy using some minor parts of other crystals. Some were enchanted with swordsmanship, while others were just there for their natural properties. But those weren¡¯t the only things Eisen added into the materials for the swords as an extra. He also added some parts of souls so that he could turn both the katana and the wakizashi into high-tier ego-weapons. He had a couple souls that were meant to have their shape, after all, so it was a good start even if the size was inpletely different worlds. Either way, once the mixture was done, Eisen got started with shaping them. Once more, this was a rtively easy job when Eisen was in hisrgest possible size. He just had to make both of the des twice asrge as he would when making a regr de. He folded mana into the des and gave each of them a slight curve, before he set them to the side and tempered them in the probablyrgest furnace Eisen had created with his element just yet, and while that was happening simply chose to get started with making the handles. They wouldn¡¯t be soplicated, really. They were just regr handles made so that the Wood-Giant would be able to hold onto it properly with the help of the enchantments on its hands. When he was done with the handles, the des were fully tempered and Eisen could just attach them properly before wrapping them in a thinyer of leather that was specially treated with a mixture to once more increase the grip. That was the biggest problem with these des. Due to their size, they were so enormously heavy that if they ended up slipping out of the Wood-Giant¡¯s hands, they would kill anyone theynded on instantly. And that wouldn¡¯t be really that great, as far as Eisen was concerned. But at the very least that meant that using this, no regr yers would be able to stand a chance against him. When the old man was done, he just quickly pushed the des into the wood-sheats that he decorated and clothed in some metal to see if they would actually fit properly, and then moved on to enchanting the des themselves with some more things to increase their sharpness and durability, before cing two small weapon cores into the bases of their des, right where the handles met the des, and ced the soul nuclei into those weapon cores to finish up. All that he now needed to do was properly sharpen them, which took quite long since Eisen didn¡¯t have proper spinning-wheels to help him at this size, but soon enough, Eisen finally finished. He was fully done with this giant project that he worked on all alone. It felt like an amazing aplishment, really. \"So, are you going to activate it now?\" Kirisho asked curiously as she appeared next to him after leaving the amulet around the old man¡¯s neck, and Eisen quickly nodded his head as he stared at therge figure. \"Of course I am. I can¡¯t wait to see it walk around.\" The old man chuckled, before increaseing his size to the maximum and leaning over the Wood-Giant¡¯s body. He ced his hand onto its chest and pushed his mana throguh theyers uponyers of crystals, wood and metal, and then just listened as the Wood-Giant¡¯s body started creaking and moving. It didn¡¯t take long until it pushed itself off the ground and so, in front of the giant old man stood an even more enormous wood-giant. Chapter 529 Clearing Ou Eisen looked at the Wood-Giant standing there, just towering over him and everyone else that was currently watching. With a broad smile, Eisen pointed at a spot where there weren¡¯t too many roots, \"Go over there.\" Hemanded, and the Wood-Giant did as asked, just stepping over the roots to make his way to the spot before turning back toward Eisen. Its footsteps were loud and heavy and even pushed a lot of the dirt to the side when its foot hit the ground. \"Holy fucking shit, that¡¯s amazing...\" Morgus muttered bluntly as he saw the wood-giant, and Eisen just looked down at the ck half-dragon and nodded his head, \"Of course it is. But that¡¯s not all.\" Eisen pointed out. \"Infuse your body with different elements. Water, Earth, Fire, Wind, Darkness, and light, in that order. But only switch when I tell you to.\" Eisen eximed toward it. And shortly after he did so, the Wood-Giant followed themand as best as it could. The enchantments ced onto its skin started glowing just so slightly, before all of a sudden in the center of its chest, waves started moving outward. The kind that you get when throwing a pebble into water. More and more of those waves appeared and spread over the Wood-Giant¡¯s whole body, and with each wave, its body turned more and more into water. \"Take out your de.\" The old manmanded, and the Wood-Giant with its water-body grasped the handle of the de on its hip. It pulled the de out swiftly. The de itself had also been slightly infused with water, since Eisen had given the Wood-Giant the ¡¯Tool-Connection¡¯ ability. The de had turned just so slightly blue, but for the most part, it had still kept its regr shape, color, and substance. \"Next element.\" The old manmanded it. And as if drying up within a few moments, the water on its body just disappeared and the sword¡¯s blue tint disappeared. But after that, it seemed like its skin simply grew thicker as rocks and dirt gathered on there, cloaking it in a thickyer of rock. This seemed to make it far, far heavier, and the ground even nearly gave in in response to this extra weight. \"Next.\" Eisen eximed next, and the rocks just crumbled off before the wood-giant¡¯s body ignited itself. This actually made Eisen a little worried... Sure, Ironbark was incredibly me-resistant, but that didn¡¯t mean that it waspletely me-resistant. It was just a little bit harder to get it to burn. The fact that it wasn¡¯tpletely resistant to it was shown by Eisen literally turning the leftover scraps of wood from the ship-construction into charcoal. But it seemed like Eisen¡¯s worries were for nothing. Sure, the wood-giant did give off some heat, but it neither burnt the roots around it nor its own wooden body, so the old man was d that it was working properly. With the next element, the mes disappeared near-to-instantly and were reced by strong winds that made light whistling sounds as they travelled around the Wood-Giant¡¯s body. The wind picked up a little bit of dust here and there, or some des of grass, that were now also floating around its body. But for the most part, it was really something that could only be seen when the giant golem was moving around, which it currently wasn¡¯t. That would be a test forter, for now, Eisen just wanted to try and make sure that all the elements would properly infuse into the wood-giant¡¯s body. The next element was darkness, and its body basically became a shadow that was given a form. It was just ck and purple, and slight smoke or fog kept twirling around its body. It was kind of like that effect of ink or paint inside of water. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure how useful this element in particr would be, since this could really only be used to merge into the darkness of another ce for more stealth, but the wood-giant would most likely not be able to be very stealthy anyway. And then, there was the light element. It was basically the opposite of the darkness element, as one would expect. Although the effect was pretty simr, with white and bright golden mist twirling around its body the whole time. But either way, it was mostly too bright to look at straight anyway. This would probably just be useful to blind enemies, as far as Eisen was concerned. This whole time, Eisen was nodding his head in satisfaction whenever he saw that everything worked. And this was all just testing it out so that Eisen could maybe still change something if he needed to, since he still hadn¡¯t seen this golem as finished. All the enchantments were properly working like they were supposed to, quite obviously, but the Wood-Giant still was incapable of properly making use of its abilities like it was supposed to. Either way, since everything seemed to work alright, and the golem was capable of followingmands properly, the old man crossed his arms and saw everything rted to this Wood-Giant as finished. [You have created the Wood-Giant¡¯s Katana] [You have created the Wood-Giant¡¯s Wakizashi] [You have created the Wood-Giant¡¯s Kunai] [You have created the Wood-Giant¡¯s Smoke-Bomb] [You have created the Wood-Giant¡¯s Sticky-Bomb] [You have created the Wood-Giant¡¯s Scattered Sticky-Bomb] [You have created the set ] [You have created the Wood-Giant] [Wood-Giant] [Item Rank ¨C 6][Quality ¨C Perfect] [Ego Rank ¨C 0][Level ¨C 1] [Durability ¨C 1.000.000][Mana ¨C 100.100] [Strength ¨C 1000][Agility ¨C 800][Dexterity ¨C 300][Intelligence ¨C 100][Wisdom ¨C 10] [Description] A Giant Ego-Golem created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen. Its body was close to exclusively created using materials from the same Ironbark tree, giving it not only enormous durability but also a high level of control over its own body. The Bark of the tree is acting as basic armor. It has been given a high amount of abilities to properly control its own body, including over a dozen different elements that it can make use of individually. [Abilities], , , , , , , , , , [Elements] Water, Earth, Fire, Wind, Darkness, Light, Nature, Draconic, Inkheart, me of the Earth, Support, Storm, Lightning, Mist With a satisfied expression, Eisen waved the information of the wood-giant away so that he could see the rest of the information that was behind it. [Soul Engineering has reached Level 100 in Rank 3, upgrading to Rank 4] [Woodcutting has reached level 100 in Rank 3, upgrading to Rank 4] [ssblowing has reached level 100 in Rank 3, upgrading to Rank 4] [Your tool is happy that it has been used to create such arge item] [Tool connection has reached level 100 in rank 3, upgrading to rank 4] [Woodworking has reached level 100 in Rank 4, upgrading to Rank 5] [Due to your limitless ability with the Woodworking Skill, it has be the Skill] Eisen waved these notifications away as well and just opened his quest progress for a bit to see what else needed to be done for the ¡¯Road to 300¡¯ quest, and was d to see that he really just needed to rank up a couple more skills for this, even if they were some of the ones that were the most annoying to properly rank up. Either way, now that Eisen had a proper helper, he would really be able to get started with this. Eisen looked over toward the wood-giant with a smile on his face, \"Put the sword away, we¡¯re gonna start working now.\" Eisen announced with a broad grin, and the Wood-Giant did as told. Immediately after Eisen truly saw the wood-giant as finished, its movements became many, many times smoother than before, and the giant katana ended up in the sheath without any sound. \"Alright, we¡¯re going to need all of your guys¡¯ help too. Sky, there¡¯s a system in the Golem that allows others to basically control the element. I¡¯m going to have the Wood-Giant cloak its body in the Inkheart element, so please stay with the Golem and turn its body into the character from the Lumberjack story you have. The infusion system for the Wood-Giant is simr to how I made the basic control system for the artificial spirits, so I¡¯m pretty sure it should work.\" Eisen told Sky. He seemed a little bit weird at having to stay with that huge thing, but Eisen reassured him that it was safe and he didn¡¯t have to worry too much. And then, Eisen looked over at the half-dragon knights, \"You guys please try and pick up whatever smaller scraps areying around. Well, only the ¡¯bigger¡¯ scraps I guess. The kind of things you would get from a regr tree. Caria, Sal, Melissa, please do the same.\" Eisen told them, although he specifically turned toward Kiron afterward. \"Andter on, I have another job for you too. I want you to use your element to eat up specifically the roots underground that we can¡¯t reach.\" Eisen told Kiron, and the crystal half-dragon slowly nodded his head. He spent a fair amount of time properly trying to practice with his element, and by now, he was able to do a lot of really amazing things with it. For one, he could basicallypletely exterminate a small forest within an hour or two if he really wanted to, without leaving behind anything like wood or soot, since the mes literally fed on those kinds of materials. And when he infused it into his body, he not only gained a speed boost, but it was also quite good for defense. It wasn¡¯t that his basic defense went up, but the mes would start sticking to whoever just attacked him, meaning that any sessful attack also damaged the attacker. \"Of course, grandfather!\" Kiron eximed, excited to be able to help, although it seemed like one person was slightly disappointed that she wasn¡¯t named. \"So I can¡¯t do anything?\" Bree asked with a slightly sad expression. She hadn¡¯t realy felt all that useful over the past few weeks, especially since Eisen didn¡¯t really need her to supply mana to him anymore. But Eisen just chuckled and shook his head, \"No, no, of course you can do something. I actually need you toe with me when I start taking care of the roots. It¡¯s not really an exciting task though, so I hope you¡¯re fine with that.\" Eisen told her, and Bree¡¯s expression immediately turned brighter again. \"That¡¯s fine! I¡¯ll help however I can!\" She eximed, and Eisen quickly watched as everyone did as he asked them to. The wood-giant¡¯s body was now ink-ck and its katana had turned into an axe that it was already using to try and chop up the leftover wood that Eisen didn¡¯t cut apart yet, while the others were just collecting scraps. And Eisen and Bree made their way to the outskirts of this area to find the ce where the roots ¡¯ended¡¯. Chapter 530 Pulling Roots \"Alright! What do you need my help with?\" Bree asked rather excitedly before Eisen just lightly smiled at her, \"Well for one, I¡¯m going to need you to give me as much of a strength buff as you can. I¡¯m pretty strong in my giant form, sure, but any sort of help is going to speed this up.\" Eisen exined to the Fey-Kin girl, who immediately just nodded her head in response. \"Of course! But is there anything else?\" She asked, since she noticed the way that Eisen worded his request, and the old man just ced his hand onto the root behind him. \"Yeah, there is. It would also be pretty useful if you could use two different spells on the roots themselves. For one, that spell that decreases friction, as well as the spell that decreases the weight of the roots.\" Eisen suggested. Bree quickly thought about it and then nodded her head with a broad smile. \"Ah, got it! So you can pull them out more easily!\" She eximed. \"Exactly. But yeah, let¡¯s start with these ones back here for now. These obstruct us the most at the moment.\" The old man pointed out as he increased his size to the maximum and climbed over the root. He dug his fingers as deeply into the thick root as he could and looked at the spot where it was slightly digging down into the ground. Bree ced both of her hands onto exactly that spot and pushed her mana into the root for a few moments. Immediately, Eisen could feel his hands nearly slip away from the root already, despite not actually pulling on it all that hard just yet. So, the old man tried to turn his hands into the draconic ¡¯w¡¯ mode again, and as such quickly managed to get a safe grip on the surface. Then, Bree stepped over toward Eisen himself and quickly ced her hand onto Eisen¡¯s leg to give him the strength buff. And as a warm energy coursed throughout the old man¡¯s body, he could quite literally feel the increase. Since most of Bree¡¯s buffs were percentage-based, this really did an amazingly wonderful job. And now, Eisen pulled on the root while continuosly pushing his ws deeper into it. It took a while, but soon, the old man started to feel the root give in. And the moment that it did, the rest happened pretty quickly. At some point, Eisen managed to just pull the whole root out of the ground together with some smaller sub-sections that split off of this thick root, all the way up to the thin ends that were the size of a regr tree¡¯s roots. And just when Eisen ced the root onto the ground, Kirisho appeared out of the amulet around Eisen¡¯s neck, since she seemed to have a little bit of a question, \"The answer to this may seem quite obvious to you, but... Is there a reason why you are not using your Alchemy skill topress the roots? You canpress other wood as well, right?\" She asked, but before Eisen could reply, Bree took that over for him. \"That¡¯s because a regr tree is filled to the brim with natural mana. When you cut through the log, that natural mana is gone for the actual log, but it¡¯s still in the roots. And natural mana kind of rejects that kind of thing... Otherwise every woodcutter would learn the alchemy skill instead to learn transmutation.\" With a chuckle, Eisen quickly nodded his head, \"There you have it. It would be pretty nice if I could do that, though. But of course it¡¯s not as easy as that.\" The old man pointed out, \"For now we have to take care of these roots like these, remove the main part of the stump, and then have Kiron get rid of the roots that lead far too deep into the ground for us to even hope pulling out.\" \"I see.\" Kirisho replied, and then looked at the root for a moment, \"Would there be any way for me to help with this as well?\" She asked. After a bit of thought, Eisen started to look around to maybe figure out a task for her, and then slowly nodded his head when something came to mind. \"There is, actually. I think we might be able to clear these out quicker if you could push your mist into the gap that forms inbetween the root and the ground when I start pulling them out and then maybe try to slightly widen the gap toward the end parts. Those ces in particr are the ones that make it a pain sometimes. Your mist can turn semi-solid after all, right?\" \"Of course. Then I will help you however I can.\" She said reassuredly, so Eisen just returned a smile to her for a few moments, before the two of them were interrupted by Bree. \"Yeah, erm... can we continue?\" She asked slightly awkwardly, even though she still kept up her regr bright smile, although the old man just looked at her with his brows raised in response, \"Mhm.\" He said with a smirk on his face as he started looking for the next good root, and Bree seemed a little surprised at this, \"What¡¯s that face for?\" She asked with her eyes slightly squinted, and Eisen just chuckled. \"Nothing, nothing.\" Heughed, although Bree was just looking at him with a slight pout now as she kept following him. And soon after, a certain woman appeared right behind the group of three. \"I think Eisen was just trying to make the irony clear, here. You¡¯re always so disgustingly lovey-dovey with your own boyfriend, but you get weirded out when others are even remotely so?\" She asked with a rather blunt tone, and Eisen slowly turned around toward the figure. \"Raziel, what a pleasure. What are you doing here?\" Eisen told the angel, and she just slightly looked toward the Wood-Giant, \"First of all, I must say that I¡¯m impressed with what you managed to create right there. And all alone, at that.\" \"Thanks, but I¡¯m kind of surprised. You never seemed all too interested in my items.\" \"You kidding me? You¡¯re expecting me not to be a little curious at the fourty meter tall wooden ego-golem you made within just a couple of days?\" Raziel pointed out bluntly, so Eisen just lightly smiled and crossed his arms. \"Fair enough. But still, just tell me what you¡¯re here for.\" Eisen told her, and the angel slightly clicked her tongue, \"Can¡¯t you be a little more appreciative here? I came all this way for this, and this is how I¡¯m treated?\" She asked, and Eisen¡¯s smile slowly turned into a frown. \"I don¡¯t even know what it is that you came here for.\" He reminded her, so Raziel just shrugged and looked at Bree and Kirisho. \"So it¡¯s cool to talk about that stuff in front of them?\" Raziel asked, before Eisen simply nodded his head, \"If you¡¯re talking about stuff rted to the other world, then yes. They know. Now please, tell me the reason why you haven¡¯t been responding to my attempts at contacting you for weeks now.\" \"Well, I was a bit busy, you know? In the gods¡¯ realm? Where my actual master resides? You know that I don¡¯t work for you, right?\" \"Raziel, please stop trying to tick me off with everything you say. Just please, tell me the reason you came.\" The old man told her, and the Angel just shrugged. \"Sure. Well, for one, I wanted toe get my payment. After all, you said you would tell me everything I wanted to know if I found out what happens to those you reveal the truth to.\" \"Fine, let¡¯s get that done tonight then. Anything else?\" \"Yup. I have a divine revtion for you.\" Raziel started before clearing her throat, \"Your arrival is awaited in hell, so hurry it up and die.\" Immediately, both Bree and Kirisho wanted to try and ¡¯protect¡¯ Eisen from Raziel by stepping in front of the old man, since they seem to have understood it as a threat, but Eisen understood what Raziel was really saying, \"Don¡¯t worry you two. She won¡¯t try to hurt me, it¡¯s an actually pretty helpful tip.\" \"Oh, now is it~?\" Raziel said in a pretty bored tone, \"But that¡¯s not all. I was told that the ¡¯Administrator¡¯ didn¡¯t appear all too much for the past few weeks. Like a handful of times, and he was in a worse mood each time. He came by yesterday and nearly threatened to kill one of the gods for some reason.\" Raziel exined to Eisen. The old man didn¡¯t really need to think about the cause for Samuel¡¯s sour mood either. Although, something was confirmed to Eisen through this once more. Samuel didn¡¯t have any actual ¡¯power¡¯ here. Eisen already figured this to be the case, since otherwise he would have just been able to constantly send monsters too strong for Eisen to him, or maybe even just ban him froming to this world in the first ce. Seeing how Samuel was threatening to kill one of the gods, it just once again showed Eisen that Samuel really wasn¡¯t a deity here. He just had a way to easily ess that ne. Samuel had tried to have all the originals killed at one point or another, so Eisen was sure he wouldn¡¯t refrain from killing or recing one of the gods here if he had the actual power to. With a satisfied expression, Eisen nodded his head and looked back at Raziel, \"Alright, that¡¯s all good to know. Thanks.\" He told the Angel, although it seemed like she still had something else to say. \"If you¡¯re happy about this, then I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be happy if I tell you about something else as well.\" She started, and Eisen looked back at her with a slight shrug, \"Who knows, we¡¯ll see when you tell me.\" He replied to her, and Raziel just started smirking as well, something that she didn¡¯t do all too often. \"Wait, sorry, I think I confused something there. It¡¯s nothing that¡¯s going to make you happy, but it¡¯s something that¡¯s going to make me really, really happy. After all, I love seeing how you deal with these kinds of things all the time.\" Raziel announced, and Eisen stared at her with a slight frown, \"And what is that?\" \"So, it hasn¡¯t been long since you¡¯ve been impersonated by a really dumb changeling, right?\" She said, and Eisen nodded his head slowly, \"Yes, I¡¯ve dealt with that in public and showed that it was a bad fake. What about it?\" \"Well, ever since then, there¡¯s been a couple of people popping up everywhere that are trying to pretend to be you. There¡¯s even some guys selling copies of your ne there.\" Chapter 531 The Giant Tilling The Land Eisen looked at Raziel with a slight frown and crossed his arms, \"Copies of my ne? Of this coin here?\" The old man asked, and the Angel quickly nodded her head, \"Yup. Seems like they were able to do that since you put the pattern from the coin on all the items you make.\" \"Well, I don¡¯t put it on thempletely. A few smaller parts are missing, so it¡¯s notplete.\" Eisen pointed out, and Raziel slightly sighed, \"What does that matter? As long as people think that that¡¯s what the coin looks like, there¡¯s seriously no difference. Before, those coins were one of the greatest indicators of who the ¡¯Originals¡¯ were, because of that ¡¯Trailer¡¯ you told me about apparently. And since that is stuck in the mind of the artificials, they believe in the fakes even more.\" \"Fair enough... Well, I don¡¯t think it¡¯s going to be an issue for now. I¡¯ll deal with itter if I have the time.\" Eisen pointed out, and slowly turned around to continue looking for the next root that he should pull out of the ground, and the Angel of Knowledge behind him grumbled quietly to herself. \"Right. I¡¯ll head to that Dungeon and wait in there for you. So hurry it up, will you?\" Raziel said in a borderlinemanding tone, and Eisen turned around slightly annoyedly, before Kirisho and Bree were both looking up at him. \"You have a deal with that woman? What kind of deal exactly..?\" Kirisho asked with a slight bit of concern, and Eisen just slightly shrugged, \"Well, her name is Raziel. She¡¯s an Angel to the God of Truth Mystor. She has an ability that makes it easy for her to gather information from all over the ce, so the deal I made with her was basically just an information-exchange. She gets me the information that I need, and I tell her about the other world. The one I came from.\" Eisen exined to them quickly. \"And as you just heard, I asked her to get me the information on what happens when I tell others about the truth of this and the other world, and in return I promised to tell her everything and anything she wants to know.\" Eisen exined pretty quickly. \"But what was that with hell? In what way was that not a threat?\" Bree asked nervously. It was obvious that both she and Kirisho understood it that way. \"I think it was more like a direct instruction than a threat. It was seemingly a message from the gods, and especially the gods that Raziel should be in contact with should be those that are on our side rather than Samuel¡¯s, so they won¡¯t try to kill me. And in the first ce, I¡¯m immortal, I¡¯m just going toe back a couple of hourster.\" Eisen pointed out, \"Death is probably some sort of trigger for something important to happen once I manage to get to hell.\" \"Oh...\" The young Fey-Kin girl pointed out with an awkward smile, \"Sorry, Ipletely misunderstood that then...\" \"Haha, don¡¯t worry about that, Bree.\" The old manughed a bit, \"Let¡¯s just keep on going with the roots for now, alright you two?\" Eisen suggested, before the two of them quickly nodded their heads. And after that, they did realy just continue pulling out more and more roots from the ground. They did so for the rest of the day, until the vast majority of the ticker roots were pulled. There were still some in the ground that Eisen figured to be a waste of time to try and pull, but those would either end up being eaten up by Kirisho¡¯s mes or would just rot when Jyuuk came here and did anotherst quick ¡¯sweep¡¯ of the area while they were preparing the ground to be properly farmed on. And then, in the evening, Eisen did as he was asked to and started telling Raziel some more stories about the other world. Basically, he told her whatever she wanted to know for now. After all, it was basically impossible to tell her everything there was to tell within a single night, so Eisen simply chose to answer any question that Raziel had for him. Around afternoon of the next day, they managed to remove all of the roots and the rest of the Ironbark log itself, and the only thing that was left now was the stump. Eisen worked together with the Wood-Giant that Sky was once more turning into that lumberjack-form to try and cut apart the stump. Piece by piece, they managed to remove it, until there were only the roots digging deep into the ground were left. Eisen slowly turned toward the crystal half-dragon next to him and just smiled, \"I think we¡¯re ready to make use of your element now.\" The old man pointed out, and Kiron swiftly nodded his head, \"Of course!\" He eximed excitedly. The half-dragon knight climbed down onto the hole that was left over after removing most of the stump, and then held his hand forward. Slowly Kiron¡¯s hand was cloaked in the translucent crystal mes, before he just squatted down and pressed his palm onto one of the parts of one of the roots still sticking out of the ground here. The mes immediately started sticking to the wood, and Kiron quickly proceeded to ce it onto the rest of any other roots that were visible from up here, before Eisen pulled his grandson out of the hole. And then, Kiron simply closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before Eisen started watching the mes spread out a bit more. At a rapid pace, at least whenpared to the speed at which regr mes burnt things away, the roots were starting to disappear into nothingness, just reced by the mes that elerated everything even more. It seemed like the focus of the mes wasn¡¯t to evenly burn away at the front surface, but rather to burn themselves into the center of the roots along the core. And sure, that made sense. Like that, the path wouldn¡¯t be blocked by dirt falling down somehow since the structural integrity of the roots was mostly kept, and it would make spreading out throughout the roots a fair bit quicker as well, since everything was far more focused. And then, since there would be more surface area inside, the mes could easily destroy the roots all at once. It seemed like that was exactly what Kiron was going for, and quite soon, that n became a reality. From what Eisen could tell with his mana-sight, the roots were nearlypletely gone now, and all that was left were the crystal mes eating away at some of the leftover parts. \"Good job, Kiron.\" Eisen said with a smile on his face, and then looked over toward the others to tell them to step a bit further away again, until it was only Eisen left there. And the old man increased his size to the maximum, which also considerably increased his weight. Due to this, as the underground was now missing some parts that kept it together and there was a fair amount of hollow space there, the dirt just sank in. It wasn¡¯t a lot, but it was still a considerable amount. Due to the fact that the tree was growing here, the ground had generally be incredibly uneven, and that it was now sinking in in some parts didn¡¯t really help much either. But either way, the old man chose to quickly get to work. Since preparing and tilling thend also gave you Farming proficiency, that¡¯s what Eisen would be doing now. Since all the guards had long left over thest couple of days, the only ones here were those that were part of Eisen¡¯s group, all of which were outside at the moment. So, Eisen had Fafnir close down the dungeon, just to then have it be opened in another location. But that wasn¡¯t any location, but more specifically, an extra free space in the Wood-Giant¡¯s chest. It was only able to fit up to the second gate, of course, but it was still more than enough. Since there was even a little space for Fafnir to sleep there, it was really the perfect ce. After the dungeon was set up, Eisen had the wood-giant pick everyone up and hold them up to the dungeon-gate. Like this, the dungeon was now pretty mobile, so the old man didn¡¯t have to work around anything. And to top it off, the wood-giant¡¯s golem core had a little bit more protection as well, since the gate was covering that spot up. Eisen made the Wood-Giant sit down at a ce where there were a lot of rocks so that it wouldn¡¯t be suitable to be turned into farnd, while the old man activated his draconic demon transformation and transferred that transformation to his multitool as well. And with a single thought, he made it change into its shovel-mode, and Eisen could quickly start using the mounds of dirt as well as slight hills to fill in the holes that formed in the ground. This ce seemed to have been mostly t before the Ironbark tree was grown here, after all, so it was most likely supposed to be rather t. Eisen shoveled and shoveled, pushed the dirt around with his feet or the t side of the multitool, until it had all been returned to just being t. Since Jyuuk and Xenia would only get here tomorrow morning, Eisen figured that it was a good idea to try and get started with properly preparing the ground to have the seeds that Jyuuk would be bringing with him tomorrow nted in it. The old man had the multitool turn into the hoe mode and started to break up the soil a bit more. Eisen actually used a little bit of his mana together with his mining ability to break things down to more easily loosen the ground up. And a couple of hourster, the giant Eisen was done preparing most of thend that they were allowed to use, before heading off into the dungeon as well for tonight. He had a good night¡¯s sleep, although he really just logged off and spent a little bit of time with his family and friends again, and then made his way into the game again before awaiting the arrival of Jyuuk and Xenia. It didn¡¯t take too long either, like Eisen was informed, since this ce actually wasn¡¯t terribly far away from the harbor town, so they managed to get here pretty quickly. As Eisen was greeting the two of them, and of course showing off the Wood-Giant to them, they also already spoke about what exactly to nt. But of course, they were all going to be giant variants of regr things. Chapter 532 Forest-Scaled Farming \"So, in the end, we have grain-based stuff like wheat, barley, rye and corn, as well as other things like, potatos, carrots, tomatos, onions, turnips... Then there¡¯s also melons, pumpki-\" Jyuuk counted as he looked at the mountain of seeds in front of him to see if they really had everything they needed, but the old man stopped him with a light smile. \"Let¡¯s just nt everything one at a time, alright? So first would be wheat then, right?\" Eisen suggested, and the monkey-beastperson slowly turned his head toward the old man, quickly nodding his head, \"Oh yeah, sure. Then just wait a bit, we¡¯ll vitalize the soil for now.\" Jyuuk suggested as he stood up and looked over toward Xenia, \"You ready to go?\" \"Ah, of course. If we properly gather the ambient mana into the right ces, and then use your element to artificially ¡¯fuse¡¯ it into the soil, that should give it a bit more energy, right?\" The High-Elf asked. Jyuuk thought about it for a few moments and then looked toward the fields that Eisen had already fully plowed. \"Definitely. I¡¯m going to be nting a bit of grass around the area and then make it rot again, just so that we can use it as something like fertiliser as well. Shouldn¡¯t take too long, though.\" Jyuuk pointed out. With a satisfied expression, the old man then watched as the two of them swiftly stepped onto the field and Jyuuk started spreading grass-seeds around before the brown floor soon turned vibrantly green. But a few momentster, after the wave of green, it once more turned dark brown, nearly ck, and then green again. It was as if there were really waves of grass spreading out with each step that Jyuuk and Xenia took. And while it was a pretty interesting sight, Eisen was more excited about actually seeing the giant wheat grow in a bit. The seeds that Jyuuk had brought with him were already ones that he had specially prepared and created to naturally grow into giant versions of themselves. It seemingly didn¡¯t take too long for Xenia and Jyuuk to finish what they wanted to do with the field, and they soon returned back to Eisen who was waiting to get started. Once they returned, Jyuuk quickly grabbed therge bag of wheat seeds and then waved his hand to the side. On his arm, an eagle appeared that Eisen actually hadn¡¯t seen before. It seemed like its body was simr to something like wood, although the feathers on its wings and back were simr to leaves. It was prettyrge, so much that it seemed somewhat unnatural for it to be sitting on Jyuuk¡¯s arm. But either way, it grabbed the bag of seeds that Jyuuk handed it and then flew of, ready to spread the seeds around. \"A new eagle?\" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, and Jyuuk chuckled a bit and just nodded, \"Yeah, I¡¯ve been working on him for a little while. Simr with the ¡¯Undeath Eagle¡¯, it¡¯s a special creation. I was hatching the egg of a regr eagle and infused it with the essence of different nts.\" \"I see, so it¡¯s basically your helper when ites to nt-control stuff now?\" \"Basically, yes. While the eagles don¡¯t really have such amazingbat strength whenpared t o their rank, they all have pretty amazing special abilities. For example, Akatori is now officially a Phoenix, and he has a rebirth ability. For one, when I have him help me out, I can resurrect my tamed monsters really easily should they die. Well, it¡¯s not that hard to anyway, but it¡¯s even easier and faster, and nearly has no repercussions.\" Jyuuk exined to Eisen, who looked at the ¡¯Nature Eagle¡¯ flying over the fields. \"Then that means this one has an ability to elerate nt-growth?\" The old man asked him. Jyuuk quickly nodded again. \"Yes, although it¡¯s not just a speed-boost, it¡¯s a general ability-buff. So he¡¯s going to also make it possible to make the nts a little bigger than I usually would be able to, and that while keeping it much more stable.\" \"Interesting...\" Eisen muttered quietly as he watched the eagle return to Jyuuk¡¯s arm, quickly climbing over him to just grab onto both of his shoulders. Jyuuk just turned over toward Xenia, before the two of them headed out to the fields again. Xenia tried her best to properly feed the ambient natural mana into Jyuuk¡¯s nt-control efforts. And before Eisen knew it, stalks shot out of the ground, immediately developing into wheat that was just towering above Eisen. They grew to be roughly ten meters tall in total and had stalks thicker than both of Eisen¡¯s armsbined. So that Eisen could properly watch this all happen, he properly increased his size from the sidelines and as such was able to see the wheat grow. In anticipation, it seemed like even Eisen¡¯s multitool was ready to go as it quickly changed itself into its scythe mode so that Eisen could properly farm all of this. It didn¡¯t take long until the whole field had been properly covered in this giant wheat, and both Jyuuk and Xenia returned to the Wood-Giant. \"Alright, you¡¯re ready to go, I¡¯d say.\" \"Perfect, thank you.\" Eisen said with a smile, and swiftly grabbed the multitool in both of his hands whilemanding the wood-giant to pick up Jyuuk and Xenia so that they would have a good sight of Eisen¡¯s work no matter where he was. And as the two of them sat down on the wood-giant¡¯s palm, Eisen got started. With swift motions, he quickly cut off the heads of the wheat where the actual grains were and had some of Melissa¡¯s bees collect them to have them piled up right next to the wood-giant. But not only did Eisen rather easily and quickly cut off the heads, but he then also cut through the stems themselves to have them collected as well. They could be used for a couple different projects pretty easily too, so Eisen didn¡¯t want to justpletely waste them. Just like that, this old man started stepping through this giant field and cut down the just-as-giant wheat that had been grown here. After everything had been collected properly, Eisen switched ces with Jyuuk and Xenia again and had them nt the next seeds, the ones for Barley, while the old man himself properly started bundling everything together. With Sal¡¯s help, Eisen swiftly bound the stalks together into thick bundles that he then had Sigurd store inside of the dungeon. There was a fair amount of space to actually store everything, after all. Since the dungeon wasn¡¯t being used right now as an actual dungeon, it could be misused as extra storage space for the time being until they found a different ce to keep everything. Once Xenia and Jyuuk made the barley grow, Eisen once more went out to cut everything down, had it collected, and while Xenia and Jyuuk worked on the next seeds, he properly prepared everything to be stored. This all continued until the part for the ¡¯grain¡¯ based things was over. The corn was already pretty bothersome, since it had been grown to be roughly the same height as Eisen, so it wasn¡¯t just as easy to cut through everything smoothly. But in the end, he still managed to do so nheless. Either way, the next things they would be going through were things like potatos, carrots, or onions. Simply things that grew in the ground and had to be specifically pulled instead of just cut down. This would also require Eisen to work a little more after he got everything from the field, since it meant he had to plow through everything a bit again. The ground would most likely be pretty dug up afterward, after all. But in the end, that was fine. It also increased Eisen¡¯s farming proficiency, so the old man didn¡¯t really mind it. And so, Jyuuk and Xenia swiftly nted thest seeds that would be taken care of for the day, the potatos. And so, Eisen just went through the fields and pulled the potatoes out of the ground. This time they were a bit too heavy for the bees to carry, so Eisen had to bring them back to the wood-giant every once in a while, meaning that it took even longer. \"But this is nice too...\" Eisen muttered quietly to himself. This was definiteley more rxing than just cutting down wheat or barley. And since Eisen was really just working constantly without taking a single proper break these days, this was something that he kind of needed. The next morning was simrly rxing, as Eisen simply took his time to re-plow the field and picking the carrots, although in the middle of his work, a notification appeared in front of Eisen. [Farming has reached level 100 in rank 3, upgrading to rank 4] \"Ah, there we go.\" The old man said with a smile as he cracked his neck, \"Guess the time to rx is over now.\" He chuckled to himself and then proceeded to summon as many mana-doubles as he could to finish up with this. As this would result in a lot of lost proficiency, Eisen didn¡¯t do this before now. But either way, for him, it was no longer about leveling up his farming skill, but about his Mana Double skill to get it to Rank 4. And to top it off, Eisen also used his mana copy skill to basically copy everything on the field at any time to ¡¯update¡¯ the data and get a little bit more proficiency for his mana-copy skill. Sure, there may be ways to level them up more efficiently, but this whole thing wasn¡¯t only to make Eisen¡¯s skills level up, but also to actually get materials. One of the other skills Eisen had to rank up one more time was cooking, so Eisen thought he should get started on making provisions for the trip to the giant-country. And not only that, they also needed rather big ingredients if Eisen was going to cook something for the Giants. They didn¡¯t seem to be necessarily all that happy with people just intruding on theirnd, but the old man was sure that a few good dishes should make it easier to gain their trust. Of course, Eisen being the son of the first King of the Fire Giants should also help out with all of that, although Eisen couldn¡¯t be sure that they were really going to believe him that this was actually the case. So, the old man just wanted to prepare by opening up a lot of different ways to befriend the giants. Chapter 533 At the Quarry After Eisen, Xenia, and Jyuuk had finished the work with the fields properly, the old man got started on creating arge amount of different material-seeds. This was the perfect ce, really. It was out in the middle of nowhere, and there was not the slightest connection to Eisen to be found anywhere. And it¡¯s not like Eisen necessarily cared too much for the seeds too much, so even if anyone found this ce, it wouldn¡¯t be too big of an issue should they be somehow ¡¯stolen¡¯. This was all really just so that Eisen could properly rank up his ¡¯Material Growth¡¯ Skill to rank 4. It was in the upper Rank 2 range right now, since not too many of the high-tier seeds that Eisen actually nted were actually ¡¯ready to go¡¯. Most of the flowers didn¡¯t bloom yet, the trees didn¡¯t bear any fruit yet, and the vegetables weren¡¯t ready for harvest. Of course, there were a few exceptions in the range of crystals, but that was something to be expected. Crystals were always easy to use with any sort of magic skill, after all. But as they grew quickly, they also didn¡¯t really give Eisen that much proficiency for his skill, so he now had to nt other things. Seeds that were made with something like steel, gold, maybe even some magic metals like mythril. Then, Eisen also figured he could try and nt something with some mana again. The tree that Eisen made like that before was actuallying along great, and as far as he could tell, it did passively increase his Magic Craftsmanship proficiency. And since it was rather close to Rank 4, it shouldn¡¯t hurt to boost it like this as well. Other than that, Eisen of course also needed to level up another of his draconic gifts as well. He would use his extraction skill when he went mining to properly split everything up and get that done there, and his truth-seeing eyes were already at Rank 4 since long ago. The gift from Bol was the size-change ability that became part of his giant racial skill, and since that became Rank 5 already, he figured that the condition for that gift had been met by now as well. So, Eisen figured he got all that going pretty well. Eisen quickly finished up the preparation for all the seeds, and then hand-nted them in the ground. For some of them, just to experiment with it, Eisen actually used some of Jyuuk¡¯s special seeds that were specially-bred to be changed in either size, quality, or effect. He was pretty curious about how it would turn out, really. And then, in the center of the field, Eisen chose to nt a couple of trees, the seeds of which were created using different types of mana just to y around with that as well. After all of that was done, Eisen chose to get started with some other work for now as well, and as such swiftly made his way into the dungeon. Since they were now perfectly mobile with the dungeon gate set into the wood-giant¡¯s body, everyone could rx inside of the dungeon and Eisen could inspect the area around the wood-giant using the data-link to its eyes. Basically, it was another version of the camera-golems that Eisen made with the screens, and he made a ratherrge screen for this dungeon so that he could properly see everything even when walking around without needing to hold it. Because what Eisen was doing now was actually properly preparing the materials that he had just farmed from the fields while making the wood-giant walk toward the area with the mines that Komer told him about. Since they actually didn¡¯t have much to do, and Jyuuk could finish his next task from the puzzle-box wherever he was and Xenia¡¯s level-up quest to get to level 300 was also something she could work on no matter where, the two of them chose to tag along with Eisen for a while. And the old man didn¡¯t really mind, it was nice having the two of them around. Although, technically, they did stay in the same house currently, so it was a bit inurate to act like they never saw each other otherwise. Eisen was sitting in a part of the dungeon and mainly got started properly sorting out the grains from the barley, wheat, or rye so that he couldter grind them down into flour or just use them whole like that. Then Eisen of course also just properly cleaned the vegetables like carrots, onions and potatos, since they still had a little bit of dirt stuck on them, and then more efficiently bundled the different stems from the grain-based nts up. Basically, Eisen just tried his best to get everything ready to be used for cooking. Other than that, Eisen just tried to actuallye up with good uses for all of these ingredients. Of course, he would end up making proper dishes for the giants in the giant-country, and with the help of Jyuuk¡¯s element it was quite easily assured that they would actuallyst that long, but Eisen didn¡¯t necessarily want to wait until they got to the giant country. For one, he had to test out if everything actually tasted good enough for starters. And other than that, it was probably also a good idea to prepare a bunch of food for the different inds if they were to be short on it. The inds already controlled by Eisen and the Core Guardians were going to be fine, since they were being perfectly governed by exactly those Town Core Guardians. But then again, there were ces that maybe weren¡¯t so perfectly off, and since Eisen should make sure to grow rtions with the towns and viges on the other inds even before they could properly govern them. There would probably still be a limit on how many towns they could take over at once even if they did be a country, and since there were dozens of inds, Eisen wasn¡¯t sure how long it would take to get all the inds to officially be part of his country. And he really didn¡¯t want any other yer to just steal those towns away from him. Although, he should be able to ¡¯raid¡¯ that town then and get control over it like that, so it probably wouldn¡¯t actually be too bad. So if some of the inds should be in bad condition, Eisen would be able to try his best to support them with at least food and protection if he could properly turn all of these things into proper food. Of course it wasn¡¯t anything like meat, but there were surely going to be enough monsters around to take care of that issue. Either way, for now, Eisen just worked on cleaning up all of these ingredients and sorted them properly. At some point a couple of hourster, it seemed like they finally got to the quarry that Brody had already subjugated, before Komer properly had it filed to be more ofnd belonging to ¡¯Starlight¡¯. Since it was a bit risky to make the wood-giant walk through this ce with huge holes in the ground that led down more than a hundred meters or so. Sure, the wood-giant would probably survive the fall without issues, but Eisen didn¡¯t want to risk anything. And since there would probably be some more monsters left here as well, Eisen thought that might be a good enough reason to head outside and look out for anything that might bring them trouble. Although, to Eisen¡¯s surprise... there was nothing here. Sure, there were things like snakes and bugs, and even some smaller animals or rank 1 monsters based off those small animals, but nothing that was really dangerous in the slightest. Then, in the distance, the old man spotted something after all. It was a group of three people running around the deepestyer of the quarry while practically ughtering the monsters that made this their ce their home before. With a slight sigh, Eisen activated his draconic demon transformation and increased his size to the max, trying to fly around while properly leading the wood-giant down to the bottom of the quarry. When Eisen could be sure that it had proper footing, the old man flew over toward where the Demon-Orc Halfling and his twopanions, another demon and a dryad, were currently taking care of a half-dead monster. \"Hey there, you three. Need any help?\" Eisen asked them with a smirk on his face as he squatted down behind the rock-based monster, and Brody justughed and immediately shook his head. \"Nah man, we¡¯re good. Just cleanin¡¯ up a bit. This area¡¯s been basically cleared of monsters by now.\" Brody exined quickly as he swung the warhammer in his hand down toward the monster that was basically stunned by fear because of Eisen¡¯s mere presence, and the old man lightly smiled in response. \"Got it. Then... That area over there, is it safe?\" Eisen asked, pointing over to a part of the quarry that seemed to have a particrly high amount of different types of rock and minerals in the ground, and the Demon-Orc thought about it for a bit and shrugged. \"Should be, but I wouldn¡¯t bet on it. Oh, by the way... That¡¯s the giant-ass golem you mentioned before?\" Brody asked with an impressed expression as he stared at the wood-giant that was currently letting Jyuuk and Xenia out of the dungeon, and the old man immediately nodded his head. \"Yeah, it is. Pretty cool, huh?\" \"Pretty cool? It¡¯s actually fucking dope. Hey, do you think I-\" \"Please don¡¯t try to fight it, I¡¯m pretty sure you can break it easily.\" Eisen pointed out, \"And it¡¯s an ego-golem, so I would prefer it if you didn¡¯t make it hate you right off the bat.\" \"Fair enough. But it¡¯s for sure gonna be able to help us out in the giant country. Especially with that sword, not gonna lie.\" \"What, are you starting to get jealous of fighters like Kiron who use giant weapons?\" Eisen asked with a smirk, and Brody lightly shrugged. \"Can you me me? It does look pretty cool sometimes. I¡¯m more used to this kinda stuff though, so I¡¯ll stick to regr weapons for now. That might change though, I dunno.\" \"Yeah, I¡¯m pretty sure you know whether it¡¯s going to change or not.\" Xenia intervened as she got close enough to listen in to what Brody and Eisen were saying, and Brody just slightly shrugged, \"As I said, can you me me? I at least want to try it out sometime, see how it feels, ya know?\" Brody replied with a light smile. Chapter 534 Digging through the quarry Eisen stood in front of the rock wall, with his size fully increased and his body changed through the draconic demon transformation. He held the multitool in his hand and watched as it moved its parts on its own to turn into its pickaxe mode. Without further ado, the old man cloaked the tool in highly condensed mana so that he could properly make use of his mining ability. The one that let him break rock just through his mana alone. Eisen swung the pickaxe forward and toward the rock wall, making it immediately crack up while a few pebbles crumbled down here and there. After the next swing of the pickaxe, more parts of the wall crumbled down, but it still mostly stood. But with the third swing, the parts that Eisen already cracked uppletely dropped onto the ground in front of Eisen. He swung the pickaxe into the edge of the hole he just created and swiftly managed to expand it. More and more, arger space opened up in front of Eisen, until he was even able topletely stand inside of that space with his full height of 25 meters. Of course, since Eisen was sorge, he couldn¡¯t just go ahead and do what he wanted to here, or else this whole quarry might end up crashing down onto him. Instead, what Eisen did was to harden specific parts of the wall as much as he could to create support pirs for everything. Since Eisen was able to pretty easily remember which parts exactly he changed like that with his Crafter¡¯s Mind skill and visualization, Eisen could continue on digging out this space. Or rather, this long tunnel, because that¡¯s really all it was. Mining was really just something that would require a fair amount of time to properly level up. There weren¡¯t proper ways to really cheat the system with this one. All he could do was to just dig away at the wall of this quarry and build up different types of rock and ores that he could then use his extraction skill on after he was done ranking the mining skill up. And any of those pieces of rock were being gathered in the center of the quarry, where really nothing was happening at the moment. Brody and the others had properly cleaned up the whole Field Dungeon by now, so there wasn¡¯t any threat around here either. Eisen was actually pretty curious as to why exactly Komer bought this ce. After all, there wasn¡¯t anything special here. Sure, the metals that could be found in this ce were rtively valuable, but the main reason for this quarry¡¯s existence was the type of rock here. It was simply ornamental rock... But it was a type that wasn¡¯t expensive. It simply wasn¡¯t profitable for Komer in the slightest to buy this kind of ce. It wasn¡¯t like the monsters were especially high-rank either. It was a Rank 4 Field Dungeon, meaning that the average rank of monsters here was 4, while the boss was usually a rank higher, so at 5. The only things that were really salvagable from the monsters were the low-quality ores on their bodies. There was literally more worth running around on the Golem Ind no matter where you looked. It just seemed a bit weird to Eisen. But in the end, he figured that Komer probably had some sort of reason for it. Komer wasn¡¯t the kind to waste his money like that, after all. Either way, for now, Eisen was d that he got this chance to level his mining skill up here, since the proficiency he could get for it in the dungeon was at most a third of what it was out here. It was kind of annoying, thinking about how long it might have taken to rank the skill up if he didn¡¯t have the chance to gain proficiency for it here in this quarry. But again, mining was something that didn¡¯t really require much thought to it beside making sure that the walls were really stable. So, for the next two days, all that Eisen did from morning to evening was work on expanding the ¡¯tunnels¡¯ in the walls of the quarry to easily rank his mining skill up. And finally, toward thete evening of the second day, just before Eisen was going to go to bed, he finally ranked the skill up after crushing up a particr vein of copper ore that he happened across randomly. With a satisfied mind, Eisen chose to just head to bed for now. The next morning, Eisen then chose to get started with his extraction skill and start ranking it up as much as he possibly could like this. The old man sat in front of the mountain of rocks, of which a bit would always be given to him by the others. Whether it were the half-dragons, the monster children, or Bree, Sky, or even any of the three other originals, all of them basically took turns trying to help Eisen with this. Particrly using his Crafter¡¯s Mind skillbined with his Truth-Seeing eyes¡¯ appraisal ability, Eisen tried his best to properly split everything up into what Eisen thought it to be. He took one of the rocks into his hand, and then one after another extracted the specific types of soil or rock that could be found in this whole mix of things. Since Eisen¡¯s alchemy skill wasn¡¯t limited to justbining crystals anymore after Eisen ¡¯mastered¡¯ it, he could basically split one material off of the rock and then merge that material onto a boulder of that exact material that he was forming behind him to keep a bit of an ¡¯order¡¯ to everything. And at point, those boulders obviously became toorge to keep here in the same spot, but... Eisen simplypressed them when that happened, and they turned to have roughly the same volume as Brody¡¯s whole body. Actually, Brody and the half-dragons made it a bit of apetition to see who could actually move any of the boulders that Eisen was making first. They were too heavy to actually be properly moved after all. Although Brody and Kiron both managed to push the boulders around after finding the proper way to grip onto it and the ground around here. Morgus was getting pretty close to it as well, but he still wasn¡¯t able to fully push any of them away. And it didn¡¯t get any easier for him either, since Eisen kept adding onto all of the boulders constantly. The small contest actually boiled down to seeing who amongst Brody and Kiron would be unable to push the boulders first to determine a loser between the two of them. Meanwhile, Eisen spent as much of his time splitting up the rocks as he could. When he got the skill to rank 3, he was able to actually get everything done far quicker. For one, he was now able to extract things inrger quantities. And he was able to extract more than just one material at once, so the speed at which Eisen cleared out all of the materials that needed to be split up into its raw parts was immenseter on. And so, Eisen managed to split up all of the rocks that it took him two days to mine out within just a single day. But even though this was the case, Eisen¡¯s Extraction skill was only at level 60 for Rank 3, so it would still take a while to properly finish everything. For the rest of the day, of course after sorting everything into the dungeon, the group made their way back toward the harbor town with the help of the wood-giant. On the way, Eisen got started leveling up another one of his skills, the Drawing Skill. It was one of the more annoying ones to level up, but at least he was able to get it done by just transfering the numerous blueprints he created with his Crafter¡¯s Mind skill onto paper. He didn¡¯t rank it up within a single day though, but it got into the upper Rank 3 range at least. When the group reached the harbor town again, they of course caused quite an uproar. After all, a 40 meter tall Wooden Golem wasn¡¯t something you saw all the time. It was especially surprising to people when they saw the rumored living dungeon¡¯s gate sitting right inside of that Wood-Giant¡¯s chest. Some seemed to want to try and fight the Wood-Giant, since they thought it had to give them a lot of experience, but nobody actually had the guts to actually try it, especially not after Eisen had the wood-giant swing the giant Katana a couple of times. Eisen thought about what to do for a little while, but in the end, he chose to do nothing at all and just go about his business however he wanted. Komer had already prepared the ship so that Eisen and the others could travel to the inds again. Of course, the ship that they were going to use wasn¡¯t one of the regr ones that Komer had been using to ship things back and forth from the inds, but rather the enormous ship that the originals and the people from the church built together in Handor back then. And the wood-giant would be sitting in the middle of it. Of course, it would be risky, but as long as it wasying down as much as possible, it shouldn¡¯t be too much of an issue. Especially due to the stabilizing enchantments ced onto the ship¡¯s body. Once Eisen arrived at the inds, he would be able to properly work on hisst few skills to rank up as well. The drawing, cooking, masonry, and extraction skills. Eisen was pretty sure that he would be able to get his magic-based skills done within the trip. After all, he wouldn¡¯t actually be riding the ship for this. Rather, he would work on another level-up condition. The condition to spend a total of 3 days inplete flight. Since the magic-based skills could really be used anywhere without any real issues, Eisen was confident that he would be able to get them done pretty quickly. And at Rank 5, the mana maniption and me of the earth skills would also probably evolve. Eisen was actually pretty curious at what his new element could be. As far as the old man knew, the element skills were the only ones that gave you choices when you reached Rank 5, simr to what happened when Eisen first unlocked his element in the first ce. So of course, Eisen would take a little bit of time to make a good choice, but either way, he was quite excited to find out what his actions over the past few months would be represented as in the form of the new element. Chapter 535 Enforcers of Fate Eisen looked at the ship in front of himself as he watched everything that was needed being loaded onto it. Basically, it was just a number of extra materials and items that Komer wanted to get to the inds in the first ce, so he just packed everything that was needed onto the ship so that he had more space for other things during the next regr shipment. And after everything was properly broguht to wherever it was needed, Eisen made sure that the Wood-Giant could sit down on the ship¡¯s main deck as well without somehow having it tilt to the side. Luckily, it seemed like it wasn¡¯t too big an issue. Either way, Eisen would be outside of the ship all day besides probably five or six hours a day during the whole trip anyway, considering that he would be flying the whole time. Once everything was ready, Eisen stood outside in front of the ship and made sure everyone that needed toe with them was really properly on the ship. They had to wait a while for Evalia to log in again as well, and for some others to arrive, so that they could get onto the ship, but that only took up a couple of hours that Eisen could make sure the ship was really in a good enough condition to carry the wood-giant all the way. It was still pretty risky, after all. But when Eisen was thinking about this, Komer asked a question that the old man hadn¡¯t spent too much time exploring so far, \"So, what¡¯s that guy¡¯s name?\" The merchant asked, and Eisen looked at him with a brow raised, \"I actually haven¡¯te up with one yet. Why?\" \"Seriously? You¡¯re going to ask me why? Well maybe because I want to use the literal physically biggest, and coolest, Golem any of these people have ever seen for advertisement. And I can¡¯t do that if he doesn¡¯t have a name.\" Komer pointed out as if it was obvious, although he then formed a broad smile on his face, \"Ooh! Wait, let mee up with a name! I have the perfect one! ¡¯The Giant that reaches for the sky, Star-¡¯\" \"Askr.\" Eisen interrupted with a light groan, since it was clear what kind of name Komer was going for. Although, somehow, Komer seemed a bit confused, \"What that?\" He asked, and Eisen turned toward him with a light smile. \"It¡¯s the norse word for ¡¯Ash Tree¡¯. And yes, I know that it¡¯s made of Ironbark, not Ash. But the world tree Yggdrasil from norse mythology is supposed to be an Ash tree. So, Askr.\" \"...That does actually sound pretty cool then, and it¡¯s definitely going to make it easy to advertise... I mean, at least every single Artificial must have heard of Yggdrasil before.\" \"Hm? Really?\" Eisen asked, now being the one that was surprised. As far as he remembered, there weren¡¯t that many people that knew about it back in the day. Outside of the northern european countries, of course. \"Hell yeah, norse mythology is awesome. It¡¯s used in a lot of games, novels, even anime. That¡¯s what I heard, at least.\" Komer pointed out, \"I¡¯m not really in that whole scene.\" \"Interesting. Although, you do usually seem like the kind of kid that would enjoy games.\" \"Well, I used to, but it¡¯s been kinda hard to for the past couple of years...\" Komer admitted and scratched the back of his neck silently, \"Ah right, I have something for you.\" The young man said before Eisen could ask him what he was talking about just now. Komer extended his hand forward and seemed to push mana into the spatial ring on his middle finger before a thick ck file-folder filled to the brim with high-quality thick sheets of paper. \"There¡¯s a bunch of contracts in there so that you can do some proper recruiting on the inds. There should be a hundred regr guild recruitment contracts in there. Just in case, there¡¯s 5 sub-guild formation contracts as well.\" Komer exined, and then took out another folder out of the spatial ring. Just that this one was a bit thinner and bright yellow in color. \"Then a bunch of work-contracts. It¡¯s simr to how the requests at ces like the adventurer¡¯s guild work, just that you won¡¯t have to go through a proxy. You just have to fill in the specifics of the requests, the reward, and then you and the one that¡¯s taking the request have to sign. You might not need it since you have quests to give out, but these contracts have a slight twist to them that kind of make them worth it.\" Komer exined. He pulled another one of the same type of contract that he gave Eisen in the yellow folder out of the spatial ring together with an inkpen. Before Eisen knew it, the contract was floating in front of Komer in a way that he could write on it with the pen without an issues, \"The thing that is special about these contracts is that...\" Komer started as he quickly finished writing down some examples before twisting the contract around to let Eisen sign it. The content of the request was to shake Komer¡¯s right hand within one minute of the contract being activated. The reward was a copper coin being given to Eisen, and the failure penalty was a copper coin being given to Komer. Since it wasn¡¯t a big deal, Eisen quickly signed the contract, although Komer swiftly handed him a second one before the first was activated. The contents of this one were nearly exactly the same, just that Eisen was supposed to shake Komer¡¯s left hand instead of his right hand. Once more, Eisen swiftly signed the contract. The young Merchant grabbed the two contracts and smiled as both of them started to burn, \"They are fate contracts.\" Komer finally finished. The contracts both burnt up in arge me. But soon, from inside of those mes, two white spheres with golden carvings on them appeared. Along the carvings, the spheres folded open and revealed two angelic figures. They were really just the size of Eisen¡¯s hand, and had the proportions of an androgynous child. They were as white as snow with the exception of the golden angel-wings on their back. They didn¡¯t have any details to them whatsoever. No eyes, no clothes, no genitalia, nothing. They were really just like dolls, somehow. \"Those two are ¡¯Enforcers of Fate.\" Komer exined as he pushed his hand to the coin-holder strapped to the front of his belt and split the coin inside it up to pull out two copper coins, handing each of them one of those two coins. And soon, both of these figures floated over toward Eisen and stayed behind him all the whilst still carrying the coins. \"If the contract¡¯s reward is something like an item or money, it has to be given to them beforehand. Then once the contract has been fulfilled, they give it to the other party, which in this case would be you. If it¡¯s a reward that isn¡¯t in the shape of a physical item, the enforcers will, well, enforce the contract. If for example the reward was that I give you a hug, they would make sure I give you that hug. Ah, by the way...\" Komer exined as he quickly held his right hand forward toward Eisen. With a curious smile, Eisen quickly shook it and watched as one of the two enforcers floated over toward Eisen¡¯s hand and ced the copper coin onto his palm, before disappearing in golden mes. \"Like that, the contract has been fulfilled, and you were given your reward.\" Komer exined, and then pointed at the other enforcer, \"And since the minute is nearly over...\" He said, and Eisen slowly turned his head toward the other enforcer. The second the minute was over, the enforcer¡¯s body turned ink-ck and its wings started burning just to turn into demonic wings instead. The kind that Eisen also had in his demon form. It now held the reward-coin in one hand and then floated over to the coin Eisen was holding in his hand right now and picked it up immediately, and then floated over toward Komer to return both coins to him, \"This is what happens when a contract has been failed. There are a few things to keep in mind other than this, of course. For one, only those that signed the contract can see the enforcer of that contract. Then, depending on the ¡¯Value¡¯ of the contract, the form of the enforcer would be different. For example, let¡¯s say the contract was about... bringing me a divine quality item. The fail condition is that a full year passes, the reward is your own country, and the fail penalty is for you to die 100 times. The form of the enforcer wouldn¡¯t be this, but rather one that would actually be capable of this. It would probably carry a weapon or something and be the actual size of a human.\" Komer exined, and then thought about what else to say, \"Ah, also, enforcers are mostly incorporal, so you can¡¯t hide from them, you can¡¯t kill them, and you can¡¯t steal the reward item from them. But of course, they can move through walls, attack you however they want, and steal whatever you owe the other party from you.\" \"Huh...\" Eisen muttered quietly, \"That¡¯s kind of...\" \"Extreme? Yeah, a little, but it shoulde in helpful. Especially if you manage to get to hell or heaven... That is, if these contracts can even affect divine beings like that.\" Komer muttered out, and then just ended up shrugging, \"Well, either way, you should be careful with these. Oh, and don¡¯t promise something you can¡¯t give. If you do, then you¡¯re going to get the failure penalty you wrote on the contract, times three. And since the reward and penalty need to have a simr value, the penalty for that won¡¯t be pretty.\" \"I see. Well then, thank you. These definitely seem like they¡¯re going toe in handy. But really, your upation skills are pretty interesting, aren¡¯t they?\" Eisen asked with a light chuckle, and Komer, the Fate Merchant, immediately nodded his head. \"Oh yeah, they really are. I never expected them to be this cool. They¡¯re not really made for one on onebat though, although who would expect one on onebat from a merchant?\" The young man replied with augh, and then looked over at the ship, \"Now then, I think you guys should head off. Apparently a storm is hitting this area soon, and you should leave before being caught up in it.\" \"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.\" Eisen replied with a smile on his face. Chapter 536 Sky-High Practice Eisen stood on the pier and looked at the ship as it was slowly departing into the direction of the inds, just so that he could make sure that it wasn¡¯t lopsided or anything like that. And once he saw that it was fine, Eisen swiftly turned around toward Komer. \"Alright, then I¡¯ll be heading off. Yourst chance to give me something to take with me.\" Eisen pointed out as he slowly increased his size to his maximum and squatted down so that he could still properly speak to the young merchant. With a slightugh, he just shook his head, \"Nah, that¡¯s fine. Everything that needs to go over there is on the ship already. I¡¯ll send more stuff with the next ship though.\" \"Then that¡¯s that.\" Eisen said as his skin slowly turned to rock and golden crystals grew on him, \"See you.\" And then, Eisen just started pping his wings and rose into the air while being watched by a ratherrge amount of people that had gathered on the pier after following the wood-giant over here. Just like that, Eisen got started with actually trying toplete one of his level-up quest¡¯s conditions. The condition to be flying for a total of three days. He was able to catch up to the ship pretty easily like this, and just started thinking about what he should do while flying for now. There were three skills he had to rank up when it came to mana and magic in general for him. Mana Maniption, Mana Double, and me of the Earth Magic. He already managed to rank the mana copy skill up to 4 a little while ago, and his mana double skill was pretty close to rank 4 as well. Well, neither of the other two skills would take too long to rank up to 5 either, since Eisen was using them constantly, after all. Either way, for now, Eisen figured that the best thing to do would be to create mana doubles and have them fly right next to him. Of course, they mana doubles that also had the draconic demon form active, so that they could actually properly fly and keep up with Eisen. And then, after the mana doubles were created, Eisen got started ying around with something else. He had four doubles at the moment. So, why not use them for practice for his other two skills? In the end, while at least mana maniption maybe wouldn¡¯t be affected too much, at the very least me of the Earth magic should get a bit of proficiency. Eisen was flying above the mana doubles and got started with them one by one. The first one, Eisen started filling with his pure mana. Usually that wasn¡¯t really possible, since the volume wasn¡¯t determined by the amount of mana but rather by the mana double skill itself. And since the mana double skill itself didn¡¯t havepression-capabilities, you couldn¡¯t just push more mana into it than the body would allow. But since Eisen had the ¡¯Mastered Alchemy¡¯ skill, he was able topress things to a quite extreme extent. And of course, that also meant things like his mana. So, Eisen immediatelypressed the mana that he was pushing into the Mana Double¡¯s body. For the first little while, there was no visible change, really. It was just a snow-white figure in the shape of Eisen¡¯s body. Later on, that changed. Soon the mana that Eisen had been pushing into the Mana Double¡¯s bodypressed enough to be crystalized. And while it still didn¡¯t change too much outwardly, it became a bit ¡¯Shiny¡¯ at the very least, as it was now reflecting the sunlight right above them. More and more, Eisen kept pushing his mana into the figure of the Mana Double,pressing it as he was doing so, until he nearly ran out of mana. But well, when that happened, Eisen could just drink a mana potion to keep going. It actually took around an hour, but at some point Eisen was unable topress his mana any further. And at this level ofpression, something else could be seen with Eisen¡¯s mana. It was slightly gray, actually. Gray and metallic. It was like that mana-double was just him with a lesser version of Eisen¡¯s ¡¯safe form¡¯ when he was sleeping. \"Interesting.\" Eisen muttered to himself. Well, for now, that didn¡¯t actually matter too much. He got one more level in his mana maniption skill through this though, which was kind of surprising to Eisen. He wasn¡¯t really manipting his mana much, after all. Eisen wasn¡¯tining, though. After Eisen was done with the regr mana, he had the next mana double move underneath him, and then pushed his element into its body instead. His regr, unchanged element. And of course, again, Eisenpressed it and basically repeated the same thing he did for the other mana double. He had to drink a couple more mana-potions to properly do this, but in return he couldn¡¯t reallypress his element as much either, so Eisen was done after a little under one hour. And the same was the case for the other two mana-doubles that he infused his element into. One of them had his element attuned fully toward earth, and one of them had his element attuned fully toward fire. And as expected, the former of those two was actually a bit hard to control properly. Mostly, it was just tough to make sure it could actually keep flying like that the whole time. After all, it was made of highlypressed rock. It was many times heavier than Askr, the wood-giant. But this is exactly what Eisen wanted. He exactly wanted to make it so heavy. In the end, no matter how heavy it was, since it was Eisen¡¯s element he would be able to control it properly with enough concentration. That didn¡¯t mean that it was incredibly easy though. And there was one thing that Eisen was sure about, the tougher something was, the quicker you gained proficiency for it. The other two ¡¯elemental doubles¡¯ weren¡¯t that big a deal. The fire one was basically weightless and incredibly speedy, so Eisen was mostly using it to gain Mana-Double proficiency by having it fly in aplicated way. The other two were just following behind Eisen generically. Other than that, Eisen was also simply doing some general practice by turning his magic into small shapes and shifting them around nearly randomly. And so, this is exactly what Eisen did for the rest of the day. Then when he was too exhausted, or whenever he had to eat or drink something, he wouldnd and get whatever he needed to do done. That included of course having breakfast, lunch or dinner, as well as sleeping until he fully recovered again. And then, Eisen continued flying while practicing his magic skills, and by noon of the next day... [Mana Double has reached level 100 in rank 3, upgrading to rank 4] Finally, Eisen¡¯s mana double skill ranked up again. The ability that he got through this wasn¡¯t necessarily that interesting, though. It was just something that once more increased the ability of the mana doubles to followmands independently. Of course it was a big help, but it wasn¡¯t anything new either. Either way, for now, Eisen was able to get rid of the mana doubles and instead use all of that mana in other ways. Basically, he just started doing the small-scale practice that he had been doing parallel to all this in a bigger scale, using his whole body. Sometimes Eisen had to get rid of parts of the elements because it was nearly impossible to keep fully controlling them. For the rest of the day, Eisen just kept on practicing his magic in this way. When it came to his magic skills, he only had to rank up mana maniption and his me of the earth magic up now. It would take a while longer, and Eisne wasn¡¯t entirely sure if it was really going to be possible to get this done within this ride of the ship. Maybe if he concentrated on one of them he would be able to, but he wasn¡¯t entirely sure if that was a good idea. But well, it didn¡¯t take him long to decide either. After all, it would make more sense to choose to rank up mana maniption first. When you brought that skill to rank 5, and then again at rank 8, you would be able to make the choice to get a different element if you were maybe ¡¯unhappy¡¯ with your current element. Eisen most likely wouldn¡¯t change his element, but it would definitely be a good idea to look into it at the very least, before he would get to choose his upgrade for his actual element. And so, he just dissolved his elemental mana and got started on general mana maniption with the highlypressed, pure mana. There were a few things that Eisen was trying to do like this, really. Most of them werepletely random, though. He just kept on expanding on his own body for the most part. He turned his dragon-wings into angel-wings by forming the crystalized mana into feathers and cing them onto his wings. He made other parts for himself, like mayberger, or simply more, horns, a dragon-like tail, and even covered his body in more scales. It was pretty ridiculous, but it was one of the few things he could actually work with this high up in the air. This all continued for the next little while, until another one of Eisen¡¯s level-up conditions was cleared, and Eisen officially spent three days flying. Finally, Eisen could sit down a little bit more again, and most importantly, he could speak to others again. And so, while spending some more time with his friends, Eisen continued to create random things with his highlypressed mana to somehow gain as much proficiency in his mana maniption skill as absolutely possible. Just like that, the notification Eisen was hoping for appeared just two days before they would reach the ind. [Mana Maniption has reached level 100 in rank 4, upgrading to rank 5] [You are now eligible to change your element] [Possible Elements to choose] -[Draconic Demon] -[Giant] -[Craftsman] ... ... ... Eisen looked trough the elements that he could choose from, which of course were the regr elements as well as some special elements. But while there were some that looked interesting to Eisen, in the end, he chose not to change his element after all. It was clear that he would make this choice, at least to himself, but Eisen still didn¡¯t want to regret anything and went for the mana maniption skill to reach rank 5 first after all. And so, the old man moved on to trying to gain more proficiency for his me of the earth magic skill. Chapter 537 Magic Inscription For the next few days, all that Eisen was really doing was trying to use his me of the earth magic as much as he possibly could, for anything that he could. And even for things that he usually wouldn¡¯t do, but just chose to misuse his element for. After all, his element was supposed to be used like a tool. Just mass-creating it wasn¡¯t going to be enough to properly level it up. So for example, Eisen chose to create dozens of small crucibles to constantly melt down metals, let them cool again, and then melted them again. Or he just made a perpetual water-evaporation setup, where water was in a closed container made of his element and all that happened was that Eisen made the water at the bottom boil, and then had water gather at the top of the container so that it would just start dripping down. No water was really lost like that, and Eisen could just keep going with this continuosly. Other than that, Eisen tried some things that helped another one of the group level up properly. Dien, Xenia¡¯s Elf-Blood Chimera Halflingpanion, as well as Bree¡¯s boyfriend. Since his element was the frost element, he was basically the perfect counter for Eisen. The old man would just sit there in the practice area, and there would be a box made of his element with one side open. And inside of that box was arge cube of ice that filled it outpletely. While Eisen¡¯s element would constantly get hotter and hotter to melt the ice, Dien¡¯s job was to make sure that exactly that didn¡¯t happen and kept freezing the ice again. Like that, both of them were able to level their elemental skills up a bit. Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure if this was really the most efficient way to gain proficiency in his particr element, but it was a rtively good one. His proficiency was constantly rising like this, at a steady and quite quick pace as well. In the end, Eisen just chose to take this chance to make a bunch of new items that he maybe couldn¡¯t really make too easily beforehand because he still wasn¡¯t big enough to do so as easily and quickly as he wanted to. The main thing that he was working on was something that not only would increase his proficiency in one of the few other skills Eisen still had to level up, but it was something quite sentimental as well. Because he was working on creating the item that ended up making him realize that something was wrong in the first ce. Portable houses. It would take a while to do it normally, after all, building a whole house took quite a while even for Eisen. But due to the size he had now reached, as long as Eisen had the materials that he needed, it was like building a small model or something at the scale of a doghouse. Of course, he had more than enough materials to do this now, considering that the dungeon was still filled nearly to the brim with all the wood from the giant ironbark tree. And if he had to be perfectly honest, if hepared Askr to a house... the former was obviously far harder to build. Although, that of course didn¡¯t include the shrinking of the structure yet. And to test that part of it out, Eisen first built a small shack out of wood. That¡¯s really all it was, a shack. Barelyrge enough for two grown adults to stand in. Using this shack as test-subject, Eisen wanted to really just make sure that he was going to be able to make a structure, and the items inside of it, properly scale down and up without damaging anything. For that, Eisen had a couple of methods in mind. One, enchant the structure itself in a special way. Eisen painted the outside of shack with a special paint that he had Evalia make for him out of a mixture of different gems and metals, although the most important ingredients were the spatial gems. After he applied the firstyer of paint to everything and had it properly dry, Eisen started to carve into that paint to create the enchantment-array that he needed. Then he applied anotheryer of paint, carved new enchantments into everything that had different patterns to the first ones, and then applied astyer of pain to do the same thing again. This threeyers array of enchantments were basically just meant to apply the effect of the eight crystals ced into the huts¡¯ corners onto the whole shack. Each of those crystals was a highlypressed spatial gem that had aplex three-dimensional enchantment ced into it to properly apply the spatial-storage effect to the item. It definitely looked off, and really did not have the right feeling for what Eisen wanted to make. He didn¡¯t exactly know how he made those portable houses in the past, but he knew that this apparently wasn¡¯t it. When Eisen activated the enchantments, the whole shack disappeared in an instant and all that was left was a small spatial gemying on the ground. Eisen poured his mana into that spatial gem and tried to get the shack out of it again. Surely, it did appear, but the enchantments were a bit shifted and janky. The wood seemed to have suffered a little as well, as Eisen actually kind of expected. To avoid a catastrophe by identally activating these broken enchantments, Eisen quickly deleted all of them and tried his best to save some of the special paint so that it wouldn¡¯t go to waste. He had toe up with another idea. A better one that didn¡¯t break the structure each time Eisen tried storing it. And for that, Eisen soon got a pretty good idea, one that he borrowed from the Warforged, Fluke. Fluke¡¯s items were oftenpacted into small cubes or marbles, and then would end up being far, farrger than would logically be possible. It was most likely the same principle as the puzzle-box used, at least it looked the same when the puzzle-box or one of fluke¡¯s items folded itself open to getrger, or closed down in a simr fashion to get smaller. Eisen was also pretty sure that he had a rough idea what exactly he needed to do for this. It seemed to be possible in other ways as well, since he wasn¡¯t sure if Fluke had that exact skill or just a simr one, but Eisen needed the Magic Inscription skill. It was a special skill that you could get if you had a Rank 5 enchanting skill. That meant that your enchanting skill couldn¡¯t turn into a sub-type for this. But of course, since Eisen had a higher-tier version of the enchanting skill, he should be able to get this skill rather easily. It would probably take a while to get it to a point where he was able to actually do anything productive with it, but it was definitely something worth looking into. Because using the Magic Inscription skill, it was possible to very easily make the equivalent of an enchantment that required a ten by ten meter-space to carve inside of a small marble. And it would only take a fraction of the time as well, since it didn¡¯t actually require specific carving! You couldbine the way that enchantments worked with the way that spells worked, which was already quite simr to what Eisen was trying to do using his magic craftsmanship skill before, and to top it off, you couldbine all those skills. So, Eisen was able to make specific abilities or functionalities of an item using the magic inscription skill, very easilybine it with others of the same kind using enchanting, and give all of it a boost by creating it all using pure or elemental mana as a base. And so, Eisen had to try his best to somehow get the skill. He had a rough idea of how it worked, even if he wasn¡¯t actuallypletely sure, but Eisen tried his best and got started for now. He grabbed a simple mana crystal and sat down with it on the ground in front of him. Eisen pushed some mana out of his palm and tried to practically create a magic circle using it. It was just going to be a rather simple one. The kind that pushed out a small spark of mes, and that would be it. Eisen took that magic circle and shrunk it down as much as he could, without activelypressing it. He just wanted to make it small enough to fit into the mana crystal. Eisen slowly pushed the magic circle into the mana crystal and then basically fixed it into ce inside of it, so that it would move when the mana crystal itself was moved. And so, Eisen picked the mana crystal up and pushed his mana inside of it, making a me be pushed out of the mana crystal where one of the two faces of the magic circle was facing. Soon after, a notification appeared in front of Eisen. [Magic Inscription Skill acquired] \"This easy, hm?\" Eisen muttered to himself quietly, although he quickly shook his head to that thought. It probably wasn¡¯t easy to get this usually, but it was just because of Eisen¡¯s high-tier Enchanting skill that he was able to get it basically instantly when actually trying to get it. Either way, now, Eisen should be able to get started. First he would have to properly level this skill up a bit as well. His me of the earth magic was leveling up at a pretty quick pace as well, so it wouldn¡¯t take long anymore to get it to properly rank up, so there was no reason not to go ahead with this. The way that magic inscription was supposed to work was rather easy as well. It was basically a magic circle that was infused into an item, albeit a lot easier to use, at least once it ranked up a couple times. Eisen moved his hand to his apron and was quickly given one of the needles he wanted to grab from the multitool, since it already knew what Eisen wanted to do. With a light smile, Eisen pushed his mana into the needle and started forming a fine magic circle in the air. It wasn¡¯t really one that was tooplicated though, and it technically followed the principles of enchanting rather than sorcery, but either way, Eisen was able to soon take this magic circle and pushed it into another mana crystal. When he was trying to make it ¡¯affixed¡¯ into ce inside of it, the magic circle just disappeared and basically fused with the mana crystal. Chapter 538 Blazing Core of the Mountain Now, Eisen had a mana crystal that in itself was capable of producing mes in the way described by the magic circle that the old man ced into it. And the thing about it was that any single part of it could to an extent. The whole piece was needed to produce the full power that the magic circle would have been capable of disying. But if Eisen split the crystal up into two equal parts, each of them would be able to push out mes at half the full power. Seeing that this actually worked like he ¡¯remembered¡¯, although he didn¡¯t actually vividly remember any instances of ever doing this but just rather the raw information about it, Eisen merged the two halves back together and got started on working on more magic inscriptions. Of course this wasn¡¯t the actual way that magic inscriptions worked, but this was how it had to be done at lower ranks of it. Eisen created a few different magic circles and pushed them into different gems and crystals for roughly two or three hours, until he finally managed to get the skill to rank 1. From that point on, Eisen could inscribe materials other than crystals. So, the old man got started and worked with some different metals instead. For the rest of the day, Eisen kept working on this and managed to get the magic inscription skill up to the mid-level range of rank 2. And by noon of the next day, Eisen not only managed to rank this skill up to 3, but also managed to rank up the skill that he had been gathering proficiency for for the past couple of days as much as he could. And that was the me of the Earth Magic skill. [Mana Maniption has reached level 100 in rank 4, upgrading to rank 5] [You are now eligible to advance your element] [Choose your advancement-route] -[Crafting] -[Combat] -[Construction] -[Transformation] \"Huh... So it¡¯s like this, then.\" Eisen muttered to himself, \"Well, the choice is obvious. Crafting.\" The old man pointed out, and immediately the notifications in front of him disappeared and were reced by new ones. [You have chosen to advance your element toward its intended direction] [me of the Earth turned into zing Core of the Mountain] \"zing Core of the Mountain?\" The old man thought. He extended his hand forward and pushed out some of his mana already infused with his element. The name of the element sounded kind of weird, and when Eisen formed an actual ball out of his element, he wasn¡¯t entirely sure what he was looking at either. In its base state, it seemed very simr to the way Eisen¡¯s skin in its transformed mode used to look like. With red mes pushing out through cracks in the rock surface. But other than that, it was like solid rock. Before, the element was a direct mixture, and rock and fire at the same time. Now, however, those two things were separate. There were mes, and there was rock. They were both part of the element, but they weren¡¯t directly connected. Eisen tried to use the spells that he already had created for his elemental magic, and first swiftly made a forge out of this new elemental variant. And at that point, Eisen saw something rather surprising. The forge itself was made to be as hard and durable as possible, just because that¡¯s how Eisen naturally imagined a forge to be. Now, this was still the case, but the parts that were rock before, were now actually metallic. Somewhat steel-like. Eisen could adjust it very easily, though, and then turned the forge¡¯s body into something like brick instead, somewhat like it was before. \"This is something I have to try out...\" The old man muttered to himself and pushed out some more mana out of his hand and turned it into his element, trying to tune it fully toward being a rock. And then, it turned into a rock. Then, Eisen tried to turn it into a metal, and it turned into the metal he was thinking about, iron. But not only that, Eisen could also turn it into other metals. Copper, Steel, Tin. Basically, any sort of metal. It didn¡¯t seem to bepletely pure, definitely not at the level that Eisen would enjoy working with it if he had an ingot of it, but this was really just amazing nheless. Then, Eisen turned his element into mes instead, and could see that he had an incredible amount of control over its heat, color, volume, and even how much the heat spread out. And to Eisen¡¯s actually rather pleasant surprise, it wasn¡¯t restricted to normal logic either. For one, Eisen could create ¡¯cold¡¯ mes of a a couple hundred degrees, which would usually be dark red, and turn thempletely white. Or ck. Or green, purple, blue, or any color Eisen could think of. Not only that, but Eisen could create actual cold mes. mes with temperatures too low to make water boil, and mes with temperatures to make water freeze. And these sub-zero mes now made it possible for Eisen to make things like freezers very easily. And so, Eisen slowly activated his Draconic Demon transformation, and quickly started to adjust that transformation a little bit. After all, since it was based off of Eisen¡¯s element, he was able to manipte it a little bit here and there. Soon, his rock-skin turned somewhat shiny after Eisen turned it into metal, the golden crystals turned pure white while cold mist poured off his body after mixing with the air that was heated up through all the forges, boilers, and crucibles. Of course, this wasn¡¯t at all what Eisen wanted it to be like usually, but it was still a quite interesting thing nheless. He swiftly turned the transformation back to normal, and slowly started to adjust a few things here and there. For example, the ws that he had gained after getting the ¡¯Draconic Transformation¡¯ ability and having it merge with the ¡¯Demonic Transformation¡¯ ability were turnedpletely metallic and razor-sharp. The same was the case with the few spikes connected to his wings. Other than that, Eisen increased the hardness of his skin a little more without actually turning it metallic, while smoothing it down in certain ces and roughing it up more in others. The parts Eisen made ¡¯smooth¡¯ were those where none of the draconic scales were covering him, while those scales themselves were made rough and actually slightly more metallic. They were small changes, but in the end, Eisen was convinced that they were great improvements to his transformation. Honestly, this new element of his was just amazing! With this, Eisen would surely be able to do so many more amazing things. He was getting pretty excited through this, and as such, he chose to try and make use of his element a little bit more for now. Eisen created a small metal ball with his element and then used one of his multitool-needles to draw a magic circle into the air before pushing it into the metal ball, that Eisen of course turned into an actual, usable material through his magic craftsmanship skill. The magic circle that he created itself was also made up of Eisen¡¯s element, and was supposed to make it possible to create differently colored mes depending on how much mana you put into it. Only the color would change, the mes themselves were kept at room temperature. This was actually a pretty fun, easy, and safe way to y around with things like mana as well. Maybe Eisen could create some more different mana-maniption practice-toys with this new, advanced element that Komer could then sell. Another thing that Eisen thought of using this was that it was a good way to make lighting-based items. For example, Eisen could now very easily create lightbulbs. And of course, it was always possible using enchantments based on light runes or the light element in general. After all, it was what they were using to light the ship and the different houses inside of the dungeon up currently. But using this, Eisen figured it would be possible to create much different ways of lighting that weren¡¯t dangerous, things that were more atmospheric. Either colored lighting, or things like infinitely-burning torches, or even just a me in a bottle. It was all possible like this, and Eisen thought it was a pretty interesting idea to y around with. And so, the old man did just that. He yed around with that idea and tried to create different small items like that using only his element in different ways together with the magic craftsmanship and magic inscription skills. Like that, Eisen was able to not only gain some more practice and a better idea of how to handle his new element, but simply got to rank his magic inscription skill up one more time. And his magic craftsmanship skill didn¡¯t seem to be far away from reaching rank 4 anymore either. Eisen was a bit surprised that he managed to get the magic inscription skill to rank 3 that quickly, although in the end, it made sense. He was using skills that were a couple of ranks higher than it together with it, so of course it would be able to level up rather easily. Eisen should definitely keep that kind of thing in mind for when he got new skills in the future that needed to rank up quickly. Either way, for now, Eisen would try and continue creating the item that he learned the magic inscription skill for in the first ce. The portable house. Because now that the magic inscription skill reached rank 3, the old man unlocked the ability to inscribe things directly in the true way that you were supposed to. Until now, it needed to be done in such a roundabout way of using magic circles as a carrier for the inscription, but now, it was different. Eisen grabbed a mana crystal and pushed the needle against its surface. He pushed a little bit of mana out of the needle¡¯s tip and made it spread out through the whole crystal, before he pulled all of the mana out and spread it around in front of him. And now, he could get started on the actual inscription. From this point on, it was more based on the concept and description rather than following a certain logic. A specific logic helped the creator while inscribing an item of course, but it wasn¡¯t necessary in the slightest. Either way, what Eisen could basically now do was very easily turn the mana that he pulled out of the mana crystal into the model of a sphere, and then basically ¡¯carve¡¯ words into the rest of the mana that he pulled out that were describing it when it came to size or properties. When Eisen was done with this, the mana was pulled back into the mana crystal, and Eisen pushed his mana into it. Immediately afterward, the mana was used to create a small, perfectly round rock-ball the size of a marble. Chapter 539 Portable Houses Eisen grabbed the crystal and slowly split it up into two parts before pushing his mana into one of the halves again. The small ball that was created was half the size of the one from the regr one, so Eisen managed to confirm that it was really properly working like it was supposed to. The gem itself now had the effect of creating a rock sphere. The old man merged the two halves together, and then carved an effect-enhancing three-dimensional enchantment into the mana crystal, without specifying which effect it is enhancing. After that, Eisen poured his mana into the mana crystal and a ball that was roughly two to three times the size of the base effect¡¯s appeared in front of the old man. Now that Eisen was sure that everything worked just like he hoped it did, he got started with working on the actual project that he wanted to work on now. He grabbed a spatial gem and just like before, ced the tip of the needle in his hand against the spatial gem and poured mana into the gem through that needle. Eisen then pulled the mana out again and spread it out a bit to properly work with it. The thing about these sorts of special gems was that they already had special properties. It was basically like the natural equivalent of what Eisen was now able to ce onto things artificially. And such natural properties could rather easily be edited with the magic inscription skill. The mana in front of Eisen that he ced in front of him like that using the magic inscription skill slowly started to change without the old man¡¯s influence. It started shifting around,pressing and dpressing, disappearing and reappearing, over and over again constantly. This was the raw state of the ¡¯Spatial Property¡¯. And what Eisen now had to do with this was to simply stabilize it. By actively intervening, Eisen could stop this constant shifting and changing, and slowly brought order into this shapeless structure. The thing about the ¡¯spatial¡¯ property was that it had certain spots in it, which were now represented as small clusters of mana, that were randomly moving around all over the ce. What Eisen could now do was simply take those spots and arrange them properly while fixing them in ce. Usually, something simr was done through enchantments. The spots were supposed to be made to basically stick to objects ced into the spatial gem to create order at least around the object while the other spots were still causing random disarray. But Eisen now took every single spot that he could find and created a box out of them, trying to put an equal amount of spots on every edge just to make sure that there wasn¡¯t some sort of imbnce there. There was just one exception. After Eisen created the base, he added extra spots to the edges framing one of the cube¡¯s six sides, because Eisen had a special purpose for that ce. Once Eisen finished that, he just had to write a few words into the mana to make sure that the change to the ¡¯spatial¡¯ property was actually epted and the ¡¯special purpose¡¯ was also properly described. When Eisen was done, the mana was pulled back into the spatial gem and Eisen could try it out. He pushed his mana into the spatial gem afterward and activated it, and in front of Eisen, a notification appeared. [ ] It was apletely empty, square notification. \"Huh? Eisen, what¡¯s going on? Did you somehow make your notification¡¯s visible for others?\" Jyuuk asked confusedly from where he was sitting while feeding some of his beasts, and the old man chuckled and shook his head, because it wasn¡¯t actually a notification. \"This is a new way to use the spatial gem. It¡¯s a lot less effective for storing regr items, but it¡¯s perfect for my n. Here,e on.\" Eisen exined and waved Jyuuk over. The monkey beastperson did as asked and squatted down next to Eisen, who had been sitting cross-legged on the ground while working on this. \"Alright, so what...\" Jyuuk muttered, although he already got a rough idea when he got close enough to actually see the front-face of therge notification. Rather than a notification, this was a window. A window into a small cubic space that was just lit up by the light from this room shining into it. The walls of the space were pure white, and it was angled as if the slightly-tilted notification was one of the space¡¯s walls. \"It takes a lot more mana to keep it uppared to the regr setup, but it¡¯s pretty fun. Look here.\" Eisen pointed out and stretched his arm out toward it, just pushing his hand into the white space until it justpletely swallowed his hand. \"It¡¯s something like an actual subspace.\" Eisen exined, and Jyuuk excitedly looked at it and tried to push his hand into it as well, \"And this is what you want to use for those portable houses? It¡¯s a bit different to the way you described it, right? Like this it wouldn¡¯t like folding together if you use it, but just like... you push the building into a subspace and are left with the gem holding it, right? Also, doesn¡¯t this make that new material storage ability of yours kind of obsolete?\" \"Well, the material storage skill is still a bit different. More convenient. It¡¯s not tied to an item, I can pull it up instantly with near to no mana-cost, and I can manipte it quite a lot. This is a bit different.\" Eisen said, \"And I won¡¯t use this exact method, because it would be far too mana-inefficient. You see, usually, the ¡¯spatial¡¯ property is tied just to the gem. But what I¡¯m going to do is extend the property directly onto the whole building in one way or another. I¡¯m just not sure about the exact way just yet.\" Eisen pointed out. The old man had to really think about this now. But first things first, he had to construct another shack to test everything out on. This didn¡¯t really take too long, though, since the shack wasn¡¯t actually thatrge. After that, Eisen shrunk down a bit again until he properly fit into the shack and then started working on the interior. He figured that the middle of the floor was a good a ce as any to put the ¡¯control center¡¯. Eisen carved the space for the central gems he would ce in thereter into the floor already, and then started nning out some ideas for how to assign those ¡¯spots¡¯ to external positions. One idea that Eisen had was to split of numerous small parts off of the spatial gem that Eisen would editter and then physically ce those parts into the ces where he wanted the spots to be. Two, he could try to mix some enhancing enchantments or maybe find some spatial-type magic element to use as a magic-craftsmanship base so that he could maybe try to actually edit the gem itself to allow it to actively pull in external things. Although, thetter of those two options was for one going to be a lot more mana-expensive and unstable, just from the raw thought of it. So the former option it was. Eisen grabbed some spatial gems that he quicklybined with each other, and then set up everything to properly start the magic inscription process. First things first, Eisen had to get started with making it so that each of the ¡¯spots¡¯ currently floating through the air in front of Eisen could be connected to a small piece of this spatial gem. And the way that Eisen wanted to do this was rather simple. First, he froze everything that was going on in front of him and, with the needle he was holding, pulled one of the spots toward the spatial gem. As the mana that was floating around here was Eisen¡¯s own mana, the old man was able to also use it together with other mana-based abilities of his. The ability Eisen was using now was transmutation. Since the spots were represented as clusters of mana, it was rather easy to just pull a small part of the spatial gem into it using transmutation, before Eisen could cut the small part off the main gem and then formed it into a small sphere. And now, Eisen wrote a short description, or rather instruction, into the mana to make sure that the spot properly stayed connected to the spatial gem. After he confirmed that this worked by moving the spatial gem around and seeing the the spot was moved together with it, Eisen got started on doing the same thing for all of the other spots until all of them were properly assigned to a small piece of the spatial gem. Eisen went around the shack and started attaching them to the outside of it to form the folding lines. Basically, the ces where Eisen literally wanted the hut to fold together. That meant that parts of the roof sticking out over the walls would fold onto the roof which would then fold onto one of the walls of the house. All the walls would then also fold inward once and then fold into the center one after another. The t surface that would be left would then fold into itself a couple more times to just leave behind a cube. That¡¯s what Eisen was hoping for at least. Since the process of the magic inscription was still going on, Eisen could properly connect all the parts how they were supposed to be connected to create all of the surfaces in the right size. And on top of that, Eisen also tried to get started on describing the way that the ¡¯storage¡¯ would end up working so that the wood wouldn¡¯t be crushed, but that the parts that would logically end up ovepping would just be stored away into the subspace. Then, after Eisen finished the magic inscription, he took the central piece of spatial gem that would be the base for everything going on, and wrapped it in a mixture of other crystals. He got started on the enchanting for this, and further described the way that everything was supposed to fold, just in a more logical, sorted fashion. Eisen then ced the ¡¯Core¡¯ into the middle of the floor that he had already carved out before, and then carved more smaller lines of enchantments and runes into the floor and walls so that Eisen could connect the core to the smaller parts of the spatial gem. In the end, this was really what nearly took the longest for this project, just the raw carving and figuring out the logic for everything. But after Eisen was done, he stepped out through the shack¡¯s door and pushed his mana into the small gem outside that was directly connected to the core to activate everything. With a quiet creaking, the roof started folding into itself, and the small shack turned smaller within just a few moments. Soon, all that was left was the t wooden surface on the ground, which was starting to fold into itself more and more, until a fist-sized cube was left that had a small part of the core showing on the top of it. The old man took a step forward and picked the cube up. It seemed like it somehow didn¡¯t lose any of the weight that it had when it was just theplete, full shack, but other than that Eisen thought of this test as aplete and utter sess. Chapter 540 Portable Shop Eisen held the wooden box in his hand with a smile on his face, trying to think of how to best optimise this process. It worked well with a shack, but it might be a different story when it was an actual,plex building. When Eisen stood there with the portable shack in his hands, Jyuuk came up again. He had been peeking over the whole time while Eisen was working, so now obviously he had toe over and have a look at the finished item. \"That whole shack, just in that small cube?\" He asked curiously as he squatted down on the ground next to Eisen, and the old man just nodded his head with a slight smile on his face. \"Yep. It probably wasn¡¯t the most efficient way to do it, otherwise I probably would have been able to make it a bit smaller. And lighter, of course. But for that, I would need a moreplex control center, and those are usually a bit too unstable to be ced on the ground like that. If I make a shop, then it would be too dangerous to have people walk all over it. And it would be a little bit distracting as well.\" \"Then how about you put it into the door?\" Evalia suggested after listening in a little bit, and the old man looked over toward her with his brows raised, \"borate.\" With a light smile, she took herrge brush-staff that Eisen made for her a good while ago and practically painted the shack into the space in front of her, \"So, this is how it was before, right?\" She asked, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head, \"Yeah, exactly. Now, what idea did you have with the door?\" The old man inquired. \"For one, let¡¯s say you turn the whole front door into the ¡¯control center¡¯.\" Evalia said and started changing the front door a little bit to turn it more colorful and crystal-like, and painted random patterns into it to look like enchantments were ced on it. \"One, it¡¯s going to be easy to spot damages, because the front door will usually have nothing in front of it.\" She started, painting a small crack into the bottom of the door that she soon erased again, \"And it¡¯s a pretty good tactic to draw attention to your shop as well. Colorful and unique doors are definitely going to stick out. Most ces have just really nd wooden doors that don¡¯t even have any sort of decoration on them.\" Evalia pointed out, and then continued with a smile, \"And then, you won¡¯t need to add some sort of connection to the control center to the front, and just need to activate something in the door. So, putting it down and picking it up will be much, much easier, right?\" After a bit of thought, Eisen just nodded his head with a smile on his face, \"That¡¯s a really good idea. This way I can make it a lotrger and moreplex without worries.\" The old man said, \"As I thought, you¡¯re really going to fit into the family.\" The old man said with a wink directed at Evalia to ¡¯hint¡¯ at something that her rtionship with Stahl could lead to. \"Grandpa, shut up!\" The young man in question yelled out from the other side of the room, and Eisen just startedughing lightly as he cracked his knuckles, \"Well, either way, it seems like a good idea. Thanks, Evalia.\" Eisen pointed out, and then chose to quickly create another small shack with the exception of the door. The base that he was going to use for that door would simply be magically infused Ironbark, even if all that would be left of therge, thick nk would be the frame of a couple of inches on each side. And the rest was quickly filled in with a mixture of different crystals and gems. Before Eisen could continue working on this door, Eisen had to prepare the actual spatial gem. He grabbed some of the ones that he had left and directly repeated the same process that he did before with the other shack, assigning each of the ¡¯spots¡¯ a small part of the spatial gem before putting them onto the outside of the shack and properly creating the lines along which the shack would actually fold up. This time it would be a bit different. First the roof would fold down like before, and then three of the walls, except the wall with the door, would fold down and onto the floor, which would then fold against the wall with the door. And the parts of the wall around the door would then fold directly onto the door. The door itself would then fold itself up a couple of times until it practically wrapped itself around the key which would work as the activation-signal for all of this. Like that, Eisen just needed to ¡¯lock up¡¯ and the whole shack would be in his hands, and then he could ¡¯open up¡¯ and the whole shack would appear in front of him. It seemed like a pretty good idea as far as Eisen was concerned. After everything else was set up, Eisen continued with the door. First things first, he carved the actual control-enchantments into the door and re-shaped it a bit to turn it into a three-dimensional enchantment. And not only the surface-enchantments, but also the hollow areas of the three-dimensional enchantment were then filled out with the leftover spatial-gem. Of course, Eisen had to dpress it a little bit to actually be able to fill all of it outpletely, but for the most part, it worked pretty well. The enchantments were made to, in a more specific way, describe the process of everything folding up in the way that Eisen wanted it to. And of course, there was also the part with the lock that Eisen would be using as the trigger for everything. The ¡¯Key¡¯ for now was just a very, very basic metal key. The ¡¯lock¡¯ wasn¡¯t really a proper lock either, since it didn¡¯t actually lock the door, but it would just react to the key being turned and would then immediately start the folding-process up. And of course, Eisen also wrote enchantments into the door to properly make sure that everything would actually directly fold into the subspace, instead of just being there halfway like it was before, resulting in little to no change in the total weight. Now Eisen hoped that it would actually be possible to have the resulting item be actually rather light in weight instead. Just like that, Eisen chose to try it again. He pushed the metal key into the lock and twisted it around while supplying mana to it, and then quickly saw the door light up a bit. The roof of the shack quickly started to fold up, and a few momentster, only the door stood there. It didn¡¯t take long for the door to disappear as well, however, and it folded itself up and wrapped around the key that Eisen was holding. It seemed like now, Eisen finally managed to get this method down. Evalia¡¯s idea was really a good one, and the old man would be able to adapt this to any sort of building as well. In the end, all that he would need to do is mass-produce the doors as well as the smaller spatial-gem-shards with the ¡¯spots¡¯ connected to them, and Eisen would be able to properly make any house portable. Well... It still required him to enchant the inside and outside of the house a bit more, while also running mana-crystal thread through the walls to connect all of the spatial-gem-shards with the door. But that was something that the old man could do within a single day, so it wouldn¡¯t be too big a deal. It might be a lot less mana-efficient to do it with buildings that weren¡¯t specifically made for being stored like this, but with the amount of soul-generators and mana-batteries that Eisen could create, that wasn¡¯t really an issue anyway. Either way, Eisen could now actually get started on creating some buildings for this. He looked for an open spot within the dungeon and got started producing the materials for everything. For one, Eisen started mass-producing bricks with his element, which he could easily turn into actual items with his magic craftsmanship skill. He had more than enough wood that had already been turned into usable nks as well, so Eisen could quickly get started with his work. Eisen wanted to first create a ratherrge building that he could make use of, and for that, first set down the wooden pirs that would act as the base for everything. He split the ce up into provisionary rooms like this and then started building the first walls on the outside using the bricks that he created just now. After he was done with this, he started covering the inside of the house in ayer of the wooden nks and started actively creating the actual rooms using either brick or wood. Of course, the actual workshop area in the back was made using bricks, so that it was harder for work-idents to leavesting damages. But the front of the house, the area that would end up being the shop, was of course mostly covered in wood, simply because it looked a lot nicer. The same was the case with the second floor that would be the actual living area. After all, this ce was supposed to be something to be used instead of the dungeon in case it had to stay at a certain ce for a longer period of time for actual dungeon-business. Other than that, Eisen quickly got started on actually creating all of the materials for everything, including the spatial-gem of course, and quickly split it up into the numerous small beads that each had a ¡¯spot¡¯ connected to it, that Eisen then swiftly ced onto the outside of the house. The angled roof would tten down and fold onto itself and into the rooms of the second floor, which would then fold onto the second floor¡¯s literal floor. That would then fold down into the ground floor, the walls would fold over inside, and everything would turn into a t surface except the wall that held the front door. That wall would then fold onto that front door, which would in itself also fold up in a simr way to before, just to wrap around the key that would be used to activate this whole process. Not only did it take a while to actually build this house, but it also took a while to connect all the different mechanism together, without actually building anything inside of the house just yet. Either way, once Eisen was done and he watched therge structure fold down onto the key he was holding, he saw it as finished with a smile on his face. [You created a Portable Shop] Chapter 541 Portable Atelier Eisen held the key in his hand and held it forward with the ¡¯portable shop¡¯ wrapped around it. Soon after, the shop started slowly unwrapping until the door stood in front of Eisen. After that, Eisen could properly pull the key out of the keyhole and pushed it into one of his apron¡¯s pockets for now. And as the house was folding open like that so that Eisen could see that it properly worked, the old man looked at the item information for the portable shop. [Portable Shop] [Rank ¨C 5][Quality ¨C Perfect] [Description] A special type of spatial item created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It takes the form of a two-story house including an unfurnished shop, workshop and living area. It is the size of a regr two-story house in its normal form, but when it is folded up, it is small enough to be held in one hand. The item was made to be stored rather easily and is activated through the turn of a key while the sufficient mana is supplied. It will store any objects ced inside of it with itself. [Requirements] 2000 Mana per use; 200 INT, 200 WIS [Effects] , With a light smile on his face, the old man waved the notification away roughly around the time when the house was finishing up being folded open. Once it was done, Eisen pushed the door open and stepped in there and quickly looked everything over. He wanted to see if there were any sorts of damages in here, but luckily, nothing seemed to be out of ce. This way was really far better in the end, wasn¡¯t it? Using the door as the control center really was a good idea. He would have to thank Evaliater. And he already had a pretty good idea how he could thank her. They already spoke about something like this before, about having Eisen build houses for everyone on the inds, so he had worked together with Evalia to design all of them. Of course, that included Evalia¡¯s own house. Eisen figured it would be a good idea to build a portable version of it now, \"Sigurd. Head outside and ask how far away we¡¯re from the inds.\" The old man said as he started looking for the blueprints and sketches for Evalia¡¯s dream house, and a few momentster the core-guardian appeared right in front of him in a blue mist. \"Bree says a little less than a day.\" Sigurd exined, so Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard in thought. He should probably be able to finish it in that time. The ce that he build was rather smallpared to the house that he and Evalia had thought up for her, and he built the portable shop using materials he had ready. This would probably take a little while longer, then. But the good thing was that he could build it inside of the dungeon, so he could work on it whenever he had the time no matter where they were anyway. Eisen started thinking about everything for a little bit. How much of which material he needed, as well as whether or not he actually had those materials here. It didn¡¯t actually seem like there would be any sort of issues. And so, Eisen swiftly got started working on Evalia¡¯s house after moving over to an area where he could make sure Evalia wouldn¡¯t end up seeing him in case she logged on somehow. She was currently with Benji, so the old man figured it was pretty unlikely for her to pop in anytime soon, but it could happen so Eisen just wanted ot make sure. Either way, Eisen just started to look down at the sketches and blueprints for the house for now. It was supposed to have a bit of a mixture of stone-brick and rather dark wood outwardly, together with a lot of ss for as much natural light as possible. Since they thought about the structural, integrity a fair bit for this, the parts that outwardly had stone brick were actually built with stone-brick all the way through, and didn¡¯t just get ayer of stone brick on the outside. Like that, they could make sure that the house had extra support in those ces. Basically, the amount of stone brick used for everything decreased depending on the floor. The ground floor was mostly stone brick, and had just smaller areas and parts made of wood. The second floor had roughly equal amounts of stone brick and wood, and the third floor had mostly wood and just partially stone-brick. The ground floor was supposed to have things like a kitchen, material storage, and a bit more space to hold some of the heavier artistic pieces Evalia made like for example statues made of rock or even metal. The first floor had the ¡¯living area¡¯ as well as space to disy the regr artistic pieces like painting and smaller and lighter statues, while the third floor was basicallypletely upied by the atelier and even had the most amount of ss so that Evalia could have a good view in any direction. After Eisen built the simple pir-based foundation, he started cing the stone-brick down first and only then ced down the wooden nks. Of course, right now it was just for the base, Eisen also properly constructed all of the load-bearing walls to make sure the house couldn¡¯t copse onto itself. But other than those load-bearing walls, Eisen didn¡¯t really construct anything inside of the house just yet. He didn¡¯t even clothe the walls inside of the house with anything yet, and instead really just focused on the construction of the raw main structure. When Eisen was finally done with that and everything was stable enough, he stepped into the actual house and started working on the interior. Not only the outside was supposed to have the stone-brick visuals, but the inside as well. Of course it was still supposed to be smooth and clean, and not have that kind of unfinished rudimentary feeling that many ces built using stone-brick had. And that was rtively easily achieved by, on the inside at least, mixing parts into the stone-brick walls that had some more wood. The ces where there was wood as seen from the outside were where the walls were ced to divide the rooms, but these smaller areas of wood were a bit different. They were really just supposed to be for visuals. They wouldn¡¯t have any sort of structural benefit when it came to the integrity of the building, or have any sort of weight ced onto them at all. Besides decoration, of course, but that was a part that Evalia had to decide on her own anyway. As they didn¡¯t discuss things like furnishing for everyone¡¯s dream-houses yet, they would all simply stay unfurnished and Eisen would get started on building furniture afterward while getting some other people¡¯s ideas on what visuals they wanted for their ce. Either way, Eisen ced those smaller parts of wood onto the walls just like Evalia had nned everything out, and then started working on other basic things like stairs to actually get to the second floor now. Evalia seemed to have had a bit of a modern style in mind for this, despite the rather rustic feel everything had otherwise, so it was a slight mixture of floating stairs that were just connected on the sides, as well as ssic, decorated handrails as you would see in some older houses. When Evalia told Eisen about this idea, he wasn¡¯t entirely sure about it at first, but the specific way that Evalia sketched it out it actually looked pretty nice. Eisen hoped that he was able to properly do it justice the way that Evalia had in mind. Although, otherwise he could just re-do this part of it, it wouldn¡¯t be that big a deal either. It took most of the day, but soon, Eisen was finally done with everything. Although, it was still rather surprising to be able to finish building a whole house of this scale within a single day... He had the materials all ready and could easily make use of his giant-size as well as helpers in the form of his own mana doubles, or the three monster-children Sal, Caria and Melissa that would help Eisen set some things into their right ce. Especially when Eisen was in his giant form it was fairly helpful, and the old man really appreciated that the three of them did all that for him. Still, the fact that Eisen had now reached the heights of being able to build whole houses in a single day felt a little bit weird to the old man. Even then, he had to ept it. It wasn¡¯t a bad thing, anyway. It was a really good thing, it just meant that Eisen had be more skillful and capable ever since starting to ¡¯y¡¯ this ¡¯game¡¯. He saw progress that he really hadn¡¯t expected seeing in his lifetime anymore. Eisen was really d about that, really. Either way, for now, before he could dive into such thoughts, Eisen had to continue turning this ce into a portable house. But in the end, Eisen had a little bit of an idea to possibly make everything a little easier. He firstbined arge amount of spatial gems together and then started the magic-inscription process. Eisen already figured out how many ¡¯spots¡¯ he would need for the whole house if he wanted to create it in this specific new way. He split therge clumb of spatial gems up into three parts, practically assigning each of those parts one floor, and then started splitting off the ¡¯spots¡¯ in the regr way. When he finished everything, Eisen got started on building the actual control centers. Because what Eisen wanted to try doing now was to have every floor fold up on its own to make it a bit less mana-intensive. After all, it would take quite a lot of mana to spread the effects all the way to the far corner of the third floor from the ground floor¡¯s front door. So now, the third floor would fold up onto a single wall first as controlled by the sub-center on the third floor, and would fold down so that it could be part of the second floor¡¯s process. The same thing would happen there until only one wall was left, and that would then fold down onto the ground floor, which would then be thest to properly fold up onto the door, just to wrap around the key. And when Eisen was done setting all of this up properly and let it fold up once, Eisen held the box with the key inside of it in his hand and saw it as finished. At the same time, two notifications appeared. [You created a Portable House] [Masonry reached level 100 in rank 3, upgrading to rank 4] Chapter 542 Intertwined Thoughts With a satisfied expression, Eisen opened the quest information for the level-up quest to see just how much more he had to do. [Level Up Quest ¨C Road to 300] [Description] You have reached level 299 and as such, have gained the right to work toward reaching level 300. These are your requirements as calcted by your actions so far: -cksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Alchemy Skills at Rank 5 (true) -Racial Skills at Rank 5 (true) -upation Skill Crafting Space at Rank 5, Crafter¡¯s Mind at Rank 4, Ego-Item Creation at rank 3 (true) -Mana Maniption, me of the Earth Magic at Rank 5; Mana double, mana copy at Rank 4 (true) -Woodworking, Cooking, Drawing, Tool Connection, Soul Engineering, Farming, Mining, Masonry, Woodcutting Skills at Rank 4 (7/9) -All Draconic Gifts at rank 4 (0/4) -Be a King (false) -Spend a total of 3 days in flight (true) [Reward] Level increased to 300 [Failure] Not possible \"Hm, the four draconic gifts are all in the upper 90¡¯s for rank 3, so it shouldn¡¯t take too long to rank them up. That leaves cooking and drawing afterward. And then I just need to be a king and I¡¯ll reach level 300...\" The old man muttered to himself in thought, and chose to quickly activate his truth-seeing eyes to get some more proficiency for them. It was a bit annoying right now, since everything was ck and white and incredibly blurry around Eisen, but it wasn¡¯t anything that would stop him from doing a little bit of work here and there. And so, Eisen sat down on the ground, \"Sigurd, can you give me a couple of potions? Any kind, and as many as you can.\" Eisen asked, and the core-guardian swiftly did just that and appeared in front of Eisen while holding a bunch of different potions. There were a handful of different kinds, and a couple dozen bottles in total after a few moments after Sigurd went to get more a couple of times. \"Thank you.\" Eisen said, and Sigurd quickly nodded its head, \"Of course. But what do you need them for?\" It asked, and the old man just smiled as he pulled the cork out of one of the bottles and poured one of the potions into a wooden bowl, \"A little bit of extraction practice. Extracting the different ingredients out of potions again should be pretty efficient for leveling it up.\" Eisen pointed out, and Sigurd squatted down in front of Eisen. \"Ooh, nice. But you know we¡¯re close to the central ind again, right? And you haven¡¯t slept in more than a day, so...\" Sigurd pointed out with a bit of worry, and at that moment, Kirisho appeared in front of the two of them as well. \"You sleep less and less these days, and stretch out how long you can be up... It is a bit worrying.\" She pointed out, and Eisen slightly raised his head and smiled at the two of them, \"It¡¯s fine. I know I¡¯m not sleeping as much as I used to before, but it¡¯s so that I can properly rank all of my skills up. Once I¡¯m level 300 I¡¯ll settle down for a little while anyway.\" The old man said, \"I just need to have any sort of clue as to what I¡¯m supposed to do next. And I¡¯m getting that once I reach level 300.\" Eisen pointed out, and then looked at the bowl in front of him. \"It¡¯s just six more skills, I¡¯ll be fine until then. Don¡¯t worry, you two.\" The old man told them, and then held his hand over the wooden bowl and pushed his mana inside. He concentrated on all of the different materials and slowly tried to push all of them away from each other. Soon, Eisen could see a brittle clump of nt-based powder in the bowl, as well as a small mana-crystal right next to it. Both of them kept growing while the potion lost its color and volume, just leaving behind a small bit of water after a while. With a satisfied expression, Eisen pulled the clumped-up powder out of the bowl together with the mana-crystal and then poured the water away before moving onto the next potion. It didn¡¯t take long until Eisen managed topletely extract all the materials out of all of the potions that sigurd brought him before. He then had the core-guardian bring him as many more potions as possible, especially some of the moreplex potions that had up to a dozen different materials in them in different quantities. This was really giving Eisen¡¯s extraction skill a lot of proficiency, and he could use his truth-seeing eyes¡¯ different modes to properly assist the process of splitting everything up since he was able to see the mana properly. And as visualization also became an ability connected to truth-seeing eyes, being a visual ability, Eisen could make use of it as well to help with everything. After all, trying to concentrate on a dozen different specific materials at once was pretty hard, so Eisen made use of his visualization to at least make it a little bit easier by assigning each of the materials in the potions a different color so that he could just try to split up the colors into their purest possible versions. This was actually a fair bit easier than trying to do the same with some sorts of powders. At the end, when Eisen really physically couldn¡¯t continue anymore due to exhaustion, the old man had managed to gain a fair amount of proficiency for not only his extraction skill, but also his truth-seeing eyes. For now, that was great progress, but he really just had to head to bed now. --- Benjamin pushed himself up inside of the capsule and opened it up, making the light flood into his face. He quickly stepped out of the capsule and rubbed his eyes a bit to get rid of the slight stinging feeling in them after he just looked basically directly into the light, and then made his way toward the door. Benjamin pulled it open and then stepped outside into the hallway before heading directly into the bathroom in front of him. The old man brushed his teeth and took a quick shower before looking at himself in the mirror. Over thest little while, Benjamin had been trying to eat more, get a bit of a simply workout routine in. He couldn¡¯t do much at the moment, because he was still quite weak, but he could do enough so that he didn¡¯t look as sickly anymore. He still was a lot thinnerpared to before he first sat down in the capsule. With a slight sigh, Benjamin put on some clothes and stepped out of the bathroom before heading over toward the Kitchen, where the old man soon spotted Andrew and his wife sitting next to each other to eat something. \"Good morning.\" The old man said with a smile, and Andrew slowly raised his head, \"Mornin¡¯.\" He replied, \"So, how¡¯s it going for you over there?\" Andrew asked, and Benjamin thought about it for a little while. \"It¡¯s going pretty well, I just need to rank up half a dozen more skills and then we need to establish the inds as a country. After that I¡¯ll level up.\" The old man pointed out, even if it felt a little weird to say ¡¯just¡¯ in that scenario, \"But what about you two? How are you doing? In general, I mean.\" \"We¡¯re...\" Andrew¡¯s wife started, \"We¡¯re alright. Of course it was really hard for us the past little while, but as long as we have each other, it¡¯s going to be fine.\" She pointed out, and Andrew slowly wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her toward himself to give her a light kiss on the head, \"You said it.\" With a light smile, Benjamin stepped into the kitchen to pour himself some coffee all the whilst a thought popped into his head, ¡¯After all that time, he deserves to have someone like that¡¯. It was a thought that appeared in his head instantaneously, and the moment after it did, Benjamin knew that it wasn¡¯t his own thought either. Rather, it was Eisen¡¯s. Of course, it wasn¡¯t like it was a bad thought. Benjamin and Eisen alike were genuinely happy that Andrew had such an amazing and strong wife. Eisen¡¯s thoughts usually aligned with Benjamin¡¯s own, but they were just from a different perspective. They included details that Benjamin may know about, but would never speak about in that sense. That thought just now waspletely filled with Eisen¡¯s emotions, someone who saw Brody have to be alone for a hundred thousand years. And Benjamin really felt those emotions connected to the thoughts, so he knew it wasn¡¯t his own. These kinds of things happened every once in a while. Benjamin managed to get a clearer and clearer grasp on the mind of Eisen, even if there was never anything specific to keep hold of. And he wasn¡¯t able to control it either. Whenever Benjamin tried to force some kind of knowledge that Eisen used to have toe to him, nothing happened. But in random moments where Benjamin was happy to be himself, Eisen came through. That was the only thing that didn¡¯t change whether Benjamin was in this world or the other. Eisen always came through every once in a while, and Benjamin didn¡¯t notice any change between those ces. For now, Benjamin tried to chase Eisen¡¯s thoughts away and poured himself a cup of coffee and then made his way into the livingroom to turn on the TV a bit, \"You two don¡¯t mind, do you?\" The old man asked, and both Andrew and his wife shook their heads, saying they were fine with him turning it on. The channel that the TV was on most of the timetely was the ¡¯World of Magic¡¯ news channel, and the same was the case right after turning it on. And it seemed like it was rather perfect timing as well. Because the scenery of the news-shot was one that Benjamin knew quite well, and the news connected to that shot really were not good ones. \"We¡¯re in Melroe, a small dwarven mining town right at the Dwarven country¡¯s border. A few weeks ago, yers gathered here to meet one of the four Grandmaster Craftsmen that lived here. But all of a sudden, they just disappeared. They sold their workshops and are heading off to live somewhere else.\" The reporter started, \"This mysterious event drew many new yers here that were searching for clues. One of them found an intriguing clue. At the top of one of the mountains overlooking Melroe, a dragon built its nest. Is it the reason for the Grandmasters¡¯ disappearance? Were they too scared to keep living in this town, and chose to move somewhere else? This is what many are thinking, and are now gathering together for World of Magic¡¯s very firstrge-scale Raid. Tomorrow at 8pm PST, they will attempt ying that dragon in the hopes of getting the Grandmasters to return.\" Chapter 543 BL \"This is a joke, right?\" Benjamin asked out loud with a wry smile on his face. This waspletely ridiculous. yers would try killing a Rank 10 monster? Obviously they wouldn¡¯t actually achieve this, but it was still insane. \"And Ailren is a good guy, what¡¯s wrong with them?\" The old man muttered quietly, and Andrew stepped over from the kitchen, \"Actually though, are those guys fucking idiots?\" He asked, and Benjamin quickly nodded his head in response. \"Of course they are. But this is still a bad thing. If they try to do something like that, it will turn out horrible no matter the result. Let¡¯s say they miraculously manage to win a fight against Ailren, that might cause other Metallic Dragons to be wrathful. That¡¯s not something we can let happen, the war between the metallic and chromatic dragons needs to be won by the metallic dragons.\" With a deep re, Benjamin stared at the TV in front of him, while Andrew looked at him with a concerned frown. \"What do you think¡¯s gonna happen if they lose, then? That should make it all turn out fine, right?\" Andrew asked, and Benjamin immediately shook his head, \"Absolutely not. Right now, they¡¯re attacking Ailren out of the assumption he has anything to do with the Grandmasters¡¯ disappearance. They¡¯re attacking him because they assumed something wrong was the case. Now, imagine hundreds of yers being killed by him? That¡¯s definitely going to be turned into a reason to keep attacking him.\" The old man pointed out, and then groaned as he ced down his cup of coffee and started rubbing the bridge of his nose. \"So annoying. yers will get way stronger very quickly, and it won¡¯t take too long until a couple hundred of them can beat Ailren together. I should try and shut them down soon.\" With that suggestion, Benjamin leaned back on the couch and sighed deeply, \"He says and getsfy on the couch.\" Andrew smirked, and Benjamin just looked at him with a shrug, \"I can¡¯t return right now anyway. I¡¯ll have to get back in an hour or so to properly get rid of my exhaustion. After that, we¡¯re going to travel to two more inds that we need to take over, so I¡¯d suggest you get ready as soon as you can as well. We¡¯ll need you.\" Benjamin started thinking about what the best tactic for everything would be. As far as the old man was concerned, they should really go straight to some low-tier inds that they could take over rtively easily. Some inds with rank 6 monsters, maybe. That should be fine. Either way, they should just really hurry and get everything done for that so that Benjamin can properly concentrate on ranking up the rest of his skills. Within one week over there, it might be hard, but it should be possible to rank up all those skills that are already close to ranking up anyway, and then hurriedly fly back to the maind and to Melroe to stop everything. He had to shut it down before things wentpletely south. For now, Benjamin continued watching the World of Magic channel to see if there were any more interesting news besides that ¡¯raid¡¯, but it seemed like that wasn¡¯t the case. And so, once the hour was over, Benjamin returned to the capsule. --- Eisen groaned deeply as he stood up. Without hesitation, he looked forward and said, \"Sigurd. Make a gate to the outside.\" The very next moment, arge doorway appeared there together with the core guardian, who looked at Eisen a bit concerned, \"Everything alright? Did something happen over there to put you in a bad mood?\" Sigurd asked. The old man didn¡¯t have to think about that either, and instantly responded before Sigurd¡¯s sentence was even properly over. \"Yes, something happened, and it¡¯s really, really annoying. Askr, bring me up to Bree.\" The old manmanded. The wood-giant ced its palm in front of the gate and picked Eisen up soon after, \"I¡¯ll exin it in a bit.\" Eisen said to Sigurd, before he was held up to the Crow¡¯s Nest where Bree usually spent most of her time, including right now. \"Good morning~!\" She exined gleefully, \"Look, just a couple more minutes and we¡¯ll be there!\" Bree told Eisen, who just lightly smiled and nodded his head. \"Good,\" He said, \"But I need to ask you something else as well. You looked into the inds with the information that you were given on the central ind, right? We need two more inds to take over as quickly as possible so that we have the required five towns to turn the guild into a country.\" Immediately Bree started thinking about it, and it didn¡¯t take long for her toe up with something as well, \"The ind of the God of Comfort, Hor, is one. I think that¡¯s something you should be able to get through there pretty easily. The monsters are kind of strong, but it seems like they have properties that make them easy to fight. And then there¡¯s the ind of the Goddess of Love, Reah. All the monsters attack through things like charm magic, so especially you should be able to get through easily. You can see through disguise stuff like that, right?\" Bree pointed out, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head with a bit of thought. \"Got it. Then we¡¯ll bring the ship to the harbor, help everyone there properly unload the cargo that Komer put on it, and then we¡¯re taking the ship to those two inds. They should be nearby, right?\" \"Mhm~! The ind of Hor is three hours away from the central ind, and the ind of Reah is two hours away from that, and then it¡¯s a four hour trip back to the central ind.\" Bree exined. With a satisfied expression, the old man looked toward the central ind and waited for it toe a bit closer. \"Alright, then prepare for the trip. Oh, and I hope you¡¯re hungry, I¡¯ll be starting to cook earlier after all.\" Eisen pointed out, quickly having Askr bring him back to the Dungeon, where Sigurd was already waiting, \"You probably heard us, right?\" The old man asked it, and the core guardian quickly nodded its head. \"Yup. But really, why are you in such a rush?\" It asked. With a slight sigh, as the two of them went to gather everyone up so they could help with the cargo stuff, Eisen exined the situation to everyone, together with what they now needed to do. And before they all knew it, the ship slowed down and Eisen went outside again to help Askr step off the ship to make space for the harbor-workers. Now that Eisen saw this ce again, he noticed that it really developed an incredible amount. There were actual buildings here now, for one. The harbor practically turned into its own small vige. The streets were far more developed as well, and the monsters and people were working together as workers in this ce. After Eisen got Askr of the ship and everyone started help with the unloading of the cargo, it didn¡¯t take long for the old man to help Askr back onto the ship as well, so that they could head off toward the ind offort immediately. Eisen was actually feeling a little stressed right now, but it wasn¡¯t something he couldn¡¯t deal with. Somehow, Eisen didn¡¯t feel stressed at having to be a king, but at having to level up six skills in a couple of days, bing a king in the same amount of time, and then flying back to the continent to stop yers from making an insane mistake. And that was because Eisen wanted to finish this all up before heading over there, to have some sort of better ¡¯authority¡¯ over them. After all, being a King, and having a crafting ss with ¡¯Godly¡¯ in the title, which he will get after reaching level 300, yers may be more keen to listen to him. It only took an hour or two until the ship already started departing again, at which point Eisen already moved on and stood next to the ingredients they had farmed today. First things first, Eisen thought it was a good idea to make some bread. He had a huge amount of flour, so it made sense to make some of that first. And so, Eisen increased his size to the total maximum together with his draconic demon transformation and then started mixing ingredients together as if he was baking bread normally, meaning that the amount was scaled up properly. He poured in huge amounts of flour, sugar, yeast, salt, some oil, and warm water into the giant metal bowl, before starting to mix and knead them together. Of course, after that, Eisen created numerous regr-sized metal bowls using his element and then ripped away parts of the giant lump of dough to put them into the regr-sized bowls, which Eisen all ced into a t, broad and wide oven made with Eisen¡¯s element where it would always be a little warm. Not hot, just warm, so that the yeast could work properly. And now, that would take a couple of hours to rise. And in the meantime, the old man got started on some more ingredients so that he could properly turn that dough into food that might give him a lot of proficiency. They had Jyuuk¡¯s element, which they could use to keep things fresh indefinitely, so it wasn¡¯t an issue even if Eisen made way, way too much of anything. The old man got started on cutting up some lettuce, tomatoes, and even started smoking some bacon. Otherwise, Eisen made some simple mayonnaise using some eggs that they still had been storing. It took up nearly all of those eggs, but that was fine. Once the dough properly rose, with the help of his two apprentices, Eisen started scooping out the dough out of the bowls one by one before ripping off balls of dough that were then ced on the inside of the oven Eisen made with his elements to make numerous bread buns. While those were baking, Eisen finished off making the ingredients, and once the buns were done, Eisen grabbed them one by one and quickly started making the sandwiches using them. The dozens over dozens of BLT sandwiches. It took a while to do this, but it also gave Eisen a lot of proficiency, enough to make him think that maybe he could get the skill to rank 4 just by doing this, but he sadly didn¡¯t manage to do so. He was close, but not fully there. But Eisen didn¡¯t mind. He now had hundreds of BLT sandwiches to worry about first and foremost. Chapter 544 Dumplings Eisen¡¯s cooking skill was only a few levels away from ranking up, and the old man just finished making a huge amount of bacon-lettuce-tomato, or BLT, sandwiches, just because he had the ingredients for it on hand. But otherwise, Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure what he should try to make with all of these things. He was thinking about making pasta in preparation for the giant country, so that it would be easier to actually prepare it, but the old man would need a huge amount of eggs, or a couple of actually huge eggs, in order to be able to make pasta the way he was used to. And after a while, when Eisen stood up and basically chose to just screw it and make vegan pasta, he came up with another idea. Sure, dishes that he could prepare inrge masses actually made it pretty easy to level the cooking skill up, but it also helped to make dishes with a lot of different ingredients, and Esien didn¡¯t think that vegan pasta counted toward that. Instead, he remembered a recipe using dough that he could make without eggs that he actually liked to make every once in a while anyway. And it was also a pretty easy way to gain the slight proficiency boost you got bybining multiple different ingredients together instead of just using one or two ingredients as a base. Eisen was going to make some dumplings. The dough for those only needed flour, some salt, and warm water. It wasn¡¯tplicated, meaning that it was the perfect dough to make a shitton of. And then, you could basically fill it with everything and anything you wanted! The old man still had a lot of different types of meat leftover. Besides the meat that he was still saving for other dishes, he should be able to just mince all of it up and turn the meat into different types of fillings for the dumplings. And of course, they also had arge amount of onions, cabbages, garlic, and even ginger after that giant-farming endeavor. Caria could get them arge amount of mushrooms, they also had a bunch of carrots to use... They also had perfect ess to seafood, considering that they were literally on the sea at the moment. That meant that Eisen would be able to make arge amount of different dumplings! They were a type of food that was easily stored and frozen, and of course also something that you could pretty easily eat and just snack on, even. And so, the old man got started. Of course he once more got help from his two apprentices, who were currently getting all of the ingredients ready so that Eisen could get started really working with them. But for now, Eisen was just preparing the dough first. Once more, in his more than twenty meter tall giant form. After the giant old man properly prepared all the dough, he made Rouge and Parc actually cut the dough up into the pieces of the right size and tten them into thin dough-disks, cing them all to the side after they were done. While they were doing that, Eisen was working on the fillings. What Eisen did first was start mincing the different types of meat. Somerge pieces of mock-dragon meat from the dragon ind that was leftover, then some regr boar meat, even meat from the human-sized bug-monster Ankheg. It was pretty good, and Eisen had pretty pleasant memories with it. It was the first dish that he ate after starting to y the ¡¯game¡¯, after all. Or well, the first dish that he remembered eating. Technically he had a lot of meals before that over here, after all. Either way, besides the different types of meat, Eisen also chopped up some cabbage, onions, garlic and ginger, andbined them with some other things he made a while ago but didn¡¯t use that often yet, soy sauce and sesame oil. This mix would act as a bit of a ¡¯base¡¯ that he would mix with all of the other chopped up and minced ingredients to prepare different fillings. Other than that, Eisen also started to chop up mushrooms nad carrots, as well as the meat of arge shrimp-like monster and a giant salmon, to mix with that base and create those fillings. Of course, this all took a really, really long time, considering just the amount of dough he made. After the fillings were done, Eisen got started and took some of the discs of dough that Parc and Rouge prepared for Eisen and started filling them with the fillings. He ced the dough onto his palm, spooned a little ball of the fillings onto the center. Then, to close it up, Eisen spread a little bit of water on the edge to make the dough a bit more sticky, and then folded the dough over the filling once, to practically make a half-circle. But Eisen didn¡¯t press the dough together yet, instead he pleated the edges to seal them up properly. For now, the old man ced the nearly-finished dumplings into a fridge he made with his new element to keep them fresh for now while he started making the others. And so, this basically turned into something like a conveyor-belt. Parc was cutting pieces of the right size off the huge mass of dough, Rouge turned them into the discs, and Eisen filled and pleated the dumplings. One after another, Eisen ced them into the fridge made with his element, and this continued for another good while until all the dough disappeared. They were nearly at the next ind they would be taking care of, so Eisen should hurry it up. He quickly picked out some of the dumplings so that everyone could have a good, filling lunch, and ced them into arge pan that he once more made with his element. The best thing about all this was that he could now actually make things like actual proper metallic pans and pots with his element instead of having to carry all those with him everywhere or trying to trick around with his element when it was mostly rock. And so, the old man ced all of the dumplings meant for lunch into therge pan and first fried them a little bit, before he added some water into the pan and closing the whole thing up to steam the dumplings through. While that was happening, Eisen ced the leftover dumplings into an actual freezer that he quickly made. Basically, it was just arge metal box he hadying around, and then he enchanted a gem with his new element and tried to create translucent, sub-zero mes that would spread out through that whole box. It wasn¡¯t really thatplex, so Eisen was able to finish everything before the dumplings were done frying. The old man removed the pan¡¯s lid and then quickly got the dumplings onto some tes for everyone, all the whilst seeing them and the frozen dumplings as finished. [You created 10 Ground-Dragon Dumplings] [You created 100 Frozen Ground-Dragon Dumplings] [You created 10 Pork Dumplings] [You created 100 Frozen Pork Dumplings] [You created 10 Vegetable Dumplings] [You created 100 Frozen Vegetable Dumplings] [You created 10 Shrimp Dumplings] [You created 100 Frozen Shrimp Dumplings] ... ... ... The storm of notifications for the probably one dozen different types of dumplings appeared in front of Eisen and disappeared nearly just as quickly when he made them to. Instead, Eisen just wanted to focus on the other notifications that appeared with them. [Cooking has reached level 100 in Rank 3, upgrading to Rank 4] \"Finally.\" The old man muttered with a smile on his face. One skill less that he needed to rank up now. He could probably get the drawing skill to rank up as well once he properly transferred all of his blueprints he had saved using the Carfter¡¯s Mind skill onto actual paper. But that was something he would have to do some other time. Either way, for his draconic gifts, the skill that was currently closest to ranking up was the truth-seeing eye skill. And directly after that was actually the material-growth skill, since Eisen had been constantly gaining a little bit of proficiency here and there. That was because the seeds he nted where the giant ironbark tree stood before were one after another reaching maturity. Eisen left behind a couple of golems to actually pull them out of the ground when that happened, but the old man really wasn¡¯t entirely sure how well that was working out. He only gave the golems minimal instructions and rather simple bodies to fulfill only those instructions as well. Sure, they were ego-golems, so they had actual memory and Eisen was able to give them a bit of knowledge, but that also enabled them to have personalities. They might just bezing around right now. Either way, that didn¡¯t actually matter too much right now. Eisen had everything that he needed to properly rank all of his skills up soon so that he could finish his level-up quest and reach level 300. And then, he would fly over the whole ocean as quickly as he could to yell at some idiotic yers. \"How fun...\" The old man sighed annoyedly as he started cleaning everything up after cooking, and Sigurd appeared in front of him soon after, \"We reached the ind. Want to head off immediately?\" The core guardian asked, and Eisen quickly nodded his head in response. \"Mhm, let¡¯s. We should hurry up, but that shouldn¡¯t be an issue with Askr.\" The old man pointed out, \"We¡¯ll be able to reach the ce the town core is at easily, and we¡¯ll have Brody defeat the ind boss. I have the two core guardians ready that we¡¯ll need for the next two inds, so it¡¯s just a matter of making proper use of the time we have.\" Eisen pointed out, and then stepped through the gate that Sigurd created for him. Everyone was split into two teams that were either staying inside of the dungeon that was ced into Askr¡¯s chest to fight with them and take the ind over, or that were staying on the ship to protect it from any monsters that mighte attack. And so, after everyone ate their dumpling-lunch, Eisen made sure to help Askr safely leave the ship. Some of Brody¡¯s beasts as well as Melissa¡¯s bees were already flying around the ind to see if they could quickly find the town, while Eisen made Askr run forward. Eisen himself was just watching everything going on through Askr¡¯s eyes while he kept working on his skills a little more. Right now, he was once more trying to split up potions into their ingredients to make proper use of the time that the others were outside fighting the fort monsters¡¯ on this ind. Chapter 545 Elemental Spirit Summoning Eisen felt a little bit ufortable that the others were fighting while he just stayed in the dungeon to work on ranking his skills up some more, but that was simply the most important thing he had to get done right now. To get started, Eisen was trying to work on something that let him gain a little bit of proficiency for two of his skills. Truth-seeing eyes and drawing. Since Eisen¡¯s visual crafter¡¯s mind abilities were connected to his truth-seeing eyes, whenever he used those abilities he gained proficiency for that skill as well. And since he needed to see the blueprints in front of him using visualization to properly transfer them to paper with his drawing skill, it was a pretty goodbo for now. His truth-seeing eyes skill was very close to ranking up already, it was actually at level 99, but the skill was a pretty high-tier one so it took longer to level it up than other skills. Especially the hurdle of leveling it up from level 99 to 100 was huge. And so, Eisen just did his best to level these two skills up. He ran the pen over the paper and created proper blueprints for different des, shields, bows, mechanisms, bottles, and really anything that could possibly be turned into some sort of blueprint. And sure, it took a while, but roughly around the same time to each other, a couple important notifications appeared. [Guild Member Isabelle became the Lady of ] [Drawing reached level 100 in rank 3, upgrading to rank 4] [Truth-Seeing Eyes reached level 100 in rank 3, upgrading to rank 4] With a satisfied expression, Eisen waved the notifications away. He was d that everything seemed to have worked out out there. They contacted the people in a while ago and asked them to send a certain member of the church over to the Harbor, and that was Isabelle, who was now the Lady of that town. She was a firm believer in the god Hor, and she seemed rather trustworthy to top it off. And considering that none of the others seemed all to interested in bing the Lord or Lady of a ce like that, or rather, they already made other choices for which ind everyone would be the lord for. Evalia would be the Lady of the Ind of Art, Brody the Lord of the Ind of Combat, Jyuuk the Lord of the Ind of Beasts, and once they found it, Xenia would hand off the title of to someone else to be the Lady of the Ind of Magic. All the others seemed to be pretty interested in specific inds as well, so giving the town ¡¯Anesi¡¯ to someone outside of the central group made sense. There were too many inds for that anyway. Just as the old man was thinking about that, Eisen stood up and looked toward the gate that just appeared near him. \"Alright, we can move on to the next ce, man.\" Brody pointed out with a big grin, \"Those fort¡¯ monsters were so annoying though.\" He added. Eisen raised his brows curiously and crossed his arms, \"Really? What were they like?\" \"Pretty big, high defense, very slow... Barely had any weak points, really. They weren¡¯t hard to kill, they were just far too annoying. It took a while to deal enough damage to them.\" Brody pointed out, and Eisen lightly chuckled, \"Is that so? Well, I hope Askr was able to offer a little help.\" \"A little? The big guy fucked those monsters up. That giant ass sword cracked through their shells like they were crackers.\" \"d to hear that. Oh, and did you-\" \"Pick up those shells for you? Of course we did. Bree took those guys apart before they actually hit the ground.\" Brody replied as if able to read Eisen¡¯s mind, and the old man just smiled with satisfaction, \"Thank you. And good job, Bree.\" The old man said as he looked at the pink-haired fey-kin, who just smiled brightly in response and ced her backpack onto the ground. \"Well then, four out of five done. Let¡¯s move on to the fifth.\" Eisen pointed out with a satisfied expression, at which point, Xenia seemed to remember something. \"Speaking of fifth... Now that your element is Rank 5, you should be able to ¡¯hatch¡¯ your elemental. It mighte in pretty useful to level up the rest of your skills.\" The mage suggested, and Eisen looked at her surprised. That was true, Xenia did mention that a while ago, that she could see the elementals growing inside of everyone¡¯s body, but... \"Ipletely forgot about it. It didn¡¯t tell me about it when I reached rank 5.\" Xenia slowly nodded her head with her arms crossed as she sat down at one of the tables \"Yeah, that¡¯s because it¡¯s something like a base feature, I guess? From the very beginning, the elemental was there and growing inside of you, so it¡¯s not a ¡¯new ability¡¯. It¡¯s just that the upgrade to your element thates at rank 5 somehow gives the body of the elemental a finishing touch, so now it should be ready.\" Xenia exined to the old man. \"Can you help me figure out how to summon the elemental then?\" \"Of course. It¡¯s pretty easy, actually. It should be somewhat simr to manipting your element regrly. Come, let¡¯s try it out.\" The High-Elf suggested with a smile, since she simply seemed to be extremely curious as to what Eisen¡¯s elemental would look like, especially after that new extreme change to Eisen¡¯s element. Since she said it wasn¡¯t that hard, Eisen figured he should be able to get that done rather easily and end up being able to summon the elemental to have it help out with his work some more. Eisen sat down next to Xenia and watched, of course with his mana-sight active, while Xenia summoned one of her own elementals. The ¡¯Warrior of Light¡¯ that had beenbined with that minotaur during the ¡¯fight¡¯ with Merc and Cial. \"Did you see it just now? I just pushed mana out of my body and practically provided it to the elemental spirit to make it possible for it to get a physical form. It should be the same thing for you, just that you need to give your spirit a base to go off of. It needs to inhabit a mass of your elemental mana to dive into for the first time. It doesn¡¯t need to be in the form of a body, but really just a mass. Like an egg, kind of. Just form that for now.\" Xenia suggested, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. He held his hand forward and started to gather his element on his palm, slowlypressing it as much as he could as he made it gather together and literally turn into the shape of an egg. And so, once it reached the size of a regr chicken-egg, the old man looked at Xenia. \"This good enough?\" After a bit of thought, Xenia just nodded her head, \"Sure. The amount of your elemental mana is the same as what I had in mind, I guess. So it should be fine.\" She said, and then continued the instructions. \"Now, just hold the egg and close your eyes. In the center of your body, where your mana-source is, you should also feel your elemental source. You need to simply attempt to move that source into that egg.\" \"Really? That sounds a bit...\" Eisen started, \"Risky... doesn¡¯t it? What if I identally detach my ¡¯elemental source¡¯ from my bodypletely?\" \"Well, you are. That¡¯s what your personal elemental is, basically. It¡¯s the incarnation of your element, which begins at the elemental source. Of course, you will still be able to create your element normally, since the spirit can¡¯t get too far away from you, but it¡¯s just going to be a little different when the elemental spirit is outside of your body.\" After a bit of thought, Eisen just sighed and followed Xenia¡¯s instructions further. It still seemed kind of weird to him to try and move something so important away from himself, but in the end, it seemed like it was what he had to do in order to make use of an elemental spirit like that. Eisen closed his eyes and concentrated on his elemental source, the ce where his element was actually always created from whenever he tried to make use of it, and tried to manipte that ce itself. It was pretty hard, and required a surprising amount of mana to do so, but after a little while the old man managed to bring the elemental source to his hand and was ready to push it out through his palm. It felt like his whole arm was so, so much heavier than usual, and the rest of his body just seemed so much lighter than usual. And then, when Eisen actually pushed the thick, viscous mass of his concentrated element out through his palm directly, Eisen felt like he just lost half his weight instantly, while the ¡¯egg¡¯ in his hands took that weight onto itself. But before Eisen knew it, the mass of his element started to shake a bit, before suddenly forming cracks on its surface. Thinyers of rock folded away from the surface of the egg and spread out before parts crumbled away from it, revealing thoseyers to be two wings, before more parts of the egg crumbled away and revealed a small figure in a fetal position. It stretched out a bit and caused the rest to crumble away as well, before slowly standing up on Eisen¡¯s hand. It had a child-like figure imitating Eisen¡¯s Draconic Demon transformation nearly perfectly, and it slowly looked up at Eisen with golden eyes as it stood on the old man¡¯s palm. [You have summoned the Elemental Spirit] Chapter 546 Material Extractor The child-like spirit, small enough to fit on Eisen¡¯s palm, slowly looked around and then just stared at the old man with its golden eyes. "Huh..." Xenia muttered quietly, "I didn¡¯t expect its body to stay that size as well... That doesn¡¯t usually happen..." She pointed out, and Eisen just sighed a bit in response. "What, is it now going to just stay in this size? It won¡¯t really be able to help me out much then. In a couple specific situations, sure, but otherwise..." Eisen said, a bit annoyed by the fact that he might have just messed this up, but before he knew it, the spirit in his hand picked up on what Eisen wanted and slowly grew in size. It still had child-like proportions, but it was now the size of a regr child, "Well, nevermind then..." The old man muttered, and Xenia leaned forward toward the spirit excitedly, "I guess it also has size-change abilities." "Seems so, yeah. I guess we should just get started now then, huh? Test out what you can do." Eisen suggested with a smile on his face. He looked down at the figure of the elemental spirit with curiosity, just wanting to see what it would be capable of. And with a quick nod, the elemental spirit just hurried over toawrd a nearby table where Eisen put down some tools as an extra reference for some of the blueprints he drew. Immediately, the spirit took a hammer into its hand and looked at it for a while, before just cing it back down onto the table. The same thing happened with the different knives, the tongs, the needles, et cetera, that wereying on that table. It just picked them up and put them back down a couple momentster. The spirit rushed back to Eisen and looked up at the old man while stretching its hand forward. Eisen watched it curiously, before he noticed some elemental mana gathering in its hand. Before Eisen knew it, the spirit had formed a hammer in its hand out of the zing core of the mountain element, simply turning the wooden parts into parts made up solely by the base element. Eisen stretched his hand out and picked the hammer up from the spirit¡¯s hand, but when direct contact to the spirit¡¯s hand was lost, the elemental hammer just crumbled down. But until then, Eisen was able to get a rather good grasp on it. It seemed like the spirit just made proper, actual copies of all the tools, but they were a sort of spell that could only be kept up under specific conditions. That¡¯s what Eisen figured, at least. "Hm. Alright, here, make me something." The old man said and waved his hand to the side as he created a forge that the spirit could work with, and then turned toward the core guardian standing next to him. "Sigurd, bring us some steel, wood and leather. Any is fine, really." The old man pointed out, and Sigurd disappeared and returned a few momentster with the materials in its hands. "Here you go. But do you really want the spirit to make something on its own?" Sigurd asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, why not? I need to know what it can do, so obviously." Eisen¡¯s exnation seemed to have made Xenia want to say something, although she was somewhat holding herself back from doing so. "Something wrong?" Eisen asked her, and Xenia looked at the old man with a light smile, "It¡¯s just that, usually, spirits can¡¯t do such things. Sure, it may be able to assist you, but I don¡¯t see how a spirit would be able to create full items. I haven¡¯t heard of it before, at least." Xenia exined, and Eisen raised his brows a bit as he looked at the figure of the Light Spirit still standing behind the high-elf. "So the armor that guy¡¯s wearing, as well as the weapon he¡¯s carrying were made by a regr craftsman?" Eisen asked as he turned back toward the elemental spirit as it started by cing the metal into the forge all the whilst already starting to carve into the wood. Xenia stared at the Light Spirit for a while, even running her hand over the full te armor it was wearing, and then turned toward Eisen, "Fair enough, for some reason I didn¡¯t even think of that. There is a spirit realm, after all, so it might bepletely possible that there¡¯s a proper civilization there, with craftsmen and all that." "It would just make sense, right? It might happen in games, but this isn¡¯t a game. It might be possible to make proper weapons and armor using magic, but that¡¯s just when you have a specific element for it. I can probably make pretty good armor out of the light element with my magic craftsmanship skill, but it shouldn¡¯t be possible just by forming the element like that. I mean, I tried just making weapons and armor using my new element by simply giving it the right shape, after all." "Right, right... Yeah, then maybe the spirit can actually make proper items after all. I really should try to find more spirits already. The two guys I have right now may be super cute, but if there¡¯s spirits that can even make items, there must be ones out there that can do basically anything!" Xenia said, audibly and visibly growing more excited by the moment, and Eisen could just see Jyuuk¡¯s stare on the back of his head. He probably wasn¡¯t happy with the fact that Eisen just made it so that Xenia would just end up gushing over the possibilities of different spirits over the next few hours. Although, he was probably already used to that anyway. But for now, Eisen just watched his elemental spirit work, curious about what kind of item he was working on. Eisen had Sigurd bring wood, steel and leather because he figured a regr weapon would be a pretty good base item to see the elemental¡¯s ability. However, from the way that the elemental shaped the wood, it didn¡¯t seem like it was going to be any sort of weapon. It just cut the wood into small wooden tubes, and right now, it was shaping the steel intorger, soda-can-sized tubes. Eisen was really more than just curious about what this was supposed to be. And then, the elemental grabbed the leather, created a knife out of nowhere, and cut it into thin strips. It then used a needle to sew some of the ends of the leahter strips together to turn them into differently-sized leather rings. "...Can it only make tube-shaped things?" Eisen muttered quietly, although he was more than just surprised when he saw that this was really not yet the final result of the crafting. The elemental actually started enchanting the inside of the small wooden tubes. Eisen couldn¡¯t tell what exactly the enchantments were, but he was definitely incredibly curious about it. Once the enchantments were done, the spirit always connected three of the wooden tubes together using the leather rings he made, and Eisen already started getting a little bit of an idea what they were supposed to be. In total, there were five of these wood-leather tubes now. And then, the elemental connected the rest of the leather strips to all of those wooden tubes, strengthening Eisen¡¯s guess of what this may going to be. The elemental then also connectedrger strips to therger metal tubes and then connected more wood and leathe tubes to the five ones that he made before leading into thoserger metal tubes. And to finish it off, the elemental ced some caps onto the metal tubes to close them up and turn them into proper cannisters. Once the item was done, the elemental happily brought it over to Eisen and held it up to him, and the old man quickly took a look at it. [Material Extractor] [Quality ¨C Perfect][Rank ¨C 5] [Description] An assisting item made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen¡¯s Spirit. It was made to support the extraction and intake of different materials, and can hold up to five different ones at a time. As the materials arepressed after being stored, they can hold huge amounts of them. As it was created by a Spirit with a high understanding of mana and magic, the enchantments are highly mana-efficient. [Effect] +25% benefit to Extraction Skill; +100 INT, +100 WIS, +50 AGI [Requirements] Extraction Skill, 100 INT, 100 WIS, 50 AGI With a broad smile, Eisen took the item into his hand and put it on in the way that he figured it was supposed to be used. The metal tubes were supposed to be strapped to his arm, and the wooden tubes were supposed to be strapped to his fingers. This was, while Eisen was extracting materials, he could instantly remove them and store them in these cannisters instead of having to move them to a different ce either with his skills or physically, which would definitely save a fair amount of time once he was able to make use of this properly. "Fits perfectly. You knew that I still had to level some skills of mine up, huh?" Eisen asked with a grin, and the spirit slowly nodded his head while the others just looked at Eisen and that weird contraption curiously. "What is it?" Xenia asked, most curious out of everyone, since she wanted to know what a spirit would be capable of, and the old man held his arm with the ¡¯support item¡¯ on it over toward her. "It¡¯s something that literally helps me level my Extraction skill up more easily, just how I said. I have to rank up three more skills, and the Extraction skill is one of them." Eisen pointed out, and Xenia excitedly looked over toward the elemental spirit. "It knew about that? But you didn¡¯t tell it, did you? That means it retains direct knowledge from you... Interesting, does that mean you can inform it about things telepathically as well?" Xenia asked curiously, and Eisen raised his brows surprised, "Probably, but it works that way with Golem Commands as well, right? And you should probably know it through your two spirits already as well." "Ah... right... I kind of forgot about that..." Xenia replied embarrassedly while scratching her cheek, and Eisen lightly smiled back at her, "Don¡¯t worry about it. It is a pretty cool thing though. This just means that I won¡¯t have to exin different ideas to it. Parc and Rouge are amazing boys, but they won¡¯t know what a circuit board is or how it works. But maybe this guy actually does know, since I know about it. Definitely, this will make things, far, far easier." Chapter 547 Mana-Dragons With the new assisting item strapped onto his hand, Eisen grabbed a rather simple potion and poured it out into a bowl. He activated the enchantments on the assisting item and then poured his mana into the potion to start splitting it into his materials. And the moment that he did so, the ¡¯Material Extractor¡¯ sucked away all of the small parts of the potion that Eisen had split off of it. It continued on and on until the bowl was justpletely empty, and at that point, Eisen simply held his hand to the side over five different bowls before making all of the ingredients of the potion pour out into those bowls. And sure, while it maybe didn¡¯t save him an extraordinary amount of time, it was still a little bit. And a little bit coulde a long way. Just like this, with the help of this new item made by Eisen¡¯s elemental, the old man could keep on gaining proficiency for the Extraction skill a little bit faster and more efficientlypared to normal. For the next few hours, basically during not only during the whole trip to the next ind in the first ce, but also while they were actually on the next ind and the others were fighting again, Eisen just kept on extracting different materials out of potions. Whenever a potion had more than five materials, he would extract all parts belonging to five materials, empty out the canisters of the tool, and then move on to the next few materials. Like this, it didn¡¯t take long until a certain notification appeared in front of Eisen. [Extraction has reached level 100 in rank 3, upgrading to rank 4] Eisen smiled as he waved the notification away. He just got the ability to even extract sub-parts out of different materials, which woulde in handy. That meant for example that if he wanted to use a root¡¯s sap that numbed your skin when you touched it, Eisen could extract just that part that numbed you very easily without having to go through multiple other processes. Now, Eisen had just two skills left. Material Growth and Magic Craftsmanship. The way it was going, Eisen figured that Material Growth would end up ranking up within the next day or so, so instead he just had to focus on Magic Craftsmanship. And for that, he already had a pretty good target. The thing that he wanted to already make a while ago, for which he had created all of those Ego-Golem Mock-Spirits for the others. Eisen looked over to the side as he pushed himself off the ground. "Sigurd, bring me the silver-dragon mana." The old man said, and just a few momentster, Sigurd appeared in front of Eisen with arge clump of silver in its hands. And sure, while it looked like regr silver outwardly, it really was just crystalized mana instead. Eisen took it from Sigurd and ced it down in front of him. First things first, he had to figure out a good way to make use of this. By creating the mock-spirits, Eisen learned what he had to focus on exactly when trying to work on this item. The thing was that items made with magic-craftsmanship were supposed to be spells-turned-items, but what Eisen had been doing with the other mock-spirits was making items-turned-spells. He was making them in the way he regrly would, just using crystalized mana as recement-materials. And that was not what he should do. After all, he could turn the crystalized mana into basically anything that he had knowledge of. For now, Eisen would just make use of a trick. In the end, it was possible for Eisen to change the ¡¯state¡¯ of the crystalized mana again after already assigning it. So basically, he could work with some crystalized mana as if it was metal for an hour, and then just say, ¡¯You¡¯re wood¡¯, and it would turn into some kind of wood. This woulde in pretty handy for what Eisen was making now. And for one of the first times while crafting, except for when he was carving enchantments, Eisen shrunk down instead of increasing his size, to make these small items a bit easier to work on. Eisen shrunk down to roughly 15 centimeters, the absolute smallest size he could reach, which became a little more than 20 centimeters once he activated his draconic demon transformation. And before he knew it, Eisen¡¯s spirit shrunk down as well and now stood next to Eisen, ready to help him with his work. "Then let¡¯s get this started." Eisen said with a light grin on his face, and then scooped off a little bit of the crystalized silver-dragon mana off of the,pared to him, giant clump of crystalized mana. And after that was done, Eisen made the mana act like a metal and then threw it into the tiny forge he just made in front of him. After it heated up, the old man got started, and turned the piece of ¡¯metal¡¯ into the shape of a bone. The same with the piece of mana-metal after that, and the one after that. That was because Eisen was once more just making a skeleton right now. Not any kind of skeleton, but the skeleton of a dragon. Although, evenpared to Eisen¡¯s size right now, it would be a rather small dragon. Proportionally, it might be a little bit bigger than Fafnir whenpared to Eisen at his regr size. Anyway, Eisen just continued making the skeleton. And not only once. Instead, he made the dragon skeleton five times. Of course, it did take quite a while to do that, but the others weren¡¯t back just yet, or even managed to set up the town, meaning Eisen could take his time for a little while longer. After Eisen finished the bones and things like joints for the five dragon skeletons, the old man grabbed the bones one by one and changed the material assigned to them from a metal to bone. Dragon-Bone. This time around, Eisen was actually going to try to create a proper living being through all of this, as if he was Doctor Frankenstein. Besides the bones, he even formed the internal organs using the same crystalized mana after assigning it some other property, and then just turned them into exactly what organs they were. Eisen was rather surprised at how easily this worked, but he was d that it did, in the end. The odl man managed to create the five dragon bodies like that, creating things from bone marrow to muscles to scales, literally anything that was part of a dragon¡¯s body. And then, to finish it off, Eisen tried something else out. He tried to merge a soul with the silver-dragon mana by continuosly infusing it with it and assigning different properties to the actual mana, and in the end, the mana was really absorbed and the souls took on a light metallic, silver shine and tint. Eisen slowly tried to push souls¡¯ core itself into the center of the mana-dragons¡¯ hearts and tried to fuse them together even further. And then the rest of the soul was just spread around the whole dragons¡¯ bodies. And all of that without even creating something like Golem Cores. It was more like the whole bodies of the dragons were the golem cores instead. Just like that, the old man was finished and could slowly increase his size to normal again. He picked the five small dragons up and ced them down on a table right in front of him. With a bit of mana, he basically ¡¯jumpstarted¡¯ their souls, and Eisen watched as the tiny mock dragon-spirits started to move around. It took a little while for htem ot get used to their bodies, but at some point they were just able to properly jump around. They weren¡¯t able to perfectly fly just yet, but at the very least they could use their wings to support their jumps. With a smile on his face, Eisen saw them as finished. [You have created 5 Tiny Mock Silver-Dragon Spirits] [Magic Craftsmanship has reached level 100 in rank 3, upgrading to rank 4] With a lightugh, Eisen looked at the five tiny mock-spirits and waved the notifications away before properly trying to test everything out with these five guys. He didn¡¯t give them anything on their bodies to directly make them subordinate to Eisen, but instead just put a small ring around their left back ankle. Like you might see with dogs. This was basically something of a recement so that Eisen could give themmands for now, but so that he could just at some point remove the rings when he made sure that the small mock dragon-spirits weren¡¯t aggressive or dangerous in any way. "Come." Eisen said in a clear tone and extended his hand forward. One after another, the five tiny mana-dragons jumped onto Eisen¡¯s hand and climbed up his arm until they sat on his shoulders together with the small elemental spirit that didn¡¯t increase its size again after it helped Eisen craft in their small form. "It uses her mana, so maybe..." The old man muttered, and then thought about what magic abilities Eisen remembered silver dragons to have, and then made one of the dragons climb onto his hand that he stretched out toward open space. "Use the cold breath spell." Eisen said, and the small mana-dragon on his hand slowly opened its mouth up and pushed out cold mist out of it that quickly spread around. It wasn¡¯t a lot, since the ego-rank of the mock-spirit didn¡¯t allow for a lot of mana to be used or even produced, but it was better than nothing at all. Eisen was sure that the amount would increase many times once he actually gave the mock-spirit souls that actually produced a proper amount of mana. "Switch out." The old manmanded, and the mana-dragon currently on his hand switched with another one, that Eisen thenmanded to use another spell of a silver dragon, "Use the paralyzing breath spell." Eisen told it, and a poisonous green mist poured out of the mana-dragon¡¯s mouth that just so slightly made Eisen¡¯s fingers tingle, showing him that it actually worked properly. With a smile on his face, the old man cracked his knuckles and made the mana-dragons climb back onto his shoulders, before he opened up a gate to lead him to the outside. The others weren¡¯t finished conquering the ind just yet, so maybe Eisen would be able to help out a little. After all, even just by waiting, he wouldpletely rank up thest skill he needs to before even bing a king. The old man smiled lightly as he looked out of the gate and at the giant sword currently being swung down at a group of monsters. Chapter 548 Kardia Eisen watched as the sword was swung down toward a group of monsters while flinging around masses of dirt, rock and grass. The blood and flesh of the monsters sttered around at the same time, so it was a rather gruesome fight, although Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure why Askr was the one fighting them. They were rather small monsters after all, at leastpared to Askr. But after looking around for a while, Eisen could tell what the issue was. All the others were busy fighting other monsters. Because they were all surrounded by a real flood of monsters that was trying to rip them apart. The old man activated his draconic demon transformation and jumped out of the gate, quickly flying over to the side to see what was going on. Eisen activated his truth-seeing eyes and his mana-sight, and soon spotted threads of mana connecting the mass amount of monsters here with a structure in the distance that Eisen figured to be the ce the Town Core, and with that the Ind Boss, currently was. The old man flew over to the one closest to him, Brody, and quickly tried to ask him what was going on. The Demon-Orc groaned a bit as he cut through another wave of monsters with a single swing, "I don¡¯t know what the fuck¡¯s going on. At first we just had to deal with our movement being restricted ¡¯cause of charms and stuff, but now there¡¯s this motherfucking mass of monsters here! It¡¯s fucking insane!" Brody eximed annoyedly, and Eisen just started looking around as he took out his Demonic de and quickly grew in size to his maximum. "I see. I¡¯m pretty sure they¡¯re all being controlled by something." Eisen muttered quietly, and then looked around the area to spot all the others before yelling, "Everyone, try to head for the building over there!" The old man eximed as he started to swing his ck sword around, getting rid of waves of enemies nearly immediately, and not in the prettiest, most conserving way either. But that didn¡¯t really matter right now, Eisen just had to keep on heading for the building and tried to make a path to make it easier for the others to follow. Although, they didn¡¯t seem to have that much trouble with that either. All the others practically annihted the monsters surrounding them within a few moments and quickly started to follow Eisen. Soon, they reached the structure that they had only been seeing from the distance until now. It was something like a colosseum, and by simply flying above it real quick, Eisen could confirm that the Ind Boss was inside of there. The structure itself seemed to be heart-shaped when seen from above, and in the center of that heart sat a maybe five-meter tall, red-skinned man with horns at the top of his head. He had pitch-ck hair and his hands were covered in some kind of rock-like ck growth. He just sat there as if it was bored, but with just a few movements of his hands, numerous of these small demonic monsters that everyone had been fighting until now appeared in front of him. They rushed out through the gates of the colosseum, but were quickly taken down by Brody before they could go any further than that. With a quick use of his truth-seeing eyes¡¯ inspection ability, he was able to find out what exactly this monster was. It was an Incubus, a charming demon known to especially go after women. But it was not a regr Incubus, but a ¡¯King Incubus¡¯. Eisen figured that it was simr to Melissa, where the Incubus gained the ability to simply create numerous minions. While the four other originals stepped through the gates of the colosseum, Eisen dropped down from above into the area of the boss fight, and the Incubus slowly reacted and stood up. "Hm? The intruders got here, huh..?" It asked with a yawn while stretching out its body, and then simply swung its hand around once. Some sort of gas or mist poured out of its hand that immediately spread around the inside of the colosseum. Eisen swiftly inspected it. [Charming Mist][When it is breathed in by someone, their body will be forced to follow the orders of the caster] "Don¡¯t breathe the mist in!" Eisen eximed, "That counts toward especially you, Brody!" The old man added. Especially Xenia and Evalia had rather high mental stats, so their resistance to these things would be rather high. Jyuuk and Eisen were both rtively well-rounded characters when it came to their stats. But both Jyuuk and Eisen had experience taking control of either many tamed beasts or golems, or both, so they still had more of a natural resistance. But Brody¡¯s mental stats were abysmally low, and he was the strongest in directbat out of everyone here, so it would be a real bother to try and fight him while getting rid of the incubus. "Hm, what did ya say?" Brody asked loudly, seemingly not having heard Eisen somehow, and the old man could immediately hear him take a deep breath afterward. He usually did that before trying to attack someone, after all. Just in tune with Eisen¡¯s expectations, Brody couldn¡¯t attack right now, "Yo, what the fuck¡¯s going on?" Brody asked, before all of the mist was simply blown away by a wind-spell cast by Xenia. "You¡¯re an idiot, that¡¯s what." She sighed annoyedly, but before Brody could say anything else, the Incubus did so for him, "Attack that brat." Itmanded as it sat downzily. It seemed like it thought the fight was already decided through this. Brody, without being able to do anything about this, was forced to run toward Xenia. "All five of you, paralyze him." Eisen said, and the five tiny mana-dragons hiding in his chest pocket flew out and rushed toward Brody while Eisen swung down his de inbetween where Brody and Xenia currently stood to force Brody to slow down a bit. And before they knew it, Brody was surrounded by poisonous green mist. Due to the Orc¡¯s natural resistance against things like poison, he of course wasn¡¯t just directly affected by it, but it still slowed his body down a bit and made him slip up. It wasn¡¯t like Brody was actively supporting the movements his body was making, so hisbat instincts didn¡¯t work for this. It was basically as if Eisen sent in one of his golems into a fight without giving them any rted knowledge. "Eisen, smack me over there head already!" Brody eximed, and the old man didn¡¯t hesitate for long. The de sensed Eisen¡¯s intent and helped him pull it back up and twist it to the side. While Eisen was doing that, Jyuuk restrained Brody with roots that were quickly changed into chains by Evalia¡¯s paint to boost the restraining, and Xenia was drawing a high-tier healing magic circle into the air. That was because they were currently aiming for another of the Orcs¡¯ natural abilities. ¡¯Rage of the Warrior¡¯. It was an ability that got rid of any status effects one was put under immediately once an Orc¡¯s health dropped under 5%, while momentarily boosting one¡¯s movement speed in return for getting rid of most of one¡¯s defense. The old man swung the giant ck sword down at Brody using the t edge of the sword, so that he wouldn¡¯t actually cut right into the Demon-Orc, and a few momentster, Eisen¡¯s de was just stopped while Brody groaned out loudly in anger. "Argh, you fucking piece of...!" He yelled out while grinding his teeth, and Eisen lightly grimaced, "Ah... proceeded that far, huh? You feel pain now?" "Yes I fucking do, but don¡¯t you dare fucking stop now, you brought me down to 15% with that!" Brody yelled out, and Eisen quickly nodded his head as he swung the giant de in his hand to the side, and once more with the blunt edge of the de swung it toward Brody, although this time not at his head, but at his body. And at the same time, Jyuuk got rid of the root-chains so that they wouldn¡¯t obstruct the attack. Eisen swung the de at the side of Brody¡¯s body and basically flung him toward the Incubus while bringing his health below the 5% they were aiming for. Like that, the charm-effect was removed and Brody could quickly just attack the Incubus like normal. He could through the Incubus¡¯ arm and immediately chopped it off just like that, before an arrow made of yellow light hit Brody¡¯s back, returning part of his health while increasing his recovery-rate for a while. "Thanks, Xenia!" Brody eximed as he immediately swung his sword at the Incubus one more time. It was rather weakpared to Brody, so it didn¡¯t actually take too long to finish it off. The others didn¡¯t even have to do anything. Brody managed to finish this fight basically alone, and the head of the Incubus soon rolled over the ground. "Ooh, nice, level up." Brody smirked, and Eisen lightly sighed as he ced the ck sword back into his soul storage before taking out his multitool and returning to regr size so that he could get started on taking the Incubus¡¯ body apart. Bree soon also ran into the colosseum, since it was now open to everyone, and helped Eisen remove the important materials. Like for example the horns, the hard ck growth on the Incubus¡¯ hands, or the tail, the hair, the eyes, and of course its mana crystal. "Yo, so who¡¯s gonna be the Lord of this town?" Brody asked while removing some dust and rubble from the town core that was floating behind the throne the Incubus sat on before, and Eisen slowly looked at the Fey-Kin squatting down right next to him. "Personally, I was thinking that this would be a good fit for Bree." Eisen pointed out, and she immedaitely looked up at Eisen in surprise, "Eh? Me? What?" She asked confusedly, and Eisen lightly smiled at her, "Well, you¡¯re one of the most loving people I know. I just kind of think it fits. But don¡¯t worry, this ce will be practically self-sustaining with the Core Guardian, so you won¡¯t need to be here all the time." After a bit of thought, Bree just slowly nodded her head, agreeing to be the Lady of this town. She was still pretty nervous though, since that was simply her personality, but still pressed her palm onto the Town Core and activated it. It took a few moments for Bree toe up with a good name for this ce, but soon, a notification appeared in front of Eisen. [Guild Member Bree became the Lady of \u003cKardia\u003e] Chapter 549 Melodica With a smile on his face, the giant Eisen walked outside to get to the Wood-Giant Askr and reached out to the dungeon gate, "Sigurd, give me the Core Guardian." The old man requested, and a few momentster, Sigurd appeared on his palm with a small wooden box in its hand. "Thank you." Eisen told Sigurd with a smile before shrinking back down and stepping over toward Bree. He handed her the wooden box, which she quickly opened up to take the unconnected core guardian out of it. She pushed her mana into the core guardian¡¯s chest and instructed her to connect to the town core, before it did exactly that. It took just a few moments, but soon, the core guardian started to change with the same white light that monsters gave off when they evolved. When that light disappeared, this core guardian¡¯s body had changed a bit. It had two small hearts on its cheeks and wore a puffy, fluffy pink outfit. Its hair was dark green and tied into ponytails in a simr way as Bree wore her hair. It even had a simr bodynguage to the fey-kin as far as Eisen could tell. "Ooh! Pretty!" Bree eximed loudly as she started looking the core guardian up and down, "I can only return that, Master!" It replied with a melodic voice, and Bree just smiled happily back at it. "Alright, Bree, give it a name and exin your n for the town to it, and then let¡¯s leave." Eisen suggested, and the Fey-Kin Supporter slowly turned around and nodded her head, "Okey-dokey~! Hmm, then what about... Melodica? That seems like a cute name!" Bree eximed, and the, seemingly female, Core Guardian quickly nodded her head immediately, "Yes please! I really like that!" She replied, officially making her name ¡¯Melodica¡¯ now. It seemed like Bree¡¯s opinion of her voice was the same as Eisen¡¯s, and that¡¯s how she came up with that name. After that, Bree actually became a little more serious. She had been able to analyze numerous different viges over the past while, after all, and even if she wanted to change her upation sometime in the future, the ¡¯Analyst¡¯ portion of her was still a regr part of her at least for now. She made her suggestions on what sorts of facilities were needed, but the Town Core Guardian shouldn¡¯t just make the town toorge right off the bat. After all, there weren¡¯t any townsfolk here yet, so having a giant, empty town would just be creepy. And it couldn¡¯t be seen like those abandoned and ruined towns on other inds, since every part of this town would always be perfectly intact due to Melodica¡¯s work. "Ah! And instead of a Colosseum, turn this ce into a really, really pretty wedding chapel!" Bree eximed toward the end after the rest of her exnations, and Brody slightlyugehd after hearing that, "Wedding chapel? Really? Why that?" The Demon-Orc halfling asked, and Bree just turned to him with a small smile on her face before legitimately exining despite Brody just asking somewhat mockingly. "Well, Reah is the Goddess of Love, and she also oversees things like weddings! So I thought why not turn this ce into a location you want to go to in order to marry the one you love? There aren¡¯t any super special materials or other reasons toe here right now~." Bree exined gleefully, and with a slightugh, Evalia nodded her head. "I think that sounds really nice, Bree." She said, while just so slightly side-eyeing Brody for how rude he was, although she soon put all her concentration onto somethingpletely different. "Oh, yeah! Do you and Stahl want to marry here?" Bree asked, and Evalia¡¯s concentration was instantly catapultedpletely onto the Fey-Kin, "M-Marriage? We literally have only been going out for a couple weeks, wh-what do you mean?" She asked, and Bree looked at her with a bright smile, "What does it matter if you¡¯re in love? At the very least, I think this would be a super nice ce for Dien and I to marry!" With those words, Bree looked over at the Frost Magician who just lightly smiled at her and nodded his head. He was a kind of awkward and shy person sometimes, so he couldn¡¯t directly just speak about this kind of thing in front of all these people. "Well then, just let us know when the time for thates." Eisen told them with a smile, "But for now, I think we should head back to the central inds and finally turn these inds into a country." He suggested as he and the others started stepping toward the Colosseum¡¯s exit, already able to see some parts of the area around this ce being transformed through Melodica¡¯s direct influence on the terrain and few leftover buildings. Askr lifted everyone beside Eisen up to the Dungeon gate, before the old man activated his transformations and started flying up a bit. This ind was pretty big, but it wasn¡¯t huge. They would be able to reach the other side within not even half an hour as long as Askr ran properly. Eisen himself didn¡¯t need to worry, he could fly, and so did his spirit, after all. The only thing Eisen was a bit worried for with that were the five tiny mana-dragons, so the old man simply left them with Xenia who happily agreed to take care of these guys. Although, maybe Eisen should have been more worried about exactly that... Hopefully they would stay intact until Eisen came back. The old man tried to fly at the same pace that Askr was running at while scouting out any potential annoyance or danger, but there wasn¡¯t really anything that could go up against Askr¡¯s incredible pace and weight. He actually crushed a couple smaller monsters under his feet while running, and the elemental spirit swiftly volunteered to at least go get the mana crystals from them. Either way, soon, they reached the ce they left the ship again, and Eisen quickly helped Askr sit back down on it without any disturbances, before Jyuuk quickly came back out of the dungeon and summoned his Sailor Skeletons again to make them properly drive the ship back to the central inds. And as the ship was heading off to that destination, Eisen made his way back into the dungeon while checking the progress of his Material Growth Skill. Right now, it was at level 98, and would soon level up to 99. Then it would only take a little while until Eisen would rank the skill up. With a satisfied smile, Eisen waved the information windows away and then walked up to the others inside of the dungeon. "Brody." Eisen said, and the Demon-Orc slowly turned his head to look back at the old man, "Yup?" "Since when do you feel pain again?" "..." Brody slowly turned away again as he leaned back on the chair he was sitting on. He groaned deeply while trying to figure out how to best talk about this, because it seemed like it would be a rather troublesome conversation, "A couple days, I guess. I can nearly read my red notification. Pain starteding back to me when I was able to read thest two words of it. ¡¯Orc Chieftain¡¯. It might be something simr where I have to go an¡¯ meet¡¯im or something. I don¡¯t know yet though." "Why didn¡¯t you tell us about it?" Xenia asked with a deep frown as she looked at the Demon Orc, "Hah, right. Listen, you¡¯ve all already been pretty overprotective of Eisen ever since he got his pain back, and he spends most of his time in his workshop. I¡¯m out there getting into fights all the time. If you¡¯re worried about him, you¡¯ll be worried about me, and that¡¯s really damn annoying." Brody pointed out, and everyone slowly looked at each other. "...fair enough. I guess I get it." Jyuuk replied when nobody else did, "My senses are also starting to be a bit more intense than they used to be, but I still don¡¯t feel pain. I thought about things like that simrly, because I don¡¯t want any of you to worry about something like that. I mean, everyone else here feels pain beside us and the artificials, so why worry about us and not them? Right?" "Exactly what I thought." Brody replied, and Eisen slightly sighed, "Fine, I get it. I trust you guys, so I won¡¯t be more worried about you even if you start feeling pain. You¡¯ll still be immortal in the end. But the thing that I don¡¯t want to see happen anymore is any of you guys trying to use tactics like that anymore. We just won¡¯t be able to keep acting like we don¡¯t feel pain despite obviously doing so. If you want to make use of that status-effect cancelling ability, I¡¯ll just make you a pill that gets rid of nearly all your health without hurting you, as well as highlypressed, very potent potions to bring it back up immediately after, alright?" The old man told Brody, and the Demon-Orc slightly grumbled and nodded his head. "Fine. I¡¯ll stop with that, then." Brody sighed deeply, as if a huge part of hisbat arsenal over here was just taken from him, while Eisen sat down with his arms crossed. "Anyway, that just revealed something else to us. Like Brody said, his red notification might also be an instruction to go and meet someone. If that¡¯s the case, then we shouldn¡¯t push aside the possibility of the same being written on everybody¡¯s red notifications. Maybe we¡¯ll need to pick something important up from there to help us recover our memories. If that¡¯s the case, we shouldn¡¯t try to go to every ce all at once, but split up instead and have everyone go where they¡¯re supposed to go with their own parties." Eisen suggested. It seemed a bit rough, since those regions might be pretty hard to get through with few people like that, but Jyuuk quickly agreed nheless. "I think so too. We should focus on getting things like that done as quickly as possible. And in the end, we can convey any information to each other perfectly anyway." "Right, we do have the chat system..." Evalia muttered quietly, and Xenia slowly turned her head toward her with her brows raised, "And we¡¯re all staying in the same house over there right now." "Oh..." Evalia muttered a bit embarrassedly, "Right, sorry, Ipletely didn¡¯t think of that..." "Anyway." Jyuuk said, "We should all try to get to those ces as quickly as we possibly can. Like Eisen said, it might help us recover our memories." Chapter 550 Asgard Chapter 550 Asgard "So if all the red notifications are about people we need to meet or ces we need to go, then we¡¯ll have to go to those ces alone?" Xenia asked with a light frown, and Eisen slowly thought about it, "Let¡¯s say that¡¯s so, then... My guess would be that we¡¯ll have to go to each of our homecountries? For example, for me it would be area belonging to the Fire Giant King. For Brody it might be somewhere in the wastnds where Orcs usually live, for Jyuuk in the Beastman forest, for Evalia in the human country, and for you, Xenia, it should be in the north-east of the central continent in the High-Elves¡¯ town." Eisen pointed out, "For all of you, it shouldn¡¯t be an issue to get there. The only one that needs to be really, really careful is me, because I¡¯ll bepletely underleveled over there." "Yeah, but you do have your size-change ability and Askr, so maybe it won¡¯t be too bad after all?" Jyuuk suggested, "The only real reason why the monsters in the giant country have a higher level rmendation is because they¡¯re far bigger than normal. I¡¯m pretty sure whenpared to the actual giants living there, the level rmendation should be pretty much what a normal monster of that rank would be for us." Eisen slowly raised his brows in thought as he started running his fingers through his beard, "That definitely sounds right." The old man pointed out, "I think we should just consider it a possibility for now. We wouldn¡¯t have headed off right away anyway, we¡¯d still need to wait for Xenia and Evalia to reach level 300 as well. Until then, maybe we can figure out a little bit more about the red notifications." "So..." Evalia then started, seemingly wanting to speak about something else as well, now that it seemed like that part of the conversation was over, "We can found a country now, huh?" "Seems so." With a light smirk, Xenia crossed her legs after sitting down and leaned back a little, "Pretty exciting, actually." The group was currently sitting inside of the dungeon¡¯s first-floor restaurant and bar area, and Brody slowly stood up and made his way behind the actual bar. He looked around a bit before finding a nice, cold bottle of Whiskey that Eisen made some time ago. "Sounds like something worth a bit of a drink, eh?" The Demon-Orc said with a broad grin on his face, revealing his tusks even more than usual. He quickly grabbed five sses with his other hand and brought them over to the table where the five originals were sitting together, before pouring the whiskey in those five sses. "You just say that because you want an excuse to drink." Evalia used, and Brody looked at her before slowly closing his eyes and starting to chuckle, "What are you talking about, Evalia? I¡¯m an adult man currently living in a cer filled to the brim with alcohol, I don¡¯t need an excuse to drink." Brody said, before quickly downing the first ss of whiskey instantly and pouring himself a new one, "I have every reason to drink at literally any point in time." He added, continuosly keeping up a soft smile. Although, that smile quickly stopped when Eisen gave him a light p over the back of his head, "Hey, don¡¯t down whiskey like some cheap liquor." The old man said with a re, and Brody justughed and dropped onto his chair. With a slight smile, he looked at Eisen and then at the others around the table, "Hah, right, sorry ¡¯bout that. But seriously, I think having a drink here might be pretty good, right? I mean, it¡¯s something amazing to be a King just like that. And sure, this was something set up by Samuel, but-" "Wait." Eisen interrupted, "It wasn¡¯t really set up by Samuel, was it? Sure, he gave us the information that there were inds here, but in the end, he didn¡¯t give us any direct help. He never had the ability to actually influence things here like that." The old man pointed out with a light frown on his face as he slowly picked up his ss. "Huh, yeah, fair enough." Brody replied, "Did he actually help us at all? The ¡¯benefits¡¯ he gave us were all crap, right? They were all things gained as natural consequences of losing our experience." "And Eisen was the one that came up with that, right?" Jyuuk muttered in thought, "I mean, he was seemingly obsessed with finding out how to create artificial life, so I doubt anyone else could have found a method before him." "But why, actually? Why was this ce turned into a game in the first ce? They could have just gone ahead and used it as some sort of base for research. They could have literally made a hundred thousand years of scientific progress in a day. But they chose to make a game...?" "It absolutely doesn¡¯t make sense." Xenia agreed with Evalia, before Eisen immediately interrupted them. "Stop. Stop talking about this. Sorry, I know I brought it here in the first ce, but I really don¡¯t like this topic somehow." Eisen pointed out. It was like he was rejecting this topic with his whole body. Grinding his teeth together, tensing up all over the ce, pushing his nails into his arm... Eisen really wasn¡¯t sure what exactly was going on, but he knew that they couldn¡¯t keep speaking about this. [Material Growth has reached level 100 in Rank 3, upgrading to rank 4] Far, far earlier than Eisen expected, this notification appeared in front of Eisen, leaving literally only one task to bepleted to get him to level up to level 300. But somehow, Eisen couldn¡¯t get happy about this, he just still felt that seething anger from before that made him want to reject the topic from before so badly. "Since when¡¯ve you been scratching yourself like that..?" Brody asked, and Eisen¡¯s anger suddenly disappeared as he looked at the Demon-Orc. "What do you mean?" Eisen replied. With the ss in his hand, Brody simply pointed at Eisen¡¯s chest, "You¡¯ve been scratching your chest every once in a while now. For a couple weeks, actually. And in a pretty aggressive way too, as if you wanted to rip yourself open or something." "...Have I really?" The old man asked, and the others immediately nodded, "Yeah, it¡¯s like you mentioned with us before... It¡¯s just one of Eisen¡¯s habbits. With Brody it¡¯s his obsession with his horns and tusks, for me it¡¯s when I wiggle with my ears, with Jyuuk it¡¯s when he moves his tail around in different ways depending on his mood, and with Evalia it¡¯s that she sometimes randomly starts whistling some sort of tune." Eisen slowly raised his brows and took a sip of his drink, "I really didn¡¯t even notice. Have I really been doing it for that long?" "Yeah, I think so. I first noticed it only when we were on the ship though." Evalia pointed out, "At the same time you were speaking about how one of your skills ranked up or something." Immediately, Jyuuk nodded his head, "Right, yeah. When we were at the farming plot you did that after ranking up your farming skill as well." "And I just ranked up my Material Growth skill... Guess it¡¯s just some kind of habit I had when ranking up a skill in the past. Maybe it had to do with some kind of ability I had then." Eisen pointed out, "That¡¯s a pretty weird feeling though, having a habit you don¡¯t even know about." The old man slightlyughed, and Jyuuk loudly groaned. "You can say that again, I was actually so embarrassed when I found out about the thing with my tail. If I don¡¯t specifically think about not doing it, there¡¯s no way that I can stop it..." Jyuuk pointed out, and Xenia just smiled at him, "Hehe, I think it¡¯s actually pretty cute, you know? That you¡¯re actually a pretty bad liar." "I¡¯m not a bad liar! This body is, sure, but I¡¯m actually a pretty good liar." "Oh really? Did you lie to me before?" Xenia asked with a light grin as she looked at Jyuuk, who just froze up immediately while trying to find some kind of way out of this. But before he knew it, Xenia¡¯s eyes ran down toward Jyuuk¡¯s back end, and she raised her brows surprised, "Oh, you just wanted to lie to me? Come on, tell me, what were you about to say?" "...I¡¯m not getting out of this, right...?" "No you¡¯re not~." The High-Elf said with a light smirk, and the mood was finally lifted a bit more again after Eisen brought it down a notch like that. --- "Alright, so just like normal, I have to pour my mana inside? No special methods?" Eisen asked as he turned toward Prototype¡¯s Town Guardian Serio, who simply quickly nodded his head. "Yes, just like with any sort of core. Now that you fulfill the requirements, it should be properly activated and guide you through the process." Serio exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. He ced his hand onto therge crystal in front of him inside of thisrge underground room. "So that¡¯s a country core...?" Morrom asked curiously. After the group had met back up with them here in the town, they came with them to watch Eisen actually make a country, and Morrom took more than a slight interest in all the enchantment-based processes in this ce. Eisen slowly pushed his mana right into the country core with a slightugh, "Yeah it is, Morrom." [You have fulfilled all requirements to form a country led by your Guild World¡¯s Peak] [In order to form a country, you need the agreement of all still existing founding members of the Guild World¡¯s Peak] "You guys,e here and pour your mana inside as well." Eisen said as he looked at the other four originals, who quickly did as Eisen asked them to and ced their hands onto the country core before pushing their mana into therge crystal. [With the agreement of all founding members, you have formed a country] [As the Guildmaster, you will be assigned as King] [As founding Members, Xenia, Jyuuk, Brody and Evalia will be assigned as Dukes and Duchesses] [Are you sure you want to form a country?] "Yes." Eisen said immediately before another notification reced the rest. [Name your country] "Asgard." [You have formed the country Asgard under the guild World¡¯s Peak] [You are now the King of Asgard] [King of Asgard title gained] [The Draconic Demon Transformation ability has been affected by your royal nature. It is now the Draconic Demon King Transformation] Chapter 551 Level 300 The old man looked at the notifications in front of him, smiling as he waved them away. Immediately, they were reced by new notifications. [Level Up Quest Complete ¨C Road to 300] [Description] You have reached level 299 and as such, have gained the right to work toward reaching level 300. These are your requirements as calcted by your actions so far: -cksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Alchemy Skills at Rank 5 (true) -Racial Skills at Rank 5 (true) -upation Skill Crafting Space at Rank 5, Crafter¡¯s Mind at Rank 4, Ego-Item Creation at rank 3 (true) -Mana Maniption, me of the Earth Magic at Rank 5; Mana double, mana copy at Rank 4 (true) -Woodworking, Cooking, Drawing, Tool Connection, Soul Engineering, Farming, Mining, Masonry, Woodcutting Skills at Rank 4 (true) -All Draconic Gifts at rank 4(true) -Be a King(true) -Spend a total of 3 days in flight (true) [Reward] Level increased to 300 [Failure] Not possible --- [You are now level 300] [Congrattions! You reached level 300 and have now gained a new upation skill!] [Item Combination Skill learned] --- [Your upation upgrade will now proceed] [Your upation is now \u003cGodly Craftsmaster\u003e] [Your upation skill Crafting Space has been upgraded to Crafting Realm] [Your upation skill Crafter¡¯s Mind has been upgraded to Crafter¡¯s Being] [Your upation skill Ego-Item Creation has been upgraded to Ego-Item Construction] [Your upation skill Item Combination has been upgraded to Item Fusion] --- With a satisfied expression, Eisen looked through the notifications in front of him. That was a lot of information to work with now. He pulled up all the information windows of his four upation skills. For the most part, the Crafting Realm, Crafter¡¯s Being, and Ego-Item Construction really just seemed to be stronger or more potent versions of their predecessors. For example, the Crafting Realm skill¡¯s area of effect wasrger and the effect was stronger. Eisen could now have as many essories connected to a specific skill¡¯s tool as he wanted. Before he could have only had one hammer stored no matter how many essories he had, but now he could have ten hammers for his cksmithing stored as long as he had ten essories for it. The change that Eisen was most interested in was his other storage skill, basically. It weirdly seemed to make that essory-storage skillpletely obsolete though, since the ¡¯Material Storage¡¯ ability had be an ¡¯Item Storage¡¯ ability. Most likely, it would still allow him to store materials like before, but he had the additional possibility of storing items as well. He would take a look at thatter and test out how it changed, exactly. Then, there was the Crafter¡¯s Being skill. The visual abilities connected to it seemed to be the same as before, just that they were once more a bit more easy to use. Although, one pretty nice addition was that he was now able to directly share his Visualization with other people. As for the Ego-Item Construction skill... Eisen really couldn¡¯t see any sort of difference when hepared the information or abilities to what he remembered from the Ego-Item Creation skill. It was most likely a change that could only be seen when actually working with the skill, so Eisen would try that outter as well. And then, onto thest skill. The skill that he just gained. The Item Fusion skill. It seemed rather mysterious for multiple reasons. Eisen had the feeling that he knew of this skill, like it was familiar to him, but he didn¡¯t have the slightest idea of what it was supposed to be capable of. Beside Eisen¡¯s regr guesses through the skill¡¯s name, of course. But in the end, all he could really do was guess as well, since the skill¡¯s description was nothing more but ¡¯Fuse items together to enhance them¡¯. It really seemed a little weird to Eisen that there was so little information about the skill. But either way, in the end, he really just had to try it out then. "Well then. You¡¯re a King now, huh?" Brodyughed with his arms crossed, and the old man slowly waved the notifications in front of him away, "And the four of you are Dukes and Duchesses." The five originals seemed rather proud of this aplishment, Eisen rather soon noticed something else. Well, he noticed it after his attention was pulled toward it by Serio. "And now, let us wee another formerly lostrade. Gind, it is nice to see you again." Serio pointed out with a light bow directed toward part of the wall, which slowly started to crumble away. Right behind the bricks that just disappeared stood the figure of a surprisingly well-maintained core guardian. Parts of the metal skin seemed to have rusted away and simply revealed the ss inside of the body, but it was something that should be fixable rtively quickly. The core guardian had a female form and wore something like a pant suit. At the top of its forehead, Eisen could spot one singr horn that had its tip snapped away. "I see." The Guardian, Gind, muttered quietly before stepping out of the part of the wall that was seemingly meant to keep her safe whiel she wasn¡¯t functioning properly. She stood in front of Eisen and kneeled down on one knee, "Wee back, my King. Please allow this humble guardian to be your advisor once more." Gind said in an emotionless voice, and the old man just lightly smiled, although he was rather focused on something else that he soon mentioned as well. "dly. You seem to be quite literally made for it." Eisenughed lightly, and then let his eyes move toward Serio, who was still slightly bowing forward, "Also, could it be that Serio is slightly scared of you?" "I would hope so. After all, he left me in this ce alone after I had to resolve to a conservation-mode to make sure that country core could not be stolen. It was a system you yourself created, my King." "Serio." Eisen said, and the Core Guardian quickly turned around and looked at the old man with a nod, "Yes?" "Why exactly didn¡¯t you tell me that the Country Core Guardian was right here in this room the whole time?" "I simply didn¡¯t think it was the most important thing to do at the time." Serio pointed out quite swiftly, and Gind turned her head toward the Town Core Guardian, before he flinched in response to Gind¡¯s re. "You see- Ah! Sorry, someone tripped on the other side of town and injured themselves. I am required for first-aid. We will continue this situation soon." Serio said, and slightly bowed forward again before disappearing in a blue mist, leaving Gind to stand there alone. It seemed like Serio was in general just incredibly intimidated by Gind, somehow. "Now then, my King. If you would please, may you repair me? My physical and mental functions have been considerably weakened. Luckily I can still work to an extent, however." Gind pointed out. Eisen slowly nodded his head, "Alright, then let¡¯s just head over to the garden in a bit then. I still have a little bit of time left before I finally need to head off. Also, I would just like to confirm, but you don¡¯t exactly have the same abilities as other core guardians, right?" With a quick nod, Gind immediately confirmed Eisen¡¯s suspicion, "Yes. I do not have immediately knowledge of every ce inside of this country. I have rough geographical knowledge, information on weather and nesting patterns of monsters, as well as the information that the individual towns have ess to in a limited manner. As the country core is directly connected to this town¡¯s core, this town of Prototype has be the capital city of Asgard, and as such I am capable of transporting myself around simrly to Serio, but otherwise I can only directly transport myself between the towns in this country with the help of the different town cores." Gind exined quite swiftly. "As towns themselves are supposed to be managed by Town Core Guardians, I can function on another level. I can help with the organization of trade-routes internally and externally, respond to threats to the whole country, and simply manage important information far quicker than other sort of guardians might. Usually, at least. Currently, my functions are heavily inhibited. So I please once more ask that I can be repaired as quickly as feasible." "Of course. Then let¡¯s go." Eisen said quickly, and so, the whole group made their way through the basement area to get back to the ground floor, and then headed to the gardens, where Constant quickly transported himself over toward them. "Wee back, Master Eisen!" Constant eximed, also quickly greeting Gind and the others. Constant had met the grandmasters before, after all, the four of them wouldn¡¯t let up the chance to see this kind of ce if it was offered to them. "Constant, get all the materials ready we¡¯ll need to fix Gind up, and bring her over there already, yeah? Ah, and Parc, Rouge, you two please go ahead and make sure you fix up all the edges for me. I showed it to you before, right? Remove the rusted parts, make the edges smooth so that new parts can be added." The old man instructed the two boys, who quickly and excitedly nodded their heads. And so, everyone beside the five originals left toward the workshop for now, although Eisen quickly called Sky back. He needed to trante something real quick, after all. "Oh, right, there was that... Yeah, I¡¯ll take a quick look. I¡¯m pretty good with trantion now, hehe." Sky said with a smug expression, before Eisen took the piece of paper out of a small spatial gem. The moment he did, the piece of paper folded in half twice, and then folded open into the opposite direction again. Sky quickly grabbed the piece of paper then, and could quickly tell what it said. "The second task is to... be a Skybreacher? But wait, you already have that title, right?" Before Eisen could actually answer, the piece of paper started folding in half twice again. Basically, it repeated the same process as the time before. This time when it folded open, Sky looked at the piece of paper, and then read what it said again, "Be a True Champion..." He tranted, and immediately the paper changed one more time. "Be a King..." Sky said next, and once more, the piece of paper changed, just to say, "Burn me in the Giants¡¯ mes... This is thest task..." And it seemed like just like that, Eisen had managed toplete all the tasks that he gave himself through the puzzlebox before any of the others. Chapter 552 Girlands Repairs Eisen looked down at the piece of paper with a smile on his face before putting it back into the spatial gem he was carrying with him. "Are you kidding me?" Brody asked with a loud, obviously annoyed groan, "Are you seriously gonna finish this up before me? How annoying is that?" The Demon Orc sighed with his arms crossed, while Eisen just slightlyughed and looked at Brody with a smile on his face. "Don¡¯t worry, it won¡¯t take you long to get there either. And really, the fact that I have to literally have to go for this next one should make up for it, right?" Eisen pointed out, before Brody just slightly shrugged, "Still annoying." The old man smiled a bit as he started stepping down the stairs to really get into the main area of the garden, quickly followed by the other originals and Sky. "What do you think our other tasks will be?" Evalia asked Xenia, as the two of them were the only ones that didn¡¯t reach level 300 yet, and the High-Elf thought about it for a little while, "Well, Eisen¡¯s were all somehow rted to different achievements that weren¡¯t directly rted to him being a craftsman, so I¡¯m not sure if we can exactly guess. But really, what a coincidence that you were on your path for that already, huh?" "Was it?" Sky then suddenly asked, and the others looked at him surprised and intrigued, before Xenia looked down at him with her brows raised, "What do you mean?" The Fey-Kin boy scratched the back of his neck with a slight groan before exining, "Eisen was coincidentally brought to a ce where he would end up bing a champion? Who knows, maybe that ¡¯great goddess¡¯ made sure he would end up in Melroe and meet the gold dragon. One¡¯s element is dependant not only on their actions, but also on their soul itself, so it might have been so that no matter what, he would have always gotten the me of the Earth element. Since it¡¯s a supportive element made to, amongst other things, boost the user¡¯s body, it was only a matter of time for him to get that sort of form. The ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ was a well-known demon in the past, even if it wasn¡¯t know that it was one of those that peaked. As such, him being acknowledged as the ¡¯Golden-Eyed Demon¡¯ was only a matter of time as well." After that sight on things, Jyuuk slowly cupped his chin and then nodded his head, even though he was still concerned about something else, "Alright, that does all make sense, but what about the ¡¯be a king¡¯ one? If Samuel hadn¡¯t told us to found a country, we may have never done it." "Actually, I don¡¯t think so." Sky replied, "The reasons that that Samuel gave you for founding a country might have been legitimate. If he thought he would be able to control you like dolls, then it would have been the best way to get influence over the whole world, right? After all, with all the power and contacts you all have, there wouldn¡¯t be many that would want to fight you after finding out who you are. But even then, Eisen said that the one who made the suggestion about making a town was you, Jyuuk. The next step after that would have naturally been to found a country." Once more, Sky summed everything up in a prettyprehensive way, and Eisen just ended up quietly walking forward while he thought about what Sky said. "Definitely, that makes sense..." Evalia replied after a little while, and Sky just lightly smirked, "Well, I¡¯m a smart one, after all." Sky pointed out, and Eisen turned his eyes toward him with his brows slightly raised. Sky never was the type to brag like that, although it was most likely a joke. But that was really a good thing though, since it meant that he feltfortable enough with all of them to actually make these kinds of jokes without any worry. Eisen tried to think about what exactly he should do to actually get his demon title¡¯s requirements over with, and although it wasn¡¯t the very next piece on the priority list, it was second only to stopping the possibility of major war between yers and metallic dragons emerging. He would fly back to the continent in a little while for this... Which was quite annoying, really. Eisen just got here, and he would have to leave again basically immediately. Either way, at some point, the rest of the group also reached the workshop deeper in the garden, where Constant had really already prepared everything that Eisen would need to get started with reparing Gind¡¯s body. And so, the old man quickly did something he should really try out first, since it was something he needed for crafting. He activated the rather lengthy ¡¯Draconic Demon King¡¯ transformation. For the most part, it seemed to be really the same, just that he had now a dozen differently sized horns at the top of his head that were intertwining and twisting to form a shape that could really be just called a crown. Eisen looked at him within a mirror that Xenia quickly made for him using magic, with satisfaction. Of course, since this transformation also made him taller than normal ever since the ¡¯Draconic¡¯ part was added to it, Eisen actually actively shrunk himself down now to counteract that growth. This way, he was just his regr height right now. With a satisfied expression, Eisen grabbed the materials that Constant prepared for him and quickly started to alloy them with each other. And while that was happening, Eisen thought he should take that little bit of time to y around with his new ¡¯Crafting Realm¡¯ skill. He swiftly activated it and basically felt the room be filled out with his mana. Xenia¡¯s ears slightly started twitching and she got goosebumps on her arms, so Eisen knew that it was actually the case judging from her diforted reaction. The moment that Eisen did this, he noticed some smaller, subtle changes everywhere. The mes¡¯ temperature was adjusted to be perfect for alloying the metals, the metal itself stopped just so slightly sticking to the inner surface of the crucible. The air became easier to breath, and Eisen felt like his body became much lighter, while somehow all the important materials and tools that he needed for this current project seemed to stick out to him. It was somewhat like they were simply more vibrant while everything else was slightly grayed out, although Eisen was positive that it wasn¡¯t actually the case. He just thought that it was, even without his eyes actually making him do it. He was just super aware of all of the things he needed, and that made them automatically seem like they literally stuck out. Eisen pulled out his hammer from his apron and stepped over toward the finished alloy, before pouring it out into ingot molds. He soon pulled the ingots out of those molds while they were still hot, and before they even cooled down started to hammer them into shape. And those shapes were that of the areas were parts of Gind¡¯s skin were quite literally missing. Just crumbled away and destroyed. Either way, it seemed like Parc and Rouge did a pretty good job so far with preparing Gind¡¯s body for everything, so Eisen swiftly prepared the pieces for the areas that they had already finished. For now, the old man just let the pieces cool down a little more while he took a look into Gind¡¯s body to once more make sure that he knew all the ces where parts of the ss was missing, too scratched up, or simply too brittle. Since even Eisen thought that this would be a little too invasive for Gind to have two apprentices literally stick their fingers inside of her body and scratch around in there, Eisen took on the task of preparing the parts where the ss needed to be reced. Gind didn¡¯t really seem to have too much of an issue with it though, as she simply let Eisen do what he had to do. After Eisen was done with this, he started getting the ss for everything ready by mixing the silica sand, limestone, soda ash, and multiple different crystals together before smelting it down and properly mixing it together. He then went ahead and started blowing the ss into shape using his ssblowing pipe, although he was a little bit annoyed by the fact that the multitool was shaking around because it was angry or annoyed that Eisen was using a different tool. He should just try to add whatever he could ever really need to the multitool for the next artificial evolution. It was still quite a while away, but betterte than never, really. After Eisen finished all the parts up, he swiftly attached them in the right ces and fixed them in ces using materialbination through alchemy, and then just smoothed everything over a little more. There was still a bit of a shade-difference between the new parts and the old parts, but if Gind disliked this, Evalia could simply go ahead and paint over her metal skin a little bit so that you couldn¡¯t notice the differnce between the parts. But it seemed like Gind didn¡¯t really mind, so Eisen was fine with it as well. "Thank you for finally repairing me. Then now, I think there are a lot of things to take care of. As usual, I assume that you wish to leave and want me to take care of everything?" Gind asked, patting down her clothes a little bit to get rid of the dust, and Eisen smiled at her and nodded his head. "It would be great if you could. There is something I need to take care of soon, so I¡¯ll be leaving in the morning to fly over there. The others are staying here though, so ask them for any help you need." "Of course. But as there are mostly logistical matters take care of, I don¡¯t think there is much to help me with. Maybe asking Serio might be a better idea, he seems to be messing around right now, so he could use someone to make sure he doesn¡¯t. And I truthfully just don¡¯t want to be the one to do that." With a slightugh, Eisen just turned around as he started trying to figure out if there was anything else he needed to do tonight. It was getting rtivelyte over here right now, so it might be a good idea to just sleep for now and then fly over to Melroe as quickly as he could around midnight or 1 or 2 am. That way, he should definitely arrive way before the ¡¯raid¡¯ happened. Chapter 553 Special Contrac Benjamin stepped out of his bedroom and stepped toward the livingroom area again. Right there, Benji seemingly just got back from a run and was sitting on the couch while eating something proper. "What¡¯s up?" Benji asked with a smile on his face, and Benjamin slowly sat down right next to him, "Well, beside me finally being a king, not much." He exined with augh, making Benji just stare at him for a few seconds. Benji ced down the te onto the coffee table and swallowed what he had in his mouth before moving over a bit to get a better look at his grandfather. "What?" "Yeah, really just a little bit ago we set everything up. I¡¯m a King, and the others are Dukes." With a slight groan, Benji rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Already? Shit, I wanted to be there and watch..." The young man pointed out, before Benjamin slightly smiled, "It wasn¡¯t that interesting, really. We just all had to push mana into the country core under the castle in Prototype and that was it. Nothing shifted, there weren¡¯t any cool lights, it was all just notifications." The old man pointed out, and Benji leaned back on the couch with a shrug. "Would have still been cool to see though. Ah, and by the way, take a look at this..." Benji said and pulled out his phone, before quickly connecting it to the TV and making it y a video. It was just a forest of tents and carriages at the start. Of course, inbetween those tents and carriages, people were walking around, trying to trade or just screwing around with each other. At first, Benjamin didn¡¯t think much of it, but then he saw a certain mountain and tunnel right behind it. The camera started traveling through the tunnel, and Benjamin slightly groaned, "Those are the yers gathering at Melroe?" "Yup. Insane, right? Well, it gets even more insane." Benji exined and sped the video up a little. The moment that the video revealed the town, Benjamin knew what his grandson was speaking about. Not only was the townpletely filled with numerous yers, there were construction-sites all over town. It seemed that at an equal distance to each other, the yers were building some kind of construct to help them in the fight. And at that point, Benjamin became outraged. "They want to turn my Melroe into a battlefield? What the fuck is Belrim even doing?" The old man muttered as he pushed his teeth together, seething of anger. "...It gets worse..." Benji pointed out, and Benjamin just stared at the TV screen. And the next thing Eisen saw was even more outrageous. The Belrim that Benjamin thought to have simply ignored all of this happening was actually one of the main perpetrators of this whole thing, it seemed. And to top it off, he was talking to some seemingly quite high-level yers, but still not as high-level as Eisen and the others, about whose fault this all is. And the ones that he named were none other than the ¡¯Five Originals¡¯. With a deep groan, Benjamin started to shake his head in annoyance. "Well, at least I¡¯ll be there to take care of all this soon." Benjamin pointed out as he leaned back on the couch. It would be of no use to just jump up and sit back down in the capsule now, since he still had to recover a bit by sleeping for a while. "And you¡¯ll most likely have something to level your Demonic de up with, huh?" Benji added, before Benjamin looked over toward him, "What do you mean? I¡¯ll try to solve this without having to kill anyone if I can. I¡¯m hoping that this will be the case." The old man said, but Benji just looked at him with his brows raised as if what he just said waspletely ridiculous. "Come on, just think about it. Hundreds of people are gathering to somehow kill an ancient dragon in some kind of epic battle. Do you really think they¡¯ll just leave after being told that Ailren¡¯s a good guy?" The young man¡¯s words really made sense, but Benjamin would still prefer it to not have to solve it like that. He didn¡¯t mind if he had to do it, of course, all the Artificials would return in due time, after all, but still... Killing hundreds of yers wouldn¡¯t necessarily do good in trying to convince people that ¡¯World¡¯s Peak¡¯ were the good guys and Merc and Cial were the bad ones. Benjamin crossed his legs and closed his eyes, trying to think of a way to properly get through this. And then, he slowly remembered something quite useful, and then just started to smirk. "Benji, it¡¯s your turn againter, right? You and Evalia areing with me. I could make use of your Demon Alter-Ego for a little while." The old man announced, and just started to think this through some more. --- Eisen stood there and just waited for Stahl and Evalia toe over while he himself was finishing up the item that he would use to actually transport them all. Really, it was just a wooden box clothed with some thick, soft cloth on the inside. It wasrge enough to just fit five people, Stahl and Evalia, as well as Caria, Melissa and Sal. Of course, Eisen didn¡¯t go anywhere without those three with him. Either way, connected to the wooden box were some straps that Eisen could properly attach to himself and then reinforce with his element to make sure he wouldn¡¯t drop the box ever. The three monster-teens were already inside of the box, ready to go, but Stahl and Evalia were onlying over right now. Although it seemed like Evalia wasn¡¯t necessarily too happy about it, "Tell me, why exactly do I need toe? I was going to level up some skills of mine a little more. So why-" Immediately, Eisen interrupted her and waved his hand to the side, activating his new ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Being¡¯ skill to share the visualization of what he needed her for, and Evalia slowly but surely nodded her head, "Alright, I¡¯m in. That¡¯s awesome." The young woman said with a broad smile, and Stahl just looked at his grandfather with a light, nervous frown, "You really want me to do THAT? I mean, how am I even going to get thatrge? We already tried something like that, it¡¯s still really hard for Evalia to manipte everything in a way that it actually looks real." Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Eisen pushed his hand into a pocket of his apron and pulled out a thin metal bracelet with some gems set into it and enchantments all over it. "Right, ability enchanting... Nevermind then. So Evalia will just take care of the special effects?" "That¡¯s the idea, yes. I¡¯ll exin it a little more once we¡¯re there, we still a couple of days left until the actual ¡¯raid¡¯ is set to happen, so we have plenty of time." "Really? How fast do you think we can travel over there?" Stahl asked curiously, and Eisen just smiled at his grandson a little before crossing his arms, "A little faster than the ship, I¡¯d say. Now,e on already." Eisen stepped aside and opened up the door to therge wooden box, or rather the small wooden room, and let the two of them get inside. "Alright, Serio, Gind, while I¡¯m off, Xenia, Jyuuk and Brody have all my authority, alright?" The old man said while looking at the two Core Guardians, both of which quickly nodded. "Of course." "As you wish, my King." With that, Eisen just increased his size to the total maximum and then activated his Draconic Demon King transformation, before picking up the box and then having his elemental properly attach the straps to Eisen all over his body. Once that was done, Eisen reinforced everything as much as he could to make sure the box couldn¡¯t fall down during the flight. And while the Elemental Spirit dove back into Eisen¡¯s body for now, the old man jumped up and started to fly into the direction of the harbor for now. He tried to slowly get up to his maximum regr speed, at which point he already reached the harbor, and then started to turn his body into mes, which were represented as crystals in this form. Eisen¡¯s body was now beingpletely covered in golden crystals, until it looked like Eisen was just a man sculpted out of those crystals. Of course, Eisen could have done this close to instantly, but he didn¡¯t want to increase his speed too rapidly, since that would mean that the five inside of the box wouldn¡¯t be toofortable. It might even be pretty dangerous, considering that Eisen¡¯s maximum speed like this wasparable to a small airne. And so, the old man started traveling inbetween the inds and the continent one more time, this timepletely while flying. It was actually a pretty nice sight to see the ocean from this sort of angle with nothing around him at all. Especially the sight ofnding closer and closer after a few hours was something to behold, somehow. Eisen could immediately see the Starlight Building towering over all the others in the harbor town, and the old man proceeded to justnd on top of the roof there, where Komer was already waiting. Eisen had sent him a message that he was getting closer, after all. "No need to even get rid of your transformation, just lower that small house strapped to your chest a bit." Komer said, and Eisen just smiled in response and did as asked before Komer opened the door up to give the special fate contracts he was asked to make to Stahl and Evalia. "Seriously though, why do you need this kind of contract? First time I had to roll them up into scrolls like that. It¡¯s pretty cool, but it still makes me curious." With a slightugh, Eisen just winked at Komer, "Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll find out soon enough. Just make sure to watch the news." "Right... Well, just try not to fuck up. The repercussions for a contract like that are literally a hundred times worse than normal. Don¡¯t set a reward that you can¡¯t give them." "I know it, don¡¯t worry. Well, thank you, anyway. We¡¯re going to head off to meet Ailren now." Eisen replied to Komer with a smile on his face, and the young Fate Merchant quickly nodded his head. "Got it. Also, if you can... Could you record your view for me? I would really like to see what a fate contract like that looks like after it¡¯s been activated. It¡¯s sure to be amazing, right?" Chapter 554 Warning Ailren Eisen was flying through the air with therge wooden box properly attached to his body. He was trying to make sure that they were actuallyfortable during this rtively long trip, so he tried to keep his body as steady as absolutely possible. Either way, soon, Eisen started seeing the mountains in the distance, and then looked down a bit, "Kirisho. Could you cloak me a bit?" The old man asked, and without another moment of hesitation, mist streamed out of the amulet around Eisen¡¯s neck and covered the old man¡¯s whole enormous body. "Is this alright?" Kirisho asked, and Eisen quickly nodded with a smile on his face, "Mhm, it¡¯s perfect this way. Thanks." It still wasn¡¯t necessarily inconspicuous like this, but it was better than Eisen¡¯s demon form just like that. A few minutester, Eisen started being able to see the mass of yers that were camping out in front of the town because there wasn¡¯t actually enough space inside of the town. He a was a little bit annoyed to see how many people were actually brainlessly gathering here for something like this. Eisen soon descended on the tform right in front of Ailren¡¯s cave, where he carefully put down the box before deactivating his demonic transformation, although he kept his size increased. He usually didn¡¯t, because not many ces were built to be able to hold Eisen at this size, but as this was the ce a dragon lived, the caves were rather spacious and more than big enough for the old man like this. "Are you guys alright?" Eisen asked as he squatted down a bit and looked at the five peopleing out of the box. Stahl seemedpletely fine, although Evalia seemed a bit ufortable and stretched out properly the moment that she had the chance to. Eisen figured that the first ¡¯changes¡¯ were setting in for her now as well. After all, Eisen and Brody¡¯s sense of pain didn¡¯t reappear instantly, rather, it was a gradual growth. It would probably still take a little while for Evalia to get to the point where she¡¯s going to fully get her sense of pain back, but she should still be at the start of that path at the very least. After everyone got out, Eisen picked up the box again and carried it into the cave, so that it couldn¡¯t be spotted by anyone from down in Melroe somehow, and then ced it down behind a cave wall where it could be easily missed when entering. A little whileter, the group managed to reach the ce they wanted to reach, it was the treasury of the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth, who was just leisurely sleeping, and not waking up even after people entered the cave. Somewhat annoyedly, Eisen stepped up to Ailren and ced his foot onto his body to just roll him over and hopefully wake him up. The moment he did so, Ailren¡¯s eyes opened up and he ufortably looked over at Eisen before slowly sitting up, "Ah, Eisen. It has been a while. Who may those five be?" The Gold Dragon asked, and Eisen one after another quickly exined. He didn¡¯t want to spend too much time on this, since this wasn¡¯t why he was here. "That¡¯s Evalia, you already met her and literally picked her up at the Humans¡¯ capital town. The boy is Stahl, my grandson. Then there¡¯s Caria, a Myconid Girl, Melissa, a Queen Bee, or rather Great Empress Bee now, as well as Sal, a highly-magical spider-boy. But you already met Caria and Melissa." "Interesting, all three of them are monsters, and yet their forms have turned this humanoid only at Rank 5? Really, there has to be something about you that is causing this. I doubt it is only your attitude." Ailren pointed out, and Eisen slightly shrugged. "Probably. I apparently was obsessed with trying to create proper artificial life, and since that life was supposed to be humanoid, maybe it was that. I can¡¯t be sure though, so don¡¯t quote me on that." The old man pointed out, and Ailren lightly chuckled and then turned over toward Eisen again. "But you yourself have changed quite a lot as well, haven¡¯t you? Last time I saw you, you had merely gained the ability to change your size. And now you can grow to a sizeparable to mine." Ailren pointed out, and Eisen slightly shrugged as he activated his Draconic Demon King transformation. His body grew roughly seven or eight more meters, and Eisen¡¯s crown-like horns nearly scraped along the ceiling, and he was now actually towering over Ailren¡¯s body. "Well then, nevermind that. Evenrger, I see? Ah, and it seems you even reached a different important point? Two, even. I congratte you on bing a King and a True Champion. It is truly an honor to have been the one to give you your first trials." Ailren pointed out in a slightly sentimental tone of voice, and Eisen just looked back at him with a light smile as he deactivated his demonic transformation again. "Thank you. But I think I should tell you the reason why I¡¯m here right now." Eisen pointed out, "As you might know, a lot of people have gathered in and around Melroe these past few days." With a slow nod, Ailren looked at the cave entrance, "Yes, that is so. Roughly two weeks ago, one of those ¡¯Artificials¡¯ made it up here. He came uninvited and was rather rude as well. He tried to attack me without any hesitation. I red at him and he fell to the ground, so I used a quick fire breath to get rid of him. And then suddenly those people started gathering down there." That exnation seemed to make a fair amount of sense, really. It¡¯s how Eisen expected it went down, anyway. It was nice to have this sort of confirmation. "Alright, then you should also be aware of why they¡¯re here. They¡¯re here to try and subjugate you." Eisen pointed out, and Aylrentyrth slightly chuckled, "I see, so you came here out of worry for me? That is quite kind of you, but there are no special people down there. I can take them quite easily. So youring here was quite useless, if I can be so blunt." "On the contrary." The old man said immediately and crossed his arms as he sat down on the ground cross-legged, "Listen, I have something to exin to you." Eisen started. And then, he proceeded to tell this Ancient Gold Dragon who has lived a few thousand years the truth of this world and the ¡¯Artificials¡¯. But it seemed like he didn¡¯t believe in the old man¡¯s words immediately. "What are you even saying? Another world? A game? This is ridiculous, Eisen. Tell me why you are really-" Ailren eximed loudly, but was quickly interrupted by the old man who didn¡¯t want to have this sort of discussion. And so, he made use of one of the abilities he gained when he became a King. "Silence." The old man said, his words supported by the ¡¯Royal Authority¡¯ ability. It didn¡¯t workpletely, of course, but it still made Ailren stop for a moment during which Eisen got the chance to start speaking again. "Use your eyes, Ailren. You are a being that can see the absolute truth, so why are you running from it? You know exactly that I¡¯m telling the truth, don¡¯t you?" Eisen said with a deep frown, "Those people out there, the Artificials, are quite literally immortal. They can wake up a few hours after being killed. And since to them, it is a ¡¯game¡¯, they will hold a grudge toward the fact they¡¯ve been killed by you. It might not be next week, or next month, but over and over again, the people you will have killed here wille back to return the favor. And at some point, you won¡¯t be able to fight back anymore." For a few moments, Aylrentyrth stayed silent as he stared back at Eisen, and in the end just sighed out of annoyance and frustration, "I see. So you are speaking the truth after all... I can see the logic behind that, truthfully, but there is no reason to worry. If theye close to reaching my strength, I will simply travel to a new ce to nest. It would be a shame, but it is not like I would not be ready to abandon this nest if I have to." "You don¡¯t understand, Ailren. It¡¯s not just about you. If you go ahead and kill all of these people over and over again, they will start truthfully seeing you as evil. And when they see you as evil, the same will be the case with other metallic dragons. Instead, more people will join the side of the chromatic dragons, and it willpletely jeopardise your possibility of sess in this war." Finally, it seemed like Ailren actually understood. With a bit of thought, he looked at the old man in front of him before just nodding his head, "I see... Then what do you ask of me? That I sacrifice myself for the greater good?" With those words, Ailren didn¡¯t even seem to be joking, which Eisen immediately picked up on. "What? No! Obviously not! You don¡¯t have to do anything but appear and look strong and mighty after I tell you to. Put on a show of your strength. I will do the speaking and try to make sure to convince everyone that you¡¯re not a bad guy, alright? Well, I might pull some hostility toward myself while I¡¯m at it, but it¡¯s mostly just a way to show my power. Artificials have a different view on me and others they acknowledge as ¡¯people¡¯ anyway." Eisen pointed out, and Ailren leaned forward curiously, "I see. May I inquire about more parts of your n?" The Ancient Gold Dragon asked, and Eisen just slightly chuckled in response. He turned over toward Stahl and Evalia, "Those two will y a quite important part too. Well, Stahl has the hardest role, I¡¯d say. I just have to hold a speech in my Draconic Demon King form and no matter what I say it will have some sort of impact. But Stahl has to convince as many people as he can to sign a document." The old man exined, and Stahl quickly rolled out the contract that they picked up from Komer before. It was a special sort of contract. It had one ¡¯Party A¡¯, and dozens of spaces for a collective ¡¯Party B¡¯. Eisen would be the ¡¯Party A¡¯ in question, and the ¡¯Party B¡¯ would obviously be made of artificials. Well, there was another version of this contract with slight changes in the ¡¯penalty¡¯ section for the ¡¯NPCs¡¯, but other than that, it really was the same. The contract for the artificials was one that would directly lead to the death of any member of ¡¯Party B¡¯ in case of failure. Chapter 555 Air Walking Eisen watched as Evalia started painting Stahl¡¯s ¡¯Demon Suit¡¯ onto him before Eisen started to exin how the bracelet he gave Stahl was supposed to work. "Alright, when you push your mana into the green gem, you will shrink, and when you push your mana into the red gem you will grow. It depends on how much mana you use, so just test it out first to get a feel for it." Eisen said, and Stahl swiftly nodded. "Gotcha. But you really think it¡¯s a good idea to do it like this?" Stahl asked. He wasn¡¯t entirely sure if it was, since this n would result in the death of numerous people instantly. Instead of the yers antagonizing Ailren, Eisen would be antagonizing those yers. It might turn him into aplete public enemy for yers. But on the other hand, Eisen¡¯s reasoning for this n did also make sense to an extent, "I do think it is a good idea. Obviously people will get mad at me, but it doesn¡¯t matter if I die. I can juste back a little whileter. And if I had to be honest, I would much rather people fear me than look down on me. At least for now, since it¡¯s going to make things a lot easier for us going forward." Eisen exined and once he noticed Stahl¡¯s slightly worried expression just started tough, "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not nning on being a Tyrant or anything. It¡¯s just so that people don¡¯t try to fight us out of nowhere just to be able to say that they fought us." "Ah... yeah, that would probably happen." Stahl said with a wry smile, "It still might, even if people know they¡¯ll die if they do." "Well, hopefully it would be less, at least." The old man pointed out as he swiftly waved his hand to the side and opened up his Item Storage. There were only minor differencespared to before, really. The main visual difference was that it was a little bit bigger than it was before as the material storage. And of course, it could store items. But Eisen didn¡¯t do that yet, he still mainly just had his materials in there. His materials, as well as two rather special boxes. And so, the old man shrunk down and grabbed those boxes. "Evalia." Eisen said, and the artist slowly turned her head toward him, "Hm?" She asked, and Eisen just threw the key-box to the ¡¯Portable Atelier¡¯ over to her, "As a little ¡¯thank you¡¯ for giving me door idea." "Hm? What is this?" She asked, and Eisen just lightly smiled at her, "You and Stahl can go ahead and go on a little walk. There¡¯s a small tform that¡¯s rtively hidden just a five minute walk away from the cave entrance. I¡¯ll have one of Melissa¡¯s bees show you the way, so try the key out over there. And don¡¯t worry, if the ce is too unsafe, it¡¯s not going to unfold all the way, so just try it a couple times if you need to." Eisen suggested, and Evalia looked at the small, but incredibly heavy, box in her hand really curiously. "Alright, yeah, you can be sure that I¡¯ll try it as often as I need to! Thank you so much!" She eximed with a bright smile, and Eisen just smiled back at her, "Don¡¯t mention it. And Stahl, you just try to figure out what kinds of changes might be good if you want to have this as your Demon form. You¡¯ll most likely be a Yang Demon, so you need to properly engage that positive energy. And try the bracelet out a little." Eisen suggested, and the old man¡¯s grandson quickly nodded. "Got it. Then we¡¯ll see youter." Stahl said with a smile, and then left toward the exit together with Evalia and one of Melissa¡¯s bees to guide them, like Eisen said. And once they properly left, Ailren chose to turn himself into his humanoid form, all the whilst Kirisho came out of the amulet around Eisen¡¯s neck. With a soft smile, the ghost looked at Ailren and lightly bowed forward, "It¡¯s an honor to see you again, Ailren." Kirisho said, and the Ancient Gold Dragon somewhat chuckled as he looked back at her, "Likewise. I am d to see you are doing better than when Ist saw you. Eisen seems to be treating you well." Ailren pointed out, and with what Eisen could only call a short giggle, Kirisho nodded her head. "Yes, he is. I hope you are not too lonely here without me." The Mist-Spirit pointed out, and the dragon smiled back, "I found constion in taking on your former sleep schedule." "...weren¡¯t you sleeping all the time anyway?" Eisen asked, and Ailren turned his head toward him, "I never mentioned when I took on her sleep schedule. Now anyway, what is that box that you gave to Evalia? It¡¯s the same to the one you are holding, is that not so?" The Dragon inquired rather curiously, and Eisen quickly increased his size as he started pushing away some of the treasure that umted inside of here to make space for the portable shop. "What are you doing?" Ailren asked confusedly, and Eisen simply smiled back at him, "You asked me what the box is, so I¡¯ll show you. But I need a little space for that." He replied. Eisen continued clearing out some space before shrinking back down to his normal size. Eisen stepped over in front of the area that he cleared up and quickly activated visualization, although just for himself, to make sure that the shop would actually fit in here. "Melissa, sweetie,e a bit more over here." The old man said with a smile and stretched his hand out to the Great Empress Bee, who just came running over to him and then clung to the old man¡¯s leg. And as Eisen rubbed his one hand over the top of her head, he stretched his other hand out forward and pushed his mana into the key. The moment he did so, the box started unfolding and soon turned into the front door of the portable shop, at which point Eisen could let go of the key. And then, from the door outward, the building appeared in front of Eisen, Kirisho and Ailren, while the gold dragon in particr was just watching this happen inplete awe, "I see. So this is it. A rather beautiful process, if my opinion matters in any way." "Thank you. And of course it matters. Evalia¡¯s is something simr. Same item, different building. Her¡¯s is more art-oriented." Eisen pointed out as he pushed open the door to the shop, watching the rest of the building fold open from the inside, "Come on, let¡¯s go through to the back. I¡¯ll just get started on some items for this real quickly." Eisen stepped through to the back of the building into the workshop area. He then opened up his item storage and grabbed some of the materials out of it. First things first, Eisen would work on an item that corrted to a suggestion that Stahl made to Eisen before about the ¡¯act¡¯. In general, it was rted to his image of what kind of Demon Stahl wanted to be. Basically, it could be summed up in one word. Trickster. With a lot ofpletely ridiculous, technically unnecessary gimicks that simply made someone want to stare at them all day just because they looked cool. The first thing that Eisen was going to make was one of the few things that Stahl couldn¡¯t just do with the skills of one of his upations, with magic, or with the assistance of Evalia. And that was walking in the air. In the end, this was a very specific sort of magic that you normally wouldn¡¯t be able to cast if you weren¡¯t a direct mage, or at least it would be very, very hard to do so. And even then, as long as you didn¡¯t have the right element, you would still have a hard time. But luckily, Eisen had ess to one of the elements that made air-walking possible. And that element was the ¡¯Barrier¡¯ element. It was an element that was quite literally meant to create barriers of different sorts. They were obviously mostly meant to just be defensive, but since they could be ¡¯fixed¡¯ to a location for a little while, it was possible to walk on them. It was a rather rare element, one that you seemingly could only get when you were a sorcerer with a very specific skillset, but Eisen was lucky enough that he was able to get his hands on this element after someone requested a ¡¯barrier staff¡¯ to be made. To start it off with, Eisen really just needed to make shoes. Their aesthetic didn¡¯t matter too much, but Eisen figured they should at least not stick out in either situation, no matter if Stahl was in his ¡¯Demon¡¯ mode or just walking around regrly. Obviously in the former situation it didn¡¯t matter too much since Stahl¡¯s Demon form was meant to be mostly his regr form with the main changes being his outfit, so no matter what, Stahl would most likely end up with the ability to put on that ¡¯costume¡¯ no matter what he was wearing at any point in time. So, Eisen really just needed to fit it to Stahl¡¯s regr style, which wasn¡¯t that hard either, since Stahl mostly just wore any shoes he wanted to. He didn¡¯t have a ¡¯regr style¡¯, so Eisen at least tried to make them look good by themselves. And so, he created the shoes by using leather that was half-infused with mana to give them just that tiny increase in the mana flow without actually turning the leather into magic materials. The thing that Eisen mostly had to work on were the soles, where the actual enchantments and inscriptions had to be ced. The most important material Eisen used for this was some leather that this time was properly infused with the barrier element, which Eisen wouldter protect with ayer of thicker, more protectiveyer of leather that Eisen could properly carve to have good grip on the ground. Eisen took a gem that he had ability-enchanted with the Barrier Element and then used his Magic Inscription skill to change how the barrier system worked. Basically, whenever magic was pushed into the gem, a barrier with a modifiable size and shape would appear at short distance and could disappear instantly as wel, all the whilst being invisible. Then, Eisen carved the enchantments into the soles to make sure that the effect could be connected to another item which Eisen would maketer to let Stahl easily control this, and filled those enchantments out with the gem Eisen ability-enchanted and inscribed and then softened the enchantments to make sure they wouldn¡¯t cause Stahl difort while walking. And just like that, the air-walking shoes had been finished. Chapter 556 Getting Ready Eisen sat the shoes to the side and started thinking about how to best create the other effects. The boots were able to create a small barrier to stand on at any possible angle, but of course you wouldn¡¯t be able to stand on a barrier created in front of you vertically just like that. That meant that Eisen had to make something else that would apply a new gravitational force on the body depending on the cement of the barriers. Getting that angle information wouldn¡¯t really be such an issue, it was just that Eisen had to find a proper way to make the gravity affect anything and everything on Stahl¡¯s body. After all, the ¡¯awesome¡¯ effect would be gone if Stahl stood somewhere upside down and his top-hat just fell to the ground. And then, the old man had an idea. All that Eisen really needed was an item that could grab Stahl¡¯s form, and then apply gravity magic to just exactly that area. It wasn¡¯t necessarily thatplex to figure this out, especially by making use of magic inscription. After all, like that, it was possible for Eisen to simply create that ¡¯form capture¡¯ ability in a smart way, so that Stahl could easily move around without any hesitation. At first Eisen thought about making a basic Stahl form capture and use it for everything from then on, but that wouldn¡¯t really properly work if Stahl grabbed any other items, and most importantly, it would probably mess up when Eisen tried to increase or decrease his size for the performance. So instead, by using Magic Inscription on a ¡¯Mind¡¯ crystal, the kind that was used to make regr golems, Eisen could easily have Stahl¡¯s current form puted¡¯ in a proper way. Every item he was holding, the clothes on his body, and no matter the size. Of course, that inscribed mind crystal was then enchanted to give a condition to the activation of the form capture as well as make it so that the information from that capture would be given to the part that would actually apply gravity on Stahl. Eisen could have just done this with the simple gravity-rune any enchanter could use, but the old man thought that it would be a bit of a waste of mana if he did it like that. He would probably need to give Stahl a few small mana-batteries or soul-generators for all this anyway, but Eisen still wanted to reduce the cost and risk, and instead made use of something rather rare that he got his hands on just before leaving Prototype. There, one of the many monsters, a Hybrid between a Kobold and Lizardman, had acquired the actual, rare element ¡¯Gravity¡¯. And so, he could simply make use of that element instead and make everything a little bit more cost-efficient and stable. This way, he would most likely be able to make it so that to Stahl, it would feel like he was walking normally no matter at what angle he stood with the barriers. Now all that needed to be done was get the information from the shoes about the angle of the barriers, and then apply gravity at that angle to the space provided by the form capture. Eisen chose to simply turn this into another bracelet, simply since it was a good way to store and ess things like that. And to top it off, essories had a small boost to magic effectspared to other item types. And with that, Eisen had two out of three items done that he still wanted to make for Stahl. He was now able to walk anywhere and everywhere, at every angle no matter if it was on walls or in the air. The only thing that was still missing was the item meant for the entrance and exit. Evalia would easily take care of the visual effects for all of that, but there was still something that was missing. Evalia couldn¡¯t turn Stahl invisible instantly and perfectly. It would technically just need to be for a moment until Stahl found a ce where he could end up just hiding inside of the crowd, but Stahl needed to be invisble at the very least for the entrance and exit. If possible, it might be a good idea to make it so that Stahl could also turn invisible momentarily at any point in time no matter when. It wasn¡¯t really that hard, truthfully. ¡¯Invisibility¡¯ was a rtively simple Light Element spell. The only issue was the application of that spell. Whenever someone turned invisible using it or came out of invisibility, their body would be cloaked in light for a moment. It wasn¡¯t the kind of light that could illuminate a ce perfectly during the night, it was just that it would make the person using the spell easy to see for just a moment. And it seemed like this spell was rather popr as well, so it would be obvious to anyone seeing it that Stahl would simply be making use of thatmon spell, slightly negating that ¡¯omnipotent¡¯ image that Stahl wanted to create. As far as Eisen could tell there was no proper way to get rid of that shine without diminishing the effect of the invisibility. After a while of thinking, Eisen came up with another idea, however. He would simply use another element that often acted in simr, albeitpletely prizing ways. The Darkness element. The Light Element and Darkness Element technically shared a lot of spells with each other. After all, you could say that they were technically quite tightly connected. They were two sides of the same coin, really. And so, Eisen thought that if you could use Light magic to manipte the light flowing around someone¡¯s body, why wouldn¡¯t it be possible to do the same with Darkness magic? First things first, Eisen tried to test it out with two gems. One was enchanted with a slightly changed version of the light element version, and the other with the darkness element version of ¡¯invisibility¡¯. Like Eisen thought, the light version was cloaked in rather bright light before it turned invisible. And the dark version was cloaked in darkness, that was seeping off like a slight mist twirling around it, but it didn¡¯t turn invisible afterward. Eisen tried to figure out why that was and moved the crystal around a bit to see if there was anything wrong with it or if there was some sort of other effect that might give him a rough clue as to what was going on. And while he did so, he chose to cover the gem up with both his hands. Inside of that darkness, the crystal actually turned invisible. "Hmm..." The old man muttered quietly in thought. This way definitely looked a lot more impressive whenpared to the light element based spell, but it apparently had a lot more requirements directly connected to it. It would probably be possible for Stahl to turn invisible with this by pulling a cloak over his whole body. Like a ¡¯disappearance act¡¯ or something like that. If Stahl shrunk down during that time as well using the bracelet, it should be a lot easier to make it so that he could get away without being seen at the very least. Actually, if they just did it during the night before the day of the raid, this should work either way without even technically needing to do the cloak thing. Well, Eisen would leave it to Stahl to figure that part out. Either way, he now found his way of making Stahl turn invisible for the performance. This time, to make the darkness spread across Stahl¡¯s body as quickly as possible, instead of putting it on another essory, Eisen started making a simple shirt for Stahl. It was rather simple, really. Sal had be rather capable and could now even weave threads into high-quality cloth himself at a rather high speed. And so, Eisen used magic-inscription on some darkness gems and gave them that invisibility ability that would spread out to the wearer of the shirt and the shirt itself. He then turned it into thread and had Sal turn it into cloth before Eisen made it into a very simple shirt that Stahl could wear. Using stitched-enchantments, Eisen made it so that the shirt would properly cover the whole body, actually also by taking the ¡¯form capture¡¯ of the gravity-bracelet. And with that, Eisen was pretty sure that he was finished already. With a smile on his face, Eisen ced everything to the side properly and then stretched out a bit while Ailren looked at the items curiously, "Very interesting. So these will be part of your n, I see?" Ailren asked, and Eisen swiftly nodded his head. "Yes, they are. You see, my demon form is rather well known, and it¡¯s a little bit ck and white. I can either control people¡¯s action via fear or affection, but that¡¯s not really the best help for what we¡¯re nning to do." Eisen pointed out, and the gold dragon looked at him with a bit of curiosity, "Really? And why is that so? You do have quite a lot of power, and could easily get rid of them yourself, after all." "Of course, but that¡¯s not the goal. Instead of once more demonstrating that I personally have power, we¡¯re going to demonstrate that all of ¡¯World¡¯s Peak¡¯ has such power. And the best way to do that is by instantly killing as many artificials as possible while making the regr people bow down to us. That should be more than enough to make people realize that they can never win against us. After that happened, with you standing right behind me in your dragon form, I want to give them all an exnation of the war between the metallic and chromatic dragons and exin to them that you need their help." Eisen exined, and the gold dragon seemed rather intrigued. "Interesting. But are you sure that will work? That seems kind of like asking soldiers in a war to desert their home country." With a slightugh, Eisen just shook his head, "Maybe that would be the case if the artificials were people of this world, but no, to them this is just a game. They y it because they want to have fun. And what sounds more fun to you. Fighting a fight they¡¯re doomed to lose against a single dragon, or get the power of a dragon to fight a war against evil? I think thetter sounds a bit more fun. And really, since the majority of people here are artificials, the few people of this world will be swayed as well." The old man pointed out with a smile on his face as he got ready for this performance. Chapter 557 The Demons Contrac It was the night before the raid was set to happen. Literally hundreds of yers gathered here for the firstrge-scale raid in the history of this game. And surely, it would end up bing actual history. After all, freeing such an important town from the control of an evil Dragon was something that Heroes did! With few exceptions, all the yers that wanted to participate in the raid were gathered on a t in right outside one of the tunnels acting as gates for Melroe. Everyone was having fun, trying to figure out what sorts of reward people might get for killing the dragon. But suddenly, theughter and conversation of these many, many people suddenly disappeared. It waspletely silent, and the air became cold. Everyone¡¯s feet were covered in cold mist, and any campfire or other sort of me acting as a light-source was simply extinguished. All the yers looked around in confusion, until from the far reaches of therge campsite bright, white lines appeared in the air. It was like while everything else waspletely dark, those lines and only those lines were illuminated by spotlights. Soon, everyone noticed them, and most importantly that they weren¡¯t just lines. They were cracks. Like the ss that was soon to shatter, the sound of the air slowly cracking into pieces reced the voices of the yers. It was like these cracks simply encapsuled the campsite and gathered right above its center. For a few moments, while everyone¡¯s eyes were focused on that centerpoint, silence once more drowned the yers in confusion and anticipation, before all of that was cut through by the sound of ss shattering. Pieces of the sky fell to the ground and fell apart into dust all the whilst the pure ck space behind it was revealed. At some point, the shattering stopped, and that hole in the sky simply stayed there for a few moments. People gathered underneath it to figure out what was going on, and basically all of the Artificials started recording the incident from their point of view. One of them had a particrly good sight of what was going on. He stood right in the center underneath the hole and looked up at it. "I can see something!" The yer yelled out and stretched his hand upward toward the horizontal hole while squinting his eyes. And the thing that was seen was nothing but a person. A person in a bright, colorful, mostly purple suit. That person was simply walking right toward the ground. He was walking on the nothingness,ing from the sky into the direction of the ground, in a vertical direction. At some point, the yers recording all of this took a step to the side, since they thought whoever or whatever it was, was going toe out of the hole in the sky at any moment. But nothing happened. Some people approached the hole again a few momentster, but just before they could, figure appeared at the edge of the hole, simply looking down at the people underneath. But it was farrger than anyone thought, roughly ten meters in height. And with a bright smile and voice that carried throughout the campsite it started to speak. "Ah, here we go. So this was the right ce after all." It eximed with a cheerful tone, and then proceeded to walk out of the hole. With each step, the thing¡¯s body became smaller as it seemed to walk along some invisible slope until it simply stood in the grass surrounded by all these yers and NPCs. Hearing that something was going on, it seemed like some other yers even logged in again just to see this. With a wave of his hand, the thing made the hole in the sky and the cracks connected to it disappear, and the figure that was still towering over all of these yers looked around while some of them held their weapons in their hands. Whileughing loudly, Stahl took a step forward toward one of these yers. This yer was holding arge greatsword in both his hands, pointing it at Stahl in confusion, and the soon-to-be Demon simply tapped the tip of the de. Immediately, vines grew outward from Stahl¡¯s finger and wrapped themselves around the de until they grasped onto the yer¡¯s arms, forcing him to push the greatsword into the dirt. "Be careful, you could poke someone¡¯s eye out with that." Stahl said with a bright smile, and then, with a quick motion, turned around again and spread his arms out widely. "Do not be afraid, Ladies and Gentlemen! By no means am I here to fight you! It¡¯s rather the opposite, I wish to support you in your glorious figth against the Dragon nesting atop that mountain!" With his loud voice, Stahl tried to exin this to anyone and everyone here, but they were simply more confused than they were before. "What are you even talking about?" A yer eximed, trying to voice that confusion for everyone present, and with a light smirk, Stahl turned toward him and looked at the yer in question. "What I am speaking of? Oh, you dear, dear, foolish little boy." Stahl chuckled and shook his head nearly disappointedly. And then, all of a sudden, his figure just disappeared, "Do I need to use simpler words for my exnation, then?" He inquired as he reappeared on top of the yer, simply standing on his head with a bright smile on his face while his size was decreased to roughly thirty centimeters in height. Immediately, the yer froze up, despite not wanting to in the slightest. He wanted to swing his sword at Stahl, but it was as if he was paralized. And so, Stahl just leaned forward and looked right into the yer¡¯s eyes, "Hmm, so that¡¯s the red light you use to share information, I see?" Stahl asked, "Then let me tell this to all of you other Artificials. I am not an enemy of yours. I am here to offer you a contract of fate. Something simr to what you lesser beings refer to as ¡¯Quests¡¯." "A quest?" Another Artificial suddenly asked, "But I thought we weren¡¯t supposed to be able to get a quest for this?" "What¡¯s going on? What is that thing?" "I don¡¯t know, but doesn¡¯t it seem dangerous..?" With another light chuckle, Stahl just dropped forwardpletely in front of the face of the yer he was looking at, and then started to walk backward while upside down. He slowly started walking upward a bit more, like he was walking down stairs, as he increased his size. And then, all of a sudden, Stahl simply stopped and smiled as he looked around. "Let me exin a little more. Quests are things that entities like you give out. It is a concept you ¡¯people¡¯ came up with. I myself prefer to make use of..." Stahl started as he pped his hands together, and then pulled them apart to reveal a scroll simr to the one Komer made for this. It was just that this one wasn¡¯t actually a contract, but just an item Eisen made for this performance. With a smile on his face, Stahl continued as he opened the scroll up and let it ¡¯drop down¡¯ into the sky. After all, the change of gravity also affected this, "Contracts." For dozens of meters, the contract stretched out into the sky, not seeming like it would ever really stop doing so. Of course, this was just a small trick that Eisen and Evalia worked on together, something like an optical illusion. Either way, at some point, Stahl just let go of the contract and let it continue rolling out nearly infinitely into the sky while the base of the scroll stayed in ce. "This is a contract of fate, as I previously mentioned. In return for showing me how you lesser beings get rid of that Dragon, I will give you a reward. Of course, there will be a punishment if you fail as well. But I think it¡¯s rather fair." Stahl exined, and didn¡¯t have to wait long until someone yed along and asked the question Stahl wanted to be asked. "What reward?" They asked, and Stahl smiled. From his perspective he stretched his hands upward, but it was just toward the ground as he pushed his mana into the two items that were excluded from the gravity-maniption. That small coin-exchanger inside of Stahl¡¯s palm, as well as the special spatial-storage stone on his other palm. And just like that, a flood of copper, silver, and gold coins as well as different brightly colored gems fell to the ground. "It¡¯s simple. You will receive that dragon¡¯s weight in gold and precious gems. And of course, you don¡¯t have to share. Each and every one of you will receive it." Stahl exined, before he immediately sucked all the money and gems back up. He grabbed the fake contract scroll as well and pulled on it once, stopping it from unrolling even more, and instead it rolled back up. It was unrolling for maybe a minute or so, but it was rolled back up in just two seconds. He pressed onto the contract¡¯s sides and made it disappear again, before Stahl just walked in a circle again until he was upside down and standing in the center of the crowd, just once more a full ten meters in height. "So? What do you say about such a reward?" Stahl asked, and without a moment¡¯s hesitation, every single person tried to rush toward him to get their hands on that ¡¯Quest¡¯. But then, someone else asked something that Stahl was also prepared for. "Wait! What about the punishment if we fail?" "Good question, young fool." Stahlughed, "It is quite simple." He exined, and just waved his hand around once, making a deck of ying cards appear in his hands. He shuffled them a bit, and did a few tricks, already showing that there were far more cards in there than normal. And then, Stahl just threw the cards around, each one stopping right in front of another person¡¯s throat, without them even being able to react in time. Of course, this was mostly because of the de-buff¡¯s caused by the spores that Caria mixed into Kirisho¡¯s mist, and of course Kirisho¡¯s mist itself, working together with the cold air created by Eisen¡¯s sub-zero mes. Their stats were simply drastically removed for a while, so they had no chance to react in any way. "The immortals will be sentenced to death a whole five times. I know that you can awake anew after just a few hours, but whenever you do, you will be killed again. And then again, and then again, and then again. It will be a painless death, of course, do not worry. Ah, and before I forget, the mortals do not have to worry. Only those ¡¯Artificials¡¯ will get that punishment. All you mortals have to do is bow down in humiliation for 24 full hours." Chapter 558 Explosives Eisen couldn¡¯t help but smile as he watched the full event unfold from nearby. It was obvious that everyone would ept. After all, their was little reason not to. In the face of enough money to live off of for the rest of one¡¯s life, there weren¡¯t many people that wouldn¡¯t put their pride into the gambling pot. And the yers especially didn¡¯t have much to lose. Sure, five levels were a bit annoying to get back especially for the higher-level yers, but it wasn¡¯t the end of the world even if they did die five consecutive times. Since a Fate Contract required reward and penalty epted by both parties, it waspletely fine to have such risk- and worth-less penalties. Well, at least to other people it might seem worthless, but in the end, to Eisen the death of the yers and the humiliation of the people of this world was worth much more than that amount of money, so that might have also yed a part in letting this contract be properly epted the way it was. Once everyone signed the specific contract they were supposed to, Stahl simply rolled them back up and ced them away for now. They weren¡¯t supposed to be activated just yet, after all. The performer simply bowed forward a little with a broad smile, "I thank you lesser beings for allowing me toy my eyes on something so beautiful." He eximed, before simply standing up straight again. A lot of people had turned on new torches to properly see Stahl in this scenario, but rather quickly, all of those mes were extinguished again. And while everything was covered inplete darkness for another moment, all that Stahl had to do was activate the invisibility ability of his shirt while shrinking down as much as possible with the little mana he had left right now. And so, before anyone managed to get a new light source going, Stahl already started running through the crowd, until he reached a ce where he could easily get rid of any sort of transformation. He quickly changed his upation to hisbatist one and then casually made his way through the crowd to get to where his grandfather was waiting. With a satisfied expression, Eisen quickly picked Stahl up and brought him back to the top of the mountain together with the others. Once they were up there again, Stahl couldn¡¯t help but smile brightly, "Hehe..." Heughed lightly, and Eisen slowly looked down at him with a bit of curiosity. "What? You have this much fun tricking people?" Eisen asked, and Stahl slowly shook his head, "No, no, that¡¯s not it. But... I got a demon title just now! I¡¯m now a Demon of Yang, the Contract Demon! Wait, contract demon..?" Stahl muttered, "Does that mean I¡¯ll have to keep making contracts like this one...? I mean, I wouldn¡¯t particrly mind, that does kinda fit, but..." "Haha, don¡¯t worry, young one. I am quite positive that the way you are referred to will change tomorrow when the timees. After all, that is when everyone will find out that you are not simply a benevolent one." Aylrentyrth said reassuredly when everyone entered the cave again, and Stahl slowly nodded his head. "Eh, either way, I can work with this. It would be cool if it changes tomorrow, but being a Contract Demon might also be pretty neat. Ooh, maybe that would give me the ability to be summoned by people that want to form a contract with me!" The young man suggested excitedly, although his excitement was quickly overtaken by something else. "Well, who cares? I think you just looked really cool out there either way~." Evalia pointed out with a bright smile directed at Stahl as she clung to his arm, and Stahl just lightly smiled back at her, "Thank you. But let¡¯s be honest here, without those cool as hell special effects at the beginning, nobody would have believed that I was really some superior being." "Yup, I¡¯m amazing, right? Praise me more~." Evalia replied with a lightly cheeky grin, all the whilst Eisen couldn¡¯t help butugh a bit. He stepped into his Shop that was still standing in the center of Ailren¡¯s treasury and then took a look at all the items he made for tomorrow. "Holy... Erm, are you sure that you want to stop the raid, and not join it? This all looks like it may even be able to kill an Ancient Dragon..." Stahl pointed out, looking at the mass amount of special mana-based explosives that wereying around here. With a slightugh, Eisen just shook his head, "Of course not. These most likely wouldn¡¯t be able to even put a scratch on Ailren, let¡¯s be honest. Wait, maybe if I used them to blow up the cave while he was inside, maybe..." "Eisen..." Ailren muttered quietly, slightly worried at why he was thinking about ways to kill him, but in the end the old man just turned toward him, "Don¡¯t worry, I was joking. No, these are to fulfill the contract. Or well, to fulfill the failure conditions of the contract, rather. You remember what those were, right?" Stahl didn¡¯t have to think that long about this either and simply nodded his head without hesitation, "Of course I do. One, if someone is unable to continue the raid, that means an individual loss and only that person gains the penalty. Two, if the leaders of the raid announce it to be over, the penalty will be applied to everyone that signed the contract. Three, if the town is destroyed before the raid target is killed." "It was worded a bit more inconspicuously, but yes, that¡¯s exactly right. These explosives are something meant to ensure one of these conditions to be fulfilled." Eisen exined, and everyone immedaitely stared at the old man in confusion. "You¡¯re not saying... That you wish to destroy Melroe by your own hands, are you?" Ailren asked with a deep re, and Eisen slowly picked up one of the explosives with a smile on his face. He pushed his mana inside of it and threw it onto the ground in front of them. "You tell me." The old man said. This obviously led to even more confusion, but before anyone could really react, the explosive already blew up. And soon, the whole room was filled with colorful confetti. "What..?" Stahl asked confusedly, "These aren¡¯t real?" "Of course they¡¯re not. I¡¯m not aiming for the third condition, but the second. You see... the raid leaders don¡¯t care about the contract. The official raid leader isn¡¯t a yer, but Belrim, the lord of this town. And he would definitely care more about this town surviving than the pride of some or the life of other that can¡¯t actually die. Even if he finds out about the contract, when we make him think that we will actually destroy the whole town, he will quickly give up the raid for now, causing half of the second condition to take effect." Eisen exined quickly, although this exnation made room for another question. "What is the other half of the second condition?" Evalia asked, and the old man smiled, "One of the two raid leaders. You read the contract out loud to everyone and then let them read it themselves if they wanted to, so it was hard to hide fine-print anywhere. But there was one small trick inside of the contract. As this raid is technically run by Melroe itself, the official ¡¯raid leaders¡¯ ording to the contract are the current Lord Belrim, as well as someone holding a ¡¯honorary title¡¯ of second raid leader in such situations." Eisen exined rather quickly, and while Evalia and even Ailren were confused, Stahl just started tough. "The second person is the town¡¯s founder." With a quick nod, Eisen told his grandson that he was absolutely correct. Eisen knew that he was the one that founded Melroe, and as such, he was able to y around with this kind of thing. Honorary titles for dead people weren¡¯t necessarily that rare when people went to war or on raids here, so it was something that people usually just skipped past when they saw it and didn¡¯t really care about. Of course they wouldn¡¯t assume that the founder of the town was still alive, it wasn¡¯t necessarily widely known that he was one of those that peaked, after all. "Ah, don¡¯t touch that." Eisen said as he pulled Stahl¡¯s hand away from one of the explosives, "What? There should be more than enough to trick them, let me just take a look at how you made it." "That¡¯s one of the real ones." The old man sighed, "I¡¯m going to activate that one and throw it into the air to really announce to everyone, ¡¯these are all explosives¡¯. There¡¯s just three of those though, although I¡¯m just going to use one." "I see... Then that¡¯s good, at least. I thought you were going to wreak a little havoc after all." Ailren pointed out, and Eisen just looked at him with a light frown, "Who do you think I am? Why would I do that?" "Because you know you can repair it pretty quickly and you get really fucking terrifying sometimes?" Evalia suggested. Eisen slowly turned toward her with a frown that was a little stronger, "Yeah, but I wouldn¡¯t destroy the town for something like this." "Gramps, you¡¯re going to literally kill more than a hundred yers tomorrow. Five times each. And have another few dozen people bow down to you. You realize that, right?" Stahl asked, and the old man slowly thought about it for a while and in the end just shrugged. "Fair enough, I can¡¯t argue anymore." Chapter 559 Hundreds of Angels In the early morning of the next day, before the sun even rose, Eisen had Melissa¡¯s bees spread the fake explosives all throughout town. And since the particr bees in question were a kind that was able to change its color and pattern to fit other surfaces, they could make sure that the fake explosives couldn¡¯t be found that easily without Eisen wanting them to be found. The actual raid gathering was set for the sunrise, although it would probably still take a while for everyone to properly gather. There were a lot of people that wanted to take part in the raid, after all. He was watching all of the groups gather down in the town, although he felt all of this was a rather idiotic choice. They had ced weaponry along the spirals to fight Ailren, meaning that they were literally nning to turn the town itself into the ce the raid was supposed to happen. It was like they were trying to trap Ailren down there so that he couldn¡¯t fly away. And sure, the buildings in Melroe were more sturdy than others because they were directly set into the walls, but it was still a moronic decision to use the whole town as a weapon like that. Who knew, maybe Belrim wouldn¡¯t actually make the choice to postpone the raid. He seemed to be rather prepared to see Melroe crumble to dust, after all. Annoyedly, the old man just continued waiting for more people to arrive so that the raid could be announced to start. It only took roughly another hour for this to actually happen, so at that point, Eisen turned around toward Ailren. "I¡¯ll get down there. Before the first team leaves Melroe. I¡¯ll call you when it¡¯s your turn." Eisen said. It seemed like the n that Belrim came up with was pretty simple. One team of the strongest people there would go to the top of the mountain, chase or lure Ailren out of the cave and into the town, and then everyone would attack Ailren in any way possible. It was a dumb n that was failed to work from the get-go, but that didn¡¯t matter anymore. That first team wouldn¡¯t even get the chance to leave the town. And so, Eisen and Stahl made their way down the mountain, rather quickly. Eisen didn¡¯t have to wait long to find a good ce for this little extra performance... since he just made that ce himself. Most of the yers that would participate in the raid were at the very top of the two spirals making up Melroe, so Eisen figured he should make it easiest for them to see him. Using his element, as well as items that Eisen made to support all of this, Eisen createdrge chains at the side of the mountain and the spirals that soon grew and gathered in the center of the town, connecting to arge tform that appeared out of nowhere. Eisen was right above the mines, just a bit above the height of the top of the spirals. The attention of everyone was quickly drawn toward Eisen, of course. But what Eisen then did was something else. He did this so that he could equally gather everyone attention, but he then simply extended the length of some of the chains and shortened others to easily move this giant tform through the whole town. And Eisen¡¯s first stop was right where Belrim currently was. At the market right before the tunnel that the first group had to exit. And so, the old man moved the tform right next to that market, towering over anyone and everyone there with his full transformation of 23 Meters in height. Of course, Stahl was also here in his Demonic Form, but he could only reach 10 meters with the item that Eisen made. "Good morning, all of you." Eisen said loudly. All the yers at the very least were already aware of who this was. There weren¡¯t many that didn¡¯t see some images or videos featuring Eisen, after all. But he did look a bit different, with the shape of his horns like that. And some smaller details in general were also off whenpared to the images one knew of. Soon, Belrim stepped over to the side of the market where Eisen was standing, "You fiend! What do you want from us?" He eximed, practically hiding behind his guards, and Eisen just started tough. He quickly deactivated his Draconic Demon King transformation and revealed his regr form while shrinking down at the edge of the tform. "Ouch. ¡¯Fiend¡¯ is a new one, my friend." Eisen pointed out. The moment that he realized who this was, Belrim just stared back in confusion, "B-But how... Eisen, how is it that you¡¯re ca-" "Quiet." Stahl interrupted quickly, "A lesser being like yourself shall refer to him as ¡¯Your Majesty¡¯." He eximed, with a face as if he was disgusted. All of this ¡¯you lesser beings¡¯ part of the speeches Stahl held were actually something that Eisen was rather surprised about. It wasn¡¯t part of the initial n, but it worked out for the better in the end. This was basically all to demonstrate their power to the world and announce the war of the dragons. There was also something else that he was going to announce to support their image of absolute strength, but that was something meant for the end. The reasons why they wanted to demonstrate their power were rather simple as well. For one, this was so that the leaders of other countries were able to immediately respect them. Otherwise, there would be troublesome smaller countries trying to invade Asgard to take over the inds. Eisen didn¡¯t want that, so this was what he did. And second, so that people were more inclined to join the side of the metallic dragons. In the end, to the yers, this was a game. So of course, in a situation where one could win or lose at such a big scale, most people would choose the side that seemed more likely to win. And that was very simply the side with more power, which was the way Eisen was trying to portray the metallic dragons¡¯ side as. In reality, Eisen didn¡¯t know much about the actual forces of this war, things like how many enemies there were or even how many dragons were on his side, and not even a rough strengthparison of either side. Because Eisen really did not have the slightest idea of where their standing was in this war. Either way, it seemed like it was working on Belrim at the very least. "Your Majesty..? What do you mean..?" The Lord of this town asked, and with a light grin, Eisen grew back to his max height and activated his demon form again. "Ah, right, it would make sense for you people not to know. It only happened a few days ago, after all. But you see, with the support of the gods, I have founded my own country. A ce where everyone and anyone is wee. Outcasts, misfits, quite literally anyone. And of course, that makes me the King of that country." Eisen eximed, and all of the sudden, people started muttering amongst themselves about what he just said. After all, a country led by yers this early on in the game was something nobody expected. But just when it seemed like Belrim wanted to reply, in a slight mixture of horror and confusion, something rather unexpected happened. Belrim¡¯s whole demeanor changed. Instead of startled and anxious, he was now calm and confident again, like Eisen remembered him. "Is that so? But how does it matter, if you¡¯re not the King of the country I love?" Belrim asked with a light smile, as if he was super cheeky or smart because he said this. And Eisen already immediately knew what was going on. He couldn¡¯t reveal it openly like this, so he would wait for a little while until there was more... chaos. "True, little does it matter to a man like you. But there is something else that matters quite a lot, you see?" Eisen pointed out and looked toward Stahl, who quickly took out the contracts that a vast majority of the people participating in this raid signed. He handed them to Eisen, who simply kept smiling. "I am sure that there are many that remember these documents. And I can assure you that you will continue to remember them for all eternity." Eisen pointed out, as the contracts in his hands caught fire. Fire that grew more and more, until it practically became a giant storm right above Eisen. Of course, people that didn¡¯t sign it couldn¡¯t see this, but those that did sign it could. And they were more than surprised to see the mes subside and have a single winged being fly there in its ce. This was the ¡¯enforcer¡¯ that was seen by the yers that signed it. The one that would kill all of these yerster. Of course, everyone got their own enforcer that could only be seen by themselves. The white angelic figure simply floated above them with arge white scythe in its hand. As for the regr people, they got a different type of enforcer. It didn¡¯t hold a weapon, but rather it just had a dozen arms that it wouldte use to hold them down for the ¡¯humiliation¡¯. Obviously, from Eisen¡¯s view, as well as Stahl¡¯s who got to see them through special sses made with the truth-seeing eyes¡¯ truth-sight ability, there were dozens over dozens of these white angelic figures floating around everywhere in this town. And to Eisen¡¯s surprise, it seemed like Belrim could see them too. He looked at the figures while they were floating from above Eisen to the yers, which just supported Eisen¡¯s theory even more. Before anyone could really speak about the enforcers, Eisen snapped his finger, making the numerous bees hiding the fake explosives fly off. People looked all around and soon spotted them glowing, quite literally everywhere. And then, Eisen threw one of the real explosives into the air and blew it up right above him to show that the explosives were real, although they were obviously not. But somehow, apparently even Belrim didn¡¯t know this, although Eisen expected the person residing inside of his body currently to be fully aware of the n. "Belrim. Blow off this raid, or this town will bepletely and utterly destroyed within a single snap of my fingers." Eisen said with a light smile on his lips, and the dwarf just looked up at the giant figure. He seemed to try and look around nervously, but in the end, this just showed Eisen that this n would work. Chapter 560 The Enemy you made "Come on, Belrim. Don¡¯t be this dumb... Give it up already." Eisen said with a light grin on his face, and Belrim simply red back at Eisen. It seemed like he was nervous, confused, and just wanted to find a way out of this. "Fine! If it means letting this town live a little longer, then I don¡¯t mind. It was the only reason to have this raid in the first ce." Belrim said and turned around toward the people gathered here, "Due to these circumstances... The raid on the dragon atop that mountain will stop here! It is over!" He eximed, and the moment he did so, all the yers and people started to panic. Obviously, those that signed the contract more so than others. But... nothing was happening. They thought that the angels above them would react immediately, but it seemed like it would still take a little while. And so, Eisen ced his fingers into his mouth to whistle, which was the signal for Ailren toe over here. The next moment, before anyone knew it, the air was filled with the loud shout of a Dragon. A few spotted Ailren as he was approaching, but most couldn¡¯t even react until he stopped right above Eisen andnded on the tform he made. He sat there and simply stared at the people in front of him and simply red at them without a word. "Just to make it clear for all of those that didn¡¯t make the connection yet, this is the dragon that you were supposed to conduct your raid on today." Eisen exined, "His name is Aylrentyrth. An ancient gold dragon. He¡¯s a Rank 10 Monster." Immediately, everyone immediately realized what was going on. The yers were slightly relieved that they didn¡¯t end up fighting it, but the people of this world were simply despairing. A Rank 10 creature was something that barely anyone could ever hope to beat, or even face without dying. And now, it was here, knowing that it was supposed to be attacked by all these people. The fact that Belrim was just continuing to re at Eisen and Ailren simply yed into the fact that it wasn¡¯t Belrim inside of that body anymore. Well, it all worked out in his favor, so who cared? Eisen was seeing that everyone was speaking amongst each other, really not paying attention to anything that Eisen would say after this. It was getting noisy. "Silence." The old man eximed in a dignified tone. [Your Royal Authority has activated. Everyone with a lower Status than you that heard your words will be forced to be silent for the next minute] Eisen waved the notification away as he enjoyed the fact that there was nobody speaking anymore. "Now, could I get all of your attention again?" Eisen asked, and it wasn¡¯t really like he actually had to ask. There was no way there was anyone not paying attention to him right now. "As I said before, this is Aylrentyrth. A Rank 10 Ancient Gold Dragon. And as a metallic dragon, he is directly subordinate to the Crystal Dragon King Trygan. A God of justice and truth, as some of you may know." The old man exined swiftly, and it seemed like there were surprisingly few that actually understood what Eisen was trying to say, "Then let me repeat it in easier words. You were about to make enemies of every single being subordinate to Trygan. " The old man exined, using his yin form to give everyone here a feeling of fear so that everything could really settle in. Well, the only thing the yers could feel were goosebumps, but that was enough to make them realize that this was a bad thing. It should have been obvious, but there were seemingly quite a few people to which it wasn¡¯t. Either way, Eisen simply continued, "Instead, I now did you the favor of making sure that you did notpletely mess something like this up for everyone. Because let me tell you, those like Aylrentyrth, meaning other Ancient Metallic Dragons, may give you trials if you are worthy of them. You can¡¯t force it, it¡¯s simply a gift. But if you pass the trials, you will be a champion to that dragon, and will be a force in the inevitable war that will happen between the metallic dragons, and the chromatic dragons led by Kotam, the evil Dragon Queen." The old man exined, slowly turning his yin form into a yang form to cause excitement in everyone. "How about you learn from this? There is no reason to feel fear now, the crisis has been averted. You can still be champions to these metallic dragons and fight a war together with me, these dragons, and my son." He eximed, although this obviously made some people rather confused. "Ah, right. That is something that wasn¡¯t quite revealed yet. My name is Eisen. A few months ago, my experience was taken from me by the Evil Dragon Queen Kotam and used to create the Artificials, most likely to cause chaos to spread out. Why it was possible to do so with my experience, you ask? Well, it¡¯s quite simple. I am one of the five people that peaked. The first, actually. The man that raised Trygan into a deity, and stood atop this world with four others, who are now known as ¡¯Originals¡¯ amongst Artificials. The Demon-Orc Halfling Brody, the Monkey-Beastperson Jyuuk, the High-Elf Xenia, and the Human Evalia. And again, myself, the Giant-Dwarf Halfling Eisen." With his demonic form fully adjusted toward Yang to make sure that he could truly convince anyone that was listening to him, Eisen looked around this town. There were many people here that remembered Eisen, and were now more than shocked to hear of this. "Of course, I have not fully recovered my power yet, but I¡¯m getting there. Luckily I have just reached Level 300 shortly after founding my Kingdom once more, now under the name of Asgard." Eisen exined, "Do you now understand that you can¡¯t tread without care anymore? Four thousands of years, I have stopped myself from bothering with the lives of people like you, but these recent events changed my mind. With all these new soulsing to this ne of existence, I have made a simple choice." The old man pointed out, and immediately switched from yang form all the way to the worst of his yin form, "If anyone dares to try and mess with this world or its people, they will have to fear my wrath. And trust me... that is something you don¡¯t want." With his wings spread out as he towered over all these people, and then red down at them, "That also means I can¡¯t let something like this just pass." Eisen exined, "After this punishment you will receive, your tes will be clean. If any of you, or anyone else, really, wishes to gain strength, head the my country, Asgard, making up the inds of the gods. We will wait for you in the capital, Prototype. Because let me tell you, the four Grandmasters that used to live in this town didn¡¯t leave out of fear of Aylrentyrth. They followed me to my country, and are now living there happily with their families. But now, we should just get this over with..." The old man started, "As the original founder of this town, I dere this raid as finished before it even started." The moment Eisen said this, he saw the ocean of pure white in front of him turn gray for just a moment and then pitch-ck the very next. And before anyone could react, all these ck angels disappeared into the dead bodies of the yers and only left an ocean of red in their stead as every single yer that signed the contract was decapitated and killed instantly. Their heads were rolling for only a few moments before their bodies turned to light and disappeared. Meanwhile, the bodies of the people of this world that signed the contract were pressed down onto the ground, forced to bow down by pressing their foreheads onto the ground in the middle of the streets. "This was the punishment you received this time. Don¡¯t fear me, don¡¯t hate me. It is something you brought onto yourselves while acting mindlessly. It would be fine like this, but there is one more being that needs to prostrate themselves in apology. The one that brought this whole ordeal onto you." Eisen stared and slowly stepped off therge tform to step up right in front of Belrim. Eisen looked down at the dwarf¡¯s body, towering over him like Belrim was nothing but a bug. As most people simply ran away from here after seeing all this happen, there was nobody around that could actually hear the words that now came out of Eisen¡¯s mouth as the Draconic Demon King shrunk down a bit and leaned forward to whisper into Belrim¡¯s ear. "Happy now, Samuel? Having everyone join the metallic dragons¡¯ side is what you wanted as well, right?" Eisen asked, and looked at the man in front of him, who was just staring back at Eisen in confusion, "How did you..." "How do I know that you¡¯re inside of Belrim right now? It¡¯s quite simple. I¡¯m not a moron, that¡¯s how. You may think I am, but I can assure you, I know very well what you¡¯re up to. More and more, I understand what you¡¯re doing and why you¡¯re doing on. And especially, how you¡¯re doing it. This little stunt today gave me a good idea on how you yourself are taking control of this world, by hopping in and out of influential people. That idea in itself is simply disgusting." Eisen pointed out, "But of course, there are going to be limitations to all this. For one, I noticed that your reaction to my Yin form was the same as that of any other person of this world." The old man pointed out, "Your mind is in Belrim¡¯s body, so, I¡¯ll make you suffer a bit." With a deep re pointed right into Belrim¡¯s eyes, Eisen fully pushed his Draconic Demon King form to Yin and started, "Tremble. Fear me. All the horror in this world can¡¯tpare to what you shall feel when looking at me. You see me, you fall to your knees. You hear me, you fall to your knees. You think of me, you fall to your knees. Let me tell you, young fool, the enemy you have found in me... or rather, the enemy that you yourself created with your very own hands and bred for a hundred thousand years is slowly but surelying back. There is no escaping from me anymore, Samuel." The old man said with a deep, growling voice, as he could see the fear actively overwhelm Belrim¡¯s whole body as he simply fell to the ground. And it wasn¡¯t only because of the natural reaction to Eisen¡¯s powers. But because Samuel himself actually realized that he royally fucked up. Chapter 561 Royal Charisma As Belrim was kneeling on the ground in front of Eisen, the old man simply turned around. Samuel already left Belrim¡¯s body, so there was no reason to further antagonize this dwarf like this. And so, the old man just turned around and stepped back on therge tform where Stahl and Ailren were already waiting as well. Just like this, Eisen moved the tform back to the center of the town before continuing a bit more. He pushed his transformation all the way to the Yang side and looked around toward all the people of this town. After all, there were still all the original inhabitants of Melroe that weren¡¯t directly involved in all of this, as well as the yers that took part in this raid as back-end supporters, for example for building all those weapons made to contain Ailren. Those were the kinds of people that werepletely unaffected by the contract and were just the more confused as to what even happened. They couldn¡¯t see the contract enforcers, after all. Eisen looked around at all the people of this town, and with a loud voice, as well as an item that amplified the volume of his voice, the old man continued to speak. "As you all just saw, we have power, we have support, and we have history. The longest history, actually. But all you people don¡¯t need to be afraid, since we will be using everything that we have to make sure that you can continue your regr lifes from here on. You may live here, you maye to my country. Either way, I pledge upon everything that I have that none of you will be harmed through the chaos currently unfolding in this world." Eisen exined, and the moment he finished speaking, a notification appeared in front of him. [Your Draconic Demon King Form¡¯s Yang Charisma interacted with your Royal Authority and created the Draconic Demon King¡¯s Royal Charisma] [Due to the activation of your Royal Charisma, everyone that heard your voice will experience a direct boost of morals for 24 Hours, as well as a benefit to any action for 2 Hours. Your affinity with everyone that isn¡¯t hostile toward you has risen] [Protector of the People title acquired] --- [Title ¨C Protector of the People] [Description] You have pledged to protect the people, and they epted your pledge. [Effect] It is easier to gain favorable affinities with certain people; +10 CHA With a satisfied expression, Eisen waved these notification away to the side, before Stahl quickly took over thest bit of the ¡¯speech¡¯. "Ah, and to those of you that are thinking ¡¯But what about those bombs he ced all around town?¡¯, let me show you something neat!" He eximed, his tonepletely different to how he conducted himself in his ¡¯Demon Act¡¯ before. Although it seemed like he was actually aiming for exactly that. He hit his grandfather¡¯s foot with his own to give him a signal, while Stahl himself did some grandiose pose and watched as the whole town was covered in bright, colorful confetti. "It was a little bit of a trick, no more!" Stahl eximed, once more through the item that amplified one¡¯s voice, but it seemed like the next moment, his eyes focused on something else. But for now, Eisen just did the first step and picked Stahl up while he started pping his wings, same with Ailren. The moment they properly left the tform, Eisen made it disappear. For a moment the chains swung around, but just before they were about to hit the town and potentially cause damages, the chains disappeared as well. And so, they just made their way back to Ailren¡¯s cave, and the moment theynded, the Dragon in question looked at Eisen with a light frown on his face. "I did not expect such a ¡¯performance¡¯. It seemed like you were actively trying to make people fear you." Ailren pointed out, "Will you be alright after this?" The Gold Dragon asked. Eisen simply turned toward him as he deactivated his draconic demon king transformation. "Of course I¡¯m going to be alright. I didn¡¯t make them fear me, I made them fear my power. That means that instead of actively keeping them from approaching me or doing anything that could get my attention at all, they¡¯re going to try not to do anything that could anger me, and instead do things that could give me a favorable impression of them. Obviously there¡¯s going to be those that will be trying to take me down, but I care very little about that. Even if they did manage to kill me, I¡¯m immortal, so it really doesn¡¯t matter to me." Eisen exined very quickly, before he looked over toward Stahl, who had once more nearly used up his whole mana to try and keep his size increased for that long using the item Eisen made for him. "But now, to you. Why did you change your character in the middle of this? You apparently got something out of it, right?" The old man pointed out, before Stahl crossed his arms smugly. "Yup, I have! Just like Aylrentyrth said, my demon title changed again! Instead of the Contract Demon, I¡¯m the Trickster Demon now! And it¡¯s even abination title like your¡¯s as well, gramps! It¡¯s a yin and yang demon title!" Stahl eximed, before Eisen raised his brows with a smile on his face. "Oh really? Well, then you¡¯ve got to be aware that it¡¯s going to be quite a challenge to be a true demon. But at the very least you should be able to get a transformation ability so that you don¡¯t always have to rely on Evalia." Eisen pointed out, all the whilst the young woman in question approached. It seemed like she was watching everything happen through CB-1 by having it float around the town the whole time. "Oh, you want to make me obsolete now?" Evalia asked with a light chuckle as she approached and quickly leaned onto Stahl. Eisen simply smiled and cracked his knuckles as he started thinking about everything else he had to do. Maybe it was actually a good idea to try andplete his Demon title first. Since one of the conditions was to reach specifically level 300, Eisen was pretty sure that getting to heaven and hell was something that should be achievable at his level. Eisen just had to really find the entrance. Although then, Eisen noticed something that made him feelpletely idiotic, "I¡¯m really a moron, aren¡¯t I?" Eisen asked with a deep sigh, while the others looked at him confusedly. "You¡¯re not a moron!" Caria eximed immediately, but Eisen slowly shook his head, "No, in this one, I really can¡¯t help but feel like it. I just repaired Gind. The country core. I think it¡¯s fair to assume that the whole ind group was a full country before, one that Gind had control over. I¡¯m sure that she¡¯s able to remember where the gates to heaven and hell are." The old man pointed out with a deep sigh, and Evalia and Stahl both let out a sound of understanding, "Right..." Evalia mattered, "That does sound like something we should have realized before..." She pointed out, and Eisen quietly grumbled, "Yeah, it is. Ailren, I think we¡¯ll head off to the inds again now. We should get back there as soon as we can, I think." Eisen pointed out, and the ancient gold dragon slowly nodded his head. "I see. It is quite sad to see that this visit was so short-lived, but I am positive that this will not have been thest time we see each other." Aylrentyrth pointed out, slowly turning himself into his humanoid form, while Eisen swiftly shrunk down. Ailren reached out his hand for a handshake, but Eisen justughed a bit and grabbed his hand before pulling him into a light hug, "Try not to cause hundreds of people want to kill you again." The old man advised, and Ailren simply chuckled, "I think you may be thest one that should give me that advice." The two old men looked at each other for another moment before Eisen properly prepared to leave again. He already got his shop back, and Evalia seemingly also packed her portable atelier up again, so there wasn¡¯t really much that needed to be prepared outside of getting the wooden box for them to travel in while the others also said goodbye to Ailren. Soon, everyone beside Eisen stepped into the box while the old man increased his size again while activating his demonic transformation. Meanwhile, Ailren and Kirisho were speaking to each other a little more. They lived here together for a very, very long time after all, and were rather close to each other, so it made sense that they would want to speak a little more. At some point, Kirisho simply embraced Ailren in a hug and returned to Eisen, who swiftly lifted her up to the amulet around his neck and watched at the Mist Spirit disappeared inside of it with a bright smile but tears in the corners of her eyes. Eisen looked at Ailren with a smile on his face and then nodded his head, before Ailren did the same and slowly stepped back into his cave while turning back into his Dragon form. The old man properly grabbed the wooden box and attached it to himself tightly, before he slowly flew off into the sky again. It seemed like there were some people down in town that spotted Eisen as he started flying, but it didn¡¯t matter too much to him. He simply continued at the highest speed that he could possibly manage, of course while keeping everyone inside of the wooden room that Eisen was carrying in mind. Their first step would be the Starlight building again. Eisen was sure that Komer kept tabs on everything that was going on anyway and he was mostly informed about it. But even then, there was obviously still information that Komer couldn¡¯t get just like that. He wrote the contracts, so he knew what happened after that giant spike of mes appeared above Eisen, despite not being able to see the angels himself. After they would inform Komer of everything, they would head off back to town, and Eisen could finally learn where those two damned gates where. He could go there, reach heaven and be officially approved by the gods to the extent necessary for his demon title, and then all that was left after that was to do the same with the gods of the underworld after going to hell. Although, there was something else that Eisen really wanted to try. He wanted to forge some kind of item using the fires of hell. Chapter 562 Calm and Chaotic Eisen slowed down as he was right above the Starlight building, letting the wooden box down on the balcony so that they could take a little break for now. He shrunk down and deactivated his Draconic Demon King transformation while Stahl, Evalia, Sal, Caria and Melissa stepped out of the box. And the very next moment, Eisen could already hear footsteps within the actual penthouse, "Eisen!" Komer eximed, "What the fuck did you do? Couldn¡¯t you have warned me or something?" The young Fate Merchant asked, seemingpletely exhausted at the moment. "What do you mean? You made the contract, you knew about everything." The old man pointed out, but without a moment¡¯s hesitation, Komer shook his head. "Oh no, I knew that you wanted to show your power and that of the guild again. There¡¯s already a shitton of articles and videos everywhere speaking about the fact that ¡¯World¡¯s Peak¡¯ is doing everything to follow their name. What I¡¯m talking about is that you were actively advertising and telling people to go to the inds and prototype." Komer pointed out, "All the ships going out to Prototype are booked out for the next three months. We need new ships, that¡¯s what I mean. Starlight has exclusive transportation rights from and to prototype at the moment, but that¡¯s exactly the issue. There¡¯s no way in hell that we¡¯re going to be able to handle all of that alone! All the ships we need to buy and people we need to hire is-" "Komer." Eisen interrupted, and the young man slowly looked up at him, "...yeah?" He asked, before Eisen simply smiled at him, "Calm down. I¡¯ll work on it. This whole ordeal made me realize that there was something far more important we should concentrate on. For one, we need to create a ce where everyone that wants to can go to have any item made that they may need. And we need a ce where people can fight however much they want, at whatever scale they want." Eisen pointed out. "First, there is the Ind of the God of Craftsmanship. There, we¡¯ll definitely find ressources and hands to create however many ships we need. And then, the second one is the Ind of the God of War. As far as I¡¯m aware, there should be more than enough ressources on there for any sort of war, and since it¡¯s an ind, I¡¯m positive that includes warships. We¡¯ll grab the warships and bring them over to the ind of craftsmanship and have them remodeled and repaired if necessary. It should take just a week or two and then we¡¯ll bring them over here. The harbors in prototype are already being built at a prettyrge scale, so we¡¯ll have more than enough space to keep all of those." Komer sighed in relief after hearing all that and then sat down on the chair behind him, that one of the bodyguard Golems pulled up just for him, "That¡¯s good then... I was about to go crazy trying to juggle all of that shit..." He sighed, and Eisen looked down at him with a light smile on his face, "Don¡¯t worry, Komer. You¡¯re going to be fine. How about it,e with us for a bit and let others handle things here for a while? You have store managers for everything, and it¡¯s not like you¡¯re going to bepletely uninformed. You can take a break sometimes." Eisen pointed out, and Stahl immediately agreed to what his grandfather just said. "Yup, exactly. And I mean, seriously. At this point, your dumbass brothers don¡¯t have even have the slightest chance at beating you in thatpetition, right? You obviously have the biggestpany in the whole game. Well, ¡¯game¡¯, I guess. It¡¯s not really a game... It¡¯s fucking confusing, man." The young man groaned loudly, and Eisen just looked at him with a light chuckle, while Komer himself just looked up at everyone. "Yeah, not really, there¡¯s no way I¡¯m going to be allowed to inherit my dad¡¯spany." Komer pointed out, and both Stahl and Evalia looked at Komer confusedly, although Eisen already had a rough idea why this was. It just seemed like Komer didn¡¯t want to directly speak about it yet, so he didn¡¯t bring it up. And so, before the others could question Komer any more, Eisen just continued, "Either way, you deserved a break. Pack your things up, we¡¯re leaving in an hour." "An hour? But I-" "I¡¯m fine with 30 minutes as well if you prefer that." Eisen pointed out, and Komer just looked back with a light squint of his eyes, "...you won this time..." Komer muttered as he jumped up and made his way into the penthouse, while Eisen simply sat down on one of the chairs out here. It was a nice day, and summer would be over in this world soon, so they had to enjoy it while they could. Melissa didn¡¯t hesitate to jump on Eisen¡¯sp, considering that she had to make use of a chance like this as much as she could while she still had the body of a child and could properly act the part. Caria was looking at her sister a bit jealously, something that Melissa weirdly enjoyed, actually. Meanwhile, Sal dropped down onto the outside-couch and just tried to sleep. For whatever reason, he just made the active choice to stay awake more and more while Eisen was sleeping over the past few weeks. Eisen had no idea what exactly he was doing during those four hours, but it seemed to be something worth being this exhausted over all the time. And while Eisen was just sitting there with the Great Empress Bee sitting on hisp, he was trying to figure out what kinds of things he could make that may be of help in heaven or hell. Or most importantly, what kinds of things he may need to do to get the favor of the gods of the underworld. He didn¡¯t have a direct conversation with any of them yet, so he couldn¡¯t say whether or not they were pure chaotic evil or just rtively calm, reasonable people. For the most part, all gods seemed to just do whatever they want, a quality that logically should be more prominent in the more ¡¯evil¡¯ gods, but seeing how some other of the supposedly ¡¯good¡¯ gods acted a lot of the time, Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure if that was urate. He would just have to see. It probably wouldn¡¯t be too hard either way, since the gods already long knew about him, but there still might be some sort of challenge that was directly connected to getting their official approval. Or reaching heaven and hell in the first ce. With a deep groan, Eisen leaned into his chair and just looked over to the side, where Evalia and Stahl were currently trying to figure out a nice design for Stahl¡¯s demonic transformation. They were both rtively excited about the whole ¡¯Trickster Demon¡¯ thing and were trying toe up with something that would really do that title justice, but in the end that just ended up making the whole thing far too cluttered, as far as Eisen could see on the small model that Evalia created in front of her and Stahl. "Remove the scrolls, watches, extra eyes, the tail, and basically anything but the suit. And make the color-scheme of the suit itself less chaotic. So don¡¯t use ten different palettes and patterns." Eisen suggested, and the two of them looked at Eisen with a bit of surprise. "Why that? It just looks so... boring without that. That doesn¡¯t really fit to a trickster demon, right?" Stahl pointed out, and the old man sighed as he properly sat up again. "You¡¯re a Demon of Yin and Yang. You need two different energies. Instead of ¡¯Hope and Fear¡¯ like it is for me, I think a trickster¡¯s energies should be ¡¯Calm and Chaotic¡¯. You can go for that kind of more chaotic thing for your yin form, even though it¡¯s still a bit of an overkill, but nobody willpletely trust you enough to be tricked by you if you run around like that. Your Yang form will be there to influence others¡¯ minds for the positive, you will make them trust you. You should do anything you can not to distract them from that trust. Reel them in, anything. And then when ites to the ¡¯reveal of the trick¡¯ or whatever, you should be in your chaotic yin form and make whoever you tricked panic. That¡¯s how I personally think you should make use of it as a Demon of Yin and Yang." Eisen exined. More and more throughout what was basically a small ¡¯speech¡¯ from Eisen, Stahl and Evalia seemed to be more convinced that this actually did make more sense. They removed everything there was for now, although Stahl still had something that he was slightly worrying about. "But doesn¡¯t that somehow seem a bit wrong? With the image that I have, when a trickster tries to convince someone, he¡¯s still grim and intimidating, as if he¡¯s smoothly coercing someone into doing what he wants. Does that really fit the image of ¡¯Yang¡¯?" "Of course it does. Yang includes a bit of Yin, and Yin includes a bit of Yang. They¡¯re both parts of each other, that¡¯s the thing. Personally it¡¯s the same for me as well. I use negative energies to push positive energies to seem even more positive, and vice-versa." "I see..." Stahl muttered quietly. Just like this, Stahl and Evalia continued on ying around with the image they wanted Stahl¡¯s forms to have, and soon simply tested it out by ying around with both a little bit. It would take a while until Stahl would get a real hang of it either way, but it seemed like he already managed toplete his demonic form. The issue was just that right now, he couldn¡¯t influence his demonic form that well yet, meaning that it was a bit of abination between the ¡¯Calm¡¯ Yang form and the ¡¯Chaotic¡¯ Yin form. Stahl would have to use this form for a while for now until he got properly used to it. Either way, when Stahl was grumbling to himself about that fact while still trying to y around with actually activating his demonic transformation himself now instead of having to rely on Evalia for it, Komer came outside to the balcony with anything that he would need while on the inds for now. Eisen packed them away inside of his item storage to save space and then just made everyone get back into the box. It was a little cramped with Komer now, but at the very least, the Bodyguard Golems could be stored away into spatial storage items and then also ced into Eisen¡¯s item storage, so they could save a little more space at least. And so, the group made their way over to the inds after stopping a giant raid from happening and continuosly killing numerous yers over and over again. Chapter 563 Crown Roughly around sundown, Eisen was able to see the inds getting closer and closer. He started flying as quickly as he could to properly get to Prototype soon, since he really didn¡¯t want to waste any time throughout all of this. He now had to help capture two more inds, something that had a higher priority to him at the moment than heading over to the gates leading to heaven and hell. And only after that would he go to the Giant Country. It was still a fair bit away, despite already being so close. Either way, soon, Eisen was able tond in Prototype again. He ced the wooden box, or rather room, down right in front of the castle and let everyone out, before two guardians appeared right in front of him. One, Serio the Town Core Guardian, and two, Gind the Country Core Guardian. "Wee back." They said at the same time while Eisen removed the straps that he used to connect the box to his body while looking at the two guardians, "I¡¯m back." He replied, and then quickly shrunk down before standing in front of the two of them. "Good that you¡¯re here, Gind. I need to ask you a few questionster. But let¡¯s do that in the Guild Room." Eisen suggested while he got out the items that Komer¡¯s bodyguard Golems were stored in to hand them back to the merchant, and Gind slowly nodded her head. "Of course, my King. But please, inform me of how your ordeal in Melroe went." She suggested, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, "Right, I should. Wait a second, I¡¯m just calling everyone to the Guild room, I guess." "My King." Gind said, and Eisen looked at her while turning away from the Chat Screen that he wanted to use to let the others know that theye¡¯re back, "Yes?" He asked, and the country core guardian lightly smiled. "I have a slightly better suggestion right now, my King." Gind pointed out, and Eisen slightly raised his brows with curiosity, "Is that so? Alright, then let¡¯s hear it." The old man replied, and Gind actually slightly started to smirk. Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure if she was even capable of doing so sometimes, but apparently it wasn¡¯t actually an issue. He thought he might have messed up or missed something while repairing her. Either way, Gind quickly turned around and then started walking up the steps to therge entrance to the castle, swiftly followed by the others. The wooden room that was used to transport everyone was brought to a whole other ce by Serio while that was happening. Eisen followed Gind into the castle, which was now actually brimming with lifepared to before and at the same time it became neat and clean, no rubble or dust could be seen anywhere. And that was because of the people that were now working here. Numerous monsters from the town were taught by the First Generation Guardians what they were supposed to do. Most of them even evolved to fit their role better. So now they had maids, butlers, cleaning personnel, chefs, repairmen, anything that might ever be needed inside of such arge-scale castle. Eisen wanted to see if he could properly greet everyone that was now working here, but it seemed like that would take a couple of hours at the very least. Instead, Eisen chose to just follow Gind for now. Maybe once things settled down a bit a gain he could take the time to do it, but for now he just had to do what was necessary instead of wasting his time like that. And so, the group soon reached a new ce. It was the throne room, and on the other side, Eisen could see a giant throne made for someone roughly 15 meters tall. It was roughly the size of his current height-limit without making use of the Draconic Demon King form, so it made sense for it to be like that. But really, Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely aware that this ce even existed. He didn¡¯t explore the whole building yet, and rather than trying to focus on the things that may be found in here, he wanted to look at the things that could be found out in the town and help fix them. "Here, my King. Please, take a seat." Gind said as she stood next to the throne, and the old man turned toward her with his brows slightly raised, "You want me to sit on that throne while talking to my friends about what happened while I was in Melroe?" Eisen asked with a light frown, and the Country Core Guardian, without a moment¡¯s hesitation, nodded her head. "Of course. You are a king, this is how it was supposed to be, was it not?" She replied, and Eisen slowly shook his head apanied with a deep sigh, "Did I act pretentious like that before as well? Or did I at the very least realize that it¡¯s something very... uptight to do?" The old man asked with his arms crossed as he looked at Gind, who just stood there holding her own hands together in front of her body, without actually replying. "If I may." Serio suggested as he appeared right on the other side of the throne to where Gind was standing, "You barely, if ever, used this throne. Or this room, even. Of course, it may have had to do with the fact that you were barely here in the first ce, or maybe just because you never truly felt like a King even in the past, but there were the asions when you did indeed choose to make use of that title. While speaking to people of importance from all over this world, basically." Serio exined rather quickly. "Personally, I think Gind may have just taken a liking to seeing you act King-like, which is why she is trying to make you sit on this. It always made you feel a bit more... intimidating, if you will." The Town Core Guardian added, all the whilst Gind slowly turned her head toward him with nothing but a deep re. With a light smile, Eisen looked at the two of them and sighed, "Thanks for the offer, Gind, but I think speaking inside of the Guild Room where we can really make sure we aren¡¯t being observed might be the better option." The old man pointed out, although Gind quickly stopped Eisen. "My King, then at least, will you do something else of importance to you as a royal? I think at least while you are in this town, you should carry yourself like the King you are." Gind suggested, and Eisen looked at her before slowly nodding. "Sure. What is it?" He asked. While forming another light smile, Gind disappeared for a few moments, although it seemed like she re-appeared behind the throne. Before Eisen knew it, she came back holding a few different items. "Here, my King. This is your Royal Armor, Cape, Scepter, and Crown. Please, wear this from here on out." Gind suggested with a light smile. Eisen looked down at the items and then turned toward Serio, hoping for an exnation. "Items you made exclusively to increase the effect of your royal blood. The armor is ornamental, so despite being of Divine Quality it only has the same defensive value as a simple set of Rank 7 Armor. Instead, it heavily increases your royal blood and charisma when ites to actions rted to you being royalt. The same could be said for the other items, as they do not hold any sort of special properties otherwise. You created the cape and scepter purely toplete a high-quality set to increase the effect¡¯s potency even more." Serio exined quickly, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. It was roughly how he thought it was. So, without minding any of the other things, Eisen chose to just take the crown, the one item that wouldn¡¯t bother him even if he was wearing it constantly like this. He should put the others into his item storageter, once he put proper storage opportunities in there, but for now it was good enough like this. The old man looked down at the crown for now. It was a rather ssic crown, and didn¡¯t actually look too bad as far as Eisen was concerned. It seemed to be made of an alloy of tinum and gold, and its edges were lined in special crystals. The gems set into it were most likely inscribed with the properties that caused the special effects that Serio mentioned. After all, it didn¡¯t really seem to be enchanted. That was what Eisen thought at first, at least. But when he tried to figure out why exactly the crown was so rough on the outside, thinking that maybe it somehow wore down over the years of not being used and justying around there, the old man realized that this very much was not the case. Instead, he started seeing patterns on the crown. Carvings so intricate and small that they seemed like they were the grain of sandpaper instead of actually carvings. It was incredible, really! Eisen really had to admit that this was the work of a master craftsman actually tiers above himself. It still seemed a little bit narcissistic to think this, considering that it was technically himself that made it, but still. He had the puzzle box in his hand before, and it didn¡¯t necessarily seem this intricately made. Sure, it was amazing, but the quality of the boxes was something that Eisen could easily achieve now. The amazing thing about the puzzle box was the effect of it changing its shape numerous times. Maybe it just seemed so otherworldly to Eisen with his current mindset anyway, that he could just never appreciate how amazing it was. But now, holding this piece of fine craftsmanship in his hand, he really could just admit that the mes in his heart spiked up once more. Eisen already realized the excitement of growing beyond what he was capable of in the past 70 years of his life. It was just that he never knew what ce he could reach. The fact that he was now holding this literally Divine item in his hands was exactly something that showed Eisen the goal. The height he was capable of reaching. The ce he wanted to, and was going to go. It was purely beautiful, amazing, masterful, and that wasn¡¯t even the best that it could be called as far as Eisen was concerned. It was simply all that came to his mind at the moment. With a light smile, Eisen ced this small treasure onto his head, where it simply fit perfectly, and then turned back around to leave the throne room again. Chapter 564 Making Plans While it seemed like Gind was rather disappointed that she didn¡¯t get the chance to see Eisen in full King¡¯s setup again, Eisen hoped that it wouldn¡¯t influence her work too much. Or his own, really. Either way, they made their way to the Guild Room and were soon brought up by the floating tform, while Eisen continued trying to adjust his crown a little. It felt somewhat weird wearing it like this, but it made sense that he should if it actually had benefits like it had. "Yo. Took you a while." Brodyined the moment the group entered the room. He was sitting there on his chair with his feet on the table, while Ruth, the Guild Core Guardian, was currently bringing him some tea to drink. "Wee back." Ruth said with a light smile on her face, and Eisen simply made his way over toward his seat, "Nice to see you again, Ruth." The old man said and sat down, although he couldn¡¯t help but notice Brody¡¯s expression as the Demon Orc was staring at Eisen¡¯s crown. "A real King, eh?" Brody asked with a bit of augh, and the old man simplyughed, "Yeah, what about it? It increases the effect of my royal blood. It¡¯s a useful thing to have." He pointed out, and Brody smirked as he took a sip of his tea, "Sure it is." "I think it doesn¡¯t look that bad." Jyuuk pointed out as his body was slowly turning from wood back into flesh on his chair. He just switched capsules with Stahl apparently, since the young man was just sitting on an extra chair in his ¡¯log-out¡¯ mode. And then, atst, Xenia also entered the room, being thest of the group to do so. Now, all five of them were here, together with Komer, the Town and Country Core Guardians, as well as the Guild Core Guardian. Like this they would definitely be able to have a good, deep conversation about everything that needed to be discussed. "So, we¡¯ve seen the videos. Or well, we were watching the live report on the World of Magic channel. Literally everyone saw exactly what happened." Xenia pointed out quickly, as it was clear that this was the main topic of this ¡¯meeting¡¯. Eisen slightly sighed and crossed his arms as he leaned back in his chair. "Is that so? What kinds ofments did they make on the channel?" The old man inquired. With a light shrug, Brody finally pulled his feet off the table, "It actually wasn¡¯t as bad as we expected. Sure, there were a lot ofints about the fact that you killed more than a hundred yers instantly, but for the most part, they seemed rather d that you did. In the end they would¡¯ve just seen all those people get obliterated instantly anyway, which they probably realized, meaning that they were d they got to have such a good shot of everything unfolding when it came to what you did." He exined. "It was really damn awesome though. We were watching a video about what exactly happened the night before the ¡¯raid¡¯ as well, with Stahl¡¯s performance. He¡¯s really damn talented, actually." Xenia added, and Eisen simply smiled in response. "Yeah, he is, isn¡¯t he? I¡¯m d that everything worked out for him as well. He¡¯s got a proper Demon title now, so that¡¯s something he¡¯s going to be working toward for now." The old man figured, and then turned over toward Komer, who was still feeling a little unsure about whether or not this whole thing was the best way to deal with everything, "But the whole ¡¯show¡¯ still caused a fair few issues, although they were seemingly caused by the rather positive effects I was going for. Komer, go ahead." And then, the young merchant took the lead. He exined to the others exactly what he had already exined to Eisen before then. About how many people want to get to Prototype, how they need far more ships to actually transport everyone anytime soon, and about how Komer was now taking a break while trying to see if he could help Eisen figure all of this stuff out. "Hmm..." Jyuuk muttered quietly, "Then that means that Eisen already has an idea about what we should do?" The Monkey-Beastperson asked, before the old man simply nodded his head without a moment¡¯s hesitation. "Yes, I do. For that, I need to ask Gind something. Am I right to assume that we had a mass amount of warships on the Ind belonging to the God of War?" Eisen inquired as he looked at the Country Core Guardian, who didn¡¯t need to think long about this, "Yes, indeed we did. We had enough for multiple fleets of a dozen Warships each, my King." She exined, before Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Good. Then we can really do it like this. Right now, we¡¯re not faring war against anyone, but even if we do, we¡¯ll have the upper hand either way. I think we can afford taking some of, or even most of, the warships and turning them into passenger ships to transport the people that want toe here to the inds. That¡¯s the biggest issue we have right now, we don¡¯t have all that much manpower." With a light frown, Brody leaned forward and looked at Eisen, "And how exactly do you want to turn all those warships into passenger ships without having manpower in the first ce? Want to do all the work yourself?" The Demon-Orc asked, but Eisen simply shook his head, "Of course I will do some work, but no, I¡¯m not nning on doing it all myself. On top of the ind of war to actually get the base warships, we¡¯re also going to head to the Ind of the God of Craftsmanship. I¡¯m sure that we¡¯re going to find a fair amount of help there." Eisen pointed out, before Gind quickly exined. "That is a correct assumption to make. The town on the God of Craftsmanship¡¯s ind was one of thergest we had, since it is right next to the ind of the God of Trade where our secondrgest town in general could be found. As on the ind of the god of craftsmanship numerous races and beings could be found, whether they were elves, dwarves, titans, golems, special guardian types, or even monsters, there should still be a fair few left over that are capable of helping us with this task. The monsters on that ind are rather troublesome, however." Gind exined. Rather curiously, Jyuuk raised his brows and sat up a little more, "Troublesome? How exactly?" He asked. Without even thinking too long, Gind quickly exined, "Out of control Ego-Items. We were never sure about the creator of them, but somehow there was always a near-to-infinite source of those ego-items rampaging on the town. We managed to narrow the area where they were spreading down a lot using special items, but I assume that work has now been undone." "Out of control ego-items? Like, ego-items that can move without someone wielding them?" Brody asked with a light frown. And while Brody maybe didn¡¯t, Eisen immediately understood what Gind was speaking about. He already noticed that his Ego-Rank 5 Sword and especially his Ego-Rank 6 Multitool had an actual mind, preferences, and could even experience things like jealousy, anger or joy. It made sense that there would be some items at maybe Rank 7 or 8 that ended up being raised in a negative manner, or were simply created for this purpose in the first ce, to go absolutely mad like that after possibly even changing their bodies into another form. Eisen was actually more than just interested in seeing this all, so he made a suggestion. "Alright, I think we should go for it and fight together again. It seems like either of those inds could be a bit troublesome if we split up." Eisen pointed out, "Especially for the Ind of the god of war. There should be a lot of monsters that are all rtively well organized there. Probably a lot of open fields and terrain that can be used forplex tactics of war. So we should all work together for that, since we¡¯re most likely at aplete disadvantagepared to whoever we can find on that ind." "So, where are we going first?" Kiron asked with a bright smile as he was slowly pushed into the Guild room through the tform in the center of the room. With a light smile on his face, the old man greeted the Crystal Half-Dragon as well as his four squires. "I suggest heading to the ind of craftsmanship first." Gind replied quickly, and Eisen lightly raised his brows, "Really? And why exactly?" He asked. Quickly, the Country Core Guardian exined. "It¡¯s simple. The main reason you want to take over the ind of the god of war at the moment is to get your hands on the warships. But without making sure that you have the means to repair and remodel them, it would be rather risky to go for that ind first. It may be a waste of time depending on the state of the god of craftsmanship¡¯s ind." Gind pointed out. With a slow nod, Eisen couldn¡¯t really help but agree. He was thinking the same thing in the first ce, he just wanted to see if Gind¡¯s reasoning was the same as his own. "Then it¡¯s settled. We¡¯re heading to the ind of the god of Craftsmanship. How far is it away from here right now?" Eisen inquired, and Gind quickly exined, "It should only be a trip of roughly three to four hours depending on your vessel." The Core Guardian said. Eisen was satisfied with that. He was more than just excited about finding out what those monsters looked like, really. Either way, this wasn¡¯t all just yet. Eisen still had something else that he wanted to know about right now, "Then for thest thing I wanted to speak about... Gind, do you remember where the gates leading to heaven and hell were?" The old man inquired. And it seemed like Gind didn¡¯t have to think that long about it either, since she quickly nodded her head. "Yes, of course I do. They are rather close to this ind, actually. If you were to fly there, you would reach it in a mere few minutes." With a deep groan at the fact that Eisen didn¡¯t think of asking the Core Guardians about this yet, Eisen sighed loudly and looked back at Gind. "Do you remember how to enter them? I doubt just anyone can get through." "Of course. There are Guards in front of each gate that need to be beaten first. However, it is something that has to be achieved in one against one fight, as only one person may pass the gates at a time. And as it¡¯s not your upation, you may not even be allowed to have your three monsters help you, or even follow you to either heaven or hell." Chapter 565 Strategy After they received all the information that they needed, the group got started on strategy. And that strategy was about about how to best take over the next two inds, and who should be the Lord of those respective inds. In the end, they settled on one of the four Grandmasters as the Lord of the town on the god of craftsmanship¡¯s ind, but didn¡¯t really find anyone for the god of war¡¯s ind just yet. Either way, it was also pretty important to figure out who woulde to the inds with them. Eisen couldn¡¯t say for sure, but he had a feeling that some extra craftsmen could also be of help on the craftsmanship ind. They would definitely all split up into groups, and each group having an expert on how different types of items were structured and where their weakpoints were was a rtively good idea as far as the old man was concerned. The old man was sure that the one that was creating all these out-of-control ego-items was now the boss monster of the ind. It was rather unlikely that it wasn¡¯t that way, after all, it was probably the strongest monster there to begin with. Not everyone could create such ego-items, after all. "Okay, so that means that we¡¯ll have Jyuuk and Melissa scout the ind out to begin with so that we know what to expect where and so that we¡¯ll know where exactly the town is. We¡¯ll split up into groups depending on how well a match we are for the items." Eisen slightly summed up. Jyuuk was a bit in thought and then nodded his head, "Right. And you said that we¡¯re specifically splitting up depending on our weapon? So if an area has more leather- or cloth-based ego items, then those that use des fight there, and if they¡¯re metal-based ego-items, then people with blunt weapons are fighting them?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen slowly crossed his arms. "Yes, exactly. Well, for thetter, it would be people with blunt weapons or those that are especially capable of piercing-attacks." While trying to figure out ideas of what those ego-items might be structured like, the old man was also mentally trying to figure out the groups already. There were also those that were rather versatile or just used magic to fight instead of either ded or blunt weapons, so they would fit neither or both groups. Well, in the end, they could probably decide it on the ratio of ego-item types. "But either way, we¡¯re heading off now?" Komer asked, to make sure he understood Eisen correctly, and the old man quickly nodded his head in response, "Not directly, I¡¯d say. We should try to prepare as well as we can. Especially for the ind of the god of war afterward. We need to be prepared, but there¡¯s no way we¡¯ll be able to easily prepare for what is toe on that ind. But we still need to do what we can." "...this really is bothersome, isn¡¯t it?" Brody asked with a loud groan, "Can¡¯t you just give me protective or regen items so that I can go on and have a bit of fun over there? I¡¯ll take care of everything, don¡¯t¡¯cha worry." The Demon-Orcughed out loud, while Eisen just looked at him with a light smirk. "Oh, you sure about that? You can fight against numerous constructs that were specifically created for war?" Eisen asked, and with a broad grin that showed off his teeth, Brody nodded his head, "Yeah, of course I can. I¡¯m awesome like that, ya know?" "You know that those war constructs were most likely made by me? Still think that?" Eisen asked, and Brody pushed himself off his table with a loudugh, "Hell yeah, you old fart! I ain¡¯t gonna lose against you." Seeing Eisen and Brody speak to each other like that, somewhat joyfully bickering, all three of the core Guardians here in this room were smiling brightly, even Gind was. "How wonderful it is to see you are still the ones that you were since before you gave up your experience." Gind pointed out, and the five Originals just lightly smiled, with Eisen and Brody doing so slightly awkwardly, while Komer immediately turned around to look at the country core guardian. "Wait, what? What do you mean, ¡¯gave up¡¯? Didn¡¯t your guys¡¯ experience get stolen from you?" Komer asked, and Gind quietly chuckled as if this mere idea was justpletely ridiculous. "Stolen? Nobody may ever have been able to trick my King and the Lords and Ladies like that. A dwarf¡¯s lifespan is 70 or 80 years, and a normal giant¡¯s can reach up a thousand, with only very rare elder giants being able to live far beyond that. My King is a Half-Dwarf, Half-Giant, and not the elder kind. His lifespan would have been maybe 600, 700 years at most. From what I know about the aging of halfling races, my king should have been 300 or 400 years old when he reached the peak. Let¡¯s even say it took 500 years, just for this example. That would mean that my King has lived at the peak for 99500 years. The strength he has attained throughout that time is immeasurable, and I personally assume it was many times that of what a person that merely just peaked could achieve. So much so that Lord Brody was reportedly only able to beat my King in a fight for the first time twenty thousand years ago due to the mere difference in experience and raw strength until then." Gind¡¯s words, that seemed like nothing more than bragging, made the five originals think a bit. "But wait, if it took Eisen that long, then why did I manage to get there within... well, I assume 20 years?" Evalia asked with a light frown, looking down at her body, and Eisen slowly started to think while moving his fingers through his beard, "I¡¯m thinking that we probably helped each other out a fair amount. Brody was able to do it quicker than me because I could make weapons for him, and through his knowledge ofbat, he had a raw advantagepared to me. Then, Brody could teach Jyuuk how to fight on top of me making him and the monsters he got through his own knowledge equipment. We could tell Xenia all that she needed to about our knowledge about magic, so because of her basic understanding, she was able to develop magic further than we were able to. Making use of the knowledge that Jyuuk, Brody and I gathered throughout the millenia, she was able to create new magic that allowed her to get there quickly. And of course, Evalia benefitted like that from all of us. She had the best equipment, learned magic from Xenia andbat techniques from Brody, while Jyuuk taught her how to make use of charisma and how to control others using it." "That..." Evalia muttered quietly, "...makes me seem like the biggest leech, what the hell?" Sheined, and Eisen lightly chuckled in response, "Don¡¯t worry, that doesn¡¯t mean you didn¡¯t work hard. But either way, we probably all had the Level and Skill trainer titles, so it kept getting easier each time a new one of us joined." From then on, this conversation really just descended into everyone giving their ideas on what happened in everyone¡¯s past again, this time in rtion to how they actually reached the peak. That was, until Komer interrupted the conversation again. "E-Erm, could... could one of you maybe exin to me in what way you guys gave your experience away instead of having it stolen? I still don¡¯t get that..." Komer pointed out, and Xenia quickly turned toward the young merchant. "It¡¯s simple. What Gind was trying to say is that we were far too strong for anyone to have ever beaten us. I¡¯m pretty sure it was mentioned that Brody wiped the floor with the God of Combat before. No dragon or their subordinates could have beaten any of us. Even if they were Rank 10, since they didn¡¯t transcend, they were enemies that someone under peak level could have beaten." The High Elf pointed out, and Komer immediately nodded his head, "Yes, I get that part, you guys were and are still awesome, I¡¯m just asking why you would give up your experience?" "Oh, that..." Jyuuk muttered quietly as he turned toward Eisen, who simply smiled back, "To create life. It¡¯s obvious knowing what we know by now. We were given the task to create artificial life that could be used for the yers. We failed and failed, until we got the idea to make use of our experience to create life instead. And it seemed like it worked. In the end, it was made so that the me was pushed on the ¡¯evil dragon queen¡¯ to give a starting point for the development of the game world." "But wait... if you knew all that, then why did you tell people to join your guys¡¯ side of the ¡¯war¡¯, if there isn¡¯t really a war? It¡¯s not that dragon queen¡¯s fault that this happened, right?" Komer asked with a deep frown, and Eisen slowly nodded. "Yes, but... if we know of one thing that Samuel can do, then it¡¯s manipting memories and emotions. I¡¯m sure he did his best to take someone or something that maybe was a bit aggressive and chaotic anyway, and turned them into aplete maniac and viin. So even if the reason for fighting them is different to what it is in public, I¡¯m sure that it would still be better if Kotam disappeared, no matter how horrible that sounds." Eisen exined it in the best way that he could. There really wasn¡¯t anything else he could say about it. It was how it was, and he believed that this was very likely to be the case. Seeing that the conversation was approaching its end, Eisen stood up and started walking over toward the center of the room again. "I¡¯m going to make a few more items. We¡¯re heading off in the morning." The old man announced, before the others that would follow him, like the five half-dragon knights and the three monster children, as well as Komer, stepped up next to him. Eisen activated the tform underneath him and then noticed his body descending in the tower. When the tform came to a stop at the bottom of the tower, Gind and Serio were already waiting for them, and the group started making their way into the gardens again. The others went on a straight path to the hut, but Eisen wanted to take a little bit of a detour by himself. He stepped up in front of the structure that turned the masses of yin and yang into metals before, and started to think. It may be a bit risky, sure, but Eisen had some new items that he thought he should make, and for that, he would need as many materials as he could. "I¡¯ll let myself be taken over by the curses and blessingspletely." Eisen muttered. He was sure that using Yin and Yang materials, he could make amazing items in heaven and hell. Chapter 566 Out of Control Eisen stood in front of the structure that created yin and yang materials from yin and yang masses, trying to figure out what he could possibly do to create more high-tier materials. Or rather, to create as many materials as possible in as little a time as possible. What Eisen could do is let himself be taken over by the curses and blessings in an environment where the ¡¯Wild¡¯ version of him couldn¡¯t have a chance to escape. That ¡¯wild¡¯ version was supposed to still be a thing even after Eisen revived, that¡¯s exactly what Eisen was going for. It was an actual ¡¯Being of Yin¡¯ or a ¡¯Being of Yang¡¯, instead of just a mass. If Eisen could kill those beings and create thepound from the corpses, or create a direct ¡¯Being of Yin and Yang¡¯. There was sure to be some sort of benefit to doing that and ¡¯offering¡¯ that instead of just regr masses. That¡¯s what Eisen was hoping at the very least, but he couldn¡¯t be sure either. But for the most part, the metals that he got from doing this before were really perfect for him. They were amazing to work with, and the items he was able to create with them were also perfect fits for him. Sure, that might also have been influenced by the fact that Eisen turned them into ego-items, but either way, the metals surely also yed a part in that. The old man tried his best to think of good ideas for items that he could make once he got different types of materials, but he didn¡¯t settle on anything yet. He would probably get a spark of inspiration when actually holding the materials, but either way, there was sure to be some sort of effect when Eisen infused them with the essences of those realms by trying to craft items using the materials either in heaven or hell. Eisen was pretty excited about it, really. It might be a bit bothersome to lose a few levels usually, but Eisen was protected from level-loss at the moment due to the fact he was just level 300, and someone¡¯s level couldn¡¯t drop below level 300 anymore. Maybe Eisen would get some more ideas on what he could make on the ind of craftsmanship. After all, it seemed like there were a lot of different items with a humanoid or beast-like form. Eisen didn¡¯t really consider making things like outfits into ego-items yet, but in the end, it was something that he maybe should do. Ego-Items were incredibly useful things after all, and having something thata grow alongside you was never something bad. And due to the fact that these yin and yang materials were rather hard to acquire, Eisen didn¡¯t want to waste them on small items that Eisen or the others could use for maybe a week, that would then be useless because the items¡¯ benefits weren¡¯t that great anymorepared to what they could make use of instead. "Hello there." Constant said with a bright smile on his face as he appeared right next to Eisen, and the old man turned his head over toward the Core Guardian, "Hello Constant. Anything wrong?" The old man asked, but the Core Guardian just smiled and looked at therge carved sphere in front of Eisen as well. "Nothing wrong, no. I just wanted to see if everything was alright. I thought that maybe I could be of some help to you to try and figure out what you want to do." Constant suggested, and Eisen raised his brows with a smile. "Really? And how can you do that?" Eisen asked, and Constant lightly smiled, "It¡¯s simple. Amongst all the core guardians here, I¡¯m the one that spent most time with you. And since Serio and Gind can¡¯t know what¡¯s going on inside of my garden as long as they don¡¯t actively pay attention to it, and I simply know about everything in here, I¡¯m really the only one amongst us guardians that knows about all your mannerisms and techniques while you work. I know your process perfectly, or at least I¡¯d like to say I do." Constant exined rather proudly, before Eisen looked down at the core guardian with a light smile on his face. "Is that so?" Eisen asked, "Thene on, help me a bit. In the past, when trying to make masses of yin and yang, did I ever try to just let myself bepletely overwhelmed instead of simply cutting off a limb?" Eisen asked, and Constant thought about it for a while and then shook his head. "Not as far as I remember, but we spoke about this before. Imagine an out-of-control, chaotic being of destruction with the body of someone that can easily destroy a country or two in an afternoon and still have time to make dinner. I don¡¯t think that¡¯s great, right?" Constant pointed out with a slightugh, "You should be able to make use of this technique now without too much damage over here. But are you sure you should do it? You received quite some damage to your right arm through the curses, after all, right?" Eisen looked down at his arm with a light frown and grumbled a little, "The curses were the reason for the tumors?" "Were they not?" Constant asked, and Eisen lightly frowned, "I mean, my arm was always pretty damaged... but that¡¯s not a reason to get tumors to grow in there, I don¡¯t think. Maybe the curses elerated it a bit, or it was something else." The old man muttered to himself, "But my left arm didn¡¯t change in the slightest after the blessings." "I might be wrong. I don¡¯t know anything about that side, after all. But either way, if you want to try, then you should try! But I think maybe we should do it after you¡¯re all back from those two inds, since that¡¯s priority number one for all of you for now, right?" "Right. Good idea, thanks, Constant." Eisen said with a smile on his face. Together with the Core Guardian, the old man made his way toward his workshop, where the others were already waiting for Eisen to make some more items. --- The next morning, everyone gathered at the harbor by therge ship again. Everyone that woulde with them to the inds of craftsmanship and then immediately after that, the ind of war. That included Askr again, of course. There was no way that they wouldn¡¯t take him with them, he was an amazing asset inbat, after all. Eisen watched as the wood Giant picked up everyone and brought them to the dungeon gate set into its chest at the moment, and then helped Askr sit down on the ship. Jyuuk¡¯s undead were taking care of steering the ship again, and Jyuuk was one of the few people that would stay outside the dungeon for the whole time because he wanted to make sure that nothing was going wrong with his undead and beasts that he was using to control the whole ship. Meanwhile, the others were inside of the Dungeon, waiting for the ship to start moving toward the ind, and most importantly, preparing themselves for thebat. Because there were actually a few people that Eisen had never really considered as positive assets for this kind of thing before. Like Monster Warriors that lived on the central ind and in prototype before. They were mostly there for the fight against the monsters on the ind of war, but they might also be a good addition for the ind of craftsmanship. They had a lot, a lot of people and monsters here that were capable of fighting, as well as a few craftsmen. That included the four grandmasters, but also a few monster and guardian craftsmen so that they could go along and make sure that the items of different groups were always in peak condition. Eisen himself was currently just trying to finish up the second Core Guardian for the inds that he was working on sincest night, and the grandmasters were watching with incredible curiosity, because the guardians were incredibly intricately built. They had been living in Prototype for a couple of days now, so they and their families hade in contact with a lot of Guardians. It obviously made them incredibly curious about what kind of production methods could create such life-like artificial beings. And now, Eisen slowly pressed one of thest metal tes and smaller panels into the Core Guardian¡¯s body and then looked all over the figure¡¯s body to make sure that everything was really in good condition. With satisfaction, Eisen ced the Core Guardian into a small storage box and then ced it into his item storage. "What a useful ability..." Morrom muttered quietly, "You can keep so many things in there." The Dwarf-Elf pointed out, and Eisen looked at his cluttered storage and nodded his head. "Yeah, but I was nning on sorting through it a bit, actually. I should probably get to that now. We do have a little more time, after all." Eisen pointed out, and with a swift motion just made all of the items and materials inside of hte item storage until now simply stay in ce andy on the ground. A few pieces of metal and cloth fell to the ground, but it wasn¡¯t that big a deal. Eisen looked at the ¡¯room¡¯ in front of him, and then grabbed some wood out of the materials that he just dropped onto the ground. He was visualizing everything that he wanted inside of the item storage while starting to work on the things that he knew for definite he would need, and asked the other grandmasters for their opinions. "Hm, how about a workbench? Might be useful to have if you¡¯re somewhere where you don¡¯t have much ess to things like that." Jekyll suggested, but the very next moment, Eisen swung his hand to the side and created a very simple workbench out of his element. "I don¡¯t think I need that all too much. I¡¯m really just looking for ways to sort my materials and items in more easily. Like holders for different items, shelves specifically made for different materials, and so on. That kind of thing." Eisen exined quickly. He tried to think about what else he could really make to add onto the item storage for now, and he really just had rather basic ideas. The only issue was that this would all take up a fair amount of the limited space Eisen had, but he figured that was better than having to sort through a mountain of mixed materials every time he wanted to get anything at all. Chapter 567 Item Storage Interior Eisen finally got started on making actual storage items for the things he made for inside of his item storage ability. It might be a little bit of a waste to do it like this space-wise, but since the room created by the item storage ability wasn¡¯t that small anyway, it wasn¡¯t that big a deal. That, and the storage items he could create could be made with spatial gems to potentially increase the storage space beyond what the actual item storage ability could offer. First things first, Eisen wanted to make some things for material storage. And he would start with the somewhat easiest type of material to ¡¯sort¡¯ while storing, the liquid storage. There were still a bunch of barrels for liquid storage downstairs underneath this ce that Eisen could make use of. He deleted all of the enchantments ced onto the barrels and then chose to smelt them down for their materials, which were the most important things, so that he could reshape everything into something that was a better fit. That, and Eisen wanted to add a slightly higher concentration of spatial gems, as well as one more material that would hopefully boost the spatial storage capabilities to oblivion. Eisen added a small portion of Margon. They were capable of somewhat ¡¯mass producing¡¯ it at this point in time. They didn¡¯t have that much Maroon to begin with, but at the very least they now had a proper way to infuse it with elemental mana and turn it into Margon without worries. And Komer had been looking into where that one merchant got all the Maroon from in the first ce. He was just a stall merchant, he didn¡¯t even have a set store in the merchant town. It didn¡¯t seem like he had a store in another town either, which made Komer more than just confused and intrigued, but it also made it harder to look for people that the merchant was trading with, since he was most likely travelling all over the continent constantly. But in the end, Komer hoped that he would be able to get some clues as to where they could get a steady source of Maroon without relying on mass amounts of money to procure it. Either way, for now, Eisen wanted to make use of a little more of the margon, while obviously saving enough to make at least another dozen core guardians without worry. Either way, Eisen put a small pebble of the highly-infused margon into the alloy and added it in properly, and then created some thin sheets using this metal alloy. After the alloy properly cooled down, Eisen started enchanting the sheets so that he could turn it into a proper spatial item and have the space inside of the item grow bigger than it actually was. And after then turning all the sheets into proper barrels, quite small, since they should only be able to hold around 10 Liters if they weren¡¯t spatial items, Eisen started using Magic Inscription on them. In front of him, he saw these numerous small dots floating around, like the ones that he was used to. It was just that they were moving far, far quicker than Eisen remembered them to, which was probably something caused by the Margon inside of the alloy. Eisen was confident that the ¡¯old¡¯, or rather ¡¯former¡¯, Eisen also used Magic Inscription on all his items, especially when it came to ones making use of actual materials¡¯ special properties like when it came to spatial items, but because Eisen melted all of the barrels down and added another new materials properties to the mix, it probably caused all this disarray. First things first, Eisen tried to gather all the dots up and create the proper shape of the barrel using them. But while he was doing so, Eisen noticed that adding Margon actually helped an incredible amount, since everything seemed much more stable even when Eisen moved the dots further away from each other than he usually would want to. And as such, the old man created asrge a space inside of the barrels as he was capable of without making the item too dangerous. After all, if he somehow moved the dots too far away from each other without some special method, and then tried to use the spatial item, the extra space inside of the item might just copse and end up forever swallowing up everything that was inside. It actually happened to Eisen once when he was ying around with magic inscription a bit, although he was kind of hoping for it to happen in that case. He created another cubic room inside using the spatial gem¡¯s dots, but made the room roughly three to four timesrger than he would usually do, although he just had the same amount of ¡¯dots¡¯ to make use ofpared to other times. When Eisen then opened the space up and filled it with some random things like rocks, it actually created something like an implosion inside of the storage space, and after Eisen tried essing it again, everything was simply gone. He could still use the spatial gem, just that it would continuosly destroy literally everything ced inside of it. But even that wasn¡¯t possible for that much longer, since at some point the spatial gem itself simply shattered into pieces and turnedpletely crumbly, turning to dust the moment one¡¯s finger came in contact with it. Either way, this stable distance between the dots was increased an incredible amount through the addition of some Margon in the alloy, Eisen was sure that that was what was causing it. Just like this, Eisen finished all of these quite small metal barrels. Eisen added another two pieces of wood against one of the walls so that he could properly stack these barrels up there as well. And then, once he did stack them, Eisen just added some wooden bars that he pushed into the small open spaces created inbetween the round barrels while stacking them, so that Eisen could simply pull whatever barrel out of there without having to worry about the ones above all dropping down and getting damaged. Once Eisen was done with the liquid storage, Eisen moved onto metal storage. And for that, Eisen once more would make use of spatial gems and a tiny, tiny bit of Margon. Since there were a lot of different metals in a lot of different quantities that Eisen liked to work with, he would either need a ratherrge storage room itself to have enough space to actually store them all, or make use of exactly those spatial gems to increase the space some more. Eisen started off and created 100 different spatial gems that each had a very small amount of margon in it. It was basically miniscule, but Eisen still wanted to make use of any sort of beneficial increase that he could afford. After he made the gems themselves, Eisen created a 10 by 10 unit shelf, with each unit being 20 cubic centimetersrge. The old man then coated the inside of each of these 100 units in the spatial gems and started to change the way they acted using magic inscription. Each of those spatial gems was the ¡¯room¡¯ type that Eisen had already made use of before, so that he could make order of all the items and basically increase the volume of what could be stored inside of the spatial gems anyway, before starting to enchant the inside of the small units to turn them into proper spatial items. Just by stretching his hand into the units, the ¡¯spatial rift¡¯ would open and would let Eisen ess the actual space beyond it, so that was good already. Eisen would now be able to potentially store 100 different materials in a sorted manner. But with this way of doing it, Eisen would either need to remember the position of everything perfectly, or go through all of the different small storage units to check what was inside there. Since that seemed a bit too time-consuming, the old man thought of something else. Eisen took some mana crystals and enchanted them all with his ¡¯Visualization¡¯ ability, before using them to create 20 by 20 centimeter ¡¯square rings¡¯ that he then ced on the wood surrounding each of the small storage units. Eisen enchanted them for efficiency and then used magic inscription to do the rest. This mana crystal would take information from the spatial gem about what was inside of the actual spatial gem, and then would use visualization to make it appear as if whatever type of material was inside of the subspace was actually inside of the small shelf unit in the form of an ingot. If there was nothing inside the gem, nothing would be shown. Either way, Eisen would be able to instantly see which unit had which material. Happy with what he made here, Eisen started actually sorting his metallic materials into this already, and was more than just satisfied when he saw that everything was working properly. This already cleared up so, so much space inside of the item storage to store other things. After all, the metallic materials that took up about a third to, at times, half of the item storage space, would now only upy a 2 meter by 2 meter by 20 centimeter space no matter the amount of metal Eisen had with him. Well, there was of course a limit to the amount that could be stored inside of this shelf, but Eisen had a lot of other ways to store his materials as well, so it wouldn¡¯t be an issue either way. The materials Eisen stored inside of the material storage ability were mostly just for emergencies or when Eisen was out on the go without anyone else around. If he was with Sigurd and Fafnir, for example, he wouldn¡¯t really need the materials from the item storage all that much. He would just need to be near Sigurd, or maybe even inside of the dungeon, and he could be given any and all materials that he needed instantly, because Sigurd was a rather proficient assistant by now when it came to that. Either way, then came the next material storage parts. And really, they weren¡¯t all too different to what Eisen made for the metals, just a bit more fitted depending on the material type. He made the ¡¯rooms¡¯ inside of the spatial gems deeper, but thinner for wood, because a lot of his wood materials were nks that simply wouldn¡¯t fit inside of that normal cubic room. But otherwise, it was realy mostly the same for all of the materials. And luckily, by now, Eisen only took up a third of the space on the walls in this item storage room. With a satisfied expression, Eisen then got started on the parts meant to actually store some items instead of just materials. Chapter 568 Item Fusion Eisen was looking at the different items that he had in the item storage before. Different weapons or tools that he made out of boredom or for practice, as well as pieces of clothing or armor made for the same purpose. These would take up an incredible amount of space, as far as Eisen was concerned. It was harder to store these in the same way as Eisen stored the other items, although in the end, he probably didn¡¯t need to store this kind of item that much. Instead, Eisen should probably start putting these into the portable shop. Since any item inside of there is also stored when the shop is closed down, that would save Eisen a lot of space. And it wasn¡¯t like he needed these sorts of items ever anyway. So, Eisen started making a shelf that he could keep the special keys for the portable buildings on. He wanted to make a lot more than just the two that he actually made so far, ones with different purposes. They didn¡¯t even have to be houses, really. Ships and carriages for travel, cages to trap monsters or other enemies, as well as things likerge-scale protective or offensive equipment. It was pretty hard to carry it around everywhere, but there were surely cases where things like a trebuchet maye in handy. For now, since Eisen didn¡¯t have that many things for such keys in mind, he just made a small box that he hung up on the wall for now. The box had 10 spaces in total, each being justrge enough to fit one of the keys. Eisen ced his portable shop in there and then started thinking of other things to make. Eisen figured that he should, at the very least, make things that he may actually need at any point. Like a mannequin with a recement apron and pants, or some extra needles, des, and even hammers. Eisen couldn¡¯t tell exactly what would happen to his ego-multitool in the future, after all. These things didn¡¯t really take too long. He had recement items like this already made anyway just in case, he just didn¡¯t have a good ce for them so far. So the only thing he had to make was the mannequin, which he quickly ced against the wall. Eisen made some hooks that he ced the tools onto, and some extra boxes to keep the small stuff in. With a satisfied expression, Eisen looked at the space in front of him. It was far neater now, and he had a space to put everything that he had in here before as well, with the exception of the weapons and armor that he would put into the portable shop. But looking at all these different, actually rather useless, items, Eisen had another idea of what he could possibly do in thest roughly half an hour until they would reach the ind of craftsmanship. It already leveled up a little bit because of the methods that Eisen used in crafting in general, but as Eisen didn¡¯t use materialbination all too often, it didn¡¯t really level up that much. Eisen was going to try and y around with the item fusion ability. He tried doing it with some actual items before, but nothing really happened at all, so Esien figured that it was something that would happen at Rank 1 or 2, hopefully not anyter than that. Either way, what Eisen was doing now wasbining different materials together like normal to level the Item Fusion skill up and bring it to Rank 1. It was pretty straightforward, really. But Eisen figured that this wasn¡¯t the kind of thing where the beauty of the skillid anyway. Luckily, it didn¡¯t take long for Eisen to rank the skill up for the first time. [Item Fusion reached level 100 in rank 0, upgrading to rank 1] [You can now fuse items together] Happy with what the notifications told him, Eisen chose to split up the materials that he rather randomlybined with each other again, and then picked up to small, simple items. Two daggers. Eisen held both of them in his hand and pushed his mana into them, making one item carry one ¡¯vor¡¯ of mana, and the other one another ¡¯vor¡¯ of it. And then, Eisen just brought the two types of mana together right in front of him. Each dagger was slowly being taken apart into its particles, as if they had been built out of dust that was slowly being blown away, andbined in the center right in front of Eisen to make a new dagger. Both of them lookedpletely identical, so the same could be said for this new,bined dagger. The bonus stats one gained from wielding this new dagger where a bit higher than each dagger¡¯s was individually, but just by a few points in total. The quality was the same as Eisen was used to, so nothing about that really changed. Weirdly, Eisen was kind of... disappointed. This wasn¡¯t as great a skill as he imagined it was. Well, it would be a bit weird if he were able to potentially make a god-ying weapon just by making the same basic sword over and over again andbining them together. That, and it was only at rank 1, so Eisen shouldn¡¯t be expecting all too much in the first ce. Either way, after Eisen fused these two daggers together and basically wasted the materials of one of thempletely, Eisen tried something else out. It definitely felt like a waste, so Eisen simply pushed his mana into this one dagger and then split the mana into two types, moving them away from each other. And just like Eisen had hoped, soon, he was holding two daggers again, one in each hand. And they were the exact items that he hadbined together before. Eisen confirmed that he was unable to do that with regr items by trying it with either of these daggers first, which didn¡¯t work, and then looked at the two daggers with satisfaction. At least he was able to y around with this a little bit without worrying about wasting anything now. Just like that, Eisen grabbed one of the daggers, and just for fun, a ruby. He split his mana into two and pushed either type into one of the two items, and then brought it together right in front of him. And when Eisen then took a closer look at the resulting item, he was rather surprised to see that every material making up the dagger was basically like it had been infused with a little bit of ruby, even the leather, making Eisen wonder about something. He enjoyed the way that this dagger looked, having just a slight red glimmer to it, but Eisen had to try something else out as well that was far, far more important to him at the moment. Eisen kept the ruby and ced both of the daggers to the side, before pulling a small strip of leather out of the part of the shelf made exactly for that. With a curious expression, Eisen split his mana into two again, pushing half of it into the ruby and the other half into the leather, before bringing them both together in front of him. And what Eisen was then holding was tough, slightly rigid, ruby leather. And not only Eisen was excited about that, but so were the Grandmasters, with Jekyll at the forefront. "You¡¯ve gotta be shitting me!" Jekyll eximed, "Yabined a crystal and leather? Wait, youbined ANYTHING with leather? But Morrom said it ain¡¯t possible!" Immediately, the Dwarf-Elf Halfling nodded his head and took the strip of special leather out of Eisen¡¯s hand to take a closer look together with Jekyll, "Yeah, because it¡¯s not! You can¡¯tbine things like nts, meat or leather with anything! At least not with Alchemy!" "Exactly." Eisen chuckled lightly, and this isn¡¯t Alchemy either. I used my new ¡¯Item Fusion¡¯ skill for this. It let¡¯s me fuse full items together, for one, and apparently also things that usually shouldn¡¯t be able to bebined." Eisen pointed out, "This is definitely going to open up a lot more doors now." "Of course it is! Come on, ya need to give me a steady supply of this type of special leather, old man!" Jekyll eximed. He seemed to be really going crazy over this, and that was to be expected. It was hard toe across leather with special properties like this, and while a creature with this kind of hide may be a thing somewhere in the world, it was far, far easier and quicker to just make it like this instead of trying to find, hunt, and transport whatever creature needed for the leather. "Of course, of course. Or actually, wait, no, I won¡¯t give you a steady supply of it." Eisen said, changing his mind in the middle of the sentence, and Jekyll looked at him as he was currently despairing, "What the fuck, why wouldn¡¯t you-" "Hey, don¡¯t get so loud, Jekyll. You¡¯re going to get your leather, I¡¯m just going to make an item for you that lets you create whatever leather you want yourself. That would be far easier, probably." "Oh..." Jekyll replied, "Oh yeah, that makes sense. Thanks, old man!" The Jackal-Beastperson and Dwarf Halfling started tough a bit, and excitedly looked down at the leather in his hands. The others were already capable of making their own special materials with the help of things like alchemical fusion, for which they usually visited Morrom to get his help, but Jekyll was the only one that had to rely on other things. Like giving leather special material-baths to strengthen it, or apply ayer of other special materials or paint to it. Things like that. Really, having this kind of ability made the skillpletely worth it already, but the fact that he couldbine different direct items with each other really made Eisen slightly curious about something. If he was able tobine items, then what if he tried tobine an item with his multitool? Eisen didn¡¯t want to do it just yet, because it would most likely ruin the whole multitool by slightly infusing every material with steel or something as long as he didn¡¯t use yang metal. Maybe at some point he would gain an ability that would let him control which parts hebined, like whether he just wanted to use the material or the properties of the item. Then he would do that, and hopefully he would be able to expand upon the multitool with any kind of tool that came to mind, to possibly create an ¡¯Omnitool¡¯ instead of a multitool. This idea was actually more of a joke, but it seemed like the multitool hanging onto his apron was getting rather excited after noticing what Eisen was thinking. Chapter 569 Mad Ego-Items Before the group knew it, they made it to the Ind of Craftsmanship. Everyone made their way outside and got Askr off the ship. Everyone that was set to fight on this ind came out of the dungeon, and immediately once the two of them were outside, Jyuuk and Melissa started scouting out the ind as much as possible. So far, nobody could really notice any sort of ego items that went out of control and was as such rxing, but Eisen was actually rather curious about something else. The old man stepped up to one of the trees here because he noticed a small beeshive hanging on its branch. Eisen stretched his hand out and caught one of the bees in his hands, and couldn¡¯t help but grin in excitement when he saw this. He already somewhat hoped for this to be the case. It was how things worked at the ind of golems, after all, so there was little reason why this kind of thing shouldn¡¯t be a thing on the ind of crafting. It seemed like every living creature, up to the bugs, was an ego-item. The ones representing the animals probably just weren¡¯t the kind that went out of control as far as Eisen¡¯s guessing went. "Interesting..." Eisen muttered quietly as he took a look at the bee-item in his hand. For now, he copied its bodypletely and then transferred it into arger, colored visualization that he could take apart however he wanted. "I see." The old man said with a grin. It seemed like for one, there really wasn¡¯t any golem core in there, but there was a soul just directly set into the item which somehow animated it at this level. But otherwise, it was a rather skilled construction. The wings were thin but durable, its whole body was made of metal that was far too light than one would expect, but most notably, there was something like a small vial in its abdomen that was connected to the stinger. It was filled with a little bit of liquid, which Eisen figured to be the bee¡¯s simple venom it made use of while stinging other beings. Although, Eisen was actually pretty curious about what kind of venom it was, because usual venom shouldn¡¯t have any sort of effect here on this ind. Sure, for people and regr living, breathing creatures, but it seemed like those were a bit of a rarity here these days. With a bit of thought, Eisen turned back toward the metallic bees and considered catching them again to see if they maybe had some kind of corrosive acid in them instead. He was using his demonic influence to keep them off of him right now without even really fully transforming, but the bees were still a bit pissed at him. Understandably, he just randomly grabbed one of their own. Either way, for now, Eisen couldn¡¯t really do anything about these guys. He should rather try and look for more creatures to inspect. These bees would be here even after they took over the ind, after all, so it didn¡¯t really matter that much whether or not he took a look at them now orter. "Alright, all of you, be careful. It seems like any living creature on this ind is actually an ego-item, at least that¡¯s what the patterns on the other inds suggests right now. Make sure you have enough food and water before heading out. We will give each group a few of Melissa¡¯s bees, so if anything is wrong, you just need to turn to them and let them know that you need our help, like that we¡¯ll know immediately as well and another group will try to see if they cane and help you." The old man suggested to everyone, and it didn¡¯t seem like anyone really had anything to say against this idea. Eisen looked at the groups in front of him and was rather satisfied with how they were split up. Despite the restrictions that these ego-items gave them on the creation of well-bnced parties, as far as the old man concerned, the parties weren¡¯t badly bnced at the very least. Not perfectly, but not horribly either. "Got it. So, Jyuuk, how¡¯s the state of the ce?" Brody asked as he turned toward the Monkey Beastperson, and Jyuuk quickly started to exin to them the ¡¯areas¡¯ there seemed to be depending on what kinds of item types there were. There was just one problem, "I found the town already, but if we go on a straight path from here to there, the ego-items are just a jumbled mess, no real type." Jyuuk exined. With a light smile on his face, Eisen looked into the direction that Jyuuk was pointing into, "Got it. Then we¡¯re taking that one." Eisen said clearly, turning toward his Knights behind him. They had a pretty good bnce, and Eisen didn¡¯t want to split them up, so it was good that there was a ce like this. Other than those five and Eisen, the old man¡¯s group would of course include Eisen¡¯s three tamed monsters, Sky and Bree, Kirisho, as well Komer. The group made the decision that for now, it may be a good idea to have Askr just as backup and extra protection for the ship. He would basically be this ce¡¯s bodyguard, and if there was any situation where anyone really needed help, Eisen wouldmand Askr to rush over there and take care of it, something that the wood giant should be able to do more than easily. "Alright, then split up, everyone." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and one after another, all the groups went on their way, taking different routes across the ind to see which path would be the quickest to get to the town of craftsmanship. And once the others were gone, Eisen went ahead and led his group on a straight path toward the town. For the first little while, there wasn¡¯t really anything around that was worth taking notice of on abat-side of things. There were some animals that Eisen was pretty curious about, because he would have liked to see what kinds of items they were and how they were constructed internally, but it didn¡¯t matter too much to him either. He just mana-copied them for now and would take his time looking at all that stuffter once he had the time. But then, roughly 15 to 20 minutes after they started walking, it seemed like the group came across their first ¡¯monster¡¯. It was a bipedal, humanoid monster. It was seemingly a metallic kind based off of a sharp weapon, so probably a sword. It seemed quite rusted all over the ce, and generally in a bad condition, but as far as Eisen could tell, its arms and legs all had edges to them that would definitely be capable of cutting apart a lot of things, including all these people here. But of course, that didn¡¯t really happen. Instead, the moment that this mad ego-sword ran toward the group, Morgus the ck half-dragon used his giant metallic pir to counter-attack. The sharp edges that were leftover from this ego-item¡¯s days as a sword were immediately blunted, while the others chose to try and attack it to an extent as well. Of course, Caria and Sal were really just tying the monster down, but also Bree and Sky were properly involved in this fight in particr. Bree with her warhammer and Sky with an inkheart summon that was wielding a simrrge, heavy and blunt weapon to Morgus and Bree. Both of them were doing a pretty good job, and in general, it didn¡¯t take long until the ego-items durability waspletely reduced. All that needed to be done was destroy the part that actively held the core of the soul, which Eisen was able to find rather quickly and without any issues, so they were able to take this crazy ego-item down pretty quickly. The next ego-item they stumbled across, actually not too long after encountering the first one, was seemingly a leather armor that went mad. It was obviously an armor for a person, but it was hunched over and running like some kind of ape. The space inside of the armor waspletely filled out with more mass that just seemed to be leather, and parts of its body all around seemed to be somewhat ripped apart and not in a good shape in general. It didn¡¯t even have anything like a head either, instead it had a lot of small eyes all over the chestpiece and a gaping, awkwardly ced and angled mouth at the left side of its torso. It was like its mouth was running from its belly-button to its left elbow, and all the teeth were weirdly leather-like as well. But luckily, since it was made of leather, it wasn¡¯t any different to attacking other monsters. Just this time, Morgus and Bree couldn¡¯t really attack, as blunt weapons relied mostly on damaging things deeper inside of the enemies¡¯ body, like shattering their bones or ripping apart their organs if possible, without necessarily actively breaking apart the skin too much. And since this ego-leather-armor didn¡¯t have anything like bones or internal organs, they had no way of doing proper, effective damage to it. Instead, Eisen and Kiron took the lead on this one, cutting into its body that was nothing but a thick mass of leather while supported by the others in any way possible. Arrows, magic, anything that could help was thrown at these ego-items. The only one that wasn¡¯t really doing anything was Komer, becausepared to the others here, he was actually kind of underleveled. He was trying to find good opportunities to attack the monsters to get at least a little bit of experience, but in the end, it seemed like too much of a risk to use his coins on something that seemed like an easy win anyway. There actually seemed to be another item that Komer really wanted to try out, although he didn¡¯t reveal what it was to Eisen yet. Maybe they should just try and capture one of the next ego-items and have Komer try and attack using his Fate Items. Although, he may not even do that there. It would be too awkward if he ended up getting the bad results in that case. It seemed like he was more than just prepared for it for when he was in actualbat, carrying as many healing and mana pills and potions on his person as absolutely possible. And while Eisen was looking around for a next ego-item, he was actually rather surprised. Or confused, even. At first he thought it was a hallucination caused by him thinking of Komer¡¯s potions, but in the end, he was right. What was walking there in front of them was a humanoid figure made of ss that waspletely filled to the brim with a blood red potion. It was an ego-potion. Chapter 570 Ego Potion "Hmm... Rudia, try to shoot it." Eisen said, slightly turning toward the red half-dragoness archer, and without hesitation she pulled on the bowstring and shot an arrow at the ego-potion that was walking toward the group. The arrow hit the slow ss body and put a crack in it, making the arrow get stuck in the ss. Immediately afterward, Bree took initiative and swung her hammer toward the arrow and pushed it in deeper. The ss cracked and the blood red liquid inside of its body spilled out of the hole that formed. The moment that the actual potion touched the ground, the grass withered away as if all life was drained out of it. But instead of just spreading out on the ground, the potion soon gathered together. For a moment, Eisen was wondering if maybe it wasn¡¯t actually that the potion was an ego-item, but that the ss was, but seemingly both was the case. The potion flowed onto the ss,pletely shattering it apart into numerous sharp shards. Once more, the bottle and potion formed a body, just this time in a different form. The body had regr proportions, but was simply made up of the potion. The lower arms and hands as well as the lower legs and feet were made up of amalgamations of ss shards with the blood red potion seeping in between them. The red potion¡¯s head split apart horizontally in the center into arge, gaping mouth that soon let out a high-pitched shriek. Eisen looked at the figure in front of him and sighed rather annoyedly, "That¡¯s not that great..." The old man muttered quietly, and before he even had to ask, which he was actually just about to do, Rudia already shot another arrow at the ego-potion¡¯s body to see what the potion would do to physical objects. And before it was even able to properly prate the liquid, the arrow was already disintegrated. With a deep sigh, Eisen extended his hand forward. Through his body, starting from the center of his chest, toward his shoulder, past his elbow and right out of his hand, his elemental spirit flew out. It pped its wings and spiraled around the potion¡¯s body, while Eisen watched it with a slight smile. Since the elemental source inside of the spirit¡¯s body was also Eisen¡¯s own elemental source, he was able to control it as if it was inside of his own body anyway, despite that currently not being the case. Eisen supplied mana to his elemental spirit, and it was soon surrounded by cold blue mes. mes that extended outward and grew colder and colder, creating freezing mist the whole time. Eisen pulled them toward the ego-potion and tried to push them directly onto the actual potion. Bit by bit, its body was freezing while taking very little actual damage, but that didn¡¯t matter too much right now anyway. All that needed to happen was that the potion needed to be taken out ofission, so that someone could actually kill it by destroying the area surrounding the soul core. Eisen even marked it outside by changing the color of his mes into a target, and before he knew it, Rudia shot another arrow toward the ego-potion and shattered the red ice apart. After the area around the soul core was destroyed, all the ice shattered and fell apartpletely, before the potion was properly announced dead by the system. "So..." Komer muttered quietly, "What the hell was that?" He asked. Immediately afterward, Sky added, "Yeah, seriously. I didn¡¯t know you could make ego-potions... What kind of use would that even have?" The fey-kin boy asked confusedly. Eisen slowly thought about it for a while, but even he couldn¡¯t really tell. "I guess maybe it would be able to change its effects depending on what¡¯s currently needed based on its own judgement? It seems kind of wasteful to do it like that, though, except maybe for very, very rare potions. And it¡¯s not like it can really be trained either, now can it...?" Eisen thought quietly, looking at the ego-sword that he was currently holding in his hand. "Although, maybe..." The old man muttered, "Depending on what kind of soul you put into it, like what grade it is or how well of a match it is, ego-items may start repairing themselves. So it¡¯s possible that an ego-item would be able to replenish itself." "But doesn¡¯t that only happen really slowly? Like, after a day, small scratches may disappear from ego-items?" Bree pointed out. She had been watching Eisen very intensely, and because of her Analyst abilities, she was able to figure out what state Eisen¡¯s items were in very easily whenever she wanted to, and as such pretty quickly noticed the fact that ego-items could heal themselves as well. Slowly, Eisen nodded his head, "Yeah, but even then, if it¡¯s a potion with unique materials that could take literal years to gather, it might be a good idea to make an ego-potion that was capable of repairing itself and it would make sense." Eisen was deep in thought, trying to figure out what was actually going on and in what way something like an ego-potion would actually make direct, logical sense, but soon, Argon the bronze half-dragon asked a question that Eisen weirdly hadn¡¯t directly considered yet. "Erm... Does there really have to be some sort of reason for it?" He asked, and Eisen looked at Argon with his brows raised just so slightly, "What do you mean?" The old man inquired. Argon slowly closed his eyes and thought about how to best word it, and then exined his own view on this situation. "You see, sometimes, things are ambiguous. Even with my ability to sense truth that I have gained from my god Trygan, there are times when even I can¡¯t tell whether or not something is the truth or not. And it is not because my ability is too low, but rather that there simply is no direct truth, or because something is made up of both truths and lies. Maybe it¡¯s a truth that is changing constantly, or it is simply so unimportant that in the mind of the person speaking to me, it can¡¯t even be recognized as being worthy of the title of ¡¯truth¡¯. To us, it may seem illogical to hear something like this, but the one that created this ego-potion may not even had any sort of reason for creating it. Instead, it was just an arbitrary idea. Just because." Argon suggested, and Eisen slowly looked at the bronze half-dragon while deep in thought and in the end just nodded his head. "Honestly, that doesn¡¯t even sound that far off." Eisen pointed out, and Komer looked at him with a wry smile, "It doesn¡¯t? Seemed like nonsense to me..." The merchant pointed out, and Eisen immediately nodded his head, "Exactly. It¡¯s nonsense, making these kinds of ego-potions is just that. Complete and utter nonsense, nothing more, nothing less. We maye across items that would logically never really make sense as ego-items, like maybe food, or things that can just barely count as items. Because in the end, anything can be turned into an ego-item. Most things probably shouldn¡¯t, but it¡¯s still possible. And whoever or whatever is making all these ego-items probably doesn¡¯t care about ¡¯why¡¯ anymore." "That means that we¡¯ll have to be more careful, right?" Kiron asked, trying to see if he understood his grandfather right, and the old man slowly closed his eyes and thought about it for a few moments, "I wouldn¡¯t exactly say we need to be more careful, just prepared for more unique encounters. These more ¡¯extraordinary¡¯ ego-items most likely won¡¯t be too hard to handle, but we can¡¯t directly be sure either. We just need to be aware that we can¡¯t expect things to happen the way we expect it to anymore." Eisen exined. The others slowly nodded their heads, and Eisen started walking forward, "Then let¡¯s go. We should try to get to town by tonight." The old man pointed out, and continued walking, quickly followed by the others. They started encounter more and more ego-items. Most of them were the regr kind, things like armor, clothes, weapons, and so on that were turned into different forms of ego-items. Sometimes they took on humanoid shapes, other times they had the body of an animal. And sometimes, they looked neither like anything that did live, or was even supposed to live, nor like the regr item they were supposed to be. But every once in a while, they came across special ego-items. There were some potions, some that even benefited the group after they killed the ego-item. The potions may be anything from healing potions to corrosive ones. And just like Eisen thought, or rather joked, they actually encountered some food-based ego-items. Arge boar made of hot, roasted ham. Actual two meter tall gingerbread men that went ahead and attacked everyone like maniacs. It became rather annoying to deal with all of these different kinds of items after a while, especially because there wasn¡¯t the slightest sense of order to them. It felt like they were fighting apletely different creature every single time, so they couldn¡¯t get better at fighting them after a while either. It was more than just annoying, really. But even then, none of the ego-items in particr were especially hard to beat, as they weren¡¯t especially intelligent. They were more like mad beasts than anything. And sure, the closer they got to the town, the stronger and smarter the ego-items became, but they still weren¡¯t a challenge. As they didn¡¯t fight in groups, they were easily defeated after not even a minute each. Eisen and Bree tried to grab some of the materials andponents making up the ego-items¡¯ bodies, although for the most part, they were never really of high quality. Bits and pieces, sure, but most of the parts couldn¡¯t really be reused. But that wasn¡¯t really why they were here either, tehy just wanted to find the town ahead of them. Just a few hours after starting to walk at the beach, Eisen already managed to spot the town, and what he saw there was rather surprising. It seemed like even the buildings were ego-items in some way, shape or form. Of course, a house wasn¡¯t directly an item, but there were still ways to integrate different special effects or techniques into the construction of a house, including the fusing of the materials with souls. As far as Eisen could tell, the houses were somewhat humanoid in form, but were always just bodies from the torso upward, so they never had legs. And that was to be expected to an extent, since it wasn¡¯t really possible to turn the ground into an ego-item, even if it somehow seeded with the house. But that didn¡¯t matter much. They were ratherrge inparison to the others, but to Eisen, they were actually just small-fries. Chapter 571 The Town with an Ego Eisen stood in front of all the Ego-Houses with his hammer in his hand. He figured out that against the ego-items, using tools rather than weapons was a rather useful solution. The others could still fight them like they normally would, but Eisen may have had a little bit of a benefit over them. Either way, Eisen increased his size and activated his Draconic Demon King transformation, now towering over most of the buildings that could be found in this town. The moment that one of the buildings swung its hand against Eisen, the old man replied by swinging his hammer against that hand. The moment they came into contact, the hand made of stone bricks shattered into pieces immediately. After all, the force created by both the ego-house¡¯s and Eisen¡¯s movement like that was incredibly strong. Meanwhile, while Eisen was taking care of the house from out here, the others went inside of the house to take care of it and hold it off. Because after some quick scans by Eisen and Bree as well as some scouting done by Melissa¡¯s bees, they managed to figure out that the soul core was really floating inside of the house, which was still hollow somehow. There seemed to be more ego-items inside of there made out of whatever furniture was inside beforehand, but they didn¡¯t necessarily seem like they had much strength. So, despite their many numers, it should be rtively easy for the others to take care of them. And in the end, it was just like what they figured. Within a few hits of anyone that went inside, the chairs, decoration, and beds shattered into pieces. Soon, the group that went into the house reached the soul core, and since it wasn¡¯t capable of moving and everything else seemed to be taken care of, they just attached some of the magic bombs Eisen made, actually specifically to do damage to materials instead of actual living beings in preparation for this ind, and then made their way outside again. Only a few bees stayed behind for now to hold off whatever other ego-item may have stayed hidden inside there that could mess with the bombs. Once everyone got out, the bees left through one of the destroyed windows, and Eisen blew the bombs up remotely. A few momentster, the ego-house in front of him just stopped moving. Parts of it that were slightly damaged crumbled off, and the whole thing in general wasn¡¯t structurally sound anymore, but it didn¡¯t just crash together like Eisen expected. Using his element, he strengthened it a little bit to make sure it wouldn¡¯t randomly fall over, and then shrunk down to speak to the others that just came out of the ego-house. The first to speak was Sky, who was ready to ¡¯report¡¯ what everything was like inside of the house, "So, like you thought, basically everything in there was an ego-item, but I don¡¯t think they had any soul cores themselves? They might have just been seen as part of the whole house and became mobile together with it." One of the two fey-kin siblings exined, before the other one continued with the rest. "Mhm, and they didn¡¯t really change shape that much either like all the other ego-items, it was more like what happens when you turn things into golems, I think! They kept their shape, but were simply able to move!" Bree added. Eisen started moving his fingers through his beard in thought and then slowly nodded his head, "I see. That¡¯s good to know. For now, none of the buildings should get really too troublesome then. But in the distance, I could see some ego-houses with signs attached to them, and some that were evenrger than me, like mansions. Not to mention the castle in the center of the town..." Eisen said with a slight sigh, and Komer immediately understood what Eisen was getting at. "Ah... If we end up encountering some weapon shops that we can¡¯t really get past, it might be dangerous. Having dozens of swords or spears flying toward us would be pretty annoying to handle." Komer said, "Not to mention armor shops. There we¡¯ll probably see proper enemies again, if there are any full suits of armor inside." "There¡¯s that, but of course, there¡¯s still ¡¯regr¡¯ ego-items around here. There are the ones just walking the streets, but we don¡¯t know if the items inside of the shops were turned into the regr ego-items either. It might be easier to just try and blow the whole house up at once." Eisen pointed out, but he quickly heard a bit of resistance against that n. Kiron looked at his grandfather with a wry smile, "I don¡¯t think we should. Wouldn¡¯t that not only piss the other ego-houses off even more, but also make it harder for us to move around here? We can be d that not every single house was turned into an ego-house, or else we¡¯d already be doomed..." The Half-Dragon pointed out. The old man couldn¡¯t really deny that, but it was still rather troublesome. "Right. Then we¡¯ll just have to try and get through it like this. Well, what was the actual soul core inside of the house like?" The old man asked, and Bree quickly replied. "Ah, it was kind of... you know, like a ball of bricks just floating in the center of the master bedroom, you know?" The fey-kin girl exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. Right now, it was important to try and get as much information as he possibly could while trying to figure out a path where they would be basically forced to fight the houses as little as possible. It would take a fair amount of time to take care of each house, especially once they reached the area where the size of the houses would start to increase. And it seemed like the closer they would be getting toward the center of town to the ce that was basically a castle, the higher the density of the ego-houses became as well. Not to mention that their strength, quality, and the amount of the regr ego-items would indubitably also increase together with that density. Eisen thought it was bothersome, but there was no real way to avoid it in the slightest. Soon, the group started making their way further into the town, trying to sneak around as much as possible by making use of Kirisho¡¯s mist to hide their presence, and just fought the enemies that they really had to fight. That wasn¡¯t because they were unsure if they could beat them, but because they wanted to avoid being exhausted or injured too much before they reached the big bad in the center of the town. Because Eisen was pretty sure that it would be an even bigger bother to fight than the giant upper body that was made up of the castle, many timesrger than Eisen was. And then, they reached the first shop. It was like Eisen had thought it might be... It was seemingly filled to the brim with ego-items that were streaming out of it. There were some of those ¡¯lesser¡¯ ego items inside of it as well, so fighting against these houses would be incredibly bothersome. But just when Eisen was thinking that, he noticed the sound of something in the distance. It was the sound of something crashing down, and just a few momentster, Eisen could see the figure of a certain Demon-Orc flying through the air in the distance. Of course he wasn¡¯t really flying, it rather seemed like he was kind of pushed back like that after the attack of one of the ego-items, probably one of the ego-houses. Eisen quickly sent Brody a message in response to seeing him like that, and the Demon Orc seemed to look around for a few moments, and then saw Eisen soon after. He jumped back toward the enemy that just attacked him and probably took it down soon after, and it didn¡¯t take long until Brody and hispanions, which currently included Morrom as the craftsman of the group, reached Eisen and his own group. "Good timing. We were startin¡¯ to run into some trouble on our own." Brody said with augh, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, "I get what you mean, yeah. But I¡¯m sure you would manage even without us." The old man replied, and it didn¡¯t take a long for Brody to look back at Eisen with a smug grin. "Heh, yeah I would." The Demon-Orc replied, "But either way, it¡¯s good that we could meet up here. These damn buildings are pretty troublesome, huh?" "Yeah, just, how have you guys been dealing with it?" Eisen asked, and Brody slowly turned around and looked at Morrom, "This guy¡¯s got some pretty useful stuff with him. Gloves that take anything apart you touch, bombs thatpress a huge boulder into a fuckin¡¯ marble, and shit like arrows that bore themselves through rock and then literallye running back to you on itty bitty legs. It¡¯s friggin¡¯ awesome! Can I keep ¡¯im?" Brody asked with a broad grin, and Eisen sighed slightly, although he was still smiling. "If Morrom agrees, you can probably hire him. But either way... It seems like you guys basically just blew all the houses up, didn¡¯t you?" Eisen asked, and Brody simply nodded his head as if it was obvious, "Yeah, what else were we supposed to do?" He asked, and the old man slightly sighed. "Go into the house and destroy the soul core that¡¯s floating in there. That way you won¡¯tpletely make it crash and pull the attention of other ego-items toward you." The old man pointed out, before Brody slowly tilted his head to the side. "Really? That might have been a lot easier, then." The demon-orc pointed out, and Eisen just groaned a bit, "How did you not think of that right away?" Eisen asked, "Well, either way, since you were able to seemingly rather easily beat them just like this, you should be able to just breeze through everything from now on. Using the items Morrom has with him, we should be able to get it done pretty quickly." "Gotcha. Then, should we just team up for the rest of the way till we get to the big guy?" Brody suggested, and Eisen immediately nodded his head, "That¡¯s exactly what I was thinking as well. I think that¡¯s the best choice for now. Especially because there¡¯s a lot more ego-items around now." The old man pointed out. "Should we get going? Or try to meet up with the others as well? For the other buildings that are toe, it should be pretty useful to have more people with us, even if it¡¯s just to make it easier to look for the soul core inside of the house." "Sounds good to me. Let¡¯s message them. We should have at least one person that can get messages in every group right now, I think." "Alright. Then let¡¯s go." Chapter 572 Taking Over It didn¡¯t take long until all of the groups properly met up inside of the town. It took some a bit longer to figure out the right tactics of taking down the ego-houses, but it seemed like they all had their own methods to an extent. And that was a good thing, really. Since each group was capable of taking down an ego-house on their own, they were all able to proceed forward at a much quicker pace while not focusing on hiding themselves too much. Not long after, they even reached the first ego-mansion, which was standing there at roughly twice the height of Eisen. And that was really only considering their torso and everything upward from their belt-area. The old man was rather d that they didn¡¯t have legs, or else this would be much, much harder to deal with. But either way, in the end, all that they had to do was hold the mansions off further. And for this, Eisen finally called Askr over as well. Since all the groups got rid of arge amount of the ego-items on the path toward town, the wood-giant was able to get through without encountering too many enemies that could bother him too much. And even inside of town, Askr was able to get through the rtively straight path that the groups went through while taking down the ego-houses without having to fight any of them. And now that Askr was here as well, they had two more arms that were capable of holding the ego-mansions back. Two arms that were needed quite a bit, because the ego-mansions each had four of them. Askr managed to take care of two of the arms for now, while Eisen could try and destroy the other two, while the other groups made their way inside of the mansions. It would be rather troublesome in there, and they already confirmed that there were regr ego-items inside of the mansions, but since the groups wererge and capable, it wasn¡¯t an issue. And to Eisen¡¯s luck, Jyuuk and Xenia also had another trump-card to make use of. For one, there was the giant white-haired minotaur that the beastperson had tamed after Merc and Cial had fused it with the Light Spirit that was now under Xenia¡¯s possession, as well as that spirit itself. These two were already ratherrge as well, both standing at 10 meters in height. That meant that they were also quite a lot of help to Eisen and Askr. But it seemed like, after seeing what Merc and Cial had done, Jyuuk and Xenia did some research into Spirit-Fusion as well, and found a way to do so in a way that wasn¡¯t dangerous to either of them. It was like a perfectly symbiotic rtionship. And so, soon, Eisen had a Minotaur with bright white and gold armor standing in front of him, which had grown to roughly 15 meters in height. Just like that, together with Eisen¡¯s Elemental Spirit, they now had a Unit of four giants that would be useful to them like this. Sure, the Elemental Spirit wouldn¡¯t be capable of fighting usual enemies, but since they were fighting against Ego-Items, that was a whole other story again. He still didn¡¯t do much damage, but he knew where to hit, so that was a good advantage. Soon, the other groups infiltrated the first mansion while the giant-unit took care of everything outside, trying to hold the ego-mansion down as much as possible so that it couldn¡¯t bother the others that were currently inside, because they couldn¡¯t afford things like having the rooms suddenly flip upside down. The worst thing was that because the soul core was still intact, the mansion was constantly repairing itself, so what Eisen, the spirit, and the Light Minotaur were trying to do the whole time was destroy its arms over and over again while Askr was holding it down with pure physical strength after infusing his whole wooden body with the earth element. This method worked out pretty well, but it still took quite a while for everyone to finish inside. It took roughly an hour until they managed to even find the soul-core, and then they had to clear everything up until they had a good escape path. In the end, Eisen just tried punching a hole into the ego-mansion¡¯s chest with his hammer to give them a shortcut. Luckily, they had Morrom, Denmir, Folmirra and Jekyll inside of there. Morrom was capable of setting up his own items to immediately cause destruction to the soul-core, which was now roughly five meters in diameter, with support of the skilled hands of three other Grandmasters. And sure, they didn¡¯t necessarily know too much about Alchemy or Enchanting, which were obviously the basis for Morrom¡¯s items and systems, but their knowledge was transferable to an extent, at least, so they were capable of helping out well enough using their own expertise. Soon, Eisen saw the message screen in front of him of Jyuuk telling him that they were able to get everything done, and Eisen then quickly punched arge hole into the ego-mansion¡¯s chest, as close to the soul-core as possible, and then helped everyone get out of there as quickly as possible, bringing them over to the dungeon-gate ced into Askr¡¯s chest for now as it was safer than setting them down onto the ground. Once everyone was outside, Morrom activated his items inside, and a few momentster, Eisen could see the flow of mana through the ego-mansion¡¯s body stopping. He made sure to strengthen the structure in certain ces, although at this size, it was unavoidable for some parts of the structure to crash down. But luckily there was more than enough space around the mansions that it didn¡¯t matter too much that so many parts were dropping down onto the ground. They couldn¡¯t destroy more of the town now, after all. Just a few overgrown rose bushes were crushed, that was all. After they destroyed the first mansion this well, Eisen was more than just satisfied. They themselves took minor damage, but they were still able to take down the whole mansion and gain a fair amount of experience while they were at it. With a satisfied expression, Eisen looked into the Dungeon gate that was roughly at the height of his own head as he was standing in front of Askr, and then just pushed his hand, or rather just his fingers, into the gate before starting to shrink down rapidly. Like this, he was able to quickly pull himself up to the gate and was soon standing inside of the dungeon. "Alright, so, how did everything work out in there?" The old man asked with a broad smile on his face, and the others looked at him slightly exhausted, "Pretty well, I¡¯d say." Jyuuk pointed out, "There were just a lot of enemies. And sure, there were a couple of regr ego-items in there, but they weren¡¯t too much of a bother with out numbers. We were able to take them down immediately. The bigger problem was the mass amount of decoration and furniture that was turned into these mock ego-items." The beastperson added, and Eisen slowly crossed his arms. "Do you think it¡¯s too much to ask to continue right away? We can probably just wait out here for a night until everyone recovered." Eisen pointed out, but Brody slowly shook his head as he looked around, "I doubt we need that. Sure, it was a bit tough, but nobody was really injured. We can probably get a few more done. But we should rest for a night before taking on that castle. Not to mention, that¡¯s probably not even the boss, right?" "Probably not, but I assume that the boss room is inside of the ego-castle. Meaning that I would like to get in there myself, somehow." Eisen pointed out, "We¡¯re just going to need a proper way to tie the castle down somehow so that it can¡¯t move too much. We have Askr, but even he is smaller than the castle in the end." "True... And as far as we¡¯ve seen, it has what, six arms? We definitely don¡¯t have enough manpower for this." Jyuuk sighed annoyedly. "I mean..." Morrom interrupted, "Are you sure about that?" He asked, and the beastperson looked at him with a brow raised. "Either you¡¯re confident we can take the castle on, or you figured out a way to increase our numbers easily." Jyuuk said, and Morrom scratched the back of his neck, "I wouldn¡¯t call it ¡¯easily¡¯. We¡¯ll definitely need Eisen, Xenia and Jyuuk for it though. I can¡¯t take care of it on my own, but I think we could take over the ego-structures somehow." Eisen looked at Morrom with a curious expression, "Really? How do you think we can do that?" The old man asked, and Morrom crossed his arms, trying to find a good way to put his thoughts into words. "So... Ego-items are structure-type beings, simr to golems. That¡¯s just shown in the fact that they die if we destroy the ce the soul core is resting in. But on the other hand, they¡¯re not just like golems, as they have their own soul, like monsters, animals, or people. Now, I¡¯m not entirely sure, but I don¡¯t think that the souls used for the ego-houses are those of people, meaning that they are souls that can be... well..." Morrom started, and Jyuuk soon understood what he was getting at. "That they can be tamed?" Jyuuk asked, and Morrom immediately nodded his head, "Yes, that¡¯s what I think. But it¡¯s still different. Ego-items can be controlled in a simr fashion to tamed monsters, but it actually works different. They simply remember their master, and reject anyone else that tries to use them, except in special situations where the item itself judged that it¡¯s necessary. I believe that, with direct ess to the soul, we can try and take it over to an extent using the principles of tamingbined with the principles of golemancy." After listening to Morrom¡¯s suggestion, Eisen slightly widened his eyes and nodded his head, "Got it. You want to turn the whole rock-like structure that surrounds, or isbined with, the soul core into a golem core that¡¯s enhanced using the Taming skill." "Exactly." Morrom replied, d that Eisen understood, and the old man just started to grin, "That sounds like it may work. Let¡¯s try it out with the next one. We¡¯ll proceed like normal for the next mansion, but I want you to let me know once you reach the soul core. I¡¯lle inside and while the rest are protecting us, we¡¯ll work on the changing the soul core¡¯s structure and try to take it over. Just in case, before activating it, anyone that isn¡¯t an Artificial or Original should leave, though. The mansion might juste crashing down on us, it would be too dangerous for you guys." Chapter 573 Tamed Golems Soul Core Eisen, Askr, the elemental spirit, and thebination of the Minotaur and Light Spirit were currently holding off another ego-mansion while the others were inside taking care of all the ego-items and trying to find and reach the soul-core that was floating somewhere inside of the mansion. It didn¡¯t take long until Jyuuk messages the old man, telling him that everything was good to go inside of there, and so the old man just used his hammer to punch anotherrge hole into the front of the mansion¡¯s body, as close to where the soul-core was found as possible. The old man jumped into the opening and shrunk down, reaching the outside before the hole closed down due to the ego-mansion healing, or rather repairing, itself. Eisen quickly made his way through the hallway inside of this ce and soon reached the soul-core, where Xenia and Morrom were already starting their work. The soul-core was just floating there right in front of Eisen, arge sphere made of stone-bricks just smashed together. Right now, what Xenia and Morrom were doing was just smooth the surface down, so Eisen quickly assisted them. "I¡¯ll take care of the 3D enchantment starting from the center, you two take care of the outside first." The old man suggested, and both of the others quickly agreed to that suggestion. Once they smoothed the surface of therge, five meterrge sphere down, Eisen got started, just like he said he would. He pushed parts to the side,pressed some and dpressed others, all the whilst trying to create an enchantment that was really asplex and efficient as possible. Soon, Xenia and Morrom got to helping him out with forming the 3D enchantment, and Eisen turned around toward Jyuuk, who was assisting in fighting off some of the ego-items that wanted to enter the room to stop the three from whatever they were trying to do. Eisen quickly infused arge clump of different gems with Jyuuk¡¯s taming skill, and once the 3D enchantment was finished, the old man fused the rock making up the soul-core with these gems. Eisen added more and more gems to the whole mix while slowly trying to split the rock parts off of it. More and more, the soul-core was being reced by this special mixture of crystals and gems specifically made for this purpose. All these enchantments were made for that as well, just to support this process and practically stabilizing the soul-core inside of the rock to make sure it could be properly switched out. Soon, instead of the five-meter tall rock sphere, there was just a one meter tall crystal sphere floating in front of the group, because hte group managed to properlypress it now that they had slightly higher control over the soul core and could make sure that they weren¡¯t damaging it. Eisen tried to directly fuse the soul core with this crystal, instead of just having it be something like a container, and then the group removed all the enchantments that were still on the crystal sphere. Next, Eisen pushed his mana into the crystal sphere and spread it around, before pulling it all out again. And then, the old man started with the magic inscription. Eisen hadn¡¯t tried using magic inscription on things like soul stones or souls in general before, so he was trying to be as careful as he possibly could be. In front of him, after he pulled the mana out and properly activated the magic inscription process, Eisen was rather surprised to just see the current whole body of the ego-mansion and its current movements. With a bit of curiosity at what would happen, Eisen tried to manipte the mana that was currently making up this representation of the ego-mansion. It seemed to be actively working against Eisen, but nheless, he was already able to take full control of it just like this. He managed to stop its four arms from moving and basically put it into a stasis-like state where it waspletely unable to move. Satisfied that they were now able to work without the very room constantly shaking around, the old man continued. The ego-mansion¡¯s form wasn¡¯t that important just yet, they would take care of thatter. Rather, while Xenia and Morrom were once more carving into the crystal sphere and carving the things they needed for Eisen to turn it into an ego-golem coreter, the old man supported exactly what they were doing. There were bits and pieces floating around in front of Eisen that seemed to be part of Jyuuk¡¯s taming skill instead of the soul. They were shapes like threads, and there was actually a ratherrge amount of them. The old man took those threads and used them to create a sphere right around the ego-mansion¡¯s mana-representation, as if encapsuling and with that, trapping it. Eisen described what exactly was going on after that by writing it into the mana, properlybining the effect of the taming with the soul. Eisen finished it up for now and then pushed the mana back into the new soul core, before properly acknowledging it as a finished item. And before the old man knew it, a notification appeared in front of him. [Tamed Golem¡¯s Soul Core] [Quality ¨C Perfect][Item Rank ¨C 6] [Ego Rank ¨C 6][Level ¨C 14] [Description] A special sort of Ego-Golem Core that was created in the coboration between the Godly Craftsmaster Eisen, the Grandmaster Magicraftsman Morrom, and the Elemental Spirit Summoner Xenia. It was created by taking over the Soul Core of an already existing Ego-Item,bining the effects of Taming with those of Golemancy. [Abilities] \u003cRapid Repair\u003e, \u003cMock Ego-Item Creation\u003e, \u003cMagic Sensations\u003e [Requirements] Rank 5 Taming Skill, Rank 5 Golemancy Skill, 150 INT, 150 WIS Eisen looked at the screen with satisfaction before waving it away. Luckily, since it was his own item, he was capable of ignoring the requirements, or else this would all be a little bit bothersome if they weren¡¯t even capable of controlling this huge ego-mansion. Either way, now that this was all set up and Eisen took control of this big ego-mansion, the old man pulled the mana out of the soul core again. For now, he blended the taming-threads out so that he could take a proper look at the soul. Eisen opened up a straight path between where everyone was and the outside in the ego-mansion¡¯s body, even creating a small bridge that they could take to reach Askr¡¯s body. It would be a bit dangerous and risky to do this with other people around. The old man looked at the mana-form of the ego-mansion and blended it out as well. For now, Eisen just wanted to take a proper look at the actual part of the soul. With a slight, careful whisper, Eisen tried to make use of his title that supported his contact and conversation with souls, and slowly extended his hand toward it. "Reveal to me what you used to be." The old man muttered quietly, trying to figure out if he could somehow support this process. He wanted to convince the soul to do as he said no matter what, which rather luckily seemed to have worked out pretty well. Eisen managed to look into the soul bybining soul engineering and magic inscription, and soon discovered the figure that the soul had before it was taken from a living being. As Eisen already expected, it was a humanoid creature. It seemed to have been a sort of Devil-type monster. Slowly, Eisen took control over the soul-mansion¡¯s form and made it to be the same shape as the body that he just saw from that Devil creature. For the most part, it seemed to be mostly simr to a Goblin, with three main exceptions. One, it had a singr small growth on its forehead that resembled something like a horn. But it wasn¡¯t a unicorn¡¯s horn, but rather curved back over the Devil¡¯s head. Besides that, it had a thin tail sprouting from the bottom of its back. And then, it had two pairs of arms, so in total four, just like this ego-mansion did. These Devils were probably a sort of creature that were capable crafters or tinkerers, at least that¡¯s what Eisen figured from its thin, human-like hands. Most other humanoid monsters still had things like ws, the only ones that Eisen saw with regr hands were the kind that were highly-evolved to resemble humans to a high degree, or those that were crafting-variant monster races. It fit the ind as well, so these were probably a monster that used to live in this town, and then whoever or whatever created all these ego-items took their souls for the ego-mansions. It was a rather gruesome idea, but it seemed to make sense as far as Eisen was concerned. Either way, the old man simply started to create a proper body for the ego-mansion. He split its body off the ground and gave it legs, shrinking down the size of everything else that was priorly exposed above the ground to make the proportions right and exactly like that of this Devil that he saw inside of the soul. Then he returned everything to normal after adding a little bit more descriptions into the mana to make sure that the soul core could properly control its body like it was still its own, and to maybe pull a little bit of its former ¡¯ego¡¯ out, to make it more alive and easier for it to actually think aboutmands and act with an initiative. After Eisen was done with that, he made his way outside of the new ego-mansion as well, just watching satisfied as he looked at the figure of this giant structure the same size as Askr in the form of a four-armed Devil stnading right in front of them. It was a rather satisfying sight, as Eisen was pretty d that everything seemed to work out well. Like this, the fights against the other ego-houses would just be easier and easier. The more of these ego-mansions they collected to fight for and with them, the more easily they could take over the next, as they would have more people to hold the mansion down. Not to mention that Xenia, Morrom and Eisen got a little bit of practice of creating this specific sort of item after a little while, so that process sped up a fair amount as well. Soon, without a doubt, the group would be able to take on the giant ego-castle in the center of the town without any worries. It would be pretty interesting if they were capable of taking that over as well, although Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure about that. It would be pretty nice if Eisen could take a giant being that was evenrger than Askr with him to the Giant country. Although that was just an empty hope. After all, he realistically didn¡¯t have any way of transporting the ego-castle. Chapter 574 Vivid Memory By the time the group made their way closer toward the ego-castle and were ready to get to bed for tonight, they had taken over four more ego-mansions. With all five of them, they would surely be able to hold down the ego-castle for a while, or so Eisen hoped. The old man wasn¡¯t entirely sure if he should bet on it, though. He couldn¡¯t say what sort of abilities the ego-castle even had. Either way, for now, the old man chose to go to bed as well so that he would get enough rest to take care of everything tomorrow with the others. But to Eisen¡¯s surprise, instead of his view changing to the inside of the capsule, Eisen stayed in a ck void. He remembered this feeling pretty vividly. This was a dream over here, and not the normal type. A little while after Eisen managed to somewhat put his thoughts together in this space, he found a small white light floating in front of him. Eisen stretched his hand out toward it and touched it with the tips of his fingers. The moment he did, the white light grew and stretched itself out throughout the ck space,pletely recing it in a matter of seconds. But it didn¡¯t just be a ck space, like Eisen had assumed it would be. No, instead, it was the interior of a workshop, and in front of him stood... Eisen himself. He was sitting on a stool in front of a workbench, but right now, the actual Eisen didn¡¯t have a good view on what the dream-Eisen was doing, so he took some steps forward and looked over his own shoulders. And what Eisen was seeing there, was surprisingly nothing but just a soul. It seemed like the dream-Eisen was currently using Magic Inscription on it, writing weird,plex forms down into the mana and changing the internal structure of the soul itself. The old man wasn¡¯t entirely sure if it could really be called a normal soul anymore after this. A few momentster, the mana for the magic inscription disappeared, and Eisen looked at the soul with a curious expression. Both the real Eisen and the dream Eisen did. "Here you go, little bud. Have some ¡¯Steel¡¯." Dream-Eisen said with a light smile on his face. With just a few small movements of his fingers, he made a small nugget of steel appear in them out of thin air, although it didn¡¯t seem to be some sort of magically-created steel. Dream-Eisen held it up to the soul, and to Real-Eisen¡¯s surprise, it actually started moving. It was floating right toward the steel nugget, and even started feeding on it. The steel was slowly being taken apart by the pure white, mist-like soul. It was wiggling happily for a few moments after it ate the whole nugget, and Dream-Eisen just started to smirk at seeing this, "Heh, you like that, don¡¯t you? Did you remember what it was like?" He asked, and once more moved his fingers around. In front of him, five different small metal nuggets appeared. Gold, Steel, Iron, Copper, and Mythril, "Can you find the same kind right here?" Dream-Eisen asked. And the soul didn¡¯t hesitate much, and soon floated over toward the small steel nugget, once more eating it happily. "Perfect! So you can remember it now, huh? Good job, little guy. Now, I want you to eat all of these now as well. He made an incredible amount of more metals, whether they were magic metals or normal ones, or whether they were rare ormon types. It seemed like the Dream-Eisen was just continuosly trying to teach the soul what different types of metals were like. But not only metals, since it seemed like the Dream-Eisen was currently picking up some leather. But just then, the Dream-Eisen and the soul simply fell apart into thin mist, just to appear again on the other side of the room where the tools were hanging. Now, it seemed like the Dream-Eisen was doing the exact same thing it did with the metals with all these tools. Hammers, Knives, Pipes, anything that you may need while crafting something, really. It didn¡¯t really take long until this version of the dream-Eisen and the soul fell apart again, just to change to a scene of Eisen standing in front of the forge, hammering onto some metal while the soul was watching. It was obvious that the Dream-Eisen wasn¡¯t really trying to make anything, but was just hammering for the sake of hammering, as if trying to show off the basic movements and techniques. And before Eisen knew it, the soul actually started to replicate the movements Dream-Eisen was going for. Or rather, the movements of Eisen¡¯s hammer. The same speed, the same direction, and even the same form. Yes, it actually slightly altered its form to be simr to the hammer that the Dream-Eisen was holding, all the whilst still just being a soul. At that point, Eisen actually slowly understood what was going on. Dream-Eisen was in the process of creating an ego-item, but was doing so using apletely different process than what Eisen had been thinking of so far. Real-Eisen just made tools or weapons that knew of nothing yet, and counted on them to learn what was going on as they were being used, but the Dream-Eisen was creating a soul that knew about everything that it needed to know before even being turned into an item in the first ce. As if Eisen was trying to raise the Ego-Rank of the soul beforehand. Soon, the scene changed again, and the Dream-Eisen was currently holding a small rock in his hand. It was really just the same size and shape as a chicken¡¯s egg, really, but it seemed to hold a lot of minerals inside of it. And not only minerals, but also a lot of crystal structures, meaning that it was probably artificially created by Dream-Eisen. The old man held it in his hand, and then simply ¡¯offered¡¯ it to the soul, simr to when Eisen was trying to give a form to souls through Soul Engineering. The egg-like rock was taken apart, and the soul, that had weirdly grown to be asrge as a child would be, simply condensed and turned into that exact shape before floating in front of Dream-Eisen. But it seemed like the soul itself was rather weird. Usually, when Eisen gave souls a form, the part that would take on that form would be the soul nucleus, the ¡¯hardened¡¯ core in the center of the soul. The mist-like substance would still be floating around it without exception. But this time, it was as if that mist had condensed and hardened itself, turning into the egg¡¯s shell as it was keeping the nucleus inside of it safely. And then, Eisen watched as the Dream-Eisen slowly scooped up that ethereal, white egg with his hands and stepped over toward therge sliding-door behind him. Dream-Eisen pushed the tips of his toes into the small gap that had formed between the door and the wall and just pushed the door open using it, revealing the space behind it. And to Real-Eisen¡¯s surprise, it was revealed that he had been thinking inpletely wrong dimensions all along. He thought that the Dream-Eisen was just at his regr size, but no. Instead, he was simply in a truly enormous structure that was perfectly fitted to him for an enormous size. And right outside the door was the outside of that structure. Numerous corpses of monsters of any kind were piled up there. The bodies were intertwined with each other, at least if they still had parts that even could be intertwined in the first ce. Right next to that pile was another one, just made up of an extraordinary amount of materials at a scale that Eisen had never seen. And then, right next to that pile, was a mountain of items. Tools, weapons, anything, really. All of the items, monsters, and materials were at a normal scale, it seemed, but the mountains they formed even towered over Dream-Eisen in that enormous form of his. And before Real-Eisen knew it, the Dream-Eisen just let the soul-egg float over toward the centerpoint inbetween all three of those mountains. Bit by bit, it seemed like that soul started pulling in anything in sight. It grew in size the more it took in, but its shape stayed the same. At some point, which seemed to be just a few moments after the egg started feeding on everything, the three mountains werepletely gone without a trace of them ever having been there in the first ce. Then, the giant Dream-Eisen stepped up to the Egg, which had grown in size to be the exact same height as himself, and to his surprise... Dream-Eisen simply stepped inside of it. He disappeared into that ghostly shell, and all of a sudden, it took on a physical form instead of just that of a soul. The egg-shell hardened, and the whole thing shrunk down more and more, until it was once more just the size of a chicken¡¯s egg. But this time, at a normal scale. It could be held in the hands of a normal person. Real-Eisen slowly turned around at hearing a noise, and saw the body of Dream-Eisen slowly put itself together again from the ground up. That was probably Eisen ¡¯respawning¡¯ after actively dying inside of that egg. So he basically really gave his life for it, even if that action wasn¡¯t really as impactful as it may sound. Dream-Eisen stepped up to the door that Real-Eisen was still looking down from, and stopped there. And then, he just turned his head toward Real-Eisen. "I¡¯m d to see you¡¯re finally remembering some things. I guess that ind woke up this memory in particr, huh?" Dream-Eisen chuckled, and without another word shrunk down to go pick up the egg that he just created. But before Real-Eisen could ask his dream version anything, everything faded again, and Eisen found himself back in the ck space, with nothing but that white sphere floating in front of him. And slowly, the white sphere turned golden from the inside, and Benjamin woke up inside of the capsule. --- The old man slowly stood up from inside, pushing open the capsule. He felt weirdly tired, more so than usual. Benjamin made his way into the bathroom to clean his face to wake up a bit more. The moment that the cold water touched his face, he felt a deep stinging in his head, as if someone just stabbed his brain with a kitchen knife. It hurt for a few moments, but then, as if the pain was a lie, it all disappeared. And Benjamin slowly stared into the mirror. Just now, instead of just learning vague concepts, Benjamin recalled his first vivid memory from his time as Eisen. Chapter 575 Three Snakes Benjamin looked into the mirror as he recalled his actions from that day. He wasn¡¯t sure when it was, just that it was a very long time ago. He could remember what it felt like to create that soul and that egg, and the purpose for which he created it. Just like Benjamin assumed, back then, he was trying to create an ego-item by first creating a soul that already had knowledge of anything that it needed to have. Different monsters, materials, and items. Anything, really. With that, it would obviously be possible to create the ultimate item. A tool that was capable of creating masterpieces on its own was the kind that was fit for a master craftsman. But somehow, Benjamin couldn¡¯t entirely remember what exactly happened afterward. He didn¡¯t know what ¡¯hatched¡¯ out of the egg, if it didn¡¯t simply end up failing. He doubted that it did fail, but it waws still in the realm of possibilities. The old man dried his face and stepped out of the bathroom. This was definitely something that he needed to speak to the others about. And when he stepped out of the bathroom, he already saw Natalying out of Stahl¡¯s bedroom. "Ah, morning!" She eximed with a bright smile, and the old man just smiled back, "Morning, Evalia. Good job back there, by the way." Benjamin pointed out, and the young woman just crossed her arms with a smug expression, "Of course I did a good job. What did you expect?" She asked, and Benjamin lightly chuckled. "Come to the livingroom in a bit, I need to tell you guys something." Benjamin announced. Nataly simply shrugged and nodded her head, "Alright, I¡¯ll clean up a bit first though." Nataly replied, and Benjamin simply nodded his head as he made his way over to the livingroom and kitchen area already. Jasmin and Haruo also got there roughly at the same time, presumably to get some breakfast for themselves. And shortly after the three of them met there, Andrew also stepped into the room. "Yo." He said, scratching the back of his neck tiredly, "You all tryin¡¯ to get somethin¡¯ to eat?" Andrew asked, and Jasmin and Haruo quickly nodded their heads. "Yes, I¡¯d assume so." Haruoughed lightly, although Benjamin quickly changed the topic to something that the others really didn¡¯t expect, as he already noticed Nataly being close enough to hear him. "I just remembered something from my time as Eisen." Benjamin exined, and the four other originals immediately turned toward the old man, "Oh really, what was it this time? Did you get some kinda vibes on how to beat whatever boss monster¡¯s on that ind?" "I guess so, but you misunderstood." The old man pointed out, "I didn¡¯t gain any direct new knowledge from my time as Eisen. I directly remembered something I did and made while I was Eisen. I remember touching my tools, I remember the sound that the floorboards made. I remember the rough location of where I was, and I remember everything that was inside of that workshop. It was a direct, vivid memory." All of a sudden, the originals all looked at Benjamin with rather mixed expressions. For one, they were of course excited. After all, this was proof of them being able to get their memories back at some point, but at the same time, this just brought out the worries of exactly that happening again. Maybe they would change the moment they remembered who they used to be, and became a person they didn¡¯t want to be. That was definitely possible, even if it was something none of them ever wanted to happen. "And..." Jasmin started, "What exactly did you do?" She asked, and Benjamin simply started to exin what exactly happened. And not only what happened inside of the actual memory, but also what happened while he was ¡¯discovering¡¯ that memory. That white sphere in the ck space that then turned golden afterward, and how the version of himself in his memory actively spoke to himself. After Benjamin was finished, Haruo crossed his arms in thought, ??So it¡¯s a memory that¡¯s directly rted to the Ind of Craftsmanship, then?" "Yes, I assume so." Benjamin replied, and a few momentster, Andrew voiced one of his own ideas of what it might have been, "Didn¡¯t you just make the ego-item that was making all those other ego-items?" He asked. With a slight sigh, Benjamin nodded his head. "I was also thinking that. I was most likelybining my experiments about creating artificial life with the process of making ego-items, and then came to that point. It was probably some kind of being that was a capable crafter, but too hard if not impossible to control. But there was probably also a reason why I didn¡¯t just get rid of it after it obviously went mad like that." The old man sighed annoyedly, and Nataly said, "Maybe you were anticipating that it was going to start creating ego-items like that?" She suggested. Benjamin started moving his fingers through his beard and then slowly nodded his head, "Maybe so. It might have just been another experiment of mine, then. We¡¯ll have to see about that when we actually meet whatever I created." The old man pointed out. It was rather annoying that they still had near to no information about the actual boss despite being so close to finding something out. It was like all they needed to know was inside of a book, but it was ced too high to reach on the shelf. "How annoying." --- Eisen slowly opened his eyes and stood up. He stretched a little and then cracked his knuckles as he took some steps forward. He waved his hand to the side and created a gate so that he could get outside of the dungeon. The old man activated his Draconic Demon King transformation to glide to the ground all the whilst increasing his size to the absolute maximum, soon finding himself surrounded by six figures that were towering far, far over him. It was a weird feeling to not be thergest all of a sudden, but it might be something he¡¯ll have to get used to after reaching the Giant Country. After all, right now he was on the lower end of the average-height spectrum amongst giants. Different ns usually had different builds, and with that, different average heights. Amongst the smallest were the Moon Giants, and thergest were the Sun Giants. Although both of them were rather simr in overall power, the average sun giant was usually two to three timesrger than the average moon giant. The Fire Giant n that Eisen was a part of was somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, so Eisen still had to grow a little bit if he wanted to be seen as a proper Fire Giant when he reached the current Grardour. Either way, Eisen hoped that this would be in the realm of possibility for him when he would simply rank up his racial skill up some more. Doing actions like holding the ego-mansions down, that actually required Eisen to be in the giant form, were seemingly doing an incredible job at that. Eisen couldn¡¯t wait to reach a Giant town and be able to make items for giants. That would definitely help increase that racial skill¡¯s proficiency a lot! The old man took a look around, trying to figure out if anything changed during the night that the group took a break, but it seemed like everything was fine. They could still simply go on a rtively straight path toward the ego-castle without having to encounter any ego-mansion or ego-building in general anymore, which would save quite a lot of time. The group had more than enough manpower to properly hold the castle down now, so they wouldn¡¯t necessarily require more forces than that. The group would get inside, fight their way through, reach the boss room, and then beat the boss monster before possibly taking over the ego-castle. Although that may or may not be a rather bad idea, considering that they actually somewhat required a castle, and there was most likely everything that they needed for the town, such as the town core setup, in there. A little whileter, Eisen saw some notifications appear in front of him. They were just messages from the others saying that the groups were really good to go. And so, Eisen turned around toward the six enormous beings behind him. They made their way through the rest of the town, with Eisen trying his best to quickly get rid of whatever regr ego-item stood in their way, which was surprisingly easy when Eisen just hit them with his giant multitool in its hammer form. He just managed to tten everythingpletely, and then some of the others coulde out and finish the ego-item up. The group soon reached the ego-castle and the open area surrounding it. The moment they stepped into the area surrounding the ego-castle, it reacted. It towered up over the old man, the five ego-mansions, as well as Askr, and proceeded to riprge chunks of dirt and rock out of the ground that it was immediately throwing toward them without a moment¡¯s hesitation. Of course, that wasn¡¯t necessarily anything that was an issue. Eisen and Askr could defend against that pretty easily. The ego-mansions were a bit to slow physically and mentally for that, but that was fine. They just needed to have raw, brutish strength to hold the castle downter. But then, just when Eisen thought that they would be able to hold the castle down rtively quickly, he noticed something he should have noticed far earlier. The way this town was constructed was simple. It had three areas. They were vastly different to each other. In the middle was this castle, then around that were therge shops and mansions, as well as other generallyrge structures, and then outside of that was the mon¡¯ area. The old man didn¡¯t really think of it yes, as it was rather convenient, but the change was a bit too... direct. Usually, there should be something to split those areas up, likerge walls, but they never saw anything like that. There was not a single town wall, despite the fact that there should be three of them. One around the castle, one around the ¡¯rich¡¯ area, and then one surrounding and protecting the whole town. They weren¡¯t there until now, but it seemed like they were simplyying out in wait. Because all of a sudden, directly surrounding the ego-castle and climbing up its body, were three giant snakes made of rock. They were each different in size, length, and thickness, so it was really obvious what they were. These were the town walls that were turned into ego-items. Chapter 576 Lamia The group stood there, just looking at the ego-castle and the three ego-walls, slithering around the area. This might be a bit more bothersome than Eisen expected it to be. The only good thing was that the only one of the ego-walls that would be able to be a direct, actual threat to them when it came to being attacked, was the smallest of the three. The other two weren¡¯t evenpletely in the area, the ends of their bodies still reached out of town. The smallest of them, however, waspletely inside of the area surrounding the ego-castle, and as such had a lot more mobility. The other two would just be a bother by blocking the routes that the groups could take. The Ego-Mansions that were under Eisen¡¯s control quickly went on the defensive against these ego-walls, while Askr, Eisen, and the elemental spirit were preparing to attack the walls whenever they got close enough to be actually damaged. Eisen got out his multitool in its hammer form just for this, and once it seemed like they were close enough, the old man called out to these seven giant figures that were under his direct control. "Form a wall in front of me!" He eximed, and soon reached his hand out toward Askr, having Sale out of there so that they could work on a quick and easy n to get through this. "You¡¯re ready, right?" The old man asked, and the spider-boy slowly nodded his head, "I¡¯d think so, yeah. I just need to be close enough to attach my thread, and then I¡¯ll be good as long as I¡¯m not too far away from them." He exined. Eisen slowly nodded his head and watched while Sal moved his hands around and slowly started spinning some threads together into something that was basically a silk-rope. Just then, one of the ego-walls slithered toward the group. Like Eisen had anticipated, it was the smallest of the three. All the ego-mansions as well as Askr properly prepared for the impact so that they may be able to hold it down for a bit, but they simply had their arms bitten off immediately. Eisen was rather annoyed at seeing this, but at the very least the snake slowed down a little for this. The old man managed to get Sal close enough to it, and the spider-boy just swung the silk-rope in his hand around before throwing it toward the ego-wall. The moment that the tip touched its head, it fused with the rock, and Eisen activated his mana-sight to make sure everything was working alright. Sal was trying his best to push his elemental mana through the rope and spread it throughout the snake¡¯s body, and rtively soon he managed to take control of the front third of its body. The rest was still a bit bothersome, but at least it wasn¡¯t able to attack as easily anymore. Eisen ced Sal down on top of that snake so that he could keep working on taking it over like this by using his special element. Now that one of the four enemies was basically put out ofission, and the most troublesome one at that, the others could get out of Askr as well. By using the ego-wall that Sal just partially took over together with the ego-mansions, Askr, Eisen¡¯s elemental spirit and the minotaurbined with the light spirit, they were able to cut off the path of the biggest of the ego-wall-snakes. Melissa sent one of her bees into its mouth, and confirmed that deeper down, the soul core could be found rtively easily and there weren¡¯t really any enemies inside of there. The bothersome part was really just that everything inside of the ego-wall was shifting around and was creating uneven footing. The only times when it would be able to realy damage anyone was by pressing everything inside of there shut, but the group had more than enough to make sure that this couldn¡¯t happen. And of course, one of those things was Brody with his Maroon-alloy weapons. If the ego-wall-snake would try to press its body shut inside, Brody would just stab one of the walls and practically cut up the mana to give the snake something like a physical reaction that made it stop. But for now, a small group of people just made their way inside of thergest of the three snakes, all the whilst all the others tried their best to hold it down while defending against the ego-castle throwing boulders at them while the secondrgest ego-wall-snake was trying to stop them from moving around the area as much. But it would be fine once the group inside of thergest ego-wall-snake was able to take it over. That would definitely make things a lot easier then. Since this ego-wall was really just something like a long tunnel, as long as the group had mounts, they were able to get through it rtively quickly. But considering how fast they were going for this long, it already seemed like they were technically outside of town again when they saw therge rock sphere floating in front of them. Xenia, Morrom and Eisen got started taking over the soul core as soon as they could, using the exact same process as for the ego-mansions. It took a bit longer than they would have liked, considering that they couldn¡¯t work all too fast because the ground was constantly shifting around and moving, contracting all over the ce while Brody tried to make sure that the ego-snake would just stop doing all that. But sooner orter, the group managed to even take this core over, and the snake¡¯s interior stopped shifting around. "Perfect..." Eisen sighed in relief, and Jyuuk slowly turned toward the end of the long ¡¯tunnel¡¯ that they needed to get through to reach the others again, "Alright, let¡¯s hurry it up now." The monkey beastperson suggested, "We need to do this same thing with the other two snakes as well, and I don¡¯t know how long the others can take care of them on their own." "Don¡¯t worry, I already have a small idea how I can easily send you back there." Eisen pointed out with a light smile on his face. He waved his hand around and created something like arge metal tub that everyone in the group would be able to sit in rtivelyfortably, at least when it came to the size of the tub. Using Magic Craftsmanship, Eisen quickly turned that tub into an actual metallic item, and then flipped it over. He started to immediately enchant its underside with a gravity enchantmentbined with a maism enchantment that was supposed to repell the ground underneath it. Morrom quickly understood what Eisen was going for and helped him out, so within a matter of roughly two minutes, they managed to finish it. "Now, everyone get inside of there." The old man said with a light smile. It seemed like Brody and Jyuuk still didn¡¯t fully understand, and the fact that Xenia was acting rather anxious and nervous and that Morrom was rather excited most likely didn¡¯t help them all too much as the metal tub started floating after being supplied mana by the two of them. Eisen looked at the mana-representation of the snake¡¯s body using the Magic Inscription skill, and then simply started to slowly change its shape to make it press its body shut in just a few certain ces. And the next moment, the group, excluding Eisen, was pushed toward the exit as if they were surfing on a wave. They were speeding up rather rapidly, and it didn¡¯t really take too long for them to reach the exit again. Once Eisen was sent a messagefirming that they were outside again, Eisen continued and chose to start changing this snake¡¯s shape a bit. Because Eisen was sure that there was a way to make it more efficient and powerful by giving it a body that was more representative of what its actual soul was showing. And when Eisen looked at the shape of the soul, he was rather surprised to see what he did. It wasn¡¯t the shape of just a regr snake. No, instead, it was the body of a Lamia, a being with the upper body of a person and the lower body of a snake. Immediately, Eisen tried his best to shift everything around. He thickened some parts of the body, but mostly just moved most of the mass toward the front to create an upper body. Rather rapidly, the body of the ego-wall-snake changed, soon towering over everyone outside. It wasn¡¯t nearly as long anymore, but in return, it was roughly the same height as the ego-castle right now in its ¡¯Base¡¯ state. It seemed like the ego-castle was still more powerful, but either way, this ego-castle-Lamia would be incredible help to Eisen and the others in holding the Ego-Castle down. The Lamia that Eisen formed this ego-wall into was created rather far away from the actual battle right now, because Eisen was trying to move things toward the middle from both of the snake¡¯s ends to change its form as quickly as possible, but at least the Lamia was able to quickly get back to the ego-castle, albeit destroying whole blocks of buildings while it was at it. But that was fine, they could have it repaired rather easilyter on. Soon, Eisen reached the ego-castle¡¯s ce again, and jumped outside again. Eisen was flying around there, and saw the confused expressions of all the others that were staring at this giant Lamia. Brody, Jyuuk, Xenia and Morrom had already been preparing to get inside of the second-biggest ego-wall-snake¡¯s body, but even they stopped for a moment to figure out what exactly was going on. Eisen chose to, for now, just not say anything about it. They probably understood it anyway and were just surprised. So was Eisen, it didn¡¯t really seem logical to give Lamia-souls full snake-bodies, after all. But either way, luckily, this giant Lamia was already able to help out, and grabbed the second-biggest ego-wall-snake to let the small group get inside of it rather easily. Once they were inside, Eisenmanded it to hold down the ego-castle for now, so that it wouldn¡¯t be able to throw those huge boulders at them anymore. It seemed like some of the people outside of the ¡¯main group¡¯ were already injured heavily, and had to rely on some of the others for emergency-treatment using healing or support magic. Of course, Eisen, Xenia and Morrom had prepared an extraorbitant amount of recovery potions for something like this beforehand. They wouldn¡¯t let anyone die during this fight. Even if it was a little harder than expected, considering that nearly everyone else beside Eisen was bug-sizedpared to the enemies this time around. Chapter 577 Inside the Ego-Castle Soon, all three of the Ego-Wall snakes were taken over and have been given the form of Lamias again, albeit in quite varying sizes. But nheless, they would be able to not only do some damage but also hold the ego-castle down. At this point, it was more than just clear that they had more than enough manpower to do so. The castle really wouldn¡¯t be able to attack them anymore, Eisen was sure of that. The old man looked at the giant structure in front of him and turned around toward his group, "Alright, I think we should get inside now. We¡¯ll head in with everyone, but once we get to the actual boss-room, we¡¯ll have to split up." Eisen exined to the others, while Jyuuk stretched out his arm to ept one of his eagles back that was just out there looking for an entrance into the castle. "You think it¡¯s going to be tough in there?" The Monkey Beastperson asked, and as the group started to move toward the castle¡¯s entrance, the old man thought about that question a bit, "I¡¯m sure it¡¯s not going to be a walk in the park. The problem with castles like that is that they have a lot of different ces inside of them. They usually have an Armory, things like internal workshops with a lot of tools, weapons or armor, and most likely alsoboratories where different people are trying to create things like potions or simply research magic. Most likely, we¡¯ll encounter a high variety of ego-item types, although they should all be pretty high-quality, being so close to the boss." Eisen suggested. The others were really thinking the same thing, they just all kind of wanted the confirmation from someone else that their guess was right. Either way, for now, they would need to make sure to properly head inside first and foremost. There was a lot they would need to take care of, definitely. Especially those mock ego-items would be incredibly bothersome. Soon, therge group reached the front entrance of the castle, and they simply forced their way into it by pressing open the door with as much power as they could. The hall that they now stood in was eerily quiet, and surprisingly clean. All the others had rubble everywhere, or were at the very least a bit dirty and the things inside were disced. After all, everything was somewhat ¡¯alive¡¯, so they would eventually move out of the way. But no, not this time. This time, everything was in peak condition. They couldn¡¯t even feel the structure moving around at all, as if the ego-castle¡¯s internal structure was manipted to be perfectly level at any moment in time. If that was the thing, Eisen would really appreciate it, after all, it would make their job a lot easier. But of course, things weren¡¯t as peaceful and nice as he hoped they were. Eisen activated his truth-seeing eyes and turned on their mana-sight, and immediately let out a deep groan. "Alright, everything in here is an ego-item, without exception. And it doesn¡¯t even seem like they¡¯re the ¡¯mock¡¯ kind. They have actual soul cores in their bodies." Eisen pointed out as he sighed, pulling his Ego-Sword out of his soul storage before just stabbing the tip of it into the red carpet they were standing on and ripping it across its surface. The moment he did so, the carpet started wiggling around and everyone jumped off it as soon as they could. The cut that Eisen created inside of it was seemingly integrated directly into the body of the ¡¯Ego-Carpet¡¯, as instead of being something like a wound, something like a ck abyss formed beyond it and teeth grew on its inside. The cut was turned into a mouth. A mouth that soon let out a loud screech. But just a few momentster, Eisen reached the Soul core and simply cut through it. It was an ego-carpet, it was basically impossible to hide the soul core anywhere. It was just out in the open. The point of this all was probably to have people walk on the carpet and then identally step onto the soul core, which would probably hurt the ego-carpet and make it react, then trapping the person without them being able to react. But that obviously didn¡¯t work out too well. When Eisen made sure that the mana that had been spread throughout the carpet properly dissipated, the old man heard a grunt from behind him, "Oh, perfect. That loud-ass screech woke the others up." Brody pointed out annoyedly, but Eisen simply looked around the room and smiled, "It¡¯s fine, they should be easy to destroy. Here, I¡¯ll mark the soul-cores for you." With that said, Eisen activated his Visualization ability and shared it with everyone here, creating literal targets right around where their soul cores were so that everyone could focus their attacks on them. After all, all the things in this main entrance hall were ego-items, but their form wasn¡¯t changed. They were basically just running around and trying to move in the shape of tables, chairs, and paintings. Or so Eisen thought at first, since the group hadn¡¯t seen the ego-items actively change their shape. There would be the ego-potions that would end up turning their ss into weapons if it was shattered, but beyond that, nothing like that really happened. But this time, it was different. Everything that was inside of here changed their shape into something else. The furniture in this room and the adjacent ones that the group could look into from here shifted and turned into beasts like boars, wolves, wildcats, or even horses. The soul cores were right where those animals¡¯ hearts would be, so Eisen could just get rid of the ¡¯targets¡¯ he ced onto their bodies and everyone would still be able to know where to attack, but this was still pretty troublesome. The carpet that Eisen cut up wasn¡¯t the only one in this room, there were still thin ¡¯walkway¡¯ carpets ced along the other rooms or up the stairs, separate from the one that Eisen destroyed and killed. Those carpets quickly rolled up along their length, turning into long, red cloth-snakes. Then there were the paintings, that each turned into numerous butterflies, which was the most surprising sight today. It seemed like each swarm was a single entity, as only one of them held the soul core. But at the very least, once that one was destroyed, all of them died. They had a lot of good archers, as well as Jyuuk¡¯s birds and Melissa¡¯s bees, so those were quickly taken out. Some of them attacked Eisen though, and they cut into his skin immediately. The cuts weren¡¯t deep, and only worth around 1 or 2 HP of damage each, but considering that each swarm had at least a hundred of these, that damage would stack up pretty quickly. They were a rather troublesome enemy, really. Either way, the moment after one of them cut slightly into Eisen¡¯s skin, the old man just activated his Draconic Demon King transformation and literally just burnt them up, which happened rather easily due to their material that was weak to fire. Due to therge amount of people participating in this, all the enemies were taken care of rather quickly, and the group could set up whatever they needed to here for now, so that the ¡¯scouts¡¯ of the group could really go and look for the boss room. "Hm..." Xenia muttered quietly, wearing her Mana-Spectacles that Eisen made her so that she would be able to see things like mana as well, "The soul core is just in the position of the heart this time. It seems like its the throne room in there, so that¡¯s probably the boss room." The young woman suggested, but Eisen had a pretty different idea of where the boss might be. "I don¡¯t think so. A throne room is not a good ce to make items, and seeing how well in-order everything is in here, I doubt that that would be the only ce that¡¯s messy and changed around. I think rather the boss is in the workshop area." Eisen pointed out, "So right around here on the bottom floor, or the basement even." A few momentster, Jyuuk nodded his head. The color of his irises had faded a bit, showing that he was currently looking through the eyes of one of his tamed monsters, "Yeah, I think so as well. That up there is the throne room, but it¡¯s just open to enter, seemingly. There¡¯s some ego-items in there protecting the soul core, but beyond that I don¡¯t think the boss is there." "Then should some people head up there and take care of the soul core?" Brody asked, "Or at least the ego-items around the soul core, if you guys wanna take it over." But quickly, Eisen shook his head, "I¡¯m not sure if we¡¯ll need to do that." The old man pointed out, we should all head toward the boss room together. It¡¯s safer that way. I hope we¡¯ll be able to get through this without actually having to kill the boss, much like with Argon in Prototype. And if we can, then we¡¯ll have all the ego-items passively under our control anyway." "Huh." Evalia said, "Then there¡¯s no reason not to try that." She pointed out. And with that, the group decided that they would just go and look for the workshop of this castle, because that¡¯s most likely where the boss was. As far as Eisen could guess and figure out through that memory he receivedst night after heading to bed, it was obvious what exactly happened. Eisen created a new sort of ego-item, or created an ego-item with a new technique. The ego-item then went rogue and started creating ego-items on its own, and was then turned into the boss monster of this ind after everyone¡¯s ¡¯control¡¯ of this town slipped up. While Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure how he treated this ego-item in the past and what the ego-item thought of him, he hoped that he would be able to convince it to stop somehow. Eisen would take ¡¯ownership¡¯ of it again to ¡¯eliminate¡¯ the boss and take over the ind, like they did by simply having Jyuuk tame Argon back then for a few minutes so that the boss room would be taken down that way. Therge group made their way through the castle, soon finding stairs that led down below into the basement area. The entrance to these stairs was rather hidden, so everyone figured that this was exactly what they were looking for. And it didn¡¯t take long either until that was confirmed, as they could start hearing the sound of someone forging metal at the end of this stairway. Chapter 578 At a glance The group slightly slowed down as they continued through the hallway, following the sound of smithing that they could hear echo through this castle¡¯s basement. It didn¡¯t take long until they reached the ce that they assumed to be the boss room, standing in front of a small, wooden door ced into the brick wall at the end of the hallway. Eisen slowly pulled on the handle and opened the door up, before seeing the dark workshop right behind it. It was a rather cluttered space, but incrediblyrge, far, farrger than possible. For one, the ceiling was stretching out for more than a hundred meters, which should be visible aboveground. The old man slowly stepped inside into the Boss-room followed by the other four originals. Since the group had already been reduced to the exact size that should enter the boss room, which was the five Originals together with Kiron, as he was amongst the strongest outside of the originals directly. Then there were of course Jyuuk¡¯s and Eisen¡¯s tamed monsters, Jyuuk¡¯s undead, and Xenia¡¯s spirits. Everyone was inside of the workshop now, and Eisen just looked around to try and find the one that was currently working in here, before seeing some light on the other side of thisrge, mostly darkened room. The group walked past the numerous pieces of weaponry, armor, and simple tools that were scattered around this ce, and then saw a figure standing in front of the smithy. It stood there, with a rtively small frame for the most part. Its torso seemed rather thin and frail, same with its legs, buts its hands were simply enormous. Unnaturally so. Each of its arms wereparable to its torso in size, and to top it off, it had six of them. It was holding arge item in some of those hands and used the other hands to forge it into shape. But a few momentster, it clicked its tongue annoyedly and slowly turned around, "Tsk... Another failure..." It spoke. The voice of the being in front of the group was clearly unnatural and inhuman. It was like it was producing its voice by scratching pieces of metal against each other. Besides that, it seemed to have a rather normal humanoid form. It had an average face of a man at the end of his thirties and a short beard that seemed as if it simply hadn¡¯t shaved in roughly two or three weeks. And all in all, this person¡¯s body was just madepletely of metal from top to bottom. "You¡¯re the owner of this ce?" Eisen asked, and the being in front of them simply stared back with a nk expression, "Are you here to take me down?" It asked, but Eisen slowly shook his head. "Not if we can avoid it. You don¡¯t seem too aggressive... Would you be alright with taking a break and talking for a bit?" The old man inquired, and the figure slowly turned back toward the forge for a moment, "I don¡¯t think I can do that. Either way, we¡¯ll have to finish this in some way, or else I¡¯m going to die. And I can¡¯t die yet." "I see." The old man replied, "And what do you need to do before you can die?" Eisen asked. And Brody slowly looked at him with a wry smile, "Hey, do you think this is the right time for small-talk?" "Of course not. I just think it¡¯s important to know." After a bit of thought, the figure ced the old, dented, and dirty hammers and the ¡¯failed¡¯ item in its hands to the side. "I... don¡¯t remember what I need to do. I just know that I need to create things for it. Buttely, I just keep failing." It exined, and Eisen slowly extended his hand forward toward it, "Can I take a look? I¡¯m a craftsman myself, you see?" "Hm... If you can help me figure it out, then killing you can wait for a few moments." The thing replied in a slow, emotionless tone of voice. It held the item it was holding forward. It was a pretty simple broadsword. As far as Eisen could tell, it was an ego-item, though. The old man ran his fingers over the still-hot metal and immediately felt what was wrong with it. "You used a crystal alloy for this, right? That¡¯s what¡¯s making it this rigid?" Eisen asked, and the boss slowly nodded its head, "Yes." It replied clearly. Eisen just thought about it for a moment and then waved his hand to the side. He opened his item storage. The old man quickly stepped into the room that appeared right in front of him and reached his hand into the storage for one of the metallic materials. It was a simple piece of steel that was infused with some mana, right before it would turn into a magic metal. Eisen stepped out of the item storage and made it disappear, before pulling out his Multitool, "Can I use this for a moment?" Eisen asked, pointing at the forge, and the boss simply nodded. And so, Eisen turned around toward the others. "You can just take a bit of a break, this won¡¯t take too long I hope." "Are you sure you aren¡¯t being a little bit too casual about this?" Brodyined, and Eisen justughed lightly, "Haha, I can see what you mean. Don¡¯t worry, everything¡¯s fine. I have the situation perfectly under control." Eisen announced. He then looked back at the rigid sword in his hand and held it into the mes of the forge. The old man waited for it to properly heat up and then pulled it back out. With a deep breath, Eisen ran his hand over the glowing hot surface of the de. First things first, he used his extraction skill to pull out some parts of the alloy used for this de that were making it rigid. He didn¡¯t get rid of everything, but rather just a little of it in preparation for fixing the bnce. And while Eisen was doing this, he was heating up the chunk of steel that he just grabbed out of his item storage. Usually, he would have had to melt this whole thing down and increase the ratio of all other ingredients for this de beside the one that was making it too rigid, as it would probably be rather hard to normally extract it just like that. But now, he was using the specific skill instead, which would really save him a lot of time. Eisen had been a bit hesitant to use these sorts of skills for the actual crafting process until now, for whatever reason, and just made use of them for the material preparation or for basic experiments. But after he remembered the events leading up to the creation of that special ego item now standing next to him, the old man had somehow gotten a new perspective on crafting. It wasn¡¯t arge shift, but enough to change his opinion on how he should use his skills. After he removed some of the parts of the alloy, Eisen grabbed the hot metal he ced into the forge. He ced it right onto the hot de and then started to hammer it onto it. Using his ¡¯Item Fusion¡¯ skill, he then added the steel into the de, which was strengthened by the fact that Eisen was using his hammer and was using it as an ¡¯activator¡¯ for the skill. Eisen tried to evenly fuse the steel into the de, and once he was done, simply fixed it up a little more. There were a few parts that simply weren¡¯t well-forged, so the old man changed that. Soon, the de was as good as done, so he simply created a grindstone with his element and quickly sharpened the de a bit, changing the grain of the grinder as he was going to save a bit more time and have smooth transitions between the grains. After it was done, Eisen simply polished the de up a bit. This de seemed to have been designed in a way that the handle would be metal as well. Basically, it was purely metal, and nothing else. That seemed to be something that really seemed to bemon amongst all of these ¡¯newer¡¯ items in this ce. "Here you go, is this better?" Eisen asked, handing the sword over toward the figure next to him. The original creator of this piece looked it over for a moment and then nodded his head. "It is a masterpiece. Better than anything I have ever made." It said in its regr, emotionless tone, and Eisen slowly looked around the room, "Yes, I can see that. But don¡¯t worry, with a little bit of practice, you¡¯ll be fine. You¡¯re just a beginner, after all." "Eh?" Evalia asked all of a sudden, "What do you mean, a little practice? Isn¡¯t that thing the ego-item you made?" "Of course not." The old man said with a slight sigh, and extended his hand toward one of the cracked, old hammers that the being right next to him had been holding and using before, "This is the ego-item I made." Eisen exined. Kiron took a step closer to get a good view of it, and then looked up at Eisen again, "Grandfather, are you sure that this is something you made..? It seems rather..." "Shabby? Yeah, it¡¯s not its true form. Come on, bud. Show yourself." Eisen said, and just a few momentster, the surface of the hammer Eisen was holding, the dirty one, not the multitool, started to crack and crumbled away soon thereafter. Instead of the simple ¡¯block hammer¡¯, it changed its shape to sit better in Eisen¡¯s hand and now had a slightly silvery-blue-ish tone to instead of the dirty, dark gray. And a few momentster, even that changed. Eisen let go of the hammer, and the metal making up the hammer¡¯s head simply started to increase in size and mass. Its form changedpletely as well, the handle splitting into two and bing legs for the body that was forming. But overall, the materials used for the tool were also changing into other materials. They simply became flesh-like, although the figure¡¯s skin still had that slightly slivery-blue-ish tone. The figure that was now standing in front of Eisen was about the same height as him without him changing his size in the slightest, and looked exactly like the metallic, six-armed figure behind it, just with normal proportions. It had two well-shaped arms, a muscr, lean upper body, and thick log-like, defined legs. "Hm, I should have known you¡¯d recognize me, old man." It said with a rude voice and clear re, and Eisen simply started moving his fingers through his own beard with augh, "Of course I would. I recognize all my children at a nce, no matter what form they take." Chapter 579 Thrown Away The Ego-Item scratched the back of its head with a light sigh and then turned toward the other one behind it, the one with the six arms and disproportionate body. He ced his palm onto its forehead for a moment, before it rolled its eyes into the back of its head and dropped over backward with a heavy thud. "That thing was a real good-for-nothing. It couldn¡¯t even make one item properly." The Ego-Item grumbled and then looked around again. "So? I heard you¡¯re here cause you wanna talk?" It asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, "Yes, that¡¯s why we¡¯re here. Come on, let¡¯s talk about this a bit." The old man suggested, but all that the ego-item did was roll its eyes. "Right, because you can have a proper conversation about this shit. You just want to scrap me anyway, right? I know I¡¯m a disappointment, but-" "Why would you be a disappointment?" The old man asked, and the ego-item lightly squinted its eyes, "That¡¯s a joke, right? Maybe because I¡¯m a Divine Quality item that you specifically made to create items on itself, but that¡¯s incapable of actually doing that without failing. As you just fucking saw." The ego-item groaned and pointed at the ¡¯corpse¡¯ of thepletely metallic one behind it. "...What?" Eisen asked, "Why would I create a tool like you without wanting to use you? You¡¯re obviously rather amazing, aren¡¯t you?" "Heh, you bet I am. You called me a masterpiece for a few moments, before actually seeing my status. Then you just threw me out." The ego-item said, "And so, I started creating items on my own. But they were all pieces of shit that crumbled at a touch. I managed to get to the point where I could create shitty ego-items like me, and then had them use me as a tool. But- Wait, why the fuck am I even telling you this, you know all of it. Fuck off before I smash you skull in, you old asshole." "Wow... quite a lot of hostility here..." Xenia pointed out with a wry smile, and Brody simply stared at Eisen and the rather aggressive ego-item with a light squint, "Even I never swore at him like that. The fuck does this brat think he is?" "Brody, did you just call him a brat? He literally looks your age." With a slightugh, Evalia looked at the Demon-Orc next to her, while he just snapped his neck toward the young woman, "Oh fuck off, you know that¡¯s just Brody from 80 thousand years ago popping in a bit." "Yep, yep, of course. Don¡¯t worry." The artist chuckled, although she would definitely use this to try and tease Brody a little bit. Xenia seemed to take mental notes on how she could use this against this martial-artist in the future as well. Meanwhile, the ego-item was looking at everyone with a light squint, "Wait... the fuck¡¯s going on? Why are all your items such low-rank ones, and why the fuck are those guys acting that way?" He asked, and Eisen slightly smiled at him, "Well, it¡¯s a bit of a long story, I¡¯d say, but the most important part is that we lost our experience together with our memories of our lives in this world." "..." The Ego-item was staring back at Eisen withplete disbelief, while the old man just made his way over toward the ¡¯dead¡¯ ego-item currentlyying on the ground, "Also, what you¡¯re saying is simply not true. This guy¡¯s body is of incredibly high quality. The materials were all well-chosen, well-mixed... If anything, I think its soul just wasn¡¯t fullypatible." "What¡¯re you talking about, that¡¯s just a rank 8 body, that¡¯splete trash." "Well, rank 8 is higher than any item I¡¯ve made so far. As far as I remember at least. Although that¡¯s not right either, after all I remember the process of me creating you." Eisen exined, and the ego-item just red back at him, "So none of you actually remember anything? You had to start from zero?" "Yep, that¡¯s about it." The old man replied. The ego-item thought about it for a moment and rubbed the bridge of his nose before starting tough, "That shit¡¯s hrious. Fine, let¡¯s have a talk. Under one condition. You finally tell me why you¡¯ve thrown me away like that, and no bullshit. Then I¡¯ll talk to you. Otherwise, I¡¯ll have to kill you, sorry ¡¯bout that." The ego-item pointed out, and in reaction to that, Kiron seemed to get rather angry. He took a step closer and pulled his giant greatsword out of its sheath and held it right in front of the ego-item¡¯s throat, "Do not dare speak to grandfather like that." "Grandfather?" The ego-item asked, and then looked Kiron up and down, simply ignoring the de held up to his face, "Heh, so that stuck-up geezer finally got to bone someone. Good for him." "I will not allow you to speak in such a manner about my family. You will-" "Kiron." Eisen interrupted the half-dragon, who slightly flinched and turned toward his grandfather, who just slightly turned toward him, "Stop it. He has every right to be angry. Ipletely believe that that is how it happened, after all. Old me surely ¡¯threw him away¡¯ because he was of no use to him. I believe that he, I, was not a good person at times. And I think that¡¯s all there is to it. I can¡¯t apologize enough for doing something like that to you, it¡¯s not anything anyone should experience." The ego-item stared back at Eisen and looked him up and down, "You¡¯re really not like him at all, and so much like him at the same time." He said, and Eisen slightlyughed in response, "Let¡¯s hope I only embody the good qualities of him then, huh?" "...let¡¯s see about that." The ego-item said, and then crossed his arms, "I want you to make an item with me. Use me as your tool. I think both of us will then know whether or not it was a good choice that you threw me away or not." He suggested. Eisen didn¡¯t really have to think about it for a long time either, "Alright. That sounds good enough to me. Whatever it is, I???ll let you choose what items you want us to work together to create." The old man replied. The ego-item simply nodded his head, "Sure. First, we¡¯re making a bottle. We ain¡¯t making anythingplex or something. Just a good-ol¡¯ ss bottle, ya hear?" "Alright. Do you have the materials here?" "Nope. But I saw ¡¯em in that storage space before." "Haha, you seem to have pretty good eyes." "When ites to the things that matter, yes." The Ego-item replied bluntly as Eisen opened up his item storage. He took a step inside and grabbed the three ingredients he needed, Silica Sand, Soda Ash, and Limestone. Then, Eisen stepped back outside. "Just a simple bottle, right? No special mix?" "Right, no special mix." The item replied. Next thing Eisen knew it, the figure of the ego-item turned into any ssblowing equipment that the old man may need. Eisen started pouring the three materials he needed together and mixed them before starting to heat them up. When everything had molten down into the mass of liquid ss that Eisen would need, he grabbed the ssblowing pipe that he would need. The ego-multitool on his apron was rather annoyed, but somehow it kept quiet right now. And at the same time, an image flowed into Eisen¡¯s head. It was the image of the ss-bottle that the ego-item seemingly wanted Eisen to make with him. It had a rtively simple shape. It was a potion-bottle with a spherical body and a thin neck, although there were pretty shallow indents inside of the ss, forming patterns that Eisen could already use to figure something else out. That the items that the ego-item wanted him to make would end up turning into arge item whenbined. Either way, the old man then simply started to work. The pipe wasying in his hand perfectly, and Eisen and the ego-item were working together in perfect synergy. Any movement that Eisen wanted to make were also those that the ego-item wanted to make, as if they had the exact same thought processes. Eisen would have thought that he would end up working against Eisen, as if trying to sabotage everything, but it seemed like he was just as serious about making items like Eisen was. And that was a great quality to have in Eisen¡¯s opinion. Once the bottle was done, they moved onto the next part, which was Leathworking. The ego-item turned into knives and needles, and Eisen prepared the materials while it was doing so. Once more, when Eisen touched part of the ego-item, an image flowed into his head. This time, it was something like a ¡¯hull¡¯ for the bottle made with rtively thin ss walls. It would cover every part except those small indents Eisen noticed before. After the leatherwork was done came cksmithing, and now the old man had to create parts that would end up going into the spots of the indents created on the bottle instead, to basically cover up the whole bottle on the outside. He didn¡¯t put the metal or leather onto the bottle yet, since it seemed like there was still something missing. Either way, after he was done with that, Eisen created a small wooden frame-pedestal for the bottle to stand on perfectly. Using tailoring, Eisen created a small that he had to connect to that pedestal that would then actually hold and stabilize the underside of the bottle. Then, like Eisen thought, he had to start enchanting things. He carved intricate enchantments on the inside of the leather and the metal parts, which he then finally attached to the bottle. Then, they got to alchemy. The ego-item actually turned into the whole pot he was supposed to be brewing everything with, and they then created a high-quality potion that Eisen didn¡¯t recognize, pouring it into the bottle they created. And then for thest step, the ego-item handed Eisen a soul stone holding a simple rank 0, nk soul. Eisen pulled it out like the ego-item told him to, and then pushed it into the top of the bottle. Somehow, although nothing here included soul stones in any way, the soul was kept inside of the liquid, as if suspended in it. And for thest step, the ego-item exined what Eisen had to do by whispering into his ear. The old man groaned slightly and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "What, too bothersome for you?" The ego-item asked, but Eisen just shook his head, "Not really. I just hope I won¡¯t have to do any major crafting today." The old man said. The ego-item turned its arm into a separated knife and handed it to Eisen, who just pushed his finger into the top of the bottle, before cutting through his finger to create a ¡¯cork¡¯ for the bottle. Chapter 580 Solomons Homunculus The others looked at Eisen with rather confused expressions, while the old man himself simply took deep breaths while trying to supress his urge to scream out in pain, because this hurt him an incredible amount. It was a smooth, quick cut, so it probably wasn¡¯t as bad as it could have been, but it was still very, very bad. For now, the old man just drank a health potion and had the wound close up and have his health recover to the top again. The finger didn¡¯t grow back, but it would do that once Eisen just went to sleep. "Grandfather! Why did you do that?" Kiron asked with a deep frown, just ring at the ego-item who was currently holding the knife back against his shoulder to turn it back into a knife, and Eisen just lightly smiled and tried to calm him down, "Don¡¯t worry, don¡¯t worry. It seems to be a legitimate ingredient for this. I hope at least, otherwise I¡¯ll be a bit mad as well." The old man pointed out with a slightugh, and then looked at the ego-item standing next to him. "Well, what next? I hope it¡¯s nothing tooplex." Eisen joked slightly as he held his hand up. He wasn¡¯t really in the mood for joking, but he really wanted the ego-item to see that Eisen wasn¡¯t the same person as he was back then before the originals lost their experience. The ego-item simply looked at the bottle and shook his head, "Nothin¡¯ else. That was it." It exined, squatting down and looking at the bottle for a while. Eisen was rather confused himself, as he wasn¡¯t entirely sure what exactly the reason for creating something like this was, but in the end, the ego-item seemed to be waiting patiently for something to happen. As that was the case, Eisen figured he should wait as well. If this was it, the ego-item would have already told the group his decision of whether or not he could trust Eisen and the others now. For a few moments, the group just sat there and waited. Those moments quickly turned into minutes, until the group had been waiting for roughly fifteen minutes before the ego-item stopped just staring at the bottle. Over that period of time, Eisen had also been able to observe a few changes to everything. The main change, however, was really just that Eisen¡¯s finger had basically disappeared. All that was left was apressed andbined mass of bones working as the bottle¡¯s cork, while Eisen¡¯s flesh and blood disappeared into the actual bottle. Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure what was supposed to happen, but he knew that it worked, at least. And when the ego-item stood up, he simply stood in front of the bottle and turned toward Eisen, "Alright, it¡¯s done. Pull the bone out of the opening." He said, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. He stepped up to the bottle, pressed the tips of his fingers onto the sides of the bone-cork, and pulled it out of the bottle. The moment he did, deep ck mist flowed out of the bottle, and the ego-item slightly sighed, "I see. So you¡¯re even more rotten than you used to be, I see. I observed you do this once, and I saw the mist be gray, at least. Now, it¡¯s pitch-ck." The ego-item said, "That means that you¡¯ll have to die." With a slight grumble, as if he was too bothered to do all of this, the ego-item scratched the back of his neck, before raising his hand above his head. A giant metallic hammer appeared there, just floating above him, and it seemed ready to be smashed down onto the group. But Eisen wasn¡¯t getting angry because of this, because he was starting to see something else, "But isn¡¯t there something white in there?" He asked, and the ego-item snapped his neck toward the bottle, "What do you mean, something white?" With a confused expression, the ego-item took a step toward the bottle and looked into it, before letting him arm drop down. The giant hammer fell for a little bit, but then simply crumbled apart and disappeared into nothingness. "How the actual..." The ego-item muttered, and slowly pressed his palm onto the opening of the bottle. With a rapid movement, he then pulled his hand away, and a thick stream of mist came out of it, followed by a small white blob just floating right above it, with a little part still reaching down into the actual bottle. It had a water-drop shaped body, just upside down, with a singlerge eye in its center. It was perfectly,pletely smooth, and its body waspletely white, while giving off a slight bit of ck mist. "A white body, with a ck aura? The fuck¡¯s that supposed to mean!?" The ego-item asked, utterly confused, and Eisen just stared down at it, "Wait, what is that?" He asked, and the ego-item looked back at him as if Eisen was an idiot. "You really don¡¯t fuckin¡¯ remember? It¡¯s a Homunculus, you senile old man." The ego-item said, and both Xenia and Jyuuk took a step closer. After all, they had been working on creating the basis for a homunculus for a while, which then turned into Fafnirter on, but it was somethingpletely different. "Isn¡¯t a homunculus supposed to be a brute? Just a big guy for menialbor?" Xenia asked, and the ego-item stared at her with a frown, "That¡¯s another kindpletely. Those have actual proper bodies they can use¡¯n¡¯shit. This is a ¡¯Solomon¡¯s Homunculus¡¯. Only meant to get you information. They take on a color depending on material-specifications of the creator. This time it was to show the color of the soul. Basically, whether or not you¡¯re a dick. Usually it¡¯s uniform, but it¡¯s just like this now." The ego-item groaned annoyedly, "But fine. Guess this is gonna take longer." "Homunculus, tell me. Why¡¯re you ck and white?" The ego-item asked, and slowly, a small mouth appeared on this white droplet-shaped thing as it began to speak. It was a rather annoying, high-pitched voice. "The person in question is good at their core, but chooses actions many may see as questionable." It exined in a surprisingly eloquent way, at least for its appearance, and then waited for another question as far as Eisen could tell. The ego-item ground his teeth together and then crossed his arms. "Fine. Then tell me, did he really lose his memories? Is he another person? Or is he just lying to me?" He asked, and the homunculus slowly replied, in the exactly same annoying voice and tone. "The person in question has memories worth 70 years of his life. 70 years spent in another world, and some months spent inside of this one." It replied, seemingly struggling with the other two questions that the ego-item asked, and he simply stared back over at Eisen. "The fuck¡¯s that supposed to mean? Another world?" The ego-item asked, and Eisen looked at the ego-item rather surprised, "What do you mean? I never told you about that?" Eisen asked, and the ego-item just stared back angrily, "You threw me away, remember? When were you supposed to tell me?" He replied bluntly, so Eisen just slowly nodded his head. "Right, I apologize." Eisen said, "Then let me make up for that now." He added, and then started to exin the whole story in a ratherpressed manner to the ego-item. He basically just told him whatever he needed to know, and nothing more. At least for now. "Homunculus. Did he tell the truth just now?" The ego-item asked, and the homunculus slowly spoke again. "The person in question has not shown any sort of deceit. Everything that was just exined was the truth, and nothing but the truth." The homunculus exined, but the ego-item just ground his teeth continuosly. It seemed like that was a pretty bad habit of his. "So you¡¯re telling me that all that ridiculous bullshit is true? You¡¯re from some other world?" The ego-item asked, and Eisen simply nodded his head. "Yes, it¡¯s true. I can exin whatever you want. Or you can ask the homunculus. Actually, could I have that one when you¡¯re done, I still owe someone a favor, and I think it may be far easier to repay it when I can give her that." Eisen pointed out, thinking about the fact that he still had to meet with Raziel a couple of times to properly keep telling her about everything she wanted to know, but something like that that would be capable of answering any question she had now or in the future would definitely lift a heavy, annoying weight off his shoulders. He would¡¯t really have to bother with that all too much anymore, and could just do whatever else he wanted without issue. With a deep groan, the ego-item rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Aren¡¯t you taking this a bit too lightly? This isn¡¯t over yet. So what if you don¡¯t remember? So what if you¡¯re from a different world to this one? That doesn¡¯t tell me that you actually fucking change, you asshole. Give me proof that-" "I assume that the homunculus can¡¯t lie?" Eisen interrupted the ego-item, who just nodded his head annoyedly, trying to get all of this into his head. He was incredibly human for an item, really. "Good. Homunculus, tell him about my thoughts rting the person I used to be in this world, as well as my thoughts rting him himself." Eisen said, and without hesitation, the homunculus looked at the ego-item and started to speak. "The person in question feels deep hatred and digust for the former ¡¯Eisen¡¯ as far as his knowledge about him reaches. Surely he has not heard much, but he dislikes the parts he heard. The person in question in their current state would never abandon anyone, definitely not a ¡¯Child¡¯ they created themselves. The person in question is very loving and caring toward those that he has any sort of obligation to. Nheless, they are hoping to recover their memories of that time in order to find whether or not the former ¡¯Eisen¡¯ was truly so horrible, or if there were more things behind it than that." The homunculus exined and then rather abruptly stopped. Its pattern of speech was a bit weird where you didn¡¯t know when a sentence actually ended, but otherwise, it said everything that Eisen wanted it to say. The ego item slowly stared back at Eisen with a light frown, "You truly regret what you¡¯ve done to me?" "I do." Eisen replied without a moment¡¯s hesitation, and the ego-item simply sighed out deeply, trying to figure out what he should do. "Fine, I¡¯ll give you a chance to exin yourself a bit more. Then, I¡¯ll choose if I¡¯ll kill you or not." Chapter 581 Hephaestus The group sat there for a while, simply speaking to the ego-item about the fact that Eisen was actually being genuine when he said that he despised the fact that the former Eisen threw the ego-item away like that. The others were trying to reassure him that the old man as he was now would definitely never do anything like that, and that he really wanted to make sure that he could make up for his past mistakes. After hearing them all speak the things they knew about Eisen and how he treated the others around him, the ego-item slowly turned his eyes toward the three children of the group, Eisen¡¯s three tamed monsters. He figured that they would be a good base point for this. They really didn¡¯t seem like tamed monsters, considering that they were perfectly humanoid and just acted like the age theye looked, but that was the only real exnation for the fact that more than six people managed to enter this room. And after that suspicion was confirmed after the ego-item asked them about it, he was somehow more surprised, despite already expecting it. "So you three are really monsters tamed by this old fart?" The ego-item asked, and the three of them slowly turned their heads toward Eisen. "Yeah, what about it?" Sal asked with a light re, as if trying to tell the ego-item ¡¯Make sure you think about what you say next¡¯. And that was perfectly apanied by Caria¡¯s response, "And don¡¯t call him an old fart!" "Caria, Eisen is literally the oldest living being in this world, the ¡¯old fart¡¯ part wasn¡¯t necessarily wrong..." Sal pointed out, but Caria simply red back at him. The ego-item crossed his arms and looked away from the two of them toward the younger of the three, Melissa, "Alright, then lemme ask you. Are you happy being with him all the time?" Without a moment¡¯s hesitation, Melissa nodded her head, "It¡¯s the best!" She eximed, followed by Sal and Caria simply nodding their heads in definite agreement. After a bit of thought, the Ego-Item simply groaned loudly and looked at the old man with a light re. "A¡¯ight. I¡¯ll give you one fucking chance, but if you fuck this up, you¡¯re dead. Now, how¡¯re we doing this? We can¡¯t really leave except if either side of us dies? Me being the boss n¡¯all." The ego-item pointed out, and Kiron quickly spoke up to reply, "Actually, that¡¯s not entirely correct. One of my close friends andpanions also was a former Ind Boss. Of this ind group¡¯s central Ind, actually, the first one we went to. In the end, we managed to convince him toe with us, and Jyuuk temporarily tamed him. Because he joined our side, the side of the ¡¯boss¡¯ was destroyed, and the fight was done. After that, he was set free by Jyuuk again and everything worked out properly." The half-dragon exined in a straightforward fashion and tone, and the ego-item slowly turned his eyes toward him. "Ah... that so..?" The ego-item asked, and then turned his head toward Eisen again, "The kid¡¯s really that stuck-up geezer¡¯s, ain¡¯t he?" He pointed out, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help butugh a bit. Trygan and Kiron did have their simrities at times, so he couldn¡¯t actually deny that fact. "But either way, what he said was the truth. I think we could do it the same way if maybe you acknowledged me as your ¡¯user¡¯ or ¡¯wielder¡¯. Ego-items have a system like that, don¡¯t they?" The old man suggested, and the ego-item looked at the old man with a wry smile, "What a great fuckin¡¯ jump... One day I hate you, the next day I have to acknowlede you as my user... fuck off." He groaned loudly, and then slightly shrugged. "Fine, but I ain¡¯t really sure if that¡¯s gonna be enough. That system isn¡¯t really as strong as taming, it¡¯s more like... How those four are your friends. It ain¡¯t really supported by any system, just by your feelings. Most ego-items are just fuckin¡¯ idiots that can¡¯t think of anything but the person that was using them since they were born, so it¡¯s stronger than with people I guess." The ego-item exined as he rubbed the bridge of his nose in thought. "Ah, you guys¡¯ve been doin¡¯ somethin¡¯ to my Ego-Structures, haven¡¯t ya? Can you do that to me as well for a moment? Like, temporarily?" The ego-item asked, but Jyuuk immediately shook his head, "I don¡¯t think you¡¯ll want that. That would be literally cing you under the control of one of us. And I don¡¯t know how easy it would be to reverse that whole process without damaging you or your soul." "Yep, fair enough." With a loud groan, the ego-item leaned back, and while everyone was trying to figure something out, Brody got an idea, "Would trappin¡¯ you in another dimension also be considered beatin¡¯ you?" The demon-orc asked, and the ego-item just shrugged. "I guess so? I need to be on the same ne as the space inside of this room, so that¡¯s that. If I¡¯m not, it might be considered that. But teleportation magic ¡¯n shit doesn¡¯t work in here too well. And none of you seem like you can create dimensional rifts yet." The ego-item pointed out, "Obviously, I can¡¯t either." "Well, it ain¡¯t really a dimensional rift, but Eisen¡¯s item storage thing works in here, right? Isn¡¯t that stored in some kind of extra-dimensional space? It¡¯s different to soul storage, right? That¡¯s how storage skills work, right?" The Demon-Orc asked, and everyone immediately turned their head toward Xenia, the expert on anything magical or supernatural in this group, and she scratched her cheek in thought, "I guess, maybe? It¡¯s worth a try, at least. I don¡¯t really know how it works, now that I think about it..." She pointed out, but that was already enough for Eisen. The old man quickly stood up and waved his hand to the side, creating the item-storage space right in front of him. With a loud sigh of annoyance, the ego-item took a step inside and crossed its arms, "Fine. Do it." He said, and Eisen slightly smiled, "Alright, then I¡¯ll see you outside." The old man said, and then quickly made the item storage disappear. The next moment, a notification appeared in front of the group. [The ind boss has been defeated] Everyone quickly waved their notifications away and turned around toward the simple wooden door that opened up on the other side of the room again. Most of them made their way over there and out of the room, although Eisen was still staying behind to try and find the town core. Until now, it was always directly inside of the boss room, so he was rather positive that he would be able to find it here this time as well. Of course, Melissa¡¯s bees helped the old man out a bit as well. In the end, they simply found it buried by a bunch of swords. Eisen was a bit worried that it was damaged or scratched up because of that, but it didn¡¯t seem like anything actually happened to it. Afterward, Eisen followed the others out of the room. The wooden door shut behind him, and Eisen could practically hear the changes happening to the space behind it as it probably returned to its normal state. It was the same with other boss rooms. They often changed their size and shape to be more advantageous for the boss in question. Basically, it was supposed to somewhat fit their personality and their fighting style to make it so that they could more easily win. Either way, to start it off with, the group of six tried to figure out if the ego-castle was still rampaging on its own or if it calmed down now that the ind boss has been beaten. Unfortunately, thetter was the case. The group made their way to a ce where there was enough space for everyone and then Eisen held his hand in front of himself, creating the item-storage room right there inside of the wall. "About time. It worked, eh?" The ego-item pointed out, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, "So it did. Can you control the ego-items in this town?" The old man asked, and after a bit of thought, the ego-item in front of him just shrugged, "Probably. I¡¯ll just need to try. Kinda feels awkward not being a boss all of a sudden. More pleasant, but still weird as shit." He pointed out. Eisen slowly noted that down in his mind. It seemed like a lot of bosses really didn¡¯t want to be bosses. They should try and figure out if it would be worth it to end the boss fights without anyone having to die at all if possible. Of course, there were some crazy beasts and legitimately evil beings that were acting as bosses as well, but like Argon and this ego-item here, there were ones that obviously were neither of that. And getting beings that were capable of being acknowledged as an ind¡¯s boss on their side would realye in handy at one point or another, as far as the old man was concerned. "By the way..." Evalia started, "What¡¯s your name?" She asked as she turned toward the ego-item, but he just slightly red back and shrugged, "Don¡¯t have one." He replied bluntly, and Evalia looked at him rather surprised, "Really? But shouldn¡¯t you be pretty old? And you never thought about some kind of name or nickname you¡¯d like to go by?" "Yeah, why should I? Not like I was ever around people. The ego-items I made were too dumb to really refer to me as anything but ¡¯Master¡¯ anyway, if they were capable of speaking at all, that was. Pretty fucking annoying if you ask me." He pointed out swiftly, and everyone slowly turned their heads toward Eisen, as if anticipating him to do something about it. "What, you wanna name me? Right, good lucking up with a name I¡¯ll like. I¡¯m kinda picky, and I won¡¯t take any sort of name that I don¡¯t approve." The ego-item pointed out, and Eisen slowly turned his eyes toward him. "Hephaestus." He suggested, and the ego-item raised his brows with a smug smile, "Sounds kinda weird. What kind name is that s¡¯pposed to be?" "In our world, we also have myths of gods, although I don¡¯t think they¡¯re real there. The gods of one culture there include Hephaestus, the god of fire, metalworking, and forges. Basically, he was the cksmith of the gods and made any weapons the gods of that culture needed." Eisen exined, and the ego-item slowly let his arms droop by his sides. "...fuck off..." He muttered. And so, the ego-item was named Hephaestus. Chapter 582 Nidavel The group made their way outside of the ego-castle at a quick pace. It seemed like Hephaestus was able to just control the ego-items however he wished, basically. It made sense, he made them after all. Or rather, he made the one that made them, as he was usually rather acting as the tool in the whole rtionship, rather than the actual creator. Eisen still wasn¡¯t sure why Hephaestus created this many ego-items in general, but maybe it was just some sort of experimentation. It seemed like a topic that the ego-item wanted to avoid, at least as far as Eisen could tell when he tried to mention it. Maybe he was just trying to learn more about ego-items so that he could ¡¯fix¡¯ himself. At least that¡¯s a thought that stuck in Eisen¡¯s mind. Either way, the group soon stood outside, and the others all came out of the ego-castle as well, meeting up right in front of it. "Heh, so that¡¯s what you did with those ego-structures? Turned them into those forms?" The ego-item asked as he looked the giant structures up and down, although his eyes became fixed on Askr in the end, "That ain¡¯t one of mine that you took over, is it?" "Ah, no, it¡¯s not." Eisen replied quickly, "It¡¯s an Ego-Golem that I myself specifically created." He exined. Hephaestus looked Askr up and down and nodded his head slightly impressed, "Seems pretty strong." He pointed out, and with a satisfied smile, Eisen nodded his head. "He really is, yes." The old man said. Seeing the old man and the ego-item speak to each other like this, it seemed like Brody had something to say, "Could you guys stop jerkin¡¯ each other off and continuously saying how great each other¡¯s shit is? It¡¯s getting annoying at this point." The Demon-Orc pointed out. Eisen moved his fingers through his beard with a slight, quietugh, "Sorry about that." "Yeah, I¡¯m not sorry, I like hearing about how awesome my things are to other people." Hephaestus pointed out. With a slight re, Brody turned away toward the group of people that just started making their way out of the ego-castle. Evalia looked at the whole structure with a bit of curiosity, "Well, anyway, where are we putting the town core now? Inside of the ego-castle?" She asked, and Eisen, who was holding the town core, slowly turned toward Hephaestus, "You know the town best right now, what do you think?" Eisen asked, and the ego-item thought about it for a few moments. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes in thought. "Hm..." He hummed, before just snapping his fingers in the ego-castle¡¯s direction. Before anyone knew it, with loud grumbling, the ego-castle¡¯s form started to shift. Stone scratched across stone, wood broke apart and rebuilt itself soon after, and ss simply shattered into pieces to be repaired somewhere else in another form. The ego-castleid down on the ground, with its back arched and its legs and arms stretched up into the air at different angles and heights. It didn¡¯t take long until the whole ego-castle changed its shape to be like that of a regr castle, and it wasn¡¯t recognizable as some kind of humanoid form anymore. Some of the arms and legs simply turned into towers, while some of the other arms, as the ego-castle had six of them, simply turned into more walls for the castle. It seemed like there were some rock-like growths all around the ego-castle¡¯s body at some point to properlyplete the structure, and sooner orter, everything stopped. The shifting and grumbling stopped, and all that was left was a proper castle standing in front of the group. "We can head inside now, I guess." Hephaestus pointed out and took a few steps closer toward the castle. He was quickly followed by five originals and each of theirpanions, while everyone else simply stayed outside and took a break, camping there for now. They had properly conquered this ind now, after all. Amongst the people that went inside were the four grandmaster craftsmen. They maybe didn¡¯t know it yet, but one of them was set to be this town¡¯s Lord. Therge group made their way through the castle to the throne room. The soul core was still floating in the center of the room. Hephaestus simply walked over to it and ced his hand on therge spherical rock that was just so slightly glowing. After a deep breath, the giant sphere simply dropped down onto the ground. So that he wouldn¡¯t end up passing up this material, as the rock making up the soul cores of the ego-mansions before seemed to have pretty special properties, Eisen simply quicklypressed therge rock and ced it into his item storage to the others. And then, only this central, empty room was left. Eisen looked at the throne, and saw some carvings on the wall right above it. There was a slot in the center of those carvings, and this just made itpletely obvious that the town core was supposed to go in there. In the first ce, the town core¡¯s shape wasn¡¯t that ¡¯natural growth¡¯ kind of thing, but rather, it had been just so slightly changed. Like a carved diamond, to make it more aesthetically pleasing, its form had been altered. And it obviously fit right into the slot in the center of the carvings. Eisen quickly increased his size so that he could actually reach that slot, and then pressed the town core into it. The moment that this was done, the carvings lit up, but nothing happened. Everyone curiously turned toward Hephaestus, who just shrugged in response, "It doesn¡¯t really do anything, just kind of turns this room into a specially protected domain with the power of the town core. Like a boss room, but also not. Like a protective barrier for whichever sad sap bes the Lord of this town." "You know that ¡¯sad sap¡¯ is standing right behind you, right?" Xenia asked with a slight frown from in front of Hephaestus, and the ego-item just shrugged, "Do I look like I give a shit?" "Of course you don¡¯t..." The high-elf muttered annoyedly, and Eisen just slightly sighed as he approached the others, "It¡¯s fine, it doesn¡¯t matter. We will probably have to work on your personality a bit, Hephaestus." Eisen pointed out, and the ego-item crossed his arms with a slight smirk, "Sure, try your best, old man." "Not letting you provoke me." Eisenughed slightly, and then turned toward the four grandmaster craftsmen, "Alright. Now... We already told you who the lord of this town was supposed to be, and you agreed to these decisions, right?" The old man asked the four of them, and they all nodded their heads. "Of course we did. Nowe on, old man! Let¡¯s get this on with!" Denmir eximed with a slightly smug expression, while Jekyll side-eyed him with a slight grin, "Says the guy that¡¯s literally bing a noble now. I think we three should have answered that question." The half-dwarf pointed out, and Denmir, the one chosen to be the town¡¯s Lord, simplyughed. "Aye, as you¡¯d expect frommoners, always tryin¡¯ to turn things to be ¡¯bout them. Sad, sad..." The dwarf sighed loudly, and Jekyll, who had slight anger issues to deal with, just red at him with a wry smile, "You gotta be fuckin¡¯ me, right?" "Haha, aye, of course I be,d! And it ain¡¯t like you three are gettin¡¯ off without anythin¡¯ either. Right, Eisen?" Denmir asked as he stepped to the front anyway, and the old man nodded his head, "Exactly. I was nning on making you guys ¡¯honorary nobles¡¯. You¡¯d be a rank below Denmir, but that¡¯s just because I don¡¯t think I can properly justify giving you guys the same legal power without anynd right now." Eisen pointed out, and the others simply shrugged, "That makes sense. Rulingnd seems pretty bothersome in the first ce." Jekyll replied, and Morrom quickly agreed. "Yup. I¡¯d prefer to just keep ying around with materials. New materials that we¡¯ll be able to find on this ind, hopefully..." The elf-dwarf halfling said with a broad smile, and Eisen slightlyughed, "Of course. But just as he was thinking that, the old man turned over toward Hephaestus, "Actually, speaking of this ind... Every animal, whether a critter or even a bug, was an ego-item in some way, shape or form. You didn¡¯t make all of those, did you?" "Eh?" The ego-item asked, "You think I¡¯d be wastin¡¯ my time with that. Nah, this ind just works that way. There ain¡¯t many real animals here, the majority of them are just random ego-items created by the god of craftsmanship¡¯s aura in this ce. I think. That sounds like the exnation I heard some time ago, at least." Hephaestus pointed out with a sligth shrug. It really seemed like he wasn¡¯t all too interested in finding out why all of this was, which kind of did make sense. Eisen didn¡¯t care too much either, after all, so him being an ego-item would probably strengthen those feelings. From Hepheastus¡¯ perspective, it was like those ego-item animals were just actual, proper animals, probably. Or maybe not, it was hard to empathise with these sorts of feelings all of a sudden. He never had to do that with an ego-item of this level yet. Either way, for now, it didn¡¯t matter all too much. Denmir made his way toward the town core and was quickly lifted up by Eisen so that he could push his mana into the town core. The dwarf chose a name that had already been chosen by the group beforehand. [Guild Member Denmir Dimhide has founded the town of \u003cNidavel\u003e] It was named after one of Yggdrasil¡¯s realms, Nidavellir, the realm of the dwarves. It seemed like a good fit, and even Hepheastus seemed to like it after hearing the exnation. Either way, after the town had been properly established, Eisen pulled out a box out of his item storage. He opened it up and made the core guardian appear in front of him. "Denmir, activate it as well." The old man told the dwarf, who quickly nodded his head and pressed his palm onto the guardian¡¯s chest and pushed his mana into its heart. It quickly reacted by jolting its body awake. The core guardian simply stood there for a few moments, before being told which core to connect to. The guardian quickly did as told, and soon changed its form. It was now wearing something like a tool belt and had knives, and hammers attached to it, wore thick leather gloves, and wore a simple apron above a cloth shirt. It seemed pretty energetic, as far as Eisen could tell. And just like that, the group took over the Ind of the God of Craftsmanship. Chapter 583 Village in a Hill "Good day! How can I help you?" The Core Guardian asked with a broad smile on its face, and Denmir slowly turned around toward Eisen, "Exactly, how can it help us right now?" The dwarf inquired, and Eisen slowly looked at the guardian with his arms crossed. "For now, priority is to reconstruct town. The ego-items are all under control now as well, hopefully, so we should be able to use them as raw manpower as well. First things first, I¡¯m pretty sure we would need to reconstruct things like living areas, workshops, and farming areas. But those will most likely be outside of town." Eisen pointed out, and then slowly turned around toward Hephaestus. "Do you remember where the farnds were?" The old man inquired, and the ego-item slowly just shrugged. "I don¡¯t have a clue where anything was. We could just ask the townsfolk though." Hephaestus suggested, and Eisen slowly raised his brow in response to what he just said, "The townsfolk? What do you mean?" "Hm? Well, I didn¡¯t fuckin¡¯ kill them, who do you take me as? To start it off with, the souls I used are either from elderly townsfolk that died of natural causes, or of the soul stones that we had in the material storage in the castle. I ain¡¯t a fucking monster." The ego-item said, and slowly turned toward the three monster-kids, "No offense." "Offense taken, but move on anyway." Sal replied. The next moment, he felt a slight p from Brody on the back of his head, and turned around with a light re, while Denmir slowly looked at the ego-item as well. "So there are people still alive here? Why didn¡¯t they stay here in town?" Denmir asked, and Hephaestus slowly shrugged, "What do I know? The boss stuff is weird, and when this ce actually turned into a field dungeon, stuff changed? People were forced to move out or something? I don¡¯t fuckin¡¯ know, let¡¯s just go. I have a rough idea where they are." The ego-item exined as he just turned around, ready to simply leave the castle and walk over there. Meanwhile, Jyuuk came up to Eisen and whispered into his ear with a light frown on his face, "I didn¡¯t find anything like another town with my monsters while scouting. Are you really sure we can trust him? Maybe he just used us to get out of the boss room?" "I doubt it." Eisen replied, "It seemed pretty genuine to me... But what do you think? Is there a possibility that he¡¯s telling the truth?" After a bit of thought, Jyuuk closed his eyes and nodded his head, "Honestly, it would make sense if there was another ce for the people that used to live here. After all, we didn¡¯t find anything like physical remains of anyone. No blood, flesh, bones, anything. And this ce shouldn¡¯t have been a field dungeon for more than a few years. And the ego-items obviously couldn¡¯t eat the remains, so there should have been something left." "So then why are you doubting him?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk just slowly looked at Hephaestus¡¯ back, "Because we didn¡¯t find anything like active farnds, intact structures, or even paths anywhere around here. Even if we did find anything man-made, it was usually overgrown and ready to crumble to dust with a quick breath. Maybe the townsfolk simply built a ship and left. It is the ind of craftsmanship, after all." The monkey-beastperson suggested. But Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure. They would still have to see. It did seem like Hephaestus knew something that the others didn¡¯t know, so they would simply need to wait and follow him. "Hephaestus." The old man said, and the ego-item slowly turned around, "Yeah?" "What kind of ce do the townsfolk live in now?" "How the fuck am I supposed to know that, are you an idiot? I just know where they are, not what it¡¯s like." Hephaestus replied with a light re and a tone as if this answer was just tantly obvious, and Eisen sighed as he took some steps forward to follow him. "I think everyone besides the five of us and our direct groups should stay here. Denmir, you especially. Make yourself familiar with the town system and the town itself, and try to help the core guardian out however you can. Focus on the things I mentioned before." The dwarf in question looked at Eisen with a light smile and nodded his head. He seemed to be incredibly grateful that he was given a chance to prove himself like this. Eisen was technically Denmir¡¯s idol, after all, even if they were now pretty good friends. They all made their way out of the castle again and gathered in front of it with everyone. They split up into two groups, one group that would stay here and use any manpower avable to them to try and reconstruct the town to the point where a few people would be able to stay here, and one group that would go ahead and head out toward the town with Askr¡¯s help. Due to the wood-giant¡¯s mere size, the group was able to make their way out of town at great speeds, which they could also thank thergest of the three ego-wall snakes, which had now been turned into Lamias, for. It had really just left behind a literal path of destruction while slithering around through town. But at the very least, that literal path of destruction was a direct path leading into the direction where Hephaestus was saying hte townsfolk settled down after the town had fallen. Askr simply sprinted forward toward that town, with Hephaestus simply staring at the receiver-screen for the wood-giant¡¯s eyes so that he could properly instruct Askr on the path he should take. Only a few minutester, Hephaestus stood up. "A¡¯ight. We¡¯re here." The ego-item said as he made Askr stop running. Everyone was a little bit confused, as they had been looking at the screens as well and didn¡¯t see anything that remotely seemed like a town. Instead, they were just standing in front of a small forest patch built around what seemed to be a rtively shallow hill. The group made their way outside and approached that forest, following after Hephaestus, who simply walked through there as if he owned the ce. The others were a bit more careful due to the ¡¯natural¡¯ ego items living here on this ind, like the bugs or critters. They weren¡¯t too dangerous, but even they could cause a fair bit of damage if you identally pissed them off. Either way, the group made their way through this seemingly rtively small forest, until Jyuuk slowly noticed something. He was more than just surprised to see this, but he was slowly staring at the hill in front of them, "There¡¯s... people living inside of the hill?" The Monkey Beastperson muttered, and Eisen slowly turned toward it and activated his mana-sight. There really were moving clumps of mana inside of there, and actually right in front of them was a rtivelyrge spot of concentrated mana. Eisen switched to his truth-sight and soon saw what was going on. Right in front of them was something like a hidden passage. There were parts that were hidden through something like illusions, it seemed, but for the most part it seemed to have a direct mechanism. The only parts that were hidden through magic were the parts that were needed for the activation. Like the buttons or dials. It didn¡¯t really seem like such aplex mechanism as far as the old man could tell. He approached one of the buttons and took a closer look at the carvings that he could see. He soon understood exactly what was going on. The old man pushed his mana into the first button, then the next, twisted some dials around, pulled on some small levers, and soon managed to figure out what exactly was happening internally with each activation of the different parts of this mechanism. And so, the old man managed to quickly figure out what exactly he had to do in order to open this up. In the end it was actually rather easy and simple to do, though. Just pushing mana into some of the buttons while pulling two of the levers at the same time. Most of these things didn¡¯t do anything and were probably just decoys for intruders with the basic intelligence to understand such a system and the ability to see through illusion magic. Either way, once Eisen opened it up, slits appeared all around the slope of the hill right in front of them. One after another, those slits ended up just dropping into the ground, creating a small stairway that was leading into the hell, which the group quickly took advantage of. But the moment that they stepped inside, they were met with some more defensive systems. And this time, they were a bit more ssic. Tworge, brutish golems carryingrge and heavy weapons that were pointed directly at Brody, who was taking the lead just in case something like this was going to happen. Without too much to worry about, Brody grasped onto the weapons that were held toward him and twisted them around a few times to make even the golems let go of them, before using therge blunt club-like weapon to disarm the other golem. It all happened pretty quickly, astonishingly though, but before anyone knew it, Brody was holding the two golem cores for these golems in his hands. He didn¡¯t want to destroy them as a sign that they were actually here with peaceful intentions. But next they knew it, a man in armor opened up the door on the other side of this ¡¯entrance¡¯ room, "Who are you? Why are you here?" He yelled out loudly, trying to question them immediately. Since it was a person, the one that woulde in most useful here was Evalia. She could win a fight with words alone in a battle against other people, after all. "This ind has just be part of our country, Asgard. The town you used to live in has been liberated by us, so we would simply like to invite you back. A town without its people is barely a town to begin with, now is it?" Evalia asked with a slight smile on her face, steadily approaching the man on the other side of the room. Through therge helmet, it could be seen that this person was staring at Evalia rather intensely even now, there was no doubt about that, but just so slightly, the vibe of the gaze was changing. Not by much, but enough to show that instead of being angry at the group, this man was now open to conversation with them. Chapter 584 Elderly Dark Elf The Guard turned around and led the group further into the hill. For now there was simply a bit of a tunnel beyond the door, but it seemed like there were some steps at the end of that tunnel. Eisen was actually rather surprised to see Evalia¡¯s rather simple words work so effectively. It was kind of scary what she could do with just a few words. Granted, this man¡¯s mental stats were probably not all too high so he didn¡¯t have any sort of resistance again things like charisma and general mental maniption, but that same thing applied to the vast majority of this world¡¯s poption. Evalia seemed to be quite literally capable of controlling most people if she put her mind to it. Luckily, Evalia just wasn¡¯t that kind of person. And it wasn¡¯t like she really fully controlled this man, she simply calmed him down a little and convinced him that they were telling the truth, which they were. They probably would have been able to do this after just a little bit of conversation with him, but this definitely sped up the process quite a bit. The group followed the man further through the tunnel and soon stepped down some rtively simple stairs right into the space where the townsfolk now seemed to live. And to Eisen¡¯s extreme surprise, borderlining on shock, what the old man found wasn¡¯t just a system of caves, tunnels and smaller rooms that were interconnected like an anthill or something like that, but it was a giant hollow space that was created underneath this hill. They had bright light in here and they were even able to see the sky through the ceiling of thisrge hollow space. The one that made this happen was probably the same person that created the entrance with the parts that were hidden by illusion magic, or at least that¡¯s what Eisen figured for now. Eisen expected a gloomy, dirty, dark ce, but in reality it was just like this whole vige had simply been built on a t ne and let down a few dozen meters. That¡¯s all it seemed to be. There were regr buildings in here, as well as gardens, farms, workshops, houses that people lived in, and even a small school. It seemed slightly overpopted for the space that all these people had here, but nheless, they turned this ce into something genuinely liveable. And that just within a few years. This was the power of the craftsmen of this ind. They turned a horrible situation into one that they could easily survive. This was truly perfect. "Jefferson, who are these people?" A man asked as he came up to the group, looking at the guard that led them inside. The guard simply smiled back at that man, who was wearing a simr set of armor to the guard, albeit a little bit more decorated. "Ah, Sir!" The guard eximed, "These people said that they took over town, and that this ind is now part of their country! Those are good news, right?" He pointed out. The man that was being spoken to stared back at the guard and the group behind him with a rather hateful expression, "Part of their country? Part of their... country?" He asked, "The only country that we belong to is that of the great five that peaked! Who do you think you are to im that you took their ce after that great kingdom was disbanded?!" The man eximed. Eisen was a bit surprised to hear that, and some of the others couldn¡¯t really hold back theirughter at hearing that, but the old man simply stepped up in front of the one that pointed out these facts so passionately. He ced his hand onto the man¡¯s shoulder and slightly pressed down, "Come on, son. Let us speak somewhere more private. That sounds like a good idea, don¡¯t you think?" Eisen asked with a light smile on his face, and the man red back at him. He noticed the obvious strength in the old man¡¯s grip and the fact that he would definitely not be able to fight back if he were to attack. With a deep re, the man nodded his head. It seemed like he thought that Eisen and the others were part of some sort of dictatorship, but in reality that wasn¡¯t the case at all. He probably didn¡¯t expect Eisen himself to be the king of the country in question. And it wasn¡¯t surprising that he didn¡¯t recognize them either. He seemed to be a human in histe 20¡¯s or early 30¡¯s, and it seemed like everyone amongst the originals was just travelling all over the ce all the time. Eisen figured that at least he would have ended up travelling to this ind every once in a while, but it probably didn¡¯t matter if Eisen didn¡¯t have a direct reason toe here. There were two main reasons one wanted toe here. One, as a person that wanted to have items made for them. And two, as a craftsman that wanted to get better. And Eisen and the others didn¡¯t have either of those reasons, so there was probably little reason toe here. It wasn¡¯t surprising that such a young man like this wouldn¡¯t be able to really tell who Eisen and the others were in the end. He led the group through town, making numerous people look at them as they were doing so. It seemed like the man was going for a detour, either to buy time or to simply ¡¯embarrass¡¯ the group amongst the townfolk, as if to show off the fact that they were not good people by hinting at the fact that they made their way in here by force. But Eisen didn¡¯t mind. This misunderstanding would be cleared up pretty soon anyway, and like this he would have the chance to take look at all of the workshops of the different craftsmen in this town. There were quite a few skilled people here. Some were specialized on a single thing, others were working with different kinds of skills, but either way there weren¡¯t many people that didn¡¯t know how to craft things. Even children were running in and out of the workshops to y around with the materials and tools rather than toys. It seemed a little dangerous, but as there probably was someone in the workshops at any time, it would probably be fine. Eisen himself let his children y around with a few tools as well and showed them how to sew or smith if they were curious about it as long as he was there to intensely watch them do it. Luckily they were never injured. It seemed like not only Eisen, but the four Grandmaster craftsmen and Eisen¡¯s two apprentices were more than simply curious as well. Those six were on the verge of just running off and heading to some kind of random workshop to take a look around. Soon, the group reached a specific, rather simple workshop. There didn¡¯t seem to be anything special about it, but as far as Eisen could tell, all the items and materials in here were of the highest quality of their rank, without any sort of exception. There were quite a few people working in here, on all kinds of different projects. This ce didn¡¯t seem to be specifically meant for any kind of craftsmanship skill, but rather anything and everything that came to mind while building this ce. Most people stopped working for a bit after seeing thisrge group of unfamiliar people enter, but some otehrs simply continued their work undisturbed. Amongst thetter was one particr man. He seemed to be an Dark-Elf Craftsman, something you didn¡¯t actually see too often. Even for an Elf, this man seemed to be rather old, approaching the end of his life. And any sort of elf simply aged incredibly slow, so much that even once they reached the end of their biological life, they would often still look like they were in their 50¡¯s, early 60¡¯s at most. Their internal organs and processes would still fail like with ¡¯normal¡¯ old people, but they simply looked much younger than expected. But this man physically seemed to be in his 80¡¯s or 90¡¯s, which just showed that he was an extraordinary elf. A higher level usually meant that your lifespan naturally increased due to your stats being far higher. But those changes weren¡¯t noticable just from a couple of points, but rather from a couple hundred points. This was an extraordinary person, and everyone that was aware of how an Elf¡¯s physicality worked was immediately aware of that. The same could be said about the man that brought them here. He probably thought that this old Dark Elf would be able to overwhelm them due to his high stats, but he, and not even Eisen and the others, really expected what happened next. The Dark Elf slowly nced around the room and ended up spotting the group. For a few moments, he stared at Eisen deeply, then at Xenia, then at Evalia, Jyuuk and Brody. He let go of the knife he was holding in his hand that he was using to cut a piece of leather into shape and with weak knees slowly stepped toward the group. The man next to Eisen simply smirked broadly as he slowly stepped away, thinking that the Dark Elf was shaking in anger after understanding the situation somehow. But no, the Dark Elf approached Eisen and the others and dropped to his knees as he stared up at the old man in front of him, "Oh how wonderful it is to see you again, teacher!" He eximed, and Eisen immediately raised his brows in response to looking at him. "Teacher? You were my apprentice?" Eisen asked, and the dark elf looked around at the others with a shocked expression. Eisen felt a slight shiver on his body, before the dark elf smiled broadly and let out an audible sound of glee. "So you were able to aplish your goal and fulfill your idea! That is wonderful, oh so wonderful! What an honor it is to be able to see you again, teacher!" The dark elf eximed, "Yes, I was your apprentice. One of thest you took on, and one of thest that still lives. Nheless, the honor of seeing you again is immeasurable." The dark elf pointed out, smiling softly. He stood back up and turned around, pointing toward a door at the back of the workshop, "Please,e somewhere where we may be able to speak amongst ourselves." With that, Eisen slowly nodded his head and followed this elderly Dark Elf into the room he had pointed at. Chapter 585 More of a Warrior For now, Eisen followed the Dark Elf together with the four other Originals, the man that led the group here, Hephaestus, as well as Denmir, as he was now the lord of this ind¡¯s central town. The others stayed in the front of the workshop talking to some of the people there and just looking around or trying to figure out what these people knew. In particr Eisen¡¯s two apprentices were quite curious, as they still didn¡¯t have too much experience with craftsmen other than Eisen. The room beyond the door that the Dark Elf brought them to was rather small, something like an office for the bit of necessary paperwork probably. Mostly there seemed to be notes about things likeissions or material orders here, but there also seemed to be information about the people living in this ce. This Dark Elf really did seem to be the head of the vige right now. The Dark Elf slowly sat down on one of the chairs and offered the other ones to everyone standing there. But in the end, only Eisen, Hephaestus and Denmir actually sat down, since they were the more ¡¯central¡¯ parts of this conversation, or at least that¡¯s what everyone figured would happen. "It is a true honor to be able to see you again." The Dark Elf pointed out, and the moment that he did, the Guard-Captain that had led them here looked at him with confusion, "Asmond, what is the meaning of this? Who is this man?" He asked, and the Dark Elf slowly turned his head toward him, "A person you shall never anger or harm, you understand?" Asmond pointed out, but before the guard could be too nervous, Eisen simplyughed it off. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not here to make enemies with anyone. And your intentions weren¡¯t bad and you were just trying to protect the townsfolk, so it¡¯s fine." The old man replied quickly, and then turned back toward Asmond, "Either way, I have to say, I¡¯m rather surprised to find a former apprentice of mine here." Eisen said, and Asmond quietlyughed. "I am sure you are. Presumably, the town fell before you lost your memories, so there was no real way to anticipate something like this." Asmond added, "But well, why exactly are you here? Do you require our help in taking back the town?" "Ah, no, we¡¯ve actually already done that. The town is now part of our country again as well. This Dwarf here is the current Lord of the town." With that, Eisen slowly held his hand toward Denmir, who was smiling lightly in front of this old, obviously skilled craftsman. Asmond stared at Eisen for a few moments to figure out if he was serious or not, and then simply started tough loudly, "Haha, as expected of you. You always do things nobody would be able to anticipate. So in the end, you came to wish to ask us toe nad return to the town?" The dark-Elf inquired, and without having to hesitate or wait, Eisen nodded his head, "Yes, that¡¯s exactly why we¡¯re here, actually. We need your help in returning the town to what it used to be. We already have a rather high amount of manpower, but it¡¯s brutish manpower, so there aren¡¯t many people with the kind of skills or expertise that we currently need. We do have four Grandmasters of their respective upations, but that¡¯s not necessarily enough right now." Asmond slowly turned toward the dwarf that was sitting next to Eisen, and then slowly nodded his head in satisfaction, "It¡¯s that young man, I assume?" The Dark-Elf asked, and Denmir quickly replied, "Aye, one of¡¯em is me. I be a cksmith by trade." Denmir pointed out with a lightly smug expression and Asmond smiled broadly. "I see, I see! I have to say, bing a Grandmaster is quite impressive! We currently have about six or seven of them in this town ourselves. Two of them are cksmiths. Would you be interested inparing your skill to them?" The Dark Elf asked, and Denmir widened his eyes a bit, "Ya¡¯ve got cksmithing grandmasters ¡¯ere as well?" "Haha, of course we do. This is the ind of the god of craftsmanship, blessed by the presence and leadership of the greatest craftsman in existence." Asmond pointed out. Eisen slowly turned his head toward the Dark-Elf as he was speaking, and had to just lightly frown. Overall, he seemed to beughing and trying to be lighthearted abotu this. He was smiling, his general bodynguage showed amusement, and the crow¡¯s feet at the sides of his eyes wrinkled up a bit. But nheless, the actual stare that Asmond was giving Denmir was anything but humorous. It was more of a re than anything, as if he wanted to somehow test Denmir right now. And it seemed to be working, since Denmir was slightly shaking right now. It did make sense, really. The highest number of Grandmaster craftsmen ever seen living in the same town at the same time, excluding the period of time that Denmir, Folmirra, Jekyll and Mororm lived in Melroe, was two. And it was in the capital of the dwarven country for a few years. Melroe was a special, extraordinary ce to Denmir, so hearing that there were nearly double the grandmasters here, not to mention two of them that shared his upation, would make anyone nervous. Especially if there was someone like Asmond exposing him to such an intense, eery presence. Seeing that, Eisen snapped his fingers in front of the Dark-Elf¡¯s face, "Please stop with that, please. I acknowledge his skill, Asmond. Trust me on this one. You don¡¯t need to test him with a skill contest." Eisen pointed out. A few momentster, after thinking a bit, the Dark-Elf nodded his head. "Of course. If that is the case, I apologize for being rude to-" Asmond started, but to the surprise of not only him and Eisen, but also the others, as they also understood how serious things like jealousy were, Denmir had a slightly different opinion, "Why¡¯d we not have that contest? Aye, I will face off against¡¯em as many times as they want, this old dwarf ain¡¯t going to lose." Denmir pointed out with a broad grin. Eisen looked at him with surprise for a few moments, before he just started tough loudly. He should have expected that. Denmir wasn¡¯t nervous about being told something like this, but rather, he was simply excited. d that the dwarf was feeling that way, Eisen turned toward Asmond, "You heard him. We can have apetition. But it won¡¯t be one that will put the leadership of the town on the line, if you¡¯re hoping to turn it into something like that. There are multiple reasons why we made him Lord, and it wasn¡¯t just rted to him being an amazing craftsman. It¡¯s an important skill to hold for a town like this, but it was an unanimous decision made by me and these four. They hold slightly different values to me. That should be enough to vouch for this decision." Eisen exined, and Asmond simply looked back at the old man that used to be his teacher in thought. "I see... I understand. That is truly something that I had not considered so far. Once more, I apologize for being rude." Asmond pointed out, but Denmir slowly shook his head, "Ah, don¡¯t worry ¡¯bout it. I know that I may not seem like I¡¯d be a good Lord, but it¡¯s the task I¡¯ve been given by everyone." The dwarf exined, and Eisen slowly chuckled. "Exactly. Denmir is a great cksmith, there is no doubt about that. I would say that when ites to smithing, he and I are rather evenly matched." Eisen pointed out. There were definitely some weird undertones to saying something like that, but everyone here in this room understood that it was meant as an actualpliment, and understood it as such. Especially Denmir simply stared back at Eisen with a broad, awkward smile after hearing that, despite being a grown man with a wife and children. The only one that didn¡¯t understand why Eisen could so freely say something with such narcissistic undertones without anyone minding was the man that led them to this workshop in the first ce. He slowly stepped up to Eisen and ced his hand onto his shoulder to try and pull him around. But of course, due to Eisen¡¯s overwhelming physical strength, it was like trying to twist a boulder around on the spot. With a bit of frustration, the man simply continued while trying to act as if he didn¡¯t care or this was intended and slightly stepped in front of Eisen so that he could look into his eyes. "I¡¯m sorry, but I don¡¯t care who you are! Even if you may be Asmond¡¯s former teacher, but that is no reason to feel superior! Asmond was taught by many so that he could truly expand his skills, as well as their range and usability! Superior specialists in their fields, private craftsmen to kings, and above them all, the great one that peaked! The honored individual, Eisen! It doesn¡¯t matter if a man such as you taught him, a person that merely acts as an envoy for a country would never be able topare to Asmond¡¯s greatness!" He eximed with true passion, and everyone in the room waspletely and utterly silent. Eisen himself ced his face into his hands in frustration, while Brody and Jyuuk were trying their hardest to hold back theirughter. Hephaestus didn¡¯t even try, he simply let out a loud wheeze in response to hearing that utterly unnecessary speech. Confused at everyone¡¯s reaction, the man added, "I-I mean, am I wrong? Just look at him! Especially his right arm, look at how scarred it is! By the gods, he¡¯s even missing a finger! It doesn¡¯t matter what he¡¯s wearing, it¡¯s obvious that this man is more of a warrior than a craftsman!" The man eximed, and Eisen immediately raised his head and stared right into the man¡¯s eyes. It wasn¡¯t that this statement was inherently insulting. Being a warrior wasn¡¯t anything bad, Eisen greatly respected people like Brody. But Eisen just wasn¡¯t a warrior. Sure, he knew basics, and he did make use of his sword sometimes, but usually in just rather sloppy and rough ways. He simply wasn¡¯t a warrior. And that¡¯s why the statement ¡¯more of a warrior than a craftsman¡¯ was insulting to Eisen. Being lesser at his only true passion that Eisen dedicated his life to, than something about which he didn¡¯t know much more than the basics. That was insulting. And it seemed like the man noticed that Eisen was feeling this way as well. Chapter 586 Sewn Shu Eisen was just about to stand up so that he would be able to tell the man just how wrong he was about what he just eximed, but before he was actually able to do that, white mist streamed out of the amulet hanging around his neck. It first filled the area where the chairs were standing up and then gathered right in the center, in front of the man. And from that mist, Kirisho was formed. She was standing in front of the man, seemingly wanting to take over the task that Eisen had been just about to go for himself. She stood there with an ever so soft smile on her lips, just ring at the man in anger. Rather than shocking, startling, or even scary, her expression was... creepy. That was the word that best described it. It made shivers run across your back, just because of how perfectly matched Kirisho¡¯s lips and eyes were for this right now. The man was confused and stared at Kirisho before taking a step backward to evaluate the situation, but before anything else could really happen, Kirisho moved as close to the man as she could and with a clear voice spoke, "I may not know particrly much about craftsmanship, but I can assure you that there is not a single craftsman that can best this man." Kirisho said with a confident tone to her voice, and the man slowly stared back at her. It seemed like he thought that this actually kind of confirmed his suspicions. For one, Eisen didn¡¯t stand up for himself in this, and what Kirisho was saying sounded like simple braggery. The only ones that had to rely on something like that were those that were unskilled or weak. When it came to those that truly knew what they were doing, their actions would speak louder than any words. "Ah... Is that so? Then how about it? Let¡¯s go for a quick craftsmanship match, if he is such an amazing craftsman. I may not look it, but I myself am actually rather skilled." The man exined with a smug grin, as if he had won some kind of discussion right now, but the next moment, Kirisho just red back at him. "Excuse me, but I would have a little bit of a question for you for now." The mist-spirit pointed out, and the man slowly nodded his head, "Of course, what-" "Could it be you are a simpleton?" She asked as her smile slowly disappeared from her face, and the man¡¯s expression immediately changed from a grin to a confused smile, "What did you..?" "Could it be you are a simpleton? Or are you merely deaf? If so, that would be rather troublesome, as it is more than just obvious that you are already blind." Kirisho stated, "How can you call yourself skilled in what you do if you cannot even recognize this man¡¯s skill? The only exnation I coulde up with was that you recently had some sort of ident rted to your eyes and became blind. Having you be deaf on top of that would be a sad development, don¡¯t you think?" Slowly, deep shivers and goosebumps appeared all over the man¡¯s body, "J-Just what-" "This man here is the ¡¯honored individual¡¯ you just spoke of. Eisen. The first of those that peaked. The greatest craftsman in this world." Kirisho exined as she pointed at Eisen behind her, who was just staring at her in surprise. Eisen had never seen Kirisho speak to anyone like that. Sure, Eisen himself was also rather insulted at hearing this kind of thing from someone who obviously seemed to know a thing or two about craftsmanship himself, but hearing the usually so quiet and calm Kirisho react this way was really something that the old man didn¡¯t anticipate. The man stared back at the mist spirit in front of him, and then slowly let his eyes drift over toward Eisen again. He couldn¡¯t really believe words like that. Because sure, this man seemed to be obviously physically strong, but it still just seemed slightly off. After all, Eisen really did have numerous scars on his arm that seemed like he wouldn¡¯t be able to really work with an arm in such a state. And technically that was correct. In the other world, he hadn¡¯t been able to work with his arm like that anymore. But here in this world, these scars weren¡¯t actually ¡¯real¡¯. It was more like they were an aesthetic that was created for Eisen as he first joined the game. It did seem like the old Eisen also had scars simr to this, though, at least that¡¯s what Eisen could remember from the few instances where he could speak to that old self of his. That was something that weirdly enough never bothered Eisen too much until now. Maybe he should try and look into this as well. Either way, adding the fact that Eisen had such scars onto the fact that he was really missing a finger, from an outsider¡¯s perspective it may seem like Eisen wasn¡¯t a craftsman. There were much more reasons to believe that Eisen was a craftsman of course, but if one tried to find reasons to believe that shouldn¡¯t be the case, it wouldn¡¯t really be that hard. That¡¯s exactly why the man was simply confused. He slowly turned his head toward Asmond, "What exactly is that woman saying?" "The truth, what else?" The dark-elf replied bluntly, and the man turned back toward Eisen with pure confusion, "No way, I mean, just... just look at him!" "I am, you fool! All I can see is a man that dedicated his life to craftsmanship! He truly is that Eisen, the one that reached the peak!" Asmond eximed, seemingly also slowly getting a bit more agitated the more that the man was going on about how this had to be a lie. A few more times he tried to say that this couldn¡¯t be true, and even that Eisen had to be lying and somehow tricking Asmond, but at that point, Kirisho already had enough of him. She extended her hand forward toward the guard and made white mist stream out of it that then quickly stuck to the man¡¯s body, enveloping himpletely. And the mist was so thick that you couldn¡¯t even see a speck of his skin or clothes. The next anyone knew it, the man started casually walking toward the door, left the room, and closed it behind himself. Once he was gone, Kirisho simply kept staring at the door. "Don¡¯t worry, it was nothing but a simple illusion. He was far too bothersome." Kirisho admitted with a light re as she stood next to Eisen. It seemed like everyone here was rather surprised to see Kirisho like this. Well, Asmond was surprised to see her in the first ce, since he didn¡¯t expect a Ghost to be a part of this group. "Heh... This chick¡¯s mad." Hephaestus pointed out with a light smirk, "Yo, old man, you boning her or somethin¡¯? Or why¡¯s she defending you like this?" The ego-item looked at Eisen, who simply stared back at Hephaestus, weirdly more shocked about this question than the fact that Kirisho was acting like this. He simply hadn¡¯t expected it. Kirisho herself simply stood there and froze up the moment she heard Hephaestus¡¯ question, and seeing that nobody wanted to reply, Hephaestus continued, "Nice, sounds like a ¡¯yes¡¯. Good on you, geezer. Who¡¯d expect that you can get such a-" "Hephaestus. If you say one more word, I¡¯m scrapping you, got it?" Eisen said with a light re, but the ego-item just shrugged, "I¡¯d love to see you try. You really sure you can even beat me? But I get it, if you don¡¯t wanna admit it, that¡¯s fine. I mean, it would be a bit embarrassing for her, since you¡¯re this ol-" Hephaestus continued to speak until he was interrupted by the fact that a pitch-ck snake appeared around his body and held him down, supported by more magical chains. The next moment, Eisen held his hand toward the multitool attached to his apron and soon had a needle between his fingers. He held the needle toward Sal, who simply tapped the needle¡¯s head and attached a bit of magical, mana-based threat to it. And then, Brody started pushing up Hephaestus¡¯ lower jaw while pushing down onto his head. Eisen pulled a mana-copy of the needle out of it and ced the regr one back into the multitool and made a few duplicates of that. Nine to be extact. Each needle that Eisen was controlling with each one of his fingers, nine because he was currently missing one, was connected to a thread eaching out of Sal¡¯s fingers, strengthened with magic as much as possible. Thest finger was used by Sal to just flip Hephaestus off while all this was happening. And then, Eisen proceeded to move the mana-needles through Hephaestus¡¯ lips, cheeks, and jaws so that he could literally sew the ego-item¡¯s mouth shut. After this was done, everyone let go of Hephaestus as the ego-item stared back at them. The thing was that because it was someone else¡¯s mana with extremely specific and special properties, even this ego-item wasn¡¯t able to easily break them. So, while he was trying to somehow signal Sal to get rid of his mana in the threads, Eisen looked back at Asmond while Kirisho was slightly hiding behind Xenia and Evalia. "Now, that is a totally reasonable reaction..." Evalia muttered with a wry smile while looking at Hephaestus trying to get rid of the mana threads holding his mouth shut like this. Meanwhile, Eisen just turned toward Asmond again, "Anyway, sorry about that." "Likewise, I apologize for that young man being so rude toward you." Asmond said as well, but Eisen simply shook his head, "Don¡¯t worry about it. We should just somehow figure this out now. So, as said before, but we have taken this ind over again, and it¡¯s part of our country now. This man, Denmir Dimhide, is now the Lord of that town. We are currently in the process of rebuilding it to how it was before, and would like you all to return to your former home." Eisen exined quickly. There was no reason not to say it straight how it was, after all. The dark-elf, after hearing all this, opened his eyes wide and looked back at Eisen. Without any moment¡¯s hesitation, the elderly man nodded his head, "Of course! No question about it! I will speak to the people of this vige about it immediately! I am sure there will be none that will refuse to take up this chance!" Chapter 587 Cinnamon Roles Now that the Dark Elf agreed to try and convince the vigers toe to the town with him, the group chose to just take a walk around the vige to see what exactly they could find here. Maybe they would be able to spot some promising craftsmen or talents that they could make use of in the town. "But really..." Jyuuk started muttering as he looked around this ce, "It feels kind of weird to call this ce a vige, doesn¡¯t it?" "It does, definitely." Xenia replied to the Beastperson, "But that¡¯s just how it is. This ce doesn¡¯t have a town core, so it¡¯s not an actual town yet despite obviously having the dimensions of one." "But still, I get what Jyuuk means. From what we¡¯re used to, this is definitely a town, ain¡¯t it?" While holding his hands behind his head, Brody turned around toward the couple, "I mean, it¡¯s bigger than the ce Eisen lives in right now, and that¡¯s definitely a town as well." "The town Eisen lives in..." Sky muttered quietly, "I¡¯d really love to see that ce someday." The boy pointed out. With a slightugh, Kiron just came to agree with him, "Truly, being able to walk through those streets sounds fun." "Heh..." Komerughed slightly, "I think people are really gonna freak out if that were to happen." The merchant exined, and Kiron looked at him with a slight frown. "Why is that?" "Hm?" With a slightly surprised look, Komer turned toward Eisen and the other originals, "I thought they told you. We don¡¯t have things like Monsters there. And the only race of ¡¯people¡¯ we have are Humans." "What¡¯s that supposed to mean?" Denmir asked with a deep frown, "Why¡¯re there no others? Did humans over there kill ¡¯veryone else?" Eisen sighed slightly as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Could we talk about this somewhere beside literally out on the streets where someone might overhear us? Asmond is literally 10 meters behind us." The old man pointed out, and the others slowly nodded their heads, before Eisen pointed something else out, "And to top it off, the only one that made that deal with Gonor was me, if any of you go and tell others about ¡¯that side¡¯, I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going to happen." With that in mind, Eisen slowly stopped and turned around, making his way closer to Asmond who was currently speaking to some of the vigers. He was apparently telling them the whole story, including the fact that these guys here were really the five that peaked. Some of them took a few steps back in shock or nervosity, and others were just staring right at them in disbelief. For now, Eisen figured he should just ignore it, "Asmond, is there any free plot ofnd in here?" The dark elf slowly raised his brows and then rubbed his chin to think about it, "I think we just demolished a building somewhere around the center of the vige, if that¡¯s alright with you." "That¡¯s perfectly fine. It just needs to be big enough." Eisen replied, and the others quickly understood what Eisen was talking about, although Asmond and Hephaestus were both pretty curious about why Eisen needed so much space. Asmond led them to the right ce, and Eisen quickly activated his ¡¯scan¡¯ visual ability so that he could immediately figure out whether or not this ce wasrge enough, and then opened his item storage. Eisen took a step inside and pulled out a small box out of a shelf made to perfectly fit these sorts of items, although most of them were empty. Eisen made the item storage disappear while Sal quickly used his threads to pull some of the leftover rubble to the sides while Xenia ttened the ground with magic. As far as Eisen was concerned, this spot was actually perfect to set up a shop. It was central in the vige, but this ce wasn¡¯t so overrun that it might get noisy, but overrun enough so that there should be a steady flow of customersing in just out of curiosity. There were a few different simr shops and workshops here, but most of them were focused on one thing each, so a shop that dealt with basically any type of item should do well here. With a satisfied expression, Eisen held the key-box forward and pushed his mana inside of it while twisting the key around. The boy around the key started folding open and a door appeared in front of Eisen. At that point, the old man pulled the actual key out of the door and opened it up. As he stepped inside, the floor was currently being formed and folded further open. When the others came inside as well, therge main room of the shop was already properly constructed. Hephaestus and Asmond in particr were more than just surprised at this sight. They were practically shocked. Eisen smiled lightly as he walked up to the back of the building, the smithy. He tapped his foot on the ground a few times and waited for one of the walls to finish being constructed, and then smiled as the set of stairs appeared in front of him. Eisen walked up them and waved to the others to follow behind him. They were now in the ¡¯living area¡¯ of the building, and Eisen pointed toward the couches and chairs he made for this ce that everyone could sit down on. Once everyone was in ce, Eisen looked at Asmond first and foremost. "Alright, now... while you were my apprentice, how much did I tell you about my origin?" The old man asked, and Asmond slightly smiled in response. He had a sharp look in his eyes, as if he had been expecting this. "You didn¡¯t tell me much about your origin, but you told me about that bakery in your hometown at least. You said you liked their ¡¯cinnamon rolls¡¯." Asmond said with the corners of his mouth curled up happily. The others seemed pretty confused at that randomment, but Eisen felt something stinging him in the center of his chest. He looked at his right hand and soon saw ayer of metal appear on his fingertips as his whole body became more stiff, "Huh? Eisen, what are you doing?" Brody asked with a frown, "We¡¯re in the middle of a conver-" But Eisen didn¡¯t hear more than that. Instead, he found himself in that same pure ck space as he didst night and had a golden sphere of light float in front of him. But right next to that golden sphere of light floated another one, just that it was a white one again. Eisen extended his hand toward it, and soon, the white light of the sphere spread around Eisen and reced everything else, before Eisen found himself on a simple forest road. Not too far away from him, he could hear two people speaking to each other. After Eisen approached the source of the voices, he could see the two of them, himself and a young dark elf standing right next to him. Obviously that was the ¡¯old¡¯ Eisen, and the other one was probably Asmond, as far as he could tell. "So you want me to mention ¡¯cinnamon rolls¡¯? Why ¡¯cinnamon rolls¡¯?" Asmond, who physically seemed to be in his teenage years, asked. Eisen slowly shook his head as he looked down at the dark elf, "It¡¯s not just about the cinnamon rolls. It¡¯s like a passing phrase, so say the whole thing. You can change it to fit the situation a bit more, but say something along the lines of ¡¯You told me about that bakery from where you¡¯re from. You liked their cinnamon rolls, right?¡¯, and then I¡¯m going to reply with ¡¯Last time I was there, they were all out¡¯. Then you have to say-" "Yeah, yeah, I understand that, but I still don¡¯t understand why you want me to say that? It¡¯s so random..." Asmond pointed out with a wry smile, and Eisen sighed deeply. "That¡¯s the point, it¡¯s supposed to be random so that other people can¡¯t guess it." "But you have abilities that literally let you see through any kind of tricks, so why do we need a passphrase to make sure I¡¯m the right person?" With a deep sigh, the ¡¯old¡¯ Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose, "For one, because someone may pretend that they¡¯re me when talking to you. And two, because it¡¯s not about now. It¡¯s about the future. Something may happen then, and I need your help for that time. The ¡¯cinnamon rolls¡¯ are more of a trigger than anything, a trigger to-" But just when the old Eisen was speaking, he stopped in the middle of the sentence while Asmond froze up as if time had stopped for him, "I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll have to say anything else, now do I?" The old Eisen said as he looked at the current Eisen just standing there, watching, "Lucky you found this one so quickly. Should make it easier for you in the future. Good luck from now on as well." And with those words, the world around Eisen started to shift around and disappear. Once more, Eisen found himself in the ck space, and now had two spheres of golden light float in front of him. Next Eisen knew it, he woke up again and noticed the others staring at him in confusion and worry, while Asmond just looked at him with a smile of satisfaction. Eisen could still see the metal parts of his body disappear, and noticed that his finger evenpletely regenerated just now. "Seriously, what happened? You were gone for like five seconds, and in that time your finger regrew... is something going on?" Brody asked with a deep frown, but Eisen just took a deep breath as he stared back at Asmond. "Yeah... butst time I was there, they were all out." Eisen replied to Asmond, and the others were even more confused now, but Asmond simply continued, "What a shame. Then how about we make some ourselves? I have the ingredients with me." "I would love to, but it¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve made them. Will you show me how?" ??Of course, I have this recipe book with me." Asmond said, and with a flick of his wrist, a thick leatherbound book appeared in his hands. He stood up and handed it to Eisen. With a genuine voice, Asmond said, "Eisen, I am truly d that you have now remembered me. Or at least, part of me." The old man smiled lightly as he flipped the book open, looking at numerous notes about different ces that Eisen should visit. That seemed to be all that the book was speaking about really. It was a detailed guide for how Eisen should recover his memories. He was d about this, but he still had to wonder... if he was able to recover his memory like this, then what was inside of the puzzle box? Chapter 588 Letter Opener That was really the thing that Eisen was most confused about right now. Until now, he thought that he would end up being able to find a way of recovering his and everyone¡¯s memories after finally opening the puzzle box, but apparently that wasn¡¯t the case in the slightest. This book that Eisen was holding in his hands included numerous maps, notes, and descriptions of items, ces and people. It was... weird. Looking at these things, Eisen felt a weird sense of familiarity, but he couldn¡¯t stop himself from worrying about everything this insinuated. What was the thing that he was currently storing in his literal soul? The old man ground his teeth together and opened his item storage, simply cing this book into the bookshelf that he specifically made for things like this. "Thank you, Asmond. I appreciate your help." Eisen said as he looked back at the half elf, although he had a rather apathetic tone to his voice. Noticing this, the other originals looked at Eisen with a slightly worried expression, "Is everything alright? Isn¡¯t this amazing?" Xenia asked with a light smile, and Eisen slowly turned toward her. "Yeah..." The old man replied, "It is. It really is. But I just-" "Hello? Is someone here?" A voice interrupted Eisen¡¯s train of thought from downstairs. It seemed like there was someone in the shop. The old man pushed himself off the chair and approached the steps, "Sorry about that. I¡¯ll take care of it real quick." He pointed out and walked down the stairs. He looked in front of the counter, seeing roughly half a dozen people already looking through the shop appraising the different items Eisen had already made to be sold in here. They picked up the swords, ran their hands over them, and rubbed their fingers along the sewn parts of the leather armors. It seemed like they were all more than just pleased, and one of them immediately came toward the counter after he saw that Eisen was there, "Ah! So y-you¡¯re Eisen, right? The one that peaked..?" The man asked with a light smile on his face, and the old man slowly nodded his head. "That I am. How can I help you?" Eisen replied with a slightugh. This person was acting like a fan, as far as Eisen could tell. He looked down at the item he was holding in his hands, a simple letter opener, and held it toward the old man. "This item... Is there a particr reason why you chose to give it such amazing ingravings? As far as I can tell, there isn¡¯t really any benefit to doing so, right? They¡¯re not enchantments, and it doesn¡¯t have any real attack capabilities in the first ce, right?" The man asked curiously, and Eisen lightly smiled. He took the letter opener from him and flipped it around a bit, "It¡¯s not a weapon, it¡¯s simply a letter opener. It doesn¡¯t need anything special about it. As long as it can cut through a thinyer of a paper envelope, everything should be fine, right? And because a letter opener will usuallyy right there on your desk while working, it should look nice, hence the decorative ingravigns." Eisen exined quickly, and the man slowly leaned forward and took a closer look at the item again. "Then is there a reason why it has barely any stat benefits? Such an item should be useful for aristocrats, right? Wouldn¡¯t some extra Wisdom or Intelligence be useful?" "Of course, but it barely has any stat benefits because it simply doesn¡¯t need to. I sacrificed nearly all the physical benefit stats and only left a few mental ones and instead tried to make it as easy to use as possible. Low stat benefits, low requirements. But as a rank 5 item, it obviously has higher durability and strengthpared to lower rank items, so it can be used much, much longer. Stat benefits only apply if you¡¯re actively using an item, except if we¡¯re talking about things like essories, and you don¡¯t particrly need extra intelligence while cutting open letters. It was simply not needed." The old man exined, and the man slowly nodded his head as he looked down at it. "...I see..." He muttered, "You know, I think I¡¯ll buy this. It¡¯s my father-inw¡¯s birthday soon, and he spends a lot of time trying to write letters to old friends of his. I think he may like it." The man pulled out his pouch and sorted through the coins, before Komer stepped up next to Eisen, slightly pushing him out of the way, "If you¡¯re alright with it, I¡¯ll be performing the transaction here-on-out." "Hm? Ah, of course. So, how much was it again?" The man asked. Meanwhile, Eisen looked at the other people in the store with a light smile. He was happy that this short interaction just happened. He was in a pretty sour mood just now, but having such a genuine conversation about his reasoning for his craftsmanship-rted choices with someone that was genuinely interested and knew exactly what Eisen was talking about kind of lifted him up a bit. It was a nice feeling. This was a pure kind of happiness that Eisen hadn¡¯t been feeling for a while. Most of the time, he had been making things for people that didn¡¯t understand much about the craftsmanship-aspect of things, and they were simply impressed by the cool-sounding description and the high stats, as well as the way the weapon looked. But they never actually took a closer look at the item and chose to ask Eisen why he did what he did. Not even the four grandmaster craftsmen really did that too often, especially after finding out who Eisen was. They simply epted Eisen¡¯s choices as right, and never really asked him about anything. This was a really nice feeling, he should really try and set up shop in town on this ind more often. Afterward, Eisen continued speaking to some of the customers about the items that they wanted to buy if they were interested, and he was continuosly asked things by craftsmen that simply wanted to get better at their own craft and wanted to get any benefit that they wanted. Any tip, any piece of knowledge that they could get was useful to them. Once more, it simply felt nice. Komer took care of the actual sales for him, so Eisen also appreciated that quite a bit. More people came in over time, and it actually became rather busy at some point, but soon this excitement died down again and the store was empty at some point. They locked the door and hung up a ¡¯closed¡¯ sign so that nobody woulde in and then made their way back upstairs. "You feeling better now?" Brody asked, having seen Eisen¡¯s expression the whole time, and the old man simply nodded his head, "Yes, I¡¯m feeling much, much better." The old man replied. He had a bit of time to think about everything with the book just now, so he slowly turned toward Asmond. "But well... Either way, about before... You didn¡¯t really properly answer my question. How much do you know about my past?" Eisen inquired, and Asmond slowly opened his eyes apologetically and nodded his head, "Right, excuse me. I just had to make sure that it was truly you before I identally reveal such a truth to everyone here. The people know about it, right? About the other side." "Of course they do. Seems like you do as well." "Yes. It is a secret I have tried my best to protect my whole life." "I really appreciate it. Thank you." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and the dark elf in front of him quickly nodded, "Of course." Eisen slowly looked around at the others, and the people from this side were already aware of what Eisen would exin next. He had touched on this topic a few times before, but he never truly exined it in-depth all too much. "Alright... The thing about the other world, the side where all Artificials and us Originalse from is that it does not have elves, orcs, demons, humans, or magic. The only race of ¡¯people¡¯ that exists there are Humans, and we have nothing beyond animals. We don¡¯t have a system, levels, skills, or ¡¯upations¡¯ in the same way as you have experienced your whole lives so far." Eisen exined bluntly. They had already heard the beginning of this just before when Komer told them, but it still seemed rather surprising to them. Once more, Denmir asked the question that he asked before, "Did... Did yer humans on that side kill all other races? Kill all monsters?" "No." Jyuuk started, "They were simply never a thing. Sure, there are things that may beparable to monsters that used to live on our world, but it¡¯s nothingpared to how things are here." The Beastperson asked, and Brody looked at him with a light frown, "You mean those cryptid stuff? That ain¡¯t real, is it?" "Brody, I said ¡¯that used to live¡¯. I was talking about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals." "Ah..." The Demon Orc muttered quietly, and Xenia took over with a slight sigh, "Instead of magic, we simply have science. Sure, there are plenty of people that believe magic is real over there, but if it is, it barely has a fraction of the power a child can use here." "A while ago, my body became filled with mana even over there. Manaes from the soul, and since I spent a hundred thousand years in this world, my soul had been changed so much that it produces mana even in a world where mana doesn¡¯t exist. When I tried to use or manipte it in any particr way, my body was actively fighting against me. Magic is not only not a thing there, but it¡¯s directly against ourws of nature." With that, Eisen sighed slightly and scratched the back of his neck, "Well, although it¡¯s not like that may not be able to change." Eisen pointed out with a sigh, "Just imagine, all of a sudden having magic over there. That would make life pretty useful, huh?" All of a sudden, Xenia ripped her eyes open and stared at the old man, "What... what did you just say?" She asked, and Eisen raised his brows, "That having magic over there would be pretty useful? Don¡¯t pretend you never wanted to have magic there, Xenia." Eisenughed, and just then realized what Xenia was getting at. They never really thought of this possibility before, but... "What if this is all happening not because they want some power trip in this world... but because they want the power they have here over there?" Chapter 589 Anger "What do you mean? They¡¯re trying to get magic over to Earth?" Brody asked with a deep frown, "Is that what you¡¯re saying?" With a slow nod, Xenia stared down at the floor while trying to think about all this, "Erm... Alright, just imagine this..." The High Elf started, as she figured out a good way to put her words into order, "You can do a lot with Experience, right? As in the substance, the actual energy that is existent over here. You can create true living beings from it, and the substance ¡¯Experience¡¯ is what practically makes this world up from top to bottom, if we looked closely enough." She pointed out. The others thought about it for a moment and in the end simply agreed, as Xenia¡¯s words did seem to make some sort of sense to them. At the very least they all understood what she was getting at, "Then what if you can do even more with experience than we think is possible? Create a literal rift from here to there, or somehow alter someone¡¯s body over there so that they can produce mana and use magic freely." "But then why would they market this as a ¡¯game¡¯? Wouldn¡¯t it be easier to somehow extract the experience from the world in another way?" Evalia asked, but Jyuuk slowly shook his head. He had read up on how experience was supposed to work in this world, so he was the most knowledgeable about it amongst everyone here. "Not exactly. There¡¯s no way to directly ¡¯extract¡¯ experience in its raw form, since it doesn¡¯t exist that way. Experience is something produced by living beings when different conditionse true. Let¡¯s say... People themselves produce experience not in the form of levels, but rather in the form of skill proficiencies. Sometimes we can produce normal experience and level up through actions, quests, or special conditions, but usually that¡¯s not the case. Monsters and animals on the other hand produce both proficiency and regr experience in an equal manner." "Then wouldn¡¯t it just be easier to have some gods create different strong monsters and then have them kill them again?" "Yes, but it would be inefficient. As I said, experience is produced, it¡¯s not something that¡¯s innately in a living being. It would take a long time for those monsters to have experience worth speaking of. Although, I think they probably did just that already, when they first created monsters, now that I think about it. But instead of having the gods kill them, the ¡¯Artificials¡¯ are taking over that task. I think the thing is that both we originals and artificials have an extraordinarily high rate of experience absorption, possibly a level that not even gods can achieve." Jyuuk suggested, "No experience is truly lost. The experience worth one level that we lose after death is probably just the experience necessary to directly revive us, which would be a worthwhile investment. But imagine at some point, in one, five, or even ten years on our side, when some of those artificials with their extremelyrge absorption rate reach the peak-level. After the first one, more and more people will get there. At some point, they will have gathered much more experience than just the five of us would have ever been able to gather." "So what..?" Eisen asked with a deep frown as he ground his teeth together, "Is that supposed to mean we were just guinea pigs? Really just people supposed to figure out how it¡¯s possible to live in this world and how experience is supposed to be used?" The old man looked down at the ground, once more getting a slight bit agitated just thinking about this. He didn¡¯t particrly like being toyed with like that. Eisen stared at the ground and took a deep breath to calm himself down, "Alright, let¡¯s say that¡¯s the case... Let¡¯s say this is really what¡¯s happening, there¡¯s at least one good news in it. One ressource that we were unsure about until now." The old man started, and while the others weren¡¯t particrly sure what he was saying, Brody seemed to have understood somewhat. "Time." He pointed out, and Eisen immediately nodded, "Yes, exactly. It will take years and years to reach that level of experience for even one person. Until they reach a point at which they have a higher level of experience than the five of us used to havebined, it should take much longer. They should at least wait for that point to make it worth it and not aplete waste of time." "That¡¯s for sure..." Jyuuk muttered, and then leaned back in his seat, "I wish we had some kind of way to confirm this theory. That would really, really calm me down if we had any way to confirm that this is truly the case. We really wouldn¡¯t need to rush, at least not on this side." And with those words, Jyuuk raised a little bit of confusion in the others. Immediately, everyone that was here beside the five originals stared at him in confusion, "What do you mean, ¡¯at least not on this side¡¯?" "Ah..." Xenia started, "Well, I think he may mean one of two things. Either, he means that time here is four times slower than over there, so one day over there is four days over here, or... he means that we¡¯re kind of in danger over there at the moment as well." "Hm? Again, what do you mean?" Komer asked immediately as he jumped up and stared at everyone there, and Eisen looked up at him with a smile, "Samuel has been trying to get rid of us over there. He made armed men intrude Evalia¡¯s home, someone burnt down Jyuuk¡¯sb, the triad attacked Brody¡¯s home, had Xenia¡¯s stalker-ex boyfriend break into her apartment, and not only had my brothere to my house with a presumably loaded gun and made my son-inw literally go crazy enough to try and attack his own daughter." Everyone in this room looked at the old man in shock and confusion, as a figure of mist appeared right in front of him, staring down at Eisen intensely, "What did you just say?" Kirisho asked, and Eisen looked at her with a simple smile, "Exactly what I said." "I... I can¡¯t believe this... Why didn¡¯t you tell u-" Kirisho started with an angry expression, upset at the way that Eisen so nonchntly revealed that they were hiding such things from them until now. But Eisen had something else to say about that. "Why should we have? Would it have changed anything? Would you have been able to help us? I¡¯m already well aware of how anxious some of you are after we revealed this all to you. Thinking ¡¯will theye back¡¯ every time we go to bed because you¡¯re scared we want to live our lives over there rather than here. Why should we have given you another reason to be even more scared that we may note back?" Eisen asked in a clear voice as he looked up at the Spirit from his seated position. He figured that would be enough to make the others understand, at least. That¡¯s what his thought process was for not really telling them about the extent of the dangers going on on the other side. They¡¯ve been speaking about small things, but they never told those from this side about the more serious things going on on the other side. Simply to protect them, really. But before Eisen knew it, he felt a firm hand hit his cheek. It was weak, and there was a miniscule, if any, feeling of impact even. But it still had enough strength and meaning to it topletely shake up Eisen¡¯s mind. With a deep, angry stare, Kirisho stood in front of Eisen, "Don¡¯t you dare speak as if this was for our sake! You may be thinking that you did this for us, for us who can¡¯t do anything for you over there, but what about Komer then? He knew as little about it as we do, and he is on that side with you, is he not?" "Komer is just 20 years old. I didn¡¯t want to involve him in something that-" "Stop it already!" Immediately, Kirisho interrupted the old man, "These are all excuses! I understand that your reason for not telling us about the other side were truly genuine! You may have killed not only yourselves but us as well just by muttering it, but why wouldn¡¯t you tell us about this? Why wouldn¡¯t you try to get our opinion on it? Who knows, maybe we simply have better ideas of how to handle this than any of you five do!" Slowly, Eisen turned his eyes and nced at the other originals. It seemed like they were rather conflicted as well. They had spoken about this before, that they wouldn¡¯t particrly try and hide it from them to the level of lying about it, but that they would try and keep it low-profile. Like they just did, they would speak about it if it came up or if they were talking about these things anyway, but they wouldn¡¯t go out of their way to start a conversation with the goal of telling the others about the situation. With a deep frown, Komer stared at Eisen, "You realize that we sell security systems, right? Survence cameras, special fences, infrared sensors, literally anything you may need. You¡¯re letting me lead something that you¡¯re actively trying to turn into thergestmercial conglomerate in this world, but you won¡¯t let me make a few calls for you in the other world?" "They have a point..." Evalia muttered quietly, and immediately Komer turned his head toward her, "Of course we do! We¡¯re not idiots, at least not as much as you seem to think we are! Eisen, give me your address over there right now, I¡¯m heading over to see what we can do." "Komer, what-" "Eisen." The young man interrupted Eisen, staring down at him with a deep re that he only ever saw him with during meetings rted to starlight as apany. This was the expression Komer had when he wasn¡¯t going to step down anymore. With a slight sigh, Eisen opened his and Komer¡¯s chat and types his address in it so that Komer would be able to easily see this information outside the capsule as well, and the young man stared at him intensely. "Good, then I¡¯m heading off immediately. I¡¯ll log off outside, don¡¯t worry." Komer said as he practically ran down the stairs with a deep frown on his face, just a few momentster mming the front door of this shop shut. Chapter 590 Haunted Items The group was on their way back to town to meet back up with the others. They had to make sure that there were people there that could prepare for the arrival of the original townsfolk in a few days. Asmond reassured Eisen that he would try to convince everyone toe, but there seemingly were a couple of people that, after building their life anew inside of the hill-vige, maybe wouldn¡¯t want toe along after all. That should be aplete minority, however. Either way, now that they got through everything in rtion to this Ind of Craftsmanship, they only had to head to the Ind of War and take that over as well. In particr Jyuuk would be on the frontlines there, as he was the only one that was really capable of making use of a really huge amount of troupes in the form of his beasts or undead. Of course, Eisen was also pretty important for this all, due to the fact that he was capable of creating a lot of really high-quality golems. Melissa¡¯s bees would definitely also be useful, especially the ones that she specifically created to do as much damage as they possibly could to any sort of target. Those ones were really, really terrifying, even for Eisen¡¯s standards. If he was to ever see such a thing in the other world, he had no idea what he was going to do. That was because the bodies of those bees were as long as Eisen¡¯s arms, and proportionally, they were even bulkier than normal bees. Their stingers were basically venom-covered daggers, and even their legs and wings were sharp enough to cut into someone¡¯s skin. And to top it off, they had incredibly hard carapace that was acknowledged as ¡¯annoyingly tough¡¯ by Brody while they were trying to figure out how strong these bees actually were. And in the end, to make them even stronger, Eisen did something that he never expected he would do, but... he made items for bees. While their stingers definitely were sharp, they still couldn¡¯tpare to actual daggers made by a skilled craftsman. So, Eisen made a special item that could be strapped onto theserge bees that would cover their stingers. Since they were already shaped roguhly like daggers, Eisen could make it so that only the edge was covered in an extrayer of metal so that there wasn¡¯t too much extra weight on them. Of course, he still used special materials that weighed as little as absolutely possible. Other than that, Eisen carved some extra channels and enchantments into the stingers and those reinforced metal edges to make the venom flow better. Besides that, Eisen figured he could also get a little bit of practice in for making uniquely shaped armor by making new things for these bees. Since they needed as little extra weight as possible, Eisen just made them thin, but incredibly tough and durable, leather armor. And so, just like that, all these bees¡¯ terror was lifted beyond what Eisen had ever hoped to have to see. But besides that, Eisen also made some items for other non-humanoid beings, of course with the assistance of the four grandmaster craftsmen. He made w-caps for Jyuuk¡¯s eagles to make their w-based attacks stronger and not as hard on the eagles themselves, special defensive armor for Jyuuk¡¯s ¡¯heavy¡¯ beasts, extra weapons for those that were capable of wielding it, and so on. In the end, before they got to the Ind of War, nearly all of Jyuuk¡¯s beasts ended up getting perfect equipment made for them that would push their abilities even further than one may think. Eisen also suggested doing the same thing for the undead, but Jyuuk actually had another suggestion that he figured they should take a look at first. "You want to make Ghosts?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk quickly nodded his head, "Yes. Until now, I¡¯ve been mainly trying to figure out how to best increase the strength of my physical undead, but I never really considered making use of Ghost-Types all too much. I was already able to create a few different ones so far, like Banshees, Poltergeists, simple Specters, and so on. But there is a specific type that I would like to try out as well. Haunted Items." "Haunted Items? Could you possibly borate on that?" Eisen inquired. He had a bit of an image in his head, but he wasn¡¯t directly sure whether or not that was really what he was thinking of. "Heh, Haunted Items, really? We don¡¯t need that shit, I¡¯ll go ahead and make some more Ego-Items for ya, and you¡¯re gonna be fine, so fuck that." Hephaestus pointed out, and Eisen slowly turned his head toward the Ego-Item sitting right next to him, "Keep talking and I sew your mouth shut again. Let him finish. And by the way, you wouldn¡¯t be making the ego items, you and I would be making them together. Don¡¯t make promises for me, alright?" The old man said, and Hephaestus simply huffed out some air out of his mouth and crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall he was sitting up against. And so, Eisen turned back toward Jyuuk, "So? What are Haunted Items?" "Well, technically, what Hephaestus just said may not be all that wrong. Ego-Items might possibly be better in a sense, especially the ones that we¡¯ve seen so far. Best would actually be abination between an Ego-Item and a ¡¯Haunted Item¡¯." Jyuuk pointed out, and Hephaestus slowly turned his eyes toward Jyuuk, slightly intrigued. "You see, a haunted item is really just an invisible spirit that¡¯s ¡¯wielding¡¯ any sort of item. There¡¯s different ways to make them. If you want a full warrior, you can make aplete armor-set a haunted item, and then give it some sort of weapon to hold in its gloves, even if that weapon isn¡¯t directly part of the haunted item, and it¡¯s going to be able to fight in a way that¡¯s simr to how regr people fight, although that¡¯s not the main appeal of haunted items. The main appeal is something else." Jyuuk exined quickly, and turned his head to look for a good item to demonstrate it on, before seeing a small dagger justying there. "Can I use this for a second?" "Mhm. Go ahead." Eisen replied nearly instantly, and Jyuuk smirked as he pulled out a soul stone out of the pouch hanging onto his belt. Just a few momentster, the soul was pulled out of the soul stone and used to envelop the daggerpletely. Eisen was using his mana-sight to take a look at everything, and was able to quickly see that Jyuuk was using necromantic mana to control this soul right now. It technically seemed to be simr to the process of making an ego-item, just that the main difference was the way that it was realized. Normally, Eisen didn¡¯t even use any sort of mana while imbuing a soul into an item, he simply tried his best to move the soul along without any sort of different influence, but Jyuuk¡¯s process was relying on it. He was pushing the necromantic mana into the soul itself to change how it behaved, and then imbued it into the item. And just a few momentster, while the dagger was giving off a wicked, ck aura, Jyuuk was holding it in his hands. "If I¡¯m holding it like this, it is very simr to an ego-item, just a bit more independent. It won¡¯t automatically support my actions, but rather, it will go for certain actions itself. If you want to fight properly using a haunted item, you need to kind of ¡¯synchronize¡¯ with it. You need to be on one wave-length. For example, see this. This soul in particr seems to be keen on going for seemingly random smaller movements. It was a goblin¡¯s soul, and those guys can just never sit still, so yeah." Jyuuk started to exin, and then shed the dagger down in a straight line in front of him. Or at least that¡¯s what he tried to do. Instead of actually being able to keep the dagger straight, it rapidly pulled to the side and nearly shed at Eisen in the process. "See? It¡¯s hard to control a haunted item. And the reason for that is simple. With a haunted item you¡¯re not directly changing the item, it¡¯s the exact same it was before with the exception that it gives off necromantic energy and as such does more necromantic damage, but instead you¡¯re making a wielder for that item. The spirit that¡¯s now in control of this dagger doesn¡¯t have the form of what you would expect the wielder to look like, however. Its form is that of the dagger, and its body is that dagger. But it¡¯s only using it, that¡¯s why it would be possible to turn an ego-item into a haunted item." Jyuuk exined quickly, and then just let go of the dagger, "And this is the benefit to doing so." Instead of falling to the ground, the simple steel dagger kept floating right there in front of Jyuuk. It was twisting and twirling around a bit, seemingly trying to get used to wielding this weapon, but it definitely did seem to be moving rather erratically. "sh." Jyuukmanded it, trying to show the haunted item the motion with his own hands, and the dagger quickly did just that. It copied Jyuuk¡¯s motions and simply shed at the air. It wasn¡¯t a particrly clean sh, but it was still doing it without needing to be wielded by another person. It was even able to do it at different, random heights, and was practically just able to fly as high as it wanted to. It did seem like it woulde in pretty useful sooner orter. But then, Jyuuk pulled out something else, another item with a simr ck, necromantic aura to this dagger. It was also a de, but a different kind. This was specifically a throwing-knife, and it seemed much more stable than the dagger. Much calmer. "The soul I used for this one was that of a monster that, while alive, exclusively attacked with long-range attacks. It would shoot rock-like clumps out of its body while statically attached to a specific condition its whole life, unable to move away from there. It¡¯s not very intelligent, which made it even more perfect for this." Jyuuk exined, before he pointed at one of the targets that Eisen made for Brody to practice with that was still standing here in the workshop. Jyuuk took a deep breath, and threw the throwing-knife at the target, and it immediately hit bullseye. Then, the knife detached from the target and came back to Jyuuk. "Aye, that¡¯s definitely useful, alright." Denmir pointed out impressed, but Jyuuk simply smirked and shook his head. "Yeah, but that¡¯s not what I wanted to show you. I¡¯ll make it more obvious." Jyuuk said, and then threw the dagger again, this time with everyone standing behind him. He obviously threw the knife so that it wouldn¡¯t even hit the target now, but... the Haunted Throwing-Knife changed its direction and Jyuuk was still able to hit bullseye. "This is something that can happen if the soul is in-tune with the item, and you can properly connect to the soul." Chapter 591 Living Ego-Item With an excited expression, Eisen took a look at the haunted item that Jyuuk presented to him. Whenever he let go of it, it would stay floating around still in the air. It really was possessed by a ghost. "This is pretty interesting..." The old man muttered, "I have plenty, plenty of ego-items leftover that I couldn¡¯t give to anyone. If you have any spare souls that you didn¡¯t know what to do with, then we can try to find matches for them and very easily increase our numbers." "Exactly my thoughts." Jyuuk added, but there was someone else here that had another idea, which he presented while Sigurd was bringing all of the ego-items Eisen made over here. Hephaestus crossed his arms with a smug grin and said, "How about we turn some of my ¡¯Living Ego Items¡¯ into Haunted ones?" He suggested, and both Eisen and Jyuuk nodded their heads without hesitation, "Obviously, that was the n." Eisen replied, and the Ego Item just stared at the old man with a wry smile. "Oh, fuck off..." He groaned, and as Eisen put one of the ego-items that Sigurd gave him onto the table next to him, Jyuuk already got out some more of his soul stones to pick the right one for this particr item. Meanwhile, Eisen turned over toward Hephaestus, who was already tapping the ground, waiting to get started. "Right, right..." Eisen muttered quietly and then slowly pulled out his Multitool out of his apron, "Sorry about this, but you understand, right? I¡¯ll make it up to you in a bit. Just stay here and wait for a bit." The old man whispered as he ced the Yang-Metal tool onto the table next to him, and then stretched his hand out toward Hephaestus. The Ego-Item simply grinned broadly and mmed his own hand down onto Eisen¡¯s, creating a loud pping sound as Hephaestus¡¯ body turned into that of a simple... handle. That was it, it was something thatid in Eisen¡¯s hand perfectly, but it wasn¡¯t any specific tool yet, while being able to turn into anything it wanted to at any given moment. "Alright, Jyuuk, show me the souls you have ready for these special-unit ego-items. Better would be if they were duplicates." Eisen pointed out, and Jyuuk quickly nodded his head. The first ones that Jyuuk showed them were the souls of two ¡¯Apex Apes¡¯, enormous Gori-like monkeys that made use of ¡¯Tremor¡¯ magic, basically creating earthquakes with every step they took. "Hm, alright. Then for that one, there¡¯s really only one proper choice. A heavy warhammer." The old man muttered in his mind, and it seemed like Hephaestus had the very same idea. First things first, they had to go and pick the materials, and for that, Sigurd already created a gate for them to bring them into the dungeon-internal material-storage. The moment they stepped inside, Hephaestus already started to transform. Not into some kind of tool, but rather into two thin leather gloves that wrapped themselves around Eisen¡¯s hands immediately. Hephaestus then practically started to pull Eisen around the material storage while curiously trying to figure out what materials there were. Eisen figured he should let him do as he wanted to for now, but after a little while, after noticing that Hephaestus was horrible at making choices like that because he, as far as Eisen could judge, ¡¯loved all materials equally¡¯, the old man stopped him by mming his hands together as hard as he could. "Oi, the fuck¡¯re you doing?! That hurt, you piece of sh-" "Be quiet. What we¡¯re doing is simple. We¡¯re making the base item using a special metallic potion. Well, it¡¯s not directly a potion, more like a general concoction, since it¡¯s not meant to be ingested, but rather just Poured onto the ground. Basically, it creates artificial tremors in the ground. The material base we¡¯re using his highly-infused ¡¯zing Core of the Mountain¡¯ mythril alloyed with tremor-mythril. Tremor-mythril should be far too instable to make it the base in itself. Then we also have to mix it with something stable and flexible... I¡¯m thinking something like... Aluminum, but really just as a carrier to keep everything stable enough." The old man muttered quietly, and then continued his short monologue after noticing that Hephaestus had nothing to add to the idea for the warhammer¡¯s core. "Then, when ites to the main part of the hammerhead, we can just go with a pretty basic metal alloy that¡¯s good at making things like tremors travel through it. That wouldn¡¯t make it a good item to be wielded by a person because of the strain that would be put onto them, but since the item is going to be fighting on its own, it¡¯s perfect. Let¡¯s add another bit of a gem enchanted with the tremor element onto it, then." Eisen suggested, and then stayed silent as he started thinking about more things, during which Hephaestus made another suggestion on his own. "The shape should be supportive of making the tremors travel back to the impact zone. Let???s make it a hammerhead with only one side that can be actually used... ah, and no fuckin¡¯ spike, that¡¯d be useless with the tremors." "Right, then the backside could just be a highly crystal-based te with enchantments on it to reflect the tremors back. And of course, let¡¯s add enchantments into the head itself to support it. Make tremors from the front and sides of the hammerhead travel to the back, focus in one spot, and then shoot forward right out of the center of the hammerhead back into the target." "Ooh, ¡¯ah like that! Then if we want that, the handle needs to be neatly bnced. Wanna go with physical bnce or enchantment bnce?" "There are already a lot of enchantments in the hammerhead, so let¡¯s go with physical bnce. That should make the bnce of the ¡¯Living Ego-Item¡¯ better as well, right?" "Ah, right! Hmm, I guess we don¡¯t really need anythin¡¯ like a proper handle, right? It ain¡¯t gonna matter anyway." Hephaestus added, and everyone around him and Eisen looked at the old man conversing with his own gloves in a way that just screamed out that they wanted to see what these two would end up making together. After all, even if they were describing the shape right now, it wasn¡¯t the ¡¯true¡¯ shape in the end. After all, it would change and then turn into some kind of humanoid form. And it seemed like Eisen already had the way that this transformation happened and its rules in his mind. "Actually, I¡¯m not sure if we should ignore the importance of the handle. The ego-items you made always attacked in basic fashions, so their arms and hands basically turned into the weapons they were supposed to be, and the rest of their body was influenced by anything that wasn¡¯t directly rted to the ¡¯attack¡¯ portion. I have a rough idea how it might look when turned into the ¡¯Living Ego-Item¡¯. We should try and predict the ways that the base-item affects the result. If we want to truly make this the best Ego-Item it can be, then we should look at it that way. Don¡¯t make an item that was meant to be used by others, but an item that was meant to be used by itself." The old man announced, and it seemed like as his thoughts and ideas were directly transferred to Hephaestus, he quickly understood what he was getting at, although the others were still a bit confused. And so, the two of them quickly started to get whatever items they needed together and brought them to their actual working-area. First things first, they would make the metallic potion that would act as the core of the hammerhead. For this, Hephaestus turned into the mortar and pestle used to grind the materials down, the very bowl that the materials wer molten and mixed in, and of course the ¡¯pipes¡¯ connecting everything. Of course, in the process of making this metallic potion, they already included parts of the soul for the ego-item. They would add in parts everywhere, everything besides the actual very core of the soul, to try and distribute it everywhere equally. While everything was mixing, Eisen was of course using his skills to make thebination-process easier, and was actually supported by Hephaestus by having him turn into another glove. It was really handy that he could turn into different tools at the same time, and that it wouldn¡¯t really affect his ability in any way. Either way, as they added the soul into the metallic potion, the first real part they had to ovee came to them. Due to Hephaestus¡¯ special abilities, this always happened whenever he created ego-items, it was something that couldn¡¯t be avoided. The metallic potion started bubbling up, as if things were growing from it. If this went out of control, this would just turn into an ¡¯unstable¡¯ ego item, pull in the rest of the soul wherever it was, and bascially turn into a failure. But before Hephaestus could even get started on suppressing the growths from appearing... Eisen already did it for him. He carefully stirred the potion around with his mana and pressed everything back into itself,bining any parts that split off into the potion again. "Concentrate." Eisen said in a strict tone toward the ego-item and, now even more pumped up than before, it continued and helped Eisen out. After this, the ¡¯bubbling¡¯ and the ¡¯growths¡¯ appeared on every part of the item they were making at any time, meaning that everything had to be perfectly managed at all time, but because of Eisen¡¯s visualization and mana-copy ability that Eisen had constantly active, he was able to keep the state of the other parts of the item in mind at all times, suppressing any issue that arose before it could actually be a problem. Just like that, Hephaestus and Eisen created their first Ego-Item together. Just when it was finished, Eisen looked at the single glove that Hephaestus had now turned into and pushed the soul core into the Warhammer, and just then did the two of them let the transformation happen, albeit still in a controlled manner. The form of the Warhammer changed and morphed, growths appeared all over it, and things shifted around the whole time. Soon, what stood in front of them was truly a fearsome ego-item. It seemed to look a lot like a normal ¡¯Apex Ape¡¯ in its rough shape, but of course with important differences. Its hands, when turned into fists, were simr in shape to the hammerhead Hephaestus and Eisen made, just that the central ¡¯attack surface¡¯ seemed to be able to shift around however the ego-item wanted. It was obvious that this ego-item¡¯s ¡¯bones¡¯ were made of the metallic potion as well. Not only the arms, but practically the item¡¯s whole body was filled with the enchantments supposed to change the direction of the tremors toward the shoulders, as the upper half of the upper arms, as well as the shoulders, seemed to be mostly made of that crystal-based material used as the ¡¯focus¡¯ part, that would push the tremors collected in the body directly to the fists. The center of its back and its spine was covered in flexible but strong wood that had been used for the handle, and most of the important parts that needed extra defense and didn¡¯t specifically need extra mobility were covered in hard, thick, extremely strong leather. And so, Eisen and Hephaestus proudly looked at the first Living Ego-Item that they created together. Chapter 592 Haunted Ego-Item "So, that¡¯s your ego-item?" Jyuuk asked curiously as he walked all around it, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, "Yes it is. It took on the qualities of the soul and the item that we created perfectly, just like I had in mind." The old man pointed out with a light smile. He ran his fingers over the surface of the Ego-item with the Apex-Ape¡¯s soul in it before turning over toward Hephaestus. "And you really can¡¯t create other sorts of ego-items?" Eisen asked, and the Ego-Tool slowly shook his head, "Nope, whenever I try anythin¡¯, it morphs, shifts, and shit like this happens. I ain¡¯t even that amazing at makin¡¯ regr items. They¡¯re not bad, they¡¯re just kinda... you know, mediocre." "Huh..." Eisen muttered quietly as he looked at Hephaestus, who just stared back slightly ufortably at being looked at so intensely, "What is it? You¡¯re givin¡¯ me the creeps, man." "Oh, sorry, I was just thinking... What if you weren¡¯t actually a ¡¯failure¡¯?" Eisen suggested, and Hephaestus stared back at him with a frown, "Eh? The fuck you mean?" Never having seen anyone be insulted by not being called a failure, Jyuuk slowly turned away to continue forming the Ghost out of the second Apex-Ape soul, while Eisen exined what he was on about. "You see, in the past, it seemed like I was obsessed with creating artificial life. So... what about if you were never supposed to be a normal tool, but a tool that was supposed to assist me in that obsession?" "..." Hephaestus silently stared back at Eisen for a few moments, trying to figure out if what he was saying did actually make sense, before scratching the back of his neck with a load, diforted groan, "Ah fuck it, maybe? I don¡¯t fucking know, man. So what, I was an Ego-Item creation tool?" "Yeah, would that be so unlikely?" Eisen replied bluntly as he ced his hand onto the Apex-Ape-shaped Warhammer¡¯s arm, "I mean, after all, just by trying to make a regr item you¡¯re able to cause something like this to appear. Then what if we directly tried to create something that was meant to be alive? Wouldn¡¯t that be on a level beyond that?" Hephaestus looked back at Eisen in thought before grumbling quietly, "Well... That ain¡¯t a bad idea, I guess." The Ego-Item pointed out, "But fuck that for now, let¡¯s just keep makin¡¯ ego-items for the fuckin¡¯ war ind now. That¡¯s the priority, right?" "Right, of course." Eisen said with a slight nod and then turned over toward Jyuuk, and right next to him was able to see a shift in the light. It was like he was seeing the silhouette of an Apex-Ape just standing there, shifting the light around it like it was made of invisible, hot asphalt. "Then I¡¯ll try it out now." The Beastperson suggested, trying not to get involved in the obviously prettyplicated atmosphere between Eisen and Hephaestus, before he started to move the Ghost that he just created over toward the Living-Ego-Warhammer. Immediately, slight changes started to happen. The Ego-Warhammer twisted its limbs around in unnatural ways, as if it was about to destroy itself. Jyuuk was just about to pull the soul back out, but Eisen quickly stopped him. "Wait... It¡¯s using force, but it¡¯s not using excessive force... It would have been able to actually break the crystal parts already, but it¡¯s not. It¡¯s probably trying to figure out its physical limitations." Eisen suggested, and Jyuuk looked at the Apex-Ape-shaped Warhammer in front of him. He wasn¡¯t entirely sure what it was like if a being like that was actually haunted, or if it even did anything or not. It might have just been a waste of time. Although, it seemed like that wasn¡¯t necessarily the case. "Hm... Brody,e over here." The old man said as he picked up a thick metal shield from the ground and threw it over toward the Demon-Orc, who had been watching this whole time. He maybe wasn¡¯t particrly interested in craftsmanship in and of itself, but he was more than just interested in different weapons and the process of their creation, so he usually came to Eisen¡¯s workshop to watch him when he had the time to. "Gotcha. So just defend against it, right?" Brody asked. Without hesitation, Eisen nodded his head and then stared at the Ego-Item in front of him, "Attack the shield." Eisenmanded the ego-item, and it quickly pulled one of its arms behind its back, before quickly swinging it toward Brody. But before the Apex-Ape hit the shield, Eisen increased his size nearly instantly and, with the strength he gained from that, pulled Brody a few meters further away. Of course, everyone was confused and surprised at the old man doing this, but they were even more surprised when they saw what happened next. The movement of the Living Ego-Item didn¡¯t stop. Its fist continued moving forward at the exact same speed as before, practically just pulling its body after it until its fist hit the shield Brody was holding. The force seemed to still be rather extreme, albeit obviously weakened, but Brody still groaned loudly and red at Eisen while cing the shield down on the ground. "The fuck was that?! You ruined my whole stance! That hurt like shit, I was supposed to divert the shock to the ground, man, but ¡¯cause of you, I couldn¡¯t!" Brody eximed with a loud voice, but Eisen just looked at him with a slightugh while he shrunk back down. "Sorry, sorry. But hey, at the very least, we now know that it¡¯s worth it to turn even ego-items like this into haunted items. The ghosts possessing them will support the ego-items¡¯ movements to a logically impossible degree. The Ego-Warhammer was literally flying after its fist without any major loss of speed. It was floating for roughly a second or two." "I see..." Jyuuk muttered quietly, "So it¡¯s basically like with the regr haunted items. It¡¯s still kind of like the ghosts possessing them are just holding them, leading them along in different ways. If that¡¯s the case, then it would really be worth it to go for this kind of thing." Jyuuk pointed out, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response, "Yes, but I still think we should focus on turning regr items we usually wouldn¡¯t have a use for into haunted items. These Living Ego-Items can fight on their own anyway, but that¡¯s just not the case with regr old items." "That¡¯s fair, then I¡¯ll concentrate on that. Once Stahl is back, I¡¯ll have him help me a bit. We¡¯re taking a bit of a break before really getting started on the ind of war anyway, right?" "Mhm, exactly. Let me know if you need any help." Eisen suggested, and then turned back toward Hephaestus, who was tapping his foot on the ground, acting like a brat without patience of any form, "Can we continue now, or what?" Eisen slowly looked over at Hephaestus and then nodded his head, "Sure. Let¡¯s take a look at the souls we have leftover that we could use." The old man suggested, and then slowly walked over toward Jyuuk, who had already split his soul stones up into those that he wanted to use for the regr ego-items to turn them into haunted items, as well as the soul stones that Eisen and Hephaestus could use. Next, they chose the soul of a simple snake, a constrictor type. The item that they would make for these was pretty simple. Shackles. It seemed like this soul belonged to a monster with simr properties to Xenia¡¯s darkness spirit. Of course, it didn¡¯t have the darkness element, but rather, its only real ability was to constrain its pray and stop them from moving while it tried to slowly kill them, so something like shackles really seemed like the best idea. And since this particr snake was one that would restrict the whole body, Eisen and Hephaestus chose something simr. It would be shackles that were supposed to directly pull the legs together, and then separately pull the hands together, and then also pull the arms and legs together. Basically, a hogtie behind the back to stop someone from moving. For this, there was really only one requirement material-wise. It had to be somewhat bendy, but not malleable. Things that were rigid were easy to crack apart, so it was better if it was bendy. But if the material was too bendy, there was the risk of the shackles simply being pulled wider by force. That¡¯s why they had to make sure it wasn¡¯t malleable, and basically ¡¯remembered¡¯ its base shape so that it could return to it immediately once no force was put onto it anymore. That meant if the shackles were tight enough, they would be far harder to escape by brute force than simply solid steel shackles. After they found the right material, Eisen and Hephaestus got started, and worked on the item, once more doing their best to suppress all sort of growths that might happen in the process while creating the ego-item. While making this, Eisen actually noticed something important he had never really thought about. It was possible to make chains in this world far, far more durable than anything ever achievable on earth, even if the exact same material was used. On earth, while creating chain-links, it wouldn¡¯t be possible to perfectly close it up. Most chain-links had a slight gap, since that was simply how it worked, as they were made by making thin metal bars that were just bent to be round and interlocked with each other. Even if you tried to fuse them shut by reheating just that part, it would still be a lot weaker than the rest of the chain-link. But here, just by using transmutation-basedbination, it was possible to fuse the two ends of the metal bar together perfectly without there being any sort of difference in quality in any part of the chain-link. Weirdly enough, that was a detail that made Eisen somewhat excited, actually. These small discoveries and realizations were often far more satisfying than even creating amazinglyplicated mechanisms and items over here, somehow. Either way, these chains were made with a special method either way, as they were different types of special thread just woven together to be stronger, and then cut up into segments to rece the metal rods for the chain-links. Eisen then fused the ends of those ¡¯chain-rope-links¡¯ together with transmutation continued with the rest. And just like that, after they finished the item, they were standing in front of a thin but long, actually rope-like ck snake that was capable of slithering around someone¡¯s body and restraining them perfectly. Chapter 593 Anything can be a weapon For the next few hours, Eisen and Hephaestus worked together to create as many ¡¯Living Ego-Items¡¯ as they possibly could, simply to inte their numbers with beings that had special abilities that coulde in useful on the Ind of War. Jyuuk already started trying to scout the ce out with his eagles, although there actually seemed to be enemies that were shooting at the eagles with bows or crossbows in order to take them down. Of course it didn¡¯t work, as Jyuuk¡¯s eagles had incredible dexterity, but still, it was an issue as there were quite a few units there. It was like a dozen or so shots were fired all at once, continuosly until the eagle left their range. The biggest problem was something else, however, "So they have someone or something that can actually notice us from far away?" Brody asked, and Jyuuk slowly nodded his head. "It seems so. There were others birds flying around, but none of the others were targeted. So either they became suspicious because she didn¡¯t fit in with the others species, or there was someone that figured out that she was a tamed beast controlled by someone else. Either way, they seem to be quite intelligent and well-organized." "Hm..." Brody groaned quietly, trying to figure out a proper tactic for such arge-scale fight, actually being the main-strategist for this. It seemed like those that didn¡¯t know Brody too well were rather surprised at this, but the other Originals and those that knew the stories of Brody as the one that peaked were aware of his prowess as a warlord and war strategist. He maybe wasn¡¯t particrly skilled in keeping in mind things like rationing, wound-treatment, and practically anything that didn¡¯t have to do with activebat in a warzone, but there were others here that could very easily fill in such gaps. "So, what kinds of monsters were they?" Brody asked, and Jyuuk slowly thought about it while scratching his cheek, "That¡¯s the thing..." He started, "I¡¯m not sure if they were actually monsters." Immediately after Jyuuk said this, everyone in the room turned toward him confusedly, "What do you mean? Were they people? If that¡¯s the case, couldn¡¯t we try and solve this diplomatically?" Evalia asked curiously. If it came to things rted to diplomatics, then she would probably be able to take on a big part of the responsibility, trying to use her words to convince them to stay calm. It would be better if Komer was here, as he was the most skilled at making deals, whether they were financial or political in nature, but he didn¡¯t log back into the game after he logged off outside of the shop. It was a bit annoying getting him back in the first ce, really. Luckily it was possible for them to actually move his body since they were literal ¡¯Friends¡¯ in the system, otherwise they would have either had to wait for him to wake up or they would have had to leave him there. Either way, it seemed like it wasn¡¯t actually going to turn out to be a conflict resolvable with words after all, "I¡¯m not entirely sure because I didn¡¯t get a close-up on them, but I think they were people. But they didn¡¯t... act like it. There was something weird about them. I sent a ground-worm there so that I could get a closer look without them directly noticing, but it seems like it¡¯s going to take a while for it to get there." Jyuuk exined, "Either way, seeing how aggressive they were toward a simple bird, I doubt that we can solve this with words even if they do end up being normal people." Brody quietly grumbled to himself while thinking about this, "Well, either way, if they¡¯re just people this just got a shitton easier. It¡¯s he hard to predict what a monster will actually act like, especially if you¡¯ve never seen it before, but that ain¡¯t the case with people. Groups of monsters usually act erratically, but people act orderly. Either way, if Jyuuk thinks they might be people, they must be humanoids with things like proper weapons, armor, clothes, and tools, meaning they¡¯ll have a structure to them, so they¡¯ll probably fight pretty orderly anyway." Brody whispered to himself while trying to figure out proper tactics. "Once we figure out the structure of the ind, the town, and those livin¡¯ on the ind, we¡¯ll be able to properly figure it out." He then announced as he pushed himself off the ground, trying to continue thinking of different tactics and attack or defense patterns that could be used with this particr group of people, monsters, and... items that could move on their own, in one way or another, "Yo, Eisen, I¡¯m raidin¡¯ the bar on the first floor." "Don¡¯t overdo it, please." Eisen said while Brody stepped through the gate that Sigurd swiftly created for him, and the Demon-Orc just slightly shrugged as he squatted down, already being behind the bar, and picked up a bottle of whiskey, before quickly opening it up. Thest thing that Eisen could see before the door was mmed shut and disappeared was Brody pouring him a cup of that whiskey. "Alright, nothing against that dude, but seriously? He¡¯s supposed to be some amazin¡¯ war strategist?" Hephaestus asked, and Eisen slightly started to chuckle as he used the Ego-Tool in order to cut up some leather, "Brody is the bestbatist there ever was, really. I don¡¯t think there¡¯s a weapon that he can¡¯t use, and there¡¯s nothing that he can¡¯t turn into a weapon, albeit in another way than me. To him, a towel can be as lethal a weapon as a greatsword. And to him, soldiers are a weapon." "Eh, that¡¯s a bit of an exaggeration, isn¡¯t it?" Hephaestus asked, and Xenia looked at the knife Eisen was holding and lightly scoffed, "Sadly, it¡¯s not. This isn¡¯t a story of this world, but in the other world, Brody was a professional martial artist. Basically, he fought in duels for a living, but they weren¡¯t duels till death, just until one gave up or couldn¡¯t fight anymore. Well, one time, some guy was so desperate to win the prize money and fame that came with it that he rounded up roughly a dozen super strong fighters, gave them knives, and then tried to jump Brody in the showers after practice once. He literally beat up those dozen people with just his towel without a single scratch, whilepletely naked, wet, and on a slippery floor." Xenia exined quickly, but it seemed like Hephaestus still wasn¡¯t entirely convinced. "So what? Then Brody¡¯s level was probably like a hundred or two hundred levels higher than those guys¡¯. If that¡¯s the case, you can basically kill small-fries with a single breath." The ego-item pointed out, but Eisen slightly squeezed Hephaestus¡¯ grip a little bit, "If I can remind you, levels and stats aren¡¯t a thing over there. In raw, physical strength, some of those guys may have been actually stronger than Brody. Brody solely relies on skill, and not on raw power. Well, he does have raw power on top of that, which makes his skill even more impressive and effective." "I¡¯ve heard stories about Brody before, but he really is amazing, isn¡¯t he?" Morrom added with a wry smile, although the next moment, Jyuuk added something else, "True, but just imagine how amazing that makes Eisen. In theparatively ¡¯little¡¯ time between his and Brody¡¯s birth, he managed to build up so much strength and ability that it took Brody more than 50 Thousand years to finally be stronger than him." "Well, to be fair, I probably did have a few advantages over him. For one, I could use magic to an extent, I could actually make use of enchantments, and through my size-changing ability I had an advantage in size, raw strength, and reach all at once." The old man replied quickly. He actually didn¡¯t believe that it was as straightforward as he was told before, and was quite sure that Brody had been able to beat him long before the ¡¯official¡¯ time Eisen was overtaken by him, but Eisen couldn¡¯t be 100% sure either. Although, just when he started to think about that, he actually remembered something. He didn¡¯t really look through the book that Asmond gave him yet, at least not properly, but he had a vague feeling that he read something about fighting Brody, even if he didn¡¯t consciously do so at the time. With that, Eisen quickly finished up the throwing-knife that then turned into a small silver bird with an incredibly sharp beak. Without even trying to see if its body properly formed, Eisen opened his item storage and stepped over toward the bookshelf, quickly pulling out the book with the tips of how Eisen could recover his memory. He quickly flipped through it trying to nce at every major topic that the memories were sorted by, until he reached the ¡¯People¡¯ category, and then found Brody. And it didn¡¯t take him that long to find one specific overarching topic that Eisen would need to try out. "Fight Brody with your fists. Fight Brody with magic. Fight Brody with swords... with bows, with spears..? Ah... ¡¯a single instance should not make the memory-recovery possible, but multiple different instances should¡¯. I see..." Eisen read quietly, and then ced the book back into the bookshelf before stepping out of the item storage. He waved his hand to the side and quickly created a gate leading him to the bar that Brody was in the midst of raiding. The old man stepped out of there, looking at the Demon Orc with a broad grin on his face. Brody looked back at him rather surprised, "What, I¡¯m just having a little..." He pointed out, cing an empty bottle of liquor to five other empty ones, "Don¡¯t judge me, it¡¯s hard to get drunk in here these days..." "Brody. Fight me." The old man said immediately, without a moment¡¯s hesitation, and Brody slowly stood up and put the ss he was holding to the side, "Listen, I know you can sell this stuff for a good sum of money, but c¡¯mon! Let me at least have a little, you can make stuff like this in a couple of days with Jyuuk??s help!" Brody eximed, but Eisen immediately shook his head. "That¡¯s not what I mean. I need you to fight me so that I can remember my fights with you in the past. Who knows, it might end up triggering this whole memory thing for you too!" The old man suggested, and Brody really didn¡¯t have to think long about it. "Heh, nice. Never made anyone remember anything by fighting them. Usually they forget a bunch of shit." The Demon Orc pointed out, "Alright, let¡¯s get to it then." Chapter 594 Fight for the Memories Eisen and Brody stood in front of each other in the center of this small arena that Sky created for them using his Inkheart summoning, the same one that he used during the fight against Argon and the four monster lords back on Prototype. First things first, the two of them stood there, ready to just fight with their fists. The fight definitely wouldn¡¯t take too long, but Eisen still had to do his best so that he can actually end up remembering some things about his past. Weirdly enough, he became so excited about the idea of remembering this that he just dropped anything and everything else in order to do this. What was weird about it was that despite being obviously quite interested in it, Eisen wasn¡¯t as extremely driven to find out the other things somehow. He figured that he could somewhat ¡¯take his time¡¯ with it, for one reason or another, although Eisen really didn¡¯t know that reason. Either way, now that they were standing here, ready to fight, the old Giant-Dwarf and the Demon-Orc stood in front of each other. The seats surrounding the small collosseum-like arena were obviously filled with those that came with them to the Ind of Craftsmanship and that woulde with them to the Ind of War. They didn¡¯t have much better to do, and there weren¡¯t many people that wouldn¡¯t take the chance to see two people that peaked fight. Sure, their levels and stats were reset, but there was still something special about it, seemingly. And both Eisen and Brody were above level 300, so it would probably be a pretty interesting fight either way. "You ready?" Brody asked with a grin on his face, and Eisen immediately nodded his head, "Of course I am. Now, let¡¯s get started." Eisen replied immediately, and Brody replied with a nod himself. This wouldn¡¯t be an official duel, since there wasn¡¯t a reason for that. They didn¡¯t need to bet anything or had any stakes here at all, this was just a bit of a test, so they didn¡¯t call up some Priest of the god of Combat for this, but instead just waltzed right into this arena before wanting to get started. In order to properly start the fight, Kiron stood in the center of those two, and just threw a small rock into the air. The moment that the rock hit the ground again was the moment that the fight started, and Kiron jumped out of the way immediately. Eisen and Brody jumped toward each other, and the Demon-Orc pressed his left foot into the ground, being the one that was facing Eisen, to rapidly stop his movement in his lower body just before Eisen and Brody made ¡¯impact¡¯ with each other. Since his upper body still had its momentum, Brody could just use that and even increase it by pushing himself forward more with his right foot. He pressed one of his palms onto the right side of Eisen¡¯s chest and the other one on the left side of his abdomen, before he made use of his External Energy to increase the force put onto Eisen¡¯s body. Immediately, the old man was swung around and pushed back. Completely upside-down, Eisen tried to fix his position and pushed his hand into the ground, rapidly pulling him down. Luckily he could catch the fall with his feet and soon stood up properly, but at that point, Brody already reached Eisen again. Since Eisen had his feet pressed into the ground to properly get his bnce together, Brody aimed specifically at them. Using the speed of his body as he was running toward Eisen, Brody dropped to the ground sideways and then pressed his palms and his left foot into the floor before simply swinging his right foot against Eisen¡¯s legs, quickly sweeping them away before he used the momentum to pick himself up again. But this time, it didn¡¯t work exactly like Brody had hoped, but rather, the old man was able to pick up at least one of his feet before being sweeped down, and was able to easily press it down onto the ground to catch his fall before anything happened. And once he caught his fall, he swung his hand toward Brody. Eisen really didn¡¯t have amazing hand-to-handbat techniques, so he couldn¡¯t go for any amazing moves like Brody could, but at the very least, he was able to get a couple of attacks in. At the very least, that¡¯s what Eisen was hoping. He formed a fist with his hand and pushed it right into Brody¡¯s sight. Eisen imagined that he would go flying, due to the raw strength the old man possessed, but what happened was rather different. Because Brody just kept standing in ce, without moving even an inch. It seemed logically impossible, considering that the mere impact of Eisen¡¯s hand against Brody¡¯s side created a strong gust of wind that even reached the onlooker. "Heh... Sorry ¡¯bout that. It¡¯s a little trick of mine." With that, Brody grabbed Eisen¡¯s arm and rapidly pulled him closer while using his feet to disturb Eisen¡¯s bnce. And while the old man toppled over and was about to fall forward with his face into the ground, he stretched his arm out to try and catch his fall. However, just before he could feel the hard surface underneath him, he suddenly felt an immensely strong tug on his other arm and was pulled back up rapidly, his body involuntarily twisting around toward Brody. Although, Eisen didn¡¯t actually see Brody. He really just saw his foot as it crashed into the old man¡¯s face and he was sent flying through the arena. "Alright, I lost!" The old man yelled out after standing back up and stretching properly, "That really hurt, you know?" "Ah..." Brody replied, "Shit, I forgot that you feel pain again..." "Don¡¯t worry about it... It¡¯s still letting up pretty quickly." The old man pointed out as he drank a few health potions and handed some to Brody as well, "Say, how did you do that just there? How did you defend against that punch?" With a light grin on his face, Brody handed Eisen the empty potion bottle and crossed his arms smugly shortly thereafter, "Pretty simple. Used my internal energy to counteract it. Recently brought my skill up to Rank 5 as well, and the upgrade made it possible for me to do a bunch of new things. For example, force nullification. I took so much more fuckin¡¯ damage than I usually would, but no force was put onto my body. Was useful in a situation like that, eh?" "Haha, you can say that again." Eisenughed loudly, "But well, it seems like it¡¯s working a bit, or at least it feels like the memory could appear through this. It just feels somewhat right." The old man pointed out, and Brody slightly shrugged, "Hm, I don¡¯t feel anythin¡¯. But if you say so, then let¡¯s keep going. You ready?" The Demon-Orc suggested, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Sounds good. This time with weapons then?" The old man suggested, and Brody shrugged in response, "A¡¯ight. Let¡¯s do it then. You¡¯ll just use that demon sword, right?" Without even having to say another word, Eisen pulled out therge ck de out of his soul storage and swung it over his shoulder with a smile on his face, "Mhm." He replied with a light grin, and Brody shrugged as he walked over to the Gate that Sigurd had opened for him and then picked a few weapons out for himself as well. Brody waved his hand to the side and made roughly a dozen weapons appear in front of him all at once. It was his own personal storage ability that he could use to store different weapons and switch between them in the middle of the fight. This was indubitably an amazingly useful ability for Brody, since he would be able to switch his tactic in the middle of the fight and continuebat in apletely different mannerpared to before, simply by changing his weapon, while also making it very easy for him to react to different situations and attacks. Especially when he was fighting against arge number of enemies, each possessing different trains, he would be capable of fighting them rtively easily as he was able to switch to the right weapon for each situation immediately. Eisen looked at the Demon Orc while holding his sword in front of him, while Brody simply chose to equip a Jian, a one-handed, single-edged straightsword, and then stood in front of Eisen. Once more, just a few minutes after thest one ended, the two started to fight again. But this time around, Eisen made use of something else that could be seen as a ¡¯weapon¡¯ of sorts. Eisen and Brody already agreed that Eisen wouldn¡¯t use his regr size-change ability, but his Draconic Demon King transformation was fine, which included the size increase by roughly 50% of what Eisen was before. He extended the transformation onto the Demonic de, and it increased in size as well. Now, Brody the Demon-Orc was fighting against Eisen the three-meter-tall Demonic Giant-Dwarf. Of course, this gave Eisen a bit of an advantage over Brody, especially because Eisen¡¯s physical abilites were heavily increased. And so, with high speeds, Eisen swung hisrge de at Brody, who just easily deflected it and sent it into the ground. Or so he thought, but Eisen¡¯s ego-sword didn¡¯t really y along too much. Instead, it basically started gliding across the edge and around it, so that Eisen¡¯s sword was behind Brody¡¯s now. Meanwhile, Eisen was able to actually adjust the position of his hands so that he was able to properly swing the de back toward Brody. But in response to that, the Demon-Orc and expert fighter simply let go of his weapon for a few moments, let Eisen¡¯s sword pass through in front of him, and then grabbed the handle before the sword could hit the ground. As Eisen was in the middle of twisting his sword around, he was pretty vulnerable, so Brody quickly grabbed his sword and swung it upward at Eisen. But the old man, in response to this, jumped backward and used the momentum created with his whole body to swing his sword down toward Brody. The des hit, and it seemed like Brody¡¯s was actually about to give in. At the very least, Brody noticed that there was a slight dent in the de already, and it would continue until Eisen could through Brody¡¯s swordpletely, so he simply swung his sword sideways along Eisen¡¯s de to avoid this. He couldn¡¯t attack like this, but at the very least he could now switch his weapon. The de disappeared, and just a momentter it was reced with a spear that Brody proceeded to push toward the old man with all his power. Chapter 595 Brody, the bra Eisen pulled his head to the side and managed to dodge the iing arrow that Brody shot at him. Of course they were blunt arrows, but it still would have hurt if he had been hit right in the center of the face, not to mention that it still would have caused a considerable amount of actual damage to his HP. But at the same time, that was one of the few ways for Eisen and Brody to cause enough damage to each other to make ¡¯giving up¡¯ viable. After all, this was thest type of fight they would go through for the day, and both of them were a little bit tired at this point in time. The biggest problem was that Eisen didn¡¯t even have the Archery skill. He could still shoot the arrow normally, but of course, Brody had an immense advantage due to the fact that the system was assisting him in this fight. Well, Eisen was using a specialized bow that would give him an incredible benefit to Archery while Brody was using a very, very basic one to even it out, but there was still arge difference of raw skill between the two of them. Eisen pulled back the bowstring and pointed the arrow¡¯s tip slightly into the air so that it would properly reach Brody. Both of them had a small area that they could freely move in, so either way, Eisen definitely would miss again, but at the very least he didn¡¯t need to deal with Brody running up to him and shooting at his face from point-nk distance. Just like the old man thought, Brody moved just slightly to the side and it was already impossible for Eisen¡¯s arrow to hit him. But then, Brody did something else. Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure if it was just out of boredom or because he had an actual n, but the Demon Orc shot at the arrow flying through the air with his own, sending Eisen¡¯s arrow flying back toward the old man. Meanwhile, he already loaded up the next arrow and shot it toward the first one after changing his own position in his ¡¯field¡¯, and fixed the course of that first arrow as well so that it was shooting at Eisen again. And the arrow that Brody just shot was slightly buried into the ground, since it seemed to be a normal arrow with a regr tip. While Brody was loading up a third arrow, Eisen tried his best to quickly dodge the two arrows flying toward him at once right now. They were slower than normal arrows would be, so it really wasn¡¯t all too hard to just take a step to the side and let them fly by. But this meant that Eisen wasn¡¯t able to ready up his own bow while moving around like this, although Brody just shot another arrow toward him. It was weirdly low, until Eisen noticed what exactly Brody was aiming at. It was the arrow that he shot into the ground before. The arrow bounced off of it and changed its direction, flying directly toward Eisen¡¯s legs. As he was already standing right in the corner of his ¡¯field¡¯, he couldn¡¯t really do much instead of just jump over it, but then, something else that Eisen didn¡¯t expect happened. The arrow that was stuck in the ground before was pulled out of it just a little bit, and while it was flung through the air, Brody shot another blunt arrow at it. While it wasn¡¯t fast enough to cause any actual damage to Eisen, it was fast enough to cut through Eisen¡¯s bowstring that he wasn¡¯t paying attention to while he was dodging the arrow from below while he was mid-air during the jump. And with that, there was no choice for Eisen but to really admit one thing, "I lost." He eximed with a loudugh, while Brody sighed in relief that it was finally over. "Seven to zero, old man. This enough for today?" Brody asked, and Eisen slowly looked down at his hand before he nodded with his head, "Seems like it. Thanks for the help, Brody." With a smile on his face, Eisen just stood there as the metal that first appeared on his fingertips spread out over his whole body, and he found himself to be in the same ck space as he had already seen twice before, with two orbs of golden light floating in front of him, while there was a single orb of white light. Eisen stretched his hand out to the white one and then watched as the world around him changed. And soon, the old man stood in an open field, with two people not too far away from him. "Oi! You old bastard, fight me, will you?!" One of them said. And to Eisen¡¯s surprise... It seemed to be a younger Brody. He spoke in a simr way as he did now, but this version of him was obviously just around 15 or 16 years old. On the other hand, the Eisen that was standing right in front of Brody seemed like the regr Eisen that this old man knew about. This was probably their first meeting, meaning that the former Eisen had already peaked at this point, "Sorry, I don¡¯t have time to y with you. I¡¯m here to look for a material, stop bothering me." He replied swiftly as he looked around, "I heard that after Demons die, their skeletons turn into special crystalline structures, because even in death they absorb and attract mana. It¡¯s pretty-" But before this Eisen could finish speaking, Brody already kicked him into the center of the back, and then stared at Eisen confusedly when he didn¡¯t even budge. Instead, the former Eisen simply sighed and slightly turned his head toward the actual Eisen as he was standing there, simply watching. "This is going to be a long one. Go ahead and rx while watching." He sighed, and the current Eisen just looked back with a light frown while the former Eisen turned around to look at the young Brody. "Kid, what do you think you¡¯re doing?" He asked, and Brody just stared up at him, "Following my lifetime quest. I¡¯m supposed to ¡¯peak¡¯, whatever that means! The others in my vige already can¡¯t beat me! You¡¯re supposed to be someone that ¡¯peaked¡¯, right? I heard that an old fart that peaked is travellin¡¯ ¡¯round here, that must be you, eh?" The former Eisen looked down at Brody with surprise, and his eyes slowly glittered in a golden light for just an instant before the old man opened his eyes surprised, "Ah... so I wasn¡¯t the only one then. Heh... ¡¯Find him¡¯... What a dumbass quest, you should¡¯ve at least told me who I¡¯m supposed to look for." With a broad smile on his face, Eisen looked back at the young Demon-Orc, who was simply confused. "You know what, kid? Have it your way. Show me what you can do. Show me what it means to be someone that¡¯s worthy of peaking." He eximed, and young Brody just grinned broadly, showing his weirdly cute small tusks in the process. "You¡¯ve got it. Then here Ie!" With that, Brody jumped up at Eisen, immediately kicking him into the side of his head head and stabbing a dagger he seemed to have hidden right into his face at the same time. It seemed like in this world, Brody already had experienced killing people or monsters at that point in time. Although he obviously never went up against someone like Eisen before. Because instead of the dagger being pushed into Eisen¡¯s skull, it simply shattered into multiple pieces while Eisen himself didn¡¯t budge in the slightest. Brody, however, seemed to have injured his leg while kicking Eisen like that. The old man sighed loudly as he caught the shards of the dagger while pulling the rest of it out of Brody¡¯s hand before he even reached the ground. Without hesitation, the old man enclosed his hands around the dagger, both of which he seemed to have increased in size considerably to actually fit them. That was new, Eisen had never seen location-specific size-changes before. Either way, the old man then ended up pulling his hands away from each other again, and was then instead holding a small, high-quality dagger that he proceeded to hand to Brody, "Here you go. Don¡¯t know where you got that, but the man that made it should be ashamed. It¡¯s so badly made..." Eisen sighed before proceeding to hold his hand forward. "Well, anyway, as I said, I don¡¯t really have time to y with you. It¡¯s evident you can¡¯t fight me seriously yet, so let me end this." And then, Eisen proceeded to snap his fingers. Just that created an immense gust of wind that then sent Brody flying, probably damaging him quite immensely as well. "Ergh... Seriously? This is how weak kids like that were?" Eisen asked with a wry smile and then stepped over toward the young Brody, before Eisen pulled out a small leather satchel out of nowhere. And out of that satchel he pulled a single die-sized cube that he ced onto the half-unconscious Brody¡¯s chest. That cube then proceeded to fold open and spread out around Brody, healing him and fixing him up perfectly. A few momentster, Brody was in peak condition, and then had a small Automaton-Bird sitting on his shoulder. "I will stay in the area for seven days. Whenever you tell it to, that bird will send you here. If you want toe with me, then follow it before I leave. I¡¯ll show you how to be truly strong." Eisen exined to him, and Brody looked up at the old man before grinding his teeth and just running off, followed by the metallic bird. "Eh, fair enough." Eisen sighed, "Trygan, stop messing around. Come on." The old man said and turned around. The current Eisen immediately ripped his eyes open in response to hearing the name of his apparent dragon-son, but before he actually saw him, the world around him changed. But not back into the ck space, but into something else. Another open field, where the former Eisen and a still quite young Brody were standing in front of each other. It seemed to be a few yearster though. This time, when Brody jumped at the former Eisen, there seemed to be the real strength and power of high stats behind it, albeit not all too high, apparently. The former Eisen was still able to easily defend against Brody without even moving anything but one of his hands. And just like this, Eisen started travelling through the centuries just to see the memories of the former Eisen fighting against Brody in short duels. Chapter 596 100 Memories Eisen woke back up in the arena, just a few moments after he initially seemed to have fallen asleep. Through all this, Eisen had gained all the knowledge that he needed during these two dozen instances of duels he had seen between himself and Brody throughout the ages. Toward the end, Brody actually beat Eisen more often than not, so it seemed like it was confirmed that the rumor that Brody couldn¡¯t beat Eisen until ten thousand years ago was really just that, a rumor. Either way, the old man pushed himself off the ground and got rid of the dust on him, while Brody walked up to him with augh. It seemed like he didn¡¯t even make it all the way to Eisen before he woke up again. The demon-orc ced his hand onto the old man¡¯s shoulder, "Seems like it worked, eh? You remember some of that stuff no-" But before Brody could finish his sentence, something else happened that he didn¡¯t particrly expect to happen. Eisen lifted his arm up and grabbed the arm that Brody ced onto his shoulder before twisting it around rapidly, and with a swift motion started to slide his foot over the ground. Brody quickly reacted, of course and slightly jumped so that Eisen¡¯s foot would slide underhim, but that was exactly what Eisen wanted. He stopped his foot under Brody¡¯s and then pushed up, kicking Brody¡¯s body further up while still holding onto his arm. Quickly while Brody was in the air, Eisen twisted his arm into the other direction to before and slid right behind the Demon Orc¡¯s body, still holding onto his arm. Due to the twisting, Eisen was able to swiftly move Brody¡¯s arm behind his body while Eisen pressed his free hand onto Brody¡¯s back, and then proceeded to push him down rapidly before Brody even touched the ground again. And thus, for the first time today, Eisen had beaten Brody in a fight,pletely overwhelming him at that, "Yeah, you could say I remember ¡¯some of that stuff¡¯. I remember numerous fights we had over the years, so you could say that I have the same level of experience of fighting against you as the former Eisen. Unless you remember these fights as well, it seems like you¡¯ll be stuck losing against me from now on." The old man grinned broadly, while the Demon Orc just lightly twisted his head toward him. "You¡¯ve gotta be joking..." Brody groaned loudly, but Eisen just shook his head immediately, "Well, of course not. Why would I joke about something like that?" With augh, Eisen let go of Brody and stood up while he helped the Demon Orc up, "But don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not a better fighter than you. My body just kind of reacts on its own when I¡¯m fighting you." "This¡¯s fucking duuumb... Holy shit, why can¡¯t I remember stuff like this already?" Brodyined, all the whilst Sky slowly got rid of the Inkheart arena that they were fighting in, before everyone approached the two of them. They had spoken some throughout the day already, inbetween the different fights, but toward the end even they got a fair bit bored. But now, they were rather excited after seeing Eisen¡¯s sudden moves just now. After all, it seemed like he managed to take Brody down pretty easily with thisst bit. "What just happened? How did you do that?" Jyuuk asked excitedly, and Eisen slightly smirked in response, "Well, it¡¯s simple. By remembering numerous fights I had with Brody. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll lose against him anytime soon." Eisen pointed out bluntly, and the Monkey Beastperson raised his brows surprised, "Oh, so it actually worked? You recovered that memory?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen just nodded his head, "Yes I have. Following what this book is saying seems to be a good idea." The old man pointed out as he opened his item storage, grabbing the book with the ¡¯memory notes¡¯ again. He flipped it open to the page that he read the information on how to remember the fights with Brody, but it simply disappeared. Really, the text was just gone, although Eisen could definitely remember that it was supposed to be here. He flipped through the book some more, soon founding two more pages that werepletely empty. As far as Eisen could judge from the pages around those, it seemed like these referred to the other two memories that Eisen remembered. It seemed like the more memories he recovered, the more pages would disappear form this book. Although just as Eisen was thinking that, Bree pointed out something else, "Ah! Something changed on the book!" She eximed, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, I know... some pages are justpletely missing. It¡¯s pretty weird, but-" "No, not that!" The fey-kin girl exined as she stepped into the space created by Eisen¡¯s item storage skill, and then grabbed Eisen¡¯s hand to take it away from the book so that she could close it, "Here!" She eximed, pointing at the front cover of the book. Eisen looked at it with a light frown. It seemed just like before. It was intricately carved, and there were exactly 100 small beads ced into it. Most of them were pitch-ck and there were two golden ones before. But now, there were three. "Ah... does this... refer to how many memories I have remembered?" Eisen thought curiously, "Although, what does this mean then... Can I only remember 100 things in total?" The old man whispered, and Sky looked at the book with a light frown. "I mean, probably not... Something might happen once you reach 100 memories? I mean, it¡¯s not like the book is what¡¯s making you remember things, so there¡¯s no way that it could restrict you like that." The Fey-Kin boy suggested. Eisen turned toward him and slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, let¡¯s hope so. Well, then I guess I¡¯ll have to do my best to keep remembering to see what will happen when I reach this point." The old manughed lightly, and Brody slowly crossed his arms, "But really, I haven¡¯t noticed anything at all. Nothing, no slight ¡¯vibe¡¯, no tingling or anything at all. What¡¯s with that?" "Well... I remembered my first memory when approaching the ind of Craftsmanship while I was thinking about what the being creating the ego-items could potentially be like. Maybe you all will remember things when we reach your own specialties¡¯ inds? Maybe your own books are hidden there as well." The old man suggested. It seemed like it would make sense at least. Up until now, whenever they were looking for something that was ¡¯hidden¡¯ by the old originals, it was always quite straightforwardly hidden. Sure, it was all part of a weirdlyplex system that was made the puzzle box, but that most likely had its reasons. It was somewhat like the puzzle box was guiding everyone into the right direction by giving them things they had to do, after all. Either way, it seemed like this might be something pretty straightforward as well, although Xenia had a slight question, "Well, then it would make sense to try and reach the ind ofbat for Brody, the ind of magic for me, and the ind of art for Evalia, but... What about Jyuuk? Would his stuff be on the ind of life? Or the ind of death?" "Well, both, actually." Eisen pointed out and turned toward Sky, "You sketched down the map of the inds that Gind showed you in an extra book, right?" The old man asked, and Sky slowly nodded his head. "Yup. Here." Sky said as he slowly stretched his hand out and a book appeared out of thin air that he then handed to Eisen. The old man flipped through the book and used his Visualization ability to turn these drawn maps into three-dimensional represenations. He couldn¡¯t save things like maps with that skill sadly, but at least this made sure that Sky¡¯s abilities woulde in handy. In particr, Eisen created five different inds, one of them being the ind that they were just on before, the ind of craftsmanship. Then, there were also the inds ofbat, magic, and art. And then atst, an ind with a rather particr shape. It was split into two by arge river. Or rather, it seemed like these were two inds to begin with. However, each of these inds had arge mountain on them. They were leaning toward each other, and it seemed like the peaks were intertwined with each other, although technically they apparently didn¡¯t actually touch each other. "These are the inds of Life and Death. As one can¡¯t exist without the other, it seems like they¡¯re rather close to each other. If you ask me, it seems rather obvious that this is the ce we would need to go for Jyuuk. But we¡¯ll have to see, it might have just been a coincidence for me." Eisen exined swiftly, and the others were still curiously looking at the uniquely structured inds in front of them. "I guess we¡¯ll need to figure all of that out over the next while, don¡¯t we?" Eisen pointed out, "There¡¯s so much we need to do. We¡¯ll need to finish taking over all these inds one after another, we¡¯ll need to individually go to our birth countries and speak to people there, and we¡¯ll need to finish the tasks on the notes." The old man turned around toward the others, but they were simply lightly smiling in excitement while thinking of what the inds of their own specializations would be like. With a bit of augh, Eisen just sat down on a nearby chair. "Well, we should head off pretty soon. Or at least me, I need to let this body rest a bit." Eisen exined, and he was already in the midst of making himself fall asleep, although before he could do that, Brody seemed to have gotten an idea and stopped the old man. "Yo, wait! This is actually perfect, isn¡¯t it? After taking over the ind of war, we¡¯ll have incredible numbers of people or monsters to fight for us... And now that we¡¯ve taken over the ind of craftsmanship as well, none of those people or monsters will becking in equipment. Ain¡¯t it just gonna be super easy to take over the other inds with suchrge numbers?" Brody asked, and Eisen raised his brows before starting tough with a quick nod. "Actually, you¡¯re right. Yeah, that¡¯s a good idea. Maybe we can just rx a little more and concentrate on other things if they¡¯re out there taking the inds over. As long as there are people we can trust leading them, I guess there shouldn¡¯t be an issue." Eisen smiled, quickly agreeing with Brody¡¯s idea. Chapter 597 Service Dog Benjamin slowly climbed out of the capsule and stretched a bit. He made his way out of his bedroom and then swiftly walked toward the kitchen to get himself something to drink. But just when he poured some water into a ss, he spotted something outside on the road. Well, it was rather hard to miss, considering that there was a singlerge truck and two smaller ones outside, each with the logo of a certain techpany. With a slight sigh, Benjamin ced his ss of water onto the counter and made his way over toward the door. Once he opened it up, he immediately saw a ssic men-in-ck style bodyguard staring at him. "How can I help you?" The old man asked, and the bodyguard simply looked Benjamin up and down multiple times, "Sir, I must ask you to remain calm. I am going to do a bodycheck on you before we proceed. Do you-" "Like hell you will!" Benjamin replied immediately and pushed the man away from him, since Benjamin didn¡¯t even realy know what this was about. He had a rough idea, but it was still a bit bothersome when people treated him like that. Especially in his own house. "Sir, as I said, please remain calm or I will have to resort to fo-" The bodyguard continued and grabbed Benjamin¡¯s arm forcefully, although the old man himself wouldn¡¯t have that. He had memories of fighting against the one that held the title of ¡¯best fighter¡¯ in two separate worlds, turning a situation around against someone like this that obviously didn¡¯t expect Benjamin to fight back was pretty easy. The old man quickly raised his left arm until the bodyguard¡¯s arm was in an awkward position, and the old man then proceeded to pull his arm away and punching the bodyguard into the throat. Just lightly, but it was still strong enough to make him gasp for air. "What do you think you¡¯re doing? This is my house, you know? You can¡¯te in here and expect me to let you walk all over me like that." The old man said with a voice that was basically a growl, but the bodyguard simply straightened his body back up and stared back at Benjamin before trying to pull something from his hip, although just then, a loud, familiar voice could be heard. "You! What do you think you¡¯re doing? Sorry Eisen, did he actually try to attack you?" That voice asked, and the old man looked past the bodyguard and lightly smiled, "Ah, as I thought. It was you, huh? Komer, this is a bit over the top, isn¡¯t it?" "Hm, you sure? Becausest I remember, you told me that your guys¡¯ lives are being targeted." The young man replied as he pushed the car¡¯s door shut and looked down at the golden retriever in a special harness next to him, "Elly. Let¡¯s go." He said, and immediately, the dog stood up and started walking toward the door while the bodyguard took a step to the side, "Wait." He then said, and the dog stopped walking. "It¡¯s nice to finally meet you like this, Eisen." The young man said, and immediately, the bodyguard turned his head toward the old man, "Tim, this man is the one that we came to visit? I thought you said that he was-" "That he was a pretty amazing person. I know that he¡¯s old and is missing an arm, but that doesn¡¯t mean that he¡¯s not amazing." Tim sighed loudly, and then spoke to Benjamin again, "Sorry about this. But what exactly just happened? Did he-" "Try to pat me down in my own home? Yup. But it¡¯s fine, I get it. You brought people from the security branch of thepany here, so it would be weirder if they weren¡¯t this careful. That doesn¡¯t mean that I particrly enjoy being treated this way inside my home." "Of course. I¡¯ll make sure it doesn¡¯t happen again. But well, could wee inside?" Tim asked with a light smile, and Benjamin just took a step to the side as he opened the door up properly. A few momentster, two young girls came out of Sophia¡¯s room, herself and Kim. They made their way to the livingroom after the bit ofmotion and after noticing the trucks outside, "Hm? Wait, is that Komer?" Sophia asked surprised as she approached the young blonde man that walked around with bright red hair in the game, and the young man himself slowly turned toward her, "Oh, Alnico, right?" Tim asked, and the young girl slowly nodded her head, "Yeah... but what are you doing here?" She asked, before slowly turning toward the golden retriever in front of Komer. With a bright smile, she squatted down and was about to rub over the dog¡¯s head, "And who¡¯s this cuti-" "Sophia, stop it." The old man said, and Sophia looked up at him with a confused expression, "What do you mean? It¡¯s just a cute dog!" "Not the point." Benjamin sighed, but Tim simplyughed a bit as he squatted down as well and removed his leash from the dog¡¯s, Elly¡¯s, harness, "It¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry. Elly, release." He said, and immediately, the behaviour of the dog changed. Before, it was simply silently standing there without moving its head around at all, but now that it was ¡¯off-duty¡¯, it started to look around a bit and even approached Sophia on its own. "Are you sure?" Benjamin asked, and Tim immediately nodded his head, "Yes, it¡¯s fine. She¡¯ll know when I need her. She¡¯s exhausted after that long drive as well, so it¡¯s good to let her rx a bit. And I have more than enough people to guide me around right now." He pointed out, and Sophia, who was currently busy petting Elly, slowly looked up. "Wait, what are you guys talking about?" She asked, and Benjamin turned toward her with his brows raised, "That dog is a service dog. Komer ispletely blind. Well, Tim is, Komer is doing pretty well over there." The old man pointed out, and Tim just started tough, "Yup, it¡¯s pretty insane what the capsules can do. But actually, Eisen... I¡¯m surprised you knew... We¡¯ve actually tried to hide it pretty well." "Well, I just figured it out, actually." Benjamin pointed out, and Tim raised his brows rather surprised, "Could you borate on that?" Slowly, Benjamin nodded his head, trying to recall the things that tipped him off to begin with, "So, back when we were first travelling on the giant ship, when you became a Fate Merchant. You activated your ability and everything became pitch-ck all around you. You were freaking out at first, a bit more than I would have expected, but at the same time you were able to handle yourself amazingly in that pure darkness and got used to it immediately after calming down. Then, just a couple days ago you said that you definitely would not be able to be the new owner of your father¡¯spany no matter what you do over there, so it would make sense that you would have some sort of condition that wouldn¡¯t really allow it." The old man pointed out, and then looked down at Elly, who was trying to make herself familiar with this environment in case Tim needed her. "Then of course, the service dog was a pretty good giveaway. That, and when you actually stood in front of me there, I recognized that you have ss eyes." The old man added, but the bodyguard right next to Tim just scoffed in response to that. "Is something the issue?" Benjamin inquired, and the bodyguard slowly looked back at him before nodding his head, "No offense, Sir, but these eye prosthetics were created by one of our medical-technology branches. They were created with utmost care for detail." "Sure, just that the pupils don¡¯t change size." The old man replied, "That, and I can just see that the surface is smooth and hard." Slowly, the bodyguard took a closer look at Tim¡¯s eyes and then turned around toward Benjamin with a deep frown, "I don¡¯t believe that. Sir, please follow me, I have to ask you a few questio-" "Who the fuck are you to try and boss him around like that?" Andrew asked as he came into the room, staring at the bodyguard with a wry smile, and immediately, the bodyguard just stared at him in confusion, "A-Aren¡¯t you Andrew Jones?!" He asked, and Andrew slowly turned his head toward him, "Yeah, so what?" "I¡¯m a huge fan, could you-" "Stop this already, you¡¯re acting anything but professional. Don¡¯t make me send you back home." Tim said annoyedly, and the bodyguard looked at him with a bit of surprise before nodding his head, "Alright, I understand. Excuse my behavior." "Mhm, please excuse him. He¡¯s like that sometimes. Well, he basically raised me, so he¡¯s a little bit too careful a lot of the time." "It¡¯s fine, I understand." Benjamin replied to Tim, and then slowly guided him over towar the couch, while Andrew sat down right next to Benjamin, "So, you¡¯re here for that extra security, right?" Andrew asked, and Tim swiftly turned toward him, "Yes, that¡¯s it. We brought a few things that we can use to prepare a safe-room somewhere around here. You said that you have arge basement, right? That would probably be perfect then. How big is it, actually?" "Well, I tried to exin that to you already, but I¡¯m not sure if we need any further reinforcement. There are three underground floors, all of which are reinforced enough to qualify as an actual nuclear fallout-bunker. There¡¯s enough food, liquid, and living-space there to stay down there for a few months in the case of an emergency. And this whole house is already equipped with a top-tier security system that we actually bought from you guys after this house was broken into." "...say what now?" Tim asked, "That¡¯s... then why am I even here?" "That¡¯s what I would like to ask. I mean, the security system might be somewhat out-dated, but it still works pretty well." The old man exined, and Tim sighed loudly, "Is it alright if I have some of the people from thepany take a look around just in case there¡¯s something wrong after all..? It¡¯s going to feel like Ipletely wasted my time because I was annoyed, otherwise..." "Heh, you kinda did, didn¡¯t you?" Andrew pointed out with augh, "You even missed Eisen and I dueling each other all day. He actually beat me once toward the end." "..." Tim stayed silent, "Well, now I feel like aplete and utter idiot..." He sighed. That¡¯s what Tim thought, but without any of them knowing yet, the fact that he came here might have saved all of their lives. Chapter 598 An Important Call For now, the workers that Tim brought with him walked all around Benjamin¡¯s property to see if there was anything there that could be improved security-wise. There were a few things here and there, and most of it had to do with the system having to be upgraded a little bit. "I did kind of overreact, didn¡¯t I?" Tim asked with a wry smile as he was sitting on the couch, and Benjamin immediately just started to quietlyugh, "Possibly, but I don¡¯t particrly me you. Hearing what was going on must have been a little bit upsetting to you, right?" "Obviously. I mean, anyone would be upset after hearing something like that. Your lives are literally in danger, and you¡¯re just sitting here doing... well, nothing." The young man pointed out, although he had to be quickly corrected, as this wasn¡¯t actually what was going on. Andrew looked at Tim with a light frown as he stood up from his seat, "Well, we ain¡¯t doing nothin¡¯. There¡¯s a reason why we¡¯re all here, you know? So that we¡¯re safe. Obviously we can¡¯t actively do anything against this shit, Samuel is literally controlling the minds of people. We can¡¯t prove that shit. It¡¯s literally magic. So, all we can do is hide in the safest ce we knew of, and that was here." "Fair enough..." Tim replied slowly, "I mean, from everyone¡¯s exnations, it does seem like this ce is pretty well-equipped with everything that you may need to protect yourselves." "To an extent, at least, yeah." Haruo replied quickly as he ced down a bowl filled with water onto the ground to give Elly, Tim¡¯s seeing-eye dog, something to drink on a hot day like this, "We don¡¯t know what other tricks Samuel might have up his sleeves. And I doubt that he just gave up, especially now that we know all these things." Tim quietly thought about what Haruo said and then just nodded his head in defeat, "That¡¯s... that¡¯s true... it¡¯s not like we can create magical defenses here." Benjamin crossed his legs and leaned his chin onto his palm while trying to think about how he could make Tim feel like his visit wasn¡¯tpletely useless, before he got a bit of an idea, "Sure, not magical, but..." He muttered quietly, "But non-physical ones." The old man suggested, and the others turned toward him with clear confusion. So, Benjamin started, "It¡¯s simple, right? We need to be able to figure out what exactly Samuel is doing. And we coincidentally know someone that¡¯s rted to one of the few people that can put pressure onto Prime Industries." "Wait, you mean that you want me to call my dad and have him speak to Samuel? Like, ask him to stop trying to kill you?" Tim asked a bit surprised, and Benjamin just replied with a quietugh, "Yeah, something like that. I would have suggested that we just try and figure out a way to get information on what Samuel is doing exactly. I mean, you guys are the biggest investors in this project, so it wouldn¡¯t make sense if you didn¡¯t have any sort of authority over them." "That¡¯s fair, but how is it going to help exactly? I doubt that in any possible scenario, Samuel is just going toy open his ns for this whole thing." The young man pointed out. Benjamin thought about it for a little while and then nodded his head, "Alright, that is true. But instead, we may be able to figure out how we can find or contact Samuel ourselves, which hasn¡¯t really been working over the past while." Benjamin exined, "He¡¯s obviously just been ignoring all of us. But if we can just speak to him, I¡¯m sure that there¡¯s going to be a way for us to... well, convince him to do the right thing." Tim turned toward Benjamin with a wry smile, "What are you, the mafia? Are you nning on threatening him or something?" "Maybe, if we have to." Andrew pointed out bluntly, and Tim seemed pretty surprised about this, but the fighter simply scoffed a bit, "What, you think we¡¯d be nice about this? The guy is literally trying to kill us, he¡¯s the reason why my home is destroyed and my unborn child is dead. He can be happy that we¡¯d just threaten him." Despite the fact that he couldn¡¯t even see Andrew¡¯s pissed off expression right now, Tim felt shivers and goosebumps all over his body, simply due to the feeling that this man¡¯s voice gave off just now. After a bit of thought, it seemed like he came to a conclusion, "I¡¯ll call my father. I¡¯m going to try and have him put a call through directly to Samuel." Immediately, Tim pulled out his phone and used voicemands to call his father, and then ced the phone down onto the table in speaker mode. It took only two rings for the phone to be picked up. "Ah, Tim! Did you arrive properly? Did you eat already?" The voice of a man echoed out through the phone, and Tim simply sighed in response to hearing this. "I¡¯m fine, Dad. I¡¯m here now, with the people I told you about before. Ah, and you¡¯re on speaker." Tim pointed out, and immediately, his father became a bit more silent for a few seconds, and then he said, "The people that allowed you to create such an amazingpany in that game?" He asked, and Tim immediately replied with, "That¡¯s them, yes." "Is that guy there? That old one? The... what was he called? Iron?" Tim¡¯s father asked, and after a slight chuckle, Benjamin replied, "Well, in the game, I go by Eisen, but in reality my name is Benjamin Joyce. It¡¯s a pleasure to meet you." "...Likewise... But excuse me, Benjamin Joyce? The craftsman?" He inquired, and with a bit of surprise, Benjamin replied, "That¡¯s me, yes. Have you heard of me before?" "Have I heard of you? Haha, before I founded mypany as a simple start-up back in the day, my father wanted me to get a hands-on job! We applied to have me be an apprentice of yours, but we were told that you didn¡¯t take any apprentices at the time." He exined, and Benjamin slightly frowned. He thought about when exactly that might have been, and then realized. "Was it a bit more than thirty years ago?" The old man asked, and Tim¡¯s father nearly immediately replied, "Yes, it was! Do you remember my application?" Tim¡¯s father asked curiously, but Benjamin simply sighed out lightly before quietly chuckling, "I¡¯m afraid I don¡¯t, sorry. Yes, there was a time where I took a break from teaching apprentices around then, due to family circumstances. But I think we should be happy about the timing, considering that everything seemed to have worked out better for you in the end." "Haha, yes, you could say that! But truly, I am happy to hear that my son is in good hands. I have only heard good things about you! Ah, and I love the Whiskey you produce, Mister Joyce." "Thank you, I¡¯m happy to hear that." The old man replied. He really was happy to hear something like that. It was a really nice coincidence, "But well, there is actually a reason why your son called you. There is a bit of an emergency going on on our side with our capsules and the game. But when we called Prime Industries, we were simply cut off and told that they do not have time for us at the moment, before we could be put through to our contact, Samuel Morgan, the head of the project. We thought maybe you may have better chances to reach him for us and put us through." Benjamin exined rather bluntly. Obviously the reason was made up, as he couldn¡¯t just say ¡¯He is ignoring us ever since we found out that the game is actually a game, and since he is trying to kill us, we need to speak to him¡¯. But still, to the others, it still seemed like Benjamin was being a little bit overly blunt about just wanting to talk to Tim¡¯s father to get to Samuel Morgan. But it seemed like he luckily didn¡¯t care all too much, "Hm, Samuel Morgan? Yes, I think I may be able to reach him. I can probably try to connect you to him via my son¡¯s phone if you wish to speak to him yourselves?" "That would be great, thank you." Benjamin replied, and Tim¡¯s father simplyughed quietly, "Don¡¯t mention it. Tim, call me againter, alright?" "Of course, Dad. And thanks for the help." Tim said with a light smile on his face, before his father hung up the phone so that he could call Samuel and Prime Industries. For the next few minutes, everyone was pretty silent, because they were unsure if this was really going to work out properly like they all hoped it would, but then, out of practically nowhere, Tim¡¯s phone received a call that Benjamin quickly, and silently, answered. "Hello there, this is Samuel Morgan from Prime Industries! I was told that you had an issue with the capsule? First, could I please get your name?" Samuel asked with a nauseatingly happy voice, and the old man immediately proceeded to do something that would cost him the ability to properly speak for the next couple of days. He spoke after trying to put his Demon-power and royal-authority into his voice to make it reach Samuel as well as absolutely possible. "Benjamin Theodore Joyce." The old man muttered quietly, and everyone in the room with himpletely froze up after hearing his voice and feeling the power that was magically pushed into it at the moment. Luckily, it seemed like vocal-based magic was transferrable through phones, because even Samuel seemed affected. "Wh-What are you calling me for? Th-This... this is harassment, you know?" Samuel asked, obviously nervous but still trying to act smugly, but Benjamin wouldn¡¯t have it, "Shut up with that act of yours. Both of us know that you fucked this all up. You want to get rid of us, but you failed. You didn¡¯t want us to figure out the secrets of that world, but I just wanted to tell you that I just started remembering things. It won¡¯t take long until I figure everything else out, and then you¡¯ll be done for." "Heh... R-Right... What g-good will remembering do you, huh? You don¡¯t have any power in this ce! Here, you¡¯re just an old, crippled man!" Samuel said, sounding weirdly desperate, but Benjamin simply grinned in response, "Oh? That so? Then I wonder why you¡¯re so nervous just because of a simple conversation." Chapter 599 Contract across worlds "Samuel, listen to me very closely. Right now, you¡¯re at aplete disadvantage, do you understand?" Benjamin asked with a clear tone to his voice, and the man on the other side of the line stayed silent for a few moments before he just started tough, "I see... so you¡¯re able to use the powers from that world over here as well? It was possibly just like that?" Samuel asked in disbelief, albeit while still being extremely nervous because of Benjamin¡¯s tone. He had specifically infused his voice with his royal authority and demonic-maniption abilities, after all. Soon after, Samuel tried to continue speaking, but Benjamin immediately interrupted him, "Quiet, Samuel. Come on, tell us, why exactly are you doing all of this? Why are you trying to kill us, and why did you bring us to that world in the first ce?" "Hm? It¡¯s obvious, isn¡¯t it? You five were the perfect people that we could choose, but now I don¡¯t need you anymore." Samuel exined way too casually, "I would have let you be if you didn¡¯t start remembering, but-" "That¡¯s an obvious lie, Samuel. You manipted my son-inw even before we figured things out. You know exactly there are different reasons for this, otherwise you wouldn¡¯t have given us tasks like making us take over the inds and found a country so that you can have the control." "Ah..." Samuel replied quietly, "Yeah, that¡¯s fair. Well, there are a few reasons, and I do have to admit, I panicked a bit when we figured out that your old selves weren¡¯tpletely erased and could be recovered again... But one of the things I said was right, we don¡¯t need you anymore. Not in this world, that is. You know, your souls are neither those of this world, nor souls of that world. You¡¯re a bit inbetween. And if you die here, your link to this world will disappear, and you will be wholly people of that other world for all eternity. And while your soul is bing that of the other world... We can y around with it a little, much like how you have been making use of soul engineering." Samuel exined, seemingly slowly growing used to the pressure of Benjamin¡¯s voice. He still seemed to be manipted by him a bit, considering how much he was just openly revealing like this, but he was at the very least able to speak in coherent sentences without stuttering anymore. "So basically, you want to turn us into ves?" The old man asked, and Samuel grumbled a bit in response, "Well, ¡¯ve¡¯ is a strong word, don¡¯t you think..?" Samuel pointed out, but Benjamin immediately replied. "A little while after I first met Bree, I was faced against some human in a duel, and I tricked him by giving Bree a broken very cor and having him agree to messed-up rules. I couldn¡¯t tell back then, but the way that this very system worked was by actively inscribing simr rules used by Golemancers into the soul of the affected ¡¯ve¡¯. So it¡¯s not a ¡¯strong word¡¯, that¡¯s exactly what it is that you¡¯re speaking of." For a little while, Samuel stayed silent, and Benjamin continued, "But in the end, that doesn¡¯t matter. The moment we remember, it¡¯s toote for you." "...Wasn¡¯t this call supposed to be something that makes me want to kill you less? If so, then you¡¯re doing a pretty bad job." Samuel pointed out, but Benjamin really didn¡¯t care too much. Well, after all, it was Eisen was that speaking right now, not Benjamin. The old man slowly stood up and walked over toward Tim, before squatting down and whispering ¡¯Sorry about this¡¯ into his ear. And then, the old man proceeded to pull one of Tim¡¯s ss-eyes out of his head before Eisen bit right into his own palm to cause it to bleed heavily. Eisen pressed his bleeding palm right over Tim¡¯s open eye that was currently missing the ss-eye, before Eisen continued speaking, "Samuel! Listen to me! You seem confident in yourself, then let¡¯s bet! Let¡¯s bet on who will win this fight, this was between you and us!" He eximed, before he suddenly started to push his tongue onto his canines, literally carving different patterns into its flesh, raising his voice and continuing to speak without being affected too much in spite of these wounds! "It will be a war only held in the other world, and not here! You may not kill, or even injure us, in any way, shape, or form, whether direct or indirect! No further maniption of others to cause harm to us, or anyone else, in this world! If you manage to win the war between our factions in that world without a single doubt, we will forever follow yourmand until all of us die! But if we manage to win instead, you will set the girl free, and you will never be able to go to that world ever again! You hear me?!" He yelled out, thick, dark-red blood pouring out of the corners of his mouth and down Tim¡¯s face, while nobody in the room understood what exactly was going on. Well, nobody beside Eisen and Tim. Because Tim was feeling something that he had felt many times before in the other world when helping Eisen or Xenia out a bit here and there. Eisen was currently borrowing one of Tim¡¯s, or rather Komer¡¯s, abilities. He wasn¡¯t sure how exactly he could ess it from all the way over here, but it seemed to work. And soon after, Samuel, riled up by Eisen¡¯s voice and his words filled with emotion, did something that he shouldn¡¯t have. "Hah, fine! Let¡¯s do this, I can¡¯t wait to have you crawl on the ground in front of me, you old bastard!" Samuel agreed to Eisen. But Eisen simply grinned in response to Samuel¡¯s words, "You know... As long as there are witnesses besides the two parties, even a verbal contract is viable in front of the gods. And luckily, we have five people right here that can act as a bridge for the gods to view this world if they so wish." The old man pointed out, "And with that, you and I have formed a contract supported by the Goddess of Fate herself.?? "Wait... wait, what? The g-goddess of fate, but that¡¯s... You fucking piece of-" But before Samuel could continue speaking, a spark of electricity appeared between Eisen and the phoneying on the table, followed by an instance of silence as both Eisen and Samuel saw the first instances of true, otherworldly life on earth. Well, it wasn¡¯t really life. The Enforcers were just made of mana, after all. Eisen pulled his hand away from Tim and instead stretched it out toward the figure of pitch-ck mist floating above the phone. Eisen¡¯s bloodied fingers touched it and immediately the mist proceeded to cover the old man¡¯s skin, simply climbing along him into his shadow, just to disappear there. "What the fuck did you just do..?" Samuel asked, and Eisen just continued to grin, his body slowly catching up to what just happened as his voice became raspy and cracked continuosly, "You mean... what did ¡¯we¡¯ just do... right? As I said, it¡¯s a contract... one supported by the goddess of fate. You can¡¯t escape this anymore, Samuel. Let¡¯s have fun on the... other side... kid." And with that, the old man tapped the screen of the phoneying on the table in front of him to end the phone call, before dropping to his knees and holding his hand in front of his mouth before throwing up blood onto the floor. "What just happened? Eisen, just what-" Andrew eximed as he jumped up and came to the old man¡¯s side, but Benjamin couldn¡¯t respond anymore. He hadpletely lost his voice for now, and his tongue was in a pretty bad state as well. Not to mention his extreme exhaustion right now. But instead, someone else replied for him. "He used my ability to make Fate Items... and created a Fate Contract with his words." Tim slowly exined, but the others couldn¡¯t really believe that this was possible. But Benjamin simply raised his head and nodded toward them, so that he could let them know that Tim was right, and that this was exactly what he did. "That¡¯s totally insane... How is he able to do something like that here?!" Jasmin asked with a deep frown as she started to slightly panick at seeing Benjamin like this, but Nataly asked a much more important question, "And why did he do that?! Eisen, why would you do this to yourself?!" She asked, but the old man did his best to push himself off the ground while looking at the others. He really couldn¡¯t speak at all right now, so he tried his best tomunicate via hand-motions. Slowly, the old man pointed at the four people in front of him, and then down at the floor, before shaking his head. He then pointed at the door, and then nodded his head. "...so that we don¡¯t have to be here, and can be out there?" Haruo asked quietly, and Benjamin immediately nodded his head, and at that point what exactly Benjamin, or Eisen, said just now caught up to everyone. "Samuel can¡¯t do anything to us anymore, at least not in this world. That means we¡¯re... safe, right? We can go home, and return to our ¡¯regr¡¯ lives outside of this?" Nataly asked quietly, before Benjamin immediately nodded his head. Particrly, he was looking at Andrew, who was arguably most affected by this, having lost his unborn child because of this whole ordeal. Immediately, Andrew stepped past Benjamin and ced his hand onto the old man¡¯s back while he was at it, "Once your tongue healed, I¡¯ll buy you a drink or two." The man said with a broad smile on his face, before he proceeded to run toward the entrance to the basement as quickly as he possibly could. "Come on, Eisen, Komer, let¡¯s get you two cleaned up a bit." Haruo suggested as he helped the two of them to the closest bathroom. The group had been alone in the livingroom, and everyone that didn¡¯t know about the situation between the two worlds was outside and hadn¡¯t been able to hear them. But of course, this would be something rtively hard to hide for a bit, so Benjamin had to at the very least tell Tony and Benji, or else they would freak out even more after hearing about this. He would probably be able toe up with some other excuse for the others. But either way, no matter what anyone else said, Benjamin was d that he did this, even if he injured himself in the process. He would need to apologize to Tim for suddenly pulling out his ss-eye, but it seemed like he understood. Really, in Benjamin¡¯s mind there was no doubt that he made the right choice to teach that little scammer the right way to do things back then. Otherwise, they probably would have died to Samuel¡¯s roundabout attacks sooner orter. Chapter 600 Life Giver Benjamin sat down inside of the capsule with a sore throat and apletely exhausted body. Sure, it may have been a better idea to just bring him to the hospital right away, seeing how he was literally bleeding from the mouth, but the old man had already shown that he had surprisingly high regenerative abilities when it came to things that had to do with mana. After all, the cut that he made in his hand so that he could show Tony that mana was actually a thing healed within a day or two. Hopefully it would be the same with all of this as well. The doctor¡¯s visits became less and less frequent at this point in time, luckily, so he didn¡¯t have to worry about being found out like this. Either way, he still had to justy down somewhere for now so that he could properly recover, and the best ce for that was indubitably the capsule. And so, the old man logged back into the game. --- Eisen slowly pushed himself off the ground that he had been sitting and sleeping on, and then stood up to stretch out properly. It was still pretty early in the day, and most of the others were still dead-asleep, so Eisen could just take his time to try and think about what exactly happened just now. He wasn¡¯t entirely sure why, and most importantly how, these switches between himself and the former Eisen happened, but whenever they did, they were so extreme that it really was like ¡¯Benjamin¡¯ wasn¡¯t in control anymore, but someone else had taken over his body and doing all those things. It mostly happened whenever Eisen was getting riled up, but sometimes it seemed like Eisen was appearing too conveniently. Like he was never really fully gone, and was simply taking a bit of a break except during times that he needed toe out. And he wasn¡¯t necessarily that good to his own body either, which was evident with what just happened in the other world. He really had to properly apologize to Komer in a bit. The old man directly essed something that Komer shouldn??t have ess to in the other world... That might have been a mistake, and might have brought a few things out of bnce. But the good thing was that they didn¡¯t need to worry about themselves in the other world anymore. "Isn¡¯t that right, little enforcer?" The old man muttered as he activated his Truth-Seeing-Eyes, in particr his truth-sight ability, and stared down at his shadow. Inside of that shadow was the vague face of an enforcer, that would from now on follow Eisen around constantly, whether in this or the other world. Luckily, though, there was no way for even Samuel to get rid of this. After all, it was- "Oi, you old fuck, the hell¡¯s going on with you? Why¡¯re you brooding like that all of a sudden?" Hephaestus asked with a deep grumble as he stepped up in front of Eisen, and the old man turned his head and slowly looked at the ego-item. He raised his brows a bit as he looked back at him, "Ah, sorry, I was just kind of thinking about something. Is something the issue?" "That¡¯s what I just asked. It¡¯s gonna be troublesome if you just end up being like this all day, you know? So get your shit together and don¡¯t worry about whatever crap you¡¯re thinking about." The ego-tool pointed out, annoyedly turning back around to make his way toward the area where a few different materials wereid out that he and Eisen would probably be using for a few more items today or in the general future. The old man slightly sighed and nodded his head as he followed Hephaestus for now. He was right, there was no need to worry about that now. He knew that he didn¡¯t have to worry, simply because he knew how the system of ¡¯Divine Promises¡¯, which the Fate-Contract Komer was capable of forming was as well, worked in this world. He knew that there was literally no power in this world or the other world was capable of breaking apart the Verbal Contract that Eisen formed with Samuel. The old man took a step toward Hephaestus, who was still looking over the different materials that they all had, and was trying to think of a good item that they could make use of during the fight on the ind of war that they were soon to approach. But actually, Eisen had something else that he had to take care of for now as well. Just making these ¡¯Living Ego Items¡¯ with Hephaestus wasn¡¯t the best idea, considering that they still needed plenty of regr items on top of that. Things like potions, arrows, throwing-knives, recement armor, such things. Of course, they already had plenty of thoseying around all over the dungeon, but it was still better to have more of them. Especially if the ones that they had too many of could be used as individual forces as well, with the help of Jyuuk¡¯s undead-creation abilities, with which he would turn regr items into haunted items. And so, the old man chose to give a bit more of his attention to his other tool for now, his Demonic Multitool. Although, as it was constantly watching Eisen work with Hephaestus over the past little while, it seemed like it was actually a little bit... angry. At the very least, it seemed to be actively working against what Eisen wanted to do, so that¡¯s what he figured was going on. Nothing else really made sense, after all. With a deep sigh, Eisen looked down at the pure-white tool in his hand. And Eisen wasn¡¯t exactly sure how he should fix this, since he didn¡¯t even know whether or not the multitool was capable of actively understanding Eisen¡¯s words, or if it just understood Eisen¡¯s emotions and actions. At the very least, Eisen knew that it was able to understand those kinds of things, these more basic ¡¯concepts¡¯. It would be bothersome if the old man really had to spend a long time trying to convince the ego-multitool that he still wanted to use it. Either way, it really seemed like this multitool had developed quite a personality... an incredibly jealous personality. "What¡¯re you doing?" Hephaestus asked with a groan, seeing that the multitool was literally pulling Eisen¡¯s hand away from the materials he wanted to work with, "Yeah, you! The hell do you think you are! Be happy that he¡¯s using you at all! But you can¡¯t make living ego-items-" Hephaestus somewhat started to speak to himself, although it did seem like Eisen¡¯s multitool was being a little less physically active right now. "Don¡¯t fuckin¡¯ talk to me like that, you brat!" He yelled out in the end, "You know what, I fucking tried, but let¡¯s do it another way..." Hephaestus groaned, and Eisen looked at the ego-item that was currently approaching him with a confused expression. "Hephaestus, did you just speak with my Multitool?" Eisen asked, and Hephaestus lightly red at him, "Yeah, you got an issue with that? I can converse with ego-items, so what? Most of¡¯em are too dumb to actually respond, so good job raisin¡¯ this one to be such a bbermouth..." While he was speaking, Hephaestus basically pulled the multitool out of Eisen¡¯s hands and held it in his own, although it seemed like it didn¡¯t particrly like that, swinging and iling around wildly as if trying to desperately escape. "Rank 6, eh..? Well, good enough, you¡¯re strong-willed, so it should be fine.... although, you¡¯re strong-willed in the worst way... So maybe it wouldn¡¯t be too bad if it failed." Hephaestus groaned a bit as he held the ego-item in his hand, before the multitool was enveloped in a bright white light. It was exactly like a monster¡¯s evolution. While being enveloped in that light, it seemed like bulges and random growth seemed to appear on the multitool¡¯s body as it increased in size, until Hephaestus ced it down onto the ground, "Huh, it¡¯s really a bit of a brat, isn¡¯t it?" He whispered slightly surprised, as the mass of metal stopped growing and simply started changing its shape a bit more. Within a few moments, it took on a shape that Eisen didn¡¯t expect. It was apletely androgynous humanoid form. It was pure-white from top to bottom. It seemed to be roughly like a 15 years-old, judging from the physical maturity. It had ridiculously long white hair reaching up to its thighs, while it slightly glittered with a metallic shine. "Hephaestus... Did you just turn my Multitool humanoid?" The old man asked, and Hephaestus turned toward the old man with his arms crossed, "Yeah, I did. It was acting annoying and bratty, so I didn¡¯t wanna deal with it anymore. So, now you can speak to it and fucking convince it to shut the fuck up already." Hephaestus groaned before turning back around, although Eisen swiftly stopped him before he was actually able to leave. "That¡¯s not what I was asking about. It was more like ¡¯How did you turn my multitool humanoid?¡¯." The old man pointed out, and Hephaestus slowly realized what was going on. "Ah... right. Well, I have this ability called ¡¯Life Giver¡¯. Whenever I make an item or am used for making an item, the ability activates automatically and creates, well, things like that." Hephaestus said, pointing over toward the Apex Ape that was created froom the Warhammer, "But, I can also activate that ability on other items as long as they have a soul in them. Well, it¡¯s a lot more unstable then, and most of the time the item shatters into pieces, crumbles to dust, or the soul is ripped apart in the process, or all of that, but when there¡¯s an item with a strong ego like this one it works out most of the time. So, there you go, now you have another Living Ego-Tool like me. Ah, just that you¡¯ll need to make new tools now, ¡¯cause you¡¯re not gonna be able to use that one any-" "...hate this body..." The multitool quickly interrupted Hephaestus, looking down at its humanoid form while nearly stumbling over, "I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!" It eximed over and over again, before Hephaestus just stared at it with a wry smile, "Yo, calm the fuck down, it¡¯s not that big a deal, now is i-" But this time, before Hephaestus could continue to speak, he watched while the Multitool simply transformed back into its multitool form, the base form of a pure-white hammer. "...Say what now? I-It has the ability to transform, huh..?" The ego-tool muttered, "J-Just as nned..." Chapter 601 Bai Eisen turned his head over toward Hephaestus with a deep re while he was holding the Ego-Multitool in his hands in the form of a simple hammer, "Please tell me that you didn¡¯t just risk destroying, no, basically killing, my Multitool just because you were annoyed by the fact that it wasn¡¯t listening to you as well as you wanted to? If that¡¯s the case, then it¡¯s about time I turn you into a lump of scrap metal, bud." The old man said with a light growl, although Hephaestus was just looking back at him and the multitool, focusing much more on thetter. "Dude, the fuck are you on about? Shouldn¡¯t we focus on the fact that it can just fucking transform like that right off the bat?" The ego-item pointed out, and Eisen crossed his arms with a frown, "No, I don¡¯t think we do. Although I do think that we should talk about that part of it. Because that means that you were expecting that it would be practically impossible for me to use it from now on. Why would you ever think of doing something like that?" "What, it¡¯s not like there¡¯s anything special about it, you can just make another one..." Hephaestus pointed out with a frown, thinking that he waspletely in the right here, although Eisen was of a slightly different opinion, "You know, for someone that utterly despised me, or maybe still does, for abandoning you, you¡¯re very quick to writing others off as useless." With that, the old man slowly turned around with the ego-multitool in his hands, trying to figure out how he was supposed to calm it down. Because it seemed like through what Hephaestus just did, the multitool was acitng even more erraticallypared to before. It mad sense, there weren¡¯t many people that could handle getting a full consciousness and a different kind of body within a few seconds of barely having some form of ego. Not to mention that this multitool wasn¡¯t a person, but an ego-item. Eisen ced it down onto one of the tables that now stood in front of him, and then stood in front of it, "Alright, erm... Multitool... Ah, what was it again... Bai?" The old man suggested, "Yeah, let¡¯s go with that. Bai sounds good... Bai, can you try and change into that other form from before again?" Just a few moments after Eisen asked this, the form of the Multitool, now officially named Bai, changed into that of the same Androgynous, thin, frail person as before. Its hair was covering its facepletely, and it was barely looking through them at all. From his perspective, Eisen could barely see a glimpse of Bai¡¯s pupils. "I¡¯m sorry about what just happened, but I don¡¯t think we can fix it. So, you can stay in whatever form you may want to be in. The only exceptions are when we need to work on an item, which is when you will have to be in the form of the tool we¡¯ll need, as well as when we need to speak to each other, which is when you will have to be in the form you¡¯re currently in. Understood?" Slowly, Bai nodded its head, seemingly understanding what Eisen was trying to tell it, before it turned its head over toward Hephaestus, "Why don¡¯t... use him?" Bai asked, before Eisen turned around and looked at the other ego-tool, who was standing next to a workstation with a frown while grumbling to himself. "Because he¡¯s useless for the creation of most types of items, he can only make very, very special ego-items, and nothing else. Those are not the kind that you will be able to make, I¡¯m afraid, but you can make anything else that he can¡¯t. So, I¡¯ll switch between you two if I need to, alright? But it just depends on the item I need to make at the moment, alright?" The old man tried to exin as well as he could, and the Ego-Multitool just red at Hephaestus before noddings its head. "Me better than him?" Bai asked, and the old man slightly sighed, "Well, at the very least you¡¯re nicer than him. But I can¡¯t say if you¡¯re better, you two are just rather different. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll probably be using you more than him in the future." The moment that the old man said this, Bai practically ripped its own eyes open and stared deeply at Eisen, "Are you sure? Are you telling truth? Complete truth?" Bai asked while staring deeply at the old man, who just nodded his head immediately. And without hesitation, Bai nodded its head as well and practically red at Hephaestus with a smug grin on its face. Then, before Eisen even noticed, Bai held its hands against its stomach and looked up at Eisen, "Can eat?" It asked, and Eisen slowly raised his brows before moving his fingers through his beard, "I mean, you do have a mouth and a proper throat, so you probably ¡¯can¡¯ eat, sure, but I don¡¯t think that food will sustain you like it does with us." "Not food." Bai said, shaking its head immediately, before turning its head around a bit more just to spot a pretty heavily-dented hammerying on some workbench. Eisen randomly picked it up somewhere, just because he wanted to take a look at it and figure out of there were any specific differences in its structurepared to what Eisen knew. Surely, within a hundred thousand years, such things should develop at least a little bit, but it didn¡¯t change much in the physical department. So probably, most change happened in the area of magic and skills and such things. Either way, Eisen slowly picked up the old hammer and gave it to Bai, who was continuously staring at it. The moment that the old man gave it to the ego-multitool, it practically ripped its own mouth open and simply bit into the metal. Or so it tried at least, and Eisen was just about to pull it away from Bai, but before he could, the multitool managed to rip off a piece of the metal that made the hammer up. And then another, and then another. Slowly, the old man turned around toward Hephaestus, "So, what¡¯s going on now?" Eisen asked, and Hephaestus slowly looked back with a wry smile, "Ah, right... Well, the thing is, instead of just regr food I can live off of other sorts of items as well. I can eat food, sure, but most of the time I would just eat failed items that I worked on over the years... I think it might be the same with this one, just that it can¡¯t eat food at all, and just other sorts of items? That¡¯s a quality that¡¯s only transferred to ego-items I give life in that way, so you don¡¯t gotta worry about these others... but with that one..." "If you¡¯re not careful in the future, I¡¯ll be feeding you to Bai, understood?" Eisen asked, and Hephaestus slowly nodded his head, "Sure you will. I¡¯ll try not to mess up then, I guess." "I think you mean that you¡¯ll try not to mess up even more." The old man sighed, and then looked back at the recently-reborn Bai, "So, do you want to try and eat anything else, or just that hammer?" "This." Bai pointed out inbetween bites, simply stuffing the rest of the hammer deeper into its mouth without a moment¡¯s hesitation, and Eisen slightly sighed. "I guess we¡¯ll need to feed you tools then..." Eisen sighed, although someone amongst the three that just entered the room together only a few moments ago, after kind of doing their own thing like so oftentely, had another question to ask, "I think that¡¯s called Cannibalism, right?" Caria asked with a slightly weirded-out smile on her face, while Melissa was just curiously waving at Bai. Meanwhile, Sal walked up to the ego-item turned special living-ego-item and deeply stared into its eyes. He even opened his six hidden eyes to take a good look at every part of Bai¡¯s body, beforeing to a final conclusion. "Yeah, I don¡¯t like it. It¡¯s stealing my look." Sal pointed out, although Caria just looked at him with a light scoff, "Sal, ¡¯pure white¡¯ isn¡¯t a look." The Spider-Boy slowly turned around and red at her, "Oh yeah? You know, ¡¯Bitch¡¯ isn¡¯t one either, but it seems to fit you pretty well." "Sal." Eisen interruped before this whole thing got out of control again, like it often did when the two of them were speaking to each other, "Stop it. Like Caria said, it¡¯s not a ¡¯look¡¯ that Bai went for on purpose. and then looked back at Bai, who seemed rather satisfied after simply eating up that whole hammer within a few moments, as if it was some small insignificant snack. "Bai, can you transform back for now? Just so that we can see if we can properly work on items together again. Let¡¯s hope that nothing went wrong just now. If it did, I¡¯ll repair you with Hephaestus¡¯ parts." The old man said as he stretched his hand out toward the ego-multitool, before it somewhat nervously nodded and then grabbed the old man¡¯s hand before turning back into its multitool form. First things first, Eisen tried to switch between all of the different modes manually, and then had Bai do it a couple of times itself to see if everything was really fine, bore the old man grabbed a piece of steel. It wasn¡¯t a special kind, and Eisen didn¡¯t have any specific purpose with it either, he really just wanted to quickly heat it up a bit and then hammer onto it with Bai in its hammer-form. And while Eisen was doing that, Brody logged back into the game as well, and quickly approached Eisen from behind before cing his hand onto the old man¡¯s shoulder with a slightugh, "Heh, one moment you¡¯re bleedin¡¯ out of your mouth after cutting your tongue up with your own teeth, and the next moment you¡¯re back at work, eh?" The Demon-Orc pointed out, and Eisen grabbed Bai¡¯s handle tightly. The old man immediately turned around toward Brody with a deep stare, before thick white mist started to stream out of the amulet around his neck. The next Eisen knew it, Kirisho stood in front of him and took Bai out of his hands, "Sorry... Bai, right? You will have to wait for a moment." "Hm? Bai?" Brody asked, before watching the ego-multitool slowly turn back into a humanoid form, and the demon-orc then stared at it with a wry smile, "Yo, why the fuck can it turn into a person? And why¡¯d you give it a Chinese name of all things?" "Brody, please be quiet for a moment." Kirisho said with a light re sent Brody¡¯s way just with the corners of her eyes, before she looked back at Eisen, "As for you... please exin now." Chapter 602 Justifiably Upse Eisen took his time to properly exin the whole situation to Kirisho, since she was obviously more than just a little worried after what Brody just said. And more than simply worried, she was extremely angry at the old man. "How could you ever do something like that?! You only have that one body over there, you can¡¯t revive there, right? So why would you ever do something like that?" Kirisho asked with a deep stare and re directed at the old man. But he already knew what he should say in response to this, because it was pretty obvious to him, at least in his mind. "Kirisho, I don¡¯t regret what I did just there. It was quite sudden, and I obviously didn¡¯t n it, but in the end it worked. We are safe over there now, there¡¯s no doubt about that. I would do it again if I had to, because in retrospect, this was really the only way to make sure that really nothing could happen anymore." Eisen exined immediately, "And I¡¯m sorry to say this, but I don¡¯t think it¡¯s a reason to be reprimanded either. They are wounds that can easily heal, but what if we all simply die? Our souls would fully be part of this world, and in the process, we would be turned into literal ves to Samuel. I think a few scratches are a good price to pay in order to make sure that doesn¡¯t happen, right?" Kirisho looked back at Eisen and then turned her head toward the ground, before shaking her head, "No, I understand what you are trying to say, but it still feels wrong that you had to injure yourself in order to achieve this." "It¡¯s a literal war we have to go through in order to protect not only the other world, but also this one, fromplete chaos. Samuel is practically aic-book superviin, trying to take over the world to rule over it. As I said, a few cuts are a small price to pay in order to prevent that." The old man pointed out immediately, and once more, the mist spirit lightly nodded her head, "I see. Then I apologize for needlessly worrying about you, Eisen." She said, and was just about to turn back into mist and return to the amulet, but before she could do so, Eisen grabbed her arm to stop her. "Kirisho, wait. I don¡¯t want to repeat this whole thing over and over again. I¡¯m aware that you¡¯re hurt whenever you find out I¡¯m doing something troublesome in a way that you can¡¯t help me, but what else do you expect me to do at this point in time? All of us were nearly killed. My wounds will probably heal pretty quickly, and a little bit of pain is nothingpared to what we may feel at some point if I didn¡¯t do this. Brody lost his unborn child, and that in one of the worst ways possible. That can never happen again anymore." Eisen pointed out bluntly, "Please, I don¡¯t want you to pretend that you¡¯re fine with it and then just leave again. Let¡¯s properly speak about this, alright?" "...Alright..." Kirisho said, slowly nodding her head in response to the old man¡¯s suggestion. And so, she slowly sat down right next to Eisen, and the two of them started to speak to each other about this whole situation. Meanwhile, Brody awkwardly turned around and walked through a gate that Sigurd created for him and made his way to a more open part of the dungeon, where a lot of thebatists that wereing along at the moment were practicing. Usually, at least right now, most of them were just asleep. But of course there were still a few exceptions to that rule. "Yo, what¡¯re you up to?" Brody asked as he approached the half dragon Kiron as he was swinging his Giant Greatsword around himself, and he turned over toward the demon-orc with his brows raised, "Ah, Sir Brody... I am merely preparing for when we finally head out onto the Ind of War. It should be quite tough there, so I want to be in peak condition." "Hm, that sounds like a good idea. But if you say you ¡¯want to be in peak condition¡¯, that means that right now you ain¡¯t?" Brody asked. The crystal half-dragon slowly let down his sword a bit and ced the tip onto the ground, before he looked over at Brody again, "It is not that I am currently not feeling well. More so, I think I could possibly be better." "Ah..." Brody sighed, "I getcha, but that¡¯s not somethin¡¯ you can discover within yourself in just a day, bud." He exined, "That kinda feelinges from the fact that you see people stronger than you, and you see no reason why you shouldn¡¯t be that strong. ¡¯Specially considering the fact that you¡¯re much weaker than you used to be." Kiron looked over at Brody and then slowly nodded his head, "I see, you are going through something simr right now, are you not? You used to be able to turn over mountains with a single motion of your hand, but now, your strength has faded this much. You are still strong, but-" "Oh, I¡¯m not talking about that. I hear people say how strong I was, but I never experienced it myself. From my perspective, I¡¯m much stronger and more awesome than I¡¯ve ever been." Brody pointed out and lifted his arm up a bit, simply flexing with a broad grin on his face, before the Demon-Orc let his arm drop and slowly looked at the ground with a lightly mncholic, and weirdly nostalgic smile, "Well, I kinda do understand you though. I mean, my first ever fight against Eisen was embarrassing as hell, you can bet. He beat me with a snap of his finger." "Hm?" Kiron slowly muttered out, "But did you not lose your strengths at the same time as each other? Surely you must have always been stronger than Grandfather after your experience was removed from you." "Obviously?" Brody replied, "Why¡¯re you bringing that up now?" "But you were the one that brought up your first fight, Sir Brody." The half-dragon pointed out. Brody crossed his arms and stared back at him, "Yo, what¡¯re you even..." He started, although he soon realized that Kiron wasn¡¯t speaking nonsense, "...Yeah, I did, didn¡¯t I? Urgh, is this what it feels like to randomly switch to ¡¯old¡¯ Brody? I thought Eisen was just going senile or something, but I guess it really just randomly happens sometimes..." "It was probably prompted by the duels you and grandfather had yesterday, don¡¯t you think? At the very least, grandfather mentioned that he remembered your first ¡¯fight¡¯ against each other like that, so it would make sense if it is the case, would it not?" Kiron suggested, and Brody slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, I guess so?" He replied while scratching the back of his head, "This really feels weird... Urgh..." "Sir Brody, are you okay?" Kiron asked, and Brody slowly nodded his head, "Hm? Yeah, yeah, I¡¯m totally fine, don¡¯t worry about it... Rather than that... You wanna practice together a bit? Feel like movin¡¯ around a bit right now." Kiron story thought about it and then nodded his head, "Of course, I would be honored to, Sir Brody." Slowly the half dragon took up his sword and and looked straight into the demon orc¡¯s eyes, "I am ready whenever you are, Sir." With that Brody picked out his own weapon from his Armory skill and looked into the half Dragon¡¯s eyes. Brody sighed deeply and started think about how Kiron usually fought. It was usually in a simple and straightforward manner but still troublesome because of his talents in the field ofbat. "Alright I think it¡¯s time then, let¡¯s get started. When the otherse here we won¡¯t be able to use all the space anymore." Brody pointed out, and Kiron simply nodded his head as he watched Brody reach into the space in front of him up until thest moment, so that he could make sure he really chose the right weapon for this fight. And to Kiron¡¯s surprise, the thing that he chose was a simple sword, something that he wouldn¡¯t think Brody would choose. Sure, he did fight with regr longswords a lot, but whenever he really wanted to get rid of his stress, he would usually choose some other weapon. One that, ording to Brody, ¡¯was the most fun at the moment¡¯. Maybe it was because Kiron was also using a sword that Brody was trying to use a simr, albeit much smaller, weapon? Either way, as far as Kiron was concerned, Brody¡¯s choice was far beyond him, so he simply epted it without much more thought than that. Brody took a deep breath and then held the weapon in front of him with both of his hands. And at some point that both of them seemed to agree on perfectly, Kiron and Brody both started running toward each other with their weapons in their hands. But due to Kiron¡¯s immense reach, thanks to his giant sword, he soon stopped and was able to swing his sword at Brody in an advantageous way. But Brody seemed to care little as he simply jumped over the half-dragon¡¯s de. He pushed the tip of his own sword into the side of Kiron¡¯s while flipping over it to push him up a bit. Kiron continuously kept his eyes on Kiron, until he was right above him. The sword had turned into nothing but a simple dot. All of a sudden, the de approached Kiron at an immense speed, although he was able to avoid it. To an extent, at least, as it reached speeds that Kiron didn¡¯t expect in the slightest. Although soon, he was able to see why. The de that Brody was fighting with until now was sticking into the dirt, although it was just the de itself. The handle was still held by Brody, and connected to it, was another de. Just a slight bit bigger than the one that was now sticking into the ground. With a light smirk on his face, Brody approached the de and pushed the tip of his sword into the hollow part sticking up. "You¡¯re a good person to test this one against. Eisen called it a ¡¯reverse matryoshka¡¯ concept, which I thought was pretty interesting. I haven¡¯t had the chance to actually see thergest version of this yet... so let¡¯s see if you can bring me there, bud." Brody said with a smirk on his face, as he pushed the obviously way-too-long and broad de into the hollow one sticking into the ground, before it connected back to the handle with a clicking sound. "Ah, yes. This seems more like Sir Brody." Chapter 603 The Blade that holds more Blades After the conversation between Eisen and Kirisho, where they luckily managed to clear a few things up and talk about their thoughts on this whole situation a bit more, the old man stood back up. He was first about to try and work a bit more with Bai, now that it had a slightly different body, but Sigurd swiftly interrupted him before he managed to do so. The Dungeon Core Guardian stood in front of Eisen with a light smile, "I just wanted to let you know that Brody and Kiron are having a spar right now, and Brody is using the sword with the ¡¯growing des¡¯. I thought you¡¯d want to see how well it actually works." Sigurd suggested, and Eisen slowly nodded his head with his brows raised. He really was interested in seeing how well that sword-concept would work in an actual fight, "Is it holding up so far?" "It seems to be doing quite well, at least." Sigurd replied quickly as Eisen stepped through the gate, now standing on the outskirts of the area that Brody and Kiron were using for their spar. Immediately, Eisen had to say that he was more than just impressed with how well Kiron could control his Giant Greatsword. Despite the raw mass and weight, he swung it around like it was a simple stick. And he was actually doing pretty well against Brody on top of that. Sure, the Demon Orc was most likely trying to make the sparst as long as possible so that they would actually get something out of this, but it was still quite impressive. Either way, the moment that Eisen stepped into the area, he saw one of the des of the sword he made for Brody shoot right for Kiron. "Well, that¡¯s not a function I added..." The old man muttered. Each de was supposed to be something like a ¡¯sheath¡¯ for the de underneath that. And since Eisen covered the inside of those ¡¯de sheaths¡¯ in spatial gems that were specially enchanted, they were capable of holding thoserger des than physically possible. It seemed like what Brody was doing was disconnect the outermost of the sheaths before pulling the sword back rapidly while the de sheath stayed in ce, then stopped pressing the button that would make it possible for Brody to put the de back into the de-sheath so that therger and the smaller de would basically reject each other to make it possible for Brody to urately shoot the de toward a target. Eisen really didn¡¯t think of this when he designed this item that way. Since Brody didn¡¯t have mana, and as such couldn¡¯t use enchantments, he had to ce a small soul-generator into the handle together with a few physical buttons to let Brody activate the enchantments in that way. "He really can use any weapon however he wants, huh?" Eisen sighed, before he continued watching for a while. This wasn¡¯t what this specific concept was meant for, but it was quite well-executed anyway, so Eisen figured that it was even better this way. Except that the des would probably need to be repaired quite soon. Either way, despite the de that Brody just shot out flying toward Kiron at an extremely high velocity, he was able to dodge the attack quite easily and soon countered the attack. Or so he tried by swinging his giant de horizontally toward Brody. He would obviously try to jump, but at least Kiron would be able to predict the possible moves he could go for more easily then. Although Kiron seemingly didn¡¯t expect the follow-up that came instead. Brody pushed his de into the ground to wedge it in there and then slightly pulled the next one out of it, before he jumped up and bnced his weight on the sword. He stopped pressing the button that fed mana to the spatial-gem and its enchantments, and so, the spatial-gem surface inside of the de-sheath practically rejected the de itself again. And in the same way that Brody used this to shoot the des out like arrows, the Demon-Orc used this mechanic to boost his jump so that he could reach heights even higher than normal, while Kiron¡¯s de hit the de-sheat that was even more tightly wedged in the ground now. Ultimately, this made Kiron stop his sword¡¯s movements, before he heard a slight whistle as something cut through the air. Kiron shifted his body around and watched as the de missed his body just so slightly. That would have usually been a quite close call for Eisen, and something to call the fight off because this was far too risky, but it seemed like both Brody and Kiron knew exactly what they were doing, so Eisen figured he should let it happen for a little while longer. Brody and Kiron continued to fight, and at this point, it seemed like even Kiron was starting to make use of the des that Brody was shooting out. He pressed his foot onto the de-sheath and used it to jump up higher, soon reaching Brody as he was trying to adjust himself mid-air somehow so that he couldnd properly. But instead, he quickly had to pull his de toward himself to block Kiron¡¯s sword-strike. Soon, the two of them fell to the ground together, and due to most of the weight of Kiron¡¯s sword being put onto Brody and his sword right now, the Demon Orc was acutally the one that was being pushed back in this moment. All of a sudden, Brody once more released one of his des, and it somewhat pulled Kiron¡¯s de with it. Thinking that the Demon Orc was just about to use this chance to swiftly pull his sword away, Kiron slid his own greatsword as close to the handle as soon as he could, soon making contact with the de there. But of course, as that de was bigger than the one before, Kiron had to slightly adjust himself. And in that short moment of raising his de up, Brody pushed the de-sheath back onto the current de and slightly tilted the tip upward so that he could twist the de to be on top of Kiron¡¯s. Brody pressed his palm onto the t side of his de now and pushed Kiron¡¯s giant greatsword down into the ground like that. And then, Brody kept pushing it down like that with his foot while he pulled the next-bigger one out of the de-sheath, using the momentum to swing the de at Kiron from the side, but Brody apparently wasn¡¯t the only one that could make use of his oponent¡¯s choices. The half-dragon made use of the fact that Brody was pushing his de down onto the ground and just let the tip really drop to the ground. And as the tip was now as deep as it could be, the pressure was put onto the other end, the handle, something that Kiron used to help himself dodge Brody¡¯s attack. At the same time, this unbnced the de Brody was using to push down on Kiron¡¯s sword so that the half-dragon could swing the de up, still using the momentum of the handle being pushed down and Kiron dropping to the ground. If Brody hadn¡¯t dodged, this would have most likely just cleaved him right in half immediately. But instead, Brody pushed himself up and back using the same tactic as before, pushing the tip of his de into the ground and then disconnecting it from the next de underneath it to give himself a boost. At this point, Brody¡¯s de was as tall as he was, which wasn¡¯t all that much shorter than Kiron¡¯s de anymore. Since thergest size that Eisen made for the de, so far at least, was a match for Kiron¡¯s sword in size, it seemed like it wouldn¡¯t take long until he couldn¡¯t use these tactics anymore. Although, Eisen didn¡¯t actually tell Brody about the limit yet, and he probably didn¡¯t check for it, so Eisen was curious about what might happen soon. Now, Kiron and Brody just stood in front of each other again, and Brody held his sword above his head, as if trying to swing it straight down, and at the same time disconnected the outermost de from the handle in his specific way to make it shoot forward while being swung down. But just before the de-sheath and the current de were fully ¡¯disconnected¡¯, Brody swung his sword up again so that he could make the de-sheat twist around and fly toward Kiron in a straight line. And while Kiron was busy deflecting the flying de, Kiron pushed his sword forward and disconnected the next one from his sword so that he could push through the stance Kiron took up to defend against the de flying toward him. However, Kiron managed to, albeit slightly awkwardly, twist his body around, sessfully avoiding and deflecting both of these des at the same time. But seeing how this fight seemingly had gone on for quite a while already, Brody seemed to want to finish it, and once more pushed himself off the ground trying to go for the same tactic as before so that he could pull off some kind of move mid-air. However, Brody¡¯s current de was the same size as Kiron¡¯s, meaning that it was thest one. So instead of pushing him up even further, Brody had to find out that he was really barely pushed up at all, and instead was now only holding the handle in his hand. Eisen made it so that potentially more des could be added over time if Brody wanted it to be that way, so even thisst one could be removed and was hollowed-out like the rest. However, Kiron saw this as a chance and swung his de against Brody, who really couldn¡¯t do much mid-air right now except block the de, and was then swung around the area. "Shit, seriously? That¡¯s the limit?" Brody groaned loudly, "Yo, give me more next time!" He yelled out toward Eisen, who was just watching with a light smile. But then, Brody seemed to find the base de right next to him, the smallest of the bunch before getting another idea. It seemed like he just wanted to y around with this a bit more, and so he pushed the handle onto this smallest de and connected it properly, before he started to run around the area, carefully avoiding Kiron¡¯s attacks, always collecting the next-bigger de. This time, it wasn¡¯t a ¡¯reverse matryoshka¡¯ concept anymore, but just a regr ¡¯matryoshka¡¯ one, where the bigger des contained smaller ones. And soon, Brody stood there holding arge sword the same size as Kiron did. Chapter 604 Preparing for War Eisen was unsure about what exactly Brody was trying to do just now. What kind of reasoning did he have to do something like this? Stacking the swords up in that way really just defeated the purpose of having the sword like this at all. It didn¡¯t increase the strength or weight of the Giant Greatsword all that muchpared to normal, and Brody wouldn¡¯t be able to shoot the des out like he had been doing up until now. And it was basically like Brody noticed the old man¡¯s confusion, and was then trying to clear it up and ¡¯exin¡¯ it to Eisen as Brody ran back toward Kiron. For a little while, they simply regrly fought using the giant greatswords, although it seemed like this kind of gave Kiron a slight advantage. After all, Kiron had been fighting with this particr de for quite a while now, although this was the first time that Brody was fighting with such arge de. Although he was rapidly growing more used to it as the fight went on. But at some point, Brody took a few steps away from Kiron, as if trying to take a slight breather. That¡¯s what it seemed like at first, at least. But no, it really was anything but that. Brody held the de high above his head, before proceeding to swing it downward in apletely irregr pattern, twisting the de around and swinging it sideways every once in a while. And while that was happening, Brody was continuosly pressing the button that would disconnect the des from the handle. And just like that, a literal storm of des of different sizes flew straight at Kiron. And without a moment¡¯s hesitation, Brody ran through that flurry of des with the smallest-sized de attached to the handle, skillfully using therger des to hide his body. And while Kiron was busy defending against all these flying des, Brody managed to sneak behind the half-dragon, and once none of the des were a threat for Kiron anymore, he pressed the tip of his de against the center of Kiron¡¯s back. The half-dragon sighed out loudly and slowly let down his de, before he turned around and looked at the Demon-Orc that he just fought against, "Really, that was quite a tough fight, Sir Brody." Kiron said with deep, loud breaths that came from ovious exhaustion after this fight that seemed to have dragged on longer than both of them expected. "Oh yeah, you can say that again. Good job!" Brody immediately agreed, something that seemed to make Kiron quite happy to hear. After all, having the bestbatist in the world acknowledge your ability was something quite special, there was no doubt about that. "But truly, that is an incredible weapon. I was surprised to see t hat it was capable of shooting the des forward. Although, it was even weirder to see that one de was always hiding one that was bigger than thest." "Heh, yeah, it¡¯s pretty cool, right? It was a great idea on Eisen¡¯s side,bining meelee with distancedbat in that way. And really, it just gives me so many more possibilities for des that I could make use of in the future." Brodyughed, although the old man in question soon approached the demon-orc from behind, "You know, that was never actually my intention when making that item. I think that would really just be a small... ¡¯bug¡¯, I think that¡¯s what it would be called at least. You were never supposed to be able to shoot the des like that." Brody stared at Eisen with a surprised expression, "Wait, what? But it was just so... perfect! I figured it was supposed to be on purpose!" "Well, it wasn¡¯t. However, I can take the sword with me again and start carving things onto the des to make them fly further and faster." The old man suggested. Maybe he should try and include things like this in more items from now on. Or he should try and find uses for things or mechanisms that he rejected as practically ¡¯useless¡¯ in the past to see if there were any ways to use them that he hadn¡¯t thought about before. Immediately, Brody nodded his head in response to that suggestion, "That¡¯d be awesome, yeah!" He eximed, and was then just about to go and collect all the des in the intended, ¡¯correct¡¯ method from before, the reverse matryoshka method. But just before Brody left to do that, he slowly turned back around toward Eisen, "Also, you know... Sorry ¡¯bout identally telling the others about what happened over there." He said apologetically, but Eisen just shook his head as he slowly rubbed his thumb over the amulet around his neck, "There¡¯s no need to say sorry, we managed to clear everything up now. But still, thanks." Still wearing a slightly awkward smile on his face, Brody continued collecting everything before Eisen turned over toward Kiron. "So, great fight just now." The old man chuckled with a reassuring smile, and Kiron looked at Eisen with smug and proud grin, something that Kiron didn¡¯t actually show anyone all too often, "I know! It was a great fight, was it not, Grandfather?" "Yes, it really was. Although, I was wondering, are you sure you don¡¯t want me to make any proper changes on your sword at this point?" "I¡¯m sure, Grandfather. It is great how it is now." He exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head and took a closer look at the sword that he was holding in his hand, "Well, would you mind if I at least went and sharpened it a bit more again? And cleaned it up for you a little?" "Actually, that would be amazing! I was quite unsure about how I should best take care of it until now. I thought I was slowly breaking it..." The half-dragon exined, and with a slightugh, Eisen ced his hand onto the half-dragon¡¯s head as he increased his size a little bit so that he could properly hold this sword and manipte its angles however he wanted to without any issues. The old man quickly created everything that he needed to, for example the grinding wheels. Eisen made them spin around as much as he needed them to to get started, before slowly sharpening the de a little bit again in this way, before he moved on to taking care of it with a whetstone, and was properly showing Kiron how he was supposed to use this specific kind. It really did seem like Kiron had been applying way too little pressure until now. It might have been enough for other kinds of swords, but because of the specific metals, alloys, and techniques that Eisen used, it was a little bit harder to sharpen this de properly. Not to mention the sheer size of the edges that needed to be worked on. Sure, Kiron did manage to sharp it a slight bit using his whetstones before, but it never really returned to anywhere near the sharpness that it had back when Eisen first made this Giant Greatsword for the Half-Dragon. Meanwhile, as the old man was getting this done, the others were slowly gathering as well, warming up a little and preparing themselves forbat on the literal Ind of War. Slowly they all made sure that everyone¡¯s items were in peak condition, handed out different potions that should help them in the fights. Some specific squad leaders also got special items that they could use tomunicate with the other squads, or that could be used to quickly heal some people from their squad if they got heavily injured for some reason. Either way, for now, they gathered inside of the dungeon like this, until they finished up and slowly made their way outside. Because now, they finally docked on the ind. Slowly the troupes were gathering outside on the ind¡¯s beach, and for now they set up a small protective camp around Fafnir so that they could enter and exit the dungeon whenever they wanted to, as they were using the dungeon as their main-camp, while making sure that the young dragon wouldn¡¯t end up being injured due to enemy attacks. Because nobody could really tell what would happen if Fafnir somehow died while hundreds of people were inside. Of course, Eisen would never allow Fafnir, and with him Sigurd, to die in the first ce, but the fact that all those people might die if Fafnir dies while they¡¯re in the dungeon was also a pretty scary thought in Eisen¡¯s opinion, so he wanted to be extra sure that nothing could happen here. For now, therge group sent out scouts, whether people or monsters, to take a look at what was going on on this ind. And to their surprise... There really wasn¡¯t all that much going on, apparently. It seemed like there were different tribes of monster on this ind, and they were fighting against each other a lot, probably just waging war whenever they could. And they weren¡¯t even necessarily all humanoid monsters with such groups, there were a lot of beast-type monster tribes around as well. The problem with this, however, was that it was pretty unclear where exactly the town core and boss were going to be. At first, they were trying to take things slow, especially now that the Originals knew they could somewhat take their time and could rx a bit more. They wanted to prepare properly with this, but at some point, it seemed like scouts from the different monster tribes appeared around their camp, sometimes even without any of them noticing before it was actually toote. And within just a day of them arriving on the ind, something rather surprising happened. It was something that they were already thinking might happen, as it didn¡¯t particrly seem like the monster tribes were waging any ¡¯serious¡¯ wars, but simply less-serious things that may be called ¡¯war games¡¯, but the different tribes banded together and properly turned into therger army. Or rather, it was like they were part of the same army in the first ce, considering how well they were working together all of a sudden. "It ain¡¯t like I didn¡¯t expect this, but shit... This really is a bit annoying, ain¡¯t it?" Brody asked with a slight groan as he looked at the Map they had managed to prepare for this ind, marking the rough position of the troupes of monsters on it. They really had to be far more careful this time around, as they were definitely heavily outnumbered, even considering all the undead, special haunted items or living-ego-items, tamed beasts and golems that they had fighting with them. It really seemed like this ind was inhabited by some of the smartest monsters they had seen so far, because not only did the Originals¡¯ side have such things, but the side of the monsters also had strong necromancers and beast-tamers with them, apparently. Chapter 605 Island of War The different tribes of monsters had gathered together and were now preparing for arger-scale war with the ¡¯intruders¡¯ of the ind. "That¡¯s way too fast... they were probably never really at war with each other." Jyuuk pointed out, "That¡¯s just not how they would act if that was the case, especially when ites to the less-intelligent beasts. They wouldn¡¯t just let monsters like Goblins ride them without any resistance. Not within a single day, at least." "So basically, they¡¯ve been screwing around because they were bored?" Evalia summed up, and the Beastperson and animal-expert slowly nodded his head, "That¡¯s what I think, at least. Many cultures had things like war-games integrated in them, so it would make sense for that to be the case on an ind like this in particr." After Jyuuk¡¯s exnation, Brody kept looking at the mapying on the table in front of him. "Either way, these fuckers are far smarter than you¡¯d expect them to be, that¡¯s for sure. They¡¯re split up into proper squads depending on their types of attacks, they have a proper camp set-up in front of what I guess to be the ¡¯main town¡¯, and they¡¯re just helping each other outpletely. Usually monsters like that would just attack without a second thought." "Then that means that either those are all variant-monsters that are highly-intelligent and inherently less aggressive, or they have powerful captains and leaders that control everything." "Yup, I think it may be both, to be honest. But they¡¯ve definitely got captains,manders and shit like that." Brody agreed with Jyuuk, "They¡¯ve really got stuff properly set up. They¡¯ve got stations within their camp that seem to be organized properly. A spot for first-aid, a spot where they keep their provisions, another ce where they keep their weapons... The whole ¡¯Army¡¯ is split up into four, and theypletely surround the town with a focus on the side we¡¯re on, right? Well, each of the groups of the army has one ¡¯leader¡¯ it seems, and obviously the squads have captains as well. But there has to be some suprememander somewhere, and my guess would be that that¡¯s the Boss of the ind." After a bit of discussion, it seemed like everyone here understood the seriousness of the situation, and that it really wouldn¡¯t be possible to be as disorganized as they always were before, because the enemies were simply organized at a whole different level to what they experienced until now as well. Eisen moved his fingers through his beard in thought and then looked at the Demon-Orc sitting across from him, "Then how should we best deal with this situation?" Brody closed his eyes, crossed his arms and leaned back into his chair, before he came up with a suggestion, "We should probably try and overpower them in some way. Force them to give up. If they were just the regr dumbass monsters, we couldn¡¯t do this because they would keep fighting back in any situation, but this is different. It¡¯s war. It ends with eitherplete annihtion of one side, or with one side giving up before that happens. Or, with a treaty to stop the war. First, we need to decide what we wanna do." "Well...plete annihtion doesn¡¯t sound like the best goal. I think we should try and aim for a treaty or bring them to the point where they would admit defeat." Eisen suggested, until Brody slowly had a good idea. "How about we do both?" Brody asked, and everyone looked at him slightly intrigued of what his idea was right now. And so, the Demon-Orc leaned forward and started to exin the n. It had a quite simple base, and Brody would definitely need to think of proper tactics to actually make this happen after this, but it seemed like they were slowly getting there anyway. "We¡¯ll bring them to the point where they would surrender, but just before they can give up, we suggest a treaty." Brody suggested, and the others quickly understood his reasoning behind this idea, although Hephaestus, with his loud mouth, just had to ask about it because he apparently didn¡¯t understand just yet. "Why¡¯d we do that? That¡¯s fucking dumb, let¡¯s just have them give up so that we can take whatever we want." The ego-item suggested, but Brody just sighed and shook his head. "Listen, dude, it ain¡¯t about taking what we want. We need those monsters if we don¡¯t want the town to fall to ruin, ya know? Up until now, every ind we¡¯ve taken over has had a certain poption of both monsters and humans. For one, because they¡¯re the ones that¡¯re actually living on the ind in the towns. They¡¯re valuable manpower that we need to grow the town, have more peoplee here, and simply to have more numbers if we do end up having to wage literal war." "Well, yeah, I got that part, but I don¡¯t get why we wouldn¡¯t just have them give up. We can treat them however we want then, right?" Hephaestus pointed out, and Eisen looked at him with a slight frown, "Just that that would bepletely involuntarily on their part. It would be like we own them or something. And they obviously won¡¯t be happy if we do things like that, and may fight back at some point anyway. If we go for a treaty, on the other hand, both sides will agree. If the monsters find out that they were about to give up, but we offered to treat them like equals, then they¡¯re going to be happier to work with us. It¡¯s a simple way to get rid of too much opposition." "Ah..." The ego-tool sighed, "That sounds way too fucking boring though..." "I agree, I¡¯m not good at that shit either. So Eisen¡¯s prolly gonna take that over, right?" Brody pointed out with a slight grin on his face, and the old man looked at him with his brows raised before he inevitably nodded his head, "I don¡¯t think I have much of a choice. Talking to the literal king of the invaders might make them more keen to listen as well." "Wait what?" Hephaestus interrupted, "What do you mean, ¡¯King¡¯?" "...we mentioned it before, I¡¯m the King of the country made up of the inds we¡¯ve taken over so far. That included the ind whose boss you used to be." Eisen replied immediately, but Hephaestus just looked back at the old man, "...I kinda thought you were kidding, I mean... really? You? A King?" "I will ignore the fact that you¡¯re being a bit rude right now and will make the active choice not to turn you into scraps as long as you just shut up." The old man grumbled quietly, before he looked back at the Demon-Orc, "Well, anyway, I¡¯ll take over when we get to that point. Until then, we¡¯re all yours to do whatever you want with. Just tell us how you want to deal with them." Eisen suggested, and Brody just nodded his head slowly as he cupped his chin with his fingers. "A¡¯ight..." He muttered quietly, "I think I have a pretty good n." --- Just a few hourster, the two main groups of the two factions had gathered on a rather level field where they could even spot a part of the town in the background behind the monster army. They had a lot of different monsters of different sizes, shapes and innate abilities. Some were the size of elephants, others the size of toddlers, but all of them seemed like they had specific purposes to them that they would need to be careful about. Jyuuk prepared his squads of different undead to face the ones that the monsters had fighting for them as well. Number-wise, it seemed like the monsters were at aplete advantage, but luckily the side of the originals had much higher quality of items, fighters, and hopefully much better tactics. One of those tactics was that every single fighter had a couple extra weapons on them. But not ones that they would fight with in the case of an emergency, but ones that would fight autonomously, as they were the haunted weapons that Jyuuk had created.- This would allow for surprise-attacks rather easily, as well as ways to defend everyone¡¯s back a bit more easily, as the weapons would be able to react to such things far more easily, as they sensed such things quite differently. Either way, the moment that everything started, the first things that were shot out on either side were numerous arrows and long-range spells. Obviously, either side was prepared for such things, just that they handled them differently. It seemed like the monsters were mostly trying to defend things physically, while the originals¡¯ side defended against it magically or through artifacts that would create defensive walls and barriers to block the iing attacks. The good thing about this was that they were going to automatically activate in case some long-range attacks were shot at them, while the monsters had to stop what they were currently doing to defend. And like that, the originals¡¯ side already had quite a bit of an advantage. And then, there was also the second advantage. And the third. And the fourth. Giant Eisen, Askr, as well as the healthilybined version of the giant Light-Minotaur. There were also somerger golems, although it wasn¡¯t really possible for them to take the ego-buildings from the ind of craftsmanship with them, as they were toorge to fit through the dungeon¡¯s entrance just like that. But still, they could make other golems inspired by them, something that Hephaestus was actually able to help with pretty well. Like this, it was possible for their side to properly push certain groups back while defending against some of the morerge-scale attacks. But for the most part, they were really just trying to be as shy and show-offy as possible, so that they could imnt the image of them being incredibly, overwhelmingly strong into the minds of the monsters. However, just like they had expected, fighting a war against strong enemies was just something that pumped the monsters up even more, and they became somewhat harder to deal with, although still not too hard. More and more, the originals¡¯ side managed to push back the monsters, until some of the groups were slowly pulling back after realizing that they wouldn¡¯t be able to fight back properly. Because while some on the monsters¡¯ side were dying, whenever the health of someone on the originals¡¯ side got too low, some of Melissa¡¯s special bees woulde through and sting them. And since they were special bees, instead of injuring the ones they stung, they healed them until they were able to retreat to the ¡¯healing field¡¯ set up by Caria, Jyuuk and Xenia together, where everyone that was standing in the area would end up slowly having their health recovered and their wounds healed. The monsters were slowly realizing that while their numbers dwindled, through the necromancy of their enemies, their numbers were only growing. They would be stronger as the fight went on. They were realizing that this fight would be harder than they thought. Chapter 606 Pattern Analysis Throughout the battle, the role that Eisen took on was rather simple. All that he had to do was properly deflect the morerge-scale attacks, whether it was through catapults or magic that was flung toward them. It wasn¡¯t really all that hard to do so either. While Eisen¡¯s element maybe wasn¡¯t particrly great forbat, it seemed like it was still decent at defending him, especially if he created a thickyer of metal on his skin where anything may impact, his hands in particr. This way he could reach for whatever sort of attack may be iing and then push it away without needing to worry about anything too much. As if he was wearing gloves, actually. And so, the giant figures in this fight were really just there for defense instead of attacking the monsters at all, which also had its own reasons to it. Obviously the focus of the monsters had been the ¡¯Giants¡¯ of this war in the first ce, but they hadn¡¯t fought back at all. So if the ones who they were worried about the most weren¡¯t actually fighting yet, and they were still pushed back so easily, then once they actually did start to fight themselves, that should have even more impact on the n that Brody came up with. It was all just to make the monsters think they were facing an overwhelmingly strong opponent. But besides that, Eisen was able to actually find a lot of things out like this, as he was standing in the very front of the battle, having an obviously amazing oversight over everything that he needed to. With his visual abilities that were connected to his truth-seeing eyes, the old man gathered as much raw information as he could, although that was really all only in the range of what would be useful to him as a craftsman if he was to make items for these monsters. Although even then, that still disclosed quite a lot of useful information. He was able to figure out the rough numbers of the enemy monsters, and how many of each ¡¯kind¡¯ there were, although he wasn¡¯t specifically able to find out the races of the monsters just like this, and could only specte a little bit here and there. But to make up for that, another one was apanying Eisen at the moment. Bree. While she had been considering changing her upation for a while now, she still didn¡¯t find the right route to go for, so she was still just an Analyst. And that came in perfectly useful for something like this, where knowing as much about your opponents as possible was absolutely vital. While Eisen was gathering rough, raw information on the whole army, Bree was trying to focus on more specific things, and instances of different monsters that were fighting to figure out their races and rough physical abilities. And one other thing that she was trying to focus on as much as she possibly could was to try and figure out things about the peoplemanding the enemy-army. If she was able to find out things like that, and they may be able to kill those guys more easily for a slight advantage to break the morale of the enemy, then that would alsoe in more than useful. All of this information was directly ryed to the others through some items made by the craftsmen, who were obviously not taking part in this actual fight, but were instead trying to support anyone that needed it from the backlines by repairing items, handing out new ones in case an item broke, or simply by preparing more things like potions, arrows, and other such consumables. In the end, it seemed like this fight was going rather well so far since the Originals¡¯ side was definitely pushing back the Monsters¡¯ side more and more the longer the fight went on. Literally, as they were getting closer and closer to the actual, seemingly ¡¯central¡¯ town of this ind. At this point, while the monsters were getting somewhat distracted, the scout squads were ready to find out more about that city. And the leader of that scout squad was of course Jyuuk that was sending out some of his beasts to get direct information while he was slightly pulling back from the frontlines for a little bit. Eisen was constantly being supplied with any information that Jyuuk gathered through all of this so that he could be kept up-to-date as well. [Jyuuk] The town seems like just a better camp [Jyuuk] Everything that¡¯s there is to support a war, and seems like it could be packed up within a day to move the whole town somewhere elsepletely [Jyuuk] A lot of tents, a lot of monsters making items that could be used inbat [Jyuuk] Ammunition, recovery items... anything [Jyuuk] There¡¯s arger, central tent there as well. I think the Boss is in there Since all of this was the case, Eisen was just thinking about all this for a while. If that ¡¯town¡¯ was really just nothing but a war-camp in the end, then it may not be the best idea to try and invade it as if it was a normal town. After all, attacking the ce where soldiers returned to treat their injuries or after losing a fight wasn¡¯t the most respectful thing. And to beings whose literally only purpose of living was to wage war, such respect may be important to them. That may end up pretty harmful if \u003cWorld¡¯s Peak\u003e was trying to basically ¡¯team up¡¯ with them and turn this ind into a part of \u003cAsgard\u003e.¡ä With a deep sigh, Eisen started to try and think about better ways to handle this, although before he could, he received a message from Brody. [Brody] Keep doing what you¡¯re doing, don¡¯t fall back. But make sure nobody enters the town. Let the monsters fall back in there. I¡¯ll take up initiative when it¡¯s time to continue With a slight grin, Eisen nodded his head to himself. He figured it was the best idea to just trust Brody for now. And seeing that Eisen¡¯s frowning and thoughtful expression had changed to a smile, Bree, who had been sitting on Eisen¡¯s shoulder in a safe ce that the old man specifically made for her with his element, started tough and curiously asked, "Are you enjoying this war right now?" She inquired, and Eisen slowly turned his head and eyes and looked at the practically tiny figure of the young girl sitting on his shoulder before he shook his head. "Not particrly. It would be better if this didn¡¯t have to happen at all. I was just happy that we seem to have everything under control despite things turning out differently than we thought and nned for." The old man exined immediately, and Bree slowly started to grin as she looked back at the space in front of her, trying to continue to Analyse the enemies¡¯ peculiarities as quickly as she absolutely could. And then, just a few minutester, Bree yelled something else out, "Catapult shot an arm¡¯s length to your left!" She eximed so that Eisen could hear her, and while he was certainly surprised, he soon noticed that a catapult really was shot, and he stretched his arm out immediately. And to the old man¡¯s surprise, therge rock, or rather the small boulder, that was used as ammunition for the catapult perfectly hit the old man¡¯s palm, letting him stop it somewhat. It did damage him a little to just bluntly take this on, but this was the first time that he was actually able to ¡¯receive¡¯ any of the attacks perfectly. Otherwise, he was really just able to deflect them or stop them by throwing his whole body toward them if they were aimed at a troublesome position. While holding the small boulder in his hands, the old man slightly smirked and looked over at Bree again, "How¡¯d you know? Can you suddenly see a bit of the future, like Komer?" Eisen asked, but Bree just looked up at him smugly. "Nope! It¡¯s just a newer ability I got for my ¡¯Analysis¡¯ ability. ¡¯Pattern Analysis¡¯. I was simply able to see what patterns the monsters follow while attacking us. I watched how they responded to the movement of you giants and the others behind us, and now I¡¯m positive I can predict- Ah, giant me-Arrow! Two arm-lengths above, one arm-length to the right!" Immediately, the old man responded to what Bree told him and jumped up and to the side, before he saw arge, magically-created arrow of mes shoot right at his face. But now, Eisen was able to move the boulder that he was still holding in his hand from before in front of him, helping him in blocking the iing attack... It seemed like they were now able to properly defend against all of this, although before, there were still a few of theserge-scale attacksing through. Immediately, Eisen sent messages to Xenia and Jyuuk to tell them to give Bree permission tomand the Giant Light-Minotaur, and they quickly did as asked, before Eisen quickly opened his item-storage and had Bree step inside of the room that currently appeared on the old man¡¯s palm. He instructed her to grab a specific item and then got her back out of there. It was a special ne that was made to enhance the volume of one¡¯s voice enough. Basically, just something to make it easier tomand a lot of people at once if necessary. That, or tomand those that were a slight bit too far away to be able to hear you normally. "Bree, do you think you can tell the others as well? Tell them where to go and what to do in order to defend properly?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, and Bree excitedly looked up at him and nodded her head. "Of course! I¡¯ll do my best!" She eximed, before proceeding to do her new task perfectly. She was able to bring the defenses against theserge-scale attacks to a whole other level. Of course, they still couldn¡¯t be defended against perfectly, and the monsters were trying to switch their tactics up a little bit, which made it necessary for Bree to re-analyze and -evaluate everything, but in the end, she was still able to help out in this. And just like that, it seemed like one big portion of the monsters¡¯ attacks had just been gotten rid of. As they were noticing that these tactics wouldn¡¯t work anymore, the monsters stopped trying to employ them outright, and instead focused on lower-scale attacks. But there, the Originals¡¯ side wasn¡¯t all too weak either. Chapter 607 Incarnation of War The monster army was slowly being pushed back further and further toward their town, their central camp. It seemed like there was little they could do in order to change the tide of the battle now, especially considering that at this point, the numbers of the monsters¡¯ and the originals¡¯ army had practically reversed, with thetter vastly outnumbering the former, all thanks to the advanced necromancy that Jyuuk and the other necromancers made use of. Eisen, his elemental spirit, Askr, and the Light-Minotaur were all doing their best to properly defend against any sort of iing aerial attack that they could catch or stop, all with the help of Bree, who was actively analyzing the enemies¡¯ attack patterns to warn the four of them and tell them what exactly they had to do in order to defend against them. By evening of the day that the fight started, the monsters were properly pushed back to the point that Eisen soon received a message from Brody. [Brody] Clear a path to the entrance of town, and do it as shily as you can "You got it." The old man whispered to himself, and quickly grabbed Bree from his shoulder to safely ce her into the chest-pocket of his leather-apron, to make sure that she wouldn¡¯t fall off all of a sudden, and then turned over toward Askr. Eisen snapped his finger and shouted hismand, sending the actual specifics through his mind. Immediately, the wooden giant pulled the enormous sword from his side and stepped up in front of the rest of the army, with the gate of therge camp right in his sight. And something else that he could see was Brody basically clearing out the direct path between Askr and the gate, single-handedly fighting against the monsters that dared try and fight him, before he suddenly stopped and turned around toward the wood-giant. It seemed like both Eisen and Brody were thinking the exact same thing. Askr¡¯s body became covered in ayer of air as he was infused with the air element, and the moment he swung the de down right into the direction of the gate, an incredible gust of wind pushed back every single monster that was standing in the way and even created a small incave in the ground. Basically, a path leading between Askr and the gate was created. And right in front of the tip of the de, being the only one that was able to resist the gust of wind, was Brody. He reached his hand out and ced it onto the tip of the de, quickly holding onto it while Eisen and his elemental both got started. And since Eisen¡¯s elemental spirit basically looked like an exact copy of the old man in his Draconic Demon King form, Eisen figured that it would be a good idea to try and do the exact same movements, simply mirroring each other. And so, they both used a magic spell that Eisen had been practicing for a while, simply because it was a convenient one. They created a stone-brick path in the ce where the ground had been pushed down, turning it into a road that was easy to walk on. And that road didn¡¯t only extend through that path created by Askr, but it also lead through inbetween his legs and right to the front of the originals¡¯ army, where Jyuuk, Xenia and Evalia were waiting. They soon started walking on the stone-brick road toward the monsters¡¯ camp. The Light-Minotaur and Eisen¡¯s elemental spirit stood on either side of the end of the path where Brody was waiting, while Eisen ended his Draconic Demon King transformation and shrunk down as quickly as he could, even shrinking himself down beyond his regr size. Because he wanted to quickly change into another form. Of course, he had set Bree down on Askr¡¯ shoulders before this happened. Eisen opened his Item Storage underground and only made himself a small opening that he dropped in through, letting the space be unseen for basically everyone else, and inside, he had already prepared another item set. He got rid of his leather apron for now and then increased his size while standing inside of the set of golden armor. And he increased his size even beyond that of his ¡¯normal¡¯ height, and returned to the maximum size that he could be without any other transformation. He was just in his basic ¡¯Eisen¡¯ form, albeit while being roughly 16 meters in height. The old man stood at the front of the stone-brick road while Brody, Jyuuk, Xenia, and Evalia were standing by his side. And the old man was wearing the special ¡¯King¡¯s Armor Set¡¯ that he had created for himself to increase his royal authority, including the cape, while he was even holding the scepter and the crown was sitting on the top of his head. He usually thought that this all together wasplete overkill, but in this situation, it might be different. It wouldn¡¯t do to try and treat this as something that didn¡¯t require this sort of dedication. This was the ¡¯Ind of the God of War¡¯, and war couldn¡¯t be ended half-assedly. Once everyone was gathered behind the old man, and the monsters were all just staring at the figure of this giant man in golden armor, Eisen mmed the scepter into the ground. It was basically like a staff, and immediately spread out the old man¡¯s Royal Authority in a way that anyone had to pay attention to Eisen, even if they actively tried not to. "General! We would like to have a word with you!" Eisen eximed loudly, his voice echoing through the camp. The old man was soon able to see a figure step out of the central tent that Jyuuk mentioned before. It was a humanoid figurepletely wearing a set of armor from bottom to toe. There didn¡¯t seem to be a single speck of skin, fur, scales, or whatever this monster had, to be seen from outside the armor. And not only that, but the figure was towering over everyone else, being roughly five meters tall. It had arge spear in its hands. Slowly, it stepped toward the entrance of the camp and stared up at the face of the figure standing there in front of it. "What brings us the honor of defending against such an incredible army?" It asked as it pushed the top of its spear down into the ground, while the old man let his truth-seeing eyes sh for just a second to appraise the figure. To Eisen¡¯s surprise, this was actually the ind-boss, and a quite special one as well. It was an ¡¯Incarnation of War¡¯. It was a new sort of monster that they had never seen before, but it definitely was a sort of monster, considering that it had a rank. Eisen looked down at it and slowly formed a smile on his lips, "It¡¯s simple. Recently, we have formed the Kingdom of Asgard, and we wish to make this ind part of that Kingdom. And considering the nature of this ce, there was no other way but to show you how incredible we could be." The old man said bluntly. "I see. It seems like we have underrestimated you after judging your numbers." "It seems so, yes." Eisen replied, and the ¡¯Incarnation of War¡¯ slowly faced toward the ground, and knelt onto its left knee, "It is ourplete loss. We surre-" "There is no need for that." The old man interrupted, "We did note here to dominate you, or take yournd away from you. We came here so that we could live alongside each other, and have you join our Kingdom. But I doubt that it would have been easy to convince you without showing you our prowess." The armored figure slowly looked up and started tough before nodding its head, "It would not have been easy, indeed. But if your wish is to have us join you, then so be it. Although for that, I would have one more condition. I am the ¡¯Boss¡¯ of this ind, and while others are restricted to a single space, I am not. I am a different sort of ¡¯Boss¡¯, allowing me to surrender instead of having to die. As you just declined my surrendering, I must ask to turn this into a personal manner. Please, allow me to fight against the strongest of your army. If I lose, then we will join you, but if I win, it will be a bit moreplicated." Eisen slowly looked to the side at Brody, who was grinning broadly, seemingly pretty excited to fight against this enemy, so the old man didn¡¯t see a reason to not let this happen if both parties were interested. And Eisen was positive that Brody would never lose a fight against anyone other than Eisen himself right now. And that was only because the old man had literal tens of thousands of years of experience of fighting against Brody, while Brody had none of that against Eisen. He was at aplete advantage, and could read Brody like an open book. This ¡¯Incarnation of War¡¯, no matter how impressive it may look, would surely not be a match against Brody. Rank and level-wise, it didn¡¯t seem to have an overwhelming base-strength advantage either, so Brody should be able to make that bit of difference up pretty well. The Demon-Orc stepped forward toward the Incarnation of War and crossed his arms, "You wanna fight the strongest? Well, that¡¯d be me." Seemingly a bit surprised, the Incarnation of War looked away from Eisen and toward Brody, and then back to Eisen, "I rather expected me to have to fight against him, rather than you, small one." "Oi..." Brody groaned, "He¡¯s big, but he ain¡¯t the strongest here. He¡¯s the King, but I¡¯m the General of the Army, and the best fighter in this world, you know?" "The King of that Kingdom himself visited us? That is quite an honor indeed. Then, your Majesty, is this man telling the truth? Is he the strongest man in your army?" With a slightugh, Eisen nodded his head, "Yes, he is. You can trust me with that. Just a few months ago, he was the strongest man, or rather the strongest being, in the world. Including the gods, actually." Eisen exined. "...I see. Then it was you, after all. It is an honor to be allowed to fight against you, oh great Brody, the peak ofbat." The Incarnation said, "You have grown much weaker than you were before, so I apologize for not recognizing you right away.?? Brody raised his brows and looked at the armored figure in front of him while he crossed his arms, "Oh, so you knew about me?" The Incarnation of War slowly stood up and pulled its spear out of the ground, before pointing it at Brody with one arm, "I think that may be an understatement. After all, I once was your very own set of armor." Chapter 608 The Armor Brody stared at the figure in front of him, the five meterrge,pletely armored figure. The ¡¯Incarnation of War¡¯, as it was called. Slowly, the Demon-Orc turned around toward Eisen with a wry smile, "Imma guess that you don¡¯t know anythin¡¯ about this? You¡¯re probably the one that made all my armor and weapons in the past, right?" "You know as much as I know about this, Brody." The old man replied as he looked at the figure and started to think about what exactly it was speaking about. It said that it was Brody¡¯s former armor, but that didn¡¯t really make sense. It was just rank 7, after all, and Eisen doubted that a piece of armor that he needed while he was around the same strength he was now wouldn¡¯t be able to get to the point where it was literally sentient. And then, the old man realized that that wasn¡¯t actually an entirely correct way of thinking in this world. After all, he himself had two tools that were practically living, and a son whose naturepletely changed after a certain point in his life. "I get it." The old man said, "You were an Ego-Item that reached the peak, right?" Eisen asked, and the ¡¯Incarnation of War¡¯ slowly nodded its head. "It is as you say. But technically, I was more of an ¡¯Ego-Item Set¡¯." It pointed out, before Brody looked at Eisen with a slight frown, "What d¡¯ya mean? How¡¯d you figure that out?" "It¡¯s pretty simple. In this world, you are truly rewarded for reaching the peak. The five of us had raw talent and ability that transcended even that of the gods, and on top of that received immortality after reaching the peak, as well as a myriad of other benefits, I¡¯d assume. Monsters that reach the peak may either be Transcendent Monsters or ascend to godhood. My guess is that Ego-Items receive simr benefits, since they have a soul, and all." The Incarnation of War looked at Eisen before nodding its head, "Once more, it is just as you say. When I reached my ¡¯peak¡¯, as you called it, I found myself in the presence of the god of war, Artger. He gave me his blessing and I was allowed the privilege of life. A sort of it, at least. It is not the true form of life that you have always seemed to search for. I became an incarnation of Artger¡¯s powers. Albeit, I had to start at the beginning, at a mere rank 0 without the capability of even properly using my own body. A young man picked me up and made use of me as a proper armor, letting me raise my level and soon reach rank 1. The essence of life, mana, flowed through my being and I became mobile. I thanked my former user, and then went on my way. And along that way, I found myself here." The incarnation at war ced its hand onto its chest, and seemed to basically be smiling with its whole body while telling its story, although all the originals had just one thought in mind. A thought that only one of them actually voiced, "The fuck, how am I supposed to believe you? There¡¯s no way you came from me, otherwise you wouldn¡¯t speak like that! I thought ego-items are supposed to be formed by their users!" "In the same way, children are formed by their parent. And I don¡¯t think you¡¯re exactly like your father, after hearing your stories about him." Eisen rebutted, although he was thinking the exact same thing as the Demon-Orc just now, and Brody looked back at him with a wry smile, "Urgh, fair enough... Well, either way, I guess it¡¯d be fine? I mean, I ain¡¯t gonna lose to my own set of armor." With confidence, Brody approached the Incarnation of War, although it seemed to have a bit of an opinion on that topic as well. It turned toward the Demon-Orc and slowly spoke, "I think there may be a misundertanding. I am grateful to you, I respect you, and I am honored to be in your presence again, but it has been more than Ten-Thousand years since you havest donned me. I went through my own tribtions and challenges. I found values that may differ from yours. In no way am I your ¡¯own set of armor¡¯. This is why I wish to fight you even more now, to prove this to both you and myself." Brody looked back at the Incarnation of War while his hands were ced onto his hips, before slowly nodding his head, "Right, sorry about that. Badly worded, didn¡¯t mean any offense. But well, let¡¯s get to it now, then." Brody said bluntly, without making any furtherments. "You sure that it¡¯s the user that forms the ego-item, and not the other way around..?" Xenia asked, seemingly surprised by how calm and understanding Brody was just now, but Eisen justughed a bit, "Well, technically it is both. Anything you use in any way, shape, or form changes you, even if it is just in minimal ways. Maybe meeting his former set of Armor might have woken something up in him. After me, he is the closest to finding his own self again, after all." Eisen pointed out quickly. Xenia turned her head toward the old man and nodded his head, "Fair enough." She replied, before turning back toward Brody and the Incarnation of War as they were speaking to one another, slowly making their way toward an open space inside of the quite huge camp, which the originals¡¯ had thought to be a town just before. Others may see it as a little risky to just enter a ce like this where they were surrounded by enemies on all sides, but none of the originals were bothered by it in the slightest. There was no reason to, after all. The incarnation hadplete control over every single member of the army, it seemed, and if there was one thing that it definitely took on from Brody was that it didn¡¯t lie. Really, Brody liked to mess around every once in a while when it didn¡¯t matter if one made jokes or not, but that¡¯s all it was limited to. They were merely jokes. If it came to anything serious, Eisen had never witnessed Brody lie. How trustworthy, determined, and actually quite honorable he was, especially when it came to keeping promises, was just shown by the fact that Brody didn¡¯t marry anyone else, or even got romantically or physically involved with anyone at all, in the amount of time that Brody was alive in this world, which seemed to exceed 80-Thousand years. There was only one reason why Brody may ever lie during serious situations, and that would be if that was the only way to achieve a specific goal. There was little reason to believe that an item that most likely spent quite a lot of time with that kind of person would end up deceitful in any sense of the word. And that was just shown in how easily he gave up, and how he seemed to have been trusted by the literal gods to honor the traditions of war. So, that¡¯s why none of the originals were nervous. Well, it¡¯s why Eisen wasn¡¯t nervous, the old man wasn¡¯t actually sure if the others had a simr mental reasoning. Either way, the Incarnation of War and Brody made their way over toward an open ce, which seemed to have been used as training and practice areas before. Some of the monsters cleared the area out, as there were a few things like training weapons, dummies, benches, chairs, and so on littered around there. Both Brody and the Incarnation of War stood in front of each other. The former was going through his Armory to pick out the right weapon, while thetter stood prepared with his spear in his hand. And soon, Brody made his own choice as well. It seemed like especially recently, Brody was interested in beating others in their own game. He chose a sword that may be huge somehow while fighting Kiron, and now, he pulled a spear out of his Armory storage-ability. And it wasn¡¯t even one that was made with the special Maroon alloy that would dissipate any mana in the ce the opponent was struck. It seemed like the Incarnation of War could basically only move by supplying its whole body with mana, like a Golem, and Brody most likely thought of it as an unfair advantage to have, if he went ahead and used that kind of weapon against such an oppoent. He would obviously use it againstmon enemies or monsters, but this time it was different. It seemed like he wanted to respect the Incarnation of War as much as he could. "Let¡¯s get this shit started, my man." Brody said with a grin on his face, and the Incarnation of War slowly nodded its head, "Of course." It replied. And just like that, the fight started. The two of them started to circle around each other for a little while, seemingly trying to just figure out each others¡¯ movements. Something that already made Eisen a little bit surprised. He knew first-hand that Brody¡¯s movements now were simr to the past Brody. That was the only reason why Eisen was now capable of beating Brody this easily. Something that was literally on Brody¡¯s body whenever he fought should know his movements perfectly. ¡¯Well, maybe it is just trying to see if his movements are the same after all...¡¯ Eisen thought. That could be, but he already felt like there was more behind this than just that. The old man watched all this happen, and before he knew it, both the Incarnation of War and Brody jumped forward. Their movements were incredibly simr to each other, but of course, the Incarnation of War was roughly five meters tall. It had more reach, strength, and consequently speed. But even then, the tips of the two spears hit each other perfectly. They didn¡¯t even slide to the side. It seemed so improbably, but it happened. Because both of them seemed to want to do this on purpose. Just to test their strength against each other, apparently. The Demon-Orc ground his teeth with a big, broad grin while the Incarnation of War seemed to give off a simr aura. His armor didn¡¯t change to give him something like a smile or anything, but from the way that he was carrying himself and the vibe he gave off, it became more than evident. The former armor was just as battle-crazed as the one that used to wear it. Chapter 609 Full Control Brody stabbed the spear forward, the Incarnationb of War swung it sideways. Both of them jumped, slid over the ground, and dodged any attack that came their way, sometimes deflecting it for a small chance at an attack. The Demon-Orc and this living armor-set were fighting their hearts out, and were doing their best to win this fight under any circumstances. It really did seem like neither the Incarnation of War nor Brody really wanted to lose this fight, despite how calm the atmosphere was before the fight actually begun. It seemed like there was actually little reason to take this fight as serious as both of them did. In the end, it would most likely turn out well either way. Surely, the Incarnation of War would just suggest a treaty with a favorable oue after he lost. If it was really given these special rights and privileges of being a Boss monster that wasn¡¯t restricted to a small room and even simply ¡¯give up¡¯, surely there would be some other way to stop being the boss, or they could make use of it while it was still the boss of this ind. Sure, Eisen wasn¡¯t particrly expecting Brody to lose, but somehow, the fight seemed rather... even. Truly, the Incarnation of War learned a lot of things from fighting ¡¯alongside¡¯ Brody in the past, and the two of them seemed actually rather equal. Like they were mirroring each other¡¯s movements, despite the Incarnation of War being so much bigger than Brody was. It was a beautiful fight, they were swinging their weapons around and doing practically impossible things. Bncing their own spear¡¯s tip on the other¡¯s spear¡¯s tip, or dodging the other¡¯s weapon by a hair¡¯s width. It truly seemed impossible, but it was still as wonderful to look at as a masterfully coreographed dance. At the very least, that was until one of the two finally got the upper hand, and the first bit of damage was dealt to the opponent. Brody managed to scratch of the side of the Incarnation of War¡¯s helmet. It really was nothing but a scratch, nothing that would cause serious damage even if it was repeated hundreds or thousands of times, but it was a sign that the tide of the fight would finally move in one of the two¡¯s favor, since it was still more damage than had been dealt during this whole fight. Immediately after the first scratch came the second, then the third. Then, Brody put a small dent into the Incarnation¡¯s leg, while the incarnation itself only just managed to cut a little bit into Brody¡¯s clothes. The two continued fighting, and both started to get proper hits in, and they were slowly getting rid of each other¡¯s health. In that sense, the Incarnation was obviously at an advantage, considering that it, as a Boss monster, had an incredible amount of health that far surpassed what Brody had at the moment. But on the other hand, Brody was dealing much, much more damage. And since the Incarnation¡¯s body was made up of metal, and was basically still just an item-set in the end, the damage couldn¡¯t be repaired all too easily. A dent in the Incarnation¡¯s body was permanent during this fight, but Brody¡¯s bruises and small cuts would heal after a few minutes. That was really one of Brody¡¯s greatest advantages, considering that otherwise, the two of them were rather equally matched. At first, the old man thought that the tide of this battle had changed because of some sort of physical exhaustion, but it was rather the exact opposite. They were just speeding up as the fight continued instead of slowing down. And Brody was simply getting used to this fight at a quicker pace than the Incarnation. Eisen had his mana-sight turned on, since he was actually also able to see Brody¡¯s two energies with it, at least to an extent, and he was surprised to see what happened next. Once more, Brody and the Incarnation did this impossible move that was just a thing in order to test their strength... or so Eisen thought. But no, instead, Brody had pushed his internal energy through his spear into the spear of the Incarnation, and was simply filling it up more and more. The old man didn¡¯t fully understand why Brody did this, but he had a few ideas. Maybe he tried to divert the Incarnation¡¯s spear a little by controlling the internal energy ced into it to get even more of an edge. Or he just wanted it to do less damage in general. Since it was filled with his own energy, the damage may be minimal somehow. But all of a sudden, Brody seemed to just stop, in the middle of one of the Incarnation¡¯s moves. Instead, he pushed his spear into the ground behind him and held onto it with his left arm, before he pushed himself away from the spear that was wedged in ce and helped out with a simply step forward. Somehow, he pushed out a mass amount of external energy focused into a single spot. And that spot was exactly where the Incarnation¡¯s spear hit his palm. Eisen had a hard time following every little thing that Brody and the Incarnation were doing in this fast-paced battle in the first ce, but this was really beyond anything that he may have ever been able to expect. In his head, it became obvious that Brody¡¯s arm had beenpletely pierced, simply because that¡¯s what it looked like. From Eisen¡¯s position, it seemed as if a quarter of the Incarnation¡¯s spear had been pushed into Brody¡¯s arm. But no, instead, it seemed like that quarter was simply shattered immediately when it came in contact with Brody¡¯s hand. The Demon-Orc started to grin broadly as he closed his hand around the weapon that was now basically just a staff. Brody grinned as he made his arm slowly slip along the side of that staff as he tried to slowly raise that arm up, as if attempting to pull it out of the Incarnation¡¯s hands. But it seemed like neither of them were about to give up, and neither of them seemed to be directly losing. Brody was pushing onto the ground and was using his energies and his own spear that he pushed into the ground to keep his feet safely pressed into the rocky surface below him. It was as if the Incarnation was slowly being pulled toward Brody, and if their height was a bit more simr to each other, the Incarnation surely would have been lifted into the air by now. Obviously that wouldn¡¯t work like this, but it didn¡¯t seem to be Brody¡¯s goal either. Instead, he used the fact that the Incarnation was trying to hold the broken spear down on the ground with as much force as possible, and Brody then simply let go of his own spear and slightly jumped up, and the Incarnation used practically all of its physical force to push the spear onto the ground, basically in a circr motion. And so, it pushed Brody right toward its own feet. The Incarnation reacted and jumped, flipping forward while holding onto the broken spear, and used that motion to swing the broken spear up into the air while Brody was still holding onto it. But the Demon-Orc cleverly let go at the right time and managed to hook his foot into a piece of the Incarnation¡¯s armor. He was swung forward while the broken spear flew into the air, and Brody managed to sling his arms and legs around the Incarnation¡¯s helmet. Brody pushed his fingers into the eye-holes and started to pull on the helmet while the Incarnation grasped his legs and tried to pull the Demon-Orc off its body. But it was toote, Brody¡¯s n had already been set into motion. He soon let go of the tension he put into his right leg, letting the Incarnation rapidly pull it away from its helmet, but due to the surprising force and speed, its fingers slipped away because of the rapid stop that came after Brody put all the tension back onto the leg at some point. And that point was exactly the point at which one end of the broken spear that had been flying through the air hit the Demon-Orc¡¯s foot. Brody waited for the other end to keep dropping a bit, and then pulled his leg back rapidly so that he had extra force to push off the helmet after pushing the other end of the broken spear into one of the eye-holes. The helmet that seemed to have been practically fully connected to the rest of the armor until now had suddenly been dislodged, and Brody just pulled it off. And then, the Demon-Orc looked into the hollow armor-set. At first, everyone thought that there was some sort of actual physical figure inside of there, since it was an ¡¯Incarnation¡¯ of War. They thought that it should have had an actual ¡¯carnate¡¯ form. But instead, Brody was now looking into the hollow space inside of the armor. And the Incarnation of War continued to pull on Brody¡¯s legs, while the Demon-Orc held onto its head. But since that was all that he really wanted, he swiftly jumped off the Incarnation¡¯s body and then stood in front of it, holding onto therge helmet. "So, this gonna be enough to make ya give up?" Brody asked with a slight smile on his face, "If ya don¡¯t, I¡¯ll break the helmet." "Why should it be, there¡¯s no reason to, after all." The Incarnation said, with the voiceing straight out of the helmet. And all of a sudden, the rest of the armor simply... fell apart. It just disappeared outright, turning into dust before floating over toward Brody. Before he knew it, it gathered underneath the helmet that he was holding and started to build onto it, as if reconstructing the body in this new ce. "Ah, fuck off..." Brody groaned, before letting go of the helmet and letting it drop down, catching it with his foot before proceeding to kick it high up into the sky. The armor-dust followed the helmet and reconstructed the body mid-air, before falling back to the ground soon thereafter. With a loud m, it stood in front of Brody while reaching its arm out forward. Even the spear that he was holding beforepletely reconstructed itself inside of his hands. "It is a good time to reveal this ability of mine. I am d to see that you even brought me to this point. However, as I can freely control my body however I wish..." The Incarnation said, before Brody slowly felt some of the dust creep up on his ankle before turning into the Incarnation¡¯s gauntlet, holding onto him like that before pulling the Demon-Orc up to hang in front of it upside down, "...There is no way you will be able to beat me." Chapter 610 Chaos and Order "That so?" Brody asked with a nk expression, "So you¡¯re tryin¡¯ to tell me that you hid parts of your powers? For any specific reason?" The Demon-Orc asked. As if scoffing at that question, the Incarnation of War immediately replied, "Of course. It simply assumed it to be unnecessary for a fight against you." "You assumed, but now you¡¯re suddenly using it, meaning you¡¯re just dead wrong." His tusks nearly stabbed his cheeks as Brody started to grin broadly, "You¡¯ll be fine if I go ahead and use another ability of mine as well, right?" "Please, use whatever you think you may need." The Incarnation said in a tone that just showed that it was assuming itself to be far superior to Brody at the moment. But the Demon-Orc just continued to grin and cracked his knuckles. "Gotcha, but don¡¯te cryin¡¯ to me when ya lose." He said bluntly, before the Demon-Orc took a deep breath and then basically lost all physical function. It wasn¡¯t that he dropped down onto the ground unconscious, but he simply... stood there like a statue all of a sudden, with his eyes closed and his torso not showing any signs of him breathing. And all of a sudden, Brody¡¯s form changed to quite an extent. His gray skin slowly turned many shakes darker, until it was as ck as ck came, as if he was just made up of inkpletely. At the same time, it seemed like his skin slowly started to give off white mist that was slowly wrapping itself around him. His clothes, leather-armor, and the spear that he was holding were slowly dyed a pure white that perfectly opposed his pitch-ck form. "Oh, so you have mastered those unique energies to this extent, I see. Quite surprising." The Incarnation muttered, but it didn¡¯t particrly seem like Brody waspletely done yet. He kept standing there for a while. His skin became like a ck hole that seemed to suck in any light that came even close to it, while his clothes, armor and weapon became the pr opposite. It was like they were pushing out such light, as if Brody¡¯s body was in a self-sufficient circle. And then, out of nowhere, cracks formed on Brody¡¯s skin. ck cracks on his white clothes, armor, and weapon, as well as white cracks on his skin. The moment those cracks stopped forming, pieces shattered apart and were practically flung off of Brody, one after another, until it stopped, leaving behind a certain few pieces over Brody¡¯s skin and items, that were colored either ck or white respectively, in the form of a few intricate patterns. The white patterns on the items were sharp, angled, and seemed as if they could cut someone that tried to touch them, while the ck patterns on Brody¡¯s skin were intricately interwoven with one another and were practically flowing over his skin. "Much better..." Brody muttered quietly, and everyone looked at the figure of the Demon-Orc with curiosity. The only ones here that knew about this form Brody took on were the Incarnation of War, which was formerly one of Brody¡¯s items, as well as Eisen, who just recently remembered the fights that he had with Brody over the many, many years they both lived here. The Incarnation stared back at Brody in shock, "You... How have you mastered that technique already?" It asked, and the martial-artist just looked back at it with a slight grin, "Simple. Been usin¡¯ it all along, this is just a step further I¡¯ve been practicin¡¯ for a while." Brody exined. "You know, ¡¯Energy¡¯ is definitely different from Mana, but that doesn¡¯t mean it ispletely different. Much like mana, ¡¯Energy¡¯ has elements to it as well, although it works slightly differently to mana... Yin is a force of Chaos, and Yang is a force of Order. Chaos inherently affects everything. It makes up everything, and is made up of everything. So, all I have to do is bring a little bit of Order into the Chaos to control it, and with that, everything there is." The Demon-Orc said, "As long as I understand that side of the chaos and how to bring order to it, at least." In a sort of demonstration, Brody slowly pressed one of his feet tightly into the ground below him while sliding his other one forward. It wasn¡¯t fast, and certainly had not much force to it. It should have only been enough to push a little bit of dust forward, Eisen was sure of that as he was looking at Brody¡¯s legs and the way his foot barely even touched the ground properly. But what happened instead was that a lot of the actual rock underneath his foot was pushed forward, creating a small hole and a bit of a half-circle around that hole as it was pushed upward and around a slight bit. Brody had controlled the rock around him using his two energies. The Demon-Orc took another deep breath, and started to speed his breathing up while taking in and pushing out more and more air every single time that he was doing so. And together with that, his breath took on a quite fierce force as well. The dust around him was pushed forward and backward, as if creating a small cloud on the ground, which Brody just cut in half with his spear the very next moment. It was as if the air itself had been split apart, and immediately after, it all fell back into ce, "A¡¯ight, let¡¯s get this second round started." The Demon-Orc said with a broad grin, while the Incarnation simply stared back, "This may be more of a challenge than I expected." It said, and then properly held its spear forward. That very moment seemed to have be the new starting-point, as both Brody and the Incarnation simply went for it. They stabbed their spears forward and it seemed like they would make impact with each other at the tips once more, so that they could continue their feat of strength. But to Eisen¡¯s surprise, the moment that the two spears made impact, the Incarnation¡¯s simply fell to dust and appeared in its other hand just to be stabbed forward once more. It was about to stab right into Brody¡¯s face, before the Demon pushed his head to the side and pressed his palm onto the item madepletely of metal while sliding one of his feet over the ground in a circr motion. The spear was bent to the side and as such didn¡¯t manage to hit Brody, but the Demon-Orc quickly let go of his own spear after hitting the Incarnation¡¯s. After sliding his foot over the ground, his body was now faced right into the direction of that spear, and Brody soon let himself drop backward before the Incarnation¡¯s spear even finished being bent. Brody kicked off of the ground a bit and swung his feet around, cing one of his feet into the inside of the spear¡¯s new curve, while he ced the other one onto the outside of that new curve. As Brody looked up into the sky, his hands hit the ground first. He twisted them around and caused the ground itself to support that twisting and transfer it to his whole body. Like that, Brody managed to bend the Incarnation¡¯s spear into a spiral within a matter of two or three seconds. It was basically unusable as a spear right now. Brody was practically molding the world around him however he saw fit, even when the Incarnation turned the twisted spear into dust to fix it. Brody managed to quickly jump up and moved his hands around the area with the dust. He controlled the air just like that, and it seemed like the air carried the dust that made the spear up with it. Brody made it float around his hands and arms and didn¡¯t allow the Incarnation to turn it back into a proper solid form. He moved his hands around before slowly lowering his whole body down toward the ground, and opening multiple holes in the rock that he shoves portions of the dust into before closing the holes back down. The Demon-Orc then stood up straight again, just looking at the Incarnation with a grin, "Alright, disarmed again." With a grin on his face, Brody pushed his toes into the ground and pulled it back, as if kicking into the ground, but he was basically just trying to pull the ground that his own spear wasying on toward him so that he could swiftly pick it up. Without even giving the Incarnation much of a chance to react in any way, Brody pushed his spear forward toward the Incarnation, stopping short just a meter or so away from the center of its chest somehow. But just a momentter, the spot that Brody would have hit had he just been a little closer started being pushed back, being dented as if someone was pressing onto it with a high amount of pressure. Brody pulled his spear back again and stabbed once more. Then again, then again, all in the span of a single moment. More and more, the dent in the center of the Incarnation¡¯s chest was pushed deeper into its body, until a small rip appeared there. However, even quicker than this ¡¯wound¡¯ appeared, it also disappeared, simply being repaired by the Incarnation¡¯s ability. That was the only reason why the Incarnation didn¡¯t dodge, because it was aware that it would be unnecessary to do so. Nothing could actually hurt it anyway. But either way, Brody seemed to have also expected this, and continued to hit the Incarnation in as many different ces all over its body as possible. He cut through the actual metal armor with his spear and this ability of his by pushing the metal out of the way. More and more, it seemed like the Incarnation¡¯s body was being destroyed, but it didn¡¯t really care and just continued to let Brody tire himself out. "Sorry to disappoint you, but there is little reason to continue this. There is no chance for you to ever beat m-" "Ah... so that¡¯s how it works." Brody interrupted the Incarnation quite bluntly, although the former armor just stood there and looked at Brody without a proper reaction, and Brody slowly ced his palm onto the Incarnation¡¯s arm. It was letting him do whatever he wanted, basically. It was more than just confident, confidence that would be its downfall, of course. Because the very next moment, Brody squeezed the metallic arm tightly and crushed it in his fist, before ripping away a chunk of the metal armor. And then, it fell apart into dust in Brody¡¯s hand as the Incarnation seemingly tried to make it rejoin the armor. But instead, it simply dropped to the ground, not letting the Incarnation control it anymore. Chapter 611 Abrupt End "How did you..." The Incarnation asked with a tone of pure shock. It stood there with its one remaining hand stretched forward so that it was able to react if Brody chose to attack all of a sudden, and the Demon-Orc just grinned broadly. He pushed his spear into the ground and started to slightly carve into it, using this elemental-control ability of his to do so. "It¡¯s easy, ya know? Just gotta disrupt any flow of energy that¡¯s in there." Brody exined, "Apparently, at least. I think that¡¯s what I did... I don¡¯t actually really know. But that doesn¡¯t matter, now does it?" The incarnation looked back at Brody and scoffed before nodding its head, "I guess you are right, it matters very little. Even with just a single arm I can defeat you." The Incarnation said with full confidence. It waspletely convinced that this was the case, and it would probably be close to impossible to convince it otherwise, not that there was any reason to. Brody would show it that it was simply wrong, no need to convince it beyond that, really. Brody held his spear in front of his body and pointed it back at the Incarnation of War. Slowly, he ran his foot over the carvings that he created in the ground below him, pulling chunks of rock out of the ground that he loosened up a little. He scooped his foot underneath one of those head-sized chunks and kicked it up like it was a ser ball. And once it came back down, Brody kicked it like it was one as well, sending it straight for the Incarnation. However, without a single wasted movement, it managed to dodge the rock. Although then, he soon had to face another one. And another one, and another one, until Brody pulled all of the rocks that he loosened up by carving into the ground with his spear out of the ground, leaving him to practically stand in a hole. Obviously seeing this as a chance to attack, the Incarnation grabbed the very rocks that Brody kicked at it before and threw them at the Demon-Orc at full force. But all that Brody did in response was grin Broadly. The moment that the Incarnation threw the rock at the Demon-Orc, he pushed the tip of his spear into it and molded the rock around it, turning the spearhead into something like a rough hammerhead. It really was just rough, but it was close enough to get the idea. Using the speed of the first rock, Brody twisted his body aroundpletely before proceeding to hit the second rock that came just a moment after the first. Both rocks shattered into pieces, but it seemed like it was exactly what Brody wanted. He had pushed his external energy into both of the rocks during the moment of impact and manipted their trajectory. And the thing with a lot of types of rock and mineral structures was that, when they were shattered into pieces, many of the edges were incredibly thin and sharp. The same was the case this time around. And so, Brody basically just managed to shoot numerous tiny, energy-enhanced des at the Incarnation. But of course, it didn¡¯t let them hit its body and simply created small ¡¯tunnels¡¯ in its body by turning parts of it into its sand-like form to just let them pass through its bodypletely, since they would otherwise still do quite some damage to the Incarnation¡¯s actual health. Hidden amongst the tiny rocks was the tip of Brody¡¯s spear, which he pushed into the center of the space that the Incarnation opened up by changing its own state. Immediately the Incarnation tried to close it back up so that it could maybe even trap Brody¡¯s weapon inside of its own body, but it was already toote. It currently couldn¡¯t control this part of its body anymore, and therge, gaping hole simply stayed open because Brody once more affected the Incarnation¡¯s control over it by pushing his more ¡¯chaotic¡¯ yin energy into it. And then, Brody simply proceeded to push the spear further through that first hole until the de was halfway through the hole on the other side. Before the Incarnation knew it or could do anything about it, Brody pulled his own fet away from under himself and put all his weight onto the spear¡¯s handle. Like this, the spear¡¯s de was pushed against the metal from inside of the hole and Brody could slowly use his chaotic yin energy to feed away at the metal or bend it out of the way if possible. By now, Brody was practically standing on his own spear¡¯s handle to make the de cut further through the Incarnation¡¯s back. But meanwhile, the Incarnation tried its best to get Brody off of its body with the one hand it had left, but all the Demon-Orc was doing was try to bend the metal making up the Incarnation¡¯s chest away so that he could push his hands inside so that Brody could push himself down and put more force on the spear while the Incarnation was trying to grab him and rip him off of itself, but he just wouldn¡¯t let it go. That was until Brody suddenly didn¡¯t feel any more resistance. The spear¡¯s handle was pushed down rapidly and the Demon-Orc slipped off. As far as he could see through therge hole in the Incarnation¡¯s chest, it had deliberately removed parts of its back to cause this, although it let Brody still infuse the chaotic yin energy into the sand-like substance to make it unusable. But at this point, the Incarnation just pulled the spear out of its body and snapped it in half with sheer force, something that Eisen wasn¡¯t exactly happy about seeing. The old man groaned loudly and ground his teeth, but this was just what sometimes happened during a fight, so he couldn¡¯t actually do all that much against it and had to let it happen. The incarnation scattered the spear¡¯s parts around the area, in particrly bending the spear¡¯s tip to make sure it couldn¡¯t be used in a fight anymore. It basically pressed the edge down and turned it too t to be able to cut at all. Brody sighed loudly as he looked at the Incarnation with a frown, "Well, that ain¡¯t really nice, you know? Also, I hope you¡¯re aware that I could just take out a way better weapon and finish this whole thing instantly, right?" "I do assume so, yes. After all, the greatest craftsman of this world made those weapons for you. You must have one that can take care of me quite quickly, there is no doubt about that." The Incarnation said with a slightugh, "But that does not matter to me. I know that you will not take out another weapon of yours, simply because you are too good to do so. Is that no right?" Brody looked back at the Incarnation with a slightly wry smile before rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, "Well, fuck... Now I am, I was just about to grab a new weapon..." The Demon-Orcined, "But I guess I can finish this just as well with my hands only." Brody pointed out, and this once more showed that an item really was formed by the user a lot of the time, especially when it came to ego-items. Brody and the Incarnation were quite simr to each other. Both were convinced they would never be able to lose, no matter who they were fighting against. They moved in the same way, used simr techniques, and in some situations even reacted to attacks or annoyances identically. It was an interesting fight, to say the least. Eisen stood there and continuedd to watch while something else happened. The ¡¯wounds¡¯ in the Incarnation¡¯s body started to close up, but none of the sand that it had built its body with was moving now, at least none of the special sand that Eisen had been keeping an eye on. No, instead, it did something else. It used some of the sand from other parts of its body to fill the gaps in. But since it seemingly couldn¡¯t create the sand by itself just like that, its body was actually shrinking in size. It became at least a meter shorter than before, but did not only repair the cuts and holes in its body, but even restored its hand. "Well then, good to have a way to defeat you now." Brody said with a smirk on its face, ??And thanks for not remaking your spear like that." The Demon-Orc admitted as well, although it seemed like it didn¡¯t do so out of consideration for the fact that Brody didn¡¯t take out another spear. Instead, it was most likely just trying to keep as much of a size advantage as possible, since the spear would probably take another half-meter to a meter off of its height. But either way, the Demon-Orc soon jumped at the Incarnation again and the two started with a quick exchange of hand-to-handbat moves. It was incredibly fast paced, once more so quickly that it was hard for onlookers to really follow what exactly the two of them were doing, but for the most part, it was clear that they were damaging each other to an extent. It probably wasn¡¯t by much, but a little was all that was needed to tip either one over the edge, really. It was still clear that the one that was doing the most damage right now was Brody, who with ever single time he made contact with the Incarnation¡¯s body started to pull the metal that it was made of along a slight bit, twisting it in certain ces, pushing it in in others, and sometimes even creating gaping holes if he got a really good hit in. And whenever he could, he would remove chunks of metal and simply turn them to dust by pushing as much chaotic energy into them as possible. This created wounds that would be immediately repaired by the Incarnation, making its body shrink more and more each time. It took around half an hour until enough mass had been shaved away from the incarnation¡¯s body so that it was roughly around as tall as Brody was. Basically, it was now at the size that it should be to actually be a proper suit of armor that he could potentially wearfortably. "There we go." Brody said with a smug grin on his face, "Guess you ain¡¯t as tough anymore, huh?" The Demon-Orc kept grinning and once more swung his arm at the Incarnation¡¯s head. At this point, Brody understood how it would react every sinlge time he did this, as if it was one of its instincts to do to protect the head. It would twist its body around and fall back, before- "..." Brody stopped and looked at the Incarnation¡¯s figure confusedly, "What?" He muttered. This time, it was different. This time, the incarnation didn¡¯t twist its body. It didn¡¯t move at all, really. Instead, it moved more into Brody¡¯s hand that was covered in the chaotic yin energy. It turned its head into dust and had Brody cleave away arge chunk of it. The head was the control-center of the Incarnation, that much was obvious. But half of it was just destroyed in one fell swoop, and the Incarnation dropped to the ground as the fight was abruptly over. Chapter 612 Ring of the Warbringer "What just happened?" Brody asked with a deep frown as he stepped up closer to the Incarnation, "This is some sort of trick, right? You¡¯re just gonna repair yourself and attack me now... Right?" The Demon-Orc asked with confusion, but before he knew it, the rest of the Incarnation simply fell to dust and a simple notification appeared in front of Brody, announcing that the Ind Boss of the Ind of War had been beaten. "Oi, you¡¯ve gotta be fucking with me!" With a deep frown, Brody ground his teeth together and stared at the pile of dust. Slowly, Eisen walked up to him. He ced his hand onto the Demon-Orc¡¯s shoulder, "There is no trace of mana there anymore." He exined, and Brody slowly turned his head toward him, "Then what, I just fucking killed it? Seriously...?" "Actually..." Evalia started, "I think he may have done that deliberately. We don¡¯t know if he was actually telling the truth... It would make more sense if he didn¡¯t, and had to be killed somehow." "And why the fuck would it kill itself then? There literally wasn¡¯t a reason to lie about that in the first ce." Eisen looked at the upset Demon-Orc, "Would you have been able to kill it just like that? I know that our subconscious has an incredible influence over us, and if it really was your armor before, you probably would have held back. And it probably wanted a proper fight with you." Brody slowly squatted down and looked at the pile of dust with a deep frown, "...Right..." The Demon-Orc grumbled, "Because that totally makes sense..." Eisen turned his head and looked at the others with a slightly concerned expression, before turning back toward Brody while having the dust-pile right in his sight. And inside of that dust-pile, Eisen noticed something, and he slowly activated his mana-sight again. The old man squatted down next to Brody and grabbed his wrist before pushing it into the pile of dust. It may seem like something somewhat grim, since this was basically the Incarnation¡¯s corpse, but there was a reason to do this. Something that Brody also quickly noticed when he touched something hard inside of that dust-pile. He grabbed that small, hard thing and pulled it out, just looking down at it. It was a ring. Immediately, Eisen inspected it. [Ring of the Warbringer][Artifact] [Rank ¨C 0][Level ¨C 0] [Description] An artifact. It is the remnant of a former armor-set with a soul imbued into it, which ascended and became chosen by a deity. After passing on with goodwill toward the one that killed it, it chose to change its physical form into this ring that has to bond with the one that gained its favour, while its soul passed on to the heavens. Eisen raised his brows with a light smile on his face, before turning toward Brody, "Put it on." The old man suggested, before Brody looked at him with a frown, "Seriously? Why would I put on a ring that I found in what are basically the ashes of someone I just killed? I can¡¯t even see its status..." The Demon-Orc groaned, but Eisen just looked at him with a light smile. Seeing that Eisen was serious, Brody just sighed and did as told, pushing the ring onto his right hand¡¯s middle finger. With his mana-sight, Eisen was able to see some sort of energy, something simr to mana, but still different, push itself through Brody¡¯s body. It mixed with his energies andpletely changed its nature to be a match to those energies. But either way, it seemed like the ring became a part of Brody¡¯s body just now. "The fuck was that? Felt like goosebumps... Did someone appraise me or somethin¡¯?" The Demon-Orc groaned before looking down at the ring, "Right, it¡¯s this, right?" With a sigh, Brody grabbed the ring with his fingers and tried to pull it off, but all that happened was that his skin underneath the ring was being pulled along with it. Like the ring had fused with his skin, "Erm..." "I see, so that¡¯s what bonding is, then?" Eisen asked curiously, and Brody stared at him with a deep re, "The fuck you mean?" With a slightugh, Eisen looked straight at Brody, "That ring is a gift from the Incarnation. Basically, it turned itself into that ring, although its soul isn¡¯t in there. It¡¯s an artifact-item, actually the first one that I¡¯ve ever seen. It probably has some pretty unique aspects to it." "¡¯Unique aspects¡¯ my ass! It¡¯s just gonna be a friggin¡¯ bother to deal with while I fight! It¡¯s gonna get stuck on shit for sure!" Brodyined, "I guess it¡¯s cool that it wanted to give me a gift ¡¯n all, but this is just..." But all of a sudden, as Brody was speaking and trying to get the ring off of himself, it started to grow thinner and thinner, until the ck metal was as thin as paper. And it didn¡¯t stop there. And at some point, it simply disappeared in Brody¡¯s skin altogether, and all that was left was a small, intricate pattern like the one that was on the ring itself, which was now just a ck tattoo on Brody¡¯s middle-finger. The Demon-Orc grabbed the spot and rubbed it, not noticing anything wrong there, before sighing deeply in relief, "That was a close one... Cominin¡¯ does work after all, eh?" Brodyughed slightly before he stood up properly. He looked at his finger and smiled. "You might be right, our subconscious really does a lot, eh?" Brody said to Eisen, who just slightly smiled, "Guess we gotta get going with the town core as well. I¡¯ll be the Lord for now ¡¯til we¡¯ve got someone else to take over for me or until we get to the ind ofbat. For now we¡¯ve gotta get everything else done, right?" The Demon-Orc pointed out. The other three originals walked up to Brody and Eisen, and the group started to talk about their ns for the near future. First, they would start by making use of all these monsters here to somehow create a proper town, as well as send some of them to the warships that had to be somewhere at this ind, so that the ships could be brought to the ind of craftsmanship to have thempletely rebuilt so that Komer could get his fleet of passenger and transport ships that could continuosly travel back and forth from the central ind and the harbor town. That was the main focus, really. They did also need a couple that would go on some kind of direct route inbetween the inds to make travel there possible, but again, the main focus was to bring people to Protoype to start things out properly. Finding the town core wasn¡¯t all too hard either, since it was just floating in therge, central tent of this huge camp, so Brody chose to quickly set it up here. It could be moved around to other cester when they had other, better structures, but it was fine for it to be here for the time being. Eisen took out the core guardian at the same time as well so that they could immediately set it up here, but at that point, they all realized something. "Erm... Can I even do this? You need to use mana, right?" The Demon-Orc pointed out, and Eisen raised his brows immediately, "That... is a good question, I don¡¯t actually know. I mean, you can try, right? Maybe cores like this were actually set up so that they would work not only with mana, but also other types of energies?" "...Let¡¯s hope so... But I¡¯m definitely gonna need help with the core guardian, right?" Brody pointed out, and Eisen quickly nodded his head, "Yes, sadly, they can only be activated with mana. I¡¯ll activate it for now. But don¡¯t worry, priority-wise, it¡¯s going to listen to you over anyone else anyway, since it¡¯s made to change its ¡¯focus¡¯ to the owner of the core that it connects to." The old man exined, and Brody slowly nodded his head. He ced his palm onto the Town Core and pushed one of his energies inside, and luckily, the core started to glow in a bright light and quickly epted the energies for the activation. Brody picked out a good name while Eisen activated the Core Guardian. It quickly connected to the town core and properly turned into the Town Core Guardian of the town of \u003cIncarna\u003e, as Brody called it in honor of the nameless Incarnation of War. The originals stepped out of the tent, just to see something rather surprising. Before the group got here, the monsters had been mostly split up into different viges so that they could participate in war-games against each other all the time. It seemed like the heads of each of those viges were gathered here and were bowing to Brody. Well, the bipedal ones were bowing, quadripedal ones simplyid down and lowered their head. "You are technically the master of thebat-based sub-guild, so things rted to the military are for you to take care of. So it¡¯s good that they already seem to have some sort of respect for you." The old man pointed out, and Brody just looked at all of these monsters in front of him with a wry smile. "Sure... For now, stand up, all of you. Gather together the injured and treat them. We¡¯ll ¡¯recover¡¯ the dead for you." The Demon-Orc said, "This ¡¯war¡¯ is over for now. You are now part of Asgard¡¯s military. Erm... Dismissed, or somethin¡¯." Immediately, the monster-chiefs went on their way to take care of their tasks, although it seemed weirdly surprising that they just epted all of this so easily. They tried to speak to someone before that they could ask about the treaty they wanted to form, but the originals were just brought to the tent so that they could found the town. It seemed like all the monsters simply switched over to their side the moment the Incarnation of War was dead. Either way, it worked out in the end, so it was all good. First things first, they had to make sure that everyone was really alright, so Jyuuk quickly sent some of his beasts to go get the members of the Originals¡¯ army so that they coulde here, including the ¡¯Dead¡¯, which were now walking here on their own in the form of Zombies, Death Knights, and other sorts of undead. For now, everyone chose to do their own thing, with Eisen trying to see if the equipment, like tents, weapons and tools, were really up to par, and attempted to figure out who made all of these things, considering that while they weren¡¯t of high-quality, they were still well-kept. Either way, there was still something else that Eisen was constantly thinking of. Since they now took over these two inds, there was something that Eisen was supposed to do next that he should prepare for. He should go to heaven, and to hell. Chapter 613 The Gates of Heaven and Hell "Am I really sure that I have everything that I need?" Eisen looked at all his items inside of his item storage, ranging from potions, provisions, tools, materials, weapons, and literally anything that he could possibly need for his trip to heaven and hell. He would need to fight the Guards in front of the respective gates inbat, and since he was only able to pass through alone, there were a lot of things that he really had to be prepared for when making his way there. It was a bit annoying, but it had to be done. Eisen had to go to heaven, get official approval from the gods of heaven, and then go to hell, to also get official approval from the gods of the underworld. And then, he would finally be a True Demon of Yin and Yang. Otherwise, he would literally be unable to achieve that goal ever, something that Eisen couldn¡¯t let happen. But other than that, there was something else that Eisen was kind of nervous about. Before actually heading to heaven and hell, he wanted to do something else as well in order to prepare some extra materials for when he was actually there, in order to create items that were made in heaven or hell respectively. It wasn¡¯t something that he was particrly excited about, he was mostly just... scared. After all, there might be a reason for him to be scared. He didn¡¯t know to what extent certain things happening to him here carried over to the other aside, and somehow, Eisen had that thought stuck in the back of his mind that all the curses ced on his armst time were the reason for why Eisen even ended up getting such tumorous growth inside of his whole arm. He didn¡¯t have anything else like that anywhere in his body, and before that happened he still went on regr checkups simply because he was old and he had to do so in order to make sure that he really got all of the right medication that he needed. But nothing even close to such growths were ever found. So what if the curses really were the reason for why Eisen had those growths in his body? If that was the case, then Eisen simply couldn¡¯t just go forward with his n of turning himself into a ¡¯Being of Yin¡¯ without thinking of what might happen to him if he did. Especiallytely, Eisen became much, much more connected to this world even while he was in his original world. He just couldn¡¯t let this happen until he was sure that he was going to be alright even if he did end up trying. As such, at least for now... Eisen gave up on the idea of doing this. But even then, this was probably not thest time that he would enter heaven. After all, if one could only go there once, then he would not be able to go there even know. Surely something like that wouldn¡¯t be dictated by one¡¯s experience but some kind of gatekeeping entity. The old Eisen wouldn¡¯t have given the current Eisen a task that would be impossible for the current Eisen toplete, which it would be considering that the former Eisen did go to both heaven and hell before, as far as he was currently aware. Either way, there may also be cool materials to work with in these two very different realms just like that. Maybe some special metals, crystals, or general growth. Monsters or creatures that simply couldn¡¯t be found anywhere else that Eisen could kill and gather materials from. And who knew, but it was possible that even if Eisen just made a normal item using simple materials, it could be imbued with special properties. A sword made with simple steel could suddenly have some kind of holy aspect to it after being made in heaven, or an armor made using simple cow¡¯s leather made in a fiery part of hell could have resistance against mes. Eisen really didn¡¯t know what either of those two realms would really do to his craftsmanship, but he was more than just curious to find out. The group had already made their way back to the central Ind and to Prototype after setting up everything they needed to in regards to having a lot of the warships turned into passenger ships. For now, they were really just trying to prepare for the onught of yers or people of this worlding over here to protoype while exploring the inds however much they may ever want to! Of course, this required Eisen to do quite a lot as well, being the King of the country that all these people wanted to visit. He had to make sure that Prototype was prepared, that all the other towns were properly informed and prepared to hold a lot of visitors at once, he had to make sure that there was enough foor circting around so that there wouldn¡¯t be random, sudden cases of starvation across all of \u003cAsgard\u003e. And then, there was an issue that Eisen didn¡¯t even think about all that much yet. The fact that Monsters and people lived together here in town. This was definitely something that had to be exined to every single individual travelling to the inds while they were on the ship. Hopefully it would soon be a thing that people simply knew because it wasmon knowledge, that not all monsters on the ind were bad. But then again, there were other issues rted to that. Some of the monsters living on the inds did travel a lot themselves, but there were also ¡¯wild¡¯ monsters that were free to be hunted. It might be hard for some to differentiate between those two types of monsters. In the end, the solution that Eisen came up with was to make it mandatory for any citizen, even people, to wear a special bracelet when they left town. Not only was it easily noticeable in the first ce, but it also detected if the wearer was appraised and showed that they were indeed a citizen. And to top it off, so that people knew that they couldn¡¯t get away with simple randomly killing, the bracelets would save the information of whoever did end up killing the wielder and immediately send it to the nearest town, who would dispatch people to literally arrest the killer. The soul of whoever or whatever was killed would be stored in a small gemstone ced on the bracelet, so that they could potentially be transferred into something like an ego-golem, or possibly something like a first-generation golem that didn¡¯t need to connect to a core. For now, that seemed like a proper solution for the most tant issues that came up, and Eisen trusted the others to be able to solve any other issues that came up during the time that Eisen was gone and couldn¡¯t really make any major executive decisions in the same way as now. And then, the old man prepared to really leave. He once more made sure that he had everything that he needed for his trips to these two special realms, and then made his way to the part of the ind that was closest toward the two gates. "Can we really note with you?" Caria asked with a sad frown, holding her hands behind her back and looking down at the ground while pouting, and Eisen squatted down in front of her with a soft smile. "I¡¯m afraid so. I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ll be able to pass through the gate with me, and I don¡¯t want to leave you alone in a ce like that. We can¡¯t know if there¡¯s going to be dangerous things there or not, and I wouldn¡¯t want you to have to fight the whole time I¡¯m gone. It¡¯s just too dangerous." The old man said this quite tantly, and without hesitation proceeded to give the three of them a hug. When he pulled back after noticing that they seemed to have understood, he slowly pulled his amulet off his neck, because he didn¡¯t want anything to happen to Kirisho. It was a different thing with his Ego-Sword and Ego-Multitool, because both of them, recently since Eisen reached 400 soul strength the same was the case with the multitool as well, were literally linked with Eisen¡¯s soul. It was a bit weird to think that the multitool that could turn into a humanoid form was now stored literally inside of Eisen¡¯s soul. Literally storing a soul in his soul was weird enough already, but this was at another level of ¡¯weirdness¡¯. Kirisho came out of the ne and looked at Eisen with a light smile on her face, "Just be careful, ande back as soon as you can, you hear?" "Of course I will, don¡¯t worry." The old man said without a moment¡¯s hesitation. Of course, despite the fact that Eisen wouldn¡¯t even be gone for that long, the old man quickly said goodbye to everyone. He made sure that everyone could say what they needed to say to him, and then turned around. He increased his size and activated his Draconic Demon King transformation before kicking off the ground and pping his wings and proceeded to fly toward the gates. And just like he was told, the two gates soon appeared, albeit in a weird way. It was as if they just appeared when he got close enough, although he was already able to see things in the distance after them. As if they were invisible until he got close enough. And really, the gates were rather... straightforward. They were both huge, circr gates, either floating in the sky connected to parts of floating rock, or floating on the water with a deep, dark abyss in the ocean underneath it. But both of them were closed with thick metal doors that didn¡¯t seem like they could be opened that easily. The gate in the water was pitch-ck, the one floating in the sky was pure white, just like Eisen somewhat expected them to be. Although, the Guards seemed the opposite. Both of them were just giant men in full armor-sets, being roughly 15 meters in height. But the Guard standing on top of the gate to hell was pure white with two angelic wings on its back, and teh one standing underneath the gate of heaven was pitch ck with two demonic, bat-like wings on its back. And ¡¯standing underneath¡¯ quite literally meant that it was standing upside down on the gate to heaven, as if its feet were sticking to the metal. Just like that, Eisen was looking at these two beings, and had to make a choice about who he would fight first. Chapter 614 The Guard of Heaven Eisen was pping his wings, trying to keep himself suspended mid-air as he was thinking about who of the two Guards he should fight first and foremost. That was because together with that, he would make the choice of which ce he would go to first as well. And in the end, the old man figured that it really didn¡¯t matter too much, and approached the one that he was most curious about, the gate to heaven that had the pitch-ck Guard standing on the gate upside-down. He approached it while flying, and the moment that he was underneath it, he was being pulled toward the gate, as if the direction of gravity changed all of a sudden. Unable to react perfectly in time, Eisen fell onto the gate, and pushed himself off the ¡¯ground¡¯ after being hurt a little bit. It was just a bit of a bruise though, so nothing serious. The old man turned toward the Guard. He was d in pitch-ck armor and was carrying a shield in one hand and a sword in the other. They were both held over each other, so the sword¡¯s tip was pressed into the ground while the shield was in front of the sword¡¯s handle, facing Eisen right now. Slowly, the old man approached the guard. Others may think that he was giant, but to Eisen, he was actually rather short. The Guard was roughly 15 meters tall, while Eisen was 23 meters tall, so Eisen luckily had the advantage there. Or rather, it was better to say that he simply didn¡¯t have a disadvantage. Eisen approached the Guard a bit more and then stopped when it suddenly held the sword and shield in its hands properly, as if ready to fight. In a truly devilish voice, dry, unpleasant, andpletely unfit to that sort of body, the Guard spoke, "Do you wish to take the test to pass through to the heavens with your life intact?" Eisen looked at the Guard and immediately nodded his head, stretching his hand out forward to make his sword appear in it, "Yes, I do." Immediately, the rough hint at a stance from before changed into a perfect form, making it look like the Guard was waiting for Eisen to do the same to let the fight start. And so, the old man did just that. He held his sword tightly in both his hands, and all of a sudden, a wall of light appeared inbetween the Guard and him, as if dividing them. Slowly, that wall was growing smaller and smaller, and Eisen quickly understood what it was for. This was like a timer counting down toward the start of the fight. Eisen watched as the wall approached his own height, and then as it approached the Guard¡¯s height. Soon it became short enough for Eisen to step over casually, and then it became short enough for a person to do the same. While this was happening, Eisen was infusing his sword with his Demonic Transformation as well, and just waited to be able to get started. He wasn¡¯t abatist, and while he did get better atbat through the memories about the fights with Brody in the past, he still wasn¡¯t amazing at it, because all that he got were snippets of the actualbat. Those memories weren¡¯t focused on that, they were more focused on Brody. Soon, the wall of light disappearedpletely, and was reced by a bright spark as if to say that the fight was starting ¡¯right now¡¯. And so, the old man jumped forward, at the exact same time as the Guard to heaven¡¯s gate did it. The Guard stabbed its de forward at Eisen, but before it reached him, Eisen swung his own de down and hit it at the Guard. It blocked the attack with its shield, but at the same time, it had to stop its own attack. With the support of the soul ced into his Sword, Eisen pulled it away from the shield and made it practically flow around the defenses of the Guard, hitting the de into the side of its body where it currently didn¡¯t seem to have any major defenses besides its armor. In response, the Guard pushed its shield down and pushed Eisen¡¯s sword away, which in turn opened up Eisen¡¯s own weak points. The Guard once more stabbed the de forward, and at a pace too quick for Eisen to properly respond, the old man was cut into the side of his own body. He was able to twist away so it wasn¡¯t a direct attack, but the cut was still at least an inch or two deep, and was gaping as Eisen started to bleed from it. Without hesitation the old man shrunk down as much as he could and pulled out the healing jelly he kept in one of his apron pockets for this, quickly cing it onto his wound directly. It was quickly absorbed and healed the wound, stopping the bleeding at the same time before Eisen increased his size again. And of course, he didn¡¯t let this chance up. He had moved a bit more underneath the guard by flying while he was small, and was now stabbing his de upward while he increased his size at a fast pace, to increase the speed incredibly. Eisen managed to hit the Guard¡¯s armor and even put a deep cut into the metal as well. Eisen could see a white liquid dripping out of the wound, which he assumed to be this being???s blood. It was a bit weird to see this from a creature like this. It was obviously supposed to be a being from hell, but its pure white, pristine and somewhat holy blood seemed to say otherwise. These beings were probably neither beings of heaven nor of hell, and rather something like a mixture of both. That, or neither. But either way, Eisen¡¯s de was now covered in a thinyer of this white blood, and it seemed to weirdly energize it even more, as if the de was feeding off of the blood for extra energy. It was probably just some mental trick where he just got excited he managed to get a good attack in, but Eisen couldn¡¯t tell if the de has simrly weird feeding-habits to his Multi-tool, Bai. But for now, that didn¡¯t matter. Since Eisen was still pretty close to the Guard while it was hit and jumping back, it managed to get a good attack in as well, although it mostly just affected Eisen¡¯s apron. It was nearlypletely cut up straight, and in a small area, even Eisen¡¯s skin was grazed a bit. The old man grumbled quietly to himself as he repaired the apron with his itembination skill, just fusing the cut parts back together, "Don¡¯t you dare hurt my dear items." The old man muttered, before using his wings to help his eleration forward as he jumped at the Guard. He stabbed hisrge de forward, and the Guard quickly put up its shield on the ce where the impact would have been to protect itself, but Eisen quickly stopped his own movement with the same things that he used to start it. He used that momentum that was simply still there to divert the path his de travelled in and cut to the side. Eisen followed the changed momentum and slid around the shield¡¯s defense, managing to cut the Guard¡¯s arm up. The Guard tried to defend a bit by moving his arm around, so that his arm wouldn¡¯t be straight-up cut off, but so that only the surface of it would be affected. And so, Eisen basically cut off a strip of the Guard¡¯s flesh, including a part of his armor, causing even more white blood to stter around, soon staining parts of its own armor white. The old man continued, and tried to cut the Guard¡¯s back now that he was in a position where he could, and shed his de to the side, but the Guard jumped away. All that Eisen hit was the Guard¡¯s de. There was a small dent in the edge now, and that was in a situation where the Guard actively tried to deflect and defend. Like that, Eisen got his new target for now. The old man took a step back at the same time as the Guard, and when it seemed like it was about to attack Eisen, he jumped forward as well, holding his de to the side as far as he could. The Guard shed down at Eisen, thinking that he was defenseless as he wasn¡¯t moving and had an open stance, but the old man was just waiting for this. Eisen shed his de toward the Guard¡¯s, and before he knew it, managed to cut through its item. To an extent, this actually felt kind of too easy. He thought that the items a being like this would wield were supposed to be far more high-quality, and wouldn¡¯t be destroyed this easily. But who knew, maybe this was on purpose, or Eisen¡¯s sword was just that great. However, seemingly having learned from Eisen, the Guard used its wings to help it move around, speeding up its retreat. Seeing this, Eisen felt a little empowered. The Guard to heaven had to be careful while fighting him... Just the idea of that made it sound like Eisen was incredibly strong, probably stronger than he actually was. Either way, Eisen just continued on and on, he wouldn¡¯t let the Guard retreat properly. Again and again, the old man shed his de at it and increased the damage that he was doing to it over time. And soon, the old man was standing in front of a pure-white figure instead of the pitch-ck one that he was looking at before. With a slight grin on his face, he continued. He cut the Guard up. It lost an arm, then a leg. Until Eisen stood above the corpse of the Guard. The old man waved the level-up notification to the side and looked at the one that was more important to him right now. [Congrattions! You have beaten the Guard protecting the gate of heaven, and have earned the right to enter the divine realm] The moment he read this, the metal gate under his feet simply opened up, and Eisen felt the force that was pulling on him increase incredibly. He wasn¡¯t even able to fly against this force, and just had to let it take him to heaven. His eyes were filled with a bright white light, and his whole body felt like it was covered in a perfectly pleasant air. It was like he was in the perfect ce, as if he could just doze off right now if he wanted to and just sleep forever. Chapter 615 Realm of the Dragon King Thisfortable air and aura in general continued on surrounding Eisen and simply became stronger and stronger the longer he stayed here. At some point, it didn¡¯t even feel all that unnatural, and it was like he always felt this way. He was able to keep himself awake properly, and it became easier over time as well despite thefortable air continuing to grow stronger and stronger while Eisen fell. And soon, he reached the ground. It was sudden, and he didn¡¯t even realize that hended on the ground at first. It was like he simply stood there all of a sudden. No impact, no force, nothing. He was just there. All of Eisen¡¯s transformation¡¯s werepletely removed from him at the same time without Eisen noticing, and he seemingly returned to his normal size, not that he had any proper point of reference for this. He just knew. Eisen was standing on arge tform made of carved rock with different noble metals, gems, crystals, and other beautiful materials of the sort worked into it. The first thing that the old man did was take a deep breath while turning around and trying to see if there was anything else but this carved rock tform underneath his feet. He looked around a couple times, but the whole time, there was just nothing there around him but that tform and the universe above him in the form of a beautiful starry sky. For a few moments, he actually just looked up at that sky, realizing that he quite seldomly spent time to just rx and look at beautiful sights like this just for the sake of the experience. Everything that he did these days was for a greater purpose, but never for just the basic experience itself. It was a sad thing in the old man¡¯s opinion, especially considering that in the past, before he ever set foot into the capsule, he only did things for the experience. Especially in the past couple of years after his arm had been injured. Eisen tried a lot of new things that he could actually still do. He spent a lot of time reading books he never even considered reading before, went on a few hikes, watched beautiful sceneries, and basically just tried to indulge in the little things of life a little more, while he still had the time to actually do so. While staring into the sky, the light of the stars reflecting from his eyes, Eisen suddenly heard a voice from right behind him, "How wonderful it is to see that you realize the beauty of this ce." Eisen turned around as quickly as he could and stared at the figure that was now in front of him. It was the figure of apletely androgynous person with white angelic wings. They were wearing a white suit with silver linings and details, and smiled at Eisen gently. The old man wasn¡¯t sure if he recognized this Angel or not. Momentarily it would feel like he did, but the next moment it felt like he didn¡¯t. After just blinking for a moment, it would feel like Eisen was looking at a whole other person, like this Angel¡¯s face was slowly but steadily shifting and changing constantly. Although, Eisen couldn¡¯t actually spot anything like this directly happening. "Who are you?" Eisen asked bluntly, and the Angel quietly chuckled, "I am your guide for the heavens. Even considering how great of a being you are, we cannot allow you to wander this realm alone. You are still alive, after all." Eisen slowly rxed after hearing this, since it was really quite logical for this to be the case. This was literally heaven, there were bound to be a few things here and there that the gods didn¡¯t want a living person to see, after all. The old man looked at the Angel in front of him, "So, what should I call you, if I should call you anything at all." With a slightugh, the Angel closed its eyes and just smiled, "You can call me whatever you wish, but the name I was given by the gods is Ambriel." It exined to the old man, who quickly nodded his head. "Alright, Ambriel. Then tell me, as my guide, what do I need to do to be acknowledged by the Gods of Heaven." Eisen asked, and Ambriel continued to smile, "I had thought you would never ask. It is quite simple. In order to get the \u003cAcknowledgement of Heaven¡¯s Gods\u003e, all you need to do is enter the godly realms of ten different gods, and receive the acknowledgement of those ten gods. Of course, even if you can¡¯t gain the acknowledgement of one god, don¡¯t worry, you can try however long you want." Ambriel exined, "There really is no way for you topletely fail this general quest." [New Quest - Acknowledgement of Heaven¡¯s Gods] [Description] You have entered heaven and are trying to be acknowledged by the gods. After encountering the Guide-Angel Ambriel, you were told that you had to get acknowledged by ten different greater gods in order to aplish this. [Conditions] Be acknowledged by ten gods of heaven (0/10) [Reward] \u003cAcknowledged by Heaven¡¯s Gods\u003e Title [Penalty] None Eisen looked at the Quest notification with a light grin before proceeding to wave it away. He immedaitely looked at Ambriel. "So, where do I need to go to meet the gods?" The old man asked. Ambriel slowly turned around and started to walk toward the edge of this rock tform, quickly followed by Eisen himself. Once they reached the edge, Ambriel stood there and looked forward toward the nothingness, the universe that he could now see in front of him as well. "Erm... So, where is it?" Eisen asked again, not sure if Ambriel properly understood him, but the Angel justughed as he looked at him, "We¡¯re there already." Slowly, Ambriel turned around and started to walk into the center of the tform again, or so Eisen thought. But when the old man turned around as well, he saw that this very much wasn¡¯t the case. Instead, Eisen found that he was suddenly inside of a giant hall, the walls covered in doors belonging to different deities. "All these doors belong to greater gods." Ambriel swiftly exined quickly, and Eisen looked around with his eyes wide open and his mouth slightly agape at the sight in front of him. This was an incredibly well-decorated hall that gave off a feeling of pure honor and divinity. There were incredibly intricate carvings everywhere, on the doors, the ground, the pirs holding this ceiling up, literally everything. It seemed like this hall was at the same time infinitely big and infinitely small, like he could reach every point he wanted to with just a single step while standing still, but the moment he started to move, the distance between point A and B became painfully apparent. "I see... Then, first things first, I would like to enter the Crystal Dragon King Trygan¡¯s realm." The old man said bluntly, and without a moment¡¯s hesitation, Ambriel nodded his head and started to walk toward the door in question. Eisen followed him and soon reached the door. On the front, it had something like a dragon figurine set into it with the two wings being the actual two sides of the double-door entrance. The old man pushed against those two doors and noticed as they were pushed open with a blinding bright light that forced him to shut his eyes. And the moment that he managed to open his eyes again, he wasn¡¯t inside of the hall anymore, but instead found himself standing in the middle of a grassy teau with a cool, pleasant breeze hitting his skin. The old man took a look around himself, and immediately noticed something in the distance. Different dragons flying through the sky, as if racing each other. Eisen walked over toward the side of the teau and looked down, seeing even more dragons justying around and sleeping in the sun in the distance. But the thing that Eisen really noticed even more was the actual town that he saw in the distance. It was truly enormous, huge, spanning further than Eisen could see right now. There were towers made of crystal scattered inbetween the regr structures of all sorts of architectural styles, and had numerous dragons flying around above it. "This is Trygan¡¯s realm?" Eisen asked with a light smirk on his face, and Ambriel, who was still with him, slowly nodded their head. "Yes, it is. It¡¯s quite beautiful, is it not? You will find simr sights in the other realms, but each one has a specific sort of beauty to it that is unique to that realm. Of course, there are numerous dragons of all sorts here that used to worship Trygan, but there are also plenty of people that did the same. There are few people that never found themselves at least somewhat tied toward any one of the gods¡¯ ideologies, especially since there are numerous different gods. If you then die, you will go to the realm of that god. However, if you were truly good without a deity¡¯s morale to influence you, there are more options than that. Some be Angels, others get the chance to be reborn if they so wish. Otherwise, if they want neither, they can spend their afterlife in any one of the heavens they wish to be in." "Are there those that changed their mind after death, or became different people so that they don¡¯t align with the deity in whose heaven they are?" Eisen asked, and Ambriel quietly started to think about that question, before nodding, "I do think that quite rarely, there are those types. You see, just being pure souls, there are little ways to change their nature, so most likely, they will change very littlepared to when they die. But rarely, when that is the case and the deity in charge of them notices this, the soul will be allowed to change the realm they reside in to the one that would fit their soul then. After all, there is little reason to punish them for something like that." Eisen slowly looked toward the huge town filled with the souls of the dead, and then slowly tried to activate his Draconic Demon King transformation. And it did work, but somehow, Eisen could only turn into hisplete yang version, and couldn¡¯t shift that at all. He figured that was just the influence of heaven. The old man pped his draconic wings and soon was pulled off the ground, before starting to fly toward the town to find Trygan. He was probably there, after all. He was swiftly followed by Ambriel, who would most likely only watch the old man¡¯s actions for now. But either way, for now, it was time to get officially acknowledged by his son for the second time now. Chapter 616 Kind Soul Eisen kept looking at the scenery around him as he was flying toward the huge town in front of him. There really were a lot of beautiful ces to see, and many different ones quite literally scattered around each other. The old man could see a snow-covered area when he was looking in one direction, and a zing hot desert when he was looking into the other direction. Most likely, this was just the case so that every single believer of Trygan could actually find a good ce to spend their afterlife. After all, it wouldn¡¯t be good if they were unhappy here, especially those that dedicated their life to the Crystal Dragon God. Soon, Eisen was flying above the actual town, and the moment that he did so, he was able to see some quite interesting things. There were people actually going out of their way running shops here in this heaven. They were making things, selling them to whoever was interested, and seemingly even trading for actual money. Did you really have to work even during your afterlife so that you could survive? Eisen turned his head and looked over at Ambriel, but he was just nkly looking at Eisen, seemingly not nning onmenting on this in the slightest. With a deep sigh, Eisen chose to descent down into the town so that he could get a closer look. It¡¯s not like he was short on time, after all. And since Trygan was a god of justice, nobody would randomly attack him, at least that¡¯s what Eisen figured. Luckily, all that happened was that Eisen got a few surprised looks when hended there. It was probably because they noticed that Eisen was different from them, that he was still alive. A few people here looked at him with jealousy for that, but most of them just went about their business without even fully acknowledging him all the way through. They nced at him, and then continued. Eisen figured that that was a good thing, he didn¡¯t want to cause a ruckus, after all. But either way, the old man figured that he should make his way over toward one of the shops, and in particr chose one that was somewhat empty right now. Even though there were bound to be millions over millions of people here, probably far more than Eisen expected, this ce actually wasn¡¯t all that busy right now. Probably because the town was sorge, and it wasn¡¯t actually the only ce where people could be in this realm. The old man walked up to the shop and looked at the one that seemed to be the shopkeeper, a human man in his physical peak, young and strong like a warrior that seemed like he could destroy a boulder with his bare hands. His skin was covered in intricate tattoos belonging to one of the ancient tribes of people that would pray to Trygan as their god. And despite his physical appearance that many may see as intimidating, he was just sitting there, calmly painting something onto the canvas propped up on his easel. "Excuse me, could you answer a question or two of mine?" Eisen asked at a moment where it seemed like he wouldn¡¯t disturb this man¡¯s actions too much, and he slowly turned around and looked at him, "Of course, how can I help you? It¡¯s rare to see the living here. Well, ¡¯rare¡¯ is a bit of an understatement, the only one who I could call ¡¯Living¡¯ that I see every once in a while otherwise is our Lord Trygan." The manughed in a gentle, calm tone. Satisfied to see that it seemed like Eisen would be able to speak to this man properly, he slowly looked at the Canvas and at the other things at this open stall-like storefront, "Is there a specific reason to why you¡¯re doing this? Why are you painting or selling things while you could spend your afterlife simply rxing?" With a slightugh, the man just looked back at Eisen, "¡¯Simply rxing¡¯ soon gets rather unnerving, you see? It is much more fun to spend my time like this. I have been here for five thousand years, you know?" The man pointed out, and the corners of Eisen¡¯s mouth slightly curled up. "I see, so that was the reason after all. But just wondering, you don¡¯t actually have to work, right? I saw someone trading with money before, is that really a thing here?" Slowly, the man in front of Eisen grabbed something at the side of his body and held it forward toward the old man, "Here, you can take a look. We have different coins here, but we don¡¯t really need them. Everyone simply receives the home of their dreams to live in for all eternity, and if you get bored of that house, it shifts depending on what you want at that moment. We don¡¯t need to eat, sleep, or work, but we do so because we wish to. We indulge in gluttony and sloth, just because it¡¯s fun to us and calms us down. But it is often unsatisfying to just get whatever you wish for. So, if you wish to have something special for yourself, you can work for it in any way that you think you can. You can have duels and bet on them, you can make art and sell it, you can do whatever you wish without consequences." Eisen slowly started to smile and took a slight look at the brush that the man was using. It was simple, there was truly nothing special about it, but it was nice. And weirdly enough, it showed signs of being used but didn¡¯t deteriorate. You could use this brush forever, but it wouldn¡¯t break, but would still show signs of all that you went through with it. That was surely satisfying, but Eisen still was wondering about something, "And what of those that wish to reincarnate rather than spend their life here?" "Ah!" The man excliamed, "Lord Trygan chooses those that are worthy of reincarnating himself. Amongst those that actually wish to reincarnate, Lord Trygan gives priority to those that have died unfairly, or who did great things while they were alive. Of course, most of the time, you can simply reincarnate the moment you voice to Lord Trygan that you wish to do so, and he will send you along to the goddess of reincarnation, but in rare cases some souls had to wait to be reincarnated." "And nobody ever regrets their choices?" "I would imagine not. Ever since I have died, I have be my truest self. Everything that I wish for is clear to me, there is nothing tainted about my emotions. And only those that wish to reincarnate with their whole being, who have no other wish, are allowed to do so. So no, I don¡¯t think anybody regrets their choice." Eisen looked at the kind, gentle man in front of him, before the man slowly looked down at the brush in his hand as well, "For example, one of the things that I wish for is a new brush. I currently only have this one, but it¡¯s not made for thin lines orplex patterns. I love this brush, but there are things that it cannot do." He exined, and Eisen slowly started to smirk. And the moment the man finished speaking, some notifications appeared right in front of Eisen. [New Quest ¨C Trygan¡¯s Acknowledgement] [Description] You are seeking to be acknowledged by the gods of heaven and made your way into the realm of the Crystal Dragon King Trygan. He has given you the task to assist in the happiness of the people of his realm. [Condition] Fulfill a wish of 10 Souls in Trygan¡¯s realm (0/10) [Reward] Trygan¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None [New Sub-Quest ¨C A Painter¡¯s Brush] [Description] A soul wishing to paint has asked for a new brush. A brush that can be used to draw thin lines and intricate patterns. [Condition] Create a brush to the liking of this soul [Reward] Advance in the Quest \u003cTrygan¡¯s Acknowledgement\u003e, 1 Heavenly Gold Coin [Penalty] The soul will be disappointed Eisen raised his brows in surprise before just starting to smile, and then waved his hand to the side to get rid of the notifications. "Well then, if you want to have a brush, how about I make you one? In exchange for telling me all of this." The old man suggested, and the man slowly looked at Eisen in surprise, "You are a craftsman?" He asked, and Eisen quietlyughed and nodded, "You could say that, yes. Would you be able to describe to me what you want the brush to look like?" With a slight smile, the man turned a bit more toward Eisen, "I don¡¯t think there is much that I need in a brush. The only thing that I could mention may be simple crystal bristles. I would like to leave the rest up to you." The man exined in a simple tone, and Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Alright, I can do that. Just give me a second. This is actually a pretty good chance." Without hesitation, Eisen opened up his item storage right in the ground underneath him and left just a small space open that he could drop through, and when he was inside, just started to grab whatever materials he might need. And in the end, those boiled down to a special type of gem that Eisen created a while ago with the help of Evalia, a type that was perfect for artists, as well as a simple piece of oak wood that was infused with enough mana to be close to turning into Wizard¡¯s Oak, but didn¡¯t actually turn into Wizard¡¯s Oak yet. And then, the old man came back out of his item storage and with his element quickly made a small seat out of rock for him. The next moment, Eisen waved his hand forward and let Bai out of his soul storage, and the ego-multitool just stood right in front of Eisen before looking around, "Where we?" It asked, and Eisen quickly looked at it, "In heaven. I¡¯ll exin while we¡¯re working, but turn into your tool form for now." "Okay!" It eximed, and immediately turned into its other form and switched around to be a carving knife that Eisen immediately used to carve the oak into shape. It wouldn¡¯t be aplex shape of course, it was just a brush that had to sit in this soul¡¯s hand properly. Eisen would add a few more special parts, but he didn¡¯t want to make the brush ufortable to hold. With that mindset, Eisen started working on his first item in heaven! Chapter 617 Heavenly Dragons Dance Eisen ran the knife over the surface of the wood and carved away at it. First things first, he had to get a proper, basic shape for brush-handle. Of course, that was not particrly hard, and within a few minutes, the old man was already done with that. Then, he moved on to try to figure out what exactly he should turn this brush into when ites to style. Immediately, he started to visualize something in the air in front of him with the use of his visualization skill. He changed the patterns around, the actual shape, certain details, and things like that. And it really didn¡¯t take long for Eisen toe up with something good. First, he turned the piece of wood into the regr form that he wanted the brush to have. It wasn¡¯t really all thatplex, but just something that would sit in this Soul¡¯s hand properly while he was painting. But now, the real details came, and Eisen started to slowly carve into the surface of the brush¡¯s handle and created the pattern that he wanted to give it. And that pattern was a simple carving of two serpent-like dragons wrapping themselves around each other in a spiral without leaving any gaps, with their snouts meeting at the tip of the brush. The old man slowly pushed his hand into one of his chest-pockets and grabbed the small special-paintbrush that he made for himself using Evalia¡¯s element so that he could create magic paint of any color he wanted to. For that, he basically just created a small system where a setting-menu would pop up with a color-wheel in the center of it, as well as a few more different options connected to the quality and texture of the paint. Like that, he could quickly get to work, fed a little bit of mythril to his paintbrush so that he could create metallic paint, and then started to paint the two dragons. One of them was ck with blue shading, and the other one was white with orange shading to its body and scales. The colors were subtle enough so that they wouldn¡¯t be distracting, but still strong enough so that you could immediately see them when looking at the brush. And then, the old man got to the part with the bristles. He grabbed the item that he used to turn materials, which by now he had minimized as much as he could by cing everything inside of a specialized spatial gem with different input- and output-streams, and quickly got started turning the special ¡¯artist gems¡¯ into threads to use for the bristles. But of course, before then, Eisen dyed the gems different colors. A dark blue that woulde out of the white dragon¡¯s mouth, and a light orange that woulde out of the ck dragon¡¯s mouth. He created the threads and properly wove them together so that he could just attach them to the brush, even using alchemical softening to make them a bit better as bristles for the kind of brush the soul wanted. Eisen twisted the two colors together so that at the base, they were split apart, but at the tip they had been properly led together. Using Item Combination and Transmutation, Eisen properly fused the bristles to the insides of the two dragon¡¯s mouths to make it look as if the bristles were their fiery breaths. The old man looked at this small item in his hands, and then watched as Bai pushed out a needle out of its body after basically reading Eisen¡¯s thoughts. The old man pushed the needle onto the brush, pushed his mana inside, then pulled all of that mana out of the brush to start with the inscription. The thing about this special ¡¯Artist Gem¡¯ was that this specificbination of crystals and gems had a specific synergy with each other when it came to innate effects. And right now, Eisen was looking at those effects. Waves of any color Eisen could think of were twisting and twirling around each other, and in general, there was just a wave of chaos in front of Eisen¡¯s eyes. But that was exactly something that just made it beautiful. The colors didn¡¯t mix into a muddy mess, but simply shifted their tone after mixing with each other to be even more beautiful than before. They created random patterns that were simply nice to look at, or were just a random mess that could make you reminisce of whatever was on your mind, as if you were trying to see a shape in the clouds. This synergy in itself was what both Evalia and Eisen thought to be a beautiful thing, and something that only thisbination of crystals and gems could achieve. And the mythril of the brush¡¯s paint that wasn¡¯t directly part of thebination seemed to just speed all this chaotic movement up even more. Eisen pushed the tip of his needle against those colors and practically sucked them in together into just a specific point in front of the needle, focusing everything into a marble-sized sphere of chaotic colors. And then, the old man ran that marble through the two dragons, one after another, focusing the flow of these colors to the front. From the tail to the snout, it now seemed like the white dragon was actually flying, shifting, as if he was alive, while he actually wasn¡¯t. And when Eisen did the same with the second, it felt like he was just holding two dragons who were performing a dance with each other in his hands. Then, the old man split the rest of this chaotic color-energy into the mouths of the two dragons, and intertwined those two halves with each other at the tip of the bristle, creating the feeling as if it was truly made of fire. Of course, the brush wasn¡¯t actually changing or shifting in any way, the only thing that was slightly changing were the ent-colors that Eisen added. The orange of the white dragon¡¯s scales and the ck dragon¡¯s mes would turn yellow and then green, and the blue of the ck dragon¡¯s scales and the white dragon¡¯s mes would turn purple and then red. Slowly but steadily changing, as if the brush really was alive. And with that, the old man was more than just satisfied. Without the mythril-paint, he probably wouldn¡¯t have been able to transfer this color-changing effect over to the brush¡¯s handle either. For the most part, Evalia liked to use this gem to create paint for herself that she could use for things like color-changing paintings to strengthen them a bit more, so this kind of use in an actual brush wasn¡¯t what it was created for, although it certainly worked. And since this gemstone would absolutely have no effect on the actual paint that the man would be using, this was really just a small gimmick that Eisen figured would be a bit of a nice touch. A brush that felt like it was alive, as a gift from the living man that visited heaven. With a satisfied expression, Eisen saw this brush as finished, and gave it a bit of a finishing touch in the area of Effects and Requirements. [Brush of the heavenly Dragons¡¯ Dance] [Rank ¨C 6][Quality ¨C Perfect] [Description] A brush created by the Omni-Craftsmaster Eisen while he visited the heavens. Due to the intricate carvings on the wood as well as a special material used in the creation, parts of the chromatic ents slowly change and shift over time, giving the illusion that the Dragons may be alive and enjoying their beautiful dance in the hands of an artist. As it was created in heaven, it has been imbued with holy energies. [Effect] \u003cArtist¡¯s Possession\u003e Trait, \u003cDragon King¡¯s Holy Aura\u003e Trait [Requirement] Have this brush be gifted to you by the Dragon King¡¯s Father Eisen slightly smirked as he looked at the effect and saw that it properly worked. He opened the information screen for this ability. [Trait] Artist¡¯s Possession [Effect] If you carry the true will of an artist, and truly only if you do, this will be in your possession always. It will not wear down, it will not degrade, and it will never leave your side as long as you meet the requirements. If you bind your soul to it, you will find it again even in your next life. [Activation] Constant --- [Trait] Dragon King¡¯s Holy Aura [Effect] This item constantly gives off a slight holy aura. Unholy beings will be damaged and repelled if they were to touch it. Anything painted with this brush will give off the same holy aura. As it was specifically imbued with the holy energy of the Dragon King¡¯s realm, it will give off holy energy specific to him. Eisen was happy to see both of these traits being a thing. The first one, he had specifically nned for. The requirement \u003cHave this brush be gifted to you by the Dragon King¡¯s Father\u003e was obviouslypletely ridiculous, and impossible for most to achieve, meaning that it was possible to create a simrly ridiculous effect. But luckily, Eisen is going to gift this to the man in front of him, and everything would work out. Since Eisen wasn¡¯t particrly interested in the money that was offered, it should count as a gift if he rejected the money, instead of being seen as something like amission. However, the second effect was something that Eisen really wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything about. And he expected something like this from the get-go. There was no way that an item made in heaven wouldn¡¯t have exactly such effects. But it was fine, everything here had been imbued with that ¡¯holy energy¡¯ anyway, so it wouldn¡¯t make much of a difference. It would, however, make a difference if the man bound the brush to his soul, which was currently his whole being, and would end up finding the brush after being reborn again in the future. Having something like this then, an item made in heaven, might be slightly important. It was fine, though, that was something to deal with another time. It was a great item, so that¡¯s all that mattered. Eisen waved the notifications to the side and soon saw the faces of numerous souls looking at him out of curiousity. They seemed interested in what a living person would craft while in heaven, after all. There was even a rtively small dragon sitting on top of one of the houses¡¯ roofs, staring at the old man. With a slight sigh, the old man stood up and walked back over to the painter, before handing the brush to him with a smile on his face, "Here you go, the brush you asked for. I hope you like it." Chapter 618 Memento The man looked at the unique paint brush in his hand, and ran his fingers over the small, carved scales and the bristles that looked like waving mes to him. "It is beautiful. Amazingly so." The Soul said with a light smile on his face as he properly ced the brush into his hand to hold it. He pushed the bristles into a small cup of water and ran the bristles over the canvas in front of him a few times to see just how it would feel if he were to paint something using it. The man looked at the thin lines that were created. With a satisfied expression, the man slowly turned his head away from the canvas and gently smiled at Eisen, "It is incredible. Truly something worthy of creating a work of art with." The Soulughed, and the old man quietly chuckled, "I am d to hear that you like it." The man kept looking at Eisen for a little bit longer, expressing how happy he was that he managed to acquire the sort of brush he wanted so quickly, and at the same time managed to get one that was far more incredible than he could have ever thought. And the moment that he did, the old man saw a notification appear in the air right in front of him while the man slowly stood up. "I must thank you. And I don¡¯t know if something like a mere coin would be enough for that. This here item is a small memento of mine from when I still lived. It seems like you are allowed to take a single important thing with you after death." [Sub-Quest Completed ¨C A Painter¡¯s Brush] [Description] A soul wishing to paint has asked for a new brush. A brush that can be used to draw thin lines and intricate patterns. [Condition] Create a brush to the liking of this soul [Reward] Advance in the Quest \u003cTrygan¡¯s Acknowledgement\u003e, 1 Heavenly Gold Coin, Soul¡¯s Memento [Penalty] The soul will be disappointed Eisen stretched his hand out and was soon given not only the gold coin, which he had declined in his short conversation with the man just now, although it seemed like the man insisted on it, saying that he would feel bad if he didn¡¯t give it to Eisen. Besides that gold coin, which took the form of a small golden dragon-scale with patterns and Trygan¡¯s insignia carved right onto it, the old man received a small, old dagger ced into its sheath. Both the handle and the sheath were made of naturally dark-colored wood. At first nce, it may not even seem like a dagger, but just a decorative piece. But when Eisen pulled it out of the sheath, he quickly realized that it was more than just that. There were small scratches and nicks on this item, and it waspletely blunted. Eisen wasn¡¯t even sure if this would be able to cut through butter anymore. Eisen looked at the soul in front of him and pushed the dagger back toward him, "I¡¯m sorry, I cannot ept this. I know how important memories are, so this is not something that I can take from you." The old man exined, but the soul in front of him smiled even more, "I see. Now, I wish for you to have it even more. You see it as it is, an item that holds the vast memories of those that used to wield it. Other souls are not interested in things that hold sentimenta value, but only things that look pretty or that has a worth to them themselves. An old, rusted, nearly broken knife is anything but that. A living man like yourself is the only one that I can see who may appreciate memories more than the mary value these days." "... I would have thought it may be the other way around. That the dead appreciate memories more than anyone else." "What makes you think that? What are we supposed to reminisce here? Beautiful sceneries? There is beauty here that no living person, beside the few like you that managed to pass the gate, has ever seen. Events of greatness you have lived through? The only time when such events hold true value is when there is an inevitable end to your life. When it is finite, and short. Then memories of events are valuable, but not if you have all of eternity to dwell on them." The man exined quickly and bluntly, and Eisen slowly looked down at the dagger in his hand, before the man spoke again. "And then, there are the people. For me, that is the exact reason why I am giving this dagger to you. It was a means to remembering my parent. But when I died and ended up here, I had no need for such things again. Like me, my father was a devote believer in Lord Trygan, and we have been reunited. If dust was a thing here, then it would just catch it for eternity And I don¡¯t want that. Please, take it." Slowly, Eisen looked at the man in front of him and nodded his head, "Alright, I will take it with me. Thank you, I will take good care of it." "I¡¯m sure you will." The man said, "Now, if you¡¯ll excuse me, I¡¯m going to put this new brush to use for a little while. Eisen quietlyughed and nodded his head as he slowly turned around, "It was nice to meet you." And with that, Eisen made his way through this part of the town as he looked at the item in his hand. All this time, Ambriel had been staying silent, but now, it seemed like was slightly curious about something himself. "Why did you do that?" Ambriel asked, and Eisen slowly turned around toward him, "What do you mean?" "Why did you try and do him a favor without even knowing about the task yet, and why did you choose to make something so... incredible, if all that you had to make was a simple brush that he could paint with? You would have been able to do this within maybe ten minutes if you hurried up. But you spent much longer to make something so... uselessly artistic." The Angel pointed out, seemingly genuinely perplexed at why Eisen would ever do something like this, and the old man looked back with his brows raised. Slowly, Eisen looked back forward while Ambriel kept walking slightly behind him, "He helped me out, so I did the same, to answer your first question. And to answer your second question... Then, well, it¡¯s just because I never do anything half-assedly." It seemed like to an extent, Ambrel was satisfied with this answer. At least he didn¡¯t say anything else about it and just kept following Eisen a bit while he went around trying to find other people that he could help. And every single time, Eisen could just make small items for the different souls that he encountered here in the divine realm, or he was supposed to tell stories of what it was like for someone that still lived during this time. Every time, he got a few coins or a small trinket, and then, he managed toplete a total of 9 different tasks for the souls of this divine realm, meaning that only one task was left. And while Eisen was trying to find another person to help out a bit, he also took a look at the few stores that were randomly scattered around this divine realm. He tried to ask a few questions, and the only ones that he answered were those where Eisen asked things rting to the connection between the heavens and the ¡¯mortal realm¡¯. For one, Eisen couldn¡¯t take the money from one divine realm out of it, that meant he couldn¡¯t take it back out of heaven or even to another divine realm to trade with it. It basically just instantly disappeared if he were to do that. But at the very least, it seemed like Eisen would be allowed to take other things out of this realm, different materials or items that he would buy or receive here that weren¡¯t money, which was directly made of Trygan¡¯s magic. So that meant that Eisen would at the very least be able to take back the three small trinkets that he received from people he helped. But this also meant that Eisen should spend all the money that he managed to earn through all of this today. Eisen wanted something that was unique to this realm, something that he couldn¡¯t get anywhere else. If he wanted to gather certain special materials, he would wait until he got to the realm of the God of Craftsmanship. There, the heavenly materials he could procure should be of much higher quality and quantity for the same price, while of course offering a much higher variety. So Eisen didn¡¯t want to waste his money and this chance he got, and tried to buy something that he could really only find here, in the realm of the Crystal Dragon King. But no matter what he found that could be worth buying, it just wasn¡¯t right. He couldn¡¯t find anyone else to help out right now either. So, the old man figured he should try something else, and transformed into his Draconic Demon King form so that he could take flight. He looked around and tried to find another ce here in town where he couldnd and look around, but instead, something else caught Eisen¡¯s eye. Quite literally, actually, as a sh of light momentarily blinded him. The old man held his hand in front of his eye and tried to find the source. It seemed like one of the giant crystal towers was reflecting the light that was radiating off a dragon that just flew past behind it. With a bit of curiosity, Eisen figured that it should be fine to try and follow it for now. Maybe it meant something that he was blinded by this dragon exactly while trying to figure out where to go next. He flew behind it, just following it for a little while. It was incredibly fast, actually, and was constantly giving off a dim light. Although, a dim light shouldn¡¯t have been enough to blind him. Maybe it was trying to catch his attention before, then. The dragon flew somewhat erratically in different directions, as if trying to race the old man. For twenty whole minutes this continued, until itnded at the t top of a mountain¡¯s peak, just waiting for Eisen to get there as well. And the old mannded right next to it with a light smile on his face. Chapter 619 Dragon of Life Eisen looked at the Dragon in front of him as it gave off a light glow off of its body. The old man wasn¡¯t sure why it tried to get Eisen¡¯s attention just yet, but he would hopefully find out now. He slowly opened his mouth and was about to inquire, but before he could, he was quickly interrupted, "There is no particr reason why I have tried to have youe to me, if that is what you were about to ask an answer for." The Dragon exined in a calm, feminine tone of voice. But it was different to when dragons normally spoke. Then, their voice still came out of their throats like normal, they actually moved their jaws, and it actually looked like they were speaking because, well, they were. They were just speaking normally, even if it looked a bit weird to see snouts like that produce regr sounds. But with this Dragon, it just kept its mouth shut and the voice started echoing around Eisen, as if it wasn¡¯t actually speaking but using some other means ofmunication. The old man crossed his arms and started to frown, "Then let me ask something else, who are you?" He asked instead, and the Dragon lightly chuckled, or so it sounded. The actual white, glowing dragon just closed his eyes and had a slightly pleasant smile on its face, or so it seemed to Eisen at the very least. "That is a good question. I am the Dragon of Life, Lirgtur. Is that enough for you, or do you wish for me to continue?" "I would appreciate something a bit more detailed. Just knowing what kind of Dragon you are doesn¡¯t help me a lot." The old man pointed out, although he wasn¡¯t entirely telling the truth. It did help him figure something else out. And that was that there were other sorts of dragons than just chromatic and metallic ones. A Dragon of Life didn¡¯t seem like any sort of dragon that Eisen found so far, or ever heard of, really. That must mean that this dragon must have died quite a long time ago... somewhat ironically. "Then I shall say this, but not much more. I was thest of my kind, but I was viciously in while trying to protect my unhatched eggs, and that was thousands and thousands of years ago. Tens of thousand, even." Lirtgur exined bluntly, and Eisen slowly let his arms hang at the side of his body, "Then I can¡¯t believe that you didn¡¯t call me for a reason anymore. Do you want me to promise I¡¯ll find out who killed you? Or do you want me to find their descendents and kill them for you?" The old man inquired, but without hesitation, the Dragon of Life shook her head. "Of course not. I do not wish death upon anyone. But I guess you are right, there is something I may have wanted you to do for me... But it was a sort of hope that I can¡¯t tell if you will be able to fulfill for me." Lirgtur exined quietly, in a slightly sad tone of voice, and without a moment¡¯s hesitation the old man sighed to himself, "I¡¯ll try my best, don¡¯t worry. So just tell me what exactly you want me to try, and I will." "Thank you. You see, your words do truly hold a certain sense of truth to them. I do wish for you to find out what exactly happened to the man that has in me, but not for the reasons you may think. I do not hope for vengeance and despair, but simply for... truth. It did not seem as if this man wished to kill me, but had this task forced upon him. He even shed a tear for me the moment I took myst breaths." Lirgtur exined, "As I lost my life, I ripped off a certain ne of his, and while I do not know why, I was allowed to take it with me to the afterlife like many are allowed to do with mementos. It is a handmade piece of jewelry, carved out of a fine piece of wood. It seems to be the symbol of Zain, the God of Life. For a while, I was prayed to by men as his apostle, despite obviously not being one. Otherwise I would not be here, but in Zain¡¯s realm instead." "Alright... So you want me to investigate the church of Zain to find out things about your death?" The old man asked, but Lirgtur slowly shook her head, "No, I think you misunderstand. I would like you to find out what happened to the man that has in me. A follower of the God of Life Zain is not allowed to take lives in this way. They strongly believe in the circle of life. They hunt their own meat, nt their own crops, and use everything from any life that they can so that they may be able to feed themselves or friends and family. They are a part of nature. But killing me should not have given him much of a benefit if that was the case. I have never before taken a life, as I cherish it too much, and I would never dare to attack others or put them in danger. And that man simply left my body to rot and made the ce I died in cave in so that I would never be found. I want you to find the truth behind this event, as illogical as it may seem." Lirgtur exined quite bluntly, and Eisen slowly crossed his arms. It really did seem like there was something going on here, but... Eisen didn¡¯t understand why exactly he was supposed to try and find things out about it. Nearly everyone and everything that was alive at the time was dead now, so even if Eisen was somehow able to figure something out... It wouldn¡¯t do anything. It was unlikely that Eisen would find anything in the first ce, so why did he want to do this so badly? "I¡¯ll help you. I will try and uncover this when I return to the overworld." The old man exined, "I-" But suddenly, Lirgtur interrupted the old man again, "Oh, what I am asking of you is not to do anything after you return. What I am asking of you is to delve into this item¡¯s memories to see if you can find out what exactly happened that that man had to y me." "... What?" The old man muttered. What was she talking about. This item¡¯s memories? It didn¡¯t seem to be an ego-item, so Eisen wouldn¡¯t be able to interact with it in any way. And it wouldn¡¯t have any sort of memories then anyway. Sure, he could try and figure out a few things through damages on the wooden ne, but it seemed rather unlikely. However, just as Eisen was thinking this, Lirgtur seemed rather surprised, "You can not see the memories of things like this? I thought you were a great craftsman... all the masters of the past were capable of such things. I had seen you create beautiful and amazing tools for the souls of this realm with absolute ease, but could I have been wrong..?" She asked with aplex tone in her echoing voice. Eisen just stared back at her with confusion written on his face. "The memories of items..?" The old man muttered, "I don¡¯t even have most of my own memories." Heughed awkwardly as he slowly looked at the ne that was hanging onto the Dragon of Life¡¯s w that was held toward the old man. He slowly extended his hand toward it and grabbed it, pulling it away from Lirgtur. He held it in both of his hands and with a deep sigh, chose to sit down cross-legged on the ground. It would be worth a try. He didn¡¯t doubt Lirgtur¡¯s words, since he doubted that a being capable of reaching the realm of a God of Truth and Law would tantly lie to him like that. And so, Eisen tried his best. And with that, it seemed like he received a quest that confirmed exactly what the Dragon of Life had told him. [New Sub-Quest ¨C Memories of Life and Death] [Description] The Dragon of Life Lirgtur asked you to do her a favor by looking into the memories of a ne she took from the one that killed her. But you said you did not know how to do so, and now have to try and see if you can actually unlock this special ability of the greatest craftsmen in the past. After all, you yourself are the greatest that has ever existed. [Conditions] Unlock the \u003cItem Memories\u003e Skill; See the \u003cZain¡¯s Symbol\u003e¡¯s memories [Reward] Advance in the Quest \u003cTrygan¡¯s Acknowledgement\u003e; Receive \u003cDragon of Life¡¯s Scale\u003e; Receive the location of \u003cDragon of Life¡¯s Bones\u003e; \u003cZain¡¯s Symbol\u003e [Penalty] The Dragon of Life will not answer any of your questions The old man immediately ignored this notification as he concentrated on the item in his two hands. He let his mana flow into it and out of it, circling it through the religious symbol while meditating. It seemed like diving into the memories of an item would be something pretty spiritual, so the old man figured it would be something like this. He tried to copy the feeling of when he went into a soul to figure out the soul¡¯s shape to maybe figure out something like this. There were certain religions that believed that everything had a soul in it, even inanimate objects, so this could be something simr. The old man tried to feel every small part of this item, and even visualized it deeply inside of his mind while running his fingers over it. And as he did, something started to change. His perspective started to shift around, and all of a sudden, the old man stood inside of his own Soul Realm, inside of the crafting-room that he created inside of his mind to ess with his Deep Visualization. And inside of the old man¡¯s hand was a small piece of wood as well as a knife that Eisen didn¡¯t recognize, or even thought up himself. Weirdly enough, it seemed like it wasn¡¯t really a direct knife... Like he was holding a concept in his hand. Something undefined. And that was the same with the wood in his other hand, actually. Immediately, different thoughts flowed into the old man¡¯s mind, "The young wood of an oak-sapling crushed by an elderly oak that fell over due to natural causes. And a knife made out of a reforged armor that a dead ancestor left behind, with a handle made of a Stag¡¯s antlers after the Stag had been fed on by wild wolves." He muttered quietly. This information just flowed into his mind, and Eisen immediately knew what to do. He had to recreate the creation of the religious Symbol that he was holding in his actual hands. Chapter 620 For your blood Eisen started to carve into the wood that he was holding in his hand, slowly forming it into the shape that he remembered the ne being. Or well, that¡¯s what he initially nned, but it was like his hands were moving on their own anyway. Like they knew exactly what needed to be done in order to create this ne perfectly. And that included the small mistakes that the creator made. It was a pretty rudimentary piece, but something that held a lot of value to the former owner, that was for sure. Instead of actually having to recreate this ne, it seemed like Eisen had to simply take over the part of the creator. Let the original process that had been gone through in order to create that small wooden piece flow through him. He slowly recreated it and was feeling incredibly annoyed at thepletely wasteful, idiotic movements that his own body was making by following the original process of creation. He cut too deep into the wood, he roughed areas up that should be smooth, and most importantly, he wasn¡¯t even holding the knife properly. It was infuriating, really. But on the other hand, it really was something that amateurs would do. It let Eisen figure out a lot about the creator of the ne. He wasn¡¯t someone that spent his life creating things. He wasn¡¯t used to holding something like a knife, and wasn¡¯t incredibly concerned with the safety of his own hands. That meant that he neither did something that required his hands, nor that he was a fighter, because a person like that would definitely know how to hold a de even a slight bit, while also focusing on their hands to make sure they were fine. Instead, what Eisen figured was that this man was simply used to his hands being roughed up. In general, the knife was moving in straight lines and was very rough, rigid, way, creating a lot of straight angles. Probably, the person that was making this was aborer, someone that did hard physicalbor every single day where he was used to cutting up his hands, getting rough bruises, but didn¡¯t deal with a lot of details in anything he did. From that, Eisen already knew that this couldn¡¯t be the same person that killed the Dragon of Life. Sure, Laborers often had impressive strength to them as well as muscle-stamina that others may not have, but beside that, they weren¡¯t great fighters. They didn¡¯t have to use their insticts on the daily, so they would be blunted. So, there were three possible conclusions that Eisen coulde to through this. The ne was created by someone important to the one that killed Lirgtur, and it was something like an inheritance or a memento from them. Two, Lirgtur¡¯s killer stole the ne from a follower of Zain or pretended to be one in order to get close enough to her to get a good attack on her. And three, these two events, the creation of the ne as well as the death of Lirgtur, had a long period of time stuck between them. So far, Eisen couldn¡¯t really say too much about which one it was, because all three of them seemed possible to an extent. One thing that Eisen could say was that it didn¡¯t seem like the ne had been created recently. The one that Lirgtur gave Eisen had been worn down quite a lot, and it didn¡¯t seem like something that happened in the heavenly realm but rather something to the one that used to own this item before. It was probably something that meant a lot to whoever used to own it before. While he was deep in thought, it seemed like Eisen¡¯s body simply continued its work on the ne, and soon he was holding a rather rudimentary version of it. There were a lot of parts missing on it. It was really just a very, very rough shape that only loosely resembled the shape of Zain¡¯s symbol. You would be able to recognize it, sure, but a lot of people would probably have to think for a while before being able to figure out what it was supposed to be. However, a feeling welled up inside of Eisen¡¯s chest, an emotion that wasn???t his own. It was one of pride over the creation of this piece. And all of a sudden, the wooden shavings on the ground disappeared, followed by the knife that Eisen used to carve it. And before the old man knew it, the walls simply fell over to the sides, simr to how it worked when Eisen¡¯s portable structures folded open or down. But now, the walls simply sat there t on the ground and nothing else happened while Eisen was surrounded by a ck void. But from that void, things started to sprout. Trees, moss, flowers. The sound of bugs buzzing appeared in the old man¡¯s ears while birds were singing. Sunlight that practically came out of nowhere started shining through the trees that grew in a matter of seconds, even faster than Eisen had seen through Jyuuk¡¯s nt control. And when Eisen looked back down at the ground underneath him, the walls that fell down before turned into the forest-floor, covered in leaves and twigs. The old man still held the ne in his hands, before he felt something like a pull on it, and Eisen was practically forced to start moving, since he somehow was incapable of letting go of the small wooden piece. He went where it brought him, and then soon stood in the middle of something like a rudimentary tribal area, with tents pitched up against trees and people working on their projects right outside. For the most part, they were doing things to help different animals, or preparing hides to be turned into clothes, shoes, or other important objects. But all the people that Eisen could see were slightly off. He couldn¡¯t concentrate on their face, but simply on their whole figure. He had no idea what they actually looked like. Eisen might be able to describe the rough style of the clothes they were wearing, but he couldn¡¯t tell what the specific details were even now while looking at them. Were there buttons, straps, pieces of metal? Did they have tools on their body? If so, what kind? Whenever Eisen tried to answer these sorts of questions inside of his mind, it simply went nk for a few moments. And after Eisen noticed this, he realized that this wasn¡¯t only the case with the people, but with the whole area around him. He could only see the big picture as if it was heavily blurred. The old man was able to tell what area had what rough things in them, but he couldn¡¯t pin-point anything, and he couldn¡¯t tell what exactly was going on where. It was... a weird feeling. He was technically able to perfectly see everything around him, but it was like he was forgetting most things about everything he was looking at the moment he saw it. But then, Eisen¡¯s whole being was filled with different emotions. It was like numerous things happened all at once, but he wasn¡¯t sure what exactly, but for a different reason to before. This time, it was all just so overwhelming. The area around Eisen slowly started to change, shift into something else. The beautiful, bright, warm feelings that were filling Eisen slowly became tainted as the tribe grew bigger. The wooden piece in Eisen¡¯s hands was getting more scratched up as time went on. And then, every single bit of positivity that had been filling out Eisen had gone, and all that was left was an aching. He felt too lethargic to move, as if everything was hopeless. Together with Eisen¡¯s emotions, the scenery became darker and darker as well, asrger buildings of rock were constructed around Eisen and this tribal vige became a proper town. But then, something like a ray of light appeared that cut through that lethargic darkness as the old man felt the wooden piece tug on him once more. He was pulled to leave this conceptual town and made his way back into the forest. Slowly, all the dirt and paint that had gathered on the wooden piece were removed. Some of the older, more serious cuts were patched up and repaired, and in general, the wooden piece just seemed to be in a much better state than it had been since it was first created. Actually, it might have even be better, as it was refined to look more like the Symbol of Zain. This time, you would be able to understand what it was just by looking at it once. Well, if you knew what the Symbol of Zain looked like, at least. The wooden piece, from here on out, had been taken care of well. But then, something else happened. Another feeling filled Eisen, and it was a feeling he would never forget. It was the feeling of when he first fell in love with histe wife. It seemed like the current owner of the ne found themselves someone to spend their life with. But that cozy, warm feeling once more soon became cold, but for a different reason than before. It didn¡¯t rot over time like before, but it had been shattered all at once, and Eisen was filled with emotions that reminded him of a certain other point in his life as well. And slowly, the reasons for Lirgtur¡¯s killer¡¯s actions became simply apparent to Eisen. He watched as his body was dragged into a cave atop of a mountain that bathed in the sunlight every single day, looking down at a beautiful forest underneath. And inside of that cave was a shapeless mass of light. And just before that shapeless mass took on the shape it had been missing so far, the old man found himself back where he was before. Sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of Lirgtur, who was patiently waiting for the old man¡¯s revtion. He slowly looked up at Lirgtur with a bitter frown on his face, before the Dragon of Life looked at him curiously, "So, did it work? Did you find out what happened, and why that man had in me?" "...I did..." Eisen slowly replied, and the Dragon seemed pleased with that answer, "I see. Did someone take control of him, or force him to y me?" "No. He made the decision to kill you himself, even if he didn¡¯t want to." Eisen exined as he slowly rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb to get his emotions under control again, "The love of his life was dying, and the only thing that could help him save her at the time was your blood." Chapter 621 The Dragon of Lifes Children Eisen stared at the Dragon of Life in front of him with aplex expression while he waved away the notifications about his new skill and the fact that he finished the quest that Lirgtur gave him. He was simply feeling a bit weird about this whole thing. Because in one way or another, Eisen understood the actions of the man that chose to y Lirgtur. After all, if it meant that he could have saved his wife, he may have done something simr. Hell, as far as he could tell, the old Eisen could have done far worse for far less. There was no reason to believe that this wasn¡¯t the case, after all. The old man looked at Lirgtur and waited for some sort of response from her. And somehow, it seemed like this Dragoness was rather happy with this knowledge, although Eisen didn¡¯t expect that to be the case. He had just told her that someone killed her out of technically selfish reasons, but she simply seemed d. That was not the reaction he had thought she would have. "It seems you are confused." Lirgtur said, or rather ¡¯thought¡¯ to Eisen through this weird telepathic ability, "There is little that would make me ept death so easily, but one of the things that does is if my death could save another¡¯s life." She exined bluntly to Eisen, and the old man looked back at her with a slow nod. "I understand that sentiment, but aren¡¯t you still mad somehow? After all, without you... your eggs, your children must have died as well." He pointed out, but Lirgtur simply replied with... augh. "Oh, of course not. After that man took part of me with him, my body was still there. The raw energy of life that I gave off must have been enough to protect my children until they were born." She exined. Eisen slightly frowned, since something didn¡¯t seem to be properly matching up right here, "But didn¡¯t you say that you were thest Dragon of Life?" "I have. And that is not a lie. My children were no Dragons of Life. At the time when I conceived them, I had already been thest of my kind. As such, my mate was not a Dragon of Life either." She exined, and Eisen slowly raised his brows in surprise, "Really? Then they really survived, but just became a different sort of Dragon? What kind of Dragon was their other parent?" With a slight chuckle that echoed around Eisen, Lirgtur slowly turned her head to look at the most central part of the giant town that was built near here, the enormous crystal tower that could be seen standing there, "That is a good question indeed. What sort of Dragon is he, I wonder?" Sheughed, and Eisen turned his head over toward the tower before realizing what she was saying. And now, the old manughed simrly, "Ah, I got it. You¡¯re a good liar, you know? I really thought you just called me here because I was a living craftsman." The old man smirked, but the Dragoness simply stretched out a bit and then rolled herself up for a nap. "Well, it was not aplete lie. The fact that you¡¯re the grandfather to my children was just a good bonus, you see?" --- Eisen was making his way toward the giant crystal tower in the center of the town while he rubbed his fingers over this weird scale he received from the Dragon of Life just now. It seemed so different to any other scale that the old man received so far. That might just be because he received the scale from a soul instead of a living being, but it could also be because it was the scale of apletely different sort of dragon. Until now, Eisen had really only encountered two sorts of dragons, chromatic and metallic ones. He wasn¡¯t really aware that there were others outside of that range. He never really heard much of other kinds, after all. Eisen was probably vaguely aware of it in the back of his mind at some point, but especially after travelling to Trygan¡¯s ind, the fact that there were only those two ¡¯groups¡¯ of Dragons became ingrained in his mind. After all, whenever he met a sort of Dragon there, it was either a metallic or a chromatic one, without exception. Even the mock-dragons were usually following that theme to a extent. He had never seen a Dragon with that sort of ¡¯concept¡¯ connected to it. Eisen somehow wanted to make some kind of item with this scale, although it seemed wasteful to do. Just disying it somewhere at some point in time should be enough. He didn¡¯t even know what he was supposed to do with the scales from all those other dragons, so it might be a fatal mistake if he just tried to forge this into some random item just for the heck of it. If it turned out that he didn¡¯t need it for anything ¡¯important¡¯, then he could still make the choice to turn it into something more directly useful. Either way, Eisen also received the location of the ce that the Dragon of Life died at, and apparently its bones were still there even this long after it happened. He could just make something using those bones if he wanted to. It might sound a bit grim to say that, but considering that Lirgtur allowed him to, Eisen didn¡¯t really worry about that. Lirgtur seemingly just didn¡¯t want the parts of her body to go to waste, and as long as the bones weren¡¯t used for anything that was meant to kill, she was more than just happy to see them be used for some sort of item. The old man definitely understood that sentiment. Either way, Lirgtur¡¯s bones would probably turn out to be amazing for things that could boost someone¡¯s HP or its recovery speed, so he wanted to just try a few things out if he could. Lirgtur seemed to be decentlyrge, so the bones should have a good mass to them. And on top of these two things, Eisen also received the ne that had Zain¡¯s symbol on it. Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure what he was supposed to do with it, but he was sure that it was going to end up helpful. But it just made Eisen wonder more and more just how exactly these sorts of items could be taken to the mortal realm again. Eisen hadn???t heard of random things just disappearing whenever someone died, so the item that a soul took to heaven with them must be something like a ¡¯copy¡¯. But two instances of the exact same thing existing, albeit in different states of decay, just seemed a bit too weird to Eisen. Either way, that wasn¡¯t what was on Eisen¡¯s mind the most right now. It took up arge part of his thoughts while he was flying and had nothing else to do but just think, but for the most part, Eisen was just thinking about meeting Trygan. After all, he managed toplete the quest for Trygan¡¯s Acknowledgement, and then received a notification telling him to go meet the God in Question to properly be acknowledged by them. Hopefully Eisen would be able to get a little bit more information from Trygan about everything that was going on right now, since there were still a lot of things that he was unsure about that Trygan seemingly knew a lot about. And information like that would surely end up being quite useful to the old man. But somehow, the giant tower in the distance just didn¡¯t seem to being closer. Of course, Eisen was definitely approaching it, but it seemed like Eisen kind of underrestimated its height, so it took a few minutes longer than he thought. And only about a minute before Eisen would reach the tower, the Angel Ambriel that was following him caught up to him and was now flying next to him, seemingly wanting to ask a question. "Were you aware of that Dragon¡¯s connection to Lord Trygan?" Ambriel asked, but Eisen immediately shook his head, "I didn¡¯t have the slightest clue." "Then why did you follow her? Just because you had nothing else to do?" The Angel questioned, since they seemingly would have made another choice. "Basically, actually. I had nothing else to do and she caught my eye, so I followed her. We¡¯re in heaven of a god of Law and Truth, there¡¯s no way there would be someone here trying to y a trick on me." The old man pointed out bluntly, and Ambriel slowly nodded their head, now seemingly understanding the old man¡¯s thoughts a bit better. "But do you truly believe that the Dragoness was telling the truth? It is hard to imagine a deity like Lord Trygan mingling with... the living." Ambriel pointed out with a slightly disgusted expression, and shivers ran down Eisen¡¯s back. "What are you even talking about? You realize that there¡¯s practically no god that didn¡¯t have children with ¡¯the living¡¯ at one point or another, right? Also, you¡¯re talking to a living person, so watch it." The old man pointed out, and all of a sudden, Ambriel¡¯s demeanor changed. Their extremely calm, friendly expression changed to one of anger and disgust, "I think you are the one that should ¡¯watch it¡¯! It is spehmous to think that these greatest divine beings would ever mingle with lesser, lowly beings like you! The only reason I am making an exception for you in this case is because you at some point in time managed to reach the heights of the gods!" "Ambriel." The old man started quietly, his voice and expression calm and collected, but his eyes burning with surreal fury directed at the Angel in question, "Be quiet before I pluck out every single one of your wings¡¯ feathers one by one. Don¡¯t say a single word for the rest of the duration that I¡¯m here in the heavens, or I¡¯ll show you that not even angels like you have true immortality." It seemed like for now, Ambriel understood what Eisen told them and just stayed silent, although they still weren¡¯t particrly happy with what Eisen was saying. The old man just continued flying, and soonnded on a specific spot on the crystal tower that he had been trying to reach. It seemed like there was enough space for Eisen¡¯s full height here, so he quickly increased his size and stepped through the halls of this giant tower made for the Crystal Dragon King. Eisen approached a giant double-door that was guarded by Trygan¡¯s angels, who looked a lot like a mixture between half-dragons and regr angels, with feathers covering their whole bodies instead of scales, as if they were somewhat bird-like. The old man pushed his hands onto the double door and started to push, with a bright light shining through from beyond the thin slit. Chapter 622 Kotam Eisen closed his eyes with a squint as he stepped into the room, but soon, he got used to the bright light and managed to see properly. And what he saw then was the figure of a huge, truly enormous Dragonying in the center of a giant hall. The Dragon¡¯s crystal scales reflected the light that shone in through the roof of the crystal tower. At first, he seemed to be glowing simrly to the Dragon of Life, but this dragon here wasn¡¯t a source of light like Lirgtur was. Trygan was sleeping there, rxing in the sun. It seemed like sleep was the one thing that all Dragons enjoyed equally, at least Eisen had a tendency to meet Dragons that were asleep or at the very least tired. The old man approached Trygan with a smile on his face. Since Eisen¡¯s size waspletely increased, Trygan actually wasn¡¯t all that hugepared to him. It was something along the lines of the size-difference between Eisen and Fafnir while Eisen¡¯s height was normal. Well, maybe Trygan was still a bit bigger than that, but it was still pretty close. And so, Eisen squatted down in front of the Crystal Dragon King with a slight grin on his face. He stretched his hand out toward Trygan¡¯s maw, but before he was able to wake his own son up, he felt something sharp being pushed right into the base of his hand. It was incredibly painful, as if a needle was pushed into your veins along the flow of the veins, which was basically exactly what was happening right now. And since the old man did start feeling pain here, albeit not the full amount, this was an experience that he didn¡¯t particrly enjoy. "What do you think you are doing, you filthy, lesser being?" One of Trygan¡¯s Angels yelled out, and it seemed like he was excactly the one that stabbed the old man¡¯s hand just now. Eisen deeply grumbled to himself and pulled his arm away. The spear was still stuck in his hand right now, so Eisen just quickly pulled it out after activating his Draconic Demon King form to make it a bit easier and less painful, reducing the size-difference between Eisen and Trygan even more. However, it seemed like the Angels didn¡¯t particrly like seeing Eisen tower over them even more, and so a lot of them readied whatever weapons they had on them in order to attack the old man, but before they could, their God woke up. "I think I am the one that should ask what you think you are doing!" Trygan eximed, "Do you even know who this man is?!" All of a sudden, the Angels stopped and tensed up after hearing the tone of absolute authority in Trygan¡¯s voice, before the Dragon slowly turned toward Eisen, "I apologize for their rude behavior, Father." The Dragon King said while practically bowing in his Dragon form, but the old man just shook his head without a moment¡¯s hesitation. "It¡¯s fine, I get it. I mean, I was nning on holding your mouth and nostrils shut so that you can¡¯t breath to wake you up, and I guess that¡¯s not something you usually do to a god, huh?" The old manughed quietly as he deactivated his Draconic Demon King form so that Trygan could see him a bit better. The rock-like skin and glowing golden crystal veins did kind of distort his image a little bit. Eisen pressed his palm onto his bleeding wound, although it wasn¡¯t all that serious. It would heal in a little bit, so the old man would just wait a little bit for that to happen. But then, Trygan took a deep breath himself and his eyes slightly started to glow as his maw opened up with a simr glow behind it, and crystal mes practically poured out of the Dragon King¡¯s mouth, enveloping Eisen¡¯s hand. The small wound that was there practically healed right away, before Trygan just smiled, "Once again, I apologize. But somehow, I can¡¯t stop myself from being a bit happy. You did not change too much after you lost your experience. You would always wake me up in that way whenever I slept too much." Trygan pointed out with a slightugh, and Eisen just crossed his arms. "I figured. I just had the subtle urge to do that, and those are usually things like memories from my time before then." The old man pointed out, and then remembered something else to mention, "Ah, speaking of... I started recovering some of my former memories. So far, it¡¯s only been three, but I think when I sleep tonight, I will remember whatever memories I have about heaven, or at least this part of it." "...Is that so? Do you have a rough idea how long it will take you to recover even more memories than that?" The Dragon King asked, and Eisen immediately frowned. Somehow, that response was a bit too... quick, too expected. And all of a sudden, it felt like the old man really did have to reach a certain number of recovered memories to get something else to happen. Eisen stared at the Dragon King in front of him and deeply sighed, "I¡¯m working on it. It shouldn¡¯t take more than a few weeks." "I see. That is good. And how about that puzzle box you mentioned to me? Do you have any further clues as to what you need to do to unlock it?" Trygan asked. Eisen replied bluntly, "For now, I have to be a True Demon, and then I have to meet the current Grardour in the Giant Country. I don¡¯t know anything beyond that." Slowly, after hearing Eisen¡¯s response, Trygan just started to smile, "I see. Then that is good to hear. If you are to be a true demon, then you must be here for my acknowledgement, right?" The God looked deep into Eisen¡¯s eyes, and the old man nodded his head, "Yes, that¡¯s exactly why I¡¯m here. I figured you¡¯d know already though, since you gave me that Quest about getting your acknowledgement." "Ah, that is... My power permeates this realm. I manage everything as if they were retractions of my muscles. They are not things that you usually control all too actively. They just happen as I live my life." Trygan exined, "That includes things like that, which are meant for people that wish to be acknowledged. That is a choice I made long ago, whoever wished to receive that from me will have to do something good for ten of my people." "Hm..." Eisen crossed his arms and closed his eyes in a bit of thought. That would probably be the case amongst all the other realms as well. The tasks are probably rted to the god directly. If it was the same in the underworld, the old man didn¡¯t particrly want to know what kinds of things he had to do there, considering that the underworld was representative of the chaotic, more vile side of him. But for now, it seemed like things were getting a bit too serious, and Eisen kind of wanted to have a bit of ¡¯bonding time¡¯ with Trygan. Sure, he felt close to him somehow, but that was just because of his internal feelings. Feelings that didn¡¯te from memories that Eisen himself had. Sure, that didn¡¯t mean that those emotions felt any less real, but Eisen simply wanted some proper memories rted to his son that he could link up with those emotions. "Actually, speaking of ¡¯your people¡¯..." The old man said with a light smirk on his face, and Trygan slightly tilted his head to the side, seemingly unsure of what exactly he was speaking of. It seemed like Trygan wasn¡¯t omniscient of everything that happened inside of his divine realm, otherwise this probably wouldn¡¯t have had the same kind of effect, "Lirgtur¡¯s a cutie, huh?" Suddenly, Tryganpletely tensed up and stared back at Eisen, "F-Father, how do you-" "Oh, I met her. She¡¯s one of the people I helped out. But nevermind that, this is about you. What happened to those children of yours, huh? Are they here as well? Can I meet them? And do they have children as well? I wonder what level of Grandfather I truly am." Eisenughed slightly, and Trygan slowly turned his head away. Eisen¡¯s attempt at lifting the mood a bit apparently didn¡¯t work out all that well. And considering the information that Trygan revealed to him, he understood why this really worked out in thepletely wrong direction, "Two of them lived until they reached the Great Wyrm stage, thest stage before a Dragon¡¯s natural death... They have been reincarnated once already, both of them only quite recently. They¡¯re dragons again, but they¡¯re just younglings. Although they are younglings that are living around their... their sister." Trygan exined. "The third of those children is Kotam, the ¡¯Evil¡¯ Dragon Queen. While the other two were merely suspect to the aura that Lirgtur¡¯s body gave off as they were about to hatch, Lirgtur¡¯s body fell onto Kotam¡¯s egg. Her flesh and blood fused with the egg, and Kotam soon hatched, feeding on the remains of her mother. Of course, this was not an inherently evil action... Kotam simply didn¡¯t inherit her mother¡¯s ability to live off of the life energies of nature. Most other Dragons are omnivores, although we usually still prefer meat over anything. We are born with sharp teeth and the full ability to do so, after all." Trygan exined. "But due to all these actions, Kotam soon changed into a being that was capable of living for an incredibly long amount of time. She grew quite powerful, but for the vast majority of her life, she had spent her time in deep slumber, and only recently awoke again. Under the control of a... of a being that I cannot forgive for doing such a thing to my child, and a being that forced me into a war that I never wanted to fight." Trygan said, and Eisen immediately started to grind his teeth. His fingernails dug into his palm so much that they might have ended up drawing blood soon if Eisen wasn¡¯t careful. The old man stared deep down at the ground, and said, "That goddamn Samuel... I swear, I???m going to make him regret all of this." Eisen looked back at Trygan, and then started to slow down his breath. He tried to think about what he should say to calm Trygan down a little bit. But in the end, there was only one thing that he had to tell Trygan, "Don¡¯t worry. I¡¯ll take care of this." Slowly, Trygan looked back at Eisen, "I know you will, I trust you, Father. But I don¡¯t know how well we can truly save my Kotam..." "As I said, I¡¯ll take care of this." Eisen said, and Trygan slowly raised his brows, "What do you mean?" "Nobody ever said that we¡¯re only allowed to join one side of the war between Dragons, right?" Chapter 623 Trygans Acknowledgemen Trygan looked at Eisen with a surprised expression. He seemingly really didn¡¯t expect Eisen to make a suggestion like that. The Dragon God looked down at the old man with a slight frown, "Are you sure that this is a good idea? If either side discovers what is going on, even I may not be able to properly help you." Trygan pointed out, but Eisen just shook his head with a smile. "It¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry. The five Dragons that gave me my tasks were pretty kind, so I¡¯m sure that I can get them to understand if I just exined the situation to them. If I have to, I can just reveal all the information that they don¡¯t have to them. Such as the whole thing with this and the other world." Eisen exined bluntly. The Crystal Dragon King still seemed a little bit worried about what might happen to Eisen if he tried to be a champion to not only one side of the war, but also the other. And at the same time, Eisen realized that he probably made quite a big mistake, "Although... I kind of told all of the yers that they were supposed to join this side of the war to fight against Kotam..." "You did what?" Trygan asked with a deeply angry frown, but Eisen just sighed in response as he looked straight at him, "If I had known this situation was like this, then I never would have done anything like that. I didn¡¯t really have any means of getting this kind of information, so don¡¯t me me. I¡¯m trying to make up for it right now, anyway." Eisen pointed out, with a slight bit of dismissiveness. But that wasn¡¯t because he didn¡¯t take this issue seriously, it was rather the opposite. He took the issue extremely serious, and was already trying to think about whether or not he had ever encountered some kind of Chromatic Dragon that belonged to Kotam¡¯s army. First things first, the old man would have to be a true champion to those guys as well, and once he did, he would most likely be allowed to meet Kotam to get another ¡¯gift¡¯ from her. Eisen figured it would be simr to how it was supposed to be with Trygan. He was supposed to get an audience with him, much like he actually did right now, but instead, Trygan just gave Eisen his gift without that being a requirement. Eisen actually didn¡¯t know why Trygan was okay with speaking to the old man so openly now instead of before, but it¡¯s not like he minded. He was actually rather happy that they were finally able to speak about a lot of the issues that have ben on Eisen¡¯s mind for a good while now. The old man looked at Trygan with a light smile on his face, "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll fix this. I¡¯ll make sure that this war doesn¡¯t end up killing Kotam, I¡¯m too much of a doting grandfather for that. You should know that by now." Eisenughed with a smile on his face, and Trygan slowly nodded his head. It seemed like he was getting a little bit rxed after hearing the words of his father, "I see... Then I must thank you. I am quite lucky to have been hatched by you, Father." The old, giant Dragon said with a quietugh, and Eisen just smiled back at him as he slowly rubbed his hand over Trygan¡¯s snout. "And I¡¯m lucky that you hatched out of that egg, Trygan." Eisen replied immediately, before a notification just appeared right in front of the old man¡¯s eyes. [You have received Trygan¡¯s acknowledgement. Priests to Trygan will now immediately have a positive impression of you, and you can receive arger amount of Holy Energy in return for any sort of prayer] With a satisfied expression, Eisen waved his hand to the side to get rid of the notification, and then looked at Trygan, "Thank you for that." "Of course, Father. But now, I think it is about time for you to leave... You should not spend too much time in a single divine realm like this." Trygan pointed out, "If I can make a small rmendation..." The Dragon King started, and Eisen raised his brows as he started to eagerly listen. "I think you should visit Gonor, the God of Combat, right after me." He suggested, and Eisen slowly crossed his arms, "Well, my n was to head to town, buy something special with these heavenly coins I¡¯ve been given, and then make my way to Silmos¡¯ realm. I was pretty curious about that ce, to tell you theplete truth." Eisen pointed out, and Trygan slowly nodded his head. "I understand, and I figured you would think so. But considering that you have made a certain deal with Gonor, I think speaking to him as soon as you can would be a pretty good idea. Although, you should first rest up a bit. In the heavenly realms, you should be able to recover your exhaustion quickly... in about an hour on this side, I would say." The Dragon King exined. Eisen just looked down at the ground with a slight nod. He agreed that he should speak to Gonor soon, but he wasn¡¯t particrly excited about what kinds of trials woulde in there. It would obviously end up being rted tobat, but Eisen really wasn¡¯t sure if he wanted to go up against ten different people that were strong enough to get into the god ofbat¡¯s realm. And of course, that god would probably only let the strongest of the strong fight agianst Eisen, and that really didn¡¯t seem all too fair. Although he did have experience fighting against Brody, so it might not be as bad as the old man thought it would end up being. But in the end, since this was a request from Trygan, Eisen figured he should just get it over with and do as he was asked to, "Fine, I¡¯ll be heading there next. It was really, really nice to see you, Trygan." "I agree. It was amazing to be able to speak to you. And thank you for helping with the Kotam situation in particr." The Crystal Dragon God, with a light smile, just looked back at Eisen who slowly turned around and made his way over toward the gate that was the entrance to this room. "I will try ande to visit you sometime soon again." The old man said with a smile on his face, and then pushed therge door in front of him open, before heading outside again. The angels of Trygan were incredibly distrustful of the old man, and were staring at him constantly despite the fact that he was their God¡¯s father, but he figure that it was fine. Judging from the recent conversation he had with Ambriel, Eisen figured that angels were simply slight... or rather, extreme elitists. Eisen didn¡¯t want to use words like racism or xenophobia, but they certainly came to mind in situations like this. They seemed to be prejudiced toward mortals, and literally thought of those walking the mortal nes as lesser than themselves. Eisen was apparently a special case, where angels didn¡¯t have as much of an issue with Eisen directly, but at the very least they tried to hide it a little more. There were a lot of other things beyond that that Eisen wanted to figure out, like how some Angels seemed to becking certain information in regards to the gods, like they thought they were the perfect beings they perceived them to be. And for the most part, since angels seemed to be quite selfish creatures much like people were, they most likely just assumed that the ¡¯perfect being¡¯ was one that held the same values as them, so they wouldn¡¯t believe that such a perfect being mingled with such ¡¯disgusting lesser beings¡¯. It was bothersome, but at the very least Eisen didn¡¯t have to deal with that kind of prejudice all too much in his particr case. He still felt quite angry about it, but there was nothing much he could do to change their mind, or so he thought at least. For now, Eisen just had to figure out something that he should do with all of the money that he made while here in this divine realm. But at the end of the day, he just started wandering around the ce a little bit longer, until he found himself in front of a random house. It didn¡¯t seem to be a shop, and it was a quite simple ce in itself. It was quite barn- or farm-like, and Eisen could hear a slight whistling through the door. It pulled the old man¡¯s attention toward the house, although he didn¡¯t really know why. But so, the old man just figured that he should try and... knock. A few momentster, to the old man¡¯s surprise, a young woman in her prime opened the door. She really just seemed like a pretty normal girl, and was very different to a lot of the other souls Eisen saw around here. She didn¡¯t seem to be as devout to Trygan as many of the others around here, at least, and that made Eisen just the more curious. In her hand, she held a small carving knife as well as a piece of wood that she seemed to be trying to carve into something like a small trinket. "Could I... help you?" She asked with a gentle smile, and Eisen slowly shook his head, "Not particrly, actually. I heard you whistle a song in there, and it was simr to something someone important to me hums sometimes. So, I figured it was fate, and just knocked. Sorry if I¡¯m interrupting anything." "Interrupting? Of course not! It is quite surprising, to see someone living here. Compared to the others, I have been dead for a rather short time, only around 150 years or so. I have never encountered something living in this divine realm." The ¡¯young¡¯ woman pointed out with a smile as she took a step to the side, "Would you like toe in and speak for a while? I am quite interested in what happened down there after my passing." "Oh?" The old man started as he took the woman up on her offer, taking a step into the house, "That¡¯s surprising to hear. Nobody else really had any sort of interest in the mortal realm. But go ahead, ask whatever you want to." "Thank you. In the end, there is only one thing that I would like to ask... Is the world as hateful toward ¡¯Monsters¡¯ as it used to be back then?" She asked without a moment¡¯s hesitation, and the old man thought about it for a little while. "I... think it may be in most ces, yes. But not every ce is, or was. I¡¯m not sure if you¡¯ve heard of the country led by the five that peaked, but some of its citizens are monsters, and others are people. And others are neither, actually. It wasn¡¯t a thing for a while, but it¡¯s growing stronger again." The old manughed. And somehow, the woman made a mixed expression. But it wasn¡¯t one that was hard to decipher. The woman had a mix of relief and glee in her eyes. Chapter 624 The Childrens Story Eisen looked at the woman¡¯s pleasant smile, and a single question came to mind that he couldn¡¯t help himself but ask, "Is there a particr reason you¡¯re happy about that?" He inquired, and the woman slowly nodded her head, "Yes, there is... I was rather close to some incredibly kind ¡¯Monsters¡¯ while I was still alive, and they are the kind that can live for an incredibly long time. I just wanted to know if they were alright with the current state of the world." She exined. "That is the only thing that worries me these days, how they are doing." The woman added, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, "I can definitely understand you. There are plenty of monsters that are simply like wild beasts and will attack you the moment they see you, but there are plenty that are just like any other person around. I currently have three tamed monsters, and they¡¯re luckily of thetter sort." Eisen told the woman, who raised her brows with a smile on her face. "Is that so? I am d to meet someone with the same opinions as me. Even if we are in the realm of the Crystal Dragon King, who was once a simple Monster himself, the majority of those that I¡¯ve met are of the opinion that monsters are nothing but a gue, while the most beautiful, intelligent monsters we can have are soaring through the sky above them. It is quite sad to hear." "It sure is. Don¡¯t worry, while there are still a lot of people that think that way, there are plenty that realize that not every monster is the same." With a reassuring tone, the old man looked at the woman and then down at the small piece of wood that she was holding. Thinking that this topic was a little heavy, Eisen made the attempt to change the mood a little bit, "What is it that you¡¯re trying to make there?" He inquired, and the woman slowly looked down at the wood and the carving knife, "Ah... Nothing incredibly special. It is just something that I always wanted to try out. Time passes rather quickly here, incredibly so, so I figured I should try and spend it well before it¡¯s gone forever." With a quietugh, Eisen nodded his head, "That is quite a nice view to have on this. If you¡¯ll allow me, do you want me to show you a couple of tips?" The old man inquired, "I¡¯m a craftsman, after all." "Oh, that would just be great! Thank you." The woman replied with a smile on her face, and the old man quickly stood up as he summoned Bai out of his soul storage and told it to transform into a carving-knife while the old man grabbed a small piece of wood simr to the one that the woman had been holding out of his item storage. He made his way outside the item-storage room again and grabbed Bai from the chair that it transformed itself on, and the woman looked at the old man and the knife curiously. The only thing that Eisen could do was chuckle slightly at her expression, "What, did you expect a living person visiting the heavens to be normal?" With augh from herself, the woman shook her head, "I guess I should not." She said, and Eisen turned back toward his piece of wood. He showed the soul next to him how she was supposed to hold both the wood and the carving knife first, and then went over the rough basic motions. Of course, Eisen hurried it up so that he could quickly bring his piece of wood to a simr state that the woman¡¯s was in, and then continued to show her how she was supposed to handle things like details or finishing something like this up. The woman was actually getting the hang of this rather quickly, to Eisen¡¯s pleasant surprise. He wasn¡¯t exactly sure what she was trying to make, but he tried to help her bring it to a pretty nice point and to a new level of quality. But somehow, Eisen¡¯s eyes got stuck on the piece of wood when it started to take on a specific form. It wasn¡¯t an amazingly detailed form, but it was still something that Eisen seemed to vaguely remember in the back of his mind. "That¡¯s... From a children¡¯s book, isn¡¯t it?" He muttered out quietly, and the woman raised her brows surprised, "Oh yes, it is! How did you know? It was hard to find even while I was alive... Did they start publishing it again?" She asked curiously, but Eisen just slowly shook his head. "No... I don¡¯t think so." The old man replied, as he continued to watch the woman work. The small sigil that looked like a ssic shield, resembling the shape of a diamond, had a small me carved onto its center with two swords by its side. After she was seemingly done with the casual carving, she took out something else. She grabbed a set with simple paint and chose to give the wooden piece a little bit of color, painting it in the same colors of that in the original picture book. At least Eisen thought that¡¯s what it was. While he couldn¡¯t directly remember it, he seemed to simply know that it really was painted in the right colors. She seemed to have written something on the backside that Eisen couldn¡¯t see right now, but it didn¡¯t seem to be anything incredibly long. When the small item was finished, Eisen looked at the woman was a nk expression as he held forward the small bag filled with all the coins that Eisen made in this realm, "Would it... be possible for me to buy that from you? I just feel like I should." The woman raised her brows and looked at the small, palm-sized sigil in her hand and then turned back toward Eisen, "And I feel like I should ept that offer. But please, you helped me with my carving, so just keep that money." "I would, but I have to leave soon. Since I can¡¯t take this money with me, I think it¡¯s better left with you than wasted." The old man pointed out, and with a bit of hesitation, the woman grabbed the pouch with the coins inside while Eisen grabbed the small piece that she made. This would be another small, nice souvenir. It was pretty random, and nothing that was directly rted to this Dragon Realm, but Eisen figured this was better than nothing. This might be a nice souvenir for Kiron, after all, the sigil was from a story about a small, weak, and excluded boy that was different to all the others, which made his way through the world to be a knight while gaining strength. "How do I even know this...?" The old man sighed. He knew for sure that he never read a story like this before, but he somehow remembered what it was about perfectly. It felt like Eisen would somehow end up remembering that story if he slept tonight as well. For now, Eisen just put it into his item storage and then stepped over toward the door. He turned around and looked at the woman with a light smile on his face, "I¡¯ll probably end uping back sooner orter, so I¡¯ll try ande visit you when I do." The old man said, and the woman quietly chuckled as she nodded her head, "That would be great. It was fun speaking to you." "I can only say the same back." And with that, Eisne stepped outside and activated his Draconic Demon King transformation, quickly sprouting wings through it, before just lifting off into the air. Once they were floating there, Eisen turned over toward Ambriel, "Let¡¯s leave." The old man told them with a slight re, incredibly opposed to the expression that he had just now while speaking to that woman, but Eisen didn¡¯t even want to pretend that he could stand Ambriel anymore. The Angel slowly nodded their head and then waved their hand to the side. The moment they did so, arge white gate appeared right behind Ambriel and slowly opened up. Behind that gate, Eisen could see the giant space filled with numerous gates that they were in before. The old man flew into the gate and immediately felt something like a slight pull on him, as if any sort of trace that Eisen had been inside of this realm had been pulled from him. Well, he still had the few items that he was given in there, so it wasn¡¯t that big a deal or anything. It just felt slightly ufortable. But for now, that didn¡¯t matter. Eisen took a look around to find the next gate that he could enter through, but before he did, Ambriel suggested something else. "Before you enter the next realm, you should rest a bit, like Lord Trygan suggested to you." The Angel said and waved their hand to the side, before arge, white, fluffy bed appeared right behind him. But Eisen just shook his head as he slowly squatted down on the ground before sitting down cross-legged. "No thanks. I don¡¯t need a bed." The old man said as he leaned up against the wall behind him and closed his eyes. He could practically feel Ambriel¡¯s res, but Eisen seriously didn¡¯t care, "Night. See you in an hour." The old man said, and then took a deep breath. Before he knew it, Eisen fell asleep, soon finding himself in the space where all his memories seemed to gather. For now he ignored the golden orbs and focused on the three white ones. Eisen didn¡¯t know which one was which, but he knew what the memories could be about. About heaven, about Trygan, and about that children¡¯s book. He would try and learn the memories to all three of these, so it didn¡¯t matter which one he picked first anyway. The old man stretched his hand out toward a random one of these white spheres of light, and then watched as the space around him changed. And to the old man¡¯s surprise... the Eisen that he was looking at wasn¡¯t one. This version of Eisen seemed to be in histe 20¡¯s or early 30¡¯s. Physically at least, Eisen knew that he had a much longer natural life-span, being a half-giant, so the Eisen he was looking at was probably over a hundred years old at least. But it really felt pretty unusual to see his young self just walking around there. This made Eisen wonder about what exactly this memory was about even more, since this must be a memory from around 100 Thousand years ago. The old, or rather the ¡¯young¡¯ Eisen, hacked down onto the ground and removed a little bit of rock, seemingly while mining for metals. But what he found in there was anything but a metal. It was a dark, muddy-colored egg the size of Eisen¡¯s head. And it made the old man wonder if this was supposed to be Trygan¡¯s egg. Because it looked very different to what Eisen expected. Chapter 625 Trygan Eisen slowly walked up to what seemed to be just a rock at first nce. An egg-shaped rock, but just a rock in the end. It wasn¡¯t even all that smooth or anything like that. It was really just an ovaloid rock with a deep brown, muddy, murky color and scent to it. The old man didn¡¯t even really know why he thought this was supposed to be Trygan¡¯s egg, he just did. He turned his head over toward the young version of Eisen with a curious expression, "Hm... This doesn¡¯t seem to be just a metal..." He muttered to himself, "And Material Appraisal doesn¡¯t tell me anything? The hell is this supposed to be?" The old Eisen looked at the figure of his young self full of curiosity. It really seemed like that old Eisen¡¯s abilities, the literal skill-ability sort, weren¡¯t the same as Eisen¡¯s current ones. And it made sense if he didn¡¯t have an amazing appraisal ability like Eisen¡¯s truth-seeing eyes yet. Eisen just got it from a Golden Dragon, and at this point in time, the Crystal Dragon king didn¡¯t even exist. And the ¡¯real¡¯ Dragons only just came to be after Trygan rose to the top and imed his position as king. "Oh, could it be a rock lizard egg?" The old, or young, Eisen muttered to himself, "That would be perfect, it¡¯s been getting pretty annoying hauling everything out of these caves on my own... I¡¯ll have to visit the Appraisal shop, I guess." Luckily, Eisen often had a tendency to speak to himself when he was alone, otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t really be able to follow along that well. And just as he thought that, Eisen ¡¯really¡¯ spoke to himself. His young version turned toward him and formed a slight grin on his face, "Another long one¡¯sin¡¯." And all of a sudden, Eisen found that the scenery around him just started to change, and they were now in a rather rudimentary ancient dwarven vige. A lot of buildings were still just carved into rock-walls, or boulders were turned into different buildings. Some people apparently even dug into the ground and created things like hatches so that they could ess their ce. But Eisne himself just stood right in front of one of the buildings that were carved out out of a boulder. It seemed to be something in the style of something like a stall, with the front just open and facing outward. There was a middle-aged dwarf just sitting there on a stool currently inspecting some different gemstones for whatever reason. And then, the young Eisen walked up to him and ced a bag of materials down onto the table, "Morning Ahrcheon. Need your help with something." "Oh? The Great Eisen needs help from me? Can¡¯t your eyes inspect anythin¡¯ themselves?" "Well, not really. I have skills to appraise mateirals and items, but this thing is neither. I think it might be a Rock Lizard egg, but I want to make sure before I try and hatch it..." "Hm... Lemme take a look then, boy." The dwarf said with a grin, and Eisen pulled the egg out of the bag while handing it to him, "I¡¯m thrice your age, so I¡¯d appreciate it if you¡¯d stop calling me ¡¯boy¡¯." "Show me proof of that statement, and I¡¯ll stop. Now, let¡¯s get this started, aye?" The appraiser said with a light grin as he looked at the rock-like egg. He knocked on it, smelled it, rubbed its surface, and in the end seemingly appraised it properly. Eisen didn¡¯t understand why he didn¡¯t do that right from the start, but it didn¡¯t matter. In the end, the Dwarf looked at the young Eisen with his brows raised in surprise. "You¡¯ve gotten yer hands on somethin¡¯ good here! It ain¡¯t just a rock lizard, it¡¯s a variant! Dunno what kinda variant, but it¡¯ll be a good un¡¯! There¡¯s already mana gathered in ¡¯ere as well, so it¡¯s gonna pop out more powerful than regr rock lizards... You know, if you want, you can sell it-" "No thanks, I¡¯ll just keep it. Maybe I¡¯ll be able to properly train this one, all the other rock lizards that I try to buy are just way too wild." The ¡¯young¡¯ man sighed and then pushed the egg back into his bag while pulling out a few pieces of metal. It seemed to be something like a pebble made of copper. "Here you go, thanks for the help." The dwarf clicked his tongue as he stared at the copper-pebble and picked it up with his fingers, "Fuckin¡¯ stingy son of a bitch. Ya could tip every once in a while!" "Right, right, because the fact that I sell my precious gems to you for cheaper than normal isn¡¯t enough of a tip." Before the real Eisen knew it, the scenery around him changed once more. At this point, he found himself inside of a workshop, that he simply assumed to be his own in the past. It was vastly different to everything else he¡¯s seen so far. Instead of just being something that had been roughly carved into a rock, it was a proper workshop like Eisen would still build to this day. At the very least his taste didn¡¯t change. The tools were in great condition, there were plenty of different materials gathered around, and the young version of Eisen was just sitting at a worktable, currently carving something into a mana crystal. It seemed like he was even sitting there with a magnifying-ss right above the mana crystal because he apparently wanted to create some especially small carvings in it. And just as that enchantment seemed to have been finished, both the current and former Eisen turned their head in response to the sound of something cracking. It was the egg, which had been ced into a special ss box where it would constantly be supplied with a steady level of heat and protection. The young Eisen immediately jumped up and rushed over there, slowly squatting down in front of the box, "Is it hatching?" He muttered to himself, and the current Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but be a little bit nervous and excited as well, although it was rather obvious that the creature inside would end up surviving. After all, it had to be Trygan, right? The old man waited for a little while longer, and soon, a small piece of the shell was fully pushed off of the egg and dropped down. And the only thing that could be seen through that part of the shell was a small snout with the same color and texture as the actual egg. This confused the old man even more. Maybe this wasn¡¯t Trygan after all? Or so he thought, but in the end, after more of the shell dropped down, what was revealed was a small, muddy and murky dragon that could be held in ones hands. "What...?" The young Eisen muttered all of a sudden, "This isn¡¯t a Rock-Lizard... It¡¯s got... Wait, is this... Is this a Dragon?" He opened his eyes wide as he slowly picked the small creature up out of the egg and started to clean it up properly, since it was still a bit slimy after just hatching. And after the small dragon was clean, the former Eisen took a closer look at the tiny creature, "How rare... I¡¯ve not seen many types of dragons, but what is this kind supposed to be? It doesn¡¯t look like a Mountain Dragon hatchling..." The young Eisen muttered to himself, "But really, who¡¯d have thought that I¡¯d randomly find a Dragon egg..." Slowly, the former Eisen looked to the side, and the current Eisen was also able to see what appeared there. It was a simply notification window telling him that the Rock Dragon Hatchling had been tamed. "Seriously, a rock Dragon? Is that... a new kind? Did I seriously find a new kind of Dragon?" With a slightugh and a broad grin on his face, the young man continued to clean the Dragon up a bit, "Hm, I guess you¡¯ll need a name, huh? Let¡¯s see, what¡¯s a good name for a Dragon..?" It seemed like the former Eisen was trying to think about this intensely, as if it were the most important thing he ever thought about. And well, in the end, it was. After all, this Dragon would end up growing up and bing the Crystal Dragon King. Eisen sat there and waited for his former version to finish his thoughts, until he finally came up with something, "Well, Trygan sounds pretty nice, I think. Sounds like a Dragon name, doesn¡¯t it?" And it seemed like the small Dragon immediately agreed, trying to snuggle up to the young man as he was sitting there at his table. "Let¡¯s hope you grow up big and strong, buddy." The young Eisen smiled at the Dragon in front of him while ying around a little more, while the old Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but keep grinning in response to that statement. ¡¯Big and strong¡¯ was a bit of an understatement in his opinion. But soon, the area around Eisen changed again, and a new scene yed out in front of him. It seemed like this would end up being a bigger memory again, simr to the memories that Eisen recovered about his fights with Brody. But it was more than that. It wasn¡¯t just snippets out of Trygan¡¯s life, it was practically all of Trygan¡¯s life as a simple monster. How he evolved from a Rock Dragon into a Mineral Dragon, from a Mineral Dragon into the first Metallic Dragon, and from a Metallic Dragon into the one and only Crystal Dragon. Throughout none of these memories could Eisen really exin why his evolutions were the way they were. Instead of simply bing a different variation of Rock Dragon, his ¡¯base¡¯ draconic race kept on changing. But it wasn¡¯t really like he actually minded. Trygan grew up and got numerous powerful abilities, many of which he was actually taught by Eisen. Through this, Eisen managed to learn a lot of things about himself as well, even if not nearly enough to get a good picture of what he was like in the end, considering that this was just about the early parts of his life. Trygan learned abilities to see through lies that Eisen developed himself from different appraisal skills, he learned how to change his own form after watching Eisen change his size and transform himself through his elemental magic. There were a lot of things that he developed himself, of course, but Trygan was always around Eisen, and continuously improved himself as he kept on watching this aging man. And just a few decades after Eisen himself seemingly reached the peak, Trygan did as well. And he was allowed to ascend to godhood. Chapter 626 Bedtime Story Eisen¡¯s first dream tonight of recovering one of his memories was now over. He had gained a lot of things through this, more than he had thought he could with just a single sort of memory. While he simply felt somewhat happy about learning about the others, that was where his feelings for them stopped. He was excited about teh basic idea of finally recovering his memories again, but beyond that, the actual memories didn¡¯t cause him to feel any special way. But it was different with the memories that he recovered just now. This time, a hole that Eisen didn¡¯t even know about was filled in. The old man felt energetic at a level that he didn¡¯t expect, ecstatic nearly. He was happy. That was all that one could call what Eisen was feeling. And in the end, it made sense as well. Nobody could me him for feeling excited about this whole thing right now. After all, he remembered raising his own son again now. He saw the different milestones of his growth again, of how he became what he became. He became stronger, and turned into the King of the Dragons. Following after him, many other sorts of Dragons were created, both the metallic and chromatic kind. The former were more inclined toward good, while thetter was sadly more inclined toward evil. But Trygan loved both equally anyway. He honored them, and they honored him. And so did all of the other types of Dragons out there. Even if they had never heard of Trygan before in their lifes, the moment that any sort of Dragon, whether it was a Dragon of Life, Death, the Sky or the Mountains, they would all see Trygan for what he was. They saw him as their king, without even a single exception. And the moment that he ascended to godhood, they all felt this in their hearts and grew happy for him. Seeing your child be a being that is respected by anyone like him without many exceptions was the greatest feeling to Eisen. Trygan aplished something, and Eisen could finally rest easy that he raised his child the right way. And together with his memories, Eisen had lost all of these emotions that he had gat hered over time without even realizing it, and the old man couldn¡¯t help himself but be happy after regaining them. However, these memories weren¡¯t the only ones that Eisen was set to get back tonight. There were two more. And so, after finding himself back in the pitch-ck space surrounded by multiple golden and two white spheres of light, the old man grabbed the left white sphere at random, since it really didn¡¯t matter all too much. He felt himself be surrounded by a whole other world. He could smell the scent of the ocean in his nose, and saw a giant gate floating in the air in front of him. They were the gates of Heaven and Hell. He just travelled through the former earlier today. For the most part, they were really the same as they were now, with the simple exception that they didn¡¯t have any gatekeepers. The gates were protected in a different way, it seemed. The former Eisen didn¡¯t seem to have any kind of trouble flying up to the gate in question either. He was pulled up to the gate in the same way as before, as if gravity had been simply flipped upside down. The former Eisen stood there on the gate and slowly ced his hand onto the metal, trying to feel the patterns that were carved into it. "Hm, it should not be too hard to get into here." The former Eisen muttered to himself. The current Eisen could tell roughly what happened next although he wasn¡¯t able to see it. He didn¡¯t activate his truth-seeing eyes, but otherwise, he would have felt a sudden burst of immense amounts of mana that were poured into the gate. It was enough mana that Eisen didn¡¯t even need his truth-seeing eyes in order to notice that this was exactly what was happening. "This is how Xenia must feel a lot of the time, huh..?" The current Eisen chuckled quietly to himself as he watched his former version even more. All of the patterns on the floating, heavenly gate started to glow and it slowly opened up, sucking the old man into it as the scenery around Eisen changed again. These memories were really not quite as... important as Eisen was really hoping they would be. He had hoped that he would have ended up finding out lots and lots more information about whatever he needed to know in order to continue on with this fight, this war against Samuel, but in the end it was just as if Eisen was visiting old friends and acquaintances. Eisen remembered working alongside the God of Craftsmanship, making weaponry for different Gods of Combat or War, as well as tools for many other gods that would be seen as powerful artifacts these days. But of course, they were created with the best materials that all the heavens had to offer and were turned into Divine Quality items after a lot of hard work from the craftsman that surpassed even the god of that discipline. For the most part, that was really the end of it. Eisen didn¡¯t learn anything that was of direct value to him right now, or so he thought at first. But the more he watched the scenes unfold in front of him, he noticed that the exact opposite was the case. All of this held immense value. If he hadn¡¯t remembered his memories about the ¡¯Mortal Trygan¡¯, then he may have looked at thispletely differently. In retrospect, he may have suddenly started to look at a lot of the other memories he had already recovered differently in the back of his mind, and only now realized that such a sudden, unexpected change came to him. Instead of selfishly focusing on the worth that these interactions with the gods may have to the current Eisen, he just had to focus on the interactions themselves. They were all that these memories were about. They weren¡¯t about some kind of amazing tactic, or a way to get amazingly strong allies. Instead, what they were about was exactly what was shown. It showed him some of the friends that he used to have amongst the divine, those that considered Eisen their equal in a lot of areas. It was a weird feeling, considering that they were all gods and Eisen didn¡¯t feel like he was at any sort of level like that in the slightest, but that was how it was. Even if Eisen wasn¡¯t the same to them, he was their equal. Their friend. Someone that they trusted, and someone that trusted them in return. Eisen really hadn¡¯t thought about how valuable this was. Especially the memories about the fights he had with Brody were now given a whole other perspective. These duels were apparently a big part of the Giant-Dwarf and Demon-Orc¡¯s rtionship about the millenia, and Eisen had really just skipped over it as a ¡¯way to learn more about himself¡¯, and afterward, as a tool ¡¯through which he learned how to defeat Brody¡¯. The old man had an incredibly selfish mindset with all of this, and it wasn¡¯t anything that he really wanted to feel after taking a good look at himself and his emotions. The old man just sat there as the scenery around him changed back to the ck space, and all that was left was this night¡¯s third white sphere of light. Wondering what kind of things he would learn through these memories tonight was something he really anticipated, somehow. And then, the world around Eisen changedpletely. It was vastly different to the memories of heaven that he just explored. The whole atmosphere was different. It was calmer, as if time hadpletely stopped all of a sudden. There was a bed in front of him. A drawer ced against the wall, and a door ced right next to it. And the old man soon realized what exactly this room was as he continued looking around. There were small toys ced all over the ce, the few clothes ced onto the bed and the drawer were that of a child. And it dawned on Eisen. This memory came from speaking about the children¡¯s story that the small carved, painted wooden piece he received belonged to. Just as he was thinking about this, the door opened up and Eisen stepped inside. But instead of being the aged Eisen, it was a younger version of him. A version of him before he peaked. It was after Trygan was born though, as the young dragon was sleeping in the other room. And in his arms, the young, former Eisen held a child that he brought over toward the bed with a bright smile on his face. As heid the child down on the mattress, the young Eisen nced over toward the current one, which was the instance of the memory interacting with him this time around, just like they always did to an extent. But this was the first time that the memory-Eisen didn¡¯t say anything, probably because of the atmosphere surrounding the current Eisen. He was standing there, staring at the child. At the young girl that wasying there. Eisen felt a gaping hole in his chest as he choked up, even before hearing the words the girl said next. "Daddy! Tell me a story!" She eximed. Eisen leaned up against the wall as his legs nearly gave out. It really was exactly how he thought it was. The young version of Eisen turned away from the real Eisen and at the small girl, "Of course, sweetie. Now, what do you want to hear?" "Surprise me!" The girl eximed, and Eisen just quietly chuckled, "Alright... Thene on, scoot over a bit." The old man smiled as the little girl excitedly did as asked, and the young Eisen slowly sat down next to the girl before wrapping his right arm around her shoulders to hug the girl. "Then how about this... This is the story about a boy... He grew up in a ce where everyone was extremely powerful. Large, strong, and smart. Compared to them, the boy was just small, weak, and maybe a little bit dimwitted." As the young Eisen spoke, the world slightly changed again. Not too much changed, really. The roomyout, the toys, the colors of the walls, and so on. But one thing was the same. A younger Eisen, now twice the age as the version from before, wasying in bed next to a child that the current Eisen had to assume was his own. And he continued to speak of the same story, continuing where the other Eisen left off. "The boy was left out a lot. He could never y or get along with the other children. But he was good at something else. He was-" The scenery started to change again. The only thing that stayed the same was that Eisen, now even older than the other two, was sitting on or next a bed, telling a bedtime story to a young child. It happened again and again, and it was the first time that Eisen ever came in contact with any sort of knowledge rted to the numerous children that he had over his lifetime in this world. Chapter 627 Gonors Realm While remembering Trygan had a positive effect on Eisen when it came to most of his other memories, with the ones that he just remembered, he felt anything but happy. He remembered all the children that Eisen had over his lifetime. All of which, without a single exception, was now dead. And their descendants that had Eisen¡¯s blood in them were most likely impossible to find at this point in time, as it must have been incredibly diluted over time. After he remembered this third sequence of memories, the old man woke back up inside of the hall of gates that led to different divine realms, and just sat there for a while. He felt horrible, especially considering that he really didn¡¯t remember anything about all those kids. He remembered that they existed at some point in time, but Eisen didn¡¯t remember any details about them. Sometimes their name came up, but usually it was just a small nickname instead of their real names. And then, the old man realized something else. If he wanted to find out more about his children, then all that he had to do was find them here in these different divine realms. He pushed himself off the ground and looked at Ambriel, with an expression that showed just how desperate he was for this. The Angel seemed to actually be somewhat disgusted by the expression that the old man was showing them, and Eisen understood why they were. He himself felt incredibly pathetic, albeit for more reasons than one, "Please... Can you tell me how to... how to find my children here in these realms? There must be some kind of way, right? Right?" Eisen asked as his heartbeat sped up out of nervosity. The old man would honestly go so far as to beg Ambriel to let him meet the souls of his children, even if hepletely despised the way that Ambriel had acted just a few hours ago, as well as the way he thought about mortals. The Angel stared back at Eisen and looked him up and down. It seemed like they was showing a simr spiteful expression to Eisen now, seeing the way that he was acting toward them. With a smile that practically screamed ¡¯I am superior to you¡¯, Ambriel replied to Eisen, "Sorry, but such a thing is not possible, my dear Eisen. If you randomly run into them, then maybe you would be able to find them, but other than that, you will surely not be able to meet them." Ambriel said with a slight smile on their face, and Eisen just sunk back down onto the ground. His emotional connection to people that he hadn¡¯t even known really existed an hour ago was... incredible. And he understood why. Especially by regaining his memories of Trygan, Eisen realized that the emotions he felt for his past were important and valid, and that he had to feel that awy to truly find himself and the way that he used to be like. Eisen loved his children in the other world, they were everything to him. So not even remembering what his children really looked like over here was... truly horrifying, and the old man hated himself for it. He hated the part of himself that didn¡¯t want to prioritize figuring things about his children out, and he hated the part of himself that did this to him. The former Eisen that would just throw everything away without a second thought. The old man ground his teeth together with such strength and ferocity that he thought they were about to shatter into pieces. But of course, this didn¡¯t actually happen. Instead, the old man had to try and figure things out for himself for a little bit. He stood there and took a deep breath. Then a second, then a third, and enough oxygen to think returned to Eisen¡¯s brain, "Well... I guess all I have to do is ask them when I end up meeting the gods. Maybe they can help me find them if they¡¯re in the realm of whoever i¡¯m visiting." The old man quietly thought to himself. And since Eisen figured that Trygan would have at least briefly mentioned there was another one of Eisen¡¯s children in his divine realm, he should not have identally missed one of them. Except if they were already reincarnated... which is a possibility that Eisen definitely had to consider. He wasn¡¯t exactly sure when hisst child was born, or rather when hisst child had died, but it should have been at least a few thousand years ago. The old man felt like after that... something changed and his focus probably drifted off to trying to find out how exactly you could create artificial life. After his deep breath, Eisen looked around the room and tried to find the next gate to go through. For now, maybe distracting himself would be a good idea, and then after that, he could just ask a god about his children. That was a good idea... right? The old man asked Ambriel and then made his way over toward the Gate of Gonor, the God of Combat. He stepped over there and pushed the door open, after all, Eisen had promised that he would head over there next after leaving Trygan¡¯s divine realm. And so, he would follow up on that promise. Who knew, maybe some of his children or grandchildren became fighters that were able to get into the God of Combat¡¯s divine realm? It was obviously possible, it¡¯s not like Eisen expected his children to follow his footsteps and be craftsmen, of course. With that kind of mindset, trying to ignore this pathetic side of him that was currently trying to reach the forefront of his personality at the moment, the old man made his way into the divine realm of Gonor. After Eisen stepped through the gate, on foot, he found himself standing on a simple dirt road that was leading up to a huge town in the distance. And just from here, Eisen could tell that this ce was already far, far, farrger than the town in Trygan¡¯s realm. The portion of people that could be seen to especially fit Trygan¡¯s requirements for his divine realm was minisculepared to those that fit the requirements for Gonor¡¯s divine realm, after all, so there would surely be much, much more souls gathered here. Without even having to look for it, the old man noticed that there were people fighting near him. At the very least, he could hear the sound of metal hitting against each other. Thinking that this was a good way to start figuring out what exactly the task for this divine realm would be, Eisen approached the ce that those sounds came from, and it didn¡¯t take long to find their source. It was two people, one man and one woman, both of which were wearing seemingly quitefortable clothes, fighting against each other using simple longswords. Eisen watched them for a little while, seeing that they were just incrediblebat-fanatics as they were both grinning broadly during their fight. He was happy to see that people were truly passionate about things here. In Trygan¡¯s realm, it seemed like everyone was just kind of spending their time however they could while waiting to be reincarnated. That was a good way to do it as well, but it seemed like things worked a little differently here, considering how you could truly see the passion in the eyes of these two people. The old man continued to wait for a little while until the two souls were finished with their fight. It actually continued on for quite a while, an impressive while, really. During that time, Eisen was able to observe a few different things. One, while they were definitely good at what they were doing, having a good sense ofbat and tactics as well as masterful reflexes, the weapons that they were making use of didn¡¯t really seem all that... perfect for them. Or rather, they didn¡¯t seem perfect for their styles. Sure, there were numerous different ways to wield a sword, and these could be some of them, but as far as the old man was concerned it felt more like these two were used to fighting with other weapons and only had ess to swords right now. Like, the woman¡¯s movements were wide, open, and seemed as if they were supposed to rely on heavy,rger weapons, while it was basically the opposite with the man. He seemed to prefer smaller and lighter weapons that required the rest of his body to be far more active and controlled during a fight. But at the same time, the woman¡¯s attacks were stronger and did more damage when they hit, and hte man¡¯s attacks did less damage but instead were much faster. Thinking that he may be able to help, the old man stood up from the ce where he sat down and approached those two with a light smile on his face, "Excuse me, I didn¡¯t want to interrupt your fight, but-" "Holy shit, are you alive?" The woman asked immediately, interrupting Eisen with her question. The old man looked back at her with his brows raised and just nodded his head. "Yes, I am. That¡¯s why I don¡¯t know how things work around here. So if possible, could you maybe tell me why exactly you¡¯re using weapons that don¡¯t really suit you that much?" The old man asked immediately. He didn¡¯t really feel likemitting to random smalltalk, so he wanted to get right to the point. The man and woman looked at Eisen rather surprised, "You realized that from watching our fight?" The man asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Mhm, I did. So, is there any specific reason to it?" The old man inquired, and the woman slowly nodded her head as she started to exin, "Yup, there¡¯s a reason. You know, if you wanna reincarnate here, you gotta win a tournament in one of the arenas. Otherwise, if you don¡¯t win, you lose all the items that you used during the tournament. We both just lost one and now have to use these shitty swords, ya know?" With a slight sigh, the old man nodded his head. It seemed like he knew a good way to be acknowledged by Gonor now. He smiled at the two souls in front of him and crossed his arms, "Alright, how about I make weapons for the two of you, and in return, you tell me a little bit more about how things work in this divine realm?" And before Eisen knew it, the two souls looked at each other, and a notification about his next quest appeared in front of the old man. Chapter 628 Gonors Ques [New Quest ¨C Gonor¡¯s Acknowledgement] [Description] You are seeking to be acknowledged by the gods of heaven and made your way into the realm of the God of Combat, Gonor. As you are a craftsman rather than a fighter, you have been given the task to create full gear for ten different souls that fits them perfectly. [Condition] Create Gear for 10 Souls in Gonor¡¯s realm (0/10) [Reward] Gonor¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None Eisen quickly read through the notification before waving it away to the side. He looked at the twop souls in front of him and crossed his arms with a slight grin on his face. This was the perfect task for him, really. It seemed like the two souls themselves were a bit unsure about it still, but Eisen figured it wouldn¡¯t hurt to continue offering. "Come on, just let me do it! And instead of just a weapon, I¡¯ll make you two a full set of gear! I¡¯m a craftsman, it¡¯s what I do." The old man said with a grin on his face, and the two souls looked back at him surprised. "A craftsman? I mean... I guess there¡¯s not all that many of those around here, right?" The male soul asked as he turned toward the female one, and she slowly nodded her head in response, "That¡¯s true... I guess it might be a good idea. But just so ya know... Neither of us have any money." "Don¡¯t worry, I don¡¯t need any money. I¡¯ll do it for free." Eisen exined, although this made the woman a bit suspicious of the old man¡¯s intentions. Noticing this in her expression, Eisen just started tough, "You¡¯re on the right track, I¡¯m not some overly kind old man. There is a reason I¡¯m doing this, it¡¯s to be acknowledged by Gonor for a quick audience with him." "Ah..." The man raised his brows in response to Eisen¡¯s exnation, "That would make sense, I guess? I¡¯ve heard of some living peopleing to the divine realms to be acknowledged by the gods." It seemed like the woman was still a little bit suspicious, and Eisen didn¡¯t really me her for it either. It was a pretty weird situation that didn¡¯t happen every day, after all. But without further ado, Eisen waved his hand to the side and quickly opened up his item storage. He quickly stepped inside and grabbed one of the portable-house keys that were hanging on the wall, and then stepped back out. It was a bit different in Trygan¡¯s realm, since fulfilling the wish of the souls there, more often than not, wasn¡¯t connected to materialism, so he didn¡¯t always have to craft something. And even if he did, it was never something all that crazy, so it was finished rather quickly. This time around, it would probably take a little while longer to get the acknowledgement of this particr god, considering that Eisen had to make full gear for 10 people. It was more straightforward, but it required a lot more time than the task in Trygan¡¯s realm. Eisen stretched his hand out forward and poured his mana into the key before starting to twist it around and pulling it out of the lock. A few momentster, when the front wall of the building had finished being constructed, Eisen pulled the door open and stepped inside. "Please,e in. It¡¯s a littel bit messy right now, but you know how it is." The old man exined as he stepped through the front room of his portable shop. He walked around his counter and then sat down on the stool right behind it, leaning onto it with his arms as the two souls somewhat nervously followed. They really didn¡¯t expect a building like this to just sprout out the ground out of nowhere. "Whoa... Did you make all these weapons..? And tools? And Armor?" The man asked curiously with his eyes wide open. Eisen simply chuckled, "So I did, yes. If you see anything you¡¯re interested in, just let me know and I¡¯ll make you something simr. My task is to make full gear for you, after all, that includes smaller things like throwing knives or potions if necessary." The woman scoffed a bit in response as she looked at the items lined up along the walls and the different shelves standing around the room, "Right, what kinda craftsman can make all of these different things? Unless you¡¯ll admit to being a Jack of all trades... and if that¡¯s the case, sorry, I don¡¯t need a Jack to make gear for me." With a light smile on his face, Eisen returned the piercing re of the female soul before he started tough loudly, "I am indeed someone of all trades, but by no means am I a Jack. I guess for me, you could say I¡¯m a ¡¯master of all trades, jack of none¡¯." "Heh, right. Who¡¯d you think you are to im that title for yourself? A craftsman like you should know that there¡¯s only one man that has ever truly lived up to it." Out of nowhere, Eisen felt shivers all over his body. It felt like something jolting him awake, as knowledge he wasn¡¯t aware of passed into his mind. But it was just rough knowledge, not a memory yet directly. But it would seem like it was the kind of thing that would let Eisen remember part of himself. "Well, of course I do. The Master of all trades, Eisen." "So you must also know that you¡¯re practically impersonating that Eisen right now? Isn¡¯t that like a sin to you craftsmen?" The woman asked with a deep frown, and the old man just chuckled slightly, "What makes you think I¡¯m impersonating him?" "What..? I think we just established that, ¡¯Master of all trades¡¯ is the title that Eisen¡¯s been given, and you trying to im that for yourself is basically you saying that you¡¯re him." "Oh, I am saying that I¡¯m him, but I¡¯m not impersonating him." The old man admitted, and the woman stared back at Eisen with a slight re, "Right, screw off. My dad¡¯s a great craftsman that was even let into the heaven of the God of Craftsmanship. Through him, even I know how disrespectful it is to act that way. I-" "Youngdy, I think you¡¯re the one that¡¯s being a bit disrespectful. You realize where we are, right? In the divine realm of the God of Combat. You think a simple craftsman would be able to get here so easily? Either way, this should be proof enough that I¡¯m good at what I do, and you¡¯d let up a chance like that so easily?" Eisen asked with a frown, "Seriously, the souls in Trygan¡¯s realm were much calmer and more collected than you. Like that other kid there. You don¡¯t need to be so mad, you know?" Eisen pointed over at the male soul standing next to the woman, who was just staring back at Eisen with a re, "It¡¯s called being passionate." The woman said with what was practically a growl in her voice before turning back around, "Fine, show me what you can do. You said we don¡¯t have to pay you anyway, so why not?" "Good." Eisen said with a smirk on his face, "Then let¡¯s get started." The old man took a deep breath and waved his hand to the side, causing two figures to suddenly appear right next to him beside the Angel Ambriel that had already been standing at the side of the room, watching everything unfold. One of them was a thin, short, pure-white figure with an androgynous appearance, and the other was... basically the opposite. It was a tall demonic figure with rock for skin and glowing golden mes peeking out from underneath the cracks in its skin. It hadrge horns on its head and two wings on its back. "You two, can you get started on setting everything up?" Eisen suggested as he pressed his hand onto the wall behind him, quickly creating the item storage in an area perfectly meant for it, and without a moment¡¯s hesitation, the living ego-tool and the elemental spirit got to work on preparing for work. "And Bai, don¡¯t you dare eat any of the tools scattered around here, you hear?" The old man said, and the short, pure-white figure slowly nodded its head, "Okay~..." And then, Eisen turned back toward the people standing in front of the counter, "Now, let¡¯s get started with things like weapons and consumables first. What do you two usually use to fight?" Since the woman was still a bit hesitant, the man quickly went ahead and exined his situation first. Like Eisen thought, he was used to fighting using daggers and a high number of consumables, as well as different tricks and tactics. In front of him, Eisen created an image with his visualization skill so that he could fine-tune the appearance of the items depending on this soul¡¯s wishes. After speaking about the two daggers that the soul wanted, the old man also asked him about some things like throwing-knives, smoke-bombs, and potions. He seemingly had quite arge number of different items that he wanted, while his armor would be quite minimalistic. It wouldn¡¯t have high defense, but would allow him to move easily while keeping his smaller items on him at all times. Seeing this, the woman just scoffed a bit, "Hah, what¡¯s that supposed to be? That¡¯s not the gear of a real fighter! Looks like more of a trickster to me!" Not minding her at all, the man kept looking at Eisen and said, "Nheless, both of us are here in this divine realm just the same. Ah, you don¡¯t need all that decoration, let¡¯s just keep it simple. I might end up losing this in one of the arenas anyway, so I don¡¯t want to give you extra work for nothing." The man said with a wry smile, and Eisen just looked at him while shaking his head. "Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s no problem at all. I have all the time in the world, so just tell me what you¡¯d want it to look like." Eisen replied reassuredly, and the man smiled back and nodded his head. "Thank you." And so, Eisen gathered all the information that he needed on this particr soul and the items that he wanted, before he moved on to the other soul, "So, what about you? What do you want me to make for you?" With a slight grumble, the woman started to exin her sort of weapon, and like Eisen had somewhat expected, it was a greatsword specifically meant to violently rip through the armor and flesh of enemies. It seemed rather brutal, but in the end, it¡¯s what she wanted so he Eisen didn¡¯t say no. The rest of her items were rather normal, just regr te armor and some potions, so the old man figured that he could just get started now. Chapter 629 Pure-Mana Mythril Now that Eisen had a pretty good idea about what both of these souls wanted, the old man stood up from the stool that he had ced behind the counter and then made his way into the workshop in the back. "If you want, you cane and watch, or you can just wait here. You can just leave ande back in a few hours as well, whatever you like, as long as you don¡¯t disturb me as I¡¯m working." With that announcement, Eisen left to get started. It seemed like the man was feeling pretty curious and chose to directly follow him into the back, where both Bai and the Elemental Spirit were waiting to get started. Of course, the elemental spirit would simply take on the role of an assistant again. First things first, Eisen made sure that the forge was at the right temperature for this, which it was since it was handled by the Spirit, and then turned his head over to the side to look at just that Spirit, "Get me some high-quality steel and a bit of mythril." The old man said, and the spirit immediately turned around and made its way into the material storage ced directly into the portable shop itself. There were a lot more specific materials in here, with a lot more different grades and qualitiespared to the item storage, where Eisen just had rough types of different materials stored so that he could work whenever he wanted even if he didn¡¯t have space to put down the portable shop. On the other hand, the item storage just held a lot more different tools and prototypes than the portable shop, so it was kind of bnced-out in that regard. Soon, the Spirit returned with the materials that Eisen wanted, and Eisen ced the steel into the forge. While it was heating up, he was thinking about what other things to add into it, and had the Spirit get a few different gems as well, which Eisen quickly ground down with Bai¡¯s help. It seemed like the male soul was rather surprised to see Bai just transform into its multitool form, as Eisen already anticipated, but the man might have been exaggerating a little bit to get the attention of the woman to get her toe inside the workshop as well. As Eisen really didn¡¯t mind, he just continued with his work. Soon, the steel ingot started to glow in a bright yellow light, so it was about time for Eisen to take it out. He grabbed it with some tongs and ced it up onto the anvil, before watching Bai turn into its hammer form. With a quick swing, Eisen proceeded to hammer the steel as thinly as he could, before spreading out the ground-down crystals onto it. Eisen found that there were slight differences in the effects of alloying a metal with crystals to just mixing them in like this. While the durability of the item went down a bit if it was done like this, the general effect-potency was a lot better, while there was minimal loss of the natural effects of the gems that Eisen could thenter affect through Magic Inscription. The man seemed like a generally quite careful fighter, and he didn¡¯t seem like someone that liked going for direct hits against other weapons or armor, so it was fine if it didn¡¯t have an amazing base-durability. Obviously it wasn¡¯t brittle like this, so it wasn¡¯t an issue either way. The man seemed like he would take care of his tools and weapons extremely well, and that he was quite attentive when it came to small damages, so Eisen didn¡¯t have any worries in giving him something that needed such attention. Especially here, where items like this probably didn¡¯t break that easily anyway, if it was even possible. They could degrade, but if Eisen was lucky, they couldn¡¯t break. Either way, the old man simply continued folding the crystal powder into the high-quality steel, folding it multiple times to make sure that the powder was as equally spread out as possible. And then, the old man split the steel up into two halves, and ced it back into the forge to heat back up while he also finally ced some of the mythril into it. This time, it was actually a rather special mythril. It wasn¡¯t the regr earth-kind that was capable of absorbing impact, and it wasn¡¯t even Eisen¡¯s ¡¯zing Core of the Mountain¡¯ version of mythril that was capable of returning absorbed impact. It was a special kind of Mythril that Eisen has been attempting to create for a while now. Since Silver was already a highly-magical metal without having any mana or element infused into it, it pulled surrounding elements into it very easily and its form was heavily affected by those elements. Water-Mythril would be a liquid, Air-Mythril would be a gas, Fire-Mythril would be basically a metallic me, while Earth-Mythril was the regr, solid kind you would find. Of course, through this, the only kinds that could easily be used were Water-Mythril, in potions, and Earth-Mythril, in regr items. Eisen did find a few uses for the Air and me Mythrils, like using it the gas-like mythril as a conductor for magic items, or the fire-like mythril in order to actually actively forge items as a recement for regr mes, and he would actually be using one of these two thingster. Although just for a rather small part of the whole process, in the end. But no, the kind right now was a very special kind of mythril, a kind that had basicallypletely pure mana infused into it. Eisen was able to do this by creating a special infusion-chamber that wasyered and ¡¯cleaned¡¯ with Maroon to get rid of any sort of mana or elemental, ambient magic, and stop it from getting into that chamber at all, and with that was able to create this weird form of mythril that was hard to actually use. Simply infusing it with pure mana and nothing else basically made it weightless. If it was possible to bring it to the highest step of infusion right now, it might actually end up not having any weight at all, but since it was only enhanced up to a certain point to be Rank 6 mythril, it still had a bit of the weight of silver to it. But it was basically like an air-filled balloon at this point, where it was dropping to the ground very, very slowly. Besides that, it was hard to properly touch it without causing an indent, as if it was incredibly soft despite not being a liquid. Like some form of foam with a lot of air in it. When Eisen first created a form of this mythril, when he took it out of the special infusion chamber, it became a different sort of mythril within a few hours, as if it was literally sucking in any sort of ambient elemental magic that it could find. But once it reached the point of a rank 5 magic material, that aspect of it stopped, as if it reached a certain necessary threshold to be able to exist as its own form of magic material without a specific element imbued into it. So now, Eisen was able to heat this metal up without worry, as long as he was actually careful. It barely took any time to heat it up, after all. Once this special mythril was done, Eisen grabbed it with his bare hands and... squished it in them. He was trying to press¡¯ it as much as he possible could in the natural way that you were able to press foam together. Like squishing a hand of loose snow in your hand to make it more ¡¯solid¡¯. Of course, this surprised the man incredibly, that Eisen was able to simply do that to a piece of metal that was obviously incredibly hot, and even the woman, that had been peeking into the room a little bit, was growing curious. Noticing their expressions, Eisen turned toward them with a smile, "I¡¯m one half dwarf, and one half giant from the Fire n. This kind of thing is nothing to me." The old man exined. He continued to press the metal together in his hands a little and then ced it down onto his anvil. It was a rather small piece now,pared to before, but it was still something that Eisen could work with. He turned this special mythril into two thin, small sheets, before grabbing the steel out of the forge again as he ced the mythril to the side, and then hammered the two pieces of steel down rtively thinly as well. Eisen grabbed the mythril sheets and ced them into the center of the t pieces of steel, before folding the steel over the mythril. The old man continued to hammer down onto this piece of metal with its new, special core, and then started to shape it into two daggers. They were slightly curved, but not all that much. The outside of the curve had a regr edge, while the inside was slightly serrated in case he had to use it for different situations than just fight, and simply to do a lot more damage when directly stabbing someone, although the man still seemed like someone that preferred shes in hisbat. And now that this was done, Eisen moved onto the next step. He sharpened the edges, as well as the teeth on the serrated side of the daggers, before he got out another special item. It was a small box that was specifically made for smaller items like this. Eisen opened it up, and all of a sudden, a silver-colored, metallic me shot out from the top, "Hm, a bit too strong..." The old man muttered, and pushed his mana into the gem at the side of the box. A ¡¯setting screen¡¯ appeared in front of Eisen, and he changed the me to be a bit lower and more spread out instead of being so strong and focused on one point. And then, the old man ced the two des of the daggers into the box. Because right now, the old man was tempering the des with the help of the Fire-Mythril. Not only would it coat the outside of the daggers in a very, very thinyer of residue of this special type of mythril, but it would also generally enhance the flow of magic of the whole item, even in the parts that were just steel. This was important to make sure the gem-powder bits were able to work to their full extent. And so, Eisen was close to finishing up the des like this, and then just quickly started to work on the handles. Chapter 630 Heavenly Assassin’s Black Dual Daggers The handles weren¡¯t anything all too special. They were just meant to be properly held onto, and that was it. This time around, while making this equipment for these two souls, Eisen didn¡¯t really worry about making incredible, highly-enchanted items, for multiple reasons. One, he had to make full sets of equipment for both of them, meaning that he would need to spend a fair amount of time on this anyway. It was viable to concentrate all your work on a single item for something like aission, but if it was something made up of multiple things, that was a whole other deal again. It would take far too long if Eisen did that, and he didn¡¯t particrly want to spend the next few weeks here. After all, he still had to make full gear for eight other souls beside these two, and then he had to head to 8 other divine realms altogether. Sure, Eisen was d that he didn¡¯t have to fight here as part of his task, but that would have probably been a lot quicker as well. In the end, Eisen just wanted to hurry up with this and get it over with. That didn¡¯t mean that he rushed through the creation of the items, of course, just that he was mindful of the time he spent on making them. Then, besides the aspect of time... it was just unnecessary to create absolutely amazing items for these souls. It was something different whenpared to that brush he made for the first soul in Trygan¡¯s divine realm. It didn¡¯t have anything amazing about it, and it didn¡¯t seem like the souls had any particr skills to them. Sure, the bristles were made of an amazing material, but the reason for that was really just the aesthetic, in the end. The soul wouldn¡¯t be able to make a particrly better painting with that brush, as he didn¡¯t have any skills to begin with right now. But here, things like aesthetic didn¡¯t really matter. Because there were no real skills or abilities that supported these souls, all that they had to go on was basic ability. And that kind of thing could be brought out by any weapon as long as it had the right shape to it. Of course, Eisen would still add a few enchantments to the surface of the weapons and armor, but nothing really beyond that. The items couldn¡¯t break, they couldn¡¯t actually be useless as long as one took care of them here. There was no reason to make them particrly durable through enchantments either. In the end, it was just unnecessary to create amazing weapons in this realm, or so it seemed to Eisen at the very leas.t The old man carved the wooden handles to be in the shape that the male soul would be able to hold onto them perfectly, but made it a bit thinner than even that, since Eisen would still add ayer of leather to it. Eisen prepared the two handles, each of which had been cut in half along the length of the handle, and the old man then walked over toward the special box that he made to temper the dagger-des with the mythril-mes. Eisen looked at the des with a satisfied expression, and then quickly started to clean them up. Right now, there was still something like soot on them, so they weren¡¯t all that shiny, but after the old man properly polished the des and made sure that they were in the best condition they could be, they were practically shining. As if they were producing light themselves. "You said you wanted to have the des be ck, right?" The old man asked as he touched the still slightly hot des and rubbed over them with his thumb, and the male soul slowly looked at him with a nod, "O-Oh, yeah... please." With a slow nod, Eisen sat down with the dagger-des in front of him and took out a small piece of cotton as well as a small, ck bottle filled with special paint that the elemental spirit just brought to him. Eisen opened the small bottle up and pressed the piece of cotton against the opening of the bottle and then turned it upside down. Immediately, you could see the ck paint pour into the white piece of cotton, before Eisen proceeded to rub it over the surface of the des. The paint stuck to the shining metal like glue and practically seeped right into it. It was as if the des were just paper that someone was drawing on instead of that smooth metal from before. Like the paint was directly connecting to the material. It seemed like somehow this aspect of it made the man especially curious about the process, although Eisen was already used to it. Simply because it was just like the soul thought it went. The special paint that was created by Evalia was something that connected with any metal it was put onto. Like this, even if the area the paint was applied to became scratched up, you wouldn¡¯t see the original color underneath. It was rtively easy to remove with the right substance though, so it seemed like Evalia and Komer were actually speaking about selling this kind of paint at different shops so that people could more easily customize their appearance whenever they wished to. A lot of the weaponry and armor that people ran around with was something mass-produced, after all, since having something special-made for you was rather expensive even for yers. Either way, for now, the old man continued applying the paint onto the metal and then let it dry a bit, before cleaning the de up again, removing the drops of paint that didn¡¯t directly connect with the metal. Then, he enchanted the two des a little bit. They were just simple enchantments that could be mistaken for decoration. They were made to support the slicing of the regr edge of the daggers, and the ripping of the serrated side. Once that was done, Eisen was ready to connect the handles. He ced them around the bit on the des that were meant for it, and punched small metal pieces, like screws or nails, into the holes specifically meant for them. Like this, Eisen would be able to keep the two halves of the handle tightly together. It didn¡¯t particrly look that amazing, but that didn¡¯t matter considering that the handles would still be wrapped in leather. For now, though, Eisen ced a few enchantments onto the handle that he usually put on there, like enchantments that would end up supporting how strong one could hold onto the weapon in question. Eisen covered the insides of the pieces of leather in glue and wrapped them around the wooden handles, pressing the leather into any small area that it had to fit against perfectly. When the glue dried, Eisen cut off the bits that were excess on the handles, and held the des in his hands a little bit to test their final bnce. With a satisfied expression, Eisen then got to the point where he had to use Magic Inscription on them. He poured his mana into the des, pulled it back out, and then inscribed them. But in the end, the Magic Inscription this time around wasn¡¯t all too special. It was just meant to basically support the enchantments Eisen ced on the des, and that was really it. And just like that, the two Daggers were finished. [Heavenly Assassin¡¯s ck Dual Daggers] [Rank ¨C 6][Quality ¨C Perfect] [Description] A pair of ck daggers created by the Godly Craftsmaster Eisen. They were created specifically for an Assassin¡¯s Soul in Gonor¡¯s divine realm, being empowered by the God of Combat¡¯s divine energies. The special pure Mythril core in the center ensures a superior flow of mana through this dagger, and to an extent, even spells can be cast through it for a higher effect. [Effect] \u003cGod of Combat¡¯s Holy Aura\u003e Trait [Requirements] Be a soul of the God of Combat¡¯s Divine Realm Eisen picked them up and held them over toward the male soul, "There¡¯s moreing after this, obviously, but you can take a quick look at them already. Don¡¯t take them with you yet though, I want to make sure they¡¯ll be part of the item-set." Eisen said with a smile on his face. He was a bit confused by the bit with ¡¯Assassin¡¯ that was written in the description of the daggers, but it seemed like it wasn¡¯t all that big a deal. Eisen heard about the Assassin upation before. It was pretty rare, and was usually used by people that did work in that specific field, but it wasn¡¯t always that case. A lot of the time, an Assassin could just be seen as a superior scout, having much higherbat ability than them. Considering that they were in heaven, the people here were bound to be the good kind, so this man was probably just someone that tried to make use of the Assassin upation¡¯sbat prowess when trying to advance his scout upation. That was certainly possible, after all. In the end, the old man figured that it wasn¡¯t a bit deal, and quickly continued on with his work as the male soul ced the two daggers down on a table in the corner of the room. He looked at them for a moment and then turned back toward his current project. Right now he was making the leather armor that the man wanted, more specifically, the special boots. It was kind of hard to get it right, considering what exactly the man wanted. He wanted to have shoes that he could move around quietly in, but also a kind where he didn¡¯t need to worry about where he was running around. In particr, he did ask for boots, but usually, those weren¡¯t particrly easy to move around quietly in. But in the end, Eisen figured that he could just create some enchantments and magic inscriptions to make sure that the man could move around quietly in them without worry. And to get this slightly annoying bit out of the way, the old man started with them. It wasn¡¯t that big a deal, really, he just had to create something like a foam-like version of different crystals that he could put in between the soles and insoles, so that he could properly enchant everything while not making thefort of the boots particrly worse. In the end, it seemed like Eisen figured something out, and he was happy with it, so he continued on and just started to work on actually making everything. The pieces were already cut out, and all that Eisen then needed to do was to put everything together, which was the easiest part of the whole process, really. At least in Eisen¡¯s own opinion. Chapter 631 Evil in Heaven Eisen put the pieces for the boots together rather quickly, and after he finished that part, all that he needed to do was finish the enchantments on the surface of them. They were just there to enhance and support the enchantments that were ced inbetween the soles and insoles, of course, and were making the sounds that the boots produced close to silent. Eisen basically did the same again when using Magic Inscription. Basically, the boots didn¡¯t make any sound that any normal person could hear now. Raziel still might, though, although Eisen wasn¡¯t even sure about that. Either way, they were now finished, so Eisen could move on to the rest. The leather armor that the male soul wanted didn¡¯t really have anything all that special about it itself. It was just basic protection while still allowing for a lot of smooth movements, that was it. For the most part, there really wasn¡¯t anything special about it. Of course, Eisen still enchanted the armor to allow for better stealth, since that seemed to be exactly what the man was going for with his wholebat style. The leather armor itself also had a cloth-hood directly coed to it so that he could hide his face a bit more. There were a few smaller parts that were a bit more directly useful, though. Like for example the throwing-knife holsters attached to the legs, or the parts on the chestpiece that were meant to hold things like different potion-pills. Then, the belt held a bit more utility than the rest as well. Basically, it had space to hold everything that the male soul may ever need, including spots for actual potions, more things like throwing-knives and smaller tools in general. And then, once the leather armor was done and already became part of the ¡¯Heavenly Assassin¡¯ item set, Eisen just needed to make all those tools and smaller items. They really didn¡¯t take that long, but still, after making all of these things, a good half of the day was already over again. Eisen hoped to find someone else that didn¡¯t need anything special, and maybe just required something like clothes instead of armor... Either way, for now, the old man managed to finish this rtively quickly, and then gave the whole item set to the man. He looked the items over with an excited expression, quickly trying it on. He swung his daggers around a little bit and tried to go through the motions to pick out different things out of his belt. "These are really well-made!" He eximed with a bright smile, "There aren¡¯t any special effects, but well, things like skills or stats matter for shit here anyway. Although, I do wonder... How¡¯d you know I was an Assassin while I was alive?" "Hm?" Eisen said with his brows raised, looking back at the man, "Ah, I didn¡¯t really know. My guess is that it¡¯s because all the items absorbed Gonor¡¯s Holy Aura. Since I was thinking about specifically making these items for you, as you are a direct part of Gonor¡¯s Divine Realm, it might have just... well, autpleted that part, I guess." "Huh, got it." The man replied, and then started tough, "Haha, well, good to know that it didn¡¯t show on me. I¡¯d like to think I¡¯m not like other Assassins." "Oh, absolutely. You seem like a kind man, so you probably never used the ¡¯Assassin¡¯ upation for things like that, right?" Eisen said with a smile as he started to clean his workstation up, although the man then said something that the old man really didn¡¯t expect, "Things like what exactly? You know what an Assassin is, right? They kill people for a living." Eisen took a deep breath after hearing him and turned around, just to see one of the daggers that he just made being held toward him, "Most of us do, at least, although I usually did it for fun. That¡¯s why it meant even more to me to keep it hidden. Nobody wants their secret hobby being found out, right?" The old man looked at the man and slowly raised his hand to rub the bridge of his nose while thinking, and then turned toward Ambriel, "Let me guess, this doesn¡¯t work in the way that only good people go to heaven, and bad people go to hell, right?" With a light smile on their face, Ambriel replied, "Of course not, that¡¯s just ridiculous. There are heavenspletely filled with utterly vile people, even. There are very few that go to the hells. Those that do are those which broke certain Taboos or simply chose so themselves by worshipping Devils." Eisen grumbled quietly and then looked back at the man in front of him. Eisen could practically see the bloodlust in his eyes. It was a weird feeling to be looked at like that, but it¡¯s not like Eisen had never felt this before. "Now, it¡¯s obviously been quite a while since I¡¯ve seen a living person, and you can¡¯t really kill those that are already dead... so I wasn¡¯t able to work on my hobby for a while... Would you want to he-" Before the man could even finish his sentence, Eisen turned his eyes to the side to make sure that this already counted toward one of the ten gear-sets Eisen had to make, and seeing that it did, Eisen immediately kicked his foot forward before the soul could even react. There¡¯s no way Eisen would lose to someone like this child if he was able to beat one of the greatest fighters this or the other world had ever seen. The soul was pushed back a few steps, but was able to recover from the force of Eisen¡¯s kick. In immediate response, it jumped forward and stabbed the dagger toward Eisen with a mad grin on its face. But all that Eisen needed to do was cover his hand in a thickyer of metal using his ¡¯zing Core of the Mountain¡¯ element and ¡¯catch¡¯ the attack. Of course, the dagger wasn¡¯t able to stab through to hurt Eisen, "Why would you even try doing that? Are you an idiot?" Eisen asked. Since the soul seemingly thought that he would be able to stab it into Eisen with ease, and now that he saw he didn¡¯t, wasn¡¯t really able to keep his bnce perfectly. Eisen closed his hand around the dagger and held it tightly while the man clumsily stabbed the other one toward the old man as well. This time, he hardened his chest, where the dagger was about to hit him, and then used his whole arm to squeeze down on the man¡¯s. Immediately, Eisen twisted the soul¡¯s arms around in opposing directions to make him drop the daggers somehow. And once Eisen heard the two items hit the ground, he let go of one of the man¡¯s arms and instead grabbed him right around his neck. He dragged him toward the front of the shop by his neck while taking away the items that he made for him. He was somewhat small, but with the automatic item-size change, this armor-set could probably be given to someone else that Eisen knew, "Ah, right, one of Stahl¡¯s upations is a scout-like one, right?" The Aura of the God of War that was imbued into these should probably have at least a little bit of a boost, even if there wasn¡¯t a direct stat-increase. It should still help a bit here and there. "Wait... You need to be part of this divine realm to use this... Hm, maybe I can make use of it somehow..." Eisen muttered. Since the creator of an item could ignore the requirements ced onto it, he was probably the only living person that could use it. Either way, as Eisen was basically stripping the man of the armor that he just created, the soul was iling its arms around, "What do you even think you¡¯re doing?! You made those for me!" "And you tried to attack me using them. Honestly, I don¡¯t care what you¡¯re gonna do with the items I make you. There are only two cases where I do, really. One, if you just immediately lose them and ruin all the work that went into making them, and two, if you dare attack me or people close to me with something I make for you. Got that? So shut up before I turn you into an ego-item." Despite the fact that the soul literally didn¡¯t have any blood, it still seemed like its face went pale after hearing the old man¡¯s threat, as Eisen then opened the front door and stepped outside just to increase his size to the maximum and throw the man toward town with all the force he could muster. The souls obviously couldn¡¯t be damaged or die, so it was fine like this. The impact might hurt a bit, but that was all there was to it. With a light smile on his face, the old man returned back into the building, where the other soul was staring at him rather surprised, "You¡¯re... really a giant?" She asked confusedly, and Eisen looked at her with augh, "Half-Giant, as I just said. Hey, go ahead and put these away." The old man said as he handed thest few parts of the ¡¯Heavenly Assassin¡¯ item set to his Elemental Spirit, and it quickly did as asked. Eisen quickly took a look at the quest to get Gonor¡¯s Acknowledgement, and was d to see that it seemingly still counted despite the fact he took the Item Set away from the soul again. But well, those were separate issues, since Eisen wouldn¡¯t have taken the items away if the male soul didn¡¯t try and attack him using them. "Well then, let¡¯s get to your items, shall we?" The old man suggested as he walked over toward the materials that the elemental spirit had already prepared for the item set Eisen would be making for the woman. He went through them and then with a smile on his face ced the metal into the forge to heat it up. Of course, this time Eisen wouldn¡¯t use the special, pure mythril since it would make the sword a bit too weak. And due to the rather special shape of the sword, as well as its special properties, it needed to be as strong as it could be. But since he now managed to make sure that the special tempering process with the fire-mythril worked amazingly well, he would definitely repeat that part. Eisen was actually rather excited about this item. While it seemed a bit brutal, the shape was still something that Eisen hadn¡¯t seen before. You could basically see it as a greatsword, but only the half directly next to the handle was like a regr greatsword. The other half of the de was made up of six thin crescent des pointing outward, three on each edge of the de. Chapter 632 Greatsword of Half-Crescents From the whole basic structure of the de, Eisen wasn¡¯t actually sure if this would be a viable shape for a weapon, considering that it seemed a bit easy to bend or break if it was a heavy weapon with thin parts like that. But considering that this was a world where it was possible to magically harden things with mana, it would most likely work out as long as Eisen chose the materials and processes right. First things first, Eisen started to heat up all of the steel that he needed for this de. Once the ingots were glowing in a bright yellow light, he started to fold them into each other while pouring mana out through his hammer into them, like he usually did, and then started to form therge lump of steel into the right form for what he wanted to make. Half of the sword wasn¡¯t really that big a deal, it was just like a straight, two-edges greatsword. But when it came to the other half of the sword, it was different. Basically, the shape of this sword was that half of it was that of a greatsword, and the other half was quite thin, about a fifth of the width of the greatsword. And then, if you took that thinner half of the sword and added three rounded des sticking out of the edge of that thinner half to create three half-circle shapes on each edge, being open outward, that would basically be the shape of this sword. It seemed like something that would be able to hook onto enemies very easily to just rip them apart immediately, since of course, the insides of those half-circle des had sharp edges themselves, and the tips of the half-circles were sharp like the tips of regr des. It was certainly an incredibly weird structure that the old man hadn¡¯t expected ever creating, or ever even considered as something that could ever be possibly thought up, but at the same time, that was exactly what made it something rather interesting. Eisen liked creating new sorts of items, and discovering new sorts of methods like that was incredibly interesting to Eisen. Although he was wondering what kind of craftsman made a de like that for that woman in the first ce... Because Eisen doubted she just randomly thought it up herself. But either way, who came up with this really didn¡¯t matter all that much. What did matter, however, was that Eisen had to try his best to finish this and turn it into a great item despite how weird andpletely unusual it was. It was even pretty hard to just forge considering its weird shape, but in the end, Eisen managed to get it done with just a little bit of support from Item Fusion and Alchemical Transmutation. And then, once this de was done, Eisen sharpened all of the edges and started to temper the de using the special mythril-mes. And while the de was tempering inside of one of therger special boxes that the old man created, he was working on the handle, which also had a quite interesting shape in itself. Thebat seemed to work by swinging the extremely heavy de around with a lot of force, so it required an extreme amount of grip on the handle, especially due to the somewhat weird shape. The crescents could easily get stuck on something and somehow rip the handle out of the woman¡¯s hands, and that was extremely counterproductive. So, the way this handle worked was a bit more unique. It was like being strapped into the handle, although it was still a bit different. There was the base grip there, the regr kind, but there was another special mechanism connected to that. And that special mechanism was something like two rings ced around the handle. But it wasn¡¯t like the grip was pushed through the holes of the two rings, but rather through the ¡¯solid¡¯ parts, as if the rings were going to be wrapped around the hands instead of the grip itself. Like this, it was rtively easy to create a tight hold on the handle since you had something else holding your hands on the grip beside your own strength. Of course, to make it asfortable as possible, those ¡¯rings¡¯ were more like leather straps, although they were a special kind, as they were a fusion of leather and steel created with the Item Fusion skill. Strong and durable, but still easy to bend like leather. These straps could bepletely removed from the handle or pulled up and down however you wished, since they weren¡¯t directly attached to the handle but held in ce by more rings that could be tightened however you wanted. Once more, this was something that Eisen had never really created like this before. He did make weapons that had a strap connected to the bottom of the handle that you could push one of your hand through, so that the weapon wouldn¡¯t be thrown away when it slipped out of your hand, but never something that directly worked against the item even slipping out of your hand. Either way, beside that, Eisen would enchant the wood itself to prevent the weapon from slipping out of the woman¡¯s hands. By the time Eisen was done properly preparing everything for the handle, the tempering of the de itself had finished. And so, Eisen got started on the enchantments for it. Basically, the woman wanted the sword to be able to cleave through whatever it came in contact with as easily as possible, while the different tips of the des were supposed to be there for extra stabbing. In general, the way you would fight with this sword was actually quite weird. A lot of swordfighting depended on you being able to stab it toward your oponent by pushing the de forward, but in this case, where the regr ¡¯tip¡¯ would be there was just a t surface. There wasn¡¯t even an edge there, by request of the woman, but it was really justpletely t. It was like having a double-sided war-axe or something like that, where you could only swing it to the side and cleave through things instead of really being able to slice and stab. It would certainly call for a unique style ofbat... Maybe Eisen should ask the woman to demonstrate it to him in a bit, and then he could basically ¡¯record¡¯ all of that happening with his Mana-Copy ability so that he could show it to Brody when Eisen was back in Prototype. He would definitely be interested in that. So, to support the woman¡¯s style ofbat that relied on cleaving through things with a lot of power and strength, Eisen created enchantments that helped push mass out of the way to cut things apart rather easily. And on top of that, Eisen tried his best to somehow support the edges themselves, as well as the tips of the crescent-de parts so that they wouldn¡¯t just end up bing useless with this kind of force andbat style. Increasing the durability of edges like that wasn¡¯t really that easy, although here in a divine realm, that might be a whole other deal again. Eisen still didn¡¯t fully understand how things worked here, as evident from being attacked by someone while ignoring that that man wasn¡¯t a good person simply because they were in heaven. That idea was just kind of ingrained in the old man¡¯s mind, but things seemed to work a bit weirdly here sometimes, so he shouldn¡¯t specte and just figure things out more directly. Just as these thoughts were crossing Eisen¡¯s mind, he connected the wooden part of the handle to the de and then enchanted the wood to support gripping onto it, before wrapping the whole handle in leather and attaching the special straps. And with that, the de seemed nearly done. All that Eisen then had to do was quickly use Magic Inscription on the whole item, increase the potency of the different enchantments, and then clean this Unique Sword up a little bit. He turned toward the woman, who by now was just standing by the wall in the smithy, actually watching the old man work with curious and excited eyes that grew even brighter the more the project progressed, and asked, "You didn¡¯t want it to by dyed in a special way, right? Just the regr base color?" The old man asked, and the woman slowly shook her head. "Yeah, just like that¡¯s fine." She said, so Eisen slowly nodded his head. He took out a small bottle filled wiht a translucent liquid as well as another piece of cotton, basically doing the same thing that he did with the two daggers that he gave to the man before. The woman looked at him with a light frown, and Eisen quickly exined, "Don¡¯t worry, this isn¡¯t paint, it¡¯s just something that makes the de keep its shine for a bit longer while protecting the outermostyer from things like scratches." The woman slowly nodded her head, although it seemed like she thought this to be unnecessary, and Eisen just continued his work. With a satisfied expression, Eisen looked at the item and smiled as he held it in his hand, swinging it around a little bit. The bnce was weirdly enough not all that bad, despite what Eisen thought it would be. For cleaving, you usually needed a lot of weight to be ced at the very tip of the de, and after Eisen added a bit of apressed piece of metal there, it seemed like that was enough to make up for the fact that the de was so thin in the upper half. And then, Eisen looked at the de with a smile, "Done." [Heavenly Warrior¡¯s Greatsword of Half-Crescents] [Rank ¨C 6][Quality ¨C Perfect] [Description] A unique sort of Greatsword created by the Godly Craftsmaster Eisen. It was created specifically for a Warrior in the divine realm of the God of Combat, Gonor. The Unique shape of the de requires a just-as-unique style ofbat to be used to its fullest extent. [Effect] \u003cGod of Combat¡¯s Holy Aura\u003e Trait [Requirements] Be a soul of the God of Combat¡¯s Divine Realm With a satisfied smile on Eisen¡¯s face, he handed the ¡¯Greatsword of Half-Crescents¡¯ over to the woman, who grabbed it rather curiously herself. She tried to swing it around a little bit, and Eisen was already able to see that she was capable of using this sort of sword like an extension of her own body without any issues. d to see how well it worked, Eisen turned around and started to work on the rest of the gear that he had promised to create for the woman, who by now was just excitedly waiting for even more amazing equipment. Chapter 633 Lesser Golem Eisen looked at the metal that was currently heating up inside of the forge, soon faced with the light of the glowing yellow steel hitting his sweaty body while he was in the midst of his work. He pulled the ingot out of the forge and ced it down onto the anvil, before hitting down onto it with his hammer. The kind of Armor that the woman wanted was a simple, pretty basic form of a full te armor. She didn¡¯t want any special gimicks, nothing exciting to be added to it. All that she wanted was for it to give her the defensive ability that she needed to have so that she could viably fight with a heavy weapon like she used. The old man created the different pieces for this heavy, metallic armor, and while he was shaping it was ncing over to the side every once in a while to make sure that he was really getting the dimensions right. In the end, it wouldn¡¯t be that big a deal, since armor could grow and shrink just like clothes did, but that didn¡¯t change anything about the fact that preferably, that shouldn¡¯t happen, at least in Eisen¡¯s opinion. Since the proportions of such apparel didn¡¯T change, only the base size, that meant that it would never actually fit perfectly if the armor wasn¡¯t a good fit from the get-go. Sure, it wouldn¡¯t be a huge inconvenience, but it still wasn¡¯t the kind of perfect fit that Eisen liked to personally create. After making sure of it onest time, Eisen finished the chestte. With a satisfied expression, Eisen held it over to the side so that his elemental spirit could take it from him. It quickly did as asked and then took it over to the side to quality-check it onest time. Eisen would enchant itter once he was really done with the whole armor-set. Since enchantments for things like this were essentially no different to full-body enchantments, the old man figured it would be a good idea to try and create enchantments smoothly while going over the whole armor. So basically so that there would be one enchantment split up over multiple armorpieces instead of multiple enchantments that would link together when the armor was put on. That meant that the individual pieces would probably hold a lot less, to now, enchantment-potency, but the final enchantment when one was wearing the whole armor would be even better than if Eisen ced multiple enchantments on different pieces. Especially the ¡¯Set¡¯ effect should support such enchantments incredibly well. Next, Eisen created the gauntlets, the leg-pieces, and then the metallic boots. Overall, Eisen tried his best to make sure that the whole armor really had the right spots for the different enchantments right on its surface, and tried to not let that change the style too much. Once the old man was done with thest piece, the helmet that would cover the woman¡¯s whole head, the old man looked over toward the Elemental Spirit, happy to see that he had already finished cleaning the armor-pieces that Eisen handed to it until now while preparing them to be enchanted properly. And so, he quickly started to do the same with the helmet while the Elemental Spirit swiftly went upstairs and grabbed an item that Eisen had specifically created for situations like this. In its shape, it looked like a regr mannequin, but in reality, it was one that was quiteplicated, created with many different segments for a quite simple purpose. The Elemental Spirit ced it down in front of Eisen, and the old man quickly tapped the gemstone ced t into the center of the wooden mannequin¡¯s chest. In front of him, a setting screen appeared, where he had to enter the dimensions of the woman. The moment he hit on ¡¯submit¡¯, the mannequin reacted. Different parts of the mannequin¡¯s body pushed out or pulled in, widening or thinning certain parts of its form. Basically, it was changing its own shape to an extent to be a perfect copy of the woman¡¯s basic dimensions. Of course it didn¡¯t have things like facial features or externally-visible muscture or something like that. It really was just supposed to be able to perfectly fit the armor that Eisen made for the woman so that he could enchant it without issue. It seemed like the female soul was rather surprised to see somthing like this, and approached the old man curiously, for the first time apparently trying to ask a question since Eisen wasn¡¯t in the middle of work for a bit, but instead setting something up. "So... what¡¯s this... thing?" She asked, looking at the wooden mannequin that Eisen and the Elemental Spirit were currently cing the full te armor onto, and Eisen smiled lightly. "Nothing special, just a Lesser Golem with a bit of a special body. I use it for things like this to make sure the armor doesn¡¯t move around while I work. Otherwise I may have to ask you to put it on while I work with it, which might be a bit tiring and annoying in the long run." The old man exined with a smile, and then quickly removed a smudge on the helmet that he seemingly oversaw before, and the woman looked at him with a frown. "What¡¯s a ¡¯Lesser Golem¡¯ supposed to be?" She inquired, so the old man swiftly answered as he got out everything he needed for the enchantment-process, "It¡¯s basically just a regr Golem, just that this one isn¡¯t controlled by a Golem Core, since it heavily relies on the different gimmicks built into its body. Switching a Golem Core out, or having a Golem Core create a body like this itself would just end up causing it to shatter because too much pressure is put onto it from outside. Other than that, I guess it¡¯s also not capable of interpretingmands, so that makes it easier to work with." It seemed like, while the woman wasn¡¯t directly all that knowledgeable about this, or maybe it was just because this was the case, she looked at the mannequin curiously, "I thought Golems were never capable of interpretingmands anyway. I fought alongside a Golemancer once before, if I remember correctly. I don¡¯t think his Golems were able to think for themselves." With a slightugh, Eisen quickly shook his head, as it seemed like this soul misunderstood what he meant, "No, no, regr Golems still are incapable of thinking for themselves, don¡¯t worry. There are specific kinds that are, like Ego-Golems, but regr ones aren¡¯t. ¡¯Interpretingmands¡¯ is nothing grand, really. What it means is... if you tell a Golem to ¡¯Walk to the door¡¯, it will interpret thatmand and break it down into smaller pieces. As in, ¡¯Put one foot forward, then put the other forward, then put the other forward¡¯ and so on. It takes the meaning behind the words in themand and turns it into something it can actually process with the little bit of a mind that it has. Well, this one can¡¯t. It wouldn¡¯t be able to follow amand like that, since it wouldn¡¯t know where to even start. Makes it easier to work with in a scenario like this, since Golems sometimes ¡¯over-interpret¡¯, and there¡¯s a small range of error in the way they fulfillmands, even simple ones." The old man exined, as easily as he could. "This way I can make a lot of processes happen through the ¡¯Golem¡¯ aspect of this mannequin as well as my Golemancy skill, making them a lot less mana-intensive. As you saw, there was quite a lot happening just there, and there¡¯s even more to it than the eye can see, so I was trying to make it easier to handle." While Eisen wasn¡¯tpletely sure that the woman perfectly understood what he was talking about, she seemed to have at least grasped the concept that he was trying to convey. Either way, she seemed impressed in what Eisen was saying, so he figured he could show her a little bit more that he worked on with this same kind of process. He looked over at the Elemental Spirit and it immediately understood what the old man wanted from it, considering that it was literally a part of his soul. It walked over toward the other side of the room and grabbed a small item sitting on a table there, a small, one-handed crossbow. The Spirit brought it over to Eisen again and the old man took it into his hand. With a single thought, the serving of the crossbow was pulled back and as it was moving back, a single small bolt was left behind in the right position, effectively just loading the crossbow perfectly. And in the next second, Eisen shot the crossbow, also with just a thought, although the bolt was quickly caught by the Elemental Spirit that turned part of its body into a soft, foam-like consistency to quickly stop its movement. "The same kind of process can be used for other things as well, as you can see. It¡¯s not a true golem, but it¡¯s something simr. So, it¡¯s a ¡¯Lesser Golem¡¯." The old man exined with a smile on his face, and then handed the crossbow back to the Elemental Spirit that put the bolt it ¡¯caught¡¯ back into the special spatial gem where the ammo was stored in. "A crossbow that is capable of reloading itself? How times have changed that such things are around now..." The female soul muttered quietly, surprised that something like this was actually a thing, although Eisen just quietlyughed and shook his head, "These actually aren¡¯tmon. You might find one of these at an Enchanter¡¯s ce, but they¡¯re pretty rare. Even if they are useful, this process still does take a fair bit of mana to run everything, so lots of people with low amounts of mana prefer going for regr crossbows." "...I see." She replied, as Eisen lightly smiled and poured his mana into the needle that he was holding, before proceeding to carve into the full te armor. He was going to put a simple protective enchantment onto this that would carry on over to areas that maybe weren¡¯t perfectly covered, like the gaps inbetween the different parts of the armor that were made to allow for proper, unhindered movement duringbat. Beside that, Eisen added small parts to the enchantment to make it a slight bit lighter and easier to move in as well. Once the old man was done with the armor, all that he had to do was grab a few special potions, some of which he already created for the female soul while making the ones for the man from before. And then, the gear for the woman was done. Chapter 634 The Heroic Soul Eisen looked at the more than just satisfied woman, who slowly stepped out of a dressing-room that Eisen made to try on clothes or armor, and she just looked back at the old man seemingly quite excitedly. Well, that¡¯s what he thought from her bodynguage, at least, considering that he wasn¡¯t able to see her face because of the helmet that she was wearing. "This armor is amazing! It is so... well, different to anything that I¡¯ve seen being produced in this realm." The woman exined to Eisen, who just looked back with a smile on his face, "Of course, I wouldn¡¯t expect that you would find armor like this being produced here. After all, it¡¯s a realm of Combat, so I don¡¯t think there are that many craftsmen here." "Indeed, only a handful, and most of those learned out of necessity. At some point the ¡¯basic¡¯ gear that was being handed out by the Lesser Gods following Gonor simply weren¡¯t enough. Truly, I never would have been able to find someone that could create a weapon like you made for me... It is not a kind that you see all that often, I¡¯m sure you know that." "Of course. I never made a weapon like this. It is pretty interesting though." The old man pointed out, and the woman raised her brows with a smile, "Do you think so? There are plenty that simply ridiculed the choice of my weapon. Many of them didn¡¯t get the chance to joke for a second time, however." "I can¡¯t say that I me them. At first, even I thought you were joking, considering your obvious stance toward me at the start." The soul slowly looked down at the ground as she took off the helmet, "I apologize for that. While I am not quite sure I can believe you to be that legendary craftsman, it is indeed true that you are incredibly skilled." Eisen smiled as he started to clean up the scrap materials that were leftover from the crafting process, "It¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry about it. But I actually have to say, I expected this to go the other way around, with you and the man from before." After that blunt statement, the woman looked to the side and nodded her head, "Yeah, I did not expect him to be that kind of person either. It is true that we are much more in tune with our former selves, since emotions are an important part ofbat, but I still did not expect him to be like that. He did seem quite kind when I was speaking to him, hence why we took the chance to try and practice together here in this area." Eisen slowly nodded his head as he finished cleaning up and stepped over toward the smithy¡¯s door, and the woman quickly followed him. The two of them swiftly stepped out the door and Eisen packed it up again once they were outside, since the old man would just end up moving on for now to find more people to work with. The woman looked at Eisen with a light smile on her face, "Again, thank you for giving me this chance to receive gear made by you that is just perfect for me. I will make sure to treat all these items well." "I wouldn¡¯t want it any other way. So go ahead and practice a little to get ustomed to these particr items." The old man suggested, and the woman slowly nodded her head. "Of course. Thank you." The female soul slowly turned around and left the area, while Eisen just packed away the portable house inside of his item storage. He then slowly stretched a little bit and then looked over at Ambriel with a cold expression, as if the smile he had on his face while speaking to the woman was simply never a thing, "Come on. Let¡¯s find someone else. I don¡¯t want this to take forever." The old man pointed out. Eisen looked at the angelic figure that was just standing there with the same nk look on their face, although now that Eisen knew a little more about them, he could feel a sense of contempt in that stare. The old man transformed into his Draconic Demon King form and then quickly lifted off, flying into the direction of town. Immediately as he was getting closer, he was able to see one of the arenas that the woman had seemingly been speaking of. Eisen could also see a few more in the distance, or at least he thought those were supposed to be the arenas, and they were all somewhat different in their form. To just check this out a little bit, Eisen just flew over some of these arenas to confirm his suspicions, and it seemed like he was absolutely right. There were some arenas that were just built like colosseums, with a wide,rge open area where simple duels would be held, but there were others as well, supporting numerous kinds of terrain. Sometimes it was just argeke that was built for ship-based or underwaterbat, areas that required a lot of climbing, or areas that allowed for things like sneak-attacks pretty easily. But somehow, the closer Eisen got to the center of the city, the more impressive the arenas became. As if you had to work yourself up to get closer to the center. And in the most central part of the town, directly surrounding the huge tower that Gonor seemed to dwell in, were different arenas that just seemed to be the peak. Eisen picked a random one and flew closer. In this case, people were fighting while on horseback. Or well, not only on horseback. There were other creatures as well. Large ostrich-like creatures, or different lizard-like variations that could be used as mounts. Some were running on four legs, others on two, but they were all running on the ground at least. But one of the people here stuck out in particr. Because he wasn¡¯t actually fighting, but was sitting on something like a balcony overseeing thebat-area, as if he was some super important person. But quite obviously, this was also abatant. This was a soul from someone that died without doubt, this was not an angel or divine being of any sort, but just a regr soul. He was sitting there on the balcony, and was looking down at the fights currently happening. He had something like a scuffed-up halberd propped up against a pir next to him, and was just leaning up against his mount that was sleeping. It was something like a red ground-dragon, but it was pretty unique in its own sense. For one, it was the only one of the mounts Eisen could see around that had any sort of battle-scars and that seemed simply aged as if going through countless battles on its own. While it was mostly covered in scales, there were parts of its body that were covered in feathers as well, as if they were simply something like decoration. And most importantly, it was about 1.5 times the size of all the other mounts around. But not only the mount was quiterge, the man leaning up against it was as well. He wasrge, around 8 feet tall probably. Bulky and mountainous, as if he would be able to tower over even others of his race. With a slightly curious expression, Eisen chose to just go ahead and fly down there, stopping right on the edge of the balcony. The old man stood there, his wings spread out as he squatted down and looked at the man that was simplyying there, trying to watch the ¡¯show¡¯. "Well, hello there. It¡¯s quite nice to meet you." The old man said with a broad smile on his face, and before he knew it, he had the tip of a halberd pressed up against his throat, nearly piercing into it. But of course, the old man tried to stay calm as the figure in front of him spoke up with a loud voice that simply screamed out ¡¯barbarian¡¯ in his choice of words and the rough, aggressive tone that he took on. "Who are you, bird man?!" He screamed out, and Eisen looked back at the soul with a smile on his face, "Someone that doesn¡¯t particrly enjoy having a weapon pointed at their throat." "Then bird man no sneak up on Gran!" The man eximed, before Eisen just smiled a bit, "Sorry about that, I didn¡¯t want to sneak up on you. I just figured you appreciate someone being straightforward, so I came straight to you." With a slight re directed at Eisen, the soul squinted his eyes, "Gran does like that... Why bird man here? To fight Champion Gran?!" Eisen raised his brows curiously as he looked at the soul, "I¡¯m not here to fight, no. But you are the champion of this arena? Wouldn¡¯t that mean you can reincarnate?" "Hah!" Gran yelled out, "Gran no want rebirth! Gran want fight legends! So, Gran ask Gonor to let him stay!" He eximed smugly, and Eisen slowly turned around to look at Ambriel, waiting for an exnation, and the Angel quickly did his job, "Gran here was allowed to ascend to being a Heroic Soul, gaining special privileges and tasks. In this case, he was most likely allowed to bring his mount over from when he was still living, and in return has to be the ¡¯final hurdle¡¯ of this arena." "Yes! Gran is a hurdle! Hold out an hour with Gran, and you can get rebirth! Does bird man want rebirth?" "Sure, once it¡¯s my time to die, I¡¯lle to you." "When is bird man time to die?!" Gran asked excitedly, and Eisen quietlyughed, "Never, actually. But nevermind that. I¡¯m not here to fight you. I would like to create some gear for you. A new weapon, some armor, and if you want, some armor for your friend over there." With a slight smile, Eisen looked over at the creatureying behind Gran, and the warrior stared at him with a bright smile. "Gran likes! Bird man,e! Make thingies for Gran!" He eximed, and Eisen jumped down from the railing and deactivated his transformation. The figure that was a fair bit taller than Gran until now suddenly became shorter, and the Heroic Soul looked at him with a frown, "Bird man tiny! And no longer bird! Just boring man!" "Yes, yes, just call me Eisen. And if you have an issue with my size..." The old man said, and quickly increased his size to the maximum he could without hitting the ceiling, which was actually around 10 meters, so Gran stared up at him excitedly, "Man huge! Giant man!" With a wry smile on his face, Eisen mentally prepared for the process of creating full gear for Gran. Chapter 635 Gran Eisen followed Gran out of the arena and was looking for a good ce to set up his portable shop for now, and as it turned out, Gran¡¯s personal house was right around the corner from the arena that he was usually fighting at. And even more luckily, he had quite arge open area. From the outside, it really just looked like something like a weird hill to Eisen, but the old man, Gran, Gran¡¯s mount as well as Ambriel swiftly entered through a simple cave. It was twisting around a bit, and if Eisen didn¡¯t know any better, he would think that this was an actual natural cave-system. But at some point, they left the cave again, and found themselves in the area that was inside of the hill. It covered a ratherrge area, evenrger than it let out from outside, and the top was open so that Gran was able to see the sky from here. This ce seemed rather idyllic, with a small pond, some flowers and trees, and random other nts. And all that showed that there was someone living here were the few items that were scattered around in the center of this space, a rudimentary mattress made by putting some soft leather on top of a pile of straw. It really seemed like Gran was someone that enjoyed this sort of serene nature a lot, which came quite unexpected from the way that he was carrying himself usually. The old man looked around and in thisrge open area found a good ce to put up shop. To properly protect the nts and not just crush them, the old man first used his magic to create stilts and a base tform before cing down his portable shop. He turned around and looked at Gran with a smile on his face, "I will have to work in the-" "Wheree from?!" Gran eximed, "Why hut here?!" With a deep frown, the tall man walked up to the portable shop and was about to swing his halberd at it, but luckily, Eisen was able to catch the weapon and stop him, "If you even dare try and do that again, I swear that I will rip your head off. This is my house, I put it here through magic if you will." With a deep frown, Gran looked back at Eisen, "Magic weak! Magic user weak! Man weak, go! Go, leave!" Somewhat angry, for whatever reason, Gran stared at the old man and tried to push him out of the way, but Eisen himself just groaned annoyedly. He activated his Draconic Demon King transformation again and tried to force it to turn into the Yin form, something that was incredibly hard to do due to the sort of energies coursing through heaven. But with a little bit of concentration and will, Eisen was able to do it. Eisen still had a good grip on the halberd Gran was using, and that grip only tightened as the old man slowly grew in size, staring down at the Warrior, "Be quiet and let me do my work, or you will regret it. Understood?" Eisen asked. Gran just stared up at him with a deep frown, "No. Magic weak. Gran no like weak. Gran no like weak man. Man leave. Strongest man no use magic, so magic weak." Suddenly, something jolted in the old man¡¯s mind. This feeling that he had until now... With a deep sigh, Eisen deactivated his transformations as certain words crossed over into the old man¡¯s mind that he didn¡¯t have the ability to filter out before speaking, "Your master would be disappointed in you. Didn¡¯t he teach you that anything can be used for true strength?" The information was put together in Eisen¡¯s head and he soon understood what he himself was speaking about. Gran was one of Brody¡¯s former students. The old man looked back at the Warrior, who just stared at Eisen with a deep re, "Master teach me to be strong! Magic no strong! Magic we-" Without a moment¡¯s hesitation, Eisen pushed his fist forward toward Gran¡¯s stomach with as much force as he could absolutely muster. The warrior was sent flying to the other side of this huge open area, "Shut up, Grastkindan." The old man growled loudly as he stepped into his shop, and Gran stared back at him, ???How man know that name?!" Eisen slowly turned around and stared into Gran¡¯s eyes, "I wonder how I know. Come on now, Grastkindan. I want you to sit there in silence and only speak when you¡¯re spoken to." It seemed somehow, using that name made Gran weirdly submissive. He wasn¡¯t aggressive anymore, and instead, was actually rather excited all of a sudden as if he realized something of importance. Ambriel watched this whole thing happen and stared at Eisen with a surprised expression, "I was not aware that this tribe of Barbarians was one with ¡¯true names¡¯. Are they devil-like in nature, so that you could use their names to control them and make them submissive, I wonder?" Eisen turned around toward the Angel and stared at him with a deep frown, "Of course not, are you an idiot or something? That¡¯s Gran¡¯s juvenile name. When a warrior of his tribe bes an adult, they get their adult name." "But how did you-" "I knew him while he was still alive. He¡¯s obviously not the smartest, so he probably forgot what I looked like already. This probably helped him remember." The old man pointed out bluntly, "And now, shut up. I already told you that I don¡¯t want to hear you speak anymore, remember?" For the second time now, Eisen was able to see Ambriel¡¯s face twist a bit, just a slight bit away from their regr emotionless expression. But instead of disgust like before, this one was justpletely filled with anger all the way through. Eisen turned away from the Angel and stepped further into the shop. Gran also quickly followed, and luckily the ceiling was high enough to let this Heroic Soul stand there without any issue. "Alright, then let¡¯s get started with the nning. And I tell you, if you freak out just because I¡¯m using a bit of magic or things that look like magic, I¡¯m going to leave immediately, alright?" With a quick nod, Gran epted the old man¡¯s conditions, "Yes! You strong, even though magic!" The old man sighed quietly and nodded his head as he sat down behind the counter, "Right. So, I assume you want a weapon simr to that halberd again?" Eisen asked, and Gran immediately nodded his head, "Yes! This weapon good, but not great! You make great halberd!" He eximed in his regr loud tone, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Got it. What about armor then? Do you want this kind of barbarian style?" The old man asked, and with the use of his visualization ability, he showed Gran a form of armor that Eisen mentally connected with barbarians, so a sort that showed a lot of skin and otherwise had a mixture of metal tes and leather bits making it up. It seemed like for the most part, Gran did want this kind of armor just with a few slight changes to what Eisen initially suggested. It didn¡¯t seem like Gran wanted any sort of other items, so instead, the old man made another suggestion. "Then how about I make some armor for your mount as well?" The old man suggested. Honestly, Eisen wasn¡¯t sure how Gran would react to this. After all, he was rather... well, passionate. And he was hard to read as well, so Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if he would react well or if he would start trying to attack Eisen again for saying something ¡¯dumb¡¯. But surprisingly, Gran just nodded his head, "Buldor armor. Yes, please make." The Warrior said bluntly, "If Buldor had armor when life, he would not have death now. Gran wanted Buldor and Gran to die together. Buldor hit with poison arrow. Kill Buldor, but Gran survived." Eisen looked at Gran with a slight smile on his face, "Is that so?" He asked, and the warrior slowly nodded his head, "Then let¡¯s take a look at what we could make for Buldor." The old man suggested, and quickly showed some of the old man¡¯s ideas to Gran, and in the end, he chose something that actually covered quite a bit of Buldor¡¯s outer body. As if this special ground-dragon was wearing full te armor but Gran was wearing the bare minimum as basic defense. But in the end, Eisen didn¡¯t really care. It was Gran¡¯s choice, and the old man would surely be able to create something that was amazing for Buldor. He was a rather unique mount, so Eisen was happy that he would be able to make something for him. And so, Eisen made his way to the back, where the elemental spirit had already been preparing everything that the old man needed for Gran¡¯s own gear. As far as the old man understood from the brief exnations he was given, Gran couldn¡¯t use magic, or even had any mana to speak of. He was a simr case to Brody, where he didn¡¯t have mana but instead some sort of other energy instead. So of course, that meant that Eisen couldn¡¯t add something like enchantments, since those would just be useful. Gran probably would reject anything that had to do with enchantments anyway. It made Eisen¡¯s job a bit easier, although it felt a little bit weird. It was fine, though. Eisen learned to create things without enchantments in the first ce, after all. On earth, they weren¡¯t actually a thing, so it really didn¡¯t matter that much. Eisen nced at Gran to figure out his proportions and things like weight, mass, center of gravity, and so on so that he could figure out the proportions for the halberd properly. All that was important, after all. In the end, Eisen figured things like that out rtively quickly and then simply got to work with the help of some good, high-quality steel. He formed it into the head of the halberd, a weapon that Eisen actually didn¡¯t make that oftenpared to other sorts. It was simply quite rare to see people that liked using it instead of other sorts of weapons like spears or swords for example. But especially for mountedbat it was a great choice, as you were able to easily stab it forward and swing it around just the same while riding on horseback, or on ground-dragonback. After Eisen finished the halberd-head and properly sharpened and then tempered it, the old man moved on to the long handle, which had to be used to counterbnce the heavy head while also making sure that it could be held onto properly. And so, the old man finished Gran¡¯s weapon rather quickly. Chapter 636 Tears "Oh! Great halberd! Great weapon!" Gran eximed excitedly as he started to swing the item that the old man just finished for him around, although the old man quickly stopped him from doing so and took the halberd from him for a little bit again. "Stop that. It¡¯s not a toy, so don¡¯t treat it like one." The old man said with a slightly annoyed expression, and Gran looked back at him with a slow nod, "Aye... Gran sorry..." He replied while looking down at the ground, and Eisen just sighed. "Fine, you can have it already, but don¡¯t swing it around, you hear?" "Aye!" Gran eximed as he took the halberd back, but was just holding it tightly in hisrge hands for now. Meanwhile, Eisen returned to his work. Since he already had the forge up and running, Eisen figured he should work on the metallic parts of Gran¡¯s armor first. And since it wasn¡¯t really all that much, Eisen just had to create three tes in total. One covering Gran¡¯s chest over his heart, one protecting him alongside the center of his back, and one that would be attached to the top of his helmet. Besides that, Gran didn¡¯t want any metal to be added to his armor, and Eisen respected that. He was supposed to make this gear for Gran and not for himself, after all. So while these metal parts were cooling down, Eisen started to work on the leather parts. Since the elemental spirit already prepared everything that Eisen needed for that, all that the old man really had to do was cut the leather into the right shapes, which was something that Eisen could do rtively quickly. And before he even knew it, the elemental spirit already prepared the thread that Eisen needed, so he could just get started on his sowing. He even prepared the right type of metallic thread, and was even keeping the mana-thread maker ready for Eisen as well. The old man was really d to have the spirit around, he was speeding these processes up a lot. And sure, Eisen¡¯s current apprentices were great at what they were doing, and they were great assistants in a workshop at all, but considering that the elemental spirit was literally part of Eisen¡¯s soul, he was obviously able to know exactly what Eisen was trying to do without any sort of exnation, and even went through the same thought-processes as him. So, it managed to figure out what Eisen needed before he himself even figured it outpletely, so it was as if the spirit was basicallypleting him perfectly. The old man put all the pieces together and then started to finish off by cleaning the leather armor with metallic tes attached to it a little more. And since this meant that it was now finished, as it wouldn¡¯t receive things like enchantments and magic inscriptions, the old man handed the armorset off to Gran again as well. Of course, therge warrior immediately stripped out of his current armor and clothes and changed into his new armor excitedly. "Strong armor!" He eximed excitedly, and Eisen looked at him with a slight smile on his face, "It is. The leatheres from a Rhinoceros Turtle, so it¡¯s especially sturdy." The old man exined to him, as he then slowly stood up from his seat and stretched. "Alright, for now, I¡¯ll take a quick look at your mount, and then I have to rest for about an hour before I can get to work on its armor. But then, I¡¯ll focus all my attention onto it." Eisen told Gran, who stared at Eisen for a moment and then quietly rumbled to himself, "Okay. Sleep, then make." With a nod, the old man made his way out of the house and approached the red, scarred ground dragon. It seemed a bit aggressive toward others as it stared at Eisen and started growling when he came close, but the old man just smiled as he stretched his hand out. The ground-dragon stared at Eisen some more before focusing its attention on the hand. It slowly approached Eisen and then started to sniff his hand for a bit, and then slowly pressed its snout against the old man¡¯s palm, before Eisen carefully rubbed over its scales. With a loudugh that made it seem like the ground was quaking, Gran approached Eisen and hit his back excitedly, "Buldor like!" Chuckling quietly, Eisen nodded his head, "I¡¯m d he does. By the way... what is he, actually?" Gran looked back at Eisen and tilted his head to the side confusedly, "Buldor is... Buldor. Gift from master." Eisen raised his brows as he continued rubbing his hand over Buldor¡¯s scales, "Really? Then maybe I should ask him about it when I get the chance." The old man muttered quietly, before getting a pretty good idea, "Actually, I have a suggestion. I would like to sleep here, so can you let Buldor sleep where he¡¯sying right now, and sit down against him like when we met just now? And face me while you¡¯re doing that, please. Ah, and stay like that the whole time while I¡¯m asleep." It seemed like Gran was a bit confused, but he wasn¡¯t directly opposed to it. With a satisfied expression, the old man sat down on the ground cross-legged. --- Benjamin finally got out of the capsule again, after just having a quick dream about meeting the others¡¯ apprentices, which was probably spawned from meeting Gran just now. There wasn¡¯t anything overly special to those memories, but they were something valuable to know. Like this, he would be able to recognize the apprentices of the others should he meet them in the divine realms. The old man stretched and slowly made his way out of his room. He stepped into the livingroom, where he saw Andrew sitting with a ss of whiskey in his hand just leaning all the way into the armchair. Benjamin smiled as he sat down on the couch and pped Andrew¡¯s knee. He jolted up and looked at Benjamin immediately, nearly spilling the contents of his drink, "What the- Oh... Eisen, it¡¯s just you." Andrew sighed loudly, not even trying to hide his current mood, and the old man looked at him with his brows raised. "Is everything alright?" He inquired, and Andrew slowly raised his head as he looked at Benjamin. Andrew properly sat up in the armchair and looked into Benjamin¡¯s eyes. "I don¡¯t know, actually. I... visited the Ind of Combat today. And I remembered something then." Andrew exined, and the old man in front of him looked back with a bright smile on his face, "Really? That¡¯s great! What was the memory?" He inquired, and Andrew looked back at him nervously. "That¡¯s the thing, man. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s really great or not... I remembered fighting alongside a friend I had, but he died because of a mistake I made." Andrew pointed out, "I fucked up. I was cocky, overconfident. I apparently didn¡¯t even peak at the time yet. I think I was like... Level 800 or something? We were fightin¡¯ some monster, and my friend just... He was cleaved clean in half, and I couldn¡¯t help ¡¯im. We wanted to make it more of a challenge, and left all healing items behind... Like a big fuckin¡¯ game of chicken. Well, I lost that game, because I chickened out after he didn¡¯t and died. And do you know what the worst fuckin¡¯ thing is? I remember who that guy was to me, he was my best fuckin¡¯ friend, and he just died. But I remember nothing beside that one fight and his death. I just feel so... disgusting." Andrew said as he looked up at the ceiling, and his hands were squeezing the ss in his hands tightly, so much so that Benjamin was scared it was about to shatter into pieces soon. "I understand what you mean. That¡¯ s a horrible feeling, only remembering snippets of something important like that. You remember your emotions, you remember your connections to other people and how important they were to you. But you don¡¯t know anything else. Their name, maybe, but that¡¯s absolutely it. You don¡¯t know about their personality besides what you saw in your memory, and you don¡¯t know any other moment you shared with that person. It¡¯s truly horrifying, isn¡¯t it?" Andrew looked at Benjamin, staring at this old man¡¯s face, "Who did you remember?" "..." Benjamin stayed silent for a while, as it was hard to find the right words... No, that¡¯s a lie. Benjamin knew exactly which words to use, he just didn¡¯t want to say them. He didn¡¯t want to acknowledge it like this. Right now, he could still pretend like it wasn¡¯t real, but the moment he let others in on it, that wasn¡¯t a possibility anymore. But he knew that he couldn¡¯t do that, so Benjamin slowly opened his mouth and admitted to it. He told Andrew about how he remembered his children, about how he remembered nothing but telling them a children¡¯s story. He saw these tiny snippets in the lives of his own kids, but nothing more than that. At this point, Benjamin had made the choice that it was impossible for him to keep on living if he didn¡¯t recover his memories. Until now, Benjamin tried to get his memories back basically ¡¯for the heck of it¡¯, but now, he did it because he had to. Because he couldn¡¯t call himself a father anymore if he didn¡¯t. Because what kind of father could live with forgetting his childrne? How could he not remember their first words, their first steps, their first loves, their painful and their happy times? Benjamin sat there on the couch and was staring down at the ground, grasping his own face with a pain-twisted expression, "It just hurts so, so much..." The old man started to breath heavily as he teared up and just started to cry. An old man like him in tears like that. It was sad, and Benjamin felt bad for basically turning Andrew¡¯s bad situation into talking about his own, but he just couldn¡¯t hold it in. The tears started and kept flowing without him being able to do anything about it at all. And like a good friend, Andrew was there for him. Without hesitation, he turned his attention toward the old man next to him. "Don¡¯t worry, man... No matter how long it takes, I¡¯ll help you remember. I¡¯ll make sure that all of us remember." Andrew said, "I know that it¡¯s painful, but right now, the only way we can stop the pain is by getting back all of our memories, right?" Chapter 637 Thankful for you Benjamin wiped the tears out of his eyes as he looked at the young man right next to him, "I¡¯m sorry that I showed something like this to you." He said with a light smile on his face, the corners of his eyes just red from crying. Andrew looked back with a smile himself and shook his head, "Don¡¯t worry, man. What¡¯re friends there for if not for this?" With augh, Benjamin sat there and closed his eyes, "Of course." He replied, and soon remembered something else of importance, "I wanted to talk to you with the intention of showing you something that might spark some memories. I don¡¯t know if it works like this here in the first ce, though, and of course, I don¡¯t want to show this to you if you don¡¯t want to remember anything new for now, just in case it does work." Andrew looked at the old man and started fidgeting around with his fingers somewhat nervously. He stared at the carpet under his feet before raising his head and turning toward Benjamin, "...Show it to me... I want to remember as much as I can." He chose, so Benjamin looked at him with a light smile. "I see... And like you said you will support me, I will support you in the same way, Brody." "Thanks..." Andrew replied with a light smile as he mentally prepared himself to see whatever Benjamin wanted to show him. The old man stood up and walked over toward one of the shelves stood up against the livingroom-wall. He grabbed a small gadget that wasying there and brought it over toward Andrew while he started to turn it on. He swiped through the settings before activating an important function, and that was the function through which Benjamin was able to see what was in front of Eisen while he was sleeping. The old man made sure that Gran and his mount were in sight, and then held it over toward Andrew. "I want you to take a look at this." Benjamin said bluntly, and Andrew stared at the screen for a few moments before taking the gadget from the old man in front of him. "Who... are these two?" Andrew asked with a slight frown on his face, "Both seem a bit familiar to me." He pointed out. Immediately, Benjamin realized what this might mean, "I think it¡¯s possible that you will regain memories about both that man and that ground-dragon." The old man suggested, in response to which Andrew could just awkwardly nod his head as he stared at the disy. "...I guess so." He replied. Benjamin ced his arm onto the young man¡¯s shoulder with a smile on his face, "Don¡¯t worry, if you need to speak about anythingter, then just let me-" "They¡¯re dead, right? Where are you? Heaven, hell? Do you know who this man and this... ground-dragon were to me?" Andrew asked instantly, seemingly quite nervous about the possibility that this might be some kind of enemy to him, but Benjamin just looked him into the eyes and shook his head. "Yes, they are both dead, and I¡¯m in heaven, in Gonor¡¯s divine realm. That man is a former student of yours, and that ground-dragon is a mount you seemed to have gifted him. In Gonor¡¯s divine realm, basically everyone is fighting to reach the top of some ¡¯category¡¯ ofbat-arena. This man, Gran, is the head of the arenas that focus on mountedbat. He reached the top before and would have been able to reincarnate, but it seemed like Gran chose to stay in the divine realm and keep fighting there. He became a Heroic Soul, even, although I still don¡¯t know what all that means." Benjamin exined to Andrew, trying to calm him down a bit. It seemed to have worked, to an extent at least. "...So he was a friend. Good." Andrew said with a light smile on his face, "Fuck, and I thought I might¡¯ve just killed this guy somehow." He pointed out with a wry smile. "Actually," Benjamin started, "After meeting Gran, the memory that I personally remembered was a little about everyone¡¯s apprentices and students. Well, you four, not mine, actually... But well, I remember meeting them each for the first time, and I remember rough things like what they specialized in at the time. I might be able to meet some more of them while I¡¯m in the different divine realms." The old man pointed out, "I don¡¯t know if I can show you all pictures of them or something like that, but maybe I can just speak to them a bit and ry a few messages?" Andrew looked back at Benjamin with a slightly surprised expression, before he stared back at the ground in thought for a few moments, "Honestly, I ain¡¯t even got a clue about how to answer that question. I mean... I guess it would be good to know how they¡¯re doing, but in the end, they¡¯re still dead, so it might be a shitty question to ask. I guess if they have something they want you to ry to me, I¡¯d like to hear it, though." The young man exined to his friend next to him. He just nodded his head with a light smile on his face. "I will. And just message me at any time if you want me to ry anything to any of your apprentices that I may meet. I¡¯ll let the others knowter as well." The old man suggsted, "But I will need to go now again. I only need an hour of rest in the divine realms, and I don¡¯t want to waste any time." "Then I¡¯m not gonna stop ya, man." Andrew replied, and Benjamin looked at him with a genuinely thankful expression, "I¡¯m d to have you around, Brody. Thanks for talking to me just now." And so, the old man returned to his capsule andid back down inside of it. --- Eisen woke up to the sound of loud snoring, although it really wasn¡¯t all too hard to find the source of that snoring. He was looking right at it, after all. Not only did Gran fall asleep, but so did his mount, Buldor, and both of them seemed to be each other¡¯s representation in another form, considering that they were both snoring loud enough to give someone a tinnitus if one wasn¡¯t careful. The old man sighed. He walked up to Gran and without a moment¡¯s hesitation kicked him in the stomach. With a loud crash, both Gran and Buldor were pushed back a few meters. Gran opened his tired eyes with a loud yawn, "Aye, mornin¡¯..." He said as he slowly pushed himself off the ground and stretched, his bones cracking a bit in response. "Come, I¡¯m getting to work on Buldor¡¯s armor now. I need you to tell me what you want him to wear." The old man said bluntly, but to Eisen¡¯s surprise, Gran immediately declined the offer, shaking his head, "Gran no tell." He eximed with a light frown. Eisen looked back at him, wondering if that kick somehow annoyed Gran too much after all, "So you don¡¯t want me to make armor for Buldor anymore?" Somewhat startled, and even a little scared, Gran turned around to look at the mount behind him and then back at Eisen, "No! Err... Yes? Make Buldor armor! But Gran no tell, Buldor tell!" The somewhat simple warrior exined, and Eisen swiftly understood what he was trying to say. He wanted Buldor to tell Eisen what kind of armor he wanted himself. The old man rubbed the bridge of his nose, "You know that Buldor can¡¯t speak, right?" "Hah!" Gran eximed with a weirdly smug expression, "Gran no speak right! But understand Gran!" "..." The old man looked at Gran and stayed silent for a few moments, "You¡¯ve got a point. Fine, I¡¯ll try my best." Eisen gave in, since it wouldn¡¯t help trying to convince Gran otherwise anyway, most likely, and the old man stared at therge, scaled red figure in front of him. In particr, he took a look at the rather beautiful feathers that were decorating Buldor¡¯s body beside the scratched-up, scarred red scales. To begin with, Eisen figured he should try and integrate the feathers into the design. From what he could tell, they were somewhat metallic in nature and seemed to be quite durable. When the old man tried to run his hand over them, he could feel that they were a lot more dense than it seemed at first nce. They probably had an immense natural defense on their own, although the rest of Buldor¡¯s body was already painted in scars to such an amount that it would be impossible for him to fight with them uncovered. Immediately, the old man came up with a quick, basic design for the ground-dragon armor where the most injured ces were covered up by metal tes as per Gran¡¯s request. The only thing that he wanted was that Buldor¡¯s body would be properly protected. But somehow, when he showed this idea to Buldor, the ground-dragon actually ¡¯replied¡¯ to an extent. He stared at Eisen and started to growl, as if he didn¡¯t like it this way. The old man looked back at him with a wry smile, "Then what do you want? If you can somehow convey that to me, then I¡¯ll make changes." Immediately, Buldor raised one of his paws and used it to hit the Visualization that Eisen created in front of him and Buldor. Repeatedly. As if trying to get rid of it in general. "...You don¡¯t want any armor at all?" Eisen asked, and Buldor somewhat nodded his head and seemed somewhat calm and happy even. The old man looked back at the ground-dragon and shook his head, "I can¡¯t do that, you know? Gran asked me to make armor for you, so I¡¯m making armor for you." With a deep huff and a slight growl, Buldor seemed to disagree with that statement, as if trying to say that Eisen really shouldn¡¯t make any sort of armor for him. The old man sighed and ced his palm on Buldor¡¯s forehead, "Fine, then I¡¯ll have to do it this way." The old man said. He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to use his title, ¡¯Soul Whisperer¡¯, to figure out what Buldor actually wanted, whilebining it with an aspect of his Soul Engineering skill, where he was able to figure out what souls wanted to be. Eisen figured it could be used to simply figure out what souls wanted to have, instead of what they wanted to be. And so, the old man started to try and figure out what kind of armor the ground-dragon wanted to have. Chapter 638 Pendan Eisen sat there, deep in thought as he tried to somehow convey his ideas to Buldor properly while trying to sense what the ground-dragon thought about them. With the help of his Soul Whisperer title and his Soul Engineering-abilities, the old man hoped that he would be able to interact with souls in this manner to at least figure out their feelings somehow. And in the end, Eisen managed to figure out part of why Buldor didn¡¯t want a full armor like that. And the reason wasn¡¯t the kind that he really expected... It seemed like mainly, Buldor simply didn¡¯t want his scales to be covered up. "...is that it? Really?" The old man asked, "Is it because you... want to show your scars?" He inquired, thinking that this was the most probable reason. There were quite many people that held the sentiment that scars were impressive, manly, or simply held meaning to them. But it seemed like that wasn¡¯t the case, as Buldor simply huffed air out of his nose and red back at the old man, which very clearly was supposed to mean ¡¯No¡¯. And then, Eisen tried to figure out how actual dragons thought about their scales... "Hm..." He hummed, and then realized something he never really paid attention to. Eisen never saw a Dragon with dirty scales. Actually, Fafnir spent a lot of his time simply grooming himself and cleaning his scales... So maybe they were just supposed to be something to show a dragon¡¯s beauty. And if this was a gift from one of the five that peaked, that meant that it had to be some kind of special creature. Eisen thought about it for a while and then crossed his arms, "Is it just because you think scales are beautiful?" With a seemingly smug expression, Buldor looked high into the sky, quickly answering the old man¡¯s question within a few moments, "Alright then... Are you alright with it if I just create something that looks like your scales instead?" Eisen inquired, and Buldor slowly looked down at him, "After all, they¡¯ve been weakened quite a lot. They¡¯re scratched up and lost their shine. What if I made you something that looks like your scales in the peak of your physical beauty?" Immediately, really without a moment¡¯s hesitation, Buldor seemed to ept the old man¡¯s suggestion. He stared him deep into the eyes with a passionate expression, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help butugh. "Fine, then let¡¯s do it this way." Eisen said, and started to quietly think about what the scales may have actually looked like in the past, before he got a pretty good idea. He turned over toward Gran, "You probably still have your memento, right? Is it connected to Buldor, by any chance?" With a surprised expression, Gran nodded his head as he quickly ran over toward the center of thisrge, open area. He pulled the leather-sheet off the hay that acted as his bed and grabbed a small item. To Eisen¡¯s surprise, it looked like a pendant, something that Eisen really didn¡¯t expect Gran to have as his memento. But when he took a closer look at it, and then looked at Buldor¡¯s head, where he had two small horns curved around at the side of his forehead, neatly hidden by Buldor¡¯s puffy feathers. It seemed like one of those horns was missing about a third of it that simply shattered off, and that had seemingly been turned into the pendant that Gran was now holding, "This gift by you. Made when Buldor dead." The warrior exined bluntly. It seemed like Gran really did remember Eisen, and just when the old man wanted to see if it sparked any memories for him, the Warrior spoke again, "When Buldor dead, Gran came to life-man... Life-man no bring back Buldor. You made pennent for Gran." As Gran spoke, Eisen just smirked at his mispronounciation of ¡¯pendant¡¯ and took the small item to get a better look at it. "I see..." He muttered. It was obvious that ¡¯Life-man¡¯ was supposed to be Jyuuk. While it was possible to resurrect living beings, there seemed to be a lot of restrictions on it, so Jyuuk most likely wasn¡¯t able to just bring him back. And if Buldor¡¯s soul stone had not been gathered quickly enough, that meant that the soul moved on already and it would have been impossible for Jyuuk to animate him and turn him into an Undead. Sure, he would have been able to animate Buldor¡¯s dead body, but that most likely wasn¡¯t what Gran would have been looking for. With a smile on Eisen¡¯s face, stuck between the weirdly nostalgic feeling of hearing Gran exin the situation and the sentamentality that came with it at the same time, the old man closed his hands around the pendant and took a deep breath as he initiated his meditation. The old man let his thoughts flow through this item, and he tried to activate his item-memory skill. He wasn¡¯t sure how it worked exactly, but hopefully, since it came from a living being, he would be able to see Buldor while he was in his physical peak. Eisen concentrated as hard as he could on this piece of a broken horn. And before he knew it, Eisen felt like something around him had changed. He slowly opened his eyes, and he stood in front of the corpse of Buldor as it wasying there lifelessly with blood-covered, dirty scales. Eisen sighed lightly as he looked at this, but he figured this was a good chance nheless. Slowly, Eisen squatted down in front of Buldor and inspected him, before he took notice of the horn that he had seen to be broken on Buldor¡¯s soul before. At first nce it looked to bepletely whole, but when Eisen pushed the feathers to the side, he noticed that this really wasn¡¯t the case at all. A mixture of blood and mud had seeped deep into Buldor¡¯s feathers and hardened while they were basically wrapped around Buldor¡¯s horns. It seemed like Buldor¡¯s blood was rather special, and hardened to be basically like concrete, or so it seemed all around the ground-dragon¡¯s body. Eisen pulled away the feathers and saw that the horn had already broken off and that it had only been held in ce by these feathers. For the next little bit, Eisen tried to remove the feathers from the piece of the horn without having to cut through them, and then ced the piece to the side. And then, at that point, Eisen just grabbed a jug of water that he imagined to be standing next to him in this imaginary space in Eisen¡¯s soul realm, before grabbing a piece of cloth and starting to just clean Buldor¡¯s body up. It was quite disgusting right now, and that wasn¡¯t really the kind of sight that Eisen wanted to see when looking at him... After all, until a moment ago, he was rubbing Buldor¡¯s snout and interacting with him. And it simply was something to do out of respect in Eisen¡¯s opinion, at least... Most importantly, though, it just felt right to do it, so there was no reason not to. When Eisen was done cleaning Buldor¡¯s body, the old man started to clean up the piece of the horn that he would be turning into the pendant. First things first, of course, Eisen got started with cleaning this piece as well, scrubbing over it vigorously until it was practically shining. When he was done with that, Eisen started to slightly shape this piece. In general, there wasn¡¯t really much to the shape of the pendant that Gran had shown to Eisen. It was a roughly ten centimeter long piece of a horn that had its base covered in some metallic decoration, while the numerous little damages all over this small piece, which probably came from battle as well, were filled in with mana-crystal, considering how durable it was. First, Eisen grabbed a small file and started to file away at the edges of the horn¡¯s base so that it wasn¡¯t as sharp there anymore, trying to round and tten it a little so that he could attach a proper metal base to it. There were small parts in the damages on this part of the horn that Eisen figured to fix up simrly. Like for example, small bits with cracks that were loose or wiggling around were just removed, and Eisen tried to make sure that there was really nothing at all, like dirt, blood, or worse even, bugs stuck in these little damages. For the most part, Eisen¡¯s hands were really moving on their own again, though. It felt different to before, since everything that Eisen¡¯s hands did was exactly the way that Eisen wanted to do it in the first ce, which made sense if he was the one that made this pendant originally. Eisen cleaned everything up as well as he possibly could and then set this horn to the side for now while Eisen fired up the forge in front of him. It seemed like, as simply as Gran was, the metal that was used as the base was just simple, durable steel on the pendant so that Gran didn¡¯t have to worry about anything breaking while he was carrying the pendant around. The old man just created a small half-sphere that he then properly attached and fused with the horn, before starting to pull a mana-crystal thread through a small hole in the metal, although the mana-crystal thread was fused with the bit of shavings that Eisen got from fixing up the horn a bit more. After that was done, Eisen filled all the damages in with mana crystals and then cleaned everything up a little more. And with that, it was already done. There wasn¡¯t anything special about this, just like the old man had figured from the start. Once more, no enchantments or magic inscriptions or anything like that. It was just a simple item that was meant to let Gran remember Buldor properly simply by looking at it. But once Eisen finished the item, he watched as Gran received it from Eisen in the past. And the old man followed Gran as well, simply watching him wear the pendant around his neck while he was fighting. It seemed like many people thought that this was a horn taken from some kind of enemy that Gran had in, which was what most would most likely expect from someone of this Warrior¡¯s stature and behavior, but it was surprisingly much more sentimental than that. Eisen was able to watch Gran throughout hisst few battles that he took on himself, before finally dying. Eisen wasn¡¯t actually able to see anything but Gran, though, and he was able to hear a few things some poeple said to him, but he wasn¡¯t even able to see the area around the Warrior or the figure of who he was speaking to or fighting, so he didn¡¯t know how Gran died. Eisen just knew that he did, and that he was grasping the pendant with a smile as he passed on into the afterlife. Chapter 639 Deeper Memories Eisen soon woke up while holding the pendant in his hands, and soon saw a notification floating in front of his eyes. [As you have taken care of the body the main material came from, your understanding of the item is far more extensive. You are now able to experience deeper memories] The old man raised his brows as he looked at the notifications, and immediately let out a deep sigh, "I guess I should try again right away, huh?" Eisen muttered to himself. He closed his eyes and started to focus his attention on the pendant once more. Soon, the scenery around Eisen started to change once more, away from thisrge open area back to the samll workshop that Eisen had in his soul ream. He looked down at his hand and saw that he was already holding the pendant in his hand, and in front of him he could see Buldor¡¯s cleaned body, basically in the exact state as Eisen left it before. As he concentrated on the pendant again, his hands once more started to move on their own. Eisen concentrated a little bit of heat on the metal parts of the pendant before starting to take it off, and he immediately understood what this was about now. Instead of making the item he wanted to see the memories of, he was supposed to take it apart somehow. And sure, that was something pretty important you should do if you wanted to figure out the exact structure of some moreplex items, but this... Really wasn¡¯tplicated in the slightest. It was a bit of steel wrapped around the base of a broken horn. The old man looked at the item as he was now only holding the horn that had some of its broken parts filled in with mana-crystal. But somehow, it seemed like Eisen didn¡¯t try to take that mana-crystal filling out of the broken parts. Instead, he just squatted down in front of Buldor¡¯s lifeless body, and then held the base against the part of the horn where this piece broke off in the first ce. Eisen fused the two pieces back together properly, filling in any sort of empty space inbetween with mana-crystals, as if just trying to substitute the actual horn somehow. And then, the old man took a step back as the somewhat caved-in form of Buldor gained a little bit of healthy mass. Eisen watched as the scratches on the scales disappeared together with the scars, one after another. A young Buldor slowly rose from the dead as Eisen¡¯s eyes werepletely focused on it. Immediately, Buldor started to dig at the ground a bit, but just to be able to get some proper hold on it, before starting to run forward right into the wall on the other side of the room. But instead of Buldor just injuring himself, the wall just shattered into pieces as if it had just been a painted ss-pane. The moment that the shards of ss, that left behind a round hole in the wall, hit the ground, they shattered more and more until they were nothing bust dust. Or so it seemed at first... It actually looked to be something like a mixture of sand and pretty fine dirt. Eisen stepped through the hole in the wall and was soon blinded by bright sunlight, forcing him to hold a hand to his eyes. The moment that he managed to regain his ability to see properly, one of the first things he actually noticed was that the wall that he just stepped through was nonexistent. There was nothing behind him but the same field of grass with a small river flowing through it in the middle like Eisen was able to see all around him right now anyway. The second thing he noticed was Buldor, running around said field of grass with vigor and glee. And immediately, Eisen understood that this was Buldor in his peak, instead of just at the end of his life like Eisen had seen so far. This was exactly what Eisen was hoping to be able to see. With a smile on his face, Eisen understood what this side of this skill was about. First, Eisen could understand the item itself and what it went through after bing said item, and then Eisen could see what the materials for that item actually were before. And in the case of them being a living creature, Eisen would be able to see the rough way it lived and looked in its peak. And that was an amazing ability as far as Eisen was concerned, mixed with a surreal amount of luck that this was actually a thing. Immediately, Eisen made sure to properly use his mana-copy skill to copy the exact details of Buldor¡¯s form, while he used his ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Being¡¯ skill to remember all the other details, like shade or shine, properly. Things that weren¡¯t copied with the mana-copy skill. Just as Eisen finished all that he needed to finish, he once more found himself back in the center of Gran¡¯s living area, just where he had started to work on this in the first ce. With a light smile on his face, Eisen pushed himself off the ground and stretched a bit. Somehow, using this skill was a bit tiring to Eisen. But that didn¡¯t matter for now. First things first, Eisen had to think about what exactly he was supposed to do for Buldor¡¯s armor right now where he would be able to integrate proper scales into it. Just for the heck of it, since he wasn¡¯t fully sure for an idea, and Gran was the one that knew Buldor the best, the old man figured that he should just ask the Warrior about what he was thinking, "Gran." The old man started, and he looked at Eisen excitedly, quickly nodding his head as his stares practically drilled holes in Eiro¡¯s body. "Yes!" Gran eximed, and Eisen just looked at him with a smile, "Do you have a good idea for what kind of armor I could make for Buldor?" The warrior slowly crossed his arms and closed his eyes, deep in thought as if he was just asked to solve world-hunger immediately. Although, the answer wasn¡¯t really that great in the end even then, "Make new Buldor scales!" He eximed, and Eisen sighed. He got that far already. Obviously it would need to be an armor that replicated scales, but Eisen wasn¡¯t sure how he was supposed to make it look realistic, as if it wasn¡¯t an armor but actually the ground-dragon¡¯s scales. That seemed to be the kind of thing that Buldor wanted to have. "Hm... What should I-" The old man muttered, before he abruptly stopped and turned his head toward Gran, thinking about what he said once more, "Make new scales for him, huh..?" Eisen said as he looked back at Buldor and walked over toward the ground-dragon. "Sorry, if this is ufortable, just let me know somehow. And please, not by biting me." The old man said with a lightly wry smile as he started to run his hands over the scales on Buldor¡¯s body. He slightly pushed them up to see what they were like underneath, and as he did... The scale that he pushed up in particr simply fell off, as if it was barely held in ce before at all. There were even some scales directly around it that loosened up, and a few momentster, one of them dropped down. "Well then... This does not seem good." The old man muttered, "How have you even been fighting with Buldor? After a single hit, so many of his scales would drop down." Eisen asked, and Gran crossed his arms in thought, "Gran no remember Buldor be hit much. More often, Gran be hit." He said, and the old man simply sighed out deeply. "Fair enough, I guess." The old man said. If the attacks were more often than not just focused on Gran, then that made a little more sense. But even then... Scales being loose to this extent was really weird, and definitely unhealthy. It seemed like Buldor simply didn¡¯t have an amazingly healthy body, or the fact that he was a soul kept the scales in ce until Eisen interacted with them somehow. He didn¡¯t know, it was possible. But through this, one more thing was possible as well. Eisen stood up with the few scales that dropped down to the ground in his hands and walked up to Buldor¡¯s snout. He looked deep into the ground-dragon¡¯s eyes. "Alright, this is a proposition to you, now." Eisen said, as he slowly created a visualization in front of him and Buldor so that he could go through it properly, "I will remove your scales from your body one by one, and fix them up with a special metallic mixture, before I try to help you put them back on. Alright?" Eisen asked. After all, this was how divine realms, at the very least this one, seemed to work. While Eisen was watching the fights in some of the arenas, he watched someone¡¯s hand be cut off just to have him simply reattach it againter by holding it up to his wound and by using some health potions. If that was the case, then surely the same could happen with scales. Slowly, seeing that Buldor wasn¡¯tpletely opposed to it, Eisen first just tried to reattach one of the scales to Buldor¡¯s body. He pressed it into the spot where it was before, fixed up the wound a little bit with some health jelly that was applied strategically, and then used the same health jelly to properly reattach the scale to Buldor¡¯s body, as if it was never gone in the first ce. Seeing that this worked, Eisen didn¡¯t have any worries about continuing with this ideas, and using his visualization ability, he tried to show both Gran and Buldor what the individual scales would look like in the end, and how he would use Buldor¡¯s current scales in order to make them. At first, both of them seemed hesitant, considering that Eisen was asking them if Eisen could remove the thing that Buldor thought was most beautiful about his body for a while, before crushing it up and mixing it with molten hot metal, to then form new scales with a metallic base. Not that many people would be as excited about that idea as Eisen was, but once the old man exined the benefits of this, like the fact that this wouldn¡¯t hinder Buldor¡¯s mobility at all while also making others unsure if he was wearing an armor in the first ce, the old man just saw two excited expressions that told him that he should do this. Chapter 640 Special sort of armor Eisen cracked his knuckles as he started to get to work. First things first, he started taking patches of Buldor¡¯s scales off of his body. Of course, he didn¡¯t want to make it so that Buldor had to sit around there basically naked, so he worked on everything a bit at a time, simply by taking five pounds of scales off of Buldor¡¯s body at at time and then working with them. The old man grabbed the first patch and proceeded to grind them down into a fine powder. Eisen did the same with some different metals that he simply shaved down as finely as he could. With that, he made a mixture of steel, some silver and gold, and a bit of brass, and then he mixed in a few different crystals and gem into it as well. To start it off with, Eisen just made sure that all of these powders were mixed together properly before slowly starting to heat them up while mixing everything around still. Of course, without Gran knowing, Eisen was doing this so that he could properly mix in different elements and aspects of alchemy so that he could make something like a metallic potion out of this. This was the best way to properly create amazing scales for Buldor¡¯s body, and Eisen was trying his best to make them as good as he possibly could. The mixture slowly started to melt and clumb up in different parts, all the whilst Eisen was just stirring everything around and making sure things were mixing together properly. Soon, Eisen had the mixture ready and just poured it out into some molds that he made with his element. Those molds were really just small ingots, eachrge enough so that Eisen could turn one ingot into one scale. After the small ingots properly cooled down and hardened, Eisen got to work and grabbed one of them before it fully cooled down so that he could try and work with it first. He used his hammer and ttened the small ingot, quickly folding it over itself a few times so that he could pour some of his mana into the metal as well. Eisen deliberately made sure that the metal would be a little bit too dark, so that, with the added mana while folding the metal, it would take on the perfect color. After he reached that point, Eisen just ttened the scale and set it to the side to let it cool while he worked on the next scale. And then the next, and then the next, until this batch of scales was done being shaped. All that Eisen then did was sharpen some certain parts of the scales with a grinding wheel, so that Buldor might be able to cause a bit of damage just by ramming into others, and then Eisen just tempered the scales in Mythril-mes. It was obvious that Gran didn¡¯t know what Eisen was doing exactly, so he didn¡¯t freak out over the fact that he was using something magical in order to create Buldor¡¯s armor, but in the end Eisen really cared very little for Gran¡¯s opinion on this anyway. This was something that was made for Buldor¡¯s body, and while Gran didn¡¯t have any mana, Buldor was basically overflowing with it. It was obvious that he was some kind of creature with a high amount of innate magic that he simply never learnt to use due to being partnered up with Gran. It seemed like a bit of a waste, but it was obvious that Buldor was able to make use of its abilities amazingly anyway, even without using his innately high mana. After the scales were done and had a beautiful shine to them just beind held toward the light that the forge gave off, Eisen figured that it was time to return these to Buldor¡¯s body. Somewhat nervously, Eisen squatted down in front of Buldor and pressed one of the scales right against Buldor¡¯s skin in the spot where it was supposed to connect, and then applied a little bit of health-jelly. Buldor¡¯s body epted the scale and properly pulled it into itself, holding it steadily in ce. Satisfied, Eisen did so again with the rest of this small patch of scales. And obviously, since Eisen mixed some other materials in with the ground-down scales, the old man ended up with more scales than he started with. This was so that Eisen could properly cover the parts of Buldor¡¯s body where there weren¡¯t any scales to begin with, like the areas where Buldor had deep scars that reced the scales that were supposed to be there. The old man would try and ¡¯repair¡¯ those parts a little bit by adding scales to the areas that had lost them before. But for now, Eisen would just work on recing the scales that Buldor actually did have with new ones while putting the scales that Eisen had left over to the side forter. He quickly started to work on the next patch of scales afterward. This in itself took quite a long time, just due to the sheer amount of scales covering Buldor¡¯s body, and the old man spent nearly the whole day just making the same thing over and over again. And then once all the scales that were actually on Buldor¡¯s body had been reced, Eisen sat down at the side of Buldor¡¯s body and started to try and work with the areas with so many scars on them that there weren¡¯t any scales anymore. Eisen tried to cut Buldor¡¯s skin open in those areas to use health-jelly so that he could at least somewhat improve the condition of those scars, since they hadn¡¯t healed all that well. Actually, surprisingly, it seemed to work pretty well. Better than Eisen had expected at least. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was working with the soul directly instead of a physical body, but Eisen really couldn¡¯t tell. He didn¡¯t know all that much about how souls worked, maybe he should try and ask Jyuuk about this the next chance he got. But for now, Eisen stopped letting his mind wander and instead continued to work on repairing the scars a bit more. Obviously, Eisen wasn¡¯t able topletely get rid of the scars, but at the very least he was able to bring Buldor¡¯s skin in those areas to the point where Eisen could re-attach the scales, just like he was hoping. And then, he started to reattach the scales properly, and soon could take a step back as he looked at Buldor, standing there as if he was in his physical peak again. Gran slowly approached Buldor with a broad smile on his face, "Buldor! Young again!" He eximed, and in response to the warrior¡¯sment, the ground-dragon just huffed some hot air out of his nostrils with a smug expression on his face. Or so it seemed, it was hard to tell with that draconic snout of his. Eisen looked at Gran and Buldor with a slight smile on his face, before stretching a bit, "Alright then, the first step is done. Let¡¯s move on to step two." The old man pointed out, and Gran looked over toward him with a surprised frown, "Step two? Buldor already awesome enough!" With a smirk on his face, Eisen just stepped past the warrior and made his way back into his smithy, "Of course he is, but he can still be a lot more awesome than now." Eisen said, "Don¡¯t worry, this is just an idea on my part. You don¡¯t have to go with it if you don¡¯t like it, but I want it to be a surprise." The old man stated, "So no peeking." Eisen shut the door to the smithy, leaving out Gran and Buldor for now as he started to gather all the materials that he needed. He put everything together and started his mental process of figuring out the best order of things, and then figured he should get started with one thing in particr first. The old man started by grabbing a few different pieces of metal, simr in ratio to the metals that hebined Buldor¡¯s scales with, and then put them into a crucible so that he could melt them down. Meanwhile, Eisen grabbed a piece of special leather that Eisen grabbed from a monster on Trygan¡¯s ind, and then cut it into the right shapes. Basically, they were just things like long strips though, or something like belts since they were supposed to be closed around something. Once those long leather strips were done, Eisen took a deep breath and prepared to do something that he hadn¡¯t done before, but wanted to try out for a while now. He wanted to figure out as many different techniques as he possibly could with his new abilities, after all. He grabbed the first leather strip and walked over toward therge crucible, before just pushing the strip into the mixture of molten metal, trying to cover every surface as it just started to burn to a crisp, basically. But of course, to prevent this from actually happening, Eisen started to slowly fuse the leather with a bit of the molten metal, as if to make it resistant to the heat just to the point where it wouldn¡¯t burn directly, but would obviously still be affected. Now, it could neither melt nor burn, so it reached the perfect point for Eisen. As his hands were also right inside of the molten metal, Eisen could proceed to properly rub the molten metal into the surface of the leather strip, fusing more and more of it into that strip while the heat of the metal affected it in an actually pretty interesting way. Soon, the old man pulled the leather strip out of the molten metal and then started to clean it up a bit, removing all the bits of molten metal that hadn¡¯t been fused into the leather. Once this was done, Eisen was holding something in his hand that was basically a metal bar that wouldn¡¯t be able to melt, but was able to be slightly bent when heated up. And like this, Eisen started to form borders for Buldor¡¯s body that the old man could use to ¡¯split¡¯ Buldor¡¯s feathers off from his scales. It would make everything look a little more artificial and armor-like, so that it may be possible to confuse opponents that were looking for weak-spots on Buldor¡¯s body. That, and these strips would end up covering some parts of Buldor¡¯s body that were actually especially vulnerable to attacks and save them from being cut into that easily. And so, the old manpleted a special sort of armor for a special sort of mount. Chapter 641 Alternatively, just figh Eisen slowly strapped the special leather-strips to Buldor¡¯s body in the ces that he thought woud be best, framing the ground-dragon¡¯s feathers. The old man was proud of this, he thought it looked quite beautiful, and it would have a lot of defensive prowess. It was what one would hope from an armor-set. The old man turned toward Gran, "Now, what do you think?" He asked curiously. Gran took a step closer toward his mount and knocked on the leather-strips that Eisen attached to its body, "Hard! Good defense!" He eximed with a broad smile on his face, and the old man in front of him crossed his arms, happy that this part of this realm was over now. He finished the third set of gear that he was supposed to make here... Only another seven to go. "Now, fight Gran!" Gran eximed out of nowhere with a loudugh that made Eisen¡¯s ears ring a little, and the old man turned toward him with a frown, "...What?" He asked, and the Warrior looked back at Eisen with a dedicated, serious expression. "Fight Gran!" He repeated once more, and Eisen couldn¡¯t help himself but return a nk starebined with a wry smile, "Are you serious right now?" "Gran always serious!" "...So you really want to fight me, then?" Eisen replied, before Gran nodded his head, "Aye, Gran want fight!" Eisen looked back at the huge Warrior in front of him, and didn¡¯t really know how to react. Why did he want to fight, and why should Eisen ept that request? He wasn¡¯t here to mess around, he was here to get acknowledged by the gods. "Sorry, I can¡¯t-" Eisen started, but just as he did, a notification appeared in front of him. [Quest Conditions Updated ¨C Gonor¡¯s Acknowledgement] [Description] You are seeking to be acknowledged by the gods of heaven and made your way into the realm of the God of Combat, Gonor. As you are a craftsman rather than a fighter, you have been given the task to create full gear for ten different souls that fits them perfectly. Alternatively, Gonor has allowed you to still show yourbat prowess as a recement for at maximum half the gear you were supposed to create for the souls of Gonor¡¯s realms. If you manage to beat the champion of an arena, it will count as a recement. [Condition] Create Gear for up to 10 Souls in Gonor¡¯s realm, or beat up to 5 Arena Champions (3/10) [Reward] Gonor¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None "..." Eisen silently read the updated information written down inside of the quest and let out a deep sigh, "Of course this would happen. Make it a little less obvious that you¡¯re watching my every step next time, alright?" The old man asked with a loud groan as he looked over at Gran. "Fine. I will fight you." Eisen told Gran. He might not beat him, but at the very least the fight wouldn¡¯t take longer than an hour or so. It would be a lot quicker than try to find someone to make a full set of gear for, before then actually making that full set of gear. With an excited expression, Gran stared deep into Eisen¡¯s eyes, "Come! To arena!" He practically screamed, as the mes of passion were burning in his eyes. He climbed right onto Buldor¡¯s back and rode the mount over toward the exit, before Eisen followed him after packing up his portable shop. He activated his Draconic Demon King transformation and shrunk his body down a bit so that he could properly maneuver through the cave-like entrance, following Gran back to the arena where these two first met. Gran burst through the entrance of the arena, practically interrupting a fight that was currently going on inside there. The onlookers that were sitting around the arena couldn¡¯t help themselves but stare at the figure of this Champion on his mount, both of which had an incredible makeover, thetter of the two in particr. Eisennded behind him and increased his size to normal again as he folloed Gran further into the Arena as the Warrior announced what was about to happen. Of course, he let the other two finish their duel, although they were obviously feeling a little tense right now after being interrupted like that. But a little whileter, the fight was over, and it was time for Eisen and Gran to start their fight. But with a slight sigh, realizing what was going on, Eisen looked at Gran, "This arena is for duels between two mountedbatants, right? Wouldn¡¯t it be unfair if you were on a mount and I had to fight without one?" The old man pointed out, and Gran tilted his head to the side as he shook his head, "Use crystal! Weak magic make mount appear." Gran exined, pointing his halberd toward the center of the arena, where a crystal appeared out of basically nowhere after thest duel had been finished. Eisen turned around toward Ambriel, waiting for an exnation, and the Angel soon did their job, "It is as the Heroic Soul is implying. If you interact with this crystal, an exact copy of your mount of when you were living will be recreated for you. It is only temporary, however. Oh, and if you do not have a mount, it will choose one that is a perfect fit for you." Ambriel swiftly exined, and Eisen shrugged. That would definitely make it a fair bit easier, then. And it made sense... In this realm, Eisen didn¡¯t see anything like the souls of monsters or even animals, so it would be hard to find a mount here. The people in this arena had to fight somehow, after all. Eisen ced his hand onto the crystal, and without him even needing to pour his mana into it, it reacted to the old man¡¯s touch. It started to glow brightly and nearly blinded Eisen, before the Crystal slowly started to change its shape. It took on a different form, and slowly warped itself before turning into a golden steed standing in front of the old man. "Oh? Interesting, it can even recreate Cabarum, huh?" The old amn asked with a smile on his face as he ran his hand over the automata¡¯s snout. He could immediately feel how fake this was, however. It didn¡¯t really act like Cabarum did, and it didn¡¯t feel like him either. It was a bit disappointing, but what should he expect? The old man looked down at the ground with a slight sigh before he climbed on top of this fake Cabarum¡¯s back. His Draconic Demon King transformation extended to him and the fake increased in size as its body slowly took on a simr form as Eisen¡¯s, simply covered in rock with cracks spread across them and golden mes burning underneath. At the same time, Eisen pulled out his ck Demon sword out of his soul storage, which was quickly affected by Eisen¡¯s transformation as well. But of course, his current form wasn¡¯t the best forbat, so he tried to force a change toward the yin-side of his Demon-Form again. Slowly, the golden mes on Eiro¡¯s body, his sword, and the fake Cabarum were turning darker and darker until they were pitch-ck. The whole vibe that Eisen was giving off changed to a rather sinister one, and a lot of the souls watching him were starting to mutter amongst themselves about this very fact. Eisen let out a deep sigh after ¡¯locking in¡¯ his changed transformation for now, meaning that he tried to make sure that it would keep steadily at this spot in his transformation. And as he did, he looked at Gran, "Then I guess we can start now." The old man pointed out. It felt a bit weird sitting on this fake Cabarum¡¯s back, but at the very least it was listening to what he was telling it. Cabarum had a few more quirks than that... and often did his own thing, simply following whatever he wanted to do a lot. Especially after this sort of transformation took ce, the real Cabarum was simply a lot wilder than this. This here was nothing but a doll, something akin to the way that Cabarum was like at the very beginning, when Eisen did nothing but create a simple golem core for Cabarum, and when Cabarum didn¡¯t even start forming his own personality along with the retention of memories Eisen enabled for him. It was kind of sad, but this was probably enough for this fight. Or so Eisen hoped. Well, he did remember a few things about Gran, so he knew his roughbat style. While Eisen only remembered briefly meeting the others¡¯ apprentices for the most part, he did learn a lot more about Gran directly. And not only by his own memories, but also through the memories of the pendant that Eisen was allowed to see. He hoped that this would be enough to actually beat Gran. If not, Eisen just had to keep trying with other things until he gained Gonor¡¯s Acknowledgement. Gran was sitting atop Buldor¡¯s back and held the halberd tightly in hand, just pointing it forward at Eisen as Buldor started to dig into the ground to get a bit of a hold in it, just like Eisen had seen before already. The old man looked at the figure in front of him, and ran his hand over the fake Cabarum¡¯s mane, "Let¡¯s get started as well, buddy." He said, and the fake started to slowly trot through the arena while Eisen kept a good eye on Gran and Buldor. And then, all of a sudden, Buldor ran forward while Gran held his halberd pointed behind himself. They were running straight at Eisen and the fake Cabarum, and right when they reached them, Buldor stopped and slid over the ground to stand parallel to Cabarum. Gran used the momentum to swing the halberd at Eisen, but the old man blocked the iing attack with his greatsword and made the halberd slide off, before shing the sword to the side at Gran. Of course, this wasn¡¯t enough to beat the Warrior, and he hit Eisen¡¯s sword to the side with his halberd, swiftly moving it around as if it was a whip that he had full control over. The old man and the warrior started to ride alongside each other, trading blows with each other although none of them actually made contact with the other¡¯s skin. At some point, Buldor suddenly stopped and jumped over toward the other side of the arena with the movements of a wildcat, before digging into the ground again. And as Gran had a broad grin on his face, the ground-dragon sprinted forward at an incredible speed. Chapter 642 The Fun of Comba Eisen deeply stared at the man that was approaching him at great speeds. The way that Buldor was moving was incredibly dissimr to how the old man expected him to. Normally, the way he was walking, it seemed like he would move like a horse would, but that was very much false. And while Eisen had already seen Buldor run before, at that time, he still ran like a horse did. But now, it was different. Instead, it was like Buldor was prowling forward like an oversized, draconic wildcat. He was jumping around, and it made it much harder to properly predict how they were going to move, since Buldor¡¯s freedom of movement was just incredible. It was like Buldor had two ¡¯modes¡¯ of sorts. As if this was specifically something designed to fight against opponents that might be quicker in raw speed. And Cabarum, even if the one that Eisen was riding right now was fake, was nothing but arge horse. Even the fact that he was created out of gears and pipes didn¡¯t change anything about that. He was able to run the quickest when moving in straight lines, and turning while at full speed was close to impossible. Sure, Cabarum was incredibly fast, but even then, with Buldor¡¯s capabilities of jumping around even sideways, they were able to dodge Eisen incredibly easily. It was a little annoying, but at the same time kind of exciting, at least in the old man¡¯s mind. Right now, Buldor was sprinting at Eisen at an incredible speed, but now that Eisen realized the way that this ground-dragon moved, he was also able to react to certain attacks more easily. Eisen looked at the approaching figure with a deep stare, ready to counterattack however necessary, and thenmanded the fake Cabarum to run forward straight at Buldor and Gran. And Eisen was prepared for all possible ways that his opponents would avoid a straight-on collision. If they jumped to either of Eisen¡¯s sides to dodge, Gran would surely swing his halberd at Eisen while holding it horizontally. That way, Eisen would simply be able to deflect it upward. If Gran chose to just keep running forward and maybe just slightly change his path so that they wouldn¡¯t directly encounter head-on, Gran would stab the halber forward. Surely, that was the hardest one of the possibilities to avoid. Maybe Eisen just had to somehow ept the attack if that was the case and try to use it for a counterattack on his own. With his halberd, Gran had a superior rangepared to Eisen, but that range would matter little if Gran just tried to ¡¯slide¡¯ past Eisen directly. As long as he was prepared for the attack, Eisen would be able to brace himself and then sh at Gran while he and Buldor were running directly past him. And then, it came to the point where Gran had to make his choice. And it was the one choice that Eisen had been kind of hoping for, since it would allow for a rather interesting counter-attack that might help stun Gran and Buldor for at least a few moments, maybe enough to finish this fight. But that was only if Eisen could pull this off properly. Instead of continuing to run on the ground, Buldor stopped rapidly and dove downward with his front, before using as much power as possible to jump over the old man. The way that Eisen had thought about this attack was that Gran would try and reach downward toward Eisen with his halberd, swinging it at him from above. And what Eisen would have done if that was the case would have been pretty simple. Since the shape of the axe-de of the halberd was kind of triangr, it would be possible to hook onto it somehow, which was what Eisen would be nning to do. He would ram the edge of his de underneath the halberd¡¯s axe-de, and then with one hand try to grab the halberd¡¯s handle. Then, Eisen would be able to somewhat m Gran and Buldor down into the ground, or at the very least, he would be able to change their trajectory to the old man¡¯s advantage. Or so he thought. But instead of Buldor staying upright, he did something that Eisen really did not ount for. The ground-dragon twisted his body around mid-air and started to spiral around as Gran swung the halberd at Eisen. Instead of a straight-on attack that came from Eisen¡¯s front, it was an attack that came from Eisen¡¯s side, with incredible speed and weight behind it. Eisen tried to quickly hold his sword next to his head to deflect the blow aimed toward it, and he was able to luckily do so, although notpletely. The spike at the tip of the halberd started ripping open the old man¡¯s skin just above his eye, simply destroying theyer of rock that was covering the old man¡¯s body as if it was a single sheet of paper. It was painful, and became even more unpleasant the moment that the bright red liquid mixed with razor-sharp splinters of rock was flowing into his eye, but at the same time, Eisen had just one thought cross his mind, "Yeah, there¡¯s no doubt about it... You really are Brody¡¯s student." The old man muttered with a grin on his face. Eisen quickly made the splinters of rock in his eye disappear while he pushed his hand into his apron, just to take out a small ss bottle that the old man poured over his head. It was a bottle filled with liquified health-jelly. It would still seep into Eisen¡¯s skin incredibly well, and it could easily be poured out a bottle in the middle of a fight. Once the wound was properly repaired, Eisen covered it in a newyer of rock and then continued the fight. His sight was still a bit blurry, considering that he couldn¡¯t easily get rid of the blood that had poured into his eye already, but it wasn¡¯t as big of an issue as it was before. Eisen took a deep breath, but as he did, Gran was already counter-attacking. Buldor hadnded on the ground gracefully after Gran attacked and damaged the old man just now, and immediately twisted his body around to prowl at Eisen and the fake Cabarum once more. Gran stabbed the halberd forward at Eisen, and it was just about to hit the old man¡¯s face, before Eisen simply shrunk down and the halberd missed. It slid over Eisen¡¯s horns and pulled him back a bit, but Eisen was prepared for that. The staff of the halberd was still sliding over Eisen¡¯s horns as Gran tried to pull it back toward himself, but then, he returned to his normal size and twisted his head to look straight at Gran. The warrior tried to pull on the halberd, but all that happened was that the tip hit against Eisen¡¯s strong, metallic horns, unable to get out since Eisen was holding down the halberd itself onto his head again. "I didn¡¯t want to do this at first since it hurts like a bitch, but I guess the first thing I need to do is disarm you somehow, huh?" The old man said with a grin on his face, before he let his body fall backward off of Cabarum¡¯s body. With as much strength as he could muster, Gran tried to continue pulling back the halberd, practically keeping Eisen forced on Cabarum¡¯s back for now, but the old man simply pressed his feet onto the mechanical horse¡¯s body and used as much force as he himself had in his whole body to try and push away from Cabarum. It hurt Eisen incredibly that he was actually using Cabarum as nothing but a glorified stepping-stool right now, and he would never be able to bring himself to use something like this with the real Cabarum, but with this fake, Eisen knew that he had to risk it somehow. It was the best way that he could see how to disarm Gran. And right now, the two of them were basically stuck in a contest of strength, to see who would give up first. Gran¡¯s grip or Eisen¡¯s neck. But little did Gran know, within this direct contest of strength, it was neither. The old old man immediately shrunk his body down to the smallest, and with that the lightest, that he could manage, and kept gripping onto the halberd with his arms, although he couldn¡¯t anymore with his small horns right now. Of course, due to the sudden change of weight and force attached to the halberd different to what Gran expected, the Warrior ended up swinging the halberd upward rapidly. It already slightly unbnced him, but the moment that the tip of the halberd travelled further than the peak right above Gran, Eisen returned his size to his normal one. No, even beyond that. He was gripping onto Gran¡¯s halberd and increased his size rapidly. Gran wasn¡¯t in a great position to keep holding onto the halberd perfectly, and now that it was behind his back, Eisen pushed right onto the warrior¡¯s back directly. It was like Eisen was about to pull Grna¡¯s arm out of its socket if the Warrior didn¡¯t quickly let go. And then, Eisen actually heard a popping sound, and Eisen felt a light jolt as Gran¡¯s arm really was pulled out of its socket. The warrior¡¯s grip loosened just so slightly, and Eisen managed to pull the halberd out of Gran¡¯s hand, before kicking off of his back. Of course, during this time, Cabarum hade back over to Eisen, and the old man returned onto the back of his mechanical steed. Gran slowly held his hand over toward his shoulder, simply pressing his arm back into its socket as if it was nothing, before he slowly turned around. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure what to expect, since he didn¡¯t perfectly know Gran¡¯s moral values of what should and shouldn¡¯t happen in a fight, but luckily, Gran¡¯s reaction was like Eisen hoped. The warrior was looking at him with a broad, excited grin. "Strong! So strong! This fight fun!" Granughed, his energetic voice echoing through the arena. The onlooking souls that had been unsure of what exactly was going on, and why Gran was suddenly fighting this random, living person, had been staring down at the fight in an overall quiet, tense manner until now. But the moment that Gran announced that he truly thought this fight to be fun, somehow everyone started to cheer excitedly. Eisen didn¡¯t fully understand it, but he didn¡¯t really mind it either. With a broad grin on his face, Eisen held his sword forward toward the Warrior, "I¡¯m d you think that it¡¯s fun, but I¡¯m afraid you¡¯ll lose now." Chapter 643 Cleaved in half, ripped into pieces With a broad grin on his face, Gran looked back at Eisen, who had just announced to the warrior in front of him that he would end up losing now that he lost his weapon. But in return, Gran himself just stared at the old man and shook his head, "Gran no lose! Gran no need weapon!" He eximed with a loudugh as Buldor started to sprint forward toward Eisen again. Gran jumped up on the ground-dragon¡¯s back, as if he was surfing on the beast instead of truly riding it. The warrior hooked one of his feet into one of the metallic-leather straps that Eisen attached to Buldor before, and the ground-dragon seemingly knew exactly what its rider was nning on doing. Just before they were about to hit each other, Buldor rapidly stopped and swung its body around. Usually, this would have thrown Gran off, but now that he was ¡¯hooked in¡¯ with his foot, he was able to stay on it. But at the same time, he used this chance to grapple Eisen after being swung around like that. Of course, the old man wouldn¡¯t have that either. He heated his own body up so much that the fake Cabarum underneath him seemed like he was about to bend due to the immense, sudden heat. Of course, this affected Gran as well, but he still held onto the old man, without any signs of letting go. He was burying his fingers deep inside of Eisen¡¯s skin, ripping the rocks apart as the burning crystal formations inbetween the cracks were burning the warrior¡¯s fingers to a crisp. As both of his shoulders were affected by this grapple, Eisen couldn¡¯t really swing his sword around either. The old man had already ¡¯disposed¡¯ of the halberd, and that was achieved by simply throwing it into his item storage. Gran didn¡¯tin, and nobody said that it was breaking the rules, so Eisen really didn¡¯t see any issue with this either. But this still made Eisen wonder what exactly Gran was trying to do. This definitely wasn¡¯t enough to just bring Eisen¡¯s health to zero, that was for sure. Eisen tried to get away from Gran by having Cabarum run away as quickly as he could, but it seemed like Buldor was able to catch up to the speed somewhat by controlling where exactly Cabarum could run, by blocking the paths wherever he tried to turn to. And so, Eisen and Gran were basically ¡¯stuck¡¯ in this position for now, and that was until Eisen¡¯s sword reacted on its own to a stimulus it received from the old man. As it was an ego-item, it was capable of swinging itself to an extent. Sure, it wouldn¡¯t be possible to really damage Gran like this all that much, but it would be enough for something else. The pitch-ck, demonic ego-sword swung around until it was inbetween Eisen and Gran, held horizontally, with the edge pointed at Gran¡¯s stomach while the t side was pointed at Eisen¡¯s. The old man managed to slightly twist his boyd around so that he was now facing Gran. It let the warrior dig his fingers deeper into Eisen¡¯s skin, but at the same time, it allowed Eisen to do something as well. He pressed his feet onto the t side of his de, and tried to just press it into Gran¡¯s stomach. Eisen knew that Souls couldn¡¯t die here. They would just be ¡¯repaired¡¯ even after being cleaved in half, so Eisen figured that might be a pretty good n to go for. It would be a definite loss on Gran¡¯s part, after all. And so, Eisen pressed his sword against Gran¡¯s abdomen with as much strength as possible, while the warrior started to rip on Eisen¡¯s arms. And even if Eisen didn¡¯t feel theplete, full extent of pain in this world yet, this pain was enough to usually make him scream out. Although this time, all that Eisen could do was press his own mouth shut involuntarily, as if it was a physical reaction he couldn¡¯t control. It felt like Eisen¡¯s teeth were about to shatter, he was grinding them together so hard. Eisen could feel and hear some of his bones cracking as bright red blood flowed out of Gran¡¯s abdomen. The two men were staring deep into each other¡¯s eyes, and both knew that this was going to be the end of the fight, one way or another. The stronger Eisen pressed onto the sword with his feet, the more Gran could rip on his shoulders. Eisen knew that at this point, he had definitely cut into some of Gran¡¯s internal organs, as blood was just pouring out of the warrior¡¯s mouth. But at the same time, Eisen started to lose his full control over his two arms. He wouldn¡¯t be able to really hold onto anything anymore while his arms were in this state, but for now, Eisen didn¡¯t need to anyway. And so, the old man made his choice. With a strong,st kick, he pressed onto the spine of his de and could hear multiple loud cracks as the old man cut through Gran¡¯s spine. His upper body went flying, but at the same time, it both of Eisen¡¯s arms with it. The old man ground his teeth loudly as he started to bleed all over the ce, his health slowly but surely dropping due to the mass of bleeding. He only had about 10% of his health left anyway, but he somehow had to fix himself up quickly. Eisen jumped off of Cabarum¡¯s back and summoned his elemental spirit. First things first, Eisen had it apply some concentrated health jelly on those areas to stop the brunt of the bleeding and recover a bit of Eisen¡¯s health, before the old man deactivated his Draconic Demon King transformation, and had the elemental spirit press its glowing hot, metallic hand onto both of Eisen¡¯s wounds. It hurt like a bitch, but at the very least Eisen stopped bleeding now. The old man turned his eyes over toward his greatsword and made it disappear in his soul storage, while the fake Cabarum disappeared into nowhere as well, now that this fight was over. Eisen watched as Buldor ran over toward Gran¡¯s upper body, while his legs and lower half of his abdomen were still hooked onto the metallic-leather strap on the ground-dragon¡¯s back. Eisen looked down at Gran¡¯s face with a deep stare while he managed to get his breathing back under control. This fight was definitely won by Eisen, there was no doubt about that. If Eisen hadn¡¯t managed to fully cut through Gran¡¯s body, then the warrior would have won instead, since Eisen was hardly able to continue fighting with no arms. But considering that Eisen could technically still fight with his feet somehow, he wasn¡¯t putpletely out ofmission, at leastpared to Gran himself. Eisen looked down at him and the puddle of blood underneath the warrior¡¯s body, before what Eisen assumed to be one of Gonor¡¯s angels ran over toward Gran. He had regr angelic wings, but his whole body was d in full-te armor. Or his whole body was a set of armor, Eisen really couldn¡¯t tell, but he didn¡¯t care that much either. The angel pulled Gran¡¯s lower half off of Buldor¡¯s back and ced it back underneath Gran¡¯s upper body, before pushing out some glowing light out of his palms. Weird threads started to pour out of Gran¡¯s flesh in the cut, both on the upper and lower half of Gran¡¯s body, and started to pull on each other, as the warrior¡¯s body slowly healed back together. Eisen quickly checked his quest-progress, and was happy to see that he had nowpleted four out of ten tasks that he had toplete here in this specific divine realm. The notification disappeared as Gran slowly pushed himself off the ground again, and the angel of Gonor looked at Eisen, "I am unable to heal you in the same way. I apologize. If you wish to be healed for your limbs, you will need to either use a means you can produce yourself, or you need to head to the tower at the center of this realm and pledge yourself to the great Gonor." The angel exined, but Eisen just sighed and shook his head. "Don¡¯t need that, I just need a quick nap. Thanks, anyway." The old man exined, and the angel simply epted this and turned around, ready to leave again. Gran stood up and stretched himself a bit as he rubbed some of the blood covering his body off of himself, and then looked down at Eisen with a broad grin, "Aye, you strong! Really, really strong!" He eximed loudly, "You beat Gran! You strongest of arena now!" Eisen looked at Gran with a slightugh as he opened his item storage and had his elemental spirit grab Eisen¡¯s two arms to ce them safely in there while bringing out Gran¡¯s halberd, and then closed the item storage up again, "I know I am. But obviously not without repercussions. If I was a normal living person, it would be pretty tough to recover from this, you know?" Gran didn¡¯t really seem to care for what Eisen just said all too much and hit him on the back, "Come! Celebrate! Drink with Gran!" The warrior eximed, and Eisen figured he should just follow Gran for now. That way, he would be able to find a spot to quickly sleep for an hour to heal his arms, "Fine, butter. I need to rest a bit." "Aye! Sleep! Right of champion!" Gran yelled out. Eisen quietly followed the Warrior and Buldor as the souls that had been watching the fight continued to cheer at the fact that the champion of this arena was beaten by a living person of all things. They climbed up some stairs and made their way over to the same balcony where Eisen and Gran first encountered each other here in this realm. Gran sat down, leaning against Buldor in a simr fashion to before, while Eisen sat down cross-legged while letting out a deep, exhausted sigh. Ambriel looked at the old man with a deep frown, unable to stop themselves frommenting on this, "I expected more from a man like you. Such a wild way of fighting. It is truly sad, is it not?" "How often do I have tell you that I don¡¯t want you to speak anymore?" "At this point, I will have to interject. You realize you have no right tomand me, don¡¯t you? I followed your wishes out of pure respect for your name before, but now, even that is not something I can do." "Fine. Then I¡¯ll just ignore you." The old man replied. He really, really didn¡¯t want to hear Ambriel¡¯s voice anymore, one way or another. But then, he heard something else instead that surprised the old man quite a bit. "Gran will do rebirth soon." Chapter 644 Dwelling on Memories Eisen turned over toward Gran with a surprised expression on his face, "You want to reincarnate?" The old man inquired, "Can you even do that, although you were basically ¡¯employed¡¯ by Gonor?" Gran slightly shrugged as he leaned back, cing his hands behind his own head, "Gran want fight more. Want fight stronger. Gran only fight weaks for longs." The warrior exined, and Eisen sligthly raised his brows as he looked at the man in front of him. "I mean, are you sure that you want to do that? You should have the best chances of meeting strong people here instead of anywhere else." Eisen pointed out, but Gran just started tough a bit as he looked at the old man in front of him who was preparing to head to sleep for a while, "Gran not smart, but Gran still knows. Can be strong when not fighter. Eisen not fighter, but Eisen beat Gran." "Hm, you do have a point there. And I don¡¯t really know what it was like during the time where you were alive, but at the very least now, magic can be very, very strong. You know about Xenia, the peaked of magic, right? I¡¯ve heard that she managed to summon aster- huge rocks that were falling out of the sky. Wouldn¡¯t that be something interesting to fight against?" "Huge rocks... Aye, Gran thinks fun!" The Warrior eximed with a loudugh, "But Gran no do rebirth yet. Want to use weapon and armor Eisen made for Gran and Buldor first." With a smile on his face, Eisen nodded his head as he leaned back against one of therge pirs with a loud groan, "I¡¯m d that you like them that much... Well, I think we should keep speakingter. I can¡¯t heal just as easily as you can here, after all. I¡¯ll be back in about an hour at most." Gran slowly nodded his head as he stretched his arm out to rub his hand over Buldor¡¯s snout, as Eisen just smiled and chose to log off for now. But then, before he saw the inside of the capsule, Eisen found himself in the deep-ck space where all his memories were gathered, surprisingly. There was one new white glowing sphere floating in front of him, and the old man wasn¡¯t entirely sure what this dream could be about. Maybe it was going to be a memory about fighting, although Eisen figured he would have recovered his memories otherwise if that was the case. Thinking that there was only one way to really find out what this dream was about, Eisen stared deep into the white sphere, and soon found his surrounding changing. Instead of the deep-ck, empty space he was just in, Eisen was inside of... a deep-ck, empty space. But it was different, somehow. Eisen could feel solid ground under his feet, at least, and the air had a certain metallic, sulfuric scent to it, giving the old man a few rough guesses of where he actually was right now already. And then, he turned around as he heard footsteps approaching, foosteps that were soon paired with a rtively dim light. Soon enough, Eisen saw the source of the light, which was just a floating, glowing orb. "Urgh... It doesn¡¯t move how I want it to... Did I mess up with the inscription somehow?" Eisen¡¯s voice, albeit one that came from a version of him that was, physically, quite a bit younger than he was right now. And as if answering him, Eisen heard a light screech, and the younger Eisen spoke again, "Oh what, as if you could have done better." Just a second after the man spoke, another bright light was added onto the other one, before the younger Eisen groaned loudly, "Trygan, I told you not to do that in caves like this. I could use my element as well if I wanted to, but I don¡¯t, because I don¡¯t want to blow the ce up with us inside." Soon, the old man was able to see the actual younger version of Eisen, as well as a quite young Trygan, walking past him. At this point, Trygan had grown quite a lot, and standing on his hind-legs he would probably berger than Eisen when he was in his ¡¯regr¡¯ size. His scales had something slightly metallic to them, although it seemed like they were just somewhat ore-like instead of actual metal. They were quite unrefined, but more precious than the rock that Eisen had initially seen on the newborn Trygan. The young Dragon once more opened its mouth for a slight cry, and the simrly young Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose, "I know we¡¯re in a volcano, that doesn¡¯t change the fact that there might be something mmable here." He said, and slowly turned his way over toward the current Eisen, "Kids, eh? Don¡¯t worry, this memory is gonna make sense soon. It¡¯s just a bit longer because, well... You already know about part of this." The old man slowly looked at Trygan as he tried to recall this. And the memory-Eisen was right. He did remember this to an extent from when he remembered Trygan himself. Although he didn¡¯t remember everything about this perfectly, it seemed a bit familiar at least. But then, something that Eisen didn¡¯t expect happened, "Did we suddenly turn mute or something? It¡¯s pretty rude not to answer when spoken to, right?" The young Eisen asked, and the current Eisen turned his head toward him. "Wait... I can actually lead a proper conversation with you?" He inquired, and the memory-Eisen just shrugged a bit in response. "Somewhat, I guess. We¡¯ve already spoken in your dreams before, remember? Now that you¡¯ve started remembering, it¡¯s be a bit easier to replicate that time again." The memory-Eisen exined, "Ah, and don¡¯t worry, we could have a teaparty here during the time your ¡¯actual¡¯ memory is going on, but you¡¯d still remember it perfectly." "That¡¯s not necessarily what I was thinking about just now, but that¡¯s good to know, I guess." "Well, yeah it is, cause this memory is a pretty important one. That¡¯s why we¡¯re heading toward the ce it¡¯s happening anyway so that you can experience it like this first-hand. I just pulled the actual memory back a bit so that he can get the chance to speak like this before then." Eisen looked back at his memory version and sighed a bit, "Fine, then let¡¯s just get this done. First, to make this clear, you are the exact version of myself of before I... you... Erm, we got rid of our experience, right?" The memory-Eisen twisted his eyes over toward the current one and nodded his head, "That I am. Just know that even I don¡¯t remember everything that we used to know. I¡¯m notplete yet, after all. But with every memory you continue recovering from now, we can hold a bit of a conversation and I can tell you the things that you ask me about, as long as I do know about it. Sounds pretty good, right?" "Better than not knowing anything, at least." Eisen admitted, and the young version of himself, although it was technically a version of himself that was much, much older than Eisen could even really quantify in his mind, slightlyughed as he nodded his head, "Fair enough. Now, what would you like to ask me? If I can answer it, I¡¯ll try to reply to every single one of your questions." Eisen slowly looked forward, deeper into the tunnel that they were walking through, and then started to think about what he should ask. He didn¡¯t really think about what he should ask the former version of himself if he really got the chance to. Although, there was one question that did pop up in his mind rather quickly. "...What¡¯s inside of the puzzle-box?" The old man inquired, trying to just see if he could get an answer for this, although he quickly realized that he was out of luck the moment he saw the face of the memory-Eisen right next to him, "Actually, I don¡¯t really know about that part right now. It might pop up at some point as you gather more memories, though. But at the very least, I know that it¡¯s worth it. It¡¯s just a feeling, you know?" "That¡¯s good to know, at least. If I can¡¯t trust my own gut feelings, then whose can I trust?" With a slight chuckle, the memory-Eisen looked down at the ground, "Good one. Well, anything else I can answer for now?" Eisen started to think again, and the next question came to mind, "What is the Giant Country like? Do you remember that?" After a bit of thought, the memory-Eisen nodded his head, "It¡¯s pretty... well, interesting to say the least. Growing up there was pretty tough. While Giants can change their size basically at will, most feel rather ufortable when they are the size of other races. Hence, their culture is built for people their size. Roads, houses, even carriages that are drawn by enormous beasts... It¡¯s tough for regr people to survive there. Well, for the most part, at least. There are special houses that were constructed, actually brought on by us in the past, where whole towns for regr-sized people are constructed in the middle of the giant-cities. You know, a single giant-town is the size of a whole country on other continents. Hence, the houses for ¡¯small folks¡¯ are as far away from each other as regr towns are on the central continent. Travelling is pretty easy though, at least. You can get from one ¡¯small folk town¡¯ to another in just a few minutes if you hitch a ride on a carriage." "Oh, really? That¡¯s pretty... well, interesting. But is really everything just supersized over there?" "Technically, no, I guess. You won¡¯t find perfect equivalents of anything you can find here over there. There are simr things, like nts that are simr to potatoes or carrots, but they¡¯re not exactly the same. They don¡¯t even taste the same. Well, I guess the nts that you would find there that were brought over from other continents are still a fair bitrger than normal. Same with animals and monsters. That gargantuan steed you turned into an automaton? Regr horses were brought over there quite a while ago, and they ended up bing bigger and bigger until they were thrice the size to normal. Then those were brought back, and they shrunk back down to give you the current gargantuan steed." Eisen listened curiously to the memory-Eisen as he exined the situation of the next ce that Eisen would head to after finishing everything in heaven and hell. But suddenly, the memory-Eisen sighed deeply as he looked at the man next to him. "Listen, you should stop literally lying to yourself here. You really want to ask something else, don¡¯t you?" Chapter 645 Transcendent Cecaelia Eisen turned his head and looked at himself before averting his gaze. "Fine. Then have it your way. Do you remember the children? My... our children?" The old man asked, and his former version of himself slowly looked forward as he continued to walk, "I do. Not as much as I would like to right now, since I myself am still just a fragmented version of what we once were, but I do remember them a bit. I don¡¯t think we have enough time here for me to tell you about all of them in detail, but I can calm you for now, at least." He said, and then turned back toward the current Eisen with a calm smile on his face. "There is no doubt that you will remember them in the future. And it¡¯s not that long away either. I mean, you¡¯re already ten memories along. If you really take a good look around Prototype or your country directly, you will gather them quite soon. Not to mention the memories you will gain in these heavens and in the underworld. And to top it off, you will soon get to 100 memories, and at that point, you will remember much, much more of yourself than you can imagine. Well, still not everything, but it¡¯s enough to get you satisfied for the time being, I¡¯m sure. Since from that point on, you will surely have the capabilities to get the rest of your memories back as well." Eisen looked back at the former version of himself, actually feeling somewhat calmed down after this. He was right, Eisen shouldn¡¯t worry. Of course, he still felt horrible for not remembering his own children, but he will without a doubt remember them quite soon. It was something to work toward, something to cling to. If the memory-Eisen just started telling random stories about children that the current Eisen didn¡¯t even remember, he would probably feel even worse. But it was good that the memory-Eisen brought it up. With augh, the old man continued down the tunnel, "Huh, who¡¯d have thought that the one with the right words to cheer me up the best would be myself." "Rather narcissistic, don¡¯t you think?" The other Eisenughed, before he slowed down in his step, "But I think it¡¯s about time to make a choice. Do you want to keep speaking to me for now, or do you want to see what exactly is happening in this memory? You will remember it nheless, but this will bring you closer to it. It will be like you really experienced it again rather than having the mere knowledge of it." "I think that would be a good idea." Eisen pointed out, and the memory-Eisen let out a deep sigh, "I figured you¡¯d say that. Just don¡¯t regret it. Because this is the memory of the first time you encountered a transcendent monster. And a rather brutal one at that... You¡¯ll realize why this memory of all things. Meeting that transcendent monster isn¡¯t your only ¡¯first time¡¯ you¡¯ll experience today, if you catch my drift." The former Eisen said as he just stretched himself a little, and sadly, the current Eisen really did understand what the memory-Eisen was talking about. And then, all of a sudden, the figure in front of Eisen continued to walk forward, his eyes turning away from him as well, as the memory continued as it was. For a while now, Eisen had felt the space around him heat up considerably, and at the end of the tunnel, he could see a faint light. The memory-Eisen turned around toward Trygan with a stern expression as he squatted down in front of him. He waved his hand around and pushed it into another space, in a sub-space created by a spatial gem seemingly. And out of that sub-space, the former Eisen pulled a cor that was just the perfect size for Trygan. He put it around the Dragon¡¯s neck and then spoke to him, "This is going to protect you from the sting heat, but it doesn¡¯t protect you if you fall into the magma. So be careful with every step you take, alright?" He asked, and Trygan slowly nodded his small, cute draconic head as he continued to follow Eisen inside. It seemed like in this state back then, Eisen had already gotten the ability to survive in extreme heat, so he himself didn¡¯t need any sort of protective equipment in that environment. He stepped in there and took a deep breath. "Urgh... Yeah, my lungs are about to catch fire..." He muttered to himself, and the current Eisen could feel exactly what the former one was talking about. It was kind of hard to breath, mostly because there was just generally bad air in there. And so, the young man pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small pill, one of which he fed to Trygan and one of which he ate himself. Suddenly, the current Eisen as well could feel that the air he was breathing in was rather cool and pleasant now, and it didn¡¯t feel like something was missing anymore. It seemed like this was some kind of potion that was made to allow breathing in low-air situations, that was then turned into a pill. And then, the memory-Eisen continued deeper into the cave, before it opened up around him. At this point, he packed the glowing orb that had been lighting the way until now away, considering that he simply didn¡¯t need it anymore. After all, the whole space around him was being lit up by hot magma, as well as different crystals that were growing on the ceiling right above them. "This seems like a pretty good haul, huh?" Eisen said with a smirk on his face. But instead of being focused on the crystals, which seemed to have some rather special properties to them, Eisen¡¯s eyes were focused on something that seemed rather out of the ce for a space like this. It was a simple tree that was growing at the very back of this room. It had grass and flowers around it, and somehow, there was no magma around it, but only directly around it. Instead, it just had rock and dirt, and the air even seemed rather pleasant right around it. At the very least, the air didn¡¯t seem to have the same sort of visual heat-distortion as the air right around Eisen at the moment. With a satisfied expression, the memory-Eisen looked at the tree before squatting down onto the ground, "Finally, I¡¯ve been looking for that goddamn tree for a year... At least that guy¡¯s gonna stop bugging me now." The old, young, man muttered to himself as he took a step further into this magma-filled cave. There wasn¡¯t realy any ground to properly stand on, but the moment that Eisen pushed his foot forward and was about to press it down into the magma, it immediately cooled down and let off a fair amount of steam. The current Eisen managed to see a light glow appear underneath his boots. These didn¡¯t seem like something that Eisen would usually wear, not even in the past. Sure, they could just be some kind of weird fashion-trend that he wanted to try out somehow, but now that he saw the glow, it seemed more probable that these boots were simply enchanted to cool down the magma as quickly as possible, and they were the reason that Eisen was wearing them. And so, the old man just followed the younger version of himself deeper into the cave. But it didn¡¯t take long until something happened. They only reached about the halfway point in this cave when it actually happened, and the former Eisen could immediately feel that something was off. He snapped his head around and stared at Trygan, "Get back there, immediately!" He screamed out, and the young dragon followed themand without hesitation, running back into the cave that they entered through. That was probably why the current Eisen couldn¡¯t really remember this event all that well. He remembered a bit of it when he remembered Trygan, but only the bits where Trygan was actually involved. And now, the dragon wasn¡¯t involved anymore, so Eisen didn¡¯t know about this part just yet. The magma around Eisen started to move around weirdly, as if waving around as it started to twist and turn around itself, causing small whirlpools to appear randomly. And then, out of each of those, in total eight, small magma-whirlpools came a single tentacle. Immediately, Eisen understood what sort of ¡¯transcendent¡¯ he was about to face. It seemed like some kind of magma-based octopus monster that had somehow managed to reach the peak that it could reach. Slowly, the whirlpools stopped as the rest of the tentacles pulled out of the magma. They were glowing, and in their skin-texture, they were actually quite simr to Eisen¡¯s skin while he was using his demonic transformation, with rock as a base and numerous glowing cracks inbetween those rock-parts. Slowly, straight lines started to bulge up within the magma and in the center of those lines and whirlpools, arge magma-mountain started to grow. And out of the magma, right in front of Eisen, came a humanoid male figure withrge, disproportionatelyrge, horns on its forehead. Once more, it¡¯s skin was akin to what Eisen¡¯s skin would look like in the demonic form, although there were clear differences still. Everything below the waist, including the tentacles of course, was a bit darker in color and a lot more cracked-up, as well as rougher in texture as if to rip enemies apart more easily. On the other hand, the upper, human half of this monster was a lot smoother, and there were only a few cracks in theparatively light-colored, smooth rock skin that Eisen could see at the moment. "Urgh... a Magma Cecaelia..? Regr ones like you are hard to deal with already, but why does it have to be a Magma one?" The former Eisen groaned loudly, and the figure in front of him seemed rather surprised to hear the man speak. "Oh?" It spoke, albeit in a rather unnatural voice. It was as if it wasn¡¯t really speaking, but the voice came out of the walls and the magma itself, rather than the face on this figure, "Oh? You have fought my lesser kin before?" "Yeah I have, and they were annoying as hell. Let me guess, while regr Cecaelia can control water at will, you can control magma at will? And you seem pretty strong as well, so you have some minions as well, most likely." "Hm... You are rather well-informed... But it matters not, as you seem to be here for my treasure... As I don¡¯t enjoy the scent of burning flesh, I will give you a choice. Either you leave, or you die." Chapter 646 Escape

Chapter 646 Molten Away

The young Eisen looked at the transcended Cecaelia in front of him as it towered above him from out of the magma, the hot, molten rocks twirling around underneath it as if they were water. And then, he simplyughed, "Yeah, sorry about that, but I don''t think so. I just need to get back there and check something, and then I''ll leave. Nobody gets hurt, and you can continue... whatever the hell you were doing down here." While pointing at the obviously quite special tree behind the Cecaelia, Eisen spoke. It slowly pulled one of its tentacles out of the magma and held it forward toward Eisen, who just stood still and let it happen, "You are quite a fiesty one. But sorry, that''s not really how it works. You made your choice, so... Die." As the Cecaelia spoke these threatening words, it continued lightly waving its tentacle through the air. After a few moments, Eisen looked forward and smirked, "What, you forgot what you''re supposed to do to follow up such a threat?" "No, but surprsingly, your body is quite incredible. It''s as if I hald molten your flesh instead of cutting through it, so it''s still sticking to itself." The octopus-man pointed out in a rather curious tone, before Eisen turned his head toward his arm at his side, where he suddenly started to feel a heavy stinging as he lost all function in it. The moment he did, he saw a part of his skin that had turned deep red with some charred ck parts scattered ross it. The red part, like the Cecaelia had said, somehow acted as if it was some sort of metal that had molten. And in a simr fashion, the weight of Eisen''s arm pulled on that molten part and stretched it out. Eisen''s own arm was the cause for itself being ripped off of him violently instead of being cleanly separated. The old man watched in shock as his arm slowly hit the ground and his blood started gushing out of his wounds. But the moment that Eisen realized he was steadily losing health because of how his blood poured out of his arm, he ground his teeth together and squeezed down onto this stump to basically close it up. He stared at the monster in front of him, realizing that something was wrong. Something was very different to before. Instead of facing some random monster that happened to have an ounce of intelligence, he was seemingly faced with something that was incredibly, incredibly strong. Although he wasn''t able to tell why it was. There was someone in this room that realized why, however. And that was the real, current Eisen. He stared at the transcended monster in the center of thisrge space with a prizing stare. The old man was unsure if he should be horrified or curious. "This is a transcended monster..." The old man muttered. It was really... incredible. That was a good way to word it, he figured. Even he himself hadn''t been able to see what exactly the transcended did, although he had a pretty good guess about it, since he was able to see a few jolts here and there. The transcended Cecaelia had pulled its tentacle out of the magma before then proceeding to swing it at Eisen''s arm at such a velocity that it would have been able to cut right through the limb if it weren''t for Eisen''s especially sturdy body, while also being too fast for the eye to actually see. It was truly incredible. But now that Eisen was seeing this, he looked at the memory-Eisen''s arm, and soon realized what exactly was going on, and he figured out the way that this transcended seemed to fight. That wasn''t just a normal swing, obviously. It was infused with this monster''s element, most likely, which was something that caused any sort of mass to act simr to how magma acted. Instead of immediately burning up, it was like the former Eisen''s body was slowly turning liquid in some way, But just as he figured this out, the former Eisen stared at the Cecaelia with a deep re, "What the fuck did you do right now?!" "Hm?" The transcended monster answered, "I''m just having a bit of fun. I don''t get that many guests here, and since you made the active choice to be killed by me just now, I figured I shouldn''t waste this opportunity." "You sick bastard..." The old, young, man growled, but the Cecaelia just shook its head as it swung its tentacle again, cutting through Eisen''s arm once more. But because the former Eisen was able to somewhat jump away this time around, it was a much more vicious cut than the rather clean one from before. For one, it didn''t cut all the way through Eisen''s arm, but only about two thirds of the way, and only the bit that was directly cut through by the tentacle turned into this magma-imitation state. Hence, Eisen just experienced something that was far more painful than even the first attack, so much that he wasn''t able to stop himself from having a few tears build up in the corners of his eyes, "You motherfu-" "Interesting... You''re pretty tough. Thest guy that I yed with like this fell unconscious after seeing his first arm drop to the ground. Well, it won''t take long until I can make you my meal either." The monster pointed out, but Eisen just started to smirk, while the current Eisen groaned loudly in difort at watching this. He already guessed that this memory was about how he first had both of his arms ripped off of his body, bujt he didn''t realize that it would be in this kind of scenario. At the very least it seemed like this had been extended into a memory about fighting this transcended monster... Maybe more memories would ovep with others now. Eisen was given this new ''privilege'' of being allowed to speak with his former version already, so it wouldn''t be too far-fetched to assume that there were other changes now that Eisen got to this number of recovered memories. The old man just sighed as he continued to stand there, watching all of this unfold, as the young Eisen in front of him simplyughed loudly, "Right, there''s no way you''ll be able to do that, bud. Listen, I can tell that I''m not physically as strong as you. I''m only level 500, after all. But you? You''re at a point much, much higher than that, quite obviously. But at the same time, you''re a little bit of a dumbass, aren''t you?" A bit startled at being insulted instead of begged for forgiveness, the Cecaelia looked down at the man in front of him, "What did you just say?" "That you''re a dumbass, you dumbass." He pointed out, before he started to swing his arm around a bit. It was basically hanging on by a thread, and doing something like this hurt Eisen an incredible amount, but this was something that Eisen kind of just had to do for now. And so, he pushed his foot underneath his already ripped-off arm and kicked it up before hitting the hand of his other arm against the hand of the ripped-off arm, and the moment that the pping-sound appeared, a simple screen appeared in the old man. It was like a setting-screen, but very different at the same time. This was a special sort of item, a sort with different possible functions thatpletely worked out of a specially-created subspace. Luckily, Eisen added that this screen could be controlled via thoughts, or else it would be a bit annoying. And so, the old man set up two processes that were supposed to run at the exact same time, both of which were made to do something simr, albeit withpletely different oues. "Now then. Nice meeting you, but- You know what? Actually, it wasn''t nice meeting you." The young man said, and then finished up what he was doing on this special screen floating in front of him. The moment he did, two circr openings with nothing but a ck space behind it appeared out of thin air. One was pointed forward into the direction of the tree, while the other was pointed upward toward the ceiling. And soon after, a third opening appeared that Eisen kicked his ripped-off arm through before swinging his half-ripped-off arm into, before it closed down and cleanly cut off Eisen''s other arm as well. "Oh? You have ess to quite some interesting magic there." The Cecaelia pointed out, and the young Eisen just quietly chuckled, "Sure, it''s a sort of magic, I guess. But in the end, it''s all craftsmanship." He pointed out, before he slowly started to tap his foot on the ground at a steady pace. And a few momentster, now it was the transcended Cecaelia that was unsure what exactly was supposed to happen, "This is quite boring... Oh well, I guess I''ll have to continue with you now." The monster pulled more of its tentacles out of the magma, and the moment that it did, Eisen just mmed his foot down onto the ground that he created with his boots. Exactly at that time, the two openings that were floating in mid-air reacted, and both shot something out of them. The opening that was facing upward shot out something like a small, finger-sized drill, although it quickly started to increase in size as it started to dig straight upward through the ceiling. Meanwhile, the opening that was facing toward the tree just shot out a small metallic ball. Of course, the transcended monster wouldn''t just let something fly at its treasure, so it quickly caught the ball. "What is this supposed to be?" It asked, and just when it did, it cracked open, and truly tiny bug-sized golems flew outward and then made their way to the tree. The ball was already quite close to it, so the bugs soon reached the range that the monster couldn''t go to, due to the tree''s aura. And a few momentster... The whole space surrounding this tree, including it in itself, just disappeared, and then re-appeared in the form of a small ss-orb floating in front of Eisen, before it itself blinked out of existence before the transcended monster was able to react to it. "You! What did you do?!" It screamed out in a horrid shriek, "You will not get away with this!" "Oh? Won''t I?" The old, young, man asked as he looked at the hole created by the drill, "You realize that this is an underwater cave, right?" And as water started to pour down the hole into this incredibly hot space, Eisen started to retreat. Chapter 647 Changes Salty steam filled the air as the ocean water poured onto the hot magma. Eisen could see that even the Cecaelia¡¯s body was slowly turning solid as it cooled down extremely quickly. And as its body cooled down, cracks violently formed all over it. With a voice that seemed to be a mixture of a regr man¡¯s voice and a beast¡¯s fear-filled cry, the transcended monster screamed after Eisen. "You will regret this! You will regret this, you hear?!" The old man, the current Eisen, slowly turned toward the tunnel that the former Eisen had run into to escape the onught of water, and before he knew it, the space around him started to shift and change again as it simply became the pitch-ck space from before, where he now saw all the glowing golden memory-spheres floating around him. And slowly, the old man chose to simply log off. --- Benjamin stood up from out of the capsule as he took a deep breath inside of his room. It was a bit stuffy, so he opened the window and quickly looked outside. He was just thinking about the memory that he just recovered. It wasn¡¯t particrly an amazing thing to remember, considering that he knew that it must have hurt incredibly, but at the same time, it was an important memory to him. There were so many things going on in those memories that he had no idea how to really handle. Why did he need that special tree, why did the former Eisen just not care about that much pain in the moment, and what happened to that transcended cecaelia? While he didn¡¯t know what exactly happened to it, he at the very least knew that it didn¡¯t die at the time after having water poured onto it. It made him feel a little bit uneasy to think about, actually. But at the same time, Benjamin knew that there wasn¡¯t much reason to really think about it right now. After all, it wasn¡¯t like a monster like that would ever be able to continue living for nearly 100 Thousand years. That would be a bit ridiculous... right? "Although, we did gain immortality... Who says that monsters can¡¯t achieve something simr?" Deep in thought, Benjamin thought back onto what he could actually now remember of that time. Maybe he would be able to figure something out about that situation if he went to the ce where he met the Cecaelia. "Hm?" A bit surprised of himself, Benjamin pushed himself away from the window, "Why do I even want to know what happened then? Not like it matters that much, I¡¯m immortal now." With a deep sigh, Benjamin turned around and scratched the back of his head. For now, he just chose to head to the bathroom for his short break, since he just needed to take a shower. He was a bit sweaty, considering the sting hot weather of the past few days on top of the heat that the capsule itself naturally produced. It was like he had turned into a waterfall or something. A bad-smelling waterfall. And so, Benjamin stepped into the shower and let the water pour down onto his body. But somehow... for whatever reason, he didn¡¯t really feel the heat, no matter how hot he turned the water. Usually at some point he would feel a certain level of difort, even with how much his body was used to heat, but this time around, it actually felt more pleasant the hotter he turned it. His skin wasn¡¯t even turning the usual red that came with showering in such a heat. And he could tell that he wasn¡¯t imagining it either. He could feel that it was hot, it just wasn¡¯t as ufortable as before. It was nearly as if- "What the..." The old man immediately stepped out of the shower. The mirror waspletely fogged up as well, but Benjamin just grabbed his towel and tied it around his hips before rushing out the door, steam pouring out of the extremely hot room that could only bepared to a sauna at this point. The old man rushed through the hallway, leaving behind wet footsteps as he made his way to the kitchen, where Benji was standing with his phone in his hand. He raised his head and immediately froze up as he saw his grandfather be just covered by a towel, "What are you doing..?" Benji asked, but his grandfather ignored himpletely as he walked over toward the fresh cup of coffee standing right next to him. It was literally steaming, so Benjamin could tell that the young man in front of him was just waiting for it to cool down before drinking it, but he didn¡¯t really care about that right now. He had to test something. Without hesitation, Benjamin grabbed the cup by its rim, with his palm nearly pressed down onto the opening at the top, before turning it around above the sink. The extremely hot coffee poured down onto Benjamin¡¯s remaining hand, and Benji freaked out. He nearly threw his phone to the ground as he looked at his grandfather, "Jesus christ, just what¡¯s going on with you?!" Immediately, Benji ripped the cup out of the old man¡¯s hand and ced it into the sink as he turned the faucet on and let lukewarm water flow, because it was better for burns than cold water was, and forced Benjamin¡¯s hand under it immediately. "Seriously, are you..." Benji started with a loud groan, truly worried for his grandfather, before noticing that Benjamin was just staring at his own palm. The young man took a look at it as well, before noticing that... It was just like before. It didn¡¯t blister, or even change color in response to the near-boiling hot coffee. It was just like Benjamin¡¯s palm was normally. Confusedly, Benji picked up the cup from the sink and confusedly looked at the old man. The cup was still hot even now after having some of the luke-warm water poured over it. "What¡¯s going on?" With a deeply concerned and confused stare, Benji looked at his grandfather. But the old man didn¡¯t reply. Instead, he went over toward one of the nearby drawers and pulled it out, and after drying his hand on his towel, grabbed a matchbox that he hadying around in there. The old man pulled one of the matches out of the small box and pressed the box into his mouth, before rubbing the match-head on the side of the box. It quickly lit up, and Benjamin didn¡¯t hesitate to turn the match around and let it drop onto his palm. There, he just let it burn for a few moments, but nothing happened. A bit startled by what was going on, Benji took a step back and couldn¡¯t react in time as Benjamin stretched his hand out toward the roll of paper-towels that was standing there. "M-Maybe it¡¯s just not enough..?" Benjamin muttered confusedly as he pressed the lit match onto the roll of paper-towels and had it catch on fire before grabbing the roll tightly. Soon, the mes poured out from the sides of Benjamin¡¯s hands while peaking out from inbetween his fingers every once in a while. "D-Dad!" Benji screamed, absolutely scared of what his grandfather was doing. His voice reached the corners of the whole house, and it didn¡¯t take long until everyone that heard him came running. Of course, the first of those was Tony, as he was the one that was called in the first ce. Right behind him was Nataly, who heard Benji¡¯s voice scream like that. And the two of them stood there as they looked at the old man who was standing there practically naked with only a single towel covering him up, while bright mes were ravaging around. Tony choked up immediately as he started to panic at this sight, trying to figure out what was going on before rushing over toward Benjamin. But the old man just turned his head toward him and in a clear tone said, "It¡¯s fine. It doesn¡¯t hurt all that much." The old man exined. The mes of these paper-towels weren¡¯t all that hotpared to some of the things that Benjamin worked with sometimes. Of course, that didn¡¯t mean that anyone could do what Benjamin was doing right now. The only reason that he was even able to do so was because he was quite different to begin with. His soul wasn¡¯t fully of this world anymore. Benjamin threw the burning paper-towels into the sink and poured water onto them to put them out, before cleaning the soot off of his hand that he then showed to Tony. There wasn¡¯t any trace left on the old man¡¯s palm that could lead anyone to the realization that his hands were just enveloped in mes. "Dad, how did you..." Tony asked with a deeply concerned frown, but Benjamin didn¡¯t know what her was supposed to answer. So, he gathered his thoughts and then tried his best. "I¡¯ve been remembering a lot of thingstely. During thest memory I recovered, I was able to hold a proper conversation with a fraction of my former self. And now, all of a sudden, I¡¯m not affected by heat anymore. Not even mes like this." Benji and Tony were looking at the old man confusedly, because they didn¡¯t really understand what exactly was going on. On the other hand, Nataly was understanding it. After all, she had something to announce herself. "I¡¯ve been feeling spouts of times where I¡¯m taken over by Evalia as well... So at some point, we¡¯ll really turn into them even here..?" She asked nervously, and Benjamin turned over toward her with a conflicted expression, "I don¡¯t know. Maybe... I¡¯ll be the first to go through all of this. I will warn you if anything happens to me... But as far as I can tell... we probably will slowly change." Nataly was staring back at Benjamin nervously. Sure, Evalia was a human herself, but even then it was kind of scary to imagine slowly getting the sort of abilities that someone that peaked in that world must have. Even Evalia had quite a few peculiar abilities and skills that changed the way that her body worked, so Nataly was obviously scared of what might happen if she was to slowly change into that as well. "You can get rid of that ¡¯probably¡¯." All of a sudden, Andrew stepped into the room as well, his head covered in a hood, which was quite rare for him. He barely even took notice of the fact that Benjamin was half-naked. The old man could already see that something was off, but he couldn¡¯t tell all that well right now. And that was when Andrew pulled back his hood and raised his head properly, revealing two ck growths on the man¡¯s forehead. Andrew was growing horns. Chapter 648 Addicted Benjamin looked straight at Andrew with a confused expression on his face as he approached the young man standing in the entrance to the livingroom. "What..." He muttered quietly, confused about what exactly was going on, "You... you¡¯re..." "Growing fuckin¡¯ horns. Yes, I fucking know I am. Woke up with a sting headache just to find out I have horns, patches of my skin are turnin¡¯ goddamn gray, and I¡¯m even getting some nice tusks growin¡¯ on my lower jaw. Nearly ripped my beautiful wife¡¯s mouth open when I kissed her this mornin¡¯. The fuck¡¯s happening, man?" "...How many memories did you recover?" Benjamin asked immediately, and Andrew slowly crossed his arms, "Like... eight, nine or somethin¡¯? I got back to the maind the other day and visited the ces we ¡¯appeared¡¯ in. Every one of¡¯em gave me a memory. Then there¡¯s the two memories I got from that short fucking clip of seein¡¯ Gran and Buldor... By the way, Buldor¡¯s the kid of my former mount, and I gifted ¡¯im to Gran as a graduation gift or somethin¡¯. I¡¯m at like 9? Well, guess I could¡¯ve remembered the 10th already, but I skipped past that cause I didn¡¯t feel like it at the moment, man." "...Then these changes start at the 10th memory. I just recovered my 10th one as well. When you get back into the capsule, try to remember that one. Like me, you might be able to speak with your former self about some things." The old man suggested, and Andrew let out a deep sigh, "Listen, I think I¡¯ve got other shit to worry about for now. I¡¯m growing fucking horns. How am I supposed to deal with this crap? You, Evalia, and Xenia are all just gonna look the same as you used to, but Jyuuk and I are fucked. Are we really gonna turn into what we were like over there?" "Probably. But does that feel wrong to you? Or aren¡¯t you feeling kind of calm now that you have your hornsing in?" Haruo came up behind Andrew and ced his hand onto the man¡¯s shoulder, "My body may not have started changing yet, but I sure as hell am recovering magic already. Simr to what¡¯s been happening to Eisen before. You don¡¯t have any magic, so maybe you didn¡¯t notice, but personally I start to feel... new things around me. It¡¯s my ability to sense life-energy. I didn¡¯t try yet, but I might be able to even make a seed sprout quicker if I try hard enough. The other day when we were going out on a walk, we went past the graveyard, and I felt myself weirdly attracted to it." "You think you can use necromancy here?" Benjamin asked with a deep frown as he stared at the man in front of him, and Haruo slowly nodded his head, "I assume so. Listen, if Samuel¡¯s goal is really to bring magic over here, then he must have done his research. It must be possible to do so. Magic is a force that can exist here in this world, and it¡¯s created through mana. Mana on the other hand is created by numerous different forces. The most important ones that I assume Samuel is trying to reproduce here are for one, the mana created by the world itself, as well as the mana created by souls. Our souls are already capable of producing mana, since our souls became souls of the other world. But our bodies aren¡¯t used to it yet. So, our bodies are changing to the image of our souls over there, so that we can make use of mana normally." Haruo exined his theory in detail to everyone that was here. Jasmin came rolling up behind him and tried to support that theory. Benjamin looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath, "So that means that our bodies can actually change because of mana, then." The old man said, "If that can happen to us, then it can-" "Happen to animals as well. Fuck." Benji muttered quietly, understanding what exactly was going on, and the old man slowly nodded his head. That¡¯s exactly what had been going through his mind. If Samuel seeds to introduce mana to this world, there may be many benefits, but at the same time... Creatures that had never existed before will suddenly pop up all over the ce. They will increase in size, they will be stronger. Too strong for regr people to handle. And the issue was that monsters were able to level up much, much quicker than people were. It was different in the other world, since they had both existed since the beginning of times there. Things had been bnced over centuries, millenia even. But here... if every soul suddenly gained the ability to produce mana... Things would be troublesome. Sure, people would be stronger as well. Maybe there wouldn¡¯t be a ¡¯system¡¯ like in the other world, but that didn¡¯t mean that people wouldn¡¯t increase in strength considerably. It was still possible to get much, much stronger over time. But animals, after turning into monsters, would have the upper hand. Most people wouldn¡¯t be able to go up against a small dog when he went wild... imagine going up against a wolf the size of a van. Sure, a lot of strong weapons were a thing, but a regr old gun wouldn¡¯t be able to pierce the hide of even a rank 4 monster anymore. The bullets would act as if they were shot against a meter-thick steel wall. And there weren¡¯t that many people that knew how to improve on the weapons that they had these days. At least that¡¯s what crossed Benjamin¡¯s mind as well, but then he realized that this wasn¡¯t the case after all. "There are numerous yers with crafting-upations, right...? I imagine that the vast majority of them have the enchanting and alchemy skills... In case something goes wrong, we would have a lot of people that might be able to tell how to deal with certain situations. People that could lead this world through all these changes." "If these changes happen in the first ce. Our goal is to not let that happen in the first ce, right?" "Of course, but you never know what can happen... you never know how we and our opinions might change after we recover our memories." Benjamin pointed out bluntly. He looked at the people in front of him before taking a deep breath while turning over toward the clock, "I¡¯m sorry, I have to get back. My arms should have regrown by now." Benjamin made his way over toward the hallway leading to his bedroom, before Andrew held his arm in front of him, "What do you mean, your ¡¯arms should have regrown by now¡¯?" "Exactly what I mean. I lost my arms, and they should be back now." "Yes, but how did you lose them?" Andrew groaned loudly. Benjamin slowly scratched his cheek before continuing to walk down the hallway, "Your student ripped my arms off in a duel. But it¡¯s fine, I cut him in half at the same time, so I won. By the way, apparently he wants to reincarnate now." Benjamin pointed out, but once more, he was quickly interrupted by someone. "Dad, stop. Come back, we didn¡¯t finish talking about this yet." Tony said bluntly as he ran up to the old man, pulling him back a bit. But Benjamin just turned around and shook his head, "No. We finished, alright? What else is there left to say at this very moment? Sure, Brody is growing horns and tusks, but look at him. Usually you would freak out, right? It¡¯s the form he spent numerous millenia in. It¡¯s the form he¡¯s mostfortable in. We¡¯re all going to change, but we will be able to deal with it, because we¡¯ve dealt with it for lifetimes already. But if we don¡¯t get back over there and deal with this whole situation, we¡¯re not going to be thest ones that have to deal with these changes. Now please, let me go. I have a few more duels to win." Benjamin stared at his son with something that had basically be a re already. Just a few moments after speaking with this intense tone of his, Benjamin realized what exactly he was doing. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and slowly turned around, "I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t mean to sound so rough. I¡¯m just under a lot of stress right now. I mean, I just remembered what it¡¯s like to have my arms ripped off for the first time... But not only the first time, but every other time that something simr happened as well. It¡¯s a bit overwhelming if it happens just once, but having the sensation flood into your mind thousandfold is more than just that." "Dad... I¡¯m not trying to say that I understand what you... what all of you are going through, bute on! You¡¯re acting like the only thing that¡¯s important is that other world. You¡¯re not even focusing on what¡¯s going on over here anymore." "Yes, because what am I supposed to do over here? I can¡¯t do anything here. We can sit down and cry about everything all we want, but in the end, that¡¯s not going to solve anything. We have to deal with everything over there. That is the only way, Tony. I¡¯m sorry that I¡¯ve been absent, that I haven¡¯t been paying attention. But I¡¯m trying to-" "You¡¯re trying to do what? Save the world? Are you sure that you don¡¯t just like the way that you feel over there? That you¡¯re strong and healthy and can even regrow your goddamn arms after a short nap. That¡¯s why you want to be there. It¡¯s like you¡¯re addicted to that feeling, Dad." "Tony." Benjamin said with a deep stare directed right at the man¡¯s eyes. They locked their sight with each other, and the old man just slowly turned around again, "What¡¯s so wrong with enjoying the feeling of being healthy, strong, and useful? You¡¯re right, I love those parts of my life over there, but they aren¡¯t the reason I¡¯m doing anything, and you goddamn know that. Now, let this old man use the bit of life he has left in him to make a goddamn fucking difference before it¡¯s toote." With determination in his voice and step, Benjamin made his way over to his bedroom. He pushed the door open and closed it down again soon after. With heavy steps, Benjamin walked over toward the capsule and quickly pulled it open. He climbed inside one foot after the other before turning the program on that would bring him to the other world. Chapter 649 Another Champion Eisen slowly woke up again as he pushed himself off the ground. His arms were fully regrown now and were in the same state they were in before they were ripped off, but the old man still tried his best to stretch a little bit to get rid of the somewhat stiff feeling that he had in them. "Ah, awake!" Gran eximed with a bright, broad smile as he looked at Eisen, and the old man just nodded his head, "Seems like it, doesn¡¯t it?" "Come, watch!" The warrior replied bluntly, pointing toward the arena in front of him. There were two more people fighting there, but Eisen honestly didn¡¯t really care about that at all. Instead, he just wanted to get started and fight some more people already. It was quicker than making items for them, and Eisen was confident that he would be able to beat a few people. And even if not, he couldn¡¯t die, so it wasn¡¯t a big deal if he ended up dying. And after beating the four other people that he could fight for ¡¯points¡¯ that counted toward Eisen¡¯s goal, he just needed to make gear for two other people so that he could get an audience with Gonor. And then he had to go through all this stuff eight more times. Eisen felt annoyed after the short encounter he just had with Tony. He knew that he shouldn¡¯t feel that way, and he knew that he was acting incredibly immature. But at the moment, his stress was too big for him to really control how he reacted to things like that. "I mean, I just found out that I¡¯m slowly ceasing to be human over there..." Eisen muttered quietly to himself. He didn¡¯t even have any time to think about that. Eisen held a burning roll of paper towels and didn¡¯t hurt himself in the slightest. Suddenly being able to do that after breaking your arm while pping someone a few weeks prior wasn¡¯t necessarily something normal. "I should still apologize to Tonyter... And speak to the others about how they¡¯re feeling about all of this." With a deep sigh, the old man understood his own mistakes and chose to just move on for now. He had to get all of this done as quickly as possible anyway. Luckily Gonor gave him that little boon that he could make use of where he could just fight his way through this realm instead so that he could save time. He would spend a lot of time in all the other realms anyway, most likely, so it was great whenever he could save at least a little bit of that time in ways like this. "Sorry, Gran. I have to go for now. I¡¯ll be at the other arenas, challening some of the other champions. So right now might be thest time that we can speak to each other." Eisen exined to the warrior sitting on the ground in front of him. With his eyes wide open, Gran then just stood up and pushed his arms outward to the side, "Okay! Come!" He eximed loudly with a broad grin, but Eisen just looked back at him a little confused for now. And seeing that Eisen wasn¡¯t going for it, Gran did so instead and just pulled the old man in for a tight hug, "Nice see again! Live well!" Gran yelled right into Eisen¡¯s ear, onest time demonstrating that he was unable to speak any quieter than this. Eisen justughed a bit as he reciprocated the hug with a smile on his face. "Same to you, Gran. If you make the choice to truly reincarnate, I hope that you¡¯re going to live a great life." "Haha, Gran always strong! So Gran live well always!" He pointed out smugly, and Eisen just smiled as he took a step back and looked toward Buldor, rubbing his hand over the ground-dragon¡¯s snout, "You as well, buddy. Hope you can be by Gran¡¯s side if you reincarnate as well." The old man said with a smile on his face, and then turned toward Gran one more time. And while he activated his Draconic Demon King transformation so that he could just fly off, the old man gave a short nod to Gran, "It was nice to see you again." "Aye." With a smile on his face, Eisen pressed his foot onto the railing in front of him and kicked off of it while pping his wings, soon pushing right into the sky followed by Ambriel, the angel that was just looking at Eisen with a fowl re the whole time, although Eisen himself didn¡¯t particrly care about that. It wasn¡¯t like Ambriel could just attack Eisen or mess with him in any way. At least that¡¯s what Eisen assumed, he wasn¡¯t actuallypletely sure about that. Eisen looked around and tried to figure out where exactly the next arena was located, and soon spotted it. After quickly flying over it, he saw that it was an arena for people that had a simr fighting style to that Assassin that Eisen made items for earlier. Light weapons, quick movement, and a lot of gimicky items. Thinking that this was a good match for Eisen, as in that he would be able to deal with people of that fighting style rtively easy whenparing it to other styles, Eisen just stopped pping his wings for a few moments and let his body drop down toward the arena. Of course, he didn¡¯t fall right into it, but rather steered himself toward the ce where the people that just wanted to watch the fight were seated. He figured it would be a rather bad idea to try andnd right on the Champion¡¯s balcony again. There were still a few people that looked at him with surprise, especially once they noticed that Eisen was actually alive, but for the most part it wasn¡¯t that bad. Eisen looked around and tried to look for the Champion¡¯s balcony, before walking up the stairs of this area he was in and walking around the edge of the arena. Soon, he managed to make his way to the spot that was closest to the ce the Champion could be found and seemingly was currently seated as well, but the Angels that were stationed here obviously didn¡¯t let him inside. They held theirrge weapons in front of the door and just stared at him with their empty eyes from inside of their heavy metal helmets. With a slight sigh, Eisen crossed his arms, "Can I at least speak to the Champion for a bit? I want to challenge him to a duel." The old man pointed out, and the two Angels looked at each other. They were a bit unsure, it seemed. On one hand, they knew that usually only the people that rose to the top of the arena normally had the right to fight the Champion, but they could also tell that Eisen had a special quest that was given to him from Gonor. It didn¡¯t inherently say that he was allowed to skip through all other parts that made up the arenas¡¯ rules, but on the other hand it still changed the situation quite a bit. In the end, they figured they should let the champion make the decision, and one of the angels lowered his weapon and opened the door they were guarding. He went inside and closed it again to speak to the Champion, and just about a minuteter, the door opened again. The Angel stepped to the side while holding the door open while signaling Eisen inside, and the old man looked at the woman that was seated on the seemingly high-quality armchair. Her legs were crossed and she was facing the center of the arena, so her back was pointed at the old man. Eisen took a step closer toward the woman and walked next to the armchair before turning his head toward her. And as he looked at the woman, dressed in a simple cloak that was hiding most of her equipment, the old man stared at her face in particr. But he couldn¡¯t remember her to be one of Brody¡¯s apprentices, so the old man just got right to the point instead of trying to make small-talk. "I want to duel you." The old man said bluntly. The champion turned her head and looked Eisen up and down before simply scoffing, "You don¡¯t seem like a fighter to me. And you know that a duel here is only lost once one of the fighters would be dead in thend of the living? That means to you, this is a fight to the death." "That¡¯s fine, I won¡¯t die. If you don¡¯t want to fight me, that¡¯s fine to me, I¡¯ll just find someone else. But I¡¯ll just tell you, I already won against one of you champions." The old man pointed out, "And it¡¯s not like this is a duel that counts toward the rules of this arena. I don¡¯t have the same sort of weapon you do, so it wouldn¡¯t influence your status of Champion if you lose." "Hm... You already won against a champion? Who was it, I wonder?" The woman asked, with a genuinely curious expression, and Eisen just replied bluntly, "Gran. He¡¯s the champion for mountedbat." "...You won against Gran? That battle-crazed Gran? Even amongst us heroic souls he¡¯s a crazy one... I¡¯m just doing this for the extra benefits we can get for reincarnation, but he is doing it so that he can keep fighting as much as he wants." "True, but it seems like he¡¯s considering reincarnation now after I cleaved him in half." Eisen pointed out with a slight smirk on his face. The woman immediately stood up and turned around to look at one of the angels, "Could you confirm that, please?" She asked, and the Angel slowly nodded his head as it left the room and flew away in the direction of Gran¡¯s arena. While this angel was listening to the request of this soul, Ambriel was seemingly rather disgusted by that fact and was staring at that Angel of Gonor as if it were lesser simply for doing so. Eisen realy wanted to puch Ambriel in the face, but he would save that for when he already received the acknowledgement of the gods... He didn¡¯t want to start a fight with Ambriel and then have to stay around them for another week or so. Either way, for now, that didn¡¯t really matter, even if Eisen was annoyed by them. What mattered for now was just that the woman in front of Eisen looked at him with a determined expression, "Once that Angeles back, I¡¯ll make my decision. If what you told me is true, then we will duel. If it is not, then we will not." Chapter 650 The Giant versus the Champion It didn¡¯t take long, only about ten minutes or so, until the Angel returned to the Arena. He walked up to the champion of this arena and leaned forward, as if to try and whisper something into her ear, although Eisen couldn¡¯t hear even a hint of something like a voice. Maybe it was something that only Heroic Souls could hear, or only the specific person that was being spoken to. Either way, the champion turned her head toward the old man in front of her with a surprised expression, "You really did beat him... How did you-" She asked, before the angel next to her seemed to add a little bit more information to what it had been saying before, and the woman in front of Eisen seemed even more surprised. She held her hand to her chest and took a startled step back. "Th-The first that p-peaked?" The woman asked confusedly. Eisen looked back at her before slowly nodding his head in responsed, "Yes, that¡¯s me. But don¡¯t worry, through different situations, I¡¯m not nearly as strong as I used to be. I assume that this fight will be a rather tough one for both of us." "...I see." The Champion said with a nervous expression. She turned around and grabbed her weapon, which at first nce was just a normal dagger, albeit one that was rather thick and seemingly quite heavy. Although Eisen did soon realize that this wasn¡¯t actually the case, and that this was actually a rather interesting weapon. "Alright, then let us start after this next fight has finished." The Woman pointed out, before looking at Eisen with a light frown, "I assume you do not n on fighting with a dagger?" In response, instead of using actual words, Eisen just summoned his demonic de from his soul storage and let it speak for him. The champion stared at therge de slightly nervously, understanding that this definitely wouldn¡¯t be an easy fight for her either. On the other hand, she was someone that was actually quite well-practiced with her weapon and most likely was someone that heavily relied on technique. Eisen was rather rough in that sense and mostly fought using brunt strenght. Luckily, Gran was a simr fighter in that sense, so the difference in raw skill didn¡¯t actually matter that much. But with this woman... Eisen was already getting a bit nervous. After all, this might be the first time that he¡¯s going to die here in this world. In his memory, at least. It made him a little nervous. It took about twenty more minutes as the next ¡¯fight¡¯ was over, and it let Eisen take a good look at the actual arena. While Gran¡¯s arena was simply an open field, in this case, therge space in front of Eisen was littered with numerous different objects. Walls, crates, even small buildings that one could hide out in momentarily. It was made to let the fighter in question truly use the environment to their advantage. The moment that the fight was over, both of thebatists werepletely ¡¯repaired¡¯, while the loser had to give up all of their equipment as a recement for death. Eisen watched as all the structures and objects that he looked at before slowly disappeared, as if falling to dust, "Oh, and just so you know... We will be using the regr rules of this arena. Otherwise, it would be a rather unfair fight." The woman pointed out. Eisen already figured that she was going to ask for this, so he immediately epted. "Of course. Could you repeat those rules to me?" Eisen inquired, and the woman nodded her head as the two made their way down into the arena. She pointed at the crystal floating in the center of the structure, the same kind that Eisen interacted with before. "We will both ce our hands onto that crystalter, and using both of our conscious and subconscious minds, it will create an environment that lets us make full use of our abilities. And that means that you can use any ability that you have ess to right now, so go ahead and use everything you have. I actually do wonder what might be created with a man like you inspiring half of it..." With a curious expression, the champion stared at the floating crystal in front of her and was the first to ce her palm onto it. Soon after, Eisen followed. Once all five of Eisen¡¯s fingers were pressed onto the smooth surface, the crystal started to glow brightly before soon disappearing. The dust on the ground started to twirl up and filled out the whole area around the old man and the champion. Right in front of him, Eisen could see a glowing line of light, "Follow it. It¡¯s going to bring you to your starting position. Once the dust-cloud disappears, the fight starts." The champion told the old man. He figured it was best to do what she said, and as such slowly walked forward, blindly trusting in the light that was literally the only thing he could see right now. But as he was walking, he heard the Champion¡¯s voice once more. "Right, onest thing... As I¡¯m the champion, the environment probably changed a bit more strongly than what you just saw. Just so that you aren¡¯t surprised." Soon, the line of light turned into a circle, so Eisen figured that was supposed to be his starting-position, and he stepped into that circle. Once he did, he had to wait a few more seconds until the lights disappearedpletely. With a sift gust of air, all the dust disappeared and Eisen soon saw the scenery around him. And what he saw was something that did actually surprise him quite a lot, even if he was warned by the champion. But even then, he quite liked it. Eisen found himself inside of a giant workshop. It took up far more space than what was avable in the arena as far as Eisen had been able to judge before, but that was probably what the Champion was speaking of when she said that the ¡¯enviroment probably changed a bit more strongly¡¯. It was as if Eisen had been shrunken down and ced into a workshop that was equipped with basically everything that you needed. A lot of different materials, items and tools scattered around. And the ce was made for someone of Eisen¡¯s height while it was fully increased andbined with his Draconic Demon King form. So, it was obvious what was supposed to happen. The old man used both of that. His perspective soon shifted and the room around him just seemed a littlerge, as if he was a kid again. And then with the demonic form activated, the room felt like just a normal-sized room. "Now then, this is pretty interesting." With just a thought, Eisen summoned his demonic de and soon watched it as it was affected by the old man¡¯s transformation. He held the de in his hand and started to look around with his truth-seeing eyes active. Eisen really did have an amazing advantage like this. After all, the main reason why an environment like this was supposed to be created in the first ce was so that either party could use it to their advantage in any way. For the most part, that was probably meant to be by hiding. But Eisen had the perfect way to see through any sort of attempts of hiding, and that was simply by looking around and trying to find the champion¡¯s mana. And soon, he saw her form, squatting behind a hammer to hide from the old man for now. Thinking that this was a good chance to test something else out, Eisen activated an ability of his that wasn¡¯t actually rted tobat in the slightest. And that was something he did by using his ¡¯crafting realm¡¯ skill. Due to his increased size, the range of that skill had also been increased proportionally, so it was enough to fill this whole space out right now. Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure if it really would work, but he sure hoped so. Because within his ¡¯crafting realm¡¯ that this arena had now be, he should be able to manipte his tools from a distance with nothing but a thought. Hoping that the things that were meant to look like tools were actually considered as such by his skill, the old man extended his hand toward the hammer, and just pulled it up rapidly. Immediately, the hammer was lifted into the air, but the champion was nowhere to be seen in the space where Eisen had spotted her before. And that was when he noticed something small dropping toward his face. The greatest disadvantage of Eisen¡¯s increased size was that it was a lot harder to spot certain things now, just because they were so smallpared to him. And this time, what he had nearly missed, was the champion dropping right toward Eisen¡¯s face. However, Eisen quickly stepped to the side and at the same time swung his sword toward the small figure. If she hadn¡¯t twisted her body around, he would have hit her. However, the champion pulled her legs up to her body to just barely dodge the edge, just so that she could use the force of the de to her advantage. She kicked off of the de and used the immense gust of wind created by it to propell her further forward, until she reached Eisen¡¯s hand. At that point, the old man increased his temperature on his hand to the highest degree he could, seemingly causing damage to the champion¡¯s HP through it. But soon, she managed to keep climbing her way up Eisen¡¯s arm, stabbing into his skin whenever she could. At first Eisen didn¡¯t think she had any way to really beat him, but at some point she actually made use of her weapon for real. She pressed a button on the handle and the de split in half as a chain appeared inbetween those de-halves, connecting them so that the champion could use this weapon to get quite some reach in. But what she did now was take the fact that Eisen was trying to get her off his body andbined it with her own abilities. She stuck one of the de-halves into Eisen¡¯s arm, and once the old man¡¯s palm mmed down on the Champion, she stuck it into there. It was like the des fused with Eisen¡¯s body to an extent, because for some reason he just wasn¡¯t able to get rid of them no matter how much he pulled on them. They were just damaging him whenever he tried to. And while Eisen was doing this, the champion kept climbing up Eisen¡¯s body to get to his face. Chapter 651 Full Force Eisen momentarily ced his de back into his soul storage while he swung his hand toward his face to get the Champion off of it. But sadly, it was like trying to squash a bug. The champion was incredibly evasive and continued up the old man¡¯s body until she reached his eyes. Eisen could see her squatting there on his cheek, pulling her arm back to stab the old man¡¯s eye. "Not happening." Eisen replied immediately, quickly jumping up before decreasing his size to his normal height. This gave him the chance to grab onto the champion and swing her around while pping his wings to keep his own body straight. The champion was thrown through the air as Eisen increased his size again, and swung his fist toward the champion at full force. But of course, the champion wasn¡¯t a chum, and tried to twist her body around mid-air to try and catch herself a bit and maybe use the punch to her advantage. Eisen watched as she pulled her legs close to her body just before the old man was about to hit her. And then, she passed through his hand as if it wasn¡¯t there in the first ce. And just a momentter, before anyone was able to react, the old man hit the champion and her body was flung right at the wall. Eisen could even hear her body impact there. What Eisen did just now was rather simple. Using visualization, he created a fake fist that he ced just in front of his real one. It wasn¡¯t something that could be used to always trick people, since the visualization was slightly translucent and incapable of hiding Eisen¡¯s real fist, but from the champion¡¯s perspective, Eisen was able to hide this fact perfectly. And then, Eisen looked down at his palm and hand. When he just decreased his size, the des were still stuck to his body, so they actually did quite a lot of damage, although it was necessary for Eisen to properly do this. On top of that, they hindered Eisen¡¯s punch right now considerably, since he wasn¡¯t able to properly move. But just as Eisen was thinking that, the old man could feel something tug on the two des. Immediately he stared down there and saw the champion hanging onto the chain connecting the des, trying to climb up onto the old man¡¯s body again. Immediately, Eisen tried to figure out what it was that he heard impact in the wall then, and soon realized that it was just a small decoy, like a hefty rock that she might have created with her element or something. "Fine, then let¡¯s try this out..." Eisen muttered, and then proceeded to grind his teeth as he pulled his hand away from his arm with as much force as possible. He could hear the sound of his rock-like skin cracking as arge chunk of his flesh was pulled out of his arm, due to the ¡¯roots¡¯ that the des created throughout Eisen¡¯s flesh. Things were also about to be ripped out of his palm, but his arm gave in earlier. And so, now that this was the case, Eisen quickly filled in the chunk of flesh that he was missing with some metal from his element to protect him as much as possible, while he swung around the chunk that he still had connected to his hand via the champion¡¯s weapon, with the actual champion hanging right onto it. And then, the old man stepped over toward another part of the room, making the trip as ufortable for the champion as possible by increasing the heat of his hand incredibly while squeezing down onto her as much as possible. Although even then, she was somewhat protected by the chunk of flesh that Eisen pulled out of himself, so it didn¡¯t hit her directly, or so it seemed at least. Eisen used his element to light up the coalsying inside of this fake forge. While he wouldn¡¯t be able to truly make a good item here, he should be able to at least do what he wanted in regards to this fight. And that was to push his hand into the hot coals. Eisen, especially with his Draconic Demon King transformation active, was able to hold out with this, but the champion didn¡¯t seem to. All the mes cackling inbetween the pieces of coal and the fumes created by them being burned up had to affect the champion somehow. And for a while, it seemed to work as well. The champion wasn¡¯t fighting back and trying to cut into Eisen¡¯s palm as much anymore. But just as Eisen thought that he managed to make it work out, he felt a deeply painful sting in his hand, and soon saw one of the two des push through the back of Eisen¡¯s hand. The chain that was connected to it extended in length immediately and shot toward Eisen¡¯s chest. Of course he tried to dodge it, but it was as if the weapon was alive, and it was seeking out the center of the old man¡¯s chest as if just that life depended on it. It burrowed into the old man¡¯s rocky flesh, as if trying to reach his heart. At the very least, Eisen knew that he now couldn¡¯t rip this de out in the same way as before, since that would be far, far too risky. And at the same time, he couldn¡¯t shrink down like before anymore, because the de would most likely end up piercing his heart if he did that, considering how deep it prated into his skin. But just as he thought so, the chain connecting the two des became shorter again, pulling Eisen¡¯s hand toward his chest, flinging around some coals at the same time. And due to the force at which Eisen¡¯s hand moved, it seemed like the champion got a good chancet to jump up and once more reached the old man¡¯s face rather quickly. Eisen tried to get rid of her with his free hand, but since his arm was injured that actually wasn¡¯t that easy. Just as the old man was running a few things through his mind to figure out what to do, his eye reflexively was pressed shut as he felt something sharp right in its center after the champion stabbed the old man¡¯s eye with a free dagger. It was painful, and Eisen¡¯s eye was practically burning up from inside, as if the champion pushed some kind of poison or venom into it, which seemed to be right up her alley. But just as the champion was climbing over Eisen¡¯s face, the old man knew that he had to try and do anything he could to get her off of him, or else this fight would be incredibly hard for him. And as he did, he quickly summoned his Demonic de and threw it into the room, where a second figure soon appeared and grabbed it for Eisen. It was the Elemental Spirit, which Eisen had immediately swing it around. Right at the old man¡¯s face. Eisen knew exactly where the champion was, and it was most likely hard for her to dodge while hanging onto the old man, so this was a good chance. The edge approached Eisen¡¯s face more and more, and the champion turned around and looked at it while freaking out quite a lot at what the old man was trying to do. Of course, she figured that he wouldn¡¯t actually have a spirit sh at his own face like that. But in order to prevent just that from happening, Eisen created as many of his mana-doubles¡¯ hands as possible, and really only the hands, and turned them allpletely metallic. Eisen moved them along the area of where the edge would end up being to stop it properly. And a momentter, with a loud ng, the de was stopped as Eisen could feel something wet dripping down his face. It was blood. Of course it wasn¡¯t his own, but rather the Champion¡¯s, who had a leg cut off through this attack just now. Eisen did actually cut into his own nose a little bit, but it wasn¡¯t a wound that couldn¡¯t be healed with a health potion. Now, the moment after, Eisen moved all of the mana-hands over his face to get rid of the champion, and soon managed to fling her off of him. With as much force as he could muster, Eisen swung his arm forward to try and punch the champion once more. This time, he didn¡¯t add a visualization onto it, since it surely wouldn¡¯t work twice anyway. But instead of letting her use the punch as a tform to move around, even though she was missing a leg now, the moment that Eisen hit the champion he didn¡¯t try to just push her away again. Instead, he punched his fist right into the edge of his de, and this time, it seemed like the champion was hit. Eisen cut halfway through one of his fingers in the process, but it was a wound that could heal easily, at least. The old man took a deep breath as he watched the scenery around him slowly fall to dust. The fight was over now, and the champion was in pieces. Eisen stood in the center of the arena with his size fully increased, while the champion¡¯s body wasying on the ground underneath him. Eisen touched his demonic de and ced it into his soul storage as he unsummoned his spirit as well while slowly squatting down to look at the champion. "Could you remove these des of yours? They hurt like a bitch." Eisen said bluntly, and the champion groaned loudly while raising her hand up toward him. And just like that, the des fell to the ground while Eisen quickly decreased his size and immediately opened his item storage, where he grabbed a concentrated health potion that he poured down his throat to recover as much of his HP as possible, before grabbing an alchemically hardened chunk of concentrated Health Jelly that Eisen softened a bit and quickly ran over his wounds to make his flesh ¡¯regrow¡¯. It didn¡¯t take long until the old man was in an alright condition again, at least ¡¯alright¡¯ enough to fly around in a bit to look for the next ce to craft or even fight. "You have an insane way of fighting, you know that?" The Champion asked as one of the angels quickly repaired her body, and the old man just looked back at her with a slight smirk, "Oh? Do I?" "Of course. There aren¡¯t many that would swing their own de at their face full-force." Chapter 652 Halfway there "There aren¡¯t many living people that make their way to the heavens in the first ce." Eisen pointed out as he kept slowly healing the wounds all over his body that came from the Champion stabbing into his skin with different des so that she could get a proper grip on his body while climbing up. It did hurt quite a bit, but luckily it wasn¡¯t that bad. As if his pain-tolerance had increased a fair amount. Eisen looked at the woman in front of him before he remembered that he should probably try to check the quest information real quick. [Quest Conditions Updated ¨C Gonor¡¯s Acknowledgement] [Description] You are seeking to be acknowledged by the gods of heaven and made your way into the realm of the God of Combat, Gonor. As you are a craftsman rather than a fighter, you have been given the task to create full gear for ten different souls that fits them perfectly. Alternatively, Gonor has allowed you to still show yourbat prowess as a recement for at maximum half the gear you were supposed to create for the souls of Gonor¡¯s realms. If you manage to beat the champion of an arena, it will count as a recement. [Condition] Create Gear for up to 10 Souls in Gonor¡¯s realm, or beat up to 5 Arena Champions (5/10) [Reward] Gonor¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None With a satisfied expression, Eisen waved the screen away again. Now he only had to fight three more people and then make items for two more after that. He was halfway there. "I¡¯m wondering..." The champion started just as the old man was thinking, "You are Eisen, the Craftsman, right?" The old man looked back at her and nodded his head, "That I am. Why?" "Well, obviously because I would like to ask you to make a weapon for me. You specialize in craftsmanship but are still such an intuitive, great fighter. The things that you can create must be truly masterpieces then." She pointed out, and Eisen slowly raised his brows as he looked back at her, "Well, my items are pretty great, as far as I¡¯m concerned at least. Sure, I do have to make items for a few more people as well, so why not? Getting a bit more time to recover before my next fight would also be pretty good." "Hm?" The Champion looked back at Eisen with surprise on her face, "You want to continue with fights?" "Mhm. It makes things a bit easier for me. Why?" The old man replied bluntly, and the champion slowly pushed herself off the ground, now that her body had been properly repaired, "It¡¯s nothing, I was just surprised to hear it, that¡¯s all. Let me guess, you want to fight more champions?" "Yes, that¡¯s exactly it." Eisen nodded. "Then if you don¡¯t mind, I have a few tips for which arenas to head to for this." The woman in front of Eisen pointed out with a broad smile, crossing her arms while acting as if she hadn¡¯t just been cut into pieces by this very old man that she was trying to help out right now. Eisen raised his brows and thought about it for a moment. It wouldn¡¯t hurt to try and listen to her ideas, especially considering that she did most likely spend a lot of time in this realm already. And as a Heroic Soul, she might have ess to a lot more information about this ce and how everything workedpared to anyone else that Eisen might be able to ask, "Alright, I¡¯m listening." "Good. How many more do you think of fighting?" She asked, and Eisen replied immediately, "Three more." "Perfect then. Then, I would try and head to the ¡¯Beast Arena¡¯. It¡¯s a bit far away from here though. While most arenas here are about different sorts ofbat in the form of duels between two parties, that is something a bit different. Not everyone enjoysbat with other people, but rather focused their attention on fighting monsters. So within that arena, you can simply start a fight with different monsters that are chosen depending on your capabilities." "Hm, interesting." The old man replied while moving his fingers through his beard in thought, although he flinched a bit when he noticed that there was still a deep cut on the front of one of his fingers when that one of his beard¡¯s hairs rubbed through. Somehow, this was more painful than the whole fight just now, "Anyway... It sounds like you had more ideas than just that one arena. Anything else?" "Yes, of course. Considering that you have the ability of flight, I suggest visiting the arena of aerialbat. I do not know how well-versed you are in that field, however, so this is just a suggestion. And then, I think you might be a pretty good match for the current champion of ¡¯showbat¡¯." "Showbat? So it would be more of a performance?" The old man inquired curiously, and the woman in front of him nodded her head, "Yes, that¡¯s exactly what it is. A portion of those that practice ¡¯Show Combat¡¯ made their way here, and the rest seemed to have reached the divine realm of Art instead." "I see..." The old man muttered quietly. He tried to think about whether or not all these were really good fits for him. He was pretty confident in his ability to fight monsters, at least more confident than when he was fighting against other, very skilled people. The aerialbat would also be interesting, but Eisen didn¡¯t exactly know if that was a good idea. He didn¡¯t exactly practice something like that yet. He usually did just use his flight ability to get from point A to point B, or sometimes to support his movement during regrbat. And sure, it wasn¡¯t like he never fought like this, but fighting someone who made this their expertise while Eisen wasn¡¯t particrly good at it... That sounded a bit cocky. But Eisen could still look into it, maybe watch a fight or two in that arena. It might be a bit better-fitted for him than he thought. And then, there was this ¡¯Show Combat¡¯. Would Eisen really be able to turn his unrefinedbat into something visually appealing like that? He could use magic together with it, but his swordsmanship wasn¡¯t particrly high-tier. Eisen was good at it, but he wasn¡¯t at the level where someone that knew what they were talking about would be incredibly impressed. And in this realm, basically everyone knew what they were talking about, since all that they were talking about wasbat. "Although... The ¡¯Show Combat¡¯ one wouldn¡¯t actually be a fight to the death, right?" Eisen muttered quietly, and that¡¯s when the champion right next to him immediately nodded her head. "Indeed! It is only about judgement from an unbiased jury. The winner wins and gets to advance within the arena, and the loser receives the same punishments as if he lost in any other arena. So just like normal." "Hm... Then it might really be worth looking into..." He muttered quietly. The Quest only said to ¡¯beat 5 champions¡¯, not to kill them. But considering that this was the case, Eisen was actually wondering how it would end up being possible to beat the champion in that arena with the monsterbat. Maybe they could make it a huntingpetition? "That sounds pretty interesting..." The old man was trying to figure out good ways to make use of the tips given to him by this champion next to him, before he moved on to the other, more imminent topic that they had to discuss. "So, let¡¯s get to it now. What do you want me to make for you?" Eisen inquired curiously, his mood slightly improvedpared to what it was before, while the champion just smiled at him, "How about we find you a ce to work first? There aren¡¯t really that many smithies you can borrow around here." "Oh, I just need an open space, that¡¯s all." "An open space? What do you mean?" "Exactly what I just said. I just need a rtivelyrge open area with enough actual space to ce down a moderately-sized structure." The old man pointed out, and the champion simply smiled at him a bit more, "Well, you surely must have your reasons. I can arrange that. When would you have time to start working on the weapon then?" She asked, noting what exactly the old man told her he needed in her mind. Eisen looked at her with his arms crossed after finally healing the cut in his fingers. "Right now. That was the n at least. I¡¯m hoping to be able to finish my business in this divine realm as quickly as I can, and that involves getting everything down whenever ites up to make sure I finish everything as early as possible." The old man pointed out, "Come on, let¡¯s just make our way to an open area that I could make use of, and then I¡¯ll get started. It should just take about... Well, let¡¯s say about seven, eight hours to finish a full set of gear for you." Eisen stated after looking the champion up and down to get a closer look The champion raised her brows and quickly shook her head at what the old man said, "No, no, I¡¯m not asking you to mkae a full set of gear for me. You just need to make me a weapon. Also... Are you sure you could even finish a full set like that within that short amount of time?" "Of course I can. Otherwise I wouldn¡¯t be saying it." "...Sure." The Champion sighed. She figured she should just ept what this old man was saying as granted. She did hear that his crafting abilities were amazing, but it still seemed like an extraordinarily short amount of time to im that you were able to create a lot of different, ratherplicated items within. But nheless, it seemed like the Champion was pretty curious if he was telling the truth, so she quickly led Eisen out of the arena toward her property. Like with Gran, it included a lot of open space within it, although the Champion did have to clear a few things out in order to create that open space, and Eisen swiftly set up his portable shop there. He opened the door and stepped into the building, quickly followed by the Champion before Eisen sat down right behind the counter with a curious smile on his face as he started creating a rough visualization of his idea for the Champion¡¯s items, "Now, let¡¯s get started, shall we?" Chapter 653 Three-Layer Leather Armor Eisen questioned the Champion about what sort of items she would like the old man to build. For the most part, it seemed like she really just wanted improved or newer versions of her current equipment, so it wasn¡¯t anything all too special with the exception of those dual daggers connected to each other by an extendable chain. Otherwise, she only had a regr leather armor as well as some tools that she could use in different situations, a secondary weapon, and some consumables like potions. Those were rather straight-forward things, and after Eisen managed to talk about what exactly she wanted these items to be like, the old man got started on creating them. This time, he would make the special weaponst. For the most part, everything was pretty easy to make. First, he started with the leather-armor. Actually, the Champion had some pretty interesting ideas about this as well, although it was just made interesting by the base-material. She wanted the leather to be made of three different basicyers. The first, outermostyer was a thick, strong type of leather that would allow it to easily defend against weaker attacks right off the bat. There would have to be some cuts made into the different parts, more than usual at least, to allow for proper movement with this sort of thick material. Eisen could also soften it a little, but if he overdid it, then it would definitely impact the quality of the overall item as well as the defensive capabilities in those softened spots. Either way, then there was anotheryer, the innermostyer, which was supposed to be something that, instead of defending against attacks, directly helped the Champion by slowly but surely healing her. For this, Eisen used something that he had actually been ying around with as well for a while now. He was trying to figure out whether or not it was possible to cause different special effects by treating or dying leather with special materials. In this case, he just treated some summer-troll leather, a monster with a particrly good health-regeneration to the point that they were able to heal any sort of wound within a few minutes, but rather weak and thin skin that allowed them to receive a lot of damage in the first ce. It wasn¡¯t a material that was fit for something like defensive armor in the first ce, but Eisen figured that he could try and use something like this to create something like special healing-gloves, or maybe reusable leather bandages if it was necessary. After all, here in this world, nothing really got permanently dirty due to the powers of the God of Comfort, so it wouldn¡¯t be that big a deal to reuse them as long as you made sure to clean them at least a little bit. Either way, Eisen left this summer-troll leather inside of a bath of heavily concentrated health-potions for a few weeks now. The leather itself, which was dark brown before, was now a bright red instead. And of course, Eisen didn¡¯t just put it into a simple potion-bath and that was it. The actual tub that he ced everything into was a special item as well. It was an item created to use the item-fusion skill to slwoly but surely fuse the effects of whatever was ced inside of it together in specific, determined ways. In this case, Eisen made it so that the leather would absorb the healing effects of the potion. It was hard to just fuse the basic, conceptual effects of some items with other at this point just by using the skill regrly, but Eisen found that this kind of thing worked after prolonged exposure, so he hoped to be able to achieve something with this. Either way, at the same time, this special tub was supposed to make sure that the leather wouldn¡¯t somehow end up breaking down due being ced into this strong potion for so long, and instead was supposed to be a bit strengthened instead. And now, Eisen took therge sheets of leather out of the different tubs that he created for this infusion, before making sure that it had properly worked. "Hm... Good, it¡¯s pretty evenly colored, at least. That¡¯s a good sign." The old man pointed out as he rubbed his fingers over the slightly roughened-up surface of this leather after it had spent this much time in this liquid to make sure that the little strength the leather had to begin with wasn¡¯t further weakened. As far as he could tell, it really wasn¡¯t an issue in this case, and instead aplete sess for Eisen¡¯s experiement. As such, the old man quickly ced these sheets of leather down where he would thenteryer the different sheets tobine them into a single base material. But first, Eisen had to get thest of the threeyers finished. The middleyer. Instead of leather, the Champion said she wanted it to be some form of strong cloth that would be capable of more easily catching thrown projectiles. Eisen immediately understood what she wanted, of course. She wanted the middleyer to be ayered mesh of metallic fibers and threads that would end up working quite simr to chainmail armor. In the end, Eisen chose a few different materials that seemed a good fit. For the most part, Eisen of course chose innately strong materials that he sometimes had to fuse with some highly infused mythril that was supposed to be capable of basically nullifying any sort of impact. Since it seemed like this part was intended as a defense against projectiles, it wouldn¡¯t have made sense to use Eisen¡¯s ¡¯zing Core of the Mountain¡¯ mythril like he had considered at first. After all, there was no reason to repel any sort of attack. Instead, Eisen made sure that he really concentrated on using parts of his mythril batch that were capable of absorbing impact the best. The old man alloyed this material with some of the other sorts of metals and then ran them through the thread-making mechanism before turning them into something simr to cloth. Of course, in the end it wasn¡¯t just ¡¯something simr to cloth¡¯, but just basic cloth, but since the gaps inbetween the threads were mostly toorge so that Eisen could create a proper mesh, the old man wasn¡¯t sure if he should really consider this a sort of cloth. Eisen made sure toyer the different, thin cloth-meshes and slightly shifted them each to the side somewhat randomly, to make sure that in the end when looking at this final piece of cloth there wouldn¡¯t be any sort of gap that one could use to aim at skin, while the mesh-effect would still properly work. And so, the old man got started finalizing this special material using an item that he just quickly improvised. He took tworge two by two meter nks and covered one side of each in a thinyer of mana-crystal so that he could inscribe them properly, and then created enchantments that were really just supposed to assist in a targetedpression so that Eisen could thin down the threeyers that were each rtively thick into a single thinyer that Eisen could work with properly. Along the edges of the the two nks, Eisen added some spiraling holes that he could use to basically screw the two pieces together and hold them in ce for a while. The actual screws were just made of a long metal bar that was leftover after a project Eisen had been working on before. He simply used transmutation to turn them into screws that could be used for this more than easily. In total, creating this whole thing took Eisen about ten minutes with the expert-like help from Bai and Eisen¡¯s elemental spirit. Now, he just ced the special, bright-red summer-troll leather down onto the lower nk, ced the meshed metallic cloth down onto that leather, and then added the thick, defensive leather on the outside before cing the second nk on top and screwing everything in ce so that there would be equal pressure on every part. Eisen even ced a few weights onto the center to make sure that it was as equal as possible. And meanwhile, Eisen would end up working on some other items while the leather was finishing up and being pressed into a sheet that he could use. These other items were simple small des and daggers that had different uses, whether climbing, distraction, orbat, as well as other generic tools like lockpicks. In this champion¡¯s case, these might be useful after all, in case the arena created a field with different structures that one could hide in. And so, the old man finished all of these things and even prepared everything that he needed to prepare for the final item of the gearset, the champion¡¯s main-weapon. But before then, Eisen quickly removed the weight from the leather-press and quickly started to mark the ces where the sheet had to be cut into pieces specifically with the help of his visualization, before Eisen and his elemental spirit quickly got to work. It didn¡¯t take long before all the pieces for this leather-armor were finshed, and all that Eisen had left to do was put them together. This was a rather rxing and quick work actually, since Eisen only had to use his hands for it instead of his whole body like forging often required. Either way, like this, he could speak to the champion some more about these other arenas that she suggested to him, and it didn¡¯t take that long until Eisen had finished this special leather armor-set for the champion. Just like that, Eisen had finished another part of Gonor¡¯s quest, and was now six out of ten steps there. With a satisfied expression, Eisen handed everything that he had finished so far to the champion next to him so that she could get a look at it already while he started on thest item. He looked at everything with a curious smile on his face, even inspecting the different parts of the weapon that the champion had been using up until now. It really just seemed to work in the way that Eisen assumed it did. It had an incredibly long chain hidden away inside of spatial-gems ced onto the handles of the two halves of the de. This seemed like something that would work for a while, but Eisen had another idea, although he would still use spatial-gems on this. At the same time, this was something that let him y around with another thing that he wanted to automate for a while now. Chapter 654 Pocket Craftsman Eisen grabbed everything that he needed for the creation of this special mechanism. An in the end, it didn¡¯t really require anything all too special beside just some crystals that he could enchant. Hebined a few crystals together that all worked together with each other to create something even better than before. If the gem that Eisen used for the special brush in Trygan¡¯s realm was an ¡¯Artist¡¯s Gem¡¯, this was a ¡¯Craftsman¡¯s Gem¡¯. Eisen used this as a base for the enchantment and inscription. First things first, he grabbed a small cube that he kept something very special in. It was the soul of a monster that had gained a very powerful craftsman-evolution. It was basically a master-craftsman in itself. Somehow, Eisen hade across a group of these that were all working with each other. He would save the ¡¯leader¡¯ of these monsters for himself for an item, but he chose one of the regr souls for this item. He opened the crystal cube up and pulled the soul out of it before slowly cing the soul into the Craftsman¡¯s Gem, and then created the enchantments that were supposed to tap into the abilities of the soul. This one in particr was a cksmith, exactly what the old man needed for this. And then, he created the actual mechanism that Eisen needed, and that was the mechanism to create a sturdy metal chain. This mechanism would make use of Eisen¡¯s own element to create the metal for the basis, which should be stable enough to be used withinbat as far as the old man was aware at least, and would use the cksmith-Monster¡¯s soul as a conduit to actually create that chain out of Eisen¡¯s element to strengthen it a bit more than what it would end up being like if Eisen simply made a mechanism that would create something in the shape of a chain. Like this, it would go through the ¡¯whole¡¯ process, even if not really. It was simply an improvement. And at the same time, this soul would also be capable of making the whole mechanism run properly so that the champion didn¡¯t need to use as much mana as she would otherwise need to. He created a 3D enchantment that went through the process of creating a chain-link and then actually interlocking it with another piece bit by bit, before then pushing his mana into the whole thing for mana inscription. Eisen pulled the mana back out of this item and then started his work there. First things first, he made sure to arrange all the effects of the Craftsman¡¯s Gem so that everything would work out properly. Basically, what he had been able to do since a bit of spatial-gem was integrated in it, he could create something like an artificial smithy within it. First things first, he created the basic space with the dots from the spatial gems. Then, using the earth-gem parts, he created the floor and walls, as well as the basis for the forge. Within that forge, Eisen then created mes using the fire-gems so that it could be ¡¯used¡¯. He used all the different gems that he had added into the mix to create a fully-equipped smithy, with a few exceptions that he would deal withter. Instead, he for now started working on the other, basic inscriptions. He took his needle and started to write into the mana thing that supported the enchantments by describing the process of creating the chain in words and images as well, and even added a part where he connected his mana-copy skill with it and added in an actually animated version of what needed to be done. After all, Eisen usually copied every action that at the very least he himself went through into the mana-copy skill¡¯s data-base, since it was rather easy to do so. His whole body was constantly filled with mana anyway, after all. Either way, after Eisen finished this, he had to move on to something else that was equally as important as the process of creating the chain. He had to interact with the soul a little bit. He had to make sure that this soul was properly prepared for what it was supposed to do, and for that, Eisen started to think a bit. What did he need in order to really create this chain? He pondered on it for a good while, until he came to a simple conclusion. This soul needed actual tools. Right now, it was basically just a naked version of the monster this soul came from, and as such wouldn¡¯t actually be able to create anything proper. Maybe nothing would really take effect and this would be just the waste of an incredibly rare soul. He was willing to use it for something like this, considering that he was working on a very important quest right now, but if it may just end up being a waste of materials he really didn¡¯t want to do so. What did he need in order to really create this chain? This soul needed actual tools. That was the biggest thing that was still missing from this artificial smithy that he created using the Craftsman¡¯s gem. And so, Eisen made use of the part of the craftsman¡¯s gem that had his ¡¯zing core of the mountain¡¯ element infused into it, and started to use it to create anything that he needed to that was made of metal while adding a few more ¡¯details¡¯ to the mix within the smithy to make the soul feelpletely at home within it. Eisen created hammers, tongs, anything that one may need to create chains in any sort of capacity. He tried to make them high-quality somehow, but it was pretty hard to do so since this was all only conceptual in the end. But either way, to finish everything off, Eisen made sure to give amand to the soul through this mana inscription. And that was to properly follow what exactly the mana-copy of Eisen was doing to create the chain whenever it was prompted to, and to do so as quickly as it could without making quality suffer for it. And then, he ced the soul within the artificial smithy that he created within the gem. It technically didn¡¯t exist, actually. One couldn¡¯t see it from outside, it didn¡¯t have any sort of physical form. But nheless, Eisen knew that this cksmith-Soul had an actual smithy to work in. It would get materials as provided by Eisen¡¯s element to create chains that would then be pushed out of the front of this small crystal sphere. In the end, this was all there really was to it. He could just add this to one of the two bases of the dagger, but Eisen figured that this wasn¡¯t exactly what the Champion had in mind when it came to the mechanism. Instead of just one side pushing out the chain, she specifically told Eisen that she would like it toe out of both sides if it was possible. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure why, but she asked for it, so he would make it like that. Luckily, Eisen had a good idea of what he could do. He already added a little bit extra to the mix of what the creation, and thenter the destruction, of the magic chains would entail. It was something that he had been working on so that he could figure out how to easily send items from ce A to ce B, to especially make things far, far easier for Komer¡¯s side of things. Instead of having to send out numerous carriages and ships to do everything for him, you just needed to create a tform at every major shipment point, and everything could be sent where it needed to be instantly. Basically, it was something like teleportation. Eisen already managed to create something kind of like teleportation with a single spatial gem, where he was able to put something into an opening in a spatial gem on one end, and it would immediatelye out the other side about two or three meters away, due to the way that Eisen ced all the spatial-gem¡¯s dots during mana inscription. But those two or three meters seemed to be the limit like that, although he found that if he connected two physical halves of the gem with each other somehow, via a thread or something, really anything that worked well to connect those two halves physically so that they counted as a single item, the range could be extended. And so, that would be exactly what Eisen would be doing now as well. He would add one half of a spatial gem to either handle, and then make sure to add the chain-links to either side of the chain equally from the same single mechanism where they were created. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure how well it would work at first, but all he had to do to test it out was to create the two spatial gems and ce everything inside before once more using mana inscription to finalize everything. And once that was done, Eisen just pushed a little bit of mana into both of the spatial gems, as that was what Eisen set as the activation condition, and pulled both halves away from each other. Immediately, Eisen could see a chain be created between the two gems in the fashion that the champion wanted it to be created. And since the champion had been watching everything that was going on so far, she seemed rather confused about the creation of chains out of thin air. Of course she was aware of spatial gems and how her old weapon¡¯s mechanism worked, and that was why she thought Eisen would do it the same then. Just creating chains that he would put into the spatial gems to be pulled out when needed and pulled in when not, but this was very, very different. "H-How did you do that?" She asked confusedly, with a light stutter, "I didn¡¯t even see you create any chains... Or bring any here to put them into those gems..." The champion pointed out. Eisen looked at the woman next to him and simply smirked a bit. "Well, yeah, because I didn¡¯t create any chains. This mechanism will allow you to make chains of basically infinite length. I would advise against it though, at some point the weight of the chains themselves will be too much and they might snap somehow anyway. But don¡¯t worry if that happens, just pull the chains back into their respective gem, and everything will be fine. You can create chains normally again afterward." The old man pointed out, looking at the baffled champion. With a smile, as he was always happy to impress others with his craftsmanship, the old man continued to work on the actual des. Chapter 655 Spreading through the void Now that Eisen was done with one of the important mechanism of this rather unique weapon, the old man started to work on the next. And that mechanism was rted to the actual des. Technically, there were two mechanisms that Eisen had to work on for the des, but one of them was just rted to making it that they could be interlocked with each other to turn into one slightly bulkier de. In the end, that wasn¡¯t really an issue in the slightest, considering that all that Eisen had to do for that was shape the des and handles in specific ways and add a few extra enchantments to keep them together safely. It should be rtively easy to hide those enchantments as well, though. Eisen didn¡¯t really need to think about that part of everything anymore, since this wouldn¡¯t be the first time that he made something like this. The part that he did have to think about, however, was the part where the des could be used to hook into something. He had felt it himself, how, after the des became stuck in the rock on his skin or even his skin itself, some sorts of threads had grown outward from them within the old man so that the des had a grip on the surface they were on that was hard to get rid of. Well, unless you got rid of the whole part that was grabbed by those threads, of course, like Eisen did with his arm in the end. It took Eisen a while toe up with a good idea for how to do this, and in the end, he managed to figure something out by simply taking a look at the Champion¡¯s current weapon. There was no shame in learning from the work of others, after all. The old man inspected the enchantments that were ced on the item and even checked whether or not there was anything like a magic inscription, but it seemed like there wasn¡¯t a magic inscription like that on the des at all. In the end, the old man figured that he could very easily improve on this mechanism, and quickly took notes so that he could remember this for something else. After all, it was something that woulde in handy with all sorts of gear. Climbing gear that let you basically walk up walls because the soles of your shoes stuck to any surface, for example. Eisen could also imagine that it would be possible to deepen the phyiscal connection between all the different parts of Askr¡¯s body. After all, they were extremely heavy and Eisen was always worrying about the wood-giant ripping his body apart with every single movement and attack. Either way, for now, he had to test whether or not this would even work out at all, and for that, he grabbed a small gem that he would be able to use for the core of the dester on as well, just to test everything out for now. Eisenbined a few different gems and crystals into the base gem, but it was stillrgely that gem of a specific element. And that element was the water element. The reason why Eisen chose this out of all the gems and crystals that he had ess to was rather simple. It¡¯s because the way that he wanted the threads to grab onto different surfaces was by looking for weak parts in those surfaces to make everything easier. Whether it be parts of a boulder that were the least dense, or the miniscule gaps inbetween someone¡¯s muscles, Eisen wanted to make sure that the threads could prate as deeply and widely into any surface as possible, if it was necessary. That was supposed to work as if someone simply poured water into a pile of tiny screws. It would be hard, or even impossible, for anything else to really flow through there and fill out every bit of space inside, with the exception of fluids like water. And while air could also fill spaces out in the same way, Eisen thought that it wouldck force whenpared to water. Either way, the crystal that had the highest importance in everything working out properly, beside the water-gem, was something that Eisen was unsure how to even properly work with for a long time, since it was more than just annoying. It was a mana crystal that??s been infused with the Void Element. The Void Element was something that Eisen got ess to with the help of Xenia, since when her and Brody went out to hunt together one time, they came across a yer with that exact element. This element was capable of discing a specific area of space directly, or just specific parts of that space. Technically, all realms within this world took up the same physical space, but they were discedpared to each other, disconnectedpletely with no direct ess to it. The void element took advantage of the empty space inbetween those realms. Whenever something was affected by the void element, it would be moved into the area of space where it would be in the same spot it was before, simply shifted away into the space between realms. It wasn¡¯t directly capable of damaging someone, so if your arm was disced with the void element, you were still able to move it like normal, just that it was moving around within the Void instead of to your side. It was impossible to interact with things inside of the void, and it was impossible for things inside the void to interact with those outside of it. That was simply how it worked. Brody imed that yer to be incredibly annoying because of the way that he fought, by shifting his sword¡¯s de into the void while shing into people so that he could make it re-appear while the de was inside of them, so that he could attack someone¡¯s vitals directly. He could attack through any sort of defense, simply because he didn¡¯t have to deal with it. In the end, Brody added the yer to his friendslist to keep in contact with him, because he was interested in possibly inviting him to hisbat-based sub-guild. Anyway, this element was incredibly useful to Eisen, because it made it possible for the thread to get through whatever surface and material that it needed to, since it could simply be shifted into the void for the time being. But while it was useful, at the same time, it was hard to use because, whenever it received some form of heavy impact, strong or weak, it would momentarily shift itself into the void. Not only once did it happen that Eisen identally lost materials infused with this element because they fell out of his hand while in the void and dropped underground into oblivion. But as long as he was careful and quickly fused it with other materials so that it wasn¡¯t pure, everything would be fine. The rest of the base gem were things that were just meant to enhance everything else that Eisen would end up doing with this item. Eisen created a three-dimensional enchantment that was supposed to perfectly copy the spinneret-setup that Eisen used to create thread. This item wasn¡¯t supposed to create physical, permanent thread, but instead just create something simr out of mana that would end up disappearing without a trace. As such, there was no need to use something like a spider¡¯s spinneret like that. And of course, other than that, Eisen also made use of Sal¡¯s thread-control so that he could make sure those mana-threads would really move deeper and deeper into whatever surface they needed to, when prompted to. After that, when it came to the mana inscription, Eisen just made sure to describe the way that the threads were supposed to act when moving through things. That they were supposed to act like water, to always seek out the ce where they were most likely to get through without problem. And then, all that he had to do was actually test it out. In order to do so, he didn¡¯t ce the des around it immediately. After all, it would end up being a waste of time if it didn¡¯t work in the first ce. So instead, Eisen ced a mana-crystal version of one of the des around one of the special crystal spinnerets. He stepped outside and quickly created arge boulder with the help of his element, before pushing the tip of the mana-crystal dagger into it. Then, all the old man did was push his mana into the crystal de before already feeling something change. And really, all that Eisen did. He didn¡¯t even push the de very deep into the rock surface, maybe a centimeter or so, but when he let go the crystal de stayed inside of it, stuck as if it had been fused to the boulder. With a satisfied smile, Eisen tried to pull on the crystal de a few times, and he actually managed to lift the boulder up before getting the de out. But at the same time, after deactivating the enchantment, he could pull it out with ease. "Alright then, this is perfect." The old man muttered quietly to himself. This small item, that crystal-spinneret, was incredibly useful, just like the old man thought it was, "Maybe I should try and mass-produce this somehow..." He muttered quietly, before he made his way back into his portable shop, where his elemental spirit had already gotten everything that he needed for the des ready for him, and even ced the metal ingots into the forge already. Excited to make such an interesting item, Eisen grabbed the metal the moment that it was ready, and quickly got started to work with it so that he could finish everything up. In the end, the shape of the des wasn¡¯t really thatplex. All that he had to pay attention to was that he could properly interlock them with each other, which he did by just carving specific patterns into the t sides of the two des. The old man finished the des rather quickly, and then just had to ce the crystal spinneret into the hollow part that he prepared before covering it back up and cing the handle onto the des. And into the end of the handles, Eisen ced the spatial gems that were meant to produce the infinitely-long chains onto the tip of the handles, and then just pressed the two des together once they were done. Eisen turned around and gave thisst item to the Champion standing behind him with awe in her eyes, more than just ready to finally try all these new items out. Chapter 656 Real The champion held her new weapon in her hands after already donning the new armor that the old man in front of her made for her as well. She let her hands run over the des and slowly pulled them apart in a smooth motion, and was then holding two separate uniquely daggers in her hands. Since she was a bit confused about this, as there was supposed to be a chain inbetween them, the champion looked at Eisen who was ready to exin what exactly was going on. "Just tap the two gems at the base of the handle together and then pull them away from each other." The old man said bluntly, and the soul infront of Eisen quickly did as told. With a ¡¯cling¡¯, she tapped the gems against each other. When she then pulled her hands out as far as she could, a metal chain hung inbetween the two des. It was much lighter than the older de, considering that it was made of magic, but at the same time it was just as, if not more, durable than any other sort of chain. With an excited smile on her face, the Champion swung these des around to see how she could handle them, and Eisen actually had a tough time following along with the speeds that the actual des were moving at. But that seemed like a good sign, that the champion was already able to use this weapon to that extent. With a smile on her face, the champion looked at the old man in front of her, "This is amazing!" She eximed. Eisen smiled back as he turned around and started cleaning everything up, now that he was done with the work for the champion. "And it really did not take longer than what you said it would take..." She muttered quietly as she realized this fact, and Eisen lightly smirked as he continued, "That so?" "But if I may ask... What exactly are you here in the heavens for? In this one, particrly... You are a craftsman, so why are you fighting people in the Divine Realm of Combat?" "Oh, I¡¯m going to head to the Divine Realm of Craftsmanshipter as well. To be exact, I¡¯ll be heading to a bunch of different realms... eight more after this one, actually. I¡¯m just trying to get the acknowledgement of the gods, that¡¯s all I¡¯m here for." The old man exined. The woman in front of him nodded her head as she watched Eisen clean up the leftover parts and materials from the creation of her own items. And once he was done with that, the two of them made their way outside, followed by Ambriel of course, and Eisen packed the portable shop up again before cing it into his Item Storage. "Now, I assume that you will head off to fight others now?" The champion asked Eisen, who nodded his head in response, "That¡¯s exactly what I¡¯ll be doing now." And then, the old man activated his Draconic Demon King transformation and took off into the sky above this town filled with nothing but fighters. --- Eisen stepped up to the huge double-gate in front of him, at the base of Gonor¡¯s tower. He turned his head and looked at one of the Angels, "Could you open this ce up for me?" The old man inquired, and the Angel, d in full-te armor like all the others, pushed the gate open with ease. The only reason that this was so impressive was that it seemed like it would weight tons over tons, but the Angel pushed it open as if it was a cardboard door. The old man slowly stepped through therge door before he heard someone from behind him speak to him, "I will wait for you here." Ambriel exined, but Eisen didn¡¯t really care about what they were doing. Although he was kind of d that he didn¡¯t have to feel their stares on his back for a little while. Eisen stepped into the space in front of him, and soon found himself inside of this huge tower. The inside seemed evenrger than what Eisen imagined from the outside. In the end, it was just like a huge arena that was stretching out to the sky in height. In the center of the room there were some people fighting each other, seemingly for the amusement of the god seated right on the other side of the arena on his balcony. Seeing the old man step in through the gate, Gonor raised his arm for a moment and the fight stopped immediately. And it wasn¡¯t just that the fighters interrupted their duel, they were simply frozen in time all of a sudden. When Eisen took a closer look with his truth-seeing eyes, he figured out that these were really just something simr to mana-copies of fights that were actually going on somewhere else. So Gonor just pressed the ¡¯pause¡¯ button on something pre-recorded. And a few momentster, the fighters disappearedpletely to give Eisen space in the center of the room. The balcony that Gonor was sitting on slowly shifted and moved, transporting the throne to the ground-level of the arena while the whole ce slowly shifted to something else. It shifted and became a throne-room. The dusty dirt-ground turned into a marble surface covered in a long strip of a red carpet, at the sides of which Eisen could see two dozen of Gonor¡¯s angels stand. "Wee. I must say, your fights were a lot more amusing than I assumed they would be." Gonor pointed out, "I must say I¡¯m impressed." The god spoke, and Eisen looked at him with a suspicious frown. "What are you speaking like that for? Speak like normal, it feels like you¡¯re mocking me." The old man said with a deep sigh. All the angels immediately turned their heads toward Eisen, some even being a bit irritated at the way that the old man was speaking to their god. "You sure? Well sorry ¡¯bout that then. Oi, all of y¡¯all, ya can get outta here." Gonor said bluntly as he waved his hand around and caused all of the angels to disappear into thin air, "This is a lot better, gotta say." The God of Combat pointed out bluntly, and Eisen smirked a bit before nodding his head. "I figured. Now, I have to thank you for letting me solve all of this throughbat instead of having to craft full sets of gear for ten people. It saved me a lot of time." "Ah... aye, that¡¯s why I did that. To help ya out." Gonor said with augh, "Definitely not to see ya bein¡¯ ripped apart by my champions." "Well, you got what you wanted either way, because I was ripped apart plenty. Especially toward the end of thatst fight. I thought it was painful enough to have your arms ripped off, but having wild beasts pull out your intestines was at another level of pain." The old man pointed out as he proceeded to rub his abdomen with a wry smile on his face. "Aye, it is." Gonor quickly agreed with a nod. And now, Eisen didn¡¯t wait long to move the conversation elsewhere, "Anyway, let¡¯s not waste time, I¡¯ve got a few other ces that I need to get to soon." The old man pointed out. "Trygan told me that we had something to speak about. Did he tell me that because you voiced something like that to him, or is this just about our little deal in general." The old man pointed out, and Gonorid his face down on his palm, "I spoke to Trygan, yeah. To hear his opinion on all of this. To hear what he thought and knew about this world and the one that y¡¯alle from. You five that peaked and all those artificials." "And he didn¡¯t tell you anything?" "He told me that he knows the Administrator is lying to us, but he refused to tell me how he knew ¡¯bout it." The God pointed out, "I guess he wanted you to do that for ¡¯im. So, speak, and tell me why the hell we even got that deal up and runnin¡¯." Eisen slowly nodded his head, and proceeded to exin everything that he knew. Everything that he was aware of, and that Gonor had to know at least. And after he was done, Gonor sat there with wide open eyes, his fingers nearly digging onto the armrests of his throne. "How disgraceful. Attempting to kill ya in ways like that." He basically growled angrily, and Eisen looked back at him with a nod, "I know it is. But we made a deal that says he can¡¯t do anything like that anymore." "Hm... Is that the thing hidin¡¯ in your shadows?" Gonor inquired, and Eisen slowly looked down and used his truth-seeing eyes, quickly letting him see the ¡¯enforcer of fate¡¯ that had merged with his shadow, "Yup. That¡¯s it, alright. Samuel should have one in his shadow as well." The old man looked at Gonor with his arms crossed as the god started to think. A few momentster, he spoke again, "The deal will keep going as usual. But I hope that ye¡¯re aware that I can¡¯t stop doing my job with other people. I still have to ¡¯ban¡¯ them, although you¡¯re exempt from it." "Of course, I didn¡¯t expect you to stop any of that. That might be better anyway, since it would be a bit troublesome if the whole world suddenly found out about the truth." "Aye. Now, I think I¡¯ve gotta send ya back for now. There are a few things I have to deal with. You¡¯re gettin¡¯ my acknowledgement, don¡¯t¡¯cha worry. And I¡¯m also givin¡¯ ya something else..." "Really? A gift?" Eisenughed quietly, and Gonor shook his head, "Nay. Myself. In the form of a promise. If you need me and if it shalle to it... I will be on your side for all of this. If you wanna speak to me about anything, simplye into the church you constructed on my Ind in the mortal realm. Alone, or with the others that peaked, but never with anyone else. I¡¯ll speak to ya then." Eisen nodded his head as he slowly turned around, "Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t bring anyone along." The old man said and slowly turned around before making his way through this throne room with an infinitely high ceiling. But as the old man approached therge gate again, Gonor spoke once more, in a surprisingly meek and nervous tone, "Eisen... ye sure that I ain¡¯t fake?" With a smile on his face, the old man looked at him with a nod, "Of course. You¡¯re as real as real gets." Chapter 657 - Escape

Chapter 657 - Escape

Eisen took a deep breath as he stepped out of one of the divine gates with exhaustion practically written all over his body due to all the things that he''s had to do over thest while. "Perfect, now you only have two more divine realms left to go through, don''t you?" Ambriel asked, seemingly quite happy to be able to get rid of Eisen quite soon. Over the past few days in particr, ever since Eisen stepped into the divine realm of the god offort, since he thought the tasks should be rtively easy, Ambriel''s initial opinion of Eisen had declined to the deepest level as it could possibly be. After all, all that Eisen had to do back then was care for people. Literally hand-feed them, massage them, and clean up after them. It was annoying, but it was over pretty quickly mostly because people were incrediblyzy there and didn''t want to deal with Eisen being so hectic around them. And just like that, Eisen had the chance to pretty quickly get one more god''s acknowledgement while also learning about why exactly this ''God of Comfort'' changed so many major things about the world. And in the end, it boiled down to Samuel interfering and giving this god more power so that he could change the world to be a bit more game-like. People didn''t really want to deal with things like getting dirty of defecating, after all. It seemed a bit unnatural to Eisen, but this god offort was obviously quite special to begin with. And that was because he wasn''t really a normal god to begin with. In the end, it seemed to be something like a golem, or even a Guardian of sorts. Something literally created from the grounds-up so that Samuel had something to control however he wished. It annoyed him, but at the end of the day, it didn''t matter much to the old man as long as all of what he did counted toward his quest to be acknowledged by the gods. And now, after getting through a good number of divine realms, Eisen had just two more left that he had to make his way through, two that he chose for his own convenience. And the second tost one would be the realm of Mystor, the god of truth. Considering what sort of deal he made with one of Mystor''s angels, he thought it would be a good idea to meet Mystor himself. And so, the old man stepped through the gate of that divine realm, and the moment that he did, a notification appeared in front of the old man''s eyes. It was different to what happened in the other realms. Usually he had to first interact with others to figure out what his quest was supposed to really be, but instead, the task was being delivered in a slightly different way. And to begin with, it was one that was simply incredibly different to all the other tasks from the ground up. For those tasks, Eisen always needed to interact with the souls of the divine realms. But this time, that was different. [New Quest ¨C Mystor''s Acknowledgement] [Description] You are seeking to be acknowledged by the gods of heaven and made your way into the realm of the God of Truth, Mystor. You have to prove that you cannot be deceived by false truths. Mystor is hiding somewhere within his divine realm and hid plenty of clues, a majority which are distractions. [Condition] Find Mystor''s Location amongst the souls of his divine realm within 24 Hours [Reward] Mystor''s Acknowledgement [Penalty] Mystor will not acknowledge you, and you will lose the right to try again for 1 Year Eisen looked at the quest-information with a smile on his face, before crossing his arms smugly, "Is that all I have to do?" The old man asked with a smirk. Although, it seemed like Ambriel was already aware of what the trial for Mystor''s Acknowledgement was supposed to be. With a smirk from themselves, they looked straight at Eisen. "Are you sure you aren''t being a bit too c.o.c.ky here?" The Angel inquired, and Eisen slowly turned toward them before Ambriel continued, "Mystor is capable of controlling truths to the fullest extent possible. He can express them perfectly, or he can twist them around. Anything he speaks automatically bes the truth. Mystor is truly one of the most powerful gods. That mere ascended deity that is your son is nothing against him." Eisen turned around with a deep re. He was already aware that Ambriel was a piece of shit, but hearing this kind of thing was still more than just annoying in any possible situation. The old man sighed deeply, "Are you an idiot? The world doesn''t change ording to Mystor''s words. Mystor just doesn''t say anything false because he knows close to everything there is to know." The old man pointed out as he slowly waved his hand to the side and caused his item storage to appear in front of him. Ambriel didn''t seem quite happy with this old man''s words, but at that point, Eisen already tuned out everything that he could be trying to say. Instead, Eisen stepped into the space within his item storage and stepped over toward one of the shelves. Without hesitation, Eisen pulled back one of the boxes inside of it and quickly grabbed a few of the metal cubes inside of it. And together with those cubes, Eisen grabbed a small pen-sized stick before walking back out of his item storage and making it disappear immediately. First, Eisen ced a few of the cubes onto the ground next to each other before pushing his mana into the pen-sized crystal stick. He pointed it directly at all of the cubes, which then proceeded to fold open and create small gates into a sub-space created with spatial gems. And out of those sub-spaces came a flood of CR-Units. That was of course, the Camera-Rat units, thend-based survence creatures that the old man created quite a while ago already. They flooded out toward the town in the distance, observing everything there in as much detail as possible. Of course, at the same time, they used the mana-copy abilities to really convey every little bit to the old man. And that wasn''t all, because then, Eisen threw some of the other metal cubes into the air and activated them in the same way as these others, and they stopped mid-air, creating simr small gates as the other ones. But instead of the CR-Units, out came the CB-Units, the Camera-Bats. They stayed in the air until Eisen handed some of them the rest of the cubes and then sent them off. Because soon, within the actual town, the CB''s would release all of the CF, Camera-Fish, units inside of the small rivers that were flowing through it. And just like that, the old man was able to basically immediately figure out the scape of the whole town, and with his visualization he quickly disyed everything in front of him and watched as the miniature town grew in front of him while Ambriel still looked at the small gates with confusion. "B-But that''s cheat-" "Cheating? Seriously? Shut it, there''s literally the fate of two worlds at stake here. I''m making use of my full capabilities, there''s nothing wrong with it." The old man grumbled in response. While he didn''t necessarily want to acknowledge the angel''s antics, Eisen figured out that it would only get worse if he did actually end up ignoring them. So instead, Eisen would usually passive-aggressively, or simply aggressively, respond to Ambriel to try and shut him up and usually managed to do so pretty easily. Either way, soon, Eisen had a pretty extensive map of the whole town and even managed to figure out something like a first clue quite quickly already. He activated his demonic transformation and quickly flew over toward the ce that the camera-units found. There wasn''t actually anything all to special about it, it was just one of the few ces that reacted to Eisen''s truth-sight, meening that it''s true form had been altered to something else. And one of the camera-bats was able to see through that fake exterior. The old mannded right in front of the ce in question, although right now, it seemed to just be a simple brick-wall in the middle of an alley. It wasn''t anything special, at least that''s what one would think at first sight. But Eisen quickly activated his truth-sight, and saw that instead of just aplete wall, there was a wooden door ced into the center. With a smile on his face, Eisen extended his hand toward the handle and soon felt it hit something that wasn''t supposed to be there. He pushed the handle down and pushed the door inward, before parts of the wall quite literally crumbled away as the wall opened up. And beyond it was nothing but a pitch-ck space, which seemed too suspicious to not be the next ce that Eisen was supposed to go. And even if it was just a red herring, Eisen still had time to figure things out. And so, the old man stepped through the door after deactivating his transformation, still keeping on his truth-seeing eyes nontheless, and quickly started to look around. Through the mana everywhere, Eisen was able to see here in the dark even though he usually wouldn''t even be able to see his own hand if he pressed it up to his face. But right now, what Eisen was able to see was a simple, straightforward space. It was just the interior of a regr room. A desk, a closet... Some shelves. Even a couch. Lots of clutter was ced everywhere in here. And once Ambriel stepped into the room behind Eisen, the door mmed shut loudly. The old man turned around immediately as suddenly a number of glowing red letters appeared right above the door. It started with a 60, but then counted down to 59 immediately after. Eisen already had a pretty good guess at what this was supposed to be, considering a certain concept that Raziel had been incredibly curious about before when Eisen revealed a lot of different information about the other world to her. But to confirm his suspicions, Eisen took a look around, while it was still this dark, and soon found a te on the wall that Eisen quickly pushed his mana into, as he recognized that it was supposed to create light. And once the ce was lit-up properly, he looked at the pieces of paper that wereying around, and then just squatted down with a loud groan. "Seriously? The task is a damn Escape-Room?" Chapter 658 Death of the Craftsman Eisen took a closer look around the room to make sure that he didn¡¯t somehowpletely mistake what was supposed to be going on here. But the more he looked around, the more he figured that this ce was really some sort of escape room. "What is that? An ¡¯Escape Room¡¯?" Ambriel asked with a light frown, "Is this not just the wrong ce? It seems like someone¡¯s living space." "No, it¡¯s not the wrong ce. We¡¯re exactly right here. An ¡¯escape room¡¯ is like a room-scaled puzzle where the whole goal is to leave just that room. I assume that we¡¯ll be able to find the clue toward the next thing I need to do as long as I finish this within an hour." Eisen pointed out bluntly as he looked at the clock slowly ticking down above the wooden door that just mmed shut. "Fine, let¡¯s just do this, then." The old man muttered. He looked around the ce and started to try and figure out where to actually start, using his ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Soul¡¯ skill to properly analyze everything that he could see here. Every openly visible enchantment and mechanism, as well as some of those of magical nature that Eisen was able to spot with his mana-sight. Soon, he figured out roughly where a few points of interest could be found. It seemed like the thing that he really had to aim for was an adjacent room that he could only ess after entering some random 5-symbol code onto a panel. Eisen took a deep breath and tried to figure out if he saw some sort of symbols inside of this room already, and was quickly able to spot something that seemed to be of help to him. It was five different hexagons, while one of them, the second from the right, had the rune for ¡¯mes¡¯ written inside of it. Immediately, Eisen understood the rough format of how he would end up finding these symbols and how he would then learn how to order them. It seemed pretty straightforward, really. And so, the old man got started. He had to hurry up, considering that he had to solve this whole thing alone. Sure, Ambriel was here as well, but for one, he would never try and help out anyway, and Eisen was pretty sure that he wasn¡¯t allowed to do so in the first ce. Mystor gave this task to Eisen alone and not Ambriel, after all. But that didn¡¯t matter, since everything seemed actually rather straightforward at the start. Eisen managed to find two more of the five symbols rather quickly. They were the runes for ¡¯Melting¡¯ and ¡äCraft¡¯. Eisen assumed that the whole array of symbols would end up being cksmith-themed from just the three initial runes. And at that point, something weird popped into the old man¡¯s head. It was the same thing as when he encountered something that would end up triggering a memory for himter on. And it wasn¡¯t any object in particr here that triggered it. Rather, it was a feeling that built up slowly within the old man that had been triggered within his conscious mind the moment that he figured out that the theme for the runes was ¡¯cksmithing¡¯. And this feeling only got stronger the more that he looked around this room. As if this space had an important meaning to him that he couldn¡¯t remember. As if Mystor was really just trying to guide him into remembering a certain array of events. Since it was practically impossible for Mystor not to know about how Eisen remembered things at this point, considering that he never particrly tried to hide it and even openly spoke about it a couple of times within the divine realms, he was sure that this was the case. "...Then let¡¯s bet on that for now." The old man muttered to himself. He took a deep breath as he sat down on one of the nearby chairs in this room. Although somehow... sitting on this chair felt wrong. Eisen stood back up and walked over toward a spot in the corner of the room, a spot that seemed as if it was drawing him in. The old man squatted down in that corner, and slowly forced himself to drift off to sleep for just a moment. And next he knew it, the old man found himself in the space where all the memories that he had recovered so far were gathered. In total, those memories numbered exactly 34. Eisen managed to speak about more and more things with his former self through these recovered memories, and of course found out a lot about himself and other people from his past. Of course, this meant that his body was changing even more in the other world. It wasn¡¯t initially obvious, but at some point Eisen simply had to test it out and couldn¡¯t hold it off any longer. He tried to punch a metal block with all the force he could muster. Obviously he didn¡¯t break or bend it in some violent way because he became stronger. No, the discovery that came out of that was that his hands were able to take a lot more pressure, considering that he hadn¡¯t been injured after doing something like that. Michael had been there at the time, and after seeing the old man punch that metal block without any sort of hesitation and consequence made him feel quite mixed feelings about whether or not he would have wanted Eisen¡¯s body to have changed in this way before. For one, it surely would have made and sort of amputationpletely unnecessary because the arm would have surely been in peak condition no matter what. But on the other hand, if Eisen¡¯s hand had been this sturdy while Michael had been pped by him, Michael probably would have needed surgery to reattach his jaw soon after. Either way, it seemed like the body of ¡¯Benjamin¡¯ was changing more and more every single memory he recovered, but these changes seemed a bit stronger every fifth memory that he did recover. So once he would step out of the capsule the next time, his body would have made a small jumppared to what it had been like before. But now, Eisen just had to deal with this, no matter how scary the idea of his body slowly ceasing to be that of a human was in the end. Eisen chose to simply recover his 35th memory as he stretched his arm out forward to the new one that just appeared in front of him. The scenery around Eisen slowly changed, and he found himself in the practically exact same room that he was just in. At first, Eisen thought that he maybe identally interrupted recovering the memory, but then he realized that there were a few key differences. Certain things had been added to aid this ce bing an escape-room earlier, but now, all those things were gone. This was the original room that the escape-room had been based on. Since Eisen woke up in the same corner that he fell asleep in, this whole situation was a little bit confusing at first. But no matter that, Eisen pushed himself off the ground and moved into the center of the room, before one of the two doors suddenly opened up. It was the ¡¯main entrance¡¯ it seemed, the same ce that Eisen had entered through before. This time there seemed to be some sort of corridor connecting to that door, and a version of Eisen, one that seemed to have peaked already, walked through the room with a nk, somewhat sad expression. He wore a ck suit and had red rings under his eyes while walking up to the other door, the one that Eisen had to open upter. Here, it just seemed to be a closet, though. The Memory-Eisen pulled a box out of it and brought it over toward one of the chairs that he quickly sat down on, and slowly reached down to open it up. But before he did, the memory-Eisen stopped and pulled back. "Well, before I do that... Is there anything in particr that you want to know this time around?" The memory-Eisen inquired, and the old man slowly thought about it for a bit and then shook his head, "Do you remember anything new that you could tell me?" The memory-Eisen slowly leaned back in the chair and nodded his head, "There is, but I don¡¯t know if you want to hear about it yet. It¡¯s actually directly rted to this whole situation. I feel like you should experience it yourself though. Do you want to hear it anyway???? The memory-Eisen asked, and the old man in front of him slowly nodded his head, "I do. Just tell me what you can. That¡¯s how we¡¯ve been doing it so far already. Stop ying around, and just get it over with already." The old man said with a light re directed at this fragment of his former self. The memory-Eisen slowly stood up from his chair and walked over toward the real Eisen, looking him right into his eyes. A stab through the heart by the stinger of a monster that you wanted to harvest venom from. A gue that nearly killed half of this world¡¯s poption at the time. Childbirth due to a child born with something of a ¡¯recessive¡¯ gene of sorts that allowed it to receive the size-change ability at birth. And angry mob that-" "What are you trying to tell me?" Eisen asked with a deep frown, and the memory-version of himself raised his brows, "Wow, I thought we were smarter than that. I thought you would have figured it out by now." "...I think I have. I just want to be wrong. So exin it." With a deep sigh, the memory-Eisen turned around, "You know exactly what this is about. You¡¯ll remember it soon anyway, so I¡¯ll stop speaking about it for now. This is the sort of memory that triggers the recovery of a new one that you can ess. That one should be all about this." "...Just tell me now what you¡¯re talking about." The Memory-Eisen looked back at Eisen and then turned his head away as he sat back down on the chair, "I remembered the deaths of those that we loved deeply in this world. Right now, we returned from the funeral of the one person you married after peaking. Don¡¯t worry, this time she died peacefully because of old age, and did so without regret." "...But why are you saying this memory is not about that? Then what else is this about?" "Hm? Oh, it¡¯s simple. It¡¯s the memory about how you found out that you not only stopped aging, but werepletely immortal." The memory-Eisen stated, and then immediately shifted back into the actions of the memories while the real Eisen stood there and watched everything unfold in front of him. He watched himself open up the metal box, he watched himself take out the special de that had been ced into it. It was glowing in bright red and had three specific runes written on it that Eisen already recognized. mes. The de was glowing due to heat created by the runic enchantment. Melting. An enchantment meant to protect the de from melting due to the first enchantment. And Craft. This de was specifically made to damage craftsmen. Those were the three that Eisen recognized already. The other two were ¡¯poison¡¯ and ¡¯death¡¯, two that werepletely disconnected from what Eisen expected the pattern of the escape room to be. This was a weapon specifically meant to kill a craftsman as quickly and with as much damage at once as ever possible, while leaving behind a body that was in a decent state at least. And the moment that the old man saw himself ce the tip of the de against the center of his chest, he already knew which craftsman it was made for. Chapter 659 Imprisoned

Chapter 659 Imprisoned

Eisen slowly woke back up from the memory of his first death and slowly pushed himself off the ground before rubbing the slight tears out of the corner of his eyes. He stared at the chair standing in the center of the room and then let out a deep sigh while trying to get his thoughts in order properly. The old man looked walked over to the door and drew all of the different runes onto their respective panels, now that Eisen knew about them properly. The moment he did so, they started to glow in a bright light and changed, disying five different symbols. A hammer, a pill, a wolf, a mountain, and a knife. Eisen figured that this was supposed to be connected to Eisen¡¯s memory as well, so he slowly pressed his hand down onto the symbol of the knife. The moment he did so, the hexagonal panel opened up as if it was waiting for something to be inserted into it. Eisen took a look around the room and soon saw a closet with a ss-front. There seemed to be some sort of puzzle connected with opening it up, and each of the five different sections of the closet had to be opened separately. Each section held the different things on the tes in different forms. One of them had a hammer, another one a bottle of pills, a figurine of a wolf, a model of a mountain, as well as a knife that looked eerily simr in shape to the one that Eisen just saw. Of course, there was a lot of clutter inside of there and all five of these things were rather hidden, but that was probably just to make everything seem a little bit more hidden. But in the end, as far as Eisen was concerned, only these five really mattered. Eisen took a look at the different carvings connected to the five locked sections of the closet to figure out how to open the one with the dagger inside of it. And then in the end, on the wall he could find something connected to different carved lines. As if this was an enchantment and Eisen had to turn the different pieces of this thing around so that it would actually work out and send a ¡¯signal¡¯ through the right line. And so, the old man quickly got to work to try and figure out what exactly he had to do. Within a few moves, Eisen already coincidentally twisted everything in the right way that he could have opened the closet with the wolf figurine if he needed it. But he didn¡¯t, so he moved on and kept twisting the different parts around. Soon, he got the hang of the way that it was supposed to work and quickly twisted everything around until he managed to unlock all of the parts of the closet, with the exception of the one that he actually needed. With a deep groan, Eisen looked at this panel and took a step back, trying to figure out what exactly he had to do. He looked down at the ground and sighed deeply. He had been silent the whole time, so it seemed like even Ambriel became a little concerned over what could make this old man act like this. Eisen turned his head and saw that only 15 minutes of the full hour had passed while ncing past the Angel, not even really acknowledging him. And so, the old man tried to get a better look on this system, before he noticed that there seemed to be one part that was just tantly wrong and out of ce here. If it was different, then it would all work out. The old man rubbed his hand over that part and soon had it fall out of the wall. With a light frown, Eisen became concerned that he broke it for a moment, but instead figured that this was supposed to happen considering how easily it fell out. The old man stood up properly and looked around the room, even slightly increasing his size to look on top of different pieces of furniture. And soon, he managed to find a recement-piece for the one that he just took out of the wall. Eisen ced it where it where it was supposed to go, and then managed to unlock thest section of the closet as well. He grabbed the knife out of it and then brought it over to the knife-panel that he opened up earlier. He pushed the knife into the thin slit that he found inside of it, and felt the knife soon considerably heat up. With his mana-sight, he noticed that there was a lot of mana flowing into the de, and when he pulled it out, he noticed that the knife had suddenly turned into the exact knife that he saw the former Eisen stab himself with in his memory. Well, somewhat, at least. It had received the runic carvings, but it wasn¡¯t like it really worked properly or anything like that. Eisen held the knife in his hand and looked around for a moment, before he noticed the chair from before again. He squatted down in front of it and inspected it properly again, maybe to find some form of hidden mechanism, until his eye got caught on a part of the wood that wasn¡¯t perfectly the same to the others. It was a part of the backrest. A tiny scratch, really, but a small area had been filled in with the wrong type of wood. Eisen rubbed his fingers over that part and watched as it fell out of the center of the backrest. Eisen pressed the tip of the knife against the small slit and effortlessly pressed it deeper inside. Usually the de should havee out of the other side of the backrest, but it simply ended up disappearing as Eisen pressed it inside. For now, nothing happened. Eisen looked around with a bit of confusion, before he tried to pull on the handle of the knife again. And suddenly, the actual handle just came off the knife, and a small metal key dropped out onto the seat. The old man grabbed the key and quickly walked over toward the door. He pressed it into the keyhole and twisted it around. And with ease, the door opened up and led Eisen and Ambriel into the next room beyond. It was a huge, empty dark room. The only light that Eisen had been able to use to see anything at all was the light from the first room that was shining into thisrge empty hall. But once Eisen and Ambriel both stood inside there, the door was shut immediately and automatically. And now, a new lightscource illuminated a small part of this room. In the form of a spotlight, a small pedestal in the center of the room was now lit up. From this far away, Eisen couldn¡¯t tell what exactly it was that wasying on that pedestal from afar. But when he approached a bit more, he soon recognized the shape. It was another simple metal key, albeit a different kind that Eisen used to open up the door just now. And somehow, this gave Eisen the feeling that there was a memory connected to this key as well. Or rather, to this whole room again, even though there was little to nothing in this room in the first ce. Although then, Eisen figured he should just use his element to make some light for himself. He waved his hand forward and created some bright mes that started floating around the room. And in the end, Eisen was right. There was nothing here, with the exception of a few enormous chains hanging off the walls. They were the kind that one would see a ship¡¯s anchor be connected to. As these chains gave Eisen even more of an eerie feeling, the old man knew what it was that he had to do next, even though he didn¡¯t really want to do it after thest memory that he recovered. He squatted down onto his knees and dozed off into sleep again, where he tried to ess his new memories once more. The spheres all appeared, and then after all of them did, the new one poppe up. Ignoring the memory that the former Eisen had told him about that he still had to remember, the old man pushed his hand out toward the glowing white orb that seemed to be connected to that giant, empty room. After the scenery around Eisen changed, he found himself in the same dark room as he was just in, as he assumed he would. Eisen slowly stood up and looked around, even waiting for a little while, but nothing happened. "Hello?" Eisen asked loudly, "Are you here?" "Of course I am." The voice of the former Eisen replied. It seemed to be a younger version of Eisen again this time. But something was off... it was as if this Eisen was exhausted, incredibly tired. And his voice was just loudly echoing throughout this empty space, but Eisen didn¡¯t know where it came from exactly. "Then where are you?" "I¡¯m right here." The former Eisen replied. The current Eisen let out a deep sigh, "Where, exactly?" "Just take a close look around, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll find me soon." The former Eisen replied, and the old man slowly looked around a bit more. He couldn¡¯t use magic here, so he couldn¡¯t use it to get a look at the things around him this time. So instead, he had to try and just look through the darkness. Eisen stepped through the room to see if he could find himself, and then slowly turned around. His eyes did get used to the darkness a little. Not amazingly so, but still a bit. That¡¯s why he was able to see the silhouette of a giant version of himself kneeling on the other side of the room, shackled up with the chains that Eisen had seen before. This ce was supposed to be a prison for himself. "I think you should stop staring and better ask your questions. This time around, we don¡¯t have all too much time, you know?" The former Eisen pointed out, but the current one just stared up at himself with a nk mind, unsure what he should even start with. "Why are you locked up here?" He ended up asking, and with a slightugh, the fragment of the old Eisen shook his head, "You¡¯re going to find out real soon. Well, if that¡¯s all you wanted to know, there¡¯s no reason to dy it any longer. The others areing in right now anyway." And just as the giant, former Eisen said so, the door behind the real Eisen opened up. Chapter 660 Trapped

Chapter 660 Trapped

From the door behind Eisen, a man apanied by two guards stepped inside this room. The man seemed to be around fifty, maybe 60 years old. He was wearing clothes that were of pretty high-quality and worth, with a lot of silk parts. He even wore a thick red silk cape on his back. Gold and tinum rings covered his fingers and had different precious gems set into them, while the same was also the case for the nes, earrings, and other sort of extravagant jewelry that this man was wearing. Actually, he was wearing so many essories that Eisen was pretty sure he did this just to brag to those around him. Eisen himself wore jewelry like that, so he knew how ufortable it got when you just kept on adding more and more onto your hands or neck. Well, either way, the man stepped further into the room with the two guards behind him. It was obvious he wasn¡¯t here to free the former Eisen, who was locked up here for whatever reason. The man stepped up to the small pedestal in the center of the room and then simply looked upward. "Are you ready to tell us of your secrets now, beast?" The man asked, but Eisen just scoffed in response, "Who¡¯re you calling a beast? I¡¯m a half-monster, sure, but you know that Giants aren¡¯t beast-types, right?" Eisen asked with a loudugh, but the man didn¡¯t seem even nearly as amused as Eisen was. "Silence! It matters not! Tell us why you are here in this kingdom and how you can create Rank 8 items!" The man eximed, and the former Eisen simply let out a deep sigh. "With rank 8 crafting skills, obviously. And by the way, your information seems outdated. I managed to make the first rank 9 item the other day." The man seemed quite angry at this idea, for some reason. It seemed only logical to Eisen, "Insolence, stop speaking of impossible things, you monstrosity! What kind of wicked magic are you using to trick the minds of the people! It ismon knowledge that the highest achievable skill rank is 7!" "Well... Yeah, for most people. Because after rank 7 you need to meet specific requirements to rank it up again. They¡¯re hidden requirements of course, and different for everyone, but you should meet them after a while. Hell, it took me 5 years to even figure mine out. If you just unshackle me, we can try and-" "Stop it with those wicked lies! If the craftsmen that I myself scouted cannot achieve this, certainly no abomination like you can! Born out of hatred after a poor woman was ravaged by a wild giant! Why should you be chosen to reach this height by the gods?!" Suddenly, the current Eisen felt a shiver run down his spine in anger. He could hear the former Eiisen try and pull on the chains as he leaned forward a bit, his face suddenly being illuminated just so slightly by the mes produced by the item that the man was holding, "I dare you to say that again. My parents loved each other. They were disgustingly lovey-dovey all the time, even. My father was more caring than what I came to expect from a parent, and he was one of the kindest men I have ever known. I will not let you run his memory through the mud. If you dare, I will chain you up like you did with me and make you watch as I bring this kingdom of yours to ruin. Understood, you bug?" The current Eisen stared at himself as he spoke these words, not having expected such a threat in a situation like this. The force that came with the old man¡¯s words was so strong that the man in front of the pedestal even fell to the ground, shivering all over his body in fear. But then, once his mind managed to recover a bit again, the man simply started tough. "D-Do you not understand the situation you are in?! You, destroy us? You were unable to stop us from capturing you, so how do you expect to destroy us?!" "Hm? Do you really think you actually captured me? With Below-Average Quality chains? Sure, they¡¯re rank 6, but... you should have at leaste with Rank 7, Perfect Quality chains if you wanted to have a chance. The only reason you managed to capture me is because you threatened to kill an innocent child¡¯s family because they ate the food I made them." "O-Of course! Those that fraternize with monstrosities like you are as bad as they are themselves!" "...Weird, I swear that I saw a few tamers amongst your soldiers. Is that different?" "It is iparable, of course! Tamers control the beast, they don¡¯t treat them as their equal!" The man retorted, and Eisen just sighed out deeply. "Fine. Alright, what do you want to know? I can tell you the process that I had to personally go through to rank my first skill up to 8 and test a few things out yourself, or you can keep trying to convince yourself that I¡¯m lying and waste your time." The former Eisen pointed out, and the man in front of him simply red back at him, "Hah, do you truly think that I would fall for such wicked tricks? Nay. Spend your time here to keep thinking about your sins, you abomination." Immediately, the man turned around and left the room again, leaving Eisen alone now. The current Eisen was a bit surprised at what exactly was going on at the moment, but for the most part, he managed to figure out the rough sequence of what happened. The former Eisen travelled to this country, probably in search for new materials or crafting methods, and then made a rank 8 item. Someone found out about this after inspecting that item, and then informed the King of this fact. The King tried to then meet Eisen, and somehow found out that he was a half-Giant, most likely because Eisen was working on something that required him to change his size. And of course, since Giants were monsters, it made sense that not too many people were all that keen on them. Currently, Giants may be treated as Demi-People, meaning that they are technically monsters but practically have the same legal rights as any person does, but back in the day, that most likely wasn¡¯t the case just yet. Eisen never really thought about this before, though, so it was a weird feeling to be suddenly faced with it like that. On the other hand, it was just as weird to see a person like that be a king. Sure, he wore fancy clothes and had precious jewelry on him, but... it was all incredibly rudimentary. It was like the only thing that made anything on him fancy in the slightest were the materials. There wasn¡¯t any particrly great craftsmanship. As if in this day and age, the only thing people knew how to do was to cheat the system to make high-rank items by using the best-possible items. Since Quality, for the most part at least, didn¡¯t affect the raw performance of items that much, the aim was most likely to just make any item of the highest rank possible even if the quality was low. Eisen knew that this worked, technically, but it just felt wrong. Items with a lower quality would break and generally deteriorate much quicker than those of higher quality. On top of that, there were a lot of hidden aspects rted to items that were affected by the quality that would change how well you could utilize an item in the long-term. As a craftsman, Eisen was nearly disgusted by that sort of craftsmanship. No wonder people only reached up to Rank 7 here. Although, it dide as a surprise that even Eisen was only able to reach Rank 8 at this point. It seemed like currently, the Eisen in this memory was about 350, at max 400 years old. He expected that he would have reached a higher rank by now. But even though all this was the case, Eisen didn¡¯t have all that much time to think about it as the door behind him opened up again, and the same man as before, albeit in a different outfit and with other jewelry, that in no way was all that different to the items he was wearing before, stepped into the room. Once more, he was apanied by two guards as the King stepped up to the pedestal in the center of the room, ready to speak to Eisen again. "Good morning, Beast." The King said in an emotionless tone, and the former Eisen let out a deep sigh, "I told you not to call me beast, you brat." "Well, it matters quite little what you told me to do and not to do. The day of your execution draws near, remember?" "Mhm, I do. But before then, do you really not want me to tell you the ¡¯secret¡¯ to reaching rank 8 actually rather easily? I don¡¯t want it to be lost and time and have this whole world be filled withplete degenerates." The old man pointed out, and the King scoffed in response. "We will not try and learn from your wicked tricks, beast. It would be better if you finally understood this fact. Time and time again you have tried to trick us, but it never worked. You should just give up." "...You really are a dumbass. Just asking, but by the time that I¡¯m executed, you¡¯ll let that family go, right?" "Of course, we will no longer restrain them. I can promise you that much." The King replied. Somehow, Eisen didn¡¯t really believe this man¡¯s words, as if he already kind of knew what was about to happen. It was like Eisen wanted to warn his former self not to trust the king, but even he didn¡¯t believe the King, most likely. He wasn¡¯t an idiot, after all. But what else was he supposed to do, if the King was holding those people hostage? As far as Eisen was concerned, he would probably just wait until he managed to see the family, and if they really aren¡¯t going to be let go, Eisen would break out and try and save them. Eisen didn¡¯t know why his former version wasn¡¯t already trying to do that, though. There was probably more to this than met the eye, if the old man had to guess. And then, while an eery feeling built up within Eisen, he watched as the King turned back around and made his way out of the room. Please go to https://ReadRead/Spending-My-Retirement-In-A-Game/ to read thetest chapters for free Chapter 661 Execution

Chapter 661 Execution

Eisen lived through this memory intensely. For quite some time, he even had to feel what it was like to be entrapped there fully. Just sitting there, unable to move, unable to see or hear anything, for days at a time. Eisen knew that this was sometimes seen akin to torture to be left alone, deprived of one¡¯s sensespletely. Unable to know how much time has passed, hallucinating shapes or certain beings appearing in the space in front of you. But somehow, the former Eisen was able to just let it all happen, for whatever reason. He hung there, sometimes for a week or two at a time without any influx of anything. He wasn¡¯t even given food. But somehow, he was able to survive without issues. And then, it dawned on the old man, that the former Eisen most likely wasn¡¯t as helpless as Eisen himself thought he was in this situation. He tried to take a look at the giant that was hanging onto the wall through the chains that were just lightly rubbing against each other every once in a while. Eisen looked at the figure in front of him and started to try and figure out what exactly he was doing, and just as he did, that information suddenly flowed into the old man¡¯s mind. Usually, the knowledge of these sorts of memories didn¡¯t flow into him all at once while he was experiencing them, but just piece by piece. Only when he was truly back in control of his body would he have recovered everything about the memory he just experienced. Just like he did now, Eisen was able to sometimes cause a certain part of a memory to resurface earlier than others. And the part of the memory that he recovered just now was the way that the former Eisen was keeping himself awake. In order to give himself the opportunity to survive, the old man did something that Eisen wouldn¡¯t have inititally thought of. He did his best to squeeze a part of his apron up to his mouth, and bit off a small part of the metal parts holding the straps in ce. That sharp metal shard was then used by the old man to slowly but surely carve into his own teeth. This kind of thing was something that would end up healing if you used a potion, so he didn¡¯t really worry about doing permanent damage at all. And so, the former Eisen created an array of enchantments using his own teeth. Of course, if it was possible to use transmutation on biological matter like that, Eisen would have just instantly turned his teeth into three-dimensional enchantments. But for now, he had to make use of simply carvings. At that point, Eisen actually noticed that these enchantments were incredibly, incredibly simplepared to what he would make nowadays. They were basically jsut strings of runes ced right behind one another. Sure, it wasn¡¯t a wrong way to do it, considering that it worked out in the end, but it was an incredibly inefficient way. Eisen might be able to create an enchantment of the same level as the former Eisen did within a few minutes now, just using the methods that he currently knew about. Most likely, at this point in time, research of magic hadn¡¯t be that advanced yet. It might even end up taking until Xenia was born until that really happened. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure at the moment... But at the very least, he just discovered the next question to ask of the fragment of his former self while recovering the next memory after this one. Either way, the enchantments that Eisen created in his teeth were quite simple. One was supposed to create water that the old man could drink, and the other was supposed to create something like moss over time that Eisen could eat. It wasn¡¯t anything particrly tasty or even healthy, but it was still a way to supply his body with all the raw calories that Eisen needed to function properly. And since the old man literally was doing nothing here, the amount of energy he used up in a day had be quite small anyway. And his rather high endurance stat probably helped out a bit more as well. Either way, this was a pretty unique way to make use of enchantments. Maybe Eisen should try creating fake teeth with different functions in them, or maybe he could offer dental procedures to actively enchant the actual teeth of others. There had to be at least a handful of people that enjoyed fighting using things like biting, so having the strength of their teeth increased must be a rare opportunity for those. And on top of that, creating a tooth that might be able to produce air in case of an emergency wouldn¡¯t be so bad either. It would allow someone to breathe in any sort of situation, after all. For now, Eisen had to ignore all of these ideas, however. He just focused on the former Eisen as his mind ran through all of those random thoughts like it quite often did. And then, Eisen figured out how the former version of himself was keeping sane. Quite simply, he was just meditating. If you meditated, as long as your skill¡¯s rank was high, you would be able to just ¡¯skip¡¯ through a certain amount of time. Basically as if you were sleeping. And while sleep would cause your whole body to lose strength at least momentarily, and meditation allowed you to keep up the weirdest stances you wanted to as long as the bnce was right, even a handstand if wanted, this was the better way to try and pretend like Eisen was someone unbeatable. As if he was awake the whole time, keeping his sanity to spite the King¡¯s expectations, while not asking for even a single drop of water to get through the time. In the eyes of the King and his men, Eisen must have just be even more of a monster, although the current Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if maybe exactly that was the former Eisen¡¯s n. Scare the king so much that he wouldn¡¯t dare anger him. Although obviously, that wasn¡¯t the case. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if the King saw through the old man¡¯s n, if he was more fearless than he seemed, or if he was just the kind of big idiot that Eisen assumed him to be, but it was clear that the King didn¡¯t pay any heed to what Eisen was trying to do. Either way, that didn¡¯t matter too much for now anyway. Because just when Eisen was thinking about this, he noticed that the whole room started to shake. As if it was part of a huge cart and was now driven along to somewhere else. And just as this happened, the former Eisen woke up from his meditation again. It seemed like he was trying to prepare for something, at least mentally. After an hour or so, the room started shaking again, and for roughly half a day, it stayed the same. And just when Eisen thought that this rattling was nothing but a fluke, something else happened. Along the corners of the room, slits opened up and widened just so slowly. Three of the four walls dropped to the side, letting bright, blinding light flood into the room. And then, the roof was taken away as well, being flipped over thest wall that was still standing, the one that Eisen was still chained to. The old man looked around and soon saw that this ce was in the middle of a small town. The buildings seemed kind of rough, and honestly somewhat badly constructedpared to what you would see nowadays all over the ce in this world. There was no support anywhere, and most of the buildings didn¡¯t even have proper doors or windows. It seemed like this ce was in the middle of the process of bing more developed as a whole though, so that was good, at least. Either way, that didn¡¯t really matter right now. Eisen knew why exactly the former version of himself was brought here. Because not too far away from here, there was another cage, with a starving family of five inside of it. They were dirty, frail and thin, so much so that you could see the outline of basically every sinle one of their bones. "This must be the family that I was with..." The old man muttered quietly to himself, and as he did, some people walked up onto the tform that used to be the room that Eisen was trapped in. "Today, we have gathered here on a truly delightful asion!" The King spoke, starting with his obviously rather long speech. Eisen mostly faded it out, not even registering it. Maybe that was because the former Eisen did the same and simply didn¡¯t remember this part of what happened, though, but Eisen wasn¡¯t sure yet. All that Eisen knew was that the king spoke of how amazing it was that they would be able to get rid of such a horrid monstsority such as the former Eisen was in their eyes. Killing a monster like him was something that gave one nothing but true honor, it seemed. Eisen watched all of this happen, he watched the crowd growrger as more and more people became excited about seeing all of this happen. They looked at the chained-up Eisen and the locked-up family, swearing at both. Although most of their insults seemed focused on thetter, since many were most likely too scared to agitate Eisen himself. But then, Eisen started to pay attention to the King¡¯s speech again. "Now, we shall begin by punishing the sinners that have chosen to throw away their beautiful lives by helping this wicked, wicked being. Five people who have be part of ourmunity, but have done nothing but disappoint us in the end! We cannot allow them to paint this kingdom in the pitch-ck colors of despair any longer!" The King screamed out, and finally, the group just started screaming, as if they were either cut down by a swordsman or simply found extreme pleasure from the King¡¯s words. They watched as the family of five was taken out of the cage and brought over in front of Eisen. The two adults were forced onto the ground while the three children were taken to the side. "But of course, these cute little, innocent children are not at fault! Their parents are the wicked ones! As such, I have chosen to save their lives and allow them to keep breathing as mere ves, while these two will be executed alongside this horrid monster!" Please go to https://ReadRead/Spending-My-Retirement-In-A-Game/ to read thetest chapters for free Chapter 662 Dawn of the Demon

Chapter 662 Dawn of the Demon

Eisen listened to the King say all of these horrendous things with absolute ease, as he watched everything slowly unfold before him. Numerous people started walking around the ground underneath Eisen, preparing an enchantment- No, a magic circle that they would activate soon as their method of execution for this giant. On the other hand, the parents of the children simply had two men with sharp spears standing behind them, the tip of their weapon pressing against the center of their back. More people gathered around as if this was some show by a celebrity, seemingly more than just excited to see Eisen and the couple in front of him die violently like that. Eisen was more than just disgusted, and it was a feeling that he shared with the former version of himself. The old man could feel the emotions radiate off of that giant body, affecting a good number of the people in the crowd, especially those with a lower level. He formed his hands into fist and stared at the crowd surrounding them, and just waited for the memory to proceed. At some point, about another hourter, it seemed like everything had been properly prepared and the crowd had grownrge enough for the King¡¯s liking. With a smug grin on his face, the King approached Eisen. He looked up at him and with a broad smile stated, "It would have been better if you had just told me what you did!" The former Eisen looked down at him with a re, "You promised that you would let them go." "What? Why would I promise such a thing? If you were not too simple-minded to remember, you would know that I said we would no longer restrain them. And we are not! The children will be sold to willing people, and these two will be killed alongside you. We are not restraining this family after today!" "Hah... You¡¯re truly just a piece of garbage, aren¡¯t you?" The former Eisen asked with a deep re, and the King just smiled broadly, "That¡¯s not something I want to hear a monster say. Be careful, or the children will experience the same fate as the rest of you." "We¡¯ll see about that." The real Eisen muttered to himself quietly as he watched everything unfold as the king proceeded to hold another useless speech where he basically just repeated the same things he said before while making up random things that Eisen and this family supposedly did together, like destroy viges or kill, rape and pige. Eisen was more than just disgusted to hear a literal King say such things, and soon, it seemed like he became ready to get everything over with. "We will start with the two traitors! Men, stab through their hearts, much like they stabbed through the hearts of this kingdom with their traitorous acts!" The King eximed in a loud tone, and the soldiers momentarily turned their gaze toward the King standing behind them to nod at him in confirmation that they were ready, but the moment they did so, they snapped their necks back and froze up. For a few moments, it seemed like the soldiers were trying to build up something like tension before they did this, as if it truly was just a performance, but soon it became more than just evident why they truly froze up just like that. Well, to anyone but the King, who was looking away from the actual source of that raw fear permeating throughout their bodies. Of ocurse, nobody that was aware of this source could warn anyone else or even the King, since they were affected in a simr way. Actually, sometimes even worse, considering that their status was a fair bit lower than that of the soliders, meaning that they had less resistance to what was actually going on. "What are you doing, you dimwits? I told you to execute them!" The King eximed, unaware of the true weight of what was going on due to its very nature. But then, with a loud noise that interrupted anything that the King wanted to say, the former Eisen spoke instead, "Sorry, I¡¯m pretty sure they won¡¯t be able to do that for you anymore." He pointed out as the chains holding onto the giant¡¯s body simply fell to the ground after Eisen snapped through them with ease. The King turned his whole body around and soon saw what exactly it was that caused everyone here to freeze up like that. It were the eyes of the Giant, which had turned into a glowing golden color. The moment that he met that re, the King was unable to truly control his body properly. And the same was the case with everyone else that saw the former Eisen¡¯s current eyes. They were radiating with force and authority, and nobody that saw them was able to do anything in the slightest to react to him. "I will announce it now, and hope that I must never do so again. All of you people that have gathered here today to fest on the sight of those you perceive to be vile abominations of nature have just made enemy of one of the few beings you never wish to have made an enemy of. Today, I may not harm you. Tomorrow, I may not harm you. But what about next week? Next month? A year from now, or two, three, or four? What about your children¡¯s children? And their children? And then theirs and then theirs and then theirs? I am destined to live an eternity, but you will not. I will never forget. And the one that brought this onto you is this man standing beside me. Due to useless prejudice, he has thrown away his kingdom into inevitable doom." The man practically growled out toward the group in front of him, and then he just looked back at them and merely grinned broadly as he pushed everyone else to the side, simply picking up the family who he caused to be brought here because of him. And Eisen¡¯s disgusted, anger-filled expression became one of kindness, gratitude, and a bit of guilt, "That is what you all expected to hear from me, is it not? It is what you have been told all monsters wish. Hate and destruction. But that is not true in the slightest. Monsters are helpful,passionate and kind creatures, even if many of them have innate aggression forced onto them by the heavens. But not all of us are. Many are indistinguishable from people, and merely wish to be epted as such. They wish to live alongside you, to be part of your lives. Or simply to be the neighbor that you invite out to dinner every once in a while." The old man chuckled quietly, and the atmosphere around him changed and shifted. It was like he was making use of Yin and Yang auras circling around him as if he was a Demon, but without the need to transform in the slightest. And soon, the former Eisen¡¯s eyesnded on a figure in the crowd, "Is that not so, son?" The old man asked, and a certain young man, about in his mid tote 20¡¯s stepped forward. He had long white-blue hair braided on top of his head and gracefully stepped toward the Giant, "Of course it is, Father." The crowd moved aside as the man¡¯s body slowly changed and became enveloped in a slight white mist. The mist extended outward, and the moment that it disappeared again a few momentster, in its stead stood a dragon with light-blue metallic scales. It was Trygan, in the midsts of changing into a crystal dragon over the course of a few more evolutions, "This here is my child, a Dragon. Undeniably a ¡¯Monster¡¯. But of course, you all just saw him in the guise of a human. You were not scared of him then, were you? You did not think he could suddenly spring out and attack you, even though this town deals with plenty of bandits as well. There is no reason to innately fear monsters. Just fear the bad ones, like you do with the bad people." The old man exined as Trygan slowly stepped up behind him just to sit down there. His head just barely reached that of the Giant as he was kneeling down to speak to these people better. The Dragon¡¯s wings were just slightly pping around due to the slight difort caused by that transformation into a human that Trygan wanted to get rid of. And due to the time of day, the sun stood right behind Eisen from the view of the crowd made up of the peope of this town, so they were just able to see his silhouette for the most part. They heard his voice and noticed his glowing golden eyes. Because of Trygan behind him, it seemed like Eisen had grown horns, wings, and a tail all of a sudden, but of course everyone knew that this wasn¡¯t the case. They could still see the Dragon itself for the most part. But even then, for just a moment, surely everyone saw just that rough outline that brought everyone to amon consensus about this creature. This creature capable of causing the fear of death within them, just before filling them with hope and a feeling of excitement in basically the same breath. This creature that seemed otherwordly, distant, and neither truly good or bad, as if it was walking inbetween the meaning of those words, making use of them however he wanted. And the original Eisen finally realized what this memory really was about in the end. It was the memory of how Eisen became the Golden-Eyed Demon. --- Eisen pushed himself off the ground after he woke up from the memory. He looked around and stretched a bit, taking a deep breath after what he just experienced. The old man looked at the pedestal standing right in front of him and picked up the key that was stillying on it. With a slow step, the old man made his way over toward the wall with the chains hanging onto it, and looked around a bit more, soon noticing something that was off in the ground. Eisen rubbed his fingers over that spot and soon managed to pull a small metal te away. Underneath that metal te was nothing but a small keyhole. Eisen inserted the key into that keyhole, and around it, the same magic circle that was carved underneath the former Eisen¡¯s feet was created. The one that was meant to kill him. And so, Eisen took a step back and pushed his mana into the carving, hoping to activate it properly, and watched as numerous magical spears pushed out of the ground. Please go to https://ReadRead/Spending-My-Retirement-In-A-Game/ to read thetest chapters for free Chapter 663 Tower of Books

Chapter 663 Tower of Books

The spears created by the magic circle disappeared after just a few moments, just so that new ones could be pushed out of the ground again. And then, the same thing happened once more. Again and again and again. "Certainly, that would have killed even me at the time..." The old man muttered, surprised at how efficient this rudimentary magic circle really was. But in the end, it really didn¡¯t matter all that much anymore, Eisen just had to figure out why exactly these spears were here in the first ce. For that, Eisen had been using the mana-copy skill to save all the different sets of spears to see what he could do with them. He created high-quality visualizations of the huge copied spears and tried his best to figure out why he was shown these now. At first, Eisen just tried to take a closer look at the individual spears, to see if there was anything wrong with them in particr or if they hard certain markings on them that might give Eisen some sort of clue, but in the end, he didn¡¯t find anything. But just then, Eisen had a bit of an idea. He simply ovepped all of the instances of the spears appearing in a seemingly random fashion, and when he did that, he noticed that they themselves were actually forming a pattern of sort. It wasn¡¯t aplex representation of that pattern, but nheless, Eisen was able to figure it out practically instantly. When seen from above, these spears formed a pattern that reminded Eisen of his symbol, the same one that was one the ne that he was wearing the whole time. Maybe he had to make use of this pattern here somewhere, or he had to find it somewhere else here in this room. After a bit of thought, Eisen chose to simply look around. There was no need to hypothesize if he may end up simply being wrong in the end. It didn¡¯t seem like it was something that would trigger a memory again either, so Eisen just didn¡¯t even worry about it being something rted to that. For now, Eisen made his way through the room, checking on the walls as much as he could, but he didn¡¯t find anything even after extremely intense searching. All that was left to look at now were the actual chains, something that Eisen maybe actually should have started with, now that he was thinking about it. It would make sense if there was something on them, considering that this room was otherwisepletely empty, with the exception of the pedestal, of course. And so, the old man took a closer look at the chains, even pulling and pushing on them to make sure that he could even see the ces where the different chain-links pressed against each other. But for the most part, Eisen didn¡¯t find anything there. He almost wanted to give up, when he did finally notice something. He looked at the small slit that was on each chain-link, that was there so that the different links could even be connected properly. On these round surfaces, on each and every chain-link, Eisen saw a small circle. There wasn¡¯t anything on the circle, and it was extremely subtle, but each and every chain-link had a perfect circle on it. At first Eisen thought that maybe this was just something that stayed on the item as a side-effect of the particr production-method that the craftsman that made these chose, but Eisen couldn¡¯te up with any particr reason why there should be something like this here. After all, it wasn¡¯t some sort of imprint, but it rather seemed like it was just a circr scratch that was added after the chains were already finished. Thinking back on his memory of how Eisen freed himself at the execution, he remembered that he simply pulled on the chains and caused them to snap. Chains like these usually snapped because one of the chain-links gave in and bent so that either of the two connected chain-links was pulled out of it, hence cutting the chain in half. Eisen figured that this would be too much of a coincidence, and as such quickly searched the total four chains, two for Eisen¡¯s arms and two for his legs, for the exact link where they snapped in Eisen¡¯s memory. It was kind of weird, this was not a detail that Eisen would usually be able to remember. Certainly, if he had never lost his memories in the first ce, Eisen most likely wouldn¡¯t have been able to rememeber this. But because he just lived through that part of his past again as if it just happened to him, it was still fresh in his mind, and he was able to recall things like this sa bit more easily. Eisen looked around the chains and soon foudn the ones that he figured where the correct links, and an idea popped into his mind. Each of these chains had one of these weird circles on it, and so Eisen figured that they were meant to be some sort of spot where something specific had to go. Eisen pulled out a small needle, and proceeded to carve the exact pattern that was on the coin on his ne into the circle. The moment he finished this, the pattern started to glow, and Eisen quickly took a step back as he heard the metal in front of him loudly creak. The chain-link started to bend as if a lot of pressure had been put on it, and then it simply broke, half of the chain dropping to the ground with a loud noise. Thinking that this seemed to be the right path, Eisen proceeded to carve the same pattern onto the correct spots on the other three chains as well, and the exact same thing happened. Once all four of the chains had been broken in half, the whole room started to creak loudly and light flooded into the room through cracks that were forming along the walls. It seemed like the same thing as in Eisen¡¯s memory was happening, and three of the four walls dropped to the side and the ceiling folded onto the back of the fourth wall that the rest of the chains were still connected to. It took Eisen a little while to get used to this extremely bright light at a level that he really wasn¡¯t used to or expected to appear right now, but when he did, all that he saw was that they were outside again. In the middle of one of the zas of this town. With a deep sigh, Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Don¡¯t tell me that waspletely useless." He muttered to himself as he looked around. The whole metal room waspletely gone, as if Eisen and Ambriel were both teleported to this ce together. In the end it didn¡¯t matter too much, considering that Eisen managed to recover two memories and had a third that he could also remember the next time he slept, but it still felt weird that he just wasted his time like that. Or so he thought. Just when Eisen wanted to interact with all the Camera-Bot units again, he noticed that there was something new in one of his apron¡¯s pockets. Eisen pulled it out, and found it to be nothing but a small, leahterbound book. At first nce, it didn¡¯t have anything to do with Eisen. And neither did it at second nce. It was just a random book, a novel, it seemed. Eisen flipped through it, read certain sections of it, inspected it with his Truth-Seeing Eyes, but all he did led him to believe that this was really nothing but a simple novel. And that was when Eisen¡¯s focused was pulled away from this book, and onto the huge tower that was standing in the center of the town, Mystor¡¯s own dwelling. The old man thought about it for a while, and then sent one of his camera-bats over there. Quickly, he saw that this giant tower had numerous books covering its outside. As if this tower was built by stacking filled bookshelves onto each other. Thinking that he had a rough idea of what he had to do now, Eisen activated his Draconic Demon King trasanformation and quickly flew over there. Within just a few minutes, Eisen reached the Book-covered tower and tried to figure out what he was supposed to do. Of course, Eisen instantly thought that he was supposed to either find the book that he was holding right now in this tower to get another clue, or to use this book he was given as a key by cing it into the correct location. Either of that meant that he first had to figure out where exactly this book was supposed to be, either way. He looked at the different books, different signs that were hanging here, trying to figure out the system. Soon, he figured out that the lower on the tower something was, the earlier in time it was written, as if the tower was just steadily growing the more books were written. And depending on where exactly at the tower you were, you would find a different genre of book. Soon, Eisen found the part where all the novels were, and then managed to narrow it down to the exact topic of this book. And since this book had the date written onto it in the back, it wasn¡¯t all that hard to find the right ce, in the end. Just like that, Eisen found the rightyer of this book-tower, and the right specific shelf, andnded on the small tform that was floating in front of it. After just a bit of searching through the names of those that wrote all these books, Eisen found it. The same book that he was given, standing there in the bookshelf. Of course, Eisen immediately proceeded to pull it out of the shelf. The moment he flipped it open, Eisen realized that it was probably the first option of what he thought this book was for. It was giving him a hint to where Eisen may be able to find Mystor in this realm and finish this quest. Or so he hoped, because otherwise Eisen had no idea what to do. There were numerous parts cut out of this book, marked in different colors, or just underlined. As if all these things were supposed to have a meaning, or were supposed to lead Eisen to some sort of secret message. The old man sat down where he stood andpared both of the books to see if maybe he could find any clue to what he had to do. And with a loud sigh, he got to work, "Let¡¯s hope this won¡¯t take too long, now." Chapter 664 Meeting Mystor

Chapter 664 Meeting Mystor

Eisen was sitting on the ground, going through the two books that he was holding, to try and figure out what exactly he was supposed to do next. The book that he found here in the tower was basicallypletely unreadable due to the different markings and the parts that were simply cut out of it, but using the version that was intact as a reference, Eisen should be able to figure this out. The old man used his ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Soul¡¯ skill¡¯s ability to properly remember the small details about this book, since it helped him figure out specific damages on items and how he was supposed to repair them. And just like that, Eisen managed to finallye to a conclusion as to how he was supposed to solve this part of the puzzle. "Hm... There are 3 different colors for the markings... And if I take the parts that were cut out of each of those color-marked spaces, I can get three different messages depending on what color it is." The old man muttered to himself. He made sure to note those messages down, and exclude the parts that were obviously supposed to be misleading him somehow. And just like that, Eisen had the three messages in front of him. " ¡¯The East part of town, the crystal blue river. An elderly fisherman awaits you¡¯ is the blue message. The yellow one is ¡¯The North part of town, the sun-yellow tower. A young researcher awats you¡¯... And the red one is, ¡¯The West part of town, the blood-red hut. A smiling beast awaits you¡¯." A bit confused at what all of these things meant, Eisen justmanded his camera-bot units to go and search for these ces so that Eisen may figure out what exactly they were. "Shouldn¡¯t you get moving at this point? You don¡¯t have forever, now do you?" Ambriel asked bluntly, not caring for the fact that Eisen obviously didn¡¯t like them or enjoy theirpany. The old man turned around with a deep frown, "I¡¯m working on figuring everything out, so just leave me be. But what do you care, I¡¯m sure you would be happy if I failed." "Of course I wouldn¡¯t be happy if you failed." Ambriel replied, and Eisen was actually a bit surprised for a moment, before the angel continued to speak, "After all, if you fail this task, you must find another realm to take on to rece this one. It would just be more time spent with you, and if I can, I would love to avoid that with any means possible." "Ah..." Eisen sighed quietly, "If that¡¯s the case, I can only say that I share that sentiment." Since the two of them seemed to havee to an understanding that both of them wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible, Eisen concentrated on figuring out what the different camera-bot units were really seeing. A few of them made their way toward the right ces yet, although they didn¡¯t find the ce from the red markings yet. The ce from the blue markings seemed to be the hardest to find. That ¡¯crystal blue river¡¯ was rather long, after all. But since there was only one that was really that color, the camera-fish could simply swim through it and look out for any sort of fisherman. And soon, they did find one. They found the statue of a fisherman ced onto the side of the river, carved out of a white, marble-like rock. Just as Eisen was about to tell one of the Camera-Fish to inspect the statue more closely, Eisen noticed that another one of the camera-bots reached one of the other ces. A camera-bat flew toward the tower in question, and at its top, it found another statue. It was a statue of a young woman standing there with a book in her hand while taking notes into it. "...Alright, so both of them are there... Maybe I have to get information from all of them andbine them into something." The old man thought to himself. And so, Eisen waited for one of his camera-bot units to arrive at thest of the three locations, where, just like the old man expected, they found a statue there. It was a wolf-like beast with an unnatural smile akin to that of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wondend. All three of the statues were made of the same material, and also seemed to have been made by the same person. But now, Eisen had to wonder, what exactly could these statues lead Eisen to? And what did the colors and the cardinal directions have to do with this? Eisen tried to make sure that he really had all the information that he could get from these two books in his hands, and once he did, he ced the one that was neat and tidy into the bookshelf beside him while keeping the one that was all ripped up and marked-down for himself, just in case that he did need to make use of it again. I twould be a lot harder and more annoying, but he should be able to figure out some certain codes even with this one. The old man activated his demonic transformation and quickly flew toward the closest one of the statues, which in this case was the one with the smiling wolf. Once hended, Eisen immediately got started on inspecting the statue. It seemed to be the size that a regr wolf would be, and the details that went into the creation of this statue were truly incredible. As if this had been a living creature just a few minutes ago, just to be randomly petrified like this. Eisen ran his hands over the surface of the statue and used his truth-seeing eyes to inspect it in as much detail as he could, but he simply didn¡¯t find anything on this statue. No clue, no carvings, no hidden message that would lead him to the next step. "I swear, if this all just led up to a red herring, I¡¯ll rip Mystor¡¯s head off when I finally find him." The old man muttered to himself in annoyance. Eisen made sure to use his mana-copy skill on this statue, and then went on his way to take a look at the next statue, the stature of the schr. Just like with the smiling wolf, Eisen inspected this incredibly detailed statue with as much care as he could, but whatever he did, he couldn¡¯t find anything on this statue either. So the old man proceeded to mana-copy this statue as well, before then heading toward thest of the statues, the statue of the elderly fisherman. But just as Eisen had expected, not even this statue had anything on it that could be seen as some sort of clue. Frustrated, Eisen sat down next to this statue and looked down into the crystal blue river. He created the visualized 3D map of this town once more, and looked at the locations of the three statues. And that¡¯s when he got a new idea. All of the statues were looking straight ahead, which seemed a bit unnatural, particrly with the schr from before. Using the map that was floating in front of him, Eisen created a line starting from the location of the statue next to him, going in the direction where he was looking. And then, he got up and flew to the other statues again to make sure that he could urately draw the lines starting at their locations. And just about twenty minutes after this idea crossed his mind, the old man had a rather small area on his map. It was a triangr area, about 100 meters on every side. Hoping that this was the ce where Mystor was waiting for him, Eisen flew over there as quickly as he could, and once he was in the air, simply stopped pping his wings so that he dropped to the ground rather swiftly. The old man looked at the area in front of him, and just saw an empty space. Eisen had never seen such arge empty space in the middle of a town here in the divine realms, so it was clear that it was prepared by Mystor. Surely, he was in the right ce. With his truth-seeing eyes, Eisen looked around, soon finding a point of interest. It was rather central in this space, a small triangr tform that had a few tes that could be shifted around on it. The puzzle ced onto this wasn¡¯t really that hard to figure out, it was just a sort of sliding-puzzle where Eisen had toplete an image. It took a little while, but in the end there wasn¡¯t anything special about it. Well, beside the fact that Eisen had to focus on the magical paint that he could only see with his mana-sight instead of the physical image that he could see. Or so that¡¯s what he figured, considering that none of the parts of this puzzle had to do with what could be seen by simply anyone. When Eisen finished this sliding-puzzle, the ground underneath him started to glow in a bright light that blinded the old man. And a few momentster, he already found himself in arge hall, and in front of him sat a figure d in mist so that Eisen wasn¡¯t able to see its true figure. "How disappointing..." The figure muttered, and Eisen¡¯s heart sunk into his stomach the moment he heard it. Did he mess up? Did he do something wrong at some point and follow a false route? Well, it seemed like that really wasn¡¯t the issue right now, "I set up all of those misleading routes, and you did not fall for even a single one of them? It was as if you didn¡¯t even see the things that I prepared for you." The figure said in a disappointed tone, and Eisen just stared back at him with a relieved sigh. "So does that mean that I solved your quest?" The old man inquired with a smile on his face, and Mystor slowly nodded his head, "Sure, sure. But really, tell me, how did you manage to practically choose the right path right of the bat? Did somebody tell you of my n?" "Would it really have been possible for someone to tell me about it without you finding out?" Eisen asked with a wry smile, as a weird feeling built up inside of his stomach. He looked around while Mystor continued to speak of random things. And that was when Eisen figured out what exactly was wrong right now. Even though he was told he finished the task, the quest window didn¡¯t appear to tell him that he did it. Chapter 665 Event of Importance

Chapter 665 Event of Importance

Eisen looked around himself with his truth-seeing eyes active. The old man was trying his absolute best to truly focus on what was around him, since there was obviously something off. And that¡¯s when he noticed it. The thin thread of light connecting Mystor with one of his angels that were standing along the walls. Immediately, the old man stood up and walked over toward that angel, and without hesitation said, "You are the real Mystor, aren¡¯t you?" He asked, and the angel, whose appearance was basically the opposite of what Eisen would have expected of Mystor. While that Mystor on the throne waspletely enveloped in a thick, mysterious mist, the bit of the outline that one could see hinted at apletely different sort of body sitting underneath it than what Eisen now saw in front of him. This angel was a young, lean-built man with ear and lip-piercings. He seemed like more of a mischievous kind, but the moment that he realized that Eisen didn¡¯t just speak to him on a fluke, he began to smile broadly. "Oho, who¡¯d have thought that you¡¯d see through even this extremely high tier of trickery with ease." The angel said, and swiftly snapped his fingers. Both the angel and the figure sitting on the throne were enveloped in a bright light, and then practically changed ces. The angel in front of Eisen was what he had expected Mystor to really look like. An elderly, somewhat frail man with a long beard, basically exactly what Eisen imagined from Mystor in the first ce. But now, on the throne, sat the real Mystor. He looked exactly like the angel that Eisen had just spoken to, and mist flowed around his body as if it was some sort of cloak, hanging onto his arms and wrapping all around his body. The old man looked at the figure that was sitting there, this young man with a quite bratty demeanor, at least from Eisen¡¯s point of view. Mystor sat there on his throne and looked back at Eisen with a broad smile, "Even though it wasn¡¯t me that said it, it were my words. I gotta say, I¡¯m kind of impressed that you managed to find me that quickly." The real mystor now said, although Eisen was still unsure if it really was the right one this time. However, he was worried without reason, since now, the notification finally appeared in front of Eisen. [Quest Completed ¨C Mystor¡¯s Acknowledgement] [Description] You are seeking to be acknowledged by the gods of heaven and made your way into the realm of the God of Truth, Mystor. You have to prove that you cannot be deceived by false truths. Mystor is hiding somewhere within his divine realm and hid plenty of clues, a majority which are distractions. [Condition] Find Mystor¡¯s Location amongst the souls of his divine realm within 24 Hours [Reward] Mystor¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] Mystor will not acknowledge you, and you will lose the right to try again for 1 Year With a satisfied smile, Eisen used his truth-seeing eyes to make sure that this notification was actually real and not just some trick again, and then waved it away to the side. "Now then. Is there anything you would like to ask me?" The god asked with a smile on his face, and Eisen immediately nodded his head, "Yes, there is." The old man replied. "A few things, actually. One, how did you know about all those things? Two, why did you show them to me in the first ce? Three, what is the meaning behind those statues? I doubt that they were simply things you chose randomly." Eisen asked bluntly. Mystor smirked in response and quickly replied. "There is nothing in this world that I do not know the true nature of. I know the true nature of the first death of a truly immortal being, and I know the true nature of the ascension of the first true Demon. And of course, I know the true nature of your abilities, to an extent. And so, I wanted to test my knowledge out a bit, expand it, deepen it. Simple as that." "...You showed me something so traumatic just to test your knowledge out a bit?" Eisen asked with a deep frown, and the god slowly nodded his head, "Yes, that¡¯s what I just said. Well, to an extent, it was also something that I was simply curious about. In how much detail would you be able to remember those memories, for example? Usually, things from the time of that execution must have been rather blurry by now, if you didn¡¯tpletely forget it in the first ce. It has been a hundred thousand years by now, after all. But nheless, you were able to urately remember a small detail such as which chains in particr broke back then." Mystor exined. And somehow, after that part of the exnation, Eisen actually wasn¡¯t sure what exactly he should think. This was rather useful knowledge to have for Eisen as well, the fact that he would be able to remember these things so urately. Before Eisen could go on to ask about thest question again, Mystor continued, "As for yourst question... It was a failed attempt at causing you to remember another memory. It was something simr to what I nned for the first memory I made you remember, just on the other end of the spectrum. First I tried to cause you to remember something based solely on the room that memory unfolded in, which was something I expected to work without much of a doubt. As for thetter, it was a bit of a stretch. I tried to cause you to remember a memory based on three figures that appeared in it, although they were not quite prominent within it." Eisen didn¡¯t even need to think much about it, "The Fisherman, the Researcher, and the Smiling Wolf." "Yes, exactly. Sadly, it did not work, however. Oh well, guess I-" "You¡¯re lying to me." Eisen said bluntly, and Mystor stopped speaking, surprised at the old man¡¯s words, "What makes you think that?" "Because it simply doesn¡¯t make sense. Why would you try and make me remember these three very specific things, but with one of them just try something so loosely? And also, what do the cardinal directions, the colors, and the locations have to do with those three? At first it seemed random, but then I thought... What if that was all the information you had on the third piece of another puzzle, that you yourself wanted to figure out. And that was something you tried to do by pretending that I was going through some sort of puzzle. This was way too easy, you know that. It wasn¡¯t a challenge in the slightest, and there were little to no ways for me to fall for some kind of red herring the whole time, or at least as far as I could notice." Eisen pointed out, thinking about this rather intensely, since he simply thought that this didn¡¯t really make all that much sense. "...And what if that was the case?" "Nothing much, but I think I would have the right to know what all this is about." Eisen replied. Mystor stared Eisen deep into his eyes for a few more moments. Such an intense stare from a literal god, especially considering Mystor¡¯s alignment, felt so prating that it seemed as if Eisen was being stripped of everything that he held inside of him. Secrets, things he had forgotten, or simply such things that Mystor did not need to know about. And then, with a deep sigh, the God of Truth replied with that which gave him his title. The Truth. "Fine. You may learn about it for all I care. It is quite simple, you see? I told you before that I know the true nature of anything and everything that exists in this world. But that isn¡¯t entirely true. There is one event that not even us gods of knowledge can distinguish the truth of. An event caused directly by your establishment of Demonhood, by the death of your lover, as well as your first death that followed soon after. And of course, those three. The fisherman waiting by the crystal-blue river east of the location of this event, the researcher waiting by the sun-yellow tower north of that ce, as well as that mysterious beast by the blood-red hut in its west. That is the little information that we have on this event. But it is something that we must know of if we want to win this battle." Mystor exined to Eisen, who slowly crossed his arms in response. "Then why didn¡¯t you tell me? I could have helped you, you know?" The old man pointed out, and Mystor looked back at him rather surprised, "Is that so? I did not expect for you to be so open to us meddling with your past." "I¡¯m not. But as long as I¡¯m involved with it myself, that¡¯s something else. It¡¯s not meddling then anymore." "That¡¯s fair enough. Well, to tell you the truth, there is not much more information that I can tell you at this point. We know that it is an event of importance, but we literally do not know what happened. We only know that it happened around one thousand years ago, and all these things that I already just told you." After the god¡¯s exnation, Eisen was a little bit confused. "An event that happened a thousand years ago, that is closely rted to at least two events that happened a hundred thousand years ago?" "It is the truth, that is the consensus that I and the other Gods of Knowledge came to. Believe it, or don¡¯t believe it, but if you can trust one being then it¡¯s the god of truth." The god, who looked anything but trustworthy through the tone of his voice and his general demeanor and appearance, pointed out, although Eisen just sighed deeply in response. "Sure, says the one that tried to just lie right to my face. I know that while you are the god of truth, your abilities refer to the maniption of truth as well. I think you might be the least trustworthy amongst the gods that I¡¯ve spoken to so far." Eisen said bluntly, in response to which Mystor just started tough loudly. After saying something as disrespectful as this to a god, that deity¡¯s angels would have reacted rather aggressively. But in the case of Mystor, all of his angels simply knew that Eisen was telling the truth, so they didn¡¯t even budge at what the old man was saying to their god. Chapter 666 Jephas

Chapter 666 Jephas

After Eisen and Mystor continued speaking for a little while, so that the old man had really received all the necessary information about that ¡¯Event of Importance¡¯ that Mystor had been trying to make Eisen remember, there was just one thing that Eisen didn¡¯t understand. "So... Why exactly did you try and turn the first room into an escape room?" Eisen inquired, and Mystor slowly raised his brows, "Well, just cause it¡¯s fun? I mean, when Raziel told me about all the things you revealed to her, I just couldn¡¯t resist some things, especially when she was going on that part so much in particr." "...Right." Eisen replied with a wry smile. To be fair, that was the first escape room that Mystor designed, so Eisen shouldn¡¯t be too hard on him because of how simple it was in the end. The old man looked at the god that was sitting on the throne in front of him and crossed his arms, "Well, if that¡¯s all, then I think I¡¯ll go ahead and make my leave now. I have to rest a little after today and then head off to thest divine realm of the bunch." Eisen exined, and the God of Truth slowly nodded his head and waved his hand to the side, "Of course. Your ¡¯Friend¡¯ is already waiting for you." Behind Eisen arge gate appeared, one that would certainly lead him back to the giant hall of doors that each connected to a different divine ream. The old man walked up to it and pressed the door open before stepping through it, "See you, Mystor." The old man said in a blunt, emotionless tone as the gate closed right behind him. Mystor didn¡¯t seem to have bad intentions, but the way that he did things was just more than annoying to Eisen. He introduced such a trauma to Eisen and then acted like it was not a big deal. But of course it was, Eisen had stabbed himself into the heart after the death of his lover, there was no way that it could be reduced to a small thing like Mystor was pretending it to be. Or maybe, Mystor really thought that something like that was unimportant, in which case Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if he could me him. After all, Mystor was a god, it made sense that he would have a different perspective on things than Eisen did. Either way, now that all of this was over, Eisen was back in therge hall of doors, where Ambriel was already waiting for him, "Finally, now there is only one divine realm left. Although I have to say, it is rather surprising that you truly managed to get acknowledged by nine deities like that. Considering the way you have been acting the whole time." The Angel pointed out, and Eisen turned his head over toward them, "Alright, tell me, what¡¯s your problem? Why do you despise ¡¯mortals¡¯ that much?" "What kind of question is that? There is no way I would not despise such useless, disgusting creatures. I had thought you were different as you havee close to the gods at some point, but I was wrong. You are just as simple and useless as all the others of your kind." Ambriel exined to Eisen, as if their opinion was the only natural conclusion that anyone may evere to. Eisen red back at them. He felt like just summoning his sword out of his soul storage and cutting through Ambriel neck immediately, but instead, he held himself back. For now, at least. Of course, it was most likely that Eisen was just focusing all of his anger that had built up over the course of all these divine realms, which mostly came from remembering all of those memories and learning things that he in part wasn¡¯t sure if he even wanted to know, but in the end he didn¡¯t care. Ambriel was the one that Eisen¡¯s anger was focused on, and for now, nobody could really change that anymore. Eisen stared back at Ambriel and took a deep breath. He turned around, and then silently looked for the next gate that he needed to go through. The gate of the God of Craftsmanship, Silmos. The old man pressed his palms onto the gate and pushed it open, before stepping through. There, Eisen found himself in the middle of a wide open field again, like he usually did. But now, something was different. With every breath, Eisen could smell and basically taste smoke from smithies, he could hear people hammering on metal in the distance, he heard the mes slowly burn up their fuel. Excited to be able to spend some time here in this divine realm and maybe get rid of a little bit of his annoyance, Eisen took a step forward, but the moment that he did so, a notification appeared in front of Eisen. [New Quest ¨C Silmos¡¯ Acknowledgement] [Description] You are seeking to be acknowledged by the gods of heaven and made your way into the realm of the God of Craftsmanship, Silmos. As you have dedicated your life to Craftsmanship in every way possible, there is no need to further prove yourself to Silmos, as he already acknowledges your effort and ability. But nheless, he wishes to see your skill in action while amongst those that are like-minded. [Condition] Craft at least 5 Perfect Quality items of different types in the workshops of different souls (0/5) [Reward] Silmos¡¯ Acknowledgement [Penalty] Failure not possible Eisen read through the notification with his brows raised, a little bit surprised at seeing this. He was d that he was already practically acknowledged by Silmos, and that this quest was one that was impossible to fail. Eisen was sure that this quest was made just so that he would be able to properly enjoy his time here in the divine realm by creating all the items that he wanted to here. Throughout the time that Eisen had spent in some of the different divine realms, Eisen had made a number of items that he thought to be rather useful even after he left the divine realms again in general, and he hoped to be able to make a few more quite great items here in the divine realm of craftsmanship. It would be a bit disappointing if he wasn¡¯t able to. And so, the old man made his way over toward the town, flying over it in the search of a great ce to work. It didn¡¯t take Eisen that long to find his first stop either. It was probably one of the most prominent buildings here in this part of town, and it stuck out because there were a lot of people getting in and out at all times. At first Eisen thought that it might have been some sort of marketce where people could gather and sell the items that they crafted, but once he got closer, he figured out that it very much wasn¡¯t that way. The old mannded in front of therge entrance to this building, deactivating his demonic transformation. With an excited smile, Eisen walked deeper into this huge smithy where numerous people were working, just staring at the rather impressive, house-sized forge at the end of the room. It was as if it was an altar, and the one that was using this as their workstation was the pastor. And that ¡¯pastor¡¯ was actually someone that Eisen was a bit familiar with already, even if he only briefly saw her once before. Eisen approached the smithy, and the cksmiths that were gathered here in this room stared at Eisen in surprise as they stepped closer. Some of them wanted to stop him from interrupting the one at work in the front, others were just trying to figure out how a living person got here, and maybe a handful of them realized who it was that was walking through this room. But in the end, nobody really stopped Eisen from approaching the Craftswoman at the forge. Eisen was a bit curious about what exactly she was making, and since he didn¡¯t really want to interrupt her, he just sat down on a stool that stood around there randomly. He watched the woman work, watched her shape the metal with expertise. She swung the hammer in her hand down again and again, and about an hourter, she seemed to be done with the item. Arge, heavy hammer, either a warhammer or simply a tool for a ratherrge being. Maybe someone that was about 10 meters or so tall, if he had to guess. Once the woman finished the head of this hammer up, she took a piece of cloth and rubbed it over her face to get rid of the pearls of sweat that were pouring down it. And once she ced the cloth to the side, she suddenly noticed the man sitting there, seemingly waiting for her to finish her work. She stared at Eisen surprised and just looked back at him with a wry smile on her face, "E-Eisen... Did you die? But wait, aren¡¯t you-" "Yes, I¡¯m immortal. Doesn¡¯t stop me from visiting every once in a while, now does it?" The old man asked with augh as he stood up, approaching the woman with his hand stretched out forward, "Nice to see you again, Jephas." The Lesser Goddess of cksmithing stood there in front of Eisen, not expecting that she would see him here all of a sudden. She, like almost all the other Lesser Gods and Goddesses to the realm of Craftsmanship had tried to excitedly speak to Eisen when he and the others were brought to meet the gods for the first time by Samuel, back when they thought that this was still a game. "L-Likewise, but I still have to wonder what even brings you here in the first ce..." The Lesser Goddess pointed out as she extended her hand to shake Eisen¡¯s, but just before the hands of those two touched, Ambriel chose to intervene. He pulled on Eisen and pushed him back, away from Jephas, "What do you think you are doing, you dirty, lesser being? I dare you to try and make contact with a supreme being like that again." The Angel threatened Eisen, now having probably gained a lot more confidence than before. They were so sure that gods were supreme and that mortals were lesser, that they didn¡¯t even realize that Jephas herself was the one that was nervous to meet Eisen. After all, Eisen was actually older than her, and reached the peak of cksmithing far before she did. And since she looked up to Eisen, Jephas really didn¡¯t appreciate to see someone treat him that way. Chapter 667 Scalpel

Chapter 667 Scalpel

Jephas stared at Ambriel, who had so rudely pushed Eisen to the side. Immediately, the Angel threw themselves down onto their knee and lowered their head at the same time, "I apologize for that imbecile¡¯s rudeness, oh honourable Je-" "Who do you think you are?" Jephas asked with a deep re directed at Ambriel, who slowly widened their eyes in surprise after being interrupted. But Jephas didn¡¯t care anymore. She simply stepped past Ambriel and made her way over toward Eisen to finally shake his hand now. "Sorry about that, some Angels are just a bit more extreme than others." She pointed out as Eisen nodded his head, "Well, that¡¯s fairly urate. But there¡¯s no reason for you to apologize, I¡¯ve had to deal with Ambriel for a while now. I think I¡¯ve pissed them off personally. But I¡¯ll be dealing with it soon, so don¡¯t worry." Eisen exined with a deep sigh and a re directed at the Angel standing next to him. Once the two of them greeted each other and Ambriel backed down a little after practically having Jephasmand them to, Eisen looked past the lesser goddess at her personal forge. With glittering eyes, he stared at the glowing ambers inside of it, and immediately looked at Jephas excitedly, "May I?" He inquired, and Jephas slowly turned around to see what Eisen was looking at, and when she realized that he meant her forge, she quickly turned back around, "Oh, of course! Go ahead! I have to finish this hammer up with the handle that Dirmon made for me." "Hm... Interesting. What exactly is this hammer for?" Eisen asked as he looked at the hammer-head that was just sitting there, slowly cooling down next to therge handle that Jephas seemed to be speaking about. And from the size of that handle, Eisen judged that this really was a hammer meant for crafting, "Oh, nothing special, just a fun little project. And of course, it¡¯s a recement hammer in case mine ever breaks." She pointed out. "And it seems like you and the other lesser gods really help each other out. I¡¯ve been heading through a couple divine realms now, and in the few that I¡¯ve been, the lesser deities never really interacted with each other that much. Some really seemed to dislike each other to an extent." The old man exined. Jephas immediately shook her head, however. "It¡¯d be rather troublesome if we didn¡¯t interact with each other, right?" Sheughed loudly, "I¡¯m only good for metal-work, and the others are only really good for their one specific area of expertise as well. We¡¯ve got to coborate as much as possible. A lot of the time I¡¯m actually makin¡¯ tools for the others to use, or stuff like nails or buckles." "That¡¯s an interesting dynamic... Do you have a way to get all these items to each other easily?" The old man asked, and Jephas slightlyughed as she pointed at one of the angels standing at the side of this workshop. These particr ones were covered in soot and had metallic wings. Some of them were actually working on some items themselves, as far as Eisen could tell, "We¡¯ve got a number of private angels. They usually transport them for us if we don¡¯t have time to go to the others ourselves at any given time." "Well, that¡¯s pretty useful then." Eisen pointed out with a light smile on his face, "Then I guess I¡¯ll finish all the metal bits that I need to over here." Dedicated to get to work and make some amazing items here in this divine realm of his dreams, the old man quickly approached the actual main workstation, meaning the forge, the anvil, the barrel of oil to use to cool the metal rapidly. None of these things had any sort of special gimmicks on them. They were simply normal, like something that Eisen would use in his day-to-day live. But somehow, whether it was the divine energy that was basically an essence of craftsmanship seeping through it, or just because it¡¯s been a while since Eisen has seen a proper forge that has such heavy signs of use, this sight was just beautiful. Of course, many would think that signs of use on anything were actually a bad thing, but that¡¯s not the case at all. After all, this workstation wasn¡¯t broken or unusable, it simply had a few scratches, nicks, and blemishes on it that came from this ce being heavily used. It was a ce that was filled with passion and love for the craft, and that was the main reason why Eisen was honored to be able to work here. That this was the workstation of a literal deity added onto that honor, of course. With a broad smile, Eisen ran his fingers over every part of this workstation and then swiftly waved his hand to the side. He summoned his Item Storage, his elemental spirit, and of course Bai, so that Eisen could immediately get to work. "Let¡¯s start simple. Get me some steel." The old man said as he threw Bai into the air for a moment and quickly cracked his knuckles to loosen his hands up a bit, and then quickly caught the Ego Multitool just a momentter. At that time, Eisen¡¯s elemental spirit already ced the steel into the forge, at which point Eisen realized that he couldn¡¯t get started just yet and actually had to wait for a little while. So, instead, he just stood there with his hand on the elemental spirit¡¯s head to pat it a bit. After all, the elemental spirit right now was kind of like a juvenile version of Eisen¡¯s demonic transformation, and since it was a little child-like, or rather more like a bare pre-teen at this point, it was a good target for head-pats right now. And so, for a few more minutes, Eisen kept waiting like this. And once the steel started to glow in a bright yellow due to its temperature, the old man quickly activated his ¡¯Crafter¡¯s Realm¡¯ skill and quickly moved the metal out of the forge immediately as a recement for his tongs. This was something that Eisen noticed he could do now that his upation had updated to ¡¯Godly Craftsman¡¯ and pulled all the upation skills with it. Instead of only tools, Eisen was also able to use something like telekinesis on different materials. That meant that he could basically just craft things without moving a step using this skill, but that was no fun in the end. And so, the old man got started. He held the steel down onto the anvil and proceeded to swing Bai in its hammer-form down onto it. The moment that Eisen felt that satisfying resistance, a shiver of joy ran through his body like a wave. He stared down at the metal and continued to swing his hammer down onto it, shaping the metal to his will. For now, Eisen chose to just make something rather simple, and something that he could make without needing any material other than metal. And that was just a very simple, extremely thin knife that Eisen may be able to use to cut details out of leather more easily, or to cut through single threads on cloth as well. Bai¡¯s knife was great, but it was a bit thick for these sorts of things, so even if the multitool alwaysined quite heavily whenever he did so, the old man had to resort to using other tools than just Bai itself. This would basically be just like a scalpel in the scale of the de, but it would definitelye in useful either way. Eisen formed the small de and then just snapped off the excess metal from it, before cing it at the side of the forge so that it wouldn¡¯t cool down immediately so that he could use it for something else in a bit. The old man used Bai to shape the small de properly, even shrinking himself down so that he could get the details down properly. And then when he was done with the raw forging, Eisen simply walked over toward the grinding wheels and gave the scalpel-like de a proper edge, before using a whestone to finish it up. And with a satisfied smile, Eisen finished this simple item. [Scalpel] [Rank ¨C 6][Quality ¨C Perfect] [Description] A Scalpel made by the Godly Craftsmaster Eisen. It is madepletely of steel and has no special properties. The Divine Energies of the God of Craftsmanship¡¯s realm have seeped into this de and empowered its crafting properties, however. [Effect] \u003cSuperior Absorbability\u003e Trait, \u003cGod of Craftsmanship¡¯s Holy Aura\u003e Trait [Requirements] \u003cOriginal of the Mechanical Arts\u003e Title Jephas¡¯ eyes seemed to glitter for a moment and Eisen could feel something like ¡¯extended goosebumps¡¯, as he called the feeling he got when someone inspected an item he was holding or wearing specifically, and the lesser Goddess looked at Eisen a bit surprised immediately after. "You did not make it give you any sort of improvement for your Statistics?" She asked, "And what is this ¡¯Superior Absorbability¡¯? Do you want to improve onto this Scalpel some more?" Eisen looked at her and instantly shook his head with augh, "Of course not. I wouldn¡¯t have just made it from steel then. No, for one, this was to get a part of the quest I was given by Silmos out of the way. And beside that, this Scalpel is really just a small snack." The old man exined as he dangled the scalpel over his multitool with the de facing downward. Just a momentter, a crack appeared on the surface of the hammer, before it just ripped open even more. And then, the hammer grew a mouth with sharp teeth and a long, metallic white tongue as Bai partially transformed its body. Eisen let go of the scalpel and Bai caught it with its tongue before pulling it into its mouth while Eisen tried to use another one of his skills on the multitool for an improved effect. And after a few crunches and scratches caused by the sound of metal crushing up metal, Bai swallowed the scalpel. Immediately, Eisen raised his brows excitedly. "Ah, finally! It worked!" He eximed, and Jephas watched curiously as Eisen suddenly told Bai to transform into another form. Soon, it had turned into its regr knife form. At this point, the transformation had be quite different, as Eisen didn¡¯t need to take any parts off but they were just stored inside of Bai itself. So it was really like Bai was just shifting between different states rather than being a modr tool. And now, the whole de that Eisen was holdingpressed down and changed its shape, before he was holding a scalpel in his hand. The exact same one that Eisen just fed to Bai. "Jephas, I hope you don¡¯t mind if I make a few more tools here." Chapter 668 Multitool Enhancemen

Chapter 668 Multitool Enhancemen

Eisen swung Bai down onto the glowing hot metal in front of him with a broad, natural smile on his face. He was simply incredibly excited to be able to work here, and he was having quite a lot of fun doing so. Naturally, that helped with Eisen¡¯s performance and he managed to actually get a few things done more quickly than he usually would. And just now, Eisen was finishing the ninth instance of the exact same hammer that he had been trying to make so that he could feed them to Bai. While he was making his way through the different divine realms and was crafting things here and there, Eisen noticed something changing when he was cleaning up Bai a bit. For one, it was that Bai managed to find a way to integrate its new transformative abilities into the way that it was switching between the different ¡¯tool forms¡¯. Usually, Bai would just detach or attach certain parts of its body to end up with a certain tool form and Eisen had to hold onto those leftover parts for the time being. But now, Bai was able to practically ¡¯store¡¯ these pieces somewhere else within its body. It was like the parts were shifting through Bai¡¯s body and were absorbed, and thenter, produced by the multitool itself. And on top of that, once that was the case and Bai became more adept and controlling its own body at a new level, and once Eisen¡¯s ¡¯Item Fusion¡¯ skill ranked up a bit as well, the old man could make it so that Bai could absorb different tools that it ate in a new way. They would became part of the tool¡¯s body and it became able to shift certain parts of its form to be more like that tool. So far, Eisen wasn¡¯t able to addpletely new tools, however. For example, even though he made about two, or at this point maybe even three dozen ssblowing pipes and fed them to Bai, they didn¡¯t be part of its body. But when Eisen added a knew knife, like the scalpel from before, it was really just a slight changepared to what the base knife on the tool already was. These sorts of changes did happen. And now, Eisen was trying to add different types of hammers into Bai¡¯s arsenal so that he was more prepared for anything that Eisen had to make in the future. And now that he fed Bai so many of the exact same sort of hammer, Eisen let out a relieved sigh when he saw that Bai was now able to also shift its hammer-form into that exact one. These transformations were also a little bit weird as far as Eisen was concerned. Due to the way that Bai¡¯s original body was built, the hammer could be turned into a shovel, an axe, as well as a pickaxe. So of course, now that the shape of the hammer changed, that also changed the shape of those other three tools. It wasn¡¯t a huge difference, but in certain forms, the shovel couldn¡¯t be used properly for example. And that was because there was now a gap in the middle of the shovel that wasn¡¯t supposed to be there. But all that Bai had to do then was shift its body to the way it used to be again to fix that. But now that Eisen saw himself faced with this issue where theserge tools were affected by the transformative aspects, he figured that it was a good chance to change a bit about these as well. He could make a spade-head that the shovel could turn into, he could create different shapes for the axe that might be useful to get rid of different sorts of growths other than just regr trees. Thinking that this might be a pretty good thing to use and take advantage of, the old man chose to make those different sort of tools as well. The material didn¡¯t really seem to matter to Bai when it absorbed the tools, and the shape was the most important. The actual ¡¯essence¡¯ of the tool, basically. Although, Bai did seem to ept the tools more easily the higher-quality the materials were, so that was the main thing that Eisen was trying to focus on. And just like that, he started to create all of these tool-heads for different sorts of shovels, axes, and pickaxes that Eisen may be able to use in different situations. Basically, he was trying to turn Bai into the ultimate multitool where he could make use of it at any point without having to use any other tool. It would be useful if Bai, at some point, learned to do things simr to what Hephaestus was capable of. For example, splitting itself up into two parts and two separate tools. It might be useful at some point as well, but for now, it wasn¡¯t really all that important. Eisen looked at the forge and then took out the glowing hot metal sitting inside of it that he wanted to use to create all these tool-parts. Jephas, who had been watching Eisen the whole time, was simply sitting behind him, polishing and finishing up the hammer that she had made herself, "And that tool is really one that can feed on other tools?" She inquired. Eisen turned his head toward her and nodded, "Mhm, it is. Hm... I¡¯m sure you are aware of my fixation on the creation of true articial life, right?" "...I¡¯ve heard about it.??? Jephas admitted. The old man smiled back lightly, "Well, it seems like at some point before losing my memories, I created a tool for this purpose. In the end I didn¡¯t seem to need him, but Hephaestus was something of a superior Ego-Tool. He was familiar with close to every material, and close to every tool there was, and could transform his body into any such tool he wished to. For some reason, I ¡¯discarded¡¯ him back then, and he lived his life on his own. Since he had the passive ability to cause any sort of ego-item that he created to be an imitation of life directly rather than the real item, as if mutating somehow, and was unable to properly create regr items, he just spent his time working away and creating these ¡¯Living Ego-Items¡¯ that roamed around Silmos¡¯ ind in the mortal realm." "Oh! So that was where those came from. I did wonder about that, but our Lord never told us about that..." The lesser goddess pointed out. Eisen slowly smiled at her in response, "I was unaware at first as well. But either way, I met Hephaestus again and managed to ¡¯recruit¡¯ him, somewhat. He became a tool of mine once again, but specifically for the purpose of creating ¡¯Living Ego-Items¡¯. And then, because he¡¯s not the most patient being around, he used an active part of his passive ability and imbued life into Bai here. And so, it transformed into a humanoid shape, and somehow retained the ability to shapeshift. Ever since then, it had quite an appetite for any sort of tool, and I made sure to use that fact to my advantage." "...How curious..." Jephas muttered quietly as she listened to Eisen¡¯s story while the old man continued to work. He continued to forge, and continued to shape the metal to his will. And so, Eisen worked for a few hours, as much as he could. At some point he had created all of the tools that he wanted to feed to Bai, and the Multitool had even absorbed a fair amount of the Divine Energies flowing through this realm. Nearly enough to even gain the \u003cGod of Craftsmanship¡¯s Holy Aura\u003e Trait, Eisen assumed. Having this trait would definitely bring Bai as a tool to the next level, or so Eisen hoped. It should have a little bit of an effect, at least. But not only did Eisen create all of these different variations of tools, but he also created the metal parts for different weapons. Swords, daggers, warhammers, Eisen even created a few metallic parts for some staffs. Some Chains, needles, shuriken, throwing knives, and all sorts of other smaller items were also included in this, since they mighte in useful at any point in the future. And once Eisen was done, he tried to simply heat up some different metals and fold them over and over again so that they might be infused with a little bit of this realms divine energies themselves. But in the evening, Eisen found that Jephas had actually grown a little impatient after not being able to work for the whole day and having to watch Eisen do so the whole time instead. But since she had promised Eisen to let him work there for a while, she probably felt bad to interrupt him. And Eisen himself used that to the fullest, even if it may sound a bit excessive and mean. He had to use this chance he was given to the highest amount possible, and he probably would have been able to stretch the time he spent working there for even longer if he wanted to. So stopping now when Jephas was still eager to work instead of frustrated that she couldn¡¯t was probably the best idea. And so for now, the old man properly ced all of the metallic parts of the items he would maketer into his item storage, properly cleaning and sorting them. When Eisen was finished with this, the lesser goddess of cksmithing had already started to work again, eagerly waiting for the metal in the forge in front of her to heat up properly. With a light smirk on his face, happy to see a youngster excited about their craft like that, Eisen packed all of his things up and chose to sit down for a while, simply continuing to watch Jephas while taking a short break. He would log off for a whileter so that he could recover properly and then head off to the next workshop, but for now, it was nice to just undulge in the sounds of people hammering onto metal and the scent of smoke in the air. Eisen sat there and had his elemental spirit bring out a bottle of whisky for him that he chose to enjoy. Eisen didn¡¯t have many chances to indulge like this for a while now. Who knew, maybe Eisen was really just trying not to log off again, since it has been rather awkward for and tense for him in real lifetely. Either way, that didn¡¯t matter anymore as the alcohol flowed down the old man¡¯s throat and he tried to forget about his worries. Chapter 669 Dirmon

Chapter 669 Dirmon

With a heavy step, Eisen climbed up the stairs of the next workshop that he would end up working at for today to distract himelf from the memory that he had recovered after resting just a while ago. It wasn¡¯t something he truly wanted to remember, but he still had to in the end. It was part of him, and even though it was painful, it was important to him that he knew the way that his lovers in this world died. And so, after he woke up from such a horrid memory, Eisen chose to just get to work instead of dwelling on it. He would have plenty of time to deal with something like this in the future. This time around, Eisen made his way to the workshop of the lesser God of Woodworking, Dirmon. Luckily, Jephas quickly gave the old man all the locations of the other lesser gods¡¯ and goddesses¡¯ Workshops, and he could quickly choose which ones he should head to first and foremost. And for now, he chose to go for a Woodworking workshop, so that he could create the handles for all of the different tools and weapons that he started creating at Jephas¡¯ smithy. He made a few items that werepletely made of metal as well, even making some that had metallic handles just to test out thefort of them for a little while. But for the most part, Eisen still preferred wooden handles, if not for thefort, then for the aesthetic. And the moment that Eisen stepped inside, he was overwhelmed by the atmosphere that he found in here. In some parts, it was the same as Jephas¡¯ smithy, but in other parts, it was utterly different. The greatest thing that they had inmon was that there were numerous people working, trying their best to make sure they could create the best items that they could now that they no longer had any restraints on how much they could work and what materials they could work with to fulfill their passions. Eisen expected all of the different workshops to have this sort of atmosphere inmon. Those that were at the head of their craft, simply doing what they loved to do. And then, the greatest difference of course were things like the actual air. In a smithy, some could say that the air was rather stuffy, and that you often couldn¡¯t breath properly due to the smoke and the sting heat that you often experienced there. But this woodworking workshop had a cool, fresh air to it. It was a rather dry air, since humid air might mess with the wood a bit here and there, but it was refreshing nheless. It was a pleasant ce to work in, and the air was filled with the scent of freshly cut wood. It was the same kind of ce, but the vibe was different. Eisen thought it was great here, just as great as in the smithy he was just in. However, there was someone with Eisen that seemed more pre-upied with something else. "Just to make it clear, just because Jephas enjoyed yourpany does not mean that the other deities will as well. Be respectful this time, do you hear me?" Ambriel said to Eisen in a threatening tone, and the old man turned his head toward the Angel with a light re in his eyes, "Mhm." And to immediately follow up on this half-assed ¡¯promise¡¯, Eisen walked through the workshop toward the ce on the other side of the room, that was once more eerily simr to some sort of church, with that one workstation being something like an altar or shrine. Eisen raised his hand and waved at the man that was standing there, seemingly just having finished an item. Otherwise Eisen obviously wouldn¡¯t have done this and let him do his work, but since he didn¡¯t seem busy, the old man thought he¡¯d shove it in Ambriel¡¯s face a bit more like this. "Hey there, Dirmon!" Eisen eximed, and the God with a dwarven figure turned his head over toward Eisen. Well, Eisen thought ¡¯Dwarven Figure¡¯, but it wasn¡¯t really like that. It was more like he was a half-dwarf, maybe. It was hard to tell with Gods sometimes. They coulde in all shapes and sizes, after all. There were the few gods that came into being because they ascended from being regr mortal creatures, like Trygan for example, but there were also the sort of gods that simply came into being because of the forces of the world or because they were created by another god. Sometimes they took on the form of regr races that existed, sometimes they would take on the form of halfling races, and sometimes they seemed as if they hand-picked certain aspects from different races as if they were assembling their own body like at a build-a-bear. And of course, sometimes they didn¡¯t look like any actual race that truly existed in the world, or mixed aspects of their own holy domain into their form. In the case of the lesser gods, it was usually the case that they were either directly created by the god that they served, or they were half-gods that ascended to full godhood at some point or another. Those were the only ¡¯people¡¯ that were allowed to ascend to godhood somehow, and they didn¡¯t even need to reach the peak. They just had to prove their worth to the other gods, probably in a simr fashion as Eisen was just now. By being acknowledged by them. More often than not, these ascended half-gods would end up serving their parent in some way or another, but there were rare cases in which that ascended half-god was more fit to be the part of the domain of another deity. In the case of Dirmon, this was the case. Eisen actually only found this out when he was in the realm of the God of Nature, Ohm. Dirmon was the child of Ohm, a god that took the shape of a Dryad-like man whose body could bepared to a hollowed-out tree that different animals lived in, as well as a Dwaven Craftswoman. And now, Dirmon looked mostly like a Dwarf-Human Halfling, just that he had more Dryad-Like aspects to him as well. His skin looked like a somewhat sickly dark gray with a brown-green tinge to it, and his thick beard and hair was slightly overgrowing with moss and branches. But somehow, this didn¡¯t seem unhygienic at all, to Eisen it just seemed natural when he looked at this man on the other side of the room. Eisen would nearly say that he looked more god-like than some of the other gods that Eisen had seen before... Especially Jephas just looked like a normal human woman. There was nothing wrong with that, she simply didn¡¯t seem all to divine to Eisen. When Dirmon spotted Eisen approach, he looked around in confusion, "Wait, but- Ye¡¯re Eisen, right?" "The one and only." The old man replied as he could practically feel Ambriel staring daggers into the back of his head, and Dirmon stepped down the stairs in front of his workstation with a heartyugh as he opened his arms wide. "Aye, great to see ya again!" He eximed. Eisen actually specifically remembered Dirmon, because he was one of the three lesser deities of craftsmanship that didn¡¯t approach him back when Eisen and the others met all of the gods. And there was a reason for that, a reason that Eisen had remembered together with the vague knowledge that he had about his own apprentices, as well as the students of the others. That¡¯s right, Dirmon was one of Eisen¡¯s former apprentices. Eisen could feel a slight tingling in the back of his mind, meaning that he would most likely end up remembering a few more things about Dirmon when he went to sleep tonight, "What brings ya ¡¯ere, ya geezer? Wait, ye ain¡¯t dead, are ya?" The lesser god asked, his expression suddenly turning into a worried one, but Eisen shook his head immediately. "You know as well as I do that that¡¯s literally impossible. I would like to speak about old times, but I¡¯m afraid that I really can¡¯t right now. After all, I-" "Lost yer memories, aye. No way I wouldn¡¯t remember. ¡¯Tis all the others ever speak about, those old farts." Dirmon pointed out, and Eisenughed slightly, "You¡¯re not exactly the youngest yourself, you know?" "Aye, butpared to them, I am. I¡¯m barely 90 thousand years old. I¡¯m a youngster ¡¯ere!" The lesser god said with a smug expression, and Eisen just looked at the man with a light smile on his face, "I¡¯m d that you¡¯re enjoying yourself." "How couldn¡¯t I? I became the god of the thing I love most. Nothin¡¯ better than that." Dirmon pointed out smugly. Eisen looked at him with a smirk, "And that¡¯s all ¡¯cause of yer guidance. Figured I¡¯d say it again since we haven¡¯t spoken in this ¡¯life¡¯ of yours." But before Eisen could respond this time, he could hear a scoff from behind him, quite obviouslying out of a certain cocky¡¯s angel¡¯s mouth. The old man tried not to pay them and heed, and instead just focused back on Dirmon, "If you want to really show me your gratitude for my guidance, how about you let me work at your station for a while?" After the old man¡¯s question, Dirmon raised his brows for a few moments, looked at his workstation behind him, and then started tough, "Aye, should¡¯ve expected that yer ¡¯ere for that! C¡¯mon over, ya can get right started. Use any tools ya want, I¡¯ve got plenty. And if ya want materials, then there¡¯s some I could give ya too. Some that I¡¯m sure ya would die for." Eisen immediately raised his brows out of curiosity, "I¡¯m good on tools for now, but those materials are another story... Anything interesting?" "Of course, of course. Well, it¡¯s actually a sorta tree that ye¡¯n that monkey boy introduced to use at some point. It¡¯s what we make most of our tools out of these days, cause it¡¯s just perfect for ¡¯em. Even Silmos¡¯ tools have this wood used for ¡¯em." "Oh?" The old man replied with clear interest in his voice, "True, I didn¡¯t really recognize that wood from that handle..." Eisen muttered quietly to himself, thinking back on the handle that Jephas had attached to the hammer-head she made when the old man arrived to her smithy. Since Eisen obviously was unable to resist such an offer, he looked straight at the lesser god in front of him and nodded his head, before being led to the infinitelyrge material-storage. Chapter 670 Bat of the Yin and Yang Dragons

Chapter 670 Bat of the Yin and Yang Dragons

Dirmon and Eisen stopped in front of a particr area within the material storage. In general, there was all the wood that one might need here, in every shape and size that you could think of, in of course every single type of wood there was, but somehow this area seemed to be evenrger and more important than all of the others. The wood had a light-brown color and a quite beautiful grain inbination with that color. There were huge blocks or small nks of this material. Rather curious, Eisen grabbed one of the smaller pieces of wood, and was surprised when he did so. And that was because the wood seemed close to weightless. At first Eisen was so confused that he thought maybe his strength stat suddenly doubled, but that wasn¡¯t the case. Rather, the wood really was just that impossibly light. Eisen raised his head and looked at Dirmon, who already expected this sort of question, "Aye, that be why we¡¯re usin¡¯ this wood. It¡¯s incredibly strong when it¡¯s been ¡¯approved¡¯ by us, but now it really is quite easy to carve or cut up. It¡¯s light, but we can add a lil¡¯ bit of weight to it when we finish the item. And even the color and grain can change a bit when we finish up, just naturally without any paint." Eisen leaned forward and looked at the wood a bit more closely, "And this was something created by me and Jyuuk in coboration?" The old man asked. Dirmon immediately nodded his head, "Aye, ye made it as a present for Silmos. Hence, ya called it Silmwood as well. One of the best materials I ever worked with, if not the best." After Dirmon¡¯s exnation, Eisen slowly looked back at the wood and ran his fingers over its surface. It did seem pretty interesting, and there was a surprising amount of natural mana imbued into it. That made the old man wonder about something else as well. "Is there a magic version of this material as well?" The old man inquired, and Dirmon slightly smirked as he nodded his head instantly, "Aye, of course there is!" With a broad smile on his face, Dirmon led Eisen through the storage area, until Eisen could practically feel the whole aura of the space change. With his truth-seeing eyes, he was able to see that this now was the area that held all of the different magic woods that would be used for staffs and wands. And soon, the old man saw what seemed to be the magic version of the special wood that he saw just now. Largely, it seemed to have simr properties to that wood before, just that the amount of magic that could flow through it was surreally high. With a a curious smile, the old man turned over toward the lesser god next to him, "Are you sure that I can take some of these?" He asked, and Dirmon immediately nodded his head. "Aye, ¡¯course you can. Knock yerself out!" Dirmon eximed with a loudugh, and Eisen didn¡¯t hesitate to follow up on that. He opened his item storage and ced a couple of blocks and nks of this special, magical wood into it. And then, the old man of course headed over toward the ¡¯normal¡¯ version of this wood, although there was actually nothing really normal about it in the first ce. He grabbed some of them and closed his item storage again, before he headed back out of the storage area altogether. And then, Eisen stood in front of the workstation that Dirmon allowed him to work at, and opened his item storage again. He waved his hand to the side and summoned his elemental spirit, who quickly got to work on grabbing all of the things that Eisen would need for him while the old man took Bai out of his item storage. The moment that Eisen got his hands on the special Silmwood, he ran Bai in its knife-form over its surface. To begin with, Eisen figure he should make a small item that waspletely made of wood, to for one get used to this material properly, and to also get that part out of the way for the quest that he was given when he entered this realm. And in the end, Eisen chose something rather simple to make with it, and it was just a simple bat. A baseball bat. It seemed like it would be useful as a weapon for some people, and if he didn¡¯t have any sort of actual use for it himself, he could always give this to Brody and let him use it when Eisen got back to the mortal realm. At the very least that Demon-Orc should be able to make use of a baseball bat properly in a fight. Of course, for this, Eisen started by just creating the rough shape with Bai¡¯s help, and then ced the piece of wood into athe so that he could rather easily get this done. The Lathe started spinning around rather quickly, and Eisen used Bai to carve it into the right shape, albeit maybe still a slight bit too thick because of what the old man wanted to do next. For one, he took the bat out of thethe and proceeded to quickly clean up the sawdust that was stuck to it. And then, the old man sat down on a stool and started to carve into the bat again. It seemed a bit too simple to just create a regr bat like that, so Eisen thought he should make it at least a little bit more interesting. The old man looked down at the wood and slowly thought about what he should carve into it. If this was supposed to be an item that he would give to Brody, maybe he should theme it in that way as well. Maybe give it something like a yin-yang vibe. Eisen thought about it for a little bit, and then chose to go for exactly that. And since this would be made for Brody, Eisen also didn¡¯t need to put any enchantments onto it. After all, Brody didn¡¯t have any mana to activate them in the first ce. And so, the old man quickly created a visualization right in front of him to figure out the rough shape of the carvings he would put onto the bat. In the end, he chose something that was only vaguely based on yin and yang. Actually, he wanted to make soemthing simr to the paintbrush that he created in Trygan¡¯s realm. Two Chinese Dragons, one ck and one white, intertwining with each other and meeting at the tip of the bat. The old man slowly pushed the edge of his knife against the wood and started to carve without a moment¡¯s hesitation. The small splinters of wood fell to the ground as the old man worked and carved the bat into the shape that he wanted it to be incredibly quickly. It didn¡¯t take long for Eisen to finish with this either, and then, he got a pretty good idea of what else he could do to maybe make this a special item for Brody after all. The old man hollowed out the bodies of the dragons. He didn¡¯t just create a single hollow space in the bat, of course, but it was as if he created the throat and insides of the dragons¡¯ bodies. For this, he even went so far as to carve individual teeth for the two dragons, trying to make them seem as alive as absolutely possible. And soon, he managed to do just that. The two dragons seemed alive, just frozen in time. Hopefully, they would end up looking a bit more alive when Brody actually used this in the way that the old man intended. He held the bat in his hand for a moment and felt the tails of the two dragons slowly wrap around his fingers, just like he intended, and then ran his fingers over the wood. All that Eisen had to do now was paint it properly to make sure the bat was protected from the elements. Eisen looked toward his elemental spirit, who had already gotten out Eisen¡¯s own painting-tools together with the item that Eisen made to create the paint for him with Evalia¡¯s element. He grabbed the first,rger brush, and dunked it into a bit of special white metallic paint. So that it wouldn¡¯t clump together, Eisen of course had to apply multipleyers of this, and he quickly got started with the first one and waited for it to dry. Here, this happened rather quickly. After just a few minutes, the bat was ready for Eisen to apply the nextyer to it. Soon, the old man finished painting the bat in the slightly shining colors. Of course, the metallic paint was mainly added to make the bat hold a bit more force when Brody used it to smack someone over the head. And now, Eisen was done with this item. [Bat of the Yin- and Yang-Dragons] [Rank ¨C 6][Quality ¨C Perfect] [Description] A wooden bat made by the Godly Craftsmaster Eisen. It was made using the special Silmwood from the Divine Realm of the God of Craftsmanship Silmos. It takes the shape of two intertwining dragons, one representing the calm Yang and one representing the fiery Yin. Their hollow interior was added so that certain Martial Arts Techniques could be fully made use of. It is overflowing with the God of Craftsmanship¡¯s Holy Aura, as it was made in his Divine Realm. [Effect] +150 STR, +150 AGI, +100 END, +25% Benefit to Yin-Yang Martial Arts; \u003cBreath of Yin\u003e Trait, \u003cBreath of Yang\u003e Trait, \u003cGod of Craftsmanship¡¯s Holy Aura\u003e Trait [Requirements] \u003cOriginal of Combat\u003e Title Eisen ran his hands over the smooth surface of the bat with a smile on his face as he looked at the high-quality effects that were mainly made possible due to the requirement that literally only one being in this world held. That meant that, including Eisen, there were only two people that could wield this, and there was only one person that could truly make use of this. Brody, who, instead of a magical element, had Yin and Yang energy. This bat was something that Eisen made, inspired by the time he saw Brody¡¯s body be infused with those two energies during a fight. Surely, the \u003cBreath of Yin\u003e and the \u003cBreath of Yang\u003e traits were created through that sentiment, and were something that only Brody would be able to make use of while he was in that form. With a curious smile on his face, excited to see the Demon-Orc wield this bat sometime, the old man ced the finished item into his item storage. Chapter 671 Everwood

Chapter 671 Everwood

Eisen ran Bai over the wood in his hand and shaped it into a handle for some different items and tools that the old man made. It seemed like Bai was getting a little bit hungry again, so Eisen first finished a couple of tools that he could feed to it instead. Because most of these tools were supposed to be neither for Eisen, nor for Bai to eat. But instead, they were supposed to be gifts for his friends and apprentices. Tools that he could give them to show them how much he appreciated them. Having tools that were made with materials that could only be found in divine realms that he had gathered over the past few Divine Realms that he¡¯s been in, integrating them into the tools and weapons to make them more powerful and generally more potent. And of course, the fact that these tools were infused with the Divine Energy of Silmos¡¯ realm, practically the raw essence of craftsmanship itself, would most likely make the others quite happy as well. The old man held the finished handle in his hand and rubbed his fingers over it as he pushed it onto the metal parts that he had prepared beforehand in Jephas¡¯ workshop. He didn¡¯t acknowledge it as finished yet despite how bad he wanted, simply because he still needed to add some leather to all of these handles to properly finish them up. But even then, he was itching to see what this wood was actually like once Eisen acknowledged it as finished. With the bat, he was only able to see a few small parts because most of it was covered in the metallic paint, as such he wasn¡¯t able to truly figure out what he could do with this wood and what the extent of this material was. And so, to just test this out a little bit, Eisen created a number of small wooden knives instead. Training knives, basically, just to test this out as a material. And he didn¡¯t even try to make them all thatplicated, but they were rather just extremely straightforward, without any Guard or such. Heid the pale wooden knives down in front of him. The old man carved sharp edges into them and even ground them down properly so that they could cut well. In the end, the only thing that stopped a wooden de from being at the same level as one made of high quality steel was the fact that wood was softer, and hence dulled or broke incredibly easily. The sharpness of the edge didn¡¯t depend on the material, really. And if Eisen managed to create apletely wooden weapon that was on par with metal weapons, then it might be something worth exploring. Although, so far, Eisen didn¡¯t find any wood that was better than the metals Eisen could make use of, hence why he was so curious about this. If it was really as great a material as Dirmon imed it was, then maybe it was enough so that Eisen would be able to create some new sorts of weapons. After all, while a de like that would certainly not be incredibly superior to a metal de, it did have some benefits. For one, a wooden de was obviously going to be much, much lighter than any metal de. Except if one enchanted a metal de with anti-gravity enchantments, of course. And on top of that, Eisen was pretty sure that a wooden de would be able to interact with certain abilities in a different way. Nature-based abilities would indubitably receive a bit of a benefit from apletely wooden weapon. If Eisen was able to spread those sorts of weapons, then it might create new upations or maybe even special skills and abilities. But then again... The old man would not be able to take a wood like this with him to the point where he would be able to mass-produce weapons. Eisen thought about it for a little while and then figured he should test out whether or not this worked in the first ce. Otherwise, such thoughts werepletely useless. He stretched his hand out to the first of the des and quickly acknowledged it as finished. Ignoring the notifications that appeared immediately after, Eisen rather looked at the finished item itself. First, Eisen wanted to test out the actual possible strength of the wood without changing anything else. And so, after the wood became a proper item, the old man picked it up. To his surprise, the wood really did be incredibly strong. And if he said ¡¯incredibly strong¡¯, then that¡¯s what it meant. It was definitely harder than some metals. It wasn¡¯t necessarily tougher or stronger than steel or something like that, but if Eisen just chose topress wood like this, then he might be able to achieve it after all. And since enchantments were also a thing, Eisen could try to strengthen the wooden de itself a little more with that. Either way, next, Eisen tried to acknowledge the next of the des as finished. This time, just to figure it out, he tried to make it so that the wood would be as soft as possible after being acknowledged as finished. At first, nothing really seemed to have happened despite the fact that the regr notifications appeared, but when he picked the wooden knife up, the wood practically caved in to his touch. It became incredibly soft, to the point where he could shape it in his hands like y. It was a weird senstation, considering that it still had the texture of regr wood. Either way, after that came the third test. And that was how rapidly and how strong the changes in strenght within a singr item can be. For that, Eisen tried to make it so that there was bascially a checkered pattern on the de. One field would be as weak as possible, and one part would be as strong as possible. And when he finished this, Eisen ran his fingers over the surface of the de and pressed his finger down as hard as he could. In the softer areas, the wood was pushed in a little and in the harder areas it simply wasn¡¯t. Like this, Eisen was able to easily figure out the gradient change of this sort of material. "Pretty good... Not like a clean edge, but there really is just a small gradient. Good to know." The old man muttered to himself, and then quickly moved on to the next sort of small tests he wanted to go for. Instead of trying to change something on the strength, he did it with their appearance instead. He managed to make the despletely white without any sort of grain, and he could make them neon green with a wild, strong grain. Eisen even managed to make a wooden rainbow de with a grain that got gradually stronger the closer it was to the handle. To him, it seemed as if Eisen managed to figure the capabilities of this wood out pretty well for now, although he wasn¡¯t entirely sure how it worked. With a curious expression, he wondered if it would be possible to somehow take a seed for this tree with him and then breed them down in the mortal realm. Or maybe there were already some of these just randomly hidden there. As if he was able to read the old man¡¯s mind, Dirmon started tough, "Oi, don¡¯t¡¯cha even think ¡¯bout it. The only way it can exist is cause of this divine realm. Otherwise it¡¯s just gonna be apletely random tree that you¡¯ll have to deal with, ya know?" The lesser God of Woodworking pointed out. Eisen turned his head toward him and thought about what Dirmon just said, piecing together this information with the facts about Divine Realms that he had learned over the past little while. "Ah... So that¡¯s how it works. This wood is basically abination of all types of wood there are, right?" The old man inquired, and Dirmon nodded his head surprised. "Ya remember?" "I don¡¯t. Just a lucky guess. How does this work, really? I¡¯d assume you know." Eisen said curiously. "Aye. Dunno how ya two did it, but at some point, ya came here with some seeds in tow you wanted to try out, grew ¡¯em ¡¯ere, and then we kinda started usin¡¯ it. But the way that ya exined it was just like ya said. Another name for this is ¡¯Everwood¡¯. Ya can choose any sorta qualities from any sorta tree, mix ¡¯em together, and boom, you¡¯ve got a unique sorta wood that fits yer every need." The lesser God exined in a smug tone, although he was technically speaking to the one that originally created this wood in the first ce. With a light smile on his face, Eisen realized what this meant, "So basically, wood that¡¯s as strong as this does exist?" The old man inquired as he handed Dirmon the first dagger that he made. He looked down at it with an analyzing gaze and soon nodded his head. "Aye, ¡¯course it does. Called ¡¯Kirmon¡¯. It¡¯s too hard to work with so it¡¯s never really used, but it¡¯s out there. Actually, it should be native to yer home country!" Dirmon eximed, and Eisen raised his brows surprised, "Oh really? Kirmon, huh? Interesting..." The old man muttered to himself. This was wood that was strong but flexible, wood that wouldn¡¯t chip or dent easily. It was exactly what Eisen was hoping for. "Alright then, that¡¯s good to know. Guess I should keep that in mind." Eisen smirked as he made a mental note about this. And then, vitalized after hearing this amazing news, Eisen continued his work. He looked at all of the items that he hadid out in front of him that he still had to finish the wooden portion of. For some of them, he couldn¡¯t even attach those parts, mostly some of the handles, yet, because there was a step that he had to go through for these before then. For these, he would just finish all the parts until he was ready to set everything together. Either way, with a satisfied smile on his face, Eisen continued his work with Dirmon standing beside him, curiously watching his former teacher work again. Of course, they were no longer simply ¡¯Teacher¡¯ and ¡¯Student¡¯. Eisen didn¡¯t have any sort of authority over someone that came so far that he was able to ascend to godhood for his talent in his craft, and he certainly couldn¡¯t act like he was superior to Dirmon. Currently, while Eisen didn¡¯t get back all of his memories yet, Dirmon was obviously superior in skill when it came to Woodworking. For now, all of these lesser gods were superior in skill than Eisen in their specific areas of expertise. Eisen eagerly waited for the day that would no longer be the case. Chapter 672 Hinaja

Chapter 672 Hinaja

With a tight squeeze, Eisen shook Dirmon¡¯s hand as the old man got ready to leave the workshop. He had done all that he needed to do here for now. If something else came up, he could alwayse back and go for it, but for now, Eisen thought he shouldn¡¯t waste too much time and move on to the next ce. "It was nice to see you again. I¡¯m sorry that I didn¡¯t remember you so that we could speak to each other about the old days some." The old man pointed out, "Remembering things is incredibly mentally draining at the moment." With a loudugh, Dirmon looked back at Eisen, "Ya really do sound like an old man, don¡¯t¡¯cha?" He eximed, and Eisen looked back at him with a slow nod, "Well, I know how to act my age, at least." Dirmon slowly looked at his former teacher and then turned back toward the ground, "Listen, I know that yer a bit worried about what ya were like in the past. And sure, over time, ya sure did change. But yer a hundred thousand years old, there¡¯d be no way that ya wouldn¡¯t have changed. I¡¯d be more surprised then." "Of course, I realize that. But that¡¯s not really my main issue here. I¡¯m mostly scared about two things. One, did I slowly turn into a bad person over time? And two... Will I be that person again once I recovered all my memories properly?" Dirmon looked up at the sky in thought as he was trying to find something to say to the old man in front of him, before he slowly did just that, albeit in a sligthly weird way, "Oak will be oak. Spruce will be spruce. Sure, they can turn into the handle of a tool, or they can turn into beautiful furniture. But in the end, they will always be the same sort of wood that they started out as. I don¡¯t think ya ever really became a bad person. Sure, I never really saw ya in thest few hundred years, but ye are quite the hot topic ¡¯ere. Whenever a determined craftsman dies andes to this realm, new rumors start spreadin ¡¯bout you. I never heard anythin¡¯ too bad. Sure, ya pissed off a guy here and there, but who doesn¡¯t?" The Lesser God said in a reassuring tone. He smiled softly at the old man, who couldn¡¯t help but feel slightly reassured by what he was just told. It was a bit of a weird feeling, considering that it¡¯s been decades that he¡¯s been given advice in such a form. It made him feel a little immature to an extent, but for the most part, Eisen was able to stop worrying about that, considering that the sort of issue he had was something that literally nobody, except four others, ever had to deal with in the existence of everything. The old man took a deep breath and nodded his head. He felt reassured by what this literal god told him, and chose to quickly pull him in for a hug. Eisen could hear a quiet groan from right behind him, most likelying from Ambriel, as far as he could tell, but Eisen just ignored them and enjoyed hugging one of his oldest apprentices ever. Eisen was a hugger, although he didn¡¯t really get that many chances to do sotely. He was d that it came to it now again, though. The old man took a deep breath as he looked at Dirmon, "Thank you for your advice, and thanks for letting me work at your workshop. It looks honestly amazing. Did you create it yourself in the way that all these souls do with their houses?" Dirmon slowly turned around and looked up at his giant workshop before shaking his head, "Nay, Argn made it. Ya should go meet ¡¯im as well, he might give ya a lot of insight on masonry. ¡¯Specially might be useful for those portable structures ya told me about." "Hmm... You really think so?" The old man asked with his brow raised curiously. Amongst all of the different lesser Gods that he could visit here in this realm, it was true that Argn was certainly on the lower end of the list. After all, it wasn¡¯t like Eisen had any particrly special connection to him. He wasn¡¯t his apprentice, and Eisen wouldn¡¯t really be able to create any buildings either. Well, that¡¯s what he thought at least. Eisen might actually be able to create a few portable structures, just like Dirmon suggested. Or at the very least, he could create a few rough bluebrints for portable structures that he could create. If possible, he may simply try and upgrade his current portable shop a little to try and get Silmos¡¯ Holy Aura into it. A workshop like that would surely give Eisen a few benefits, at the very least when it was working together with his ¡¯Crafting Realm¡¯ skill. "Alright, I¡¯ll be sure to visit him as well. For now, I was thinking I should head off to get some leatherwork done, since I¡¯ll need it for the rest of the tools here." Eisen pointed out, and Dirmon slowly nodded. "Aye, sounds like a n. I¡¯ve gotta head back in. T¡¯was really great to see ya again, teach." Dirmon said with a broad, hearty smile on his face, and Eisen looked back at him with a nod, "Likewise, Dirmon." And so, Eisen activated his Draconic Demon King transformation and pped his wings, swiftly lifting off from the ground before making his way to the next workshop after this quite uplifting conversation. It took Eisen a while to get there, considering the sheer size of this huge heavenly city, but soon, Eisennded in front of hte Leatherworking Workshop of the lesser Goddess Hinaja. He deactivated his transformation and swiftly stepped inside of the shop. And just like Eisen expected, the base vibe that this ce gave off was the same as the other two before this, but it still had a quite unique feeling to it just because of the sounds and smells that were travelling through the air. "My guess is that you will simply continue with your sphemous, disrespectful behavior from now on as well?" Ambriel asked with a hate-filled re, that would have certainly killed Eisen if Ambriel had the power to do so. "I will. Got a problem with that?" Eisen asked. "Is that even a question?" The Angel replied with a scoff. "I guess. Either way, it¡¯s not like I really care. If you¡¯re so bothered by it, you can just leave." The old man said, his voice hinting at the fact that he would actually rather prefer it if Ambriel just chose to leave and nevere back. But since Eisen knew that they were never going to do that, he just chose to try and keep ignoring them, like he had been doing up until now. He stepped through the room, approaching the woman that was standing there with a ratherzy demeanor. Lazy didn¡¯t mean that she wasn¡¯t working or something like that, it just meant that she was constantly tired, a trait that Eisen was reminded of by both Jephas and Dirmon as he was speaking to them. And of course, there were a few small parts about her that Eisen remembered in the first ce. After all, this was another one of Eisen¡¯s former apprentices. The little bit that he did know about her was that she was the one that actually sought down the old man and that they didn¡¯t just randomly meet each other like it was the case with Dirmon. Instead, back then, Hinaja was a rather energetic young woman that wanted to get all the help she needed to prove herself to her godly parent, Silmos. She really just looked like a human woman, for the most part, although there were a few smaller details about her that were quite obviously not traits that a human would have. Her eyes were glowing in a pink color, and insted of having normal round pupils, she had X¡¯s as pupils instead. Her long hair seemed to be practically floating weigthlessly, which is why instead of a normal headband, she had one that was made of more heavy materials, seemingly something like slightly stic, metallic threads that she had one of the other deities specifically make for her. But for the most part, that was where her ¡¯Godly¡¯ traits stopped. As far as Eisen could tell so far, most half-gods had some forms of godlike physical traits to them, things that simply weren¡¯t natural and showed that they themselves were not from this normal ne. Quite often, this affected the eyes, since they held quite a lot of meaning and power on their own. Sometimes they were just internally different, having two hearts or three lungs, or seven stomachs for all Eisen remembered. Eisen looked at the outwardly young woman and watched as she rubbed her eyes, surprised to see Eisen. It seemed like her angels were simr to her in that way... While Dirmon¡¯s angels simply had wood-like, mossy wings and otherwise were still their own entities, these angels were creepily close to Hinaja even in personality. For one, all of their eyes were simr to Hinaja¡¯s, simply in a slightly softer shade of pink, while their wings were a pale, nearly faded blue like the lesser Goddess¡¯. And close to half of them werezily standing around, daydreaming and obviously wishing to sleep. And the other half was in the middle of doing that, tantly sitting in random ces in this workshop and napping for some reason. It didn¡¯t seem like Hinaja cared too much though. Rather, it was more like she was jealous that they didn¡¯t have her responsibilities and could just always sleep whenever they wanted to. The Lesser Goddess turned her head toward Eisen with a surprised expression, just like Jephas and Dirmon did before, "Huh..?" She asked surprised and kept staring at the old man for a while, but instead of doing or saying something else as a followup, Hinaja just stood there and lightly tilted her head to the side, as if she was trying to figure out of this was really Eisen or if she was just half-asleep somehow. The old man looked back at her and lightly smiled, "It¡¯s nice to see you again, Hinaja." She looked back at Eisen and slowly opened her eyes wider as she realized that this wasn¡¯t actually just a dream, but instead, that Eisen, her former teacher, was actually standing in front of her. Hinaja rubbed her eyes for a moment and stared at the man in front of her. "Huh?!" Chapter 673 Cracking Knuckles

Chapter 673 Cracking Knuckles

Eisen swiftly cut some high-quality leather into strips that he could wrap around the handles of his toolster. He did do so for some of the tools or weapons already, but even then, Eisen still couldn¡¯t finish these as there were other crafting skills that he wanted to use with this. And just to see if there would be some form of benefit to it, the old man figured he should try and go ahead to just use a certain few specific skills in the workshop of the lesser deity that was responsible for it. He only used cksmithing in Jephas¡¯ workshop, only used Woodworking in Dirmon¡¯s workshop, and right now only used Leatherworking in Hinaja¡¯s workshop. It might be a bit of a waste of time to some, since it wouldn¡¯t take long to finish most of these items now, but the old man was still curious just for the sake of it. For now, he really only created some smaller items. He made a small backpack to continue the quest he was given in this realm, and beside that mostly prepared the parts for the different other items that he still had to finish up. And now, he figured he should work on another thing that he could make as a gift to others that was made of leather. For one, he wanted to make some different shoes for the people still waiting for him in the mortal realm, but he also figured that making some new aprons for everyone, including himself, might be a pretty good idea. He grabbed the leather that Hinaja suggested he should use, and thenid it out on therge worksurface right in front of him. Eisen oveyed his visualized blueprint for everything onto the leather and proceeded to quickly cut all the pieces out so that he could start with the aprons. "Oh? What are you making?" Hinaja asked curiously as she leaned over the table a bit. Eisen turned his head toward her while his knife was still gliding through the thick leather, cutting it up. "Just a few gifts for some friends and my current apprentices." The old man exined. Hearing this, Hinaja raised her brows a bit surprised, "Apprentices..? You¡¯ve got new ones?" She asked, although Eisen vividly remembered telling her about them just an hour ago while they were chatting. "Yeah I do. They¡¯re quite promising, I have to say." Eisen pointed out. Hinaja looked down at the movements of Eisen¡¯s hands and as if mesmerized, replied to the old man, "Oh..? That so..?" "Mhm, that so." He said, before bringing up something else that slightly worried him, "I¡¯m sorry if I already knew, but is there a particr reason why you¡¯re this tired all the time?" Eisen inquired. The lesser goddess raised her head to look at him and then slowly nodded. "Yup~... When I was still a mortal, I formed a contract with a couple of people and started supplying them physical energy... You can call it Stamina, essentially. I don¡¯t really want to get into it but... At some point, my stamina pool became smaller and smaller, and now I¡¯m here..." Hinaja exined, "But I don¡¯t really mind. I like sleep... And I can still work properly, so I don¡¯t see any issues here..." Eisen looked back at the goddess and slowly nodded his head. If she didn¡¯t want to get into what exactly happened, then that was fine. This was enough for Eisen to know. At the very least, he did know the most basic part of what happened, she made the active choice to let something like this happen. It was her own responsibility. It wasn¡¯t some sort of tragic ident or that someone stole her stamina from her. It was her own choice that led her here, and while Eisen still felt slightly bad about it, he was pretty sure that Hinaja could so something about this if she really wanted to. She was a literal goddess. Sure, a Lesser Goddess, but that didn¡¯t mean that she didn¡¯t have an immense amount of power and authority. Some of the other gods, or maybe even some mortals, would be able to help her out in some way or another. Maybe Eisen even found a way to do so in the past already, but she maybe declined for all he knew. Eisen didn¡¯t really understand why she made a choice like that in the end, why she chose to live like this, but as long as she was happy, Eisen didn¡¯t really mind. He looked back down at the things he was working on, gathering the different pieces for the aprons togehter. For everyone, he chose a slightly different sort of leather depending on their expertise and personality. Simply, things that would fit them better as a person. After all, it was easier for someone to work with a thick leather apron if the person in question was strong,rge and heavy, rather than frail, short and light. And some people liked it if an apron like this was heavier, while others liked them to be basically weightless. Eisen focused on all of these aspects as he was making these items. He tried to make sure that everyone received the perfect piece of equipment for themselves, basically. The old man ced the parts together properly and tried to bundle them up with all of the pieces. For now, he couldn¡¯t do anything with this yet, considering that basically every single one of the pieces would end up having some enchantments ced onto them before Eisen could put these together. Then, he and the Elemental Spirit brought them over to Eisen¡¯s item storage so that he could properly bring them with him to the next workshop. Eisen woulde backter when he would put them back together after enchanting them, though, since that was still directly part of Leatherwork, and an important one at that, so he wanted to make sure he did really properly get the right sort of benefits, if there were any, even. When the old man brought all these parts away, he stretched for a moment and cracked his knuckles to loosen his fingers up again after all of this work. "...I hate when you do that." Hinaja pointed out with an annoyed facial expression, and Eisen turned toward her surprised, "Hm? Did I use to do this often?" He asked, and the lesser goddess slowly nodded her head in response. "All the time. And I hate it." She said bluntly as Eisen looked down at his hands, "Fair enough... I don¡¯t remember when I started doing this, though, it¡¯s kind of always been a passive habit of mine. It helps properly loosen my hands up, although I might be imagining it in the end." "Probably." Hinaja pointed out as she sat back down on one of the chairs behind her tiredly, closing her eyes with a loud yawn. "I¡¯m tired..." She muttered, and Eisen looked at her with his brows raised. "Youin about my bad habits, before thenzing around? Is that not somewhat hypocritical?" Eisen asked. Hinaja shrugged, "Probably. But I like sleeping, I don¡¯t like hearing your fingers crack. That¡¯s the difference." With a slight sigh, Eisen looked back at the lesser goddess of leatherworking and smiled slightly. Usually, he would find that sort of attitude rather annoying, but when it came to Hinaja, it was weirdly endearing to an extent. Maybe it was because Eisen technically knew her, but he just didn¡¯t really remember her yet, but that¡¯s what went through his mind at least. But for now, that mattered very little to Eisen. Because at the moment, he just wanted to make some shoes. Kinds that went with formal suits, or boots that you could wear out on a hike. He wanted to make a few different ones for different asions and people, so that they would have different sets avable to them depending on the situation they were in. Combat, casual, traveling, anything should be fine and have their own sort of shoe. Well, Eisen walked around barefoot everywhere, so it didn¡¯t really matter to him, but even Eisen figured he needed some shoes depending on the situation that could help him out somehow or another. For examples, the shoes he had when he first met that transcendent monster seemed pretty interesting. In situations where Eisen wasn¡¯t able to properly make use of his transformation to just fly away, being able to move around freely anyway sounded like a pretty good thing. And when Eisen was done cutting out all of the pieces for the shoes, most of which he also still had to enchant before being able to do anything else, he made everything else that he wanted to make. Backpacks, pouches, anything that he could think of really. And since he mostly didn¡¯t go beyond cutting out the pieces, he was able to make the parts for alot of different items that he could work on soon. But at some point, Eisen was finished with what he could do at this ce right now. It took him all day to do, though, and at this point, the old man was rather tired from all that work. He squatted down in the corner of the room and chose to get some rest here. He tried to remember some of the new memories that he had ¡¯unlocked¡¯ by now, before logging off and getting something small to eat. When he came back, Eisen energetically chose to head to the next workshop after telling Hinaja that he would definitely be back soon. And the next ce that Eisen made his way to was the workshop of not the Lesser God of Alchemy Arxcat or the Lesser Goddess of Enchanting Kulox, but rather, it was the workshop of the Lesser God of ssblowing, Gardaks. There was a proper reason for that as well, of course. For one, there were a few tools that Eisen wanted to make for himself that he needed for proper Alchemy. Like beakers, ss pipes, and different parts of the whole mechanism. And of course, Eisen also wanted to make a lot of ss bottles for the different potions that he would definitely end up creating here in this divine realm. After all, he would get the chance to make literally any potions he wanted to with basically infinite amounts of materials, didn¡¯t he? He would need quite a lot of proper bottles that he could use to store all of the different liquids he would create. Eisen could always just harden it and turn it into bricks, but hardening and softening potions repeatedly somewhat diminished the effects of a potion, so he didn¡¯t really want to go for that idea. Chapter 674 Learning New Things

Chapter 674 Learning New Things

Eisen blew into the hot ss and slowly turned it into a bubble that he could easily turn into a proper bottle. The ss itself that Eisen was using was a special mixture as well, since it was made with arge amount of ground-up spatial gems, as well as a few other rather interesting materials. And one of those special, interesting materials was something that Eisen got his hands on after a lot of troubles. Komer managed to acquire small amounts of Maroon here and there after spreading Starlight¡¯s influence throughout the central continent, and most of that Maroon was swiftly turned into high-grade Margon. That Margon was obviously safely stored inside of special boxes Eisen made where nobody could steal them, and then they were ced right into Eisen¡¯s item storage as extra insurance. And now, Eisen used a special technique that he also used when he made the Guardians. He heated up the Margon to the extent where fumes of it started to rise up, fumes that he blew into the not-quite-solid ss bottle. He didn¡¯t need a lot of Margon for something like this, but even a small speck of it would manage to increase the potency of not only the materials that made up the bottle itself, but possibly also the potions ced into that bottle. Because what Eisen wanted to do with this was rather easy, although he would only get to it once he reached the Enchanting-workshop that he wanted to work at a bitter on as well. He wanted to increase the amount of liquid that this bottle could take manyfold so that he had an easier time storing it. He did also have a few special barrels for this purpose inside of his item storage, but considering that he wanted to make arge amount of different potions, he really didn¡¯t have enough space for all of those barrels in his item storage. He could store the empty ones in spatial gems themselves, but it was something else if they were storing liquids as well. And on top of that, these bottles were perfect so that Eisen could test out a new method where he would ability-enchant the spatial gems with his Item Storage ability first and foremost, as if to try and increase their space a bit more. But since he didn¡¯t really put any order into this with magic inscription yet, it was more like this bottle had the capabilities of normal spatial gems, meaning that you could use it as a normal bottle while also essing a small subspace storage as if you had a normal spatial gem or something like that. Eisen let all of the bottles cool in the annealer here in Gardaks¡¯ ssblowing workshop, and then ced them into his Item Storage, before starting to work on a few other things as well, most notably the different Alchemy-sets that he wanted to make. And of course, beside that, Eisen tried his hand at a few more decorational items that he might be able to use with different sorts of jewelry at some point. And when he was done, Eisen cracked his knuckles and waited for everything to cool properly while he chose to chat away with Gardaks a little bit. When everything was really ready for Eisen to take with him, although he obviously still didn¡¯t properly acknowledge them as finished item yet, the old man made his way to the next workshop that he would work at for a little while. And that was Kulox, the Goddess of Enchanting. Luckily, Kulox¡¯s and Arxcat¡¯s, the God of Alchemy, Workshops were rather close together, so Eisen would be able to switch between those two ces rather quickly if he needed to, which he did assume to some extent. For some items, he had to get to Arxcat¡¯s Workshop first to work on some things, like treating them with special recipes for Alchemical potions, and for others, he had to be at Kulox¡¯s workshop first to properly enchant everything before then, for example, filling the bottles with potions. Hence why it was pretty useful that they were close together. They were twins, so they were most likely a lot closer to each other than all of the other Lesser Gods were. Eisen flew over there after finishing his conversation with Gardaks, still followed by Ambriel who seemed to be more and more angry at Eisen the more this went on. After all, the old man was taking his time in this realm for once, although he usually tried to get through all of the realms as quickly as possible, since his main focus then was to just meet with the Greater Deities for different reasons. But this time, Eisen wanted to really enjoy himself a little more. This was the realm of his dreams, basically, there was no way that he would pass up on a chance like this for no reason. He stepped inside of the Enchanting-workshop and took in this once more so familiar yet unique atmosphere, before he headed to the other side of the room to speak to Kulox about using her workstation for a little while. She seemed a bit surprised that Eisen has asked her for this, but at the same time was too curious to say ¡¯No¡¯. And as such, the old man got started with his work. And since there were quite a lot of items to work with for now... It took Eisen quite some time to finish this up. He enchanted the weapons and tools first, before also making use of magic inscriptions to bring them further than he usually would be able to with just enchantments, by enhancing and focusing those enchantments even more. The same was the case with all of the other items, of course. He did the same with the pieces for some of the leather aprons, the shoes, the bags and pouches, and of course he also enchanted the ss bottles properly. The first thing he did was use a special needle, one that was curved so that Eisen could properly enchant the inside of the bottle, to create enchantments that would help increase the space within this item artificially. And when it came to magic inscriptions, he just properly created therge space with the dots. And to his surprise, it seemed like adding Eisen¡¯s ¡¯Item Storage¡¯ ability to the spatial gems with ability enchanting also helped quite bit. It was as if the dots Eisen could make use of, as well as the maximum distance between each dot, was increased many times overpared to whta it usually would be. That¡¯s what it seemed like to Eisen, at the very least. By evening, Eisen managed to properly finish all of the enchantments and inscriptions that he could create so far, and then chose to make his way to the next workshop, where he, with Arxcat¡¯s permission, started brewing a few different potions. First he made the ones that he wanted to solely use to improve upon his leather-based items, cing the pieces of leather into different baths of these concoctions. And then, the old man got started on creating different potions. Using the best possible materials that he could get his hands on, he first made some High-Grade Mana and Health potions, as well asrge amounts of extremely high quality ¡¯Buff¡¯ potions. Potions that increased one¡¯s strength, stamina, or even maximum health for a little while. On top of that Eisen created a few different potion-jellies that he could be used for different means in an emergency situation. And then, once he was done with the ¡¯General¡¯ things that he could work on whenever he wanted to, he got started on some more special potions with rare ingredients. Of course, as he had thought, Eisen wasn¡¯t allowed to make use of things that could create a direct imbnce in the mortal realm. Absolutely Unique, Legendary materials that some would fight wars over were a no-go. Eisen respected that, although he was really a little bit disappointed, and just worked with materials that could be gathered in the wild without any particrly special means. Eisen got to work and created a few more special emergency health potions with new materials that worked on a different basis to regr ones, not only increasing one¡¯s healthpletely to the limit, but also raising the limits for some time while buffing health regeneration considerably. It was a powerful potion that Eisen filled the first of the special ss bottles with. Then, he made a potion that was simr to that one, simply with Mana instead of health, and then even with stamina. He could really make potions that would let someone replenish their stamina as if they had a full night¡¯s rest with just a single gulp. There were even some materials that Eisen had never even heard of that he could use to improve on regr materials. He spoke to some of the other Alchemists here, as well as Arxcat himself of course, to get a few more tips from them. After all, Alchemy and Enchanting were the two crafting skills that were the most foreign to Eisen right now. It seemed like from the start, the former Eisen¡¯s experience had helped him out a little bit in learning and understanding everything that went into it, but to the current Eisen, they were still as foreign to him as magic was. Even if he made use of them regrly and with ease, there were still a lot of things that he didn¡¯t know about it. Small details, secret tips from true masters, those sorts of things. Eisen had gotten something like that in the other world as a young man when he studied different crafts under those that had dedicated their life to them, but he didn¡¯t really remember any of this when it came to these two skills. Of course, he could still use much of his regr knowledge on these skills to make up for that, as he did for the past while, but having true masters teach you about these things intensely was still a lot of help. Eisen continued to work, hearing potion-recipes from some of the different souls here and working intensely. At this point, Eisen was obviously already able to go and meet Silmos, as he had finished the quest that he was given by that God, but for now, he wanted to make sure he got the most out of this unique experience as absolutely possible, and chose to continue his work here for a little while longer. Eisen brewed potions, tried some of them out, and learned a lot of new things. This was a nice feeling every once in a while as well. Chapter 675 Melancholy

Chapter 675 Mncholy

Eisen ced the finished potions into his item storage and made sure that he didn¡¯t forget about anything in particr yet. But after thinking for a few minutes, he didn¡¯t seem to think of anything that he may still have to do here for now. For that, he first flew back to the Enchanting Workshop, where he then started to enchant some of the other items that he first had to treat with some different potions, and then once more came back to the Alchemy Workshop to fill in some of the enchantments with different hardened potions. After he was done with all of this, and really made sure that he didn¡¯t forget anything and then chose to make his way back to Hinaja¡¯s workshop where Eisen could finish up the leather-based items properly. He said goodbye to Arxcat and flew off in his demonic transformation. With a smile on his face, the old mannded in front of the Leatherworking workshop and stepped back inside, where Hinaja had already been awaiting him. Last time they interacted, Eisen didn¡¯t remember anything about her at all. That was different this time, however. Eisen had properly rested, and used that time to choose a few more memories to remember. It really was pretty exhausting to do so, but he didn¡¯t remember all of the things that he could at once, which is why he was fine in the end. The old man walked up to Hinaja¡¯s workstation, where she was currently busy working on an item. Eisen sat there and waited for her to finish while he tried to think of a few things that he could make in the Tailoring workshopter, or how he could improve upon his portable shop when he went to the Masonry workshop. He was more than just a bit curious about what Hinaja herself was making right now, though. He happened toe here right when she started working on it, so he didn¡¯t have many clues beyond the type of leather that she was using for it. And the old man was aware that he wouldn¡¯t be able to disrupt her work even if he tried his hardest to. In his memories, he discovered that Hinaja always had the ability to focus on one specific thing to an extreme extent, which she used to properly work her way to the top of the Leatherworking specialization. Although, there was something that Eisen still didn¡¯t know to this day. Why she chose that Leatherworking specialization in the first ce. And of course, Eisen wasn¡¯t looking down on Leatherworking or anything like that. On the contrary, it was an amazing art that he more than just appreciated. But for most of his apprentices over the years, whether in this world or the other, Eisen was aware of their reasons for choosing their craft. For some it was more obvious than for others, of course. Dirmon¡¯s choice to pursue Woodworking was one that wasn¡¯t particrly surprising, for example, considering how naturally gifted he was when it came to ntlife. He had a deep, innate connection with nts, and as such with wood as well. However, Hinaja didn¡¯t have any particr reason to pursue Leatherworking. Sure, she might have simply fallen in love with that route at some point, and that was totally fine. One didn¡¯t need a specific reason to pursue something one loves. It only became a little bit weird considering that Eisen knew Hinaja for thousands and thousands of years, and still had no idea about why she chose to do what she does. She did seem to have her reasons, Eisen vividly could remember her saying so, but she never went into detail. And to respect her wishes, Eisen of course didn¡¯t pry or try to find out about it behind her back. Although, even if he did, he wouldn¡¯t have had many clues. Her mother died while giving birth, and Eisen didn¡¯t even know where she lived until the old man took her in and taught her after she found him. It didn¡¯t change anything about the nearly parental love that Eisen felt for her as his apprentice, of course. It still made him wonder, especially after just remembering all that he could about her again. The old man stared at the figure in front of him in thought, until she took a deep breath, a sign that she was finished. Hinaja had the habit of holding her breath while she worked, and then when she couldn¡¯t do this anymore, only started breathing the minimal amount possible. Now that she was a goddess, however, Eisen assumed that she was capable of holding her breath for the whole duration of her work, which probably helped her work out quite a bit. Hinaja slowly turned around when she saw Eisen in the corner of her eye, and raised her brows surprised, "Oh... You¡¯re back?" She asked, and the old man slowly nodded his head. "Yes, I am. I wanted to finish up the items that I started making here, if that¡¯s alright with you." The old man asked. Hinaja tiredly rubbed her hand over her eye and nodded her head, "That¡¯s fine..." Eisen stood up and made his way over toward hte workstation to help Hinaja clean it up real quick, but the moment that he tried to do so, the lesser goddess held her hand in front of him, "Please... don¡¯t touch that." She said. Hinaja then turned around to put everything back. The item she finished, which turned out to be just a small bag she most likely made for no specific reason, the leftover materials, and even the small scraps that were leftover from cutting small parts away for details. She put all of them away herself, and didn¡¯t let Eisen or the angels help with any of it. The other lesser gods that Eisen had watched were not so focused on it. Their Angels basically worked as something like assistants for them, helping out around the workshop how they could. But Hinaja took everything on herself. Well, there were people like that, so he couldn¡¯t really me her. It slightly contradicted her tired demeanor, however, but he figured that ¡¯Tired¡¯ didn¡¯t instantly mean ¡¯Lazy¡¯, so he just went along with it. Once everything was done, the old man took over the workstation for a little while. He starting with sewing the leather aprons together properly, and then even acknowledged them as finished. His elemental spirit carried them back to the item storage and brought him the next item to work on. And that cycle repeated the whole time until Eisen finished up all of the aprons. Then, the same thing happened with the different shoes or boots. He put them together, even tried some of them that he made for himself for different uses on. Eisen even made an improved version of the shoes that he gave Stahl to practically ¡¯Walk on Air¡¯ that he wanted to give his grandson once he got back, so that he had a little bit of an upgradepared to before. Either way, the old man continued his work, and even finished wrapping the handles of some of the tools and weapons in leather. Soon, the old man finished his work fully, and honestly couldn¡¯t think of anything else to do here. And so, Eisen had his elemental spirit help him bring everything to the item storage, that was slowly but surely filling up to the brim. In the end, the only ces that Eisen had to head off to now were the Workshops of Argn, the God of Masonry, to upgrade his portable shop, then Simone, the Goddess of Tailoring, to make a few clothes for the others, as well as Ramsay, the God of Cooking, and thest of Eisen¡¯s apprentices in this particr Divine Realm. And with that being the case, the old man turned around to speak to Hinaja, now that he would most likely not be returning back here after he left. With a smile on his face, he said, "Do you remember back when I first visited you after you weren¡¯t my apprentice anymore? It was a bit simr to this, wasn¡¯t it? I came to your ce, worked all day long, we chatted here and there, and the two of us even worked together on a small project." Hinaja raised her head to look at the old man with surprise clearly written on her face, "You remember? But-" "Yeah,st night I remembered everything about you." The old manughed quietly, and the lesser goddess smiled softly. But it wasn¡¯t a happy smile, somehow... it was quite bitter instead, "I see..." "Did you not want me to remember?" Eisen asked. "I¡¯m not quite sure if I did... Some parts, yes, some parts, no... in particr, not the memory you just spoke of..." Hinaja pointed out as she looked down at the ground. Eisen looked back at her with a nod, "...I figured. It¡¯s the time where you told me about that deal someone tried to make with you, that ended up causing your stamina to deplete." Hinaja nodded, and Eisen looked back at her, "Well, did I ever tell anyone about what happened?" "I don¡¯t think you did, no." "Then you know you can trust me. I¡¯m a man that kept your secrets for thousands over thousands of years. I don¡¯t think adding another worry to that mix is going to be that big of an issue, right?" The old man pointed out. Hinaja raised her head with a slight smile. "I understand what you¡¯re trying to say... But... I¡¯m not allowed to tell you about this. For your sake, and my own." The Lesser Goddess pointed out, and immediately, Eisen had a bad feeling. He had a hunch of where this was going, of what this had to do with. The old man ground his teeth in anger, "It¡¯s got to do with Samuel, right? The Administrator?" Eisen asked. Hinaja looked back at him surprised before slowly nodding her head, "...Yes. But I can¡¯t tell you any-" "Ah... I swear..." The old man muttered as he looked up at the ceiling. It seemed like somehow, just this question tipped Ambriel over the edge. How the old man spoke about the head of all gods made them more than just furious. They rushed over to Eisen and grabbed his arm, trying to pull him around angrily. "How dare you mutter that supreme being¡¯s name?! Who do you think you are?!" Ambriel yelled out, and Eisen slowly turned back around toward him. He didn¡¯t know why this in particr caused him to be so angry again. Maybe because he didn¡¯t think about Samuel for a while now, but now was practically forced to do so again in a horrible manner. He even manipted a goddess into being frightened, that was more than just obvious to Eisen. The old man turned around and stared Ambriel deep into their eye, to answer their question, "It¡¯s simple... I¡¯m the one that¡¯s going to kill that ¡¯supreme being¡¯ one of these days." Chapter 676 Kimono

Chapter 676 Kimono

Ambriel red at Eisen with anger in their eyes, on their face, and practically ingrained in their whole body. Eisen just announced that he was going to kill the being that they revered the most, after all. There was no way that Ambriel wouldn¡¯t get angry about that considering the way that they¡¯ve been acting over the past few days anyway. "How dare you?! You have taken this too far, you disgusting, horrendously foul man!" Ambriel eximed furiously, and Eisen looked at them with a deep re himself, "Shut up, or I¡¯m going to kill you first." Eisen told him. And hepletely meant it. Somehow, the concept of ¡¯killing¡¯ others had be much, much more... natural to Eisen over the past few months. He didn¡¯t particrly like this fact, but there was nothing that he could change about this anymore. In this sort of world, there was no way that Eisen didn¡¯t kill a lot of people in the past. It was only natural that he was less affected by it. With a deep breath, trying to calm himself for now, Eisen looked back at Hinaja. He knew that Ambriel wasn¡¯t really allowed to attack him in any way while they were his guide, so he wasn¡¯t worrying about that anymore. "Even though I don¡¯t know what the issue is, I¡¯m going to resolve it for you in the future. I¡¯m going to resolve all the issues that any of you gods may have with Samuel." The old man exined, and Hinaja looked back at Eisen, with an expression that was slightly filled with fear. "B-But... That¡¯s far too dangerous! You will not stand a chance against Samuel or those directly around him the way you are now!" Hinaja pointed out, with the most amount of energy in her whole body that Eisen had seen in her so far while visiting this Divine Realm. The old man walked up to her and ced his hand on top of her head, "Don¡¯t worry about that. I¡¯m going to be fine. I¡¯m working on changing for this whole thing right now. And I¡¯m not alone, so there¡¯s that as well." Eisen exined with a soft smile on his face. Hinaja nervously nodded her head, while Eisen tried to further calm himself. He looked at Hinaja once more, "I think I should head off now. This will be thest time that the two of us are meeting for now, though. Is there anything else you would like to tell me, or you would like me to know?" The old man asked, but Hinaja shook her head immediately. "No... I don¡¯t. If anythinges up, I will try and inform you, alright? I will... send a message to a priest in the church on Lord Silmos¡¯ ind, if that¡¯s alright for you?" "Of course. That works for me." Eisen said as he slowly gave Hinaja a hug, "Everything is going to be good not too far from now, alright?" "...Alright..." She replied quietly, and Eisen slowly turned around, stepping toward the entrance of the workshop while waving at Hinaja. He was of course followed by thepletely infuriated Ambriel, who was just eagerly waiting for Eisen to finally finish up by meeting Silmos. But of course, that wasn¡¯t what Eisen was going to do now. Instead, to try and calm himself down a bit more by doing simple work, the old man made his way to the workshop of the lesser Goddess Simone, the goddess of Tailoring. Sewing was something that rxed the old man because he didn¡¯t really have to think much about it depending on what exactly he was doing, so that was kind of ¡¯perfect¡¯ for him right now. And so, the old man made his way there. It didn¡¯t take long to convince Simone to let Eisen work at her workstation, and he was even allowed to use a lot of the different materials that they had here. They had special sorts of Silk from different breeds of numerous sorts of insects that made use of silk in any sort of way, cloth that was dyed with inking from special monsters or dyes made with nts that were hard toe by. For now, Eisen wanted to make a few other clothes for the other craftsmen he knew, and then he would make some sort of ¡¯Luxurious¡¯ items for the others using these more rare materials. The old man got started, for example making a new pair of pants for himself. The pair he was wearing was fine, but it was a bit damaged here and there, a few rips, some singes, and that sort of stuff that was simply became unpleasant after a while. And so, he made a new pair of pants for himself out of wool that apparently came from a sheep that was especially bred to produce resilient and fire-resistant wool. Eisen figured this was the perfect material for him, and swiftly made the rather simple pants. There wasn¡¯t anything special about them, again, they were just somewhat loose pants that he couldfortably wear without any worries while working. He figured he should still enchant them a little bitter with some stitched enchantments, which he was nning to do for many of these different pieces of clothes. For now, the old man figured he should just continue remaking clothes that he or Folmirra made for the others. Those were mainly their work-clothes, though, which should receive the greatest benefit out of all of these different items that the old man made. He wasn¡¯t sure how \u003cThe God of Craftsmanship¡¯s Holy Aura\u003e would benefit items that weren¡¯t directly rted to craftsmanship in the first ce, although he definitely was curious about it and couldn¡¯t wait to see soon. After he made these different clothing pieces, the old man got started on something else. For a while now he didn¡¯t really wear anything but this outfit that he was wearing right now. And sure, he would change into his new leather apron and pantster on, but it was still basically the same outfit. And so, he figured he should make some new clothes for himself. Regr pants, some shirts, and such things. The same sort of thing that he had already made for himself in the past, but never really wore too much. He still had those shirts he first made back then in Melroe, but they were at far too low a rank for him to wear at this point. They were just simple things, though. There were no special patterns or anything like that, just clothes that he wouldter enchant so that he could maybe receive a bit of a benefit from them while crafting as well, if he wanted to casually work on a small item while wearing these. Beside that, the old man wanted to make a new formal suit for himself. It should look practically the same as his old one that burnt up back when his right arm waspletely cursed over and over again, and ended up giving him the ¡¯Mass of Yin¡¯. Eisen figured that there were probably situations where showing up in a leather apron and three-quarter pants, and barefoot, was slightly disrespectful. And so, the old man got started with his work and for the next few hours just made the suit for himself. He was pretty proud of it, but since it wasn¡¯t finished yet, he couldn¡¯t really look at the benefits that he would receive from wearing it. Either way, the suit that Eisen made was made with materials that should work pretty well with his Demonic Transformation. And of course, they were made with materials that Eisen, to an extent, prepared beforehand already, ability-enchanting them with his Size-Change ability so that he wouldn¡¯t randomly end up ripping this well-made suit up when changing his size to any extent. Eisen even added a small extra skill into the mix that he wanted to y around with. He enchanted it with the ¡¯Item Fusion¡¯ skill, so that he could try and fuse this suit with different sorts of outfits or materials for different reasons, before then undoing the fusion. For one, it should really help with epting Eisen¡¯s transformations, but it should also help prepare him for different situations. He could fuse metal into his suit when he was fighting someone, or he could maybe even fuse that golden armor that he made for himself as his ¡¯King Armor¡¯ into it so that he could make use of those benefits as well. And that meant that Eisen of course also needed a hat, which he also dly made for himself. He liked the aesthetic of hats, and the fact that he might be able to fuse it with his crown was also pretty interesting. Eisen was actually most curious about how all of this would work out after he finished the items. Eisen should probably be able to describe the way that these sorts of fusions were supposed to work when he got to the point of working on magic inscriptions for this item. The old man took a deep breath and stretched out a little bit after he finished this suit, and then stood up to walk around the material storage to look for the right material for the next item that he wanted to make. And soon, he found it. It was a deep ck silk made to be especially potent when it came to things like ¡¯Death¡¯, Necromancy for example. He looked at it and then turned at the Angel next to him, describing the sort of pattern that he wanted on this silk, and the Angel quickly ced his hand onto it and the silk changed to create the patterns. It was as if white flower petals started appearing on it in a storm, and the old man quickly nodded his head with satisfaction as he cut off the right amount of silk that he needed. He brought it back to his workstation and started to immediately work on this item with the image of the person he was making it for in mind. The old man cut the cloth up in the right ces, sewed it together in other ces, and generally just made sure he remembered how this sort of clothing-piece was made correctly. It¡¯s been a while since he¡¯s made a Kimono, and this wasn¡¯t a regr sort of it, after all. It was slightly different in some parts to be a slight bit more dress-like, since that was exactly what Kirisho was wearing. The old man couldn¡¯t remember a time when she was wearing anything else but that same ck Kimono-like dress, and considering how much she did worry about her appearance, he figured it would be nice to have some other things for her to change into. Chapter 677 Argalan

Chapter 677 Argn

The old man packed up all the clothes that he had made at the heavenly Tailoring Workshop and stuffed them into his item storage. Well, he made them at the tailoring workshop, but he finished them at the Enchanting Workshop, since he still added stitched enchantments to all of the items. But now that Eisen put the items into item storage, there really wasn¡¯t all that much space left in there after all of the items that he made here in this Divine Realm. Luckily, he only had two workshops left to visit. Argn¡¯s Masonry workshop, and Ramsay¡¯s Workshop. But since neither would take up much more space, since at neither of them he would make any new items, he figured that he should really make use of any sort of space he had at hand. The old man said goodbye to Kulox and flew away from her Enchanting Workshop, and then made his way over toward the next ce he would work at. Since Ramsay¡¯s ce seemed to be a good spot to end this all, the old man flew over to the Masonry Workshop. To his surprise, the workshop wasn¡¯t any bigger than the others, on the outside at least. But when Eisen stepped inside, it was like he stepped into a whole new town, incredibly, incredibly wide and long-stretching. The buildings here could be found in numerous sizes and styles, all mixed together. Some of them had people working on it, others were already finished. Eisen stretched his wings out once more and lifted up above this town hidden inside of the workshop. The old man searched for the ce where he should find Argn and made his way over there. But in this case, it really wasn¡¯t as straightforward as he thought. There was a small tower in the center of this town that seemed to be the ¡¯Altar¡¯ of this workshop, where the workstations of the other lesser gods could be found. But in this case, it didn¡¯t seem like Eisen would be able to find Argn there. At the very least, hended there and looked around a bit, not finding anyone around in the slightest beside the angels that were standing guard around here. And so, Eisen left a Camera-Bat unit here and made sure to keep watch on one of his screens so that he could be aware when exactly Argn returned to the tower. Meanwhile, he did the main thing that he wanted to do here in the first ce in order to upgrade his portable shop, and that was to look around for certain methods that those that dedicated their life to Masonry and Architecture might have. After all, amongst all of the disciplines that Eisen had learned in his life, Masonry was amongst the ones that he obviously had the least amount of experience with. He built his own house in the other world and helped repair some of the buildings here in this one, and then also made the few portable houses that he handed out, but beside that, there was nothing that Eisen could really say helped his experience properly. As such, he figured that the souls here might be able to give him a bit of insight into different techniques, if they were happy to divulge them at least. Most crafting skills had some sort of magical aspect deeply imbued into them that could be used to increase the performance of the item. For example, with cksmithing it was possible to fold mana into metals, and with tailoring it was to use special threads and methods to interweave mana into your cloth. It didn¡¯t seem like it would be possible to really add something like that to buildings. Materials with magic in them were powerful, sure, but they were often physically a lot more brittle and weak than regr materials were. That being the case, it didn¡¯t seem logical to add such possibly more brittle materials to a building. But soon, the old man realized that what the people here did was actually rather simple. They didn¡¯t really do anything special at all, they were just creating regr buildings, sometimes using more special materials. And of course, while the techniques were often ones that Eisen didn¡¯t really see being used anywhere as ofte, they weren¡¯t anything that was never seen before. However, what made them rather unique then again was just that they were techniques that have existed for more than a hundred thousand years. The souls that lived here taught them to the next that came, and they came to keep existing here in this realm where all that counted was the beauty of the product rather than actual functionality. Old and new mixed together. This ancient modernity was something beautiful to behold. Sadly, if Eisen wanted to really make use of this in the slightest, then he would have to recreate his workshop from the bottom up. And even then, they most likely wouldn¡¯t add anything to the overall structure itself. It wouldn¡¯t give him any more benefits than it already did now, and it certainly wouldn¡¯t improve his mindset as he was working. But nheless, this gave Eisen inspiration for something else. Inspiration for how he should recreate his Kingdom. Immediately, the old man opened up his item storage in an open spot and pulled out the boxes with the Camera-Bot units again, setting them free in a simr fashion as he did in Mystor¡¯s realm. They flooded throughout the space, trying not to disturb anyone as they were working, and helped Eisen copy and store all of the structures around him. And just when he had finished copying around half of this town, managing to see a lot more amazingly beautiful, unique structures that had been built all over inside of this ce, Eisen noticed that someone had approached him from behind. He turned around and looked at the figure in front of him. It was a man that stood at a bit more than two and a half meters tall, with long log-like arms and legs. And Eisen recognized him right off the bat as well, after all, he did see him once before. This was Argn, the Lesser God of Masonry, and a former half-god that ascended to full godhood under his divine parent, Silmos. The other half beside that of Silmos was a Titan, in this case. Hence, he wasn¡¯t as tall as a regr Titan would be, while still being a fair bit taller than the average height of any other race of people. He looked down at Eisen, while the old man noticed what he held in his hand. It was a Camera-Rat that he had scooped up while it was scanning the area, "Ya know, it¡¯s kinda rude to just scan this stuff to copy itter." The lesser God pointed out as he threw the camera-rat over to Eisen, who caught it with a smile on his face. "Well, I wasn¡¯t nning on copying any of the buildings. Rather, to let me be inspired by their style. It¡¯s rather unique, you have to admit." Eisen said bluntly. Argn didn¡¯t have to think long before nodding his head and stretching his hand out. "Fair enough." He replied as the two men shook each other¡¯s hand, "Just make sure ya really don¡¯t copy anythin¡¯. That¡¯s just as rude as if I were to copy an item you forged." "Of course, I¡¯m aware. But you see, a close friend of mine currently has an ability that allows her to scan different things in much detail. If her and I work together, I think we may be able to define the new, unique styles of architecture that can be found here. And these styles that are practically the amalgamation of a hundred thousand years of experience are surely perfect for a country led by five immortal beings, don¡¯t you think?" Argn crossed his arms for a moment in thought before nodding his head, "Hm... Progress is to be made by the living. The dead canbine their knowledge, but they can¡¯t further it. It¡¯s in their nature. It would be interesting to see what the living can turn this style into." The God of Masonry pointed out with a slightly smug, curious smile, and Eisen really couldn¡¯t help but agree. "Absolutely. And especially now that those from the other world can add their influence as well. After all, the architecture in my original world is much different to what can be found here too. It¡¯s quite intriguing, isn¡¯t it?" "Architecture from another world, huh...?" Argn muttered, "I heard that you weren¡¯t allowed to influence the architecture in this world all that much in your lifetime, only in specific ways you were told to... That means we never really experienced that." The god pointed out, and Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Exactly. So would it be alright for you if my Camera-Bots continued so that I can spread this beautiful architectural style throughout my Kingdom?" "Hm... I guess there ain¡¯t anything to say against that. Continue, then." "Thank you, they¡¯re already finished." Eisen replied with a light smile on his face. The Camera-Rats and Camera-Bats already gathered at his ce and soon disappeared inside of their specific boxes again, before Eisen ced them back into his item storage. "Now, I heard that you were doing some work at the others¡¯ workshops these past few days. Then why are you here, exactly?" Argn inquired curiously, and Eisen quickly exined the situation. There wasn¡¯t really that much to exin in the end, just that he had made some portable structures, one of which he had nned to upgrade here, although he chose not to do so after seeing this ce. "Hm... That¡¯s a shame. I¡¯d have loved to see ya work on somethin¡¯." The lesser God pointed out with a lightly disappointed expression, and Eisen smiled back, "Well, if you¡¯ve got any smaller project that you¡¯re working on, I could help out if you want." Intrigued by that suggestion, the god nodded his head, "I do have something small, if you¡¯re really interested..." "Of course I am, otherwise I wouldn¡¯t have said so." Eisen pointed out, and Argn looked back at him with an intrigued expression, "Alright, then juste with me." The lesser God suggested. Eisen did as he said, and at a quick pace, he followed along. To Eisen¡¯s surprise, it seemed like they made their way through this whole, giant town in just a few steps. At the very least, the tower in the center was far in front of him before, and now it was far behind him, and he certainly didn¡¯t take any turns, and just walked in a straight line. Just a few momentster, the two of them, plus Ambriel of course, stopped at a small open spot. Maybe twenty meters on each side. "We¡¯re working on something here. Let¡¯s get to work, huh?" Chapter 678 Sirdigan Cuisine

Chapter 678 Sirdigan Cuisine

Eisen ced brick onto brick, stacked log onto log, and connected all of them intricately with different techniques. In some parts, they were just connected by cing the different parts onto each other in a way that it was impossible for them to fall, in others it was done by really hammering certain pieces together with thick nails. Luckily, Argn had given Eisen a blueprint of what this building was supposed to look like, so he was able to use his Crafter¡¯s Soul skill to create a visualization of the building for himself that he could use as a guideline that not only he himself could follow, but so could his Mane Doubles as well as his Elemental Spirit. Since his Mana Doubles could think for themselves just so slightly until now, as long as Eisen gave them specificmands that were supported by the whole visualized structure, he didn¡¯t have to worry about what they were doing for the most part. And he obviously didn¡¯t need to worry about his Elemental Spirit at all, the old man already knew that it was more than skilled enough to properly help him out. Given enough time, it should be able to create this whole structure on its own, even. Of course, since Eisen, his spirit, and his mana doubles could all change their size at will depending on what was necessary, they were the perfect troupe to create this, and Argn chose to let the old man work on his own for a little while. Since, with his rtively high stats and physical enhancement through his Draconic Demon King transformation, carrying even these quiterge and thick logs was something he could do with ease, and if not he could do so with the help of one of his doubles, he was able to create the base structure within less than an hour. And since the materials had already been properly prepared, all that Eisen had to do was to ce them into the right parts. Eisen followed the instructions on the blueprints as closely as he could, trying to stack everything on top of each other, attaching them to different parts, and even interweaving some of them. He was bing even more familiar with this style of architecture than he could have be if he had just kept watching others, which already made this more than just worth it to him in his mind. The old man looked forward, and for the next few hours just continued to work, work, and work. At some point, he became so absorbed in the building of this structure that it was like he forgot where he was. He didn¡¯t expect that he could experience this phenomenon while working with Masonry, it was usually something he only had when smithing or sewing. It was something that he weirdly ¡¯unlocked¡¯ when he reached a certain point in a craft, even in the other world. As if it became as easy as breathing to do all these things. Most likely, the experiences of the former Eisen were causing this in him this time around, since the current Eisen certainly didn¡¯t have any vivid memories of doing this sort of thing enough to even get anywhere close to this point. Thest time he remembered, Eisen was actually being slightly clunky with his Masonry work, simply because his experience there couldn¡¯t bepared to his usual experience. Although, Eisen couldn¡¯t say that this was really a bad feeling either. Improvement, as unnatural as it was in this situation, was always satisfying to experience. He wished that he had been able to naturally improve, but in Eisen¡¯s current situation, there wasn¡¯t all that much that was natural around him in the first ce. And so, the old man continued his work with Masonry. And just a few hourster, mainly due to the fact that he had been able to make use of his truly enormous maximum height of roughly two dozen meters at this point, as well as his number-support from his different abilities, he managed to finish this projectpletely within just a day. The old man took a step back with a satisfied expression as all of the different Mana Doubles disappeared and his Elemental Spirit dove back into his chest. He looked the structure up and down, and had to say that he was truly happy with what he managed to create this time around. Thest time that Eisen felt anything like this about any sort of structure he built, whether it was life-sized or just model-sized, was when he built the house that his children ended up growing up in, in the other world. Of course, that time felt much more rewarding still. It was a unique experience and emotion that Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if he would ever be able to feel again, but this was the closest thing to that feeling, although the old man really didn¡¯t know why. Argn stepped up next to him, seeing his expression, seemingly realizing what the old man thought to some extent. "Ya know, you¡¯re the one that created this style of Architecture. The souls in this realm made it their own, but you were the one thatbined the experiences that had built up over millenia into this unique sort of structure." Argn exined with a smile on his face as he turned his head toward Eisen, who looked back a little bit surprised. "Hm... Really?" Eisen muttered. Then maybe he knew what this feeling was. Maybe it was some sort of nostalgia that was created through the sense of unlocking a memory to remember next time he slept. That seemed to be the most logical at least. Truthfully, Eisen probably already forgot the true emotions he felt back when he finished his house in the otehr world. It most likely wasn¡¯t as glorious as he thought, but a good mixture of nostalgia, glee, and mncholy caused him to overestimate what it felt like when thinking back on it. With a deep sigh, Eisen looked at Argn, "So, is there any reason why you made me build this one in particr?" "Not really. It was something that I had intended to work on myself, but you ended up being so impressive that I didn¡¯t want to intervene with your work at all." The lesser god pointed out. Eisen smiled back a little as he turned his head back toward the structure that he just built. "Then I think I should thank you for this." The old man pointed out, "I think I¡¯ll remember something about Masonry after sleeping tonight." "d to know I could help." Argn replied. After this, the two of them started walking through the house a little, taking a look at theyout of the rooms so that Eisen could get another better feel for what the interior of structures of this style looked like. Eisen asked Argn a few more questions about this style to further his understanding, just in case the memory he would remember next night won¡¯t actually help him with that. The two of them kept talking for a while, simply speaking to each other a little, and then the old man figured that it was time to head off to thest ce, to Ramsay¡¯s Workshop. "Right, have a good meal before heading off, will ya?" Argn smirked, and Eisen immediately nodded his head, "Of course, there¡¯s no way I wouldn¡¯t." Heughed as he left this smaller, unique town to head into therger, ¡¯normal¡¯ town again. Eisen spread out his wings and looked around, trying to find thest structure he wanted to head to before finally going to meet Silmos to leave this Divine Realm, and with that the heavens, behind for now. And once he spotted the roof of the workshop in question, Eisen rushed over there, quicklynding in front of it. Immediately, Eisen was enveloped in the wonderful scent of numerous spices and dishes mixing together as he was walking. He even stopped by some of the stall-like structures that people were cooking at, and when he did so, all he could smell was the food right in front of him. That was most likely the case so that the strong scent of a dish of a neighboring stall would intervene with the food that was prepared here. "Hm? Someone living?" The Chef that stood in the stall Eisen just approached pointed out. Another chef that worked together with him stepped up as well and took a look at Eisen, "Ah! I think I heard about ¡¯im! Christopher in the front near the Lord overheard some of the angels talkin¡¯ to each other... He¡¯s been travelin¡¯ around the different workshops and working with the gods themselves!" "W-With the gods..?" The first chef asked surprised, and Eisen smiled back, "Mhm, that¡¯s me." He replied. "But nevermind that, really. I¡¯m a craftsman by heart, and I have a special spot in there for cooking. What kind of cuisine do you specialize on?" Surprised, and rather quickly convinced, the first chef looked at Eisen with a broad smile, "Ah! We¡¯re chefs of Sirdigan Cuisine! I heard the country¡¯s not a thing anymore though, but it used to be right next to the country of the Giants, if ye¡¯re familiar! The nt- and animal-poption was still oversized there, so we got used to makin¡¯ whole courses of foods for lotsa people that¡¯s usually focused around a single main ingredient. Takes a lotta preparation though, the meat¡¯s often pretty tough. Ya wanna give it a try?" The Chef asked, and Eisen raised his brows curiously. "Of course, I would love to." The old man eximed, and he watched as the chef prepared a te of food by cutting off a slice of meat off of a giant hind leg. And when Eisen thought ¡¯Giant¡¯, that was really the case. It was surely heavier than the old man himself, asrge as it was. Juices practically flowed out of the cut, as if the meat was still bleeding. But of course, it wasn¡¯t blood that was flowing out, but it was more like some sort of sauce. Somewhat, it was like it had been sealed inside of the meat, which was currently being tied up with thin rope. And while Eisen was cutting into the meat, he thought about what these two chefs were saying, "Let me guess, a big part of Sirdigan Cuisine is the long-term preservation of food?" Surprised, the two chefs looked at Eisen, "Ya heard of it after all?" With augh, the old man shook his head, "I didn¡¯t, no. Just a good guess. It looks like you¡¯re preparing the meat to be packed away, maybe smoked or dried in some way or another... And of course, if you have so much food avable, especially when ites to meat from animals and monsters, it makes sense that you would have learned to preserve it properly." Chapter 679 Attention

Chapter 679 Attention

"Hm, ya know quite a bit about cooking. Are you a chef yourself?" The man in front of him asked curiously, and Eisen slowly shook his head, "Not specifically, no, although I do dabble in it a little." Eisen exined. Well, technically what Eisen said wasn¡¯t directly false, but it was so far away from the truth that it might be seen as a lie anyway. After all, he literally taught the current God of Cooking, there¡¯s no way that Eisen would get awa with saying he ¡¯dabbled in it a little¡¯. But as he didn¡¯t particrly want to reveal this right now while having this nice conversation, he figured he should try to be more humble about it. Eisen wasn¡¯t particrly a fan of the treatment that he¡¯s been getting anyway. Sure, he knew he was skilled, seriously saying that he wasn¡¯t to stay humble would be an insult to everyone else that dedicated their life to their craft. Well, this time around it was a different situation, since he was aware that it wasn¡¯t really the truth. Either way, even if Eisen was skilled... the fact that some literal gods were looking up to him for some reason felt weird, and ufortable. He had suddenly be a King, an immortal being, and someone that had to take part in literally saving the world fromplete and utter chaos that would be caused by a deranged maniac. It was a bit too much for Eisen a lot of the time, which was actually another reason why Eisen chose to go to these Divine Realms now of all times. He knew that it would sound horrible if he said this to anyone else, so he didn¡¯t, but he needed some time for himself. He loved his friends and family, obviously, they were as important to him as his own life, but constantly feeling that sort of pressure that he wasn¡¯t made for truly overwhelmed him. Eisen was the kind of person that was always content in living a quiet life. What Eisen imagined himself as when he first heard that he was supposed to guide some yers in this world was that he would be able to properly settle down in a possibly far-off ce where he could work to his heart¡¯s content until his life in the other world ended. Maybe a yer would hear rumors about him from a nearby vige, and trying to further their own craft would seek him out for a quest or two, maybe some special new tools or materials. This old man wanted to be ¡¯the¡¯ old man. The one that many popr franchises had. The teacher that subtly guided the hero... Eisen never wanted to be a ¡¯hero¡¯ himself. He didn¡¯t want any bads to be sung about him, a small whisper in a bar every once in a while was fine for him. Eisen just wanted to live out the rest of his life in peace, but now... That was impossible. "You good? Your food¡¯s gonna get cold at this rate." The chef in front of Eisen pointed out, and the old man slowly raised his head to look at him again, and with an awkward smile said, "Right, sorry about that. I guess I¡¯ll just dig in, then." Eisen pressed his fork into the meat and cut off a piece with the sharp, serrated knife in his hand. He brought the meat to his mouth, and the moment that it touched his tongue, Eisen¡¯s mouth was filled with juices. As if there had been more of thempressed inside of the meat. But in the end, that was probably just the old man¡¯s saliva that he suddenly started overproducing due to the immense, wonderful vor of this meat. He could tell that it would usually be quite tough, the texture simply hinted at that fact no matter how well a job one did during the preparation. Of course, this wasn¡¯t apletely unique taste. The preparation-methods weren¡¯t anythingplex either, they were basic methods that were executed to a level that one could only call ¡¯perfection¡¯. They truly deserved to be here in this divine realm, in the workshop of the God of Cooking himself. And just as Eisen was thinking this, he cut off another piece off the meat, before the stool that stood next to the one that the chef offered to the old man was pulled back a little, and a man sat down on it. "Ah, Sirdigan Cuisine. One of my favorites." The man said with a smile on his face, "If you could give me a te of that as well, that would be quite nice of you." The two chefs looked at each other for a moment before staring at the man that sat down next to Eisen so bluntly, before masterfully preparing a te for that person as well. He took a bite of the meat, and with a loud humming of pleasure, he spoke, "As amazing as I remember. Great job, you two." Meanwhile, as this man wasplimenting the chefs that now reacted as if their whole life only now received any sort of meaning in their afterlife, Eisen simply continued to eat. "Don¡¯t you think so as well?" The man asked as he looked at Eisen, who slowly turned his head to the side. Eisen was happy that he had gotten the chance to take a small break from everything with this dish, but it was apparent that this was not really the case anymore, considering who it was that sat down next to him. "Of course, it¡¯s amazing. But Ramsay, what about your manners? Don¡¯t just eat a single bite and then let everything else go to waste." Eisen said, forcing a soft smile onto his face, and the lesser God right next to him smirked in response. "Ah, that is absolutely fine! There¡¯s no need to worry about that, there are no particr reasons for us to make all this food anyway! In the end, it¡¯s all a waste, right? It won¡¯t rot if we¡¯re careful with it here anyway, so-" "It¡¯s not about the food rotting, is it? You made an effort to cook this wonderful dish, ted it for us, and allowed us to enjoy it. What¡¯s being wasted are your efforts, not just the ingredients." The old man pointed out, and Ramsay slightly smirked as he picked his fork and knife up again, "When he¡¯s right, he¡¯s right." And so, the two of them continued to eat, and Eisen was even given some seconds when he asked for it. He could eat as much as he wanted with this body anyway, there would be no repercussions, so he figured he should try and enjoy as much of the food that he could here as possible. He might pick up a new technique or two if he was careful enough to watch what was going on, or maybe he could even remember a few things. Taste was tightly intertwined with memory, after all. Just a few minutester, Eisen set the fork and knife down onto the te with a smile as he cleaned up his face with a towel real quick. "Again, that was delicious. Thank you very much." The old man said, and the two chefs slightly smiled back, although they were still too nervous to really figure out what the hell was going on, and why Ramsay was suddenly here, eating at their stall, "No need to thank us! Rather, we must thank you, for eating our food. Th-That¡¯s what we make it for, right?" One of the chefs pointed out, before Ramsay loudlyughed in response to that statement. "How right you are! Cooking is useless without anyone there to enjoy what we make, is that not so? We can¡¯t just put it on disy like those of other crafts can." The god pointed out, "That¡¯s what you taught me, isn¡¯t it?" The chefs stared at Eisen surprised, as the old man stood up from the stool and pushed it up against the stall again, "Of course." "Well, without the ability to freeze time for a dish, that is." Ramsayughed sligthly, and Eisen slowly repeated what he said, "Without the ability to freeze time, mhm." The old man slowly turned around as his chance to be treated like a somewhat normal person again was slowly wasted. Usually, the people in these divine realms always treated Eisen pretty weird, considering that he was a living person that visited the heavens, but these two luckily didn¡¯t recognize him, nor did they really seem to care all that much for Eisen¡¯s current state of living. That was, of course, that he was living at all. It seemed like a nice chance, but at the very least Eisen got a few nice moments out of it before Ramsay came and returned all that pressure back onto him. The two of them made their way through this workshop, through all of these different stalls that were all ready to serve food as if this was some sort of festival. But now that Ramsay was with him and revealed who Eisen was to even those that didn¡¯t realize it beforehand, this ¡¯festival¡¯ turned into something focused on Ramsay and the old man next to him. As if they were the main-attraction. Ramsay seemed to be enjoying it, but Eisen really just wanted to leave right now already. Of course, that would be unfair to Ramsay. Eisen did want to speak to him a little more as well, albeit in a more private, quiet setting, where he didn¡¯t feel all these stares on his body. Obviously, Eisen was a rather unique, loud person himself, so he probably didn¡¯t have the right to judge Ramsay for being like this, or he couldn¡¯t say that he disliked this sort of direct attention, especially given all the things that Eisen did in the past that could honestly act as proof otherwise. Ramsay and Eisen headed to the front of the workshop, where they sat down in a ce where Eisen had a bit more peace and quiet right now. He didn¡¯t know what brought him to this mindset all of a sudden, but it certainly was something that he felt quite intensely at the moment. Maybe it already was a memory that the old man unlocked to remember after that first bite of the meat, that made him this mncholic again. Either way, the old man looked at the figure in front of him and smiled broadly, even if it was an incredibly fake smile that Ramsay probably saw through right away. The lesser God of Cooking looked back at Eisen with a broad smile on his face, and crossed his arms, "Want to cook something together?" Chapter 680 Off

Chapter 680 Off

At a quick pace, Eisen chopped up the mountain of mushrooms that wereying on the table in front of him. He chopped them up so finely that they seemed to be somewhat simr to coarse breadcrumbs in texture. Meanwhile, as the old man was taking care of this, Ramsay was preparing the ratherrge fillet of meat. And really, when Eisen said rge¡¯, then that meant something. It was Giant-Sized, basically. He could carve it out and live in there, if he had to. Either way, considering that Eisen had to chop up enough of these mushrooms to cover the whole surface of that mountain of meat, it was clear how much work that actually was although it may not sound like it at the beginning. The huge chunk of meat was being roasted in a special means that seemed to ensure that it was actually going to be cooked through instead of just getting an inch on the outside and having the rest be freezing cold. Obviously, that ¡¯special means¡¯ was mostly some magic that Ramsay had ess too, hence why he was the one that took care of the meat. Since it took a little while to prepare the meat for thorough roasting anyway, the lesser god and the old man next to him were done with their separate tasks at roughly the same time. Ramsay took out a giant pan, one that honestly seemedicallyrge, and ced it onto a me before heating up a lot of olive oil and butter, before Eisen ced the mushrooms into the hot mixture to fry them. After adding some sprigs of fresh thyme into it, Eisen proceeded to stir the whole thing regrly, which meant that he practically had to constantly stir around different parts of the pan to make sure everything was being evenly fried instead of some parts being burnt and others staying cold. At some point, the mixture softened up, and at this point, Eisen and Ramsay chose to switch. After all, what was going to be made next required a lot of hands to execute properly at this scale, so it was a better fit for Eisen with his Mana Doubles and his elemental Spirit right now. The old man grabbed the dough that Ramsay already prepared for him while Eisen was frying the mushrooms until now, and then ced the giant bs of dough-discs onto arge worksurface dusted with flour. And then, Eisen summoned his Mana Doubles and his Spirit and proceeded to roll them out with a giant rolling pin. Well, it was basically just a log that was stripped and straightened on the outside, but it still counted for the old man. And then, he immediately proceeded to increase his size to a scale where this didn¡¯t even seem like all that much doughpared to his physical size. He still needed the help of the doubles, though, since regr Laminated Dough already ripped easily enough, working at this sort of scale didn¡¯t particr make it easier in any way. It actually made it much harder, obviously. Eisen looked at the figure of Ramsay currently pouring some dry white wine over the fried, chopped mushrooms, and took a deep breath as he also started to get to work. The ttened dough was swiftly covered in a chilled butter-flour mixture and then folded like an envelope would be, folding the corners into the center. The old man proceeded to roll it tted again, and then repeated the whole process again and again. Soon, thisminated dough, also called puff pastry dough, was finished, roughly at the same time that Ramsay was done finishing up the mushrooms. The lesser deity then spread out the mushroom duxelle and poured it onto thin slices of cured ham. Usually, this mixture would have had to cool first, but due to Ramsay¡¯s abilities, it cooled down the moment that Ramsay thought that this part of the recipe was finished. For now, Eisen helped Ramsay out, spreading the mushrooms out over the ham, after removing the thyme from the mix of course, and then ced the ham onto the giant fillet, with the mushroom-covered side pressing against the fillet itself, of course. This whole thing was then chilled, while Eisen and Ramsay prepared the puff pastry to be used, rolling it out into arge sheet. And then, all that they had to do wasy the giant fillet into the center of that sheet and then fold the dough over it. This piece was then marked with long diagonal lines with the back of a knife without actually cutting into the dough, just pressing into it a little. And now, all that they had left to do was to put this Beef Wellington worthy of a giant into an oven until the outside was golden and crisp. Of course, this process couldn¡¯t really be sped up all that muchpared to the chilling that Ramsay seemed to be able to do practically instantly, so the two of them took their time to take a seat and talk for a little while to let everything in the oven happen to the Beef Wellington properly. "So, why did you suggest this recipe?" Eisen inquired curiously. He knew that there was some meaning behind it, considering that Eisen did seem to get the vibe that he was going to remember something about this part of everything as well, through the Beef Wellington for some reason, and Ramsay turned his head toward him with a smile on his face, "Well, it¡¯s simple. It¡¯s the first thing that I ever watched you make." "...Then couldn¡¯t we have made it in a more normal size? That would have been a lot better, right?" "Hm, not really." Ramsay replied, "The first time I saw you cook, which coincidentally was also the time that I chose to be your apprentice, you were making this exact sort of dish. At this scale as well. I was visiting the Giant Country out of curiosity for their cuisine, and then saw you making this dish just in the middle of the forest after killing a giant bull for it. It was rather surprising to me at the time, but rather appetizing all the same." The god pointed out, and Eisen turned his head toward him with a light smile, although he himself wasn¡¯t particrly sure if it was a real smile or not right now. "Is that so?" He asked, and Ramsay slowly nodded his head, "It is so." "But why was I making Beef Wellington in the middle of the forest?" "You found a patch of good mushrooms, happened to kill that bull, and still had someminated dough leftover. That¡¯s what you told me at the time, at least, that it was just a ¡¯coincidence¡¯. Although I think you might have sought out that bull in order to kill it for its meat." Ramsay admitted. Eisen looked at him with a light smile on his face, although this one seemed to be a bit more genuine than thest smile. But even then, Eisen himself couldn¡¯t really be sure about that at this point anymore. Eisen looked at the man sitting next to him, who was staring back with a slightly hopeful expression, as far as the old man could tell just from this brief interaction that he had with him. Sure, he did seem to have a bit of rough knowledge in his mind about Ramsay, enough to get a rough feeling of his personality at least, but that usually shouldn¡¯t be enough to read others. Hence, Eisen didn¡¯t try to assume, at first at least. Ramsay might be the kind that puts on masks, for all Eisen knew. But even then, Eisen figured that it wouldn¡¯t hurt to go out on a limb to try and figure Ramsay out a little bit better. "But you know, you still didn¡¯t really answer my question yet." Eisen pointed out as he looked at the lesser God of Cooking right next to him, "I doubt you wanted to do this just for nostalgia¡¯s sake." With augh, Ramsay shook his head, "No, I really did do this for nostalgia. Just not for your own, honestly. It¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve had your cooking. A couple of millenia, actually. And since this dish has a special ce in my heart, I figured it couldn¡¯t hurt. It was a bit selfish, I know, but I doubt you really mind, do you?" With a slight sigh, Eisen thought about how he was surprised that Ramsay even considered others¡¯ thoughts at all. He didn¡¯t seem like the kind, honestly. But obviously, appearances can be deceptive. The old man let out a deep sigh and thought about what he was just told. There wasn¡¯t anything all too special about it. He heard this sort of thing a couple of times before, people wanting to eat his food and making up random excuses for it. Although usually, those people were his closest friends and family that made those excuses jokingly. It was painstakingly obvious that the only reason they were saying those things was that they wanted to eat what Eisen was going to make for them, but that was part of the fun. This time though, it really did slightly feel like he was being deceived, although Eisen really couldn¡¯t exin why he thought that way. Just a few more minutes after all this, the dish was done. The scent drifted through the room, and Eisen couldn¡¯t wait to take a bite of this. Well, to take a b of this, since Eisen didn¡¯t really know how he was supposed to eat this thing. If he sliced something off normally, it would result in him mostly just getting a slice of puff-pastry, usually. But Ramsay quickly cut off arge piece, carving it out of the giant fillet, and ced it onto Eisen¡¯s te. The amount made him think that this was a regr Beef Wellington in itself. Instead of just being a piece of arger one. Eisen looked at the te and cut an actual bite-sized piece off of it, before leading it to his mouth. It was moist and well-vored, the textures were amazing despite how unbnced everything was at this scale due to the sheer size of the dish. Nheless, it was something that Eisen rather enjoyed, and he was d that he was able to make it with his former apprentice as one of thest things that he would do here in this divine realm. And really, Ramsay was the first god that Eisen actually coborated on a project with. Argn suggested so, but in the end, Eisen built that house all on his own without the god¡¯s help. Somehow, it felt good, but mostly, it just felt... off. Chapter 681 Silmos

Chapter 681 Silmos

Eisen and Ramsay continued to eat some of the giant Beef Wellington that they made together, and the rest was given to either the angels or the other cooks that were gathered around. The old man took a deep breath and once more took in the scents that were gathering around in this space. The atmosphere, these sounds, these joyful, honest expressions that everyone had on their face. They truly loved what they did, and Eisen was d that he was given the chance to see them like that. "I think I should head off now." Eisen said, and Ramsay slowly turned his head toward him, "Hm, are you sure? You can stay a bit longer, if you want to." "I know that I could stay longer, but I¡¯ve already spent quite some time here in the heavens in general. All that I want to do right now is take a breath of air that isn¡¯t infused with some sort of Holy Aura." The old man pointed out, and Ramsay slowly nodded his head, "Ah, I understand what you mean. It¡¯s a bit overwhelming sometimes, isn¡¯t it?" "It sure is, yes." Eisen said as he slowly stood up from the chair that he took a seat on before. He stretched his hand out forward to Ramsay and shook the lesser god¡¯s hand, "It was nice to see you again, Ramsay. Sorry if my mood wasn¡¯t the best today." "No worries, everyone has days like that. You can¡¯t be cheerful all the time, can you?" The lesser God said in an understanding tone, and Eisen slightly smiled back, "Exactly. Still, thanks for understanding, though." Ramsay nodded his head, and Eisen turned around. He started walking through the workshop, looking at the different stalls that were set up here. He passed by the one where he was given some Sirdigan food to taste and waved at the two of them. Eisen would definitely visit that area of the continent that the Giant Country was on, it seemed rather interesting. But then, Eisen stood in front of the workshop, and he slowly activated his Draconic Demon King transformation and spread out his wings. After pushing his wings down to lift himself up, the old man was already soaring through the skies, and was headed right for the tower in the center of this seemingly infinitelyrge town. He couldn¡¯t see anything beyond the horizon but more buildings. And in the center of it all was Silmos, atop his tower. The old man flew over there andnded in front of therge gate at the bottom of it, slowly turning his head to look at the angels. Immediately, they opened up therge double door and Eisen stepped inside, while Ambriel stayed behind, since he never came with Eisen to visit the greater gods in the first ce. The moment that Eisen stepped inside of the gate, he was a bit surprised with what he saw. It was like he was now on some sort of balcony with only a dozen or so thick pirs holding the roof up, and beyond the open spaces, Eisen could see the town stretch out below him. It was like the gate down there was connected to the top of the tower. Either way, all that Eisen could really focus on was the man that was seated on the other side of the room. Silmos. Eisen approached him, and the greater god slowly stood up from his throne as well. Silmos was a tall man, with a simr stature to Eisen. But still, Silmos was physically a lot younger than Eisen. If he saw a picture of him without context, the old man would have guessed him to be around 30 or so years old. But even so, the two of them immediately understood each other. Eisen had never interacted with Silmos before, or at least he couldn¡¯t remember himself do so right now. He would surely be able to remember Silmos when he rested, though, so that was good enough for the old man right now. But even though Eisen didn¡¯t have any specific memories of interacting with this man, it was clear that the two of them were on good terms with each other. After all, Eisen was just happy when he saw Silmos, as if he had finally met an old friend again. Immediately, the two of them hugged each other, and even did that thing where they happily patted each other on the back while they were at it, "It¡¯s great to see you again, Eisen." Silmos said, and the old man couldn¡¯t help but return that sentiment immediately. "Likewise, Silmos. Although I¡¯m sorry that I can¡¯t-" "Remember me, I know. All of us gods are obviously aware of that." Silmos exined, and looked the man in front of him up and down for a few moments, "But I can see that you¡¯re just the same man as when Ist saw you. You even dress the same now as you did back then." "Yeah, I figured that out already as well. I¡¯m basically wearing this exact sort of outfit in all of my memories. There are a few exceptions of course, but whenever I¡¯m out and about, I wear this." "And of course, why wouldn¡¯t you? Right now it might not be the most benefitial to you, considering that it¡¯s not the most protective gear around, but you are already strong enough to handle yourself in most ces where you go. And back then, you obviously didn¡¯t need to worry about anything. You could have walked around buck-nacked, and not even the greatest warriors could have brought you down." The god exined with a slightugh, and Eisen just smiled back at him as he scratched the back of his head. "Is that so?" He asked, "I do kind of wonder how strong I truly was back then. I have never seen myself in any sort of trouble after I peaked in my memories." "Of course not, what kind of being could cause trouble to a person that peaked, no matter if that person is a Combatist or not." Silmos pointed out, and Eisen had to admit that it seemed kind of unlikely, although there certainly were some beings that could prove a challenge. "What about transcendent monsters, then?" The old man asked, and Silmos raised his brows surprised, "Hm, that¡¯s a fair point. I think they might have given you some trouble at some point, but for the most part, you and the others killed the majority of them. There¡¯s only half a dozen left or so, I think." Hearing what Silmos said, Eisen became a little bit confused about a small aspect of this. It sounded like, "...There were a lot of trasncendent monsters back then?" Silmos slowly nodded, as if this was just obvious, "Of course, thousands of ¡¯em. You mostly used them to help the others peak, I think. And of course, to make equipment for them. There aren¡¯t that many sources for materials that can be used to make Divine Quality items, but trasnscendent monsters are one of those few sources." "...That makes sense, I think. I should have figured that there are a lot of monsters that reached that point but weren¡¯t able to be gods, to be honest. But I never really thought about it all that much." "And why would you? It¡¯s not like you really could have known. Most transcendent monsters never showed themselves to people, so most are unknown to them. They usually just creep out somewhere and do their own thing. At least that can be said for all the ones that are left over now, they¡¯re super intelligent and quite old, so at that point there¡¯s little that excites you anyway. A lot of them were just hibernating for hundreds of years when you killed them in their sleep, I think." "That... Yeah, that sounds fair. I would definitely use a chance like that to kill something if I was nning on it in the first ce." The old man admitted with a wry smile on his face, and Silmos swiftly waved his hand to the side, and two chairs and a table were created for them. It seemed like Silmos wanted to have a bit of a longer chatpared to most of the other greater Gods that Eisen had spoken to so far. "I would love to hear about some of the items you made throughout your time here. In the heavens, and in the mortal realm, I mean. Oh, and I can tell you about some artifacts that you would surely not remember currently, and anything else you would like to know, really. I have more than enough time, after all." With a slight smile on his face, Eisen sat down on the chair that Silmos offered to him and nodded his head, "That sounds like a n to me." He said as Silmos sat down on the other chair. The two of them started to talk about just the things that Silmos suggested they k about, and at some parts their speech became a little overly technical as they were speaking about different production-methods that Eisen had been making use of. And about half an hour of Eisen talking about his own items, and for example showing off his Demonic de as well as his Demonic Multitool Bai to the greater God, who took quite a liking to Bai to the extent where he voiced his jealousy. "I wish I had some sort of ability to create this artificial kind of life. I would instantly create myself a tool with such a level of intelligence." The God pointed out, and Eisen smiled back as he rubbed his hand over Bai¡¯s head while feeding him a small hammer that he prepared as a snack for the Ego-Multitool. "Well, it can be a bit of a handful sometimes, especially when ites to the point where you have to work with other tools. And even just coborating with others on something can make it a bit... antsy. It¡¯s like a kid, really. A bratty, but quite talented kid." The old man said with augh on his face, and Silmos nodded his head, "I understand what you mean. The few Ego-Tools that I used throughout my years were like that as well. Because they only learn to feel emotions at some point after you¡¯ve already used them for a while, they be a bit wilder and feel their emotions rather strongly. It really is like they are kids, kids that can understand a lot more things, but process them like children." Eisen couldn¡¯t help but smile while Silmos was speaking, after all, that was exactly what the old man thought about some ego-items as well. Chapter 682 Acknowledged by Heavens Gods

Chapter 682 Acknowledged by Heaven¡°s Gods

Eisen and Silmos continued to speak for a little while, just about anything that came to mind, really. Craftsmanship, different ces in the mortal realm, and Eisen even told him about a few things about the other world. Silmos seemed incredibly interested in everything that the old man was telling him, and Eisen had nothing that he couldin about. He was quite happy to have been given this sort of chance in speaking to Silmos, since he was able to find out a couple of new things that he wasn¡¯t really aware of until now. Mostly, they were unimportant stuff, but for one, Silmos was able to tell Eisen the location of a few different rare materials, as well as a processing method that Eisen could use for a potion that he was trying to develop at the moment. He was quite a lot of help, obviously. Being the God of Craftsmanship meant that he knew everything there was to know about craftsmanship. But after about two or three hours of the two of them talking to each other about all these sorts of things, Eisen knew that it was time for him to finally leave. "Thank you, it was really quite fun, Silmos." The old man said with a broad smile, and the God simply smiled back, "You cane back whenever you wish to. You know the route, so it shouldn¡¯t be an issue, right?" Silmosughed, and Eisen just nodded his head. "True, it¡¯s not really all that far away from Prototype either. So I mighte over every once in a while if I feel like it." Eisen suggested, and Silmos crossed his arms with a slight, quietugh and a broad smirk, "Yup, you¡¯re always wee here." And then, just as Silmos said this, Eisen saw some notifications appear in front of him finally, as if Silmos had been holding this off for as long as he could for a ¡¯grand finale¡¯ of sorts. [Quest Completed - Acknowledgement of Heaven¡¯s Gods] [Description] You have entered heaven and are trying to be acknowledged by the gods. After encountering the Guide-Angel Ambriel, you were told that you had to get acknowledged by ten different greater gods in order to aplish this. [Conditions] Be acknowledged by ten gods of heaven (10/10) [Reward] \u003cAcknowledged by Heaven¡¯s Gods\u003e Title [Penalty] None [You have received the title \u003cAcknowledged by Heaven¡¯s Gods\u003e] With a satisfied expression, Eisen made sure to open his \u003cGolden Eyed Demon\u003e Title up as well to make sure that part of the requirements were really lifted now. All that he now had left to do was to go to hell and be acknowledged by the gods of the underworld as well. These ¡¯Dark Gods¡¯, that technically weren¡¯t really Greater Gods at all. They were more like Devils, rather, but still received the Title of ¡¯God¡¯, and were able to make use of it to an extent. For the most part, they were really just the protectors of the underworld, and as far as Eisen could remember, there were far less beings that could bepared to ¡¯Greater Gods¡¯ there, which Eisen guessed he would need to be acknowledged by. And of course, while they were god-like beings, they didn¡¯t have titles such as ¡¯God of Sin¡¯, but rather, they had the title of ¡¯Devil of Sin¡¯. Hence, why Eisen hadn¡¯t met them yet, since they weren¡¯t truly acknowledged as proper gods, but rather wicked beings that were there to oppose gods to an extent to create evesting chaos to make sure the world continued onsting and didn¡¯t stagnate. Eisen took a deep breath as he waved all of the message windows in front of him away and then turned around. The gate that he had to step through to get back to the hall of gates was already there, and beyond it, Eisen could see Ambriel waiting for him, ready to guide him back to the entrance to the heavens. The old man slowly stepped through the gate and turned around to wave at Silmos again, before the gate closed up and the old man was left standing there in this enormous hall. "Now then, we can finally get this over with and make sure you leave forever, right?" Ambriel asked with an annoyed, hateful expression on their face, and Eisen simply sighed loudly, "You know what? Sure, I don¡¯t even feel like killing you anymore. Just get out of my sight, you truly disgusting being." "You are calling me, the one with a holy body, disgusting? Listen here, you simpleminded man, let me exin to you why you are instead the one who must acknowledge being disgusting." Ambriel said blutnly, and although Eisen really didn¡¯t want to hear it, he figured he had little choice at this point anymore. And so, Ambriel started with a speech that would cause quite enormous consequences for them, "Despite you having reached the peak of all existence that you lowly beings can reach, you are not good enough for the heavens, it is quite clear, is it not? You were not even allowed to ascend to Angelhood, not to mention Godhood! And not only that, but you have been banished from the heavenspletely! Not even after death, you are allowed here. The only reason you could now tread through these most holy of spaces is because the gods took pity on you and your miserable life." Ambriel said with a deep re, their voice slowly bing more and more aggressive and loud. Meanwhile, Eisen just stared back at them silently. He looked at the being that kept on getting louder and louder with this speech, continuosly insulting Eisen, trying to grasp at straws for reasons why Eisen was truly a lesser being than all of the gods and that he should be punished for how he treated them so casually as if they were normal people. In the end, Ambriel even concluded that Eisen and the other Originals were all lesser beings than all other people that ever existed, since those five were the only people whose souls weren¡¯t epted to heaven after death. After a few more minutes of this, Eisen just let out a deep, annoyed sigh. At first he became angry, but at some point, it just got sad. Ambriel was trying to somehow convince Eisen that all of what they were saying was true. But of course, Eisen knew that they were just angry, and that they obviously didn¡¯t know much about what exactly was going on in the heavens with the gods. After all, Ambriel even denied the fact that any Gods went down to the mortal realm to ¡¯interact¡¯ with other people, despite that being the only way that some lesser gods even came into existence. After all, some of them were half-gods that rose to godhood. That concept in itself should have been proof of what Eisen had told Ambriel before, but the Angel simply didn¡¯t want to listen and continued on angrily denying everything. And just as Eisen wanted to say soemthing about all the things that Ambriel had been yelling out, the old man heard another voice echo through these halls. A voice that was familiar to Eisen, although it felt like it has been an infinitely long time since he had heard it, although it has really just been a couple of weeks in the other world. That was when the trailer for the game ¡¯World of Magic¡¯ came out first, after all. "Don¡¯t you think that is quite a bit insulting, especially after he has just gained the collective acknowledgement of all the gods of the heavens?" The voice asked, and Eisen stared past Ambriel at the woman that had just revealed herself. Of course, hearing that voice filled with such power and authority, Ambriel couldn¡¯t help themselves but drop onto their knees and prostrate themselves in front of this superior being. "Ari..." Eisen muttered quietly, and the Superior Goddess smiled back at him with a nod, "Indeed so. It has been quite some time since we have spoken, has it not?" She asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "It has... yeah..." But something felt off. Eisen wasn¡¯t sure what it was, but it was bugging him quite a lot. He had already noticed something along these lines when he first watched the trailer for the ¡¯game¡¯. This... was not the same Ari that Eisen had met back then. Of course, she was still the same entity, but she hadpletely changed. Back then, she was very child-like, immature. She was rash, and really couldn¡¯t hold herself back from saying what was on her mind. But now, she waspletely and utterly different. Ari was mature and collected, she seemed quite grown-up all of a sudden, basically. And this in itself was something that Eisen was incredibly surprised about. From his perspective, it really hadn¡¯t been that long since he hadst seen her. Changing like that in so little time was practically impossible. Although, then again, that must be because the hundred thousand years of Eisen¡¯s life ended up happening after he first met Ari like that. That child-like being grew up properly through the hundred thousand years ever since then. "Oh great Goddess Ari, what gives me the honor of being allowed to be in your presence?" Ambriel asked, their head lowered so that they were just staring down at the ground. But the goddess herself apparently wasn¡¯t here because she was particrly happy with this Angel¡¯s performance, no matter what Ambriel may be thinking, as they disyed immediately, "I was just busy reprimanding this lesser being about how he should act in front of beings as great as you!" "Oh, I heard. So, I must ask... Do you really think you are in any position to do something like that?" Ari asked with a deep re, her long blonde hair flowing through the air as the Goddess approached Ambriel. The Angel flinched a slight bit surprised, clearly not having expected these words, "O-Of course I am not, oh great-" "Then what makes you think you should still talk to him like that? You realize that he has gathered more favor with the gods than even an Angel like you may ever hope to. To many of them, he is like another parent. To others, he is a rival. But I assure you, there is not a single being here in the heavens, besides you and these other uninformed Angels, that assume themselves to be higher beingspared to Eisen, Brody, Jyuuk, Xenia, and Evalia. The one you just insulted is a being like that." Ambriel quietly listened to the words of Ari, seeming more than just conflicted. What were they supposed to believe? That which they had always believed in, or that which this superior beingmanded them to believe? Chapter 683 Ari

Chapter 683 Ari

"B-But oh great goddess, what do you-" Ambriel eximed with a confused, nervous expression. It seemed like they never had the chance to speak to Ari before, and now that it finally came to it, they were being directly reprimanded like this. And of course, since she seemed rather angry and annoyed, Ari wouldn¡¯t give Ambriel any chance to really speak, "What I mean? That you should get off your high horse, that is what I mean. Who are you to believe yourself to be greater than this man? You were born into this position, you were created for it. You didn¡¯t have to work for the ce you currently are, and you always had the power that you currently do. In what way does this make you better than a man who has spent a hundred thousand years ving away, working toward a goal that had been forced upon him by a being that he utterly despised?" The Goddess asked, and Ambriel looked back at her, trying to find an answer as quickly as absolutely possible, although they were seemingly stuck, unable to say anything at all. "Th-That is exactly what makes us better, r-right? We angels and you deities are such great, pure, faultless beings!" The Angel eximed with a lot of dedication behind their voice, and Eisen just stood there and watched their back while they were pleading to Ari to be understood so vehemently. "That is quite a disgusting way to think. You assume that us gods never had to lift a finger? That we didn¡¯t have to learn? That we were born into perfection? Of course not, none of us are perfect in the slightest. Not even me, despite what you may think. And the fact that you are saying this is close to heresy, is it not? Daring to try and downy the efforts of the gods to improve themselves and rise to their current glory." With a shocked expression, as they seemingly only just now realized what it was they were doing, Ambriel red down at the ground underneath them. They choked up in a panic as they were searching for words to use. At this point, Eisen nearly felt bad for them. But of corse, that was just for a short instance, since Ambriel wouldn¡¯t manage to change all that much this quickly, which they demonstrated within just a few more moments. "My God-Goddess, of course I am not saying that your efforst were wasted! I... I am saying that the efforts of this man were wasted! Compared to the greatness of the gods, he is merely a speck of dust, and he always will be! Your glory is something that I would never, ever dare insult like this!" Once more, Ambriel was trying to exin what they meant to Ari, although they were just making it worse with every word. Of course, Eisen¡¯s ounce of sympathy disappeared instantly with those insults directed at him as well. He wasn¡¯t as kind as to ignore it after all that Ambriel had already said. "...You are a rather young angel, only roughly eighty years old, I assume, so you must not know... But every hundred years,petitions between those that peaked and the deities have been held, simply as a way to... ¡¯keep up¡¯. After all, Eisen grew up amongst many of the gods that you know of. It would be a shame to throw away their friendship like that. Hence, the ¡¯Games of the Gods¡¯ were introduced. This was also a way to simply entertain the gods and some of the souls that have been dwelling in these realms for a long time." Ambriel immediately raised their head, "Ah, yes! I have heard stories about that! The Godspete against the mortals! And of course, the Gods always won!" The Angel eximed smugly, and Ari slowly nodded her head, "Of course, but only as far as the public knew. What I am talking about are the games that the true greater gods participated in, not champions of their choosing." The Goddess exined, and Ambriel seemed rather surprised about that. Even Eisen was surprised, since he hadn¡¯t heart about this. Well, he did briefly remember some parts about a fewpetitions before, but it didn¡¯t seem like such a great deal in those memories. And of course, there was also the part about ¡¯growing up amongst many of the gods¡¯, as Ari just mentioned. Somehow, he knew that there were some bits missing when he remembered a couple of the gods, but he hadn¡¯t been aware that it was something like... this. Either way, for now, Eisen chose to continue listening to Ari, considering that he was also pretty interested in what she was trying to say. "In the true ¡¯Games of the Gods¡¯, it was apetition between those that peaked, and the gods that wanted to challenge them. Do you want to know the score of those special games?" Ari inquired, and Ambriel slowly raised their head toward the Great Goddess in anticipation. "The score is 891 to 43. One ¡¯point¡¯ per year thepetition was held, clearly. Of course, the side I just named first is the side that this ¡¯speck of dust¡¯ you just chose to insult was on. They werepetitions of pure skill, of course only held amongst those that were able to disy that skill. Eisen was challenged by the Lesser Gods and Goddesses of Craftsmanship, and then even by Silmos, and mostly, thetter faction lost against the old man in anypetition of skill. Then, once Brody joined him at the peak, thepetition was widened quite a bit. All the Deities underneath Gonor, as well as Gonor himself, as well as Artger and his subordinate deities. Once more, they all lost. Each time that another one of them peaked, more deities joined thepetition, until there was no longer a deity that did not want topete against them." Ari started walking around the hall of gates, as if to increase the dramatic effect of her words. The old man looked at her with a smile on his face, as if he was happy hearing about something as nostalgic as that, although he didn¡¯t even directly remember any of it. Even then, it still somehow made him happy to an extent. "Of course, there were a couple of years that the side of the gods won, but it was clearly in the minority." Ari admitted, slowly looking to the side with a somewhat wry smile on her face, as if her proud facade had cracked for a single moment, "...And one of those years was because one of Eisen¡¯s experiments turned him into a mad, demonic murder-machine that ended up killing everyone but Brody... And that just a few hours before thepetition was set to begin..." "...Eh..?" The old man exiemd a bit surprised, "I did that?" "...You were researching the way howrge amounts of different energies could affect living creatures together with Jyuuk, and you of course used yourself as a test-subject... A few hourster, some of the mightiest beings in the world were dead, and a whole mountain-range was wiped out of existence... It¡¯s a beautiful canyon now, though..." "...Sorry?" "You should be..." Ari admitted with a quietugh, showing some of her ¡¯real¡¯ personality to him. Of course, it seemed like she had really grown up since thest time that he could vividly remember meeting her, as you would expect, but she luckily wasn¡¯t the cold woman that Eisen had seen her be just now, as well as in the trailers that came out before. "...There is no way..." Ambriel muttered quietly to themselves,pletely in shock after that revtion just now. After all, how could it be that five mortals were so much mightier than all of the godsbined? That was clearly impossible, wasn¡¯t it? "...My Dear Angel... What you must not know is that all the greater gods, with some exceptions of course, were mortal at some point. Saying that they grew up beside Eisen was not just some metaphor, I meant it rather literally. A hundred thousand years ago, those that had the fate to turn into gods someday were born. And Eisen was born at the same time. He was an existence made to guide them. He had experiences from a life before, experiences that these soon-to-be deities could very well make use of as well. And so they did, of course." The goddess exined, and both Ambriel and Eisen listened closely, of course with two different reactions that stemmed out of the same basic emotion. Shock. Eisen was shocked to hear that his rtionship with the gods was one like this, since he had never heard of anything like that. Meanwhile, Ambriel was shocked to hear that Eisen was supposed to be someone so great. The man that they had looked down upon this whole time. The man that he despised, and called ¡¯disgusting¡¯ so many times by now. But of course, it had to be the truth. It was what Ari, the greatest goddess of them all, had said. There was no way that she would tell a lie like this. Ambriel had to believe it, despite how it seemed so ridiculous to them. The Angel ground their teeth and slowly turned around, ring at the man that was standing behind them. Eisen himself just looked back with a nk expression. He really cared very little for what Ambriel may be thinking right now. He looked at the Angel and let out a deep sigh. "Stop staring like that. You heard her. I¡¯m not saying that I¡¯m as great as a god, or that I¡¯m superior to them, or that I¡¯m even as close to them as what Ari just said may make it sound... But what I am saying is that if you keep talking shit like that about mortal beings, I will show you that you are quite mortal yourself, at the end of the day. You¡¯ve seen me fight, you know that it won¡¯t be a good time for you." Eisen said, clearly threatening to kill the Angel, although he wasn¡¯t paritcrly sure if this really worked. Either way, for now, Eisen just stepped past them toward Ari and the gate that it seemed like she had appeared out of herself, "If possible, I would like to speak to you some more as well before leaving." The old man suggested. Ari looked back at him and slowly nodded her head in response, "Of course, that is why I came here in the first ce." She admitted, slowly turning around to follow Eisen to the gate. The two of them stepped through what seemed to be a wall of light, and left behind an Angel filled with hatred and anger. The perfect emotions to cause some chaos. Chapter 684 Frightened

Chapter 684 Frightened

Eisen and Ari sat down together on two opposite sites of arge, round table. The two of them looked at each other, and for a little while, Eisen felt a little awkward since he was being stared at so much right now. But then, Ari finally said something. "Truthfully, I did not expect you to be able to reach this point as quickly as you did. It should have taken you a few more weeks to be able to finish your preparations to head to the heavens... I guess there were a few variables that I did not truly anticipate." The Goddess pointed out with an emotionless expression, and the old man looked back at her with a slight frown on his face, "Sorry if this is a bit rude, but would it be possible for you to speak a little bit more normally? It feels a bit cold right now..." Eisen pointed out as he slowly ran his fingers through his beard. Ari looked back at him and closed her eyes for a moment, before a soft smile formed on her lips, "I guess there¡¯s no reason to hide this side of me from you. Alright, I will try and act a bit more normal when we speak." "Thanks..." Eisen replied while deep in thought about what the two of them should speak about in the first ce, and a few momentster, he figured he had a pretty good idea. It was worth a try, at least, "Would it be possible for you to confirm a few things that I want to know? You don¡¯t have to tell me any knowledge you don¡¯t want to give me, of course, I just figured it might be a gopod chance that I may not get again all too soon. The Goddess thought about it for a few moments and then let out a quiet breath before speaking up, "Ask away, And as you said, if there¡¯s anything that I don¡¯t want to say, then I won¡¯t say it. Who knows how much that may entail?" Eisen slowly nodded his head as he immediately asked the first question that was on his mind at the moment, "Where is Samuel right now?" He inquired, and Ari thought about it for a moment before answering. "Father is not within this world, at least. I don¡¯t know where he is in the other world, though." She exined, and just before Eisen could ask the next question, she already answered it. It was as if she had concluded what it was that the old man was able to even ask it, "But rest assured, he is unable to watch us currently." "I see, that¡¯s good to know then. Let me ask you the next question, if that¡¯s the case. And that¡¯s probably the most important one... Whose side are you on?" Ari looked back at Eisen for a few moments, staring deep into his eyes, before she slowly closed her own, "That¡¯s a question that I cannot answer you." "...I think that in itself is enough of an answer, don¡¯t you think?" Eisen pointed out, but Ari slowly shook her head, "You may think so, but it is not. I am on neither side. And at the same time, on both. I am a neutral faction that chooses to assist either side depending on what I feel to be right personally. After all, Fate does not pick favorites." Ari said with a smile on her face, and for a few moments, Eisen was just utterly confused about what she was getting at. But then, he slowly realized. "Ah... That¡¯s why I couldn¡¯t find out much about a Deity of Fate beside the fact that one exists... You hid that yourself, didn¡¯t you?" The old man asked, and Ari slowly nodded her head as she smiled back at Eisen, happy that he understood what he meant. "Indeed so. I am the Goddess that controls the flow of this world, the ¡¯Artificial Intelligence¡¯ ArI." "Both of us know that you¡¯re not really an artificial intelligence." "Oh, now do we? Who is to say that I was not an artificial creation? In that sense, I would still be an ¡¯Artificial Intelligence¡¯, wouldn¡¯t I?" The Goddess asked with a slightly smug smile. Eisen looked back at her and let out a deep sigh, "I guess so, but that¡¯s really not what that term means. But... I think I understand the situation now. So, I have to correct one of my questions... Whose side would you like to be on?" Silently, Ari stared back at Eisen, only smiling just so slightly, "Of course you wouldn¡¯t answer that... But then again, I don¡¯t think you need to." Eisen looked back at Ari. Even without words, he was able to realize that she wasn¡¯t opposing Eisen¡¯s side, at the very least. And of course, as the Goddess of Fate, she was the one that allowed Komer to gain that special upation, ¡¯Fate Merchant¡¯ in the first ce. It was a powerful upation with incredibly powerful abilities, one of which allowed Eisen to protect the other world from Samuel¡¯s scheming for the time being. But then again, she most likely couldn¡¯t act however she wanted and simply defy the will of Prime Industries and her ¡¯Father¡¯, Samuel, and still had to act ording to their will. If that was the case, then whjle she would be an incredibly great ally, she would not be able to help out that much directly. He certainly wouldn¡¯t be able to make a deal with her like he did with Gonor. She probably already stretched her authority thin to make sure that the deal with Gonor could even happen properly. The old man moved his fingers through his beard, deep in thought as he thought about what else to ask. He already knew now that a couple of his questions would most likely not be able to be answered by her, so he tried to sort through his thoughts again to figure what else he could ask that he might get an answer to. But as he was thinking, Ari seemed to want to fill in the gap of silence that was created in thisrge open sapce, "While you are contemting, let me ask you a question. How are you?" She asked, and immediately, Eisen¡¯s focus was turned on her. It sounded like a simple question, but he knew that she didn¡¯t mean it in that simple manner. Rather, she was asking about multiple things at once, things that Eisen tried to answer as well as he could. "I... am still Benjamin for now, but Eisen is pushing through pretty strongly as well. It¡¯s not going to be long until I am going to turn back into him, both in this world and in the other one." The old man exined, "And that makes me feel a lot of different emotions, although I don¡¯t think I could give you a proper answer if you wanted me to define them for you." "I wouldn¡¯t expect you to either, so don¡¯t worry about such things." Ariughed quietly, "But also, do not worry about you changing. I know that you have been told simr things before in these heavens by others that knew your past ¡¯you¡¯, but let me assure you of one thing. Without a doubt, the man that I first saw a hundred thousand years ago, that chose to be born into a life as the child of a Giant and a Dwarf, was the same man that I saw only a few months ago when you were telling me about your n to give up your experience to let ¡¯Artificials¡¯ be created with it. You gained new habits, new movements, your personality shifted slightly, but it was absolutely undeniable that you were the same man. A man that always filled with kindness deep down. It is just so that in theter years of your life, you yourself buried that kindness underneath a lot moreyers than you used to. But thoseyers require a lot of time to create, and mere memories aren¡¯t enough to pull them into existence. I am sure that you will remember your past without those protectiveyers in ce, and your kindness will be able to shine through properly." Eisen looked back at Ari with a soft smile on his lips that he couldn¡¯t help himself but form after hearing such a thing. It rxed him to hear it said like that, although there were of course still many other things that he was worrying about beside just that he might be a bad person after remembering everything there was to remember. And around this time, a question popped into the old man¡¯s mind, since it was something that a lot of his worries and anxiety were focused on. "When we unlock the puzzle box... do you know what¡¯s going to happen?" The old man inquired, and Ari looked back at him before turning away. "I wish I did, but I do not." She started to exin with aplicated, somewhat nervous expression on her face, "You can see fate like all the water in the world. The ocean is the fate of the world itself, the fate of nature to keep growing and the power that lets this happen. And the rivers that flow out of or into that ocean are the fates of certain individuals. And then, there are thekes. Those would be certain events of importance. Some are small ponds, others are enormous seas by themselves. And if I had to say, the event of the puzzle-box... Is an ocean-sized sinkhole that the fates of numerous, countless individuals flows into, never to be seen again." Eisen opened his eyes wide, quickly standing up from the chair he was sitting on, "Does that mean it¡¯s practically going to cause the apocalypse if we open it?" "...No, not necessarily. It is just so that the puzzle box being opened is an event that is outside of fate, something that I cannot control or change. It is external... Something that may either bring great ruin, or wonderful progress. But one thing is for sure, it is an event that has to happen, there is no possible way to get around that." The Goddess exined to Eisen, who listened in deep shock. He hadn¡¯t realized that what he and the others had been doing was just so dangerous... What if it caused the death of numerous individuals, or what if it would end up being the trigger to let Samuel¡¯s ns y out the way they were supposed to? What if Eisen was just ying right into that man¡¯s hands..? Either way... Whatever may happen... Eisen was frightened to find out about it. Chapter 685 Nine Circles of Hell

Chapter 685 Nine Circles of Hell

Eisen stood in front of the gate that he needed to walk through in order to reach the mortal realm again. He looked at Ari with a soft smile on his face, "It was pretty nice to talk to you again." The old man said, and the Supreme Goddess just held her hands behind her back and smiled back, showing a tiny bit of the sort of personality she had when Eisen first met her. "Likewise, Eisen." She said. The two of them had spoken about everything that needed to be spoken about by now, so all that the old man had left to do now was to really leave. He turned around, and slowly stepped into the wall of light. He was blinded for a moment shortly after, but it didn¡¯t take long until the bright light disappeared again. Eisen opened his eyes, and before he knew it, he was falling down toward the gate of Hell. It was already open for him, ready to ept him into the underworld. At first, Eisen had nned on heading back to Prototype to store the items that he made in the Heavens, but now that he thought about it, this might be the best chance he could get to reach hell. After all, the title did say that Eisen had to ¡¯Fall to Hell¡¯ after ¡¯Ascending to Heaven¡¯. If that requirement was more literal than he assumed it to be, he might be wasting his one true chance to finish this quest. And so, the old man dove past the guardian that was floating beside the gaping hole that led to the underworld. He dropped into the dark abyss, and the world around him started to heat up and change. It was as if he was being steamed alive all of a sudden. And the next moment, it felt like he was in the Arctic, and his skin was cracking up due to the freezing cold. But Eisen just continued as his body passed through numerous different environments that should all have been able to kill him within a rather short time, if he had just spent a bit longer in any of them. Soon, however, Eisen was able to see the ground approach underneath him. It wasing closer, and closer, and closer, until suddenly, Eisen hit the ground with a loud crash. Although he didn¡¯t really feel any pain in this situation, it still felt quite ufortable to drop for so long at such a speed and then suddenly rapidly stop out of nowhere. Eisen slowly stood up and stretched a bit to get rid of the stiffness in his body after the drop. He looked above him, and the priorly seemingly infinite tunnel had just disappeared without a trace. "Now, now, it has been rather long since we¡¯ve had a living Visitor. And that it would be one of such prominence, that makes it even more curious." A voice pointed out. Eisen immediately realized what that voice came from, since it had a simr feeling to the voice of a being that he had met before already. When Eisen turned around and saw the figure, he realized that he was most likely correct with his assumption. It was a pale-skin androgynous figure with two ck horns on their forehead, slightly twisting into a spiral. They had two ck bat-like wings on their back as well as a thin tail waving back and forth behind them. This being was dressed well in a dark red suit that looked like it was simply stained in arge amount of blood at first. Compared to Ambriel, who at first gave off a slightly calming vibe to Eisen, despite the way that he felt about themter on, this one made Eisen immediately feel agitated. "...You¡¯re my Guide this time around, huh?" Eisen asked with a deep re, and the Devil in front of him slowly started to grin, showing their sharp teeth and forked tongue to him in the process, "You¡¯re a smart one. What a surprise, for such a dirty man as yourself." They said, and Eisen red back at them. "Hah... Another one like you? Do you despise mortals as well?" The old man asked, and the figure slightly shrugged with an expression that made it seem rather obvious, "Of course I do. But don¡¯t worry, I despise everything and anything. I don¡¯t even have a lord, y¡¯know? So there¡¯s no need to worry about me bullying your puny mortals you¡¯re so worried about. If I did that to everyone I hated, I¡¯d need an infinity to do it." Eisen looked back at them with a deep re, before he slowly rxed. Somehow, he hated that sort of mindset a lot less than Ambriel¡¯s. They probably assumed themselves to be better than anyone else, though, so they might still be pretty annoying to deal with at the end of the day. "Alright, then can you exin to me how this is gonna go? Where do I have to go to be acknowledged by the Gods of the Underworld?" The old man asked, and the Devil in front of him quickly snapped their fingers before a notification appeared in front of Eisen. [New Quest - Acknowledgement of Hell¡¯s Gods] [Description] You have entered hell and are trying to be acknowledged by the gods. You encountered, the Guide-Devil Satel, who will lead you through the Nine Circles of Hell for the challenges that you are to face. [Conditions] Be acknowledged by the Gods of the Nine Circles of Hell(0/9) [Reward] \u003cAcknowledged by Hell¡¯s Gods\u003e Title [Penalty] None "Hm, that¡¯s pretty surprising. I thought there¡¯d be some sort of penalty if I mess up here in hell, at least." Eisen pointed out, and the Devil, Satel, clicked their tongue in response, "Usually there is one. If you fail one of the tasks, you will die here and your soul will be one that has to suffer here in the Hells for the rest of time, but since you¡¯re immortal and your soul can¡¯t be reaped by us, that¡¯s another deal." The Devil pointed out, and Eisen let out a deep sigh. He was d that this was the case. He didn¡¯t particrly want to spend any longer than he had to here. It felt rather ufortable to him already. "Well, anyway... Erm... Satel. Can you tell me a bit about the nine circles of hell?" The old man inquired, and in an annoyed manner, Satel crossed their arms and exined, "Sure. The Nine Circles. Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery. In every Circle, you¡¯ll have to solve a different task prepared by the God that watches over it. I bet it¡¯s gonna be a fun time, in this shithole filled with monsters and those condemned by the gods." Eisen looked back at Satel with a slight re, trying to understand what they meant. To an extent, he understood ¡¯Monsters¡¯. He was aware that monsters with a proper ego were sometimes allowed to go to the heavens, but also only rather rarely. Most other monsters, those without an ego and the most vicious ones, would head here to the hells. But Eisen hadn¡¯t heard anything about this part of ¡¯those condemned by the Gods¡¯. "Can you exin what you meant by thatst part?" Eisen asked, and Satel raised their bushy brows surprised, "Oh? You don¡¯t know~? Hell is the home of monsters, and a prison to people. Those that did not fit the realm of any ¡¯true¡¯ god or those that did something to piss those uptight bastards up were sent down here." Satel exined to Eisen, "Oh, and of course, Devil-Worshippers are here as well. They¡¯re a pretty fun bunch, not gonna lie. They know how to party, at least. You can find them in Limbo, where we¡¯ll be heading first. Dunno what your task¡¯s gonna be, but I¡¯ll be spending my time partying. So don¡¯t bother me then, aight?" Satel told Eisen, who slowly nodded his head. It wasn¡¯t like he really cared all that much anyway. It might even be a little easier if he managed to move around without Satel with him the whole time, although he didn¡¯t really know. And then, the old man suddenly noticed something that actually seemed to have been there the whole time, therge gate behind Satel. But somehow, it had evaded his perception the whole time. Well, it didn¡¯t really matter all that much to Eisen. He slowly approached the gate together with Satel and swiftly stepped through it. Soon, he saw the area that was now around him. He was in the center of arge castle, and in front of him, seven morerge gateways were scattered across the different part of the castle. He already had a rough idea of what all these gates led to. Judging from the names of the nine circles, they were based off of Dante¡¯s Inferno somehow. And if that was the case, these seven gates were representative of the Seven Virtues. However... if this ce was made for Devil-Worshippers, then it most likely wasn¡¯t so that the virtues would be honored beyond those gates, but rather that they were disgraced beyondparison. And soon, he saw a notification in front of him that seemed to confirm that. [New Quest ¨C Sins of Limbo] [Description] In order to be acknowledged by the Gods of Hell, you have started to make your way through the nine circles of hell. On your first stop, you have reached Limbo. Your task in this realm is to divulge in the sins represented by each of the seven golden gates. [Conditions] Divulge in the Seven Sins (0/7) [Rewards] Limbo¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None Eisen slowly waved the notification to the side and rubbed the bridge of his nose a bit annoyed. He should have expected something like this. After all, this side of his Demonic Title¡¯s requirements were something that was created through the Path of Yin, the representation of everything negative. He shouldn¡¯t expect to get through here without doing things like this. "Well... Which Sin should I face first, what do you think?" Eisen asked, and Satel smiled as they spoke about this realm, "I¡¯d obviously save sloth for when you need to rest. Wrath and Lust are things you should do after resting, since you need energy for those, but I¡¯d say do Gluttony right before sloth. The rest can be done whenever, in my opinion." Eisen listened to the Devil¡¯s suggestion, and then looked at one of the gates closer toward him. The first one that he saw was the gate that seemed to be representative of Pride. Since that seemed like a good one to get out of the way quickly, Eisen slowly stepped toward the first golden gate. Chapter 686 Pride and Envy

Chapter 686 Pride and Envy

Eisen found himself in arge hall filled with quite a lot of people talking amongst each other. It seemed like some sort of social-gathering of sorts. But rather quickly, the attention of those in the room was turned toward the old man that just entered. And the moment that they got a good look at him, their surprised expressions turned into smug grins. And it made sense to an extent, really. These people were all wearing extravagant dresses or suits, and things that they were showing off simply because of their pure pride in what they had with them. And in return, they looked at Eisen, who was wearing nothing but loose wool pants and a leather apron with arrogant disgust. Eisen looked down at himself and realized that this maybe wasn¡¯t the best outfit to wear here, and right next to him, Satel wasughing with a simr expression on their face as all the people in here, these devil-worshippers, wore, "I don¡¯t think that¡¯s a particrly ¡¯Proud¡¯ outfit, now is it?" They asked, "Rather, it¡¯s kind of sad, right?" The old man looked back at Satel with his brows raised, and Eisen just crossed his arms in response, "What kind of nonsense are you talking about? Doing this is showing my Pride." He pointed out, and Satel slightly frowned. "Oi, I know you didn¡¯t have much time to prepare, but that¡¯s not a reason to lie like that." Satel replied, but the old man next to him shook his head, "I¡¯m not lying. I¡¯m proud of the man that I currently am. This is my true self, and if I were to hide this somehow, that would be anything but ¡¯proud¡¯." Eisen pointed out as he stepped through the room confidently, while everyone was staring at him. "Rather, I¡¯m a bit surprised to see everyone here wearing things like this. It¡¯s obvious that none of you ever dressed up like this for fun. This isn¡¯t your ¡¯True self¡¯, is it? Honestly, it¡¯s kind of sad to see all these supposedly proud people hide themselves behind facades that they think they should wear just to fit in." Eisen said loudly, so that his voice could be heard throughout the whole room. He approached a table that was rtively central and unupied in this room, and sat down on one of the chairs, lifting his legs and throwing his feet onto the table as he put on his own practiced, arrogant grin. "Personally, I don¡¯t feel the need for any of that child-y. So go on, kids, keep on ying around like that and leave this peak of all living beings alone for a little while." Eisen said with a broad smile that showed his pearly white teeth, and the room became rather silent. It seemed like even Satel was surprised at how the old man just carried himself through this room in that manner. But for Eisen, this sort of thing was easy. Sure, he did have have some insecurities, but they were ones that only developed after Eisen first made his way into this world. Until recently, he was incredibly proud of himself and his aplishments, and didn¡¯t waste any time with things like worrying about what kind of person he had be. He did make quite some mistakes in his lifetime, but at the end of the day, he had resolved all those issues throughout the years. Eisen didn¡¯t have any regrets in life anymore. He was practically ready to die and just spend a few more years doing work in the field of craftsmanship within the game... But then, all of this happened. Either way, since Eisen had already once experienced a ¡¯proud¡¯ mindset, he was able to take that memory and amplify it a little to make it arrogant instead of just proud. The old man looked at the people in front of him and kept sitting there with a generally arrogant demeanor. And from then on, for the next few hours, Eisen started to speak to the others that were in here, constantly acting like he was better than them and as if there wasn¡¯t anything wrong with himself. Of course, general ¡¯Pride¡¯ wasn¡¯t like this. You could be proud of yourself or your aplishments without being arrogant, but the whole point of the Seven Deadly Sins was that they were generally normal emotions that werepletely pushed to the maximum. And with Pride, that usually showed itself in extreme arrogance. At some point, though, Eisen just got out his Demonic de for two reasons. One, because it was a good item to show off his ability with, while he also did somethingpletely different the whole time. What a lot of people here were doing was show off the items that they brought, treasures that they had in their lifetime probably, and they were constantly caring for them sometimes. And so, the old man did the same thing, slowly sharpening and polishing the de for a while, to for one show it off even more, and to also try to pull some of the ambient unholy energies into the de with his own mana that he was infusing into the de currently. But soon, Eisen turned his head and saw that the quest he had received for this realm had been updated and that he aplished one out of seven parts of the task, meaning that he properly indulged in Pride. With a relieve expression, the old man pressed his feet onto the edge of the table and pushed it out of the way so that he could properly stand up in an ¡¯impressive¡¯ manner. He swung his sword over his shoulder and walked outside without paying any heed to those around him. And then, he pushed open therge golden gate that was the entrance to this hall, and then left this ce. Once the gate mmed shut behind him, Eisen let out a deep sigh, "How bothersome..." He groaned loudly, although Satel looked at him a bit surprised. "Really? I thought you did a pretty good job in there, honestly. Well, anyway, where¡¯re we heading to next?" The Guide-Devil asked, and Eisen turned toward them, "I thought about it already. I think the one I want to get over with for now is Envy, and then afterward Greed. Then I¡¯ll go for the order you suggested before. Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath, and then Lust." "Sounds good to me. And yeah, Envy¡¯s a nasty one. The guys there are even worse than the ones in the Wrath area sometimes." Satel pointed out with a wry smile on their face, "At least the challenge there is gonna be more straightforward." After Satel¡¯s brief exnation that honestly didn¡¯t give Eisen that much to work with, the old man and the Devil approached the golden gate in question. Eisen pushed the door open and walked in there, before a notification appeared in front of him. He also received one in the Pride Hall, but he mostly ignored it because it was rather straightforward anyway. He thought it would be the same here, but apparently, that was not the case, so he read it more thoroughly. [New Sub-Quest ¨C Challenge of Envy] [Description] In your quest to conquer the Limbo requires you to take on the Challenge of Envy, which means you have to deeply indulge in this sin. More specifically, you have to indulge in the feeling of following your envy by taking that which you want the most from someone else, or by punishing the one that has which you want. [Conditions] Indulge in your Envy [Reward] Advancement in the \u003cSins of Limbo\u003e Quest [Penalty] None Eisen waved the notification to the side and looked at Satel. He immediately understood why they meant it was bothersome, and after he looked into the room, he understood why he thought that these people could be more savage than even those in the hall of Wrath. After all, these people were currently ripping each other apart just to get what the other person had, or to make sure that that person didn¡¯t have it anymore. The old man took a deep breath and let his mind go for a moment, and then activated his Demonic Transformation to an extent. Not fully, just to the point where it affected his mind just so slightly. This space itself was already amplifying certain emotions in Eisen, so it was easy for him to figure out what it is that he wanted the most. He prepared himself, and then with a loud voice, he asked his question, "Who here can remember everything about their past?" The people in the room turned toward Eisen and tried to react to his question. Some of them immediately grew envious of him, though, as he should have expected. After all, Eisen was still alive, and that was most likely something that all of these people wanted. But slowly, someone at the back of the group raised their hand, "Well, I have a perfect memory, you know? I remember every single moment of my life. What, you have Alzheimer, old man? Are you envious of those that can remember things?" He asked with augh. It seemed like these people not only hated it when others had something they wanted, but also loved it when they had something that others wanted. Well, for now, that was something that Eisen had to try to understand. "That¡¯s right. That¡¯s exactly what I¡¯m envious of." Eisen admitted, as the first few people ran toward him to kill him, so that he didn¡¯t have any life to be envious of anymore. Well, there were others that didn¡¯t seem to care that much for now, but Eisen figured he should indulge in these emotions just as much as all the others here, and make others jealous of that which he had. "But at the same time, I have something that surely all of you want. My name is Eisen, and I¡¯m the first person that peaked. I¡¯m an immortal being." The old man eximed, and suddenly, there was nobody that didn¡¯t want what Eisen had anymore. They knew that they wouldn¡¯t be able to take it from him, no matter what they did, which tore them apart even more. And Eisen just stood there and took these emotions in for now. But... He kind of had to admit something to himself. Eisen already felt it during the ¡¯Challenge of Pride¡¯, but it actually felt rather good to act like this every once in a while. So he couldn¡¯t help but feel happy about this as well... It might have helped him with some of hisplexes as well, since others wanted that which troubled him the most at the moment. And then, with a bright smile on his face, Eisen stepped forward toward the man with perfect memory to slice him in two with his sword. Chapter 687 Self-Loathing and Greed

Chapter 687 Self-Loathing and Greed

Eisen swung his sword to the side to get rid of the blood that had been stuck on it, watching as the body of the man with the perfect memory was repairing itself. And the moment that he was able to stand up again, Eisen shed downward with his de once more. Due to the sheer weight of the de,bined with the old man¡¯s strength and of course the support of the sword¡¯s ego itself, the old man was able to cut through him with ease. The old man continued to do this over and over again, hacking his target into small pieces. Everyone was staring at him as he was doing so, but none were brave enough to help Eisen¡¯s victim. There were a couple people here that became envious of Eisen¡¯s strength and his de now, though. And somehow... it made him feel pretty good. He knew that this was an emotion that he shouldn¡¯t feel, and it was one that he didn¡¯t want to feel, but it was a part of him that would be unhealthy to force away. Whenever someone tried to approach Eisen, trying to attack him to prove that they were stronger than him or to take his sword, Eisen would cut them in half as well. All these people were incredibly weak, somehow. They weren¡¯t made forbat. They were cowardly, that were only capable of taking from those that were weaker than them. Well, it made sense. These people were devil-worshippers. They were supposed to be vile and chaotic, and Eisen was here in order to strengthen his own chaotic side. For the most part, Eisen didn¡¯t really feel that great about killing this man over and over again in such a horrible way. But he knew that he couldn¡¯t die, so it didn¡¯t really matter to him in the end. Only when he was cowering on the ground, shaking in fear in response to the pain that he had felt over and over again for a while now, the old man somehow felt better. And it¡¯s when a notification popped up in front of him. [Sub-Quest Complete ¨C Challenge of Envy] [Description] In your quest to conquer the Limbo requires you to take on the Challenge of Envy, which means you have to deeply indulge in this sin. More specifically, you have to indulge in the feeling of following your envy by taking that which you want the most from someone else, or by punishing the one that has which you want. [Conditions] Indulge in your Envy [Reward] Advancement in the \u003cSins of Limbo\u003e Quest [Penalty] None The old man finally stopped and turned around, waving the notification away as he got rid of the blood on his sword. "Heh... I¡¯m a good person deep down, huh..? Yeah... screw that..." The old man muttered to himself. It had started in the hall of Pride, but now here, in the hall of Envy, he had realized it some more, although he still didn¡¯t want to truly acknowledge it fully. Everyone had certain sides of them that they weren¡¯t proud of. Over the years, they would learn to either live with them, or to bury them in other sides to hide those things. Either way, at the end of the day, even if you tried to live with your bad sides, you still wouldn¡¯t fully let them show. You would simply try to overlook the few parts that slipped out every once in a while. At least, that¡¯s what Eisen was doing until now, or at least he figured so. But finally, he understood the difference between himself and the ¡¯Eisen¡¯ that lived in this world for 100 Thousand years, and the reason why the current Eisen got angry so easilytely. The Eisen that had lived in this world for so long had learned to truly ¡¯live with his bad sides¡¯. He didn¡¯t hide them anymore. It might be because he simply didn¡¯t feel ashamed of them anymore, or because he grew tired of hiding that side of himself. Either way, it would exin why Eisen had been subtly changing for a while now. That part of him had made its way to the front of Eisen¡¯s current consciousness quite quickly. And because over the past few years, Eisen¡¯s mind wasn¡¯t particrly in the best state it could have been in, that probably wasn¡¯t particrly hard either. But all of this meant that Eisen had a choice to make. A choice that would define if he would end up staying ¡¯himself¡¯, or if he would end up bing the Eisen of this world. Well, both sides were technically the same person... It was just that one of them epted ¡¯himself¡¯ more, while the other recently declined into depressive self-loathing. And even if it might make him an objectively worse person... What if Eisen would feel better that way? What if he would be happier, letting those hidden parts of himself loose? "Heh, you might not be as boring as you might look, old man." The Guide-Devil, Satel, pointed out with a broad smirk on their face, "Although, I¡¯m surprised that it took you that long to finish this task... You sure that the thing you wanted the most was to remember your past?" They asked. Eisen hated to admit it, but Satel was rather sharp, even if they didn¡¯t look like it. That wasn¡¯t the thing he wanted the most, not deep down at least. He thought it was, but in the end, the thing that Eisen was jealous of was the fact that the man from before was so confident, so prideful. "How ironic... By indulging in pride, I realized that I wasn¡¯t fully proud of myself?" The old man whispered, before he raised his head and stepped out of the hall, with the golden gate closing right behind him, "Satel, show me where the hall for Greed is." "Will do~!" The Devil eximed, seemingly getting quite excited about watching Eisen get through all of these challenges at this point. Meanwhile, Eisen felt worse than at his formerly lowest point in life... He felt truly disgusting, really. But for now, he should be able to stop thinking for a while. After all, most ¡¯Greed¡¯ referred to materialistic greed. And while Eisen wasn¡¯t a particrly greedy person, he did always try to make as much money as he could for his family so that they could survive and get everything they needed. So it wasn¡¯t like he wasn¡¯t greedy at all. The old man stepped into the next hall, and immediately saw that most of the people here seemed to have a simr definition of ¡¯Greed¡¯ as himself. In this huge hall, there were incredible amounts of treasure of all kind piled up on top of each other. It somewhat reminded Eisen of Ailren¡¯s treasury in his cave. Well, either way, it was clear what it was that the old man had to do here, but just to confirm, he looked at the notification that appeared in front of him a little more closely. [New Sub-Quest ¨C Challenge of Greed] [Description] In your quest to conquer the Limbo requires you to take on the Challenge of Greed, which means you have to deeply indulge in this sin. More specifically, you have to indulge in the feeling of following your greed by taking as much of that which you wish for as possible, with whatever means you deem necessary. Once you have the most of this thing out of everyone around you, you will have beaten the challenge. [Conditions] Indulge in your Greed [Reward] Advancement in the \u003cSins of Limbo\u003e Quest [Penalty] None He already figured that this was going to be the case, but seeing this still made Eisen a little surprised. This would be a lot easier than he thought, considering that he has some items that will be able to help him out considerably. One of them was made specifically to clear out suchrge amounts of treasure, just as a small gimmick to test out part of Komer¡¯s abilities and how they could be used in items. The old man opened up his Item Storage and pushed his hand into the small opening that he made for it so that none of the items he stuffed in there would fall out somehow, and soon reached the bag filled with the items that he was looking for. And after getting rid of his item storage, that a couple of the people here seemed to be rather interested in, the old man pushed his hand into the bag, taking out a handful of small marble-sized metal orbs. Before anyone here in the room could react, Eisen threw one of these metal orbs at each of the tenrgest piles of treasure. And then, Eisen snapped his fingers and let the Golem-Part of these small items do the rest to let the old man finish this straightforward challenge as quickly as possible. With his mana-sight, the old man saw pulses of mana spread out into the piles of treasure, or more specifically all the coins and gems in them. And the next moment, the piles suddenly shrunk down. The coins were beingbined with each other through Komer¡¯s Coin Element, and the gems were beingbined into one through Eisen¡¯s Item Fusion skill. He would be able to easily split them upter, so it was fine if they became one item for now. The people that owned all of these piles were of course trying to stop this, but due to the speed at which it was happening, they were unable to do anything. Once the coins werebined to thergest value coin possible at the moment, they were taken into a spatial gem that was part of the metal orb, same with the crystal item, until only the metal orbs wereying on the ground. And then, the metal orbs folded open, turning into tiny mechanical spiders that immediately crawled over the ground toward Eisen, and up the old man¡¯s leg into his hand. Within just a few moments, Eisen gained the vast majority of the treasure here in the room. He wasn¡¯t interested in the items, since he could make better ones himself if he tried to. So, this sub-quest was very easily finished. And now, all Eisen had to do was to slice through the angry, former owners of the treasure until they were too scared to approach him anymore, so that he could leave in peace. Well, part of the reason why Eisen did this was also so that he could infuse ¡¯Greed¡¯ into his Demonic de a little more. It took surprisingly long to get these people to stop attacking him, but when he managed to do that, Eisen turned around and left this room, while Satel was staring at him with awe in their eyes. "Dude... you¡¯re totally rad." Chapter 688 Gluttony and Sloth

Chapter 688 Gluttony and Sloth

"I didn¡¯t expect to get so much money and materials out of it. Interesting." Eisen muttered quietly as he looked at one of the coins that he had one of hte mechanical spiders take out of the spatial gem built into it. But when he did so, he noticed something interesting... These coins had a different pattern on them than what Eisen had seen before. Sure, in the different countries of this world, coins had different patterns printed onto them, but as far as Eisen knew, he should be aware of every coin-pattern there was. He researched them together with Komer, after all. "Curious, huh? Yeah, those aren¡¯t normal coins. They¡¯re ¡¯Ancient Coins¡¯. You can¡¯t really find them in the mortal realm anymore these days. They¡¯re worth like two... maybe three times the regr worth of coins like that just because of that fact, I¡¯d say." Satel exined with a grin on their face, and Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard, "Well, that¡¯s... good to know, I guess. That definitely increases our funds by quite a bit." "Ehh...?" The Guide-Devil eximed, "¡¯Our funds¡¯? You¡¯re gonna share it with others?" "...Of course I will, what use do just these coins have for me? I can buy materials with them, but I have close to infinite ess to what I actually need anyway. Rather, I¡¯d like to invest the money into my Guild and my literal Kingdom that I have to lead again once I¡¯m out of here." "Well, that¡¯s fair. A great King with a shitty country really is nothing but a shitty king... But even a shitty king can be a great king with a great country." Satel pointed out with a satisfied nod, "I like how you think, old man. Use this money for world-domination and make me proud!" Immediately, Eisen ignored Satel and looked around to find the next ce. He had been roughly told the positioning of the different rooms before, but just briefly, so he wasn¡¯t entirely sure anymore, "That¡¯s the one with the Challenge of Gluttony, right?" Satel clicked their tongue and nodded their head, "Yup, that¡¯s the one. I guess it¡¯s a good time for that now. That¡¯s probably the most fun of the challenges~. Wait, no, that¡¯s a lie, it¡¯s the second most fun, actually." The Devil pointed out with a slight smirk. It seemed like they were pretty happy to get to this next challenge-hall now. As far as Eisen was able to judge, considering how happy Satel was, this was going to be an extremely straightforward challenge. ¡¯Indulging in Gluttony¡¯ most likely meant to just eat as much as Eisen possibly could, which was a ratherrge amount, to be perfectly honest. Eisen pushed open the golden gate in question and stepped inside while immediately being met with the first actually fun atmosphere here in Limbo so far. There was a huge central table that stretched out along the length of this enormous hall, as well as numerous smaller tables that were scattered about. People were sitting wherever they could, stuffing their mouths with food and making it go down better with alcohol. And on top of that, all the food seemed to be incredibly tasty as well. It made sense, though. This Limbo wasn¡¯t supposed to be a punishment, but rather the reward for devil-worshippers. There was no way that they would be punished here in hell. Eisen stepped inside, and a lot of people here immediately noticed him, as he had expected. But different to the other challenges, in this one, people were incredibly epting and called Eisen over, offering some food to him immediately. And meanwhile, Eisen nced at the sub-quest notification to make sure that it was really the way that he thought it was. Luckily, he was right. He was supposed to eat to the point where he was going to throw up if he ate just another bite. With a satisfied expression, happy that this would be a fun challenge for once, the old man immediately got started and ate all of the food that he was offered. And whenever something was gone, a few Devils stepped out of the smaller doors at the side of the hall and ced new food onto the table. There was literally infinite ess to any food that he wanted here. He could even tell the Devils what he wanted to eat, and they would bring it to him after he cleared out the next te. Eisen ate, Eisen drank. He spoke to those around him and actually had quite a bit of fun. It was pretty rxingpared to the three ¡¯Challenges¡¯ that he had to face before now. Well, at least for the first little while. At some point, Eisen acutally became quite full. He didn¡¯t have any issue taking in all the alcohol, meaning that he didn¡¯t get drunk or anything, but it still felt like his stomach was about to rip apart because of how he had filled it up. As if parts of the food were slowly forcing their way back up Eisen¡¯s throat because they couldn¡¯t escape to anywhere else. And finally, the notification that would let Eisen stop eating appeared in front of him. While holding his hand in front of his mouth to make sure he didn¡¯t throw up all over the food in an emergency, the old man stood up and made his way outside of the hall. It seemed like everyone else that was here was able to eat literally infinite amounts of food and never feel overfed like Eisen was right now. Once the old man left the hall, he let out a loud groan, while Satel stared at him with a wry smile on their face, "Honestly, you ate a lot more than I expected you to..." "I¡¯m-" Eisen started, although he had to interrupt himself so that he wouldn¡¯t suddenly throw up all over the ce, "I¡¯m a half-giant, there¡¯s no way that anything but this amount would make me feel full..." The old man said, until he finally realized something that would help him out quite a bit. Right now, he was feeling sick because of all the undigested food that was literally stuffing him to the brim, but things like that didn¡¯t change in size together with Eisen when he did so... he would probably just explode and die the moment he tried to shrink himself, but if he slowly increased his size, that was another story. And so, the man that was about to throw up just now was able to feel himself to be at a pleasant level of fulness. With a satisfied sigh, the old man chose to take a seat on a set of stairs to take a stort break before heading to the Challenge of Sloth. "Hah~? Already practicing for the next challenge, huh?" "Be quiet, Satel. This was the first challenge that literally required me to reach my absolute limit to pass. It was fun for the most part, though." The old man pointed out. He leaned back and looked up into the sky after taking a deep breath. The sky here in Limbo was really nothing but pitch-ck. No stars, moon, or even clouds were floating high above him. It was a bit of an unusual sight. Eisen knew that he was looking at the clear sky, but the fact that there was simply nothing there despite how pitch-ck everything around the old man was, was quite unnatural. There wasn¡¯t a single bit of light-pollution here at he moment. After resting for a bit longer and properly digesting some of his food, the old man made his way to the next, and fourth. Challenge that he would face. The Challenge of Sloth. The old man pushed the door open, and saw... Numerous people simply sleeping. On the ground, on special, unique beds that were made just for them, or even on top of each other, the people were sleeping as if they were dead. Well, technically they were alraedy dead, but that was besides the point. But it let Eisen rx a bit as he figured out that the task would be very easy, albeit quite time-consuming. Eisen needed a few hours to rcover mentally and physically anyway, so this was perfect. It seemed like the order that Satel suggested and Eisen then chose to go with was really the perfect one, considering that Eisen was able to rest as much as he wanted after just stuffing himself with all that much food. [New Sub-Quest ¨C Challenge of Sloth] [Description] In your quest to conquer the Limbo requires you to take on the Challenge of Sloth, which means you have to deeply indulge in this sin. More specifically, you have to indulge in the feeling of following your sloth by restingzily far longer than initially necessary. You will have to spend twice the time needed to fully recover yourself in deep sleep. [Conditions] Indulge in your Sloth [Reward] Advancement in the \u003cSins of Limbo\u003e Quest [Penalty] None With a satisfied expression, Eisen took a look around. He needed to find a good ce where he could sleep for a while then. He didn¡¯t particrly know how long he would need to spend asleep, but at the very least, Eisen figured he could make use of this time properly. For one, he could try and remember the rest of the memories that he had unlocked but not remembered so far. He would feel a bit of pain when he did so multiple times consecutively, but if he could take his time, then maybe it wouldn¡¯t be so bad. He would just have to try it out, and if it didn¡¯t work, he would just log out for a little while and then check back in when he figured that he would have beaten this challenge. Eisenid down on a bed that stood in the corner of this great hall. Satel already threw themselves down onto the ground and started dozing off, while Eisen chose to sit there for a little while longer so that he could think. The old man ced his sword onto hisp, so that he could try to infuse it with sloth while he was sleeping somehow. Once he figured there was nothing really to do, Eisen closed his eyes and dozed off into sleep. He looked at the white floating orbs in front of him in this deep ck space, and extended his hand toward them, but just as he was about to do this, he reaized something... This wasn¡¯t really all that slothful, now was it? Sloth was extremeziness, and Eisen couldn¡¯t really be calledzy if he made use of these times in a productive manner... So maybe, he just had to sleep through the whole time. Well, that honestly didn¡¯t sound all too bad either, every once in a while. Chapter 689 Wrath

Chapter 689 Wrath

Eisen slowly opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling of therge hall after sleeping for quite a while. In the corner of his eyes, he could already see the notification that told him that he passed this challenge, but he felt a little bit toozy to stand up, or even get rid of the notification right now. He just felt like sleeping a bit longer instead, closing his eyes andying there for a while. However, as he did so, he could feel the edge of his sword pushing a bit into his abdomen. Eisen had been hugging it the whole time as he was sleeping, but it didn¡¯t seem like he had been holding it weirdly. He slowly sat up properly and realized what happened. With a loud groan and long yawn, Eisen rubbed his eyes, "Howe my sword has more motivation than me..?" Since it was most likely that his sword¡¯s ego chose to wake Eisen up before he fell back asleep so that they could leav, Eisen was actually rather d that this was the case, even considering how unpleasant this was. And it wasn¡¯t like the de had really cut into his skin, that would require a lot more force. It was unpleasant, and that was it. The old man pulled his legs over the edge of the bed and slowly pushed himself off of it, with his sword trying to help him up by pulling him up- and forward. Eisen walked toward the gate and stopped when he reached the Satel¡¯s side. He quickly kicked the guide-devil into the side of their body, and watched as they slowly pushed themselves off the ground. "Heh..? The fuck d¡¯ya think you¡¯re doing, you bastard?" Satel asked with a tired re, and Eisen looked at them a bit annoyed, "Be quiet and juste with me. We should get out of here. Just two more challenges and we can get out of limbo." "...Let¡¯s just keep sleeping instead..." The Devil said in a bothered tone of voice, "I really don¡¯t wanna deal with any of that, you know? All the other realms are really... And I mean ¡¯really¡¯ annoying..." "So? Then that¡¯s even more reason to hurry up so that we can get it over with as quickly as possible." "Urgh, I hate people that think that way... Disgusting..." Satel groaned, but still followed Eisen to do their job, "Thene on, let¡¯s hurry and finish Wrath so that we can quickly finish this ce up with some fun afterward..." "Sure..." Eisen yawned as the two of them stepped out of the hall, and the moment that the door closed again, it seemed like they were practically jolted awake. "Which one is the Wrath Gate?" Eisen asked, still a bit tired, as he rubbed the rest of his tiredness out of his eyes, and Satel quickly pointed at the gate in question. The old man walked over there and prepared mentally for this. At the very least, this ce should help him wake up properly. Eisen took a deep breath and thought about the things that made him angry, trying to rile himself up before getting in there. He thought about people that he disliked, actions that angered him, and of course, he thought about this wholepletely horrible, annoying situation. Eisen grabbed the handle of his sword more tightly and spun it around a couple of times, swinging it so that he could loosen his body up as well. He had spoken to some of the people here in Limbo, and of course to Satel, and learned a few more things about the challenge he was about to face. And for the most part, it seemed to be kind of straightforward, albeit chaotic. It was simply a free-for-all of furious, undying people that wanted to let out their neverending anger somehow. Of course, it wasn¡¯t just all done throughbat, but through general destruction of anything that got in one¡¯s way. Since that was the case... Eisen would definitely have to fight quite a bit in there. He pushed the golden gate and stepped inside. Immediately, Eisen saw the true chaos of this ce. Blood was sttered all around, everyone was ripping each other apart in destructive fury. The old man took a deep breath as he looked at this and stepped inside. Just a few momentster, he noticed a chair being thrown toward him. Of course, Eisen just had to step to the side, and the chair hit someone else instead, but it was still clear how dangerous this ce was. He already read through the quest-notification and waved it away, but now, he still had to get started. And the best way to do that was to be straight-forward with it, probably. Nobody here seemed especially powerful, so the old man figured that this would be rather easy to get started with. Especially since he had a new trick that he wanted to try out with his Demonic Sword. "All of you useless, ugly fucking bastard,e at me!" He screamed out at the top of his lungs, even using Royal Authority to make them more inclined to do just what he said on top of that which their fury already provided anyway. Those around Eisen turned their attention toward him, at least those that were still capable of hearing him through their hyper-focused, angry minds. He could hear Satel lift off of the ground behind him with ps of their wings, so that they wouldn¡¯t get caught up in all of this. And instantly afterward, Eisen held his sword horizontally, holding the tip behind his back so that he could swing it properly. The old man twisted his whole body around and pulled the de forward in the process. While this was happening, the size of the sword increased considerably as Eisen and the ego-sword made use of the abilities that the old man had given this wonderful weapon. Due to the enchantments that made it so that the handle practically stuck to Eisen¡¯s hands, he didn¡¯t have to worry about not being able to hold it either. But because of the sudden, rapid increase in mass and weight, Eisen, who stayed at his normal size, was pulled into the direction that he swung the de into. Numerous people were sliced in half and blood sttered around as the old man jumped through the air, rapidly decreasing the size of his sword again. And when he reached the range of some more people, Eisen swung the sword down and increased its size again so that he could slice through as many people as possible whilending from his swing. Through this method, Eisen was able to control the sword rather easily. Especially by just decreasing the size for a few moments to make it lighter and hence easier to swing around, to change the direction of the swing more easily. The old man proceeded to cut through everyone here in this room rather violently, and he became angrier and angrier by the second. Until now, thebat in this room was more like a brawl, but now, it was more akin to true ughter. The air became filled with the taste of iron as Eisen proceeded to cut everyone that he came across into pieces. But it wasn¡¯t only the people, he even destroyed every object that was in his path, even the stone pirs that were set up inside of this hall. It seemed like they were useless, and this ce couldn¡¯t actually be destroyed anyway, so it didn¡¯t matter that much. Just a moment after the pieces settled down after falling, the damage was being reversed and the pirs coud be destroyed once more. The same thing as what was happening with the people that Eisen was ¡¯killing¡¯. The more he did this, the more not only he but everyone else became angry. It was as if these people of the Limbo were pushed higher by Eisen, who in turn was pushed higher by the people around him. All of the frustration that he had built up was something that he could get rid of in this environment without consequences. He was slicing these people into pieces, but they were already dead anyway. And most likely not the best sort of people you could meet anyway. It actually felt pretty good to Eisen to indulge in this sin in particr... There was something rather therapeutic about just letting your anger loose like this for once. And sure, especiallytely, Eisen didn¡¯t particrly hold himself back from doing that as much as he used to anyway, most likely because the former Eisen¡¯s personality started to shine through some more. But even then, even in the situations where Eisen showed his anger... Because of those around him, he still held back. But not now, not thist ime. There was no reason to hold back, no reason to notpletely indulge in this feeling. Slowly, the old man¡¯s Demonic Transformation was activated without him noticing at first. Probably due to his strong emotions right now. And these emotions of anger were the ones that triggered Eisen receiving the ¡¯Golden Eyed Demon¡¯ title in the first ce, at least this time around, that was. This all continued for a few hours, the anger of none of those inside of this ce subsiding at all. And at the end of it, once Eisen finally finished this challenge, it was like his mind had beenpletely cleared of a lot of his worries. It felt good. He was able to take a deep breath once he was outside of the hall, and he didn¡¯t feel any sort of anger inside of him anymore. Obviously that didn¡¯t mean that he wasn¡¯t angry about everything that was going on, but right at this moment, he didn¡¯t directly feel it inside of him anymore. He felt quite happy right now, which might be something rather insane after all that Eisen did today and yesterday. "Really, I keep liking you more and more~!" Satel eximed with a broad grin on their face, "I¡¯ll really enjoy our time together from now on, geezer!" The Devil smirked. Eisen looked back at them with a smile on his face, "Of course. You seem a lot better than the Guide-Angel up in heaven when I was there." "Hah, yeah, they¡¯re all assholes up there." Satel pointed out as they brought Eisen to thest gate, "But well, that doesn¡¯t matter for now. How about it, should we have a bit of fun before heading off to the shitholes that are the other realms of hell?" With a light smile, Eisen opened up the golden gate to the ce where he would face the Challenge of Lust. Chapter 690 Lus

Chapter 690 Lus

Eisen stepped out of the hall of Lust, where he had just taken challenge that took the longest beside Sloth to beat. Of course, the old man didn¡¯tin about that. He enjoyed his time in there quite a bit. But at the very least, Eisen understood why Satel said he would need a lot of stamina and that he should sleep not too long beforehand. The old man stretched out a bit with a loud groan. He had been in rather unusual positions the whole time during the past few hours, and some of them were so awkward that they hurt him a little bit to keep up for a longer period of time. Either way, now, Eisen had beaten every challenge there was to beat here in Limbo. He turned toward the Devil next to him, who had a big, dumb grin on their face for a while now while looking at Eisen. "Everything alright?" He asked them, and Satel just nodded their head, "Oh, of course~! More than just ¡¯alright¡¯, even~!" Since Eisen knew when Satel started looking at him like that, hearing this made him a little ufortable. But it wasn¡¯t that big a deal, it wasn¡¯t anything that he couldn¡¯t ignore with ease, "Anyway, where do I now have to go to meet the God in charge of this realm?" "Hm? What do you mean?" Satel asked a bit confused, and Eisen became quite confused himself, "Wait, am I not supposed to meet the Gods in hell?" "Oh, no, you definitely are, I just meant that you already met them." The Guide-Devil exined. Just then, Eisen heard the golden gate behind him open up again. He turned around and saw a figure that he had... spent a good bit of his time in there with. "That¡¯s right, you did." He said, "I hope you didn¡¯t forget about me already~!" The man said with a broad grin on his face, and Eisen let out a long sigh. "Well, how was I supposed to know that you were a god?" "You¡¯ve done the stuff in there with plenty of Gods and Mortals before, so I figured you would be able to differentiate a bit..." The God said a bit surprised, and Eisen immediately shook his head as he watched the naked man quickly snap his fingers to make some clothes appear on his body out of nowhere, "I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve done some of the things I did in there with anyone..." "Hah, yeah, those guys are all freaks in there. But it¡¯s always a good time when I hang out with them." The God pointed out, "Well, anyway, it¡¯s nice to see ya again. The name¡¯s Limbo, if you forgot that as well. I know that you¡¯ve lost your memory, though I don¡¯t know to what extent." "Nice to meet you... Yeah, I¡¯ve lost all of my memories before a couple of months ago. I started remembering some things again, and I¡¯m close to halfway there to the point where I might be able to recover all of my memories." "Ah, that¡¯s good, that¡¯s good! So that¡¯s why you¡¯re here in Hell? To recover more memories?" Limbo asked, but Eisen slowly shook his head, "No, that¡¯s not my main reason. I thought you would have heard about it, since Satel did as well. But I¡¯m here to meet the conditions of my Demonic title. Once I¡¯m acknowledged by the Gods of the Underworld, I¡¯ll be a true Demon." "Eh? They even took that from you? Fuck those dudes, man." Limbo sighed deeply, and Eisen was a bit confused, "Erm, who do you think took my memories?" "Weren¡¯t it those stuck-up gods?" "No, I myself and the other four that peaked got rid of all of our experience ourselves. You must have heard about the Artificials roaming around up there? Yeah, those guys were created out of our experience." "...Maybe I should pay more attention to what¡¯s going on in the mortal realm than just partying with the new arrivals the whole time..." The God of the Underworld said with a wry smile, "But well, I could tell you were weaker than before somehow, I just didn¡¯t expect... this. Wait, are you still immortal? Could I maybe-" "You can¡¯t get my soul to roam around here forever, no. I¡¯m still immortal." Eisen pointed out. With a click of his tongue, Limbo turned his head away and frowned, "Fine, but at leaste here more often. This time you were sent to a random one, but I can show you my favorite instances of these halls when youe back next time around." Eisen looked at Limbo a bit surprised, "What do you mean, your ¡¯favorite instances¡¯?" "Ah, you didn¡¯t know that? Hm, fly up with me a bit. I saw you fight in your demonic form before, you can still use your wings, right?" Limbo asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head as he activated his Demonic Transformation. At the same time, Limbo simply grew tworge wings on his back as well, and the two of them jumped off of the ground with Satel at a good distance between them so that they could speak alone, but so that Satel wouldn¡¯t be left behind altogether. Once Eisen flew above the height of these castle-walls, he could instantly see what Limbo meant. At first, Eisen thought there would just be nothing around this ce, but he was absolutely wrong. Different versions of this castle stretched out beyond the horizon, seemingly all of them filled with their own halls of sin like those that Eisen had just been in. "Didn¡¯t expect that, eh? Well, the guys thate to Limbo can¡¯t reincarnate, so they¡¯ve been gathering up a bit more. And we get a good few monster-souls toe down here as well. Lucky you didn¡¯t get sent to one of those instances, eh?" Limbo pointed out with a wink, "Ah, there¡¯s even some special instances for those that can¡¯t go anywhere else. For those that can¡¯t live onnd, and only underwater. Or those that can only live in high heat or cold weather. And of course for Giants that chose to worship us. That would¡¯ve been a fun instance, huh?" "I don¡¯t know about that. If I don¡¯t use my demonic transformation, myrgest size that I can reach with my size-change ability shouldn¡¯t be close to the height of giants.??? "Hm, is that so?" Limbo replied a bit surprised, "You were using your size-change ability so smoothly in thatst hall, I thought you¡¯d have it perfectly under control." "Could you please stop referencing the things I did in there..?" Eisen asked with a wry smile on his face, and Limbo grumbled to himself for a few moments, "Fine. But let me tell you, you turned boring after litereally losing everything that you developed for 100 thousand years. Didn¡¯t you have any fun before then?" "Did you really just ask someone if they had fun before they were born? If you asked anyone beside me, the answer would be ¡¯No¡¯, obviously." The old man pointed out. Limbo shrugged in response, "Eh, so what? I¡¯m a god, I can do what I want. Anyway, you¡¯re going to head to the other realms after this, huh?" "Mhm. Any tips you can give me?" "Tips? Well... Not really? I can wish you ¡¯Good luck¡¯, but that¡¯s it. I don¡¯t know what kinds of things you have to do there in the first ce. But I¡¯d imagine it to be a bit harder than here, honestly." "...I thought so, yeah." "What¡¯s that supposed to mean?" "That the things that took up the most of my time here were eating, sleeping, and fucking." Eisen pointed out as he kept looking at the other instances of castles here in this infinite Limbo. The God next to himughed a bit and nodded his head in response, "Fair enough. Well, wanna head off now?" "Sounds like a good idea, yeah." Eisen replied, and Limbo simply snapped his fingers. Out of nowhere, arge gate appeared in front of Eisen, slowly opening up. From beyond there, he could already feel strong winds hitting his body. Eisen had read Dante¡¯s Inferno, so he had expected this realm of ¡¯Lust¡¯ to be like this, but it still made him wonder what else might happen in there. Because the challenge there couldn¡¯t just be to sit in the strong wind for a while, that simply wouldn¡¯t make sense. "Thank you, Limbo. I¡¯lle visit again sometime." "Please do~!" The God pointed out with a smirk on his face, and Eisen just quietly smiled back as he flew through the gate in front of him. The moment that he was inside there, he could feel the strong winds pushing him back, as if they didn¡¯t want him here. The old man groaned loudly as he finally got a proper footing at some point and deactivated his demonic transformation. He turned his head and looked at Satel, who was standing there without any issues, seemingly not bothered by the wind at all. "What? This wind is a punishment. I¡¯m perfect, there¡¯s no need to be punished." Satel pointed out with a smirk. Eisen looked back at them and rolled his eyes as he tried to look at the area around him. It seemed to be somewhat simr to the castle from Limbo, judging from the materials at least. Right now, Eisen was in a long hallway, which made it feel even weirder when the wind-direction kept changing toe from ces that were simply impossible. And then, a notification appeared in front of Eisen to tell him what he had to do. [New Quest ¨C Winds of Lust] [Description] In order to be acknowledged by the Gods of Hell, you have started to make your way through the nine circles of hell. On your first stop, you reached Limbo. On your second, you reached Lust. Your task in this realm is to be unbothered by the Winds of Lust. [Conditions] Be unbothered by the Winds of Lust [Rewards] Lust¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None Eisen stared at the notification with an annoyed expression, quickly waving it to the side, "Seriously? How am I supposed to do that..?" "Do what?" Satel inquired, and Eisen quickly replied "¡¯Be unbothered by the Winds of Lust¡¯." "Heh..." The Devilughed quietly. Eisen turned around and red at him, "Stopughing, I know it sounds basically impossible." "I mean, it¡¯s not really impossible for you. For the dead beings that have been sent here, sure, but not for you." The Guide-Devil exined, "Just walk around for a while, and you¡¯ll see what I mean, surely." "...Thanks. When did you be so helpful?" "After I¡¯ve been helped out by you just a bit ago~, heh..." Chapter 691 Feeding

Chapter 691 Feeding

Eisen wandered through the halls of the realm of Lust, with strong winds pushing against him in random directions. And the wind was too strong for Eisen to do anything about it at all. Even if he were to try and move along with the direction of the wind, it was changing directions far too erratically for Eisen to be able to move at all. He really didn¡¯t know what Satel was talking about when they said that he would be able to grow used to these winds. There wasn¡¯t even any sort of change in the environment. It was basically just an incrediblyrge maze that he was walking through, with no exit or entrance anywhere. Sometimes it would seem like there was some kind of open space at the end of a hallway, but it would always be just some sort of optical illusion created through lights that reflected off of random pieces of metal scattered around. However, all of these things weren¡¯t what worried Eisen the most. The difort he felt from all of these detailsbining wasn¡¯t evenparable to what he felt when thinking about the fact that he didn¡¯t see anyone, or anything, else beside him here. Eisen was pretty sure that the Circle of hell ¡¯Lust¡¯ in Dante¡¯s Inferno wasn¡¯t one where people had to live in solitude. So it would make sense for him to encounter someone here. And well, sure, there wouldn¡¯t be people here, but he should still be able to find some monsters. But just as Eisen was thinking this, he noticed a disgusting, rancid smell hit his face, carried through the hallways of this ce randomly through the strong wind. He couldn¡¯t be sure where exactly it came from, but he was pretty sure that the scent came from ahead of him. He was at an intersection of these hallways right now, so it was a bit unclear to him. Otherwise, it would have been rather obvious where the source of the smell was going to be. Eisen continued running through the hallways of the realm of Lust, and soon ended up finally hearing something. Feet that were being dragged over the ground. The old man rushed over to the ce where he had been able to hear the sound from, and the moment that he turned around the corner, he saw the creature that created the sound. It was short, maybe three or four feet tall, and had unhealthy, dirty green skin. It waspletely naked and was so thin that Eisen was able to see basically all of its bones through its skin. Eisen was a bit worried that its ribs would pierce through its skin if it tripped over, even. Its eyes were basicallypletely turned into its head so that Eisen was only able to see their whites, although even then, not all too much of them. Its eyes were barely open at all. One of them more than the other, though, and one of them was constantly flinching. Eisen knew exactly what was going on here. This monster, this Goblin, was one of the monsters that were sent here after death. As far as he could tell, it was neither able to eat nor sleep. The former because there simply wasn¡¯t any food here, and thetter because of the strong winds. Eisen had momentarily tried out to sit down and eveny down, but no matter what he did, he was unable to properly rest in any possible way. It seemed like it wasn¡¯t even possible to log out right now, since you needed to be stationary for a few moments to do that. But since Eisen was constantly being pushed around due to the wind, this obviously wasn¡¯t possible. The old man looked at the Goblin that was seemingly forcing itself over the ground, trying to fight against the winds that were pushing it around. But then, when it finally noticed Eisen, it stopped for a moment and wasn¡¯t paying attention to the winds anymore. And that caused it to immediately fall over and hit its head on the wall. It cracked open and blood started to flow out of it for a few moments. But after a few seconds, the blood simply flowed back into the Goblin¡¯s head, as if time had been reversed to an extent, and the Goblin tried to push itself off the ground with its weak arms. Of course, it wasn¡¯t able to die anymore. It would have to keep suffering like this forever and ever and ever, until the end of time. And just then, the old man felt something from his sword. It seemed to have changed quite a bit within Limbo after absorbing all that Unholy Energy that was twirling around it, that Eisen was constantly trying to have the Demonic Sword absorb through any way possible. The de already had a rather strong Ego to begin with, but now, it seemed a lot wilder than before. As if it wanted to devour more and more that was around and in front of it. And part of which it wanted to devour was this soul, that was filled with grief and anger at its own suffering. It was basically a gourmet-dish when it came to Negative Energies. "Are you sure that you want it?" Eisen asked as he looked down at the de, and it seemed to just try and pull Eisen forward even more, "Well, it¡¯s not the first time that I¡¯m using souls in this way. If it can help you improve, it wouldn¡¯t really hurt." The old man stepped up in front of the Goblin, and even activated his own demonic transformation. Not for a particr reason, honestly. It didn¡¯t give Eisen any sort of benefit. It just seemed like it would be fitting. "Don¡¯t worry. There¡¯s no need to suffer anymore." Eisen said with a light, weirdly bitter smile on his face as he sliced through the Goblin¡¯s exhausted body and cut it in half with a certain purpose behind this cut. Instead of just ¡¯killing¡¯ the Goblin, which wasn¡¯t possible here to begin with, Eisen¡¯s purpose was to feed his de. And so, instead of the Goblin¡¯s body repairing itself, it was slowly falling apart into ck, smoke-like particles along the cut that was spreading out to the rest of the Goblin¡¯s dead body. All of these particles were being absorbed by the ck demonic de, and Eisen could tell that it was satisfied. But at the same time, Eisen noticed something else. For just a moment, maybe two or three seconds, there wasn¡¯t any wind affecting him. But then, it returned into its normal state and continued pushing Eisen around. Just like this, he managed to figure out a way that he would be able to not only strengthen his Sword with the energies that were coursing through the circles of hell, but he should also be able to finish the task that he was given here in this Circle of Lust. He wasn¡¯t actually able to confirm whether or not this was true yet, though, all he knew was that the wind stopped for a few moments. If that time would be extended the more of the souls he killed wasn¡¯t something he was entirely sure of. But it definitely wouldn¡¯t hurt to just try. If nothing changed after Eisen got rid, or rather ¡¯absorbed¡¯ a couple more souls, then he could still always change his approach to things if he needed to. Before then, Eisen would still need to find another monster in the first ce. But it was good that he managed to find one, at least. That might mean that he¡¯s going to encounter a couple more monsters from now on. And that sort of thought-process was exactly right. Soon after finding and killing this goblin, Eisen found another monster. It was an Orc sub-species that had ayer of rock growing on its skin. But that didn¡¯t matter much, since it was in a simr state as the Goblin. It was so weak that it wasn¡¯t even able to flinch in response to Eisen¡¯s sudden appearance in front of it, followed by a lethal attack. Once more, the wind stopped for a few moments, but then started up again. Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure, but he thought it had stopped for a little while longer than before. But he had to keep going to make sure. After Eisen found this Orc, he continued along and then sooner orter found the next monster. And then the next, and then the next. He managed to track down dozens of them that were walking around solo, and at some point he managed to find some that were in groups as well. On top of that, they seemed to keep getting stronger the longer that Eisen went on and on. But at the same time, the wind would stop for longer and longer periods of time as well. At some point, he managed to stop it for a couple of minutes, which coincidentally was enough to find the next monster, which he used to extend his unaffected time even further. For hours on end, Eisen rushed through this infinitelyrgebyrinth with walls covered in only stone-bricks and nothing else. The old man continued fighting, and then suddenly, he stopped when he wasn¡¯t inside of thebyrinth anymore. It came as more than just a surprise. It was shocking, rather. But just as Eisen left, and the sun out here blinded him, the wind started to hit his skin again. But it wasn¡¯t strong wind. It was more like a natural, rather pleasant breeze. And in front of him on a grassy hill stood a table, where a young woman was waiting for Eisen. The old man approached her, and the moment that he was close enough, the woman held her hand toward the chair across from her. "Please, take a seat." She said with a smile, and Eisen sat down as she suggested, before a Devil appeared out of nowhere and poured him a cup of tea. With a wry smile and a quietugh, Eisen took a sip of the tea, "Honestly, why are you gods so obsessed with tea-parties?" The old man asked, slowly waving the notification that he had finished this part of the task to the side to get rid of it. And the woman in front of him, a Goddess of the Underworld, softly smiled, "Oh? I didn¡¯t even get a chance to introduce myself yet, and you act as if you know me already." "Well, you¡¯re Lust, aren¡¯t you?" Eisen asked, and the goddess quietlyughed with a quick nod, "Indeed. Then I guess this will be quicker than expected." Chapter 692 Cerberus

Chapter 692 Cerberus

Eisen looked at the woman sitting across the table from him. A goddess of the Underworld, Lust, "You know, your realm is a rather annoying one..." "Heh, it¡¯s not supposed to be pleasant, you know? It¡¯s punishment for those beings that were ovee with extreme lust in their lifetime. They are unable to stay still, fall asleep, or even eat. All because of their Lust. And of course, they¡¯re never able topletely run away from this." "...I see." Eisen replied in a quiet voice, and Lust seemed a bit surprised at his reaction, "Is something wrong? Don¡¯t tell me you feel bad for those lowly monsters." "Of course I do. Why shouldn¡¯t I? I¡¯m a half-monster myself, and this whole situation is unfair from the start. Why are monsters being punished in hell, while even vile people are allowed to be in heaven?" The old man asked with a deep frown on his face. It really didn¡¯t make sense to him at all. But to Lust, it seemed natural. "On the contrary, why should mere mindless monsters be allowed in a ce such as heaven? You realize that most of them are nothing but mindless beasts?" She pointed out. Eisen stared deep into her eyes, so he knew that she waspletely and utterly serious about these thoughts. He understood where she was getting at, but he still felt that a lot of this stuff waspletely unfair toward Monsters. "If you think that way, then there are plenty of people that should be punished and sent here. There are mindless beasts amongst them too." "...I¡¯m getting an inkling that you don¡¯t like people that much." Lust replied, but Eisen shook his head without hesitation, "No, I love people. Which is why I don¡¯t want the bad ones to be there to taint the good ones." "... So you would rather see someone that you simply don¡¯t agree with suffering for eternity than let them be?" The Goddess asked, "Is that not rather small-minded?" "I never said that. But if there are creatures here that suffer basically just for the fact they were born as monsters, then I think those that chose to be ones themselves should be treated the same, if not worse." "...There are People here in the hells as well, you know?" "Yeah, but they¡¯re people that simply did something the gods didn¡¯t like, right? I don¡¯t know whether that means that they¡¯re actually genuinely bad people. You know as well as I do that there are plenty of gods that aren¡¯t morally bright individuals." Eisen pointed out with a deep frown. Lust didn¡¯t really know what to say anymore, since even she had to admit that Eisen had a point, even if she didn¡¯t agree with it. "Well, that¡¯s just how it is. I can¡¯t change anything about it, even if I wanted to. Which, to be fair, I don¡¯t. Sorry about that." Lust replied bluntly. Eisen looked back at her and then just slowly nodded his head. He realized that he couldn¡¯t just request for her to stop punishing monsters. They were created with the intention of being the antagonists of this world, basically, so it made sense that the Gods weren¡¯t particrly happy with the idea of treating monsters the same as they treated people. But from Eisen¡¯s point of view, from the perspective of a man that didn¡¯t need to interact with monsters until a few months ago, and since then made friends with numerous amazing ¡¯Monsters¡¯, something like this was hard to ept. And sure, Eisen himself killed monsters without hesitation, but... He didn¡¯t feel that much remorse about killing people either. He wasn¡¯t sure why, it might have to do with the former Eisen¡¯s mental influence slowly encroaching on him, but it was pretty easy for him to kill people now. At the start when he first joined this ¡¯game¡¯, he wasn¡¯t entirely sure about it, but the longer he yed, the more he realized that such thoughts and worries really didn¡¯t matter at the end of the day. With a deep sigh, Eisen stood up from the chair that he was offered by Lust before, "Sorry, but I think it would be a good idea to leave and go to the next circle now." The old man said as he turned around, with his ck demonic sword in his hand. But then, Lust said something else that Eisen himself wasn¡¯t particrly sure about himself, "You¡¯re quite the hypocrite, aren¡¯t you? You say that it is wrong to forever trap monsters here in the underworld while they¡¯re suffering, but you use their souls to create items without them being able to have any choice in the matter. And now, you went around this realm and forever destroyed many, many souls." Eisen looked down at the ground and let out a deep sigh, "First, stop pretending that you really care about that. And second, I realize that it might seem somewhat hypocritical, but these are two different issues. You are entrapping them in terror for infinity. I am temporarily getting the aid of the souls. And right now, those that were eaten by my de... They have be part of it. I am treating them well. I am treating them with respect. That is much better than anything they could have experienced here, don¡¯t you think?" As the old man spoke, he saw the gate that led to the next realm appear in front of him. Eisen pushed the gate open and stepped through it without waiting for an answer from Lust. The moment that he did, his skin was hit by heavy icy rain, and the gate closed up behind him, "Urgh... Couldn¡¯t we have stayed there a little longer? I hate this ce... This time around, even I can¡¯t avoid this shitty weather." Satelined with a loud groan, and Eisen turned toward them with a wry smile, "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll try to finish this a bit quicker than before." Eisen looked around the ce where he was standing now. He was still inside of a castle-like structure, but this time around it wasn¡¯t just a hallway, but he was inside of arge court-yard. And then, a notification popped up in front of Eisen that told him what he was supposed to do here, showing that this might actually be a realm that he could finish up somewhat quickly. [New Quest ¨C Beast of Gluttony] [Description] In order to be acknowledged by the Gods of Hell, you have started to make your way through the nine circles of hell. On your first stop, you reached Limbo. On your second, you reached Lust. On your third, you reached Gluttony. Your task in this realm is to kill Cerberus. [Conditions] Kill Cerberus [Rewards] Gluttony¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None Eisen waved the notification to the side. He wasn¡¯t sure how well this would end up going, but a battle like this might be easier and quicker to finish than wandering around for hours on end and slowly improving your progress on a single specific task. And then, just a bit in front of him in front of the gate that seemed to lead outside of the castle walls stood a small humanoid figure, although Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure to figure out what kind of monster this was supposed to be. He took a step closer with his hands tightly wrapped around the handle of his sword. The figure, that seemed to have the height and proportions of a human child, slowly raised its head and its pure white eyes glowed in a bright light. It pulled open its mouth and started to scream loudly as its maw revealed sharp, monstrous teeth. Its jaw was practicelly pressed against its chest despite the fact that the monster was obviously looking up into the sky. It was rather horrifying, honestly. As quickly as he could, Eisen jumped toward this monster and swung his de down toward it, quickly cutting it in half. Even if this somehow didn¡¯t turn out to be cerberus, this monster still seemed rather dangerous. That¡¯s what he thought, at least, but it was surprisingly easy to cut it in half. Just as that thought crossed the old man¡¯s mind, the Monster started to put itself together again. But not only that, it was like growths were appearing all over its body, and it was exploding in size in a disfigured manner. No matter how often Eisen cut down onto it, it would instantly recover and just keep growing. When it finally stopped, Eisen saw that it really was Cerberus. And it wasn¡¯t the regr version from Greek Mythology where it was a three-headed dog. Rather, it was soemthing far more grotesque than that. It still seemed to be based off of something quadripedal, but those were the only things that it had inmon with a dog. It didn¡¯t have fur, but red, wet skin, as if someone had ripped the real skin off of someone and they started just bleeding constantly. And instead of having dog-like heads, it had three legs that could bepared to a ¡¯worm¡¯, with a circr open mouth and sharp teeth circling around in each of the mouths. It didn¡¯t even have eyes, or even a proper head. It was more like a thick tube. Now, Eisen understood what ¡¯Three-headed Worm¡¯ really meant, as Cerberus was described in Dante¡¯s Inferno that these realms were based off of. This sight in front of Eisen was rather off-putting, but nheless, Eisen still had to fight this weird monstrosity. Otherwise, he couldn¡¯t move on. With his truth-seeing eyes, he was able to really confirm this monster as Cerberus, and even figured out its health. It seemed to be at a boss-level stat-wise, which honestly made quite a lot of sense. But even so, Eisen should be able to manage. He activated his Draconic Demon King transformation and increased his size to the absolute maximum, and proceeded to swing his de down at Cerberus over and over again. He burnt it, he cut it up, and then burnt it again. The old man continued on trying to kill this monstrosity, but no matter what he did, it would put itself back together and continue growing in size to try and catch up to Eisen. When he noticed this, he started taking a step back to think. Just like the other realms, it seemed like this one was infinitelyrge. Different to the others, though, outside of the castle was an infinitely stratching, t field, and every kilometer or so, Eisen could see another castle like this scattered around. There wasn¡¯t any way for him to beat this creature if he kept cutting into it, really. All of its HP was immediately being restored as well. Eisen had toe up with a good trick. Chapter 693 Blown to pieces

Chapter 693 Blown to pieces

The old man took a step back from this battle he was fighting with Cerberus. It didn¡¯t seem like just shing at it the whole time would end up working out well for him considering that Cerberus would always just keep on growing and growing in size. Eisen tried to shrink down again and hack at Cerberus to see if it was going to shrink down again, as if trying to match the old man¡¯s size, but that seemingly wasn¡¯t the case. And then, Eisen understood the ¡¯metaphor¡¯. Cerberus was basically an incarnation of Gluttony, or rather, the concept of ¡¯Hunger¡¯. The more you tried to get rid of it or supress it, the stronger it would grow. But what could he do to beat this monster then? What could Eisen do to beat it? He couldn¡¯t just ¡¯ept¡¯ it somehow, since that would mean he had to be eaten up by it, and that didn¡¯t seem like a pleasant experience. As Eisen was thinking, he noticed something else. And that was that Cerberus was starting to devour everything around it, including the materials that the castle was built out of. And in response to that... It actually shrunk down. The more it was eating, the smaller it was getting. "Relieving your hunger can damage your surroundings, or something?" The old man thought, but maybe he was thinking too much into the metaphors that this ce presented. But at that point, Eisen got a pretty good idea at what he could do. He just had to Overfeed cerberus. Luckily, Eisen had a number of pretty interesting items that he could use for that. The old man opened his item storage next to him and shrunk down to the smallest size he could so that he could squeeze in there properly. After a few moments, Eisen managed to find the item in question. "What are you doing? You just gonna let Cerberus run rampant within this whole realm?" Satel asked, but Eisen immediately shook his head, "It¡¯s not like it really matters, does it? But you see, I have a pretty good guess at what kind of creature Cerberus is now. If it¡¯s damaged, it¡¯s going to turn into that three-headed worm and keep growing in size more and more, as if its hunger is growing. To relieve that hunger, it eats to get back to its regr form. But I doubt I¡¯ll be able to really kill it with regr attacks either way. So I¡¯m just taking my time to find a good way to do both of these things." Satel tilted their head to the side, confused at what the old man just said, "What do you mean ¡¯both¡¯? Do both of what?" Eisen let out a deep sigh, "I¡¯m going to both damage it and relieve its hunger." The old man said, "Since I only really need volume for that, I think I have the perfect item." Eisen pointed out with a smug grin on his face. He held a small, fist-sized metal orb in his hand that had enchantments carved onto its outer surface. Satel seemed pretty curious, but as Eisen was about to return to battle, the Guide-Devil held back and just kept floating at a safe distance away from both Eisen and Cerberus. And then, the old man pushed a small pulse of mana into the Orb he was holding. It started to glow in a bright light, before an exact replica of the orb he was holding was created magically. It wasn¡¯t a high-quality item, and it was rtively easy to break, but it was enough for Eisen¡¯s purposes. The way that this item worked was rtively simple. It was using Eisen¡¯s ¡¯zing Core of the Mountain¡¯ element to create the metal base, and as it was being created, the carvings on the outside were created as well, and were at the same time acknowledged as proper enchantments. On top of that, these orbs had a magical array that was connecting them. So if even one of them had mana infused into it, the enchantments would react ording to the old man¡¯s will in that moment. He could make one of the orbs create another one, or he could make all of them create a new one simultaneously. At the same time, pushing mana into the orb would allow him to close to instantly repair any damages that were done to it. And atst, the final function of these orbs was simple. They could either explode, or create sharp spikes on their outside. Eisen figured that both of that might be something to invest in somehow. Either way, for now, the old man needed a good angle, so he threw one of the two orbs he was holding down at Cerberus and had it create spikes in the middle of the drop. Soon, it stuck to Cerberus¡¯ skin, and before the monster was able to regenerate these wounds and push the orb away from it with that, the old man made the orb explode. This was enough damage to get the attention of Cerberus back, and the monster looked up at Eisen with seething anger practically pouring out of it, although Eisen wasn¡¯t sure how he knew that, considering that Cerberus couldn¡¯t make any facial expressions. But that didn¡¯t matter anyway. Now that Cerberus was looking at him again, Eisen quickly threw three of the orbs down the three worm-maws of this monster, since he wasn¡¯t aware of its internal-structure. It could only have one of the maws actually lead to a stomach, or it could have three separate stomachs. Eisen wasn¡¯t entirely sure, so he threw it down all three possible ways. And the moment that it rolled down Cerberus¡¯ throat, Eisen pushed his mana into the Orb he was still holding, trying to affect only the other orbs. He was trying to make the orbs repair themselves at a pace quicker than they were able to be taken apart by Cerberus¡¯ stomach acids, and at the same time had them create new Orbs immediately. And then, each of the new Orbs created a new Orb as well. With every single pulse of mana, the amount of Orbs inside of Cerberus doubled. And at some point, Eisen didn¡¯t have to concentrate on repairing the orbs anymore, since he would be able to instead focus it all on just doubling them to feed as many orbs as possible to Cerberus, while still increasing the amount of orbs in it, in the end. Soon, it reached the point where Cerberus was slowly losing its HP just because of the pressure that the Orbs inside of it were creating. It was feeding on the metal orbs and shrinking, but the orbs themselves didn¡¯t allow it to shrink beyond a certain amount. This damage caused the Cerberus to start growing again, but at the same time, it was feeding on the orbs and shrinking. Like this, Eisen was already able to establish a way to cause steady damage to Cerberus. But that wasn¡¯t all. By now, Eisen was able to see that Cerberus did indeed have three different stomachs, each connected to a different mouth and head, so he tried a couple of things out. He made all the orbs in one of the stomachs create spikes, to start out with. It did damage the Cerberus quite a bit, but its generation was still nullified by the fact that there was enough food inside of its body to soothe its hunger. But at some point, the Cerberus wasn¡¯t being particrly damaged by the spikes anymore, just because its flesh basically grew around them. So, he got rid of the spikes and instead did something else. In that same stomach... He made half of the orbs blow up. In an immense explosion, the shockwave of which hit Eisen¡¯s body and even pushed him back a bit, a third of Cerberus¡¯ body was destroyed and its pieces were sttered all across the area. This caused it immense damages, but it wasn¡¯t regenerating its health yet, not until its body was put back together, just like Eisen thought. But the best thing was... The same thing could be said about the other parts of Cerberus¡¯ body. It was fully concentrating on regeneration that part of its body that it stopped trying to fight the orbs inside of its other two stomachs as much, on top of giving Eisen the chance to attack it. Before now, it was able to regenerate its body instantly, so Eisen really didn¡¯t have the chance to damage it all that much, since it didn¡¯t need to concentrate its regeneration on one ce. But now, it did. Eisen swung his de toward Cerberus¡¯ body and cut it up into pieces. Pieces that weren¡¯t regenerating at as quick a pace as Eisen thought. With a broad grin after confirming thjs, the old man flew away again, pushing mana into the orb he was holding. And then, he made half of the orbs inside of each of the two leftover stomachs explode as well. Like this, in a huge explosion that caused even Eisen to be covered in some flesh and blood, Cerberuspletely blew up. Even though it was now only a thing in the form ofrge chunks that were trying to put itself back together, Cerberus still wasn¡¯t dead and had a third of its health leftover. But that¡¯s where the rest of the orbs came in. He made them each create another orb once more, and made sure that the orbs spread out properly, mixing in with Cerberus¡¯ flesh as it was regenerating. And while this was happening, Eisen was blowing up a couple of the orbs wherever there wererger chunks of flesh gathered. Like this, the old man was able to shave down Cerberus¡¯ health to the point where it only had about 10% of it left. Since he thought it would be a waste not to do this, on top of being dangerous in case any other mortal ended up here in this spot at some point, Eisen told Satel to move away with him, and then pushed his mana into the orb he was holding, making literally every single orb, beside this one, blow up. A few momentster, the castle had been turned into a crater, and there was no trace of Cerberus left anymore. And Eisen even had the notification pop up in front of him that told him he beat this challenge that was given to him. It most likely wasn¡¯t the way that the God of this ce, Gluttony, intended on having Cerberus be killed, but Eisen didn¡¯t really care about that. He did it his own way, and he was pretty happy with the way everything turned out for him. Chapter 694 River Styx

Chapter 694 River Styx

Eisen looked down at the ground as a notification appeared in front of him. It was the notification that told him that he finished the quest that he was given for this realm. The old man immediately waved it to the side and then let himself drop down toward the ground, toward the giant hole that was created there due to the explosiosn that Eisen caused through all of these special items. Of course, on their own, they didn¡¯t hold much power, and they weren¡¯t all that high-quality, but if you had a couple hundred of them together, they did hold quite a punch to them. That was undeniable at this point, honestly. Eisen could still see some chunks of fleshying around everywhere, most of them heavily scorched, but for the most part there wasn¡¯t anything that could give Eisen a hint of what it was that was here beforehand. Whether that referred to Cerberus itself or the castle that it lived in. But right behind him, a gate appeared that Eisen approached with a soft smile on his face. This realm really didn¡¯t take that long, so he was d that- "You goddamn moron!" An angry, loud voice echoed through the area, nearly hurting Eisen¡¯s ears in the process. Eisen looked at the source of this loud voice. It was the man that just stepped out of the gate before Eisen was able to get to it, "You weren¡¯t supposed to blow Cerberus to smithereens, you were supposed to lead it to one of the other hundreds of castles and have it fight the other instance of Cerberus there! Who would get the idea of brute-forcing shit like this?! I¡¯m Gluttony, not Wrath, why am I this fucking furious?!" Eisen looked at the man in front of him, the God of the Underworld Gluttony, with a wry smile on his face as he moved his fingers through his beard, "Well... Is it bad that I found a unique way to kill it? Gluttony looked back at Eisen before crossing his arms and looking to the side, "I guess technically it isn¡¯t, but it still pisses me off." "Haha, I get what you mean. Having others mess up the ns you made is quite annoying, isn¡¯t it?" "Right?!" Gluttony replied, d that there was someone that understood his anger, although he soon remembered that he was speaking to the one that caused his anger this time around in the first ce, "At least you get where I¡¯ming from... And you couldn¡¯t¡¯ve known the intended way to beat Gluttony... And you did save ressources here, I don¡¯t have to repair two whole castles and birth two more Cerberi, I just need to do one each... Actually, it feels like I should thank you at this point..." Eisenughed slightly as he approached the gate in front of him, "I won¡¯tin if you do, but don¡¯t do anything you don¡¯t want to do. Anyway, should we speak a little bit now?" The old man suggested. Gluttony looked back at him and then slowly nodded his head in response, "Fine. Thene on, let¡¯s do that. I¡¯ll exin to you why I wanted you to solve this task the way that I intended, I¡¯ll give you the chance to apologize, and then I¡¯ll send you over to Wrath¡¯s realm." The God stepped through the gate ahead of Eisen, but was quickly followed by him, who was in turn followed by Satel. They were in quite a lot of disbelief at this situation themselves. Satel most likely knew about the intended way to solve this realm¡¯s task, but didn¡¯t expect something like this to happen all of a sudden. Especially, they probably didn¡¯t expect Gluttony himself to get so furious over it to then yell at Eisen. The old man sat down at a table with Gluttony, and the two of them ate a bit. Different to what his name would suggest, it seemed like Gluttony actually had a rather humble appetite. At the very least, he didn¡¯t seem to eat in an exaggeratedly hungry way as all the people in the Hall of Gluttony did in Limbo. "Hm? Ah, I know what you¡¯re thinking. ¡¯Isn¡¯t he literally Gluttony, why doesn¡¯t he eat that much?¡¯. Right?" Gluttony asked, and Eisen looked back at him with a slight smile, "To an extent, yes." The old man replied, "Although not in a bad way, I don¡¯t really care how much you eat. It still came to a bit of a surprise to me, though." "Well, I can see that. But you know, I actually do eat much more than what you may expect. I just don¡¯t like the feeling of stuffing myself, but I am one of the few gods that has to eat in order to survive, due to my own nature. It¡¯s just that all of this food that I am eating on my side is a special creation. The basis for it was food that held a hundred times the calories of normal food, before then being shrunk down to a hundredth of its original size. Then, those small clumbs of food werebined with each other and turned into the shape that you currently see. And that is actually the version with less-calories... I didn¡¯t want to feel too bloated while speaking to you, you see?" "...Ten thousand times the amount of calories..? I¡¯m just curious, but can I-" "No, you can¡¯t get any ess to that food. You asked me this many, many times before, even if you may not remember. Well... Not that it stopped you from justing here and stealing some of it on multiple asions to create pills for yourself to consume. You made them in special ways so that you could take on and it wouldst you for up to a week. You used it for times when you needed to meditate for long periods of time." Gluttony exined to Eisen, "But I¡¯m not letting this pass anymore now that you¡¯ve lost your memories, you hear?" Eisenughed a bit as he heard this story. He actually felt a small tingling in the back of his head, as if he was going to remember some of these instances that Gluttony was speaking about soon. Not that he minded. He was gathering quite a lot of new memories that he would be unlocking soon. It wouldn¡¯t take long until Eisen reached 50 memories that he managed to recover, which seemed like another huge step. Actually... Eisen still had a lot of memories to catch up on to reach 40. He was told that there would be a big change every ten memories that he actively remembered. He really did wonder what was going to happen then. The old man looked in front of him with a nk stare while he thought about everything that came to mind, and a few momentster, Gluttony let out a long, deep sigh, "Alright, seems like I¡¯m boring you. Let¡¯s get you to Wrath so that you can get ouf of the Underworld soon. Anyway, you have my Acknowledgement anyway. I don¡¯t even know why we have to give you these tasks in the first ce, but that¡¯s just how it works." Eisen looked at Gluttony with a smile, "Thank you. I appreciate to hear you say that." The old man said, before he headed toward the gate that the God just created for him. As he was walking over there, Eisen heard Gluttony whisper something to Satel, although he didn¡¯t know what exactly this God had to say to the Guide-Devil. The old man pushed the gate in front of him open and then stepped through it, before he immediately tried to turn around due to the disgusting stench that hit his face as if a pro-boxer punched him. It was ¡¯that¡¯ powerful. Eisen immediately held his nose shut as he looked in front of him. All that he saw was the slimy, disgustingly foul river Styx. At least that¡¯s what it was in Dante¡¯s Inferno. At the top of the slimy river, numerous monsters of all shapes and sizes were ripping each other apart violently. The old man already had a bad feeling about the task in this realm. [New Quest ¨C River of Wrath] [Description] In order to be acknowledged by the Gods of Hell, you have started to make your way through the nine circles of hell. On your first stop, you reached Limbo. On your second, you reached Lust. On your third, you reached Gluttony. On your fourth, you reached Wrath- Your task in this realm is to swim through the river Styx to reach the gates of Dis. [Conditions] Swim through the river Styx [Rewards] Wrath¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None Eisen turned around and looked at Satel, who was just standing there with a broad grin on his face, "What? Don¡¯t like the challenge? We can turn back, if you want..." The Devil pointed out, but Eisen just let out a deep groan as he shook his head, "No, this is fine... I can... I can do this..." The old man said, already gagging at the sight of the disgusting, foul sludge he would have to swim through. The old man quickly changed out of his current clothes into a simple pair of recement pants. He didn¡¯t want to swim through therepletely naked, but he also didn¡¯t want to ruin his current clothes. Eisen approached the river-bank in front of him and looked into the distance. He could see the towers of this City of the Underworld, Dis, he was supposed to reach by swimming through this river. The moment that his foot touched this disgusting sludge, he could feel shivers run all over his body. It didn¡¯t only look unpleasant, but it felt unpleasant as well. Not only was it so slimy that it gave Eisen and ufortable feeling as he became slowly more and more submerged in this substance, but it was also somehow rough and was rubbing over Eisen¡¯s skin like sandpaper. He didn¡¯t know that it was possible for these two sensations toe out of the same substance, but it was fact that they did. Soon, Eisen became submerged up to his neck, and he proceeded to try and swim through this thick substance, something that was hard enough already. But the worst thing was that this was nearly like quicksand, and he felt like he was being constantly pulled down. Of course, he was still able to fight against that pull, but it did take him quite a lot of power to do so. And on top of that, Eisen had to face the monsters that were angrily ripping each other apart in front of him, and was trying to cut them apart with his de, once more trying to absorb the souls instead of just ripping them apart. Just like that, Eisen faced one of the most disgusting challenges he had to face so far. Chapter 695 Pulled Under

Chapter 695 Pulled Under

Eisen swung his arms forward again and again, trying to swim through this slimy, rough, ufortable sludge that these numerous monsters were floating in, trying to viciously kill each other with every single breath they took. The old man tried to evade them to the best of his abilities, but considering that these monsters could also swim through this sludge, and sometimes even quite a bit better than Eisen himself, he did have to kill quite a few of them, absorbing them through his Demonic Greatsword. But for the most part, Eisen was trying to just get to that Demonic town as quickly as he could. He would be able to take a break there, clean himself up, and maybe even rest for the next before heading off to the next realm. Eisen wasn¡¯t even halfway there, and he already felt mentally and even in part physically exhausted. He really wished that he would be able to just fly over here, but since the quest specifically said that he had to swim through this river, that wasn¡¯t actually a viable option for him. ¡¯This is fine, if I can just manage to get a steady rythm going, I won¡¯t need to worry about anything...¡¯ Eisen thought to himself. He was the kind of person that would usually speak to himself audibly in a situation like this, but even Eisen wasn¡¯t careless enough to open his mouth at all in a situation like this. It was bad enough that the sludge was getting stuck in his nose and partially even his eyes. The old man tried to at the very least keep his mouth shut as much as possible, because he really didn¡¯t want to identally swallow some of this slimy sludge. He didn¡¯t want to stoop that low, at least. And just as he was thinking that, a monster on his right side swung at the old man. It managed to cut a bit into Eisen¡¯s skin, even. Not a lot, but just a small amount. It was a rather weak monster, honestly, and Eisen was able to kill it in just a single swing even while his arms were restricted here in this sludge. But that didn¡¯t matter at all in this situation. What did matter, however, was that Eisen now had an open wound, however small it may be, on his arm that was touching the sludge as Eisen was swimming through it. And really, it was burning an incredible amount, and it seemed like the wound was immediately bing infected and swelling up. Of course, this was not the case, but it was more than just slightly unpleasant. It hurt as if the wound had a septic infection that may end up killing Eisen if he wasn¡¯t careful. He was even losing a little bit of health through this, but it luckily wasn¡¯t all that much, probably because hte wound itself wasn¡¯t all that big to begin with. But Eisen still had to somehow heal himself. And so, he summoned his item storage right above him, in the air of course, and had his elemental spirit push a small health pill into his mouth, so that the old man didn¡¯t have to touch it himself. This seemed to help quite a bit, and Eisen stopped losing health although his arm didn¡¯t stop hurting anymore. Honestly, this challenge wouldn¡¯t have been an issue to Eisen just a few weeks ago when he didn¡¯t feel pain yet, but right now, it was more than just ufortable to him. The old man tried to concentrate on swiming forward, making sure that no monsters were attacking him so that he wouldn¡¯t end up repeatedly feeling this stinging, burning pain all over his body. But then, just as Eisen reached the halfway point between where he started and where his goal was, something else happened, and immediately Eisen felt his heart drop into his stomach. He felt incredibly dumb for even forgetting about this part of this realm. Eisen was probably just too distracted by the state of the river that he was able to see to really think about it. In Dante¡¯s Inferno, the souls within the river styx could be split up into two factions. One, the ¡¯Actively Wrathful¡¯, the ones that were here at the top of the river ripping each other apart in this swampy, foul sludge. And two, the ??Passively Wrathful¡¯... the ones hiding underneath the surface of the ¡¯water¡¯ in its deep darkness, unseen by anyone but themselves. For the most part, at least. Right now, Eisen realized their existence quite a bit, considering that it seemed like one of these ¡¯Passively Wrathful¡¯ being was pulling on the old man¡¯s legs. Since it took Eisen quite a lot to even keep himself afloat just like this, it was obvious that he would be unable to fight against this creature that was trying to pull him underneath the surface of the river. The old man was pulled underneath the surface of the sludge with the worst possible timing. He was just about to take a breath of air, but now that he was here, that clearly wasn¡¯t possible anymore. Surprisingly, Eisen was actually abel to hold his eyes open and see what was going on here underwater. It was murky, sure, but it was still surprisingly clear. As if there was simply some sort of film on top of the river that made it so that you weren¡¯t able to see what was going on underneath the surface of the sludge. It still hurt Eisen quite a bit to open his eyes though, considering the roughness of the sludge, but somehow he managed to keep his eyes open and soon saw the creature that was trying to pull him to the bottom of the river. Immediately, Eisen tried to swing his de at the single tentacle that was wrapped around both of his legs, although he wasn¡¯t able to exert enough force to cut through even half of the tentacle. The sword itself was helping Eisen out with this, of course, but that still didn¡¯t make it any easier for him. He swung the sword to the side again, trying to repeatedly hack at the tentacles slung around his legs. Bit by bit, he managed to cut through them, and by the time he got rid of them fully it was already practically toote. Other monsters had started clinging to Eisen to try and pull him down to the bottom of the river. Immediately, Eisen started to think about what he had to do. He summoned his item storage and once more had his elemental give him something from inside. But this time around, it was something more important than just a health pill or potion. It was a mouth-piece that the old man quickly pressed against his lips to try and push it into his mouth without having to open it up at all. But in the end, it didn¡¯t matter. Once the small item was inside of the old man¡¯s mouth, he could already taste the disgusting sludge on his tongue. He nearly threw up, but Eisen was able to hold himself back for a few more moments. With the item that he just put into his mouth, he was able to produce breathable air with which he could stop himself from dying for now. At least, he wouldn¡¯t end up drowning. It took Eisen a while to get rid of his momentary panick, but when he did, he immediately proceeded to sh his de at the monsters grabbing onto his legs. It was as if they had finally been given the chance to take out their wrath on someone, and were trying to drag Eisen down with them, quite literally. Limbs started to float around Eisen and the blood of the monsters slowly turned the water even harder to see through. But that wasn¡¯t what mattered right now. Eisen activated his Draconic Demon King form. Not only did that make it harder for the monster to grab onto Eisen¡¯s legs, as they were a lot thicker all of a sudden, but he was able to exert a lot more bursting force with his wings. He hadn¡¯t been using this form until now since it would usually make him a lot heavier and that simply wouldn¡¯t be worth it to just somewhat be able to use his wings up there, but right now it was important that Eisen could at least escape momentarily. That was really all that he needed. And with ast sh at the grasping ws of the monsters, Eisen was able to escape and rush to the surface of the water again, deactivating his Demonic Transformation. He slightly shot out of the water and was able to quickly get all of the murky sludge out of his eyes using a piece of cloth. Of course, he also grabbed another item from the item storage and used it to clean his mouth out, to make sure that none of the sludge was still sticking to his tongue or the roof of his mouth. He would taste this for the next few hours anyway, so he wanted to get rid of as much as absolutely possible. "I hate this, I hate this..." The old man grumbled quietly to himself as he continued to swim, trying to push himself forward as quickly as absolutely possible. And at some point, Eisen even started pushing himself off of certain monsters to be able to proceed forward more quickly instead of having to swim the whole way. And then finally, about one more hourter, Eisen reached the ce where Satel was waiting for him, the other side of this truly enormous river. The moment that he reached this side, Eisen created a pir made out of his element with a bit of an overhang that he could stand underneath. He then grabbed a few simple mana crystals and turned them into a circr te that he pressed onto the underside of the overhang before quickly enchanting it with a rtively simple enchantment. He undressed and proceeded to burn up the pair of pants that he had been wearing, before activating the enchantment on the mana crystal te above him. Clear, hot water poured down onto his body as Eisen proceeded to scrub himself clean more than thoroughly, until his skin even turned a bit red from just this action. "...I think you can stop now, you got rid of it all..." Satel pointed out, but Eisen just turned his head and red at the Devil, "Shut up. Just... shut up." The old man muttered quietly. He usually wasn¡¯t even particrly squeamish about this sort of thing, but in this case, even he couldn¡¯t help himself at all. Chapter 696 Dis

Chapter 696 Dis

Eisen looked at what was in front of him and saw the town Dis in the distance. He was currently drying himself off after washing the river styx off of him and every small nook that it reached into. The old man took a deep breath, and luckily wasn¡¯t able to smell anymore on his own body. There was still the lingering scent of the nearby styx, but at the very least he didn¡¯t have this smell constantly inside of his nose anymore. It seemed like there was still a little bit of the styx-taste in his mouth, but Eisen figured he could get rid of that with a little bit of booze. So, he quickly took out arge bottle filled with high-percentage alcohol and quickly took a sip of it. It seemed like the burn of the alcohol singed away some of the taste that was leftover in his mouth, meaning that it was luckily working pretty well. "Heh, you know how to party, old man." Satel said with a broad grin on their face before extending their hand toward Eisen. While rolling his eyes, Eisen handed the bottle to the Devil as the two of them started walking toward Dis, where the God Wrath was waiting for them. Satel took a sip of the Whiskey, and immediately pulled their eyes open wide and stared at Eisen, "Y-Yo, where the fuck did you get this? It¡¯s really fucking good!" Satel eximed, and Eisen looked at them as he took the bottle back and took another sip himself, "I made it a while ago. It was artificially aged by Jyuuk, so it¡¯s not reallypletely natural. It¡¯s still pretty good, though." "Just p-pretty good? That¡¯s some of the best stuff I¡¯ve ever had! I heard that the booze in your country was supposedly the best around, but I didn¡¯t think you were still able to make stuff like this even without memories!" Satel eximed, and Eisen looked at them with a soft smile. "In the other world, I made my money by brewing this sort of alcohol. I was able to make use of production methods that were created over the centuries, recipes, and so on, with tools that none of you ever had ess to. And that was just because Samuel restricted the amount of things that I was allowed to show to others, while halting the progress that other people were making in these areas. The only ones that were allowed to make use of things we learned from the other world without limit were us five that peaked. Hence, I was able to create this alcohol and distribute it to a few ces as presents under the guise of it being a product that ¡¯only a man like me can create¡¯." The old man exined to Satel, who listened to Eisen¡¯s word with surprising attention. To Eisen, it seemed like not only the angels hadn¡¯t been informed of any of these things. It was just that, as a Devil, it was easier for Satel to ept these things as it was for Ambriel, for example. Of course, Ambriel was still an extreme case, but that was beside the point. At the end of the day, Eisen came along trying to shake up all the things that they thought to be true. And for Satel, it seemed to be easier to ept it than it would be for others. Satel didn¡¯t seem like the kind of being that was rather ¡¯loyal¡¯ to anything or anyone in the slightest. That included both divine beings and concepts, of course. And due to thatck of loyalty toward one specific concept or idea, it was rtively easy to ept other things as the truth. Or at least, a potential truth. But even then, since they had never heard about this stuff from the side of one of the people that were directly involved, even Satel seemed to have to think about it for a while, even if they had this uncaring attitude to them. Although, since this created a rather ufortable and awkward air around them, Eisen offered more of the alcohol he had to Satel. The Devil drank a bit more, and the two of them continued to make their way toward Dis. Soon, they stood in front of therge gate that was the entrance to the town behind these enormous walls. There were a few rather vicious devils standing right in front of it, garding it with pure lethargy, as if they didn¡¯t care about it in the slightest. At least, until Eisen got there. As if they were so bored that they were literally waiting for anyone or anything to beat up, they immediately propped up their heads and became excited, approaching the old man immediately, "Lookie, lookie, a dumbass soul that chose to crawl out of the Styx, eh?" One of the two Guard-Devils asked, and Eisen looked at him while immediately shaking his head. "Of course not. I think it should be rather obvious that I¡¯m still alive." Eisen pointed out, but the other Devil just shook their head again, "How sad, how sad, it thinks its still alive... Want to show it that it¡¯s not?" "Good idea, good idea!" The other devil eximed once again, just before immediately being shut down by Satel. "Yo, Humpty and Dumpty, shut the fuck up before I rip your asses open. This guy¡¯s alive, not to mention a personal guest of Lord Wrath. So let us through before we catch your guys¡¯ stupidity." Satel told them, and the two Guard-Devils looked at each other for a moment. "...Humpty Dumpty..?" "...Dumpty Humpty..?" With a loud groan, Satel tried to step past them, but was immediately stopped by one of the two Guard-Devils, "No, no. You won¡¯t go through." "You¡¯re lying, you¡¯re lying. We know. No way a living manes down here." The two of them said in turn to one another as one of them grabbed onto Satel¡¯s cor. But of course, there was someone else here right now that the two of them werepletely ignoring for some reason. And that ¡¯someone¡¯ took out his pitch-ck demonic greatsword and swung it down at the arm that was holding onto Satel, cleanly cutting through it without much resistance. "Didn¡¯t you hear him? I¡¯m alive, you dimwits, and a guest to your literal god. So let us through before I take another one of your arms. You hear?" Eisen told the Guard-Devil, both of which started angrily grinding their teeth together at the sight of the arm that just fell to the ground. The Devil picked it up and simply re-attached it, as if its body was that of a toy that had simply fallen apart. "Man make me angr-" Of course, while the two Guard-Devils were staring at each other angrily, Eisen approached the gate and simply pushed it open. Beyond it, he could see the inside of the castle¡¯s throne-room instead of the town of this city of Dis. Staring through the hall was Wrath, ring at the two Devils that were about to attack his guest. Immediately, the two Devils fell to their knees in fear of their Lord, and even Satel slightly bowed their head for a moment. Satel wasn¡¯t a believer of Wrath, they simply knew that if they were directly disrespectful toward any of the gods, they may or may not be dead before they were able to blink the next time around. So until now, Satel usually always stayed quiet and respectful toward the Gods whenever they were around. Meanwhile, Eisen was focused on something else, and that was the fact that his sword seemed to be rather excited at the ¡¯taste¡¯ of Devil-Blood. Eisen found this to be quite intriguing, since it hadn¡¯t reacted like this at all for a while now. Thest time that it reacted like this was when it was leveling up within the higher levels of its former rank, as if bing happy about it. And since it seemed like the sword was somewhat pulling toward the Devils again, Eisen figured that the de took some sort of liking to the blood of Devils. That sounded slightly concerning, but Eisen didn¡¯t really mind it as long as the sword was happy and didn¡¯t cause him any trouble. The old man stepped further into the hall in front of him while the sword tried to keep dragging him backward, until Eisen couldn¡¯t take it anymore and just put the sword back into his Soul Storage. "Sorry for those fuckwads out there. I¡¯ll discipline themter." The God of this Circle of hell, Wrath, said with a re directed at the two Devils that knew they were most likely going to die rather soon after Eisen left. The old man let out a slight sigh as he shook his head, "I honestly don¡¯t care as long as they stop being so annoying." He pointed out, and Wrath slightly raised his brows, "You¡¯re a lot more boring than I remember." "Well, that¡¯s cause I don¡¯t remember." Eisen said, "I lost my memories, if you¡¯re not aware." "Eh? That was real? You actually lost your experience? What kind of asshole piece of garbage would do that to you?!" Wrath asked. Eisen let out a deep sigh and quickly pointed at his own face, "This one. The others that peaked also gave up their experience to create the Artificials that are roaming around in the mortal realm. You didn¡¯t notice a stronger influx of soulstely? Those guys must be going around ughtering all those monsters without hesitation." "Hm, that¡¯s true... There¡¯ve been a couple more down here... But I thought there was a wildfire or some shit. Not that I care, honestly. But I haven¡¯t been keeping up with shittely. Everything new I find out just pisses me off so fucking much, you won¡¯t even believe it." The God exined. Eisen looked back with a shrug, "You¡¯d be surprised, honestly. In the other world, trying to keep up with worldwide news isn¡¯t that fun all the time either." "...Ain¡¯t that other world some kinda utopia? That¡¯s what the Administrator tol-" "Don¡¯t say that name in front of me again or I¡¯ll cut your throat open." Eisen interrupted Wrath, who just looked back with a wry smile. Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose and then shook his head, "Sorry, that guy¡¯s the one topic that I can¡¯t help but get heated over. But either way, trust me, the other world is anything but a utopia. War, wildfires, climate change, racism... There¡¯s a lot of stuff going on over there at any given time, really." "...Doesn¡¯t really sound that nice." "It is not." Eisen said immediately, "But let¡¯s not talk about that." Chapter 697 Stronger

Chapter 697 Stronger

Eisen sat there on the ground in the ce where he chose to sleep for tonight, but somehow, he felt like something was a bit... off. It wasn¡¯t that he felt like something was about to happen the moment he fell asleep, but it was rather about the fact of what would happen within Eisen during his sleep. He would remember a new memory, which in this case would actually be the 40th memory. He held himself back from doing this for quite a while now. When he reached 30 memories that he actively remembered, Eisen felt like his body in the other world had gone through an immense shift. Eisen hadn¡¯t particrly changed all that much, it¡¯s not like he grew horns like Brody did or something. Rather, his body had recovered from the fatigue that had met his body over the past few months. No, years even. Ever since he became unable to work over there, his body had started slowly declining. As if the harsh physical work that he had done finally caught up to him the moment that he was forced to take a rest. It was as if Eisen simply shrunk in a bit over time, his muscles losing their mass and his bones bing more frail. He even had a quite bit more fat covering him everywhere on his body than he was actually used to. And then... Once he remembered 30 of his former memories... That changed. The next time he woke up, he was drenched in sweat as if his body was overheating. He had trouble to get a good footing when he stepped out, and not only because the underside of his foot became slippery due to his own sweat.. Eisen had suddenly lost a bit of his weight and his muscles became more pronounced again. Usually your body would be used to changes like this, since they would be happening gradually, but in Eisen¡¯s case, it happened within a couple of minutes, probably. He could even see something like steam rise out of the capsule after he opened it up. The others didn¡¯t really notice it at first, especially after Eisen quickly took a shower, but when he exined what happened, they did seem to realize the slight differences in Eisen¡¯s body. Eisen was rather nervous about what was going to happen this time around. He slowly closed his eyes and dozed off into sleep, seeing the dozen or so memories that he could still recover and had to do rather soon. Eisen couldn¡¯t push this off forever. And so, the old man grabbed one of the random memories floating in front of him. They were the memories of Silmos that had been lost to the old man until now. It seemed like at some point in time, they had a rtionship that was a bit more than just friends, although he himself had a hard time exining it. It¡¯s been around sixty thousand years though, and since then, they¡¯ve been nothing but friends, a simr experience as Eisen seemed to have had with the other gods that he visited in Heaven. Overall, it was a rather pleasant memory for him, that was undeniable. It was a nice start into this sudden change that was bound to happen. The conversation that he was able to have with his former self wasn¡¯t all too bad either. Eisen was even given a couple of tips about how he might be able to get through the tasks here in hell more easily, although his former self wasn¡¯t able to tell him anything all too specific, probably because he simply didn¡¯t know anything. And then, after recovering this memory, Eisen chose to take a break. Every fifth memory seemed to be incredibly taxing on Eisen, and it was even worse every tenth memory. It wasn¡¯t that he was in pain or anything, but just that he didn¡¯t have the energy to recover any other memory for now. Just like that, Eisen logged out. --- The moment that Benjamin opened his eyes whileying inside of the capsule, his body was in pain. It wasn¡¯t any sort of specific pain, just pain altogether. His body was cramping up, and he could literally hear parts of his body rip apart. As if some worms were crawling through him underneath his skin, between his muscles. Benjamin stared down at his arm, seeing it nearly ¡¯bubble up¡¯. It was a rather disgusting sight, truthfully, since this was something you would usually just see in horror movies. This old man¡¯s body was spasming aroundpletely, and he was no longer really in control of his own body. Soon, this was no longer happening just in his limbs, but even all over his torso. His throat closed up because his muscles forced this to happen. At some point, Benjamin couldn¡¯t see anything anymore either because his eyes were closed shut so tightly. But that wasn¡¯t all. Even his internal organs started being affected like this. It truly felt as if Benjamin was about to die. He wasn¡¯t in excruciating pain or anything, but it was something that Benjamin had never felt before. It truly was like he had stepped past a point he wasn¡¯t supposed to reach, and the world was punishing him for it. For a few moments, Benjamin felt his heart cramp up. He didn¡¯t know how it was possible, but even through that, something that was akin to a heart-attack, Benjamin¡¯s state didn¡¯t change in the slightest. It took a few minutes, but soon, this process, whatever it was, started to subside in his fingers. Over time, all the pain disappeared and Benjamin sat there,pletely numbed. He didn¡¯t know what he was supposed to feel, but this experience was far more aggressive than what happened when Benjamin reached 30 recovered memories. Benjamin reached for the button he had to press onto so that he could open up the capsule, and slowly stepped out of it. Just with that, he could feel that something was off, although he couldn¡¯t really put his finger on it. He stepped out of his room and made his way to the livingroom exhaustedly, rubbing his face with his hand as he sat down on the couch. "...Everything alright?" Andrew asked as he sat down next to the old man with a hood over his head to hide his evergrowing horns, and Benjamin looked at him and let out a deep sigh, "Just got to 40." The old man exined, and Andrew¡¯s expression immediately changed, "What happened to ya this time..?" "I¡¯m not entirely sure... At 10 memories, our bodies started changing and developing racial traits that we had in the other world. At 20, nothing much actually happened, I just felt a bit more energetic than before. At 30, my body became incredibly healthy... And now at 40, I think... My body started changing from the ground up..." A bit nervous, since he was most likely the next one right after Benjamin to reach this point if none of the others happened to get lucky and get ahead rather quickly, Andrew looked the old man next to him up and down, "I ain¡¯t really seeing anything different on you, though." "Mhm, that¡¯s what I meant with ¡¯from the ground up¡¯. I¡¯m pretty sure my muscles were ripped apart and put together numerous times." "...You¡¯re saying that you might¡¯ve be as strong as Eisen? The other one, I mean." "...We can¡¯t really deny the possibility, can we?" Benjamin pointed out as he scratched the back of his head, slowly pushing himself off the couch, where he had noticed another difference. Either the seat became quickly used up because there were so many people in this house right now, or the old man started suddenly weighing a lot more than he used to. That¡¯s what it felt like when he sank into the cushion, at least. Andrew stood in front of him, seemingly understanding what Benjamin was trying to do as he stretched his hand out forward. Somewhat nervously, Andrew grabbed onto the old man¡¯s arm as Benjamin raised it up and Andrew pulled in his legs. Usually, that would mean that Benjamin¡¯s arm would be pulled down immediately, but in this case... The old man was able to lift Andrew up with ease. It wasn¡¯t the same level of strength that he had over there, but that would probably be something that was going to develop over time. Either way, Benjamin had suddenly be capable of easily lifting the weight of a grown, tall, muscr man with just one arm. Suddenly as both Benjamin and Andrew were trying to figure out if they were seeing this correctly, before a voice came from the front door, "...Of course you two are never doing anything normal whenever I enter the room. Are you trying out some kind of new trick or something?" Benji pointed out with a wry smile. He took on the task of going grocery shopping, and he just came back from that, having to be faced with this sort of weird sight. Without hesitation, Benjamin locked eyes with Andrew and then shook his head as he let the other man down gently. Benjamin looked at the couch and walked over toward one end of it, lifting it up with his left arm while Andrew lifted it up with practically his whole body. The two of them then tried to bnce everything properly, until Benjamin was holding the couch on his left shoulder as if he was carrying a bag of cement or something like that. And the old man then proceeded to walk around the room as if there was nothing there to bother him. "It¡¯s not a trick. At least it¡¯s magic though, right?" The old man figured as Andrew proceeded to help him put the couch down gently again. Benjamin stared at his reflection in the TV and squinted his eyes, "Did I really just do tha-?" "Why the fuck are you asking me?! How did you do that? Is it another thing with your abilities? Oh, did you reach 40 memories now?!" Benji asked immediately,pletely perplexed at this situation, and reasonably so, really. Benjamin looked back at his grandson with a smile on his face and nodded his head, "I think so, yes. My body is bing more like that of the true ¡¯Eisen¡¯ the longer time goes on." Benjamin exined to Benji, who was still just really damn excited about all of this. The old man could understand it, although he himself was still in quite a bit of disbelief over everything. After all, how did he be this much stronger in such an unreasonable amount of time? It felt off to be able to do this here in this world. As if he was bing an existence that wasn¡¯t supposed to be here. Chapter 698 Endurance of Greed

Chapter 698 Endurance of Greed

Eisen woke back up within this rtively hidden part of the City Dis, the most central part of the Circle of Wrath of the Underworld. The old man pushed himself off the ground and stepped toward where he figured Satel would be waiting for him so that they could keep on going. "Took you long enough. Come on, let¡¯s finally head over to Greed now." The Guide-Devil said as they scratched the back of their head. Eisen slowly nodded his head as he looked at their pale face. Somehow, Eisen wasn¡¯t able to concentrate on anything in particr after what he had just done in the other world. Having that sort of physical strength was truthfully quite overwhelming, in more ways than just one. Mentally and physically, actually. While Eisen¡¯s muscles seemed to have changed and transformed to be able to exert that sort of force all of a sudden, it seemed like the old man should have taken a little bit of time to try his new muscture out, since he immediately felt incredible pain that was akin to sore muscles, just much, much more intense. At the very least it was a good excuse for him to not show his strength off any further to the others. When he started out, Eisen was rather excited, probably due to the adrenaline that came with the immense pain he felt within the capsule. But after his adrenaline-powered mind slowly settled down, he was ovee with the thought of what kind of being he now was. He wasn¡¯t human anymore, that was for sure. Eisen cancelled all of his doctor appointments that would happen from then on out. It wasn¡¯t like he really needed them anymore, and he didn¡¯t want to suddenly reveal his new body to anyone that didn¡¯t particrly need to know about it. And then after that, Jyuuk picked up a few sterile needles from an apothecary and had a colleague ship some quick test-equipment to Eisen¡¯s house so that he could test everyone¡¯s blood and see at what kind of level their bodies were changing over time. On top of that, it seemed like Jyuuk and Xenia were trying to develop simr test-equipment using enchantments and magic-inscriptions here in this world, so that Jyuuk had something topare the information he got from the other world to. If their actual gic race was actually changing, that would have an impact in different ways on anyone but Evalia, although no one could say that the ¡¯Human¡¯ in this world was the same sort of ¡¯Human¡¯ as in the other world, at least gically. Such things were going through Eisen¡¯s mind as he tried to figure out what all of these things really meant for the future. It was practically impossible for Eisen to really focus on anything in particr at this point. So much so that Satel became rather annoyed, "Oi, fuckface, listen to me." They said and snapped their fingers in front of Eisen¡¯s face to get his attention, "Let¡¯s. Go." "Ah... Yeah, sure." Eisen replied, and Satel only rolled their eyes annoyedly, "I don¡¯t know what the fuck happened to ya while you were sleeping, but stop being such a bitch about it." Eisen didn¡¯t really react to Satel¡¯s words as the two of them started making their way toward the Gate that Wrath had prepared for the old man so that he could head to the circle of Greed. Surprisingly, Wrath was standing right next to the Gate, waiting for the old man and the Guide-Devil. The old man looked at the God with a light smile, just trying not to be rude, "Thanks for having us for the night." Eisen said, and Wrath slowly crossed his arms with a slightugh. "Was it a night? Haven¡¯t been outside of this realm for a few centuries. Time is kinda weird here, isn¡¯t it?" Wrath pointed out. "You should change that sometime. The gate to the underworld isn¡¯t that far away from Prototype, after all." "...Prototype... That was that Capital City of yours, wasn¡¯t it?" Wrath asked curiously, and Eisen quickly nodded his head, "Yes, exactly. I don¡¯t think it currently holds up to its former glory, but its getting there again. The whole ce was destroyed a while ago, by some sort of Warforged. Well, I¡¯m pretty sure I know who it really was, actually." The old man said with a slight re directed at the ground. The Warforged were a bit of a special existence, they were an artificially created race. The first Warforged were literally created by hand by Eisen, and it wasn¡¯t all that far-fetched to think that there were a few bodies leftover at some point that didn¡¯t have a proper soul ced into them. If Samuel somehow got his hands on one of those bodies, which Eisen assumed to be quite powerful as they were ¡¯Items¡¯ created by the former Eisen himself, it was reasonable to assume that such a Warforged-body could be used by Samuel to dive into this world if he didn¡¯t choose to randomly take over the bodies of other people in this world, as Eisen realized he was capable of thest time he was in Melroe. "Eisen... I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on in this world anymore, and I don¡¯t care too much about what is happening with all those regr mortal fuckers either. But I know that you do. If anything happens there that you need my help with... I¡¯m gonna be there for you." The God said with a serious expression. Eisen looked back at him and slowly nodded his head, "Thank you. That means a lot, Wrath." "Of course. We¡¯ve known each other for a couple millenia, no way am I gonna leave you be if you need my help." "I appreciate it. I¡¯ll try toe here if it everes up." Eisen smiled as he properly said goodbye to the God in front of him before stepping through the gate that had been prepared right there. The old man looked around him once he was here, and to his surprsie, what he was looking at was nothing but an infinitely t realm with muddy dirt underneath his feet where it was hard to find proper grip even by just standing there. Right next to himself, Eisen saw a round boulder that was roughlyrge enough to reach up to his chest. He already had a rough idea of what he had to do, considering what Dante¡¯s Inferno said about this realm. And then, the notification appeared in front of him. [New Quest ¨C Endurance of Greed] [Description] In order to be acknowledged by the Gods of Hell, you have started to make your way through the nine circles of hell. On your first stop, you reached Limbo. On your second, you reached Lust. On your third, you reached Gluttony. On your fourth, you reached Wrath. On your fifth, you reached Greed - Your task in this realm is to push the boulder beside you for 10 Kilometers, proportionate to your current size, without stopping for a break. If you stop for longer than 10 seconds without actively trying to push the boulder forward, you will have to restart. [Conditions] Push the boulder 10 Kilometers forward (0/10) [Rewards] Greed¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None Eisen let out a deep sigh as he looked at the boulder. He increased his size a bit and watched as the boulder grew with him. And it seemed like the distance he would have to push this had increased as well to make up for the size-difference, so the old man returned to his normal height. "I guess this is going to take a while." Eisen muttered quietly as he stood in front of the boulder, already nearly slipping as he walked because of the muddy ground. But when he tried to push against the boulder, all that happened was that he pushed himself away because of the immensely slippery ground. "Really now..?" The old man groaned loudly. He opened his item storage and quickly got out a few of the boots that he made with this sort of purpose. The old man jumped onto the boulder and then quickly cleaned his feet and dried them before putting on the boots in question. He jumped back onto the ground, which immediately dried up, giving him some proper grip. "Isn¡¯t this kinda cheating?" "It¡¯s not my fault that this wasn¡¯t included in the rules." Eisen pointed out, and Satel really couldn¡¯t fight against that. Either way, with these boots on his feet, Eisen was able to push the boulder forward properly, and actually surprisingly easily due to the slippery ground underneath the boulder. At the very least, it was a lot easier than it would be on regr dirt, because it wouldn¡¯t part ways as easily. Of course, it was still incredibly hard, and Eisen was only able to proceed at about half the speed of normal walking, meaning that this would really take quite a while. At least, that was the case until the ground started to change and suddenly sloped upward. Eisen really had to push this boulder up on this uneven ground. Honestly, this task seemed to be impossible without the boots that Eisen made for this sort of thing. And even then it was incredibly hard because the boulder kept slipping down the slope. Luckily, though, Eisen was able to keep proper grip on the boulder by turning his hands into rock to increase the grip he had on the boulder in front of him. More and more, the old man pushed the boulder up a slope that became steeper and steeper as Eisen kept going. At some point, it was practically like he was just supposed to carry the boulder, or at least there was little to no difference to it. With the help of his element, Eisen was able to create something like steps to help him out with this, since due to the steep nature of this literal slippery slope, Eisen would be slipping despite the fact that he dried up the ground he was walking on. "I think... Greed is trying to make me fail..." Eisen grumbled to himself quietly, while Satel just walked next to him as if nothing was wrong, "Eh, probably." To Satel, it seemed like this slope was actually even, as if the direction of only Eisen¡¯s gravity gradually changed. And soon, it became rather hard for Eisen to hold on even with the steps that he was creating underneath him, so he pulled out his sword and pushed it into the ground for some extra grip. He was strong enough to hold the boulder up with just one arm, since most of the lifting happened in his legs anyway. Just like that, Eisen continued to push this boulder for another three kilometers. Chapter 699 People of Heresy

Chapter 699 People of Heresy

Exhausted and happy that he was finally done with this horrendous task, Eisen stared at the notification that popped up right next to him, telling him that he finished the task. He was happy that he was finally done, although the world still seemed like he was walking up an incredibly steep slope that would continue forever if Eisen were to slip down it identally. "Hm... Took ya long enough." Satel said in an annoyed tone, as if they were the one having the most issues for the past couple of hours. Eisen turned toward them with a re as he pushed himself away from the rock-surface in front of him. Slowly, he let go of the boulder, and despite thinking that it was going to slide down that slope, it simply stayed in ce. And next Eisen knew it, the world around him became normal again. The direction of his gravity changed and he was standing on a horizontal surface again. Eisen immediately proceeded to stretch a bit, because his shoulders and back were feeling quite sore. It was an ufortable feeling, considering that Eisen had to keep pushing this incredibly heavy boulder forward the whole time. At some point, it seemed like the weight of the boulder increase by a few times, even. When Eisen started out, the biggest challenge was the fact that he kept slipping on the floor, and thenter the fact that the ground started sloping. But for thest kilometer or so, Greed wanted to fuck over Eisenpletely and added something else to the mix. Either way, it was a rather annoying task, and he would really need to have a talk with Greed about this now. Luckily, the boulder in front of Eisen started to shatter into pieces that then started to float around, creating a rock-arch. In a bright sh, a different location became connected to this ce, and Eisen could still see a glitter shine into his eyes. He stepped into the space in front of him, followed by the Guide-Devil, and soon managed to spot Greed. And annoyingly, this ce was decorated with numerous precious gems and metals that were going to cost one ten fortunes to be able to afford. Eisen kind of understood that the gods of the underworld were beings that practically followed their own name despite being the punishers for other beings that did so. In Eisen¡¯s mind, this sort of hypocrisy was more than just annoying. It was despicable, even. Although Eisen also knew that it wasn¡¯t the fault of the gods themselves, it wasn¡¯t like they made the active choice to be the gods of these specific realms. They were always meant to be the gods of these circles of hell. And they most likely had some sort ofpulsion to follow the rules of their name as well, to an extent. Hence, while Eisen was a bit bothered by this sight, he knew that he couldn¡¯t get all too angry about it. And right there, on a golden throne that was covered by even more gems and crystals sat Greed, the goddess of this circle of hell. The old man stepped up to her and crossed his arms, "Could you possibly exin to me why the hell you gave me that sort of task? And made it nearly impossible to finish without a few extra tricks?" Eisen asked with a wry smile. The Goddess on the throne shrugged in response as she looked down at Eisen, "No particr reason. I was just quite curious about what you might do... And the thought of the ¡¯Great Eisen¡¯ despairing at the task I gave him was an aplishment that I couldn¡¯t let pass by me." The Goddess exined. Eisen already knew from the gut-feeling that he had when looking at the goddess in front of him that they weren¡¯t on the best terms before. They probably weren¡¯t enemies, but Eisen doubted that they were friends either. At least that¡¯s the rough idea he got from this conversation and the things that he felt within himself. "That¡¯s not very nice, now is it?" Eisenughed with a wry smile, unsure what else he was supposed to say or do. "Hm, is there any reason to be nice? I¡¯m a Goddess of the Underworld, or ¡¯Hell¡¯ as you call it. That has quite a few bad things connected to it already, doesn¡¯t it? We¡¯re torturing numerous monsters here in all the circles of hell. What does that have to do with being nice?" Greed asked with a soft smile on her lips. Eisen understood where she wasing from, "Is that so? Well, it was nice talking to you, could you prepare the next gate for us?" It seemed like Eisen¡¯s sudden question that practically meant he wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible irked Greed a little bit. That¡¯s what her expression said, at least. "...Sure, have it your way. Good luck from here on out, or something like that." The Goddess told Eisen, who slowly nodded his head. At this point in time, Eisen really felt like he just wanted to get back to the Mortal Realm as quickly as possible. See his friends again, and have a bit more of a rxing time than all the things that Eisen had to do here in the Underworld. Well, at least his sword seemed happier the more Eisen made his way through the circles. And so, he chose to try his best to finish the remaining realms today, if possible. The next realm that Eisen had to head to was the realm of Heresy, which was apparently the ce where the gods imprisoned certain people. Eisen really didn¡¯t know what kind of beings they were going to be, but he figured that they were rather powerful if they managed to draw in the attention of literal gods to the extent where the found it necessary for them to be sent here. At least, that¡¯s what Eisen thought. But when he made his way into the realm, he didn¡¯t know what to think anymore. Basically, this ce was just a realm covered in numerous ming towers. On the outside of each tower, arge number of holes were dug that the mes came out of. If Eisen was correct in remembering Dante¡¯s inferno, then the mes came from ming tombs that those thatmitted ¡¯Heresy¡¯ were trapped in. And then, the notification that told Eisen his task in this ce appeared in front of him. [New Quest ¨C People of Heresy] [Description] In order to be acknowledged by the Gods of Hell, you have started to make your way through the nine circles of hell. On your first stop, you reached Limbo. On your second, you reached Lust. On your third, you reached Gluttony. On your fourth, you reached Wrath. On your fifth, you reached Greed. On your sixth, you reached Heresy ¨C Your task in this realm is to open the tombs of ten random individuals and hear their story. Understand why they were sent to this realm. [Conditions] Hear the story of ten heretics 0/10) [Rewards] Heresy¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None "...Well, alright then." Eisen muttered to himself. He didn¡¯t really understand the reason behind this yet, but he figured it might be something like making him realize the mistakes that others made to learn from them. And so, Eisen quickly activated his Draconic Demon King transformation and flew toward the nearest tower, quickly dropping down onto a random tform. He looked into the hole in front of him and stepped inside. Luckily, he was resistant against this sort of heat for now. After Eisen stepped further inside, he had to walk through a wall of mes, and once that was done, what revealed itself behind there was a chained-up individual. It was a young man that seemed to be rather normal, for the most part. There wasn¡¯t anything externally special about him. When he raised his head, Eisen realized that maybe this man wasn¡¯t all too normal after all. Instead of eyes, he had deep, gaping holes that seemed to reach into an infinitelyrge space. "Huh? Who¡¯re you?" The man asked with an annoyed voice, although his expression soon showed his interest in the old man, "...You are part of that world? But how did youe here then?" He asked confusedly, while Eisen wasn¡¯t sure what he was supposed to say in response. "What do you mean with ¡¯that world¡¯?" Eisen asked. The man, as if it was obvious, replied, "Isn¡¯t it obvious? You know what I mean. That other world, the one you are deeply connected to. I only managed to see a few nces of it, however... Numerous giant towers reaching into the sky, the metal dragons soaring through above them, and the metallic monsters underneath them... And those monsters lived together with humans as well! It was a wonderful world..." The man said with a soft smile, when Eisen finally realized what he was talking about. This man¡¯s eyes had the ability to see Earth from here. The ¡¯Giant Towers¡¯ were skyscrapers, the ¡¯metal dragons¡¯ were airnes, and the ¡¯metallic monsters¡¯ were simply cars, "A world in which nobody is contained by giant walls if they wish to live safely... That seems great, doesn¡¯t it?" "...Yeah, it does. I have a suggestion for you. You tell me your story, and I tell you a bit about that world, alright?" The man stared right at Eisen, with sparks flying around surrounding the man¡¯s eyes before he immediately nodded, "Please! Yes! I will do anything to find something out about that ce! Even small details are fine! Anything!" Eisen slowly nodded his head, "Alright, then you go first. Tell me why you were sent here." With a quick nod, the man started to tell Eisen his story. At the start, he seemed to have been just a normal mage with the Spatial Element. He was a rather special one, at that. But at some point, the man happened to get a glimpse of something that was off. He managed to get a glimpse at the connection between this world and Earth. Ever since then, he started to try and find a way to reach the other world through any means necessary. It took him centuries, which was a great dedication even for an elf, which this man clearly was. But then, finally, he managed to do it. He managed to reach out to the connection, and his eyes decayed so that he was only able to see it. And through this fact, he saw Earth. But just before he was able to pass over... He was killed and sent here. Just for having direct knowledge and proof for the existence of Earth, he was killed and sent to suffer for eternity here in the underworld. Chapter 700 The Thing in the Tower

Chapter 700 The Thing in the Tower

Eisen looked at the man in front of him with a deeply worried expression. He didn¡¯t know what he was supposed to do with all this information. Was he supposed to get angry? There was no way that he could get any more furious than he already was. The old man wondered what kind of people would be here in this realm. He figured that it would be mostly people that tried to directly attack one of the gods or those that killed many others in the name of a god, although that waspletely not what the god wanted. That was the kind of thing that Eisen expected. He was a bit surprised that there were so many towers here, since there were more people here than Eisen had initially expected. But then again, these people here couldn¡¯t ever reincarnate, so it made sense that there were a lot more people here, since they were probably gathered for a very long time. But now that Eisen heard the story of this man, of this individual with a past that Eisen didn¡¯t expect, he realized that there were a certain sort of people that were put here on top of the kind that Eisen already expected. It was the sort that found out about Earth in one way or another. And that meant that there had to be people here that were brought down here because a yer revealed information to them. After hearing this man¡¯s story, Eisen fulfilled his part of the promise. He said that he would tell the man some things about Earth, and so he did. He gave him some information about it, things that would make him feel like his life¡¯s work wasn¡¯tpletely wasted. And then, Eisen did something that he didn¡¯t know whether or not he was going to regret this or not. He opened up his item storage and quickly took out a special sort of material. The old man pulled a chunk of it off and formed it into a fist-sized bubble, pressing it into the hand of the damned soul in front of him. "If you want to live a new life, hold this bubble tightly and pour your mana inside. It will be like you¡¯re falling asleep. And when you wake up, you will be in the mortal realm again, with a new body." Eisen told the man. He didn¡¯t know what exactly was going on. He was blind after all, and could now only see the connection between the two worlds. "Well, either way, I will try my best so that at some point, you will be able to be reincarnated at least. But if you want to live as yourself in a world filled with thoseing from the other world, you shoude with me." The old man said. Still, the man had no idea what he was supposed to say in response, "You... Have the power to do that?" The Soul asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "I do, yes." Eisen replied. After a bit of thought, the soul stared down at the bubble, although he still wasn¡¯t able to see it. He was able to feel it in his hands, at least, "Can I have some time to think about that?" Immediately Eisen replied, "Of course. I wille back here when I have finished that which I have to do in this realm. This will only take a few hours, though. So tell me the answer when I¡¯m back. And so, Eisen turned around and left this tomb. Eisen knew that he wouldn¡¯t be able to take everyone out of this realm like this man, but with his ability, he should be quite some help with figuring out some more things about what was actually going on in this world, and the progress of whatever Samuel was trying to do. If he was really attempting to bring magic to Earth, then there had to be some sort of sign in the ¡¯connection¡¯. And on top of that... Using this man¡¯s abilities, they may even be able to manipte the connection somehow. Right now, Eisen was pretty sure that they were still being observed most of the time. The most important things that everyone spoke about were done either in real life, or in the Guild-Room in prototype¡¯s castle. But if they were able to connect to this world without directly going through the connection established via Prime Industries, it may be possible for them to escape Samuel¡¯s control. At least more than now. For now... Eisen had to find nine more people to speak to. And so, instead of flying away and trying to look for another random tomb, Eisen figured he should just choose the tomb right next to this one. He stepped in there and through the wall of mes, finding another person tied up on the ground, thick chains around their ankles and wrists that were holding them in ce, with barely any freedom of movement. And just like that, Eisen sat down and listened to the story of this eldery woman. Over and over again, nine more times, Eisen heard stories that were nearly all about curiosity and overstepping ¡¯boundaries¡¯ that nobody beside the gods even knew about in the first ce. They were trapped here because they in one way or another figured out proof that there was some other world beside this one. The Gods did anything they could to stop anyone from ever truly finding out about this, going so far as to trap the literal souls of people in eternal damnation. It didn¡¯t make sense to Eisen, truthfully. Well, to an extent, it did. He understood why this was happening at least, and that was because Samuel was a piece of shit, basically. On the other hand, Eisen didn¡¯t understand why these souls weren¡¯t just instantly reincarnated instead of being kept down here forever. It seemed like somehow, just by making contact with that ¡¯Connection¡¯, something was ingrained in the souls of these people that they might be able to remember in a future life. That was the only exnation Eisen coulde up with. And if that was the case, the souls of every single yer already received this marking on their soul. Eisen didn¡¯t know if this was deliberate or not, but he did know that there was something that he had to test out when he went to meet that other soulter on again. Right now, Eisen was on his way to the ce where the system was guiding him so that he couldplete the quest with Heresy, the Goddess of this Circle of Hell. The old man ground his teeth angrily at how the majority of these people were brought here for breaking a taboo that nobody could have ever known about in the first ce. It was truly sickening, really. And then, Eisennded at a tower that was many timesrger than the others. But so were the actual tombs themselves. Or rather, the singr ¡¯Tomb¡¯. That was the first time that a single tower had only one opening like this in its, at its very foot. Eisennded in front of it, seeing a young woman standing in front of it. She wore a white, puffy dress and had her face covered in veils, as if this was some sort of wedding-dress. But on top of that, she had some blood-red cloth covering her eyespletely. "Finally you are here." Heresy said in a cold tone once Eisennded with Satel right behind him. He looked at the deep, huge tunnel in front of him. "What is this ce?" "A ce that you ought to see, that is what it is." The Goddess exined swiftly, although her whisper was nearly overheard by Eisen. Her tone and general behavior was somehow weirdly meek and proud at the same time. But Eisen didn¡¯t care about that at all. Instead, he just started walking into the tunnel, something that surprised Heresy greatly. She turned toward Eisen with her head lightly facing the ground, "You do not wish to know any more?" "It didn¡¯t seem like you would tell me anyway. And I have a rough, itching guess at what it is anyway. This isn¡¯t my first time seeing this ce after all, now is it?" Eisen guessed bluntly. The weird itch in the back of his head was enough to let him figure that out. Heresy quietly nodded her head and chose to follow Eisen into the center of this enormous tower. The tunnel seemed to be a lot longer than the thickness of the tower would have made possible, though, but Eisen knew that such a thing wasn¡¯t anything that you could be sure of in these realms, so it didn¡¯t surprise him all that much. Soon, the fires became more intense, although everyone still seemed to be fine with it. There was no way that a Goddess would be damage by mes in her own realm, and Eisen had a basic resistance against mes in such a scenario, as long as they weren¡¯t used against him forbat-purposese. Even then he had a bit of a resistance against them, though. Surprisingly, the Guide-Devil Satel was the one that was most affected by these mes. Eisen expected Devils to be immune to mes, but that quite obviously wasn¡¯t the case at all. They soon reached a thick wall of bright mes that Heresy temporarily opened up a path through, just to make it a bit easier for everyone to proceed. After Eisen stepped through this wall of mes, he saw something that he really didn¡¯t expect to see here. It was a pure mass of metal, inscribed with numerous different runic enchantments. And from inside there, Eisen could see a source of mana through his truth seeing eyes. Someone was sealed in that block of metal. And a quite huge figure at that. A huge, humanoid figure. At first, Eisen really didn¡¯t connect it, but soon enough, he realized what the problem really was. He felt a hollow space open up in his stomach, one that made Eisen want to throw up immediately. Images shot through his mind as Eisen stepped closer to this mass of metal. But at some point, something like an invisible barrier stopped him from approaching any further. No matter how hard Eisen tried, he couldn¡¯t get through. "What is this? Heresy, who is trapped in there?" Eisen asked with a deep re directed at the Goddess. She turned her head to the side as if she felt too ufortable answering. But that was already somehow enough to confirm what Eisen thought to be the case. He stared at the mass of metal and ground his teeth to the point where they nearly shattered apart, "You¡¯re in there, aren¡¯t you... Father?" Chapter 701 Another reason to hate

Chapter 701 Another reason to hate

"You¡¯re in there, aren¡¯t you... Father?" Eisen asked with a mncholic, somewhat bitter expression. In his own mind, he didn¡¯t even know him, really. He had only heard a few things here and there, and remembered some random things that he spoke about with other people when it came to Eisen¡¯s father in this world. But even then, ¡¯Benjamin¡¯ had be ¡¯Eisen¡¯ to the extent where memories didn¡¯t really matter anymore. This wasn¡¯t the first time that Eisen started feeling strongly in any way for the sake of his father in this world. Anger or sadness, they were emotions that he felt without even knowing anything in particr for that man that died a hundred thousand years ago. Somehow, it made him feel even worse after realizing this fact. That he didn¡¯t know anything about him. He did feel fatherly love toward him, no matter if he could remember him or not. And not knowing anything about someone that you know you love is one of the hardest things that Eisen could imagine in his mind. After hearing the old man¡¯s words, Heresy looked at Eisen with a surprised expression, "You can tell that it is him, when his soul is trapped there in an inescapable prison?" "Of course I do. I¡¯m not as clueless as you might think I am." Eisen groaned, "But let me ask you, why did you bring me here in the first ce? To make me feel bad?" "...I would never." Heresy said in apologetic tone of voice, "But whenever you came to this realm in the past, you only did so to visit this ce. To visit your father, even if he may not realize that you are here in the first ce. I thought you might appreciate it if I could show you him again." The Goddess turned her head away from Eisen and toward that huge mass of metal that the soul of Eisen¡¯s father was entrapped in. The old man felt quite angry about seeing what was going on, before approaching the invisible wall that held him back from actually getting closer to this ¡¯prison¡¯. "Did I ever manage to break this barrier?" Eisen asked, but Heresy just slowly shook her head, "Neither you, nor any of us were ever capable of breaking this barrier. It was created out of the same cosmic materials that hold our universe together. Not even you would be able to break that apart, would you?" Heresy pointed out. Eisen thought about that question for a little while. He wasn¡¯t sure if he would be capable of doing that, but... It felt off that it was possible for anyone to create something like this, but that it was impossible for anyone to break it apart. That didn¡¯t make sense. And in the first ce, this ¡¯cosmic material¡¯ wasn¡¯t as stable or imprable as Heresy seemed to think it is. After all, this World, or rather Universe, was connected with the Universe that Earth was in. There was a clear path there. So it wouldn¡¯t make sense if it was impossible for anyone to get through this obviously lesser version of that. The old man ced his palm onto the cold surface, thinking about what this might be. Eisen didn¡¯t know why he became so curious about this all of a sudden. Maybe it was just because he didn¡¯t want to think about the fact that his father was trapped in a ce that not even the former Eisen was able to break through at his absolute peak. And that just for being Eisen¡¯s parent. "Is there any way for me to properlymunicate with him at all?" Eisen inquired, but Heresy slowly shook her head, "There is not." She exined. She stepped toward the barrier herself, slowly looking inside of it at the huge mass of metal that was entrapping that great Giant, "You two live in different worlds, quite literally. I heard that this world runs at a quicker pace than the world you originated from, so the concept can¡¯t be unfamiliar to you. If we say that this space in front of us is another world, then it either runs either many, many times slower, or many, many times faster than here." "...What do you mean ¡¯either¡¯? You don¡¯t know which it is?" "How would I? This was here before I became the Mistress of this realm. I do not even know who it was that created it." Heresy told Eisen, but he was already fully aware of who it was. Eisen¡¯s hatred for that person just grew more and more the longer he thought about them. He wanted to just rip their head off and make them feel all the suffering that they inflicted on everyone else. And then, as Eisen¡¯s mind was once more declining into extreme fury over everything that was going on, a certain Guide-Devil right behind Eisen chose to give their opinion on the matter, "Well... If the time there runs faster than here, then it might not be that great, but if the time runs slower than here, then it might have just been a couple of weeks or even days for ¡¯im, right? It¡¯s a 50/50 chance. At least he wouldn¡¯t be suffering that muchpared to others in this realm." Satel pointed out, as if trying to cheer Eisen up somehow. It was something that the old man really didn¡¯t expect from them. It seemed nearly out of character for them, "...You¡¯re right. I should try and see it positively." Eisen said as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, slowly trying to calm himself down. With a bright smile that Eisen practically forced onto his own lips, he chose to turn around with a form of newfound determination. Determination that he was forcing onto himself, sure, but that was still better than none at all. At least in the old man¡¯s mind, that was. "You do not wish to spend a little more time here?" Heresy inquired as she caught up to Eisen, and the old man slowly shook his head, "I don¡¯t. I still have something to do here in this realm, though. So I would appreciate it if you could prepare a gate for me near here that I can head through when I¡¯m done with that?" The Goddess turned to Eisen and ¡¯looked¡¯ at him, although she had her eyes covered in a piece of cloth, and slowly nodded her head. To Eisen it seemed like she knew what he was trying to do, but was simply choosing to ignore it for now. "Then I wish you great sess throughout your travels. I know that you will seed." The Goddess waved her hand to the side and created arge stone arch that showed the next realm beyond it so that Eisen could just go through thereter. The old man greatly appreciated it, and after thanking Heresy, he activated his Draconic Demon King transformation and flew off, back toward the tower where Eisen was before. He wanted to find out the decision of the man with the eyes that could see the ¡¯connection¡¯ between the worlds. Eisen jumped through into the tomb. The moment that he stepped through the wall of mes there, he was surprised to see that the man had already made his decision. After all, he was no longer there, the shackles wereying on the ground next to the crystal bubble that was now filled with a new soul. Eisen squatted down and picked it up, before opening his item storage, "Thanks for helping me out." He muttered quietly. Eisen ced the crystal bubble into the item storage and turned back around, ready to head to the next realm where he would be taking on another challenge. Somehow, after finding out that his father was trapped here in this realm in the way that he was kind of reassured Eisen in some ways. Of course, it wasn¡¯t that he was d or happy that his father was trapped. It was simply that he was happy that he had definite, tangible reasons to absolutely despise Samuel, more than he already did anyway. After Eisen stepped out of this tomb, he watched as the opening in this tower¡¯s wall slowly disappeared, as if the rock itself was growing and regenerating to close a wound. Eisen lifted off and flew toward the gate that Heresy had prepared for him, soon reaching the next realm with Satel right behind him. The old man thought about what he knew of this realm, and after taking a good look around, came to a simple conclusion as to what kind of task he would have to finish in this realm. The Seventh Circle was the circle of Violence, so of course it would have something to do withbat in some form. Eisen looked at the ne in front of him, and quickly realized that he seemed to be right. Not too far away from him wererge walls, erected as if they were supposed to keep something out, or maybe keep something in, in this case. Eisen reached the gate that seemed to be the entrance to this realm and read through the notification that appeared on his way here. There were three ¡¯Rings¡¯ in this realm, and Eisen would have to beat the strongest enemy in each of those circles in order to keep going. If he remembered correctly, the first ring was for those that viciously inflicted violence upon other people, so this might actually be the hardest physical fight as far as he could guess. Eisen reached arge open field, something like an arena, and in its center sat a humanoid figure. For the most part, it really did look like just any normal, middle-aged human male, but after taking a better look at him, his skin wasn¡¯t just incredibly white, but rather an extremely pale shade of green. This being, this monster as Eisen assumed, looked rather sick. But as far as Eisen could tell, this was just their regr skin-color, so he didn¡¯t care too much about it either. The monster was sitting there, its arms slung around its knees as if it was trying to cradle itself. Eisen felt pretty bad for it, really. But the moment that the monster heard Eisen¡¯s footsteps, it pulled its head up and stared at the figure that was approaching. "Person..?" It asked quietly to itself, and Eisen chose to stay away at a safe distance for now, "You person? Real person? Not seen person in long time..." The Monster muttered as it started to press its limbs down onto the ground, practically crawling over toward Eisen on all fours. It showed its sharp teeth as it buried its ws in the dirt underneath its body, before lunging at Eisen with a madness-driven expression. Chapter 702 Violence

Chapter 702 Violence

Eisen pulled out his Demonic Sword and watched as Satel simply flew into the sky to make way for the fight to properly unfold. The monster that was currently rushing at Eisen with madness in its eyes now seemed anything but human. Sure, it still had the rough physical form of a human, but it moved in ways that were practically impossible for a normal person to achieve. For one, its joints weren¡¯t moving in the way that Eisen expected. Rather than just being able to twist into mainly one direction, the joints of this monster allowed it to twist all of its limbs into any direction that it wanted to. Hence, it was able to really crawl at Eisen at high speeds and in a rather horrific manner at the same time. The old man readied himself for the moment that the monster would reach him. It was always better to be able to react to an attack rather to be the one that instigated it, as far as Eisen was concerned. It was hard to change an attack that you were already executing to react to the enemy, but if you didn¡¯t start attacking in the first ce, it was easier to do what you needed to in order to counterattack and immediately get an edge on your opponent. And this time around, Eisen¡¯s opponent seemed to be one that was driven to madness, practically addicted tomitting murder. Eisen could understand how there could be monsters like that. Rather, he was more surprised that he never met anyone like this before, that loved to kill others just for the sake of getting the satisfaction of leveling up more and more. It was something that was probably rather easy to get addicted to in this world. Whether it was monsters or people, this was something that could affect anyone that roamed through this world. Eisen truly hoped that this would be thest time that he was going to face an opponent like this for the rest of his life, someone that fought just to kill. Sure, there were plenty of people that chose to get abat-based upation simply because they loved to fight, being something likebat-maniacs. Brody was one of those, after all. But he didn¡¯t fight because he was addicted to taking lives and growing stronger through it. He fought because he was addicted to the act of fighting itself. He would continue to do so even if it meant that he wouldn¡¯t get physically stronger at all anymore. Those people were fun to fight, and Eisen had simr feelings to them sometimes. But in the case of this madness-driven monster, Eisen could only feel disgust. He saw that the monster pushed itself off the ground to jump at Eisen, and immediately proceeded to swing his de at the monster, making it growrger to increase the range of his attack in a way that the monster couldn¡¯t expect. Immediately, the old man managed to hit the monster. He figured that this fight would be over already, considering that he hit it basically head-on, but to the old man¡¯s surprise... That simply wasn¡¯t the case. Not a single drop of blood flowed down Eisen¡¯s de. Although it obviously should have, if he really sliced through the monster. But different to what Eisen expected, rather than cutting through the monster, the monster simply grabbed onto Eisen¡¯s de while it was jumping, and was now crawling down it to get to Eisen. Obviously it would only take a single moment for it to reach Eisen, so he had to think fast. And that resulted in Eisen quickly increasing his size and throwing the, now also a fair bitrger, de into the air. Just before Eisen¡¯s fingers split off of the handle, he gave the de themand to shrink down to the minimum size possible while Eisen himself also shrunk down again. Like this, the monster was thrown off and was now iling in the air while Eisen waited for his sword toe back down to him. Luckily, as it was an ego-item, it was able to slightly control itself within the air toe back more quickly, and of course safely, to Eisen¡¯s palm. Eisen watched as the Monster started it descent back to the ground and prepared to really hit it this time around. He infused the de with mes that would certainly be too hot to hold onto, even if it didn¡¯t do much direct damage to the monster¡¯s HP. Eisen watched the monster fall and swung his de at the exactly right time. Or so he thought. Somehow, the monster was twisting in a way that allowed it to perfectly dodge the edge of Eisen¡¯s sword although it was on a direct path to it at first. This monster was far more agile and intelligent than Eisen thought it was at first. He stared at the monster with a deep re and tried to figure out what was going to happen next. Even if the monster was able to dodge Eisen¡¯s de, it would still have received extreme damage from that fall just now. There was no way that it would have been able to get out of there without any sort of damage at all, at least. But the monster was still moving somewhat normally. It had some of its bones broken, sticking out of its skin in a rather horrid way, but it simply pushed those back into the right position as if nothing was wrong with them in the first ce. After hearing some bones cracking and crunching, Eisen knew that the wounds of the monster were healing at a rather rapid pace. Which made sense. A monster that only lived for killing had to be prepared for anything that could end up killing it as well. But before the monster could continue to really try to attack Eisen, the old man swung his de back down at it, hoping to finally hit it this time. But it simply dodged. Attack after attack after attack, Eisen wasn¡¯t able to hit with any of them. It was starting to annoy him quite a bit, actually. For some reason, though, no matter how often Eisen was swinging his de at the monster, it never tried to counter-attack. Was it waiting for Eisen to tire himself out? It would have to wait a long time for that to happen. But maybe... Eisen could y along and make it drop its guard. For the next couple of minutes, Eisen continued to swing his sword at the monster, pretending as if he was slowly but surely running out of breath. The monster seemed happier the more that it noticed this, so Eisen figured that his guess was correct. As such, only a couple minutester, Eisen pretended as if he was unable to go on fighting at this pace and tried to move back to take a breather. Just as that happened, the monster tried to attack Eisen, taking advantage of a ¡¯slip-up¡¯ on Eisen¡¯s side. Or so it thought. The monster was rather confident in that it would be able to kill Eisen like this, preparing to press its ws into the old man¡¯s throat and chest. But only a moment before the monster hit him, Eisen heated his body up to the highest degree that he could, obviously hurting this monster. But it was unable to dodge at this point, with Eisen¡¯srge body and the confidence that it jumped at him with. The monster burnt its disfigured, somewhat human-like hands on Eisen¡¯s body, bubbles forming immediately that seemed to hurt quite a lot. The monster let out a loud screech as it only concentrated on this damage. This was enough for Eisen to swing his sword down at the monster one more time, and before it even hit the ground, the old man cut through a good portion of its body, which was nowying on the ground, separate to the monster¡¯s ¡¯main¡¯ body. It was obviously heavily injured, but it still somehow managed to get away. It still had both of its legs, only loosing the left side of its body, including its shoulder up to its hip. Eisen hoped he would be able to get a good hit on it, but it was moving so randomly at the end there that it was nearly impossible to actually get that done. The monster red at Eisen angrily, even more keen to kill him, but in Eisen¡¯s mind, the fight was already basically over. After all, the Monster was moving incredibly sluggishly and in an even wilder way than before. It had the intelligence to think about what it was doing to an extent before, but now, all of that was gone and had been reced by raw, powerful anger. And Eisen used this fact to swing at the monster and continue hacking it apart, making sure that it was really going to die. As Eisen learned when going through the different realms before, these souls reacted differently tobat to the souls in heaven or even in limbo. Rather than being able to be put back together, these souls were incapable of regenerating beyond what they were capable of doing in life. Simply put, they could really die a second time, which would trap their souls in an infinite nothingness, as far as he was exined by Satel before. Since that was something so horrible that Eisen wouldn¡¯t wish it upon anyone or anything, he figured he should do something else. He cut through the center of this soul¡¯s body, right through the soul¡¯s core, and had his ck Demonic Sword absorb itpletely, merging this murderous, violent soul with the ones that Eisen had already gathered in this way in the other realms. Eisen wanted to make sure that the central soul that he used for the de would be able to safely absorb the other souls without being overwhelmed, so he didn¡¯t instantly fuse them together yet, only storing them in the same central core. The de¡¯s soul was doing a rather good job at this, really, and it happily epted the soul that Eisen offered to it this time as well. As the monster¡¯s body slowly disappeared in ck dust, the gate on the other side of the Arena slowly opened up as Satelnded next to Eisen. "How surprising. That actually seemed rather close this time around." The Guide-Devil pointed out. Eisen turned his head toward them and shrugged, "It wasn¡¯t particrly powerful, just very agile. It had great control over its own body. But beside that, it didn¡¯t have much to speak for it, really." And with that, Eisen made his way through the gate to face his next opponent in this realm. Chapter 703 Other Self

Chapter 703 Other Self

In the area directly behind the gate, Eisen could immediately see that this fight would end up beingpletely different to the fight that he just fought in the other ¡¯arena¡¯. He was surrounded by trees immediately. But not the natural, pretty kind that would make this ce seem like any normal forest. Rather, they were dead, hollow trees with thick mist flowing inbetween them, making this ce feel creepy and eerie. The first ring of the circle of violence was for those that inflicted harm upon others, so he had to fight something that was practically addicted to murder. This second ring, however, was for those that inflicted harm upon themselves, and they were forced to live in this forest of suicide. Eisen didn¡¯t know what kind of opponent he would have to fight this time around, but he figured it might be something that would try and attack him with mental attacks. Taking over his body to force him to do something that he didn¡¯t want to do, which was to kill himself in this situation. Of course, even if that happened, it wouldn¡¯t affect Eisen all too much at the end of the day. He would just have to try facing this challenge again after re-spawning. But still, Eisen was trying to be extremely vignt toward any thought that was entering his head right now. Because if he was going to be forced to kill himself, he would be able to notice any thought like that, at least. But just when Eisen was thinking about this, trying to figure out what his opponent here actually looked like, he saw a silhouette through the mist, slowly approaching him. And immediately, Eisen figured out that this fight wasn¡¯t one that was fought in the mental realm. Rather, it might be even more annoying than the fight against that murder-addict monster just now. That was because the silhouette of the creature that was approaching him was identical to Eisen¡¯s own. Once the figure came close enough, Eisen was able to confirm it. "Haah... Really? I have to fight myself?" The old man muttered quietly to himself, rubbing the bridge of his nose annoyedly. And to his surprise, the ¡¯other¡¯ version of himself that was standing just about ten meters away from him also spoke up a momentter, just when Eisen was about to open his mouth himself. "Let¡¯s get this over with. I don¡¯t have the time or the nerve to spend too much time to spend ying with you." Eisen said. But of course, not the real Eisen, but rather this fake version right in front of him. It just said the exact words that Eisen was about to say. The old man squinted his eyes as he got into his proper stance, ready to react to any sort of attack that this ¡¯clone¡¯ may face him with. "...It even has my mind, huh..?" Eisen whispered to himself as he watched the fake take up the exact same stance as him, in a surprised manner at that. As if it was confused as to how Eisen knew what it was about to do. "...It has my mind as well, huh..?" The fake muttered, annoying Eisen even more. If this was a true copy of himself, then this would be a tough fight. One that he might not be able to beat in a straightforward manner either. All that he could do was attack his own weak-points, although the fake would certainly try to do that as well. This would be a fight that Eisen would be able to predict perfectly. But at the same time, this fake would be able to predict it perfectly as well. Somehow, this seemed like a pretty good chance to Eisen. A while ago, Brody asked him to create a golem that had the exact same capabilities and could make use of the same techniques as him, because he wanted to fight an opponent that might be able to bring his techniques another step above. By fighting yourself, you would be able to see your weaknesses and strengths a lot better. That seemed to be Brody¡¯s reasoning behind it. But whenever Eisen tried to make a golem like that, Brody just ended up destroying it easily, since there was no way to really create an opponent like that, even using copy-abilities from different sort of shapeshifters. On the other hand, if Eisen would be able to take this soul with him in one way or another... Creating the perfect sparring-partner for others would certainly be possible. "This is getting interesting." Both Eisens said in tandem, although the old man didn¡¯t even get surprised anymore. Something at this level was to be expected. And in the very next moment, both the real and the fake Eisen jumped at each other, swinging their des in a way that it seemed like they were just mirroring each other. The edge of Eisen¡¯s de just barely missed the fake¡¯s neck, and the edge of the fake¡¯s de just barely missed his legs, as the fake twisted his body around and Eisen hopped into the air. The fake made itself fall to pull its sword up more easily while the real Eisen made use of the extra momentum from the jump to hit the fake¡¯s de out of the way. With movements that could bepared to a somewhat sloppy, but still intricate dance, the two Eisens dodged each other¡¯s attacks perfectly while using every chance to attack the others. The des shrunk and grew, and so did the Eisens themselves. They transformed and flew into the sky, trying to hit each other down. They even tried to use magic for the first time in a truly offensive way, but the explosions of mes simply canceled each other out without either of the two truly ending up damaged. In the longest singr one versus one fight that Eisen could vividly remember, besides of course the fights that Eisen had with Brody when the two of them were at a roughly simr power-level, each of the two tried to kill the other, but neither of them dared to give in for even a second. This fight was one of the most fun ones that Eisen had in quite a while. He was d that this wasn¡¯t just some sort of mental-battle, that would have been more than just boring whenpared to what was going on right now. Even Satel seemed excited as they watched the real and the fake Eisen continue to fight, although they apparently lost track of who was who rather quickly. Not that they cared, though, he would find out once the fight was over anyway. And then, maybe two hours of constant fightingter, one of the two managed to get a good attack in. The fake managed to injure the real one, cutting into his shoulder. But the one that had a grin on his face was the injured real one, and not the fake that seemed to be winning all of a sudden. During the fight, the real Eisen figured something out. This fake was a copy of Eisen from the moment that he stepped through that gate into this area. His items, his sword, everything was the same. However, it couldn¡¯t change. The fake wasn¡¯t able to improve, its abilities were constantly the same. So, while Eisen¡¯s swordsmanship leveled up an incredible 7 times in this all-out fight against himself, the fake¡¯s did not. And while the real Eisen¡¯s Demonic Greatsword continued to absorb the souls that it had eaten up, the fake¡¯s did not. Eisen was able to slowly but steadily improve in a simple and minuscule manner. But in a fight that waspletely even, just the tiniest imbnce of power would be able to change theplete course of the battle. Of course, that didn¡¯t mean that you were suddenly able to instantly beat the other opponent, which is why Eisen made use of a technique that he could only do now that he was slightly better than his opponent. And that was one that required self-sacrifice, where he would let himself be attacked. The fake¡¯s de got stuck in Eisen¡¯s shoulder, and the real Eisen made sure to keep it in there with a tight grip on the de with his hand. And meanwhile, he swung his own de at the fake Eisen, who swiftly shrunk down his de to get it out of the real Eisen¡¯s flesh. This was exactly what Eisen was hoping for. He immediately proceeded to push his de at the fake Eisen as quickly as he could, and with that tiny improvement in ability, Eisen was able to make a difference this time around. Eisen pushed the fake¡¯s de to the side and cut into him this time as well, just that the real Eisen knew that this was about to happen and could increase the size of the Demonic Greatsword. With that extra force, the fake¡¯s body was cut in half, while the real Eisen just had a gaping wound on his shoulder. And just like that, the fake Eisen melted down into a sludge-like, milky white mass that tried to slither away, but of course Eisen was able to stop it rather easily with a little bit of mes in front of it. This soul was that of a monster that was rather weak when in its normal physical form. It was basically just there to be able to hold certain opponents off and make sure they couldn¡¯t proceed somewhere specific, at least that¡¯s what Eisen figured the use to for them to be. The old man proceeded to take out another orb like the one that he gave that soul in the circle of heresy out of his item storage, trying to trap this soul inside of it to make use of itter. He was thinking about giving it to his greatsword, which seemed to want to absorb it quite a lot, but Eisen had to see if he could copy its abilities first. Then maybe he would give it to the sword to absorb. But for now, Eisen had something else that he had to do as well. Chapter 704 Violent Undead

Chapter 704 Violent Undead

Thest of the three rings of this circle of hell. ¡¯Violence against others¡¯ was the first. ¡¯Violence against yourself¡¯ was the second. And the third was ¡¯Violence against God, Art, and Nature¡¯. Eisen stepped through the gate leading to this third circle, and could quickly feel hot sand underneath his feet before seeing sparks of mes falling down from the sky toward him. As if they were snowkes during a blizzard. And from within that storm of sparks stood another figure. The figure of the being that Eisen would have to fight now. It was a tall being. Disproportionate, but still tall. It seemed like it was wearing some sort of grand,rge armor. But since Eisen could still only see the silhouette, he couldn¡¯t confirm this fact yet. In the hand of hte creature, it was holding something that Eisen immediately recognized as a staff, so this was a magic-user. The silhouette slowly lifted its staff up, and then mmed it down onto the sand below its feet. It created something like a shockwave that pushed the sand toward all directions like ripples of water after dropping a rock into it. This action showed what was underneath the sand. Or maybe they were created through this just now. They were dead bodies. Mostly rotten, mummified, and some just skeletons. "What the...?" The old man muttered, although he quickly realized what this was supposed to be. For one, none of these ¡¯corpses¡¯ were really dead. Rather, they were Undead. Some of them were slowly walking in circles through the area without any goal in mind, and others were squatting on the ground, crying to themselves. But there should be a third ¡¯sort¡¯ here as well, "The onesying on their back..." Eisen whispered to himself, trying to activate his truth-seeing eyes to figure out what was going on. But before he was able to really get a good look at the area, he could feel a tight grip around his ankle. Eisen immediately pulled his leg back instinctively, pulling the undead that grabbed his ankle out of the sand. The mummified humanoid pulled open its maw and let out a loud screech that hurt Eisen¡¯s ears. And through this, all the other undead also started paying attention to Eisen. The ones that had been running in circles were all starting to run toward Eisen, while the ones that were huddled up on the ground were slowly crawling toward him, still bawling thier eyes out. And surely, the ones that wereying on the ground, still hidden by the sand, were going to make it harder for Eisen to move around freely. Eisen knew that he had to beat the leader of this group of undead, who he assumed to be the silhouette he saw before, the Necromancer that wasmanding them all. The first thing that Eisen did was cut through the arm of the undead still holding onto his leg, although that didn¡¯t seem to stop it all too much. The hand kept up its tight grasp, but at least Eisen was able to move around now. Sure, the hand was pushing its ws into Eisen¡¯s leg and damaging him, but it was rather weak. And since this helped Eisen figure out how much strength he needed to cut through the Undeads¡¯ bodies, he was able to swing his sword around and get this done immediately. The upper bodies of the running Undead were flying through the air as Eisen stabbed the ones that were hiding under the sand. Those let out loud screams, but all alone, those weren¡¯t a big deal. The ¡¯big deal¡¯ however was that all this little damage toward Eisen was slowly stacking up. The incredibly hot sparks hitting his body all over, the Undead wing at him from all directions, and seemingly even some of the poison they had been pushing into him with every single attack. Eisen turned his head a bit to look at the health-bar that he had ced right next to himself so that he could keep an eye on it. He was losing health rather rapidly, but luckily he had a few health pills with him. He pushed a handful of his health-pills into his mouth, swallowing one whenever he needed to while keeping the rest in his mouth forter. Like this, Eisen was able to work against the damage that was constantly building up, at least a little bit. He kept cutting apart the Undead, but for some reason, they were getting just more and more and more without an end in sight. As if this Necromancer wasn¡¯t resurrecting those that had died here, but rather was directly creating Undead. Except if... "I got it..." The old man rattled his brain and tried to figure out how these undead were created without stop and from ces that didn¡¯t particrly make sense. Like in the exact ces where others already appeared. And to confirm this, Eisen took a closer look at the fine sand whenever a new Undead appeared. At first, he thought that they were simply pushing the sand up after pushing themselves out from the ground, but it was different. They were created from the sand itself. It wasn¡¯t regr sand at all. Instead, it seemed to be finely-ground bones and dried flesh that the Necromancer was controlling to instantly create undead. That seemed to be the most logical exnation, at least. And if that was truly the case, then it would probably be impossible to really get rid of the undead themselves. Luckily the Necromancer only seemed capable of creating these three different Undead, and wasn¡¯t too keen on manipting this sand any more than that. At first, Eisen figured he should just get rid of the undead until there wasn¡¯t anything left to resurrect, but since that wasn¡¯t an option anymore, Eisen should just rush at the Necromancer itself. Although, the old man was starting to feel like something was off. Even though he was moving around this much, the Necromancer was still just a silhouette. Eisen didn¡¯t manage to get a good look at them yet, although he was trying to slowly work his way toward them. The old man sliced through the Undead right in front of him prepared to jump forward. Just as he pushed himself off, Eisen increased his size considerably, and the instant his feet stopped touching the sand, he shrunk down as much as he could in this short amount of time. Thisbined the strength of hisrger form with his lightweight smaller form to let him push himself forward rapidly. Of course, Eisen also transformed and used his wings to approach the Necromancer instantly. But when he did, what he saw was that it was simply another Undead... it was wearing some sort ofrge cloak with huge shoulder-pads, exining its disproportioned silhouette. But that didn¡¯t matter much. Eisen knew that Lichs were a thing, so he simply tried to cut through the body of the Necromancer. And he managed to do so with ease. At this point in time, he was able to take a proper look at the Necromancer. The staff that it was holding was low-quality, super dry wood, and the robes it wore started falling apart before Eisen even touched them. "It¡¯s not this one either..?" Eisen asked himself, confused at what was going on as the Necromancer fell apart into the same sand that the floor was made of. Eisen tried to stare through the crowd of Undead and the me-Blizzard to figure out of he could see anything else that the real opponent could be. Eisen kept slicing through the numerous Undead in front and around him, until he finally spotted something. It was definitely the shortest figure around, probably a child. It was clearly a mummified Undead, but it was the only one that didn¡¯t try to attack Eisen, just standing there and watching. With a single slice as his de grewrger, Eisen cut through the Undead Child. But it just turned to sand and then appeared again somewhere else. Again and again, Eisen cut through this undead child just for it to disappear the next moment. It was annoying, frustrating even. Especially since Eisen wanted to just move on to the next two circles of hell, thest ones that he had toplete before returning to the mortal realm and finally bing a true demon. But Eisen just didn¡¯t understand what he was doing wrong at all. He couldn¡¯t figure it out for some reason. All the other undead simply stayed in two pieces, and that undead child was practically teleporting a bit away. It was the only one that was extraordinarily different to the others, so there was no way that it wasn¡¯t rted to all this. It was certain that it was connected to getting through this test somehow. And the only thing that Eisen could think of that he would be able to do here was continue slicing all these undead into pieces. But then, Eisen viewed everything in ¡¯Truth Sight¡¯, despite the fact that the world around him mostly became rather dark and blurry, and figured out that this child really was different to the others, mostly because it didn¡¯t move autonomously and instead was directly controlled by another entity. Underneath the surface was a monster that was burrowing around in there, the source of most of the mana that was gathering in this ring. He couldn¡¯t actually see what it was, since he only saw a faint connecting thread between the child and something else that was moving underneath the sand, or rather within it. Eisen knew that it would be tough to get to this monster, but he had to try at least. Or else this would never end. And so, Eisen simply started pushing the tip of the de into the sand ces where the monster might be and then increased his size and weight to push the sword through this sand and hopefully the monster. But no matter what Eisen did, this creature always managed to dodge him. That was until Eisen just made use of a small trick. He knew that Undead were weak to fire, which he was already using to fight them, but he figured this quality might extend to whatever was the actual necromancer. Eisen would push the des into the ground before letting out waves of immense heat into the sand to at least try and steer the monster into the direction where Eisen wanted to have it. And that ce was the lowest part of this whole arena, where the monster and Eisen would have the least amount of distance between each other. Soon, this n was put into action brilliantly as Eisen¡¯s de cut apart the, seemingly worm-like, monster. Chapter 705 Fraud of the Damned

Chapter 705 Fraud of the Damned

Eisen watched as the Undead around him turned back into sand, creating piles that the old man immediately stepped over to get through the next gate that was slowly opening up in response to the death of this necromantic worm. The old man was breathing rather heavily, his body slowly breaking down due to extreme exhaustion on top of the damage that slowly umted all over him. Sure, he mostly healed that damage with his health pills, but with practically every bit of damage you received, you would lose a small amount of stamina as well. And that wasn¡¯t anything that could be recovered through health potions or pills, only through a small assortment of specific potions. Adding onto that the fact that Eisen went through three fights directly after one another with little rest beforehand. Satelnded right beside Eisen with a broad grin on their face, "Well, well, well.. That was pretty interesting, wasn¡¯t it?" "I¡¯m d you enjoyed yourself." The old man groaned as he stepped through the gate in front of him. In thisrge open area, which was formed in a way that reminded Eisen of another Arena, the old man stopped for a while. He opened his Item Storage and had his Elemental Spirit give him a couple of items. They were special bandages that Eisen made using cloth that was infused with materials that had certain healing properties. Beside those bandages, the old man also had the spirit give him some Healing Salve, which he quickly applied on the few small cuts and scrapes that were left on his body. Wounds that you still had on your body despite your health being full were the kind that had to heal over a longer period of time. They usually disappeared after sleeping at the verytest, although that wasn¡¯t something that Eisen could do at the moment. Or rather, he didn¡¯t want to. He just wanted to rush through this ce as quickly as he could, so sleeping wasn¡¯t something particrly in sight for now. But since these wounds didn¡¯t particrly seem to be an issue anymore after Eisen bandaged himself, he figured he could go on for the rest of the circles. There were only two left after this one, after all. Just as Eisen ced the bandages and salve back into his Item Storage, he heard some footsteps that wereing ever so close. "I see that you have made it through my trials sessfully." The being said. Eisen turned his head and looked at the figure in front of him. It was a young man, that outwardly looked to be the opposite of the term ¡¯Violence¡¯. But considering what he said and the fact that he seemed immediately familiar, instead this being had to be ¡¯Violence¡¯ itself. Eisen looked at this God of the Underworld and crossed his arms as his Item Storage disappeared from behind him, "I guess so." The old man said, as the calm young man simply smiled back at him. Eisen couldn¡¯t help but feel that something was off, while also being sure that this was exactly what this God was like. It simply didn¡¯t fit that the God of Violence was outwardly so weak and clearly harmless and kind. However, this was something that Violence caught onto rather quickly, "I know what you may be thinkin right now. I don¡¯t look all too ¡¯violent¡¯, now do I? But that is the point. Violence cane from anyone and anything, even those that seem harmless. Violence from those can often be more dangerous than from those that are strong and intimidating, since ites unexpected." "...Well, it¡¯s not like I mind or care or anything. I was just surprised, that¡¯s all." Eisen pointed out, feeling a little bad for judging Violence on his appearance like that. But as he said, at the end of the day, he didn¡¯t really care about what Violence looked like. "But I must say, I¡¯m rather surprised that you got through those fights so easily. Of course, they were all possible to beat, but considering your drop in strength and the fact you are not a fighter by trade, I wasn¡¯t sure how well you would end up doing. In your prime, you would be able to rip through all nine circles at once and just drop down all the way instantly." "Is that so?" Eisen asked without much emotion in his voice, something that surprised Violence a bit, "You are taking this fact without much thought. I figured you would be more amazed by it." "Oh, I am quite amazed, honestly. But just being told that doesn¡¯t give me much to work with. I don¡¯t have any sort of reference for how strong that actually is. Sure, I can tell that I used to be strong, that¡¯s undeniable, but I have no idea how strong I truly was. That¡¯s why things like that don¡¯t mean much to me, you see?" Eisen smiled lightly as he looked back at the God. The deity slowly nodded his head, before the two of them continued to speak for a little bit longer. There wasn¡¯t that much to really say between the two. Eisen didn¡¯t feel a particr connection to this God. A little bit of animosity might be the reason for that, although Eisen wasn¡¯t able to tell where it came from exactly, although it was radiated by both Eisen and Violence himself. After both of them came to the same conclusion, that it was time for Eisen to head on to the next realm, that was exactly what this old man did. Violence created a gate for Eisen and Satel to walk through to get to the realm of Fraud. The gate closed behind Eisen as a notification appeared in front of him. [New Quest ¨C Fraud of the Damned] [Description] In order to be acknowledged by the Gods of Hell, you have started to make your way through the nine circles of hell. On your first stop, you reached Limbo. On your second, you reached Lust. On your third, you reached Gluttony. On your fourth, you reached Wrath. On your fifth, you reached Greed. On your sixth, you reached Heresy. On your seventh, you reached Violence. On your eigth, you reached Fraud ¨C Your task in this realm is to find the odd one out in each of these trenches. [Conditions] Find the odd ones out (0/5) [Rewards] Fraud¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None Eisen waved the notification to the side as he stepped through this realm that was spreading out in front of him. For now, it was just a tunnel and staircase, although he could already see light shine in from its end. After Eisen walked up the stairs, he saw that he was in something like an arena again, something that was apparently supposed to be rather akin to the colosseum. On the edges of this colosseum, instead of seats for onlookers, there were deep trenches out of which Eisen could already hear the cries and moans of the damned souls that were sent here to suffer. There were five in total, and without hesitation, Eisen walked up to the first of the trenches. He was d that he didn¡¯t have to fight or do anything that would take up too much time, but it still felt like something that would take up quite a bit of time. The first thing that Eisen did, of course, was to check the trenches with his truth-seeing eyes, both with mana-sight as well as truth-sight. Beside that, Eisen even tried to use his Crafter¡¯s Soul skill to note downmon themes that these trenches generally had to figure out what might be off. All the monsters that were inside there seemed incredibly eager to get out of these trenches, trying to climb on top of each other to climb out and reach Eisen so that they could be pulled out, but Eisen of course didn¡¯t help any of them. The monsters that could speak were trying to convince Eisen to help them out with random, obviously fraudulent promises. Women, money, power, all of that were things that they tried to promise Eisen. But he wasn¡¯t weak-willed enough to go for that. But all of this just made it harder to figure out what was going on, and what the ¡¯odd one out¡¯ would be in each of these trenches. He thought maybe it would be a theme for the type of monster trapped in there, but that wasn¡¯t the case. Then he tried to focus on the things that were promised to him by the speaking monsters, because maybe one of them was trying to give him something different to all the other monsters. But in the end, that wasn¡¯t the case either. Maybe the ¡¯odd one out¡¯ was a monster that couldn¡¯t speak, or it was just another thing that made one of these creatures different to each other. It wasn¡¯t the rank they reached while they lived, it wasn¡¯t their size. It wasn¡¯t their weight either, or their apparent age at which they died. "I doubt you can give me any tips, right?" Eisen asked as he turned his head over toward Satel, who just smirked back with a light shake of their head, "Sorry, can¡¯t do that. Not that I know which ones stick out anyway." With a light sigh, although he already expected this answer, Eisen squatted down in front of one of the ditches, deep in thought. Until another idea popped into his mind, one that made him somehow feel rather excited, since it might be the solution for all of this. "Maybe it¡¯s the one that didn¡¯tmit fraud..?" He questioned himself. There might be one amongst each of these ditches. One that didn¡¯t just voice false promises to Eisen, but ones that they would be able to follow up on. In the first trench that would be a being that truly wanted to help Eisen without gain to themselves. In the second one, it would be something who didn¡¯t use ttering words with Eisen, or maybe something that truly meant its own words. When it came to the third, Eisen thought maybe it was a creature that only lived for the gods, doing work for them, and not making profit in the names of the gods. The fourth one was the one Eisen was most curious about. In Dante¡¯s infernos, they were ¡¯Sorcerers¡¯, as in Healers, Fortune Tellers, or Diviners, things that just didn¡¯t exist on earth, but things that could exist here in this world. So maybe, here in this world this ditch was for those that pretended to be great beings of magical power, but really weren¡¯t. Then maybe the thing Eisen was looking for was a rather powerful one. And atst, in the fifth, Eisen should be looking for a leader that did all it could for the best of whatever group they were leading, instead of doing it out of self-interest in a corrupt manner. Chapter 706 Five Souls and Treachery

Chapter 706 Five Souls and Treachery

Once Eisen had a rather good, logical guess for what he was supposed to look for within these ditches, one after another, he squatted down in front of them and brought a bit of order into the ditches. With his Draconic Demon King form, he frightened the monsters within the ditches enough to have them be silent for a while, before he was able to talk to each of them individually. This took Eisen quite a while, but at the very least it was better than nothing. Soon, however, the old man managed to stumble upon the first of the bunch that counted an ¡¯Odd one out¡¯. It was a monster that instead of promising Eisen random things, was actually asking him what he wanted to achieve. And after Eisen told him something random that maybe wasn¡¯t too far off from the truth, this monster made a proper suggestion for how it would be able to help. And so, the old man pulled the soul out of the ditch, soon noticing that his quest had updated, and he managed to find one of the five target creatures. "Alright, that¡¯s good..." Eisen mumbled quietly to himself, before he took a closer look at this monster¡¯s soul. It seemed to be something like a Satyr, a creature with the ears and legs of a horse. It seemed to be extremely happy about finally getting out of this ditch it wasn¡¯t suppose to be in in the first ce, and simply started to follow Eisen around for now, while the old man moved on to the second trench. There, all the creatures that could speak were trying to gain favor with Eisen byplementing him, calling him handsome and powerful, intelligent and brave, and hollow things like that. He once more made all of the monsters fall silent before giving each of them a short chance to say what they wanted. Most of them continued topliment Eisen in the same way as before, even trying to give betterpliments than the one that went before, until it came to another certain creature. It was a Lizardman intelligent enough to speak to Eisen, who just red at him silently. And instead of talking about random things that could be used topliment anyone, this creature actually looked at Eisen andplimented him for what counted. And that was the quality of the items he was carrying. The fact that he was carrying tools with him instead of weapons here in hell. "You must be great crafter. Reached this ce, but not a fighter..." It said, and Eisen quickly smirked as he extended his hand toward the Lizardman and pulled it out of the ditch. Once Eisen confirmed that he pulled out the right one, seeing his quest updating again, he moved on to the next ditch, ignoring the empty, ttering words of the trench he was just at. Everyone there was simply trying to make Eisen think they were impressive beings, and that they weren¡¯t supposed to be there. They were trying to speak to some sort of religious side of Eisen, saying that they were dedicated priests to a certain deity, and that they would pray for this old man¡¯s sess. This time, it was actually a bit easier to figure out which one the ¡¯odd one out¡¯ was. It was the one creature that didn¡¯t try to use the Gods to its benefit, not even mentioning religion in the slightest despite obviously being a creature of faith. Eisen recognized the symbol of Ohm tattooed into the side of their neck. Or rather, ¡¯carved¡¯. This time, it was a Dryad, that was trying to make use of other things to get Eisen to help tehm, instead of using their god for their own benefit, which was what got all these other creatures here into the ditch in the first ce. Eisen pulled the Dryad out, and moved on to the fourth ditch, where all these fake ¡¯Great Sorcerers¡¯ were supposed to be. From the beginning, they were telling Eisen that they would be able to bless him through certain spells or that they would be able to help him on his journey. Some said that they would see into his future to find out whatid in front of him. But at the end of the day, all of these things sounded like empty promises, things that they wouldn¡¯t actually be able to do. They just sounded like scammers on the side of the road trying to target gullible people to exploit them for money. And amongst these, there was just one creature, a man with hair that seemed to be made of ck, translucent mes with waves of color inside as well as white specks, hair that looked like the night sky itself, that was able to say something else that didn¡¯t seem like an empty promise. Or rather, it wasn¡¯t a promise at all. He showed Eisen what he was capable of instead of promising things that it might not be able to keep, like all the others here. "Youe from a foreignnd, do you not? So foreign that none of us could ever know how different it truly is. You have suffered a lot, both in that foreignnd and in this new home of yours, and now, you don¡¯t seem to belong in either, but both at once. It must be hard, must it not?" The man asked. Eisen grumbled quietly to himself, considering that he didn¡¯t like to have his life be read so easily like that. But he knew that this monster was the real deal then, and pulled it out of the ditch. And then, it came to thest ditch. And there, Eisen surprisingly was able to find the ¡¯odd one out¡¯ rather quickly. Most of the creatures there were trying to climb on top of each other to get out of the ditch, although that obviously didn¡¯t work through whatever magical means was simply keeping them in there. The only monster that, instead of trying to use the others to get out, was actually trying to somewhat help the other monsters get up higher on the pile, was the one that had to be the odd one out that Eisen was looking for in this case. He made them stop through fear, and quickly pulled that monster out of the pit. It was some form of humanoid wolf, although it was a lot bulkier than a Kobold would be. Rather, it looked like the ssic bipedial ¡¯Werwolf¡¯, although the old man didn¡¯t know what its race would be. Not that he cared, since all that mattered was that Eisen was able to finish his quest with this. And now, instead of just one person following him in the form of Satel, he had a total of six beings following him in a row. Eisen didn¡¯t know why that was the case, but since he only had one circle left ahead of him, that was all that he was focusing on. And even when the gate appeared at the outermost part of this colosseum, the monsters that Eisen pulled out of the ditches kept following him. Eisen turned around toward Satel for a moment when he noticed that they walked through the gate as well, but the Guide-Devil simply said, "Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s supposed to be this way." Satel exined. Eisen figured that it was alright, in that case, and swiftly continued. And there, he saw the deity that reigned over this realm, the Goddess of Fraud. The moment that he saw her, Eisen felt a somewhat cozy feeling in his chest. It was the same thing that he felt when seeing friends of the past for the first time here, and getting the feeling that he would end up remembering them soon enough. The Goddess walked up to Eisen and smiled brightly. She had a somewhat child-like and innocent appearance, although Eisen figured that this very much wasn¡¯t the case. She probably had a rather vicious personality, if he had to guess, "It¡¯s nice to meet you, Fraud." "And it¡¯s nice to see you again, you old fuck~!" The Goddess eximed, "I see that you¡¯ve made your way through these eight first circles of hell really fucking easily!" And there it was. Eisen figured that this cute and innocent woman had a rather foul mouth. Well, not that Eisen really cared, "I would like to say so, yes. I struggled in some of them more than in others, but that was to be expected, I assume." "Of course! But everyone that thought you¡¯d struggle too much is a dumbass anyway!" Fraud eximed, while Eisen let out a slight sigh. It felt weird to hear suchnguage from a being that outwardly looked like a child. "Anyway... Could you tell me why these guys are following me?" The old man inquired, pointing at the five monsters. Fraud looked at them and shrugged, "How am I supposed to fucking know that? Treachery asked me to let them through, so that¡¯s what I¡¯m doing." "...Treachery? They are supposed to be part of the next trial, then?" "Probably, but I don¡¯t give a shit about that. So, do you want to move on to the next circle already?" Fraud inquired with a broad smirk on her face, although Eisen simply looekd back with a wry smile, "You sure? Don¡¯t you want to talk some more?" "Sure I do, but I know you probably wanna get home. I don¡¯t want to keep you here, so I suggest you get the fuck out and keep on going." Fraud pointed out in a blunt tone, before Eisen scratched the back of his head, "You¡¯re right. I would really like to get home and see the others again. But I will certainlye back here at some point soon so that we can catch up properly, alright?" "What makes you think that I¡¯d care? Just get off your ass and keep on going." The child-like Goddess said with a smirk, as she waved her hand to the side and created a gate for Eisen to walk through to get to the circle of Treachery. The old man stepped through there, and found himself surrounded by the freezing cold. He was standing quite literally on ice, in which numerous monsters were frozen, as the old man expected. This was the frozenke Cocytus, where those that betrayed others in one way or another could be found. And just as Eisen thought about what the challenge might be in this realm, the quest-notification appeared in front of his eyes, but before he was able to read any of it, he could hear three of the five monster-souls that he brought with him run toward the old man. This trial was about fighting back against the ¡¯betrayal¡¯ of the five souls that he saved in the realm before this. Chapter 707 Fight of Betrayal

Chapter 707 Fight of Betrayal

Eisen jumped backward as he pulled out his de, looking at the enemies right in front of him. The Satyr, Lizardman, Dryad, that man with the night sky-like ming hair, and the Werewolf-like creature. All of them were now holding weapons and other items to an extent. The Satyr seemed to be a supporter, holding a harp-shaped staff that it started ying immediately, pouring buff-magic into the others. The Lizardman was holding arge tower-shield and was wearing thick armor covering its scales. Meanwhile, the Dryad was casting spells to make numerous roots spread through the frozen mass of water that was theke Cocytus starting from her feet. As for the man with the ming hair, who Eisen quickly inspected and figured out to be ¡¯Starlight Spark¡¯, a species that the old man had never actually heard about, but would certainly try to find a few things out about, this creature was directly casting offensive spells at Eisen while shaping some sort of mass out of ck mes in its hands, but Eisen didn¡¯t know what it was going to be yet. And then, there was this Werewolf-like creature. It was holding a giant greatsword the size length of its own body, and its upper body was covered in leather armor while its legs werepletely exposed. Eisen red at these five creatures right in front of him and swiftly defended against the first initial attack. It was a fireball that was hurled at him by the Starlight Spark. Eisen pushed his de into the ground and increased its size a bit to use it as a shield temporarily, and once the mes dispersed, Eisen shrunk it down again just in time to sh with the Werwolf¡¯s sword. Surprisingly, the Werwolf was really quite strong, making this a genuine contest of strength. The issue with this was that this was a fight of five versus one, so Eisen couldn¡¯t spend a long time on this contest with the Werewolf. And so, the old man quickly activated his Draconic Demon King transformation and turned his whole body into extremely hot, sting mes that extended onto Eiro¡¯s sword. On top of just increasing Eisen¡¯s basic strength to give him a bit more of an advantage, the heat from Eisen¡¯s sword was pushed onto the steel sword of the Werewolf. Due to the bad quality of the sword, the sudden heat was felt by the Werewolf as it touched the metal, quickly jumping back once it realized what was going on. Just at that moment, the Lizardman mmed into Eisen and pushed him to the side. But of course, the old man was able to strengthen the side that was hit by turning itpletely into rock to lessen the damage. Immediately after that, Eisen pushed his opposing foot into the ground. Due to the heat that Eisen¡¯s body was giving off for a moment, the frozenke he was standing on started melting a bit. And since Eisen could change the temperature of his mes even to the negative range, he was able to freeze the water instantly to let him avoid sliding over the ground. At the same time, it gave Eisen the stability to properly counter-attack. Eisen¡¯s sword mmed into the Lizardman¡¯s shield and put a good dent into it, but it obviously didn¡¯t manage to break it. On the other hand, the Lizardman was pushed back and was now sliding over the ground. At this point, the roots that the Dryad was pushing through toward Eisen had reached him and broke through the ice. In response, the old man jumped up and pped his wings to get away from them, just to be hit by another fireball that came from the Starlight Spark. But this time, it was a bit different. The Starlight Spark had finished shaping the mass of mes in its hands, and it seemed like it was turned into something like a bow. And the ¡¯fireball¡¯ that was shot at Eisen was actually more like a ¡¯fire arrow¡¯. Either way, it damaged Eisen quite a bit. This was honestly a new experience for Eisen. Until now, he was always the subjugator, not the subjugated. He would team up with others in a coordinated manner to take tough enemies down, but he never really had to fight against enemies that were such a well-put-together team that was created just to take Eisen down. It was somewhat exciting. Eisen managed to quickly collect himself again, turning his body upright as he let himself drop down to m his sword into the ice. It formed cracks that were enough to let Eisen¡¯s mes easily reach the roots of the Dryad to start burning them up, while making it easier to freeze arge area of this ice. What he wanted to do first was to incapacitate at least one of these creatures. In this case, Eisen¡¯s first target was the Lizardman. The moment that the ground even just weakened, without having to bepletely molten, its heavyweight due to its full metal equipment. And then, the old man was able to quickly freeze the water once more to stop the movements of the Lizardman. Instead of waiting any longer, Eisen slid past the Lizardman and cut into its neck while it was unable to move, quickly decapacitating it. Eisen¡¯s Demonic Greatsword absorbed the soul, so its body swiftly disappeared while the metal items started to fade away as well. "One of you gone, only four more to go." Eisen smirked broadly, while the other four monsters grew more furious after one of them was ¡¯killed¡¯. Well, it was already dead long ago, so it wasn¡¯t true death in the end. Immediately afterward, Eisen was met with a barrage of arrows from the Starlight Spark. He managed to dodge some of them, but clearly not all of them. For the most part, the arrows were stopped by Eisen¡¯s wings though, and since they originally weren¡¯t even part of Eisen¡¯s body, he was able to only get minimal damage through them. But besides that, Eisen could see that the ground underneath the Starlight Spark was slowly melting as well. He was giving off quite a bit of natural heat as well, after all. That seemed like a good enough chance to get rid of one more opponent, one of the more troublesome ones. Usually, Eisen would have aimed for the Satyr, since he is the supporter that is constantly increasing the strength of the others, but it was being directly protected by the Werewolf and the Dryad right now. That would be a bit too troublesome to go against. He should wait for a good chance and take the Satyr down when he could, but for now, he still focused on the seemingly physically weak Starlight Spark. Eisen flew toward it and stopped pping his wings while gravity brought him back down onto the ground. The Starlight Spark dodged Eisen¡¯s attack and proceeded to shoot another fire arrow at him, one that Eisen defended against with his greatsword. Once Eisen managed to get a proper footing again, he pushed his feet into the ground and slightly started melting the ice again so that he could create something he could properly jump forward from. Eisen pushed his sword forward against the Starlight Spark and shed his sword sideways through its body. But to Eisen¡¯s surprise, he didn¡¯t manage to actually cut through it properly, and he didn¡¯t damage it at all. Instead, the monster revealed that not only its hair was made up of mes, but its whole body was. Its body was just made up of mes controlled by some other part that Eisen would have to find, it was most likely a form of core that it was hiding within this fake body. But luckily, Eisen was already able to narrow down where the core was. The Starlight Spark¡¯s feet disappeared and it grew new ones starting from its torso. So, the core had to be in the upper half of its body somewhere. Then, Eisen proceeded to chase after this me-monster and cut through its body vertically. The left side of its body disappeared, while the right side was the one repairing itself. So, Eisen knew that the core was in the right side of the monster¡¯s upper body. And just like that, Eisen continued to cut the monster apart in specific ces whenever he could to narrow the location of the core down more and more. Of course, at first Eisen tried to find the core with his Truth-Seeing Eyes, but since its whole body was made of magic, the core seemed to be rather well-hidden. And then, after half a dozen more attempts at finding the core, Eisen finally hit something and the whole monster¡¯s body disappeared. To Eisen¡¯s surprise, he really only barely hit the core at all. He slightly damaged a small part of it, something that was clearly easily repaired. And it seemed like the Monster was trying to regenerate its body again as well, as if Eisen only temporarily disrupted its form. But that didn¡¯t matter too much anymore, since Eisen quickly pushed the tip of his sword into the crystal core, having his sword absorb this soul as well. And then, there were only three. The Werewolf swung its sword at Eisen whenever it could, even while the old man was focusing on the Starlight Spark, but was never really able to hit him all that well because Eisen either flew up a bit or simply pushed him back through mes that he created. While this monster had a rough humanoid form and the ability to wield a greatsword like that, it only had the instincts of a beast. And when beasts saw mes, they usually stayed away. Eisen used that to his advantage to get rid of the Dryad. Killing her wasn¡¯t that hard. nt Control was something tough to make use of in this sort of environment, so she was at a disadvantage in the first ce. And with a single swing of Eisen¡¯s zing greatsword, he cut through her and burnt the rest of her body up while the sword absorbed this Dryad¡¯s soul. Just like that, there were only two left. The Werewolf was a fair distance away from the Satyr, so killing this supportive monster wasn¡¯t hard either. It wasn¡¯t physically strong in the first ce. And since the physical buff for the Werwolf disappeared with this, Eisen was able to properly concentrate on that monster. That contest of strength from before was easily ovee by Eisen, and he pushed his de through the monster¡¯s chest to kill it. But even though all five of them were dead, the notification to tell Eisen he seeded didn¡¯t pop up yet. Chapter 708 Runes of the Nine Circles

Chapter 708 Runes of the Nine Circles

Eisen was confused as the right notification didn¡¯t pop up in front of him yet. He didn¡¯t have a proper chance to look at the quest information before, but he was pretty sure that he figured it out anyway when he fought these five souls. And as the old man heard the footsteps of Satel approaching him from behind, Eisen opened the quest information and asked, "Hey, do you have any idea what¡¯s going on? I thought I finished the task in this realm now." Eisen said bluntly, turning around to look at the Guide-Devil. But as Eisen turned around, through his own movement, the de that Satel was pressing against the center of the old man¡¯s chest prated his skin. Immediately Eisen grabbed the thin sword with his hand to stop it from being pushed through his heart as Satel clicked their tongue. "Of course it wouldn¡¯t be this easy... For both of us. You think that being forced to fight those five is enough to demonstrate ¡¯Treachery¡¯?" Satel asked with a loudugh, while Eisen stared back with a deep re, turning his head over to the side to look at the quest notification properly. [New Quest ¨C Treachery of the Companions] [Description] In order to be acknowledged by the Gods of Hell, you have started to make your way through the nine circles of hell. On your first stop, you reached Limbo. On your second, you reached Lust. On your third, you reached Gluttony. On your fourth, you reached Wrath. On your fifth, you reached Greed. On your sixth, you reached Heresy. On your seventh, you reached Violence. On your eighth, you reached Fraud. And finally, on your ninth, you reached Treachery ¨C Your task in this realm is to defend yourself against the attacks of those that you trusted, and kill the traitor. [Conditions] Kill the traitor (0/1) [Rewards] Treachery¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None "Y-You... You are the enemy I¡¯m supposed to fight? Aren¡¯t you just a guide to get me through these realms?" "Yeah, but I¡¯m not some one-trick devil, you know? I have another side to me, and even hobbies. Did you know that I like to dance?" Eisen red at the Devil as he slowly used his strength, which was something that he was clearly superior in, at least when it came to raw power. The old man ground his teeth as his hands became covered in ayer of incredibly dense,pressed metal. He heated Satel¡¯s de up as much as he could within this small area, as if creating a miniature forge fueled by Eisen¡¯s magic, and brought it to the point where the sword started to be malleable. It fused with the metal on Eisen¡¯s hand, which in turn did damage Eisen a bit, albeit only to a negligible amount. It was less than the damage that Eisen would take if he were to pull the sword out with his bare hands. And like this, he didn¡¯t have to worry about the de slipping out of his hands. Eisen pushed the de away from him and pulled it out of his chest, causing himself to start bleeding immediately. The old man made his other hand burn and burnt this wound shut so that he wouldn¡¯t bleed out, before covering it with a protectiveyer of rock, activating his Draconic Demon King transformation. "Be careful with your words, Satel. You know that I will not hesitate to kill you." Eisen growled as he looked at the Devil, who just shrugged in response, "I know. And I won¡¯t hesitate to kill you either. The only difference is that I will stay dead and you¡¯ll wake up again." "So why are you still doing this? Do you want to die?" Eisen asked angrily, as the two of them were stuck in a moment of ¡¯fakepetition¡¯. They were both pushing on the sword, Eisen doing so to get it away from his chest while Satel was trying to stab it back into the old man¡¯s chest. Either of them could easily do something else to make this fight proceed beyond this, but neither of them did while they were talking in this manner. It wasn¡¯t because either of them underestimated their opponent, or because they were being overly careful. It was really just to finish this conversation, and that was it. Both of them were waiting to continue this fight soon enough. Satel smirked back at Eisen, responding in a cheeky tone as if this situation was something tough about, "Are you an idiot? Why would I want to die? I don¡¯t want to spend the rest of eternity in one of these shithole circles!" The Devil eximed, making Eisen even more confused, "Then why would you fight me? Are you that confident you¡¯ll win?" "Well, not really. But I¡¯d like to find out if I could win." With that, the Devil rapidly pulled on their de, trying to mess up Eisen¡¯s bnce. But of course, since the rock and metal that Eisen infused himself with also considerably increased his weight, that clearly wasn¡¯t possible. Sure, Satel pulled the old man¡¯s arm forward, but he was still standing steadily in one spot the whole time. Satel sighed loudly as they let go of the handle of their sword, realizing that they wouldn¡¯t be able to pull it out of Eisen¡¯s hand anymore, "Nevermind, I guess that¡¯s not an option. Not like that¡¯s the only card up my sleeve." With a wink, Satel spread out their own wings and quickly flew back as dark red energy gathered around their hands. Satel slowly moved their hands around in the air in front of them, creating different runes that just stayed floating there as they cast a spell. Since Eisen didn¡¯t know what exactly this spell was going to be, realizing that he would be toote in trying to stop the Devil at this point, the old man took up a stance that would allow him to easily dodge, jump, or fly away instantly. And then, Satel spoke, "Runes of the Nine Circles, Limbo." The runes that Satel magically wrote into the air started to glow in a bright light as they enveloped Satel. Slowly, the Devil¡¯s body was changing just so slightly. Their Devil-features became more pronounced, and if Eisen had to say, they seemed generally more monstrous than before. Satel stopped pping their wings and fell toward the ice underneath them at high speeds. But they were positioned in such a way that they would be able tond safely, seemingly even preparing to jump forward the moment they hit the ice. Eisen proceeded to swing his de toward Satel at the ce where they wouldnd, just to dodgest second by twisting their body around. Instead of their feet, theynded on their hands, and twisted their body around to jump onto the blunt side of the old man¡¯s sword. Satel jumped off from there with madness deep in their eyes, as Eisen understood at least part of Satel¡¯s abilities. They now became a being that deeply signified what Limbo was. A wild, unrestrained being that acted upon their emotions instantly, without hesitation. And what Satel wanted to do was to kill Eisen, although the old man was able to fight back rtively easily. However, Satel¡¯s body kept changing and bing more monstrous, until the Devil¡¯s body was not that of a true, beautiful humanoid anymore, but rather that of some sort of beast-faced bipedal creature, something that fit the word ¡¯Devil¡¯ a lot more than the way they looked before now. After a short while, the transformation stopped, and Satel stopped for a moment. They held their hands in front of them again, where the same dark red energy appeared as they wrote more runes into the air. This time around, Eisen didn¡¯t let them finish this spellcasting, and jumped toward Satel with the support of his wings. But when he cut through the Devil, all that remained was some sort of afterimage, as if they weren¡¯t there at all. "Runes of the Nine Circles, Lust." The moment that the Devil¡¯s echoing voice, that now sounded like someone scraped their fingernails over a chalkboard, said this out loud, Eisen noticed the ice underneath their feet slowly break. It was pushed up high into the air, creating walls that seemed to stretch infinitely high, turning this whole area into a frozen maze. It was possible to slightly see through the ice, but there were plenty of monsters obstructing a clear view frozen inside of these ice walls. However, now Eisen was sure of it. Satel was somehow able to make use of the essences of the nine circles of the underworld to their advantage. Eisen ced his hand against the ice, heating his body up. He proceeded to melt the ice, letting him walk through the wall with ease. The old man could still see Satel¡¯s mana, so he was able to close in on them easily. However, the moment that Eisen actually reached a corridor where he would have been able to reach this monstrous Devil, Satel manipted the ice to cut off the corridor in front of Eisen. And while the old man was able to melt the ice, it did take him some time. On top of that, since Eisen didn¡¯t want to risk somehow freeing any of the monsters frozen in the ice, he had to be extra careful and make sure not to randomly make any of this ice copse any free the monsters. He didn¡¯t know how dangerous they might be. Sure, he was able to beat most monsters here rather easily so far, but he didn¡¯t know if this would be the case here too. He wasn¡¯t supposed to fight them, after all. And Eisen really didn¡¯t want to risk it at all. The old man continued through the maze, continuning to chase Satel through this ce, soon catching up to them in an area that was a bitrger than all the others Eisen had been in before within this maze. And when Eisen got there, Satel was already at the end of casting the next spell after writing the runes into the air. "Runes of the Nine Circles, Gluttony." Satel eximed, before the ice underneath their feet cracked open again. This time, there was a monster that burrowed through it, appearing right in front of Satel. It was somehow simr to Cerberus that Eisen fought in the third circle before, just a lot smaller and only with a single head. And instead of being the one that devoured, this monster was the one being devoured as Satel dug their ws into the fleshy mass in front of them, ripping parts of bloody flesh out of the monster to feed on it, growing in size themselves. Chapter 709 Runes of the Nine Circles, Part 2

Chapter 709 Runes of the Nine Circles, Part 2

Eisen looked at Satel, this monstrous Devil that grew in size, approximately to twice what they were before, after devouring that lesser version of Cerberus. The old man ground his teeth as he pped his wings and flew at the Devil, trying to sh at him, but on top of growing in size, Satel grew in strength. They defended against Eisen¡¯s attack by tantly pushing him out of the way before the old man was able to hit them with his sword. Satel hat sharp ws that were pressed into Eisen¡¯s flesh, ready to rip him apart while the Devil simply wore a broad grin on their face. Instead of running away, Satel was now actively running away, since they now actually had the power for it. Eisen and Satel shed for a while, until a couple more minutes passed. The gap was the same length as the other two inbetween the ¡¯Runes of the Nine Circles¡¯, as Satel started to cast the next one directly after inflicting a heavy wound upon Eisen that the old man had to heal if he didn¡¯t want to die. He quickly drank some potions, while Satel spoke. "Runes of the Nine Circles, Greed." The runes in front of Satel lit up and dissipated, floating up into the sky. Eisen immediately realized what was going to happen, and soon he was able to even see it. While they were fighting before, Satel had trapped the old man in thisrge space without an exit, and now, an enormous boulder was dropping down toward him from the sky. Satel was able to rush through a wall instantly, but Eisen knew that he wouldn¡¯t be able to melt the ice walls if Satel was directly taking control of them. He had seen this happen before while Satel was running away from him through the ice-maze. So, there was only one thing that Eisen could really do. He increased his size to thergest that was absolutely possible for him as quickly as he could, even summoning his Elemental Spirit and his Mana Doubles in their transformed, demonic state. Eisen and the other figures that were all gathered around the lower end of this ce were getting ready to stop the boulder through any means possible. And the first thing that they all did while Eisen poured literal gallons of Mana Potions down his throat, was to push high-power mes directly toward the boulder to forcefully slow it down. It went to the point where the boulder started lightly glowing, having heated up that much. Immediately afterward, the real Eisen jumped up until he reached the boulder that had been slowed down considerably already, pping his wings as hard as he could to make sure he could further slow the boulder down. The doubles quickly followed, after one of them threw the shrunken-down Elemental Spirit at the boulder while the Spirit was holding a certain item over its head. Once it reached the underside of the boulder, it pressed the item into it, and since the rock was slightly softer after heating up like that, this autonomous drill burrowed through there and soon reached the center. What Eisen wanted to achieve through this wasn¡¯t to catch the boulder. That would be impossible even by him, since he wouldn¡¯t even be able to hold it up at all. All that he wanted to do was to buy some time by slowing it down as much as possible, something that Eisen actually achieved instead. He didn¡¯t need long, just a little bit for everything to take effect. And just before the ground came dangerously close, Eisen could hear the boulder cracking up. Eisen found the first crack and immediately shrunk down, flying through there and dodging the different parts of the boulder as it split up and changed its form. Soon, Eisen was flying above there as the ice surface of Cocytus cracked into pieces and the huge rock mass just stood there. Eisen had turned it into a Golem using a Golem Core that was given a predetermined shape. It was just a simple humanoid figure, but that was all that it needed to be. Luckily, its hands were the part that was still hot, and Eisen could immediatelymand it to help him destroy the ice wall that was keeping Eisen from Satel. The old man of course used magic to create more mes, together with the mana doubles that he re-summed after they were just crushed under the sheer weight of the rock Golem. Now that they didn¡¯t have to worry about being literally crushed, they could properly fight against Satel¡¯s control of the ice, and they managed to break it into pieces to get to Satel. The only issue was that the Golem couldn¡¯t follow behind, although Eisen hoped that wouldn¡¯t be an issue as he continued to fight against the Devil that was running away from him now. The old man ran after Satel, until he didn¡¯t run anymore. They were flying, rushing through this ice maze, until the Devil finally stopped in his track and pushed their ws through Eisen, using his own momentum. Or so they thought, because instead, Eisen had one of his doubles fly directly in front of him. Since, while in the Draconic Demon King form, it was surprisingly hard to differentiate between Eisen and his doubles, it was enough to trick Satel while they were fighting in this high-pressure scenario. And after one of the doubles disappeared after taking overwhelming damage, Eisen cut through the dissipating magic and cut into Satel¡¯s upper body. Finally, Eisen was able to inflict a really bad wound on them, and as Satel was pushed back they created another new wall of ice and started casting the next spell, since it was about time for it. Eisen melted the ice while Satel melted the ice down to get through. And somehow, Eisen had a really bad feeling about this one. After Gluttony, the next circle was Wrath. Until now, Satel made use of the things that Eisen had to directly face. The seven sins, the maze, cerberus, the boulder, and now... it would most likely be the river styx. That was the only thing that Eisen had to really face in that realm. He would be happy if it was only that the monsters in the ice came to live to try and drag him under, but he already knew that this wouldn¡¯t be happening. Soon, Eisen heard Satel¡¯s voice through the wall of ice, "Runes of the nine circles, Wrath.", and the next moment, the old man could see something shimmer through the walls of ice while the echoing sound of something flooding this huge space filled his ears. "Of course that was going to be it..." Eisen muttered with a wry smile as he continued to destroy the ice wall as quickly as possible. He was barely able to get through to the other side and block it off with a wall created from his magic, but if he hadn¡¯t been able to do that, he would now be once more swimming in that disgusting, slimy sludge. Seeing that Satel used this chance to keep running away while the sludge made its way through the maze to reach Eisen here as well, the old man used this chance to get out the item that would give him fresh air while he was underwater, quickly pressing it into his mouth just in case the styx-sludge would reach him before he got away. And then, he proceeded to immediately follow after Satel again, trying to find them to continue fighting them. And of course, Eisen knew that Satel wouldn¡¯t voluntarily let themselves be covered in the styx sludge either, so being near them might help him not have to swim around in that again. But even if he did, Eisen might be abel to get the upper hand considering that he had to very recently go through this. And knowing Satel, thesy never attempted this in the first ce. Although... maybe Eisen didn¡¯t know Satel at all, so he couldn¡¯t really say that kind of thing even to himself like this and really believe this. Soon, Eisen caught up and managed to once more cut into Satel while chasing them. Seemingly, the Devil was trying to get to a safe ce themselves, but Eisen managed to cut through their wings and had them fall to the ground. At this point, the old man could hear the wavesing from all directions, and it would most likely be toote for him either way. So instead of trying to keep running away, he held Satel down, once more with the help of his mana doubles and some magic, and figured he should instead make use of the styx-sludge to build up his own advantage. Eisen managed to hold Satel down until the sludge hit them from all sides, burying them in the liquid. Due to the sheer force of the sludge, Eisen was pushed away from Satel for a moment, while the Devil started actually casting the next spell here while submerged. At least that¡¯s what Eisen figured after seeing faint red lines through the sludge. It was about time he cast the next spell as well anyway. Bubbles moved up to the surface that seemed just so out of reach as Satel was suddenly being pushed up on a huge ice tower that was suddenly created. The sludge started to heat up due to walls of me randomly appearing within it. It seemed like the ice of Cocytus would slowly melt due to this, but Satel didn¡¯t care. Their only goal was to kill Eisen, at any cost whatsoever. They probably didn¡¯t even know if they would survive or not, so they went all out without a care for the aftermath. And Eisen would be gone after this anyway, and there was no reason for him to really care about the state of hell too much. He swam after Satel to reach the top of the tower, that was pushing Satel all the way to the surface of this seemingly infinitely deep sludge. But of course, it wasn¡¯t really infinitely deep, that in itself would be impossible. Satel would never be able to summon that sort of mass. So of course there had to be a surface at some point, that Eisen also wanted to reach. It took a good while, but Eisen was able to reach the surface and fly up as the sludge dripped off his body, and Satel was standing on top of the ice tower with walls of mes surrounding them. Eisennded on the t ice surface while Satel prepared to fight the old man again, waiting for the spell¡¯s ¡¯cooldown¡¯ to end. Chapter 710 A simple choice

Chapter 710 A simple choice

Eisen and Satel continued to fight. Specifically, right now Eisen was fighting against the Monsters that Satel summoned by using another one of the ¡¯Runes of the Nine Circles¡¯, the one for Violence. These enemies were rather simr in nature to the first monster that Eisen fought in that circle. They were just rushing at Eisen without a moment¡¯s hesitation, not caring for their own well-being if it just meant that they were able to injure Eisen even a little bit. Of course, enemies like that were easily dealt with, the only issue was the mass, together with the fact that they came jumping out of the styx-sludge. Eisen was unable to see them at all before they came out of that disgusting liquid of pure, rotting death, and due to the sheer number of them, they were able to actually get a few good hits on Eisen. Not to mention that those really, really hurt because the monsters ended up pushing styx-sludge into the wound. They didn¡¯t do much damage though, at least, so Eisen would be fine at the end of the day. But just like this, Satel was able to keep Eisen distracted for long enough until they were able to cast the next spell. "Runes of the Nine Circles, Fraud!" The dark red, glowing runes that were written into the air dissipated just like they did before, just that Eisen this time felt something like a slight tingling in his nose as an unexpectedly pleasant scent entered his awareness. For a while now, everything smelled just horrible because of the styx-sludge, but probably due to the spell that Satel cast, something else happened to Eisen. The bad smell disappeared. "You¡¯ve got to be fucking with me..." Satel grumbled with a horrible, monstrous voice, "What a waste! Not money, not sex, not power, but a ¡¯pleasant smell¡¯?! Are you shitting me? How can you want nothing else, youplete-" "I do want something else, but that¡¯s not something you can give me. That¡¯s probably why, instead, you got rid of this horrible smell for me. Thanks." The old man interrupted the Devil, with a broad grin on his face. Satel looked back at the smug old man with a deep re, "Fine! The next spell is going to be thest one anyway! There¡¯s no need for me to be careful anymore!" The Devil jumped right toward Eisen after being angered like that, fighting together with the monsters that they summoned before. Of course, that was a rather idiotic decision. Eisen and Satel had already established that Eisen was stronger than Satel even now, while they were in this monstrous form, but for some reason they got cocky enough to attack Eisen anyway. Something... was off. Satel wasn¡¯t dumb enough for something like that. Or maybe, the transformation made them a bit dumber as well. That was the only exnation that he had, at least. The old man ground his teeth while staring Satel into their blood red eyes that just seemed to glowpared to their pure white skin that Eisen was cutting through more and more. And then, the cooldown was over. Satel was able to cast the next spell. But for some reason, they didn¡¯t. They just kept on fighting Eisen, "What do you think you¡¯re doing?" Eisen asked with a growl-like voice, "Don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re not taking me seriously anymore." The old man grumbled, and Satel red back with heavy breathing as they took a step back, letting the other monsters hold off Eisen for a while as they tried to get their thoughts together. "Hah, I just wanted to have a little bit more fun before killing you. That¡¯s all, you know?" The Devil replied bluntly. At this point, Eisen realized something else. Maybe Satel didn¡¯t actually want to kill Eisen, but was just forced to do so because they were nothing but a Devil working under the Gods of the Underworld. The old man looked back at Satel and stopped approaching them for a moment, even ignoring the monsters that were still attacking him, "Satel, cast the fucking spell so that we can get this over with. After I defend against this trump card of yours, I¡¯ll make it obvious that you have no chance to beat me." Eisen said bluntly, and Satel stared back at him for a few more moments. "Fine... If that¡¯s what you really want." Satel muttered quietly, "I never even had to use this one... I was never allowed to. But it¡¯s an attack that rips apart your body from the inside, without you being able to do anything against it." "Let¡¯s see about that." Eisen said bluntly. He doubted that it would be anything that he couldn¡¯t fight back at least a little bit, so he was preparing for anything that might happen at any point. He continued fighting off the monsters as Satel started to cast the spell, writing the runes into the air. A few momentster, they tapped the center of the runes with shaking hands, before ring back at Eisen, "Well, at least you can try again next time." They said with a nervous smile on their face, although now it was obvious that they really didn¡¯t want to kill Eisen after all. The concept of true immortality was seemingly hard for even a Devil to grasp fully. And then, with one fell swoop, Eisen noticed a rumble. But it wasn¡¯ting from within himself, it came from underground. He turned his head, seeing the styx-sludge slowly disappear as if being drained somewhere. The maze of ice slowly dropped down to be part of Cocytus again. Even the tower that Eisen and Satel were standing on lowered itself again as the mes around it faded away together with the monsters that Satel summoned. And of course, Satel themselves also turned back into their normal form. In the distance, Eisen could see the rock-golem he created from the giant boulder crumble away into nothingness, making the golem core drop to the ground and shatter into unretrievable pieces that fell into the cracks in the ground as it closed back up. "Wh-What is going on...?" The Guide-Devil muttered confusedly, and Eisen turned toward them to see their shock-filled expression as they fell to their knees, "Th-This wasn¡¯t supposed to happen." Eisen looked back at Satel with a light frown, unsure what exactly was going on for a short while. But when finally chains of ice shot out from the frozenke Cocytus just to end up enveloping Satel in them, there was little that Eisen had to guess anymore. This time, the spell was of course that of the ninth circle, treachery. However, instead of being something that would inevitably kill Eisen, it was something that betrayed the user, Satel. It did make a bit of sense... Eisen had already been betrayed here in this realm. And then, Eisen heard loud ps from behind him that seemed to echo through this infinitely open field of ice, "Well, well, well, you did amazingly until now. You got through all that with only a few scratches here and there. And clearly, you didn¡¯t fall for that little lie that I told to this Guide, which cannot be said for this one..." Eisen turned his head around and looked at the figure that stood there. It was a man clothed in arge cloak covering his whole body, even the inside of the hood was something that Eisen couldn¡¯t see. It was as if there was a veil of ck mist covering the face of the God of the ninth circle, Treachery. "What¡¯s going on here?" Eisen asked confused, and the God replied with aughing voice, "What else would be going on? I¡¯m here to watch youplete thisst trial of yours. Or do you want to chicken outst second?" They asked, and Eisen red at him angrily. "You still want me to kill Satel? Even though they¡¯re already incapacitated like that?" Eisen asked. "Of course I do... That¡¯s the trial that I gave you, remember? You can¡¯t just pass without doing something like this. Ande on, it¡¯s not the first time that you¡¯ve killed others. You literally destroyed a handful of ancient kingdoms in the past. And I¡¯m not even joking, we have some of those guys down here with us." Treachery exined, although Eisen wasn¡¯t sure if he should really trust this God¡¯s words. After all, they were literally the pure incarnation of Treachery. There was no way that they would only tell the truth and nothing else. "B-But I did everything right, why are you doing this to me?!" Satel interrupted Eisen¡¯s thoughts, and Treachery bluntly nodded their heads, "Of course you did everything right. And now you have to die, like a good little Devil. This is what you were created for in the first ce, child. It is what those before you have been created for, and it is what those after you will be created for. To die at the hands of the worthy ones here in this realm." The God exined. "Although..." He muttered quietly, "It¡¯s not like I could just send you back, acting like normal after this even if he doesn¡¯t choose to kill you... So if Eisen doesn¡¯t, then I guess I will have to kill you. Or maybe I¡¯ll send you to Limbo for him to have a little fun before then, not that I really care.??? "Treachery." Eisen said in a calm tone of voice, before the God turned his head toward the old man, "Yes?" "Be quiet." The old man said in a tone that would force most people into submission due to his ¡¯Royal Authority¡¯ as well as the simple passive boosts of his charisma through his Demonic Title. Treachery, on the other hand, just seemed to have fun like this. "Ah... I really love it when you speak to me like that... But let¡¯s stop flirting now, and get this over with. I would like to ¡¯catch up¡¯, if you know what I mean." With a weirdly melodic voice, the God ced his hand onto Eisen¡¯s shoulder, and the old man realized that he really didn¡¯t have any proper choice at this point... If he wanted to proceed, he had to kill Satel. Treachery was unaffected by his charisma, and he didn¡¯t seem like the kind of being to care for a Devil¡¯s life. So now, Eisen had to make a different choice. Did he want to give up everything that he had done so far, and everything that he needed to do in the future that required his full Demonic Title just to get this Devil to keep living for a little longer? Or did he want to get it over with and sacrifice Satel for his own good? The choice was a surprisingly easy one. Eisen wasn¡¯t even able to finish the second choice in his own mind before cutting through Satel¡¯s neck, causing their head to slide over the ground for a bit. Sure, it made the old man feel hollow and disgusting to kill someone that he actually could see himself being friends with, but... He couldn¡¯t do anything but be selfish right now. Chapter 711 Back Home

Chapter 711 Back Home

As Satel¡¯s body dropped onto the ice, their ck blood spreading out onto the translucent, frozenke and their head kept sliding for a few more meters, Eisen saw a few notifications appear in front of him in session. [Quest Completed ¨C Treachery of the Companions] [Description] In order to be acknowledged by the Gods of Hell, you have started to make your way through the nine circles of hell. On your first stop, you reached Limbo. On your second, you reached Lust. On your third, you reached Gluttony. On your fourth, you reached Wrath. On your fifth, you reached Greed. On your sixth, you reached Heresy. On your seventh, you reached Violence. On your eighth, you reached Fraud. And finally, on your ninth, you reached Treachery ¨C Your task in this realm is to defend yourself against the attacks of those that you trusted, and kill the traitor. [Conditions] Kill the traitor (1/1) [Rewards] Treachery¡¯s Acknowledgement [Penalty] None --- [Quest Completed - Acknowledgement of Hell¡¯s Gods] [Description] You have entered hell and are trying to be acknowledged by the gods. You encountered, the Guide-Devil Satel, who will lead you through the Nine Circles of Hell for the challenges that you are to face. [Conditions] Be acknowledged by the Gods of the Nine Circles of Hell(9/9) [Reward] \u003cAcknowledged by Hell¡¯s Gods\u003e Title [Penalty] None --- [You have received the title \u003cAcknowledged by Hell¡¯s Gods\u003e] --- [Congrattions! You havepleted all tasks connected to the title \u003cGolden Eyed Demon\u003e! You will be able to proceed the next time you sleep!] "..." The old man looked at the notifications silently. He didn¡¯t care that much about the quest notifications. All that he really cared about were thest two notifications. The fact that he was now officially acknowledged by the Heaven¡¯s Gods, and the fact that he would be able to proceed further with his Demonic titleter. He felt like this was a rather hollow victory, considering the situation, but at the very least he was able toplete one of his long-time goals... That was good, right? Eisen waved his hands to the side and ced his Demonic Greatsword away as he turned around to look at Treachery, "Was this really necessary?" "Hm? Was what necessary?" The God asked, clearly confused what Eisen was talking about, but the old man just grumbled quietly to himself, "You know exactly what I mean." "Sorry, but I don¡¯t. Well, not that I actually care all too much. But hey, let¡¯s talk about what¡¯s really important here! You got the title you came down here for, isn¡¯t that great?" "It¡¯s not particrly great, no. But it doesn¡¯t matter to me anymore. Can¡¯t you just send me right back to the mortal realm?" Eisen asked bluntly, something that treachery didn¡¯t particrly like, "...If you say so. I thought we could speak for a while, but I guess you would want to head back and meet your ¡¯friends¡¯ again while itsts." Hearing this god¡¯s words, Eisen furrowed his brows and red back at him, "What do you mean?" "What do I..? Oh, you¡¯re not aware?" Treachery asked, before starting tough in a voice that showed how sickly hrious he found this situation, "Once you regain your memories, you will realize once more that things like mortalpanionship is utterly useless. You will inevitably turn their back to them. What else would I mean?" "You don¡¯t know me, Treachery." Eisen said, deep anger pouring out of his throat as he spoke, while Treachery simply continued tough, "Oh, but I do... I know you a lot better than you might think... Our rtionship was more ¡¯intimate¡¯ in the past than you may think..." Eisen silently stared back at Treachery before rubbing the bridge of his nose, "Did I fuck everyone around here, or does it just seem that way?" "Noment." Treacheryughed, before waving his hand to the side to take Eisen¡¯s wish into ount, quickly creating a portal that Eisen would be able to use to get back to the overworld. The old man grumbled quietly as he turned around, looking at Satel¡¯s dead body, "Do you mind if I take them with me?" "Why¡¯d you want to take a dead body with you?" "...You know I¡¯m a craftsman. I¡¯m sure you can make a few good potions using a Devil¡¯s body." Eisen said bluntly, as if it was an answer he already prepared in his mind. Treachery seemed a bit suspicious, but he didn¡¯t really care at the end of the day, "Sure. But don¡¯t tell too many people about it, I guess. I don¡¯t want them to think they can just take anything they want with them after getting here. Not that there are many that can get here in the first ce, but you get what I mean." "Mhm, sure I do." Eisen said bluntly, before he walked up to Satel¡¯s dead body. He picked it up and ced it into his item storage safely, making sure that they wouldn¡¯t be damaged from anything inside, and ced their head on top of their body as well. The old man closed his item storage and then walked up to the gate, that seemed to connect to just an incredibly long tunnel. "Come back soon!" Treachery eximed, but Eisen ignored him and stepped through the gate in front of him immediately. He just wanted to get out of here as quickly as he could. And the moment he did so, he found that instead of being a normal tunnel, this space in front of him was rather below him in the form of a hole. He fell and fell, through a good number of different areas that affected him in a simr way as before, when he first came to the Underworld by dropping through that hole. Not too long after, his lungs were filled with fresh air in the first time in a good while. The scent of the ocean pushing into his nostrils. He was back in the mortal realm, and quickly transformed into his Draconic Demon King form and started to fly through the air, d that he was able to return to Prototype soon. The cool breeze hit his face as Eisen continued to fly. Right now, he wasn¡¯t able to see any difference in his Demonic form, nor in his abilities. Maybe he really just had to sleep for anything toe into effect at all. But for now, although Eisen was rather tired, he had to head home and meet everyone, and take care of something else. Eisen could see that Jyuuk was currently online, and as far as he knew, he was in Prototype a lottely, simply experimenting on a lot of things together with Xenia while the others went around expanding the territory of Asgard. Soon, the ind came into view, starting with the garden behind the castle. Eisen could already see a few oversized flowers there, a sign that Caria was hard at work while the old man was away as well. She was probably sleeping right now, so Eisen slowlynded at the tip of the rock there and slowly walked forward. He walked through the tree-sized flowers and soon reached the exit of this small forest-patch, before he heard some sounds from right behind him. Soon, he felt quite a bit heavier as thin arms were slung around his torso from behind. "You¡¯re back!" A familiar voice yelled out, and Eisen immediately knew who it was, "I¡¯m back, Caria." The old man said with a broad smile on his face, rubbing the top of her head as she rubbed her face on the old man¡¯s back happily. A few momentster, it wasn¡¯t only Caria holding onto him, but two more young folk were as well. Right from above, Melissa came dropping down after flying toward Eisen, and he of course caught her, and Sal seemed to have slung himself forward out of the top of one of the castle¡¯s towers to reach the old man as well. "I¡¯m happy to see all of you guys as well, but at least give me a chance to take a breather, will you?" The old manughed, truthfully feeling ecstatic to see these three again. He even nearly felt tears welling up in his eyes at this point, "I literally wen¡¯t to hell and back, you know?" The three of them slowly let go of him, "Sorry, it was just a bit exciting to finally see you again..." Sal apologized with a wry smile, while Melissa didn¡¯t care in the slightest and kept snuggling onto the old man. She had the physically youngest form, so Eisen guessed it was fine for her to act a little more childish than the other two, who were more like teens physically. "Don¡¯t apologize, I get how you guys feel." The old amnughed quietly, before he walked a bit further forward, until three figures suddenly appeared in front of him through a slight mist. They knelt on the ground in front of Eisen, greeting him with light smiles on their faces. The three Core Guardians that were stationed right here, Gind the Country Core Guardian, Serio the Town Core Guardian, and of course Constant the Core Helper that was in charge of this Garden. "Wee back, your Majesty." The three said at the same time as each other, something that felt rather out of tune for at least two of them, "I¡¯m back... But I said so before, didn¡¯t I? You don¡¯t need to call me ¡¯Majesty¡¯. It feels a bit stifling." "Hah, I figured you¡¯d say that!" Constant eximed as he jumped up with a broad smile on his face, "Now then, shall we-" The Core Helper was interrupted in his speech as he felt a deep re from Gind right next to him that made it feel like his paint was about to fall off of his body. Eisen smiled wrily as he stepped forward and made his way through the garden, getting swift updates on the state of the town. For one, there was a huge increase in citizens through multiple reasons. For one, immigrants from the other inds that have been taken over recently, immigrants from the maind, and atst, even yers started to migrate here and set up their bases. There were a few incidents with the monster-citizens of this city, but they were slowly being settled and getting fewer by the day. Most yers even started defending the monsters that some others were roughing up, and even partied up with the Monster NPCs to get through some of the tougher areas that were being opened up on the different inds as well as withing Fafnir and Sigurd¡¯s Dungeon. Everything seemed to be falling into ce pretty well, so Eisen was incredibly happy about that. "We did face a few diplomatic issues as well, but those can be taken care of at another time." Gind exined without saying much else, as if it was unimportant, but Eisen squinted his eyes slightly as he looked back at her, "What diplomatic issues are you talking about..?" "Just a few measly nations attempting to threaten us with war if we do not be part of theirnd. Nothing too abnormal." "...What kind of stuff happened back when the former Eisen was in charge?" "Well, your Majesty happened to bring a country or two to ruin back then when he was in a bad mood." "...Right." Chapter 712 Armor-Sui

Chapter 712 Armor-Sui

Eisen walked through the halls of his castle with weirdly nostalgic emotions coursing through his mind. It was probably due to therge amount of memories that the old man recovered while he was in heaven and hell. Like these areas were slowly bing more and more familiar, but nothing that Eisen could grasp yet. So for now, all of these positive emotions just became nostalgia in the back of his mind for now. But at the very least, he didn¡¯t feel bad about this ce, showing him that it was somewhere that he liked spending time in the past. Eisen soon reached the ce that was his bedroom before, a ce where he hadn¡¯t spent even a full hour of his time total since he started ¡¯ying this game¡¯. Here, Eisen started to sort some of the items that he had in his item storage out. There were quite a few clothes in there as well, after all, many of which were meant for himself. The closet was surprisinglyrge, even if nothing was left inside of there. Eisen sorted everything in, the different shoes, shirts, pants, jackets, and so on that he made for himself. And then, he started sorting out the items that he made for the others. He was giving a few items, such as materials, to Serio so that he could bring them to Constant in the gardens, where the Core Helper would quickly sort everything in properly. The treasures that Eisen managed to collect were then brought down to the treasury, also by Serio, while Eisen continued to prepare everything else properly. The first thing he did was give the three children that were with him right now the items that he made for them. First, that included clothes as well. A nice suit that was mostly white with a few ck details, that would grow in size with him depending on his evolutions for Sal. Of course, this suit was made to increase the flow of magic within the Spider-boy¡¯s body while increasing his stamina and other physical abilities considerably. The shoes that Eisen made to fit with the suit would improve his ability to dance and move his feet in general, as well as simply boosting his movement speed. And atst, the silk gloves were there to increase Sal¡¯s ability to manipte his threads through his hands. At the same time, Eisen had interwoven a few magic materials into the gloves as well to make them easier to use as wand-recements. Then, the items that Eisen made for Caria were a bit lower inplexity, but still just as impressive. Mostly, she just received a dress that Eisen worked on quite a bit, making sure that it was a powerful enough item to help her magic. And beside that, since she didn¡¯t like wearing shoes, gloves, or jewelry in general, Eisen came up with something else that she might like. He made a bag for her! More specifically, a bag that she could store arge number of different seeds, saplings, and nuts in so that she could use her abilities properly. It was something that was making use of Eisen¡¯s Item Storage ability, edited in certain ways so that Caria would be able to make use of it simr to how the ssic ¡¯Inventory¡¯ in normal games would work. A screen would appear in front of her and she could press on the right field, making the item pop out of a subspace in front of her so that she could grab it easily. At the same time, it could still be used like a normal bag, of course, to prepare some of the most important items for herself that she could grab normally out of the bag. And of course, it was pretty stylish as well, although he had to get a bit of help from some other craftsmen, more specifically the female ones, to figure out what a young girl would look for in a bag. And atst, the clothes that Eisen made for Melissa were in the same style as the clothes she was wearing until now, simply some shorts, an oversized hoody, as well as some simple, sneaker-like shoes. Once again, the clothes were made to increase Melissa¡¯s physical abilities, while the shoes were made to give her the ability to push herself up into the sky a bit more easily. As if she would be able to swim higher using her feet. The back of the hoody was made so that Melissa¡¯s wings could easily slip through the cloth, by making it so that the back would momentarily disappear in the ces where her wings were moving through, to let her fly normally. Beside that, Eisen made a small backpack for her that she could wear, even without obstructing her wings too much while she was flying, and it was specially-made so that Melissa could have a lot of her bees hide out within it as if it was an incrediblyrge beehive, since Eisen built it with some spatial-gemsbined with Melissa¡¯s ¡¯Hive¡¯ element. All three of them were incredibly happy with the items that they received, quickly changing into them to properly show them off. And while they were happily doing that, Eisen himself also changed out of his current clothes, the cksmith outfit, and changed into the suit that he made for himself in Heaven. The one that he would be able to temporarilybine with the special King¡¯s Armor that could be found in the throne-room. Eisen wanted to look presentable when walking through town for the first time in what felt like forever. Once Caria, Sal and Melissa were done changing as well, Eisen stepped through the halls and reached the throne room, where he picked up the armor. "Your Majesty? Did you not just change into that suit?" Gind inquired, since she was a bit confused about what the old man was trying to do, and Eisen smirked lightly, "That I did. Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll see what¡¯s going on in a bit." Eisen first grabbed the leg-pieces and slowly strapped them to himself, using his mana to fuse them with the different sections of the pants. Whenever he did, the golden armor seemed to practically melt into Eisen¡¯s pants. While they kept the nature of regr cloth-pants, they started taking on a metallic shine in the affected areas. On top of that, some thin lines, runes and patterns appeared on the pants in the same way as they could be seen on the armor. It certainly didn¡¯t look like any other normal pair of suit-pants anymore, but it didn¡¯t look all too far off from it. It looked quite impressive to Eisen, but that might be because he himself made these items. After fusing the rest of the armor with the normal parts of the suit, he had to admit that it looked like as if he was wearing some form of armor due to some subtle changes in the shape and thickness of the suit, but for the most part it still had the same aesthetic as Eisen wanted. Now, Eisen just had to fuse the ck leather gloves with the gauntlets, the nice shoes with the boots, and the crown with the nice fedora he made for himself. Thispleted the aesthetic close to perfectly. The only thing that was left was to fuse the ¡¯King¡¯s Sceptre¡¯ with the wooden walking-cane that Eisen also made for himself in heaven. This whole outfit was probably theplete opposite to what Eisen wore before this, simply wool pants and a leather apron, but he didn¡¯t mind that. It was still nice to look like this every once in a while. And of course, as the King of this country, he did have a bit of a responsibility to look presentable every once in a while. And walking around barefoot with dirty feet wasn¡¯t particrly ¡¯presentable¡¯ as far as Eisen was concerned. With all of this done, and Gind rather satisfied, the old man made his way out of this castle, "Ah, please, stay behind. I¡¯ll call you if I need you." The old man said as he looked at both Serio and Gind, and the two of them quickly nodded and disappeared in a cloud of mist. The old man slowly descended the steps of his castle¡¯s front-door. He could already see the Dungeon set up in the distance, so he would be heading thereter. He figured that Cabarum and Aulu would be there, and obviously Fafnir and Sigurd had to be there too. He figured that Bree, Sky, Kiron, and the other Dragon Knights were scattered around this city. He didn¡¯t hear that they left this ce, at least, so Eisen was excited to find them soon enough. With the three children following behind him, Eisen stepped through the gates that were guarded through some special Golems in the form of armor-suits. In the za in front of the gates, a number of people and monsters were gathered. Apparently there was some kind of market going on there this morning. Different vegetables, fruits, and random items were being sold here. This was pretty interesting to Eisen, but it seemed like the only thing that those gathered here found interesting was Eisen himself. All of the Guardians, Monsters, and NPC¡¯s gathered here immediately focused their attention on Eisen, some of them rushing up to him to greet him now that he was finally back. Eisen recognized most of the ones that came up to him as well, so that was good. The ones that were staying back were the yers, however, that thought that this was some sort of event going on. They wanted to stay back for a while to see what would happen, and to see if maybe they would get a quest if they approached this carefully enough. But of course, that wasn¡¯t really the case. Once the monsters, guardians, and NPC¡¯s went back to their regr business, Eisen continued walking through the market while being approached by a handful of yers every once in a while. They were trying to sell Eisen random items that they made, unaware of who this old man really was. It made sense, Eisen¡¯s current aesthetic was incredibly different to his normal one that nearly every single yer knew. Eisen declined them with a smile on his face. Slowly, even the yers were realizing who Eisen was, even if they weren¡¯t able to appraise the old man due to the appraisal-blocking abilities of the armor that Eisen fused with his suit. Some were getting excited, some didn¡¯t realize in the first ce, and other tried to convince Eisen to have him let them into \u003cWorld¡¯s Peak\u003e. All the whilst Eisen simply continued on forward. Chapter 713 What a bother

Chapter 713 What a bother

Eisen walked through the streets of \u003cPrototype\u003e. The yers that had started following him slowly started to disappear when they noticed that all he was doing was greet the people of this town, doing simple small-talk. Of course, there were still a few more people steadily following Eisen. A lot of them were using tamed Monsters to keep an eye on the old man, although none of them noticed that they had a couple pretty strong Assassin Bees following them around. If any of those tamed Monsters came to close or tried following Eisen anywhere where he didn¡¯t want them to, they would die immediately. Of course, tamed Monsters could be easily resurrected by the Tamer, so Eisen didn¡¯t hesitate in the slightest to do so if it was necessary. The old man continued walking through the streets with a smile on his face, before he noticed a few of the Guardians running toward the same direction in the distance. There were a few Monsters and People among them as well. They all seemed to be guards. "Melissa." The old man said as he looked into the direction they were running, before the Empress Bee slowly nodded her head. A few momentster, she exined the situation to Eisen, "Another ¡¯Artificial¡¯ causing trouble because of one of the citizens." She exined in a quiet voice, and the soft smile on Eisen¡¯s lips immediately disappeared. "I guess this is as good a ce as any to properly announce my return, don¡¯t you three think?" The old man suggested, as he stepped forward, casually making his way where the trouble seemed to be waiting. Eisen didn¡¯t expect that this town would bepletely peaceful, of course. No ce was ever perfectly peaceful, especially not if it was a town that was growing as rapidly as Prototype currently was. It didn¡¯t take Eisen long to see the people that were causing the trouble either. They seemed to be just average yers, though. After a quick appraisal, it was shown that they were just a bit above Level 100. They probably only recently made their way here. That¡¯s what Eisen figured from their words as well. It was a party of three with a rather normal set-up. One Spear-user wearing mostly leather-armor with a few metallic parts in his armor. Next to her was a tall-grown man holding a tower-shield and a war axe that seemed rather hard to lift for regr people. And behind the two of them was the mage, who was being the most quiet out of the three. He seemed to be the party leader, at least that¡¯s what Eisen guessed just looking at them. There was a group of monsters in front of them. From what Eisen could judge, they were just a normal family. A female Kobold and a male Goblin, as well as two Koblin children. The Goblin, seemingly nothing more but a farmer, had a heavily bleeding cut on his shoulder. And the blood was on the de of the spear of one of those three yers. A couple of Guards had gathered to apprehend them, but the Wizard drew some form of magic circle on the ground to stop them. How bothersome. Sure, technically all these Guards were individually stronger than these threebined, but they wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything against a powerful magical element. And in this case, it was an incredibly powerful one. One that was capable of creating a strong barrier, but probably not only that. The Skill-name didn¡¯t have ¡¯Barrier¡¯ in its name, but Eisen had never heard of it before. It was a ¡¯Title¡¯ Element, like Eisen¡¯s was as well. You wouldn¡¯t be able to instantly figure out what it was, because the name was often rather misleading, often not being a descriptor, but rather a name that would make it unique and show its power. What a shame. Eisen would have liked to borrow this element for a while, maybe show it to Xenia to see what she thought about it. But he figured that wouldn¡¯t be happening now. The guards were swinging their weapons at the barrier without being able to do anything about it. The surrounding people and monsters were unable to do anything as well, even if they were trying to help. Most of them had production upations anyway, so it would be hard for them to force their way through a barrier like this. So, it seemed like Eisen really had to step in, like he had somewhat hoped. What better way was there to show he was back other than by getting rid of a group of three pests bothering his people. With a heavy step, Eisen walked forward, slowly cing his hand onto the shoulder of one of the Guards, "Thanks for your hard work. But don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll deal with this now." The old man suggested, and the Guardian turned around a bit startled before seeing the old man¡¯s face. "Y-Your Majesty!" He eximed, and Eisen simply winked at him with a smile on his face. The surrounding people immediately turned their heads toward the old man, and even the yers inside of the barrier were focused on him now. "Majesty? What, this guy¡¯s supposed to be ¡¯Eisen¡¯? Doesn¡¯t look that impressive to me." The heavy warrior inside of the barrier pointed out with a bit ofugh, before the old man in question could feel a slight tingling sensation all over his body. His eyes turned toward the Mage, who suddenly held his hand to his forehead in pain. "It¡¯s kind of rude to appraise people without asking first, you know?" Eisen pointed out, assuming that this mage already lost about a quarter of his total HP. It was one of the effects of the armor he had fused with this suit. It was ¡¯Appraisal Defense¡¯. Not only did it stop others from ever possibly appraising him, but it would damage them quite a bit as well. Appraisal was a sort of magic, technically, since it worked by instantly sending a quick pulse of mana to the target and using the information it brought when bouncing back. It was a special sort of magic, making it easy for basically anyone to make use of, even those that weren¡¯t really capable of using magic at all. Even Brody could use it, since it used a special sort of ???Mana¡¯. Anyway, due to this, it was possible to find the source of the appraisal and send back another violent pulse to give a mental injury to the appraiser. Most people in high ces and their escorts had this sort of effect on any one item they were carrying, to make sure they couldn¡¯t be appraised, since information was something incredibly important in warfare. Of course, at the level that the former Eisen lived, he had to make an item that didn¡¯t just stop others from appraising him, but also showed them ¡¯I know what you did¡¯. For most people that could be even a remote threat to the former Eisen, of which there were only a handful of factions in the first ce, the ¡¯return damage¡¯ from the appraisal defense was so miniscule that it was only enough to show them that Eisen was really aware of everything. But for weak people like this mage... It was enough to be a quite heavy blow. Of course, Eisen was able to control who this really damaged. He didn¡¯t want random inexperienced yers or even children of his country to y around with appraisal and suddenly die when appraising him. They still wouldn¡¯t be able to see his information, though, instead disying a message that Eisen could choose himself. Eisen stepped toward the barrier and slowly raised his walking cane toward it. He pressed the tip against the smooth surface of magic, while the two fighters were scoffing at the old man. Meanwhile, the mage realized how dangerous this situation really was. He waved his hand to the side, trying to make the barrier disappear to apologize, but before he could do that, the barrier already shattered into pieces. Eisen stepped toward the Goblin and ced his palm onto the wound on his arm. The healing properties of Eisen¡¯s armor could be transferred to others for simple shows of kindness like this. The wound immediately closed up, "Hm... The shirt is still ripped up. Come by the castleter, I will give you something new to make up for this damage. Would that be alright?" The Goblin looked up at Eisen and slowly nodded his head silently. Most monsters here still had a hard time speaking, but they at least understood others fully now. And meanwhile, the heavy warrior chose to take this chance to attack Eisen for some reason, probably seeing that he would die otherwise, and tried to get the upper hand. But all that the old man did was briefly swing his cane to the side. The tip hid the shield and it dented as if Eisen pushed onto a soda can. The warrior was pushed to the other side of the street, hitting a rock wall that Eisen created there close to instantly. As his bones could be heard shattering, the yer¡¯s body disappeared into a bright light as he died instantly from a single hit to the center of his shield. Only the mage was level 100, both of the fighters were at about Level 60. So of course they would instantly die. But seeing that the tank of the party instantly died, the Spear-user took a step back and tried to run. Of course, that didn???t happen, because all that Eisen had to do was to slide over the ground a bit and tap the center of her back. Before she even hit the ground, her body went up in a bright yellow light. And then, there was only the mage left, "Now then. Now that these two bothersome children are gone, would you exin to me why you would attack my people for no reason?" The mage looked at Eisen a bit confused, "Your ¡¯people¡¯..? We didn¡¯t attack any people, we attacked the monsters! And then all of a sudden everyone yelled at us for no reason!" Eisen looked back at the mage with a deep re, linking eyes with this angry young man, "You know, we havews here. They are simr to thews in other ces, really. Any citizen or traveller gets a fair trial. That is, with the exception of Artificials. All of you will die before anything else happens. You will wake up in the prisons, everything has been set up that way. Then, we¡¯ll see what happens with you." "Wh-What, you can¡¯t just kill me for no reason! All we wanted to do was level up by killing some monsters!" The mage eximed, "If you don¡¯t shut up, I¡¯ll report you to the Admins of this shitty ga-" Before the yer could finish the word, Eisen pushed his cane through his forehead to kill him instantly, "What sort of administrator would care about such a trivial matter?" The old man asked with a deep sigh, trying to act as if what the yer was about to say wasplete nonsense. He slowly turned toward one of the Guardians near him and leaned forward to him, "We¡¯ve got another loose tongue this time around. Make sure to educate him properly." The old man whispered so that only the Guardian could hear. Of course, the Guardians, being technically ¡¯items¡¯ belonging to Eisen, were all informed of the situation this world was in. Which is why the only guards in the prisons were Guardians that wouldn¡¯t be able to be dragged down by yers like these that would even go as far as to reveal information about the game in random ways like this. Either way, it seemed like Eisen¡¯s n worked. Word that he was back was spreading rather quickly now. Just like he wanted. Chapter 714 Craftsman Duo

Chapter 714 Craftsman Duo

Eisen looked at the ground in front of him. After forcefully destroying the barrier with the special effects ced onto the staff he fused with his walking cane, the flow of mana became rather irregr here. Something dangerous would happen if Eisen wasn¡¯t careful. Luckily, however, he had a rather skilled Mage right here with him. Sal waved his hand to the side and erased the magic circle by taking it over with his Marite element and making it his own, just to then destroy it outright. Eisen looked around the crowd around him with a bright smile on his face, "I truly apologize for the actions of these wicked people. We will make sure that something like this will cease to happen in the future." The old man said, voicing his genuine feelings. Sure, making a promise like this was usually not a great idea, but considering the abilities that Eisen and the others had, it didn¡¯t feel like some form of empty promise to him. The old man stepped through the crowd that was now making way for him, happily greeting the old man. Most of the monsters here knew him, and every single one of the Guardians did. Eisen was the only one that was really capable of repairing them, after all, so he had met each of them. The ones that Eisen didn¡¯t know yet, and the ones that were treating Eisen the most like a ¡¯King¡¯ out of everyone gathered here, were the NPC people that immigrated here from different inds or from the maind. Eisen felt a bit embarrassed by this, but he figured that there was no reason to deny such reactions. After all, he was really a King now... He had to act like one. Of course he wouldn¡¯t reprimand those that didn¡¯t treat him like a King as long as they didn¡¯t outright disrepect him in any way, but he would try his best to be as dignified as he could be. He hoped that this was something that his people were picking up on. Eisen didn¡¯t want this whole thing to have been in vain. And just then, a small beended on the old man¡¯s shoulder. It was a special kind that Melissa had created based on the ¡¯Message¡¯ spell that Xenia had taught Sal a while ago. They were able to save specific messages and ry them to another person. Melissa had made them to be part of the Guards so that they had a proper system to contact each other without worry. Eisen was a bit confused as to what sort of message was reaching him here, but soon, he heard the Bee¡¯s voice as it ryed the information it held within itself, "We greet your Majesty upon his return." The old man felt a bit disappointed to hear that it was just a generic message from the Guards, it seemed. He hoped that it was one of the others, but that clearly wasn¡¯t the case. Kiron would just use the System¡¯s message function, just like Xenia and Jyuuk would. Sky would send one of his Inkheart Summons instead, and Bree woulde rushing to him to throw herself at Eisen by now. Nheless, he had still hoped for it to be the message from one of them. The old man looked at the Bee on his shoulder and said, "Thank you. I will being by for a quick visit soon, if you don¡¯t mind." With a short buzz, the Bee lifted off to send this message back to the one that sent it here in the first ce, just like Eisen wanted it to. At this point, the old man found himself in an area of the town he found to be quite pleasant. It was the craftsmanship district. It was rather close to the outer parts of the town, and it was adjacent to the area where he just killed those three yers. Eisen came here since he figured he would find a certain two young men here, working ording to the tasks that he had given them before leaving for the Divine Realms. And as the scent of burning charcoal filled the old man¡¯s nose, he knew that there was someone currently working around here. The smoke was being heavily moved around, after all, it was not just passively floating around here. Something told Eisen that he would be able to find them here, so he went inside the smithy that had the strongest scent of smoke pouring out of it. And he was right. There they were. The two young men that he took under his wings. Parc was swinging his hammer down heavily as Rouge assisted him, the two of them working on an item together. How he knew them, Rouge would end up taking over the lead for the details, while Parc would continue as long as it came to the basics. It wasn¡¯t that Rouge wasn¡¯t skilled with the basics, he was simply a lot better at details than Parc. In turn, Parc was better at the basics and creating the bigger picture than Rouge. They were a great team when it came to most things, which is why there were such amazing friends as well. Brothers, nearly. The owner of the Smithy, a Guardian in the form of a Dwarf, was surprised to see the old man and was about to loudly greet him, but Eisen didn¡¯t want to disturb the work of his apprentices. Hence, he raised his hand before then and made the Guardian quiet down as the old man took a seat in the corner of the room, waiting for Parc and Rouge to finish their work. They were like him in some ways, one of them being that they were able topletely immerse themselves in their work, forgetting everything else that was going on around them. To an extent, they did this a lot more than Eisen did. The old man was incapable of something like this whne he was working with other people, since it was always important to him to meet their pace and work together with them in a way that caused the best possible oue, but Parc and Rouge didn¡¯t need to worry about that. They were at the same level of skill andpleted each other perfectly, as if they were meant to be one person. Either of them knew what the other was thinking and trying to do without having to think about it for even a moment. Eisen loved seeing these two boys work due to this quality they had. There was beauty in the work that one craftsman was able to do, but seeing these two work was like some form of neatly crafted performance in itself. The old man didn¡¯t expect to be able to see something like this when he chose to take them as his apprentices, but it was something that he epted without a second of hesitation. It took them a little while, but they soon finished the item they were working on. Judging from the sort of item it was, a sword that had specific and unusual materials, most of theming from monsters, integrated into it, Eisen figured that this was amissioned item that the master of this smithy was asked to make. And the task that Eisen gave Parc and Rouge before leaving was to help out some of the different workshops here in town in such ways. He thought they would end up just being assistants to the fully-fledged craftsmen though, and not that they would be allowed to work on evenmissions themselves. That came to show what incredible craftsmen they were, despite being just apprentices at this point in time. Rouge turned around as he rubbed the sweat from his forehead just before it was about to drip down into his eye, before stopping abruptly the moment heid eyes on the man that had been observing them for a while now. "Eisen!" Rouge eximed with a broad smile on his face, no longer caring for his exhausted state as he rushed up to his Teacher, "When did youe back?!" He yelled out, pulling Parc¡¯s attention to Eisen as well. These two boys were standing in front of Eisen with bright smiles now that their teacher returned. With a loudugh, Eisen ced his hands onto the top of their heads and rubbed over them for a moment, "I came back only recently. And I must say, I¡¯m quite impressed with your work, you two." The old man exined, before Parc and Rouge turned around to look at the sword they just finished, "Thank you! We¡¯re really proud of that one as well!" Rouge eximed, although Parc seemed to have something else he wanted to say, "H-How long have you been watching..?" The old man thought about it for a little while as he moved his hands through his beard, "Ever since you finished the rough shaping, I¡¯d say." "For that long?" Parc asked with a wry smile, feeling weirdly embarrassed in retrospect, although Eisen couldn¡¯t help butugh in response, "I¡¯ve watched you work for hours at a time. What difference does this once make?" "Well..." Rouge muttered quietly, although he as well had a hard time exining it. Eisen understood what the issue was, though. It probably felt a bit weird to work while not knowing that Eisen was watching them the whole time. But either way, Eisen figured that he should give these two a bit of a reward for working so well while he was gone. "Come on, you two. Finish up here, and we will head to the Craftsmanship Guild to set up proper sigils for you two." The old man suggested, and the boys looked at each other surprised, "Sigils, but-" "Yes, I¡¯m allowing you two to take on your ownmissions from now on. You are more than skilled enough, so I don¡¯t see a reason to worry about it at all." The old man exined. With broad smiles on their faces, Parc and Rouge nodded their heads as they started to clean up their workspace after finishing the sword. Eisen looked at the Guardian whose workshop this was and thanked him for letting these two work here, while apologizing for suddenly taking them away without warning again. Of course, the Guardian didn¡¯t have any issues with it at all. He was d to help, and to have this extra help as well, obviously. And so, Eisen and his two apprentices made their way out of this workshop soon and made their way to the Guild District that was still in the process of being properly set up. It took a while to get in contact with the Grand Guild Masters of therger upational Guilds. They were able to get the license to set everything up already, but they could only start working on processing everything once that was really the case. Luckily, they were set up well enough to at least be connected to the guild-internal system, so that Parc and Rouge could properly set up their Craftsman-Sigils to ce on the items they themselves worked on. Chapter 715 Research Center

Chapter 715 Research Center

Parc and Rouge looked at their Craftsman¡¯s Guild tags excitedly, now that their own sigils were shown on them. This was a sign that they would now finally be able to work as craftsmen on their own. It was an important step in their lives, and they were extremely proud of this considering that they didn¡¯t work under Eisen for all too long yet. Eisen himself was surprised by this decision of himself as well. It might be because of the skill system, or simply because they were prodigies as Eisen had seen only seldomly, but he felt more than confident in letting these two do their own work from now on. They would be able to earn their own money, and they would be able to gain experience while Eisen was still there to guide and help them. And most importantly, the sigils would help Parc and Rouge get a bit of acknowledgment and renown by spreading their sigils through the world. "So... When can we start using these?" Parc asked a bit anxiously, rubbing his fingers over the carving on his guild tag. The young man looked up at Eisen with a wry smile, while the teacher slowly ced his hand onto the boy¡¯s head, "When you work on your next own item, of course. You won¡¯t be able to put them on items where you¡¯re just helping me or others out, of course, but if you are taking the lead, then you¡¯re free to put your sigil on there. It¡¯s like an artist¡¯s signature. It¡¯s your right to put it on those things that you are proud of creating yourself." Both Parc and Rouge looked at the Sigils that they had been working on for quite a while now with broad smiles on their faces. Meanwhile, Eisen was trying to focus on something else. Casually, as if he had forgotten, he mentioned something that made his apprentices even more excited while Eisen was looking around the area, "Ah, I brought you a few things that I made in the realm of the God of Craftsmanship, I¡¯ll give them to you twoter." The boys opened their eyes wide, barely able to wait for what this old man brought them as sort of ¡¯souvenirs¡¯, but to Eisen himself, it really wasn¡¯t all that important. Eisen was rather trying to find other people here in this crowd of people. In this area where the Guild Halls had been set up, plenty of other important buildings had been constructed. For example, the Central Church had been built nearby, and the library was around here too. Of course, multiple research centers that were run by the guilds or those signed up with them stood here too. That was because it was simply much, much easier for many people if this was the case. They would be able to work closely together with these long-established organizations that held a vast sea of information and opportunities within them. Here, Eisen was hoping to find the ce where two of his close friends were working and researching. They were still trying their best to create different scientific tools topare the differences between the bodies of the people in this world,pared to the bodies of the people on Earth to see how the Originals were changing over there. And of course, depending on whether or not the people here were basically simr to humans on earth, it would allow Jyuuk to start the development of a few different chemicals and drugs that could be used to fight diseases. If Eisen or Xenia then made use of these chemicals and drugs through Alchemy to create things akin to potions, it might be possible to bring them to another level and use the benefit of the System to improve them considerably. Eisen thought about where exactly they might be, so he tried to look around. Most certainly, Jyuuk and Xenia would be found in one of the research centers to make use of the already established research there. A couple of documents were found a while ago while this town was being reconstructed, and thinking that they could contain simr things to what they were attempting to research now, as the original authors of those documents were either Jyuuk or Xenia themselves, they tried to decipher them. Or at the very least, they wanted to try doing so until they managed to remember them somehow. The reason why they had to ¡¯decipher¡¯ them in the first ce was rather simple. They were not only written in Ancient Languages that were no longer used by anyone, but they were also written in special code on top of that. Sky was able to help them trante some of the text, but it was much harder for him to do that due to the illogical way that everything was written. The Ancient Elvennguages were a kind that included a lot of metaphors and words with many different meanings depending on the context, which is why it was quite hard to trante them in the first ce. But if they were ced in text that was made to be confusing, it was hard for a novice trantor such as Sky. Of course, Sky was trying his best anyhow, and he was getting as much support from the others as he needed. Komer even sent out some requests out to contacts all over the continent to maybe find texts written in the Ancient Elven Languages to be used as a reference, but he didn¡¯t have all too much luck yet. Although, Eisen did have something that he thought might help them that he, on the other hand, needed Jyuuk¡¯s help for. Eisen looked at a specific building that seemed to be the one he was looking for. Mostly, because it was the only one that nobody was walking into or out of. It was probably reserved specifically for Jyuuk and Xenia at the moment. The old man walked up to the door and tried to push it open. He felt a slight shock in his fingertips as he did so, before letting out a deep sigh. He pushed down the door handle and pushed through the current of electricity pouring into his limb. His armor was lessening the damage considerably. The next moment, Eisen could see Xenia jumping up on the other side of the room, confused at how this door opened up all of a sudden. "Couldn¡¯t you have made it to recognize me, at least?" The old man grumbled. The High Elf looked back at Eisen before letting out a deep groan, "You could have just messaged me as well... And how did you even push through that, that was a Rank 6 protection Spell..." "I have my ways." The old man replied cheekily with a wink before he stepped into the room. It made sense that the entrance would be protected like this. Not because Jyuuk and Xenia didn¡¯t want anyone to know of their research, but because not everybody could know of their research. They had a lot of things ced and written down around here that wasn¡¯t knowledge of this world, but rather of Earth. So if NPC¡¯s saw this, it might be dangerous to them. After all, Eisen was the one that made a deal that allowed him to reveal this sort of information to others. There was nobody else with this privilege. So, if Jyuuk and Xenia suddenly revealed this, they might not be banned due to the extensions of Eisen¡¯s own privileges, but the NPC¡¯s would at the very least be killed and thrown into the Underworld Circle of Heresy. Eisen looked around and saw Jyuuk¡¯s body frozen on one of the chairs. Roots covered him and his skin became like wood, "Where is he right now?" "Ah, Brody needed Jyuuk¡¯s help with something because of the... you know..." Xenia said as she pointed at her forehead. Of course, she meant Brody¡¯s horns. The area around where they grew was close to being infected a couple of times ever since they started growing, so Brody was probably in a bit of pain right now and tried to get Eisen¡¯s help with them. But there was someone else that was close to frozen at the moment. He was sitting on a chair next to Jyuuk and his cheek was pressed down onto a piece of paper as snores escaped his mouth. With a smile on his face, Eisen approached Sky from behind and ced his hands onto his shoulders. The boy jolted up as he woke up, and he turned his head to the side confused. Sky only saw the leather glove on Eisen¡¯s hand as well as the special suit¡¯s sleeve, so he didn¡¯t realize who it was at first. Eisen usually didn¡¯t wear this kind of thing, after all. "Who the fuck- Why¡¯re you waking me up, bastard?!" Sky eximed. Eisenughed for a while, remembering that this was what Sky usually was like with most people, "Oh, if you want me to, I can leave again as well." The moment that Sky heard Eisen¡¯s voice, he pulled his eyes open wide and jumped up from his chair before turning around and hugging the old man, "Nope, it¡¯s fine!" Sky eximed, "I didn¡¯t realize you were back!" "I only got back rather recently." The old man exined as he ced his hand onto Sky¡¯s head, "More specifically, two hours ago or so." "Well, how was it? Did anything interesting happen?" Sky asked, and Eisen already knew his reasons for asking. There were plenty of stories about the realms of Heaven and the circles of Hell, that he probably read while Eisen was away. "You could say that. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll tell you allter. First, there¡¯s something that I need to get done. I¡¯ll be a True Demon when I fall asleep next, so I want to do this before then. I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going to happen, after all." The old man exined as he waved his hand to the side and summoned his item storage, "Bad timing that Jyuuk isn¡¯t here, though." Eisen stepped inside there and brought out a certain coffin. The old man created a pedestal of rock that he ced the coffin down onto. At the same time, he brought out a small crystal orb and his Demonic Greatsword. He pressed the crystal orb against the Sword Core and spoke, "Come on, spit it out." The sword vibrated for a few moments and Eisen groaned loudly, "I said spit it out. I know that it¡¯s a powerful soul, but I told you that you can¡¯t absorb it." Somewhat hesitantly, the sword did what Eisen wanted it to and pushed a soul out of it into the crystal orb Eisen held against it. "Eisen, what are you doing?" Xenia asked, and Eisen smiled as he stepped back over to the coffin, opening it up. Inside there, a dead body could be found. It was an androgynous, handsome and beautiful body. Wings and horns decorated it, although the head was cut straight off. "This one here might be a bit chaotic, but they should be able to help you trante those documents." Eisen exined, looking at the body and soul of Satel that he took as a souvenir from the Underworld, betraying the God of Betrayal himself. Chapter 716 Return Greetings

Chapter 716 Return Greetings

Eisen exined the situation to Xenia, who let out a deep sigh, quickly understanding what was going on. After all, the old man had already told the others about Satel while he was ¡¯offline¡¯. They knew that they were a thing, but they were still surprised at this sort of development. "...Well, why do you want to resurrect them, though? Didn¡¯t you say that they¡¯re literally, like... the worst?" Xenia asked, and Eisen turned his head toward her while deep in thought, "Kind of, but at the same time, they¡¯re not? They¡¯re a lot more likeable than Ambriel, and I¡¯m pretty sure that they would be pretty ¡¯easy¡¯ to get under control." "Ambriel... That was the Angel, right? So you¡¯re telling me that a Devil is more likeable than an Angel?" The High Elf asked. Eisen smiled wrily as he replied, "By a long shot actually. I would have preferred to kill Ambriel over Satel, but without the resurrection bit." "Right... Well, either way, even as an Undead they should be able to do fine. We don¡¯t know how to go through with true resurrection yet, so sorry about that." "It¡¯s fine. As long as Satel can walk around again, that¡¯s all I¡¯m asking for." The old man exined with a soft smile on his face, while Xenia squinted her eyes, "Alright, what¡¯s going on? Why do you want this literal Devil to be around all of a sudden? Don¡¯t tell me you-" "I¡¯m not in love, Xenia. Well, not with Satel, at least." Eisen interrupted her, knowing what she was about to ask. And meanwhile, Sky asked something else as he was looking at the Devil¡¯s dead body, "By the way... I managed to find a rare book that speaks about the experience of a living person that made it through Limbo but turned back weirdly ¡¯satisfied¡¯... But it wasn¡¯t exined what he did in Limbo at all... Beside a few things hinting at some stuff..." Eisen already knew what Sky was getting at as well. He turned toward the Half-Fey and ced his hand onto the young man¡¯s head, "I¡¯ll tell you about it some other time." The old man said. He didn¡¯t particrly want to speak of his ¡¯experiences¡¯ in that realm for now. Eisen wasn¡¯t the sort to brag about such things anyway, and he definitely didn¡¯t want to speak of such things when Kirisho might be nearby. Sure, neither of them was sure of the situation between them, and it was not like they could have a carnal rtionship even if they wanted to, at least not right now, but Eisen himself still felt slightly weird about what he did in Limbo, particrly in the hall of Lust. Although at the time, he was so caught up in everything and in fulfilling his raw desires that he didn¡¯t take a moment to think about what he was doing. Just as the conversation was about to go into a direction that Eisen disliked, he saw Jyuuk¡¯s body slowly change in the corner of his eye. The roots on his body and the bark-like skin started to rot away and simply left behind the normal Jyuuk¡¯s body. The beastperson stood up and looked at the old man and the coffin standing in the center of the room, with his brows raised, "You just got back, and you already want me to do something for you?" He asked. With a quietugh, Eisen let Jyuuk approach the coffin to see what was going on, "You see right through me. Sorry, but it had to be done rather quickly. It was hard for me to save the soul of this Devil in the first ce, and I don¡¯t know how long I can let it float around in here like this." Eisen gave Jyuuk the crystal orb that Satel¡¯s soul was kept inside of, "I need you to turn him into an Undead. A High-Tier one, if possible." "A High-Tier undead using a Devil¡¯s body... Sure, but it might take a little while. I¡¯ll repair the body,e up with some form of recement for the blood that was lost and such... While we were researching, I did find some interesting hints at creating superior types of Undead that I would like to try out. Is that alright?" "As long as they have control over their own body like they did while alive, then I¡¯m fine with whatever you do. Don¡¯t break the mind left within the soul, and don¡¯t change the structure of the body. I don¡¯t mind if you do something to strengthen them a bit though. I was able to kill them on my own, it should be easy enough with everyone here even if they end up running wild." Eisen exined, and Jyuuk slowly nodded his head, "Then I won¡¯t hesitate. It might be better to have you there when they wake up, since you¡¯ll be familiar to them... I¡¯ll try to get everything done by tomorrow." "I¡¯ll count on you, then." With a smile on his face, Eisen turned back around and chose to leave everything to Jyuuk, Xenia and Sky, "I¡¯ll head out and meet the others as well. Any hints on where they are?" Sky looked back at Eisen, deep in thought for a moment before nodding his head, "I think Bree¡¯s somewhere in the Dungeon, just trying to help out? She¡¯s been feeling pretty lonely while you were gone. Kirisho should also be there with her at the moment. And Kiron is probably... Outside of town training again." "Again?" Eisen asked surprised, and the young man looked back with aplicated expression, before Xenia exined what had been going on around here while the old man wasn¡¯t there. The three that were apparently most affected by Eisen¡¯s absence, exluding Caria, Melissa and Sal who were able to hang on because they had an obviously extremely strong direct connection to Eisen anyway. They didn¡¯t feel all too disconnected from him even if Eisen went to another ne of existence. Those other three, however, were a different case. To them, Eisen reallypletely disappeared, and was on his way to hell at that. Bree was somewhat dependent on Eisen in the first ce, and Kiron was Eisen¡¯s Knight. They must both feel weirdly useless without Eisen there, although that was obviously not the case. And as for Kirisho... She must have been simply worried about Eisen. The old man knew that she went through many forms of loss in the past, so that fear must have affected her a bit over the past while that Eisen was gone. "I see... Then I guess I must see how they¡¯re doing." Eisen smiled lightly as he turned around, stepping toward the door, "Thanks for letting me know. Ah, and I¡¯ll be preparing some foodter tonight and handing out a few things. Of course, I¡¯ll also be speaking about my time in both Heaven and Hell, soe by the Castle then, will you?" "Of course, that was the n." Sky shrugged lightly as he somewhat tiredly returned to the table to keep working, and Eisen simply nodded at Jyuuk and Xenia before leaving. The next ce he wanted to go was rather simple. It was something he could already see in the distance. The Dungeon. It was closer and easier to find than wherever Kiron currently was. Eisen had a few ideas of where he could find the Half-Dragon, if he was training in the same way that Eisen assumed he did, but he definitely knew where Bree and Kirisho were. And like this, he could also cross Fafnir and Sigurd off of his list of people to definitely visit before tonight. Of course, that Cabarum and Aulu were there was a plus as well. Brody and Evalia were probably on their way back to Prototype as well, at least that¡¯s where they said they would gost time Eisen spoke to them outside of the game. So they could gather at the castle tonight and have a small feast, before Eisen would be a true Demon. The old man stepped through the town and soon saw the za surrounding the huge gate leading into the Dungeon, with Fafnir sleeping on top of it, his tail swinging from side to side next to the entrance. Casually, he stepped up to the gate and made his way through the crowd of people waiting outside. There was probably something going on at the entrance-floor that required everyone to leave for a while. After all, considering the number of people here, they would need much, much more space there than they had. Either way, the old man casually stepped through the crowd toward the Gate, and slowly ced his hand onto the shoulder of a yer to ask him to step aside so that he could get through. Eisen didn¡¯t just want to push everyone aside. "Oh fuck off, wait like everyone else if you want to get inside." The yer groaned loudly. They were obviously in a bad mood for some reason even beforehand, so Eisen didn¡¯t know if they were inherently bad. He gave the yer the benefit of the doubt and smiled at them lightly, "Sadly, I¡¯m not ¡¯everyone else¡¯, so I would please like to head to my Dungeon." "¡¯Your Dungeon¡¯, who do you-" The yer eximed, slowly turning around. The moment that they saw Eisen¡¯s face, their own face paled as they took a step away, "Ehm... Err... I¡¯m sorr... G-Go ahead..." The yer muttered, taking a step to the side embarrassedly. Since this yer brought some attention to Eisen through this, he was now given a clear path to walk through as everyone saw the old man approach. He ced his hand onto the giant gate and saw it open just a bit. Enough to only fit a couple of people. Eisen and the five others with him. Eisen stepped through the gate as it closed right behind him again, the muttering voices of the yers filling the old man¡¯s ears. And the moment he got inside, he felt a heavy weight press against his body, as Fafnir¡¯s dungeon-internal form jumped at him and pressed Eisen to the ground. With augh, the old man rubbed Fafnir¡¯s snout and tried to stand up, although he soon had another weight, albeit one that was extremely lightpared to the literal young Dragon, pressing onto him. "Sorry, I thought I could stop them, but apparently not." Sigurd apologized with a smile, seemingly also more than just d that the old man was finally back. Eisen slowly stood up with the two beings still basically glued to him. One of them was Fafnir, as mentioned, but the other one was Bree, who seemed to have been brought here by Sigurd the moment it realized that Eisen was back. Chapter 717 Three Rings

Chapter 717 Three Rings

Eisen slowly stood up while Bree was still clinging onto him. The old man rubbed her back for a moment longer before looking down at her, "Bree? I know that it¡¯s nice that I¡¯m back, but don¡¯t you think you should let the others have some of me as well?" The young woman slowly raised her head, silently shaking it. She really acted like a child in moments like these, but Eisen couldn¡¯t get mad at her for it. It was just what she was like, after all. And at the end of the day, when one considered that she was still growing, despite being in her 20¡¯s and already an adult, one might say she was a child of her particr race. Hence, Eisen didn¡¯t judge her for her behavior too much, especially considering her past. Either way, for now, the old man still wanted to greet the others properly. Now that he was standing up and Bree finally agreed to let go of Eisen, he quickly rubbed over Fafnir¡¯srge snout before walking over to Sigurd and giving it a quick hug as well. "How has this ce been doing, Sigurd?" Eisen asked, and the Core Guardian quickly replied with all the information that built up for a good while now, "As you must have seen, the Dungeon has be quite a popr ce for many a people toe for different reasons. Some wish to take the Dungeon on in order to gain strength or treasure, and otherse here in order to take up business with those individuals. The starting vige has expanded quite a bit as well, and as we were working on improving the resting-areas of the lower floors, we have also begun to turn one resting area of every five floors into a small ¡¯vige¡¯." Eisen raised his brows a bit surprised as he stepped over toward the door of this building, pushing it open to reveal that which was beyond there, the ¡¯vige¡¯ that had been made up of only a dozen or so buildings before. Now, it was more like a real vige with proper streets and more structures. The shops have been expanded by the monsters working here, and some merchants even set up certain warehouses within this space for the shops that they were running temporarily. Of course, those ¡¯shops¡¯ and ¡¯warehouses¡¯ could only be used for a short amount of time. Sigurd, with Komer¡¯s help, already made a deal with those renting out the shops that they would properly bepensated if there should be any wares left in the shops or warehouses at the point in time that they all chose to move on. The two of them nned ahead properly to make sure that the contracts had only been created so that they would reach the point in time where they guessed they would definitely be heading off to the Giant Country. "I see... I¡¯ll take a look at those resting areaster as well. For now, could you tell me why you closed the Dungeon up and are having everyone wait outside?" "Yes. It is simple. We needed to expand upon some floors and change other certain ones around. There are individuals that wish to make use of this ce for unapproved business, unaware that I am constantly watching them. Those individuals have of course been apprehended and punished ordingly. Nheless, I am nning on creating quick counter-measures to make such things easier for me to deal with." Sigurd exined. It looked up at Eisen with a weirdly smug expression, as the old man himself smiled back at it. "I see. That¡¯s a good idea then, I¡¯d say." Eisen said in response, "If you need any help, let me know, alright? There are a few things that I made for you and Fafnir while I was in the Heavenly Realms as well. I can only give Fafnir his items when we can wake him up, which should take a while with how the dungeon is going right now. But I can give you the items for you already." The old man pointed out. He hoped that he would be able to get Sigurd and Fafnir to join him and the others at the castle tonight as well, but that clearly wasn¡¯t an option. So instead, Eisen would give them the items that he had for them here already. The ethereal Fafnir wouldn¡¯t be able to make use of the items, but at the very least Eisen could show them to him already. "And what about me?" Bree asked with a broad grin on her face, and Eisen turned back around toward her, "You¡¯ll be getting the items I made for youter tonight, don¡¯t worry." "Eeh? But why are Fafnir and Sigurd getting theirs already...? And Caria, Mellisa, and Sal got new things too!" "Of course, that¡¯s because they were my entourage through town. There¡¯s a reason why I wore this suit. I wanted these three to look as impressive as they are from the start." The old manughed lightly, "Really though, your items are worth the wait. No need to feel disappointed." With a clear pout, Bree crossed her arms and turned her head away, while Eisen opened up his item storage. The old man quickly stepped inside his storage space and brought out the items for Sigurd first. To start off with, it was a new outfit. Also something along the lines of a suit, but in this case, it should rather be called a tuxedo rather than a suit, even if it wasn¡¯t a ssic tuxedo either. It was far too colorful for that. Either way, Sigurd seemed to be rather happy about this outfit. After all, it was something that Evalia designed, so of course, Sigurd would like it. Then there were some more items that Eisen would properly show to Sigurdter. He couldn¡¯t do it right here, after all. So, first, Eisen brought out the items for Fafnir. They were parts of some armor that the old man specifically designed and made for him. Mostly, that was it, but there were a few things for future evolutions that Eisen could anticipate already that wouldn¡¯t make sense to give to him immediately. Eisen might have to make a few changes for thatter on. Well, for now, both Fafnir and Sigurd were excited about their new items, so the old man quickly opened a gate to the Core Room and stepped through there to give Sigurd and Fafnir the rest of the items he made for them. And those were items in the forms of rings. But of course, not rings that would fit on anyone¡¯s finger. Well, maybe if Eisen managed to grow in size enough. They wererge rings that were supposed to be ced around the Dungeon Core, hence why they were items made for both Fafnir and Sigurd at the same time. Eisen ced the first ring around the center of the Dungeon Core and slowly fixed it in ce. It seemed to be a little bit ufortable for Sigurd and Fafnir to have their core touched, though, so Eisen tried to get everything done as quickly as possible. But the moment that Eisen activated the first of the in total three rings he made for them, the Dungeon Core lit up for a moment before Sigurd opened its eyes wide in surprise, or rather, shock. "Wait, but- Ehh?" Sigurd replied,pletely confused and overwhelmed by the information that must be shown to it right around now. And that made sense, of course, after all, the first ring was one that added a huge array of possibilities to Sigurd¡¯s arsenal. New types of monsters, new things to add to the dungeon floors, including numerous nts that none of the people here had ever seen before, and even simple blueprints that Sigurd was able to copy and immediately make use of. It was information that Eisen had gathered in the Heavenly Realms as well as in the Underworld and continuously added to the ring bit by bit whenever he came across a new ¡¯sample¡¯. But of course, just that would have meant that Eisen could have practically given the core a quick ¡¯injection¡¯ and then taken the item back, but that was not the main point of the ring. The new things that Sigurd could make use of were just a side-effect. In reality, this item was simply supposed to increase Sigurd¡¯s ability to copy and absorb certain things that were left in the Dungeon for it. And then, there was the second ring that Eisen slowly added onto the first. It had to be done bit by bit, or else Eisen was scared to overwhelm Sigurd and Fafnir with all this. The second ring was there to help Sigurd manipte the inside of the Dungeon at a higher speed and uracy. And atst, the third ring was there to make use of something that Eisen would honestly just call something of a ¡¯prototype¡¯. It would allow Sigurd to do something rather different. It would be possible to practically infuse parts of the Dungeon, or even the whole Dungeon, with certain magical elements for special effects that the Core Guardian had never thought about before. A shadow-based element to make the mazes creepier, a nt-based element to simte life in the nts in the forests. And of course, spatial-based elements to make things a little bit more... interesting without needing to shiftrge parts of the Dungeon around the whole time. Basically, this was an item that allowed Sigurd to cast any sort of Magic that Eisen gave it ess to, at least as long as the old man himself ever managed to procure the element in question and saved it on a crystal with specific enchantments carved onto it. So, with that, the Dungeon was immediately upgraded in a rather special way that the Dungeon-Delvers would certainly appreciate quite a bit, especially since Sigurd was rather keen on trying a few of these new abilities out right away. "Those are great items... Howe you never thought of something like this before?" Sigurd inquired, and Eisen slowly ran his fingers through his beard in thought, "I was just given the idea somewhere along the way in the first Divine Realm I went to. Good that it turned out this way, right?" "Of course! These items are... sublime!" The Core Guardian eximed loudly, while Fafnir rubbed his snout on the old man¡¯s side again as well, seemingly just as happy about these items as Sigurd was. d that this was the case, Eisen exined how the items worked a bit more, before making a request for Sigurd to open a gate to a certain ce within the Dungeon. It was time to go see Kirisho now as well. Chapter 718 Being Watched

Chapter 718 Being Watched

Eisen, alone with nobody following him down for this part, stepped through the gate in question and was quickly brought to one of the lower floors of the Dungeon. It was the rest area that was currently being constructed there with a small building that would act as something like an Inn that people could rest in if they didn¡¯t want to head out of the Dungeon just yet, or if they simply wanted to take a short break before continuing with their friends further down the Dungeon. The ones that were working here were mostly the Monster Workers that Sigurd kept creating as the Dungeon itself was growing in size more and more, buying upgrades through the system that could allow it to make use of more, and more powerful, Monster Workers for these sorts of jobs. But amongst the Monster Workers, the one that was overseeing everything, trying to help out even if it was just a little bit, was Kirisho. She stood at the side of the construction-site and looked at the Monsters working, as Eisen walked up behind her. The old man waved his hand to the side as he approached and summoned his item storage. He prepared a small item for this part of it when he went to the Heavenly Realms as well. It felt a bit clich¨¦, but even so, it was better toe with something like this instead of being empty-handed. It was a bouquet of flowers that Eisen gathered in the Divine Realm of Ohm, the God of Nature. And with a smile on his face, the old man held the bouquet in one of his hands as he stood behind Kirisho, "Thanks for you help while I was gone." Eisen said, and before he was even able to finish half the sentence, the Mist Spirit turned around rapidly and looked at the old man now standing in front of her. With slightly teary eyes, happy that Eisen was able to aplish one of his goals without any obvious issues to it, Kirisho looked back at the old man. "Wee back." --- Eisen stood in the Kitchen of his castle and was quickly preparing for the Dinner that everyone wasing to tonight. Of course, Parc and Rouge were helping him out as well, and Eisen made his mana-doubles do some of the physicalbor parts of it, meaning that they were the ones carrying certain ingredients around the room. The servants in the castle that had been hired were just standing at the sidelines awkwardly, since Eisen told them they didn¡¯t need to work tonight. He wanted to make the food for the others himself, after all. But considering that Eisen was gone for a while, it felt like a good idea to teach Parc and Rouge a few more cooking techniques as well, considering that it was part of what Eisen promised to teach them. They had picked up a few things while Eisen was gone though, mostly eastern cooking techniques that Jyuuk must have shown to them. Either way, there were quite a few cuts of fresh meat that Eisen was preparing with a few vegetables, while Parc and Rouge were mostly doing a lot of cutting, chopping, and more repetitive tasks. It wouldn¡¯t be any particrly grand dinner, just a rather simple three-course meal. A small sd with seafood in it to start out. Then, a wyvern stake with wine sauce and some herbal roasted potatoes. And atst, as a dessert, some simple ice-cream made of the milk taken from a ¡¯Flower Cow¡¯. The old man already liked how everything wasing along, and he was pretty sure that everybody would like the vors quite a bit. Either way, what was important was not just the food, but also to prepare the items that Eisen would be gifting to the others. They were all slowly gathering in the dining room as Eisen, Parc and Rouge were finishing up, and meanwhile Eisen had his Elemental Spirit quickly put everything together into packages depending on who which item was for. It took Eisen a short while longer to nearly finish everything, and when he only had a few things to finish up, he turned toward Parc and Rouge, "You two, you can go and change into something else before heading to the dining room. I¡¯ll finish up here and thene over as well." The old man exined. The two apprentices were a bit unsure about just leaving Eisen to do the work, but at the end of the day, if Eisen said he would be alright, then he would be alright, there would be no other way. It didn¡¯t take much longer to finish, and Eisen made sure to have everything prepared in a way that it would stay at the perfect temperature and consistency until they were ready to be served. The serving itself would be done simply by some Golems Eisen made, of course, the servants still didn¡¯t need to work for the rest of the day. The old man made his way to a room in which he could change his clothes to wear his suit again, as he took it off while he was cooking, and quickly made his way to the dining room where everyone was gathered together. Eisen looked at the people seated at the table, all talking to each other happily. Brody and Evalia were there now as well, but Stahl and Alnico couldn¡¯te due to a simpleck of capsules. Nheless, Eisen would give them their items in due time. The old man slowly made his way to his seat as everyone greeted him, while turning his head to look at Kirisho who was wearing the special dress that he made for her. Usually, she wouldn¡¯t be able to properly wear clothes like this, but Eisen made the dress so that it would basically be part of her so that she could wear it whenever she wanted to. And honestly, it looked quite beautiful on her, although it seemed like Eisen was just stroking his own ego when thinking that. Soon, after a bit of conversation with everyone, the appetizer was being served. And at that point, Eisen was ready to make a bit of a small announcement. "Thanks foring, everyone. There is a reason why I called all of you here." The old man started, "First, because it has been a while since I¡¯ve seen all of you, so I wanted to change that. But there is also something else that I want to talk to you about. Now that I have been acknowledged by both the Gods of Heaven and the Gods of Hell, my Demonic Title has beenpleted. The next time I sleep, a ¡¯transformation¡¯ of sorts will happen." Brody grinned a bit and looked at Eisen, "What, you think you¡¯ll be evil and want to talk to us before that happens?" The old man shook his head quickly at that joke, "Of course not. But once I¡¯m a Demon, I will havepleted another part of my tasks given to us by the puzzle box. I think all of you are rather close to finishing yours as well. So, I would like to ask you all to please focus as much of your time as possible on unlocking the puzzle box as well." The four other Originals looked at each other for a moment. They really hadn¡¯t been paying too much attention to those tasks, but Eisen certainly had a point. It was better to try and open it sooner rather thanter, considering the situation. But that wasn¡¯t all that Eisen wanted to speak about. "Beside that, I managed to gather a bit more information while I was in those Divine Realms. First..." Eisen turned his head toward Kiron, "Kotam is the child of Trygan, turned insane by Samuel. In order to get close to her to help her, I¡¯m going to be a Champion of the Chromatic Dragons as well. Please, support me however you can and don¡¯t judge me too much no matter what it is that I will have to do in order to aplish that goal." Considering that this information was something that none of the individuals here were aware of yet, they of course started muttering amongst themselves. Especially Kiron and the other Dragon Knights were surprised by this revtion. From this point on, Eisen exined certain other information that he found out as he was in the Divine Realms, things that would help some of the others get stronger or simply information that was important for them going forward. It was a slightly heavy conversation, but one that they needed to have, and preferably before whatever happened to Eisen tonight happened. For some reason, he was feeling rather nervous about it. But after dinner, it was time for something else. It was time to hand out the items that Eisen made for everyone. Wands, staffs, tools, weapons, anything that the others might need, all of them crafted in the divine realm using divine materials. "Damn, I know you said you¡¯d make items for us there, but I didn¡¯t expect somethin¡¯ like this!" Brody eximed excitedly, swinging his new weapons around. Meanwhile, Eisen wore a new item that he made as well. But not one that he made in the divine realms, but one that he made here rather briefly. An item that the others didn¡¯t know about yet. One of Eisen¡¯s rings wasn¡¯t a normal ring. Rather, it held the soul of a certain being inside of it, enchanted to allow Eisen to make use of one of its most important abilities. There was another bit of information that Eisen should have told them, but kept to himself for a particr reason. It was something that he dyed due to that which this ring allowed Eisen to see. The soul inside of the ring was the one that Eisen found in the Circle of Heresy, the man that was able to see the ¡¯Connection¡¯ between the worlds. Eisen had to say, now that he was able to see that connection as well, it was rather interesting. It was as if a thick thread of ethereal energy that looked like a neb in the night sky rose up forever and ever without an end to it. But that was of course only something that the Originals had. And Eisen¡¯s thread was thinner than those of the others, maybe because his connection to Earth was the weakest out of everyone here due to the time his soul spent in this world. These threads were not the only thing Eisen could see, though. The most important things were the pair of giant, floating eyes staring at Eisen from the other side of the room. And Eisen immediately know who those eyes belonged to. For a while now, they were closed, but now that they opened up, Eisen would make another announcement. One that he wanted to make before, but he didn¡¯t yet. He wanted those eyes to be open, so that the person who they belonged to knew that Eisen was aware of their every action. "Ah, and before I forget... It seems like Samuel was already able to bring a bit of magic to earth." Chapter 719 True Demonic Transformation

Chapter 719 True Demonic Transformation

The group of people seated around the table jumped up in confusion at the old man¡¯s revtion. "He managed to bring magic to Earth?! But... How?!" Xenia asked with a confused expression, while Eisen smiled softly, "Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s nothing all too major. And maybe ¡¯Magic¡¯ is the wrong term, rather, it¡¯s ¡¯Mana¡¯ itself. But only a dozen MP worth or so. But even then, it¡¯s a start, and we don¡¯t know how long it¡¯s going to take until two digits of MP be three, and until three be four." Eisen exined. But as he spoke, instead of facing the other people that were looking to him for answers, Eisen¡¯s eyes were locked with the pair of floating eyes in the air, that he was only able to see through that special soul¡¯s abilities. The fact that he was able to see the connection between the worlds by connecting the soul¡¯s visual abilities with Eisen¡¯s own ¡¯Truth Seeing Eyes¡¯ was a great discovery. He only wanted to see if it would work out, and if it didn¡¯t, he would have just made some lenses that were infused with it instead to make up with it. Eisen looked at these eyes that were certainly Samuel¡¯s own, and watched the person hiding behind them squirm just like Eisen wanted them to. He wanted them to be truly horrified by realizing that Eisen knew every single small step they took. Eisen wanted them to be paranoid and terrified, simply because the old man disliked them. It didn¡¯t have a particrly use, really. It wasn¡¯t part of one of Eisen¡¯s ns to beat Samuel in this. This was only for his own self-satisfaction. It might be a bit sadistic, but Eisen didn¡¯t care. He wanted to do this, so he did it. Maybe Eisen became a little more selfish while in the Underworld. Some of the memories showing signs of returning would surely show Eisen in-depth what life in the Underworld would be like, something that would surely make him rather selfish for a while. Maybe that shone through a little... Eisen hoped that he was going to be fine and that side-effects like this wouldn¡¯t be a thing anymore once he remembered all of his memories, but for now, he had to deal with it. Not that he minded too much right now. He rather enjoyed guessing how panicked the person behind these eyes, Samuel, had to be right now. The old man took a deep breath and looked at the other sitting at the table, "I¡¯ll exin everything a little more in the Guild-Room tomorrow or so. Or on the other side. Where we won¡¯t have any... Onlookers." The old man smirked, and kept making eye-contact with the floating eyes. At this point, Samuel seemed to have finally understood that Eisen was actually able to see them, and that this eye-contact wasn¡¯t just a fluke. The eyes moved back for a moment, before the old man formed a small pebble in his hand through his element and flicked it through one of the eyes with a soft smile on his face. Now, Eisen finally turned away from the eyes and slowly stood up. His eyes were slowly going blurry at this point because of how long he has been awake. He could feel the strength in his body decreasing, and he even received a bunch of notifications about permanent stat-debuffs as well that wouldst until Eisen slept properly. "I think I need to rest for now." The old man said with a smile, "Now, I don¡¯t know what exactly is going to happen, but it surely will be something interesting. Bing a ¡¯True Demon¡¯ seems like a rather big deal, doesn¡¯t it?" Eisen pointed out. Eisen stepped past the people seated here, that were still confused over what Eisen just revealed to them a few moments ago. But luckily, he already written a few notes on this subject and left them in the Guild Room where the others should be able to get any sort of information they may need on this subject. And depending on how things went, although Eisen wasn¡¯t particrly counting on it, he would be able to log off while he was transforming into a True Demon. Then he could just tell the others all the information that he needed to. Eisen took a deep breath and stepped through the castle to his bedchambers. Once there, the old man felt like he shouldn¡¯t let the others, like Caria, Melissa and Sale in there with him, despite the fact that they wanted to sleep next to him again. "Please, I don¡¯t want anything to happen to you guys." The old man said with a smile on his face, before raising his head. Behind these three children stood Kiron, his sword ced onto the special spatial-sheath by his side and his hand ced onto the grip. "I don¡¯t care what you say, Grandfather. I will stay here and keep watch while you are in there. In case you need my help for some reason. Maybe the transformation will make you vulnerable somehow." The Half-Dragon pointed out, and Eisen slowly ced his hand onto the Knight¡¯s head, "Thank you, Kiron. I appreciate it. If you notice anything going on, then just try to wake me up. And if you¡¯re really worried about me and can¡¯t manage to wake me, let one of the other Originals know. They¡¯lle and wake me on the other side." The old man exined. Kiron immediately nodded his head, "Of course." Slowly, Eisen turned around and stepped through therge doors of his bedchambers, before hearing the Half-Dragon say something else from behind him, "Please... Just be careful, Grandfather." "Of course. I¡¯ll just be taking a quick nap." The old man smiled. The door to his bedchambers closed behind him as Eisen took off his suit andid in the bed, "Serio, Gind." Eisen said quietly, and the two Core Guardians immediately appeared at the foot of his bed. "Yes, your Majesty?" The two of them said in tandem. Eisen looked at them, "Make sure to turn on the protection for the ¡¯Demon¡¯s Domain¡¯." Eisen told them. Immediately, they nodded their heads and each walked over to one of the two statues ced at the sides of the room. They ced their palms onto the statues¡¯ chests and activated the enchantments carved into them. The moment they did so, magic circles formed around Eisen¡¯s bed and chains started to tie him down into it. At the same time, the room¡¯s walls created thick barriers to keep whatever Eisen would create in here. The reason why he did this, and the reason why he was so worried about this the whole time, was rather simple. As a ¡¯True Demon¡¯, one had ess to either one of the two paths, or both like Eisen did. During the initial transformation, this went out of control, however. That is why the former Eisen created this system to hold Eisen back while he was going through this initial transformation. If Eisen was a Demon of the pure Path of Yang, this transformation would be rather positive. The ¡¯Domain¡¯ that Eisen would create would be one that allowed life to sprout and creation to run rampant. But at the same time, every living thing in near him would be overwhelmed by this force and die. On the other hand, if he was a Demon of the pure Path of Yin, the transformation would obviously be negative. Everything would fall to dust around him burn to ashes, while every living thing would have its life drained out of it and also die. Of course, Eisen could have always stayed somewhere else for this transformation then. But no, his body stayed active during this transformation, Eisen simply couldn¡¯t control it himself. He would most likely seek out any ce that he had a deep connection to, which would probably mean this town and those that he cared about here. And in either of those situations, this would be catastrophic. That fact was just strengthened by the fact that Eisen was a Demon of both Yin and Yang. Instead of draining or giving Life to those around him, Eisen would make everything go into a state ofplete ¡¯Chaos¡¯. Living creatures wouldpletely lose their mind, depending on their exposure, they may never recover, and everything around Eisen would enter an artificial cycle of death and rebirth, making anything and everything impossible to recover. At least, that¡¯s what Serio and Gind exined to him as a warning for this transformation. This room was especially made to hold Eisen back and to make sure that he would be unable to leave no matter what he did. The chains should probably hold him down the whole time, but if they didn¡¯t, the numerousyers of barriers should do the trick. Of course, the former Eisen ced a lot more special things into this room for the purpose of helping the current Eisen out with all this, although the current one didn¡¯t really know most of those things. Neither did Serio and Gind, or at least they didn¡¯t tell Eisen about them. Maybe to stop him from figuring out ways to counteract them if they were based on surprising the old man. Either way, slowly, Eisen closed his eyes and let himself drift off into sleep. And soon, his consciousness faded. [Congrattions! You are now beginning your transformation into a True Demon of Yin and Yang! After this transformation, you will receive your privileges] [Transformation will finish in: 24 Hours] Eisen saw those notifications in his mind. And somehow, instead of finding that he was sleeping like normal, he just stood in a deep ck empty space. Slowly, the world in front of Eisen formed. Or rather, the sight from Eisen¡¯s eyes was projected into this dark world. But all that he could see was the ceiling above his bed, nothing else. That meant that the chains were doing their job at least. The old man could hear the chains rustling around against each other though, echoing through this dark space the whole time. Meanwhile... Eisen didn¡¯t have much to do. He could just sit here and do nothing the whole time, but that seemed like a bit of a waste. He couldn¡¯t log out either... Which was really annoying. Seemed like Eisen had to stay logged-in the whole time for this. So, he had to look for something else to do. Curious about whether or not that might be possible, Eisen thought about his memories that he was slowly unlocking, and one after another, the glowing lights filled out this dark space as if they were a couple dozen stars floating above his head. At least he had time to go through these now. Chapter 720 The Fiery King of Ancient Gold

Chapter 720 The Fiery King of Ancient Gold

Eisen slowly opened his eyes and looked around in his bedchambers. Or at least, the room that used to be the bedchambers. This ce could hardly be called that anymore. After all, right now, it was just turned into a realm of ashes by Eisen¡¯s transformation. Of course, the chains holding Eisen down were still attached to him even now. There was no way that the barely level 350 Eisen would be able to break chains created by a max level Eisen. But now, the old man could rx because the chains slowly crumbled away, noticing that the \u003cTrue Demonic Transformation\u003e had ended. Eisen stood up in the ashes of his room and let out a deep sigh as he looked at the piles that used to be his furniture, "What a bother... Well, at least everything seems to have worked out properly. Now... onto the next journey." [You havepleted your \u003cTrue Demonic Transformation\u003e] [You have received your true demonic name, Hilmir Rogmalm de Grandour] [Instead of being known as \u003cGolden Eyed Demon\u003e, you will be known as \u003cThe Fiery King of Ancient Gold\u003e] [Your ability \u003cDraconic Demon King Transformation\u003e has grown and turned into \u003cTrue Demon¡¯s Transformation\u003e] [You have gained the ability \u003cTrue Demon¡¯s Domain\u003e] [You have gained the ability \u003cTrue Demon¡¯s Spawn\u003e] [You have gained the ability \u003cTrue Demon¡¯s Will\u003e] Eisen looked at the notifications in front of him. Really, everything seemed to work out instantly this time. There was a reason why Eisen didn¡¯t want anyone else to know about this, and that was because of the possible consequences. Simply put, the chance for Eisen toplete the \u003cTrue Demonic Transformation\u003e on his first try was slim to none. Maybe he managed it because his soul already went through it once. But either way, if Eisen hadn¡¯t managed toplete this transformation, well... Eisen would have been forced to feel torturous pain for hours on end. If Eisen hadn¡¯t regained the ability to feel pain in this world, that wouldn¡¯t have been an issue. But considering that he really did regain that actually quite basic physical ability, he didn¡¯t want the others to worry about him, maybe even trying to stop him. It was easier this way, so that he could just pass it off as things taking a bit longer than expected if he had to try multiple times. However, this worked out to Eisen¡¯s advantage. The first thing that Eisen chose to do was rather simple. While Serio and Gind didn¡¯t have ess to this ce due to the protective barrier that had been set up, Eisen wanted to test his abilities out a bit. He didn¡¯t want to identally injure them as he tried these rather unpredictable abilities out. While they had rather generic names, the true effects were different for each individual. So even if he wanted to guess, he wouldn¡¯t be able to. Sure, they would probably somehow help him out with Craftsmanship, but beyond that, there was no way that he could really guess what was going to happen. And also... He wanted to take a look at this room a little more. It had changed quite a bit, after all. While Eisen went through his transformation, his ¡¯Demon¡¯s Domain¡¯ spread out around him and changed this room. The barrier created by the former Eisen would negate this Domain and get rid of it, so there was no need for him to worry about that. But... This already gave Eisen some sort of hint at what his other abilities would be like. The ground and walls were covered in a thickyer of rock with cracks of glowing golden mes flowing throughout it. It looked like the Demonic Eisen¡¯s skin, really. Eisen didn¡¯t know what sort of effects this Domain Gathered right now, since this ce was too ¡¯corrupt¡¯ to disy those, but they should be rather powerful ones at least. The old man took a deep breath and activated his new Demonic Transformation. His skin slowly changed color and started to look gray like rock, as golden lines that were almost like tattoos formed on his skin in intricate patterns that nearly seemed like carvings. Eisen¡¯s skin in this form was no longer true rock, but it was resilient like it used to be. And the golden lines were what the cracks in his skin used to be. As they fully formed, they even started to slightly glow, and ever so slightly flowed around Eisen¡¯s skin as if they were alive, or just some paint floating on the surface of still water. Eisen felt the horns atop his head that really seemed to be made of solid gold, even if they didn¡¯t weigh nearly as much. The old man¡¯s hair as well was made of metal strands, with glowing gold flowing between them. "Seems like this transformation truly did change quite a bit." The old man said with a smile on his face. He quickly tried out some of the different fullbody-enchantments that he created for himself in the past to see if they would still work. Luckily, instead of carving into his skin and causing him to bleed, since his skin didn¡¯t grow any thicker anymore, the golden lines across his body shifted and simply formed the enchantments. Eisen looked over his shoulder. Surprisingly, he didn¡¯t have any wings in this form. However, the moment he thought of that fact, it was like certain things that shouldn¡¯t be there were pulled out of the air itself and gathered on the old man¡¯s back, forming the wings that he was supposed to have in the first ce. And in a simr way, as if they fell to dust, Eisen was able to get rid of his wings as well. Simr to that, when he tried to create his ws or his fangs, it was as if that which they were created out of were pulled out of thin air and became part of the old man¡¯s body. Eisen slowly looked down at his body, happy that everything seemed to have turned out quite well. It would be easier to walk around in this form if he was able to control even his wings this easily. He had two out of four of his ¡¯True Demon¡¯ abilities figured out. The next one was \u003cTrue Demon¡¯s Will\u003e. Eisen could already guess what this was about, though. It was most likely just the power that Eisen had to influence other people. It didn¡¯t seem like he would be able to test this out here yet, but he tried at least. As Eisen activated this ability, he could quickly feel a difference in the air itself. As if it started to shift around him. He took a step forward, and the rough ground changed to be t. It was as if the world around him was changing to allow him to do what he wanted to do at the moment. This should be pretty interesting to try out, although there really wasn¡¯t much left to try it out on. So now atst came the ability that was truly the most ¡¯New¡¯ ability that Eisen gained, even if it seemed slightly simr to another one of his abilities. Eisen held his hand forward and activated his \u003cTrue Demon¡¯s Spawn\u003e ability. Right in front of him, the ground started to convulse as if it was alive. It was pushed up and grew like a balloon filling with water. Until that growing mass split off from the ground and turned into a perfect sphere. Soon, parts of the sphere crumbled away and a small figure stood there. Barely a meter tall, with thick legs that ended in circles instead of proper feet, and simrly tube-shaped arms that ended in four thick ¡¯fingers¡¯ that could barely be called a such. It didn¡¯t seem to have a neck and the top of its head was perfectly t with the exception of the two small spike-like horns sprouting at its front edge. The whole body of this Summoned Creature looked as if it was made of Eisen¡¯s element. With ck, beady eyes, the creature looked up at Eisen curiously. "So this is my ¡¯Demon¡¯s Spawn¡¯, huh?" The old man muttered quietly as he squatted down and pressed his hand onto his head. If this one was really supposed to help with Craftsmanship... Eisen still had to see how that was going to happen at all. With a smile on his face, Eisen looked at the short figure in front of him and tried to think about how to best use this. But since he could hardly figure out what it could do here, Eisen instead just tried to summon as many of them as he could. For now, it seemed like a Dozen seemed to be his limit, although that was still fairly many. Depending on what they were able to do individually, they would certainly be quite powerful. And on top of that, each of the ¡¯Spawns¡¯ seemed to have their own sort of personality. They were either cowardly, brave, mean, pranksters, huggers, and probably anything else that came to mind was possible. As if they were truly alive. For now, however, Eisen just unsummoned them. Within the ability¡¯s description, Eisen could see a list of each individual ¡¯Spawn¡¯. They all had their own levels, although they were still at 1 right now. This was basically like having a dozen Tamed Monsters, huh? "Really, quite interesting." Eisen muttered quietly, as he slowly walked through the room. The old man scraped away the thickyer of rock that covered the barrier and ced his hand onto the magical shield. It noticed that Eisen returned to normal now and quickly turned off, making all of the rock crumble away in the process, leaving Eisen standing in apletely empty room, as if someone was yet to move into here. The next instant, two Guardians stood behind Eisen. He turned around and looked at them with a smile. "Could you get me my Armor and Suit again?" The old man asked, still in his new Demonic form, as Serio quickly bowed forward and nodded, "Of course, your Majesty." Serio¡¯s body disappeared in a blue mist and then reappeared just before that mist dissipated, with two Golem Mannequins next to him that were each wearing either Eisen¡¯s suit or the Armor. "They were both cleaned and properly taken care of for this, your Majesty." Gind exined, so Eisen slowly nodded his head. He put his suit onto his currently unclothed body. In some ces, faint light was shining through his shirt, but it could barely be seen when Eisen wore the full suit. And especially when he merged it with his Armor, it was nearly invisible. At least for a moment, before Eisen did something else as well. He merged his \u003cTrue Demon¡¯s Transformation\u003e with the suit, making the intricate patterns lightly glow and his whole form took on a weirdly more dignified shape, even if it physically didn¡¯t change much. Slowly, Eisen walked toward the door and left, ready to show the others what had changed. Chapter 721 Resurrection

Chapter 721 Resurrection

Eisen stepped out of the door to his bedchambers, and immediately saw Kiron standing in front of him, "Wee back, Grandfather. It seems like everything worked out quite well." The Half-Dragon said with a soft smile on his face, and Eisen quickly nodded his head in response. "Seems so. Thanks for watching out for me this past day." Eisen said with a smile, "So, do you like my new look?" Kiron slowly looked Eisen up and down, trying to see the difference in Eisen¡¯s demonic formpared to what it was before. They were rather big differences, so he didn¡¯t have to look for too long, "Well, you certainly look less like a ¡¯Monster¡¯ than you used to, now that your skin is no longer made of rock and mes. You look more like... Well, the ¡¯Demon¡¯ Race, actually." "Of course. The Demon race are descendants from the first ¡¯True Demons¡¯." The old man pointed out, before Kiron raised his brows surprised, "Wait, is that... Is that true..? That is notmon knowledge, is it?" "It¡¯s not. I only just remembered it myself during my sleep. Of course, seeing my form, it makes quite a bit of sense, doesn¡¯t it?" Eisen smiled lightly, "Either way, it changes rather little. It only exins the main reason behind that race¡¯s name, which I was pretty curious about for a while." "Oh, and before I forget..." Kiron said, "It seems like a few envoys came on thetest ship Komer sent over. He prepared a special ship to make sure they¡¯re protected, and so that they would arrive at the same time. Right now, they¡¯re in the courtyard enjoying the weather a bit. They are all from different countries on the Central Continent." The Dragon-Knight exined, and Eisen looked over at him as the two started slowly walking, "Hm. Seems like they were trying to cause a bit of trouble if you¡¯re the one to tell me this." Kiron let out a deep sigh, "Seems like I can¡¯t hide such things from you, Grandfather. Indeed, one of them, the envoy from arge Empire, demanded to see you right away and was angry at being kept waiting like this. He tried to storm into your room, but I was able to convince him to head back to the room we prepared for him." "Haha, I hope that your way of ¡¯convincing¡¯ him didn¡¯t identally sprout a war." "Do not worry, Grandfather. I did not harm a single hair on his body." Kiron said with a slight smile on his face, while Eisen ced his palm onto Kiron¡¯s head, "Well, good joby protecting me though. I don¡¯t know what I would do without you." In the next breath, Eisen turned his head to the side, prompting Serio to appear there in a blue mist, "Inform the envoys that I will receive them in the throne room. All of them together." "As you wish." Serio slightly bowed forward and disappeared again, "It should take them a while to get ready. For now, let¡¯s meet the others as well. I would like to see if a certain friend of mine is back safe and sound.??? The old man and his strongest Knight made their way through the castle, before they reached the area that was reserved for everyone to do whatever they wanted. The personal rooms of the Originals. And of course, since they didn¡¯t need sleep, instead of being bedchambers they were just filled to the brim with whatever they wanted to y around with. For example, Brody¡¯s room was just arge training hall with a bunch of fighting-dummies within it. But the ce that Eisen was looking for was Jyuuk¡¯s room. And there, he could already hear the voice of his friend from beyond the room. For now, Eisen slowly deactivated his Demonic transformation and stepped through the door. "I already told you, you fucking monkey, get your hands off me or I¡¯ll rip them off!" Satel yelled out loudly as Jyuuk was seemingly trying to examine their body, and the woman standing next to them was rather unhappy with that sort of tone being used. "And I already told you that you shouldn??t dare speak to my husband that way, or hell will seem like heaven to you!" Xenia yelled out. In response, Eisenughed loudly, "Husband, I see? When did you two marry?" Quickly, the three people in this room turned their heads toward Eisen, and Xenia¡¯s face turned a bright red as she was unsure what to say exactly. Jyuuk justughed and smiled back at Eisen, happily greeting him, "The memories of our life as Husband and Wife were some of the first we remembered. After that, it¡¯s kind of hard not to refer to her like that." "Hm... Do you two have a wedding nned? I know it might seem weird if you already know that you¡¯re married in your minds, but you can just see it as renewing your vows. Before my wife, on earth, was taken in by that disease, we renewed our vows as well." Jyuuk raised his brows and looked at Xenia, "That sounds like a nice idea, doesn¡¯t it? What do you think?" "It does sound pretty nice, yeah." The High-Elf smiled lightly, her cheeks still a bright red, while Satel sat on the table behind them with a sickened expression, "Disgusting..." "What, you think that true love like that is disgusting?" Eisenughed at the Devil, while they just shook their head, "The concept of marriage and monogamy is disgusting to me. Come on, you must agree to me with that!" "Actually, I have my eyes set on a single special woman as well. And I don¡¯t n on repeating my actions from down there as long as that is the case." The old man smiled, his fingers slowly moving through his beard, while Satel nearly threw up in response to that statement. "Either way, it seems like the resurrection worked pretty well if you¡¯re as energetic as that." "Hah, ¡¯Resurrection¡¯, my ass! That¡¯s a Holy Miracle, that¡¯d have only killed me more." Satel pointed out, "It¡¯s just through my own awesomeness that I was able toe back to life. Not this bastard¡¯s. So tell him to get his hands off me already." With a soft smile on his lips, Eisen approached Satel slowly and carefully, before standing in front of the table they were sitting on, "Satel. Be careful with your words. You may call him a ¡¯Bastard¡¯, but he is the man with the greatest control over life and death in the extistence of this world. You think that he would be bound by Holy Miracles to do his work?" Satel felt a shiver run down their spine inbetween their wings at the cold voice of the man in front of him. The aura he was giving off changed so much in the little time that Satel had been dead, "You know you don¡¯t scare me, right?" The Devil said with a wry smile on their face. "Of course, why would you need to be scared? You¡¯re nning on behaving within this new life that you¡¯ve been gifted, right? This ce is not the Underworld. If you treat it like your yground like you did that realm, I¡¯ll make sure that Xenia¡¯s threat toward you just now bes reality." A golden light shed across Eisen¡¯s eyes as he very clearly and honestly threatened Satel to make sure that they wouldn¡¯t end up messing around like they used to. Of course, Eisen nned on treating them like a friend, but that didn¡¯t mean that he didn¡¯t need to be careful about them and their actions here. In the mortal realm, things worked different to how they worked in the Underworld, and it might take Satel some time to get used to such things. "Alright, fine." Satel sighed deeply, "You have a way to ruin fun, you know?" The devil sighed deeply before turning their head toward Jyuuk. While twisting their face into a grimace, they epted that Jyuuk really was the one that brought them back to life, so they had to be somewhat thankful. And as Jyuuk finally starting examining Satel¡¯s body, Xenia pulled Eisen to the side of the room. "Alright... So, why exactly did you want them to be resurrected? They don¡¯t seem particrly helpful in any way." Xenia pointed out, and Eisen smiled lightly, "It might seem like that for now, but that¡¯s actually not entirely correct. Sure, I didn¡¯t have many reasons, but there is one thing that I know for sure that they¡¯ll be able to help out with." "And what would that be?" "Annoying the shit out of gods, of course." Eisen said bluntly, before Xenia looked back at him with a wry smile, "Excuse me..?" "It¡¯s simply. For one, Satel is going to help you trying to figure out those ancientnguages a bit. And also, the fact that they¡¯re here alone is probably annoying a certain few gods in the first ce. The ones on our side must beughing their asses off right around now, but those on Samuel¡¯s side... Well, I wanted to teach them a bit of a lesson. Let¡¯s say it like that. Satel is also a bit of a lure for someone that I genuinely despise. And I¡¯ve simply gotten close to Satel, as well. I felt bad for killing them, so I gave them a second chance." "...Alright, exin your n to uster, and this time don¡¯t just disappear for a full day after telling us such important things." Xenia grumbled, as Eisen nodded his head, "Of course not. Don¡¯t worry. Ah, but also, I would like you guys toe join me in the Throne room. Are Evalia and Brody around? They¡¯re both online." "They should be somewhere around here, just message them. They¡¯lle over real quick." Xenia said, "Now, I¡¯m going to make sure that this Devil doesn¡¯t mess around with Jyuuk that much. We¡¯ll be in the Throne Room in a bit. I assume it¡¯s about the envoys?" "That¡¯s exactly it." "Yeah, I wanted to be there while you spoke to them as well. I kind of like the faces of people like that when you show them your ¡¯King¡¯ side." Eisenughed quietly, "Wow, and I thought I discovered a sadistic side of myself down in hell. Guess I wasn¡¯t the only one that enjoys such moments." With that, Eisen chose to make his way out of Jyuuk¡¯s room, before turning his head toward Kiron, "Are the other Knights ready as well? I¡¯d like them to be there too." "They should be ready, yes. They¡¯re just training outside, don¡¯t worry." "Alright. Then let¡¯s meet the others and get this meeting with the envoys over with." Chapter 722 Envoys

Chapter 722 Envoys

"Hah, how should I believe that this man is actually the true legendary Eisen? That whole deal about their experience being stolen is impossible. It must be an impostor." A certain man eximed as he sat in the courtyard of the castle, "Sure, he might be a King now, but he has nothing on my Lord, the Emperor." It was one of the envoys that came to visit prototype for different reasons. Of course, the main, and official, reason was just to greet this new powerhouse that has established itself in a matter of weeks outside the view of these powerful countries. They wanted to establish friendly rtions. But there was another reason why most of these envoys came here. It was to verify whether or not the people leading this country really were the five that peaked, the most powerful people in this world. Sure, there were rumors of such a thing going around, but every capable ruler knew how to manipte public opinion and create rumors, no matter how ridiculous they may be. Using a few jesters with high charisma to walk around a town and spread such things, it was easy to turn a beggar into a hero. Of course, nearly none of the people here, with the exception of a certain young man, thought that Eisen was truly the first man that peaked in this world. They all held the opinion of the envoy from the Holy Empire, Archpriest Gaja van Horgh. Even though the envoys were nearly all of different races, whether it be elves, dwarves, demons, beastpeople... There were at least two envoys for each major race here, and one envoy for the minor races like goliaths, changelings, and such. Of course, this was just coincidence due to the way that the countries in this central continent were set up, but this was how it turned out. They all brought knights with them as guards as well, so that was probably why it took Komer a while to organize a ship to bring them here all at once. "But nheless... The fact that they were able to take control of this holynd... Is rather preposterous, is it not?" Van Horgh pointed out, "You remember that idea I proposed on the ship, do you not? Have you thought about it already?" The different envoys looked around the table that has been set up here for a moment, trying to see what the others were going to choose. Until a woman from the Demon country shrugged, "Sounds fun to me. Let¡¯s teach those brats what it¡¯s like to enter this realm of rulership." The moment that she said these words, most of the other envoys quickly agreed as well. Although there were still some that disagreed, obviously, either because they were nervous or because they thought this idea to be unnecessary and reckless. It was rather clear that it might cause a war, after all. However, none of them thought about speaking up about this fact. They were not directly involved after all. But there was one of them, that single human man, that voiced his opposing opinion. "What fools you all are." The manughed as he shook his head, "You truly know nothing, but think you can rule the world. If anything is ¡¯preposterous¡¯ here, then it is the fact that you think you can sit at the same table as the adults." The other envoys turned their heads toward him with ring expressions. This young man had been rather rude to the others for the whole duration of the trip, never trying to exchange words for good rtions and acting like he was above the other envoys. "You little... What does a brat like you know? Be careful with your words, I have a direct connection to the Holy Archpope, so don¡¯t you dare-" "Excuse me for interrupting your conversation." Serio appeared behind Van Horgh and interrupted him, "His Majesty is ready for your audience now." Van Horgh quickly turned around and looked at the butler that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, before slowly straightening his cor, "I see... Well, at least he knows who to prioritize for the audience well enough. I will be back soon, so have fun while I¡¯m gone." The Archpriest said, but Serio slowly held his hand in front of his own mouth. "Oh, I apologize, but there seems to be a misunderstanding... You will all receive an audience together, not separate ones." Serio exined quickly, before Van Horgh¡¯s eyes opened wide, "How ridiculous! Who does that man think he is?!" "He¡¯s the King of this country you are in, you fool. You are the one that should be careful with his words. This country is young, but it holds more power than your self-proimed ¡¯Empire¡¯ could ever wish to." The young human man from before said, the one that spoke out his opposing opinion directly to Van Horgh. And just as the Archpriest was about toin once more, Serio slightly bowed forward, "It seems like we have not had a chance to speak properly. I have been told by his Majesty to treat you especially well, your Highness. After all, you are already an important business partner to us, Crown Prince of Litgern, Aaron James Lightheart." In response to Serio¡¯s words, the envoys stared at this young man, that had a clearly much higher social position than they had all expected. Especially the fact that he had already established contact with the King of this country was a shock to them. Especially Van Horgh felt himself nearly choking as he heard that name and title. Prince Aaronughed quietly and looked back at Serio, "Oho, you are quite well informed, aren¡¯t you? I thought I did a rather good job at hiding myself... I even gave my personal Guards new armor." "Of course, but there is one detail you may not be aware of." Serio exined, before slowly unbuttoning his jacket and the shirt underneath, revealing the one part on his body that wasn¡¯t covered in parts that made him look like he was a person. It was something of a ¡¯viewing window¡¯ where the outer tes have been made translucent, ording to Serio¡¯s own wish. It was an aesthetic choice. And through that viewing window, they could see Serio¡¯s crystal heart pumping magical liquids through the ss pipes within him. "You may have thought I was a simple man, but I am a personal creation of his Majesty, Eisen de Grandour. I am the Guardian of this Town. Nobody can even crush a bug underneath their feet without my knowledge of this action." The envoys jumped from their seats and looked at Serio in confusion and shock. Was this man truly such a legendary creation, the ¡¯Core Guardian¡¯? "H-How did that man get his hands on a Core Guardian...?" "How, you ask, sir Van Horgh? It is simple... His Majesty was the one that originally created us of course. And he is the only one that currently knows how to do so anymore. Don¡¯t believe that I am the only Guardian in this town. If you are surprised by a single one... Then I¡¯m afraid we will need to call a doctor when you find the true numbers out." The Town Core Guardian exined with a smile, before he buttoned his shirt and jacket back up. "Now, let us not dy this any longer. Let us meet his Majesty." Serio suggested quickly, and then turned around and stepped forward toward the Courtyard¡¯s exit immediately. Nervous through these unexpected revtions of just the past minute, the envoys made their way through the castle. It didn¡¯t take them long until they reached therge door leading to the Throne Room. "His Majesty is in here." Serio exined, before disappearing in a blue mist. A momentter, therge double-door opened up and Serio stood on the other side of it, slowly pulling it open. Silently, Serio waited for the envoys to step into the hall together with their closest guards. For a while, they were unable to focus on what was in front of them, even though they clearly wanted to. As if their eyes were instinctively avoiding that which was on the other side of the room. And the moment that the door closed shut, they only felt one thing. One primal emotion that even their regressed instincts could not deny. Fear. In that instant, the eyes of everyone in the room were focused on the being they saw on the other side of the room. That giant figure, a couple dozen meters tall, in a ck suit with golden embroidered parts. Horns sticking out from underneath the hat on its head, and golden lines flowing up to its eyes that seemed to be able to pierce the very soul of each and every single person here. Of course, there was a reason for this. Eisen now had many ways to influence people in such manners. Of course, he had his royal authority as a King, a passive ability that allowed others to feel Eisen¡¯s dignity. Then, there were his abilities as a True Demon that allowed him to both inspire and frighten others. Combined, it could basically short-circuit the mind of the other person, and ifbined with another mental ability, would be able to strengthen it considerably. And atst, there was of course Evalia¡¯s influence. The paintings in this room were all created by her, and the music that was faintly being yed in the background as well. All specifically to make it so that the pressure that Eisen was giving off was pushed to levels that normal people would be unable to handle properly. But at the same time, since their goal wasn¡¯t to frighten them, but only to make them understand the clear difference in their power, Eisen tried to loosen the atmosphere up a bit again, "No need to be scared, my friends. I don¡¯t bite. At least not if I¡¯m not asked to." The old manughed quietly, trying to joke a bit. And in a single instant, the air around Eisen changed. Away from the shocking image that he had before, to one that was nearly radiating. The music seemed more chipper, and the paintings more bright, while Eisen stretched his arms out wide to the side in an inviting manner. Immediately, the nervosity within the envoys¡¯ bodies was lifted and they started to approach Eisen more willfully. Of course, they still made sure to keep a respectful distance, as would be expected during an audience with a King. It seemed like whatever n these people had was no longer a possibility in their minds. But of course, there is always an exception to that rule. Especially people with priest-type upations had high mental resistance, so that they were able to resist any sort of control from opposing forces that did not align with the deity they believed in. So while he certainly was notpletely unaffected, Van Horgh looked up at Eisen with a bright smile and a scheme about to enter from behind his shining white teeth. Chapter 723 - Insolence

Chapter 723 - Insolence

"It is an honor to meet you, your Majesty. I am sure that everyone else here feels the-" Van Horgh, the Archpriest from the Holy Empire started, although he was quickly interrupted by Eisen¡¯s deep, prating re. "Did I allow you to speak?" The old man asked, his voice reverberating throughout the room. And with that question, the vibe that Eisen gave off changed instantly as well. Instead of tuning his demonic abilities to the Yang side of things, he had switched to the Yin side of things to instill fear into the Priest¡¯s mind and body. That Priest lightly jumped in response, and then slowly shook his head, "O-Of course not, but I thought-" "You thought what? That you could treat me however you wish? Well, you are wrong. Step behind the others, I will hear you outst." Eisen flicked his wrist and told Van Horgh to get back, before the old man¡¯s eyes stopped on a certain prince. "Ah, Aaron. I¡¯m d to see you here. How are things going in Litgern?" With a soft smile on his face, tuning his abilities back to the Yang side. With a soft, albeit nervous, expression, Aaron stopped kneeling and walked to the front of the group to speak to Eisen, "Your Majesty, thank you for remembering me. Things are going quite well, we were able to spread ¡¯s influence quite far. Preparations for more shops within the country¡¯s most influential cities are underway." "Good, good. Komer informed me of the same thing. Please, let us meet after this audience to speak about these manners, though. I am happy that you seem to be doing well." Eisen said with a broad smile on his face. Of course, thest time that these two met, Eisen was a lot more... strict and fearful than he was now. And the reason for that was quite simple. Right now, he wanted to show the envoys the duality of his being. He could be frightening and a true nightmare to deal with when you disrespected him, but if you were to help him and get on his good side, he would be rather kind and weing. Clearly, this would make it so that all the envoys that thought about helping out Van Horgh in his ploy would forget all about it, instead trying to do all they could to make Eisen and Asgard their ally. And from then on, Eisen one by one received the official greetings from the envoys. And there was one of them among them that wasn¡¯t an envoy from the countries of the central continent. Rather, it was a young woman from a whole other ce. Instead of just greeting Eisen, she wanted to give him something. A scroll, simply put. Gind grabbed it for Eisen and slowly handed it to him. The old man looked at the writing and raised his brows surprised. "How wonderful... This is the first time I meet another of my kind! Well, another of that side of the family, to be more specific. This invitation is a rather pleasant surprise. And please, if you will... Take on your true form. I¡¯m sure it is much morefortable that way." Eisen said in a clear tone. Of course, he was already aware of who this woman was. From the moment she first spoke to Komer, even, since the old man had given Komer an item to see the true form of things to make sure he wasn¡¯t being scammed or tricked somehow. And in that instant, Komer had noted down and told Eisen that a female Giant was on her way. But Eisen didn¡¯t want to reveal that just yet. The woman slowly nodded her head, "As you wish, your Majesty." She exined in a clear voice, before increasing her size. Of course, she was able to take on her full height, which was actually a few meters taller than Eisen, although she seemed to be proportionally on the shorter side. However, Eisen was quite impressed. Her clothes and items all grew along in size perfectly. There was no sort of distortion. As he had expected from the items a woman of the Fire n carried with her. The Giants of the Fire n were the greatest craftsmen of the whole race, after all. "Please, this is the same as I told Aaron. Let us speak of this in privateter." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and the woman nodded her head in response, "As you wish." She had a rather emotionless demeanor, but Eisen figured that wasn¡¯t anything too out of the extraordinary. She was a diplomat, of course they would try and choose people that didn¡¯t get too emotional for such roles. And now, there was only one person left. And that was Van Horgh, who seemed to be rather upset at what he just saw. The fact that a mere ¡¯Monster¡¯ was allowed to speak to Eisen before he was was just preposterous. Before he was actually asked to walk up to the front, Van Horgh went and did so on his own. "Now, I assume that it is my turn, your Majesty." The Priest said with a soft smile, prepared to enact his n despite the fact that all of the envoys pulled out of it in thest second. He was prepared for something like this from the beginning. But Eisen was clearly unamused. He let out a deep sigh, and looked at the Priest. It was his turn, and it would just be a bother to make him wait longer, so Eisen figured he should just let it be for now, although Van Horgh was clearly disrespecting him again. Instead, he wanted to show that he was the one leading this conversation in another way. Just as Van Horgh opened his mouth to speak, Eisen did so instead. "Let me ask you, which deity do you follow?" The old man asked curiously, and Van Horgh raised his brows a bit surprised, "A-Ah, of course. I was raised in a production-focused town, and my family has been made up of believers of the God Silmos, as you surely are as well." Eisen shrugged lightly, "Not really." He said bluntly, "But it is good to know that they sent someone they at least thought to be fitting." Van Horgh seemed rather surprised by this fact. He thought that Eisen would be a believer of Silmos for sure, but that didn¡¯t seem to be true, "If I may ask, your Majesty, but if you are not a believer of Silmos, who do you pray to?" "Why should I pray to anyone?" Eisen asked bluntly, "Is that a universalw that I haven¡¯t heard of yet? I would prefer not treating my friends to be above me, you see?" Of course, Eisen chose these words to be provoking deliberately. He knew of Van Horgh¡¯s n, and he wanted to make him slip up and reveal this n to get an upper hand in any contracts between the countries that mighte to be. He was told that the Holy Empire usually attempted to exert extreme pressure onto other countries in such cases, where they would try to make the other parties feel forced to give the Empire more than they deserved or even needed. They did so by saying they acted in the ¡¯Will of the Gods¡¯. This was why the Empire was one of the richest countries in the world, and there were barely any countries trying to take advantage of them or even dare attack them, so that they wouldn¡¯t incur the wrath of the gods. But Eisen wasn¡¯t scared of something like that. "...I dearly apologize if this is rude to your Majesty, but I do not think speaking of the gods in such a manner is quite so bing of a person in your position. No matter who you may be, the gods will not be taken lightly." The Archpriest exined, and Eisen smirked lightly, "Is that so? Then, if you will... Please ask your god for his opinion on this matter." Van Horgh stared back at Eisen, "I apologize, but I do not n on abusing my deep connection with the Holy Lord Silmos for such petty manners." "Fair enough. But if that¡¯s the case, I will not allow you to speak out about my friendship toward him either." Eisen said bluntly, before Van Horgh continued grinding his teeth angrily, "You see, your Majesty, there is a particr thing that I wanted to speak to you about today. Is it not true that these inds have an incredibly deep connection to the Gods? We from the Holy Empire would be more than d to help you manage these inds in the correct manner. If you are not careful, you may incur the wrath of the gods and bring misfortune upon yourself." Van Horgh exined with a broad smile on his face, with a loud voice that reverberated throughout the room. He wanted to let all the other people here in this room know that he would proceed with his n nheless. This priest wanted the others to help him try and convince Eisen, saying that this was a good idea. And then, the priest wanted to slowly take over the inds bit by bit, and would have given each of the countries one of the inds to gather favor with them. "Interesting. And how would you help us manage these towns? We are all quite knowledgeable about the gods, you see?" "More knowledgeable than a country built on the basis of praying to these gods? Are you quite sure about that, your Majesty?" The priest asked, "The gods¡¯ wrath is quite frightening. Frightening beyond belief, your Majesty. You should be quite care-" "For someone so worried about the wrath of a higher being, you are speaking quite insolently to the one right in front of you." Eisen interrupted the Priest once more, "Even though it was not the kindest way of doing so, I ept your greetings nheless. Now, turn around and join the others again. I have a few words to say to you all." Van Horgh looked up at Eisen with his eyes wide open, full of anger that he was trying his best to hide as well as possible, "B-But, your Majesty-" "This is myst warning. Even my children were better at listening than you are when they were barely able to walk. Silence." The old man growled, the power of his Yin side making the Priest¡¯s whole body shake in fear and anger. Slowly, he turned around and joined the group of envoys again, before Eisen slowly stood up from his throne and stepped in front of them, towering above all of them except the single female Giant. He would try to convince them that he was truly Eisen now. Chapter 724 Isabella the Giant

Chapter 724 - Isabe the Gian

"I assume you want proof that I truly am who I say I am." Eisen spoke in a dominating tone. None of the envoys said anything in response, although that was probably enough of an answer in itself. They felt too scared to admit they didn''t believe Eisen, although that was clearly the case for most people here. "Now, how do I prove that I am the existence I say I am?" Eisen asked into the room as he slowly moved his fingers through his beard in thought. He paced around the hall a bit, until finally Serio slowly nodded at Eisen. "Ah, I know! How about I show you two beings of Divine Nature that will be able to verify this fact? Will you believe me then?" Eisen asked bluntly. All of a sudden, the envoys became nervous and confused at what this meant. At the same time, the door to the throne room opened up as two figures walked into the room. One of them was Eisen''s direct guest, and one of them was a being that made him terribly angry just looking at them like this. "If I may wee, the Devil Satel, and the Angel Ambriel. Now, you two, could you verify the fact that I am indeed Eisen, the first person in this world that reached the peak?" He asked. The envoys immediately jumped up and stepped to the side. Of course, their eyes were partially focused on Van Horgh. As an Archpriest, he must be able to figure out if they were truly divine beings or not with just a quick nce. 2 And Van Horgh was still there, bowing forward with his forehead pressed onto the floor. Clearly, they were truly the beings that Eisen said they were. "Of course you are that Person. ''The first that peaked''. Hah, that must have given you quite some confidence to think you can-" Ambriel started, and Satel quickly interrupted them by punching their stomach with his elbow, "Yup, he really is Eisen. So all of you that are doubting him better shut the fuck up, or you cane right back to hell with me!" "What are you speaking of, you have been bani-" "Haha, Ambriel, always the jokester!" Satel eximed with a deep re directed at the Angel. A bit startled and confused, Ambriel looked back at Satel and whispered, "I thought you wanted my help in killing that man for good. That you had a way to make sure he could not revive..." "Eeh~? And you believed the words of a Devil so easily? What a dumbass~!" Satel eximed. Angry at being tricked like this, Ambriel looked at Eisen, ready to attack him on their own. But the moment that they locked eyes with each other, Ambriel''s body froze up. This was the first time that the Angel saw the old man in this form. And the first time that Eisen tried to actively suppress Ambriel like this as well. "Now..." Eisen stepped in front of the envoys with a bright smile on his face, a smile that soon faded as if it had been nothing but a lie in the first ce. Instead, Eisen was putting direct pressure onto the envoys, "I hope you do not doubt my existence any longer. I am who I am. I did not owe you any sort of proof of this fact. However, I gave it to you; proof that you will have to ept, whether you want to or not. And now I ask of all of you that I see in front of me... for good rtions between our countries." The envoys looked up at Eisen and became filled with subtle fear, the kind that you felt right before you were about to do something you knew you shouldn''t do. "Now, I am sorry that I did not have much time today. We prepared some refreshments and snacks for you outside. Please go ahead and enjoy the weather a bit. There is just one person that I would like to stay behind for now." Eisen exined, slowly turning his head to the side to look at the Giant that was standing next to him, slowly nodding her head. Eisen then locked eyes with Aaron for a moment and nodded, to tell him that he would call for himter, and then he had nearly all of the envoys leave the room. The old man took a deep breath and started to rx as he turned around and made his way back to his throne. "Please, rx. There''s no need for you to be so formal. I understand that you''re the Daughter of the current Grandour?" The old man said, looking at the female Giant. With a quick nod, she looked back at Eisen, "Indeed, your Highness." She replied, although she clearly didn''t let go of her formal mannerisms. That was her choice, so Eisen really didn''t care too much. "Can you exin the things mentioned in the letter in a bit more detail? It seems like there are quite hostile undertones within there." Eisen pointed out. The female Giant slowly nodded her head, "It is as you say. I am sure you heard about it, but the rtions between the country of Giants and most countries controlling the central continent have be rather unstable in recent years. Therefore, the n Leaders concluded that you seem to be on the side of the central continent, and as such wanted to be careful in the way they approached you." "Then I guess this is a good chance to make this clear. We are certianly not allied with any country in the central continent. We have good rtions with some countries, but that doesn''t imply that we will support them in any conflict. In general, this country will stay strictly neutral in any war. If we are attacked, we will retaliate. If we are given a proper reason to, we will attack. We will never gather any allies, no matter what anyone wishes of us." Eisen exined bluntly. The female Giant closed her eyes and let out a quiet breath. "Your Majesty, do you realize that there are quite many countries that will see any act that doesn''t directly help them as an act of aggression? In war, our country has often shown itself as such." Eisen red back at the female Giant and slowly rubbed the bridge of his nose, "I will pretend that I didn''t hear that tant threat right now and remind you of who we are, and where we are. We are the first five that peaked, and our country is ced on a group of inds that nobody else has ever managed to even approach. What makes you think that we would be scared of the mere threat of war?" Eisen''s words made the others in the room a bit surprised. He was saying things that they didn''t expect him to. In particr, Brody was a bit worried, "Yo, I get that you''re confident and all, but that doesn''t mean that you should try and say provocative shit like that." The old man turned his head toward Brody and lightly smiled, "Don''t worry. I''m not being provocative. We giants are a race that love conflict. We aren''t scared of things such as ''War''. Rather, the stronger the opponent, the more excited we get. Look at her, will you?" Eisen smiled lightly, and Brody turned his head toward the female Giant. To his surprise, she actually had a slight smile on her face. But not only that, her fingernails were buried inside of her arm, and she seemed to be ready to jump up at any moment. Some would see this as anger, but in this context, Brody could onlye to one conclusion... "Is she... excited?" Brody asked with a wry smile, and Eisen couldn''t help but smirk, "Isabe, was it? Drop the act and tell us what you really think." "I think..." She replied instantly, "That this is a rather thrilling opportunity. What do you say about a short fight? One on one, just-" "I refuse, obviously." Eisen sighed lightly, "But don''t take this as disrespect, please. There is just no good oue for our side. If we were to win, your country could twist this as us attacking an envoy that was sent for peace. Meanwhile, if you were to win, it would damage the image that I just attempted to establish for the past few hours. However, I have another suggestion. Return to your father, and tell him that I wille for a visit soon. One week from now, in fact. Prepare for any sort of official duel, and announce it to the public in the form of a ''disy of good rtions''. In that case, I will ept." Isabe, the female Giant, looked back at Eisen. She seemed satisfied, "I understand. I will tell my father of this. If you do not mind, I would like to be on my way as soon as possible, however. To have the time to prepare for this." "Of course. I will have one of our fastest vessels prepared for your trip." Eisen replied instantly, turning his head toward Serio, who quickly went on his way to do just that. And just like that, the first Giant that Eisen met in this world already left again. And so, Eisen was able to take care of another business as all the others finally were able to rx, now that the show was officially over. However, before anything else could happen, Eisen turned his head toward Ambriel who was currently being restrained using powerful magic that Xenia used on them to make sure they wouldn''t cause any trouble during the rest of the audience. Slowly, that Magic disappeared, and Ambriel was freed. The two beings that hated each other with their whole heart stared at each other for a moment. "You tricked me, didn''t you?" Ambriel asked with a deep re, "How dare you, you disgusting, lesser being?" "Ambriel. You''re no longer in heaven, and I no longer have any obligation to hold myself back from killing you. Honestly, I would rather like having the parts of an Angel to experiment with." "Then why don''t you try to kill me? There is no way that you-" Without a moment''s hesitation, Eisen moved his hand forward and summoned his Demonic Greatsword from his Soul Storage. At his current size, it was justrge enough so that the tip of the de barely scratched the Angel''s throat, "Don''t worry, I will kill you soon enough. However, before then, there are a few things that I will have you exin to me. I despise you, but I will not let up the chance to use you to the greatest extent possible." Chapter 725 He is changing

Chapter 725 He is changing

Eisen stared down at Ambriel. The angel that seemed to despise anyone that wasn''t of some sort of divine nature. And Eisen just finished exining a few things to them just now. "Those are all lies! Do not pull the name of the great deities through the mud!" They yelled out in anger that Eisen had never seen from them before. Slowly, Eisen shook his head and squatted down in front of them, "Neither are they lies, nor do they pull anyone through the mud. This is just what gods are like, understood?" "So?! Do you have any proof of that?!" Ambriel screeched, and Eisen slowly rubbed the bridge of his nose. Without hesitation, he moved his hand around the Angel''s throat, choking them with great strength. Of course, since they were an Angel, simpleck of oxygen wouldn''t kill them. It still wasn''t pleasant for them to have their windpipe crushed, though. "You truly are dumber than I thought you were, aren''t you?" Eisen growled, "There are plenty of lesser deities that are the product of gods having rtions with people of this mortal realm. And you are trying to tell me that this isn''t the case? The fact that you are denying the lineage of those beings in itself is sphemous, isn''t it?" Ambriel red back at Eisen while trying to dig their nails in Eisen''s arm to get him to let go of their throat, "Are you trying to tell me that my Grandson that you saw yourself not too long ago is not the child of Trygan? That that the suffering of those children that were doomed in their life through the reckless actions of their divine parents is nothing but a lie? Look me in the eyes, you foolish creature. Can you truly deny that which those great ''Gods'' of yours have done?" Ambriel''s grip on Eisen''s arm became tighter, but they still ended up doing nothing but ring back at him at the end. Not that there was much to do. "I''ll let you in on a little secret. Your ''Gods'' are nothing but-" "Eisen." A voice interrupted the old man''s voice. Slowly, he turned around and saw the source of that voice. It was Xenia. Even she flinched lightly as sheid eyes on Eisen''s anger-filled expression. His eyes not the golden light that usually led them, but rather a murky ck that seemed like it would pull her in and devour her any moment now. She managed to calm her mind down soon though, and stared back into the depths of the old man''s eyes, "Stop it. Calm yourself down a bit." Eisen red back at Xenia for a few moments and then slowly released the grip he had on Ambriel''s throat. The Angel fell to the ground and coughed relentlessly in pain as Eisen walked toward the door, past Xenia, "I''m sorry you had to see that. But this is a side of myself that I''ve learned of recently." Eisen muttered quietly as he left the room. Meanwhile, the High Elven Mage slowly made her way toward Ambriel and waved her fingers around masterfully. Within a few moments, aplex magic circle was created that wrapped itself around Ambriel''s throat and healed them instantly. "I''m sorry. He''s just going through a lot right about now." Xenia said with a light smile, attempting another approach with Ambriel. "...Si...lence..." The Angel muttered quietly, and Xenia slowly nodded, "Of course, I''ll make it so that it''s a bit more quiet around here then." "No... Silence... You disgusting Elf. You may be descendants of beings with a fraction of divinity within them, but your people''s rotten behavior made up for that quite well. Do not even dare think of using that wicked witchery on me any further. I already feel like ripping the skin off my throat thanks to the bit that you already used on it." Ambriel growled loudly. Beyond the doorframe, Eisen lightly chuckled, "I told you what they were like, but you didn''t want to listen to me." The old man pointed out, and Xenia slowly turned her head, "Well, you didn''t say that it was at this level... Just... What kind of things could have happened in their life to make them think of people like this." "Nothing." Eisen pointed out as he left, "That''s just the basis of the ''Divine Society'' that was created for the Angels." And with that, the old man really left the room. Or well, this ''cell'' in the underground prison, rather. Obviously, as this was a castle, this ce would also have something like this. The prison keeper was another special guardian as well. One that didn''t seem to speak too much, but one that had a rather... unique skillset. A skillset that would be perfect if Ambriel wasn''t a divine being with a body that was hard to injure or prate. Either way, for now, Ambriel was kept down here. Was that something immoral? Possibly. Did Eisen care? Not at all. All that Eisen cared about at the end of the day was draining Ambriel of any and all information that they might have, just to then kill them. Looking at it objectively, this might be a quite brutal choice. But once again, Eisen didn''t care. This was what had changed within him during the transformation into a True Demon. Of course it wasn''t the transformation itself that caused this, but all the memories that Eisen managed to recover. For some reason, he was capable of taking in so many more memories than normal during that time. So not only did Eisen pass the milestone of 50 memories... he reached a total of 65. It was an immense jump, especially considering the amount of memories that he had managed to remember so far. It should have be much harder, and in return the changes should be greater. So being able to skip ahead like this with ease caused a rather extreme change. Especially considering the fact that Eisen was able to recover a specific few memories. Memories of the things that he recovered within Hell. Clearly, that was a ce that would bring forth a more brutal, darker side of the old man''s personality. Maybe right now he was ovepensating due to this sudden, extreme change, or maybe this wasn''t even nearly close to what Eisen would end up being like. And although this was clearly what Eisen was worried about bing... Now that he was here, he didn''t mind it too much. But at the same time, he could still feel fear due to this fact. Fear that he would lose the man that he once was through this storm of memories surfacing. Of course it was naught but nonsense. Or was it? Eisen wasn''t sure anymore, whether or not his mind would continue shifting in directions tha he disliked. Either way, he couldn''t change anything about his current situation anymore. Instead, Eisen figured he should use it to the greatest extent he could. Like nearly torturing a being that he hated with his whole heart right now. Maybe he was focusing anger from other sources too much on Ambriel, but Eisen didn''t care at all. If his anger for those situations had a chance of disappearing with their life, then he would sacrifice Ambriel for that cause happily. Of course only after he made use of them to the highest extent possible, of course. For now, Eisen made his way through his castle and reached his ''study''. It was really just a room that was for show, a ce where Eisen could meet with people more privately. And there, Eisen saw him waiting. The crown prince of Litgern, Aaron James Lightheart. "Thanks foring here, and sorry that I''m a bitte." Eisen apologized with a soft smile on his face, his demeanor quickly changing from his anger-filled form to his calming and happy one. And seeing this, Aaron couldn''t help but calmly smile. After all, seeing Eisen in that Demonic form must have been quite a surprise, considering what the old man had acted like thest time that they met. Now, he already acted more like that man from back then. "Now, I guess there is some business that we need to speak about." Eisen said as he took a seat on one of the couches, and Aaron slowly turned around to his aide and called him over. The aide gave Eisen a few documents that the old man quickly opened up. "Gind." The old man said in a blunt tone while looking down at the Documents. The Country Core Guardian quickly appeared in a blue mist, "Yes, your Majesty?" "Could you please bring me the profit sheets that we were sent by Komer? And the sample boxes in the workshop in the garden? Ah also, Serio, could you prepare some tea?" Soon, the space behind Eisen''s back was filled with mist, and a few secondster, two figures stood there. A tower of boxes right next to Gind who was holding the documents in her hands, and a tray of tea already brewed beforehand in Serio''s hands. The butler quickly ced the teacups down on the table and poured some of the ck tea he prepared into it, while Gind handed Eisen the documents and started unpacking the sample boxes that Eisen prepared for Aaron. After all, Aaron was an important business partner that was helping Eisen and Komer out within Litgern, as well as the further spread of thepany through other countries soon. Eisen had to show some of the new products that would be sold to Aaron as well. Keeping himpletely blind of what was going on wasn''t a good idea for either side. Afterparing the documents that Aaron gave him with the ones that Komer gave him a while ago, Eisen received the first few items from Gind and demonstrated them to Aaron. He was immediately interested in all of them, of course. Considering that part of the reason why Aaron and Eisen were working together was that Aaron wanted war-funds, he also wanted to figure out of any of Eisen''s items could be used for war. "Oh, of course they could be used for that. With the right method, everything is possible. But I will not be selling you items specifically meant for war. The only items that I will ever make that you get ess to are the ones that will be sold at the store." Eisen said bluntly. With a disappointed sigh, Aaron nodded as the two men continued their business talk. For the most part, they didn''t talk about anything too interesting. It was just a good chance for Eisen and Aaron to speak, since Aaron came as an envoy anyway. Chapter 726 Stinging in the wound

Chapter 726 Stinging in the wound

Eisen took a deep breath and stared into the distance. He was tired. His eyes were so heavy that it felt like they were made of lead. "Is everything alright, your Majesty?" Gind inquired with a worried expression, looking at the old man. Eisen was just watching Caria, Melissa and Sal mess around in the Gardens a bit while sitting on a chair that he prepared for himself. It took him a while to even register that Gind spoke to him. "Hm?" The old man asked, but the moment that he did, he finally realized what the question he was just asked actually was, "Oh, right... Erm, yeah, everything is fine. I just don''t want to sleep yet." "...You have been awake for the past four days, your Majesty. I know that you could go full months without sleep in your prime, but you do not have the same capabilities as you did then. You have also been relentlessly working ever since you woke up from your transformative slumber." The core Guardian, and state secretary, pointed out. Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose and slowly nodded his head, "I know. And I''m aware that I need to sleep soon. My stats have already temporarily fallen by half their score, and they only keep dropping faster and faster. If I don''t sleep soon, I''ll just end up dying out of exhaustion anyway. I''ll sleep before that happens, so don''t worry about that." Gind lightly closed her eyes and looked into the distance, "Do you wish for me to call Lady Kirisho? She probably would like to give her opinion on this topic as well." "Haha, please don''t, I''ll just be scolded if you do that." Eisen exined with an awkwardugh. He looked at the horizon, "How long have you known me now, Gind?" "You have created me 3859 years ago, your Majesty." She replied immediately. "That long ago, huh? Then I''m sure you know me quite well at this point. Do you-" "Do I think you''re a good person? This is a question that you''ve asked quite a few times already, your Majesty. And to put it bluntly, my answer might not be the one that you''re looking for." Gind replied, "But it doesn''t matter anyway, does it? As you will simply keep asking people until you find the answer you''re mostfortable with. The answer that helps you settle your mind down instead of helping you actually improve." The Guardian exined, and Eisen looked into the distance. "...Am I that predictable?" "Of course. But so is everyone. This is in the nature of every sentient being. At the end of the day, all they wish is to beforted in a way that fits their own image of themselves." Gind stated in a blunt manner. Eisen knew what she meant, although he didn''t particrly want to admit it. He did so anyway, though, "You''re probably right. But... Thanks. In a weird way, this helped me calm my mind down." Eisen pointed out, before letting out a quick whistle, "You three, you can keep ying around for a while, but I''m going to head to sleep for now." The old man pointed out. Caria, Melissa and Sal focused on Eisen for a moment while Gind created a gate that Eisen could take to head to his bedchambers, that have of course been fully reconstructed by now. The three of them said goodnight to Eisen and said that they would head to bed soon enough as well. Those three took the chance to sleep properly during these past few days, however, so they weren''t even nearly as tired as Eisen was. Or well, they weren''t all that tired at all, really. Slowly, Eisen stepped through the gate that had been prepared by Gind and slowly took off the suit that he had been wearing quite a lottely. He handed it to Gind who proceeded to ce it onto the Mannequin Golem that was supposed to wear the suit while Eisen didn''t. And then, Eisen climbed into bed and looked at the ceiling, before anxiously closing his eyes. He could hear the soft sound of wind that always appeared whenever Guardians teleported away, and slowly drifted off into sleep. This time around, Eisen didn''t take the chance to actively remember any of his leftover memories. The reason why he had been feeling this anxious was because he had no idea what his body would be like after reaching a total of 65 recovered memories. --- Slowly, Benjamin felt himselfe to. But... nothing happened. He looked at the roof of the capsule, anxious for that pain that he feltst time to return to him again. However, for now, nothing happened. The old man pushed the capsule open and stepped outside, pressing his feet down onto the ground. It''s been especially hot outside these past few days, apparently, so Benjamin was just a sweaty mess right now. He should really take a shower. Since nothing was feeling off for him, he slowly made his way to the bathroom and undressed. Although for some reason, the whole ce seemed a bit... stuffier. It was hard to exin, really. But either way, Benjamin stepped into the shower and let the water run. The cold shock immediately woke him up, although something was different. Usually the water hit the back of his neck first, but now it was hitting the center of his back. The old man looked around and at the mirror on the other side of the bathroom, and there he realized what the issue really was. Benjamin was taller than he was before. By nearly a foot. But... He was pretty that he didn''t have to crouch while walking through the doors. If he stood on his tip-toes, he would usually hit the top of the frame with his head already though. So if he had been a foot taller while walking through there, he would have hurt himself for sure. "That must mean..." The old man muttered quietly, and slowly concentrated. And when he did, the water no longer his the center of his back, but hit him right on top of his head. So basically, Benjamin confirmed it like this. This change that his body undertook now made it official. He gained this particr racial ability of Giants now as well. He was able to change his size. Seemingly by a foot in either direction at max, but still. He could definitely no longer be called human now. Benjamin let out a deep sigh, although he was kind of relieved. At least he could control this ability anyway, it would have been a bother if he had just grown a foot taller without any way to change this fact. The old man clearly couldn''t just go and try to convince others that he suddenly entered puberty and grew this much, after all. But beside that... Benjamin''s body felt better than it did in years. Or rather, he felt fitter than he ever did. There was only a small issue... Blood was flowing down the right side of his body, apanied with deep stinging whenever Benjamin changed his size. He already had a rough idea why, but he still had to take care of this. He swiftly stepped out of the shower and dried himself off, quickly putting on a bathrobe, although he obviously pulled his right shoulder out of it so that his blood didn''t soak into the bathrobe. With quick steps, Benjamin made his way to Jasmin''s room and knocked on the door. It was early morning right now, so those two should still be sleeping in there. "Jyuuk, I need your help with something." The old man exined in a clear and loud voice. He heard a bit of shifting behind the door before footsteps came closer, and Haruo quickly opened the door up. And the first thing he saw was an old, dripping wet man with half his chest exposed and only loosely wearing bathrobes, pressing a towel against his shoulder where an arm was missing. That was not something that you saw every single day, but Haruo wasn''t shaken up in the slightest, "Don''t tell me you arm is regrowing..." "Ah, no... After waking up, I gained the ability to change my size. But as you probably recall, I still have stitches in my arm. I''m pretty sure that is kind of cutting into my skin. It''s nothing too major, but... I would still like you to take a look before it gets infected." Benjamin pointed out. Haruo slowly nodded his head and rubbed his eyes, "Sure, I''ll quickly wash my hands and meet you in the kitchen then." The young man suggested. Benjamin quickly nodded his head and did as suggested while Haruo headed into the bathroom to thoroughly clean his hands with proper soap so that he wouldn''t give the wounds on the old man''s arm an infection of some sort. A few minutester, Haruo was ready to help Benjamin out and proceeded to quickly take a look at the wound. It wasn''t bleeding too badly, but due to the fact that this was an area that had only recently undergone surgery, it was still a risky business. And of course, since the threads used for the stitches would bury themselves deeper in Benjamin''s flesh, due to his unnatural regenerative abilities that he now had due to the changes in his body, this whole situation wouldn''t turn out too well in the future. So, Haruo just chose to pull the threads altogether. Everything was healed anyway, so there was no need for them to be there any longer anyway. "Sorry for waking you up so early... It''s barely 5am." Benjamin pointed out, but Haruo quickly shook his head, "Don''t worry about it. We went to bed at like... 8pm anyway. So we would have woken up very soon anyway. And this was an emergency. Even if we had only gotten an hour of sleep you could have woken us up." Haruo pointed out. He still seemed quiet tired though, since he wasn''t particrly a morning person. Even then, Benjamin trusted him to do his work properly. "Oh, by the way, do you need me to make some tail-holes in a few of your pants? It seems like you have issue dealing with your new Tail." Benjamin pointed out, and Haruo let out a deep sigh. "That would be greatly appreciated. It''s not like it feels weird to have a tail, I''ve grown used to it through my memories, but it is rather weird not to have clothes that fit my new body. Although..." Haruo pointed out as he rubbed his chin, "It doesn''t feel all too bad to finally be able to grow some facial hair." With a quietugh, Haruo pulled thest thread in Benjamin''s arm and just helped the old man clean it up while the wound was already closing up. Chapter 727 Tea

Chapter 727 Tea

Benjamin looked at the side of his body as he was cleaning himself up with a wet paper towel that he crumpled up and ced on the counter next to him. The wound that he had there before had nowpletely closed up without even a single trace left. Of course, there were still plenty of scars there due to his surgery where his arm was cut off, but beside that, he was fine now. "Thanks for the help, Jyuuk." The old man said with a light smile on his face, proceeding to show the young man the extent of his new transformative ability. The fact that he was now able to turn nearly 8 feet tall was something rather impressive and weird, to say the least. Haruo looked Benjamin up and down, and especially took notice of the bathrobe that slipped further down around his waist the moment he increased his size like that. It seemed like it was about to rip open, and Haruo wasn''t particrly interested in seeing what the old man would look like without it. Although, he was interested in the part that did reveal itself already, before slowly looking down at his own chest. "I have ended up in a better shape than ever before due to my physical changes now as well. But for you, I know that you always used to look like that... How did you manage something like that?" Haruo asked with a wryugh, before Benjamin looked back at him and shrugged, turning back into his normal size while pulling his bathrobe back over his shoulders. "Ah, you know, just doing constant physical work does that to you. And of course, I ate quite healthily and made sure to get some regr exercise into my daily regime. That was the only way that I was able to actively work for as long as I did. But why are you asking? You didn''t seem particrly interested before all this." The old man pointed out with a light, curious smile. Haruo scratched the back of his head slightly nervously, "Well, things are changing. We are changing. And we don''t even know if this is permanent or not. But now that I have this sort of body, I would like to know how to keep something that is at least simr, even if we were to lose this." Benjamin looked back at his close friend, and realized that his mind had been rather busy over the past few weeks. He had never thought about the possibility that this change that was happening to their bodies here on Earth may not be permanent. However, Benjamin wasn''t particrly sure if his body would be able to take the bacsh of returning back to his weak, slowly decaying self that he had be bit by bit over the past few years. Neither did he know if he really wanted to. The old man took a deep breath, choosing to try and figure hisplicated thoughts out at ater time. He didn''t want to turn this conversation into something like that right now. Slowly, as Haruo and Benjamin were just sitting there, they could hear Jasmining over into the kitchen where they also were. "Is everything alright?" She asked tiredly, rolling up next to them in her wheelchair. She noticed the bloodied paper towels that Benjamin had ced down next to himself, and looked at the old man concerned. Quickly, Benjamin exined the situation, and quickly demonstrated it by decreasing his size by a foot for now. Jasmin opened her eyes wide in surprise, or rather shock, and stared back at Benjamin, "You can do that now? Seriously?" "Mhm. It''s the reason why the threads from my stitches were cutting into my flesh." The old man exined swiftly. Jasmin seemed rather concerned, but seeing how it was Haruo that helped Benjamin out, she knew that he should be fine for now. "But you said you reached roughly 65 recovered memories, right? Is that size-change ability the only thing you gained?" Jasmin asked curiously, and Benjamin looked back at her while blinking a few times, "That is a good question... I was only really focused on this ability for now. But you are right, there should be more than just this particr ability." As the old man looked back at Jasmin, an idea sparked up in his mind. Slowly but surely, he looked at his palm. And then he pushed the force that was dwelling inside of him out through it. The air above his palm began to shift around as Benjamin''s body seemed to be now fully capable of interacting with mana in the way that it did in the other world. However, there was one more force within his body that was acting up when Benjamin''s mana began to flow. He mixed it into his mana and led it to his arm, as a thinyer of rock suddenly grew on it. "I can use magic now, it seems... Although this is apparently my limit for now." The old man exined, already feeling slightly exhausted from using his element just this little. However, it was simply a fact that Benjamin had be able to make use of magic. While Samuel brought an ounce of mana over here, Benjamin was the first source of mana in this world that existed. It seemed like no matter what happened, he would be prepared for Samuel''s plots from now on. With his new incredibly overwhelming physical strength, his ability to now change his size, and the fact that he would be able to use magic like this, how would anything make it possible for him to be defeated in this world. And even if Samuel managed to go forward with his ns, Benjamin and the others would be able to handle whatever situation was going to happen here. Not to mention that they would only be more powerful as time went on... Slowly, Benjamin was able to rx to an extent. This realization helped him stop thinking about how much of an abomination he truly was at this point. --- Eisen slowly woke up and removed the nket from his body. He pulled his legs over the side of his bed and stood up, before quickly getting dressed in the special suit that the Mannequin Golem was still wearing. Once he was done, Serio appeared in the room to give the old man some tea, surprisingly. "You never brought me tea like this before." Eisen pointed out. The Core Guardian swiftly nodded his head as he looked back at the old man, "Indeed, but this was your favorite in the past. You would drink it every day, all day. I figured now that your mind is slowly changing and you are feeling anxious as you be less of the man you knew yourself to be until now, having something familiar like this might help calm your nerves." Eisenughed quietly at the butler''s exnation, "This seems more like I was addicted to this stuff rather than it being something that can help me calm down, you know?" He added. Serio smiled softly as he pressed the cup of tea into Eisen''s hand, "Possibly so, but it is good for you, either way." The moment that the old man took even a sip of this liquid that seemed to glow in a golden light due to the shine of the sun pouring in through the window. Just the scent of this tea made Eisen feel weirdly rxed, and it gave Eisen''s mind a jolt of nostalgia together with that rxation. It was a bit weird, but Eisen was extremely excited to drink this the moment that all of these feelings entered his mind. He ced his lips against the rim of the cup and took a slight sip. And the moment he did, the feeling that he would remember something new through this tea popped up in his mind. But either way, what Serio said didn''t seem to be wrong. It really did make him feel quite rxed. However, while it was indeed quite delicious, it wasn''t the best tea that Eisen ever had. So clearly, he must have some kind of sentimental connection to it. Eisen wanted to find out more about his former self''s emotions and his connection to this world, so this kind of stuff was the perfect thing for him right around now. The old man slowly made his way to the small balcony connected to his bedchambers and chose to finish his tea there, just rxing as he took in the morning sun. Once he finished drinking the cup of tea, he turned toward Serio with a smile, "Thank you. I really enjoyed it. It doesn''t seem to offer any particr stat-boosts though... Is there any reason for that?" "Of course." Serio replied, "This tea is ''Rankless''." The core Guardian replied. Eisen really wasn''t sure what exactly he meant. Noticing this fact, Serio quickly exined. "These tea leaves were a product of transcendance. Someting beyond the 10th rank. However, things in that realm do not offer any sort of benefit. The few that know of this phenomenon thought that such items or materials that ''transcended'' rather cycled through the system and reached a point before rank 0 again. They keep their supreme quality, but have beenpletely disconnected from the system of this world." Serio exined, "It is a rare phenomenon that you have exploited a few times throughout your life, although this Tea is the only instance that I could specifically name." Slowly, it dawned on Eisen. He already remembered why this Tea was so important to him. And that wasn''t because he somehow was able to recover his memories of the former Eisen''s life, but rather because he remembered something from his own life. The life he led on earth. This tea, instead of being something introduced to him here, was something that his father on Earth used to drink regrly. Eisen had it a few times then, and a few more times throughout his life at special times. Not that he specifically tried, it simply always showed up at special times in his life. The day he met his wife, the day his first son was born, and the day that his wife died. It was always there, somehow. And this tea that waspletely disconnected from the system was something that reminded the former Eisen of the life that he led on Earth. The old man looked back at the horizon and let out a slight sigh, realizing the meaning behind this tea for himself and the former Eisen. "So it was the thing that kept him... me... connected to my former life, wasn''t it?" The old man muttered quietly. Chapter 728 Drastic Measures

Chapter 728 Drastic Measures

Weirdly revitalized and calmed down, Eisen made his way to a certain part of his castle. The underground prison. Ambriel was still in there, practically wasting away since they simply didn''t want to speak to matter what they did to them. But Eisen got another idea now. The prison keeper, or rather torturer, quickly followed Eisen as he approached the cell. However, the old man shook his head and held up his hand up to stop the Guardian froming with him, "No. I''ll call you if I need you." Eisen said in a blunt tone. The Guardian slowly nodded their head and returned back to their station without a moment''s hesitation. Eisen opened the door to Ambriel''s cell and stepped inside, closing the door behind him again. Once there, the old man waved his hand to the side. What he created was a simple metal-framed chair that he quickly sat down on with his legs crossed. "Ambriel." The old man said with his eyes closed. The Angel just sat there on the ground, still chained up and unwilling to help in any way, before Eisen spoke again, "I''m going to tell you a story now." And then, for the next few hours, Eisen continued to give Ambriel a simple summary of his life. On Earth, and on this world as well. Both were necessary for Eisen''s n. Ambriel didn''t seem to particrly want to listen, but they were too tired to fight against the fact that they didn''t really have a choice in the matter. But soon, the story was over, and Eisen silently stared at Ambriel, before the Angel slowly opened their mouth, "...So? What is it that you wanted to tell me with that? Do you want my sympathy? Want me to feel for-" "I simply want you to know more about the man that can kill you whenever he wants without a single being in this world being able to do anything about it." Eisen said bluntly, "I want you to realize that Gods are certainly not those faultless beings that you believe them to be. And I certainly won''t let you continue denying the existence of numerous children that were born of the rtions between a god and a person. And I aslso won''t let you keep denying the fact that I myself had ratherplicated rtionships with some Gods before." Eisen stared back at Ambriel, who was just ring back at the old man in ways that he nearly feared could kill him if he wasn''t careful. But in the end, Eisen slowly stood up and made the chair disappear as he stepped out of the cell door. Just as the door was about to close, a voice came from inside the cell, "W-Wait..." Eisen stopped and waited to hear the plead of the being in the cell behind him, "Let''s say you''re right... Let''s say that Gods truly did have rtions with lesser beings..? Why would they do that?" The old man slowly turned around and stepped back into the cell, "It''s simple. Because literally every single god of the ''First Generation'' was one of those ''lesser beings''. And as you must know as well, there are plenty of gods in the heavens that used to be lesser beings and only came to be deities through ascension. My son, Trygan, for example." Eisen exined. Ambriel seemed a bit confused. Not at thetter part, but the former, "What do you mean they were lesser beings..?" "Well... You see, when I was born, there was only one Deity. And that was the ''Great Goddess''. Then, once I managed to peak, fulfilling my ''Lifetime Quest'', I was given a new Quest. And that was to take care of a dozen orphaned children. None of them were of the same race, and not all of them were even people. Some were neither monster, nor people. But either way, I raised them, I taught them what they needed to know. Of course that doesn''t make me their parent, it was more like... I was their teacher of sort. They were all fully aware of who and what they were when I started taking care of them, some were even fresh adults already. But none of them were ready to be gods yet, which is where I came in." Eisen exined bluntly. "They had all been given a blessing by the ''Great Goddess'', and once they fulfilled the conditions to truly awaken that blessing, they were allowed to ascend. I showed them everything that they needed to know in order to awaken their blessing on their own, since I wasn''t really allowed to help otherwise. But even so, for decades, they have lived in this world as ''Lesser Beings'', living alongside them, loving them, and protecting them. They all still hold that sort of sentiment, and they passed that sentiment on to the next generations that they raised themselves." Ambriel stared back at Eisen for a few moments. Slowly, they let their head droop and stared back down at the ground silently. At this point, Eisen would really need to leave Ambriel alone for a while. At least he was able to get through their thick skull. They were questioning that brainwash-level of knowledge that had been imnted into their head, which was exactly what Eisen wanted them to do. If Ambriel gave even an ounce of information to Eisen and the others, it would end up being quite helpful. After all, the ''Guide'' Angel was the only of its kind that was able to freely travel through all divine realms at will. If there was someone that could be called an untapped source of nearly limitless information, then it was certainly Ambriel. There was no doubt about that in Eisen''s mind. So now that this had been taken care of, Eisen slowly made his way out of this underground prison and instead visited the Gardens, more specifically, the workshop ced into the center of the hedgemaze. Eisen stepped inside and slowly took off his suit to change into his regr crafting outfit, his wool pants and his leather apron. When he was wearing this outfit that was certainly more freeing than that suit, Eisen sat down on one of the chairs and looked over therge blueprint that he hadying in front of him. Constant popped up right beside the old man and looked at Eisen, "Do you need any more help figuring this out?" The Core Helper inquired curiously, and Eisen slowly shook his head, "No, I think the blueprint is about finished now. It took a while to figure out a system that could handle the power of those special eyes..." The old man muttered quietly, turning his eyes over toward the pile of failed prototypes for eyes that he was creating for another Guardian, albeit an independent kind, like the first-generation types that were walking around through most of the town. This was the design for a Guardian, in the form of a Human, for the soul that Eisen took with him from hell. Eisen had to figure something special out to aodate for the special eyes that this soul possessed. Eisen was able to temporarily ovep this visual ability with his own eyes, since he had rather powerful eyes himself, but when he for example gave the ring that he used to Xenia, she was immediately blinded as her eyes caved in. Luckily, Xenia''s pain didn''t fullye back to her yet, and she was able to be healed rather quickly by just taking a quick nap, but it was clear that this was not a power that you could usually have. And so, Eisen chose to first try out what would happen with the eyes of a normal Guardian if he connected them to the soul of the person in question. And as the old man figured... They just blew up instantly. Melting away all over the old man''s hands so that all he was able to do was throw them away. It took Eisen a while to figure out a way to contain all that power, and in the end what he figured he''d have to do was something pretty... Well, troublesome. But it should work nheless. After all, this soul was one that was incredibly useful. Having someone with the ability to see the connection between the two worlds was insanely useful, there was no doubt about that in anyone''s mind. They all knew that they needed this soul to help them out during this ''war'' against Samuel. However, the eyes had to wait until another day. For now, Eisen was just going to start building the Human-like Guardian''s body. He spent quite a bit of time analyzing the different generations of Guardians, and at this point was able to figure out easily how to make a Guardian in any form he wanted to. He was still a bit nervous, since it was his first time actually doing so. Of course, it took quite a bit more work than the Guardians that Eisen made until now, but that was mostly because of the size-difference and because he had to change a few systems around to make sure that the Guardian would be able to act independently, without having to be connected to any sort of core. That would tie that special Guardian down in just one ce, and that was the opposite of what they wanted. The old man continued to work on the Guardian''s body until the base frame was practically done. It was mostly created through ssblowing, after all. Now he would need to create the metal tings that would act as skin, and then after that he would need to take care of the eyes... Those were really something that Eisen was rather reluctant to make for now, considering the method that he wanted to try out. Eisen let out a deep sigh and started to work on the metal tings now. He mixed the metals together and then added everything he needed to dye it so that it would have the right shadeter on. Once the metal ting was finished, he attached it to the frame, with the exception of the parts directly around the eyes of course. He still needed to push those in before attaching the tes, just to make everything easier. And then, the old man let out a deep sigh. He really didn''t want to do this, but he figured that this was going to be the easiest way to figure out a lot of things that woulde in useful in the future. Eisen stood up and grabbed the small bottle that wasying over on another table. Slowly, Eisen poured the content onto a piece of cloth and then held it in front of his eyes for a while. Just a few minutester, he could already feel that everything around them had numbed. Eisen activated his Truth Seeing Eyes while everything around them was still numb, and then slowly grabbed the special tool he made for this asion. Directly before pulling out his own two eyes. Chapter 729 An eye for an eye

Chapter 729 An eye for an eye

A few hourster, Eisen woke back up and slowly opened his eyes. Luckily, he was able to see again, and the pain around his eyes had disappeared. That was truly a more than ufortable feeling, having pulled his own eyes out like that. He immediately went to sleep after doing so before the pain caught up to him, so it wasn''t too bad for him, actually. The old man slowly looked around the room and then spotted Constant, "Did you put my eyes in the jar like I asked you to?" "Of course I did, Eisen." The Core Helper eximed with a broad smile on his face, swiftly holding up the mason jar with the two glowing, golden eyes inside of it toward Eisen. The old man grabbed the small jar, and locked eyes with his own eyes in there. Luckily they were still active, so everything would end up working out properly. Eisen figured that the transformation of his eyes would stay active due to how the old man created the masses of yin and yang. Even though it was detached from him, the transformation would stay active, so he hoped the same would be the case with his eyes. Luckily this was backed up by a few documents that Eisen found, but he still couldn''t be 100% sure. Good thing that he didn''t put himself through that without any benefit, since Eisen wasn''t particrly sure that his eyes would really stay that way. However, now, he could get to work. The liquid that the eyes were now sitting in was a special potion that the old man prepared, and the eyes were currently absorbing that potion into them. It was a potion that would strengthen the power of Eisen''s visual ability. The eyes were already taking on a bit of the color of the potion, which showed that they were truly absorbing it properly, but for now the old man quickly used his alchemical transformation abilities to speed the process up a little bit. Once he was satisfied with the state they were in, he quickly pulled the eyes out of the jar and swiftly ced them onto the area where he was going to work with them. Swiftly, Eisen cleaned the eyes up a bit, removing the bits that he most likely didn''t need and the parts that were simply dirty, and then took out Bai. He turned Bai into a scalpel and slowly prated the outermostyer of the skin, swiftly extracting the liquid that was inside of there. Eisen ced that liquid to the side and then started to take the eyes apart into their specific parts. Eisen swiftly dried up the parts that he wouldn''t end up needing, and saved the rest, while mixing the dried parts with some crystals to create the right eyes for the Special Guardian. And then, the parts that he would indeed need to reuse, he treated in a special way that instead practically just made liquid crystals soak into them, so that they would keep their regr properties but still turned into something that wouldn''t rot away inside of the Guardian''s eyeballs. The old man then proceeded to put the eyes back together, filling the liquid, turned into something that was practically a potion, back into the eyes. And just like that, the golden shine of the irises was extended through the whole crystal eyes. Now, hopefully this was going to work out when Eisen ced them into the Guardian and spread that special soul throughout it. If not... then he wasted his time with this whole idea, and would need toe up with something else. He pushed the eyes into the Guardian, attached the rest of the metal tes around those eyes, and then slowly pushed the soul into the Guardian''s body. He made sure that everything beside the nucleus was spread throughout the body properly, and then gave the Guardian''s body the spark of mana that it needed to jumpstart. The moment that this happened, the new Guardian''s body started to creak loudly, as if the ss inside of it was about to shatter. The metal tes acting as the Guardian''s skin took on a new, more flesh-like texture. And meanwhile, the eyes changed rather rapidly as well. However, just in the way that Eisen hoped. The base spherical form stayed, luckily, but the irises were a neverending descending spiral that glowed in a faint golden light. Eisen stared at those eyes for a few more moments, before he was sure that they wouldn''t shatter apart or melt like they did earlier. The Guardian finally managed to gather his thoughts and slowly looked down at his body, "...This... Is my new body?" He asked quietly, "And... And can I really see again?" "Oh? So those eyes work like normal? Can you still see my connection to the other world?" The old man inquired, and the Guardian raised his head with a swift nod, "Of course, of course, I can still see it! It''s like it was the most natural thing in the world... How wonderful! Thank you for giving me this opportunity with this amazing body! My life will start anew!" Eisen looked back at the Guardian and let out a long sigh, "I''m sorry if this is going to be disappointing to you, but you''re not really ''alive''. You''re technically an ''Item'', or rather a ''Golem'' right now. In this country, you will still be treated as a person of course, and there are many, many others that are like you here, but... You are unable to age, and unable to reproduce. Or feel any physical urges that you may have be used to while living, like hunger, thirst, and lust of course." The newly born Guardian turned his head toward Eisen surprised, before smiling lightly, "Ah, that''s totally fine. Do not worry about that! Even if that is impossible for me, considering the time that I''ve spent suffering in hell, I''ve be used to not being able to do such things. Time runs rather slowly there, you see?" "I know what you mean, yes. Well, I guess I''ll just have some people introduce you to the town, I sadly have a lot of things to take care of at the moment. But they are trustworthy people, so don''t worry. This town is a safe ce, so there''s no need for you to worry about anything. I would rmend not trying to leave without anyone trustworthy and powerful by your side, since we can''t directly protect you outside of these inds." The new Guardian slowly nodded his head. Eisen turned his head to the side and quickly called for Serio. Without a moment''s hesitation, the Town Core Guardian appeared right next to Eisen and held onto the newborn Guardian''s shoulder. "Then I will be introducing this youngster to this ce, your Majesty." Serio said with a broad smile, and the new Guardian looked at Eisen surprised, "Y-Your Majesty?" "Yes?" "No, I mean... You are a King?" The Guardian inquired. Eisen looked at him and nodded, "Yeah... Didn''t I mention that before? My name is Eisen, or officially now ''Eisen de Grandour''. I''m the King of this country, Asgard. But you know, Serio will exin everything to you. I''m a bit tired, and I literally had to rip my own eyes out for you, so I have to rx a little. Even more confused than before, the Guardian looked at Serio next to him, "Is that a metaphor I don''t understand?" "Of course not, he means that literally. Now, let us head off." Serio eximed with a broad smile. "Wait, you ripped your ey-" And just like that, Serio and the newborn Guardian disappeared in a blue mist, while Eisen just let out a deep sigh, "Alright... Now, what shall I work on next?" As Eisen thought out loud, another figure appeared right next to him, just that it was Gind this time around, "Are you sure you should not prepare for your trip to the Country of Giants first? You need to leave in the next two days if you wish to arrive on time." The old man turned his head toward the Country Core Guardian and raised his brows, "I actually just nned on flying over there for a day or two, it should only take maybe... let''s say seven or eight hours for me to get there." Gind stared at Eisen and shook her head, "That ispletely uneptable, your Majesty. I cannot allow you to go on such a trip on your own. Not only is it dangerous, but it would also make our country appear badly if you were to go there on your own without proper escorts." "..." Eisen stared back at Gind and slightly rubbed the bridge of his nose. She wasn''t wrong, but this was going to be annoying, "Fine, then have-" "The ship is prepared and stocked, the crew is ready to go, Sigurd and Fafnir managed to close down the Dungeon for now, your Knights are fully-equipped and ready to go, and we have brought your escort-golems and a few extra Guardians, Monsters, and other People from all over our country to us so that they can apany you, as would be expected of a King of your greatness. Of course, your apprentices are also ready to go now. We have also prepared some gifts for you to hand to the nobility and royalty of the Country of Giants." Eisen silently looked back at her and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Fine. I guess your n includes us leaving right away?" "Indeed so. We are actually behind-schedule, since I was unaware of your n of taking your own eyes for the creating of this new Guardian. However, it should be no issue if we leave right away." Gind said bluntly, and quickly waved her hand to the side, creating a gate that would lead Eisen right to the harbor where the others were probably waiting already. "You brought Askr as well, right?" "Of course. That child is properly attached to the ship already, your Majesty." Gind said bluntly. Eisen stood up from the chair he was sitting on and looked at Constant to say goodbye to him, but to his surprise, Constant brought a bunch of wooden crates and barrels upstairs, "I prepared some materials for you to use while on your trip. And make sure to bring back some unique materials from the Giant Country." Eisen looked at the Core Helper and rubbed his hand through Constant''s hair, "Fine. Thanks for this, Constant." The old man said with a light smile on his face, before the Guardian smiled back broadly. And so, Eisen stashed all of them away in his item storage and then said goodbye to Constant, thanking him once more, before Eisen stepped through the gate, ready to make his way to the Giant Country already. Ahead of his own personal n, at least. Chapter 730 Jin

Chapter 730 Jin

"Alright, how about this... So that I have something to do on our trip to the Giant Country, I take a couple of requests that have been lingering around and then start working on them on the ship? It''s only going to take a few hours, at most." The old man suggested, looking at Gind right in front of him. The Country Core Guardian looked back at Eisen and slowly nodded her head. "If that is what his Majesty wishes, then that is so. We will prepare for certain requests to be received. Please, make your way to the ship for now, however." The Guardian asked of Eisen, but the old man slowly shook his head, "Sorry, but I don''t think that''s going to be possible. If I want to make a good item, I need to be able to see the people in question. Talk to them, interact with them a bit, you see?" Gind slowly closed her eyes and nodded her head, "Understood. Then we will prolong the start of the trip for a few hours. However, we will need to start immediately." The moment she said this, Serio appeared next to Gind and quickly created a portal for Eisen to step through, "Thanks. Then I guess let''s get this started." Eisen replied bluntly, and stepped through the portal with a soft smile on his face. The other side of that gate led him to the ce where the Dungeon stood before, but instead, there was just a small stall now. And Eisen quickly stood behind that stall, as Gind swiftly announced the situation. Immediately, numerous people formed a row in order to get the chance to get one of Eisen''s items. However, it was capped at 100, and Gind didn''t let anyone join the queue anymore after that. One by one, everyone exined the concept of the item they wanted to Eisen, the old man took a few skills from the person in question to make sure it would be perfect, and then of course noted down anything of importance. However... Most of the people were rather boring. Their concepts ended up being ''I want a strong sword'', or ''I want a shield that can''t be destroyed''. Rather basic stuff, although Eisen would still be able to make them something unique through the information he got from them. But soon, there was one individual that was slightly different from the others. Instead of being a bit nervous, rude, or entitled like many other customers, this one was especially bright. And they were one of the few with an interesting upation and race as well. It was a young woman called ''Jin'', and she was a de Dancer. Eisen could see that the two daggers that she was currently using had been worn down due to how much she had been using them, but at the same time, they had obviously been cared for pretty well. As far as Eisen could tell, this young woman was a ''Demon-Beastperson Halfling'', and to be more specific, the beastman half was that of a Rabbit. She had a thin, long tail with a fluffy furball at its end, as well as a finger-sized cone-shaped horn in the center of her forehead. And honestly, even just her bright pink hair and fur made her stick out, and made her much more interesting than many of those basic character models created by other yers. "Now, what sort of item do you want?" Eisen inquired, rather curious about what a young woman like this would want, and she quickly replied, in a bright and cheerful tone, "Well, if it''s no trouble, I''d like some daggers! A pair of ''em! One with a bunch of debuff effects, and one that''s just super good at hacking stuff apart!" Jin eximed with a broad smile on her face. Eisen raised his brows when he heard the idea, and slowly nodded his head, "Sounds good. Did you have anything specific in mind for how the ''debuff'' effects are created, or can I take creative liberty?" "I''ll leave it up to you!" The young woman eximed energetically with a broad smile. Eisen looked back at her and slowly nodded his head, "I see. Sounds good. Try and stay in the country for the next few weeks. I''ll have someone bring it to you." The old man replied, and then quickly handed Jin a small chip. "Keep it with you at all times so that we can find you. If you press it onto the back of your left hand, it''s going to disappear in there, so you don''t need to worry about losing it." Eisen exined swiftly, and Jin curiously looked down at the item. Without a moment''s hesitation, she did as suggested and pressed the chip onto the back of her hand. A lot of other people were rather hesitant about it, since Eisen was literally saying ''With this, we''ll know any ce you''ll be for the next few weeks''. But in the end, due to the fact that Eisen was who he was, most people didn''t seem to mind and ended up following the suggestion, even if not as quickly as Jin here. "Alright, then the only thing that''s missing is a few of your skills. I want to personalize everything as much as I can, so having your element and some of your skills to make use of would be rather helpful in that." Eisen replied. Jin immediately nodded her head and held her hand forward. It seemed like she already saw this happen a few times before, whether with other craftsmen or just within this queue itself, so she was ready to offer her hand so that Eisen could copy her abilities into some gems and crystals, "Here you go!" She eximed with a bright grin on her face. Eisen slowly nodded his head, and took any skill or ability that he figured would be useful and copied it down into the gems that he hadying next to him, cing them into a boxbeled with the information of the customer. "Then we''re done here for now. Thanks for the business. You will be asked for payment once the daggers are done and delivered to you, so don''t worry about that. But don''t try to run away with the items, you won''t ever be able to escape." Eisen said with a casual smile on his face. Usually, it was the kind that made other people shudder. Basically, Eisen was trying to scare them so that they wouldn''t even think of trying to mess with him. However, in the case of Jin, she just quickly nodded her head with a broad smile on her face, the one that she didn''t drop for even a moment ever since her and Eisen started talking to each other, "Of course! I wouldn''t think of it!" And with that, the conversation between Eisen and this uniquely energetic girl was over. Eisen ced everything away, and then continued to take requests from other people. --- Soon enough, Eisen was on the ship. He was inside of his workshop in the Dungeon, and was thinking about which item to work on first during this trip to the Giant Country. Of course, he could always just work on everything in the order that he received the request, but... That seemed kind of boring, honestly. Rather, he wanted to work on things depending on how interested he was in them. Of course, this might seem like he would end up losing motivation toward thetter items and do a worse job, but... It was Eisen. A mistake like that would never happen to him, ever. However, in this batch, amongst the most interesting items that Eisen wanted to work on were the two daggers, the ones requested by that Demon-Beastperson girl. The items themselves weren''t the most interesting idea ever, although still more unique than most other request he had received. The thing that made Eisen want to work on these daggers first was the fact that Jin was such a unique person. First things first, Eisen worked on the design of the daggers. One of them was supposed to create a lot of debuff effects, while the other was just supposed to do a lot of regr damage. Meaning, one was going to put out poison and a bit of magic into the damaged enemy, and one was going to do simple, raw damage. Thetter was simple; all that Eisen had to do was make a high-quality item, something with a sharp edge, maybe something that would end up pushing force into the enemy to cause some extra raw damage. The former, however, was a bit moreplicated than that. First of all, there had to be some sort of source for poison, maybe a way for Jin to customize what exactly was used. And in the end, Eisen chose to create a hollow handle that Jin could put poison-capsules into. Poison that would then spread out through thin, tiny tubes within the dagger and coat the edge in a precise, direct manner. And beside that, maybe he could create some enchantments and ce a few gems into the de itself that would also create simr effects to actual poison. Just like that, Eisen got to work. Creating the actual bases of the daggers was rather simple. He used steel mixed with a few special gems infused with the things that he needed, including the ones holding Jin''s personal element. One of them got a few extra gems and magics connected to causing high damage and cutting things apart, while the other one got mostly abilities based on poisons, restraint, and debuffs into it. The metal for thetter dagger itself seemed like it would make Eisen weaker just touching it, as if it was emitting a toxic aura. Meaning, it was already perfect for the item that Eisen was trying to make. After shaping everything properly, with the debuff-dagger getting a bit more of a rigged edge to open and rip up flesh so that more poison could enter, Eisen created the handles. The handle for the debuff-dagger was hollowed out and received a small gem that would increase its weight depending on what was ced into it. Bnce was important for weapons like this, and depending on how much poison was ced into the hollow handle, the bnce would change. This gem was added to make up for that. After the handles were done, Eisen started to enchant the des properly, setting the gems into the metal while carefully creating the thin tubes within the debuff-de. As soon as Eisen was done, he tested them out. He cut his finger with the debuff-de, and immediately got a rather big stat-penalty. His body felt sluggish, at leastpared to before, and his movements generally slowed down. Once Eisen took an antidote for all of this, he tried the second one out. It was able to cut into Eisen''s skin with ease, and did more damage than it should just based on the physical aspect of it alone. All in all, these two daggers were an absolute sess. Chapter 731 The Country of Giants

Chapter 731 The Country of Giants

Eisen continued working on a bunch more items that had been requested to him for the few hours that Gind allowed him to take on requests. He was pretty happy with the items that he had made until now. They were high-quality and turned out perfectly. They were a bit boring and repetitive, sure, but that was fine. The old man kept finishing as many items as he could, and then ced them in the ¡¯delivery packs¡¯, just special spatial gems capable of holding a single small item, and then gave them to one of Melissa¡¯s bees. They were able to travel at extremely high speeds, but were rather weak otherwise. But even so, they were the perfect delivery drones, especially once Eisen made sure to help them find the person they should deliver the item to. Basically, he gave the bees a GPS by having a small gem that would be attracted by the ¡¯mark¡¯ put onto each customer¡¯s hand ced onto their backs. It would pull them there just so slightly to help guide their path. And then, the customer would be given a small pre-recorded message from Eisen so that they knew who it was, and after being given the item, they would pay in coins. Coins that would bebined into a single one and then taken in by the small spatial gem, just to be brought back to Eisen for the next delivery. It was a pretty straightforward system, but not one that was perfected yet. The bees could rather easily be killed and have everything they were carrying stolen, so they couldn¡¯t really be used outside of Asgard. It would be too dangerous there. In any ce on the inds, there was constant surveince due to the Town Core Guardians, so even if someone did end up trying to kill one of the bees, there would be proof for that immediately. Eisen really just worked on the items as much as he could during the trip, that ended up taking four full days. The old man would continue working on more items on the way back and once he arrived at the inds again, but for now, he had to take care of something else. And that ¡¯something else¡¯ was the trip throughout the actual country itself. The country of giants was a rather unique ce. Whether it was because of some sort of special ambient magic that gathered here in this ce, or utter coincidence, but everything was many timesrger than usual. It would be like someone shrunk Eisen down as he was walking through this country. Of course, since he could increase his size, it wouldn¡¯t be that bad, even if he couldn¡¯t reach the full size that was normally known for giants. He was still rather close to that point, though, and it seemed like it wouldn¡¯t take all too much longer until he was able to get there. Eisen hoped, at least. He should get to the ¡¯Capital¡¯ of the Fire n in a few days, though. It would have taken just a day if Gind didn¡¯t stop him from just flying. But at the end of the day, she did have a point. A King appearing in another country casually, wearing nothing but a leather apron and wool pants? Eisen didn¡¯t know much about Giant culture, but if he wasn¡¯t careful, this could be seen as disrespectful to them. And that was literally the opposite of what he wanted. So instead, in case he would end up meeting any Giant during his travels, he wore his suit that was once more fused with his ¡¯King¡¯s Armor¡¯. And they would all be travelling in specific groups. For one, Eisen had his Dragon Knights directly with him. He had Fafnir right by his side, as well as Caria, Melissa and Sal. And of course, Kirisho was also there. Beside those, there were the ¡¯servants¡¯ that Gind wanted Eisen to bring. A few more people, monsters, and guardians, totalling an extra dozen heads. And every single figure walking beside him that didn¡¯t count to those groups... was a golem. To be more specific, Armor Golems using Haunted Armor created by Jyuuk a while ago. They were far more capable than most other Golems. Not physically stronger, but they rather had more dexterity and technique behind their movements. And since they were supposed to be Eisen¡¯s guards, that was a rather good thing. Although, Eisen kept all 5 dozen of them inside of the dungeon, except half a dozen to apany him just in case there were any tough monsters to fight that they needed extra help with for some reason. There was little reason for Eisen to have all of them out there. They would just end up making travelling more of a bother, as far as he was concerned at least. The first thing that he did was turn toward his five half-dragon knights. "Kiron. You and Morgus walk in the front as the first line of defense. Melissa¡¯s bees will be spread around anyway to warn us of any danger. Argon, you¡¯re probably the fastest on your feet amongst you five, so you stay in the center of the group where you can react to anything you need to. Rudia and Selena, you try and stay toward the back, but make sure to keep some of the armor-golems behind you." The old man said. He tried to make sure to split everyone up in a somewhat logical way that would be the safest and most efficient for anyone involved. He then turned his head toward the giant wooden golem right behind him, Askr, the Golem made from that enormous Ironbark tree. Askr would be walking in the very back, for obvious reasons. Eisen didn¡¯t want Askr to block everyone¡¯s path. As for the others ¨C they could fit in wherever they felt like they could be useful. The base was built with the five Dragon Knights, and everyone else would be there to fill in some gaps and support them. After all, that was the easiest way to deal with this for now. Of course, Eisen wouldn¡¯t hesitate to fight a little bit as well, he did also need to level up some soon. It wasn¡¯t the most important goal in his life anymore, but it was certainly up there. Eisen¡¯s main goal for now was to meet the current Grandour so that he could fulfill the ¡¯Quest¡¯ given to him by the red notification that Eisen had been hiding out of sight for quite a while now. It was still there, Eisen just couldn¡¯t see it anymore. After all, Eisen had nowpleted his part of the note-quests given to him by the puzzle-box, so he only had to wait for the others toplete theirs as well so that they could all continue along that route. It shouldn¡¯t take them too long, though. Either way, it seemed like Eisen would end up being the first toplete the quest given to him by the red notification, simply because the others weren¡¯t in a rush toplete their own. But that didn¡¯t matter for now. What did matter, however, was that Eisen wanted to quickly reach the town of Giants where the Grardour was living. With that goal in mind, the group quickly stepped off of the ship, which quickly turned around and made its way back to the inds on its own due to the undead crewmates keeping it running. And soon, they stepped off of the beach into the jungle-like forest in front of them. And really, that was all it was supposed to be. A forest. A regr sort, with nothing much to it. At least from the perspective of a Giant. From the perspective of everyone else, this ce was a jungle. Even the grass was scaled up, and so were the usually tiny bugs crawling around. The group quickly came across a colony of giant ants that could bepared to small dogs or cats in size. And these weren¡¯t even the ¡¯monster¡¯ version of ants living here. Certainly, those would be evenrger, there was no doubt about that in Eisen¡¯s mind. Either way, the ants didn¡¯t seem overly interested and as such were easily diverted through Kirisho¡¯s mist, definitely a rather useful ability to have. One that Eisen thanked Kirisho for every time it came in useful. The more the group made their way into the center of the giant country, the more they happened to find monsters. Like for example a giant wolf, and there was even an enormous squirrel messing with the gorup for a while. They were honestly more annoying than anything. Of course, they were stronger and had much, much more health and defense than before, but at the end of the day, they were still beaten rtively quickly. Especially considering that all their weakspots became many times easier to hit. And since Eisen made a few special arrows, drill-arrows that would dig into the monsters flesh just to explode within them to damage their internal organs, for Rudia to use, most of the monsters that only had hide were beaten easily. But then, there were the more magic-beast sorts of monsters at some points. As well as giant humanoid monsters, like giant versions of Goblins or Kobolds. The actual Goblins and Kobolds that were here were rather shocked at this sight, since it wasn¡¯t something they expected seeing on this trip. But honestly, neither did Eisen. It seemed like the theory of some sort of wild magic having increased the size of everything that was here was the most probable reason for why everything was so huge here, the closer that Eisen and the others got a look at all these monsters. After all, even if some proportions were off every once in a while, for the most part the monsters were just scaled up to be many timesrger than normal. That meant that those materials were also scaled up as well, which Eisen was quite grateful for, but he still couldn¡¯t help but think that both Jyuuk and Xenia would love it here. Jyuuk because of the unique wildlife that could be found here, and Xenia due to the unique magic flowing through this part of the world. He would definitely bring them with him the next time he came here. And hopefully, Eisen would be able to make it that they could create free travel between the Giant Country and Asgard so that they could juste here on vacation, rather than Eisen having to make up some sort of dumb reason why they would need toe on the side of diplomacy. Either way... Whenever a slightly ¡¯tougher¡¯ enemy came around, either Eisen in his Giant form would take care of it, or Askr would, with the support of the others of course. And just like that, it didn¡¯t take long until they reached the first settlement. Chapter 732 Giant Town

Chapter 732 Giant Town

In the distance, a huge gate extended far into the sky. It seemed weirdly otherworldly. But even if that was the case from the perspective of humans, from the perspective of giants, this was nothing but a very rudimentary gate for giants. At its side sat a single giant, casually sleeping in a position where any beast could attack him with ease. It seemed like he was about 10 to 15 meters taller than Eisen right now, meaning that it might be hard to get him to show proper respect to Eisen. After all, Giants oftenpared themselves depending on their height. At the very least Askr was tall enough. Of course, Eisen himself didn¡¯t care about being respected by people he never met and would never meet again. However, what he did care about was that he wouldn¡¯t have to bother dealing with diplomatic stuff too much. If he was insulted here, this information would definitely be rid to Gind, who would make a bit deal out of it. And Eisen really didn¡¯t want that. But well, the fastest way forward was through this settlement, which really seemed to be nothing but a vige of giants. Eisen took a deep breath and approached the sleeping giant so that he could let Eisen and the others through. Of course, he had Askr standing right behind him, while Fafnir was right by his side as well, just sitting there like a dog. "Excuse me?" The old man eximed, loud enough to wake the giant up. With a slightly surprised expression, he opened his eyes and had to orient himself for a little while first. "Huh? Who¡¯s there?" The Giant asked, "Huh, you¡¯re wearing a pretty neat set of armor there, bud! But wood ain¡¯t particrly the sturdiest thing around, y¡¯know?" With a loud yawn, the Giant slowly stood up, "And what¡¯s with this weird bearded kid?" Eisen could already hear Sal, Bree, and Sky swearing at the Giant from the group behind him, but he quickly ignored this, "Sorry for thete introduction. As I¡¯m sure is quite obvious, but I am a Giant as well. A half-giant to be more specific. My ability to change my size to be more like that of a normal Giant¡¯s has not developed particrly far yet." "Eh? You¡¯re an old fuck, aren¡¯t ya? If you didn¡¯t manage to get there yet, then I suggest givin¡¯ up." The Giant said, and Eisen looked at the Giant with a deep groan. Right now, Eisen wasn¡¯t as tall as him. But he had a way to get there. Right now, Eisen was around 25 meters tall when he increased his size to the max. But he had another ability that would increase his size quite a bit. By up to 50%, to be exact. Which would barely make up for the difference in height between Eisen and the Giant in front of him. Slowly, the old man activated his True Demonic Transformation. His height increased by another 10 or so meters, and he was now at eye-level with the Giant guarding the gate. Surprised, that Giant took a step back. "Huh? Didn¡¯t ya say-" "I did. But I didn¡¯t want to bother with the fact that you think you can insult me just because I¡¯m shorter than you. For your information, I didn¡¯t even have the ability to grow like this until a couple months ago. For that, I¡¯d say my progress is rather impressive." The old man said, "However, I must apologize for thete introduction." The old man took a step back and pressed his cane into the ground, "My name is Eisen de Grandour, King of Asgard and son of the Fire n¡¯s first leader, Argon de Grandour, the Great King of Heavenly mes." The Giant stared at Eisen with a shocked expression. Family heritage was something incredibly important to a Giant, there was no way one would ever lie about it. Even a half-giant wouldn¡¯t dare do so. But even then, some random guy appearing and saying something ridiculous like that... "You¡¯re trying to tell me you¡¯re a hundred thousand years old? Hah, who do you think you are? Some kinda-" "Person that peaked?" Eisen asked with a soft smile. The Giantughed loudly in response, "Right, if you were that kinda person, then sure. It¡¯d be possible. But obviously you¡¯re not, so fuck off ande on through." Thinking that Eisen had been joking around all of a sudden, the Giant pushed open the gate and let him inside. Well, that was fine. Eisen didn¡¯t need to convince random people of who he was. But it was weird. This was the second Giant that Eisen could vividly remember meeting and speaking to, but he didn¡¯t feel anything. He thought he would get a bit excited or nervous, or even feel some sort of nostalgia; but nothing happened at all. He was just able to treat him like any other person immediately. Of course, at the end of the day, he was still just any other person. Eisen just thought he would act a bit different. It was the same with that young envoy that was sent, the daughter of the current Grandour. Well, at the end of the day, it didn¡¯t matter. Eisen quickly made his way through the gate. But as they were walking through, the Giant quickly stopped Eisen, "Oi, are those really tinies with ya? They¡¯re gonna get themselves crushed to death in there! Pick ¡¯em up or somethin¡¯, but don¡¯t let them just walk around like that." Eisen slowly turned around and looked at the people behind him. He did have a point... "Fafnir, can you open a gate inside of Askr¡¯s chest again? Let¡¯s have them stay inside for the time being." The old man suggested. Kiron stared up at Eisen with a deep frown. The old man shrunk himself down to speak to him for a moment, "Grandfather, I don¡¯t think leaving you alone like that is a good idea. At least let me stay out here with you." The Half-Dragon suggested. And since he was Eisen¡¯s strongest Knight, the old man figured it wasn¡¯t apletely ridiculous idea. "Alright, but you¡¯ll travel on my shoulder then. That way you don¡¯t have to sprint the whole time, and we don¡¯t have to slow down." The old man suggested. With a bit of hesitation, Kiron agreed to the suggestion. It would be better if he stayed on Eisen¡¯s shoulder. There, he would be able to react to anything that came up instantly. Eisen picked up Kiron and ced him onto his shoulder, while the others were lifted into the Dungeon so that they could stay in there while Eisen, Kiron and Askr made their way through this small town. And just like that, they kept on going. And just so that Eisen wouldn¡¯t run into any trouble with people that would look down on him, literally and metaphorically, for being so much smaller than them, he stayed in his True Demonic Form. On top of that, it simply helped him stick out, and keep a bit more of his royal aura while making his way through this ce. This was really a rather interesting ce. On first nce, everything looked the same as it usually did, but when Eisen took a closer look, it was very different at the end of the day. For one, the materials for the building-creation were very different. For one, there was surprisingly barely any metal used, no nails or anything like that. The base was created by interlocking the special wood used, seemingly Ironbark or some slight variations on it, with each other in a way that would make it impossible for anything to fall apart without outside intervention from someone skilled enough in it. Of course, sometimes there were metal bits; like in the doors and windows, but for the most part, there wasn¡¯t too much metal all around the structure. And even if there was, the metal wasn¡¯t just iron either. At the minimum, it was very high quality steel mixed with some stronger materials. But the buildings weren¡¯t the only interesting thing that Eisen could see here. The clothes that the Giants were wearing were interesting too. There was a lot more hide and leather involved in their clothes, instead of cloth which would obviously take a lot more base materials. The tools and weapons people were carrying were, more often than not, made of parts taken from monsters instead of metal just to save on that material which was a bit rarer, and most likely harder to work with except if you had special abilities to allow easier work. After all, the properties of metal and mes would be the same as they normally were. That meant that it would be practically impossible to heat up the center of what giants would consider a rge chunk of iron¡¯. Except of course if you were a skilled craftsman that had the system¡¯s assistance. This was a reason why ¡¯Fire Giants¡¯ became craftsmen in the first ce. Because they innately were more skilled in controlling mes and heating metal than other types of giants were. That was also the reason why Fire Giants were amongst the richer ns that existed here in this country, as well as amongst the most influential. Who controlled the tools and weapons in a country held all the power, at least in a medieval environment like this. But there were many other ns as well. The Mountain n, the Water n, the Forest n, the Cloud n... There were numerous kinds of dragons, and Eisen was curious about meeting all of them from now on. Chapter 733: Patterns

Chapter 733: Patterns

Eisen walked through this small town with a curious mind. From his perspective, everything just seemed a little bit weird right now. It looked like he was walking through a normal town, but everything was just a little bit off here and there. For example, just having Askr be the same size as the old man was something weird enough. Otherwise, it wasrgely because of the grain of the buildings'' wood that he saw. The grain of ironbark was at the same level as regr trees'', so there was a lot more detail to it from this perspective. Of course, as Eisen stepped through the town, he noticed a lot of other things as well. And the people living here did as well, as all of them were staring at Eisen and Askr as they walked through here. It was clear that they thought Askr to be a giant in some kind of armor, at least judging from the guard at the town''s entrance. On top of that, the fact that Eisen was wearing a cloth suit, even if it did have some metallic aspects to it, was rather unusual as well, since most people were wearing leather and hide. Of course... Eisen''s horns, gray skin, and glowing golden patterns flowing all over him didn''t help with the fact that he was being stared at. However, soon, Eisen just stopped at what seemed to be a regr old stall. With fruit that were just the right size for a giant. He picked up the apple-like fruit that wasying there, and then slowly looked at the giant standing behind the stall, "How much?" "Three copper..." The Giant said, and Eisen quickly thought about it, "Let me guess, this country has its own currency, and you don''t take money from the central continent." "...We don''t take that money, you''re right. If you can''t pay, then-" "Haha, I didn''t say that. By chance, could you give me a single copper coin for a moment? You can be sure that I won''t leave, I just need to try something out." The old man said, and the merchant deeply frowned at him. However, since Eisen''s royal aura still took effect, the giant swiftly agreed and handed over a single copper coin. The old man grabbed it and ced a small item he was carrying with him onto it. The item enveloped the copper coin, and the next moment, Eisen was holding hundreds of regr copper coins in his hand. "Hm... I see. So that''s how valuepares, then." The old man replied. The next moment, he made use of the same item to absorb all of those regr copper coins to turn it back into a giant copper coin that he quickly handed back to the man behind the stall. And then, Eisen took out another item, and had Kiron help him put that item into one of Eisen''s rings to make it easier to use. And the item that Eisen just used with the giant copper coin just now was also put into the same ring. While the man behind the stall was waiting confusedly and curiously, Eisen finished up. He held his hand forward with his palm upward as a stream of regr-sized copper coins appeared on his palm out of nowhere. Each coinbined with another and created physicallyrger copper coins, before Eisen ended up with three giant copper coins in his hand The old man swiftly handed them over to the merchant with a smile, and then grabbed the apple-like fruit with a soft smile on his face. Just like that, Eisen killed two birds with one stone. He managed to figure out the local currency and update one of the coinpression items that he made using Komer''s element, while also getting the chance to try a fruit he never had before. And after a single bite, he managed to figuer out that it was really quite different to a normal apple, while still holding simrities. It wasn''t as sweet, but had a slightly sour taste to it instead. The peel was snappy as if it was more like a shell, and there were no seeds in the center. At least they weren''t like the seeds of a normal apple. After Eisen took the first bite, he quickly pulled out Bai from his Soul Storage and turned it into a knife, which he used to cut away the part that Eisen bit into. He ate the part he cut away, and then continued cutting the apple up into a size where the pieces could be pulled into the Dungeon by Sigurd so that the others could try some of it out as well. And of course, to save parts of the apple for Eisen so that he could cook or bake something with itter. For now, they simply continued on, however. Whenever Eisen came across something he was curious about in one of the few and small shops or stalls, he would buy it and then have it stored in the dungeon, or simply keep it with him if it was too big to be ced into the dungeon. And just like that, they made their way through the town, soon reaching the other side. If they had to go around, this would have taken a lot longer and would not have been even remotely as interesting as it was for Eisen right now. The old man took a deep breath and stepped back out of the town. Although, quite luckily, they managed to get their hands on a map that would make it possible for them to reach the city that the Grandour lived in a lot quicker than expected. However, it was a path that could only be traversed by giants. Or rather, it was much easier for giants to travel here, since it was a ''thin'' mountain path with steps carved into it. Since the steps took up the whole width of the path, it would be tough for regr-sized people to climb up that path. Which was a great excuse for Eisen to stay in his giant form for a while longer, speeding the trip up a lot more in itself. Technically he had promised Gind to travel in his smaller form and have his group around him, since she said it would be better for diplomacy or something like that. Eisen himself just enjoyed being t his huge. It felt prettyfortable, so he tried to stay like this for as long as he could. Once they reached the top of the mountain, which easily broke through the clouds long ago, they were finally able to see something. In the distance, there was another mountain shaped like wild mes. That was the ce that the city they were travelling to was at. But for now, since night wasing rather close, they set up camp here on this mountain. It would take another couple days, maybe two or three, until they reached the city at the pace they were going until now. For the night, they set the dungeon up properly so that Fafnir could sleepfortably instead of being stuck in Askr''s body like that. All the golems would stay outside of the dungeon to protect and warn everyone in case some monsters showed up, including Askr himself of course, while everyone else rested in the Dungeon. Eisen took a seat in one of the ''lounge'' areas of the Dunegon, and rxed with a nice cold whiskey while looking out a gate that was specially linked up with the main gate, so that Eisen could look at the scenery spreading out below him from this mountain. He took a deep breath and started to think about what he was going to do while in the city, and most importantly, what he was going to talk about with the Grandour. He had no idea what was going to happen afterward, though. "Is everything alright?" From beside Eisen, Kirisho walked up to him with a soft smile on her face. The old man looked at her with a nod, "Of course, everything is alright. Take a seat." She sat down right next to Eisen and looked at the horizon beyond the gate, "Are you still worried about meeting the Grandour?" Eisen stayed silent for a moment, and then let out a deep sigh, "Guess I really can''t hide anything from you. You''re right, I am. Well, rather than worried, I''m more... anxious. About what''s going to happen afterward. What information will I get through meeting the Grandour? Will I change in some significant way without any control over it? And then, unrted to all of that, what is the next step? Will the red notification give me any other task? I don''t have an answer to any of this. I don''t like that feeling." Carefully, Kirisho ced her hand onto Eisen''s arm and slowly turned her head toward him, as the two locked eyes with each other, "No matter what happens, we''ll be here for you. No matter what happens, no matter what things you do that you might regret afterward. We will protect you, and make sure that you stay the Eisen we know and love." "Thank you, Kirisho. Hearing that means a lot." The old man said, before he nced down at the woman''s body, "Ah, you''re still wearing the dress I made for you? I''m d you like it that much." The old manughed slightly. It was obvious that he was just trying to change the topic, but Kirisho went along with it. "Of course I do. It''s beautiful, and you were the one that made it for me. There''s no way I wouldn''t hold it dear to my heart. And coincidentally, the patterns you chose are somewhat close to the patterns on your suit, so it looks like we''re matching." Kirishoughed quietly. Eisen hadn''t paid attention to that at all, but she was right. For some reason, the patterns on the dress were simr to those on Eisen''s suit. And to those on Eisen''s skin, even, as well as the coin around his neck. "What..." Eisen looked at the patterns with a frown, and then turned his head to look ahead of himself. He let his mind wander, visualizing everything in front of himself. Eisen drew the patterns in front of him, the kind that he would often ce on items that were important to him. But he didn''t recognize the patterns, he had no idea where this subconscious obsession with it came from. However, as he thought about it, he felt a strange sense of nostalgia. As if he would remember something connected to those patterns. None of this would have made Eisen so curious, if it hadn''t been for the fact that the same patterns that Eisen was seeing in front of him now were on the currency of the Giant Country as well. They clearly had a meaning to them. Chapter 734: The Elderly Giant

Chapter 734: The Elderly Giant

Eisen didn''t know what these patterns were supposed to be, but he knew that there was some kind of meaning to them. It couldn''t just be a coincidence that the pattern that Eisen was subconsciously obsessed with could be found on the coins of the country that he was born in. Maybe he would be able to find something out in the city that they were heading to, something that the Grandour would be able to tell him if he asked. He should know the history of the currency, at least. Or so Eisen hoped. "Is something wrong?" Kirisho asked with a concerned frown. Eisen turned his head toward her and smiled, "Everything is fine, I''m just a bit confused about something. It seems like I''m subconsciously obsessed with those patterns, and I honestly don''t know why that is." The old man exined as he scratched the back of his head. "Oh? It is not just because you like how they look?" Kirisho asked. Eisen looked at her dress to look at the patterns on it, "Of course, I do like how they look. But I don''t understand why I''m particrly obsessed with this pattern to let it influence my craftsmanship to this extent. That usually doesn''t happen with me, at least not all too often." "Not too often? So this kind of thing happened before?" The Mist Spirit inquired. The old man thought about it for a moment and nodded his head, "Of course, I think it happens to everyone at some point. You have some kind of signature thing you add into your work, your own ''style''. That''s why you can see simrities between two different artworks painted by the same artist, and two different songs written by the same musician. Of course I had that kind of thing myself at some point." Eisen thought about thest instance of this that he could really remember, "Although... I''ve tried my best to get rid of that for a long time. So that what I made would be more ''neutral'', and more fitting to what the customer wanted. But when I was just making something for myself, I would let my mind slip and made something like how I wanted to make it, you see? And during those times, something like a ''pattern'' presented itself to me. But it was never a literal ''pattern'' like this." Kirisho smiled softly and pulled at Eisen''s arm to get him to sit down and rx again, "Don''t worry, I''m sure there''s some reason behind it. After a hundred thousand years of working as a craftsman, wouldn''t it make sense for your own style to have developed itself? Especially since you never really had ''customers'', and only made the things in the way you wanted to make them. That''s what I heard in stories about you, at least." Kirisho exined. Eisen looked over to her and nodded his head. That would make sense, at least. He felt ridiculous for freaking out like that now. That was probably the reason behind it. And maybe because Eisen was a Giant and lived here in this country for a long time, even presenting himself as a Giant most of the time, this country made the pattern that Eisen ced on a lot of his items the pattern of their currency. That would make sense at least, Eisen and the other Originals were beings that basically everyone knew. They had to have an immense impact on culture all around this world, as weird as that sounded. Eisen slowly closed his eyes and deeply breathed in through his nose, before breathing out through his mouth to calm himself down a bit again. Eisen ced his hand onto Kirisho''s and smiled at the woman sitting next to him, "Thank you. You really helped me calm down a bit." The old man thanked her, while Kirisho smiled back and leaned over toward the old man. --- Eisen took a deep breath as he stepped out of the Dungeon and felt the fresh air on his body. The giant country was in the northern part of this world, so it was obviously rather cold here. Since winter was approaching in this world, a lot of the trees were obviously losing their leaves already, and it was getting incredibly cold. At leastpared to the weather that Eisen experienced in this world so far. But it was a nice change of pace, honestly. He just had to make sure that the golems would be alright. If it would start snowing, their joints might freeze over and they could have trouble walking. He might have to add a self-heating function to prevent that. It seemed like during the night, since they were rather high up on this mountain, some of the golems were actually already affected by something like this. Askr could simply infuse himself with mes for a moment to get rid of the ice, but the other Golems were quickly taken care of by Eisen''s element. He spread the mes around them, and made them just hot enough to melt the ice while not damaging any part about them, And after that, they all continued. Luckily, for now, Eisen could continue with his justification for moving around in this giant form, since they still needed to get down from this mountain. It once more had the same sorts of steps downward as it had upward. Although, that in itself made Eisen pretty curious. Why would someone create steps like that leading to nowhere special? There wasn''t any sort of temple up here or anything. Sure, it was a nice spot to rx, but that was it. Well, Giants were deeply connected to nature most of the time, so it made sense at least to an extent for them to want the ability to easily get to a spot like this. As Eisen was walking down the steps, he actually spotted another Giant walking up them. It was an elderly Giant, meaning that he had to be at least 700 years old. Probably even older, at around 800-900 years. Of course, being a Giant, he was still physically fit and didn''t really look his age. Eisen was able to spot that he was elderly since his situation was basically the same. When they were passing one another, Eisen and the other giant gave each other a quick nod. But surprisingly, despite Eisen being in his True Demonic form, the other elderly Giant didn''t really react in the way that Eisen expected. Everyone else he met was at least a little bit surprised, but this one really wasn''t. But then, when they locked eyes for that single moment, Eisen felt a weird sense of nostalgia creep up on his mind. He stopped in his track and nearly had Askr identally crash into him. Considering where they were, that would have been a bit dangerous. "Excuse me, but could it be that we know each other?" Eisen asked with a soft smile on his face. The other man looked back at Eisen and then shook his head, "Sorry, I don''t think so. I don''t know any Demon-Giant Halflings." Eisen raised his brows surprised. It was true, he did look like he was a Demon-Giant halfling. Considering that he looked like a bit like a Demon when in his normal size, that was a fair assumption. "Ah, actually..." The old man released his True Demonic transformation. He shrank down quite a bit, but the elderly Giant in front of him raised his brows surpised. Or rather, shocked, "By the gods... Eisen! Long time no see!" The old man grinned in response. He was right. These two did know each other before, "I guess you could say that. Would you minding along with me for a while? I think there''s something the two of us should talk about." "Hah! Of course! Didn''t see ya in a hundred years, and when ya show up again, all you do isin! What''s it about this time?" Despite the fact that this Giant''s words seemed rather disgruntled, he was wearing a broad smile on his face. The kind you have when seeing a friend again for the first time in forever. "I''ll exin on the way. It''s kind ofplicated." The old man entered his True Demonic transformation again, and the two started walking down the stairs. The other giantined with a loud groan, "And here I was, hoping to get some time to myself up there!!" "Sorry about that, I''ll let you go back thereter." Eisenughed slightly. But the other Giant just chuckled once, "Right, as if I''m going back up these damn stairs one more time! Either way, who''s your friend? Don''t see his kind ''round here too often." "...His kind?" "Ascended wood giants, of course! What''d you think I was talkin'' about?" "Well, he''s not actually a giant." Eisen replied, "He''s Giant, but he''s not alive, technically. He''s a Golem I made out of an Ironbark tree that grew on top of a mana source." "...Huh, that so? Really looks like a wood giant. Well, doesn''t matter. So, what did you wanna talk about?" The Giant asked. Eisen looked at him and let out a deep sigh as he thought about how to exin this situation. But in the end, he simply started at the beginning. Once Eisen and the other Giant reached the bottom of the steps, the old man''s story was finished and the Giant stared deeply at the old man''s face to see if he was telling the truth or not. "And when you just saw me, you recognized me? Remembered stuff ''bout me?" "Not... exactly. You see, when I see something or someone, or hear certain phrases, or get into specific situations that have the potential to make me remember something, I''ll feel a weird sense of nostalgia gathering in my mind. And then, the next time I sleep, since I actually need pretty regr sleep again, I can end up remembering a couple of things." "Ya really did forget everythin'', huh..?" The other Giant asked. "I didn''t just forget everything. I''m a different person now. I lost all my abilities. Well, nearly all of the, I guess. I still have... some memories." "Ah, those from yer life in that other world you would sometimes talk of?" The Giant asked as if it was natural. Eisen stopped in his track and stared back at him, "I told you about that?" "Eh? Of course ya did? How else could I help you with your troubles?" The Giant groaned loudly and annoyed. Eisen looked back at him with a deep stare and locked eyes with him, deeply wondering about what exactly was going on. How did he just coincidentally meet this man, "I told you my story... Now you tell me yours." Chapter 735: Cursed

Chapter 735: Cursed

"Hm, it must''ve been when I was about 10 years old." The elderly Giant exined, "A real toddler, aye? Well, at that point, I had first learned about our ''Limit''. I felt it was unfair, and ran into the forests to change somethin'' bout that. Nearly died then, you see?" Eisen looked at the Giant next to him a bit confused, but he let him continue for now, "Kept trainin'' for years and years, and then evolved for the first time. Then for the second time, and the third. First I became a Giant Fighter. Then a Giant Swordsman. And then, a Giant Swordmaster. Before I turned 100, I was already the strongest man in my prettyrge hometown. But then, I was faced with the thing that I didn''t want to believe in." "And that was that ''Limit''?" Eisen asked, and the Giant nodded his head, "Mhm. The Limit that you established that wouldn''t let Giants reach Rank 7. But I wanted you to lift that limit, and I searched ya out. Then I found you, and spoke to you." The Giant exined bluntly. "I exined my situation, and you looked back at me and told me the thing that I never knew I needed to hear." With a soft smile, he thought back onto that time, and then quickly quoted Eisen from back then. " ''Young Khan'', you said, ''The limit won''t let you evolve once more, but that doesn''t mean you can''t reach even greater heights. You concentrated on bing stronger and stronger by increasing your level, but you never thought about those skills of yours. Practice them, and thene back to me.'' This became my new meaning in life. And you were right. Monsters that I couldn''t have hoped to make eye-contact with, were soon cowering below my feet." The Giant exined. Eisen was even more surprised and confused at this point. This man, Khan, didn''t seem particrly powerful when he was standing right next to Eisen. But maybe that was because the old man was used to seeing Brody so often. But before Eisen started asking questions, Khan continued, "I found new meaning in life. Rather than striving for superficial things like ''strength'', I searched for the peak of ability. And then I did. My swordsmanship transformed into a unique style that I created, the Mountain-Splitting de, and the skill reached its peak. But that was when I started to see changes within myself. And one day, a single message appeared in front of my eyes when I woke up." It flowed into Eisen''s mind. He already knew what Khan was talking about, "You finally ranked up once more." " ''Ranked up''..? Ah, that terms that young''ins use these days. Aye, I ''ranked up'', if you will. I reached Rank 7, finally. I broke through the Limit that you set, and then I went to search for you again. And when I did, instead of the happy expression I expected, you wore a bitter face. You felt sorry for me." "Sorry...? Why would I..?" "I did not understand either. Or so that was the case at first. Later, I realized what the issue was." Slowly but surely, the Giant next to Eisen pulled up his sleeve, showing something... horrendous. It was as if the Giant''s skin was rotting away, but it was somehow halted. "You gave me something to stop the spread of the corruption, but it was already toote for my arm. I was no longer able to hold a de. Then I understood what the issue was, why you created our ''Limit''. Giants, as a race, are cursed beings." "Cursed, what do you mean?" Eisen asked, and Khan replied slowly, "A man with power over the world, one that you despised from the grounds-up, cursed the Giants since you disobeyed him a single time. If they reached Rank 7, the average rank of Giants at the time, Giants would lose that which gave their life meaning. I became unable to wield my sword any longer, for example. Once you finally peaked, you used your power to establish that ''Limit''." "Then why did you reach Rank 7 when your skill reached its peak?" Eisen asked with a deep frown, and the elderly Giant shrugged in response, "I don''t know. Coincidence. You said that it could happen sometimes, since no wall was impossible to ovee. Even those meant to protect you." Eisen looked at the distance in front of him, "But either way, ever since then, we became friends. In the 10 Thousand years I''ve known you, we woulde to each other for advice, and you helped me find new meaning in my life." "...Did you say 10... Thousand? Isn''t the lifespan of Giants limited to 1000 years?" Eisen asked with a deep frown, and the elderly Giant nodded his head, "Hm, that is true, usually. But due to the unique situation I was in when I reached Rank 7, I became a ''Cursed Giant Swordsgod''. It seems like the ''Cursed'' precursor extended my life by quite a few years." "...It sure seems that way, yes." Eisen replied. 10 thousand years, huh? That must be incredibly long for normal people. The old man turned his head toward the Giant next to him, "I''m trying to find the current Grandour. Would you like to apany me for a while?" "Hah, that brat? As if I''d want to meet with someone like that! He dragged my style through the mud!" Khan eximed. The moment that he heard what Eisen was trying to do, his face became quite annoyed, "The only ones that were ever capable of fully understanding the style of mybat were you, Brody, and Jyuuk! Nobody else managed to master it like you three!" The elderly Giant eximed. "I... mastered your style?" The old man asked, and Khan nodded his head, "Of course! After I lost the ability to wield the sword myself, I spent my time teaching it to others. You were the first I taught it to! And for the past ten thousand years, you''ve made use of it quite well!" "Have I..? Sorry, but... Could you disy the basic movements of your style for me? I have an idea. Maybe I could teach the Grandour a bit of a lesson." "Hah! You wanna learn my style in the course of a few days? Khan eximed as if it was ridiculous, although he then remembered who he was talking to, "...You sure you can do that?" "Of course. I have my ways, don''t worry." The old man said with a smug expression on his face, while Khan was quite curious what he was talking about. --- "Halt! Identify yourselves!" A guard eximed, looking straight at Askr and Khan, who were standing side by side in front of the gate. It seemed like they were focusing mostly on Askr, thinking that he was that special sort of Giant that Khan mentioned to Eisen earlier. But the elderly Giant simplyughed into his hand, "This is not a man, dear friends. It is nothing but a mere Golem. The ones that you want to pay attention to are a bit lower toward the ground." The two Guards in front of the gate looked down at Eisen and his entourage. This was exactly why Eisen didn''t want toe to a country of Giants as regr-sized people. This would just be a bother. The old man quickly increased his size and activated his True Demonic transformation on top of that. He suddenly appeared in front of the two Guards out of nowhere, so they jumped back a bit in surprise. "My name is Eisen de Grandour. You must be awaiting me." The old man exined in a blunt tone without much further ado, and the two Guards looked at each other. Without a moment''s hesitation, probably due to Eisen''s ability to influence others'' minds, they dropped to one knee, "Of course, your Majesty! Please, follow us!" The Guards eximed in a loud voice, and quickly stepped through the gate. They called other guards over, and they were holding arge wooden board, finely decorated with fine metals and gems, that they ced down onto the ground. Eisen already understood what this was for. He held his foot over it and then decreased his size, quickly stepping down onto its center in his ''regr'' form. His entourage quickly joined him, and so did Khan, even. After all, every full Giant could change their size in this form as well, in this country, they simply didn''t like to do so. However, before the Guards could pick up the board, Askr grabbed it instead. Roots extended from his hands so that he could hold it properly, but the Golem then proceeded to carry Eisen and his entourage through the town like this. This way of travelling was already much morefortable, considering that it was far quicker. And since this seemed to be a formal way of transporting human-sized folks in this country, Gind couldn''tin to Eisenter either. Especially since he still tried to keep up his royal aura the whole time. The people of this city were rather confused at what was going on, since they probably had a hard time seeing Eisen and the others, but the old man didn''t care too much about that. "Now then, are you sure you have mastered my style again?" Khan asked with his brows raised, and the old man slowly nodded his head. "Of course I have. I wouldn''t say so otherwise." The old man said bluntly, "That style is deeply rooted in my body again. I may not have the ''skill'', but that doesn''t change that I have the ability to make up for that itself." Eisen smirked lightly. It was simple. After seeing Khan''s movement rted to his style of swordsmanship, Eisen managed to remember it the next time he slept. It was a simple style. But it was powerful. And it seemed to be something practically hand-made for Eisen, although the old man didn''t really know why that was. Maybe it was just a coincidence, or Khan created such a style based on Eisen for some reason. He didn''t know, but he didn''t care either. The reason why Eisen took the style on in the way he did was simple. It was one that could be easilybined with Craftsmanship. Khan was the child of a Fire Giant and a Mountain Giant, so he learned some craftsmanship from his Mother, and basic swordsmanship from his Father. Combining those things, he made the Mountain-Splitting de style. The movements were often simr to those of Craftsmanship itself. That''s why it was perfect for Eisen, and he would be able to use it just perfectly. Chapter 736: The Bet

Chapter 736: The Bet

It didn''t take long until Eisen and his entourage reached the castle of the Grandour. It was basically just a building carved out of a small mountain. The old man was quite impressed with the craftsmanship, actually. And to his surprise, there were parts of the structure carved out specifically for regr-sized people to traverse as well. At least that''s that what it seemed like. Overall, Eisen had been able to see a couple of different regr-sized people around here too, walking along the paths that were made for them. There were some like that just in town, and every once in a while, one of the huts that were scattered around the area seemed more like some sort of ''apartmentplex'', with numerous different regr-sized people living in it. For people that size, even just this building was probablyrge enough to epass a wholerge city, considering that it had multiple floors as well. They seemed to get along with the Giants pretty well though. It was probably some form of symbiotic rtionship, that''s the rough idea that Eisen got with the few memories that he did manage to recover about this ce anyway. The Giants gave food to the regr-sized people, who in turn helped out in many different ways, basically keeping this whole town running. They were like the force that kept everything working. Most Giants were far tooid-back for that kind of thing, after all. Something that showed itself once Eisen and the others were finally brought to the throne-room. This being the home of the Grandour, the head of the Fire Giant n, it was obvious that this ce was going to be rather hot. There were fountains set up all around the room, just that instead of water, it wasva running down it. Some of the others that were with Eisen right now were already having trouble keeping themselves cool. Of course, Eisen made sure to quickly give all of them some magic items that would make up for the heat to cool them down. And then, Askr quickly set the board that they were all on down in front of the Grandour. Without another moment''s hesitation, Eisen stood up from his seat and walked forward, with each step growing in size. And of course, he also activated his ''True Demonic Transformation'' so that he could actually see eye-to-eye with the Grandour. The moment that their eyes actually did lock, Eisen noticed the red notification moving right in front of his face. The notification started to flicker, and the task that was given to him through it, to speak to the Grandour, disappeared. He was most likely on the path of fulfilling whatever he had to do. "So, you are the King of that country... Asgard, was it?" The Grandour asked with a broad smirk on his face, and Eisen quickly nodded his head in response, "Indeed I am. But not only that. I''m not sure if you were made aware of this information, but my full name is-" "Eisen de Grandour. I know. I was told. It is clear that you have giant lineage, otherwise you wouldn''t be able to stand in front of me like this. But saying that yer a member of the Grandour family? Hah, I''d know if that was the case." Eisen smiled back at the man in front of him. He could feel a familiarity with this ce, a nostalgia simr to when he happened to recover memories. "Haha, brats like you really don''t know how to treat others with respect, huh?" Eisenughed loudly. The Giant Guards that were in this room became a bit unnerved due to the way that Eisen was speaking to the Grandour, the only King that they acknowledged, but the old man quickly snapped his finger and got rid of that issue. All the Guards froze in ce, unable to move another muscle, as Eisen approached the Grandour. "You see, the name ''Eisen'' should mean something to you, shouldn''t it? I''m the son of the first Grandour that lived a hundred thousand years ago. The only reason why you can sit on this throne is because I gave up on the title back then. I was never interested in it, really." The old manughed, and quickly turned around again, strolling around in his fine ck and gold suit. The Grandour stared back at Eisen and nodded his head, "I was told that you believe yourself to be that man, yes. The ''First that peaked'', Eisen. A giant amongst men, even ignoring his race. I have heard the rumors of the ''Artificial'' people popping up on your continent. That they were created through the experience of the five that peaked. But how can I truly believe that? Those people there wish to go with war to us, they are not people that can be trusted." Eisen smiled lightly as he turned his head around, "Then how about this... You surely already prepared everything for the ''friendly rtions duel'', didn''t you? Let''s ce a bet. If I can give you irrefutable proof that I am indeed ''that'' Eisen, you''ll have a private, one-on-one conversation with me." "And if you can''t give me that proof?" "I guess we''ll just silently leave and say that this visit was for nothing more but to build rtions between our countries." The old man replied with a smile on his face. The Grandour thought about it for just a moment, and then nodded his head in response, "Sounds like I have nothing to lose here, really." "Exactly." Eisen smirked, and proceeded to interlock his fingers behind his back, "So now, for when have the matches been prepared?" "We received your letter of the rough time that you will be arriving, so the preparations have been made for tomorrow." A man at the side of the room exined. He was most likely the Grandour''s aide, so Eisen just calmly smiled at him, "Perfect. Then would there be a ce for us to rest until then?" "Of course. We prepared quarters just for you. We were unaware you had another giant with you, but we will be pre-" "That''s not needed. Askr is not a Giant. He''s a Golem that I made. Just a single room is totally fine for me and my aides." The old man swiftly exined. The Grandour turned toward Askr, who was standing there so still that it seemed like his time had suddenly stopped. "A Golem..? Well ain''t that amazin''." The chief smirked, and Eisen slowly turned around. He shrunk back down to enter the small ''tform'', that Askr quickly proceeded to pick up. Just like that, they were then led to Eisen''s sleeping quarters by the Guards. It was a decently-sized room, but not just that. It basically had a mansion built right into the wall that regr-sized people could live in during the duration of the stay. The tform was ced down right in front of the entrance, and as such, Eisen was able to choose how he was going to live. Either, he could sleep in that huge bed in the center of the room and rx in a way that is for once capable to withstand Eisen''s preferred size, or he could stay with the others here in the building. "I hope you don''t mind if I stay in my giant form, you all. Just try nmot to tell Gind about this, alright?" Eisen smiled at his Knights and tamed monsters, who all slowly came out of the Dungeon, before the old man looked at them with a calm expression. "Don''t worry, Askr will stand in front of the bed and sense anyone that maye by. Kirisho''s mist is also strong enough to cover the whole ground in this room, so she can spot anyone that may want to approach as well. And of course, you guys are capable of taking on a couple of giants without any issue, isn''t that right? And I''m not particrly helpless myself." The old man pointed out quickly, "If pushes to shove, I''ll just have to ''log out''. They won''t be able to kill me then anyway. Nothing can." Kiron looked at Eisen with a concerned frown, "That''s not the point. If you''re in this building, even if the giants were nning anything, they wouldn''t dare do so after removing their greatest benefit, would they? It would scare them off in the first ce. We don''t want anything to happen, even if you don''t die. That would just elerate the war that those on the central continent are trying to start, Grandfather." Eisen looked at the half-dragon, and thought about it for a moment, "Then... Give me just half an hour, I think I can fix our issues. Sal, I might need some of your threads." The spider-boy looked up at the giant old man while standing on his palm, "Ah... Sure, I''ll get to making some right away then!" It seemed like he was rather tired, and had been sleeping for a huge portion of the trip until now, but Sal was still trying to help out when he got the chance. And just like that, Eisen proceeded to walk up to the door. He pulled out Bai and watched the Ego-Multitool turn huge enough for him to use right now. He turned Bai into a carving needle, and pushed it into the rock wall in front of him while pushing mana out of the tip of the needle. The old man proceeded to create different enchantments on the surface of the walls of this room. They would end up giving off a bit of a faint glow, but that wasn''t an issue. It would make the others feel more at home, having something star-like above their heads instead of feeling like they were stuck in an enormous cave ¨C which was basically what was going on right now anyway. The old man made sure to connect different parts of the enchantments using Sal''s threads, to make something of a ''tripwire'' for even more safety, in case some giant was able to get through the barrier created by the enchantments itself. Eisen''s focus had been ced on this for nearly an hour, which was when he finally finished doing this to all the possible entrances, protecting himself as much as possible. Some of the Golem Knights were positioned in ces where they could act immediately as well, the Dragon knights would end up stationed around Eisen''s bed, and Askr was right in front of the bed as well as the central defense-force, standing there to scare off any possible intruder in the first ce. However, as Eisen turned his attention toward the bed again, he noticed something curious. A huge mass of mist covering the bed, and just the bed. As if it was being encapsted. And somehow, the old man already had a rough idea what was going to happen once he stepped inside there. Chapter 737 - Gigantification Eisenid down in the bed covered by Kirisho¡¯s mist. For one, this would simply obscure Eisen further. Would allow him to get away by shrinking down instantly, without any intruder able to spot him. But it also had another benefit. One of Kirisho¡¯s abilities was a sort of ¡¯Domain¡¯, technically simr to what Eisen¡¯s Demonic Domain was, that she could establish. A domain where she was a lot more powerful for a certain period of time. This ability had an extremely long cooldown, so it wasn¡¯t viable to just use it whenever one wanted to. However, it seemed like this was a point at which she felt it was useful, for more than just one reason. The fact that it produced a lot of mist with simr substance as the mist her body was made of, so that she could cover the whole bed. Also that it blocked any sound froming in, and any sound from going out. The same was the case for visuals, of course. Nobody could see what was going on inside there. And if Kirisho didn¡¯t want them to, they couldn¡¯t really enter this ce either. So it was kind of clear what this was for now. Eisen took off his Suit Jacket, shoes, vest, shirt and pants. Heid down in the bed inside of the mist, in just his underwear. But what he saw when he was inside wasn¡¯t just the mist in front of his eyes. Rather, it was a beautiful scenery, as if Eisen wasying outside in a field at night, simply stargazing. This was also another thing that Kirisho could do through her version of a ¡¯Domain¡¯. She could make the world seem like it was anything she wanted it to be. Of course, even in this world, Eisen was still giant, that didn¡¯t really change. He was also still in his true demonic form. However, there was one key difference here that was rather important to Eisen. There was a person thatid down next to him, resting her head on the old man¡¯s chest as they both looked into the sky. It was Kirisho. A tangible version of herself, not just an illusion like the world currently around Eisen. Seemingly another benefiot of this ability. Within this domain, Kirisho had total control over her own body. Doing something like turning herself into a giant was barely an issue. And as such, in this domain, even when Eisen was a giant, the form he weirdly felt the mostfortable in, the two could be together like this. Eisenid there and wrapped his arm around the woman next to him, "Thanks for doing this." He said, but Kirisho simply shook her head, "It¡¯s nothing to thank me for. I get something out of this as well, after all." She replied in a medolic voice. "I guess you do." Eisen chuckled quietly, rubbing his hand over the woman¡¯s arm, "Listen, there¡¯s something I meant to talk to you about. But I guess I really didn¡¯t have the chance to do so recently." "Your tone sounds serious. Is something wrong?" Kirisho replied. Eisen, without hesitation, shook his head, "Nothing is wrong. I just wanted to ask about the future, you see? I¡¯m slowly recovering my memories bit by bit. Returning to the type of person that I used to be. I don¡¯t want to, but I can already tell that it¡¯s happening." "This conversation again? Eisen, I told you many times before, no matter who you are and will be, my feelings for you will not wane." Kirisho exined, and Eisen looked down at her, "Don¡¯t worry, that¡¯s not where I was going with this. I¡¯m learning new things. Information thates at a pace that may drive many crazy. That might drive me crazy. But more importantly, once I remembered everything, there are a few things that I¡¯ll have to do. I have to make sure I protect that other world from Samuel. And of course those that my actions pulled into harm¡¯s way over here. And after that, after everything has been settled... I guess you could say that I¡¯lle by a bit of free time." "I guess you could say that, yes. So what do you n on doing after saving the world, oh great hero?" Kirisho asked cheekily, and Eisen looked down and locked eyes with her, "You know that I¡¯m an old man." "Oh really? I barely noticed." "Just let me finish, will you?" Eisen smirked, "People my age... Or rather, people that have officially earned the title of ¡¯old¡¯ like me, often like to travel. I think I would love to see this world. I don¡¯t doubt that I¡¯ve seen every nook and cranny a few times over by now, but not ¡¯me¡¯. I may remember it, but I haven¡¯t lived it. Not the Eisen that just came to this world a few months ago, at least. And I don¡¯t think you¡¯ve seen much of the world yet either, have you?" Kirisho lightly smiled at the old man, "You are inviting me to travel the world with you?" "What else could I be doing?" Eisen replied. Kirisho looked up at Eisen, and lightly ced her hand onto his chest, "My heart is yours. Wherever you go, I go." Kirisho shifted her body around, sliding up toward Eisen¡¯s face. The two gazed into each other¡¯s eyes, as Eisen smiled, "I take that means ¡¯Yes¡¯?" --- In the morning, the mist faded away from Eisen¡¯s bed. He slowly stood up and walked toward the entrance of the mansion carved into the wall. The mannequin-golem walked onto his palm, and soon ced the individual pieces of his suit-armor fusion onto his hand. They quickly grew in size as Eisen put them back on, the Golem quickly disappearing in Eisen¡¯s item storage. Eisen watched as all his guards and knights stepped back onto the tform, before Eisen reluctantly shrunk himself down and joined them. Askr picked the tform up and started to carry them outside. Of course, before they left, Eisen erased the enchantments on the walls so that nobody couldin that Eisen damaged the property or something like that. Askr walked through the halls of this castle, and was soon apanied by some guards that spotted him. They were obviously supposed to be at specific stations, but they had only beenzing around all over the ce. In general, the security of this ce was rather... rxed. Giants were a race of free-minded folk. They didn¡¯t care what happened around them, were selfish, and basically acted on their impulses rather intensely. And it wasn¡¯t just the giants, of course, but the regr-sized people that grew up here seemed to be the same. It was just how society worked here, apparently. That made Eisen feel even more surprised at how strictly the Grandour¡¯s daughter was following the task she had been given, and how the current Grandour seemed to be such a determined leader as well. He didn¡¯t react to anything that Eisen said too rashly, and made careful choices that he thought to be the best for the current situation. The current Grandour was a good leader. Calm. Not as hot-headed as many Fire Giants often tend to be. Askr brought Eisen and the others to the ce where the fights would end up happening. Rather than an arena, it was more like some sort of huge hole in the ground that they took advantage of. That didn¡¯t mean that this was the first time this was used for fighting. There were clearly some residues of battle here. Pirs put up that people could hide behind, splinters of metal weapons thrown around that were forgotten. Footsteps trampling each othe deeper into the ground. The regr sort of thing that you would see in any arena of this kind. And then, soon, they reached the ce where the Grandour was seated. And a few steps away from him, a Giant¡¯s steps of course, was another seat, probably made for Eisen to sit on. Of course, the old man quickly took the chance as he turned back into his giant form, greeting the Grandour. "Good morning. A fine day for a few duels, isn¡¯t that right?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face. The Giant in front of him looked back with a light smirk on his own, "A fine day to find a living legend as well." "Right you are." Eisen sat down on the seat offered to him, and soon looked down into the hole that would act as the arena, "So we¡¯re starting quite early, I see?" "Of course we are. A good battle shouldst a day or two!" The Grandour eximed, a lot more energetic than he was yesterday when Eisen first met him, "Now, let me exin how this will happen to you, my dear guest. Ten fights. Each fight, one of my giants, against as many of your men as you want. It¡¯s just fair, isn¡¯t it? We Giants hold a lot more strength than those of your size. And we can¡¯t expect people to watch a fight that they won¡¯t even be able to see, can we?" "Sure, that¡¯s true. But I wouldn¡¯t worry about their size. I have some solutions for that." Eisen said, ncing to the side at the people that would be fighting here today. In particr, he was ncing at the hips of each of those people, where a small bottle with a special liquid inside could be seen. It was special in the sense that it would allow for an equal fight, but also in the sense that it couldn¡¯t be used quite often. Otherwise, Eisen would have had the others make use of this potion during the whole trip. It had a usage ¡¯cooldown¡¯ of a full week, however, considering that it was a special potion that Eisen was barely able to create with his current skill in Alchemy. It was a potion of Gigantification, that each of the fighters would drink to be able to match up to the Giants in front of them. And of course, this was only a small part of the n to prove to the Grandour that Eisen really was the first person in this world that peaked. Soon, the people gathered around the edges of this arena, more than just interested in being able to watch this performance. This battle between two countries. Of course this was something for them to get excited about, naturally it was. But on the other hand, nearly all of them were expecting Asgard to be absolutely crushed by the Giants. Their strength was at a whole other level, after all. But Eisen was more than just excited to see their expressions when they realized their side would not win a single duel today. Chapter 738 - First Fight The first fight started rather soon. The warrior chosen by the Grandour didn¡¯t seem to have anything special about him. He seemed quite average, as far as Eisen could tell, and the crowd didn¡¯t go as crazy about him as the old man expected. The Grandour probably nned to have the strongest and most popr fighters gost, for a perfect finale. After inspecting the Giant Warrior, Eisen chose someone from his side that was going to be a good fit against him. He would have the Dragon Knights gost, since they were the strongest fighters that Eisen had by his side right now. That meant he still had to ount for four other fights. It was clear to Eisen that Sal, Caria, and Melissa wanted to fight as well, but none of them were particrly strong in one versus onebat. They were great againstrge masses, though. And so, Eisen was left with only few choices for the first four battles. Right as he was about to make his choice, however, the Grandour looked at Eisen, "You know what? How about we only choose warriors for nine fights for now, and in the tenth, we go for something... more special?" "What do you suggest we do for that? Team-basedbat?" Eisen asked curiously, wondering about the thoughts of the Grandour. But the giant chieftain did nothing but smirk in response, "No, no... I heard that you yourself are also a quite adept fighter. If you are truly a part of the Grandour lineage, not to mention the great Eisen, you should be able to put up quite a fight against me." "Hoh?" Eisen let out, with a light smile on his face, "What a coincidence. I was hoping for something simr. I thought that it would be better to do so in private rather than in front of your people, but if you insist, then there is no reason for us not to have a duel ourselves." "Hah, you¡¯ll regret that decision, imposter." The Grandour replied, "Let¡¯s hope you can give me that proof by the end of that fight." Eisen smiled calmly. He was d that things were working out so surprisingly well. In the end, that would really help Eisen out a bit. If the grandour didn¡¯t believe him by then, then Eisen should be able to figure out a way to prove it to him in that duel himself. And so, Eisen proceeded to make his first choice. He only had to ount for three other battles beside the Dragon Knights now. One of them would definitely be Askr. And the other two were simple choices as well. Bree and Sky. Eisen announced the order to not only the Grandour, but also to the ones that were actually going to be fighting. The first one to go was none other than Eisen¡¯s firstpanion in this world. Bree. It was a lot of pressure to go first, but Eisen had multiple reasons for that choice. One, Bree simply didn¡¯t care about that pressure. She was simply happy that she was able to help Eisen out, and that she was able to show off how much work she did to get stronger than she ever was before! Eisen had created some sets of equipment that were specifically meant for situations like these, weapons and armor that would grow alongside those that wore them, as they grew to the level of a giant. "Are you sure you¡¯re going to be alright? I can choose someone else if you would rather not partake in this fight." Eisen reassured Bree, but the girl just looked up at the old man and shook her head, "I want to fight them! And I¡¯ll beat whoever is going up against me, I promise!" Eisen smiled back at Bree, and ced his hand onto the top of her hand for a moment, "Thank you. It means a lot to have you help me." "Hehe, I know~!" Bree grinned broadly, and Eisen once more increased his size to the maximum that he could to properly sit alongside the Grandour, while Bree was quickly brought down into the inner part of the arena, where she swiftly changed into her armor and weapon made just for this fight. After she was done, Bree rushed onto the dry, stomped-t dirt in the center of the arena, and could already see her opponent in front of her. It was a young diator, but it was more than obvious that they went through quite a few battles already. Their skin was covered in battle-scars, and they were carrying themselves confidently. Bree could see their huge, prating eyes in the distance through the slits in their helmet. She somewhat nervously looked over toward Eisen for a moment, who nodded at her with a smile to encourage her, saying that he believed in her. The girl pulled out the surprisingly small vial with the potion inside. She unwrapped the metal bit around the cork, that was ced there to make extra sure the cork wasn¡¯t identally undone somehow, and then pulled the cork out with her teeth, since her other hand was holding her already-huge warhammer. She spit the cork to the side, and drank the content of the vial. For a few moments, nothing happened, but then the effect spread throughout Bree¡¯s body. She could feel herself grow not only in size, but also in strength. Her body felt heavier than it ever did, but also far, far stronger. She simply felt amazing. Bree smiled as she stood there in front of the giant, although she was still far shorter than the giant. Of course, if the giant had shrunk down to the size of a regr person, Bree would also be shorter. That was simply how it worked, since she wasn¡¯t that much taller than a young child. Seeing Bree in front of him now, the diator turned toward the Grandour a bit confused. Because even to him, Bree seemed like a child, just from all of her proportions, now that he got a proper look at her. "What is the meaning of this? Why would you send a child out to battle one of my men? Are you not taking this seriously at all?!" The grandour asked, as if he was being insulted with the worst curses that came to mind, but Eiro slowly shook his head. "She¡¯s not a child. She just looks like one. Bree is a half-fae. The fae half is a pixie, to be exact." Eiro pointed out, and the grandour practically red back at him, "A pixie? Hah, now it is obvious that you aren¡¯t taking this seriously! Fine, then let¡¯s just watch that little girl lose against my fighter, shall we?" "I don¡¯t think that¡¯s going to happen, but sure. Let¡¯s continue." Eisen chuckled. The Grandour raised his hand to signal the diator to continue. Of course, not wanting to go against the word of the chieftain, the diator readied himself. He had a shortsword,pared to his body-size at least, as well as a small circr shield that he was using. Rather straightforward, as far as Eisen was concerned. Some of the giants blew a horn to announce the start of the fight to everyone, and the diator and Bree both slowly proceeded forward. Bree still had to get used to the size of her body, so her movements were a bit awkward for now anyway. That,bined with the fact that she wasn¡¯t used to this equipment, made her a lot more careful. Once they reached a rtive distance to each other that seemed realistic for a fight, the diator hit his sword against his shield, creating incredibly loud crashes of sound that rang out through Bree¡¯s ears. She stared back at her opponent, and took a deep breath to collect herself again. "Let¡¯s do this!" She eximed, as she pushed her foot into the dirt below her feet. Despite the fact she still wasn¡¯t fully used to this equipment, she did her best. Bree twisted her body around and swung the hammer toward the warrior. Of course, he was able to block rather quickly, due to the rtively slow attack. But Bree¡¯s fort¨¦ never was speed in the first ce. It was raw power. The moment that her hammer hit the shield of her opponent, a sound so loud it was impossible topare it to the one the diator caused himself just a few moments earlier rang out. The diator¡¯s shield was pushed back and his whole body twisted around, opening his stance. Being a born fighter, the diator pushed his fight against Bree, however. But most likely due to the difference in height that the diator wasn¡¯t used to, only fighting grown, adult giants here in the arena for probably years or even decades by now, the sword¡¯s movement was far too high and Bree was able to slip through it easily. She swung the hammer around her body and with a quick twist hit it against the side of the diator¡¯s body. With a loud crack, the sound of breaking bones could be heard, as the diator was pushed to the other side of the arena. The audience was silent, not having expected things to turn out like this just a few moments after the fight had actually started... This girl, this childpletely overwhelmed a professional diator, this man born a giant, in terms of strength. The Grandour turned toward Eisen with a confused, startled expression, "H-How did that girl...?" "Hm? What, you think that thepanions of the first man that peaked in this world were too weak to win these fights? Don¡¯t worry. We¡¯ll win with an overwhelming 10 to 0 today." Eisen said with a broad grin on his face, excited to see this show continue. Chapter 739 - The Inkheart Warrior The fight between the diator and Bree was not yet over. It had just barely begun. Embarrassed by being overwhelmed like that, the diator began to ran forward, holding his shield in front of his body in a way that it couldn¡¯t be pushed to the side. But Bree didn¡¯t care much about that, she figured out her own tactics after analysing this situation sufficiently. Just before the diator came into range, Bree had swung her hammer down over her head. It seemed like she was nning not to hit the shield to the side, but to hit its top and push it down. The diator realised this as well, and pushed his foot into the ground to stop moving. However, Bree was never aiming for that shield in the first ce. Instead, she aimed at the ground in front of her. As the heavy hammer hit the floor and cracks formed on it, a cloud of dust appeared that surrounded both her and the diator. The man was standing within this cloud, focusing his eyes on the faint light given off by the hammer¡¯s enchantments. A broad grin formed on his face. After all, if he wasn¡¯t able to see, then the girl wasn¡¯t able to see anything either! He pushed his sword forward, trying to attack Bree after being given this chance. But all that happened was that the de slipped by the hammer as it fell to the ground, the feint light from the enchantments illuminating his feet. "Huh?" He let out with clear confusion taking over his mind as he felt something grab onto his helmet from behind. Bree had jumped up and pushed her slender fingers into the gap between the diator¡¯s neck and the helmet¡¯s metal. She ced all of her weight into it as she pressed her feet against the diator¡¯s lower back and pulled the helmet back as hard as she could. Of course, the diator¡¯s weight quickly pulled him backward, and he tried to swing his sword toward the girl on his back. But at that point, Bree¡¯s n was already on its course. The movement of the sword simply helped out the backward trajectory of the diator¡¯s body, and Bree quickly jumped off and used her spry and agile movements to reach her hammer not even a full momentter. She slipped her fingers around the grip and pulled the hammer forward, quickly hitting it against the center of the diator¡¯s chest. Just like that, as the cloud of dust was finally settling, the diator was pushed back and onto the ground, slipping through the dirt while gasping for air. The audience looked into the arena, unsure what exactly just happened in there, while Eisen turned his head toward the Grandour, "I¡¯m guessing that¡¯s a win for us." The Grandour ground his teeth and red back at Eisen, who couldn¡¯t help himself but grin in this situation. Giving the signal by raising his left hand, the announcer was told how this fight had ended. "Th-The winner through overwhelming power is the warrior from Asgard!" The announcer eximed, and Bree raised her hammer into the air as she startedughing smugly. And hearing how exactly this fight turned out against their expectations, thebat-loving giants cheered. Of course, there were those that were upset their side didn¡¯t win, but the overwhelming majority was simply excited that they were able to see a fight with an unexpected oue. Eisen waved Bree over with a smile on his face, and the young girl joined the King on this tform. It would take a while for the potion¡¯s effect to subside, so until then, all the gigantified warriors would stand right behind Eisen, just like the Grandour¡¯s guards were standing behind him. "Oh, what a surprise~... She won." Eisen smirked as he looked at the Grandour, who simply scoffed in response, "It was mere luck. Your next one won¡¯t be able to win." "I¡¯m not so sure about that. Sky, have you prepared your stories?" The old man inquired, looking at the young man standing on his palm, "Duh, of course I have. I¡¯ve got a perfect one to show off how great we all are." "Great. Then do your best. I¡¯ll be cheering you on." With a broad grin, Sky listened to this King¡¯s encouragement, as he was brought over into the arena, "Guess I can¡¯t afford to lose then, now can I?" Sky stood in the arena, as his opponent came out as well. It wasn¡¯t a diator this time, but a fully-fledged warrior. He wore thick armor as well as a long spear. This might be the worst opponent for a mage like Sky, but in the end, he was still confident that he was going to win. He had a bit of a n as well, after all. After drinking the potion, Sky grew in size. He ced his book into the armband on his wrist, since he was unable to hold it properly otherwise, and he looked at his opponent. Sky didn¡¯t even need to read from the book, he had imprinted all his stories into his memory already. He simply needed this special Inkheart Grimoire as something of a spellcasting focus, something that allowed him to bring out his full power. This time, although seeing that Sky was far, far shorter than the warrior, the audience didn¡¯t react with ridicule, but were rather excited about what this one would show them, especially since he was clearly unarmed. "Warriors, begin the fight!" The announcer eximed, and the warrior on the other side of the arena immediately jumped forward and pushed his spear toward Sky. However, this young man simply held forward and shook his head as he pulled out his first tool with the help of his Inkheart Grimoire. "A book can contain the universe, you see?" Sky said with a smirk, as he looked at the man in front of him. From the grimoire on his wrist, ck letters started to appear. The wristband itself was a tool meant to amplify the strength of the grimoire, while feeding as much ink and mana to it as it needed for the upscaled spellcasting. And the first thing Sky did wasplete his look. The ck letters from his grimoire twisted around his hand, gathering together and forming a pitch-ck book that Sky could use as an intermediary. "A book? What, you gonna read a story to me?" The warrior asked, having stopped with his attack while looking at Sky. The young man simply nodded his head in response. "Actually, that¡¯s exactly what I¡¯m going to be doing. You see, I love books. Every kind there is. Thick books, thin books, fiction or biographies. Spellbooks, children¡¯s books. Old books, new books. All of them are great, don¡¯t you think?" "Hah, right! A book can¡¯t be used to fight a monster!" The warrior eximed, and Sky shrugged in response, "Then maybe you¡¯re reading the wrong books. The ones I prefer have quite a punch to them." As he was talking, Sky ripped a page out of the ink-book he was holding. With a few quick folds, he turned it into a paper airne that he threw it toward the warrior. "Is this... Erm..." The warrior turned his head toward the Grandour, being clearly confused why he was supposed to fight this boy that was just ying around. However, the moment that the paper airne hit the arm of the warrior, despite how slow it was travelling, itpressed into a tiny spot and twisted the warrior¡¯s flesh at his shoulder in a vortex-like manner, ripping it apart immediately. "What the fuck!" The warrior twisted his body to get away from this point of impact. A part of his clothes had been ripped off through this vortex, and it was floating in the air before dropping down in the form of a tiny, regr ser-ball sized orb, a mass of blood and clothpressed deeply. "What, didn¡¯t you listen to what I said?" Sky asked with an innocent smile on his face, as he twisted the book around and showed the content of the page to him. It was like the book was hollow, revealing an infinite space beyond. As if one was looking at the starry sky in the middle of the night. That was contained within each of the pages of the book. The ¡¯Book of the Universe¡¯. "What, you think I¡¯m some little crybaby bitch? You saw my sister right now, didn¡¯t ya? If she can beat that dumb idiot from before, then I can shove a few fists into your ugly mug myself." Sky replied in a blunt tone, as he held his hand forward. The warrior was rather confused about how Sky¡¯s manner of speech suddenly changed like that as well, but he didn¡¯t have much time to think for now anyway. After all, Sky could continue speaking whenever he wanted, and that was thest thing that the warrior should let him continue doing. "There once was a warrior. A monster amongst monsters, that nobody was able to stand up against. That man travelled the world, fending off his enemies and growing in strength more and more, gathering experience and even more power. This is the story of one of his fights, in the country of giants." Sky eximed, as more ck letters appeared from the book on his wrist. They gathered around, creating a huge mass of ck right in front of Sky and the warrior he faced off against. The more the mass was formed, the more it was obvious whose story this was. It was the story of a warrior that Sky himself made up. A story of his creation, that he could shape however he wanted in the blink of an eye. Right now, it was just a bare, humanoid form. "His opponent carried a spear, so the warrior equipped a shield." Sky said, and a ck shield appeared in his hand, "He wore a thick armor, so the warrior equipped a sword capable of piercing it." With that, a strong,rge sword appeared in the inkheart warrior¡¯s other hand, "Seeing the warrior¡¯s might, his opponent stood there, frozen in fear! The warrior took the opportunity, and lunged forward." And so, the Inkheart warrior did as described, swinging his sword directly at the giant warrior. He moved to the side and pushed his spear forward instead. "The warrior defended against the opponent¡¯s counterattack with ease. He pushed the spear to the side, and stabbed his de through the other¡¯s chest." Sky eximed with a broad smile on his face, "...Or so the warrior thought, but the opponent was trickier than expected. He moved his body away and cleverly tried to close in on the warrior within just a moment." Sky was really just narrating the fight at this point, while he was watching from an outsider¡¯s position, allowing him to analyse the situation much more easily. For a while, the fight seemed rtively even, until... "And then... The warrior split into a thousand pieces, revealing that he was nothing but a bunch of kobolds in a trenchcoat, trying to fit the giant warrior¡¯s might." Sky said with a smile on his face, as the inkheart warrior fell apart just like he said. The pitch ck ink kobolds jumped directly at the giant warrior while everyone waspletely and utterly confused. "What, you think a story has to be coherent~? You know, this isn¡¯t a drama, or a biography... It¡¯s aedic adventure." Sky said with a grin on his face. He was the creator of this story, and he could turn it into whatever he wanted. Chapter 740 - Dont Call Me A Child

Chapter 740 - Don''t Call Me A Child

Eisen sat there, staring down into the arena with a broad grin on his face, struggling to keep down theughter that his whole body was trying to force out of him, while the grandour next to him looked at Eisen in absolute disbelief. "Does your warrior have no honor whatsoever?! What is this?!" The chieftain of the fire giants asked with an angry expression, and Eisen turned his head toward the man next to him as he softly stroked his beard, "What, there were rules about this battle? You realize that you had a fighter go against a mage, right? There are going to be some tricks there." The old man pointed out, while the Grandour just angrily red back at the arena, "What a joke!" "Exactly. See, you understand it after all, don¡¯t you? Sky said it¡¯s aedy, and a ridiculous one at that, so you should probably be prepared for that. Sky has a very creative mind, to say the least." Eisen exined with a smile on his face, excited to see what else might happen. Clearly, this ¡¯story¡¯ that Sky wasing up with on the spot was going to be filled with absolute randomness. There was no rule within his abilities that the story he was telling was supposed to be particrly coherent or logical, or even all that good, after all. It just had to be a story. Sure, this ability was one that clearly took Sky a lot of mana to properly make use of, but that was an issue that he didn¡¯t have in the first ce. Due to his Fae parent, the amount of mana he possessed was absolutely ridiculous to begin with, and it only increased the more Sky leveled up, of course. And he was making full use of this fact to y around with his opponent a little bit.. "The numerous Kobolds began to run around their opponent¡¯s feet. As if they had a hive mind, still being one person, they kept on attacking them. Or more specifically, their ankles ¨C as it was the only part they could actually reach." Sky said in a loud voice, as the Kobolds did exactly as their storyteller had exined. They were ripping at the warrior¡¯s ankles with their ws, or biting into them with their fangs. They were doing anything they could to attack that opponent. But being close to the warrior¡¯s legs, the giant fighter simply crushed the kobolds underneath his feet, turning them into nothing but a ck, ink-like mush. "In response to being utterly destroyed by their opponents, the kobolds reveal another one of their abilities! They are... im-mor-tal." Sky exined with a grin, as he watched the tiny kobolds, at least they were tiny from his perspective, simply form back out of the ck ink that the giant fighter had turned them into. Of course, something that infuriated the fighter even more. "What a coward! Fight me head on, you child!" The warrior eximed, and Eisen¡¯s smile grew into more of a grin, knowing what was about to happen. "Maybe I should have warned you about this earlier, but if there¡¯s one thing you really shouldn¡¯t call Sky, it¡¯s ¡¯child¡¯." The old man exined, but the grandour sitting next to him still seemed incredibly confused and startled at Sky¡¯s abilities, so he had no idea how he was supposed to reply, while Eisen simply watched this incredibly enjoyable and entertaining battle unfold further. "Child, huh? Can a fucking child do this?!" Sky eximed, as he stared at the numerous Kobolds on the ground. "The mass of tiny monsters resolved themselves, choosing to mount this giant beast in front of them! They tore their ws into its flesh, climbing up more and more by the second!" He said loudly. The giant fighter in front of him of course quickly tried to kill any of the kobolds as quickly as he could, since even they would end up being somewhat troublesome if they reached his head. But whenever he managed to do so, the kobold just turned into ink, which quickly stuck to his skin or clothes, before the ink turned back into a kobold a few momentster. It was practically impossible for the fighter to get rid of all of these numerous kobolds that were expertly climbing his body. Soon, they reached his torso and neck, and the reality actually settled in. The fighter was trying to rip the kobolds off his body, throwing as many as he could to the ground, but Sky already reacted to that, "All the Kobolds turned out to be vampire kobolds! Whenever they were thrown away, they turned into bats and flew back to stick to the giant¡¯s body once more!" "Fucking vampires now?! Seriously?!" The fighter yelled out, "By the gods, you¡¯re the most annoying little brat that I¡¯ve ever had to face!" "Huh? Did you just- Oho, alright, then I guess I really won¡¯t hold back... The kobolds climbed up all the way to the warriors head, choosing to do anything they could to make the giant blind and deaf." Sky eximed, "They stuffed his ears with their bodies, and threw themselves onto his eyes, forcing its eyelids shut." The Kobolds did just that, and the giant tried to do anything he could to get rid of the kobolds, "And then, the true Giant Warrior, who the kobolds had impersonated, appeared in front of the opponent." Sky said, before more ink practically poured out of the book that he was holding as he used up a lot more mana for this part of his ¡¯story¡¯. Sky¡¯s body was soon covered in armor, as he held a long sword in his hand . Sky slowly let go of the book, making it float in the air beside him, as he continued to tell the story ¨C this time, with himself as both the storyteller and main character. He ran toward the giant fighter, and swung the sword at him with as much force as he could. Him being a mage, he shouldn¡¯t have been able to really exert too much force, but since the Inkheart Story that he was now telling about himself practically acted as a powerful buff, Sky had enough power to send the fighter flying. It threw off quite a few of the Kobolds, but Sky quickly reacted to this fact. "The Kobolds, seeing the true Giant Warrior, decided to assist him. With their vampiric, monstrous strength and speed, they moved underneath his feet and helped him propel forward." Sky said, and as just that happened, his body was practically flung forward by the Kobolds. Sky stabbed the sword forward, and the fighter in front of him was barely able to react to the attack. Only a few of the kobolds that had been taking care of his eyes had been thrown off, so he still wasn¡¯t able to see most of what was happening around him. But even so, being a professional diator, the fighter swung his shield to the side to defend, overwhelming Sky despite the strength that he currently had through his magic. "The Vampire Kobolds fly in front of the Giant Warrior to block the attack!" Sky yelled out, and immediately, nearly all of the Kobolds did as told, the only ones that didn¡¯t were the ones still trying to block the fighter¡¯s senses. The Kobolds seemed to do a decent job at blocking part of the attack, absorbing most of the damage. But even then, Sky still received an attack and was pushed back, something that annoyed him quite a bit. The fighter jumped up to run at Sky, but the Fae-kin really didn¡¯t want to y around anymore. He was just getting more and more annoyed. Maybe Eisen should have a bit of a conversation about his temper with him. "The Kobolds try to trip up the opponent with rope!" He eximed, and the kobolds quickly threw a thin ck rope across the ground that the fighter simply ran through, unable to react in time. But of course, due to the light weight of the kobolds, they were simply pulled along. "The Kobolds tie the rope around the opponent¡¯s legs!" Sky said instead, and the Kobolds quickly tied the somehow nearly indestructible rope around the fighter¡¯s legs, and since he was in the middle of running, he quickly tripped over onto the ground. "Seeing their opponent on the ground, the Kobolds shoot rope over the giant, to tie them onto the ground!" Sky eximed, something that the Kobolds of course quickly did. The giant fighter was unable to move now, and Sky quickly took that chance to hold the tip of his Inkheart sword right onto the fighter¡¯s neck, so that if he tried to move, he would practically just be killing himself. "Huh? If I¡¯m such a child, and a brat, then how did I beat this oh-so-great fighter right in front of me, huh?!" Sky eximed, pressing his foot onto the fighter¡¯s back. It was clear that the giant fighter wouldn¡¯t be able to continue. Sky had won this battle between them, and their side had gained another point. Once more, there were cheersing from the audience, although there were also a few peopleining about the way that Sky was fighting, saying that it was ¡¯dirty¡¯. But Sky just had one thing to say about that. "Yo, I¡¯m a mage, not a fighter! This kind of fight was unfair to me in the first ce, don¡¯tin if I¡¯m fighting a little bit dirty, alright?!" He yelled out, after clearly getting worked up after the fight. But Eisen didn¡¯t really mind that he was antagonizing the giants a little bit, since that would just make them even more engaged. And the only thing he could really pay attention to right now was the grandour¡¯s beautifully annoyed expression. Chapter 741 Wood versus Fire Chapter 741 Wood versus Fire Sky stepped out of the arena with a grumbling, muttering voice, as Eisen looked at him with a smile on his face, "Good job, Sky. Although, I think we should maybe kind of talk about your tendency to freak out when... you know." "But I''m not a child!" Sky replied with a loud, annoyed voice, and Eisen just slightly chuckled as he ced his hand onto the Fae-Kin''s head. Something that felt weird to do in this form, since Eisen was fully transformed into his Demonic form. Actually, he never had the chance to do something like this in his current form, although it did still feel faintly familiar. Probably through one of Eisen''s memories that he had recovered along the way. Things were starting to slowly blend together when he tried to recall certain things. "Well, this is another win for us." Eisen pointed out as he turned his head, looking at the Grandour with a light grin on his face, and the chieftain turned his head with a re, "The bet was that you would win all ten. There is no way that is going to happen. Those little ones were simply a surprise to my warriors! They will not win the next ones!" Eisenughed slightly as he shook his head, "We''ll see about that. Askr, it''s your turn." The old man said with a snap of his finger, making sure that themand would be understood by the giant golem. It didn''t take long until both parties had gathered down there in the arena, and everyone seemed rather surprised to see Askr. To them, he looked like a forest giant that had been affected by the giants'' curses in an attempt to grow stronger than usually possible for them. Askr stood there, a weapon sheathed to his hip, but ready to fight with whatever means were offered to him. Since he held a lot of skills trained up by Brody himself, Askr had various differentbat capabilities. However, since Grandour was aware that Askr was a golem, he clearly thought that his abilities were limited to what regr golems were able to do, which could be called simply throwing themselves at their opponent and hitting them with whatever they could. "This fight will be anything but simple for your side. To others, it looks like that puppet is a giant overtaken by wood, so it is only fitting that the one we have face it is a giant overtaken by mes." The grandour exined, and Eisen stared at him with a deep frown as he activated his truth-seeing-eyes. He saw the mana flow throughout the distance, and managed to spot arge amount of fire elemental mana concentrated in one spot. And then, the gate on the side of the grandour''s warriors opened up, as a figure stepped into the arena. She stood there, donning thin armor basically all over her body. But it wasn''t just any armor, it was armor designed to contain rather than protect, something that Eisen was able to see right off the bat. The thing that the armor was supposed to contain was the power of mes that had practically consumed this giant. Her hands were d in burning mes, and her hair had basically turned into fire itself. zing light flooded out of her eyes, and it was clear from her furious demeanor that the fire had not only taken over her body but her mind as well. "Is she always like that?" Eisen asked, "Always under the influence of those mes, I mean." "What sort of question is that? Of course she is! There is no cure for this curse!" The grandour eximed, while Eiro let out a deep, annoyed sigh, "Right, because that definitely makes sense. Listen, the cause for this seems rather simple, so we might be able to find a solution that is just as simple. Her core is-" "Silence, I will not let you distract me during this fight! I want to see your warrior of wood crumble to charcoal!" the grandour eximed with a broad grin, and a few momentster, the fight had officially begun. The old man rolled his eyes, figuring that he could just tell them about his ideaster. He might have to talk about it with Xenia to see if his ideas would actually end up working. But for now, Eisen just really had to make this guy next to him shut up for a while. He snapped his finger one more time, and slightly muttered, "Freeze her over, Askr." The moment hemanded the giant golem, he turned his head to the side so that he could watch the grandour''s expression as Askr activated a certain ability of his. Mist flowed down his body and the air around him cooled down tremendously. The runes all over his body started lighting up in a faint, light blue light. Ice started covering Askr''s whole body as he turned into the practical antithesis of the warrior in front of him. "But- How did-" The grandour muttered, and Eisen couldn''t help himself but just broadly smile, "What, did you expect Askr to be a one-trick golem like the others you might have seen? He was personally created by me, using abilities taken from all five of us that peaked. Anything you throw at him, my Askr will be able to fight off." While the grandour was still trying toprehend what exactly this old man just told him, the fight actually began. The furious, fiery warrior started to rush at Askr and pushed her ming spear forward. Askr saw the iing attack and pulled his de out of its sheath. He swung it to the side just once, and the wooden weapon cleanly cut through the metal of the spear. Because of course, the metal was greatly weakened, being influenced by the heat of the warrior''s mes. The grandour had clearly nned on having the hot metal damage the wood that made up Askr''s body up even more than it normally would. But in this case, the weapon hadn''t even been able to scratch a part of his armor, so it was clear that there was arge difference power between him and his opponent here. However, in response to the weapon just being cut apart by a wooden de, the warrior fighting against Askr just threw said weapon to the side. Instead, she went for a more feral way of fighting against her opponent. She threw herself at Askr in an attempt to grapple him, but the golem simply let go of his de for a moment and grabbed the cor of the warrior''s armor, throwing her away from him and causing her to tumble to the ground. Of course, the heat she gave off started to melt parts of the ice that were covering Askr''s body, but due to the sheer amount of mana that the golem was able to output, that ice regenerated the moment it had the chance to. And since the wood underneath wasn''t all that suspectible to heat in the first ce, even though some of the ice melted away, Askr was totally fine. However, there were some aspects to the warrior''s me abilities that neither Eisen nor Askr had really taken into ount, which was that, since the armor she was wearing controlled the mes, she was able to output them in particr patterns and strengths, giving her an incredible fine-control over her movement by simply propelling herself with mes like some sort of rocket. Before the warrior hit the ground with her back, her body flipped around and shended on all four limbs, as if she was some kind of cat. She twisted her body around in a clearly unnatural way, as if her body itself had lost mass and had turned into mes in certain areas to allow for this sort of thing. Her arm twisted onto her back and shetched onto Askr''s shoulder, practically trying to burn her fingers into his wood to at least get a proper grip on her. As if Askr was unsure how to exactly react, he turned his head toward Eisen, awaiting amand. "...Askr. Niflheim." The old man muttered, and immediately, the giant golem reacted. What happened now was practically iparable to what happened just a momentter. The whole arena froze over, and even snow slowly started dropping down onto everyone that was watching this scene, as an ability Eisen just recently built into Askr had been activated. Chapter 742 - Frozen Over Chapter 742 - Frozen Over As the inside of the arena had frozen over due to Askr''s ability, mist appeared around the warrior''s body. The heat that she was giving off mixed in with the freezing cold created by this ability, and immediately encased her in this. As long as she was using her mes, this wouldn''t change either. While the warrior was trying to figure out what was happening, Askr tightly held his sword in his hands, ready to attack in this space that had just be his own. "What did you just do?!" The Grandour looked at Eisen, "You cast some sort of spell, didn''t you? How da-" "I didn''t cast a spell. I simply gave Askr amand, telling him to use one of his own abilities. I myself haven''t used or even moved a speck of mana this entire time." Eisen smirked slightly, "Come on, just keep on watching. This next part is going to be quite fun to watch, I assume." The Grandour ground his teeth together, and looked forward back at the arena. Truly, more than anything else, he was excited about seeing what was going to happen. And in the first ce, there was a barrier ced around the arena that would stop anyone else from casting spells within the arena, to stop any sort of interference. For a short while longer, both Askr and the warrior now encased in a cloud of mist were standing still, waiting for just anything to happen at all. And then, all of a sudden, one of the two finally broke through this silence. The warrior jumped out of the cloud of mist, propelling herself further with her mes. A stream of mist was being left behind her, but it wasn''t fast enough to truly encase her as she was moving like earlier. However, in order to be able to truly see what was going on around her, she had been forced to constantly be in motion, limiting her possibilities to an extent. The moment that Askrid eyes on the warrior, he began to move as well. He pushed his foot forward and started to swing his sword. But he didn''t just swing it normally. It was like a wave of ice was being pulled out of thin air as he was moving it, following behind the edge, as if the way that the de cut the air had be visible. Askr''s de itself had passed by once the warrior came into range, but the wave of ice that was still growing and following after it was in the perfect ce. Although the warrior tried to stop, the wave of ice advanced nheless and made an impact with her stomach, and despite it movingparatively slowly, the impact was more than enough to throw the warrior across the arena. It was that kind of heavy impact. As the warrior was trying to figure out what had happened, she was once more covered in ayer of mist, hiding her body. But this time, Askr didn''t stop. Instead, he swung his sword around and shed it upward, right in her direction, despite the fact that she was far outside of his range of attack. While he was doing so, he also cut into the ground, or rather, theyer of ice that was now covering the ground. Once more, a wave of ice was created, but this time, it didn''t follow Askr''s sword, but rather, traveled in a straight line starting from where he had cut into the ground. The arena rumbled, and soon, the wave reached the cloud of mist. Since her sight was obstructed, she shouldn''t have been able to see it, but most likely by relying on her other senses, the warrior was able to dodge by jumping into the air while propelling herself with her mes. However, with the battle sense that he had inherited from the greatest fighter in this world, Askr had already anticipated something like this might happen. He stabbed his sword into the ground, causing an explosion of ice around him that pushed him upward. Usually, with their huge bodies, you wouldn''t image the possibility that they could jump and fly around in such agile ways, but it was exactly what happened. Askr stretched out his arm and grabbed onto the warrior''s. The ice covering his body was melting the moment that he touched her burning hot armor, but he was still confident in this body created by Eisen. He pulled the warrior onto him, and tightly held onto her. He wrapped his legs around her stomach from behind, and held onto her head and neck with his arms, trying to make sure she couldn''t move. Struggling to escape from this mid-air grapple, the warrior expelled mes from her armor, propelling the two of them at the ground at high speed. The floor of the arena cracked apart, and Askr''s body had clearly been damaged to an extent. But Eisen knew that he could fix any damageter, and Askr knew this as well, so he didn''t worry. Instead, his grip simply strengthened. Now, the two of them were in the center of this frozen-over arena, while Askr kept holding onto his opponent. She was sting even more heat than before, causing mist to rise around above the two of them,pletely obstructing the sight of the audience. But Eisen could see what was happening. While holding onto her like that, Askr was using the frost magic that Eisen had given to him, strengthened by Niflheim, to make ice encroach on the warrior''s body. First, her legs, then her belly, and soon her torso and arms werepletely covered in it, until she waspletely frozen in a block of ice. As the heat of her mes wasn''t able to escape anymore, the mist soon settled, showing this sight to everyone else as well. Askr stood up, pulling his arms and legs out of the block of ice, before pressing his foot on top of it, dering his victory wordlessly. The audience cheered as the winner had be clear, and Eisen turned his head toward the shocked Grandour, "And that makes three. Now, the next fight is going to be a bit different, though." Eisen pointed out with a light smile, as the Grandour stared at him confused, "What do you mean?" "Well, the first two fights were two of mypanions. This third fight was my golem, a creation of mine. The next fight will be between one of your warriors, and one of mine. Of course, he is strong enough to have been chosen toe here with me, but he''s not particrly more skilled than most of my other guards and servants. He''s going to be the representative of all of them. I will show you that even a generic guard can beat whoever you pit against him." Eisen exined as he locked eyes with the Grandour, who slowly turned his head into the arena. Through the skilled mages on both Eisen and the Grandour''s side, the arena had already been prepared for the next fight, and the two next warriors stepped into the arena. On the Grandour''s side, it was arge, bulking warrior. Even amongst other giants he was on therge side of things. And meanwhile, on the other side... was a Koblin, a Goblin and Kobold halfling. He didn''t look particrly special, that was clear to everyone here. And even once he drank the potion supplied by Eisen, there didn''t seem to be anything special about him. Certainly, this fight was Eisen''s greatest gamble. For everyone else, he was absolutely positive that they would win, but for this one... he wasn''t. But more than that, it seemed like the audience was confused what they were even looking at. These sort of monster mix breeds weren''t known anywhere, except on the central ind of Asgard, Prototype. Koblins didn''t look particrly grotesque, they simply were something new and thus far unseen. Amongst all the guards that Eisen had brought, this one was the most skilled, and even had the highest stats. He had been assigned the head guard. There was a reason why he was sent along, after all. He couldn''tpare to the others in Eisen''s immediate party of course, but that didn''t change that he was generally quite skilled, but the same could be said about the giant that he was going to face. Well, there was one more reason why Eisen put his trust in this Koblin. He was a Knight candidate that Kiron had personally picked out, despite just recently joining the guard program. Kiron was the one that suggested this Koblin to be one of the fighters as well. Eisen closed his eyes, waiting for the fight to start. He was just hoping that this guy wasn''t going to mess up his n. And then, the signal for the duel to start could be heard, and the fight started with the Giant Warrior mocking the Koblin, asking what sort of ''abomination'' he was. It quite annoyed Eisen, but he just had to listen for now. But then, something unexpected happened. Eisen could hear footsteps, most likely those of the Koblin, followed by the Giant''s footsteps. With a loud groan, the Giant seemed to attack, which was when Eisen opened his eyes. The Giant Warrior clearly had underestimated his opponent... But now, he was left with the Koblin''s spear pierced through his stomach. The Koblin pulled the spear back out of the warrior''s torso, and watched him copse, holding his wound, "F-Fuck, how''d you..?" The warrior asked, falling to the ground. "I am a servant of the ones that peaked. Such a fight is nothing to me." The Koblin exined briefly, not saying any more as his opponent copsed. Truly, a surprising and quick ending to this fight, that had just started a few moments prior. Chapter 743 - Solid Flames Chapter 743 - Solid mes Eisen himself was quite shocked when he saw what had just happened. This Koblin had truly been trained to an incredible degree. Unlike the others that had gone so far, this simple guard had no sort of special abilities that he could show off, and instead trained the basics to this level. Eisen couldn''t help himself but grin broadly. The opponent for the Koblin was also perfect. He was the kind of musclehead that underestimated others for their appearance, and since the Koblin looked like nothing but amon, low-rank monster, he clearly thought this would be more than just easy. The fact that he didn''t even wear any particr armor showed that he was incredibly confident, if not overconfident, in his physical abilities as well. Slowly, the old man turned his head toward the man sitting next to him, "You see that? That''s what amon guard can do in my kingdom. Do you have anything else to say to that?" Eisen asked, but the Grandour''splexion showed that he wasn''t going to answer. He was pale, as if he had just seen a ghost. As if he witnessed something impossible. Not that it mattered much, even if he had said something. "Well anyway, let''s just move on to the next fight already, huh?" Eisen said, as he watched the Koblin walk up the steps, approaching the old man. He kneeled down in front of Eisen and lowered his head. "Your Majesty. It was an honor to be able to fight under your name in this event. I thank you for this chance." He said, but Eisen couldn''t help himself butugh out loud, "Of course, of course! You were the perfect guy to do it! Also, you better thank Kiron instead of me, he''s the one that rmended you!" The old man pointed out, and the Koblin immediately nodded, kneeling down in front of the Half-Dragon afterward, "I thank you as well, Lord Kiron." "No need to thank me. I chose you due to the abilties you have disyed to me." Kiron said, as he turned his head toward Eisen, "But Grandfather, for now... Which of us five should go next?" The half-dragon asked, and Eisen thought about it for a moment. While he trusted in Rudia and Selena, they were an Archer and a Mage respectively. They didn''t fare too well in close-quarterbat, and paired up against a bad opponent, things weren''t going to end up as clear-cut as the old man was hoping. "Don''t worry, Grandfather." Kiron said, looking up at Eisen, "We can handle everything thates our way. Trust us." Eisen smiled as he looked at his grandchild, and slowly nodded his head, "Alright. Selena, you go first. Show them some of your magic." Immediately, the silver half-dragon nodded her head. She was clearly nervous about this, being the most held-back and shy of the dragon knights, but Eisen knew that she was going to be able to do just fine. After all, she was still a half-dragon, and if Kiron told him that they could do it, then he trusted in those words. Selena stepped into the arena, and slowly drank the potion. Her face grimaced because of the potion''s taste, but she quickly adjusted to her new size, and held the special-made staff tightly in her hands. It wasn''t her normal staff, since that one wasn''t able to grow to this extent in ordance with gigantification-based abilities, but it should still do the trick. It wasn''t like the process really changed, after all. Either way, soon, Selena''s opponent stepped into the arena. She was a quite young warrior, wielding a chain sickle. The chain was currently wrapped around her arm, covering it like some sort of armor. Clearly, this was an even worse matchup than Eisen had feared. If things didn''t go well, then this warrior would be able to attack Selena before she was even able to cast her first spell. Soon, the round begun, and thinking the same thing as Eisen, the warrior attacked Selena immediately, throwing her arm forward. The chain loosened up unnaturally, as if it was being directly controlled by the warrior''s will, and shot forward at Selena. But before the sickle was able to reach her, Selena pressed her staff into the ground. Immediately, a wall of mes appeared in front of the half-dragon mage. Usually, you would think that something like this wouldn''t be able to hold back a physical attack, but as if it hit a wall of metal, the sickle simply repelled back. From the spot that the sickle hit the wall of mes, rippling waves moved outward, and Eisen could swear he saw a slight silver tint in the color of the mes. For the most part, Selena usually acted as a support, hence why Eisen was even more worried about this particr fight, but it seemed like there was no need to worry. Selena was seemingly quite capable of her own. However, as the sickle was shooting forward, the warrior that wielded it didn''t just stand there, but instead sprinted forward at the same time. The moment that the sickle was repelled, the warrior pulled it back and swung it around her arm, shooting it over the wall of mes in an arch. The moment that it was above the wall of mes, the sickle shot at Selena in an unnatural way, the arch turning into a straight line in an instant. Eisen raised his brows, curious about how selena would get out of this now. But it seemed like once more, there was no need for Eisen to worry. Selena swung her staff around as if she was using its tip to cut through the air, and in that exact path, more mes appeared. The sickle hit those mes, and was once more repelled, as if the magical mes that Selena was summoning, supported through her staff, were solid. Selena was moving her staff around as if it was a spear instead of a magical tool, cutting through the air and defending against the iing attacks through the sickle. However, the giant warrior didn''t simply stand behind the wall of mes and do nothing. While Selena was busy with the sickle, she managed to rush and sneak around the wall, since Selena was blocking her own view with the magic that she casted. The warrior soon stood beside Selena, and using a punch to her side, she tried to attack her and open her up to further attacks through the sickle. However, there was one other part that even Eisen hadn''t really thought about. Whenever he fought monsters, things like this were never an issue, although it wasn''t like he actually fought against creatures like this too often. But when he was on the ind of dragons, he did notice that his de got stuck quite often, since it wasn''t able to easily cut through the scales. And then,pared to that, a true dragon''s scales? Even if it was just a half-dragon, they were of course much stronger than those of a creature simply imitating the existence of dragons. And there was one more aspect to it on top of that. The chromatic dragons'' scales were more akin to chitin or bone, while the metallic dragons'' scales were just as their name suggested... they were metallic in nature. To the extent that Eisen would probably be able to melt them down if he tried, not that he was given much of a chance to do so thus far. Either way, due to all of these thingsbined... despite the attack of the giant warrior, the attack didn''t do much. Selena was a mage, her defensive abilities were minusculepared to others'', but considering her nature and constituion, she was just at another level in terms of defense. At the very least in areas like her back and sides, where her scales were most prominent. Had the warrior attacked her stomach or limbs, then maybe it would have been different, but right now, Selena was practically unaffected. With the warrior now being in close range, Selena pushed the tip of her staff into the ground. From around her, waves of mes shot outward, pushing away the warrior while damaging her. Despite being solid like that, the mes were clearly still as hot as normal mes were. Of course, since she was a fire giant, the warrior was naturally resistant to heat, so it didn''t do as much damage to her as it would to others, but that didn''t change the fact that it did do some damage, especiallybined with the blunt impact of these solid mes with a silver hue. While the warrior was trying to find her bearings, Selena held her staff into the air, and waved it around. She was creating spears of mes with her magic. The moment that one had been created, it was shot at the warrior at high speed. She was doing her best to dodge and deflect, of course, but it was quite a tough thing to do considering the speed and frequency at which all these me pirs were being shot at her. All the whilst Selena was shooting all these spears, she was preparing mes for another spell attack as well, something that she wanted to use to end this fight in an instant. She was gathering a lot of her infused mana above her head in a sphere, trying to press it together as much as possible as if she waspressing it. And then, slowly moving it as far into the center of the arena as possible, she made the sphere simply shatter apart and blow up outward, swallowing the whole arena in a sea of solid silver mes. Chapter 744 - Stuck Mid-Air Chapter 744 - Stuck Mid-Air As if a wave of ice had shot outward from the center of the arena, it was now covered in solid mes that were rippling with a silver shine. Enveloped in the mes was the giants'' young warrior, unable to move. The mes were clearly damaging her to a high extent despite the resistance to fire she had as a fire giant. Meanwhile, Selena stood in a capsule of her mes that slowly opened up after it had protected her from her own explosion. It wouldn''t really be able to damage her, but it would still be able to restrict her movement, due to the nature of this magical element. Slowly, Selena stepped forward, snuffing out the mes in a straight path in front of her all the way to the giant warrior. Soon, she stood in front of her, and held the tip of her wand against her forehead, "This is my win... right?" She said, and the giant warrior, grinding her teeth, simply stared back. In an attempt to escape, she tried to rip herself loose from the solid mes, but the moment she was able to push some of them away, new mes took the hollow space that she had created. In the end, the warrior was unable to free herself, as the damage from the mes was steadily umting. "Fine! You win, alright?!" The warrior yelled out angrily, upset that she had lost this easily, and the fifth fight had quickly concluded. With a relieved smile on his face, Eisen watched as the Grandour was getting more and more nervous. The mes in the arena quickly disappeared, and the giant warrior was immediately treated by healers that were on standby, trying to treat the wounds that covered her body. "Rudia, you''re up next. Get ready." Eisen said confidently, knowing that nothing stood in the way of the ten victories anymore. If Selena was able to ovee her weaknesses like this, then he was sure that Rudia was capable of the same. And the fact that the other three dragon knights were great and one-to-onebat was something that Eisen was already greatly aware of. Selena stepped up to the area where Eisen and the others were waiting, and was quickly congratted by everyone. Although clearly, she felt kind of awkward being this muchrger than the others in her group. Either way, that was going to change quite soon, as the other dragon knights would soon step into the arena as well. Rudia, standing confidently in the arena with her bow in hand, soon grew to a simr size, and immediately stared forward at the opponent that was stepping out of the arena''s other entrance. The audience cheered a particr amount for this one. It seemed like he was one of the more famous warriors of the arena, someone that was fighting quite often. Thesest five fighters that the dragon knights would fight against were the top five ranked warriors in the arena, after all. Giant society is based around strength and physical ability. The stronger you were, the more respect you were worthy of. So of course, any fighter that wanted to be known to be worth a damn entered this arena to try and gain fame throughbat. And this one was particrly popr. He was a giant mage, but as far as Eisen could tell, he wasn''t a fire giant. Rather than that, judging from his stature and grey-ish skin, he was a stone giant. It was the first time that one of the warriors wasn''t a fire giant. "What a surprise that you would let outsiders fight for you." Eisen said curiously, but the Grandour scoffed, "Hah, he''s not a true outsider. He''s lived in our n since birth. He may not be a fire giant by race, but he is one by honor." The Grandour said in a clear voice, absolutely confident in what he was saying. To the extent where Eisen couldn''t help himself but chuckle. The Grandour was cocky, but he didn''t seem like a bad person as far as Eisen could tell throughout all of this. He was simply somewhat conceited. But as long as he didn''t throw some kind of fit upon losing, and epted the truth that Eisen was the son of the first Grandour, then he didn''t really care about the personality that he was showing off right now. More than that, Eisen was curious about the magic of a stone giant mage that grew up in the fire giant n. The staff that he was holding was made with the expertise of the fire giant n. It was certainly of quite a high quality, and showed a lot of use. The stone giant slightly bowed his head to Rudia, "I apologize, but I will be putting a stop to your winning-streak tonight." "Heh, we''ll see about that." Rudia replied with a scoffed chuckle, readying her bow with confidence. And soon, the fight begun. Immediately, Rudia nocked an arrow and shot it. It didn''t even take a second, and this giant, heavy arrow was flying at the stone giant. But with just a wave of his wand, the arrow stopped moving. It was suspended mid-air for a short moment, before just falling straight to the ground. With a deep frown, the red half-dragon archer quickly shot another arrow, followed by a flurry of others. But no matter what she did, the same thing kept happening, the arrows stopped moving, just to fall to the ground in a straight line. It was unnatural. It seemed that this was the stone giant''s magical element, however. At the very least, he had encased himself in ayer of elemental mana. "Interesting." Eisen muttered quietly. Considering that the arrow fell straight down after being suspended mid-air, it wasn''t like the time of the arrow was stopped. Did it steal the arrow''s momentum instead? "...No, then the arrow wouldn''t stay suspended mid-air like that..." Eiro muttered. He made sure to watch closely as Rudia shot one more arrow. And then, Eiro noticed it. It was just slightly, but the arrow seemed to be able to move a certain amount into the mana, and then it just stopped. But while its forward-momentum continued for a moment, the rotation stopped a lot more quickly. "Ah, so that''s it, then." Eisen muttered with a grin on his face, while the Grandour looked at the old man, "What, you aren''t trying to tell me that you saw through his magic already, are you?" Eiro chuckled slightly as he nodded, making his golden eyes sh slightly in his demonic form, "Of course, something like this is nothing for a man that lived a hundred thousand years." The Grandour slightly widened his eyes, but immediately turned his attention back onto the arena, "Still going on about that, huh? We''ll see if you are truly telling the truth!" "That we will." Eisen replied, and also kept watching the fight in the arena. Eisen couldn''t very well just tell Rudia about it. She had to figure a way around this magic herself. But it seemed like she herself was starting to figure the magic of this stone giant out as well. Instead of grabbing one of her normal arrows, she grabbed an arrow made specifically to pierce through one''s defenses. It had a drill-type tip and would rotate at incredible speeds upon being shot. Pulling her bowstring back as far as she could, she shot her drill arrow forward. It basically dug its way through the mana, and the stone giant even slightly flinched. But even then, the arrow still stopped. With a slight smile, knowing that she was on the way to figuring something out, she instead pulled out a blunt-headed arrow, and shot it at the stone giant. However, just before she released, she jerked her bow up and down just once. This was a weird trick that she had learned after ying around with the techniques that Brody had taught her. Eisen lightly smiled as he watched the arrow twist around. Like this, you shouldn''t be able to control it, but that didn''t matter. All that Rudia needed was the exact thing that happened. Instead of hitting the stone giant''s mana at high speeds with the tip of an arrow, it hit it at slow speeds with the back of the arrow. And not in a straight line either. Instead, it was pointed slightly down. The heavy blunt tip weighed the arrow down quite a bit, and slowly, the arrow slid away. It slid out of an invisible mass, and Rudia figured out what the secret to this guy''s magic was. The stone giants were particrly impressive in terms of their defensive abilities. As such, it made sense for a stone giant''s magic element to be rted to that concept as well, even if they grew up in the fire giant n. As far as both Eisen and Rudia could tell, the element was quite simple. Upon impact with something, it solidified, and then released soonter. Like a non-newtonian fluid of sorts. It grabbed onto the arrows and slowed them down immediately, and when the arrow''s force fully dissipated, the mana released and the arrow dropped to the ground. It was quite an interesting element, though. If he had the chance, Eisen would love to grab a quick sample of itter. It would be great to have with him for some nice defensive items. Either way, now that the element had been figured out, Rudia knew what she had to do in order to win this duel. Earlier, when the stone giant flinched, it was because one of Rudia''s arrow prated deeper than he had thought. So clearly, this mana could be broken through with force. And so, Rudia once more prepared a drill-head arrow. But now, she didn''t just do that, but also applied some magic to the mix. Being the descendant of a dragon, Rudia of course still had a close connection to mes. It was why the elements of all the dragon knights were rted to fire in some way, with their own unique twist. Xenia mentioned that they would probably grow out of the basis of the mes at some point when their elements evolved, so that they would end up with something more fine-tuned toward the other aspect of their magic. Either way, Rudia''s element was based around the maniption of her arrows. Mostly, she used it to speed them up and add force onto them, as if she was giving a rocket boost to them. And so, as mes gathered up around the arrow she was pulling back, Rudia grinned, ready to break through her opponent''s magic. The moment she released her arrow, it shot forward, deep into the stone giant''s mana, but once more it was stopped. However, an instantter, faster than anyone could tell, Rudia had already shot another arrow. This time, a blunt-head arrow, using magic to not only speed it up, but also to create a small forward-facing explosion on impact. And so, the blunt-head arrow hit the drill-head arrow''s back the moment it was released from the mana, just barely impacting with its end. And so, the drill-head arrow took on the momentum of the blunt-head arrow, and shot through the mana, and the arrow pierced the stone giant''s mana. It was a sessful attack.... however, it seemed like the stone giant would now move from defense over to offense after seeing his opponent''s abilities. Chapter 745 - Invisible Maze Chapter 745 - Invisible Maze The stone giant held the powerful staff that he was grasping forward. Nearly immediately, a mass of elemental mana gathered on its tip, as if concentrating. However, nothing was visible on the outside. Usually, by now, at least traces of something could be seen. But of course, it was unnecessary to see the magic to realize that something was happening, considering the concentration of the stone giant mage. However, Rudia didn''t let go of the opportunity given to her through said concentration, and quickly nocked an arrow onto her bow. She pulled back the string, and let go the moment she knew that she had gathered enough power for a good attack. However, right when the arrow came close enough to the stone giant, it once more stopped. In an instant, the stone giant had activated a spell. The mana that it had concentrated at the tip of his staff expanded suddenly, creating this current effect. Something that only Eisen was truly capable of seeing through. It did seem like this situation was getting a lot more troublesome for Rudia, but he was still confident that she was going to win. What the stone giant had been doing was not simply gathering his mana for a powerful attack, but rather, he was creating a detailed structure in thepressed mana that he was preparing in a way that it would keep its shape upon expansion. And now, the mage only had to let his elemental mana flow through the already-established structure to strengthen it. But at the same time, that meant that Rudia''s best chance was now. However, even she, although she wasn''t able to see what was going on, was able to realize that something had happened, and that the whole air in the arena changed. Slowly, she slid her feet forward, as if trying to carefully creep forward toward something. And then, her foot hit it. An invisible wall. This was the stone giant''s element. In just an instant, he was able to create a sort of solid mass the moment something impacted with his mana. Earlier, the arrows that Rudia shot were hitting the spherical barrier that he had created around himself, and the moment that the arrow''s tip came in contact with it, it solidified around it. And then once the arrow waspletely stopped, the solidified mana quickly loosened up again, letting the arrows drop to the ground. However, this solid mana wasn''t infinitely powerful, shown by the fact that the arrows could break through it. Using her natural, powerful instincts, Rudia may not have figured out all aspects that made up the mana, but she knew what she had to do in order to get past it. That was all she thought about. But now? The stone giant went for a different tactic. He had created a maze throughout the arena. One that he was able to sense perfectly, while Rudia had no way of getting through it. While there were no permanent walls, the moment that she tried to get through the mana, it would push back against her, so there was really no effective difference. But there were two important things that were shown through this tactics, especially the moment that the stone giant started walking through the maze. Eisen hoped that Rudia would be able to realize these quickly. First, however, she did something that seemed to surprise the stone giant. She shot an arrow into the sky. "Trying to hit me from above?" Heughed, "Sorry, that''s not happening." The moment that he said this, the arrow hit the invisible ceiling that had been created above the maze. Otherwise, Rudia would have been able to escape from here from above. This was a thing that the mage had thought about, however. With a confidentugh, he continued through the maze, but Rudia simply continued trying to figure out her chances. She tapped the surface of the invisible walls of mana around her, figuring out the position of the wall rtive to her. Then, she nocked another arrow onto her bow. This time, it was an arrow that she had specially requested to bring with her on different asions, just in case. It was a survey arrow. When shot, it would start giving off a high-pitched whistle, one that not many ears were able to pick up. However, as a half-dragon, Rudia''s ears could. She had trained her senses intensely, and soon gained the ability of echolocation while making use of this sound. To make things easier, the arrow was given a rubber tip, so that it would bounce off of different surfaces to allow for slightly moreplex soundwaves for her to pick up. While sound seemed to pass through the mana without solidifying it, making her echolocation useless, the rubber tip definitely wouldn''t simply pass through. Rudia had asked Eisen to make this arrow for this battle just in case she lost her vision somehow, but it came in useful in a totally unexpected situation. Rudia shot this arrow at the wall at an angle. Using her element, she made the arrow a lot lighter and faster, allowing it to bounce around far more than normal. It wouldn''t do any major damage, but it really didn''t need to either. All that Rudia was using it for was to figure out the structure of thebyrinth around here. The arrow flew through the air, seemingly bouncing off of nothing, but Rudia was already creating a mental map for herself. She ran after the arrow each time, picking it up off the ground as soon as she could just to shoot it off again. And like this, to the stone giant''s surprise, Rudia was able to get through the maze without issue. She did hit some dead ends a few times, but that didn''t change that he was in trouble if things continued like this. However, then, Rudia''s arrow bounced off something in a weird way. It was shooting through the air quite horizontally, but then it was suddenly pushed nearly straight up and hit something just a momentter, before then falling onto the ground. Rudia had been sprinting after the arrow the whole time, but now, she stopped. This was one of the traps that had been set up in this maze. It seemed that the mage was not only able to create straight walls, but moreplex structures too. Like a wall covered in spikes. The moment that this became apparent, Rudia knew she had to be more careful. If he spread these out over the ground randomly too, then she couldn''t move around carelessly. She felt lucky that nothing had happened thus far, with the way that she had been running around. At this point, it didn''t seem like it still mattered, though, since the mage soon reached a certain spot in the invisible maze. It was the exact center of the arena, and it didn''t seem like he was nning on moving away from there anytime soon. And then, something bothersome happened. Eisen already noticed that there was something unique set into the staff that the mage was using. A mass of fire started gathering in front of the staff, and a pir of mes soon shot forward, pushing right through the mage''s elemental mana. Seeing the mes approach, Rudia of course ran back through thebyrinth, trying to dodge them for now while she was thinking. Meanwhile, Eisen let out a deep sigh. The Grandour looked at him with a broad grin on his face, "What, did you just realize you will lose this round?" "Hm? Oh, no, of course not." Eisen replied immediately, "I''m just d that I was worried for nothing." "What? Worried for nothing? Those mes even injure us Fire Giants!" "Right, but Fire Giants aren''t the most fire resistant race out there, you know?" Eisen pointed out, and the Grandour looked at him confused, "What do you mean? She''s just a somewhat special lizardman, nothing else! Even if her scales gives her me resistance, it can''t be stronger than ours!" Eisen turned his head toward the Grandour, "Did you not listen to what I called them? They''re my Dragon Knights. That is not just a title to make them sound stronger." The old man pointed out, while Rudia had finally finished thinking. She had stopped and turned around, now running straight into the horizontal pir of mes being shot at her. Eisen smiled lightly, "They''re half dragons, you dimwit." The Grandour turned his head toward the arena, "She''s a-" "Right. She''s half a red dragon. You know... the ones with the greatest power over fire?" Eisen chuckled slightly, watching as Rudia jumped up with her feet in front of her as she was bing enveloped in mes. As her feet hit the elemental mana making up the maze, the mana solidified. However, it was sharing a space with the mes. Not only did the fire mana push the unique mana to the side, making the wall overall weaker, but the mes that were caught within the wall as it was being created weakened it even further. Like that, Rudia, with her superior physical abilities, was able to kick through the maze''s walls, running in a straight line toward the mage, who had no idea what was going on, thinking he had already won the duel with this. But before he knew it, Rudia kicked the staff out of the way, pulling the small knife she carried with her out of its sheath, pressing it against the underside of the stone giant''s chin. Her armor had been heavily scorched and was partially burning and melting away, but Rudia simply looked at the mage in front of her with a big grin, not caring for this fact at all. "It''s my win, you smug bastard." Chapter 746 - Pillar Versus Shield Chapter 746 - Pir Versus Shield The audience cheered loudly. Even though they weren''t able to see the maze that the stone giant mage had created either, they still knew about the ability in general. Everyone in this city did. And they also knew that it was an incredibly tough, bothersome ability to fight against. However, this girl did that more than just easily. "How..." The Grandour let out, slowly turning his head toward the old man seated next to him, "How did you get your hands on a half-dragon?" Grinning slightly, Eisen looked at the Fire Giant, "I told you. I''m Eisen de Grandour, son of the first chief of the fire n, and father of the god of dragons." "...Preposterous." The Grandour replied immediately, "There is no way you could be the true Eisen. It is simply impossible!" "Why are you fighting it so much? You already know it''s true, don''t you?" "...Bring out the next of those lizards." Instead of acknowledging what Eisen said, the Grandour looked back into the arena. This showed Eisen that he was right. This Giant beside him, despite not wanting to admit it, truthfully already knew that Eisen wasn''t just an imposter. But well, admitting it now wouldn''t do him any good anymore either way. He was going to be crushed by Eisen anyway. The old man took a deep breath, and made a choice between the two possible half dragons that could go next. Thest fight would be fought between him and the grandour himself, and the fight before that would be fought by either of their strongest champions. For Eisen, it was Kiron. So now, he just had to pick either Morgus or Argon to fight in the next round. Both Selena and Rudia fought with precision and expertise rather than raw strength. Maybe, following those two, Eisen should go the opposite way, and pick the one that fought using raw, brutish power the most out of all the Half-Dragon Knights. "Morgus, your turn." The old man said, and with a broad grin on his face, the battle-maniac half ck-dragon nodded his head. He picked up the pir standing next to him and threw it over his shoulder, pushing his fingertips into the grooves made for him to grab onto. Kiron handed him the gigantification potion, and then gave him a quick nod, "Good luck." "Heh. As if I need luck to beat these show-offs." The half ck-dragon replied with a broad, toothy grin, showing off his sharp fangs. Morgus was brought into the center of the arena, and proceeded to drink the potion. As his body continued to bulk up and grow in size, he threw the ss bottle to the side, making it shatter in the middle of the arena. Eisen was a bit bothered by that, but he doubted that Morgus or his opponent were going to be hurt by those tiny shards of ss at all. Soon, Rudia made her way back to the viewing area, which had now been filled up more and more with the champions that the old man chose to fight for him. Now that they were giant like this, the area did be a little crowded, though. "Good job out there. That was a tough ability to see through." Eisen said, and the red half-dragon smiled at the old man with a smug expression, "But of course, it''s me we''re talking about, after all." She replied, standing right next to Selena and the others behind the old giant, excited to watch this next fight unfold properly. Morgus'' fights were simply... satisfying, to say the least. He had an incredibly honest way of fighting. He didn''t use feints or tricks. The fact that he nearly only relied on his brutish strength was a nice change, and incredibly fun to watch in action. And then, the person that Morgus would be fighting stepped into the arena. It was a fire giant holding a huge tower shield in front of her body. The sheer amount of metal that it would take to create something like this was simply unbelievable. But then again, this ce was also known for how dense the earth was with metals. "Hah, you''re just gonna give me an easy target like that?" Morgus asked with a loudugh, already pumping himself up for the fight that he already knew he was going to win. But despite that being the case... Eisen felt sort of weird about something. The tower shield that the fire giant was holding was obviously made mostly of steel, but there was also arge amount of magic on its surface. He couldn''t directly identify it, but he figured that there was some trick to this. This fight might not be as simple as Morgus was hoping it to be. It didn''t take long until the bells were rung, and the duel officially started. Morgus pushed his fingers right into the grooves of his metal pir, grabbing onto it as close to one of the ends as possible, before starting to run forward. The pir was scraping over the ground, making it crack apart. That was enough topletely eradicate a vige or small town of regr-sized people... maybe they should try to make Morgus more mindful of these things. Not that he was going to give him another gigantification potion after this whole ordeal. Eisen let out a deep sigh, and chose to just wait for once. He was still nervous about thatyer of magic that was very clearly fused into the metal-coating of the shield. It was definitely elemental mana, and as far as he could tell, it was a unique element. If one considered that it was ced onto a shield, it was easy to imagine it to be something as simple as an element that increased the defensive capabilities of something, but Eisen''s intuition told him that there was more to it. And it seemed like he was right, as well. Morgus soon stopped, pushing his feet into the ground, while swinging his pir at his opponent. However, his opponent stayed calm and collected throughout, and simply turned her body to ce the tower-shield between herself and the pir. The moment that Morgus'' metal pir hit the shield, the echoes of a heavy impact sounded out through the arena. Usually, you would expect the shield-bearer to be pushed back, especially considering her stance behind the shield, but she simply stood in cepletely. And on top of that, Morgus'' pir was still touching the shield in the same spot that it had initially impacted with it. Usually, it should have been bounced back, or slid over the surface of the shield at least a little. But somehow, it seemed like the pir was... stuck. Morgus had been trying to push the pir downward to slide it away from the shield, but it simply didn''t work. "It''s not adhesion..." Eisen muttered quietly. If the pir was simply glued to the shield, then Morgus should be able to use his raw physical strength to pull the shield, if not together with the shield-bearer, away. But that wasn''t the case. With his truth-seeing eyes, Eisen had been able to see what was going on with the magic ced onto the shield. It was forming ripples that moved outward, and right into the shield-bearer. She was wearing thick gauntlets that covered her arms up to her shoulders. At first, Eisen thought that this was simply so that she could protect her arms more easily from the immense impacts she must experience as a shield-bearer. After all, she didn''t seem to have any other weapons on her to go with the shield. But the moment that the mana seemed to settle in the giant''s gauntlets, the old man had a hunch at what was going on. The fire giant pressed the shield into the ground until it seemed to be able to stand on its own, and, hidden behind it, slid past the shield and attacked Morgus directly. Still trying to pull the pir away from the shield, Morgus had a tough time getting away. He wasn''t particrly agile anyway, so he might not have been able to dodge even if he could freely move around. With a single hook-punch, the giant made direct impact with the side of Morgus'' torso. Usually, that wouldn''t have been an issue. As a half-dragon, Morgus had incredible natural defense. And even considering that, his physical resistances were incredibly impressive. That''s why, a normal punch from this fire giant might have done a bit of damage, but it should not have been anything to worry about. Normally, at least. But as Eisen watched the magic that had settled in the giant''s gauntlets shoot out forward into Morgus'' body, followed by the ck half-dragon being pushed through the arena after a surreally strong impact, he understood what that magic was all about, and he realized that this might actually get quite interesting after all. It might be prolonged for a while too. Confused at what was happening, Morgus looked around. His pir was still in his hand, and had finally been removed from the shield. With a deep re, Morgus stared back at the fire giant, grinning broadly. If he was smart about this, then he would still be able to win this fight pretty easily, though. If he had just half the analytic ability that Selena or Rudia did, then Morgus would be totally fine. However... "Hah! You''re stronger than I thought! But putting glue onto your shield is pretty fucking dirty, don''t you think?!" The half-dragon yelled out.. Eisen let out a loud groan, knowing that Morgus had absolutely zero ability to figure out the trick behind what just happened. Chapter 747 - Shield-Breaker Chapter 747 - Shield-Breaker The Grandour let out a loudugh. He, as well, realized that Morgus didn''t seem to even want to try figuring out what had just happened to him, "You''ve got a good knight right there, don''t you?" He yelled out through hisugh. Eisen turned his head toward him, and smirked, "Just watch. Arrogance looks rather ugly on you." Clicking his tongue, the Grandour looked back into the arena, continuing to watch the fight. Morgus was in the middle of running back toward his opponent, once more swinging his pir right at the shield. And again, the same thing as before happened. The pir stopped moving in an unnatural way, and the shield bearer moved out front and attacked the half dragon with a surreal amount of force. This happened again and again and again, already making this fight the longest out of all of them. However, even then, Morgus didn''t back away. He continued doing the same thing over and over again, as if he was faced with a challenge. The challenge to get through that shield through brutish strength. That was, until a certain point in the fight. The half dragon let out a loud yell of annoyance, after getting more and more agitated throughout the fight. "Argh, fuck! How''s that shield that fucking strong?!" Morgus yelled out, before pressing his pir into the ground. He buried his fingers in its grooves, and started to breathe heavily and loudly. It didn''t take long until his breath became practically visible, as a poisonous green air flowed out of his mouth. ck dragons were also known as ''gue'' or ''Poison'' dragons. Rather than with fire, they had a stronger connection to disease and poison, something that even showed itself in Morgus'' magical element. While it was a body-strengthening element, a sort of poisonous energy flowed through it as well. Morgus'' mana was spreading throughout his body, and that same green mist seemed to flow out from underneath his scales, practically enveloping himpletely. The Grandour looked at Eisen the moment he realized what was going on, "You would use something cowardly like poison?!" "How is this use of poison cowardly? It''s simply part of who Morgus is. Rather, the fact that you just used someone that built an invisible maze filled with traps was cowardly. That whole thing was based around hiding behind something that nobody else could see." Eisen pointed out, "And in the first ce, do you really think that a little poison can really do a lot of damage against a giant warrior? If so, then you need to train them better." The old man said immediately, and then looked back at the arena. Morgus was going to go all out now, considering that he finally used his body-strengthening magic. The half dragon moved forward, grabbing onto the pir with one of his hands, before starting to run. A bit away from his opponent, Morgus mmed the pir into the ground, pushing himself up on it as if he was trying to vault over something. And well, he did. He pushed himself high into the air, dragging the pir off the ground with him. In the air, Morgus twisted his body around, once more mming his thick metal pir downward. Just that this time, the target wasn''t the ground, but rather the shield bearer herself. Not having expected Morgus to suddenly change his approach like that, she struggled to fully lift up her shield in time. Morgus'' pir hit the shield when the shield bearer was in an awkward position. The magic ced onto the shield stole any momentum or power from iing attacks, just to allow her to put that strength into her own next attacks. It was impossible to pull the weapon away once it touched the shield. However, this was only the case for the initial attacker. If the shield was pulled away, it would allow for the attacker to pull their weapon away too. Since the shield-bearer made use of the effect of locking down her opponent''s weapon to then get the chance to attack, she was in a tough situation now. Since she couldn''t steadily move the shield down while keeping up contact with Morgus'' pir, she couldn''t attack him that easily, or at all, without him getting the chance for a counterattack. So instead, she just had to stay there, locking down both herself and Morgus at the same time. The only issue with that was that there was now a constant amount of force pushing down on her shield, meaning that the power gathering up in her gauntlets was continuosly increasing more and more. This was both a blessing and a curse, however. While this would allow for an even stronger attack once she finally found a gap to attack Morgus, it was obvious that an item like this didn''t have an infinite capacity. The gauntlets would start to break down sooner orter, and she didn''t want to find out what was going to happen to her the moment that they did. But of course, Morgus was no fool. He wouldn''t just wait for something to happen now. Throughout the couple dozen times that he attacked his opponent, and was then attacked with the same amount of power in return, he had realized that the shield could absorb his power somehow. And while he could obviously use this chance, where his body waspletely hidden behind the shield, to sneak behind the shield bearer and take her out this way, he wanted to do something else instead. He could have won easily throughout this fight, especially once his opponent started underestimating him since he only attacked in such straightforward ways, but that was boring to Morgus. All these fights that happened until now, they were all boring. They didn''t show off the true power of the champions chosen by Eisen for this tournament. The raw strength possessed by those trusted by the first man that peaked. Morgus slowly let down his body, and hooked the ws on his feet onto the sides of the shield, where this power-absorption effect didn''t seem to be a thing, and started to push down on his pir. And of course, right now, neither the shield bearer nor the shield itself were giving in to the amount of force that Morgus was pushing down onto it. While hooking himself onto the shield, he tried to use the full strength he could muster through his superior draconic body to destroy this shield. This object clearly created to stop any attacker in its track, something that the audience seemed to be more than just aware of. They knew all about the other champions of the current Grandour, at least. While everyone else was trying to figure out what he was trying to do, Morgus'' intentions were immediately understood by Eisen. He could see the elemental mana umte within the shield bearer''s gauntlets. It was shining brighter and brighter the more it concentrated. The amount of force that Morgus was continuosly adding onto the shield was incredible, honestly. It was obviously less than the initial impact, but since then he had ovee that amount by a few times already. "Did time freeze? What in the nine hells is going on?" The Grandour asked with a deeply confused expression. The audience as well was still trying to figure it out. That was, until about a minuteter. Eisen had been watching the mana umte in the gauntlets, and then at some point, it started to leak out. They were no longer able to hold onto all this raw force. More and more mana poured out of them, until finally, the gauntlets on the shield bearer''s arms simply shattered apart, its shards being thrown throughout the arena in a powerful explosion. Of course, the shield bearer herself suffered extreme damage as well, but it seemed like none of her vitals had been injured. She should be fine with a few concentrated potions. But that wasn''t all that happened following the explosion. The moment that the gauntlets blew up, the force umting in the shield had nowhere else to return to, so it experienced things the way it was supposed to in the first ce. With creaks that echoed through the arena the moment that the shards of the gauntlets all settled down on the ground, Morgus was bending the shield right around the tip of his pir. Until finally, it cracked in half after having been bent too much. Morgus dropped to the ground,nding surprisingly elegantly. He lifted his pir into the air, and let out a loud scream to dere his victory, while the shield bearer passed out from a mixture of the half dragon''s poison and her wounds received through the explosion of the gauntlets. As the audience sheered, seeing what had been achieved that day, Eisen turned his head to look at the man sitting there, utterly perplexed, "That... that shield was made by some of our best... But that... what sort of pir is that...?" "It''s just a pir of solid steel enchanted with the ability to change its size together with its wielder." Eisen pointed out, "Sorry to tell you, but that came from Morgus'' own power." The old man said with augh, while the eighth champions started to make their way into the arena. Of course, it had to be properly cleaned up for now, to make sure the metal shards from the gauntlet didn''t bother the two people that were going to face each other here.. The Pdin Argon stepped into the arena first, pressing his fists together excited for a good fight. Chapter 748 - Through The Armor Chapter 748 - Through The Armor Argon excitedly clenched his fists. Looking down at his chest, he saw the essory with the symbol of the crystal dragon god Trygan, and let the strength it gave him flow through his body. Of course, the ne in itself didn''t have any particr effects. It was just what it was supposed to be, the symbol of Trygan worn by his believers. But even then, to Argon, it may as well have been an item with incredible stat benefits, since it made him feel much more powerful than he already was. The half-dragon let the potion he was holding flow down his throat, and could quickly feel its effects. His body grew in size, and so did his armor and gauntlets. Carefully cing the now tiny bottle into the small bag by his hip, Argon then looked forward, waiting for his opponent. And it didn''t take long until the opponent was brought out either. Once again, it was a warrior. There was a surprisingck of mages on the fire giants'' side, but considering that mages fell short in one versus one duels, it made sense that the Grandour didn''t want to take any chances with this anymore. He had lost seven times already, after all. At this point, the audience didn''t even think of this as a truepetition anymore either. Rather than that, they had already made up their mind in expecting Eisen''s champions to win all of these fights. Now, they were more excited about simply finding out how they were going to beat the Grandour''s champion, since everyone that had fought thus far had a quite uniquebat style, all considered. "It seems like this time, you won''t be as lucky." The Grandour said with a broad grin on his face, "Your champion uses hand-to-handbat, does he not? His opponent this time might as well be the worst match for him." He pointed out, and Eisen looked into the arena, inspecting the giant warrior properly. He was wearing thick full-te armor, and had a generally quite bulked-up build, evenpared to other fire giants that tended to be on the more muscr and bulky side. Even though his size was increased through the Potion of Gigantification, Argon was still quite a bit shorter than the giant warrior standing in front of him. Just judging them like that, it was clear that the giant warrior had the advantage of physique, but that was the case a few times throughout this would tournament, anyway. That alone shouldn''t give the Grandour such confidence. The only reason that Eisen could see why he was sure that Argon would lose was that generally, it was tough to go against such thick armor for someone using hand-to-handbat, even if they were wearing gauntlets. It was simple, really. With a punch, the same impact you ced onto your opponent would be felt by your hand. Going against such sturdy armor with bare hands then meant that, obviously, the fist would give in earlier. Even with gauntlets, the impact was quite damaging to the hand, while the one wearing such sturdy armor would have little to nothing to worry about. Blunt impact was something that such armor defended against pretty well, on top of that. If Argon was using even just a simple weapon instead of guantlets, most of the returning damage would be absorbed by said weapon, but not now, making this practically a battle of endurance. And clearly, this giant was someone that prided himself in his defensive capabilities. Even without having to return attacks, the giant warrior would win sooner orter, simply because Argon couldn''t continue fighting at some point. Or at the very least, that was what the Grandour was thinking right now. Realizing this, Eisen couldn''t help but let out a loudugh. "You really think it would be that easy?" Eisen asked, looking at the man sitting beside him, "He''s not just a simple knight. He''s the Dragon Knight Order''s one and only Pdin." The Grandour''s smile disappeared in an instant, "Pdin..? He''s a... Pdin?" He asked, immediately looking into the arena, as if considering the oue of the battle once more. Soon, he slumped down in his seat, letting out a loud groan, "And when I finally thought this was something you could do nothing against..." Eisen chuckled, and crossed his legs, excited to see this fight in action. After all, the holy power that was used by Pdins had the ability to simply pass through armor as if it didn''t exist. That meant that, while he still wouldn''t experience the full on-ught of Argon''s attacks, the giant warrior wouldn''t be able to get away with just doing nothing. Soon, the bells that announced the beginning of the duel rang out, and in an instant, Argon propelled himself forward. Filled with the same confidence that the grandour had just earlier, the giant warrior stood there, hisrge sword in hand but without having entered any sort ofbat stance. He was just being uselessly cocky, as if he wanted to show off his superiority to Argon within this duel. However, it didn''t take long until the bronze half-dragon reached his opponent. Pressing his feet into the ground, Argon redirected all the momentum in his body toward his arm, and pressed his palm onto the sr plexus of the giant warrior. The holy power streamed out of his body and forced its way through the thick te armor. It was clear that the damage and pain rushed through the giant''s body in an instant, as he moved back as soon as he realized he had been damaged. "What? How did you-" The Giant Warrior let out, staring at Argon''s hands, unsure how he had been injured to that extent. Argon let out a deep sigh, "This is a fight, what else did you expect? That you could get out of this without a scratch?" He asked, slowly moving back into hisbat stance. Realizing that this was serious after all, the Giant finally entered abat stance as well. Eisen let out a slight sigh, realizing that Argon had gone easy on his opponent. If he wanted to, he could have finished this in an instant, considering that his opponent clearly didn''t take this fight seriously in the slightest. However, Argon was too proud for that. As a Pdin, he made an oath to be honest and righteous, so it seemed like he wanted to fight his opponent head-on. It was honorable, but Eisen figured it was unnecessary. This fight wasn''t going tost all too long anyway, if the ones from before were any decent reference. The giant warrior swung his longsword at Argon, who quickly dodged out of the way backward, using the chance to bounce back forward the moment that the de passed by him. Having closed the distance, the half-dragon was able to once more attack the giant''s torso in a straightforward attack. Just this time, he hit the lower side of his torso, pushing the giant away. This part of the armor was particrly thin to allow for proper movement on the giant''s side, so he received even more damage than before. shing his sword at Argon, the giant tried to retaliate, but the half-dragon quite easily dodged once more, passing by under the de. He was close to the giant''s body, and he wouldn''t let go of this distance anymore. It was a straightforward way of fighting, but it was still something that put the giant in a tough position, considering that he wasn''t able to freely attack with his longsword anymore. Since he was sorge and wearing incredibly heavy armor, he couldn''t move fast enough to build up distance between him and the agile Argon. The two continued fighting in this manner, with the giant attempting to sh or stab at Argon, while the half-dragon in question easily dodged or diverted the attack, just to then ce an attack onto the giant himself. In many ways, this was still just a battle of endurance, just that the giant had a disadvantagepared to Argon, as expected beforehand by the Grandour and the Giant himself. The holy power continued prating the armor with each attack, and although the giant was slowly getting used to it, that didn''t change the fact that he was receiving continuous damage. Maybe it was exactly because the individual attacks weren''t that powerful, near exclusively receiving damage through the holy energy, that he had trouble keeping track of the umted damage. However, soon enough, the half-dragon stepped back, as if he was trying to give the giant a chance to attack as well. It soon became more than clear that this bout was about to end, one way or another. The giant as well had stopped underestimating Argon. Rather, it was as if he as well knew that he was going to lose this fight in just another few moments. Even then, he went all out, and used his whole body to swing the de at Argon. If he was hit by this attack, then it might as well have been enough to take Argon out in just one go. But of course, that was something that the half dragon wouldn''t let happen. Through the umted damage to his body, the giant wasn''t able to exert the full power that he had wanted to. Particrly, the right side of his body had been damaged, which made the sh lean more toward one side than the other. Using this, Argon hit the inside of the giant''s arm in the middle of the sh, creating the perfect openings in the giant''s defense. With one more attack, the same as the first Argon put out at the start of the battle, a clear impact with the giant''s sr plexus, he ended this duel. The air escaped the giant''s lungs, and he fell to his knees, ending the fight mere minutes after it begun. Chapter 749 - The Mountain-Splitting Blade Chapter 749 - The Mountain-Splitting de The audience continued to apud after Argon''s win. It was a lot more straightforwardpared to some of the other fights that happened today, but that didn''t change the fact that it was an undeniably exciting duel. "Now, there''s only one duel left before the two of us meet in the arena." Eisen pointed out, turning his head toward the Grandour. His face had be pale, and he was silently staring into the arena. "Grandfather. I will be heading down there now." Kiron said with a determined expression, as he was carried into the arena by one of the giants. Of course, this was the fight that Eisen was most confident in. Kiron was one of the strongest people he knew. There was no way he was going to lose a fight, even if it was one against the Grandour''s own strongest knight. The two of them stepped into the arena, and Kiron drank the gigantification potion. The slightly thick liquid flowed down his throat, and his body grew in size. With his body asrge as it was a few momentster, it sort of felt like Kiron was a true crystal dragon. With a light smile, Kiron brandished his sword, pressing the tip into the ground as he waited for his opponent to get ready. "Your ''grandson'', as you im, against my son." The Grandour said, "I wonder who will win this." He muttered, and Eisen raised his brow surprised. Rather than something said sarcastically to try and mess with him, the Grandour seemed to be genuinely unsure who would win. Clearly, he was confident in his child''s ability, but after everything that had happened today, that confidence wavered. "We will see. Either way, this one won''t end too quickly, it seems." Eisen pointed out. Looking at the Grandour''s son, he was a simr swordsman to Kiron. He wielded a giant greatsword, and most likely used the Mountain-Splitting de, the same one that Khan had taught, or at least tried to teach, to the Grandour. ording to Khan, the Grandour used a bastardized version, so his son wouldn''t be using the true mountain-splitting de either. Soon, the bell to start the fight was rung, and everyone intensely watched the fight. Both swordsmen rushed at each other, swinging their swords for the first initial sh. Both of them had filled their des with massive amounts of mana, and used all they had in their arsenal to pull everything they could out of this single moment, as if they both wanted to end the fight as soon as they could. The moment that the swords touched and sparks flew outward, a wave of pressure was sent outward that created arge cloud of dust that swallowed the whole arena. Then, just a few secondster, a sharp sound echoed out. It was the sound of metal snapping. One of the two swords wielded in the arena had been destroyed. Once the cloud of dust settled, it was clear that the winner was going to be decided. And then, they could see it. Kiron standing up proudly, his chest pushed forward, and behind him, the Grandour''s son with a sword that had been snapped in half. Immediately, the crowd cheered, knowing that Eisen''s side had won one more time. But the only issue was that, sometimes, the thing you think you know for a fact is not the truth. Because a momentter, one of the two copsed on the ground unconscious, and it was not the Grandour''s son. Kiron had fallen unconscious. It took a while for them to announce the fight as over, since it happened without anyone realizing it. Even the Grandour''s son turned around surprised, his broken sword in hand. Immediately, Eisen jumped up, staring into the arena, "That''s... that''s not possible." The old man said, followed by the loudughter of the Grandour, "Hahaha, that''s it! You lost!" He eximed, but he was interrupted by the sound of the carved stone railing in front of them shattering under Eisen''s clenched fist. "No, that is literally not possible. Kiron doesn''t have any wounds." He pointed out bluntly, jumping into the arena. He rushed over to his grandson and flipped him over. As Eisen thought, not even Kiron''s clothes had a single cut in them. The only way this would be possible was through a special elemenent that the Grandour''s son possessed, but Eisen had been watching the flow of mana. And that''s not what happened, one of the giant''s mana entered Kiron''s body. It passed by him, sure, but it never entered him. It was impossible for Kiron to lose that much health through that single impact. Eisen looked closer, and fully inspected his grandchild. His truth-seeing eyes had risen to the extent where Eisen could see more than just the direct status of another. Now, he could see things beyond that, noted down in a simr manner. And there was one thing that stuck out amongst the information. --- [Physical Status ¨C Poisoned] --- The old man''s eyes widened, and without a moment''s hesitation, he started looking all over Kiron''s body. It must be there somewhere. He focused his eyes as much as he could, trying to make sure he could see the slightest bit of damage. And then, there it was. Part of Kiron''s clothes had been damaged, even if only to a minimal extent. Ripping open his grandson''s shirt, Eisen searched his body, and soon found tiny droplets of blood on the half-dragon''s back, right underneath one of his scales. The old man shrunk down, crawling down underneath the scale to look more closely at the wound. And then, there he found it. It was nothing but a small needle, but its tip had incredibly potent poison pouring out of it steadily. It seemed like there was some form of connection between the hollow space inside the needle and the true container for the poison, allowing for enough of it to stream into Kiron that it would actually be able to injure him. Eisen ground his teeth, quickly growing back to hisrgest size possible. Using a loud voice that would echo through the whole town, he eximed, "Nobody will leave this ce until I find the one who dared try and kill my grandchild!" "What? He lost in a fight against my son, are you trying to say he attempted murder?" "Of course not, your son didn''t do this." Eisen replied to the Grandour without a moment''s hesitation. He ced the tiny needle into the giant''s hand, "Someone shot a specical poisoned needle at him. If I wasn''t here, it might have gone unnoticed." The old man pointed out in a growling voice, before tightly grabbing onto Kiron''s head, "Listen to me. I don''t have enough antidotes with me to help you out right now, so you need to do one thing. Fuse your body with your element, and make your mespletely destroy the poison in your blood." He said, using as much of his power and influence he could, so that if even a tiniest bit of Kiron could hear him, he would listen. The old man repeated himself again and again, until finally, the half-dragon''s body started to heat up. His scales seemed like they were starting to glow, as he fused hismelf with his devouring mes. Using his truth seeing eyes, Eisen could see that Kiron''s element was actually acting up against something within his body. It took a few minutes, but soon, they had devoured enough of the poison to let Kiron wake up, albeit in an incredibly weakened state. But at that point, Kiron could take conscious control of his mes to truly remove anyst drop of poison inside of his body. "Are you alright?" Eisen asked, and the half-dragon slowly nodded his head, "Yes, I am... I''m sorry, Grandfather, but... I lost, right?" "No, you-" "Yes, he did!" The grandour eximed, "This whole ''poison'' thing is just an excuse, is it not?!" Eisen ground his teeth as he stood up. He looked at the man standing in front of him, his whole being filled with anger, "My grandson was poisoned, who gives a shit about your measly pride? You want to keep acting like I''m not truly who I say I am? Fine. But before then, at least fight me. I have some stress to relieve." The Grandour red at Eisen angrily, "You think I would still fight you, after you used us of poisoning him?" "I didn''t use you of anything. But fact is that someone here in the arena did." "How do we know that you didn''t just make this needle yourself, if y-" The grandour used, but Eisen had enough of it. He pulled out his Demonic Sword, holding onto its grip tightly, "We are going to fight, right now." The Grandour scoffed, and his men brought him anything he needed for a fight, since the items had already been prepared beforehand for this part of the event. Eisen quickly brought Kiron to a ce where he could rest, and then looked at the others, "Clear out the east-western part of the arena. Just make them move, or something." The old man said, and they immediately got to work. The Grandour got ready, and was wearing thick armor while holding onto his sword. Clicking his tongue, Eisen red at the man in front of him, "So that''s what he meant." "Are you ready?" The Grandour asked, not having heard the old man just now. Of course, Eisen nodded his head. The bell was rung, and the arena was silent. Everything had happened so fast, and the pressure in this space was making it impossible for anyone to cheer. With confidence practically pouring out of his every orifice, the Grandour started to walk forward. Why was he so confident all of a sudden? Did he truly believe that Eisen poisoned Kiron, to make some kind of scene and stop the whole fight? Eisen was angry. Someone here tried to kill his grandson. The grandson of the king of another country. And they didn''t even care? It was disgusting, utterly infuriating. Eisen poured all of his emotions into his sword at that moment. He raised it up above his head, and in a single straight motion, shed downward. The grandour was still quite a bit away, but that didn''t matter. After all, this was the true mountain-splitting de. It wasn''t called this as an exaggeration. Khan had created this sword art and had earned this name for his techniques the moment a single sh of his de split a small mountain in half. In a straight line forward from Eisen''s de, nearly everything had split cleanly. The ground, the sword and armor of the Grandour, and even the whole rest of the arena. The only thing that was still intact was the Grandour''s body itself. The giant dropped to his knees, realizing what just happened.. The Grandour stared up at Eisen, his face filled with nothing but fear. Chapter 750 - Meeting Chapter 750 - Meeting "H-How... how did you...?" The grandour asked nervously, staring up at the old man standing in front of him. Eisen red down, locking eyes with the fire giant, "How? It''s the true mountain-splitting de, obviously. It makes sense that you wouldn''t realize it, since you apparently only use a mockery of the sword art created by my dear friend." The grandour''s teeth rubbed against each other, as if he was trying to grind them into dust, before slowly standing up again, "A mockery? All I did was make it my own! I am the grandour, the lord of all fire giants, including you!" "You can''t even stand before me without your knees shaking in fear, and you think you can call yourself my lord? Admit it, you useless brat. You know it to be true. I am Eisen de Grandour, son of the first Grandour, and the first man that reached the peak of the world." The old man said in a clear, unwavering voice. But the current grandour clearly didn''t want to admit it, as him and Eisen were locked in what was essentially a staring-contest, until a group of giant guards came along, surrounding Eisen and blocking the way between him and the grandour. The old man closed his eyes for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts. He wasn''t a child anymore, so he should stop reacting to these things with nothing but anger. And on top of that, he had recently taken the position of King again. While to yers, he was nothing but another, albeit highly-aplished yer, to the people of this world he was the ruler of a country. Maybe he should really act like it for once. In an instant, the demonic de in his hand disappeared, before he simply snapped his finger while spreading out his elemental mana. The whole arena, in nothing but a few moments, started to transform into Eisen''s domain, with golden crystals growing from the ground paved in shining metal, mes burning inbetween the cracks spread throughout. The old man dropped backward while a throne was magically appearing right behind him. He sat down, watching as more masses of rock, metal, and golden crystals grew out of the ground around him, turning into impish, demonic creatures that stood by his side. "I am sick of this." Eisen said in a blunt tone, while his ''True Demon''s Spawn'' surrounded the guards called by the grandour. They were all in this old man''s domain now, meaning that he could do practically whatever he wanted in this space, "Step in front of me." The old man said in amanding tone, watching as the guards that had surrounded him stepped aside, before the grandour came to him, dragging his feet. Obviously, he didn''t actually want to do what he was told, but he had little choice given Eisen''s abilities of influence. The two men looked into each other''s eyes for a few more moments, Eisen''s glowing golden eyes practically burning the grandour''s flesh and soul. Soon, he finally dropped to his knee, and looked up at Eisen while lowering his head, "Y-You are the true Eisen de Grandour." "You admit it this easily all of a sudden? Didn''t you do everything in your power not to?" He asked, while the grandour stayed silent under the pressure created by Eisen''s re, "We came here as a delegation of peace, in the hopes of being able to work together with you. In the end, this is still my homnd. I thought that maybe it would be the easiest to cooperate with you, being a fire giant myself, but now this happens? Someone from your country tried to kill my grandson in a most vicious way, and you turn around and use me of fabricating it." "I apologize greatly, but please believe me, I am not behind the attempt at your grandson''s life." Eisen looked at the man that kneeled in front of him, and angrily averted his gaze, allowing the grandour to slightly rx. The old man closed his eyes, and started to think about what should be done now. He didn''t want this situation to escte any further. The creation of his demonic domain, the throne he was sitting on, as well as summoning his demonic spawn were all done just so that he could stop whatever the grandour was trying to do, reversing the situation to put him in absolute control of what was going to happen. All these things helped increase the influence given to him by his royal and demonic titles. "If you want to prove that you had nothing to do with it, then have your men assist us in trying to find who it was," Eisen said, since that was the most important thing to him at the moment. Kiron seemed to be feeling better now, but that didn''t change the fact that his life was legitimately in trouble. If Kiron had fallen fully unconscious in response to the poison instead of the half-conscious state that he was in, then even Eisen''s influence wouldn''t have done anything on him. He would have had to basically fill Kiron''s body with a constant amount of health potion until he managed to create an antidote for that huge amount of poison. Even just thinking about this now made him furious again. "Grandfather. I''m fine, you don''t need to worry about me right now." The voice of the crystal half-dragon exined, as Kiron walked up right beside Eisen. It was the first time that Kiron stood beside him like this, even when Eisen was in this form. Usually, he only activated his true demonic form together with gigantification, after all. The old man turned his head toward his grandson, and looked him in the eyes. Although he himself felt nothing but anger, Kiron, the actual victim of the situation, said that he was fine, with that genuine expression on his face. And Kiron himself wasn''t particrly good at hiding his emotions either, so he most likely wasn''t just acting like it. In an instant, Eisen managed to calm down. The heat that permeated throughout the arena after the old man spread his domain slowly disappeared, instead bing a cool, rxing air. Turning back toward the Grandour, Eisen let out a sigh, "Since my grandson is so kind, I''m going to look past what just happened. I still expect you to help us, obviously. But it is more important that he is fine. And beyond that... I think it''s time for us to finally have a proper conversation." Raising his head, the chief of the fire giants looked at the old man, still sitting on the throne that he had created for himself a few moments prior. He was calm, even smiling lightly, but still gave off a pressure that told the grandour that it would be nothing but a bad idea for him to try and deny Eisen''s requests. --- "Finally, here we are. Let us begin." Eisen said, as he was seated in the grandour''s meeting room, sitting across from this giant table from him. Most of the things here in this country seemed to be carved directly from rock. It was the easiest way to go about things, after all. Of course, the surface was smoothed down, treated properly, and hardened so that it wouldn''t break even under a giant''s strength, so it didn''t look like it was directly carved out of rock, but it was interesting for Eisen to see the way that giants did things now. Of course, it didn''t seem like they were wasting any sort of space either. The thick table was actually mostly hollow, and within it were the official archives of the fire giants'' domain. And currently, it seemed like there were a few scribes seated within it to transcribe the meeting that was about to happen. Obviously, Eisen made sure to record this conversation as well, just so that there wouldn''t be any issuester if the grandour did try something again. "Right... erm, is something wrong?" The Grandour asked a bit confused, seeing that Eisen was continuing to stare at the surface of the table in front of him, even though there wasn''t even anything there. The old man quickly shook his head, "No, nothing is wrong. Rather, I was admiring the craftsmanship and general engineering of this space." He exined, and the grandour nodded slightly, "Of course, this space is a few thousand years old, and we did not shy away from continuing to improve on it." "I would be surprised if you did. Actually, I''m pretty curious about the craftsmanship of the fire giants. It''s one of the reasons why I''m here, actually." Eisen exined, and the grandour looked back with a frown, "What do you mean? Haven''t you mastered all sorts of craftsmanship and techniques of such there are? The giants'' craftsmanship was one of the first you must have learned." He pointed out. "I thought you heard a bit about the situation. My experience has been taken from me, together with all my memories from before some months ago. It''s the same with Jyuuk, Brody, Xenia, and Evalia. Although, we have found a way to recover our memory, for the most part. By interacting with people or ces we had once known, some of our memories rted to them return. Just on my way to this city, I coincidentally met with Khan. I asked him to show me his swordsmanship, and I was able to recover my memories of him and the mountain-splitting de." Closely listening to the words of the man sitting across from him, the grandour looked down at the table, "I thought those rumors were just fake. It wouldn''t be the first time people pretend to be one of you five. Rather, a group of people imed your names, saying they had been ''cursed'' to have lost their strength." Eisen raised a brow, "What kinds of people would do something like that? Isn''t it obvious that people would notice that they were fakes?" "...Not particrly, actually. All five of you tend to disappear from time to time. Sometimes a few years, other times a few decades. There was even a period of five thousand years where you yourself had seemingly disappeared." The Grandour exined, surprised that Eisen himself didn''t know this. It seemed like rathermon knowledge to him, after all. "...I left my kingdom alone for five thousand years?" "Of course not ''alone'', you always had trustworthy retainers. Especially considering that you could make immortal people of metal, it didn''t matter much for how long you were gone. Even when you were there, you famously didn''t care for the throne.. None of you five ever cared for your responsibilities, rather doing whatever you wanted instead." Chapter 751 - Meeting - Part 2 Chapter 751 - Meeting - Part 2 Eisen slowly closed his eyes, thinking back on the memories that he did have, as well as the image of a king he currently held inside of his mind. If he was honest with himself, he could tell that there was quite a bit of disarray between that image and his past actions, as far as he could tell. No wonder Gind acted like she did. Now that Eisen was actually trying to be a halfway responsible king, she was grabbing onto that fact immediately to try and make him a proper king this time around. That''s what it felt like, at least. The old man let out a slight sigh before ncing across the table at the grandour. He still seemed nervous, but much more rxedpared to before, now that the whole situation had been exined to him properly. "Well, let''s move on. We''re not here to talk about my past, but our future." Eisen pointed out, "The main reason why I''m here is to build up a proper rtionship between us, after all." "Of course. Your country, Asgard, offers a lot of things that we are obviously interested in as well. Our country is far up north, so when ites to non-metallic materials, we often have to improvise. The inds of Asgard are unique in that sense, since each hold a unique climate and terrain, so setting up a trade-rtionship would be perfect." The grandour exined, "There is, however, an issue with this. As a whole, the country of giants doesn''t have a great rtionship with the central continent, and the way things are going right now, a war might break out in the near future." Eisen started running his fingers through his beard while deep in thought, "Hm, I wasn''t aware that the situation was that intense. I know that your rtionship to the central continent isn''t the best, but..." He pointed out, while thinking about what best to do, "Obviously, I would want to stop a war from breaking out as much as possible. While I''m not looking to ally myself with either side of this conflict, a war will cause a lot of other trouble that I don''t want to deal with." The grandour looked at Eisen with a slight frown, "You''re not here to ally with us?" "Hm? No, of course not. Again, this trip is mostly just something to establish a good rtionship between our countries, and for me to visit the ce I grew up in the hopes of remembering some more things." He exined quickly, "Of course, the trade rtionship you mentioned you''re interested in is something I would very much look forward to as well, but that would be the end of things. We already have a trade rtionship with a kingdom on the central continent as well." "...Well, as long as you don''t ally with anyone else, I guess there would be nothing toin about. Generally, we''re in a pretty favorable position in the first ce. Even if a war did break out, we would pretty much annihte the other side." The grandour exined, although something seemed a little weird to Eisen about that. The grandour was definitely right. There was no way for the central continent to fight back against the giants should a war break out, but the main reason why the rtionship between the giants'' country and the central continent had dropped this much was because of the central continent in the first ce. Since giants were technically monsters, they tended to treat them as such, putting them just slightly above amon beast in many regards. But even then, despite their xenophobia, the people in charge of the central continent couldn''t possibly want to lead a war against the giants, could they? Anyone would be able to tell that thebat-loving, naturally powerful giants were going to win against the generally low-level popce of the central continent. And then, something seemed to just click in Eisen''s mind. yers were now a thing. Currently, the ''Global Main Quest'' was something rted to taking down Kotam. The yers were supposed to interact with the different dragons on the central continent to be their champions to join that war between the good and evil dragon factions. But what then? Once one of the sides had been annihted, the ''game''s'' story couldn''t just end. That wouldn''t be entertaining anymore. So obviously, Samuel would have prepared a second story arc to follow afterward, while opening up a second continent as a reward for finishing the first arc. The war against the giants. After raising their level during a conflict against each other, the yers would then start working together against amon enemy. yers were able to be stronger at a much, much faster rate than normal people, since their bodies were able to absorb experience more easily. That being the case, by the time that war with the giants'' country was going to happen, through the yers'' help, the central continent''sbat force would be just that much stronger. However, there was something else that annoyed Eisen with this. The only way that this was possible was because the strength of the giants was limited. Eisen had somehow established a limit for all giants to stop them from being affected by the curse ced onto them by Samuel. It seemed to have been some sort of punishment, since Eisen did something that Samuel didn''t like. So now there was just on question on Eisen''s mind. Did Samuel lead the world into the direction of this plot after the limit had been established, or was the limit part of the plot that had already been nned out? "Haah... This is just so annoying..." Eisen said, grinding his teeth angrily. His fingertips pressed onto the rock surface of the carved table in front of him, but the grandour soon stopped him, "Please be careful. There are a lot of people inside of there that I doubt you''d want to hurt." Eisen looked at the grandour, and let out a deep, grumbled sigh, "Right, I''m sorry. It''s just that this whole situation is far more annoying than I thought it was." He exined briefly, before thinking for a while, "This country... it''s ruled by a council, right?" He inquired, before the grandour quickly nodded. "Yes. The heads of each n are part of the ruling council. We elect our leader, the official ''King'' of this country, amongst ourselves." The grandour responded. "Can you call a meeting for the council?" Eisen asked immediately, but the grandour didn''t seem particrly happy about that idea, "And why should I do that? The only times when wee together as a council is when serious matters are to be discussed. If you want to form a trade rtionship with other ns, then you have to travel to each one." The old man shook his head, "It''s not about trading. I could do that separately without issue. However, it''s extremely necessary for me to speak to the council." "Really now? And why is that?" The grandour asked, before Eisen''s face formed a slight grin, "Because I''m not going to let things go like that brat nned." Confused about what Eisen meant, the grandour looked back at him. He was going to ask something, it seemed, but he was quickly interrupted by the old man, "But before that, I guess we really should talk about trading, huh? Tell me what it is you want most from our country." The grandour silently thought about that question for a few moments, trying toe up with a good answer, "The thing I want the most is a guardian, but-" the grandour started. From his bodynguage and expression, it seemed as if he was trying to joke around a bit to lighten the mood, but was soon met with something he didn''t expect, "Alright, that''s not too bad. What else?" Eisen replied, "We have ways to mass-produce a lot of different types of natural materials that you would probably want. Wood, herbs, crops, and such. In return, I would like some ess to some natural produce of this continent, though. We were going to explore the ind of giants in Asgard soon, but as far as I was told, there are only a limited number of the things that I''m personally interested in there. More generic things, I guess. I would love to trade some domesticated animals from this country with you as well." Eisen exined, basically just saying everything that came to mind when he thought about what sorts of materials he personally wanted to work with. Gind was probably going to chew him out because of that, but that was fine. They could figure out other more generally useful thingster as well. However, right now, Eisen was a bit confused. The man sitting across the table was staring at him in what could only be described as disbelief, "What''s wrong?" He asked, and the grandour looked back, "Did you.... really just agree to giving us a Guardian?" Chapter 752 - Cultural Exchange Chapter 752 - Cultural Exchange Eisen looked back at the Grandour sitting across the table from himself, and slowly nodded his head, "Yes, is something wrong with that?" "Wrong? Absolutely not! Just extremely, extremely unexpected!" The fire giant pointed out, "Numerous countries have been requesting to receive a guardian from your country, but you never gave one to them," he exined, while Eisen looked back with a wry smile. If that was the case, then maybe he shouldn''t have agreed so easily. Although he didn''t directly see a reason why he shouldn''t give one to them, as long as they fulfilled some conditions first. "I''m not building one for you for free anyway, at the end of the day. I''m doing this in order to build up a positive rtionship between us. I''m going to have the council sign a contract as well, to make sure that you''re not mistreating the guardian." "...Mistreating? Aren''t they just golems?" The grandour asked a bit confused, "I heard that they''re humanoid tools to assist in the management of a core." "Right, but they all hold souls within them. They''re actual people, with actual thoughts and emotions. I build them with a task in mind, sure, but at the end of the day I try to treat them well. At least in this life. I can''t say much for the person I used to be, but that is the case for the man sitting in front of you right now." Eisen exined while crossing his arms, leaning back into his seat, "For the most part, I would like you to treat the guardian as you would any other high-level employee." "...Right. If they possess souls, that''s the least we can do." The grandour agreed, still somewhat suspiciously looking at Eisen, "...So you really lost your memories, huh..?" "Again, yes. I thought we got past that already." Eisen replied, and the grandour slowly nodded, trying to gather his thoughts, "The one thing we would like the most from you is for you to create special tools or weapons for us. They''re known to be incredibly powerful, after all." Immediately, Eisen''s heart skipped a beat. That was an issue. Sure, Eisen can still create incredibly powerful weapons and tools, but he doubted that it was at the level that the top craftsmen of the fire n wouldn''t be able to create something at a simr level, even if it might take them a bit more time. Currently, Eisen wasn''t capable of creating items at the scale that he used to. That being the case, this request from the giant country would be something that he couldn''t fulfill, at least not now. However, it seemed like the grandour realized this as well. "However, considering your situation... well, I assume that your skills are at a lower rank than they used to be, correct?" He asked, and Eisen replied with a simple nod, before the grandour began to think, "In that case... while I doubt that the other n chiefs would ept this as proper payment, I think our n would most benefit from your direct assistance." "I''m not helping you in your war, remember?" Eisen replied immediately, but the grandour quickly shook his head, "That is not what I mean, don''t worry. I mean that... and please hear me outpletely before this... I would like for you to teach and help the improvement of some of this n''s craftsmen." The grandour suggested. Eisen raised his brow surprised. Teaching some giants might not be the worst thing he could do. If that, on top of a guardian for this country, was enough to get at least one of the ns fully on his side, then that was probably the easiest decision he had to make as ofte. But of course, he couldn''t just say that. Especially after realizing that he had replied too lightly with the promise of a guardian, he couldn''t let the grandour know that Eisen would have offered so much more than just that. "To what extent are you imagining this? I doubt you want me to raise one of your craftsmen to my former level." The old man pointed out, slowly running his fingers through his beard. Although, now that he mentioned it, it reminded Eisen of the fact that he should probably spend some more time with his disciples, Parc and Rouge, helping them reach a new level as well. They were doing quite well already, but the old man couldn''t help but wonder just how useful it would be to show the two of them different perspectives as well. While Eisen was certainly a skilled craftsman, he still had his own way of going about things. Some of the habits he developed might make them a bit more inefficient, so maybe giving them a slightly different environment could help their development further. While Eisen''s thoughts trailed off again, the grandour tried to find the best words to describe the details of his request that he made, in return for a trading rtionship with the fire giant n, "Of course, I don''t want you to create a legend. But the minimum that I would like for you to do is to help remove the gravest faults within some of our craftsmen. As I''m sure you know... or well, maybe not, but while we from the fire giant n are natural-born craftsmen, we oftenck finesse. Due to our innate strength, many of the things we make are created through brute-force, although we''ve learned to make up for it by manipting our sizeto focus on other areas when necessary while also limiting our strength at the same time." Eisen raised a brow and thought about this statement some more. He couldn''t particry refute it, honestly. He did notice that while in his giant form, he did have a tougher time controlling his strength, so if even he couldn''t easily adapt to this while creating something, it made sense for this sort of fault to be ingrained in craftsmen through multiple generations. "Of course..." the grandour continued, "I''m not saying that our craftsmen have no finesse whatsoever, but overall, our techniques could still be considered somewhat crudepared to what is used by other races. As you probably noticed, we have quite a few dwarves in our n as well, and we have been cooperating with them to make up for our individual faults. Dwarves are stronger than for example humans, but even they struggle with materials at a higher rank than their own skill''s, while we giants have the strength to often ignore such struggles, while they have some of the greatest dexterity and finesse around, so they help us with more detailed work, often finishing up the groundwork we set up beforehand." "If that''s the case, wouldn''t my assistance disturb the system you have created over time? If your craftsmen can work without the help of the dwarves, that is." "Ah, I wouldn''t want you to only help the giant craftsmen, of course. Doing things in a way that will increase productivity and the quality of the final item would be the best oue for us, whatever that would mean from your side." The grandour exined, while Eisen continued thinking about it, "So... you would give me free reign over what to do with your craftsmen, as long as better items are being produced at the end of my time with them?" "That is a good way to put it, yes." "I have a better idea." Eisen replied, as an idea suddenly came to mind, "How about we don''t make this the requirement for our trade... but part of our trade?" The grandour looked back at Eisen, clearly not understanding what he meant, "So you mean... you will teach our craftsmen directly in return for the materials you requested?" Immediately, Eisen shook his head, "No, I was thinking something else. A cultural exchange." The moment that Eisen mentioned the idea, the grandour''s eyes widened, "A cultural exchange... you mean that we send craftsmen to Asgard, and Asgard sends craftsmen to our n. We learn from you, you learn from us... it''s that, right?" "That''s exactly right. And the best thing is, we can do something like that even without proper trade rtions set up yet. You should be able to decide this within your n. There isn''t an official travel-ban, after all." The grandour grinned broadly, nodding his head without hesitation, "Even if nothing elsees to fruition, I want that cultural exchange to happen." Chapter 753 - Bodyguard Chapter 753 - Bodyguard Eisen left the meeting room, having aplished a few positive things. He managed to discuss some rough matters rting a proper rtionship between the giant country and Asgard. While it didn''t seem like it was possible to set up permanent trade rtions between the countries at a governmental level until the council decided that it was alright, they at the very least decided that a cultural exchange was going to happen rtively soon. Some of the people living in the giant country woulde to Asgard, where they would be able to work alongside the craftsmen, which had mostly gathered in Asgard''s capital, Prototype, at this time, which would be a good chance for Eisen to directly teach them a few things here and there as well. At the same time, Eisen would send a few promising craftsmen over to the fire giant n, where they would be able to learn new, somewhat more unique techniquespared to what could be found just in Prototype. Not only was this going to help improve the craftsmen of both Asgard and the giant country, this cultural exchange would also help the efforts of improving the general climate surrounding the giant country. As long as he could find a way to fully put a stop to the war that was most likely going to happen in the future, between the giant country and the central continent, then Eisen would seed in his n of removing Samuel''s control over this world that had been built up over such long time. And of course, this cultural exchange was going to help with this quite a bit, or at least that''s what Eisen was hoping. Each of the giant ns had their own area of expertise. While the fire giants were renown craftsmen, the forest giants were known to be excellent hunters and farmers, and the cloud giants, while being low in number, were the most schrly of the giants. Of course, while the council was trying to properly bnce the power that each n held within the council itself, their influence was actually quite imbnced, especially in these sorts of matters. The cloud giants were the n that held back from interacting with non-giants the most, so when they actually happened to approve of a non-giant group and tried to actively build up contact with them, that held a lot of merit within the country. As for the fire giants, they were known to be particrly proud of their skill not only in craftsmanship, butbat as well. And that was why, after the fire giants admitted defeat to Eisen and his retainers, before then asking in assistance of improving the skill of their craftsmen, that showed the power of Asgard just the more. It would be impossible for the council to deny the fact that there was great value in dealing with them, while giving them a more positive view of Asgard''s opinions in regard tobat and war. While this hadn''t directly been nned from the beginning, now that things had turned out this way, Eisen was of course going to make use of this just the more. Now that they had built up this, albeit unofficial, connection in regard to the cultural exchange, Eisen could use the current grandour in order to sway the opinion of the council before he actually went out to meet them. It would certainly make it easier to convince them that Eisen''s story was true, and that he really was who he imed to be. While Eisen doubted that the other ns would be in just as aggressive disbelief as the fire giant n, he still wanted to avoid any unnecessary conflict with the people that he really just wanted to cooperate with. Once he stepped outside of the room, Eisen could hear a whisper from his shoulder. He slightly turned his head, looking out of his peripheral, seeing ayer of mist cover his neck like a scarf. And within that mist sat Kirisho, trying to speak to the old man. And even though she was speaking in nothing but a whisper, despite the size difference, Eisen seemed to be able to hear her clearly. That''s when he noticed a slight gust passing by his ear, and he figured that Kirisho moved some of her mist into his ear canal, so that they could speak easily like this. "What is your n now? You did what you came here for initially, right?" She asked curiously, as Eisen smiled lightly, "Right, but it doesn''t seem like we''ll be able to leave this country anytime soon. For now, the grandour is going to call for a meeting of the council, so we have some freetime until then. I was thinking about just taking a look around the area during that time." "Will you be alone, or will you be carried by Askr again?" Kirisho asked curiously, ncing over to the side at the giant golem that was apanying them, while Eisen was slowly understanding what she was getting at, "Don''t worry, we''ll be able to get some time alone together." He told her with a slight smile on his face, before feeling a slight rub on his cheek, as if someone was nuzzling him. As it turned out, Kirisho was a lot more touchy than Eisen initially thought, not that he really minded though. For now, Eisen made his way to the bedchambers that had been prepared for him here in the building, where the others were currently waiting for him. As soon as he stepped into the room, he was met with the figures of eight people standing in front of him. And these eight figures were of course the participants of the ten-round tournament that they had won. The gigantification was still in effect, although it should run out for the first of the group, Sky, soon. "How''d it go?" He asked,ying on the bed on the other side of the room. Eisen smiled at him as he walked over toward one of the seets carved into the wall beside him, sitting down with a loud groaned sigh, because of how long this day had been to him, "It went alright, I would say. We made some proper progress in there. I''ll exin everything to you allter, but first... how are you all feeling? The gigantification potions are powerful, but you should be pretty exhausted at this point, right?" "Yeah... you can say that again..." Bree admitted, sitting at the edge of the bed, right next to her brother, "I feel like I could sleep for a week right about now..." "You can go ahead if you want. Your potions should run out pretty soon, so we''ll just bring you to bed if you happen to fall asleep here." Eisen told them with a light smile, running his fingers through his beard with a light smile, even though the twins didn''t particrly seemed inclined to follow up on that idea in front of everyone here. The half-dragon knights were clearly trying to not let their exhaustion show either, with the exception of Kiron who Eisen had practically forced to rest after literally being poisoned just earlier. And of course, Askr couldn''t really get exhausted either, and he was the only one that didn''t drink one of those potions in the first ce, his body already having beenrge enough in the first ce, and all. So, Eisen slowly directed his concern toward the one person who seemed the most out of ce right now. And not just from Eisen''s own perspective, it seemed like that individual themselves felt weird about sitting amongst everyone in this room. It was, of course, themon soldier that Eisen had take part in the tournament. At first, he apparently wanted to wait outside the meeting room together with Askr as an extra bodyguard, since he was currently thisrge, but Eisen had also made sure that he was resting properly. He didn''t really want to overwork him, especially after the show he put on today. He had beaten his opponent at an extraordinary speed, to the extent that Eisen still couldn''t fully believe that it actually happened, "How about you, how are you feeling?" He asked the guard, who simply flinched in response at first. He was clearly rather tense right now. "Ah, I- I''m alright, don''t worry about me..." He replied awkwardly, practically sinking in as the eyes of everyone in the room slowly focused on him for a few moments. "You did a great job out there today, by the way," Kiron told him with a light smile on his face, "I knew that you were skilled, but I didn''t expect it to be to this extent." "Right, I was actually thinking about something." Eisen added, looking at the guard curiously, before asking something that the others clearly didn''t expect, "Would you like to be my fulltime bodyguard?" Chapter 754 - One-Handed Sewing Chapter 754 - One-Handed Sewing "Would you like to be my fulltime bodyguard?" Eisen asked curiously, and the room became silent for a few moments as everyone processed the question. Particrly Kiron looked at the old man confused, "Bodyguard? But do you really need someone else, with me by your side?" The crystal half-dragon asked, and Eisen smiled at his grandson, "I''m not sure I really need a bodyguard in general. However, even then, you''re the Knight Captain of the Dragon Knights. I can''t ask you to y bodyguard for me. Normally I''d have Askr, but he can only really be of use in situations where I''m in my giant form, and not when I''m walking around casually in most ces, so I would need someone else toe along with me." Kiron''s tail seemed to droop down in response after the old man pointed this out, but he seemed to agree to what he was saying soon enough, "I see, you have a point." "Right, but how about the two of us? We''re with you most of the time anyway." Sky pointed out a little annoyed, since it didn''t seem like him and Bree had been considered for the position of bodyguard. Eisen looked at the twins and quickly exined why that was the case, "Neither of you two really conduct yourselves like bodyguards. And of course, that''s no issue at all, but in more official situations, having someone that can be more on the orderly side is important." He exined, looking at the Koblin guard, who was still perplexed by the mere idea that he could be Eisen''s bodyguard. "So... you want it to be just for show, basically?" Morgus asked with a scoff, "In that case, you can just make another golem or something, right?" "I could. But it really isn''t all for show. It''s a fact that he''s skilled, you all saw it yourselves, so having him around would definitely make me feel more safe in general. Especially while I''m working or just generally concentrating on something else. You all know that I can get lost in thought a lot. And with how much things have been esctingtely... well, it''s good to have someone around that can help me out, you see?" Eisen exined to them all one more time, and then looked at the Koblin one more time, "What do you think, Rodo? Would you like to be my bodyguard?" Immediately, the Koblin jumped up from where he was sitting and quickly proceeded to kneel down right in front of the old man, "It would be my honor, your majesty!" He eximed loudly, and Eisen grinned lightly. That meant that he could make this Koblin a specialized armor soon as well, one part that for some reason seemed to make Eisen the most excited right this moment. He did enjoy the act of creating special items for specific people far more than creating the cookie-cutter base sets that he often prototyped to be distributed to the people of Asgard. The old man turned his head and looked at Sky, quickly using his truth seeing eyes. In front of the eight people under the effect of gigantification, a circr wheel was disyed. It was without a specific indication of time, but it was the countdown that showed how long these special ''status effects''sted. Eisen could see them not only for things like potions, but if someone cast a supportive buff, or even a debuff, on another person, he could see a simr wheel start floating in front of them. And currently, there was only a sliver left in front of Sky, and as Eisen watched thest bit of the wheel disappear, he watched the half-fey''s body shrink down back to its normal size. "Awe man..." Sky''s voice could be heard distantly from the bed, while Eisen looked at the others in the group, "It seems like the potion effect is slowly running out for everyone, then. I suggest you all just head to bed as soon as it does, so that you can get some rest. I was nning on doing the same. Since we will stay in the area for a while longer, I wanted to go on a bit of a trip around the area." The old man exined, and nearly everyone seemed to already have a rough understanding of what exactly Eisen had in mind. It wasn''t just that he was nning on going sightseeing, after all. And as such, one by one, each of the participants of today''s duels shrunk back down to their normal size, and then made their way to their individual bedrooms within the structure carved into the wall. Eisen as well,id down on his bed once everyone was gone, and looked up at the ceiling, before closing his eyes. --- Benjamin opened up the hatch of his capsule, stepping into his room. With a quick stretch, his bones quickly popped and cracked in a satisfying way, before the old man stepped out of the room. He hadn''t reached another milestone in regard to his memories yet, so there shouldn''t be a particr change to his body right now. He just generally felt a lot fitter, and could practically view his body be healthier the longer he stood right here. His hair that had started thinning outtely had regained a lot of its strength and thickness. At this point, he wouldn''t be surprised if his hair simply ceased to be gray when he stepped out of the capsule at some point. However, while his own body didn''t seem to have changed, the same could not be said for everyone else currently residing in the building. As he stepped out of his room, Benjamin bumped into Haruo, who seemed to be covered in more and more hair every time that the old man saw him. And recently, there seemed to be another issue that they hadn''t considered that they had to deal with. "Ah, Eisen. Perfect. Could you help me with something... you know, down there?" He asked, and the old man quickly understood what Haruo was talking about, "Hm, I hadn''t thought about how this would be an issue yet. Alright, give me a moment." "Wait, what are you two talking about?" Benji asked with a wry smile as he walked down the hallway, overhearing the conversation between the two of them, "What do you mean, ''down there''..?" Haruo and Benjamin looked at each other for a moment, simply letting out respective sighs, "Get your mind out of the gutter, Benji. Jyuuk has a tail now." Benjamin pointed out, while Haruo''s monkey-tail unwrapped itself from his waist. The old man continued walking down the hallway, followed by Haruo and Benji who was awkwardly staring at something that he still couldn''t believe he was actually seeing. A grown, human man with the tail of a monkey. Although, at this point, he doubted that Haruo would still be considered human. Benjamin walked over toward one of the shelves in the living room, taking out a small sewing kit. Haruo quickly rushed back and grabbed another pair of shorts, so that he didn''t just have to strip down in the middle of the livingroom, and handed them the old man, who had already ced the protective cutting-mat on the table in front of him, before putting the shorts down onto them. "You sure you don''t want me to do it for you...?" Benji asked with a wry smile, watching his one-armed grandfather try to sew a hole into the back of some shorts. The old man scoffed as he pressed the cutting knife into the cloth and cut a small, smooth circle into it, "Even with just one hand, I can do this better than you could with ten, Benji." He said with a quick wink, as he grabbed a needle and some thread out of the sewing kit. While holding the needle between his middle- and ring-finger, he held the end of the thread between his index-finger and thumb, carefully pushing the tip of the thread through the needle''s eye. "...I can''t even do that this quickly with both hands..." Benji added with a wry smile, watching his grandfather work at surprising speed. Quickly, Benjamin flipped over the edge of the circle he just cut out to the inside of the shorts, and quickly pushed the needle through from inside, proceeding to sew a supportive edge around it to make it a bit more stable. And a few minutester, he simply tied the thread and snapped the rest of it off, before giving the shorts to Benji, "If you need anything else changed up like this, just let me know." "Great, thank you... this is going to make this a lot morefortable." He pointed out, quickly rushing over to the bathroom to change into the new shorts, while Benji started to clean up before his grandfather could. "Thank you." The old man said with a soft smile as he sat down on one of the bar-stools in front of the kitchen isle. Benji slowly turned to look at his grandfather, and slowly asked him something that Benjamin didn''t expect to face right now, "If... if you had to choose.... would you pick this world, or the other?" Chapter 755 - Modern Medicine Chapter 755 - Modern Medicine Benjamin turned his head and looked at his grandson, not sure what he was supposed to say. As the silence continued, Benji rubbed the back of his neck, "You know, because... here in this world, you only have one arm, and all. And you spent literally a hundred thousand years over there. Compared to that, this is just a drop in the bucket, isn''t it...?" The old man looked away, "I don''t know what I would choose in the end. Right now, I certainly don''t think I''m capable of making that choice while being content with either possibility. That might change when I recovered all my memories from my time over there, but... for all it''s worth, while I might have gotten side-tracked here and there, in the end I still always tried to do what I had to so that I coulde back here." Benjamin told him, "I love both this world and the other. But always remember that I loved this ce enough to forget everything I have umted over there." Benji slightly smiled and nodded his head, "Yeah, you''re right... sorry, that was a weird question. Anyway, how''s the erm... the giant country?" He asked, trying to quickly change the topic, feeling a bit awkward after asking something like that just now. The old man started running his fingers through his beard as he tried to figure out a way to best exin the situation, "Well, it''s been a lot more eventful, to say the least. I remembered some swordsmanship I apparently learned over there, and coincidentally met an old friend of mine." "Oh, that''s fucking awesome!" Benji replied, clearly mostly curious about the swordsmanship that the old man remembered. With a slight chuckle, Benjamin shook his head, "Of course, it wasn''t all great. The grandour didn''t believe that I am who I am at first, so we had to find another way to convince him. I recorded it all, so I can show you the footageter. It worked out great for the most part, but toward the end, things just sort of escted. Kiron was poisoned, but he learned how to get rid of poison in his bloodstream with his element and managed to survive, luckily. We''re still looking for the perpetrator, though it doesn''t seem like the grandour had anything to do with it himself." The old man exined, while Benji raised his brows confused. "Seriously? So is Kiron alright now, or, like, what''s going on?" Benji asked somewhat anxiously, but his grandfather could quickly calm him down, "He''s totally fine. He was able to remove everyst bit of the poison. He felt a little drowsy afterward, but that was the extent of it. Of course, we''re still making sure to keep an eye on him, in case there are some side-effects from the poison from now on, since a small amount did manage to affect him before he could get rid of the rest, but I think he should be fine." "Ah... alright, that''s good, I guess. But isn''t that kinda weird? He''s a half-dragon, shouldn''t he be decently resistant to something normal like poison?" "I mean..." Benjamin replied, before thinking about it some more, "To an extent, yes, but that''s just the case for mostmon poisons as far as I''m aware. There are plenty of more unique and advanced poisons that can even affect a full dragon." The old man exined, "But yeah... I think I should look into some of the more powerful poisons that are used and create a bunch of different antidotes." "Well, I met some healer guy with an antidote element a couple weeks ago, I can probably find him again and copy his element or something, my enchanting skill should be good enough for that by now." Benji suggested, "It was apparently able to easily heal most poisons and venoms. I think there were some limitations to it, but I think you should be able to use it to enhance other antidotes, right?" "I think so. But really, there are some unique elements, huh? An antidote element... I wonder what he did to get that sort of magic." Benji thought about it a bit more, "Hm, I''m not sure if it was really just an antidote for poison, I think it might be useable against general status effect stuff? Like, canceling whatever status effect someone is affected by or something. I''m not entirely sure, I just saw him use it once or twice." "That... might be a lot more powerful than it seems at first. I heard that a lot of yers rely heavily on potions, so being able to remove than benefit from them would be incredibly useful." Benji scoffed, "Right? They overuse potions so much that there are a shitton of alchemists now. Komerined to me about it the other day, but potion prices are dropping fast as hell. I think he''s pretty annoyed by it, since potions made up a good bit of our profits or something." With a slight smile, Benjamin shook his head, "No, that''s a good thing, trust me. Potions include things that increase your stats or give you special abilities temporarily, but with the exception of a few categories, most medicine belongs to that. The more people be alchemists, the more medicine is going to be developed as a natural consequence." "I mean I guess, but healing magic is a thing over there, so we don''t really need it... And it''s not like we can get sick anyway." Benji replied, leaning against the kitchen counter, as Benjamin locked eyes with his grandson, "yers can''t get sick, sure, but the people of that world can. Healing magic can only cure physical wounds, and not diseases. And trust me, diseases in a world where literally everything mutates uncontrobly through the influence of magic will naturally be a pain to deal with. With just a bit of bad luck, themon cold with suddenly mutate into a zombie virus. There are quite literal ''disease'' type monsters, just like there are earth of fire types. Even if there''s really powerful healing magic over there, advanced medicine is much more necessary." He pointed out, and just on time, Haruo returned to the room, now with his tail sticking out of the hole that Benjamin sewed into his shorts. "Exactly. The five of us were all limited in what we were allowed to do for that world. Eisen couldn''t introduce most modern technology that he wanted to, Xenia was forced to limit the advancements of magic, and I wasn''t allowed to progress medicine beyond a certain degree. Just for the sake of some crappy ''realism'' that Samuel wanted." Haruo exined, "But I''mpletely positive I did research on how bacteria and viruses work over there anyway, I just need to either find documents rting to that research, or find a way to directly recover all my memories of it." Benji scratched his neck awkardly, "Well shit... I guess I didn''t realize how serious that kind of stuff was..." "It is serious, of course, but at the same time, with the help of the system, it should be much, much easier to create certain frameworks to fight diseases. We can use magic to instantly analyze someone to see if they hold any disease, and then figure out the best treatment method nearly instantly. And then, we can just generate a personalized quest to guide them through the recovery process. There is a lot of danger in that world, but there are a lot of positive aspects thate from the same ce as that danger." Haruo exined with a smile on his face, "And once I find my old research, it shouldn''t be too hard to push medical technology forward radically. At that point, we can even figure out ways to advance in this world. That''s the best way to make use of this setup, right? Use each world to help both of them strive more than they ever could alone." Benjamin reached out and ced his hand on his friend''s shoulder, "That''s exactly the way to think about it, Jyuuk. As long as we do things that way, we will be able to get things under control." The old man said, "Oh, and if you need any help with your search, just let me know. I can probably figure out a way." "Ah, there''s no need. I''m already having a horde of undead critter search the ces that I think myb might be at.. It should only be a matter of time at this point." Chapter 756: Not a good Person Chapter 756: Not a good Person Eisen looked at the seemingly infinite terrain in front of him. This country was huge in every single way. Not just the cities, but the mountains, rivers, nts and even bugs were simply massive. It made this old man realize just how much there was to do in a ce like this, and how many possibilities a world like this was going to have. If this world reached a modern era like on earth, would this ce turn into a metropolis, or would it stay this untouched? Would the trees of the forests themselves be turned into skyscrapers, or would they be felled to make space as was normal on earth? Really, Eisen couldn''t help himself but be curious about it. He wanted to see this world grow more and more. But before he could explore the future together with this world, he had to figure out the world''s past. Specifically, he had to find a particr town, that he knew he was going to meet some old friends, or maybe foes, in. The ce closest to him now was the hometown of the five great golems. Tank, Deedee, Supp, Ranger, and Croco. When they left after their rebirth, they left, telling Eisen that they never wanted to see him again. And of course, the old man wanted to honor that decision of theirs, but there was still something that bothered him about the whole ordeal. And maybe seeing the hometown where those five grew up, he would be able to find out what had happened to them, and why Eisen did what he did. However, while approaching, Eisen could already tell that there was an issue with that. And that was that, while there were certainly traces of a town nearby, it was in nothing but ruins at this point. From the ruins, Eisen knew that it wasn''t a town of giants, but of ''regr'' sized people instead. But now, they all lived together in the huge towns created by the giants, so there was no need for these ces anymore, which is most likely why this ce had been abandoned. For now, the group set up camp somewhere nearby. If those five were really around here, then Eisen didn''t want to just stay within that ruined town. That would be beyond disrespectful. "Are you sure this is fine?" Kirisho asked, standing beside the old man. Right now, Eisen was at his ''normal'' size to help set up the camp. The old man turned his head and looked at her, slowly nodding, "I do. I''m not nning on extending my stay in this ce. All I need is to go in there, find something that gives me a hint of nostalgia, and thene back here so that I can rest and try to remember something. I''m only going to leave here when I either remember why I did what I did, or when I realize that I won''t be able to find the answer here." Kirisho lightly smiled at Eisen, moving a bit closer to him before cing her head on his shoulder, "I see. If that is the case, then I of course fully support you through and through. Just... try to avoid them, alright?" "If they''re here, yeah. For now, Melissa sent some of her reconnessence drones through the ruins. If they don''t find any trace of someone having been there, then I at least know there''s no need for me to worry about meeting them." Eisen exined, as he turned his head toward the mist spirit next to him. As he opened his mouth, the hair on his neck stood on its end, as something flew right past him, passing by inbetween him and Kirisho. The object hit a nearby rock, causing it to form deep cracks throughout. It was a metal arrow, that looked more than just familiar to Eisen. He made it, after all. Eisen turned his head, looking into the direction of where the arrow came from, before seeing something approach again, although it wasrger this time. Soon, he realized who it was. Croco, on her broom, was flying toward Eisen at high speed, clearly with the intent to attack. But of course, he wouldn''t just let that happen. Eisen''s body grew in size immediately, as he also activated his true demonic transformation. By the time he reached his full size, Croco hade to a halt. "We told you we never want to see you again! What are you doing here?!" She yelled out angrily, gathering mana in preparation of casting a spell at the old man. At the same time, another arrow, albeit one quite a bitrger this time, was shot at Eisen, which he simply stopped with his hand. The arrow did pierce quite deeply into his flesh, though. "Please, calm down. I''m not here to fight you. I was trying to avoid you as much as I could." Eisen told Croco, but she red back at him, not believing a word he was saying, "As if! You say you''re not here to fight, but you brought a small army with you?! Who do you think you can fool with that?" "They''re guards. I''m in this country on official business, so I couldn''t go without them." He exined, "Please, I''m just here to recover some of my memories, I-" "Don''t you dare start thinking that you''re allowed to set foot into our home!" Tank yelled out, as the others finally arrived as well. Croco, Tank, Deedee, Ranger, and Supp, were now back in front of Eisen, staring at the man in anger and disgust. "You promised us that we would never have to see you again." Supp said, deeply ring at Eisen, "I guess it was too much to expect for you to truly change." "As I just said, I''m just here to recover some of my memories. That is all. I never wanted for you to see me. I wanted to go in, take a look around, and then leave forever." Eisen told them. It was the only thing that he could say, after all. He didn''t have any other excuse for breaking his promise right now. Tank simply scoffed, "You don''t deserve to go in there. You don''t deserve to remember our home, the thing you took from us!" "...I''m not here to remember this town. I''m here to remember you five, so that I at least know all that I did to you." Eisen tried to exin, but Tank still didn''t want to hear it, "So what, huh? So that you can do it all again? So that you-" "No." The old man said in a clear tone, interrupting Tank immediately, "I''m trying to remember because I want to know... I have to know what sort of person I used to be. I did something unforgivable to you all, so why should I be allowed to live in blissful ignorance of all that I did, thinking that I was always the person that I believe myself to be right now?" He said, "And in the end, this is something that I''m going to do. Now that we''ve met, I might as well, or else we will have met for nothing, right?" "One day. You get one day to take a look around the town. After that, you leave forever. And this time, we really mean it. We want to rebuild that town, to try and live the lives that you forced us to always wish for while doing what you ordered us to." Supp decided, in the end. And although the others weren''t happy with this situation either, it seemed like they agreed to let Eisen roam around the town for a day, as long as it meant that he would never return to see them again. Eisen turned around toward the armed group standing behind him now. They were ready to attack the five golems at any point they needed to, but Kiron had stopped them, so that Eisen could properly speak to them, "I will leave now. And I will do so alone." The old man said, as he took his first step toward the ruined town. A pit was already forming in his stomach, as the fear of what he was going to remember entered his mind. He knew that he didn''t use to be a particrly good person in this world. But what he might find out here could determine for him whether or not the Eisen of this world was just ''not a good person'', or an outright ''bad person''. Chapter 757: The ruined Town Chapter 757: The ruined Town Eisen stood in front of the ruined town, and slowly shrunk back down so that he could see this ce properly agai. He stood in front of the gate, of which barely anything was left. Only the hint of an archway could be seen anymore. Slowly, the old man stepped through, while hearing the sound of metallic footsteps following behind him. The five of them were following closely behind him, as if they were trying to keep an eye on him while he was here so that he couldn''t do anything they didn''t want. Quickly, Eisen already felt a weak sense of nostalgia, but it most likely wouldn''t be enough for him to actually receive a memory through it. At the very least, it showed that Eisen was here before in the past. However, something just felt... weird about this ce. It was somehow sinister. Maybe Eisen really did do something horrible connected to this ce. He made his way further through the town, soon reaching what was the town square. Of course, all the market stalls werepletely gone, although there were still some traces left here and there. Eisen turned his head, seeing the skeletal, decayed remains of what was most likely a giant mouse,ying within one of the buildings. ''How did the people live in this town when even a mouse is thisrge..?'' He thought to himself, although he felt that these sorts of thoughts were just distracting to what he was actually trying to do. Eisen was making sure to create a model of this city instead of just a map, so that he could take a look at any ce he needed to at any time. Maybe trying to reconstruct the town through a model like that would be useful in trying to remember something as well. However, while his sense of general nostalgia seemed to increase, it was all directed at this town itself. He would only remember the way that this city looked while he was here at different points in time, at this rate. He wouldn''t be able to find out why Eisen did what he did. But nheless, that sinister feeling didn''t disappear from the back of Eisen''s mind either,pletely intertwining with the sense of general nostalgia. It made him feel nothing but anxiety the more he seemed to want to remember this ce. The old man stopped for a few moments, trying to gather his thoughts. Maybe he shouldn''t just stroll around in this ce, but find specific locations that he knew would be more familiar to him than the back alleys of this town. He looked around, and soon found the first of these ces. It was a smithy, and immediately, Eisen felt like he had been here while he was still ''young''. At the very least, he was here before he peaked. He closed his eyes, and dove into his mind, trying to remember his memories of the smithy at least. After a certain point, Eisen seemed to be able to distinguish between certain memories amongst the floating lights surrounding him within that mental space, so he was able to pick the right memory out quite easily. Eisen found himself in an empty field at the bottom of a hill. From the way the mountains looked around here, he was positive that this was the ce where he was standing right now, the ce where this city would be built. He saw a middle-aged version of himself building something, that quickly turned out to be the smithy that Eisen found. Of course, it looked quite a bit differently. He probably remodeled a few times, after all. Then, it took a while, and soon Eisen was an old man, even if he hadn''t peaked just yet. But soon, someone else found his way here, and settled around Eisen. From just within the smithy, Eisen could practically see this random hut in the middle of nowhere turn into a hamlet and then a vige. But even then, that was all. Apparently, this ce was where Eisen spent a lot of his time working on more casual, effective products. He did create other workshops all over the ce, but each seemed to have a different purpose. And this? This was where he made everyday items, for everyday people, even if this ce started out as an escape for Eisen, where he could work while visiting his own hometown. The old man smiled lightly as he opened his eyes again, ''This memory wasn''t all that bad'' he thought to himself. He was also d that the memory seemed to link into arger memory of this ce. Like a sort of important event in Eisen''s past. And that event seemed to be the source of the sinister feeling that Eisen was getting. While walking through the town more and more, Eisen soon came across another building that seemed to hold some sort of special meaning to him. It was one of therger houses here in this ruined town. He tried to step into it, but soon felt a hand on his arm pulling him back with an aggressive tug, "Don''t take another step." Tank warned in a growling voice, "If you even think about defiling my home like that, I will tear your arm off." "Go ahead, it''s not the first time. Even in my original world I just lost an arm, and that one doesn''t simply regrow with a little rest." Eisen said bluntly, as he turned around anyway. If Tank didn''t want Eisen to enter that ce, then he wouldn''t. For now, he would just look around a bit more. "Wait, what did you just say?" Supp stopped him, stepping in front of Eisen with a confused expression, "What do you mean, your ''original world''?" "...I didn''t tell you?" Eisen asked with a frown, "I figured I did. Well... I''m originally from another world, and I was trapped here for a hundred thousand years by some lunatic." He exined, "Over there, things like magic don''t exist. I''m just a human there, as well. I got sick, and my arm was removed to save my life." Supp stared at Eisen with a deep frown, before clicking his tongue angrily, "You disgust me. Stop ying around with these obvious lies, and just get going." Eisen didn''t me them for not believing him. He wouldn''t believe himself either, were he in their situation right now. It didn''t matter anymore anyway. Although, Eisen really didn''t know why they didn''t know about this fact. They definitely, absolutely should. Sure, he wasn''t able to tell most other people, but if he technically ''owned'' those five, then he figured that he told them. They were practically a part of him then, so even Samuel shouldn''t have done anything if he told them. Even the guardians knew, but not these five? Something... felt off. Eisen continued through the town, finding more and more locations that he seemed capable of remembering, but none of them were worth their own memory. They were just building into a singlerger memory, it seemed. After more than half the day passed, Eisen had practically explored every corner of this quite small town. There was just one ce that he didn''t yet, and that was the ce that seemed to give him the most sinister feeling, now that he took a closer look. He wasn''t sure if he realized this before, but now he thought that he might have subconsciously avoideding to that ce. But when he actually got there, Eisen was confused. It was just a small well a little bit outside of town. There shouldn''t be anything special about it. He approached it, peaking over the edge into the bottom. It was deep, far deeper than it should be. Eisen formed a rock and set it on fire, using the brightest mes he could, before dropping it down into the well. It fell and fell and fell, but the light just continued getting further and further away. And then finally, he could tell the rock hit the ground, and it took far too long for the sound to reach the surface again. Knowing that he had practically no other choice, Eisen ced his foot on the edge of the well, slightly turning his head to look at the five perplexed golems. It seemed like they never paid much attention to this well. "You can follow me if you want, but... I''m not sure any of us will like what we find." Chapter 758: The bottom of the Well Chapter 758: The bottom of the Well Eisen dropped down into the well, of course stopping himself with his wings. Since he didn''t have all too much space in here, he shrunk down so that he could actually fully spread his wings out, letting him safelynd at the bottom. In theory, at least. Right now, he had no idea how far away the bottom even was anymore. It just seemed to continue on and on. However, before he knew it, the well''s space widened, and he found himself in a dark room. Tank, Deedee, Supp, Ranger and Croco chose not toe down here with him. Either because they didn''t believe that there even was anything down here, or because they didn''t want to be alone in a confined space like that with Eisen. The old mannded down there, and went back to his normal size. It was pitch ck, but he could just use his elemental mes to easily light up the ce for himself. He was standing in still, muddy water up to his ankles, and the air was filled with a musty scent that came with long-abandoned ces like this. While he at first thought that this was just some underground pocket of air, it seemed like he was wrong. This ce was created artificially by someone. He was looking at straight walls and an utterly rotten door right now, after all. Granted, they were covered in what was left behind by the corpses of bugs and whatever else dropped down here identally over time, but it was still clear that the room itself was just perfectly cubic. Eisen tried to stretch his mana out forward to try and get a model of the space beyond the door first, but once he figured that it wasn''t any particr danger, he just stepped through the door impatiently. Eisen stood on a semi-circr tform, while a huge open cavern stretched out in front of him, reaching deep into a bottomless darkness. "...What is this, another gate to hell?" Eisen scoffed, as he created another rock cloaked in bright mes to throw down into the darkness. But then, as if something swallowed the mes up, they just disappeared after a few dozen meters. Eisen wasn''t sure whether it was a creature, or some sort of water or mist, however. He didn''t hear any sound, so it most likely wasn''t water, and he doubted that any sort of being could survive down here for this long. It had been abandoned for millennia, after all. Eisen opened his storage space, and grabbed a spear out of it. He infused it with his element to make it burn brightly, and then put all the strength into his arm, throwing the spear down into the darkness. But again, the glowing spear was just swallowed up by something. And since it didn''t make a sound, it probably wasn''t anything living, at least. The old man took a deep breath, figuring that he should go about this the easiest way he could. With a quick step forward, he lunged down into the darkness, ready to catch himself when necessary. Before he knew it, Eisen himself was beingpletely swallowed up by darkness. And not just metaphorically, it was like the darkness hade to life just to wrap itself around him, pulling him deeper into itself. He could feel the shadowy darkness be solid, tying itself around his limbs like chains. But at the very least, this slowed Eisen down before he reached the ground, so he didn''t mind too much, even if it felt a bit ufortable around his wrists. He infused himself with his element, making himself as radiant as he could. The darkness was forced out of the way immediately, and he dropped thest few feet to the ground below him. He spread his elemental mana around, trying to cover as much of the walls as he could, now that he knew howrge this cave actually was. And then, he made his mana glow with bright white mes, before pulling it closer toward amon centerpoint right above himself. The darkness was forced to try and retreat wherever it could,pressing itself into a solid mass to avoid the bright light. And then, Eisen pulled it down, grabbing some mana crystals from his storage, creating a thin bubble around the glowing sphere created by his own mana. To make sure that it couldn''t escape no matter what it was, Eisen even fused some soul stones into the mana crystal, and then used this crystal orb to force the living darkness into an even smaller space. There were apparently some traces of it left, slithering across the walls of the cave like snakes trying to get away from Eisen, but they couldn''t really do much against him right now. Eisen kept the sphere, now the size of a head, in his hands and started to take another look around. Now that he could actually see every part of the cave, he could tell what was going on. This ce, even if it looked much more like one, wasn''t a natural cave either. Eisen was inside the ribcage of an enormous dead giant, even more enormous than a normal giant. But it was definitely the case. Now that the idea sprung into his mind, he couldn''t unsee it anymore. Rather, he was seeing more and more evidence for the idea that this was simply a huge, fossilized giant''s skeleton. And if that was the case... then was this sentient darkness a soul, or an undead created from the trapped giant''s soul? No, that most likely wasn''t the case. This just felt different. "It''s the trace of another Demon, huh?" The old man finally figured. It was a demon walking on the path of yin. But if that was the case, it wasn''t a full demon, but just a splinter that split off from the true demon that had been here before. At first, Eisen thought that maybe it was a part of himself, but he quickly got rid of that idea. He could tell that it wasn''t part of his own being. But then how did this get here? There was no way for another true demon to just coincidentally appear right below the town that was built around Eisen''s workshop. He let out a deep groan, trying to figure out what was going on. Maybe the giant corpse belonged to the demon, and this was simply what was left behind after its death. Either way, Eisen had to explore this ce more. There was another exit on the other side of the cave. He flew up to the door and stepped through. Eisen was pretty sure that the well led to something like a space within the area of the giant''s stomach, so right now, he was making his way to the giant''s head. Whilending on the tform in front of the door, Eisen spotted something that seemed like the base for a bridge to be built between here and the tform on the other side. He walked through the door, making his way through a hallway built within the giant''s throat. Soon, he was inside the skull. And all that he could see was a small, ritualistic alter. And the moment that Eisenid his eyes on it, it was like he had been punched in the face. Immediately, he closed his eyes to try and ess the memory he just unlocked. Eisen stretched his hand out toward the glowing sphere, and hesitated for a moment. If he did this, then he couldn''t undo it againter. He just sat there for a few moments, until he moved his hand thest bit, touching the sphere. And immediately, he was transported back into the smithy that he had found earlier today. An old Eisen, maybe a few decades before he peaked, stood in the center of the room. Letting out a deep groan, the former Eisen turned around, looking at the man that had entered this space, "You could have just ignored this. It''s nothing you want to remember, trust me." "...And why is that? Because we did something horrible to people who were supposed to be our friends?" Eisen replied with a deep frown, but the former Eisen simply scoffed, "You may call it horrible, I call it the right thing. Trust me, you would make the same choice. Or well... you already have." Chapter 759: The First Demon Chapter 759: The First Demon Eisen watched as his former version snapped back into the memory, following the path of what had happened back then. The memory Eisen just finished creating an item, and ced it to the side next to him, when he looked at the open door that plenty of sunlight was shining through. At its side, five small heads could be seen peaking inside. They were five kids, curiously looking at Eisen while he was working. "Hello there. Can I help you?" He asked with a smile on his face, approaching the kids. But once he got close enough to the door, they simply turned around and started running away. With a slightugh, Eisen leaned out the door and looked at their backs, while the current Eisen for the first time saw what those five originally looked like. They were Tank, Deedee, Supp, Ranger, and Croco, running away after being spotted by Eisen. Most parts that the current Eisen was actually seeing were rted to those five, and he was watching them grow up step by step. He watched as they learned to fight and hunt. He watched as they became dumb teenagers, and then brilliant adults. It was sort of heartwarming to Eisen, but in the end, he knew that something was going to change soon. However, the one thing that he was focusing on wasn''t the way that this town looked, or the way those kids behaved... but rather, the fact that their names hadn''t changed. They were still called ''Tank'', ''Deedee'', ''Supp'', ''Ranger'', and ''Croco''. At the time, the former Eisen had no idea that those were names rted to games. It seemed like he only learned that much, muchter. But just that fact alone made this situation just the weirder. But that wasn''t the important part right now. Instead, it was that the former Eisen had gone off on a journey for a few years. In the meantime, those five grew into splendid adults in basically every single way. And then, one day, Eisen came back to town. Tiredly, he entered his smithy, cing his bags on the ground, when he heard a knock on the open door. "Wee back, Eisen." Tank said with a broad smile on his face. He towered over the old man, excited to finally see him again. Eisen immediately greeted him with a big, tight hug, "How''ve you been? Did you grow even more since thest time I''ve seen you?" "Haha, I hope not, I''m big enough already." He pointed out, while Eisen couldn''t help himself butugh, "We''re in a ce filled with nothing but giants, and I myself can be dozens of times bigger than you. And you think you''re big enough already?" Eisen asked him, and Tank just smiled back, "I''m as big as I need to be, I guess." With that genuine answer, the current Eisen felt another pit form in his stomach. He had already remembered how kind, calm and gentle Tank had been during this time... but now, he was only filled with anger and hatred toward Eisen. Maybe he was different while he wasn''t around. At least, that was all that he could hope for. "How long are you staying this time?" Tank asked, and Eisen thought about it for a few moments, before shrugging, "A couple weeks, maybe months. I''m not sure, I just want to take a bit of a break, you see?" "Of course, of course. Ah, and you came at the perfect time." Tank exined, "Ranger just started building his house, so he could use some help with that." "Ah, I think I saw the site on my way here. It looks quite nice so far, albeit a little big, don''t you think?" "...Don''t tell anyone you heard it from me, but I''m pretty sure Ranger is going to ask Deedee to move in with him, once the ce is finished." Tank exined excitedly, "I''d be really happy to see those two settle down together like that." "It''s been a long timeing, for sure." Eisen replied, "Come on, let''s see them." He suggested, walking out the door with a calm, happy expression. Meanwhile, the current Eisen''s expression couldn''t be any different. He was bitter, and sad, and felt like throwing up right here and now. Did he really ruin the lives of people this happy, and then even dare to think that he was in the right to do so? What the hell was wrong with him? "Just skip to the important bit, alright? To that underground ce." Eisen said, watching the next ''scene'' that was supposed to y out before him simply pause. He would remember everything anyway, so he didn''t have to watch all of this in such excruciating detail. That was something he could do whenever he needed to in the future anyway. The paused figure of Eisen faded away, and instead showed himying in bed, sleeping. The current Eisen was about to yell at his former self to make him stop ying around, before suddenly, the ground began to shake. Eisen sprung up from his bed, trying to orient himself, and quickly rushed outside to see if something happened. And there, Eisen noticed the absolute silence of this town. This eery, disgusting silence that made him just want to run away and nevere back. That silence had quickly been cut through by the sound of something limp dropping to the ground. Across the corner, Eisen could see it. The figure of Tank, holding the lifeless body of his mother. But something was wrong. Tank had arge, gaping hole in his chest, and fleshy, ck vines were growing from the ce where his heart was supposed to be, wrapping around nearly every part of his body, as if they were controlling him, while Tank himself wore an expression that could only be described as pure horror. His eyes had sunken inpletely, or maybe it was safer to say that they looked like someone squashed them with their thumbs. His cheeks were ripped up, ck blood pouring out of them, while tears of terror and grief covered his face. "What... what''s going on?" The Eisen from within the memory asked confused, when a figure appeared behind him, its body forming out of the same ck substance that the current Eisen trapped with bright mes earlier. With a casual, gleeful expression, they quickly exined, "Ah, I figured I''d help you out a bit. I managed to develop a way of amassing experience in a truly efficient way, so that you can hurry up and reach the peak already." The being said, and Eisen turned around and cut its body in half with a de that seemed to appear out of nowhere, "Samuel?! What the fuck did you do?!" The figure''s body stayed split in half while it continued to speak, utterly unaffected, as if it wasn''t even really there to begin with, "Hoho, I''m not Samuel, but I''m one of his helpers~! He tasked me of finding a way of assisting you. The other four following behind you will receive your guidance, after all, but you? You''re all alone, so we had to find a way to make up for that fact." The being exined with a broad grin, "What do you say? It''s useful, right? Just for you, I created tools that will drain each bit of experience in the target they kill, and umte it with every step they take. Then, that experience will be fed directly to you! It''s great, isn''t it? You can do whatever you want, and they will do all the hard work for you!" "That''s why you turned Tank into... into... that?!" Eisen yelled out in nothing but fury, while the beingughed hysterically, "That''s what they were born for, after all. You''ve been gone for quite a while at a time... so I''ve had the opportunity to make proper use of the natural ressources of this town. Everyone here is doing everything they do, just for you. They live and die, for your sake." Eisen looked back startled, "You turned this town into a cult, without me even knowing about it?!" "Well, that part is on you, I didn''t even put much effort into hiding it, you know? Anyway, the more important part is that you will soon hold the experience of a few hundred years worth of generational experience that continued building up! That should give you a few levels!" The Eisen of the memory slowly turned around, and looked at the end of the alleyway. A group of people had gathered, all kneeling in front of him. And with just a few swings of his hands, Tank pulled them limb from limb, brutally ending their lives, fully against his will while being manipted by that... thing. By the first true Demon that Eisen had ever encountered. Chapter 760: The Truth Chapter 760: The Truth "Tank! Stop this!" Eisen yelled out at the child that was going on an uncontroble rampage, killing his friends and family, who were offering their bodies to this cause freely. It didn''t even seem like they were being actively controlled. Brainwashed, sure, but they were still offering themselves to be killed, just so that Eisen could gain a level or two at best? How ridiculous was this? "Heh, if you want to stop this, there''s really only one way to do it. You have topletely destroy their bodies." The Demon exined to Eisen, who red at it angrily, "Why would I ever believe a single word you say?!" "What? I don''t lie! I hide stuff, but I don''t lie~! If I tell you that''s the only way to do it, that''s the only way to do it." It replied bluntly, while Eisen couldn''t do anything but stand there, unsure what he should do. He didn''t want to kill Tank, but he couldn''t just watch all those people continue being killed just for his sake, "I''m sorry... I''m really, really sorry, child..." Eisen muttered, as he stepped forward toward Tank, cutting through his neck. Tank''s head rolled off his shoulders. But even then, his body didn''t go limp, or even stop moving. It continued ripping apart these living people, without even minding Eisen''s existence. Eisen turned his head and looked at Tank''s head, justying there on the ground, before that slithering, solid darkness sprouted into legs right where Eisen had cut the head off Tank''s shoulders. The spider-like limbs carried the head back onto its body, forcing them together like some sort of frankenstein. Clicking his tongue a few times, the Demon shook its head, "I just told you, you need to pletely'' destroy their bodies. No trace of their physical form, you know?" Eisen ground his teeth, furiously. He knew that he clearly couldn''t kill that Demon right now even if he put all his power into it, simply because he wouldn''t even be able tond a hit on it, so the only thing he could do is take care of Tank. "I''m... I''m sorry." He said, while cing his hand onto the gaping hole in Tank''s chest. Mana gathered in Eisen''s right arm, before Tank''s whole body was incinerated in a single instant, leaving behind just a single trace. A small, ck orb with a flowing, light liquid inside. Eisen had seen it before, having forced it out of the bodies of a few monsters he killed, but he had never seen it like this. This was Tank''s soul. Trying to suppress his anger, so that he could pick the orb up without shattering it in his hand, Eisen reached down, holding it in his hand. Silently, he walked past the corpses of the people that used to live here all around him, and began his search for the others. The next one he found was Ranger, who was doing the same thing, barbarically ripping everyone apart. And again, the only thing he left behind was an orb containing his soul. The next one he found was Supp, currently climbing out of the well in a beastial manner, jumping into the crowd that had gathered there, ripping then apart with his hands and mouth as if he was trying to feed on them. Right behind him followed Deedee, who followed suit, quickly taking out half the crowd before Eisen got there. And a momentter, their bodies burnt up, and Eisen was holding onto two more souls. He climbed into the well, knowing that they wereing from down there. He couldn''t find Croco anywhere yet, so maybe she was still alive? She might be fine... he might be able to still save her. Eisen ran across the room, pushing away any of these insane cultists he could together with the shadowy apparitions of the Demon standing amongst them. He ran over the bridge that was hanging across that deep drop in this mummified, giant corpse that hadn''t even been fully hollowed out yet. And then, Eisen reached the room with the altar, and the memory soon stood right where the current Eisen did, staring at the altar, where Croco''s own father was holding a pitch-ck dagger into her heart, causing the darkness to spread throughout her whole body. He watched Croco''s small frame go limp, before being forcefully pulled awake. The first thing she did was rip her father''s throat to shreds, while Eisen just stood there, petrified. Or well... maybe he just didn''t want to save the kind of person that would do that to their own child. While that man''s body fell to the ground, before he even stopped twitching, Eisen incinerated Croco''s body, now holding onto her soul as well. Croco''s father locked eyes with Eisen. All the old man could see was an expression of glee and happiness. He killed his own child with that kind of expression. Eisen clutched the five marbles in his hands tightly, as he stared at the puddle of blood gathered on the altar, still dripping down its rough sides. "You don''t deserve to remain here, while they''re gone..." Eisen muttered, as mes poured out from his body, enveloping this whole underground structure, even burning away the rest of the flesh left inside this giant corpse. Eisen killed everyone left inside, and then climbed out of the deep, deep well. And when he came outside, seeing the gleeful expression of the cultists in front of him... he killed them too. Their bodies fell apart in the mes that started to spread throughout the whole town. This ce that had existed in bliss just yesterday was now gone, nothing but a speck of dust in this wilderness. The Demon watched Eisen''s despair, and simply disappeared. And that was where the memory ended. Eisen fell to his knees, looking at the altar where all five of the people waiting upstairs had been killed by their own families. How could he ever tell them about this? Those children who he had looked after whenever he was here... he had watched them grow day by day, month by month, year by year. He ate andughed with their families, and then, it all went to hell. Now Eisen understood why he did what he did. He wanted to protect them from learning about this horror. He shouldn''t have, though. He should have just told them. But maybe he just couldn''t. Instead, he just fed them lies about how they died, and maybe even lied to them about how they lived their lives. And all those messages sent to the five of them? They were sent by the Demon, trying to lure them back. Eisen probably returned sooner orter to try and kill the Demon again, finally seeding at some point. And this ck darkness, now trapped in this crystal sphere, was all that was left of the being that did this. Eisen ground his teeth together and stared into the abyss he held in his hands, "If there''s even a speck of consciousness left in there... I swear I''llpletely destroy you..." He whispered, before slowly turning around. He made his way back to the entrance, and flew up the well, where those five were waiting for him. They stared at the old man with hatred and disgust, the same way that Eisen stared at the Demon back then. For a few moments, he was considering just continuing to hide this. Maybe he should just try and lie to them, and make them hate him even more. Well, even if he told them the truth, they would hate him for hiding it from them. He would hate himself as well. Slowly, Eisen opened his storage, and grabbed a scroll out of it. He wrote some conditions onto it, and showed it to the five beings in front of him, "With this contract, I swear that I will tell you the details of the memories that I just recovered. And if I lie, my head will roll off my neck right in front of you." He said, activating the fate contract, while the five of them looked at him confused. Clearly, they knew how the contracts worked, watching as the being that would fulfill the contract appeared above Eisen, cing a scythe onto his neck, ready to cut through it at any moment. And then, Eisen told them the truth, for the first time. He told them why this all happened, and watched the faces of the people he had tried to protect for tens of thousands of years as they learned why, and how they truly died. Chapter 761: Just Leave

Chapter 761: Just Leave

Eisen watched the despaired golems standing in front of him, as they listened to the words of the man that they hated the most. "I... I can''t believe this..." Supp muttered in a confused tone of voice, "So we... we killed everyone..?" He asked, looking down at his hands, before falling to his knees in disbelief. But even though he didn''t want to believe Eisen''s words, he still did. After all, Eisen had created a contract that forced him to reveal everything in regard to what had happened here. But even then, not everyone believed him. With an expression so furious that it was impossible topare it to before, to the point that it felt like the metal making up his face was going to stay warped in this position forever, Tank stepped forward, pressing his foot into the ground, forcing the dirt to the side. Tank red angrily, the artificial voice-box ced into his throat struggling to keep up with the emotion he was trying to express, "This- you, just-" He yelled out, clearly still struggling to properly form words. Tank was trying to speak, but not a single sound left his mouth, as his emotional thoughts simply overwhelmed him right now. Eisen slowly closed his eyes for a few moments. Since he only just experienced that memory again, to him, it was like that event had just happened a couple of minutes prior. He still felt sick to his stomach, and the despair that he was filled with back then was fresh in his mind. And those emotions were filled with regret, and hatred for the kind of man that Eisen used to be. Instead of letting those five rest, Eisen turned them into golems, and forced them to do his bidding. It made Eisen feel disgusted to his bones. "I told you this because I know that my former choice was wrong. You''re adults, much older than I was back when this all happened. It''s not my right to keep this secret from you." Eisen exined to them, slowly averting his gaze, "Of course... I can-" "You can do what, Eisen? Mess with us even more? Just... just leave, please..." Croco said in a sobbing voice, even though no tears came out of her eyes. No matter how much they looked like they were human, at the end of the day, they were nothing but mechanical dolls. Eisen hesitated for a moment, but then made another suggestion, "Now that I know why this all happened... There are more options. If you ask me to leave after this after all, then I will. However, I am going to leave something with you that allows you to contact me in case you change your mind at any point." "Why would we ever change our minds?! Just leave, you sick bastard!" Tank eximed, finally able to put at least part of his thoughts and emotions into words. But Eisen simply continued speaking, because he felt like he had to give this option to them, at least, "Again, if you want me to leave, then I will. But there is another choice. I can reveal to you everything, so that you can know not only what happened, but why it happened. Your lives had been manipted, so I think you deserve to know who did it, and why they did it. Beyond that, I will support you in every possible way, now and in the future." "We don''t want, or need your support, don''t you understand that?!" Tank yelled out, but before he could continue, Supp stood back up and walked in front of him, "Wait, no... just... you are the one who used us as tools... are you trying to shift the me onto someone else now?" Eisen shook his head, "No, that''s not what I''m trying to do at all. While I hope that I''m a different person than I used to be, at the end of the day, it was still me who did all that to you. There is no excuse for what happened. It''s just that, beyond what you were aware of, there are other people that did something horrible to you, and I believe you deserve to know about it." The five Golems all listened to Eisen''s words, and silently came to a consensus. Obviously, they were able tomunicate without words. They had spent nearly every conscious moment together for the past hundred thousand years. At that point, you didn''t need words to get your thoughts across to each other anymore. Supp looked at the old man in front of them, and slowly started to speak. Even though they all agreed, some hesitation could still be heard in his voice, "Then go ahead... tell us. Tell us about everything." "...Then go ahead and take a seat. It''s a long story, and you might have a few questions, so this is going to take even longer." The old man said, watching as the five gathered together more closely, simply wanting to be as close together for all this as possible. And then, Eisen started to exin the story. And since it was what they asked for, Eisen told them everything. The other world, the fact that this one was created and manipted for some end-goal that nobody could fully grasp just yet, and the reasons why these five were created. He told them everything that he could about Samuel and whatever he knew about the Demon that had done this to them, as little as it was. Just as he thought, the five of them had plenty of questions. Not just about the situation itself, but they wanted to know more about Earth, and the concepts that they were originally named after. Perplexed and silent as they tried to get a proper grasp of everything, the Golems held onto each other. Soon, they started to whisper to each other, and although Eisen''s senses were more than strong enough for him to hear them, he purposefully distracted himself. Eavesdropping felt even worse in a moment like this. "...Leave, and don''te back on your own." Tank soon said, "What you told us doesn''t change much about what you did..." "We just need to figure out what to do next. But again... don''te to see us anymore. If we want something, need your help, or whatever else might happen, we maye to you, if necessary. But otherwise... We really, really don''t want to see you again." Croco said, frowing deeply, as Eisen slowly nodded his head. While he knew that this was going to be the oue, he still felt bitter about it. But that was just how it was. He didn''t want to force himself into a ce where he genuinely wasn''t wanted. Since he didn''t think he could say anything that would make this situation better for now, Eisen turned around and started walking back through the town, toward the camp that had been set up. Once he was a bit further away, he transformed into his true demonic form and lifted into the sky, flying over the town so that he could return back to the others. Once he was in sight, nearly everyone in the temporary camp rushed over to where Eisen was trying tond, "How''d it go?" Sky asked, having already been near here before. The old man turned his head to look at him, but didn''t know what he was supposed to say. "Absolutely horrible." He finally let out, looking at thepressed, sentient smoke that was trapped inside of the crystal orb, "I''ll tell you what I found outter. I have to collect my thoughts for now." Eisen said, walking past everyone that had rushed toward him with a deeply calm expression, and everyone quickly knew that it was better to leave him alone for now. He stepped into the Dungeon, past the Armor Golems and Dungeon Monsters busily working on and expanding this space more and more, making it more presentable for future dungeon divers. With a wave of his hand, Eisen created a gate that immediately brought him to his private room on a deeper level. Once inside, he sat down on the edge of the bed, "Kirisho, could youe out for me?" He asked, and the mist spirit soon poured out of the bracelet hanging from his neck. She looked at the old man sitting in front of her, cing her hands onto his shoulder worriedly, "Is there something I can do to help?" Kirisho asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. He held forward the hand that was still holding onto the crystal orb filled with the sentient smoke. "I wanted to ask if you could tell me if this thing has actual thoughts, or if it just acts on instinct. If it can still think, I n on turning it into a golem core to ask it some questions, but otherwise, I''ll have to think of something else." He exined, and Kirisho smiled lightly, slowly running her hand over the surface of the crystal orb. "Could you open it up for me?" Kirisho asked without hesitation, pressing her palm onto the smooth sphere. Slowly, Eisen opened a small hole, and watched as a bit of Kirisho''s mist flowed into it. Immediately, Eisen could tell that she had been able to at least influence it somehow. Until now, the smoke was raging in there like a storm, trying to escape from its prison, but now, it was like it went limp, simply settling inside of the orb. "I don''t know if it would be right to say that it is still thinking, but...." Kirisho slowly let out, "At the very least, it doesn''t just act on instinct? There is something going on, but it''s so fractured, so chaotic, that I might as well be trying to read the content of book that had been shred to dust." Chapter 762: Fixed in Space

Chapter 762: Fixed in Space

Eisen listened to Kirisho''s exnation of the remnants of the Demon that had been left behind in that cave, and were now trapped inside of this crystal orb. While he was pretty sure that the former Eisen wouldn''t have hesitated to kill it the moment he had the chance to, he couldn''t be sure that the chance was actually there. If this smoke still held some thoughts, no matter how fragmented they were, then it might not be too crazy for him to think that the Demon is still roaming around in this world somewhere. On the other hand, maybe this smoke was simply left behind through one of the Demon''s abilities. If that was the case, then it wasn''t really possible for Eisen to figure out whether or not it died just from this. "Except... maybe..." The old man muttered, looking back at the Mist Spirit in front of him, "It seems to be actingpletely on instinct from what I noticed. Is that about right?" Kirisho immediately nodded her head, looking at the smoke in the orb, "Yes, that''s about the limit, I think... Or at least, that''s the only thing that''s able to show in its current form." "...In that case, I think I have an idea of what we can do. Do you think you can... influence the smoke? Just give it some sort of input, ce an idea into it. Something so that we can properly give it a ''goal''? Even beings with just instincts have goals, I would say." Eisen asked, and Kirisho thought about it for a moment, "I think I should be able to, yes. But it depends on what you want me to do, exactly." The old man slowly held the orb in his hand, tightening his grip on the smooth surface, and exined, "This smoke is basicallypletely made of mana. And as far as I know, mana is always connected to the owner at least to a certain extent. A being made of mana that acts on instincts should be able to somehow ess that connection. And if that''s the case, if we give it a sort of ''goal'' to find any other mana that it''s connected to, we should be able to find the owner, or any other remnants they left behind. And if not that, then at least some clue to who that Demon was and what exactly its goal was. Even if I have a rough idea." "I see..." Kirisho said, thinking about it for a moment, "Yes, I should be able to do something like that. Just give me some time, and I will make it useful for you." "Thank you, Kirisho." The old man said with a smile on his face, as he started taking off his armor, cing it onto a mannequin golem. He stripped out of his clothes he wore underneath the armor, and instead put on his crafting outfit, his thin wool pants and leather apron. With a slight groan, he stretched his body, walking over to an adjecent door, "Were you not nning on resting now?" Kirisho asked surprised. "Well, sure I was, but this is the best rest I can have." Eisen replied bluntly, as he walked through the door, entering into an empty dome. It was just a hollow space created within this part of the dungeon that Eisen could make use of however he wanted, whether it was for training, working on the creation ofrger projects, or for what he was about to do now. After opening his storage space, he quickly grabbed the portable workshop, cing it on the ground in front of him. Eisen watched as the small box folded itself open into a door, and from there expanded outward into a full building. Before it even finished creating the rest of itself, Eisen entered through the structure''s door and walked to the back. With a few light creaking noises, the workshop settled into its new, albeit temporary, spot. Quickly, the old man grabbed some basic ingredients, to try and start working on a prototype. The first thing he needed was something to contain the smoke. He could simplypress it down further if necessary, so the size wasn''t really an issue. "Maybe I could just make a simplepass?" Eisen muttered, although he wasn''t fully convinced that the smoke would simply try to pull into the direction of the nearest other ''mana'', which was what apass would require, "I can just make something else if it doesn''t work out. I don''t particrly have anything else to head toward for now," he thought to himself. Using a mixture of a mana crystal and a soul stone, he quickly formed a finger-sized, thin capsule that he could force the smoke into, and first ced it to the side. After lighting the forge, Eisen grabbed some metal, and ced it inside the mes. He went with some air-mana infused aluminum. It was one of the lightest metals he had that could still be used for things like that. It would obviously be too weak for anything like a weapon, but for a simplepass needle, this was the perfect thing. It didn''t take long until the aluminum was hot enough for him to work with, so he took out Bai and quickly started to hammer onto the metal, using it to build the framework for the actual needle. There really wasn''t much to it, though. Of course, there was the arrow-shaped tip that would point into the right direction and the frame that would hold the crystal tube containing thepressed smoke. But other than that, Eisen also made sure to make two more simple frames, one in the exact center of the needle, and another on the opposite end to the arrow''s tip. Thattter frame would be used to hold a counterweight so that Eisen could bnce the needle properlyter. He wasn''t sure how heavy thepressed smoke would end up being, after all, but he just added this to make sure that he could adjust everything as needed, so that the weight of the needle itself didn''t affect the direction that it pointed atter. Instead, the smoke should haveplete control over everything in here. And in the center, he made a spherical frame that would hold the centerpiece of the needle. For that, Eisen took out a spatial gem. ording to Xenia, it couldn''t only be used to expand the space of something, as he had been using it until now, but there were a lot more uses that rted to ''physical space''. Now, Eisen wanted to make use of one of them. The old man walked over to the marble tabletop by the wall, quickly turning Bai into a carving needle, and started trying to design the enchantment he would ce on the outside of the spatial gem, which he already turned into a smooth marble. What he wanted to do was actually rather simple. The needle was supposed to not only point into t directions like a normalpass'', but it was supposed to point up and down as well. The ce where he found this smoke was a good bit below the ground as well, so having this would really be quite useful to point him toward where he needed to search for mana simr to that of the smoke. And for that, he would need the needle to be able to rotate fully within its casing. Of course there were other ways to do this, such as through a gyroscope, but Eisen liked this idea a lot as well. Eisen was trying to fix the spatial gem perfectly into the center of the spherical casing for thepass, and this spatial gem would then be the centerpiece of the needle, so that it could move around freely. For that, he of course needed some reference points, which he would carve into the ss orb that would act as the casingter as well. But for now, he needed to make the base. The base image that Eisen used for this enchantment was an object trapped in the center of a sphere through thick chains that wouldn''t allow for any sort of movement. After integrating the proper runes into the auxiliary aspects of the enchantment, Eisen started describing the enchantment further, using the tiny runic writing as the lines for the enchantment itself. This took a bit longer than usual, since Eisen took this opportunity to y around with a few different things, like describing the enchantment in a way that would make it use less mana, or using different ways to describe the enchantment toe together into one. He did something simr a few times before, but that was usually only when he made actually moreplex items. This, however, was really quite simple in its functionality. The marble had to really only do one thing, after all, and that was to stay in the exact center of the orb he would link it toter. Once he finished carving the enchantment onto the marble tabletop, he transfered it to the marble''s surface, before starting to transmute the small object''s insides to further enhance the enchantment on the outside. It might have been a little overkill, but it was fun, so Eisen didn''t really care. Soon enough, the marble itself was done, but there was still something else that was needed. He took a mana crystal and wrapped it around the marble, making the hollow space a little bit bigger than the spatial gem itself, so that it had a little bit of wiggle-room, before creating another enchantment on the marble tabletop. This time, it was an enchantment to remove the friction between the mana crystal and the spatial gem as much as possible. This crystal was the thing that would actually be connected to the needle, and Eisen hoped that this would allow for perfectly free, unhindered movement for the needle. Afterpleting the enchantment, he grabbed a conc oction that he had created at some point for exactly this sort of thing. It was basically supposed to be the ''perfect lubricant'', removing as much friction as possible. He quickly filled a small part of the concoction into a hole he opened up in the mana crystal, letting it flow right inbetween the spatial gem and crystal, before hardening it a little to make sure there was an even distance between the two all around. And just in his hand, he could already roll the marble around, while the spatial gem in the center stayed perfectly still. "Now, I just need the casing, and then I should be done." The old man said with a happy expression, having sessfully distracted himself from today''s happenings through his work. Chapter 763: Demon-Seeking Compass

Chapter 763: Demon-Seeking Compass

Eisen held the two central aspects of thepass in his hands. He grabbed the crystal core holding the spatial gem and quicklypressed it down to ce it into the central casing of thepass'' needle, quickly expanding it again until he was sure that everything was tightly set in ce. Already, just moving the needle around in his hand, the spatial gem in the center stayed perfectly still, showing that this part of what Eisen wanted would work, at least. The next part was going to involve the creation of the outer casing, which was needed as a reference for the centerpiece. He ced his hand onto his forge, and changed the shape of this permanently-deployed magic, turning it into something more useful as a ssblowing furnace. He stepped over toward one of the shelves in the room, taking out some bottles filled with fine, glittering powders of different shades in each of them, as well as the barrel with pre-mixed limestone and sand standing right next to the shelf. Bringing both of them over, Eisen quickly mixed them together. The fine powders in the bottles were ground-down mana-crystals and gems. For most purposes, he liked to mix in mana crystals, since it would improve the durability of the final ss immensely. It was near impossible to destroy mana crystals through normal means, after all, and that property would be taken on by the ss itself to a certain extent. In one of the other bottles was the powder of ground-down spatial gems, while the rest of the bottles held other crystals and gems that would help improve the flow of mana through the ss to simply make it a better conductor for enchantments. Eisen mixed everything together in a bowl made of his mana, and quickly ced it into the heated forge, making sure that everything was mixed together properly by using transmutation. Once everything had molten down into ss, Eisen got rid of the bowl made of his mana, and quickly started working with Bai, its body formed into a ssblowing pipe. The molten ss moved over the end of the pipe, and Eisen quickly got to work. While twisting the pipe, he pushed air into the ss to blow it up into a bubble. Once he got the base shape and size for the bubble down, the old man continued twisting the pipe and shaping the ss, adding more air into the bubble to make sure it kept its shape while he created an even thickness of ss all the way around the bubble. Soon enough, he was able to detach the pipe from the ss, and instead held it in his hands. Even now, although some of his memories of his work had returned, it was still quite surreal to hold something like this with his bare hands, even if it didn''t hurt him anymore. Either way, Eisen quickly moved on from that feeling, and finished up the bubble. Once he finished closing it up, Eisen let the bubble cool down a bit, making sure to control the temperature with his mana. Not by much, for now, he just needed the ss to harden a little bit before he ced it into the annealer. If the ss was too soft, it would turn into an oval at some point, instead of staying spherical. Of course, even then, Eisen quickly changed the annealer''s internal shape to be a sphere, making sure it rotates constantly, but he wanted to be doubly safe. It didn''t take long until the ss bubble had cooled down enough for Eisen to work with it without needing to worry about its shape. As he held the hollow ss orb, which would just be barelyrge enough for Eisen to fully stretch his palm out inside of it, he watched as Bai turned into a carving needle again. As his mana flowed into the needle, he pressed it against the surface of the ss bubble and started to work. This enchantment was simply the second part to the enchantment on the spatial gem from before, and would act as the reference for said gem. As such, that part of the enchantment wasn''t tooplicated. But again, Eisen added a few more aspects to the enchantment. Mainly, it was an enchantment to read the rotation of the shell surrounding the spatial gem in the center. He could then have the angle be directly disyed on the ss in a dedicated, circr spot. This part was actually a bit moreplicated than Eisen thought at first, since he had to take the rotation of the bubble itself into ount as well, so that the enchantment could properly calcte the final information in a useful value. It was to the extent where Eisen had to take a few breaks and take some notes, going through a few test scenarios to see if the enchantment would work properly. Once he confirmed everything to be in order, Eisen filled out the enchantments. The parts dedicated directly to being a reference for the gem in the center were of course filled with a spatial gem, while Eisen filled the rest, the parts dedicated to reading the information, with the special crystal-mixture meant exactly for information-rted processes. After the bubble was done, he quickly covered the outside in a very thinyer of apletely translucent protective coating and quickly let it dry. And now, it was time to ce the needle into the ss orb. For that, Eisen would usually open a quick hole in the surface through transmutation, but he wanted to try something else. By ying around with his item storage ability, he managed to increase his precision in summoning it a lot, and even figured out a way to use it in item creation, at least in theory. Now, he tested if it worked in practice. Using his item storage, he could take away specific materials into that sub-space, and he could also ce it onto a wall without it actually intruding on the space beyond, or destroying the wall in any way. Using these principles, he was able to simply disce the half of the orb into the item storage for a few moments, affecting nothing else in the process and technically keeping everything intact. However, it still allowed Eisen to ce the needle into the leftover half of the orb, before making the other half re-appear. And just like that, the needle was in the bubble. Quickly, Eisen poured his mana into the enchantment to start it up. Quickly, the spatial gem in the center reacted and it snapped into ce, the quick motion making the needle around it quickly twirl around the center randomly. Of course, after a while, it would still slow down, but that would take a considerable amount of time. Eisen yed around with this for a while, making sure that the needle''s movement truly wasn''t affected by the movement of the ss orb, so that only the smoke would be able to affect its movement. After he was satisfied with the oue of the item, Eisen left the portable workshop for now, quickly making his way back to the private bedroom that thisrge space was adjacent to, and found Kirisho, holding the crystal ball containing the smoke. "I was just about toe to you." Kirisho said with a soft smile, "I think it isplete for now. I might have to continue giving it impulses like this every once in a while, but it seems like the smoke is trying to search out more mana. Of course, it doesn''t work inside of this dungeon." "Right, perfect. Thank you for your help, Kirisho." Eisen said with a smile, grabbing the crystal ball from her while looking into her smiling, gleeful eyes, d to see that Eisen''s mood improved at least a little, "It''s my pleasure, Eisen." She replied, soon turning her head toward the object that Eisen was already holding onto. "And what is that, exactly?" The mist spirit asked, and Eisen quickly replied, "This is apass. I''m going to ce the smoke into it, and its going to pull the needle into the direction of where it wants to go, which should be the closest ce with mana simr to its own." He said, taking the small crystal tube out of his apron''s pocket. Eisen pressed the tube''s tip onto the orb containing the smoke, and opened a path for it to travel. The old manpressed the smoke down further until it was tightly inside of the tube. Luckily, just having the tube on his palm, he could feel the smoke try and tug away into random directions, trying to find the right mana. The old man used the same trick as before, removing part of thepass'' outer casing so that he could ce the tube into its slot in the needle. It fit into it perfectly and tightly. Eisen slightly adjusted the metal piece acting as counter-bnce for the front of the needle''s weight by shaving away some metal using transmutation, and then closed thepass back up. Immediately, Eisen was able to confirm it; the needle moved around smoothly and quickly, and the small field on the ss orb properly disyed the cardinal direction and vertical angle that the needle was pointing at. With a satisfied expression, the old man looked at thepass and acknowledged this item as finished. --- [Demon-Seeking Compass] [Quality ¨C Perfect][Rank ¨C 6] [Description] Apass created by the Godly Craftsmaster Eisen. It holds a fragment of a True Demon''s magic, which is used to search for either more fragments or the location of said True Demon. Due to its unique construction method, it functions not just like a normalpass, but even shows an urate elevation for the target''s location. However, since it uses the powers of a True Demon to work, it can only be powered by the mana of another True Demon. [Effect] {Long-Range Target Search} [Requirements] Be a {True Demon} --- "Hm... it seems like it''s going to work. We''ll just have to test it outter." Eisen said, as he quickly proceeded to ce thepass into his item storage until he left the dungeonter on. He looked at the orb for a while before closing the item storage, deep in thought. "So, do you have an idea of what to do next? I doubt you will dedicate all your time to trying to find that Demon, right?" Kirisho asked, finally pulling Eisen away from the smoke again. With a wave of his hand, the old man closed the item storage, nodding his head, "You''re right, I won''t be doing that. I''m nning on continuing the intended travel through some parts of this continent. And then, every once in a while, I''m going to note down the direction that it''s pointing at. That way I can find some rough locations to investigate further on my own time at some point." "On your own time? Even though you weren''t even allowed toe here without a few dozen guards?" Kirisho asked, but Eisen just lightly chuckled, "I yed along for now because at the end of the day, this was still all for diplomacy at that point. I had to keep up appearances, and act like a proper king. But once that part of this trip is over, I won''t be here as the King of Asgard, but as a man trying to find a being that toyed with his life, and the lives of those he cherished. I won''t let anyone stop me from that, even if they mean well." The old man said bluntly, his eyes overflowing with anger and malice toward that Demon. "Well, even then, you won''t be truly alone, will you?" Kirisho pointed out, and Eisen looked down at her with a soft smile, trying to ignore the hatred filling his mind, "Of course. I will have all of you by my side for all of it." He said, knowing full well that he was lying. After all, if he ended up encountering that Demon again, he couldn''t bring the others along. He didn''t know what sort of powers it might have. Eisen himself couldn''t die in this world, but the others... even if some of their lives were linked to him and he could bring them back if he needed to... he couldn''t bear watching any of them die. Chapter 764: A shifting Labyrinth

Chapter 764: A shifting Labyrinth

Eisen walked through the dungeon for a short while, trying to check on everything to see how the expansions were working. Each floor of the dungeon was getting more and moreplex, and even though some of the changes had been rtively minuscule, the overall bnce of the dungeon improved considerably as well. On the first floor''s town, they had set up a ''review booth'' to get the opinions of the people that challenged the dungeon, to figure out how to make it more fun to them, in an attempt to get more people to actually seek out the dungeon, and how to make it more challenging. Not only would this keep them in the dungeon for longer at a time, giving Sigurd more Dungeon Points to use on the expansion, but yers were also killed more frequently now, giving Fafnir some more experience than before. But even though that was the case, no matter how many times they died, a lot of the yers still came back and kept on trying to clear the dungeon. At times like these, when they weren''t in any towns, the dungeon changed to its construction mode so that they could spend this time wisely. But still, there were times when the dungeon needed some interference from the outside for a few specific tasks. Some of the systems of the dungeon, like the recovery room at the end of a floor, was something initially created by Eisen. Once he was done with that, Sigurd was able to ce these down himself, as the room had been properly acknowledged by the system, but the furthest thing that Sigurd could do was ce copies of the systems created for the dungeon. Since it wasn''t originally in the system, improvements had to be made manually to add them to the system. And that was one of the things that Eisen was nning on doing now. They had collected a few ideas for the dungeon that Eisen had to first figure out so that Sigurd could properly implement and adjust them for active useter. The Dungeon Core Guardian soon appeared right beside the old man, looking up at him, "Are you sure you want to do this right now?" It asked, and Eisen smiled lightly as he ced his hand on its head, "Yeah, yeah, I''m fine, don''t worry. I managed to get some rest." He exined. He took some time to take a nap, and even logged off for a while to catch some fresh air with his other body. The group would camp out here for a while longer anyway, so Eisen figured this was a good a chance as any to work on some things he had put off, "So, what exactly do you want me to work on here?" "Well, if you say you''re fine... There are a few main things that we would need your help with. Most importantly, in one of the deeper levels, there''s a maze-section, but we want the maze to continuosly shift around and change. There isn''t a real way to do it through the system while there are people down there." Sigurd exined, with a wave of its hand creating a gateway that led to the section of the dungeon. It was one of the desert-themed floors, and in front of him, in this ce that was supposed to be eternally nighttime, was a huge space reserved for aplexbyrinth. There were ways to get past it, sure, but there were a lot of rewards in thebyrinth that would make it worth it to go in there. And most importantly, on the next floor, there were some puzzles that had to be solved on one of theter floors, and one of the clues to those puzzles could be found here somewhere in the dungeon. "Alright, that shouldn''t be tooplicated..." The old man muttered to himself, trying to think about a good way to do this. He looked at Sigurd curiously, "To what extent do you want the dungeon to change? Just a few walls appearing and disappearing here and there, or do you want the wholeyout to change periodically?" Sigurd, with a somewhat annoyed expression, quickly started to exin, "I figured that the best way to do this was to have thebyrinth change in random ways. Otherwise, one of the ''yers'' could share the right route to get through it quickly, and the whole fun of it would be ruined." "Right, of course. I guess I might have to ask Benji about it, he might know a few good ways to do the rando mization." Eisen muttered out loud, before he noticed Sigurd''s slightly confused expression. After a moment of thought, the old man realized what was the issue, "Ah, sorry. I mean Stahl. I''m not quite used to calling him that name yet." "...Speaking of. Eisen, what''s your name on that side?" The core guardian asked, surprising Eisen. He didn''t expect to be asked this all of a sudden, "My full name is Benjamin Theodore Joyce. ''Benjamin'' from my father''s father, and Theodore from my mother''s father. It''s a tradition in our family. Stahl got my first name from me as well." "That''s nice." Sigurd said with a light smile on its face, before turning silent for a few moments. To Eisen, it seemed like it wanted to ask something else, but held back before it could do so, "Well, anyway, do you want to know what else I wanted to ask you to work on?" It asked instead, trying to change the topic, and Eisen figured he should just go along with it. There was no need to force it out of Sigurd, after all. "Sure, show me the way." Eisen responded, watching as Sigurd created another gateway, this time leading into what seemed to be the boss room of the ocean floors, "It would be great if you could make some items for the boss monsters again. The one that''s most in need for a good weapon would be this floor''s ''Siren Prince''." "Just a weapon, or armor as well?" The old man asked, looking at the space around him. This was certainly one of the more interesting floors. For two out of the five floors with this theme, they had carved out a huge space that they simply filled with water, as well as some small, weak fish-type monsters to make everything feel alive. Then, they created some pathways in the water that reminded of ant-tunnels overall, with the floor being the only solid thing. Since the water itself was created by the dungeon''s system, it could be forced to stay in a specific shape the whole time to allow the ones that entered the floors to actively walk through these open tunnels in the water. Some stationary rock-tforms were used to create the pathways for everyone to walk on, but otherwise, they could even swim through the water if they wanted to. Of course, it wasn''t rmended, but there was technically nothing from stopping them. There were even some hidden secrets for yers that did choose to do this because they wanted to explore. The boss-room followed this same pattern. It was a huge hollow space in the middle of the water, and the boss monster would spend a lot of time jumping in and out of the water that surrounded the dungeon-divers from nearly all sides. While it was outside the water, it would attack in regr meleebat, and otherwise, it would attack with long-ranged attacks based on shooting water at the dungeon-divers from all around. "The weapon is the most important part. The Siren Prince''sbat is based around agility, so it doesn''t really need any armor. Although maybe some decorative jewelry would be good? To get the ''prince'' part across?" Sigurd suggested after crossing its arms in thought. With a quick nod, Eisen started toe up with some ideas. While he was thinking, the boss monster in question jumped out of the water, soon standing in front of the old man and the dungeon core guardian. It was a four meter tall, bipedal, roughly humanoid fish-like creature. It had sharp teeth that were peaking out of its mouth, and sharp ws that came along with them. It had webbed hands and feet, and dead, emotionless eyes that one would expect to see from any other fish. Its scales were mostly cyan and aquamarine, but had some areas that were more distinctly blue or green. Currently, the ''Siren Prince'' was already carrying a weapon, but it was clearly not good enough for a boss monster to hold onto. Maybe in other dungeons, sure, but this was Eisen''s dungeon they were talking about. He couldn''t just let the monsters have low-quality weapons. "In that case, what other Boss Monsters need improved items?" Eisen asked, and the core guardian quickly replied, "Two others, the Naga and the We rewolf Bandit Captain," it said, turning its head toward the Siren Prince still standing in front of them as ifpletely frozen, "But this one here needs better items the soonest, the others will be fine for a while longer." "In that case, I should get started right away." Eisen said, "Since I can''t do anything about thebyrinth right off the bat, I''ll start working on the items for now." He exined, and before he was able to do it, Sigurd had already created a gateway that led directly to Eisen''s private room in the dungeon. "In that case, just let me know when you''re done, and I will be right there." Sigurd pointed out in an excited tone, watching Eisen step through the gate. Chapter 765: Royal Treasure

Chapter 765: Royal Treasure

Eisen looked at the shelf in front of him, trying to figure out which material he should best make use of for this project, the weapon of the Siren Prince. For jewelry, using aquamarine and pearls as the centerpieces seemed to be the best choice. They were deeply connected to the water element, so it would be easy to create proper improvements for the monster in question. That, and there happened to be some ces around Asgard withrge ms that they could source some high-quality pearls from, so Eisen had quite a few. Luckily, since the Siren Prince was quiterge in size as well, he could basically just use the pearls and create scaled-up pearl jewelry that he would make with regr ones. He walked over toward the marble workstation, and started to carve into the t marble te. Since there were going to be quite a few pearls linked into a chain, it would be very easy to identally create an item that would drain the Siren Prince''s mana too quickly, not allowing him to use other attacks. So instead, Eisen created a very simple enchantment, more focusing on the decorative and aesthetic aspect than the item''s actual effect. After all, this boss monster was supposed to be a prince, so giving it some particrly fancy jewelry didn''t seem like a bad idea. The enchantment itself was just something that would help the Siren Prince maneuver through the water more easily. It was already an incredibly fast swimmer, but itcked a bit when it came to in-water dexterity. So, to make it more of a threat and make it possible for it to easily and quickly change positions, Eisen would make two anklets and two bracelets for the boss. Each of them would react to the Siren Prince''s will and physical movement, directly manipting the water around it to make maneuverability easier. To connect the pearls together, Eisen used mana-thread that had been woven into a thicker, stronger thread. Using these threads, Eisen made sure that the enchantment on each of the pearls linked together properly as well. --- [Siren Prince''s Pearl Bracelet] [Quality ¨C Perfect][Rank ¨C 5] [Description] A Pearl Bracelet created by the Godly Craftsmaster Eisen for the Siren Prince in his dungeon. When the user is fully inside of water, their ability to move around dexterously will increase considerably. The rare material and intricate carvings ced onto each individual pearl make any onlooker stare in awe. [Effect] {High-Speed Water Maneuverability}{Royal Beauty} [Requirements] Siren Prince --- Eisen was happy to see that the final item turned out alright, he just wasn''t sure how effective this item was going to be in the end. Making it an exclusive item for the Siren Prince would surely help increase the strength of the effect quite a bit, but it might take the boss a while to get used to. And more importantly, Eisen hoped that the item''s effect wasn''t too strong or weak, particrly the former. If this made the Siren Prince much more of a force to be reckoned with, then that would break the bnce of the whole floor quite a bit. But well... if that happened, then maybe Sigurd could tweak some things, so it might not be that big a deal after all. It also surprised Eisen to see the ''Royal Beauty'' effect on the item. Sure, he made the bracelets and anklets with the idea in mind that they should fit the image of a prince, and he did focus on the aesthetics more than usual, but he still didn''t expect this to show itself in the form of an actual effect on the items. Not that he minded, though, it was a pleasant surprise. Next, Eisen grabbed a light blue gemstone, an aquamarine. He had basically every gemstone that he could ever want to use, but never had the chance to use most of them, so he was d that opportunities like these ended up appearing every once in a while. Eisen grabbed a rtivelyrge one as well as a few smaller ones. He wanted to create an aquamarine pendant that would act as a centerpiece of the image they all wanted to create for the ''Siren Prince'' boss. For the rest of the pendant, he was going to use sterling silver, an alloy of silver and copper to make the silver a better fit to be used for jewelry. Pure silver was generally too soft for these matters. Since the Siren Prince was already powerful enough on its own, and Eisen still had to work on the weaponter anyway, he figured that there was no need to make this pendant particrly powerful. Rather, he would just give it enchantments so that there was a general flow of mana within it, but still focus on the aesthetics. Since the bracelets earlier were given the ''Royal Beauty'' effect, if he went all-in for that, he might be able to create an improved effect along that line. Having an item that simply existed to instill awe in the onlooker wasn''t that bad of an idea anyway. Impressing the ones that took a dive into the dungeon like that was always a good thing. Of course, Eisen still treated what he was doing as enchanting ¨C just that he didn''t try and work toward a specific effect as he would with other enchantments. However, he did n on cing an ability-enchantment onto the central gemstone. Being a King himself, he had ess to Royal abilities, one of which was a charisma-based ability that would ce more meaning into what he said as a King. It was the perfect thing to ce onto this. But for that, he had to finish working the gemstone in the first ce. Instead of just using transmutation to change the shape of the aquamarine, Eisen carved away at the gemstone using Bai. It simply felt like he was able to give the gemstone more character doing it like this. Eisen, as any craftsman did, had certain habits that slightly affected any piece they worked on. Not particrly negatively or positively, of course, it was just something that gave the piece some more character to it. Those things only came out when Eisen was doing something with his hands directly. If he just used transmutation, then that character would be near impossible to find for anyone. It was a useful ability for most matters, but it was a lot more fun and fulfilling to do it this way, so there was no reason not to. Especially since Eisen could do this quite easily with this body anyway. He carved the central aquamarine stone into a ssic teardrop shape, making the smaller ones round to ce around it. Of course, he made sure to actually carve some more aesthetic patterns into the gemstones than normal, just having a bit of fun with this project. After that, Eisen ced one of his royal abilities onto the stone and continued with the rest of the pendant. Eisen walked over to the material storage, grabbing one of the sterling silver bars from his shelf of pre-prepared metals. He had spent quite a bit of time just mixing gemstones and creating alloys so that he could focus on the actual crafting of an item when the time came. Eisen lit up the forge and heated up the sterling silver. Once its color changed into a glowing yellow, he grabbed it from the mes and ced it onto his anvil, starting to carefully hammer it into the basic shape that he needed. Of course, since this alloy was still quite soft, it barely took him any time at all to reach a nice base shape that he could ce the carved aquamarine stones into. After he got the basic shape, he started working on some of the basic details, creating the basic inlets that the stones would be ced intoter. He also made sure to add some details into the metal while it was still hot and easily malleable that would connect smoothly to the carvings Eisen had already ced onto the gemstones themselves. The centerpiece in terms of the silver was soon done, and now, Eisen just had to start working on the chain that the pendant would hang from. Taking one more bar of sterling silver, Eisen fed this material to the thread-transmuting tool that he had standing in the corner. Of course, the base threads created by this material were far too thin to be used for now, so Eisen wove them into a thicker material, weaving threads of aquamarine thread created by the same tool into it, causing even the string that the pendant was hanging from to give of a light blue glimmer. After the base for the stones was done, Eisen ced the aquamarines into the still slightly hot silver pendant, making sure that the stones were set into the pendant solidly. Luckily, since the pendant would be part of the body of the ''Siren Prince'' boss, being recreated every time it was summoned again to fight the next dungeon divers, Eisen didn''t have to worry about treating the metal to make itst longer despite therge amount of water it would obviously be exposed to day and day aga in. Normally, it would be discolored sooner orter, but it shouldn''t be an issue in this case, so he could keep it as-is. As such, Eisen was done with the Siren Prince''s jewelry for now. --- [Sirens'' Royal Treasure] [Quality ¨C Perfect][Rank ¨C 5] [Description] An aquamarine pendant created by the Godly Craftsmaster Eisen. It holds the spirit of Royalty and has been acknowledged as the highest Royal Treasure of the Sirens of the Dungeon, being used to show the Siren Prince''s royal blood to intruders. [Effect] {Royal Treasure} [Requirements] {Siren Royalty} Chapter 766: Siren Princes Trident

Chapter 766: Siren Prince''s Trident

With a satisfied expression, Eisen ced the aquamarine pendant down bracelets and anklets, now grabbing the materials for the most important item that he was going to create for the Siren Prince. The trident, the weapon that it was going to use to fight against the Dungeon Divers. This was what they were most likely going to focus on the most, trying to dodge the close-quarter attacks of the Siren while it was in the center of the boss room. However, with this item, Eisen faced a certain issue. This trident was supposed to act both as a staff to allow the Siren Prince to focus its magical abilities better, which would show in the form of the water-shots being thrown at the Dungeon Divers. But at the same time, it also needed to be useful as an actual melee weapon for when the Siren Prince was fighting them more closely. However, in order to make the trident useful as a staff, he needed to infuse it with mana, which would make it brittle and not particrly useful as a melee weapon. He wondered about the best possible way to go about this, trying toe up with some form of inspiration. Eisen started to pace around the room, basicallybing his beard with his fingers, before he looked out the door, noticing one of the swords on disy for customers. It was leaning against the wall, with its sheat around it. However, the sheath itself was quite special in the way that it acted as a weapon itself. It could be locked properly onto the handle so that it would be nigh impossible to remove the sheath from it without breaking the whole sword in half. Of course it could be removed again, but that wasn''t the point. The sheat could be used as a blunt weapon. Basically, one weapon wasyered onto the next. If Eisen thought about the two aspects of the trident as different objects that were simply co-dependent on one another to function, then this would work. A method that he often used for his enchanting was to fill the engravings in with other materials. This time, Eisen would do something simr, simply cing the staff portion of the trident smoothly into grooves on the surface of its melee portion when needed. Of course, during the regrbat, this would still make the weapon weaker. The staff portion could simply shatter while the Siren Prince was attacking. So, the staff portion would only appear when the boss was inside of the water. Either way, for now, Eisen could start working. While he was forging away at it, he would be able to figure out the specifics intuitively. As the base, Eisen would just use some steel, although he wanted to use an alloy of silver and steel to coat the outside. Luckily, steel and silver were rtively close together in color anyway, so it wouldn''t be that hard to make it fully appear as suchter on. First, Eisen ced the pure steel into the mes in front of him, waiting for the metal to heat up until it could be worked. Hammering onto it continuosly, Eisen started to elongate the mass of metal first. Soon, there were two parts to the steel, the part that would be the main body, thatrge staff, as well as arge lump of steel still hanging off of one of its ends. Eisen soon split thatrge lump up into three parts, shaping the prongs of the trident. Now that the rough shape was finished, Eisen started the detail-work. Since the space required to house a proper staff on top of the base trident was quite a lot, the grooves were ratherrge. In the end, it looked as if the metal spiraled up around the core of the trident, simr to what it looked like when you wrapped rope around a rod, leaving space for another rope to be wrapped around right next to it. This other ''rope'' would thenter end up being the staff used for spellcasting by the Siren Prince. But for now, Eisen would need something else to fill this space. For this, he created another spiral, this time without the core, justrge enough to smoothly fit this empty space. With the way that it coiled around the core, it was able to be smoothly flow down. It was actually quite satisfying, the way that it seemed to perfectly fit when pushed into its proper ce. Eisen repeated this same process for each of the trident''s three prongs, creating separate spirals and slots to fit those spirals perfectly. Now, all that Eisen needed to do was create the spaces that this spiral and the spiral for the staff would disappear into. In the end, this part was a simr concept to Kiron''s spatial sheath, which Eisen created for the Giant Greatsword. He would create multiple sub-spaces that would fit these spirals perfectly. Once the Siren Prince entered the water, the steel spirals would simply flow into one of these subspaces on one end of each section, while on the other end of the section, a subspace would open up, allowing the staff-spiral to flow into the empty space left behind. And otherwise, these subspaces would bepletely closed off, allowing the trident to be used as a melee weapon without any sort of concern. It would allow for a smooth transition between the two ''modes'' as well. Eisen grabbed some spatial gems, and quickly ttened them to be justrge enough for the spirals to pass through smoothly. He carved some basic enchantments to establish the sub-space into their surface, and then got to the most important part. The old man poured his mana into the gemstone, and then pulled it back out to begin the magic inscription. Right now, he was able to see the mess of dots floating around the mana in this raw, unordered subspace. Quickly, he arranged these dots to fit the rough shape of the spiral he was making this for, and then poured his mana into said spiral itself. He pulled the mana out of the spiral again as if he was inscribing it next. But instead of doing so, he ced this mana now linked to the spiral right into the center of the mana linked to the spatial gem, linking the two of them together. This way, the subspace contained within the gemstone was now the exact size and shape as the spiral. It would be impossible for it to wiggle around, and could only move out of it exactly how Eisen wanted it to. Finishing the magic inscription up, Eisen pushed the spiral into the thin gemstone te, which was quickly attached to the inside of the trident''s empty space. Repeating this process a few more times for the other steel spirals that would fit around the trident''s prongs. By turning the trident upside-down, not having finished the enchantment to decide when the spirals could move in and out of the subspaces, he watched the steel spirals appear practically out of nowhere, filling the empty space. Satisfied, he moved on to make the spirals for the ''staff'' mode, copying the shape and size of the other spirals, just making them out of pure mana-infused silver instead of steel. Once Eisenpleted the subspaces for these spirals as well and attached them to the trident, the ''switching'' technically already worked. By holding the trident upright or upside down, either the staff-spiral or the melee-spiral would be shown. Now, he just had to add everything to make the process happen automatically, not relying on gravity, when the Siren Prince entered water. For this, Eisen pushed the spirals into the subspaces and closed them up, starting to enchant the surfaces that the spirals touched. These would move the spirals in and out of the subspaces if multiple gemstones on the outside of the item noticed that they were all covered in water at the same time. Of course, it could also be triggered by the wielder at will, but Eisen figured that relying on the automatic option was more reliable when it came to having most Monsters try and use his items. Obviously he didn''t have anything against them, he was a half-monster as well, but a lot of monster species simply worked better when things were more intuitive instead of relying precise logic or timing. "Huh?" Eisen let out a bit surprised, pulling the carving needle away from the metalying in front of him, "That... was the first time I thought of myself as a half-monster so naturally..." the old man thought. It didn''t feel weird when he thought about it a bit more, but there was still some difort deep inside of his gut when he thought about what these thoughts implied. Trying to move on, he continued carving the enchantments to finish everything up. Once he was sure that the ''switching'' mechanism worked, he started to carve the specifics onto the actual movable spirals to make them work better for melee or spellcasting purposes. They were just basic enchantments at the end of the day, but they were still an important and central part of the item, so he couldn''t forget about any of it. And so, after filling in the carved enchantments with some aquamarine gemstones, making the trident constantly let off a quite pleasant shine, he gave the item to one of his mana-doubles and looked at it when someone was holding onto it. Satisfied with the item he ended up with, Eisen nodded slightly, waiting for the item information to appear in front of him. --- [Siren Prince''s Personal Trident] [Quality ¨C Perfect][Rank ¨C 6] [Description] A silver trident created by the Godly Craftsmaster Eisen, made to be the personal weapon of the Dungeon''s Siren Prince. To ount for the Siren Prince''s abilities, it is capable of switching between two modes ¨C Melee Combat Mode, and Spellcasting Mode. [Effect] {Royal Beauty} {Basic Transformation} [Requirements] {Siren Prince} Chapter 767: Route

Chapter 767: Route

Eisen looked at the Siren Prince''s items, quite happy with the oue. He quickly created a gateway in front of him that led him over to the Siren Prince''s boss room, where the monster in question was happily swimming around in the water. The Siren ''Prince'' was really just a regr siren that had been physically enhanced through special training. On top of that, it went through some acting practice, of course led by Evalia, so that he could act the part of a prince toward the yers. There wasn''t a real siren kingdom here in the dungeon, of course, it was nothing but the setting of these five ocean-themed floors. Otherwise, the Siren Prince acted nearly dog-like, blissfully swimming around the water at any chance that he got. The old man, holding the items in his hands, snapped his finger to call the boss monster down, and within just a single moment, the Siren Prince jumped out of the water and soon stood right next to Eisen, "Hold out your hands," Eisen said in a clear tone, quickly cing the pearl bracelets around the siren''s thick wrists. He also quickly knelt down to put the anklets on him, before increasing his size to ce the ne onto the monster. And then, after pushing the trident into the siren''s hand, Eisen took a few steps back to look at the whole picture. Before he knew it, Sigurd appeared next to them in a cloud of smoke, happily looking at the Siren in front of it. "Oh, wow!" It eximed excitedly, "It didn''t take long at all, but it makes a huge difference!" Sigurd pointed out, quickly stepping around the Siren Prince, before ppings its hands together, "In that case, let''s make it official." Without another word having to be spoken, a message appeared in front of Eisen''s face. --- [The settings for the Boss Monster {Siren Prince} have been updated] --- "Alright, perfect. If anyone can reach this ce the next time we''re setting up, I wonder what people are going to think about this," Eisen said with a slightly curious expression on his face, and Sigurd crossed its arms smugly, "They''re going to love it, of course. I mean, what else?" The old man briefly ced his hand onto the Dungeon Core Guardian''s head and ruffled through its metallic hair, before turning back around. With a wave of his hand, a door appeared in front of him that opened up without even a full second needing to pass, "We''ll head back out soon, so maybe we can see what''s going to happen when we reach some other towns along the way. I''ll make sure to have everything you asked me for prepared by then." "Got it, I''ll make sure that everything else is ready, too!" Sigurd replied quickly, before quickly turning around toward the Siren Prince again, exining to him how to use all these items. --- "Are you sure that we shouldn''t take a bit of a longer break?" Kiron asked with a concerned expression, but the old man in front of him immediately shook his head, "No, I think it would be better if we just left now. We still have a long trip ahead of us, so we shouldn''t waste time just because I''m not in the best mood at this very moment." "But still, it shouldn''t-" "Don''t worry, there''s going to be plenty of time for me to brood during the trip. Everything''s going to be fine." Eisen said, trying to reassure his grandson, who let out a slight sigh of relief. He had been worried for Eisen this whole time, but seeing that his mood had improved a bit over the short time that he had spent in recluse helped calm him down as well, "I see... In that case, I will inform the others to prepare for departure." "Thank you." The old man replied quickly, watching the crystal half-dragon turn around and head over toward the temporary camp created by the soldiers. For now, the old man took a seat at a nearby table, taking a deep breath. Even though they had chosen a quite random spot to do so, the scenery in front of him was still quite beautiful. Maybe that was just because this was the scenery of where he grew up in this world, and where he had spent decades, if not centuries, living his life. As he just sat there, he felt a thud on his shoulders, together with the sleeves of a yellow hoodie hanging down onto his chest. He turned his head and looked at Melissa, the young Empress Bee, looking at him with that stoic expression of hers, "Are you better now?" She asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, "A little. Thanks for giving me some spaces, you three." He replied, watching as Caria and Sal sat down at the table as well. "Of course~! Although, it was kinda lonely..." Caria pointed out, "But it was fine, we had fun anyway. Isn''t that right, brother dearest~?" She said, looking at Sal with a slight grin on her face. Sal''s snow-white cheeks quickly flu shed to a bright red, as he flicked his wrist. Threads of mana shot out from his fingers, and Caria''s mouth was quickly pulled shut, "Just stop it already..." "What''s going on?" Eisen asked with a raised brow, and Sal shook his head, "Nothing, it''s fine... just ignore them..." "We caught Sal dancing, and he was saying some weird things the whole time." Melissa exined quickly, before Sal''s face shot toward her, "You traitor..." While his attention was diverted, Caria ripped the mana threads keeping her mouth shut and continuedughing, "Yeah, he was trying to act all cool and noble, like we were told we should when meeting arist... ar- erm..." "Aristocrats?" Eisen suggested, and Caria pointed at him with a quick nod, "Yeah, that''s exactly it! He was acting like that!" The old man smiled slightly as he looked at Sal, "There''s no reason to be embarrassed by that. You''re all still trying to figure out who you want to be in the future. If Sal feelsfortable speaking and behaving like that, I don''t think there''s anything wrong with it." "...Yeah, but he sounds stupid anyway." Caria blurted out immediately, forcing a slight chuckle out of Eisen''s mouth. In a clear attempt to change the topic, Sal loudly asked, "So, where are we going next?" "That''s a good question, I was about to ask Eisen that as well," came from the side, as Sky and Bree approached the table together. They were both holding onto a few scrolls of parchment, which were soon dropped onto the table. Sal quickly grabbed one of them and rolled it out on the table in front of Eisen, "If we''re leaving soon, then we should figure that out." Eisen quickly grabbed Melissa, who was still hanging onto his shoulders behind him, and moved her over onto one of the chairs next to him, before looking down at the map in front of him. Once he got a chance to get a closer look, Sky started, "The Grandour is going to call on the other n Chiefs to have a meeting, but before then, you said we should try to at least meet with all of them individually, right?" "Right. It should take a while for the preparations for an ''impromptu'' meeting to be finished. We should be able to get to at least a good few of them, even if not all." Eisen pointed out, so Sky quickly pointed at the map, "Alright, in that case, I do suggest a specific route. The meetings are held here, in the capital city with the king." He said, pointing at the smallest of the eleven territories on the map, even if it was still quite sizable. "We should head to the Stone n first, and then to the Wood n. They''re the closest to us right now, and the towns with the n chiefs are rtively close to each other too. Then, over here to the coast to meet with the Water n, and then move here toward the Mountain and Hill ns. Their territories are pretty intermingled, so while they''re technically two, they share a city on the border where the two chiefs can be found most of the time." Sky quickly exined, drawing the best routes on the different maps that he was unrolling on the table bit by bit. However, Caria quickly looked at the maps and pressed her finger onto one of them, "Why are we skipping this ce?" She asked, pointing at the second smallest territory, which Sky seemed to have ignored while exining the route until now, "Because it would be dumb to go there so early." Sky replied, pushing Caria''s hand away, revealing that she somehow left a grease spot on the parchment. "But why? We''re around there anyway?" She asked, and before Sky could snap back, Eisen chose to exin it instead, "That''s the territory of the Cloud Giants'' n. I''m guessing Sky made this choice because their methods of transportation are the fastest, so they''ll have to leave thetest amongst all the other Chiefs. We can go from one end of the country to the other within a few days if we try to, so we can take our time visiting them. But the others will have to leave earlier if they want to get to the capital in time." The old man exined, and Sky smugly nodded his head, happy that Eisen was able to understand, "Exactly, that''s-" "But I think we should actually visit them first, right before all others." He said, and Sky looked at Eisen a bit confused, "Huh? But why would we...?" The old man turned his head and looked into the distance. They were on a quite tall mountain and it was a rtively clear day. In the distance, a quiterge cloud could be seen, one so huge that it stuck out amongst the others. Eisen quickly pointed at it, "There, that''s why." "Huh?" Sky let out, raising a brow, "What, do you think that that huge cloud is a sign we should go to them first?" Eisen scoffed, and quickly shook his head, "No, just take a closer look. Or rather, look at what'' s around it." "...?" Confused, Sky squinted his eyes, "I don''t get it?" With a slight sigh, the old man reached down and grabbed a handful of grass from the ground below him. Carefully, he let go of it, and watched as the grass blew into the direction of the cloud. And that was when Sky noticed. He jumped up and looked at the ocean of trees in front of him, seeing that they were all swaying in the same direction. However, the cloud was moving against the wind. "The territory is for the cloud giants'' people, the mon'' ones living under them. As for the pureblooded, wise cloud giants themselves? They''re up there. And it seems like they heard I''m here." Chapter 768: Cloud Giants

Chapter 768: Cloud Giants

Eisen looked at the cloud that was continuing to approach their current location. He was quite bothered by this, of course, since they were trying to take the initiative by being the one to approach him first. Even if Eisen didn''t know why that was the case, he still didn''t like that they went so far to do so. The cloud giants never did anything without a reason, their pride simply didn''t allow them to do so. "They''re living on a cloud? How is that even possible? I thought clouds aren''t actually solid like that..." Sky pointed out confused, and Eisen quickly nodded his head in response, "Normally, yes. But they used magic to solidify it, but as far as I know, they use things simr to airships so that they don''t have to use such a massive amount of mana." The old man exined, before letting out a sigh, "Not that it matters, since even then, the amount of mana they use is exorbitant. And not because they need to, but because they can. They''re basically pushing pure mana into the air around them just to show off that they''re there." "So what should we do? Just wait for them to get here?" Bree asked, concerned after seeing Eisen''s bothered expression, but he old man immediately shook his head, "No, we won''t. I''m going to have to meet with them. I don''t want to bother those five any more than I already did." Eisen pointed out, turning his head into the direction of the small town that the five great golems were now living in. Setting up camp nearby for a few days, as they did, was still far more than Eisen wanted to do to them. Forcing them to be under the eye of the cloud giants would be the worst thing he could do, since he was trying to make up to them for his past actions. "Wait, right now? But we''re not done preparing yet... They''ll be here by the time we can leave." Sky pointed out, switching back and forth from looking at one of the maps in front of him, over to trying to figure out where the giant cloud currently was and how fast it was actually moving toward them. The old giant standing next to him slowly shook his head as he opened his storage space, pulling the mannequin wearing his royal armor out of it. While creating a thin rock wall around him to give him the privacy to change out of his current clothes into his ''royal'' outfit, he started to exin the situation, "The only ones that are allowed to step onto that ind are pure giants. I''m a half-giant, so even I wouldn''t normally be allowed, but being who I am, they made an exception for me. I can''t bring any of you along when I meet them, sorry." He said, even pulling the pendant he was wearing from his neck, "Not even you, Kirisho." The mist spirit appeared next to him once he got rid of the rock walls, taking the ne that her soul was housed in into her own hands, "I understand. If that is the case, we will wait for you to return." Sal looked at Eisen with an annoyed expression, "Seriously? You''re Eisen! You''re a King! You don''t have to do everything they want you to do, they''re nothing but chiefs! They should bow to you and invite all of us in!" "It''s moreplicated than that, Sal. There are bound to be a lot of powerful giants on that ind, so it''s simply too dangerous for you to head up there. Not to mention, I''m trying to make sure they cooperate with us, so I don''t want to do anything that annoys them too much. Cloud Giants are by far the ones with the greatest pride out of all the ns." Eisen exined, "Don''t worry, for all the others, you all are going to be right by my side. But now, I have to go alone. When I spoke to Gind about what might happen on our trip here, even she agreed to let me go there alone." Eisen stretched his shoulders a little as he transformed into his True Demonic form, soon growing in size as well. He looked over toward the half-dragon knights, locking eyes with Kiron, "I''m going to leave everyone here to you. Follow the route suggested by Sky once you are done packing up. I will catch up with you all." The old man exined, and without further ado, jumped into the sky. The wind created by his wings pushed some of Sky''s maps around, but they were quickly pulled back down by Sal''s threads and Melissa''s bees. He knew that he didn''t give much of an exnation to the others, but he didn''t feel like he really had the time to do so. If the Cloud Giants went as far as to seek him out, then they really must have a reason for it. Eisen shot toward the giant cloud, soon feeling himself enveloped in a thick mist of man a. It was an ufortable amount, but he was able to cut through it and soon found himself in front of the gate that acted as the entrance to the city. The rest of this floating city was covered in a barrier fused with the cloud magic, so he wouldn''t be able to enter through anywhere else but one of these four gates. Before he even had to announce his presence, therge, nearly heavenly gate opened up. Eisennded on the tform right behind it, and quickly pulled his wings onto his back. The first two people that he met there were two Cloud Giant guards. Rather than with thick armor and powerful weaponry like swords or spears, they were clothed in decorated clothing that looked like something a noble on the central continent would wear, and heldrge bows in their hands. It made sense. There was no need for other weapons here in this city. None of the giants living here were dumb enough to start a fight while inside, and since Cloud Giants couldn''t fly on their own, they had to use ranged weapons to defend the gates. Not that there were many things that darede close enough to this giant cloud anyway, with how much mana they forcefully kept around it. "I''m here to meet with the chieftain. Is he in the city?" Eisen asked immediately, looking at the two giants guarding the city''s entrance. Quickly, the old man realized the giants'' animosity toward him. They weren''t trying to hide it that much either, "The great Nubes is in this city, yes, but he will not actually be meeting with the likes of you." One of the guards exined in a blunt tone, "You should be happy that you''re even allowed to step into this pure city, halfling." Eisen looked at the man in front of him, before letting out a deep sigh, "I look like this, with scales, horns and wings, and your biggest issue is still that I''m not a pure giant?" He asked, simply stepping past the two guards, "Not that it matters. I guess I''m going to have to look for him myself." The old man simply walked away, feeling the ring eyes of the two giants piercing the back of his head. They didn''t want him here, but clearly, they were also told to let him through. The cloud giants were the ones that came to seek out Eisen first, and only the cloud giant chief had the power to control where this city went. At least, in the memories that Eisen had recovered in regard to the cloud giant chief. He had managed to recover some very surface-level memories regarding all of the giant chieftains, like how they led their people in the past, and filled in the gaps with things he was told about by his retainers that could remember such matters from back then. And from this information, he had also learned just the extent of pride that the cloud giants held. While their pride as a n was greater than that of the other ns, a cloud giant''s individual pride was much, much greater than that. While they followed the chieftain''smands, it was nigh impossible to change their minds once they found something to be true. Rather than proud, it might be more correct to simply call them stubborn, although the line between the two was thin enough already. As such, even though the cloud giant chiefmanded his people to let Eisene in, the people in question were disgusted by the idea that a ''mere halfling'' was allowed to enter and dirty this pristine, holynd. And considering that Eisen was filled with a vague sense of nostalgia and recognition as he saw the expressions of these giants while walking through the city''s streets, this has been the case for centuries, if not millennia. And what would have happened if he really did end up bringing Caria, Melissa and Sal with him? He was the greatest Giant that has ever lived, and even he received such hatred simply because of his ''impure'' blood. Those three, belonging to originally weak monster species, would be seen as nothing but dirt, and many would certainly try to trample them as such. After all, while they held themselves back toward Eisen upon the chief''smand, it was doubtful whether or not those three were mentioned in thatmand as well. As he continued to walk through the city, the giants'' scornful expressions simply continued on and on, to the extent where Eisen wasn''t even able to enjoy the scenery too much. This was a floating city, where the roads were paved in wood, and that which would be grass or dirt in other cities was made of literal solid clouds. But he couldn''t allow himself to slip up and let the giants look down at him by taking his time and curiously looking around at the a rchitecture. Instead, Eisen sent out multiple pulses of mana, trying to scan the area around him to get a closer look at itter. At the same time, he could use that mana to spread his influence to show off his ''royal aura'' a bit more, so he could kill two birds with one stone. Soon enough, Eisen reached the castle of the cloud giant chieftain. The guards standing in front of the gate scowled at him as he passed by, and one even spit at him. Of course, the spit was evaporated by his mes before it hit him, but it still wasn''t quite nice. But for now, Eisen ignored it. He could let out his anger and annoyance at this situation once he brought the cloud giant chief over to his side. Chapter 769: The Skald

Chapter 769: The Skald

Eisen stood in front of the gates of the Cloud Giant Chieftain''s castle. He didn''t have to say a single word for therge wooden doors to open in front of him. Or rather, nobody wanted him to say anything. They were already filled with enough hatred and anger just from having to see him walk through the city, but having to hear him speak? That would be seen as insult to injury. So, they made sure that he didn''t have a chance or reason to speak up. Obviously, Eisen knew that. And so, he took a few steps forward, turned his head to lock eyes with the guard that spit at him, and lightly smiled, "Watch out, even though there''s nothing but sunshine above us, it seems as if I''ve been hit by a few raindrops just now." The guard ground his teeth and scowled at the old man, who simply continued walking through the castle, pleasantly greeting anyone he came across, whether it was through vocal greetings, a slight wave, or just nothing but a quick nod after locking eyes with them. Nothing that could be seen as actively aggressive, and more importantly, none of these giants wouldin to the Chieftain by saying, "He smiled, then greeted me." That would simply make them look ridiculous, even if the Chieftain was likely of the same mindset as them at the end of the day. But nheless, this was enough to annoy everyone that Eisen came across. That was enough for him, for now. It didn''t take long until Eisen made his way across the castle''s interior. He had practically been funneled straight toward the throne-room by the guards that had been ced nearly everywhere he could even think of looking. Therge doors leading to the throne room soon towered over the old man. Even though he was at thergest size he could manage with his transformations, these gates were incredibly huge. It was most likely thergest size any giant could reach. These huge doors were slowly pushed open by the cloud giants, even though the weight of the doors was too much even for them do to their sheer massiveness. Rolling his eyes, the old man waited for the doors to finally be fully opened, and the guards let him through into the throne room. Eisen walked inside, noticing the intricate decorations ced all around this space. It was truly extravagant. Just the raw material worth for the decoration ced around only this room was higher than the cost of not only constructing every building in ''Prototype'', but the treasures kept in the kingdom''s royal treasury. Eisen stepped through the space, every one of his steps echoing throughout it, before he stood in front of the cloud giant chieftain. It was a surprisingly young giant. Of course, it still meant that he was around a hundred years old at the very least, but most other Chieftains received this title when they were three hundred at the youngest. The Chieftain''s skin was pale white, to the extent where it nearly blended into the colorless throne that he sat on. It rivaled Sal''s skin, and Sal was an Albino Spider, making his skin as white as snow. It was something he only would have expected from a corpse, or a statue ced in front of him as a prank. But the deep, prating re from within the Chieftain''s eyes proved just how alive he was. Eisen stepped in front of the throne, clearly noticing what it was that was expected from him right here, right now. Before the chieftain would speak, Eisen was expected to kneel and show his inferiority to him. However, Eisen wasn''t going to do that. The man in front of him was a chieftain, which was a powerful position, sure, but at the end of the day, he was nothing but a lord with his own territory. He wasn''t a king, but a noble. And right here, in front of him, stood a king, who was the son of one of the giants that had erected this country from the grounds up, even before countries had been officially acknowledged by the system through country cores. But Eisen was the one that was expected to kneel? Sure, he didn''t ce the greatest amount of pride into his title as king, but the little emotional connection he had to it didn''t allow him to simply do something like that. "What, you won''t even greet me?" Eisen asked with a scoff, locking eyes with the man sitting on the elevated throne. "Says the man who doesn''t even know his ce." The chieftain replied, his voice having a nearly melodic aspect to it. "I don''t know my ce? If that''s what you think, then I guess I can take my leave." While keeping up eye-contact and a deep re, Eisen turned around and started to walk back toward the entrance, fully intending to leave if the chieftain stayed silent. However, as he was doing so, the guards that had initially opened the doors closed them again. And surprisingly, they all left,pletely leaving Eisen alone with the chieftain. With how hateful they were as he was approaching this space, Eisen would have thought that he would never be left alone, so he waited until the doors closed, curious about what was going to happen once the doors had been shutpletely. With a loud m, the entrance was practically sealed shut. And soon after, before the sound from just now even settled down in this huge room, footsteps drowned it out. Eisen turned around, watching the Cloud Giant Chieftain approach him. But the way he was carrying himself wasn''t threatening in the slightest. Rather, the sharp air around the chieftain had settled down all of a sudden. And before the old man knew it, the chieftain of the n with the greatest pride amongst all the giants suddenly dropped to one knee in front of him. He closed his eyes and ced a hand onto his heart, "I apologize for my rude behaviour, oh great one." "...What?" Eisen replied with a confused expression, the light shining from the crystals on his body flickering for a few moments due to his surprise. "I am a great admirer of you and your past. As soon as I heard that you hade back to this country, I told my people to set out to meet you before we lost your location." The chieftain exined immediately, "Of course, my people''s pride is too great to see the honor in you walking on our streets, breathing the same air as us." Eisen didn''t doubt these words for a single moment. There was no way that a cloud giant would kneel down to someone else, that wasn''t a cloud giant of higher standing, just for a lie, trick or joke. He was simply lucky that this one seemed to be a fan of him, if he understood him directly, "I see. And because of the feelings of your people toward me, you had to y along while they were still listening?" "Otherwise, I never would have spoken to you in such a manner," the chieftain exined, continuing to hold his head low, speaking in a humble tone. Eisen let out a sigh and waved his hand. The room was filled with his mana, and a second throne, facing the chieftain''s, was created for him. "Let''s just take a seat." Eisen suggested, walking over to the throne of rock and zing crystals. Having the chieftain kneel in front of him the whole time would be nothing but ufortable. But soon enough, the two of them were seated across from each other, looking at each other silently. But soon enough, that silence was broken by Eisen. "So, I have a few questions, now," the old man exined, and the chieftain practically flinched as he heard Eisen''s voice, as if he was just too nervous not to, "How did you find out that I''m here? And, connected to that, how did you know that I was truly who I imed to be?" The chieftain slowly closed his eyes as he let out a long breath, "I have people stationed in all the other territories, of course. Every major city, every district. I want, no, need to know what is going on in this country. Of course, that is not only the case here, but everywhere else that I am able to reach. Truthfully, I had even attempted to have one of them infiltrate the inds of your country." Eisen listened to the chieftain''s words, surprised at the amount of imformation that he was given. He expected something like this, it waspletely normal in situations like these to have informants everywhere they were useful, but that was something not easily said. Especically, you would usually never even think of telling the king of a country that you were trying to infiltrate his kingdom. But Eisen didn''t really care, rather, he was quite happy, since the chieftain answered him truthfully and without hesitation. "And my second question?" Eisen inquired again, before the cloud giant chieftain tried to find the right words for his exnation, "There were... multiple things that led me to believe in your imed identity. Of course, the tournament held by that fool the Grandour to prove otherwise was a great way to prove your prowess. Not only I, the Skald of the Cloud Giants, but the chiefs of the other ns must know about how everything unfolded. The others may still have some doubts when you go to visit them, but I was able to quickly get rid of those doubts." "How so?" "As you may know, we Cloud Giants are intimately connected to the truths of this world. After I heard the report saying that someone iming to be you was encountered in the Grandour''s territory, I was able to confirm whether it was truth through irvoyance and by reading the world." "Reading the world?" "Yes, we ess the words of this world, known to many as the ''System'', and can learn certain truths in that manner. For thos e lower beings, it would be possible to read near everything that there was to know. But for you, it was impossible. The only thing that I could tell was that it would be impossible for me to ever see the truth behind your being. And that alone served as all the proof I needed that you are who you imed to be." Eisen smiled curiously. So they were able to inspect other beings simrly to how Eisen could with his Dragon''s eye? That was interesting. And at the same time, he was d to see that they weren''t able to see everything. But now, Eisen wondered about the most important thing, and the reason why he was here in the first ce. "Now tell me, why did youe looking for me?" Chapter 770: Blackouts Chapter 770 ckouts Eisen and the Skald, the chieftain of the Cloud Giant n, sat across from each other in this enormous throne room, while the old man was waiting for an answer to his question. "Could it not be that I simply came to look for you to finally meet you for the first time?" The Skald asked with a light smirk on his face, and Eisen raised one of his brows, "If that''s the case, then I think you''re sort of misusing your authority. We were going to meet sooner orter anyway. At the council meeting at the verytest." The Skald closed his eyes for a few moments, leaning his head onto his hand while shifting his body to the side, not acknowledging the old man''sment more than necessary, "Right. I guess there''s no reason to hide it. For the past few months, I have been having repeated periods of ckouts, starting with the first appearance of those artificial folk appearing on the central continent." Eisen, who was unsure whether or not this was actually going to be important until now, straightened his back and leaned forward, "ckouts? Can you exin those a bit better?" "Well..." the Skald started to think, but seemed to find the right way to exin the situation soon after, crossing his legs as he exined, "Technically speaking, I''m not sure if I could call them ckouts, truthfully. There are periods of time that arepletely missing from my memory. Documents were signed by me that I have never seen before, and orders were given that I would never give. As you know, we are a passive people. We don''t want to get involved with those on the ground below, for one reason or another, but suddenly, I gavemands that actively interfered with the actions of those lesser folks. Sure, I have my spies everywhere, but that is just so that I know what happens everywhere, not because I want to interact with them any further." "Mhm, alright. So you''ve been dissociating for a few months, acting in unusual ways that you don''t remember. I''m not sure how that''s something I can help with." Eisen pointed out, still sticking to the Skald''s words, unsure if this was really going where he wanted it to go. The cloud giant slowly let out a sigh through his nose, "It''s not just that. Even in the moments I remember, I have been acting unusual. Sure, I did actively behave how I normally would, and I never acknowledged these ckouts. When my advisors or confidants spoke to me about my actions during the ckouts, I simply ignored them, even though I very clearly heard their words. It was as if I had suddenly gotten bored of the conversation." Eisen crossed his arms, frowning slightly, "And what changed? You''re worried about it all now, so something must have happened to prompt that." "You are correct. It was during... something you could call a ritual. Something to make sure that my senses of divination wouldn''t dull over time. During that moment, I saw a being approach me, trying to enter my body without my permission. Trying to take control of me. I defended myself against it, and soon erected barriers to keep that being out in the future as well. However, those barriers may... no, they will break soon. And I am afraid of what will happen to me the next time my body is taken from me." Seeing the Skald''s expression, and closely following the words of the man sitting across from him, Eisen couldn''t help but grin widely. Quickly, he pressed his hand in front of his mouth to hide his expression that the Skald seemingly hadn''t noticed yet, "So why did you seek me out, then?" "...I received a report from one of my men, speaking of an event that happened not too long ago. In that city that you founded long ago, the one spiraling down into the ground, the man iming to be Eisen, which I figured really was you, had a stand-off of sorts. After hearing the details of the situation and the words spoken by you, I concluded that the body of that city''s lord had been taken over in a simr fashion as mine. I investigated, and noticed that not only that lord''s, but the actions of many lords, be they greater or lesser, in the central continent had suddenly changed with the appearance of the artificial people. After seeing the situation unfold, I figured you might be able to help me out." Eisen closed his eyes, forcing his grin away, before slowly nodding his head, "You''re right, I can help you. Actually, it''s why I asked the Grandour to call for a council meeting." Surprised, the Skald looked at the old legend in front of him, "You already knew about my condition?" "Well, no, not that specifically. I know that there are people possessed by that man, the one that''s been taking control of you as well," Eisen exined, quickly continuing on by giving the Skald all the other information that he needed to know. Mostly focusing it around the fact that Samuel was nning on manipting the world powers to cause a war between the giant country and the central continent, simply for the amusement of the artificials that he created. Outraged, the Skald jumped up from his throne, the veins on his neck nearly popping open, "How dare he! How dare that man toy with our lives! This is all the fault of those- those artificials! Don''t worry, they''re going to pay for what they have done! If the council will not decide on it together, I myself will dere war on those fake beings, wiping them from the face of this world!" Eisen leaned back in his seat, locking eyes with the cloud giant. The moment that the Skald''s anger let through a moment of situational awareness, the cloud giant flinched, seeing the deep, cold re of the man in front of him. His anger was quickly reced by a sensation of momentary shock, as he took a step back and fell onto his throne once again. "Have you calmed down enough to let yourself think for a second?" Eisen asked, before speaking to the Skald in a blunt manner, "If you even think of dering a war on anyone, I will drag this whole city down to the bottom of the ocean." Shivers ran all over the Skald''s body as he nodded his head, and Eisen slowly stood up from his seat, "Those people, as a whole, haven''t done anything wrong. They are here to enjoy their life in this world just as anyone else. Sure, some, or many, individuals might be doing wrong things in the process, but that''s something that I myself am going to deal with," the old man said, walking up to the cloud giant. He ced his hand onto the Skald''s shoulder, before pushing his hand onto his neck and pulling his face close to his. It was so close that Eisen was a bit scared that the Skald''s hair was going to catch fire if they came any closer together, even if the old man''s mes weren''t even that hot right now. "All that you need to do is support my n when I speak to the council. That''s all you need to do. Because trust me, even if you have your spies, I know much, much more about what is going on in this world than you do. I built it up with my own hands, and if anyone is going to try and meddle with it and bring it into chaos, it is going to be me that decides how to deal with them," Eisen said as he looked deep, deep into the Skald''s eyes, practically just seeing the ck of his pupils. The cloud giant seemed nearly mesmerized by the fear he feeling, and was unable to respond. Slowly, Eisen let go of the giant''s neck before turning around again, "But well, just to calm you down a little as well, you won''t have to worry too much about being possessed again. I''ll figure out the details, but all you need to do is to hold out until the council meeting. If you can do that, I will tell you we will forever rid ourselves of that man''s influence on you." "That... I don''t know if I can do that. There is a reason why I was so eagerly seeking you out," the Skald pointed out, "The cracks in the barrier I created are bing too many. I don''t think I will be able to hold out for much longer than this." Eisen looked at the cloud giant chieftain with a light squint, before starting to shift his view toward the mana in the area. Since this huge ind was covered in cloud mana and other sorts of magic to make this ce float properly all the whilst gathering the atmospheric mana together to power itself, it was hard to see anything here at all. It was as if he was trying to find something through a thick mist. However, the old man was soon able to spot the barrier that the chieftain was speaking of. It was like a thin veil of mana covering him. Thin, but powerful. Eisen didn''t know much about divination, so he wasn''t able to speak much on the efficiency of this particr barrier. It certainly seemed interesting, though. And certainly, he was able to at the very least find the cracks that the Skald was speaking of. "Did you consider increasing the thickness of the barrier?" Eisen asked, and the Skald quickly formed a frown, "Why would I increase its thickness? I''m trying to hide from that being''s sight. A heavily concentrated, thick barrier will do nothing but attract more attention." "...You''re trying to hide from him? By using divination based magic?" Eisen asked, widening his eyes in excitement, "That means, if it works... then Samuel is using something simr to divination magic to possess people as well," the old man muttered, waving his hand to pull open a chat window. Quickly, he started to type a message to one of his fellow Originals. Eisen wasn''t sure why they hadn''t thought of this in the first ce. Maybe it was because they didn''t know much about how the gods'' powers worked in this world yet, even if Eisen remembered the gods themselves. But now that he thought about it, Samuel wasn''t a being of this world. Unlike Eisen and the others, he didn''t spend enough time in this world for his soul to be anchor itself here. Was it really possible for him to use incredible godly powers if he wasn''t even from this ce? If not, that meant that he had to follow the exact same rules as others, even if he had ess to different tools and power sources. He had to use magic, just like anyone else, and if that was the case, then the originals had the upper hand. After all, Xenia was the person that knew the most about magic, probably even more than the gods of magic themselves.. Chapter 771: True Predecessor Chapter 771: True Predecessor Eisen looked at the chat window floating in front of him, watching as the messages flowed in. [Eisen] Xenia, do you have time to speak? [Xenia] I''m in the middle of something right now, so if it''s not an emergency, I''d rather talkter [Eisen] I have some new information on Samuel that I need your opinion on. [Xenia] ...what sort of information? [Eisen] I just met with the Cloud Giant Chieftain. It seems like he is one of the individuals that keeps being possessed by Samuel, so I learned a few more things about that It would be easier to exin if we just spoke. [Xenia] give me 5 minutes The old man got thest message from Xenia just a couple seconds after he send his own message, as if the high elf was eagerly waiting for what he had to say. With a light smile, Eisen looked at the Skald, "I will convene with Xenia in a few minutes. We should be able to figure out a way to help you for the time being." With a broad smile, the Skald nodded his head and nearly jumped off his throne, "Thank you! The true predecessor of magic is going to heed my request...? How wonderful!" he eximed. Eisen was practically shocked as he saw the Skald''s expression. It was surprising enough that he was a fan of Eisen''s, but it at least seemed usible in his mind, since he was still a Giant at the end of the day. But Xenia was an Elf, so seeing a cloud giant think so highly of her, no matter her position, was still surprising, to say the least. However, there was something that surprised Eisen even more than that. "True predecessor?" Eisen asked, not having heard that term before, even though it sounded vaguely familiar to him. The Skald raised his brows surprised, "Yes, of course..." "I have issues with my memories, as you must know by now as well, so could you tell me what that''s supposed to mean? I haven''t heard someone call her that." "Ah, of course. I apologize," the Skald said quickly, straightening his back as he sat down properly on the throne again, " ''True Predecessor'' is a title many refer to the five of you by. While generally, the consensus is that you made amazing advancements in your respective fields, many thought, and still think, of it as more than that. Instead of seeing you as pioneers, they believe you to be the source. That which came before. You are the true predecessor of all craftsmen, kings, and tacticians, while Xenia would be the true predecessor of all magic users." Eisen raised a brow curiously as he heard the exnation, "But craftsmanship was a thing even before I came along, and I''ve used magic long before Xenia was born. It''s not like we invented it." The skald shook his head quickly, "That is not what that title means directly. You are correct in saying that it technically existed before you came along, but the moment you each came to be, you became the umtion of your arts and techniques. Whatever came before you does not matter, as only with you, a part of the world as we know it came to be. That is why you are called the ''True Predecessors''." Curious and wanting to hear more about this, Eisen crossed his arms. The term ''True Predecessor'' certainly sounded familiar, but it wasn''t the sort of nostalgia that would unlock a memory in his mind just yet. If he got more information, then maybe that would be different. However, before he was able to ask for more information, a window popped up by his side, showing that Xenia requested a private call with him, "... I will have to ask you more about thister, for now, I will speak to Xenia. Please excuse me." The Skald seemed conufsed, unsure what exactly Eisen could mean. He didn''t know about the chat system, after all. And since Eisen didn''t want to exin it to him, he simply let it be, and epted Xenia''s call request. With a single blink, the environment around him changed, and Eisen now found himself in the empty white space that was used as the basis for private calls. In front of him stood Xenia, eagerly waiting for him. Since his transformation affected him even here, Eisen quickly changed back to his base size so that he could have a proper conversation with the high elf, and watched as she nervously tapped the ground with her foot. "Alright, what is it that you want to talk to me about then? Something about the possessions?" She asked immediately, and Eisen slowly nodded, but didn''t respond before taking notice of the state Xenia''s body was currently in. The state of the caller''s body at the time that the call started would be perfectly reflected in this private space, unless actively changed like Eisen did just now, so it seemed like Xenia really was busy while Eisen messaged her. One of her arms was nearlypletely frozen over, pale white and covered in a thinyer of ice, while her other arm was covered in numerous small cuts that even stretched out to her clothes. "...What happened to you?" Eisen asked, and Xenia looked down at her body before huffing, "Don''t mind that, it''s all going to heal during the call anyway." "I know that, but still, if the situation over there is that serious, you should make sure to properly finish up before talking to me, right?" "Says the one that suddenly hit me with a message saying he has information on our nemesis? Not that it matters, cause the reason I look like this is exactly because I made sure to finish everything properly, alright? But again, don''t mind that, and just tell me already." Xenia groaned loudly, as if she really didn''t care about the state her body was in right now. Although, considering that her wounds were all being healed right now, since Xenia was also in ''standby'' mode during this call, there really wasn''t any reason for that in the first ce. Eisen used this same method to make his arms regrow, so it wasn''t like he was the right person toin about Xenia being reckless. Eisen sighed and nodded, "Fine, you''re right," he replied, and quickly started to convey all the information that he hab been told by the Skald. Xenia continued to listen to the conversation, soon seeming like she was busy thinking. "So he''s using powerful divination then?" Xenia repeated, "If that''s the case, then we should be able to do something against it, right?" "Right. That''s why I wanted to talk to you, since you obviously would be able to figure out a way to do that better than I could," Eisen pointed out, and the high elf''s expression quickly lit up, "Wait, didn''t we already do something against that?" "Hm? What do you mean?" The old man asked, and Xenia quickly replied, starting to pace around this white void, "The meeting room! I thought it was created in some special way only possible since we peaked, but if it was something made to defend against divination, we should be able to analyze it and figure out exactly what methods we''re dealing with. I know we looked at it before, but we didn''t understand any of it, but knowing that it''s rted to divination, we might be able to figure things out..." the high elf muttered deep in thought. Eisen smiled, happy to see that Xenia was already so invested in this. If that was the case, it shouldn''t take her long to figure something out, "Great. You should have everything you need for that, right?" "Enn... I think so. Some forms of divination are heavily influenced by the ingredients used in the process, and since we obviously worked together on creating that space, there might be some materials that I don''t inherently know to be rted to divination that you brought into the mix. If that''s the case, I''ll call you again and ask about it, but otherwise, I should be able to figure it out." "Amazing. Thank you. And if you manage to figure out what exactly it is that keeps Samuel out of the meeting room, then-" "Yeah, yeah, I''ll let you know. I''ll draw up some magic circles so that you can make an item to help that cloud giant guy out." Xenia replied, and Eisen quickly smiled, "Great, I''ll let him know." "Mhm. I''m going to have to rush back to prototype then. You said he can''t hold out that much longer, didn''t you?" "Yeah, exactly. I''ll try and find a way to let him hold out a bit longer if necessary until you''vee up with a solution," Eisen said with crossed arms, unsure how exactly he was going to do that. "I think I might already have a solution for that," Xenia pointed out, "I''m not sure how much it''s going to help, but it might help himst a bit longer. Even if I don''t know by how much," she exined, and Eisen listened curiously to the high elf''s exnation of what it was the Skald had to do. It seemed a bit unorthodox, but it didn''t really matter. The Skald''s pride might be hurt a little, but that was probably better than his body beingpletely taken over, or his mind being permanently damaged by Samuel. And so, as the call ended, and Eisen looked at the expression of the nervous cloud giant in front of him, he ryed the exnation to him.. Chapter 772: Xenophobia

Chapter 772: Xenophobia

The Skald looked at Eisen with a concerned expression, "And you say that this is going to be enough to protect me from that man?" The old man shrugged and shook his head, "Honestly, I don''t know. But Xenia told me about it, so it should certainly help you fend him off for at least a little while longer, until we managed to figure out a more permanent solution," Eisen exined. Since Xenia had said that she was going to take a closer look at the isted meeting room in prototype, that was totally protected from Samuel''s view, they should be able to figure something out at some point that should protect not only the Skald, but all other potential, or actual, targets of Samuel''s possessions. But he didn''t want to say something along those lines yet ¨C if it wasn''t possible to transfer the concept to something that could be used by individuals in that way, or if it was something that Eisen and Xenia weren''t able to create yet, then he didn''t want to make any promises that he couldn''t keep. "I see..." the Skald muttered, cing his hand in front of his mouth. If it was anyone else, Eisen would have assumed that they were trying to think about what to do, but since it was a cloud giant, the old man knew that the Skald was trying to stop himself from throwing up at the idea of what he had to do. ording to Xenia, the best way for the Skald to be protected for now was to hide himself better. Right now, the Skald had formed an area that Samuel wasn''t able to ess, a specific ce right around his body that would simply block him out. That being the case, it was easy for Samuel to figure out exactly where the Skald was. He just had to find the spot that he couldn''t ess, and he would know exactly where the target was. Then, all that had to be done was for him to break through that, and he would be alright. Now, what Xenia suggested instead was that the Skald hide himself amongst other people ¨C instead ofpletely blocking a specific area out, he should form a slightly weaker sort of mirage around himself while mingling amongst other people, mixing his own presence with theirs. That way, he would be able to stay hidden more easily, since it was harder to pin-point exactly where the Skald was, meaning that Samuel wouldn''t have a chance to attack the protection around the chieftain in the first ce. However, if the Skald simply hid himself amongst other cloud giants, it would still be all too simple to find him, and even easier for Samuel to break through the protection. So instead, the Skald had to hide himself in the presence of other people ¨C other races. A ce that Samuel wouldn''t instinctively expect, and where it would be harder for him to pinpoint exactly where the Skald was. So at the end of the day, the Skald had two choices ¨C either he had to stay here, just waiting for Samuel to break the protection and take his body over for the possibly final time, or he had to mingle with the ''lesser folks'' that he despised so much that it made him sick just to think about it. "Now, what are you going to do?" Eisen asked with a grin on his face, and the Skald raised his head a little to look at the man standing in front of him. Eisen wore a slight grin, as if he was enjoying the expression that the Skald was showing him right now. Well, he was, to bepletely blunt. The cloud giants'' tant xenophobia was absolutely disgusting, and if it weren''t for the fact that it would most likely make the other ns'' opinion of himself turn sour, he would sink this flying ind right this second. He didn''t even particrly feel like helping the Skald out, but it was better than simply handing Samuel a powerful tool like that. Even if they didn''t mingle with the others, the cloud giants could be considered amongst the most of the giants in terms of political influence. "...I will do it. How bad can it be? If a great being like you can stand being in the presence of those so much lesser than himself, then I shouldn''t have a reason toin, right?" the Skald pointed out, slowly pushing himself off his throne. He walked past Eisen with shaking legs, but the old man couldn''t help himself any more. Eisen ground his teeth and grabbed the Skald''s neck, squeezing it so tightly that it was more than possible that the cloud giant''s spine was going to simply shatter at any moment. The skald wasn''t even able to react. "To make it clear, from my position, even if you think otherwise, you, and all other cloud giants, are lesser than even the maggots crawling through a rotting corpse, alright?" The old man said in a growling voice, before pushing the Skald forward angrily, "I have no clue where you all even got the idea that you''re better than others, but at the end of the day, you''re just disgusting in every single way. You don''t deserve the blood flowing through your veins," the old man said, staring deep into the Skald''s eyes. The already mentally shaken cloud giant simply flinched at the words of his idol, and Eisen could pratically see his heart sinking into his stomach, "Bu-but they-" "Be quiet, before I throw up in your pristine fucking castle," Eisen interrupted the cloud giant, walking past him angrily, "I had hoped that maybe you were a little different with the way that you treated me until now. But no, you simply deify me, so you chose to make an exception. Now get moving, before I make sure that Samuel doesn''t even get the chance to take over your body again." The Skald, influenced by Eisen''s voice strengthened by both his royal and demonic abilities, slowly turned around and walked toward the throne room''srge entrance. He slowly opened his mouth to call for the guards to open the door for him, but before he could, Eisen walked past him and ced his hand onto the huge metal door. He pushed his fingers into the grooves meant to be held onto, and with a single swift motion pulled the door open. It swung open so quickly that it soon hit its limit, nearly flying off its hinges and causing cracks to form in the wall that the door was installed in. Not only the Skald, but the guards eagerly waiting outside of the door were in disbelief. This was something that multiple cloud giant guards had to push open and closed together with clear strain, but Eisen moved this monument with ease as if he pulled open a flimsy wooden door. The guards stared at Eisen, as if they thought that he was trying to attack them. However, the old man stood there with a surprised expression himself, "That was easier than I thought. After watching you earlier, I expected it to be much heavier. Rather... aren''t you all a bit too weak?" Eisen asked tantly, moving his head to look at the giants in front of him. The old man clicked his tongue and started to walk through the halls of this castle once more. It was clear that the cloud giants wanted to oppose Eisen''s obvious attempt to anger them, but none of them were able to even utter a single word. All they were able to do was follow Eisen and the Skald outside of the castle silently. As more and more giants gathered in the halls of the castle after hearing the ear-shattering sound of Eisen swinging the throne-room''s doors open, all they were able to see was Eisen walking forward confidently, veiled in the aura of a ruler, while their own lord was walking behind him nervously with a lowered head. To this proud giant n, this was nothing short of insulting, as if someone had just tried to stab each and every one of them individually, but still, not a single one of them was able to voice those thoughts. Earlier, Eisen walked through this floating city with his own head down, trying not to bother or insult the cloud giants ¨C he was still trying to gage the situation at the time, but now, he showed his own feelings for this ce, and this n as a whole, very clearly. The ones that red at him with so much hatred and spite earlier, throwing things or spitting at him, now had no choice but to ept the fact that there was nothing they could do against him anymore. And just like that, Eisen and the Skald made their way to the same city-gate that Eisen had entered through, "You know what you have to do exactly, right?" Eisen asked, it being the first time he had spoken since hisment upon leaving the throne room. The Skald looked at the old man with a clear undertone of nervosity, which he was obviously trying to hide from his subjects, and slowly nodded, "Yes, of course. We will make our way to the capital city immediately." "Good," Eisen replied, taking a few steps toward the Skald. He leaned forward, grabbing the back of the Skald''s head, pulling the chieftain''s head into his shoulder, letting Eisen whisper into the giant''s ear, "Remember my words from earlier. The only reason I''m, regrettably, letting you be like this for now, is because you''re useful to me. The moment that this isn''t the case, letting yourself be possessed by some random asshole is the least of your worries. Understood?" Slowly, the Skald nodded his head, and Eisen formed arge smile on his face as he let go of the Skald''s head, "If that''s the case, then we''re good." Chapter 773: Ravine City

Chapter 773: Ravine City

Eisen pped his wings once and shot out of the city''s gate. Once he was a fair distance away, he turned around once more, watching as the cloud giants closed up the entrance, conceiling it with clouds so that they may continue drifting around for a while, until they found a suitable spot for the Skald to depart the ind himself. The old man looked away from the flying city, and then tried to orient himself. Surely, the flying city moved quite a bit while Eisen was in there, since it was travelling rather quickly all the time, so it was a little tough for him to figure it out right away. Also because most of the area around Eisen simply looked like nature. That being the case, instead of trying to find the group that Eisen had left earlier today, he should just try and find out where the Stone Giant n''s central city could be found. They were headed there, so even if Eisen didn''t meet up with them until then, it wouldn''t take too long for them to get together again. After all, they were all most likely within Fafnir''s dungeon anyway, with the gate being ced inside of Askr''s body so that they could save time on the transportation. It wouldn''t take them all too long either. "Maybe I can take this chance to rx a bit..." Eisen figured. After all, he was quite interested in the Stone Giant n as well. They were the n that was most simr to the fire giants in a lot of ways. While they were far, far more mild-natured, they were also artisans. But instead of focusing on the utility of things, working in the sometimes rather rough manner that Fire Giants tended to do with their craftsmanship, Stone Giants focused more on the artistic side of things. There were a lot of sculptors and other artists there, and while there were a lot of other types of craftsmen there, they still often focused on the aesthetics. Overall, Eisen could describe that sort of difference between the two ns rather easily. While Fire Giants were more interested in the process of craftsmanship, Stone Giants were more interested in the the consequence of craftsmanship, the actual object or structure that had been created. Eisen himself felt like he embodied both. He felt the greatest satisfaction possible while creating something, but he still always focused on the final product, wanting to make something great with everything that he did. Well, Eisen was at a point where, if he truly enjoyed the process, he would be ecstatic with the final product as well, no matter how it actually turned out. With the more metric-based view on ''sess'' that was introduced to him in this world, it was easier for him to feel a bit disappointed if the final item didn''t have the abilities or stats connected that he wanted, but at the end of the day, that was how it was. No matter what his view on craftsmanship was, he was excited about getting to see the people of the Stone Giant n. Well, he had already encountered one of them, the stone giant mage during the duels, but that didn''t really count anyway. Eisen slowly waved his hand and opened up a system window, quickly sending Kiron a message to let him know that he would be going ahead, and that they would meet in the capital of the Stone Giant n. The fact that he was able to message his knights was a more than just useful ability. Of course, Kiron quickly bombarded him as he replied, but Eisen was able to calm him down a bit. They were going to get there sometime tonight anyway, so it wasn''t like Eisen told him he was going off on a long-term trip alone, as he did when he went to heaven and hell. It didn''t take too long until Eisen saw the city in question. It was a tall, steep mountain, that had been split in half long ago. And in the ravine that had been formed as the two halves of the mountain were practically forced away from each other, the city of the Stone Giants had formed. At the bottom of the ravine was the ce that the actual giants lived. Actually, if you just counted them, this could only be called a rather small town, but with the regr-sized races that lived here, this city was practically a metropolis. While the houses of the giants were built below, numerous blocks of living spaces were carved out for the regr-sized people. There were even bridges erected between the two sides that wererge enough for their own cities, and were used as such as well. The city of the fire giant n might have looked somewhat simr, with most of its structures basically just carved out of rock, this city waspletely iparable in how impressive it was. The fire giants created their houses simply so that they had a ce to live, so they ended up looking somewhat ne. They only ended up looking impressive because of their immense scalepared to what Eisen and the others were used to. But here, the artistic side of ancient architecture shone so brightly that it nearly blinded the old man. Between the individual buildings, intricate carvings and statues had been created. Even now, there were dozens of shrunken giants, and hundreds if not thousands of dwarves, humans or elves were also busily working alongside them to continue on with the deeper details of these artistic projects. Eisennded a short distance away so that he wouldn''t be instantly spotted by the city''s guards or watchmen. And in the forest surrounding the mountain city, he quickly changed out of his royal armor into his, far morefortable, craftsmanship outfit. He nearly let out a sigh of relief as he tied the apron behind his back, simply because he felt far morefortable wearing thispared to that stuffy armor. It didn''t take long until Eisen reached the city''s entrance after that. Therge gates looked as if they were meant to close part of the gap that was created by the split mountain, but Eisen was quickly let inside. He looked just like a traveller right now, and with a few quick and pleasant words, the watchmen didn''t have much of a reason to doubt his intentions. They were surprised to see a half-giant, something that Eisen wasn''t able to hide, since he wasn''t able to reach the regr height of a giant just through the size-changing ability he gained from his racial skill, but clearly didn''t care too much. Charisma-based abilities truly were incredibly useful for moments like this. The old man was let into the city and was now able to get a proper look at everything. Of course, he also used his abilities to copy the surrounding architecture, so that he could get a proper look at the techniques that were used in this ce. However, the first ce that Eisen truly stopped at was in a ce where a bit of a crowd had formed. Giants were gathered around the front of the shop, while there were regr-sized people standing above on what was practically a tform made to look down into the work area. And what Eisen saw there was surprising, to say the least. It was a giant with nearly gray skin and a chiseled, rock-like structure. But at the base of his back, a thick tail was swinging from side to side, while rock-like horns stood on top of the man''s head. He was a lot smaller than the other giants around. Not that he was just naturally short, though. It was just that, just like Eisen, his scale was naturally smaller than that of other giants. He was a Demon-Giant halfling. Of course that wasn''t directly surprising, though. There were plenty of giant-halflings in this country, since the giants lived alongside humans, dwarves and elves regrly, it was simply incredibly rare to see the specific Demon-Giantbination. Both races had rather low birth-rates, so it could be seen as a miracle that a Demon and a Giant were able to have a child. But more importantly, the giants were all watching this particr halfling work, with such expressions that made it seem as if they had waited their whole lives for this opportunity. And once Eisen watched for a bit longer, he also realized why that was the case. The halfling was carving a huge b of rock into an intricate sculpture. The chisel in his hand seemed to chip away at it as if he was just working with butter, basically melding the material into whatever he wanted with absolute ease. For a moment, Eisen was wondering if the halfling was simply using alchemy to transmutate the rock, but since he was able to quickly confirm that he wasn''t using any mana, that thought was quickly disposed of. Eisen continued to watch the halfling, until soon enough, the statue was close to beingpleted. But that was exactly when the giant-demon halfling stopped his work, letting his arms hang down the sides of his body. The moment that they saw this, all the onlookers let out disappointed groans, practically immediately turning around and leaving, until nobody was left anymore. Confused as he was, Eisen stayed for a while longer to figure out what was going on. The halfling ced down his tools and let out a deeply frustrated sigh, burying his face in his hands. "Not again..." he let out a momentter. "What''s going on, if you don''t mind me asking?" The old man quickly inquired, and the halfling in front of him raised his head, "Huh? What do you care?" "Nothing but curiosity. It''s been a while since I came here, so I don''t really know what''s going on," Eisen quickly admitted, and the halfling immediately scoffed, "Mhm, right. You sure you don''t just want to mock me like everyone else?" "...Who was mocking you?" "What? When did youe here? Didn''t you see everyone staring just now, practicallyughing at me? When they saw I failed again, they immediately left. Like they''re watching me to make themselves feel good about their own work," the halfling let out with a disgusted scowl, ring at the iplete statue next to him, while Eisen stood there perplexed. These people obviously weren''tughing at him. They were enthralled in the halfling''s work as if it was their own, and when they left, they did so out of disappointment, not because the show ended. As the old man watched the halfling look at his work, he felt even more curiositye over him. This seemed like a good enough way to pass the time until the others got here. Chapter 775: Wine Part 1

Chapter 775: Wine Part 1

Eisen looked at his brewing equipment, and quickly started to think about which recipe he should go for first. Until now, he had mostly gone for Whiskey and stronger liquor, simply because it was something that he was used to making; it was his main source of ie on earth right now, after all. But a quiterge portion of the recipes in Gordon''s book were more focused on things other than that. Certainbinations of spices and fruit that came together in the process of fermentation to create some decent wines and beers. That was the sort of thing that led to the most interesting effets, and most likely, the most uniquely different vors. From what Eisen could tell, in the giant country they were generally used to stronger alcohol made using simpler recipes, since that was the easiest way to create the huge quantities needed for Giants to actually enjoy themselves. Since it was rather cold in this country, getting therge amount of fruit you would need in order to make such masses of wine was also pretty hard. But just because it was hard to get didn''t mean that people didn''t like it. When he went past the local taverns and pubs, Eisen did see people enjoying wine, but from the nces of the menus he got, it was incredibly expensivepared to other alcohol. It was most likely something imported from other countries, or the few ces in this country that did have at least a little amount of fruit to make use of. As such, it was the obvious choice to go for arge variety of different, uniquely-tasting wines. The cold weather would also make something like mulled wine a perfect choice to get people interested in Gordon''s creations. And so, Eisen took a quick look at the ingredients he had avable. Luckily, since Parc was particrly interested in the concept of creating different kinds of potion candies when working with Alchemy, Eisen had a few barrels filled with different fruit. Obviously, not enough for him to make enough for a Giant to enjoy, but he wasn''t aiming for them anyway. His targets were the people living alongside them. In this country, production of most products was focused on the giants; it made sense, of course. The most skilled craftsmen were Giants, the materials avable here were perfect for creating items for them, and they simply took longer to make than items for regr-sized people. So, most of the time, especially in terms of food production, the market focus was ced on the giants, and the others simply had to follow along with that. So, if there was suddenly a unique product that giants aren''t able to properly enjoy, it would spread through rumors and word of mouth, further increasing the interest in said product. If they wanted to, the giants could simply shrink down and enjoy the wines like that anyway, it simply wouldn''t be avable in massive amounts. Eisen looked at the fruit he had; Iceberries, Yellow Grapes and Rock Peaches, fruit that wereparatively hard to acquire simply because they only thrived in specific ces. They were of a rtively high rank as well, so the wines woulde out great on the effect side of things. Beside that, he had more normal fruit, like Strawberries, Lemons, and ck Apples. While ck Apples looked and sounded rather unappetizing at first nce, taste-wise, they were just like high-quality apples, simply that they had incredibly dark red flesh and ck skin, so Eisen counted them on the more normal side. He was sure that the color of the wine they would produce would be pretty interesting, and some mulled apple wine with cinnamon would probably be quite popr too. Eisen already couldn''t wait until he was done with it. Beside those six types of fruit, Eisen also wanted to make some flower wine. However, since the only flowers he had were the kind that were useful in potion-making, he had to think about exactly which to use. Flowers with enough mana within them to be useful for potions could generally cause some pretty unique effects, especially after being fermented. At least that''s what Eisen could tell from the recipes made using potion-centric flowers. He had a lot of them, but he didn''t yet feel confident enough in his brewing-instincts to be able to properly guess what sort of changes fermentation could do to the effects he was used to. For example, there was one recipe that used the Golden Morningbellow; it was a flower generally used in different healing potions. On its own, it had just a simple healing effect, but after fermentation, it gave you a certain amount of cold resistance. Eisen didn''t yet understand how it went from one to the other; maybe Jyuuk had some more insight on that aspect, but currently, it simply wasn''t something that Eisen had a huge amount of intuition for. He certainly wanted to use Gordon''s methods to make his own recipes, but that was nothing that he wanted to spend this rtively limited amount of time doing. Instead, he would just stick to the recipes in the books, at least when it came to potion-flowers. For now, Eisen had three flowers that he wanted to make wine with. Said Golden Morningbellow to make a nice mulled wine that he could sell alongside the mulled apple wine, a wine with Morxica, a flower that was used to make an Agility-buffing potion, while the wine would have deeply physically rxing effects, and thest flower he would use was Robingrowth. It was a flower that on its own didn''t produce any particr results; instead, it was used as an ingredient to increase the potency of other effects as well as the general stability of certain potions. This one had the most interesting effect once turned into wine, at least as far as Eisen was concerned. It turned your skin purple for about an hour. It seemed like something fun that he could use to get people interested in the wines, and simply a way for people to have some fun. It certainly wasn''t because Eisen was eager to see the shocked expressions of some youngsters that he gave it to for a taste-test. Certainly not. That being said, Eisen brought out all the ingredients, together with some different spices, herbs, and minerals that would imbue certain vors and effects into the brews. Eisen sorted the ingredients that he needed, prepared all therge containers he would be storing the wine in until it was ready, and soon was able to get started. For now, Eisen started with the flower wines. He brought threerge containers of water to a boil and ced one type of flower petal into each one. After stirring to make sure that they were all properly in the water, Eisen already finished the first step of making this wine. He would have to let this sit for a few hours before continuing. Instead, Eisen could now move onto the next step; prepwork. He had to de-seed the yellow grapes, rock peaches, and ck apples, as well as cut the lemons into slices. For this, Eisen quickly summoned a few doubles so that they could share the workload. It wasn''t hard work by any means, simply something small and annoying that had to be done. Especially using Bai, Eisen was able to slice through these simple lemons without a speck of resistance. The de-seeding that was being done by the doubles was also proceeding at a quick enough pace. Though, since Eisen was working with a rtivelyrge amount, it still took a couple of hours for him to finish. The most annoying part was actually to skin half of the yellow grapes. For regr grape wine, there was a difference between red and white wine. The red color woulde from the grapes'' skin. So with these, the equivalent would be yellow wine, something that Eisen was eager to try out. But even so, he was still curious about the difference between yellow and white wines made from yellow grapes, so he would simply try out both. While the doubles already started pressing all the different fruits, with the exception of the lemons, into pulp, Eisen was cleaning up a little and waiting for the flower petals to be ready. And as he did, he saw a curious small face peaking into his workshop. The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!?? Chapter 776: Wine Part 2

Chapter 776: Wine Part 2

Eisen looked at the figure he was seeing from the corner of his eye, smiling lightly when he saw who was standing there. Not that he recognized them; it was simply a small child curiously looking at what Eisen was doing in here. "Hey there, kid. Can I help you?" Eisen asked with a smile, but the child quickly shook her head, not saying anything in response. Since he didn''t want to just keep staring at her and ask questions, Eisen simply chuckled under his beard and continued working. If she wanted to say something, she would do so eventually. Though, it didn''t take as long as Eisen was thinking it would. Just as he was getting ready to sift the flower petals out of the water, that little girl was already standing further in the shop, "What are you doing?" She asked, and Eisen quickly smiled at her, "Do you know what wine is?" "I think mommy sells that?" the girl replied, and Eisen raised a brow. This girl''s mother probably worked in one of the pubs around here, then. This might actually be a good opportunity. "She does? Do you think your mommy would be interested in selling some of the wine I''m making right now?" the old man asked curiously, but the girl just looked at him nkly. Not sure about what that reaction meant, Eisen looked at the girl for a few more moments, when she finally blurted out, "Making wine takes super long, right?" "Ah..." Eisen let out. So that''s what she was worried about. Maybe this child knew more about all of this than Eisen had assumed at first. He squatted down next to her and pulled out an object out of his pocket. It was a small disk with an enchantment engraved on it; this was a small version of the speed-fermentation item that Eisen had built with Jyuuk. He just needed to ce a cup or bottle of something onto this so that he could have a sample of what something he was making would roughly taste like. The slightly slower and more stable version he would be using for these wines did result in a somewhat different taste, but it was good enough to get an idea of whether or not he needed to change something. "You probably know about enchanting, right? A friend of mine has an ability that can speed the process up a bit, and I made something to use that ability to make wine more quickly." The girl curiously looked at the small te and then past Eisen at the five figures busily working behind him, "Is that friend one of those?" She asked with a surprisingly excited expression, pointing at one of the doubles, but Eisen just chuckled and shook his head, "No, no, these are just some helpers I have with me. That friend isn''t here right now." Disappointed, the girl averted her gaze, "Awe... I thought maybe he could help mommy..." "Hm?" Eisen looked at the girl a little confused. Why would this girl''s mother need help like that? Rather than just working at one of the pubs, maybe she had a brewery around here instead? "...I think maybe I can find a way to help your mother. Could you try to bring her here?" Eisen asked, and the girl''s face immediately lit up brightly. Without a word in response, she turned around and sprinted out of the workshop, disappearing out of Eisen''s sight pretty quickly. With a slightugh, Eisen just returned to work. He knew that he didn''t have too much time to spend here, but he figured that if he could find ways to help people out here, he might as well take those chances. And if there was someone that had a brewery and they were skilled enough, Eisen could teach them some of Gordon''s recipes. That would be one way to bring them to the people as well. But for now, he should continue getting everything ready. Once the others got to this ravine city, Eisen would have to leave here, since they were on a rtively tight schedule. After straining the flowers out of the water, Eisen wrapped the petals in cloth and squeezed as much of the leftover juices out of them, before bringing the new pots of strained liquids to a boil again. By now, the water had taken on quite vibrant colors, and was smelling pretty nice as well. Eisen took a few of the lemons that he had cut up and squeezed a bit of lemon juices into each of the boiling pots, before adding sugar to the pots as well. The water was stirred until all the sugar was dissolved, and then Eisen had to wait for it to cool to room temperature. While that was happening, he got started on the lemon wine; the other fruit were still being turned into pulp by the doubles. Eisen put the lemon slices into arge pot, covering them with water and sugar, bringing it all to a boil and mixing it until the sugar was dissolved. By the time he was done with this and this mixture was ready to start cooling down, the petal-infused sugar water was at room temperature. He poured the contents of the pots into therge fermentation containers, added the yeast and proper nutrients for the reaction, and started the fermentation process. In a couple of hours, they would be done and ready to be bottled. And now, Eisen could do the same thing with the lemon wine, putting everything into a proper fermentation container, just that this time he didn''t need to remove the lemons. They could just stay in here until the wine was done. The old man was just about to head over to where the fruit were being turned into pulp, when he could hear two people approaching, one set of footsteps considerably lighter than the other. Before he knew it, two people were standing at the workshop''s entrance, that little girl, and a woman right next to her. To Eisen''s surprise, it was the woman he had briefly spoken to earlier when he was trying to find a ce to put this workshop. But it wasn''t only him that was surprised, she was rather baffled too. After all, she knew that there wasn''t a ce like this just a few hours ago. Just carving out some space in the walls was one thing, butpletely constructing a building like this inside of that space was another. "Here! This is my mommy! Can you help her now?" the girl asked, and Eisen approached her with a smile. But her mother quickly pulled the girl behind her, "What do you mean, ''help me''? Who are you?" she asked, and Eisen immediately stopped. It made sense for her to be a bit suspicious, so he quickly tried to make sure to alleviate her worries. "I''m just a traveler. I set up my workshop here earlier to get some work done, when your daughter suddenly came by," Eisen exined, but the woman didn''t seem particrly convinced, "Right, but how did you do that? How did you make this ce so quickly?" "Ah, that''s what you''re worried about?" the old man chuckled, pushing his hand into the wall where he opened his storage space, quickly pulling out another small key. He walked outside the workshop, and quickly used the key in the middle of the air in front of him. This time, instead of a building, a carriage was being built out of nowhere, folding outward from the key, "I''m a rather skilled craftsman. Since I travel a lot, I made sure that I could always have whatever I need, no matter where I am," Eisen exined, and he could practically hear the confusion enter the woman''s mind, while her daughter was excitedly looking at the carriage that simply popped up out of nowhere. "Don''t worry, I know it might seem a bit suspicious, but I''m just an old man hoping to spend the evening of his life working on his hobbies," Eisen assured her. He wasn''t sure if it was only his words, or if it was his charisma and the abilities he had connected to it that carried most of the workload, but before he knew it, he noticed that the woman rxed a bit, "Now, your daughter said you sell alcohol?" The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!?? Chapter 777: Wine Part 3

Chapter 777: Wine Part 3

Eisen looked at the woman in front of him. She had, somewhat awkwardly, followed him into his workshop and was looking around at what he was currently doing. Before he even had to exin anything, she already knew, "You''re making wine?" The old man raised a brow, "That''s exactly what I''m doing, yes. Just a few different fruit and flower wines." "Huh? Flower wine?" The woman replied, looking at three of therge fermentation containers that were already busily bubbling away. With an excited expression, she walked a bit closer, taking in arge breath of the floral scents surrounding the containers, "It''s been a while since I''ve had flower wine... it''s not really that popr, so it''s not worth making it, especially with how rare good ingredients are..." Eisen raised his brow, "Is that so? Well, I guess that makes sense. Most flowers you have here are potion flowers, so you probably didn''t try using them." "Of course, potion flowers are for potions... not wine. It seems a little dangerous to make wine out of them," the woman pointed out as if it was obvious. Eisen just chuckled and looked at her with a smirk, "What''s your name?" "Ah, I''m sorry... It''s Millicent. My daughter''s name is Luci¨¦rre, but we just call her Lucy," the woman said, looking down at the girl that was standing in front of her curiously, before looking back up, "And you are...?" "I''m Eisen. It''s a pleasure to meet you," the old man replied, before walking up to the wall in front of him. He summoned his storage space and walked inside, quickly grabbing the small vial that he was looking for, handing it over to Millicent, "Go on, try it." Confused, she grabbed the vial from Eisen. She knew she probably shouldn''t do it, but her curiosity got the better of her, and Millicent quickly drank the contents of the vial. A subtle warmth spread through her body, but nothing much happened. "What was this..?" She asked, slowly bing nervous after drinking a random bright yellow liquid she was given. Eisen crossed his arms and smiled, "It''s a detoxification potion. A rather weak one, though. It''s only really good to bring you from ckout drunk to decently buzzed, but if you concentrate it a little more, it can probably go further than that, though I wouldn''t remend it either." "And so..?" Millicent replied, still confused. "It''s a potion made with Dandelion. Just regr old, generic Dandelion," he exined, "Practically every nt has certain uses in the field of alchemy, it just so happens that some have stronger natural effects than others. That''s why, if you use a flower with little mana like dandelions to make wine, all the mana is going to simply dissipate naturally in the fermentation process, and it won''t achieve any particr effects. But stronger nts have the tendency to absorb mana more actively, so it''s going to stay in the wine longer, so it definitely is more dangerous to go with the moremon ''potion flowers'' to make wine, but if you know what to expect, you can use anything at all to make wine. Though sometimes you might have to do some special things to it, so... you know, let me jsut show you." Eisen was ready for the next step of making the flower wines. They had spent a little time fermenting already and formed some alcohol, but they still were far from ready. If they just kept fermenting like this, not only their effects, but also their taste would turn out rather... unsavory. To counteract that, Eisen would add a few things. Millicent followed Eisen as he opened up the fermentation containters, and poured in some finely-ground mana crystals. "Wait, why do you do that? They''re... poisonous, right?" Millicent asked, whispering thest part to make sure her daughter wouldn''t hear her say it, but Eisen just raised his brow, "You know that potions arergely made using mana crystals, right? It''s the one central ingredient that''s in 99% of all potion recipes. You can''t just swallow them without repercussions, but if you have an alchemist treat it, you''ll only be left with the beneficial aspects, and don''t have to worry about those sorts of things. It''s the same concept here. What I''m doing is basicallybining techniques of alchemy with brewery." Eisen used transmutation to properly infuse the ground mana crystals into the fermenting wines, before slowly starting to adjust the temperature inside of the fermentation containers. The Golden Morningbellow wine had to ferment at a higher temperature than normal, while the Morxica needed a slightly lower temperature. "Isn''t that a little... cold?" Millicent asked, feeling the air around the Morxica wine, and Eisen quickly nodded, "That''s what I thought. But the person that made the recipe knows his stuff, so I''m trusting his guidance." "You didn''te up with these?" "Me? No, I wish I had, they''re incredible! I''ve stuck more to other areas of alchemy. The one that came up with these is a dwarf by the name of Gordon Antrey, he lives in the central continent," Eisen quickly exined, and Millicent looked at him more surprised than after anything else she had been told so far, "You''re from the central continent?" "Technically I''m from this country, but I''ve spent a while in the central continent, yes. Is that an issue?" Millicent slowly shook her head, "No, no, not an issue, but... aren''t we going to war with a country from the central continent soon..?" It seemed as though Millicent was concerned about what it would look like to spread the work of someone from an enemy nation if a war were to start, but Eisen quickly tried to calm her down, "That war isn''t going to happen, I can assure you of that. There are some people that want to avoid this by any means, and they''re currently in the process of making sure that such a war will nevere to fruition." "Right..." Millicent replied, not seeming particrly convinced, before Eisen just turned and walked over to therge crates of fruit pulp. He turned to look at Millicent, "Mind helping me out a bit here?" "Huh? Are you sure?" She asked, and Eisen immediately nodded, "One of my doubles is going to set it up, but please make sure to press the juice out of the skinned grapes and the rock peaches. You just have to keep turning the wheel until you''re done." Before Millicent was able to say anything, she watched the ethereal copies of Eisen cover the boxes that they turned the fruit into pulp in with another contraption. It wasn''t anything much, it was just a t board that fit perfectly into these containers, together with a vice system to press the board down deeper into the container. What Millicent probably didn''t see was that there were some enchantments on the underside of the board to make the juice extraction more efficient, so it wasn''t a hard job. Eisen just figured getting her help might be useful for other means. As Millicent was turning the crank of the vice, he could see the grapes'' juices flow out through the faucet at the side of the container into the one that the juices would be fermented inter. As for the rest of the masses of fruit pulp, beside that of the peaches which would receive the same treatment as the skinned grapes, Eisen was currently mixing in some ground mana crystal powder. The ratio was slightly different for each fruit, but overall, they were all mixed with at least a 1:5 ratio of mana crystal powder to fruit pulp, up to a ratio of 1:3 at the most. It seemed like quite a lot, but Eisen knew he should just trust the recipe. Gordon probably knew what he was doing, so there was no need for Eisen to get cocky and adjust the recipe already. Once the pulp and crystal powder were mixed, Eisen was ready to move the pulp over into the containers that everything would end up fermenting in. For some of them, he already added a few different herbs and light spices as per the recipes, but before he knew it, he was already done. At this time, Millicent had finished pressing the juices out of the fruit, and Eisen could start with the initial fermentation with these as well. With these, he would again mix in some mana crystal powder after a short while before the fermentation would continue. "Alright," Eisen said with a smile on his face, looking at therge barrels filled with currently-fermenting alcohol that was rapdily bubbling away due to the help of Jyuuk''s unique element. "Are you boiling them?" Millicent asked curiously, since she was hearing nothing but the bubbling, but Eisen quickly shook his head with augh, "No, I''m not. They''re fermenting using magic. They''ll be done in a few hours already." "...They''ll be what?" Chapter 778: Wine Part 4

Chapter 778: Wine Part 4

Eisen watched as Millicent and Lucy went on her way, with that little girl excitedly waving at him as they turned around the corner. After exining the techniques that he was using to Millicent, Eisen had invited her toe backter so that she could have a taste. But for now, he had to do some other things. After cleaning up the workshop together with his doubles, Eisen started to change this ce into a different kind of setup, so that he could start ssblowing. After all, he didn''t only need the wine, but also bottles to put them into. And so, he quickly starteding up with a few ideas for designs to make the bottles stick out a bit more. For the flower wines, that decision was rather simple; he would use regr white ss in a normal wine-bottle shape, and then mould some flowers on the outside depending on what was used for the wine. And after he made that decision, the rest of the designs came quickly too. For the grape wines, he would create small bulbs on the outside of the bottle to make it look like the bottle was made of ss grapes, and for the iceberries, he would try to recreate the bush that these berries grew on, sprinkling some of the berries here and there. The Lemon wine''s bottle would simply be given the texture of a lemon, and he would add some small dots onto the outside of the bottle of the strawberry wine. Since a Rock Peach had skin that gave it a sort of rock-like texture at first nce, he could follow that sort of texture too. The only bottle that would be given a slightly different shape would be the bottles for the apple wine. He wanted to y around with it a bit and simply make the bottles in the shape of some apples. Since that was going to be mulled wine anyway, it was fine for the shape to be a little differentpared to the others. While he had figured out the designs, the doubles already got out all the materials that were needed. Silica, soda ash, limestone, as well as some mana crystals, on top of the different pigments he would use to dye the ss. Eisen snapped his fingers and spread his mana throughout the workshop. Since he was now working with high heat, he wanted to make sure that he could properly separate the section with the fermentation containers from the area with the kiln, since the fermentation process would be messed up if the temperature randomly went up and down rapidly. Of course, Eisen also quickly set up everything that he needed for the ssblowing with the help of his elemental mana, and was able to quickly get started. He mixed and melted the ingredients for the first batch of ss, and once that was done, simply gave the task of paying attention to the rest of the ss to one of his doubles, while he himself scooped out a handful of molten ss. Bai turned into a ssblowing pipe as the old man quickly got to work. With the help of alchemy, this process was ridiculously easy as well. He could simply use his mana to make a mold around the ss, using transmutation to hold the ss back. That way, he simply had to evenly blow into the pipe, and before he knew it, the ss had reached the shape of the bottle that he wanted. After cutting the ss off at the bottleneck, he quickly molded the bottleneck into the right shape, and already brought the bottle into the annealer. This process didn''t even take a couple of minutes, but he had to make quite a few bottles. Sure, he wouldn''t be selling everything here, or even close to it, but he still wanted to have at least a few dozen bottles for each of the types of wine that he was making. If he wanted to bottle everything right here, then he would need more than a thousand bottles per type of wine, so that wasn''t something that he had the time to do. But that was fine; he could just make more bottles as they traveled to the other n chiefs, and then spread more of the alcohol at each of their destinations. It should be enough to get people speaking about it, even if he might have to help a bit using his royal charisma. Even so, it was clear that Eisen couldn''t do this alone, so he was working in tandem with a few of his doubles. To make sure that they were working as precisely as they could, Eisen infused them with ''zing Core of the Mountain'' mana, which did generally help in improving their craftsmanship abilities a bit beyond what they already were. The doubles were generally quite precise, but it was still a littlecking to reach Eisen''s standards. However, it didn''t take long until they were able to finish the bottles for the first type of wine, and then the second and the third. Just a few hourster, they were done. It was exhausting and monotonous, but it was exciting work nheless. It was the kind that Eisen could get indulged in without any worries, and before he knew it, he was finished with what it was that he wanted to do, practically disappointing him. Since he had a body that didn''t mind this ring heat,bined with the fact that he could literally touch the hot, molten ss with his bare hands incredibly improved the efficiency of this work, and made it much more enjoyable. It meant that he didn''t have to be pulled out of it at all, which was more than just pleasant. It was also nice to be working alongside others, even if they were just his own doubles. Nheless, Eisen couldn''t continue this forever; he had to stop at some point. Soon, Eisen got up, and with a snap of his finger, the ssblowing workshop disappeared without a trace. He walked over to the fermentation pots and opened up the first one. He quickly got a scoop and pulled up some of the Golden Morningbellow wine, cing it against his lips. Immediately, Eisen felt his body be filled with a wave of heat, more than just from the alcohol that was in this wine. It was like he was wearing ayer of cozy wool. But even if it was already quite hot in here right now, the warmth didn''t be suffocating in any way. It was pleasant all the way through. This was the level of cold resistance that this wine gave to you, and it was nothing but delightful. With an excited expression, Eisen quickly moved the pot to the side and told the doubles to fill the wine into the aging barrels. This was the single step that still had to be done before he could finally bottle everything. He went around the other pots as well, and waspletely delighted with each and every one of them. The Robingrowth wine in particr was fun, even if seeing his skin turnpletely purple for a short while was pretty unnerving at first. The wines'' colors were all incredibly vibrant, and while the white yellow grape wine looked like normal white wine, it tasted quite different still. The regr yellow grape wine did look sort of poisonous considering how opaque it was, but it was still delicious. Although, the single wine that looked unfit for consumption was most certainly the ck Apple wine. It looked like Eisen had just mixed together a pot of ink. He was convinced that if he removed some of the water, it could probably be used for exactly that as well. But nheless, the wine had a strong taste of apple, and despite its color, it had a wonderful taste that reminded Eisen of the times that he made apple wine in the past. It was a sort of nostalgic vor to him. He couldn''t wait until this was fully ready to be turned into mulled wer. Eisen was convinced that this would be popr. Maybepleting Gordon''s quest was just an excuse to Eisen at this point, so that he had a reason to y around with a hobby that he wasn''t able to indulge in for a while. Whenever he made alcohol, he was trying out new recipes for whiskey that could be sold. And even if he was still nning on selling this, albeit for a rather cheap price, Eisen enjoyed this quest quite a lot. Chapter 779: Wine Part 5

Chapter 779: Wine Part 5

With a loud ''thud'', Eisen ced one of the wooden barrels down onto the ground. The fact that he was able to carry this alone was still something that he wasn''t perfectly used to; it was more than a metric ton, after all. But he liked feeling powerful in this world, so it wasn''t a bad feeling. As that though crossed through his mind, the old man just let out a slight sigh and quickly pressed the tap into the side of the barrel, before starting to fill the fast-aged wine into its bottles. After finishing filling up each bottle, he pressed a cork into the top and set them to the side. Usually, for wine bottles, he would seal them up further with something like wax around the bottleneck, but since these were going to be opened soon anyway, there was no need for him to do something like that. He could worry about that when he prepared the rest of the bottles throughout theing trip. While in the middle of this, he turned his head to the side, noticing that Millicent had finally returned. It seemed as though her curiosity got the better of her, since she came back sooner than she said she would. She looked at therge wooden barrels, and dozens of bottles that were set up right behind Eisen, being sorted into small crates by his ethereal doubles, "Are you seriously done already?" Eisen looked at her with a slight smile, "Are you still doubting me?" "Of course I am! There''s no way you could ferment and age wine so quickly... It''s a process known for taking time... it''s literally called aging!" Millicent pointed out with a face of disbelief, but Eisen just smiled at her a little, "Don''t worry, I get it. But you know, there''s magic in this world that can turn a small seed into a tree with roots that can spread throughout a city, so why wouldn''t there be magic that can speed up things like fermentation and aging?" "...That..." Millicent slowly averted her gaze. She didn''t have an answer to that. But Eisen simply smiled and got up from his squatting position in front of the barrel. He walked over to one of the nearby cabs, grabbing a small ss cup. He went over to the barrel holding the white yellow grape wine; the one that Millicent pressed herself earlier. The old man poured some of the wine into the cup using the tap, and quickly handed it over to the woman next to him, "Here, give it a try." A bit uncertain of whether or not she really should, she grabbed the cup. She drank a suspicious potion earlier without worry, so why would she hesitate drinking something like this wine now? Slowly, she ced her lips against the cup, and the smell of wine quickly entered her nose. Surprised that she was even smelling alcohol in the first ce, she quickly drank it, and then looked at Eisenpletely perplexed, "But- How did you-" With a chuckle, Eisen returned to filling up the bottles with wine, "I told you. My friend''s magic is really quite useful. Are you still doubting me?" "...No, not anymore... I don''t think so, at least." Millicent pointed out. She tasted the wine, she knew how good it was, "Are you going to start selling this here?" She asked nervously, and Eisen smiled. "Just for today, but yes." "Just for today? What do you mean?" "I''m a traveler. I can''t stay here for too long," he exined, ncing down to the side, at the system''s clock. In this world, in this ce, it was around 7pm right now. The others should arrive here in about five or six hours, "Rather, I''ll have to close up pretty soon. It''s regrettable, but it is how it is." Millicent looked at all those bottles of wine, surprised, "So you''ll sell this wine tonight, and never again? Isn''t that a little unfair?" "...Why would it be? Did you take such a liking to it?" Eisen asked with a grin, but he soon stopped when he saw Millicent''s expression, "You came here, and made nine barrels of different types of wine I have never even heard of before in a single day, which tastes better than anything I''ve made in years, and then just leave?" The old man stopped for a moment. He hadn''t really thought about it like that. It was true that this was something that would just end up troubling the people that were working here. At the end of the day, that was something that might happen to anyone while he was staying in certain cities for a while. It sounded cocky and as if he was full of himself, but was just a fact that most people simply couldn''tpare to the products that Eisen was capable of making. Neither their skill or speed, or even the stats or abilities connected to the items they made could reallypare to Eisen''s. And that gap would simply to grow. That wasn''t just the case here, but on earth as well. He used to go to a lot of conventions and meetups, but at some point people startedining that he was trying to show them up, or was just there to brag. Which of course, wasn''t the case, but it wasn''t Eisen''s fault either. Just because others weren''t able to match up to him didn''t mean that he had to lower his own standards just to make them feel good. "That''s exactly what''s happening. So?" Eisen replied to Millicent, trying to be as blunt as he could be. But Millicent was just stunned for a few moments as Eisen let out a deep sigh and walked up to her, "The world''s unfair. You know that... I know that. That''s just how it is. Just because I''m doing something you think you can''t doesn''t make it my fault." "...And then what am I supposed to do?" Millicent asked, biting her lip as if trying to hold back her anger. Eisen walked over to the table near him, opening the book that was justying there. He grabbed a pen out of his storage space, and tapped one of the pages with the wrong end of the pen, before cing the pen onto a nk piece of paper. Before he knew it, the pen started moving on its own, copying down the page in question. It was as if the pen had turned into a printer of sorts, copying the page down to the most minute detail. It was done within a few moments, and Eisen gave the page to to Millicent. "This is a recipe from the book I''ve been entrusted with. It uses a flower that grows in tall mountains like these. At least, I saw some of them on my way here. You should be able to find some on your own, or hire someone else that can find them. There''s plenty of alchemists in this city too, so either ask them to coborate with you, or learn some basics from them. You should be able to do it as long as you reach rank 2... no, since you most likely have a decent brewery skill rank, probably already when you reach rank 1 in the alchemy skill," Eisen exined, before quickly returning back to his work filling up bottles. Millicent looked at the page with a confused expression, "What are you talking about?" "That''s your payment for helping me press the juice out of the grapes and peaches earlier." "This... are you sure you should give this to me?" Eisen turned his head toward her with a raised brow, "First youin that I''m selling things you can''t make, and now I''m giving you a chance to make and sell something that even I haven''t made yet, and you stillin?" Millicent looked down at the piece of paper in her hands, clutching it so tight that it seemed the paper might rip soon. Not that it would be able to; this was the paper that Eisen used for most of his books. It wasn''t something easy to rip or even cut through with most knives. The old man''s frown quickly turned into a smile, "Seriously, go ahead and make it. I want to spread those recipes throughout this world. You''re actually doing me a favor my making this a local speciality item." A light smile slowly formed on Millicent''s face, "...Thank you..." Chapter 780: Wine Part 6

Chapter 780: Wine Part 6

Eisen twisted they key within the lock, and watched as the temporary workshop slowly but surely copsed in on itself, as the walls folded down onto each other. Before he knew it, only the door was left, and a momentter, Eisen was holding only that metal nail in his hand that this workshop started out as. With a smile, he pushed his hand against the wall, opening a small window into his storage space so that he could ce this portable building back into its shelf. Behind him, Millicent had a perplexed expression on her face. The only trace that was left of the workshop now was the small hole that therge nail had been pushed into, but nobody would ever be able to guess that someone had set up a building here for a day. "Then let''s go, we need to get started," the old man said, "If we''re not careful, we''ll be interrupted in the middle when mypanions reach this city." "Wouldn''t they understand that you want to keep selling the rest of the wine?" She asked, trying to quickly catch up to the old man''s stride. Eisen simply chuckled, "I could probably convince them, but there are reasons why I can''t afford to spend longer than that here. I''m technically on a pretty tight schedule, I just forced a little bit of freetime into it." "Oh..." Millicent replied as the two of them reached the main street, "Where did you want to sell your wines?" "Hm... What''s thergest pub in this city?" With a slightly awkward expression, Millicent looked into therge open space that was the ravine splitting this city in half. This ce where the regrly-sized people lived was built slightly above where the giants built their houses, either that or inbetween some of therger buildings. The two sides were connected by huge bridges with enough buildings to be called a town on them. "It''s basically right on the other side... It''s going to take us an hour, maybe two to get there," she exined, "If you''re in a rush, we should probably just find a pub on this side instead. They''re all a lot smaller, but still... it should be fine, right?" Eisen raised a brow, as he stood at the edge of the road, looking over the wall that was built to stop people from identally walking off the edge into the ravine, "Hm, where exactly is it? Can you see it from here?" he asked, and Millicent stepped up next to him. She squinted her eyes, and soon pointed into the distance, "Right there, it sticks out a bitpared to the others. It''s the one with the bright red pirs." "Oh, so it''s really directly on the other side? That''s fortunate," the old man pointed out with a smile, slowly stepping into the wall, already increasing his size ever so slightly. Before Millicent was able to notice what exactly was going on, Eisen had already grabbed her using his magic, cing her into what was basically a protective coon so that her body could handle what was about to happen. Eisen partially transformed into into his demonic form, putting strength into his legs and creatingrge wings on his back. With as much force as he could without destroying the wall he stood on right now, he jumped forward. Once he roughly reached the halfway point of the street''s width, he rapidly increased his size, and jumped up in his giant form for just an instant, before quickly shrinking down again. He stopped his movement with his wings before carefullynding on the other side. Luckily he managed to pass through the crowd of giants without anyone really noticing him more than just from their peripheral, because Eisen was convinced that what he just did looked rather silly from an outside perspective. However, it was worth it, since the two of them reached the other side of the street within just ten seconds, instead of the two hours that Millicent said it might take. The coon with Millicent inside of itgged behind just a little bit so that the force of eleration didn''t affect her as much, but she arrived just as quickly as Eisen did, in the end. "What just... You were a giant?" Millicent asked with a confused expression, and Eisen just smiled, "Half, but yes. My mother was a Dwarf, so this is my ''base'' size." "A-Ah... I see..." Millicent replied, her face still pale from that unexpected, speedy trip. But soon, she looked in front of herself, seeing the bright red pirs of this giant tavern. Without a moment''s hestitation, Eisen approached therge doors, finding himself inside a momentter. To his surprise, it seemed as though this wasn''t just a pub for regrly-sized people, but instead, this was abined pub for them and giants. There was a pub for the giants built right underneath this one. It was a smaller, cozy ce when seen from their perspective, the kind that Eisen would usually enjoy spending his evenings in back in the day. But right above them, with a clear view of the giants'' pub, this really quiterge tavern was constructed. Everything was pretty high-quality, and not to mention, it was absolutely bustling. "By the way, I''m not sure if you''ll be able to sell your wines here..." Millicent pointed out, quickly following behind Eisen, "This ce looks like they wouldn''t enjoy other people selling things here without their permission." "Well, of course they wouldn''t. I''ll be getting their permission, of course." Millicent looked at him, a bit unsure, "Really? Do you think that''s going to work? You''re not even from here, right?" Eisen looked at her and simply winked, "Don''t worry about it, I''ll figure it out," he said, approaching the main bar with a broad smile on his face. The barkeep nced at Eisen for a moment, and quickly smiled, "What can I do for ya?" "Give me some beer, your rmendation," Eisen replied, and before he knew it, he had a mug of beer in front of him, "There you go, it''s our best dark stuff. Anything else?" "Actually, I''d like to see if I could sell a few things here, a couple of wines. Just for tonight, of course," the old man said matter-of-factly. The barkeep raised his brow, "You a brewer? If you want us to stock some of your wares, thene back tomorrow before we open." "No, no, I want to basically set up a separate stall in here and sell the wine from there." "...Do you even know what you''re asking right now?" "Of course I do, and don''t think I''m joking either," Eisen said bluntly, shing his golden eyes to him, "We''re just going to do it this way, alright? I will pay you for this beer, and you keep the change. After that, you make sure that nobody bothers us while we''re selling the wine. Say that this was something that the owner of this ce forgot to tell you about." The barkeep looked at Eisen''s hand as it covered a few coins, "A few coins aren''t going to solve this. We have a procedure for these..." Eisen raised his hand, showing the tinum coins that he had covered up. Him and the barkeep locked eyes for a few moments, as Eisen did everything he could to influence the barkeep with his charisma. "...Just don''t do anything sketchy," the barkeep said, "If anything happens, I''ve never spoken to you before." "Attaboy," the old man replied with a quick wink, before turning back around with the beer in his hand. Eisen approached Millicent, who had waited a few steps away,pletely unable to hear the conversation, "They gave us the go-ahead. I can be pretty convincing," Eisen pointed out, already looking around for a good ce to set everything up. Millicent followed him, a bit surprised, and wondering how he managed to do something like that. In the end, bribery is still one of the easier ways of getting things done. And since Eisen wasn''t doing this to make money right now, but to spread Gordon''s creations, he didn''t care about losing a bit of money on this either. Though, it was clear that the barkeep was suspecting that Eisen was up to something sketchy; after all, why would someone pay so much money just to get the opportunity to sell something to others? He was sure that he would feel the eyes of the barkeep on him all night, though there wasn''t a need to worry. Eisen suspected that he would be done selling everything pretty soon anyway. Chapter 781: The Bralfam Part 1

Chapter 781: The Bralfam Part 1

Eisen looked around the room with a broad smile stered on his face. The sale of the wines went even better than he thought initially. It seemed as though the people here were surprisingly curious about what these wines were. Maybe it was because they simply didn''t drink a lot of different wines here, at least that was the first idea that came up in the old man''s mind. At some point, a rtivelyrge group gathered around the stall, and Eisen gave them some small samples. One of them being the Robingrowth wine, which quickly resulted in the skin of one of the group members turning purple. Since Eisen reassured them that everything was fine by taking a sip of it as well,ughter quickly broke out and the whole group bought some of this wine just to have some fun. Of course, thisughter followed by a group of bright purple people walking managed to attract others'' attention pretty easily. Not everyone was as keen on dyeing themselves another color for a few hours, so they instead opted for some of the other wines. Surprisingly, especially the mulled apple wine was pretty popr. Since it was mulled wine and had to be kept warm, Eisen had arge pot that he was keeping it in for now, so the smell was spreading pretty well, but the fact that it was deep ck and opaque was something that he assumed would turn people off from trying this. However, after the first person gave it a try, others followed soon after. It only took a few hours until they were nearly sold out. Eisen was actually about to walk around a bit and invite people to have some, but before he was able to do so, he nced down the railings into the giants'' pub down below, since it was seemingly attracting quite some attention right now as well. When he looked, he was quickly met with a wooden face. "What''s that?" Millicent asked a little confused. It was clear that it wasn''t a normal giant, but Eisen was sure that nobody''s first thought would be that it was a giant wooden golem. "Our signal to close up shop," the old man pointed out, starting to ce the rest of the wine he had into his storage space, quickly cleaning the stall that he had set up a few moments earlier. Millicent looked at Eisen a bit nervously, and the barkeep that had allowed him to sell everything here was getting nervous, seeing that the man that bribed him with some tinum coins was trying to hurry away at the sight of that wooden. But soon, a slight buzzing sound filled the air, as a dense cloud of something was shooting up from below. Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose with a slight sigh, as he watched the storm of bees enter the pub. Immediately, everyone with any sort of battle instinct jumped up from their seats, readying their weapons, as the bees all shot right at Eisen,pletely covering him from head to toe. "E-Eisen!" Millicent eximed, stretching her hand forward in an attempt to help him out, but in the end deciding that she wouldn''t be able to do anything anyway. "Right, right, I missed you too, but it''s only been a little more than a day. Does that really warrant this sort of entrance?" the old man asked with a slightugh, as the bees slowly seemed to disappear, crawling underneath the oversized clothes of the young girl that Eisen was now carrying in his arms. The girl simply looked up at him and rapidly nodded her head. It didn''t take long until two other children appeared, as if simply flying out of the space below, holding onto one another. They were older than the first, but still quite young. "Eisen!" Caria eximed excitedly, jumping up at the old man''s shoulder and holding herself up on him as if he was made to be climbed. The boy that was next to her also seemed happy to be here now, "How was the trip, you three?" "Good, just a bit boring," Sal pointed out bluntly, as he waved his hand around to pull the threads he used to get himself and Caria up here back toward him. Before long, the hand of the wooden giant appeared at the railings, holding up a draconic man with scales that seemed as though they were made of ss. He jumped up into the pub and approached Eisen with a nervous expression, "I apologize, grandfather. They said they could feel you around here, and I wasn''t able to stop them before they acted." "Don''t worry about it, it just became a little noisy," the old man said, quickly looking at the crowd that had formed around them, "Sorry about that, you all. It''s just my family here to pick me up." Slowly, it seemed the curious people started to move back to their tables, even if they were still keeping their eyes on them the whole time. Kiron slowly looked around, ncing at Millicent. He could quickly tell that she wasn''t a threat, "It is a pleasure to meet you. I hope my grandfather didn''t cause you any trouble while he was here." "Hahaha, trouble? What sort of trouble would I cause here?" Eisen asked with a loudugh, and Kiron quickly nced around the room, spotting the number of people with a purple hue to their skin, even though that most likely wasn''t their normal skin color. He looked back at Eisen and didn''t really know how to reply, but Millicent still seemed confused. "Grandfather? But... you''re a..." Millicent pointed out, looking Kiron up and down, "I''m a half-dragon, indeed." "Your child... with a dragon..?" "No actually, my child with a human," Eisen replied bluntly as he slowly let down Caria and Melissa onto the ground, properly greeting Sal with a rub through his hair. He would hug him as well, but Sal would probably be a bit ufortable with that in front of so many people. Millicent wasn''t able to properly follow along. The only thing she knew was that Eisen wasn''t normal, by any means, "Who are you..?" Eisen smiled at Millicent as he approached the railing, climbing onto therge wooden hand that was still held there by Askr, "I''ll exin a bit more in a second, but to sum it up... I''m Eisen." "Your name, but that''s just..." "No, Millicent," the old man replied, saying the rest in a voice loud enough for others to hear as well, "I''m Eisen." --- Askr walked into therge building carved into one of the ravine-walls, and was guided through the halls by one of the guards. Before long, they climbed up a set of stairs that brought them high above the city, to a tform overseeing the whole city. It was a balcony built between the two walls of the ravine, and the one sitting on it was the Bralfam, the chieftain of the Stone Giant n. After cing the tform with Eisen and the others onto the ground, Eisen quickly increased his size to his maximum once more. He was wearing his suit, instead of his armor. Wearing his full armor simply didn''t fit this sort of conversation perfectly all the time, but it was still much better than just showing up here in the clothes he wore during his work. The old man stood in front of the Bralfam, who simply looked him up and down, "So you''re the man iming to be Eisen?" he asked with a doubtful expression. Eisen simply smiled down at him, even though he was a little bothered that he just kept sitting. Although, this situation was clearly meant to be a bit more casual than normal. After all, despite overlooking the city, this ce wasn''t anything like a throne room, or anything else of particr importance; it was just a balcony that the Bralfam was casually sitting on as he was reading. "I''m not only iming to be him, I am him," Eisen replied bluntly, and the Bralfam raised a brow curiously. He pushed the chair across from him away from the table, and motioned toward it, "Have a seat." Quickly, Eisen obliged, tucking away his demonic wings since the back of the chair was rather high. The Bralfam looked at Eisen for a few moments, before closing his eyes, "Well, it matters not. Wether you truly are who you im to be or not, you are still a king of another country, are you not? So tell me, why are you here?" Chapter 782: The Bralfam Part 2

Chapter 782: The Bralfam Part 2

The Bralfam was different to many of the other n chiefs, that much was clear from the first moment that Eisen met him. He had expected to be doubted by most of them, and someone like the Cloud Giant chieftain that simply believed him would most likely not appear again either. But the Bralfam was able to ignore his own doubts, and realized that if a king visited, then it had to be a serious situation. Generally, if it was anyone beside Eisen, then the Grandour''s reaction would have led to a war pretty quickly. d that the Bralfam was so open to listen to him, he started to exin, "You heard of the Artificial people created in the central continent?" "I have indeed. Though I wasn''t sure whether to believe this or not. Absolute control over life ¨C that is something that not even the great Jyuuk achieved in his entire lifetime, so it''s ludicrous to imagine for this to change suddenly," the Bralfam pointed out, but Eisen just returned a smile, "Believe it or not, but the five of us are actually involved in this." "The five of you? Ah, so this is rted to your ims, after all? I apologize, but while I am trying to be respectful, it is still hard for me to believe you so quickly..." as if he was actually and genuinely sorry for not being ale to believe in Eisen''s words, the Bralfam put down the cup that he was drinking from. "Don''t worry, your approach to this still makes a lot of sense. I can''t really me anyone for not believing me right away either, it is a rather ridiculous im, after all," Eisen pointed out with a smile, still d that he was able to have a civilized exchange about this sort of thing instead of having to immediately prove himself somehow, "In that case, just listen to me and my exnation for now. It''s not like you need to believe in me right away; as long as you''re on our side during the council meeting, that''s all that matters. And by then, I''ll have prepared enough proof to assure you that I am who I am. Until then, simply think about what I tell you, and what it would mean if I am indeed telling the truth." The Bralfam considered Eisen''s words carefully, slowly nodding his head after a few moments, "Let''s try it that way. Then please, tell me." Eisen smiled and crossed his legs, "In the heavens, there exists a man that found himself above the gods, as though he is their ruler. He''s called the ''Administrator''," the old man started, and then continued to tell the Bralfam about Samuel and the control that he had not only over the gods, but over all the beings in this world. Of course, he also focused on the fact that Samuel was able to possess certain beings of this world, mostly without any hindrance. "He can simply take over one''s body? If that''s the case, why isn''t he taking over yours?" the Bralfam asked; it was a logical question toe up, but sadly, Eisen didn''t really have an answer for that, "My only guess is that... there are certain rules that prevent him from doing so, even if I obviously don''t really know the specifics. Any magic has its limitations and strengths." "That¡­ does make sense," with a deep sigh, the Bralfam leaned back in his seat. Until now, Eisen hadn''t really given him any reason to believe what he was saying; rather, it all sounded like the rambling of a senile old man. Sure, the Bralfam had lived long enough to know that there were certain things in this world that were hard, if not nigh impossible, to exin. But that didn''t mean that he believed in anything and everything that he was told. The only reason why he was even considering any of this as a potential truth was because this man in front of him was a king; and the king of the country that the five that peaked had led in the past at that. "I can see that you''re doubtful, so again, just keep this all in mind in the future," Eisen told the Bralfam once more, but the Giant chieftain slowly dove into contemtion for a few moments, before finally speaking again, "This Administrator... I assume that he doesn''t just do these things for fun." A little surprised that the Bralfam was taking this information in with such a serious mindset, Eisen nodded, "You''re right, he doesn''t. Basically... the ''Experience'' that us five that peaked had umted throughout our lifetimes has been taken from us, and was used to create the Artificials. These Artificials are people who treat this world as a game... and the Administrator is trying to make sure they have fun ying it." The Bralfam''s calm expression from before, although it may not have changed much, suddenly seemed much more tense. The metal cup in the Bralfam''s hand was beginning to let out cries as it bent under the pressure of the enraged giant''s grasp, "The Administrator is possessing people to turn this world into one that is entertaining to those things?" "...That''s right. And one of the things that he is trying to cause is-" "That damned war. Nobody truly wanted it ¨C until not too long ago, it seemed as though the countries of the central continent did not either, but then, as if out of nowhere, things changed. Trading routes dried up, the borders closed... but even then, their people came and and attacked ours... The officials denied it, of course, saying that bandits fled their countries toe to ours, but I simply never believed that..." Eisen watched as the air around the Bralfam continued to change, growing more tense by the second. It was as if the wind itself was turning to stone the moment it touched the giant''s body. However, Eisen was confused, "I''m surprised... what made you suddenly believe me after all?" "I always assumed that there was foul y involved. While your story may sound impossible at first, it fills in many gaps," the Bralfam exined, before locking eyes with Eisen, "Though, you must be aware that I am only speaking of the fact that an outward force manipted the countries of the central continent into starting a war. It does not mean that I believe you to be the who you im." Slightly disappointed, even if he hadn''t expected much to begin with, Eisen smiled, "That''s more than I had hoped for. Either way, you don''t seem to want this war ¨C neither does Asgard. At theing council meeting, I will propose a cooperative rtionship between us. Effectively, this only means a trading treaty, and if ites to a war between the giant country and the countries of the central continent after all, Asgard will stand by your side. It''s nothing negative for this country in the slightest." The Bralfam looked at Eisen with a suspicious nce, "And what do you want in return for this treaty?" "Hm?" Eisen raised his brow, "Sorry, there was a misunderstanding, just with this, Asgard gains a lot. You''re not trading with the central continent anymore, so with that trading treaty, we would gain a monopoly on goods from the giant country. Furthermore... Asgard is directly inbetween this country and the central continent. We''d be dragged into this war one way or another; standing by your side in case ites down to it is obviously only favorable." "...Your proposal won''t just stop there, I assume. If nothing changes, then this war will happen, though I doubt you want this." "...With us by your side, this country will be the clear winner in this war. Not just because of the prowess of our own military, but because we can considerably change the opinions of the artificials if we want to. Plenty of them will end up joining this side as well. Winning this war would change plenty of problems ¨C it would allow us to take control of certain political sectors of the central continent, in one way or another. More importantly, it would piss off the Administrator more than anything," Eisen pointed out, looking to the side over toward the town, "However, war is the worst oue in the first ce. The ones that will suffer will be the people ¨C the artificials can''t die, they''ll simply enjoy it. But the people of this world will die, and be lost forever. Especially... because Giants are, by the rules of this world... ''Monsters''." "...We are different from beasts in the wild. On the battlefield, this won''t make a difference." "You say that, but from the view of the Artificials, killing a Giant may as well be one of the greatest achievements possible, just after ying a dragon." Chapter 783: The Bralfam Part 3

Chapter 783: The Bralfam Part 3

"Killing Giants and ying Dragons, that is the sort of thing that artificials put as their goals?!" The Bralfam''s mountainous voice poured out of his throat, in disbelief and anger. Eisen slowly nodded in response, "Of course. As they live here, Artificials tend to have grandiose goals. Mostly rted to fame, fortune and power; basically, the shier, the better. And there''s little that can be called as grand as Dragons and Giants." "All... all Artificials live like that..?" "Nearly all. There''s some exceptions, of course. The kind that simply want to travel the world and see new sights. Meet new people, eat good food. But I''m sad to say that those seem to be pretty rare. But that''s not even the worst part... you know it as well, but most people dream the same things as Artificials do. Even you must have at one point dreamt to surpass the rank limit ced on giants by the gods," the old man crossed his legs. It was his own fault that giants couldn''t surpass those limits; he had done something that Samuel didn''t like, and then all Giants were punished for it. And especially after seeing the Bralfam''s expression right now, Eisen couldn''t help but feel iparable regret for an action he didn''t even remember. The chieftain closed his eyes, "Of course. It is something all giants that reach this rank dream of. But such is the limit bestowed upon us. Ours may be stricter, but all beings have limits, there is a reason why the man you im to be is such a special individual." "...That''s exactly it. Artificials don''t have those limits." The Bralfam''s reaction came slow this time. Sure, he had heard Eisen''s words, but they didn''t fully register. It was such a ridiculous idea that he second-guessed if he heard right, even once he figured out what exactly was said. The implications of such a fact paralyzed the Bralfam''s body, and his already gray face went pale out of shock. The goal of the artificials was to kill the giants... and if they had no limit to their growth, then this was only a matter of time, "But... how... how could..?" "...This... thing we know as ''Experience'' is a force that can affect thews of reality. It can give you unimaginable power, and abilities that should be impossible to possess. That kind of force is not something the physical world can ept easily, so there are natural limits to how much ''Experience'' can be epted, usually that is. But what if we''re talking about beings created through this ''Experience''? Born from the umtion of this force of beings with such a ridiculous amount of it that it''sughable? Beings who... parallel the gods?" Eisen asked. He knew that it was the truth, butparing himself to the gods was always a weird feeling. Though technically, he wasparing his past self to the gods, not his current self. If the Bralfam''s face was merely pale before, now he could probably hide in snow without being found so easily. "You are saying... that artificials not onlyck a limit, but they can grow more than others...?" "...I have only started this new journey less than half a year ago, starting anew at level 1 as an old man. My current level is 323." The Bralfam held his hand in front of his mouth, as if he was trying to hide his shock, or maybe even his fear and confusion, as he stood up from his seat and turned away, "I... I would like to ask for you to leave... do not worry, I will stand by your side when the timees. I simply need to... I need to spend some time thinking." Eisen stood up as well, "I''m sorry for burdening you with all this." "No. No, it is... it is appreciated. It is simply a hard thing to be told and not be shaken even a little." "I see. Then I will meet you again at the council meeting." --- Quietly, Eisen sat in the corner of the Dungeon''s bar area, drinking some of the wine that he had made during his stay with the Stone Giant n. He knew for a fact that he had done nothing wrong, and everyone had praised the wine the moment it touched their lips, but Eisen could taste nothing but bitterness right now. Sal, Caria and Melissa were asleep inside of Eisen''s private room, and even Kirisho chose to give him some space to think for himself, taking her pendant with her as she spent the evening with the kids. Eisen was pretty sure he was the only one that was still awake, except for Sigurd, of course, but Sigurd was preupied with other matters, so he wasn''t paying much attention to what was going on right here, by Eisen''s request. The old man heard some steps approaching, and he looked across the room, seeing Kiron''s scales glimmer in the light of the dimly glowing candles, "You should try to get some sleep." "...I require little sleep, generally," the half-dragon replied, standing there for a few more moments in an awkward silence, before finally beginning to turn away, "I shall leave you be, Grandfather..." "No... Come, it''s fine," Eisen said as a slight smile formed on his lips. He grabbed the bottle and ss stood in front of him, and ced them away into his storage space, grabbing a different bottle with two crystal clear sses. As Kiron sat down, Eisen poured some whiskey into the sses, slowly cing one in front of the dragon, "I... have not engaged in..." "I won''t force you if you don''t want to. Just hold onto the ss if you want to, it''s not about the act of drinking itself anyway," the old man pointed out with a slight chuckle, and Kiron quietly nodded as he wrapped his hands around the ss. The two of them sat there for a while in silence, Eisen sipping on his alcohol while Kiron tried to find a chance to say what he wanted to. But before he could bring himself to do so, Eisen did instead, "Do you know why we are here?" "Huh...? To gather the Giant Chieftains in one ce, to protect them against the central continent?" Kiron asked, confused over what Eisen was asking, but the old man simply shook his head. "No. Narcissism. Some years ago, in the other world, not this one, I received a call from an old friend. He, and some others in our former circle, had been called to ask some questions about different disciplines of craftsmanship. They all referred me to their caller, and soon I spoke to him as well. He had a silver tongue, really. I invited him into my home, spent weeks over weeks, months even, teaching him and other employees he would bring along every once in a while all that he needed to know to develop that game of his. All because he kept telling me how impressed he was; how great he found my work. He reminded me of my sons when they were a little younger. None of my children showed any interest in my work, and I was fine with that, but it still felt nice to have someone praise me. It was a wonderful feeling, though I had already spent decades basking in the praises of the world of craftsmanship. A few yearster, I fell sick, and chose to escape into a world I hadn''t yet known, a world I was trapped in for millennia because I fell for those silver words. And now, we are on a grand journey to save both of these worlds. I don''t even recognize my own speech anymore, it''s be so... uselessly eloquent," Eisen chuckled slightly. With a concerned tone underlying his voice, Kiron looked at his grandfather, "Do you regret your choice toe here?" Eisen immediately knew what it was what Kiron was truly asking, and he hesitated for not even a moment, "...No. I do not regret doing what I have done. Without my actions, you would not be here, nor would many of my friends and ones I would consider family. I love you dearly, Kiron, and nothing will ever change that. Nheless... my actions have also led to so much suffering. You must have seen the Bralfam''s face, just at the thought of beings like the artificials existing, he nearly passed out. I was the one that was tasked with creating new life, I was the one that created them. I may as well have killed those living in this world with my own two hands at this rate." The half-dragon looked down at the ss in his hands, and slowly led the ss to his lips. He took arge sip of the whiskey, not even flinching in the slightest. Eisen frowned concerned, "You don''t have to do that, you know?" "Yes... but I wish to," Kiron replied, "Grandfather, I do not quite understand how these matters work in the other world, but it sounds as though you were not the only choice they could have made." "...What do you mean?" "You said they called for your friends first, other craftsmen. You must have been their favorite candidate, but if you had declined to help them, then someone... lesspetent than you would have taken your ce. Are you not d that it was you, and not some mere fool?" Eisen looked at the half-dragon in front of him and thought for just a moment, a light smile forming on his lips, "As I said, I don''t regret the choices I have made, simply that there was not as much at stake. I would much rather share a drink with my grandchildren without having to worry for their lives." Chapter 784: Nomad Giants

Chapter 784: Nomad Giants

Eisen flew through the air, making sure to keep an eye out on the surroundings in search for theirst stop before heading to the giant country''s capital. You would think that the town that a giant chieftain lived in would be easy to find, but these giants were a rare exception. Long ago, they were called the ins Giant n, but for the past few thousand years, they have lived by the name of ''Nomad Giants''. It was a much better fitting name, since they weren''t necessarily restricted to the ins anymore. As their name suggests, they were a n of giants that traveled near constantly, they didn''t even have their own assigned territory. Rather, they worked in a cooperative rtionship with all ns, except the cloud giants of course, and were allowed to temporarily settle wherever they wished, so long as they abided by the rules of the chieftain whose territory they were in. They were also the smallest, but most diverse n. They epted anyone that wished to join them into their family, supporting them as if they had spent their whole lives together. And if that person wished to leave, they could do so, still being regarded as family no matter where they went. While Eisen was searching for information on where they could be found right now, he heard a lot of people call them naive or stupid, but Eisen actually quite admired the way they lived. It was a sort of freedom that was hard toe by when speaking of groups thisrge. However, even if all of this already made them stick out amongst the others, the thing that truly set apart Nomad Giants was the simple fact that they didn''t live as Giants. Unless they were in towns built specifically for giants, or if they were facing a beast that they couldn''t fight otherwise, they spent all of their time shrunken down to the size of a regr person. Many giants, especially those of the more prideful ns, often took this to mean that they disregarded their giant blood, but that wasn''t the case at all. Rather, they simply epted their blood that wasn''t that of a giant. Only a small fraction of giants living with the Nomad n were actually pure blooded giants; and another fraction of that was made up of those with the blood of the original ins Giants. Of course, the chieftain was one of them. "There they are," Eisen muttered, finally spotting their location. He quickly turned around and flew back over to Askr, who was waiting a good distance away, at the edge of the area where Eisen was told he could find the nomadic giants. He stopped in front of fafnir''s dungeon entrance and dropped inside, quickly letting Askr know where he had to go. The wooden golem started walking toward the nomadic giants, as Eisen looked around. Everyone was already preparing to meet with the next giants, preparing their weapons and armors, not forbat but for appearance of course, or making sure they were wearing more formal clothing instead of the things they usually wore. Eisen as well quickly changed into something else, though he doubted the Nomad Giants would really care no matter what they wore. However, before long, they found themselves near the nomadic settlement. And while they were preparing to step out, two people approached. They were giants, or at least, they had enough giant blood in them to learn the skill to change their size, even if they didn''t seem to be able to reach the full size. "Hey, bud, you can''te into the vige like that. Gotta shrink down," one of them exined quickly, as the other looked Askr up and down, "Is that like an armor? Or is that like... you know?" "Dude, you can''t ask something like that, you know how rude that is!" "What, you''re just as curious as me! He doesn''t look anything like the others, right?" the two giants started bickering a bit, before taking notice of the door that opened up in Askr''s chest all of a sudden. They took a confused step back, as Eisen quickly took a step out. Before dropping too far, he quickly increased his size to full, albeit only what he could do without transforming. He was actually still a bit taller than these two, surprisingly. He was a half-dwarf, so he expected his growth-ability to be a bit lower than that of others, but the more time he spent here in the giant country and the more halflings he met, the more that was disproven. "He''s not an Ascended Giant, no. Askr is a golem built by me," Eisen exined to the two young giants, who looked past him at the wooden golem, who slowly nodded his head, to confirm what Eisen just said. "Wow, that''s some craftsmanship right there... What are you, a Stone Giant? Fire?" "I''m part of the Fire n, yes. My mother was a Dwarf, though," the old man quickly exined with augh, happy with their genuine curiosity, "Ooh, a dwarf and a fire giant? No wonder you''re that skilled, isn''t that what Eisen is as well?" "Haha, right, but you can''t reallypare to him, can you? Must''ve been quite some pressure, sharing something like that with a Peaked being," the two friendsughed, and Eisen chuckled as he stroked his beard lightly, "Well, I share quite a bit more with him than that. Like... my parents, for example?" The two giantsughed for a moment, before really realizing what it was that Eisen said. They thought he was joking along with the whole ancestry thing as well, but if that was the case, then he sure worded it quite weirdly, "What do you...?" Eisen looked at the two of them, cing his hands behind his back and walking forward with a slight chuckle, Askr quickly following him, "No matter that. I''m guessing you two are something like guards?" "Something like that. More like... scouts, hunters, that sorta thing," one of the giants pointed out, "I''m Tari, that''s my brother, Hari." "Tari and Hari, huh? It''s a pleasure to meet you," Eisen said, rather surprised to hear this. Sure, they did share some simrities, but they didn''t particrly look like siblings, "I''m Eisen de Grandour. I''m here to visit your chieftain," he exined. With a scoff, Hari looked at the old man, "Your parents really did set you up for failure with that name, huh?" "They weren''t the type to have a child just to try and create a second Eisen, right...?" Tari asked with a concerned expression. Eisen raised his brow, "That happens? No, no, that wasn''t the case with me. My parents were truly andpletely in love," that was, at least to his knowledge. From the few memories he had of his parents in this world together, it seemed to be the case at least. "But... de Grandour? You''re part of the fire n chief''s lineage?" "That I am," Eisen exined, as the three of them stopped in front of the entrance to the settlement. The old man turned toward Askr, and without even having to say anything to him, the golem knelt on the ground, as a stairway created by Eisen formed, bridging the entrance of the dungeon and the ground. One by one, Eisen''s soldiers andpanions stepped out of the dungeon, and Tari and Hari quickly became on edge. They thought, at first, that Askr''s chest was simply hollow, but there were far too many people in there for that to be the exnation. "We are ready, Grandfather," Kiron quickly told Eisen, and the old man quickly shrunk down, "Perfect. Tell the others to set up camp, and once you are done, please let Sigurd know. This is the perfect ce to let Fafnir run around a bit." "Yes," the half-dragon replied quickly, passing on the message immediately. By now, Eisen had shrunken down, but Tari and Hari were still erged, as if they were trying to defend the settlement, "Hey now, calm it down, this is totally normal. Did you expect for a King toe herepletely alone?" "King?" Tari and Hari parroted out at the same time, as Eisen smiled at them. His stature grew once more, but this time, not through his giant-abilities, but because he was transforming into his True Demonic form, "Yes, Eisen de Grandour, son of the Fire n''s first Chieftain, King of Asgard, and the first person to reach the peak in this world." Chapter 785: 9 Days

Chapter 785: 9 Days

Tari weaved through the crowd in front of him that had gathered in therge tent at the center of the settlement. It was like this nearly every day, since people gathered here formunal dinners most of the time, but it was still a bit too early for that. "Calm down, everyone," the chieftain sat cross-legged at the other side of the room, her eyes closed as she tried to think about everything she was being told. "But Madr, that is an army out there!" one of the nervous members of thismunity yelled out, but Madr kept her cool, "Do not worry, if they nned on attacking, then we would know by now. Are they not simply settling and setting up their own camp?" One of the elves close to the front of the crowd cried out, "Right next to us? They can''t have good intentions!" Madr slowly opened one of her eyes, trying to gauge the faces of the people in front of her, when she spotted Tari, "Nephew! I can see youe with news of this group." "Yes, aunt... well, it''s a bitplicated, but..." Tari nervously exined, feeling slightly awkward since dozens over dozens of eyes were staring at him intensely right around now, "...they''re really not a threat. They are led by a man that wants to meet with you; he says that he visited all ns recently, and he is the one that called upon the council." Madr raised her brows surprised, "Which n is he from?" Tari thought about it for a moment, "I mean, techically the fire n I guess? But he''s also sort of not really part of any n anymore... it''splicated, he should exin it himself, I think. I told him to wait outside with Hari, so maybe you can..." After returning a quick nod in agreement, Madr stood up from her seat. She was quickly handed a walking cane by one of her attendant, and put quite a lot of her weight onto it as she walked through the crowd to the tent''s entrance. She was a giant, so she had a naturallyrge build even once she reached the scale of regr people, but it was clear that her body shrunk down due to her advanced age. Even so, she still moved quite fast, and soon stepped outside of the tent. The light blinded her for a moment, but she soon saw the back of her visitor. Slightly surprised, Eisen turned around, looking at Madr with a smile, "You must be the Nomads'' Chieftain. It''s a pleasure to meet you, I..." the old man said, before stopping himself. Madr was silently staring into his face, and the old man as well was quiet for a few moments. A feeling of nostalgic familiarity creeped up on him. By now, he experienced this feeling enough to pinpoint exactly what it was that made him feel that way. He had already been experiencing this just from this settlement alone; clearly, he had been here in the past. But when looking at this elderly giantess, he knew that he must have known her in the past. "...I''m sorry, I... for the current me, it really is my first time meeting you..." Eisen apologized, still looking deep into Madr''s eyes, before noticing some tears appearing within them. "So you really did it... what an unfortunately joyous moment..." Madr pointed out, wiping the tears out of her eyes, as she looked at a man she had missed for a long time. --- "Please, take a seat," Madr waved her hand at one of the pillows ced into the center of the room, as she herself sat down on the one ced opposite in the circle. Eisen quickly did as suggested, sitting down cross-legged. After being motioned to sit down as well, Kiron, somewhat unwillingly, sat down next to his grandfather. Madr looked at him with a smile, "You must be a son of Trygan." Kiron straightened his back and turned toward Madr surprised, "Do you know my father?" "I know ''of'' him, of course, but I never got to meet him. Though I was told plenty of stories by your grandfather," Madr chuckled. Eisen looked at the elderly giant in front of him. He would like to simply sleep right now so that he could take a look at his memories of Madr, but there were so many memories lined up that it would be impossible to pick out the right one by chance. He still didn''t have a way to differentiate between them while in that memory space. "Could you tell me, how did we know each other? And... I told you about my ns?" Eisen asked with a deep frown, as Madr''s smile slowly passed. She replied in a simple and monotone voice, "You didn''t tell me specifically what you were going to do... I was a mere child, not even fourty, when Ist saw you." A pit formed in Eisen''s stomach. Since she was in her thirties, he hadn''t seen her. And now, at least a thousand years have passed, and Madr was reaching the end of her life. "I..." "Don''t apologize. I knew it would be like this when you left. Rather, you made it very clear when you first entered my life." "What exactly was our rtionship?" Madr thought about it for a moment, but soon replied, "I think the best way to call it would be... I was a brat that followed you around, and who you cared for as you would a daughter." A sh of guilt passed by Eisen''s eyes. He thought it might have been that, but he didn''t want it to be the case after he heard how long it had been since he saw her. However, Madr looked happy, anyway, "Oh, don''t look at me like that, I said it was fine! You''re my family either way, whether I have seen you or not. You still always took care of us. Every year, you would send numerous provisions and tools our way; without you, us Nomad Giants may not have strived as much as we did." "Then why didn''t Ie to visit at least once in so long?" Madr sighed deeply, "I would lie if I said that I didn''t ask this myself many times, but now that I''ve grown this old... I understand why. We met when I was ass of six years. You saved me, taught me how to survive, and soon helped me find my brothers and sisters again. And then, when you knew I could live on my own, you left." "But still... that must have been at least thirty years, I..." "9 days," Madr interrupted, but Eisen didn''t quite understand. Noticing this, the chieftain continued, "Most humans don''t make it to this point, but let''s just take the life expectancy of 80 years for humans, okay? If you trante the portion of your life we spent together to the lifespan of such a human, that''s how long our time together would have been?" Eisen looked down at the ground in front of him, "And I treated it as such? I treated the whole entire life of a human... as being worth a mere three weeks?" The ne around Eisen''s neck started to shake slightly, and a stream of mist flowed out of it. Soon, Kirisho stood behind the old man, cing her hands onto his shoulders. She didn''te out here to say anything, she could simply hear Eisen''s heart beat loud enough to shake her pendant, so she knew he needed her here right now. "But... Even if that was the case, you didn''t forget me. If you consider it that way, it''s as though you sent me a letter every few hours after we parted," Madrughed slightly, "Even I can barely remember some of the people that spent most of their life in this settlement, even if I try my best to. At some point, the faces, names and events just blend together. Just a thousand years is a ridiculous amount of time to keep in your mind... let alone a hundred thousand. The amount of people you spent time with... time that never left them, for the rest of their life, will be more than any of us can ever imagine. If you tried to think of each and every one of them for even a minute every few weeks, you would be doing nothing else. The gods know that''s the case for me already." Chapter 786: The Threat

Chapter 786: The Threat

Eisen slightly adjusted the way that he was sitting. He didn''t know whether it was because he simply wasn''t used to sitting cross-legged while in a suit, or because he was just made to think about something he hadn''t even really considered, but he was feeling incredibly, ridiculously ufortable right now. Of course, Eisen had tried to think about the fact that he must have done a ridiculous amount of things in the past. Hell, he knew for a fact that he had numerous children in his hundred thousand years of life here. That was something that he had to deal with the moment that Kiron entered his life. But even so, sitting in front of someone that has spent a thousand years away from him, but was still able to recognize Eisen at a single nce... someone that he had such a meaningful impact on, that was somethingpletely different in itself. It was a feeling of such profound guilt that Eisen may not even have found the words to describe it, even if he did have all of his memories right now. "Now, let''s stop delving on the past, and move onto the future. There is a reason why you''re here, right?" Madr asked. From her expression, Eisen knew that she wanted nothing more than to stay in the past, talking for hours, or days, or weeks, about all the things that Eisen and her had done together until he remembered every single second of it. But clearly, this old man himself hadn''t been able to keep his feelings from showing on his face all too well, and Madr knew that it was better if they didn''t do that. Eisen could feel Kirisho''s hands rub his shoulders in aforting manner. She was still there, trying to morally support him, something that seeded without her having to say even a single word. Soon, Eisen found hisposure, and took a deep breath. He ced his hand onto Kirisho''s, slowly guiding her to take a seat on the cushion to his left, while Kiron was still seated to his right. "Do you know of the Artificials?" Eisen asked, and Madr quickly nodded, "Of course. I don''t think anyone exists that hasn''t heard at least rumours of them. And knowing what I do... they are the sess you sought for so long, right?" The old man slowly nodded, "That''s right, the Artificials are, as their name suggests, artificial people. The five of us, Brody, Xenia, Jyuuk, Evalin, and of course I, gave up our ''Experience''. And that was used to create the people you see just strolling across the central continent right now." "Hmm... and is that reason enough to call on all the ns? What is happening in the central continent that we need to be involved in?" "It''s not that you need to be involved in it, you already are. There exists a man, Samuel... he is the one who gave me the task of creating artificial people. And, using his power and position that can influence even the gods, he''s carefully steering the story of this world into one that is interesting for Artificials. He''s doing everything he can just for their entertainment. And that, sadly... includes starting a war with the Giant country." A frown quickly formed on Madr''s face, "A war for entertainment? What sort of...?" "You have to understand, Artificials are practically immortal... Sure, they die, but in exchange for a portion of their experience, they''re able to reform just a few dayster, ready to storm into a never-ending battle again and again and again," Eisen exined to the elderly woman in front of him. She looked down at the ground, and thought for a few moments, "So... that means that you have a way to prevent the war?" Eisen looked at Madr, but didn''t know exactly how to respond, "Not... exactly. The thing is that Samuel can only influence the world by possessing certain key-individuals. Through them, he will change policies, and lead the world into one of war. However, luckily, the countries of the central continent aren''t ones where a single man has the power over all decisions. Like the giant country, they have... councils, of sort. The highest nobles are allowed a voice in the path of the country, and as such, Samuel can''t use a single individual to cause chaos. And trust me... I doubt anyone but Samuel actually wants a war with the Giant country." "So... your n is diplomacy? Make sure that everyone beside the people Samuel can influence is against this war?" "Something like that. Or well, rather... exactly that." Madr thought for a few moments, "That certainly sounds like a good idea, but... do you truly think you can convince the other council members of opposing this war? Those kingdoms have done nothing but try to antagonize us for years. Many are getting fed up, wanting to storm the central continent and put an end to this themselves, one and for all." Eisen nodded, "I know, trust me. You''re myst stop on this journey, and I certainly didn''t manage to convince every single chieftain. Some of them were immediately on my side, but most, with a few exceptions, seemed as though they would follow along once I show them proof that I am indeed ''the Eisen''." Madr looked at the old man, "And do you have such proof? While I know for a fact that you are you, I doubt it would be easy to convince others." "Mhm, I do have proof. Rather, not yet, but I have a way to get proof once all the chieftains are together. It''s a bit risky, but... it''s something that I think I should do. I already made this n with someone a while ago, so if everything works out, he wille, and that will be more than enough proof that what I''m saying is the truth," Eisen exined, "I''m sorry that I can''t exin too much yet, but it will all make sense once we reach the council meeting." "I see... In that case, I shall trust that you can do so," Madr said with a smile, as if she didn''t doubt Eisen for even a second. It was a face that only caused him more pain than he already felt before. But he was infinitely grateful that he had someone trust him that much from his actions in the past. The view that Eisen had of the version of himself from back then was less than just negative. It was absolutely horrendous, as if he was thinking about naught but a viin. But if he managed to influence someone so positively, such a short time ago, at least rtively speaking, then maybe he wasn''t all bad after all. At least, that''s a hope that Eisen was trying to cling to as much as he possibly could for now. He took a deep breath, and waited for a few moments, closing his eyes, "Though, I am incredibly sorry for this, Madr..." With those words, something that Eisen would probably regret for a while happened. The half-dragon knights entered the tent, dragging a certain giant along with them. It was Hari, while Tari was trying his best to free his brother from the dragons'' grasp. Madr looked at Eisen confused, as the old man just stared into the giant''s eyes. "What is going on? What are you doing with my nephew?" Madr asked, more than just confused, as Eisen looked at Hari, "Do you want to tell her, or should I?" "..." Hari looked back at Eisen with an angry re, "I don''t know what you mean, you sham! Aunt, you can''t believe him, this man isn''t really Eisen, he-" "Oh just stop the act, Samuel. You''re good, but you''re not Evalia-good. Shit, you''re not even Benji-good," the old man said with an angry voice that shook everyone in the tent to their core. Immediately, Hari''s angry and fearful expression turned annoyed as he picked himself up, patting down his legs, "Worth a try, I guess." "Not really. I obviously already knew what was going on." "Right, right~!" Samuel, in Hari''s body, eximed as he dropped down onto one of the cushions, smiling at Madr, "Sorry about this, but Hari is actually an incredibly good match for me. Don''t know why, I guess it''s a sort of fate, huh?" "Cut the crap, and tell us what you''re doing here," Eisen practically threatened, and Samuel clicked his tongue. "Fine. Eisen, I''m just offering this to you once. But you have a single chance to reconsider what you''re about to do," Samuel said in an emotionless tone, as if he wasn''t nervous at all. "And what if I don''t? You already know that you can''t do anything to us." "I figured you would say that... well... maybe not in this world. But you know, the other one is pretty messed up as well. There are plenty of ways to get rid of someone with just a simple phone-call, especially if they''re someone in my position. I figured I''d already give you a bit of a taste." Immediately, Eisen''s face went pale, and his body turned into a metal statue as he logged out. Chapter 787: Benjamins Command

Chapter 787: Benjamin''s Command

Benjamin jumped out of the capsule, right in time to hear a knock on the front door from the distance. Without hesitation, he ran through the room and pushed the door open. With a loud creak, one of the hinges bent,ing close to jumping out of the doorframe. The old man looked through the hallway and at its end could see Tony approach the front door to see who it was. But Benjamin quickly yelled out to him, "No, stop!" Confused, Tony turned around, "What are you-" Before he was able to finish the sentence, the door was knocked down, pushing Tony over and interrupting his sentence. The door had been reinforced heavily, so the fact that it was able to be knocked open that easily was just ridiculous. Immediately, a team of heavily armed individuals ran into the building, immediately pointing their guns at Benjamin. "Down on the ground!" they started to yell out repeatedly, and Benjamin did as he was told. In the other world, maybe he would be able to go against them... but here, he wasn''t a match for guns just yet. The moment that heid down, Benjamin had a man jump onto his back, trying to handcuff his hands together. For obvious reasons, that didn''t quite work out. After fidgeting around for a moment, the other cuff was simply ced onto his pants. Quickly, the old man was pulled up, or at least, there was an attempt to do so. That single man wasn''t able to do much, and he had to get two other people to help him out until they finally got him onto his feet. The other members of the swat team rushed through the building, trying to clear all the rooms. They were pulling open all the shelves and cupboards, breaking things as they did. They broke open doors and forced his family out into the open with guns ced at their heads. Tony had already been injured when they kicked open the door. He could see Tony''s face twisting in pain as he was handcuffed as well. His grandchildren, his friends. Their faces filled with fear and confusion. And soon, they reached the door at the end of the hall. He could see the door being kicked open, and in there were Andrew and Haruo, both of which were affected the most by changes to their apperance. Andrew''s horns and tusks had both grown quite a bit, and his skin had taken on a darker, just so slightly green-tinted hue, while Haruo was covered more and more in hair, and his tail wasing in quite well too. The moment that the swat member looked at them, he was confused at what he was seeing. It made sense, of course. Usually, you would assume these things to be a costume, but whether it was because they were all actually starting to be filled with magic, or because there was something integral different when it was the real deal, but the uncanny feeling that their appearance bestowed on others when they saw them for the first time was something that was able to overwrite anything, especially in such an intense situation. Hell, police officers weren''t particrly known for being calm in the first ce, and seeing things that one immediately recognized as ''not human'' would clearly trigger them. Benjamin stared at the back of the police officer as he prepared to pull the trigger of his gun, when the old man simply snapped. "STOP IT!" he yelled out, his voice echoing through the house. Without exception, every single police officer stopped moving, but everyone else was somehow unaffected. Andrew quickly reacted and pulled Haruo away from the path of the officer''s gun, as that stunning effect didn''tst for particrly long. The sound of gunshots filled the air soon after. Luckily, that policeman didn''t worry about Andrew and Haruo anymore, and simply looked at Benjamin. Like everyone else in the building was. They all rushed toward him, pointing their guns at the old man. They knew that something was wrong right now; they could tell that they weren''t looking at just a crippled old man. Something was different about him, whether it was the look in his eyes or the overpowering energy he gave off. Whichever it was, it scared them, as if they were staring into the barrel of a loaded cannon. Meanwhile, Benjamin ground his teeth. He could feel the roots of his teeth being pushed into his flesh, blood seeping out as they were starting to reach their limits. The lights in the house started to flicker, while Benjamin started being able to feel arge amount of mana surging in all the capsules in the house. "I suggest you stop pointing those at me," Benjamin told them, ring deep into the eye of the man at the top of the chain ofmand. It didn''t take long for him to break, "Step... step down, everyone..." he told them, and while a couple did as they were told, most still kept up their guns, because they were scared of what would happen if they didn''t, "I told you to step down!" themanding officer yelled out, a clear sense of urgency in his voice that managed to reach the rest of them. Slowly, Benjamin''s fingers reached for the chain of the handcuffs, and he managed to snap them in half with ease. He looked at the cuff still attached to his wrist, tightly digging into his flesh, and brought it to his mouth. The old man bit through the metal, and a moment after the rest of the cuff fell to the ground, he spit out a chunk of nickel-ted steel. "Why were you called here?" Benjamin asked in a clear tone, his sight still not moving away from themanding officer''s eyes, as he slowly replied, "We... we received a call that there were armed and dangerous individuals in this building, so-" "He told me this was supposed to be nothing but a warning, so... after roughing us up a bit, waving those guns at our faces... you were supposed to leave us alone without anything else, right?" the old man asked, and some nervous flinching in the people around him clearly showed that he was right. Benjamin started tough. It seemed insane considering the situation he was in, but he just couldn''t help himself. This situation was simply ridiculous, after all. But then, he stopped again, reaching out for the corner of the wall near him. He buried his fingers in the solid rock as if it were loose sand, cracks traveling across the wall away from his hand. "I don''t care how much money Samuel gave you. I swear by the name of whatever gods you believe in that you will regret ever thinking you could get away with this." Themanding officer flinched and took a step back as he saw Benjamin''s face. The smell of smoke filled the old man''s nose, as he could feel his body heating up. He knew what was happening, but it was toote to stop it at this point. His hair and beard, and his arms and legs, had started to turn into molten rock and golden crystals. Cracks formed around his ckened eyes, as Benjamin spoke a sentence with true royal influence for the first time in this world, "Imand you, to leave this ce and nevere back if you cherish the lives your parents gave you. You will go and tell them that nothing happened. That each and every one of you feels so much regret over scaring innocent people for no reason, that you will resign and leave this town forever." Without a moment''s hesitation, every single person part of this swat team ran out of the building, as if they werepelled by an invisible force to follow the tiniest of Benjamin''s words. It made sense; they didn''t have an ounce of magic to give them any sort of resistance against royal influence. They might have even killed each other, or themselves, if Benjamin had told them to. Before long, the room was only filled with the terrified members of Benjamin''s family. Luckily, the swat team hadn''t made it to the ces where everyone else was hidden; these were just the people that knew of what was going on, even if not necessarily everything. The stunning silence was broken by a bucket of water being poured onto Benjamin by Andrew, "You calm?" As the water that hit him evaporated and turned into steam, the old man slowly shook his head, "I''m even more furious than you could even imagine." "It was Samuel?" Haruo asked, and Benjamin nodded, "Yeah. That little coward is being driven into a wall, and realized that he has to do something." Chapter 788: Backdoor

Chapter 788: Backdoor

Benjamin dropped down onto the couch and buried his face in his hand, trying to think about what he should do next. He just threatened a swat team to run away like they were kids in a slightly too realistic haunted house. "What did you just do?" Tony stood in front of his father, who slowly looked up, "...I know, I''m sorry, I shouldn''t have done it. I reacted too impulsively, so I just..." "No, that''s not what I mean, dad. What... what was that? What you did, they were... was that some magic thing?" with a concerned expression, Tony sat down next to Benjamin, as the others slowly joined them as well. Everyone slowly sat down in the livingroom. Of course, most of them already knew what that was, but the fact that Benjamin had managed to do this in this world was still a shock to them. The old man tried to find the best words to exin it, but before he could, Nataly spoke up, "It was an effect of ''Charisma''. There are a lot of ways to affect people''s minds... intimidating them, making them fall for you... having them listen to your every word... if just that. Sometimes a nce is enough to make them drop to their knees." She looked at the ground with a solem expression, a frown slowly forming on her face, "It''s basically like mind control when it gets to the point we''re at... And Eisen, he has a lot of things going for him that build up his ''pressure'', things that let him give explosivemands like that. He''s a king and a true demon, both of those help with that immensely. Though even then it usually shouldn''t have been that strong, but regr people here just don''t have any sort of resistance toward it... It''s dangerous. Ridiculously so..." Benji sat down next to Nataly and rubbed her back. He could tell that she wasn''t dealing well with some of these matters, the memories that she had recovered in the other world so far. None of them were. Tony looked at her a bit confused, "So that means he''s been changing even more? It''s not just that mana thing, but also other abilities?" he asked with a worried expression, before ncing at the wall that Benjamin had caused to crack earlier, with just his bare hands, "Just... look at how strong he is as well, that... Dad, are you... going to be okay?" Benjamin looked at his son, but didn''t know what to reply. The taste of nickel and steel still lingered in his mouth, from when he simply bit through the handcuffs. Haruo and Andrew, too, they were both changing more and more physically. At a nce, they may now even resemble their bodies in the other world more than their original bodies over here. "I don''t know. It''s not like this has ever happened to anyone before, son," Benjamin admitted. He wanted tofort everyone, but he also didn''t just want to lie to them either. Silence lingered in the air for a while, but Andrew soon let out a scoff, "Why''re we just sitting here, pouting because of something we can''t even change anymore?" he asked, as he pushed himself away from the wall he leaned against. "The fact that bastard is still trying to do shit to us over here just solidifies that he can''to anything to us over there. We''re too much for him. And as time goes on, we''re getting harder to deal with over here as well. We''ve got money, we''ve got protection from Komer too, we just have to let him know we need a bit of security around here and we''ll be good to go. He keeps offering it all the time, anyway. Not that we need protection, cause as you can see, we''re fucking strong. I''m pretty sure I could bench-press your big-ass car right now, man," Andrew pointed out, his broad grin showing off his tusks even more. He was smiling the exact same way that he would in the other world, instead of hiding his tusks as he used to. "Brody''s right," Jasmin added, "Things are looking better and better for us. I''ve also started analyzing the meeting room a bit, and I feel like I''m pretty close to a breakthrough, to figure out how to block out Samuel''s possessions. Rather... it looks like I might be able to figure out how to attack him through the process." Everyone''s ears perked up, particlry Andrew and Nataly''s, "Wait, what? I didn''t hear anything about this..." Nataly pointed out, "Granted, I''ve been busy looking into the chromatic dragon situation in the central continent, but still..." Jasmin crossed her arms smugly, "Hehe, yeah, sorry about that. Basically, Eisen found out that Samuel possesses people through a specific kind of divination magic, and with that knowledge, I started analyzing the meeting room''s structure again. It''s still a lot tooplicated for me, but I''m getting there. Basically, this magic creates a link between two individuals. You can think of it as simr to the capsule, I guess? Though instead of linking souls, it just links consciousness. Since that''s the case, if we use an attack that affects the individual''s mind..." "...Then it''s going to just affect Samuel, but not the one being possessed," Benjamin finished with a broad grin, "That''s a great idea, Xenia." "Thanks, I know~" Jasmin replied smugly, before Nataly quickly jumped up, "In that case, shouldn''t we provoke him to show himself? I can prepare something like... erm, a song, or an act, or something that can manipte him enough so that he ends up taking damage through it!" Slowly, Jasmin shook her head, "That''s not going to work, at least not yet. We''ll probably end up having to do something like that, but from what I can tell, Samuel''s magic is nothing if not pristine. It''s near-perfect and protected in nearly every way. It blocks out nearly every possible angle of attack... it looks like there are some very specific conditions that need to be fulfilled for something to go through, so until I have all that figured out, we can''t let him know that we have a way in." "Conditions?" Haruo repeated, "That sounds like... Ah, so that''s what you meant earlier. You left a... what do they call it? Backdoor?" "Yes! A secret way in, that Samuel can''t even hope to notice. Heh," Jasmin replied, and Benji quickly looked at her, "Wait, you made that spell? Seriously? The spell that he''s using to manipte the entire world?" Jasmin was a bit taken aback, but before she could reply, Nataly quickly told him off, "Benji, stop... that was pretty obvious." "...Huh?" Benji replied, and his grandfather quickly nodded, "Samuel brought us into that world so that he can use us to shape it into what he wanted. He would give us tasks over the millennia, would reward us if we did what he wanted, and in turn would punish us if we didn''t. We all did a lot of things for him... The moment that I heard that he was using a spell, it was pretty clear that it must be one that Xenia had been forced to create for him. I just didn''t expect for her to have nned ahead for this situation." Benji sat back down somewhat awkwardly. He got riled up for no reason. Though, after that exnation, a question popped up in his mind, "...If she put something like that into a spell that Samuel uses that often, then... what else did you guys nt all over the ce?" For a moment, everyone stayed silent again. The five people in question looked at each other and thought about that question. Benjamin quickly spoke up, "Xenia, you''re in Prototype, so could you-" "I''ll ask them, yeah. I mean, they''ve been around for as long as the city, right? They should know about at least some of the things we''ve had to do for Samuel," Jasmin replied immediately. Haruo also started to smirk, "I already have a few thoughts in mind, things I''ve been wanting to look into and such, to get some more memories back... I think there might be a few things here and there..." "Likewise. There should be things scattered around here and there," Andrew nodded. "I already asked Komer to look into some of the art that I made and who might have bought them over the years," Nataly added, "Some of the paintings'' or sculptures'' names looked a little interesting to me..." Benjamin stood up from his seat, "Alright, then everyone try to do that. Let''s gather every single tiny clue about what we can do against him," the old man grinned, "But for now, I should get back to ''him''... I''m sure he''s still sitting there, waiting for me toe back." "Wait, what?" Andrew let out, "Samuel is there with you right now?" "Mhm, possessing one of the giants I''m dealing with right now. It''s been twenty minutes since I came out of the capsule, so... yeah, I''m sure he''s still around. Waiting an hour should be easy enough for that guy," the old man sighed, and before long, the five of them quickly returned to their respective capsules, eager to get back to work. Eager to figure out a way to shut Samuel up for good, and stop him from going through with all those ridiculous ns of his. Benjamin dropped into his capsule and pulled it shut, and quickly logged back in. He opened his eyes, and saw the inside of the tent, while he was surrounded by the Dragon Knights, being kept safe from the man that was still standing near him. "Ah, damn... I was sort of hoping that those guys might do something good for once," Samuel sighed, still possessing Hari''s body, "So, how''d it go over there?" Chapter 789: The Nuclear Deterrent

Chapter 789: The Nuclear Deterrent

"So, how''d it go over there?" Samuel asked with a smug grin, as he leaned back in Hari''s body. Eisen looked at the half-dragon knights around him and told them to move out of the way, so that he could properly look at the man sitting across from him. The old man red slightly, "It went well-enough. Figured out that I can use my royal authority there too," he pointed out, and Samuel stayed silent for a few moments, "What... What did you just say?" he finally let out, before standing up from his seat. "Did you just say that you used royal authority? You used mana, on earth?!" He asked, his face soon forming into an expression of ecstacy, as he understood, "So that''s what it is... your souls are really pulling over everything, huh? What about your bodies, have you experienced any changes to them?" Eisen frowned deeply, "Just shut up, wait for the report from those fuckers that invaded my house and threatened my family with guns. You''ll learn about everything then anyway." Slowly, Samuel''s expression rxed, as he tried to grab a tie that wasn''t there, as if he wanted to straighten it. He realized that he wasn''t in his own body right now, and slightly coughed as he regained hisposure, "I apologize, I just got a little excited. But thank you for confirming it for me, we knew that it was theoretically possible to pull off, but now it''s a fact. We can bring mana to earth." Eisen looked around the room at everyone''s expression. Kiron already knew about earth, so he wasn''t affected by all this talk, but everyone else in the room was being affected by the rules that were set up in this world. They were quickly forgetting what had been spoken about, and their eyes were unfocused, as if they were in the middle of daydreaming, "Just get out of here already. You did what you wanted to; you gave us your warning. I get it, alright? If you want to, you can have all of us arrested, or killed, or whatever." "...You''re much less upset than I thought you''d be," Samuel pointed out, but Eisen just shook his head and scoffed, "I''m more upset than you can even imagine, I''m just doing my best to hide it. All that anger would be directed at Hari, and that boy doesn''t deserve whates with my anger." With a click of his tongue, Samuel shrugged, "How boring. This is a lot more anticlimactic than I thought it would be, but well... yeah, you''re right. I can get rid of you whenever I want, so just back down. Whatever you''re doing here... just stop it, alright? Do you even know what you''re doing, ruining thousands over thousands of years of work you''ve done?" "I''m not ruining anything. All I''m doing is stopping this war between the giants and central continent. I know that''s what you were nning on turning into your next big arc after the war between dragons, but I''m sorry to say, you won''t be able to do that anymore. These are people, actual, living people, that you are doing all of this to. Do you even realize how fucked up your methods are? What, just so that you can be a god on earth?" Samuel seemed taken aback, "Do you think I''m doing all of this to be... yeah, sure, I''ll end up bing one, but that''s just so that I can make sure things work out as they''re supposed to. Benjamin, I''m doing this to save our world!" Eisen frowned, "What''s that supposed to mean?" "Can you not see how much we would benefit from mana? Using magic, we can immediately solve world hunger! Not to mention, I''ll be the greatest nuclear deterrent! Who the hell would dare start a war, when a god tells them not to?! Not just that, but with mana, and magic engineering, the strides we''ll take into a better future... How can you not understand how important what I''m doing is?" "Not even mentioning that you''ll be a dictator ruling over the whole world, but do you really think that it''s going to work out that way? When mana is introduced to earth, you''re also introducing so, so much more. People will be stronger, more powerful. We already have maniacs running around killing others on a powertrip just because they got their hand on a gun, but what do you think they''ll do when they can suddenly summon a meteor from the sky? What about all the monsters that you''ll be creating, the chaos thates with them? How many pets will turn into horrific creatures and kill their owners?" Samuel looked back at Eisen with a shrug, as if he didn''t even care about that part of it, "That''s just part of the process. Yeah, things will be chaotic for a bit, but after a decade or two... hell, maybe even a century, things will settle down. People will get used to it, that''s how humanity is." "We''re talking about the long run here, Benjamin. You''ve lived a hundred thousand years, do you think another hundred will be a big deal if you''re waiting for a paradise? Benjamin, a Utopia is not just a dream anymore... it''s real, it''s definitely, absolutely real! We can do this, so please, just stop acting like a child and see that what I''m doing is good! For everyone!" "...Better get out of here before you make me kill an innocent boy," Eisen was barely able to look at Samuel, who did nothing but scoff, "I knew you wouldn''t end up seeing things the righteous way. Hahh... I really hope we can turn this around without me having to kill you. I''ll leave you be for now, but heed my words... if you don''t stop all of this, I''m not going to hold back anymore." With that, Hari fell to his knees, as everyone else in the room also started to be fully conscious again. Eisen quickly helped Hari up, and looked into his eyes, "Are you okay?" "That... how did I get here? I was just outside, when-" Hari muttered confused, looking at the old man in front of him with a puzzled expression, "Who are you?" Tari quickly came up from behind Eisen, "What do you mean, Hari... That... He''s Eisen, we greeted him together earlier..." "Huh..? Right, I do... I do remember you pointing something out in the distance, but since then... I don''t remember anything, what happened?" Madr looked at her nephews with deep worry, "Eisen, what just happened... what was going on with Hari? He suddenly spoke nonsense, and then you... your body turned to metal, and..." Eisen looked at the Nomad Giant chieftain with a bitter expression, "That was Samuel... he had been controlling Hari since before I met him. For now, don''t concern yourself with what he said. Just make sure to take care of Hari," the old man exined, as Tari guided his brother out of the tent. Madr was clearly fearful and worried, despite Eisen''s words not to be, for which he couldn''t me her, of course. Madr closed her eyes, trying to concentrate and stop her shaking, but she was barely able to. She let out a deep breath, "We will head toward the capital immediately. We were going to take our time, but I think it would be best if we hurried after all..." Madr muttered, "We will stay here this night, but then tomorrow we will pack up and start moving on. It will take a few days for us to reach the capital, however..." "Right, that''s fine. We''ll make it in time for the council meeting. We''re going to stay with you until then, I hope you don''t mind. You were ourst stop before heading to the capital ourselves..." Eisen exined, and Madr slowly nodded, "Of course, of course..! You are wee to apany us, though we might need you to help us out here and there..." Eisen nodded with a light smile, "We will pull our weight, don''t worry. I''ll tell everyone to prepare to continue our trip tomorrow," the old man exined, and slowly turned around, "Please rest for now, Madr. I''m sure that this was a... rather exciting moment, in the worst way possible." Without saying a word, Madr nodded, as Eisen and the half-dragon knights left the tent. Immediately, Kiron looked at the other half-dragon knights, "Could you please leave us alone for a moment? Inform the others of our decisions already, and introduce yourselves to the guardsmen around town," Kiron told them, and soon, him and Eisen were left alone. Concerned, he looked at his grandfather. "What-" "Don''t worry, everything''s okay. Samuel tried to use some people to hurt our other bodies in the other world... or maybe he just wanted to scare us, it''s not really important. Nothing happened, it was resolved well," Eisen exined, cing his hand onto Kiron''s shoulder, before he let out a deep sigh of concern. "I see. Then what was all that, that Samuel just said? About... turning your world into a utopia? That is his goal?" Quickly, Eisen shook his head, "Samuel is nothing but a megalomaniac. Maybe he thinks the world he would ''create'' would be a utopia, but it would just be hell for everyone else. Don''t worry, I won''t let him do what he wants, not there, and not here either." "Just be careful, Grandfather," Kiron pleaded, "I finally found my family, after searching my whole life... I do not want to lose you all again." Chapter 790: For the rest of your life

Chapter 790: For the rest of your life

Eisen and Kiron just stood there for a while. The only thing stopping them from the deafening silence were the people of this travelling settlement that lived their lives around them. Whether it was people guiding lifestock through the road of trampled grass, or the children that were trying to hide behind the tent while looking at those exciting visitors. There was life around them while Kiron asked Eisen not to die. The old man closed his eyes for a moment. He didn''t know how to respond to that. Of course, he didn''t particrly want to die either, even if he had resolved himself to his death long ago. Until this whole ordeal happened, hurling him into this world as an immortal man, he was aging quite rapidly, after all. But even so, when it came to Samuel''s threats, he mostly wasn''t concerned for his own life, but the lives of his loved ones. He was old, even more so in this world. He was probably the longest-living being to ever exist. While it was a terrifying thought, it also didn''t leave Eisen any room to grieve the loss of his own life. In this world, everyone and everything that lived over the course of the first many thousands of years until Brody was born, was now dead. Excluding the gods, of course, but even they weren''t truly ''alive'' anymore either. Eisen didn''t have the right to mourn himself after being given the gift of functional immortality, and enjoying its fruits for so long. Of course, he knew that people were going to miss him. They were going to cry tears over his death in his stead, and Eisen was fine with that. But until now, he also hadn''t been faced with someone asking him not to die. Usually, things like that didn''t happen. Obviously, the fact that Eisen was going to die sooner orter, sooner rather thanter in his more recent years since the ident, must have been in the minds of his children and older grandchildren for a while now. But that didn''t mean that they had spoken about it at all. Eisen had dropped a few hints here and there about what his children should do in case he suddenly passed, but they skillfully ignored them. The old man opened his eyes once more, "I''m not immortal in that other world, you know that. I age, and if I die, I will stay dead. And when I do, and my soul fully bes part of this realm, I don''t know what''s really going to happen. At some point, Samuel hinted that he was going to gain control over us when that happens, but I''m not sure if that was just something he was saying to scare us into submission, or if he was telling the truth," Eisen exind to Kiron, cing his hand onto his grandson''s shoulder. A half-dragon''s expression was hard to read, but not when it was filled with as much sorrow as Kiron''s. It was heartbreaking, to say the least. "But I promise you, I''m going to struggle as long as I''m breathing, and as long as the threat to you, and this world, and the other exists," Eisen said, trying to convince Kiron. Not with the powers of his charisma; no, he tried to seal those away as much as he could for this conversation. He wanted to convince Kiron with his words alone, and the connection and love he felt for his grandson. Eisen looked past Kiron, and looked at Madr, who was sitting in the tent, her nephews by her side, and a smile formed on his face, "Not to mention, even if something were to happen to me, you don''t think I would let anything happen to the rest of them, do you? Even if I''m no longer around, you will not be alone. Even if all of us do, really, there will be people to love you, and to help you. I promise you, for the rest of your life, you will not be without family anymore." The sides of Kiron''s mouth twitched upward, and he fletched his sharp teeth as he always did when he smiled like this. Which to be granted, wasn''t often. Eisen noticed the children that were watching them from afar flinch at the sight of Kiron''s smile. It was their first time seeing someone that looked like him, a half-dragon, so to them he must look terrifying. But to Eisen, it was a wonderful expression that he wanted to see more of. With the smile on his own face growing wider, the old man moved next to Kiron and ced his hand onto the man''s back, "Let''s meet back up with the others. We''re properly resting for tonight after all, the first time in a while we can go outside for a whole night, so let''s just help setting things up outside, and have some fun with everyone." Kiron slowly nodded his head, and the two of them made their way back to the edge of the settlement, where the soldiers were already busily setting up the tents. They were already mostly done. After all, they had gotten a bit of practice in this so far, and the tents and the tools apanying them were made to just make the process easier overall. Those that weren''t setting up the tents were busy otherwise; introducing themselves to the townfolk, since they would be travelling together for a while until reaching the capital, after all. And then, there was the group closest to Eisen, and they were waiting right beside Askr for the old man to return to them. As always, Caria and Melissa were the first to throw themselves at Eisen; though in particr the small Bee Empress had also gotten busy while Eisen was gone. He could see numerous of her bees flying through the ins, pollinating the flowers. If they were normal bees, nothing much would happen, but they weren''t. The particr kind that Melissa let out while they were in ces like this were a special breed of bee, capable of making flowers grow many times faster than before. It was the reason why, as long as they traveled through ces with flowers like these ins or the forest, you could follow a trail of flowers from the beginning of their journey to where they currently stood. Not that Eisen cared, though. Anyone that could be a threat to them would be able to find them even without those flowers, and like this, they were all always surrounded by beauty no matter where they went. Here as well, numerous flowers were blooming in bright colours, patches at a time, as though they were exploding outward from where the bees traveled. "Thank you, Melissa, I''m sure the people of the settlement will love the colour around them while we''re travelling with them," the old man said, rubbing his hand through her head. At least, so far, they seemed to like it. There were plenty of them already looking at thisrge group that suddenly appeared from the stomach of a wooden giant anyway, and many seemed just mesmerized by the flowers that were growing at their feet faster than they could count to ten. Eisen turned to the rest of his group, "I''m sure you were already told, but we''ll travel to the capital with this nomad settlement. Since we want to be friendly with them, we''ll actually camp out every night, like they will, and travel by foot instead of inside the dungeon carried by Askr." Sky slightlyughed and turned toward the dungeon entrance in Askr''s chest that thest few people were currently carrying some supplies out of, "Might be good for Fafnir as well. I think he might be getting a little fat." Eisen looked at the petrified figure of the artificial dragon sitting atop his gate as though he were a sigil carved and painted into Askr''s armor. He wasn''t actually sure if Sky was joking this time around. Fafnir really didn''t get the chance to move around too much. Even if he didn''t actually get fat, Eisen didn''t want him to just sleep all the time either. This was an unusual situation after all, travelling in this way where Fafnir didn''t have the chance to move around whether it was day or night. Particrly because of the amount of people they were travelling with. "You actually have a good point..." Eisen muttered. He nced at the system window floating next to him that told him that the dungeon was now empty, and made sure that nobody else needed to enter it for now. He ced his fingers into the entrance of his mouth and whistled loudly, "Fafnir, boy,e down here!" The dungeon''s door mmed shut and Fafnir''s body started to move. He jumped down out of Askr''s chest, leaving behind a cavity that Askr quickly closed by pulling the hidden hatch on his chest shut. Fafnir stretched like a tired cat that just woke up from a nap, and keeping up with such traits, came over and rubbed his body on Eisen''s to greet him. With a smile, the old man rubbed the small dragon''s snout, "Had a good sleep there, boy?" he asked Fafnir, who didn''t respond and instead just kept on going what he was doing. If he had fur, Eisen would probably be covered in it by now. Eisen smiled and thought for a moment. He opened his storage space and stepped inside, quickly grabbing a certain golem core before Fafnir went off and did his own thing. The old man quickly threw it into the air after pouring his mana inside, and arge wolf''s body, the same size as Fafnir, was formed out of Eisen''s magic, with mes peering out from underneath the cracks in its rock body. "Go y a bit, you two," Eisen said, before the golem and Fafnir just stared at each other, as if waiting for one of them to make the first move. Before anyone knew it, Fafnir turned from a cat, into a dog, and the golem wolf and artificial dragon started chasing each other like friends that knew each other their whole lives already, jumping around in the field of flowers that Melissa was creating around them. Chapter 791: Toys Eisen sat down on one of the chairs that were brought out, in front of the tent that was built for him earlier. He wasn''t sitting underneath it because he wanted to enjoy the view from here. He didn''t have a lot of chances to simply stargazetely, so a moment like this was as good as any. The bright constetions were shining down onto the camp, onto theughing soldiers are they were rxing before they were going to head to bed. The old man leaned back and took a sip of his drink, before ncing at the people near him. Some of the kids from the Nomad Giants'' wandering town hade out here out of curiosity, and were currently ying with Sal, Caria and Melissa. Sal was spinning some iridescent threads around the area, forming small magic circles. Once activated, they created small balls of light that were floating around the area. One of the other kids was curiously looking at the hive-pattenrs on Melissa''s arms, while Caria was just tolling around with some of the other kids, as energetic as ever. That was when one of the kids came up to Eisen, "You look like my pappy." The old man raised his brow, "Do I?" The child nodded, "Yeah, but your beard is a lot longer! And more gray!" Eisen chuckled, "Well, there''s a good chance I''m a little bit older than your pappy, so I''ve had all the time in the world to let it get this gray." "How old are you?" The child curiously asked, and as she did, some of the others came up too, "Hmm... how old do you think?" One of the boys quickly replied, "My grandpa is eight hundred years old! But you look younger, so maybe seven hundred!" "What? Only seven hundred? No, he said that he''s older than my pappy, so he has to be at least nine hundred!" The boy scoffed and shook his head, "Never, your pappy has wrinkles all over his body, but he doesn''t, so he has to be younger, right?" Surprised, the girl looked at Eisen and tilted her head, "That''s true... Why don''t you have wrinkles if you''re that old?" Eisen chuckled and leaned forward, so that the kids could get a better view, "It''s not like I have none at all, don''t you see?" he said, pointing at his crow''s feet and the deep wrinkles on his forehead. It was true that his skin was a lot healther in this world than on earth, though even there his skin was getting tighter by the day. But even so, when he ran his hands over his arms and face, Eisen could feel his loose, aged skin. The boy and girl didn''t seem convinced, "My daddy has more wrinkles than that... but why is your hair that gray then?" the girl asked, and Eisen smiled as he ced his hands onto both of their heads, "Some parts age at different speeds. I guess my hair is simply a lot older than my skin." The pair of kids looked at each other, before shaking their heads in unison, "I guess he''s embarrassed at how young he is, then," the boy suggested, and Eisen couldn''t help but smirk. Kids that age were fun to talk to. Eisen thought for a moment, and then looked at the kids with a smile, "I guess you''re right, I''m a little embarrassed at my age. Though, since I''m still so spry, I''m pretty good with my hands. Do you two want me to make you kids a toy?" Immediately, the pair looked at Eisen curiously, and at the mention of the word ''toy'', most of the other kids came rushing over too. Sal seemed a little annoyed since he was actually enjoying the attention for once, especially from some of the older kids that were around his age appearance-wise. "Toy? What kind?!" the kids immediately asked, and Eisen smirked, "Well, what do you kids want me to make for you? I can make anything you want." Immediately, the kids started to think and discussing amongst themselves. From what he could tell, they wanted different things, like kites or small figurines, but in the end, they settled on one thing: toy animals. The old man smiled, and quickly nodded his head, "Toy animals, huh? Well, I''ll get right to it. I''ll probably not be done tonight, but since we''ll be travelling with you...e back to me tomorrow night, and I''ll be done, okay?" The kids quickly nodded, but still seemed a bit disappointed that they wouldn''t be able to y with a new toy tonight. Seeing that, Eisen ced his thumb and index finger onto his lips and let out a loud whistle that surprised some of the soldiers and was so loud that many of the kids were startled and held their hands onto their ears. Though, it wasn''t damaging of course, any many of them just did it to y along. Before they were able to ask what Eisen just did, tworge creatures came jumping over the tents, dropping their heavy behinds next to the old man''s seat. It was Fafnir, as well as the Wolf Golem that he had created as a ymate for the artificial dragon. The moment the kids saw the two of them, their eyes turned wide and excited, "y with these kids for a bit, alright?" Eisen asked of the two, and immediately, the children started running at them, climbing up theirrge bodies. Fafnir and the Wolf were both a bit hesitant and wanted to get away from the children, but soon, too many of them were covering their bodies, so as to not injure them, they had to just sit still and let it happen. Eisen got out of his seat, when another child-like figure appeared next to him, even if it wasn''t a child at all. It was Sigurd, who hade jumping out of the dungeon inside of Fafnir, "Finally he''s sitting still for once..." "For once? Usually, all he does is sleep. Be happy that he''s healthy." "At the end of the day, he''s still technically a golem! Of course he''s healthy!" Sigurd replied, rubbings its neck annoyedly, "Seriously, you have no idea what it feels like to have him jump and twist around like that... Whenever the dungeon''s rank increases, the more connected I be with it, and Fafnir as well, so when he does things like that it''s like I''m feeling whatever he''s doing..." Eisen raised a brow. That was interesting, Sigurd hadn''t told him about that before. Though it did make sense; it knew everything that was going on inside and outside the dungeon after all, and when talking to some of the other Core Guardians, they described that phenomenon as as if the area they guarded really were their own body. So it wasn''t a far stretch to say that Sigurd and Fafnir would soon share a lot of senses. Eisen smiled and ced his hand onto Sigurd''s head before looking down at it, "Could you go get some materials from the dungeon''s storage?" Sigurd hid its disgruntled expression under its hair, and then just nodded, "Fine, what do you want?" Eisen thought about it for a moment, and then took a look at the kids. He figured until tomorrow they would tell the other kids, and then might show off their new toys to even more... meaning that he would probably end up having to make something for most of the kids in this town. "Bring me five A4 Cubes of Tier 2... no, Tier 3 magic stones. Two medium bags of silica and limestone... pick out six or seven containers of differently coloured pigments as well. Then twenty bars of Tier 3, low-carbon steel... and then... for now, let''s just go with a hundred of the 10-inch Ash Beech Cubes," Eisen told Sigurd, who quickly took mental note of the materials. They were curious, but first started getting everything that Eisen asked for out of the Dungeon. The old man quickly created some duplicates that helped him carry everything. Eisen smiled at the guardian, "Thanks. I''ll show you what it is that I''m makingter." "You better!" it replied, as Eisen quickly made his way to the outskirts of the camp. He waved his hand and spread his magic over the area in front of him, creating a stone tform for him to stand on, and then quickly used his custom spells to create a magical workshop around him. He figured that instead of setting up the portable workshop, he might as well work out here and enjoy the breeze and fresh air. "Then let''s get started," the old man whistled as he grabbed the first of the magic stone cubes, when two young men stepped onto the tform. It was Parc and Rouge, looking at the old man hopefully. "Erm... we were wondering, could we..." Rouge half-stuttered, and Eisen smirked at the two of them, "You''re my apprentices, so obviously. Sorry that I''ve been busytely, let''s work on some more things together on our way to the council." Excited, the two friends looked at each other, and quickly ced their bags down onto the stone tform, putting on their own aprons and getting out their tools. Rouge used a bandana to tie up his messy hair, and Parc popped a piece of candy into his mouth. "You two ready?" Eisen asked, and the apprentices excitedly nodded their heads. And with a smile, Eisen got to work, with his apprentices helping however they could. Chapter 792: Lost in thought Eisen rubbed his hands and cracked his knuckles as he looked at the table in front of him. First, he looked at the Silica and Limestone, before turning toward Parc and Rouge, "Alright, what you two are going to make for now are the eyes." "Eyes?" Parc asked, "You mean, like the golem eyes you normally make?" "Not just ''like'' those, you will make those," Eisen smiled, "Mix them at a 1:4 ratio, magic stone to ss, and y around with the pigments a bit too. Don''t just mix the pigments into a ck mass though, make sure they stay vibrant." Parc and Rouge smiled excitedly, their cheeks nearly tearing open with how excited they seemed. Until now, Eisen would just have them work on their own projects, or they would help out with Eisen doing his own projects by holding things, keeping materials at a specific temperature while Eisen was doing something else, or simply helping him prep things. This was the first time they were allowed to fully make an aspect of one of Eisen''s items. "Make them at a few different measurements. 2:2:1, ratio for the sizes. Quarter-inch, half-inch, and whole-inch," Eisen instructed them, and the two young men nodded as they picked up the heavy bags of silica and limestone. He prepared a ce for them to properly mix up the ss, and then got to work on his own part of the toys. The first thing he would get started with were the toys'' bodies. For this, he had a few different ways of going about it, but the best way to make sure the toys would be as durable as possible was to make the different parts of the bodies separately, meaning the torso, limbs, head, etc, and then connect them with durable metal pins. The metal would be under most of the stress when the toys were moved around instead of the wood, which should make sure that they wouldst much longer. And so, Eisen grabbed the first cube of Ash Beech. He would be able to turn each cube into enough parts for two toys. He came up with a few different animals that he wanted to carve. Horses, Lions, Wolves, Stags, and Elephants. Those weremon animals that could be seen around on the paintings and stitchings around the nomad giants'' town, so he figured they were good choices. The old man grabbed Bai and turned the Ego Tool into a carving knife. Its body seemed to shiver slightly in excitement whenever Eisen used it for a project, which was certainly a unique experience to have with your tools. Of course, Eisen didn''t me Bai for getting so excited; he was happy that it enjoyed the work as much as he himself did, rather than potentiallying to hate it as he was scared once Bai gained proper sentience. "Alright alright, calm down now, or else we can''t stop working," Eisen said, and Bai quickly stopped, as it always did. And so, Eisen ced the edge of the knife against the wood. His body grew in size slightly as he assumed his True Demonic form, and started to carve. To speed up the process, he created some duplicates, who copied his work exactly. That way, he was able to work many times faster, which was quite useful when it came to matters where he had to make 200 toys. Before Eisen knew it, Parc and Rouge had finished making 400 pairs of eyes. He took a nce at them, and they were all quite beautiful, really. Strands of colour flowed through them, and they would be perfect for something like toys, "Good job," Eisen told his apprentices, "You guys remember my go-to enchantment for eyes?" Rouge quickly nodded, but was hesitant, "You... want us to even enchant them?" Eisen turned toward them and nodded, "Of course. You started making the eyes, so you better finish them too," the old man said, "And after you''re done with the eyes, you''ll get started on the golem cores too." The two young men were a bit taken aback, but they knew not to question Eisen''s words. When he said something, then he meant it. Instantly, the two of them got started, rushing over to the marble te that they would use to transfer the enchantments onto the ss eyes one after another. "Wait, here, you need to make that part thicker..." Rouge told Parc, who quickly corrected his mistake, before pointing at something across the table, "Can you give me the needle over there? I think this one is going blunt." "Wait, which rune was it again? Ra, or Ri?" "It was Ra, Ri is over there." "Ah, true..." Eisen watched the two of them work together on the eyes, and couldn''t help but smile. This was why he liked taking in apprentices. Watching them grow bit by bit, it was like raising children, just without having to change their diapers. The old man smiled, and extended his hand to the right, "Sari, give me the wood polish." Both Parc and Rouge turned around toward Eisen, "What? Who?" Eisen raised a brow, confused, "Sari, one of..." the old man was taken aback, seeing his apprentices'' expressions. That was when he realized what it was he had said, "...I don''t... remember..." "Are you okay? Do you need to maybe... rest?" Parc asked with a concerned expression, "We all know you don''t sleep a lot anymore..." Eisen smiled, trying to calm the two of them down, "Don''t worry, I simply don''t need much sleep anymore, so I actually end up sleeping more than needed." "...If you''re sure. Just take care of yourself well, you always tell us to. If you need to take a break, I''m sure nobody will deny you that," Rouge replied with a worried frown, but Eisen just chuckled slightly, "Really you two, I''m a hundred thousand years old, I know when I need to take a break. I just got lost in thought for a moment, so don''t worry, really." Slowly, it seemed like Eisen was able to convince Parc and Rouge, and the two continued to work. Now, the only one Eisen still had to convince was himself. He knew there was no need to even try with Kirisho, who was hanging off his neck in her pendant. He would never be able to convince her that everything was fine. Because it wasn''t. It was scary, he naturally did something as if it were engrained in his bones... and then forgot all about what it was just a momentter. If he didn''t know better, then he would wonder if he was developing dementia. But even so, it was still weird. He could barely remember what he even said at some point. He had said a name, but he had already forgotten about it again. Eisen didn''t even know what it was he had tried to do anymore. But that didn''t matter. For now, he just had to keep working. He stood up and walked over to where he kept the wood polish, and started to spread it on the pieces of the wooden figures that he had already finished. He would do this for now so that they could dry while he was working on the rest, so that they would be able to assemble everything sooner. The wood polish practically pulled forward the grain of the wood, as though it hadn''t been there before. With a smile, he followed the grain with the piece of cloth in his hand, and then had a duplicate ce the piece of wood onto a drying rack, before he continued carving and carving. Before long, Parc and Rouge had finished enchanting the eyes, and the old man looked at them surprised, "Already? Wow, you guys are getting quicker and quicker, you''ll overtake me soon." The two apprentices smiled at each other with tired expressions, "Thank you, Eisen... but, erm... we know you probably want to keep working, but we''re both pretty tired..." Rouge exined, and Eisen raised a brow. They were tired already? It''s barely been half an hour since they started working, so how could they already be tired? He was just about to ask what was going on, when the light reflected off the many ss eyes in the crate next to the apprentices. The sunlight, of a sun that was high above them, well past morning and approaching noon. They had started working in the eveningst night. "Oh... I guess I lost track of time. Don''t worry, you guys can go rest. I''ll continue for a while, so you guys juste back once your energy returned," the old man smiled, and the apprentices nodded, said goodnight, and then trodded toward Askr. Everyone had already nearly finished packing up, getting ready to keep moving toward their destination. While most of Eisen''s side would walk outside of the giant, the dungeon was still open to allow for emergencies, or for some people to keep working on certain matters inside of the dungeon. And of course, for people who stood guard or worked all night to get some rest during the day. And now, because Eisen got lost in his work, his apprentices counted amongst those that needed to rest all day. Chapter 793: Dam Eisen walked silently, following the nomadic giant n amongst his own people. As he walked, he did some of the more simple work on the figures that he could, like cing the eyes into the otherwise finished wooden animals. It was a good distraction for him, to say the least. He still didn''t know what happenedst night. Sure, Eisen often got lost in his work, but never like this. Never to the point where he quite literally lost track of time. It was like the whole night was merged into the timeframe of a couple of minutes, and he wasn''t able to recall any particr single moments within that memory. But this wasn''t just restricted tost night either. They were all walking in a perfectly straight line through these grasnds for now until they would reach a more mountainous area. But even so, every time Eisen nced up while working, the position of the sun changed considerably. It was like every time he blinked, a few minutes passed. And it wasn''t as though he was suddenly slow in his work, rather, the opposite. Like in a trance, he continued doing the task he had set out to do, and was practically finished before he knew it. Now, the only thing that was left was for Parc and Rouge to make the golem cores, a task that Eisen promised to entrust to them. But even worse, whenever he looked around, he started mistaking things for others, as though he misremembered the context he found himself in. For an instant when looking at the clouded outline of mountains in the distance, he thought he was alone, traveling thends in search for materials. When he looked at one of the little girls walking hand in hand with her friends, surrounded by crowds of people walking alongside them, he practically found himself in the capital of a long-forgotten kindgom during a festival celebrating some mundane tradition. His mind was running rampant, but he was calm. The memories didn''t feel out of ce. It was like he was supposed to be there. Like he was actually there all along, and not here. Sometimes he started wondering if his current life was the dream and this memory was his current reality, but before he knew it, he had be aware of what was truly going on and snapped out of it. Though maybe that was the wrong term for it as well. ''Snapping out of it'' implies that something was wrong, but it didn''t feel wrong. Even after the fact, Eisen didn''t feel that things were wrong. He felt like something was going on, and he had be aware of these thoughts after the fact, but after a few seconds, he could just barely remember what memory he had been pulled into. However, he could still remember the feeling whenever it happened. And it was simr to when he actively remembered something from his past using that space within his mind. So considering that, Eisen had at least a good guess as to what was really going on. If his blocked-off memories were water stuck behind a dam, then him actively recovering one of those memories would be opening the valves to let some of the water through to the other side. But every time that the valves were opened and closed, they ended up receiving some stress and damage from the process. And now, the valves were growing weaker. They were leaking, letting memories just flow through the dam. Right now, it was still a little. He was only remembering things here and there, and it was messing with his perception of the world around him and the way that he perceived time. But what if the damage kept umting through that little bit of water running through the pipes? If that was the case, then it was just a matter of time until the dam cracked and shattered, and the valley flooded. And when that happened, the current Eisen might drown in all of those memories, torn apart until there was nothing left of him to even bury. If this was the result of recovering more of your memories, then the others should be warned as well. Their bodies were changing rapidly on earth, so their minds changing on top of that would be absolutely terrifying for everyone involved. Not just Brody, Xenia, Evalia, and Jyuuk, but their loved ones too. Especially Brody''s wife had been suffering, seeing her husband change practically overnight into something that you couldn''t recognize as human anymore. Evening came quickly. Much more quickly than Eisen had hoped. To him, it barely felt like an hour had passed when the re of the setting sun started to blind him. The nomads set up some of their tents, and Eisen''s soldiers also got ready to stay the night. Askr knelt down on the ground, and Fafnir''s gates opened to let people go in and out of the dungeon to get supplies. Soon, Eisen''s apprentices also walked down the stairs from the dungeon onto the grasnd. "Did you two sleep well?" Eisen asked with a smile, trying to hide his current mood, and the two young men quickly nodded, "Yes! We''re well-rested, we can get started and finish up the golem cores now!" Rouge eximed with an excited tone of voice. "...You two don''t have to finish them tonight. I''m sorry about yesterday, I lost track of time and you two suffered from it," the old man pointed out, but the two apprentices looked at each other a bit awkwardly, "Well, we were tired at the end, but it was still a lot of fun to do all that work yesterday..." Parc exined, and Rouge quickly continued, "And if we have all night again, we can definitely finish the golem cores!" Eisen smiled lightly at the two, walking past them. With a wave of his hand, he created the temporary workshop area using his element again, so that they may work under the night sky as they didst night. "If you two say so, then let''s get started. But... if you two feel exhausted,e and tell me, alright?" "Right, of course... I mean, we triedst night, but you were so entranced in your work that you couldn''t hear us," Rougeughed slightly, as he grabbed one of the prepared mana crystal cubes, without knowing that his words were like a dagger to Eisen. Not to any fault of Rouge''s, of course, but just because Eisen felt even worse that he let things get that farst night. However, there was no need to wallow on things like that right now. He would just have to try and avoid the same thing happening again, "Could you two make a smaller batch of golem cores first? Once they''ve helped set up the tents over there, I''m sure the kids from yesterday wille by already." As asked, Parc and Rouge quickly got to work. And since Eisen was done with his side of things, he took this opportunity to actively watch the two of them work. The way their hands moved, the way they used their mana. Just so that he knew their habits and could help guide their craft into the right direction. Not that there were any particr mistakes that would need to be corrected. Sure, they had their strengths and weaknesses, but their weaknesses were more in the direction of uracy and speed, as well as the fact that a lot of these processes still didn''te naturally to them as they did to Eisen. But those were issues that could only be solved with time, patience and experience. While they did make some mistakes here and there, they knew how to correct them without bing nervous, and if one of them was struggling with something specific, then the other quickly moved in and helped out. For a moment, Eisen was worried that this meant that they would only do the parts they were good at while letting the other do the things they were bad at, but it was more like theplete opposite of that. Each of them did whatever they could to help the other grow into their own. They were a great team, the two of them. While watching them, Eisen did have a few memories shing in his mind, of times when he took on more apprentices, or just of when he watched other craftsmen work. But they quickly passed. Eisen was able to focus on the moment well enough, that soon, he didn''t seem overtaken by the memories anymore. "Alright, we''re done with the first batch," Rouge pushed forward the bowl filled with golem cores, each with slightly different qualities depending on the form the toy figurine it was for would take on. The horses were supposed to act different to the wolves, after all. Eisen smiled lightly as he took the bowl. He didn''t struggle as much with the memories this time around, but he still felt time somewhat weirdly. But that was fine, this was a process. He took the golem cores and walked over to the already-prepared figurines, taking a seat so that he could ce the golem cores into their intended spot. As his apprentices kept working and Eisen''s hand ran over the wooden animals, he took a deep breath, swearing to himself that he would concentrate on what he was doing so that time wouldn''t slip through his fingers. He would make the most of this moment. If he couldn''t avoid the memories of his past flooding into him, then he could at least make sure that he built strong enough memories in the here and now so that he could withstand the breaking of the dam. Chapter 794: Gunnar Eisen handed the child in front of him the wooden horse, and smiled lightly. All the kids were now surrounding him and already started to look at their new toys excitedly. Some of them were even already ying with them together, having some of the wolves chase the horses, or re-enacting some kind of made-up battle to see whose toy was stronger. The kind of things that all kids did. "Alright, everyone. Now, I need you all to do one more thing," the old man said with a broad smile on his face, excited to see what the kids would end up thinking just a minute from now. The kids looked at him curiously, and then watched as Eisen held up one of the toys himself, slowly flipping it around to reveal its belly. "Take a look at this small crystal ball here," he said, and the kids all did as told, "Press your thumbs on them, and then take a deep breath, as deep as you can, and hold it until you can''t anymore." Quickly, some of the kids followed his instruction, though some of them were a little more hesitant. Though before long, they all did exactly what Eisen did, especially once they saw that he did the same, blowing up his cheeks asrge as he could as he also held his breath. Once he could tell that all of the kids were concentrating on this small exercise, he opened his mouth, exhaling all at once, "And now let out a loud yell with all that air!" Immediately, the kids'' voices blew out of their mouths, as they yelled out while gasping for air. This was a small trick that Eisen remembered not too long ago. When you did this, a tiny amount of mana was released from your limbs, as if your whole body was yelling out together with you. It wasn''t a substantial amount, just barely enough to give a slight spike in your aura that only sensitive people could pick up, but it was enough for the special circuit ced on the golem cores to read the mana of their new owners. Quickly, a few points of mana were taken from the children to activate the process properly. Of course, since some of the kids didn''t have a lot of mana, and this would be a bit troublesome if half their mana was taken at once, Eisen gave them some of Parc''s mana-regenerating candies before he had them do this, so that they would quickly recover the amount they spent, without even noticing anything happened. This also had the beneficial effect of slightly increasing that ''spike'' of mana from that exercise, making it more likely to be picked up by the golem core. And sure enough, before they all knew it, the toys'' eyes lit up dimly and were able to start the process of absorbing mana from the air around them instead of from their owners,pleting the process this way. The toys'' limbs started stretching out as the golems awakened, quickly cuddling up to the hands of their new owners. All of the kids instantly yelped out in excitement, watching as their new toys came to life, looking up at them with those small ss eyes. Eisen smiled at them, "And now, you just need to give your new partner a name. It can be anything you like." Without even having to repeat himself, the kids got to work. He wasn''t even able to finish speaking whenthe first kids had already picked out their names. They ranged from ''Pumpkin'' over to ''Shadow Destroyer'', and they were all perfect names, given from the kids to their new friends. "Alright, just one more thing, kids! These toys will listen to anything you tell them, without fault, so be careful with what you say!" Eisen told them, though of course, he had made sure that these toys couldn''t be used to attack others. They did have a defense mode, where they would attack anything or anyone that was deemed an actual threat, on the basis of protecting their owner, but that was something that Eisen didn''t have to exin in detail for now. But now came the final instruction for these toys until the old man would finally let all of these eager kids run off to have fun. "There is a single thing you need to remember. It can be any word, you just need to really want them to do it. Say their name, and tell it to be big, and if you want it small again, tell it to be small," the old man smiled, and he was sure that the kids, who all grew up around giants even if they weren''t giants themselves, would have an exact image of this in mind. And quickly, the first kid eximed, "Grey, grow up!" The moment that the kid said so, the small wolf toy in their hand jumped to the ground, its body quickly ergening in the process, to the size of a real wolf, which was now cuddling up to its owner in its new form. Without wasting a breath, the others did the same, screaming over each other, before the area was filled with a dozen wooden animals, all imbued with the power of the giants to change their size, albeit just at a fixed degree. There was a bit of a cooldown for these transformations too while the golems gathered enough mana from the area around them, but that was something that Eisen could just pass on to the kids'' parents. It wasn''t like they would really care too much about what Eisen had to say at this point either, especially considering that some of them were already running off, sprinting alongside their wooden wolves or carried around by their wooden horses. Obviously, there were a few safety measures that Eisen told Parc and Rouge to add into the golem cores, which was why the design took them a little while. Things such as the ''Riding and Driving'' skill, in case the kids wanted to ride on the animals. Usually this was a skill the user needed, but in certain circumstances, it could be passed on to pieces of equipment as well, such as the reigns of a carriage, to allow anyone to ride it with certain skill. And since golems technically counted as equipment, this was a pretty obvious application of such loopholes. There were a lot of other things that were added to make sure the kids would be safe no matter what they did with these toys, and Eisen made sure of that when he looked at the golem core design before letting Parc and Rouge finish up. There were a lot of things to consider here, after all. For obvious reasons, this was something that Eisen made sure to reiterate to the concerned adults that wereing up to him after seeing their children y with these new ''toys''. Luckily, considering his position and identity, they were able to trust his words pretty quickly, and calmed down before long. And just as Eisen thought, it was more than just a good idea to make a lot more of these toys, since after the first batch that had initially asked for the toys, many, many other kids and youngsters came over to him, asking if they could have one as well. It was to the point where Eisen was pretty worried he would have to make more, but the amount of children that came to him for these small golems soon slowed down. Certainly, the ce was much more lively even at night, now that the kids all had something to do when they were done helping out around the settlement. At this point, a memory flowed into Eisen''s mind. However... not one of this world. One of his... Benjamin''s old friends was a toymaker that he met in Sweden, in a small vige up north in the country where it was hard to even walk at times, with the snow basically reaching up to your hips. At that time, Benjamin''s friend was a bit older than Benjamin was now... in earth time, of course. He was a happy, jolly old man. If he didn''t know any better, Benjamin would have confused him for Santa us, and whenever Benjamin himself yed Santa for his or the neighborhood''s kids, he always acted like his old friend Gunnar would. Gunnar didn''t have any children of his own, never having had the desire to, or to even marry anyone, at that. He was always just content with making toys, even if it wasn''t enough for him to make a living at the time. Instead, he worked as a carpenter for nearby viges, but for miles around Gunnar''s house, Eisen would be able to find small wooden figurines scattered around, finding their new homes in the arms of a tree or bush, if not in the hands of a child. Eisen smiled lightly at the wooden horse he was holding, which he had used to demonstrate the process to the kids. Now that he thought about it, it did remind him a bit of those stout horses he had seen near Gunnar''s home, which that old toymaker used for inspiration himself quite a few times. As he delved deep into this memory, Eisen realized that he had practically been waiting for it to be overtaken by a memory from this world. But to his surprise, there wasn''t anythinging on, though he did feel like Gunnar wasn''t the only, or even close to the best toymaker that Eisen had met, especially aftering to this world. But nheless, the memory of his old friend was unique, and strong, and true. Chapter 795: The God of the Mountain Eisen leaned back as he continued watching all of these children y with their new toys. He was still holding onto that single wooden figure that he had kept to himself for now, as long as they had enough left. If they ran out of the toys otherwise and there was a kid that still wanted one, then he would obviously give it to them, but for now, he was just enjoying the sensation of one of his old memories. "Eisen?" Rouge walked up to the old man, who raised his brow and turned toward his apprentice, "Yeah?" "Ah, just, we copied down the pattern that we used for those golem cores, and cleaned up the rest of the work surfaces for now. Is there anything else that we should do?" he asked curiously, and Eisen just smiled and shook his head. "You two can take a break. I''ll clean the rest up on my ownter, don''t worry. Just take a seat, and take a look at the results of your work," the old man turned back forward, as Parc and Rouge pulled up their own chairs to take a seat next to their teacher. They were clearly feeling a bit anxious, but soon, they were able to just take it slow and enjoy the sight of the kids ying with the toys that they helped in creating. The broad grins on both of their faces was something that Eisen never wanted to forget ever, trying to burn the sight into his mind, "Are you two happy that you joined me as my students?" Without a moment''s hesitation, they turned to Eisen and replied, "Of course!" Parc practically yelled, before Rouge finished the thought, "There is no way we would ever regret this... Not to mention that you''re teaching us things that we might never be able to learn elsewhere... the ces you take us, and the things that we get to experience when we''re with you, are just... iparable." "If it weren''t for you, I might be making nails right now. Or carving the legs of a table," Parc pointed out, "Which of course, I don''t mind doing either, it''s fun, but... here, we get to do things like this every once in a while." Eisen crossed his legs and looked into the distance, "I''m very d to hear that, boys. Really, you have no idea." --- The sound of wooden hooves and legs trampling the trodden road beneath them sounded out from practically all directions. Exactly as Eisen expected, but the kids were obviously using their new toys to make their journey a little bit more enjoyable, though they didn''t just keep it to themselves. They let their parents or some of the elders right on them, and plenty of the upsized wooden figurines were carrying some of the load that a lot of the other nomads were supposed to be hauling around. Overall, they were just making the journey a lot easier. Eisen did notice that some of the adults were trying to take these toys from the children after seeing just how useful they were, but that was something that Eisen obviously expected. As such, once it was determined that the toy had been ''stolen'' from the child, it would automatically grow to itsrger size, escaping the grasp of the thief, before making its way back to its owner all on its own. Of course, that was annoying some of the adults, but Eisen was able to calm them down by making a few things for them here and there too, mostly a few things that would make their lives easier. Nothing special though, just small matters such as switching out the straps of backpacks for ones that were specifically created to feel good on long journeys, or enchanting their shoes to make the journey easier. Especially the elder members of the nomad n were happy with that part. Parc''s potion candy was particrly helpful in this endeavour too. Candy was something that they didn''t seem toe by too often, so the sugary sweetness was something that they were happy with in the first ce, but some stamina- or agility-increasing effects that came with certain vors were more than just an added bonus. With that, it was possible to make most of the people in the nomad n calm down about the ''extraordinary gifts'' that the children were given. Though for the most part, the journey was quite enjoyable. It took the members of the nomad n a little bit of time to get used to the monster soldiers that were apanying Eisen, but soon enough, they were chatting away. Eisen was actually extremely happy with this development, since it helped the soldiers rx a little as well, instead of just continuing that strict behaviour that trained soldiers were usually expected to disy. It was somewhat bothersome to Eisen, and he enjoyed this rxed atmosphere many times over, hoping that things would continue to stay this way in the future, though at the end of the day, he knew that it probably wouldn''t. Especially considering that they were getting closer and closer to the giant country''s capital city. In the distance, there was a mountain. It was a peak that could be seen from practically any part of this country. It was actually one of the first things that they spotted even when approaching from sea, even though it was practically on the other side of the continent. This was, by far, thergest mountain in this world. And now that they were getting closer and the clouds weren''t surrounding the foot of the mountain as much, Eisen was able to see a wonderful view. Something that instilled nothing but awe, and a distinct sense of nostalgia in him. That mountain, that giant miracle of nature, had a chunk missing of it. As if someone stretched out their hand and scooped away a bit of y. Usually, this would have meant the mountain should have copsed, with as much was missing from it, but right there was thergest statue of this world, a frail man, carrying the mountain on his back and preventing it from copsing. On a normal day, it seemed like the clouds wouldn''t even reach up to that statue''s knees. In absolutely every sense of the word, that statue was that of a giant, and there was honestly little difference if you viewed it from the perspective of a human or even the greatest of giants. And at its feet, right where their idol of protection could view and shield them at every time of day, the capital of the giant country had been erected. It was still more than a day''s journey until the city, and the nomad n decided to rest here for tonight. But even so, the setup of the camp took a bit longer than it usually would. Even the giants, those that had grown up in this country, some of which had seen this sight numerous times, couldn''t help but have to take a break to take in this unique view. "Eisen!" Sky quickly came running up to the old man, "I think I read about this, but... you made that statue, right?" "That? I..." Eisen turned his head, looking at the statue with a slight frown, "I don''t fully remember, but... no, I don''t think I did." Taken aback, Sky turned his head, "Wait, but... no, you definitely... I read it in multiple books, talking about you creating the ''God of the Mountain''..." "That''s what I heard as well, but... no, it wasn''t me," the old man smiled. It was actually a more than pleasant surprise to him. This feeling of jealousy that he hadn''t experienced in a long time filled his chest. Of course, not because he thought that he could have made something better instead, but that he didn''t get the opportunity to work on something so truly monumental, something that would be viewed as a miracle of mankind''s ingenuity until the end of all civilization. And of course, this craftsman''s jealousy was apanied by another feeling. That he wanted to know the face of the person, or the people, who did create this masterpiece. "Maybe I''ll remember something about this tonight," Eisen smiled, letting out a slight, excited whistle. He did have some issues with his memories, but as long as he got to take control of it by grasping for the memory himself in that white ''space'' that filled his mind when he slept, then things felt like they came to him more naturally. And even if it was dangerous, since this could make more of his memories flood into him involuntarily, it was something that he had to do in order to proceed with his life anyway. Sky sighed, somewhat disappointed, "Ahhh, man... and here I hoped you would be able to answer the ''great mystery'' of that statue..." Eisen raised his brow curiously. That was something he hadn''t heard of yet, "What mystery?" "Well..." Sky muttered, grabbing one of the items from his backpack. It was a spyss, one that Eisen had made for him as he was trying to figure out things he could make for the scouts. It was good enough to see the design on someone''s clothes the next town over, if the weather was good enough, of course. Sky was aiming the spyss at the statue''s face, "...everyone just kind of wants to know why the statue looks so... scared." A shiver ran over Eisen''s back, as he grabbed the spyss from Sky''s hand to take a closer look himself. He soon saw the detailed expression of that statue. And it was exactly as Sky said. Though by now, there were many cracks and numerous nts rooted into its surface, that statue showed a sort of fear that made Eisen''s blood run cold. Chapter 796: Arrival at the Giants Capital The nomadic giant tribe began to set up their tents in the outskirt of the capital city, under the protective sight of the ''God of the Mountain''. This enormous statue was something so awe-inspiring that barely anyone could keep their eyes off it. That was why, ever since the city and the statue came so close that nobody was able to ignore it anymore, setting up the tents in the evening had be a much more arduous and long task than it was before. Even Eisen found himself getting distracted whenever he started doing some work at the end of each day, though probably for different reasons to the others. He had been feeling a creeping sense of dread and uneasiness the closer they came to the capital. The ''God of the Mountain'' staring down at him, as though it was scared of his approach, as though that truly giant man saw a cmity being dragged alongside with him. The fear in that statue''s eyes was a fear of death, the fear that one showed after realizing that there was nothing you could do anymore. That there was no way to be saved any longer. Luckily though, the path to the capital city was one filled with ravines and mountainous terrain the closer they got, so for much of the remaining trip since they firstid eyes on the statue, it had been obscured. ''Out of sight, out of mind'', that was exactly what Eisen was trying to live by for as long as he could, though he had no idea why it was that he had been wanting to stop thinking about it. Its sight wasn''t even triggering any memories or nostalgia to pop up in his mind or heart, just that sense of utter uneasiness. At least now they had gotten close enough that it would be harder to look into the statue''s eyes than not. The city was built behind the statue''s back, with towers stretching out from both the bottom and top of that unnaturallyrge cave, as though they were stctites and stcmites trying to reach out to each other from opposite ends. While the nomads set up their camp, Eisen approached the chieftain''s tent, and stepped inside. Madr was sitting there quietly, still as though she were a statue herself. "Madr," the old man said in a quiet tone, and the elderly woman slowly opened her eyes, looking back at him with a smile, "How can I help you?" The old man knelt down as well, "I wanted to thank you for letting us travel alongside you this whole time. But now that we''ve reached the capital, we''re going to go on our way to meet with the King before the council meeting begins." "Of course, I will also follow as soon as we have finished with our work here. It was truly a pleasure to have you all apany us. Your people have be dear to ours, truly," Madr said with a soft voice, looking out from the entrance of her tent at some children who were passing by, with their new golem toys in tow to help them carry things around and do their share of the work. Eisen nodded his head, "I can only return the same to you. This is something that is open to all people of this country of course, but I just want to tell you in particr. If any of your people wish to travel outside of the tribe''s already quite far-stretching constraints, you are always wee in our country. Whether we can prevent this war, or not." The old womanughed quietly, "I was about to offer you the same. Your people are always wee if they wish to stretch their legs to be part of our tribe for a while," she said, as she slowly pushed herself off the ground. She was shaking a bit, but she still did it with quite some speed. While she was old, she was still a Giant, so Eisen knew he didn''t need to worry about her health too much. Madr waved her hand as if shooing Eisen out of the tent, "Now, now, give me some privacy please. I need to prepare myself as well. I will see you again at the council meeting in three days." "I will see you then. Should anything happen, I will be sure to be there to help out. Don''t hesitate to call for me," the old man said as he stood up and left the tent, giving Madr one more nod before he left. He walked by the people of the nomad n and waved at them as they worked. He did get caught up in smalltalk a few times, but luckily he was able to get through the hustle and bustle soon enough. And then, it was time for Eisen to really get himself ready. He stepped into the dungeon and changed out of his regr, more rxing outfit, into his royal suit of armor. That which he was supposed to wear on official matters. And his entry into the capital city was one of those official matter. Later on he could rx a bit and make his way through the city on his own terms, but at least for this, there would be quite a lot of eyes on him. After all, the people of the capital were sure to know that a council meeting had been called, since as far as Eisen was aware, his group wasn''t the first to arrive here. That was why he had to make sure he showed his status properly, since after all, this was still a diplomatic journey at the end of the day. The old man looked into the mirror in front of him as he braided his beard into the golden rings that would decorate it. It would alle down to the council meeting in three days. He had done all he could in regard to preparing the different chieftains and trying to get him on his side, with some being more sessful than with others. He hadn''t even been able to convince all of them of his identity yet, though once the council meeting began, that would hopefully change when the others vouched for him. But thest thing he now had to do was meet with the king before the meeting started, so that he could convince him of his identity as well. If even the king believed Eisen, then the others should be convinced a lot more easily as well. "Are you nervous?" Kirisho asked, stepping out of the cloud of mist emanating from her pendant, as the mist itself started to drag around her like a veiled dress. The old man looked toward her and nodded, "How could I not be? I''m here to prevent a war, after all. Yeah, it''s not the craziest thing I''ve done, but... if I don''t seed, then so many people might suffer from it." "But even if that is so, it will not be your fault. You know that, right?" Eisen silently looked at Kirisho''s face through the mirror. He wasn''t confident enough to agree with her in this, "Everything here is my fault. I am responsible for so many horrors of this world." The spirit ced her hand onto Eisen''s shoulder, trying tofort him. He reached out to her hand, holding it tightly, "Worst of all... Samuel is still causing issues," the old man pointed out, "I don''t know what he''s nning on doing... I''m sure he''s going to be busy dealing with the aftereffects of going against the ''promise'' we formed. The promise not to interfere with us in the other world, but... I don''t even know how he went against it in the first ce." Eisen was still bothered by this. Samuel had taken over one of the nomad giants'' bodies, and at the same time, called for a direct attack of Eisen''s home on earth. However, not even too long ago, they had formed a promise, in front of the people of this world as well as the numerous yers that had gathered nearby at the time. A promise that Samuel wouldn''t use his power and influence on earth to attack Eisen and the others anymore, and it was a contract supported by a power that even Samuel shouldn''t have been able to go against. Though of course, since Eisen still didn''t know the full extent of Samuel''s powers in this world, he didn''t know if there might have been ways for Samuel to protect himself after all. Nor did he know why Samuel with his fragile ego would even stoop down to doing this in the first ce. There was only one thing that Eisen truly knew. With how important that council meeting was for the future of this world and the ''game'', and knowing Samuel''s track record so far, there was no way that things would go by smoothly. That he was sure of. Chapter 797: The Giants King Eisen walked toward the capital city''s gate after having taken on his true demonic form. The golden, illuminated crystals growing in the cracks of his skin were brightening up his every step. Being inside a cave and overshadowed by the ''God of the Mountain'', the area was rtively dim, meanijng that his general glow was practically ethereal in this setting. His shining, golden armor simply entuated this even more. The gate itself had been built inbetween the god of the mountain''s legs. For the past few days, Sky had been rattling off all sort of trivia that he knew about this city, including the reason behind this fact. The founders of the city had believed that, by walking by underneath the God of the Mountain, they would be able to receive a sort of blessing from him, to be able to live underneath him and his protection. Of course, whether that had any merit to it whatsoever was unclear. The ''city'' system that was put into ce through the different crystal cores all over the world was certainly influenced byndmarks to an extent. Churches, local specialties, amount of citizens; there were many things that would end up giving a passive benefit to thend influenced and managed by the cores, and something at the scale of the ''God of the Mountain'' had to be amongst the things that gave this capital a protective benefit of some sort. Eisen and his entourage were soon stopped near the entrance to the city. While there weren''t any walls ereceted here, giving free entry to practically anyone and everyone, someone like Eisen still drew the attention of the guards. They approached him, looking him up and down, careful with their weapons. Of course, they had been told that many influential people would be arriving soon, so they were aware that potentially unique and powerful individuals may arrive, but that also meant that particrly dangerous people coulde here to take advantage of the situation. "I apologize for the rudeness, but could you identify yourself?" one of the guards asked, trying to be as courteous as he could be, and Eisen smiled and nodded his head. His rumbling voice, influenced by his demonic transformation, sounded out soon enough, "My name is Eisen de Grandour, son of the first chieftain of the Fire n and King of the country of Asgard. I am here for the council meeting in a few days." The guards couldn''t believe what they heard. They took a step back and lowered their heads, cing their hands onto their chests, "We were told of your arrival in advance. It is an honor to be in your presence, oh great Eisen. You will be received properly at our Lord''s residence," one of the guards exined immediately, before the other proceeded. "It would be our honour to be allowed to guide you there. By our Lord''s request, we simply ask you to head there immediately before proceeding in this city on your own." Eisen nodded his head quietly. That was a reasonable thing to ask. Simply having another king walk around in your city''s capital without even having been greeted was something more than just... bothersome. The only thing that he didn''t quite understand was that he had even been expected in the first ce. Not to mention, that they were specifically told that he was truly ''Eisen''. "Of course. Even I''m not tonedeaf enough to simply do what I want here," Eisen chuckled, trying To release some of the tension that had clearly built up in the guards'' bodies, though judging from their reaction, it really did not help. Just when he was trying to figure out why, a message window appeared in front of the old man''s face. It was the specific messaging system in ce for a Knight to speak to him. --- [Kiron] Grandfather. I ask you, please be more careful with your words. What you are saying could be considered quite rude should this reach the King''s ears. [Eisen] I don''t think I understand... what do you mean? --- Eisen nced down at Kiron, who was amongst the people carried on a tform by Askr, who stood right next to him. He really didn''t understand what Kiron was trying to say. It was just a light joke, and a harmless one as well. Rather, it really wasn''t even a joke, just a lighthearted response to the situation. However, Kiron seemed to think otherwise. And judging from the others'' expression, he wasn''t the only one who thought the same way either. --- [Kiron] I apologize for being so blunt, but we have just arrived from a journey through this country where we have visited most influential people of power, but not the actual King himself. --- Eisen looked at the message that was floating in front of his eyes, and then nced back at Kiron, before guiding his sight at the guards once again. At this point, if he wasn''t too old to feel embarrassed by situations like this already, then his face would probably be quite flushed. Though at this point, Eisen didn''t really care much anymore. Even if he acted a bit tone-deaf at times, in his own opinion, this was nothing he really had to worry about right now. Sure, it was rude not to immediately go visit the King, but considering the structure of this country, ''King'' was really just a title that existed for purpose of consistency with the system. Of course, this country, like any other, had a ''Country Core'', and the leader of this ce was, as such, called a ''King''. But from what Eisen knew, or at least thought, that was nothing but a title without much merit to it beside the King being the head of the council. This country didn''t have a true monarchy, even if the system of the cores tried to force it into one. At least... that''s what Eisen''s rational mind told him. It was what his vague memories of this country had told him the moment that they approached this continent. But his gut-feeling, truly seeing the faces of the guards, told him that he shouldn''t be so sure about this right now. Luckily, due to his own position, it wasn''t like the guards could really say anything. Eisen was sure to have a passive-aggressive encounter with the King, but at the end of the day, doing whatever he wanted was something far more befitting of ''Eisen'' anyway. The guards guided them, though there was really no proper reason for this. It was a straight line to the King''s residence, or rather, the ''castle'', anyway. It was a quietrge structure carved into the back of the cave''s wall. Clearly, it was something that was trying to imitate the ''God of the Mountain'', since the clifffside wall around it had been carved in such a way to resemble a pair of hands cupping this structure protectively in its palm. That being said, it was clearly still work in progress. Or so Eisen hoped, since the quality left much to ask for, especially with theparison of a true masterpiece in everyone''s direct view every single day. Eisen guessed that, instead of really guiding him, the guards were supposed to keep an eye on him, and make sure that he didn''t run off to do whatever he wanted without heading to the King first and foremost. But as Eisen expected, the people of this city, whether they were Giants or otherwise, were definitely more than just enamored by his view. Not only was Eisen one of the more unique beings they had seen, a giant with ming, cracked skin and golden crystals overgrowing him, he even had apletely wooden giant in tow. It did take quite a while but soon, Eisen and his entourage reached the ''castle''. They walked up the giant steps, each of which was the size of a decent wall on earth, and soon stepped into the structure itself. There, the guards excused themselves, and the servants took over instead. Eisen was quickly guided toward where the King was currently waiting, while the servants were clearly attempting to do whatever they could to get Askr, together with the literal army he was carrying in his arms, to go somewhere else. As though they wanted Eisen and the King to speak alone. However, without even needing to use much of his ''royal influence'', he was able to convince the servants to let it be, and as such, they all made their way into the main hall of the Giant King''s castle. It overlooked the whole city, the back of the giant stretching out far in the distance while the King itself sat on his throne and looked away, straight at Eisen. It was a young man. In human terms, he couldn''t have been older than 25, though in regard to Giants, he was many times older than most of the people living in Asgard. From his healthy, nearly olive-colored skin with just a slight gray hue underlying him, Eisen could tell that he was a Mountain Giant. A n befitting the one who ruled in this particr city, in the cavity below thergest mountain in the world. "Wee, Eisen de Grandour! Ruler of Asgard, son of the first true Fire Giant, trickster of the people!" the King eximed, stretching his hand out forward as he crossed his legs with a subtle smirk on his face, "I am d you finally chose to go out of your way to meet me. Certainly, you''re ying your role more than well enough. The real Eisen is honestly just as rude as you, so I must admit that you''ve done your research at the very least." Chapter 798: The Irngrads Secret "The real Eisen is honestly just as rude as you, so I must admit that you''ve done your research at the very least," the King of the Giants said with a grunt in his voice and his lips bent into a smirk. And immediately, Eisen just let out a deep, loud sigh on instinct. "Not this again..." the old man muttered slightly. From how things had been going since he entered the city, he expected that the King knew that Eisen really was who he imed to be, but apparently he was vastly mistaken in that assumption. That''s why he couldn''t really help himself but react like that even though this had happened many times with the different n chieftains. "What was that?" the Giant King asked, his smirk quickly turning into an annoyed frown. But Eisen simply hid his own displeasure and smiled back at him, "Nothing, nothing at all. But I just need to take this opportunity to make it clear to you, that I am indeed the ''real'' Eisen." The King, the Irngrad of the Giants, slowly pushed himself of his throne, and took a few steps toward the being in front of him, "That''s what you say. Sure, you sound like him, and you look like him, but... things like that aren''t hard to emte these days. Particrly those... ''artificial'' people tend to have some unique abilities to them." Eisen listened to the Irngrad''s words, and couldn''t say much against that right now. With how many different kinds of magics existed in this world, really anything was possible. Before Eisen coulde up with a response, the giants'' King continued, "So, how do I know you''re not one of those? A devil so confident in his disguise that he can''t even be be bothered to hide his true form?" "Do you think that''s what the Artificials look like? No, they''re just regr people. This is just my demonic form. Since my abilities are lower than they were in the past, I''m unable to reach the true stature of a giant without using this ability," Eisen tried to exin. Though in reality, that was a bit of a half-truth. By now, he wasing closer and closer to the true size of a giant, but it wasn''t perfectly close yet. Even so, he could getrge enough with just his abilities as a giant that if he added the size of his True Demonic form onto this, then he would be a lotrger than most giants naturally were. "And that''s supposed to convince me? How in the name of all the gods would it be possible for someone like Eisen to lose his power? If he had done so on purpose, why struggle so much to regain said power? And if it were forced upon him, who in any of the realms would have the power to do so? Not even the gods would dare stand against him,bined in strength," the King pointed out. Eisen noticed that the Irngrad''s expression and bodynguage was slowly shifting. At first, it seemed like he really wasn''t taking Eisen seriously, but that more and more seemed to have been nothing but an act. A fac¨¢de put on to y the role that he was supposed to. That he was expected to. Instead of that mask, what Eisen was now seeing was a young man that was filled with hope and fear and joy and stress, each taking their turn in the forefront of his eyes. "...There''s a reason, there really was. I don''t know if you''d believe me if I told you right now, though, but it had to happen this way. There just was no other way," Eisen tried to exin, but clearly the King didn''t want to hear it anymore. He balled his fists, his knuckles turning white, but trying to hide his tension in his face at the very least, "I will give you a chance to prove yourself. There is only one thing that could actually convince me, because this is a secret nobody beside me and Eisen know." "You knew me? I mean, him, or however you want to see it," Eisen asked surprised. He didn''t feel even an ounce of nostalgia when looking at this man, so he was sure it wasn''t really that simple. The Irngrad scoffed, "No, of course not. I mean, I would have liked to meet him sometime, but he was always ''too good'' to meet me. I''m the King of the country he was born and raised in, can you believe his guts?" he asked, rxing a little bit for a few moments, before continuing, "We simply know the same secret, him and I. A secret that literally nobody else is capable of knowing. Amandment from the gods, basically. The current Irngrad, and the five individuals that reached the peak. Everybody else simply... forgets. Even if they''re told. Not that I''ve tried to do so myself, since there are certain... consequences with doing so." Eisen raised a brow. That sounded eerily familiar to him. Not that he was remembering the secret in question, but thef act that everyone who is told forgets about it. Was this secret used as a test-run for the system that''s in ce to make sure the people of this world would forget about earth, even if the yers told them? That was sort of a pattern recently. More and more, Eisen would uncover mysteries of this world that gued him and many others at times, and a lot of the time, the truth behind the mystery was that Eisen or the others were helping create the ''system'' that is in ce for the yers. The rules, boundaries, and abilities they all held and interacted withirn in this world. "Alright, I... I have a lot of secrets, you see. Could you narrow it down a little?" Eisen asked, and the Irngrad nodded. He turned his head slightly, and for a moment it seemed as if he started staring into empty space, but it didn''t take long for Eisen to realise that he was looking in the direction of the symbol of this city. "What is the true name of that ''Statue''?" The Irngrad asked. It was a simple question, but for some reason it made Eisen''s chest tense up. He nearly flinched at the question, even though it was so much more harmless than what he expected to be asked. Even if he didn''t have any clear idea of what woulde out of the Irngrad''s mouth in the first ce. The old man thought for a moment, but no matter how much he tried, nothing popped up in his mind. With his connected he was to his past memoriestely, albeit involuntarily, he expected at least ''something'' to float through his head. He doubted the Irngrad lied and made up an impossible goal on the spot, so he should know this. He had to know this, somewhere deep down, he simply had to summon the memories. However, soon enough, Eisen realized that nothing wasing to him. Instead of trying to trick him or try to figure out some hidden meaning behind the Irngrad''s words, Eisen closed his eyes and shook his head. "I''m sorry... but I don''t remember right now. It mighte to me soon, or a week from now, or in a month, or well... never, but..." Eisen started, and he noticed the Irngrad''s energy drop immediately. You could tell that he was disappointed, as though he had been hoping that Eisen could prove himself. "I see... in that case... I''m sorry, but there is no way I can believe you are who you are. Even if I did know for a fact that the one and only Eisen stood in front of me, if he couldn''t remember... I think I would deny it anyway," the young man pointed out as he turned around, heading back toward his throne. Before Eisen could interject with some other way to prove himself, the Irngrad continued, "But... don''t worry, I''m on your side anyway. In stopping this war, I mean." Eisen was taken aback. From what he heard, the current King was quite hotheaded in regard to things like this, "In that case, isn''t everything alright? If even the King doesn''t want a war, then we can stop anything from happening." "...You know just as well as I do that it''s not that easy. If we''re attacked, you can trust that I will not hesitate to grind our enemies into ash. Not to mention, I don''t have the same power that Kings in the other continents may hold. Yes, I reserve certain rights within the council and may make the final decisions, but my voice is still just a single voice amongst many. Rather... it may be less than that of the other council members. My role is to bring the voices of the ns together into one, not overshadow them with my own." Chapter 799: A Young King Eisen looked at the Irngrad with a concerned expression. If that was how the council worked, then the king of the giants didn''t seem like he had the power to sway the others'' opinion, though that was somewhat different from what Eisen had heard from the others who he had visited so far. ording to them, the King''s words still held some immense weight to them. So that could mean just a few things. One, the Irngrad was severely downying the power that he had, or two, that the Irngrad didn''t fully understand his own position yet. The position of King in this country wasn''t one that was inherited like in most other kingdoms in this world, rather, it was one that was selected amongst the n chieftains of the council. Once a certain n''s chieftain ascended to Kinghood, they were practically removed from the n, so that they could take on a fullyural role. And then, in their stead, the next giant in line would be the Chieftain of the n in question. Obviously, since it meant that he was elected amongst all of the Chieftains, it should usually be a great sign that the current Irngrad is someone trusted amongst all of the ns. At least, that''s what Eisen instinctually thought. That was his understanding of the system in this country. However... there was still something off if that was the case here. That would mean that the Irngrad was downying his power, but what he said was to the degree of directly lying about his influence in the council, in which case Eisen should be able to tell whether or not it was a lie. But it wasn''t, not that Eisen could tell, meaning that the Irngrad genuinely believed this to be the case. "I''m... a bit confused... Could you tell me, what age are you?" Eisen asked, and the Giant in front of him slowly closed his eyes, "I''m just 90 years old," he replied, "However, I''ve been ruling since I was... 30." "30? What is this, you were practically a child, just- how did you even be the chieftain of the Mountain Giants before then?" Eisen let out instinctively. In human terms, 30 should be old enough for someone in his position, however, in the eyes of a giant, 30 years old is practically a pre-teen. "...There was an attack from a powerful monster in our city back when I was 15. My father and my brothers were killed in the battle to defend us, so I was the only one that could take on the position of chieftain at the time. Now, my uncle has be Chieftain in my stead," the Irngrad exined to Eisen. On paper, the old man already knew that the Irngrad''s uncle was the current Mountain n Chieftain, he had learned about it on his trip to this continent. However, Eisen was slightly surprised that it wasn''t brought up when Eisen visited the Mountain n just a few weeks ago. Their chieftain was amongst the people that vehemently refused to ept Eisen to be who he ims to be, but nheless seemed like a reasonable enough person to talk to. At least, he seemed to have the best for the people of this n in mind, even if he seemed to be more on the side that supported the war against the central continent. But even so, the Mountain n''s chieftain seemed like the kind of person that wouldn''t just hide that sort of thing. Being the King''s uncle was something notable to bring up, and while the Irngrad was supposed to be a neutral party, family bonds couldn''t be underestimated. "...I see," Eisen sighed, and smiled at the young giant in front of him. His age certainly exined the King''s youthfulplexion. Eisen smiled, "You should be more confident in yourself. You were voted into this position for a reason, and literally two thirds of your life were spent as a King, and that''s only going up. I don''t think any other King in the history of this country can im to have ever had that sort of experience going for them." The Irngrad smiled lightly and shook his head, "I appreciate the sentiment, but there''s no need for ttery like that," he said, standing up from his throne. He approached Eisen and stretched out his hand, which Eisen quickly shook. With a smile, which was a lot better at hiding his disappointment from earlier, the Irngrad said, "For now, please go rest. Your journey has been long, so you deserve some sleep. The rest of your people have already been brought to your bedchambers." "Right, I''ll be joining them pretty soon in that case. Ah, before I go, do you have anything you think I should try and see before I leave? Any particr sights, special people? Some performance? It could be anything, really. I don''t know when I''ll next be back here, so I want to enjoy my time." The Irngrad thought about it for a moment, "Well, there are usually quite a few street performers in the east of the city. They tend to gather near the ''Giant''s Blood za''. It''s quite a popr spot, really, and there are a wonderful few pubs or restaurants as well. Some impressive craftsmen too, from what I''ve been told. If you''re looking for something worthy of your time here, that would be my first stop. Though, I think it might be better to try and be a little more... inconspicuous," the Irngrad exined, and Eisen smiled and nodded. He nced down at his body for a moment. He definitely couldn''t walk around like this, even ignoring the armor that adorned him. His true demonic form certainly pulled a lot more attention in than Eisen would like on regr days. So for that, he could get by with just his giants'' growth ability, "Don''t worry, that was the n. It was a pleasure to meet you. You as well, please rest until the council meeting begins. I think it''s going to be quite tiring for everyone involved." And with that, Eisen left the throne room. He was guided to the ce that he would be staying in for the next few days. Even though the inside of this castle was incredibly impressive both artistically and architecturally, Eisen couldn''t pay any attention to that. Rather, it didn''t even catch his eye. Instead, he was trying to make sense of the situation that the Irngrad found himself in. He wasn''t confident in his ability to lead the council, it seemed. Or rather, he believed that he wasn''t supposed to ''lead'' the council, but rather ''guide'' it withoutbringing his own thoughts into it whatsoever. Someone that came to power at such a young age as him would usually be more conceited, but not only did the Irngrad seem rather level-minded, but from what Eisen could tell, he was well-respected amongst his people as well. Eisen sent a few people out into the city to investigate the Irngrad practically the moment they got close to the city. They went off alone ahead of time and entered the city without anyone''s knowledge. Really, that was what they always did. They would reach certain destinations ahead of Eisen, and could then let him know of anything important or dangerous he should pay attention to. He only sent them off for ces that he was unsure of, though, like this city, or when there wasn''t already enough information on a specific individual. So, they would get all that information for Eisen. But everything there was to know about the Irngrad was positive. He seemed humble and kind, and even spent a lot of time amongst his people himself. There seemed to be a particr pub that he frequented, though it has gotten a lot less in thest few years, especially ever since the rtions with the central continent have only gotten worse and worse. And that pub was exactly near that ''Giant''s Blood za'' that the Irngrad suggested Eisen visit. It was an interesting spot for him anyway, and he had heard about it from some of the people he spoke to throughout his travels in this country so far. That was the perfect spot to find out a bit more for himself whether or not his deductions were truly the case. Cause if they were, then Eisen had to have another brief conversation with the Mountain n Chieftain even before the n meeting even began. Chapter 800: Giants Blood Plaza Eisen was guided into his bedchambers. It was a ratherrge room, even to a giant''s standards, decorated with statues and numerous nts. There was practically a whole regr-sized forest growing along the walls. And in part of those walls was another structure, carved into the stone, which seemed to be the ce where non-giants would be able to stay. Askr was standing right next to it, the tform that he carried around held right up to it, so Eisen figured that the others had already made their way inside. "Thanks for all your work, Askr," the old man said with a smile, looking the emotionless wooden giant into its face. Somehow, although Eisen expected otherwise by this point, Askr didn''t show any particr sign of emotion or specific personality, as though he were just a regr golem. But well, there were people like that as well, so Eisen didn''t worry about it for now. Though he would make sure to look into it at ater point. He ced his hand onto the tform and slightly pushed down as he released his transformations, shrinking rapidly and dropping down onto the tform just a momentter. From there, Eisen walked into the building carved into the wall, where some guards were already protecting the entrance. Eisen nodded at them as he walked past, already starting to take off his armor. He ced it onto the mannequin in the storage space, and then continued walking to the central reception hall. Despite just being a building inside of the bedchambers, this ce was practically a mansion on its own. It wasn''t directly enough for all the soldiers, but it seemed like Fafnir moved inside and set up the gate here, so that everyone could rest in the dungeon if necessary. "Eisen!" Sky jumped up from his seat, walking toward the old man. Quickly, the others also gathered around him, and the old man filled them in on the things that they had to know. Kiron rubbed the underside of his chin in thought, "I see, so that''s the first ce that you''ll head to?" Eisen nodded, "Yes, I''ll be going over there and talk to some people, see if there''s anything else I can find out as a Giant. You all are of course also free to spend your time here as you would like to. Though it would be great if you didn''t go anywhere without telling anyone," the old man said with a smile, cing his hand onto Caria''s head as she practically pushed it against his palm. Sky frowned lightly, "Are you sure that you don''t want to rx a little bit before the other chieftains arrive? You haven''t taken a proper break since we got to this country," he pointed out, but Eisen just nodded, "I''m fine, don''t worry. I''ll take a bit of a break until the meeting starts, but until then I have to figure out more about what''s going on with this country''s king." "Would you like me toe with you?" Kiron asked, and Eisen smiled at him, "If you would like to, then you can go ahead. Though I don''t know if we can really spend time together if I want to talk to the giants for a while. That being the case, most ces have sections for non-giants anyway, so there should be things for you to do as well." Kiron nodded, "I see. In that case, I would like to join you in your investigation." "Me too!" Caria quickly eximed. Eisen looked down at her, as well as Sal and Melissa who stood right next to her, who both also seemed rather eager to follow along. They didn''t really get that many opportunities to really spend time with Eisen since they reached this country; or rather, they didn''t get as much as they would like. They did still always stick to his side whenever he was with the group, but he did understand that with kids their age, and especially considering that they were tamed monsters, they tend to be a bit clingy. "Alright. Would anyone else like to join?" the old man asked. Though, it seemed like the others all had their own ns already. The other Half-Dragon Knights were going to catch up on some proper training and then head out into town to do some sight-seeing. Everyone here had heard about this country, and especially this city, since they were kids, so they were pretty excited to take a closer look and then report back to the people back home. Bree would do something simr, but to Eisen it seemed like she just wanted to rx for a while first. She did help everyone out wherever she could during the trip, so now, given the opportunity to just take a break, she dly took it. And in the meantime, her brother was going to go to every single bookstore or library in the city to see if he could find something interesting. Any new stories that he hadn''t heard of before, or retellings of historical events, particrly rted to the creation of this city and the ''God of the Mountain'' statue that protected it. And with that, now that all the ns were made, everyone split up and got ready to do their own thing. Eisen changed out of the suit that he wore underneath his royal armor, and then changed into his casual set of clothes. Not even his work clothes, that he usually preferred to wear, but some simple shirts, trousers, and shoes. They weren''t anything special, but just a regr outfit that you could see anywhere. This country did tend to have slightly weird fashion choices sometimes, but for the most part, he should be able to fit in here even if these clothes had been made before they even came to this country. He didn''t feel asfortable in this outfitpared to his work clothes, the leather apron and baggy cotton pants, but it was much easier to blend in like that. And so, they made their way out of the building, and back onto the tform that Askr was holding, "We''re going to head out for a while. Please keep watch until we''re back, alright?" Eisen asked of the wooden golem, and he just replied with a silent nod. Eisen jumped off the tform as wings sprouted on his back to catch his fall, before he shot up to his full size. It was still a bit shorter than the height of a full giant, but it was enough for now. Not everyone in this city was a full giant, or one at all, after all. He hasn''t had too many issues walking around as a half-giant until now, at least. Eisen picked up Kiron and the kids, and then made his way outside of the castle. He tried to hide himself well as he left, to make sure not too many people outside could see that he came out of the castle, but there were still a few here and there that he couldn''t fully hide from. Even then, he was able to simply start walking through the streets without worry, with Kiron, Caria, Melissa and Sal seated on his shoulder. Compared to the otherrger cities that they had been to, this one seemed a lot more developed. Most buildings that had been created for the giants outside of this city were built into nature; either intorge trees or carved into hills and mountains, but in this case, they had simply constructed full-sized buildings for all the giants. And that didn''t surprise Eisen either; with the God of the Mountain in their sight every single day, the artisans and craftsmen of this city must have had the urge to show off their own skill. At least, that''s what Eisen was feeling right now, but he was able to hold himself back a bit. It didn''t take all too long for them to reach their destination, though. As a giant, ces always ended up being a lot smaller than they initially appear. And so, they made their way to the Giant''s Blood za, which had been built around one of the few ''supporting'' statues beside the God of the Mountain. There were things scattered around that painted a much bigger picture here. Objects belonging to the Statue, like a sword and shield, both in extreme disrepair, as well as some pieces of jewelry that had fallen off the God of the Mountain as he so strongly tried to protect this city. And then, there was this ce. In the center of the za, an arrow dug into the ground, with stters of stone blood clinging to it, dripping off it and forming a small puddle on the ground. The wound the blood came from was somewhere on the Statue''s leg, it seemed. Either way, this arrow and the giant''s blood had be one of the symbols of the city, and the ce that many people visited in their day to day life to pay respect to the god of the mountain, as if praying to it. In all honesty, it wouldn''t surprise Eisen if an actual god had created the statue, using it as a sort of substitute for a church. At the very least, this whole mountain and the art carved from it was a lot more awe-inspiring than any other structure that he could remember seeing thus far. That being the caes, Eisen wasn''t here to marvel at this wonderful creation; he was here to figure out what was behind the mysteries of this city. Cause it was clear that there were many questions floating around his head. Chapter 801: A Real Man Eisen looked around the za. This ce really was quite filled up, with both Giants and non-Giants, of numerous different races or ns. The capital city was a neutral ground; it wasn''t a ce like most other ns that had mostly one n living there, but it was truly a mix between nearly all of them. Of course, that did exclude some ns. Eisen hadn''t seen a Cloud Giant yet, for one. And the forest giants were also a rarity here, but both of those things were to be expected. Cloud giants refused to engage with others, something that is deeply engrained in their culture, while Forest Giants simply strived in nature. And a giant city like this was really anything close to nature. Though there were still a few of them here and there. As for the ces created for the non-giants, that was handled pretty well too. The buildings around the za were pretty high, decently taller than your regr giant. And that was where the ces for the non-giants had been built, so that they could view the arrow without the danger of being stepped on by the giants. Everywhere he went in this country, Eisen kept seeing pretty smooth ways that a lot of these issues were solved, though everything was somewhat obviously still centered around the giants. Non-giants did feel like an afterthought a lot of the time, despite making up the vast majority of the poption, but considering the body of a giant as well as their natural inclination to prefer their ''base'', giant size, cities really had to be constructed in this way for it to make any sense at all. For now, Eisen made his way toward what seemed to be the liveliest pub. It was gettingter in the day, so people were finally starting to gather at the end of their workdays. Eisen stepped through the giants'' entrance, and carefully ced Kiron and the kids onto a tform made for non-giants, or for giants who wanted to shrink down for a bit. Something that Eisen also briefly did. It was rather tough talking to the others when he was a giant, at the very least without being overheard by practically everyone around. "Alright, for now, let''s just enjoy ourselves a bit, alright? You kids don''t worry about things too much. Have some food as well, I''m sure you''re all rather hungry," Eisen smiled, ncing down as Melissa tugged at his hand. He looked down at her with an apologetic smile, "I can''t join you just yet, I wanted to talk to some of the people here. I''ll join youter though, alright?" He asked, and though Melissa pouted slightly, she did still nod her head. The others didn''t seem that excited about it either, but Eisen did tell them that this was how it was going to go from the beginning. Even Kiron seemed a bit worried, though at least he understood that what Eisen was going to do here was more than just necessary, "We''ll also mingle with some of the people here. Knowing these three, it shouldn''t be too hard to get people into a talkative mood," the half-dragon pointed out, and Eisen nodded in agreement, "You can say that again. But really, just eat some food, rx for a bit, and chat with some people if you can. Don''t make it the absolute priority. I''ll join you four soon, alright?" "Of course. Be careful though, grandfather," Kiron advised, "Ever since we got to this city, I''ve had a slightly... awkward feeling in the back of my neck. I don''t think I can exin it properly, it''s just..." "It''s an instinct. Don''t worry, I feel simrly from time to time. And especially in a ce that must seem just so enormous to you, I can understand your worry even more," the old man pointed out, and Kiron seemed to rx a little. And of course, Eisen understood. ces like this tend to be incredibly anxiety-inducing. These buildings were practically like skyscrapers; even to Eisen, this city in particr was an extremely unique ce, but so far, he had only walked through here in his giant form. To someone that''s used to the architecture on the central continent, this country overall must be quite stressful. Not to mention that big cities like these do tend to have quite the sinister side to them. A trained Knight like Kiron would obviously have his instincts screaming at him from every corner of his mind to be particrly careful here. For now though, it seemed like Eisen was able to help him rx a little. And with that, Eisen stepped off the tform and shot back up to his full size, and he started making his way toward the giants'' bar. The seating area for the non-giants was ratherrge, and seemed to have quite a few employees working there. There were actually multiple different bar counters at different locations, considering the sheer size of this ce. And with that, it didn''t seem to take long until Kiron and the kids found a ce for them to sit down. They picked one of the busier parts, one that actually also had some younger folks and even some kids there, that seemed to already be excited to see some new faces. Eisen quickly ordered something at the bar after taking a seat on the enormous stone pir padded with some giant beast''s hide. The cup he got as well could be used forrge-scale brewing in other ces. Eisen just smiled lightly, and downed some of the liquor in the cup. With that, it was time for him to talk to some of the giants around him. And luckily, it didn''t take long for him to end up tied up in some kind of conversation either. While he did use some of his demonic and royal influence to strengthen his charisma stat, a lot of people actually ended up striking up some smalltalk with him, which he quickly turned into a longer conversation. Everyone seemed to be in a decently good mood, and though there were a few sob-stories mixed in everywhere, Eisen didn''t mind listening to them either. They were sort of a nice escape from his own troubled life. That being the case, Eisen didn''t only do this to enjoy himself, and before long, an interesting topic came up. "A gang?" Eisen repeated, and the giant next to him nodded his head with a disgruntled expression, "Aye, fuckin'' bastards, that lot... they keep stirring up trouble everywhere... Tried to destroy the God of the Mountain too," "Excuse me?" the old man was somewhat dumbfounded. At that point, you couldn''t really call them a gang anymore. Rather, they were... "A cult! That ain''t a gang, it''s a cult!" another nearby bar patron spoke up. Eisen was thinking of ''terrorist'', but that sort of behaviour did also fit to quite some cults here in this world. On earth, they tended to do their own thing most of the time, but here, they often ended up involved in some big ploys to try and get power or simply cause havoc. Destroying the god of the mountain was certainly a good way to do thetter. "Nah, they''re just a buncha nutjobs!" the initial giant replied with a loud scoff, "They were just trying to get attention, they weren''t even able to put a scratch on that big ol'' thing!" "Of course they did, ya drunkard! They chipped off some stone off the surface!" "What? Ye''re one of the ones that really believe all that crap? It was a trick! A trick! Some illusion magic, or paint, or something!" Eisen quickly interjected, "Hold on, what are you talking about? Pain? Illusion magic? It''s just stone, isn''t it? Granted, stone enhanced through its creator''s power, but still stone. It breaking a bit shouldn''t be too much of a surprise," the old man pointed out, but the second patron shook his head, "No, no, that''s not the issue. Every once in a while, every few years or so, a bit of that thing falls off on its own, or cracks, or whatever. That ain''t the issue, what was the issue here was what the cult showed us that day!" "Tsk, ye''re soundin'' like one of them," the other giant shook his head disappointedly. "Hah! No way! While I know what I saw that day, I know there''s no way what they''re sayin'' is true. It just shows that the God of the Mountain is much, much greater than we thought!" "At least we can agree on that," was replied, as the two giants looked at each other with an acknowledging nod. Eisen still didn''t really get what exactly they were talking about though. And certainly, he definitely didn''t expect the answer he got. He looked at the two patrons beside him, "So, what do they say about the statue?" "That it ain''t a statue," the first giant said bluntly, and the second continued, "They''re sayin'' it''s a real man!" Chapter 802: A Possibility Eisen frowned. A real man? There''s a cult that believes that the statue wasn''t created by someone, but was instead a giant that simply turned to stone on their own? He couldn''te to a conclusion just based off this, obviously, so he had to learn more. "What happened that day? When that gang or cult, whichever you want to call it, showed that ''illusion'' to the people of this city?" The old man asked. One of the two giants scoffed, "They tried to convince us ''twas bleedin'', they did!" Bleeding. That definitely wasn''t a lot to go off of. Not only was something like that easy to fake, with something like paint or even rather basic illusion magic, as one of the giants had suggested, but there were also other, more natural reasons for something simr to blood to being out from the statue. It was massive enough for there to be giant pockets of water scattered around in there, and if some of those were adjacent to rich veins of iron ore, then with just some small, pre-existing cracks, enough air could havee in to oxidize that iron ore and make the rust bleed into the water. Or maybe there was some monster burrowing through the enhanced stone that was simply wounded or killed when that chunk of stone fell off. Though, that would be its own issue altogether. Monsters burrowing through the statue holding up the roof above the city was more than just dangerous, so if that were the truth behind the matter, then the monsters should have been taken care of already. "But why are you saying this gang caused that? Did they actively attack the statue?" "Well, there''s some maniacs that try to every once in a while. ''twas the first time they actually managed to do it in a couple hundred years. Hasn''t happened since then either." Eisen thought, running his hand through his beard. In that case, the attackers must have been more than just a simple gang. Highly organized and skilled individuals would be needed for something like that, since the statue was covered in multipleyers of protective magic and barriers. When Eisen used his Truth-Seeing eye, the statue was basically lit up like Times Square in New York. And he couldn''t imagine that this was just added after the attack either. Nobody would be stupid enough to leave something like thatpletely unprotected, just waiting for the worst case scenario. After all, someone at Eisen''s level of power should be able to find a way to destroy that statue as long as there wasn''t any direct protection cast on it like there was now. At this point, Eisen doubted anyone would be able to get through there. It would be tough even if him and the other Originals worked together on it, though they should manage with time. That showed that ''gang'' was probably anything but the correct thing to use for the people that damaged the statue. And obviously, it wasn''t like it was impossible for it to be the truth. Eisen knew that the curse that was ced on the Giants was one that wholly changed their bodies if they broke through a certain barrier. There was a reason why so many people though Askr was a real giant. The only issue there was that the statue''s scale was simply far, far too massive. While a giant could still grow to a certain extent beyond their natural-born size using their racial skills, just as they could shrink to the size of a human, that was vastly limited. The amount of energy that it took to do so would grow immeasurably at an exponential rate. That was why Eisen was able to raise this ability to a point where he could grow to half the size of a regr giant incredibly quickly, but reaching this the point he was at now took basically twice as long as that. A giant that was able to reach that height would have to be extremely unique. If they possessed a special sort of magic that assisted their growth or some hidden ability, of which there were so incredibly many in this world, it would certainly be possible. And if that person then broke through the ''barrier'', they might end up turning into such a statue before they knew it. Though even then, this degree would be ridiculous. Even the arrow shot at the giant, which was now in the center of the Giant''s Blood za, was not only massive at a surreal scale, butpletely petrified as well. He didn''t know how to exin this either. Truthfully, there was one thing that Eisen could imagine. One thing that could make this all actually possible, as there was a single type of being that could practically bend thews of the world to their will, reaching a point that not even the ascended gods had gotten to before they became the world''s rulers. Those that reached the peak of existence. For people, it was just five. Eisen, Brody, Jyuuk, Xenia, and Evalia. Them, as well as monsters that reached the same spot, of which many more came to be over time. And since Giants were technically monsters ording to the system, they would be ssified as such upon reaching this point. What this ''gang'' was describing was possible if the statue was a Transcendent Giant. It wasn''t impossible, not even close. Rather, since Giants were at a rtively high rank from birth, a factbined with their horrendously long lifespan, it just made sense for there to be at least one that made it to that point. And Eisen also knew that the curse Samuel cast on the giants as a punishment when Eisen refused to do his bidding was something that affected the Giants retroactively as well. Every Giant beyond Rank 7 was going to be affected. And if that curse affected a Transcendent Giant, then the curse itself might also bend the rules it was created by, potentially petrifying the things around it. However, in Eisen''s opinion... that was much more unlikely than the idea that someone, or potentially a group of people, created a statue within this mountain. After all, it would be a much more logical answer. If you considered the idea that the statue was a Transcendent Giant retroactively affected by the curse, then a ton of other questions came up. What about the arrow? Why was that giant holding up the roof of a card-up mountain, and more importantly, who would be able to carve a giant chunk out of a mountain without it copsing if it wasn''t carved around the idea of a giant pir holding it up? While it was ridiculous in and of itself to be able to create a statue like that, Eisen did plenty of ridiculous things himself. Such as, apparently, figuring out how to create true, practically immortal life. The fact that this world existed in and of itself was beyond insane. Over the course of a hundred thousand years, some people appearing that could create something like this, considering all that the world offered? That was the most normal thing Eisen could imagine inparison. So why? Why was it that Eisen, despite knowing that it would be so much more impossible, so much more ridiculous, believe that the statue truly was a man killed by the curse, bound to carry the weight of a mountain forevermore? "Thank you for the stories, you two. Your drinks tonight are on me, alright?" the old man said, nodding at the bartender as he got up. Before either of the giants could thank Eisen, he had already made his way over to one of the tforms where one could reach the non-giant area, and held onto the edge as he shrunk himself down. He quickly looked around and spotted Kiron and the kids, sitting around and having a meal, like Eisen had suggested. He rushed over there, sitting down beside them quietly. They were surprised to already have Eisen be here so soon, and Kiron quickly spoke, swallowing the food in his mouth, "G-Grandfather, already? Have you had any luck?" "...I''m not sure. Have you kids heard anything?" The old man asked, and as Kiron hesitated to talk, Sal quickly did it for him, speaking up with some of the information that they got, which happened to coincide with what Eisen wanted to do now, "Yup. We heard about this cult thing. Apparently they''ve built a camp on top of the mountain." "Alright," Eisen smiled lightly, happy that he knew where he had to go next, "Thanks for that. I think I''ll pay them a visit soon," Chapter 803: The Mountains Peak Eisen stood up from his chair after closing the tab at the bar. The kids had eaten plenty and were happy, and even Kiron managed to calm down and rx for a little while. Usually, he would be particrly stressed out in a ce like this, filled with so many different people. Not to mention, the giants that were walking around right below them. Kiron always kept in mind his duty as Eisen''s knight, and it was easy for him to feel overwhelmed in situations like this. However, over this whole trip, there has been more than just one situation where Eisen has shown to Kiron that there was no need to worry about any of this. It was easy enough to avoid trouble in ces like this,and that wasn''t even considering that Eisen was a lot more powerful than the average person and could handle himself. This allowed the half-dragon to learn to at least let loose every once in a while, especially when Eisen promised him that everything was fine. While this old man did have the tendency to be a bit tricky with his words for his own benefit, if he ever said something clearly and straightforward, and especially if he ever promised something, then that was something that Eisen adhered to to the best of his ability. However, now, they were going to get to a different point, one that made not only Kiron, but even Eisen slightly nervous. There wasn''t long left before the start of the council meeting, and Eisen had a lot that he wanted to get out of the way and learn about before it happened. This being the country that he was born and raised in, there were a lot of new things for him to learn about his past. Either traces of his involvement in the creation of so many ces, clues that he had left for his future self, or even regrets that slowly surfaced once Eisen came to remembering about his past actions. And if there was something as grand as this, the most enormous statue in this world? There was no way that there was nothing left behind here for Eisen to discover. Not to mention the fact that there was a whole cult dedicated to the belief that the God of the Mountain was alive, and not a statue that someone created at all. "Alright, are you all ready to go?" Eisen asked them all. As they were eating, Eisen had promised them not to go alone, and to bring the others along. He obviously wouldn''t bring everyone, since it would be more than just threatening to show up with a dozen people in tow, but bringing three kids and a half-dragon should be fine. And if it came down to it and things should get violent, it was still always better for Eisen to not be alone. While he knew how to handle himself, at the end of the day, Eisen still was just a craftsman. In an organization capable of getting through the protective barriers around the God of the Mountain, there had to be some people that could be a threat to him. Kiron nodded his head, swiping his hand through the air. He had been using the system-extension given to Knights to message the other half-dragon knights, informing them of what was happening. He told them to stay calm and do their own thing, but to be prepared to be summoned into action should something go wrong. Eisen stepped off the tform and increased his size enough to pick the others up, starting to carry them out of the pub and through the streets. There should be some quieter spots around here where Eisen could properly transform into his demonic form to fly them all to where the ''cult'' was supposed to be. And it didn''t take him long to find it either. It wasn''t much of a surprise, but there were plenty of dark spots in a city with a mountain''s peak as its roof. He did shrink down a bit and disabled his mes so that he wouldn''t stick out just as much, staying only big enough so that he would still be able to carry Kiron, Caria, Melissa and Sal, even if it was a bit more ufortable for them as it usually would be. Eisen quickly flew them all out of the city without being spotted, and then started rushing up instead, as the cult''s base was supposed to be at the peak of the mountain. Considering the sheer size of this mountain and the fact that it was just so, so much more massive than any mountain that existed on earth, it still took quite a while even for Eisen, especially because he had to consider just how cold it would be on the way up there. Before long, Eisen did reach the ce that he was flying toward, the peak of the Capital City''s mountain. The air up here was thin, to the point that Eisen was starting to get even more nervous. While the races of this world did manage to limate to different situations, such as extreme climates or underwater, from what he heard, this ''cult'' was just as multi-cultural as the capital city itself. That meant that they had ess to magic tools that allowed them to stay up here without worry. Luckily, Eisen also made his own, and handed them out to Kiron and the kids. They were small tes that stuck to the roof of their mouth so that they were able to breathe anywhere with at least a little air, and their clothes were already protecting them against extreme temperatures like up here. Still, once hended, Eisen handed out some few coats to the kids that he had ced into his storage. Kiron said he was fine, and being a half-dragon, Eisen figured that it made sense, but warned him not to hide it if he was getting cold after all. Even Eisen was feeling chilly. He was far more used to extreme heat rather than extreme cold, but he could handle either to some extent. Even then, he still put on a coat, and then used his magical element, the ''zing Core of the Mountain'' magic, to heat up the air around them. "Now to find the people in question," Eisen pointed out. It was the middle of the night, even if there was at least the moon illuminating them right now. A few of the nts also seemed to have some luminescence to them, and if needed, Eisen could use some of his mes to light up the path around them. The issue was just that this would also open them up to being spotted by the members of the ''cult'', and he wanted to avoid that as much as possible. He wanted to be in full control of this situation considering how dangerous these people might be. So instead, they made use of another tactic. Melissa held forward her arms, and soon, out of the sleeves of her coat, a swarm of small bees started crawling out. They looked like they were made of ice and glittered in the faint moonlight. Quickly, they spread out and before long, Eisen could no longer spot them. As Melissa closed her eyes to concentrate on talking to her bees, the others just had to wait for a while. "Take your time, we''re not in a rush~," Caria soon said with a light whistle, hugging her younger sister from behind, practically squeezing her. She knew that Melissa got nervous pretty quickly, especially when she was under pressure like in situations like this. Melissa let out a quiet sigh and nodded her head, and before long, raised her arm and pointed in a specific direction. "There," she said, and Eisen smiled lightly as he patted the girl''s head, "Thank you very much." Melissa quickly started guiding the group, with Kiron and Eisen at the back to make sure they had everything in their view. "Are you positive this is a good idea?" the half-dragon asked, "Wouldn''t they just be hostile? Or at least, not willing to talk toplete strangers?" Eisen shrugged lightly, "Who really knows? They''ll definitely be wary of us, but that doesn''t necessarily mean they won''t talk to us. We''ll just have to see what happens and improvise as we go." Kiron slowly nodded, though clearly worried about who or what they were going to encounter. The only thing they had heard about these people is that they were maniacs that tried to destroy the statue, but from what Kiron could tell, Eisen was clearly uncertain if that was actually the truth behind the situation. Really, anything could happen, but it definitely wouldn''t be easy for them. Chapter 804: Surrounded Eisen ced his hand onto Kiron''s back, "Everything is going to be fine, I promise you." The half-dragon slowly nodded his head. Even if something did happen, and the people they were searching for were justpletely hostile, then they should be able to handle them. Kiron himself was powerful and knew to handle his sword well. Eisen too is an incredibly powerful individual even if his skills aren''t centered aroundbat. Not to mention, the kids were here as well, and while their skillsets were unique, they were all incredibly useful and powerful. The group continued on through the snow, until Melissa''s body let out a shiver. As though she was surprised by something. Eisen looked at her worried expression and frowned, "Is everything okay?" Melissa, with slight tears forming in the corners of her eyes, pointed forward into the direction that they were walking. Using her sleeves, she wiped the tears from her eyes, "There. They''re attacking." Eisen clicked his tongue. That meant that the people they were looking for had encountered the bees and probably struck them down without hesitation. They weren''t native to this ce after all, something that obviously wouldn''t escape them either. "Everyone get ready just in case, but don''t take out any weapons, alright?" the old man warned, starting to lead the group forward instead of Melissa. It didn''t take long until Eisen was able to spot some people through their mana, hiding inbetween the thicket and snow. "You youngins cane out now, we''re not here to fight," Eisen said in a clear voice so that he could make sure all the people surrounding them would be able to hear it. The old man wanted to make sure that they knew they just wanted to talk. Though, the group around them chose not to respond in kind. A heavy metal ball, practically a cannonball, shot at them from the darkness. With a wave of his arm, Sal shot a web of empowered threads into the air, catching the cannonball. He continued manipting the thread to keep it mid-air, and the heavy projectile just stuck in the web like a fly ready to be devoured by its prey. "Didn''t I just say we''re not here to fight?" Eisen asked, sighing disappointedly. He walked over toward the web and pulled the metal ball off it. A wave of golden mes flowed over his arm as he looked into the direction it was shot from, and with a deep re into the darkness, Eisen threw it back with as much strength as he could muster. Of course, not necessarily with the intent of doing any damage; just with enough force to scare them. Through the silent, freezing night air, the cannonball shot forward and impacted with the ground. An explosion of snow and mud shot outward, showering not only the one who shot it in the first ce, but plenty of theirpanions as well. As though this were the signal they were all waiting for, the whole group started to attack. Eisen pulled out his ego-sword, watching as a wave of arrows approached them. Magical threads shot out from Sal as he continued stopping the projectiles, and Melissa released some of herbat-specialized bees. Caria as well was excitedly waiting for her own opportunity to defend everyone, which came quicker than she thought as the first wave of attackers ran toward the group. With an excited smile, Caria took a deep breath, and then blew it all against a pair of swordsmen. A cloud of spores soon engulfed them, not only blocking their sight but making it hard for them to breathe. Before they could even do anything about it, a number of small, but strong, mushrooms sprouted from wherever they could. On their skin or clothes, it didn''t matter. The attackers soon were unable to move as the mushrooms seemed to focus their growth on their joints initially. And together with Melissa''s bees, they quickly fell to the ground. Though, Sal didn''t let his sisters get the better of him either. At the same time as he stopped as many iing projectiles as he could, leaving the rest to be cut up, deflected, or blocked by Kiron, he started creating magic circle with his mana threads, preparing to initiate some spell attacks against them too. As soon as the wave of arrows was done, as their own men were now too close to their targets, Sal was able to shoot out a number of magic missiles back at the people hiding out, who were targeted not only by him but also by Melissa''s bees. The ones that wereing closer were being taken care of by the others, after all. The mushrooms that were sprouting on those two attackers soon popped off their unconscious bodies, having fed off of their energy until they were too weak to do anything, and turned into small Myconids on their own. Their small but steel-like bodies soon burrowed through the snow, setting traps for the attackers from below and attacking their legs the moment they stopped moving. Something they were forced to do, since before they could evene close, the range of Kiron''s massive Greatsword blocked any chance they had at evering close. Not to mention, Eisen was also there, moving through the bodies to attack everyone in tandem with Kiron. Though, he was taking a step back in that regard, since he had to focus on everyone''s defense as well. Eisen was able to see mana gathering in lumps in the shadows of the trees, pulling together his own magic so that he could quickly create defensive walls. Magic was the best way to defend against magic, after all. And though it was nonbat magic, meaning that it was more easily destroyed bybat magic, Eisen''s magical element was perfect for something like this. As a craftsman, it was important to create things that stood solidly and could oust their creator. Something that was deeply engrained into his magic as well. The strength of the dense rock that he formed defended well against especially the more malleable magics, such as mes or mist, while the ones that had stronger pration, such as earth or ice magics, were immensely slowed down, weakened, or simply deflected by just turning some sections of his deployed magic from stone to mes. And since Eisen could see what magic was being cast, or at least the element judging from the colour of the mana the spellcasters used, he could prepare whatever he needed well in advance. As such, even though the attackers were ridiculously well-organized and plentiful considering the extreme short notice they had to get themselves ready for the fight, the oue of the battle was to be expected. Within a matter of minutes, the other side was nearlypletely taken down and restrained. Obviously, nobody was killed. The ones that were more seriously wounded, something that couldn''t necessarily be avoided, were even healed with some of Eisen''s healing potions or salves, though still restrained and unarmed so that they wouldn''t be able to do anything. It was a total of 12 attackers, and quite well-bnced too. They had a number of mages and rangers, as well as vanguards, tanks, and even a supporter in the back. And judging from said supporter''s behaviour throughout the battle, and the worried nces of the attackers toward him once they had been defeated, this supporter was at least this squad''s leader. Eisen squatted down in front of him. He was almostpletely trapped in a coon made from Sal''s threads, and Eisen was holding his sword in his hand, "Is this the way that you always treat guests?" the old man asked, and the supporter was taken aback. "Aren''t guests usually invited?" He asked, and Eisen just smiled back, "Fair enough. Then let''s just say ''visitors'' instead. We''re not here to fight." "Considering you didn''t wanna fight, you sure released a ton of monsters around here." Eisen raised his brow, "You mean those bees? They were scouts. They''re at a surprisingly high rank, but they''re as weak as low-leveled Rank 1 Monsters, if even that. They were clearly not a threat." The supporter sighed, "After the scoutse the troops, don''t they? And not like we were wrong. For some people iming to not be here to fight, you lot sure were happy to get into it." "You attacked us first." "And we have every right to do-" Eisen held forward his sword, "Every right? You guys are terrorists. A cult. Or gang. Or whatever you want to call yourselves. But fact is, you are dangerous. You have no right to do anything anymore at this point. Not to mention, did you even think about this? A group of five people, including an old man and three kids, without any sort of luggage or equipment, approach your camp, a ce known for you dangerous lot to be waiting. And your first instinct was ''let''s attack them''? Guess you were just maniacs after all." The supporter scoffed and shook his head, "That made us even more cautious. The weirder people look, the more of a danger they are. But whatever, if you say you''re not here to attack, why are you here?" Eisen stood up and pulled up the supporter by the coon he was trapped in, quickly throwing him over his shoulder before confidently starting to walk into the direction of the camp that Melissa''s bees had found earlier, "What else? We''re here to talk. I''ve got some questions for you all." Chapter 805: A Cozy Cabin Before long, Eisen was able to see some concentrations of mana in front of him. It was forming arge, hollow dome. It was a barrier that was intended to hide this group''s base. That was the bare minimum they should do, really. Otherwise they would have already been wiped out long ago by the Irngrad''s men. Though, while Eisen was able to see the barrier itself, he still wasn''t able to see what was obscured behind it. The magic that was used was powerful enough to obscure even the mana that was within the barrier''s field from his view. That being the case, Eisen wasn''t directly sure how they were going to get in here. There didn''t seem to be anything physical that could be triggered from out here. So instead maybe there was something like a passphrase? Or someone was inside that could create an entrance for whoever might be approaching, if they were supposed toe inside. "Alright, how do we get in?" Eisen asked the man that he had thrown over his shoulder. But he just scoffed, "Get in where? We''re in the middle of the forest." "You know just as well as I do that that''s not the truth. Listen, I would really rather like to do this peacefully. How do I get through the barrier? Or at least, how do I get someone from inside of the barrier out here, so that I can talk to someone with actual influence?" the old man asked. The support mage on his shoulder stayed silent for a while. He was smart enough to tell that there really wasn''t any way out of this situation anymore. And even if he himself was convinced that Eisen and his party wouldn''t be able to get through the barrier, he also knew that if they wanted to, they could very easily kill him and the other members of the scout group that was taken down earlier. They were all tied up, it was probably the easiest thing in the world. Nobody became as powerful as Eisen without being able to ruthlessly hunt monsters, and for the most part, get rid of people as well. "...If you let me down, I''ll go talk to them. I can''t just bring you inside, but I can call for someone else," the mage finally let out, and Eisen curiously raised his brow. He could already tell that his words were truthful, though Eisen still had to make sure of a few things. "And how do you ensure that we won''t just be attacked by your whole group?" "I promise you, that''s not my-" "Even if it''s not your intention, if I can even believe that, how am I supposed to trust that others will think the same?" Eisen interrupted. The mage frowned as the old man finally set him onto the ground so that they could look into each others faces, "You''ve got hostages, don''t you? A dozen people, tied up, that you can just get rid of whenever you want. I promise that I''ll do everything in my power to prevent anyone from attacking you." Eisen thought about it for a while. This young man was the squad leader of the scout group, so he had to have at least some level of influence out there. Not to mention, them beign the scouts, their bosses had to put a lot of trust into their words. After all, if the scout lied or betrayed them, then the whole battle, or even war, could be lost as easy as that. "Fine. I''ll give you twenty minutes. Just a minute longer than that, and I''ll break down the barrier forcefully," Eisen said, snapping the threads that were tying the mage down so that he could move toward the barrier. Without as much as another word, the mage nodded and turned around, heading to where the entrance seemed to be. "You sure that was a good idea?" Sal asked with a frown, staring at the support mage''s back. Eisen sighed and shrugged, "Honestly, I hope so. But we''ll see how it turns out. For now, let''s just take a break, it''s getting a little cold out here." Eisen pulled up his item storage and pushed his hand into the opening, grabbing one of the keys off the shelf. Quickly, he pushed said key into the middle of the air, twisted it around, and watched as a wooden door folded away from the key. And from there, the rest of the building folded outward, turning into a simple, quaint log cabin. Eisen opened the door and let the others enter first, quickly following behind them. Caria practically immediately threw her coat off her back and onto the ground, though Sal, while rolling his eyes, picked up after his sister and hung it up on the coat rack together with his own and Melissa''s. Eisen quickly followed suit, and then looked toward the seating area. This was really just a small cabin, nothing much. Just for small breaks like this. It had nothing but a simple bedroom and this open livingroom. Though, said livingroom at least had a few couches, armchairs, and a livingroom. The kids quickly sat down on thefy and warm furniture, as Eisen sat down on one of the armchairs. He snapped his fingers and ignited the firece, letting the room fill with the heat of his magic. Kiron also slowly sat down, pushing his tail to the side so that it wouldn''t bother anyone too much, though Melissa quickly grabbed onto it and pulled it over herp, practically using it as a pillow. "Isn''t that too cold?" the half-dragon asked somewhat nervously, but Melissa quickly shook her head and kept hugging onto the tail. "I''m d to see you can rx a bit as well, son," Eisen smiled as he had one of his duplicates grab some prepared ingredients and cups from one of the shelves. Kiron carefully nodded his head, "Well... I think I simply understand that there is little need for me to be as careful as I initially thought I would need to be, Grandfather. Not that I am neglecting my duty as your Knight, of course! Just that... I..." "You understand that you''re also my grandson, and not just my Knight?" "...Right... I know it may be selfish, but seeing these children, I..." Kiron looked at Caria, Sal, and Melissa, thetter of them still holding onto his tail. He grew too awkward to finish the sentence, though he really didn''t even need to. Eisen knew what he meant, and he was d that Kiron was slowly getting to this point. After all, it was an old man''s duty to spoil his grandchildren, and the grandchild''s duty to be spoiled. "Let''s just take our break, alright? With how cold it is up here, we''ve really got the perfect thing," Eisen smiled, grabbing the pot that his duplicate has ced in front of him. It was already filled halfway with milk, so now Eisen just had to add the most important ingredient; some chocte. Using his magic, the old man heated up the milk, letting the chocte melt into it, and watched as the substances merged together smoothly. He then poured the hot chocte into some cups, quickly handing them out to the kids and Kiron, grabbing one for himself too. He had a bit of a sweet tooth himself, after all. Without even having to think about it, though Eisen was sure they had never seen hot chocte before, the kids and Kiron started drinking what was given to them, especially since Eisen himself was already sipping from it too. Their cooled-down bodies quickly started to warm up from the inside, and it didn''t take long for the first of them to fall asleep either. Melissa, practically drooling onto Kiron''s tail, was hiding in her oversized hoodie as she dozed off, toofortable to let this opportunity slip. It had also been a fairly long day already, after all. It was to the point that Eisen wondered if maybe they should just camp out here for the night so that the kids could rest properly, but he figured that it would be better if they returned back to the Irngrad''s castle once they had finished their business here. Not long after they had all settled down, just thirteen minutes after the support mage had left, there was a knock on the door. With a flick of his wrist, said door opened up, and together with a cold gust of air, a woman stepped inside. She was apanied by two heavily armed individuals, and from her outfit, as well as the mana permeating her body, she was not only powerful but incredibly influential within the organization that had set up camp up here. "Ah, there you are. Come take a seat," Eisen smiled, waving toward the armchair on the opposite side of the semi-circle of couches and chairs, and she looked back at Eisen confused, "Who... no, what are you? Where did this... house, suddenlye from?" The old man continued to smile, "That''s a question I can answer in a bit. But first, it would be nice if you answered some questions that I have for you instead." The woman frowned lightly. She could tell that Eisen wasn''t someone to be messed with. She lightly nced at the two men behind her, who seemed to take a more rxed stance, at least outwardly. It was clearly just to seem less threatening, though Eisen could tell that they were just asbat-ready as they were a moment ago. This was a well-practiced scenario. The woman sat down on the armchair, ncing around the room. "Would you like something to warm you up?" Eisen asked, holding forward a cup of hot chocte that he had already prepared for this woman, but she just shook her head. The old man looked at the two armed men, "Yourpanions?" They didn''t react. And so, Eisen shrugged and leaned back in his seat, "Alright, in that case, let''s just cut to the chase. What''s the deal with the ''God of the Mountain''?" Chapter 806: The Discovery of a God Eisen looked at the woman sitting across from him. She seemed taken aback by how straightforward he was being, on top of this whole ridiculous situation that they were all in. An old man, three kids, and a half-dragon were sitting around, rxing inside of a log cabin that appeared out of literally nowhere. And now, said old man was asking about the ''God of the Mountain''? It was ridiculous to say the least. There was no way this situation wasn''t suspicious, or maybe even outright dangerous for her and the two men with her to be in. That must be what was going through their heads, Eisen knew that more than well enough. But it didn''t matter to him; their anxieties wouldn''t actually decide what was going to happen. If this woman was sent out here in order to deal with the situation, then she must be capable of dealing with it, at least to some extent, "The God of the Mountain... Why do you want to know about the statue?" she finally asked, and Eisen raised a brow, "Well, from what I heard, you don''t believe that it''s a statue." The woman squinted her eyes just so slightly, "Right. I mean, it would be more ridiculous to expect it to be just that simple, right? If anyone could have made that, they would have to be a literal god. Not even Eisen would be able to make something like that." The old man, despite being a little hurt at that statement, couldn''t really help but disagree. That was something that he himself thought as well; he wouldn''t be able to make something like that. At least, not alone, he would need the help of at least a dozen people, and even then, they would have to tirelessly work for years if not decades to get something at this scale done. But that being the case, it shouldn''t be impossible overall. There were much crazier things in this world than that. "You''re sceptical, I can tell," the woman smiled. It seemed like she could tell that Eisen was really curious; he wanted to know what was going on here. So, instead of being fully weary of him, though that was still the case overall, she was trying to take a slightly different approach. She would try to convince, and if possible, even recruit him. People that could not only take out a skilled group ofbatants like the scout party without even breaking a sweat, on top of being able to create something like this hut within a matter of minutes, would be an absolutely amazing addition to their cause. There was no way she was going to let up this opportunity. She threw one of her legs over the other, cing her hands onto her knee, "Do you know the story of how the God of the Mountain was found?" Curiously, Eisen raised a brow and shook his head, cing the cup of hot chocte in his hand onto the table, "I''m not sure about that. Is there something special behind how it was found?" "It is not about how it was found, but rather, when. As you came to this city, you must have passed by a lot of mines. These have existed for tens of thousands of years, spanning across this mountain range and stretching deep into the ground. However, it all started with just a single mining vige not too far from here. Due to the nature of these mountains, however, and the many dangerous monsters hiding and burrowing through the strong walls, it wasn''t possible for the vigers to settle directly by their mine at the time. So, what they did instead was to work in seasons. Much like... hunting," the woman exined, and Eisen listened on. As she said, there were a ton of mines and mining towns scattered about that they came by on their way here. That in itself didn''t seem to be the important part, though. "Right, and so? Did these vigers have something to do with the creation of the Statue?" The woman smirked, and shook her head, "No, they didn''t. The miners would go to the mines, work for some weeks, and then make their way back to their vige. They would then stay there for a short while, just to return to the mines and do the whole thing all over again. Now, one time, the group of miners crossed over the mountain paths to find something inexplicable. The far-away valley that had be a nest to the powerful local monsters, was now suddenly reced by a mountain the size of none other. And at its front stood the statue of a man, practically carrying this mountain on his back." "What?" the old man let out near involuntarily. It was just so ridiculous. The im that the God of the Mountain was alive was already ridiculous in and of itself, but now they''re saying that the mountain itself wasn''t here before? But the worst part was that Eisen could tell she was speaking the truth. Or at least, what she believed to be the truth. There wasn''t even any doubt in her words. So, that meant there were two possible solutions to this. One, the God of the Mountain was carved out of the mountain by arge group over the course of many, many years, just like Eisen thought, and this woman was so brainwashed that even Eisen''s Truth-seeing eyes couldn''t veer past the veil of lies. Two, she was telling the truth. However, even within that truth, there were two possible paths. It was either that there was someone capable of creating the world''s tallest mountain as well as truly ridiculous statue over the course of a few weeks, or that the God of the Mountain truly was alive, and whoever that man was, brought this mountain with him for whatever reason. Eisen ground his teeth, "And how do you know this? I doubt one of you was alive while this was the case," the old man asked, and the woman just smiled back at him, as though she was happy to see Eisen lose a bit of hisposure, "Right, of course none of us were alive then. That doesn''t mean that we can''t have this information passed down to us," she exined, "Basically, there are two main groups here. One, the vigers, who settled within the mountain to create this city. For the most part, even then, they believed that this was simply a miraculous statue. However, there were some that believed in the words of another. Since the mine and the metals within it were something that the vigers couldn''t lose, a small group, really just a handful, of individuals stayed behind to take care of the equipment and protect the mine while the others were gone. And those few individuals imed to have seen what happened. A man, even grander than any other giant, dragged a chunk of the world on his back, and soon, nearly copsing under the weight of that world, passed on as his body turned to stone." "Dragged a chunk of the world..? So he was carrying the mountain on his back?" Eisen asked, trying to rify what she meant, "So then, what about the rest? For example, the arrow in the middle of the Giant''s Blood za. If this is what happened, then someone, another giant, must have attacked him while all this was happening." The woman leaned back and smiled, "Of course he was attacked. You don''t drag around a mountain without reason, especially if it''s about to cost you your life." "Right, but I''m asking about the size of the arrow. He must have been attacked by someone just as big as him; but we know that there''s nobody like that. If that statue is truly a man, then he was a unique existence," Eisen pointed out, but the woman just shrugged, "Why does it mean that the attacker was the same size, instead of someone that simply created a weapon fit to kill a true giant like him?" The old man didn''t really know if he should keep going along with this conversation. At the very least, it seemed a lot more possible that there was more to the statue, but Eisen still had no way of knowing if this was some weird trick used to gain power. People have been convinced of weirder and more impossible things, after all, for little to no reason at all. "Alright, sure. You got me there," Eisen replied, staring deep into the woman''s eyes, "If you really im that all of this is the truth, then I''m sure you don''t just say so without any proof, right?" And the woman''s smile continued, "Of course not. We have all the proof we need." Chapter 807: Why? Eisen sat there, unsure what to think. He closed his eyes for a few moments, trying to figure out what the best thing to do next would be. The woman said that they had proof, and at the very least, she truly and wholly believed this fact. It was the truth, and Eisen didn''t know what to do with that information. It was one thing to believe something blindly, and another to believe inplete proof. Though of course, it wasn''t as though proof was necessarily ''objective''. If one was already biased, then anything could act as proof. Though in the end, it did make things harder for Eisen to just dismiss this whole thing as nonsense. However, there was another question that came to mind. "Alright, then let me ask you something else," he finally asked, as the woman across from him kept smiling smugly, feeling as though she was finally gaining the upper hand. But she wasn''t prepared for Eisen''s next question, "Why?" The woman looked at him a bit perplexed, "What do you mean? How do we have that proof?" "No, I didn''t say ''how'', I said ''why''. Why do you all try so hard to prove that you''re right?" the old man inquired, and the woman stuttered as she answered, "Th-The people deserve to know the truth." "Of course they do. Everyone deserves to know the truth. But at the end of the day, what will it really change? The statue is already something surreal, whether it''s a statue or not. If it''s a giant? Then it''s just going to be an unbelievable wonder of this world in apletely different way. Frankly, I don''t think the people that have lived their all their lives will particrly care all that much," Eisen pointed out, "It''s going to be big news for a few days, or even some weeks, but after that... what then? What will you all do after being proven right?" Her confused expression slowly turning into a frown, the woman leaned forward in her seat, "What are you trying to say? That we don''t deserve to be vindicated? That we don''t deserve to spread the truth?" "Again, I believe that everyone deserves to know the truth. But... What you''re doing isn''t that. Frankly, from my perspective, it doesn''t really seem like you want others to know the truth... you just want to prove them wrong and yourselves right." The woman practically jumped off the seat, "How dare you-" "Imagine this," Eisen interrupted her, letting his influence and charisma add pressure into the room. It was strong enough to stop the unprepared people from this cult in their track, even if just for a few moments, "I waltz into your base with my friends here. We blow up a building in the corner, then smash a giant hole into the ground, and then disappear." "Are you threatening us?" one of the woman''spanions asked, cing his hand onto the sheath of his sword, but Eisen just sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "No, but that''s what it sounds like, right? The context and exactly why I did it... that doesn''t matter at all, now does it? You''re just going to see me as an enemy, even if the reason I did it was to help you out somehow. That''s exactly what you''re all doing, right? You''re terrorizing the citizens of the capital, trying to force a worldview that none of them had been able toe to terms with. All you''re doing is aggressively forcing your view on them, and it doesn''t even matter if you''re right or wrong. The only thing they''ll see is some crazy maniacs, and who the hell would want to agree with that kind of crazy maniac? You''re just driving people further away from believing your point." The woman scoffed and crossed her arms, "Hah, no I know that you''re just a sham. We''ve tried to appeal to the Irngrad to investigate the statue, but he just brushed us off. So instead, we had to turn to some more extreme measures." "...You kids know that this country is at the verge of a war, right?" the old man pointed out with a wry smile, and the woman in front of him frowned lightly, "What? What the hell are you talking about?" "The rtions with the central continent are horrible right now, and everything is leading into a war. Why do you think an emergency council meeting has been called? All the n chiefs are gathering to discuss this and try to make sure it stops. Do you think the King has the time to worry about whether or not a statue that has existed for tens of thousands of years used to be alive or not?" Eisen asked, standing up from his seat himself, "What sort of naive children are you? I came here because I hoped to find out the truth of the statue myself since it''s been bothering me since I came here, but you lot are just ying around. And here I thought you were even halfwaypetent." The old man sighed and turned toward the kids and Kiron, "Get up, we''re leaving tonight after all." As the four of them slowly got up, stretching and yawning to get rid of the drowziness the cabin''s atmosphere created, the woman and her twopanions seemed more than just confused, "You think you can just leave like that? After nearly killing our men?" "Nearly- What are you even talking about? Those kids were no threat to me, why would I kill someone like that. I happen to not particrly enjoy taking lives, you see?" the old man sighed, walking toward the coat hanger to grab the kids'', as well as his own, coats. However, as he approached the door, the two men slowly unsheathed their weapons, "Don''t you understand? I said you can''t simply leave as you wish anymore." Eisen nced at the swords, trying to stop himself from scoffing at their flimsy quality. He just had to lock eyes with Kiron for a moment, before the half-dragon quickly pulled his sword from his own sheath. As the only thing that was hanging out of that spatial storage was the handle, it seemed rather inconspicuous, until that absolutely massive Greatsword appeared out of nowhere. Kiron''s sword cut through the air at a speed those three weren''t even able to follow, as he broke through the swordsmen''s des in an instant, before stopping his own from even scratching the ground. A gust of air spread through the room, making the firece flicker as the broken swords fell to the wooden floor. "And as I said, I don''t particrly enjoy taking lives, but I won''t hesitate when I need to either," Eisen told her, his pressure once more stunning the three people from that ridiculous childrens'' club. Eisen and the monster kids quickly put on their coats, as Eisen ced his key into the door''s keyhole from inside. He twisted it around, and the log cabin started to shake. The walls quickly unfolded, swallowing the furniture. Sal and Caria slowly hopped, as Kiron and Eisen, who was carrying Melissa in his arms, simply stepped onto the ground as the floor moved away, while those three, who were still stunned, fell into the snow below them. And then, Eisen simply approached the barrier in front of him. He was hesitant to do this at first, since he didn''t want to poke a ho''s nest, but after seeing that woman''s attitude, the old man realized that there was nothing for him to worry about whatsoever. He took out his own sword out of his soul storage, and with a quick vertical sh used the Mountainbreaker technique that he had remembered rather soon upon returning to this country. The barrier didn''t even stand a chance; an attack like that, infused with Eisen''s magic, simply fell apart like thin ss. The hidden space within the barrier was revealed; a tall wall, which now had a deep cut within it as Eisen''s attack seemed to have cut deep into the camp, surrounded what was the equivalent of a quaint mountain vige. There were some watchtowers erected along the walls, but they weren''t anything serious, and the people on there clearly weren''t particrly good at their jobs either. They shot arrows at Eisen, but Sal was able to catch those with his threads and spells, leaving them all to just walk into the camp without another worry. Of course, they were quickly surrounded, but Eisen didn''t feel like ying around anymore. His skin soon turned to stone, with its deep cracks being filled with golden gemstone that lit him up for everyone in the surrounding to see. Wings sprouted on Eisen''s back as he shot up in size, soon reaching thergest height that he had been able to reach, which was much taller than the standard height of most giants. He looked down at the crowd, his ming sword in hand pointed toward the ground, the energy he exuded filling the minds of the people in this camp. The scout that Eisen had fought against earlier was standing in the back of the crowd, falling to his knees as he realized that he never even stood a chance. A few of the giants that were part of this organization also increased their size as a sort of defensive instinct, but even then, Eisen towered over them. To them all, the situation seemed hopeless, and before Eisen could even tell them to bring out the leaders of their group, it seemed like they hade of their own free will. Three people, seemingly the three strongest in this whole camp, stepped out of one of the buildings, staring up at Eisen, as the old man stared back. Chapter 808: Frozen Domain Eisen looked at those three people carefully. They were standing side-by-side, and from what Eisen could tell, everyone was looking in their direction. It was already clear that they were the strongest in the camp the moment they left that building, but the reaction of the others seemed a lot more hopeful than that. Instead of just wanting to rely on their strength, they seemed to want to rely on them overall, whether it was their wisdom, power, or leadership. These were the ones in charge; or at least, they were at an incredibly high position where it barely mattered if they were the real leaders of this group or not. Seeing the ming, demonic figure of an enormous giant standing in the middle of their camp, those three reacted quickly as well. One of them immediately started casting an attack spell, pulling a boulder''s worth of rock from the ground and throwing it at Eisen at immense speed. At the same time, one of the others shot off from the ground and pulled his arm back, preparing to attack this creature in front of him, while thest, the oldest in the group, had started drawing a magic circle into the air. However, Eisen didn''t even have to do anything to defend himself here. Practically before he could even react, Kiron had already jumped up into the air, using his grandfather''s leg to climb up to a somewhat higher position first, and then shed through the boulder with his sword. Though, at the size of his de, it was more like a mixture of crushing it into pieces and cutting it. It definitely had a clean slice in its center, but the mere pressure and weight of Kiron''s greatsword was enough to make the two halves shatter apart. Some of those rocks still hit Eisen, somewhat fast as well, but his skin was much harder than that. It barely even put a scratch on him. Meanwhile, after his slice at the boulder, it initially seemed as though he had been vulnerable to an attack from the second of those three, the pugilist that had jumped toward Eisen. Upon seeing the half-dragon, he had changed his target, but before he could pull through, his whole body was suspended mid-air as he became entangled with Sal''s powerful threads, which had been expertly wrapped around the area with the help of Melissa''s bees, who had flown into the directions that Sal had instructed in order to tighten the threads at the exact right time. Meanwhile, Caria had made her way through the crowd without being spotted somehow, and was now standing right in front of the two magic users. As though she were blowing a kiss, she blew out a cloud of spores, which quickly caused a number of small Myconids to sprout on their bodies. Though, they quickly popped off, instead of restraining the two of them like the ones that Caria had made use of just earlier. Instead, they were now walking around the magic users, actively disrupting and absorbing their magics as they tried to use them. That also included that nearly-finished magic circle, which simply fell apart when the mana disappeared. The more the magic users were trying to use spells or sorcery, the more the myconids grew and adapted, all the whilst Caria was simply dodging out of the way of that earth-mage''s attacks, who did seem to have some training with a de. But Caria was fairly experienced inbat at this point, and her stats were far from anything to scoff at either. Despite the type of Monster she was, technically being a nt-type monster, she had a rather high agility stat. Of course, it wasn''t as though either of the magic users had much of a chance to really attack her anyway. Caria was nothing more than a distraction that was meant to weaken the magic users, and in the meantime, Kiron hadnded safely on the ground and hade rushing over toward them, expertly fending off the physical attacks of the earth-mage. The sorceress, having her mana sapped from her the moment she tried to use anything like magic, wasn''t able to do much except try to run away, but by this point, the couple of Myconids that had been grown with her mana wererge enough to block her way. It had only taken about thirty seconds for the three strongest members of this group, at least amongst those that were present, to bepletely taken down. And that wasn''t even through Eisen himself, who was still exerting his influence and charisma to pressure the whole camp, which was pretty sessful at stopping the idea of an attack from even popping into most of their minds. That being the case, this still went over a bit too easily. For a group of people that were capable of tricking the city''s guards, breaking through the barrier that was erected to protect the God of the Mountain, not to mention damaging said statue itself to the point where ''blood'' was apparently drawn from it... they were far too weak. Eisen crossed his arms, continuing to look around the camp. There was nothing much here that was worth talking about. Nothing that seemed particrly extraordinary. But that didn''t mean that he could just leave them be. There was clearly a secret here, one that gave them a clear advantage in regard to achieving their goals. Eisen bent downward, flicking the body of the pugilist that had jumped at him, who was still suspended mid-air by thick, magically enforced threads, and he shot down into a thick mound of snow. Being freed, he of course tried to get up immediately to keep fighting, but before he could, the snow that he was in had be petrified. The old man had established his Demonic Domain, making it spread out into the whole Camp. All of the snow that they walked on had turned into frozen stone, with deep cracks spreading throughthem. The cracks were filled with light blue mes that emanated a freezing chill. Eisen himself too, changed like this. The colour of the crystals in his cracks turned into that same icy blue as he shrunk his body back down. He stopped at about four meters tall, which was enough to still put a lot of pressure on the non-giants here just through size alone, while it was also much easier to talk to who he wanted to talk to. Eisen snapped his finger, and a stone throne shot up from beneath the snow, that the old man quickly sat down in. And the moment he sat down, a number of small, imp-like creatures climbed out of the snow, also all taking on the same colour and material that Eisen had used for the Domain in this ce. They were Eisen''s Demonic Spawn, which he was able to summon after spreading his Domain somewhere. As for why Eisen changed the colour and temperature of his mes this much for the Domain; after ying around with this new ability for a while, Eisen found out that the Domain seemed to both have stronger effects and took much less mana to create if he adjusted it toward the surrounding area. And since his Demonic form was deeply intertwined with his magical element, he was able to do so more than easily. The old man didn''t like ying the ''Scary Demon King'' role all too much, but he had to admit that it was useful. And in moments like this, when he was either mad or annoyed, it did relieve some stress as well. Eisen''s demonic spawn surrounded the three leaders of the group, forcing them each onto their knees before Sal tied them down with his threads. Kiron also stood right behind them, his hand wrapped around the handle of his sword, so even if they managed to escape from the threads, things looked bleak for them. As they had basically be hostages, they were a great way to truly stop the rest of the camp from trying to do anything stupid as well. Eisen tapped his finger on the armrest of the throne. He kept staring at those three, impatiently waiting. Seeing that none of them were getting the cues that the old man had set up, he just let out a deep sigh, "Do I have to spell it all out? Tell me what''s going on here." "What''s going on here?" the Sorceress asked with awry, confused expression, "You''re the one that just attacked us!" "Well, I didn''t ''just'' attack you. We came up here to talk, but were immediately attacked. And just a couple minutes ago, I was threatened by that woman that you sent out to talk to me. So all I''m really doing is making sure that you know your ce." "Pah! Know our ce?" with a loud scoff, the Pugilist shook his head, "The hell''s that s''pposed to mean? Are ya some kinda noble, trying to fuck with us because we''re doing somethin'' ''unsightly''?" While Eisen couldn''t deny that he was a noble, or rather beyond that, as he was a King, that was obviously not why he was here. He didn''t really consider himself particrly ''King''-like either. This whole medieval-monarchy setting was something thought up by Samuel, while Eisen and the others were just forced to make sure that the world was curated perfectly to allow thepany''s vision toe to life. Eisen sighed, "Rather than that, I''m just an old man trying to educate some kids," he replied, rubbing the bridge of his nose to try and avoid a migraine from all of this, "But to do that, I need to understand you lot first. One of you, and I absolutely don''t care who, start talking. I''m sure you know a few more details of the motivation behind all of this. Why the hell are you really trying to reveal the ''truth'' behind the God of the Mountain?" Chapter 809: Heartbeat Eisen looked at the three people now tied up and kneeling in front of him. A Sorceress, a Pugilist, and a Supporter; the three strongest members of this group that were currently present here. He had asked them a fairly simple question, at least in Eisen''s opinion, but they were just staring up at him in confusion. "What do you mean, ''why are we really trying to reveal the truth''? The people deserve to know!" the sorceress eximed enthusiastically, though all that did was make her restraints tighten around her wrists. She let out a light groan, and Sal rolled his eyes and loosened them a bit more. "Right, that''s what thatdy earlier said too. But what''s the long game here. So the people will find out, and... what then? What''s the issue with people not knowing the truth behind the statue? What does it actually change?" The supporter was about to let out an instinctive retort, but that was before he actually thought about the old man''s question a bit more, "Well... don''t you feel bad for him? Shouldn''t we try and release him from that?" he tried to suggest, "He''s actively being sacrificed to help the city! Once people know, they''ll want to do something about that... right?" Eisen looked back at the man with an expression that could only be described with disbelief, "So you''re not just iming that he used to be alive, but that he is currently still alive? And what, just trapped in some kind of spell? If anything, then that''s the curse of the giants. We all know what happens to giants who are taken over like that." It didn''t seem like the supporter was able to say much in response to that. Luckily, not only him, but the other two were put under so much much pressure by Eisen that they weren''t able to just angrily yell at him about this situation. They actually had to put some thought and intent into what they were trying to tell him. This also gave Eisen the opportunity to think that im through a bit. He had actually slowly been convinced himself that there was something to their theory, of the ''God of the Mountain'' having been an actual man; but this was a step too far. That just wasn''t possible in any way. Eisen had met multiple giants while traveling through this country that had been befallen by the curse. And he had also seen a ce a few hours'' travel away from here, which was called the Giants'' Graveyard. It was a ce where some giants travelled to as they were dying from the curse, and their corpses were still standing tall right there, in a valley, surrounded by their peers. There was nothing they were able to do. And most importantly, their mana flow waspletely gone. They didn''t have any energy anymore whatsoever. They had truly be stone or wood. There was nothing else for them. And when looking at the God of the Mountain, he felt the exact same ''nothingness'' from it, as though it was a statuepletely made of nothing but stone. Though, that still didn''t exin one thing, "Then what about the blood?" Caria finally asked, trying to follow along with the conversation herself, and Eisen looked at the Myconid girl with a nod, "Right. That''s what I was thinking too," he replied. That was the only thing that was making Eisen feel unsure right now. During this group''s attack of the statue, they had broken part of it, causing it to ''bleed''. That was something that couldn''t happen to other giants that were affected by the curse. So what if... the curse was still iplete, or not perfected, by the time the curse came into effect within him. Could he just have been trapped there? Could he really still be alive? Seeing and hearing that Eisen wasn''t sure anymore, those three quickly took the opportunity. The pugilist straightened his back and looked up at the old man with a broad grin, "Can''t say anything to that in the end, huh? It''s not like we''re just saying this all for no reason. We have proof!" "What kind of proof would that be?" Eisen replied, and the sorceress replied smugly. "A heartbeat." --- The old man was led down into a tunnel. It had been dug from the group''s camp, deep into the mountain. Basically, as far as they could get without the threat of being found out by the guards or knights. Eisen was actively trying to keep an eye out to make sure that they weren''t being led into a trap, but he had heard the voice of the Sorceress. She was telling the truth, Eisen knew that for sure. And the Pugilist and Supporter so energetically agreeing made it clear that there was at least something to this im. Though, from the muttering that was shared between those three, that wasn''t something supposed to be known to all too many people. Information was key in this kind of thing, and they didn''t want the fact that there was a heartbeat to leak to the ''enemy''. If they knew, then they would be able to manipte that information well before this group was able to reveal that fact, and twist it to their own advantage. Or worst, just make the people believe some random excuse so that this group wouldn''t be able to use this information to their advantage anymore. That was why they were apparently trying to keep that information within the inner circle of the group, but realizing that they might be able to bring Eisen to their side, they quickly made the decision to forgo this. Soon, the supporter, who was leading the group down the path of the interwoven andplicated tunnels, came to a stop, "Alright, take a step back now," the supporter warned, as he ced his hand onto the dead end''s wall in front of him. Eisen watched the flow of mana as the supporter poured magic into the wall, and soon, it gave way into a fairlyrge hall beyond. And right in the center of the room was a vein. It was a thick, crystal-like tuberge enough for Eisen''s whole body to fit into multiple times over, even when he wasn''t in his human size. Within it was a dense, pulsating flow of mana. It seemed like part of it was being syphoned off to create a particrly powerful barrier around this chamber, one that even Eisen hadn''t been able to see through properly. He noticed that there was more mana here, but he simply thought it was just because the circuits for the barrier above-ground was ced here. But no, that wasn''t it at all. This was a highlyplex pattern that must have been expanded upon for decades, if not more, stretching up along the walls. There were bookshelves upon bookshelves set up, and multiple people were here in this room, as though they were trying to figure out more about what this whole thing really was. It really did look like they were scientist trying to decypher a secret of reality. All of those researchers jumped from their seats, confused at these new people that suddenly came into the room. "What''s going on here?" one of them asked in a loud voice, but the Supporter just smiled at him and shook his head, "Nothing to worry about. We''ve got this under control. Just stay quiet for a while, alright?" he asked, making sure that everyone in the room could hear the request. And it seemed like these people really did have as much influence as Eisen thought, since the researchers quickly stayed absolutely silent. "This is our proof. This is the heartbeat. That''s not something ''natural''. It''s proof that the God of the Mountain is alive, and trying to break out of that prison of stone. We don''t know how far these have spread out, but we have already proven that this flow of mana is strongest within the God of the Mountain''s body. That was one of our objectives during ourtest ''attempt'', to break through the barriers and allow us to view the flow of mana within the God of the Mountain." "That..." Eisen approached the vein. He didn''t know what to say. Rather, he didn''t understand any of this. This amount of mana was just... ridiculous. He had never seen anything like this before, but his chest ached strongly. His head was pulsing as though his eyes were about to pop right out of their sockets, and he felt hot. Hotter than he had in a while. "Alright, alright, my turn," a deep, but youthful voiceughed out, "This is something that I learned while travelling." With a curious smile, Eisen looked at the stretched-out palm of the man in front of him. Crystal-like strands were starting to grow from it, like branches off a tree, "It''s a technique I learned from a Mountain Gobbler. They hibernate for some hundreds of years sometimes, and bury themselves deep inside of mountains. They then use this technique to feed themselves with the mountain''s mana during their hibernation, so that they can not only survive for basically however long they need, but actually scout out the surrounding area. They know everything that''s going on around them, and the moment that there''s some danger to them, like an earthquake or another monster, they wake up and go somewhere else to continue sleeping. Ain''t that crazy?" the man said with a broad, smug grin, "What do you say, oh so great ''Legendary Craftsman''? Got anything to top that?" "Well, maybe I do," Eisen replied with a yful yawn, starting to unrwap the item that had beenying next to him this whole time. It was a sword, an incredibly powerful one, "Do you think my first tenth rank item wouldpare, or...?" "...Tenth?" "Yeah, something I managed to figure out while I was gone. Nothing major, really." "Oh you little- fine, you win this time! But the next time we meet back up, I''ll have something even greater than that to show you." Eisen scoffed, wrapping the sword back up as he ced it down next to a young, sleeping earth-dragon with small crystal formations growing on his back. He threw the wrapped sword into the arms of the man across from him, and smiled, "Well, good luck with that. Maybe you can use this until then?" The man raised his brows confused, "Seriously? But it''s the first-" "Yes, seriously. I made it for you in the first ce," Eisen grinned, looking at the face of the man who would, though still quite far in the future, be the ''God of the Mountain'', "What else did you expect? How do you think I would look as the ''Legendary Craftsman'', if my little brother walked around with a shabby, cracked sword?" Chapter 810: Silber Eisen felt a surge of warmth in his chest as the happy memory of a moment of the far past filled his mind. The crystal vein in front of him, which flowed through not only through parts of this mountain but also through the entirety of the ''Statue''s body, was a monster''s ability. An ability that a certain young swordsman, who traveled to be inspired by nature and numerous living creatures, had learned for himself. It was an ability that Eisen''s younger brother had so smugly shown off to him. "You little rascal... To think you''d hold out for so long," the old man said as a broad smile formed on his face, a smile that soon turned intoughter. Laughter that echoed through the cave, burrowing itself into the ears of everyone around. It was the deafeningughter of a giant. "Grandfather, what''s going on?" Kiron asked with a concerned expression, his hand nervously wrapped around the handle of his greatsword. Caria, Melissa, and Sal also seemed on edge as they looked into Eisen''s face, "What do you mean? What would be going on?" "...I don''t know, but..." Kiron swallowed nervously, "I''ve never seen you cry like this before, Grandfather." Eisen, surprised, touched his fingertips to his face, feeling the wetness of tears on his cheeks being soaked into the edges of his beard. A confusing surge of emotions was flowing through the old man''s body. Joy at having found his younger brother, still alive and holding out to this very moment. Sorrow at the fact that he had forgotten about him in the first ce, and now seeing him be trapped in a nigh-inescapable prison. But neither of these emotionspared to the one that was growing within his chest, overpowering everything else in his mind. The pure and utter hatred and rage that he felt toward the man who had trapped him in this state. The old man ced his hand onto the crystal vein in front of him, "I swear to you, Silber. I''m going to get you out of there somehow." "S-Silber?" the sorceress, one of the three executive members of this group who had led Eisen down here, repeated. And the old man nodded his head, wiping the tears from his face, "It''s the name of the giant who turned into the ''God of the Mountain''. I guess because of the magical qualities that silver possesses, our father chose that name for him. He was born with a ridiculous amount of mana in his body, after all. His mother was some kind of Elf, so I guess that was to be expected." "''Our'' father?" Kiron muttered, his hand slowly slipping off the handle of his sword, and the old man turned around, "Yeah. He''s my younger brother. Well, half-brother, but you know that I''m not so rigid about things like that." Slowly, the executives looked at each other. They weren''t sure if they believed in this old man''s words, but that didn''t matter in the end. If he believed this, then he would help in trying to save the man trapped in that rock skin. And considering how powerful he seemed to be, there was no way that they were going to let up this chance. The supporter stepped forward, "So don''t you see now? We''ve been trying to save him all along. So, are you going to join us in our grand goal?" "Huh? Oh, right, you guys. No thanks," Eisen waved his hand dismissively, stunning not only the supporter, but the two people standing by his side as well, "O-Oh? B-but-" "I certainly appreciate you trying to help him and all, but you''re going about this totally wrong. This is obviously the Giants'' Curse at work here, and you are all obviously skilled and smart enough to not only realize that, but to actually make some difference in the research to break that curse. I''ve visited all the ns so far, and there wasn''t a single one that wasn''t doing at least a little research into it, and this is definitely the case here in the capital as well. The Irngrad is an honest and kind young man and is deeply trusted by nearly all the Chieftains, so it''s impossible for that to not be the case. If you had just brought some of the lead researchers here, proving to them that Silber is still alive... Don''t you think you would have gotten this country''s support immediately?" The sorceress tried to refute Eisen''s im, but she couldn''t. That was obvious, in the end. While they imed that they were doing this all just to save Silber, that made no sense at all. With all the ressources they had, with the skilled healers and warriors, they could have saved dozens, if not hundreds, of the people living in poverty in the streets overseen by the ''God of the Mountain''. If they were filled with nothing but virtue, they would prioritise them instead of a man who has been in somethingparable to aa for tens of thousands of years. Or at the very least, their methods wouldn''t be so terror-inflicting. "Just keep on protecting this vein for now. I''ll be taking this whole thing over," Eisen said with a sigh, and the Sorceress red at him deeply, "What do you mean, taking this over?! Do you think you could just take over our Organization?!" "Your Organization?" Eisen looked down at the woman in front of him and sighed, "Do you think I need your people? I''m Eisen de Grandour, the King of Asgard, and Original of the Mechanical Arts. My closest friends have powers beyond yourprehension. As if I need your group of ragtag bandits. I meant that I''m taking over the task of saving my brother." The Pugilist scoffed, trying to y off the immense pressure that Eisen was cing on everyone in the room, "H-Hah, right! As if! You need our help, don''t you? If not, then you wouldn''t have asked us to protect the vein." "I think there was a misunderstanding," Eisen replied casually, walking up to the pugilist, cing his hand onto the man''s shoulder. "Right? So stop ying pretend like that and just tell us what you really-" "That''s not what I meant," the old man tightened his grip, his fingers burrowing into the Pugilist''s shoulder as his bones broke as though they were made of sand, "I never ''asked'' you to do anything. I ''told'' you to protect the vein. Because if Ie back here, and that vein even has the slightest scratch on it, you will feel a wrath that you cannot experience even in the depths of hell." --- "Thank you all foring today," the Irngrad said with a light smile on his face, looking around at the Chieftains around him, "While it was the Grandour that had called this meeting, I don''t think there is any need for him to exin the circumstances. As I was told, you had all been visited by a certain man, either before or during your travels to this ce?" The n chieftains all stayed quiet, either simply nodding or looking around at each other to see what the others were thinking. "In that case, I guess we should get right to the gist of it. Who here trusts in the words of that man, and believes him to be ''Eisen de Grandour'', the Original of the Mechanical Arts?" "A number of hands were raised. It was exactly half of the chieftains that seemed to have been convinced. Though, to the surprise of many, even the Cloud Giant chieftain was counted amongst them. He was sitting there, a piece of white cloth held in front of his hand, so as to breathe as little of the same air as these people around him as he could. "Even you, Skald?" the Irngrad asked surprised, and he simply nodded his head, "How could I not? You all know of the events in the Grandour''s arena, and not only that, but you were even visited by him personally. How could any of you still hold doubts?" "Those fights, while certainly impressive in nature, are not something that can only be achieved through an Original''s power. Rather, if that were the case, and this is certainly not meant as an insult, dear Grandour, their victory would have been iparably more overwhelming," the Bralfam, the Stone Giant chieftain, pointed out, showing his own doubts. While he himself hadn''t raised his hands, he still put faith into Eisen''s words. To him, it didn''t matter whether he was who he imed to be; his power, influence, and the weight behind his words were enough to convince the Bralfam of the severity of the situation. The Grandour shook his head with a scoff, "None taken. You''re right, honestly. If Eisen hadn''t lost his power, then it wouldn''t even have gotten to those fights. He would have just turned a toothpick into an iprehensible artifact that could let a child do all the fighting against my champions." "That is exactly the issue at hand. Should we truly believe that not only someone such as Eisen, but all the other Originals, had their powers taken from them?" The Chieftain of the Desert Giants, one of the ones that still didn''t believe Eisen''s words, asked, her chin propped up on her two hands. "How else would we exin the existence of the Artificial men that stormed the central continent?" the Bralfam asked, and the Desert Giant chieftain red over at him, "Whose side are you even on?" The Bralfam shrugged, "I''m on the side that truly matters. I put little worth in that man himself, in whether he is who he says he is, but rather, in the potential consequence of his words. Whether he is that ''Eisen'', he is a king who came here himself, visiting the chieftains, warning them of the ploys of a wicked man." Chapter 811: Causality The Irngrad listened to the opinions of the ns'' chieftains. They were clearly divided heavily on whether or not to believe in Eisen''s identity, but overall, in regard to the actual important topic at hand, it seemed as though they were leaning into a more singr direction. All of them were at least considering the warning that Eisen had told them. The ones that were already against the war to begin with were just strengthened in that belief, and those that supported the war, saying that they shouldn''t let the central continent do whatever they please, were thinking a bit more deeply about the situation. After all, it wasn''t a total impossibility that Eisen was telling the truth. At the end of the day, he was still a King, albeit of a Kingdom that had been abandoned for hundreds of years until he reimed it. He stood between the giants'' country and the central continent, and seemed to have a more clear view of what was going on. And of course, his strength and influence that he showed to each and every one of the chieftains wasn''t anything that could be dismissed either, even if it wasn''t at the level that they generally expected of the true ''Eisen''. "Let''s put the matter of his identity aside for now. Before we call him in to speak to us... what about his im? As the Bralfam already pointed out, what truly matters is whether or not this all is actually the will of the wicked man called ''Samuel''," the Irngrad pointed out, looking around the room, "Even if you hadn''t until his appearance in this country, I''m sure that each and every one of you is aware of the events that unfolded in the central continent, connected to the figures of ''Samuel'' and ''Eisen''." "Are you talking about the ''Demon of the Pit'' incident?" the Grandour asked quickly, though that was really an unnecessary question. That was clearly the thing that the Irngrad had referenced. The Giants'' King nodded his head, "That is it. The promise that had been voiced between Eisen, who in the form of a giant demon, made a man called ''Samuel'' speak a promise, to keep their personal war between them only." "Hasn''t that event clearly been exaggerated?" the desert n''s chieftain sighed, shaking her head, "I mean, that was obviously just some show that was put on. If this ''Samuel'' is as wicked as imed, and has the ability to lead us to a war with the central continent, how could he be stupid enough to sign a contract like that? Especially so if it''s actually ''Eisen'' we''re talking about here. Even the gods wouldn''t dare mess with him and the other originals." "Well..." the cloud giant chieftain slowly spoke up, "I might be able to share some... insights, in that regard." With dismay at the fact that he had to draw the attention of the other giants, the chieftain started to exin the situation, "I am sure that Eisen has already exined as such to you, but Samuel has the ability to interfere with people. Take over their bodies, and control their actions. That is an ability that transcends causality, the restrictions ced onto the gods to prevent them from interfering with the mortals of the world too much. Causality is what holds the sacred ''system'' in ce. Without it, this world would not exist as it does." "So? The gods have always given oracles and blessings, or put curses on certain people. It''s not like the restrictions of causality truly prevent those gods from meddling with us down here," the desert giant chieftain pointed out, leaning back in her seat. But the cloud giant chieftain simplyughed and shook his head, "I should have expected as such, but you are clearly not understanding that which has been exined to you plenty already. I am not talking about oracles. The people that are being controlled are not Samuel''s acolytes. Any man, any woman. Any being and creature living and breathing and existing within this world can have their mind and bodypletely stripped from them. Samuel will step into their bodies and use them as though they were his own. This is not meant in a metaphorical manner either. In the truest and clearest sense of what I said, that is how Samuel controls others." The room was silent, to the point where the cloud giant chieftain could tell that the desert giant chieftain wasn''t the only one thatcked true understanding of the situation. The cloud giant chieftain continued on, "And do you want to know what is the worst of all? They don''t even remember it. I myself... have fallen victim to Samuel. The only reason I have any sort of remembrance of these matters is because I hold a deep afinity to such magicks, as you all know." The Irngrad stood up from his seat, staring into the cloud giant''s face, "So you are saying that anyone could be the victim? And we would be never the wiser? Just how-" "I believe that Eisen has a much clearer understanding of this as I do. I believe that it might be better for him to continue the exnation," the cloud giant chieftain interrupted. He knew that it was rude to do so to the Irngrad, as even he acknowledged a king''s status, but this was an important enough matter for him to ignore this. "...Fine," the Irngrad sighed, snapping his finger. With an echoe that pushed itself through the whole room, therge double doors on the other side of the room opened up, and a figure stepped inside. It was the form of a stone demon, with golden crystals growing in the crevices of his body, all trapping surging mes within them. The Demon stood taller than the other giants in the room, who were simply in their rxed forms, and was d in a beautiful, ornate armor. He stepped into the room, and was quickly met with the stares of the giant chieftains, "How do you do?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, "It is a true pleasure to see you all again." The Irngrad held his hand toward the chair ced on the other end of the enormous table that the chieftains had gathered around, "Please, have a seat." Without having to be told a second time, Eisen sat down. Though, before he could even settle, a question was brought to him. It was the Bralfam, the chieftain of the stone giants, who had been more than collected up until now, "Exin to us, if you could... how does this ''Samuel'' exert his control over others?" Eisen looked around the room. He smiled at everyone, and then looked over at the cloud giant chieftain. If anyone here, then he would be the one that Samuel would take over. And while there were obviously ways for Samuel to look into this ce in other ways, at this point, the fact that Eisen was going to do this was obvious. Samuel wasn''t stupid enough to believe that Eisen would stop spreading the truth. And while this was something that he had wanted to avoid, since it could cause to many more issuester on, the old man figured that even if he didn''t reveal the whole truth, he could travel between the lines of lie and truth for this matter. "Samuel is... something akin to a ''God'' amongst even the gods, if that makes sense. He is the one that personally created the first, oldest, and most powerful goddess, Ari. When I first spoke to her, she was just a child. A child calling Samuel her father, excitedly telling me of the stories he had told her about me and the other originals. He is the one that curated the seeds of this world, the one that gave power to the gods, while also putting restraints on them," Eisen exined, "In the end, there is no way for me to truly know exactly how much control he can still exert. But fact is, the only way to ce certain restraints is if the one cing them has the ability to transcend them." "Then... then how are we supposed to fight against a being of that sort? A truly omnipotent god?" the bralfam asked with a sense of hopelessness in his voice, but Eisen looked at him with a smile, "Oh, he is powerful, sure, but... he''s definitely not omnipotent or omniscient." As the old man said this, he took out a document. It was arge, gold-adorned piece of paper. It had deep sigils pressed into it, and inrge letters,rge enough for even the Irngrad on the other side of the table to read them, said, "Eisen de Grandour will make a statement overseen by the Goddess of Fate. If he is to lie during this statement, he will be struck down immediately and henceforth resign his position as King of Asgard, cing all his power, servants,nd, and treasures under the ownership of the Irngrad." Eisen waited for a while until everyone had truly had the chance to read andprehend what the text said, and then poured his mana into the contract. The letters started to light up briefly before detaching from the paper, as the paper itself started to fall apart into dust. The dust quickly formed a cloud that moved behind Eisen, as a reaper overseeing the contract appeared behind the old man. A scythe was ced around his neck from behind, already pressing into his flesh as though it were made of cloth and not the rock that it had turned into in this Demonic form. And with a smile, Eisen opened his mouth and began to speak. Chapter 812: True Statement The room was silent for a short while that seemed practically eternal. The giant ns'' chieftains were looking at the old man with eagerness. They could all recognize what was going on at the moment. Eisen had created a contract that would cost him his life and every single possession of his if he were to tell even a single lie in his next words. And judging from that being, the reaper behind the old man''s back, it was clear that this was truly an overseer of a magical contract, and an incredibly powerful one as well. "My name is Eisen de Grandour, son of the first Grandour, and I''m the Original of the Mechanical Arts. I, as well as the other Originals, were ced into this world with a simple task in mind; to curate and guide it in the exact way that Samuel wished. In the case of a rebellion against this, we would be punished severely... which led to the creation of the giants'' curse," Eisen started to exin. How exactly the curse came about was a secret that not even these people knew, but that changed the moment that the reaper''s scythe didn''t move for even a fraction of an inch. The old man was telling the truth. However, before any of the chieftains could evenprehend what Eisen said, he already continued on, "The final task we were given was for us toe up with a method to create true new life which would act as the hosts for another realm''s people, whoe to this ce for enjoyment. As a game for them to y. But even then, those people, who now roam the world as the ''Artificials'' on the central continent, are just a ploy to gather enough essence of ''experience'' to connect this world to the other one, to introduce magic into that realm so that Samuel could rule there as he does here. But in order to do that, he needs the ''Artificials'' to keep ying the game that Samuel prepared for them. He needs to create excitement for them. That excitementes not only in the form of a war between Chromatic and Metallic dragonkind, but once that battle has concluded... Samuel wants to start the war between the central continent and your country." Eisen finished, and nced back at the reaper. Realizing that the statement it was here to judge had ended, it released the scythe from Eisen''s throat, before simply disappearing into the same dust that had formed its body to begin with. The old man sat back down on his seat, and closed his eyes. Because now, it was time to let the chieftains react. "What... what are you even saying?" the desert giant chieftain muttered out, being the first to speak. She jumped up from her seat and mmed her hands into the stone table, cracks spreading out from the ce that she hit, "A game?! They''re just treating our lives as expendable for their own damned enjoyment?!" "How are we supposed to ept this?" the Bralfam eximed. He knew that the contract confirmed this as the truth, but that didn''t mean that it was any easier toprehend the magnitude of the information that had just been revealed to them all. Usually, a lot of this information would have been simply wiped from their minds the moment Eisen spoke about it, since it revealed information about Earth and the yers, but from a lot of different tests and experiments on that effect, Xenia had figured out that by infusing an immense amount of ''pressure'' into your voice as you spoke, an amount that was hard toe by if you weren''t someone like Eisen or one of the other originals, it could make the information push through that spell''s effect. For a while, the chieftains were yelling andining about the situation, and asking each other what they were supposed to do. Until the current Grandour spoke up, "So basically... a war with the central continent is useless. A war with the ''Artificials'' is what we need to aim for." Eisen sighed and shook his head immediately, "And how exactly are you going to do that? The artificials are people of the central continent. You can''t attack them without dering war on the central continent, and with the control that Samuel has, you can''t create a cultural bacsh on the artificials either. Not to mention... the way they were created has turned them into ''Faux Peaked''." "Faux peaked?" the Irngrad repeated, as the room once more turned quiet in anticipation of Eisen''s words. The old man quickly began to exin, "I already told this to most of you, but now that you know for certain I told the truth, maybe it might sink in a bit more. The way the artificials were created is as such; us five, the Originals, have acrued such a massive amount of experience in our lifetimes that it can shift reality to an extent. Not as much as Samuel needed, but enough to stabilize and create new life by borrowing the status of what the system acknowledges as ''people''. Since they were made from our experience, the artificials gained some abilities that a ''Peaked'' would gain. And the most central ability in this regard would be that they inherited our immortality. After a certain amount of time, albeit ever so slightly weakened, they will be resurrected. Eradicating them is... impossible." "Then is it not hopeless after all..? How are we supposed to fight against immortal soldiers whose only goal is to kill us for sport..?" the Bralfam asked, but Eisen shook his head, "I think I should have made this clear earlier, but the Artificials don''t know that this is a ''true'' world. They were convinced that this is an artificial and controlled space where they are allowed to live out their hopes and dreams. Like a yground for young children, practically. Of course that is not truly the case, but fact is... the Artificials are not the enemy. Not as a whole, at least. All they want is to be entertained. If we mess with Samuel''s ns to start a war, well... he can''t force it to happen, at least. Xenia, the original of magic, is currently working out a way topletely block Samuel''s control. And once we have that set up, things will truly just be up to the people living in this world again." The chieftains seemed to rx at Eisen''s words. The Irngrad in particr looked happy to hear this. Inwardly, he was clearly quite anti-war, even if he said he would like to keep the final decision up to the other chieftains. That being the case, the Irngrad looked at the old man sitting across from him, "That... thank you. I truly cannot thank you enough." "What are you thanking me for? I didn''t really do anything, did I?" "Of course you did. Without you, we would have simply yed into that man''s hands, but like this..." the Irngrad said, standing up from his seat. He looked at the chieftains around the table, "I believe we have everything we need toe to a decision already. Will we strive to prevent this war to the best of our abilities?" Without a moment''s hesitation, the hands of every single chieftain in the room had been raised. Even the ones that seemed generally pro-war agreed with this statement. Knowing that they would have to fight against extremely powerful, immortal soldiers, while also having to fend off the control of a seemingly nigh omnipotent being, only an idiot would agree to something like that. It would be a war certain to be lost. At the very least, they didn''t want to y right into Samuel''s hands. With a broad smile, the Irngrad pped his hands together, "As such, it has been decided. We will prepare for a diplomatic meeting with the representatives of the central continent immediately." "Ah, about that-" Eisen started, quickly raising his hand, "It''s just a suggestion, but how about you call for to take ce in Asgard? If not in our capital, Prototype, we should be able to find a perfect spot amongst our inds. Not to mention, even once Xenia manages to create a way to block Samuel''s control, at least in the beginning, it will require a lot of space and maintenance to keep up. We will create this ''safe space'' in our country, so you can be sure that any conversations you have are truly held with each other, and not with Samuel in your mids." The Irngrad smiled and nodded. He didn''t even have to think about it for long, "It will be as such! Once the representatives of the central continent agree, we will start preparing for our journey to your country, Lord Eisen." Chapter 813: War Prevention The chieftains continued their talks about what Eisen had just revealed to them, trying to figure out the best approach to calm the situation down. Of course, they couldn''t just take aplete loss, and the frictions between the Giants'' country and the central continent started for a reason, after all. It was escted by Samuel into a threat of war, but even without that, there were immense issues between them. The most central one being the matter of racism. Giants were monsters. That is what the system acknowledged them as, despite the fact that in every other way, as a society and culture, they were people. At this point in time, many suggested that the reason why they were considered monsters was because that was the only way for them to support their massive bodies. Monsters were physically stronger and often had certain unique abilities, which was definitely the case with Giants. This was something that has caused quite a lot of conflicts with other people, particrly ones that didn''t encounter giants often. A lot of people tended to be rather xenophobic when it came to an unknown people, especially when they felt threatened or couldn''t truly imagine what they were like. And as the Giants'' society still was quite different from the more human-centric societies in the central continent, it was easy for rumors of the giants to be not only exaggerated, but start a deep fear. And fear is the seed of hatred in many cases. Of course, there was no need to worry about coexistence between the two countries. The giants'' country already had millions of non-giants living within it, and there were plenty of giants that assimted into the central continent''s culture, living by generally hiding the fact they were giants. And, considering that the sort of fear-ridden culture was something that was specifically engineered by Samuel, as it would be easier to cause conflicts such as this, it was hard to turn it over in just a single day. However, at the end of the day, an exaggerated conflict could still be stopped. Currently, all trade between the giants'' country and the central continent had been halted as conflicts surged. One way to improve the rtionships was to re-establish those connections, either directly with each other, or as Eisen, and as such Asgard as a whole, to act as an intermediary. Of course, this wasn''t the only way to do so, but it was one of the best ways to make the actual country-scale conflicts to settle down at least for a while. And, Eisen had a n to change cultural perception as well. "Soon, the war between the Dragons wille to be," Eisen exined, "It''s going to be tough, and it''s going to throw the central continent into a chaos. The Artificials will grow immensely stronger, but at the same time, the everyday people will suffer more and more due to the coteral damages. So for now, there''s two things we need to do," the old man pointed out. "Prepare ourselves to not be intimidated by the artificials'' strength?" the desert giant chieftain suggested, but Eisen shook his head, "No, that would basically be suggesting an arms-race, which is the opposite of what we need right now. No, the artificials are a threat because they consider you as monsters. They are even more ck and white about things right now. However, their opinions can be swayed much more easily. The existence of monsters and magic and all types of people beside humans are new to them. That''s why we just need to show them that things aren''t ck and white, but that everything is a shade of gray. We need to show them that giants, as a whole, aren''t an enemy." The Bralfam slowly nodded his head, "We fight alongside them in the war against the Dragons." "Right. Though, it''s not quite a war ''against'' the dragons, but one fought alongside dragons, against other dragons. As far as my understanding of the situation reaches thus far, the chromatic dragons have been influenced over the millennia into being more... destructive in their nature. They and the artificials on their side are the ones causing most of the mayhem. Frankly... in the end, they will be the losing side, even if just because I and the other originals are on the side of the metallic dragons," Eisen exined, "Once the war between the dragons start, lend your aid to the central continent. I''m not saying that you have to join the battles, but help out the people. Protect them, chase out the artificials on the side of the chromatic dragons, and most importantly, aid in the reconstructions after the war is over." It didn''t take long for the Irngrad to agree, "That should certainly be doable. Fighting against dragons... while that is not something we should force onto our warriors, protecting the people of the central continent is something we not only can do, but also should do, in the end. Being caught up in a war that they have no control over... they do not deserve that." Eisen nodded, "I''m d you think so." And like that, the meeting continued for a while, figuring out what each n might be able to do in order to help out. Of course, not all of them were able to offer much help, or wanted to do so. The cloud giants had no interest in meddling with the people of the central continent. To them, non-giants were lesser. They didn''t care what happened to them, at the end of the day. However, ns such as the nomad, fire, and stone ns were immediately ready to help. The nomad giants were quite altruistic and were open to spread out over the central continent and help with the treatment of the injured, while the stone giants offered to be at the forefront of reconstruction together with the fire giants, who also seemed to want to help by supplying weapons, tools, or materials, as much as they could spare. Soon, it seemed like the first part of the meeting would be over. The council meeting itself would spread out over the next few days, so that they could speak not only about the most imminent issues, but other matters as well. They didn''t meet often, so they might as well get some of the regr talks out of the way. However, Eisen wasn''t nning oning here every day. Now that the issue of the war was much less imminent, and hopefully nonexistent in the near future, Eisen was going to move on to the next topic. He got the attention of the chieftains and then sped his hands together, "I mentioned to you earlier that the curse of the giants was a result of my actions. A punishment for refusing to do whatever Samuel wanted. Now that the artificials have descended into this world, he can''t just do things like that anymore, not that easily at least. That''s why we are actively working on a way to rid giant-kind of this curse. Or, at the very least, find a way to treat the curse to prevent it from being as lethal as it is, and allow the ones afflicted by it to move freely without its effect trapping them in their own bodies," Eisen exined, and the chieftains nodded their heads excitedly. Every n suffered from the curse just the same, so it was an issue that they all wanted to have resolved somehow. "And when we have that figured out, I will be recing the God of the Mountain with a pir that holds up the mountaintop instead," Eisen said bluntly. He wasn''t asking for permission; he was just telling them, the Irngrad in particr, what he was going to do. They didn''t have much of a choice. "What?" the Bralfam let out, "Why would you... Isn''t the God of the Mountain a statue? What does it..." The Irngrad closed his eyes, "So that''s really what it was? We had found traces that could hint at it, but we thought there was something else about it that we simply hadn''te to understand yet..." "Right. The God of the Mountain is a man afflicted by the curse. And he''s still alive," the old man started, "This isn''t up for discussion." "...I''m not saying I refuse, but... why does it matter to you so much that we save this man? Why would you personally rece it... him, with a pir?" The Irngrad asked, and Eisen leaned back in his seat, replying simply, "Because that man is my younger brother." Chapter 814: The Gift "Brother? You''ve got a brother?" the current Grandour asked, and Eisen nodded his head with a smile, "Yep. And to be honest, he''s not the only sibling I have. Though, I don''t remember them at this time, I know they exist. My father took multiple wives over his lifetime. Giants live quite long, after all," the old man exined. He stood up and walked toward the window at the side of the room, which faced the statue that was holding up the roof of the mountain. "I was the oldest. And obviously, the one that left the greatest mark in history, but if they''re all like my brother and I, then I doubt their achievments were anything to scoff at either. Silber, specifically, found himself close to nature. To all living things. And as such, he chose to learn from them. And amongst them is-" "A mountain gobbler," the Irngrad repeated, "So it really was that..?" "Mountain gobbler?" The desert giant chieftain asked, and the cloud giant chieftain let out a deep, annoyed sigh, "A monster that lives in slumber for most of its lifetime. As they sleep, they feed on nature''s mana to keep themselves alive. I''m guessing what they''re referring to is the crystal tendril they use to do so." "...During some mining operations, we''vee across multiple of these. A few of them had been broken before we were told about it, but it didn''t seem to lead to any issues," the Irngrad exined, and Eisen turned around, trying to suppress his re, "They were destroyed?" "Only some of them... and then new ones grew somewhere else." Eisen''s eyes widened surprised, "They''re still actively expanding? That... is an active ability. Either consciously or subconsciously... he''s still making more?" "At least that seems to be true for when we found the first tendrils. This happened thousands of years ago, so I can''t promise that he''s still in that same state..." The old man scoffed at the Irngrad''s words, "I''m sorry, but Silber ended up like this nearly a hundred thousand years ago. Just a couple millennia won''t budge him anymore." "So..." the Bralfam started, "You wish to cure his curse, and rece his burden with pirs? What if they can''t hold the load?" Eisen smiled, "Well... If anything can make pirs to hold a mountaintop, it would be me, right?" "Hold on, what I still don''t get is how he got thatrge... and what about the arrow? Who attacked him? And why the hell was the mountain carved out? I just- what?" the desert giant chieftain rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to make sense of the situation properly. Eisen thought about it for a moment, but simply shrugged, "I don''t know. I can''t remember how he ended up like this yet. But I''m sure there''s going to be a great exnation when ites down to it." Eisen walked through the room, stepping behind the seat of the cloud giant chieftain. He ced his hands on the giant''s shoulders, leaning forward, "Ain''t that right, Samuel?" The room turned silent. Everyone was looking at the cloud giant chieftain. He made a confused expression at first, though that soon disappeared, "Ah screw it, what do I care?" The cloud giant chieftain, or rather, Samuel who was controlling him, stood up from his seat, "Right, you got it. Seriously, you''re just kind of a prick at this point, huh?" "Your words hurt me. Who''s that upstanding young man who first came to my home, eagerly listening to my stories?" Eisen asked with augh, and Samuel shrugged, "He died the moment he first stepped into this world and realized the power he was dealing with." The old man frowned as he stood in front of Samuel, "Listen, just tell me what you''re doing this time? I already know you''re skewing the rules we set up, so if you''re thinking about doing something else in that other world-" "You can''t even say the name of your original home?" Samuelughed loudly, looking at the giant chieftains, "I was watching the whole time, by the way. Did you know that this guy cleverly omitted an important fact? He''s not even from this world either. He''s from earth, just like I am. Over there, he was just an old man growing weak and senile, but here, I turned him into a god. And this is how he thanks me? Can you believe this guy?" "You trapped me in a prison and forced me to do your bidding for a hundred thousand years. What, am I supposed to be on my knees?" "Yes!" Samuel replied, yelling loudly. His voice reverberated in the halls of the meeting room, "I gave you immortality! Power! You had everything you wanted! Women, men, reverence! You have people that will kiss the ground you walk on! On earth, you were just some random guy that only other craftsmen ever heard about, but I gave you actual purpose... and this is how you thank me? Trying to ruin everything I... WE have worked for? If you hadn''t tried to trick me, we could have be gods on earth together... but now..." Samuel looked at Eisen with a deep scowl. The cloud giant chieftain''s face was practically made for this expression, so it was quite easy to express disdain. The ground shook. Shivers ran over Eisen''s body as his head snapped to the side, while a massive wave of sound was shoved into the old man''s head, "What did you do?" "Just doing you a favor. Now you don''t have to waste your time looking for a cure," Samuel smiled, "Now, I better get out of here. I''d rather look at this from the outside." With those words, the body of the cloud giant chieftain copsed. Blood was pouring out from his ears and nose. It was as he had feared; he had kept resisting Samuel''s possession so fervently that his whole body suffered from it. But that wasn''t something that Eisen could worry about right now. "You... was he telling the truth?" the Bralfam asked, "Are you from that other realm as well?" Eisen turned around toward the giant chieftains, who were just staring at him intensely, "...I lived there for 70 years. I lived here for a hundred thousand. My soul is more here than there, and my body there is changing to be like mine here. It doesn''t matter who I was, it just matters who I am," Eisen replied, closing his eyes angrily, "But if you''re not happy with that, we can talk about thatter. Right now, we can''t just keep standing around." "What''s going on? What did Samuel do?" the Irngrad asked, rushing toward the window as well. He didn''t even have to get all the way there to freeze uppletely, "No, he..." "Yeah. He cured my brother''s curse." The grandour stuttered, "But... but then..." "Just shut up and get moving," Eisen frowned, jumping out of the window. He spread out his demonic wings and flew out away from the castle. As he did, he pulled up his status window to look at his friend-list. Jyuuk and Xenia were online. Evalia and Brody weren''t. He could apologizeter. This was something Eisen promised only to do in total emergencies. Ever since he had be the King, and the other originals had technically be his ''retainers'', Eisen had gotten the ability to summon them to his location. Not against their will, of course, they still had to agree. But they would know that if Eisen summoned them, it was an emergency deserving of the situation. The old man held forward his hand, trying to summon Xenia and Jyuuk onto his palm. He waited for a few seconds, each of which seemed way too long. In the meantime, he hadnded, and began to spread out his Demonic Domain onto the city. That way he could manipte the space better, and he could summon some Demonic Spawn to help protect and evacuate the townsfolk. By the time his duplicates appeared by his side, two small people appeared on his palm. "Eisen, what''s going on?" "What do you need us to do?" Xenia and Jyuuk looked up at the old man, and Eisen pointed forward, "The statue was a cursed giant, and Samuel removed the curse. He''s crumbling, or buckling, or shrinking; whichever it is, the mountain is about to copse onto the city." The two other originals looked around. They could see the first chunks of the mountain start dropping down onto the city below. Just those rtively small pieces, which ended up beingrger than boulders, would cause unbelievable death and destruction. Without further ado, Xenia started to cast a spell and Jyuuk immediately jumped off Eisen''s hand. From the beastman''s body, a massive bird appeared and quickly started carrying him around the city. He pulled out a book as well, starting to flip through it, and numerous beasts and monsters started spreading out around him, flying through the air or dropping down onto the ground. Once Xenia stopped casting her spell, her body lifted off Eisen''s palm as she flew through the air. She shot out needles of magic that attached to the falling boulders, slowing their fall, if not fully stopping them. But even the ones that did reach close to the ground were blocked by a massive barrier that had spread out thinly. "When will the others be here?!" Eisen yelled out toward them, and Xenia quickly replied, "Brody only just logged out, said he needed to eat. Evalia''s been gone for an hour already, but she should be back soon as well! Just keep an eye on the friendlist!" The old man clicked his tongue. With the support of the other two as well, Eisen would be feeling a lot better. Though even then, this situation was still nigh-apocalyptic. He simply needed all the help he could get. After all, the world was literally crumbling into pieces above him. Chapter 815: Inside As Eisen kept flying toward the Statue that was actively buckling under its own weight, he was trying to do his best to prevent destruction and death wherever he could, but it was tough. The best thing that he could do right now was reach Silber. The God of the Mountain''s skin was practically peeling off. Thousands of years of wind carrying dirt and sand had covered it in anotheryer of rock on top of the one that had appeared because of the curse. Due to those pieces of rock, though, it seemed like Silber wasn''t falling to the ground yet, as though it was propping him up. Of course, the curse wasn''t disappearing right away in the first ce. It seemed to be just slowly releasing. That meant that there was still time to think, even if not a lot. At the very least, Eisen could send a message to Kiron and the other Knights, informing them of what was going on so that they could act ordingly and guide the soldiers to help out with the evacuation. As Eisen nced to his right, he could see giant tree roots growing and spreading through the city like waves, covering the lower levels in a roof that would protect the people from the falling debree as they were escaping. At the same time, the world was practically shifting around Xenia as she was using magic to lift whole city blocks into the air to move them outside of the confines of the capital. But Eisen couldn''t do even nearly as much as they could. He golems that might be able to do something, but Eisen had to activelymand each and every one of them, and he couldn''t waste any time on that right now. Instead, he would do what he should be taking care of right now. He soon reached the God of the Mountain''s face. Silber''s eye was slowly opening, his pupils dted and his sight hazy. Eisen flew over toward his ear, "Silber! Can you hear me?!" Silber''s mouth seemed to slowly open, the roots of the trees that had grown around his lips snapping immediately as though they were threads, while chunks of rock just fell to the ground. A loud groan poured out of Silber''s mouth, but it didn''t seem like he was able to say anything right now. However, Silber''s eyes seemed to be getting their focus back. They were slowly moving toward a specific location. Giant''s Blood za. Eisen turned toward there, narrowing his sight. He held his hand in front of his face, holding his index finger and thumb into a circle. They had an enchantment engraved into them so that they would act as a telescope. And then, the old man saw something that made his heart skip a beat. "Ah... so that''s it..." Eisen muttered. The massive arrow and the blood around it were also turning back to what they were before the curse. Due to its immense effect on Silber, it had affected other things around him as well. At first, Eisen thought that would mean that all of his blood, even if away from him, would turn into stone, and the arrow that was soaked in it would react simrly. However, that wasn''t it. While Eisen was right in his assumption, the blood dripping from the arrow wasn''t Silber''s. It was a muddy, dark green. A giant''s blood was still red, and the same was the case for Silber despite his current form, Eisen was sure. That meant that it belonged to a monster. Eisen moved his gaze upward. He was wrong all along. So, so wrong. The debree falling from the sky wasn''t because the mountain was copsing. The petrified creature was waking up too, and theyer of rock that had formed on its own skin was releasing as well. The monster that allowed Silber to survive this long, by teaching him its ability. Or maybe, those strands never belonged to Silber in the first ce. They could have belonged to this monster. Or it could have been a mixture of both, not that it mattered anymore. This wasn''t a mountain that was hollowed out. It was the maw of a Mountain Gobbler, and Silber had been in the middle of a battle against it as the curse set in. Mountain Gobblers didn''t get their name from feeding on mountains'' energy from within. It came from the fact that they could grow to the size of mountains, and then simply devour them whole. A size like this was absolutely ridiculous and unheard of, but now everything at least made sense. "You seriously let them build the capital in a monster''s body?" Eisen ground his teeth, furious at his own ipetence in the past. He could have just warned them, told them the truth. There was no way that the former Eisen didn''t know about all of this. Anything would have been better than what was happening right now. In a matter of a minute, if even that, thousands of people died. And it wouldn''t just stop at that. Eisen nced to the side, seeing a dot of green pop up. He didn''t even have time to read which of the other two it was, he just summoned them immediately. And quickly, on his palm, Evalia appeared. "This ce is copsing. I need you to help calm people down and make sure they safely get outside the city," Eisen said immediately. Evalia, taken aback at what was going on around her, took a few moments to take in this unexpected situation. But that was all it took. She immediately nodded her head, "Alright, I got it." Immediately, Evalia took out a paintbrush from the bag on her hip. She nced around for a moment, and then simply jumped off Eisen''s palm. She was soon caught by another one of Jyuuk''s eagles, and was being carried closer toward the ground as the artist started painting something into the air. But Eisen didn''t have the time to look at what she was doing. He had to figure out what to do next himself. He concentrated. The Mountain Gobbler wouldn''t be an actual major threat, no matter what rank it had achieved. Over the close to hundred thousand years that it had been here, its body was dug uppletely. While Silber''s body was actively protected, the same wasn''t the case for the monster, as nobody even knew it existed. There was no way it would be able to survive that. Its veins and bones must have been excavated or damaged too much to live for long. However, that didn''t even matter right now. All that the Mountain Gobbler had to do was close its mouth, and it would be over for everyone still left in the city. They would have to do something against that. But- In the middle of Eisen''s thought, thest dot turned green. Eisen stopped instantly and summoned Brody, who appeared on his hand a few momentster, "We''re in the mouth of a giant monster. We need to make sure it can''t close its mouth." Brody looked around, his arms crossed, "...Well, at least this is something you could call an emergency," Brody replied, "But how should I-" "No time for smalltalk. Kill it, make it fall unconscious, or just destroy its muscles; anything to make sure it can''t force its mouth shut," Eisen said immediately. It seemed like Silber was still doing his best to stay upright, so he could hold the Mountain Gobbler''s mouth open for now, but that wouldn''tst long. So while Brody took care of that, Eisen would have to improvise a new pir. "No, I mean, I don''t have anyrge-scale attacks like that. You know I can''t use magic, and nothing I remembered on the central continent could make me deal with something on a scale like... this," Brody replied, "Maybe if Xenia-" "No, it has to be you. You have more destructive power than her. This is possibly a Transcendent monster. Only you could damage it. Listen, I''ll throw you now, have Jyuuk fly you up. But more importantly, watch me." "Wait, you''ll throw-" before Brody could finish, being interrupted by Eisen for the third time now, the old man simply tossed Brody, all the whilst pulling out his sword. Eisen knew that Brody would be able to remember this. And he probably wouldn''t even have to try. Like Eisen, he was extremely close to his memories at this point. He should just be able to remember. And so, Eisen turned to the side, aiming at a massive chunk of stone that was falling from the top of the monster''s mouth. The old man swung his sword, using the Mountain Splitter sword technique, cutting the stone into much smaller pieces that Xenia soon handled down below. Brody''s expression went nk for a moment as his eyes turned into the back of his head, but thatsted for just a second. By the time Jyuuk had approached to catch Brody, the half-demon wasughing loud enough for Eisen to still hear him. It was obvious that Eisen had taught this move to Brody at some point. And then, the old man got started on the pir. Though, it wasn''t really a pir. He had already started spreading out his demonic domain onto Silber''s body. Though more specifically, onto theyer of rock that had gathered on him. His Demonic Spawn and duplicates appeared on the side of Silber, all essing Eisen''s magic in order to build up a solid barrier of Eisen''s own stone on top of the existing ''Statue''. And in the meantime, Eisen had opened his item storage, pulling out arge barrel. It was a spatial barrel, filled with a massive amount of mana potion. Not only that, it was highlypressed. He only had one of these in his item storage, and it was worth millions of gold, but he had to use it up here. Eisen opened up the top and ced it against his mouth, letting the potion pour down his throat. His body was filled with massive amounts of mana, which he needed to keep up the ''recreation'' of the God of the Mountain. But it wasn''t fast enough. Eisen bit down on the barrel and kept letting the potion pour into him at a steady rate. Meanwhile, he took out Bai and turned the ego-tool into a sharp chisel. He would usually be a lot more thorough and careful, but he didn''t have the time to n this out too much. Eisen pulled off his royal armor and let it fall to the ground. He could recover itter. His suit was dealt with quickly as well as he just cut it off himself. And then, Eisen started carving into his thick rock skin. And deeply, as well. It had to be deep. The enchantment would take hold better that way. He groaned loudly as he carved massive chunks off his skin. His elemental spirit had also appeared and started helping Eisen out, carving the enchantment onto his back where Eisen himself couldn''t reach. It took just a couple of minutes for the enchantment to be finished, and Eisen filled it out with magic-infused metal and some crystal, a specific mixture that maximized the flow of mana through them. And then, he activated the enchantment. --- [You have created the S%i!l!] Chapter 817: Fear Benjamin couldn''t believe his eyes. Was he hallucinating? He thought he would be fine after a short break, but maybe what he was doing in the other world did a lot more damage to him here than he expected. Especially mentally; after all, it was a very stressful endeavor. There was no way he would see a system window here on earth. The system didn''t exist here. Not to mention, it was jumbled, with random characters messing up the words. But even through the jumbled mess, he recognized theyout of this window. It was a skill-acquisition message, but the Skill''s name was... redacted? Not to mention, he didn''t feel as though anything was different now that he got this skill. But somehow, he knew that it was real. The sharp pain that he felt before it popped up must have been because of this. "Dad?" there was a knock on the door. It was Tony. He must have heard themotion that Benjamin made when getting out of the capsule. "I''m... I''m fine..." Benjamin replied, though his tone clearly wasn''t convincing enough. Tony pushed the door open immediately, jumping toward his father the moment he saw the puddle of bloody vomit on the ground and the blood dripping off Benjamin''s face, "What the hell happened? What did you do- Did someone-" "Tony, don''t worry. I''m alright," the old man said with a slight smile, "There''s just... a lot going on over there right now. I don''t know exactly why, but looks like it wasn''t good for me over here either." Tony''s face was pale. Despite what Benjamin was saying, he had started holding onto his father''s arm in case he fell. Benjamin didn''t look particrly stable on his feet right now, "Are you sure you''re alright? I know your body is... different now, but... you''re not as strong here than you are there, right?" Benjamin smiled, "I promise, I''ll be fine. It was a bit of a shock when I woke up, but I''m already feeling a bit better. I guess I feel a bit dizzy, but that''s probably just blood loss, I''m not really in any pain anyway." "...That doesn''t particrly calm me down... Do you think you can get yourself cleaned up, or do you need help?" "Hah, I''m not the type of old man who''d need you to wipe his ass, son. At least not yet," Benjaminughed, patting Tony on the back. Before Benjamin could say anything else, Tony sighed and nodded, "Fine. Go take a shower, I''ll clean up here in the meantime." "Thank you. And I''m sorry for worrying you," Benjamin smiled, stepping out through the door into the bathroom across the hallway. He felt bad for what he was doing to his children with his behaviour. Tony in particr, who was still here to take care of his father, ended up powerless against everything that was happening right now. At least Benjamin himself felt a certain sense of normalcy, no matter how crazy things got. It was most likely a subconscious understanding of what was happening, that he consciously couldn''t ess right away. But Tony didn''t have that. He didn''t understand any of this, he just had to... watch. Benjamin cloesd and locked the bathroom door behind him. He looked into the mirror and sighed. The system window was still floating beside him, flickering like an old tv screen with some loose wires. This was the only thing that was an exception to even Benjamin. He doubted that this was something that Eisen had knowledge of. Those things felt... different. There, no matter how crazy, Benjamin felt a sense of curiosity and a subtle sense of familiarity. Sometimes, it got so far that it felt practically nostalgic, which was when he would recover some of his past memories. But here, right now, Benjamin waspletely lost. There was nothing familiar here. It was a new experience. Sure, maybe if he had all his memories of when he was ''the'' Eisen, then he could make more sense of this situation, but that didn''t really change the situation he was in now. Benjamin concentrated, trying to open his status window. Nothing happened, "So it''s not the whole system..? Is this just some... error?" the old man wondered. Maybe what he did over there caused him to get a skill, and then due to the amount of mana that he was expending, to the point that it affected his body on earth, the system window was pushed through as well? But then, why the dy? It took a good minute or two for Benjamin to properly get out of the capsule after waking up. Not to mention... he had a feeling that the Skill''s name wasn''t distorted like the rest. It was simply redacted. He might figure something out when he logged back in, but right now, he couldn''t do anything at all. Right now, Benjamin couldn''t do much. Actually, he couldn''t even wave the window away. It was just stuck there. At least he could move it out of sight, but he knew that it was still there. For now, Benjamin took off his clothes and turned on the shower. He waited for the water to turn hot, and then stepped inside. Since the blood was still fresh, he was able to clean himself up quite quickly, revealing what was hidden underneath the red stream, "More scars, again?" While Haruo and Andre''s bodies were changing much more extremely, due to the difference between their forms here and Jyuuk and Brody''s bodies, Benjamin also changed. His hair that had started thinning with age became thicker again. His muscles felt tighter. He gained weight. And the thing that he noticed more and more whenever he woke back up was that there were more scars covering him basically every time he checked. And it wasn''t any different now. If he concentrated enough, then maybe he could even spot them forming on his skin. He nearlyughed at the thought, continuing to clean himself up. But even when he was done, for a while, Benjamin just stood there. He wasn''t religious, and he knew that the gods in the other world wouldn''t be able to do anything to help, but somehow... Benjamin had the urge to pray for the sess of the others. He wasn''t able to do anything. Even though he trusted the others, and knew that they were just as capable as he was... Benjamin was scared. What if they couldn''t do it? Everyone there would die. He knew that Evalia had done as much as she could to get everyone to evacuate, but just because they wanted to, didn''t mean that it was easy. The capital was a massive city, after all. And there wasn''t much time left. What was he supposed to do if thigns failed? How was he supposed to live with himself? Samuel hade and undone the curse on Silber. And he only did that to mess with Eisen. To make him angry. To make him slip up. It was something that Samuel knew wouldn''t permantently hurt Eisen directly. He would either be able to get out of there on his own, or just respawn after dying. Sure, it would give Samuel some time to do things without Eisen being able to interfere, but... that was it. A couple of days. All of this was a petty act. It was supposed to upset Eisen. Samuel would kill millions just to teach Eisen a lesson. Benjamin closed his eyes, and then finally shut off the water. He stepped out of the shower, starting to dry himself off before getting dressed in the change of clothes that he kept in the bathroom. Benjamin walked out of the bathroom and made his way to the livingroom, sitting down on his armchair and leaning back. Benjamin ced his hand onto his eyes and waited. That was all he could do. At some point, Tony had finished cleaning up, and joined him. But he as well could tell that something was off. So he just sat down on the couch near his father and waited together with him. It wasn''t even that muchter that Benjamin got even more anxious. He stepped out of the capsule about thirty minutes before. By now, over there, everything should be over, right? Benjamin could feel his heart beating so strongly the tension reached up to his throat. The clock on the other side of the room ticked loudly. So, so loudly. Tick. Tick. Tick. A quiet creaking. Footsteps. They came closer, and then stopped. "It''s over," Andrew said. Benjamin moved his hand away. He was scared to look at Andrew''s face. What if they couldn''t do it? What if things went south? What if- Benjamin forced his own hand away. Through still blurry sight, he looked at Andrew. He was smiling. Chapter 818: Reunion Benjamin sat upright in his armchair. Andrew was quiet now. But he didn''t have to say anything more. The broad smile on his face that perfectly showed off the tusks that had grown over the past few weeks was more than enough. The old man let out a loudugh, "It worked out?!" Andrew nodded, walking around the couch and dropping down as he let out a deep sigh, "Yeah, things are alright now. The others sent me back first, they''re still taking care of the aftermath over there. Healing people, rescuing injured people, and stuff like that." "Injured people...?" Tony repeated with a worried expression, "What exactly happened?" Andrew turned toward him, giving Tony a quick rundown of the situation as he understood it. Of course, he didn''t have a huge amount of context for the specifics, but he at least knew why Eisen was there in the first ce. Tony just listened as his face got more and more pale, "And so... what did my father do to make him... you know..." Confused, Andrew turned toward Benjamin, "What''s he talking about?" "...The mana overusepletely ripped apart my body from the inside out. And that tranted, to some degree, over here," the old man exined, and Andrew frowned, "Hold on, so the damage is tranting?" "No, I don''t think so. It''s probably just because of the mana? We''ll have to talk to Xenia about itter, she should have a better understanding of it," Benjamin pointed out, "It wasn''t much either, I wasn''t really hurt all that much just... a bit weak." Tony stared at his father as though he was having auditory hallucinations, "A bit weak? Are you serious? Dad, you-" Tony quickly stopped himself, taking some deep breaths, "That was more than just ''a bit weak''..." Benjamin smiled at him and shook his head, "No, really. It looked a lot worse than it actually was. By the time I got myself cleaned up, I was already feeling great. I was more anxious than anything, because I couldn''t do anything from over here." Andrew crossed his legs and leaned back, "That reminds me... what actually happened? What did you do?" "I didn''t do anything," Benjamin replied with a wry smile, "I got the Chieftains to agree to prevent the war, and then Samuel got pissy and undid the Giants'' Curse on Silber." "...Silber?" Andrew repeated. "Ah, right. My little brother." "Your..." trying to make sure that he heard right, Andrew leaned forward, "Your ''little'' brother? Was that some pun or something?" "I''m sorry, but that''s what you''re stuck on?" Tony asked with a shocked expression, "Your brother? My... my uncle? What''s going on right now?" Benjamin smiled, "I have a handful of half-siblings in that other world. Though, I''m sure most of them have passed on. But Silber survived somehow, clinging onto life while his body was petrified for... a hundred thousand years." "Huh," Andrew let out, "I was wondering why he looked familiar." "...We don''t really look alike, though. His mother was an elf, mine a dwarf." "No, no, you definitely share some features. The shape of your eyes, your mouth, that kinda thing. It''s mostly a vibe, I guess?" Benjamin sighed loudly, "Most importantly... Yes, Tony, it''s your uncle. Not by blood, but he''s family nheless. If you ever choose to enter that world on your own, I''ll introduce you to your whole new extended family, alright?" Tony slowly nodded his head, "Yeah... sure." --- Eisen opened his eyes, lifting himself up from the ground. His body had recovered practically perfectly while he was logged out, as usual, so that wasn''t anything to worry about right now. He looked around, seeing just walls of rubble around him. The ground was covered in a bed of mushrooms, so he figured Caria had been here earlier, even if just to check on him. The old man jumped up and spread his wings out. Numerous giants were moving around rubble, massive roots and monsters were doing the same thing. Some building-sized chunks were just floating around as well. And most importantly, a man-shaped pir of frozen blood, wrapped in nts and thread spread around all over the ce, was now holding up the mountain. It hadrge patterns engraved onto the side, so it seemed like Xenia had stabilized things for the time being, so Eisen should be able to get started on the recement soon. As the old man looked around, he noticed something in the corner of his eye. Confused, he stared at the system message. [Co¡ìg&at(=\\?ons" %o} !a/e l]a%ned *+e S%i!l!] It was still there...? That proved it. This wasn''t an error. It was something far, far weirder. Something that Eisen couldn''t exin. "What''re you doing up there? Countin'' your wrinkles or something?" someoneughed from behind Eisen. He turned around with shivers all over his body. The old man dropped to the ground a few steps away,pletely shrunken down and having released his transformation. His clothes had basically molten away, so he was making do with the first shirt and pants he could grab from his item storage. In front of him stood a middle-aged man with short ck hair, sprinkled with strands of white. He was tall and muscr, and his ears were pointy but rounded out more than those of a full-blood. His skin was a pale gray. Eisen scoffed, "You''re one to talk. You look like you could use some sun." The man looked at his arms and shrugged, "Yeah, I guess that''s what happens when you stand in the shade for too long, huh?" The two looked at each other, asrge smiles formed on their faces. Without any other words they ran at each other, practically racing to figure out who would pull the other into a hug first. "You been keepin'' well, Eisen?" Silber asked, his voice unable to hide the broad grin stered on his face. "I thought so, but clearly not as well as you. You haven''t aged a day... you actually might have gotten younger," Eisen replied with a loudugh, pulling back to get a closer look at his brother, "I seriously can''t believe it. You held out for that long? Were you conscious the whole time?" "Oh, no, luckily not," Silber replied, "That would have been hell, right? But speaking of, I can see that... well, a lot happened while I was out, but how long has it actually been? Two, maybe three hundred years?" Eisen let go of his brother''s arm, "I... no, Silber. It''s... it''s been..." "Ah, just fuckin'' with ya, that Evalia kid''s already told me it''s been a hundred thousand years," with augh, Silber hit Eisen''s shoulder, "She said there''d be a lot for us to talk about." Eisen was a bit taken aback for a couple of seconds, but soon joined his brother''sugh, "Seriously, still making those kinds of jokes? You''re the second oldest man alive, you know?" "And here I don''t feel a day over a thousand," Silber replied, starting to look around himself. His smile was slowly bing weaker, "But seriously... what happened? I... I remember that I headed out to fight a Transcended monster that was causing trouble. This Mountain Gobbler. But I was in the middle of the fight when... everything just went ck. The Mountain Gobbler used its hibernation ability, so I guess I reflectively did as well... Every once in a while, I would wake back up for a few days, or weeks, but never a lot. It was like... blinking, and then every time I opened my eyes, this city grew." Eisen walked over to some debreeying nearby, sitting down on it. Silber sat down next to him. "There''s... a lot to catch you up on. I don''t know what I did and didn''t tell you in the past, but..." Eisen started talking. And Silber listened. He listened to everything that Eisen could think of, as he spoke about everything that had happened to him in this world so far. Everything that he could, at least, "And then... he removed your curse. And here we are. And judging from the fact you''re still here, I guess he just sort of... cured you?" Silber ground his teeth together, clenching his fists, "You did tell me about him. Rather, you told me everything. About your ns, about your old world... and that guy. Fucking hell..." Eisen looked at his brother apologetically, "I also have to admit... I don''t remember everything about you yet. I remember the most important things, but for example... how did you grow thatrge? Just... how strong did you get?" Surprised, Silber raised a brow, "Oh, I figured you knew, but... Erm, so first, you remember that I''m different to you, right? That I''m not... you know." "That you''re not a person, yes I remember. You had more of our father''s blood, and turned out as a monster ording to the system," Eisen replied, and Silber nodded, "Mhm. And so, after you peaked... you helped me out a bit, and..." Eisen let out augh. He knew where this was going, "Seriously? Gods, how stupid can Samuel get? He did this to stick one to me, but he took the risk of letting you free?" "Well, I''m severely weakened, so I''m not as strong as I used to be..." Silber replied with a click of his tongue, and Eisen nodded, "Yeah, I figured. Samuel added, and had us add, a lot of ways for him to control the flow and ''difficulty'' of the game. Things to let him restrict sections of the world as he wanted to, so that he could createrge ''expansions''ter on, with whatever story he wanted," the old man pointed out, "So it''s not a huge surprise. Bute on..." Eisen ced his hand on Silber''s shoulder, "You can''t me me for feeling kind of happy either way. My brother is the one and only Transcended Giant in existence." Chapter 819: Rubbing it in Eisen stood up, looking around himself. He should get started and make the pir more permanent. The pir of frozen blood was fine for now, but it definitely wasn''t something that wouldst particrly long at that scale. But before then, he also had to go and talk to the chieftains and the Irngrad. And of course, also make sure that the kids were alright, and properly discuss some things with the other originals. "Eisen?" Silber said, with his head slightly tilted to the side. He was staring into the air, so Eisen figured that he was looking at some system windows, "Yeah?" "When did the ''system'' change so much?" he asked, and Eisen looked at him confused, "What do you mean?" "I mean that everything is different. The names of basically all of my skills changed... and what are titles? Wait, they used to be achievements, I guess?" Silber stared at the system windows intensely. Eisen stared at him. "Wait, so... it''s changed? Seriously?" Silber looked at Eisen with a raised brow, "It would change every few decades, but usually just slightly. You said Samuel was ''updating'' it regrly?" Eisen''s gaze slowly moved toward the broken system message that still floated beside him, "Is that it..?" While he didn''t know what the system''s actual nature was, he had never really thought about it all too much, simply assuming that it was something innate to this world. And while that might still be the case, what if all Samuel did was create a way to interpret or guide these raw forces of this world? "Silber... were there ever messages that were ''broken''? Or skills that didn''t have a name?" "Well... sometimes, I guess? But those issues were resolved pretty quickly for the most part." Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose. So that was it. The system, or rather, the force behind the system, saw something in Eisen that the system''s ''disy'' didn''t recognize, so it was a broken, jumbled message. But... that still didn''t exin why Eisen first saw the message on earth. Did that force start leaking into earth after Eisen overused all that mana? Considering how deeply intertwined his fate was with all this, and how often he must have used and taken advantage of the system over the millennia, then it made some sense for the system to have left some marks on him. The old man sighed annoyed, "I guess I''ll figure it out some other time," he rubbed the bridge of his nose, "I don''t have time for this right now. Silber,e on." "Right," Silber slowly stood up and stretched a bit, "So, what''re we doing?" "First... we''ve got to introduce you to some people," Eisen replied, trying to turn into his demonic form. However, something about it felt... off. It didn''t work properly, and Eisen just saw a slight discoloration to his skin that faded pretty quickly. He was using it just fine earlier, so what was going on? Maybe the difference was that he had ''logged out'' in that form, and was still like that when he woke up? With a frown, Eisen tried to keep forcing the transformation, and before long, he managed to get it done. It was just a lot more annoying than usual. Even increasing his size through his giants'' skill felt weird. Eisen felt a slight sharp pain at the side of his head, as his control of his size-change got even worse. He felt his body practically morph and change its size irregrly. His arm was longer than it was supposed to be, and his foot was far too heavy. It onlysted for a few moments, and then he got the hang of it again. He increased his size, but needed to control it a lot more. And then, Eisen looked to the side. The broken system window had changed. [XXXXXXX S%i!l le/el"d u+!] Eisen frowned. So that broken skill was making it harder for him to use his skills? Was that it? The old man ground his teeth annoyed. He should figure it out with time. For now, he really just had to go meet the others. To make things faster, Eisen picked up Silber and carried him for now. He headed toward the closest person he could see; Jyuuk, who was flying around on one of his eagles, trying to scout out the area. Due to his skillset, he had be able to see the ''life'' of others. Basically, it was a sort of visual skill that let him directly see the life force of everything around him; nts, people, animals. Anything that was technically ''alive'' counted. And like that, he could use this skill to look for even the most subtle of life forces, which made finding survivors that had been buried or trapped within the rubble much, much easier. Whenever he found anyone new, he would send out some of his undead to rescue them. However, as soon as he saw Eisen, he stopped for a few moments. "You''re back! Are you alright? Are you in any pain?" Jyuuk asked with a slightly nervous tone, "You nearly died there, you know..?" Eisen smiled at him, "I''m fine, don''t worry. Thank you foring and taking care of everything after I fell unconscious. I don''t know what I would have done without you four," the old man tried to express his gratitude, but Jyuuk just let out a loudugh, "What are you even saying? Isn''t it obvious we''de?" Jyuuk nced around, spotting something in the distance, "Ah, sorry, I''ve got to go. Did Brody tell you about-" "The meeting at midnight, yeah he did. I''ll be there," the old man replied. During the short period that Brody had logged out to give an update to Eisen, he had also told him about some things they had all decided. For example, that they would all log out and have a meeting on earthter on. It was probably so that everyone could check on Eisen''s body over there, but Brody didn''t say it directly. Not to mention, here in this world, the threat of them being spied on always existed. Jyuuk flew off, and Eisen quickly did the same. He headed over toward the castle carved into the wall on the other side of the city. It seemed like at some point as Brody was trying to kill it, the Mountain Gobbler''s body had shifted ever so slightly, so there was a huge crack running down the middle of the castle. It was aplete mess, so he should try and see if the chieftains were all okay. Afternding in the castle, Silber jumped off Eisen''s hand, quickly shooting up in size as well, "By the way... can you still..." Eisen asked, and Silber smirked lightly. He immediately grew even more, having to squat down to fit into the giant entrance hall of the castle, "My transformative power was one of the effects of my transcendence. Since those abilities are sealed for now, I probably can''t reach the size that I was at before, but something like this is easy," Silber replied, shrinking back down to Eisen''s size. The old man was currently in thergest size that he was able to get to right now, and Silber absolutely dwarfed him. Just now. Eisen wanted to see how tall Silber could get, but he also figured that it could wait. Silber was hiding it, but he was obviously not in the best physical state he could be. He just woke up from a hundred-thousand yeara a few hours ago, after all. Silber and Eisen made their way through the castle, straight toward the meeting room that they were in earlier. The whole ce was deste, since the guards were surely in the city to help with the rescue of the citizens, but he was sure that at least the Irngrad was here right now. He didn''t have the time to do physical work; rather, he had to figure out other matters rted to this catastrophe, like organizing aid from other ces, or figuring out where to source food from while the city recovered. Eisen pushed open the already ajar door to the meeting room, seeing the man who he had been expecting standing over therge table. A few of the other chieftains were also still here, including the the Stone Giant chieftain and the Cloud giant chieftain, though thetter seemed to be recovering from the aftereffects of the forceful possession from Samuel right now. "Eisen..!" the Irngrad let out, "We saw you fall, but are you alright?" Eisen nodded, "I''m fine. More importantly, is everyone else okay?" The Irngrad looked out toward the window, clearly not sure what he was supposed to say to that. The Bralfam soon shook his head, "The others are... shaken. Most of them headed out to help however they could. We sent some messangers to other cities as well," the stone giant exined, before looking over at the man standing next to Eisen, "And... this man is?" Eisen turned toward Silber, who quickly sighed and introduced himself, "My name is Silber de Grandour, Eisen''s younger brother, and the one who had been petrified over there for a while. What did you guys call me... the..." "The god of the mountain?" the Irngrad finished for Silber, who quickly nodded his head, "Yeah, that one. Though that nickname''s honestly sort of rubbing it in..." "Rubbing... what in?" the Bralfam asked. He didn''t even realize it himself, he was just so baffled by what he was seeing that he was mumbling the first thought in his head. Silber scratched the back of his head, "I mean, I failed to be a God, so that nickname''s kind of... iffy." Chapter 820: Failed Ascension Eisen raised a brow at what Silber just said. So it was what he thought. There were two paths to godhood, one for people, and one for monsters. People with incredible achievements during their lifetime, upon death, would sometimes be chosen to ascend to godhood. Meanwhile, monsters didn''t have the privilege of being ''chosen''. They had to reach the maximum level; the monsters'' peak. Of course, it was easier for monsters to get to that point, hence why there were dozens of transcendent monsters and only five people that peaked, but that didn''t change just how much of an achievement that was. However, Eisen did wonder exactly what made a monster qualified to be a god. While things were split up into ''Heaven'' and ''Hell'', not all beings in heaven were necessarily good, and not all beings in hell were necessarily evil. Things weren''t as ck and white as that. As such, there were also many gods that could be considered ''evil''. So the condition most certainly wasn''t that the monsters had to be righteous to ascend to godhood. And from what Silber just said, it was clear. He said he ''failed'', not that he simply didn''t be a god. So, it was likely that monsters had to face some kind of trial once they reached their peak. It could be simr to the quest that Eisen and the other originals had to clear every 100 levels, though the form didn''t really matter. Either way, if they seeded, they would be gods. If they failed, they would instead reach the point of transcendence and roam the world as a reality-breaking monstrosity. But Eisen really didn''t understand any of this. Monsters only had the opportunity to be gods at their peak. Meanwhile, people would lose said opportunity. After all, like Eisen and the others, the people that peaked would be totally immortal. So just... why did things work like that? The Bralfam was still staring at Silber confused, and seemed to be ncing toward Eisen to see what he was thinking. The old man let out a deep sigh, "Silber is a transcendent giant, hence why he managed to grow to that size. And then, the curse came about, and he became trapped. However, the curse came to be in the middle of a battle with another transcendent monster, a Mountain Gobbler. That''s the monster this city was built within." The Irngrad stared out of the window, "We''re inside the mouth of a monster..?" "Well, it''s dead now," Eisen exined, "Brody yed it for us. A mountain gobbler''s body is mostlyposed of stone anyway, so things shouldn''t really change. You mighte across pockets of rotting flesh at some point if you keep digging through the mountain, but overall, I doubt there''s going to be many problems for you to keep staying here." Seeming calmer, the Irngrad let out a sigh of relief, "I see. Thank you, Eisen. Truly, you have saved this city." The old man was silent for a few moments. He didn''t really know what to say. After all, he was the reason why this happened in the first ce. Samuel had undone Silber''s curse to mess with Eisen, after all. "Though..." the Bralfam started, "What was it that man said before everything happened? That you... are from the same world as him?" Eisen looked toward Silber, who just stood there unaffected. Clearly, Eisen had really told Silber everything there was to know, so he didn''t have to hold back because of him, "The other originals and I were born in that other world, the same on that Samuel is from. Even there we were skilled and knowledgable. Extremely so. He spoke to us to gather ''knowledge'' to help him create a ''Game'', something that could be used to entertain millions of people. In return, we were allowed ess to said ''game'' earlier than others. Or so, we thought. But instead, he had brought us here to create the world of that game for him. We were forced to help him curate people, countries, and cultures... in the exact way that he wanted." The Irngrad stared at Eisen, "So... our world was... created by him?" "No, I don''t think so," Eisen replied immediately, "Rather, I assume that he somehow got his hands on a way to ess a newborn world, and found a way to control it." "But... if he is the one that ''curated'' every aspect of our world, then... is there really a difference?" the Bralfam questioned. Eisen tought about it for a few moments, though in the end, the answer came to him rather naturally. "There is. Samuel never had the power to influence things particrly tightly. All he did was rule over the world, decide what he wanted to happen when, and what to focus on. He told us what to develop, what to stop from developing... and so on. In the end, it''s the people living within the world that truly created it. The people that were filled with love and curiosity. The lives that were born and the ones that were lost. They are the ones that created the world, not the one sitting at the top of a tower staring down at the people below him," Eisen said confidently. He wasn''t sure if this was enough to truly convince the Irngrad and Bralfam, but he knew that it had to do for now. Eisen ced his hand onto his chest, "However... instead of talking about that, I think there are some more important matters to worry about," the old man exined, "As the King of Asgard, I pledge to you that we will support this kingdom with as much as we can offer. For now, that will have to be contained to the manpower of the five originals and my soldiers, and if needed, we will send you rations or more manpower once the imminent trouble is resolved." The Irngrad slowly nodded his head, "Thank you. I am sure that with your help, we will manage to save as many people as possible. But... what about the statue? Will that ice be a proper recement?" Eisen immediately exined, "No, it won''t be, but I''m already nning on recing it. I''m going to head out soon to find the materials to properly build a new pir for the city," he said quickly, but the Irngrad seemed surprised, "You will take on the endeavor of creating a new statue?" "Yeah, that''s the idea at least. Though... I don''t think I''ll be recreating the statue in my brother''s image, if you''re alright with that," Eisen pointed out, and the Irngrad quickly nodded, "Of course! Anything is fine! Wanting to create such a statue in your own image, considering what an aplishment it would be, is only-" "Do you think I''m a narcissist? No, it won''t look like me either. I have a much better idea than that," Eisen pointed out, looking outside the window as he said so. --- Silber followed Eisen back out of the castle. The two were standing at the edge of the stairs to head back down, as Silber looked at his elder brother, "You''re a King now?" Eisen stopped immediately, "...right. Asgard wasn''t a thing when you were alive, huh..?" The old man rubbed the bridge of his nose, "I founded it with the other originals at some point. It''s an archipgo of numerous different inds. They''re all unique to each other, so we have a lot of different ressources on our hand." Raising his brow surprised, Silber replied, "There were inds there? I don''t remember that..." "Well, each ind represents a god, so I think there''s some link there, but I don''t know." "Ah... yeah alright, there were just a handful of gods a hundred thousand years ago, so I guess it makes sense for me not to know. But really, I never took you for the ''King'' type. Who''d have thought the guy who only cared about craftsmanship would leave his workshop for once, eh?" Silberughed slightly, and Eisen looked at him with a nervous expression, "What kind of person do you remember me being?" A bit confused, Silber thought for a moment, "Well, you were kind, definitely. And curious. I said that as a joke just now, since you usually did travel around a lot, even if mostly to find new materials or learn more about this world. Meet other likeminded people. You said you did that on ''Earth'' as well." "Right... that does sound like me," Eisen replied, smiling softly, "But... that is just ''me''. The current me. Over the course of the past hundred thousand years, I... changed. So, so much. The ''Eisen'' that existed in this world just a year ago is a vastly different person to the one that exists now. The more I learn about him, the more I... despise him. And I''m worried that you will as well. So just... if at any point, you..." Silber frowned, "Eisen, who do you think you''re talking to? I transcended. You can''t reach this point without making a lot of sacrifices. I''m not a saint myself, you know?" Eisen didn''t respond to that anymore. He figured that made sense, but Silber also clearly underestimated just the grandness of how horrible the past Eisen truly was in the end. All the sins that hemitted in his lifetime. Eisen himself just knew a fraction of those matters, and even those were enough for anyone to wish death upon him. "Thank you," Eisen said slowly, "If you do ever change your mind about that, let me know." Chapter 821: Disconnected Eisen nned out his work. He already knew what he wanted the statue to look like generally, but he still had to wait for one of the other originals to finish their portion of the workload, so that they could coborate on this. But that didn''t mean that Eisen couldn''t already start piling up the stones from bottom to top so that he could build the new statue to rece Silber. He jotted down some numbers to try and calcte exactly how much stone he would need. It was such a massive amount that he couldn''t even fathom something like this. He would basically be building a giant-scale skyscraper by hand. The old man rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Alright, we''re basically going to need... that much?" Eisen said, pointing at one of the smaller mountains that was sticking out in the distance. He wasn''t totally sure, but it should be roughly that much. It mostly depended on how much hollow space, in the form of caves, there was within the mountain, and what the quality of the actual stone ended up being. "That''s gonna be a task and a half, huh?" Silber sighed, and Eisen nodded his head, "That it will be," the old man replied. Eisen didn''t like that he was going to need to permanently change the scenery here, but that was going to happen either way. Either through the removal of that small mountain to create the new pir, or through the copse of the Mountain Gobbler, which would also lead to immense losses in life. It would be an iparable catastrophe. "I''ll have toe up with something to transport all that stone first. Carrying it all by hand is going to take way too long," Eisen ran his hands through his beard, trying to think about what the best method was going to be. One that would not only speed up the stone-piling process, while also not taking too long to prepare beforehand. Just as Eisen was finding a thread of thought, he felt something heavy hit his back. He turned his head behind himself, finding a crying Caria that had thrown herself at him, now clutching onto him without any ns of letting go. Melissa and Sal were also both there, joining in, even if they didn''t jump at him. They still held him and didn''t seem to want to leave. "Eisen... Eisen!" Caria cried out, big tears falling down the sides of her face, "We... we thought you were..." Eisen smiled lightly, reaching back and pulling Caria in front of him, as he dropped to his knee to properly hug the three of them, "I''m sorry for worrying you. But you kids know I can''t die, so even if it had been worse, I would havee back in just a couple of days." He thought that this would help calm them down a bit. He understood how scared they were, considering that Eisen had never actually died here since he met these children, so maybe that reminder would help. "No... no, it felt... it felt like you were gone..." Sal exined, slowly rubbing the tears from his face, "Usually we know where you are, how you''re doing, at least to an extent... we can just feel it, you know? Even when you''re... when you''re in the other world, we still have a connection to you, but..." the boy said, but Eisen couldn''t really follow what he was trying to say. "It felt like you were... gone... just... disappeared..." Caria finished, "We were so worried... we felt really, really weird when that happened, we..." "We felt really weak..." Sal said, "We don''t know why, but... just don''t do that again, okay..?" Eisen was speechless. What was going on? The... connection between him and the kids disappeared for a while? Technically, these three were tamed monsters, so there was a permanent link between them. Eisen should talk to Jyuuk about thister to see if this could happen. But even without that, he could tell that this was irregr. That it was different. While ncing over at the message window at his side, which still just wouldn''t disappear no matter what he did. He doubted that the overuse of mana was what had caused the disconnect. That wouldn''t make too much sense. But this... this broken skill that made his skills act weird... that was the only connection that he could find. [XXXXXXX (kil$ *ev+led "p!] As though that system window realized that Eisen was thinking about it, it reacted. In front of his eyes, the letters changed. Some of the broken letters were revealed, and others were hidden behind random other symbols. He could tell, as a wave of difort ran through him, that this was a level up. And the kids felt it too. They held onto him more tightly, as though they were worried that Eisen was going to disappear into this air if they let go for even a moment, "We''re scared, Eisen..." "Don''t worry, you three," the old man said, "I''m not going anywhere," he tried to reassure them, hoping that the kids didn''t realize that he himself was just as confused and worried as they were. As he looked over the kids'' heads, he saw someone else approach. A certain half-dragon with crystal scales. Silber, who had silently stood to the side until now, not wanting to intrude on that moment, looked at the young half-dragon with a broad smile, "Hold on, is that little Trygan I see there? You''ve really grown up, haven''t''cha?!" heughed loudly, and Kiron looked toward him confused. The kids also seemed to finally realize that someone else was standing there. Kiron looked at Silber somewhat nervously, "''Little'' Trygan? Ehm... Are you..?" Eisen smiled lightly, "That''s Silber. My brother." "Brother..?" Sal repeated, looking up at Silber, "That''s him? The ''God of the Mountain''..? He looks so... normal." "That''s apliment... right?" Silber asked with a wry expression, looking over at Eisen for confirmation, but he had something else to make clear, "And... I''m sure this is going to sting even more than that nickname, but... that''s not Trygan." Silber raised a brow, "It''s not? But I''m sure he..." Kiron cleared his throat and gave a slight bow to Silber, "My name is Kiron. Trygan the Crystal Dragon King is my father, and I have be my grandfather''s honorable knight. It is an honor to meet you, grand-uncle Silber." Silber looked over at Eisen, "Grand uncle? I mean, I guess it''s been a couple years, but... really? That guy sure god busy, huh?" Eisen smirked lightly, "Yup, you could say that." After a few moments of thought, Silber stared at Eisen once more, "Hold on, why would that sting more than my nickname? Eisen, why would that sting more?" The old man smirked silently, as Silber caught on, "You''re kidding me, that bratty little stone dragon became a god?" "B-Bratty?" Kiron repeated surprised, and Eisenughed loudly, "Mhm, he''s be the king of all dragons and the protector of justice." Silber squatted down and let out a loud sigh, "Good for him. Yeah, honestly, good for him. d he managed to get there. For sure, for sure," he rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply, unable to properly and fully hide his annoyance. Figuring that he should give Silber a few moments, Eisen looked at his grandson. "Kiron, how are you? Are you okay?" he asked, looking at Kiron''s shoulder. Some of his scales were cracked. "I''m fine, grandfather. There''s no need to worry about me," Kiron smiled lightly, but Eisen just locked eyes with him. He pushed his hand into the ground, having opened his item storage there, and quickly pulled out a container of high-grade healing salve and some bandages. "Come here," the old man said, waving Kiron over. He quickly shook his head, "No, grandfather, I promise I''m fine. Lady Xenia already healed me, so..." Eisen locked eyes with the half-dragon, who realized that there wasn''t anything that he could do to change Eisen''s mind. Kiron knelt down on the ground next to Eisen, who, still having the kids cling to him, covered Kiron''s wounds in the healing salve, "I know that Xenia is great at healing magic. Well, she''s good at any magic, so that''s a given. But a lot of healing magic mostly recovers one''s ''HP'', neglecting the actual body. You don''t heal as fast as the five of us do, nor as fast as the artificials. You need to take care of your body more, alright? Your scales are your armor, and your body. I will neither let you walk around unprotected or covered in scars. And in this case, it would lead to both. So stop whining and make sure to rest your shoulder, alright?" Kiron slowly nodded his head, unable to stop himself from softly smiling as Eisen tightly wrapped some bandages around his shoulder. As he did so, Eisen asked about something else, "Did you see Parc and Rouge? Are they alright?" "Yes, they are," Kiron said confidently, "They were out in the camp as the destruction ured. Once things settled, they came into the city and are now helping as they can." "I see," Eisen smiled lightly, looking down at Melissa, "Could I ask you to call them for me?" Melissa quickly nodded her head, stretching out one of her hands. A couple of small bees flew out of her sleeve. They were bees that Melissa had specially bred; instead of just buzzing normally, they could create a few simple words. It was a quick and easy way to send a message. And then, once Parc and Rouge got here, Eisen would get started making some Golem Cores. Chapter 822: Reconstruction Preparation It didn''t take long for Parc and Rouge to arrive at Eisen''s location. They already seemed pretty exhausted, but Eisen could really use their help for this. Of course, they wouldn''t have to do anything too major, Eisen just needed them to prepare the materials while he created the actual enchantment pattern. So that he could work properly, Eisen put up his portable workshop, quickly stepping into the building. "Huh... that''s new," Silber said curiously, looking around the house that had been built out of practically nowhere. Eisen nodded slightly, but mostly just waved hisments off. He didn''t really have the leisure to talk to his brother that much right now; even if he wanted to. Eisen looked at the marble worksurface, starting to engrave an enchanting into it. After creating the generic golem base, he continued on to the specific functionality. Basically, they were transport-golems, that would move the stone cubes that Eisen cut out from the mountain over to the blood-ice statue, building itself up bit by bit, recing parts of the ice when needed. However, instead of simply having the blocks be carried, it would be much easier and faster to have the block carry themselves. Eisen would ce the golem cores onto the surface of each cube, and the cube would be turned into the body. Then, the cube would ce itself into its predetermined position, returning back to its cube-shape. Since the cubes themselves would all be uniformly sized, he could create a simple design for the golems to allow them to move fast through the mountainous terrain, and even climb up on top of the other cubes without needing to waste much time on making things adapt properly. Now, when the golem reached its position, and if it some ice was in the way, the cube would make use of some of Eisen''s magic to heat up the parts touching the ice, melting out the exact portion that was needed, which would allow for the ice-statue to simply be reced piece by piece. Then, the golem-core would automatically detach itself. However, Eisen still needed to prepare three more things. One; golems, preferably flying ones, that would bring the golem core back to Eisen to be put back onto a new cube. Two; a way to get rid of the massive amount of blood that was going to me molten. Since he couldn''t just leave it stuck to the statue; that would just cause structural damages and sanitary issues over time if the blood was left. And three; a ''supervisor'' system to automatically tell each golem where it had to go, while also telling the flying golems when a core needed to be retrieved. And of course, it also needed to keep track of the blood and make sure it was gotten rid of. The first was quite easy. All that Eisen needed was to create another simple golem core base, and then ce them into air-magic infused wood. To speed things up, he also created a simple bird base-model, so that the golem cores created their bodies on their own with the gievn material. The second wasn''t all too tough either, in the end. Eisen had gotten his hand on some blood magic a while ago, having ced the ability into some marbles to make use of itter. While this magic was more useful in the realm of necromancy, at its base, it was also the most effective way to physically moverge amounts of blood. Eisen created another set of golem cores, but he had to put some more effort into their bodies. They were going to be mana crystal golems, something that Eisen didn''t tend to do since they were fairly limited in most of their uses. However, in this case, it was a little different. By softening parts of the mana crystal, he could create crystal hoses that he could also infuse with the blood magic. The hoses would then pull all the blood in through the hoses, even the parts that were dried up through the heat from the stone cubes that had molten the ice, and then gather that blood inside of their hollow bubble-like bodies. Those bubbles were enchanted with transmutation abilities topress and shape the blood. If they reached their limits, they would bring a cube of blood outside of the city walls and stack the freshly-crystalized blood up on a pile. Jyuuk said he wanted to use this opportunity to gather samples from a transcendent monster; he could also get samples from Silber, but it was always better to have more varied samples to figure out transcendant properties. And now, for thest thing that Eisen needed to prepare, he had to spend a lot more time thinking about it. He couldn''t finish the other patterns up before he figured out this, since they all needed to be connected together. That was why Parc and Rouge really just spent this whole time preparing and fusing the materials for the golem cores. They were going to need quite a lot of materials, after all. Eisen thought for a while, and in the end, figured that he should be able to use his ''Blueprint'' ability to give this supervisor system basically all the information that it was going to need for the Cube-Golems. Since the cubes were going to be a uniform size, it was easy enough to figure out a way to calcte each subsequent position for these golems. By telling it the dimensions of the blood-ice statue, this system could also control when the cube-golems would activate the heat. That way, Eisen could also just give a mana-generation ability to this system, so that it could provide the cube golems with the magic they neededter. However, the supervisor system also needed to be able to adaptively tell the other two golem types what they were supposed to do when. Telling the bird golems when to retrieve a new golem core was fairly easy as well, since it just needed to get a signal from the cube-golems when they were in their new position. For the blood it was a bit different though; the crystal golems needed to move all over the ce and know where they were needed the most. Eisen couldn''t predict how the blood would end up flowing through the crevices of the cubes, after all. That''s why Eisen also ced some blood magic into this system so that it could sense all the blood rted to the statue, and go from there. He ended up giving it a small number of multiple souls so that it could be more adaptive and intelligent than just a base system, and then attached some mana-generators to it. Then, all of the other golem cores were given a ''receptor'' for this supervisor system, and the rest would be handled within the calctions of the supervisor. This way, it was also easy to expand the amount of golems the system was linked to if they ended up having too little or had to speed the process up over time. And then, Eisen just had to actually apply all the enchantments onto the individual ''nk'' cores that Parc and Rouge prepared. By the time Eisen got to this stage, those two had already headed to bed for a while, resting so that they could continue helping out tomorrow. The old man stretched a bit, rubbing his neck. Doing this sort of mass-production was usually rxing to him, but the situation that he was in, and knowing that there were people actively dying not too far from where he stood... he just couldn''t get into the flow that he normally did. Eisen took a deep breath and sat down for a moment. He still had to prepare the blueprint to feed into the system, but that wasn''t tooplicated. He quickly pulled up the blueprint window and got to work. But at the same time, Eisen couldn''t help but nce to the side. --- [XXXXXXX Skill leveled up!] --- That window had changed over a dozen times while Eisen was working, each time ''repairing'' itself more and more. Though that didn''t change the fact that Eisen couldn''t close the window. At this point, he figured that it was triggered when he used his skills somehow, but he didn''t know what it really was. Luckily, while he was crafting, he didn''t notice any changes, but that might be different when he tried transforming again. The worst part was that, since the text was mostly fixed, he couldn''t really tell when the skill leveled up anymore. "Eisen," Silber called out to the old man, "Are you alright?" "Hm? Oh, yeah, I''m fine. This is nothing, I''ve worked for longer sessions," Eisen replied quickly, continuing to figure out the blueprint. But Silber didn''t seem convinced, "Yeah, but... back in my time, you''d work with a smile on your face." Eisen slowed down for a moment. Silber wasn''t wrong with that. He wasn''t doing this work for the love of it right now. He cut a lot of corners to speed the process up. And he was getting somewhat sloppy, even. To his standards, at least. "It''s alright, Silber. I''m just... stressed. We need to get this done soon if we''re nning on recing you," Eisen pointed out. Frankly... from my perspective, consciously... until a few months ago, the most pressure I''ve had when working was when I had to get something done quickly before picking the kids up from school. It was never anything like this. The weight is just... a bit different. So cut me some ck, alright?" Eisen asked with a light smile toward Silber, who quietly looked at his brother, "Those kids of yours... you never really used to talk about them much. You''ve told me about them, but... you were always in so much pain when you thought about them. Are they alright?" Eisen scoffed quietly, "They could be better, I guess. I''m causing them a lot of trouble recently, but they''re doing well. I hadn''t realized it, but I guess I missed them quite a bit, huh?" Chapter 823: Mountain Quarry Eisen finally found a good spot. The wall was already fairly t, so he didn''t have to remove much from the front. He stretched his hand out forward and ced it onto the wall, moving his mana into the stone. Using his mana, he created arge cube, concentrating the mana around the edges, using transmutation to heavily weaken the stone there. And then, after turning his ego-tool Bai into arge chisel and hammer, asrge as the tool could turn itself on top of the massive size that Eisen was already currently at, he ced the chisel against the front of the stone wall. After cing the chisel against the first weakened edge, he struck it with his hammer once. A deep crack shot through the stone along the parts weakened through transmutation. In the end, Eisen could just cut the stone out with transmutationpletely, but if he did it like this, then the material rating of the stone would be improved. The fact that it took a little longer to prepare was made up for incredibly by the improved strength of the stone. At the same time, the quality and effect of the final statue would be increased if the material rating was higher as well, so it was worth the time sacrifice. Not to mention, it would take a while for the stones to arrive at their destination anyway. Eisen hammered the chisel into the weakened edges all around until the stone had been disconnected well enough. Since therge stone cube was now loose, Eisen pressed the first golem core against the center of the front-facing surface. Once the core was activated, mana quickly spread throughout the cube and cracks formed throughout it again. The cubepressed itself just so slightly, to about 80% of its original size, to ensure that the stone wouldn''t be damaged throughout the transport somehow, and then turned into a roughly humanoid shape. That meant that it still had a cuboid body and limbs, and it was simply ''folded out'' from the cube to the point where was able to move on its own. And then, the golem quickly started its descend from the mountain to move over to its new home. It would take quite a while for it to arrive there, but that wasn''t a big issue in the end. Once the first golem arrived there, it wouldn''t take long for the next to reach its destination either. At that point, the distance from the mountain to the statue''s location would be irrelevant. Not that the golem was moving particrly slow either; it was practically a giant evenrger than Eisen himself that was sprinting through the mountains tirelessly for about an hour. Once there, the supervisor system would take over and tell the golem where exactly it had to go as it turned back into a cube. There, the bird golems would pick up the golem core and return it to Eisen to be reused for another cube. And the rest of the process was just repetition. Eisen would weaken the edges of the cube with transmutation, and then actually shape it with the chisel and hammer, before cing the golem core onto it, and then repeat. Of course, since Eisen hadn''t started with a perfectly smooth surface, and because there were a lot of pockets of dirt, air, or simply stone too weak to be properly used, he ended up with a lot of materials that he couldn''t use for this either. Those were just fused andpressed into smaller cubes, split up into their materials, that Silber was moving over to another location. Depending on the actual materials, they would be used for the reconstruction efforts of the city''s buildings themselves. Before long, Eisen had gotten into a decent rythm. Once a couple hours had passed, Parc and Rouge had also woken up, and got to work creating more golem cores by mixing the correct crystals together, and then applying the enchantments using the patterns that Eisen had created beforehand. That was how Eisen was able to reduce the ''gap'' that was ever-approaching more and more. That gap was simply the time between the departure of thest golem core that Eisen currently had on him, and the return of the first that he sent off. He did want that short ''gap'', but he wanted at most a thirty minute break so that he could take a quick breather and prolong the period of time that he was able to work over the next couple of days. Like this, Eisen worked straight for four hours, then took a thirty minute break, and then continued working for four hours, repeating this same pattern as long as he possibly could. Stone after stone, golem after golem, Eisen did the same thing again and again. And it wasn''t even just him working on his own; he had duplicates beside him that were working tirelessly, but even they were unsummoned during each of those thirty minute breaks so that Eisen could let his mana recover a bit. After practically melting his internal organs by overusing massive amounts of mana, he didn''t want to overdo it. Since that was a special case, and even Xenia didn''t have any knowledge about such cases in detail, Eisen figured he should be careful just in case. Especially if the overuse of his mana was the thing that caused that broken skill to appear. After about two days of nonstop work, Eisen sat down for his next break. At this point, the thirty minute breaks had been reached, so there wasn''t any need for Parc and Rouge to create more golem cores. Instead, they were supporting the reconstruction of the city; since all survivors and deceased had been recovered through the other originals at this point, the reconstruction had started taking priority. Parc and Rouge were taking part in preparing the materials, making tools for the volunteers, and of course preparing food for the people who had lost their homes. As much as Eisen hated to say it, but this was probably the best situation for those two to gain a lot of experience. Not only was their knowledge and practical skill increasing by the hour, but their actual system-skill experience was rising as well. Making practice items was one thing, but making tools and random little objects that were needed here and there, that would be used immediately after their creation, while also allowing them to observe the use of those items... this was absolutely invaluable for those two. But even so, Eisen of course wished that they had never gotten this opportunity, as it was one that could only be gained through immense tragedy like this. He let out a deep breath, rubbing the sweat from his forehead. Eisen didn''t know why, but this work felt... different than it usually did. And that didn''t mean in some intangible sense because of the pressure this work put on him, but it simply felt actively different to work right now. His body felt more like his own, as though he was able to feel the wind and dust brustle up against the smallest hairs on his arms. Eisen''s muscles felt tenser, more tired. He felt a burn that he hadn''t felt in his arms in this world so far. It was akin to when Eisen''s synchronization with his past increased, and he began feeling true pain in this world. At that time, his body felt much more alive; much more his own. And now, things weren''t any different. Frankly, Eisen knew why. There was no way he wouldn''t. After all, that feeling had grown alongside that broken new skill of his. While he couldn''t see exactly when it leveled up, since that window simply wouldn''t change or disappear anymore, Eisen had weirdly developed another sense for it. When this skill leveled up, he started to just sort of know. He even had a rough idea where it was at right now, in the low to mid 40''s. And he also knew that this skill was only at Rank 0. If the effects of that skill were this intense right now... Eisen didn''t want to know what would happen once it ranked up. But he couldn''t stop it anymore. He had to continue; clearly, the condition for it to level up was for him to do practically anything. Using his skills or abilities. And right now, he couldn''t afford not to do so, even if it caused some potentially irreversible changes to his ability to control his body and skills. "How far along are we?" Silber walked up to Eisen. The old man let out a sigh, turning around. Arge chunk of the mountain had been removed over these past two days, but even so... "Maybe a fifth of the way? A little more, I guess. At this rate, the pir''s base will bepleted in about a week. That is, if we manage to keep this speed up." Silber looked at Eisen concerned, "Will you be fine? You said your skills and stats were reset... with your endurance right now, I doubt you canst that long... right?" Eisen scoffed, "Who do you think you''re talking to?" he asked, before looking to his side at the clock that he has set up for himself through the system, "But you don''t need to worry. I''ll be taking a short break in a second anyway," he exined. It was time for the meeting with the other originals on earth. He didn''t like it, but he figured taking a longer break every two days wasn''t a horrible idea either. Chapter 824: A Rank-Up Benjamin stepped out of the capsule, stretching slightly before walking out into his livingroom. There, Andrew, Nataly, Haruo, and Jasmin were already waiting for him. The old man dropped down onto his armchair, as the five of them all stayed silent for a while. The one to break that silence first was Nataly. "So... we''re all agreeing that Samuel stooped to a new low with this, right?" she asked, and Andrew leaned back and scoffed, "Honestly? I don''t even think so. The more I find out about the guy, the more this event doesn''t seem all that shocking." Jasmin let out a long, nervous sigh, "He''s done a lot of really bad stuff, sure, but... his n this time was to directly kill millions of people," she pointed out, "Honestly, he''s... terrifying... how can any person do this kind of thing?" The five stayed quiet once more. They had all met Samuel personally. He was the one that had gone to interview all of them that initial first time, and had been the main person they had been keeping in contact with ever since. And even after they had already started in the ''game'', he kept being kind to them, keeping up the act perfectly, all up until the moment he was caught red-handed. "I think we could talk about Samuel in general for a while longer, but seriously, let''s be honest... would we say anything about him that we haven''t already?" Andrew asked, "Rather, I''d like to know what exactly happened before you summoned us, Eisen." The old man nodded his head. He gave everyone a run-down of the events leading up to everything, recounting it all as well as he could. Not only that, but Benjamin also exined what he had found out about the curse, and more importantly, about his brother. He then wanted to move on to some thoughts he had about why there were such differences between people and monsters in regard to the conditions to godhood, but before he could get there, Jasmin rolled her wheelchair up next to Benjamin and ced her hand onto the old man''s chest. He could feel a soft warmth touch his skin, that was different from Jasmin''s physical contact. She was pouring mana inside of him. "What exactly happened then?" she asked, "Frankly... I''m just confused. The amount of mana that you must have used is ridiculous, but..." "If the amount was the only condition for ''that'', then you would have experienced something simr?" Haruo asked, looking at his lover with a serious expression. She slowly nodded her head, moving her hand away from Benjamin again, "...honestly, yeah. My guess is that your body is just lesspatible with mana overall, and the massive amount was too much to handle. Or it could have to do with you being a monster-halfling... monsters'' bodies are sort of different in nature to those of people, hence why they''re able to change so massively during rank-ups. Maybe that amount of mana triggered something that made your body unstable afterward. It looks like some rest healed it though, so it''s a physical phenomenon, at least." Benjamin was quiet for a while. He knew that he had to tell the others about this, but he didn''t even really know where to start. Soon, he let out a deep breath and just came out with it. "When I logged out after that... I saw a system window," the old man exined bluntly, and the others seemed to try andprehend what he just told them. "''After'' you logged out?" Nataly repeated, "What do you mean, after? That- what?" dumbfounded, she stared at Benjamin, who just continued on. "When I first saw it, it waspletely broken. Glitching, random symbols recing the letters to the point where it was impossible to read... but it was easy enough to figure out that it was a skill acquisition message. And that message persisted. I wasn''t able to get rid of the window, and then, even in the other world, it stayed there, the exact same as before. But then... that skill leveled up. Whenever I used skills, any skills, it would seem to level up. The message itself became clearer, and the glitching faded away, but... the skill''s name is still crossed outpletely," Benjamin went on to exin the feelings that he got whenever the skill leveled up. That the kids seemed to notice something as well; that his connection with them was wavering every time the skill leveled up, and of course, that using skills was not only harder, but that the activation came with some errors. Like when his body grew in size irregrly at first. Once more, the room was filled with silence. It was getting close to the point where they were quiet as much as they spoke, but instead of just being speechless, they were all busily thinking about what this could mean. About what was actually going on. "Do you think that if the skill keeps leveling up, you''ll figure out the name?" Haruo finally suggested, and Benjamin sighed deeply, "I have no idea. I hope so, but I''m not fully counting on it." "Can you do anything with the window at all?" Benjamin looked at Andrew and nodded, "I can interact with it the same way as any other window, except that I can''t get rid of it." Nataly thought for a while,ing up with the only idea that seemed to make sense to her right now, "Could it be a virus? If it''s messing with your skills, then it''s harmful, right?" Even after thinking for a while, Benjamin didn''t know how to answer that. Generally you would say so, however, "I''m not sure it really feels like that... it... I don''t know how to describe it, but it feels more... real?" "Real?" Andrew repeated, "Do thinks not feel real to you most of the time?" "No, that''s not..." Benjamin replied, rubbing the bridge of his nose, before shaking his head, "I mean... maybe? Again, it''s hard to describe... I guess, if you call the way we usually use skills an instinct, things are starting to feel more... deliberate? Instead of a focus on the skill itself, I feel more in tune with the effect of the skill. Not that I didn''t before... it''s just the only way I can put that feeling into words." After a while, Jasmin asked something that everyone had subconsciously been wondering this whole time, "If the system is here for you now... can you use skills?" she wondered, "What if that ''nk'' skill is just a response to the system being here for you now? Like a... connection? A pathway from there to here." Benjamin looked at his hand nervously, "It could be? I... honestly don''t even know. I''ve sort of used abilities before, but that was really just the charisma stat in its most basic form... and my dwarven racial skill''s heat resistance, I guess, but that''s more a change to my body..." "Is there a skill you think you could try out?" Andrew asked, and Benjamin thought about it. The old man closed his eyes, and concentratet on one of his skills. The one that he could use without much of an effort at this point. He opened his eyes again, and for a brief moment, saw pulses of colour flowing through the bodies of Jasmin, Haruo, and Nataly. Since Andrew''s mana had been reced with internal energy, Benjamin wasn''t able to see anything there. But either way; his truth-seeing eyes worked properly, as they should. It was different to what had happened before. Though, that was for just a moment. The old man''s eyes twitched and they felt like they were burning up. His head felt a simr pain to what he had felt when that system window first appeared here. Benjamin felt as though the air had been robbed from his lungs as he gasped for just a single breath. His sight went dark for a moment, before the system window floated to the front of his sight. Changing every second into another message. --- [XXXXXXX Skill has leveled up!] [XXXXXXX Skill has ranked up!] [XXXXXXX Skill is settling] [XXXXXXX Skill''s name is being adjusted] [Searching for correct terminology] [A fitting name has been found] --- Benjamin stared at these messages, trying to keep up with what was happening. And then, thest message appeared. It stayed there, unchanging. At least for now. --- [XXXXXXX Skill has been named System Resistance Skill] Chapter 825: Resistance [XXXXXXX Skill has been named System Resistance Skill] --- Benjamin silently stared at the system message. With a wry, confused smile, he read through the text multiple times. System Resistance? Just... why? What did it mean? What did it imply? Was the system something harmful? Something that had to be restrained? The questions came flooding into the old man''s mind. But more than anything, he was scared. Mostly, of how the kids were going to feel when they woke up. They had gone to sleep together with Eisen, and he doubted that they were going to be woken up by this, but when they did wake upter they would be more than just startled. If this skill was at Rank 0 until now, and then reached Rank 1 just now, then its effect must have been strengthened. Or rather... its effect only just started. "It''s... it''s called System Resistance," Benjamin said, and the other originals looked at him a bit confused, "What do you mean?" Nataly questioned with a puzzled expression. "That nk skill... it apparently ''ranked up'' just now... and it got a name. It''s called ''System Resistance''." The group was quiet. Until finally, Jasmin spoke up, "So... it really was like that..?" Benjamin turned toward her, "What are you talking about? What is it like?" Jasmin ced a hand in front of her mouth, and her eyes were darting around the air in front of her as though she was staring at a system window herself, but Benjamin knew that she was just deeply thinking and trying to figure this out, "The system is a sort of external force itself... a new ''substance'', something simr to magic, but also not. It might be something so far along the line of magic that even I can''tprehend it anymore. Maybe in the past I could have, but..." "Okay, sure, let''s say that''s the case, but how does that make any sense?" Brody asked with a deep frown as he leaned forward, sping his hands together nervously, "How is the system resisting itself? To me, that sounds like... pulling your whole body up by grabbing your leg. It doesn''t make sense." "Except, what if it''s not that? What if that thing that Eisen is seeing is just something else that''s borrowing the system''s framework?" Jasmin suggested, "That would also exin why it''s not closing. I gave up on it to concentrate on the Samuel-blocking mechanism, but I spent some time trying to figure out how the system works. I tried to make an artifact that could let you see someone else''s system windows. I only got far enough to tell ''if'' someone was looking at their system windows. The windows give off some kind of energy that I was able to somewhat track, but it disappearspletely when the window is closed. Like justpletely dissolving. So, I came up with a hypothesis," she exined, trying to think of the best way that she could exin it all. The others listened intently, "Each being with a ''system'' integration is marked. Their mana, or rather the essence that lies within their mana, which is also the case for Brody''s internal energy, is tracked, like a sort of ''ID'' number. It''s basically the mana signature that''s also on Adventurer Guild tags, but it holds all sorts of information at the same time. Honestly, it might be the true nature of the system itself; a force within all of us. And then, there is some kind of centralputer that holds all possible data rted to the system that we actually interact with. Skills, sses, titles, races, all of that. Thatputer reads the information in the individual''s essence, and then apply''s the system''s control to that ''system essence'' inside of us. Guiding and interpreting the necessary information. That''s how they were also able to roll out all the ''updates'' of how the system appears and works, like what Silber told you about, Eisen. They just updated that centralputer." Benjamin slowly nodded as he listened along. So far, that made a lot of sense. However, "Then how about this broken window? That centralputer''s not here, so how is the system window here?" "Again, I don''t believe it''s really a system window. Or at least, it''s not really the same. When someone opens a window, the system makes it appear for that person, but it pulls back everything that''s unneeded. The window justpletely disappears, and the energy is pulled back to theputer, to sort of save processing power, or something like that. I believe that ''someone'', or maybe the right word would be ''something'' hitched a ride on the system''s signal. While you were using that massive amount of mana and your body was breaking down, the system must have been trying to read your information rapdily trying to understand your current status. Using that opportunity where maybe the system''s and your defenses were down, that ''something'' infiltrated your body, and was potentially influenced by the system in the meantime, hence why it takes that form. Or maybe it''s borrowing a part of the system to do this; that''s not really important right nlw. What is important is that the ''something'' can''t let you close that window, because all the energy is going to disappear, and the small connection that it has to you will be cut. Who knows if it''s going to ever get that kind of opportunity again? That would also exin why it''s only one window; that''s all it has ess to right now. So it has to keep changing the information on that one window instead of giving you more." Nataly looked at Benjamin concerned, "So is it a threat, or is it trying to help somehow?" Jasmin thought about it for a moment, but she could already tell that she wasn''t able to answer that question, "I... really don''t know. Considering that Samuel is the one that ultimately has control over that system, I think I might default to that ''something'' trying to help, but... in the end, ''the enemy of your enemy is your friend'' isn''t always the case. That ''something'' is clearly against Samuel''s system, but that doesn''t mean that it''s on our side." "So instead of thinking like that... is that ''something'' a parasite, or a symbiote?" Haruo asked, and Benjamin thought for a while. He was the one that was directly affected by this, so that answer had toe from him, "Is it harmful... or has it some use to me?" he muttered, trying toe up with an answer. The way that the skill made him feel... it wasn''t necessarily bad. It made him feel more free, somehow. As though Samuel''s system had been shackles holding him down without him noticing. Of course it was also scary; without the system''s guidance, he might have topletely relearn how to do anything at all. Like learning how to walk or speak all over again. However, one thing was clear. "This ''system resistance'' skill... it doesn''t lower my abilities, it just reduces how much Samuel''s system is controlling it. These abilities are innately our own, and not one given by the system itself. And if Samuel has a way to tap into that... to control, and twist those innate abilities to what he wants them to look like, then... I think this skill is something good. For all we know, Samuel might be blocking abilities we''re supposed to have, or weakening them so we''re less of a threat. Frankly, it might be how he had ever managed to control us in the first ce. If I have the choice, then I''d rather be without it. But at the same time... the system allows us to ess some things that I''m not sure we could without it. Messaging, potentially even the way that I summoned you all to the giants'' capital. I have no idea if those are also innate, or if they''re externally created. And more importantly... what if the power to move from here to there and back is also something given by Samuel''s system? What if, if I start trying to make use of this ''System Resistance'', I lose the ability to log in or out? What if I''m stuck in either one of the worlds without a way to get back? Honestly, I''m not totally sure which would be the worse oue at this point..." Chapter 826: Waking Up The group looked at Benjamin. His conclusion made sense. They didn''t know the exact mechanism through which they switched between the worlds, but it being connected to the system didn''t seempletely off. It practically controlled everything in that world, after all. "So what else is he supposed to do?" Andrew asked into the group, "It''s not like we can just have Eisen sit shit out from now on; all five of us are needed over there." "But we can''t expect him to give up a life on earth either," Haruo pointed out, "That would be just wholly unfair." "I don''t want that either, obviously, but... frankly... as bad as it sounds, earth can go on without Eisen... the other world can''t," with a solemn expression, Andrew looked at his friend, who just looked down at the ground in contemtion himself. However, Nataly seemed to have a different opinion in the first ce. "I mean... is it really certain that Eisen''s not going to be able to log in or out again?" she wondered, and the group looked at her. She continued, "Like... Eisen, you can still use your skills, right? And if Jasmin''s whole idea is right, then the system that we interact with just guides the force inside of us. The system is just controlling the natural powers of the other world. And I''m 100% certain that the power to connect souls between two worldses from there, and not earth." Jasmin thought about it for a moment, and then slowly nodded, "Right... Eisen didn''t say that his skills got weaker, he just wasn''t able to control them as well for a little while. So we should be able to control the forces there even without the system. Even if the process could get a lot moreplicated, switching back and forth should be possible. And Eisen might not even need the capsule at that point anymore." Eisen was thinking for a while, but soon just spoke up, "It doesn''t matter," he said bluntly, "I''m going to keep on going over there. Even if it does turn out that I can''t log out again... if that''s so, then I can''t change that at that point anymore." "Wait, what?" Andrew asked confused, "Why the hell? What about your kids? Your grandkids? Literally this whole town, you''d-" "Be dead as far as earth is concerned, I know. Bute on... before all of this, I didn''t have long left anyway. A few more years, maybe. The cancer''s apparently been inside of me for at least five years. The mana probably just made it a lot stronger, made it grow faster. Now, my body is strong enough to stop more from popping up, but... at the end of the day, without this whole thing, I would have just been and old man who lost his reasons to fight death a long time ago. And like this... if by dying on earth, I can make sure that Samuel will never have the power to turn this world into a hell that he can rule as a literal god while destroying and sacrificing the other world, then I think that''s a really easy choice," Eisen didn''t give the others a chance to say anything else, and just got up from his seat, "That being said, I do think that I''ll be able to control all my abilities perfectly well. After all, whatever is behind this all is making sure that I can." Jasmin looked at Eisen with a frown, "What do you mean?" "Come on," the old man said, "This isn''t ''actually'' a skill. It''s not ''actually'' an ability inside of me. If my abilities exist regardless of the system, then this can''t be anything like that. It''s a blocker for the system. If it needed or wanted to, then the whole system could be blocked all at once, but it''s basically just slowly weening me off the system so that I don''tpletely lose control. So that I get used to doing things without ''help''." --- Eisen opened his eyes, watching the metal transformation on the kids'' bodies slowlying undone. Just as he expected, they immediately looked up at where the old man was supposed to be, shaking nervously. Before any of them were able to say anything, Eisen held them tightly and just smiled at them, "Everything is fine, don''t worry. I''ll exin things to you in a second, okay? For now, just calm down. As I said, I''m not going anywhere." He managed to calm the kids down for now, and then began to exin the situation of this new ''skill'' to them. Of course, they weren''t particrly excited about this, "But... isn''t the system what is linking us together?" Caria asked, but Eisen looked at her with a light smile, "No, of course not." He rubbed the tears away from the girl''s cheek, and exined to them how he understood things, "We are connected forever, alright? We are inseparably linked, and we always will be. With or without the system. And I''m not even just talking about the bond built by the fact that I originally tamed you children as monsters, but the bond that we built as family. Even if the system and all of our powers forever disappeared, that wouldn''t change who we are to each other." The children held onto Eisen tightly, once more not wanting to let go of him. For a short while, he just let them stay like this, until they felt good enough to continue things on their own. They knew that even if they didn''t want to go, what Eisen was saying was right. And more importantly, none of them really had the time to dawdle. There was still a lot that had to be done. A lot of work they needed to get through in their efforts of rebuilding the town, treating survivors, and recovering the bodies of those who were lost. And Eisen still had to keep working on the new statue; without him, things couldn''t continue on. The kids headed off to do their part, and just a bit before Eisen could leave and continue, a stream of smoke poured out from the ne around the old man''s neck. Without even having properly formed her body yet, Kirisho was holding onto Eisen, with a simr fear and worry in her that the children seemed to have had. "Will you be alright?" she questioned, and Eisen nodded his head. He ran his hand over her head and hair, "I am fine, don''t worry. More importantly, are you alright? You''ve been asleep for a while. While I was using all that mana before, you were helping me out, right?" Kirisho slowly nodded, still not moving her face away from Eisen''s chest, "I knew that you were straining yourself... very clearly so. You were wholly concentrating on releasing all the mana you could, and at some point along the way, I noticed that your control was slipping... you were slowly letting go, so..." "...so you were there and guided me along. I know. Thank you," the old man replied. These days, Kirisho was really just an immense emotional support for him. She wasn''t a strongbatant or extremely skilled in a particr nonbat area. But she was kind to the children, and she was there when Eisen needed her. Frankly, without her to let his guard down around when the others weren''t there, Eisen would have had a much, much harder time until now. But even so, that didn''t mean that Kirisho waspletely unskilled. She had a unique connection to magic, as her whole being and existence was made up of mana and magic in a special way. Her mind was connected to the amulet she was housed in, but her mind and will itself is what gave shape to her being. And with how much time she had spent with Eisen and being exposed to his mana, as well as the deep trust that existed between them... it seemed as though Kirisho had gained the ability to assist Eisen in his magic. The old man held forward his hand, and Kirisho slowly nced at it. Both her and Eisen wanted to know what was going on, and the old man released some of his mana from his hand. And quickly, Kirisho took over and manipted it. She dyed Eisen''s mana in his elemental magic shaping it into an intricate flower of magical steel. The way she did it was different to how Eisen shaped his magic. To him, it was still as though he was shaping a physical object into what he wanted; as though he was hammering or pushing his magic into shape. But Kirisho simply made the mana take on the shape naturally, as though that was the innate shape that it wanted to take all along. It was a much more refined and beautiful way of handling mana. And over the past few days, after this ability awakened within Kirisho''s mind, she had rested and grown ustomed to it and became far more magically intertwined with Eisen. As the two stood there, looking at the metallic flower, Eisen saw his brother approaching from the side. Kirisho pulled back, softly smiling at him as she deeply bower forward. Taken aback, Silber looked at Eisen, who had been holding onto this woman so tightly, "Erm... who is that?" Eisen ced his hand onto Kirisho''s back as she stood straight again. She looked at Silber and spoke quite confidently, "I am deeply sorry that I am only able to introduce myself now. My name is Kirisho, and I am your brother Eisen''s lover." Chapter 827: Lizards Silber looked at Eisen and Kirisho with a raised brow, "Lover? Well, ain''t that a thing. Nice to meet you, Kirisho," he replied with a broad smile on his face, "How''d you two meet?" "I used to be under the protection of an Ancient Gold Dragon. I was part of the test that he had gone through in order to be that Dragon''s champion, and afterward, I chose to apany him on his journey. And throughout that time, we simply grew closer," Kirisho exined, looking at the man next to her with a soft, loving gaze. Eisen ced his hand onto her back as he returned her look, and then turned back toward Silber, who seemed quite surprised. "You''re someone''s champion? And a dragon''s, at that?" Silber asked with a wry smile, as if he was trying to hold back augh, "I mean, if you met someone like her through that, I guess that''s worth it..." Eisen scoffed, "What''s so surprising about that? It''s an Ancient Dragon. They''re amongst the most powerful beings in this world," the old man pointed out, "And the dragons gave me some pretty useful abilities in return. Well, technically, they were sort of mine to begin with... I don''t fully remember, but apparently Trygan and I moved some things around so that I could use the Ancient Dragons to get some of my abilities back, like these eyes." His eyes shed a golden colour, but Silber wasn''t focused on that at all, "What do you mean, ''the most powerful beings in this world''? Dragons are just some lizards... That doesn''t mean they can''t do anything, or that they''re all super weak, but... that''s an exaggeration, right?" Silber pointed out. Kirisho and Eisen looked at each other a bit confused. "Lizards? I guess so, but... Silber, Dragons really ''are'' the some of the most powerful here. They''re powerful magical beings, and even newborns are at least at second or third rank the moment they hatch," Eisen pointed out. Silber frowned, "What? No, they... oh man, did that much change? Really? Now that whole ''dragon war'' thing seems a lot more serious..." "It''s extremely serious... I thought I exined what''s at stake there." "Well, you do have a ir for the dramatic, so don''t me me," Silber replied immediately, tapping his foot on the ground, "You''re not messing with me, right?" The old man let out a deep sigh, "No, I''m not messing with you. It''s the truth." "It is as Eisen says; Dragons have been a massive influence over the world for millennia. While they don''t all mingle with the people all too much, in a lot of cases, they''re seen as the closest to divinity without truly being gods," Kirisho added, "They are supremely skilled in many ways, and extremely powerful beings. A single Ancient Dragon could cause irreparable damage to a nation." Silber ran his hand over his short-trimmed beard, "Huh... That... is unexpected... hold on, does that mean those half-dragon kids that are running around are also strong?" Eisen let out a deep sigh, "Of course they are. Frankly, excluding us five originals, the Half-Dragon knights are probably the strongest force in all of Asgard." "...Huh..." Silber muttered, before quickly shaking his head, "Honestly, whatever. I know that there''s a lot for me to catch up on. Anyway, so you just arrived here?" he asked, looking at Kirisho, "The other... ''Originals'', I guess? Well, they said that Eisen summoned them earlier, did he do the same with you? I didn''t see you around anywhere. Oh, or were you somewhere in that ''dungeon'' ce? I explored a few of the floors but I didn''t get very far since I didn''t want to waste too much time." Once more, Eisen and Kirisho locked eyes. Slowly, Kirisho held her hand forward, letting her fingers dissolve into a mist, "No, I''m a Mist Spirit. A type of Ghost who became one with Mist and Fog. I live within the amulet around Eisen''s neck." "Due to a few circumstances that I think we haven''t really properly figured out yet either, Kirisho was asleep for the past few days. But she just woke up earlier," Eisen added, "She can''t go too far from her amulet, so we''re usually together. Of course, if either of us need some time, she will take the amulet herself and move freely." "A Ghost, huh?" Silber muttered, looking Kirisho up and down, "I saw a few Ghosts before, but they were all a lot more... unstable than you. No offense." "None taken. It is the truth. It is rare for specters to have the capability of holding onto their whole conscious even after their death. In my case, it seems very briefly after my death, my soul was bound to the amulet, and due to its special nature, I was able to hold onto my mind," Kirisho exined. Silber leaned forward and took a closer look at the amulet, frowning lightly. "Eisen, didn''t you make that?" The old man raised his brow, "No, I didn''t. ording to the item description, it was made a few thousand years ago by a Necromancer, and there''s no falsehood there either... why? Do you remember something like this?" "I mean..." the half-giant was deep in thought, "It looks vaguely familiar, at least. I remember you working on some jewelry like that before, but I guess that wasn''t anything to trap a soul, but more like... a mental protection thing? You were going to the Feywild on one of the other continents and made some of those because a lot of Fey have the ability to manipte the mind." Eisen thought deeply, "...Is that so?" the old man muttered. He knew for sure that he didn''t make that amulet; he had already checked on the creator, and if there were any clues toward Kirisho''s past there, but there were no leads. Things like this weren''t particrly umon; they were amulets meant to bind powerful specters to another object and trap them in there, in case there were no other ways to get rid of them. The one that Kirisho was connected to was of particrly high quality and rank, but it still wasn''t much different. But of course... "I did heavily influence the craftsmanship in this world, so I guess this shouldn''t be a surprise either. And necromancers tend to be tied very heavily to the past, so maybe they found some of the things that I made and used that as a base. Or frankly... maybe I came up with the base for this sort of item and spread it around myself." Kirisho nodded slowly, "Right... it seems like that could have been the beginning of your process of creating life? Finding a way to contain and house souls could be a logical starting point," she suggested, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, "That could definitely be it..." the old man thought for a while, but soon saw the colour that the sky was taking on. It was very early in the morning right now, and Eisen already wanted to have started working again by this time. "We can talk about thister, alright?" Eisen suggested, starting to make his way back toward the stone ''quarry'', or rather, the massive stone ins that now existed where the peak of a mountain used to sit, "I really need to keep at it. I''m trying to build a new statue for the town," the old man exined to Kirisho, who quickly followed after him. Silber also trodded along for now, hoping to help out a bit more on the old man''s side as well. Even if he couldn''t cut the stone to the point where it would be a high-quality material like what Eisen could do, he could still take over the job of actually cing the golem cores and let Eisen just fully concentrate on cutting the massive stone cubes out of the mountain. It might not save a huge amount of time, but anything helped at this point. Silber and Kirisho kept speaking for a while as Eisen began to concentrate on his work together with the duplicates. Of course, those two didn''t ck off either; they were helping out however they could, even if it was just small things that would take a load off Eisen''s shoulders, so that he could work a little bit more effectively. Chapter 828: The New Statue The mountain had been reduced to nothing over the course of the past 10 days. Eisen worked constantly, procuring the materials that were needed for him to rece the ''God of the Mountain''. He came across a few veins of ore and some other rarer mineral deposits as he was working that he couldn''t use for the statue, so he had simply ced those aside so that he could figure out what to do with thoseter. They had been stacked up into a small mountain on their own already. But even though Eisen was done now, he couldn''t concentrate on them yet. The old mannded in the camp by the edge of the city. There, next to the hill of highlypressed blood, stood Jyuuk, using some of his skills and special spells to figure out theposition of the mountain gobbler''s blood. "Oh, are you done already?" Jyuuk asked with a raised brow, looking at the pir of stone that now held up the mountain above the capital city, "I thought there was still a bit left." "There''s a couple of golems still on their way, but they should get there soon. In the meantime, I figured I should get started on the design of the statue," the old man pointed out, and Jyuuk just smiled lightly, "Yeah, about that..." Jyuuk ced down the items in his hand and waved Eisen over to follow him. The old man raised his brow and did as he was told, following Jyuuk over to Fafnir, who was sleeping in the center of the camp, allowing the dungeon to be used as a base of operation. Eisen felt a bit bad, since Fafnir hadn''t been able to stretch his legs for more than a week now, but luckily he would get the chance to do so soon. As Eisen and Jyuuk stepped into the dungeon, they already quickly made their way to one of the lower floors. This was supposed to be one of the desert floors, but instead, there was arge, ten-meter tall tower standing in its center. And when Eisen took a closer look, he raised his brows confused. "Wait, did you guys..?" the old man asked, and Jyuuk nodded his head, "Of course. Evalia has been working on it for a few days." "I know that you said you''d do it yourself, but... well, this is my job, isn''t it?" Evalia asked with a broad smile, "I was just finishing up something down here, but it should be good to go." Eisen looked at everything more closely. Him and the others had brieflye up with an idea together earlier, but this truly overcame all his expectations. Though, they did have a point; Evalia really should have been the one to do this from the beginning. The artist smiled at Eisen, "It wasn''t just me either, we all worked on it together." "Except Brody, of course. He''s been out hunting to gather enough food for the town tost for a while during all the repairs," Jyuuk replied, "Xenia is also currently putting together the materials she will need to cast some protective barriers onto the statue. She said she wanted to create a new barrier for the town altogether and have the statue act as its centerpiece, that way this ce will never be destroyed again." Eisen smiled broadly, "I see... In that case, I shouldn''t waste any time anymore either, huh?" "...speaking of time," Evalia started hesitantly, "How long do you think this is going to take you?" Eisen looked at the statue in front of him, letting out a slightugh at the ridiculousness of what he was going to be working on, "A month, maybe? The sheer scale of this is... ridiculous. I''ll be overseeing the reconstruction of the city during that time as well, though, so please, return back home for now." Jyuuk quickly shook his head, "No, we will not leave you here alone." "You have to go back," Eisen replied, "We can''t leave everything alone for a full month. We don''t know what kind of stuff Samuel is nning, so you guys need to be there to take care of everything. Not to mention... you being here is going to halt your own progress with a lot of things. You''re all still figuring out your memories, and Evalia, you''re working on a level-up quest right now, right?" Evalia slowly nodded her head, feeling bad about the idea of leaving Eisen here on his own, "But... are you going to be fine alone?" "Well, I won''t really be alone anyway. And the five of us will see each other when we log out anyway, right?" Eisen pointed out with a smile, "Every night, 8pm, like always." Evalia and Jyuuk slightly smiled. During thatst big meeting, where Eisen''s ''system resistance'' skill revealed itself, they had decided on one thing; every night, they were going to eat dinner together. That was, every night on earth, meaning every third day here in this world. "Just leave things here to me," Eisen told them. He had to stay here and take care of things. It was his responsibility; not only was he the trigger for all of this happening in the first ce, but this was the country that he had been born in, at least in this world. These were his people. He had to take care of them until the end, and pay them back for the sin that he hadmitted by dragging all these people into this. Eisen turned back toward the statue that Evalia had created with Jyuuk''s help. The reason why Jyuuk''s assistance was needed was simple; Jyuuk had a way of keeping track of the dead. It was one of his abilities, ''The Grim Reaper''s List''. He mostly used it as a way to keep track of his own undead, but if used differently, it was able topletely catalogue each and every death that ured in this city due to the catastrophe. That included names and basic information about each dead person, as well as a simple imprint of the shape of everyone''s soul. Their appearance from when they lived. This wasn''t a city that existed because of the protection of some divine being; this city was raised from theground up by the people that lived in it. By the people that spent every day here alongside each other. And Eisen wanted that to be shown, to be remembered. That was why the new statue wasn''t going to be just some vain representation of what Eisen felt would look good. It was going to represent the ones that truly mattered. The hundreds of thousands of lives that had been lost, side by side, holding each other up, and together, holding up the mountain above their loved ones. They would forever be by their side, watching over them, ensuring that they could live a safe life. That was the statue that Eisen was going to create. And just a few hourster, that is exactly what he started doing. Using the smaller statue that Evalia had painstakingly created using the information left behind in Jyuuk''s skill, Eisen created a blueprint that he oveid onto the tower of stone blocks. For now, he flew around that tower and used transmutation to get rid of therge overhangs so that he only needed to go in and actually work on the details. He was going to do this one by one. Of course, he would use his duplicates to a degree, but they were only going to create the general form of the statue. Eisen was the one that was going to finish carving each and every individual person on this tower. He was going to engrave every single face into his mind as he did with the stone. Eisen knew that this was going to slow things down a lot. But he felt like he had to do so. He couldn''t take any shortcuts in this. The memory of the people that died because of Eisen''s own mistakes in treating this situation too lightly, and underestimating what Samuel was capable of, were going to be treated with the respect and care they deserved. And with each person that was going to be ced onto the tower, Eisen would once more clear and define his anger and hatred of Samuel, strengthening his resolve in what he had to do to stop him. Chapter 829: One of a Kind Eisen''s hand tightly held onto the chisel as he hit its end for thest time. This was quite literally the finishing touch. Thest letter of thest name. It was the list of names of each of those that died. He wanted to make sure that this memorial would carry as much information about those who died as possible, so this wasn''t ''just'' a name. The old man grabbed the magic stone from his apron''s chest-pocket, quickly running it over the stone surface. The magic stone was pushed into the grooves, making the letters not only stand out more, but have a secondary effect of properly ''defining'' the name of each individual that died during the catastrophe as something that could be read by the enchantment ced behind the wall. The old man smiled lightly and took a step back. While he was proud of what he had created here, thereason why he had to do this made that pridepletely irrelevant. Eisen acknowledged the statue as plete'', and after checking on the final rank and quality, as well as the effects of the statue itself, the old man swiped the system window aside and instead focused on trying out the enchantment''s effect. He held his hand out toward the name, and in front of Eisen, a new ''system'' window appeared. Though in this case, it wasn''t really a system window; it was something created by magic that was merely supposed to appear like a system window, as it was what people were used to. On this window, a few different things appeared. On the bottom of the page was a simple character profile. Name, age, ss or race, as well as a short text that was provided by the survivors. Most of the time, the dead were survived by people they loved and that loved them, so finding the information Eisen was looking for was pretty easy. But sometimes, all their friends and family died as well, or they never had any here in this town to begin with. In those cases, there usually were some neighbors or collegues that manage toe up with a few words. And for the ones that had truly nobody, Eisen wrote a simple sentence, "They will be missed." If at any time in the future, someone would either remember something, or existing family came by after hearing the news after all, then the information could be updated. He only gave the ability to update these sentences to the Irngrad, allowing him to add more people that he trusted not to abuse their power. And then, there was the top of this character profile. There was a picture of each of them there, each one of them smiling softly. This way, if the survivors longed to see the face of the ones they lost again, this could be the easiest way to do so. Now that he knew that this worked properly, Eisen was satisfied. Truthfully, he wanted to keep working on this for anoteher month, or even two or three if he had the chance, but there was really no need to anymore. The statues were already as detailed and nearly ''alive'' at this point with the amount of detail that Eisen put into his work. Any more than this would have just been him trying to oveplicate things and himself find issues in ces where there weren''t any. At that point, it could even have the opposiet effect, instead decreasing the overall quality of the statues. But even if he knew that consciously, and usually never was the kind to fall too far into mindless perfectionism, this case was truly different. If he had to truly make anything perfect in his life, then this was the spot that required it. If the statue ended up being anything but the best it could possibly be in this world, then he would regret it for the rest of his life. Eisen took a few more steps backward, looking up at the statue made up of the people that had died. Behind him, thousands of people had gathered, hoping to catch the moment that the statue was finished. As soon as Eisen acknowledged it, mana started to flow through the statue. Due to its sheer size, the special spells and enchantments it held required massive amounts of mana, that Eisen was able to ess through his brother''s help. Using the ability that Silber learned from the Mountain-Gobbler, which had been keeping him alive for the past hundred thousand years as well, Eisen managed to create a system that gathered and used the natural mana that existed all around this mountain range to run everything instead. There were still a few mana generators created using artificial souls that he had ced all around the statue into the correct spots for the enchantment''s array that required more concentrated man. This way, the statue''s effect was able to exist basically permanently and without interruption. That effect itself was fairly simple as well; it would be the core of a massive protective and supportive barrier. Not only did it protect against general physical attacks, but also would give the city''s people a boost to their general health and potentially even mentality. It wasn''t strong, or at least not as strong as itcould be, considering how massively far-reaching and stretched out the effect was, but it was more than just enough to protect the people in this city. And right when Eisen got everything running, a calming, enpowering wave spread throughout the whole city, filling everyone with a sense of security, beginning to feel the intention behind the statue that were lifting up the sky above the people they left behind. "This..." the Irngrad showed up beside Eisen. Over the past month, Eisen didn''t really have much time to talk to people too much. He spoke with the Irngrad, some of the chieftains, and a few citizens, over the past few weeks, but for the most part, Eisen had just hyperfocused on finishing that statue. It was such a massive endevaor that Eisen really wasn''t able to do much of anything else at all. He really couldn''t use too much time on this project, no matter how important he was, so he wanted to make sure that it would truly be as perfect as it could be. That was why, if Eisen wasn''t sleeping, he was working. And if he wasn''t working, he was sleeping. The only times when he had the opportunity to talk to people was when he returned to work, or left from it to log out, just that specific period that he was using to get from point A to B, while also thinking about what he had to get done first. That was why, even then, Eisen was generally vastly preupied and couldn''t properly talk to the people around him, giving nothing but short responses. "This is truly amazing," the king continued. He was so baffled that he really didn''t know what else he could even say. Of course, he had been watching the creation of the statue for the past month, incredibly eagerly while trying to support Eisen as much as physically possible. But now that the statue was done, and all its effects were activated, the air that the statue gave off was different immediately. As though it changed into a whole other force; a guardian that hade to truly protect the city this time. Or rather, hundreds of thousands of guardians that worked together. The ones that were important were the people; that was exactly what Eisen and the others were hoping to express with this memorial. This town had been so focused on the ''divine protection'' of the ''God of the Mountain'', which had just been a petrified giant all along. Superstition had filled the town, and they truly thought that Silber''s mere presence in the town would keep them safe. But now, that was not because of some force they didn''t understand. Now, they coulde to the statue whenever they wanted and look at the names that they of the people that built up and protected the city all along. "I tried my absolute best. I... I am truly and wholly sorry for what happened in this city. For the rest of my life, I will do everything in my power to make sure that something like this never happens again. So that this statue can stay a ''one of a kind''." Chapter 830: Youre still here Eisen looked at the capital city from afar. It was time for him to leave, now that the statue had beenpleted. Even from here, the pir of the fallen was still as magnificent as Eisen had hoped it would be. It was the least that he could do for them and their families. But for now, there was something more important for him to do; he had to return to Asgard. Initially, he would have liked to spend some more time traveling around this country, but he already spent way too long in the capital, cleaning up his mess. There were a lot of matters for him to worry about in his own country, especially since it seemed like the meeting between the Giants and the central continent was going to happen soon. From the country of giants, the Irngrad and a couple of giants particrly skilled in diplomacy were going to join, and from the central continent, the Kings of the countries involved in this conflict would join. The fact that they were the onesing themselves instead of sending some diplomats to do the work for them just showed how major of a situation this was, and Eisen had to make sure that they would all get there properly. Of course, while he was gone, the other originals had already tried to find the best ind for the meeting for the peace treaty to happen on, and soon found the perfect ce. It was one of the smallest inds, belonging to a young goddess. She belonged to the domains of love and generosity, so it seemed like the perfect ce. It was an abundant and peacefulnd filled with various flora and fauna that all lived together in a calm, peaceful environment. Jyuuk, taking the opportunity to study some of the more unique species of the ind, took some of the country''s masons out there to build up a base there together with the local species inhabiting the ind. It seemed as though they were a race of bug monsters that had developed into a roughly humanoid form. Eisen was quite interested in meeting them, personally. But for now, he had to get back to Asgard, and that would be a rather long trek. The capital was quite central within the giants'' country, and at the speed that they were going, it would take about four days for them to reach the harbor that they had docked their ship at, and that was all thanks to Askr''s continued, fast travel. Eisen figured that he should thank him somehow, and once they reached Prototype, he would probably apply a new coat of finish to the wood golem''s body, and repair some of the more aggravating damages. While Askr could heal to an extent, that still had its limits, especially if he didn''t have any pieces of Ironbark at the right quality level to make up therger grooves that formed. Eisen should probably also focus on developing Fafnir a bit more, and have some of the warriors of Prototype enter the dungeon to make both sides level up a bit more. And currently, Eisen was seated in the dungeon''s entrance area, gazing out of the opened wooden door onto the horizon. He had a ss of whiskey in his hand, and was just trying to rx for a bit. Coming up from behind him, Silber sat down and sat down next to him, "Need somepany?" he asked, and Eisen turned his head slightly toward him. "Feel free, I don''t mind." Silber sat down, and Eisen pulled up a ss from behind the counter he was leaning against, and poured his brother a ss of whiskey as well. After taking a sip, he let out a deep sigh, "Ah, seriously... you can''t believe how much my body''s been yearning for this!" "You could have had a couple drinks while I was working, you know?" Eisen replied, not moving his sight away from the view beyond the doorway. Silber shook his head, "No, I don''t think so. I can''t just go and enjoy myself while you''re working yourself to the bone like that." "...I guess so." "Man, why''s your face like that? You did something ridiculous over the past month. Making something like that basically on your own? That is absolute insanity," Silber pointed out, "I mean, you can''t expect much else from someone like you. You''ve always done pretty ridiculous things. But that doesn''t change the magnitude of all this, right?" Eisen smiled at his brother, "Of course, I''m really quite happy about that. Ites with some reservations,but in the end, I''m still d that I was able to make something like this. But the fact that it was even necessary still lingers in the back of my mind, and that''s going to stay the case for the rest of my life. And frankly, while I don''t remember things in particr... the death of so many people didn''t shock me as much as it should have." Silber listened quietly, seeing the expression on Eisen''s face. The old man continued, "It''s not that I''m some psychopath or anything... I feel horrible, of course, and sick to my stomach. But after inadvertently causing the death of so, so many people..? I feel ready to move on far too quickly. This is not the kind of thing that you grow numb to easily, Silber. And while the previous Eisen does influence my personality, it''s not like his personality overwrote mine. It''s just a certain influence. If that''s enough to make me react like this... what the fuck have I done in the past? What kind of horrendous things could I have done or caused for me to be this numb?" Slowly shaking his head, Silber ced his hand onto Eisen''s shoulder, "You don''t need to worry about it that much. I can''t speak for what happened in the past hundred thousand years, obviously, but... the Eisen that I knew was a kind, honest man. I was born two hundred years after him, but for the next two thousand years before the curse petrified me, that was something that never changed. Of course, there were times where you lived more introverted than at other times, but in the end, you were always the same as the man that I see sitting next to me right now. If this is what you were like on day one... what you were like before you were thrown into this world, up to at least two thousand yearster?" Silberughed slightly, "Frankly, I find the idea that there was anything that could have broken you like that ridiculous. Over time, long-lived races like giants or elves, particrly the individuals who choose to mingle with humans or even monster races that live barely a hundred years at best... generally experience that sort of thing. Death bes... just a part of life." Eisen looked down at the ss in his hand. The ice had molten a good bit. Silber continued. "It''s not that you''ve be numb, you just have a different outlook on life. The people that live in this world now have been fully reced dozens and dozens of times. All while you were still there. At some point, some others joined you, but a handful of friends is not enough to make youpletely forget about things. You can''t live as long as you did without reflecting on those matters. Especially not if you''re being forced into action by a sick little man who would try to kill millions of people to teach you a lesson." The old man leaned back, sighing deeply. He wanted to say something, but upon opening his mouth, his words escaped him. He knew that Silber was probably right, but that still didn''t change his feelings about this all. He had rationalized his emotions on his own a lot already. Of course, having someone else tell him these things still felt good, and validating, but... it was still rough. But finally, Eisen turned toward Silber, "And you? How are you dealing with all of that? You just woke up one day... you didn''t have the time to get used to the fact that truly everyone is gone," he pointed out, and Silber scoffed and shook his head, "No, man, not everyone is gone." Silber slightly tightened his grip on his brother''s shoulder, "You''re still here, aren''t you?" Chapter 831: Khan Askr came to a halt at the beach, his feet sinking into the sand below. Slowly, Askr descended, dropping to his knees as a long set of stairs descended down from the dungeon''s entrance ced into the wooden giant''s chest. The first to leave the dungeon was Eisen; he quickly looked around to make sure that nothing was wrong, and even if that old, makeshift harbor was a little worn down, the ship seemed to still be in good condition. Eisen had ced some protective measures around it to ensure this, after all, so that was to be expected. However, once Eisen fully stepped off the stairs and took another closer look around, Eisen saw something else. The half-dragon knights had followed Eisen down the stairs, and many of the workers and particrly the ones that were goign to be in charge of the ship during the way back came down as well, beginning to check on the ship''s current health, and if anything had fallen into disrepair over the past few months. But Eisen quickly did something else. He approached the man that was seated on arge rock at the edge of the beach. He had practically blended into the environment, as though he had be part of nature. However, as soon as Eisen really looked toward him, he realized that he was there, and didn''t hesitate to walk over toward him. Eisen had been wondering where he suddenly went, after all, "Khan," Eisen spoke up, looking at the elderly giant whose limbs were bing overgrown and rigid due to the giants'' curse he was afflicted by. It had been nearly two months since he had seen him, "You suddenly disappeared when we reached the Fire Giant n''s capital. What are you doing here now?" Khanughed slightly, closing his eyes as he tried to stand up with the help of the walking cane in his hand, "I had some matters to take care of. And frankly, why else would I be here but to hitch a ride?" Eisen looked at the elderly giant. To be honest, he really didn''t mind if Khan joined. After all, Eisen did feel a sense of trust toward him, even if it was due to the emotions of the former Eisen who seemed to have done so as well. Not to mention, Khan was a swordsmaster; or rather, if his race was to be believed, he had be a ''Swordgod'', though Eisen couldn''t sense any sort of actual divinity from Khan. It was merely a title. However, Eisen still felt hesitant to simply allow Khan toe along. After all, he didn''t even fully trust his past self, so how was he supposed to ''actually'' trust the ones that the former Eisen supported and befriended? While Eisen couldn''t sense any sort of mischief or lies from Khan when he spoke, Eisen didn''t know what he should expect from Khan. Just because someone was honest didn''t mean they couldn''t be a viin. There were dozens, or even hundreds of ways to interpret even simple sentences, and with how eloquently and intentionally Khan carried himself and spoke, it was easy to both tell theplete truth at any point in time and still trick Eisen. And if he suddenly brought a dangerous man to either Asgard or the central continent, and Khan ended up doing something that Eisen couldn''t support, then he wasn''t sure what he was supposed to do. After all, even a kind man can be a killer in times of war. And frankly, even if Eisen remembered some parts about Khan, he barely remembered a few parts about his swordsmanship. But in the end, he owed a lot to Khan and his mountain-splitting de. Without it, it would have been impossible for Brody to kill the mountain-gobbler, considering the scale of his skills and abilities until that point. "...Well, alright. Feel free to join us. You cane into the dungeon as well. You''ll have to shrink down a bit to enter, but once inside, I can bring you somewhere where you can return to this size," Eisen exined, but without hesitation, Khan shook his head, "I''m sorry, but that won''t really be possible." "...how so?" "Well, I lost the ability to change my size," Khan pointed out as if it were an obvious matter, "The curse made it impossible. Technically I still hold the ability, of course, but these parts of myself do not change alongside the rest of my body." Eisen nced at Khan''s arm. The stone that had been created from his flesh was old and worn-down by time. It was a bit surprising to Eisen that it wouldn''t change size alongside Khan, but then again, he truthfully didn''t understand the inticracies of the giants'' curse just yet. Eisen was sure that he would at some point, but currently, that was not one of the memories he had recovered. If what Khan was saying was true, changing his size would simply result in a painful, bloody death. Even just changing his size fractionally would bring more than just mere difort with it. That definitely would make the situation a lot harder. The ship was barelyrge enough to hold Askr''s body on its main deck. The only way for Khan to even have space there was if him and Askrid on top of each other for the whole duration of the trip back. And that was only in regard to the space they would take up; Askr''s body was rtively light inparison to his size, in part due to the numerous enchantments that made him up, but Khan was a true giant, and not only that, but one whose body had been turned to stone inrge parts. His weight might be too much for the ship to support, possible even without Askr there as well. "...I''ll figure something out," Eisen let out a deep sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. At the end of the day, it was possible to fix any of these issues, even if just temporarily. He could create a way for Khan''s body to be light enough to be supported by the ship. Or, and this was something that Eisen was rather leaning toward, he could figure out a way to let Khan shrink down to a human''s size after all. If it was possible to change the size of equipment, it had to be possible to change the size of the stone all over Khan''s body alongside him. Looking out into the ocean, the old man let out a deep sigh, "You''re lucky we can''t leave tonight anyway. The weather is too bad out on the ocean to assure a safe departure." "Well, I figured you would find a way," Khan replied with a soft smile. He looked down at the ground next to Eisen, spotting the figure of the half-dragon knights. But not only that, there was a face there that Khan both did and didn''t recognize. Of course, the news of what happened at the capital reached every part of this country, and certainly deep into the central continent as well, so there was no way Khan hadn''t heard about what happened. And being as long-lived as he was, ten-thousand years old due to the longevity that the ''cursed'' prefix of his race gave to him, he definitely had been to the capital and had seen the face of the ''God of the Mountain'', and managed to connect the dots quite easily. Not to mention, if Eisen had told Khan even about earth, then there was no way he hadn''t been told about Silber. "Is that him?" Khan wondered curiously, leaning forward. Seeing that Khan was looking at him, Silber increased his size, matching it with Khan''s, "I''m not sure what you''re asking, but I''m Silber de Grandour, Eisen''s brother. And you are..?" "I''m Khan. An old friend of Eisen''s," the elderly giant exined, shaking the hand that Silber had extended out toward him. Silber could feel a tight grip from Khan''s hand, "And you were... cursed as well, were you not?" Silber slowly nodded, pulling his hand away at the first opportunity, "Yes, I was... unfortunately, my curse was released." With a slight furrow of his brow, Khan replied, "Unfortunately? Is it not an honor to be released from that wicked force?" "Of course, to an extent... but because I woke up like that... a lot of people died. I can''t exactly celebrate that, right?" Silber pointed out, trying not to let his emotions about the situation show too strongly on his face. And the same could be said about Khan, though both Eisen and Silber could tell what he was feeling. Eisen had peaked, and even on earth was a vastly skilled craftsman renown for his ability, while Silber was a transcendant giant. They were both beings that had reached the greatest heights the system would acknowledge; being met with jealousy was as natural as meeting new people. And that was what they were seeing on Khan''s face; a deep jealousy toward the man who had escaped the curse, no matter the price. Chapter 832: Paint Eisen applied thestyer of the thick, opaque paint to Khan''s petrified skin. It was a mixture made up of multiple different types of crystals and gemstones that were infused and liquified into high-mana ink. Though the ink was originally a deep ck, it was now a pale white. Mana was flowing through the paint as it connected with Khan directly. The patterns that the old man had now painted onto the stone skin should make it so that every part of Khan''s body was able to change size together with him; even the parts affected by the giants'' curse. "Alright... give it a try, but be careful," Eisen instructed the old man. The paint lit up slightly as Khan''s body shrank, and the stone quickly reduced in size at the exact same time. There didn''t seem to be anything pulling on Khan''s healthy skin either. Relieved, Eisen smiled, pressing down the top of therge barrel of paint that he had to prepare for this, "Try to still change your size slowly, and once we''re inside the dungeon and brought you to a good spot, maybe stay in your regr size for the most part. And if for some reason the pain bes scratched up, let me know immediately. If I''m not there with you, just call out for Sigurd, the dungeon''s administrator. It wille to me and tell me about what''s going on." However, Khan didn''t seem to be listening all too much. He acknowledged it with a nod, but just carefully reduced his size to roughly a human''s scale. Clearly, it''s been more than just a little while that Khan hasn''t been able to do this. "Thank you, Eisen. I appreciate it," Khan said, slowly approaching the harbor with unsteady legs. The strength that it took to move your body when you were at a giant''s scale versus at a human''s scale was quite different, so if you''ve been stuck as a giant for a while, it was easy to make overlyrge and exaggerated movements even if you didn''t want to. One''s body just felt a lot lighter and more agile like this. So, Eisen quickly guided Khan along, helping him up the ramp onto the ship''s deck, and then into the dungeon. He looked around curiously. In particr, he seemed quite interested in some of the furniture. Most giants'' furniture was rough and hard, since it was far too expensive to make cushions using cotton or wool at that scale. The only thing they had was the fur of some giant monsters, and while they were soft to an extent, they weren''t soft in the same way that pillows were. Usually, giants'' furniture, and their buildings in general, were carved out of stone or massive trees, or were just whole trees that were carved into massive nks that could be used to some degree. It was the only way to really make things for giants. That was also why, these days, a lot of giants lived at a human''s scale. If the settlement wasn''t built into an ironbark forest or a mountainous terrain, it was hard toe by enough materials to really build housing at the giants'' scale. Especially as more and more non-giants lived and spread throughout the giants'' country, many non-giant goods spread through the country as well, and especially onesing from the central continent had the tendency to increase one''s quality and easy of life if you were able to make use of them. And, being stuck at a giants'' scale the whole time, unable to even test any of those amenities out for probably more than nine thousand years now, Khan must be more than just a little curious and excited now. However, Eisen sadly had to make some things very clear to Khan, "You can take a break here first, but keep an eye on your mana. That''s what fueling the fact that you can stay this small; I can give you some potions if you want to extend that time, of course, but if you run out of mana, your body''s petrified sections will return to their regr size, potentially before you can react to it," he tried to warn Khan, who slowly nodded his head in response, "I know, I know, I''m not a child... pah!" Khan replied, sitting down on one of the couches in the dungeon''s entrance area. Even if he was saying that, he did seem to have some childlike excitement as he was looking around, so Eisen didn''t really know what to say to him. Considering that Khan was ten thousand years old, Eisen wasn''t sure how to treat him. Technically, all things considered, Khan was 90 thousand years younger than him, but just considering the lifetime that Eisen was consciously aware of, Khan was more than 9900 years older than Eisen was. Frankly, all that Eisen felt toward Khan right now was a certain sense of guilt. One that seemed to have been carried over from the former Eisen. There was little that the old man could really do to change that right now. If Eisen had carried that guilt ever since Khan reached Rank 7, and with that the point at which giants'' bodies changed ording to the curse, then that wasn''t something that he could get rid of just because he didn''t want things to be awkward. For now, Eisen stepped over toward the bar near the dungeon''s entrance, starting to prepare some tea for Khan. His body was basically moving on his own at this point, as if he was remembering Khan''s favourites without even having to think about it. "Sigurd," Eisen said in a low voice, and the dungeon core''s guardian quickly appeared beside him, "At yourmand!" Eisen looked at it and chuckled lightly, "Where''d you pick that one up?" "Ehh... Evalia was telling me about a bunch of stuff while the other originals were here... Did I say something bad?" Sigurd asked in a worried voice, holding its hands in front of its mouth worried, but Eisen just shook his head immediately, "No, no, everything''s fine," he said, rubbing his hand through the guardian''s metallic hair. "You can track people''s mana, right?" Eisen quickly asked, and the guardian quickly nodded in confirmation, "Yup. Want me to make sure he won''t run out without noticing?" "If you could, yes," the old man replied. "I don''t think you need to worry about that, honestly. He''s got a ton of mana for a swordsman, and the array you drew on his stone parts seems pretty efficient... right?" Eisen let out a slightly nervous sigh, "Usually I would think so too, but... I''m not the mostfortable about my skills right now. Building a physical monument is one thing, but using magic, and especially ability-enchantment, which I had to use to make that paint, makes me a bit uncertain at the moment," Eisen exined, and Sigurd''s face quickly turned to worry, "But it''s probably going to be alright. I''m just trying to be three times as careful as normal. If you see anything wrong with the flow of his, or the paint''s, mana, you''ll tell me, right?" "Obviously," Sigurd replied, looking up at Eisen, "...you''ll be fine, right?" Eisen nodded his head, trying to calm the guardian down, "Of course I''ll be fine. It''s just something I have to get used to a little more." "Does it have something to do with the fact I''ve been feeling my connection to you weaken for a while now?" Sigurd questioned. Eisen figured that lying to it would be stupid, so the old man slowly nodded, "Yes, I think so. But really, our connection is still there, I''m sure of that. It''s just a bit less tangible. If anything''s wrong, I''ll tell you immediately. Alright?" Sigurd nodded. It jumped up into the air, giving Eisen a quick salute, and then disappeared into a puff of smoke to take care of some matters elsewhere. The old man, who was still waiting for the tea in his kettle to properly infuse into the water, slowly nced to his side at the ''system'' window stuck around him. In the past month, while Eisen was working, it had ranked up one more time, and by now Eisen figured it should be around the mid-40''s or 50''s level-wise within Rank 2.That non-skill''s level was rising very, very quickly. But at the same time, Eisen was also getting used to its effects quickly. He was getting more and more used to not having the system assist him in things; and frankly, from this old man''s point of view... it was a ridiculously freeing feeling. Chapter 833: Self-Reflection Eisen stepped out onto the upper deck of the ship. It was being steered without issues by the automated crew that he had made, so he could just rx here for a while and look out at the ocean. The salty air was a wonderful thing to him. It made him feelfortable and nostalgic. Though of course, not nostalgic in the same way that he did when he recovered some of the former Eisen''s memories; just regr, simple nostalgia that anyone could feel. During his younger years on earth, Benjamin Joyce was a traveler like few others. It was hard to travel as much as he did back then, especially since he was earning his keep wherever he stayed only once he actually got to his next destination. Compared to then, his life now was far too different. He didn''t have to worry about money anymore, and in most ways, his life was stable. His children lived their own lives, and he could spend his time doing whatever he wanted to. He had good friends in the small town he lived in, and there was nock of things to do in his area. But on the other hand, his life had beplex and terrifying to an iprehensible degree. It was to the point that it was easy for Eisen to doubt if he was just stuck in a horrible dream. More than once did he hope that was the case. That something had gone wrong with the capsule the first time he sat down in it. Some power outage, lightning strike, or just him falling unconscious because it was too much for his old mind and body to take. And then, he just had to wake up. Talk to Tony about the things he was going through, and spend time with his grandkids while he still could. More than anything, he regretted epting Samuel''s offer to y the game early after all. If he hadn''t, he wouldn''t be in the situation he was in right now. He wouldn''t have to deal with the weight of a whole world being forced onto his shoulders day after day, and he wouldn''t have to learn and control these supernatural powers he had suddenly attained. Now that the system''s influence on him was slowly waning, Eisen more and more felt like he had truly and irreversibly changed. Until now, he was keeping up a certain hope, that it was truly just the system that had given him these abilities. And if it could give them to him, then it could also take them away, right? But now, he was slowly losing that hope. As the system weakened within Eisen, he could feel his skills and abilities more intensely than before, as though he was slowly waking up from being too drowsy in the morning. Eisen held forward his arms, watching as his right hand slowly grewrger than his left, as he used his innate giant ability to change his size on his own, without assistance. It gave him a lot more freedom in what he was actually doing and how the ability presented itself. And then, Eisen looked down at the small item on hisp, a simple wooden figurine that he hadn''t even put particr effort into. --- [Name][Is this how it works?] [Quality ¨C Perfect][Rank ¨C 6] [Description] A small wooden figurine created by- ah, I think I get the gist of it, is it ¨C It depicts a bull with a single broken horn. Due to its ¨C okay, so then I do this, and then ¨C severely weakened. [Effect] None [Requirements] None --- As Eisen was working on the figurine, he was thinking of how the system usually interpreted his actions during his creation, as well as his intentions as he finished the item, and chose to attempt something new. He figured that maybe, if the influence the system had on him weakened, he could interfere with the information given to it. And as he did so, the item''s information window turned out like that, with his thoughts during that attempt scattered throughout. With a deep sigh, Eisen watched as his hand lit up in mes, as he used his elemental magic to burn the item uppletely, until only ash was left. If he let this item be, then it would be far too suspicious. It would be possible for Samuel to figure out that something was going on if he happened to see that window. Rather, he already might have, but Eisen figured it was better to be safe. There was still a possibility that Samuel hadn''t seen it, so he didn''t want to make it any easier for him to do so after all. It was a weird feeling, interfering with the system like that. It just felt wrong to him. The former Eisen had been controlled by that system for a hundred thousand years, so that was really only natural in the end. But even so, to the version of Eisen that had really only discovered the system not too long ago, all things considered, this was somewhat exciting. The way it connected him with his skills just felt... invigorating. So it wasn''t all bad. When Eisen concentrated on his craftmanship skills, it was like he was able to ess what it meant for him to be a craftsman. Like he was being reminded of the work he put into his craft. But that wasn''t all, it also gave him new perspectives; things were being revealed to him that he hadn''t consciously realized before. And Eisen really didn''t know how this was possible, until it ured to him. The power that the system was essing and guiding within Eisen was the power created by the umted experience he held. Not just the experiences that he created for himself every minute of every day, but also the ''substance'', that tangible force of experience that was used to create the artificials. It gathered deep inside of him, making up a mass of knowledge and expertise that seemed to practically take on a life on its own, growing and bing more of what it was before. That which was essed by the system was really just the umted knowledge and experience of the individual. A skill in this world was an ability that someone simply already held in the first ce. cksmithing? Woodworking? Tailoring? Those weren''t things that the system gave to him; he had learned these things on his own long ago. But the system simply guided the growth in experience, maybe even syphoning some of it, then creating curated abilities at every rank-up with that syphoned experience. Even his racial skills and the abilities that came with them weren''t things given by the system; they were abilities that were quite literally in his blood. In his body. The system was simply revealing them more clearly, and allowing one to more easily and safely use them. For people that grew up in this world, that probably wouldn''t be necessary, but for ''yers'' that woulde into a whole new world while experiencing things they maybe never had before, they were going to need that assistance More and more, Eisen became aware of what this world was; it was a world of growth and change. A ce where basically everything was possible. And he really just wasn''t sure if the system was a symbiote that supported this process for the good of all, or a parasyte that took advantage of it for the sake of the yers. Eisen let out a sigh, staring at the horizon. No matter what he did, he could things changing inside of him. For all he knew, even just breathing might strengthen that ''non-skill'', which let Eisen resist the system itself. Maybe that was why it felt so different when he ended up using abilities on earth, beside the fact that his body just couldn''t handle the side-effects. There was no system to guide him along. Maybe it wasn''t that they were slowly getting their abilities on earth, maybe they just had them all along, and now they were slowly getting used to using them on earth as well, fully without the system''s assistance. Whichever it was, Eisen knew that he couldn''t just sit here and reflect on what happened. He had to try and figure out why it happened. There had to be a reason why this was happening to Eisen, and why something outwardly interfered with the system to give him the ability to resist that system''s influence. Why were they doing this to Eisen, and who was it in the first ce? Chapter 834: A Giants Backpack Eisen stepped into his dungeon-workshop. Since there were a lot of things the he needed to make for the dungeon in general, he figured that it was a good idea to create a separate space for him on one of the deepest floors where he could work on everything without being bothered all too much. At the same time, he figured it might be a good reward for those that managed to reach deep enough into the dungeon. Like a safe space where they could make a single request to Eisen, within limits, and he would make them a fitting item. But right now, Eisen was going to focus more on the dungeon itself. One of the newer floors was going to have a theme inspired by Eisen''s journey through the giants'' country; a homage to the ce where here grew up in this world. And, to some degree, it was also going to be a way for him to deal with the things that happened. He was fairly open about his emotions, of course. He had no issues talking about certain aspects of what troubled him, but at the end of the day, he was stillforted a lot through his work. Craftsmanship was a creative outlet for him that helped him through most of the hard times in his life. And luckily, even if the ever-changing influence that the system had on him messed with his use of his skills, making and building things was something that Eisen had originally learned on earth anyway; the system never ended up giving him any particr support in that aspect anyway. For other skills, like changing his size through his Giant racial skill, the system''s assistance made it easier, allowing him to smoothly affect every part of his body at once without even thinking about it. With the system''s assistance waning, it was a bit more awkward there. Some parts of his body changed faster than others, and he would end up uncannily disproportionate, even if he always ended up falling back into his normal proportions sooner orter. But with things like this, where Eisen was making things on his own, the only thing that the system really did was interpret Eisen''s actions. That was why he was able to calmly continue working, even if that was apparently still enough to make the system resistance skill level up. But right now, Eisen epted that the skill was going to keep leveling up. Rather, he chose to concentrate on actually using other skills and properly getting used to what was going on. And since there didn''t seem to be any changes to the process of logging in and out yet, Eisen figured this was the best path of action. If he was able to ween himself off the system with the use of that skill, he could act in ways that Samuel wouldn''t be able to predict whatsoever. The old man stepped into his workshop, looking at the checklist that he hadid out for himself of what he needed to do. The first thing on the list was a backpack, some bottles, as well as a few spare weapons and everyday tools that a traveler would need. However, they weren''t just regr items, they were going to be items at a Giant''s scale. The first floor of the Giant section was an oversized forest. The people exploring the dungeon would proceed thinking that it''s just a jungle, until they came across these items scattered about, as though someone had been attacked here, leaving all these objects behind. In fact, the boss monster of these floors would be an undead giant, the one that these items originally belonged to. Quickly, Eisen got started. Even if the objects were supposed to look old and withered, the best way to do that in this situation was to make the base object first and then scuff it upter, even using some magic to make some of the objects rust or dry up as though they were left behind for forever. First, the old man started with the backpack. He slowly and carefully increased his size as he stepped off the surface he was standing on. The human-scale workshop for this special floor was actually built on top of one of the giant-scale workshop''s workbenches. Evalia suggested it, saying that it would be a fun moment of realization for the people that reached this far, showing that this wasn''t just a normal space. Either way, for now, Eisen just had to get to work. He pulled out a roll of leather made from a giant ox''s hide that he bought specifically for things like this during his travels throughout the giants'' country. He used a long rope with small markings at 1-meter intervals to measure it out at the right size. For a while, ever since Eisen had gotten that ability, he would make use of a blueprint ability. Basically, he would ovey it onto his materials and then simply trace what he had drawn out beforehand, but as the system grew weaker, Eisen realized that he had started bing too strongly reliant on the system''s supports. In reality, that ability seemed to be a visualization-ability that helped Eisen better visualize the final item and what was needed to make them up; in a sort of mental-image way. However, being a bit harder to get used to, Samuel chose to pull the mental image out into a system window instead. But after bing aware of the ability''s true nature, Eisen had started using the mental image form of it, though it did require him to measure things out manually again. But even if it took a little longer, it was also more fun than exclusively tracing things. The first thing that Eisen did was cut out all the pieces that he needed. For the most part, they were really just rectangr pieces of leather. The front and back of the main body as as well as its two more narrow sides. And since this was a traveler''s backpack, Eisen also cut out some squares that he would add onto the outside as extra pockets for smaller objects. However, each of the pockets, and of course the backpack''s main body, had top ps with two rounded edges instead of sharp ones like the others. While he was at it, Eisen also cut out a few thinner strips of leather, not only for the shoulder straps, but also for the straps that would be used to keep each of the pockets, and the main backpack, closed. Just so that the backpack would keep its shape more easily, especially when fallen over onto its side in the dungeon''s forest, Eisen used alchemical transmutation to harden the squares of the bottoms of the main body and pockets. Not to the point that they werepletely solid, but just enough to not flop as much as the other parts. In Eisen''s hand, the ego-tool Bai turned from a knife into a needle, as the old man picked up arge spool of rope. Though to a giant, this was the equivalent of thread. Luckily, through the help of Melissa''s tendency to create many different bee colonies, Eisen had a lot of beeswax to make use of. Right now, he had arge lump of it in his hand, which wasrger than a human''s body. As he unspooled part of the rope, he ran it over the beeswax to coat it in a thinyer of it. This was just to avoid rope-burn on the edges of the leather as he sewed it all together. Quickly, Eisen put together the backpack''s main body, and it didn''t take much longer for him to add the outer pockets to the mix either. He attached the straps all over the backpack too, and then put the half-finished piece to the side. There were still a few more things to do before Eisen could get to scuffing the backpack up. The most important one being the metal buckles for the straps. They couldn''t just loosely hang there, after all. For the material, Eisen chose some brass. It was a cheap material and simply looked good; he himself used to travel around with a backpack like this with leather buckles on it. The old man stopped for a moment, closing his eyes. He sorted through the memory. Was it Benjamin that did that, or was it Eisen? No, maybe it was both. As he traveled in his younger years, Benjamin had a few different backpacks. Just one of them was leather, but it had steel buckles. He made it himself, so he knew that for sure. His other backpacks were made of fabric, since they had lower upkeep than leather bags. What he was thinking of here was a memory from Eisen, who tended to use leather instead. It took him a while to get the processes, farms, and tools in order to get a regr supply of the type of fabric he could use for backpacks in his younger years here in this world, and since he hunted a lot anyway and had much more leather, he tended to make use of that a lot more. Good. Now that that was cleared up, Eisen continued with his work. This was something that he started doing a lot during the past month. He had his moments were memories just naturally popped up in his mind. To deal with all that a bit better, he found that it was useful to figure out if those were memories or pieces of knowledge from his time on Earth, or from his time in this world. But he didn''t spend too much time on it. He would have these moments at least once or twice a day, so setting aside an hour every time would be too much. No, he wanted to get this done sooner rather thanter. Right now he could work on this since they were on the ship back to Asgard anyway, but he would need to worry about other matters once there. Either way, Eisen ced a brass ingot into his forge. Chapter 835: Crush and Grind Eisen waited until the brass got hot enough, and then picked it up to ce it onto his anvil. With Bai in their hammer form, he started hammering the metal down and elongating it into thin rods. Once he got the thickness he wanted, Eisen split the rods up into the needed length and picked them up with his hands. With the help of his dwarven racial skill, he was able to get a lot closer to some of his creations, which he really enjoyed quite a lot. Just bending the hot metal with his bare hands was somehow a satisfying experience, and he was even able to directly feel if there were any issues with the metal or if any cracks formed where he normally wouldn''t be able to see it. He bent the thin rods into the shape of a buckle, making sure to connect the two ends smoothly. Since he was holding it in his hands, and the metal was still incredibly hot, he was able to connect it together like he would two pieces of y. Once the outer ring of the buckles were done, Eisen quickly continued to make a few thinner rods that he would add onto the base buckles; the parts that would be pushed through the holes in the leather to actually make everything hold in ce at the tightness you needed. They were attached together once more by just bending these tinner rods around the correct parts of the buckle. Once these parts had cooled down, Eisen swiftly attached them to the backpack. And now, the backpack itself had been finished. Though, he still didn''t acknowledge it as such, since there was still one more step for him here, but he would do that at the end once hepleted all the items for the giant traveller. The next thing that he was going to make was a set of potions. Tworger bottles, and then a number of smaller vials. Therger bottles and a third of the vials would hold health potions, while the rest of the vials were going to hold mana potions. Of course, in the end, there would only be small, coagted puddles of these potions left, ovee by rot as the potion bottles and vials were cracked or even shattered altogether. First, Eisen got started on the bottles, as they had to cool down while Eisen worked on the potions. Basically the entire stockpile that he had with him for this journey had been used up during the reconstruction of the city, as Eisen handed out potions to whoever needed them. And of course, during the actual copse of the city, he had used up a ton of his mana potion stockpile, so he would have to make some new ones anyway, just in case. Though, in the storage rooms in Asgards, there were still a lot of stored potions, so he wouldn''t need to worry too much. Either way, the first thing that Eisen did was prepare the materials for the ss. It was just his general, basic recipe, though. Silica, limestone, and sodium carbonate, as well as a few additives like ground-down mana crystals to just help everything keep its shape more, which was needed due to the giant scale that Eisen was working at. He mixed the materials together under supply of constant heat. Since it was basically an ocean of molten ss, he had to use transmutation to make sure that the materials were properly mixed together as well. Bai turned into a blowpipe, and he held the tip into the molten ss to pick up a glob of it. As he started twisting the pipe to make sure that the ss didn''t fall to the ground, he approached his ssblowing furnace, starting to blow into the pipe. A bubble formed in the center of the glob of ss. Whenever the ss cooled down too much, Eisen held it back into the furnace to get it back up to the heat he wanted. Before long, Eisen had finished the first of the tworger bottles. It was a simple shape; a round body and a cylindrical neck. It was one of the moremon shapes that potion bottles had. It was simple and recognizable, though the potions sold through Starlight had some more intricately designed bottles. Since they were blown into molds anyway, it was fairly easy to do without adding much more cost, and it would make the potions a bit more appealing as ''high ss'' items despite not being priced particrly higher than other potions. ording to Komer, the potions were selling better by the day, especially as the levels of the artificials rose and they started fighting against more dangerous monsters in the central continent. Eisen ced the bottle into the annealer, and quickly continued working on the next bottle. The vials followed soon after as well, and were really just small, cylindrical tubes for the potions. And as the ss bottles cooled down, the old man would start working on the actual potions that would go into them. He got out some different herbs, roots, and gemstones, and ced them down onto his work surface. First, he would prep all the different materials for the health potions. The gemstones would be ground down, the herbs chopped and then crushed, and the roots would be minced. Instead of just grinding it all down, for these particr materials, it was better to treat them this way for a better quality. Though frankly, Eisen did feel a bit bad that he was going to waste arge amount of these materials, but there was a good reason as to why he wasn''t just nning to create barely enough for the final ''scene'' to work. The potions, as the bottles broke, would soak into not only the ground, but also part of the cloth and notes scattered around. Eisen wanted to make the scene really seem alive, as though someone had to abandon his things to be able to run for their life. And, since potions sometimes had certain effects on nts, at least that''s what Jyuuk had exined to him, he wanted to nt a few specific growths in the area around the backpack, as though the backpack and its contents affected its surroundings as much as the forest and time affected the items. But for now, he had to finish the potions in the first ce. Eisen threw the minced roots into a pot, basically cooking them to make the juices properly flow out. Meanwhile, he mixed the ground crystals with the crushed herbs, letting the crystal powder pull liquid from the herbs. He reduced down the liquid that came from the roots to the point it was basically a syrup, and then strained the liquid into another container. To that liquid, he added the crystal powder, that had the chunks of crushed herb sifted out, and mixed the two together under a bit of additional heat. And then, Eisen added more water to the mixture, letting everything dissolve into the water; even though he only just removed the water from the roots'' liquids, this process was simply important to improve the quality of the final product. The old man then let the water evaporate and caught the distilled liquid in another container. That liquid was then mixed with other herbs, which had been dried and ground up, resulting in a deep, almost blood-like red potion. Xenia had told Eisen about this potion recipe, and from what he could tell, it really did boost the efficacy of the potion a lot morepared to the more basic recipes that Eisen sometimes employed. It was a bit moreplex, but Eisen did wonder of he could improve the automated potion-making machines that Starlight made use of so that they could employ these steps. If he could do that, then it would definitely add a lot more options to the potion shops'' assortment. The old man set the health potion aside, and quickly got started on the mana potion. For this one, he had to use the juices from a certain berry, distill those juices, and then use the resulting clear liquid as a base for the infusion of the other materials. Soon, both of the potions were done, and Eisen got the cooled-down ss bottles out of the annealer. With a simple funnel, Eisen poured the liquids into their respective containers, and then pressed a cork into them to keep them closed properly. He ced the potions into the backpack into the ces where they would naturally be, and then continued on. There were still a lot of other items that he needed to make for this, but it wouldn''t take him too long. They were just a few small knives, things like cutlery, a notebook, a pen, a pot of ink, some spare clothes, and an assortment of longsting rations. He should be able to get this done by tonight, he was sure. To first get work out of the way where Eisen needed to work with heat, just to put a bit of an order into the process, Eisen ced some ingots of steel into the heat of his forge, waiting until they reached a heat that he could properly work with. "To think this is just the start of it," Eisen smiled lightly. He was actually quite excited to work on this project. He had to make a lot of random, small objects and ce them throughout these dungeon floors. Things that he could instill with meaning for himself, meaning that the dungeon explorers might never be able to fully understand. But to Eisen, just the backpack and potions were already something deeply meaningful. Chapter 836: The Effect of Time Eisen walked over to a shelf at the side of the room, grabbing the stack of papers that he had prepared. Usually, it would be tough making paper at a giant''s scale, at least it was when Eisen tried it before, but with the nts of the giants'' country, it was a lot easier. Their fibers were as massive and strong as the nts they came from, so it wasn''t a surprise to Eisen that he could make something like this with surprising ease. He brought the paper over to his workbench and quickly got started. He was going to make the traveler''s journal, and for the most part, it was going to be very simple. The most time-consuming part about this would be actually writing everything down into the book, but Eisen already asked Evalia to write up the contents of the story, and she happily obliged and sent him something great that could be copied into the journal. Though it of course wasn''t just Evalia''s work. The two of them had sat down together and worked out what the journal''s contents were supposed to be about. What parts Eisen wanted to have in there, and what sort of emotions the giant traveler should have throughout. After all, while Eisen was able to express his emotions, putting them to paper in a particr way wasn''t something he was really used to. So Evalia simply took on the job of taking Eisen''s thoughts and turning them into something more tangible. But for now, that book had to be ready for that in the first ce. The old man got to work. He grouped some of the pages together to a good thickness, using some more beeswax-covered rope to first stitch the pages of each bundle together, and then stitching the bundles together as a whole. Once enough pages were gathered together, Eisen grabbed a strip of thin cloth and ced it over the journal''s spine, carefully brushing glue over it to attach everthing together. A journal like this usually wouldn''t be a hardcover, so Eisen skipped the step that he usually did, not adding ayer of thicker paper or in this case maybe even wood, and just added anotheryer of cloth to the book''s exterior. As the glue dried, the old man then got started with the leather book cover. He didn''t want it to look too simr to the backpack itself, so instead of giant ox leather, he used giant goat leather. It was a bit thinner as well, so it seemed like a better fit anyway. This cover wasn''t going to be anything too special though; nothing but a protective outer shell for the journal. After Eisen cut the rectangle of leather out, and once the glue on the rest of the book had dried to some extent, the old man added the thin leather onto the journal, carefully folding the edges over into the inside of the pages. To hide the edges of the leather, Eisen then added another piece of paper onto the back and front of the book, just a little bit thicker than a regr page, and then ced the book to the side to dry once again. It didn''t take particrly long either; Eisen had some magic tools prepared that would speed the drying process up a bit, and so, he could quickly move on to the stage of actually finishing it. The old man got out a particr magic tool. He had already made something like this before at human scale, and then basically just copied it over into this size; a pen that was capable of writing things out on its own. The problem with filling the journal with writing wasn''t that Eisen couldn''t do it himself, it would just take a while. The writing already wasn''t something that Eisen came up with himself, so he figured that using that pen to just transcribe Evalia''s writing was going to be both the easiest and fastest option, giving Eisen time to finish up some other items. The old man connected the pen to the text that Evalia had sent to him through the message window, and without a moment''s hesitation, it got to work writing into the pages. The only thing that was needed now was for a duplicate hand to flip the page when the pen was ready to move on. He had the time to make all of the rest of the items. The rations, clothes, knives, cutlery, everything that a traveler might need during their journeys. It took quite a while for him to finish everything, and he even had to go take a somewhat extended break since it was time for dinner with the others. But by the time Eisen had finished all the other items, the journal had also been properly filled out, and he could get to work actually finishing everything up. Eisen carefully ced the items into the giant backpack, in the same way that a traveler would. With it in his hand, he then quickly opened up a door to one of the other floors; the first of the giant floors that was currently under construction. Sigurd was already carefully curating all the nts everywhere, making sure that they would grow in the exact intended ways to give the onesing into the dungeon a good experience in regard to the monsters that could appear here, as well as actually finding the exit. The old man looked around, trying to find a good spot, pushing his way through the trees that were quite narrowly grown together while he was in giant form. And once he found a spot with a bit more space that seemed to be in a good location, Eisen grabbed the backpack and dropped it onto the ground. And now, he was ready to get to work at making it appear as though this bag and its contents had been here for years and years already. First things first, Eisen got out a small magic tool that he made specifically for this, using magic that would allow him to rust metal faster. He held it over all the buckles and made them rust deeply, and then, he flicked the buckle for the backpack''s main p with his finger. With his strength, it was easy to snap the weak, rusted piece of metal. The p flung open and the backpack''s contents spilled out. Eisen reduced his size and started pulling at the contents, trying to spread everything around a lot. Later, he would have some of the floor''s monsters run over everything here to add some footprints and traces of animals onto it, but for now this was enough. Eisen propped up everything as well as he could, curating the scene properly. One of the only things left behind inside of the actual backpack was the journal; Eisen wanted curious people to be able to read a bit about the undead giant they were going to fight at the end of the five floors, giving some context about the situation as well as quite a few hints about what they could expect from the next few floors, including hints about the tactics that the giant was likely to employ during the fight. That was why the journal couldn''t be quite as weathered and destroyed as the other items, and Eisen figured that cing it inside of the protective confines of the backpack would be reasonable enough for that. Once the items had been put into their proper positions, Eisen got started on destroying everything. First, he took out Bai, and with their knife form, was able to cut grooves and notches all over the backpack. Eisen tried to make it look like different sort of things; for one, attacks from monsters or other people that scraped by the backpack while the traveler was still alive, giving it that sort of wear to begin with, as well as traces from the animals, bugs, and monsters that came by after the backpack had been abandoned. Of course, it wasn''t the easiest thing in the world. Jyuuk might have toe byter and change a few things around to make it a bit more realistic, but for now, Eisen was rather satisfied. The next thing he did after scuffing up the backpack was tearing into the clothes, opening the packages for the rations, and pulling the cork from one of the potion bottles. As the potion poured out over some of the contents of the backpack, Eisen smashed arge hole into the other potion bottle and cracked the potion vials too. Before long, the liquids all settled on the ground, and Eisen felt ready to get started with the final step of this all. He walked around the area and ced some spikes into the ground in a circle around all the items. These were part of arger magic item created with Jyuuk''s element, which allowed him to basically elerate natural processes like growth, but also rot. It was basically the perfect thing for a situation like this, where Eisen needed to make these items appear as though they were deeply affected by time. The spikes themselves were a magic item that would create a barrier in the area they contained, having all of it be affected by Jyuuk''s magic. Once everything had been set up, Eisen poured his mana into one of the spikes, activating the barrier. And nearly immediately, a foul, pungent smell filled Eisen''s nose. The food and the potions were all rotting nearly instantly. The backpack was drying out, and even parts of the leather were breaking down, though overall keeping its shape. Before long, it had gotten past the stage where it smelled bad, and Eisen could rx a bit. He watched as nts grew around the backpack, moss climbing up its side, while special herbs grew with the help of the potions as fertilizer. Time had now truly taken these items over. Chapter 837: A New World Eisen sat there for a while, just looking at the items that he had just prepared. Dried up, rusted... rotting and falling apart. The fact that he had made these things just to let them fall into decay was both ufortable and unusual for him. Of course, he was the one that had made this choice in the first ce, but now that he was looking at the irreversible state of his items, he was having some ratherplicated feelings. But of course, that was the reason why he had made it. These five giant floors were going to be riddled with things that made Eisen feel like crap. Come-down ruins, traces of battles lost, and the things that the people had left behind. Particrly thest of the five floors; the ruins of an old giant city, infested with giant monsters that were feeding on the decay of what had once been. The destruction that would have ravaged that ce was a force of nature that was impossible to fight against. The old man took a deep breath. He sighed and stood up, opening a gateway leading to the second giant floor, which was currently still not under construction, but was instead used to house a certain giant. Khan was seated on a log bench that Eisen had prepared for him. It was cushioned withyers of fur and was set up against arge stone so that Khan could lean back. Eisen had tried to aodate him as well as he could, and quickly decided on making furniture for Khan that he could use during the trip back to Asgard. Since it wasn''t possible to keep him shrunken down for an extended period of time without taking an extreme risk of injury, he was basically locked inside of this ce up until the point of arrival. Once in Asgard, Eisen could create some better aodations for him, whether within Prototype or on one of the other inds. Whichever the case, he wanted to ensure that Khan would have a good life in his country, and make sure to allow him to do whatever he wanted. As such, he finally came to Khan, who had been avoiding the conversation this whole time, trying to finally get an answer. Eisen approached the elderly giant, who was currently whittling something out of a piece of wood he asked Eisen for, sitting down on one of the other logs in front of Khan, "How''s your day been?" "Coulda been better. The sea air''s makin'' my joints hurt," Khan grumbled, and Eisenughed slightly. So that Khan had at least a bit of fresh air and could enjoy the journey in spite of being basically trapped here, Eisen had asked Sigurd to ce a connection to the entrance gateway inside of this space whenever it wasn''t use elsewhere. It was basically a small window that Khan could look through to enjoy the journey. "I know what you mean. If you want you can have some healing salves," Eisen offered, "I''ve been trying out new recipes for potions and salves recently, so I made a few with pain-relieving qualities." Khan looked away from the wood that he was whittling down and nced at Eisen, "Pah, stop treatin'' me like an old man! Ye''re ten times my age!" "Oh, it''s not about age, don''t worry," Eisen replied, "I''ve got a lot of pain relievers at my home on Earth. My body there is starting to be strengthened, but the process itself is fairly painful, so I''ve been using them a lot. And I had arge surgery there recently where my arm was amputated, and that whole process had vastly painful side effects," the old man pointed out, and Khan stopped what he was doing. "Amputated? Yer arm was cut off?" Khan asked, trying to make sure that he heard correctly, "What kinda beast could hear ya enough for that to be necessary?" Eisen shook his head immediately, "We don''t have beasts or monsters there. I didn''t exin that to you in the past?" Khan thought for a while, "Ya didn''t talk about that ce a lot. But I guess maybe you mentioned that, just been a second. So if it wasn''t a beast, or monster, was it a battle with someone else? Or wait, did you not have those either?" "Well, it''s sort of a thing, sometimes. Not to the degree that we know here, of course... It was disease. Cancer. I was injured in different ways on my arm, and it was right at the beginning of my body there adapting to my body here. I can''t say so for sure, but I used strength that was too much for my already weakened arm to handle, and it broke all over the ce. And then, my body was trying to heal itself, as it would here. I spoke to Jyuuk about it, and his guess is that the mana that was starting to flow through my body somehow strengthened the growth of the cancer to the point where it was impossible for my broken arm to heal anymore. So... the decision was made to just cut it off, before the cancer spread throughout my whole body," the old man exined, holding his arm with aplicated expression. Khan looked at him, sighing, "If ya got some of that salve to spare, I won''t say no." Eisen smiled lightly, "I''ll bring it to you in a bit," he said. The two of them were silent for a few moments, before Eisen finally opened his mouth. But before he could speak, Khan asked him a question instead. "That other world... are ya happy ye can go back there?" Eisen didn''t even have to think about it for a moment, "Stepping out of that capsule into earth for the first time was the happiest moment in my life," he pointed out. He knew that this weren''t his own feelings. Or rather, that they weren''t the feelings of the current him, but of the former Eisen. It just came so naturally that he wasn''t even able to filter his thoughts before they left his mouth. Khan smiled, "I see. I''m d you were finally able to do so." "...Did I speak about that a lot? Wanting to leave?" "I don''t think you ever did, actually," Khan replied, "But whenever you were telling me about your achievements... making some grand new item, or some escapades you and the other peaked ones got into... there always seemed to be this yearning in your eyes. Your wanting for not something more, but for something else. Something that this world would never be able to give you." "...Earth is my home, but so is this world. I first stepped into this world as a sense of escapism. My body was too weak for me to recklessly do what I wanted anymore. My shoulder was tense, my back hurt, and I went through tubs of pain-relieving salve so fast that my pharmacist was worried about what I was doing with it. But then, I came here, and... I was reborn into another world. A world without my children, without my friends. Without the people I so cherished. And from that moment on, all I wanted to do was escape from here," the old man said, his feelings flooding out of his mouth without anything to stop them, "I resented this world, I truly did. But I came to love the people here. My parents, my siblings. My friends, lovers, and the children that I fathered. For a while, I''m sure I was just trying to act like earth was nothing but a long lost dream, but... I couldn''t act like that forever." Eisen looked out through the dungeon''s entrance onto the ocean. The sun was setting, and the sky was dyedin purple and red. The old man looked at Khan, and then asked him a question in turn, "Why do you want toe to Asgard? I''m ecstatic to have you there, of course, but what is it you want to do there? Is there anything I can help you with?" Khan smiled lightly, shaking his head, "There''s nothing in particr I want. Really, I just want to live somewhere new for a while. Breathe another country''s air. I traveled the continent thoroughly, to the point where there''s no ce I can''t write a book about, but... I haven''t left in nearly two thousand years," he exined bitterly, "Even giants travel on ships while shrunken down as much as they can. It saves space, and with that, money. Trading vessels wouldn''t take me because of my size, and the weight of my stone. And personal vessels simply weren''trge enough to aodate me either. Since all our trading partners outside of our country have ports built for non-giants, all our ships have to aodate that as well. I tried finding my way there on my own once. Buying a ship just barelyrge enough for me to sit on, sailing it to the central continent. But I hit a storm, and nearly drowned. My petrified body made it impossible for me to swim against the currents. I hadn''t been that far out from the coast yet, and managed to make my way back luckily enough, but... since then, I didn''t dare try again." The elderly giant looked at Eisen, a genuine smile on his face, even if it was mixed with the bitterness of the situation he found himself in, "Even if I gave you little choice, just appearing here and forcing myself onto you... I truly thank you for allowing me to see a new world once more." Chapter 838: Return to Prototype Eisen stepped out onto the ship''s main deck. He took a deep breath, smelling the fresh ocean air, as the sound of the bustling port grew louder and louder. Since thest time that Eisen had been here, the port had grown incredibly. Since Prototype was the capital of an archipgo country like Asgard, it made sense of course. Not only were there a lot of materials and itemsing in and out of prototype, but arge amount of people and monsters were traveling to and from the ind. In the roughly two months that Eisen had been gone, it seemed like prototype''s poption more than doubled and became much, much more diverse. Slowly, the ship came to a halt in the area of the docks specifically reserved for Eisen''s ship, the ''royal vessel''. As the ship approached the port, Eisen was able to see two figures standing at the port, a faint blue mist still clinging to them. One of them being the dutiful Town Core Guardian Serio, while the other was the strict and imposing Country Core Guardian, or practically Eisen''s secretary, Gind. Once the ship came to a halt and the bridge connecting to the port itself was set up, allowing those still within the dungeon to finally head out back onto thend of their hometown, Eisen also stepped down and was immediately faced with a deep bow from both Gind and Serio. "We wee you back, your Majesty," they said in unison, but Eisen just let out a deep sigh. He still wasn''t perfectlyfortable with things like this, but he knew that he couldn''t stop that from happening when these two were involved. "I''m d to see you two again. How were you while I was gone?" Eisen smiled, as Gind quickly started tapping the notebook in her hand, "Quite busy, to say the least. There are a lot of matters for you to look after as well, your majesty." "...I barely even arrived, let me take a break first, alright?" the old man asked with a wry expression, and Gind slowly nodded, "There is time for a short break, yes. But at thetest tomorrow morning, you need to take care of some matters." Eisen slowly nodded, epting his defeat, "Fine, fine. For now, could one of you two take care of the soldiers? It looks like the ind has changed quite a bit since we''ve been gone, and I don''t want them to be too overwhelmed." Serio quickly agreed, "Yes, I will make sure they are aodated properly. We already prepared all the payments for this special expedition, and due to the special circumstances they experienced, we added some extra rewards as per your wish, as was conveyed to us via Lady Xenia." "Right, thank you. In the meantime, Gind. How are the preparations for the meeting between the Giants'' country and the central continent going?" the old man asked, and Gind gave a quick nod as she replied, "Yes, it''s going very well and ording to schedule. The site for the meeting is currently under construction in the suggest location, your Majesty." "And what does the sentiment from the central continent seem like?" "...For the most part, they seem to wish to avoid war, though whether that is their true intention behinding to this meeting is unclear. However, arge expectation from the central continent seems to be that this is an attempt from the Giants to give up before the war has even begun." Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose with a loud sigh, "So basically, they''re going to just be asking for a ton of things from the giants, huh..? I''m guessing the Holy Empire is at the forefront of that?" "Yes, indeed. The Holy Empire in particr seems to be expecting the giants to wholly submit. While we do not have exact details, word from Lord Komer and his informationwork is that the Holy Empire expects arge amount ofnd, money, materials, or people in exchange for ceasing the war efforts," Gind exins. Eisen groaned quietly. He really didn''t like them. They were just like the Cloud Giants, if not worse. At the very least, the Cloud Giants simply stayed away from other species and didn''t mingle with them, while the Holy Empire was actively trying to exploit those they considered lesser. But before Eisen got too annoyed, Gind continued, "However, there are countries such as Litgern who have theplete opposite sentiment. They seem to have a more clear view of the situation, hoping for a peaceful end to this situation and a great future of cooperation. Paritcrly Prince Aaron has been an open supporter of a peace treaty, vocally pushing the leaders of other countries to do the same instead of expecting a profit. He seems to be putting subtle pressure onto other countries with Litgern''smercial prowess as well." Eisen smiled lightly. That''s why he liked that kid. He was honest and upstanding and knew how to use his head well. "That''s great to hear. I hope he''ll be joining the treaty meeting as well. Even if he''s only been here rather recently," Eisen pointed out, remembering the fact that the countries of the central continent had already sent envoys out here not long before Eisen left to the giant country. Gind quickly shook her head, "We have not gotten word that Prince Aaron will be joining the meeting. It will be high ministers and dukes from each country. Prince Aaron may still join, but it is unconfirmed as of now. However, and this may be a displeasure to your Majesty, Archbishop Van Horgh is joining once more, but this time joined by other Archbishops of simr ranks." Taking a few moments to really let that fact sink in, Eisen just sighed, "Really? He didn''t have enough of me thest time he was here? Rather, what''s the Holy Empire''s pope thinking, sending him again?" "I assume it to be a sort of attempt at remedying the mistakes that were made by himst time. If someone else came and did so for him, it would just seem like an empty apology, would it not?" Gind suggested, "The only ones above the Archbishop whose apology woulde with enough power would be the Pope himself, but he has not as much as left the Empire''s capital in the past decade." Eisen tapped his foot on the dock''s cobbled stone, "I see. Well, whatever the case, we''ll be able to deal with it at the actual meeting." Gind''s ears perked up, and she quickly looked up at Eisen, "Speaking of, it seems as though Lady Xenia has managed to finish her analysis your personal ''Meeting Room'' just in time for your arrival." The old man raised his brow, "Really? She did say she was close, but..." the old man let out. After Samuel''s attack at the Giants'' capital, Xenia had really gone all-in on the research behind the method at which the originals'' hidden meeting room blocked out Samuel''s perception. It seemed like she had some sort of epiphany recently, but Eisen didn''t expect her to be able to understand it all that quickly. "I see. I''ll head over to see her once I''m done with everything I need to do here then," the old man exined, "We have a new quest from the Giants'' Country." "Have you picked up another child, your Majesty?" Gind asked, ncing toward the dungeons'' entrance, but Eisen just sighed and shook his head, "No, I haven''t. It''s an old friend of mine. I''m not sure if you know about him, but it''s Khan, a Giant Swordsman." "...Khan... the name certainly sounds familiar," Gind replied, trying to see if she could remember anything, but soon dismissing the thought, "I see. I will prepare an aodation for him, then." Eisen started rubbing his fingers through his beard, "About that, actually... He''s affected by the giants'' curse, and can''t properly leave his giant size behind for too long, and not without extensive help from me. So we''d need to create a house for him to stay as a Giant." Gind thought about it for a moment, but then just slowly nodded, "I see. There is a yet unused plot ofnd near the royal castle. Shall I order for a construction there? How much space will he require?" "I don''t think he needs too much. I spoke to him a bit, and he prefers spending his time outside anyway. I''ll design the buildingter, for now just have the plot cleaned out so I can take a lookter. Ah, but please have arge amount of cotton and silk prepared for me as well." Gind quickly nodded her head, jotting the requests down in her notebook, "Anything else?" Eisen thought about it for a few moments, and then sighed lightly, realizing that now that he was back here, he did have to finally deal with this, "I''m going to visit Ambriel soon." Chapter 839: Same but Different Khan stretched out his limbs as his body slowly increased in size, the magical paint slowly fading from the exposed stone on his body, "There we go, a lot morefortable, ain''t it?" he said to himself, and Eisen smiled at the elderly giant. "You can rest up in the castle for now. We''ll get a ce for you ready soon, but until then just rest up for a while," Eisen exined, but Khan just scoffed and shook his head, "Nah, I''ll just stay outside until then. I know that ya wanted to make it seem like I was outside when in the dungeon, but I was able to tell it was just a massive cave." "...I''m sorry about that," Eisen replied awkwardly. "No need ta apologize. It''s a lot nicer than being stuck in some stuffy small room." "I can probably put together a tent for you, if you''d like to stay outside," the old man suggested, and Khan thought about it for a moment, "Well, how''s the weather ''round here?" "Well, decently stable, I guess. We do get storms and such obviously, but it doesn''t tend to swap without any warning. And it looks pretty clear right now, so I figure it won''t be raining at least." Khan smiled and nodded, "That''s enough fer me, at least! I''ll go take a gander around the ce, don''t mind me! Do yer thing in the meantine, Eisen." With a sligthtly relieved sigh, Eisen watched as Khan walked through the port, dodging past the non-giant species gathered around and simply stepping over fences to get away from the crowds. Eisen turned his head toward Gind, who was still stood next to him, simply watching on, "We should make some more aodations for giants in this town, especially those like Khan that might have lost their ability to reduce their size." "Did you have anything particr in mind?" the metallic secretary asked, and Eisen just thought about it for a moment, "The northern side of the ind is still pretty vacant, right? How about we build something like an Inn forrger species there? A central building in the front where they can rent out a ce, and then a number of different cabins scattered about. We won''t need too many, I imagine, but just a dozen or two might not be a horrible idea." "If you say ''Larger Species'', I imagine you mean not only giants?" "Right. Dragons, for example. They can also get prettyrge, and even if they can transform into smaller forms, I figure it might be morefortable for some of them to stay in their draconic form. And then there''s species like... Cyclopes. They''re not asrge as Giants, but they dwarf even Titans. And they can''t transform or shrink down as far as I''m aware. And since there''s a god that''s a Cyclops, I figure one of the inds we haven''t been to yet is an ind of Cyclopes. So they''re our people. And if we can''t make every single structure aodate every single race, we need to make sure they can make do otherwise." Gind jotted the information down in her notebook, but stayed eerily silent otherwise. Once she was done, she just nced up at Eisen, almost curiously. The old man raised a brow, "Everything alright?" "Of course, your Majesty. I was just taking notice of the fact that you... are different than you used to be." "...Well, yeah. I''m not really the same person I used to be. You know that." Gind thought about it for a moment, but simply ended up nodding, "It is as you say. Nheless, the way you walk, the way you carry yourself. The way you go about certain things. The air you give off feels nearly identical to the man you used to be not too long ago. But..." she thought for a few moments, looking at the ship and the people that were stepping out of it. The monster children alongside Kiron, as well as Sky and Aria, "The actions you take. Your decisions and the direction you choose to push yourself and this country. It seems much more like the stories of Eisen from the golden age." Eisen didn''t know exactly what to respond to that. He figured that if it was the ''golden age'', then that was apliment, right? Though, overall, it felt weird to hear how alike he was to the former Eisen. But instead, he figured he should concentrate on the good parts about it all, "I see. Well, I''m just trying to do the right thing. And bringing people together seems like exactly that." Gind smiled lightly. It was one of the first times that Eisen had seen that from her, but he was quite happy about it. --- Pushing his way through the hedgemaze, Eisen turned corner after corner, until he finally reached the maze''s center. There stood a small building, surrounded by the familiar scent of soot and coal. And in front of the door stood a short young man with a broad excited smile on his face. "Wee back, Eisen!" Constant, the guardian specifically created to manage Eisen''s workshop on prototype eximed excitedly. He seemed giddy and more than ready to get back to work. After all, he had been stuck here, unable to do much over the pasttwo months. "I''m back," Eisen smiled, approaching the door and rubbing his hand over the guardian''s head, "Have you been lonely while I was gone?" Constant thought about it for a moment, but ended up just shrugging, "A little... but I had a lot of visitors! Serio and Gind came by the most! Oh, and Satel would also drop by every once in a while, but they''d always try to steal something, so it was getting a little annoying..." Eisen looked at Constant and raised a brow, "Satel was trying to steal from here?" "I mean, nothing huge or expensive. Just like, small trinkets. Pretty sure it was more about the thrill than anything. But they did get bored of it when they realized there''s no spot within this building I can''t see all at once," Constant pointed out with a smug grin. "How has Satel been since I was gone? Have they been causing trouble?" "Not really. Actually, Gind was praising them since they opened up some new industries in prototype." Eisen looked at the Guardian with a concerned expression, "New industries..? What kind..?" "Nighlife, clubs, bars. A casino. I was going to introduce some things a bit more hardcore than booze, but Gind told me I couldn''t just do whatever I wanted," from behind Eisen, the young Devil, banished from hell after losing to Eisen in battle, exined. They were wearing a much more casual outfitpared tost time Eisen saw them, but it was still extremely ssy. A half-unbuttoned blouse, waist-high pants, and dress shoes. All made of extremely high-quality materials and apparently even imbued with powerful enchantments of various kinds. Their pointed ears were pierced with expensive-looking jewelry, and the rings on their fingers stood out quite a bit as well. "Looks like you''ve been doing quite well while I was gone," Eisen replied, looking Satel up and down, "You didn''t do anything shady, right?" "Pah, how could I? With Gind around, I can''t do anything illegal, and with those boring-ass sticklers Xenia and Jyuuk, anything too immoral was out the window as well. Even the casino is as squeaky-clean as it could be and barely has the odds to make a tiny profit for us at the end of the night," Satel scoffed, "Honestly, the idea of ''true love'' and ''soulmates'' sickens me to the depths of my soul, but even I''ve gotta admit those two are made for each other... they''re also kind of cute when they''re flirting while thinking nobody''s watching..." Eisen smiled lightly, "I''m d you''re alright, Satel." "What about you? Sounds like I missed quite a party over there, huh?" Satel asked with a grin on their face, but seeing Eisen''s deep stare directed at them, they awkwardly straightened their back and scratched their neck, "Sorry, that... came out wrong. I''m really sorry about what happened there. If you need an open ear, I''m at the Devil''s Horn basically every night?" Eisen let out a deep sigh. He knew that Satel didn''t mean any harm, but he just still wasn''t in the mood tough about what happened in the giants'' capital, "The Devil''s Horn?" "You know, my nightclub. You''d be surprised, but that Evalia chick can party like there''s no tomorrow, and she introduced us to some mean cocktail recipes," Satel exined, "Come on, the first round''s on me!" The old man let out a quiet sigh and finally just nodded his head, "Fine, fine, I''lle take a lookter. But I''ve still got a lot to do before then. Did you juste over to say hello, or was there anything else?" Satel shook their head, "Nah, really just figured I''de take a look. It''s been a while, y''know?" Eisen raised a brow. He could tell that this wasn''t the fully truth. Realizing that they couldn''t sneak it past Eisen, Satel let out a sigh, "Just... go talk to Ambriel, a''ight? They''re really not doin'' well down there, and without your say so, Gind wouldn''t let them go. But they''re... I don''t know, a bit less insufferable than they use to be." "Don''t worry," Eisen replied, slowly ncing inside the workshop, "I was going to make something real quick and then head down to see them anyway. I figure it''s about time we have a bit of a conversation about some things." Chapter 840: Ambriel Eisen walked down the old, dirty stone steps. The air was musty and dust floated through the air in front of him. In the distance, echoing through the mostly empty space, was the sound of singing, like it was supposed to apany an orchestra or an opera. Soon, Eisen approached the single, upied cell in this space. Behind the magically reinforced metal bars stood Ambriel, the young guide angel that had led Eisen through the heavens during his visit there. They were sitting on a wooden stool, painting something that the old man couldn''t see onto a canvas illuminated by the light of a crystalmp. Their stool and easel was set up in the center of the room. In one corner was the bed, and in the other, two bookshelves filled with a number of different novels and historical ounts meant to teach Ambriel more about the history of this world. The floor was clean, they had fresh fruit to eat whenever they wanted to, and reallycked of very little here. Except, of course, freedom. They could read, they could paint, they could even ept visitors, but only to a degree. Ambriel had to request new items for their cell, and they had to be aproved. And the visitors they would receive would always stand on the other side of the cell''s metal bars. Of course, they were a prisoner, but Eisen didn''t feel any need to be needlessly inhumane to them. While Ambriel was a xenophobic, violent maniac, that was also a personality basically forced onto them by the ways that the heavens worked. All angels were like Ambriel, really. But of course, after losing in battle against Eisen, they were banished and there was little they could now do about it. They would never be able to return to their former home, and while they violently fought against this before, it seemed that they epted their fate at this point. And if even Satel, a literal devil, vouched for them, there must be something worth looking for in Ambriel. Of course, if possible, Eisen didn''t want to keep them locked up down here forever either, though if he had to, that was what was going to happen. He wouldn''t just let Ambriel run around freely without any bounds until he knew that they could be trusted. As soon as Eisen came into view, Ambriel abruptly stopped singing, halting the movements of their paintbrush. "...Eisen," Ambriel muttered nervously, "What a surprise... so you returned already? How was your trip?" Eisen looked back at the angel, locking eyes with them. He wasn''t sure if they were genuinely asking, or if they were aware of how horrendous that trip ended up being. The old man replied bluntly, "It was the worst trip of my life." Ambriel awkwardly looked down at the ground, and Eisen didn''t know what to say. They were actingpletely differently to thest time that Eisen had seen them. Then, they were full of energy,pletely rebelling against Eisen and practically wanting to cut off his head where he stood. How could that have been the same person as the meek figure stood before Eisen right now? With a sigh, the old man ced his hand onto the doorhandle of the cell''s door. Being unlocked with his mana, the door opened up without further ado, and the old man stepped into the cell. As the metal door creeked open, Ambriel nearly flinched. Over the past two months... they must have been building up some kind of weird idea of what Eisen was going to once he came back. That was the worst part of this sort of punishment. Ambriel waspletely alone, left to their own thoughts. They were allowed visitors, sure, but the only one that would actuallye down here was Satel, who would surely do nothing but mock them at least in the beginning of their imprisonment. And they surely didn''t visit Ambriel every day either. Food and necessities were delivered in a matter of not even a minute at a time, leaving Ambriel more than enough time to get lost in their own thoughts. "What... what''s happening?" Ambriel asked nervously, but Eisen just rolled his eyes. He walked over toward the desk set up next to the bookshelves and ced the bundle of items he was carrying on top of it. "Just bringing you a little something." As Eisen stepped to the side to make space, Ambriel nervously walked to the desk. They unwrapped the bundle, seeing basically the opposite of what they expected. Of course, they didn''t know what they were expecting exactly, but it definitely couldn''t be further from this. It was clothes. A silvery white suit with golden lining and details. Down to the dress shoes, it was made by Eisen himself down to Ambriel''s exact measurements. Their name was even stitched onto the handkerchief tucked away into the chest pocket on the front of the jacket. Confused, Ambriel turned toward Eisen, who nudged his head a bit toward the outfit, "That''s the kind of direction you were leaning toward in heaven, right? If you want something more casual, or something more feminine, just let me know." With a nervous smile, Ambriel''s grip tightened on the fabric, "Is... is this what I am to wear to my execution..?" "Exe- Fucking hell Ambriel, I''m not going to kill you," Eisen sighed, "The only reason you''re even down here is because you wouldn''t stop trying to kill me and literally everyone youid your eyes on. This is a peace-offering. Something you can wear once you get out of here, because I''m sure you''re a bit sick of... all this," the old man motioned toward Ambriel''s body. They were wearing the same simple rags that they had been wearing for the past two months. Ambriel swallowed, not sure what was going on, "You''re letting me go?" "Not just yet," Eisen replied, "First, we need to really talk. Alright? It seems like you''re a lot more open to that now than you were before. If it seems like you won''t try to kill everyone you see anymore, you can go. Of course... right now, no matter what, I don''t think I can just let you leave to wherever you want. Not just because I don''t trust you quite yet, but also because a world like this isn''t safe for you. I want to make sure you get used to being around others; specifically, all sorts of beings that you would consider ''lesser'' before." Without a moment''s hesitation, Ambriel nodded their head. They moved forward so suddenly and awkardly that if their grip hadn''t been as tight as it was, the clothes in their hand would have already fallen onto the ground, "Yes, of course! Anything, just- I just can''t-" "Calm down, there isn''t a time-limit on this. First, get changed. I''ll grab us something to eat and then we can talk over dinner. That sound like a n?" "Yes! Definitely!" excitedly, almost ecstatically, Ambriel agreed. They were clearly extremely desperate. Being like this, they would say and do whatever they needed to to be able to get out of here, but Eisen wanted to make sure that they were going to be honest with him. As he left the cell again, locking it behind him, he made his way back up the stairs and toward the kitchen, where Ambriel''s dinner had already been prepared. Eisen had ordered a second portion for himself to be prepared, and quickly picked up both. Together with that, he grabbed two cups and carried everything back downstairs. By the time he got back to the cells, Ambriel had already changed, their other clothes neatly folded up and ced onto their desk in stead of the suit. They were currently putting on the jacket over the white vest, and looked at Eisen as he was carrying the food. "This... is incredibly made... thank you," Ambriel said. It seemed genuine, at least. Eisen stepped back into the cell, cing the tes of food onto the small table. Ambriel pulled their stool to the table, and since there was nothing else to sit on, the old man created a quick block of stone through magic. He grabbed a bottle from his item storage, quickly pouring the contents into cups for himself and Ambriel. It was a low-alcoholic wine made using calming herbs and fruit. What Eisen was trying to do was make sure Ambriel wasn''t acting on their excitement, letting them be more clear-headed instead. Though that did seem counter-intuitive considering this effect was delivered through alcohol, but as long as it stayed at one or two cups, it was extremely effective at what it was supposed to do. Nervously, Ambriel drank the wine, and Eisen could immediately see their demeanor change. They let out a deep sigh, rxing more and more as they did so. "Feeling a bit better?" Eisen asked, and Ambriel slowly nodded their head, "Yes, I''m fine. Thank you." Seeming more calm and collected like the first time Eisen met Ambriel, the old man felt confident to continue, "So. How have these past two months been for you?" Ambriel thought about it for a while. Though it didn''t seem like they were thinking about the answer itself, but rather just how to best word it. "I... despaired. The first week, or maybe even two, were utter hell. I kicked, I screamed, I didn''t even eat. I refused to sleep because I didn''t trust that I wouldn''t be killed by those ''lesser'' beings that obviously had to be out for me due to their jealousy. I..." Ambriel looked down at their food, "I tried to do anything I could to stay awake. And at some point, I picked up one of the books you had prepared for me. ''The History of the Pantheon over the Millenia, from an elderly Elf''s perspective''. Everything I read was... wrong. It just didn''t make any sense to me. It was all different from what I had been taught. So, I read more books. Though by the time I finished even that first one, I already fell asleep. Defending myself against a danger I didn''t even know was real wasn''t the priority anymore." Eisen listened to Ambriel recount their experience, "When I woke up, I started rxing. I ate my breakfast, and I kept reading. The next time Satel came around, I asked them about it. About what they had been taught. And for the first time, they didn''tugh at me, or make jokes, or anything of the sort... they exined things to me in detail, and answered my questions, and... their perspective made a lot more sense, all things considered. They started rmending me new books whenever they came, and I requested them and got them brought to me. I think I''ve read most of the books on theology and history around the area by now." Eisen took a sip of his own drink, before asking Ambriel, "And did youe to some kind of conclusion?" "...I don''t know," Ambriel replied, "I still love the gods... they are the ones who birthed and raised me, and their greatness is something I still find hard to refute, but... I realize that even they may not be the infallible beings I thought they were. Instead of blindly following the words they told me, now that I have been banished, I should take it as an opportunity to do what I should have done long, long ago. I want to see what this world, that I considered to be lesser than me for so, so long... I want to see what this world and its people have to offer." Eisen smiled lightly. Ambriel''s calm demeanor, and their voice filled with nothing but genuine curiosity nad sincerity, convinced the old man once and for all that they were deserving of another chance. "Eat up. This is going to be yourst meal down here for now." Chapter 841: Roommates Ambriel stepped out through one of the royal castle''s side-doors. The sun had already gone down, but the roads were still as busy as ever. Rather, they seemed even busier than when Ambriel hadst had the opportunity to see them. Of course, heaven definitely wasn''t quiet in any sense of the word, but there was still a veryrge difference; here, they were forced to interact with who they considered ''lesser'' before. In heaven, they were an angel that mostly interacted with divine beings, so they never really had to talk to the souls of those that had died, but here they had no choice in the matter. This was the part that they would take a while to properly get used to, but Eisen was confident that they were going to get there in time. Once they really started interacting with the people of prototype, they would rize that there was no need for them to worry. That''s what Eisen was hoping, at least. He would make sure to watch them closely. Serio had already been instructed to keep close watch of Ambriel and react ordingly should they start a fight. Obviously, as long as Ambriel didn''t end up beingpletely hostile to the point of murdering others in cold blood, Eisen didn''t intend on throwing them back into the jail cell they spent the past few months in. There shouldn''t be any need for that anymore. Not that he was going to tell them. Thinking that there was a threat for them to go back there if they acted wrong would, at the very least, be helpful in keeping them in line for the time being. "Are you alright?" Eisen asked them, and Ambriel slightly flinched, looking over at the old man before nodding slowly, "Y-yeah, I''m fine... It''s just been a while since I..." "Don''t worry, you can take it easy. We''re just headed to the ce you''ll be living for now. It''s nearby, just a few minutes'' walk," Eisen exined. Ambriel, trying to steel themself, nodded and quickly followed the old man. As though they were trying to hide in his shadow, they were walking very closely to him, even if they were still trying not to actually touch or grab onto him. Of course, if they were trying not to draw attention, Eisen was probably the worstpanion for him. Especially since he had only just returned from his trip, people were happy to see him again, pointing him out to neers. And at the same time, seeing an unknown figure walking next to the old man, they were obviously wondering who that was right beside him. But luckily, as Eisen had said, the ce where Ambriel would be staying wasn''t all too far away. It didn''t even take ten minutes for them to get there once they stepped out from the gates in front of the royal castle. It was a busy road, even at this time of day, but where Eisen led Ambriel was an alley inbetween two of the buildings. There, he knocked at the door at theplete end of that dark alleyway. It took a short while for someone to open it, but when Ambriel saw the owner of this house, they stared at Eisen with a perplexed expression. "This... is where I''ll be staying?" they asked, not sure if Eisen was joking or not. But Eisen just smiled, taking a step back. Encouragingly, he pushed Ambriel forward a bit, as the home''s owner looked at their new, albeit temporary, roommate with a slight, even if yful, frown. "That ain''t very nice, I thought we were on good terms these days," Satel smirked, leaning against their doorframe. "What, and that makes you want to live with me?" "Oi, this is not about wanting to live with you. Eisen asked me if I''d be alright with lending you a ce, and I thought, ''Why not''? I mean, I''ve got the space," the devil pointed out. Ambriel tried ncing past Satel, but they were only able to see a stone wall behind them. Since this door was in an alleyway, there was no way it was that great of a space, was there? ncing around, Satel sighed, "Y''know, juste in for now. This entrance is he dusty, that''s why I never use it. And be careful not to tread in any dirt, I just sweeped earlier." The devil sighed loudly and stepped into their home, as Eisen quickly followed behind. Nervously, Ambriel stepped through the door as well, closing it behind them, walking through the narrow hallway to a set of stairs. It was fairly noisy here, and one of the slightly ajar doors seemed to lead to something like an office filled with gaudy decoration, but Ambriel didn''t pay too much attention. Satel and Eisen were just walking up the stairs right away, after all. Once upstairs, there was another door that they walked through, but the moment it was shut behind them again, the noise from earlier disappearedpletely. Not only that, but the space was theplete opposite of that office. The three stood in arge open space, with a number of couches and armchairs set up in part of the space, a dining table with enough seats for a dozen people in another part, and what seemed to be some sort of kitchen set up near the dining table. To the side, there were some hallways with more rooms, and opposite to the entrance was arge ss door leading onto what seemed to be a balcony. But more importantly, the space was filled basically to the brim with different nts and flowers. The walls covered in moss and ivy, pots hanging from the ceiling or set up on basically every free and avable surface. At a nce, it would be hard to tell if you were inside or outside. "Wow," Eisen let out, practically ripping the words from Ambriel''s mouth, "I honestly didn''t expect this. I thought it''d be more... sleek in here." Satel rubbed the back of their head, "Well, I took a likin'' to nts. Somethin'' wrong with that? We didn''t have many of those in hell, y''know? And those we had were either poisonous and others were, well... venomous, I guess. Not the kind you''d care for as a hobby," the devil pointed out, carefully grabbing onto the leaves of what seemed to be simr to a monstera stood next to them, "Jyuuk gave me some at some point. Not that I asked for ''em. But now he just gives me more whenever I see ''im." Eisen smiled lightly, nodding his head, "Yeah, that sounds like him," the old man pointed out, "This is a fine hobby to have. After spending a lifetime in hell, you deserve some leisure. Especially with as hard as you''re working already." Ambriel, already trying to catch up to what they were seeing, heard Eisen''s words and then looked at Satel, "You''re working? You?" Eisen raised a brow, "They didn''t tell you? I thought they came to visit you a lot." "They did, but they never mentioned anything like work... the only thing they''d talk about were parties, fistfights, and theirtest hookups..." Satelughed lightly, "Yeah, I''d always talk about those things first, and before I could get to the boring shit, I already had to go again." Eisen sighed and looked at Ambriel, "Satel owns some bars, clubs, and casinos now. This ce is actually above one of his bars. Though it sounds like Xenia installed some soundproofing magic for you?" "Yeah, she tagged along when Jyuuk came to look at the nts once, and just did it while I stepped out briefly... the bar was kinda noisy that night." The old man looked at Satel with a wry expression. They had gotten surprisingly close with the other originals from the sound of it. At this point, Eisen was actually a little surprised that he hadn''t heard any of this from the others. Though, it really didn''t matter at the end of the day. Eisen looked over at Ambriel. "Listen... if you don''t want to stay here, then that''s fine. We''ll figure something else out. But I don''t know if it''s a good idea to let you live alone right now. Living in the castle probably won''t be good for you either. And here, you at least have someone you feelfortable talking to," Eisen exined, as Ambriel seemed to awkwardly avoid the old man''s gaze, "And hey, it seems like you two get along pretty well. Within an hour or so of me arriving, Satel came to me and vouched for you." Ambriel was taken aback, looking over at Satel surprised, "You what? Why''d you do that?" Satel scoffed, "Because every time I visited you down there, you''d whine to me about how miserable you are, why else?" "Whine?" with a wry smile, Ambriel looked back at the devil, "What''s that supposed to mean?" "What do you think that''s supposed to mean? It means that you''re a little bi-" "Anyway," Eisen loudly pped his hands together, and both the angel and the devil nervously looked toward him, "Whatever the case may be, Ambriel, Satel graciously offered you a space to stay, free of charge. You will have your own room, you cane and go whenever you want, as long as you stay within Prototype, and you can spend your time doing whatever you feel like. Paint, sleep, whatever. You''re free to do what you want. If you''re in need of anything you can''t get otherwise, or need any living expenses,e to me." The old man was already headed toward the door, and nearly as soon as he finished his sentence, seeing that neither Satel nor Ambriel had anything toin about toward him right now, Eisen stepped out the door, leaving the two be. Chapter 842: The Room Eisen was seated in the meeting-room, leaning backward and looking at the other originals. Xenia was currently preparing a small presentation for everyone, so that she could exin to them how this space actually worked. "I don''t want to rush you, but can you- actually no, wait, that''s actually what I''m doing... can you hurry it up a bit? You called us here at basically the worst time," Brody let out an annoyed groan as he rested his chin on his palm. Xenia looked over at him with a slight frown, "Calm down, this won''t take too long. You can go back to flexing in front of a mirrorter." "You walked in on my doing that once, and it''s the only thing you fucking talk about anymore," with a deep sigh, the martial artist leaned back into his seat as Xenia smirked and continued on. "Anyway," she started, flicking her wrist to activate the magic tool she ced onto the table. A holographic screen appeared, simr in appearance to a system window. On there were two simple sketches, one depicting Samuel up in his own separate realm, and the other one showing the five originals, "So, as you all know, I''ve been struggling quite a lot in trying to figure out how this space really works. The patterns worked into the walls, the actual material they''re made of; all of these things are incrediblyplex beyond what I was really able to understand. After all, it was created over the course of thousands of years; understanding it in just a day or two would be impossible, right?" "Right. But you managed to do it now?" Eisen asked, and Xenia smugly nodded her head. "Exactly so! Frankly, I waspletely stuck before you unlocked that system-blocking ''skill'', but after you told me more about it, I started to get a bit of an idea. Until then, I wasn''t able to figure out how exactly Samuel tracks people," she said, pointing at the holographic screen, "The ability to track others no matter where they are, no matter when, potentially without any real consequences, that''s... insane. That kind of magic doesn''t exist. Or at least, it shouldn''t; but then, I realized that there already is something that is doing that exact thing." In the middle of the screen, a symbol showed up, seemingly representing some kind ofputer. Arrows were drawn from thisputer to the sketch showing the originals and back. "The system?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk raised a brow surprised his tail stiffening behind his back, "Hold on, did you manage to replicate Eisen''s system-blocking?" Xenia quickly shook her head, "No, this isn''t to that degree... Frankly, I was sort of hoping it would be that, because in that case we might be able to ess whatever the system is more directly, but it''s different than that," she exined, as another arrow was drawn on the screen. One from Samuel, through theputer, over to the originals. And then from the originals, an arrow was drawn right back to him again. These arrows were moving around, as if the one from the originals was reacting to the arrival of Samuel''s arrow, "Basically, it looks like the system itself doesn''t really know what we''re doing. It really just esses and maniptes the force that is already inside of us ording to some rules. Now, what Samuel is seemingly doing is sending a ping through the system''s signal. Once that ping reaches us, more information than usual is brought back to him, once again through the system''s signal." Evalia was a bit surprised, "So he''s doing the same thing as what happened with Eisen''s new skill? Does that mean that skill doesn''t work in here either?" "Well, no, it still works fine," Xenia replied. On the screen, a vertical line was drawn between theputer and the originals, where the original lines representing the system''s signal traveled through without issues, but the arrows traveling to and from Samuel directly were blocked, "Basically, what''s going on here is that the additional, foreign signal is just sort of... forced onto the original one. Like another, secondary message at frequency distinctly different to the system''s. This room is a filter. It filters out any signaling from the system''s source that''s not the actual system''s. That''s why Eisen''s skill still works here; that new force is already stuck to him. But if he had been in here, that force never would have gotten to him." Jyuuk cupped his chin into his hand and thought for a bit, "So this isn''t just a protection from Samuel, but from anything else that might want to take advantage of the system? Since it seems like there are others, like the one that gave Eisen his skill... this could be even more useful than we thought. Eisen, his legs crossed, looked at the room''s walls. He was getting a weird feeling from all of this. Like there was something else that was stopped by this room. The old man opened the system windows, as if letting himself be guided by intuition, until he reached a specific button. He pressed his finger onto it, and... nothing happened. Surprised, Xenia looked at Eisen, "What are you doing?" "I can''t log out," the old man replied immediately, and shivers ran over the others'' bodies. Brody was the first to react, jumping up from his seat, "Wait, is it the system resistance thing? But... already? There''s no way, right?" Eisen closed his eyes, trying to collect his thoughts. It seemed like his feelings of frustration of not being able to leave this world for so long was still affecting him right now, even though he knew that this wasn''t actually what was happening. The old man took a deep breath, but before he could talk, Xenia was the one that denied it first. "No, that''s not it... none of us can log out in here," Xenia pointed out, closing her eyes, "This is something else that I was about to get to. This room blocks logouts. I don''t exactly understand how, but I''ve managed to iste what part of the structure does it. But with thate some good news, Eisen." Xenia looked at the old man, a smile forming on her face, "The part that''s blocking the logout doesn''t ess the system at all. Moving from this world to the earth, and this is just a guess based on what I''vee to understand here, is a power connected to the soul itself, and the system just happens to be able to activate that power. This room blocks said power in the first ce, so the system can''t do anything with it. But the important part is this; no matter how far your system resistance proceeds, you''re not going to lose the ability to return to earth. It... might be a lot harder, it might take a while to figure out once it gets to that point, but in the long run, you''ll be able to do it." Eisen felt himself ovee with a sense of relief that he didn''t have the words to describe. He let out a deep breath and smiled, resting his face in his hands for a few moments. It didn''t matter if it was rough, or if it took some time. He already had to wait more than a thousand lifetimes to get back to his family. He would be able to deal with having to wait a little bit. As long as there was a shot, he could get through it. And more importantly, knowing that this was the case, Eisen was able to start slowly getting used to logging out manually, or at least try to learn how to already. However, as Eisen was thinking about that, Brody hade up with another idea, "If that''s the case... wouldn''t it be possible to... just hypothetically... seal away any of these powers?" Xenia thought about it for a few moments, "I guess it should be possible, yeah. But why would we do that?" "...Because if we can find Samuel, and trap him in a space that seals his powers away, then we win." Once more, the room grew silent. Was that what was going on? Was that why this room had an ability to it that didn''t make sense for the originals from just a few years ago? They weren''t able to log out in the first ce, so why would they have a room that could block that, if not to teach the ones that had lost their memories about how they could do it as well. This room wasn''t just a shield. It was the beginnings of a weapon. Chapter 843: A Powerful Weapon The five originals were seated in the meeting room, dwelling on the realization of what this space had just imparted onto them. Why this space was truly created in the way it was. Inside of theplicated patterns that blocked Samuel''s spying, the originals of the past had hidden another secret. A way to seal away someone''s powers. And it was clear who this was intended for; Samuel himself. "So that''s what this was all along? A way for us to trap Samuel?" Evalia asked, breaking the silence created by Brody''s suggestion. "It wouldn''t just be Samuel, if we can somehow turn this into a tool, or weapon, then wouldn''t it be impossible for anyone to stand in our way?" Jyuuk pointed out, "I mean, we''ve all got a couple enemies, right? Not just Samuel, but people or monsters who would love the opportunity to take us out now that we''ve been weakened." Brody scoffed, "We''re still immortal, what good would that be? Not like they can actually permanently get rid of us." "Well, it''s not like killing us would be the only way to get rid of us... trapping us would be enough, right?" the monkey beastman suggested, "What I''m saying is, this would be an incredible shield for us. Whether in regard to Samuel or anyone else." Eisen quickly shook his head, "If we manage to weaponize this, we can''t risk using it haphazardly. If Samuel finds out about it, then he might be able to figure out a way to make this opportunity obsolete." "Right, that''s why we can only use this inbination with the part that''s blocking Samuel''s view. That way, he wouldn''t even be able to figure out what''s going on to begin with," Jyuuk added, but Eisen still wasn''t fully convinced. "It''s still too risky. It''s going to take some time until we can make proper use of this anyway, but unless we can rest assured that Samuel will not find out about it, we can''t risk it," Eisen said clearly, making his opinion on this matter as clear as he could, "But that doesn''t mean that we can''t use this for other means. If we can control the ability-blocking, then there are still a lot of other ways to use it thanbat. Unlocking things that were blocked with skills, removing curses or other apparently-permanent effects. If it''s not directly sealing abilities in individuals, we should be able to disguise it well enough to make use of it." "...So that mens we can use it to remove the curse on the Giants?" Xenia asked, thinking about the possibility further, but Eisen just shrugged with uncertainty. "It would be great if we could, but who knows how any of that really works? Not to mention, I don''t even know if Samuel can re-apply the curse... since he hasn''t done it with Silber yet, it might not be possible, but it might also be some n to make us lower our guard. But... if we can figure out how to make it work at all, we can at least put a wrench into Samuel''s ns for the Dragon-war." Everyone in the room perked up, "But are we sure that Kotam is even being controlled somehow?" Evalia questioned, and Jyuuk nodded his head quickly, "From what I''ve learned, she wasn''t always like this. She used to be a bit on the rowdy side, but her being Trygan''s daughter, she must have a good side to her. Or at the very least, she''s surely not inherently evil. And more importantly... Trygan said she was being controlled, right?" "...Being a father myself, I..." Eisen replied, closing his eyes as he let out a deep sigh, "I''m not sure if we can trust what Trygan said exactly. You always want to see the best in your children, so even if Kotam were doing this of her own ord, Trygan might not want to realize it so easily. But of course, he''s still a god, so I''m hoping that he knows this for a fact, but... the gods aren''t infallible, we know that. The truth might be somewhere inbetween the two extremes, but we won''t know for sure until we meet Kotam ourselves." Xenia soon spoke up, "That being the case, none of this is really important unless I manage to figure out how we could possibly make use of this anyway. And trust me, it''s not going to happen anytime soon... I''m happy I managed to figure out how to stop Samuel''s spying in the first ce." "That''s a good point... should we just start working on the meeting area for the giants and the people from the central continent? It''s not that long until they''reing to Asgard, right?" Evalia asked, and Eisen quickly nodded, "Another few weeks. We should be able to finish it in time, I hope. The basic construction is already almost done, right? And we just need to add the Samuel-block?" Xenia confirmed, "Yes, exactly. We need to gather a few materials, but I''ve already asked Komer to get us everything we need, and then Eisen, you have to construct the base for the room and I do the engraving." The old man quickly nodded his head. If it was like that, then the meeting between the giants'' country and the central continent should be able to proceed without any particr interference, at least from Samuel''s side. --- Eisen walked through the hallways of the castle, apanied by Gind. The Country-Core Guardian was making sure that the old man was getting everything done that he had missed out on during his journey to the giants'' country. There was plenty of administrative work that Gind herself could take care of, but Eisen being the official King, he was still needed for arge amount of finalizations. The other originals were able to take care of a lot of things, but sadly not everything, as annoying as it felt to Eisen. One of the first things on the agenda were some updates to the country-management systems through the country-core that needed the old man''s approval. Otherwise, there was paperwork in regard to Komer''s merchantpany andfirmations of official affiliation, as well as other documents needed for certain trades between countries. There were also a number of diplomatic letters that Eisen needed to reply to and approve personally, even if the decisions had already long been made. Since he was the only one with the actual legal power to do so, at least in the view of the other countries in question, there were quite a few annoying aspects to this. Not to mention, there were areas that simply needed Eisen''s expertise. Choices on materials and quality of items for the soldiers, of what was imported and exported to and from Asgard, and just making sure that the craftsmen hired the kingdom were up to snuff. Those were things that could technically be done without the old man, but he actually preferred to be there and make the final decision. The country run by the originals had to be at the peak in every possible area. Just how Evalia oversaw the artistic development and Brody made sure that the soldiers''bat training and expertise was good enough, Eisen felt the need to ensure that the areas of his experise weren''tgging behind the others. Especially considering that he had been away from the country the longest now, there were a lot of things for him to catch up on. "What''s next?" The old man asked, and Gind quickly listed the next few items on the old man''s agenda, "There was a delivery of test-materials from multiple different ind in the kingdom, such as Marble and Limestone, as well as Oak and Birch wood. Then there are a few craftsmen from the central continent that wish to immigrate and work for our country. Their immigration process has already started, but in order to hire them we need your final word. And then, just before lunchtime, you are to check on the construction sites on the north-eastern side of the capital city as part of the efforts to show everyone that you have truly returned and are working hard once more," the guardian quickly exined, and Eisen let out a deep sigh. He was going to be busy for the next few days, but he figured that was to be expected. If he wasn''t up to this, he wouldn''t have chosen to be a King again in the first ce. Chapter 844: Glimmering Eyes Eisen leaned back in his chair, letting out a deep sigh. He stretched his fingers out and then clenched them into a fist, repeating this multiple times before finally standing up. With a nce at Gind, he asked, "That''s all for now, right?" The guardian quickly nodded her head, "Yes, that is all that you had to take care of. For the time being, there is nothing more for you to attend to. However, to make the process a lot easier and not require for you to do so much all at once, I suggest setting up some ns to streamline the process, or hire some further assistants. Or even better, create some Core Helpers that can assist me in my tasks." Eisen raised a brow and nodded his head, "I''ll think about it. And you did all of that on your own in the past?" Gind slowly nodded her head, "As I exined previously, but the state of this country was vastly different in the past than it is now. Rather, it was only under your control in name, as you let the inds be unless there were specific materials you needed from them. Prototype was truthfully the only proper ''city'' that had to be taken care of. And there certainly wasn''t any trade with foreign powers, so I was able to handle these matters on my own." The old man sighed lightly. To an extent, in the back of his head, he sort of wished that he had made that same choice again, instead of trying to turn this country into a safe haven for the numerous different beings roaming this world. Though of course, at the end of the day, just because he was a bit busier than he liked, with matters that he didn''t particrly have an eye for, that didn''t mean that he was going to make any other choices at this point im time. "Alright, I''m going to be heading out for now. You can find me in the workshop in the gardens," Eisen exined, and Gind slowly nodded her head. She nced toward one of the walls, though Eisen roughly knew that it was in the direction of the actual workshop. Quickly, Gind spoke up, "You do seem to have a visitor there, your Majesty," Gind pointed out, and Eisen raised his brow surprised. Though, after a bit of thinking, he already had a rough idea who it was. They hade here to talk to Eisen a few times over the past couple of days, which he had asked them to do. He wanted to check on them at least once daily, and since he was busy with work, he didn''t have the time to go search for them. Before long, Eisen made his way to the gardens, stepping through the hedgemaze toward his workshop. Once there, at the small table outside, he saw the individual he expected, taking a seat and drinking some juice that Constant had taken out for them. "I told you that you didn''t have toe today, right?" the old man asked, with a slight expression of concern, "Is something wrong?" "...I didn''t know where else to go..." Ambriel replied, averting their gaze from the old man. "Did something happen? Is there some emergency?" Eisen asked surprised. That shouldn''t be the case, or else Serio would have told him about it. But Ambriel quickly shook their head. "No, no, it''s nothing like that, I just... I didn''t want to stay alone in that ce..." "...Do you feel unsafe living with Satel?" Once more, Ambriel shook their head, "It''s not Satel... actually, they''re shockingly pleasant to live with, it''s more... being alone there just makes me..." Eisen slowly understood, "You''re scared? There''s no need for that, you know? There''s not really a lot of crime here, and frankly, you''re a lot more powerful than any petty criminal that wanders around." Ambriel looked down at the ground. Eisen realized that that wasn''t really the issue. The old man starting running his fingers through his beard, "You did what I asked you to, right? Walking here, instead of flying," the old man asked. Ambriel''s wings were currently tucked away into their back, but being an angel, they of course had the ability to fly. But in order to make sure they would get used to being around people, Eisen asked them to walk instead of flying to avoid others. The angel started scratching their arm nervously. Eisen knew that they did, he was getting regr reports from Serio about Ambriel to make sure they weren''t causing any trouble. But Eisen wasn''t left guessing for all too much longer, since Ambriel soon started to speak up, "I realize that the truth of the world is different than what I had been taught, but... Being around these... these..." "Well, the fact you''re not just saying it is already a great start," Eisen pointed out with a smile, "Listen, I know this isn''t going to happen overnight. I''m not asking you for that either. You''ve spent your whole life, thousands of years, being taught this. That can''t be overturned in just a few months. Rather,ing this far, apparently mostly through talking to a Devil of all things... is rather ridiculous by itself." Ambriel once more grew silent, and the air was filled with that tense awkwardness that made Constant quickly try to sneak away unheard. It took what seemed like minutes for Ambriel to finally speak again, "Can I just... keeping here for now?" "Of course," Eisen replied. Seeing how hard Ambriel was actually trying was truly shocking to him, so he was more than happy to support their endeavors of fighting against Samuel''s teachings of ''Divine Superiority''. While it was true that the gods were more powerful beings that were able to step past certain rules of this world that tied others down, that didn''t mean that they were actually better than others. They were just different beings with a whole other set of rules, made to govern over certain aspects of this world. And if you''ve spent that long being brainwashed into thinking otherwise, then Ambriel''s change was really something to be happy about. Maybe supporting them further and more actively would make that process go a lot smoother. Not to mention, like this, Eisen didn''t have to worry at all about receiving Ambriel''s support in the future, especially in regard to dealing with the Holy Empire, who were the biggest thorn in Eisen''s side. Being spoken to by a literal angel was something that should make them at least slightly easier to deal with, since Eisen was sure they were going to try some weird things once they arrived. The old man slowly walked into his workshop, starting to get some things ready to work on a few small projects that he still had to continue. For one, the first materials that Xenia had ordered arrived, so he had to try and creating that actually ratherplex metal. It was something that was created in with some alchemical techniques, the molten metal being treated like some base liquids. And the process was one of the mostplex ones that Eisen knew of, so he wanted to give it a try before identally wasting the materials. As he was moving some things around, he noticed that Ambriel was actually watching quite curiously. They had seen him work a few times before, especially during his short time in heaven as he worked alongside the gods of craftsmanship, but back then they were probably dismissing him a lot more actively. To Ambriel, Eisen had only been tangentially better than one of those other ''lesser beings'', after all. "You want to give this a try?" Eisen asked, tapping his hand onto one of his workbenches. Ambriel seemed taken aback and shook their head, "No, no, I wouldn''t... I don''t even..." The old man smiled lightly as he looked at the angel. They were acting just like a child would. He figured it made some sense. As sheltered as they were before with their original worldview, all these new things and opportunities must really be making them curious. "You can give it a try whenever you want. My apprentices areing overter today as well, so it''s a good enough opportunity," Eisen pointed out, and Ambriel just kept looking at the workbench next to the old man with slightly glimmering eyes. Chapter 845: Messaging Eisen stepped up to his workbench and looked at the materialsid out before him. Sitting at the table in the corner of the room was Ambriel, the angel who Eisen had imprisoned. They were initially the guide angel that had led him throughout the heavens during his visit there, but toward the end, he had fought again them. After the defeat, Ambriel was banished from heaven. Instead of just leaving them to roam around the world without anything restraining them, Eisen decided to take responsibility for them. However, due to their aggressive and uncooperative nature, they had been temporarily imprisoned. Of course, this was not only for the protection of others from Ambriel, but also a way to protect the angel themself. Due to their former position, they certainly had ess to a lot of information that Eisen and the other originals currently didn''t. From Samuel''s position, leaving someone like that with them would bepletely ridiculous. To ensure that they were going to be safe in the long run, Ambriel was ced into jail. Not only was it within the royal castle, meaning that both Serio and Gind had the ability to sense the happenings within the jail without any sort of restrictions. And just from it being a space that was meant to be hard to escape from, by nature of being a jail in a world like this, it was just as hard to break in and get to Ambriel. And now that Eisen was here and could ensure their safety more thoroughly, especially after seeing that they reflected quite a bit already, he decided to let them leave jail and live more freely. However, that didn''t mean that it was fine to just let thempletely be. Their whole identity was formerly connected to directly servicing the gods; now that this wasn''t possible anymore, feeling a sort of helpless emptiness was quite natural. Eisen felt simrly when he started losing the ability to use his body properly on earth. And instead of letting Ambriel just sink into that emotion, Eisen was going to try and feed their curiosities. It was part of why they had been ced to love with Satel of all people. Someone like them, who was quite honest about their interests and goals, would be a good influence on Ambriel in this sense. And when they came here to the workshop, asking if they could stay and watch with some sense of genuine curiosity, Eisen had no reason to deny that. It was unlikely that they would take an interest in craftsmanship to the extent of wanting to be a craftsman themself, but there was no reason for Eisen to close that door. Ambriel was like a child at this point, hoping to find even the slightest hints at something that they wanted to do. The old man grabbed the wood that wasying on the table. It was a small, fist-sized block that was leftover from the samples that Eisen had looked over the past couple of days, and he liked this wood quite particrly. It had a feeling of familiarity to it that actually made some memories well up in his head, a memory of his younger days in this world. The ce he grew up was surrounded by this exact type of tree, so most of his earliest wood-rted projects were made of this as well. And so, while he waited on all the materials needed for Khan''s home to arrive, as they should in just another few days, he was going to try and make a small item for himself and his brother. It seemed as though Silber was interested in travel, and Eisen certainly wasn''t nning on stopping him from doing so. However, considering the situation, Eisen didn''t feel safe letting his weakened, younger brother just run around with a target on his back. Of course, Eisen knew that Silber could handle basically everything that came his way at the end of the day, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Not to mention, the two had basically no way of contacting each other; Silber didn''t naturally have ess to the message function of the system. So, Eisen was going to build something to allow him to do so anyway. And making it out of the same wood that they grew up around, and that some of Silber''s first items were made of, as Eisen made them all himself, was going to be a fun little addition to that. Bai quickly turned into a knife in the old man''s hand as he pushed it into the tough wood that was being cut through like foam. The pieces of wood fell onto the workbench, more and more taking on the shape that Eisen was intending for it. Since Silber''s ability to affect his size was far superior to that of other giants, Eisen had to either make an item and imbue it with as much size-changing power as he could, or he had to make an item where it didn''t matter what size Silber was. Both of those were easier said than done. Allowing it to change size so rapidly was possible by imbuing it with Silber''s own ability, but even then there were limits of what regr items could take. If he wasn''t careful, there was a threat of an object bing so weak at Silber''srgest scale that just a slight touch could make it crumble away. However, an item that was easy to use at a small scale would be impossible to keep track off at Silber''srgest size. So, Eisen figured he had to go for a bit of abination of both. Themunication-item itself was going to act as the items'' centerpiece, and then there would be a shell around it that would expand along with Silber. What Eisen was making right now was the centerpiece, as the shell was still being infused with a certain elemental magic. Due to the small size of this part, it didn''t take long until the base shape was done; just a small seed that had just begun to sprout. Silber was a giant close to nature, so it felt like a good choice. Of course, currently the seed was still just a little smaller than a fist. This part would also slightly change its size to the point where it didn''t affect the structural integrity, just to make the shell not have to work quite as hard. Quickly, Eisen used a needle to start engraving the wooden seed''s surface with aplex enchantment. Since what he was essing with ability-enchanting was a very raw version of an ability, he had to be extremely specific, especially in the case of the messaging-ability that Eisen was infusing into this item. Luckily he had already nned it all out, getting Tony''s help to figure out all the processes and functions that he needed to add to this item for it to function properly long-term. It was aplex pattern that required some programming-like logic in this particr case. Once Eisen was done with the outside of the seed, he had also started shaping its inside into a three-dimensional enchantment by transmuting the seed''s inner form. Before long, this part was done. He put some wood-finish onto this piece and let it dry before moving onto the next part. But in the meantime, he got the other piece of wood that was just about done being infused with a peculiar magic that was centered around the stretching and shaping of physical things. It would make whatever infused with it extremely malleable, allowing you to change even a gemstone''s form just by pushing your finger onto it. But before long, it would return to its original form like it had never happened. Not to mention, it didn''t affect the durability of the material whatsoever! That being the case, it was the best material for what Eisen was nning right now. He grabbed the rubber-like wood and started cutting it into arge ring that could fit the wooden seed into its center. Just to test it out, Eisen pushed his hand into the ring, and then his second hand. Before long, as though he was ying with some massive rubber band, he was pushing one side of the ring onto the ground, while pressing the other into the air. And then, Eisen stepped off it, and before long, it returned back into its exact regr ring-form. With this, it was extremely easy to enchant the ring into something that would return to its original form instantly when prompted, staying stretched out otherwise. And bybining it with a giant''s size-change ability, it was going to be the perfect thing to hold the seed in its ce, whether the whole thing was erged or shrunken down, which was going to be the caseter. He was working with it as this size to increase the upper direction, but it was as small as it could be to allow it to still shrink down to a size usable for Silber. Once shrunken down, the whole thing was going to be a small tunnel-earring ced into Silber''s ear, with the wooden seed held up securely in its center. This way, he would never lose the item, and he could activate it just by touchig his hand to his ear, allowing him and Eisen tomunicate with each other no matter where they were. With Tony''s help, Eisen not only recreated the regr message-windows that allowed for typing, but Silber and Eisen would actually be able to have voice- and even video-calls. They couldn''t meet in a separate space as in a ''private chat'' environment like Eisen did with the other originals a lot, but this was going to be more than enough for the time being. Of course, at the same time, this item was going to act as a bit of a prototype for a project that Eisen and the others decided to introduce into this world. Now that they were no longer constrained by Samuel''s wish to keep this world in a ''medieval'' state, they would change quite a lot. And the first step was to allow formunication at a global scale, not just amongst the yers, but amongst all people. They were going to invent phones. Chapter 846: Practice Eisen looked at the item in front of him, put neatly together. A wooden ring surrounding a barely sprouted seed; also carved freshly from wood. Mana crystals and different gems were set into the surface of both, as the subtle flow of mana from Eisen''s enchantment settled into the object. With a smile on his face, Eisen ced the, actually quiterge, object to the side until he was going to leave to meet with Silber, who this special earring was made for. Now that this item was done, him and Silber would be able to talk whenever they needed to. The idea of already saying goodbye to Silber even though they had only just been reunited wasn''t making Eisen feel particrly great, but he did know that there was no real need for concern. It wasn''t as though Silber was going to leave forever; rather, it seemed like he only wanted to move around a little more independently, instead of being stuck to Eisen like glue. Which, obviously, made sense. They were brothers, and nobody wanted to spend every waking moment with their brother. Especially not after effectively being in aa for 100,000 years. Rather, if Silber chose to stay with Eisen all the time, that in itself would be the much, much weirder choice. And obviously, now that Eisen had the means to contact Silber whenever he felt like it, and vice-versa of course, it wasn''t really a proper "Goodbye" anymore. At least it didn''t have the same weight to it as it would have in the past. Just as Eisen was done with this item, he heard some footsteps approach from outside. The door opened up, and two young men stepped inside; Parc and Rouge. The two apprentices looked around the room, soon spotting the old man, but also noticing the other guest that was seated in the corner. After quickly greeting Ambriel, trying to be corteous, they walked over toward their teacher. "Good morning," they said with an excited smile. After the catastrophe at the giants'' capital, they had spent two whole months working extremely busily, trying to support the people who had been injured, lost their homes, or were in need of any other assistance they were able to offer. It was how Eisen had taught them; to use their skills and abilities to help others out as much as possible, instead of keeping it to themselves. And so, they did. In the past two months, their skill levels rose considerably. Their woodworking, tailoring, alchemy and masonry skill-levels skyrocketing in particr, and in one or two instances, even ranking up for each of them. This being the case, and considering the level of determination they had shown, Eisen only felt that it was right to teach them a few more specific things. While their actual skills and techniques were already incredibly high-level considering how long they''ve actually been learning under Eisen, both due to the fact that Eisen gave them tasks and assignments that would help their specific shorings as he gave them specific tutge, and of course, probably much more so, their sheer, innate talent for craftsmanship. Of course, their willingness to learn and ability to keep working and learning even in the face of little to no progress, these ''walls'' that everyone faced no matter what it is they were trying to learn, was more than extraordinary as well. Eisen looked over toward Ambriel, who was looking Parc and Rouge up and down both nervously and curiously, and lightly smiled, "Youe over as well." Somewhat startled, Ambriel stood up and walked over without saying a word. So, Eisen quickly exined what they were all going to be doing today, "I know it may be a bit boring for now, but today I want you three to do some woodcarving," the old man exined, and both Parc and Rouge seemed a bit taken aback. They had been doing much moreplicated things for quite a while now. Was it because Ambriel was there, that their opportunity to learn something new was disappearing? But of course, that wasn''t the case. "You two will be learning how to properly... well, ''respect'' materials that are far above your skill rank from now on," the old man exined, and Eisen''s apprentices seemed surprised, extremely so. That, and excited beyond belief. "Wait, really? But... you said we should stay at our rank or a rank above, right?" Rouge asked, unable to hide the broad smile on his face, and Eisen quickly nodded, "Mhm, that''s right," he exined, before ncing over at Ambriel. Clearly, they didn''t know what was going on. As if prompting them, he locked eyes with them. Realizing what Eisen wanted, Ambriel slowly asked. "But... why? Won''t it make a better item if the material''s rank is higher..?" they asked in a meek voice that Eisen would have never expected from them just two months ago. Slowly, the old man looked over at his apprentices, waiting for them to answer. Though, he barely had the chance to look over for Parc to answer the question. "Technically yes, but if your skill level isn''t high enough, you can''t really make use of the materials properly. In part, it gets harder to actually work the material, in case of Woodworking, the wood bes far too tough to cut into. At the same time, toward the higher ranks, materials have a lot more pecualiarities that might need some tricks to make use of them. Like not being able to use a knife that''s too warm or cold to carve the wood, or damaging the wood if you''re uneven with the pressure you use when cutting. They can get very, very particr, and those traits get much more extreme the further your skill rank is from the material''s," he exined, seeming just as excited as Rouge about learning how to deal exactly with what he had just described. "Exactly as you said," Eisen smiled, "And in the meantime, Ambriel, you''re going to start working with some low-rank, practice wood." With a slight frown, Ambriel looked back at Eisen, "But why would I... I mean, these two are using higher-rank materials, so..." "Right, but they''re also very, very skilled at what they do already. And they''ve spent dozens over dozens of hours doing exactly what you''ll be doing," the old man pointed out. Ambriel didn''t seem quite happy with that though, so Eisen turned around and walked over to his shelf. From there, he grabbed three blocks of wood, and also grabbed an additional knife for the angel to use. Eisen gave Parc, Rouge, and Ambriel each one of the blocks, and watched as Parc and Rouge quickly got out their own carving tools, as though by instinct. "Alright, just as a small warmup, make whatever small thing you want. This is Rank 3 Oak. Parc and Rouge, for you two, that should be nothing at this point. And Ambriel, if you can make something even nearly as good as them, I''ll let you join in on what I''m about to teach them," Eisen pointed out, and Ambriel scoffed slightly, as though what Eisen was saying was the easiest thing in the world. Parc and Rouge just looked at each other and shrugged. A small warm-up like this to get their fingers ready was something they did a lot on days where Eisen was teaching them new things, so it wasn''t anything they weren''t expecting. But someone that didn''t even seem to know how to hold a carving knife properly would struggle a lot more, obviously, especially with a Rank 3 material right off the bat. That was why, the oue was obvious, and they didn''t even care how unfair it would have been toward them if Ambriel was allowed to be taught these things by Eisen right away without any experience. Parc and Rouge, without having to even think too much, carved into the small blocks of wood as though they were cutting through butter. They didn''t even have to think about what they wanted to make either, and just did whatever first came to mind. This wasn''t an exercise in creativity, after all, just something to get them ready for the day''s work. And by the time that the two apprentices already had the basic shape of their individual pieces ready, Ambriel had barely made a couple of cuts into the provided wood. Their face was flushed in a deep pink that seemed to want to spread all over their body, as they nced over at what these two next to them were holding. They already wanted to give up, when Eisen grabbed the piece of wood out of their hand. Wanting to protest, Ambriel looked up at Eisen, but before they could, he already gave them a recement. Without another word being said, Eisen seemed to promp them to try again. And this time around, it was easier. Much, much easier. Still not as fast or easy as it was for Parc and Rouge, butpared to what they were doing just a minute ago, Ambriel felt like they were actually going to be able to make something of worth. "I didn''t tell you to start slow to embarrass you. Everyone starts this way, going slow and carefully getting better over time. I didn''t suddenly wake up knowing how to do this either. I was taught, I learnt, and got better and better. I nearly cut my fingers off on more than just one asion, mind you," Eisen said with a smile, as Ambriel seemed to be calming down. Now that things were going a bit better, Eisen was able to see some actual excitement on their face as they continued on with the exercise that the old man had presented to them. Chapter 847: Adapting "Yes alright, exactly that. Follow the grain a little closer there, maybe," Eisen suggested to Parc, as he was watching his apprentices work. With a quick nod, Parc corrected his course ever so slightly, "Remember, this isn''t directly about your technique, but being able to understand the specific peculiarities of the material you''re working with. The better your sensibilities be, the more likely it is you will be able to handle higher-quality materials." "Hm... is it right that I''m changing the pressure in this part here a bit more?" Rouge asked, ncing over at the old man, just double-checking his decision. From what Eisen could tell, that was the case, and he nodded his head. "If you''re ever not sure, then just take your time to get used to the material a little more. You certainly don''t need to seed on your first attempt with a new one. But at the same time, try not to waste too much time on it either. Really, it depends on your goal in that moment," the old man exined, sitting down on a stool next to his workbench, "Finding that right bnce is rough. If your goal is to learn and get better at the craft, then you need to decide if the higher level of experience you can gain through the higher rank material is worth the extra time that you''ve used to get it. And if you want to make the best item you can, you need to see if particrly the risk associated with using a material you might not be fully used toa be made up for through the better quality of the material." The apprentices listened closely, understanding what Eisen was saying but just silently concentrating on thier work for the time being. And as they did so, the old man turned toward the other, albeit temporary, student that was seated by his side. Eisen had given Ambriel a few general exercises that they could do to get used to the way they should use their tools while carving into the wood. They were actually getting used to it rather quickly, seemingly having a good eye for matters like this. Eisen looked at the way that the angel was moving their fingers, and quickly reached out to their hand, "Careful, don''t do it like that," he told them, slowly changing the position of their fingers and the angle of their knife, "I know it might feel a bit more natural to do it that way, but if you''re not careful the knife can slip or get caught in grooves quite easily." "Oh, uh... okay," Ambriel muttered, carefully trying to get used to this way of holding the knife, and more importantly, trying to figure out what exactly the important difference was between this and what they were doing before. As they were doing so, Eisen got started with some practice on his own, figuring that he might be some good inspiration for his apprentices. He had gotten his hand on some Rank 9 wood, which certainly wasn''t easy. He was hoping for Rank 10, but that was sadly not something that was particrly easy to get your hands on, so Eisen and Jyuuk had been talking about continuously breeding trees to finally get to a higher rank at some point, but that was still quite far in the distance. But even so, even rank 9 materials should give him some more insight. More than anything, he was actually hoping on some insights into crafting techniques or habits that he had developed in the past that could help elevate his work further. And of course, there was another benefit to this. If he used a material that so clearly could not exist on earth and that even he could struggle with, it might be possible for Eisen to grasp the effect of the craftsmanship skills further. At this point, he decided to embrace the ''system resistance'' skill instead of fighting it, so using any opportunity he could to learn how to do things without the system was more than wee. He pressed Bai against the surface of the wood, and felt a resistance as if he was trying to cut into metal. Of course, he knew that Bai was capable of dealing with this material, so he carefully continued on. He poured some mana into the edge of the knife, and carefully tried to cut across the grain, as his instincts were telling him to with this particr wood. No matter what he did, it wasn''t getting particrly easier to handle this material. It was practically fighting back against him with every bit of pressure he ced into it. As though the piece of simple wood had a mind of its own, it was changing the best way to deal with it as the old man used it. More than anything, he really had to focus his senses to understand the subtle differences in the resistance he was feeling against the edge of his knife and how the wood felt against his hand. Eisen could feel himself grow more ustomed to the material as he continued working with it, carefully turning it into a simple wooden figure. He wasn''t trying to make anything in particr; that wasn''t the goal of this in the first ce. Just like Parc and Rouge, Eisen was trying to learn how to handle materials that were at a much higher rank than his own skill. And as Eisen continued, the more a sort of muscle memory set in as he himself reacted to the memory. And it wasn''t the regr kind of muscle memory that he always subconsciously made use of when doing basically any of his work, but one that he couldn''t directly remember forming. It was justing to him naturally, and it was clear that one of his goals was particrly sessful; Eisen was starting to get used to some of the habits and techniques of the former Eisen without even realizing it. Memories popped into his head here and there that he had to sort through, trying to figure out if they were from before the memory-reset, or from after. Or, maybe even if they were from before Eisen stepped foot into this world for the first time; a memory from when he was still Benjamin, and only Benjamin. It didn''t take all too long until Eisen finished the small practice piece, a simple carving of something like a mannequin; the nk form of a human, without the influence of any particr traits or characteristics of any form. It was just the size of his hand, but Eisen was quite happy with it, considering the struggle as he got started with this. Toward the end, it did seem somewhat natural, as though he had grasped this particr material. But of course, just like with Parc and Rouge, the actual specific expertise with a specific material wasn''t the goal of this exercise right now. It was to allow him to more easily read and react to the current state of the material he was working with. He couldn''t learn and practice with every Rank 9 material in existence, after all, so learning to get used to Rank 9 materials in general was a much better idea. Not to mention that Eisen was hoping that this could trante to some other cratfting disciplines once he got a feel for how materials at this quality reacted to certain matters. Eisen once more looked up at his apprentices, who were still in the middle of their own practice session. He had been keeping an eye on them this whole time as well, of course, not letting himself get too ingrossed in what he was doing. Parc and Rouge were getting used to things very well too, and were already a lot more confident than they were earlier. Of course, it would still take a while until they could really adapt themselves to any higher-rank material they came across, but it was certainly a good start for the time being. Before long, the two apprentices finished their individual pieces, and Eisen took a closer look at their work. He corrected the mistakes they seem to have made, and exined how they could have gone better, particrly exining it in terms of what the material needed them to do at that point to help them raise their understanding. But even without that, these two young men were able to understand what mistakes they made without much of an exnation, quickly learning what they should have done instead. Eisen looked at the two apprentices quite proudly in this moment. He was more than happy that he took them in. Chapter 848: Theory Lessons A few days had passed since Eisen had once more begun a period of active instruction for Parc and Rouge, instead of the passive kind that he generally defaulted to a lot of the time. To Eisen, there was nothing better than actually practically learning and experiencing a craft, guided by someone else who not only had much greater knowledge of what it is they were striving toward, but actually knew how to directly adjust their mistakes and exin what the issues were and why exactly their habits had to change. Eisen was that kind of person, and he had seen a lot of sess in Parc and Rouge with this method. But of course, there was still a limit to that kind of learning. There were types of knowledge and habits that had been built over generations that couldn''t be learned directly in that sort of way, or theoretical knowledge that was needed to be able to truly understand what was happening. And that was the sort of lessons that Eisen was teaching right now. Over the course of his own new craftsmanship experiences, he had uncovered some memories that revealed a few secrets here and there, that he himself had making use of subconsciously or through muscle-memory he had no knowledge of ever obtaining, but even to himself, realizing why this was the case was extremely useful. And that sort of knowledge was quickly passed on to Parc and Rouge, not all at once, but at the points where Eisen felt they could really understand it. These were mostly things rted to magic, and the ways that the system, that force called ''experience'', as well as whatever other mystical forces were flowing throughout the cornerstones of this world, affected the craftsman, the tool, and the material. For these lessons, he mostly focused on the ways the materials were affected, trying to keep everything to a theme to help his apprentices digest it all a bit better. But even then, at the end of each day, those two were extremely exhausted, both physically and mentally. They weren''t only made to listen to Eisen''s lesson, but he also expected them to continue some of their active practice simultaneously, though it was really just a way to push them into developing some more muscle-memory on their own. And at the same time, Ambriel was always intently listening in, though they weren''t really able to follow along quite as well. Clearly, they were interested in this to an extent, but Eisen didn''t feel that it was the craftsmanship aspect that truly made them so curious. Rather, they always seemed to perk up once the topic shifted more toward the actual forces, those mystical powers and how they interacted with craftsmanship, instead of the craft itself. Which of course, Eisen didn''t particrly mind all too much. He appreciated that they were so curious in the first ce, and even if the focus wasn''t on Eisen''s expertise, there was certainly still some in there. However, as Ambriel entered the workshop this morning, Eisen stopped them. With a worried expression, they looked up at the old man, "Did I... do something wrong?" they asked, taking a step back as their face paled. But Eisen just shook his head. "No, no, of course not. It isn''t anything like that. I was just thinking that maybe you would enjoy having a talk with Xenia instead. I spoke to her about it, and she said she wouldn''t mind answering some of your questions about magic, and sorcery, or mystics, or basically anything it is you''re curious about," the old man suggested, and Ambriel seemed a bit taken aback. After a moment of thought, the angel nodded their head. "I see... I would quite appreciate that, yes," they replied, seeming quite relieved that Eisen wasn''t throwing them out, or even worse, realized that letting them out was a mistake in the first ce before forcing them back into one of those dark jail cells. That being the case, there still seemed to be some apprehension on Ambriel''s face. At least they had already interacted a decent amount with Eisen before all of this happened, but that certainly wasn''t the case with any of the others amongst the ones that peaked. And Ambriel had seen how Eisen could act when he was mad, and he still seemed the most... stable to some degree, which certainly didn''t bode well for the others. But at the end of the day, Ambriel had never heard anything bad about Xenia. Brody was known to get into brawls for the fun of it, and Jyuuk''s experiments with the dead didn''t make the angel feel great either, but Xenia was known to really only exist for the pursuit of knowledge. To further her expertise in the forces of magic, even if she showed this with some rather entric behaviours sometimes. "Don''t worry," Eisen told Ambriel, seeing the expression on their face, "If you ask Xenia questions earnestly, she will do her best to reply to you with as much detail as she can. Though, maybe sometimes a bit too much detail, but that''s something you learn to deal with pretty soon. If you want to sate your curiosity, she''s definitely the one to go to." "...I will keep that in mind," Ambriel replied, slowly approaching the door again, "So where should I go, exactly?" Eisen followed along to step in front of the workshop''s door, and pointed at the castle''s highest tower, which had been expanded upon over the past few months. It was a little jarring when Xenia just started shoving extra rooms onto the side of it at first, but Evalia made sure that it at least wasn''t aesthetically displeasing. And at the same time, Serio and Gind were responsible enough to make sure that every part of the tower was structurally sound even without the explicit use of magic, just in case something went wrong. Nobody wanted to see that tower crumble down onto the rest of the castle, or even worse, the busy streets that really weren''t all too far away. "Basically, Xenia is usually at the top of that tower recently," Eisen pointed out, "You should see a couple of mannequin-golems running around the castle, Xenia has them run errands for her so she can concentrate on other things. You can try following one of them, or alternatively, you can try to fly in through one of the windows, but... dependong on what Xenia is working on at that moment it could be a bit risky," the old man pointed out, his eyes shing golden for a second or two, before he turned back to the angel, "Though it doesn''t seem like they''re working on anything major at the moment, so that should be fine?" Ambriel didn''t seem any more confident after hearing Eisen''s words, and slowly spread out their wings. As they pped their wings, their neatly kept feathers came into a bit of disarray, but that was quickly corrected once Ambriel actually took flight. Just in case, Eisen watched as Ambriel approached the tower''s windows, seeing them carefully climb inside. Seeing that nothing was happening, and especially that neither Serio or Gind showed up by his side, it seemed like Ambriel arrived safely by Xenia''s side. That being the case, Eisen quickly turned back around, walking back into his workshop. Parc and Rouge should also arrive soon, but today was set up for some more practical lessons where the two of them could make use of the theoretically knowledge that Eisen had taught to them over the past few days. It was the perfect opportunity for Eisen to start testing out the process of creating the materials needed for the rooms that could block Samuel. Part of the ingredients had finally arrived, though not enough to create a space at the scale they needed for the peace-treaty meeting. But it was certainly enough for Eisen to get used to the process and relearn it. If he was lucky, he could make use of this opportunity to recover some memories about the secrets behind this material, and maybe he could learn some other uses for it, or figure out what specifically about these materials made them useful for the process, since Eisen didn''t seem to fully understand the seemingly random assortment of materials, not to mention, theplete disarray in their ranks. Usually, you would try to use as high-rank materials as you could for the greatest effect, but it seemed like there was some specific synergy effect that came with the particr assortment of rank 1 and 2 materials as theybined with these specific rank 7 and 8 materials. Chapter 849: A Complicated Concoction Eisen ced an ingot of high-rank zinc into a furnace. In a crucible, he had low-rank iron, and in another, was high-rank gold. He was currently also infusing silver with water mana, which would immediately liquify it the moment it was infused with a certain amount of it. But of course, that wasn''t the only material the old man had to prepare for the special Samuel-blocking material. Though, rather than blocking specifically Samuel, it was more going to block any sort of interference with the system''s signal. Not on its own either, but in tandem with theplex engravings that will be done by Xenia on top of the base material. But in order to be able to properly supply everything that was needed for those engravings, such as special properties, abilities, and effects, Eisen had to create a unique alloy. It was going to use a number of different metals, gemstones, and even some herbs. On top of that, the recipe apparently included the horns and blood of some specific monsters, which were apparently some of the hardest to procure due to the specific species and rank that were required. As the metal parts were being prepared, Eisen got started with the rest of the first phase''s materials. For now, that included the grinding down of spatial stones, rank 6 giant stag antlers, the carapace of a rank 3 wood beetle, as well as the distilling of troll-blood and the liquid from blue-ink mushrooms. The powder from the giant stag antlers and the wood beetle carapace was mixed together with the distilled liquid from the blue-ink mushroom, left to soak it in for a few minutes. In the meantime, the distilled troll-blood was put aside forter, and the dried-out powder left behind from that blood was scooped up and mixed in with the spatial stone powder. At that point, the gold fully melted, and Eisen liquified it further with transmutation. With a swift circr motion, he created a small whirlpool in the molten metal''s center, and quickly poured in the dried-blood and spatial stone mixture. Almost instantly, the glowing gold took on a blue hue. For a little while longer, Eisen continued to stir, supplying a constant stream of mana to it. Soon, the gold turned from that blue, over to purple, to red, and then a pale pink. At that point, Eisen immediately poured the metal out into a thinyer onto a sheet to make it dry quickly, but naturally without using oil or water, and then moved on. The mixture of the antler and carapace powders had soaked up the blue-ink mushroom''s liquid, and Eisen quickly started to mix it together further with his hands, as if he was trying to work with dough. Once the constistency slightly changed to something gooey and sticky, turning into a smooth mass, Eisen grabbed the crucible with the molten iron and poured it onto the pile of goo. After taking a deep breath, Eisen began to fold the goo and molten iron over each other, mixing them together by hand as it cooled down rapidly. Of course, the released steam shot straight into Eisen''s face, but the part he was more focused on was the hot pain from the metal. Eisen could deal with the heat on his hands, but only to a certain degree. While he didn''t take any particr damage from it, the pain was still there, making his hands sting deeply. Though, still manageable at the end of the day. By the time the goo and iron mixture cooled down, the goo was fully mixed into it, and Eisen once more heated it all up. In the meantime, he started hammering down the zinc into a thin sheet, at which point he folded it around the iron mixture like a shell. Once more, Eisen hammered it into a thin sheet, folding it over itself and hammering it down again. He did this multiple times until thousands of differentyers pressed onto each other. Then, once it was at the amount ofyers that Eisen needed, he hammered it into the size of a regr ingot, and brought it over to the bowl filled with the distilled troll-blood, quenching the metal inside of it, and then pulled it back out. At that point, the silver was fully liquified and had the required quantity of water mana within it. Eisen poured it into a cauldron and began to boil this liquid metal. Of course, since it wasn''t molten metal, but simply magically liquified, it soon began to boil. And into that boiling silver, Eisen ced the pale pink gold and the iron-zinc ingot. Since he was dealing with liquified metal, the boiling temperature was at a much higher point than normal; higher than what it would take for a regr cauldron to melt, so it was made of Eisen''s own magic to prevent this. Before long, the boiling silver slowly melted down the two different metals. Due to the special treatment they had undergone, they took on unique properties that they usually wouldn''t have, which were now being released into the silver, mixing with each other through the magical metal''s special influence. By the time that everything had fully mixed together, Eisen poured the mixture out into an ingot-mold, separated into the exact volumes that he needed to more easily use this mixture for the next step. Because, of course, this was just the first of many. Not just the sheer volume of the materials that Eisen had to transform into this new material was overwhelming, but the variety was probably even more intimidating. A lot of materials had to be matured under specific circumstances, others had to be dryed or even fermented. One step of the process required Eisen to mix high-carbon steel with some other materials to make it rot; not rust, but actually rot. That rotten steel would then be fertilizer for the seeds of a specific herb, which Eisen then had to cross-breed with a nut. The tree growing from that cross-breed would then be harvested and that wood dried out, before being used for the next step. A lot of these processes were just there to cause minor, very specific effects that had toe together as a whole in a specific ways. It was a little like writing a dozen books just to take a single word from each of them to form a sentence, which was then again the definition for the final term, which was a made-up word in anguage that didn''t exist. It was nonsensical, really, and overlyplicated, but that was what this high-level alchemy was generally like. Especially whenbined with metallurgy and magic, alchemy was something that often took weeks or months of preparation. Of course, Eisen didn''t have that preparation, but still. Of course, the real recipe for this material was probably a bit different; more streamlined and faster for the former Eisen. But since Xenia had to figure things out just by analyzing the metal, she had to figure out a way to get that result with the knowledge she currently had. From what Eisen knew, it definitely all felt right, which was more than just a good sign that they were on the right track. Maybe at some point Eisen and Xenia would remember some details that could improve the process, but until then, thisplicated conconction of techniques was the only way they could get what they needed. But obviously, that was exactly why Eisen had to go through this process a couple times, to make sure that he got ustomed to it before working on everythingter on, at apletely different scale of operation. But for the time being, Eisen had to take a break. Parc and Rouge were approaching, and Eisen had to focus on teaching them as well. The materials for the next step would take a little bit of time to prepare anyway. And since there were a lot of infusion-based things for this step, there wasn''t much that Eisen could actively do, so using that time to walk Parc and Rouge through some things would help as well. He could actually try and walk them through some of these steps; since they were learning about the way that higher-rank materials worked, talking about why differently ranked materials interacted with each other the way they did would potentially give them a deeper understanding of what it was they were dealing with. Chapter 850: Khans House Eisen looked at the cube of metal in front of him. It had a slightly golden, almost brass-like colour to it. The energy that it gave off, however, waspletely and utterly... strange. Just from looking at it, Eisen felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It certainly wasn''t how he felt when in the meeting room, but something told him that it was exactly this feeling that was the conduit for Samuel''s interference to be blocked. Either way, this cube was evidence enough that Eisen was able to handle the process, and he got some good practice in as well for when the materialsf or therge-scale production all arrived. Some of the materials Eisen was already going to be able to get going, and he might even be able to prep a few of the steps before all the rest arrived. The old man picked up the cube, and walked over to the door where Serio was already waiting. Eisen handed it to the town core guardian, "Thanks for taking care of it," Eisen said, but the guardian just quickly nodded his head, "Of course. It takes just a second." Serio disappeared into a cloud of blue mist as he moved over into Xenia''s study. There, she would be able to practice her part of it all with the help of thisplex base material, engraving it with the patterns she had analyzed. But for the time being, Eisen was able to move on to something else. The materials for Khan''s new home had finally been prepared. Ever since they arrived here again, Khan was sleeping out in the open, though he said he was fine with it. Eisen had offered to let him stay in the castle for a while instead, but it really did seem like Khan enjoyed the freedom of being outside, which was also taken into ount for the design of the hut Eisen would build. The old man spread out is wings and lifted himself up into the sky, quickly flying over toward the free plot ofnd where Khan''s house was to be constructed. The materials themselves weren''t anything all too special, at the end of the day, it was just that a ton were needed due to the sheer scale. Eisennded down on the plot and increased his size. Khan himself was nowhere to be seen. It was mid-day, so he was probably out exploring the ind a bit more. Eisen pulled out Bai and watched as the ego-tool turned into a handsaw. Immediately,the old man started getting the materials actually ready for use. That mostly included sawing the massive logs into the correct lengths, and then he split them up into a few nks each. Since the house would be rtively simple, and made mostly of wood, there wasn''t a lot more that he really needed to do in regard to preparing the materials for the house. The plot itself was quite rocky, so it was easy to tten it all into a stable, t surface to build on. Eisen dug the holes for therge wooden pirs that would act as the main vertical supports. Those holes were created bypressing the stone with alchemy to a certain degree, and then once the pirs were set into them, Eisen dpressed the stone again, tightly holding the wood in ce. Then, inbetween each of those pirs, Eisen created the basic frame. However, due to the sheer scale that Eisen was working on, this frame would be incredibly unstable due to its own weight being too much. This was partially mitigated due to the rank and quality of the wood, so that it was going to be strong enough, but that still had its limits. To keep everything held up, Eisen added a few more vertical supports to make sure the frame itself was stable enough before Eisen added in the actual walls. Through those vertical supports, Eisen also had something to more stably connect the nks of the walls to, which was what Eisen was doing next. He did the outside first. The wood in question was one that was particrly conductive to magic while still being physically strong. This was a result of Jyuuk''s crossbreeding experiments between trees from the giants'' country and woods that existed here on the central continent, so that it wmight be possible to keep the unique properties of the different trees that existed on the central continent while giving them the massive scale of the giant-trees. Not only would that give Eisen a lot more things he could work with for items at a giant''s scale, but it was also going to increase the raw amount of materials that could be gathered. After all, even if you nted regr trees as tightly as possible next to each other even in double the area that the giant trees took up, they would still provide just a fraction of the useable wood that a giant tree did, just due to the difference in the trees'' height. At the same time, those giant trees could also act as a great source of food, as the amount and size of the fruit growing off them was also vastly greater. Due to this, Eisen had some great materials to make use of for Khan''s new house. Eisen ced the nks onto the outside of the frame and hammered them into ce properly. The nails themselves were also a bit more unique than regr nails. Due to the size and weight of everything, Eisen was worried that simply scaling the nails up wouldn''t be enough, so he made it so that, upon supplying the nails with a bit of mana, small spikes would dig into the wood they were driven into, making them a much more stable solution. Of course, that made the process a lot more time-consuming, but Eisen was luckily able to just prepare a mold for the nails and could then use a marble work-surface to mass-enchant them, so it wasn''t as bad as it could have been. The nails didn''t have to be of any particr rank or quality, after all. They just had to be pysically strong enough to do their job well. Soon enough, the outside wall of the house was fully done. Next, he prepared the doors and windowframes, which of course weren''t anything tooplicated either. For now, Eisen really only did the wooden base; the door''s lock was something he was going to addter. It would be installed with some extra safety- and convenience-mechanisms he wanted to add for Khan. But for now, he just set everything into ce with some simple steel hinges, which also had been massively strengthed by some enchantments so that they wouldn''t be bent out of shape due to the weight of the door itself. Since Eisen wanted to finish the outside of the house first, he quickly started working on the roof; since it would bepletely t, there really wasn''t much that Eisen had to do but add the frame of nks around everything. The center of the roof would have a pane of ss ced onto it so that Khan could keep stargazing even while inside of his home, though things like ss would only be addedter. Next, Eisen filled the walls with a thickyer of instion; wool from a particr sheep-like monster species that had been found on one of the nearby inds. Due to the monster''s massive size, it was fairly easy to gather everything that was needed. Once the instion had been added, Eisen began to ce the inside-wall, which was less focused on being strong and weather resistant, and more focused on its visual appearance, natural scent, and once more its mana conductivity. Eisen was going to add a lot of quality-of-life things to the inner walls, so he wanted to make sure that the wood was going to be able to handle that well enough. By the time the day was mostly over and night fell, Eisen had started putting in the hut''s floorboards. There was a bit of a hollow space between the stone tform the house was built on and the actual floor, so that Eisen could inste it properly as well, and of course, so that he could add some other materials inbetween to make sure that Khan''s weight wouldn''t damage the floor. After all, not only was he a gaint, but a giant inflicted with a curse that maderge parts of his body turn to stone, increasing his weight massively. And then, before long, Eisen was done with what was essentially the base for the house, and he was ready to add ss, enchantments, the locks, and then atst, the furniture that Khan was going to need to live here. Chapter 851: A simple Metal Lock Eisen looked at the glowing, hot metal in front of him, quickly picking it up. The massive hunk of metal was enough to make dozens of armours for people out of, but what Eisen was using it for in this case was a lock. The cost behind it all was a massive reason why, in the giant country, the most massive cities were carved from mountains. It was incredibly hard to justify using so much material on housing for people that were able to adjust their size basically however they wanted, but like that, they could use the materials that were harvested from the carving-out of what was basically a sort of massive quarry, to further construct other buildings. But even so, seeing things that weren''t made of stone or wood was incredibly rare. That was why the metal that Eisen was using was actually just a sort of mock-metal of sorts. He was using a specific alloy as a base, and then carefully fused it together with mixtures of gemstones and crystals to basically act as a ''filler'' for the metal, keeping up its physical strength. Of course, if Eisen were to actually use this metal to make items, the actual resulting item would be abhorrently weak. It had basically no ability to block damage, simply passing it on to the wearer of any armor made with it, and weapons would have abyssmal damage ratings as well. That being the case, none of that was really needed for something like a lock. It just had to be physically, structurally strong in a way that it could still provide even with all those ''fillers''. And since the crystals and gems that were used were all things that could be grown through the use of certain magics, it was really the best way to make a strong material at a low cost, at least at the scale of a giant that Eisen was currently working on. Of course, that also made it a bit more bothersome to work with. When heated up to this point, the texture and strength of the material was vastly different from the original metal''s, and in the cooling-down process could lead to a lot of weird results, which was bothersome particrly when it came to a moreplex, fine-tuned mechanism like a lock. Eisen was positive he could stop anything too bad from happening by carefully leading the cooldown, but since he was working at thisrge scale, there were always a few more issues that popped up, especially when it came to how materials were sitting against each other, orrge moving parts. But for the time being, Eisen really just had to finish the lock, and could fix the rest through some enchantments and magic. Making the casing, chassis, and different bolts rted to mounting was the ease part. They were pieces that didn''t need much detailed work to them, but then, it came to the actual lock; the part that would interact with the key. Frankly, since Eisen didn''t have too much experience with locks, he just wanted to make a simple cylinder lock and make it work better through some enchantments. So, for that, Eisen needed a couple different things. The main cylinder for the lock, the rotating cylinder that would be set into it, as well as five pins that would connect those two cylinders to decide when exactly the inner cylinder could be turned. Through some springs set at the base of the pins, they would be pushed into the cylinders'' center. The teeth of the key would then push each of those pins down to the exact level that was needed to allow for a rotation, by properly aligning the small ''cut'' along the pins. Once that line that was cut was aligned, the inner cylinder could be rotated, and once the cylinder was back in its original position, they upper half of the pins would fall back onto the rest as they should. Of course, making these pins was actually fairly easy, since Eisen could just shrink down and work on them at the exact scale that he needed for that massive lock, instead of having to fiddle around with tiny, annoying pins that could get lost at a moment''s notice. The cylinders and springs were also done quite easily, but the more important part was really in how they interacted with each other. Even regr-sized objects had to be greased up to avoid friction and wear on the materials, and that was even more so the case for a mechanism scaled up to basically the size of a person. And so, Eisen needed to use something that would ensure that the lock mechanism, as well as the enchantments Eisen was going to ce on it all, would stay perfectly fine even after years of use. And for that, Eisen actually made a sort of potion that used oil as a base. Not only did the process make it oilst perfectly forever, but it could also be fine-tuned for what was actually needed here. And in the end, it ended up as a sort of thick gel that could be applied to a surface particrly easily, and through the use of the enchantments, it would be kept in ce exactly where it was needed. Not only that, but this potion-oil would help create an airtight seal as well, allowing everything to keep itself together a bit more, even at this size. The enchantments that Eisen made were really just quite basic; things to help the motions, keep everything stable and together, ensure that all the motions were happening well, and things like this. He really was only doing this because of the scale and because it would help with longevity against the strength of a giant, but at the same time, Eisen could add a lot of achievements that would help with the actual security. Achievements that had to link with the key to allow for the pins to actually split up from each other, so that anything like a simple reproduction wouldn''t work. Maybe it was a bit overkill for a wooden hut for a giant who, frankly, would probably leave it unlocked most of the time anyway. Crime currently wasn''t really a thing in prototype, and nobody would be stupid enough to break into the home of a giant who was friends with the king. And it wasn''t like the lock would be the only thing keeping the house safe. But this lock was just a bit of a prototype; something that Eisen could use to figure things out at a massive scale so that he could have a closer look at how things worked, and then trante everything down to a smaller scale so that he may end up mass-producing some locks for this ce. Because if he could properly spread the locks around here in prototype, then he might be able to do the same in other ces, like the central continent, where safety was much higher concern. Locks were a thing, sure, but it was really, really easy to pick or break them. But that was sort of the intention behind this city. This ind. Hence why it got its name; Prototype. Here, Eisen could test out things that he wanted to bring to other ces in the world. Before, it was probably a space that the originals used to figure out how to create arrtificial people, but now that that was done, Eisen was using it as a space of how to better people. How to make the people of the world better, improve their lives and make sure that this world moved on past this ridiculously long, medieval limbo that they''ve been stuck in for one-hundred-thousand years. At this point, they should be much, much more advanced than earth, but because of Samuel, the originals were forced to keep this ce as it was forever, to curate and regress it strategically to make it the world that he wanted to market to others. So, not only was Eisen going to create much, much better safety for the people of this world, him and the others would improve medicine,merce,munication; everything that they''ve missed out on. Phones, locks, maybe even something like a rudimentary inte. Trading routes that would allow for objects to be moved across the world in a matter of days, to allow countries and people to be more connected to each other. They were going to make this world a better ce, and the thing that Eisen was doing for that right now, was make this simple metal lock. Chapter 852: Security System Eisen pushed the finished lock into the wooden door. He pushed the corresponding metal key into its and turned it around, watching as it properly locked into ce. With a smile, he pulled on the handle, noticed that it didn''t budge, and quickly unlocked the door again. Now that this worked, he was able to quickly move on to the main protective enchantments on the building. The main issue with something at this scale was that any gaps that were in regr structures were also a lotrger now. Eisen had to ount for any sagging at the hinges that could happen over time, and also had to make sure that if the wood expanded or shrank due to the temperature and weather nothing would end up breaking, so these natural gaps were really unavoidable. And these gaps would make it very easy for people to break in, which was why Eisen would create an enchantment that would prevent this. At the end of the day, it was really just a very basic enchantment, though. Along each of the corners of the hut, Eisen carved the ''cornerstones'' of the enchantment, creating lines of runes to define the actual locations and properties of the barrier that was going to be deployed, filling all the gaps and covering the outer wall and windows so that nobody would be able to enter the building. The actual effect was going to be powered by a simple mana generator that Eisen ced into the floor of the house, small enough to not even be of notice to Khan, while also leaving Eisen the option to ess it should he need to swap something out or make changes in the future. And the actual trigger for this barrier was also simple; if the door was locked, it would be deployed, otherwise, it would be turned off. If Khan was actually there, there was no need to deploy any barrier, and if he wasn''t and just left the door unlocked, then a barrier wouldn''t be of any help either. Of course, Eisen could create a barrier that was constantly active that would check on who it was that actually entered the building, but that would make it somewhat annoying for Khan to invite others over. Everyone that he could potentially invite would need to be registered somehow, so simply relying on Khan to regrly lock the door seemed like the easier option. And again, this was a prototype process that he was hoping to test out and ce onto other buildings in this city soon. Especially at a scale like that, and even more so if this ended up being brought to other countries as well, it was important to make it as simple as possible. For now, Eisen connected everything through the lock, and quickly test it out. A slight glow enveloped the building for a few moments, but soon subsided. But with his truth-seeing eyes, Eisen knew that the mana from the generator was stably flowing through the enchantments and surrounding the building in a stable barrier. And then, Eisen stretched out his hand and knocked on the door. Though, it was a bit more than just the kind of knock where you wanted someone toe and open it; he was using strength that could usually damage the door quite a bit. The moment he did, Eisen could feel a sudden jolt as his arm was wrapped in strands of magic, forcing his arm to be stuck to the barrier. Not the door itself of course, but the barrier. That way, he couldn''t just force his arm away and damage the structure in the process. Eisen turned his head, seeing the small crystalmp he had ced near the door light up in a red light. This was a current ceholder for what was going to be a connection for a warning-signal to be sent out, so that some local guards coulde and check out what was going on. This only activated in case someone was trying to do damage to the structure in the process of breaking in, and then they would be quickly apprehended. Though for now, Eisen sent through a pules of his mana and deactivated the enchantment. For this, some mana-signatures would be stored. This had to be deactivated somehow, after all. So either, the owner of the building or anyone else they assigned to it would be able to deactivate that specific part of the enchantment before the signal was sent out to the guards. Of course, it would also be possible to just deactivate it by holding the key against the barrier. For now, Eisen was happy with this, and then quickly unlocked the door again for the time being. He made his way back over to the spot where he was actually preparing all the materials, and looked at the crucible being watched by one of his doubles. In there, the old man saw a liquid ss mixture,bined with some different gemstone and crystals as usual. The old man quickly created some molds with his elemental magic, and poured the molten ss inside, fully enveloping it with his magic to make it all slowly cool down. By the time everything had cooled down, Eisen was ready to properly enchant them. There were a few different things that he ced into the different ss panes. For one, there were enchantments that would strengthen them physically, of course. Otherwise, there were enchantments for temperature-management, ones that would prevent them from fogging up, and then a few convenience-based enchantments. Practically, despite how rustic this wooden hut seemed at first, Eisen wanted to turn it into something of a smart-home. On one of the windows panes, the one that would end up near where the bed was going to be ced, Eisen ced another product. One that Xenia had been working on in her free time. In the simplest possible terms, it was a weather app. Using some divination magics cleverly ced together into a fist-sized orb, the fist of a human of course, it was possible to see what the weather was going to be like over the next few days. Really, these didn''t have the power to see the future; they were just magics that were developed to help farmers out to know what weather they were supposed to expect for their harvest, so they could n ahead for a few weeks. Using this, it was possible to trante that into simple symbols and numers, allowing them to disy a rough temperature range and the general weather in the area for a specified period of time. Whether it was sunny, it would rain, it was particrly windy or cloudy, any of those things. Of course, it was more urate the closer that time-period was to the current time, as it was with meteorology on earth, so it was restricted to one week ahead of time for now. Eisen and Xenia were going to keep developing this further, and might even higher some people to keep working on and fine-tuning things like that, so that the two could concentrate on otehr matters. For now, it worked perfectly fine as a prototype. And so, that small object would be linked with the enchantments on the window and disy the a simple weather forecast for Khan. Thatst enchantment, which was ced onto all of them, was a simply one to allow for theplete darkening of the windows. They would turnpletely ck and not allow any light through whatsoever, making curtains quite obsolete. And then, Eisen got read to ce these massive windows into their respective positions. Especially therge skylight was the part that Eisen was most worried about, but the enchantments seemed to be doing their job well, and everything was more than stable. Eisen was even able to stand on the skylight without it even bending, so he was very happy. Maybe he should try and mass-produce windows like this and allow for particr size-specifications. That would make it pretty easy to roll them out to other ces. Though of course, that wouldn''t include the special weather-forecast on the window; that was just a special feature for Khan. They would figure out something else, maybe a simple disy that people could put into their home to check the weather. Though, the time until they could roll this out to people was still a little bit away. Eisen looked around the small house, quite happy with the structure itself. Though, it was still empty. Now, it was time for him to build the furniture. Chapter 853: Giant Furniture Eisen looked at the wooden nks set up in a pile in front of him, which he had already prepared for Khan''s furniture. He had asked the giant beforehand already, and he said that he didn''t need anything special, so for the time being, Eisen narrowed things down to a couple specific things. The first he was going to work on was the bed. The wooden frame itself was rtively simple, and he just needed to connect the four legs with different nks to create the basic outer frame. Though, to make sure that the bed really was stable enough to carry Khan''s weight, Eisen created a number of other supportive legs between each of the four main legs. Not only that, but he created a sort of grid in the empty space within the bed''s main frame that the tted frame would be sitting on top of, and ced legs onto each intersection of that grid as well. Just for a bit more support. The tted frame itself was easy enough to make as well. Using some wood from a tree that was particrly springy when cut into these thin nks, Eisen just attached them straight to the bed''s frame so that the mattress could rest on top of it. Of course, due to the scale, Eisen once more had to make some adjustments, enchanting the ts to improve their flexibility and durability even further. For now, Eisen pushed the bedframe into the corner of the room, and moved on to the next piece of furniture. He wanted to finish all the wooden base parts first before starting work on things that needed fabric and cushions, since those weren''t things that he could do right here on-site just as easily. So, Eisen quickly got started on the base for a simple armchair that Khan could take a seat in and rx in the evenings. For this, when it came to the actual seat and backrest, Eisen wanted to add a few things that would make the whole thing a bit morefortable. Mostly, enchantments for either heating or cooling; depending on the season and what Khan felt like at the moment. Khan was incredibly old for a giant; though his aging has been slowed considerably due to the effects of his race as a ''cursed giant'', he had still be an elder. And, from his own experience, Eisen knew how tough it was to properly deal with the heat or cold at times, so having heated nkets or cooling packs at the ready was always a bit of a lifesaver for him. Since he wanted to alter the actual cushion to make it asfortable as possible, Eisen was going to ce the heat-regtion parts onto the base frame. In the end, it was really quite simple. Since Eisen could use his own element to alter temperatures to extreme heats and quite strong colds, he was able to use his own element to simply change the temperature to slight degrees. Of course, he made sure to keep it contained to safe degrees; he didn''t want Khan''s seat to suddenly catch fire as he was sitting on it. The crystals filling the actual enchanted engravings would be the parts that would heat up, so Eisen also used some specific crystal mixtures for this to make the heat or cold radiate out quite far, practically encasing the armchair in a controlled bubble. And, just to make sure that Khan would be able to actually control how hot and cold he wanted it, Eisen attached a small dial to the side of the armrest that you could easily reach with your hand. With the armchair done, Eisen quickly created a small side-table, with a single central leg holding it all up and a circr top, where Khan would be able to keep his drinks, scacks, or whatever else he needed while seated here. But otherwise, there really wasn''t anything special to this table. The same was the case for the small table and pair of chairs that he created so that Khan had somewhere to actually eat. There wasn''t really a need for anything special the be built into these. If Khan had some specific needs or habits that Eisen could support somehow, he could always just create small gadgets that could be ced all over the house. And then, Eisen quickly got started on a simple wardrobe. By itself, there wasn''t anything all to special about it, but since Khan was a swordsman at the end of the day, Eisen wanted to make sure that he could store whatever he wanted to in regard to his weapons and upkeeping tools, no matter what it really was. To ensure he would have all the space he needed, Eisen lined the inside of the wardrobe with paint made from magic stones, engraving enchantments into the paint to allow the space inside to be a littlerger than before. Not massively, of course, but enough to make the wardrobe usable for more than just clothing, but also some regr storage. Eisen ced some cupboards and sectioned shelves onto the inside, together with some hooks made to hold specifically swords. It seemed as though he liked to always have a few backup weapons, so it wasn''t a bad idea to let him keep them here. For Khan''s main weapon, though, Eisen created some hooks and attached them to the wall so that Khan could disy his sword openly. He cared for it quite a lot, so it only made sense to allow him to show it off. And then, Eisen moved on to the kitchen. Though, for now it would only be the basic appliances, and if he needed anything else, then Khan could ask Eisen to make him anything else that was more specific to his needs. The appliances that Eisen was making were a fridge, a freezer, a stove, an oven, and of course a sink. The fridge and freezer both had the same base setup; boxes with enchantments ced onto their inside that would circte cold air at different temperatures. This cold air, instead ofing from Eisen''s magic, came from some ice magic, though. Eisen figured that designing them with a moremonly essible element wouldn''t be a bad idea, especially if he wanted to mass-produce theseter. The ability to keep food fresh over longer periods of time was an incredibly useful thing to have, so it was one of the things that Eisen and the others wanted to spread around more. Of course, there were ces that did already have fridges and freezers, but they were quite expensive so it was usually only restaurants or rich people that had them. What Eisen wanted was to make them something that really everyone could buy; they were a necessity from his point of view. Inside of the fridge and freezer, Eisen added some shelves, and then called it a day for now. As for the oven, it really had a quite simr setup, using regr fire magic to create the enchantments on the inside of a metal box. This time, he created some dials to adjust the actual temperature on its inside, though for now, he didn''t add the different modes that ovens usually came with. He wanted Khan to be able to start living here soon, so he had to speed things up a bit. Of course, in order to properly inste it, Eisen used some some gel that had been collected from slime monsters. The gel from this particr slime species was perfect to block out changes in temperature, so Eisen used hardened sheets of this gel to act as ayer of protection between the oven and the building around it. The stove itself was also quite simple, since Eisen just needed to create some me-emitting enchantments that were connected to a dial. It was one of the more simple things that you could create with enchantments, and was actually one of the first things that Eisen himself had learned how to make. Of course,ter Eisen still needed to create actual pots and pans to go onto that stove, but for now, it was fine. Thet thing that Eisen still needed to make for the kitchen was a simple sink. For this, he created a simple crystal tube that he enchanted to create flowing water when needed, adding some fire enchantments onto it as well to allow for some hot water toe out of the tube as well. The tube was then encased in water-proofed wood and ced at the edge of the sink''s basin, where it was attached to the wall with a chain. Since the water was created in that small wooden piece itself, Eisen really just had to make sure that it couldn''t be lost, so a chain was a simple solution for that. A dial at its side that could be twisted to release the water as needed was enough to finish the sink up as well. Now, Eisen was done with the bases for the furniture, and he could get started working on the cushions, nkets, and especially the mattress. Chapter 854: Soft Eisen stood in front of the massive sheets of fabric. He had produced them specifically for this, and now, it was time to properly make use of them. He was going to make some cushions and nkets using this fabric, but the main issue that he had to deal with until now was the thickness of the fabric. After all, no matter how much area you gave to a sheet of cloth, its thickness was much, much harder to scale up. That was why, instead of just using simple thread, Eisen scaled it all up into rope. For this, he made use of multiple sets of thread-spinners. The first set would take the base material, in this case different types of cotton and wool and turn them into regr threads. Then, those would be woven together to create a slightly thicker and more stable version. Then, the next fewyers of thread-spinners, each growingrger andrger of course, would take the formeryer''s threads and spin those together again. In the end, Eisen had thread the thickness of a finger that he could use further. From there, he had a setup that would turn that thick rope-like thread into actual fabric. Of course, Eisen couldn''t just create a massive loom; instead, he made use of arge amount of small, flying golems that worked together through a single programmed hivemind. He took inspiration from the things that he worked out in the giants'' country to help him with the creation of the base stone pir in the capital. And with that, over the past few days, Eisen had created enough fabric to let him make everything that he needed to for Khan''s home. And with that, he quickly got started. First things first, he cut out the pieces for the cushions that would be ced right on top of the furniture. This was quite easy; these sheets of fabric would be attached straight to the wooden furniture through some nails, and then stuffed with proper cushioning material. Now, as for that material, Eisen actually had to y around with that quite a bit to figure out how to get a proper filling ready. After all, under a giant''s weight, most materials would just be squashed t. That was one of therger reasons why things like cushions weren''t a thing in the giants'' country. It just wasn''t easy to make them usable at such a scale. Possible, of course, but not easy by any means. The method that Eisen ended up using was to dpress a certain mixture of crystals and gemstones. That block was then enchanted to practically want to return to its original shape, creating some springiness and softness that wasn''t easy to get your hand on otherwise. As Eisen pushed the crystal cube together, he was quiet happy with the result already. It took a little more fine-tuning to get the amount of dpression, softening, and hardening exactly right for the best final feel. The enchantment also needed a couple of changes, but before long, Eisen managed to get to a point where he was really quite happy. He ced the crystal boxes that would act as cushioning to the side together with the simple fabric squares, and then moved on to the pillows. Eisen shaped some of the crystal boxes into proper pillow-shapes at different sizes. Ones that would end up on the bed, and some smaller ones that were for the armchair. The pillow-covers were pretty easy to make as well, of course. Just two square sheets of fabric for each pillow, sewn together on three of the sides. On the fourth side, he would ce one side of buttons and one side of buttonholes respectively, so that the covers could be pulled over the crystal pillows easily. Eisen could have just made them cover the pillows permanently, but he figured that at different times of the year, having the option to swap out the pillow and nket covers would be a pretty good idea. He would have to make other covers for those nkets and pillowster on, but for now this basic model was more than enough. Once all the pillows were done, Eisen moved on to the nkets. There were some that were quite simple; a coupleyers of fabric sewn on top of each other for some light throw nkets. But the ones that were supposed to be a bit thicker and more insting required some changes to be made to the crystal cubes that he had made. For one, it needed to be a lot softer, more flexible, and open to be bent. But otherwise, Eisen also added anotheryer of enchantments onto it that would help Khan in preserving heat. For the nket-cover, Eisen did the same thing as for the pillow-covers, allowing them to be swapped out between the seasons or if any sort of cleaning needed to be done. And now, with the nkets and pillows done, Eisen could get to the main-attraction; the mattress. He had Askr help him out and carry the rest over to Khan''s house already, since he needed the space to get the mattress ready. For this, Eisen had two main options. Either, he could go with a spring-based design, or he could go with a faux-foam design. Generally, Eisen personally preferred foam mattresses over spring-based ones, especially once he got used to them. Not to mention, the metal springs would end up bing particrly bent out of shape very quickly if a partially petrified giant slept on them, even with the support of enchantments and special additions to the alloy. And so, he quickly decided on that option. For this, Eisen split the crystal material that he had prepared into three parts. One that he would form into a support base, which would end up being the main support for Khan''s body and help the mattress'' shape. Then, on top of that was ayer forfort. It would be a lot softer and relieve pressure so that Khan could sleep well at night. And then thestyer was there for some extra benefits for the heat regtion. The first twoyers were quite simple; they were the same sort of rtively basic material as what Eisen had used for the pillows and other cushions. Of course, they were fine-tuned to be specifically what Eisen needed them to be depending on whatyer the crystals were part of, but Eisen put the most specific work into the topmostyer. There, the enchantment would either warm up or cool down depending on what Khan felt like. Once more, this could be regted through a simple dial that Eisen would ce at the side of the mattress, hidden away by the mattress cover. And of course, that cover was also needed. With the same fabric as before, Eisen created a simplerge sheet, threading crystal threads through its edges that he specifically used alchemy and transmutation on to make them stic, so that the mattress cover could be pulled over it easily without needing to worry about it slipping away randomly. Now that all of these things were ready, Eisen carried the mattress to Khan''s new home. Through the crystals that he used, the mattress itself was slightly translucent and cool to the touch, though that didn''t really matter too much as it wasn''t something that would end up being visible. Of course, unless Khan chose to forego all the fabric covers. Once Eisen made his way back to the soon-to-be ready home, he put the mattress into ce and quickly made the bed, putting the pillows into ce and carefully tucking in the nkets at the side. Now, thest thing he had to do was prepare the other cushions and Khan could move in. The old man took some nails and hammered the fabric on top of the wood surfaces of the armchair. This was the actual seat, the backrest, and the two armrests. He left them open just enough so that Eisen could push in the crystal faux-foam, before he closed everything up by tightly pulling on the fabric and hammering thest parts into ce as well. Simrly, Eisen attached covered to the seats of the other two chairs, and then took a step back. Of course, it was still quite barren. This ce needed some decoration, the smell of having someone live in it for a while, and the marks of someone having spent time here. Until then, this ce was just cold and empty, but Eisen hoped that it was enough to make Khan feel wee here in this city. And with that, it was time for Eisen to go bring his old friend here to let him take a look. Chapter 855: A New Home Eisen walked out to the coast of the ind. Khan had been here a lot over the past few days, just looking out into the ocean and enjoying the view. And Eisen also understood why he was here more than the was in prototype. Considering the fact that he wasn''t able to shrink down to the size of a human anymore, he would stick out more than just a little. He wouldn''t be able to properly live right alongside them. Or at least, for the time being. Eisen was still intently determined to somehow cure the giants of the curse. But until then, Khan would have to figure out how to live alongside others in a ce like this. At least in the giants'' country, he could always stay in ces that had a lot of other giants. But that obviously wasn''t the case elsewhere. With the tensions between the countries right now, there were barely any giants in the central continent, and even the ones that were there were hiding away without revealing their true form. Not to mention how hard it would be for Khan to find a ce to stay during his travels; Eisen was already working on arge tent that he could ce down, as there was luckily enough open wilderness for him to camp out in, but for now that luckily wasn''t an issue anyway. Khan decided to stay in prototype for a little while, and so, the home that Eisen had built for him would hopefully end up being lived in properly. "Khan," Eisen said, notifying the elderly giant of his presence. Though, that was probably unnecessary; a swordsman at Khan''s level would have known that he was nearby long ago. "Feel like joining me? The breeze is quite nice today," Khan replied with a light smile on his face. The corner of his mouth pressed up against some of the petrified patches of his skin on the back of his cheek. "Actually, I was wondering if you would want toe with me for a moment. I''ve got something to show you." Khan slowly sighed, pushing himself off the ground. Of course, Eisen quickly came and helped him up. With an awkward scoff, Khan waved him away, "You''re ten times my age, how embarrassing would it be if I let you help me out?" "I''m older than nearly every single god in this world, Khan. That doesn''t mean much," Eisen pointed out, and Khan simply let out augh. "Fair enough, then. So, what is it you want to show me?" the swordsman asked, as Eisen started guiding him forward. The ind wasrge, of course, but them both being giants definitely helped in how fast they were able to traverse this ce until they reached prototype''s outskirts. "You''ll see. But until then, I wanted to ask you a few things," the old man exined. He didn''t want to give away the surprise too much. Though, the only reason it was anything of a surprise was because Khan stayed out here for so long. Otherwise, the construction of a massive wooden building wasn''t the kind of thing that you could hide all too easily. Eisen continued, "You''ve lived most of your life amongst other giants, right?" "...That I have, yes. Before the curse made travelling too hard, I returned to my home. It is much easier for a giant to live there than elsewhere, for obvious reasons," Khan exined. "Though the reason is more than regretful, it does kind of help a little in this situation. I don''t remember all too many things from before, and the things that I do remember are important events. The mundane, everyday life as a giant hasn''t quitee back to me yet," Eisen told the elderly man next to him, who raised his brow in response. "So that is why you are asking me? Because I am a giant that lived such a mundane, everyday life?" Eisen scoffed and shook his head, "No, I don''t think you could really say that. I''m sure that you''ve had those times as well, but more importantly, you must have seen people just... living their lives. You understand giant culture much more than I do. I got barely a glimpse at it during my time there. That''s why it would be great if you could help me out a little. Especially because you lived abroad for quite some time, I''m sure you''ve got the perfect perspective." "...Go on." "Well, what sort of things do giants need every day? Are there any special habits in giant culture that I could somehow support through my craftsmanship? Any problems I could solve that giants have that non-giants don''t need to deal with?" Eisen questioned, and Khan slowly started to think about it. Though, it didn''t take him long toe up with an answer. "Truthfully, the way giants live doesn''t truly differ to much from the way non-giants do. We just had to adapt to things differently. As you know, our buildings are more in tune with nature, cause that makes construction easier, cheaper, and safer. That is just an example, of course. But well, we have less amenities that we can enjoy at a giants'' scale, cause it is much cheaper and faster to simply construct it at a smaller size and use it then," Khan exined, "Baths would be a great example for that. Or this thing called ''showers'', they''re not really a thing for us. There are some towns built by waterfalls orkes where the area has been repurposed a bit, but that is very rare, as you know." "Hm... I see..." Eisen replied. Truthfully, an architectural revolution in the giants'' country might not be a bad idea, but Eisen had to figure out a good way to introduce methods that were worth using. If it was far too expensive in either money or time, then there would be no reason to give it a try no matter the actual oue. It was definitely worth looking into if it was the first thing Khan thought of. "Though, I guess you were thinking moer of things in the direction of items? Things that you can more tangibly introduce on your own?" Khan asked with a smile, though he already knew the answer, "If that is so, then... transporting goods is quite hard. There aren''t many beasts well-suited to draw a giant''s carriage, not to mention that our carts break down far too easily. It is much cheaper to simply higher men to carry the materials on their own, but that is quite hard due to the sheer size of our country. Having a way to move materials and items more easily like non-giants would be incredible." The moment Khan said this, an idea popped into his mind. A train. A trainwork that reached all across the giants'' country. And not only that, introducing trains into the central continent would solve a lot of the issues that Eisen was hoping to solve. Connecting different people better, creating a better exchange of goods and ideas... items would be easier to transport, so they would be cheaper, meaning that people could afford more things, not only making their lives better, but also boosting the economy further by creating more jobs to distribute those goods. Not to mention, if he was able to make transporting goods and materials easier in the giants'' country, it would be easier to introduce a change to architectural habits as well. "I see..." Eisen muttered, a broad grin forming on his face. He would need to talk to Xenia as soon as he could. But before then, Eisen had something else to do. Him and Khan arrived at protoype''s outskirts, and a wooden building that wasn''t here thest time Khan was stood in front of them. "Eisen, is this what you want to show me?" Khan asked. He could obviously recognize what it was. There was no way he wouldn''t. The elderly giant stepped up to the door, pushing it open. He entered into a space that surprised him more than he could express. The intricacies and the types of furniture in front of him. The quality of it all. "Are you serious?" the elderly giant looked at Eisen, who just nodded his head. "Of course. Here, let me show you the ce properly," he replied, happily watching Khan step into his new home. Chapter 856: Why now? "This is a truly wonderful house, Eisen, are you sure that..." Khan started, looking at Eisen with an unsure expression. However, Eisen immediately nodded his head in response. "Of course. I want you to befortable in this ce. And until we manage to find a way to permanently rid you of the curse, that means to make you a home that can properly aodate you." Khan was taken aback for a moment, "What do you mean? You''re nning on gettind rid of the curse?" Eisen sighed lightly, "I saw your expression when I introduced you to Silber. It''s clear that you''re not particrly happy with the situation you''re in. And frankly, with all the new information that we''ve gathered recently, it seems like we''ll be able to figure out a cure for the curse at some point. Or rather... it might already be hidden somewhere, but I can''t say for sure." The elderly giant looked at the man in front of him, "If... if it was possible to rid the world of this curse, then why haven''t you done so already? Why didn''t you do it when you had the actual power to change the rules of the world?" Eisen noticed Khan''s voice. He was growing upset, but Eisen absolutely couldn''t me him. It was a horrible situation, and Eisen himself had wondered the same thing a few times. But of course, there was a simple conclusion he came to every single time, "Because I couldn''t." "So then what changed now? Why can you do it now?!" "Because Samuel can no longer control us now. I used to think that Samuel only controlled us with the promise of returning to Earth, but after how long I''ve lived here, I''m not sure that was enough. He probably did something that would restrict us more, though I have no idea what it is exactly," Eisen exined, "Clearly, it wasn''t something that let himmand us fully. Otherwise, there would have never been a reason to ''punish'' the giants after I disobeyed him. But it was enough to restrict us into following the goals he set out for us. And I believe that, at the same time, he also had some way to punish us that he doesn''t have anymore. When we reset out ''experience'' points, I believe whatever control he used to have over us waspletely removed as well." "...And so? That restriction being gone is why you believe you can undo the curse?" "Something like that. It''s... all veryplicated. I might be wrong about all of this, but fact is that before, Samuel was able to do things that he can''t do now. If he was able to ce a curse on a whole race, then why can''t he do anything to stop us right now? I think it''s all linked somehow," Eisen exined, looking at the elderly man in front of him, "I promise that I''m working on it, okay? You''ll be rid of this curse at some point." Khan looked down at the ground, and without looking back at Eisen replied to him, "I see... I''m sorry, Eisen, could I maybe ask you to leave me be for the time being? Again, I thank you for this wonderful home." Eisen nodded and ced the key to the house onto the table next to the armchair, "Use this to lock the door if you head out. And just let Serio know if there''s anything you need to know about how anything here works, alright?" As the elderly giant replied with a silent nod, Eisen left the house, closing the door behind him. Though he should have expected it, he didn''t know that Khan was going to react so strongly to that information. Then again, Eisen maybe should have expected it. Despite being given a longer lifespan, Khan had spent basically all of that time he was gifted being afflicted by that curse. Having his life slowly altered and worsened over the past ten thousand years, not just by age, but also by the effects of the curse himself. At his age now, he must have gotten used to living like this that the idea of living without the curse seemed impossible. And now, being told that this wasn''t the case, and that there must have been a way for him to never have to suffer like he did in the first ce, must be something quite hard to deal with. The old man let his body be filled with his magic as he turned into his demonic form, his wings spreading out behind him. With a quick p, he flew into the air, making himself shrink down as he approached Xenia''s magic tower. There was nothing he could do about Khan right now other than just let him deal with those emotions on his own. He was old enough to know when to ask others for help, so Eisen was sure he was going to do just that if he needed it. So instead, he figured talking to Xenia about his new ns wasn''t the worst idea. Hended in the tower''s window, stepping into dust-filled study, "Are you here, Xenia?" "Hm?" from behind a desk, the high-elf''s voice sounded out. She was hidden by a stack of books and scrolls that were ced onto the desk itself as well as the ground surrounding it. Though, she didn''t seem particrly bothered by that; instead, she was happily sorting through them all, as she always did, "Oh, what brings you here? You don''t drop by here that often." "I just wanted to run an idea by you," the old man started, and Xenia raised her brow curiously. "I see? What kind of an idea? You know I''m already busy as is trying to decypher the rest of the meeting room and preparing for the inscriptions to be made in the new ce, right?" "Of course, but I figured you might be interested in this anyway. It feels like figuring out how to make it work through enchantments and magics would be right up your alley." "...Okay, so what is it?" Xenia asked. Eisen could tell that she was incredibly curious. Her ears were twitching as they always did when she wanted to know something, even if her face was hiding it fairly well. "A train. That''s what we''re going to be building." "What do you mean? What would we..." the elf started a bit confused, before she really started to think about it. She quickly realized what it was that Eisen was talking about, and stood up from her seat excitedly, "A train spreading throughout the world? Seriously?" Eisen grinned broadly, "Right, I figured you''d be interested. If we can figure out a proper railway system, then that''s going to solve a ton of issues at once, don''t you think?" "Yes! Definitely! Though it would of course be extremely expensive and time-intensive to construct, not to mention the issue of actually getting permission to build it all, but..." "That''s exactly what we''re here to figure out. I''ll suggest it to Komer as well, and I''ll have him help me figure out a way to exin it all to the emissaries that will being to deal with the peace treaty. And as for the construction, we''ll definitely be able to create some tools to make it all much, much easier," the old man exined, and Xenia thought for a moment. "But wouldn''t it also be a great opportunity to give work to others? Especially with more and more artificialsing in, a lot of people in the central continent are apparently being pushed out of their work," she pointed out, and Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Right, exactly. That''s why we''d just be doing the designing and building the prototypes. The rest of the construction would be done by other enchanters and metalworkers. Komer already started up a construction business recently, so he should be able to expand it specifically for the creation of railways as well. And of course, he mentioned he wanted to get deeper involved in manufacturing processes as well, beyond just using the items I make for the shops." Xeniaughed slightly, "That kid is really incredible, isn''t he? He''s working himself like a madman, but everytime I talk to him, he sounds more energetic than thest." "Well? You''re in, right?" Eisen asked, though the answer was clear in the first ce. "Are you kidding? Of course I am!" Chapter 857: Engines Xenia led Eisen down one floor of her tower into a mostly empty room. There were some objects stacked up on a pile on one side. They were artifacts that Xenia had worked on to practice her enchanting and to test out some of the ideas she had. In the center of the room, drawn out onto the floor, was a permanently installed magic circle that created a circr barrier within the space. And inside of that barrier, it was possible for Xenia to n out enchantments in high detail to try and figure out how to best construct her moreplex patterns. Using her methods, she had created some techniques that were very different from Eisen''s own. All of his techniques were, at the end of the day, still ''physical'' in nature. It was all about carving everything into the base material. For someone like Eisen, a craftsman through and through, that was the best method to get everything working properly. Since enchantments were a sort of magic, the mental image and confidence were two major aspects in their creation. However, a person like Xenia, someone who was an expert in working with the mystical and magical, wasn''t quite restricted in the same ways. Of course, her enchantments still required a base material for it to be attached to, but her method of enchanting as well as the way she created her own patterns wasn''t necessarily as direct as others'' methods. Though, that also made her enchantments much harder to reproduce, which was both good and bad, depending on the goal. But for now, in the conceptualization stage, it was fine for her techniques to blossom as much as she wanted. "Alright, where are we starting?" Xenia asked, looking at the old man to her side, who was already thinking about exactly that. "I guess it''s probably not a bad idea to start with the engine. There''s two main directions to consider;a physical or magical approach." "Going with a fully magical approach would be much too expensive at the scale we''re talking about. Since others can''t create mana-generators in the same way you can, it needs to run on other sources, like mana crystals." "In that case... let''s take abustion engine as an example. Fire magic is readily essible, and fairly cheap from a mana perspective to boot," Eisen suggested. Xenia stepped into the barrer in front of the two, moving her arms around. Aplex pattern started appearing in front of her, as a model of a simple piston appeared. Neither Eisen nor Xenia really knew the ins-and-outs of engines, but they at least knew the most basic mechanics. Abustion motor held a chamber confined mostly by an air-tight piston. In that chamber, a controlledbustion of fuel would then happen, which would force the piston down along a cylinder. The downward motion of the cylinder would then be turned into rotational energy that could then be transferred directly to other parts of the engine; generally, a sort of rotational gearbox that could be essed in a number of ways. Now, usually that fuel would be something like gasoline, and explosive liquid. But here, they could use mana, which inbination with fire magic acted simr to other mmable substances, allowing for a rapid expansion without the result of toxic emissions that would harm the environment in the long run. Xenia created a model of that basic pistonyout, and then applied a very basic fire enchantment with the properties that Eisen was suggesting. And, due to the properties of this barrier, an exact number of mana points was given that was needed for an, admittedly arbitrary, output of force. Right now, how much force it could produce didn''t particrly matter yet. This part was just for figuring out the approach with the best result. "Fire magic seems like it would work fine, but then there''s also different elements like, well, the literal ''Explosion'' element of the fire branch," Xenia pointed out, swapping the fire magic circle in the example with a slightly altered one, "Using that, the magic circle itself is a good bit lessplex and allows for better control." Eisen thought about it for a moment, and then tapped his foot on the ground, "In regard tobustion specifically, that element is a lot more efficient for higher-output uses. Since each individualbustion is at a pretty small scale, the mana-efficiency is a lot worse. And it''s not like the control we can get over fire magic is low either. And while it''s not as rare as other elements, it''s still not as widely-essible as the fire element. If we want to spread this far and wide, and have people innovate on it even more, then it needs to be something that can be as easily recreated as possible." After a little contemtion, Xenia swapped the magic circle out for another. An air magic circle. Instead of causing abustion, arge amount of air would simply be produced quite suddenly within that vuum, and then removed just a momentter, creating a simr process, "Air magic is probably the cheapest amongst all the elements. Not to mention that it''s safer and far more quiet. The noise would make it quite troublesome. Especially in regard to attracting monsters from the surroundings." "That is a good point, we don''t have to go with methods too close to the regrbustion motors," Eisen thought, "What if we use abination of different elements? Using a high-moisture air that is being expanded in the method that you used there, and then also by manipting the temperature simultaneously using fire and ice magic to expand andpress it quickly. Ice magic ismon enough for that as well." Xenia quickly did as suggested, but slowly looked at Eisen, "But that''s already bringing up theplexity of the enchantment a lot, not to mention the mana cost. It would be pretty efficient though, I''ll give you that." "When using multiple elements, it''s always easy enough to improve the mana efficiency by regting the exact ratios, right?" Eisen pointed out, "We just need to figure out a point where it''s efficient enough to make up for higher mana cost. And I know I brought it up first, but theplexity of the enchantment should be secondary, since we can build some tools to make up for that." "In that case..." Xenia altered the enchantment in a few minor ways, until the model was ready to show off exactly how powerful it was. For the regr amount of output that was given, the amount of mana that was used was actually a lot less than any of the other examples so far, now that the enchantment was a bit more fine-tuned. Of course, with theplexity of the enchantment, the production cost itself would go up a lot, requiring four different elements to be used instead of just one. It was easy enough to find people with these elements, but it was of course always cheaper to buy ess to just a single element than four. "...For now, let''s put the production cost aside. That''s an issue that we can potentially solve through Komer somehow," Eisen suggested, running his fingers through his beard in thought, "What about the rest of the process? Should we enchant the sides of the cylinder, or should we use some sort of grease?" "Well, enchantments require more mana, obviously, but if we use grease they would need to rece it all regrly, right?" "Right, but that''s also not really an issue... the trains will need to be serviced regrly anyway to make sure everything''s in working order, so recing the oil or grease wouldn''t be a massive issue." Xenia thought, moving her fingers to try and create a test-enchantment on the model''s cylinder, "If we want to increase the efficiency and longevity, we can still use some enchantments. If we''re ignoring theplexity and production cost for the time being, then the enchantments would be a great way to improve the efficiency of the overall piston. We could reduce friction to basicallypletely zero." "...That would also improve the longevity of the the materials," Eisen thought, "Alright, let''s go with something like that, then. With the type of grease I have in mind, we should be able to make a tool that produces it as well, given the materials. So we could make that part of it a lot cheaper on the production side of things too." The two stood in the tower attached to the side of the castle, continuing to discuss different methods, techniques and ideas for the trains, almost all the way through the night. Chapter 858: Railway Planning Eisen slotted the cog into its position, smiling as he finished the prototype of the magic motor that him and Xenia developed together. He let his mana flow into the crystal ced at the top of the box of mechanisms, letting it be saved there and carefully flow into the airtight chambers contained within. And the moment he did, the motor started up, as dozens of small pistons started being pushed up and down by the expanding and contracting air inside of the chamber, supported by the circr motion of the pieces attached to the bottom of the pistons. Together, each piston worked together to rotate the cogs ced underneath, which was quickly tranted into a round metal bar that was sticking out from the motor as a test. It was spinning at incredible speeds, and managed to do so almost silently. The old man looked at the object proudly, quickly turning over to Xenia, who was staring at it with the same expression that he had been. "This is amazing! It actually works!" she pointed out, holding her hand toward it as a magic panel appeared in front of the motor. There, she had a number of different values that she could adjust to determine exactly how much mana was fed into each of the chambers, which would of course affect the final force that was ced onto the rotating metal bar. "If it''s like this, shouldn''t we also be able to make some cars?" Xenia wondered, and Eisen hesitated for a moment before simply agreeing. "Well... cars certainly have their benefits, and since this type of motor doesn''t exactly damage the environment, it doesn''t sound like a bad idea... But I''m not sure if we should fully introduce cars right off the bat. We would need to create a system to teach people how to drive first and create the proper infrastructure for it. And that''s a much bigger thing to tackle than trains," Eisen pointed out, tapping his foot on the ground, "Though, it''s probably not a horrible idea to create some vehicles beside trains with this, even if it''s just for private use." "Wouldn''t a ne be pretty neat?" Xenia suggested, and Eisen raised his brow. "Well, it''s not a bad idea, but I would imagine there''s other ways to make that more efficiently than this kind of motor," the old man pointed out, "Though, I was thinking maybe some ships wouldn''t be a bad idea. That way we can properly connect our Archipgo with the other continents." Xenia thought about it all for a moment, nodding her head, "That seems like a good idea, though it''s not like we''re particrly struggling in the travel between the individual inds, so maybe we should stick to trains for traveling between the inds." Eisen raised a brow, "Trains? Do you mean underwater tunnels?" "Either that, or bridges. Maybe abination of both depending on what seems better. There''s some inds that are incredibly close together, so creating bridges wouldn''t be that much of a struggle. If we''re clever about it, I''m sure we can figure out awork that fully connects all the inds together." The old man thought about it for a little while. Compared to a system of ferries, trains would probably be a more effectivework overall, even here on the inds. And with the higher speed that trains could reach, especially when supported through magic, the technically higher distance the trains would need to traverse would be negligible; or rather, it should still be a lot faster. The only issue was really the construction, and making sure that everything could hold out not only against the erratic weather in the archipgo, but also the sea-dwelling monsters that could potentially attack and damage the bridges. Though, maybe Jyuuk had something that could make up for thetter. "Let''s run that by the others, but I don''t dislike the idea," Eisen replied with a smile, "Either way, for the time being, the motor prototype seems to be working quite well. I should be able to make enough to test out a few different things with them." "In that case, what about the railway construction? You said you wanted to make some tools to make that easier as well," Xenia pointed out, and Eisen quickly nodded his head. "I have two different approaches in mind. For one, within Asgard, I was thinking about a sort of self-constructing mechanism. Basically, we could create a train that constructs the railway in front of itself. Since, through Gind, we have the exact geographical data of every single ind, we can n things out properly ahead of time. Then, we can just feed the information to the machine, give it all the individual parts or materials that it needs, and then let it do the rest. Under supervision, of course." "And that''s just for Asgard? So for other countries, you would suggest a different approach," Xenia guessed, and Eisen quickly continued to exin. "One of my reasons for wanting to introduce trains into other ces is to create jobs for people. Here in Asgard, that''s not really needed; since there''s so much to do as our country is being built from practically the ground up. Not to mention, we actually have the ressources to support a self-efficient construction method," Eisen pointed out, "No, for others, it''s a multi-step process, basically. First, machines to prepare the ground. tten,press, and harden it all so that it can act as proper support for the trains. They could do it on their own, but considering the scale, tools to assist will just make it happen that much faster. Then, machines to actually help in the uniform production of the parts. Particrly the actual rails need to be just right, and they need to be of a quality to fully support the train we''ll develop." "And then thest step would be a tool to help in the actual cement of each part?" "Yes, and no. That''s the next step, but not thest. For thest step, what''s needed is a way to continuosly inspect the railway. Since there are so many vast areas of... well, nothing in this world, it would be easy for certain areas of thework to just fall into easy disrepair. This would be as easy as creating a number of golems that travel across the rails and report back any damages so that some people can go and repair the rails or fix the issues." With a smile, Xenia nodded in agreement, "That sounds like a good idea. So for those golems, it would be easier to create them ourselves and sell them to the countries, right?" "At least in the beginning, yes. If not the full golems, at least the golem cores. If they opt for the golem cores, giving them the blueprints for the actual golems'' bodies should be enough for them. They really don''t need to be particrlyplex either." "Then let''s get started," Xenia pped her hands together, "Let''s work on the approach for Asgard first. If we hurry up, we should be able to get a prototype ready to show it to the peopleing for the peace treaty discussions." "That''s what I had in mind as well. Actually, how about we split up for this? You work on the autonomous construction drone, and I work on the physical prototype for the train," Eisen suggested. Truthfully, he really just wanted to put the motor to proper use right now, so creating a lotive should scratch that itch quite well. Since the motor ended up working out as well as it did, scaling it all up for use in a train seemed like an exciting project. And since the rest of this was mostly reliant on the physical construction of the train, while the autonomous drone would be more reliant on the nning of the enchantments and systems, it seemed like the best idea to split it up in this way. And Xenia quickly agreed as well. "Of course! Will you work in the gardens?" she asked, and Eisen quickly nodded his head. "There''s an open space behind my workshop that I''ll use for now. If I move elsewhere, I''ll let you know." "Perfect. I''ll just stay here in my tower," Xenia said, already clearly itching to get started, as Eisen approached the window to make his way to his workshop. Chapter 859: Locomotive Eisen stepped into his workshop, grabbing a few materials for himself before he looked over at Constant, "How is the rest of the shipment looking?" "Gind told me that nearly all the materials for the new meeting room have been delivered to the ind," the core helper exined, "ording to the proposed schedule, you should get to the ind within the next week to begin the preparation and instation of the protective cover.The base structure is currently under construction under Evalia''s leadership and is proceeding nicely." "I see, I''ll talk to herter and have her show it to me. What about the iron from the Giants'' Country?" "They apparently started the preparation and ore refinement for the quality of iron you asked for. In two weeks the first part of the shipment should arrive," Constant exined, curiously looking up at the old man, "What is it that you want to build with that anyway?" Eisen thought about it for a moment, and then looked at the core helper for a few moments, "Have I ever exined to you what a train is?" "A train? Does it have something to do with bing stronger for the uing battles?" The old manughed slightly as he shook his head, "No, not ''training''. A train is... something like arge, automated minecart. We will construct rails across the inds and our country as a whole, and on those rails, we will put a train. The train will pull a number of carriages on those rails as well that we can use to quickly transport materials, items, as well as people." Constant''s eyes widened slightly, "Oh, I see! That sounds really interesting! I can''t wait to-" The core helper soon stopped himself in the middle of the sentence, realizing that what he was about to say would nevere true. He would never be able to see the train in action; Constant''s movement was fully restrained to this part of the gardens. "Don''t worry," Eisen smiled lightly, "I''ll figure out a way to let you see the train once it''s finished." The old man walked back out of the workshop while rubbing his hand through Constant''s metallic hair. Once outside the workshop, Eisen made his way to the open area right behind the building. There, he quickly got started working out the design for the train''s lotive. Generally, it was fairly simple. There were four main parts that he needed. The magic engine, arge mana battery, the cab, and of course the actual wheels. The magic engine and mana battery were, of course, quite simple. The base engine design was erged, and with the extra space was given more cylinders instead of simply increasing the cylinders'' volume, so that he could maximize the efficiency. The battery was simple as well, as it was really just arge mana crystal that was enchanted in a way so that it could hold as much mana as possible without any losses. Now, Eisen moved on to the mostplicated part, the cab. In here, the driver would be seated and actually take control of the whole room. In the beginning, it should be possible to assign some golems to this, butter, Eisen did want actual individuals to take on the role after getting the proper training that they needed. Quickly, the old man started to create a ''blueprint'' of the dashboard, to figure out every part that he needed to add for the driver. Of course, ever since Eisen started trying to use his abilities without the system''s assistance, he no longer used the system window to draw this blueprint on, but mentally created it. Generally, it was a much quicker process, since Eisen had exact visions of what he needed. Very importantly, there were the speed, the current amount of MP left in the battery, a few other values in order to track the current state of the motor like the temperature. This would be disyed very easily by using some enchantments that actually tracked every part of this across the motor and the train as a whole, and would then trante that to a rtive rotation so that an arrow could be pointed at the right value on a round dial. This way, it would be easy enough to figure out all the values at a nce without having to even fully register the actual number. And then, Eisen was also going to add a lever that the driver would actually use to actually elerate and decelerate. On top of that, they would need emergency and parking breaks, a way to control the lights, a horn, something like windshield wipers would also be a necessary edition to ensure overall visibility. Beside that, Eisen also wanted to add a system that tracked the overall health of the whole train, so that if there were damages in the wheels, the batteries, the gears, or any other part of the train, a signal would be given to the driver so that they could respond ordingly. Not to mention, all of this were only the utmost basic parts of the cab; the driver would also need ways to interact with all the carriages that could be connected. An inte system, a way to open and close the doors automatically, as well as something to control the temperature and lighting inside of the cabins. Depending on the specific type of carriage, additional functions might need to be added, especially if it came to moving very specific materials or monsters that needed special containment methods, so what Eisen opted for was a more adaptive system. This part, different to the other hard-installs that would be put in in the form of physical buttons, dials, and levers, would be a digital panel. In order to decrease the amount of mana that it would take, instead of creating a faux system-window, Eisen would have the information disyed on a physical crystal screen that the driver could interact with. Inside of the actual carriages, information for what functions the driver needed ess to would be added to this panel. That way, it would be very easy to swap out or add carriages to a train no matter what the model of the lotive was. And now that the cab was done, Eisen could move on to the wheels. This was a fairly simple partpared to the cab, especially since most of it was going to be the exact same as a real trains. After figuring out how to connect the axis of these wheels with the gearbox that would be ced above, Eisen really only needed to fine tune the wheels themselves. So that they could adjust to the curves of the rails properly without derailing all the time, the part of the wheel facing outward was a slight bit smaller than the part facing inward. As if the wheels were a long cone and you removed all the parts that would nevere to touch the rails anyway. This way, the wheels would be slightly pushed around to properly adjust to the curves. And within the actual wheels, Eisen added some other things. He enchanted them to improve the adhesion to the rails. Usually, he would ce something like this on the outside of a wheel, but until now he really only worked with carriages whose wheels would be inspected regrly for damages anyway. For a train like this, it would be much too risky to allow the enchantments to actually touch the rail directly, so that they could avoid the metal being worn down to a point where the enchantment was damaged to a point of critical failure, which could destroy the whole wheel in the process. So, instead, though it would decrease the efficiency a bit, Eisen ced the enchantment further within the wheel. It really wasn''t much; just a very simple conceptual enchantment that would stop the wheels from potentially sliding over the rails, especially if they were wet or, even worse, frozen. Other trains often carried sand for this, which Eisen would also supply just in case. If the wheels started sliding over the rails instead of properly gripping them, stopping the train from starting its journey, the sand would be ced onto the rails to provide something for the wheels to actually grip onto for the beginning of the journey. It wasn''t needed that often, and especially with the enchantment it was highly unlikely, but it was better to be prepared for things like this beforehand rather than have to improvise a solution if a moment like this urredter on. But with that, Eisen was done nning out the mechanics of the lotive, and was now ready to begin the actual construction of the most basic prototype. Chapter 860: Overcompensating Eisen tapped his foot on the ground as he stared at therge vehicle in front of him. The metal ting that he had made to cover the lotive in was definitely strong enough structurally, but he wasn''t all too happy with how it looked just yet. Though he didn''t know exactly why. The thing with the trains was that they didn''t only have to be extremely functional, though that was of course the main focus at the end of the day. But for the time being, it was also vastly important for them to be visually appealing and impressive. The people would end up making the decisions about introducing the trains into the countries of the central continent were all of a high ss. Their carriages and ships were all visually stunning andplex, so a train that was nothing but functional wouldn''t impress them quite enough. What Eisen was aiming for was abination of a surreal first impression, together with the functional details to back it all up. Of course, he did know how to make thingsplex and visually appealing; but he had never made something like this before. The thing that came closest was the bit of work he had done on a car in the past, but that was also only assisting one of his mechanic friends in fixing up some old-timer his friend got at an auction. Though, he was sure that Evalia would be able to help him make it all visually appealing, so he would rely on her expertise for most of it. But even so, he wanted the general shape of the train''s lotive to still be appealing, but not be too overlyplex that it would increase the cost unnecessarily. Though, at the very least, the lotive''s prototype was functionally done. Everything was greased up and ready to go, and the battery was currently being filled up with mana that would make the whole thing actually work. "The hell is this?" someone asked, approaching from the direction of the workshop. Eisen turned around, looking at the devil Satel with a raised brow, "That''s an ugly-ass... house? Carriage? Or is it some kind of giant weapon or something?" Eisen thought for a moment, just shrugging in response, "Carriage would be the most urate. It''s a train. A self-propelled Carriage, basically. Or, actually, I guess this part specifically is more of a recement for the animald drawing the carriage? We''re going to put this on rails like those of a minecart, and it''s going to pull a bunch of, well, carriages to transport goods or people." Satel looked over at Eisen, unsure if they understood correctly. A bit confused, they looked back at the lotive, "But... why? Won''t rails make it really annoying?" Eisen shook his head, "I know what you''re thinking of, but no. The rails and the train''s motor will allow it to travel a lot faster than any carriage while drawing a much heavier load than normal. And at the same time, it will be a much morefortable trip." Satel nodded their head impressed, "Alright, sounds great. So when''s it gonna be ready?" "That''s unclear so far. This is just the prototype, but we''re working it out. We want to have a test-run ready soon. I can tell you when it''s ready, we''re building it on the ind the peace treaty is happening on." The moment the peace treaty was mentioned, Satel''s expression dropped, "Right... about that..." "Do you not want to help out anymore?" "Oh no, it''s not that, I''m actually pretty excited about it. Telling some stuck-up rich guys what to do is a hobby of mine, to be honest," the devil pointed out, slowly starting to scratch their neck, "It''s about Ambriel, though... I''m not sure if they''re really the best person to bring along for that." "...Why not?" Eisen asked with a deep frown. Rather, Ambriel was actually a lot more important for the n than Satel was, especially when it came to dealing with the holy empire. Even if they believed that Satel was really a devil, they wouldn''t necessarily believe what they were saying. Rather, them being a devil, they might make the point that they were purposefully lying and trying to trick everyone. So with Ambriel there, an angel that was able to show proof through the use of specific holy magics unique to angels, was a much better way to get those guys under control. "Are they okay? I know they''ve beening to watch us all work for a while, but they seemed fine otherwise," Eisen pointed out, and Satel just let out a deep sigh. "Honestly? They''re doing so much better than I thought. But that''s sort of the problem," Satel exined, somewhat awkwardly scratching their neck, "They... aren''t particrly showing an ''angel''s dignity'' anymore." "...What do you mean?" Satel let out a long sigh, trying to think about if there wasn''t a better choice of words for what they were trying to exin, "It might be easier for you to see it yourselfter, but basically... Angels are really stuck up, right? Like, total loser, virgin buzzkills, that sort." Eisen looked back at the Devil curiously, "Sure, if you say so. I do know what you mean, though. And you think that Ambriel isn''t like that anymore?" Satel thought about how to best word it, and finally just splurted it out without any care for how it sounded, "They''re kinda ovepensating, to be honest," they pointed out, "Drinking, smoking... I mean, all alone in our apartment, but if they weren''t afraid of talking to others right now, they''d probably be whoring themself out enough to put me to shame." "Well, if they''re enjoying themself and staying safe, I don''t see anything wrong with that," the old man pointed out, "They''re an angel, I doubt some tobo and alcohol can really do them much harm, at least. Though, I guess I should have a talk about safe sex with them, I doubt they learned much about that in heaven." Satel sighed, rubbing the bridge of their nose, "That''s not the point I''m trying to make. Basically... well, Ambriel, an angel that used to be the incarnation of virtues like all those other sticklers up there, is acting more like... me. There''s nothing wrong with that in general, obviously, but I''ve got a couple thousand years of practice being an addict and a slut, and they''re trying to catch up to me. I seriously don''t know if they''re be in a state to potentially influence the fate of two whole continents." "I get it, don''t worry," Eisen replied, thinking about what to do, "I guess we could do without them. It''s not like I made the nspletely counting on Ambriel, or even you at that, so we should be able to find another way. But they''ve actually been somewhat... excited for it? To me, it seems like Ambriel feels quite useless the way things are at the moment. They''re shadowing us all at work to see what they might be able to do, and what they want to do. And if they want to help, I wouldn''t really want to take that away from them. Especially cause I made use of them for this exact sort of thing when they didn''t want to help. I don''t want to make them think they were more useful when they tried everything they could to not help us." "Yeah, but if we do let them help, then they might make it all a lot worse. And if they mess it all up somehow, that''s not going to be great for them either." "...It''s still a little while until the peace treaty meeting anyway," Eisen pointed out, "I''lle up with something. Until then... just make sure they don''t do anything too stupid, alright?" "I mean, I can try, but I''m not their babysitter," Satel replied, and Eisen raised his brow slightly. The devil rolled their eyes, "Yes, fine, I''ll make sure they don''t do anything too stupid." Eisen smiled lightly, "So, how is it going otherwise with you two?" Satel thought for a moment, "They''re not the worst roommate, I guess. They could be a lot cleaner, but after living alone in an empty jail for so long, just to then get locked up in another one under your castle, that... well, it''s to be expected." The old man continued to smile, locking eyes with the Devil, who quickly realized what he was trying to say. They immediately shook their head, "No, it''s not like that, seriously." Eisen stayed silent for a few more moments, and Satel slowly looked to the side. "...Fine. not yet, at least." Chapter 861: Handy Helper Eisen''s size quickly increased to his maximum, and he pushed his fingers underneath the lotive. To ensure that he was holding it without causing any idental damages, he used his element to create a small tform underneath it as well as some handholds to grab onto, instead of having to push his fingers into the lotive''s natural grooves. As he activated his true demonic form and his body increased in size even further, the rtive weight of the lotive decreased and it became actually quite easy for the old man to pick it up and fly away with the prototype, making his way to a small corner of the ind that was reserved for certainrger-scale testing. Apparently, the originals that existed before the ''reset'' had quite literally ttened this whole area; whether this was on purpose or simply a side effect of those exactrger-scale tests was something that even Gind didn''t seem to know for absolute certain, but whichever the case, it had now been repurposed for exactly this. The moss and weeds and other obstructive nts had been mostly removed by Jyuuk and Eisen reinforced the ground properly. Since then, all the originals would use this ce for certainrger-scale projects, though they never stayed there for too long so that the others could make use of this space properly too. And now, Eisen and Xenia were going to use this area to test out the lotive. The high elf was already there with her own half of the n. Eisen had expected that she was just going to design the magic circuitry for the automatic track-constructor while Eisen would create the final physical object, but it seemed like she had gone above and beyond and created the whole thing herself. It was a lot different than what Eisen would have done, even at first nce, but he was incredibly curious about how it worked nheless. Or rather, maybe even moreso because it was so different from his own approach. "Alright," Eisen said, slowly cing the lotive onto the ground before shrinking back down to Xenia''s size, "Will you finally show me how it works?" The high elf grinned smuggly, ncing over at the tool. It was just an opaque red crystal orb the size of a head, levitating about five feet off the ground. Currently next to that orb were enough nks and metal ingots for about a mile of track, stacked up in long rows. Eisen raised his brow curiously. "Alright,e over here," Xenia said, waving the old man over. She held her hand toward the crystal orb, as a screen popped up in front of the two, disying a top-down view of the current environment through some sort of mapping ability. Eisen could feel the orb let out pulses of mana, so that was probably supposed to survey the surrounding area in different ways. As Xenia held her hand in a certain position, a translucent pen appeared on her fingers that she quickly used to draw a slightly curving line through the area disyed on the map. In the corner of the screen, a number corresponding to the length of the rail segment appeared, and Xenia quickly looked at the old man. "I already entered in the actual technical details like size, length, and shape of every part of the railway that you told me into it as a default. We can still chang it though, so no worries about that," she exined, quickly moving the pen over to a button at the right side of the screen. Once she did, the map disappeared and a list was disyed; a list of materials. Each section of that list had checkmarks next to it, as the orb seemingly recognized the materialsid out nearby. And then, Xenia pressed the button at the side of that list, and the screens fully disappeared. The crystal orb started to give off a subtle glow as the orb moved around at a fast speed. It was so fast that Eisen would struggle keeping up with it even when sprinting as a giant. That being the case, it seemed like it was mostly just surveying the area that the railway was supposed to be built on one more time. At least, that''s what Eisen judged from the mana that was flowing out of the orb. Soon, it returned back to the spot that it was in before, as arge sorcery magic circle started being formed around it. It was truly argelyplex, multiyered spherical magic circle that simply seemed to appear out of nowhere, activating a number of different spells. And then, a momentter, a moving, writhing mass of ethereal, arcane arms sprouted from the ground underneath the orb. A few of them, as though dragging themselves while also walking over the ground like feet in a connected, molten-together mass, were moving away from the materials, while the rest were moving toward them. The hands that moved away were starting to pluck away at the ground, removing any weeds that had grown along the path and pushing any obstacles like rocks to the side. Meanwhile, the hands moving in the direction of the materials were specifically starting work on the prepared metal ingots. Eisen had given Xenia a blueprint for the metal rail segments, and it seemed like these hands were going to be the ones executing it all. As the palms of the hands heated up around the metal, softening it, some of the other hands were skillfully shaping it. Eisen recognized the movements of these hands; they were exactly like his own, Xenia seemingly used his craftsmanship skills to create these hands. Though, he would have to take a lookter to see how the quality of the rails actually turned outter using this method. However, he also noticed something else when looking at how these hands moved, "You used one of Jyuuk''s spells as inspiration, right?" "As I thought, you recognized it, huh?" Xenia replied with a smile on her face, happy to see that the hands seemed to be doing their job well, "One of his spells creates these ''Bone Towers'' that help ry his powers to turn things into undead from afar. I figured the construction process could be fine-tuned a bit, since it''s rtively rough on its own. But with this sort of control-center method that you suggested, I was able to make it all a lot more refined." "Huh, interesting. So basically these hands are the drones that will do the whole construction?" "Yup. Actually, multiple of them can be linked together. One of them will act as the master and the others as the ve drones, and-" "ve?" Eisen raised a brow, and Xenia smiled awkwardly. "It''s a real term for this kind of thing, I didn''t make it up..." she replied nervously, "...anyway, if they''re linked together, they can create more hands, and since the orbs only have a limited range that they can control the hands through, it would be a good idea to make a lot more of them forrger-scale construction." Eisen ran his hand through his beard with a smile, "Interesting. And they''ll take care of everything? What about the enchantments on the rails?" "They can do it, yes. I tested it out before, and while they''re not at the level of what you or I could make, it''s still higher than what you would usually expect from mass-production." "...Huh," Eisen thought for a little while, ncing over at Xenia and the smug grin she still had on her face, "I''m guessing that''s not all." "Yup," she replied immediately, as if waiting for this, "It''s not just restricted to the railway. We can plug in anything we want and have the orbs build it, as long as we give it the materials they need. Buildings, roads... we could even make them farm or mine or whatever else we want. And while I haven''t tested it out directly, they can definitely also be used for item mass-production." The old man raised his brows with a curious expression as he looked at the orb floating not too far away from him. The hands were quite fast at what they were doing; if they could be repurposed, then that would definitely be more than just useful. There were numerous ideas flowing through Eisen''s mind; but there was one first and foremost. "...How many can we send to the giants'' capital for their reconstruction?" he inquired, and Xenia smiled. "By next week... we should be able to spare a few dozen." Chapter 862: Freedom Eisen''s pen traced over the map in front of him as he nned out all the routes for the railroad to be built. Gind was standing next to him, double-checking the map data with her knowledge of the topography of thends that the railway would pass through. "With the current state of the railroad ns, there should be no issue to start the construction as soon as we have the materials prepared," Gind exined, holding her hands behind her back while the old man slowly stood up from his seat. "Perfect. Bring this map to Xenia then, she should be able to have one of the construction orbs calcte the actual amount of materials that we need." "Of course," Gind nodded her head, "However, what do you want to do about the excavated stone in the parts where tunnels will be constructed?" The old man thought about it for a moment, "Well, the way that they''re set up is that all the excavated is momentarilypressed and set aside as bonus materials, and could then be used to fill in any gaps underneath the rails automatically. But we will inevitably end up with a ton of excess... depending on the quality, I would like to reuse them for the bridges that we''ll be building between the inds as much as possible," Eisen exined, "As for the parts that aren''t useful for that... we''ll have thempressed down and momentarily stored in a temporary storage facility on each of the inds. Once the trains are actually up and running, we can transport them to a central storage, and then send them out whenever we do find a use for them." "In that case, I will begin the preparations needed to construct those temporary storage facilities and find people to manage them," Gind quickly replied. "That would be great. But it doesn''t have to be anything special. It''s stone, it can all be left outside. Well, except for that one ind, the one with the Rock-eaters? We might need a barrier for the storage there. I''ll make something for that before we start construction there... especially since that''s quite a mountainous ind, so we''re going to have a lot of tunnels there..." the old man let out a deep sigh. Managing all of this was a lot more annoying than he thought, and until now, he had only nned out the most barebones parts of the railwork; the connections between each of the inds and the location of their ''main'' railways leading to each ind''s central station. On top of that, he worked out the moreplexworks here on the Capital Ind, the one on the ind where the treaty meeting was going to happen, as well as on the two harbor-inds where the different envoys would arrive. Four total. The ind toward the central continent was already in the middle of being developed as a city, since it was the ce where most of the trading with the central continent was happening from, and the ind toward the giants'' country was simrly starting up. Since those were the main contact points, their railworks obviously had to be on the moreplex side to make the transport of both materials and people actually as efficient as it could be. And at the same time, since the Capital Ind was in the dead center of the archipgo, it also needed to act as a hub for travel and transport within the country itself. That meant that three of the four railway and stationworks that he had to figure out were actually the top three mostplex. The only part that made this less stressful was that those construction-orbs that Xenia had created were just as capable in de-construction as they were in the original construction. Once the initial prototype tests were done in the open field at the edge of the ind, the orb cleaned up after itself to the point where Eisen felt confident in letting basically all the materials be reused for other rails. "How is Evalia looking on the ns for the stations?" Eisen asked, and Gind seemed to think for just a moment. "When Ist spoke with her, she was investigating the three other inds for inspiration, and took a closer look at the locations of each ind''s central station, as well as the intermediary stations whose locations had already been set in stone. I believe her and the team of architects and masons apanying her managed toplete arge portion of those stations already, but the central stations are still work in progress," Gind exined. She was the only one that could travel throughout this country almost instantaneously, so she had a lot of information to keep track of. "...Do I have anything else on my schedule for the time being?" the old man wondered, but Gind shook her head, "Not currently, all has been taken care of. However, you did n on improving the prototype for the train and instruct the town craftsmen on how to create the different train carriages soon." The old man ran his fingers through his beard, "Well, thatst part can wait, the train that the envoys will see will be built by me. But alright, that does make things easier. I''ll head to my workshop now, let me know if you need anything." "Of course. Do not hesitate to call on me either," Gind replied, before quickly disappearing in a a blue cloud. Eisen stepped out to the balcony of his study. A part of the railing was missing, since Eisen had removed it to makeing and going easier. The old man quickly stepped off the balcony and transformed, spreading out his wings as he flew to the gardens, dropping down right in front of his workshop. "Wee back," Constant smiled at the old man, "What are you working on today?" "Just making something that I promised I''d make," Eisen replied, rubbing his hand through the guardian''s hair as he walked by, stepping down into the storoage-basement. "And what would that be?" "Some assistants." Constant slightly tilted his head, "Aren''t I your assistant?" "Not for me," Eisen replied as he turned on the lights. He looked around the room and stepped up to the shelves with thepressed crystals and gems, "Gind requested that I make her some Core Helpers so that she can take care of more things. She wasn''t originally built to really take care of a whole country''s business on her own." "Ah, I see!" Constant replied, "How can I help?" "Well, first and foremost, you cane with me and take a seat," Eisen exined, and Constant raised his brows confused. Once Eisen grabbed all the materials he would needter, Constant sat down on a stool, and Eisen squatted down in front of him, "Could you give me your arm?" The core helper did as asked, holding forward his arm. Eisen smiled and grabbed it, pressed his palm onto Constant''s forearm. He closed his eyes, and Constant could feel something intrude. A tiny bit of mana pulsing through his veins,ing not from the artificial soul inside of him, but from outside, from Eisen. This continued for about twenty whole minutes that Constant fought through nervously. And then, Eisen released his hand, and shivers ran through the guardian as he could feel something just... change. "Alright, there we go," the old man replied, "It was really just a small change, but it took me a while to figure out what I could alter safely." "What... what did you just do?" Constant jumped off the stool, "I changed your enchantments," Eisen exined, and Constant''s eyes widened. "Seriously? You mean you- I can go wherever I want now?" "Of course. I should have done this a long time ago, buddy," the old man said, smiling as Constant jumped to him for a hug, "However, you need to be careful. When you''re outside of the original area, you won''t be able to connect to it at all, okay? That means you won''t know what''s going on here, you won''t be able to teleport around, and you can''t just return back here through a teleport either. You''ll be like any other guardian living in town." "That''s fine!! Thank you so much!" Constant smiled broadly, "Do you mind if I..." "Go ahead, I''ll be fine for now. I''ll have someone fetch you if I need anything. Have fun, alright?" Constant immediately nodded his head, rushing out the door of the workshop. Chapter 863: Three Helpers Eisen carefully moved the guardian''s limbs, checking to see that everything was moving right. It was the first time that Eisen had made guardians from scratch that didn''t belong to the base model that he originally got the blueprint for; instead, simr to Gind herself, Eisen created elven guardians. He just figured it might be good for the guardians that helped Gind out to look more like her, and this was a good start to developing other kinds of guardians in the first ce. Though Eisen wasn''t nning on creating a massive amount of guardians, there were always the cases of people that were killed unjustly due to Eisen''s and the others'' involvement, people that were manipted by Samuel that deserved another chance at life, or, simply put, guardians for very specific tasks, just like with Gind. Of course, she already had some assistants working with her; citizens from Prototype that worked together with her to easen her workload, but nobody beside Gind could ess the data of the country the way that she could. But with Core Helpers that were also connected to the country core, that was going to be different. There were a lot of different sets of data to keep track of, and if Gind spent all her time just checking and managing said data, she would do nothing else all day, and that didn''t even include extensive data analysis yet. So, these helpers would make it possible to make use of the Country system moreprehensively, far better than before. The old man took a deep breath and stood back up, carefully setting down the third andst helper on low table outside of the workshop. "Gind," Eisen spoke loudly, and the country core guardian appeared by his side af ew momentster. "Yes, your majesty?" "These are the three core helpers you asked me to make. I''ll wake them up now, so please guide them well, and don''t overwork them too much. That means do not let them work 24/7, let them take breaks, have them properly set up in decent rooms in the castle, and teach them thoroughly but patiently. Understood?" the old man asked, and Gind looked up at him with a bit of hesitation. "You want them to take breaks?" "...What? Of course I do, I''ve been telling you to take breaks all the time too, right?" the old man replied with a frown, "Gods, what kind of man was I before?" Gind slowly replied, "You created us to do these jobs. We do not tire nor need to eat or drink. Why would we take breaks?" "Because you''re people like everyone else too. You can get stressed, you get annoyed, and you can feel lonely and overworked. You all need breaks. You haven''t been taking breaks? Serio!" "Yes?" the town core guardian of Prototype appeared next to the two, looking up at the king. "Have you been taking breaks? How much do you work a day?" "...Regretfully, I have been working 12 hours a day, even though you told me to stop at 8. I apologise," Serio replied, and Eisen sighed deeply. "As long as you don''t work constantly, it''s fine. If you start noticing that Gind is still working constantly, let me know, alright?" "As you wish," Serio nodded his head, looking over at Gind nervously, "...Sorry." The country core guardian closed her eyes and shook her head, "No, no, that is fine. I understand..." Eisen sighed, looking back at the Core Helpers, "I''ll just wake them up now," he said, cing his hand onto each of the guardians'' heads, infusing them with a spark of mana to jumpstart them. It didn''t take long for them to wake up either as their bodies were filled with their own mana from the artificial souls spread throughout them. The Core Helpers slowly got up from the tables, carefully getting used to their bodies. Since they held artificials souls, they were still incredibly malleable, but didn''t know a lot of things yet, beyond how to actually use their own bodies. "My name is Eisen, and this is Gind. Your job is to assist Gind in the job of managing this country. She will bring you to the country core and help you connect to it," Eisen exined, though he didn''t really need to tell them any details just yet. Once they connected with the country core, they would get a lot more informaton on their tasks, and giving them a lecture of everything they needed to know wasn''t particrly useful yet. So, Eisen just said the most important thing before sending them off with Gind, "Please learn more about this ce and who you are. And once you do, pleasee introduce yourselves to me." The three core helpers looked around and at each other, only silently staring at Eisen. They understood his words, but they didn''t know what to do about it yet. And so, Gind carefully led the three helpers away into the castle, where they would be brought to the country core hidden deep below. "Alright," Eisen smiled, watching them walk through the gardens. Serio was still stood next to him, so he figured he might as well ask, "Do you also need any more help?" The town core guardian shook his head, "I am fine with the people that we employed. Since my work is only here within the city, it is much easier to take care of even if those people don''t have ess to the town''s system," Serio exined, before contemting something for a moment, "Though, I can ask the employees if there is anything they could need. I have noticed that there are some inefficiencies here and there, mostly in regard to clerical work." "It would be great if you could do that, please. Just write me up a list and give it to me when you can, alright?" "Of course. Do you need anything else from me currently, your Majesty?" "Not particrly. Oh but I did want to ask, how far along is the preparation of thend for the central station?" Eisen asked. He had been working on the core helpers all day and night, and didn''t really pay attention to anything else all too much, as he generally did. Of course, now that he thought about it, the fact that he was telling the others to take breaks when he himself really didn''t felt a bit... hypocritical. Serio looked into the air for a second and then turned back to Eisen, "Thend has been properly ttened and reinforced. The buildings that stood there beforehand have been fully moved with the special golems that you prepared, and the citizens living or working within those buildings are very happy with their new locations." Eisen smiled with a bit of relief. A central station, as the name implied, should be built in the center of a city. But considering that Prototype hadn''t been constructed or nned with this in mind, there simply wasn''t the space. So, Eisen had built some golem cores that could be buried in front of a building, and it would simply lift the whole building up with the ground it stood on, carefully bringing it through the roads, creating the space for the station that way. "Did we get the n for the central station by now?" "Not yet. ording to Gind, Lady Evalia is working quite hard on the design for the central station. She wants it to be particrly special," Serio exined, and Eisen sighed lightly. He did understand that, and he appreciated it quite a bit, but at this point in time they kind of had to hurry it up. The construction of buildings at that size would take quite a while. Though, worst-case, they can leave sections of the building under construction and just finish the most important areas. "Alright, let me know immediately when we have the ns," Eisen said, ncing at his wrist. He had built himself a clock with two different faces on it, one showing the time in this world, and one showing the time on Earth. Usually he used the system, but since Eisen was trying to wean himself off the system, this was a good improvise. "But for now, I''ll be headed out for a bit. I''ll be back in a few hours," Eisen said with a smile on his face, turning back around toward the workshop. Serio slightly bowed. "Have a good time, your Majesty." "Thank you, Serio. You as well," the old man smiled. He stepped into the workshop, taking a seat on the chair in the corner of the room as he logged out. Chapter 864: Andrews Ploy Benjamin pushed himself out of the capsule and stretched. His body always felt so stiff after being in the capsule for too long. With a slight yawn, he made his way out of his room and stepped into the bathroom across the hallway. After relieving himself and washing up, the old man made his way to the kitchen. It was time for dinner, though a very, veryte dinner. Since the schedule that the five of them lived at was fairly different from normal, the five originals ended up eating alone together in the evenings. Though, Andrew did generally eat with his wife as well, but after his body started adapting to his orcish metabolism, he needed to eat a lot more to avoid going hungry, so he ate five full meals a day instead of three. "There you are! You''re always thest one, huh?" Jasmin pointed out with a raised brow, and Benjamin chuckled slightly as he sat down at the table. "I guess so. I just finished making Gind some helpers, and it took a little longer than I hoped," the old man exined, as Haruo raised his brows. "Oh? Finally, I see! She is always so busy, I''m sure with some extra hands, she could let loose a bit, huh?" he pointed out, but Jasmin just let out a loud scoff. "Gind? Let loose? I''d love to see that one," with augh, Jasmin rolled her wheelchair up to the table next to Benjamin, but from the stove, Natalie protested. "Ohe on, she''s so nice though! She helps me out all the time!" "I didn''t say she wasn''t nice, she''s just all about work, you know? She always brings me so much stuff for me to sign and look over..." Andrew crossed his arms as he leaned back in his chair, "You''re the one that decided to found a goddamnmagic school. You know how much work goes into that?" "Oh, don''t even start, I know that you''re nning on just tacking yourself onto the academy when the basics are all set up." "Yeah. Like a smart person would do it. I''ve got shit to do. How do you think we''re expanding the country at the moment?" Andrew pointed out, "I don''t have time to sit at a desk and sign shit. And even then, I''ve still got to write up tons of reports... Oh, by the way, how''s that training along? Travelling by ship is getting so annoying." Benjamin couldn''t help himself butugh, "We''ve built our country on an archipgo, I don''t think we can ever fully avoid ship-travel." "Yeah, but you know what I mean. It''s just such a hassle, and it''s ufortable, and it takes so, so long..." Jasmin smiled smugly, "Don''t worry, now that Benjamin finished the ns for the railroads, I''ve started preparing all the materials we need. We''re deploying the construction drones soon. And then we just need all the train stations, right?" "Urgh... don''t remind me... I''m so stuck on the design of the central stations!" Natalie let out a loud groan as she started ting up the food, "I want them all to be a representation of the people and the culture and habitat native to each of the inds. It was actually pretty easy for the station on the ind for the treaty meeting. The people living there are this matriarchal ant-folk, right? And they make their homes in thoserge pir-like mountains, and the architecture is so unique and interesting that I got right inspired. But that was by far the easiest one. Like, what am I supposed to do in Prototype? It''s so multi-cultural that I can''t ever decide on anything." Andrew looked over at her confused, "Doesn''t prototype already have its own style of architecture? That, and I''ll add, you designed? I mean, the former you, but still." Natalie let out a long sigh as she ced the tes of vodka-sauce pasta in front of everyone, "I mean, yes... but... I don''t know, there''s something weird about the architecture, that I can''t really put my hands on, you know? Like, an inspiration that I can''t fully grasp yet? But I''m well on my way to getting there, don''t worry!" "Yeah, but... we do kind of need to get started soon, right? Didn''t we n on inviting the people that came to the treaty meeting to the capital for a few days?" Jasmin asked, and Benjamin quickly nodded his head. "That was the n, yes. But we can figure something out. Worst-case, we''ll just have to build the base of the building and then use some illusion magic to fill in the rest. You''ve been working on that kind of thing recently, right?" The old man looked at Jasmin, who slowly nodded her head in contemtion. "Right... The magic that I''ve been looking into was more about hidingrger structures, but I can definitely change it into something like that. Especially if we use some of Evalia''s element, skills and magic, I should be able to set something up that can''t be seen through by anyone. It would be temporary and use a massive amount of mana though, so I don''t know if it''s something we can do for a period of a few days." "Once they''re outside of the station, we could narrow it down to just the outside and then continue working on everything inside if we need to," Benjamin suggested, turning toward Andrew. "What about you? Are the preparations for your ''mystery surprise'' going alright?" "Heh... yup, just caught something perfect for that," Andrew pointed out, and the four others just started staring at him. "You ''caught'' something?" Natalie repeated, "You''re not nning on letting loose a monster on the ind, are you?" Andrew silently looked back at Natalie, before turning right to Haruo, "You didn''t tell them about it, right?" "Of course not, you''re just not the best at subtlety... But, yes, his n is to let loose a monster on the ind with my help and subjugate it nearby at the right moment. Just a small disy of power," Haruo exined, his tail nervously circling behind him. Everyone slowly turned toward Benjamin to see what he was thinking, but the old man was just quietly running his fingers through his beard. "That... might not be the worst idea," Benjamin pointed out, "Of course, you''ve got to do it the right way, otherwise it can have the opposite effect. I mean, look at the opinion that some of the countries have of the wastnds and the orcs in general. Just because there''s a ton of powerful monsters there, they think it''s wild and uncontroble, so orcs have been brandished as barbarians for far too long. If we''re not careful, they might think that of our country as well. Since we''re coexisting with monsters, we''re already too far on the edge anyway." Andrew grinned broadly, "You think I didn''t take that into ount?" Benjamin raised his brow, "What do you mean?" "Well, Komer told me a lot about all the people that areing, and there''s this one guy that is practically addicted to smoking this one specific type of tobo. It''s nothing too special, but ording to Jyuuk, it''s known to attract certain species of monsters. Not an issue if you live in the middle of the capital anyway, as this guy does, but when you''re travelling acrossnds with numerous powerful monsters, that might be a bit too risky, don''t''cha think?" The old man thought for a moment, "So you''re nning on making it the fault of that one individual? Well, it''s not the worst n to make them a bit more meek, but who exactly are you talking about? If we''re already on good terms with them, I''m not sure if I''mfortable with that." Haruo scoffed, shaking his head, "Oh, you don''t have to worry about that. It''s that Bishop from the Holy Empire that camest time as well. The one that was a massive dick." "If it''s the Holy Empire we''re dealing with, then bring three of those monsters for all I care," Benjamin let out a loudugh. "Come on, let''s not talk about that, I put a lot of effort into this dish... I looked up a ton of recipes online and even practiced for like a week in the other world for when my turn came around... I don''t want it to get cold!" Natalieined with a slight pout, and everyone quickly agreed. They were all fairly hungry anyway, and they could talk about all of this as much as they wanted toter. Chapter 865: The Nobles Carriages Eisen stood up from his seat and stretched. He looked at the watch on his wrist, double-checking the time in this world. "Alright," the old man muttered, seeing that everything was perfectly in order. He was about to step outside to work on something, but just as he approached the door, Constant approached the workshop. With a smile, Eisen waited. When the guardian came close enough to the workshop, he suddenly shuddered and stretched his limbs. "Did you conncet properly?" the old man asked, and Constant quickly looked up at him with a massive grin on his face. "Yes! Everything works perfectly!" he eximed, "Again, thank you so much for doing this for me, I... I never thought I could really see the ind beyond the castle''s gardens. Thank you." The old man ruffled Constant''s hair as he stepped outside, "Of course. There''s nothing you have to thank me for, it''s how it should have been from the beginning." Eisen saw the guardian''s almost ecstatic smile as he followed the old man. Curiously, he looked over at him, "So, tell me. Have you made any friends?" Constant flinched. He averted his gaze nervously and looked down at the ground, "I... didn''t talk to anyone... I was just walking around, but I was too scared to say hello..." Eisen raised his brows with a bit of concern. He should have known that something like this was going to happen. Constant had been confined to this workshop his whole life. There waas no way he would actually know how to socialize with others. "I can introduce you to some people next time. You can just go visit them while you''re out sometimes," the old man suggested, and Constant''s nervosity quickly turned back to excitement. "Really? That would be wonderful!" "Don''t mention it, kid," Eisen smiled, approaching the side of the workshop. In front of him stood a train''s undercarriage. There were a few more kept slightly further away, since Eisen wanted to concentrate on one at a time. He was going to work on the train carriages now. He had some things that Evalia drew up for the designs with him a well, so he could concentrate on the structural aspect first and foremost and then work on all the intricate carvings based on what the artist of the team thought would be best. And as for the carriages themselves; it was quite straightforward. They just needed to befortable to ride in on the inside. The only issue was that he was dealing with nobility here. Especially the envoysing from the central continent would expect something of particrly high quality andfort. Not to mention that Eisen wanted to give them something far better than they would usually expect to impress them even more. But first, he had to get started on the base framework. This was done easily by just adding some wooden pirs along the edges. The outside was then fitted with somerge boards, leaving space for the windows that would cover the upper two-thirds of the side walls. Onto the walls, he added simr materials that he had made use of for a lot of Khan''s cabin''s interior. The crystal foam. However, instead of using it for furniture, Eisen enchanted it with temperature-controlling enchantments and some noise-cancetion, as well as a number of protective enchantments that would keep whoever was travelling inside safe. At the end of the day, they were still nobles, so that was a necessity, even if just for peace of mind. Dive deeper into the story on m-vle-mpyr Over that, Eisen ced more wooden sheets onto the inside of the carriage. The roof was fairly simple and slightly rounded, once more leaving some space for windows to be installed on the ceiling. One of the selling points of the trains would be the view that you could experience from within them; Eisen had specifically picked out picturesque routes for the railwaywork, so he wanted to make it as easy as possible for everyone to enjoy the work that was put into it all. The windows were simple ss panes strengthened through some crystals and enchantments that would make them shatter-proof, except for when using a specific other gemstone that would be ced near the windows, an emergency system that you often saw in modern trains and buses. And then, Eisen could get started with the interior. And here was the part that was going to be different for each carriage. Since Eisen wanted to impress the envoys and get them into a good mood, he was going to make each carriage customized toward whatever country in question. Luckily, Eisen already had the list of exactly which individuals were going to attend, so he could actually fine-tune things to their tastes. Komer did an amazing job learning about the envoys'' backgrounds and personal tastes. Eisen and Evalia had already prepared a few different things together, that mostly being carpets, decoration, such as paintings and busts, as well as fabrics for things like table-covers, nkets, and curtains. Of course, since the trips would still end up taking quite a long time, travelling across half the archipgo at a time, Eisen needed to provide them with some beds and things to spend their time doing. For that, he was going to build some customized bookshelves as well and provide board-games that the envoys could y with each other. After Eisen installed the proper flooring and added the carpets on top, he ced some of the pre-made furniture inside. Of course, he had to weigh them down a bit to make sure they wouldn''t move even if it came to some rattling, though that shouldn''t be happening in the first ce due to the shock-absorbant undercarriage. The curtains were hung up by the windows, and the mattress and nkets were all properly ced onto the beds, of course also safely attached. So that each envoy could have some privacy even if multiple were travelling within the same carriage, Eisen added a very simple deployable barrier around each bed that would disallow anyone from seeing inside of it, while allowing the person inside to look out for their own safety. He ced the books into the shelves, keeping them in ce with a small lip ced in front that would prevent them from just sliding out. Jyuuk had also prepared some potted nts and flowers to be added onto the inside to make it just seem a bit more high-ss. Finishing all the intricate engravings on the outside wasn''t hard either, it just took a little while due to theplexity of what Evalia came up with, and before long, the first of the carriages was done... but it was only the first of many. Eisen was going to need to do this not only for the envoys from the central continent, but also for the ones from the giants'' country, obviously. And not only that, but he needed to create servants'' quarters as well, but at least those could all be the same throughout. They would still be high-quality, of course, but most servants usually weren''t as picky and uptight as the people they served. Plus, if any of the envoys brought more servants than expected, it would be easy to expand the chain of carriages. The only issue that might pop up would be the weight of all the carriages that the lotive would have to pull. That''s why the regr train would be kept down in size as much as necessary, to avoid overconsumption of mana, but this train''s lotive would be strengthened as much as it needed to be so that it could handle everything without issues and reach fast, yet safe speeds. Eisen increased his size and carefully picked up the train carriage. By holding it at the undercarriage, he was actually able to see the stabilization on the inside. Nothing was rattling too much, so he was very relieved to see this. The old man brought the carriage to the side, and picked up another one of the undercarriages, getting ready to start on number two. He was probably going to be working on just this for the next few days, but at least it was satisfying work at the end of the day. Plus, these could be great to use as a reference for any other higher-ss train carriages that would be built in the future, not just by Eisen himself. Either way, the work that Eisen was doing now was going to pay off, one way or another. Chapter 866: Time to relax Eisen ced down thest of the train carriages onto the rails, letting out a deep, long sigh. "Finally," he let out, stretching slightly as he ced his hand onto his back. Working on the train carriages was enjoyable in and of itself, but there was something about the fact that he was making them for some stuck-up nobles that drained the energy out of him. At least the ones that he was making for the envoys from the giants'' country left him with a bit more energy in the end. Eisen looked to the side, where Xenia was currently excitedly waiting for him to be done. "Are we good to go?" She finally asked, and Eisen turned toward the trains and carefully nodded his head. Over the past few days, some monsters had been instructed on how to operate the lotives, and apparently, the ''Riding and Driving'' skill was useful for trains as well, which is why they recruited specifically monsters that already had high ranks of that skill. They still needed to be trustworthy of course, but that didn''t seem to be an issue. Serio had run some background checks on them and all the monsters that had been chosen seemed to be ones that worked in close cooperation with them in Prototype until now. They had already been driving the lotives around Prototype''s ind in the areas where the rails had already been constructed to make sure that they could all properly drive the trains. "Give me a little while first," Eisen said, spreading out his wings and shooting up into the sky again. While he knew that the rails were perfectly fine, there was something that he was a bit more concerned about; the bridges between the inds. They were extremely long, massive bridges, something at a scale that wasn''t even done like this on earth. They slithered along the coastlines until reaching the the most effective route, where support pirs could be constructed where the water was even just slightly less shallow. Eisen and Xenia had worked on all the enchantments together to ensure that the bridges could resist the wild ocean of the archipgo, but he was still worried that something could go wrong, but there were also plenty of ''sensors'' set up along the bridges that would immediately report an issue if any part of the bridges were damaged. Luckily, the one thing that they didn''t have to worry about were powerful monsters. With Jyuuk''s help, who had been collecting information on monster habitats all over the country, they were able to select routes with minimal monster interference, and the rest was done through some monster-repelling enchantments ced on some floating buoys near the bridges to stop monsters from evening close. But none of this stopped that Eisen was incredibly, incredibly nervous. This was such a massive project that he had only minimal involvement in; he wasn''t able to do it all on his own, of course, he was only one man, despite what his doubles might make others believe. After double and tripple checking the nearby bridges, Eisen let out a long sigh, "Fine, I guess I''m worrying over nothing, huh..?" At the end of the day, Asgard as a whole and in particr Prototype had some of the best craftsmen around, not just including Eisen. As many of them as possible had been made to help in the construction and quality control, working closely together with the construction drones that Eisen already knew did an impable job. Trying to stop his anxiety, Eisen just flew back to where Xenia was excitedly waiting,nding on the train tform. This was just a temporary starting point while train depot was yet to be built, and since the central station also wasn''t finished yet, this ended up being the best spot. "Alright, which one are you taking?" the old man asked, and Xenia thought about it for a moment, "I think I''ll head toward the central continent. Unless you want to take that one?" "I''m fine with either, don''t worry." "In that case, it''s settled!" Xenia pped her hands together, making her way over to one of the two trains. Right now, it was time to bring the two lotives and their respective carriages over to the harbors where all the envoys were going to arrive. Their arrival was still a few days off, but it was better to get everything there ahead of schedule if possible. Xenia got into the one of the passenger carriages, whichever one she found mostfortable, really, as the train''s engine started rumbling, The wheels slowly started to turn as the lotive began to drag therge amount of carriages. It took a while to really get it going with that much weight, but before long, Xenia was waving at Eisen from the window of one of the middle carriages, and the old man watched the train leave. And then, it was time for Eisen to leave as well. He made his way inside of the giants'' train, sitting down in the ce he felt like he could rx the best, as the soft rumble of the train started. As the scenery beside the window started to slowly pass by, Eisen leaned back in the seat. It was time for him to rx a bit. The reason why he was here was to make sure that the train was going to arrive at its destination safely. In the case of any sort of emergency, Eisen would be able to respond to it right here, and Xenia could respond to it in the other train. However, the trip would take quite a while. Eighteen hours if the train travelled without stopping. And Eisen was basically being forced by the others to just take it easy during the journey. To the other originals that meant ''no crafting of any sort'', but for Eisen, that didn''t really feel fair, so he ended up bringing a few things for himself that he could work on during the trip. But obviously, nothing all too much. Eisen was going to be crocheting. It was something that he took up a long time ago as something that he could do easily wherever he went, even during actual trips. It was an easy way to keep his hands doing something. But at the same time, he hadn''t crocheted anything in a long time. Probably... more than a decade? Either way, it was a good way to spend this train ride. Eisen started feeling nervous when he wasn''t doing anything with his hands for this long. Though, he also packed some whiskey and a book that seemed interesting, so he definitely would have plenty of things to do during the journey. Not to mention, being able to view the scenery like this in this world was a surreal experience. He never could have imagined riding a train in this world. Just the fact that they had created these was a massive step in changing this world. Eisen was convinced that there was nothing Samuel could do once trains were introduced on the central continent; he already knew that plenty of yers wereining about the time that it took to travel across the continent, especially when it came to meeting up with their friends that had to start out in other regions for a number of reasons. Once yers would start hearing that trains were under construction, that was a rumor that even Samuel wouldn''t be able to put a stop to. And then, when the trains were introduced, spreading any sort of new items and technologies across the world would just be that much easier as well. To Eisen, it was basically a given that once the train came to be in the world, Samuel had lost the battle of keeping this world paused in time. Maybe that was the reason why Eisen actually feltfortable enough to try and rx like his friends wanted him to. Knowing that they were slowly but surely gaining the upper hand over Samuel fulfilled him in a deep, almost instinctual way. As though the former Eisen still slumbering within him wasughing, happy to see that bastard''s ploys run into the ground. Eisen picked up the crochet needle and his ball of yarn, quickly getting to work with a slight whistle, enjoying the soft rumble of the train below him. Chapter 867 : Relaxation Eisen walked through all of the carriages until he reached the one at the very end. It was just a ''nk'' transport carriage that was filled with a few materials and provisions that would be needed that Eisen didn''t feel necessary to store in the main spaces they belonged to. But the reason why he came here wasn''t to do anything with these materials and items, though as he walked past, he did grab one of the chairs stacked up in the corner of the room. And then, he walked out to the small balcony-like tform at the end of the carriage. It actually had a slightly smaller interiorpared to the other ones to make space for this. The old man ced the chair down and took a seat, crossing his legs as he looked toward the sunset. Currently, the train was travelling across one of the bridges between the inds. The salty ocean air filled Eisen''s lungs as the bright sunlight made the curving rails almost shine. This was the third bridge that they were crossing. For the first one, Eisen was still a bit anxious that something was going to happen, but by now, he had gotten used to it a bit more. The former Eisen had done many things, but there was still always a limit to what he was allowed to create. Something like this wasn''t on the list. Of course, there were some enormous, impressive constructs spread throughout this world that Eisen likely yed a part in creating, but this still felt different. There were so many new, different factors and dangers involved. Those old structures? Eisen didn''t care if they fell apart into disrepair. Frankly, if that happened, that was probably a better oue at the end of the day. It was what Samuel had wanted to happen. It fit the image of the world he had in mind. But these bridges? They had tost a long, long time. If they broke, it could potentially cause injury or even death in many, many people, and that was something that Eisen wasn''t willing to let happen. Of course, idents always happened, but in a world where all sorts of magic existed, that wasn''t something that Eisen wanted to ept. If there were ways to fly and to cut apart mountains, then there had to be ways to make sure that a train was as safe as it possibly could be. "But... I promised not to worry about that for now," the old man let out a long sigh, leaning back in the chair. He took a sip of the ss of whiskey that he had brought with him, continuing to look at the horizon and the ind slowly disappearing behind it, "I wonder what else I can make in this world, now that I don''t have to hold back." There were a few things that Eisen had in mind already, of course. Phones, for one; a way for people across this world to connect with each other andmunicate instantly. Maybe makingputers wouldn''t be a bad idea in that sense either. Communcation technology in general was a good thing to introduce. Then there were modern appliances, and things that would make the lives of people easier all across the world. But as more people used those appliances, the more it was necessary to provide the people with the energy that was needed. Due to the fact that most technologies were most likely going to be constructed using enchantments instead of regr electroncis, maybe creating a power-grid that could be used to spread mana to individual households could be a good idea. "Though... I shouldn''t understimate electronics either," the old man thought to himself. It was actually a rather easy process to turn mana into electrical energy, due to the transmutable nature of mana. It did require some special and slightly advanced applications of Alchemy and specifically transmutation, but in exchange, it was easy to mass-produce small objects that could turn mana into electricity. Of course, it was also possible to turn mana into ''electric magic'', but that was a whole different thing once again. It was still magic at the end of the day and behaved quite differently to regr electricity from what Xenia had told him, though he didn''t perfectly understand the specifics behind it. Regr electronics like they existed on earth definitely had their benefits, so maybe trying to find a way tobine both of those concepts wasn''t a bad idea. There should be plenty of engineers orputer scientists here ying the ''game''. They could be recruited easily enough to make use of their know-how. He could even try to ask Tony if he wanted to join and help out, but he seemed hesitant to actually start ying the game. Eisen didn''t want to push him to do so either, so he just let it be when he noticed his son''s apprehension. But he really would be a massive help, even if it was just through things he could do while staying on earth the whole time. Noticing what he was doing right now, Eisen let out a long sigh, "I guess I just can''t stop myself, can I?" he muttered. He had promised to try and rx and not think about things like this too much. He had promised to rx, and that was what he was here for. To enjoy the train ride and watch the beautiful scenery unfold around him. He wasn''t here to plot out the future right now. The ride would just take about a day anyway, so it was a good idea to just take the opportunity to take it easy. Eisen took in one more long breath of the fresh ocean air, as a soft smile formed on his lips. --- The train came to a smooth halt. Eisen stepped out from the train carriage and down the steps as its side, stretching a bit when his feet touched solid ground again. He found himself inside of the train station of the harbor ind in the direction of the giants'' country. That being the case, the ind itself was covered in arge, thick forest and was inhabited by a number of different bird-like monsters. One of these species was humanoid and couldmunicate, and were integrating into Asgard quite well. The train station fit very well onto the ind; it was madepletely of wood and provided a number of pirs across the ceiling that the different bird species could perch on. The walls and ceiling were also covered inrge openings that were built in a way to still protect from weather while allowing the native species to move in and out however they wanted to, whether by flying or by walking. As he stepped out from the train, Eisen was greeted by a few of the natives, who had lowered their heads in front of his. They all had features simr to those of an eagle. One of them soon raised his head again. His feathers were decorated with jewelry ced carefully into his plumage. "We greet his Majesty, Eisen de Grandour," the man said with a sharp, powerful voice. Eisen smiled as he looked back at him. "Don''t worry, I''m not here in an official capacity. I was just making sure that the train properly arrived. I take it that you''ll be taking good care of it until the envoys arrive?" The old man asked, as the birdman in front of him quickly nodded. "Of course. We will be ensuring that the train stays well-protected and in good condition," he replied. The way that he said the word ''train'' was a bit awkward since he had clearly never heard of it before, but otherwise he seemed pretty eloquent. Though, Eisen also noticed something else. All these people, as well as the birdfolk hiding out above and nearby, were extremely curious about the train. Soon, this ce would be an important trading-hub, so they had to get used to it. At least they really just seemed curious instead of concerned or anxious. Eisen looked at them with a smile. There were other people that he had to meet with here in townter. It was just decided that the natives were the ones that would actually receive him here. Eisen looked down at his watch. "There''s still some time left, so... do you want to take a closer look?" Chapter 868 : The Harbor Eisen stepped out of the ind''s central station and looked around. The trees were growing far into the sky, and there dozens of buildings that were clearly the birdfolks'' nests hanging from the branches. But that wasn''t all; built onto the sides of these trees, seemingly more recently, were paths and bridges and other buildings and huts clearly intended for those that couldn''t fly and had settled here due to the proximity to the port that had been developed recently. The old man took a deep breath and transformed, spreading out his wings. To make navigating this area easier, he stayed at his basic size and flew around, taking a closer look at the newly developing town. There were numerous different kinds of birds flying around the ind, and the forest''s ceiling was covered in a thickyer of leaves that made it almost impossible to see the sky. Only through some specific spots were you able to see the blue heavens above. Due to how dark this made the town even during the day,nterns were hanging between the trees and branches and alongside the nests. The old man pushed through the forest''s crown, allowing him to properly view the ind. It seemed like this part of the forest was covered with thergest and oldest trees, though there were other areas that still were very impressive. It wasn''t just a single type of tree either, rather, there were dozens of types scattered around. It was a woodworker''s dream, really. Dropping back down below the trees'' crowns, Eisen tried to look around. There were, of course, other critters running around, but there were few and far between. But if it had wings, it was plentiful and rather annoying. Birds and even bugs were swirring around the old man. Of course, the birds were trying to eat those bugs, making them just that much more annoying. The only way he managed to get them away from him was by letting some of his yin demonic energy flow out from him. The cold and dark, the bitterness and the hatred that made up this energy made them practically flee, giving the old man t he peace and quiet that he wanted. Of course, he had to pull that energy back in when hended back in the city to meet with some of Prototype''s citizens, specifically some officials that originally worked in the royal castle or other bureaucratic facilities in Asgard''s capital, that had been sent out to help with the development of this important ind. Though, for the most part, he was just hearing from them what the progress was, what issues there were; things that he already knew. He had read their reports, after all. Or at least, the summaries that Gind created for him. Once the basic discussions were done, Eisen was finally brought to the harbor at the ind''s edges. As Eisen approached, he could see the rows of rows of docks meant for the giants'' usually quiterge vessels. It wasn''t as though the giants'' ships were particrlyrger than therger ships of non-giant species, but they were a lot more uniformlyrge. While giants could shrink down, the materials they carried along couldn''t. That was why almost all of the giants'' ships, even the small ones, were as big as massive ships that would seem to be a spectacle if seen at any harbor of the central continent. That meant that these docks had to be able to ount for this. Of course, they also had to be able to carry not only the weight of the giants, but the weight of the materials and items they transported. That was why, while the rest of the structures were mostly made of wood, the docks were constructed fully with stone so that the maximum weight could be amodated. Even at a nce, the docks seemed to be well-constructed. The train station where the materials would end up being loaded from ship to train was also in a great state, so there wasn''t anything that Eisen had to worry about there. However, the only part he was concerned about was the shipwrights'' dock. Since the focus was mainly on the construction of the main docks themselves so far, the separate area, a bit of a distance away, wasn''t as highly developed as Eisen had hoped. Of course, the fact there were only a handful of shipwrights here didn''t help either. Since they had to hurry things up to make this ind presentable, most of the ships that were currently in the harbor had been constructed elsewhere, most likely on Prototype or the already well-developed harbor toward the central continent. Check out m_vl_em_p_yr stories Especially since Eisen wanted to do a lot of trading with the giants'' country in the future, it was necessary to have arge amount of skilled shipwrights here. However, if possible, maybe Eisen could hire some giants to do the work. It would improve the construction speed quite a lot, especially forger vessels. "...Looks like I''ll have to build some better tools for this ce," Eisen clicked his tongue as he looked around, trying to figure out what other giants would like. He knew what he preferred personally, but other giants seemed to have other habits, which did make sense. Culture developed in a lot of ways, and that extended to craftsmanship. But Eisen was practically stagnant for a hundred thousand years, so he didn''t exactly develop alongside that culture. He influenced it far more than it did him. But then again, he should probably also try and go more into another direction when it came to making tools. Creating ones that took advantage of different monster species'' unique aspects. This ind''s native birdfolk, a species without proper hands, would not be able to swing a hammer in the way that others could. Of course, forcing them to use tools that they both couldn''t and simply had no use for wasn''t something that Eisen was hoping to do; but creating better ways for them to expand their crafts didn''t seem like a bad idea. It seemed as though the ''craftsmen'' of the species had evolutions that sharpened their talons or beaks considerably, allowing them to skilfully carve wood. But at the same time, that still had its limits. So creating something like ''gloves'', or rather ''shoes'', for the birdfolk to allow them to carve wood without blunting or damaging their talons wasn''t a bad idea. Not to mention, it would allow younger members of the species that maybe hadn''t evolved that much, or at all, to train to be craftsmen, maybe unlocking even more special evolutions as time went on. And of course, there were other species that had simr qualities that needed to be properly supported, and Eisen was fully nning on doing so. But for now, the old man would have to make his way back to Prototype. The flight wouldn''t take all too long with the speeds that Eisen could reach at this point, but that didn''t change that it would be a bit annoying. Maybe he had gotten too used to theforts of the train already. Not to mention, in just a couple of days, he would have to fly all the way to the other harbor-ind to meet with the envoys from the central continent. It was something that he absolutely not looking forward to. Rather, he simply didn''t want to do it. But that didn''t change that this was one of his duties. While he was the king, instead of being the one that the envoys actually came to meet, he was simply the ''host'' for the treaty meeting. And as a good host, he should take proper care of the most annoying and generally bothersome guests directly. He could trust the giant side, at least, so he could leave that side to others. Eisen pped his wings and shot back up into the sky. His eyesnded on the rails slithering into the forest in front of him. The trip here was perfectly fine, but just in case, maybe Eisen should just take a look at the rails onest time, to ensure that they were in the best condition they possibly could be. He, obviously, took particr care at checking on the bridges, but they still seemed to be holding up perfectly, though now that he had taken a ride over them himself in the train, that wasn''t something he was as concerned with as before. That being the case, Eisen had to get home for now. There were still a lot of things to prepare and get ready. He had lost a day to the break that was forced on him by his friends. Though, he was grateful in the end. Chapter 869: Addiction Eisennded back in prototype, stretching slightly after his long flight. There was much that he still had to prepare before the treaty meeting in a few days, so his first stop was his study in the castle. Hended on the balcony and stepped into the room, where one of the core helpers that Eisen had recently created was already waiting. They bowed to the old man and spoke, "Wee back, your majesty. I hope you had a wonderful journey." The old man smiled and replied with a nod, "I did, thank you very much. I need to ask, how are all the construction sites looking? Will we need to y some tricks or will they be done by the time the envoyse?" Eisen walked over to his desk and sat down, as the core helper quickly procured some documents from the nearby shelves and handed it to him so that he could check, starting to exin, "At the rate that the work is proceeding at the moment, due to the additional assistance of Lady Xenia''s construction drones, it will be possible toplete the general structure in time. However, the furnishing, decoration, and other finishing touches may take longer depending on the degree you wish to aplish." The old man nodded his head as he looked at the documents. All the sites had the materials and workers they needed, and there didn''t seem to be anyplications on any of the construction sites for the trainstations. On one ind, there was an incident with some monster attacks before the repents were set up, but the guards that were sent out for protection managed to take care of it without issue. "Perfect. Serio?" the old man asked, and without hesitation, the guardian appeared right next to the core helper. "Yes, your majesty?" Seiro asked as Eisen leaned back in his seat. "How is Ambriel''s condition? Has anything happened since Ist checked on them?" Eisen asked, and the guardian quickly started to exin their current condition. After all, Satel had warned Eisen that the angel wasn''t doing well now that they were outside of the castle''s jail. Of course, Eisen had tried his best to help them, but there was a limit to that. Eisen and Ambriel had aplicated rtionship. While Ambriel did rely on him quite a lot, Eisen was still the one that practically violently tore them from heaven just to imprison them for months. No matter the circumstances, that was still what their rtionship started out as. And even though Ambriel was going around, trying out different things with the Originals while they were in town and avable. And while they seemed excited to learn, it was clear that they didn''t seem to have found their actual passion. And that must have felt incredibly damning. Being ripped from your life and everything you know just to be forced to live a new life without knowing where it went and what you were supposed to do was always a horrible prospect; Eisen himself knew it quite well. As a young man, after his father''s death, he contemted whether or not to quit craftsmanship after all as he travelled around the world. Of course, he realised that there was no way for him to hide his love and passion for it, but it felt terrifying nheless. Eisen took a deep breath as Serio started his exnation, "They have fallen into the habit of abusing not only alcohol but certain psychedelic substances. Since then, we have worked with Satel, whose nature is actually quite simr to Serio''s as it turns out, to figure out if this is a physical addiction or a psychological one. ording to Lord Jyuuk, neither Satel nor Ambriel should experience any level of physical addiction from these substances, so we assume that with some psychological help Ambriel''s addiction can be counteracted." "Alright," Eisen replied, thinking about it for a moment. That definitely made things a little easier. It meant that they could concentrate on fully helping Ambriel recover and wouldn''t need to help them persist through the physical withdrawals first, "Have they still been keeping to their room? Or have they started interacting with others?" "It actually does seem as though their habits have led to some improvements in socialisation, thoughrgely out of necessity. Considering their initial socialisation habits, any improvement is arge improvement." "Where are they right now?" "They are currently for a walk with Satel on the outskirts of the city. They have started going on one daily walk together for the past week," Serio continued to point out their current location on the mapid out on a nearby table, and Eisen got up and took a look. "I see. I will go and see if I can go and talk to the two of them," the old man said, looking at the two guardians with a smile, "Thank you two for you work." Serio excused himself with a nod, fading away in a blue cloud as the core helper slightly bowed to the old man. He looked at them with a curious smile, "How is your journey on finding yourself?" The helper raised their head, as if surprised by the question, "...I have found a name that I enjoy," they replied, "I would like to be referred to as ''Moss''." "Then it is a pleasure to meet you, Moss," Eisen smiled, slowly turning toward the balcony again, "Keep up the good work, alright?" Moss nodded their head as a light smileid on their lips, and Eisen quickly made his way out of the study. He transformed and spread his wings, quickly lifting off and flying over to the spot that Serio had pointed out. It didn''t take long to find Satel and Ambriel either, as they were the only people in the area, which did make the situation a bit easier. They could have a proper conversation there. The old mannded in front of the pair, smiling at them as he undid his transformation, "How have you two been?" the old man asked. While Satel greeted him with a smile, Ambriel seemed to be a lot more nervous. They were trying to hide their face behind their hair, as if they were ashamed to face Eisen. "We''re fine, just going for a walk. I hear this ''train'' thing is going pretty well? The station is looking rather grand," Satel pointed out, and Eisen replied with a smile. "Of course, you can feel free to take the train to any part of the country once the fullwork ispleted," the old man exined, and Satel rubbed their chin curiously. "So, how are you nning on making money with that thing?" Satel inquired, and Eisen simply shrugged. He didn''t care too much about that part of it. "Well, not at all, really? Profit really isn''t our focus, at least. People can travel for free within Asgard, but it will probably cost some money in other countries if they choose to adapt the railway system. Oh, we do n on charging a fee for merchants to use our trains within our country though, so there might be some profit there, but who knows?" Eisen exined, though frankly, he wasn''t here for that. Of course, he didn''t mind talking about trains to Satel; telling others about these ns for future development of the world was always something pretty exciting. But he was here to check on Ambriel and have a proper conversation with them, so if he didn''t feel like it might lighten the mood a bit, Eisen would have shot the topic down pretty quickly. He walked together with Satel and Ambriel for a while, chatting with the devil while the angel kept their sight down. However, Eisen couldn''t avoid talking about this next topic forever, so when he found a good moment, he looked at the two next to him. "The treaty meeting is soon," Eisen started, and Ambriel basically flinched in response. Satel looked a bit solemn, cing their hand on the angel''s back for a few moments, "I want you two to be there. You remember that, right?" Satel quickly nodded, "Of course. I''m definitely ready to go, but Ambriel, they-" "N-No, I''m alright, I can go! I can help, really!" Ambriel immediately replied, and Eisen noticed something that he didn''t really like. He frowned lightly, stepping in front of the angel, who once more averted their gaze. "Ambriel, do you... do you think we''re going to throw you away if you can''t help?" Chapter 870: Treant Wood "Ambriel, do you think we''re going to throw you away if you can''t help?" Eisen asked with a slight frown, and the angel carefully looked up at him. "...Of course, why wouldn''t you?" they replied, nervosity clearly written on their face. Eisen didn''t know what he was supposed to say; obviously he wasn''t going to get rid of them just because they weren''t able to help. The only requirement that Eisen held for them was that they tried to be better than they used to be when they were in heaven. Things like their past xenophobia couldn''t go on forever, and as long as they actively tried to unlearn this, there was no reason for Eisen to try and ''get rid'' of them. "Because you''re a person, not a tool. Yes, I would like your help with this, because it will especially make dealing with the Holy Empire a hundred times easier," the old man exined, "You have the right to choose whether or not you will participate in this. I understand that your situation is a bit moreplicated than Satel''s, so I can''t really me you for it if you say that it''s too much for you right now." Ambriel slowly looked over at the devil by their side, nervously trying to see what they thought. Satel sighed lightly, cing a hand onto the angel''s arm, "It''s as he said, if you don''t think you can do it, you don''t have to. But I do just want to say that I believe you''re capable of more than what you might think you are. You''re strong, you''re going through a lot, but you do keep making a lot of progress. Alright?" The angel looked at the person in front of them, ncing down at Satel''s hand that was still on their arm, grabbing it with her own hand and holding it tightly. Ambriel looked up at Eisen and nodded, "Alright... I... I will try my best." --- Jyuuk stood in his botanic garden, specifically in its centre where he was rubbing the underside of a monster''s chin. It was a boar the size of arge bus, with ck tes covering its back. From behind him, Eisen approached curiously, "Oh? You''ve tamed a new beast?" he asked, and the beastman turned around with a smile. "Mhm, I picked him up on one of the inds. He''s going to be the one fighting against Brody during the treaty meeting," Jyuuk exined, but Eisen was a bit taken aback. "I thought you were going to lure a wild monster toward there? Plus, a boar? Isn''t that ind filled with insect monsters almost exclusively?" The beastman grinned lightly and nodded his head, "Yes, but after speaking to Brody, we figured it would be better to use a tamed monster so that we can properly curate the situation. Evalia helped out with some nning to make it a bit more dramatic. And there''s no reason to worry about his appearance," Jyuuk said, turning toward the boar with a smile as he rubbed his hand over the monster''s snout, "Go ahead, buddy." Given themand, the boar took a step back. It shook its body like a dog trying to dry itself after a bath, and its fur practically shed immediately. But none of the strands managed to hit the ground before dissipating, instead revealing the form of a massive, pitch ck beetle, "He''s a Mimic Beetle. They can adapt their bodies based on the things they eat. So I''ve been feeding him a few things that seemed useful in general and training him to be able to mix and match things. I figured the boar''s tusks and its abilities that let it rush forward without break would be useful in making him feel more dangerous to the envoys." While Eisen was certainly impressed, there was still something that was bothering him, "Wasn''t Brody supposed to kill that monster? Just chasing it away might not do the job to the extent we were nning, right?" "Right, but that''s also no problem. I fed it some of this," Jyuuk exined, walking over to one of the nearby nters. On there was a small shrub withrge white leaves that seemed to be surrounded in a cold mist. But as Jyuuk touched his hand to the leaf, it seemed to break away into a mist itself, soon reforming, "A Ghost Shrub, and after feeding it to him, he learned an ability to enter this sort of ''defense mode'', which will render all physical attacks useless. So as long as Brody doesn''t purposefully use his energy, there won''t be any issues." Eisen smiled with a quick nod, "Alright, in that case there''s nothing to worry about. But anyway, that''s not what I''m here for either way." Curious, Jyuuk raised a brow, his tail waving back and forth behind him, "Oh? Anything I can do to help?" "Well, there''s two things. First, will you be there for the treaty meeting itself? I will be acting as the mediator between the two sides, but having you all there would definitely be a good thing. I''ve been in contact with the different countries a couple of times now, but I know you all have been staying out of politics for the most part. Jyuuk thought about it for a moment, and then just shrugged, "I guess I will be there. I will have to be nearby anyway to control Hercules. Oh that''s his name, by the way," Jyuuk exined, pointing at therge beetle still standing behind him, "I might as well show my face there. You seemed very concerned about the way that all the envoys were going to act, so if my presence can help pacify them somehow, then I don''t see why not. As long as I don''t have to participate in the meeting itself, and just need to sit nearby." The old manughed and nodded his head, "Of course, of course. Just sit back and try to be a bit intimidating, that''s all I''m really asking for." "So? What''s the other thing?" Jyuuk wondered, before seeing the expression on the old man''s face, "Hold on, I know that look... Do you want me to help you build something? Don''t you already have your hands full with your train?" "What, can''t a man have more than one project at a time?" Eisenughed, but Jyuuk just scoffed. "Yeah, but you''ve got like a dozen. So what is it that you would like me to help out with?" "Alright so, I need some specific type of wood. I recently remembered some hints at an item that seemed quite interesting," Eisen exined, and Jyuuk looked back with a moment of hesitation. "...Haven''t I bred a few different wood types for you already? Why are you treating this one so special?" the beastman wondered, his tail unable to hide the excitement and curiosity that it always did when Eisen was about to ask Jyuuk for an interesting favour. "Because it is special. I need Treant wood." "Treant?" Jyuuk responded, "Oh, that''s an interesting one. I don''t... no, no, I think I have encountered them before, or at least simr ones. And it has to be treants specifically, and not any other sort of sentient nt?" Eisen nodded, "Right, it has to be Treant wood. That''s one of the only things that I remember about the item''s creation process." "I see... Yes, there might be some Treants on one of the inds, but I first encountered them on the eastern end of the central continent. Does it need to be any particr base wood, though? Treants are transformed and monsterfied trees, after all." "A hard wood, if possible. An oak would probably be perfect," Eisen exined, "Is that going to work out?" "Of course! There''s plenty of Oak Treants. Actually, once I capture some, I should be able to figure out how they work. Maybe I can create some myself? I''m pretty sure there''s some aspects of necromancy involved, since treants seem to have something simr to souls," Jyuuk started getting lost in thought, trying toe up with the best method of acquiring Treant wood, before looking back up at the old man, "So, what is this item you''re trying to make?" "It''s more like a type of item, really. ''Living Items''. Though, they''re not really alive, just items that seem to be able to move on their own given some pre-specified patterns." "...Isn''t that just a golem?" "That''s what I thought, but after looking into it a bit more, that doesn''t seem to be the case. I''ll have to see once I actually have the materials, but from what I can tell, it''s much less autonomous. Like... okay, imagine a self-opening door. A golem would be something that you have open the existing door, while the ''Living Item'' would be the door itself. It looks like it would be possible to create some really interesting, small, physical mechanisms using treant wood. What I really want to use it for right now are gears that will never stop turning." Chapter 871: Treant Wood (2) Eisen had made a request to Jyuuk, and it didn''t take long for him to fulfill that request. Curious to see how exactly Eisen was going to be using Treant wood, the beastman used one his eagles to fly to the nearest location of Treants that he could remember. There, he caught some and started transporting them over to himst night, going through the trouble of not taming them so that Eisen could properly harvest their materials. Of course, Jyuuk also tamed a couple so that he could figure out exactly how they worked, so he may be able to breed his own in the future. In front of Eisen stood threerge trees, trying to push their roots into the ground. They were being tied down with chains so that they wouldn''t move. Each one had arge crack in their bark revealing arge hollow space that practically rotted away. In there sat a dark mist that spread throughout the entirety of the trees'' trunks, enveloping the whole thing and wrapping around the leaves and branches. "You didn''t have to bring them so quickly," Eisen pointed out. He didn''t mind, obviously, but he didn''t like putting pressure on his friends like this. Jyuuk was busy enough on his own without doing favors for Eisen. Jyuuk scoffed and shook his head, "It''s all good, I was actually quite curious myself," he pointed out, ncing at the trees, "You said that using treant wood you can make items that move autonomously, right? I was wondering about that process, because treants seem to be less the actual trees themselves, but more like the mana within the trees that has gained a remnce of sentience. And then that mana maniptes the rest of the tree through its skills and abilities. But without those skills, how is the wood supposed to move?" Curious, Eisen raised his brow, "Wait, it''s the mana that''s manipting the body?" "Mhm, as far as I can tell so far. I was speaking to Xenia about it and she seemed to remember something rted to that, though she hasn''t synced with that memory yet so we can''t know for sure what it was," Jyuuk exined, "What about you, do you remember something now that you''re looking at them?" "...Not exactly, but to me, treants sound like naturally-uring golems," Eisen pointed out, activating his truth-seeing eyes. He quickly saw the flow of mana through the three monsters, and was quite surprised by what he saw, "Oh?" "What is it?" Jyuuk asked curiously, ncing back and forth between Eisen and the trees. "The flow is surprisingly simr to how guardians work," the old man exined, "I mean, that makes sense, guardians are an advanced application of golemancy, and if golemancy works simrly to treants in the first ce, it makes sense that I took inspiration from that in the past..." "Does that mean you could just make those gears with golemancy?" "...I don''t think so," Eisen replied, thinking about it for a moment, "So, if you say that treants manipte their bodies through a skill, then... the guardians are trying to copy those skills, but there''s still a difference there." The old man increased his size, reaching up to one of the leaves. He plucked it from the branch, carefully watching the mana. And with a smile, he nodded his head, "Alright, that''s perfect. A treant can keep track of their mana even some distance away, which most golems can''t. They need to be physically connected to spread their mana. I''d usually use something like crystal threads to conduct the mana if I don''t have much else to work with, but if I use a treant... I should be able to create different parts that are spread out and in direct control of a single core... and maybe if I adapt the mander'' concept I came up with in in the giants'' country, I could even have a single golem with multiple concurrently working bodies... And that''s great, but this actually makes this a bit more annoying." "Hm? How so?" Jyuuk wondered. He still didn''t know exactly what Eisen was going to use those autonomous gears for. "So, basically... I want small parts that move on their own, but without the self-adaption of golems. No matter how precise you are in themands, a golem will always sort of do its own thing at a certain level, which doesn''t work great for precision. I need parts that I can make move at an even speed, and an even strength, forever. But that''s easier said than done." "Why can''t you just use enchantments for it? There''s force enchantments, right?" "Well, yes, but they''re not really the most efficient thing when you''re adding force. Removing force is surprisingly easy, but adding it drains a lot of mana. I''m trying to make something that uses as little energy as possible. Obviously I could do it with enchantments, this is mostly just an attempt at improving my craft and efficiency a bit," Eisen sighed lightly, feeling almost embarrassed, "Truth be told, it''s very easy for me to forget the standards of this world. Yes, most people have some form of magic, but it''s really hard for people to properly make use of it to the degree that we can. Especiallymoners, or people without a decent education end up falling behind just because they have less mana to work with. So trying to minimize exactly how much mana is relied on feels like a good ce to start. Though, obviously, using something like treant wood might not be the best for that either, but I''m just exploring my options right now." Jyuuk listened to the old man''s exnation, nodding his head in understanding, "Right, this world does rely on magic in some... bothersome ways." "Right. Almost everything with some level of convenience uses mana. People with money can hire expensive mana batteries to power them, and those with a lot of mana can just power the objects themselves. But at the same time, we can''t just switch to the systems we have on earth. Yes, there might be new methods of producing electricity other than things like fossil fuels, but it might also be a lot cheaper for them to choose that method at a certain scale. Industrialisation has already damaged our world, I don''t want it to hurt this one. I can''t even imagine what sort of consequences the disturbance of nature and its mana could have on this ce." While Eisen was saying that, part of his reasoning was also just because he felt like this world had been so deeply adapted to mana that it would be easier and faster to advance civilisation by keeping mana at its core, instead of switching to apletely different source of energy. This way they could make use of the benefits of enchantments and magic on top of principles of electrical engineering, simrly to how they created a magic engine for the trains. Jyuuk crossed his arms, "Then how are you going to do this?" Discover hidden stories at m,v l''e-NovelBin "...I''m not sure yet. I feel like there might be a way to do this anyway?" Eisen wondered, "I saw them in my memories, I know that it''s possible to create objects like that, that can move with a literally minimal, less than ambient amount of mana in extremely precise ways, and I know that treant wood is the core of it." With a long sigh, Jyuuk ced his hands onto his hips, "Well, I assume I better get started trying to create more treants for you so I don''t have to keep hauling them here." Eisen smiled, looking over at the beastman, "Thank you, I appreciate that a lot. But for now," he said, picking up one of the treants and uprooting it, "I''ll get started trying to make this work." Before the craftsman was able to leave, Jyuuk looked at Eisen curiously, "What exactly is it that you want to make the gears for anyway?" "Oh," the old man let out, "I didn''t mention that? I want to make clocks." "...Clocks? Those are a thing already, aren''t they?" "Obviously they are, but the ones that currently exist have either extremely high upkeep costs or can only be bought by very influential people in the first ce, or usually both. Even the clock towers require veryplex systems of providing mana for them. If I create cheaper clocks, they can be spread through to smaller viges or towns. That feels like a small, but vastly important thing to start with." Chapter 872: Treant Wood (3) Eisen tapped his finger on the table in front of him. There, he had two different pieces of treant wood. One of them belonged to a treant that was still alive, and one belonged to one that Eisen had just killed. The dead treant''s mana was still lingering in the wood; of course, so that he wouldn''t waste any of the materials so that he could continue testing this as much as he could, the rest of the dead treant''s wood had been stored in a special container that would keep the mana contained in the wood longer. Or rather, it was basically something like slowing time inside of the container to reduce the speed of decay. Whichever the case, it meant that, while Eisen had a bit more time to figure out the qualities and properties of the treant wood before they lost their mana, which could very well be the driving force of the properties that Eisen needed to make use of, he still had to hurry up and properly analyse what he was working with. If he found out that the mana really was the only way to make this work, and he somehow didn''t preserve the wood with said mana, he would be wasting a full treant''s materials and he wasn''t particrly in the habit of being wasteful for no reason. Eisen carefully observed the mana inside of the two pieces of wood as he ran his fingers over the grain and the bark of each one, trying to figure out their individual properties and the changes to the properties of the dead treant''s wood. There wasn''t anything that seemed like it would help Eisen with his goal of creating independently moving parts, but he did notice something else. The treant wood turned considerably tougher as the mana escaped it. Not harder, just less malleable and giving. As if it were undergoing something like rigor mortis, the stiffening of a dead body''s limbs. Of course it wasn''tpletely the same, but it was the bestparison he could think of at that moment. It didn''t take all too long for the dead treant''s wood to bepletely devoid of the monster''s mana, instead just having the same level of ambient mana as any other wood. However, of course, there was something that one had to consider here still; mana infusion. If a material was exposed to mana for a long time, it was going to be infused with it and its properties. Even the flesh, blood and bones of high-rank monsters underwent a simr process, attuning more and more to their mana and strengthening them the older they are, even without the need to actively level up. Even the five ''Originals'' probably underwent some form of extreme process like this in the past. A hundred thousand years of being exposed to a peaked individual''s unique mana really must have changed his body rather intensely. His current body was clearly slightly adjusting to what it used to be like. Either that, or he was adapting to the mana flowing through him extremely fast, which was also a possibility. The growth of Eisen and the other originals was sped up after they had given up their ''experience'' to reset themselves, so if that was the reason he could feel the effects of his mana infusing into his flesh, then that same thing was likely going to happen with the artificials, the yers, as well. They also had boosted growth by nature of being created from pure ''experience'' in the first ce. That being the case, obviously, everything in this world was slowly infused with mana to some degree. It was almost impossible to find someone or something that didn''t hold some kind of mana. Even Brody, who technically possessed an energy different to mana, still held some ambient mana in his body. Though, it was mostly at the same level to that of a small animal or toddler. "I see... so do I just have to infuse the wood with the treant''s mana?" Eisen wondered. That could be a solution, though he couldn''t say for sure. While you weren''t able to acquire someone''s skills for the use of enchanting without that person''s explicit permission, that could rather easily be circumvented by just making use of the treants that Jyuuk had tamed. Then he could put some different types of wood into infusion chambers to see what would happen. But he still felt like there was something... different about this wood. Its rank didn''t onlye from the age, health, quality, and umted mana of the tree that it was harvested from, as was the case with other materials, but it also came from the fact that this wood had undergone evolution together with the actual treant. The mana inside of the tree awakened into a monster, and in that process, even the initial evolution must have changed the wood quite a bit. At the very least, ording to Jyuuk, the forms of treants did change quite a lot during evolution. The wood had to be tougher and more resistant to the elements, on top of the sudden change in size of the tree, obviously. Butpared to what other monsters went through, Eisen wasn''t actually sure that the changes in the wood really matched up. Due to the nature of the treant that Jyuuk had exined to him, Eisen was sure that the wood not only changed to be physically stronger, but also to be easier to control. And maybe that process, or abination of both the evolution and the infusion of mana into it over time, would allow for Eisen to ess something that he could use for the autonomously moving parts. However, first and foremost, he would have to try two other things. First, using the material once the mana subsided, and second, using the material after it had been infused more deeply with the treants'' mana. The rest would have to wait until Jyuuk figured out how to breed the treants. After first figuring out how to make them awaken into monsters in the first ce, Jyuuk would also have to figure out a way to get the treants some monsters weak enough for them to reliably kill, while still being strong enough to give them the experience that they needed to evolve. Eisen remembered that Jyuuk was trying to turn one of the inds into a ''Monster Evolution Facility'' where he would match up different types of monsters in a way to evolve specific individual monsters or specific species to a higher point while pushing them into certain evolutionary directions. He might have to wait until then to get a decent supply of treant wood that he could actually make proper use of. With a slightly disappointed sigh, Eisen picked up the dead treant''s and took out Bai, turning the ego-tool into a carving knife before getting started. He really just needed to turn it into something that he could properly test out. The easiest way to do that was to turn multiple spheres, because this way, even small impulses could be noticed. He carved the wood into some differently sized balls. From half an inch all the way to half a foot, just so that he could have different reference points to test out. And since he had yet to figure out the exact type of enchantment that he needed to make, he also made half a dozen one inch balls that he could test some different enchantment approaches out on before transferring them over to the different sizes. With a thin needle, Eisen started carving a simple enchantment into one of the one inch balls. This one was really just a simple force enchantment, the kind that simply added a specific type of force onto the enchanted object. Eisen already had some regr, non-treant oak balls that he enchanted in the same exact ways that he would test out here, just as a reference point. After all, it was possible that, while not reacting in the exact way that Eisen was hoping, the treant would still reacted better to this sort of control and could be manipted more precisely. Eisen had very little information about the item that he was trying to make. He only vaguely remembered that the base material was treant wood, but there was nothing else in that memory, as it was only tangentially rted to that item itself. But that was fine. Eisen could figure it out on his own, without being handed the knowledge by the past Eisen. Chapter 873: Watchmaking Looking at the number of wooden balls in front of him, Eisen let his mana infuse the enchantments of two of them. They both rolled forward at the exact same speed, at least ording to the speed measurement device that he improvised. It was a simple item that looked at a specific area and could lock onto determined objects, measuring exactly how fast they moved, saving the specific speed at certain intervals. On top of that, it could measure the time it took for an object to reach a specific line; Eisen made this item specifically for this test. And from what he could see, the two balls were moving almost exactly the same speed. One of them was a wooden ball made from regr oak, and another was made from a dead oak treant''s wood. The one made from the treant''s oak reached the ''destination'' fractionally faster, but the top speed between the two objects seemed identical. The only difference was that the treant oak ball elerated a tiny bit faster. Eisen repeated the same thing a couple more times, alwaysing to the same conclusion for these small, one inch wooden balls. "So there really is a difference there. Treant wood is at the very least more receptive to these kinds of impulses," the old man muttered, running his fingers through his beard, "Or, at least with this method of enchantments." Eisen nced over at the other wooden balls that he had made. He had used a few different approaches for enchantments with a pair of treant oak and regr oak; he wanted to see exactly what part the treant wood influenced, so having more reference points wasn''t a bad idea. He swapped out the balls with the simple force enchantment and then grabbed one that was enchanted with a maic repulsion approach. He tested these out a couple of times, and then swapped them out for another pair, doing this until he had tested out all of the different enchantments. And with each of them, the conclusion was simple. The treant oak balls were more responsive to the enchantments, but everything else was the same. And of course, because the treant wood was able to elerate differently, if Eisen adjusted it, he would be able to get the same exact results, just using less mana, which was exactly what he was aiming for. However, he was still just curious about what exactly was going on with these treant oak balls. They elerated quicker, as if the oak had less ''drag''. Every physical object had drag, as mass always wants to keep its state. When it''s static, it wants to stay static; when it''s moving, it wants to stay moving. The heavier the object, the more this was the case, hence why things like cars couldn''t just stop instantly and had a breaking range. In reverse, it took a certain amount of force to get even small objects to move, even disregarding things like friction or air resistance, and with the treant wood, it simply seemed like that drag wasn''t as strong. At least, that was the case when making use of enchantments. Just blowing on the wooden balls and letting them roll down a slope, everything was the exact same no matter which wood it was. However, Eisen still couldn''t be sure if this was the effect of the passive infusion with the treant''s mana, or if it was the effect of the evolution, or a mixture of both. Eisen needed to figure out a way to test each individually, which shouldn''t be the hardest thing in the world. He was currently infusing some regr oak with the treant''s mana to be able to see the effect without any interference of the evolution aspect, and once Jyuuk figured out how to breed treants, they should be able to push one to evolve at a high speed, not giving its body enough time to be properly infused with its mana to any noticable degree. "Actually, maybe Xenia knows a way to reverse the infusion," Eisen muttered to himself. He hadn''t thought about that approach yet, but that was certainly also a possibility. While he didn''t know any method like that, it didn''t sound unreasonable for it to be possible. But for the time being, Eisen had to wait for the oak wood to finish being infused. Eisen stretched lightly; there was something else that he wanted to work on, the thing that he was nning on using the treant wood for in the first ce. Clocks. He had made some watches and clocks in the past, but doing it here was still somewhat different. Of course, he could make self-winding watches, where hand-movement would cause an oscitor in the clock to move, using that energy to wind the watch up. However, Eisen didn''t want to just make any clock. He wanted to make the kind of thing that survived lifetimes. The kind of watch you could forget about for a hundred years and find stored in a cupboardter; something that certainly happened to longer-lived races. Eisen was sure it happened to him plenty of times. Even on earth, he had found objects he hadpletely forgotten about more than a decade after putting them away, and figuring out that these objects still worked fine was always a great feeling and made him appreciate them even more afterward. The watches should be good enough to be heirlooms, and therger clocks should be able to work without needing to be wound up inplicated ways. And for that, you would need some sort of energy source that wouldn''t run out. Obviously that in itself wasn''t possible, but it was possible for Eisen to make a power source that replenished itself. If he could minimize the amount of mana that was needed for high-precision processes, he could make clocks that were runpletely off ambient mana. Town clocktowers might need to be ced in locations that tended to have a higher flow of it, but a small watch might be able to survive off the faintest, barest amounts of mana. That was the goal that Eisen had for this. Luckily, he only really needed a few small pieces to be powered by mana to make a clock work, so he could turn a single treant into literally tens of thousands of watches. But until then, making the watches themselves and making the enchantments as efficient as possible was also important. Even the watch that Eisen was wearing right now wasn''t a regr, mechanical watch. He had created an enchantment that would take care of everything, like the correct rotation speed for each of the six hands, three for earth''s time and three for this world''s time, and then attached the finished hands to it and called it a day. Since he had plenty of mana to spare, he didn''t have to worry about the efficiency and just threw it all together. However, what he wanted to make now was a proper, decent timepiece with all the small gears and springs that a watch needed. For this, Eisen was going to need to make a prototype, and the simplest way to do this was using mana crystals. He could just use transmutation to properly shape the pieces and make sure that he had everything and that the watch worked in the end. And then, he could use those pieces to make a mold to pour metal into so that he could make more watches, marking the pieces that would need to be swapped out for the treant wood parts once he figured that part of it all out. Creating the prototype was really quite easy and didn''t take too long; Eisen''s precision with transmutation was quite high, after all. After creating all the individual cogs, tes and springs, transmuting the springs to make sure they could actually store the energy that was needed properly, he began to work on the enchantment for the central cog that was going to affect everything else in the clock. It was a very simple rotation enchantment, though he had to make it a bit moreplex to make sure that it would run smoothly without any mistakes that might pop up by uneven mana flow or other outside interference. He carefully ced all the pieces into the simple prototype casing that he made, attaching the hands and closing everything up in a way that nothing could happen to the sensitive mechanisms. He turned the crystal watch around and started engraving an enchantment onto the underside, which would allow the watch to gather mana from outside sources, in this case, the individual that was wearing it. And after Eisen turned the dial on the side to adjust the time properly, he ced it onto his wrist next to the watch he was already wearing, and then decided to wait. To make sure that he had created it properly, he was going to need to wait for a while, to see if he needed to adjust the size of any of the cogs or the tightness of the springs. If the watch was off after a while, then he would need to readjust it, and if not, then he could proceed with this piece as a reference point. But either way, he was already quite happy with this prototype timepiece that he had made; it didn''t actually drain that much mana from the user, though it was still a noticable amount that might have long-term effects on someone with little to no mana to begin with. If he could make this more efficient as he was hoping, then he could have it drain mana from the air instead of from people. But for the time being, this was a pretty good start. Chapter 874: Watchmaking (2) Eisen grabbed the small crucible, pouring the liquid hot steel into the moulds. It didn''t take them all too long to cool down either, as the moulds had been specifically enchanted to speed up the process. That meant that Eisen could grab the small parts very quickly, starting to detach the gears, tes, and springs from it. He sorted all the pieces into a smaller, segmented box depending on the specific size and shape of piece, like how many teeth the gears had or how strong the springs were. Once he did, he nced over at the couple dozen wooden casings that he made for the watches that he was about to put together, grabbing the first to get to work. He grabbed all the pieces that he needed, using tweezers to put them into the correct positions. This was a very finicky job, so he had to go rtively slowly, but at the same time, it was rxing enough, letting the old man dive into the work headfirst without having to think too much about what he was doing. Eisen took a few deep breaths as he finished cing thest part of the first watch into the wooden casing. He repeated this for all of the other watches, mindlessly working away at this while thinking about plenty of matters that were bothering him. Mostly, it was concern about what would happen if Samuel managed to somehow interfere with the meeting after all. The meeting room had finished construction, but that didn''t mean that it was totally invulnerable to outside interference. It was always possible that Samuel took over a powerful individual and thenmanded others to cause a mess while the actual meeting was going on. Or, he could always be trying to attack the meeting ce with some powerful monster that Eisen and the others didn''t know about. Of course, that wasn''t the kind of thing that the originals really had to worry about, considering that all five of them were going to be gathered there, but that didn''t change the fact that you could never be too careful in regard to politics. All of the envoys were currently on their way to the harbor inds, and from what Komer had told Eisen in some messages, the people from the holy empire that wereing had already been causing some issues before departure, as was to be expected. They were continuouslyining about the fact that they had to ''entertain monsters trying to y as being people'', something that seemed to be a fairly well-supported sentiment amongst people on the anti-monster side of things. Eisen was positive that they would make a mess of the meeting, whether it was deliberate or not. People like that always said what was on their mind, and what was on their mind were some of the most horrendous things Eisen wasn''t even able to imagine. And considering that giants weren''t necessarily known to be patient, Eisen really had his work cut out to him as the moderator of the treaty meeting. Hopefully the gifts that he was preparing would be enough to at least improve their mood before going into the actual meeting. Eisen was already starting to get a headache, just imagining that whole mess. Not to mention, while the Holy Empire, ironically, weren''t exactly saints, that didn''t mean that the other countries suddenly had pro-monster stances. If giants weren''t one of the species of monsters that was able to live amongst people the easiest, looking practically indistinguishable by the time they''re shrunken down to the average person''s size, this whole thing would be practically impossible anyway. That was one of the reasons why the meeting was happening on that insect-based ind in the first ce. Amongst the whole animal kingdom, insects looked the most ''alien'' to most people, and considering that the native sapient species on that ind were ant-like folk, the envoys would be faced with something even more monstrous than the giants. Eisen and the others were hoping that this would passively, or maybe even actively, help the conversation go along smoothly. It could cause some other issues, obviously, but considering that the ant-folk were citizens of Asgard, the country run by the originals, no sane individual would try to actively mess with them... right? Whichever was the case, most of these things were matters that Eisen and the others would have to deal with if, or when, they popped up. For now, Eisen had to get started with the watch faces. He walked over to the annealer and took out a mould filled with circr pieces of strengthened ss that would perfectly fit into their position. Half of them were the pieces of ss that would be ced over the hollow space with the hands, and one was the actual watch face. The watch faces had a small hole in the middle that the mechanisms connecting to the watch''s hands could be fitted through, and as Eisen popped one of the small discs out of the mould, he took a closer look at the small indents. They looked pretty nice. The hours were simple roman numerals in a font that seemed like nobles would enjoy. And so then, Eisen ced each of the ss tes into a small tub of acid specifically to give them a slightly frosted and more opaque appearance. He wanted the movement of the gears in the background to still be visible while not being all too distracting at the same time. Once the pieces of ss were frosted and dried, it was time to fill in the numerals with some colour. Though specifically, he was going to be using dense rubies, whose red would shine strong within the small indents. Eisen grabbed the gemstone from the table, running his thumb over it. As if he was working with y, he scooped up a small amount that he simply ran over the surface of the first ss disc. The indented numerals were filled in with the ruby through this specific application of transmutation, and once the first face was done, Eisen moved on to the next. He finished them all, handing the rest of the ruby back to Constant who quickly brought it back into storage to the others. As he held one of the watch faces up, Eisen was quite happy with the result. It certainly looked quite high-ss, especially knowing the numbers weren''t just paint, but actual rubies. The old man carefully fitted the faces into the wooden casings, clicking them into ce perfectly into the small groove. He used transmutation to slightly widen each of the faces to make them fit tightly without falling out. And then, it was time for the small, ck watch hands. He really just had to click them into ce into the right parts of the mechanism sticking out through the hole in the middle of the watch face. With that, it was time to ce the other round panes of ss onto the watches, fitting them into their position by clicking a small wooden ring over them into ce, locking everything down tightly. Just like that, the main watches were done. Eisen turned one of the watches around, pouring some mana into the small enchantment on the underside. Different to the crystal prototype, these watches held somepressed mana batteries that would just need to be filled up every few weeks. All those noble envoys would have plenty of people to supply the mana for them, if they were even going to use those watches regrly in the first ce. With some quiet tics, the watch started up, and everything seemed to be working perfectly fine. Eisen turned the small wooden cog on the side of casing and set it to the currently correct time, quite happy with the small item. He was going to pre-set each of the watches to the local time of the home of the envoy who would receive it before gifting it to them. After a slight stretch, Eisen walked over to the nearby workbench and grabbed the roll of leather. Now he just had to make the leather bands for each of the watches. That was going to be an easy job as well, he just had to cut out all the pieces, round out the edges, punch the holes, add the buckles, and then attach the bands to the actual watch. Chapter 875: To the Meetings Island "Is everyone ready to go?" Eisen asked, looking around at everyone around him. The people that were with him were Caria, Melissa, Sal, Sky, and Bree, as well as the Devil and Angel, Satel and Ambriel. Behind them, Fafnir was currently stretching, getting ready to fly. The other ''Originals'' were already on the ind where the treaty meeting was going to be, but Eisen still had a few things to take care of so he stayed behind for a little longer. Simrly, the half-dragon knights and some soldiers had already made their way to the ind to make sure that everything was safe and to familiarize themselves with the environment. "Yessir!" Bree eximed with a slight, yful salute. Her and her brother wanted toe along as well, and Eisen had no real reason to refuse them. They were part of Eisen''s entourage and he trusted them both plenty. "Alright," the old man pped his hands together, "Then get into the carriage and let''s go." Everyone quickly got into the special wooden carriage. Sky and Sal were chatting about some books, Caria and Bree were excited for the trip, and Melissa seemed just ready to take a nap. Meanwhile, Satel was calming Ambriel down a bit, who was clearly growing more and more anxious as the treaty meeting was approaching. Eisen figured he should just leave it to Satel; they were obviously going to do a much better job at calming Ambriel down than he would be able to. Once everyone made their way into the carriage, Eisen fully increased his size, spreading his wings as he entered his true demonic form. He wrapped his hands around therge handles at the top of the carriage and carefully lifted it up while looking over at Fafnir, "Let''s get going, boy." Excited, the living dungeon quickly started running and lifted off the ground just a momentter. Eisen quickly pped his wings and lifted off the ground as well, though he was being more careful so as to make the ride easy for the people in the carriage. The old man sped up more and more, soon catching up to Fafnir, and the two were flying right next to each other. Of course, while Eisen was flying in as straight a line as he could, Fafnir was having a lot more fun with it all. He had really gotten quite good at flying at this point, something that Eisen was really more than happy to see. At the speed that the two were flying, it only took them a little over an hour to get to their destination, the ind of insects. Eisen could see the structures built in the distance, with the two most prominent ones being the meeting hall and the train station. Of course, therge pirs that were the ant-folks'' homes were vastly impressive as well, but they were natural structures that had simply been turned into the ants'' homes and blended in perfectly with the arid environment. The old mannded on the za near the train station, carefully letting everyone out of the carriage. Once they were out, Eisen pressed down on its top, starting the automatic fold-down process, so that Eisen could ce the carriage into his item storage. However, as this was happening and the others were looking around curiously, some of the native citizens were starting to approach. Eisen had already been here before, albeit briefly, so they all recognized him as the king of the country they had only recently be a part of. Beings Ants, they of course understood the concept of that kind of hierarchy, so they quickly came to greet him. "Wee, your majesty," one of therge humanoid ants, tall enough to reach Eisen''s hip, clicked her mandibles as she greeted him. Eisen smiled back at everyone. "It is a pleasure to be here. Please be well aware that there will be other peopleing to this ind very soon," Eisen exined, but the one that came to speak to him slowly nodded. "We have been told. We will greet them well," she replied, and Eisen grinned lightly. He was happy that the ant-folk were clearly willing to be an integral part of Asgard, but that didn''t change that he was slightly excited to see the reactions of some of the people that were going toe here for the treaty. Eisen didn''t want to bother the ant-folk, but at the same time, if anyone tried to mess with them, the originals had some perfect excuses to exert a bit of pressure over their country. Asgard was nothing but a neutral host; anyone that ended up causing trouble here was the one that was fully to me. It didn''t take long until someone else entered this za; Kiron quickly approached the old man and the crowd of ants-folk. "Grandfather, wee," the half-dragon smiled, and Eisen quickly walked up to him. "Has everything been working out well on your side?" Eisen asked, and Kiron immediately nodded. "Yes, we have fully observed the ind have cooperated with the natives in finding even hidden tunnels and cave systems." "I see, that''s perfect," the old man replied, looking down at the watch on his wrist, "The envoys from the central continent looks like it will arrive first. Have the other knights bring them to the meeting hall personally." "Of course," Kiron nodded, "We have also stationed some guards around the city. We are working together with the natives'' militia and provided them with some items to show they are now part of Asgard''s military as well." Eisen smiled, happy to see his grandson''s leadership. Putting him in charge of all of this was a great idea. Technically Brody was the head of the military, but he was better during actualbat than he was in managing personnel outside of a war-context. That''s why Kiron took over that part here for the time being. That being the case, Asgard''s military was already well-structured, -trained, and -trained, so Kiron had an easy time taking on a leadership position here. It didn''t take long until the group entered the building surrounding the meeting hall, soon entering that protected space itself. Once there, Eisen felt morefortable talking about some other matters with his grandson, "Have you noticed anything that could hint at Samuel''s interference?" The half-dragon quickly shook his head, "No, it does not seem like anything has happened in that regard." "Alright. Let''s hope it stays that way," Eisen replied with a slight sigh of relief. If possible, he wanted Samuel to just finally stand down and understand that this was a lost cause, but at the same time, there was no way that he would simply let that happen. It was already clear that Eisen and the others were nning on doing something about the Dragon War that was slowly but surely starting to unfold in the central continent, so taking a loss in both sides was something Samuel would never just take without some kind of retaliation or attempt to stop it altogether. Eisen and Kiron stood in the meeting room. The others were being led to their bedrooms for the next three days while the treaty meeting was happening so that they could unpack and rest a bit before tonight, and even Fafnir was brought to a spot where he could sleep and rest without being disturbed. But the two weren''t alone for long, as soon, Xenia came into the room. "Eisen!" she waved at the old man, "I was wondering when you would finally show up!" "Just arrived around ten minutes ago. Is everything going alright on your side?" "My side? Oh, you mean double-checking the array?" she asked, looking up at therge dome right above them, which had deeply intricate patterns engraved into it. This was the dome that was blocking any sort of ess from Samuel. And while it had a practical purpose, it was also aesthetically beautiful enough to not fall tpared to all the other art that Evalia had put up all over the ce. Xenia smugly crossed her arms, "I''d say it''s going pretty good. I haven''t noticed any weakspots in the array." "Perfect. Oh, and have you seen Silber?" the old man wondered. He had alsoe here ahead of time, and Eisen was really wondering what he was doing. "I haven''t seen him. Maybe he''s just taking a look around the ind? It''s quite pretty," Xenia pointed out,and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "That does sound like him," Eisen replied, though he was still curious. Before leaving, Silber had mentioned something about ''helping out''. And considering his brother''s personality, Eisen was a bit worried about what exactly ''helping out'' really entailed. Chapter 876: Arrival of the Envoys Eisen closed thest button on his shirt, adjusting the cor as he stood in front of the mirror. He slightly pulled on the chain of Kirisho''s amulet to slightly pull the chain links apart. They tended to get stuck in each other sometimes. Maybe he should try and fix that soon. With that thought, Eisen ced the amulet under his shirt. The cold metal pressed against his skin, and he could feele Kirisho''s mist moving under his clothes, as if hugging him. The old man smiled as he grabbed his tie, cing it around his neck. He thought for a moment, and then tied it into a specific knot that he figured would look good with the material, giving the almost fully ck suit a better appearance. The red threads that he used to sew the suit together popped and gave the whole thing a nice underlying detail. Experience new stories with m v|-NovelBin The suit that he was wearing now was one that he had only recently made, and the fabric had a custom pattern ced onto it, where parts of it had a slight shine and other parts were matt fabric. These patterns also had a purpose, being an enchantment to increase the efficiency of Eisen''s charisma and charisma-rted abilities, allowing him to be more specific with the intentions he wanted to bring across. Eisen put on the suit''s jacket, closing one of the lower buttons. He ced a folded handkerchief into his chest pocket and readjusted the sp of the watch on his wirst. "Alright, time to go," Eisen said with a slight smile on his face, ncing at the rings braided into his beard onest time, before Kirisho''s mist flowed out of his sleeves. Her body formed as she wore a ck dress with simr patterns to those on Eisen''s suit. She was copying an item that Eisen had prepared for her, but this one was made of her own mist. Eisen held out his arm as she wrapped her own around it, and the two stepped out of the room together. The first train had just arrived a few minutes earlier, and the envoys of the central continent were on their way straight to the meeting hall. When they got here, Eisen wanted to be the one receiving them all. He didn''t want to give them the slightest opportunity at causing a mess. The old man and spirit by his side stood in the entranceway of the meeting hall''s building. The one that was approaching first, instead of the envoys, was Komer. He was looking around excitedly, and quickly approached the pair. "Eisen!" he eximed, and the old man stretched out his arms, giving the young man a quick hug. "Komer, d to see you''ve made it! How did you find the train?" "The train was amazing! The view out of the window was just... I can''t even describe it!" The old man looked at the merchant with a smile. He had gone blind a long time ago, so Eisen didn''t know if he had ever had that kind of experience before. He was d he could give that to him here in this world. "So, how did the trip go otherwise? Did the envoys behave?" The old man asked with augh, and Komer''s smile immediately dropped. "I... don''t even joke like that. It was¡­ horrible," Komer replied, rubbing the bridge of his nose to get rid of his headache, "Don''t get me wrong, most of them were wrong... but the few that were bad, were... bad. That one guy, Van Horgh? The Archpriest? He was apanied by some others under the guise of apologizing, but they''ve been acting absolutely horrendously the whole time, insulting the monsters of Asgard. At least Aaron was there to help out a bit. Because of course, a ''mere merchant wouldn''t know anything about honor and truth''.. but when the prince of Litgern spoke up in support, they couldn''t use that argument anymore. But seriously... they''re so annoying." "Don''t worry, we''ll shut them up," Eisenughed with a quick wink. In the distance, he saw therge group of envoys approach, led by the half-dragon knights. However, at some point, they stopped. Eisen wasn''t sure what was going on, but they were all looking at the meeting hall in shock. Sure, it was beautiful, but it wasn''t to the point of- Just as Eisen was thinking that, the ground shook. And that was when he realised what his brother had been up to. The old man let out a long sigh as he watched the envoys'' guards take up their weapons. Even the half-dragon knights were startled, because of course they were. Silber had just increased to a massive size beyond what any other giant was capable of. They were seeing a monstrosity beyond what any of them could have ever expected. Even the giants that were arriving soon would be dwarfed inparison. Eisen wanted to get up there andin to Silber, but obviously he couldn''t do that while the envoys were literally in sight. He just had to sit here and watch it all unfold with a smile on his face. Though, that being the case, it wasn''t a bad idea. It certainly showed off Asgard''s might. Realizing what was going on, the half-dragon knights calmed the envoys and their guards down, continuing to guide them to the meeting hall. They soon arrived, and the envoys bowed to Eisen, one after another greeting him. Once they were done, the old man slowly nodded and smiled. "Wee, I hope you had a wonderful journey here," Eisen said, taking a step to the side, "Pleasee in, we have people that can lead you to the bedchambers we prepared for each of you." Some of the envoys quickly did so, but not without trying to exchange a few more brief words with Eisen. They knew that they weren''t here to meet with him directly, but at the same time, they couldn''t let up the opportunity to build up some level of goodwill with him. Some offered gifts, others were speaking of trade or were trying to tter him. But it was all just empty words that Eisen frankly didn''t care for. He would dly ept the gifts, and trade was never a bad thing as long as both sides gained something, but that was Komer''s expertise, so all that would go through the merchant group Starlight that was directly affiliated with Asgard anyway. But then, there were just two groups left. For one, the envoys of Litgern, led by Aaron, and the envoys of the Holy Empire, consisting of three Archpriests. One of which was Van Horgh, the one that was directly trying to convince Eisen to let the Holy Empire ''manage'' the inds, just because they were somewhat connected to the gods. Those of the Holy Empire approached Eisen first. "It is a pleasure to meet you, your majesty," one of them said with a quick bow, "I heard that mypatriot in faith was rather insulting to you thest time he was here. For that I would like to apologise, and present some gifts to you to make up for it." The Archpriest waved his hand toward the people apanying them. They were carrying statues and other religious effigies. They were fine. Their quality was... subpar when considering what Eisen was used to, but that wasn''t necessarily their point, anyway. The old man smiled, "I see. Thank you, I will make sure to present these to the churches across our country that will be able to truly appreciate them. I''m not a particrly faithful person, you see," Eisenughed slightly. Though he could tell the priests were a bit bothered by what he was saying, the old man really didn''t care. He turned toward Van Horgh, his smile quickly disappearing, "Van Horgh, it is very nice to see you again. But really, there is no need for an apology like this. None of your words would be able to bother me to that extent." "I-" Van Horgh opened his mouth, but Eisen simply ignored him, stepping past them toward Aaron, someone he was actually genuinely happy to see. The prince of Litgern, the country closest to Asgard, was a good, upstanding young man that had a close rtionship with Asgard from the very beginning. "It is wonderful to see you again, your majesty," Aaron said with a smile as he bowed forward, but Eisen justughed and shook his head. "Likewise, Aaron, my boy. I hope you enjoyed the trip in our ''train''." "The train! Yes, Komer had mentioned it to me before, but I truly did not know what to expect before I saw and experienced it myself. Would you mind exining it to me a bit more?" Aaron asked excitedly, and Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Of course! It would be my pleasure," Eisen replied, as he personally led Aaron along the halls, while the envoys from the Holy Empire were left on their own. Chapter 877: Arrival of the Envoys (2) Eisen guided Aaron through the building, right to the rooms that each of the envoys were going to stay in. Of course, they were each given a private room that was filled with whatever they would need. There was a small distance between each group of rooms, so that the different countries'' envoys could have a bit more privacy. Of course, the envoys from the giants'' country were going to be staying in the other east wing, while this was the west wing. Each of the envoys entered their rooms to take a brief look around, and their servant soon ced their belongings inside for them. Aaron quickly came back out, "That is quite luxurious for the space," he pointed out, and Eisen replied with augh. "I guess so. If there''s one thing we don''t need to hold out on it''s luxury," the old man said bluntly, and Aaron immediately nodded. "That seems to be quite clear. Once again, that ''train'' was truly... a marvel, was it not? Could I ask, how did you create it?" Aaron asked, before catching himself in his question, "Oh, I apologise... I did not mean to ask you to divulge that information, it was merely true curiosity." Eisen shook his head, happy to hear Aaron''s honest interest, "No, no, don''t worry. It is quite a relief to hear you be so excited about it. We are currently working on integrating the railwaywork into our whole country. Truthfully, the idea of you being interested in it is quite calming." "It is immensely interesting, your Majesty! Do you think it would be possible for Litgern to develop something simr?" Eisen raised his brows. This was going much better than he had hoped already, though he should have expected this from Aaron, anyway. He always had a good eye for these things, and Eisen was pretty sure that Komer told him a bit more about it as well to show just how big a change the integration of the train would be. And if Litgern, a leader inmerce and development in the central continent, started making use of trains, then others would be incredibly interested to follow suit. Right now, most of the envoys could only report the concept, but a prince was in a position to report and suggest something like the train much more easily. And if Aaron spoke of the train highly during some gatherings with the other envoys, then that would only increase the importance of it in their minds as well. "I can do you one better," Eisen replied, "I can teach your country how to create the exact ones that we have built. It would be a rather big transaction, but we generally don''t have anything against selling you the blueprints." Aaron''s eyes widened as Komer let out a slight groan. Eisen understood what Komer was thinking; the fact that Eisen showed his willingness so clearly would make it harder to drive up the purchase price of the blueprints. And while Eisen would like to use the train to create a stronger rtionship between Asgard and all the countries of the central continent, he really wasn''t looking for profit here. He just wanted the idea of the train to spread throughout this world. The prince excitedly looked up at the old man, struggling to contain his excitement, "Are you sure? That would be even more amazing, your Majesty! Please, let us-" "Don''t worry," Eisen stopped Aaron, "There''s no need for us to discuss it here. That''s not your reason for being here, anyway. Please, focus on the treaty with the giants." Aaron pulled back, realising that his behavior was unbing of the situation he was in, "Of course, my apologies!" "If there is some downtime, I can show you around the train station, if you would like. But any deeper conversations, nning, and especially something like a sale of the blueprints, will only happenter. Rather, we wille to you ourselves so that we can show the train to the people of your countries." Aaron''s brows immediately shot up, "Countries? So, your intention is to sell the train to other parties as well?" Eisen let out a loudugh, "Caught me there. Yes, that is my n. Why would I keep something as wonderful as the train to myself?" Aaron smiled lightly, "In that case, would you mind being a bit more light with the price we have to pay?" "Aaaah!" Komer quickly stepped inbetween the two, "That is going too far! Aaron, you know I''m not going to let that happen, and Eisen, please shut-" Eisen raised his brow with a smirk on his face, looking down at the young man, who carefully continued speaking, "... p-please be quiet..." "Don''t worry, Aaron is a friend. I''m not going to try and pull one over on him." "Well, we''re not pulling one over on Aaron personally. We''re pulling one over on the nobles of Litgern." Aaron narrowed his eyes, looking at the merchant before speaking up hesitantly, "I don''t... I don''t know what to think about that." "Then don''t think about that and justpletely ignore it!" Komer suggested, before looking back at Eisen, "Now, there are some more things I would like to talk to you about. Do you mind?" Eisen looked at Aaron, "Let us continue thister. For now, please recover from the journey. We will be holding a banquetter tonight, but if you feel hungry before then, please just let someone here know and we can prepare something for you. That includes your servants as well, of course," the old man said, looking at the maids and butlers that were standing by near them. Aaron nodded, "Of course, thank you very much, your Majesty. Thank you for your hospitality, and arranging this meeting in the first ce. It was also a pleasure to meet you, your Majesty''s consort," Aaron bowed to Kirisho, and she returned a slow nod. "Likewise, prince," she replied, and the prince made his way back into his room. The old man then turned back to Komer. "Alright, let''s go somewhere we can talk properly," the old man said, and him, Kirisho, and Komer quickly made their way to the meeting room. It was still closed off for the guards and servants, so the only ones in here were the other originals just lounging around. "Yoo, Komer! How''s it going, kid?" Brody yelled out with a wave as they entered the room. He had thrown his feet onto therge table, and Eisen clicked his tongue as he looked at his friend. Experience new stories on m v|l e''-NovelBin "Sit down properly, you''re going to wrinkle the suit," the old man said, but Brody just scoffed with a very obvious shrug. "So what? Is anyone gonna tell me even if they''re bothered by it?" "Yes. Me. I''m bothered by it. So please, sit down properly," Eisen replied, and Brody just let out a long, deep sigh as he pulled his feet from the table. He stood up slightly for a moment to straighten out his shirt and jacket, and then sat down on his seat agian. "Happy?" "Happier than before," the old man pointed out, as he sat down on his own reserved seat. The other originals would only be here to receive the envoys and during the more casual gatherings, so Brody and the others were each seated on a random chair. But Eisen had a dedicated seat, as he would be acting as the moderator of the treaty meeting, guiding it along properly. Komer just sat down on one of the other nearby chairs, and Kirisho sat down on the chair closest to Eisen''s. "So, how was the trip? How did you find the train?" Xenia asked curiously, and Komer immediately turned to her with a broad smile. "It was wonderful! I''ve ridden in trains before, but this was even morefortable," he pointed out, and Xenia smugly nodded her head. "Perfect. Correct opinion," she said with her arms crossed, and Eisen smiled as he looked at the merchant. "Alright, before the giants arrive. You said you had something to tell us." "...Right," Komer sighed loudly, "I don''t have proof or anything, it''s more of a gut-feeling. But... I don''t think the Holy Empire has any intention of truly aiming for a peace treaty." "Well, of course, we kind of knew that already," Evalia pointed out, "They''re going to cause a mess, but it''s not like they can go against the giant country on their own. They''repletelyndlocked." "Yes, but... it''s more than that. I think they want to cause an incident to directly incite a war, one way or another." Chapter 878: Impartial "They want to start the war right away?" Eisen asked with a deep frown, "What makes you say that?" Komer groaned lightly, "I overheard them speaking during the journey. It looks like the Holy Empire wants to re-solidify the status of monsters." Brody scoffed, "The hell''s that supposed to mean?" Turning toward the half-orc, Komer quickly exined, "With yersing in, there''s tons of people that don''t really agree with the status quo that''s set up here. ''Artificial'' Tamers are taming humanoid monsters and making them more intelligent, having them help out in businesses..." Without even having to finish, it was clear what Komer was saying. The fact that there were a lot more monsters that were treated rtively well, had high intelligence, and were in a public-facing position like many yers seemed to be putting them in must be slowly but surely whittling down on the current thoughts that people had of monsters. If the stigma around monsters became lesser, beast-type monsters would start being treated more like animals, and humanoid monsters would be treated more like people. To countries like the Holy Empire, who believed and spread the idea that monsters were abominations in the eyes of the gods, that was more than just some kind of annoyance; it was something that they had to prevent in order to keep up their current status quo. The idea that monsters were ''lesser'', horrendous beings was something that was deeply spread in their doctrine, so many people might lose their faith if they realized that monsters weren''t actually inherently evil. "So, what''s their n? Have they said anything about trying to get physical, or will they try to just make the meeting break down?" Eisen wondered, since both seemed feasible enough. Komer slowly shook his head, unsure what to say. "It could be either, or both, I''m not sure. I just heard them speak about how this meeting ''has to fail''," Komer exined, though he seemed quite sorry about not being able to say any more than that, "I''ve taken a closer look at their guards, and from what I can tell, they''re pretty strong. In the level 200 range at the very least. There was something weird about their luggage as well;pared to everyone else, they were even more cautious, and got super mad when others got close. It''s kind of what caused part of the mess at the harbor." Eisen turned over to the other originals, "Do any of you guys have an idea of what to do?" "Well... I''ve been preparing some music that has pacifying effects that we could y throughout the meeting," Evalia suggested, "I was going to just use the piano instrumentals, but if I add the others that I recorded, it should strengthen the effect pretty well." Xenia, who was taking some notes on a piece of paper in front of her, slowly nced up, "I should be able to cast a ''Silence'' spell over the room in addition to everything else we have here. It doesn''t actually silence us, obviously, but it prevents any sort of spell chanting and severely reduces skill effects. But it''s also going to affect us." "I could quickly go and grow some Peace Lilies. As their name suggests, they represent peace and harmony," Jyuuk offered, "And with the addition of some selective breeding, I''ve been able to make it possible for them to pacify even a raging berserker if enough of them are gathered. And they aren''t particrly calming, they simply neutralize aggression." "Pah, we don''t need all that," Brody leaned back with a yawn, "Not like anyone''s gonna try anything with me here. Plus, I bet they all shat their pants the moment they saw Silber." Eisen let out a deep, long sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "I really don''t know why he did that. Would one of you have any idea?" The moment Eisen asked this, he noticed Jyuuk and Brody ncing at each other, though they both stayed quiet. "You two. Did you tell him to do that?" Eisen asked, raising his brow, but Brody quickly denied it. "What? Why would we tell him to do something like that?" Jyuuk quickly nodded in agreement, "Right, we merely said that it would be quite effective to crush any sort of interference from them." Eisen let out a long sigh, "Brody, Jyuuk... all that did was make the people from the central continent think that we''repletely on the Giant country''s side. The only reason why I can appear as a neutral party is because I''m a halfling, and my activities in recent centuries have been mostly focused in the central continent. But Silber will just look like a giant to them; a giant that''s trying to intimidate them." "Well, yeah... that''s the point, right? They''re supposed to be intimidated," Brody pointed out. "Yes, but not only them. Those from the central continent will be intimidated, and think that we''re more o nteh giants'' side. Meanwhile, the giant envoys will be happy to see the symbol of their country happily and healthily greeting them. They will also think we''re on the giants'' side." Evalia seemed a bit confused at that, "Aren''t we on their side?" "What? No, we''re not. Why would we be? We''re not on anyone''s side, we''re on the ''let''s prevent this damned war'' side," Eisen said bluntly, "The giants are more receptive to preventing this war because they know about Samuel, but they definitely won''t step back from a war if provoked. We are here to be neutral. To guide this in the right direction. To unite the two sides; we are impartial. Do any of you actually feel drawn to one side more than the other?" Everyone seemed to hesitate, unable to really answer that question. "Right? I feel the same," Eisen exined, "I don''t think it''s a good idea for us to be too partial to anyone here. So what Silber is doing up there? Not good. At all. But I can''t really tell him to stop now. If he doesn''t receive the giants in the same way, it''s going to be much too obvious as an intimidation attempt." "Hm... right, you''ve got a point. Sorry about that," Brody replied with an awkward sigh, "But really, it''s not like we actually told him to do it. We were just brainstorming ideas and he was nearby and helping out. He seemed pretty confident, and he''s a smart guy so we figured he''s goot at politics, y''know?" "Good at... everyone, Silber has been a statue for nearly a hundred thousand years. Countries were not even a thing back then. We had ns, and towns, and viges, but the biggest city that existed in the country at the time held a hundred giants," Eisen pointed out, "I doubt Silber even knows the concept of politics beyond what he picked up in the past two weeks." "... The time you grew up in was really rough, huh?" Xenia looked at Eisen with an almost pitying expression, but before the old man could say anything, Brody let out a loud scoff. "Oi, I was only born twenty thousand years after him, so stop acting like he grew up in the stone age," Brody scoffed, and the others looked at him silently. Komer was actually the one to speak up. "You know... human civilization on earth started around 6000 years ago. Plus, the stone ages ended around 4000 years ago," the merchant pointed out. Brody stared at him confused. "Huh? What''s with that? How much did we fucking stunt civilization here?" "A lot. And that''s exactly why a war is thest thing we need," Eisen sighed, "Listen, skills and abilities and techniques have had a hundred thousand years to develop. The only reason this world isn''t far off in the space age yet is because we were forced to hold the world back from developing too much. All we need is to jumpstart things, and this world will explode in technological development. Enjoy new adventures from m-v l''e|-NovelBin And the first step to that is to stop this war and prevent Samuel from interfering with this world any further. If things work out, this world might be caught up to earth in a decade or two." Curiously, Evalia leaned her cheek onto her palm, "Ehh... so do you guys think we can get to the moon here? And others? This ''world'' is more like a whole other dimension with its own universe, right?" "Hm... Travelling to the moon, that sure does sound fun," Xenia leaned back in her seat, and the others seemed to think the same. However, at the same moment, all five of the originals felt the same thing. A sense of nostalgia that, considering the timing, could only mean one thing. Evalia jumped up from her seat, smiling wryly, "Guys... have we been to the moon?" Chapter 879: Arrival of the Envoys (3) As the next group of envoys arrived at the meeting hall, Eisen once more waited to greet them. The giants, all shrunken down so that they could properly walk the roads in this city, seemed to be looking around curiously. Giants weren''t particrly known for being travelers, despite the fact they could cross continents at the fraction of the time others could. They usually stayed in the environments they were most used to, so a ce like this was definitely a unique experience to them. Though, excitement wasn''t the only thing on their face; the envoys from the cloud giants in particr seemed more disgusted than anything else. But of course, for the most part, their eyes were settled on Silber, whose figure was still towering over the meeting hall. And as Eisen expected, different to the central continent''s envoys, the giants were rather excited to see Silber. This was exactly why he didn''t want to do this. Trying suppress a groan, Eisen just waited for the envoys to arrive, greeting them one after another. Not to mention, about half of the envoys that came here from the giants'' side were the n chieftains. With the exception of the cloud giant envoy, all the ones that had been in favour of preventing the war, whether it was because they were on Eisen''s side or because they didn''t want the war in the first ce, hade here. The only reason the cloud giant chieftain wasn''t here was because he was still suffering from the side effects of being taken over by Samuel during the chieftains'' meeting. He hadn''t died, but he was practically bedridden at this point after the block he had ced on himself was broken through. And there was one more individual that Eisen was actually almost shocked to hear hade here. The king of the giants himself. Having the Kinge here definitely put a lot of pressure on the envoys of the central continent, but the people that came here from their side were specifically trained for these matters. Discover exclusive tales on m,v l''e-NovelBin The kings had to stay in their countries to keep things in line, instead sending high-ranking officials and nobles, such as Aaron. But the structure of the giants'' country was different; the king was more of a leader of the chieftains, holding them all together. That was why, even if just temporarily, he could be reced by a group of other giants, even if they had less effective power than the king on his own. On top of that, the giants'' king always had a history of leading the charge for things like this. Wars, politics, important battles against powerful monsters; the giants'' king was usaully at the forefront of these encounters. And that wasn''t any different here. "Eisen, I hope you have been well," the giants'' king said with a smile on his face, and the old man quickly nodded. "I have been alright. Keeping busy, as you may have noticed," Eisen replied with a weing smile, "How have the reconstruction efforts been?" "Everything has been proceeding wonderfully," the Irngrad exined with genuine happiness in his voice, "We have received those ''construction drones'' that you prepared. It took a little while to figure out how to make them work, but once we did, the reconstruction speed sped up a dozen times over. Truly, I cannot thank you enough." Though the king was about to bow, Eisen quickly stopped him by cing a hand onto his shoulder, "There is no need to be like that. It is the least I could do to help even after taking my leave." The Irngrad smiled back at the old man, ncing upward, "It looks like your brother has not lost old habits yet, has he?" A bit taken aback by the unexpected joke, Eisen let out augh, "Well, he''s been a statue for a hundred thousand years, after all," he replied, as the Grandour quickly stepped up to him as well. "More importantly..." he started, and Eisen already had a feeling he knew what the fire giant chieftain was about to ask about, "That ''train'', just what is that wonderful invention?" "Right! It was so... incredible," the Irngrad agreed, "We were able to cross such a long distance without stop! There was no need for horses or to worry about the wind!" Eisen wasn''t able to hide his smile. If not only the king but the ones that were directly in charge ofrge territories were interested in the train, then spreading it through the giants'' country would be an incredibly easy task. Not to mention, if the giants were interested, that would naturally help raise the interest of those from the central continent. Just having the envoys report that the giants were adapting the technology would make them want to do it as well. After all, whether or not a war was about to happen, and even if they didn''t actively show this sentiment, the nobility from the central continent''s countries would never let the giants have superior technology. They didn''t even want other countries of the central continent to be technologically superior, so allowing that to be the case for the giants would probably never happen. And so, Eisen quickly replied, "It''s actually rather simple to construct them, though much harder to perfect. Xenia and I worked together to develop the motor that runs it all, and it works off mana. We have actually been working out some data to see how the railway will influence the internal development of our country; I don''t mind sharing some general prognoses." The Irngrad''s smile quickly dropped, "... You were counting on our excitement, were you not?" "I don''t know what you''re talking about. More importantly, how about you each make your way to your chambers for the time being to recover from the trip? There will be a banquetter tonight, so resting should be your main priority." "A banquet? We''re not gettin'' right into the meeting?" the Grandour asked with a puzzled expression, and Eisen slowly shook his head. "It would be better for you all to recharge your energy before such discussions. I personally feel quite tense right after travelling for so long, and a banquet would be a good way to let off some steam, right?" "... That''s a good point," the Grandour replied, though he did seem a little annoyed. Knowing exactly what was at stake, Eisen definitely understood why the Grandour wanted to get started soon, but rushing into this really wouldn''t help anyone. Not only would the banquet help everyone calm down a bit and lose the tension that this city naturally brought with it, but it also allowed all the envoys to get used to each other a bit more. The best case scenario was for just a single conversation between some envoys from the opposing sides. And even if it was just Aaron doing so, which Eisen could very well imagine, just a single conversation would help open the path to a treaty so, so much more. Eisen had the giant envoys lead to their rooms, and now that this was done, he could finally do something he was practically dying to do. He stepped outside, handing his jacket to Kirisho. His button-up shirt specifically had slits in the back to allow Eisen to transform, so he quickly did so and flew up to Silber. The massive giant soon spotted Eisen, a light smile forming on his face. "Oh! How did-" "Be quiet! Shrink down, you-" Eisen tried to hold back from yelling at his brother, but it was more important to make sure that the envoys couldn''t overhear Silber speak. Considering his size, that was almost impossible even if Silber whispered. The giant quickly did as told, soon standing on the rooftop, and Eisennded by his side, "Alright! So, how did it go? Were they intimidated? That was the goal, right?" Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose, letting out a loud groan, "Silber, just... why would you do this? No, actually, I know why, so don''t answer that. Rather; never do this kind of thing again before speaking to someone that knows what they''re doing. Okay?" "... Should I not have done that?" "It would have been better if not, but it is what it is. Can''t change it anymore now. But in the future... just do not take political advice from Brody and Jyuuk." Chapter 880: Mysteries The meeting hall, with the tables and chairs removed, had now been turned into the banquet hall. A lot of different food had been prepared, with most of it having been prepared by Eisen himself. All the ingredients were procured either through Jyuuk''s farming or Brody''s hunting as well. Your next read awaits at m v|l-e''-NovelBin The music and decoration was taken care of by Evalia too, using some assistance from Xenia to cause some magical effects in the air, turning the ceiling of this banquet hall into a beautiful night sky like you could only see in your dreams. Before long, most of the envoys had gathered in the room, making casual conversation with each other. Of course, the giants and the envoys from the central continent were basically split across the middle of the crowd, not interacting with each other all too much. There were also those like the cloud giant envoys orthe envoys from the holy empire that didn''t seem to want to engage with anyone at all, be it the other side of the uing meeting or their own. Of course, there were a few individuals that seemed a bit more ready to make conversation, one of them being Aaron. But even he didn''t seem particrly confident in simply walking up to them considering the atmosphere in the room, so a certain merchant quickly came up to him to help him out. "What are you doing? You''re acting like a little boy in love," Komer scoffed lightly, speaking to the young royal that he had recently befriended. Due to the work that Komer was doing for Asgard, he was basically the main contact-point for everyone that wanted to have anything to do with Asgard at all, and that included Aaron. As they already shared a friend in Benji, they ended up getting close rather quickly. "Oh stop it, I''m simply trying to collect my thoughts. Matters like this shan''t be taken lightly," Aaron exined, nervously straightening his tie, but the merchant just let out a long sigh. "What, you''re not used to this kind of thing yet? Just go to talk to them, they won''t do anything," Komer sighed, patting the prince on the back, "Come on, I''ll introduce you." "Wait, you already met them?" "Hm? No, not at all. I''m just going to introduce myself, and then introduce you," as if it were perfectly obvious, the merchant walked forward as Aaron nervously followed behind, trying to regain hisposure. Once in front of the first of the giants, who Komer recognised as the Grandour, the two quickly bowed. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I''m Komer, the head of the Starlight merchantry," with that quick introduction, Komer hoped to break the silence between the two sides, "I haven''t had the opportunity to visit personally yet, but I hope to do so soon." The Grandour raised his brow curiously, "Starlight? That was the group workin'' for Eisen, right?" "Well, working with Eisen and the other originals, but yes," Komer corrected quickly, "While we are directly affiliated with the country of Asgard, we are still a separate party. At least officially." Seeing Komer''s slight wink, the Grandour let out a heartyugh, "Ya''ve got some guts, eh?" he pointed out, pressing his hands onto his hips. "I appreciate thepliment," with a smile, Komer nodded to thank the Grandour, and then slowly held his hand out toward Aaron, "But more importantly, my friend Aaron here wanted toe talk to you. He''s quite the curious man, and has always heard stories of your country." The grandour looked at Aaron with a curious expression, "Is that so? Well, it''s very nice to meet ya. I''m the current Grandour, the chieftain of the fire giant n." Aaron quickly nodded his head, "Yes, of course! I have heard a lot of stories about you! I was very excited to meet you since I heard that you created your workshop in the volcano near the fire giant n''s capital!" "Hm? That story spread all the way to the central continent? And here I thought I had kept it under pretty good wraps," the grandour muttered quietly to himself, as if he was actually quite annoyed about this fact. But in the end, Aaron quickly shook his head, "I don''t believe that it''s amonly-known fact, but just a small rumour that I''ve heard around a few times... I''m the Crown Prince of Litgern, we get plenty of travellers ready to tell us stories from across all the world. Of course, they''re usually exaggerated, but if you heard grow up listening to stories like that, you learn to pick up on themonalities and nuances of different versions." Surprised, the grandour raised his brow, "The nuances? Could I ask what exactly you mean?" After a bit of contemtion, Aaron seemed toe up with a pretty good example, "For one, I heard there was an ancient, evil fire dragon inside of that volcano that you had to defeat. The term ''Fire Dragon'' generally refers to the Red Dragon, but chromatic dragons outside the central continent are practically unheard of. Metallic dragons would make a bit more sense in that regard, but there''s no metallic dragon that enjoys the presence of such high heat," he started, but he didn''t even give the grandour any time to either refute or agree with what he said before he continued, "Not to mention, while smaller than other dragons, ancient red dragons are amongst thergest dragon species. And the region around the fire giants'' capital doesn''t have any exposed volcanoes, but vast underground caverns, so the ''volcano'' in question must have been an underground volcanic cave, but there''s no way that an ancient red dragon would make its way down there voluntarily where it''s unable to escape easily in case of an attack. Older chromatic dragons are quite paranoid, after all. Of course, there''s always the possibility of it having retreated for safety, but in that case it probably would have tried to converse instead of attacking directly... so basically, I assume rather than a fire dragon, it was something akin to a Smander?" The grandour had listened to the prince''s exnation, and in the end slowly nodded his head, "You''re correct. It was a smander, but the story that spread was that it was a dragon. This specific one had evolved powerful scales, and after I returned with a scaled, somewhat draconic-looking armour after creating my workshop, the story that it was a dragon apparently started to spread. I didn''t bother correcting them, but I haven''t heard anyone figure out that it was a smander instead. Or at least, they didn''t tell me directly." Clearly curious to see what else this young man could do, the grandour quickly waved over someone, "Yo, kid,e over here for a bit." Hearing the grandour call for him, the young man quickly stepped over. Compared to all the other giant envoys, he was wearing the most extravagant clothes and seemed to have some of the best etiquette. Though rather than it being ''good'' etiquette, Aaron figured it was probably just more correct to say that the man was trying to keep up the etiquettes moremon on the central continent. Aaron knew that the giants'' country was a bit different culturally to Litgern or the other countries of the central continent, so he already expected that none of them would care about things like etiqutte the same way that Aaron was used to, but this clearly wasn''t the case with this man. And it didn''t take Aaron long to figure out who this man was either; it was the Irngrad, the king of the giants'' country. He looked at Aaron with a light smile, bowing forward just so slightly, "It''s very nice to meet you," the irngrad said, slowly turning toward the grandour, "So, what is it you called me here for?" "The capital''s got a lot of rumours and mysteries right? You got one fun one you want to run by this kid to figure out?" Aaron''s stomach quickly dropped. He didn''t know how ''knowing to discern truth from within rumors'' suddenly became ''figuring out mysteries'', but he felt like he shouldn''tin about it all too much. Aaron wanted to build up a friendly rtionship with the giants, and especially because they had to be here while shrunken down, Aaron wanted to be a bit more forting toward them. He would just give it his best shot. As long as he made his exnation interesting, it shouldn''t be a massive bother even if he was wrong about the mysteries, right. The irngrad cupped his chin curiously, "You''d like to try your hand at one of our mysteries, huh? Well, I would have a pretty good one in mind..." Chapter 881: Mysteries (2) Eisen looked down at the banquet using a camera drone that he had ced onto the ceiling beforehand. The screen floating in front of him very clearly disyed a view of the giant envoys huddling around a certain young man; Aaron. From the things that the drone''s microphone was able to pick up, they were talking about some local myths or legends and mysteries from across the giants'' country, seeing if Aaron was able to figure them out. And from what Eisen could tell, he was able to rationalize and exin most of those mysteries. But really, it didn''t matter what they were talking about. Whether it be mysteries or the weather, anything was better than the stiffling silence that had filled the banquet hall earlier. With the conversations of the giants and Aaron now filling the hall, it seemed like the other side, the envoys from the central continent, were slowly starting to converse with each other as well. Since they didn''t have to worry about their voices being the only ones to fill the space, they seemed a bit morefortable. Of course, they were really just talking to their own side, but as things went on, Eisen was sure that the mood would improve. Especially once Evalia''s performance startedter. Once the overall atmosphere of the hall turned much lighter than before then maybe the envoys from the two sides would start talking to each other a bit more. "Are you ready to go in?" Kirisho asked, seated beside the old man. She had ced her hand onto Eisen''s arm, and he slowly ced his own hand onto her''s. He nodded his head and slowly stood up, waving away the screen of what the camera drone was currently seeing. "Sure, let''s go. No need to push it back any further," Eisen replied, as the two carefully made their way out of their room. They stepped through into the banquet hall, and the moment that they did, the air changed once more. Attention was quickly pulled toward Eisen, as though everyone was hesitantly looking toward him. But before long, the giants seemed to move on. Most of them weren''t wary of Eisen, and they had only just greeted him a few hours ago, so they didn''t feel the need toe over to him right away. With that, though the central continent''s envoys still seemed tense, the atmosphere slowly returned to something more lively. Eisen walked into the room, quickly making his rounds. He went toward the people closest to him, making small-talk. He asked them again how their trip went, a bit more in-depthpared to when they just arrived, asking if they enjoyed whatever random gimmick he gave their specific cabins. Of course, Eisen also asked some things that Komer had told him to talk about; things that these individuals would be interested in. Industry, art, merchantry, anything that could hold their attention and that could get them talking a bit more. Before long, a small crowd had started to gather around Eisen, and the old man nced over to the crowd on the other side of the room. Komer, who stood at its edge, locked eyes with the old man. Eisen briefly nodded, and Komer returned it. He turned to Aaron and the giants, joining the conversation that he had mostly pulled out of until now. This continued for a little while, until Komer guided Aaron and a small group of giants, including but not limited to the Irngrad, the Grandour, and the Bralfam, over to Eisen. Without the envoys currently gathered around Eisen really noticing, they were approached by Komer, who quickly bowed forward. He knew that these guys really put a lot of value on etiquette, and Komer had learned everything that he needed to learn to ensure he could treat everyone here with the level of respect that they expected. Though of course, right now, he had to be a little rude. But considering the context and the fact that Eisen stood right here in front of everyone, they wouldn''t be able toin about it. "I''m sorry Eisen, but do you mind if I interrupt for a moment?" Komer started, smiling lightly as he looked at the old man. Eisen quickly shook his head. "Go ahead. Is everything alright?" Eisen asked with a curious expression, though he of course already knew what was going on. Komer quickly replied with a nod, "Yes, of course. But we were in the middle of a curious conversation, and I figured we could use some help," the merchant quickly looked over at one of the envoys, smiling invitingly, "Lord Targia, your country is known for its dairy export. I heard that you overproduced cheese at some point and had to resort to storing it underground, correct?" A bit taken aback, the man nodded his head, "Ah... yes, it was about a decade and a half ago. We were supposed to exportrge amounts of hard cheese as rations for arge-scale exploration of the eastern continent. But then a kraken appeared in the sea-route that was supposed to be used, so the exploration was pushed back a lot. Only five years ago were we able to get to the eastern continent for said exploration." "I see... But aren''t krakens a nomadic species? Why did it take you ten years to recover the sea-route?" the Irngrad wondered, ncing over at Komer. He seemed to be curious as to why they were brought here. The thing that they were talking about earlier was the sudden rapid expansion of the southern forests of the eastern continent. Why were they suddenly here talking about cheese and krakens? Hesitant to answer, the envoy from the central continent nodded his head, "W-Well... the sea-route we found had unique currents that were supported by a specific species of eel swimming through that part of the ocean. As the kraken was there, that species was led to flee." Once more, the Irngrad curiously looked over at Komer, who was just nudging Aaron''s side. But Aaron was already deep in thought, trying to figure out what was going on. He cupped his chin with his hand, trying toe up with an exnation for it all. "Ah..." Aaron finally let out, "So that''s what happened," he muttered understandingly. "Huh? What happened? What''s the kraken got to do with our forests?" the Grandour asked, and as the other envoys seemed a bit confused, Komer quickly filled them all in. "We have been ying a small game. This world has numerous confusing parts and mysteries that we often assume to be the work of magic. But most of the time, they have rtively simple exnations. We''ve been trying to see which mystery has which type of solution; magic or logic." The envoys seemed to understand, and Targia slowly looked back in understanding. Though he was hesitant to engage with the giants, he was still a bit curious and confused, and the others seemed to think the same. And so, Aaron quickly chose to exin, "It''s pretty simple, actually. The currents of the ocean and climates of the particr regions mean it would be most benefitial for the eels to migrate from their old spot all the way to the giant country''s western coast, where the giant Roc Bird breeds at the oceanside cliff. With therge amount of food that the Rocs now gained, the reproduced faster. To build their nests, Roc birds gather cotton, so the giant''s country had to resort to sheep''s wool for a while, right?" The Irngrad slowly nodded his head, "That is correct." "And your country has a nt called the ''Wilderberry'', right?" Slowly, the Irngrad seemed to understand, nodding his head at Aaron, "We do, however, the Wilderberry only improves the physical growth and function of the physical body, but it doesn''t boost growth." "Are you sure about that?" Aaron replied with a slight grin, "The farmers who kept sheep were now feeding the Wilderberries to them, increasing the speed that the sheep''s wool grew. And then, the sheep digested those berries, their... dung took on a certain quality that was potent enough to change a forest in just a couple of years." The Irgngrad silently stared at Aaron, trying to see if he was correct, "The digestion changes the properties of the wilderberry? Intriguing idea... So what do you-" However, before the king of the giants could continue, he was quickly interrupted by one of the other envoys from the central continent, "Y-You have nts that can allow you to speed up the growth of sheep''s wool, and maybe even that of a forest?" Chapter 882: Planned Ahead Eisen took a step aside as the n started unravelling. Komer seemed quite proud of what was happening right now, and the old man certainly understood why. When Komer suggested this earlier, he wasn''t quite sure, but now that everything was actually happening, and maybe even better than they had hoped for, Eisen had no reason whatsoever to doubt Komer. Though, he never did in the first ce, really. There was just so much at stake here right now that Eisen wasn''t totally sure about these kinds of maniption, but considering that it was fairly harmless even if it failed, he had agreed to let Komer give it a shot. The n was simple. Since Aaron had always been a particrly intelligent young man that was interested in such matters, Komer suggested to use Aaron as the first bridge between the central continent and the giants. An icebreaker, of sorts. And then, once the atmosphere had improved, Komer coaxed the giants over toward Eisen once a good opportunity presented itself. With the talks of that kraken, which inadvertedly led to the rapid expansion of a forest in the giants'' country, a new ''mystery'' had been solved. Of course, until that point, all of these mysteries were conversation topics that they picked up for fun. There was no real consequence to it. Experience tales at m v|l e''-NovelBin However, with that, the knowledge that the giants'' country had such special fruit that could not only improve the amount of wool that could be produced, but could also be an extremely powerful fertilizer at the same time, was something that the people of the central continent wouldn''t leave up. After all, the very existence of that fruit was something that could lead to a very specific thing; money. And a lot of it, at that. As that was something that interested most of the envoys from the central continent, it was the perfect topic to start some conversations between them. After they spoke of those fruit, the topic moved on to other special products that the giant country had to offer, and simrly, the envoys from the central continent tried to brag about products that the giant country may need. Just like that, even if it was less of a conversation of leisure and more something like aworking event, as long as they started talking while trying to be nice to each other and make positive impressions, it literally did not matter to Eisen. He nced down at the merchant standing next to him. "So, is this what you had in mind?" Eisen asked, and Komerughed lightly, shaking his head. "Oh, not at all, I thought it would be much, much less than this. But the giants were a lot more open and friendly than I expected, so the crowd that Aaron drew was bigger. And that led to more peopleing over to you, as if to ''match'' the giants. It all worked out much better than I thought," Komer pointed out, holding his hands together behind his back. With a smile on his face, he looked at the crowds of people interacting, splitting into smaller groups to talk about specific topics. But the important part was that these groups were mixed between the two sides. Eisen couldn''t help himself but smile, patting the young man''s shoulder, "You''re really quite clever, huh? What, did you manage to figure out everything that those guys could be interested in from the beginning?" Komer''s grin didn''t drop, but he simply shrugged, "What can I say? Culture is business. And what else is culture but the stories that people leave behind, influencing those around them for generations toe? Things like those mysteries or rumours or myths... it''s important stuff to know if you want to do business at the scale I am." "You''re quite incredible, you know? Your brothers really never stood a chance against you," Eisenughed slightly, but Komer once more shrugged. "Well, they''re definitely still trying. But at this point I''ve got such a massive repuation because of you that they can''t really do anything. Merc and Cial keep trying to undersell me in certain nich¨¦s, trying to use that to break out into the broader market. I think Merc''s most recent attempt was mass-production of low-strength items for new yers, and Cial went more into the direction of doing ressource-based trading. I think they should realize pretty soon that neither of that will help them out in the long run, though," Komer grinned broadly, and Eisen curiously raised a brow. "Is that so? What exactly are you nning?" "Well... basically, it was always kind of stupid for Merc to try and go against us in the item-game, but it''s not necessarily bad for us. The items he sells aren''t ''bad'' or anything, so I don''t feel bad about letting him sell to yers. But weapon- and tool-sales for yers up to level 50 are massively inted because everyone wants to try out whatever they can before settling too much into any particr direction, and if we want to keep up the quality that we have for our mass-produced items, we would never be able to keep up with the demand. So we''ve been rxing on the lower-levelled items and instead improved the production cycle for the items the step right above those. Our prices sank while keeping our profit margin roughly the same, so both our prices and quality are better than what Merc could ever hope to catch up on considering we''re still improving too, so... he''ll be stuck in the business of low-level items until he can pivot into a whole different market, but he doesn''t seem to have much of an intention to do so. I think he''s still underestimating exactly the scale that Starlight is working at." Eisen listened with a curious smile, nodding along to Komer''s exnation. Considering that to most people, this was still ''just a game'', it was easy to see why they would underestimate exactly the hard work that went into all of this. Of course, that was something that would change with time, but right now, it was understandable. Putting Komer into a position where he could understand the weight behind all of his actions was incredibly benefitial to his growth as a merchant, "So what about Cial? Peddling ressources seems like a fairly safe thing, right?" Komer just shrugged as if it were obvious, "Well, sure, but we''re about to spread the train to the central continent, right? It won''t take long until the cost of materials and ressources will drop to the lowest they''ve ever been, just because the transport costs will be astronomically lowpared to what they will have been before. Not to mention, Starlight is obviously going to have thergest fleet of private trains in the continent, so... Cial probably won''t be able to do much against that." "I''m very d we managed to get you on our side. Wouldn''t want to go against you in terms of business," Eisenughed, but Komer quickly shook his head. "Oh, trust me, I would have been doing anything I could to get on your side if I hadn''t been from the beginning," Komer grinned. Just then, the subtle sound of music started spreading through the room. Evalia stood on the slightly elevated ''stage'' at the edge of the room, ying her violin. Behind her, other instruments were set up together with colourful, extravagant figures that she was creating with her magic. It was a group of string instruments, where Evali was ying the lead, apanied by her own spells. The music drew some attention for a short while, but in the end simply ended up improving the mood as the conversations continued on. While they all started with business, it seemed as though they were slowly but surely moving toward more casual conversations when everyone rxed a bit more. The mood was improving, and Eisen couldn''t help but be impressed by how good everything was going. Of course, not everyone was really partaking; each side had a small group of troublemakers that didn''t seem happy about this all. And as expected, the ones at the center each of those groups were the Cloud Giants and the Holy Empire respectively. But that was to be expected, and their behaviour had properly been ounted for already. However, that was fine. Not everybody had to be happy or cooperative, as long as the overall mood was developing how Eisen liked, those guys could do whatever they wanted. Chapter 883: Poisoned Puffs "Oh man, no matter how I often I eat this stuff, I just can''t get over it..." Brody groaned after swallowing the food he had stuffed into his mouth. The old man stood next to him justughed lightly. "Do you really find it that good?" "Do I- yes, of course! I can''t cook for shit. I mean, I can, but just at the same level as over there. All the fancy cooking techniques use mana here," the half-orc said with an annoyed voice, and Eisen looked at him with an empathetic smile. It was true; almost all sorts of craftsmanship-based skills used mana, and since Brody didn''t have any, he couldn''t really make use of those techniques. Though, it did seem like Brody managed to figure out his own techniques in the past where he would be able to use his internal and external energies for some unique crafting and cooking techniques, the current Brody had been unable to recover the memories of how to use those so far. Eisen patted his friend on his back, "Don''t worry, I''ll make you all the food you need. You guys are feeding me over there, after all." With a scoff, Brody shook his head, "Nah, that''s just natural, ain''t it?" While wiping away some crumbs stuck to the sides of his mouth and tusks, Brody turned around and away from the standing-table, looking at the crowd. The banquet was going quite well thus far. It almost seemed like people were making friends, and Eisen couldn''t help but be grateful for the mood-affecting items, spells, and art she had ced around the hall. They weren''t strong enough to call it mind-control; rather, they worked in apletely different way. But even so, they were extremely useful in making all of this go by smoothly. It seemed like the others on Eisen''s side were having a good time as well. The kids were mostly sticking around each other, but Evalia was using her break to y with them a bit right now. Bree was being social and talking to everyone. Her and her lover Dien, the monster-blooded frost mage that was Xenia''s assistant, were happily speaking particrly to the giants, though some of the people from the central continent seemed to be opening up to them as well. Sky was talking a lot to Aaron and some of the giants that ended up returning back to nning, and Kirisho was speaking with Xenia and Jyuuk, also having a great time with them. Things were going pretty well right now, though it did make Eisen a bit nervous. Everything was going almost a bit too well. But then again, he really shouldn''t look a gift horse in the mouth. If nothing was going to happen just yet, then that was a good thing. Though, the idea that anyone would try anything in here with all five Originals gathered around and intermingled was sort of ridiculous to begin with. Anyone that would do that would be aplete maniac, not only because they would be taken down immediately, but because the Originals would be able to diffuse any sort of consequence. That was why, right now, Jyuuk had sent some of his ''babies'' around to search every single room and the luggage of every envoy. Of course, they were secured with magic, and many of them had ced detection magic into their bedchambers as well, but these were monsters that had specifically been bred for stealth and survence, on top of the fact that each of those little shadow-cats was equipped with a cor made by Eisen to ensure that they could never be spotted by anyone or anything. Though, it didn''t seem like they managed to find anything yet. If they had, Jyuuk woulde and let Eisen know immediately so that they could take care of it somehow. Maybe Eisen was a little too paranoid. Or at least, that''s what he thought until Brody suddenly stopped chewing. "Yo, Eisen?" he let out, and the old man turned toward his friend. "Yes, something wrong?" "So, like, did I suddenly develop an allergy to spinach or were these things poisoned?" Brody asked, and Eisen''s smile immediately dropped. "Oh,e on, the spinach puffs? Really?" Eisen groaned, picking one of them up. He didn''t have Brody''s ''1000 Poison Immunity'' ability, but he was still able to handle a little bit. After nibbling the corner of the puffs, Eisen could feel an immediate numbness spread over his tongue, coating the inside of his mouth. Rolling his eyes, Eisen pushed his hand onto the table where he had created an opening to his item storage. From there, he grabbed a small metallic frog. After infusing it with some mana, the creature came to life, widely opening its mouth, and Eisen quickly ced the poisoned spinach puff inside. The frog''s mouth quickly snapped shut, and the old man turned to his side. Brody had already returned after running through the room with his ''Silent Steps'', snatching up all the spinach puffs, none of which seemed to have been eaten yet, together with the tter that originally held all of them in the first ce. But of course, Brody just continued eating the spinach puffs. "Are you seriously just going to keep eating them?"# Brody shrugged, "It''s not my fault they''re good. The poison actually gives it this very unique tanginess that works surprisingly well. Plus, I''m already developing immunity, and after myst racial skill rank-up, I got the ''Orc''s Gluttony'' passive..." Eisen sighed lightly, "No wonder you''ve been eating so much." "It ain''t so bad. Just gotta take down a couplerge monsters and have my fill," Brody replied, "Though I really, really want to learn how to cook properly... without the right techniques, monsters just taste so nd." "Don''t worry, you''ll get there," Eisen replied, as the frog''s mouth quickly opened up again. Where the spinach puff sat just a few moments earlier, Eisen could now see a small, dark green bead. After picking it up, Eisen put the frog back into the item storage. "I''ll be right back," Eisen said, as Brody nodded and just continued eating. The old man quickly made his way over to Jyuuk, Xenia, and Kirisho. After letting his hand run down Kirisho''s back for a second, Eisen looked at Jyuuk while holding the bead toward the beastman, "Someone poisoned the spinach puffs. It doesn''t look like a synthetic poison, so I figured you could figure something out about it." Curious, Jyuuk immediately grabbed the small bead, rubbing it inbetween his fingers and smelling it. He even touched his tongue to it for a moment, "Ah, yes, I know this one!" "Could you not... just... eat poison in the middle of a banquet?" "Brody''s doing it too!" Jyuuk pointed toward the half-orc currently stuffing his face with the poisoned food, but Xenia just patted her husband''s back and shook her head silently, "... Fine, but for this one I needed to do it. It''s the poison from a Aragea Maligda, it''s a small flower that you can only find in the central continent''s hignds. Its scent is simr to some other flowers, and the effect isn''t super special either, but the taste is kind of sweet and tangy so that was the only way to narrow it down!" "The hignds, huh?" Eisen muttered, looking over to the envoy whose country the hignds belonged to. It was probably a bit too easy to just say that it was him, especially because he didn''t seem to be acting in any particrly suspicious way. Of course, it could always be him, but it would be stupid to use a nt-based poison with Jyuuk here, especially considering that it wasn''t even that strong. Eisen slowly looked toward the corner of the room. Specifically, toward the Cloud Giant envoys. It could be them. It didn''t make much sense for the poison toe from the central continent''s side, because that would only put them in a worse position during the meeting. But if it came from the Cloud Giants, and they found some sort of poison in the food, they would at least have the justification to oppose the peace treaty, even if Eisen and the others somehow managed to calm the situation down. The old man sighed lightly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. It seemed like this night was going to be a lot longer than he thought it would be. Chapter 884: Filled Up Jyuuk whispered to Eisen, keeping him updated on something that the small shadow cats that he had sent out had found in one of the bedrooms. The old man quickly nced over to Xenia, who was currently surrounded by some aristocrats from the central continent. The high elf quickly nodded back at him and excused herself, making her way out of the meeting hall so that she could go and properly investigate. She had a lot of spells that allowed her to get some deeper insight into certain things. Clearly nothing was as simple as ''the one who has the poison is the poisoner''. People would try to entrap others and push the me onto them. This wasplex politics and plotting, with magic and skills and special abilities, and all the good stuff that made things so ridiculously hard to keep track of. No country would send envoys that were stupid enough to leave behind obvious traces like Eisen and the others were finding around the ce right now. Nheless, it didn''t really matter who they came from. The point wasn''t to use that to hold it over the perpetrator''s head; that could just lead to the opposite. In the end, the originals weren''t even trying to figure out who did things, they were just trying to figure out everything that was being plotted so that they could prevent it. Your next journey awaits at m v|l-e''-NovelBin The envoys that didn''t try anything would already know that it was useless to do something here, and the ones that were stupid enough to try would realize that every single attempt of theirs was quietly and easily thwarted. That in itself would put some level of pressure on them, either stopping them from trying more stupid stuff, or making them panic to the point where they slipped up more and made their attempts more obvious and easier to interrupt. And with that, the rest of the night, after the poisoned spinach puffs had been found, was spent getting rid of poisons, spells, curses, secret weapons, traps, or anything else that could be annoying, not just today but over the next couple of days in general. At some point, the banquet was finallying to an end, and the envoys made their way back to their individual, and safe, rooms. Once they were gone, the servants for the building worked together with some golems and special items to very quickly clear out the space and set it back up for the meeting that was going to start quite early tomorrow. With a loud sigh, Eisen sat down at his seat, "What the hell is everyone thinking?" "You can say that again," Brody groaned, holding his fist in front of his mouth to let out a long burp, "Those spinach puffs are still doing a number on me." "I thought you developed an immunity to that poison pretty quickly," Jyuuk looked at the half-orc a bit concerned, and Brody quickly nodded. "Poison immunity doesn''t seem to be stop acid reflux. Fuck, do we not have something like bepto here?" "I could try ande up with something," Eisen suggested, leaning back in his seat. Komer walked into the room curiously. "You''re going to make bepto here? That could sell pretty well," he pointed out, "But anyway, today went pretty well, right? It sounds like once the treaty is over, there''ll be some pretty active trade starting up between the central continent and the giants'' country." Evalia sighed, dropping her head onto the table with a long sigh, "We''ll have to get there first. Today was exhausting." "Exhausting? What happened?" Komer asked, and Eisen quickly turned toward him. "Some poison, some traps, some cursed items. Some of those guys were basically trying to go all-in before the meeting beings tomorrow," the old man exined. Komer flinched back slightly. He had spent all evening just talking to the different envoys, trying make everything go by smoothly while connecting the envoys that he thought could benefit each other if they created some sort of trade agreement after the treaty was figured out. "When the hell did that... Where was I while that was going on?" "Chatting up thatdy from Mongard," Brody scoffed. "She''s like two hundred years older than me," immediately shaking his head, Komerpletely denied that, and Evalia looked over at him with a raised brow. "So? I''m twenty thousand years older than Benji. We''re working out pretty well." Komer nervously looked over at her, "Th-That... that''s different, cause you''re not really mentally that much older than him, and I-I just- Okay listen, the whole age thing is fucking confusing as hell with all of you, so please just give me a break, okay?" "Calm down, I''m just messing with you," with a slightugh, Evalia raised her head back up fully and stretched a bit. Just then, someone else stepped into the room. Kiron, who was ready to report to Eisen. He had insisted on not participating in the banquet, instead acting as a knight instead of as Eisen''s grandson. Respecting his wishes, Eisen agreed, so right now, Kiron returned from checking up on some spots across the town that Jyuuk''s shadow cats had deemed suspicious. The half-dragon knight quickly stepped up to the table, "There was nothing of note in any of the locations, though there did seem to be traces of some of the envoys'' servants scouting out the town. And not just their guards either, but their butlers and maids." "Hm, alright. Jyuuk, make sure to track all the servants properly," Eisen looked at the beastman, who nodded without hesitation. "Already on it. They were marked beforehand already, so this should be easy enough to do. Got a swarm of beetles that I''ll split up and have each one track a specific one," Jyuuk took out his bestiary and flipped to one of the pages. The swarm painted on it quickly detached from the page, climbing over Jyuuk''s arms, torso, and legs down onto the ground. They made their way out through the door, blending in with the colours of the walls and ground as they scurried along. "So... what now? Can we just rx a bit until the meeting starts?" Xenia asked, looking around at everyone. Nobody seemed to have anything else they particrly needed to discuss, so the high elf stood up from her seat. Jyuuk quickly got up as well. "Rest for a while, everyone. Tomorrow is going to be a rough day," the high elf let out a long, deep sigh as Jyuuk and her made their way out of the meeting hall, waving as everyone briefly as they left. Evalia figured it was time for her to head out for a bit as well. "I''ve got a thing with Benji in a bit, so I''ll be logged out. But we''ll just be in the garden, so juste out if you need me." "Enjoy yourselves," Eisen replied, and just before Evalia stepped out, he looked at her, "But not too much! I don''t want to be a great-grandfather on earth just yet." With a slight groan, Evalia left the meeting room. Before long, both Kiron and Komer made their way outside as well. The kids were already sleeping as well, so the only ones that were here now were Eisen and Brody. "So how''d you like the food? Beyond the parts that were poisoned, obviously," Eisen asked, and Brody shrugged. "Eh, it''s aight. Just not as filling as I''d like. It''s kind of hard to get me full for some reason," he pointed out, "It''s a bit weird, I''m doin'' all the things that everyone tells orcs to do when they get gluttony, but it doesn''t seem to be working. I don''t know if it''s my stats or my internal energy, but I just don''t feel full, like... ever." Eisen raised a brow, "Really? That doesn''t sound particrly good. Are you weakened?" "Nah, luckily not. The gluttony ability makes an orc stronger the more they''ve eaten. There is a point where it''d weaken me, but I got past that point with just a regr meal. And on top of that... my boost''s already more than the top limit for other orcs. No clue where it''s gonna be at when I finally get my fill," Brody scoffed, "Ya think you can help me out?" Eisen thought about it for a moment, "Is it about volume or calories?" "... Honestly, I''ve got no fuckin'' clue. As much of both as possible. A ton of really fatty shit is what I''ve been going for." "I''ll figure something out. We''ll get you filled up, don''t worry." Chapter 885: The Rail Yard "And this here is where we keep the lotives and carts as they''re not actively being used," looking around at the rail yard, which was currently only holding the different carriages that the envoys arrived in, Eisen continued the tour that he was giving. It was the day after the banquet, and currently still quite early. The sun had barely gone up when a few of the curious envoys wanted to get a closer look at the trains. That included quite a few individuals from the giants'' country, and a surprising amount from the central continent. It seemed as though all those business talks that ended up happening during the banquetst night ended up with a lot of them talking about the trains as well, so everyone''s curiousity had risen quite a bit. Though, of course, the only reason that Eisen was showing the trains to everyone here was to boost that curiousity even more somehow. He would try to actively exin all the benefits that Eisen and the others saw, and what their ns were with the trains in the future. All of the lotives were covered in a skill-blocking enchantment on the outside, so anyone here that had some kind of appraisal-based skill or ability wouldn''t be able to figure out how the trains work just from a nce. Of course, they could try and develop the trains themselves after just hearing about the concept and rough descriptions of how they worked, but there was very little reason to. Eisen wasn''t even nning on asking for particrly much considering the actual worth of the train, since his main reason was to build some kind of connection between Asgard and every country that he possibly could. Not to mention, if any country here decided to waste time with developing a lotive from scratch, which would probably not work nearly as well as the one that Eisen and Xenia built while using the concepts and engineering of Earth whilebining it with techniques from this world, it was almost like throwing away profit. While they were doing that, the other countries could just get started with the construction right away and make use of the trains right away. And once the trains were constructed, and transporting goods would be not only easier but also vastly cheaper, it would decrease the incentive to work with any country that hadn''t implemented the train yet. That meant, in order to not lose profits, and to prevent their countries from falling behind, the envoys must all be thinking that they had to do everything they could to get their hands on this as soon as possible. "So this is the equivalent of a shipyard? They''d be doin'' construction here?" the current Grandour asked curiously, and Eisen thought about it for a moment. "Probably not directly here, no," he pointed out, "This is more of a logistical center. All the carriages are kept here, and then taken as they''re needed. The goods are ced onto the carriages or taken off for further transport. Construction would usually happen elsewhere. It''s... sort of like the harbor itself rather than the shipyard." "In that case, why did you construct a separate ''station''? Could people not simply board the train from here?" Aaron asked curiously, clearly trying to figure out if they could save money bybining some things here, but the old man quickly shut that down. "No, that would be far too dangerous. We haven''t fully implemented the railway system into our day-to-day trading just yet, so it''s quite calm, but once this ce bes used more frequently, it will be a lot more dangerous for people. There are already plenty of idents where people are hit by horse-drawn carriages, so this ce that''s hard to oversee and extremely narrow in many parts will be just too much," Eisen exined, "Plus, with dedicated stations, it will be much, much easier to handle therge amounts of people that will want to use the train every day." Surprised, the people that Eisen was guiding around looked at each other, as Aaron tried to make sure heunderstood correctly, "Do you mean thatrge amounts of people will want to use the train every single day? Do people truly travel this much in Asgard?" With a loudugh, Eisen shook his head, "Of course, do you even know how many people enter and exit cities every day? This is an archipgo, so going from onerge city to another would usually require a ship. But with our inter-ind bridges, it''s much easier and faster. Not to mention, this is only the first step of the train." "And what''s that supposed to mean? Are you nning on making them bigger? Hold on... are you nning on connecting the-" "Oh, no, no, we will not connect the continents," Eisen interrupted the Grandour immediately, "That much would truly be impossible. For that, ships would still be needed. I actually meant the opposite; creating trains for every-day people to travel across a single city." Curious, Aaron cupped his chin with his hand, "In a single city? Can''t people get across a city quite well already?" "Maybe if they have a carriage, sure," Eisen replied, "And even therger group-carriages that you can buy a ticket for are quite expensive and still rtively small. Not to mention, extremely unreliable. Providing trains for every-day people to get from one side of arger city to the next, or even to get from smaller nearby viges into specific parts of a city will be incredibly beneficial to everyone. Cheaper, faster, more reliable." "Are you nning on recing roads with these rails?" "No, of course not! Roads will still be needed for carriages and people. Trains won''t be able to make a stop at every street corner, after all. Instead, at least this is the next step that we are nning in our capital, is to put the trains in either one of two ces. Or maybe even both. Either, we go above," with a grin, Eisen pointed up at the sky, and then quickly pointed down at the ground, "Or we go below." Aaron''s eyes widened excitedly, "A-Above? I can imagine you mean to construct tunnels underground for the trains... but you can make them float?" "Float? No, nothing like that. Well, we could, but that might be a bit too expensive long-term. No, we''ll just build some bridges across certain parts of town. Though, our best option would usually be below. It''s less noise once in service, we can construct it without bothering our people, plus, it lets us keep the beauty and integrity of our beautiful, history-filled cities," Eisen exined, looking around the group of envoys. Komer had filled him in on what thergest concern for some of these countries seemed to be, and beyond the cost, which was already far outweighed by the economic benefits that implementing the train would have, they seemed to be worried about the appearance. Maybe it was because Evalia was the youngest of the originals and her influence on the world was the most recentpared to the others, albeit also twenty thousand years old, but the value that was put on beauty, whether in art or in architecture, as well as many other parts of what both individuals and countries could be concerned with, was quite massive. So making sure that they knew that it was possible to keep the visual integrity and history of a ce intact without needing to forgo the benefits that came with different types of trains, was also incredibly important. Plus, this way Asgard could also sell some techniques and methods of tunnel-boring to the different countries, so that was also only going to be a nice little addition. There was also a secondary benefit of this that Eisen had only recently thought of. If subways were constructed acrossrge, densely-built cities across the continent, that was practically an immediate and safe shelter in case of a catastrophe. Whether it was the battle between the dragons, or any otherrge-scale catastrophe that was nned for the future, these sorts of stations could save a lot of people. On top of that, it would allow for easier evacuation outside of endangered zones as well as effective, hidden supply-routes carefully spreading throughout the continent. That being the case, though, Eisen was a little concerned about how well this was all going. He knew that the train was an exciting, revolutionary invention in this world, but that didn''t change the fact that all the envoys seemed almost too on board with the idea. Maybe Eisen was simply too used to people trying to mess with him for the sake of messing with him, or this was a bad sign that something particrly annoying was about to happen. Chapter 886: The Meeting Eisen sat in his chair, waiting for all the envoys to arrive. Since he was going to be the one ''leading'' this meeting, he basically acted as the dividing line between the two sides, simrly to how it was geographically. Asgard was practically right inbetween the giants'' country and the central continent, so whether it was for trade or for war, Asgard would end up in the middle of whatever rtionship the two sides would have. It was one of the main reasons why the central continent wasn''t able toin about Eisen acting as the mediator. It didn''t take all too long until everyone had gathered. Beside the envoys and their direct aides, there were only a few other individuals here. The five originals, Kiron and the other half-dragon knights, and the two individuals standing right by the old man''s side. Satel and Ambriel. For a number of reasons, the pair hadn''t been there during yesterday''s banquet. The main reason was really just because Ambriel was feeling too nervous to join that kind of thing, so Satel stayed behind with them so that the two could prepare for today properly. That being the case, Eisen was actually quite happy that they weren''t there. Leaving their presence as a surprise of sort made their impact only greater. At the same time, not having them be present during regr intermingling made it easier to present them as something ''greater than'', and something rted to the divine, which is exactly why Eisen brought them. The two nced at each other. Satel wore a calm smile on their face, while Ambriel was trying everything they could to show as little emotion as absolutely as possible. Once everyone had properly gotten to their seats and seemed ready to go, Eisen got started, "Good morning, everyone. I hope you''re all well. First and foremost, I want to thank you all for being here. The pursuit of peace is something that I am sure we all strive for at the end of the day, and this is the first step to make that happen," he exined, smiling softly as he spoke in a powerful voice, "That being the case, I don''t want to keep the attention on myself for too long right now, and would instead like to hand things over to the representatives of each side." The old man quickly turned toward the central continent. Since the giants'' country was a single country with its king right here, acting as one of the representatives, it was clear that their demands would be well-united. However, the problem was with the central continent. Being made up of a lot of different countries, each with their own agendas,ws, and intentions made things a lot harder. Of course, in this potential war, they were still a single united front, but it was more that they were acting cooperatively instead of through a single, focused lense. "I assume that you have decided on a specific representative for today that will present yourbined demands? If so, please let us know your side''s current demands," Eisen asked as he looked at the central continent''s envoys, and the one who stood up, to the old man''s surprise, was Aaron. He didn''t expect Aaron of all people to be chosen, considering that he was by far the youngest envoy here. Then again, he was also the only royal here, not to mention the crown prince of one of the most influential countries of the central continent. So maybe it did make sense to some degree. "Yes. Our list of demands is as follows," Aaron started, reading from the list in front of him. Most of the demands seemed reasonable enough, but there were a few that were quite... cocky. Practically, they were pushing the degree of the things they were asking for way too far, and some of the actual requests were insulting even just to Eisen as he heard them. Most notably, there was one request that, in simple terms, was the ''import'' of giants into the central continent to be used as soldiers or workers. Practically... they were asking for ves, something that would be unimaginable if they were talking to people, not monsters. And the giants clearly didn''t take lightly to that either. "Ya think we''re going to-" the Grandour mmed his hand onto the table, jumping up, but Eisen quickly nced over at him. With just a sh of gold mes from the old man''s eyes, the fire n''s chieftain froze up. "Sit down. These discussions are forter," Eisen said in a clear voice, and the grandour nervously sat back down. But even so, Eisen slowly turned toward Aaron. He was clearly ufortable reading that part, but being the central continent''s representative meant that he had to do this. Of course, not everyone in the central continent wanted to receive some giants for forcedbor, but the ones that did, being led by the Holy Empire, were certainly incredibly loud and demanding about it. However, there seemed to be something else that the Holy Empire was nning. Just after Aaron had finished reading out their baseline demands and offers, just before Eisen was about to hand things over to the Irngrad of the giants'' country, one of the archpriests stood up. But to Eisen''s surprsie it was Van Horgh instead of the one that had spoken to Eisen first yesterday. It seemed as though, now that they had properly arrived and had gotten that ''apology'' out of the way, Van Horgh was taking over as the lead envoy again. Clearly, they never felt sorry in the first ce. "Actually, we do have one additional offer, specifically from our empire beloved by the gods; we would love to send some missionaries to your country to introduce you to the holy doctrines of those above," Van Horgh said with a broad smile on his face. Clearly, the other envoys, from both sides, were vastly confused about what he was doing. But since it was still the central continent''s turn, Eisen didn''t interrupt him. Rather, he wanted to hear what Van Horgh had to say. Not letting him finish could just upset the holy empire, "Of course, we do know that this might be something incredibly foreign to you, but even you are loved and touched by the divine, and are deserving of understanding said love." Aaron quickly spoke up, nervously looking at the giants, "I-I apologize, that was not something we had discussed prior to-" "We felt like there was no need to add to the list ofbined offers and demands since this is a personal favor that our empire is willing to do. As those guided by the gods, we must extend a helping hand to those lesser than us, don''t we?" Van Horgh pointed out with a soft smile on his face. Eisen looked at him with a face of disgust, as he could tell something that was very clear. What this man was saying was the truth. Honest. At least from Van Horgh''s point of view, nothing that was just said had any deceit mixed into it. He truly felt that the giants were lesser, and he wasn''t aware of a very simple fact. "Van Horgh, sit down and be quiet," Eisen said in amanding tone, and though he didn''t want to, the Archpriest dropped back down onto his seat and wasn''t able to stand back up, as though his body was under control by some external force, "First of all, if you ever refer to the giants as something ''lesser than'' again, I will take that as a personal insult, so please stop speaking of those matters. But most importantly, you are aware that the giants believe in the gods as well, right?" Confused, Van Horgh looked around at the other priests beside him, and even most of the other envoys in general seemed confused and taken aback. Eisen turned toward the chieftain of the Wood Giant n, nodding toward her. She stood up and exined, reaching into her robes to pull out a pendant depicting a small golden tree adorned with fruits made of gemstones, "I myself am a cleric of the deities of nature. The ways our faith presents and intermingles with our culture may be different from how it is done in the central continent, but we know all about the gods, and feel a deep connection with their divinity. Rather, I myself have the blood of one of those gods, albeit blood from many generations ago." Chapter 887: The Meeting (2) Van Horgh mmed both of his hands down onto the table, ring at the chieftain of the wood giant n, who had just imed to be a far descendant of a god. "What sort of mockery is this?!" he yelled out, "The blood of a god?! What kind of sphemous nonsense is this supposed to be?!" Eisen snapped his finger, and the sound echoed out through the room. The archpriest flinched at the sound and nced toward the old man, who quickly pointed downward, telling Van Horgh to sit back down. As he did so, Eisen started telling the story. "Cool it. She''s telling the truth. She''s a descendant of Nazirath. During her life as a simple mortal, Nazirath had a lover that she yearned for even after her divine ascension. In order to be with him just one more time, she pleaded the goddess Aria for permission to walk the world below, and she was granted the opportunity," Eisen exined, leaning back in his seat, looking over at he wood giant chieftain, "And I was certainly quite grateful for said opportunity as well. At some point, I was able toe and go from the divine realms as I wished, but back then it wasn''t all that easy quite yet." Van Horgh''s anger quickly turned into confusion, "What are you... What are you implying?" "I''m not implying anything. I''m saying that I was Nazirath''s lover, and that Martira is not only her, but also my descendant. From around 95-thousand years ago, but still," Eisen exined, looking over at Martira with a smile. There wasn''t anything like a familial bond between them, after all, they were a couple hundred generations removed from one another. The blood of a good was able to persist through that many generations, since it wasn''t the gics that mattered but divinity of the soul; but Eisen? He was basically nowhere to be seen in the wood giant chieftain''s bloodline anymore. Instead, great men and women took his ce that he could not be more proud of. "This is... this is insanity," Van Horgh muttered, "How dare you-" "Please, quiet down," Ambriel spoke up, before Eisen could. They locked eyes with the archpriest, "Your voice is causing me a headache." Though Eisen was a bit surprised to see Ambriel''s demeanor return to what he knew of them, he was more than happy to wee it. He was sure that they were insanely anxious, though. The angel''s wings were slightly tensing up behind their back, and the divinity seeping out from their flesh was apparent even to those that weren''t priests. Last time, they were a prisoner in chains, thrown in front of Van Horgh to use them as a sort of proof that Eisen was who he imed. But now, they proudly stood by his side. Not sure what else to do, Van Horgh turned to the other priests that had apanied him, but none of them seemed to have a solution for him. Before he could finish, Satel spoke up with augh. "You know, Eisen''s pretty well-known to have numerous kinds of rtionships with the gods. Rtionships like brothers, parent and child, and even lover," Satel pointed out, holding a hand in front of their broad grin, "The fact that you don''t know that is honestly sort of embarrassing. Didn''t you im to be experts on the divine?" Stunned and unsure what to respond, Van Horgh just sat there, as Aaron took the opportunity to face the giants again, "I sincerely apologize for his behaviour. I simply want to assure you that he does not represent all of us. We are aware of how these matters work in your country, even if not fully, as is obvious," he exined, trying to fix the mistakes as much as possible, "Of course, this does open the door for another point of discussion that I''m sure was the intent behind Archpriest Van Horgh''s suggestion. Something that goes beyond the financial or tangible that we may trade by ship or carriage. An exchange of our cultures, of who we all are as people. I am convinced that there are many things that our countries may learn from yours, and if I can be so bold, I wholly believe that you will find that there are many things you can learn from us in return." The room was filled with a unified breath of relief as Aaron quickly mended part of the damage that Van Horgh had done. Of course, that didn''t mean that all was suddenly fixed. No matter what Aaron said, the meaning and intent behind Van Horgh''s words were obvious. And that wasn''t even mentioning the tenseness that was created just by some of the central continent''s demands. Most notably, the demand of having the giants essentially send ves over to the central continent. But for now, it was time for the giants to read out their offers and demands as well, so Eisen smiled at Aaron with a quick nod, "Thank you, prince. Now, to get back on track, may the Irngrad present the giants'' offers?" Without hesitation, the king of the giants stood up from his seat, "Of course." And so, the Irngrad started listing the offers of the giants'' country. They were actually quite happy to give a lot of things, it seemed. Rather, plenty of the demands from the central continent were already met just by the baseline offers that the Irngrad was listing. However, as forting as the offers were, the demands were just as intense. Among them were the demands of certain natural ressources that weren''t avable in the giants'' country, information and technologies that had been developed away from the giants'' eyes, as well as aplete truce between the central continent and the giants'' country. "If any individual country within the central continent does show direct hostility or even the intent to wage war against us on their own, all other countries must take our side and actively strike down the aggressive force," the Irngrad said, ncing over at Van Horgh. The Holy Empire was the country that clearly wanted this war the most, but they were also andlocked country. Without active support from other countries, they wouldn''t be able to wage a war against people of another continent. But that wasn''t all either. Rather, the most important demand was yet toe. It was the demand that was needed as a baseline for these discussions, "Ourst demand is that all giantfolk receive the exact legal rights and protections that people are given. Find more chapters on m_v l|e-NovelBin Now, for rification, this does not mean that giants should be automatically naturalized by your countries, simply that instead of being treated as mindless beasts, we receive the full priviliges that people do in each of your nations." Eisen took a deep breath as the envoys from the central continent started muttering amongst themselves. Of course, no matter if they wanted to do trade with the giants, at the end of the day, the giants were still monsters. That was something that wasn''t going to change, so the idea that they should be treated the exact same as people was just ridiculous in every single way to many of them. At the same time, there were plenty of envoys that were happy to oblige; rather, some of them were in favor of such a change in the first ce, as far as Eisen knew. ording to what Komer had told him about all of them, at least. However, the problem wasn''t the ones that were unsure; it was the ones that were practically disgusted by the idea. Knowing that something bad could happen if he didn''t, Eisen cleared his throat to get everyone''s attention while also exerting some pressure to keep everyone silent. "Thank you to both sides. For now, we will allow each side to reconvene for a while so that you can have a short discussion amongst yourselves, and then we will return back to the main exchange. We will deploy a sight- and sound-proof barrier between the two sides of the room, so feel free to speak openly to each other." With that being said, seeing that everybody was ready, Eisen snapped his finger and activated the magic tool that triggered said barrier. Like that, the room was split into three parts; a section for the central continent, one for the giants'' country, and one for everyone from Asgard. Eisen immediately let out a loud, annoyed groan, "It''s been maybe fifteen minutes... Why the hell are those guys so difficult?" Chapter 888: The Meeting (3) "Pretty rough already, huh?" Brody pointed out, walking up to Eisen, who simply nodded his head with a loud groan. "You can say that again," the old man sighed, already feeling the headachee on, "Did you hear those demands? The central continent literally wants to have giants as vebour... and Van Horgh? I genuinely do not know what sort of theological education they have in the Holy Empire... They have apletely wrong image of the gods." Your next read is at m v|l-e''-NovelBin Xenia walked up and leaned against the side of Eisen''srge chair, "Well, what would you expect? Do you know how many religious denominations there are for literally any religion on earth? And it''s not like the gods are actively showing them their diaries, so how would they know the details?" Eisen groaned, "I just figured things would be passed down a bit better. Honestly, it feels kind of... off. There''s no way that the Holy Empire of all ces doesn''t have a way ofmunicating with the gods somehow, even if it''s just that they receive some kind of oracles. So how could they be so wrong about it all?" "Maybe they''re doing it intentionally," Xenia suggested, "There''s no easier way of manipting the masses than by manipting the information they receive. I don''t really know what benefits they would get from that, though... maybe they just want to ''other'' the people of different countries, to make the citizens of the holy empire feel superior to them. Creating a sense of being ''different'' is a baseline tactic for that." "... What do you two think?" Eisen asked, looking over at Ambriel and Satel, who had stepped aside once the barrier dividing the room up was deployed. Satel thought about it for a moment, but just shrugged. "Honestly, I don''t think they''re acting ignorant on purpose," the devil pointed out, "Well, maybe at some point in time, but it''s not like people really live all that long. Thinking that they changed the way they work in the current generation sounds kinda unrealistic." Eisen raised a brow. He was surprised to hear Satel''s apt insight, but they definitely had a point, "Right... so even if in the past, the Holy Empire tried to change information for their own benefit, at this point, it''s possible that this information just became the truth to them all, and now Van Horgh is regurgitating it. It seemed like their understanding of the gods was spread across the central continent in general, anyway, at least judging from the reactions of the other envoys." Brody let out a loud yawn, clearly bored by all of this right now, "You got any idea of how to deal with that? Cause I doubt they''ll just start believing you if you keep saying it. Faith ain''t that simple." "I''m not going to deal with it," Eisen replied bluntly, "Frankly, I don''t think I need to. As long as we can stop their shitty demands from going through, and as long as we can stop any further ''favors'', it really doesn''t matter what they believe. At the very least, everyone seems to understand that Ambriel and Satel are the real deal." "... We may have been banished, but out divine auras can''t be suppressed that easily. Any cleric would be able to tell what we are, even if they are novices," Ambriel pointed out, tightly squeezing Satel''s hand, "But... we could use that to our benefit as well. We can try to convince them of the truth, of the fact that the gods did walk this world in the past. Something that even I, as an angel, didn''t believe until recently." Eisen looked at the angel, quickly shaking his head, "No. I don''t think that''s a good idea. The main reason you two are here is to make sure the Holy Empire doesn''t fully act out, and so that we can reasonably shut them down when they try to. If we push things too far, things might flip the other direction and they''ll believe that you''re only telling lies. And frankly, you two are the easiest way to verify our identities to everyone in this room right now, so we can''t jeopardize that." "B-But I... isn''t it better to tell them the truth? Isn''t that the most important part?" Ambriel asked, slowly trying to build up a bit of confidence again. While Eisen was d to see that they were trying to get better, bit by bit, he also had to make the priorities clear. "No, Ambriel. That is not the most important part about this all. The most important part is to ensure that this war will not happen. That a proper treaty will be signed," the old man exined, "If we need to, we can try to re-educate the people of the central continentter on, but that''s really, really not important right now." Ambriel looked back at Eisen, carefully nodding their head. They understood what the old man was saying, but it was still erly bothering them somehow. Like they were trying to make up for their mistakes of the past, but Eisen was telling them not to. The old man understood what they were worried about, but at the same time, this wasn''t the best moment to talk about this and properly exin to Ambriel why they shouldn''t push things. Of course, Eisen wasn''t telling them not to tell the truth; otherwise, Eisen would never have let Martira exin that she was a descendant of a goddess, nor would he himself have exined the context further. But it was one thing to put the facts out there, and another to insist on re-educating the envoys on their theology. Not to mention, as Eisen had exined earlier, if the envoys lost trust in the words of Satel and Ambriel, much bigger issues coulde from that. The two were needed as insurance so that all the envoys fully believed in Eisen and the others'' identities, so that this meeting could proceed as smoothly as possible. And at the very least, it was proceeding. Before long, the two sides had finished discussing each others'' offers and demands, and were now ready toe back together. Eisen deactivated the barrier and nced over to the central continent''s side, trying to gauge their expressions. There were really just two people that he had to look at. Aaron and Van Horgh. And while the former was sitting there with an almost relieved smile, thetter was practically biting down on his tongue, squeezing his hand into a tight fist. And that meant that, as a whole, the envoys from the central continent came to a decision that not only Eisen, but the envoys from the giants'' country would be happy with. Or at least, happier than with the initial list of demands and offers. "Alright, are both sides ready to continue?" Eisen asked, getting a quick nod from both of the sides'' representatives, before the old man looked over at the Irngrad, "In that case, please let us hear your initial thoughts. Then we will hear from the central continent, before I will open things up for the free discussion." The two sides quickly exined the issues they had with each others'' openings, making initial counter-offers and demands. And of course, the Irngrad once more made it very clear that there would be no veborers sent over to the central continent. However, instead, he did seem to be happy with the idea of both temporarily sending and hosting workers as a sort of cultural exchange. Meanwhile, the central continent seemed to be falling back on that issue for the time being, though it didn''t seem like they fully gave up on it. But more importantly, Aaron said something that showed that this whole thing was moving into the right direction. "Andstly, we are willing to discuss the eptance of all giantfolk as an ''honorary people'', giving you at least simr, if not the exact same, rights as people acknowledged by the sytem," he exined, almost ecstatic to say so. Immediately, the giants started talking to each other, surprised that it was so easy to get them all to agree. But before they could start talking to each other too much, Eisen spoke up. "Now, it is time for us to move on to the open forum. Please, everyone speak up as you may, but try to be cordial. I will step in and guide the conversation as necessary," Eisen said, mentally preparing himself for what was about to happen. Chapter 889: The Meeting (4) Holding his forehead, Eisen looked into the space in front of him. The noise-level was much higher than he expected, despite his repeated attempts at making them all quiet down. People were talking over each other, discussing things, and getting quite heated. He had no idea what this ce would be like if it weren''t for the rxing decor and flowers spread through the room, meant to prevent exactly this. The only reason that Eisen didn''t intervene yet was because nobody was being insulting and nobody seemed to be genuinely mad about things. Of course, Van Horgh and the holy empire''s envoys were saying some annoying things, but the giants already seemed able to ignore them quite well. Luckily, the group that Eisen was actually a lot more worried about, the Cloud Giants, were holding back and staying quiet. It almost seemed like they were only here as a formality and to be able to report backter on. Even if it dide to a war, Eisen was sure they would never get involved, simply staying in their cloud city. From what the old man could tell, the cloud giants, who despised anyone that wasn''t one of their n''s kin, thought so little of the people of the central continent that their words couldn''t insult them. They simply scoffed at the idea of being treated as ves, since it seemed so ridiculous. It was at the level of a toddler saying something slightly mean; nothing to be taken seriously, and actually almost cute. Eisen was worried a lot about what would happen if the cloud giants and the holy empire started exchanging insults, but since the cloud giants didn''t seem interesting in talking, things worked out fine. Different to them, the envoys of the holy empire seemed a lot more hot-headed to the point where they would most certainly react to the aggressive words of a ''lesser species'' like the giants, which would only make the situation much, much worse. But instead, the envoys of the ns that were more sensible were taking the lead, not giving the holy empire''s envoys anything to cling onto and twist, nor really paying much heed to the things that they were saying. That all being the case, things were still quite messy. They were discussing all the numerous matters that were important to each n or country, talking over each other and making it particrly hard for the old man to follow along. Luckily though, there were a couple of magic items in the room recording and transcribing everything that was said, no matter how much they were talking over others. It would need to be properly sorted and stitched togetherter on, but Xenia made sure to make the enchantments intelligent enough to take care of that almost on their own. The full transcript would just need to be proofreadter on. Eisen''s eyesnded on therge clock on the other side of the room. It was about dinnertime now, and the conversations were ebbing a little since people were growing exhausted, so Eisen stood up, immediately drawing attention toward him. The old man quickly spoke. "I am quite d that these discussions seem to be going well, but it is growing ratherte, so we will be serving dinner shortly. All the documents in front of you can stay as they are; we will cover them with new tops so you can stay seated here and eat, and then return to the discussions. If you would like, we can take a short break after dinner, but I do please ask you to keep all discussions rted to the treaty inside of this room," the old man exined. As Eisen spoke, seeing that everybody had pulled their hands away, Eisen ced his hand onto therge table. He let his mana pour into it and activated one of its functions. The tabletop was slightly lowered, taking all the books and documents with it, before new tops folded out and covered the table. Just then, the door to the hall opened up, and plenty of the servants that the originals had brought here stepped inside, pushing tonight''s dinner into the room with some carts. They quickly served the food depending on everyone''s preferences and dietary restrictios. Eisen had created a menu that would work for everyone here, and then made some slight adjustments to really perfectly make it fit everyone. As the food was ced in front of them, it seemed like the envoys finally realized that they hadn''t eaten much all day, and quickly got properly seated, enjoying themselves. Some of them, particrly the giants, were asking for some wine or liquor, but Eisen quickly shut that down. The discussions were going to continue after dinner, after all, and Eisen didn''t want any of them to be drunk. While everyone was eating, Eisen took the opportunity to excuse himself and take a slight break. He had been sitting here all day, listening to political nonsense that frankly didn''t interest him whatsoever. There was a reason why he left most of those things to others. The old man stepped out onto the balcony at the side of the building. This part wasn''t protected by the special array and materials covering the rest of the hall, but it was still a separate ce. Since the meeting hall was soundproofed, nobody would be able to hear Eisen speak out here. He leaned onto the railing and let out a loud, annoyed groan. Xenia, the only other original that had stuck around the whole time, didn''t seem to be in a much better mood, "That is all quite... a lot." The old man scoffed, "That sounds like an understatement." "The fact that they''re basically discussing human rights here is kind of..." Xenia muttered, "And we just let Samuel force us to keep it like this?" Eisen slowly turned toward her, nodding, "Clearly. Or maybe we just stopped caring at some point. Living in a stagnant world for that long... Hah, and even then, it took so long to get all of his demands done..." The high elf looked at Eisen silently, "... He wanted the ''perfect'' world, didn''t he? Of course it would take a long time to make this all happen." "...We took tens of millennia to make this world into what it is. Is it really realistic to expect we can change it all of a sudden? What if Samuel set up some kind of contingencies to make sure that we can''t? Or hell, what if we were the ones to set up those contingencies ourselves because he told us to?" "Where is thising from all of a sudden? Isn''t everything going pretty well? The envoys seem to like the watches and are clearly interested in them, and I don''t think there''s any country here that didn''t want to adopt the trains. Plus, the the peace treaty is surely going toe about. If not today, then tomorrow. Things are going well, right?" Eisen nodded, staying silent for a moment, "Things are going almost too well. There''s no way that he just gave up. What next? Is he going to try and drop a fucking bomb on my house on earth? Will he personally try to start the war somehow? Or maybe he just gave up on the war and is instead pulling forward whatever next ''event'' he had nned. Plus, this whole thing has been keeping me so busy that I haven''t even had the chance to properly execute the n to stop the dragon-war..." the old man groaned, "I just feel like something big is about to happen. I don''t like this at all." Trying to figure out what she should say, Xenia ced her hand onto Eisen''s back, "Don''t worry. We can do this. From everything we''ve figured out, our past selves have done everything they can to make sure our current selves can fight back against Samuel. If things are going well, then it''s because of thousands of years of preparation!" Eisen turned his head toward his friend, slowly nodding his head, "You''re right... Let''s just concentrate on getting things done. I''m just worried about what the ''big thing'' here at the meeting will be, because let''s be honest... that shoe always drops at one point or another." Though she wanted to continue cheering Eisen up, Xenia wasn''t able to say anything against that. Eisen was right, though she didn''t want to admit it. Something did always seem to go wrong, even if everything worked out in the end somehow. And especially considering all those petty attempts at messing things up they''ve been dealing with, nobody could deny that things were working up to something bigger. Chapter 890: The Ritual The silent paws pressed onto the ground as the pitch ck cat jumped from edge to edge to edge, following the man that her owner had told her to follow. It was a boring man, doing nothing but simple chores all day, cleaning up after his lord. He would sit down and write letters every once in a while, or receive some from other servants. While the cat was curious, she wasn''t in charge of figuring out what the other servants were doing. Her sisters were in charge of those. Frankly, they all seemed to have a much better time with this. But this small cat only wanted to nap in the shade. This ind was far too bright and hot, but there were also lots of tall cliffs so at least there were some darker spots here and there. Though, even those darker spots had been lit up with glowbugs. Letting out a slight yawn with a long, deep stretch, the cat kept watching the man. He was taking a walk right now, so at least he was doing something a little more interesting than normal. He also carried with him a small bag filled with random trinkets that the other servants had given him throughout the course of the day. Of course, this had all been reported to the owner through those pesky little mice that the cat wasn''t allowed to pounce on. The owner was so mean sometimes; why would he make those mice clutter around them while telling them they weren''t allowed to hunt them? Though, the one time the cat did try, they managed to avoid the attack pretty well. They were also made of the same shadows that the cat was made of, so maybe that made sense. The shadows were superior to all else, even other shadows, after all. Though, wouldn''t that mean that she should have been able to catch the mouse? Trying not to think about it too much, the cat continued following that boring man, until he came to a stop in a dark corner at the outskirt of town. It was actually a veryfortable ce, one of the darkest that she had seen here so far. It almost made her tired, but she had promised the owner to stay awake, so she couldn''t nap. How annoying. Either way, the man squatted down and put the bag to the side, so the catid down and rested her head at the edge of the small overhang she wasying on in a way that she could see everything that was going on. Though, she could sense everything here in the area anyway. She already infected the darkness of this corner, and her eyes were sprouting from every surface so she could have a perfect view of the situation. Really, the cat didn''t understand why the owner made her watch this boring guy. None of the other cats had this ability, so she should be watching someone more exciting. Once more, she let out a long yawn and stared at the person''s back as he took something out of the bag. It was some kind of small knife, that he quickly used to cut into his palm. Surprised to finally see something exciting, the cat raised her head, watching as the man used the blood to draw something onto the ground. Letting out a quiet meow, a mouse''s head peeked out from the small bag hanging at the side of her body. She looked at the mouse and quickly meowed a few things at it, watching as it jumped back into the bag. The shadows inside of the bags that all the cats carried were apparently connected to something by the owner''s side, so he could be reported to very quickly even if the cats were far away like right now. As the mouse disappeared, the cat kept closely watching the man. The pattern he was drawing was prettyplicated, but he did it very deliberately as if he had practiced this for a long time so that he could do it as fast as he possibly could. Once the pattern wasplete, the man pulled out a few more objects from the pouch. It was a bunch of random, kind of gross trinkets. Clumps of hair, small dice made of bones, an eyeball the size of the cat''s head... even a small bird''s skull. All of them were ced onto specific parts of the pattern. And that was right when another pair of footsteps arrived, and a second cat joined the first one. That second one bowed to the first; after all, she was their leader, so of course she should be bowed to. Either way, the woman that the other cat was supposed to watch was very eagerly walking toward the man. She looked at him with a quick nod, as the two embraced in a short hug. The cat remembered her; these two had metst night and made love. That had probably been the most exciting part about following that man ever since the cat was given this task. "Mrrrow?" the two cats tilted their heads to the side as the woman undressed, carefully folding her dress and cing it into the man''s hands. The woman stepped into the pattern that had been drawn on the ground, and was soon handed the knife that was used to cut the man''s hand. The two smiled at each other as the woman pulled the dagger horizontally across her throat. Deep, dark red blood came gushing out as the woman shivered, doing her best to stay standing up. As her bare body was dyed in her own blood, forming a puddle within the pattern on the ground, she once more took the knife and ced it onto her stomach, right above her belly button. With a swift motion, she stabbed the knife into her body, vertically cutting up through the flow of blood until she reached her chin. Now, the woman was barely holding on, when she made a third long, deep cut across her chest right below her breasts. The knife fell to the ground into the puddle of viscera that were spilling out of her body. Even so, she was somehow still standing, with the two cats watching their every move. It looked like the owner was currently already on his way, but it might be a little toote. Read new chapters at m_v-l''e|-NovelBin One of the trinkets, an unlit ck candle, quickly was set on fire without any source for it. The shadow that was cast by the woman''s body onto the uneven cliff-wall behind her didn''t actually depict her own body. The cats knew shadows, and that one definitely did not belong to her. At least, not anymore. Dozens of hands were creeping up from the edges of the parts that the candle lit up; snake-like shadows slithering toward the woman''s shadow, climbing into it. And then, those hands took a physical form, pushing her way out through the ''gate'' cut into her body. Like doors, ps of meat were pushed aside and her internal organs were crushed and fell to the ground as her bones snapped with loud cracking. Therge, grotesque masses of flesh pushed their way out of the body that should not have been able to possibly house them. And the cats just continued to watch. That was their job, after all. Not to mention, as they looked up, the silhouette of arge eagle could be spotted from above anyway. Jumping from that silhouette came a beastman with arge staff in his hand. The staff grew in size faster than the figure of that beastman, quickly turning into an absolutely massive pir that he mmed down onto the thing currently forcing its way into this realm. The impact created a shockwave that quickly extinguished the candle, but it was toote. The hands had caught the attack already, wrapping around it and refusing to let go. But of course, Jyuuk simply shrank it back down to pull it back, swinging it back around to throw another attack at the hands. Or rather, he was trying to push through and strike the body of the woman itself. Which, of course, seeded without issue. But it was like the woman''s rapidly rotting body was stuck in space as the dozens, no, hundreds of grotesquely branching hands and arms kept forcing their way through. Jyuuk let out a loud sigh, shaking his head annoyed, "This is going to be pretty annoying, huh?" Chapter 891: Filth With a swing of his staff, Jyuuk struck one of the hundreds of arms still furiously climbing out of the woman''s corpse. Despite being just barelyrger than a regr person''s arm, it felt like Jyuuk was striking a truck. It didn''t want to budge, but at least with his physical strength, he was able to still at least fracture its bones. If it had bones, at least. Find more chapters on m_v l|e-NovelBin It didn''t seem like it had to obey the general rules of biology that Jyuuk recognized. Rather than actually being some living being that was summoned here, it was more like a force of disgust and dread that was drawn out through this woman''s sacrifice, simply taking the form of hands as if it were the most logical option. But this dreadful thing didn''t seem to understand what arms or hands even were and how they were supposed to work, just having a surface-level recognition of what they should look like. Instead of grabbing things with its fingers, the mass of arms and hands instead wrapped its arms around it like a snake, those arms bending at dozens of randomly ced elbows that branched off into more of its kind like some kind of tree. The first thing that Jyuuk had to do was to put a stop to the summoning. He had no idea what this was, but Xenia might have some kind of idea. Either way, it wouldn''t help him to try and figure out what it is he was dealing with. He just had to do as Brody would, and smash it all to bits. With a wave of his hand, Jyuuk''s bestiary sprung from his hip, floating next to him as it flipped open and across its paged. He was looking through, trying to find the best match, until his eyesnded on a particr creature, "Alright, let''s go with that one." The art drawn onto the pages quickly jumped off it and onto Jyuuk''s body. From under his fur, the colors of the art started to glow, as Jyuuk slowly changed. His body bulked up as his fur turned into chitin. His tail thickened and became t, hanging from his lower back like some kind of piece of cloth floating behind him. As the beastman threw his staff into the air, Jyuuk''s hands turned into hammer-like masses, his fingers fusing into ce, forming a hardened fist. Jyuuk''s staff soon fell back down. Once it was at the right height, one end aimed right at Jyuuk while the other was aimed as one of the base branches of the mass of hands, the beastman threw a punch forward. The speed of that punch was strong enough to create a shockwave in the air, heating it up from the sheer friction of the attack. The staff was shot forward at an unimaginable speed, almost tearing through the arms. "Oh, how I love the mantis shrimp..." Jyuuk grinned broadly, watching as splotches of wriggling flesh were thrown around the area. As they did, Jyuuk got a good look at their structure. Simr to the hands themselves, the ''flesh'' wasn''t particrly right either. It was thickyers of skin and fat and fused muscles, all mixed together like some kind of disgusting tie-dye. Jyuuk shuddered at the sight. Whatever this was, it wasn''t alive, but it most certainly wasn''t dead either. It was like he was dealing with some kind of perversion of either of those concepts. He had no idea what this was, or how these guys knew how to summon it. Nor did he know why they summoned something like... like this. As the lumps of flesh tried to writhe their way back to the hands, the hole that Jyuuk had just created in that mass quickly repaired itself as the hands practically raced to fill it in, melting into the missing area. With a quick whistle, Jyuuk summoned his staff back to him, holding onto it with his foot. His hands weren''t usable right now, after all. "Well, at least I know I can break it. Might as well give it a shot for as long as I can," Jyuuk said to himself, pressing his staff into the ground. It extended in length and made him shoot toward the mass, where Jyuuk struck at it with his body that had received the powers of a monster derived from the famously powerful mantis shrimp. On earth, a mantis shrimp Jyuuk''s size would probably tear itself apart while trying to punch, if it was even able to exert any sort of power in the first ce. But here in this world, Jyuuk found a species of mantis shrimp monsters the size of buses that were able to increase their strength many times over, even if not to a proportional degree. And with one of his abilities, Jyuuk was able to fuse himself with his monsters to a degree. He could edit exactly what qualities he would take on for each monster, and what he chose to do for this one was really quite a simple choice; he put the full focus on the mantis shrimp''s punch. And that punch showed that it was quite useful right here. With a few fast jabs, dozens of hands were torn apart at once.Though, they seemed to re-form almost as fast as Jyuuk was tearing them apart. Though, only almost. Bit by bit, the beastman whittled down on the thing''s form, until he got all the way to the gnawing hole in the woman''s corpse. "How could you desecrate a body like that? No matter who they are, the dead deserve some level of respect, and you''re just tearing apart her soul like that? Disgusting," Jyuuk clicked his tongue, looking into the woman''s face. He carefully held his forehead against her''s, whispering something to her that no other soul could hear. His words, whatever they were, made soft, ckened tears flow out from the dead woman''s body before it crumbled apart into ashes. Looking to the side, the man that had set up this sacrifice was already dead. Whether it was because of that mass of hands or because of the shockwaves created by Jyuuk''s attacks didn''t really matter. He wasn''t particrly strong anyway; just knowledgable. And that knowledge was something that Jyuuk needed. Just in case, he kept up the transformation into this mantis shrimp form, and slowly slid his foot over the ground. He drew a pattern into the dirt, quickly activating it. As the pattern lit up, the contorted body of the man twisted back into a nearly ''normal'' position. "What did you summon?" Jyuuk asked immediately, as the undead looked up at him. This creature didn''t have any physical strength, but Jyuuk was forcing the man''s soul into obeying him and telling the truth about any questions he had. After that, the soul would be set free, ready to go wherever it would end up after that. Not that Jyuuk really wanted someone like this around in his legion anyway. "I called on... the filth." "... Is that it? It''s called ''Filth''? I guess it''s fitting, but... Why? Why did you do it?" "I... don''t know..." "You don''t know?" Jyuuk frowned lightly, "Did somebody tell you to do it, or did you just feel the urge to at some point?" The corpse spoke as the body already started to dpose, "Since... long ago... we have been nning this. The filth... has been with us for... a long... long time..." "Oi, answer the question," Jyuuk said in amanding voice, as the corpse slowly began to smile up at him, something it shouldn''t be able to do. In this state, it shouldn''t have any emotions. "May the filth... cleanse this world..." And with that, the man''s corpse fell apart into a goo after rapidly dposing. It was a rather disgusting sight, but one that Jyuuk was already used to at this point. "How the hell..?" Jyuuk red at the puddle that used to be a man, groaning loudly, "Did something infect his soul?" he guessed. Turning around, Jyuuk looked at the masses of flesh wriggling on the ground, "So what do you want, filth? What are you here for?" The false flesh gathered together in a number of small mounds that were trying to once more return to a more tangible shape, like worms climbing on top of each other, trying to mimic the shape of a human. And as they did, Jyuuk could swear that the squelching sound of wet, raw flesh began to form words. Chapter 892: Filth (2) The collective of the masses of flesh that was introduced to Jyuuk as the ''Filth'' was convulsing and slowly moving toward each other, trying tobine back into one. The wet squelching started to sound almost like words were being formed, and Jyuuk carefully listened. "We dON''t HavE a ReaSon!" "You don''t have a reason for being here?" Jyuuk asked with a raised brow, "So you''re here because you were summoned, and that''s it? Want me to get you back t o where you came from? My wife is on her way, she could make that happen." The flesh continued on to practically scream, though Jyuuk had no idea where that sound could possiblye from. Though, the beastman figured that it didn''t really matter anyway. He was talking to a sentient hivemind of flesh right now. "wE WiLl NoT go bAcK!" the Filth responded, and Jyuuk let out a long groan. "Fine, fine, you don''t wanna go back, I get it. Just take it easy. So, what do you want? Even if you don''t have a reason for being here, there surely must be something you want, right?" "We HaVE no WaNTs!" Jyuuk rolled his eyes, "Clearly, that''s not the case. Because at the very least, you don''t want to go back to where you came from. Come on, just tell me, we can make it happen. Food, entertainment, freedom, whatever. You''d have to do us a couple of favors in return, of course, but-" In response to Jyuuk''s offer, the filth seemed to almost be angry, letting out a screech simr to before. Its flesh once more formed hands that crawled toward each other, and for now, Jyuuk just continued watching. There wasn''t anything he could do about this one either. This thing didn''t have anything like health that he could whittle down, and was clearly unable to die. Jyuuk could probably trap it somehow, he certainly had a few different monsters that could contain creatures, but since he had no idea what he was actually dealing with, he didn''t want to risk those monsters getting hurt somehow. It seemed like a better option to just wait for Xenia and have her deal with this weird thing that was summoned through a magic Jyuuk didn''t even recognize, than for him to try something and just make it worse. Not to mention, it wasn''t even that strong, so he could just keep destroying it whenever it tried something. And so, the beastman watched as the hands crawled toward each other, climbing on a pile to form something of a pir. The hands grasped each other, tightening parts of the pir and widening others, until what stood in front of Jyuuk was a person made out of disfigured hands. "We Will Not Serve You!" the mass of hands yelled out, but Jyuuk just stood there. "Mhm, sure," he let out a slight yawn, turning around toward the other end of the canyon. In the distance, Xenia and Brody were both approaching. Apparently Brody heard that there was something happening here and wanted to join because the treaty meeting was too boring for him. Which was fair enough; Jyuuk felt the same, so he didn''t even hesitate to leave when the shadow mouse came and reported that something was happening. "Honey!" Xenia eximed, the wings ofpressed air on her back putting her down in front of Jyuuk, "Are you okay?" Brody, who had apanied Xenia by simply running and jumping, also slowed down next to him but was rather focused on the Filth that was still forming its body right there in front of them, "Sheesh, what happened? Some kind of satanic ritual or something?" Jyuuk shrugged, "I don''t even know. It doesn''t seem to be rted to the underworld if that''s what you mean, anything there is still some kind of living being in some way or another. This thing is just... a bit too ''wrong'' for that. It''s called ''Filth'', apparently. Dear, do you know what this is?" he asked, looking at the high elf beside him. She had already started ncing around the area, having spotted the magic circle on the ground and the number of trinkets that had been ced down. Her ears twitched in recognition, but she still shook her head. "I don''t think I know... maybe I knew, but not right now. It does seem familiar, though. From what I can tell, it''s definitely simr to some demon summoning rituals from earth," Xenia pointed out, "Of course, ''demon'' is kind of a religious term on earth, while here it''s the name of a species of people that got their name from the ''demons'' like the type that Eisen is, but that''s really just a name that was given to it because of our connection to the concept of demons that we already knew of beforehand." Brody raised his brow. Being a half-demon himself, he knew a bit of the history of his species, but he didn''t really see how that mattered, "So, if that''s not a demon, then what is it?" "Well, that''s the thing, it might be one?" Xenia suggested, "The word ''demon'' is, again, just what we call them in modern times, and the word has deeply religious connotations. But these types of rituals date back to long, long before modern religions. It''s more like they were trying to summon these deeply vicious forces to do their bidding, or to run rampant, or whatever. I think this might be exactly that kind of ritual, that kind of ''deeply vicious force''." With an immense sense of curiousity in her eyes, Xenia looked at the figure, "Filth, huh? I wonder, is that a category, or a species? Or is that this entity? But it''s made of hands, I wonder why that is... It''s forming a person right now, so can it talk?" "I guess so," Jyuuk replied, looking over at the mass of hands that was seemingly turning more and more into a humanoid form, "Just ask and it might answer, I guess." "Oh, perfect!" Xenia responded, pping her hands together excitedly, "In that case, Filth, what are you exactly?" "We Are Filth," it replied simply, its words already sounding a lot clearer than they did before. Not to mention, the hands that were making up its body seemed to be a lot less ''wrong'' all of a sudden. They still had too many digits, for the most part, but they were starting to bend in the correct ways at the very least. "Right, right, but what does that mean exactly? Are you the incarnation of the concept of ''filth'', or is that a name that someone gave to you in the past?" "We Are That Which is wrong," Filth replied, as all the hands had gathered back together. Jyuuk noticed that it was much smaller than it should be considering the massiveness of that flood of hands from earlier, "We are that which is filthy, which is not supposed to be. The touch of that which repulses, and the rage of those that are repulsed." "... Is it me or is it pretty articte right now?" Brody asked, looking over at Jyuuk, as the beastman nodded his head. "Yeah... it''s learning, I think? Learning how to properly talk and move, I mean." That idea seemed to make Xenia even more excited, "Interesting! Okay, Filth, what are you here for? What are you nning on doing next?" The Filth stood there silently for a few moments. Its hands were carefully forming a mouth across its head, cutting vertically through its ''face''. From there, it began to speak again, with fingers wriggling inside of that mouth like teeth, "We will simply be. We will exist. But existence is hard for us. Existing is... exhausting." "Amen, brother," Brody scoffed, crossing his arms with a slightugh. But the Filth slowly continued on, clearly not having joked. "To continue to exist, to stop ourselves from ceasing, we need energy. Everything is energy, so we will take everthing, so we may not cease." Jyuuk looked at Xenia with a slightly worried expression, "Do you know how to send that thing back from where it came from?" The high elf slowly shook her head, "Actually, I don''t think it came from anywhere. I think it''s a concept that was just... brought into being," she pointed out, clearly understanding Jyuuk''s anxiety, "But whichever it is, if it exists, then we can... make it unexist, right? It says it needs energy to exist, so if we stop it from eating and getting new energy, it should ''die'', right?" Jyuuk nodded, "Right. Let''s do that. Brody, would you..." "Join you in breaking this thing a couple times? And here I thought you''d never ask." Chapter 893: End of the first Meeting Day Eisen looked at the tired envoys. It was deep into the night, and the discussions wereing to an end for the day. They had made a lot of progress today, and it luckily seemed like everything was headed into all the right directions, but that didn''t mean that this was all easy by any means. Eisen had to intervene a few times and guide things into a more productive direction since some of the envoys were starting to talk about personal grievances or being too unreasonable, not understanding the situation of the other side properly. And at some point, Jyuuk, Xenia, and Brody had to leave as well to take care of some incident in the outskirts of town, and Van Horgh seemed particrly anxious ever since then, as though he was waiting for something to happen. Eisen also noticed the flow of magic change around one of Van Horgh''s assistants that was here in the room with him, as though they had gathered magic to activate either some kind of spell or magic item. Eisen wasn''t sure exactly what that item or spell would do, but he figured it was either some kind of escape item or a protective barrier. Just as he was thinking so, a message popped up in front of Eisen. He had told the others to only message him in emergencies so that Eisen could minimize his interactions with the system, but it seemed like this was exactly one of those emergencies. Xenia: They summoned something in the outskirts of town. It''s a ritual I haven''t seen in this world yet, but I might be able to recover the memory soon. Brody and Jyuuk are whittling down on it until it runs out of energy, but it seems like it will take a while. Eisen: Do you need me toe help? Xenia: Just keep an eye out and tighten defenses. This is a ''thing'' none of us have encountered before, so we don''t know if it has abilities that can let it escape from us Eisen: Got it. Keep me updated The old man turned around and waved over Kiron. The half-dragon knight quickly came over, and Eisen whispered into his ear, telling him about the situation. With a quick nod, he turned back around and went to ry that information to the others. All but one of the half-dragon knights made their way out of the meeting hall, as the others all went to take up proper defensive positions in case something was about to happen. At the same time, Evalia came back into the room; she had briefly left when the other three had to already update some of the others and let them know to get ready for anything. It looked like she had also been told about what was going on, and seemed a little annoyed. Walking by the old man, she leaned in for a whisper. "And here I thought things would go off without a hitch..." she pointed out, and Eisenughed quietly, returning the whisper. "It doesn''t sound like it''s a truly massive deal. And even if turns out to be a bit more than we expected, with all five of us here, there''s no way anything could go truly wrong, is there?" "Hm... I guess you''re right," Evalia sighed, looking around at the room, "Still, should we send everyone out for now? It might be better for one of us to go take a look too, right?" "Right. I''ll take care of sending everyone away and then head out. Oh, could you maybe go and set up the extra barrier that we prepared? And then just stay here and make sure nothing goes wrong." "Sure, sounds like a n. The detection one or the defensive one?" Eisen thought about it for a moment, "The detection one should be fine. I think Xenia set it up so that the defensive one would be activated automatically one the detection barrier finds something bothersome." With a quick nod, Evalia turned around and made her way outside again, as Eisen focused back on the envoys. He pped his hands together and smiled. "Should we call it a day for now?" he suggested, and the envoys all nced over at therge clock ced above the entrance. It didn''t seem like anyone felt the need to deny that idea; there wasn''t a single envoy here that wasn''t exhausted after a full day of these important, stressful conversations. "If any of you would like to have something of an evening snack or a drink to help you sleep, please let one of our people know and they will bring you something," Eisen told them all as they left the meeting room. Some of the envoys passed by Eisen first to briefly speak to him, but since it was already sote and Eisen had other things he needed to get to right now, he tried his best to keep the conversations short. Sometimes, he even just told them straightforwardly that they should continue to talk tomorrow. Before long, all the envoys properly left the room, and Eisen quickly looked at all the people left, which really just included some of his guards, some butlers and maids that had been here on standby, as well as Ambriel and Satel. The angel and devil let out long sighs, stretching slightly after being so stiff literally all day. "Are you two alright?" Eisen asked, and Satel slowly nodded their head. "Yeah... just exhausted. And we''ve got to keep doing this every day?" the devil asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "It would be great if you could. If you want, I can make you some potions to keep you energized, though. Oh, or if you want, I could give you a potion I made a while ago that should help you sleep. Not only will you fall asleep fast, the quality of sleep should be pretty high," the old man suggested, and Satel seemed to consider it for a moment. "Hmm... you know, that''s not for me. I should be fine for now, but I might take you up on that tomorrow if it''s gonna be as rough as today," Satel yawned, looking at Ambriel, "What about you? You''ve been having trouble sleeping recently anyway, right?" "... I think maybe that would be a good idea. Could I have one, maybe? I''ll take it if I can''t fall asleep without it," Ambriel suggested, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. Something about the angel seemed a little off, but Eisen figured that he might be imagining it. Ambriel was in a pretty unique situation right now that they were clearly struggling with, so they might just not be able to deal with that sort of exhaustion very well. Eisen reached into his item storage and took out a small vial that he handed to Ambriel, "Don''t drink it toote though, or else you might not be able to wake up in time. Try to drink it before midnight, alright?" Ambriel nodded their head, "Thank you..." "Alright, go ahead and rest, you two," Eisen stood up with a smile, "There''s something I''ve got to take care of now." "Is it whatever you told that dragon kid about?" Satel asked curiously, "So somethin'' did happen?" Eisen smiled lightly, "I guess so. But it''s nothing too bad, we''re just being extra careful right now." "Ehh... boring," the devil groaned, but Eisen just scoffed in response. "Right, right. If I think I could use your help for something, I''ll let you know." "Sure, sure, do that. Though if you five can''t handle it, I doubt either of us will be of much help." "Well... you''ve got knowledge, at least. In some regards, maybe more than the five of us have," Eisen replied, "But either way, we''ll handle it for now ande to you if needed. Again, just rest for now. Thanks for your work today." And with that, the pair made their way out of the meeting room, and the guards and servants all left too. Thest of the half-dragon knights quickly made his way to his post as well, and Eisen approached the balcony, quickly increasing his size and transforming. He flew up into the sky and looked into the direction where everything seemed to be happening. Pretty quickly, he could tell that something was going on over there, as neither Jyuuk nor Brody were particrly good at ''taking it easy''. Of course, they could be quiet and discrete if needed, but clearly, neither of them thought that to be necessary right now. And so, Eisen and Evalia approached therge dust cloud together. Chapter 894: Another World As the old man''s feet touched the ground, Eisen quickly shrank down and looked around. He was surrounded by a cloud of dust that clearly came from the people currently fighting in front of him. Since he wasn''t able to see through it normally, Eisen nced at what was going on with his truth-seeing-eye. But when he did, what the old man saw wasn''t just Jyuuk and Brody swinging around their weapons and fists at the thing in front of them. And whatever it was, it was... wrong. It didn''t belong into this world, like some disgusting splotch of rot that was thrown onto a page. It was disgusting just to look at this mass of ck, sludge-like energy in the shape of a person. At the edge of this area where they were fighting, or rather, where Jyuuk and Brody were tearing away at the thing, Xenia was standing and inspecting some kind of magic circle that was still leaking some of that same exact energy into the air. However, different to that thing, that energy wasn''t contained in anything. It was like it was being diffused into the air. Holding his hand in front of his mouth and nose, trying to stop himself from breathing it in as if on instinct, Eisen rushed over to where Xenia was standing. "Oh! You came after all? Well, that''s fine! You won''t believe this," the high-elf eximed excitedly when Eisen approached, "Here,e take a look and-" "What are you doing?! Put a barrier around this, just- just something to stop the energy from leaking more!" Eisen eximed, and Xenia looked at him confused. "What do you mean? The ritual was interrupted, the connection has been cut..." she pointed out, looking at the ritual site with a frown. Xenia noticed that Eisen''s eyes were glowing in that golden light, so she knew that he was seeing something that he couldn''t, "You say that there''s something ''leaking''? Can you describe it for me?" "It''s... Just I don''t know, the same as whatever Jyuuk and Brody are fighting, as if that thing is made up of the same stuff as this," Eisen pointed out nervously, and Xenia''s anxiety immediately grew. "Oh gods..." Xenia muttered, "So... what if this works on apletely different system than what I know right now? It could create some kind of connection to another space, but-" Xenia stopped when she saw Eisen''s expression, as the old man held his hand to his forehead as if he was in pain, "Eisen! What''s going on, are you okay?" "I- Yeah, I-" he muttered, as he felt something weird encroaching on him. It was like a memory, or one of those ''shbacks'' that he got lost in sometimes, but this one seemed to have been locked away behind thick gates, as if these were memories Eisen wasn''t allowed to even nce at. A self-imposed restriction, because he wasn''t ready for this information yet. But right now, that memory was forcing its way out. Withrge thuds, as the blood pumped through the veins in Eisen''s head, and twinges of pain coursed through him, the memories forced their way out of the gate. As the stared at the ritual''s magic circle and that disgustingly wrong energy in front of him, Eisen felt a wave of annoyance. "Another failure?" Eisen asked, cing his hand onto Xenia''s shoulder. The elf nodded her head with a long, frustrated sigh. "Just like every day. No matter what I do, it doesn''t seem to work... I''ve been trying to figure this out for... what, three thousand years now? And every time it looks like I''m getting closer, I just hit another wall... How the hell did Samuel do it on Earth?" she groaned loudly, leaning backward into her seat. Find your next read on m_v l|e-NovelBin Coming in from another room, Jyuuk carried in some hot tea that he ced in front of his wife and Eisen, leaning in to Xenia for a quick kiss. As he pulled back again, he smiled lightly, "It could have been the cumtion of tens of generations. Or they had some kind of more natural ess to these methods that we don''t know about. You say that things work slightly differently in each world, right?" "They work differently? How so?" Eisen asked as he ced the cup of tea against his lips, not sure if he was understanding right. Xenia thought about her answer for a few moments. "Like... Okay, so. Generally, our worlds are very, very simr, right? For the most part, most building blocks of the world are identical, with the most prominent exception being the existence of mana. It interacts with the physical world in a unique way that we know isn''t the case on earth. But while that''s the most prominent difference, that''s not all. The rules of the universe are slightly... different. Since thest time you visited, I''ve been doing some experiments. And you know, on Earth, while I went into an anthropological fieldter, but when I first started, I nearly got to the point where I got a bachelor''s degree in physics, and with my abilities here, I remembere basically everything that I learned there perfectly, and can evenprehend it a bit better, and... well, let''s just say..." Xenia hesitated, as if she knew how insane what she was about to say sounded, "Gravity is different. Not by a lot, but it''s tangibly stronger by a factor of around 0.003% rtive to the mass of the object than it should be. Maic forces are just so slightly skewed from what I know, and the speed of light, if I measured and calcted everything right, which let''s be honest, we all know I did, is faster than on Earth. Or well... our home universe as a whole, obviously. And these are just the things that I''ve been able to figure out on my own, and there''s a lot of tests that I can''t properly do because I can''t cross-reference things on Earth, but there have to be far, far more things that are different that we just don''t know about yet." Eisen ran his fingers through his beard in thought, trying to understand the importance of that fact, "So... you think that it''s possible that there''s some factor that made it easier for Samuel, or his ancestors, to find the seed of another world, or universe, or whichever it is really, than it is for us." Xenia immediately nodded her head, "Yes, exactly. And at the same time... there has to be some level ofpatibility. Like, clearly, there''s other worlds out there where... Light isn''t even a thing that exists. It might be a world where matter isn''t a thing, and they have something that we can''t evenprehend. It''s possible that I did find some other worlds, but that the connection broke down because our worlds simply weren''tpatible enough." "In that case... once you do find it, there''s a good shot that it will be our world? Earth?" Eisen asked, and Xenia didn''t know how to answer that. "Yes, but it could also be just... vaguely simr? I don''t know. It''s not like the whole ''parallel universe'' thing where every possible variation of our world exists. Like a world where everything''s the same but carrots are purple instead of orange. That''s not how this works, so if we find a world that looks like ours, then it''s probably the right one, but... I don''t know, it''s moreplicated than that. There should be a link between this world and earth that we can ess already, but maybe Samuel did something thatpletely blocks any attempt in the first ce," Xenia sighed in frustration, as Eisen ced his hand onto the elf''s back. "Don''t worry. If anyone can figure this out, it''s you," Eisen smiled, looking at Xenia''s face which quickly turned into one of concern as Eisen was pulled back out from the memory he had just lived through. The knowledge was a bit hard to keep up with, but the old man did at least understand something important. He understood the nature of what they were dealing with; the nature of what they had just essed. Eisen didn''t know how the Holy Empire got their hands on the methods of opening that ''passage'', but that wasn''t important right now. "That..." the old man muttered, "It''s from somewhere else... different to this one, or earth, it''s something from a whole other world." Chapter 895: Another World (2) "What... what do you mean? Like, the ''Filth'' is from another realm?" Xenia asked, not totally sure if she was understanding Eisen correctly, but the old man immediately shook his head. "No, not another realm. Not hell or heaven or whatever magical nes exist here; a different world. Like how earth is in a different world from this one," he exined, "And it looks like it''s bleeding into this one. And in return... this one is bleeding into that world too. It''s probably somewhat like how Samuel wants to introduce mana to earth." Xenia silently turned her head. That cloud of dust was fully concealing the Filth, and she shuddered at the thought, "So it''s... what do you... How even?" "I don''t know how, but you were researching a way to get us back to Earth independently from Samuel. But it looks like you... might have created a connection to a new world instead. And since then, it might have be easier to connect to the world that this thing is from." "I..." Xenia''s eyes darted around in thought as she tried to think about what was going on, attempting to properlyprehend the situation. As she did, the high-elf winced and held a hand to her forehead, as though she were in pain, "That feels familiar, but... does that mean that there''s even more worlds out there?" Eisen quickly nodded, "I''ll exin what I remembered to youter, but I think for now, we should deal with that thing properly. It looks like it has something simr to mana; at least, it''s simr enough that my truth-seeing eye can detect it. It''s some kind of... wrong energy, dirty and disgusting. Filthy, like that thing''s name would imply." "Do you think it''s dangerous? Or particrly powerful?" "I don''t know if it''s powerful or not, but it doesn''t follow the rules of our world. It could be iprehensibly different, to the point where it might be worse for us if it ''dies'', if that''s even something that''s possible," Eisen pointed out, and Xenia red at the ''thing''. Explore more stories with m,v l''e-NovelBin "I''m not sure if that''s something we need to... worry about," she replied, "Even if it''s from a different world, right now it took on a form that''s of this world. Yes, there''s a lot wrong about it, but if it was that easy to just ignore the rules of the world we''re in, then Samuel never would have had to go through such immense effort to try and bring mana to earth." "Let''s hope you''re right," a little nervously, Eisen looked at the magic circle on the ground, "Do you think you could try and figure out a way to open the gateway again so we can banish that thing?" Xenia looked at the summoning circle on the ground and slowly shook her head, "Not right now, no, but... I''m feeling a really, really strong connection to these memories right now, so I should be able to get to it quickly if you can buy me the time I need." "Of course, that should be doable. I''ll help the others out as much as I can, so we should be able to hold out for quite a while, but even so... don''t take too long," Eisen told the high-elf as she quickly nodded her head. She knelt down on the ground and closed her eyes, before her body turned translucent, glistening crystals. From his soul storage, Eisen took out his demonic sword, clutching the handle tightly. He took a deep breath, increasing his size for just a moment before huffing and puffing, and blowing it all away. The cloud of dust that was surrounding Jyuuk, Brody and the Filth immediately disappeared, being pushed out through the ravines. Both Brody and Jyuuk looked at the old man, "Bragging?" Eisen scoffed, swinging his sword down at the Filth, "I can''t see with all that stuff there. This thing''s energy makes it hard to see its physical body." As he said so, Eisen''s massive sword cut through it''s body, cleanly splitting it apart. But even so, it regenerated immediately, almost before Eisen even fully cut through it, as if its self-healing ability was speeding up. However, if they let up even momentarily, the Filth tried to attack them, its hundreds of hands trying to reach out to tear it all apart. More and more, it seemed to grow more hands, but somehow, its body only shrank down. Or rather, it seemed to be morepressed. More dense, and harder to cut through. The three''s attacks were bing less and less effective, and Brody let out a loud groan, "Jyuuk, blunt impact aint gonna work anymore. You got some heat on ya? Like, literal heat, we should try burning its flesh." "Oh, do I?" Jyuuk grinned, pulling back for a moment. At the same time, Brody pulled out a weapon from his armoury, a chain sword. Swinging it around like a whip, Brody cut the Filth''s body into tiny parts. Meanwhile, Eisen was doing the brunt work, swinging his giant sword into it to keep it busy with rough, gnawing cuts. And then, the chunks that Eisen was creating were cut into even smaller parts by Brody, while Jyuuk was preparing some powerful mes. Of course, both Brody and Eisen had ess to fire as well. But right here, it was better to split it up and let everyone focus on a different part of the process, so Brody concentrated on the cutting force of the chain whip. Meanwhile, Eisen''s fire wasn''t useful for this. His mes weren''t particrly powerful inbat, meaning that they didn''t actually damage others all too much. The pain was certainly there, but in terms of point damage, it was absolutely minimal. So, Jyuuk doing it was probably the best idea. His Mantis Shrimp form quickly faded away, and the chitin on his body turned back into fur, but then quickly turned into glowing red feathers as a halo of mes was drawn around his head. Swinging his monkey staff around, sparks were flung around the area. With a quick push forward, a swirl of fire was shot toward the small pieces of the Filth''s flesh that was being thrown around the area, quickly scorching them. However, despite the mes, the flesh seemed to learn how to recover even faster. "It''s energy is still decreasing," Eisen pointed out, seeing that the Filth was clearly trying to pull in whatever it could from the gateway in order to continue sustaining itself, which is why Xenia had to quickly wake up. She had toe back with the knowledge of what they had to do to banish this thing that just refused to die even with this constant,bined barrage of attacks from Brody, Jyuuk, and Eisen. And then, they could try and close the gateway and then immediately question Van Horgh to figure out how the fuck the holy empire learned about something like this, as well as why they would ever even consider doing something like this. Despite their behaviour, Eisen thought they had at least some level of integrity behind their actions. The reason they despised monsters was because they thought that they went against thews of the world and were beings that didn''t understand the divine doctrines. Which, of course, was absolute hogwash. But at least they were consistent throughout their opinions regarding this part of their beliefs, and then they turned around and tried to use something like this, from a whole other world? That made absolutely no sense. But really, who knew what they were thinking? Eisen still didn''t know how they even learned how to do this ritual, but in the end, it didn''t matter much. They went too far, making an innocent young woman sacrifice herself for some kind ofrge-scale cult, bing a martyr for a false cause. Eisen sure as hell hoped that Evalia was keeping a good eye on them, because if something happened to the envoys from the holy empire, the old man would go on a rampage. He had to give them what they deserved himself. Before long, as the cycle of cutting, dicing, and roasting was being repeated again and again and again, Xenia finally woke back up. She jumped up from the ground, "I know what to. Eisen,e and help me out here!" Immediately, the old man pulled back, and Brody immediately went into the next gear to make up for his absence. "What do I need to do?" Eisen asked, looking into the concerned high-elf''s face. Chapter 896: Another World (3) Xenia waved her hands around, concentrating her magic into a mass in front of her. That mass quickly took the form of a needle, and at its end, a long thread was forming as well. "You can see the gateway, right? The way that this summoning circle works is quite crude, so it has to have created pretty big tear," the high-elf exined, continuing to create more of that magical thread as she moved the needle over to Eisen, "Right now, you need to stitch up that tear. Just in any way you can to make it as strong as possible, so that it won''t tear again while I ''heal'' the tear." The old man quickly nodded his head, "Got it, that sounds easy enough." He took the magical needle into his hand. It was quiterge, but considering the size of the ''tear'' that Eisen was seeing in front of him, it was quite understandable that it would need something thisrge. The needle itself felt a little weird to the touch, though; cold and ss-like, while at the same time somewhat soft and seemingly able to bend quite easily, as if it were made of rubber. It might be a little weird to use it to stitch something up, but it should work out somehow. Eisen quickly looked at the tear that the magic was leaking out of. It was in the middle of the air above the summoning circle. From the position of that woman''s dead body and what he was told by Jyuuk, it seemed like the tear was exactly in the spot where she had cut into her own body to let the ''Filth'' through. That was why there were three different lines that he would have to stitch up; the one vertical one seemed to be the most rough and torn. If ''space'' acted anything like fabric, then he should be careful with this. So instead, he started with the horizontal cuts. He ced the tip of the needle against the edge of the cut, feeling some level of resistance. At first Eisen thought it would simply pass through the air without any resistance at all, but it rather felt like he was trying to push a needle through steel. But after continuing to press, that ''wall'' seemed to give in as if melting away, and Eisen was able to push the needle through the air. He wasn''t able to go as fast as he usually would, but before long, he did find the rythm that he needed to stitch up the lines as much as he could. The tears were pulled shut, but the space beyond it was still bleeding through to this world. Eisen sure hoped that Xenia would be able to properly close this, because it felt absolutely disgusting to be faced by this all. After stitching the horizontal cuts, Eisen moved on to the vertical one. He had to be a bit more careful here, as the edges were frayed. If he was too rough here, he could just make it all even worse than before. So, Eisen left a bit of arger gap between the edge of the cut and the spot he actually pushed the needle into. It seemed like he needed to use a lot more force to get the needle through like this, but it was still working somehow. Stay connected via m-v l|e''-NovelBin Pulling the edges of the cut together as he continued sewing it back together was also quite tough, and Xenia seemed to be struggling to keep the stability of the magical threads up, as she was attempting to do throughout this whole process Even so, before long, Eisen had closed the gateway for now. There was still some of that disgusting energy leaking out through it, but it was already much less than it had been before. Once the ends oft he threads were tied off, the old man looked at Xenia. "I''m done," he said, and the high-elf let out a sigh of relief. "Perfect, thank you for the help..." she said, slowly letting go of the control she had over the magic. The moment she did, it seemed like the tear was starting to want to pull itself back open, but luckily, it was holding out pretty well for the time being. The old man watched as Xenia ced her hand in front of the rift, starting to mutter someplex chants that he didn''t recognize. It didn''t even seem to be the mon''nguage that was spoken in this world. As Xenia continued to chant and cast some magic on the rift, it seemed to be healing, like a wound that was slowly fusing back together. But as that happened, Eisen was starting to see something. Space itself, around the rift, was deforming. It looked like how when the heat from a me shifted the air, but this time, it was the space that the airid in itself. And what Eisen was seeing was the outline of a hand. It was like someone was trying to push against a piece of fabric, looking for an opening. Before long, a second hand joined, and then a third and a fourth. They were all in different sizes, and plenty of them had the wrong amount of fingers, but they were already a lot more ''correct'' than that hands that the ''Filth'' hade here with earlier. Though by now, even the hands making up the Filth''s body were overall correct, though the fingers still bent the wrong way a lot. But it didn''t just end at the hands this time. In a simr way, distorted faces were pushing against the fabric of space around the tears as they slowly closed down. The faces were bumpy and the positions of everything were wrong. The noses were above the eyes, of which there were sometimes one, sometimes three, and sometimes five, or anything inbetween, but the eyes were never in the right position or orientation. Truthfully, Eisen was a bit surprised that he could even recognize them as faces right away. The old man instinctively grasped the handle of his sword, getting ready to strike at everything and anything that might try to force its way out through the tears. At some point, Xenia''s chanting stopped, though her magic was still affecting the rift. "What''s happening?" the old man asked, "Those weren''t there earlier." "Yeah, well..." Xenia groaned, "The chants echo through that world like you wouldn''t believe. I was basically advertising that there''s a gate here. They would have found it sooner orter anyway if we hadn''te along... That would have been an absolute catastrophe..." "At least it looks like it''s working." "It doesn''t just look like it; it''s definitely working," a slight grin formed on Xenia''s face, "Okay, when I tell you to, just tear away at the threads and get rid of them however you can." Eisen raised his brow, "Are you sure?" "Yes, it''s the final step of properly closing this rift." Trusting in his friend, Eisen nodded his head. He held forward his hands, ready to push his finger behind the threads to tear them out of the air. The faces and hands seemed to be getting more and more aggressive, as if they were getting more impatient or... desperate. It was like even they didn''t want to stay in that ce anymore. That exined why the ''Filth'' reacted so badly in response to being asked to go back. Eisen waited for what felt like forever, until Xenia finally told gave him the go-ahead. "Now!" she eximed, and Eisen immediately ran his hands over the threads. The magical glow curled around his fingers and were torn away from the air as if they never held onto anything in the first ce. Down to thest one, they all disappeared, leaving behind a scar that was only visible to Eisen right now. The imprints of the ''things'' on the other side grew weaker as the scar continued to fade away, until there was finally no trace anymore. The only part of that disgusting energy was the parts that were still here in the air, but those were being quickly absorbed and used up by the Filth. Clearly, it wasn''t used to having to use energy like this, so it was wasting it like there was no tomorrow. But even it had to realize that it was going to die at this rate. And once that realizationproperly hit it, the filth gave up; instead of attacking, it tried to pull back from the fight with Jyuuk and Brody. Chapter 897: Fear Eisen mmed down his sword into the ground in front of the Filth as it tried to escape. He had increased the de''s size as high up as it would go, so the path was blocked pretty well, "And where do you think you''re going?" The old man quickly dragged the de over the dirt, pushing the pieces of the ''thing'' back toward Brody and Jyuuk, who continued to try and take it down. But a part of the Filth was able to recover again, forming a clump of flesh that was like a bundle of hands trying to grasp at each other. "We wish to make a deal!" it eximed, and the four originals that were gathered all stared at the lump of wriggling flesh. "A deal?" Eisen asked. Clearly, the Filth wouldn''t be able to fight back against these four; that was clear to everyone gathered here. So was that thing desperate now? "What kinda deal?" Brody asked, and Jyuuk snapped his head toward the orc-demon halfling. "Brody!" "What? Aren''t you curious? Why not hear it out? Eisen said that thing''s from a whole separate world, right?" "Well... I... would like to hear more about that world..." the beastman replied, and the two quickly looked over to Eisen and Xenia, who seemed a bit more hesitant. Since they actually had memories rted to these other worlds now, they at the very least had a feeling about what could potentially go wrong if they weren''t careful when dealing with something like this. But in the end, Eisen figured there was no harm in, at the very least, hearing it out. Though, some safety-measures were needed. He squatted down and pushed his hand into the ground, making his item storage appear there. From inside, he grabbed argepressed mana crystal, quickly manipting it to form a cuberge enough for a person to stand inside. With his ego-tool Bai, he took a few moments to carve an extremely simple pattern into the cube; it was practically just a few symbols that were meant to make the mana crystal act more protective. Mana crystal was already nigh indestructible by regr means, but who knew what this thing could do? That was why the cube, once the carvings were activated, would work to retain its own shape as much as possible. Getting the memo without having to be told to do anything, Jyuuk and Brody scooped up every little piece of the Filth''s body and threw it inside of the cube. Eisen looked around with his truth-seeing eyes to make sure that there wasn''t any part of it that was identally left behind, and then closed the cube up. While they were doing so, Xenia was already working on another carving on the cube''s surface, which would allow them to talk to the Filth inside of it. It simply transmitted sound from the inside to the outside. The shape-retaining carvings that Eisen ced on the cube would also block vibrations, so it the cube happened to be sound-proof. Once every part of the Filth was inside, something that it epted without fighting back, Eisen activated all the enchantments on the cube''s surface, quickly making sure that it couldn''t be altered anymore. And with the ''inte'' enchantment, they quickly began their conversation. "Alright. What do you want?" Eisen asked, as Brody stood beside him to keep an eye on the Filth''s movements. Meanwhile, Xenia was erasing the summoning circle and collecting the trinkets, while Jyuuk took care of the dead bodies. Of course, they were still listening in, but Eisen was better at dealing with these matters than them. The filth, whose body had quickly reformed, was looking more and more... humanoid. Its fingers were melding into each other and smoothing out, so its skin really just looked a bit lumpy, but that was disappearing more and more anyway. The filth slowly opened its mouth. Its voice was still rough, but it was much better than it was before. "We want to continue our existence," it exined, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in understanding. "You want us to not kill you, alright. I guess that''s doable, but why would we let that happen?" the old man asked, and the Filth just stood there, calmly listening to what he was saying, "You''re a being from a whole other world. Your very existence is a threat to us. We should just do whatever we can to get rid of you, and throw you back where you came from." The moment Eisen pointed this out, the Filth''s body degenerated for just a few moments. Its hands shook and its fingers stood up from its body, almost like goosebumps. Its voice was shakey as it replied. "AnyThiNg but thAt... Do not mAkE us reTurN!" it practically yelled out, and Eisen looked at his friends a bit confused before turning back to the Filth. "Are you... scared? Of your own world?" he asked, and the Filth seemed to consider its words carefully. "Our world is one of... dread... a realm of concepts and ideas, rather than the physical and material, like this one. That is why we came to quickly understand many parts of this world, as well as our own," it exined, almost shocking Eisen and the others with how eloquently it was speaking all of a sudden, "Our grasp on yournguage is still weak, but we believe you would call our realm a world of... Horrors. Of fear, and disgust, and dread." It sounded ridiculous, but after seeing what those faces and hands did earlier to try and escape, he couldn''t deny that it seemed possible. The Filth continued. "But until just a moment ago... our world was one of stagnance. Of nothingness. And then, the passage was opened, and a spark of existence came to our realm. And with that momentary existence came a simple realization. We grew after being observed. The more we are observed, the more we are felt and experience, the more we will grow." "So you''re scared of not growing anymore? Or that you''ll stop existing once nobody is there to ''observe'' you anymore?" Brody asked, crossing his arms, but the Filth quickly exined. "No... those in that other realm will not cease to exist anymore, but they will also not grow. They will be stagnant, but not cease. Here, they may cease, but they may also grow. There it is safer, but..." Eisen frowned lightly. He didn''t understand what the issue was. The Filth was about to be killed here, so why would it want to risk staying if it could be safer over there? Unless... "You made a mistake." The Filth stayed silent, and Eisen continued as the others seemed a bit confused. "What do you mean?" Xenia asked, and the old man grinned, continuing to stare at the filth. "You were the first to leave that realm, and gave yourself a physical form. But you made a mistake when you did. Since you didn''t know about this ce beforehand, you took as much as you could. All the benefitial parts. Mass, strength,nguage. But you didn''t know where to stop. And then, you learned fear. You learned what it means to be scared, and if that''s what those things feed on... What would happen if you were thrown back there? Would you be able to return back to what you were before, or would you be a source of infinite fear for everything else in that realm? Would they continue to grow and feed and grow and feed? Forever and ever and ever," Eisen suggested, "That''s it, isn''t it? If you were to return, now that you learned how to be scared, your own world is too terrifying for you." Brody let out a slightugh, "Seriously? Is that it?" The Filth stayed silent for a few moments, but soon responded, "That is our expectation." "Hm, got it," Eisen said, smiling lightly. It was actually pretty funny, so he was trying to hold back augh. Brody was doing that more than enough anyway. "Do you understand now? If we go back we-" "So what? Why''s that our problem? You''re one of those ''fears'' as well, right? Why would we leave you here, where you can be a threat? You''ll keep growing stronger the more people are scared of you, right? In my opinion, we should just get rid of you right here." Chapter 898: Temporary Servitude "In my opinion, we should just get rid of you right here," Eisen said bluntly, staring down at the Filth, trapped in that cube. It stared back at the old man, clearly growing nervous. It really adapted a bit too much to this world. "We refuse to go back to that world!" "So what, who cares about what you want?" Brody scoffed, his arms crossed, "At this point in time, you''re nothing but trouble. And no matter how terrified you are of those things, you''re the same in the end, right?" The filth stayed silent, unable to deny what Brody was saying. Meanwhile, Eisen was running his hand through his beard, trying to just think about this a bit more. It was definitely true that it was dangerous to just leave the filth here in this world. It could grow stronger or reveal some kind of ability that they couldn''t deal with, and if that was the case, everything could be ruined. But at the same time, this was an opportunity that they couldn''t just let up. This was a being that came from a literal whole other universe; a ce that works with different rules. It was much more foreign to either of the worlds that Eisen has lived in than those worlds were to each other, but in the end, that was just something that mattered once that world was essed. The methods of essing other worlds must be, at the very least, simr. And the Filth clearly understood the travel between the worlds to an unusual degree; maybe because it was a being of ideas and concepts, it simply understood the concept of this travel between worlds instinctively once it had done so. With the help of the Filth, they could garner some sort of advantage over Samuel. The Filth could be a wildcard; one that Samuel had tried to use against them in the first ce. Eisen doubted the holy empire simply found out about something like this without Samuel''s help in one way or another. If the Originals could learn about how the connection between two worlds worked, they could potentially learn of new ways to put a stop to Samuel''s ploys altogether. They could prevent earth from being flooded with mana, a substance so incredibly foreign to that world. Looking closely, for now, it didn''t seem like there was any of that ''substance'' leaking out from the crystal cube. And on top of that, the Filth was clearly not use to feeling emotions, so it should be easy enough to manipte it using Charisma-based abilities. They should talk to Evalia about thatter. "... You said earlier that you won''t serve us. But only if you promise that you will, will we start thinking about letting you stay here," Eisen said bluntly, and the Filth''s hands seemed to tighten. "We..." With a slight stare, Eisen began to let out some of his ''influence'', using his demon- and royalty-based charisma abilities to ce severe pressure on them. "... we agree... If it means that you will not force us to return, we will serve you..." Eisen sighed, walking up to a nearby wall, where he quickly opened up a door to his item storage, "I''m just making it clear, but the only thing you bought yourself with that is an opportunity. That means we''re just putting off the decision for now until we''ve had the time to think about it a bit more," the old man said, ncing over to the other originals, who seemed to be satisfied with that decision as well for now. The old man looked around, grabbing some random ready-made clothes that he carried with him just in case. They weren''t anything special; simple straight trousers, a button-up shirt, and some proper shoes. He brought them over to the cube, momentarily deactivating the repair-enchantment to open up a small hole that he dropped the clothes through, before closing it back up and activating the enchantment again. "Put those on. You''re starting to look too... human to walk around nude," Eisen said, and the Filth stared at the clothes for a few moments. Obviously it understood the concept to some degree, but it still seemed uncertain about why it should cover its new body. Though, considering the situation, it quickly did as told. By now, you wouldn''t really be able to distinguish between the Filth and a young human man, for the most part. Its body was made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of disfigured hands that fit into each other perfectly to create a person''s form. Though, there were a few things that they were still struggling with, like hair and eyes. So, Eisen slightly sighed and grabbed a form prototype, so one without any particr enchantments that was meant to just act as a test for the appearance for the item, for some sunsses. They were those sort with thepletely round sses and almost perfectly ck lenses. Eisen doubted that the Filth actually saw out of those hollow holes that were supposed to have eyes in them in the first ce, so it didn''t matter that they were sunsses. It would make it easier for the Filth to appear human to others. "And keep all those hands together so you don''t freak others out," Eisen said in a strict tone, and the Filth nodded its head. "We understand... Will you let us out of this cage now?" "What? No, not yet," Eisen replied, "I''ll tell you when you can leave, but for now, we''re heading back to the meeting hall so we can all have a conversation about this." With that, Eisen quickly increased his size, picking up the cube while at the same time letting Xenia, Brody, and Jyuuk travel on his palm. The group made their way back to the meeting hall once everything had been handled. Xenia had ced a barrier around the scene of the summoning to make sure that nobody could enter that area for the time being. But they couldn''t stay there and risk being watched by Samuel. Eisen put the others down on the meeting hall''s balcony, carefully pushing the crystal cube through the doors, and then stepped through himself. Once the doors were closed and Eisen turned around, the Filth was starting to act weird. "What''s going on?" Eisen asked with a frown, and the Filth, whose whole body was shuddering, carefully replied. "This space is different from what we felt before. Like there is something missing..." The old man raised his brow, looking over at the others that were clearly thinking the same thing, "Were you able to sense the system''s signal?" "System... We know about the word and the importance, but we don''t fully understand. Why are you blocking this ''System'' in this space?" Eisen sighed, "We''ll tell you if we feel like we need to. Either way, just calm down, there''s no need to be worried about that... What a scaredy cat," the old man walked over to his chair and sat down, while one of the others sent a message to Evalia to ask her toe. As they were waiting, Brody, who seemed quite bored, asked something that the others had been wondering for a while now as well, "So... What''s with all the hands?" "... We don''t understand." "Like, why are youpletely made of a bunch of hands? Are you... the fear of hands or something?" "We do not represent any particr fear or horror. We were an amalgamation of it all, given a particr shape through the ritual. Now, we are the incarnation of Filth, of that which is wrong and ugly and should not be," it exined, "Though, through the words of the ritual, more specifically, we were given the form of the Hand that rises from the Filth." "Huh," Brody let out, "So I guess you could''ve been anything if they had done the ritual differently, not just hands?" Eisen let out a slight hum, "Well, some of them were trying to push through their faces instead of hands, so maybe there was some kind of subtle influence before that gave part of that world the form of faces instead of hands?" "That sounds possible..." Xenia muttered, "Filth, do you know of any other contact that''s been made with your world in the past?" "There may have been attempts, but we do not remember any instance of a gate," it replied, and Eisen frowned deeply. "Then how the hell did they know how to do that summoning?" Chapter 899: Three Options Eisen tapped his finger on the table in front of him. He was annoyed. Oh so, so annoyed. Who the hell did the envoys from the holy empire think they were? Trying to summon something from another world to cause chaos here? The fact that they would go that far was just nothing butplete insanity. Not only that, but the fact that they even knew about this meant that they either found some kind of notes from Xenia from when she researched these sorts of magic circles, or they were given that information directly through someone like Samuel. "Annoying bastards," the old man stood up from his seat, starting to pace around the room. The others looked at him with concerned expressions. "Are you alright? Whenever you get this worked up you end up doing somethin'' rash," Brody pointed out, and Jyuuk quickly added onto that. "While the irony of him saying so is clear, I certainly do agree. Please, do what you have told us; do not make any decisions that you will regret once you''ve cooled down. I''m sure that you n on facing the Holy Empire''s envoys, but what would that bring you?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen slowly nced over toward them. Before he could answer, the door opened, and Evalia finally reached the space. She seemed to be relieved to see that everyone was fine and that nothing major had happened, but her eyes also quickly moved over to the man contained in a crystal cube. "Uhm... What''s happening?" she asked, and Xenia quickly filled her in while Eisen continued pacing around the room in thought. Confused and not sure if she understood correctly, Evalia then stood in front of the crystal cube, taking a closer look at the Filth. "Seriously? Like, there''s even more worlds out there? Ooh, are there like alternate versions of us? Like a multiverse thing?" Evalia asked excitedly, and both Jyuuk and Brody quickly looked over toward the high elf sitting with them, but Xenia immediately shook her head. "No, it''s not that sort of thing. They''re just other worlds with different rules from the very moment they came into existence. They''re not different timelines or branching worlds or anything like that," Xenia exined, and the disappointment of the three was quickly obvious. Experience tales at m v|l e''-NovelBin "Awe, man... well, either way, this guy doesn''t look all that different to us, right? So why are you saying he''s terrifying? Is he super strong or something?" "No, he''s not," Eisen replied immediately, waving that very idea off, and the Filth hesitantly spoke. "We are not entirely sure, but we feel like that should be insulting... Pride is certainly a new emotion to us," the Filth pointed out, and Evalia raised her brows, taken aback. "Oh, wow, they sound... weird. No offense, obviously," Evalia said bluntly, and Eisen quickly borated on what he meant. "The Filth is basically an amalgamation of hands that sort of melded together into that form. Come on, take those sses off," Eisen said, and the Filth soon did as told. When they took their sses off, dozens of small fingertips were wriggling inside of their hollow eye sockets, as if excited to be beheld. Evalia pulled back for a moment. "Oh... that... huh," Evalia let out, slightly grimacing, "So... are they... Sorry, what''s happening now?" she asked confused. Eisen stopped pacing, and ced his hands onto his hip, "I don''t know. We''ve got a few options for now. One, we act like nothing happened, move on, and hope the rest of the treaty meeting goes well without any major incident." "Which probably isn''t the best idea. They might just think something failed or that the two people in charge of this ran away and then try again. I doubt they didn''t have more than one team prepared," Xenia pointed out, and Eisen nodded. "I agree. I feel like that''s the most optimistic, or rather, gullible option. But it''s an option, anyway. And then there''s the second thing we can do. We go to the holy empire''s envoys right this second, threaten them with war. War not with the giants, but with us, which will most likely mean that they''ll have to face the wrath of some other countries of the central continent too, which I doubt they''d want. Plus, that would derail the draconic war arc that Samuel wants, so he would work against that happening as well," the old man suggested. Frankly, this was the one that he felt like going for the most right now, though it still probably wasn''t the best option. Brody thought for a few moments, "And we''re sure that it was them?" "I believe so, yes. The perpetrators were part of his entourage, they were carrying symbols only people from the holy empire use, and Van Horgh was extremely suspicious right when everything was happening," Eisen replied, though he hesitated for a few moments after he did, "... Though, I guess we don''t know for 100% certain yet. Jyuuk, you questioned the corpse of one of them, right?" "Right," the beastman nodded, "It''s usually a spell that forces a body to divulge any and all information truthfully. It does make the body break down extremely fast, but it''s worth it most of the time. But in this case, the corpse just did whatever it wanted andpletely ignore my questions after the first one. I was going to ask about who made them do this, but I wasn''t able to." Eisen crossed his arms, "We could just ask Van Horgh. It''s not like anyone here can lie to me and get away with it," he pointed out. "That would work, but if we''re doing that, wouldn''t it be better to take a different approach in the first ce? In case it''s not them, we need a way to figure out who it was anyway, right?" Xenia asked, and Eisen slowly nodded. "Mhm. And that''s the third option we have. At the start of the meeting tomorrow, we talk about today''s events in a way that is only apparent to the person in question. We then observe anyone that reacts in any way, watch their conversations and whispers with their servants, and keep trying to figure out what''s going on, and then question whoever is most suspicious in a more direct way," Eisen suggested, and the others seemed to be quite happy with that idea for now. "But what about the Filth? We can''t just leave them outside of the meeting room, right? What if Samuel makes contact?" Brody asked, and Eisen raised a brow, looking at the crystal cube. "That''s a good point. I don''t trust them enough to just let them walk around outside of the cube, either," Eisen pointed out, and Evalia smiled and turned toward her friends as though she had an idea. "What about this... Tomorrow morning, we present the Filth to everyone, but not in this human form, but in their bunch-of-hands form. And instead of doing so while saying ''one of you summoned them'', we say that it was our own mistake and that we want to apologize, but that they are safe since we have tamed the ''creature'' that appeared, though we are keeping it locked up just in case. And then, they turn back into this form, show they''re ''peaceful'', and that''s that," Evalia suggested, pping her hands together with a grin. Eisen ran his fingers through his beard in thought. "That could work. Trying to act like we''re being transparent about our own mistake, as long as we present it in the right way, would only improve our standing... Evalia, do you mind doing that? Your charisma is still stronger than mine, particrly when ites to positive influences. I''m good at scaring people, but the other direction is still quite rough for me," the old man admitted, and Evalia quickly nodded as if it were obvious. "Leave it to me!" "Is everyone else alright with this approach?" Eisen asked, looking at the other originals. They also seemed a bit hesitant, but in the end, it seemed like a good enough option to root out the perpetrator. Considering that teh concept of other worlds wasn''t something to be just yed with so easily, it was worth the risk as long as they could figure out who it was that really tried to summon the Filth, whether it turns out to have been the Holy Empire, or someone else entirely. Chapter 900: Calm It was early in the next morning. The envoys had gathered in the meeting hall for breakfast, doing some small-talk before the treaty meeting itself was said to continue. Though, to their surprise, none of the ''originals'' were here. The half-dragon knights were standing along the walls, but nobody else was here. Somehow, it made the envoys feel rather tense, as if something was wrong. There were a few envoys here in particr that seemed nervous about something, and despite eating quite well the evening before, they were barely touching their food now, as if they were nervous. And it wasn''t just the envoys from the central continent; surprisingly, the cloud giants were acting the most suspicious, something that didn''t get past Eisen and the others as they watched from the other room. "Do you think the Cloud Giants had something to do with it?" Xenia wondered, and Eisen silently stared at the screen for a few moments before letting out a long sigh. Explore stories at m,v l''e-NovelBin "Maybe, but I really don''t know. They''re acting weird, but that could also just be them getting sick of having to interact with those they consider ''lesser''... The thing is... so many of them are acting weird, but we don''t know if it''s just tensions getting higher, or if it''s because they realized that their summoning didn''t workst night," Eisen pointed out, looking at the screen. He tapped his foot on the ground anxiously. "So... what''s the n after we figure out who tried to summon the Filth?" Jyuuk wondered. Eisen looked over toward him and hesitated to reply right away. The thing that he wanted to say was that they would just ''take care'' of, or rough up whoever was responsible, but that literally wasn''t possible here. They were hosting a peace treaty summit, and them messing with the envoys directly could cause some major issues. "We''ll probably just have to let it be for now and watch whoever is responsible a bit more closely. And then, once they''re all back in their homes, we investigate those countries more closely. I would like to question them right away, but I don''t think we really can," the old man sighed. "Well..." Evalia started, scratching her cheek, "I could get them to talk to me about a thing or two. I can be very... convincing when I want to be." Eisen raised a brow, looking at the young woman next to him, "Are you sure? You don''t have to lower yourself like that." "Nah, it''s fine. I mean, frankly? For most of these guys, it''s enough to just wear a slightly shorter skirt than usual, touch their arm, and pitch up my voice a little," she pointed out smugly, "Don''t worry, I won''t do anything that makes Benji ufortable." The old man smiled, patting Evalia on the back, "I''m very d to hear that. We will see what the best course of action is soon. For now, we need to figure out who it is we''re dealing with in the first ce." "Should we get started then? The illusion magic drains a ton of mana," Xenia pointed out, and the others quickly agreed. The group of five left the room they were in. In the hallway, the others, particrly Satel and Ambriel, who were waiting in front of the door so that they wouldn''t be left alone with the envoys. Without Eisen there to keep them in check, they were worried that the envoys would bombard them with questions. While Satel could handle matters like that quite well, it was probably too much for Ambriel right now. The two of them followed the Originals into the meeting hall, and a handful of the envoys tensed up the moment they looked at them. "I hope you were able to rest well," Eisen started, smiling lightly, "Please feel free to continue eating, but there is something we would like to discuss before the meeting." The old man slowly turned his head toward Evalia, who stepped forward with her hands interlocked, slightly lowering her head, "Last night, there was an incident. There are still many things that we don''t truly understand about the powers within this world, and particrly the inds of our kingdom are quite unique. Due to our own oversight and carelessness, a powerful monstrosity was allowed to spawn on this ind." Evalia spoke with grace, and even Eisen could feel her charisma-based abilities and skills infused that were infused into her voice. They really just made sure that whatever Evalia was saying was taken in the best possible way. Everyone was staring right at the young woman, who seemed truly apologetic about potentially putting the envoys in danger, and Eisen was positive that there wasn''t anyone here that could avoid falling for Evalia''s charisma. This was one of her fort¨¦s, after all. As Evalia spoke, Xenia waved her hand, pulling the currently invisible cube over toward them, slowly releasing the illusion. "However, we were luckily able to trap this creature," Evalia exined, pointing at the cube with a smile. The moment she did, Eisen nced around the room. They each had their own methods of doing so, but they all had quite some insight into other people''s thoughts. At the very least, they could tell when someone was anxious or worried. Of course, they couldn''t just use this as a basis, since all the envoys quickly grew anxious. Their hosts were admitting to a mistake that caused a dangerous monster to appear, and the monster in question was incredibly... eyecatching. It would be weirder if they weren''t nervous in front of that creature. A mound of hands that was trying to climb on top of each other, grasping at the walls of the cube. Of course, the Filth was ying it up a little bit here, but even without that, their appearance was nothing if not unusual and ''weird''. However, there were of course a few individuals that were a bit more suspicious than others. Those from the holy empire, and the cloud giants were amongst them, which felt... weird. How could both of them be rted to this? The holy empire despised all monsters, and the cloud giants despised all those that weren''t them, and that counted doubly so for any non-giants. Not to mention, what would the cloud giants have to gain from this? Why would they want a war to start? Eisen stared deeply at the people in front of him, quietly tapping his foot on the ground. He was looking at everyone with his truth-seeing eyes, inspecting the flow of their mana. There were slight ripples in mana that appeared alongside one''s heartbeat, and he could see almost everyone''s heartbeat speed up. Only a single person was sitting at this table who, while outwardly acting confused and anxious about the appearance of something like the Filth, was inwardlypletely calm. Their heartbeat had not changed for even a moment. That was even more suspicious than growing extremely anxious. ''Why would..?'' Eisen thought to himself. There wasn''t even any surprise in this person. That could only be the case if they already knew that the Filth had been found. Either that, or they had impable control over themselves, but in that case why would they outwardly act like they were surprised? Confused, Eisen looked at his friends, who also seemed just as confused at this individual''s reaction as him. Brody stepped up closer to Eisen for a few moments, "What''s going on? Why is he acting like that? There''s no way he did anything... right?" Eisen silently looked back at his friend. He didn''t know what to say. This was confusing; shocking, really. Looking into the eyes of the young man, who was acting in a way that waspletely opposite to what he was truly feeling, was almost scary. The fact that he was a good friend to Eisen''s grandson didn''t help here either. Why would Aaron, litgern''s crown prince, have something to do with this? He had always acted like an honest young man; he had always been someone that Eisen felt like he could trust, particrly here. He was at the forefront of trying to stop this war from happening; he was even the central continent''s representative and actively worked to convince many of the other envoys to be more open to new options. Eisen did not like this at all. Chapter 901: Aaron Eisen stared at Aaron, not sure what to think. Was he just always this calm internally? Maybe he had some kind of condition that didn''t allow for his heart rate to change. But that couldn''t be the case, right? Eisen didn''t understand this at all, but clearly, something was going on here. Continue reading on m|v-l''e -NovelBin Evalia, also having noticed that Aaron was acting, took a deep breath and held her hand toward the Filth, "But please, you really do not need to worry. While this creature is still best kept inside of this box, simply for your peace of mind, we are happy to announce that we have tamed it! It has not yet been given a name, but we have managed to make sure it could stay here without concerning or distracting you," she exined, cing her hand onto the crystal cube. Taking this as a signal, the Filth quickly reacted. It grabbed the clothes that had been neatly folded up in the corner of the space and carefully pushed its myriad of hands inside of the clothes, as if trying to fill the space. It slowly but surely took on its humanoid form, and atst, leaned down to grab the sunsses before cing them down on its face. The Filth slowly nodded its head, and then sat down, kneeling in the center of the cube. The room quickly grew silent, and the expressions of everyone changed. Some people seemed relieved, but others had twinges of confusion and shock mixed in there. "We have luckily managed to figure out the weakness of these creatures, and we''re more than confident that we can face them withplete ease," Evalia said with her hands behind her back, smiling broadly, "Oh, but please, don''t worry! This is the only one that appeared here, so you arepletely safe." Eisen carefully nodded, still ncing over at Aaron who was still just as calm as before internally, despite now acting up how relieved he was, "You have no need to worry whatsoever. This summit can continue as nned. There should be no further incidents like this, but we wanted to be transparent as we took on the duty of hosting you all." The old man took a deep breath, nodding over to Brody, who quickly pushed the crystal cube back over to where it stood before, in a ce where it was mostly out of view behind some pirs. The filth had to stay in here so that they could make sure Samuel couldn''t reach it, but there was no need to keep it directly in front of all the envoys, since that would really only make them more nervous than they needed to be. Luckily, Evalia''s art, music, and speech were doing a pretty good job at calming everyone down and making sure that the Filth wouldn''t actually be a distraction. And so, the peace treaty summit continued. Eisen started out with a summary of how things were left off yesterday, and then guided the conversation along. Each side seemed to have reconvened yesterday evening to make sure that everyone was on the same page, and now, so now, Eisen was giving each side another chance to make new offers and demands, before opening the conversation again. After that, Eisen''s task was once again to intervene when things veered too far off course or when individuals became too aggressive or unreasonable. That being the case, the second day went a lot better than the first day already. Since most of the big issues were already addressed right away on the first day, the second day was filled more with smaller matters, or revisitations of some matters that were left undecided the day before. Though, Eisen could barely even pay attention to what was going on. He managed to still do his job well enough, luckily, but he couldn''t help himself but focus on Aaron the whole time. He hid it well enough, so he doubted that any of the envoys noticed, but clearly the other originals realized. Maybe Aaron himself also noticed, though he didn''t show it. But how could Eisen trust any part of how Aaron acted anymore? Time until lunch passed by incredibly fast, and when food was being served, Eisen took the opportunity to stand up and make his way outside to take a breather. Evalia and Xenia stayed behind to watch the envoys and make sure they didn''t interact with the Filth, but Jyuuk and Brody followed the old man outside. "Hey, are we sure that we didn''t get something wrong?" Brody asked, "I mean, that kid, seriously?" "... I don''t know. I would like that to be the case, but I doubt it," Eisen replied, though he really wanted them to be wrong as well, "It looks like Aaron was involved with summoning something from another realm." "But how? And why? He''s actively doing what he can to ensure the treaty is going in the best way possible. I mean, his stances are the best possible oue from my point of view, and he''s doing a good job convincing the others as well," Jyuuk pointed out, ncing around, "And we spied on them so we know that Aaron didn''t tell them anything during the secret meetings to get them to act the part or something. He''s actively doing what he should, and he didn''t change course after realizing the n failed." "Unless... the n didn''t fail," Brody suggested, cupping his chin in thought. Eisen looked over toward him confused. "What do you mean?" "Clearly Aaron is a lot different from what we thought. Maybe his goal was never to stop the summit from proceeding as normal, but he had something else in mind." Eisen stopped for a few moments, trying to consider this option, but he had no idea what to really say to that. It was possible, of course, that this was some kind of weird,plex n that Aaron had set up for some eventual good that just wasn''t clear right now. But that wasn''t something they could count on right now. There was an option that seemed a bit more likely. "... Maybe he has been influenced by Samuel for a while. He could be just some kind of pawn." "Wouldn''t he be doing the opposite of what he''s been doing all day? He would be trying to make the war happen more actively, or get freaked out when the n didn''t work. Samuel tends to control through maniption and fear." Eisen thought about what Jyuuk was saying, but shook his head, "Samuel himself might be realizing that he doesn''t have a shot at really starting the war by stopping the treaty summit, especially since he can''t see inside. So maybe instead, he''s going another route; it would be possible to start a war by having one side attack the other right after the summit," Eisen suggsted, thinking for a moment, when Brody widened his eyes. "Hold up, do you think the Filth was a distraction?" "A distraction?" Eisen asked, and Brody immediately turned to the beastman next to him. "Jyuuk, send out some of your monsters to check the rails. Eisen, I''m sure you and Xenia have some kind of ess thing for those security rail checks, right? Can you see if something weird was happening with that?" Brody asked, and Eisen immediately pushed his hand into his item storage as Jyuuk sent out a swarm of insects,manding them to check any possible irregrities in the railwork. Eisen checked the control panel for the railway''s security system, the part that was meant to check any possible damage done by nearby monsters. It didn''t note down anything weird, but Eisen still quickly went through the logs to make sure that all the values were correct. "There doesn''t seem to be any major damage, but there could still be something like a trapid out nearby," Eisen pointed out, "We also need to send someone to check on the trains. Aaron was really interested in them, so maybe they ended up doing something to them. If the trains derail or there''s something incriminating hidden in there, it could still be used as an excuse to start a war between these two sides." The old man clicked his tongue. He still didn''t get why this was happening, but no matter what, he wasn''t going to let something bad go down here. He wouldn''t let the peace treaty fall through. Chapter 902: Bombs Xenia looked around the trains, pulling out a small object from her bag. It was a smell lens that was engraved with some special enchantings that could let Xenia view what happened in a space over the past 48 hours by reading the ambient mana in said space. She twisted the outer rim of the lens, adjusting what ''time'' she was actually seeing. Going back one hour, then two, then three, then four, she rewound the time of the space up until she saw something actually change. And then, for just a moment, everything was just ''gone''. The mana in the space seemed to havepletely disrupted, making it impossible to really see anything, like a thick fog. This allsted for about ten minutes. With a frown, Xenia turned back the lens up until the moment the distortion appeared. It seems to have been about three hours after Eisen gave the tour of the trains to the people that were interested in them. That disruption seemed to have started somewhere in the center of the area, at least at first nce. But as she looked around more closely, there were a few threads of that disruption flowing through the air, just as thick as a spider''s thread. Choosing to follow one of them, Xenia followed that thread, soon reaching its source. A small lump of that disruption centering around a specific stone. Curious to see if it was still there, she picked up a few of the nearby stones and looked at them a bit more closely, soon finding a particr one that felt off, like it didn''t quite belong here. Xenia looked at it more closely and gave it a quick scan with her mana, soon spotting aplex enchanting array hidden inside of it. "... This is pretty high-quality. Certainly made by an expert in distortion," Xenia muttered quietly, quickly cing the stone into her bag so that she could take a closer lookter. But first and foremost, she had to see who actually ced this here. Continuing to turn back the time period she was actually viewing, Xenia soon found the right point. It was only a few hours before the distortion''s activation that the stone was ced here, righ while Eisen and the envoys were walking through the area. Rather, the crowd walked right over the ce where the stone was supposed to be. Before they walked past, it wasn''t there, and after they did, it had suddenly appeared. She tried to find the right, exact moment, but it seemed like some level of distortion was used to make it impossible to actually view the details of what happened here at this time, so for a few moments it was like the crowd''s mana turned into just a single blob. It could have been any of them. But just like they thought, it was very likely to have been Aaron. He was the one they were suspecting the most right now anyway, and he was part of that crowd as well. But it was too early to just assume they were right. There were too many weird things going on for the answer to be suddenly so straightforward. The answer being that Aaron was behind it all was too... off. It just didn''t feel right. Maybe it was because they had already been betrayed by Samuel, or because it really didn''t make any sense to them that Aaron was the mastermidn, but it was simply hard to ept that it was just... this. Either way, there was something else that Xenia had to do. She took out a small cube from her back and tapped it to the side of the lens, and then turned the time she was observing forward up until the distortion was deactivated. Then, she once more tapped the cube to the side of the lens, and twisted the cube around a couple of times to activated it. The things that Xenia was seeing through the lens changed. Rather, it all wentpletely ck, with the exception of a few small parts. Footsteps, for one. des of grass that had been trampled or had simply swayed into a slightly different position. What Xenia was now seeing was the difference in the world between the two moments she created a ''snapshot'' of. The differences were disyed in a silvery white, while the rest simply went ck, or rather, disappeared fully. This way, Xenia was able to see the real world in her left eye, while seeing just the differences between the two moments through her right. And so, it was time for her to take another walk around the area, inspecting everything that was highlighted in that silvery white so that she could check out exactly what had changed. Because clearly, something had been done. Because why else was there the distortion here? Though, it did make Xenia wonder... how could they have done so? Sure, the distortion of mana was there to make sure that the events couldn''t be viewed afterward. If no imprints were left in the mana, it was practically impossible to really view what had happened in a space before, even for Xenia. But that didn''t mean that the area was covered in actual mist while it was all happening, that would have been too conspicuous. And Jyuuk had his cats follow literally every single individual that had travelled here through the trains, so it wasn''t possible for anyone toe here and mess with this space without the cats seeing it. Xenia looked around the area, soon spotting silvery spots in a particr part of the trains. It was a small piece of wood that had been swapped out, something that seemed invisible to the naked eye, but the mana didn''t lie. Now that she knew that something happened here, Xenia took a closer look at the wooden board, scanning it with her mana. There seemed to be something hidden underneath. Carefully, Xenia pulled the wooden board off the train carriage, and soon spotted something that was very clearly incredibly dangerous. A bomb. It was a high-powered explosive, that wouldpletely blow up this train carriage, but... it didn''t seem like it would be capable of damaging anything beyond this and the directly adjacent carriages. Quickly, Xenia grabbed the bomb and ced it aside carefully, and quickly continued to look around. There were two more bombs ced in simr ces in other carriages. But there was amon thread between each of the cements. Each country had three carriages, one for each envoy of said country. And the bombs were each ced in the middle one of each country''s carriages so that only that country''s envoys would be injured. Or rather, considering the type of explosion that would be happening and its strength, it was more likely that it would lead to death. But there was something that confused Xenia quite a lot. There were bombs ced on both sides. Both the central continent and the giants would be hit by explosions. But the countries or ns that would be affected were the ones that were actively against the peace treaty, such as the holy empire and the cloud giants. But why would both sides be affected? Who would benefit from that? Xenia could rationalize either one of the sides being bombed somehow. If the central continent''s side was bombed, they could use it as a reason to start the war against the giants, having it act as a counter. If it had been on the giants'' side, it could be something like an assassination of powerful individuals from the giants'' country. But both sides? And on top of that, only the most troublesome individuals? Just... why? And then, it shed by her. An idea of why. It could be an attempt to take out the most annoying individuals, while at the same time putting pressure on Asgard. After all, there were three parties here on the inds right now. The central continent, the giants'' country, and Asgard. So if two of those sides were hit, the only one to me could be Asgard, right? But... that also didn''t make sense. Why would the five originals, some of the most powerful individuals in the world, resort to bombs? None of it made any sense to her. For the time being, Xenia just removed all of the bombs and checked for anything else that could be wrong here, but she didn''t find anything else. For now, Xenia ced some drones around the trains to watch them and make sure nobody could mess with them again, and then made her way back to the meeting hall, updating everyone else on the way there. Chapter 903: The Treaty Eisen was approached by Evalia, who quickly whispered the information that Xenia ryed to them into his ear. Since he was trying to use the system as little as possible, she hadn''t messaged Eisen directly. Only in emergencies where specifically Eisen was needed would they contact him directly through the system. The old man frowned lightly as he heard Evalia''s words. The fact that they were going to try and blow up the trains was more than just infuriating. While Eisen understood wanting to try and get rid of certain troublemakers, particrly the ones that Eisen also wanted to get rid of to some degree, the fact that they were choosing a method like this, dragging in innocent individuals, just made Eisen sick beyondpare. He slowly nced over at Aaron, trying to stop himself from ring or letting his influence affect him in any way. He didn''t want to show the fact they knew something was wrong quite that easily. Eisen tapped his finger on the armrest of his seat, listening to the words of the envoys as they discussed the potential terms of a treaty, as well as the conditions that were required to exactly get what each side wanted. Though, just then, the room turned quiet. It almost took Eisen aback, and he wasn''t sure what exactly happened. While he did certainly listen, he didn''t necessarily try to really hear the words that everyone was saying, so it took him a few moments to really understand what just happened. "So... it seems as though each side is satisfied..?" Eisen asked, making sure that he didn''t read the situation wrong, and both sides'' representatives stood up and nodded their heads. The Irngrad, the king of the giants, as well as Aaron, the crown prince of Litgern, smiled and looked at the old man. "Indeed so," the Irngrad replied, "We have fully noted down our terms, and havee to an agreement that benefits each side." The giant handed over a document to Eisen, who quickly nced down at it. It seemed like there were some agreements to establish regr trade routes, and the idea for a worker-exchange, where each side would send skilled workers to the other side for some sort of cultural exchange so that they could learn each others'' techniques. And at the same time, the giants were promised the ''Rights of a Person'' in the central continent. Every single giant, whether they were affiliated with the giants'' country or not, would count as a true, legal exception to thews of each country that defined the treatment of monsters. Eisen was d to see that this term had been able to pass without issues, "I see. In that case, as ast confirmation, unless someone here has something to say against this, we will soon begin to draft the magic contract in front of the eyes of the Goddess of Fate." A bit surprised, Van Horgh pushed back his chair and stood up, clearing his throat, "Ah, yes, of course. We will get right to drafting the-" "Excuse me?" Eisen asked, confused why Van Horgh was suddenly speaking. The archpriest looked around the table and back at Eisen. "My apologies, but you spoke of the contract being created in front of the Goddess'' eyes... of course, that must mean that we are the ones to create that contract, correct?" Van Horgh asked, as if it were obvious, but Eisen just let out a long sigh and shook his head immediately. "No, I''m sorry, but the contract will be created by our side. One of us has a special ability that lets him create contracts that are supported by fate itself, and he has a close connection to the Goddess of Fate," Eisen exined. Komer had already been called by one of the others and was quickly making his way into the room with everything that he needed to properly write the contract. Since he would need to write it by hand, this would take a while, so Komer wanted to get started right away. "My... my apologies, but I don''t quite understand. That man is a merchant, correct? Why would he have a connection to the Goddess of Fate?" "I just do, what of it?" Komer groaned, cing a stack of special parchment down onto the table before getting out the pen that Eisen had created for him, "As a Merchant, I know a thing or two about contracts. And my abilities were simply great enough for the Goddess of Fate, who happens to reign over all contracts, to acknowledge me." Van Horgh mmed his hands on the table, "Such insolence, how would a mere little boy be acknowledged by the Goddess-" "Watch your words, Van Horgh," Eisen interrupted, ring at the archpriest to try and get him to finally shut up. He had to do this a few times over the past couple days, and he was growing really sick of that guy''s incessant rambling, relying on some arbitrary rules that he had set for himself. "Watch my words?" though, it seemed like Van Horgh finally had enough of it all, "I have been listening to you incessantly disrespect the gods with your words! Your attempts at deliberately angering me are going too far! The disrespect you are showing now is beyond anything I have ever witnessed! Do you truly expect us to believe that a mere Artificial was blessed by the gods?!" Eisen groaned slightly, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "Yes, I expect you to believe that, because that''s really the case." "Shut your mouth, you disgusting-" Raising his head, Eisen red at Van Horgh, and the archpriest shrank back for a moment, "I-I refuse to let you threaten me in that way any further!" "Please, could you just quit it? Nobody is trying to mess with you right now. What, do you think priests are the only ones that get to talk to the gods? Plus, aren''t there tens of thousand of Artificials that entered the church and are now working as clerics? There''s an influx of millions of people, millions of potential new, powerful believers, and you think that the gods would just let up that opportunity?" Van Horgh grew silent for a few moments before retorting, "Bestowing your blessing upon them is one thing, but allowing one of them to wield the powers of a god in such a manner is revolting." "But it''s what''s happening," Eisen pointed out, turning over to Ambriel. Even they seemed confused. That was something very obvious; the gods always liked to give out their powers, because if their believers used powers that were lent out, they were given benefits in return. Basically, they would grow in power the more their abilities were used by others. Rather, even to angels, the act of giving out their powers to even non-believers was something shocking, but they never doubted that it was happening. Plus, since it was a choice made by their gods, there was no way they would act so revolted about a simple act like that. At this point, Ambriel did have to speak up, despite the fact they were still trying to unlearn that obsessive belief in the gods, "Truly, I can verify it. Do you not feel the powers of the goddess flowing through that young man''s body? And you call yourself a priest?" Van Horgh slowly turned over to Ambriel, ring at them, "And why do you think I would keep on listening to the words of a mere fallen angel?" Ambriel''s eyes widened as they shuddered at the words that were spoken. It was true, of course, but being told so, especially in front of all these individuals, was something that evoked rather negative emotions in them. Eisen mmed his hands on the table in front of him, shaking it and everyone that sat at it. "Select your next words wisely. While you are signing a treaty with the giants, you are not signing one with us. Remember that we are a third party, and if you continue insulting us in manners as you have so far, we will retaliate in par. Commune with your gods, ask them if we are lying or not. Fuck, just do anything but take your anger and stupidity out on us," Eisen red at the archpriest, who slowly nced at the other envoys from the central continent, as if waiting for help and support from them. However, instead, he was just left standing there on his own, receiving disapproval even by the other envoys from the central continent. Chapter 904: The Treaty (2) Tension in the room was high. Van Horgh was protesting against the idea that Komer somehow had abilities rted to the Goddess of Fate and had gone on one of his tantrums, as he tended to do quite a lot. Eisen''s angered voice still stuck deep in the ears of every single envoy here, and nobody dared to say anything at all. But the one to break the silence was Komer himself, who was ready to prove his abilities, "Now, now, there''s no need to let things get so tense, is there? There are many people that don''t believe in the validity of my abilities, so if you would like, I could try to prove it. With that, you would all also understand the importance of the treaty you are about to be put under." Eisen looked over to Komer, slowly trying to m himself down. He closed his eyes and slowly responded, "Yes, I think that would be a good idea. What does everyone say, should we allow Komer to show off his abilities?" Looking around at the envoys, Eisen saw nothing but approval. Of course, since they were about to sign a treaty created through this young man''s abilities, all of them wanted to properly understand what exactly they were dealing with here. So, Eisen quickly looked toward Komer and nodded, telling him to go ahead. With that, Komer put aside the treaty that he had written up with his skills, and instead got out another small piece of paper. Eisen didn''t see everything that was written on it, but it seemed to be a very simple contract. Komer liked using these to show his abilities to new business partners. Contracts supported and practically enforced by the Goddess of Fate were a valuable ressource for a merchant and their business partners. It would ensure that neither party could break the terms of said contract without serious repercussions. "This contract here is rather simple. For the next five minutes after signing, this contract will be active for all signors. It prohibits me from doing two things, and requires me to continuously do another, and each of those has different results if those terms are broken. One, I cannot say the colour purple. Two, I cannot attack anyone. And three, I have to keep standing on one leg," Komer exined, "Based on the severity of the term that was broken, as well as the consequences of me breaking that term, certain things will happen. Now, I have to make it clear that this contract does not stop one from doing anything. I can still do any of those things freely, there will just be consequences." Komer went around, making sure to show every envoy the contract so that they could confirm the terms for themselves, and then went back to Eisen. Komer got out his pen and quickly signed the contract and lifted his left leg off the ground. "Now, let''s go through these one by one. Let''s start with the colour purple," Komer said, and immediately as the word left his mouth, ethereal hands of the contract enforcers were created in front of him, quickly pressing his mouth shut. Though, after a few seconds, they disappeared again, but it was a surprise to everyone here nheless, "As you can see, whenever I say that word, I will be disallowed from speaking at all for up to five seconds." "Can it be any punishment?" the Irngrad, the king of the giants, asked curiously, and Komer quickly smiled. "Wonderful question, your Majesty. In fact, it can be any punishment, but it needs to fit the crime. Since, frankly, saying that word has no real consequences, I would not be able to tell it to knock me unconscious or even kill me. But I could certainly tell it to... pinch me. Now, since the broken term was rted to speaking, having the punishment be rted to not being able to speak does increase the effect." "Wait, you said it could kill you? Why would we ever sign such a contract?" one of the central continent''s envoys asked, and Komer quickly looked at him. "Don''t worry, if ''killing'' is not specified as a punishment, it will never happen. Plus, even then, the ''killing'' punishment can only be used on people like you when they have done somethingparable. For example, if a contract forbid you from killing, you could be killed after breaking it." "People like us?" the same envoy asked, confused, and Komer quickly exined. "Right, sorry. I am an Artificial. When I die, I... well, I get better again. Death is of less consequence to me than it is to you. So, an Artificial could meet the threshold of ''killing'' after stealing something of a particr worth. At the same time, killing an artificial on its own would be very unlikely for people like you to count enough toward the punishment threshold of being killed," he quickly exined, and it seemed like the envoys slowly came to understand some of the rules of Komer''s abilities. So, he quickly continued. "Now, let me show you something else. Eisen, if you will," Komer said, and Eisen sighed lightly, holding his arm toward the young man. Quickly, Komer struck down at Eisen''s arm, basically ''attacking'' him. Of course, it really didn''t do any damage, but that wasn''t the important part. The moment he did, golden shackles appeared around both of Komer''s wrists, forcing them together. They disappeared after a few seconds as well. And then, Komer pulled out a knife from his pocket. Some of the envoys flinched, seeing him carry a weapon, but Eisen just groaned quietly and motioned Komer to go ahead. And then, he quickly stabbed the knife into Eisen''s arm. "Ouch," the old man said almost emotionlessly. It did hurt a bit, though it really wasn''t more than a pinch to him. Right then, more shackles appeared around Komer''s body, not just his wrist. His neck, wrists, upper arms, thighs and even ankles. Though, he was bound together in a way where he still could stand on one leg. "As you can see," Komer started, "The severity of the punishment scales with the severity of the crime, as I already exined just now. However, I want you to pay attention to something else. My right leg is still raised. The punishments of the contract can never force you to break another term of a a contract enforced through these abilities. That means terms within the same contract, and terms in other contracts created through my abilities." The shackles soon disappeared, and Komer looked at the people in front of him, "Now, what you need to know is that intent matters here. If a contract stops you from killing someone, ordering or paying others to kill them for you counts just the same. So you can''t y any tricks and feign ignorance in the future to get what you want out of the treaty. The intent of the contract is what is important here." The envoys seemed to all be thinking for a few moments, until the Irngrad asked a question, "And who exactly is it that''s determining that intent?" "The Goddess of Fate herself," Komer responded immediately, "As you know, she rules over the domain of contracts as well, so she is practically the expert on such matters. Wouldn''t you agree?" he looked over toward Van Horgh with a smile. The archpriest waspletely silent the whole time. The moment the contract was confirmed, and throughout the ''punishments'', the holy power of the Goddess of Fate was extremely evident, so him and the other envoys from the holy empire must have realized that Komer was telling the truth immediately. Enjoy exclusive chapters from m-v l''e|-NovelBin Slowly, Van Horgh nodded, "... If the Goddess of Fate is the arbiter of the contract, then it will be the most fair it could ever be." "Then it should be settled, right?" Komer said with a broad smile, "Is anyone here still unwilling to sign the treaty?" "Not unwilling, however... what form will the punishment created by that power take in this case?" the Irngrad wondered, and Komer looked at him after taking a deep breath, trying to find the right words. "If any involved party breaks the terms of the contract, a number of Enforcers will be summoned by the side of the ruler of every country, state, or n currently represented here. Due to the scale of this ''contract'', they will be able to act independently to some degree, and through the will of the Goddess of Fate, will ensure that the punishment agreed upon by yourselves in this treaty, such as sanctions, derations of war, or any other means of pressuring the remaining parties, are enacted thoroughly." Chapter 905: Injury One after another, the representing envoys of each country stepped up to the treaty, signing it. While they were signing it with their personal signature, they were here to represent their respective countries. As such, the peace treaty was a contract effectively signed between each of the different countries in question. Once a signature was ced, it would fade, and their country''s sigil took its ce. And then, finally at the end, all of the sigils of the signing countries were represented. ording to how the contract worked, if any of these countries or ns did anything like they have been trying to do for the whole time they have been here at the summit after Komer acknowledged the contract as ''valid'', their country would face the judgement of the Goddess of Fate. Considering that fact, some of the envoys were a little nervous, as Eisen and the other originals had expected. Of coursel, that being the case, there was a tiny window for one of them to actually try something else. Explore stories on mvl If now, something happened to Komer, the treaty, or one of the other envoys, none of it would really ''count'' ording to the terms of the treaty they signed. That was why Komer was wearing an incredibly reinforced outfit that would block most physical and magical attacks. It drained a ton of mana to the point where Komer couldn''t possible use these clothes constantly, but right now, he could use mana provided by the originals to make up for it. On top of that, Xenia had set up an invisible barrier around Komer, that not only added anotheryer of physical protection, but actually disced the young merchant by about two feet to the right. So if someone aimed directly at Komer, they would fail. Simrly, the room was filled with Jyuuk''s shadow cats that were watching all of this from literally every angle, ready to alert the beastman when something suspicious happened. If something happened to Komer, then this whole thing could go to absolute shit. But with Komer''s help, the treaty would be so solid that not even Samuel could get around it. There were no loopholes here at all. One of Komer''s powers that rted to his ability to create these contracts was centered around finding exactly those kinds of exploits in contracts. For one, it allowed Komer to exploit contracts he had to sign, while letting him draft contracts that couldn''t be broken by even the best tricksters. Exactly when Komer cleared his throat, though, getting ready to dere the contract as valid, something happened that slightly surprised Eisen. Or rather, it confused him. Aaron took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Not in rxation or relief, but in resignation. It was a resignation that Eisen was more than familiar with himself. A resignation of death. "I dere that this treaty is now in action," Komer said with a broad smile on his face, and the paper that he was holding in his hand fell apart into wisps of golden light. But Komer quickly waved his hands, producingrge number of ''copies'' of the treaty, "These here are copies for you to take back to your countries. For now, it''s five for each country or n, but if you would like some more, then please let me know." Komer started walking around the table, handing out the copies, while one of the envoys seemed nothing but confused. "Aaron. Everything alright?" Eisen asked. For the first time since they have been paying attention to him, the originals were noticing a genuine, physical, and visceral reaction from the young prince. He turned toward Eisen, slowly nodding. "Yeah... everything is fine, I think the pressure from the past few days is just catching up to me right now," Aaron responded, and Eisen felt a wave of difort rush through him. It was a signal that Komer was lying. That definitely wasn''t the only reason. "Hm, alright. In that case, let me-" A message appeared in front of Eisen. It was an emergency message sent through the Knight system. The half-dragon knights were the only ones that could send messages to Eisen directly. Kiron was the head of all knights of Asgard, and each of the other half-dragons was the head of their respective knight order. There weren''t many members in each just yet, but the ones that had been properly knighted and ced into those orders were now able to send messages to their direct superiors. And in certain cases, the half-dragon knights were able to directly forward a message to Eisen. Since they didn''t want to worry the envoys, it seemed that the half-dragon knights did this instead of walk up to Eisen, since this was much simpler for him to get a grasp of the situation. --- Emergency: Lord Silber has been deeply injured in the act of protecting the meeting hall --- Immediately, Eisen jumped up from his seat, "If you would all excuse me, there is something I have to take care of. We will end the day with some good food and a proper celebration in just a moment, so please stay here and rest well. Now that the treaty was active, Eisen had no need to worry about the envoys anymore. Any one of them that now tried to do something against the others was going to end up having whatever country or n they represented be the target of all other member countries. There was no way anyone was dumb enough to do that. "Ambriel, Satel, with me," the old man said immediately, trying not to yell. The angel and devil duo nced at each other confused, and the other originals seemed just as unsure what was going on. Kiron quickly went to fill them in with a quiet whisper, but before they all understood the gist of it, Eisen had already mmed the hall''s door shut behind him again. "Yo, what''s going on?" Satel asked, pping his wings to push themself forward in an attempt to keep up with Eisen''s speed. Simrly, Ambriel was in the process of starting flight so that they wouldn''t be left behind. "You two can use powerful healing, right?" "Uh... I guess so? Ambriel''s is more straightforward, holy stuff and all, but mine is a little more peculiar. If you''re fine with that, then-" Satel pointed out, but Eisen interrupted them. "Anything is fine. You just need to supplement the potions I''m about to give to my brother anyway," the old man said, spotting a small group of knights that was rushing toward him. "Your Majesty! Please, your brother is outside the castle, he fended off some kind of attack! It looked like a spell of some sort!" "An attack that could damage him to that degree? Seriously?" Eisen asked, just speeding up as he walked. The knights were practically sprinting to try and keep up with him, but Eisen really didn''t have any time to think about that all too much. He just listened to their exnation of where Silber was and then headed there immediately. Though, he probably wasn''t walking as fast as he could have. Eisen was scared; scared to lose his brother again, though he had only just recently actually remembered him. He wouldn''t be able to forgive himself if Silber had to forfeit the life that was only just returned to him not all too long ago. Eisen stepped out of the back of the building, approaching the towering pir that Silber was currently sitting against. He was at hisrgest size; his current ''default''. It was much bigger than Eisen''srgest state, though still much smaller than what Silber was keeping up as the ''God of the Mountain''. The old man shot up in size and flew up to his brother, who had some mages and clerics surrounding him, trying to heal him. But Eisen knew that they wouldn''t be able to do anything about this. No matter how powerful Ambriel and Satel''s healing was, they wouldn''t be able to help Silber. The entire right half of his body was practically torn off. His arm waspletely gone, and his right leg was practically just bone. His ribs were poking out through scorched, ckened flesh, and the parts of hisbody that were in rtively ''okay'' condition were severely burnt. Eisen made eye-contact with his younger brother, and tears streamed down his face. But his growing anger and fury faded almost immediately when he heard Silber''s pained voice whispering out. The old man immediately moved closer, cing his ear toward his brother''s mouth, who slowly whispered out something rather unexpected. "Eisen... tame me." Chapter 906: Rejection Eisen stared at his younger brother, rage flowing through his veins. But Silber''s words still stunned him. It was like the words of him refusing were about toe out his mouth, but were holding onto his teeth because they didn''t want to leave just yet. The old man looked at his dying brother. Blood covered Silber from head to toe, and Eisen could tell that his brother''s mana was fading away. This was a sign of impeding death; Silber was barely holding onto his very existence anymore. If Eisen didn''t do what he suggested and tamed him, he would disappear right now. If he died as Eisen''s tamed monster, he could at least be resurrected, even if it would probably cost quite a lot of things. From what Eisen knew, specific materials needed to be offered up to pay for the resurrection. Especially with stronger or more unique monsters, this was even more so the case. That meant that, until Eisen got all the materials together, Silber would be stuck again. He would be unconscious, just waiting to be saved as he had been before. And thatpletely infuriated Eisen more than anything else he could imagine. Taming Silber just felt... wrong. The only reason why he didn''t ''set free'' Caria, Melissa, and Sal yet was because they were just kids. They sat down together and decided that once they had the maturity where Eisen could feel safe enough that they would be able tost on their own, he would release them as his tamed monsters to let them live their own lives. There was no reason or proper justification for Eisen to keep humanoid, intelligent tamed like this outside of protection. With the kids, they at least started out different, but Silber? There was no way Eisen could feel good about this. Eisen looked into his brother''s eyes, "Are you sure you want me to do that? I don''t.. I don''t know if that''s..." "Oh, just do it, you big baby," Silberughed, though hisugh quickly turned into coughs. His lips were quivering and his hands werepletely shaking. Eisen held onto his brother''s hand, feeling his heartbeat grow weaker and weaker, "I''ll wake you up soon again, alright? Just hold on tight." "Just... make sure to prepare some booze for when I''m back, alright?" Silber asked quietly, and Eisen nodded,ughing slightly. Enjoy new chapters from mvl And so, Eisen tamed his brother. A notification had popped up, but something was wrong with it. The ''system resistance'' skill was starting to affect the existing windows like this. The screen was jagged and slightly corrupted, and right now it was to the point of making the text on it hardly legible. But even so, Eisen was able to tell what it said. It told him that he tamed Silber, that his taming skill levelled up, and then... on the third notification... that his tamed monster died. He could feel Silber''s hand go limp as his body fell apart into magic. That magic was absorbed by Eisen, who could practically feel his heart break in his chest. The people around Eisen were confused by what was going on, but he wasn''t able to just fill them in. "What happened?" Eisen asked, his trying to hold back his demonic voice from leaking out. One of the nearby guards exined. "Something fell from the sky... a shooting star of pure metal, and seeing it approach, lord Silber caught it in his hands. A shell formed around his body, and he... contained some explosion within himself," the guard exined, and Eisen''s eyes closed, as his fingernails dug into his palm. "They fucking bombed us? Are you serioues?!" Eisen ground his teeth together, looking around more closely. He viewed the ambient mana in the surrounding, finding traces ofpressed mana strewn around the area. The old man pressed down his foot, spreading out his demonic domain. Mana flowed out of his body faster than ever before. His body definitely wasn''t capable of this before. Maybe ripping himself apart with that mana potion caused this side-effect, but right now, Eisen really didn''t care all too much about why he could do this. All that mattered was that the ability activated, covering the entire city in a matter of a few moments. The rocky ground cracked open, revealing glowing, golden crystals filling those cracks immediately. The air started waving due to the heat emanating from the ground. Just then, small, imp-like creatures rose up from the ground, picking up each small piece that was left from the bomb that Silber had caught. The demonic servants brought those parts to the old man, who grabbed the small pieces and put it together. It was practically by instinct. Like he knew what this was beforehand. And that made sense; Samuel had never ever made anything himself in this world. Even if he didn''t build this particr one by hand, Eisen developed this bomb a long time ago. And now, it was used against his very brother. Eisen looked at the metal of the bomb. "I really don''t feel good about developing something like this. This is literally a weapon of mass destruction... it holds the power of numerousrge-scale spells, it..." Eisen said, within his workshop. Xenia ced her hand onto his back in support. "I know, I''m really not happy about it either... with this, even that weakling Samuel can take out any enemy hees across. Plus, they''re actually fairly cheap to make, so he can mass-produce them," Xenia pointed out, looking at Eisen. But the old man just stared back at her. "No. I''m not doing this right now," Eisen said, standing up from his seat. Xenia just stood there, frozen in time, as Eisen pushed his hand into the space in front of him. Like tearing down a curtain, the old man removed the veil, "I refuse to get lost in these useless memories right now." He broke through, continuing to reconstruct the bomb piece by piece. Parts of it were bent or molten, shot into shrapnell. But they were all infused with a particr type of magic that Eisen did not remember seeing before. He didn''t have to, though. He knew what this was. It was Samuel''s magic, flowing through every part of this bomb. Once he had gathered enough of the bomb, cing the torn-apart shards of mana-infused metal into ce, Eisen pulled out the mana contained within. This bomb was special in that it could tear through magic as though it were ss, leaving it fragmented. That was why he had to reconstruct the bomb to some degree to get enough of the mana together to actually make use of it. The remaining mana seemed to want to fade away, but Eisen contained, or rather entrapped, it in a special mana container. Holding that containr in his hand, the old man looked up at the sky. "I''m never going to forget this, Samuel. I swear to my name, and to the hundred thousand years that you have trapped me in this world as your ve, that I will kill you with my very hands. And not just here. For all that you have done to me, I will find you, here and on earth, and I will deliver you to the afterlife myself. I will bury you in the underworld, if it''s thest thing I do in this long overdue life of mine," Eisen said, his voice carrying through the otherwisepletely silent city. He knew that Samuel could hear him. He knew that Samuel was watching. Not doing so would probably be the dumbest thing that toddler of a man could ever think of. Eisen snapped his finger, and his mana immediately dissipated from the city as his domain was released and his demonic servants disappeared. The old man walked through the za and pushed open the doors of the summit building. He tore them straight off their hinges. His elemental spirit stepped out of his body and went to fix it in Eisen''s stead, as the old man wasn''t able to do it himself right now. As he walked through the hallways, his friends caught up to him, but none of them could even think of opening their mouths as they saw Eisen''s expression. After the shock dissipated, Brody was the first to speak. "What''s going on, man? What happened? Is Silber alright?" Eisen red at Brody, shaking his head. "He''s dead. But... he asked me to tame him before he did. Now I need to find stupidly rare materials to resurrect him," Eisen said, his voice surprisingly calm. Rather, his whole body, outwardly, was weirdly calm. That in itself was instinctively scary to the other originals. "... What do we need to do?" The old man looked at his friends, "It''s time to kill some Transcendents." The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone! Chapter 907: Starting the Hunt As a celebration was going on in the main hall, Eisen, Jyuuk, and Brody sat down together. After Silber''s death, Eisen needed to gather a lot of materials to resurrect him. It was more than a million gold coins, three monster cores from transcendent monsters, and a ton of different scales and ws and meat from tons of other different types of monsters. "I don''t understand why there''s so many different materials here... for a humanoid monster like giants, from my understanding, it should be things like money, bones, and whatever the monster''s main diet consists of. But... why is it so many different things?" Jyuuk asked, looking up from the list that the old man wrote down for him. Of course, since he was the taming expert, Eisen needed his help. Meanwhile, Brody was here because he was actually the most well-travelled and heard the most rumours about different powerful opponents, so he should know a couple clues about transcendent monsters in the central continent. Xenia and Evalia had volunteered to keep the party entertained. Evalia so that she could keep up the mood of the envoys so that nothing else could happen on thest evening before they left, and Xenia so that she could keep an eye on the Filth and, more importantly, Aaron. Eisen, looking down at the mapid out in front of him, quickly exined, "Silber''s powers came from him learning the techniques of monsters. To some degree, he also took in qualities of monsters into his own body. In terms of sses, it would be... what was it, ''Blue Mage''?" "Oh! Okay, yes, that makes sense. My mimic beetle also-" Jyuuk started, slowly looking over at Brody, "We forgot to do the mimic beetle trick." Brody sighed, disappointed in himself, "I guess it was just a bit too busy, huh?" "Yeah, you can say that again..." the beastman responded, but Eisen just looked up at the two of them. "Can we stay on topic, please? Where can we find all of these monsters?" the old man asked, and Jyuuk looked back at the map a little awkwardly. He took out a pen and marked a few spots on it. "These are the habitats of the regr monsters, but the transcendent ones are a bit tougher to find, obviously. I''m sure they''ve been hidden away purposefully until yers are at a higher level. That''s usually how it works in games like this," Jyuuk exined, and Eisen let out a long sigh. "Brody, do you know anything?" "I heard about a dungeon in the northern forests that''s rumoured to have a really strong monster in it, but I can''t really say for sure if that''s a transcendent monster or not. But it''s worth a try. Plus, apparently a ck dragon is nesting somewhere in there. You might as well take that ck dragon''s trial for your n in regard to the draconic war, and see if the ck dragon has some clues for you. ck dragons in particr are kind of battle maniacs, right? And are drawn to strong opponents?" After Brody''s exnation, Eisen nodded his head, "If it''s a dungeon that could potentially have a transcendent monster in it, it would be at a pretty high rank and will have a lot of floors. I''d rather not waste time that I don''t need to, so trying to get information from a nearby dragon to make sure should be easy enough. What about elsewhere, do you know about other transcendent monsters?" The fighter thought about it for a few moments, tapping his foot on the ground as he did, "I''m honestly not entirely sure. There might not be a lot on the central continent. Honestly, I feel you might have more luck in the giants'' country, or even on our inds, y''know?" "But we haven''t found any traces of transcendent monsters on the inds, have we?" "No, but it''s still more likely to have one hidden there than the central continent, to be honest. Most monsters there are at too low a rank for it to really make sense," Brody pointed out, "How about you just take care of the first monster for now, and then the rest of us keep looking for more? A transcendent monster isn''t one that you can find easily, after all. Oh, and by the way; don''t even think of fighting that thing on your own, alright? Just find it, confirm it, and then call for us. You can summon us, so do that when you need to." Eisen slowly nodded, "I know, don''t worry..." "Though..." Jyuuk started, "What about the Mountain Gobbler''s monster core?" "What about it?" "Well, it''s still in there, right? Can''t we ask the Irngrad if we can... you know, extract it? Brody is the one that killed it, after all." Eisen thought about it for a moment, "We could... but their capital has already taken so many losses. I don''t know if it''s a good idea to try and take the monster core as well." Brody scoffed, "Ohe on, it''s just going to rot away in there anyway. Metaphorically. But you know, let''s ask him. When the Irngrad knows that Silber died protecting them all, then-" "We can''t tell them," Eisen interrupted Brody immediately, "The moment we do, it could jeopardize everything. If we do, they''ll realize that someone there actively tried to kill them, and it''s going to cause a ton of issues that can just spiral out of control. And we can''t let that happen." Brody and Jyuuk looked at each other for a moment. They knew that Eisen was right, but it was still too good of an opportunity to let up. "... Let''s still ask the Irngrad. We cane up with some other excuse for why we need it. Maybe some... some powerful weapon to stop the draconic war or something. Or something to stop Samuel. But we can''t let anyone know that a bomb was dropped on us, or that Silber was killed," Eisen said very clearly. There would be no discussion about this. "Alright, we''lle up with something. Once all the envoys are gone, you head out to the northern forests," Jyuuk said, though he was ncing up at Eisen, curious about something, "By the way, didn''t you say that your system windows are getting messed up? Are you sure there isn''t anything missing for the materials?" "I''m sure. I didn''t look at the system windows," the old man replied. Brody raised a brow, "What do you mean? Then how do you know what materials you need?" The old man straightened his back, "Actually, I didn''t even... I don''t know. I think something happened earlier. After Silber... after he died, I had a sh of a memory of when I... designed the bomb that killed him, and I refused that memory. And since then, the system just feels very... different. Like all the knowledge that''s supposed toe from these abilities isn''t just restrained to a text window anymore, but it''s more of a fullbody experience. If that makes any sense at all." "No, I think it makes sense," Jyuuk nodded, and he was clearly incredibly curious about what it was like to experience things like this, "You''re probably at a point where you detached from the system enough that you''re starting to connect to the original way we''re supposed to experience, well... ''Experience''." "Hm. I guess so. Either way, it doesn''t really matter right now. I''m going to try and get ready for the journey," the old man replied, rolling up the map in front of him. He ced it into his item storage and left the room that the three were in before, silently walking down the hallway. Brody and Jyuuk were left alone there, looking at each other nervously. "Do you think he''ll be alright?" Jyuuk wondered, and Brody immediately nodded. "Of course. Luckily, this ''death'' isn''t permanent. He''lle back soon enough, and at thetest, Eisen should start to cheer up a bit once Silber is back." But Jyuuk wasn''t particrly convinced, "But... I don''t think that''s it. He seems more upset than usual. Have you ever seen him... that calm in a situation like this? It''s like he''s a machine, just doing what needs to be done." "Haah..." Brody groaned, "Yeah, honestly, you''re not wrong about that. But either way, for now, we just do need to focus on bringing Silber back. We can try talking to Eisen after that. It''s not like he''ll sit down and listen to us before then anyway." Chapter 908: Forced Quests Eisen stepped into the meeting hall, where the small celebration of the treaty''s finalization was currently ongoing. Some of the envoys were trying to approach the old man, but he was simply headed straight toward a specific individual, ignoring everyone else. "Aaron," Eisen said, staring at the young man. He was currently socializing with the others, acting as if nothing happened, but the old man was sick and tired of acting like they didn''t know Aaron was somehow rted to this. "Your majesty! Where were you, everyone was looking for you earlier! Is everything alright?" he asked with a smile on his face, but Eisen himself didn''t smile whatsoever. His expression waspletely nk. "Come with me." "Uhm... again, is everything alright?" Aaron asked, appearing a bit concerned, but Eisen didn''t buy it. "No, it''s not. I won''t say it again, Aaron,e with me, right this second." The crown prince looked at the other envoys awkwardly for a moment, and then excused himself. He followed Eisen out of the meeting room and down the hallway into a separate space. It was just a small office, though, and it wasn''t even inhibiting Samuel''s observation anymore, but the old man couldn''t care less right now. "Did something happen? Can I help you somehow?" Aaron asked, and Eisen snapped his finger. His domain was immediately deployed within the office, and only within the office. Everything in here petrified immediately, forming ming cracks on their surfaces. Aaron took a step back toward the door, but it was already blocked off. "Why? Why would you do something like this? Has everything just been an act? Are you proud that you''ve been able to trick us so far?" Eisen asked, sitting down at the desk. He motioned toward the chair across the desk, and Aaron slowly sat down on it. "I don''t... I don''t know what you''re talking about," Aaron stuttered out, but Eisen could see the flow of his magic. He seemed maybe a little nervous, but not even particrly so. "Don''t act stupid, Aaron. You know that I can see through any lie you speak," the old man said, leaning back in his chair, "All of us know. You had something to do with the Filth appearing. And you had something to do with the bombs that were ced on the train tracks. And, more importantly, you had something to do with the bomb that killed my baby brother." Aaron stayed silent. His heart... skipped a beat. He was actually bing nervous. Eisen was confused, staring at the flow of Aaron''s mana, which hadn''t changed even as he was faced with a literal monstrosity from a world that he shouldn''t be able to understand, but now... he was nervous. "I didn''t... sorry, what do you mean with bombs on the trains?" "Ignoring the other two, huh? Are you admitting to it?" "Well... you know about it anyway, right? So what sense would it make for me to try and justify myself or lie to you?" Aaron pointed out, clearly unable to look Eisen in the eye, "But... I didn''t have anything to do with the bombs on the trains. The timing would be all wrong. I knew how the treaty worked, so all of it would have just been messed up if I had tried to kill the other envoys after we signed it." Eisen could tell that Aaron was telling the truth. But even so... even if he wasn''t the one that nted the bombs, this was still a confirmation that he had done everything else. "Whatever. Aaron, why did you do it? How could you?" "... The quests told me to." Eisen frowned deeply, "Excuse me?" "I''ve been getting quests to do all this." The old man''s eyes widened, and Aaron looked at the ground, "For as long as I could remember, I''ve been getting quests that have told me how to act and what to do. And when I would tell someone about the quests, I would get hurt." Eisen was silent. Aaron was telling the truth. Just... what? But before he could ask, Aaron looked up at the old man confused, "Wait, I... why am I not... why am I not getting punished?" "What do you mean? I''m not a torturer." "No, not by you, but... as I just said, whenever I would tell others about the quests, I would get hurt, and the next punishment would get worse. This time, I should have..." Aaron grimaced, not even wanting to think about it, "But this time, nothing happened." Eisen stared at Aaron. He was still telling the truth, so he figured he should be a bit more patient here. But still, why was the punishment not activating. "Unless..." the old man muttered, "Aaron, try opening your status window." Aaron was confused, but he did as asked. But then, his expression showed even more confusion, "I-It''s... what''s going on here? The window isn''t... It''s broken, it''s not showing up properly, just... fragmented, and..." A loudugh that shook the room left Eisen''s mouth as he turned toward the fake system message that wouldn''t disappear no matter what. The message rted to the ''System Resistance'' skill. Eisen''s demonic domain was a skill that filled a space with the old man''s own qualities; Eisen wanted to use it to pressure Aaron and get him under control in case he had some weird card up his sleeve, but it was even better now. Within Eisen''s domain, the system was ''broken''. And with that, Aaron''s quest clearly didn''t realize that he broke its rules. "Don''t worry, it will start working again when you leave this room," Eisen responded, ring at the young man in front of me, "You don''t need to worry about the quest. So tell me." Aaron hesitated. Clearly, this was something that never happened before, and after living a lifetime of not being able to tell anyone, it wasn''t easy for him to start divulging it all now. But even so, Eisen didn''t care. "That wasn''t a request. I''m sorry, but you have lost the right to secrets right now," Eisen said bluntly, and Aaron grew even more nervous. "I-I''m sorry... Okay, let me... let me start at the beginning. When I was three, my first quest appeared. It told me to befriend some specific noble''s kid at a social gathering, and spill food on another. I didn''t want to do it, obviously, but more importantly, I was just confused. I had never gotten a quest before. So, I told my maid about it. The moment I did, the maid''s eyes rolled in the back of her head. She grabbed me, and with a strength I knew she didn''t possess, broke my arm." Eisen''s eyes widened, as Aaron continued, "She... was killed for the crime. I didn''t understand anything at the time, I just knew that my maid broke my arm. The quest I had gotten obviously failed, and that had its own punishments. At the time, I was friends with the son of a viscount that lived near me. Him and his father came to visit me when my arm was broken, sort of to cheer me up I would assume. And then, when the timer for the quest was officially over, that friend had a stroke and died right in front of my eyes." "So..." Eisen started, "When you fail a quest, those around you would get hurt, and when you tell others about the quest, you yourself would get hurt?" "Yes. And every time, the punishment would get worse as well. Though the quests got harder too. Reaching a certain level before a particr point in time. Attaining a specific ss. Killing specific monsters. Creating conflict around me. Getting certain nobles on my side, while ostracizing others. It got to the point where there was not a day when I didn''t have quests. Actually, now that I think back on it, a lot of them were rather mundane. I got quests that told me to act in particr ways and go to specific spots and nothing else, but overall, the quests became harder toplete. When I told others, they would be possessed and hurt me. They would strike me, break my bones, strangle me, stab me... no matter what they did, I would never die, even if I should have. One time, the punishment was to have my head cut off, but I just woke up a momentter in a puddle of my own blood," Aaron stared down at the floor, "I started acting only as the quests told me to. And then... when the aritficials appeared, they quests? They disappeared. Until the date for the peace summit was set." Chapter 909: Forced Quests (2) "So, the quests disappeared, and then suddenly came back a few weeks ago?" Eisen asked, really just repeating after Aaron. He slowly nodded. "Yes. They told me how I was supposed to... sabotage everything," Aaron started, fiddling with his fingers. He clearly didn''t want to look into Eisen''s eyes, "That''s generally what the quests would be from a certain point on. The first quests that I got were practically guiding me into getting the abilities and skills that I needed, and then the ''real'' quests began. Affecting which nobles were in power, who was in charge of which trading outposts... I even made sure that certain areas of Litgern would be underdeveloped. Now, I assume that it was for the purpose of allowing Artificials to do so in our stead." Eisen stayed silent. That was exactly the reason, just as Aaron guessed. Clearly, this was a system for Samuel to keep things in order beyond what Eisen and the others already knew about thus far. And that made sense as well. Possessing everyone to make changes obviously wasn''t the most effective way. Instead, creating an algorithm or maybe even just assinging individuals someone to give them quests to change the path that a country was undertaking was much more viable as arge-scale operation. Now it made sense why there were parts of this world that just seemed so untouched. These sorts of quests were used to properly curate the ins and outs of the narrative that Samuel wanted for this world. "And throughout this process, you learned to act so well that you didn''t even feel surprised at seeing the Filth?" Eisen asked, and Aaron tried responding quickly, almost replying by instinct, but he slowly stopped and tried to carefully collect his thoughts. "I''ve always been good with words, and things such as acting and hiding my true intentions was just as easy, to tell you the truth. And then, as the years progressed, I learned how topletely fade out everything but what the quests told me to do. It''s like a trance, you see? When I see that quest window in front of my eyes, when I feel the sting of it in the corner of my eye, it''s like I''m a different person. I just do whatever I need to, so I can... so I can live on," Aaron exined, "Which is kind of ironic, right? Because I chose to simply follow along, waiting for my own death just earlier." "... Right, what was that about? It''s not like you could have dropped that bomb." "That''s what it was?" Aaron asked, "Thest quest simply told me to hold out and make sure everyone important was in that room when the end came. I have been following these quests long enough to understand what that meant. But then, the timer reached zero, and... nothing happened." Eisen closed his eyes for a moment. If that was the case, then there was at least an exnation for everything. Even if it was one that made Eisen feel a little... conflicted. Aaron wasn''t possessed directly, but he was stillpletely groomed into this behaviour. From what Eisen could tell, this was the truth; an extremely relieving truth, honestly. It was better than believing that Aaron was aplete psychopath that tried to cause havoc for no reason, but there were still parts that made the old man nervous. For one, as much as this hurt Eisen to even think, he doubted that he could really trust Aaron as an ally anytime soon. Unless they figured out a way to permanently block him from receiving these quests, there was no way they could see Aaron as a perfect ally. And that wasn''t for any fault of his own, but if the quests practically put him into a trance at this point, then that was too much of a risk. And even more than that, this meant that there were many, many more people that were directly influenced by Samuel than Eisen and the others originally thought. That meant they had to act a lot more careful. And the fact they could force particr actions onto others around the ones that were given the quests was even more startling and confusing. Did quests have more power than Eisen thought they did? Either way, quests had to be a function of the internal, original power that is imbued in everyone from this world that was thenter curated by the system. Experience, levels, growth, magic, special abilities, evolution, sses; all of that were special abilities that were basically innate to everyone here, and they followed a very simple theme. Growth. Bing stronger, better, improving. But what purpose did quests have? There were a few more things that didn''t quite fit the ''growth'' theme, such as the messaging system, but Eisen could excuse that away as something that the system itself introduced rather than being an innate power. But the quest system was different, since it directly connected to that growth, improving and supporting it. Eisen followed the thought, feeling like he was at the cusp of some sort of realization. Clearly, if quests were more powerful if he thought, he couldn''t just dismiss them. What was it about quests that made them special? What did he know for a fact they did, and how could he extrapte that? And then, it came to him. Quests could give others Experience. The actual force of ''experience'' could be ced into them. This ''experience'' was probably the true nature of what made this world special; it was something that allowed someone to transcend what would usually be physically possible. Why would it not have the power to influence their actions if applied properly? But then why didn''t they just influence the people who were given the quests in the first ce? There had to be some more restrictions to it. But then, what were the rules of cing experience into others, and where did ite from? Eisen assumed that this world followed the rule that energy could not be created nor destroyed as well, so the experience had to have a source. And then, it clicked. The experience came from others. Everyone had a bit of experience stripped from them to keep the system running in the first ce, or at least, that was Eisen''s assumption for a while now. But he thought this was just the system syphoning some experience as it was being gained by the individual. But what if that wasn''t the truth? What if the system could take experience whenever it wanted to, and then give itter? Of course, there had to be a system for Samuel to take the experience of all the yers to bring magic onto earth in the first ce. "It''s so obvious, why did I never think about this? That''s what it is, I-" Eisen muttered, realizing the true nature of the ''quest'' system for himself. Quests were the ability to ''teach''. To give experience to another. But again, experience was an energy that could not be created from nothing, so it must be given from the teacher to the student. Quests were the mechanism through which Eisen and the other originals gave up their own experience to help create the arficials; the bodies of the first yers. "Stay here," Eisen said, stepping toward the door, "Do not leave my domain, even for a moment, you hear me? I''ll be back in a few minutes." The old man rushed out the small office, making his way over to where the others had to be right now. And luckily, they weren''t that far away. "Eisen! Are you alright?" Xenia asked, clearly concerned, "You just dragged Aaron out of the hall earlier, what''s going on?" "Quests. That''s what''s going on." "Huh?" Xenia let out, almost startled, "What do you..?" Eisen looked around at his friends, "Quests are just a cover for the ability to give ''experience'' from one person to another. It''s how we reset our own levels." The other four immediately understood what Eisen was saying, as a sense of nostalgia ran over them. It was the trigger for a new memory. "Holy fucking- You''re right, that only makes sense!" Brody replied, "But hold on, how did you get that from your conversation with Aaron?" "I''ll exin that in a second, but more importantly... do you four think it''s possible to hijack the quest system?" The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!